Amanda Bynes...?

I came across this story, and I thought it was pretty interesting. Sadly, it is also reminiscent of many dried up celebrities that we have had in our culture in the past few decades. Amanda Bynes, Nickelodeon child star, has really begun to step up the inappropriate and erratic behavior that has been the cause of her spotlight in the past few months. Most recently, she posted very racy pictures of herself on twitter topless, with only the minimum amount of censorship using hair and hands, along with captions regarding her desire to lose weight and her tendencies. As a result of this, her ex-publicist Jonathon Jaxson tweeted that she was out of control and that NYPD should find and help her. Then, Jenny McCarthy began to tweet about the situation. Eventually it ended it a public twitter argument between Amanda and Jenny. Many people believe that this whole situation was a publicity stunt by Amanda in order to gain a bit more of the spotlight, considering how her ex-publicist jumped on the opportunity to “help her out” and how the argument with McCarthy was so public. Unfortunately stunts like this are precisely how many washed up celebrities try and get back into the public eye. This has not been the only thing that she’s been doing recently that could be seen as controversial or attention seeking. In the past year she has used twitter as a way of communicating with her fans and other celebrities in ways that are very unorthodox. She’s called Jay-Z ugly, complained about her weight, and publicly tweeted that she wants Drake to “murder her vagina.” When did social media become a gateway back into the spotlight for celebrities? I’m not necessarily one to judge other people, but if most of this is for publicity purposes because she has been missing the spotlight since she’s retired acting, I see no reason for all of this to go on. Does a celebrity sweetheart really need to do negative things to gain the attention they seem to crave? Looks like we've got another Britney/Lindsay. There are many more articles that give a more detailed form of the story.

The death of myspace

This isn't really a current event but it's still pretty interesting.

I chose to write about the complete obliteration of Myspace. I remember converting to Facebook in high school simply because everyone else was doing it. I look back now and realize there was much more to the mass conversion from Myspace to Facebook. I found an article from the Huffington Post online (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX46e4GtlXM) and found many reasons for the decline of the once super popular social networking site. Myspace was bought by News Corp in 2005 for the hefty price of $500 million. More recently the companies CEO’s have abandoned it and it was sold to News Corp for $35 million. This huge loss was mainly due to the fact that the creators of the site were well versed in entertainment rather than technology.  Because of this, Myspace could not keep up with the social web it had helped create. Myspace was too concerned with its revenues instead of the users experience, which led to sloppily made apps that were not created by experts in their field. These additions created a crowded atmosphere that made it hard to operate the website. Along with this sloppiness there were sloppy people crowding up the website as well. Many wannabe C list celebrities swarmed to the site looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. This led to mass amounts of inappropriate, eye catching media; mainly naked photos. Younger users would be exposed to pornographic material which led to the dubbing of Myspace as a ‘virtual ghetto’. Facebook offered up a more personalized streamlined look to relieve users. To read more about the reasons for the failure of Myspace you can check out the link

Ricin-filled letters!

On Saturday April 27, 2013 a man named Everett Dutschke form Tupelo, Mississippi was arrested for sending ricin-filled letters through the mail, addressed to President Obama, Senator Roger Wicker, and a local judge, Sadie Holland. Dutschke had been arguing with a man online named Kevin Curtis over different issues. Originally, he was thought to be the criminal, only for the FBI to realize that he was framed by Dutschke. Dutschke said, "I guess Kevin got desperate. I feel like he's getting away with the perfect crime. It has made my family incredibly unsafe. It has put a target on us, and it was reckless and irresponsible." Continuing to deny his offense, he announced, "I'm a patriotic American. I don't have any grudges against anybody...I did not send the letters.” However, the FBI did not find any ricin in Curtis’ home or car, and so they began a search of Dutschke’s home. 

In this picture, FBI agents search for ricin in a trash can outside of Curtis' house and, of course, none was found. 

And, after Curtis was free from any criminal act, his attorney, Christi McCoy said, “We are relieved but also saddened. This crime is nothing short of diabolical. I have seen a lot of meanness in the past two decades, but this stops me in my tracks.”

The letters to President Obama and Wicker never reached Dutschke’s planned recipient because they were retrieved at an off-site mail facility, rather than being directly sent to the president and the senator. However, Judge Holland received his letter. He smelled the poisonous ricin with no harmful affects. 

Dutschke has also committed other crimes before this. He was arrested for sexually molesting girls and vulgar exposure involving a minor. For his recent crime, the hearing is Monday in Oxford, Mississippi. He may be sentenced to life in prison if he is found guilty on all charges. Do you think he should be sentenced to life in prison? Personally, I think he should be sentenced to life because he, knowingly, made and possessed a poisonous substance to use as a weapon. 

You can view a video about the offense and read more about it here.

Mountain Dew Racist Commerical?

Mountain Dew had a new commercial today but then quickly removed it from airing. The ad was criticized for being racist. The ad features a goat along with black prisoners who are being in jail. There, the cops along with a victim who happened to be a Caucasian blonde lady was trying identified her attacker. There the goat was along 5 African Americans who were all dressed in Doo rags and made seem as thugs. The goat was also portrayed as a "gangster". He would talk like keep your mouth shut, I'm going to do ya when I get out," "ya better not snitch on a playa'," and "snitches, get stitches, fool." These words were seem as racists and playing on the stereotypes of African Americans. However, some people see this ad as harmless and is just an ad that is trying to sell its product. When looking into this ad, i do find it offensive to some viewers. The ad is portraying the stereotypical views of African Americans. Why couldn't the prisoners be white or why couldn't the officers be white? This is the puzzling part. If the ad featured white officers but black prisoners, would the ad still be racists? It is up to the viewers to decide. If anything, the ad will still bring up controversy. What  do you think? Is it racists or are people overreacting?
http://youtu.be/MuW4FBq_rco

Fourth Grader writes on gay marriage, goes viral...

Recently in the media, there has been a letter that was written by a fourth grader that went viral. The guidelines that the child was given for the paper was only that it was supposed to be persuasive, and they could choose whatever topic they wanted. This fourth grader boldly chose gay marriage as his topic. This topic is one that has always seemed to obvious to me, yet despite many conservative views, there hasn’t been complete gratification with making gay marriage legal across the country. With this lack of progress comes a lot of frustration. When this young child was writing his essay on such an important topic, his solution for the stagnant progress is really refreshing. He says, “"Why gay people should be able to get married is you can't stop two adult's from getting married because there grown and it doesn't matter if it creeps you out just get over it. And you should be happy for them because it's a big moment in their life. When I went to my grandparents wedding it was the happies moment." His teacher read his essay and put it on their reddit account, where then it went viral across all social media websites, even news stations like ABC. People are amazed that a young child could have such a simple view on gay marriage. Frankly, I feel that this is a view that many people in the gay community or people who are in favor of gay marriage have stated. Where their comments have been swept under the rug, it makes me question if this child’s words will be also. This has the potential, if it gains enough steam, to catch Washington’s attention and (hopefully!!) finalize equal-marriage rights in the United States.  You can view a picture of the essay here.

(Alex Bopp)

Conspiracy theory? (Video link)

Hey Class,

 

            So I came across this video online, not sure if anyone has watched it yet. I just thought it was interesting and should share it with you all. The video takes about how it is possible that the whole Sandy Hook was made up and planned by the government.

            After watching this video a whole lot of questions came to mind whether or not I should believe it or not. It makes me question is if I should believe it or not. I feel at times media makes us gullibly and we easily believe what they are telling us; its strange how one day media could talk about something and we automatically just believe it and a couple months later something else comes out and it could change our mind completely.

            One of the reasons people believe that it was made up was so that people would be in favor of the gun control act that the government wants to pass. But my question is why go through so much and put fear in the country all because of an act that the government wants to pass.

I came across this statement from someone on Facebook: "Everyone fears terrorist, when they should be in fear of the government. I'm convinced that everything done is inside job. Sometimes I think that the people in today’s society lose focus and lose out on the important things that we should focus on. I believe that media plays a major role in what we believe and how we view certain things. So I think its important that we should be very careful what we watch and how quickly we are to believe it." I think thats how that now a days this is how society feels, and wanted to know how the class felt about it.

http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhDdo1mzUx6Z04jdF0

Rosemary Owuo

Pink Moon: tonight!

Tonight's full moon is known as the Pink Moon...

Nick Drake approves.