True Enough by Farhad Manjoo

Our latest assignment was to read “True Enough” by Farhad Manjoo. This book was a real eye opener. It broke down various aspects of the media and made the reader re-think it's inter workings. Farhad Manjoo does a great job at trying to change a point of view by using plenty of evidence to back it up.

The problem with the book is it makes you re-think everything with regards to the media. Farhad Manjoo had me trusting nothing in the media. By the end of this book I’m not sure I even trusted what he was saying. It will make you more skeptical than you thought you ever could be.

The section about Video News Releases, or VNR’s ,made me disappointed in news programs at first but with further thought, my opinion changed. VNR’s started in the 1980’s and look like a legit news story but is really just an advertisement. Examples used by the book are National Pancake Day, which is a corporately produced holiday by a pancake batter company Bisquick. This seems like a legit news story but the host is using Bisquick while cooking the pancakes.

A columnist, Robin Raskin started a campaign against porn on Ipads. She was worried about children having easier access to pornographic material. At first I thought this sounded fairly ridiculous. There’s no way to stop children from eventually seeing porn. Even before computers were around, a neighborhood kid got his hands on his father’s stash of Playboy and Penthouse magazines. Curiosity is part of growing-up. We applaud children when they are curious about other things, but frown upon them when exploring sexuality.

Robin Raskin was getting momentum on the porn/Ipad subject and started to gain momentum. She was getting invited to have interviews on various talk and information television shows. Upon interviewing for these shows she started to show items that were “kid friendly.”The interviews became a clever way to push other electronics while frowning upon opponents product.

It turned out that Robin was being paid to push those products and the porn/Ipad subject was just to get her on talk-shows. This happens often with newscasts. It's disappointing and hurts the credibility and prestige of the news. I think news-director’s hands are forced here though. The news budgets are getting cut all across America. This is adding pressure for directors to balance budgets more-so than have all news. The VNR’s are cheaper and easier to put on any given newscast. Most of the public doesn’t even realize what is going on.

A story that really interested me was the Princeton vs. Dartmouth game. It was about a 1951 game that had Princeton winning 13-0 but both sides had felt the other team was playing dirty. I liked this because plenty of times I’ve watched a game of my favorite team and thought the opponent was playing dirty, (Google Buffalo Bills/Miami Dolphins Rivalry). After hearing about this, some researchers sat students from each school down and showed them some clips of the game tape. They found that the students at Princeton claimed to witness an average of ten infractions committed where Dartmouth students saw half as much and most were minor infractions.

As previously found, the fans of each team could not fathom or imagine their team playing dirty. The team they are fans of couldn’t possibly do such a thing. They’re the good team, the good guys. The other guys had to be the ones who were dirty.

People interpret everything this way. If it appeals to you, you’re going to agree with it. A study in this book has students being shown arguments for or against the death penalty. The study found that students found flaws in research that was against there previous believes.

There are countless points made by Farhad Manjoo in this book. I was reluctant to read it and waited until the last possible minute to even buy the book. Once I started reading it, I had no problem continuing on. I do warn you that you’ll start not trusting anyone. You’ll start to lock yourself in your room with no lights and curtains over your windows. The smallest noises will make you think the Government is coming after you. A dog barking outside is an agent coming to kill you. Your parents will call and you will ignore the calls hoping to avoid contact from the outside world. Well maybe it wont be this bad,but it will have you thinking differently. Read the book and enjoy, you'll thank me later

Until next time.....

Public Meeting Number 2

The latest assignment was to attend a second public meeting. If you're a consistent reader of this blog, you know meeting one went pretty poorly.

This meeting was on an issue I can actually relate to. I'm not saying building pools on random businesses lots weren't, I very well may use one in the future, but they weren't something to relate to.

This meeting was about expanding Bruce B. Downs from Bearrs Ave. to Pasco County Road. The length of this comes to about 3.4 miles. It's said that about 60,000 cars go through this stretch of road every day. If you have ever attempted to drive through it during morning or evening rush hours, it can be a frustrating or borderline homicidal. In fact some people like it so much they like to express there gratitude towards each other with the middle finger.

The meeting took place at Tampa Palms Elementary School. My first thoughts were this didn't look anything like the cafeteria at my old Elementary School. It was much nicer and newer than any past experience of mine. There were way more people than I'd imagined coming to a public meeting at an Elementary School. There had to have been at least 150 in attendance.

When we walked into the meeting, the people at the door handed us a pamphlet of exactly what was going to be discussed during this meeting. The pamphlet had four different scenarios of expansion for Bruce B. Downs. There wasn't any question of the needed for expansion. The meeting focused on how to go about expanding it.

It started with a small ten minute introduction to the facts and ideas of the meeting. This was really strange. It was taped and the women on tape seemed very robotic and emotionless. It reminded me of the introductions to Universal Studies rides when in line. Disregard this paragraph if anyone hasn't been to Universal Studies.

When the introduction was finished and the ride, I mean meeeting was ready to take off the officials were introduced, along with different options for plans of expansion.

Various people were then aloud to take the podium and say how they felt about the different expansion plans.

One guy who stood out was someone from Charlotte, North Carolina who's previous experience included helping shape the master transportation plan there, talked about Eight lanes having "failed everywhere it's been used."

He seemed like he knew the most out of public who attended the meeting. Then again, he just seemed the most confident with what he was saying. However, as Farhad Manjoo explains, that doesn't always mean someones knows what they are speaking about, ( pathetic use of class topics for brownie points? Never!).

Some of the arguments for the expansion to eight lanes were that it would save us from having to go through construction twice. One individual illustrated an example of expanding to six lanes, and as the community grows more, doing it all over again years down the road.

I agree with this point, because the community of North Tampa will keep expanding, more-and-more people will be living there. The traffic is bad enough now, something does need to be done. The plan of expansion will cost about 104 million dollars. The community will be forced to pay 52-55 million through a sales tax of an extra penny on every dollar, ( will be later voted on this upcoming November).

If it's decided to just expand to six lanes, then it would cost 52 millions. If we decide to expand to eight lanes, it will cost 55 million.

The main reason I'm in support of the eight lane expansion is because if it's expanded to six lanes and needs to expanded again down the road, it will be a big waste of money. It's been estimated to cost the tax-payers 21 million more dollars, than if we just do it all at once.

Why not for once plan ahead?

The plan is supposed to start the summer of 2011 and end by 2014. This seems a little ridiculous. As we all know construction is rarely finished in its estimated time. My parents pool took longer than three years for god sakes, (yes I'm exaggerating). They can't tell me it's going to be done in less than three years.

One more wrinkle to this whole plan is mass transit. Bills Edwards explained that mass transit by rail is the "only way." He talked about how trolley buses and regular buses don't work with the public. The plan is to ultimately have a train rail connect to the bullet trains to grant access across Florida.

This plan will at the earliest be approved in 2018. I like the idea of the train transit, and it could potentially reduce an immense amount of traffic. The problem is though that is could be potentially one of the most expensive debacles in recent memory.

We don't yet know what will happen to Bruce B. Downs. It will play out in the upcoming months to years. I'll say this public meeting was way more interesting to attend. It sparked my interest in the debate and got me thinking.

Until next time, understand, next time you find yourself in traffic on Bruce B. Downs, just realize that there's something we can do to help.

PUBLIC MEETING

I went to the Board of County Commissioners meeting on March 23rd. I will say it was quite a disappointment. The meeting was about land use, which sounded extremely boring. It was on the second floor of a huge building downtown. Now that I'm learning about where to park, the downtown visits are becoming less stressful.

The first thing I noticed upon entering the room was how small it was. It looks a lot bigger on television than in person. It's a tall room but very narrow and awkward looking. There were a lot of cameras around blocking the view on the sides.

It starts with someone going up to the podium before the commissioners and asking for a permit to do something to their land. The audience is then asked if they have anything to say or any objections. Then the Commissioners vote.

The Board of County Commissioners from district 1-7 are: Jim Norman , Ken Hagan, Kevin White, Al Higginbotham, Kevin Beckner, Rose Ferlita (I wonder if there's any relation to the Ferlita bakery in downtown Ybor), and Mark Sharpe. The board is in charge of the county’s capital and operating budgets.

The meeting started at 1:30. They then took a break about 15 minutes after. This really drove me crazy. We had to wait there an extra hour in order to see the second part of the meeting. What was the point of having a second part of the meeting? I would love a job or class that I could take a break every 15 minutes.

Oh wait! It's like most of us college students taking breaks after every paragraph to see if anyone has commented on our Facebook status, or if Brett Favre has decided whether or not to retire or come back to play one more year.

The first part of the meeting might have lasted a little longer if they didn't unanimously vote in favor of the first 12 decisions( B1-B12). I was tempted to go up there and just ask to have some property. I thought maybe they would just not pay attention and unanimously agree.

It really seemed like they just didn't care what happened during the first part of the meeting.

The second part of the meeting rolls around. I'm thinking surely they saved the hard decisions for last and tried to get the easy stuff out of the way first.

I was wrong. They worked just as fast as before. If our government employees worked this way we would have plenty of stuff done by now. I'm kidding, refer back to my post while visiting the Courthouse and you'll know.

I noticed three key personal appearance petitions. The first one was the relocation of commercial square footage to the office parcel for property located on the west side of North Florida Ave, and 200 ft. south of Siobhan Ave. The second was to allow affordable homes on the Southwest corner of 14th ave SE and 12th St. SE. Finally, to modify parking property located on the south side of Progress Blvd. Riviting stuff huh?

All-in-all I do understand that politicians have a lot more to do than just these decisions, this was just not a great show-case. The visit did give me an opportunity to talk to a reporter about an internship, which is always a good thing. I also got to see Mark Sharpe in person. He is my assigned public official, so you will be seeing some more of him later in the month.

Until next time....

The Sequel

Math can be a terrifying subject for most Mass Communication students. I happen to be one of them. I avoid math like it's the plague, so when first about learning budgets my first thought was how wonderful it will be to catch-up on some sleep.

In for his second visit came Preston Trigg. He's the director of administration and special projects. His goal this time, to teach us Mass Communication students the art of reading a budget.


Preston had a lot of good information to tell us. He first explained to us about government agents having budgets and how they are all public record in the state of Florida. This makes sense that every government agency has a budget considering they spend and receive money. I just never really thought about it. When you hear about 9 dollar cheesecakes, as of late, it sort of slips your mind that the government actually follows a budget.


The budgets, as Mr. Trigg explained, can help uncover corrupt behavior amongst the government officials. It's human nature to be corrupted by power and money. Well what do most government officials tend to have access to? Both power and money. Keeping the budgets public record keeps them in place (to an extent), and creates a nice check and balance to the system.


As with most budgets, you can't spend more than you're bringing in. This goes the same for the government (at least the local government). Revenue comes in through sales taxes, property taxes, fines, parking tickets, utility payments, grants, business tax, and any other way they can possibly try to get their hands on our money. In my opinion we don't give enough money to the government, but I digress. Budgets are in most cases done every fiscal year which starts October 1st and ends September 30th.


Going into class I was completely unaware about bond referendums. They contribute to revenue, that are loans to government from citizens that eventually are paid back with interest.


Mr. Trigg spoke to us about being aware of spikes in revenue through water bills and property taxes. If these go up, there's usually something fishy needing to be checked. When taxes are raised, people will want an explanation. When utilities go up without any explanation, a job of a reporter is to find out why.


The most complicated part of the presentation is coming so Mass Communication students who get queasy whenever math or formulas are brought up, it may be time to cut this read early. Don't worry, i wont be offended.


Mr. Trigg taught us about the mileage property tax system. All homes are taxed through whatever they are appraised at. One mil is the same thing as one tax dollar for every one thousand dollars the home is worth. Most counties set the mil for property tax, but the homestead exemption changes this. It lowers value by 50,000 dollars for tax purposes. This has caused property taxes to plummet. According to Trigg, this is killing the counties' budgets.


Just a quick review:

If the tax rate is 5 mils and the property value is $1,000, the owner would pay $5 dollars on $1,000. If the tax rate is 10 mils and the property value is $100,000 the owner would pay $1,000.


Budgets can be a useful tool for any good reporter. It can be at time very complicated if you don't know how to use it. However,with the proper knowledge, and getting over the initial fear off all those intimidating number, it will guide people in the direction of corruption. With times as tough as it's been financially,wouldn't you like to know where your money is going? Budgets give the public the tools to check on politicians and make sure they're using our hard earned money for the betterment of the city, state, or country.


Until next time, work a budget, save your money.....

The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner

Our latest trip learning about Public Records was to the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner.

http://www.hillsboroughcounty.org/medexam/about/unidentified.cfm

After someone dies, they are sent to the Examiner. This was such a depressing and plain building. Obviously the depressing part was that you know there's dead bodies in the building and many have been there before. People get very awkward and queasy when learning about death. It's something that most of us fear the most.

The tour of the Examiner was lead by Dr. Adams, who seemed very comfortable with death. He erased the uneasiness from my mind and helped focus on the workings and public records of his office (until I saw the dead body, more on that later). I think he's just been desensitized of emotion or shock of dead bodies because he's dealt with them for over 20 years.

He started to give us some interesting information on his office. His office doesn't examine every bodies that rolls in. There would be way too many to keep up with.

Dr. Adams talked about his job duties through statue 406.11, that gives him total jurisdiction in determining causes of death for anyone involved in criminal violence, suicide, poison, sudden death while in good health, in prison or under the full care of a doctor.

The Examiner must determine the cause of death and go to the site of the dead body to gather some evidence that may help them with gathering information on the body. However, A common theme throughout these Government funded establishments, there have been budget cuts. Some of the bodies found at night don't get the same attention they would during the day.

Something really needs to be done about all the budget cuts going on. I feel like a lot of money is being spent on insignificant things but others of more importance are being cut.

Unless it's under investigation, the autopsy reports are open to the public. The hospital and nursing records are not. The pictures on file of the body used to be public record until 2001 when Dale Earnhardt's wife got it passed that made them private. The bill was based off the fact that Earnhardt was a celebrity. I remember how much attention and how crazy the media got after he died on National Television.

There are two death certificates. If you're like me, you assumed there was only one. The medical death certificate is private but the memorial death certificate is the one that's public record.

None of the public records for the Examiner are online. Any record requests must be done upon at the actual office. I thought that was strange because it seems like you can do everything online.

And finally the lasting memory of the trip would have to be seeing the dead body during an autopsy. We are not allowed to see it but I think Dr. Adams made a mistake and let us in too early. We didn't get a great look at it, but enough that I know I never would like to see that again.

One last tidbit of information. I found out Billy Mays was examined at the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner. He had a substant in his system that in a bag may look like Oxyclean, but wasn't, I'll let you fill in the blanks.

I went to a public officials meeting today and was very disappointed. Check back later in the week for my take on the meeting.

Until next time, stay safe so you stay out of the Examiner's office.

My Court Trip

Hello everybody. Our latest assignment was to attend court cases for a few hours. I was reluctant and annoyed with this idea at first. I thought it was going to be boring and busy work. As you will soon find out, that was far from the truth.

I got there fairly early and had no idea where to go. All the employees at the courthouse were very helpful and nice. This came as a surprise because it's such a negative place. I always feel so weird being there. I can only imagine being there having to face prison or jail time.

I eventually was lead to a court case that involved a man facing 5 different felonies. Before the case started I overheard the family discussing the some of the details.

There were eight people in the family discussing the decision that needed to be made on a man named Forrest James Rashad. He was a 24 year-old, who was being charged with; possession or a fire-arm, possession of narcotics., armed burglary, grand theft auto. He had another felony charge that got dropped by the state.

Forrest was facing life in prison but was offered a deal to take 20 years, plus time already served and another 5 years probation after that. The stipulation to the deal was his rights of appeal were relinquished. Some of the family thought the investigation wasn't properly handled. They thought he could get off because of it.

At one point one of the bailiffs had to break two member of the family up as they started to push and shove each other while screaming at the top of there lungs. It was such an emotional time for the family that they started attacking each other. It was starting to get out of hand.

As the family was arguing back and forth about what Forrest should do, my mind started to wander. I just imagined being in his shoes and my family arguing, yelling, and screaming at each other. On top of all that facing life in prison.

Shortly after, the case started and everyone filed into the court-room. Some members of the family were denied entry because they were wearing flip flops and shorts.

When Forrest was brought out he and his mother immediately started crying. It seemed like as soon as they made eye-contact they had a look as if they couldn't believe what was happening.

The judge, Anthony K. Black, stated the facts of the offer given by the state to Forrest and asked him if he understood the deal. Forrest's weeping made it hard to understand his answer. Judge Black asked again. It was again hard to understand. So Judge Black, starting to seem annoyed, asked again louder and more stern. Forrest nodded his head and softly said yes.

The father of Forrest then stood up and yelled that his son did not understand the deal. Judge Black seemed surprised that Forrest's father just did this and asked him to sit down and be quiet. The man would not sit down and asked for a couple of minutes to address the court. The bailiffs then came and escorted him out of the court-room. (Judge Black)

Forrests mother then started to lose it, and started crying. The crying was so hysterical, I couldn't hear what the judge was saying. He then politely asked her to please be quiet. Judge Black waited until Forrest's mother was in better control.

Forrest took the deal from the state. I was thinking about how amazing it would be to have a decision that could change his and his families life come down to something like that. He did make the decision to commit all those felonies. It's sad seeing someone around my age in that situation.

Forrest will be out in the year 2028. He will be 42 when he finally gets out of prison and 47 when will no longer be on probation.

A lot can happen in a time span of 20 years, but not much will change with Forrest's life. He will look older, probably have grey hair, maybe even bald. While in prison his family and the rest of the world will be moving through there lives. Forrest's life will be at a stand still. Some of the family who attended the hearing will be dead. He will miss his baby son's youth. This all because he made bad decisions one night.

I'm sorry for such a long post, but so much happened. I wanted you to be able to understand how emotional this case was. This was better than a Law and Order episode. Until next time everyone stay out of trouble!!!!

Pat Frank

This trip started off terrible. There was construction in front of the court-house blocking the parking garage we were supposed to park in. Nobodies fault just becomes a pain to get back when you have no idea where you're going and every street you want to take is a one-way going the opposite direction you'd like. At one point I almost turned around and went home. It was that frustrating.

That being said, it was well worth the frustration. The tour started off with an older, very soft spoken, sweet lady. Little did I know this women was Pat Frank, the Chief Financial Officer of Hillsborough County and the Clerk of the County Courts.

She seemed to have by far the most knowledge of any speaker thus far. It was quite obvious that she also was very passionate about her job and cared deeply for her employees.

There was pain in her face when explaining the closing of the other government office on Florida Ave, causing a cut in jobs and an 8% decrease in pay for the ones who kept their job.

A common misconception is that government employees don't work hard nor earn their pay. Seeing the lines the workers were dealing with, I promise at the courthouse, that isn't true.

I was amazed at how much access the public had at public records at the court house. There were computers throughout the building that gave access to things like arrest records, court documents, and divorce or domestic abuse cases. Mrs. Frank informed us that arrest records are the most often requested documents.

If a case is deemed "high-profile" by the Chief Judge, it will be posted online at there web site. The Internet has made things much easier for people searching for public records. Anything current is scanned into computers, but the older stuff is still in warehouses across Tampa. This all depends on what record your searching for. The fact that we haven't scanned everything into a computer was amazing. Pat Frank talked about how if a hurricane with winds higher than 110 mph came through, all of those records would be lost. I don't know if anyone realizes this, but we are in Florida. This seems almost inevitable.

She really put things in perspective with hiring new judges. I didn't realize for every judge hired there needed to be three clerks also hired. I'm sure this knowledge would change a lot of the public perspective also.

Overall, I really enjoyed this visit. Besides the parking, it was very informative. Pat Frank had a lot to say and our tour guide so to speak, Dana Caranante, did a great job at showing us around the very bland but important building. Of all presentations thus far, I would say try to keep this one. Next semester I'd imagine their not being the same traffic or construction. Then again, this is Florida, maybe I should say three semester from now.

Until next time.