My Question

Should the Obama administration allocate large amounts of money ($150 billion) in this time of economic crisis to alternative energy sources?

The reason I chose this question is that my dad gives grants to low income people to improve their houses, and in having a converstation with him, he told me that his boss had told him that they need to start looking into what alternative energy sources could help them save on costs in the future.  I figured we could learn a lot from one another on this topic.  I have also been interested in this subject because I have heard both sides of the story and I am wondering if ideas such as those of people like T. Boone Pickens can really help us move into the future on this crisis.  I am also very interested to see if investing in alternative energy really can create as many jobs as President Obama says.  I think that if President Obama’s plan works it could help the economy, environment and national safety, which  makes it a very important and wide-ranging issue.  I just want to know if all of these ideas that sound so great in theory are really a plausible answer to our country’s energy and economic problems.

Legacy print coverage of Obama’s inauguration

In my search to break down the legacy print media’s coverage of President Obama’s inauguration, I decided to look to the Washington Post because of their broad audience and their close proximity to the event. In doing this, I found that the inauguration dominated their front page. There was not a single story that was not related to the inauguration. The first article that I looked at was just a broad overview of quotes and highlights from the speech. There was very little opinion involved so it was a good article for the Post’s broad audience who just wanted to know what happened. The quotes were all basically of the same type, touching on the dynamic between the challeges ahead and the hope of change that is coming. There were many quotes used in this article so the author used Obama’s own words to tell the story, which is a good way to cover something in an unbiased way. The next article I read was a more opinion based article in which the author speaks about what historians are saying about Obama’s chances to make history with his presidency. The sub-headline of the article was “Historians say he could redefine presidency”. This headline gives s a basic overview of what the article is about. This article cites many professors and historians that reiderate the headline. All of the sources pretty much back up the headline. There are no sources that claim the opposite. The rest of the coverage from the Washintgton Post covered a wide variety of angles. There is an interactive map where you can track Obama’s every movement live. There is a live webcast too. Other articles speak about Obama as an orator and compare him to President Lincoln. The post also works the local angle by talking about the impact of the inauguration on Washington D.C. There is an article about the amount of people that are there and also one about the festive atmosphere. At the bottom of the front page there is a special report about the Bush Cheney legacy, which gives a different angle on the event by focusing on the outgoing administration. Again, this is good coverage for a broad audience. Finally, there are dozens of blogs that range from all sorts reactions from a wide variety of different perspectives to a blog dedicated only to the “flubs” of the speech.