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Monday, April 30, 2007
The recent Virginia Tech shooting massacre has stirred up much strong emotions among the people and has raised up many issues that are close to our hearts. Besides the significant number of deaths caused in the massacre, there are also other issues that are hot in discussion among the people. The two main issues are about the gun control and the security of the schools. It has reignited the gun control debate in the The reason for allowing people to purchase guns is that the guns are a form of self-protection for them. There have been many cases whereby guns are used as a form of self-defense to protect themselves. Even though, guns are used for a good purpose, some people can abuse the right and misuse the guns for something that is harmful. In the society, there are not only many cases of self-defense using guns but also many cases for abuse of guns for killings. In my opinion, the gun control should be stricter where only authorized people can buy the guns so as to reduce the abuse of the guns to the minimum. The lesser number of guns purchased, the lesser chance of killings using guns. In this way, lesser people can have access to guns and more killings can be avoided. Another issue discussed is about the security of schools. The image portrayed of a school is a sanctuary for the students and yet a massacre could happen in a college. The safety of the students is at danger when a school is not secure to study. I feel that the schools should have tighter security inside the school compound so that the guards can do something fast when they feel that something is suspicious so as to prevent tragedy from happening again. In conclusion, the Virginia Tech shooting massacre has stirred different types of emotions among the people and caused quite a lot of discussions where many of them concerned us a lot.
10:36 PM
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
The mass media plays an important role in our life by providing news that happens around the world to us. However, in recent times, the mass media make the news and do not report the news. I will discuss about it with evidences supported from recent events. The definition of recent events is happenings that are reported from now to a few years ago.
Starting from the most recent event that happened which is the Virginia Tech massacre on 16 April 2007. Media in some countries created their own killer’s identity to sell their first hand news to the public and to make money. One example will be the Chicago Sun-Times journalist Michael Sneed who had wrongly identified a Chinese American and a Chinese national as the suspected shooter and the news was published even before the killer was correctly identified. Another event will be the covered up stories of Iraqi violence. CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan has admitted that for the past decade the network has systematically covered up stories of Iraqi atrocities. Reports of murder, torture, and planned assassinations were covered up in order to maintain CNN's Baghdad bureau. This has again shown that media has censored some news that are unfavorable to them so that they will not be affected. The main aim of reporting news is to earn them a living and not to present the facts to the world. The National Kidney Foundation (NKF) dispute over the misuse of funds has stirred up strong feelings among the Singaporeans. It is mainly due to the media exaggerating and making up the news. The media has been keeping reporting scandals of this issue and this has aroused the interest of the public to follow up on the news. It has thus increased the profits earned by the media as more newspapers were sold during this period of time. In my opinion, the media is not reliable enough now for us to believe everything that is reported. Therefore, we need to scan through a number of different sources to judge the news by ourselves. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre#Inaccurate_media_reports http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/CNNs_Iraqi_Cover-Up.asp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Kidney_Foundation_Singapore_scandal
8:57 PM
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
I agree that YouTube has no ethics and it's been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money. For the purpose of entertainment, it allows anyone to upload any videos on the site for viewing purposes except for pornographic materials that are unhealthy. As a result, some videos that are offensive or discriminating are shown to the rest of the world. People may feel unhappy or even angry when they see these videos. One recent example will be the film that shows feet being placed over the People also upload popular drama series on YouTube to allow other people to enjoy them too. This has broken the law on copyrights issues that is illegal. This lead to everyone being able to watch the shows without having to buy the video cds. The actors will not be able to earn much when their shows do not sell. They put in so much effort and to realize that it has not paid off in the end. YouTube also upload movie previews for people to know more about the recent movies that are going to be put up. It serves as a purpose for the media industry that wants to showcase their movie first. Advertisements are also put up at YouTube to publicize the company’s products. From the movie previews and advertisements, YouTube will able to earn money from there. However, YouTube provide a medium to the people to have the freedom of uploading videos for other people to enjoy. It is a form of way to interact with other people and spread around the joy of some videos. Information can be spread through this medium too and hence people are more updated to new information. Therefore, YouTube has been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money. It does not really care about the consequences of the videos uploaded onto the site.
8:57 PM
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
I would agree with this view. I personally feel that teenage years are the best years of one’s life as it is a brand new start of a new experience where they will enjoy almost everything they do.
Teenagers nowadays have much stress that they are unable to cope with. Therefore, it leads them to being ‘emo’. This is a new term to describe teenagers who are getting stressed up. They have not only to cope with their taxing school work but also their heavy co-curricular activities which is after school time. Most of them reach home very late after their lessons and co-curricular activities. They may not have time to do their school work or even study for their tests. Moreover, parents and teachers emphasis so much on producing good results that they do not realize how taxing it is for the students to cope with school life. However, teenage years are the best years of one’s life. When people reach teenage years, they have more freedom than the people of the other age groups. Children have less freedom as they are too young to have freedom. This is because they are not mature enough to make the right decisions. Adults also have less freedom due to the fact they are all During our teenage years, we only have to concentrate on studies and not have to worry about the problems that will surface in the society. One of the examples is the political struggle in the company where everyone wants to reach the top. All will think of means and ways to push people down and climb the social stairs themselves. It is still quite pure and innocent where there is no struggle for positions. They are still in their comfort zone where they can do anything they like without having to pay high consequences. When they start working in the society, they have to listen to their superior even when they are not right and meet the dateline punctually. Once they defy orders, they may just lose their job which is important to them because it is the only source of income. During the teenage years where teenagers are still schooling, teachers can only scold them when they do not submit their homework punctually. The consequences are not as big as when they start working in the society. In conclusion, teenage years are the best years of one’s life. Therefore, treasure the time when you are a teenager so that you will not regret it in future.
9:10 PM
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