Driven to Distraction

Driven to Distraction
Date: 1/18/10
National News
N.Y Times UpFront
By Matt Richtel in Logan, Utah
pg.18


Over 2,600 traffic deaths are caused because of calling/texting while driving. Studies also show that if you Text/call someone while driving it is the same as driving with a .08 blood alcohol level. If you don't know what that means its the standard limit for drunk driving. Seventeen states have made it illegal to text while driving, and if they get caught they will spend three months in jail and a $750 fine, but if they cause injury or death they will spend up to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. In 2006 Reggie Shaw a 19 year old resident of Utah was texting his girlfriend and clipped a oncoming Saturn sedan. And the Saturn spun across the highway and hit a pickup truck. Reggie killed two grown men just because he was texting his girlfriend, because of that pandemic Utah is very strict with people that text and drive. Alaska is equally as tough as Utah. If the police pull over or see a car that has a computer or video monitor they consider it a felony and punishable up to 20 years in prison. They think the same way for texting too.
I totally agree on banning texting and calling while driving. If it causes that many deaths and if its the same as driving drunk then it should be illegal in all the states. It is such a stupid thing to do. I hear people in the class say that they are all for doing it..I wonder if they will be "all for it" if they have killed someone on the street and serving 15-20 years behind bars. Everyone loves texting right but do they love putting their family members, friends, or strangers in danger...no. So I am "all for it" and what I mean by that is I want all of the states to ban texting and calling while driving

Discussion Questions

1.) Why do you think that texting and driving has become a big problem???

2.) Do you think that the jail time for texting and driving is fair?

3.) Do you think that some people should be able to text and drive if they have had nothing on their record or not?

Poem from last year haha

Free verse Poem
A Life of a Teenager

Stuck in a world you thought you once knew
Now all your friends are turning their backs on you
Once quiet people, like puppies on rugs
Have turned their backs and started doing drugs
The boy next door that you liked for years
Has turned his back and started drinking beers
All of these changes are going around
And you yell and scream but they don't hear a sound
What happened to the innocence so easy to find?
You wonder if you're the only one who still has their mind
They try to pull you in and you know you might fall
But nobody knows there's a solution to it all
Right over this wall you can have your life back
Of friends, and laughter, be back with your pack
There's no need to worry, no need to fear
All of the innocence you know is still here
There are just a few obstacles you know you must climb
Persuading and begging to get back your mind
You cannot give up the prize is far too great
Just hope your obstacles don't make you too late
Do all you can to help your chains break
This is all real, nothing is fake
You're stuck in a world you thought you once knew
Turn your back on your world they've turned theirs on you

OCD.....Romeo and juliet thesis

Romeo & Juliet Thesis
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Romeo is a love sick dog obsessed with Juliet. This love affair is making him sick and weak. He is the reason for the untimely death of his love. He doesn't even know her and he is making assumptions that he is in love with his only enemy, Capulet. He only loves her for her looks, because he is so young he doesn't understand what love is and how to handle it.

All he thinks about is the feeling he thinks is "love" but really it's just a teenage boy mind running wild. For example Pg. 23 line's 197-199 " Love is a smoke made with the fume of sigh's; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers eye's; Being vexed, a sea nourished with lover's tears". Romeo was way to into this fling with Juliet, but then again so is she, when they meet and fall in love, they have only known each other for about 10 minutes, it's crazy. It doesn't happen like that...at all. All it is is DRAMA and over reacting.

Romeo really doesn't love Juliet, he loves "love", he always has to have a woman in his life just to love. In the beginning of the book Benvolio was talking about how much Romeo loved Rosaline. For instance Pg.33 Line 90. " Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so loves" Benvolio still thinks that Romeo is head over heels for Rosaline, so its not a new thing with Romeo it seems.
the why Romeo is so desperate to marry Juliet its the only thing on his mind and they have known each other for about 12 hours hes just way to caught up in this "fantasy". When Romeo marries Juliet he tries to make amends with Tybalt, but he thinks that just because he and Juliet are married that everything between the Capulets and Montagues are okay and happy, but they're not, he does things without thinking. For example in the beginning of the book it tells about their grudge and how bad it is. Pg. 7 line 1-5. " Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes.." It says right there how old the grudge is and how much they hate each other so why would Romeo still go after Juliet when he found out that she was a ungrateful Capulet, wouldn't he know the trouble it would cause his family?
And all of this Information shows how "love sick" he is and how he just cant live without love. So this concludes the thesis of Romeo and Juliet, and how Romeo is the center of all of the troubles and is the reason for the inglorious ending to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.