Newswriting issue

Sorry it's been so long between posts but I had to write something after seeing this story on the local news.

TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - Anferney Fontenet, 16, has been sentenced for raping a woman with Asperger's syndrome alongside a Toledo road.

As the judge handed down the punishment of 18 years in prison, the victim watched from a monitor in another part of the courthouse and Fontenet shed tears.
Judge Stacy Cook says Fontenet has no control over his impulses and that makes him a danger to the community.

The victim's mom read a letter her daughter wrote saying how the rape and robbery changed her life forever.

Fontenet had a few words to say in court too.
"I'd like to apologize to the victim and her family. I didn't intend for any of this to happen, but I'm not going to make an excuse for it, but what I did was not right. What I did was wrong."

The victim's family is glad this boy is off the streets.
"I don't feel satisfied. I don't feel dissatisfied. I am happy he's off the streets so he doesn't hurt anyone else, but I'm not in for revenge," the victim's mother said.

Fontenet will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. He says he plans on appealing the sentence.


****My only question with this story is why is it relevant that the victim had Asperger's syndrome? Why is she identified by her illness?

You never know who you'll run into...

Ok, so here's a story...
I was at Kroger's on Main Street in Bowling Green, on the north end of town. At least I think it's Main Street. This was this past Saturday night. I was on my way to a birthday party. I just filled my gas tank and was waiting to turn left to go south...leaving Kroger's. I'm behind a white Chevy Caprice Classic. All of a sudden, the car puts it in reverse and starts backing up. I can't go anywhere because a car is behind me. I lay on my horn a couple times. The car kept coming and hit me!!!! Didn't seem major but the car hit me enough to get my attention. Of course, the light turns green. The white car turns left. I'm pissed. I follow the car. I'm honking my horn and flashing my lights every other block. The car keeps going. I call BG Police....who are busy with the Tractor Pull. I read off the license plate number and took a picture of the car with my phone. As I'm on the phone with BG Police, I am calling out what direction I am going and what streets I'm passing. Every so often, again, I flashed my lights and honked my horn. I noticed the passenger turned around and looked. I pointed to the side of the road as if to say, "HEY, PULL OVER!" I even yelled that out the window. We were now five miles away from Kroger's. We went by the fairgrounds where the tractor pull was going on. We never went faster than 40 mph. Eventually, I got transfered to the Wood County Sheriff's Department. I followed the car to a little town called Tontogany. Otsego High School is not that far away. We were now about 6 miles from where the "chase" started. The car pulled into a driveway. I parked. The passenger got out. She was a short woman...a little rough around the edges. I said, "You hit my car." She said, "no, we didn't." I said, "Yes, you did....back at Kroger's. We were sitting at the light waiting to turn onto Main....you started to back up and I laid on my horn and you hit me." The woman got really nervous and pulled out a cigarette and was shaking. I looked at the front of my car and really couldn't see any major damage. There might have been some scratches in the grill or something but nothing big. Anyway, then, the driver gets out. She's probably in her mid-60s. There's a handicap accessible placard in her rearview mirror. She struggled to make it over to me and the other woman, who as it turned out, was her sister. The driver, was missing teeth and walked (really struggled to walk) with a cane. She didn't know or believed she hit me either. She thought I was tail-gating her. After talking to her and her sister, the driver told me she is homeless. Her car is pretty much the only thing she owns. She has no phone. She lives in a mission in Toledo. She also told me she had been the victim of a break-in and had been robbed recently in Toledo. Her sister lives in a room at the house of a friend we were at parked at. She has a pre-paid phone. Both are looking for work. The driver was overly apologetic and seemed to be getting upset that she hit me and didn't realize it. The sheriff's department told me BG Police would follow up with them when I told them I live in Toledo. However, after hearing how down on their luck both women were, I decided this wasn't worth it. They don't need the trouble. I told them to forget about it. Just then, a Wood County Sheriff's Department officer pulls up. He showed me a message from the BG Police that basically said that again, they would follow up if I wanted to. I told him to forget about it. The ladies thanked me and said I was a very nice guy. I left and went on my way to the birthday party but man, it really taught me a lesson about waiting to judge somebody before I get all the facts. Here I was thinking, "what kind of a-hole hits me and keeps driving?" And then after talking to these two ladies, I found out they were super nice and didn't mean it all. And in the end, I ended up wishing I could have done more to help them.

Things on my mind as I go through school.

Let me first apologize for writing about my doctoral program experience. I know not everyone can get into this but there are a lot of lessons that apply to areas outside of school.

First, my adviser, Dr. Ewart Skinner, said to me, "Think of the end....now." In other words, what I do now has a direct bearing on what happens when I graduate and look for jobs if I want to move around or even stay at Toledo. In terms of what I am doing now, more specifically, he meant the theory I specialize in as well as the research method is something I will carry with me throughout my doctoral student career and then when I apply for jobs or stay at Toledo, I can talk about my areas of specialty.

Second, think about your audience. My research interest is studying how pregnant teens and teen moms identify with pregnancy themes in the media like tv shows and movies. We have seen people blame the media for glamorizing pregnancy and making it more appealing to teens. To me, this has practical applications. I want to talk to teens about the media's impact. Once my research is completed, I want people, especially teens, to read it. In my opinion, there is a lot of academic research that seems to float in this cloud above people that only academic types read. I don't see the point in doing research if it does not benefit people in some way. So, to shorten up my point, basically, who is the audience? Who will read or hear your research? How will it impact them?

Lastly, you are constantly making an impression on somebody. What I mean by that is no matter what happens, what assignment you have, you are always "interviewing." Someone has their eye on you. The faculty in the Media and Communication Department at BGSU is strong and have published a ton of research articles and have connections. While many are set in where they are, they might get a call from a professor they know at another university asking if they know of someone who they think would make a good hire. I try to keep that in mind. I don't want to be the student who gets spoken of as, "yeah, he tries hard but doesn't seem to give it his all" or "he goes through the motions a lot." Not cool.

So what?

As a doctoral student at Bowling Green State University, I along with my fellow students have a wide variety of research interests. However, it seems we are always trying to answer the question, "SO WHAT?". Or "why should people care?" One of my all-time favorite professors at Kent State, the late Larry Hugenberg once said, "you could probably take about 99 percent of all academic research and throw it in a pile in the parking lot and burn it (due to the so what question)." There is an issue with academia in that on one hand, you are looked at as a "sell out" if you try to reach beyond the academic journals and go "mainstream" to reach a wider audience BUT on the other hand, if you keep your research interests or projects inside the academic circles, who really benefits from your research? Case in point: my best friend here in Toledo did her dissertation on the retention of minority students in medical colleges across the country. She loooked at the factors that cause minority medical students who stay in the program and the factors that cause students to drop out. I applaud her massive effort to gather data and assemble her dissertation. Her dissertation led her to do presentations at several conferences across the country and it led to her getting a promotion at the University of Toledo. My friend was truly motivated to carry out her research because it was personal to her and she wanted to make a difference. My friend's work could not have made the impact it has if she would have confined it to academic journals. Thankfully, one of my professors said recently that one of the major academic communication organizations is softening its stance on reaching out beyond its walls to a wider audience.

Ironically, the Plain Dealer of Cleveland has an article (May 30, 2010) about a guy who is battling an issue to publish his research about a possible cancer-cell-killing project of his.
http://www.cleveland.com/medical/index.ssf/2010/05/cleveland_state_university_pro.html

Food and Memories

I find it oddly fascinating how a restaurant or food can trigger memories. For example, earlier this week, I was hungry and in a hurry. So I went through the drive-through at Arby's and got two little roast beef sandwiches. The sandwiches immediately made me think of my late dad, who passed away last year. He loved Arby's sandwiches.

Another place I went to recently was Boston Market. I think they have really good food there. Here's my issue. I had a close relative who was in a mental institution and I would go visit that relative several times. I would stop at the nearby Boston Market before going to see the relative. So, I developed a correlation between visits to the mental hospital and Boston Market. Even now that I am in Toledo, I still have trouble eating in the restaurant because it makes me think of going to a mental hospital. This time though, I got my food to go because I didn't want to sit in the store.

Dairy Queen is another place that brings back memories. When I worked in TV, I would go to Berea with one of the greatest guys I know. On the way back from Berea on the turnpike, we would stop in Richfield at the Dairy Queen. My friend has a stomach lined with tin. He eats all kinds of stuff that should melt paint off a car. It wouldn't be unusual for my buddy to get a chili dog and a burger at DQ. Anyway, every time we stopped, we had an absolute blast.

There are more food memories. I just had to share the ones I experienced or thought of recently.

How can this be fixed?

President Obama wants a major overhaul of No Child Left Behind. NCLB is the major legislation that President George W. Bush passed in an attempt to raise the level of education in this country by emphasizing testing and improvement for EVERY student.

People have to understand something. Funding is tied to nearly everything, especially in education....attendance rates, graduation rates, passing rates, etc. You get the idea. Naturally, the better a school does, the more funding it receives. Can this lead to dishonesty? Sure. Students are passed who no in way should be passed. Students who have major disciplinary issues are not punished because again, suspending students and/or sending them home counts against attendance. Only major discipline issues will send a student home.

Standardized testing...this has led to major problems for schools and children. Teachers are teaching to the test, plain and simple. Their jobs are on the line. They are pressured by administrators to do well, no matter what kind of students walk through their door. Is that fair? Maybe not. It will force teachers to attempt to reach every child though.

But what happens when teachers teach to a test? Critical thinking and/or problem solving skills are not practiced. Instead, students become strategic test takers. Filling in a circle will never replace problem or project based learning. Furthermore, filling in circles will never substitute for learning writing skills and/or learning things like American History or Geography. Consider this: a grad student/classmate of mine said recently during a conversation about First Ladies that Eleanor Roosevelt did a lot and was a powerful First Lady because "FDR sat around a lot." That lack of common knowledge is disturbing. I once ran talked to an undergrad who had no idea where Mexico was. USA TODAY ran an article a couple months ago that said that more undergrads are taking up to seven years to get their bachelor's degree because they are taking so many remedial classes. This is not a surprise. Public edcuation is failing them. Education needs to be improved, big time.

Best ratings yet.

My guess on the upcoming edition of Dancing With The Stars will be the highest rated ever. Pamela Anderson, Erin Andrews, and Kate Gosselin???? Too much "car wreck" type "stars" there to ignore.

From Yahoo! TV...

Overhyped cast announcements have become a twice-yearly tradition for "Dancing With the Stars," but this week, the hype may actually be deserved. For its tenth season, kicking off March 22, ABC has assembled the A-list of the B-list, ranging from the biggest "Bachelor" ever to the biggest (ahem) "Baywatch" babe ever to the most eccentric NFL star ever.

But above all, the show managed to score Kate Gosselin, one of the most talked about and controversial reality TV stars ever. Already, she's attracting attention for the fact that she'll need to be in Los Angeles to rehearse and tape two to three episodes each week, presumably leaving her eight young children behind (though reportedly she'll practice her routines back home in Pennsylvania). Expect that storyline to gather steam as the season progresses — unless, of course, voters send her packing quickly. Here's how we think Kate and the rest of the cast will do:

How does this happen so much?

How do so many Howard Stern clones and show contributors get on-air?

When will they learn?

Basketball player Greg Oden is doing the apology tour for as Jim Rome put it, "taking pictures of his package and e-mailing them to his girlfriend." WHY would anyone do this? Can anyone justify doing this? As Jim Rome said today, being a soulmate or in love is still no reason.

Here is the article from the Associated Press.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)—Portland Trail Blazers center Greg Oden(notes) is apologizing for nude photos that have surfaced on the internet. Oden says the pictures, taken with his cell phone and sent to a former girlfriend, were taken about 1 1/2 years ago. A friend told the 21-year-old Tuesday morning that the pictures were making the rounds on the internet.

“I would like to apologize to everybody: Portland, the fans, the organization,” Oden told reporters at the Blazers practice facility. “It was very embarrassing.”

Oden is out for this season after fracturing his left kneecap during a game against the Houston Rockets on Dec. 5. He averaged 11.1 points and 8.5 rebounds in 21 starts. The 7-foot-center was the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NBA draft out of Ohio State. He missed his rookie season after have microfracture surgery on his right knee.