Trayvon Martin Shooting

George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin

Just over one month ago, a seventeen year old African American teen named Trayvon Martin was shot by a community watchman in his gated community in Sanford, Florida. The watchman said he shot out of self defence, but Trayvon was completely unarmed and did not make any threats or advances toward him. There are 911 and police phone calls that were recorded from the incident, and they prove that the watchmen had no reason to be suspicious of Trayvon, let alone brutally kill him.

Many think that the watchman, George Zimmerman, acted because of racial prejudices. If that is the case, I find this event sickening. Just because the wachman saw a black teenager on the streets gives him absolutely no reason to be suspicious.

Marchers seeking justice for Trayon

There have been some pieces of information brought to the surface to try to defend the watchman's case. They were trying to prove that Trayvon Martin was a delinquent, and could have been seen as a threat in the community. One of the main pieces of evidence they brought up was that Trayvon had been suspended from school for having drug paraphenilia, and experimenting with marijuana. I think that is ridiculous that they could use that against him. Just because someone had experimented with drugs before does not make them a bad person, or threatening in any way.

I am on Trayvon's family's side in this matter. It is completely unfair and discriminatory, and just downright awful that George Zimmerman could do such a thing. This issue needs to be brought to justice.

Carrie Snyder- Author

It was great having Carrie Snyder come in to our class to read from her novel. I love when I get the chance to hear an author read because then it allows me to hear the way they actually wrote and some of the neat background behind the story.

To me, it was really interesting hearing about her family's personal experience in Nicaragua. Their living conditions, where they went to school, and some of the other little stories she spoke of, like snooping into the office, I thought were intriguing.

I had never really considered being a writer as a career option before, and having Carrie come in to talk about her line of work was very interesting, but I don't think a writing career would be for me. She spoke about how long this one novel took her to write, and it was close to 6 and a half years. For me, I know I would lose interest in a project if it took that long. The process of writing and rewriting and editing and everything else I find pretty tedious, so being an author probably isn't in my future.

She joked about her income too, saying, "yeah you can live off it... not very well, but you could live off it!" Having put almost seven years of work into something, I don't know how rewarding that would be in the end. I'm sure some people love it, being an author, I just don't think I would.

Bicycles on the Sidewalk

Bicycles should not be allowed on the sidewalk, if the cyclist is an adult. The road is where an adult cyclist should be, because they are considered a vehicle. Being someone who walks places a large majority of places, I'm often freaked out when a bike whizzes up from behind me on the sidewalk, with no bell or any indication that they're coming.
The road is where bikes are meant to be. I have nothing against them, I think they are a wonderful and more environmentally friendly alternative to driving cars. But they need to be on the road.
On my hour walk home from school, I pass by a group of about four or five guys on bikes who take up the whole sidewalk on their bikes. I am the one moving out of the way for them. It wouldn't be a problem if they were on the road to begin with. It is especially a problem with elderly people, who I see moving off of the sidewalk for the sake of these cyclists.
In a way though, I find myself sympathizing with the cyclists of Waterloo because we are in desperate need of more bike lanes that actually lead places instead of being dead ends. If there were more useful bike lanes, I'm sure more cyclists would take to the road.

Are We Good or Evil?

People are generally good. I think we are born with good hearts and know what is right and what is wrong. Even if people seem "evil", that is just one side of them, and there would surely be another side that is good.

From a young age, children are taught the difference between right and wrong and know what acceptable behaviour is. I think what we are taught as children sticks with us through the rest of our lives, and therefore we are generally good people. For the most part we are kind, caring people, who do the right thing. There definitely are people who can be mean, dishonest, and hurtful. We all know they exist, but there are sides of that person you haven't met before. Somewhere on the inside there is a part of them that knows what they are doing is wrong, and is a good person.
In my personal experience, I can hardly even think of a time where someone has been intentionally mean or nasty towards me. I can think of countless times though, where people have been supporting and genuinely cared about me, which means a lot. 

Pirate Radio

The movie Pirate Radio has a theme of breaking corrupt laws in order to do what is right. It is set in 1966 in the North Sea, where a group of DJs on board a ship broadcast non-stop rock music to Britain because of the law that says there can only be a limited amount of rock played in a day. They don't agree with the law, so take matters into their own hands in order to do what they believe is right, which is as much rock music as possible available for everyone.

The British government is after the members of Radio Rock, and wants to shut them down. They work to find legal loopholes in order to shut down the station. They end up making it illegal for British businesses to advertise unlicensed radio stations. They figure that if Radio Rock can't make money without profits from the advertising, then they will be forced to shut down.

"That's the whole point of being a government. If you don't like something, you simply make it illegal." That is indeed what the British government did, and it was wrong of them. People should have the freedom to be able to listen to whatever they want. The DJs thought so too, and became activists who took a stand against the government so they could do what they thought was right. Since this film is historically based, I think the real DJs who went against the government in the sixties for the sake of music were great activists for supplying the United Kingdom with the freedom of listening to their own choice in music.

"Governments loath people being free."

The mob mentality

As you've probably heard already, there was an incredibly destructive and violent riot in London on St. Patrick's day. They consisted of a mob of Fanshawe College students, as well as others. The group kept growing in size as the night progressed, getting up to around a thousand people. The damage done was tremendous, and thirteen have been arrested, with at least eight of them being Fanshawe students.

The massive mob of people flipped a TV news truck (as well as other cars) upside down and lit them on fire, threw smashed beer bottles, bricks, wooden planks, tires, rims, and other items at police and fire fighters, shone laser pointers in the police's eyes, and were very violent.

The report says that a number of people were burned or otherwise injured as a result of the riot. Rioters apparently just wanted to "egg on the police" to try to make them mad.


Personally, I think the actions of these partiers is absolutely ridiculous and childish that they thought they could get away with this. It can be assumed that many of them were very drunk however, so their thought processes may not have been clear. What happened was incredibly irresponsible, and I don't even understand how something like this could get so out of control.


I guess the "mob mentality" is partly to blame for this mess- where people think that just because everyone else is doing it, it somehow makes it okay for them to join in as well. They can get so caught up in the moment that all sense of right and wrong is lost, and terrible decisions can be made.

For more pictures and an article, see here.                    
                                                                                   

Teen Stereotypes- The Breakfast Club

This past weekend, I watched the movie The Breakfast Club from 1985 for the first time. The five main characters are seen as typical stereotypes in high school like the jock, the princess, the brain, the criminal and the basket case. By the end of the movie, each one had proven that there was something about them that went deeper than the stereotype, that there was more to them than what others saw.

I think this is still really relevant today, because people are judged and put into certain social categories by others who may not know the first thing about them. I'm sure we can all think of at least some one who fits the label of a jock, brain, princess, criminal, or basket case, but what do we really know about them that allows us to apply that label?

After the five teens spending eight hours together in detention on a Saturday and uncovering different secrets and details about each other's lives, they developed totally different perspectives towards each other. There was more to them than what met the eye, and I think that's a key lesson. We shouldn't be stereotyping people before we really get to know them.

Racist Videos by Teens

I just read this article from the Globe and Mail about two teenagers from Florida who posted videos on line of them ranting about black students at their school. It was followed by a second video by two other students in Florida also making slurs and racist remarks. In the first video they say, "If you lived here you would... not like these black people." Followed by, "There's black people, they're fine, they're educated, they go to school, they do what they have to do. Then there's n------ who can't talk right, they keep having kids, they can't get jobs. There's a difference."

I find these remarks incredibly racist, stereotypical and hurtful. The article mentions that the girls were suspended from school for posting the video, and I'm glad that they were. This is a truly awful thing to do. Since the video went viral, it has been viewed  over a million times. Posting something like this could really have a negative impact on the girls' futures. Future employers would not want to hire someone who has these ignorant and hurtful opinions.

UCLA student during her racist video

I found these videos reminding me of another one I had seen a while ago about a UCLA student who also made a racist speech about Asian students at her university. It is also full of incredibly racist remarks, and the girl comes across as very ditzy and ignorant.

The two videos can be seen here and here.

I think it's awful that people would have these opinions in the first place, but I think it is completely unacceptable to share them on line for everyone to see. Many people were offended by these videos, and the girls who posted them have all gotten themselves into a lot of trouble by doing so.

5 Things I Can't Stand

• when people don't recycle or compost
• when "gay" or "fag" or "retard" is used as an insult
• when you're walking on the side walk, and pass a group of people who don't make any attempt to move over for you
• gum stuck to the bottom of desks 
• when people chew with their mouth open, or have poor manners in general

Teens searching for confirmation on Youtube

I just finished reading this article on teenagers who post videos of themselves on youtube, and urge viewers to comment with their honest opinions on whether or not they are "ugly." Honestly, I find the thought of this really disturbing that teenagers need confirmation from strangers about their looks. It's sad that this generation doesn't have enough self confidence to be able to see that in themselves, rather than having to hear it from complete strangers on the internet.

When I clicked on one of these "am I pretty?" videos, I saw that it was obviously a pretty popular thing for teens to do, because the sidebar of related videos was full of ones bearing similar titles. What I find especially sad is that the article mentions that there are girls who look to be as young as ten or eleven who are posting videos like this. Girls that age shouldn't have to be so worried about their self images. Instead they should be out having fun, not posting videos on the internet. If society is causing girls who are as young as ten to have to be concerned about whether or not they are "pretty", we've definitely gone wrong somewhere.