Kidney Savior!

When looking for a blog I tried not to do one about Facebook but this one was in the town (East Haven) next to my hometown (North Branford) and was really intriguing so I said, oh well. Carlos Sánchez, forty-four years old, desperately needed a new kidney. He was preparing to go on dialysis as his kidneys were failing because he had diabetes. He asked all of his friends and family but none of them were a match, so he desperately sent out a message on Facebook in hopes that someone would respond. He really did not want to do it at first but his doctor’s told him if he did not find one as soon as possible he could face serious consequences.


Luckily, April Capone Almone, who is thirty-five years of age, and also the mayor of East Haven, saw Carlos’ post and responded. She had already been friends with Carlos on Facebook which is how she saw his post. The arranged meeting these two set up to talk about it was also arranged through Facebook. April said that as soon as she saw Carlos’ post about needed a kidney; she knew she was going to be a match.

Of course some people always have something to say and may not have agreed with donating her kidney to a stranger. April went on to say, “My family was very supportive. They were of course concerned about me but understood and supported my decision. There was one close friend who said "If you were my daughter I would try to talk you out of this!" I replied "But what if your daughter was the one that needed the kidney?" That really changed his perspective.”

Facebook.. It’s a Killer.. No really, it is.

17 year old Ashleigh Hall was murdered because of Facebook. Her body was found on a farm with duct tape over her mouth and her arms tied up. She had evidentially been raped and killed. "If you're an overweight girl living in England and doesn't have someone to love her, you will look for that and you will grab at that, and the predators know that," said Parry Aftab, executive director of Wired Safety, a leading Internet safety Web site.

Peter Chapman is the man responsible for this. Police found out because he turned himself in (weird huh?) He was arrested after the fact of murdering Ashleigh Hall and then proceeded to say, "I killed somebody last night," Chapman told police. "I need to tell someone from CID where the body is." This all started because Chapman put up pictures of himself as a young, good looking, teenage boy (mind you, he is thirty three years old). He would send Ashleigh flattering messages telling her that she was “sexy as hell.” Anyone would have fallen for it right? Hmmm..

According to the blog I read about online on ABCnews.com, in December, Facebook, the world's most popular social networking site, created a Global Safety Advisory Board to tackle issues such as online stalking and cyber-bullying among its 400 million users. Serious crimes are rare, but when they happen, they capture headlines. There is no way to tell if everything on Facebook is 100 percent safe and that is why people should not take it as a social dating site. You cannot meet up with a complete stranger because of this reason alone. When I hear about people doing this I just shake my head, I do what I can to try and stop them because people need to realize this isn’t a joke and it’s getting worse.

Just because you’re a Cop Doesn’t Mean it’s Okay…

Just yesterday the case against two University of Maryland students who were accused of attacking a police officer after a basketball game was dropped. Thank God for video footage right? There happen to be a video recording by another student at the time of the attack. A University of Maryland student was just skipping down the street after a victory of the basketball game when a few officers attacked him and allegedly beat him to the ground. In a sworn statement, county police officer Sean McAleavey said McKenna and Donat (the two boys involved) "struck" other officers and their horses, "causing minor injuries." Clearly, the video says otherwise.

"The video shows the charging documents were nothing more than a cover, a fairy tale they made up to cover for the officers' misconduct," Christopher Griffiths, one of the students' lawyers, told The Washington Post. "The video shows gratuitous violence against a defenseless individual." After watching that video I was disgusted. I could not honestly believe that police officers think they can get away with things like this. I hope they all get fired and spend some time in prison.

I think this all ties into the internet aspect because that video was first posted online. If no one had saw that video, no one would have believed those two kids and it would have been a battle of the “he said, she said.” The video footage saved those two kids whether people believe it or not and thanks to the internet, now everyone around the world can see what losers those cops are and maybe it will send a message out to the rest of the Police Departments as well.

"I'm outraged and disappointed after viewing the video," Prince George's County Police Chief Roberto Hylton told the Post. "That's not the type of professional conduct we promote. Any employee who uses excessive force will be held accountable." Personally, I don’t think it should have ever happened in the first place. They should be doing things within their departments to make sure that their officers do not behave that way.

"Window Seat" or Striptease?

Erykah Badu came out with a very interesting music video called “Window Seat.” Basically the video is about her walking down her hometown streets of Dallas slowly giving the viewers a strip tease as she is singing to her song. As the song progresses more and more of her clothing comes off. The funniest part about all of this is that it was not even filmed by professionals, they did it in one shoot and the people that you see in the video are real people and nothing about this video was planned. Erykah obviously knew the risks of filming this video and she took them anyways.

Erykah Badu - Window Seat (Official Video) She Gets Butt Naked In The Video!

The point of this blog is that towards the end of the song when she is completely naked, we hear a gunshot and she falls to the ground with blue lines coming out of her head that spells “groupthink.” Directly where she falls is right in front of Dealey Plaza, where John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. In the article I saw this is it says, “Badu told the newspaper the video was a ‘protest’ and ‘about liberating yourself,’ adding that she chose the grassy knoll intentionally, for its historical significance. ‘I tied it in a way that compared the assassination to the character assassination one would go through after showing his or her self completely,’ Badu told the Dallas Morning News.” Call me crazy but last time I checked I thought there were much better ways to go about getting messages across to others without filming a video of yourself naked. But hey, it’s 2010 right?

At the end of the song Badu says this message, “They play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs, ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another. They feel most comfortable in groups; less guilt to swallow. They are us; this is what we have become, afraid to respect the individual. A single person within our circumstance can move one to change, to love herself, to evolve.”

If Badu had been caught while filming this video the fines would have cost her up to about $4,000 and up to one year in jail or both. It was also reported that she and her group had bail money ready just in case because they knew the risk they were taking in order to create this. Badu tweeted, “funny, I thought I was outta shape thus encouraging others toward self love .. but they think I’m showin off. lol. the irony.” This video had the media talking A LOT but I actually have no words for it. What does everyone else think??