1 week hiatus

I apologize to anyone who reads posts on this blog but there will most likely be 1 week of no posts thanks to those dreaded finals.

Blue poles... Can they help us?

Chances are, if you've been on Temple's main campus, you've seen the blue poles that are strategically placed on corners and on the outer rim of campus. The idea for these blue poles is to keep the students safe. If a student runs into trouble, the idea is that they can get to the closest blue pole and press the help button. They will then be patched through to campus security.

Now this sounds like a great idea at first but when I witnessed it being tested, it turned out to be a horribly innacurate system. One day in mid-September, my mother, accompanied by my sister decided to pick me up from school after my last class instead of me taking the train. When my mother drove down part of eleventh street, her car broke down right next to one of the blue poles. Hoping to get a jump from campus security, my sister walked over to the blue pole and pressed the "help" button. After pressing the help button my sister pleaded her case to no avail. The receiver of the call did not even know where my sister was. My sister than tells the receiver which pole number she is at to the response of, "where's that?"

"Are you serious?" my sister asked before walking tot he closest corner to figure out which intersection exactly she was at. Even after telling the receiver where she was at, it still took someone with a hand held battery 10-15 minutes to find us. A campus worker driving one of those trash collecting vehicles arrived before hand and tried to help us.

What I would like to point out by making this blog is that our security system is so outdated that they don't even know which pole has had the button pressed nor where the pole even is. I find this extremely disturbing and am very thankful that I do not reside on campus.

Even an illegal immigrant can beat you in court!

In what started out as a lawsuit filed against an American family by an illegal immigrant landscaper seeking monetary support after being mauled by the family dog of one of his job sites, has turned into a large scale national immigration debate. Congo, the pet of the James family in Princeton, New Jersey has been sentenced to death after his owners lost a lawsuit (and $250,000) to Giovanni Rivera, a Guatemalan illegal immigrant.
According to the James family, Giovanni provoked Congo (Left) to attack.

Guy James claims that the landscaping workers arrived early when the dogs were in the backyard being fed by his wife. He also states that he yelled from his upstairs window for the workers to stay in their car until the dogs are back in the house. Ignoring Guy James' calls, Giovanni left the vehicle and payed dearly for doing so. In the matter of minutes, Giovanni suffered hundreds of bites which landed him in a hospital room for 5 days.

"They hit my dogs. They grabbed my wife and that's what this case is about," Guy James said.

Kevin Riechelson (Rivera's Lawyer) and Kim Otis, the prosecutor who handled the case, described the attack as unprovoked, saying Rivera never pulled Elizabeth James down to the ground. One must ask themselves here, who's to trust? An illegal immigrant here to literally take advantage of our country for his own monetary gain, or an American family who just wants to save their dog from injustice?

Now how does anyone, even an illegal immigrant for this matter, win a court case in this situation after supposedly pulling the wife down to the ground? If he did in fact pull her to the ground, then he clearly provoked the dogs to attack him, Congo was just doing what all dogs do, he was protecting his owner.

"Maybe they would have killed the dog already," said Oscar, a Guatemalan immigrant who didn't want to give his full name because he's in the country illegally. "This country values Americans." (Ashbury Park Press)

No offense Oscar but... you are in AMERICA! And amazingly enough, AMERICANS live in AMERICA. See the connection? Should we as Americans value those who come here illegally (like Oscar and Giovanni) more than we value the current legal residents? Well apparently the courts thought so, considering that they ruled in Giovanni's favor. The James family has appealed the case to a higher court in an attempt to save their dog.

Despite the James family's efforts to keep this case about saving their dog and not about immigration, Americans from all over the country are voicing their opinion on the topic.

"Why can a person who's in this country illegally get justice in our courts?" asks BinnThere, a member of APP.com. He then continues, "Let me make sure I understand this... this "immigrant" who dosen't bother to apply for immigration, but instead chooses to enter this country illegally can then turn around an use our legal system to get justice and a $250,000 settlement."

If hes here illegally, I don't see why our laws should protect him. Its like the burglar who breaks his leg robbing your house, and then sues you," sarcastically states Jerzeelove, a member of Courierpostonline.com.

Shouldn't we as Americans urge our government to deport Giovanni who was confirmed as an illegal immigrant?

Should this illegal immigrant be allowed to use the American court system to sue true Americans?

Should Giovanni be allowed to stay in this country even after the court case when he is clearly labeled as illegal?

Maybe our government is failing us and we need to take action on our own? I don't know, but maybe you do. Leave a comment!