Genetically Altered Babies

The story that was my spring board into this story was a story on ABC nightly news called Save a Dying Child, Have Another. It was extremely interesting and in that story I think there are a lot of ideas that could be very controversial and are very important issues today in America. The basic idea is there is a family that had a dying child who needed a almost perfect bone marrow transplant to save her life. So doctors took a bunch of fertilized eggs from the parents and examined them to see which would be the best match for the dying child. Then they took the rest of the fertilized eggs and put them in a freezer and implanted the closest matching egg into the mother. When the mother had the baby the doctor then took the marrow from the umbilical cord and transplanted it with the child. Both children are alive and healthy today but there are many questions that arise from this story. Is it okay to take fertilized eggs or potential lives and discard them and freeze them? Is science getting to the point of being able to change DNA or cells in babies? There are also stories about scientists who combine 2 eggs from different mothers to manipulate the babies genes, is that okay? Is it okay for a scientist or doctor to play a “God” like role in the lives of unborn children? I’m hoping to find out all of the answers to these questions and more. For more info on Save a Dying Child, Have Another check out the ABC news link on my blog.

Cheer Competitions

I love cheer but this last competition has been crazy. It was for school cheerleading not my competitive team and we did not do well. We did pretty well but we were definitely were out of our league. I miss competitive cheer!!! School cheer is just not the same. You do not get the same energy rush of adrenalin or anything, its just like practice. There is not as many people cheering for you and it feels like there are not as many people supporting you and cheering you on. Also, my competitive team is like a family. We are all there for each other and are extremely close unlike my school team. All of the school team is just annoying and none of us get along. They just like to argue with each other and I don’t think they have ever heard of compromising. They also do not have any idea what real cheerleading is and I definitely think they finally got some sense knocked into them today at the competition. Here’s to hoping we get much better!

Links to comments and blogs

* Here's some links to comments on stories and blogs about genetically altering babies and saving a dying child by having another one

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Health/comments?type=story&id=3826596

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1999/C/199902176.html

http://www.decision1.org/content/FredsBlogPage-43-399.html

The New Season of Project Runway

The latest episode of project runway was on last night, and the challenges keep getting better and better! This week the designers had to design menswear which left pretty much all of them in a craze. All of these designers are used to designing for women and most all of them have never even created menswear before. The challenge was to design an outfit for NFL star and Today show correspondent Tiki Barber. When Heidi Klum told the designers they would not need their models today and that Tim Gunn would meet them and tell them the rest fo their challenge, they all came up with crazy ideas of what their challenge could be. But when they met Tiki Barber all of the guys except one did not even know who he is. They were told to design an outfit for him that he would wear on the today show. Of course there was some drama because the designers did not know how to create mens pants so Jack took off his shorts and traced them for a pattern and lended them to some other designers so they could also trace them for a pattern. Some of the designers were furious about this but when Jack asked Tim if that was aloud he said it would be just fine. There were definately some hits and misses in this challenge but, all of the girls, and some of the boys, were excited to be working with hot male models. Kit and Kevin both delivered strong outfits but, Jack was the designer who came out on top with the win. But the more interesting outfits were definatley the awful ones. Carmen, who was Auffed by Heidi, created a very short 80's looking jacket which didn't even have a shirt! All that was under it was a baby blue scarf! Plus a really awfut pair of pants. Well definately keep watching this season because their is a incredible group of designers and the challenges just keep getting better and better. Can't wait to see what happens next week! :)

Peaceful Protest Gone Wrong

At 12:00 on Tuesday November 14, 2007 students at Strongsville High School staged a walk out, which was part of a planned student protest against the dress code, but, at 8:57 police were called to the scene when this peaceful protest turned violent.
The protest’s leader, Lynda McDunah a senior at Strongsville High School, stated that this walk out was just meant to get our point across. There is no way I thought this would get violent.
But, it did. "About 50 kids ran towards the bleachers and tore them down. 5 kids were also injured during this riot," said George Henley, a police officer who has been working for the city of Strongsville for 23 years.
"Timmie even threw bleachers at Principal Bill Hixen’s car," said Lynda McDunah.
Bill Hixen has been principal at Strongsville High School for 10 years and he said that this protest was a disgrace to our school. I plan on punishing these students as hard as I can, the dress code is not changing, it is here to stay.
"There are rumors that the school is planning to expel us, even the non-violent protestors," said Lucy Flink a non-violent protestor and a senior at Strongsville High School.
As of now the students have not officially been punished but Officer George Henley said, "We called all of the protestors parents but, we are leaving it up to the school to decide the fate of the students."
Violence is never the answer and because of the acts of a few it seems that the majority is likely to suffer.

Drama, Drama, Drama!

A great internship at Teen Vogue, glamorous clothes, a fabulous apartment, and much more, it seems like Lauren Conrad would have a perfect life, but you can’t always judge a book by its cover. In reality her life is filled with so much DRAMA, most of which is caused by her ex-best friend Heidi and her "fiancé" Spencer.
For the first two seasons of MTV’s hit show The Hills Heidi and Lauren seemed inseparable but once Spencer entered the picture everything changed. Spencer was a huge player who treated Heidi like dirt and Heidi just let him get away with it. Lauren was sick of seeing her friend get hurt so she tried to help Heidi but Spencer just turned Heidi against Lauren. Soon Heidi began ditching all of her friends to go out with Spencer and even left Lauren to go live with him.
But that is not even the worst of it. Lauren and Heidi stopped talking after Heidi moved in with Spencer and then Lauren started hearing crazy, rude rumors about her and her ex-boyfriend Jason, which made it all the way back to Laguna and her family. All of these things combined heated up at Lauren’s friend’s birthday party when Heidi tried to talk to Lauren like nothing was wrong or different between them. So Lauren got up and left with Audrina (her new roommate and best friend) to avoid any drama. Then Heidi found her and acted all innocent like she had no idea what was going on between her and Lauren which led to a huge catfight!
Now as the third season of The Hills heats up the drama continues to get even hotter. Spencer and Heidi continue to exclude themselves from Lauren and anyone that associates with her. Now he won’t even talk to his best friend Brody, his long time best friend, because he talks to Lauren.
But, Spencer and Heidi aren’t the only drama in Lauren’s life. Her new roommate Audrina is getting back together with her ex Justin, more commonly referred to as Justin Bobby. Justin Bobby looks like a homeless hobo from the streets, he’s incredibly rude, insensitive, likes to burp in peoples faces, and on top of that he once left Audrina alone in Vegas. Quite a catch right?! Well let’s hope Justin Bobby shapes up and stops acting like a complete jerk or Audrina dumps him, which ever comes first.
Even though Lauren does have tons of drama in her life she still has some really great friends who will stick by her no matter what, Audrina, Whitney, and Lo, and that’s really all that matters.
So if you need a little fix of drama make sure to watch The Hills on MTV Monday nights at 10. Created by Liz Gately and Executive Producers Adam DiVello, Tony Disanto, and Liz Gately. And if that still isn’t enough drama for you catch the live after show at 11.