The state of Georgia recognizes its high rate of childhood obesity. In order to begin attempting to promote healthier living for children, the state began airing a series of Public Service Announcements aimed at curbing behavior. However, the ads have been highly criticized.
Discussion Starters:
It is hard to deny that presidential candidates are expected to have a strong internet presence. No longer is just a website acceptable; candidates need to be present on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and every other site imaginable or risk being told that they are not tech savvy. CNN has recently began tracking candidate usage of different mediums through a campaign-tech scorecard.
An often overlooked aspect of campaigns is how state parties choose to allocate delegates. Each year small changes are made but with more states trying to frontload their primaries to assure candidates pay attention, the rules have become even more important. Consider this primer, which examines changes between 2008 and 2012 GOP delegate allocation rules. And also take a look at this analysis of the changes.
While much public discourse has focused on how Wall Street worked to harm individual Americans through bad mortgages, far less has been discussed about how the same big banks caused cities to face economic collapse--consequently putting even more citizens at risk. Consider the following story about the experiences of Jefferson County, AL (content warning: some strong language).
In October, President Obama announced that all U.S. troops would be leaving Iraq by January 2012.
Today, the last troops actually left.
Each year, Time names a person of the year. Some years specific individuals are named the winner while other years the award goes to a "type" of person. Consider the list of past winners. This year, Time named the protester as person of the year.
Let's face it, when we consider the federal budget, the numbers are staggering and are difficult for even the smartest financial minds in the world to comprehend. So instead, consider the following graphic:
Without question, polling is as much an art as a science. However, it is important to remember that there is much science behind the work of pollsters.
With that in mind, we are all aware that for the next year we will routinely hear about poll results constantly. Some from major media sources and others perhaps from within a candidate's own campaign. But, as a recent story suggests, likely voters are still capable of lying--causing poll results to be far from correct.
The merits of America's welfare system have been long-debated. Proponents both for and against the program regularly point to extreme examples to try to demonstrate points. Recently, a blog post from a conservative college student who has worked at Wal-Mart received a fair amount of media attention for this very reason.
TLC's reality show All-American Muslim traces five Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan to show the lives of average Muslim citizens in the United States in the aftermath of September 11th. Recently, however, the show has become a media topic given the decision of Lowe's to pull its advertising. Lowe's made the decision after a strong protest campaign from the Florida Family Association, which objected to how positively Muslims were portrayed in the series.
News stories have recently began running stories looking at politics and American restaurants. First consider this piece, which looks at how areas with Cracker Barrels and Whole Food Markets differ in voting patterns. As the article explains, in 2008, candidate Barack Obama carried 81 percent of counties with a Whole Foods and just 36 percent of counties with a Cracker Barrel —a record 45-point gap.
At the same time, stories have surfaced about the political activities of Chick-Fil-A along with their donation history.