Airport Security

On almost every news show I watched last week on different channels, the new airport security system was brought up. I think this is a pretty interesting topic because it brought up so much controversy and I really don’t know which side I am on.
One part of me likes the idea of how uptight the security is because in a small way it makes you feel safer. But another part of me is uncomfortable with the whole idea.

This article demonstrates that there are concerns that this new machine can lead to cancer risks

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/300735

If you chose to opt out of going through the machine you have to have a pat down. However this also brings up further complications because apparently the pat down is so embarrassing its like they are bullying you into doing the body scanner.

There are also problems concerning cancer patients. On gawker.com there were two stories posted about this particular situation:

“Bladder cancer survivor Thomas Sawyer, whose pat-down ended with himself soaked in his own urine, after the TSA agent broke the seal on his urostomy bag, which was filled with his own urine. According to Sawyer, “They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn’t seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.” He wasn’t able to clean himself until after boarding his flight.

Flight attendant Cathy Bossi, a breast cancer survivor who was forced to remove her prosthetic breast during an “aggressive” pat down, even though TSA agents “aren’t supposed to remove any prosthetics” (they do have the right to see prosthetics).”

I don’t know if all the controversy will change any of these regulations or if the airport security will only continue to be intensified.

Black Friday

So for this week’s blog I am going to describe two incidents that happened to me today involving Black Friday.
Generally, I never get up to go mall-shopping on this very crowded day. However last night I went to a very late movie, so I didn’t go to bed at all and instead just waited until 4 am to get some necessities for when I move into my college dorm.
After the story about the security guard that was trampled to death at Walmart a few years ago, I never really liked the idea of Black Friday. The greediness and competitiveness of getting into a store to get the last of the discounted TV’s is not worth someones life. This last Monday I noticed that a few people were already camping out outside a Best Buy, and this was not the warmest week of November.
So naturally when I got to Macy’s and found it was empty, I was relieved that there was no mob, and that everyone in the store was courteous.
About 6 hours later, I was outside a Bed Bath and Beyond in the valley, on the way to my grandparents’ house. Halfway through pulling out of our parking spot, I saw, about 15 feet in front of me, a man on the ground and a man holding a gun facing him. My immediate reaction was to call the police. I thought that the man on the ground was trying to get into his car and the man with the gun wanted to steal from him or something along those lines. I had seen a report earlier this week about robberies in parking lots on Black Friday, so naturally I assumed the man with the gun was the offender. I was so confused as to why everyone in the parking lot was just standing around and not running away or calling the police. Then after analyzing the situation for a few more seconds I started noticing what both men were wearing. The man on the ground was wearing dark clothes and a baggy hoodie, despite the warm weather. The man with the gun looked like he was speaking into something. It wasn’t until other cops started running towards the scene that I realized the man with the gun was an undercover cop. As I was driving away, I heard him say something to the detainee as he was cuffing him mentioning how he had been shop lifting. I didn’t realize that cops pulled guns on people for shop lifting, but perhaps there was more to the situation then we were aware of. Driving away, the last thing we thought we heard was the man being handcuffed accusing the cop of being a racist. I thought this was ironic considering the last discussion we had in my Comm class about cops and after watching a scene from “American History X”. I didn’t dwell on the situation too much. We didn’t see what happened in the beginning and it’s embarrassing enough for the man being arrested to have a mob of shoppers standing in the parking lot staring at the scene.

Sungha Jung – Guitar Prodigy

In 2006, South Korean 10 year old started uploading youtube videos of himself playing acoustic guitar, and quickly gained popularity. Youtube has had a history with asian guitarists, as canon in D by ‘funtwo’ was the top viewed video for quite a while. What attracted people to Sungha wasn’t his skill though. Admittedly, fingerstyle guitar is one of the toughest styles to play, but what baffled viewers was his young age. Some of the uploaded videos dated to when he was 8 years old. The difficulty of the songs he played was not unheard of, but it was extremely high a 10 year old.

Sungha, now 14, has grown immensely as a guitarist, and this can be documented through his youtube channel. His newest videos have seen a slight decline in views, but overall he has maintained a large part of his fanbase. The reason for this is because of the sense of attachment the people who have been watching him from the way beginning feel. The fact that Sungha went viral changed his life, and for the better.

The amazing thing is, Sungha has gained a lot of recognition for his youtube videos. Sungha has already signed a record deal. His first album, “Perfect Blue”, is going to contain 2 of the 15 original songs he wrote and uploaded to youtube. Not only that, but Sungha is currently touring in the US, playing both covers and originals. Despite all this success, Sungha still finds the time to keep uploading new videos. I find it great that through the internet, Sungha has turned his passion into a career at such a young age. Hopefully, he’ll keep doing what he loves (and keep posting videos so we can follow him on his journey).

It gets better

In response to the abnormally high number of teen suicides among the LGBT youth, such as Tyler Clementi’s (which I wrote about in a previous blog post), an internet movement has been created. The “It Gets Better Project” was created with the main objective of discouraging depressed LGBT youth from committing suicide. The project consists of video blogs, or vlogs, of individuals reassuring this youth that being rejected because of your sexual orientation is a temporary stage in their lives, and that “it gets better”.

The actual sexual orientation of the person making the video is not always stated, nor does it matter, because for the project to be successful, all that matters is that the point is made. The vlog may consist of the person recounting a story of their childhood harshnesses, or a reminder of how as an individual, their lives matter, or even something as simple as just stating “It gets better”

The astounding thing about this project is the amount of popularity it amassed. The sad truth is that while non-profit organizations may raise awareness, most of them are not that successful. In this case, “It gets better” breaks the mold, because a large amount of celebrities and powerful people use their statuses to raise awareness. Personalities from Kesha to Ellen Degeneres, to Neil Patrick Harris have submitted videos. The above video is from Councilman Joel Burns, who poses the topic to a whole city council. The amount of good this project has done is growing exponentially as more and more people find out about it, and all this was made possible by the internet.

Voting

This last Tuesday was the first time I ever voted. I turned 18 last winter and ever since was anxious to to vote for the first time. Almost everything/everyone I voted for passed or won except for a few things. I went to a small school with a graduation class of 36. Only about 3/4th’s of those students are american citizens. When I turned to my former classmates to discuss the elections, every single one of them had registered to vote but none of them except for one actually took the time to go through the candidates and propositions and actually vote. I was a little surprised. Why did they take the time to register if there excuse for not voting was that they “don’t care for politics”. I find that that is something very common for young people getting out of high school. So I decided to research polls about age groups.

I however had no luck finding polls on age groups who voted during this last election. So I decided to focus on age groups for Prop 19 since I thought that that might have pushed a younger age group to vote – at least it’s what got the majority of my classmates to register in the first place it seems. It says on an article on CNN news : “Fifty-five percent of likely voters aged 18-29 said they support the measure, while 60 percent of those over the age of 65 oppose legalizing marijuana. Only 28 percent of those 65 and older said they support the measure.” This didn’t necessarily surprise me.

I wish I could look up more about young people when it comes to voting. Do a majority of recent high school graduates not care about politics? If they are voting, did most of them take the time to read over everything and make their own opinions about the props and candidates? Or are they just going over their parents sample ballets and doing the same thing? Coming from a small private school, the majority of my former classmates agree and go along with whatever their parents say but not many have participated in political events. But I wonder if that’s only what I see from my small school where a lot of the students are not from American background, and if or how different it would be in a bigger American school.

Whip It Scary?

I had no idea until yesterday that Will Smith’s 9 year old daughter had come out with a music video. The video has been up for 3 days and already has over 3, 000, 000 views. When I heard this information, I was already slightly disgusted and not looking very much forward to checking it out.

But I did…

I was even more disgusted after starting it and didn’t even bother to watch it until the very end. I don’t know if my disgust is more focused on how bad the song is…or the fact that she is 9 years old! We can pretty much come to the conclusion that her parents and brother’s fame is what got her to this point in the first place, and not necessarily “the discovery of her talent”. The song in my opinion is very annoying. But I am more disturbed at how young she is. She is wearing a large amount of make up and fake nails which I don’t think is very inappropriate for her age.

The Office sans Michael Scott

TV show episodes have always been a one time thing for me. I watch a few shows I’ve stuck with from the beginning, and then don’t plan on ever watching the same episode again. The only show I can watch reruns of over and over is “I Love Lucy”. However when I started the american version of “The Office” I was skeptical because I enjoyed watching the British version and didn’t think the American one would be very funny. However I fell in love from the start. By the time season 5 came out, I saved up my babysitting money to buy the seasons on DVD because I could watch them over and over again. I love all the characters, petty plot lines and the writing.

However, we must admit that Steve Carell was what drew audience to the show in the first place. None of the other actors were very known when the show first started and Michael Scott is the main character. So when I heard that he was leaving, I couldn’t help but feel sad. How could the show possible go on without him? But then I read this article:

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b187949_steve_carell_confirms_hes_leaving.html

I was still sad knowing he was leaving, but then I remembered my love for all the other characters like Pam, Jim, Andy and of course Dwight. The only others shows I follow up on new episodes when they air besides The Office are America’s Next Top Model and Grey’s Anatomy (I would follow up on Weeds and Entourage but I don’t have HBO). Even though I didn’t like Katherine Heigl’s character on Grey’s, I was annoyed that she was leaving the show because she wanted more money. And I appreciated Steve Carell’s comments about why he was leaving and how he still has positive thoughts about how the show can go on without him.

So even though the show won’t be the same without him if it continues on to a season 8, the other characters are just as funny and lovable enough that hopefully it won’t go extremely downhill because of Michael Scott’s departure.