Maybe I just don't like the endings of

http://savannahnow.com/news/2011-12-08/georgia-bill-would-end-need-concealed-weapon-permit#.TuJy9GNU_SY

I'm from the backwoods, so my opinion on gun control probably isn't the most favorable. But, I really am beginning to hate the way that the Savannah Morning News ends their stories. The endings are either unrelated or unnecessary.

Here's the ending for this article:

'Spencer is picking up the mantel of two of the legislators who have sponsored bills in recent years relaxing gun-control laws. Each just took appointments in the Deal administration and left the General Assembly. Spencer may not have the same luck as Sen. Mitch Seabaugh, R-Sharpsburg, and ex-Rep. Tim Bearden, R-Villa Rica, because he doesn’t have their seniority in the legislature nor their leadership sway since both were committee chairmen.

Spencer was elected last year and quickly learned how little influence a freshman has when he was drawn into the same district with veteran Rep. Mark Hatfield, R-Waycross.'

Why is this related to the gun control story? I don't think Spencer's 'lesson' is related to the issue at hand at all. Freshmen representatives learn lessons like freshmen in college learn them: It's things that the senior people have learned already and aren't that impressed with. It's a part of life, and a part of being a politician.

Why Name the Street?

What's the purpose behind giving the name of a street that a crime suspect lives on?

I haven't seen the Savannah Morning News do this, but I've seen other papers do it, especially those in smaller markets.

But what's the purpose behind that?

I understand the reasoning behind saying where crimes took place, but not behind saying that 'John Doe of a Smith Street address has been taken in for questioning'.

Maybe this ticks me off because the parents in my area always read the paper, and they automatically assume that if someone from that street robbed a bank, every person on that street has the potential to be a bank robber, which just isn't true.

So what's the need in doing this?

Radar hot-spots

Why is a radar hot-spot a news item?

I've seen them talked about on the morning news shows, heard it on news bites from the radio, and seen it on the site for the Savannah Morning News.

Honestly, I don't agree with telling people where police will be checking speed.

I feel like it doesn't encourage people to follow the law.

I know that when I hear where the hot spots will be, I become extra cautious about my speed in those areas. I'm not encouraged to watch my speed all day. I'm just encouraged to be sure that in my 45 minute drive to school, to be sure that i'm not speeding on Abercorn.

But anyways, I really don't think it's the best thing to publicize. Sure, compulsive speeders thank you, but I feel like it does more of a dis-service to the public in the long run.

Herman Cain and the Many Accusers

(Pardon the title. I realize it sounds like a sort of a bad morality lesson.)
Herman Cain used to be a front-runner for the presidential election.

Until he had his good name smeared by...I don't know how many different accusers now (accusers about sexual discrepancies as well as potential affairs).

This interests me for two reasons in particular.

1, Why didn't we hear about all of this until he was considered a true contender? I mean, honestly, these people knew he was running for president. Why wait until he's a front-runner to come forward about everything?

2, Why on earth does it matter that he used to, as one of my family member's put it, think with the wrong head?

Here's my thoughts on number 1: He was the golden boy of the Tea Party, aka the ultra-conservatives. Ultra-conservatives aren't gonna vote for someone who has a fairly questionable moral record. But the timing still confuses me. It's stuff like this that makes for consipracy theories about how the 'higher ups' are trying to ensure that their candidate wins.

Thoughts on number 2-Most people, regardless of political affiliation, won't vote for someone with a history of demeaning women and cheating on significant others. It just doesn't sit well with people.

That being said, it's almost kind of sad that Cain's campaign had to end like this. He would've been fun, if nothing else, to watch in the debates.

November=Adoption Awareness Month

In light of changing up things a little, I'd like to let you all know that November is adoption awareness month. As a sister to 5 wonderful adopted siblings (who are 19, 9, 6, 5, and 4, and 4 of whom are from China) adoption is a big portion of my life.

Now, I'll provide you with a list of people who were adopted (some were adopted by a step-parents, but still). I came up with this list after helping my oldest little sister do a school project on adoption, and I figured it'd be a nice change of pace to share with the class.

-Steve Jobs (former Apple CEO)

-Michael Oher (Player for the Baltimore Ravens...also the subject of the movie 'The Blindside'

-Art Linkletter

-DMC (rap artist)

-Eleanor Roosevelt

-Faith Hill

-Leo Tolstoy

-Malcolm X

-President Gerald Ford

-President Bill Clinton

-John Lennon

-Jesus Christ (This can get a little tricky considering you deal with the meta-physics and all, but Jesus was technically adopted by Joseph, so just go with it)

-Nancy Regan

-Scott Hamilton (champion figure skater)

Equally important in the adoption process are the parents. Here's a list of a few famous adoptive parents:

-Barbara Walters

-Al Roker

-Angelina Jolie (I lost count of her kids...)

-Hugh Jackman

-Bob Hope

-Katherine Heigl

-John Denver

-Julie Andrews

-Dan Marino

-John McCain

-President Ronald Regan

That's just a short version of the list. But I found it interesting, and I figured you all would as well!

This is ridiculous.

So this article on the Diamond Casino being raided by federal agents just strikes me as DANG ridiculous. Mostly, the ending bugs me.
You can access the article at this website:

http://savannahnow.com/news/2011-11-15/feds-armed-search-warrants-board-diamond-casino#.TsLNXcNU_SY

Okay...they have absolutely NO information as to why the agents where there in the first place, so I'm really confused as to why this was reported on in the first place. However, the last part of the article is what really got me. This is what it reads:
'The Diamond Casino website describes the 200-foot-long vessel as the “finest casino cruise vessel” with numerous amenities including two floors of Vegas-style gaming and a third-floor observation deck. It offers more than 240 slot machines and 18 tables of Vegas-style excitement along with a large variety of video and reel slot machines in denominations from $.01 to $5.'

Now, I don't know if that information was even necessary, but if it was, there was a better way to talk about it without it sounding like a big advertisement for the casino. This is a news story about a possible federal investigation, not an advertisement.

Shorter Controversy.

(I start this blog post with the knowledge that I am going to tick at least a couple of people off. I am a Christian and have served with the Georgia Baptist association in missions programs, so if this slant bothers you, then now would be the time where you go look at another blog post of mine. With that said, you've been aptly warned.)

I've been paying attention to the controversy surrounding Shorter University. If you're not familiar with it...let me educate you.
-Shorter University is a private, Christian university that is funded by the Georgia Baptist Convention (a subset of the Souther Baptist convention).
-Shorter hasn't traditionally kept to their heritage, and the Georgia Baptist association has distanced itself from Shorter (although it is still classified as a GB university by many).
-Shorter gained a new president, Dr. Don Dowless, who's decided that he wants to return Shorter to being an actual Christian university.
-The things that Dr. Dowless and the board of trustees are asking the faculty to sign and adhere to several things (you can view these here: http://www.shorter.edu/about/faith_integration.pdf http://www.shorter.edu/about/Philosophy_of_Education.pdf http://www.shorter.edu/about/personal_lifestyle_statement.pdf)

Now, you can read these for yourself. But the thing that has everyone up in arms is the fact that the personal lifestyle statement asks for them to abstain from homosexual lifestyle and to abstain from consuming alcohol in setting where they may come in contact with students.

I really and truly believe that, considering the college is funded by the Georgia Baptist convention, and Southern Baptists believe that the Bible prohibits certain things, such as homosexuality, and that's their religious belief, then there shouldn't be a problem with asking their professors to abstain from that lifestyle. I feel like this would be a bigger issue if this were a public university with no religious affiliation, but since this is a private, and for all intensive purposes, church-funded organization, I don't think that there should be a problem with the personal lifestyle statement.
Now the thing about alcohol consumption. I'm aware that the bible does not specifically disallow drinking alcohol, but at the same time, the bible does state that Christians should be 'above reproach' and not give anyone a reason to doubt them and their walk. Thus, the reasoning behind the school asking professors not to partake of alcohol in settings where students might be.

I honestly feel like these are acceptable things for a church-run school to ask of their professors. If you believe that people in religion are wrong for believing certain things, that's one issue. But don't start working for an organization that you know has certain beliefs and then get all furious when they ask you to adhere to a certain standard.

The Friday effect

Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from her husband Kris Humphries last Monday, which is the same day that she released a statement concerning the divorce.

Nothing really major about that, especially considering every logically-thinking person probably expected it to happen. But there's something fairly interesting in the timing she chose to release her statement.

It was on a Monday.
Now, I know that most people weren't thinking about it. But here's the thing: The fact that she released this information screams 'GIVE ME ATTENTION!' Releasing news on a Monday gives the press and every Perez-Hilton wannabe a chance to spend a good 5 days or more talking about it.
Kim K is traditionally considered to be all out for any sort of fame (no one really knew who she was before the sex tape came out, then she's done whatever she could to maintain her status), and this doesn't seem to be any different. If she was really craving privacy, she wouldn't have released the statement on a Monday, and she wouldn't be talking about every aspect of her dirty little life on her various and sundry reality shows.

Differences between the small-town and not-so-small-town

(Note: I would've posted a link to the newspaper for my hometown, but the ability to view articles is incredibly limited without a subscription.)

So, I'm not from Savannah. I'm from a teensy-weensy town southwest of here. We don't have a daily newspaper, but we do have a weekly publication that's tends to be a good, solid local newspaper that's even won a few national awards.

The last time I went home, I took a little bit of time to notice the differences between Savannah's newspaper and my hometown's.

First, there's not a lot going on in my hometown. Let's be real: My hometown has a population of less than 4000 (the overall county has a population of less than 20,000), crime is fairly low, most everyone owns a home, and we're too far away from everything to have anyone terribly interesting come visit (unless you count Jack Kingston, who fascinates my ADD brain sometimes). If a cop screws up and gets fired (not even neccesarily , we find out (because our police force has a total of about 6 regular officers on the force so if one goes missing, we notice).

Second, if there's not a lot going on in town, there's not a lot to report. This is possibly why, if you were to look at my hometown's newspaper, you'll find front-page articles about football games (we only have 1 high school in the county, so there's not a lot to report there either), projects of school children (Dr. Seuss week and the first weeks of school tend to get a lot of attention), and the passing of life-long residents. Like all small towns, there's a fair share of city governmental drama (i.e.: we have city manager drama as well), but even that seems to be at a minimum. The most extended arguement tends towards being city-county disputes on who has to pay for what.

Third...everyone knows everything about everybody, part of that is due to how the paper runs. Anytime we get a new football coach, new principal at a school, anything like that, there's information about their family (and, if they're married, where their spouses are employed, etc).

I say that to say this: My hometown newspaper has a public interest/lifestyle oriented feel, as opposed to a 'news' oriented feel, just because of the fact that there's not much actually considered 'news' actually happening. Is it the best? Not neccessarily, but it works for the market it serves.

Why is there as story about Casey Anthony here?

Excuse cheesy title.

So, I'm coming clean today: I have a guilty pleasure. At least twice a day, I go to a website known as TMZ. What is TMZ you ask? Well, allow me to bring you out from under your rock. TMZ is a site, founded by Harvey Levin (a former lawyer turned journalist), that covers celebrity notes, news, etc. Now TMZ isn't just your typical 'Guess who Ryan Reynolds had lunch with today' website (although there are a lot of stories like that...but I'll confess, I'm sometimes intrigued by exactly who Mr. Reynolds is having lunch with). TMZ can be a wealth of information for lots of different aspects of celebrity life and celebrity justice. For instance, TMZ was the first to report on the passing of Michael Jackson, the first to get info on the Ben Roethlisberger rape accusation, and almost always the first to know when a celebrity gets arrested for a DUI. There have even been several different occasions that I've seen where CNN and other national news sources have quoted and/or credited TMZ with the information that they've received on major news stories. Moreover, with his knowledge of the ins-and-outs of the justice system, Harvey Levin offers valuable insight into court cases that often can't be found in other places.

But, I end up confused on occasion as to why certain court cases end up being covered on TMZ.

Let me bring up 2 things that I'm confused about: The West Memphis 3, and Casey Anthony.

First, the West Memphis 3. For those not familiar with the case, they were accused back in 1993 of murdering 3 Boy Scouts, but maintained their innocence. The case of the West Memphis 3 had the attention of several celebrities, such as Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, that annoying chick from The Dixie Chicks, and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder. Recently, they turned in a plea of 'guilty' in exchange for their freedom. Here's my beef with it...TMZ is a celebrity news site. Why are they on there? It's only a notorious case because of the circumstances surrounding it. There's no 'celebrity-ness' to any of them, other than the fact that at one point, they were all accused of murdering and mutilating the bodies of 3 Boy Scouts. So I'm confused as to why this case got coverage on TMZ.

Second, Casey Anthony. Now, if you know nothing about Casey Anthony...please, please come out from under your rock (honestly, if somehow you don't know about at least part of the case...you're probably a hermit). During the Casey Anthony case, the TMZ page was covered with stories about the jury, the judge, the final decision, Casey's relationship with her parents, etc. BUT WHY? While people probably hate her as much if not more than they hate Lindsey Lohan, Casey Anthony IS NOT a celebrity. All she's done is, to put in honestly, make all of America severely doubt her innocence in the case. So why on earth is she on the TMZ page?

So, for both of these cases (and there are others as well, these 2 are the most recent) I'm just confused as to why they're on a news-page for CELEBRITY news. There's enough to talk about justice and such (with the Michael Jackson case (actual celebrity) and all of the rappers getting out of jail recently) to occupy the interested world for a while.

My suggestion: Create another news page for coverage of notorious trials. Harvey is a great legal mind, and it'd be nice to get his opinion on national-news cases (like the Anthony case and the West Memphis 3 case).

This way, I can see who Ryan Reynolds took out to lunch (Olivia Wilde most recently, in case you were wondering), but also have a separate place to look at news and analysis on legal cases (if I choose to do so).

first post!

First post on my newly-established blog for my News Writing and Reporting Class.
Prepare to be blown away.
-Whit