Pearl Harbor Editorial

Danny Wukich

December 7, 2011

Life Skills Period E

Editorial

317 words

Pearl Harbor Veteran Recalls Bewilderment of Attack

This was a great article and a great one to read. I only thought that an article about Pearl Harbor was appropriate on the 70^th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Louis E. Gore, the man that was interviewed, is an eighty-eight year old retired petty officer of the United States Navy. He is also one of the last eight known survivors that was on the USS Arizona during the time of the attack. He said he was in the bottom of the ship when the attack occurred, and when he came to the surface all he could see were flames shooting up towards the sky, fighter planes in the air, and dead bodies floating in the water. As an eighteen year old kid, still new to the Navy, he did not really know how to react. All he could think of what to do was go to the top of the ship, man the anti-aircraft gun, and try to take down any plane that he could see. Being so young, and seeing as much death and violence as Mr. Gore did, is truly amazing.

This was an extremely good article. It was a lot of fun to read and was very interesting. Even though this article was mostly an interview, it really educated me on Pearl Harbor much more than I knew about it before. This was really eye opening to me, because if really gave me a first hand look at what it was like to be involved with such a significant part of history. It was really amazing to read about how brave someone as young as Mr. Gore was during this time of great violence.

“Pearl Harbor Veteran Recalls Bewilderment of Attack.” http://today.msnbc.msn.com. N.p., 7 Dec. 2011. Web. 7 Dec. 2011. <http://today.msnbc.msn.com/‌id/‌45567513>.

Life skills Editorial

My life skills editorial is about the kindle fire being number 2 in the tablet business. There are 3.9 million kindle fires being shipped out on amazon.com. The amount of people that want kindles is amazing to me because half the stuff you can do on the kindle you can do on your phone. Because you can do all that without a bigger sized tablet means that the kindle fire being shipped out to 3.9 million people is unnecessary because you can read a book. The fact that the kindle fire is 99 dollars and people still want it that bad is alarming. The other reason why it is rediculos for the kindle fire to be going to that many people which is some where around 386,100,000 dollars. That is rediculous when you can go to a library or you can go to barnes and nobles and buy books for barley any money. My grandmother is a librarian and she hates all the new technology stuff because one she doesn't get it and two she thinks that it is pointless.

I understand that it looks cool and futuristic and stuff, but I would never buy a kindle or an Ipad or anything like that, when I can just go to the library or the book store and get the same books. That also means I don't have to read the words on a small screen. I can also get all of the apps and games and things on my phone and it makes no difference to me what so ever.

Clippers Claim PG Chauncey Billups

The article “Clippers Claim PG Chauncey Billups” is about the Los Angeles Clippers signing The New York Knick's guard Chauncey Billups because he was waived by them. Chauncey Billups averaged 17 points and 5 assist last season on the Denver Nuggets for the first half of the season and the New York Knicks for the second half of the season. The Los Angeles Clippers were originally trying to acquire New Orleans Hornets Guard Chris Paul but there general manager said the cost was too high so instead they settled for five time all-star Chauncey Billups.
The New York Knicks were not very wise on waiving guard Chauncey Billups from their roster because they don't have any other good point guards on there team to replace him and they have no guarantee of getting one from the free agency. If the Knicks don’t find another point guard there team wont be a strong contender against other east coast teams even though they do have Carmelo Anthony who is one of the best scorers in the NBA and Amare Stoudemire arguably the best power-forward in the NBA, they still need a strong point guard to lead the team. The Los Angeles Clippers were very smart on acquiring Chauncey right away to there team once they knew they were no longer going to get Chris Paul from the Hornets, because Chauncey is a very good fit to there team being able to control the tempo of the game yet still push the fast break when needed too. Even though Billups is 34 years old he still has a good two years left in him to put up good stats.
The Knicks need to find themselves a good point guard to lead there team and keep there team in order while out there on the court other wise there going to have a long season ahead of them filled with criticism.
"Los Angeles CLippers Claim Cauney Billups off Waivers." ESPN GO. 13 Dec. 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2011. .

Ten more Face ax

Today's article was about how ten more schools were added to the list of
schools being closed down. And to make things worst, these ten
schools are middle schools, boasting the list of middle schools to be
closed to twenty five. These schools are being closed only because
the kids weren’t producing on the state test.

Personally I think that this makes NYC schools look horrible. A middle school
which have classes that are never overly complicated can't produce
good state test grades. As a result of this many schools are being
closed down. I also believe that the reason these schools are closing
down are because of the budget-cut. I think many schools are being
targeted to close down so teachers, and other faculty members can be
laid off.

I know that the parents of the students that attend these schools are
frustrated because now they are going to have to find their child a
new school, and most likely that new schools isn't going to be a
local school. So this means now more middle school students are going
to be taking public transportation. And the metro cards use by
students are paid for by the city, so money is still being taken from
the city. And if the children can't take public transportation then
parents are going to have to have to go out their daily schedules to
get their child to school and to pick them up from school.

As much as I know its devastating to hear that a school is closing, I think
it can easily be avoided, all the principle of the school has to do
is make the students buckle up. The principle should take control of
the schools education and make the teachers at least step up their
teaching techniques or get new teachers.

Gonen,Yoav. "Ten More Face Ax." New York News. New York Post, 10 Dec. 2011.
Web. 12 Dec. 2011.
<http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/local/ten_more_face_ax_N2UitTwPNHyJCRHGNTHub
M>.

Has airport security gone too far?

The article I chose to discuss talks about airport security. It talks about how TSA is rolling out these ultra-revealing imagers across the country in an attempt to uncover hidden threats like the so-called underwear bomb found on a Detroit-bound flight last Christmas. What these scanners are able to do is see the passengers entire body nude. It is monitored by a person in a separate room where they are able to see the person virtually naked.

My issue with the article and with TSA is that I don’t think it is ethically right to strip people of their most private possession which is their body. I believe that with all the metal detectors, bag screenings, removing of the shoes, belts, watches, jewelry, that should be enough. If they want us to walk to the airport and travel naked then they should just come out and say it.

Today, 373 are installed in 68 U.S. airports. One thousand machines are supposed to be in place by the end of next year. And the Obama administration has requested 5,355 additional employees to man the scanners—at a cost of $219 million in the first year alone. The only alternative to the screenings will be a pat-down from a TSA worker, by the way, which they already do.

So my question is why go so far as to seeing people naked? Don’t people still have that right as to keep their body personal and not have some person in a distant room doing God knows what with these pictures. I think that being gawked at in the nude is not a fair price to pay just to go on a flight.

Shachtman, Noah. "Noah Shachtman: Has Airport Security Gone Too Far? - WSJ.com." Has Airport Security Gone Too Far? 17 Nov. 2010: 1. Business News & Financial News - The Wall Street Journal - Wsj.com. 17 Nov. 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2011. .

Siri can't direct you to an abortion clinic

The article “Siri can't direct you to an abortion clinic” talks about how apples new iPhone 4S feature cant locate an abortion clinic even though it knows how to tell you where to go to buy condoms. Siri pulls all its information from the internet once asked a question. Apple said the omission was not intentional. Siri can help you find drugstores and bars, but the iPhone 4S digital assistant is clueless when it comes to the locations of abortion clinics.
Apple is a multi-million dollar company selling one of the best mobile phones there is. Its newest mobile phone the iPhone 4S has a feature called “siri” its feature allows you to talk to your iPhone and ask it for a question. Siri is able to answer all kinds of questions because it pulls there information off the internet. So why cant it answer a simple question like “Where is the closest abortion clinic?” if it pulls information from the internet? Is it possible that apple purposely made the application not to be able to do it? Abortion clinics are not something small and is all over the internet so siri should easily find it. Apple has said it was accidental and its only a beta, and that siri will be at its best once they have its final product. Is apple sending a statement out there to people? Or was it actually accidental? A little mistake like this can really hurt a company, apple needs to fix siri asap.
Sutter, John D. “Siri can't Direct you to an Abortion Clinic” CNN News. © 2011 Cable News Network. Decmber 1st , 2011. < http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/01/tech/mobile/abortion-clinic-siri-iphone/index.html >

RIM shares shoot up on plans to open network services to iPhones, Android

The article “RIM shares shoot up on plans to open network services to iPhones, Android” talks about RIM thinking about starting to open its network services to Iphones and Androids to help security purposes in the work environment. RIM is starting to lose its place as the primary handler of mobile devices in the workplace, so by doing this they would likely hold there spot as the primary handler of mobile devices in the workplace. They need this because there stock has started to drop in the past year, due to the fact of them losing ground to sleeker opponents.
Do you think apple and Google’s android should team up with RIM? Recently blackberry and rim have been losing customers due to the fact that there service is just not as good as other services now. Blackberry's have bad battery life and the always seem to have something going wrong with it whether its not turning on or the track-pad no longer works or even not being able to charge! If that isn't bad enough, there BBM which is the biggest part of blackberry's keeps crashing and going down, and people can't use it. Workplace companies that do use rim's services cant have this its costing them money to have to replace there employees phones and slowing there work progress down. If apple and Google’s android team up with them then what if it happens to there services too? Then they will start to lose customers and there stock will drop. Why have that? You never know what could happen if RIM joins with Apple and Google's androids. But chances are it might possibly be bad and cause company's thousand's of dollars.
Reuters News Agency. “RIM Shares Shoot Up on plans to Open Network Services to iPhones, Android” Toronto Star. © Toronto Star 2011. Nov 29 2011. Wednesday, November 30, 2011. <http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1094175--rim-shares-shoot-up-on-plans-to-open-network-services-to-iphones-android>