In My Humble Opinion #2

I recently read an article from the FoxNews website about President Obama's recent release of his birth certificate to the public. After putting it off for so long, the president claimed that he is presenting it now because all the commotion about it is taking away from the public's concentration about what really matters in politics today.

This particular article was interesting to me because it gave an actual breakdown of the percentage of news coverage that was dedicated to that specific topic during the time of Obama's release of his birth certificate from different news organizations, such as Fox, CNN and MSNBC.

According to the article, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that during the week of April 11-17, Obama and the birth certificate issue filled only four percent of the news coverage. Additionally, 40 percent of news coverage was dedicated to the economy, the 2012 presidential election covered eight percent of the news and 15 percent was coverage of the Middle East.

As for television news coverage, the research found that MSNBC dedicated only about 10 percent of airtime to the birth certificate issue, CNN provided only five percent of its airtime to the issue and Fox News dedicated five percent as well.

I've noticed that despite the release of his birth certificate, there has been a lot of discussion as to why it has suddenly come about now and whether it is a legitimate document. To be honest, for all the radicals who believed that he was not an American citizen when he began his campaign back before 2008, providing the document three years into a four-year presidential term isn't going to do much to change their minds.

A majority of the non-believers have simply stated that this was plenty of time to make a fake birth certificate and have claimed that the document he produced was forged. At this point in time, who cares. He is almost done with his term and there is nothing that we, as a nation, can do about it even if it were a fake document. The best thing to do is to continue to focus on what really matters in our country, like our economy, our troops overseas and our next presidential election.

Fish out of Water

For my fish out of water experience, I attended a class at my work for people who are diabetic. The class was to give information on diabetes and also gave a demonstration on how to test your blood sugar and when a person needed to inject insulin into their body.

For me, this experience was pretty uncomfortable. I was the youngest person there by probably 30 years and the majority of diabetic patients in the room were overweight or morbidly obese. It was difficult for someone like me, who is not overweight and doesn’t have any illnesses, to be sitting in a room full of people who were trying to manage their glucose levels to survive.

Throughout the class session, the lecturers spoke about what causes diabetes, what medicine people take to regulate their glucose levels, how insulin can save a person and ways to stay healthy as a diabetic.

They first covered the main causes for and symptoms of diabetes, saying that when a diabetic person eats food, the body breaks down all of the sugars and starches into glucose that fuels the body. Insulin takes the sugar from the blood stream into the cells, however, type 2 diabetics do not produce enough insulin, or the insulin is ignored by the body and glucose builds up in the blood rather than going into the cells, then it leads to complications in the body.

People who are diabetic often are put on medication to help regulate their glucose levels. With the proper medication, meal planning and weight loss, diabetics can manage sugar levels. Depending on the particular symptoms a person has, a person might take oral pills or inject insulin. Multiple types of pills can be taken together or by themselves to help maintain levels, same goes for the insulin. In many cases, diabetic patients will take both pill and insulin as the best way to maintain glucose levels.

For a way to stay healthy, diabetics are encouraged to exercise often and eat healthy meals. One of the things I noticed was that many of the diabetic people in the meeting were severely overweight and learned that being overweight helps contribute to becoming a diabetic. There are many people who are diabetic because of their genes and it is hereditary, but that’s not always the case. A good diet and exercising daily can be a good way to prevent a person from getting diabetes.

It was hard for me to connect with the patients I was sitting in a room with, mainly because I am not diabetic nor am I overweight and at risk for diabetes. I’ve always been an active person and eat a fairly balanced diet so it’s hard for me to relate when all a person does is eat bad and never exercise. I feel bad for them, because once a patient has diabetes, they spend the remainder of their life trying to regulate it, which has to be hard, physically and emotionally. Mostly, going to the class only encouraged me to keep up a healthy diet and remember to exercise on a regular basis so that I am never to the point where I am at risk for diabetes.

Japanese Memorial

The vignette I chose from the Japanese Internment Memorial was the one with the American soldier holding up the American flag while four Japanese soldiers stand to salute it.

I picked this one because many of the internees were given the opportunity to serve in the U.S. Army in exchange for their internment, but only a few soldiers took the offer. Of the 110,000 approximate Japanese-Americans who were interned, less than 1,200 opted to enlist in the military to serve the U.S.

I think Ruth Asawa, the artist of the memorial, captured a certain feel in this vignette. It look like the four Japanese soldiers who are saluting the flag are not as proud as the American soldier who is holding the flag. It shows that the American has a lot of pride to be serving and has no problem holding a flag on a pole that is considerably larger than his own self and also that the four Japanese soldiers look small and unhappy next to the flag.

Japanese Internment

On Feb. 19, 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066, which forced tens of thousands of U.S. citizens of Japanese decent to relocate to internment camps. Leaving behind property, possessions and businesses, families were sent to one of 10 relocation centers and were restricted to unfavorable living conditions.

More than 110,000 Japanese-Americans were relocated, two-thirds of which were U.S. citizens. The internees were forced to live in tiny rooms, each family occupying a single room space — approximately 25 by 20 feet — and more than 250 people shared a single unit for bath, laundry and toilets. Some men were given the opportunity to leave the interment camps by joining the U.S. Army, however few decided to do so and about 1,200 opted to enlist.

It wasn't until 1944 that Roosevelt rescinded Executive Order 9066 and the last relocation camp was closed in March of 1946. After two-and-a-half years of living in camps, many of the internees went home to nothing, as the Japanese-descent evacuees left behind an estimated $200,000,000 worth of real, commercial and personal property, most of which they did not get back.

A question to ask would be whether this could happen again in the United States, knowing everything that we know now. With how much Japanese-Americans suffered and the degree in which most of them lost everything, it wouldn't be right for something like this to happen again. "Ethnic cleansing," is a serious thing and though the U.S. didn't go as far as genocide like Hitler did with the Jews, taking away the security that the internees once felt and the life they worked hard to get is also harsh.

I wouldn't doubt that something like this could happen again. Especially after the attack on Sept. 11, 2001, the level of fear that someone who doesn't look or think or act like you do makes other people do crazy things. I think with Obama as president, it might not happen in his term, but who's to say what can happen with other presidents in the future.

Feature Story Prep

My topic is student ethics with an emphasis on cheating and plagiarism at SJSU and how academic integrity has been an issue.


Facts: Information from the 2009-2010 Student Conduct Report and Academic Senate Report from the Office of Student Conduct and Ethical Development -

• During the 2009-2010 academic year, the Office of Student Conduct & Ethical Development experienced a decrease of number of cases (1788) as compared to the 2008 – 2009 academic year (2036) for an overall decrease of 12%.
• During the 2009-2010 academic year, 232 reports of violations to the Academic Integrity Policy were filed with the Office of Student Conduct & Ethical Development. 77 were for incidents of cheating. The remaining155 were for plagiarism.
• Of the 232 cases reported, 88 (38%) were referred to the Office of Student Conduct & Ethical Development for administrative disciplinary sanctions.

Possible interviews: 

• Richard D. Craig, Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications at SJSU - Professor Craig is listed as an expert in student ethics.
• Daniel L. Murphy, Lecturer of Kinesiology and Health Science at SJSU - Professor Murphy teaches a Diversity, Stress and Health class and a Stress Management class and has experience in dealing with students.
• Matthew Masucci, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology at SJSU - Dr. Masucci is a listed as an expert in sociology and ethics.

Similar articles: 

Lit Hum cheating sparks fresh scrutiny - Columbia Spectator
It's called stealing - Florida Today
Plagiarism: A trend in cheating across college campuses - Associated Content on Yahoo!


Possible sidebars: I would like to do a breakdown of which colleges at SJSU have had the most cases of academic cheating and plagiarism, possibly an infographic or a list. I would also like to write a sidebar story, if I can find a student who is willing to talk about how he or she was caught cheating and reprimanded for it.

Query Letter

April 5, 2011

Dear Ms. Nichols,

There are more than 25,000 students who attend San Jose State University within every academic year. With such a large number of students on campus, is there a way to know which students are following protocol and which students are academically dishonest?

According to a report given from the Office of Student Conduct and Ethical Development at SJSU, there were 1,788 cases of student violations, 323 of which were violations of the Academic Integrity Policy. There are many different ways students can violate the SJSU student code of conduct, one of the most unethical things a student can do is cheat academically. What constitutes as academic cheating? What drives students to cheat? What, if anything, happens when a student is caught cheating by a professor?

These are questions I’d like to answer in this feature article and I was wondering if you’d be interested in a story about academic cheating at SJSU. The feature would be about 2,000 words in length and would include interviews with professors and faculty who are considered experts in the field of student ethics here on campus. Additionally, I’d like to include some student perspective into the article and find out what they have to say about student ethics.

As a student at SJSU, I, like many others, have been in countless classes on the first day of school where teachers affirm the importance of student ethics and point out the Academic Integrity Policy. Recently, I was in a class where the professor told an interesting anecdote about how his own autobiography paper was plagiarized and it got me thinking. I soon discovered that cheating and plagiarizing have been an issue in the past at SJSU and something I would be interested in covering.

Samples of my work can be found in the Spartan Daily archives or online at SpartanDaily.com. If you are interested in this feature story, please contact me at (707) 359-8838 or by email at melissa.sabile@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Melissa Sabile

Word of the Week #8

1. enmity
2.  Spartan Daily Opinion article, "Questioning U.S. intervention in Libya" by Salman Haqqi
3. "Not only does war unleash all manner of latent enmity and violence, but decades of abusive treatment by ruthless dictators fuels pathologies that only fully manifest themselves when the lid of control pops off."
4. noun; a feeling or condition of hostility; hatred; ill will; animosity; antagonism.
5. The amount of enmity between Oakland sports fans and San Francisco sports fans can sometimes reach a perilous point of ridiculousness.