Andrew Griffin :-(

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that four to sixteen percent of all children are victim to some kind of abuse or neglect. These numbers are probably on the low side as many cases are never reported. One horrible and unforgivable act of abuse is that of Andrew Griffin. Andrew died at the age of two on December 26, 2007, was murdered actually. His parents have been found guilty and are awaiting sentencing for the second degree murder charges of Andrew. The beautiful baby boy was just two months shy of his third birthday weighing in at about 13 pounds, which is actually the average weight of a three to six month old. After an autopsy was completed it was found that Andrew starved to death. Although starvation was the cause of death there was plenty of evidence to prove he was badly abused for some time. He had bruises old and new all over his body. He had new cuts and scrapes however did not walk yet. He even had new sores on the soles of his feet and bed sores behind his ears. Yes, bed sores, something that you see in many older patients from laying in bed too long. He was compared to as a Holocaust victim.
This is a situation that is without a doubt extreme, but how did it get this bad. This family had four other children and apparently some family and friends that had seen Andrew within weeks of being carried into the hospital cold and blue. The father of the child claims that his wife was always frustrated with the children and that Andrew was the only one she could control. He said that she kept Andrew in their room most of the time. He knew what was going on and just chose not to get involved. How could someone just turn the other way while their own child is slowly dying?
Had someone who had seen this little boy, a friend, a family member, a sibling, spoken up this child may still be alive today. This now raises a bigger question; why didn’t a sibling speak up? There are four other children in this family, have they ever expressed a worry to anyone about their brother. Did anyone take them seriously? Or did they not speak up because it was keeping the abuse away from them? Survival of the fittest within the family. Did any of the holiday visitors not have concern for this child that was obviously not up to par? Or did they just choose not to make their lives any busier than they already were?
Whether it is child abuse, domestic abuse, harassment, or the school yard fight, why are we still in that place where we turn around and let things happen that can be stopped? Have we not learned to have any more compassion than some members our previous generations had? Are we that involved in our own lives that we can allow such things happen?

The Nature Of Celebrity Scandal

The Nature Of Celebrity Scandal:


Celebrities come back from scandal all the time, but chris brown's arrest in the assault of singer rihanna might be a different matter.Brown and Rihanna were both absent from the Grammy Awards on Sunday after Brown was charged with beating Rihanna, who has since canceled her public appearances.There are more pressing matters in this whole mess than whether the 19-year-old pop star Brown will be able to resume his career. But the question does highlight the interesting nature of celebrity scandal and what fans are willing to forgive."It's going to be more different than all the other people who have disgraced themselves because they've only hurt themselves," says Sandy DuMont, an image consultant.

Will Chris Brown's image forever be tainted after his Feb. 8 arrest on assault charges?Yes, people will always associate him with this incident No, time will pass and people will forget

Domestic assault is a particularly egregious crime. But others have rebounded from it. Eminem, for instance, was not only arrested for hitting his ex-wife; he also sang about killing her. Charlie Sheen's pleading no contest to assaulting his girlfriend in 1997 didn't end the actor's career.But Brown's case differs from those partly because his success is based largely on his clean-cut image.Also, the victim, Rihanna, is herself famous and has even more fans than Brown. The closest examples might be those of Ike Turner(who assaulted Tina Turner, then his wife) and Bobby Brown, who assaulted his wife, Whitney Houston"And you know who went on to receive the fame and fortune," DuMont says. "It was Tina, not Ike."An added strike against Chris Brown is that he's still a relatively new celebrity, DuMont says, and "hasn't been on the scene long enough to get in everyone's hearts."But Robert Thompson, who studies pop culture at Syracuse University, says the nature of celebrity is surprisingly resilient."Some scandals you absolutely can't come back from," he says. "O.J. is probably one, and probably Michael Jackson."But "in a scary kind of way," he says, Brown's case "is becoming kind of a cliché" and the singer might be able to recover from it."It's amazing how quickly these things can be apologized for and mea-culpaed," he says. "There are certain ways that this story could be managed. So I wouldn't count him out at this point."

will stars ever get what the should when they do something wrong..? you hear all these stories and see all this scandal, but do they ever truley get what the deserve?

Will the war really end in a year???

So i was reading this about the war ending by Aug 2010, it would be a great thing, but will it ever happen? let me know what you all think...


Obama's Troop Drawdown Decision Will End Iraq War in Late 2010,
Obama told top leaders in Congress on Thursday that he will transition the mission in Iraq to training, advising and engaging in limited counter-terrorist operations.

The Iraq war will come to an end on Aug. 31, 2010, senior officials said, following President Obama's decision to end all counter-insurgency missions by that time.
Obama told top leaders in Congress on Thursday that he will transition the mission in Iraq to training, advising and engaging in limited counter-terrorist operations, according to congressional sources.
The president is expected to deliver a speech Friday at the Marine base in Camp Lejeune, N.C, in which he will order the immediate drawdown of the 142,000 Marines and Army personnel in Iraq.
Obama's decision reflects his belief that "there have been real advances" in the country and, as result, the U.S. military should now be ordered to carry out "a fundamental change in mission," senior administration officials said.
With 142,000 U.S. forces in Iraq now and counter-insurgency operations conducted on a near-daily basis, "it is a war, no question," a senior adviser said.
And this war, senior officials said, will officially come to an end on Aug. 31, 2010, when the president orders all U.S. troops to focus their efforts on advising, equipping and training Iraqi security forces as well as assisting in reconstruction and political reconciliation.
"This is a plan that responsibly ends the war in Iraq," said a senior official who participated in the deliberations. "He is living up to a commitment he made as a candidate but is doing so in a way that has the support of the inter-agency task force on Iraq."
The president will order U.S. military commanders to leave a residual force of between 35,000 and 50,000 troops in Iraq. Under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, the U.S. must remove all military personnel by Dec. 31, 2011.
The move reflects the consensus plan presented to Obama by Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top military commander in Iraq; Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command; Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and the president's top intelligence officials.
"This is not a political calculation," a senior official said. "This is a plan the president believes will advance U.S. national security interests. This is not a plan that just hopes we can get to a spot. This really represents a meeting of the minds. This is really a big project for an entirely different mission."
The president reached his decision after 12 advisory group meetings on Iraq and 10 inter-agency meetings since Inauguration Day. The first Iraq advisory meeting occurred at the White House Jan. 21.
Obama intends to convey his decision about U.S. troop withdrawals by telephone to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki on Friday. Scheduling conflicts prevented the two leaders from speaking by phone Thursday, officials said. The president and his advisers have kept the Iraqi civilian leadership informed about internal U.S. deliberations on troop withdrawals, administration officials said.
The president decided to order the troop withdrawals on Wednesday.
Obama told lawmakers about his decision on Thursday. He told lawmakers the troops remaining in Iraq after Aug. 31, 2010, will carry out new missions and will be trained and organized in a way that de-emphasizes combat-readiness and intensifies the focus on these three missions:
-- Train, equip and advise Iraqi security forces
-- Support civilian operations in Iraq aimed at reconstruction, redevelopment and political reconciliation
-- Conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions
To underscore the president's desire to end combat and counter-insurgency missions, officials said after Aug. 31, 2010, there will be no brigade combat teams or brigade combat teams in Iraq. There are 14 brigade combat teams in Iraq now. The remaining troops will be "reconstituted," officials said, into "advisory and assistance brigades."
Even so, if security conditions in Iraq deteriorate in the coming months the president "retains the flexibility" to slow down or reverse troop withdrawals. Officials said Obama's drawn-down is unlikely to jeopardize security gains achieved as a result of the Bush administration surge that has seen a significant reduction in terrorist-inspired and insurgent-led violence in Iraq.
A portion of the 35,000 to 50,000 remaining troops will be combat-ready and will be ready to deploy in counter-terrorism missions. That means combat operations are still possible, even after Aug. 31, 2010, an official said. Senior officials would not say how large the counter-terrorism force will be, but said it would be well under half the remaining troop strength.
"There will be a capability left to engage in targeted counter-terrorism operations," the official said, calling the this capability "a prudent part of the puzzle."
Overall, the size of the remaining U.S. force was "driven by the mission," officials said. U.S. troops will begin leaving Iraq this spring and the numbers of returning troops will grow during the summer, officials said. A sizable number of troops will remain in Iraq, however, to provide security and training as the country prepares for regional and sub-regional elections this spring and national elections in December.

After all of this will it really happen? can we as americans truly trust that the war that has control and taken over most of our lives really being coming to a end....i hope so i would love to see all of these family's put back together, and for us as U.S. citzins to FINALLY be able to go back to our ways and not worry anymore :)

Bioengineered Crops

Since foods made of or contain bioengineered crops were introduced on the market about a decade ago, they have generated a great deal of controversies. These controversies focus on potential health and environmental risks. On one hand, supporters of genetically modified (GM) technology argue that biotech crops can bring about a lot of benefits. These benefits include pesticides, herbicides, drought resisting plants and can potentially relieve hunger and poverty in the world. On the other hand, their opponents contend that bioengineered crops have not been studied enough, may be harmful to humans, and can contaminate other varieties of crops. Because drawbacks of biotech crops may well outweigh the benefits, let’s closer consider the points proposed by opponents of GM technology.
Since the bioengineered crops are relatively new, there is no way of knowing the overall long-term effect of them on human health. Even genetic engineers cannot definitely predict all possible effects of introducing new genes into organisms, given that the genetic makeup is very complex. The introduced gene may act differently when working within its new host than it has worked in a donor. This is especially true when genes from different species are being mixed. Hence, the new combination of the host genes and the introduced genes may have unpredictable consequences, including generating harm to human, in addition to its desired effects.
Another concern is that biotech crops can contaminate conventional crops. This can occur simply by pollen being windblown from one field to another. Undoubtedly, this process represents a threat to the future safety and security of the food supply and the environment in general. If herbicide-resistant genes from GM crops drift to other traditionally grown plants, they may spread to weeds species as well, making them immune to herbicides and, as a result, creating super-weeds. Since the scientific community has not come up with a method by which they can recall this process, biological pollutants may multiply and spread, resulting in inevitable changes in the environment.
New GM technology is surely bright with promises, but also filled with unknown and possibly very significant risks in the future. Regardless of the safety concerns and potential dangers of biotech crops, their production is rapidly moving into the market, replacing products made of conventionally grown crops.

Blue Eyed (1996)

As I watch the movie Blue Eyed along with the textbook chapter related to race, I could find that they both have the same message - Despite of devoted effort to end racism, discrimination, segregation, prejudice and stereotypes of race, gender, sexuality, age, and disability, it seems the caste perspective would stay just as before, without any major change – which they are trying to educate indirectly.
In Blue Eyed, Jane Elliott, a pioneer in racism awareness training, approach to diversity training in her unique way. She reverses treatments white and people of color receive; she actually makes whites be treated just as people of color would be treated, are being treated, or have been treated as. Jane Elliott said, in the movie, that white people do not realize that they are not treating everyone the same, while they do not want colored people to come to live in their town. They could finally realize how they were treating people of color, after physically and emotionally experiencing via the exercise prepared by Jane, and she made sure if they realized it by asking if anyone would choose to be black.
What I agreed with in the film is the unique ideas of actually experiencing what people of color have been treated as throughout a life. It is obvious that white people are known as dominant group which has major power within the society, while other people are categorized as subordinate group which is below where whites belong. Starting from the social distance between whites and people of color, people of color often experience either individual or institutional discrimination in a society by white people who would not even realize themselves as discriminators. Because of that important reason, Jane Elliott has been running the exercise, targeting white people to change. She sees the problem as solvable by white people.
What I disagreed with in the film is that she only sees one side of the problem – white people – to be solved, not the both sides together. Because she tries to solve the problem by changing white people`s thoughts or attitudes, she stands on people of color`s side and act rude and mean to white people during the workshop, pretending that they are being treated as same as people of color normally do. Some whites would realize how inequitable they have been to the people of color, but some would think the exercise as bias about whites and get mad – which will not help, but get worse. In fact, Jane Elliott has told that she has been attacked indirectly by white protestors through her family. We need to realize that we are living in an ethnic pluralism.

Racism

I would love it if everyone would take the time to read this article. When you do, I want you to keep in mind the issue of Race. The events in this article take place in Mississippi, a place often associated with racism. Having lived in Mississippi for the majority of my life, I can honestly say that Mississippi does still have issues with race. Not the whole state mind you, but certain regions and isolated populations. George County is in the extreme south east portion of the state. If I were to say, and I am no authority, this area (not including the Gulf Coast region) along with the delta (extreme north west region of the state) still have extreme racial tendencies.

Given this background information, as you read the article, I want you to mentally count how many times you think about race..

Prep star's death ruled accident; family not convinced
By Greg Jenson, The Clarion Ledger via AP

A grand jury report into the death of George County (Lucedale, Miss.) running back Billey Joe Johnson Jr. concluded Thursday the recruit shot himself by accident with his 12-gauge shotgun during a traffic stop..
While his family was relieved his death was no longer being ruled a suicide, the report left unanswered questions, said Jerome Carter, the family's attorney.
"I ain't buying (the grand jury ruling)," Johnson's mother, Annette, said at the George County Courthouse. "We are going further and we are going higher."
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said it would submit its evidence to the U.S. Justice Department and seek a federal probe.
Johnson, a 5-11, 220-pound junior who ran for 1,559 yards and 24 touchdowns last season and was receiving interest from Alabama, Mississippi and LSU, among others, died on Dec. 8, 2008, in Lucedale.
The circumstances surrounding the death of the black teen led his family and the local chapter of the NAACP to question a white deputy's role in the death.
According to the grand jury report, Johnson, 17, left his home before dawn to go deer hunting but made an unexpected visit to the home of an ex-girlfriend and tried to wake her by tapping on her window. Her family called 911 and reported a burglary. After hearing sirens, Johnson drove away but was stopped by Lucedale police deputy Joe Sullivan, who said Johnson ran a red light. When Sullivan went to his vehicle to check on Johnson's license, the report said, Johnson tried to move his shotgun in the cab portion of his truck and accidentally discharged a blast into the left side of his head.
When other officers arrived, Johnson was on the ground outside of the driver's side door with a shotgun on top of him, the barrel pointing toward his head, police have said.
"The family has a sense of relief that comes from the removal of any criminal wrongdoing on (Johnson's) part or activity related to any alleged burglary," Carter said. "They are still dismayed with what is deemed to be an accidental shooting. They've asked us to remain in the case."
Carter said the family needs to see the same evidence the grand jury, made up of 14 white and two black members, has seen and has been told unofficially by Judge Robert Krebs that the exhibits would be made available. Carter said the biggest question the report didn't answer was why gunpowder residue was found only on Johnson's left hand and why was the gunpowder residue found on Deputy Sullivan's hands deemed insignificant.
"There are too many questions that need to be answered," Carter said. "Our plan is to get all of the information that was to be presented to the grand jury. They used minimizing language in the report about the gunpowder residue on the deputy's hands, but I don't understand why, if he had just reported to work and had not fired his weapon, why would he have gunpowder residue on his hands?"
"It's a tragic accident, and I know it's hard for some people to accept that," county District Attorney Tony Lawrence said.
Contributing: Associated Press

How many times did race come up in this article? A lot, and why shouldn't it? We have a suspicious death involving a black teenager and a white law enforcement officer. We have the involvement of the NAACP. How many noticed the makeup of the Grand Jury? 14 whites and only two blacks.
A lot of the details involved in the case are suspicious for sure, but I didn't want to talk about what may or may not have happened.It's a sad fact that racism is still a major concern in this country. Even if this does turn out to be an accidental death, you can obviously read the bias in the reporter’s language that suggests the possibility of a hate crime. One day the people of this country will wisen up.It is a tragic story. My prayers go out to the family and friends, and everyone affected by this young man’s death.

African Children's Choir

This past Christmas, I was fortunate to attend a holiday show at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO). The host was a Grammy Award-winning vocalist, Sandy Patty, and the featured musical guests were a group of African children, simply named the “African Children’s Choir.” Watching the children perform was really the highlight of the show. The professional singers and musicians of the show were great. However, watching those little children perform was something to behold. But I had many questions buzzing in my mind. When we arrived to the BSO, I felt like I arrived at John McCain’s Republican Nomination Rally. You know… the one where you heard folks describe the audience as being a sea of the same “old, white, conservatives…” with no diverse group being represented in the rally. What does this have to do with anything? Well since I didn’t know what to expect at the show, every single observation, starting from entering the main door, was then being processed in my head. It seems the children, who were anywhere from 6-13 years of age, were orphans picked up by some organization in Africa to be schooled and escape the poverty and despair from their home countries. They are mostly orphans by a direct result of the pandemic disease AIDS. The concept of this organization is take to care of the needs of the children (by schooling, host families and training them vocally in choirs) and then return them to Africa as educated adults (doctors, teachers, lawyers, etc.) to break the chain of poverty that’s going on there. Looking into the gleeful, eager faces of those children I couldn’t help but notice how they assimilated into a whole new world. Touring on major network TV shows such as Dr. Phil, The Ellen Show, and American Idol. It was amazing watching them; given their impoverished background and what they had to endure, and here they were performing for grand audiences. Simply heart-touching.