Jeff

Week 2 - Man hijacks plane to deliver 'God's message'

On September 9, 2009, Jose Flores, a 44-year-old Bolivian preacher hijacked a Boeing 737 in Mexico City. Flores used a juice can with lights that he attached on by himself as the threat. He claims the purpose of his hijacking was to attract the attention of President Felipe Calderon and warn Mexicans of an impending disaster "an earthquake like none there has ever been." He had tried contacting the president for three months, but he never got an answer. That made him go to the extremes he did. The reason for choosing this date was because 09-09-09 is the satanic number 666 turned upside down.

"Garcia Luna said Flores is a drug addict who was convicted of armed robbery in Bolivia and has lived in Mexico for 17 years. Flores described himself as a former drug user and a pastor in southern Oaxaca state who had gone to Cancun to preach." While hijacking the plane, he claimed to have three accomplices. After being arrested, he explained that his three companions were "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." His wife and mother knew he was going to do something extreme to have a chance to attract the media and get to the president. The wife quoted him saying, "Don't worry if they put me in jail; (it will be) glory to God."

In my opinion, in order to go to these extremes, one must be out of the ordinary. If there really was a message to delivered, there would have been an alternative method for delivering it, especially if being sent from God. The fact that Flores was a former drug addict adds to people's disbelief in his 'message'. It is probably just an effect on his brain from previous drug uses that lead to these kind of hallucinations.

Week 3 - Cold? Flu? H1N1? How can you tell the difference?

Recently, due to the seasonal flu and H1N1, people have started to panic once they feel any slight symptoms of a cold, flu or H1N1. However, there is a difference between these. "Symptoms of a cold are more common, and can make the patient miserable for three to five days. A patient usually has a stuffy nose, congestion, some body aches and a growing cough" states the CDC (Center for Disease Control). For the Symptoms of H1N1 or the seasonal flu would "consist of fever, more painful body aches, dry cough, diarrhea and severe fatigue"; however, to be able to tell the difference between H1N1 and the seasonal flu would require testing.

Personally, I found this article quite interesting, because I too was curious of knowing the different symptoms, considering I have a slight cough. From this article, it tells me that i would need to have more of a fever or dry cough in order to have seasonal flu or, even worse, H1N1. The article also mentions methods of hygiene to help prevent this infectious disease such as "wash your hands and keep your fingers away from your mouth, nose and eyes. If you sneeze, sneeze into your elbow so as not to transfer your germs to your hands -- and everything else around you". Also myths such as going out with your hair wet and leaving your window open have no proven evidence of affecting your immune system. Lastly, the obvious advice of "eating well, getting enough sleep and staying active".

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/18/h1n1.staying.healthy/index.html

Week 4 - G20 opponents, police clash on Pittsburgh streets

The most recent G20 meeting was held in Pittsburgh. The countries of the G20 consists of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States. Anti-system protesters marched the streets and that day. Riots began to form due to the aggression from the police. The protesters claimed to be peaceful while the police were banging their shield and acting aggressively. This provoked the protesters, resulting in trash bins being rolled at police, rocks being smashing police cars, and others.

Every country will have its own reaction by the civilians. Unfortunately in the United States, many were against capitalism where the government is run by multimillion dollar companies. The majority are against the unequal distribution of wealth around the nation, where most the resources are consumed by 5 percent of the country. Capitalism is an effective system, however, when nations like the United States take capitalism to extremes, monopolistic events begin to form. China for example has a mixed economy between capitalism and socialism. This has proven to have worked well considering the fact that China will be the future world power. There has to be balance in all systems.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090924/ap_on_re_us/g20_summit_protests