Please post your current event for Friday, February 26 below. Remember to include a link to the article you read, provide the topic of your article, and write at least 5-6 sentences giving your opinion on the article. You may also use video clips or podcasts as your current events.
Happy Current Eventing!
It was shocking to me that a prestigious newspaper such as the LA Times would publish a story about something as small as meatball poisoning. The subject caught my eye. Apparently in Spokane Washington, three dogs recently passed away due to food contamination. The "meatballs" in question have been sent to Washington State University for extensive testing. Additionally the country's Humane Society is offering a twenty-five hundred dollar reward for whoever brings the responsible individual(s) to justice. Animal abuse is a serious misdemeanor.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-poisoned-meatballs,0,1628523.story
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/education/22653526/detail.html?hpt=T2
ReplyDeleteA 15-year-old girl killed herself because of an extreme case of bullying. The students responsible for her torment were expelled. They bullied her in person and online because she was dating a senior football player. I think this is a horrible event that could lead to a lot of improvement. Bullying is so rarely mentioned or thought about. Hopefully this tragic and senseless death will lead to more attention from teachers and administrators.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/24/john-lott-climate-change-emails-copenhagen/
ReplyDeleteApparently it isn't that hard to hack into emails of climate researchers. Emails were discovered that had information in which people were talking about the destruction and hiding of data that didn't support global warming.When confronted, one professor and researcher admitted to hiding the lower temperatures and only displaying the high. They are all so convinced in global warming, that even when they are faced with the true evidence they can't deal with it. They just try to make sure no one else finds out.unfortunately, when the emails of this particular professor were discovered, there were already many deleted emails. We don't know how much valuable information was lost because of people wanting others to believe what they want them to believe. All info should be used to help us and our planet, none should be thrown away, wasted, just for political reasons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/technology/companies/25google.html?pagewanted=1&ref=todayspaper
ReplyDeleteExecutives from Google were held responsible for content on their website, and they were convicted of violating Italian privacy laws. This sparks a huge debate about whether or not Google should censor or regulate the content that it provides. The whole point of the website is to find as much information as possible from all parts of the internet, so I don't think that regulating it is a good idea. Many people argue that censoring the website would be a violation of people's basic rights, and I agree. However, if Italy wins in this case, they will have the right to regulate the content that appears on Google.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,587396,00.html
ReplyDeleteA 32 year old man shot two students Tuesday in Littleton, Colorado, the site of the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. It says that this man had been having pretty terrible issues for the past couple of weeks, and has been struggling with issues for many years. He had tried to get help before, but he was denied it because he couldn't afford it. I think that this shooting could easily have been prevented if he had been given the help he had tried to seek. I don't think that anyone should be denied crucial help because they don't have the money to help pay for it at that moment. But I also don't believe that this renders him innocent. I think that he should serve some type of punishment, but a less severe sentence, and he should be checked out. If it turns out he's perfectly okay, then tighten his sentence.
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/19137836/detail.html
ReplyDeleteDaniela thielisch
An 11 year old boy commited suicide from being bullied. I think it's quite shocking actually, that an ELEVEN year old boy, barley into middle school, who probably hasn't even hit puberty, would even THINK about suicide. That's inapropriate on every level. I can't imagine the things that were said to him to cause him to kill himself. In one instance, it said that he accidently bumped into another girl, who would not stop bugging him after that. For a "solution", the teachers made them sit together at lunch for a week. Well, that defiantly didn't make things better.
If the school actually took the initiative to help this poor little boy, then he might have been saved. Instead, the school choose to ignore his mother's repetitive calls about this issue. It was also, in my opinion, partly the mother's fault, for not switching him to another school. It's just very, very sad to see how many bullies there are, and how much no body truly cares, until death comes into play. For some reason (and I quote, from the Saw series), no one takes anything serious, until death comes into play.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/world/europe/26paris.html?ref=world
ReplyDeleteMy article is about France making "mental abuse" into a violent crime, punishable that way by law.
I think this is really important because many people don't really recognize how damaging mental abuse can be. Other people have written current events about people committing suicide from being bullied. Suicide is a violent crime, and people were forced into it because of the mental abuse they were forced to take.
People shouldn't underestimate the damage that mental abuse can do to people- even in the "When Kids Get Life" movie we watched, some of the offenders were driven to violence by the extent to which they were mentally abused.
I'm glad this law is going to be passed for those reasons.
John Stavas
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/25/california.missing.family/index.html?hpt=T2
Police in Southern California are working with Mexican authorities in the search for a missing family and poring over hundreds of hours of border security videotapes, hoping to find some clues. Many people have been saying that they left america and went to mexico. There are hundred thousands of video tapes showing people leaving america to go live in mexico. i believe that they crossed the boarder to live in Mexico. But i think that the family should a least let people know that they are gone, because the police are using a lot of people to find them.
A whole family of four family has disappeared from their California home. Police officials are reviewing border tapes because they think the family has crossed the Mexican border. The family’s SUV was found empty near the Mexican border - processed as a search warrant. It is strange because the car was empty, suggesting this may be a criminal act. The interesting thing about this case is that it is not illegal to just disappear - but in particular cases where ‘it is not their character’, it is worth investigating. Even though the background of the family is spotless, they are being investigated. There are almost 100,000 people who cross the border, so while there are surveillance tapes, it is no easy task to track down a family. I hope the police finds the family soon.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/25/california.missing.family/index.html?hpt=T2
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/preferring-girls-over-boys/?hp
ReplyDeleteSo a lot of people know that in most places in Asia, parents would prefer to have a son rather than a daughter (especially in China, which is what people hear about most often). But this article talks about how that ratio of boys:girls is evening out more, specifically in South Korea. It says that the reason might be that parents don't rely on their children as much for support once they retire (while they assume a son will bring in more revenue), or that they think a daughter will be able to care for them better in their old age.
I thought this was a good thing until I realized this- the article also talks about how girls now seem to be preferred. It would be better if there were more equal results, because that would show more of a positive change; being open to having a son or a daughter, rather than preferring one over the other.
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/02/25/358024/police-charge-couple-for-child.html
ReplyDeleteA couple was charged by Raleigh police with abusing a five-month old girl. The couple beat the little girl (who is the daughter of the woman, Rachel Bond) so badly that her skull was fractured and she suffered internal bleeding. They were also charged with several drug violations. Bond also has two two-year-old children, and all three of the children were residing in a hotel room where they had access to marijuana, cigarette ashes, and other drug related items. Bond was also charged with assault. I think it's pretty horrible that this mother harmed her own daughter in such a vicious way, and it makes me wonder what she maybe has done to her other children as well. She is obviously not fulfilling her duties as a mother, and I hope that even if she doesn't go to jail that her children are sent to live with people who can actually take care of them.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/02/25/afghanistan.offensive/index.html
ReplyDeleteThis article is about the raising of the Afghan flag over the battle-scarred enclave of Marjah on Thursday. This was done to show the Taliban that the U.S. and Afghan troops are not giving up on defeating the Taliban. The flag is a symbol of the presence of the Afghan government in the Taliban stronghold. A couple hundred people including Governor Gulab Mangal attended the ceremony.
I am pleased to see the Afhgan and American troops working together to defeat the Taliban. I think it is awesome that the flag was raised because I’m sure it is a symbol of hope to many Afghans.
-Christine
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/02/25/358024/police-charge-couple-for-child.html
ReplyDeleteThis is a terrible, terrible story. A 5 month old child.... 5 MONTHS OLD..... was beaten by her parents. This is just so ridiculous and sad that I can't even begin to wrap my head around it. Something like this could and most likely will leave scarring, severe injury, and brain damage. It could also leave a deeply disturbed child. This sickens me to the point of regretting eating dinner. How could anyone, especially a parent, do this to anyone, much less a child, much less an infant? How is that even possible? What could this innocent infant have ever done to deserve such a brutal punishment? The emotional scarring will be this worst, i think. When she gets older and realizes that her parents beat her sensless before she could even talk, imagine how that is going to make her feel. One other thing that really bothers me about this article is that they had to include the marijuana part and make it seem like it was drugs that made the parents do this. There is no excuse to doing anything like this. Plenty of people smoke marijuana and use other drugs and don't go about smashing in infants skulls. They are just trying to make it seem that way, in my opinion.
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/education/22653526/detail.html?hpt=T2
ReplyDeleteThis article is about a 15 year old girl, Phoebe Prince, who killed herself after a long string of being bullied by girls at her high school. I think that it's ridiculous that through all the means the girls were using to bully her that no one saw it and got Phoebe help. They were telling her to "Go kill herself" on facebook. I think that with all the technology today, bullying becomes even more dangerous because people will say things over facebook that they wouldnt dare to say to someone's face. I just think that the whole situation is so tragic and horrible and I hope that through this people can learn a lesson and maybe that it can discourage people from bullying and being so nasty to eachother all the time. I hope that steps will be made to prevent something like this from happening again.
http://consumerist.com/2010/02/rhode-island-high-school-fires-all-88-teachers.html
ReplyDeleteThis article is about a school named Central Falls High in Rhode Island who fired all teacher at the school. This school is one of the lowest performing school in the whole state and half of the students are failing every subject. About 65% of the students are Hispanic and their first language is not English. Only 7% of the school is proficient in math and 55% in reading. All the teachers were fired because they wanted to be paid thousands of dollars more when they are already making a good amount($70,000. I found this out while watching CNN last night), and when the principal was trying to make them stay longer in the week, no one could agree. It was proposed that teachers would work for 7 hours a day to help tutor kids who need it and for teachers to meet with students 90 minutes weekly to discuss goals. I think all the teachers being fired is a little bit ridiculous, because i am sure not all of the teachers were demanding more compensation. I like the idea though of making the teachers have longer days to help tutor these students in classes they need help in. When I saw the proficiency scores I was so shocked, because i have never seen ones so low! Hopefully, with the teachers staying to tutor kids it will help them succeed in their classes so they could graduate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/health/policy/04health.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=igw
ReplyDeleteThis is my article & current event for this week because the post hasn't been put up yet. This article is about Obama basically saying: "No more footling around the subject, we want health care reform and we want it now." He is calling for the Republicans to reconcile, because they have been threatening to filibuster. I thought it was really amusing that a news anchor was interviewing the minority leader yesterday about reconciliation. He was saying that reconciliation was "undemocratic" and "doesn't reflect the will of the people" and "bypasses the democratic process." Then the woman said that she had had her aides look up the last times in recent history that reconciliation had happened. It has happened 24 times in recent history, 18 times WHILE THE REPUBLICANS WERE IN POWER, and 6 times while the Democrats were in power. I guess it wasn't so "undemocratic" then....
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/02/als-latest-global-warming-whopper/?test=latestnews
ReplyDeleteMy article and current event here is also for this week, 3/3/10, since it is not posted yet.
My article is about Al gore's fairly recent speech (December) about Global warning issues. He said that scientists have proven that as the temperatures rise, so does the evaporation rates of oceans. This causes more moisture in the air and causes precipitation like rain and snow. The "State of Climate" said, in a response to Gore's speech, that our precipitation rate form 2009 was nearly the same as the average form 1961-1990. They also said that there is no pattern, new or old, that shows a large change in rain and snow according to higher heat. Apparently, Gore's scientists were either nonexistent or he made his information up. It has however been proven that some moisture content in air is going down, not up, with the falling temperatures. I don't understand why people still listen to what Al Gore has to say, this is not the first time he has been a little fuzzy on the true details. In his movie, The Inconvenient Truth, many of his ideas and theories have been trumped by scientific studies. Our information needs to be confirmed through facts, not human ideas.