Enough is Enough

I recently read an article on CNN.com titled Yemen minister on child marriage: Enough is enough that touched on child marriage in the country of Yemen. While this issue seems unreal to the United States, it is very real in the country of Yemen.
Recently an 8-year-old girl reportedly died of internal bleeding three days after her wedding. The young girl, named Rawan, was married to a 40-year-old man. A man five times her age! Outrageous! This incident horrified not only me but Yemenis who are now looking to human rights minister Hooria Mashhour.
Mashhour believes the selling of young girls into marriage, which is remains legal in Yemen, should stop.
"Many child marriages take place every year in Yemen. It's time to end this practice," Mashhour said. However, the locals to Yemen have stopped talking to media outlets due to fear of the repercussions from the government. However, human rights coordinator and the human rights minister believe they can make a change.
The practice of selling young girls into marriage hasn't changed. In fact, more than half of young women are married before the age of 18 and 14% of girls are married before 15. In 2008, 10-year-old Nujood Ali broke the mold when she went to court in Sanaa and asked for a divorce. After a lengthy trial, she was granted the divorce. In 2010, a 12-year-old bride died of internal bleeding just shortly after her wedding.
Yemen legislature tried to pass a bill that involved making the minimum age to marry be 17. However, because of the conservative nature of Yemen's parliament, the bill was shot down with the argument that the bill violated Islamic law, which does not specify an age to marry.
Marriage shouldn't involve children whatsoever. While this issue is controversial in Yemen, it isn't controversial here. With the age of marriage being 18 in some states and no younger than 16 in others. Here, an 8-year-old girl getting married is unheard of.
Writing about something like this was hard and definitely controversial. Putting my two sense in would be a waste of time considering I'm sure you all know how I feel about this issue by now.

Obama's address on Syria

I have to hand it to Obama. After hearing numerous things about Syria and seeing him disagree with the Russian government, it's finally nice to see a decision be made....sort of.

In an article titled Lawmakers give mixed reactions to Syria speech found on CNN.com, it seems that there are a lot of members of congress who disagree with him. Take House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, Representative from Michigan, for example. He said that the president urgently needs to develop and execute a strategy to address all those threats. 

Along with Rogers, Republican Senators Lindsey Grahm of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona said that the president didn't speak more forcefully about the need to increase the military assistance to moderate the Syrian forces. They also say that they regret he didn't come out with a clearer plan to test the Russian and Syrian proposal to move the chemical weapons to international custody. 

However, most of the Democrat representatives and senators believe he did a good job. Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland believed he made a good moral argument. 

From what I watched of the speech Obama made, I must agree with Cummings. Obama made an awesome moral argument. Did it solve anything? Eh....not really. The Senate delayed the vote on the Syria resolution which has less support after the Russian Government offered a possible path to get Syria to hand over their weapons. 

I really don't have much of a stance on this issue because, frankly, I don't know much of the issue to make an educated decision on how the Senate should vote. Obama seems to have made his decision by saying he is not going to send any American troops to Syria. This sets my mind at ease because I would like to keep all soldiers close for as long as possible. Can the Senate sit on this decision much longer? Probably not. Let's just hope a decision is made soon. 

Pranks Gone Wrong

There's nothing I love more than a good prank. However, when do pranks go too far? On September 6th a Longmont CO teen was killed in a prank gone wrong. 18-year-old Premila Lal was shot and killed after scaring a family friend. 

The shooter, Nerrek Galley was staying at Lal's home while Lal and her family were in the process of moving. While Galley and Lal's 15-year-old brother Pranil were playing video games, Lal and her cousin snuck into the house and hid in a closet. They began to make little noises hoping to make Galley and Pranil investigate. Instead of Galley and Pranil finding an intruder like they had expected, they found Premila who jumped out of the closet. 

Premila screamed and then Galley pulled the trigger. Premila was admitted to the hospital but was pronounced dead an hour later. Now, Galley is being held on charges of reckless endangerment, child abuse, and providing a gun to a juvenile because Pranil had access to the gun. 

What happened in Longmont Colorado was a tragedy and just a horrible accident. However, are pranks starting to become too violent? 

Vine is a social media app that allows you to take a 6 second video and share it with the rest of the world. You have the ability to follow certain people, look at their accounts and see what their videos are all about. I do have a vine account and I do follow quite a few people. Lately, every time I get on Vine I see a new prank. Most are violent. A couple weeks ago there was a Vine where a young girl snuck up on her father doing dishes. After screaming and grabbing at his shoulders the father grabbed a cookie sheet and smacked her across the face with it knocking the poor girl onto the ground. 

Something that's been trending on vine lately is called Smack Cam. Its basically videos of people walking up the their friends smacking them across the face without the friend's knowledge. Some Smack Cam vines included shaving cream across the face and even the poor smackees getting a giant exercise ball thrown at their head. 

Yes, things like this are amusing and I will be the first to say that I did chuckle at quite a few of them. However, we can't forget that when we catch a person off guard, we deal with their instincts. It may not be what they intended and the outcome of the prank may not have been what you intended, but pranks like these are not to be taken likely. 

Sometimes, pranks are not so fun.