A Sign of the "Times"

This week in the Times there were a lot of interesting stories, as usual, and I read a lot of them. The following, however, are the ones that stood out or effected me the most.

Monday- Today I read a story about the United States boycott of the United Nations conference on racism. According to the article, the boycott came after it was decided that this conference would just be a repeat of the first one eight years ago where critics say the meeting was used as a platform to bash Isreal. While U.S. groups in support of Isreal are very happy with the decision to boycott the conference, a lot of civil rights and African-American groups are very upset with the United States' boycott.

This story really caught my eye because I just think it is very sad that the world cannot come together as one to try and discuss racism, a prominent issue in the world today. It is unfortunate that people would use this meeting to talk about issues in the Middle East, and lose focus, and key members of the United Nations, in the process.

Tuesday- Today I read a story that truly shocked me. It was about how the Chinese government is trying to get millions of Chinese citizens to change their names. According to the article, the name changes come after the Chinese government decided to change the ID cards that every citizen must carry with them. These new cards would be embedded with a chip that would be read by a computer, and these computers cannot read some of the more obscure symbols of the Chinese language. It is for this reason that the government wants some citizens to change their names.

I thought that this story was just rediculous, and it really made me realize what it would be like to live in a communist country like China. I cannot believe that, first of all, Chinese people need to carry an ID card with them everywhere (not just to drive a car), and it made me even more surprised to hear that the government might try to control what characters/symbols a person can use when naming their child.

Wednesday- Today I read an article about Philip Markoff, the Craigslist killer, who went to BU Medical School and who supposedly killed one woman and robbed another. This story really caught my eye for several reasons- one, the close proximity, two, I know several people who live in Boston and even go to BU, and three, he seemed so normal. This was a kid who was engaged and an honor student and who had plenty of friends who never saw who he really was. This really made me think about just how many criminals probably seem like really nice, normal people and it kind of scared me.

Thursday- Today I read a story online about how the U.S. Treasury Department is preparing for Chrysler to file for bankruptcy. This would be the first automaker to file for bankruptcy and would hurt tons of lenders who hold $6.9 billion of the company's debt. The article also said that G.M. could also be filing for bankruptcy soon.

This article really stood out to me mainly because it is just another sign of how bad the economy is right now and how much it is effecting even the biggest companies. This really worried me since if big companies like Chrysler are filing for bankruptcy, I don't see how smaller companies and recent college graduates can really survive in this economy. It kind of makes me wish I didn't have to go out into the real world someday.