NY Times reader log Tuesday

One of the articles I read was a sad one about the international slaughter of horses.  Areas outside of the U.S. like in Mexico and Canada are slaughtering horses.  More and more horses are being slaughtered because they can't be taken care of.  Animal groups have been growing more and more angry over these recent reports.  This was a pretty difficult article to read and I wouldn't have wanted to report on it must have been a difficult article to research and write about.

A major article from the first page was about the Tunisians vote which caused a monumental change in it's nation.  I think covering this article must have been amazing as it is a groundbreaking time for this country as everything seems to be changing.

School board proposal

Controversial School Board Proposal Angers Parents and Students Alike

A motion to approve a new policy requiring students with disciplinary problems to attend a special Saturday morning session, has stirred up quite a controversy between members of the School Board and of the community.

After roughly 30 minutes of heated discussion, the board voted to table the issue until its next meeting on March 7, 2011.

The motion was proposed by School Board member Tim Steele, who explained that this disciplinary move was aimed at reducing the amount of in-house suspensions.  “I know this isn’t good news for parents, but I hope the threat of Saturday classes will make the students think twice before breaking the school rules.”

In 2010, 154 students received in-house suspensions. During in-house suspensions students miss a full day of class work that they cannot make up.  With this new program students would not miss any class time.

Peggy Bacon, a parent, was infuriated at the idea of an additional day of detention. “I work six days a week – including Saturday morning – and it’s bad enough to get my son off to school Monday through Friday.  Why should I have to worry about Saturday as well?”

The Saturday session would last from 8 a.m. to noon and would require an allocation of about $3,000 per year in staffing, another aspect that angered Bacon. “I just don’t think it’s going to make any difference, and the parents are going to pay for it – in higher taxes as well as in ruined Saturdays.”

Some residents did like the new proposed rules. “Parents can whine all they want about this, but maybe it’s time parents in America were made to take a little responsibility for their kids.” Said Bob Farley, a Portsmouth resident, “Maybe if they have to miss a few Saturday morning cartoons they’ll start wising up.”

Lisa Gallagher, a senior and one of five high school students at the meeting disliked the rule. “I don’t like this idea.  I think it’s just being done to make life easier for the faculty, so they don’t have to deal with detentions during the week.”

Gallagher also wondered what would happen if students misses a session. “What are they going to do, make them stay all weekend?”

To this Steele responded. “If a student skips Saturday School, he or she would not be allowed to return to school until the detention has been served.”

Steele hopes that the new policy will help prevent students from smoking on campus.  “I just want to keep students from smoking in the high school bathrooms.  There are other problems, but smoking is by far the biggest one.”  At present time in-house suspensions are given automatically to any students caught smoking inside or outside of the high school.

NY Times reading log tuesday

Reading about the guy who will fill police lineups was a really cool profile piece that was something different from what your used to seeing in a paper.  Your used to seeing things about arrests and police lineups and all that sort of stuff, however it's rare to see something from this perspective it was an interesting premise on the piece.  I like how they kind of portrayed the guy as someone who you wouldn't really expect to see hanging out with police and associating himself with them. 

I also thought that the piece on Amazon starting to publish books was a cool story, as it's an important business venture that I can relate to as someone who reads books.  It showed a company ever expanding and taking over new markets.  It also showed a diverse group of people from those that work at amazong to those that work at the publishing companies that are losing customers.

NY Times reader log Tuesday

The story about the Afghan Agencies Torture methods was a very graphic and interesting article.  I liked it a lot and it creates a lot of very graphic images. It portrayed an image of the U.S. as something that just sits back and points figures and makes it seem as though we need to get involved and take more of a side here and be more proactive in light of this new report.

Another article that I liked but not as much was about Japan using more and more nuclear plants and there attempt to prove that they are now safe to have nuclear plants again after some of their recent collapses and safety break downs.  I thought it was a good article, but it didn't really seem like very pressing news.

Old Orchard Beach Article

Young Man Performs Heroic Feet, Helps Saves a Life

Old Orchard Beach, ME- Every morning 17-year-old James Laboke wakes up at 5 a.m. and walks four miles to his job at Eezy Breezy Restaurant.  But, this morning Laboke’s walk was quite different than any other days.

At slightly before 6 a.m. Laboke witnessed a car stuck on the tracks of the Downeaster train with an unconscious man in it.  The train, which travels from Portalnd to Boston, leaves Portland at 5:55 a.m., and makes a stop in Old Orchard Beach at 6:10 a.m. 

The man was 80-year-old Francois Truffaut, a tourist from Quebec City, Canada who has been visiting the town ever since he was a child.  With the engine stalled and the doors locked Laboke had to act quickly.  Laboke, who does not own a cell phone, promptly ran the 100 yards to the town police station, arriving exactly at 6 a.m. the report what he had seen.

Shortly after Janet Paradiso, a captain on the town’s police force, received the call on the radio and sped over to the tracks arriving at 6:05 a.m. With little time left, and the sound of the train’s whistle signaling it’s impending arrival Paradiso had to hurry. “I knew there was no time.  I had to do something.”

Thinking quickly Paradiso rammed her cruiser into truffaut’s Cadillac Seville and pushed it from the tracks, a mere thirty seconds later the train passed by. “It was that close,” said Brian Paul, Chief of Police for Old Orchard Beach.

Truffaut, a diabetic, who may have gone into insulin shock as he reached the railroad crossing, was brought to the hospital and listed as being in a stable condition. “I don’t remember a thing.” Truffaut said later at Southern Maine Medical Center.

Laboke, who reported to the Eezy Breezy Restaurant right on time, thought little of his own heroic deed. “I never thought about it.  I just knew I couldn’t let that man get crushed by a train,”  In fact Laboke’s boss Charles Champaigne, owner of the Eezy Breezy Restaurant wasn’t even aware anything had happened until later when a reporter called. Champaigne has been Laboke’s boss for eight months and had nothing but praise to say of Laboke. “It doesn’t surprise me at all.  That young man is one of my most responsible employees.  He’s just a great kid.”

NY Times reader log Tuesday

Today I focused on one very intense article in the Times called In Dust and Danger, Bloodying an Afghan Foe.  I thought it was an amazing article, complete with some incredible descriptions of vivid scenes.  It starts with a delayed lede, describing helicopters landing, and the nut graph continues with the description.  It’s not until the third paragraph, when basic facts are started to be describe.  The rest of the article is largely descriptive and focuses on future plans in Afghanistan.  Later in the article there are a few quotes from individuals, but a large part of it is information on the future expectations of what will happen in Afghanistan.  This story more told a story as it progresses than the bare bones facts that you usually expect from the Times, I absolutely loved this story.