Current Events: Week of 2/20–2/24

Greetings, blog-buddies! Get ready for your… Current Events!

In local news, we’ve got a ‘hero’ who prefers to go incognito! Noel Bottesch was driving on Vrooman Road when apparently she had some problems and drove off into Grand River nearby. She was able to get out of the car as it started to sink in the 12-feet deep, freezing-cold water. An unknown man, passing by, saw and dove into the water to help her out. He left before he could be identified. A very brave thing to do! Well, I don’t think anyone needs publicity, and it’s fine that he left. At least he’ll know himself that he did something good.

In Missouri, Alyssa Bustamante, 18, is getting a life sentence, with possible parole, for killing Elizabeth Olten, 9, in 2009. Well, not exactly a life sentence: 35 years, and then they’ll check on her and see if she’s good enough for parole. I disagree with life sentences. I believe in common law, where criminals have to do restitution. So, in the case of murder, depending on what the family of the victim decides, the murderer would either be killed, or work for life as the slave/servant of the family. But capital punishment is a no here, and so is slavery, so… Anyways, Bustamante killed Elizabeth for the thrill of it, wanting to know how it felt. Psychiatrists, of course, were quick to give excuses for her, saying that she “born to teenage, drug-abusing parents; her father was imprisoned and her mother abandoned her, leaving her in the legal custody of her grandmother”, and so she has a ‘troubled mind’. Also, she had been taking Prozac, an antidepressant, after a suicide attempt in 2007, and had increased the amount taken around the time of the murder, so “a defense psychiatrist testified that the medication could have made Bustamante moodier and more violent and contributed to the murder”. “Charlie Moreland, one of Bustamante's attorneys, described the sentence imposed Wednesday as ‘a harsh punishment.’ ‘This was a child who had been spiraling out of control, but has treatable conditions,’ Moreland said.”*

*The quotes are from Yahoo News. Read more there

So, presidential campaigns. I’m not real up-to-date on all of it, who’s going against who, but I ran across something interesting today: ‘The increasingly bitter primary battle between Democratic Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Marcy Kaptur ratcheted up another nasty notch today -- and took on all the drama of a high school student council race -- with accusations of stolen yard signs.’ Really? Yard signs? As Kaptur campaign manager Steve Fought said, "We don't do that. We don't steal yard signs. It's silly." Silly, indeed! But, anything to degrade the opponent, hmm?

And there you go!

Current Events: Week of 1/23–1/27

‘Kay! Now for your Current Events of this week! We’ve only really got one good story today…

Planning on going on a cruise? Well, I wouldn’t be so sure about doing that… The Costa Concordia ran aground near Italy after the ship’s captain decided to go off course to show off the expensive boat. (View some photos here.) 16 people died, and 17 people so far are missing. Also, the cruise liner could possibly leak oil and fuel into the wildlife sanctuary that it ran aground in. They are planning to pump out the oil by Saturday. Now, people are questioning the cruise liner industry. Lately, the standards for training for captains and crews in things like safety information are not very good. The cruise liners are not controlled like the airline industry, where the pilots are directed by a certain flight plan. Captains are able to alter the courses of the boats however they wish, though there are GPS’s and other instruments that are supposed to keep the liners on a certain course. Cruise liners’ growing sizes raise a problem too, as they are able to hold more people that way, and so evacuations can be harder. So, the cruise liner industry is under great discussion right now, and I’m not sure how that’ll affect you, but to be sure, there’s going to be changes!

Well, there you go! See you next week!

Current Events: Week of 1/9-1/13

Hey guys, been a while! I was on break, and you know how that can be!
‘Kay…! Let me say this: You DO NOT want to go to Iran!! Seriously! There’s a guy, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, who’s American and was in Iran. Well, he got arrested, and is being accused of being part of the CIA! He was part of the military, but he says he’s not part of the CIA. Amir says he was just visiting family in Iran! If he can’t prove himself innocent, he’s gonna go bye-bye! Yikes. So, yeah… Iran and the U.S. are not getting along right now… So thankful I’m safe at home!!
Something local… The intersection of East 55th Street, Woodland Avenue and Kinsman Road is DANGEROUS! From 2007 to 2009, 161 crashes occurred there. Yikes! Mom says we’ll not be going there… Well, that’s one of the dangers of a big town. Four other dangerous intersections: Chester Ave. & E 105th St.; Woodland Ave. & E 55th St.; E 30th St. & Orange Ave.; Ontario St. & Carnegie Ave.; and Lee Rd. & Harvard Ave. We’ll be avoiding those! If any of you live in Cuyahoga County, I advise you do the same!
Remember the earthquake in Haiti? Wow, hard to think that was 2 years ago… To me, it seems like it was maybe months ago. And for a good reason. Though it’s been two years, the earthquake’s effects linger heavily. Lots of families still don’t have homes, and recovery is slow. Though the Red Cross alone raised more than $1 billion, and the US raised $1.36 billion, the Haitian government said the total was only one-tenth of what would be needed. There’s also the fact that half of the money that the governments of the world pledged never came. Well. that’s just sad… We should continue to pray for the Haitians, and continue to donate money! They need it!
Well… Whatever happened to the Church and State being separate, hmmm? Read this. It’s really quite sad. All I have to say is that, well, the government is no good. (Well, it's some good... ) But we knew that, right? If this article makes you feel annoyed, I say you should read Whatever Happened to Justice?. It tells you more about the government, and ways things could be done better, much better.
Well, that’s your (belated) Current Events!