Mother charged with death of her two kids

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/26/us/california-chidren-killed/index.html?hpt=us_c2

 “Earlier this month, a Georgia court ordered his ex-wife Marilyn Edge to hand them over to him. But it seems she wasn't going to let him have them.” I was really shocked by the fact that the mother would kill her own kids just because she couldn’t get custody over them. Clearly she was not in the right state of mind and didn’t deserve to have the kids because even if such things happen to a mother, why would you ever take away your own kids’ lives? I can understand how she could’ve been freaking out and wanting to keep her kids but taking away their lives because you can’t handle the situation isn’t far to the kids in any way. I can’t begin to imagine how the father must have felt when he heard the news. If he could’ve of just had the kids sooner maybe all this would’ve never happened.

“She had bolted with them before, Mark Edge said. After her children's father received visitation rights a year ago, Marilyn Edge ran away with them to her native Arizona.” They saw this coming because of the previous times when she bolted but I bet they didn’t expect her to kill the kids. They should have been expecting something drastic when she left with them because no matter how much she would flee from the situation they would always be able to find her. I think she came up with this plan out of anger of her kids being taken away. Not knowing how to cope with it she decided to just take their life which kind of reminds of suicides, how they think it will be a solution to a problem but really it isn’t and she should’ve just faced the world.

But finally they were going to live under his roof, and he was excited about that. "I started doing all the preparations that I needed for my kids as far as trying to get them in school," he said. "My mind was just on them." Reading this just makes me really sad and mad at the same time. I can’t believe how childish the mother is. Her taking them away from him just so he didn’t win the right to be with them and didn’t get the chance to be a parent to them was really petty. He described the pain as the total opposite feeling compared to when they were born.

"I don't see them as not being here with me right now. I see my children still here with me. When I sleep, I dream of my son, and I dream of my daughter." Just this quote melts my heart and makes me feel for him. 

'Sextortion' victim Miss Teen USA

             http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/us/miss-teen-usa-sextortion/index.html?hpt=us_t5

               When I saw this story, it looked interesting but at the same time I was wondering what sextortion is. Then I found out what exactly it meant and was very shocked and disgusted that somebody would do something like this.  "When I heard his name it didn't click right away what he looked like," she said. "His name is familiar. When I looked at his yearbook picture, I recalled moments when I saw him in the hallways." It’s shocking that he actually knew her from high school. It scares me even more that somebody from high school hacked her computer. It makes you think more about what you do when your laptop is open or you on a device with a camera. I have heard about stuff like that happening before but didn't know it was that big of a deal.

                "When I got the first e-mail, I read the first three lines and I quickly scrolled through it and saw it was a long e-mail," she said. "Two photos of me were attached. I literally threw my phone across the room and started screaming. It did not feel real, it was like a horror movie." I couldn't even imagine if I ever got an email like that. I would've probably responded in the same way as her. You can’t really do much about and you feel like you are stuck and have to listen otherwise your life will be ruined and everyone will see the real you.

                The fact that if you have a webcam on your TV, you are at risk of being hacked and someone taking pictures of you.  This article kind of makes you think twice about your technology. I think a lot of people have no clue about the risk of technology and in a world of technology, it’s important to know about the risk. “Security cameras, lights, heating control systems and even door locks and windows are now increasingly coming with features that allow users to control them remotely. Without proper security controls, there's little to stop hackers from invading users' privacy, stealing personal information or spying on people.”

            He admitted to having hacked multiple people from all over. Just one hacker can affect so many different people, which is why we need to be careful. The fact that she is spreading news around to others about how to be careful and not get hacked is very good. She explains to CNN that you should cover your camera after you get done chatting with people, be careful what you do in front of the camera and change your passwords every once in a while. The good thing out of all this is we are all learning from others experiences. 

Paul Oliver: Latest in a string of NFL suicides

           http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/25/us/former-nfl-player-suicide/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

“His death marks the latest in a string of suicides among former professional football players.” In the report it talks about how much pain most of these NFL players were in. Most players that commit suicide because of injuries they have that were very bad. It seems to me their health needs to be taken care of better, since all these football players are taking their lives because of bad injuries. I never would imagine someone committing suicide because of the pain, but clearly football has been pretty painful. “A study published in December in the journal Brain looked at brain tissue of 34 professional football players after they died. All but one showed evidence of disease.”

            The San Diego chargers were saying how it has been a very sad day and that he was like family to them. Mark Richt, the coach of the University of Georgia Bulldogs told reporters, that it has been rough and that he is there for the family and will do anything he needs to make it better. He left behind a wife and two children, he was only 29 years old and had a great life time to look forward to. His wife told reporters that they needed some time and space to wake in this tragic loss. “A former teammate, Eric Weddle, described Oliver as "charismatic, funny but also quiet and reserved," The Union-Tribune reported "He never said a bad word about anyone. Just a good, genuine guy." They lost someone that was so young and much loved by all his teammates.

            I can’t imagine how his teammates feel about this tragedy and all the tragedies before this. They must think what if I get severely injured and I start having suicidal thoughts when I’m pain. I’m sure in every football player you can find a little bit of doubt in whether or not they will make it through every game without a deadly injury or join the string of players committing suicide. Along with that I can’t imagine how their mothers must feel about all that’s going on in the NFL. I’m sure that right at the beginning of their career in football, as a little kid just playing for fun and not worried about injuries, their mothers would stand back with worry all over their face. Their mothers would hope and pray that this is just a stage and they will not like it or quit after getting a little bruised up, but I’m sure some of those mothers to this day are still watching and supporting their son every day, scared as always. I can’t imagine how much this impacts mothers, not only did their son get injured but he also took his life because of the injuries all due to football.

            I have experience with mothers worrying because I happen to have a little brother and older brother, my older brother not in football anymore and my little brother just starting out. All I can say is my mom hates it because of how tough football coaches are on the football players, and didn’t like it when my brother played and now her little baby is crazy about football and loves to play. I have a feeling too that my brother will never give up till he gets to the big league. I wonder if someday my mom will be just like those NFL moms, worried about their kid even after all this time. All I know is I hope something like this never has to happen to anyone else and especially not my family!

International Adoption

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/16/world/international-adoption-saving-orphans-child-trafficking/index.html?hpt=wo_mid

"The de facto result (of in-country preference) is they would prefer to have the children in institutional life rather than intercountry adoption," Bartholet said. "The results are more developmental problems, more kids on the street and more cost to the government to institutionalize these kids." I agree with that statement, shutting down international adoption could be bad and good. The bad side of it is that more kids would be on the street and live in bad home situations but the good side of it is that nobody would be taken away from their parents when they don’t need to be. But to tell you the truth reading about Srey Powers and how once she got to America, she bonded with her adoptive mother about soccer, makes me think different about it being bad. 

"In every human endeavor, there is a chance for abuse," said Elizabeth Bartholet, director of the Child Advocacy Program at Harvard Law School, who adopted two children from Peru in the 1980s. Something to remember is that, there is good and bad in everything and you can’t expect everything to go smoothly. Of course we want to limit adoption when bad things happen but we could just accept it and change to make it harder for the kids that have parents to be taken. Do background checks and monitor things to make sure the adoption doesn’t become human trafficking. Eliminating it entirely could in the end cause more problems than it did when things went wrong.

“Smolin, along with many other experts and organizations -- including UNICEF and the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption -- believe that orphans being adopted from abroad should be a last-case scenario, with more emphasis placed on helping keep children in their home country, such as providing day care, foster care, better orphanages and more domestic adoption.” This could be true also but the people that have adopted from other countries have been fairly excite d to give them a better life and even when trying to do that without actually taking them away from their families could still not solve problems. The kids when put in the right home, will all in all be better off and respect the family that they have and be glad that they were taken away to have a better life. I wouldn’t be too pleased myself but given the situation, I would be happy in the end for the better life. I’m sure after that adjusting stage and growing up; adopted kids soon realize that this is for the better. Even Powers in the end visits with her grandma and her adoptive mother and watches her mother put her grandmother at ease makes her respect the life she has and the people in it.

Kenya mall attack

               http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/22/world/africa/kenya-mall-attack/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

"No one should lose their life so needlessly, so senselessly and no family should have to receive news that their loved ones have been killed by a criminal bunch of cowards," the president said. When I went to CNN to look for an article to write about this had thrown me off. I was shocked when reading through this very long and sad article, shocked to see so many dead and very badly injured. It reminded me of the attacks in the U.S. in many different places. Of course none of them were to this extent. “The mall siege was the deadliest terror attack in Kenya since al Qaeda blew up the U.S. Embassy there in 1998, killing 213 people.”

Reading the stories from the witnesses of this gave me the shivers. The whole mall had blood and dead bodies alongside the hallways. Gun shots and bombs were going on all over. A few Americans were injured in this event too. It’s still a mystery on why this happened. The President said the tragedy was personal because his own family members were killed also. I feel that no matter if I had family that was killed in the attack, it still would touch my heart and I’d still be concerned for the families of the victims. I couldn’t image just going to the mall one day and being held hostage along with 1,000 others and the possibility of being killed or injured very badly.

I wonder if this world will ever be civil, it’s like all we know is fighting. Every day you don’t know what to expect and whether or not you will be attacked or someone else will be attacked that you know and love. It makes me think of how valuable life is and how you shouldn’t take it for granted. It’s a blessing if you have all your family members still alive and well. All these current events will help you realize to love what you have while it’s still here because just one day could change that. The worst part is you could be completely innocent and it could still happen. None of the people that died deserved it or should have been expecting it.

"They shall not get away with their despicable, beastly acts. Like the cowardly perpetrators now cornered in the building, we will punish the masterminds swiftly and indeed very painfully," Kenyatta said. I hope they do find whoever did this and give them what they deserve, for this horrid thing. 

Huge chain-reaction crash in UK involves at least 100 vehicles.

        http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/05/world/europe/uk-huge-chain-reaction-crash/index.html?hpt=wo_mid

         “Video from the scene showed scores of abandoned cars and trucks, many crumpled from impacts with other vehicles. Motorists, some injured, sat on the roadside as they awaited help.” The fact that there was a pile-up in London involving at least one hundred vehicles is shocking. Makes me wonder how on Earth that could have happened. The bridge it happened was not accessible at all so many of the injured people were stuck in the heat waiting for help. I think this problem could have been solved possibly if everybody was paying more attention to the traffic. "All you could hear was cars crashing. We got out of our car and it was eerily quiet with visibility down to just 20 yards. Then you would hear the screeching of brakes and then a thud. It was all you could hear for about 10 minutes -- crash after crash after crash."

          I’m sure everyone who lived around the area was shocked by what was going on and what they were hearing. The crash sounds pretty severe but not a lot of the people involved in the pile up were severely injured as you would suspect.  At least the pile up didn't cause a lot of people to die or leave people severely injured. This article drew me in from the title and I’m glad I read it. Some of the comments on the post said that in the UK, they drive pretty badly and it doesn't surprise them. It doesn't surprise me either! That is so crazy to me that something like that would happen, or could happen. Hopefully this will teach drivers in London to be more cautious.

I’ll be overwhelmed if I find another article about a crash this big. This would be quite the sight to see, maybe it has happened around the U.S. too because too many times I've been on the interstate and the traffic would slow down to a stop for a long amount of time. I’m sure you know how I feel? I wonder if this is what big cities are like, maybe since I live in Iowa and it is pretty small that’s why I’m so shocked by this.  I feel like I’m rambling on and on about this whole event, but it’s quite an interesting thing to know. If I did my research I could find accidents this big in the U.S. maybe even bigger, who knows.