Babies, Babies, and More Babies....and There Mother

At 5 p.m. on MS NBC Dateline, an interview with the mother of octuplets was conducted. After watching it, more disgust overwhelmed me. One aspect of the interview that made me a little angered was when the mother had said she currently has NO income coming in. She is a single mother who is going back to school. She said she still plans to continue school, but in return, that allows her to be unable to hold a job. She also said that money is coming into the family through student loans and disability checks because she currently has three children who are disabled, however, her student loans are already used. Basically, she is a single mother of 14 children with NO source of money to raise them. She also claims to not be on welfare, but she is on food stamps in which she "hopes to be off when she graduates from college." The whole interview was disgusting. My question is, why did she feel the need to bring eight more children into her life at that particular time? Why did she not wait until she was finished with school and she had some source of income? Personally, I the recent pregnancy was a great way out of her existing lifestyle. She was a struggling mother of six children, had no job and no source of income, and decided to take the easy way out...having more children to claim fame. Her situation is a historical one and she knew that being a young, single mother she would get the public attention. She has more than likely accumulated thousands of dollars from interviews and speaking to the public, which in her situation helps her dearly. It's pathetic.
This woman is a selfish woman who has decided to put her children in a dire situation in order to help her financial status. What happens to the other children with eight more babies? How does one woman take care of 14 children and give enough attention to each one including one with autism? I recently worked at a daycare and state laws require there be one adult over the age of 18 for every four children. In her situation, she would need at least three people 24/7 to care for her children aside from the other every day duties a person holds.
I thought after seeing her interview and giving her a chance to speak out I would be able to understand her and her situation better, but the interview only made me more disgusted and truly proved how selfish this mother is.

He Plead the Fifth

President of Peanut Corp. has plead the fifth! On Feb. 11, Stuart Parnell went in front of the court to be question about whether or not he told his crew to send out products that he and others knowingly knew were contaminated. At court, he plead the fifth and refused to answer any questions about the situation. There is one of two reasons Parnell did this. One, he in fact did knowingly send out contaminated products and now has the guilt of seven deaths and over 400 people sick on his mind or two he again is in fact guilty and when he sent the products he was willing to take a chance and that chance sunk. Either way...the man is guilty. In a recent MS NBC article is stated that in court on the Feb. 11 an e-mail was released from Parnell to his plant manager that said, "Turn them loose." He was referring to the products that may possibly have been contaminated. It is hard to understand what was going through Parnell's at the time of this e-mail. It also goes to show really how much manufacturers really care about their consumers. Yes, the products could have went out without no one falling ill and Parnell would have been cleared...but they did not. One has to wonder if this is how every manufacturer handles problems at plants...decide on a whim and hope that everything goes well? Interesting.
After causing seven deaths and almost 400 falling ill you would think that the last thing that Parnell could do is explain or try to explain himself in front of his consumers, but as of Feb. 11 he could not.

Nebraska State Issues

As I was reading through the newspapers, I found three key issues that were repeated a lot through Nebraska news papers.

Smoking Ban
Immigration
Gambling

A lot of the articles in the paper focus around the coming of the smoking ban that will go into affect June 1. It is interesting to read these articles and see how the ban has already affected some businesses. Another issue is that of immigration. The article above is a debatable article in which states that Nebraska needs to quickly address the issue. Lastly, I was surfing the web and came across the ever ending issue of gambling in Nebraska. The article above talks about gambling in the sense of what it could do to horse racing...which is something I never really thought about. It talks about how if Nebraska does not address the issue, horse racing will come to an end...pretty interesting! Some other state issues that I came across was that of education for the younger generation, state tuition increases, and of course job losses associated with the downfall of the economy. All very important and interesting issues.

Reality T.V.

The last couple of days, I have been watching a lot of television. I have been sick since last Saturday which has forced me to stay inside and do a great deal of channel surfing. As I go through the channel, I started to do some calculations...almost every other channel I switched to was some reality show. Not the good reality shows where they would have people actually work for $100,000 but the ones where they kept the losers on the show until the end solely to make the show watchable. The first two programs I caught myself watching was, "Bad Girls Club," and "Rock of Love Bus." I swear my face remained with a disgusted look on it for 2 hours straight. Yes, I have heard bad words and I have been around drinking and etc. But every episode I watched was two girls drinking as much as they possibly could, making complete fools of themselves, then fist fighting with another girl. In the end what happened? They were asked to "Please continue to rock...blah blah blah." With the Bad Girls Club, there was no incentive whatsoever. Seven girls are thrown into a house together to get drunk, yell, then pull each other's hair out. Is this really what entertainment has come to? What happened to good old episodes and series such as Friends and Seinfeld or reality shows such as Survivor or The Bachelor where people are actually judged on the skills they have? The entertainment industry is trying way to hard to make good television when in reality all they need to do is have good programs with actually story lines.
In conclusion, reality shows have gone way to far to please their audience. Honestly, I really do not know what kind of audience these producers have conquered with the shows they are making.

Guns in Nebraska....Why?

I am currently doing an article about gun control in Nebraska and I am appalled with many mixed feelings. If I am not wrong, Nebraska recently passed a bill that allows individuals to carry a concealled weapon with a permit. Supporters for this say people have a constitutional right, and those who oppose it believe it will cause crime rates to increase. However, reading a couple different articles, it has been said that there was no link to legalizing concealed weapons and crime. My only question here is why? Why do honest people need weapons? I have talked to a few people concerning this and there response is always, "for protection". WHAT?! You're telling me that people need to carry guns around in order to scare off predators? How many times a day, especially in a city that HAD a city ban on guns, do you hear about a person getting mugged or shot? If you say once a week, that's pretty fortunate compared to some places. So 30 some thousand people should be allowed to carry guns around just feel better protected? We may as well engage in another city lay off too...the police department.
Personally, I see no relevant point in passing this law. I think if anything, everyone is now going to be a hero. Every defense case that is brought to courts will be "self-defense."
I wonder, is this law going to go in the same direction as that of the safe haven law?

Michael Phelps

I have heard a lot about Olympic superstar Michael Phelps and the recent accusation of him caught smoking marijuana. About a week ago I saw the headline on MSN that he "regrettably" admitted to smoking marijuana. I write about this to express two things: 1. this is not his first time and will not be his last, and 2. he does not regret it or is sorry for it, he is only sorry that he got caught.
Point one, Michael Phelps seems like a genuine guy with good morals. I suppose the press and himself will say he just got caught up in the fame and made a mistake. WRONG. Before winning the Olympics, Phelps was just a normal guy, who had a normal job, and partied like some normal kids (not implying that smoking marijuana is normal, but it is more common that some would think). For most people this discovery is a major shock, but really? He is a Olympic swimmer, not a activist for making marijuana illegal across America. In other words, this is not his first time and the only mistake he made was that he got caught. Not that I support him and his ways, because I do not at all. Phelps knows he is an idol and he is now "famous" and he just stuck himself right out there to get eat up by the press.
Second, Phelps is not sorry for what he has done, he just upset because he was not more careful to not get caught.
In conclusion, he is not perfect and the only mistake he made was that he became absent minded, maybe he forgot that he was an American Star now.

Babies, Babies, Babies

What kind of doctor would give a women with 6 kids already fertility drugs? Let alone place 8 more embryos inside her? Especially when the mother is quite young and still lives with her parents according to an article on MS NBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28927339?GT1=43001. This issue brings up many questions for me. The first thing that comes to my mind when I heard this is that the mother is either doing it for attention or government money. To be honest, I am not even sure that the federal or state government gives families money for having babies, but I would assume that this women would have to be on welfare or some other state or federal aid program in order to raise, now, 14 children! In this article, it states that doctors have no control on family sizes but they do try to prevent families from doing things like this. Basically, it seems to me, that the doctors feel helpless. Perhaps the doctors should not be to blame, but I do believe that a person will react to the actions of others. I think if the doctor would have tried harder, told her the risks, the expenses, how wrong this actually was, maybe this lady would have changed her mind. Fertility drugs are to be used for those people who are not able to conceive children. It sickens me to see someone who already has 6 children using these drugs, its selfish. There are so many people in the world who cannot have children and it is sad to see a woman like this basically take advantage of what she can do. Not only do I think it is wrong that she used the drugs, but in the long run it is only going to affect the children. Though she has 14 children, there is only one mother and one father. These parents will not be able to give their children the attention they need, which in the long run could cause bigger problems.
All in all, this was mistake now and will be a bigger mistake in the future. Whether this children did this for attention, money, or fame, I do not know, perhaps she did it because she just really loves going through the pain of having a child!