The other day while I was driving home I happened to flick off the Christmas station while I was driving home from work to give a quick listen to NPR. I ended up catching President Obama's press conference, where he basically just took a nostalgic look at his accomplishments over the past years.

Here's a link to some more detailed content

The entirety of what he said that afternoon was well spoken as always, but what he had to say about Political Parties and what bipartisanship has done to us made me happy. I feel like most people forget that politics are supposed to be compromise. Politics are supported to be our laws and how we govern our land etc and compromise is what adults are supposed to oh you know do in there daily life because that's how the world works.

Fairness is simply allowing everyone to get there way in one way or another. It's balance. By creating political parties (which good ol'George Washington warned us about) we just divided ourselves and became even less considerate and willing to work towards a world we can all tolerate. Everyone just wants it their way and wants to be anti-anything the opposite party wants instead of just finding MIDDLE GROUND.

LIKE AN ADULT.

Political Parties are f*****.

The Gap Widens

Thinking back on how this past week has gone with the election and everything having transpired (yes I know this is late but it's here now isn't it) it's a little hard for me to grasp that it's been just that. A week. The election shook me harder than I expected, i'm not anti-republican, but i'm in no way conservative. Problem solving is compromise. Politics are compromise.

Looking at the maps of counties across the country after the election really unsettled me

The closer you are to a big city, the more likely it is that your area is democratically ruled. That says to me that our rural areas are going to stay conservative and feel out of touch while the urban and suburban areas are going to keep socially and politically progressing and leaving the more rural areas in the dust. It's unfair. Theres a huge divide between rural and urban america with social politics that just shocks me. Dismissing blatant racism, sexist, and xenophobia is just unthinkable to me. Growing up in Austin it seems shocking to me that there are places where that is still ever allowed. It's just so starting to see that as a nation we are more divided than I ever thought

This election changed me. 

Neverending Search

This article here on the conservative political blog Big Jolly Politics took me what felt like an eternity to find. I don't know what it is about political blogs and giving wishy washy opinions but this was the one I finally found that I felt I could have some sort of commentary on!

Basically the jist of the article is stating that Trump's whole presidency got pushed by the media further than anyone thought was possible and in the opposite way intentioned. It's insane because this a conservative blog and even seeing them like call him out is unexpected. Like, I said, me and blogs aren't meshing the way me and my online newspapers mesh. He complained about a rigged election and all of this nonsense and then won anyway! This is nowhere near long enough what a lame attempt.

The never ending Obamacare debate

Ever since Obamacare was incanted all anybody has done is complain. Prior to the initial price increases everybody was so excited and proud to be living in a country where "everyone could have health insurance". The second prices started to go up, the tone changed and we landed where we are today - or - people assuming that this expense is all that Obama has left us after his eight years (which is just bull). The thing that people don't seem to understand about even how LIBERALS see Obamacare is not really all positive. In all honestly, yes Obamacare has huge problems, but that doesn't change the fact that its enactment was so progressive and genuinely fair for all. The intention was too pure for me to reject the idea of socialized healthcare as a whole. I'm for The Affordable Care Act and its principles and intentions, meaning while I support the Act I also support revisions on the Act to make it accomplish what it put out to.

https://www.tribtalk.org/2016/11/11/a-better-way-to-fix-health-care/

This article was just a nice because since this political society is mainly bipartisan, compromise is always going to need to be reached. Republicans don't want to loose the complete idea behind Obamacare they just want to go about it differently and hey, why not try? If it works and accomplish the same main goal that's what really matters.

Political parties aren't the end all be all pepople.

Norwood Found Guilty

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-09-30/norwood-found-guilty/

So, back in the 1980s the homicide of Debra Baker took place in Austin. She was a mother of two living in North Austin at the time she was bludgeoned to death in her bed. For years her husband (who she had separated from) was behind bars for her murder, but recently at his latest appeals trial they exonerated him due to the fact they found DNA evidence connecting another man to her murder. Mark Norwood was tried and convinced of her murder and the legal ordeal ended just recently. Like less than a week ago.

Mark Norwood entered through the back door, beat her to death, and stole her VCR. Back in 1986 DNA wasn't testable the way it is today. So, when they re-ran evidence during the appeal they discovered Norwood's DNA on the handle of the blood soaked wooden bat he used to beat Baker with. It was found that Norwood could have installed the carpeting in Baker's residence and come back to rob her, but apt records weren't kept so it is all speculation.

I feel like this is relevant because, in general, True Crime is a pretty well enjoyed topic in terms of media. People like crime shows like there's no tomorrow! It's always just interesting to see real life, real time, CLOSE BY occurrences of some of that stuff that we take as fictitious regularly. Maybe that's a little weird. I just found it interesting to see how that trial and case took place across such a long time span, whereas on those shows the crimes seem open and shut so quickly. Seeing how long a process of the law actually takes in a court case is valuable knowledge.

Also, wrongful convictions for old crimes is insanely common. At my highschool they offered a forensic science course as senior science and therefore I took it. At the start of the semester we started doing a lot of work involving The Innocence Project. The group compiles cases in which an offender was wrongfully convicted due to lack of DNA evidence obtainable when the cases were committed. Many of the cases are pre-90s when we really had no way to analyze DNA. The case of Debra Baker now falls into the giant pile of other cases involving wrongful convictions. Her husband is just lucky that he didn't get sentenced to death and literally killed because of a wrongful conviction. More than 1,000 wrongfully convicted death sentences have been fully carried out in the United States. There are at least 8 of which happened in Texas in the 1980s. That's a lot of people sentenced and killed to later have been found not guilty of the crimes they died for.

Hey y'all! Enjoy some shots from my New Mexico trip!