Welcome to the News

I know it's been two weeks since I've written on this blog, but I've already forgiven myself.

Now that that part's over, let's get down to something that has been catching my interest more and more.

The news. I've never been an enormous fan. In fact, I've lived most of my life rather ignorant of the world around me. Unless it was something that came up in class, in my family, or my friends, I never would force myself to take interest. But now instead of waiting for the news to come to me, I've been going to the news. I'll be honest, it's mostly been reading articles from the New York Times and CNN. Other sources as well, but especially CNN. I've been reading more and more about the world and just how many phenomenal things are going on. Both tragic and thrilling. Here are just a few things.

1. Project "A Whale" is well underway on this here 4th of July! If this operating system functions correctly, it could mean a HUGE and VAST improvement for the oil spill in the Gulf Coast. It's a skimmer that will actually pick up what's in the water, separate the oil and the water, and then dump the water back into the gulf. No more pointing fingers or getting angry without anything informative or new to say. Let's clean this place up. It's a massive tragedy and if "A Whale" works, things might finally get underway.

2. Speaking of oil spills, I was rather ignorant of the Nigerian Delta crisis. For over 50 YEARS, there have been about 300 spills a year. If 1,000,000 gallons of oil is equal to 25,000 barrels, then that means an estimated total of 130,000,000,000 gallons of oil have been spilling out of the Nigerian Delta. The lands are almost completely destroyed. Yet you never hear anyone about boycotting Exxon. Obviously they are not the primary factor in this disaster, especially with the Nigerian political leaders. This spill may make Deepwater Horizon look like a joke, but it isn't nearly getting as much press time.

3. Something relatively humorous, a man by the name of Paul Baldwin was arrested this week... for the 154th time. Guiness won't acknowledge this world record, but it's still something. What did he do this week? He stole Budweiser from a convenient store. On top of that, he just finished a 1 year probation for stealing a can of beer... worth $1.29. How's that for commitment?

4. The biggest tragedy I've heard in a long, long time happened in the Democratic Republic of Congo. An oil tanker flipped over which caused another oil leakage. Many nearby civilians began to remedy the accident by gathering the oil so they wouldn't lose too much. However one civilian nearby was smoking a cigarette which lead to a massive explosion. The result lead to the injuring of 190 people, and the killing of 230. The biggest group to have suffered was located at a nearby bar, that had a large crowd watching the World Cup. Not to mention, 5 U.N. peacekeepers are part of the deceased.

5. Okay, a more positive story. A man by the name of Zak Anderegg is a rock climber. He decided to expand his ventures to an Arizona canyon. While journeying, he spotted a dog at the bottom of a 350 feet deep canyon, who was painstakingly thin and injured. Anderegg immediately ran to town to get a cat carrier from a local hospital. He managed to tie it to some

rope and bring it down to the animal (since he couldn't get to the bottom of the canyon himself). The dog went inside the cage and was pulled up to safety, entirely because of Anderegg. He's now being treated at the local hospital, and has been given the nickname Puppy. Dogs save lives, and humans can too.

6. Last one. There has been much discussion about these Russian spies. I know we've been hearing much about them, but hardly about their kids. It seems like foreign policy officials learned their lesson from years past, and rather than going through a tedious bureaucratic system of political correctness, the children of the husband wife spies are being sent to russia to live with their grandparents. They're still rather young, so they believed that having them live with their family is the best way to go. Later down the road this could be seen as an unwise option, and maybe these kids aren't entirely fluent in Russian. But at least they're not being taken care of by a bunch of forms and a dude behind a desk.

Anyways. I hope this doesn't mean I'm turning into a grown-up. Or maybe I do. But there's something amazing and something tragic happening every day. Probably all over the world. Thank you news people around the world. Even though you may be politically biased, culturally conflicted, and monetarily geared, you still have a camera and microphone able to help us hear and see things that we'd never hear or see otherwise.