American Government & War

    I find it very interesting that these websites have been held from us. Being shown these couple websites has definitely made me wonder what else is being kept from the general public.

    For the Antiwar.com it is very noticeable that there are links to other sources that are probably not well known sites, but they have a lot of information on the wars going on at the moment, as well as the wars that have gone on in the past. It explains all the news going on that is not really portrayed and it tells us about a lot of different countries, not just the problems going on in the United States, but all over the world. It also gives insight on how other people in the world see war and see the U.S. Diving into the Antiwar website it was very interesting seeing all the different things that are currently going on. I had no idea that countries in the middle east were constantly going at it with weapons, money and anything they can do to get the advantage. The thing that I was most intrigued to read about was the point of view of people who consider the Ukraine war to be a giant arms race. People on both sides making money on the same thing, so why would they stop the war? It feels like a lot of the points that were made were about how some countries profit and others crumble and how everything is done for power or advantage over others. 

    The constant wars going on in the world is something that we should know about and be apart of. Hiding it from the general public like the government does is not what we need. Some people might be mad or some people may not like the outcomes, but that is life and we are a lot better off nowadays than when the World Wars were going on in the 1900s. 

    The research I gathered from The American Conservative was that most of the writers were not well known, but their work was extremely well written and ties a lot of the things that the government keeps from us, and puts them all together for us to understand what is really going on behind the scenes of American politics. The interesting thing about this website, besides from the little knowledge I had beforehand, it seemed like there were arguments for both sides. It was very well explained and allowed the reader to make their own decision based on what they thought. 

https://www.antiwar.com/

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/

https://www.usa.gov/about-the-us

Peer Presentation

    I think that over time Motion Picture has became one of the most important things to people. Not always for the best reasons, but everyone wants to be like the people we see in movies.

Going hand and hand with my television presentation, my peer did their presentation on the History of the first Motion picture which I believe had a very big impact on life. 

The first motion picture was a mid-19th century design and it was a very new thing to a lot of people. They originally started photographing war time pictures and the things they documented began to coincide with what people wanted to see at home. They began making techniques and new inventions to view pictures in rapid movements to see moving picture. 

There were different examples all over the world of different experts making their own motion picture with multiple pictures moving fast. Leland Stanford and Eadweard Muybridge were one of the first. They ended up showcasing the photographs the following year in San Francisco. In Paris, Etienne-Jules Marey experimented with 12 pictures to create a moving object. 

    In 1933 The Crooked Circle was the first film to be broadcast on Television. This happened March 10th in Los Angeles. If you go back in time to how much motion picture has changed, how shows and movies have impacted us and the way we think about things. You understand that most of what we do is influenced by actors, celebrities and people that we have never met. After the creation of the television broadcasting and giving people shows or stories to think about or base their life upon became so big, this allowed so many people to make money and caused a lot of us to change our lives because of these inventions and what they show us.

History of Supreme Court

     I learned that in many cases lower courts may not have gotten the right ruling or someone just does not like the ruling, therefore it has to be sent to the Supreme Court to go through and decide if it will go to a higher court or if the ruling was correct to begin with. I did not know that there were stages to the process or cases getting through lower courts all the way until the Supreme Court. Obviously, I know that there had to be some type of procedure, I did not know that most of the time the cases are read all the way through and genuinely checked out before giving a decision on if it should be sent up or kept the way it is. 

    The supreme court balances power of the states, congress and the President, telling them what they can and can not do. I feel like without this the government and the country would have fallen apart a long time ago. I think the balancing of powers by the Supreme Court is single handedly the most important thing. Yes, they take the most important matters into their own hands, but the biggest most important issues fall right into the laps of the Supreme Courts Justices. Without this basic balance then one section of government will find ways to gain more power and overcome the restrictions that are being held upon them. 

    One of the most surprising things I heard was the sheer amount of cases that are sent to the Supreme Court. I know that they are very powerful and one of the most powerful courts in the world. I assumed that they would have less cases and more time to go over them and get the exact response to each and every one. Although by doing so they would weave out the cases that should not be brought to court and that should not be wasting time of the most powerful court in the world. I also found it surprising that most of the cases sent to the Supreme Court are about how lower courts may have gotten the ruling wrong, and that not a lot of those cases ever even see the Justices. I also did not know how many people were working hand in hand with the Justices to make sure everything goes as plan and they follow the right procedures as well as just helping out in general. 

    The video definitely made me feel like there was something that I could put my faith into. In hopes that someone and somebody is always doing the right thing to keep everyone else in the country safe. It was abundantly clear that the Justices had their own work and wanted to get it done to the best of their ability, no matter what it was. Although there were also things in the video's that made me feel uneasy. Like if a President was to appoint a Justice, then the Justice is available to serve the court way after the President has left office. Making it kind of seem like there will always be a bit of that President still in office. I feel a sense of understanding and hope for the Supreme Court all in all.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/historyandtraditions.aspx

https://www.history.com/news/supreme-court-justices-number-constitution

https://www.britannica.com/story/why-are-there-nine-justices-on-the-us-supreme-court

The Television

The Television was created by a series of inventors and engineers who were initially doing other experiments, but ended up finding new waves, frequencies and sequences varying on type of metals and types of radiation being exposed at the time. Joseph May realized in in 1872 that selenium wire was very prone to sending different electrical conducts than other metals at the time period. In 1880 a French engineer, by the name of Maurice Leblanc, published an article in which formed the basis for television.

    It was proposed that a scanning mechanism take the place as an active retina. In short terms, it means that there will be light bouncing back and forth to create and image portrayed on a screen. In which it transmits signals and other things through wires and into a screen to the audience. Although LeBlanc was never able to make his own working mechanism, soon after a German engineer took his basic models and ideas and created his own scanning disk. In which one revolution of the disk would consist of a full picture.

Britannica.com

    Tv is constantly giving out information and news to the general public. We always know what is going on and usually in a timely manner. Television makes news and gaining information a lot easier but also allows there to be other mass broadcasting, such as TV shows, award shows, and movies. They are always on and being broadcasted to a series of people. After creating the television, from around the 1940s to 2000s, commercial television was a huge aspect. It changed the way people thought about things going on in the country, whether that was race, gender, pay, and class. It played a crucial role in shaping campaigns and increased American materialism overall. Besides from all these ways people have made money off of TV, there was also a huge boom in how people all over the world were treated. The American culture took off and people all over wanted to come to the U.S. even more. It allowed countries to be more in tune with their sports, things like the Olympics were huge. Also TV commercials, such as ads and other paid partnerships were becoming a massive thing in culture. It allowed people to see new products as soon as they came out as well as see things that they may need or make their life easier overall. 

    The biggest side effect of TV and broadcasting things to mass amounts of people were the actual people being picked and used in these films and other broadcasts. In the early days of television, the people airing on TV were predominantly white or Caucasian. The few minorities that were portrayed on TV were seen as stereotypes and usually generalized negatively. That being said it wasn't until later on towards the 2000s where minorities were dominating different aspects of TV and music and other things that were being used to portray information. Whether that was sports, news, communication and life in general. Things took a turn for the better and although life is not perfect there are always steps being taken in the right direction. 

https://www.history.com/news/who-invented-television

https://stephens.hosting.nyu.edu/History%20of%20Television%20page.html

Values of Free Expression

    Freedom of Speech and other freedoms of expression were big topics when creating the constitution. If they were not important then there would be no reason to include them and push for their rights. Although, they are important and lay down the basic points of the constitution.  

    I resonate with the 8th expression the most. While most of the expressions I can resonate with. I feel like protect dissent might be the most important to me and all people. For the most part, I think that being able to freely disagree with the government and the suspicious rules and regulations being passed and taken down is my most important. Expressions 4 and 5 are also very important for many reasons. #5, Check on Governmental Power or checks and balances are what keeps the government in line. Without checks and balances the government would surely fall and crumble, starting with one section of the government gaining too much power and then creating a system in which they control all the power. The leveraging of the branches of government has been used forever making sure not one side gains too much power and or pushes a law that would do the same.

    For expression #4, Individual Self-Fulfillment it speaks upon free speech and how every individual has their own life and can use freedom of speech to express themselves and who they want to be. This is definitely my most personal expression. I feel like everyone has something they want to say or someone that they want to be. The expression that allows us to be ourselves is 100% important and for someone that feels like they have a lot of creative ideas, it makes it a lot easier to be able to talk about them and have people see from a different point of view. Without this big factor, we would find ourselves all being the same, not being able to express anything. We would all search for the same goals and not aspire to be different. 

    

This brings me into #6. Promote Tolerance. It mentioned how the freedom of speech also allows there to be upsetting or intolerable expressions which allow us to grow. Without the intolerable we wouldn't learn how to be tolerable. It may seem counter-intuitive but it teaches us to be a more tolerable society. This is the most used expression in society I believe. There is always something going on where another person doesn't like what they are saying. Learning to grow up and disregard the not important things is very important. In the world right now there will always be something someone doesn't like being said. Growing from these intolerable expressions makes everyone grow as a community and a country. Without going down there is no way to go up. I think that these four expressions are the most important. Without a doubt every expression has it's own important distinction on why it could or may be more important than what I gathered. Although I feel like these are for the people. They resonate with me the most because I can see these being integrated in my life over time. Nowadays with technology and a computer in your pocket it is a lot more difficult to go unnoticed and or not make a name for yourself if you speak up. 

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment

https://www.hoover.org/research/free-speech-1

My 5 News Sources

#1:    My number one source of news is Instagram. I follow multiple accounts run by news companies as well as people who follow up on important news as well. From music news, to political and sports news. There are accounts like NBC and FOX as well as ESPN and NESN. You can be in constant communication with the celebrity world and what is going on in their lives as well. I would recommend Instagram as a news source simply because it's easy and people are constantly posting, as well as creating things to show to the world. You could argue that I follow the individual news companies for their news, but I don't believe so. I believe that the way Instagram is evolving and making people open up, I believe in some cases it is a very valuable news outlet and it is constantly being used by and abundance of people gaining and sharing things that they have gone through or witnessed. 

https://www.instagram.com/

#2:    I would say I gain information and news the second most frequently from family and friends. I find myself having things to do all day long and the outside world does not necessarily affect me as it some does people. Whether that is feeling like people are in your business or if the prices of something go up and or down. Sure, they affect me. I would say the most impactful and important news is the news that is brought to you by peers or loved ones. This is because they are more applicable to be looking out for your well-being and also looking out for their own. The odds are what affects them might affect you as well. I do not think it is always reliable to be gaining information this way, believe me, just because you get information from someone does not mean that you have to believe it, at all. Most people's thoughts and what they say to other people are impacted by society and what others may think of them for saying that. So putting all these points into perspective the information you gain is the most informational because of the information itself and the way the other person portrays it to you. By doing this and gaining the real information or the maybe swayed information you gain a lot more insight. I think this is an important perspective for people to get information so they understand the world around them and how people react to things.

#3:    Television is another big part of the information I absorb. Growing up not having a phone I would always watch the TV with my parents, depending. I found myself watching the news in the morning or at night. My parents would always be like, "stop your show the news is on." Having to turn my show off and sit through them standing and pacing around the house. I found that it is more reliable than some other sources on the internet as well as just in the world. I always liked the way they tried to make it entertaining, even though it wasn't really. Over time it was good having the immediate weather and local news. I don't find myself looking or finding any information about weather or local news unless I really search for it which is not very convenient. Being able to know what the day is like and how the town or community is around you is somewhat helpful depending on what is going on in the world at that time. I think people should be more in tune with local news and how the day is going to be I feel it will benefit a lot of people being able to know just that much of what your day may be like, because it helped me and I know people it has helped as well.

#4:    Ads and sponsorships are another way I am accustomed too gaining quick information without really trying to. Watching videos whether that's on apps on your phone or computer. There are a lot of campaign slogans or companies in general who release new information about new products through ads and through sponsorships. When I am scrolling through various websites or apps I find that they are usually overwhelmed with a lot of different information that may or may not be important or have anything to do with the actual thing your looking at. Nowadays apps track what you go on and what you look at so it is more likely you see things you are interested in. For a while you would find a bunch of different information and even news on the sides of websites or ads on videos. I think now everything is more sponsor based so you are more likely to see someone with that product, trying to make it sell better with their following and the people that like them specifically.

#5:    My last and probably least used way to gain new information/news would be commercials. Now I think they go hand and hand with ads and sponsorships as well as television, but I do think they have their own section to themselves. While most commercials are basically short films about products I think it is pretty cool to see how companies use them to grasp audiences and watchers. Whether that is a car commercial or a new vacuum commercial, it allows the watcher to be caught up and in some instances, more connected with the outside world. Sometimes TV and commercials are the only way some people gain information. It is also portrayed very differently on TV than it is on websites or other internet browsers. Commercials specifically meant for audiences who are sitting at home watching TV have a distinct style and way that they give out information. I believe that it is one of the cooler ways to release information, but also people are leaning farther and farther from it.