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Imagine hearing the cries of thousands of animals as you take a big bite of your meal. Ever wonder where the food that many big companies such as McDonalds and Burger King get their meat products. Not many Americans look at the real story behind the process of where their food that they are about to consume comes from. Both you and I know that animal abuse is the last thing that pops up in our heads when we take a big of that nice juicy tender burger. They have to suffer through the neglect and inhumane places where they are held just to provide us with our food.

 

The blame can’t fall on the factories but also the failure of government regulators to join with the powerful meat industry to help the matters better. The meat industry is morally untenable and often well hidden in modern society behind large advertisements. Sue Coe an artiest that regulates the act of the cruelty to animals through her artwork stated, “We need to educate the public about how ‘food’ is raised. I believe in the goodness of people, and I think people are intelligent enough to make a choice. Open the doors to the slaughterhouses and the factory farms. Let people see how sows are tethered in crates their entire lives, standing on slats or concrete, not enough room to turn around. Pigs, in a natural state, would spend 70% of their ‘waking hours exploring their environment, making nests, rooting in the dirt and socializing” In an interview back in 2005. Since she grew up living next to a slaughterhouse, as a child she saw many terrible actions happening with the animals. Through her visual arts, Coe continues to raise the public’s awareness of the abuse of living things till this day. Through Sue’s work she wants to convey the message of what she saw and felt so many off her views can feel the same way and realize the acts behind what really is happening in these meat industries.

 

But behind the people that help stop the cruelty that is happening in the farms would need the governmental bound they have with society. Many other activists help fight the battle between the meat industries through different acts of research. "Factory farming has taken the joy out of the lives of millions of calves and pigs, and billions of hens; it has driven countless family farmers off the land; it has polluted streams and rivers; it has injected massive amounts of antibacterial and other drugs into the public food supply resulting in serious health risks. It has lowered food quality," says Christine Stevens, author of the book Factory Farming, The Experiment That Failed.  Society may not know the real story behind the torture and bad conditions that their meat products come from but this is not only bad for the animals but for the persons health too. If the animal is being tortured by being starved or given steroids then the chances of it showing up in your meat can be a result. In the near future be concerned about the conditions these animals have to sacrifice their lives for. WE can help, and WE can make a change not for ourselves but for the animals that provide us

In a recent rape report, which was put in the news, a teacher sexually assaulted a fourteen-year-old girl. Many of the parents were astonished since the teacher was ‘very popular with the kids’. This incident was not a one-time incident. The girls went on to say that this had been a recurring thing for three consecutive years. How is it that she was able to endure that type of abuse for three years? In retrospect an adult claims, "Whatever they said he did, he didn't do," said another father. "It's just a little kid looking for attention." If a child says they were raped then there is no harm in pursuing the matter. How would that father have felt if that was their child? Many times when a child is raped it is by a close friend, or an actual family member. This in turn tends to have the result of adults not believe the victim. In America, the statistics for rape are astronomical. One of the most unknown rape statistics is that one in ten rape victims is a male. When is comes to rape, a majority of victims are under the age of eighteen.

If children are our future, why do we not listen to them? There are so many children in the world that do not speak out because they are afraid, or even taught, that adults will not listen. The majority of child victims do not tell anyone what was done to them. This leaves the rapist safe, when in reality they should be punished by law. When a child is raped they have a certain amount of time to tell. If they wait too long then the evidence of the incident will be lost.

After a victim gains the ability to voice their assault, it takes time and many methods to heal the battered soul. Many people never fully recover. In a statistic from ‘Rape, Victims, Survivors, and What We Can Do’, ‘Thirty percent of rape victims will contemplate suicide.  Slightly more will seek therapy.  Slightly less will invest in some form of self-defense.  The overwhelming majority, 82%, will tell you that their lives have been permanently changed.’ When it is the case of women many have said ‘The way they view men will be permanently changed as well.’

The percentage of males that are raped in America is three percent. Males tend to be the least likely to report an assault. People’s opinion of the reason differs. Some say it is because they are emasculated. Others feel that men can get over it more quickly, since they are supposed to have a tough way of living. But no matter the gender of the victim or the assailant, this is still a crime worth punishing.

When it comes to rape, the punishment should be harsh. Not only are Rapists taking something precious from a humans being, they are also changing the person. Rape needs to end, people need to speak up against it. Suspected rapist should not be let out on bail, until proved innocent. That gives them a chance to hide, or strike again.

To all the people who have been abused, you are not alone. Every two minutes another female is being sexually assaulted. I tell you this hoping that you will have learned that rape is a major issue in America and listening to a victim, especially children, makes all the difference. Lend a helping hand by lending an open ear. 

 

 

                                ARE THEY REALLY BAD?

 

By: Rondel Calloway

 

Most kids enjoy lounging around spending their free time playing video games. There’s nothing wrong with playing video games. There’s so much you can learn from video games. What you learn might not be positive but your still learning. Who cares that you learned how to steal a car or learned to break into someone’s house.  These are things people think children learn from video games. 

 

People tend to think video games are bad because studies show that prolonged exposure to video games can desensitize people to violence. It also shows that video games can make the players more aggressive towards other people. According to the “Review of Research on the Impact of Violent Computer Games on Young People”, written by Raymond Boyle and Matthew Hibberd in 2002 Robert Steinheaesuer killed 16 people. They think that his actions were influenced by the popular computer game “Counter-Strike.”

 

            Yes this may be a bad thing especially since there are over 36 million gaming consoles in households throughout the United States.  The video game industry makes over 9 billion dollars a year.  This may be true but that doesn’t mean that all the video games are bad. Mary Schlimme says that video games can have a positive effect on children. She also thinks that video games can help improve children ability to solve puzzles and create different solutions to problems. Gaming companies like Leapster help children learn the alphabet and how to read, but it’s not just the PG games that teach kids new things. Assassin’s Creed 2 is rated M for mature that means that there is blood, gore, and possibly suggestive themes. It also takes place in Italy and it indirectly gives the player a history lesson about the famous artists that lived back in the 15^th century.  Another point she makes is that playing video games comes with two major cons.

 

The first is the player becomes less socially active and they become too attached to their gaming console. The second con is that the gaming console becomes a source of addiction. By playing the player then gets an emotional high aka an adrenaline rush. So the player continues to play so they can experience this emotional rush. These may be two major drawbacks but Mary Schlimme still thinks that the pros of video games still out weigh the cons. Video games are not the source of violence in a teenager’s life.

 

When the Virginia Tech Massacre happened there was no sign that Seung-Hui Chao was influenced by video games. In 2004 there were 1,972 video games released, there were also 1,423,677 crimes committed by teenagers. In 2005 there were 2,089 games released, there was 1,360,088 crimes committed by teenagers.  With the rapid growth of video games in the United States teenagers are becoming more involved with them.  They might be the reason why the number of crimes that were committed by teenagers has decreased from 2004-05.  Ultimately video games can be the reason why the player is in the house playing the game instead of doing something that could ruin his/her life.

 

 

 

​3/29

Welp I forgot to post yesterday so whatever. But the progress that I a making is pretty cool. I'm not rushing to do it because I have a setup and I know that it will only take a atter of three days to do. I think I'll tart the tweets sometime next week.

3/30

God help me. I have & minutes to finish my history benchmark.

“She bashed my head into the bathroom sink. I have fifteen stitches on my forehead because of it. All because she thought I disliked her.” -Anonymous Philadelphia School District Student 

The reasons why our youth drop out of high school is because 57% of our students believe it’s the lack of discipline in the high schools. But why care that some students are dropping out of high school? Our dropout rate makes not only Philadelphia appear as a bad place to live as a whole, but it puts the future in jeopardy for much of the city. When youth drop out of school, their problems don’t go away.  About 52% of those reasons were out-of-school related problems. That means that the communities that surround the school influence their determination to remain in school. Many of the big high schools have kids that feed from their school in more than a suitable walking distance. That means along the way, there is bound to be violence with so many kids in one area. Going to a large school also means that the kids may not know each other very well. That could be a threat to anyone. 

Here's my 3rd quarter benchmark website.

My two countries were Ethiopia and Chad. Ethiopia is a poor country facing many problems such as famine, poverty, and drought. It located in North Africa. Chad is a poor country as well and deals with similar problems such as poverty, drought, and war.  It is located in Sub-Saharan Africa.

I did a lot of research which it was difficult for me this time around. Sometimes I had toruble finding sources of information relating to the countries five point framework today. Many of my sources talked about either hostile neighbors and friendly trade partners in previous years rather than in the present year. My other problem consist of the exact opposite. I found various the websites that had all this information on environmental problems and climate change for both countries. I had so many sites and information I was overwhelmed and struggled in grasping the important information.  I even faced the problem of deciding where to use my sources for the climate change and environmental damage, but int he end I kind of combined the two sources (without repeating myself) since climate change caused environmental problems. After I had all my information organizing it was quite simple but then I had to give each country a rating, which I also had some trouble doing. After I rated my countries "collapse'ibility", I then had people overview my website and check to see if I gave an accurate rating. Overall, the whole process was difficult for me. Finding sources was problem, the overload of information was difficult, and rating the collapse'ibility of my countries.

It was difficult to find information on hostile neighbors for both Chad and Ethiopia. Both countries have had huge wars in the past between neighboring countries, but it was difficult to find news sources discussing their relations with those countries they have now.

If I could change one thing I would compare two different countries. I felt liek Chad and Ethiopia were to similar to each other based on the five point framework and I would have liked to have compare countries that deeply contrast from one another. Sometimes I felt like I was reading the same thing for research on both my countries.

I think this project could have more exciting.

The state should illegalized marijuana permanently due to the fact of the percentage rate of students drop out. What is marijuana? It is a weed that came from the Cannabis saliva plant. It contains more than 400 chemicals. 39.8 percent of the United State population has tried marijuana once in their life. Many people tried this drug because it's supposed be considered the "safe" drug, which is not true. It actually has a lot of effect on a human body.

It can create short-term memory and reduce the ability to do certain actions like driving around. THC is also one of the main ingredients. It affects the brain the most because the brain binds to work with Cannabis receptors. The receptors control your memory, thought, concentration, and other parts.

 When a person smokes marijuana, they tend to lose themselves. This drug mainly affects the young generations. The more they do it, the more they enjoy it. The more they enjoy it, the more they want to smoke and only smoke. Meaning that they lose interest in school and other hobbies.

 Studies show that young people, who use marijuana regularly, lose interest in schooling. It affects their learning in all subjects. They can't seem to remember things when they are high. This is probably why teens drop out of school often.

 If you think about it, young people do drugs because they think it's cool or because they are stressed out about something; mainly school and families. They feel as though that marijuana can help them unwind but at the end of the day, the problem is still there. You can escape from a situation for about a night, but when you wake up in the morning, it's still there. 

 Peers influence a mass amount of these young teens in their actions. Their peers usually peer pressure them into doing smoking. Some teens know that it's wrong but still do it because it's what’s considered "cool."

 This is probably why teens drop out of school often. I feel as though that the school district does not keep the kids motivated to learn so they can care less. In this case, the kids turn to drugs to pass the time.

 In the year of 2007, 18.8 percent of seniors used marijuana. Some seniors at that stage don't really care for school because it's there last year and they don't need to do anything so they might as well have fun. With that decision made, it can affect their future with college. Getting into a good college is harder than ever these days. Most community colleges and universities will look beyond the grades and check all of your high school student records. A history of drug use, possession, and buying, or selling drugs may kill your chances of getting into the college or university of your choice.

 Study shows that if a person smokes five joints a day can get cancer. Not only that, but if you're a pregnant and you smoke marijuana constantly, it can damage your baby's health. It will mainly cause more pain for your child than you.

 Marijuana can damage our emotions. It can make you laugh one minute and then make you depressed the next. What these people don't realize is that the decisions they make, affect their surroundings.

 For a pregnant woman, her decision to smoke marijuana affects her baby. For a teen, his/her decision affects his/her future and friends. Once you make that one decision, you can’t go back to it.

 

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​“Since When Is It Okay?”

 

     At an elementary school a teacher had taken a girl’s hair and cut one of the braids. She cut the braid because the girl was playing with it. At another school a teacher kicked out her student because of the kind of hair product she had in her hair. The girl was mixed with black and white and was the only colored child in the class; the teacher was white. She kicked the girl into the hallway and then told her to go to another class were it was all black students. The parents were mad about the whole thing because the teacher didn’t take it up with the parents.

            Women have started to have a big eating disorder. About 5-10 million girls in the USA suffer from an eating disorder. One girl name Jade Hughes had a problem with this and was diagnosed with chronic anorexia. She played soccer from elementary to high school was always in shape, was only 120 pounds and 5”4. She was never over weight but because of what people told her she wanted to be in charge of something in her life. She took control of her eating, the only thing she had control over. She had to eventually go to the hospital and got therapy to help her and try to go back to were she was because she had to drop down to 80 pounds.

            Women have had a problem lately with being disrespected, frowned upon, and so many other things. Media has become a big factor in why women are looked down on as if they can’t be equal to a male. The music today is all about a girl shaking her butt to a beat and men being put over top of the women. Music went being about the music and something new in life to be about “money, trappin, and hoes.” On Kanye West new CD album he has a picture of a naked white women on top of a black men. Men and women have lost respect for each other they don’t have the same values as people did when back in the 80’s and early 90’s.

            When did it become okay for a man to down grade a woman? When did it become okay for girls to call each other out of name and laugh about it as if it was nothing?  These are the questions I ask when I see a women being disrespected by a man who doesn’t even deserve her. These are the types of questions I ask when I walk through the hallways in a high school and see boys cursing girls out like its nothing. Or when I see a boy trying to act like they all big and bad. Why sit there and take that type of disrespect and just laugh about it, it shows what type of women you are when you let that stuff slide. 

            As women we should be treated as royalty. Not for the simple fact that we should but we are what keep the world growing. Women need to step up and not take the disrespect that we have already endured enough. We fought for so long to have the same right as a man but in the end we let them walk all over us. It’s time for women to be treated like a women and not a dog. It’s time for change.

This is my 3rd quarter benchmark. I did a compare and contrast between Belize vs. Japan. 

Reflection

The countries I picked were Japan and Belize. Japan is located in East Asia and recently had a tsunami and an earthquake. It is one of the technologies driven country in the world but this disaster has severely damaged them. The Belize is located in Central America. Belize has been dealing with a lot of environmental damages with deforestation and also extreme climate changes with hurricanes.

      For my benchmark, I did a compare and contrast with Japan and Belize, and also individually gave them a ranking for 5 different categories. When I first started, I did Japan first because the tsunami was so recent, and it was easy to get information about their environment and how their society is dealing with the environment. But for climate change, it was hard for me to do that because I didn’t know if a tsunami could be considered a climate change, so I kicked that to the side and looked at climate changes from the 1990’s up to 2010. Other than that, I think Japan was interesting to do since I got to learn about the deeper aspects of how they are dealing with their current situation. Belize wasn’t that hard for me to find information because when I looked up climate change on google, it automatically went to hurricanes in Central America and also I found out that Belize’s neighbors were their friendly trade partners, so it was easy deciding on hostile neighbors ranking.

Environmental damage for Belize and Japan was easy to figure out since a lot of their environmental damages was either recent, or going on for a long time. Climate change for Belize was easy for me to find, but Japan’s was harder for me because I was looking at the current times and didn’t know if a tsunami was considered to start from climate change, so I had to look at the climate change from the 1990’s to 2010 and found that the climate changes went up the roof from long ago. Hostile neighbors were also pretty easy for me because Belize’s neighbors were their friendly trade partners and for Japan, it was mainly surrounded by water and their neighbors were their friendly trade partners besides North Korea. Friendly trade partners for Japan was easy for me because Japan is known as one of the most technology driven countries in the world so it was likely they had a lot of trade partners who were interested in their items and technology. For Belize, it was kind of easy also because they seemed to like to do local trades with the countries around them. Last was society’s response to their environmental damage, which was a little easy. Because Japan’s situation wasn’t so long ago, it was easy to find news reports of how Japan is dealing with their situation, then for Belize, I had to look in deeper to see how they were fixing their environment and found out that environmental rebuilding was a part of the school’s curricular.

If I could change one thing about my product, I think I would of picked maybe better pictures or wrote more words because I think I don’t have enough words but also I didn’t want my project to be mainly words, I wanted the pictures to convey what was going on around the world.

This project was really fun because I got to know more about other countries and see how they are dealing with their society compared to how we deal with ours when in the same situation.

I made a website. Here it is.

​                   Who will cry for them?

           When growing up men are told two things; “never show emotions it makes you seem weak and never lay your hands on a women.” Those two rules ruins the way men are looked at in society and doesn’t preserve their rights as human beings. For ages women have fought for rights, only to throw them away by playing victim.  There is an epidemic that is sweeping the world and destroying cultures based on how women should carry themselves and how men should be presented in society. 

 

            When growing up in school people hear about not having a good report with their father or not knowing them at all, the justification usually heard is “he let after the he found out my mom was pregnant.” Women always tend to victimize themselves. Unless the sex wasn’t consensual then the women had the choice to wear a condom or protect her self and preserve her future the best way she could. 

 

            Women usually put themselves in a situation where they can play victim.  In some cases women will deliberately poke holes in condoms, hoping being pregnant will keep the guy around.  When Hilary Clinton was running for president in 2008 she was bashed with cartoons that held negative connotations regarding women and their status in society, during that process many women around the world were outraged. Yet everyday women degrade themselves and put themselves in harmful situations that they can prevent and/or stand up to.

 

            An incident that occurred February 25th is a perfect example of how women put themselves in a predicament that will do harm. In Manhattan, New York a man was in his car trying to find a parking space, he seen a women who was standing on the driver side of her car, he assumed she was pulling out of the space. He then waited and she refused to move from the space they began to argue, he got out of his car and she then decided to hit him repeatedly. He hit her one time to defend him self she fell to the ground, hit her head, she was then in a coma.

 

            In this situation there were blog posts from many different places that bashed that mans character. It said things like “It doesn’t matter that she hit him, a man has no right to hit her back.” Women wrote the majority of the quotes that shows how much they want to be pitied. If a women acts like a man and does bodily harm to a man then he has the right to do the same. The most degrading thing a woman could do to herself is playing the victim in a situation that could destroy another person’s life.

 

            There is a difference between abusing someone and a person defending themselves. Society tends to draw a vague line between what the borders are for being a women and being a man are.  There is no vague line between being a human there is no excuse for why men shouldn’t be able to defend themselves if someone does physical harm to them.

 

            These two rules: “never show emotions, it makes you seem weak and never lay your hands on a women.” Should be the most insulting thing to a women and the thing men should want to change most in order to be considered equal to one another and human. 

My ipod has been officially taken over.

First, I would like to address the work I have done so far for my benchmark: I have created my character's Tumblr and sent out my first few posts. Next, I would like to discuss how terribly difficult it was to stop after completing the aforementioned tasks. Tumblr is so terribly interesting! I set aside a half hour to complete the work on my benchmark because I thought the registering and posting would take all of ten minutes with the most time consuming portion her blog's creation being character appropriate decorating or customizing (to use the Tumblr lingo.) However, by the time I had logged off her account, a good hour had passed. I just wanted to keep posting! I wanted to pick a favorite book for her, a favorite movie, a favorite weekday dessert, a favorite place. So I did, condoning my actions with pointing out that had she really just created this account she would have been as over zealous as I was. What I neglected to note is that I had known this would happen and had built such excitement into the timeline. Tomorrow was the day I was supposed to go buckwild on the site, posting each menial thought and seemingly inconsequential like or dislike.  Oh the horror! I had deviated from the timeline on the first day! Wishing to return to the clearly laid path, I took down everything I posted excepting the first post and saved it in a word document making my deviation preparation. In summation, I think things are going well for my benchmark. ​

First, I would like to address the work I have done so far for my benchmark: I have created my character's Tumblr and sent out my first few posts. Next, I would like to discuss how terribly difficult it was to stop after completing the aforementioned tasks. Tumblr is so terribly interesting! I set aside a half hour to complete the work on my benchmark because I thought the registering and posting would take all of ten minutes with the most time consuming portion her blog's creation being character appropriate decorating or customizing (to use the Tumblr lingo.) However, by the time I had logged off her account, a good hour had passed. I just wanted to keep posting! I wanted to pick a favorite book for her, a favorite movie, a favorite weekday dessert, a favorite place. So I did, condoning my actions with pointing out that had she really just created this account she would have been as over zealous as I was. What I neglected to note is that I had known this would happen and had built such excitement into the timeline. Tomorrow was the day I was supposed to go buckwild on the site, posting each menial thought and seemingly inconsequential like or dislike.  Oh the horror! I had deviated from the timeline on the first day! Wishing to return to the clearly laid path, I took down everything I posted excepting the first post and saved it in a word document making my deviation preparation. In summation, I think things are going well for my benchmark.

So far I've created the four twitters I needed for my four characters in my story. The more I think about my story, the more I had to it's storyline which is bringing in more characters. Since I'm bringing in more characters, I may have to create at least 2 more twitter profiles. I've decided that I'm going to tweet what my characters are doing a day prior to when my actual story begins. So readers can have a little bit more knowledge about the characters. By 4/8 (the check-in) I plan to have told much of my story through twitter, the only details in my story that won't be in the tweets are what I'm currently still adding to the story. 

I always had trouble in terms of organization, that’s why I decided to created a detail timeline of tasks. I will be using Facebook, and the Notes tool as a Diary for my character. I will start posting by 4/5 and my story will be ending 4/30.  I feel like I have a really good picture of what my face should look like by the end of April. I’m still trying to figure out how to let my audience know what’s going on without telling them too much information. So far, everything is working great with the exception that I will need to find pictures for my facebook page.

 

I am on top of everything so far for my benchmark. My timeline is complete, my twitter account is created and there are several posts up from my character. I have even found different ways to show my characters feelings and emotions and her individuality. I am only struggling with how to speed up the time it takes for me to tell my story, I think I may cut some of it out. I changed my initial plans on creating a facebook, for each character, I felt like the twitter would be easier for my character to tell her story. People on facebook have too many opportunities to ask too many questions, which would make my character seem too weird and secretive. My project is coming alone really well. I am going to continue working on my posts but hopefully by Monday I will get deeper into my story.

Weirdness marked the beginning of today's game between SLA and Simon Gratz. There wasn't a field at the address listed for Gratz. Once the closest one was found, eyes fell upon an infield as hard as rock and completely devoid of anything remotely resembling grass. Gratz showed up shortly after SLA arrived and their coach Zip informed that someone stole the rubber from the mound. Moments later an umpire who thought Gratz was Strawberry Mansion realized that he was at the wrong slab of concrete a.k.a. baseball field, but couldn't leave because he unfortunately was stranded with a flat tire, didn't have a spare or a jack, and it's questionable as to whether Strawberry played today as a result.

Given the bizarre start to the day, SLA squared off against Gratz in what turned into a classic tit-for-tat grudge match. SLA scratched out three runs in the first off of timely hitting and heads-up base running, but Gratz responded with two of their own against Jeff Schwartz, who got the start after an impressive relief appearance against Comm Tech. When Gratz's pitcher, Lopez, ripped a double and stole third it seemed as if they would tie it up and potentially take the lead, but Schwartz induced their six-hitter to pop up and strand the runner.

Schwartz and Lopez squared off and held their respective opponents scoreless in the second, and each gave up solitary runs in the third to keep it tight. SLA put Brandon Williams, who started against Comm Tech, back out to face the top of the order in the fourth after they had extended the lead to 6-3 on back-to-back run-scoring singles by Schwartz and John Desalis. The second half of the inning proved to be the most tense of the match as Williams maintained SLA's lead when Ian McClendon turned an unassisted double play, and Desalis threw out Gratz's lead off hitter trying to steal third.

Heading into the fifth it seemed that this contest would go the distance, and the only thing that seemed certain was the game would turn on the last team to score a single run. However, Gratz's coach decided to stay with Lopez for a fifth inning and SLA made him pay for the gamble. Jhonas Dunakin, who came in to play second after Williams took the mound, ripped a shot into the gap for a strong single, which was followed by Ethan Reese's single, and both came home minutes later when Anthony Seeley's lengthy at bat ended with a shot up the middle. Marshall Johnston crushed the next pitch into left center and Seeley ended up on third. Ian McClendon, who had been a standout star against Comm Tech, erased his early struggles at the plate by crushing a ball over the left fielder's head. By the time the relay had reached the infield, McClendon had already crossed home for SLA's first home run and McClendon's 5th,6th and 7th RBIs of the young season.

Suddenly a nail-biter had transformed into a blow out. Gratz couldn't stop the bleeding as SLA extended their 11-5 lead on consecutive singles by Schwartz, Desalis, Williams, Dunakin, Reese and Seeley, which bumped it up to 14-5. For Gratz, the unthinkable was unfolding as McClendon, who cracked the 3-run homer in the very same inning, came up with the bases loaded. After falling behind in the count Lopez floated one high in the zone and McClendon sent it up the middle and added two more to his 5RBI total for the inning. Schwartz popped up to end the inning and place SLA just three outs away from a win by account of the 10-run rule.

Williams took the mound to lock it down by keeping Gratz from scoring more than one run to earn the most unlikeliest of saves. Gratz's hottest hitter ripped a grounder to the left side just past Seeley, but McClendon backed him up and made a perfect throw to catch him by a step. Williams struck out the next batter and was one out away from a 1-2-3 inning and SLA's second win in two tries. After a feisty at bat, Williams induced a weak grounder to second that Ethan Reese easily tossed to TJ Nicolella for the final out.

Sandwiched somewhere in between the initial weirdness of concrete infields, missing pitching rubbers, absent-minded umpires with flat tires and a final inning that resembled a a football game, was a tremendously exciting and competitive game of baseball between two teams that most definitely wish they would face off again before the season ends. With an impressive win SLA goes to 2-0 on the season, while Gratz falls in their first contest of 2011. SLA's next game is away on Thursday vs. host Delaware Valley Charter.

SCORE CARD BY INNING:
TEAMS:  1  2 3 4  5    R    H  E
SLA         3  0 1 2 10    16 14  2
Gratz       2  0 1 2  0      5   5  1

PITCHING:                     
SLA                                 IP   K BB H R ER
Schwartz, Jeff  WP (2-0)    3   4    3  2 3  2
Williams, Brandon SV (1)   2   2    2  2 2  1

GRATZ                            IP   K BB H  R  ER
Peialla, P  LP (0-1)           4.1  9   7  12 16 13      
Brown, B                        0.2  1   3    2   0  0                          

OFFENSIVE STARS OF GAME: (ALL SLA)
McClendon, Ian   2-5, 3HR(1), 5RBI, 3R
Seeley, Anthony  2-3, 3RBI, 2R, 2BB, 3SB
Desalis, John      2-2, 2RBI, 1R, 2BB, 5SB
Schwartz, Jeff     4-5, 2RBI, 4R, 6SB

Well I'm going to be honest I am probably behind most for my benchmark. I have created my tumblr account but that is really about it. I plan to have things really moving no later then friday. I didn't write anything yet o  my blog. But sometimes I wonder is tumblr the right thing to use because at school I am not able to access it in school and with my story I need to post somethings during those times. I feel like after I really get things started I will feel really good about the project and it will be a really nice one. So I will continue to motivate myself so that I can receive a good grade for this project.