Looters target Coney Island due to Hurrican Sandy

I believe that stealing is wrong. No matter what. Especially the looters who think it's perfectly fine to steal for no reason after a natural disaster has just taken place. Although there are some circumstances under which stealing could somewhat be okay. Looting is definitley wrong if someone does it out of greed to steal flat screen tvs such as some of the people at Coney Island. I believe this is wrong because they are stealing for no reason and their own personal gain. There is no reason to steal a flat screen tv after a natural diaster has just swept through. The only way I think stealing is justifiable is if your child or family is sick and you have no access to medicine or food that you desperateley need. People would understand that you weren't just doing it for no reason. Some people would really need it. I believe that looting is wrong if you do it in a way that can't be justified and is pointless.

Violent Little League Coach

                                     



                          A little league asst. coach could be facing charges for punching a referee during a game in West Park. This happened Saturday evening during a game between West Park Saints and Miramar Patriots. It all started when referee Andrew Keigans gave the saints a pentiality for unsportsmanlike conduct after one of the assistant coaches made a rude remark from the sidelines. The assistant coach, who disagreed with the penalty, barged the field and confronted Keigans as he was held back by head coach Antonio Lane, the report said. "Because the assistant coach left the sidelines and entered the field of play to confront Keigans, the head referee decided to end the game, the report said." All the parents and coaches ran on the field to confront Keigans and as soon as he started walking off the field, the assistant coach ran in front of him and slapped him in the face which knocked his hat off and Keigans fell to the ground. The assistant coach was later found out to be Dion Robinson who is a 43 year old male.
                     I think it is wrong for the assistant coach to involve himself in such inappropriate behavior, especially in front of youth football players. That is not an example that should be set for them and they will grow up doing what they see. They will think it is perfectly OK to take part in such inappropriate behavior. I can connect with this article because it reminds me of my dad. Although my dad has never ran on the field and hit a referee, he is very involved in little league football with my little brother. He is a head coach, and watching from the stands you always know when my dad is mad due to a call the reff made that he may disagree with. He's almost as intense as this man mentioned in this article other than the fact that he dosent hit people.
                    In the end, what Robinson did was wrong and the reff didn't deserve it. The adults should set the example for the kids. If you don't want the players to get in fights on the field, then the adults shouldn't get in fight on the sidelines.






 http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/15/14456353-caught-on-camera-little-league-coach-hits-referee?lite

Bullied Girl Has Her Time to Shine

Have you ever been bullied? People who have been bullied in their lives know how painful this is. It is a cruel treatment that absolutley no one deserves. It messes with people emotionally and physically. It can even result in depression and suicide. Whitney Croft is a young 16 year old girl who is bullied. "I feel like I'm a piece of trash and I'm just this thing that no one cares about." This makes me want to cry just hearing her say this. And it makes me sick to know that someone has hurt her so bad that she actually feels as if she is nothing. Well Whitney, you're something. Pretty much my hero. The mean girls at the school decided it would be funny to have everyone vote for her for homecoming court as a joke. They got their wish and Whitney was nominated. "The girls voted for her for homecoming court as a prank, something the young girl considered suicide." Yes. This girl considered suicide because of the social embarassment these girls wanted to put her through. And to know that it was a complete joke, only made it worse. "After her sister and her talked through it, they decided Whitney would keep her title on the court." Although she was on the ballot because of a joke, she decided to embrace the oppurtunity she was given even if it was out of crulety. The hairdresses and stylests heard about her around town and decided to give her a makeover she always wanted. The night of the game, some people discovered a group of girls who traveled over and hour just to show Whitney their supposrt even though they didnt know her. "The kids that are being bullied, don't let them bring you down. Stand up for yourself and what you believe and go with your heart and go with your gut. That's what I did and look at me now. I'm just as happy as can be." This girl is absolutley my hero. She went from feeling like nothing to feeling like everything. Bullying is an awful thing and we can stop it. If we see someone who is being bullied it is OUR responsibility to stop it and help the ones who can't. It could save someones life. Say no to bullying.

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2012/09/29/pkg-bullied-homecoming.cnn&hpt=hp_tvvideo#/video/us/2012/09/29/pkg-bullied-homecoming.cnn

Pennsylvania city considers banning dogs

A western Pennsylvania city is considering banning dogs. Some of the officials in Beaver Falls believe that part of the problem is that larger dogs are sometimes left tied up to parking meters by their owners. This would really scare me if I was minding my own buisness and a dog started barking at me by the parking meter. Officails say, "Some of the dogs are as big as ponies". Another concern is the owners don't clean up after their dogs leaving a big pile of dog poo everywhere for people to step in and track into other places.
"It’s not that anybody on the council doesn’t like dogs," City Administrator Steve Johnson told Pet Pardons News. "I like dogs. We certainly don’t want to discourage people from having a dog. It’s just that many dog owners are being irresponsible and ruining things for everybody," Johnson said. They are all not so sure that getting rid of dogs would necessarily help. Many people who have heard about it think that it is a waste of time. I personally think we should have the right to own a dog but if it does use the bathroom somewhere it needs to be cleaned up and I would ban people from tieing the dogs up to a parking meter. That could be a little unsafe. If the ban does happen it won't happen until later in the year. In the passage it says some people are for it where as some people think this sort of attention should be on drug scenes and prostituion.
I can relate to this because it's just like parents telling their kids that they can't have a dog unless you take care of it and clean up after it. I think these people who are leaving their dogs on the side of the road and not cleaning up after them should remember what their parents told them as kids and be responsible.


http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/09/17/western-pennsylvania-city-considers-banning-dogs-from-downtown/

The New World Trade Center

      The new world trade center that is being built shows that we are back on top. No other nation can stop us. It's height of 1,776 ft represents the year of the country's independence. Also the tip of the antenna will feature a rotation beacon that flashed the letter "N" for New York in Morse Code. This really interests me because now these building have more meaning to them. They have a signifcant reason as to how and why they are being built. I'm going to New York over spring break so I can't wait to visit these buildings.

My Reading Bucket List

Columbine by Dave Cullen
Dave Cullen presents a compelling utterly human profile of teenage killers. He draws hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boy's tapes and diaries. A lot of people told me this is so good.

She Said Yes by Misty Bernall
A young girl was handing out in the school library when a couple of guys walked in with masks on. They started asking the kids a very important question. Do you believe in God? She said yes. They asked her again. She said yes.

Before I Fall by Lauren Olive
A young girl dies in a tragic car crash but is somewhat still alive. She's living life after death and is trying to communicate with others. Can she go back and change someof the things she messed up?

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia
Half people, half creatures. They struggle to survive in a judgemental world with other evil creatures lurking about. Everyone said its a really good book. It sounds suspensful and very creepy.

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
I saw the movie and its a really sweet love story. Noah and Allie meet and have a summer love romance that lasts a lifetime. Sure, they fight a alot but they both realize that they cant live without one another. I would hope to have a love like that when I get older. It's really sad though.

The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks
I saw the movie and I have the book at home. Ronnie is a teenage girl who has a summer romance with the hearthrob of the town. Its really sweet but sad at the same time. I hope the book will be just as good as the movie.

The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks
Nicholas Sparks is an amazing author. I love all his romance books. I also heard that this movie and book are wonderful.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hossein
This is a dark book about the Taliban. It takes place in Afghanistan. This stuff interests me and scares me at the same time. This book will probably be very creepy.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Many people have told me this is a great book. A boy deals with a typical high school year and learns as he goes.

One Day by David Nicholas
This is a very romantic book that everyone has told me to read. It will bring you to tears but you'll fall in love with it at the same time.

The Titanic

As a passenger on The Titanic it is extremley hard for me to forgive the many people who were blamed for the deaths of many and the crash, especially Captain Smith. He was commanding the Titanic when it went down. He ignored the many warnings of the iceburgs and did not slow up his speed. He also didn't warn us passengers after the collison happened. I lost many loved ones and so did others so forgiveness is hard to grant among someone who was careless and ignorant and was the cause of the death of my people. Maybe after time, I will be able to forgive him.

Pity?

In my opinion, I wouldn't have pity on a man who killed thousands of people for no reason; Especially men, women, and children like me. In the story one of the Nazi soldiers who was suffering from battle wounds asked one of the Jews for forgiveness because he felt guilt for everything that had happened. Simon (the Jew) felt bad for him for a while as he poured his heart out in repentance. But I think one statement stuck out to him most of all. "Look, he said, those Jews died quickly, they did not suffer as I do-though they were not as guilty as I am." This would have completley changed my mind if I was pitying him for one minute. All of the Jews did suffer. They were beat, starved, and put in gas chambers. If I were Simon, there is no way I could bring myself to have pitty on the man. "Then from the other windows fell burning bodies... We shot.. Oh God!" The man is reflecting on an incident that happened that was caused by him. He told the man this but personally I don't think it's going to make a difference. Explaining to someone what you did to a Jew is not going to gain you anymore of a chance of getting forgivness.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is something everybody deserves. In order for us to forgive we must be willing to move on; not necessarially forget. It's harder for mans flesh to forgive because we were born in a sinful nature. But God forgives everybody who asks for forgiveness and to be more Christ like, we should be willing to do the same. If a young teenager takes his or her own life to escape adolescent pressure, I think that they should be forgiven. Something similar happened to one of my friends and at that moment in time most of us have no idea what the person is feeling and what greif they are dealing with. Although we will greive over the loss of the person and be upset they left us, forgiveness is something that should be given out to someone who was going through a hard time in life. We need to be thankful that we were not put in the same situation as the teenager was.