Innocent, but found Guilty

In the article I chose to read about, William Dillon who was accused of killing James Dvorak, was let out of prison after 27 years because of new evidence that found him not guilty. Back when Dillon was put in prison there wasn’t DNA testing, so the blood that was on the shirt, that was used in his trial, turned out not to be his at all. This confuses me, if they are just now able to confirm that it wasn’t his blood on that shirt then how, back in 1981, were they able to prove that it was his blood? Did the prosecution just look at the shirt and say, “Oh look, it’s blood, and it must be yours!” It makes you think about all the people who are in jail right now who are innocent like this man was, especially the ones on death row. Can you imagine the hell of being put into prison for something you didn’t do? 27 years of his life was taken away in one swift move. Oh but Dillon isn’t the only one, the Innocence Project, which specializes in wrongful convictions, said that there were two other cases where the people served 27 years in prison before they were found innocent after all. Now I know that there are some slip ups in the system, but now with new ways to get evidence, everyone who was sentenced to prison, before the DNA testing was available, should have all the evidence looked at and see if the system messed up yet again. Now I know that the government has better things to do then to look back at old cases to find out if the people they put in prison are actually innocent, but if you were in a position such as Dillon’s wouldn’t you want anyone to do what they can?

Agreed

I agree completely with what you were saying. I'm a firm believer that Government should stay out of people’s lives as much as possible, with the obvious exclusions such as thief's and rapist's. The Government is doing a horrible job right now. Example; a war that the Government declares isn't a war but looks suspiciously close to what a war would look like? Hmmm. Also the leeches, homeless, heiress’s of America should get off their lazy bum's and get a job, be respectable. Most of the women on welfare even choose to be there because it's easier than living life; it is disgusting to me. Keep on rocking, you put it better than I ever could.



Get off my D***!

Tell me no lies.

In Jackie Calmes article "For a Washington Job, Be Prepared to Tell All", Calmes explains how in depth the new application for those seeking high-ranked jobs is. The applicants are supposed to give their "handles" from the internet they have used in the past decade. The questionnaire even goes to the length of wanting to know spouses personal information. Some of the questions put on the application are one that need to be asked, but going as in depth as wanting to know what's in a persons and also the spouses diary's? That's a little intense. Also what stops the applicant from lying? Millions of people lie on their applications and resumes daily. There’s a huge margin for error. Also there’s the issue of privacy, many people even if they had nothing to hide might not want to have their personal life so out in the open for the government to determine if it’s something that can be used against them. It shouldn’t even matter what they do in their personal lives, professional definitely, but if they once said that the current president-elect is ugly, who cares?

The New York Times

No Sir

In the USA Today article on Tim Mahoney’s sex scandal. Mahoney is shown saying that he is seriously sorry about sleeping with not only one, but also multiple “affairs”. The author of this article wants the reader to see how sorry he is, but in a way which makes Mahoney seem repetitive and unbelievable. The author does a good job of putting up evidence putting Mahoney in a bad light. It’s apparent though that the author writing the article wanted to make him the bad guy, which might make the article a little biased. Mahoney who was on a family values platform to replace Mark Foley, having an affair, he also has the audacity to say he wasn’t a hypocrite. This definitely looks bad for re-election. Do the people really need one more person high rank in the government who strays from the values on which he is fighting for? Where has the peoples moral gone to, is there any left? When did we start putting hypocrites into powers of position? Mahoney does say that he has done nothing illegal while in office though. While that may be true, when someone is saying that they are promoting good values, wouldn’t it be wise to reflect that in your personal life? When it comes to him allegedly hiring Patricia Allen to keep quiet about the affair in a trade for sex, who knows? Does it matter? The point is that Mahoney did something that went against what he promoted to be for.

The Truth

I believe that mass media should only report the news. That's why newspapers were first written, to report what has been going on. Not to interpret and misconstrued what has happened and tell the people a tall tale. When I read a newspaper, I don't want to read about what the writer thinks happened or what they think is wrong. I want to hear the news fact for fact, no extravagant language and no crap. If I wanted to hear about what other people thought about a subject, I would go find it, but when I read a newspaper, I expect news. Also when reporting the news, it's important to not leave anything out to control what the government as well as the media wants us to know. People in countries are far more knowledgeable than Americans.

Politically Ununited

In Michael Gerson’s "Too Small for a Big Crisis", he is arguing that the House of Representatives isn't united on issues that need to be addressed and fixed, such as Americas failing economy. Gerson lays the blame on Nancy Pelosi, whom he claims is unsuccessful. He believes that Pelosi "attacked" economic conservatives saying that it is a "right-wing ideology of anything goes, no supervision, no discipline, no regulation", because she said this Pelosi’s close associates decided against the bill, when originally everyone was for the bill, even the presidential candidates. Since it's so close to election month and the majority of the public didn't like the bill, the republicans and most democrats voted against the bill because they don't want to chance their re-elections. This is true of the House of Representatives, Republicans and Democrats need to focus, unite, and collaborate to fix the economic problem we are faced with, ridiculous politics should stay out of it. Sometimes it's better to go against what the public thinks it wants and go with what needs to be done to fix the problem. When the House decides to get it together and actually start working on problems instead of "high school drama", the country would be in much better shape.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/30/AR2008093002319.html?nav=hcmoduletmv

Sex Change in The Library

In Bill Mears article "Transsexual wins lawsuit against Library of Congress"", Diana Schroer who was once a man, decided to become a woman. Diana, formally David, was offered a job at The Library of Congress then denied the job when she told her boss her plan to become a woman, she was told she didn't get the job because she was not a "good fit". Diana filed a lawsuit for discrimination in the workplace and won. This article needs to be read because people need to know that it's not right to discriminate in the work place and that if they do, there will be consequences.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/19/transsexual.discrimination/index.html