commentary: obama ignores latinos

ruben navarrette expresses his personal opinions about president elect barack obama on his decision not to hire any latino officials in his cabinet. four years ago he wrote a column praising president bush hiring latinos into his cabinet. bush broke barriers because never before in history has a latino been nominated for one of the top four jobs -- defense, state, treasury, or attorney general (cnn.com). among them was alberto gonzales as attorney general. navarrette claims that obama is continuing this poor tradtion by overlooking latinos. he feels that new mexico govenor bill richardson would have been a better choice for secretary of state instead of hillary clinton. and why not? richardson has an impressive resume to back: seven term member of congress, u.n. amassador, energy secretary, and five time nominee for the nobel peace prize. plus richardson is the highest ranking latino in the country and latinos supported obama over mccain with a 2-1 margin which helped in four key key states. he also "turned his back" on the hillary clinton campaign to help support barack obama. not to mention the national hispanic leadership agenda sent a letter to the president elect recommending richardson to the secretary of state position. but instead he was given commerce secretary backed by obama saying this is a very important position. richardson wasnt even first choice, that goes to penny pritzker, billionaire heir to the hyatt hotel fortune. i believe richardson should have a top four job, but maybe this is karma for his "betrayal" of the clinton campaign.

guilty verdict in myspace suicide

lori drew of,49, of o' fallon, missouri was convicted of three misdemeanor counts in the case of thirteen year old Megan Meier who committed suicide over a prank using the popular website myspace.com. drew used the site to pose as a teenage boy with a love interest in the teenager than told her that the world would be better off with out her. however the jury did not convict drew of the more serious conpiracy charge over cyberbullying. becuase she was not charged with the more serious crime her maximum sentence would have been five years in prison but since she charged with a misdemeanor drew's attorneys are going to appeal to get the misdemeanor sentence which is one year in prison and a fine. drew's defence is claiming that she never read the terms and agreements portion so she cant be guilty of something she didnt know she did. the teeen's mom tina meier said she was hoping for convictions on all counts but she'll take what she can get. "It's never been about vengeance. This is about justice -- justice not only for Megan, it's justice for everybody who has to go through this, with the computer and being harassed," said Meier, who attended the trial. "I don't want another family to have to stand here and go through what I've had to endure" (cnn.com). i think they should point the majority of the blame on the mom and the website. blame the mom for not watching her daughters actions on the internet. blame myspace because they did catch or mention the problem. i say this because they have people who monitor what goes on like nude or graphic pictures that people want to post so i know some one could have prevented this if they spoke up earlier.

double murder in AZ

an eight year old boy shot and killed his father and the fathers friend on nov. 5. the boy, whose name has not been released, shot his father and friend twice with a 22 caliber rifle. the boy said after he shot his father the first time he shot him again so he wouldnt suffer. though not mentioned i assume this was the same for the friend. the fathers name is vincent romero, 29, and the friends name is timothy romans, 39, of san carlos. the police are still trying to figure out a motive as to why this as happened. there appears to be no kind of physical abuse to the boy but the police think he may have witnessed abuse in the house at some time. the boy just recieved his 22 caliber as a birthday present which is under debate as well. should the eight year old boy have been given a rifle in the first place? the dad comes from a history of hunters and was trying to teach the boy to follow in his footsteps. also he wanted to teach the boy not be affraid of guns as well. the boy's step mother, tiffany, suggested that he should at least start with a BB gun. the very rev. john paul sauter said "He was just too young. ... That child, I don't think he knows what he did, and it was brutal" (cnn.com). the boy now faces two counts of premediatated murder. there is a video out now of a shady confession by the boy. i say shady because for one its not a full confession it just sounds like one and two there was no legal representation or adult present at the time of the questioning.

new 4-star general

general ann dunwoody made history when she became the first four-star woman general in the us army's history. It was both a sign of how far women have come in the U.S. military and a reminder that women are still not considered equals to their military counterpart. Army Chief of Staff George Casey admitted "It's taken a long time, probably longer than it should have" (cnn.com). a reason being is that generals usually become generals after earning their stripes in combat. technically women still cant participate in direct combat because of congress law. The fact is American women have been fighting and dying alongside men in both Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars with no front lines, and so far 115 women have lost their lives protecting our country. dunwoody rose through the ranks through the army material command. "I didn't appreciate the enormity of the events until tidal waves of cards, letters, and e-mails started coming my way," Dunwoody said (cnn.com). the name dunwoody has a proud military history, a dunwoody has fought in every american war since the revolution. her great-grandfather, Brig. Gen. Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody, was the chief signal officer in Cuba from 1898 to 1901 and her father, Hal Dunwoody, is a veteran of three wars -- World War II, Korea and Vietnam. the younger generation of dunwoody, including ann, are writing their own. her sister Sue was the third female helicopter pilot in the Army, and her niece Jenny is an Air Force A-10 pilot who recently returned from flying combat missions in Afghanistan. maybe this is sign of things to come. a first black president and now a first female four star general, let us hope that these first and historical events are a sign the future will bring change.

Haiti school collapses

in Petionville, near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, a school which consists of kindergarten, primary, and sceondary students collapsed where at least fifty people have died. Amelia Shaw, a journalist with United Nations TV said "the school is poorly built. The disaster occurred when the second floor crumbled onto the first." rescue officials said they will work into the night to try and rescue the trapped. the school is located in a very extreme part of town which has made the rescue difficult as well. the surrounding roads are in poor condition and the UN sent a helicopter to help but could not because it was unable to land. to make things worse out of the three local hospitals only one is in service during this crisis. Trinite is the only hospital open in Port-au-Prince, the other two General Hospital and Hospital de la Paix are closed by strikes. close to sixty injured, thirty of which are severe, have been taken to Trinite. Michaele Gedeon, president of Haiti's Red Cross, said she heard the voices of distraught children as rescuers tried to calm them while she was on the phone attempting to coordinate emergency rescue efforts.
"On the phone, you can hear so many children, you know, crying, crying and saying, 'this one is dead,' 'that one is dead,' " she said (cnn.com). up to 700 people were on campus grounds when it happened, officials said, some were in the class rooms while others were on the playground. i think this sucks and feel sad when i hear stories like these. this was a poor neighborhood, which was bad enough, and then this had to happen.

arousing safe sex methods

the majority of us use condoms as a safe sex method because we know that condoms prevent the spread of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). however there are some country and cultures condoms are not a popular way of safe sex so here are some ideas that non-profit goups and condom companies are using to spread the word. in india most dont use condoms because they associate them with prostitutes, so bill gates (everyone's favorite) and his wife have donated money for a condom ring tone. so now when their phone goes off hopefully this can remind to use a condom everytime and since ringtones launch in august more than 60,000 have downloaded the song. in western austrailia the rate of HIV infection is the highest in the nation so nurses and health officials have decided to hang condom filled canisters. most of the youth hang under the trees anyways so this is a good spot to remind them. Over 3,000 condoms are taken each month. Residents said grabbing condoms from trees was convenient and private. lets not forget about our german friends, they're always trying to one up somebody. Jan Vinzenz Krause has come up with a spray on latex condom which he claims always fits perfectly and feels natural. since his teen years he has struggled to find a condom that fit correctly until a trip to the carwash gave him the brilliant notion for the spray. krause has decided to name the spray "the Jolly Joe" and has scared men during the testing phase and its only on their fingers. he is trying for a faster drying spray like 10 seconds as the spray now takes three minutes to dry.

Palin's stylist

a report found that sarah palin's stylist is getting paid more than John McCain's foriegn policy advisor. Amy Strozzi, who works on the reality show "So You Think You Can Dance" and has been Palin's traveling stylist, was paid $22,800, according to campaign finance reports for the first two weeks in October. In contrast, McCain's foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, was paid $12,500, the report showed (msnbc.com). McCain's campaign said that the reason it was so much was because that money was owed from september because the campaign only gave her a portion of what she should have recieved. that sounds fair but reports show that the republican committee spent $150,000 in september to cover palin's wardrobe and cometics while in minneapolis. In one shopping spree for Palin, the RNC spent $75,062 at Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis. It also spent $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue(msnbc.com). the $150 ,000 they spent on palin was probably worth it for the republicans. they have to take care of their investment. she now has an image that is working for her like her glasses and to me her hair is always in that bee hive style. as we mentioned in class the McCain campaign is using her because even though she may not be that smart and has an underage pregnant daughter they still think they can win because of her. they are using her to go after a demographic like women or working women with kids. when i first saw her i knew they were going to use her because of her looks. i mean is kind of attractive and young, maybe get young voters to vote for them.