Honduran Security Forces Accused of Abuse

This article can be found here.

November 4, 2009

The caption of the picture above read "A man lay wounded after a shot in the head during another rally in July." It looks more fatal to me.

The picture to the right is one of the most awkward photos I've ever seen. The guy looks like he's on the phone while everyone's getting bludgeoned and the caption reads that this was a "pro-Zelaya student demonstration", while most of these people look to be professors.

Ever since President Zelaya's exile, security forces have attempted to fend off protest by beating or arresting people found associated with any form of opposition. Eleven people have been killed since the coup took place on June 28th and how many injuries have been reported. Mr. Zelaya secretly returned to Honduras two weeks ago, taking refuge at the Brazilian Embassy.

People are fearing the upcoming elections more than ever. Will enough people vote following mass discomfort with how the last president was removed and will great powers like the United States choose to recognize the election as legitimate, or continue to support the ousted president?

Driven the Distraction: When Texting Kills, Britain Offers Path to Prison

This article can be found here.

November 2, 2009

The British government has chosen to take a tougher stance on accidents directly resulting from texting, particularly accidents that lead to casualties. 22-year-old Phillipa Curtis was the first victim of its harsh sentencing when she was given almost two years of jailtime after getting into an accident resulting in the death of 24-year-old Victoria McBryde. Since records had shown that Curtis had been texting minutes before the event and had received an unopened message only moments before, prosecutors argued that Curtis had been looking down at her phone when the accident occurred. Though this seemed to be mere interpretation, the courts had felt as if they had to prosecute Curtis in order to make an example out of her and the effects of texting while driving. Surprisingly, several of McBryde's friends had also found the decision to be harsher than deserved, as they realized how much they, too, text on their phones while driving. The victim herself had sent a message and talked on the phone during her drive. Still, chief justice Lloyd Jones found the sentencing to be quite lenient.

Deal Set to Restore Ousted Honduran President

This article can be found here.

October 31, 2009

When simply one's presence brings terror to a nation's entire government, one knows the strength of one's power. After only two days of American officials being on Honduran soil, the same government that so violently ousted President Zelaya, signed an agreement to let him back into the nation. The United States promised the de facto government that their upcoming elections would not be recognized if Zelaya was not restored his position as President until those elections took place. Neither Zelaya or the man who took his place after the coup, Micheletti, will be on the upcoming ballot. The only obstacle preventing Zelaya's return is approval from Congress, the very institution that sanctified the coup to begin with. The thousands of protestors that had been oppressed by armed forces only a month ago, were not celebrating across the capital.

The article included contributing reports from Mark Landler from Islamabad, Pakistan. The legitimacy of his report seems like it should be held under much scrutiny since he is almost 9,000 miles away from the event he is reporting on.

In a Coup in Honduras, Ghosts of Past U.S. Policies

This article can be found here.

October 30, 2009

On Sunday morning, June 28, 2009, President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras awakened to the sound of cocked guns. After a twenty minute gunfight between his guards and the Honduran army, the soldiers escorted Zelaya to the airport to be exiled in Costa Rica. All of this took place the day after the president made a spontaneous move to hold a public vote that would give the option to allow for his eligibility in the upcoming presidential election. Doing so would lengthen his 4 year term limit and question the legitimacy of the Honduran Constitution. Earlier in the week, the president had also made drastic moves to remove the leader of the armed forces and the Supreme Court had ruled Zelaya’s intention to altering the constitution as unlawful. Zelaya had been leading an effort to change the Central American nation's constitution for quite a while before he was finally ousted, and there had always been a suspicion that there would be an attempt to arrest the president. No one expected something as drastic as a violent coup d’état.

The day following the coup, President Barack Obama held a press conference condemning the act as setting a "terrible precedent" for the region. Many believe that his adament rejection of the overthrow was meant to defy the assumption of outside peoples that America may have had a hand in the aggressive maneuver. It goes back to the Cold War, a time when it was not uncommon for the United States to interfere with Latin American governments under the influence of communist governments. In Guatemala, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and many other nations, America asserted its democratic ideology by backing the party in opposition to Communism, either monetarily or with weapons. For example, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela said that the C.I.A. may have had a hand in the president’s removal. Of course, he may be drawing from his experience with the Bush administration, which in 2002 offered a rapid, tacit endorsement of a short-lived coup against Mr. Chávez.

Forty Years War: A Place Where Cancer is the Norm

This article can be found here.

October 27, 2009

Gina Kolata, the author of this article writes an emotional and inspiring article about cancer patients at MD Anderson, the nation's leading cancer research center in Houston, Texas. She uses intimate stories of cancer patients and small anecdotes to bring herself closer to the piece. For example, she alludes to Tomas Mann's "Magic Mountain", a story about a introverted sanatorium in the 'flatlands' where finding a cure for tuberculosis is the main mission of its inhabitants. After creating this personal connection to the article, Kolata then offers the reader several emotionally touching stories of cancer patients at the hospital. They are patients like 35-year-old Mindy Lanoux of San Antonio, who has melanoma that has spread to her liver and lungs, her odds of surviving in the single digits. They are patients like 35-year-old Mindy Lanoux of San Antonio, who has melanoma that has spread to her liver and lungs, her odds of surviving in the single digits. Also, a Dr. Martin Raber, an oncologist — and a cancer patient himself — at Anderson. The sources she uses are unique because they all have cancer, yet they come from all different levels of experience with the disease- from doctors to nurses to ordinary patients. This backs the author's theme of discovering the prevalence of the devastating disease in this "parallel universe, where nothing matters but cancer". She continues to tell these series of stories of cancer patients, accounting for everything from hope and hopelessness, fortune and misfortune, life and death. Kolata has created an epic out of an article. The rest of the article continues in this fashion as short, touching quotes are injected throughout the body of the work. (For example, when Mrs. Toland was speaking with her son George: “Most people lose their innocence in little doses as they go through life. You lost yours all at once.”) The article ends with the story of Dr. Raber who had the disease plague him and his once 'perfect' career, leading him to realize that cancer wasn't about curing a disease or succombing to it; it was about dealing with it for the rest of your life, because of the high risk that it with return. But he finishes on a positive note, understanding that having cancer affect his life so deeply has allowed him to better understand his patients and their own battles with cancer.

Guest Speaker: Mike Foley

October 26, 2009

Before he became the professor of the Journalism course at the University of Florida in 2001, Mike Foley had a successful newspaper career from 1970 to 1999. From 1920-1973, Foley worked at the St. Petersburg Evening Independent. From 1973 to 1999, he found his niche at Florida's largest newspaper, the St. Petersburg Times. He worked his way up the ladder from city editor, to managing editor, to executive editor, and finally to vice president. Many great writers came and went under his vigil as vice president of the St. Petersburg Times, including Rick Bragg. He recalled his greatest story, coincidentally one of the greatest disasters to ever occur in the St. Petersburg area, as the day a ship crashed into the skyway bridge. 7:38 AM, May 9, 1980, Foley received a call from one of his employees who tipped him off on the event. From there, he began to give out orders to his reporters, sending them to several different areas across the site in order to gather eye-witness reports. By the end of the day, Foley had 23 different stories to choose from. He cites that good editors are able to take a story and make it better-- even if it was good to begin with.

The hierarchy of the newspaper business is as follows: Executive Manager --> Managing Editor --> Assistant Managing Editor --> Metro Editor --> Assistant Metro Editor --> City Editor --> Assistant City Editor --> Reporter

The different types of editors can be described as: Assigning, Copy/Desk/Design, Administrative, Opinions, Online, and Photo/Illustrations

Film on the Dolphin Hunt Stirs Outrage in Japan

This article can be found here.

October 22, 2009

Director Louie Psihoyos recently debuted the screening of his highly publicized documentary called "The Cove" that aimed at raising awareness of the inhumane capture of dolphins by fishermen in Taiji, Japan. Every winter it's dolphin fishing season, and fishermen flock to the sea to initiate their mass slaughter of the species. Captured by OBarry's candid cameras, the fishermen trick the dolphins into their nets by luring them in with the vibrations of their beating metal poles. Once trapped, the fisherman equip themselves with spears and stab the gentle creatures repeatedly until they finally die. Aside from these practices being highly unethical, dolphin meat consists of dangerous amounts of mercury, that may be hazardous to the consumers it is so haphazardly distributed to. Japan is probably more known for their more publicized mass slaughtering of the whale population; but the 13,000 dolphins that were killed last winter should not be ignored. The documentary allowed for Japanese people to become more aware of the inhumane activity of dolphin fishing through the gorey, explicit footage of fisherman making their murderous jabs at the dolphins, showing the sea slowly turn red with blood. This image has already activated several influential people, like Hollywood's Ben Stiller, into lobbying for the termination of such practices after the documentary's debut at the Tokyo Film Festival.