Bhav Singh

English 10H

News for the week of 4/6/15

Article 1:   Police Shouldn’t Ask If a Shooting Is Justified, But If It’s Avoidable

MLA: Stoughton, Seth. "Police Shouldn’t Ask If a Shooting Is Justified, but If It’s

    Avoidable." New York Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.

    <http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/09/

    are-police-too-quick-to-use-force/

    police-shouldnt-ask-if-a-shooting-is-justified-but-if-its-avoidable>.

Link:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/09/are-police-too-quick-to-use-force/police-shouldnt-ask-if-a-shooting-is-justified-but-if-its-avoidable

In this article Seth Stoughton discusses the way that the police in America evaluates their decisions on whether the use of force is necessary. The most controversial part of this is why policemen are using force when they could simply choose a much simpler solution. He discusses the tragic shooting of 12-year old Tamir Rice of Cleveland on November 22, 2014. In this incident a police officer, Timothy Loehmann, shot 12-year old Tamir Rice thinking that he was armed when he actually was only holding a toy airsoft gun. Police officer Timothy Loehmann says that Tamir “pulled out” his fake toy gun and that was what led them to shoot the young boy. Seth Stoughton suggests that this incident occurred because police officers behave like warriors who want to eliminate the enemy and not like guardians who wish to protect the community.

This article discusses the main issues on why officers do not know when to take force and when to conduct  a more peaceful method. This passage to me came as a surprise because you would think that a police officer would have the proper training to know when to pull the gun or not. What seemed the most intriguing to me in this article is that the officer shot within two seconds of exiting out of the vehicle and that shows the complete carelessness of the officer as he did not follow necessary steps to evaluate the “enemy”.The lack of responsibility within the emergency members as well because they were warned by the caller of the emergency call that “it may be a fake gun”. The issue that police officers want to be seen as warriors and not  like guardians creates a breach of community peace and protection. The question raised by Seth: “Why do most officers, charged with serving and protecting their communities, persist in asking whether a use of force was justified rather than necessary?” gave me some new insights into foundations of bad choice making by police officers. It raises some new ideas that when this situation goes into court that an officer’s perspective must be taken into account. The officer’s choice to determine whether it is justifiable or not plays a huge role because the officer has to think about himself and repercussions if a wrong form of force is used. Still the decision made by this officer was not right and repercussions should be enforced. Overall, poor judgement of the situation on the officer’s behalf resulted in the death of an innocent 12-year old boy which I find atrocious.

Article 2: Google Is Testing Delivery Drone System

MLA:Barr, Alistair, and Greg Bensinger. "Google Is Testing Delivery Drone System."

    Wall Street Journal. N.p., 29 Aug. 2014. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.

    <http://www.wsj.com/articles/

    google-reveals-delivery-drone-project-1409274480>.

Link: http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-reveals-delivery-drone-project-1409274480

This is an article that applies to me and I feel very strong about…

In this article various companies are discussed on their new delivery enhancements. Amazon(Washington), Google(California), and Dominos(Michigan) are all discussed. This is a vital article in the controversy of the FAA drone regulations. These companies are planning to create autonomous drones which would essentially bring your package to you. But these new ideas have made the FAA furious and worried about civilian protection. Google is launching an aircraft like “drone” that drops a package. Amazon is creating a quadcopter and Dominos is creating a hexacopter and quadcopter. In early 2014 these companies developed efficient ways of delivering packages with taking into account the privacy of civilians. The main reason to create these drones is to make an efficient way of transporting goods. These drones will decrease the amount of pollution in the country but are limited to a certain weight for their payload. Each drone for these companies is one less complaining employee.

This article means a lot to me because it has a bad impression on the FAA rules. I am the president of Aviation Club and would not appreciate if “drones” had rules such as having a permit to fly a little machine. These vehicles provide great opportunities for the world especially in medical emergencies, education and advancements in aviation vehicles. The issues that the FAA argued that the drones will pose a disruption of peace, privacy and are not always the most reliable. Well no, as long as these machines have altitude sensors and proximity sensors they should be fine in my opinion. The FAA is limiting the introduction of an opportunity that could engage students in aeronautics. Google, Amazon, and Dominos all seemed to have safe ways of delivering their packages and pose no threat to civilians in my opinion as well. This article continuously develops the question: Is the U.S ready to welcome new drone devices in their airspace? Does the U.S really want unmanned devices flying everywhere? The FAA, in my opinion, is trying to maintain the strict air control in the United States but they should not be so strict on devices that weigh less than five pounds. This article overall, shows the new technologies developed and how that affects the new FAA regulations.

Article 3: Hens, Unbound

Bittman, Mark. "Hens, Unbound." The New York Times. N.p., 31 Dec. 2014. Web. 10

    Apr. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/01/opinion/

    mark-bittman-hens-unbound.html?ref=topics>.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/01/opinion/mark-bittman-hens-unbound.html?ref=topics

In this article the extreme issue of factory farming is described. California’s Prop 2 was passed in 2008 and it required that egg and meat producers house their animals in more humane conditions. The former governor of California: Arnold Schwarzenegger passed a bill so that you cannot sell a egg from any other state in California unless it is sanitary. Factory farming is the name for those people who abuse their animals by crowding them just to get more product, eventually these animals die of disease and improper treatment. The primary reason for the creation of the new law in California is the heinous acts committed by farmers. These acts include baby calves and gestational pigs being kept in crates so small they cannot turn around and egg-laying hens may not be held in “battery” cages that prevent them from spreading their wings. For the safety of the animals and for our safety this law has been passed and will make the treatment of animals a lot better.

This article definitely gave me a new insight on the treatment of animals. This article, weirdly, reminded me of the cattle cars that the Jewish people were forced and crowded into during the Holocaust. This tragedy came to me as a surprise as I was oblivious to this matter. To think that animals are forced to be crowded with each other and put into little crates just hurts to think about. These issues need to be resolved quickly because this looks like a domino effect to me. First the animals get sick, then we eat that meat, and then we get sick. Then before you know it 200 million people sick because of some careless farmers who were in it for the bank. My question though: Why have we never tried to stop this dilemma before? This can’t be something new, why haven’t we noticed this before? I think that there should be a routine checkup of each farm each month or so and this would serve as an inspection and this could save a lot of lives, both humans and animals.