Social Media and Bullying

I was searching around on CNN.com for something to right about for our last blog. I came across a title that read ‘Social Media Brings Bullying to Light’. I thought well that is fitting being that is what we have been talking about. I clicked on the link and was sick to my stomach about what I saw. I am some what of a wuss when it comes to seeing anything violent or sad AT ALL. It doesn’t matter to what degree or to whom I just can barely stand to keep my eyes on the computer screen long enough to watch what happens. Anyways, back to the video. It is a video taken with group of teens that were walking home from school one autumn day in September in Newark, Ohio. The girl in the pink hoodie with blue and blonde hair is Alexis Xanders. She was walking with her boyfriend, which they both consider themselves Emo, when they were approached by 6 to 10 other classmates. In the video you can see Alexis and her boyfriend trying to just walk away and ignore the other kids but they are continuing to harass and tug at her backpack all because Alexis made the comment that she didn’t like their favorite band Insane Clown Posse. In the background you can hear other kids saying “hit her” and “punch her”. I was cringing waiting for the moment when you saw the punch. It ended up not being as drastic as I thought but you can still clearly see Alexis get hit.

I can’t believe that such behavior actually exists. In my high school I didn’t see much bullying going on but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t I guess? The other thing that blows my mind is the fact that the bullying crowd video tapped such an action and thought that it was cool enough to post to MySpace. What on earth makes punching someone else in the face because they don’t like the same band as you cool?

The video tape ended up working in Alexis’s favor because the girl that actually recorded it sent to to her on MySpace. Alexis, wanting something to be done about it posted the video to YouTube and then to CNN’s iReport. A local news reporter says the video and alerted the local police. The 15-year-old suspect, whose name cannot be released because she is a minor was charged as a juvenile with individual counts of assault, menacing and unlawful restraint. The Licking County Prosecutor Ken Oswalt said he also confirmed they are looking into charging other people from the video for inciting the fight.

With out this video being posted to YouTube, MySpace, and CNN iReport Alexis would probably have never had the chance to confront the people that hit and bullied her that day. She is a minority of teens that are bullied and actually report what is being done to them. A lot of them don’t have the evidence as Alexis did and she only had that video because the bully’s thought that it was cool and wanted to post to show all their friends. Social Media is now being used for more reasons and purposes than a lot of us first think.

Teens who are 'Sexting'

With this week talking about cell phones I saw an article about an ‘epidemic’ that is happening among teenagers and their cell phones…SEXTING. What exactly is sexting you may ask? It is sharing sexually explicit videos, photos, and chat by cell phone or online. It is becoming a more common thing for the teen generation and even younger to be doing even though it is starting to come with some harsh penalties.

A 16-year old teen boy named Sammy, from the San Francisco Bay Area said he had shared nude pictures of himself with his girlfriends and nude pictures of other people he sent on after getting them from another friend. He said he didn’t realize that other young people from Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania had faced felony charges for doing the same thing.
Research shows that teen’s brains aren’t quite mature enough to make good decisions consistently. They don’t think that this could be potentially harmful for them to participate in and possibly even affect their future. It could get into the wrong hands like potential employees or college admissions office. We have talked about this previously in class that once something is put out on the internet it NEVER goes away or that no matter what you have your Facebook privacy setting on someone will be able to see it and it could harm you down the road.

However, sexting doesn't stop with teenagers. Young adults are even more likely to have sexted; one-third of them said they had been involved in sexting, compared with about one-quarter of teenagers.

In an article from CBSnews.com I read first hand just how serious the law is taking on the subject of ‘sexting’. At the beginning of this year three teenage girls in a western Pennsylvania school had allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves to three male classmates that are charged with child pornography. The problem here is because the girls are 14 and 15 years old where the boys are 17 years old. When I read that I could not believe what I was reading. When I was that age I was worried about what to wear to school and boys still had cooties. Times are changing and it has only been 8 years since I was that age. What the heck is to come for us in the next 8 years? Another example is an eighth grader from Texas spent the night in a juvenile detention center after his football coach found a picture of a nude female on his cell phone.

I think parents these days need to carefully monitor what their teens are doing. Especially since kids these days are getting cell phones at such an early age. My younger sister is 13 years old and a seventh grader and she still doesn’t have a cell phone. Thank God! I was a senior in high school when I got a cell phone and I survived. Your teen might kick, scream, and yell at you and say you are invading their privacy but like I stated above and research shows that teens don’t always use the best of their judgment.

Heros of 2009

It is the time of year that everyone starts reflecting on their family and friends more than ever and what they are thankful for. A lot of us our answer is our the people in our lives and some have had such a rough year they think for awhile and say it’s hard to find something to be thankful for. I would say that they still have plenty to be thankful for if nothing else for life. I was watching Oprah the other day and she has teamed up with People magazine and has recognized the heroes of 2009. Compared to what some of them have been through I have nothing to complain about.

Oprah definitely started the show out with probably the most miraculous thing that happened this year and that was the plane that crashed on the Hudson River or also known as ‘The Miracle on the Hudson’. It truly was that too because for an airbus that had lost both of its engines to crash in a river and not only have everyone survive the initial crash but also make it out of the freezing cold water as well. She had only a fraction of the first responders on stage including the ferry boat driver, firefighters, police men and women; she also had Capt. Sully who is the one that safely landed the plane on the Hudson along with the divers that were in the water helping to get each passenger to safety. I think the most emotional thing that was on the show was having a passenger reunited with the diver that had pulled her out of the water. She never got to meet or thank him and was very emotional when she finally did. There were also some of the plane crash survivors in the audience and for a few of them it was their first time being on an airplane since the crash. Gosh, how nerve racking that would have been?

Another very touching story was about two high school cheerleaders both named Sara. They were touched so much by volunteering during the Special Olympics that they wanted to incorporate the special needs kids they met into their everyday lives. ‘The Sara’s’ as people call them, are cheerleaders and cheer for the Spartans. They started a cheer program for the young girls that have special needs or learning disabilities and they are called the Sparkles. They have matching uniforms with the Spartans and attend their daily cheer practices. They even get to go to cheer competitions and stand right there alongside the Spartans when they cheer on the football team. They had a few of the parents of the Sparkle cheerleaders and they stood up and wanted to thank the Sara’s for changing their daughter’s lives for the better. They said they are doing so much better in school and now have more confidence than ever.

Another huge part of her show recognizing heroes was the part where she recognized our American Soldiers. She had a video feed from a base in North Carolina where a group of soldiers was just coming home from Iraq. Some soldiers were meeting their baby sons and daughters for the first time. I can’t imagine not being around your family when you have a newborn and missing out on everything they do and learn. Like their first words, and first steps, and even their first teeth. I can guarantee you that those families are probably having the best Thanksgiving yet. Wynona Judd was there to sing and welcome the troop’s home and to celebrate what a true Thanksgiving was.

In my defense…my Facebook status update…?

Who cares about your Facebook status updates?!?!

(Top 25 Facebook status updates…Funny)

I don’t know about you guys but I have some friends on my Facebook account that will constantly tell you what they are doing, eating, watching on TV, or listening to on their IPods…like who cares that much!?! Maybe they have nobody else to talk to and tell them what they are doing or maybe they actually think that people care that they just ate an entire pizza by themselves and are now going to sit down and watch Transformers 2! I barely update my status each week let alone each action I make. I just don’t care that much about what my fellow Facebookers had for dinner that I won’t bother them with the fact that I just ate some chicken tortilla soup and am now catching up on the latest Modern Family episode.

However, in 19-year old Rodney Bradford’s case his status update wondering where his IHOP food was saved him from serving some hard time in jail. It was on the night of October 17 at 11:49 am that he updated his Facebook status asking where his pancakes where that was his lifesaver. The next day he was arrested as a suspect in a robbery at the Farragut House in Brooklyn, where he lives that the status became his alibi. He told his lawyer about the entry he had made in his Facebook account that took place during the suspected robbery that he was accused of committing. The district attorney then subpoenaed Facebook to verify that the status was written from a computer at Mr. Bradford’s address where he lives. When that was confirmed, the charges were dropped.

I am not so sure about this case because who is to say that Rodney Bradford is the one that wrote the status update. He could have easily thought ahead (although unlikely) and had someone post the status update for him. I mean whenever I use my boyfriends computer I never click on ‘log out’ I just close the browser and then later on he will get on his computer to log in to his Facebook account and it will automatically bring up my account. It will sometimes even be hours before he will go on after I have gone on and it still lets you into my account. He always jokes that he is going to put something dumb as my status update. When I saw Mr. Bradford’s story in the newspaper I thought I cannot believe that he is getting off the hook because of Facebook. Facebook really is taking over if it’s counting as an alibi in the court system. This is the first case that a Facebook status has been used to get someone out of trouble. It was a simple robbery charge but what is next? Could Facebook be used in a lot of future trials and cases where something more serious has happened? How can they prove that it was the actual owner of the account and not just some hacker…or a boyfriend that came along and put something because I never officially clicked ‘log-out’. It’s actually kind of scary to think of I think. When I signed up for my Facebook account in September back in 2005 I never thought that I was getting myself into something that would grow this popular.

Do you think that Facebook should be used as alibis in the courts? Is it reliable?

Lists For My Lists

I get in this funk of a mood about this same time every year. I have come to conclude that it is because of all the chaos and stress and the holidays and school and finals week…wow I guess maybe there is a legitimate reason I am in this downer of a mood. I feel like I am a pretty organized person and even have a day planner to keep my days on track and make sure that everything that needs to get done during the week or that day does! From homework, events, projects, visitors, birthdays, and work it all goes in the little calendar of mine and some days I wonder how I ever survived without one.

Then it comes to finals week for school and I want to curl up and hide in a hole until it’s all over with. I have more finals and projects than ever before this semester and I always thought that my last year in college would be a breeze…HA!…where’d I ever get that from? I thought I had good time management and then all of a sudden everything is due on one day and 24 hours in a day just doesn’t seem long enough anymore. Some days I have lists for my lists of school work to be completed and the best order to complete them.

Then comes the Holidays and figuring out family plans, who you are going to see, where you’re going to spend them, presents you need to buy, food that needs to be cooked, and decorations that need to be hung. And to me it feels like I just took the Christmas tree down last week. I always heard my parents say that as you get older the years seem to fly by and I thought surely that doesn’t really happen…does it? Ohhhh it does!

So I was searching around on MSN one day and found on the side bar that it had an article titled ’31 Sneaky Mood Boosters’ and man did I click on that link as fast as my mouse would move. I thought I would try anything at this point to get back in my cheery mood and not be so stressed out. What I found was that by eating different kinds of food would actually boost your mood. I was a little skeptical at first but the more I read and thought about it, it makes complete sense. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC recently did a test with 156 subjects comparing Zoloft to exercising 3 times a week for 45 minutes. They found that the exercise worked just as well as the drug in treating depression and better than the drug in keeping it from returning. The article also states that regular moderate workouts and a healthy diet also reduce stress, anxiety, and fatigue—three underlying causes of moodiness. One of the tips on there that hit me hard was to cut back on caffeine as it actually makes your body more fatigued. I drink A LOT of coffee every morning as it is the only thing that keeps me going…or so I thought.

A few of the 31 tips included:
· Eating breakfast
· Snacking regularly
· Get moving
· Take vitamins and minerals
· Drink Up – water that is!
· Set your workouts to music

I do some of these things in my daily life already but I am going to try to pick a few new ones, stick with them, and maybe my funky mood will go away.

Ft. Hood Tragedy

Tuesdays and Thursdays for me are generally pretty quiet and I am at home all day since I don’t have class and I kind of hole myself up and work on school work. However, I always make time to watch the Ellen DeGeneres show as I find her hilarious and think the show is very entertaining. It was abruptly cut into though and a breaking news update came in from the news station. It was about the shooting on the base of Ft. Hood in Texas. Now I had been home all afternoon with the TV on, watched the local news in the morning, then Good Morning America and even surfed the web throughout the day and hadn’t heard anything about this and it happened Thursday. It wasn’t even the first broadcast of the news it was an update about the number of deaths and informing the community to stay in their houses. Now normally you can find out news from Facebook almost as if it is a play by play broadcast of it while it’s going on. I have quite a few friends on my Facebook account that are either in the military themselves, are the spouse of someone in the military or have extended family or friends in the military. I am very surprised that I haven’t seen anything on anybody’s status saying something about what was going on. I heard of the Dickinson State girls softball tragedy instantly and even saw people’s status remarking about it that aren’t even living in America. It’s crazy how only some news is picked out of it all and spread like wildfire. I am wondering if some people are just getting burned out on hearing all this bad stuff in the news all the time and are giving up on it. How do you personally pick and choose what news is important enough for you to spread the word about? How does it make it onto your Facebook page?

The gunman who was a soldier opened fire at a soldier-processing center killing 11 people, injuring 31 and then he was finally taken out and killed by the local police. There are also two other people detained that are being considered as suspects. The gunman was identified as Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan who was believed to be in his late 30’s or early 40’s.

Ft. Hood has about 40,000 troops and is home to the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division and elements of the 4th Infantry Division, as well as the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 13th Corps Support Command. It is on a base where some of the troops stationed there are currently deployed and it is all the wives, husbands and families of those gone living there and right now in fear of their lives. There are at least 25,000 people on Ft. Hood on any given day. After reading more about Ft. Hood it sounds like a great place to live and the military community there really looks after one another and wants the best. It is home to the Warrior Combat Stress Reset Program, which is designed to help soldiers overcome combat stress issues. In fact in 2009 they have reported only two suicides which is well below those at other posts. In June, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch who is the forts commander said that he was really trying to ease the kinds of stress that soldiers faced. He pushes his soldiers to only work until 6 p.m. during the week so he can be home with his family for dinner. He also makes it that the only way you can work weekends is by special permission from him. Now that sounds like a good deal because who likes to work nights or weekends?

Halloween On A Budget

Halloween has to be one of my absolute favorite holidays. I love decorating my condo for the holiday, the pumpkin carving, the treats, the smells, the themed parties, costumes, Trick-or-Treaters, Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte’s…just EVERYTHING! All this can add up quickly though and everybody knows about the economic depression going on so there isn’t a lot of money to be spent on things that aren’t necessary. However, all this can be done on a budget and do-it yourself costumes.

Some of this really isn’t out of the ordinary for me though because when I was young mom and dad and we kids would always make our costumes. We have five kids in our family and imagine spending just $20 bucks on a store bought costume for each kid would add up to a quick $100. Plus, store bought costumes were never as creative as we were. In fact, my worst Halloween costume came from one bought at Wal-Mart...Hold your breath for this one…I was Barney!!! Yes that singing purple dinosaur. I think back and when I even look at pictures I ask myself how on earth could my parents let me do that to myself. Good Grief! Anyways, back to the homemade costumes. I was Pocahontas, a vampire, a mummy, a blind ref (haha), a camouflaged hunter one year when it was freezing cold, Goldilocks, a Flapper girl, Cruella DeVille, and many more I am sure I can’t recall. Here is a costume contest that my boyfriend Micah actually entered for his costume of Aladdin. He always has the best costumes but go figure he is an engineering student so he should. He was ‘flying’ the magic carpet but the feet you see aren’t actually his because he is standing on 6’ painters stilts. His friend Caleb was the Genie and he actually shaved his head and glued a fake ponytail on the top of his head to really look the part. He as well was standing on painters stilts. He didn’t make the cut with his but you can see how creative some of the other contestants got.

Halloween parties have to be one of my next favorite events for the holiday. I love to decorate for them and also being able to see everyone else’s costumes is so much fun. Here you can get pointers on how to make very cool, creepy, and inexpensive Halloween decorations for your party. Who doesn’t love a bleeding candle or a coffin as your coffee table or even bats flying out of your fireplace. A place that I found to have some of the best decorations for inexpensive down here in Baton Rouge was the Dollar Tree. Sometimes dollar stores are a hit or a miss with the quality of items you are buying but for $1 each I got some really cool skeleton mugs and fall garland and some other miscellaneous items that will look great all put together. This segment from Good Morning America was very helpful if you want some ideas to make your Halloween party still the best even if the economy is a bust your party doesn’t have to be.

3 Die in Detroit Marathon

This last weekend was the Detroit Free Press/Flagstar Marathon and three runners collapsed and died during the run. I first off do not know how people even survive the first 10 miles let alone a 26.2 mile race. I wonder why you don’t hear of more people collapsing and dying during these things especially when you consider the age of some of these people. In fact the oldest marathon runner just ran a marathon in Toronto on September 25, 2009 and his age you wonder….98 YEARS OLD!!! I really can’t even put my mind around that one. How on earth is that even possible? Most 98 year olds can barely walk or even do much by themselves let alone run a 26.2 mile little jaunt down the road! That’s crazy.

The three runners that collapsed this last weekend in Detroit were the ages of 65, 36 and 26. Daniel Langdon was 36 years old and collapsed between the 11 and 12 mile markers. Rick Brown, 65, collapsed almost in the same spot as Daniel Langdon had went down only 15 minutes after him. What is it about that particular spot? I don’t know but I sure would have been a skeptic and maybe a little superstitious when I ran by there and not only saw one person collapsed and getting medical attention but two people getting medical attention. 26 year old Jon Fenlon collapsed shortly after finishing the 13.1 mile half marathon.

What I am wondering is how could they have passed away so quickly with 6 medical stations and emergency personnel standing by. They got medical attention within seconds but it was still too late. Some wonder if it was the 28 degree weather they started running in the morning and only got up to 41 degrees that morning while most runners where well into completing the race. That’s freezing cold if you ask me to just run miles and miles and miles in.

I think that the hosts of this race will have to work on their publicity for this race for the next year because some may be scared away in the fact that 3 runners passed away the year before. There hadn’t been a death in this race since 1994. They could add to their already existing Facebook groups and make them stronger because they only have 3,068 fans and 19,000 runners, and tweet more about when deadlines are due for registration and other events going on, post YouTube videos of past contestants talking about how the race was. They really need to spread the good word out there about the race. They had 19,000 runners this year and that number could go up by a couple thousand if they really work on their use of social networking. Dedicated runners will travel all over the country to run in different regions of the country and experience all types of weather. You don’t consider Detroit, Michigan has a vacation getaway and having one event bring in thousands already would be great for the city if they could bring in even more. They could add other events leading up to the race and have events for families to partake in as a whole. They really could turn a weekend of just a 26.2 mile race into something more like a family getaway or a relaxing weekend…I guess if you think running is relaxing…and some do that is why they endure this great race.

"drive-through daiquiri" style

Obama visited New Orleans today (Thursday) and it wasn’t all smooth sailing for him. It was the first time he has visited the Gulf Coast since he took office nine months ago. He spoke at the University of New Orleans and was welcomed with a rowdy crowd. He had to fire back at critics who told him he had done little since he has been in the office. He quickly shot back “I am just getting started!”

Obama is in the heat lately for a lot of things and I am sure he knew that he was going to an area that had been hurt by Katrina so badly. There are still roughly 1,500 people in Louisiana living in temporary housing. When I read that number I could not believe that. My boyfriend Micah was living in Baton Rouge when hurricane Katrina hit, it actually hit New Orleans on his birthday August 29th. He told me that it was absolute chaos around the state. He actually drove over to New Orleans to do what he could to help a few days later and what normally takes about 60 minutes to drive took them 5 hours. Now that we are back in Baton Rouge he can’t believe all the people here and the different ethnic groups that are around here. When Katrina first hit they said at the high point there were 90,000 that were living in temporary housing, and a lot of them came to Baton Rouge.

A lot of victims are wondering where their relief is and so who better to blame it on than the president. Obama reminded the people who attended his speech today to think back to what he said about change in his campaign speech. He reminded them that he said “Change is hard…and big change is harder. I wasn’t kidding about it being hard.” However, there have been some good things that have happened for New Orleans since Obama came into office. There have been 76 disputed projects resolved in Louisiana and more than $1.4 billion in aid sent to Louisiana and $160 million to the residents of Mississippi affected by hurricane Katrina and Rita that hit only a month after Katrina. The emergency agency also said that $1 billion from the stimulus program has been targeted for New Orleans. After reading all these good things and the ginormous amounts of money that was sent to these people I am wondering what they possibly could be yelling about. I know that since I wasn’t down here during this horrific time I look at things a bit differently I am sure then they do.

I guess the residents of New Orleans thought that they deserved more than a “drive-through daiquiri” a little pun by Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana because a little thing that his HUGE in Louisiana is drive through daiquiri shops. He was referring to the fact that Obama was only in New Orleans for 4 hours today before he flew off to San Francisco, California for a fundraising event.

Titanic 100th Memorial Voyage

Think way back to when you first saw the movie Titanic? Who did you see it with? How old where you? What did you think of it? I can remember going to the movie theater for my first ‘unofficial’ first date to see Titanic. See I wasn’t allowed to ‘date’ until I was 16 and I think I was somewhere around the age of 11 when Titanic was released in December of 1997. I can remember seeing the movie and thinking how awesome that would have been to be a passenger on the cruise ship nicknamed “The Unsinkable.” Of course, I would have wanted to be one of the more elite and higher class passengers that were guaranteed a rescue boat once the ship started sinking. Heck I would even have taken being Kate Winslet and spending your last times on the ship with Leonardo DiCaprio :)

You and I may get our wish to be a passenger on the Titanic. There is going to be a Titanic memorial cruise in 2012 to mark the 100th anniversary of when it sailed its doomed voyage. The ship will depart on April 8th just as maiden voyage did in 1912. It will depart from Southampton, England and arrive at the spot in the North Atlantic where the Titanic sank on April 15th. There is going to be a memorial onboard on the exact same spot where the Titanic sank between 11:40 p.m. on April 14th to 2:20 a.m. on April 15th. It will then stop in Cobh, Ireland just as the original Titanic did after it left Southampton, England. The next stop will be to Halifax, Nova Scotia where the passengers can visit 3 cemeteries where the victims of the ‘unsinkable’ ship were laid to rest. The memorial voyage will finally make its way to New York City.

When I was reading up about this memorial cruise I was thinking this will probably cost someone an arm and a leg to be apart of this trip but actually it isn’t. The ship that is making the memorial trip is named Balmoral which definitely isn’t as great of a name as Titanic. It will hold 1,350 passengers and a crew of 510 people with 710 cabins. Alright back to the price of the ship, I’m sure your sitting on the edge of your seat wondering. Well the 12-night trip started at $3,900 including taxes for an inside cabin. But don’t think that you will be getting one of those because all of the lower-grade inside cabins are completely sold out. Some of the suite categories are completely sold out as well.

Optimism back in the pockets of the USA

The nation’s unemployment rate is at 9.7% as of September 2009 and I definitely feel it. When I was living in North Dakota just up until this last May, I didn’t really feel the hurt of the economy and didn’t think much of it. I feel as if living up there I was a bit isolated to the ‘big picture’ of the hurting economy. Boy did I feel the effects of it once I moved down south though. Just when we were looking for a place to live, there were loads of apartments and condos for rent and plenty of houses for sale. I was worried that when we got down here, all the good places were going to be snatched up and we would be living in a crummy place. Little did I know that there were plenty of ‘nicer’ places for rent…because nobody could afford them!!! Then came the huge task of looking for a job. That was a task in itself and was very daunting. I was trying to get a foot in the marketing business since that is what I will be graduating with and absolutely nobody was hiring. I either heard ‘NO’ right away or try back in a couple of months. Meaning, maybe in a few months the economy will be better and we can afford to hire and pay you.

The Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on September 15th that the recession is “very likely over,” but he warned that the recovery isn’t likely to create many jobs. When I read that in USA Today, I felt no hope for my job future after school. I waitressed and/or bartended myself through college and there was nothing wrong with that. It was sometimes slow money and then some nights I could make a fortune…at least to me. I fear that I will be still waitressing or bartending after school and not do anything with y degree for awhile. After high school, you think you have it all planned out. You will go to college for 4 years (5 in my case), meet Mr. Charming, graduate, get a fantastic job, and get married. You don’t plan on having your country at war and the economy in a huge depression.

There is hope, however, the more news I watch and newspapers I read I see articles of companies hiring back some of those people that were laid off. People started to get smart with their money and saving up instead of spending it on things that weren’t really needed. The government is helping out for example take the Cash for Clunkers that ran for a few months giving people money to buy a new car by trading in their old one. There was also the First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit stimulus package that gave you $8,000 credit on your taxes if you bought a new house after January 1, 2009 and before December 1, 2009 and it was our first time. They are trying to stimulate the economy and give it a boost which will in return help everyone.

They say time heals all, well I hope 7 more months (until I graduate) is enough time to open up some more jobs so that I can snag one of them up and use my degree for something good.

Facebook Matchmaker?

With the growth and popularity of Facebook these days, it is about time you start hearing about the lost loves rekindled or the new flames that arise out of the social networking sites. As we all know the majority of Facebook users are now over the age of 35 and some of them are looking for love. They are able to find old friends from college or even as far back as some of their old high school boyfriends. They search for them, friend them, message them, and then marry them?!

I was watching Good Morning America, yes I watch it every morning-it’s how I stay up to date, and they had this couple on there about how they used to date back in high school and then many years later found each other on Facebook and eventually got married. It actually all started as a dare from a friend to Facebook message the first boy she had ever kissed. He messaged her back and the romance took off from there. There is a name for all this now called retrosexuals. The term means people who are reaching back into their own lives and reconnecting with someone from their past via a social networking site. I think Facebook is a better way to find someone from your past or for a relationship. Think about it, you have to friend request them; they in return have to accept your friend request and then you can start chatting. It’s not like MySpace or some other site where just anyone can see your profile and start talking to you. I mean you sign up for those and then you wonder how you get so many creeps in your life! It doesn’t always happen like that but I see Facebook as a safer way to network with people for future relationships. Also, finding someone from your past is a pretty easy thing as well on Facebook. You can search for them by where they went to school, what town they may be in or you might even find them on accident through a friend you already have and they are friends with them.

Free the Hikers

Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd have been held captive since July 31, 2009. They are 3 friends that share a love for other cultures and religion. They have a love of the outdoors and all graduated from the University of California at Berkley. They were in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, a peaceful region of Iraq that has become popular to western tourists. They were thought to have accidentally crossed an unmarked line in the mountains and were soon captured and taken to captivity.
Shane, Josh, and Sarah have had absolutely zero contact with their family or anybody in the outside world. How scary would that be? To be in a country you know we are in war with and then get captured and not hear from anybody that can help you? Who knows what their living conditions are like? Are they getting fed or not? The big question is, are they even alive or not since no one has heard from them since they disappeared.
I was watching Good Morning America on Wednesday morning and the mothers of all three hikers were on there to make a plea to the president of the Iranian capital, Tehran, which is where they are believed to being held. The mothers stated that all they were doing was hiking the beautiful mountains and living and learning about the culture and that crossing the border was a “regrettable mistake.” Now, I am not sure I would have ventured out in a country that we are not very friendly with at the moment, just to see and hike some beautiful mountains and scenery. I lived in Bozeman, Montana for almost two years and there were some mountains that were pretty enough to look at and hike for my blood. Sure, there would be some culture lacking but if you get deep enough into the woods I am sure it would be just as eventful enough. I am sure this is what the hikers themselves are thinking, If only we would have went some place else?
On the homepage of the website for the hikers called Freethehikers.com, you can follow the updates on the hikers by joining their support either on twitter or on Facebook. They already have 544 fans on their Facebook group and I am sure it will keep growing the more their captivity is publicized. I did not even hear about their capture until I watched Good Morning America on Wednesday and saw what their mothers had to say.
There is also a count of days in captivity down to the minute and this is what it read when I left the website:
48 days, 15 hours, and 30 minutes

Comback Queen

Whitney Houston has made her comeback in over 15 years. She came on Good Morning America’s Summer Concert series and sang 4 songs. She even came out and sang with her daughter Bobby Kristina Houston Brown. When interviewed, some of her fans said they had been standing in line to get into see Whitney Houston make her singing comeback since 11 p.m. the night before. There were fans of all ages and included in the crowd was her mother which she had said was her biggest support in making her debut.

Opera Winfrey had an exclusive chance to sit down and interview Whitney Houston for the first time since coming back. In fact, Opera said that her interview with Whitney was her best interview ever. Wow! Is what I said to myself because Opera has done a lot of interviews with a lot of different people! She talks about her new singing career and more tough stuff like her marriage to Bobby Brown, drugs and even rehab.

Whitney was in the media a lot in the beginning of her career for more positive things such as the success of her career as a singer. It started in 1987 with the release of Whitney. With the release of that album she also became the first female artist to enter the album charts at number one. Houston is also the only artist to have seven consecutive number-one hits that surpassed the record held by The Beatles and the Bee Gees.

She then moved onto becoming an actress in the movie The Bodyguard. I am sure you have all seen the movie but if you haven’t I am almost positive all of you have heard the song by Houston titled “I will always love you”

After a few more albums and a couple more movies, Whitney was in the spotlight for something completely different. This is where her drug, alcohol and marital problems came into play. How easy it is to be in the spotlight for all the good you are doing and the second something goes bad it’s also smeared across the internet and TV.

I think the media now is what is going to make Whitney Houston’s comeback that much more successful. I am sure there will be many Facebook groups dedicated to her, blogs written about what she is up to and even wikis written about the critiques for her new album that was just released titled I Look To You

Do you think that if back in 1993 when her career went sour if things such as Facebook or blogs were around then things would be different for her? Would there have been more truth about what she was going through or would it have just added more fuel to the fire?

Many of us remember hurricane Katrina all too well, some more than others. I just remember watching it on the news and not even really grasping what they were going through and how bad it really was. Being up in North Dakota at the time all you heard and saw was what they talked about and put on the news. Until we went through our very own flood in Valley City in the spring of 2009, did I really understand the situation they were going through. However, I would consider us North Dakotans very lucky, even though at the time it didn’t seem like very much luck, compared to the residents of New Orleans. All forms of communication were about wiped out during the storm. Cell phone towers were either damaged or being flooded with so many people trying to reach loved ones that the call lines were jammed and unusable. My boyfriend was down here living at the time and said he tried to call his family living back up in Montana and couldn’t get his call or even a text message up to them. His family went a day or two without knowing his status. How scary would that be?

August 29, 2009 marked the 4th anniversary of when hurricane Katrina first hit land in New Orleans, Louisiana. There were many events and ceremonies that were planned for the anniversary. Some of the events going on were:
· Raising of more than 1,400 white flags with the hand written names of those who died in the flooding and storm
· Tulane Universities students, alumni, and faculty gathering together to go throughout the city and do volunteer work
· A memorial celebration that includes photography and video documentary of the storm and disaster

Now that I am actually living down here in Louisiana, the effects of hurricane Katrina are still very present. I really wanted to go to New Orleans right when I came down here as I had never been before and I wanted to see what it was like post hurricane. I was very surprised! When you walk down Bourbon Street you would not really be able to tell that it was once completely wiped out. There is fresh paint on all the buildings, new signs, beautiful landscaping, and it looks like it is right out of the movies.

President Obama said he will make a trip down to New Orleans this year to talk with the residents. Many people from all over the United States came to the aid of the residents of New Orleans. From sending every day staple items that they no longer had to sending money to help rebuild. Some even came by the busloads to help rebuild homes and businesses with their own two hands. We Valley Citians know that feeling, of seeing relief come by the busloads to help save our city that we love so much.

Cash for Clunkers

Uh-oh! Cash for Clunkers has officially ended; did you make your move? CARS was a program for people to trade in their used, old, beat up gas guzzlers for a more gas efficient one. They could receive up to a $4,500 credit towards a new purchase of a car. CARS stands for Car Allowance Rebate System. Some of the rules to qualify for the CARS program are that the car must be at least a year 2008 model or newer, can’t cost more than $45,000, and be purchased between July 1, 2009 and November 1, 2009. Your clunker has to be drivable and the name of the person on the title of the clunker car has to be the same person who is buying the new car. There are more rules and regulations that you need to qualify for before you can just go out and get this $4,500 rebate on a new car purchase.
According to the CARS website, the program has offered an economic boost to car dealers, the auto manufacturers, and the people who provide consumer loans and the scrap yards. But, if you have been following the news lately you would have been hearing that your time has run out and the CARS allowance has expired. There were some rumors going around that they ran out of money almost as soon as they began and that this offer was no longer available as of a few weeks ago. However, White House officials said that they were going to review their options to keep it going. The original budget for this program $1 billion. When I was looking on Yahoo for some facts about the program I found out that just at the end of July, only a month into it, there had already been 22,782 clunkers purchased with almost $96 million spent. As of now the money is GONE and your chance is GONE as well.
Now is the time I wish I drove a clunker just for the pure fact of getting a new car! Of course, a new car wouldn’t come for free. It seems like a great deal that the government will give you up to $4,500 to buy a new car. However, the question is how many people are taking this opportunity without realizing that they will have to spend money…money they might not have. This maybe the season to invest in a town truck to start repossessing all the cars people are buying without being able to actually pay for them.