Introduction:

Attention Getter - Nearly 11,000 military personnel have been tossed out of the U.S army under the 14-year-old policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", keeping openly declared gays out of the military. Over 750 crucial jobs for the war have been sacraficed because of this policy, including translators and such.

Paragraph 1 -
-People are not gay by choice, they are born that way (adding in the facts from the Hounds article)
-Transition to not only do they not have a choice but -- next paragraph topic sentence

Paragraph 2-
-The policy no longer makes sense in a time of war, when people are needed no matter what their sexual orientation (adding in the statistics)
-Transition to how far away a ban may be despite the support

Paragraph 3-
-Change is unlikely because supporters are still a minority (New Scrutiny article)

Paragraph 4-
-General of the Pentagon Peter Pace says that banning policy would condone "immoral" behavior.
-End with transition into my opinion

Paragraph 5-
-Topic sentence begins with my opinion (we should ban the policy because *information from paragraphs 1 and 2*)

Conclusion-
-Restate thesis
-Review the main points:

1. Gays are not gay by choice
2. Policy no longer makes sense in a time of war
3. Crucial jobs are being taken away just to keep the policy

Clincher - Quote about what the policy has cost the military

---- (The link below is another one of my references, I'm just saving it here so I can find it at home. Disregard it.)

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=G_UjERPhyfQC&oi=fnd&pg=PP9&dq=the+%22Don%27t+Ask,+Don%27t+Tell%22+policy&ots=U2geItd784&sig=jV6VpCO_66MrrA3r06EfrCeOM-0#PPA12,M1

Annotation Bibiliography #3

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=15&did=1244298901&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1177544811&clientId=44135

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and Don't Leave!"
printed in the South Florida Sun (newspaper) on March 27, 2007, author Clarence Page.

The author of this article quotes the Pentagon Marine General Peter Pace, and his discriminatory words about gay people serving in the military. He was quoted to have regretted stating his personal opinion, but he never fully apologized. The article makes it clear that the General's words, ironically, may have done the most to have the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy repealed in the near future, if at all. In this article, the author also explains through quotes from spokesman Steven Ralls among others, that this anti-gay policy has run its course, saying that 9-11 has changed the attitude in the military about openly declared gays, perhaps creating more tolerance for them, as a lot of them (who were kicked out in earlier years when the policy had just been introduced) were already phoning in, asking whether it were possible for them to re-enlist and be a part of the response to the attacks of 9-11.

Annotation Bibiliography #2

http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SMN0059-0-5408&artno=0000258567&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=&res=Y&ren=N&gov=N&lnk=N&ic=N

Morality and the Military
from the McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT)

In this article, Marine General Peter Pace created an apparent ruckus, being the top general in the pentagon, when he gave his opinion about lifting the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. He stated that to do so would condone "immoral behavior", and that he in no way would support a policy that is immoral. The former general who had held Pace's office before him said that the time to lift the ban may finally be upon us, but others clearly see differently. In the article, there are prices shown that the military has been forced to pay to uphold the policy. The article states how pointless and nonsensical it seems to spend so much money during wartime, when precious resources are needed for all manner of reasons, for such a trivial reason.

Annotation Bibiliography #1

SIRS, "New Scrutiny of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Policy"
by Gordon Lubold

The policy, created in 1993, which keeps openly declared homosexuals from serving in the army, is coming under new scrutiny in Washington. A move has begun to lift this ban, but the article says that a change is unlikely to occur anytime soon, given the political explosiveness of the issue. Representatives believe that it will be an uphill climb for their argument against the policy. In the article, it gives statistics on how many military personnel have been discharged or voluntarily left because of this ridiculous ban. It even states how comfortable 73% of the current military is with homosexuals in the army. The general jist of the article is that the support for lifting this ban is gaining as time goes by, and that hopefully there should be a change in the near future.

Raft assignment 3/19/07

Spring Break

My spring break was, overall, pretty uneventful. I only did a few things, but most of my friends got to do a lot of different stuff. My brother, for example, had planned a trip for almost a year. He went to Hawaii with his friends, and won't get back until Wednesday. My friends went out of town to different states, or even countries. Me, I was stuck at home all week. However I did see the movie 300 on the first Friday of break, and that was probably the hilight of the entire rest of the week. Since most of my friends were out of town, I wasn't able to do much. But it was still good to finally take a break from all my schoolwork, and get ready for the third trimester. A full online unit should be fun.

Day 3: The Tartan Problem

The problem: Tartan is technologically "impaired".

Evidence:

• A lot of my friends (and me at one point) were having trouble creating blogs just like this one, because either they don't understand how to do it, or their computers won't run the site properly.
• Mr. Hatten first trimester didn't have class grades up on Parent Portal for a long time. Or, at least, as fast as all the other teachers did.
• When in computer labs, the students will goof around and talk rather than focus on their computer work, whatever it may be.

Contributing Factors:

• A lot of teachers, regardless of the fact that they all have a computer in their room, have made out computers to be evil. The "devil's work", if you will.
• Hardly any teachers aside from English 10 have assignments on the computer, not counting essays.
• Teachers make out computers to be only for typing.

Solution: There should be one course (or possibly more for the more advanced students) in Tartan to simply teach all the functions of a computer, to better educate everyone who is technologically impaired in this school, which is, at last count, a lot. And to make more online assignments like this one right here.

Day 1

Hello. Read this. Or don't, I don't care.

---------------
A friend is having trouble keeping up with the class. You suspect
that bad study habits may be causing her grades to drop.

A way to solve this problem would be simply to talk to her, explain to her that she has to take school seriously and make it her top priority. If this didn't work, you could think hard about what she regularly likes to do in the place of studying or homework, and help her focus on her work rather than whatever else she wants to do. If you did this enough and pounded the point in deep enough, she might start to understand what she has to do, and eventually do it on her own to keep up with class.