Glee gets targeted by angry parents

Since last week, The Parents Television Council has overtly made known their discontent for the pictures featured on the November 2010 issue of GQ Magazine. The pictures of actresses Lea Michele and Diana Argon are "near-pornographic" and are on the "border of pedophilia," the council says. On the other hand, GQ Editor in Chief Jim Nelson has not said much about the accusations; he has opted not to express a lot of comments on the matter on behalf of the magazine. Nevertheless, on his own opinion he stated that it is disappointing that parents these days don't know how to "divide reality from fantasy."

Whatever opinion PTC gives about the photo shoot or any other content on the magazine will fade in the air. First of all, GQ does not target families as its main demographic. Secondly, PTC has a reputation of over exaggerating.

Celebrities, and other public figures aware of the scandal have qualified PTC's accusations as "stupid" and "pointless." Billy Ray Cyrus, whose daughter has been criticized by the PTC in the past said that PTC "has recently been spending all its time attacking people rather than promoting family television."

Although a lot of parents considered Glee to be family show, many do not consider it to be such. So there is not a common ground to express that by allowing the actresses model "the creators of the program have established their intentions on the show's directions. And it isn't good for families." FOX and GQ are two independent entities; they do not work together. There's not good reasoning behind to suggest that with the nature of these pictures, the show will now become more sexy.

GQ have managed well not to directly address the comments made by PTC. Their comments can't hurt the publication.

A blade in my meat?

On September 30th, a former Tyson Foods employee found a blade near his working area, cut it into four pieces and threw it into the meat. A witness immidiately reported what happened. Authorities were called and the incident started to be investigated. 20-year-old Nwee Lah was arrested and taken under the custody of Amarillo, TX authorities.

All the meat touched by Lah was retrieved as soon as possible. The pieces of meat with the blades were found. They never left the perimeters of the packaging company.

Since the incident ocurred all information was kept confidential. Nothing was shared with the media. At the time, there was no need to let customers know because there was no risk involved to them. It was not until Lah was found guilty when the story was released.

At first glace it wasn't clear why Tyson would release this story. By doing so the company is admitting that their installations are not safe. Then why are they opening about it? I think is so that they won't have any skeletons in the closet. It would be more detrimental to have the story released in the future with a similar or worse circumstance.

Tyson has taken this as an opportunity to reinforce a message to their customers telling them that are the most important for the company. Spokesman Gary Mickelson said, " The safety of our beef products is vital to the continued sucess of our business, so we take matteres as this very seriously. We contacted local law enforcement about this incident after conducting our own investigation." With this statement the company sets an image of trust.

Indonesia train crash

Everyone agrees that last week's train crash in Indonesia is a wake up call for the country's poor law enforcement on safety regulations. Too bad this tragedy had to become one of the podromes that hopefully will lead to a better system.

Yesterday PT kereta Api, the state-run railway company, gave a press conference to finally adress the issue with the press. Let's keep in mind that their response call was delayed for about 4 days! Not 1. Not 2. Not 3. 4! The spokesperson, Director General of railway at the Ministryof Transportation, apologized for what happened, shared his condolences and promised to improve the railway service in Indonesia. Inmmidiately after his remarks, without anyone asking he said that the company could pay families a significant amount in compensation for the lost lives of their loved ones. Really? What does this show? You guessed it. Money will be dearly missed.

In the mean time, the engineer driving the train has been arrested. Investigators are still trying to determine whether it was human error or a mechanical problem what caused the accident. If found guilty, the engineer could face up to 6 1/2 years in jail.

Train crashes in Indonesia, 35 people perish

Tragedy striked Indonesia as two passenger trains collapsed into each other early Saturday morning. 35 passengers perished, while other 15 are fighting for their lives. Information about the victims has been gathered from all the different hospitals were the victims were taken. Some corpses were difficult to identify due to the injuries they received.

Hours after the accident happened, the president of the country conveyed his condolence to the families of the victims. Two days after the incident, no statements from the CEOs have been made. They nor any other representative has made an appearence to address the issue.

The reason of the accident is still under investigation. So far, allegations indicate human error from the machinist.

When trying to access information about the incident from the websites of Argo Anggrek Railway and Senja Utama Trains, their pages constantly marked error. 24 hours after the accident the sites still showed the same message. News websites are the ones that have facilitated the easy flow of information between both organizations and the public. . No one has assumed responsability. The only information circulating is that that may help families reunite with their loved ones or claim bodies. A list with the names of the hospitals was made available via ALL VOICES, news website.

The names of two drivers, allegedly involved in the crash, were released. Apparently they stand alone, their employers have not showed their support. They were arrested by police for further questioning.

Information has been limited to gather because majority of them is, or appears to be, Indonesian. I would assume that because of the magnitude of the proplem and the global attention that the news are receiving there would be some more information available in English.

Cougars' # 7, not so lucky anymore.

University of Houston's quarterback, Case Keenum, is out of the season for good. Despite this valuable loss, cougar fans' are encouraged to continue supporting the team.

During a game against UTEP, Keenum was injured. He was carried off the field with the help of two paramedics and wearing a face expression that said it all: dissappointment. The game continued and Keenum's absence was not much felt- for his job was already done; he had made wonderful strategic passes that had helped his teammates score and establish a leading significant difference between UH versus the adversary.

Days later, his medical condition was still unknown. No comments were made. The silent from the athletic administrators and those in the same circle were killing everyone. Not talking about the subject made everyone more concerned. The Daily Cougar, the school newspaper, was only reporting on how UH had earned a fantastic victory, with a brief (that could be reduced to nothing) mention on the injury. Speculations started to circulate regarding Keenum's participation in an upcoming game against UCLA. Fans feared. "Will their star not play in such an important game? How bad was his knee?" Finally, the day before the game, an announcement was made: Keenum would play.

As both team stepped on Rose Bowl, UH students were expecting that their star would play as good as he did before what had happened against UTEP. Those in the stadium, and those watching the game on TV hoped that their quarterback would lead the team to a game well played. Unfortunately, that did not happened. Keenum was injured once again, and with that so did the end of his era.

Now that his injury is of more severe than the first one, UH football coach Kevin Sumlim, has been more public about the Keenum's condition. He has issued a statement declaring Keenum's absence of for the rest of the season. If Sumlim had been more public since the beginning, UH fans would not have been as disappoinment as they are now. Their hopes would not have fallen as bad as they did on Sunday night, when Sumlim spoke to the press. Now, the UH Athletic's PR department will have to work on a campaign that may motivate students to be even more supportive to the school's football team than before. An editorial on the Daily Cougar is already doing its part. It reads, "It may seem terrible a change in direction for the Cougar's 2010 season, but now is the time for Houston fans to truly shine. As always we'll be at Robertson Stadium for the Cougar's next game, and we hope to see the stands overflowing again."

Keenum's athletic debacle has been put under a magnifying glass. Let's hope it is managed better. One lesson Slim should learn is to never try to hide something he can't.

China airplane crash...again

For a while, I have not watched on the news or read in the newspapers anything about the Chinese airplane crash. I know it's been about a month since the tragedy, but I was expecting that media would give at least a last update before "closing the case." If one googles the news, no results show updated information. The last reports date August 26 or (if your lucky) August 28. The only newspaper covering the story is an Asian newspaper.

On their latest article, it is reported that investigation dealing with the airplane crash has come up with a new issue affecting the airline. Apparently, due to the recent rapid grow of the airline traffic and subsequent demand for pilots, many pilots lied about their qulification on their resumes. "Some of hte pilots changed their jobs many times, and they constantly distorted their resumes," a CAAC cited report said. "Some of them were former mlitary pilots and became civil pilots."

I really don't see how Henan airlines will recover from this one. More and more issues keep popping out and none of them have been addressed directly by the company. They're not taking any steps toward the cleansed of their name. The only steps they're taking is to an unrecoverable debacle. Perhaps a change of name would be suitable in this instance.

Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/Li15Ad01.html

BOOM! Explosive news on Ferrari

The image of a Ferrari's exploding is more likely to be associated as part of a scene in an action movie, but this became true last week in many cities across the U.S and overseas. Not very Hollywood, I must say.



For high speed car aficionados, a Ferrari is a dream come true. They can go from zero to 60 mph in just over a few seconds. However nobody is a fan of fire breaking out of their $253,000 car, especially while driving it.

Five owners of the newly launched 2010458 Italia reported catching fire while speeding. The innovative technology of the car was expected to surprise the public but it ended up disappointing them.

So far the company has said that an adhesive close to the engine is likely the cause of the fires. "This adhesive can melt due to overheating and ignite flames," Ferrari spokesman Stefano Lai said.

Incidents involving the 458 had been reported for a couple of months but the reports were thought to be isolated instances, not something that required a lot of attention.

Car dealers have asked their customers get their cars checked for a replacement of the engine. With the objective to prevent more incidents, cars not yet purchased were pulled out of the market for further inspection. Numbers average 1,100 cars.

---

1 incident should have been enough for the company to take action. How many reports were they expecting to receive? In addition to ignoring the signs of the problem, when notified that this was serious, the company didn't issue a statement to let their customers know of the situation. With the late response they may jeopardize the trust of their customers

Although a well-known brand, Ferrari is not a company of the masses. They don't produce that many cars for the general public. Obviously, their market is for those who are most afluent. Considering this, if someone would have gotten hurt, their lawyers would be sweating like crazy right now. They better look at the signs next time.

Sources:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/02/business/main6830054.shtml
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/tn-dpt-0903-ferrari-20100902,0,5231106.story