Two major events have struck American Airlines this week. Lets recap:
Photo Credit: upload.wikimedia.org
Today, October 5th, at 7:10 am American Airlines flight 550 landed in New York mid-flight for the last reason anyone would expect: the pilot passed away mid-flight, the name of the pilot and cause has not been announced.
During the flight, the pilot became unresponsive, at which point the co-pilot took over and was able to safely land the plane in Syracuse, its original destination was Boston.
This unfortunate event was completely unforeseen, thank goodness the co-pilot was proactive and able to get all 147 passengers to ground safely.
Next event. American Airlines flight 31 departed from Los Angeles with a full house, Hawaii bound.
Little known fact that the Airbus A321s was not certified to fly over the Pacific Ocean. This aircraft was no correctly equipped to fly over the Pacific.
Luckily, the aircraft made it safely to Hawaii. The plane was later flown back to LAX with the minimum amount of crew on board.
Thankfully both of these incidents left no passengers harmed… just a bit shaken.
“Sorry.” This word has become slightly controversial in recent years. Most know that it is used to patch up a broken relationship, acknowledge an everyday wrongdoing, and to make up for committing a personal offense.
Who tends use this word the most? Women. If you don’t think so, then you might as well apologize to CNN, NY Times, Time, and Forbes for wasting their time writing about it.
Many reporters go to the same two studies: one made on 33 college students who kept an online 12-day diary reporting every time they apologized and why.
The second was another college study, this time with 120 of them, rating how offensive a particular action is, such as bumping into someone or asking a question.
These studies found a few interesting ideas. Women, in fact, do apologize more, but men and women alike apologize the same amount they think they offend someone. Interestingly enough, the divide isn’t the amount of apologies, but the significance of the wrong-doing.
“Men aren’t actively resisting apologizing because they think it will make them appear weak or because they don’t want to take responsibility for their actions,” said study researcher Karina Schumann, a doctoral student in social psychology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. “It seems to be that when they think they’ve done something wrong they do apologize just as frequently as when women think they’ve done something wrong. It’s just that they think they’ve done fewer things wrong.” (Live Science)
Women perceive being polite differently than men. Whether it be taking up space, or asking a question during discussion. After seeing a popular ad from Pantene, I realized how much I say it. Take a look:
The ad shows how much women apologize for things they don’t need to apologize for.
This ad is critiquing that women need to feel sorry for asserting themselves, taking up space, or receiving help.
Many women should realize that being polite doesn’t mean you have to be submissive or allow others to walk all over you.
Now I’m not saying to just walk around in your everyday life bumping into people or stepping on their feet and not apologizing, I’m simply saying women don’t need to feel bad for existing.
Women aren’t burdens to society, so don’t apologize for existing, girls.
Let’s start with my favorite, often referred to as the time-traveling hipster. In 1940, a photo was taken at the reopening of the South Fork bridge in Canada.
In the photo, everyone is dressed in very time-period-appropriate clothing; all except one man, who I call the Time-Traveling Hipster.
He is wearing a cardigan with a graphic tshirt. His sunglasses are very retro and his haircut does not really fit the time period.
The strangest part is what is in his hands. In his hands appears to be a DSLR camera which weren’t invented for another 50 years.
Film cameras were around during that time but they were mainly silver. His camera is black. The time traveling hipster has been debated over for years, but no conclusion has been reached.
In 2008, another unexplained mystery emerged when a Chinese archeologist opened up a 400 year-old tomb. The tomb is believed to be untouched by anyone since it was sealed 400 years ago.
But that makes it hard to explain how they found a small ring made of metal, shaped into a watch, with the time 10:06 and “Swiss” engraved on the back.
It was in the soil on the outer layer of the coffin. The ring is believed to be only 100 years old. The question is, who in 1908 would enter a tomb, not open the coffin, not loot the place, not announce the discovery, then close the tomb they were in.
The best answer would be time travelers. Maybe time travelers have a creed, and they gather research and try to leave little evidence behind.
Although another theory attempts to debunks this theory, saying it is more likely be some sort of “quantum strangeness”, where random object disappear and reappear in different places for unknown reasons.
I think that theory is far-fetched, and I’ll stick with time travel.
Of all the far-fetched stories, this next one beats them all.
It has the potential to be real, but odds are if it was, we would not know about it.
The story from Andrew D. Basiago seems to be loony. In 1970, the defense advanced research project agency A.K.A DARPA worked on a top-secret project known as Project Pegasus.
Basiago claims to be a child participant in the program. I say “claims” because all the websites are not what I would call factual. The mission statement which has not been confirmed by DARPA is to research and perform “time sensing”; it is the US time-space exploration program.
Several children were a part of this program, but I had trouble finding names. But Andrew D. Basiago says that on one of his temporal trips he was at the Gettysburg address, and he is in a photo, in which he claims to be the boy in the bottom left.
I looked at Basiago’s childhood pictures; there were very few, and in none of them he had long hair. But it would make sense that he didn’t have photos from the time he was a part of Project Pegasus.
This is either a massive government cover-up, or just a man who wants attention. Either way, the government doesn’t care, because it would be nearly impossible to prove, especially with his reputation. Don’t take this too seriously. Most of these examples have explanations which kill imagination. I believe in time travel, and I wish I believed the stories. But whether or not I believe is not the purpose of article.
My purpose for writing this is to raise curiosity of time-space and open up minds to different views even if they are far fetched.
I was shocked to hear it. I really thought it had stopped being ‘cool’ a long time ago.
“That’s so queer.” He said, the first time, referring to someones Instagram account. I looked him dead in the eye. “Stop. You have no right.” But he didn’t. The words ‘Fagg*t,’ ‘Queer’, and ‘Gay’ were used several more times as an insult throughout the conversation. Eventually I left, utterly disgusted.
So why is it so important to stop using these terms like this?
Well first of all you may think it’s cool, but I don’t care how many bro-points you gain, insulting someone via their sexuality. But really, that’s only the surface of this issue. Yeah, it’s mean, but it’s so much more too.
Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect? So essentially, everything you do makes ripples. It goes a lot further than you thought it would, in a lot of ways.
You make gay synonymous with bad. You make kids feel lesser for their feelings.
You are furthering this insult, keeping the cycle going. Just stop.
YOU ARE HURTING MILLIONS OF PEOPLE DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY
You are bullying. I do not care if you said it to a gay person or not. You are being a bully. End of story.
23% of gay or bisexual teens have tried to take their own lives and 56% have self harmed. You are an accomplice to these murders of young children who did nothing wrong.
You are saying that it’s ok for millions upon millions of people to be degraded world-wide so you can… be cool? Grow up.
You are creating a community that is unsafe
Back to the statistics – More than 85% of LGBTQ+ youth have been harassed at school in the past year. You are making your school a place where kids may be afraid to attend.
So, so much more.
So why would you use these descriptive terms as insults? Can you honestly not grasp the idea that there are other words out there? You want to be ‘cool?’
Volkswagen is one of the largest automobile companies in the world. They are known for their reliable, sporty, and efficient cars.
But efficiency comes with a price – now that price has risen astronomically.
VW has been lying to their customers since their “clean diesel” cars have been in production since 2009.
Their cars have been programmed to cheat in emission tests in the United States, giving a false reading of true efficiency in some 11 million cars.
My recently purchased car, a 2012 Jetta Sedan TDI, is affected by the scandal. I have taken this issue personally because I chose to purchase a car that promised efficiency without an environmentally damaging cost.
Now I know this is not true in the slightest.
Even though my car is yet another material item, it is something I use every day for hours on end. I spent a lot of time thinking about what car company to purchase from, and I am now regretting my decision completely.
In today’s culture, constant sharing of people’s day to day lives has become the norm.Particularly, sharing of pictures of food.
But why has it become so important that we share images of our meals with the whole world?Food has evolved from former functioning as nutrition into a source of status and culture.
For example, through the popular social media site Instagram, you’ve probably seen countless pictures of people’s bubble tea from Urth Caffe or someone’s In-N-Out burger.
Where does this need to share their food come from?The aestheticism of food has become more important than actual consumption.
The tradition of mealtime has drastically changed from an intimate gathering to something shared with the whole world.Specifically, rather than be engaged in food and conversation, individuals remove themselves from the present moment of the meal in order to stage the scene of their food.
The closeness of a meal is lost by revealing the location of a person as he or she eats.
The image of restaurants has become a status symbol that is spreading through social media.People have become obsessed with proving their participation in this trend by taking pictures of locations that are coined “popular”.
The concept these restaurants put out, with help from socialites creates the obsession surrounding it.
Our culture has become brainwashed with the idea that what they eat helps their image.This also contributes to the growing number of people who believe that their social media image is essential to their lives.
From May 10th – May 19th in 2015, the dates are the same forward and backwards, exciting mathematicians and systematic people alike. Because May is the fifth month and the year is 2015, the number 5 lines up perfectly.
See for yourself:
5/10/15
5/11/15
5/12/15
5/13/15
5/14/15
5/15/15
5/16/15
5/17/15
5/18/15
5/19/15
They’re all the same, whether you read the date forward or backward, therefore epitomizing a palindrome. A palindrome is usually used in terms of words or a phrase which is spelled the same forward or backwards. For example, “Hannah” or “racecar”.
Photo Credit: icons.iconarchive.com
A palindrome can also be a phrase, and the longest English palindromic phrase is said to have 17,259 words. It is jibberish though – for it doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to be the same forwards and backwards! The longest single palindromic word in the English language has 12 letters.
Interestingly, single letter words such as “a” or “I” are also considered to be palindromes.
This “palindrome week” phenomenon is set to happen again in June of 2016, beginning with 6/10/16.
This week, I stumbled across yet another technological advancement while reading news articles.
Since September 2014, Google has released roughly 50 self-driving cars out and about on the streets of California. These futuristic Lexus’ and Audi’s have been roaming the streets in hopes to prove that they are safe to drive themselves.
So far, there have been only 11 accidents that were minor and included no injuries.
In my opinion, although self-driving cars sound kind of cool, they also sound terrifying. What if we know something is wrong with our car, but we cannot control it because the car is in control of itself?
However, Google makes some very strong points as to why their cars are safer than human driven cars: robots do not get tired, they are not emotional, they are over-cautious rather than fearless, and these cars can see things human’s cannot always see.
Is this an unrealistic plan with too many issues involved? Or what our future will be like?
With every star studded red carpet, comes along the best and worst dressed list – and this years annual Met Gala was no fashion disappointment.
This year’s Costume Institute Gala Benefit was celebrating the opening of the China: Through the Looking Glass exhibition – which is co-chaired by Jennifer Lawrence, Chinese actress Gong Li,Vogue editor Anna Wintour, and others.
To start off this years best dressed list is The Fault in Our Stars actor, Ansel Elgort. Elgort is wearing Tom Ford and a Harry Winston watch.
Photo Credit: dailymail.co.uk
Next up on the best dressed list is Poppy Delevigne in Marchesa. It’s always a risky move to wear a red dress on the red carpet, but Poppy showed no fear with her daring plunging neckline – and it was absolute perfection.
To start of the worst dressed list, we have Keeping Up with The Kardashians star, Kris Jenner.
Jenner was draped in an ill-fitting Balmain gown. The dress had chunky shoulder pads and overall too much fabric that she just seemed to get lost in.
Photo Credit: buzzfed.com
The entire look was overall too much of everything from head-to-toe. There is a fine line between wearing the dress and having the dress wear you, and Kris sadly identified with the latter.
Next up in line of fashion disasters is Miley Cyrus. Miley is always making risky fashion choices, but her Alexander Wang gown for this year’s Met Gala it felt like a déjà vu. A high neck and complete side cut outs – Miley, you can do better.
Another star of the best-dressed list this year had to be Pitch Perfect’s, Hailee Stienfeld in Michael Kors. While her red dress may have been the most worn color that evening, her elegant gown made an everlasting impression.
Amanda Seyfried stunned the crowd in a gorgeous Cream Givenchy gown. She looked like a romantic angel, yet having a dark lip color gave her look a gothic edge.
Last up on the worst dressed list had to be American Horror story star, Chloe Sevigny in JW Anderson. The star took the Chinese theme too far and in all of the wrong ways.
Her gown, or shall I say strange take on a kimono, was done poorly. The slit down the middle and large bow on her chest was the cherry on top of this over-done sundae.
Photo Credit: vouge.com
To close the show, Queen Bey (or as some people know her, Beyonce) was absolutely jaw dropping.
Beyoncé wore a sheer, bejeweled Givenchy dress with a high ponytail. She has left social media in a complete uproar, and we cannot wait to see how she will out do herself next year.
For a while there have been rumors circling around reality star, Kylie Jenner, about her supposed lip injections.
In a matter of a few months, her lips went from being thin and natural to puffy and large, sparking rumors that she had undergone plastic surgery.
Whilst attempting to comprehend how Kylie’s lips made such a drastic transformation in such a short amount of time, the “Kylie Jenner lip challenge” became quite popular.
In this challenge, a shot glass is placed around the lips and the person has to suck in as hard as they can for a couple of minutes. However, there has been a lot of controversy related to the challenge because of the permanent damage it can cause; discoloration and popped blood vessels.
After months of trying to figure out how Kylie managed to grow the size of her lips so quickly and so drastically, viewers finally got the truth when an episode preview of Keeping Up With the Kardashians came out a few days ago.
Kylie has temporary lip fillers.
“I have temporary lip fillers. It’s just an insecurity of mine, and it’s what I wanted to do,” Kylie said in the video.
Kylie’s age has raised some eyebrows, as a majority of plastic surgeons will not perform any plastic surgery on anyone under the age of 18, regardless of parental consent.
Is Kylie too young to be getting lip injections?
Or does she have the right to fix her insecurities, especially as the whole world watches her every move?
OVS Journalism Blog 
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