Little bit of fresh air

Finals week is in full swing and everyone is stressed out about ending the year on a high note. I think that everyone deserves a five minute study break here and there and recently I have found a new website that allows me to escape from my heavy work load. It is called Beauty in Everything. The website allows you to search key words. For an animal lover you can type in any kind of animal and it turns up hundreds of stunning pictures. You can search landscapes or literally anything else you can think of.

The website serves as a nice little escape from the confined walls of the libraries. I'm not saying anyone should spend hours on this website but I hope someone finds this and appreciates it as much as I do!

Another close call for NYC

Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American citizen was arrested for a botched car bomb attempt in New York City's Time Square. Shahzad was granted a visa to attend Southeastern University in Washington in 1998. He quickly transfered to the University of Bridgeport where he received a master's of business administration. In 2009 he traveled to Dubai for an unknown reason and returned to the United States shortly after. On May 1st he parked his car in Times Square filled with gunpowder and other explosives. A street vendor notifies police that a parked car is smoking and is afraid it might blow up. Police evacuate the area between 43rd and 47th streets and 6th and 8th avenues.

Police search desperately for the suspect and find Shahzad on a flight about to take off for Dubai. He admitted to the crime according to court documents and has been taken into custody.

I truly believe that the United States needs to shut down our borders in order to stop terrorists form coming into our country. Terrorists like Faisal Shahzad take advantage of our school systems and our way of life and then they try and destroy it by killing innocent people. They have no regard for human life and should be brought to justice in the harshest of court systems.

The only way we are going to stop terrorism is to keep them out of our country. We need to reserve our school systems for American citizens that are going to become useful members of society. We do not need to waste space in our schools or our country for people that are going to try and destroy us.

UVA lacrosse player found dead.

On May 3rd at 2:15 am Yeardley Love was found dead in her off campus apartment at the University of Virginia. She was a senior lacrosse player gearing up for graduation and the NCAA Lacrosse Championships. In a news article done by abc, it was reported that police were called in to help after one of Yeardley's roommates found her face down on her bed. She assumed the incident was an alcohol overdose but police could tell right away that there was physical trauma done to her body. Police were led to her boyfriend, George Huguely who was arrested for murder in the first degree.

Students at UVA are shocked to hear Huguely as a suspect in the chilling case. One student was quoted saying, "Huguely was always well liked and well respected and had plenty of friends." The source also commented saying, "He had a clean history and he had a good job lined up at the commercial real estate firm in Washington, D.C." Huguely is still being held in prison and will not be able to set bail at this time.

This story seems oddly familiar. It reminds me of the Duke Lacrosse scandal in which three Duke Lacrosse Players were indicted on charges of rape, sexual assault, and kidnapping. The players were wrongly accused and eventually dropped of all charges. I hope that the murder at UVA does not follow the same pattern as the Duke scandal. I hope the police are positive they have the right person in custody.

SMU police

I was riding in the car today with four of my friends and as we were about to leave the blvd an SMU cop pulled us over. First he said that I was not wearing my seatbelt, even though I was. Once he realized that he had made a mistake he told the driver that she had been going 35 in a 20 mph zone. First of all there was no way that he had a radar gun on us. He had no way of knowing is she was speeding and I was in the backseat so it was very unlikely that he could tell that I was or was not wearing my seat belt. The police around here have nothing to do and therefore they pull kids over for no reason but to scare them and are not around when they are actually needed. For example last week my roommate's car windshield got smashed in behind Boaz Hall at some point during the night. Her alarm was blaring for hours and no cops did anything. They sit on the blvd all night and I cant imagine that they did not hear a car alarm going off. They should be monitoring the parking lots and be in charge of security and not just looking to get kids in trouble.

Affirmative Action

Recently in my Philosophy class we have been talking about Affirmative Action. Maybe I am just completely oblivious but I never really knew that it existed. I always assumed that people were hired for certain jobs based on their qualifications not their sex or their race. My teacher pointed out an interesting fact. He said that although racism and sexism is not as prevalent in our society as it used to be that in fact their are many statistics that prove it is still a problem. For example on average men still make 20% more in overall income than woman do. This is because many woman are unwilling to leave the home or their families in order to pursue careers. After talking about it for days and hearing both sides of the argument I still find it to be an irrelevant issue. One side of the argument stated that we need to make up for discriminations in the past. I don't think it is just or fair to give someone a job because their sex or race has been discriminated against in the past. The company should hire the person that is best qualified for the job. Race and sex should not be put into the equation. I think that Affirmative Action just creates a new type of discrimination. Anyone agree or have different thoughts?

Whats up with this weather?

The weather in Dallas over this past month has been crazy! Two weeks ago we had a snow day due to the 8 inches of snow that fell. Then it all melted away the very next day, like it had never been there. It goes from being mild to absolutely freezing! For example on Sunday it was in the high 60's, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. By 6:00 that night it had dropped into the low 40's and today Monday, its in the 30's! I'm ready for some sun and warm weather!

Whenever its a nice day outside I am a happier person. Walking to classes early in the morning when the wild is blowing and its freezing outside is never appealing. At least when its sunny and warm the walk to my early classes is not miserable.

I truly think that the weather has a profound affect on peoples moods. I know that it effects mine. Does it affect yours as well?

The news is scary!

I have to admit that I rarely watch the news or look at news articles online, and its not because I dont have time or find it interesting, its because the news scares me. There are so many issues and problems in todays world that to me seem impossible to fix. I've been pondering over what to write about in this blog for a while and I decided that it was finally time to check out CNN.com. Almost immediately I saw a headline that caught my eye, it read "Iranian President warns against tougher sanctions."

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is warning members of the U.N. against punishing Iran for the creation on nuclear weapons. According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Iran's government resembles a military dictatorship, which is a terrifying thought. Actually, the fact that Iran has the ability to create and use nuclear weapons is a scary notion that I believe needs to be taken very seriously by the United States government. Iran is not a permanent member of the U.N. and is threatening to take extreme measures if the continue to be punished by the United States. The President of Iran does not respect nor understand our way of life and the freedom the American government provides to its people. He will have no problem at devastating one of our major cities and killing innocent civilians.

I personally know how devastating September 11th was. I saw my best friends loose their fathers, brothers, uncles, and in some cases their entire families while we sat in our fourth grade classroom watching the towers fall. I pray another city does not experience the pain those attacks brought. I hope the government takes the threat seriously and acts before we are fired upon first.

We are dumber than our parents

In Don Tapscott’s book Grown Up Digital, he asses the benefits and criticisms of the new age society that relies on technology. One criticism says the Net Generation is dumber then our predecessors. We are called “ a shallow, distracted generation that can’t focus on anything” (3). The Net Genreation abuses the internet instead of using it to their advantage and therefore perfom poorly on tests. There is too much distraction that is readily accessible at all times. The technology is eating away at our brains during its crucial development time period.
Response:
Grown Up Digital was not the first time that I heard our generation called dumb. The criticism comes from an older generation that feels threatned by how quickly we adapt to new technology. It has become an innate knowledge to our generation. For example, my grandmother has had an email account for at least five years and is just starting to understand how to reply to her messages. The difference in the generations is that the Net Generation is able to figure out the internet because we have become so acostmed to it. My parents were not teaching me how to set up an email account I was creating accounts for them.
Yes, I agree with the criticism that there is a lot of distraction available to us at all times. In reality our phones have formed into a device that not ony connects us with our friends and family, but with news, the weather, facebook and countless other applications. However this does not mean that we are a shallow minded generation that can’t focus on anything. Our technology has become so advanced that we are rapidly over taking the generations before us.
Another aspect of our generation that differs from generations past is that we have become a global community. We have the ability to connect with people from all over the world at all times. One of my close friends moved to Denmark when I was in 6th grade. Through Facebook, AIM, and cell phones we are able to talk as if we still lived in the same small town. Our global community keeps us up to date with breaking news at the tip of our fingertips, something that was not available to generations before us.

The Net Generation is not afraid of change. It is easier to criticize change then to form to it. We are changing the world and that threatens our predecessors.

Hunting

This weekend I went with my boyfriend and his dad to their ranch house in Collinsville, Texas. You've probably never heard of it before because there's a lot of land and not many people. To be honest, I had a negative mindset going into this trip. My boyfriend is from Texas and loves hunting, football and NASCAR. I am from Connecticut and love lacrosse, shopping and watching ice hockey. We are very different people but we learn from each other. For example, after attending my first Dallas Cowboys game I began to enjoy football once I learned what was going on. Then back in November I was somehow convinced to go to a NASCAR race. The experience was a lot different from what I expected. I did however make a promise too never go hunting. Well, once again I was convinced to go duck hunting over this past weekend and once again I was surprised at how much fun I had.

Generally at 6 o'clock on any given Sunday morning I don't find myself dressed head to toe in camo and heading off to a lake with a gun in hand. But this morning I did just that.

My view on hunting did a complete 180. I had never shot a gun before but I figured it could not be that hard because all you have to do is aim and pull the trigger. I was mistaken. The guns are heavy and the ducks are fast. Not as easy as it looks.

I had always thought hunting was cruel and unnecessary but today I learned a little bit more about the sport. It takes a lot of patience and skill. It also balances out nature. If ducks were not hunted they would over populate and therefore the species they eat would become underpopulated. Hunters also do no waste their kills either. They take out the breasts and eat the meat.

While I'm not about to jump out of bed to go hunting every morning I did learn that keeping an open mind is the best way to experience new things. I learned that attitude is everything and even though something may be unfamiliar to me does not mean that I wont like it. I wanted to move to the South to experience new things and I cant complain about that because I'm getting what I asked for!