Distracted Driver Flips on Freeway

What's worse than a distracted driver? A distracted semi truck driver. That's what the driver of a semi that flipped over during the morning commute claimed was the reason for his crash; he was distracted. This crash involved three other cars, causing minor injuries to their passengers, and a two mile backup.

Luckily, no one was hurt, but what about this guys job? The company he drives for hasn't released a statement about the crash. Is the fact that he was distracted an acceptable excuse for causing such a mess? If I was the company I would make a statement apologizing to those involved in the crash and everyone that had to sit through two hours of traffic that morning. I would look into the real reason this guy was 'distracted' and go on from there. If he was on his phone or doing something else that was obviously taking his attention off the road he would not be driving for my company anymore.

"Don't Make Me Turn This Plane Around"

109 high school students and their chaperones were kicked off a plane that was to take them to Atlanta for their senior trip. Reading that statement one may think, yeah they were probably being little assholes like high school students usually are, they probably deserved to be kicked off. Well, the flight crew along with the pilot and other witnesses claim they were being little assholes. Okay, so hey didn't necessarily use that term, but they said they were loud and disrespectful and didn't listen to instructions. So, they flight crew did what was necessary and kicked them off. What's the big deal?

The thing that is making this story national news is the fact that the students were from an Orthodox Jewish high school. So now it becomes a question of prejudice. Were they really kicked off because they weren't following directions, or is it because they were an identifiable religious group? The students claim it's because they are Jewish, while witnesses are saying there wasn't a single racial slur said throughout the whole ordeal.

One student said,

"They treated us like we were terrorists; I've never seen anything like it. I'm not someone to make these kinds of statements," Zehavi said. "I think if it was a group of non-religious kids, the air stewardess wouldn't have dared to kick them off."

A passenger that was seated in business class said about this being an issue of prejudice,

  "Absolutely not," he said. "There was not one ethnic slur from anyone on the flight crew or anyone who was inconvenienced for two hours.

So, now the school has opened an investigation to get to the bottom of this. Southwest Airlines hasn't released any statements. Students did say that they were quick to accommodate them and find them other flights to get them to their intended destination. Is that their way of covering their asses and thinking this wouldn't blow up to big a big national story headlined on CNN? Well, if that's what they thought they were definitely wrong.

UGH

I just want to blog about something happy. Not a tornado that killed a bunch of people. Not an explosion that killed a bunch of people. Not some psycho idiot that killed a bunch of people. Do you get where I'm going with this? The news is depressing. We all know that. This whole blogging about the news thing is really taking a toll on my happiness. Okay, that's a little dramatic but really.. I'm tired of writing about such sad, negative things. Something needs to change. I don't know what, I don't know how, but something needs to change. Scrolling through the news and thinking, "holy shit, what is this world coming to?" seems to be a daily thing lately. It's a mood kill. That's all I have to say about that.

Don't mind this random post about my thoughts. Just felt I needed to let that out.

Coach Says Shh About Sexuality

^^Say that five times fast


Brittney Griner is gay. If you didn't know that then you probably don't know who Brittney Griner is... Anyway, the point of this blog is: who the hell cares if she's gay? A lot of women basketball players are gay, not to stereotype or anything but, come on.


Well it turns out her old coach from Baylor has a lot to say about the topic. She literally told Brittney not to talk about her sexuality. She said that it would affect her chances of being recruited into the WNBA and would reflect badly on the Baylor Women's basketball program. Um, Brittney Griner is the best women's college ball player to step foot on a basketball court, she could have one arm and still get recruited with her level of talent. So that's a bunch of BS. And also, the Baylor Women's basketball program is lucky to have her represent them, like I said, she's one of the best college ball players in history! Need I say more?!

"It was more of a unwritten law [to not discuss your sexuality] ... it was just kind of, like, one of those things, you know, just don't do it. They kind of tried to make it, like, "Why put your business out on the street like that?"

I told Coach [Mulkey] when she was recruiting me. I was like, "I'm gay. I hope that's not a problem," and she told me that it wasn't. I mean, my teammates knew, obviously they all knew. Everybody knew about it."

I understand that Baylor is a private Baptist school, but uh does the coach know she got drafted by the Pheonix Mercury? She doesn't represent Baylor anymore so like I said earlier, who the hell cares if she's gay?! As long as her new team doesn't care, which they obviously don't considering they drafted her, then who gives a rats behind. Good job to Mulkey for making the program look bad herself. Dumb lady.

CWU Source

Last Thursday I attended CWU's SOURCE - the Symposium on University Research and Creative Expression. Events were put on throughout the day for students to showcase some of their work from the year. 

The event I attended was a collection of pictures from the Taylor Bridge fire that took place last summer. Each collection of pictures were from a different point of view. For example, we saw pictures from a lady that did animal rescue during the fire. She helped save tons of horses and pigs and other animals as well. She said the best part of the whole experience was getting to reunite people with their pets. 

I took away a few different things from attending this SOURCE session. First of all, it was great to see how close-knit the Ellensburg community is. The minute news of the fires broke out, hundreds of volunteers were ready and willing to do whatever it was that was needed of them. So much so that after a certain point people were turned away because there was nothing for them to do. Everyone in the community came together to help with whatever they could. Whether it was animal rescue or donating food and water to firefighters. There was no hesitation from anyone on whether or not they should help. 

Think Twice Before You Send That Snap!

Snapchat, the app that became popular late last year has been getting some attention in the media the past few days. The app is used to send pictures to a certain person or people for a select amount of time. Once the receiver looks at the picture for the allotted time, it is then deleted; or so they say!

A forensics examiner from Utah has discovered a way to pull Snapchat photos from an Android by downloading data from the phone and removing a ".NoMedia" file extension. Wait, they only said Androids so does that mean us iPhone users are in the clear?! For now we are, apparently this guy is  currently working on a way to get into the iPhone data.

The guy who figured this out posted his findings online and a local TV station showed a video on how to do it.

I bet Android users everywhere are trying to think of the inappropriate snaps they may have sent and are hoping they never get used against them. If necessary, snaps can be pulled from a phone and used in a court case as evidence!

As of now the creators of Snapchat have been keeping quiet. No comments have been made about the recent findings that the pictures don't actually disappear, like they claim they do! It will be interesting what they have to say about this one.

Another Shooting?

As if we haven't seen enough of it in the past year, there was yet another shooting in Louisiana today. During a Mother's Day parade in New Orleans, a gunman took fire and injured nineteen people including two children.

New Orleans is known for their parades that typically take place on Sundays. Today's parade was a special one dedicated to mother's for Mother's Day.

No one went to that parade expecting to get shot at. No one goes anywhere expecting to get shot it. New Orleans crime rate is continuing to go up no matter what they do to try and stop it. The Mayor made a statement challenging the community to get involved,

"It's important for us, as I have said, to change the culture of death on the streets of New Orleans to a culture of life, and it's going to take an all-hands-on-deck approach," he said.

New Orleans has been through so much in the last decade with the devastation that came after hurricane Katrina.  The Mayor and others should be working their hardest to keep the spirits of people in New Orleans up and positive.

The New Orleans Police Department has said they are going to attack this case aggressively and hopefully figure out who did this right away.