Journal Entry - Lesson 6

Political cartoon by Sven Van Assche

The political cartoon by Sven Van Assche from the Darien Times depicts a young girl standing in front of an open door. The opening is dark and has many pairs of eyes staring back. On the door is labeled “Internet Chat Rooms.” On the side is written, “Knock, knock” and “Who’s there.” The cartoon is portraying the controversy over whether there needs to be some kind of regulation of the internet to protect children from predators.

With the increase of accessibility to the internet by children, is it legally right for the government to regulate the internet for the protection of children? Does this violate a person’s civil rights? Whose responsibility is it to keep our children safe?

We have talked in our church about what we can do as parents, so if I were going to write a paper on this cartoon, the thesis would be:

They are three things that a parent can do in order to protect their child from predators on the internet. First, make sure their computer is placed in a high traffic area of the home. Second, use an internet filtering tool. Third, teach your children how to use the internet safely.

Discrimination against Alaskan workers

The website http://alaskaworkers.com explains that Project Labor Agreements (PLA) discriminates against Alaska’s workforce. Many of the recent government jobs have union only PLAs. In Alaska, only about 17% of the construction workers are union employees. This means that the most construction workers do not qualify for government jobs and are finding it difficult to obtain employment. The Alaska Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) urge voters to contact their legislator and ask them to quit discriminating against Alaskan hire by eliminating the PLA.

My thesis would be:

Project Labor Agreements (PLA) discriminates against Alaskan worker because only a small percentage of the workers in Alaska are union employees; because taxes from non-union workers go to support many of the projects that have a PLA; and because unions generally hire workers by seniority which could place a worker living outside of Alaska being hired before an Alaskan worker.