Japanese Relief

Greetings:

First, I have some missionary friends from Japan and I'd like to give a shout out to the charities they either run or work with:

David and Tomo: Glory Speaking

Rosalina Young: Heart for Japan

A.J. Plasse: My Wandering Heart 

Jonathan Robinson: Send


Second, A couple people from my school got together to narrow down the list of some of most reliable places to donate to if you want to give money to help people down in Japan. They narrowed it down to five.

The list is as follows.

Sincerely,



Me

Japan Relief Organizations

Mercy Corps/Peace Winds Japan

Mercy Corps is working to help survivors of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami in cooperation with our longstanding partner, Peace Winds.

Peace Winds continues to deliver emergency supplies—including large shelters, tents, blankets, instant rice and fresh produce—to families evacuated from homes in the tsunami-devastated city of Kesehhuma. Mercy Corps has deployed our emergency team leader to help Peace Winds coordinate its lifesaving response.

Your donation will be used to meet immediate and long-term needs of families affected by this disaster.

US Fund for UNICEF

As the world unites in support for the people of Japan, we at UNICEF express our heartfelt sympathy for the tragic loss of life following the massive earthquake and tsunami. This double catastrophe has left the country and its friends stunned and bereaved, and new threats caused by the quake and its aftermath continue to be of utmost concern to us all.

As in all emergencies of such devastating magnitude, children are the most vulnerable. Working in close cooperation with the Japan Committee for UNICEF, we have offered our support to protect the children affected by this catastrophe and to provide critical services in the days ahead.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Japan, one of the world’s most generous nations. We stand ready to assist them as they have helped so many others in these, their days of greatest need.

Heart to Heart International

When news of the quake emerged, Heart to Heart mobilized for action. We quickly contacted our relief partners to establish a communications network. As with any crisis, we always want to ensure that our response is exactly what's needed at the local level. Our constant goal is to lead a quality medical response that positively impacts the disaster survivors.

While reports started flooding in from Japan, we also kept a watchful eye on the tsunami as it rolled across the Pacific Ocean. Thankfully, many of the Pacific islands were spared the wrath of the tsunami.

Historically, we operate on a low overhead of less than 2 percent, meaning that more than 98 percent of all contributions goes directly to humanitarian programs and services. Forbes magazine has ranked us as one of the five most efficient charities in America for the past two years, citing our wise use of donor resources.

Furthermore, our strategic partnerships allow us to stretch our resources even further, enabling us to transform every $1 cash donation into an average of $25 worth of medical aid for people in need.

Your gift to Heart to Heart is one of the easiest ways to make a difference right now, because it enables us to train more healthcare professionals, support more hospitals and clinics, deliver more humanitarian aid, respond to more people in crisis, and restore more communities to health.

Note: Apparently, the Red Cross is only required to donate 5% of your money to Japan.

American Red Cross

As the response to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan moves into its second week, about 430,000 people are staying in approximately 2,500 shelters operated by the Japanese government and supported by Japanese Red Cross workers.

The American Red Cross has contributed an initial $10 million to its main partner in the country - the Japanese Red Cross - to help with their medical and relief activities. As pledges are fulfilled and additional donations received, the American Red Cross plans to make additional commitments to help the people affected by the earthquake, tsunami and evolving nuclear emergency.

World Vision International

In the last couple of days, World Vision has delivered blankets, bottled water, and sanitary and hygiene supplies for more than 6,000 people in urgent need in Minami Sanriku and Tome, two devastated towns where thousands were evacuated to shelters.

World Vision will continue responding to needs in a long-term response over the coming weeks and months. In the event that donations raised by world Vision national entities exceed what is needed for relief activities in Japan, World Vision will redirect funds to similar activities to help children and families in need around the world.

School and Everything

Greetings:

You know, I haven’t been updating as much as I like. It used to be one week, then it became every other week, now it’s just every so often.

I haven’t completely abandoned this blog, not yet. I just haven’t figured out how to balance my school, church and personal life evenly.

Balance is important. It’s something that I’ve been struggling with, in ways that I haven’t truly expressed to anybody. I wish sometimes I could just write it out...

Sincerely,

Me

Essay Evolution

Version History: v1.1 (Feb 28 2011)

• Changed the sentence beginning in, "If I had to give one criticism..."
• Gave more credit to Young
• Shifted some blame off Mejia
• Changed, "No proofing was done" to "wasn't proofed professionally"
• Other miscellaneous changes

The February 23, 2011 edition of the Clarion Newspaper comes across as mostly average. While there are some truly remarkable articles, each of them is matched by another written rather poorly.

On one hand, “Up the Per Unit Fee, Save the State,” an editorial by Jennifer Young on page 23, is written exceptionally well. She argued that we should favorably accept “Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal for a $10 hike in the per unit fee for California public community college.”

Young does a good job explaining that community college students in California pay a lot less for units than those in surrounding states and that the money would help the state budget in the long run. The point is driven home by the illustration of the state unit fees accompanying the article.

On the other hand, a lackluster job was given in the page 9 article, “Grammys Bring New Era with Old Friends,” written by Israel Mejia. Grammatically incorrect phrases such as, “A tribute to Aretha Franklin was very nice done by Christina Aguilera” and sentence fragments like, “The outfits’ message being that of equality” give the impression that the column wasn’t proofread professionally.

There were also many instances where a little more creativity could have gone a long way. For example, on page 13, the three-part “Best of Instant Movie Rentals” compared Redbox, Netflix and Video On Demand. Rather than merely showing the companies’ logos, a chart could have been made to summarize the information in the article.

I particularly enjoyed the articles on the revolution in the Middle East and North Africa. Perhaps more world news could be covered by the Clarion in the future.

That being said, I give the newspaper a seven out of ten. It was alright, although there was plenty of room for improvement.


Version History: v1.24 (Feb 28 2011)

• Made essay tense more consistent overall
• Revised third paragraph, including quote and more details about Young's article
• Changed the sentence beginning with, "Rather than merely showing..."
• Expanded comment at the end about including more world news articles, giving a direct example from the Clarion.
• Lowered grade
• Other miscellaneous changes

The February 23, 2011 edition of the Clarion Newspaper came across as average. While there were some truly decent articles, each of them was matched by another written rather poorly.

For example, “Up the Per Unit Fee, Save the State,” an editorial by Jennifer Young on page 23, was written exceptionally well. She argued that we should favorably accept “Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal for a $10 hike in the per unit fee for California public community college.”

Young did a really good job explaining that $10 more isn’t that large of an amount to pay for school units, especially when, “71% of the student population receive(s) some form of financial aid.” The point was driven home by an illustration of the state unit fees, showing that Californian students pay an average of $48 less than their neighbors in the surrounding states.

On the other hand, a lackluster job was given in the page 9 article, “Grammys Bring New Era with Old Friends,” written by Israel Mejia. Grammatically incorrect phrases such as, “A tribute to Aretha Franklin was very nice done by Christina Aguilera” and fragments like, “The outfits’ message being that of equality” gave the impression that the column wasn’t proofread professionally.

There were also many instances in other articles where a little extra creativity could have gone a long way. For example, on page 13, the three-part “Best of Instant Movie Rentals” compared Redbox, Netflix and Video On Demand. Rather than merely including images of the companies’ logos, a chart could have been made to contrast the corporations’ service prices, number of movie titles, and the like.

I particularly enjoyed the articles covering the Middle Eastern revolutions such as, “Middle East and North Africa in Uproar” on page 3, also by Jennifer Young. Perhaps more world news could be covered by the Clarion in the future.

That being said, I give the newspaper a six out of ten. It was alright, although there was plenty of room for improvement.

Clarion Evaluation

Greetings:

I have a school assignment. I have until Tuesday to finish this, so I'm still going to work on it a bit.

Sincerely,


Me

Type a one page, double-space critical thinking assessment of the Clarion newspaper of Wednesday, February 23, 2011. On a grading scale of 0-10 (ten being the highest) what score would you give it and why? Please give specific examples to justify your rating. Give page numbers. Cite headlines and by-lines to identify the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly in this first edition. Please keep in mind that the paper is produced by students like you who are learning about journalism. What stories would you like to read in your student newspaper this semester?

The February 23, 2011 edition of the Clarion Newspaper comes across as mostly average. If I had to give it only one criticism, it would be the fact that, for every really good article, there seems to be another written very poorly.

For example, “Up the Per Unit Fee, Save the State,” an editorial by Jennifer Young on Page 23, is written exceptionally well. The article argued that we should favorably accept “Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal for a $10 hike in the per unit fee for California public community college.”

Young does a good job explaining that community college students in California pay a lot less for units than those in surrounding states and that the money would help the state budget in the long run. The point is driven home by the illustration of the state unit fees accompanying the article.

On the other hand, Israel Mejia gave a lackluster job when it came to the Page 9 entertainment article, “Grammys Bring New Era with Old Friends.” Grammatically incorrect phrases such as, “A tribute to Aretha Franklin was very nice done by Christina Aguilera” and sentence fragments like, “The outfits’ message being that of equality” give the impression that no proof checking was done.

There were also many instances where a little more creativity could have gone a long way. For example, on page 13, the three-part “Best of Instant Movie Rentals” compared Redbox, Netflix and Video On Demand. Rather than merely showing the companies’ logos, a chart could have been made to summarize the information in the article.

I particularly enjoyed the articles on the revolution in the Middle East and North Africa. Perhaps more world news could be covered by the Clarion in the future.

That being said, I give the newspaper a seven out of ten. It was alright, although there was plenty of room for improvement.

Los Angeles Job Corps

Greetings:

In 2008, I was having trouble raising money for my upcoming trip to Japan. During that time, I was searching all around for a job.

While harvesting job applications at the local City Hall, I was surprised to have accidently picked up an informational brochure for an organization called Job Corps. To quote their website, they described themselves as “a free education and training program that helps young people learn a career, earn a high school diploma or GED, and find and keep a good job.”

It sounded too good to be true. I was extremely surprised to find out that not only was it free, but that the students actually get paid to attend.

Unfortunately, nobody warned me that the free education came at a price; namely, it was cheap and, at times, poorly executed.

You see, Job Corps is wonderful in concept. It’s just that it feels like the majority of the staff, especially those in charge, is more concerned with appearing good than actually being good at what it’s supposed to do.

For example, at one point, Job Corps decided to show that they needed to be more green. One of my classes required that all of the students should write essays on ways to show how we would reduce our carbon footprint.

In my personal experience, I was told to edit and reprint off my essay maybe three or four times. Assuming that my peers (around 40 in number) went through that same process and that each essay was two pages long, that would be at least 240 pieces of paper printed off.

I don’t think the paper, ink, and electricity used on that essay was ever counted toward our grade or schooling progress. If I remember correctly, it was forgotten for good the next week.

As well, there was an environmental appreciation day at the end of the month. It was pretty fun and I personally enjoyed the popcorn. Despite this, I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that they used so many Styrofoam cups and plates and didn’t even have one recycle bin available to toss our napkins in.

To quote one movie I’ve been meaning to watch one of these days, “The appearance of law must be upheld, especially when it's being broken.” (Gangs of New York, 2002)

Mind you, I’m not meaning to sound like a whiner. I was a good student and learned quite the bit of from their tutoring. Most notably, I now know how to actually write a resume.

However, I would only suggest the program to those who are on their last leg and can take a lot of bureaucracy crap.

Sincerely,

Me

False FAFSA

Greetings:

With the next college semester coming just around the corner, I’d like to stop in and offer warning about a scam that I came across when I first tried filling out my FAFSA.

The “Free Application for Federal Student Aid,” or FAFSA, offers free money from the government to help pay for college. It’s a scholarship system that grants you a certain amount of money depending on you and your parent’s income.

The poorer you are, the more money you get.

Be warned, however, that there is a misleading website called FAFSA.com. It’s in any not affiliated with the actual FAFSA website, FAFSA.ed.gov.

FAFSA.com has you fill out an imitation FAFSA application. At the end, they attempt to charge you $80 for them to “help” find any errors within the application.

The real FAFSA is actually a lot easier to fill out than the counterfeit. The government website itself will also inform you if any problems come up.

One of the more frustrating things about FAFSA .com is the fact that they ask for your Social Security Number. Thankfully, they don’t seem to be in the business of identity theft, so if you accidently fill out the wrong application, your SSN hasn’t been compromised.

Sincerely,

Me

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