Halloween

I really love Halloween. I can't wait to dress my dog up like a pumpkin and hand out candy to adorable children. My favorite costume I saw last year was a 3-year -old dressed like a race car driver, race car included. It was very inventive.
The Daily Illini has had some coverage on Halloween. Like this story about Wesley United Methodist Church's haunted house. I thought it was a really good story. I actually went to a haunted house at a church when I was in high school, but it doesn't sound like this one will be anything like it. In the one I went to, you entered to find someone dressed like Jesus looking forlorn because you're on the path to Hell. And Hell was mostly scary clowns. Personally, I hate haunted houses. I don't feel the need to be scared for fun. However, I thought that donating money to the food pantry from haunted house admission was a really good idea. And if people have fun dressing like zombies in the process, good for them.
I know some people may think that routine holiday coverage is cheesy, but I love it. I love holidays. And I think it's nice that the DI is giving such a good cause coverage.

Grammar Gorillas

I always thought that grammar was one of my strong points. I took a grammar class at Parkland College for an elective. I've always pointed out grammar errors in books, on signs, etc. I work at a library, too, and always skim through books when I'm covering them, and actually enjoy it if I find a mistake. I actually just found one the other day, in a book called "Catching Katie" by Robin Lee Hatcher. I can't remember what it was, now. But if anyone reads it, there's one there; it was something like the wary/weary thing, where they used the wrong word.
Anyway, I was actually looking forward to the copy-editing class, because I thought it would be pretty easy for me. It's not. I feel very small sometimes. So, because I apparently forget what I thought was ingrained in my mind, and sometimes the WWC book doesn't cut it for me, I found some online activities.
You can play Grammar Gorillas here. Also, this a link to one called "Grammar Blast."
I know the games are really basic, but so often that's what everyone misses, that it's sort of fun anyway.

Gas Prices

Today in Farmer City, at Huck's gas station, my parents filled up their car for $2.99/gallon. Under $3! Not to be dramatic, but I was in shock. It was fabulous. I filled up for $3.03 the other day. I'm pushing for $1.98, myself. But I'm definitely happy that prices are cheaper.
This article confirms that I'm obviously not the only one noticing cheaper gas prices. Find it here. I thought that this was a good article, because lots of numbers were thrown around, but none of them confused me. There were no percents, just dollars and cents. The article also actually cited the survey that evaluated the prices, instead of leaving it up to the reader to guess.
I remember filling up my '96 Saturn for under $20 when I was in high school and got my first car. I have a new car now, that gets good gas mileage, but driving back and forth from school everyday obviously gets expensive. So I'm thrilled about lower gas prices, as I'm sure most are. Yay!

Photo Ethics

I took Photojournalism last semester, and the ideology in that class was to shoot first, decide later. So, although the fact that these photos were taken sort of disgusts me, the shot was there, and they are, some of them, amazing (although gruesome) photos.
Personally, I wouldn't run any of these photos. If I absolutely had to pick some to run, I suppose the first one, with the little boy with his poor dog, would have been my pick because although that's one of the most terrible things ever, unfortunately almost everyone goes through that at some point in time in their life. My parents' dog, Griffin, who I adored, was killed by a car this summer. He didn't look quite so peaceful, however. It was very traumatic and therefore I wouldn't have run this photo, for the family, but at least it isn't someone killing themself or something.
I wouldn't run any of the other photos, under any circumstances. I suppose the one with the 15-year-old boy with the fence post through his lip maybe, only because he survived. But this photo is the one that affected me the most. It made my stomach flip when I saw it. Even though there are other photos that the people actually died in, at least it doesn't look so unnatural.
If the events were local, I most definitely wouldn't run any of the stories. I work for my local paper, and I cannot imagine EVER running anything like these in that paper.
In addition to the fence-post picture, I struggled with the last picture of the woman in the crowd probably the most. Almost all of these pictures make me realize just how sick some people are. It's just sad. And yes, it's news, but do we really need to focus on how sick people are more than we already do?
Obviously these photos were printed in some fashion, because we've seen them, so someone made the decision to use them somehow. I think these kind of photos are best left to the "Most Amazing, Death-Defying Moments" kind of shows on Spike TV. Except all of these people didn't live. So sad.