S640 Blog Posting #2

Maywin Jackson/Blog Posting #2
Current Stem Cell News
First, I want to make sure everyone knows I am not using this article as a platform for my beliefs about stem cell research. This topic has been chosen to illustrate an example of how censorship takes many forms.

In anticipation that President Obama will relax stem cell legislation, “the Food and Drug Administration” cleared Geron (privately funded) Corporation's application to conduct early-stage clinical trials on its stem-cell based therapy, aimed at treating severe spinal cord injuries.” ( MSN). And, related stocks are rising based on the possibility of such legislative changes.
In regards to this particular legislation, we can find past examples of IF abuse (or science censorship), enacted by President G.W. Bush. The controversial issue of Human embryonic stem cell research (hESC) was acted upon by President Bush in the early part of his first term.
This president took (illegal) actions to quickly rule that the U.S. government determined stem cell research as neither moral nor ethically legal. These illegal legislative actions were:

1. His policy decision to disallow funding of (hESC) research was not vetted through the Administrative Procedure Act’s regulation- creation process.
2. His decision was not embodied in an executive order.
3. Congress never voted on the decision.

My reaction to Bush’s stifling and mishandling of the funded stem cell research is varied; however, I am adamant in that I believe no government official should be allowed to ignore due process or practice censorship in any way.

S554 Maywin's Blog Posting #1

Working with technology

I have a love/hate relationship with technology. The love part encompasses all good things related to technology such as email, social networks, instant messaging, and now, blogging, rss, and wikis.
The hate part is what I am experiencing now which is how slow I am in acquiring the technical abilities and skills necessary to participate in wiki and blogging technology. For instance, I am learning three techie things this semester: 1. How to blog 2. How to podcast 3. How to wiki. (So far, just the technical aspects needed for course work are a big challenge for me.)
These challenges are helping me realize how necessary it is for professional librarians to be both up to date and experienced in every aspect of the ongoing nature of changing technology. This experience is necessary in order for librarians to best serve their public. I am looking forward to teamwork in this class, because most teams I have worked on (via SLIS courses) have been wonderful and helpful learning tools.

Maywin's S640 Blog Posting #1

S 640 Blog Posting # 1/Reaction to a current IF news item.

(I have already submitted this posting to Oncourse using another Blog site.) I have returned to Blogger so I will just resubmit this then will use Blogger from now on.


Disclaimer: I am not using this website as an example of my opinion of the current situation in Gaza.

There are so many IF issues out there, but one thing came to mind as I scrolled through both ALA and online sites. After selecting the current Gaza situation, and including news censorship as a search subject, I noticed a topic consistent with most websites I read through, (regardless of their support for one side or the other,) which was that U.S. news coverage was either limited/nonexistent, or biased toward the Israeli point of view.
With this in mind, I decided to select, at random, one website that used this topic to represent the large number of websites with the same opinion.
I found the If Americans Knew.org website, from which one author (among many) states: “we are attempting to fill in the many important news items – most of them about incidents in the Palestinian territories – that are not available in the U.S. media. “
My reaction to this statement, (whether or not it is a fact), resulted in my question: In reporting the news, is omission of certain facts also a form of censorship?