Hey people! It’s been too long since I’ve actually done a blog so I thought I would feel ya’ll in to what’s going on in Aprilslife. College has started. It’s been pretty busy with helping Steven apply for college and the actives we’re involved in. This year I’m involved in SGA (student government). That has been fun! 🙂 I’ve never been involved in SGA before so this is all new to me, but so far it has been great. I’ve gotten involved with Wesley this year. I involved in Wesley last year but not as well as I should have been. Sadly, I can’t attended BSU (Baptist Student Union) due to classes. We, also, taken year book photos a few weeks back. Between classes, Wesley, and SGA things have been pretty crazy. But, it’s all good though. lol
Tag Archive: jokes
Hello everyone. Happy early Christmas. I haven’t done a post in a while so I thought it would be good to do one now. Everything is ok here. My birthday came and went. Thanksgiving was So this blog really isn’t on anything special.(Even though it is an update) The only things going on right now is that I have to take the ACT this Saturday, and of course Christmas is coming too. The only down side is the Christmas parade has been moved to next week so that’s a bummer. 😦 But oh well! Hopefully I’ll get some topics for some more blogs and I’ll get back to ya’ll soon hopefully. Merry Christmas. Later. 🙂
http://movies.yahoo.com/news/jk-rowling-uk-press-left-feeling-under-siege-160752017.html
LONDON (AP) — Writer J.K. Rowling and actress Sienna Miller gave a London courtroom a vivid picture on Thursday of the anxiety, anger and fear produced by living in the glare of Britain’s tabloid media, describing how press intrusion made them feel like prisoners in their own homes.
The creator of boy wizard Harry Potter told Britain’s media ethics inquiry that having journalists camped on her doorstep was “like being under siege and like being a hostage.” Miller said years of car chases, midnight pursuits and intimate revelations had left her feeling violated, paranoid and anxious.
“The attitude seems to be absolutely cavalier,” Rowling said. “You’re famous, you’re asking for it.”
The pair were among a diverse cast of witnesses — Hollywood star Hugh Grant, a former soccer player, a former aide to supermodel Elle Macpherson and the parents of missing and murdered children — who have described how becoming the focus of Britain’s tabloid press wreaked havoc on their lives.
Rowling said she was completely unprepared for the media attention she began to receive when her first book, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” became a sensation. The seven Potter books have sold more than 450 million copies, spawned a hit movie series and propelled Rowling from struggling single mother to one of Britain’s richest people.
“When you become well-known … no one gives you a guidebook,” she said.
Prime Minister David Cameron set up the inquiry amid a still-unfolding scandal over illegal eavesdropping by the News of the World tabloid. Owner Rupert Murdoch closed down the newspaper in July after evidence emerged that it had illegally accessed the mobile phone voice mails of celebrities, politicians and even crime victims in its search of scoops.
More than a dozen News of the World journalists and editors have been arrested, and the scandal has also claimed the jobs of two top London police officers, Cameron’s media adviser and several senior Murdoch executives.
It has also set off national soul-searching about the balance between press freedom and individual privacy.
Rowling, 46, said media interest in her began shortly after the publication of her first novel in 1997 and soon escalated, with photographers and reporters frequently stationed outside her home. She eventually moved after stories and photographs revealed the location of her house.
“I can’t put an invisibility cloaking device over myself or my house, nor would I want to,” Rowling said. But, she added, “it feels threatening to have people watching you.”
Rowling said she had always tried to keep her three children out of the media glare, and was outraged when her eldest daughter came home from primary school with a letter from a journalist in her backpack.
“I felt such a sense of invasion,” Rowling said. “It’s very difficult to say how angry I felt that my 5-year-old daughter’s school was no longer a place of complete security from journalists.”
By the time her younger children were born in 2003 and 2005, Rowling said, the scrutiny was “like being under siege and like being a hostage.”
She also described how, early on in their relationship, her now-husband Neil Murray gave personal details over the phone to a reporter who was pretending to be a tax official. An article about him duly appeared in a tabloid paper.
“That was a not-very-nice introduction to being involved with someone famous,” Rowling said.
Rowling told the inquiry she had gone to court or to Britain’s press watchdog more than 50 times over pictures of her children or false stories, which included a claim by the Daily Express that unpleasant fictional wizard Gilderoy Lockhart had been based on her first husband.
Before the final Potter book appeared in 2007, a reporter even phoned the head teacher of her daughter’s school, falsely claiming the child had revealed that Harry Potter died at the end, in an apparent bid to learn secrets of the plot.
Miller, who became a tabloid staple when she dated fellow actor Jude Law, said the constant scrutiny left her feeling “very violated and very paranoid and anxious, constantly.”
“I felt like I was living in some sort of video game,” she said.
“For a number of years I was relentlessly pursued by 10 to 15 men, almost daily,” she said. “Spat at, verbally abused.
“I would often find myself, at the age of 21, at midnight, running down a dark street on my own with 10 men chasing me. And the fact they had cameras in their hands made that legal.”
The 29-year-old actress told the inquiry that a stream of personal stories about her in the tabloids led her to accuse friends and family of leaking information to the media. In fact, her cell phone voice mails had been hacked by the News of the World.
Miller, the star of “Layer Cake” and “Alfie,” was one of the first celebrities to take the Murdoch tabloid to court over illegal eavesdropping. In May, the newspaper agreed to pay her 100,000 pounds ($160,000) to settle claims her phone had been hacked.
The newspaper’s parent company now faces dozens of lawsuits from alleged hacking victims.
Also testifying Thursday was former Formula One boss Max Mosley, who has campaigned for a privacy law since his interest in sadomasochistic sex was exposed in the News of the World.
Mosley successfully sued the News of the World over a 2008 story headlined “Formula One boss has sick Nazi orgy with five hookers.” Mosley has acknowledged the orgy, but argued that the story — obtained with a hidden camera — was an “outrageous” invasion of privacy. He said the Nazi allegation was damaging and “completely untrue.”
Mosley said he has had stories about the incident removed from 193 websites around the world, and is currently taking legal action “in 22 or 23 different countries,” including proceedings against search engine Google in France and Germany.
“Invasion of privacy is worse than burglary,” Mosley said. “Because if somebody burgles your house … you can replace the things that have been taken.”
High-profile witnesses still to come include CNN celebrity interviewer Piers Morgan, who has denied using phone hacking while he was editor of the Daily Mirror newspaper.
The inquiry, led by Judge Brian Leveson, plans to issue a report next year and could recommend major changes to Britain’s system of media self regulation.
Rowling said that she supported freedom the press, but that a new body was needed to replace the “toothless” Press Complaints Commission.
“I can’t pretend that I have a magical answer,” she said. “No Harry Potter joke intended.”
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Leveson Inquiry: http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/
Jill Lawless can be reached at: http://twitter.com/JillLawless
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/palestine-wins-unesco-seat-143002573.html
Palestine won full admission into UNESCO, the United Nations science, education and cultural heritage organization, in a closely watched vote in Paris Monday. Global diplomacy hands view the 107-14 vote as a benchmark carrying larger implications for the Palestinians’ bid for state recognition before the UN Security Council. Both the United States and Israel have strongly opposed both initiatives.
The United States, Israel, Canada, Germany, Sweden and Australia were among the 14 nations voting against the Palestinians’ UNESCO bid, while 107 countries–including France, Spain, Ireland, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, India, Russia, China, South Africa and Indonesia–voted in favor. Fourteen nations–including the United Kingdom and Italy–abstained.
Washington, which called the UNESCO vote “premature” Monday, has threatened to cut off funding to UNESCO if Palestine is granted membership. The United States currently accounts for about one-fifth of the organization’s budget.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also rejected the UNESCO vote, and warned it would set back peace process.
“This is a unilateral Palestinian maneuver which will bring no change on the ground but further removes the possibility for a peace agreement,” the Israeli ministry said in a statement. “This decision will not turn the Palestinian Authority into an actual state yet places unnecessary burdens on the route to renewing negotiations.”
Palestine’s successful UNESCO bid comes as Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair is due to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House Monday.
Blair has been trying to advance the Quartet’s efforts to get the Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table, asking each side to lay out their specific terms for resolving the issues of borders and security for a two-state solution. Meanwhile, Israeli officials have been depicting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as an unworthy peace partner.
Abbas, in turn, has recently reiterated his periodic threat to dissolve the Palestinian Authority–a move that if carried out would presumably give Israel the burden of administering, funding, and coordinating security for the West Bank’s Palestinian population.
Ok, I know I should have posted this sooner, but the “last” first weekend has come for the seniors of 2012. Yes, sadly it has. For me nothing much has happened this past weekend just went to church and that’s about it. I wish I had done more and made it memorablybut I didn’t. 😦 But the year isn’t over yet so maybe something will happen. I’m sorry for not having much to put in this post, but the year is still early so I’ll try to make my post more interseting for ya’ll. If ya’ll have any ideas for blog posts please comment below and I’ll see what I can do. I want my senior year series to be interseting for you guys. I’m hoping to post some poems on year as the year goes by so be looking for those, and I’ll proably do some posts on more youth teips I go on so be looking for that as well. I’m sorry if it seems that I’m going on and on. Really I am. So be looking for more posts, and I’ll see ya’ll later bye
aprilslife 