Dave DiNitto

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236001,00.html

A pit bull chewed off four toes of a one month old girl while the parents slept.  The parents were on a mattress in the living room and the child was in an infant seat beside the mattress.  The parents are being charged for child desertion and crminal negligence.  They said they woke up with the baby crying so they took it to the hospital at 8:30 in the morning.  The toes of the child were not able to be saved and the puppy did not have its shots so it was taken away for ten days to check if it has rabies.  Mark Natale said “The puppy itself was just several weeks old! I mean this was essentially a puppy,” and that it could have just tried to nurse on the toes.

I am shocked that this could ever happen.  If the story is true, I think it is harsh that the parents will get charged for it.  It was only a puppy and they have no control over what it does and it is not like they were expecting it to happen.  So now the child is in a foster home with no parents.  How do you feel about this?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/27/michaelrichards.ap/index.html

 This is a huge topic.  Jesse Jackson, a civil rights leader, is going to meet with others to ban the N-word that is degrading to blacks.  They are mostly going to ban it from rap, television, standup comics, etc.  I do not think that it will be very difficult to stop people from saying the degrading word completely.  It is so built into our language now that african americans say it naturally in their everyday talking and now I hear it among white people more and more also.  It is getting out of hand because it was once a word that took dignity.  Kramer on the show “Seinfeld” had a racial rant against two black people in the show.  People were encouraged not to buy the DVD set that newly came out.  He has apologized several times.  It is good that someone is finally trying to get rid of the n-word but I do not think it will be easy or a quick fix if it is even possible.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,232001,00.html

This article is all about how kids are hitting puberty earlier than kids used to.  The stage of puberty is now at eight to twelve years old.  They are dating and talking on cell phones at this age and listen to sexually charged music.  Kids nowadays are also starting to talk back to their parents and are more independent at a younger age.  Some people think that kids are going to have to deal with peer pressure when they are younger and they do not think they will be able to handle it well.  Since they are younger now they may not learn gow to deal with it in school so they have to figure it out on their own or it could change them.  I am really unsure of what to think about kids growing up faster.  It would normally be good because the kids learn how to be independent at an earlier age.  But then again it could affect them when they get older because they do not know how to deal with peer pressure.  Humans are evolving now anyways, such as all of the eighteen through twenty year olds are a lot taller than their parents and people in the 1800s were much shorter than people nowadays.  How do you feel about kids growing up at a younger age?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/14/cellphone.ban.ap/index.html

A ban has been put on the use of cellular devices in schools in New York.  Many parents do not agree with this action and many have sent e-mails to the public advocate to say how much they oppose the ban.  The parents said that their children have to walk many blocks to and from school and need to keep in contact with them.  Many kids have to walk through bad parts of neighborhoods too, so they need some for of communication with their parents to be safe.  What if there was an emergency in the family and kids need to be pulled out of school?  Yes, parents could call the office, but I think many parents would like to talk to their kids instead.

I think it would be a big mistake to ban cell phones in school.  Kids need them especially for emergencies.  I feel much safer when I have one if I am driving in the middle of know where, just in case I breakdown and I am alone. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15764297/from/RS.5/

I am surprised by this story.  It has many different cases so I suggest you read it.  I explain a couple.  Two males, one 20 and the other 28 years of age, were approached by two teens, one with a tire iron and one with a chain.  The teens demanded the victims to hand over their Playstaion 3s, then a fight broke out and one of the victims nose broke and he stabbed one of the criminals.  Another story, two armed thugs tried to rob a line of people waiting for the Playstation 3 to go on sale.  One man was shot when he refused to give his up and the robbers fled.

This whole article is about many criminal acts made all for the Playstation 3.  I can not believe that some people would stand out in front of a store all night just for a video game system and that so many people tried to rob others.  Although, they sell them for $600 and now you can sell them yourself for around $1500, so many people thought of it as a good chance to make money.  Best Buy was smart, knew that they had 140 systems and gave out tickets to the first 140 people so they can come back when the store opens.  If all the other stores did this it would prevent a lot of rioting and wouldn’t be so hard on all the people to get the Playstation 3.

Media has had a major effect on the way women think and the images they think they need to have according to Hunger as Ideology, by Susan Bordo.  All women think that they need to be the perfect size because of the advertising of tall, skinny, and beautiful models.  So what do they do when they need to eat?  Well, they either don’t or become bulimic.  They feel like they need to meet up to the expectations of the models.  While women are not eating, men are eating as much as they want, not worrying about their wasteline.  This is because most men are not trying to get skinnier, they are trying to get bigger muscles, which requires eating a lot.  People think that men do not have to worry about their weight at all.  Many men feel they are too skinny, too fat, or not “ripped” enough from all the advertising of male models.  Men have to work out constantly to achieve a body like the models, but many people do not realize that either.  Both men and women have high expectations to look up to in today’s society, but I will agree with the article; women have it a lot worse with eating and expectations.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,227948,00.html

Marc Vincent, 36, was sentenced to jail for six months without the chance of early release for putting his wife’s dog in a 200 degree oven when they got in a fight.  The dog, Henry, was in there for five minutes, was burned and suffered permanent damage to his paws and now limps.  Henry is a black Chihuahua mix.  Vincent was charged for animal cruelty and has to pay a 500 dollar fine and 986 dollars for medical bills for the dog.  The maximum charge he could have gotten was one year in jail and a 2500 dollar fine.  He pleaded guilty but got off of another charge of taking a leaf blower to Henry.  Due to this, Henry had to get his eyes removed.  Vincent will receive anger management and have a mental evaluation.

Someone would have to be very sick minded to actually put a dog in an oven and take a leaf blower to him.  It is terrible, to think that it actually happened.  The worst part is that Vincent did not even apologize to his wife, who has filed for divorce.  I think that he should get much more of a punishment than he received.  How do you feel?

The excerpt of Julie Lindquist was very boring and I did not like reading it at all.  Julie is a bartender who records conversations of people in there to study them.  She realized that when you are in the bar, you are the same as anyone else or so it seems.  A character talked about in this story is Jack.  Him and the rest of the working class people want others to know that they work for there money.  Jack does not think that people who talk about politics should get paid for that. 

I agree with Jack in his view about people should not get paid a large amount of money for doing nothing.  The working class are usually the ones who work the hardest for their money.  Many poeple think that the upper class are much different.  This can be true with a lot of them but there are also a lot that work very hard to receive all that money.  I beleive that some people should not get paid as much as they do by not working hard.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,226484,00.html#

Tom Connolly, a lawyer that divulged President Bush’s drunken driving arrest days before the 2000 election, was arrested for wearing a Usama Bin Laden replica holloween costume.  It had a plastic replica AK-47 assault rifle and a plastic replica of a dynamite belt and plastic grenades.  He wore the terrorist costume to make a political statement for passing vehicles onInterstate 295 in South Portland on Monday before holloween.  He was arrested the next morning on Tuesday.  He also had a sign that said “I love TABOR,” which stood for Taxpayers Bill Of Rights.  What was interesting was when people saw it, they thought it said “I love the Taliban.”

I think that the guy was pushing it too far with all the fake weapons and the whole costume.  I alsothink that the police also took it pretty far when they arrested him because he was just trying to make a political statement, but if it was an actual terrorist threat it would have been a different story.  How do you feel about this? 

I went to a college concert where they had many bands playing.  Many people went and there were a lot of good bands.  Some I did not care for though.  It was fun because it was something to do and we got to hear a lot of good bands for entertainment.  I think some of them had the talent to actually be famous musicians.  It is good that the school put on the event for us also.