Haley+Goeller

11/2    Period 5/6 WikiLeaks, the Iraq War A website named WikiLeaks revealed the largest amount of secret information in U.S. history. There were over 400,000 classified documents about the Iraq war and how the U.S. felt about topics pertaining to the war. The documents for the most part made America look bad and made it seem like we do not care about the Iraqis. For example, soldiers were witnessing the abuse of Sunni prisoners without protesting and U.S. contractors and troops firing on Iraqi civilians. From the uprooted documents, 15,000 previously unknown deaths were fond bringing the total to 100,000 deaths. The Washington post called the document dump, “reckless and politically motivating”. Editorials talk about how most of the information leaked was already known but just confirmed. Columnists said the documents show how American leaders have lied and that in order to have the military function you cannot have total truth either. I find this article to be surprising in a few ways. One way is that, the government would keep so many documents concealed. Many of the documents were important and helpful to give insight into the war. The documents were able to uncover 15,000 unreported deaths, which easily mean that there are more deaths that have been unrecognized for the information has been hidden away. Documents also talked about American soldiers witnessing abuse of Sunni prisoners and they did not protest. The soldiers were there to help and Iraqis and in that to at least keep them from being harmed. It was also believed that many Iraqis were killed because of “trigger happy” American soldiers; soldiers should be ** helping ** no hurting. Correspondingly I was shocked to see that someone was able to get ahold of these documents and had the courage to put them on the internet. WikiLeaks must have known the publicity they were going to get from this and I was surprised to see that they were bold enough to expose the documents to the world.  10/7 period 5/6 Jarrett, Va: woman executed

This peice talks about a woman, Teresa Lewis, who was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murder of her son and husband. Teresa apparently plotted to collect $250,000 life insurance policy after killing her husband and son. Her sentence to death was very controversial because Theresa has an IQ of 72 which is only 2 above the standard cutoff for the mentally deficient. It was also said that co-conspiritors that after meeting Teresa they knew she woud be an easily manipulated person. To me I find the death of Teresa to be wrong, she was just two points above the cutoff IQ number for mentally disabled and i belive there should be some leeway in the IQ cutoff its not fair that Teresa was just two points over and lost her life becasue of it. This is a matter of life and death and two point difference can mean a life time to someone. Teresa may have done wrong but she should not have been killed for what she did, jail should have been the answer, not death.


 * Definitely, definitely spell check. You spell the second word of your paragraph incorrectly. That doesn't give the reader a good impression. Instead of starting with "this piece" talk about the story as if you are telling it to a friend. Then, give us your response. CAPITALIZE THE LETTER "I."**

9/26 period 5/6 Bedfordshire, UK: teen banned from US

I'm not really sure how to feel regarding this passage. There is freedom of speech in America and people should be able to say what they want. However, someone from out of the country who decides to write an abusive email to the president shouldn't have the right to say anything about the subject since it does not truly pertain to them. It is surprising that this 17 year old boy from Britain thought it a good idea to write to the president calling him rude names such as "prick" and most likely many other rude things, that we dont know of since he said he was drunk and high when he wrote this email to the president. Its hard to really pick a side in this story for we dont really know everything Angel said to the president, it seems as though he was just saying cruel things but for all we know he could just be voicing his opinion about how Obama is running our country, even though he really should not say anything for he lives outside of the U.S.

9/15 period 5/6 new york city: miracle landing

When i read the peice on the man who attempted suicide and survived, i was shocked. Although he had jumped from a 40 story building, he is still around to talk about it. He was lucky, he tried to commit an awful act but was lucky enough to survive the impact. The thing that saved his life was a Dodge Charger. The fact he was able to land in the back seat of that car, mere feet away from pavement was sheer luck. The only injuries he sustained were two broken legs, a callapsed lung, adn a shatter ankle. i guess for anyone hearing the story its lucky but, he did want to die and landing on that car hindered him from what he actually wanted.

P= You do have a good voice in your writing... easy to read. C= Spell check, capitalize the letter "I." Your details seem a little out of order... tell us the story and then your reaction