Hicks, J. P. (2004). Black and Hispanic Acceptance Eludes Mayor, Despite His Efforts. New York Times. February 5, 2004.

Nothing can be more embarrassing than getting a cold shoulder even if you made every effort to please someone. That might be how Mr. Michael R. Bloomberg, the Republican mayor of the city of New York, felt about after knowing that his approval numbers have not risen above 35 percent among blacks or Hispanics in a recent poll.

The disapproval is based, according to some political scientists, much more on economics. They were referring to the mayor’s latest tax policy about raising taxes, particularly the property tax. Yet, middle-class Latinos and African Americans, many of whom are first-time homeowners or work in or own small businesses, viewed it in another way. In Leeanna Joseph’s word, who works as a waitress in Queens, “I think that he just doesn’t understand the regular person?”

This issue explicitly suggests several important aspects within the American value system which has been briefly discussed in Steele and Redding’s article. The most obvious one is the ethical equality, which was usually taken into account in the first place especially when confronting situations regarding rights of minorities. This value of being equal is “before the law,” in my opinion, even after the establishment of law, “the core of our system of justice” (p. 87). In the ideal world, equality is the cornerstone on which the world runs smoothly and people would be entitled to live with equal opportunities they were born with. Equality of opportunity, another value mentioned by Steele and Redding, is the reification of ethical equality in my understanding.

Nevertheless, it is understandable that the image of being ubiquitously and absolutely equal is not always the case in real life. Despite the claim that all men created equal, it is inevitable that everybody was raised in different family backgrounds, educated on different levels and employed by different institutions. Nobody, except few politicians, can deny the fact that minorities still have to make more efforts to achieve the same goals compared with the white. Especially in a country where achievement and success (p. 86) as well as effort and optimism (p.87) are highly commended, it is a more strenuous struggle for minorities to get success in career than their white counterparts.

Being criticized as “someone who doesn?t relate to the average person,” Mr. Bloomberg’s subsequent political activities, including making social issues like low-income housing a central goal of his administration and attending the funeral for a 19-year-old black woman killed in a police shooting, more like a show to transmit the information implicitly to the public that “I do care about you.” Mr. Bloomberg’s dilemma between maximizing his own benefits from his career and serving his people is no exception in most similar careers. The former consideration is unimpeachable in that it is just the incarnation of “achievement and success,” one of the American spirits; the latter one is respectable in that it represents a higher moral and means self-sacrifice sometimes. Regretfully, politicians often failed to find the golden mean and make this a win-win game. As a result, there have to be some victims, but not them.

Koring, P. (2004). ‘We were all Wrong’:Iraq did not Possess Banned Weapons, Former Arms Expert Tells Senators. Globe and Mail. Jan. 29, 2004.

“We were all wrong.” The remark of the former chief U.S. weapons sleuth David Kay about the issue of whether Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction was quoted broadly and placed on front pages by a good deal of news organizations. Kay pointed out that contrary to earlier claims by President Bush and his Cabinet, Saddam Hussein did not possess “large stockpiles” of chemical and biological weapons and was not actively pursuing nuclear weapons. Moreover, he denied the allegation by Democrats towards Bush administration that the White House exaggerated intelligence to go to war. Kay stated that it was a problem caused by failed intelligence.

In the past 24 hours since the initial information was released, the relevant news have been reported or complied by more than 1,200 news agencies all over the world (according to the number on http://news.google.com/). It is not amazing that the news will have an impact on the public perception towards the current Bush administration, especially during the campaign.

I found the news is interesting in that during the earlier time most news organizations still kept attempting to convey one belief to the public that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which haven?t been spotted yet. The ?fact? was even intensified even though U.S. army has failed to obtain the reliable proofs about the existence of WMD in Iraq at times. Whatever the actions and results U.S. troops took, the first impressions imposed on the audiences by the news stories then was that it was definite that WMD existed in Iraq somewhere. Now the whole situation was turned over.

It is understandable that truth sometimes can be disguised and it takes some time to disclose what the fact is. Yet, we still have to retrospect the roles media took in the process of Iraq War. It is the first time that news reporters can be with the whole process of the war and get the firsthand information from the army. But are the stories the real reflections of the war or simply tools used to persuade the public into believing something? Is the responsibility of media to tell the public truth or tell them something to make them believe it?s the truth? It is a long discussed question since the emergence of news media. Hopefully this news can offer us something new to think over.

Where went wrong?

Last week in the class of COMM 200, I claimed myself a super PEPSI fan by raising hand when Dr. Soley asked who can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi.

“I think it’s milder” was the reason I held in public for my preference for Pepsi. As a matter of fact, another unspoken reason was that Coke is kind of old-fashioned… To put it another way, too classic.

In today’s class we had an informal experiment addressing this issue. Everybody tasted six cups of various colas without knowing which was which. On the answer sheet were six brands (Coca-cola, Pepsi-cola, RC-cola, Best Yet cola, Jolly Good cola and Max cola) and six numbers. For me, it was more a wild guess than a valid judgment since I never tasted the other four colas.

The first taste was always impressive. Bingo!!! It was Pepsi!!! The following steps were more like a carnival. I whirled up the other four cups and felt like King of the World. Having found my Pepsi, why bothered to care about the others? I even didn’t take the No.5 Cola and designated it as Coke (it was later proven to be a fatal mistake).

The result was sarcastic. I got two right. Nope, not Pepsi or Coke but Best Yet and Jolly Good. Guess what? Pepsi was No.5, the one I didn’t taste but labled as Coke.