(BiM)–The Chronicles

Hi it’s me again.

I was think one day about the time. The era, we live in today. As I thought about this I wondered what my generation was.

When did my generation begin? When did it end? And most of all What should it be called?

I don’t know when exactly my generation begin or when It ends. I myself am about to be a senior in high school, and I think that I’m in the thick of this new, teenage/pre-teen/young adult generarion. But despite the small diffenerences in age I believe that I’m apart of what should be called the WWW generation.

Why WWW?

There have been so many important W’s in my life time. I’m been making a mental note of many of the W’s I come across in my life.

Let’s start whit the most obvious W, The World Wide Web.

The web has been around for awhile now, but recently, in the pass 10 year the web has exploded. I believe that .com burst was just the beginning of the inernet I know and lust today.

I have a website, with a blog, I reserch, check the news, get my mail and music, talk to other teens about though around and by the internet. Others buy things, get jobs, watch porn, and steal information and identities though the internet as well. For many teens, the internet has become the new TV, mail box, phone and library. Where teens and kids once watch hours of TV, they are now on myspace, livejournal, gaia, Youtube and other internet places.

The internet is vast and thus so addicting. It’s impossible to run out of things to do on the internet. Between, Goolge, Yahooo, Ask Jeeves… MSN it’s impossible to be bored. The only boring time on the internet is the time between browsing sites. All you have to do is type in “i’m bored” in the search box and something will appear and entertain you.

Because of the internet I have trouble watching TV now. It’s too… dull. Sit there and say nothing. It just feeds me stupidity… and there are always a set number of channels. to a addicted internet user the TV is too sationary, too one side, there is too little room for interaction.

So I turn the web, where I interact and learn. However there are problems with the internet.
Internet fads….The Chuck Norris Jokes must have the longest running internet fad. They were grnious but not universally loved. I came across many Norris-haters while browsing the internet. On the other hand the have replaced the God and the holy library, with Chuck Norris and the internet… it’s this that scars me so much.
The most serious problem about the internet howere is the openess and lack of security. Many young teens have died because of the information they’ve put on the internet. Among, with internet-related-deaths many people have lost their indentities, been cheated out of their money, lost whole hard drives worth of information, and their will to leave their computer-side chairs. So it’s important to be safe while browsing the web.

But despite these set back the internet is a second home, to me and other teens. I have to admit that of all the W’s this one is my most favorite.

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Many more article and W’s you come.

Next on Board: George W Bush, Washington, World Trade Center and War on Terror: Politics of the WWW generation.

On July 27, 2006, President Bush signed the extended Voting Right Act. This extension is due to last until 2032 or 25 extra years.

The Voting Rights Act was due to expire in 2007. This would have ended some very important provisions that allow several different minorities their voting rights.

There are two main sections that were due to expire 2007. In Section 5 certain states, districts and cities, must demonstrate that they are fairly making district and voting changes. The federal government supervisees these changes and make sure that are not damaging the minority ballot.

It is this section that bothers many Southern congress members. Section 5 only applies to specific states and districts–not the whole United States. Section 5 targets the states Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and the majority of Virginia. It also targets parts of California, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, and South Dakota. Only a few districts have been able to “bail out” or get off the Section 5 list. The congress members opposed to Section 5, who are mostly Southern Republicans, argue that this section punishes only Southern states for past practices. This is why 33 of 433 representatives voted against the Voting Rights Act extension.

The other extended section is Section 203. This section is also under heat for different reasons. This section concerns “language minorities” or groups that are not fluent in English. It states that districts that have a language minority of more than 10,000 persons, or of more than five percent of all voting age citizens, or districts in an Indian reservations, or if the minority exceeds five percent of all reservation residents, and if the illiteracy rate of the group is higher than the national illiteracy rate, that district must provide voting direction in different languages. This aids many immigrants including those for Mexico and Latin America.

Many people think that the government should not provide voting direction in Spanish and other languages since English is the official language of the United States. They believe that riding polls of multilingual instruction will help encourage language minority to speak English. However this part of the Voting Rights Act was extended against these wishes.

So has the Voting Rights Act changed?

According to my research the Voting Rights Act has had little to no changes. Congress members tried to draft four different amendments in an attempt to weaken the Voting Rights Act. All four amendments were rejected resulting in a nearly intact Voting Rights Act. However despite the Voting Rights Act staying the same on paper the government’s interpretation has changed over the years.

In the 1973 decision in the case White v. Regester, the Supreme Court deemed some districts unconstitutional because the state had been unfairly gerrymandered, or divide districts so to dilute the minority voting strength. However later in 1980, in the Mobile v. Bolden case the Supreme Court demanded that plaintiffs prove that districts had been divided because of discriminatory motives. This made it difficult for plaintiffs to accuse government of misconduct. Congress, two years later, changed section 2 so that plaintiff could establish a violation of the section without proving that the violator had had discriminatory motives.

Since 1982 little about the Voting Right Act has changed. Based on my research very little of it has in the last few months. Hopefully we all can enjoy the benefits the Voting Rights Act has to bring; and hopefully when 2032 comes congress will extend the United States’ most effective piece of civil right legislation again.