Asthma Control in the Twin Cities

I read an article in the Pioneer Press about students in Minneapolis and St Paul schools with asthma. Students as young as five are learning how to better manage their asthma. This article initially sparked my attention because I too, have asthma. Suzanne Sobotka, the author of this article, informs the reader that this chronic condition affects Minneapolis schools at a high rate of twelve percent and St Paul schools with ten and one half percent. The school nurse at the Mississippi Creative Arts Magnet School, states that initiating a healthy learner progam to young students can be done with other chronic conditions, but since so many students have asthma, that is the condition they're started with. The program invovles more parent-nurse relationship and managment techniques that are easy to understand.
By establishing a better parent-nurse relationship, the nurse knows what the student's asthma symptoms are doing at home. It is also helpful that this information is coming from the parents, especially in cases where the students are in third grade and lower because it results in more straight forward and true answers. Managment techniques that are introduced to the students include different "zones." The green zone means that asthma symptoms won't be troubling, the yellow zone means to take caution, and the red zone means that students are more than likely to need medication.
Personally, I think that this is a great way to teach children, especially at a young age, what signs to look for. I am sure that I didn't know what particular activities would cause me to have worse days then others and I think that it would have been very helpful. I also like the fact that the school nurse is so involved with this program. I can remember feeling bothersome every time I went to see the school nurse at my elementary school. I felt like she never cared. I'm sure many other students (particularily the ones that attended my elementary school) felt the same, which is very disheartening because this means that they too felt too intimidated to go see the school nurse. I was very happy to see that the twin cities is taking a step in the right direction with teaching young children how to manage their asthma.

Asthma Control in the Twin Cities

Downloading Music

On October 5, 2007, I read an article in the Star Tribune about a woman who got caught violating copyright laws by sharing downloaded music files online. Jammie Thomas, from Brainerd, MN used the program Kazaa to download and share music files. She is now being asked to pay $220,000 to six recording companies in the country. This case sounds very normal to many internet users, however it’s the first of these situations to go as far as reaching the federal court system. The jury justified their actions by stating the fact that the law is clear to Americans, as well as the fines. This particular case seems almost outrageous, as the article states that on one February night, Thomas was recorded as sharing 1,700 songs to the 2.3 million Kazaa users who were signed on at that time. That is an extraordinary large amount of songs.

Jammie Thomas denies the actions of which she’s accused of but there are a number of things proving that she’s guilty. One piece of obvious evidence is that her user name on Kazaa was the same as many of her emails and various accounts at other websites. Another is that her hard drive, which was sent in as evidence, proved to be a new model, giving off the impression that she rushed out to purchase one in a panic stricken state.

I think that this article could scare a lot of people who download music. The law is a fact, as are the fines. I do think, however, that unless a case is this bad and this blatantly obvious that action should be taken. Otherwise I think that it would probably be a waste of time and money to go after those who download music, seeing as how the percentage of people who do in today’s world is so large. The way that Larry Oakes wrote this article will give this case a much more threatening effect. I think if I had been reading this article as a person who does download music, I would be much more nervous. My opinion on the entire subject is that if you like a band you should buy their albums because in doing so, you’re helping them out. On the other hand, I do think that artists who are filthy rich (for instance, Usher) should have their music available to download.