Bill Cosby Finally Sentenced?

The Pennsylvania jury found Bill Cosby guilty Thursday of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. When Constand accused Cosby it gave courage to the women who said he violated them too to create a movement. 

Bill Cosby claims that it never happened, and Constand is making false accusations towards him. “When there was talk of a plea bargain, I said no,” Cosby told Page Six last year. “I just refused to plead guilty to something that just didn’t happen. It didn’t happen, and Andrea knows that, and I think [prosecutors] know that.”

During an interview with Page Six, he referred to the prison cell as “that place” which might become his home for the rest of his life. He said that he is mentally preparing for “that place.” He may claim and believe that the sexual assault and drugging never happened, but I think he has accepted the fact that the proof is too strong for him to continue lieing. Cosby has been caught.

While waiting for his sentence he must undergo a sexually violent predator assessment that the judge, Steven O’Neill, ordered. While he is out on bail he is on house arrest and must wear a GPS device to be tracked. Judge O’Neill could sentence him to a max of 30 years.

People are worried if the trail goes the other way. They fear that it will have global implications on the #MeToo movement, as Bill Cosby’s case has been the first big trail for the movement. Prosecutor Kristen Feden said “I felt like this verdict could dictate something more,” Feden said. “If they found him not guilty, I felt like they were feeding into every character assassination on sex crime victims.” There is a lot riding on this case and it going the right way.

 

 

Welcome Home – By Craig F. Walker

The Pulitzer Prize is an award given in the United States to people for their achievements in newspaper, magazine, and online journalism, along with literature, and musical composition. The prize was established in 1917 and is given yearly to twenty-one categories. Each winner receives a certificate and $15,000 cash reward.

When looking into the different winners of each category over the years, one winner really stood out to me – Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 within the Feature Photography category for his photo story “Welcome Home, the Story of Scott Ostrom.” Walker is a photojournalist with a goal to help people look at the world through a more compassionate lens.

His project “Welcome Home” was to help people see and have compassion for honorably discharged veterans who struggle with severe post-traumatic stress. He used photos to help his viewers see deeper into the PTSD struggle most vets face when back home.

“Scott lays on the floor with his dog, Jibby. He was exhausted and said, ‘I’m tired of having bad f—— dreams. I can’t take a nap because I’ll feel worse. I fall asleep, but it doesn’t make it better. Everybody says, ‘With time, with time it will all go away.’ So I’m waiting. He often credited his dog with saving his life. ‘For me, Jibby is very therapeutic. … Sometimes I feel like a burden when I unload my emotions on friends, but Jibby’s always there, regardless of what mood I’m in.’ “(Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011)

Walker’s images tell a story deeper than most people are willing to look. They show that the smallest things, tasks, or struggles can really set back and bother a PTSD victim. They also show the large problems that are caused and can’t be solved by being an honorably discharged veteran with PTSD. These images allow his viewers to see that there is more to coming home, than just the “comfort” home, there are real struggles. Walker’s goal with this photo story is to open peoples eyes to have more compassion towards vets with PTSD.

 

Golden State Killer Caught?

Joseph James DeAngelo, a 72-year-old former police officer, Navy Veteran, father, and husband, was taken into custody earlier this week on the warrant for two murder charges. The murders he was charged for were the ones regarding the March 1980 killings of Lyman and Charlene Smith. Police claim he was shocked when they arrived at his house in Sacramento for the arrest. He is currently being held without bail in the Sacramento County Jail. 

DeAngelo was an officer in the police departments of two small California cities, Exeter and Auburn, during the 1970s. He was fired from the Auburn job in August of 1979 for shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent. Investigators are still unsure whether he committed any of these crimes while on duty, but the timeline would show that he did. The crimes started in 1976 and ended in 1986. DeAngelo was still working at the Auburn police department until 1979.

Sheriff Scott Jones said they used “discarded DNA” for confirmation on DeAngelo. He covered his tracks well, but he didn’t account for the DNA technology. DeAngelo earned the names “East Area Rapist” and “Original Night Stalker.” He was blamed for tons of crimes throughout 1974-1986. The reasons why he stopped at that time are unexplained and unknown.

Police believe the Golden State Killer killed a dozen people, committed at least 45 rapes, and burglarized 120 homes all during a 12-year span of time in the Sacramento area down to Southern California. Everyone who knew DeAngelo after his reign of terror claim that there were no actions or clues to have led them to think he was the Golden State Killer. 

So, is Joseph James DeAngelo actually the Golden State Killer or is it a coincidence? Most people will answer that he is most definitely the Golden State Killer, but evidence must prove this before he will experience the true effects of his arrest.

Shots to Reality

Most people have probably heard, read, or investigated the incident that happened on Wednesday, February 14, 2018. How could one not hear about this tragic event that is statistically happening more often, and each time it’s worse than the last. Mass shootings are a problem, and every time it happens again, people end up just sitting around sending prayers, hoping something changes, or starts fighting with everyone. Mass shootings cause much more chaos than at just the location and its immediate surroundings of the event. It sends a cloud of terror throughout the world.

Everyone is claiming something different for the cause of all these mass shootings, but who’s to know the real reasons. I say reasons because it’s not just one aspect that causes this much distrust and chaos. The frequency of mass shootings have increased over time and because of all the reasons people are claiming – gun control, mental health issues, and accessibility to buying guns – nothing ends up getting accomplished. People just fight even more.

It makes me sad to think that the day of this incident, I got a text from my aunt that I rarely talk to saying there was a school shooting in Flordia. I read the text and went on with my day. I didn’t think this incident was any different from the past events, and unfortunately, it’s not. Hopefully, what makes this time different will be the actions that are taken place to prevent and/or decrease these horrible events.

 

Cannabis in Denver

It’s no lie when someone says that Denver, Colorado is a huge supporter of the Cannabis industry. Denver is striving with all the businesses in and around the city that relate to cannabis in one way or another. When people are asked why they support and/or use marijuana you’ll probably get a wide range of answers. Anything from ‘it makes me feel good’ to ‘I rely on it for medical purposes.’  Another answer that you might hear often is the social aspect.

I was reading an article that was about how Cindy Sovine, CEO of Utopia, is in the process of opening a marijuana spa in Denver. Her main reasons for doing this is “to create social opportunities to bring people together” and to provide “non-pressuring environment” for consumers to enjoy their product in peace. We live in a community where it is legal to poses cannabis but nowhere to legally consume the product.

This becomes a problem because it then forces users to get creative to find locations that they can consume cannabis without getting ‘caught.’ There are tons of people in the United States, but more specifically in Denver, Colorado, that are trying to find solutions for this problem. Cindy’s solution is the spa, and to no surprise, it’s been a success so far. She still has many hurdles to jump over to achieve this goal, but I see it going all the way. People like Cindy are dedicating their careers to help cannabis users feel more comfortable and have more freedom.

Seaweed the Environmental Hero?

Facebook is a huge tool for me to get information about happenings around the world. I’m a big fan of animals so my news feed is usually full of their cute faces. One of the articles that caught my eye, stated they started feeding their cows seaweed. Apparently, this approach to new cow feed has so many solutions to other world problems we all face. Studies are still in progress, so all the facts have not yet been published (more to come).

One of the biggest reasons for farmers adding seaweed to their cow feed is the hope that it will reduce the overall methane emissions. When cows release gas, mainly through burps, they also release greenhouse gas that is 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Reducing greenhouse gas emitted from cows should help immensely battle against climate change and global warming.

However, with the good comes the bad. The chemical in seaweed that prevents methane production is bromoform. This may be a problem because bromoform has shown in the past to deplete the ozone layer. Esstientaly, this solution may just be swapping problems and not stopping problems.

The other two benefits of feeding cows seaweed are healthier and environmentally friendly cow, and a cleaner ocean. These benefits are still being studied. That’s the magic of science; anything can change with the smallest amount of new information.

If you are interested in hearing more about this topic, stay tuned for future posts with updated information and facts.

Wild Roller Coaster

Journalism means different things to everyone. But one common factor among journalists is the definition to them; covering the news in depth with all the present information and facts to inform the public and not the government. The journalism portion of my blog will cover a wide range of topics and locations. I started this blog before I joined a Journalism class at CU with the intentions to write about whatever comes to mind at the time, this purpose will not change. So be prepared for a wild roller coaster of content that you will read here. Towards the end of the class, you may start to see a theme among my blogs, as I start to discover what news I really want to inform the public.

Cover-to-Cover

Today I read the New York Times cover-to-cover, online and print, for the first time. Doing this re-opened my eyes to the fact that print news is still very alive and striving, it just has a different audience. Even though the audience is different, the articles and content are relatively the same, with a few changes here and there. The biggest difference with content is that the online version is able to update with “Breaking News” if released after the print version was delivered. The online version will always be ahead of the print, but that doesn’t make the print version any less reliable.

The article “‘She’ll Die if She Stays With Us'” in the New York Times is an investigative and informative article on both online and print versions. Overall, the content is the same, but the features that give the article its flare are different. The online version is filled with hyperlinks to articles that offer additional information to the readers. The online version also has three images, two of which are maps to help the reader locate the story, while the print version has none. The article online is ended with a small translated version of the letter left with the child, but the print version didn’t have room so they had to leave out most of the letter. Proving that online has more information.

Some of the other differences between the two versions are the sections, ads, snippets, and headlines. The New York Times online newspaper split their sections into smaller sections giving their readers more availability to narrow down what they want to read. Print ads are larger than online, sometimes taking up a whole page, making it harder to breeze by. Print also has small snippets of additional information that fills up the extra space leftover from the actual articles. I find these snippets fun and interesting as it keeps me wanting to read more of the newspaper. The headlines are tweaked slightly for print versions to fit the space available for the article, while online versions are able to have the headline however long they want, catching the readers’ eyes more often.

Overall, I have to say that online versions of newspapers are easier to access and use. Hyperlinks are used heavily with online articles to offer the reader sources and additional information. Online versions also have more images to solidify the article, unlike print, where there is usually only room for one or two pictures per article. A reader gets what they see when they read a print version, but with online, there is always more to read.

 

Welcome to the Life of Heather Neises

Hi,

I’m Heather Neises. Let me tell you a little about me to start with.

• I’m in my 2nd year at CU Boulder – in the process of changing majors to Journalism.
• Through CU Boulder I’m apart of Tri Delta.
• I’m a Colorado native and I love it here, especially Boulder.
• My main music type is Dubstep, but I listen to a variety depending on my mood.
• My hobbies change from time to time.

I created this blog not to have a consistent theme of content, but to express who I am and the journey I’m on. If you’d like to follow along, then stay tuned – because who knows what’s going to make it on here.

Wish me luck!