MMJ

International Support On Its Way Towards Nigeria

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The international world has been in an uproar, calling on the Nigerian government to do more to ensure the safety of the 276 schoolgirls who were kidnapped by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram. The group is known to have a stronghold in the Nigerian country, making rescue attempts even more risky.

As reported earlier this week, the leader of the group, Abukabar Shekau threatened to sell the girls to their captors for as little as $12.  Informants have said that many of the girls were being sent to neighboring countries Chad and Cameroon to be sold as slaves.

The schoolgirls were woken up from their sleep while being on school grounds to complete their final exams. At first, they thought the men waking them up were soldiers, helping them escape the terrorist group. But their happiness soon turned to fear when they realized that their “saviors” were actually in on the attack, and even worse, members of the extremist group.

Just this past Tuesday, May 6th, people protested in front of the Nigerian embassy in Washington D.C., demanding the Nigerian government to do more for the rescue attempt, as well as asking other Western governments for aid. As the U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-LI, says “it is essential that the United States target Boko Haram and provide necessary support to save the lives of these young girls.”  Another protest was held in Union Square on May 3rd, where the protestors kept shouting “bring back our girls”.

It should be mentioned that this exact quote has grown to become a trending topic on Twitter. Users take photos of themselves with a sign saying “#BringBackOurGirls“.

French newspaper Le Parisien announced that along with France, the U.S., U.K., and China have stepped up and will send help to the Nigerian government.

It’s great to see that world leaders are coming together to fight for the freedom of these girls, as well as Nigeria. The only thing that dampens this movement is that is has to occur under awful circumstances. It should be noted that this group has been active since 2002, when it was founded by Mohammed Yusuf, a Muslim Cleric. The overall goal of Boko Haram is for Nigeria to adopt Sharia Law. This would prohibit girls and women from obtaining an education, as well as implementing harsh penalties, such as whippings and even executions for infractions that we in the West might consider as non-severe.

From G8 to G7

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So this week’s major global news (besides the tragic Malaysian flight) includes the U.S. and Russia (again). What was formerly known as the G8 has been reduced to G7, with Russia being ejected from the group. This action was, of course, done in retaliation for Russia annexing Crimea from Ukraine.

The reason as to why Russia went through a swift process of this addition to Russian land is because a general vote showed that the majority of the residents were in agreement for Crimea to be considered Russian. Russia has always argued that Crimea was an original Russian territory and that the annexation was largely due to protect the ethnic Russians living in the area.

The G8 (Group of Eight) industrialized industries, having now been reduced to 7, are composed of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The G8 were supposed to meet this June in Sochi, which is popular for being the host for the Winter Olympics. That location has now been changed to Brussels which is known for being the headquarters for NATO, as well as the European Union. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel says, “the G8 does not exist.”

Of course, before the G8 snubbed Russia, there was already a back-and-forth between both Russia and the U.S. Russia has enacted a Russian travel ban on House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Dan Coates (R-Ind.). Before that, the U.S. also sanctioned specific Russian businessmen who are known to be close allies/friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

I honestly think there’s too much back-and-forth between all countries. Unfortunately, there isn’t any easy way for all countries to be on the same page. It would be awesome if this were some sort of Utopia, but that’s not the case. What I am hoping for is a good resolution to all of this chaos not just for the sake of the U.S., but for the sake of the Russians and Ukrainians.

Here are some Twitter reactions to the new G7 announcement:

“Excluding Russia will only allow them to further violate human rights, a necessary evil?”

Sad Day for East Harlem As Gas Leak Causes Two Buildings to Explode

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As soon as I stepped out of my building, I could immediately see and smell it: the smoke residue from the gas explosion in East Harlem, 116th St. and Park avenue to be exact. The explosion occurred during Wednesday’s morning commute to work and school, at around 9:30am. As a result, two buildings, 1644 and 1646 Park Avenue, right on 116th Street. The ill-fated buildings, who also housed a Spanish church and a piano store, were completely destroyed, with a neighboring third building also being badly damaged.

An image of the buildings that were known as 1644 and 1646 Park avenue, before the explosion:

However, no one was safe from the chaotic aftermath. Traffic was diverted to other streets so as not to interfere with the police and firefighter’s investigations. This meant that a lot of foot traffic was eliminated, making restaurants and stores look like small ghost towns, something entirely different since many of these places were used to numerous customers.

Many of the first-eye witnesses to this disaster quickly took to social media to report what had happened.

"On my way [on my way] to the train to go to work & all of a sudden we heard a big explosion. I started tearing & temblando [shaking] that loud ass boom scared me." -Yeni Lee

“On my way [on my way] to the train to go to work & all of a sudden we heard a big explosion. I started tearing & temblando [shaking] that loud ass boom scared me.”
-Yeni Lee

East Harlem - Explosion

One of the popular trends on Instagram was #eastharlemexplosion, where many users posted videos and images of the aftermath to the explosion.

http://instagram.com/p/ldPtRAg9A_/

http://instagram.com/p/ldOm61g9PK/

http://instagram.com/p/lccTJyg9ER/

One Twitter user eerily compared the tragedy with 9/11:

Some quickly called their loved ones to make sure they were all right.

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As day turned into night, and later into morning again, many parents and children walked to school and work with masks covering their faces. Some people just covered their mouths with their scarves or hands, afraid of the air contamination that surrounded them. It’s also been reported that many residents have gone into panic mode, depleting stores of their face mask stock.. As a safety precaution, the New york City Department of Health has urged East Harlem residents to keep windows shut and if possible, to stay indoors.

Seven people have been confirmed dead: three after the explosion, one in the late evening, and three others early Thursday morning. Unfortunately, many are still unaccounted for. The various victims were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, Metropolitan Hospital, and Harlem Hospital. Most victims suffered minor injuries, and were discharged fairly quickly, but one unidentified 15-year-old boy is still in critical but stable condition in Harlem Hospital.

Three of the confirmed dead include a Hunter College peace office (Griselde Camacho), a dental assistant (Carmen Tanco), and 21-year-old Rosaura Hernandez. Even in all of this grief, there is a small sliver of happiness when one survivor recounted how he was able to survive the building’s collapse thanks to being “cocooned by pianos.”

For the many residents who found themselves homeless because of this tragedy, many were directed to P.S. 57 in 115th street between 3rd and Lexington Ave., which served as a makeshift Red Cross emergency shelter.

This morning, the NYPD announced that the Red Cross shelter would be moving to 175 E. 125th Street.

Service on the Metro-North train has been reinstated, after no trains were going into or out of the city yesterday. Because the accident occurred on Park avenue, it affected the overhead railroad.

A lot of images keep pouring into Instagram and Twitter, showing everyone the aftermath images, as well as live updates on the search and rescue progress:

http://instagram.com/p/lfGV4XHLBb/

Daily News’ front page this morning:

View this post on Instagram

Great Cover. #EastHarlemExplosion

A post shared by Kenzie DeLaine, II (@kenziedelaine) on

Many of the buildings in the neighborhood are old, so to some extent it is possible for this to happen. However, there are safety measure in place which require agencies, such as Con Ed and the Department of Housing, to check buildings and make sure they are up-to-date with safety regulations, giving no possible causes for tragedies like yesterday’s. So far, the NTSB [National Safety Transportation Board], as well as the NYPD and the FDNY, will investigate what caused the tragedy to see who and what was the cause.

Senioritis And The Future

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Now that the sun is starting to pop out more and the birds are chirping, it can only mean one thing: spring is almost here. With that, comes the dreadful senioritis; you know, that feeling of procrastination and wanting school to be over (because after this semester, you won’t have to worry about homework and tests and whatnot [if you’re not planning on going to Grad school]). 

I, for one, am not 100% sure yet on what I want to do. Grad school is most definitely in my plans, but I just don’t know for sure what kind of grad school I want to attend. So far, nothing has gotten my full-on attention. I would like to continue my studies along the lines of Applied Linguistics or French (even though my French is a bit rusty, this’ll allow me to further expand on it and be able to use it better). This, of course, would then help with my writing and grammar (it never hurts to improve!).

Since this is my last semester, I’m a bit relieved that it is not as strenuous as semesters past. I’m only taking 4 classes (compared to 6 before), so I hope that I won’t feel so burned out. I love my classes, they’re all so interesting. My favorite one has got to be Internet Linguistics – the class is super small (we’re talking about 8-9 people), and it’s mostly a discussion-led course. We read a ton, but thankfully the reading material is not too dense and confusing. It reads just like as a normal conversation, which I love! 

The toughest class so far is the journalism class. Having to come up with good story ideas is a bit daunting. Once you have an idea of what you wish to write about, you have to see how much data you need, and how you’ll be able to obtain it, etc., etc. Will you need graphs, statistics, maps? If not, how will you be able to prove what you’re saying? 

I know that we can obtain some information through the Freedom of Information Act (I’ve seen it mentioned in articles again and again). I would like to try and do so when I write one of my articles, I just have to figure out how [in a timely manner].

I guess right now, I’m going to do my **best** and concentrate on doing all of my required assignments in a timely manner. This, of course, is if I don’t get lazy or am distracted by some other pretty thing. As an incentive, I’m going to try and reward myself with a trip (I love to travel) if I can finish all of my studies with good grades.

And on that note, I leave you with a wonderful picture that I took during my travels. It always brings back great memories!

The Eiffel Tower [La Tour Eiffel à Paris; C’est très belle! J’espère la voir encore.]

Snow, Snow, and More Snow!

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“If I had to choose between summer and winter, I’d choose winter any day!”

Riiight, I’m starting to regret my words. This winter has so far been awful! Awful in the sense that the City has been bombarded with snowstorm after snowstorm, not to mention the freezing cold! Nowadays, it seems as if I have a morning ritual: wake up and look out the window to see if it’s snowing. If it isn’t – yay! But if it is, then darn! Another day of having to put on the heavy winter boots and get ready for the struggle to get to school and work.

It’s been reported that the city has already surpassed their annual snow amount for the season. It’s been also foretold that today’s snow would only be about 1 or 2-inches. If that’s the case, then perhaps today won’t be soo bad. But then again, they did say it might rain later today (which would totally suck)!

Lehman Campus

How campus looked about 2-3 weeks ago…

Like I’ve said, I love snow as much as the next person, but sometimes it gets to be a little too much. Especially when I have to go out every single day and deal with the slush and stuff.

Since it’s still February, we technically have a little over a month left of winter. So I’m really hoping that this is the last of the snow, if it’s not, then please let the next one just be a sprinkle!

I am really looking forward to spring coming.. just thinking about the warm air makes my skin tingle with anticipation!

Manhattan, New York City

Jefferson Park [2/14/14] Nice way to welcome Valentine’s Day!

America The (Un)Beautiful? Coca-Cola Commercial Creates Chaos

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Those who were watching the Super Bowl were mostly interested in knowing if either the Seattle Seahawks or the Denver Broncos would win. Other viewers wanted to see all of the commercials aired during the big game (since more and more viewers are tuning into the game just for this reason). But I honestly did not think that there would be such a strong opposition to the Coca-Cola commercial! The video, “America the Beautiful,” showed footage of people of different diversities, while the patriotic American song of the same name played in the background in various languages, beginning and ending in English. Within seconds of this commercial airing live, people went to the internet to take out their anger. 

Public Shaming, a blog that dedicates itself to pointing out tweets from various people whose rants range from “welfare, food stamps, etc.,” took screenshots of all of the tweets related to this commercial and publicized them for the entire electronic world to see. Besides the many (and obvious!) grammatical errors, it was hilarious (at least to me) to see that many of these people referred to “America The Beautiful” as the national anthem. To clarify, “America The Beautiful” IS NOT the National Anthem – that honour goes to “The Star Spangled Banner.” Now, the people who made that GINORMOUS error should not even be allowed to whine about this commercial!

Furthermore, whatever happened to accepting and loving diversity? Don’t those complainers know that this country was built into what it is today by immigrants? Why should someone who looks Middle Eastern, or speaks Arabic be automatically labeled as a terrorist? Why does someone who is tan-skinned automatically a Mexican? Seriously people, stop being so ignorant! it’s embarrassing!

Lastly, I get to the best point of all: The U.S. DOES NOT HAVE AN OFFICIAL LANGUAGE. Yep, you read that right! I bet you were thinking “It’s English!,” but NOPE! Even though official documents are written in English, it’s only because the majority of the population speaks it, thus making it a “common” language [national] (with Chinese and Spanish right behind, of course), but not official. Now having know this awesome tidbit of trivia, does it not make you want to rub it in the faces of all of those ignorant people who think otherwise?

Even though Coca-Cola’s Twitter and Facebook feeds were inundated with soo many complaints, the company did not stoop down to the complainers’ level; Coca-Cola simply responded to all of the harsh comments with “The only thing more beautiful than this country are the people who live here.” Now THAT is an awesome response to such cruel commentators.

The upside to this controversy? As much as there were bad comments about this ad, there were also many people who really loved the commercial and were not afraid to voice their support, for both an intriguing take on an American song, as well as an American company promoting diversity.

I personally LOVED the commercial, it even made me tear up a bit (I will admit it! I’m not ashamed!). I honestly think it could not have come at a better time, especially with all of this back-and-forth with immigration reform. 

Here’s hoping that those who opposed the commercial have learned something new!

Blog Critique

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After looking at Technorati’s list of top 100 blogs, I was intrigued to find that The Huffington Post was #1. I decided to look for a post there, and I found one titled “Hitler Clothing Shop in India Will Be Renamed, Says Owner.” I picked it because the title was very eye-catching. I mean Hitler clothing shop (who would name something after such a nefarious character in European history?) Also, as an FYI, this shop is located in India – Ahmadabad to be precise. Now according to the post, the shop’s owner named it after a family member who was very tough and he was nicknamed “Hitler”. The really curious detail that stood out the most was that the shop owner said he had never heard about the real Hitler, or the atrocities he committed during the Third Reich. If this were true, then how could his family associate the word “Hitler” with tough and strict, without knowing any background info on this name? Or did it just pop into their mind? I highly doubt it. And if this were true, why include the Nazi symbol in the store’s name? It’s mind boggling to even think about it. Like the post mentioned, this was probably a marketing scheme to bring attention to this business. Unfortunately for them, it’s been bad publicity. But maybe that’s what they wanted…?

Although this post is interesting, not once did I see any sources cited. Come to think of it, I didn’t even see a reporter mentioned. So it makes you wonder where they pulled this news from. I mean, there are pictures of the store to sort of back up the story, but nothing is linked within the story. The story however, doesn’t seem to be swayed towards one way or another; it just states what’s going on without taking a side, which is a good thing.
As far as trusting this publication, I’m 50/50. In certain topics I do trust The Huffington Post, because they do tend to include sources. Perhaps they just chose this specific piece to fill up the vacant space they had.

Why do Horror Movies in Hollywood Always Have Happy Endings?

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You know how horror movies begin – couple of people (mostly teenagers) feel they’re brave enough to spend a night at a spooky location. Later on, a killer or ghost appears and starts killing them one by one.

Now usually, in Hollywood, there is always at least one, if not two, survivors. And I always ask myself, “why?!” Real life murders hardly ever have any such happy endings. So why does Hollywood mostly finish their movies with silver linings? Hollywood has taken the genre that I enjoy to watch, and turned it into a cliché,

Because of this, I have vowed to not see as many mainstream horror movies as before.  I have been doing this for about two months and you know what? I’m so glad I took the challenge. I have seen many horror movies that are relatively unknown to general audiences, unless if you actually take the time to search for them.

The overall Indie (short for independent) and foreign horror movies are the best. They’re simple in the sense that they don’t over-do it with fake blood. Plus since they mostly have low-budgets, they’re able to really use their environment to make the overall movie’s setting very frightening.

Two movies that I recently viewed, Grave Encounters and Atrocious, used the “found-footage” camera attempt (which is when the movie is mostly seen through what the person recorded). Although at times the images were shaky, it added to the suspense. Without trying to give too much away, the endings for these movies left you wanting more.

As far as foreign movies go, The Orphanage and Martyrs are very good. These two films are on opposite extremes as far as how horror movies are made. While The Orphanage uses mood, sounds, and dialogue to make it scary, Martyrs uses extreme scenes, where some torture can be viewed.

Either way, I would prefer to watch foreign and indie horror movies any day over mainstream movies. I will see how long I can last, which I think I will be able to do very easily.

Eliminating Foreign Language as a Requirement – Why??

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Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t being fluent in more than one language a good thing?

If so, then why on Earth would the CUNY system be thinking of scrapping foreign language as a graduation requirement for all students? I think this is probably one of the most horrible decisions that the Board of Trustees have agreed on. (On the other hand, I did applaud them when they decided to stop the CPE’s – anyone could easily pass that exam.)

It’s been seen more and more in the job world that if you know another language besides English, you have better chances of being promoted and/or obtaining better jobs. Logically speaking, if someone spoke three languages, wouldn’t the chances of success for that company increase? Especially if the person is well immersed in said culture.

As a person who advocates the acceptance of other cultures and who is fluent in two languages, going on three**, I will never agree with this notion. Why would CUNY want us to graduate from colleges and only know one-single language? Are they trying to turn society back to its monolingual ways?

One reason I believe this idea even came into being is because I’ve seen many students frustrated when they find out that they are missing their foreign language requirement. Now usually these students decide on doing a graduation audit the year or even the semester before they graduate (why? I have NO idea). Foreign Language requirements vary from CUNY to CUNY college, but at Lehman, if you begin a language without knowing anything, you need to do a year. If you can speak or write, etc., a placement exam is given to determine the level at which a student is on.

As a result of this, I have seen many students that believe they are fluent enough to want to be exempt from taking a foreign language – which if you’re wondering if that’s possible, it’s not. The ironic thing is that these same students who feel they are fluent enough, some actually do need help in speaking, writing, reading, or pronunciation.

I am really hoping that this idea gets eliminated really quickly, and no such changes occur. If this were to be passed, I honestly believe our society would deteriorate at a much faster pace.

(** – As noted, I’m fluent in English, Spanish, and currently working on a minor in French. I’m hoping to also become fluent in various other languages.)

Occupy Wall Street – What’s going On?

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Ok, so the title may be a bit misleading – I am aware of what’s going on with the movement and why it began in the first place. However, my overall doubt, question (call it whatever you want) is: how can a movement that began good have spiraled into what it is now?

As of today, it’s been two months since Occupy Wall Street has began and turned into an international topic. But, as the days go by, I’ve noticed that this movement has been separating itself bit by bit from the ideas which it all began. Just yesterday,police arrested an OWS protester who had made threats to burn down Macy’s with Molotov cocktails. Now seriously, if anyone would read that, they’d think “It’s anarchy”, but it’s true!

I understand and sympathize with the protestors. They’re hoping to call attention to their beliefs that if corporate companies make up the most percentage of wealthy workers, they should help at least ease the stress for others (which can be seen in their motto “we are the 99%”).

However, since they have been in Zuccotti Park, all you hear from residents and business owners is that these protestors are rowdy and demand assistance only because of their movement. If they do not receive any help or freebies, they lash out against said businesses and residents. Now, why do that? Wouldn’t that diminish the movements efforts to be perceived as a “peaceful” movement?

You can’t forget all of the commotion over the west side of Zuccotti being a free-for-all, where many of those inhabiting that side of the park were there for the free booze, drugs, and overall “no law” vibe. What does that say about the movement? Yet, I understand that there’s so many people that it gets overwhelming when having to maintain order. But c’mon, that needs to be done in order for the movement to continue to be seen in a positive light!

I only wish that when this movement is done, there will be more positive opinions than negative ones.