Pig captured by using french fries as bait

It was with mixed emotions that I read the article on the local newspaper’s web-site, that the Vietnamese Pot Bellied pig that has been running loose since early March has been captured.  I had been hoping that the pig would be captured soon because I was afraid someone would kill him and eat him, so I was glad that he has been caught and is now safe and sound.  And I thought it was funny that the bait used to catch him was french fries.  Seems to me you could catch a lot of things using french fries as bait!

What did upset me was reading that the police captured him by baiting him with fries and then using a taser to stun the little guy!  In the long run, however, the guy is caught and is safe, and that is the important thing!

Important day in history

I am a bit of a history buff and just found out that today is a day to be celebrated in history.  See, today marks the celebration of the ACLU  anniversary of the US Supreme Courts decision on student free speech.  Here’s how it started:

On Tuesday, the non-profit organization the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a video and press release commemorating 40 years since the landmark Supreme Court of the United States decision involving freedom of speech in the case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. The Tinker case was decided on February 24, 1969. The case involved students in Iowa who chose to wear black armbands with peace symbols in protest of the Vietnam War – in violation of a recent school board policy. In their statement, the ACLU compared issues of freedom of speech in the Tinker case to a more recent case, Gillman v. Holmes County School District, where a school district in Florida forbade students from wearing rainbow symbols in school in support of LGBT rights.

In the Tinker case, John and Mary Beth Tinker and another student decided to wear black armbands with peace symbols to school in protest of the Vietnam War. The school district heard of the students’ plans and decided to ban armbands in school. The three students case were represented by the ACLU of Iowa, and in a 7-2 decision the Supreme Court ruled for the plaintiffs.

Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas wrote in the Opinion of the Court: “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights…at the schoolhouse gate.”

Unfortunately there are too many young people today that think there’s nothing they can do to make a difference.  Well these kids did just that.  They made a difference.  We all can make a difference if we do it right.  There should never be violence when we feel something needs to change.  There should only be peaceful means to make the changes we feel are important.  Violence never makes a positive change.

Haiti

Haiti is such a poor country with so much poverty that we Americans could not imagine.  We think we have it bad, we live like kings compared to the people of Haiti.  They suffer every day and then something as horrific as this happens.

“Three days after the concrete building suddenly collapsed during a children’s party, killing at least 94 students and adults and severely injuring 150 more, Capt. Michael Isetan of Fairfax County, Va., said the chance of more survivors was remote. He also said the death toll won’t likely go much higher. U.S., French and Haitian firefighters used sonar, cameras and dogs Monday in the search for victims at a collapsed Haitian school, but as the stench of death rose from the wreckage, they no longer expected to find anyone else alive.” was written on November 10th.

What an awful tragedy. They are not even sure just how many people were in the building when it collapsed, though the school is believed to have had about 500 students. Haitian officials said some had time to escape when it began to fall. Some students weren’t at the school during the collapse because La Promise was holding a party requiring a donation of about 50 cents that poorer families could not afford, said Deputy Steven Benoit, who represents the area in the Chamber of Deputies.

That was one time that being poor probably was a blessing to some of those people because at least their children are still alive. My heart breaks at the thought of all of those children being trapped and killed in a building that should have been the safest place for them to be and yet it turned into a living HELL for the whole community.

Did you vote?

I sure hope you took the time to go out and vote.  I am both ashamed and proud to let you know that this is the first year I have ever voted.  I was eligible the last time but had my head up something and didn’t realize the importance of it.  Now I do.  This is one of the most important rights we as Americans have and we should all exercise that right and vote.

Someone heard me complaining about something to do with our government and asked me if I voted in the last election.  I told them I had not and they told me I had no right to say anything then because I left it up to everyone else to choose our current government and if I wanted the right to complain, then I needed to vote.  Then and only then, they said, did I have a right to complain.  I thought about what they had said and I agree with them.  Well this time, I did my civic duty and I voted.  I hope you did too.

13 is my lucky number but not O.J.’s

There is a part of me that feels terribly sorry for O. J.  Simpson and then there’s the other part.  Here was a GREAT MAN who has turned into the worst example of a Sports (former) Hero there is.  He has thought for too long that he could get away with anything and everything but not this time.

I’m sure most everyone has heard about all the 13’s involved in his trial and his life in the past 13 years so I won’t go into all of them but it is quite a coincidence.  The funniest part to me is that 13 has always been my lucky number.  I guess it only works in good ways for some and obviously not in a good way for O. J.

I only hope and pray that his children do not have to suffer anymore.  They have paid the biggest price for all of the messes O. J. has created in the past 13 years.  Maybe 13 is their lucky number and now their father can’t make a fool of himself anymore and will humble himself and be the man he should have been for more than just the past 13 years.  We can only hope and pray for the children’s sake.

Computer error causes death

Life just isn’t fair when you lose someone you love to cancer but to lose them to a computer error is unbelievable.  That’s exactly what happened to a 27 year old man in England that was suffering from testicular cancer.  He was happy to get into an drug trial because he was told this would increase his chances of survival.  This man was engaged to be married.

A computer error caused him to be given double the amount of chemotherapy needed over a four month period.  This slowly poisoned him and he died.  There was another man also given an overdose of chemotherapy but he survived.

Computers are only as reliable as the person operating it and there should have been something written into what ever program written for this trial that would warn them that too much medication, chemotherapy or anything else that was to be given to patients had been ordered but it seems that the computer was what was ordering it.  Wasn’t a doctor paying attention?  I would have thought a doctor would have been checking behind what was being given.  A computer has no heart and soul and can’t think for itself like humans are supposed to be able to do.  The doctor over this should lose his license or be reprimanded at least.  What a shame.

Conductor was texting

Oh my goodness, I just heard that the conductor of the passenger train was sending text messages on his phone, missed a signal and that’s what caused the crash of the two trains.  The conductor was one of the people that lost their lives that day.

People should already know not to text and drive a car so why wouldn’t he have known better than to do it on a train with so many peoples lives are supposed to be in his hands and not his cell phone.  I really feel sorry for whoever he was sending text messages because they are probably going to feel responsible.  I would if I was the one that was texting him.  One things for sure, I sure as heck won’t text and drive anything.

Trains collide in California

A commuter train and a freight train collided in California killing at least 25 people.  How could this happen?  It’s obvious to me that someone somewhere was not paying attention and set these two trains on a collision course.  They think the number of injured is around 130 people.  The mayor of Los Angeles said this is the worst accident he has ever seen.  I’m sure that’s true for the approximately 250 firefighters that responded too.

Then less than an hour after that, a woman was killed in her car when it was hit by a train in Corona California.  The two had nothing to do with each other but what a coincidence,  I don’t think I would want to ride a train or go near the tracks in California.   My prayers are with the injured and the family of the many that lost their lives.

Hot iPod Nano

Isn’t this wonderful.  Apple has finally admitted that it’s iPod Nano’s battery overheats.  I guess that makes it one ‘hot’ item, huh?  It says the problem has been rare and no serious injury has been reported.  Well that’s just wonderful that no one was seriously injured but even a minor injury is cause for alarm.  Especially when you consider who usually has these types of items.  That would be kids between say 10 and 18.

How traumatic would it be for them to be burned and scared by one of those things.  Battery burns are ugly.  IF you want to know more about it, check it out at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7571986.stm.  I hope you don’t have one of these.