Ebola has made it to the United States, but don't worry just yet

Government Confirms First Case of Ebola in US

Summary- My current event this week discusses the first diagnosed case of Ebola in the United States where the patient showed initial symptoms in the United States.  The case is located in Dallas, Texas as a man who had recently traveled to Liberia on the West African Coast.  This whole region is experiencing the worst Ebola outbreak in almost half a century.  The man being discussed has been put in isolation at a local hospital. Officials believe that the infection has not spread beyond this man.

Analysis and Opinion- Ebola has been in the news a lot recently and rightfully so.  The outbreak in West  Africa has killed thousands of people and has spread unconstrained across three countries.  However, people in the United States should not fear a global pandemic just yet.  This particular strain only spreads while patients are exhibiting symptoms (such as vomiting, fever, and failure of blood cells) through close fluid contact. This disease is not airborne and thrives in countries with poor public water works and hygiene systems such as Africa. Many are scared of this disease and we all should be.  It is the world's second deadliest disease according to case fatality rate which is the percentage of people who are diagnosed with disease that die.  In the case of Ebola, the case fatality rate  is 83 percent, a shockingly high number.  However, the slow spreading ability of the disease has allowed scientists and health workers to contain it in the past and will do so again.

Islamic Youth Take on the Islamic State Using an Interesting Method

Link: Muslim youths counter Islamic State with #NotInMyName Twitter campaign

Most of you are familiar the unpleasant situation in the Middle East concerning the Islamic State. The whole situation has shed a negative light upon Islam in the public eye.  This is particularly true considering that the Islamic State has its own social media campaign that is of high quality and has gained a Western audience which has led to some Westerners to join the Islamic State.  This article discusses how Muslim youths around the world are trying to fight back against this stigma using the #NotInMyName.  The campaign is attempting to show the world that the Islamic State does not portray Islam as it is supposed to be by sharing actual wisdom from the Islamic faith.  Some of the 20,000 tweets that have already been posted are astounding. The following example is one such tweet:
         
        "True Islam teaches that forgiveness is the highest level of strength, and revenge is the highest level of weakness #NotInMyName"— Ahmad Salkida (@ContactSalkida) September 22, 2014


My analysis of this article is really positive. While it is not lengthy or shocking in any sense, I found it to be quite interesting to hear how Muslim youths are reacting to the recent extremist activity. The quotes were a nice touch in the article and really helped to drive home the point that not all Muslims are on the side of the extremists. In my final opinion, the article was well written and brought to light the opinions of different groups of Muslims. This goes against a common stereotype that it is always the West versus Islam when, in fact, the situation is much more complicated.

Learning not to Trust the Media, the Hard Way

My first blog post is in response to Meredith Colias, and her article "C-SPAN Bus Rolls into Town, but Students Still Skeptical of Political Process" (Link to the article) published in the Rapid City Journal on August 30th. In retrospect, it is clear that Ms. Colias already knew the article that she wanted to write before she met with our class, as evidenced by the lack of quotes from the 25-minute interview we had with her which covered several news topics. Instead, she waited until the conclusion of the interview, when we were laughing and joking with each other, then put the following to us: "How do you think some kids your age would respond [to things such as the low voter turnout]?" The quotes in the published article are our responses to that post-interview question, not our personal views on political involvement.

I am also baffled as to why the article was posted on the front of the Rapid City Journal considering that it only interviewed students at one high school but proceeded to brand all teens under one banner. More importantly, the article lost its focus.  The article should have focused on the appearance of the C-SPAN bus and its impact, not the political views of teens.  Questions such as, "Did you find the bus intriguing?" or "How do you feel about the C-SPAN scholarship program?" would have been more appropriate.

Looking back on it, I realize that people should think of all the ways the media can twist a story before making any comments on it.  A simple story about an informational bus visiting our school became an affront to those interviewed, our teacher, and the student body as a whole. I will now go forward taking extra steps to carefully articulate all my thoughts and emotions about a subject when discussing anything with the media.