Dear Mr. Rhodes... Huh???

Starting off I'd like for you to ask yourself a question. As humans we have certain key needs in order to survive on an individual basis. The question I'd like for you to ask yourself is this: Do you, as a person, have a right to these survival necessities? Necessities like water?

If you answered yes, then you're across the aisle from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes.

The city of Detroit is known as being a tad on the rougher side. So, when they filed for bankruptcy it was sad to watch, but wasn't surprising for the most part, in my eyes. The declaration of bankruptcy from the City of Detroit should reflect the struggles of it's some 4 million (in the Metro area of Detroit alone) residents.

Many of them have had problems paying their bills to the city, and in turn have their appliances shut off, their furniture repo'd, etc. However, When the city started shutting off the masses water (Over 24,000 houses this year) there was a large amount of backlash, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Even the United Nations took up word on the matter with this statement:

“Disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights. Because of a high poverty rate and a high unemployment rate, relatively expensive water bills in Detroit are unaffordable for a significant portion of the population.”

So, when Judge Rhodes rejected the resident's six-month moratorium on water shutoffs he placed himself in a position opposite that of the U.N.

Here is what I have to say on the matter, and do know I have a very strong opinion about this. We live in a great nation where resourced like water are readily available at the government's disposal. Ideally the people pay for the resourced and in return the government supplies it.

But we do live in a nation where we are blessed with such things, while there are nations in less fortunate parts of the world who don't have these kinds of blessings. We should give it because we have the ability to.

To say that a human being does not have the right to things required for us to survive in a country that has these things fully available for it's citizens anyways is absolutely insane.

So, if you're going to require people to still pay these bills with money they don't have, in an area notorious for already having large amounts of crime, do not be surprised when your organized crime rates grow rapidly while people are trying to make ends meat to pay for their children's water.

And once these crime rates go up be sure to place Judge Steven Rhodes on the front lines of community watch, and hopefully he'll be ready to back up his opinion on the matter.

Meanwhile, on a more faith-restoring note, the makers of the "Crush" animal cruelty videos were sentenced to a life of imprisonment yesterday.

If you are unaware of what the videos are, I would never link one to my blog, but they are fetish videos of girls being forced to torture and murder puppies, rabbits, and many other animals.

They were found guilty of child abuse, animal welfare crimes, human trafficking, and wildlife protection crimes in a Philippine court.

I will not put this lightly. If you force young girls to skin dogs alive and burn them with irons or cut off rabbit's ears there is a special place in hell for you, and I hope you spend the rest of your lives in jail seriously regretting and feeling extremely guilty for your crimes.

Lastly, I'll end today's entry on a happier note. The man who raised $55,000.00 on Kickstarter to make himself a potato salad threw a huge public party that promised "peace, love, and potato salad".

This crowd-funding project started as a joke where a man sought to make $10.00 to make his potato salad and not long after it's creation exploded in public popularity.

I do love this story so, so sincerely because it shows the comedic nature of the internet as a whole, and how this kind of humor can lead to huge effects. This lesson can transfer beyond just comedic effect. This shows the power when the masses come together. The internet has given average citizens the ability to make a difference societally that was impossible before.

I am excited to continue to grow up in this amazing technologically-advanced world and see what we, as a people, will accomplish throughout my lifetime and then beyond.

"There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we've got one damn thing the phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we've done for a thousand years and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, someday we'll stop making the goddamn funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them." -Fahrenheit 451

ISIS, Ferguson, and Hong Kong... Promising, I Know.

I'm going to be talking about a few topics today that are more on the violent side of world events. Given the nature of the matters you may wonder why it is I decided to talk about these few, rather unsettling events. 

The short answer is this: Bad things happen in the world. We must learn from our mistakes as a people, not pretend they didn't happen. So it is best to see these things, and take a moral lesson from them, so that one day maybe things will be a little better in the world than they were the day before that.

So just hang in there with me, I promise to be as honest and enlightening on the subjects as I know how, and I will explain the over-arching point and parallel the stories have to each other at the end.

The first of these topics is ISIS.

We've all heard the name by now. The new terrorist group that's risen from the shadows and caused the world massive heartache with each life they've taken.

The group ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) or ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), who are the same group, for the record, seeks out to create one, powerful, unified Islamic State.They've expressed their wishes, however, through violent acts of terror and crimes against humanity.

The U.S. government has said that there is a relatively small number (as many as 12) Americans now fighting for ISIS.

These men are villainous, hateful monsters. Their many taped executions and threats have shown us that. They are, quite possibly, the worst that humanity has to offer.

There is now a bombing campaign, with multiple countries taking part, organized by the United States against ISIS. It was started off by the UAE's (United Arab Emirates') female pilot (Thanks again, Fox.) last week and will continue forward to hopefully weaken the group. 

Next, there is Ferguson, Missouri (It hurts me too, don't worry)

If you aren't aware of the events that have unfolded in Missouri, let me explain, and I will be as unbiased as I can be on the matter. There was a man named Mike Brown, who was 18 years old and was suppose to leave for college about a week after this happened. One night while he was walking down the street with his friend they were stopped by the police.

This is where the controversy and debate of facts comes in. At some point during this encounter Mike Brown was shot and killed. One side of this argument believes it was merely an act of unnecessary violence. Equally, the other side argues that the police officer was charged at by Mr. Brown.

Regardless, people took to the streets and protested. The police responded with a vastly militarized approach to the issue. 

Now all of this started a few weeks back, and headlines slowly died down about the protests-turned-riots.

Then, on Saturday night a police officer was shot in the arm which brought attention back to the events going on in the city.

As of now, it is unclear whether or not this shooting was related to the one that took place six weeks ago, or not. However, it does seem like a logical conclusion to draw a parallel between the two.

Finally, we have Hong Kong.

This is the lesser known of the stories widely and is one I'd like to spread some awareness of.

In Hong Kong, there is currently a large pro-democracy protest going on which until today had been opposed by the police, but had not been particularly violent. But watching this protest turn into a shooting gallery for police tear-gas cannons was truly unsettling.

The short of the long story is that Hong Kong (Note: I originally wrote Japan, which is not the case and have updated it post-publishing.) is Chinese-controlled. China is still a socialist nation, so as I'm sure you can imagine, pro-democracy rallies were not taken happily by the country.

The protests were declared "illegal", but it should be well known by now, especially after Ukraine, that outlawing protests does not end protests. It makes protests more violent.

The people of Hong Kong used umbrellas to fend off tear gas, but they did break up the crowd. This only made the large protests regroup across the bridge from where they were. I believe these photos show the events best, though.

Now that we've gone over the events, I need to speak up about the nature of these things. They all have one thing in common- and that is violence.

We've come to accept violence as a society, as an always-acceptable and primary option in these kind of situations. What I'm here to tell you, though, is that violence is sometimes necessary. In the case of ISIS our current options are either sit back and try and negotiate with high-risk extremists while they kill off more innocent people, or kill them first.

This is a tragic thing to have to choose between, but is currently our only option, and as a whole we should always fight for the innocent and weak.

However, look at Hong Kong currently, and look at Ferguson. These are places where there is no need for violence. These are cases of citizens against their "protectors" and this violence offers absolutely no true solution.

The moral that I'd like to leave with today's post is that we should not look to brutality for an answer, always, always, look to peace first.

We have been told growing up that humans are violent. Humans are hateful. But that's not necessarily true. Humans are also loving, and humans are caring. We are capable of compassion.

I'll be back on to post again tomorrow, with some lighter topics, to talk with you some more!

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -Alice in Wonderland

So Much To Say, Goodness!

Just to start off... How are people allowed to say such stupid things on TV? Better yet, how do people find themselves saying these things without realizing how idiotic it is?

You might already know what I'm referring to.

I'm talking about Eric Collier and Greg Gutfeld, two co-hosts on Fox News's "The Five". While on the topic of Major Mariam Al Mansouri, who flew an F-16 in the bombing of ISIL (or ISIS, call it what you will). The two gentlemanly scholars found it an appropriate time to exchange a few sexist comments.

"After she bombed it, she couldn't park it," -Greg Gutfeld

"Would that be considered boobs on the ground or no?" -Eric Bolling

These were two of the prize comments made during this back and forth. I'll be blunt on this topic. Eric and Greg are two news hosts. It is the job of the news and the media to educate the public. To show their outstanding ignorance through things like this should tell you something about their ability to educate the public.

If you watch "The Five" for your own news or entertainment it may be a good idea to start venturing to a different show.

Next, I'd like to bring some more attention to a couple more local topics that have gained some glances lately. But I'd like to feed the fire, regardless.

Recently, I've seen the oh-so great city of Huntsville, Alabama get gazes from some outside onlookers in the span of a couple weeks.

That's considerably uncommon for our little town of about 250,000 people. Wildly enough, the topic makes us look incredibly foolish.

If you aren't aware of the situation, here is the simple version (I'll link the full story at the bottom).

There was a boy at Sparkman Middle School who was known to be conducting some acts of unwanted sexual acts toward a few of his classmates. A teacher's aide, June Simpson instructed a 14-year-old student, and special needs child, to go into a school bathroom with the notorious boy so that they could catch him in the act of harassing the girl. However, Simpson failed to follow them into the bathroom. He then raped the girl and no one was around to stop it.

The detail that took me back was that the boy could not be punished after all this, because he had not been "caught in the act". Because of this, there were reports of the boy harassing girls even after this tragic incident.

The girl's family filed a federal lawsuit and the Vice President testified the girl was responsible for herself the moment she entered the bathroom.

This is an absolutely devastating thing to happen and makes me lose even more faith (the very little that I had left) in the local school systems. I hope that this poor girl is compensated in every single way that is possible.

I will leave a link to the active petition to get the people responsible for this fired once and for all, something which should not even need a petition.

I've run this entry a tad long so I'll end it here! Have a fantastic day, and I will be back to post again on Monday! Also, I'm glad to include this quote in this entry, it is one of my favorites of all time! :)

P.S. Apple built in a feature they hadn't told us about in their new iPhone 6 Plus! It bends! :D

"Pay attention, boy. The next suitable person you're in light conversation with, you stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say 'What's wrong?' You say it in a concerned way. He'll say, 'What do you mean?' You say 'Something's wrong, I can tell. What is it?' And he'll look stunned and say 'How did you know?' He doesn't realize something's always wrong... with everybody. Often more than one thing. He doesn't know everybody's always going around all the time with something wrong and believing they're exerting great willpower and control to keep other people, for whom they think nothing's ever wrong, from seeing it. This is the way of people." -The Pale King

Sparkman Case

Petition

Welcome to my Diary

My name is Christophre Dennen, and I started this blog because I've found myself stuck in a position that most people my age do not find themselves in very often. I care. I genuinely care about the world, about other people, and about all the many problems we face as a culture and as a society. I had just assumed that this was the normal type of thing to start thinking about as a high schooler. Why not, right?

But that was wrong, and I know that now. The majority (however, not anywhere near all) of high schoolers couldn't tell you where Syria is. They've never heard of Palestine. They have never experienced anything but one-sided, often uneducated opinions on the most shallow end of politics.

I decided a couple years back to start reading more, and to learn my own interests and I realized that I didn't find myself on the side of political debates that I'd been told I was on from the time I was a kid by my community.

I am 16 years old and I love news, I love music, I love art, writing, reading, technology, movies, and just culture as a whole. I have many outlying opinions, and many majority-accepted opinions. I will, no doubt, offend someone, at some point.

I believe in the power of my generation to make change. I also believe change is needed. People talk about the great might of the Baby Boomers and how much strength their numbers gave them. There were around 75 million people born into the Baby Boomer generation. What people don't mention is that every generation since then has grown.

The Baby Boomers made a difference, and it was a difference that authorities didn't like and weren't aware was possible. We have that same power. We have the power to change things.

At the end of every one of these posts I will leave a Song and Quote of the Day down here. You obviously don't have to listen to the song, it's just music that I personally enjoy and find a powerful message in.

 "We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?" -Fahrenheit 451