Abusive father

"Mobile phone abuse man Darren Newton murdered baby boy", by BBC,

tells how Charlie Hunt was repeatedly beaten by his mother’s boyfriend, Darren Newton, while his mother was at work. Darren would torture Charlie for fun while videotaping them on his phone. It was later discovered he would go back and replay them for his own personal enjoyment. Some of are called “ Squeezing toe in cot”, “two minutes of pain", "shivering no water", and ,the one doctors believe led to his death, “Happy Slap” which involved Charlie getting hit thirteen times on the head which lead extensive bleeding to his brain and some of his brain died. When the court saw those clips they were shocked and disgusted by what he had done. As Justice Stephen Irwin said, “It was spiteful and cruel behavior. It was also inexplicable to any normal way of thinking.” Many would strongly agree with that statement. He also showed no remorse for the toddler’s death and no explanation to why he did it. His violent actions have damaged the family of Charlie Hunt permanently.

                To me, this shows that society is going downhill. Many claim that terrorists are the biggest threat but the truth of the matter there are a ton of people who practice terrorism who we don’t consider massive threats. When a man can tortures a toddler and make videos of it for pleasure I think there is more than just one person who like to see him severely punished, maybe even killed. I don’t understand what makes a person want to hear a child scream and cry for help. Maybe he was abused as a child or his parents were divorced but it doesn’t matter? If that was his problem than he should have gotten help but instead he killed an innocent infant and showed no remorse for what he had done. I don’t like what people like al Qaeda are doing but I can understand it but even criminals murderers and thief’s have never purposely try to target children and so a man who can do that is worse than any criminal no matter what they did. I only have two questions. Did this man feel pleasure when he heard the child scream? Did he even care if he killed the toddler? All in all, society needs to change its course before the lines between right and wrong get so blurred we can’t tell which is which.

Work increase

"Rigor Redefined", by Tony Wagner, talks about what we will employers are now looking for in their employees. Critical thinking and problem solving are both important because people always want better things and you need to know how to make the products they want better as they desire for them increases. Curiosity, being initiative, analyzing, communication, and being able to collaborate easily are also important traits that a future employee needs to have to be able to succeed in 20^th century world.

            I can understand how all those traits are important in this century are important but there is a certain danger in asking for that and also a certain unrealism in the idea of having all of that. Only the best of the best might be able to be all those things at once and even that’s a lot to ask of them. Also curiosity might help out but it might drive them to do things that will do far more damage than good. The same in true with communication, they might be more willing to talk to their workers but that might make the workers a lot more willing to listen to a person who really doesn’t know what he is doing.  I do have a couple of questions though. Wouldn’t being able to do all of that make us sort of machine like? Do employers want machines instead of humans to do their work for them? All in all, the standards are increasing too much for the human mind to cope with and the only alternate option is turning to computers to do the jobs for us.

The Human Machine

"Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us”, by Michael Wesch, talks about how the advancements of technology (specifically text) has opened up a lot of avenues for people to use. Blogs, YouTube videos, websites, all of those things have been opened to us essentially through text. Text written on paper is harder to change and move while you can do all these amazing things with text on the internet. We can now gather massive storages of information which would be impossible to do with text on paper.

I believe that in some this is a good advancement for humanity. It does allow us to gather larger amounts of information and garner intelligence. At the same time it takes away a little of what makes us humans. Humans are supposed to go out into the world to find intelligence; not just sit at a computer and type in what they want to know. Yes this does connect people, but are those good connections? Can people actually claim to be friends with or know someone if they have never met or even talked to them? We have made a great thing with the internet but it can also be a threat. I don’t mean a threat to the nation (although it probably could be) but I mean a threat to individuals. Many kids are bullied at school and the internet just gives them another place to be bullied which might lead to them committing suicide. Predators are another problem. People claim that we try to protect children from them, yet we give them another opportunity to harm children. All in all, I believe that the internet is an amazing invention but it is just as bad as it is good.

Christians the new targer of al Qaeda

"All Christians 'targets,' Iraqi militant group says", by CNN Wire Staff, clearly states that al Qaeda has said that all Christians in the Middle East are legitimate targets now and the Islamic State of Iraq seem to be agreeing with them. The Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility for an attack on a Baghdad church on Sunday that killed fifty-eight and injured seventy-five.  The announcement and the attack are both in response to the alleged Muslim female prisoners kept at an Egypt Coptic church. Security has been increased around churches in Egypt but they are worried that it will become a more serious problem consider that ninety percent are Muslim in Egypt while only nine percent are Coptic.

                This just seems to show that things in the Middle East aren’t going to end anytime soon, or peacefully. This hits a cord within me considering that I am a Christian and my entire family always has been. It’s not only the fact that Christians are being targeted, it’s happened many times in the past, but it’s the fact that they now might have provoked this targeting right; assuming what al Qaeda is saying is true of course. If the Coptic church of Egypt has really taken female Muslims prisoner then they have done more damage than they thought. Not only does it give justification to being targeted it also makes the rest of the Christian world look bad. It might be shallow of me to think about the appearance of the church but I am tired of the true face of the church being shown. I call it the true face because I know that some Christian churches would do things like that if it thought it would do them good in the long run. I am not going to claim to know about every form of Christianity, I probably don’t know anything about most of them! What I have seen of my church is pretty bad. The only thing about this situation than what Coptic Church did is the fact that now some people will feel more sympathetic toward al Qaeda. I have only two questions. Is all of this true or are al Qaeda just making up another reason to target a group of people? If it is true, what was the goal in capturing those female Muslims? All in all, I believe that this will look bad on Christians everywhere.

Another Government Secret

“US spy spending revealed for first time, tops $80 billion”, by Pam Benson, tells about how the government has only just revealed the cost of spy network. Many men in the intelligence community have argued that the total cost shouldn’t be announced claiming that the enemy can learn valuable information from our spending trends. The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, because he believes that to lower non-military intelligence spending since it has doubled since the 9/11 attack.

            This article makes me wonder what else the government haven’t told us yet of. This might be the only thing they have kept quiet, though I seriously doubt that to be the case. This may not seem to be a big secret to some people and I have to admit that it doesn’t seem to be a huge one to me either. No, what the real issue for me is the fact that they did try to hide it. They men in the intelligence community probably did think that showing the numbers could be a danger to some extent but I believe that the real reason they didn’t want those  numbers to get out was because they were afraid it would outrage the public, and with good reason. What this all boils down to is trust. Some people might be willing to trust the government completely but I won’t be as long as they try to keep facts hidden. People may say that I am too suspicious but I’ll remain the way I am now until these people have earned my trust. I have a few questions though. Why keep this a secret? Did they not realize that they would have to tell the truth eventually? Do they really still expect people to trust them? All in all, I believe that trust is the force behind any successful government and betraying that trust is the fall of it.

Is the end of Bin Laden near?

“NATO official: Bin Laden, deputy hiding in northwest Pakistan”, written by Barbara Starr, tells about how a NATO official with access to some of the most sensitive information in the NATO alliance. It also mentions how other NATO officials aren’t so sure that this information in completely accurate. An official who doesn’t completely believe this information says, “If we knew where he was – in a house, an apartment, a villa, or an underground cave or bunker—we would have gotten him”, said the official. “We can’t rule out he may be in a cave one day and a house in a city another.” Those who do trust the information also believe that these top al Qaeda leaders are being protected by locals and some members of Pakistan’s intelligence services despite the countries denials.

I believe that this is probably the most crucial moment in this war so far because I think there are two possible outcomes. One is that we have it right and we can finally put an end to this war and make it so that al Qaeda is never as powerful as it today again. If we are wrong, however, the failure to capture him will demoralize troops and increase the confidence of al Qaeda and even increase their numbers. I also believe that if the information is right but we fail to capture or kill him it will not only demoralize our troops but make this war drag on much longer than necessary and making Bin Laden far more cautious. A side effect of that would we would put even more money into the war and we would go even further into recession. I have only two questions.  Is it worth the risk to try to attempt and capture him when so much is at risk? The second one is, isn’t a foolish move to make considering not everyone believes that this information is completely accurate? All in all, I believe that this decision will either end the war or extend it far further into the future than anyone anticipated.

al Qaeda on the offense again.

“Sources: Senior al Qaeda leader directed Europe plot”, by Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank of CNN, talks about a massive terrorist that was aimed at Europe. The plan was to bomb cities in Europe and the attack was led by Ahmed Sidiqi. Sidiqi claimed to have met a senior member of al Qaeda named Younis al Mauretani, and that he was responsible for the actual plan. He is believed to be part of al Qaeda’s “external operations.”

When I read this article it probably scared me more than any haunted house or scary movie ever could. The reason why is because this is actually happening right now, and real lives are really at stake. The other reason this terrifies me so much is because it makes me think that our position is utterly hopeless, and that no matter how hard we fight, or how far we pursue these terrorists they will keep coming back for more. If we ever even do manage to get rid of al Qaeda that will be an empty victory because there will always be people who will come and take their place; maybe not as powerful or influential but they will be there. I try to keep some form of hope alive that someday things will be better but then I look at people like the terrorists who are willing to kill hundreds of people to reach their goals, and my hope dies with those people. As Catholic bishops have said, “ Humanity is the forsaken race” and if they have no hope that humans can find their own way who am I to say they are wrong when I believe the same thing. But I have a few questions. What makes these terrorist do what they do?  Why do they want to serve a god who orders this destruction? On the other hand is it right that we judge those that have recently joined them considering they have lost their homes, relatives, loves, and other things to this war? Does killing them and hating them for what they have done to us make us any better than them?  All in all, it is my belief that humanity will only progress once we leave our love of destruction and violence behind us.