Holiday Spending

With so many sales occurring around the holiday seasons, it is not very surprising that people break out their wallets to buy food, candy, and presents. This is especially true on Black Friday where people wait in line for hours for Christmas presents. Christmas spending hit 135.16 billion dollars in 2010. This is an outrageous amount of money that if saved, could do a lot of good for people, particularly those who get into debt from their spending on gifts. However people feel pressured to purchase presents for their friends, and family which can be a big problem for people who want to get a quality presents but don’t have much money. These people will feel bad about not getting presents for people so they get them regardless of their financial standings. In 2010, 6.00 billion dollars were spent on Halloween for candy, costumes, and elaborate decorations. Halloween is interesting because it is not a very logical holiday to spend money on, but people do it anyway. It is a waste of an incredible amount of money to spend so much on the holidays.

A)  DNA Test Stuns Man Who Wants All-White Town

A neo-Nazi who wants to found an all-white enclave in North Dakota has been shown evidence of racial diversity where he least expected it: in his own DNA. Craig Cobb agreed to the test as part of the Trisha Goddard Show's "Race in America" series, but he rejected the result as "short science" and "statistical noise" when it revealed he is 14% sub-Saharan African and 86% European, the Daily Mail reports. "Sweetheart, you have a little black in you," the show's British host told Cobb, who recoiled when she attempted to fist-bump him.

Cobb, whose white supremacist plans for Leith, ND, have met with protests and attempts to thwart him with building codes, says that even if a test he respects proves that he's not white enough for his own standards, he will "continue on either way," and consider himself a "border guard for the purebreds." Bobby Harper, a black man who lives in the tiny North Dakota town, says he finds the test results hilarious. "I knew there was one other black person in town," he tells the Bismarck Tribune. "Is he going to want to kick his own self out of town and discriminate against himself?"

B) Death of UK Spy Found in Gym Bag 'Probably an Accident'

The MI6 spy whose naked body was found inside a zipped, padlocked gym bag probably died ... by accident, UK police have decided. The coroner said last year Gareth Williams was probably killed by someone else in a criminal act, but now the Metropolitan Police have completed an evidence review and say it's "more probable" no one else was in his apartment when he died in his bathroom in 2010, the BBC reports. The deputy assistant commissioner said today it's "theoretically possible" Williams locked himself into the bag.

Not surprisingly, Williams' family is sticking with the coroner's initial finding, saying in a statement, "We consider that on the basis of the facts at present known, the coroner's verdict accurately reflects the circumstances of Gareth's death." And the AP notes that the police department's "tentative conclusion" is "unlikely to calm conspiracy theories around the bizarre case." Police say they found little evidence of foul play in the code-breaker's death, no signs of a struggle or forced entry, and no evidence that the apartment had been forensically cleaned to remove DNA. Click for more on the strange case.

C) Florida man gets stuck in chimney during attempted robbery

A Florida man who was doing a mean-spirited Santa Claus impression might be spending Christmas behind bars after getting caught in the chimney of a Naples home during an attempted burglary.

Richard Tyler Brandon, 25, got trapped in a chimney early Wednesday morning after running out of cash during a night out. His friend, Derek Grenfell, alerted two Naples police officers about the situation after it became apparent Brandon was stuck.

A team of police officers and local fire department officials broke into the home and saw Brandon’s foot hanging in the fireplace.

“I said, ‘Dude, you’re not Santa Claus, what are you doing?’” Grenfell reportedly said to the police.

It took two hours, but Brandon was freed from the chimney and taken to the hospital for treatment of issues including leg pain and trouble breathing. It could have been worse.

“There is a chance he could have died,” said Naples Detective Robert Young. “That space he was jammed into was really tight. He couldn’t move.”

Brandon was hit with two burglary charges and Grenfell was charged as an accessory to the crime after the fact.


D) Man attempts to rob gun range in mid daylight

A California man attempted to steal guns from a gun range in Los Angeles last Tuesday at 12:00 pm. He was shot in the leg twice, and taken to the Hollywood Community Hospital for treatment.

Officer Paul Gomez, a Los Angeles Police officer, who was off duty at the time shot the armed robber twice in the thigh, “I just came to practice my shooting, and the suspect was holding up the manager. When he saw me he aimed his pistol at me, and I took immediate action in subduing him.”

As it turns out, the suspect, 24 year old James Hroeth, did not even have a loaded gun. His pistol was in fact a toy airsoft BB gun that he had spray painted black.

“What an idiot,” said range manager, Joe Thomas, “I cannot believe that someone would try to rob real guns with a plastic toy”.

The attempted robbery was also quite traumatizing for a 13 year old girl, Ashley Russell, who was with her father, Chris shooting an AR-15 at the time of the robbery. “It is a real shame,” said Chris, “that my daughter had to witness a man get shot in front of her. Hopefully it will teach her to be more cautions of people in the world today.”

James Hroeth will be held at the Los Angeles county jail without bail until his arraignment on July 17. He is charged with armed robbery.

The Dangers Of Speeding                                                               Matt Whittington

Speeding while driving is easily one of the most dangerous things a driver can do while behind the wheel. The chances of even a strong driver getting into an accident are high when they do not follow the speed limits listed on roads. Many people use being late for work or class as an excuse to drive fast, but it is not worth it to the risk of injury, or death to themselves, and the other innocent drivers on the road. According to a study by WWW.NHTSA.GOV, speeding is a factor in 33% of all car crashes. This averages out to have about 13,000 lives loss every single year in the United States alone. Sometimes it does not seem like a big deal to speed because your in a rush, or if but fighting the temptation could be a life saver. Also it is good to keep in mind that a speeding ticket will add points to your license, and could result in its suspension. However if you have a junior operators license one single ticket can have you lose your license for 180 days. These facts alone should be enough to keep drivers in line, but sometimes they simply do not.

Speeding, while very dangerous, is also very costly to the violator, and also to society. Also according to, WWW.NHTSA.GOV, in the United States it costs society a whopping 76,000 dollars for every single minute you gain by speeding. If you think that this is a lot, then you will be shocked to learn that speeding related car accidents costs society in the United States in excess of 40,000,000 dollars annually. Drivers should also keep in mind that according to WWW.FUELECONOMY.GOV, it costs drivers an extra $0.24 every gallon of gas for every 5 miles per hour you travel over 60 miles per hour. Driving past the posted speed limits can result out of pocket costs as a ticket can cost anywhere from $150 to over $1,000.

Speeding is the third leading contributor to traffic collisions, according to WWW.NSC.ORG. Speeding is behind impaired driving, and distracted driving, which sometimes can end up going hand in hand with each other. Doing any one of these is extremely dangerous, and it should go without saying that they absolutely under no circumstances should be combined because the result is nearly a guaranteed accident waiting to happen. Speeding may at times seem necessary, but it is not important enough to cause the death of another innocent person or yourself.

                                                                                                                        Matt Whittington

                                         Do Kids Get Too Much Screen Time?

            Kids today have far too many hours with all types of electronic devices. The internet is a very useful tool for studying, completing homework, and finding valuable information. However it is also a fantastic way to waste valuable time away. For instance, Twitter, and Facebook are used for hours a day alone by some teens, even during school on their smartphones. This combined with television, also can disrupt sleep as kids are up late at night with technology. I agree with the pediatrics group that said to limit screen time to two hours a day because it would help kids in a variety of ways.

         In a Boston Baseball magazine, an article called, How To Use The Boston Baseball Scorecard, had an estimated reading age was 10 years old. Utilizing Fry's readability formula, a random one hundred word excerpt had only 124 syllables, with seven sentences. Plotting this on the Fry Graph For Estimating Reading Ages, I was able to find that the average reading age was ten. Also, this magazine in particular has a ratio of pages with ads to ad-free pages, of 43:25. This is astonishing because 43 of the pages have ads, while only 25 are ad free. This clearly shows that this magazine is geared towards making money more than providing the reader with an interesting story. This might also explain why the magazine has an average reading age of only 10. At my table, I had the magazine with the lowest reading age, while all four of the other kids had an estimated reading age of 15. This means that this magazine is open to a younger audience while the other magazines contain a far more complex vocabulary. A an average reader of this magazine may be about 10 to 15 years old male, interested in baseball, with any reading level that enjoys Boston sports.

Matt Whittington

Journalism F

The actual cost of public schools

        Are students at public high schools paying too much money for things such as: athletic user fees, prom tickets, lunches, parking fees, transportation fees, or class dues? Many students, and parents agree. While a public education is supposedly free, hidden costs can put thousands of hard earned dollars right down the drain. Another good example of this is the numerous school supplies required for schoolwork, such as graphing calculators which normally sell at about one hundred dollars. Through numerous sources, and data, it is pretty safe to say that students do indeed pay too much money for high school.

        Many students at Norton High School also believe that they are required to pay too much money for school. When asked how they felt about the fees that came with attending the school in a survey, 14 of them said that they pay too much money. The other three went as far as saying that the amount of money they pay is downright outrageous. Not a single student out of the 17 said it was a fair amount, or chose little to none.

        These concealed prices also plague high schools around the nation, not just in Norton. In an article from www.usnews.com, the Krause family dishes out thousands for their child, “Confronted with the option to pay $1,500 a year for a school bus to come, the Krause family decided to drive their daughter both ways each day instead—a cost of about $150 a week, Krause estimates.” This is just one example with the high cost for transportation to and from school on a daily basis. Other high schools are also finding new ways to get money, “At high schools in several states, it can cost more than $200 just to walk in the door, thanks to registration fees, technology fees and unspecified "instructional fees." This was found from an article on http://online.wsj.com.

        It is obvious that many schools around the nation are in desperate need of funding, but does that make it okay to make students pay secret, hidden fees? One civil liberties group does not think so in an article from http://www.nytimes.com, “Now a civil liberties group is suing California over those proliferating fees, arguing that the state has failed to protect the right to a free public education.” This California group actually believes that these fees are not only unjust, but unconstitutional. School fees have been slowly rising from year to year as school administrators learn that they can get away with these fees, but it will be interesting to see if the government cracks down on unconstitutional fees.

                           Proposed Researched Question

                                                                                                                                         Matt Whittington

                     How do the students at Norton High School feel about all of the fees they are expected to pay, such as: athletic user fees, class dues, or the parking fee?