Guantanamo

What to do with Gitmo? How do we get past holding 166 inmates at the Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, or better known as Gitmo, made famous by the famous “A Few Good Men” movie. We need to first declare the end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once that occurs, then we can no longer consider the detainees as prisoners of war or any other type of relationship around being at war. Next step would be to give each person the chance to know what they are being charged with. You cannot hold a person without the ability to have their case heard in front of a judge. That was one of the founding reason this country was founded. (Remember the Magna Carta). Determine if we can charge any detainee with a crime.
We want to try them in a military tribunal verses in the US judicial system. This avoids giving the inmate the luxury of having the same rights as an US citizen. I do feel they can be treated fairly and without prejudice, because the military is trained to do so. Judges inherently want to be as fair as possible.
We need to allow the media to inspect and report on Camp 7. We are not getting any closer to resolution to the problem when there is a prison that we are holding the worst of the worst when we do not allow the media to report on them.
I think we should keep Gitmo open, I do think we need to judge those that are detained and allow them to have their day in court. Send those that cannot be charged back to their home country. I know some of them we cannot find a home country for them, but they have to come from somewhere … Find out where they are from and get rid of them. Easily said, but probably difficult to obtain. I think of the Ted Kasinsky of the world, if the US could get rid of him and pawn him off on another country, the US would probably do it.

It is frustrating for our President to make promises to close the Gitmo, then to discover after the fact that he and this country does not have the ability to do it. Another empty promise by a career politician.

Newsy Article

‘Tiger Woods’s Illegal Drop Prompts Calls to Leave Masters”

After reviewing the story on Newsy, I am going to take a different angle on how the USGA has taken a better approach to a simple error. Seems to me that a person should not be disqualified from a tournament (even the Masters) for a simple oversight and not a deliberate attempt to cheat the system or to create an unfair advantage. The USGA has changed their rules to support a scenario that Tiger Woods clearly did not deliberately attempt to cheat the system. He actually was penalizing himself additionally by moving his dropped ball further back.

Faith Cafe Opens Today

Today is an excited day.
After nine months without a home, Faith Cafe opens today. Faith Cafe can finally get back to the business of serving those in need. All those in need are invited to have a hot meal. Meals being served Monday-Saturday 11:30-12:30. Pass the word along to those in need or volunteers are still needed and welcome. New location is at 1340 Clearview, Tampa Fla. The new building comes with more room, better ways to serve those in need, and more services available. Angel’s closet is still giving out free clothes to any visitor in need.
Visit the faithcafetampa.com site for more details.

Newsy Review

After looking at about 30 different stories, Newsy is a pretty good aggregator. Basically, Newsy creates a video summary of a popular story. In the videos they attempt to give as many reliable sources that are available. I find they do use the most common news outlets, like CNN and USATODAY. Also, they seem to give both sides of the story being reported. Another benefit they give is a transcript of the video and in the transcript are links to their originating source. This allowed me to review in greater detail the source being reported from to make sure things were kept in the intended context. I found the reporters were professional when needed, and had the ability to crack a smile when a story was on the lighter side of news.

Patch review

In Reviewing of Patch.com, I came away with some details about the site that may be helpful to others to help navigate through. All areas are not listed, less than one-half the states are listed. Also, when drilling in to each state not all major metropolitan areas are listed. An example is Florida, it mostly list only Tampa Bay area blogs. There was no representation from Miami, Tallahassee, or other medium to major metropolitan area. I read about ten different community and found most of them were intriguing. I found the blogs to be mostly informative and well written. Particularity, I found an article written on journalism by Linda Burhans. She gives her insight on how to be a better journalist. Her pointers will help me in the future to become a better journalist.
Also, reviewing some local communities, parents and students have the ability to keep up with events happening at local schools. I noticed some updates from the high school I graduated from.

I feel that I will continue to visit this site in the future to get information about my community and I may even start to blog on their site.

In His Name
Robert Ray Apodaca

Photojournalism

I am going to use some photos from a recent youth group event with my church. We took out some of our frustrations on one another by playing paintball. We had a total of 15 people attend the event and my brother and I took some pictures during a few of our ‘battles’. We started with a posed picture of all the participants. We did not get too many pictures from the first two or three games, because I was too amped to remember to take pictures. Once I was shot significantly, I quickly remembered I was not a member of the Navy Seals and should capture some images for everyone to remember later. I did get some really cool pictures of most of the kids shooting one another. Due to safety reason, we did have to continually wear a helmet so it was difficult to determine who was who on the field. Also, took some after pictures that portrays the pain that paint balls can leave on a person.

Service Journalism

My Service Journalism is going to be about what to expect when being a juror.

Recently I was involved in the jury process and was selected to be a juror on a case. A few things to know a head of time; One be prepared to wait in many lines or wait in general a long time. Two have something interesting to read or watch while waiting. I have been called for jury duty about five or six times in my life and all previous trips to serve have been a pretty good snooze’fest. Mostly waiting around in an auditorium.
The first step to being selected to being a juror is being selected to a jury panel. A jury panel is a group of people that the attorney’s ask disqualifying questions to the case they are trying. I was involved in a group of 70 in the jury panel. I was selected as one of 14 jurors for the trial. All potential jurors are potential juror, you are only disqualified after the interview process by the lawyers.

Etcetera, etc… I am looking forward to writing this story.

The process to translate interview to narrative

As compelling of a leader Bishop Benoway is, one must step back and evaluate the interest of other college students. Although I feel most students of a typical college age does not have faith at the top of their priority. I do feel it is on their list of importance. Typical Christian college students still celbrate Christmas and Easter, probably not Lent and Pentacost seasons. The faith bug is still in them, and they want to keep it, but in a less subtle way. When I chose to interview the Bishop of the Evangelical Church of American, I felt I could bring some education to college students. Most people do not know the difference between the Protestant churches, maybe my artical would help explain some of those differences.
In His Name,
Robert Ray Apodaca

Interview Process

I decided to interview the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). I have been a Lutheran my entire life, grew up as a Missouri Synod office, but changed as an adult to the ELCA synod. I chose Bishop Benoway because it is the one of the leaders of the church I attend. There have only been three bishops in the Florida/Bahama ELCA synod office and the position is compelling to me. I have struggled to interview the bishop because of his availability. Originally scheduled last week, but we had to rescheduled to later this week. Hoping it does not get cancelled again. Prepared by reading his biography from the synod office. Please wish me luck, although I am older than most students in this class, I am still a bit nervous.

‘Ben-o-way’ the right way

Wonder if you picked the right path in your life, or the what if’s of your life? If you did this over that what would have happened? Bishop ‘Ben-o-way’ path chosen seems to have been the right way for him.

Questions I would ask the Bishop (work in progress).
Name with correct spelling?
What path did you take to being Bishop?
What would advise would you tell a lay or pastor to become a bishop?
Seminary school?
Aspiration prior to being ordained? like musician or politician?
Family?
Politics?
How do you see the church changing over the next decade?
Only the third bishop of the FBS? feeling

In His Name,
Robert Ray Apodaca