Write Stripes

Concerning the project:
I think we may be starting to get a little of base with the web design. As long as the page is readable and understandable I don't think we need to dedicate half an hour to deciding what color and font the print should be. (By the way, thanks to our liasons who I think did a great job.) What we really should be focused on is the information on the page and the usability of the page. I think by incorporating anything not realted to our topic (ie animals or beer) takes away from the message that we are trying to send. Isn't the point of the project to send out information that will be read and used by other students?

The first thing I don't understand about our topic, campaign finance reform, is why there is an obvious problem with an obvious solution but legislators decide to either ignore the problem or pass meaningless, ineffecient laws which show no promise for change. The simple solution would be to just put a ceiling on contributions, especially from large corporations. Consider the ripple effects of this. What would the election then be all about? It would turn to the interests of the general population instead of a focus on the needs of a few minority interests. How would the office of the White House operate differently? If politicians were forced to satisfy the voters instead of large corporations maybe we would have a political system that everyone could believe in. Consider our blog from a few weeks ago about apathy. People don't care about politics because, although it effects them everyday, they see no hope of having a voice in changing the current status.
Secondly, I would like to learn the exact sources of large donations to top political leaders, especially Bush. I think by examing these sources the audience and I will both better understand why certain laws and policies are in effect. Remember, when reading or observing any type of media you should always consider the source. Who actually runs our government? Is Bush a figurehead for the people of the United States or for his loyal fans who write his paycheck?
Concerning the other groups, I would like to learn more about the No Child Left Behind Act. Why are teachers in such strong opposition of it? If they are, why did the Act get passed? I may be wrong but shouldn't an Act aimed at education be supported by our teachers who are on the front lines of the education system?

-Well, just some things to think about.

Link for Patriot Act


Matt, Robert, Curtis

Direct from Paul, here it is (don't get too excited)

Beth, Paul, Brandon, Jessica
CFR

We want to make our topic as significant to everyone as possible. One way we are doing this is by deploying our preliminary survey to gather information, and we plan to draft people from different areas to take it. By analyzing this feedback, we hope to better address our audience and therefore achieve our greater purpose of passing on this information to potential voters. We will be focusing our context to a college setting, in particular students. We will accomodate this by getting as much feedback as possible from our peers.

We are attending to our audience by selecting topics concerning that are most important to college students. By focusing on AIDS prevelence in college students and how serious the effects of this disease are on this age group, we hopefully make this topic relevent to college students. Our purpose is to directly influence our readers' views on this epidemic and help them to better evaluate the candidates, and more importantly, evaluate the choices they make in life. We plan on evaluating the effectiveness of our efforts by administering usablity surveys. An example of our first survey that measures the layout of the website is in our blog below. We plan on administering at least one other survey to measure the actual content of the page. -- Kristian, Marcie, and Ashley

Campaign Finance Reform Survey

Beth, Paul, Brandon, Jessica

Survey


Kristian, Marcie, Ashley

Survey

Matt, Curtis, Robert

http://mycleprod.clemson.edu/dprodrh1/mycle_survey_tool/tsauth.php?s=4224-8f1b74e6c146cef11c3fa2a1562a594c


Kelly Grogan, Tripp Floyd, Katie Abole

We are appealing to Clemson students by making our webpage interesting, especially by appealing to education majors and other majors that would be directly affected by the nclb act. We want to keep the audience's attention by placing original cartoons on the pages. We are going to cut down on a lot of text so that it is easily readable. We are also making sure that we explain the significance to the Clemson students. We will evaluate the effectieveness with a usability survey that includes questions about the pages composition and format. We will also test the cohesiveness and aesthetic quality of the website. We will also include questions (a quiz) on where things are so that we can tell if information that we have is on the page that people expect it to be on.

Kelly Grogan, Tripp Floyd, Katie Abole

Our group plans to grasp the audience by portraying how the patriot act affects them daily. For example when he or shed uses the phone or internet. Another important priority is to show how the audience can affect the patriot act. This gives the audience a purpose for examining our website. In addition, our plan is to give accurate, unbiased knowledge on the patriot act. We will evaluate the effectiveness of our website by asking those persons we talked to at the start of the project some questions about the patriot act and some general questions about the website. Some of these general questions include: was the site well organized, was it readable, or how can the site be improved.

I would like to learn more about the voting records or different candidates that is something that I really know nothing about so the only thing that i hear about candidates is what they say about an issue, which might not necessarily be how they voted on that issue. As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. I would also like to learn the different corporate connections that the individual candidates have. Money is a huge influence and corrupter in politics so I would love to know exactly who is giving money to our candidates, because they ultimately will have a huge amount of power in our government.

This week's first post is a group one and it is somewhat more vague than many of the prompts. I would like each group to explain how they are attending to audience, purpose, and context in your portion of the website and *then* talk about how you will evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts with your feedback instrument.

Something that I would like to learn about the Patriot Act is just how much these intelligence-gathering powers proposed for the U.S. government will infringe upon privacy rights of its citizens. This is of course the major topic of debate aroused by the Patriot Act and is something that should be important to everyone, as it will affect us all.

Something that I would like to know abou the AIDS topic is what the current medicinal situation is. Are there drugs that should be available to everyone, yet the high prices only allow few people to use them? Is there anything being done to attempt to fix this situation? etc...

http://people.clemson.edu/~kgrogan/nclbpage.html

We need to change the link from the main page to this one when possible.
Katie, Kelly, Tripp

One of the things I would like to learn about the patriot act is exactly how far the government can go in "watching" over us. I am aware that the government is allowed to "eavesdrop" on us for one reason or another but there are stipulations. What I want to know is how the patriot act has changed these stipulations.
I would also like to learn what is the purpose of the "No Child Left Behind" act. I think its purpose is to make sure that every child is given equal opportunity to learn. For example, schools having equal amounts of computers per person. However, I may be drastically wrong about why this act originated. I look forward to learning more about this topic.

Two things that I would like to understand more about with my topic has to do with the monopoly that pharmaceutical companies put on the much needed "AIDS cocktail" drugs. I would like to understand why the federal government would allow the market to hold the drugs at such high prices and make them almost impossible to get for the people who need them the most. I feel that if the government really has the attitude of trying to fight the battle against the AIDS epidemic than they would try harder to eliminate the barriers that prevent people from access the drugs that they needs. The current research that I have done only reveals that there are two main options for people with AIDS to get support with drug treatment, housing, and medical care that they require. They are Medicare and the Ryan White CARE Act. These are the main options that are assisting people with AIDS with medical costs. However, even within these two options there are stipulations that still prevent patients from getting the proper medical assistance. Another thing I would like to understand about AIDS is how exactly the money that is allocated to AIDS prevention is being used and why. With the research that I have done I have found that President Bush has supported and actually signed bills to put more money into financing AIDS prevention; however, the money is going to sexual education programs that are only allowed to teach abstinence only. I personally agree with abstinence before marriage, however, I'm not stupid and I know that they are a whole lot more people in this world who are not willing to wait until marriage to become sexually active; therefore it is imperative that programs not only teach abstinence but also emphasize the safer sex methods in order to prevent the spread of AIDS. Also I would like to know the difference between being HIV positive and having AIDS. I believe that many people really don't know the difference they only know that both of them are a fatal situation to be in, but that is the extent of their knowledge.

I would like to learn exactly what the campaign finance group is doing with their topic. I really don't know anything about their topic so I will be one of the college students who will benefit from this website that we are constructing.

As for the theme of our website, I really like the political zoo thing. In a way it is kinda childish but I still think that we could pull it off and still add some humor to our site. The beer theme probably will appeal to our audience the most but I don't really like it as the main theme of our page. I would rather see it used in the flyer format rather than the website.

I agree with Tripp and Kelly about the whole funding for the No Child Left Behind Act. There aren't that many resources to choose from when it comes to researching the funding; it all seems to be taken from the US Department of Education website so it is hard to tell what is going on. I would also like to know more specifically about all the requirements because every time I research the act, I find another part that doesn't seem to fit in with the overall goals. I read somewhere that there is a prayer clause in the act, but I haven't actually gotten around to looking it up (yuck for test weeks). I am also confused because when looking for two different perspectives, there are two completely non-related outlooks. People support the act because it is a good idea (i agree) and other people don't support it because it is unrealistic (i agree). Therefore, people aren't arguing over the same point so it is really confusing. As far as the other issues, I would really like to know more about campaign finance. I'm don't even know if there are any limits to who can give money, and if there were, what they would be. I also want to know more about the patriot act because the little i heard about in class surprised me a lot. I can't believe that they would get away with something that is so intrusive. Also, I was interested in the ethical issue associated with the cost of AIDS medicine, and how the people who really need it, can't afford it. Basically, fill me with knowledge people. Till next class...

1) One thing I would like to know better about Campaign Finance Reform is what links big corporations have to the various presidential candidates. We don't hear very much about the sources of funding for candidates, and I feel that is a significant omission. I'd like to be able to understand more fully the influences each candidate is under, and be able to compare those influences with his or her voting record.

2) One thing I would like to know about the other groups' topics is exactly how serious the AIDS threat in the U.S. is right now, and what specific measures are being taken to stem the spread of the disease.

http://people.clemson.edu/~klgordo/aids.html


Kristian, Marcie, Ashley

Although there were not any recent articles regarding AIDS and its origin, some of the most recent articles were written circa 1990-2001. After having read a number of them, I have concluded that there is not really any strong evidence supporting the theory that humans first acquired the virus from monkeys. It was first believed that humans first acquired the HIV virus from eating monkeys as food (To me it seems rather cannibalistic to eat an animal with 98% of the same genetic material!!!). Anyway, more recent research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham discredits such claims and points out that no substantial information links the human virus (HIV-1) in any primates they studied. SIVcpz (thought to be the “grandfather” of the human HIV-1 virus) is the virus that chimps acquire, although it does not actually affect the chimp hosts. Despite reports of three lab monkeys used in HIV/AIDs research (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/5168731.htm), the use of chimps may prove particularly helpful down the road due to their similar genetic material. For instance, a Feb 2003 article tells about a simple vaginal gel that has been shown to curb transmission of HIV between monkeys. Something like this might potentially save the lives of women in developing countries where protection through monogamy or condoms is not a realistic means of protection. http://www.nature.com/nsu/030203/030203-14.html
Lastly, I just wanted to mention that everyone might be interested to read the recent article in the Tiger expressing concern about student apathy in regards to the HIV virus amongst the Clemson Community.

Regarding other groups’ topics, I am particularly interested in hearing about the different stances of presidential candidates across all issues. Also, The Patriot Act particularly draws my attention. Although I do not know as much as I should about this act, it seems to me that its affects will directly affect each of us as US citizens. People who attended the US/Islam forum (in The Student Senate Chambers back in September) raised a lot of important issues about this act, and I look forward