Bin Laden is Dead!

President Barack Obama called for a press conference Sunday night before a national TV audience. Shortly the TV broadcast word got out and breaking news occurred that Osama Bin Laden was in fact dead. This news was huge! He was #1 on Americas Most Wanted List for almost ten years. He was responsible for thousands of dead people on September 11, 2001. He mocked America, made videos of burning American flags, and said more attacks would happen. Then like a coward, he hid. No one could find him. When troops went to the Middle East they searched in foxholes, caves and all over. Still they were not able to find Bin Laden.

Then about a week ago special troops got intel that someone knew where Bin Laden was hiding. Obama put a plan together to go and kill him, then on Sunday the plan was executed flawless. They killed Bin Laden, buried his body in the ocean and the man responsible for the deaths of so many Americans is now dead.

Next thought though:In my opinion I believe that this basically has sealed up the the presidency for Obama in 2012. What do you think?

Ford Motor Company Doing Well

Despite the current economic struggles Ford Motor Company seems to be doing well. The company posted their best first quarter profit in a year since 1998. Not since 2008, but you read that right, since 1998. When the economy started to struggle vehicle sales began to go down. But Ford combined strong sales and improved pricing to post a strong 3 month period. Things are only looking positive to for Ford. Vehicle sales tend to go up in the summer months. Ford had a 22% improvement from this time last year. That speaks volume to how well the company is doing. A question for you to think about though. Do you think this hike in vehile buying is due to the gas prices? Maybe people are noticing gas prices are going to stay high so they are trading in their trucks and SUV's to buy more fuel efficient cars.

Six-year old brings gun to school.

A loaded hand gun fell out a student's backpack and went off and shot him and two other students. Nobody was seriously injured. But that is honestly beside the point. There are so many ways in which this story is wrong. How on earth does a school let one of their youngest students bring a handgun into school. Now granted I would never expect a kindergardener to bring a gun to school, but with the society that we live in today nothing is surprising me these days. Also, another point to bring up is how do the parents let this happen? How do the parents make the gun that easily acessible for the young boy. There needs to be tighter restrictions at the boy's home for the gun. That where the first problem came from. Luckily though nobody was seriously injured. That is one positive that can be taken away from this story.

Why Professional Athletes Get On My Nerves

So I am going to be venting in this blog post. Clearly by my title you will be able to tell what it is going to be about. But I'm sorry, these athletes are just getting on my nerves. They have the opportunities to have some of the easiest jobs in the world. I mean think about it, they go out and play a sport that they are good at and get paid for it. But yet, in some sports we still have those athletes who will not come to training camp or sit out games because they feel that they are not getting paid enough. I'm sorry but those athletes need to get over themselves. They are already making millions of dollars as is, and they basically only "work" for maybe 3 months out of a season. The rest of the time is spent training and preparing for the upcoming season. Albert Pujols used to be one of my favorite baseball players, until this past off season. He waited until the last minute to come to training camp and then decided to tell the Cardinals he felt like he was not getting paid enough. Sorry if this post got on your nerves I just do not see how people who are making millions upon millions yearly can complain about how they think they are not getting enough money.

Forces in Ivory Coast Surrender!

After many days of heavy fighting in the country of Ivory Coast it finally looks like things are beginning to settle down. Just in this semester we have seen so many countries begin to fight within each other. Riots, fights in the streets, people being killed over disputes, we basically have seen it all. With all the bad that has gone on the world over the past 3 months I was thankful to hear this "good" news because it had been a while since we had heard some sort of good news in another country.

Question for you to think and respond to classmates. How close do you think the world is to having another World War? Do you think that the United States would be involved in this World War III? How scared does it make you feel to have to think of the idea about a 3rd World War?

March Madness is finally here!

Besides Christmas, this is the most wonderful time of the year. For 3 weeks sports fanatics and others all across the country and other parts of the world take part in what is called by some as "March Madness." Others call it the NCAA(National Collegiate Athletic Association) Basketball Tournament. While I call it one of the best things ever invented. In case you do not know what this is I am going to fill you in. Basically it is a basketball tournament with 68 teams in it that lasts 3 weeks throughout March and on into the beginning of April. Millions of people all across the country take part and get involved by filling out brackets and entering bracket challenges at the chance of winning bragging rights and sometimes even money.

This year's tournament is different in a couple of ways and I for one love it! Firstly, they expanded the amount of teams in the tournament by 3. Where as in year's past only 65 teams got in, this year 68 teams made the tournament. In year's past games were only shown on CBS. So at points you were not guaranteed to see the game you wanted and it all depended on what region of the country you were in. This year every game is being broadcast on national TV. It is awesome! CBS, TBS, TNT and Tru TV are all broadcasting the games. We are only 1 week into the tournament and it is getting crazy. What are your thoughts on March Madness?

Disaster in Japan

I am sure that you all have heard about the disaster that has struck the country of Japan. As if one natural disaster is not enough, they basically had two back to back of each other. A earthquake that was of the magnitude above a 9 struck the country, then the quake caused a tsunami to occur. These two events have caused so much damage to the country. My thoughts and prayers go out to people in this country and whoever else has been affected by these catastrophic events. It truly is a sad thing to see. I am fearful for the death toll.

As if that was not enough on the country they are now having to worry about the nuclear plants exploding and the damage that the radiation is causing. We can help in so many ways. You may not realize it but you can. If you know an organization that is taking up donations you could donate money to them, even the smallest amount would help. You could help by maybe donating some supplies. The easiest way you could help Japan is just by simply praying for the country daily and everyone that has been affected by it

What has happened to Charlie Sheen?

One of the most popular stories from this past week has been the fall of Charlie Sheen. Actually he has been on the downfall for a while. But this past week he has hit rock bottom. He used to be a good actor, don't get me wrong. But somewhere along the way he went wrong. We are seeing that problem these days with alot of actors and other famous people. What do you think happened to Sheen?

The article below says that Sheen created a Twitter account and within 24 hours he had well over 1 million followers to his Twitter account. Why do you think people do this? Do we like to hear of other people hearing to make ourselves feel good? Or do we just find humor in this and want to keep updated on the situation. I think that is why I am keeping up with Charlie Sheen. He has gone from Good, to crazy, and now to a new level of craziness.

Sheen Gets Canned

676 Arrested in Mexico

On Friday over 676 people were arrested in Mexico on a drug bust. Yes you read that right, I said 676 people were arrested. They found over 40,000 pounds of marijuana and 467 kilograms of cocaine. How on earth is that much drug usage in our world? This scares me, in a single day that many people were arrested for drugs. This is happening right next to our borders too. Now I know that drugs are becoming a more popular thing in our society today but these numbers seem substantial to me. I am aware that drug trafficing is already taking place on our borders from Mexico, but I just hope that the numbers continue to grow and I am hopeful that law enforcement is able to stop these drugs from coming into our country.

Here is a link to this story: Lots of Mary J

Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media

I am sure we all are involved in social media one way or another. Social media allows us stay connected with our friends and keeps us updated on events going on in society. But it clearly has it advantages and disadvantages.

The advantages of social media are obvious. They allow us to stay informed with what is going on in our society. They make us feel a part of what is going on in a way. Which can be good, don't get me wrong. Think of all the times you found out something good the minute it happened due to being involved in social media.

There clearly are some disadvantages though. Social media just tends to cause drama. Now the drama can be on different type of levels. It seems like now a days I can't even tweet a personal opinion without getting some slack for it. For example, I tweeted a bible verse just a couple of weeks ago and I was tweeted back and was told by 2 different people that I should not be tweeting religious material. That was no big deal though. Just think about what is going on in the Middle East. It all started with Egypt, now with social media being involved it has spread to other countries.

First Egypt; Now Iran?

For the past weeks we have all seen footage of the terrible riots that have been taking place in Egypt. They are truly scary situations that are being displayed on TV and other news outlets right before our eyes. Since citizens of Egypt started protesting some other countries have also began to post protests, the latest country to do such is Iran.

In my opinion I do believe that social media could have played a role with some of these protests. Iranians could have seen what was going on in Egypt, then saw where there president resigned, so in return Iranians are going to begin protesting to try and get what they want from their government. The protests are huge as tens of thousands of people are protesting in the Iranian country of Tehran. While the protests in Iran did start out as silent protests they are now beginning to display violence. With what is being shown on televison it is clear to see that these are scary times we are living in.

Here is a link to the story: Protests in Iran

Podcast on Riots in Egypt

I found an interesting podcast on the riots that are currently taking place in Egypt. The podcast was done by Matt Donatelli and Ron Meyer.

One of the first things said in this podcast that struck me was that there are a lot of young people, college aged people, who are very interested in what is happening in Egypt. They are interested because this could ultimately affect them in some way or fashion. But in my opinion I think that they are interested because it has consumed the media and their outlets. Any major news station that you turn to is going to feature coverage of what is happening in Egypt.

It is also interesting that they noted that most of the people who are rioting in Egypt are mostly under the age of 30. They are clearly displeased with the government in that country. Donatelli and Meyer also stated that part of the problem with all these riots escalating is the fact that the Egyptian Government actually killed the Internet for a couple of days. This just made more people angry and caused more people to begin rioting.

What we are seeing in Egypt is truly scary. It makes me happy and it allows me to feel fortunate that I live in a country like I do. This podcast was interesting though. Below is a link to it, you should check it out.

Podcast

Social Media: How Much Is Too Much?

Tweeting, texting, and using Facebook, these have become a mainstay in our society today.  It is there for everyone and is made accessible worldwide.  But how much is too much? According to market researcher Radicati Group, corporate users received about 110 text messages a day in 2010.  According to Twitter, there are on average about 110 million tweets sent a day.  Think about that, 110 million, in one day. 

Researcher Basex estimated that productivity losses were at $650 billion in 2007 due to “unnecessary interruptions.” These statistics may not necessarily be from distractions like text messages, but some of them very well could be. This statistic is also interesting to me because the research was conducted in 2007, so with the rise of Facebook and Twitter I am sure that these numbers have begin to grow.

It seems to me that this whole process is an ongoing cycle, we tweet, check our Facebook and text on a daily basis. It has almost become a lifestyle. Imagine what it would be like if someone were to take away your cell phone for one week. Do you think that you would be able to go one week without having your cell phone? I honestly do not think I could. That is the society that we live in today though, social media consumes us. 

Here is a link to the story I used to write this blog: Social Media Overload

Where did Myspace go?

This week in the FlorAla I read an interesting article that had to deal with MySpace and the fall of this social networking site. It posed a good question, what in the world ever happened to MySpace? It is a question I had never really thought about. Yes, I used to have a MySpace but once I got to college it just seemed as if Facebook was more accessible and easier to use. So over 2 years ago I decided to delete my MySpace. It does not seem like it was that long ago though when it seemed as if MySpace was where it was at. You could write on other peoples pages, design page layouts, and even bands had their own pages. But somewhere along the way MySpace started to dwindle. In my opinion I think it definately has to be because of Facebook. I remember when I arrived at college I did not even have a Facebook but decided to get one because alot of my friends at school used the site. The rest was history, I realized how much better Facebook was and how much more complex and simple it was. MySpace still does exist, but most of the social network users have either gone to Facebook or Twitter now.

My point of this post is to try and explain what happened here. In today's society we are always looking to upgrade, no matter what the instance may be. It does not matter what the case is whether it is a clothing brand or even a social networking site. Facebook saw what Myspace was doing and knew that if they wanted to keep up with Myspace that they would have to go above and beyond what Myspace was doing. People are always looking for their best possible scenario in the world today and are looking to improve current mediums that we use now. I can remember 10 years ago when my mother got her first cell phone. It was basically the size of a brick and had a 6 inch antenna on it. I thought it was amazing at that time. Imagine if you saw someone today with a cell phone like that, you would probably pass judgement on them. This is just proof that people are always looking to better what is currently out there.

One question that I would like to pose for readers of this blog is: Do you eventually think that Twitter is going to take over Facebook?

Here is a link to an article dealing with Myspace and where it went: Facebook>Myspace

Social Media in Egypt

In class today we heard a 5-minute feature piece on the social unrest going on in Egypt right now. I was aware of the issues that were currently going on but I was not aware to the extent of how serious things were. This again is an instance of just how easily accessible media can be for people. Riots are being started via Twitter. Citizens are "tweeting" where to meet up for the next riot. I personally have a Twitter and only think of it as being used as just a way to keep up with friends or maybe some athletes. I have never even fathomed that it could possibly be used in an instance like this. Twitter was created to be used for good and with the issues in Egypt this social networking site is causing havoc and chaos.

Here is a link to this story:Social Media in Egypt

Homeless Man Wins Fantasy League

Every year millions of football fanatics all across the United States take part in what we like to call "fantasy football." It is a specific league in which you create your own team and through a series of points you compete with other members each week. This year there were over 3.1 million competitiors in the ESPN league. Of all those people, the person who beat out the other millions of people actually was a homeless man.

Nathan Harrington was in a bad car accident that caused nerve and back problems and forced him to leave his marketing job. Months later he was forced to move out of his apartment due to the rat infestation and was left homeless and had to live out of cheap motels. He had no access to a computer and was having to either sneak into a public library every week to set up his team or he would walk to his mothers house to use her internet access. The grand prize he got for winning this league was a $3,500 gift card to Best Buy. He ended selling the gift card to his own mother for $2500.

I decided to post this in my blog because I just find this story amazing in so many different ways. It is amazing his will power and how one single fantasy sport gave a man hope and a chance to start over again. My main reason for posting this though is because this story just proves how accessible media is to anyone. I mean think about it, a man who had nothing, no car, no computer, no job, was able to beat out over 3 million other competitors and win ESPN's fantasy football league. It proves that if you want access to media, you can get it just about anyway that you want to.