ALLISON HIGHT - 28 Oct. 2011

Despite the nearly eight thousand miles that separate the two countries, the reverberations of Japan’s triple catastrophe on March 11th have not gone unfelt in the United States.  Recently, a fact lost in the aftermath of the disaster has gained new precedence: that millions of tons of debris washed away from Japan’s east coast, estimated to be between five and twenty million tons, is in the process of crossing the Pacific Ocean and is destined to arrive at the U.S. as early as 2013.  This material includes houses, furniture, and most horrifyingly, possible bodies swept away by the power of the waves.  Immediately following the catastrophe, researchers Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner at the University of Hawaii at Manoa began to track the path of the debris using then-untested computer software that predicted the movements of the material based on knowledge of ocean currents.  For the first month, their results were confirmed by satellite images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  But then, the rubble pile spread too thinly to be seen, and its whereabouts became unknown.

A little over a month ago, though, a Russian ship once again spotted the debris.  After confirming the origin of the material by pulling a fishing boat out of the ocean that had “Fukushima” painted on the side in Japanese characters, they shared their find after reaching port on October 8th.  Only in the last few days has the information gone public.

Maximenko and Hafner confirmed that the material was in approximately the spot that their computer program predicted it would be, except that it had moved more quickly and spread more widely than they had anticipated.  A month after the tsunami, it was spread over five hundred miles; today, estimates put its length between one and two thousand.

Caught in an ocean current called “the North Pacific Gyre,” the rubble moves between five and ten miles per day.  Experts have separated the material into three main categories: the lightest floating objects, such as Styrofoam and wood; items of medium floatability, like fishing nets and gear; and the heaviest items, including shoes, and even entire furniture sets.  Each wave of items is expected to reach subsequent coastlines approximately a year apart, beginning with Hawaii before arriving at the west coast of the United States and Canada.

This news has been met with mixed emotions.  Researchers at the NOAA, for one, are pleased to have finally acquired concrete information regarding the material’s location.  That it has spread out to twice its original length in the last six months also means that no shoreline will receive the brunt of the rubble’s arrival all at once, but rather over long spaces of time and distance, thereby lessening the burden the material will inevitably bring.

However, the majority of the voices speaking up over this issue have been raised in consternation, and with good reason.  Even though the true effects of this floating mass are still several years off, once it begins, predictions estimate that increased amounts of rubble could arrive on our shorelines for as many as six years.  In the past, tsunamis and other natural disasters have for the most part limited their damage to a concentrated area.  Even the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, triggered by one of the largest recorded earthquakes, only swept the land’s ravaged material out a short ways before returning it to the same shoreline.  This mass migration of rubble across half of the globe, then, is unprecedented.

Fortunately, a different concern, that the debris contains radioactive material from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, is unfounded.  As the tsunami hit and receded before the power plant went into meltdown, the chance that the rubble is radioactive is next to zero.

Despite this small comfort, one of the foremost questions in people’s minds is upon whom the burden of clean-up will fall and what methods will be used to remove the debris once it arrives.  As of yet, the U.S. government seems relatively unconcerned with the matter, but a coalition has been formed between the NOAA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Coast Guard, and several other organizations to devise a long-term plan to deal with the problem.  Loosely, they have divided up the main, predicted effects of the debris so that the Coast Guard will handle shipping and navigation issues; the EPA, the biochemical and hazardous waste material; and the NOAA, the charting of its course and the protection of coral reefs.  The suggestion of drawing on Japanese resources to aid clean-up efforts, an idea presented by many individuals on online forums, does not seem to be an option of the governmental drawing board.

Though preparations are underway, a remaining concern is how the debris will affect coastal, oceanic environments.  Hawaii is particularly worried over its coral reefs and monk seals, whose environment is already in fragile condition.

Fortunately, especially as they are to receive the first wave of the material, Hawaii has recently implemented several new programs to deal with oceanic waste, and not just that arriving from Japan.  One, entitled the “Hawaii Marine Debris Action Plan” (HI-MDAP) and implemented in 2010, is the first of its kind in the country.  Concentrating on the four areas of solid waste at sea, land-based debris, abandoned vessels, and backlog of marine debris, the plan generally aims to reduce the large amounts of ocean waste that find their way to the state every year.  One of the ways this is being done is through their “Nets-to-Energy” program.  Instead of transporting the dozens of tons of nets that end up on their coastlines every year to landfills, the nets are cut into small pieces and burned.  The steam produced from the process is then used to power a turbine that creates usable energy.  According to the program description, this method has produced enough energy annually since 2002 to power nearly three hundred and fifty homes year-round.

For at least one state, then, the mass amounts of debris on a set course from Japan could potentially be not an obstacle, but an opportunity.  If Hawaii implements methods to similarly convert even some other types of waste material into usable energy, if not all, not only will they keep their landfills from becoming more over-crowded, but they could lead the way in reversing the amount of all oceanic waste, a problem which researchers and oceanographers admit has been growing more dire in recent years.

It appears, then, that despite the growing volume of news stations reporting on the thousand-mile wide sea of debris, U.S. citizens should follow the government’s lead in not unduly worrying about its arrival.  Despite its inconvenience, there is little true danger that will result from the rubble.  In the next two to three years, then, instead of using the time agonizing over what will happen when it appears, people should continue to work steadily down the path upon which Hawaii has set us to turn this apparent impediment into an asset.

27 AUGUST 2011 - KEVIN RUPPERT - An investigation into when and why the 9/11 Truth theory effectively "failed" and began to isolate its own supporters. (EXPLICIT DISCLAIMER: This is an academic investigation. World Report does not support the beliefs or opinions purported by the 9/11 Truth Movement. We do reaffirm that al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks and that the United States was not fully aware of the specifics of the plotted attacks and so unable to effectively prevent them)



Over the past several years, the American public has become relatively familiar with the 9/11 Truth Movement, which consists of individuals who believe that the United States government either carried out the infamous attacks or had prior knowledge and allowed them to happen. As the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001 grows closer, these “truthers”, as they have come to be known, are continuing to perpetuate this theory through skilled use of the internet and talk radio. But so far their message has generally failed to resonate with the American people, and as a result they’ve failed to achieve their primary objectives. There has been no overwhelming outcry for a new investigation into the attacks, Bush and Cheney have not been put on trial, and public opinion polls continue to indicate that most Americans believe Al Qaeda was the sole culprit. In other words, the truthers are still part of a fringe movement that has very little mainstream credibility. However, the 9/11 Truth Movement wasn’t always doomed to an existence outside of mainstream political and popular culture. In fact, at one point it had the potential to someday garner enough public support to eventually affect policy. But that all changed when the movement collectively made a decision to abandon the most plausible theory it had ever proposed. With that fateful choice, the truthers obliterated their chances of ever entering the mainstream political discussion.

In the months after 9/11, early truthers primarily claimed that Bush and Cheney had prior knowledge of the attacks and simply allowed them to happen for political purposes. At this point, the theory that the United States government played a more active role in planning, coordinating, and perpetrating the attacks was occasionally insinuated but not vigorously pursued. Apparently even most of the truthers thought that idea was somewhat implausible at the time. Conspiracy theorists were temporarily satisfied with a story about an evil government that passively allowed thousands of Americans to be slaughtered for selfish gain. And although truthers didn’t know it at the time, this narrative was their best shot at ever breaking into the mainstream and convincing the American people that Bush and Cheney were responsible for 9/11. The belief may have been far from conventional, but there were elements of it that had mainstream appeal and at least some empirical evidence to support it. For example, a few months after the attacks, a series of government documents was leaked that revealed some relatively suspicious information regarding 9/11. The papers revealed that the federal government was warned about Bin Laden’s plans to crash planes into American landmarks and even conducted drills to simulate it. In a 2004 USA Today article about the release of NORAD documents, reporter Steven Komarow states, “In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties. One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center” (Komarow). You certainly don’t have to be a 9/11 truther to acknowledge that that’s a rather strange coincidence. It’s also not incredibly difficult for a large portion of Americans to imagine the government allowing an event to occur in order to justify military action abroad. However, it is incredibly hard to comprehend the thought of it blatantly planning and carrying one out, which would soon become the Truth Movement’s central theory. In essence, when the truthers believed that Bush and Cheney weren’t operationally involved but purposefully failed to prevent the attacks, they were in relatively good shape to build a mainstream movement. Their predominant theory was supported by evidence and at least slightly plausible based on history.

But as the months wore on, that theory was eventually no longer exciting enough. Pretty soon, the conspiracy theorists craved a more interesting story that included dramatic cover-ups and unthinkable plots. It seems that the truthers subconsciously wanted a narrative that better reflected the types of themes and stories usually seen in movies and on television. In other words, the government simply allowing 9/11 to occur was dramatic, but not dramatic enough. In Terror Post 9-11 and The Media, David Altheide states, “media logic and coherent narratives that manifest that logic, such as 24 and the X-files, contribute to “real-life” support for conspiracy theories about events surrounding 9-11” (Altheide 35). Slowly but surely, individuals within the movement began to subscribe to even more radical theories, claiming that the role of the United States went far beyond simply allowing Al Qaeda to strike without any intervention. They also started developing more outlandish ideas about how the buildings were attacked. These ideas include theories that a controlled demolition brought down the Twin Towers, the Pentagon was hit by a missile, and the military shot down multiple commercial airliners to cover up the conspiracy.

It was this collective decision by members of the 9/11 Truth Movement to abandon the original theory and support the more complicated and sinister one that effectively ended the chances of their conspiracy theory ever going mainstream. These new ideas weren’t just less plausible than the originals, but they also lacked the support of any fact-based evidence. Instead, truthers attempted to substantiate their radical assertions with anecdotal evidence and amateur analysis of blurry 9/11 footage. Most rational individuals quickly recognized the absurdity and baseless nature of these new claims, compelling them to dismiss the entire Truth Movement. This has also been reflected in the media’s depiction of truthers over the past several years. In an article titled Why the 9-11 Conspiracy Theories Won’t go Away, Lev Grossman of TIME Magazine states, “[9-11 truthers] live in a very different world from the rest of us” (Grossman).

In essence, the choice by most truthers to fully adopt the radical and unlikely theories they now hold today has stained the entire movement and deterred political moderates from even considering its validity. Had they chosen to maintain focus on the more plausible option, they would have retained an ability to appeal to a broader group of individuals. Insinuating that the government coldly plotted to murder thousands of Americans is much different from claiming that they may have turned a blind eye. And it’s certainly much harder to sell to mainstream America. If Bush and Cheney did get away with passively allowing thousands of Americans to perish, then they actually have the 9/11 truthers to thank for delegitimizing a movement that may have otherwise exposed them.

 Work Cited Altheide, David. (2009). Terror post 9-11 and the media . Retrieved from https://carmen.osu.edu/d2l/lms/content/viewer/main_frame.d2l?ou=9821848&tId=3844078

Grossman , Lev . (2006, September 3). Why the 9/11 conspiracy theories won't go away. TIME Magazine , Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1531304,00.html

Komarow, Steven. (2004, April 18). Norad had drills of jets as weapons. USA Today , Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-norad_x.htm

25 JULY 2011 - ALLISON HIGHT
 Jose Antonio Vargas was sent to the United States at the age of twelve to live with his grandparents in California.  He became a journalist and gained wide renown for his work discussing the relationship between politics and the internet, as well as his coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting, for which he received a Pulitzer Prize in 2008.  He recently revealed that his immigration was illegal and that he lives undocumented.  He now risks deportation.

Alabama’s House Bill 56 would, among other components, require schoolchildren in kindergarten through high school to prove their own legal residency before being allowed education.  If they cannot, they would be forced to flee, or they, too, would risk deportation.

When we’re targeting our Pulitzer Prize winners and our children, something is wrong.

Gaining even more media attention, though, is Georgia’s House Bill 87, entitled the “Georgia Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011.”  Modeled after Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, the bill was signed into law on May 13th and went into effect on July 1st.  As in Arizona, citizens of Georgia are protesting that the new law incites racial profiling by allowing law enforcement to check any person’s documents based on often arbitrary doubt of their legality.  True to the people’s suspicions, Georgia resident Martin Altamirano has been stopped several times in the last month alone to check that he was carrying a valid driver’s license, even though he is a legal citizen.

HB 87 also increases the penalties for harboring undocumented immigrants, transporting them – with no exemption for ambulances or public transportation employees – or possessing a job with false documents.  In some cases, these actions would elicit a felony.  Although a lawsuit was filed and the state taken to court over the bill, only the most outrageous sections of the legislation were nullified, leaving most of the bill intact.

On June 28th, days before HB 87 went into effect, hundreds of undocumented youth and supporters poured into the state to stage a mass protest.  Six were arrested, including three sixteen year olds.  These youth have already faced increased immigration laws, racial profiling, and December’s defeat of the 2009 DREAM Act, which only failed the Senate by a handful of votes.  Now they are forced to deal with one more instance of hatred in a bill that is projected to have dire consequences not only for immigrants themselves, but the state of Georgia as a whole.  As immigrants make up over twelve percent of the state’s population, the economic loss from HB 87 could be well into the billions, and job loss in the hundreds of thousands.  To demonstrate the extreme economic sway immigrants hold over the state, a statewide protest was encouraged on July 1st, the day the bill went into effect, in which participants would neither go to work nor perpetuate the state’s commerce in any way.

To further capture the state’s attention, also on July 1st, Altamirano and his friend Salbador Zamora went on a fast of only water with honey and lemon until HB 87 is repealed.  They say that they are ready to die if need be.  Four days ago, they were joined by Pastor Jeff Jones, who agrees with the men’s cause and is thrilled with the support they are receiving from the community.  Thus far, though, the state shows no sign of relenting.

While the courage of these individuals is more than admirable, it should be needless.  Altamirano and Zamora should not have to die to make Georgia aware that racial profiling and overzealous law enforcement is thoughtless, unnecessary, and simply wrong.  The voices of immigrants, legal or illegal, should not have to be raised in a shout of protest to be heard.  Yet that is the situation in which Georgia, Arizona, and many other states find themselves today.

A Summarization of the Race for the U.S. Senate Seat Being Vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, TX) in 2012

U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, TX) has officially announced that she will be retiring at the end of her term in January, 2013, and therefore will not be seeking re-election. Because she has held that post since 1993, when she participated in a special election for the open seat, and won re-election in 1994, 2000, and 2006, the race for that open Senate seat has been ripped wide open in Texas, and though few people have officially declared their candidacy, much speculation has been made about who could replace her in the 2012 General Election. Because of timing (being that the election is about a year and a half away), most of this speculation is just that, and will turn up to be nothing more. However, one cannot disqualify a candidate that declares this early, as they have the potential to gain the advantage with the extra face time and fundraising. The following will discuss the political scene in Texas, starting with the political shift of the 1960s and going through recent elections, turn to 2012 and the speculations and declarations that have been made thus far, and finally, using that information, will make a prediction for 2012 on which of the four men mentioned will be chosen to fill Kay Bailey Hutchison’s heels. Of course, the more interesting part would be to see one of these men don those heels.

Initially, we must examine the party shift. After voting strongly for Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson in the 1964 Presidential Election, Republicans finally began to present a really challenge to Democrats. In the 1980s, the Republican party began to dominate the political scene, highlighted by the metro areas Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston making the silent declaration of a full shift toward the Republican party. This sparked a trend that leaked into the 1990s, where major Texas cities began to wax Republican, leading the smaller counties in Texas to do the same. Interestingly, by the 2000s, the metro areas of Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and Austin had all shifted back toward the Democratic party, along with most of the border counties, due to the expanding populations of the Hispanic and African-American minorities in these areas. Granted, the remaining 203 counties have stayed Republican, being considered the Republican remnant of Texas, but they are beginning to diminish in value as they have not grown nearly as much as the metros and borders, percentage-wise. Currently, Republicans hold all 29 statewide-elected offices (including both U.S. Senate seats) and all nine seats on the Supreme Court. They have won all but one gubernatorial race since 1986 and every U.S. Senate race since 1990. Lately, however, this dominance has been rumored to be in peril due to two major causes, one of which is demographics. Pundits are calling an imminent increase in Latino voters, who mostly sway Democratic. Though Rick Perry and junior Senator John Cornyn (R, TX) have found limited success with Latinos, however, this could very well be non-issue, as former President George W. Bush and Senator Hutchison both won the Latino vote in their elections. All that future Republicans must do is follow their example. The second rumored cause is the visible and often controversial control of the state exerted by Republicans. This control has been held long enough for the party to have garnered much political baggage. This, however, could also be non-issue for the Republicans, as the most scandalous actions occurred in 2003 and the Republicans are still in control.

The 2008 Presidential Election saw Republican John McCain taking the majority in Texas, with 55% of the vote compared to Democrat Barack Obama’s 44%. McCain was able to carry the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area with 55%, Houston with 54%, and San Antonio with 52%, losing Austin to Obama 58%-42%. Heavily Hispanic border counties voted 65%-35% for Obama, but the rest of the state voted mostly for McCain. Similarly, the 2004 Presidential Election saw incumbent Republican George W. Bush beat out Democrat John Kerry by a margin of 61%-38%. Bush carried Dallas with 62% and Houston with 58% of the vote, while Kerry held on to the border counties 52%-48%. This was almost a mirror of the 2000 Presidential Election, in which Bush beat Gore 59%-38%. Bush was able to carry all of the metro areas and win the state, even though Gore carried the deep south counties and most of the border counties. This goes to show that Texas is a good place in which to be a Republican.

As stated before, incumbent Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is retiring, meaning that the probability for a primary on either side of the fence is very high, definite on the Republican side since it looks like a very easy win. The primaries in Texas, however, may very well affect the General Election because Texas has an open primary system. This means that voters switching parties in Texas is all too common and easy, as you can do so in every primary (but in the event of a runoff, you must stick with the party for which you voted in the primary). It could happen once again that the party with more votes in the primary loses the election. In the 2008 primaries, less Republicans voted in the Republican primary, but McCain won the state in the General Election.

When Kay Bailey Hutchison won her third full term in 2006, things were different. Since 2006, the U.S. Economy has taken a nosedive. However, though this sparked the nationalized nature of the 2008 Presidential Election, the recession has been almost nonexistent in Texas. In 2006, Rick Perry won his re-election with only 39% of the vote, but in 2010, Perry won more convincingly, with 55% of the vote. The Hispanic population has also begun to rise quickly across the state, but the majority of Hispanics still voted for Hutchison in 2006. The fact that 2012 is a Presidential Election year will mean that a higher voter turnout is very likely, especially among the growing Hispanic population, but since Hutchison did very well with the Hispanics, that fact could still very well benefit the Republican party in the very Republican state. The polarization of Texas has stopped many elections from becoming nationalized, and even if Obama improves his image, the Republican spirit has been burned into the Texan image.

As stated before, the primary picture is wide open in Texas on both sides, and because of speculations and declarations, a primary is inevitable for both major parties. The following will describe two likely frontrunners from both parties. Interestingly, two of the frontrunners described below have yet to officially declare.

On the Republican side, the frontrunners are Tom Leppert, the former Dallas mayor, and current Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst. Tom Leppert was mayor of Dallas between June 2007 and February 2011, resigning simply because, according to him, he had accomplished what he set out to accomplish in Dallas. What makes him a frontrunner on the Republican side is the fact that he has declared and raised over $2.6 million as of April 27, 2011. David Dewhurst, however, is considered the frontrunner of the Republican race (and the election) should he officially declare. Though, as of yet, he has only hired an exploration committee, the second-term Lieutenant General has garnered heavy support from the state Republican Party as well as the entire state itself, winning the separate Lieutenant Governor election with 61% of the vote in 2010. Polls have identified him as the clear winner of the Republican Primary and winning the Senate seat by the highest margin in the General Election, no matter who opposes him.

On the Democratic side, two frontrunners have emerged, and neither one was the first to declare his candidacy. The first frontrunner is considered the Marco Rubio of Texas Democrats, even though he has not declared his candidacy as of yet. Julian Castro, the sitting Mayor of San Antonio, has been quite the rising star in Texas politics, and is considered the spark needed to supercharge the Latino vote in Texas. The other frontrunner is former Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez. Not only could he excite the Latinos in Texas before Castro even enters the race, but as a veteran of Project Desert Storm and Project Iraqi Freedom, Sanchez could easily garner support from the rest of Texas.

Based upon past elections, the political stance of the state of Texas, and the steadiness of Republican popularity, one can reasonably assume that Kay Bailey Hutchison will be succeeded by Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst. The truth is, his exploration committee will return with positive results similar to the previously-mentioned polls. His recent victories over his opponents for Lieutenant Governor have given him the patience and the political know-how to not only mount a successful campaign, but to withstand the length of time if he declares before the end of 2011. Unfortunately for the Democrats, this election will leave them in the dust and establish Texas as a Republican force to be reckoned with on a national scale.