I'll still do Black Friday...

I am sure all of you have heard of the incidents that occurred at a Walmart during black friday earlier today. One of the workers was trampled by a mob who rushed into the store and killed him. I love black friday, it is such a fun experience for me. Last year I camped with my cousin and a few friends at a local Best Buy for 36 hours, and the rewards is getting whatever I want and to stare back at a long abyss of a line that stretched around the whole parking lot. From my experience last year, I can see how this could have happened. Everyone is constantly pushing and shoving, and the mob mentallity kicks in. When a pregnant lady was being squished by the line I was on last year, and people were being told to thin the line out (because the line became 5-6 people thick), no one listens. Everyone is looking out for themselves, and it is kind of like the voting mentallity. Everyone thinks "someone else will do it, I'm just 1 person, it doesn't matter if I don't do it," and what ends up happening is no one does anything! So I can see when this poor guy was pushed or shoved to the ground, no one thought to stop and help this man, he was just trampled, and people just kept running over him until he was killed. What a sad way to go...

Timeliness... this story gets a 5, it just happened today.

Al Qaeda and Obama

Front page of Thursday's NYtimes, Al Qaeda addresses Obama as president-elect through videos and what his victory means for the country. They spin-doctor some of what Obama is doing, such as withdrawing troops from Iraq as a sign of admitting defeat. They also use a pretty sneaky and slick tactic by using Malcolm X against Obama. Since he has been compared to the likes of black leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, this is a pretty powerful message they were sending. They used Malcolm X against Obama by quoting him, and also Malcolm X's and his father's muslim faith is like Obama is a traitor to his people and that he has turned his back on these people. The message was very childlike and kind of high-schoolish, because it's all twisting around words and reality. It is almost like Al Qaeda is trying to instigate a reason for trouble to continue to happen. Why did this tape have to be made? I love what the last line says as it states that this video was not very smart, because most of the world looks like Obama, and people are going to remember that when they killed many on 9/11, Al Qaeda did not target any specific groups of people, leaving all of the world a victim of Al Qaeda and that day.

Barackberries...

I just thought it was funny that our president elect has a blackberry that he can't pull himself away from. The newspaper front page had an article about Barack Obama and his blackberry. Almost everyone I know, and their mother's (seriously no pun or figure of speech here) has a blackberry, and I guess it's true... Barack Obama represents the common American down to their mobile devices... He may have to lose it due to this smart phone supposedly being a national security about a president who is constantly emailing.

I just thought this was a funny article... seriously... why is this on the front page?

Sensationalism = 5... this is something that catches someone's eye from a celebrity tabloid magazine or something, I don't see any other reason to see this on the front page.

Gay Marriage Ban

The newspaper I believe on Thursday, the front page had the story about the ban on gay marriage in 3 different states. These states were Arizona, Florida and California. For my friends who are McCain voters, this was big. Many of my friends are conservatives, which drove them to vote for McCain instead of Obama. Since Obama is now the president, the fact that California banned gay marriage was huge. To some conservatives (including myself), the banning of gay marriage were answered prayers, both from the many prayer rallies, and by individuals. For myself this was huge, as an Obama supporter, what made me 2nd guess a few times on where I stood, was the morals, and in some ways Obama was way too far-left. Now that something like this is happening... perhaps I can have best of both worlds, and not only that, but maybe McCain supporters are beginning to like their new president-elect just a bit more for these same reasons.

Newsworthy Value... 5 out of 5 for timeliness, the votes on proposition 8 just happened this week.

Colombian Army

I read about a week ago about a story that the Army in Colombia has been killing many of it's civilians. The Army has become corrupt, the soldiers have been killing innocent civilians and planting weapons on them to make them appear as gang members. They would do this to rank up in the army, and to also receive more pay and more days off. With all the gang activity in south america, and now reports of corruption in Colombia's Army seems absolutely terrible. I don't know what they could do now, it seems as though countries like this are soon gonna have no where else to turn to, to better the lives of the citizens of these countries.