Philippines massacre

Officials found 11 more bodies Wednesday at the site of an attack on an election caravan in the south, bringing the death toll in the massacre to 57. The dead from Monday's massacre included the wife and two sisters of gubernatorial candidate Ismael Mangudadatu and 18 Filipino journalists accompanying the caravan. It is the largest number of reporters killed in a single attack anywhere in the world, according to media groups. Police identified the prime suspect as Andal Ampatuan Jr. The clan, which has ruled the province unopposed for eight years, helped President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her allies win the 2004 presidential and 2007 senatorial elections by delivering crucial votes. I think if Andal Ampatuan had order for the murder of this rival then I think he made it too easy for the police. As reported Ismael Mangudadatu had received threats which he believed were from allies of the incumbent governor Andal Ampatuan that he would be kidnapped if he filed the candidate papers himself. Instead, his wife, sister, and the group of journalists accompanying them were kidnapped and brutally killed, possibly tortured, raped and beheaded, according to local media reports. I believed that he should have taking the threat more seriously and send some soldier or police to aid with the travel. As for CNN coverage on the story I think they were a little soft on the pictures they had up on their site. As we discuss in class some of the classmate pointed out that the pictures of a bloody hand wasn’t enough to capture the audience attention to the story. I agree with them because if you put a disclaimer before the picture I think the pictures should show more of the reality of the massacre and not censoring the truth.

Protest against tuition spike

Students occupied an administration building for nearly four days due to the raise in tuition at university of California. About 70% of students avoided arrest after the surrender up the building and moving out to a different location. At UC Berkeley on Friday night, 41 protesters occupying a building were arrested. Authorities decided to cite them for trespassing and release them rather than take them to jail, per an agreement with student leaders. The students held the protest cause of 32% increases in tuition fee that the board had passed. University officials said the $505 million to be raised by the tuition increase is needed to prevent even deeper cuts than those already made due to California's persistent financial crisis. There will be 2 phases in the raise of tuition. First phase will take effect in January will raise undergraduate tuition to $8,373. The second phase kicks in next fall, raising tuition to $10,302. I think they should have all the employees, administration, faculty etc. to take an across the board pay-cut to pay for the tuition hike. I bet you won't have many of them willing to help out, because when it comes to one’s own pocket book. Regardless of contracts an effort could be made as a voluntary contribution from all of them including alumni. There's always a middle ground, students should not have to bear the full burden.

10 year old girl taser for not showering??

Polices were called to an Arkansas home after a mother called the police because her 10 year old daughter’s refusal to take a shower. An officer was dispatched to the scene, and arrived to find the girl curled up on the floor and screaming as her mother tried to force her into the shower. With the mother consent the police officer used a taser on the unruly girl when she kicked him in the groin. This raise the issue is it right to use a taser to handle a 10 year old girl. This story was brought up during my social problem class because we had been discussing the issue about family. The question is who is the most violence member in the family and most people would assume it was the father but it is the children in the family. He pulled up this story on the computer and asks us if the police had done the right thing. Most of the class said no and he should be fired from the job, but I think he hasn’t done anything wrong. The child assaulted him and he had the mother approval to taser the child. You see on the news of polices tasering old grandmas all the time; I don’t see the different in the two. Others said he could of use a different method to apprehend the girl like using a move to take her down or use pepper spray. I think that those options are worst then using the taser.

Fort Hood Shooting

Almost 2 week had gone by since the shooting at Fort Hood. I first heard about the incident when I came home from school and checked my e-mail on yahoo. There it was a special live coverage on the shooting. At first I had no idea what was going on and how someone could enter a military base while being armed and no one knowing about it. At that point all I knew was there were 12 dead and 31 wounded soldiers. Later that night the identity of the shooter was release it was Major Nidal Malik Hasan. We had a discussing in my contemporary social problem class, know the shooter was a Muslim how hard is it not to jump to the conclusion or play the race card and says he a terrorists. The answer we came up with is even though we don’t want to jump to that conclusion that he a terrorist just because he a Muslim it hard not to. I talk to one of my friend about the shooting and he said that his dad think it a sleeper cell and that what I trying to point out. We don’t want to generalized someone cause of their race and religion but it hard not to. The news reported that Nidal Hasan was being closely watched by the army because of this weird action. As we discussed in class I think it’s a big red flag when someone sell all their belonging and empty out there whole apartment. Nidal Hasan was schedule to ship out the next day before the shooting. I don’t know why the army still wanted to ship him out when they know something is not right with him. There excuses was they thought it would be better for him to get ship out to Afghanistan so he could have some time to clam down.