8-Day Blog Post: Caster Semenya

I recently read a controversial article about Caster Semenya on CNN, claiming that she had elevated testosterone levels and resembled a man, even though she competed in the women's track events in the Rio Olympics in 2016 and in Berlin in 2012. Semenya's testosterone levels, which may seem meaningless, sparked arguments among officials debating whether she should be able to compete because of the levels. To me, it shouldn't matter what the testosterone level of a woman is, as long as she identifies as a woman. The idea that a possible Olympian could be stripped of their titles merely because of their gender and natural configuration is still being debated over by not only the Olympic officials, but also by our government.  Caster Semenya should be able to decide which gender she is and not be discriminated either way.

8-Day Blog: The Most Livable Cities

CNN declares Melbourne, Australia as the most livable city. In, "World's Most Livable City in 2016 is..." by Barry Neild, poverty and instability has fallen among cities like Paris, Athens, and Moscow. The government in these cities have changed over the years which makes me question how much the government should be involved with in international and foreign affairs and/or if we should be more prepared to help other cities and countries in need. Of course this would mean we would lose more money, but we could improve international relations and therefore make more allies. The most livable cities include Hamburg, Germany, and Melbourne, Australia, but with help from the American government cities like Athens and Caracas could make the list of most livable cities in the future.

8-Day Blog Post: Trump Statue: NYC

Most recently on CNN, life-sized naked statues of Donald Trump have been flooding New York parks, San Fransisco streets, and borders of Mexico. It is said in "NYC Parks Dept. issues cheeky response to naked Trump statue," by Theodore Schleifer, that anti-Trump groups have been assembling the illegal statues in protest all over the country. Words like, "Rape Trump" have been scrawled across the naked statuettes, raising the question of how far is too far? Trump hasn't made a statement yet, but it makes me wonder if art, especially political satire, should be regulated by the government or if there should be a subset of rules regarding the free speech amendment in the art world.

8-Day Blog Post: Obama to Visit Flood

Today I read a report by Nolan D. McCaskill about Obama's scheduled visit to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to assess the damage of the disastrous flooding. According to Politico, Obama was prompted to cancel part of his vacation because the floods have become almost as dangerous as Hurricane Sandy (McCaskill.) To me, the article, "Obama to visit flood-ravaged Louisiana next week," signified that America should have better procedures to prevent disaster/support to build shelters. Though this probably won't fly within the government, I think it'd be beneficial to have a more detailed disaster plan and it should be better funded so incidents like the flooding of Louisiana could be better contained.

8-Day Blog Post: Clinton's Health

This morning I watched a short video at Politico about Donald Trump criticizing Hillary Clinton's health, called, "Clinton camp rips 'terribly weak' Trump on health records." I found out that Trump is actually a year older than Clinton and the reporters claimed that Trump has been badgering Clinton for weeks now and going after her family at large. To me this raises a controversial question, should we regulate what presidential candidates say to each other and/or should the age be raised or lowered for those competing in the presidential race? Overall, the presidential race shouldn't even be about family history or age, it should be about the candidates views on global and local issues, not physical and social differences. 

8-Day News Blog Log: Women In Jail

I went to the Huffington Post and scrolled through about twenty different political campaign articles until I saw this one that caught my eye. "Women In Jail Are Fastest Growing Segment Of America’s Incarcerated Population" by Melissa Jeltsen details why women are quickly becoming more familiar with prison bars and sexual or domestic violence. Over the past several decades, prisons have been admitting larger numbers of women than in the 1970s (Jeltsen.) Many women come from broken families and suffer from severe mental illnesses but are being put in jails instead of getting the help that they need. Jeltsen claims that to overcome the sudden admittance of women in jails, the government needs to support the women and provide them with money and the care that they need, and I could not agree more. Locally and nationally, we should be able to provide a woman with basic necessities outside of a jail cell. 

Most and Least Religious States

So far in the class we've talked about religion, our political views, current affairs, typology, and Tarzan. I've taken two PEW quizzes as follows: Political Typology Quiz (I got solid liberal, yet I have little to no definitive views on political issues) and The News IQ Quiz. "Most and Least Religious States" by Michael Lipka and Benjamin Wormald is a descriptive article detailing the importance of religion among the different states. Pictured below is the different states color-coded by "overall religiosity." 

2014 Religious Landscape Study, conducted June 4-Sept. 30, 2014.

Not surprisingly, Alabama is considered the most religious with 77% in the categories of religiosity, which are described as, "[the] four common measures of religious observance: worship attendance, prayer frequency, belief in God and the self-described importance of religion in one’s life." (Lipka, Wormald) I learned that it's relatively easy to determine whether you are religious or not merely based on if you go to church or if you believe in a higher being (i.e. God.) Political scientists might be interested in this information so they know how to communicate to one group of people through advertising or political campaigns as well as different values in speeches.