This is a blog for Mrs. Ballew's Civics and Economics classes.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
1st Period Current Event 9/4
Please post your current event for Friday, September 4 below. Remember to include the link to the article you read, provide the topic of your article, and write at least 5-6 sentences discussing your opinion of the article.
This article is about all the anti-war groups. All of their protests and teach-ins and angry letters to authorities have to switch the focus. They used to be able to protest Bush's antics in Iraq, but now that Obama is withdrawing troops, they have turned to Afghanistan, and the war there. Obama has called the war in Afghanistan still "a war of necessity." My opinion about this is that no war is a necessity. I definitely disagree with Obama there. I believe that every conflict should be talked about before people blindly rush in with tanks (like George Bush did), but I also recognize that sometimes nonlethal violence is necessary (like in the apartheid in South Africa). So now I'm glad that Obama is willing to show forethought and TALK about problems before rushing in with violence. The war that the protesters are protesting is a war that was not started by Obama, it's one that he's obligated to continue because he can't very will withdraw, talk about it, and then rush back in.
This is Christine..... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/31/world/main5277419.shtml?tag=stack
After reading this article about 3 suspects detained after a deadly bombing in Afghanistan, I can't help but be dumbfounded. I just don't understand what message people think that they are getting across by bombing a car in Afghanistan. I mean, there were four innocent people in the car that was bombed. I would be curious to talk to the three suspects and ask them why they committed this violent crime. I mean, do you have to kill people to make a point? Is that really what our world is coming to?
I read this article about Jaycee Dugard who was recently freed from her abductor after 18 years of being held captive. The article talks about how it's very hard for people who have been abused to let go and to move on and live a normal life. I don't find that surprising at all. I can not imagine being kept from my family and my friends for 18 years and then going back to my regular life. I found it horrible also that this woman had two kids with her abductor and i can not imagine how hard it will be for her to raise them. From reading quotes from her family members in the article it sounds as though this case is very different then many because the woman who was abducted actually admits to bonding with her abductor and accepting the abuse as her normal, daily life. The doctors in the article suggest that the reason she bonded with the abductor is because she was abducted at a very young age and that she simply did not have something to compare her new life to. They also suggest that many abductors and sexual abusers will try to make the victim trust them by telling them everything will be okay and that they don't want to hurt them. I find this very sick but I do understand how an 11 year old girl would believe this. I find that sexual abusers, child molesters, and kidnappers are some of the sickest people in the world.
This article is about a man who lost his job because of the recession. As an artist he chose to take on a challenge that would show just how much the hurt economy was hurting its citizens. He drove his yellow van across states asking people to write their stories from the recession all over it and on a banner. It was very interesting to see that there were comments from both sides of the spectrum. People wrote about losing jobs, homes, cars, and lots of money, but some people also wrote about the positive side of the recession. I love how people looked for the silver lining and used it to their advantage. People said that their communities were becoming stronger and depending on each other and some people were determined to stay focused and holdout for the "storm" to pass. I really think that the van driver, Aaron Heideman took a step in trying to make a difference.
I read an article about the cost of having developing nations use renewable energy sources over the next ten years. The United Nations has estimated the cost to amount to between $500 billion and $600 billion per year, which is an extraordinary amount. There is still much controversy over whether developed or developing nations are responsible for paying for using cleaner energy resources, and this controversy is one of the issues that must be addressed if we want to reach a global agreement on combating global warming. Personally, I don't think it should be entirely developed countries or entirely developing countries paying for the use of cleaner energy resources. Developing countries should probably pay for part of the programs in their own countries, but wealthier, developed countries should help out as much as possible. There is only one Earth, so we have to take care of it as best as we can regardless of how expensive it may be. However, I do think that perhaps we should find a less costly way to introduce renewable resources into developing countries.
This article is about how many colleges have reported swine flu cases. in fact 55% of 165 institutes have reported as many as 1,640 cases, but this is out of more than 2 million students. It also talks about how many people probably won't receive the seasonal flu shot because of the swine flu. I personally think this is ridiculous. It's bad enough to get the flu once a year, don't take chances possibly getting it once or twice. I also think that colleges reporting cases of the swine flu is normal. Like the article says, it's a new form of the flu, so people aren't immune to it. They should give the sick students some time off, put them in quarantine if needed. There will probably be a spike in cases, but at the same time there will be a spike in immunity. As long as everyone recovers from it, and no one dies, it's nothing more than a small obstacle.
My article is also about the swine flu, except unfortunately, it's much more serious in Southeast Asia than it has been here. This is an article from The Bangkok Post, Thailand. In Southeast Asia, the H1N1 flu virus has been spreading at an alarming rate. The article lists a lot of data, and some of the statistics I found most surprising are as follows: The swine flu has traveled in six weeks what an average flu can travel in six months! And, 40% of the fatalties have been in healthy, young adults. I also read up on some other articles on this site because I was curious as to how the flu is doing from Thailand's perspective. Thailand is very poor in some parts, but also has an all-around advanced medical system in place. I thought that maybe they had come up with something that could be of interest to other scientists. What I found was that they are, in fact, trying to speed up the manufacturing of vaccines for H1N1 - the bad news is, there's been a recent report of a mutation of the virus. Witit Artavatkun, the director of the Government Pharmaceutical Organization, says, "We did not see any significant genetic changes in the position that controls virulence of the seed virus". We can only hope he's right. :)
I posted mine already but now it's gone! I put it up on Tuesday and checked to make sure it had posted succesfully and it had, and now I can't find it! Did you see it? (I didn't save a copy or anything.) -Anya
I think this current event is a very telling portrait of what happens in a society when religious and secular forces are both powerful. The editor of a Catholic newspaper in Italy was recently forced to resign because of a sex scandal which implied he was gay, largely perpetrated by the editor of a paper allied to the Prime Minister of that country.
We can see that government forces conflict, often in brutal and unfair ways. There is no proof as to whether or not this man was actually involved in such a scandal, but either way it seems the opposing newspaper pried into his life unfairly and unnessecarily to exacerbate the conflict between church and state.
There was an eleven year old girl who was kidnapped and held captive for 18 years before Jaycee Dugard was found last week. She had two of her kidnapper's kids. I was so disgusted and amazed that this could happen to a young girl of eleven. She was held captive for 18 years in a tent in her kidnapper's backyard in a tent. I coud never imagine myself in her shoes.
Ice ages occur every so often, but we are on the path to preventing the next one. This is because of the effects of global warming. I find it interesting that the articles was talking about the recent studies about global warming and the next ice age as a good thing. I do think that preventing it from happening is positive, however, who knows what negative effects could result from it? The warming of our planet could cause disasters, but I guess it's good that it's fending off the ice age. I'm split on this one. I just don't want these new findings to be an excuse for people to continue destroying our planet.
This story is about a man, Craig Taylor, who just recently admitted to murdering a woman. He let a man named Gregory Taylor serve in his place for 16 years before he came forward and told the truth. The past 6 years, Craig was in a correctional institution on a habitual felon conviction.
These stories make me feel so sad for the person who had to be in jail for all that time. I would most likely go crazy if I were in jail, guilty or not. Sometimes I wonder if they ever just accept that they are going to be in jail for the rest of their lives. How could someone be paid back in any way 16 years of their lives that were missed because of someone elses mistake? Another thing I wonder about is how someone could lie for 16 years, especially if it was making someone else suffer for something you did? I would imagine they had little or no concience. Also, if you are basically already in jail, why make someone else be in jail too?
This article made me think about how important alliances with foreign countries are. Representatives from our country were immediately prepared to form a partnership with Rwanda as soon as they visited the nation and were impressed by its government and leader, President Kagame. I agree with the alliance we have formed with Rwanda because President Kagme did manage to turn Rwanda around and recover from the massive genocide that occured fifteen years ago. I hope that America's partnership with Rwanda grows and that maybe we can help them continue to recover from that devestating genocide.
This article is about a girl who was texting while driving. She drove into a oncoming line of traffic and killed her two friend who were in the car. I feel that a situation like that could have not happened if there was a law against it in the first place. Maybe if she had been better informed she would have known how stupid it was to do something like that. Most of the time when you drive down the road and a car is swerving around it someone on the phone or texting. A law that state that you can't drive while using electronics would not only be safe for you but the people around you.
after reading this article, i had a few mixed feelings. i was very relieved that our government is on top of things enough that they can find the illegal aliens and the immigrant criminals, but at the same time i was a bit uneasy about the fact that the illegal people got in and that the criminal immigrants got into the united states in the first place. i also felt bad for the people that live in Juarez, Mexico. we sent all of our illegal criminals to that spot, increasing all of the crime in the area and that putting the citizens there in danger, reading this article made me feel relieved that I dont live anywhere like that where I can be in that kind of danger. I really hope that the killing and crime will somehow come to an end soon before more lives are lost.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/health/03chen.html?ref=health "Doctor and Patient - When Patient Handoffs Go Terribly Wrong"
This article is, on the surface, about handing off hospital patients and the miscommunications that can happen in that process, but I think deeper it's more about how our society is all about money and only doing what you have to do to get your paycheck. If it's break time for a doctor doing critical work on a patient, like the doctor in this story working on a key facial nerve on a little boy, and the doctor just calls in a colleague and says something like, "It's almost out, I have to go," the actual meaning of what he said and what the next doctor is even supposed to do is completely lost. In this case, the consequence was the boy not being able to smile on one side of his face, but in others it could be worse, like a second doctor not knowing about a fatal allergy to some sort of medicine, or family history, as mentioned in the article. I think if there was less of a rush for money and extra time in the medical industry, things like this would happen less often because of better organization and communication, and actual care for the patients.
I think that the USA is slightly receeding. Although, the other side of me says it's recovering very, very slowly. I don't have enough proof or knowledge on the subject, however, to have a firm opinion about the topic. What I do know about it, though, I say it's more receeding then recovering. My mom was doing a search for work on this specific website that specializes on jobs in her area of knowledge. It used to show up hundreds (maybe 500-600) job results. Now, though, it only shows 10 at the max.
Miranda H. http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/03/blood.tears.mystery/index.html ------ just realized my first post didn't work. Sorry. Anyways, this week the most interesting article I read in the news was about a teenager in Tennessee. The boy got out of the shower one day in day to find "tears" of blood coming from his eyes. He figured this meant he was about to die. His mom rushed him to the emergency room, but by the time they were seen the bleeding had stopped. Nothing happened again until a few days later when the boy, Calvino Inman, went camping.There was another rush to the ER and the doctors got to see what was happening to Calvino, something they had never witnessed before in any other patient. The condition's official name is haemolacria; but it is quite rare, and typically found only in people who have recently experienced extreme trauma or a serious head injury. There are mulitple tests ongoing. I for one, hope that a cure can be found. Because something like that will really put you out with a freak label in high school. Also crying blood seems rather disgusting...
its interesting that people need to start tagging great white sharks. the sharks dont seem to be afraid of people because they are getting very close to the shore line. i think that they are tagging they sharks because they need to know where they are because great whites are slowly dying and we need to keep track of them. -john
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/29/at-antiwar/
ReplyDeleteThis is Maya--
This article is about all the anti-war groups. All of their protests and teach-ins and angry letters to authorities have to switch the focus. They used to be able to protest Bush's antics in Iraq, but now that Obama is withdrawing troops, they have turned to Afghanistan, and the war there. Obama has called the war in Afghanistan still "a war of necessity."
My opinion about this is that no war is a necessity. I definitely disagree with Obama there.
I believe that every conflict should be talked about before people blindly rush in with tanks (like George Bush did), but I also recognize that sometimes nonlethal violence is necessary (like in the apartheid in South Africa).
So now I'm glad that Obama is willing to show forethought and TALK about problems before rushing in with violence. The war that the protesters are protesting is a war that was not started by Obama, it's one that he's obligated to continue because he can't very will withdraw, talk about it, and then rush back in.
just testing out my google account...
ReplyDeleteThis is Christine.....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/31/world/main5277419.shtml?tag=stack
After reading this article about 3 suspects detained after a deadly bombing in Afghanistan, I can't help but be dumbfounded. I just don't understand what message people think that they are getting across by bombing a car in Afghanistan.
I mean, there were four innocent people in the car that was bombed. I would be curious to talk to the three suspects and ask them why they committed this violent crime. I mean, do you have to kill people to make a point? Is that really what our world is coming to?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/health/01psych.html?_r=1&ref=us
ReplyDeleteI read this article about Jaycee Dugard who was recently freed from her abductor after 18 years of being held captive. The article talks about how it's very hard for people who have been abused to let go and to move on and live a normal life. I don't find that surprising at all. I can not imagine being kept from my family and my friends for 18 years and then going back to my regular life. I found it horrible also that this woman had two kids with her abductor and i can not imagine how hard it will be for her to raise them.
From reading quotes from her family members in the article it sounds as though this case is very different then many because the woman who was abducted actually admits to bonding with her abductor and accepting the abuse as her normal, daily life. The doctors in the article suggest that the reason she bonded with the abductor is because she was abducted at a very young age and that she simply did not have something to compare her new life to.
They also suggest that many abductors and sexual abusers will try to make the victim trust them by telling them everything will be okay and that they don't want to hurt them. I find this very sick but I do understand how an 11 year old girl would believe this. I find that sexual abusers, child molesters, and kidnappers are some of the sickest people in the world.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,544960,00.html
ReplyDeleteMichelle:
This article is about a man who lost his job because of the recession. As an artist he chose to take on a challenge that would show just how much the hurt economy was hurting its citizens. He drove his yellow van across states asking people to write their stories from the recession all over it and on a banner.
It was very interesting to see that there were comments from both sides of the spectrum. People wrote about losing jobs, homes, cars, and lots of money, but some people also wrote about the positive side of the recession. I love how people looked for the silver lining and used it to their advantage. People said that their communities were becoming stronger and depending on each other and some people were determined to stay focused and holdout for the "storm" to pass. I really think that the van driver, Aaron Heideman took a step in trying to make a difference.
http://www.newsobserver.com/nation_world/story/1671586.html
ReplyDeleteI read an article about the cost of having developing nations use renewable energy sources over the next ten years. The United Nations has estimated the cost to amount to between $500 billion and $600 billion per year, which is an extraordinary amount. There is still much controversy over whether developed or developing nations are responsible for paying for using cleaner energy resources, and this controversy is one of the issues that must be addressed if we want to reach a global agreement on combating global warming. Personally, I don't think it should be entirely developed countries or entirely developing countries paying for the use of cleaner energy resources. Developing countries should probably pay for part of the programs in their own countries, but wealthier, developed countries should help out as much as possible. There is only one Earth, so we have to take care of it as best as we can regardless of how expensive it may be. However, I do think that perhaps we should find a less costly way to introduce renewable resources into developing countries.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/02/AR2009090202818.html?hpid%3Dtopnews
ReplyDeleteThis article is about how many colleges have reported swine flu cases. in fact 55% of 165 institutes have reported as many as 1,640 cases, but this is out of more than 2 million students. It also talks about how many people probably won't receive the seasonal flu shot because of the swine flu. I personally think this is ridiculous. It's bad enough to get the flu once a year, don't take chances possibly getting it once or twice. I also think that colleges reporting cases of the swine flu is normal. Like the article says, it's a new form of the flu, so people aren't immune to it. They should give the sick students some time off, put them in quarantine if needed. There will probably be a spike in cases, but at the same time there will be a spike in immunity. As long as everyone recovers from it, and no one dies, it's nothing more than a small obstacle.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/health/152956/h1n1-spreading-at-unbelievable-rate
ReplyDeleteMy article is also about the swine flu, except unfortunately, it's much more serious in Southeast Asia than it has been here. This is an article from The Bangkok Post, Thailand. In Southeast Asia, the H1N1 flu virus has been spreading at an alarming rate. The article lists a lot of data, and some of the statistics I found most surprising are as follows: The swine flu has traveled in six weeks what an average flu can travel in six months! And, 40% of the fatalties have been in healthy, young adults.
I also read up on some other articles on this site because I was curious as to how the flu is doing from Thailand's perspective. Thailand is very poor in some parts, but also has an all-around advanced medical system in place. I thought that maybe they had come up with something that could be of interest to other scientists. What I found was that they are, in fact, trying to speed up the manufacturing of vaccines for H1N1 - the bad news is, there's been a recent report of a mutation of the virus. Witit Artavatkun, the director of the Government Pharmaceutical Organization, says, "We did not see any significant genetic changes in the position that controls virulence of the seed virus". We can only hope he's right. :)
I posted mine already but now it's gone! I put it up on Tuesday and checked to make sure it had posted succesfully and it had, and now I can't find it! Did you see it? (I didn't save a copy or anything.)
ReplyDelete-Anya
(I had to redo my current event completely because it didn't post last time.)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/world/europe/04italy.html?_r=1&hp
I think this current event is a very telling portrait of what happens in a society when religious and secular forces are both powerful. The editor of a Catholic newspaper in Italy was recently forced to resign because of a sex scandal which implied he was gay, largely perpetrated by the editor of a paper allied to the Prime Minister of that country.
We can see that government forces conflict, often in brutal and unfair ways. There is no proof as to whether or not this man was actually involved in such a scandal, but either way it seems the opposing newspaper pried into his life unfairly and unnessecarily to exacerbate the conflict between church and state.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/03/california.missing.girl/index.html
ReplyDeleteThere was an eleven year old girl who was kidnapped and held captive for 18 years before Jaycee Dugard was found last week. She had two of her kidnapper's kids. I was so disgusted and amazed that this could happen to a young girl of eleven. She was held captive for 18 years in a tent in her kidnapper's backyard in a tent. I coud never imagine myself in her shoes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/science/earth/04arctic.html?ref=us
ReplyDeleteIce ages occur every so often, but we are on the path to preventing the next one. This is because of the effects of global warming. I find it interesting that the articles was talking about the recent studies about global warming and the next ice age as a good thing. I do think that preventing it from happening is positive, however, who knows what negative effects could result from it? The warming of our planet could cause disasters, but I guess it's good that it's fending off the ice age. I'm split on this one. I just don't want these new findings to be an excuse for people to continue destroying our planet.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/story/1673509.html
ReplyDeleteThis story is about a man, Craig Taylor, who just recently admitted to murdering a woman. He let a man named Gregory Taylor serve in his place for 16 years before he came forward and told the truth. The past 6 years, Craig was in a correctional institution on a habitual felon conviction.
These stories make me feel so sad for the person who had to be in jail for all that time. I would most likely go crazy if I were in jail, guilty or not. Sometimes I wonder if they ever just accept that they are going to be in jail for the rest of their lives. How could someone be paid back in any way 16 years of their lives that were missed because of someone elses mistake? Another thing I wonder about is how someone could lie for 16 years, especially if it was making someone else suffer for something you did? I would imagine they had little or no concience. Also, if you are basically already in jail, why make someone else be in jail too?
Meredith Kramer
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-09-02-voa54.cfm
ReplyDeleteThis article made me think about how important alliances with foreign countries are. Representatives from our country were immediately prepared to form a partnership with Rwanda as soon as they visited the nation and were impressed by its government and leader, President Kagame. I agree with the alliance we have formed with Rwanda because President Kagme did manage to turn Rwanda around and recover from the massive genocide that occured fifteen years ago. I hope that America's partnership with Rwanda grows and that maybe we can help them continue to recover from that devestating genocide.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/technology/01distracted.html?ref=europe
ReplyDeleteThis article is about a girl who was texting while driving. She drove into a oncoming line of traffic and killed her two friend who were in the car. I feel that a situation like that could have not happened if there was a law against it in the first place. Maybe if she had been better informed she would have known how stupid it was to do something like that. Most of the time when you drive down the road and a car is swerving around it someone on the phone or texting. A law that state that you can't drive while using electronics would not only be safe for you but the people around you.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/09/02/mexico.juarez.deportations/
ReplyDeleteafter reading this article, i had a few mixed feelings. i was very relieved that our government is on top of things enough that they can find the illegal aliens and the immigrant criminals, but at the same time i was a bit uneasy about the fact that the illegal people got in and that the criminal immigrants got into the united states in the first place. i also felt bad for the people that live in Juarez, Mexico. we sent all of our illegal criminals to that spot, increasing all of the crime in the area and that putting the citizens there in danger, reading this article made me feel relieved that I dont live anywhere like that where I can be in that kind of danger. I really hope that the killing and crime will somehow come to an end soon before more lives are lost.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/health/03chen.html?ref=health
ReplyDelete"Doctor and Patient - When Patient Handoffs Go Terribly Wrong"
This article is, on the surface, about handing off hospital patients and the miscommunications that can happen in that process, but I think deeper it's more about how our society is all about money and only doing what you have to do to get your paycheck. If it's break time for a doctor doing critical work on a patient, like the doctor in this story working on a key facial nerve on a little boy, and the doctor just calls in a colleague and says something like, "It's almost out, I have to go," the actual meaning of what he said and what the next doctor is even supposed to do is completely lost. In this case, the consequence was the boy not being able to smile on one side of his face, but in others it could be worse, like a second doctor not knowing about a fatal allergy to some sort of medicine, or family history, as mentioned in the article. I think if there was less of a rush for money and extra time in the medical industry, things like this would happen less often because of better organization and communication, and actual care for the patients.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iq6OZdT2wGdu5tTP1hVNTbRkLUCA
ReplyDeleteI think that the USA is slightly receeding. Although, the other side of me says it's recovering very, very slowly. I don't have enough proof or knowledge on the subject, however, to have a firm opinion about the topic. What I do know about it, though, I say it's more receeding then recovering. My mom was doing a search for work on this specific website that specializes on jobs in her area of knowledge. It used to show up hundreds (maybe 500-600) job results. Now, though, it only shows 10 at the max.
Miranda H.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/03/blood.tears.mystery/index.html
------ just realized my first post didn't work. Sorry.
Anyways, this week the most interesting article I read in the news was about a teenager in Tennessee. The boy got out of the shower one day in day to find "tears" of blood coming from his eyes. He figured this meant he was about to die. His mom rushed him to the emergency room, but by the time they were seen the bleeding had stopped. Nothing happened again until a few days later when the boy, Calvino Inman, went camping.There was another rush to the ER and the doctors got to see what was happening to Calvino, something they had never witnessed before in any other patient. The condition's official name is haemolacria; but it is quite rare, and typically found only in people who have recently experienced extreme trauma or a serious head injury. There are mulitple tests ongoing.
I for one, hope that a cure can be found. Because something like that will really put you out with a freak label in high school. Also crying blood seems rather disgusting...
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/09/06/massachusetts.sharks/index.html
ReplyDeleteits interesting that people need to start tagging great white sharks. the sharks dont seem to be afraid of people because they are getting very close to the shore line. i think that they are tagging they sharks because they need to know where they are because great whites are slowly dying and we need to keep track of them.
-john