"Honey, I've got a secret."

A leading Muslim scholar from Egypt has given me the strangest circumstance for the death penalty that I've ever heard. Apparently Prof. Abdul Mouti Bayoumi has called for the death penalty for anyone caught smuggling a device that helps women fake their virginity. His reasoning behind this is that "fornication is a cardinal sin" according to Islam. Now, I have several questions for Prof. Bayoumi. 1. How many Playboys are in your possession? 2. How many bottles of Viagra are delivered to your doorstep every month? 3. Why are you so jealous of everyone else getting some action? Here's the simple facts, people have sex, it's what they do. It's easy to see why women in these areas want to hide that fact that they're not virgins if they're not married. Think about it; the people the Prof. Bayoumi is suggesting prosecuting are merely the people who ship this device in; who knows what would happen to a women if it was discovered that she fell for someone a little to hard back in high school or something. And yes, I know, this story is a little risque and I'm sure my mother will be thinking the absolute worst upon reading this (don't by the way). But honestly, I couldn't pass it up. Thanks to the BBC for this story.
PEACE AND LOVE

Guinea Government Rejects Reports On Protest

The Guinean government, which is military lead (who didn't see that coming), has decided to reject the UN report stating that government soldiers shot and killed 58-157 people, depending on what poll you're looking at, during a pro-democracy rally that was being held in the nations capital on Monday. The civilians were protesting the leadership of Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara who took over the government in a coup last December. Based on reports by Humans Right Watch the soldiers also rapped women in the street during the protest along with other human rights violations. The African Union has strongly condemned these actions. My personal believes in the matter that the UN should call for an official investigation. It's no surprise that a military leader of a nation is denying that he had any control over the situation. I think it's in the military dictator handbook as to how to find a way out of these situations. It's time for the UN to step up and say "Hey, you've got some issues and you need some help." This story can be found on both the CNN and MSNBC news sites so....
CHECK IT

My thing for class

Now, in case no one knows, this blog was originally created for a News class and I decided to keep it going. I have come to the part in my class that I must have a unified them that I must put an update on twice a week. My topic will be human rights abuses and threats towards democratic governments. I'm letting you all know this so that it doesn't seem like I'm just randomly coming up with stuff. Please, don't be afraid to comment and join the discussion or post your own info.
SEE YA ON THE OTHER SIDE

Honor Student Murdered

It makes no sense to me that a person should have to die simply because they ended up walking into the middle of a fight of two HIGH SCHOOL factions. The death of Derrion Albert can't just be thrown out the window as another gang banger murder. Albert was an honor student who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time (from all the info I've gathered). The biggest thing about this story for me is that it's high school students. These aren't 20 something year olds in the ghetto. It's two factions at a high school. Gotta love the city. Get the full story at CNN.com.

Iranian Missile Test

Iran has tested some new missiles and apparently one type is capable of reaching parts of Europe. It's also stated that it's begun working on a second uranium enrichment plant. Now, I don't really want to look like I'm taking a Bush-isk theory with this but...Iran is just a little bit out there, for lack of a better term. I'm curious as to how long it will take for these missiles to find there way into the hands of Pakistan and then into the back yards of Israelis. As for the uranium enrichment plants; I would definitely keep an eye on it if I was the UN. But that's just me. You can check out the full story at CNN.com.
LOVE YA

Larry King Live

Libyan president, Omar Gadhafi is going to be on Larry King Live this Monday at 9 p.m. This guy did a great job of taking the crazy candle away from Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his 96 minute speech at the UN last week. For anyone who missed it Gadhafi stated that H1N1 is a military weapon, the UN Security Council is a "terrorism council" and that the Taliban aren't really bad guys. However we can't say that Ahmadinejad took this lightly by simply bowing down to Gadhafi and the new "Crazy Champion." He went into his normal schpeel about the Holocaust not being real and how Israel should be wiped off the map; this guy suppressed an entire nation in June when it came to elections so he knows his sport. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what Gadhafi has to say; I'll do my best to watch it as soon as I can figure out what channel CNN is up here. Be sure to watch and tell me your comments.
LOVE YOU ALL

Sorry and rewording

Ok, to all of those who thought I was chewing them out with my last post, I apologize. That post was not meant for the people who have been posting and who are following me. It was more for the people who are checking out the blog and not really saying anything as a way to try to get them more involved. I love my followers so don't worry, I promise I will do my best to respond to all of your comments and posts; the reason that I haven't is because of a setting defect that doesn't show me in the open that someone has commented. This setting will be changed; so I will be responding to as much as I can. So please, keep posting and reading. Also, the earlier post was merely a warning that the blog will soon be following issues and becoming more political and that I am interested in what everyone thinks on the issues. I am going to try to be as objective as possible, but I'm not perfect.
LOVE YOU ALL

Time to step it up

Ok, I've been doing this thing for a couple of weeks now and I've been fairly easy going. This is now about to change; politics, news, and other things are going to start making their appearance. I want everyone to give feed back and talk with each other; in short COMMENT AND GET INTO THE DISCUSSION; post your own stuff. I want to make it clear though, racism or cussing people out will be deleted so choose your arguments wisely.
LATER

My Package Story

I give you the front page photo for the September 23rd issue of the Daily News. Sorry for posting this so late but the last couple of days have been super busy so hopefully I can be forgiven. Anyway, I had two photos run, and wrote the article for the front page which is called "the package" and I also created a slide show online. For the family I saved some extra copies of the paper. For the rest of my adoring fans please be sure to check out the Daily News website for the full experience.
CHECK IT!!

Update

Here's an update on the package story that's going to be in the Daily News on Wednesday. Due to monotonous photos there won't be an audio slide show up on line, instead there will be a photo gallery. And here's the best part, when asked if I would like to write the story; I in my ignorance said "Sure, why not." So, not only will the package have my photograph, I will also be the writer, for my ever so large amount of adoring fans out there (all five of you) I'm sure you couldn't be happier. I on the other hand am out of my element so I'm a little worried to say the least but hey, it's fun so far; I've got the very rough draft finished and I have an interview set up tomorrow to help finish out the article. I'll be doing a follow up post pretty soon with some photos but it's late and I'm tired so that's just going to have to wait. Anyway, until then my happy bloggers.
GOODNIGHT AND SWEET DREAMS

What A Busy Day

Ok, so I went and took pictures and audio for the package that's coming out on Wednesday, they're also making an audio/picture slide show that will be on the DN's website around the same day. After that I got a call about a motorcycle crash (shout out to Cody Butler) so I ran down to take some shots of that and then went and shot the Four Square tournament that was going on, since it's been such a busy day I'm going to wait a bit to drop the photos of the package and four square thing but you are getting to see one of the photos I took of the motorcycle incident. I promise that I'll put some photos of the other stuff up soon though so don't be discouraged.
LOVE AND PEACE !!!!

Hog Wash

Nothing very exciting today, went and took some pictures of the hog roast that they had on campus, and dropped a feature photo, I'll post a pic later but it's getting late and I'm on a computer that doesn't have any of my files on it so yeah.
GOODNIGHT AND GOODLUCK

Picture in the paper

So I went to the Ishmeal Beah speech tonight, it was awesome, I was able to get back stage and meet him and he couldn't have been a nicer guy. The event lasted for about two hours but I never got bored. For those of you who don't know Beah is the author of a book by the name of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier in which he talks about his life growing up in Sierra Leone as a child soldier during the civil war that occurred there. His talk was moving and inspiring and yet, even though he was talking about a serious subject he was able to keep it up beat with a sly sense of humor and by always seeming to have a smile on his face. Anyway, this is a journalism blog so I guess I should put something about that on here, look for my picture of Beah and Ball State President Jo Ann Gora on the front page of the Daily News tomorrow along with the full story about Beah's talk.

P.S. I've added a link to the website that hosts The Bugle, the podcast that I mentioned in one of my first posts.
CHECK IT!!!!

Interesting

Interesting news involving Florida and giant snakes on the National Geographic website, apparently not only have Burmese pythons invaded; now African rock pythons have moved in and set up shop. The full story, like I said, is on the NatGeo website which I have linked on the sidebar.
CHECK IT

I Made Front Page!

Ok, now granted, this wasn't the largest photo on the front page of the September 14, 2009 issue of the Ball State Daily News but it was on the front page, and take a wild guess here....it was mine. Anyway, just excited about that and wanted to post it for anyone who is actually checking this blog out. The photo on page two of the paper is NOT mine though. That one belongs to ace photog Jess Laning who also went to the event with me, there should be a correction in the paper by tomorrow giving credit where it's due, buy anyway.
HAVE A GREAT MONDAY even though I know that's really hard to do.

Ball State vs New Hampshire 9/12/09

Well it was another bad night for the Ball State football team, but, it was a good night for me. This is my best picture of the night so it has become my baby for the night of Saturday. This will be part of the slide show that is going up on the Daily News website also I shot some video so I pulled double duty, the video clips will be up on the DN site in a couple of days. Oh, and for any of those fans who yell for the back up quarter back and throw paper air planes, you're *&^%s! Anywho......
HAVE A GREAT REST OF THE WEEKEND!!

White River Clean Up

Just one of the 150 images or so that I shot at the White River Clean Up for the Daily News today, had to get up at 7 bloody 45 in the morning on a Saturday but it was a fun shoot so I guess it wasn't that bad. Shout out to Chief Photog Jess.....ok I'll be honest I don't know her last name, but friend, mentor, and gave me a ride there and made sure that if none of my shots are good she'll have plenty to hand in of her own. WHO WILL WIN IN THE CONTEST TO BE PUBLISHED? Either way it'll be a fun little piece.
CHECK IT IN THE DAILY NEWS!!!!!

Football game 9/12/09

I'll be taking photos and video of the upcoming Ball State football game against New Hampshire, keep an eye out for the kid on the sidelines who doesn't really know what he's doing.

P.S. If you dress up or paint-up whatever you wanna do you might end up getting a shot taken of you for crowd shots

HAVE AN AWESOME WEEKEND

Traffic accident

I ended up walking onto an accident scene today where two people got hit by a car, it's really weird how whenever I just walk out the door of my dorm I end up in the middle of something, anyway the camera was with me so the shots were taken. Hope the two kids are ok, photo is on the Daily News website.

The Bugle

I've recently turned myself on to a podcast called The Bugle which co-stars John Oliver, a correspondent from the Daily Show with John Stewart. It's a comedy podcast but I highly suggest it since it does a great job of reporting out of the way and off the radar news stories with a nice little twist, much like the Colbert Report or the Daily Show. CHECK IT!!!!!!

Edward R. Murrow

"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar."

"Good night, and good luck."