Please find a fairly recent article (within the past year) that describes a tragedy that a person or group of people have faced.
On this blog, please do the following:
First, please offer a brief summary of your article (3-5 sentences).
Second, comment on whether or not you think this person had control over this tragedy--did this happen by choice or by chance? Explain your thinking.
Third, please read over the comments on this post and respond to the following question:Which is the greater tragedy--one that happens because of a bad choice, or the one that happens by random chance? Explain your thinking.
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In jupiter Florida (my home town) on thanksgiving this year a family invited over the wife's crazy brother to see their family and meet their 6 year old daughter. The family's daughter was a very nice and gifter young girl who danced and sung for the family. As the dinner ended the girl went to bed and when the family was talking the crazy brother took out a gun and shot his mom and his wife's 2 tween daughters who were in their twentys, and one daughter was pregnant. The husband helped to save his wifes dad and his wife but he forgot about his six year old daughter sleeping. The husband tried to break into her window but could not and had to witness his crazy brother in law shoot the six year old five times. Now the brother is hiding and no one has found him.
ReplyDeleteI think this tragedy happened by chance because the family had no control over what had happened because they had no idea that he would kill everyone.
I think one that happend by bad choice because they would feel so bad that they could have stopped it from happening but they didnt.
My article I chose was about an Elizabeth firefighter that was killed by a fire truck! Ironic huh? The firefighter arrived on the scene of a blazing neighborhood house and he got out of the truck to guide the fire-truck back close to a fire hydrant. The man driving the truck was distracted for only a couple seconds and ran right over the firefighter. He was pronounced dead several hours later.
ReplyDeleteI think he could've had control of what happened. A lot of things went wrong to make this tragedy happen, meaning something could've been stopped. First, the firefighter guiding the truck was not looking in the direction of the approaching truck witch is a big problem in the first place. Also, the driver of the fire-truck could've been focused while driving such a enormous truck.
I think that the worse is by a bad choice. The concept of knowing there is a chance it would not have happened if you wouldn't have done whatever happened. The guilt is terrible and can haunt you forever. However, random chance is just as bad in a way because usually whatever happens is to someone innocent. An example is a robber is running and the cops are persuing and you happen to be going down the alley he is running down, out of pure rage and adrenaline he shoots you to make sure you are no obstacle, that is random chance and it is sad that a perfectly innocent person is now dead.
my story is about a man and his wife were driving to their childs soccer game when a man mowing his lawn hit a rock with the blade of the lawnmower the blade flew into the air directly into the path of the man and his wife in the car. The blade impaled the man in the neck pinning him to the seat of the car. The man died obviosly.
ReplyDeleteThis man had absolutely no control of this final destination like death. The chances of the mower blade breaking at that exact moment and even then, flying through the air and impaling him in a moving vehicle are slim to none.
I think the greater tragedy is one that is caused by a bad choice. I say this because tragedys that are caused by someones actions can be more dangerous and grave.
Well this is a thing I read sometime like a year or two ago so this is all in memory so correct me if i'm wrong well there was a man who was drinking and he we was drunk so he thought he should go try to shoot out the street lights (by the way this was at night) well anyway trying to shoot at it he misses and goes through a bedroom window well at the time a mom was hugging her daugther before she went to bed well what happen is that the bullet went through the daugter and killed the daugter and just wonded the mom a little just a scratch though
ReplyDeleteso I think thats pretty messed up there was no way she could of stopped her daugter from dieing like unless you look at it a different direction such as she should of let the daugter go to bed early or late but I believe she had no control over it
I think that the cody's K blog was really kinda of ironic since the firefighter died from stuff she is soposed to protect people
by;me
There are many storys of unfortuanate events that have occured over the past year. Many familys have lost loved ones due to teens and texting. There was a familt of four, two kids, a mon and dad. They were going to their house after being with their famly that lived out of city. There was a group of four teenagers in a little white car. The teenagers texting drifted over the dotted line on a rural highway and smashed into the family of fours car. There were few surviors, the mom and dad in the family, and the two teenagers in the back seat of the car.
ReplyDeleteThe teenagers in the car had no control over the girl driving and texting, they could have changed the outcome if they would have stopped her. But i think this all happened by chance that the family was driving down the empty highway and just happened to be sturck by the teenagers car.
The greater tradiy is one that happens by choice, the teenagers could have chosen to not text and drive but they did, resulting in the deaths of four people; two of which never even had their fifth birthday. This event was completley avoidable, but nobody could have seen it comming
Over the past year there have been many tragedies and many have effect on a group of people, but what what about the kind of tragedies that affect nation. I am talking about the death of the U.S. Automotive industry and Wall street. This tragedy affected many people, whether they lost their jobs or their retirement plans and in effect some of those people lost their houses. Now another effect that happened at the U.S. treasury was that Wall Street decided to heist the American people for one last time and decided to give bailouts to "preferred" banks, with the help from a former head of one of the biggest banks to date, "goldman sachs"(funny name). They where the ones responsible for what happened to Wall Street and to get back to the Automotive Industry, they decided to fire thousands of employees just for immediate profits and what the worst part is that they have done it before. (sources by:Michael Moore Capitalism: A Love Story)
ReplyDeleteThe people on Wall street from goldman sachs had control of what happened and they did it by choice. They did all this because they wanted money right now and not for the common wealth of the American worker. Just look at the Auto industry in japan in Germany, it was easy for the companies in the last century, mainly because it was easy to be number one when your main competition has been made into dirt and even though they all wanted bailouts for the big companies but they all forgot about the one true victim, and that is American Capitalism they brought it down and compared to the cold war age only 36% of Americans preferred Democracy to socialism.
I think that the worst tragedy is the one that is made by choice because if you make a choice about something that you know is a bad choice then you deserve to get what you get.I agree with Hunter Cody's blog was ironic but what could also be ironic is if the firehouse was burnt down by fire.
I really couldn't find any good articles but I do remember a story a while back about a kid named Larry King who was an openly gay 8th grader and was murdered at school by a fellow classmate. The reason at first was that it was solely because he was gay and the other other kid who killed him hated the fact that Larry wanted to be his valentine. Later though it came out that Larry was so flamboyant that at times he annoyed many other kids quite a bit and these kids probably didn't have a problem with him being gay. I am not condoning his murder in any sort of way but this story has two sides. Some will look at it like he was killed for just being gay. Which is a large part of it and it is very tragic. But on the other hand, he was harassing many other kids in the school; almost like a bully would. There is nothing wrong with being gay but not everyone is, So I can see how some kids would get annoyed if he kept hitting on them or bothering them and being as flamboyant as he was. In the end I think Larry did have some control over the way he had died. If he kept to himself more and maybe didn't try to get so much attention for being gay and didn't harass anyone a tragic thing like this would not have happened. It really never had to happen at all. Killing someone or anyone for that matter is never right. As far as which tragedy is worse, one that can be avoided or one that is purely accidental, I think an unavoidable tragedy is the worst. When someone is addicted to drugs their whole life and dies of an overdose, I really have little sympathy. They did it to themselves. But if someone gets killed in freak accident, of course that is awful.
ReplyDeleteMy article was about three British students was killed in a head on car crash returning from Gap-year trip in South Africa. What happend was the three students was trying to pass a car on a narrow road when the other car ran into the students car. Before the crash the students were set out for a round world trip that goes to South Africa, Thailand, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand and the U.S.
ReplyDeleteThis tragedy should had been controlled if the students paid attetion to the road or the other driver should of paid attention depending on who's fault.
The greater tragedy is making a bad choice because somone making a bad choice shows that they were careless that resulted in a tragedy making them at fault. If it was a random chance no one is at fault which would resulted into no one blaming the other. As if someone was the blame the parents, family members, and friends would never move on because they would always argue and never move on.
On the evening of May of 1999, 21 year old Jessica Lishinski was skating along the shores of Lake Superior with her best friend. Jessica was an experienced skater but something went very wrong that evening. She missed a sharp curve on the windy Duluth Lakewalk Path, skated off the edge of a cliff, and fell 30 feet onto the sharp rocks below. She died immediately of a traumatic brain injury.
ReplyDeleteThis tragedy happened by chance. Very unlucky chance. This tragedy could not have been stopped at the time it happened. If there were guard rails, then maybe she wuold have lived, but those were not there at the time so it could not have been prevented.
The tragedy that happens by bad choice is the greater tragedy. Not only does the person who made the bad choice have a scar on their heart and mind but they are scarred for life. It also effects whoever the person that died was close to. The person's closest friends or family are effected by one person's bad choice. At the same time, a random tragedy is also very "tragic". These can be worse on the people close to the victims because there is no reason why the tragedy happened to them.
I agree with Cody; how he says that you know that you could have prevented it but did it anyway. How would that make you feel? Unless you are a crazy lunatic, I think it would make you feel pretty darn crappy.
Brittany Murphy was an actress, 32, she died after collapsing in the shower in HollyWood Hills. Brittany Murphy's autopsy stated that she died of natural causes. She stared in movies such as 8 mile and clueless. She wasn't a very well known actress, but she was on the verge of becoming a well known actress.
ReplyDeleteShe didn't have any control over her death because, she died of natural causes. her time on earth was over and there's nothing you can do when your time is up.
All tragedies are sad, but I believe that the saddest are the tragedies caused by bad choices. these are the worst because it could have been avoided if the individual would have made the correct choices in life.
My Tragedy is about the Lofgren family killed in mid November of 2008. The whole thing was a fluke, one of the pipes or something along that line was broken in the Aspen Mansion they were staying in. The whole family was killed due to a carbon monoxide leak.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that the family had any control over this tragedy, how were they suppose to know that there was a CO(carbon monoxide) leak when CO is nearly undetectable except to machines designed for such purposes? So this tragedy is due to chance in my book.
I believe that tragedies that happen based on one individuals bad decision are more tragic because they could have been controlled in more preemptive stages of the initiates life. Not saying that random tragedies aren't devastating or important i just feel that those based off of a bad decision are more powerful and effective to a community, family, or person.
Amalia P. Santana-Lopez was on her way home when a drunk driver came out of nowhere and hit her. The drunk driver was in a Chevrolet Blazer and Santana Lopez was in a much smaller Ford escort. The driver of the Blazer survived the crash while the woman in the escort was dead a short time after the crash. The woman who survived faces the possible charges of DUI, vehicular homicide, careless driving resulting in death and, driving with a suspended license.
ReplyDeleteAmalia P. Santana-Lopez had no chance to prevent what happened to her from happening. On the other hand the other women could have chose not to drink and drive but decided that she would anyway and it ended up costing someone their life.
This tragedy came from a bad choice that one person made that ended up costing another person their life. The saddest tragedies are the ones that could have been prevented by a single thought, but this person didn't make the right choice and ended up killing someone.
Fire Authorities in California found a corpse in a burned-out section of forest while assessing the damage done by a forest fire in the Los Padres National Forest. The deceased male was dressed in a full wet suit, complete with a dive tank, flippers, and face mask. A post mortem examination revealed that the person died not from burns but from massive internal injuries.
ReplyDeleteDental records provided a positive identification of Henry Williams from nearby Santa Barbara. Investigators then set about determining how a fully-clad diver ended up in the middle of a forest fire.
It was revealed that, on the day of the fire, Mr. Williams went for a diving trip off the Pacific coast - some 20 miles away from the forest. At the same time, firefighters seeking to control the fire as quickly as possible had called in a fleet of helicopters with very large buckets.
The buckets were dropped into the ocean for rapid filling, then flown to the forest fire and emptied. Apparently one helicopter, against regulations, fetched its water too close to the shoreline.
This tragedy could have been prevented if the helicopter pilot had followed the rules. The diver had no control over what happened to him. I think that tragedies occur when forces out of ones control cause someone to be killed.
Tiger Woods chaeated on his wife with several women and faces a rough break up, lost contracts with AT$T and many more worth millions. His reputation is now tarnished. Tiger's golf game has also suffered, he hasn't played in any recent practices and we don't know if he'll go back to his golf carreer.
ReplyDeleteTiger had control over this tragedy. He had several affairs with around ten women. He did do a very bad thing, but I think he has been punished too much and has suffered a great deal.
It depends on how severe the tragedy is. Assuming they're some what comprable, the tragedy created by one's own choice would be worse, because it could have been avoided.
On June 25, 2009 a man died due to cardiac arrest. It was determined that the cardiac arrest was caused from a mix of propofol, lorazepam and midazolam which are drugs he used to get a high. This man was Michael Jackson.
ReplyDeleteHe had contol over his death and it was a mixture of chance and choice. He knew the risk to taking these drugs but he still used them to get a high. He should have know better than to abuse these drugs he knew could hurt him.
I found it interesting reading Cody M's post about what happened to that family on Thanksgiving. I think it was a tragedy but also could have been possibly prevented. If the wife knew her brother was crazy she shouldn't have invited him over. It was never safe to bring him if by crazy Cody meant mentally unstable. She should have thought about her family and the risks of inviting him there. I think the one that happens by bad choice is the greater tragedy because it could have been prevented.
Farrah Fawcett was diagnosed with cancer when she was 59 (2006) and after 4 months of intense radiation treatments she was deemed cancer free. In 2007 however it appeared to be that the cancer had returned. After the news she decided to go to Germany for a second opinion where she received multiple surgeries and more treatments. On her return to america she became even more ill and spent days at the hospital to sadly die on June 25, 2009.
ReplyDeleteFarrah received and died from her cancer by total chance. Some like her are diagnosed and due to bad luck the cancer can not be completely treated and it ends up killing them.
As I said before I believe that the worst tragedy is the ones of chance not those of choice. A tragedy of chance strikes with out notice and can end up being the worst unlike those of choice that you made a decision on and picked wrong.
During the Cold War there was a young man who enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was deployed on nuclear submarines. After his first deployment he came back a little crazy and his mom saw this, told the navy they shouldn’t put him back on a sub again, but was ignored. He was deployed several more times each time he came back worse and worse. In fact between his deployments, he killed his wife, was deployed came back years later, remarried, and then later killed his second wife. Finally after the man killing his second wife the navy realized he was crazy and locked him up in an asylum. This happened many years after the young mans mother pleaded with the navy to keep him off the subs. To this day he is still probably locked up somewhere. Two innocent women died because the navy was too arrogant for their own good. Those women could have been saved if the navy had acted sooner. Now the family of the sailor and his wives must deal with the loss.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the bad choice creates the worst tragedy. For the rest of your life you could ask your self if he/she had made a different choice he/she could still be alive today. Freak accidents happen but there was nothing that could have been done.
I chose an article about a refugee from Darfur who was lucky enough to escape the country. He was a young boy when he was out getting water from the well and militia came to his villiage and took all the families and shot the women and decapitated the men.
ReplyDeleteThis boy had no choice over the situation. He had to sit there and watch his family die and he had no control over it.
A random tragedy is worse than a controllable one because the person did not ask or choose for this to happen while the other person has a choice and control over it.
Last year, a regular citizen was walking down the street when he saw two women crossing the road. As he looked further up the road he noticed a bus just a few feet away from the two women. The citizen knowingly jumped into the street pushing both the women out of the way. In doing so he got hit himself leaving him paralyzed from the waste down. A few weeks later sitting in his hospital bed,Colorado sent him a Jay walking ticket.
ReplyDeleteThe man made the decision to jump in front of the bus to save the two women. This was entirely his fault, although I think he made the right choice the out come was not posetive.
A tragedy that happens out of random is far worse then one caused by one's choice. I say this because when you make a choice there will always be a consequence. If you Think about what you are about to do then you almost always can see the possible outcomes. Most of the time you know what can happen when you make a bad choice. A tragedy that is out of random is worse because no one had a say in the outcome, no person had any idea of what was going to happen. The randomness is scary, its like a dagger in the dark, you have no idea what is coming for you.
ON November 5th 2009 a soldier named Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas. It was 1:30 in the morning when the shooting started. After Hasan had stopped shooting 13 soldiers were left dead and many more wounded.
ReplyDeleteThese 13 soldiers did not have any control over thier deaths. THey just happend to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a man going crazy come around wanted to kill as many people as he could. They did not know he was coming and therefor could not do anything about it.
In my personal opion I think that a tragedy caused by a random chance is more of a tragedy then one caused by a bad choice. Even if Hasan could have made a better decision that day it was not effected by the soldiers that were killed by him. A tragedy caused by a bad choice is the man who caused the tragedys fault. Im not saying its not a tragedy but i feel less sympathetic for them if it is their fault.
My article was about a series of fires that occurred in Australia that killed 100 people and left another 750 injured and homeless. Due to this counting for almost a third of the deaths in Australia due to fires, it was nicknamed "Black Saturday". Authorities believed the cause of the fire to be a fallen electrical pole.
ReplyDeleteI think that the people who heard about the fire prior to it spreading to their location had some control, however the people who were caught off guard did not.
I believe the worst tragedy is the one that happens by bad choice, as the person might blame him/herself for what has happened, while a tragedy induced by random choice, although still sad, is beyond the person(s) who were affected control.
The article I read was about the Lexus car company. A family recently bought a new Lexus and after one of the trips they took in this car they ended up crashing and every one died. This happened because the floor mat got caught under the accelerator and the car just accelerated into an intersection where they crashed.
ReplyDeleteI think the company definitely had control over this situation and it could have been avoided if they would have been more careful about safety issues.
I think the worst tragedy is the one where someone has a choice in the matter. It is so much worse in my mind because then someone actually made a conscious choice or risk that caused people pain.
I thought Conner's story was very interesting, just the total random chance of such a tragedy occurring is unbelievable. I liked how Conner explained exactly how the entire tragedy happened, and how it is crazy how everything had to go exactly how it went or else it is not a tragedy at all.
ReplyDeleteTo Connor M's post,
ReplyDeleteWow that story really surprised me. I am always amazed that freak things like that can actually happen. The chances that it does happen are like you said, slim to none. Thanks for sharing that story.
1. A few years ago, a young couple had a son and as soon as he was born the wife left the husband without telling him, he did not beat her nor were there any domestic troubles. It was just that the woman did not love the man. The man fought for the custody of his son for nine years and only just recently got his son back. He has spent a fortune and all of his waking hours doing what he could to get his son back.
ReplyDelete2. This man did not have control over the tragedy but he did all that he could to get things in his control because during the fight for custody of his son, the lawyer on his ex-wife's side, kept on appealing for a retrial even though the man won each and every time the custody of his son.
3.I think that a tragedy is worse if it is by choice, because it is "The Kite Runner" all over again. The person that made a bad choice that led to tragedy, will haunt them for the rest of their life. They will see the faces of all who were there but are no longer alive because of their one choice.
I thought Jays story was interesting because like Michael Jackson he also died with drugs in his system around the same time. It was both their choices and obviously it was the wrong one because they are not living now.
ReplyDeleteDomonic-
ReplyDeleteI think that what happened to the teenagers is horrible. They were trying to live life and help out the hurting people in the world. And i am just guessing that the teenagers were killed in the collision. Any tragdy is one that will affect many lives. The passing car should have tried to check before he shifted lanes.
I heard about a house, lifted off its fountations by a flood. The parents took their kids out to fight the water- but the father could not keep hold of the child he was charged with.
ReplyDeleteHowever there was no choice he could have made to keep hold of his child- the flood knocked the child away. It was a blind chance that no one could have foreseen.
I think a tragedy caused by chance can be worse- it only feels worse if there is no one to blame and no one who could have warned you. It is really no ones fault, and people are hurt permanently for little to no reason.
Cody's post about the family that was murdered by the brother was pretty crazy. They did have control of him if they knew he was crazy. But if they didn't, it's pretty weird that the guy would kill his own family. The sad thing is that the people didn't have a choice after the gun was pulled. That is what makes this tragedy worse than something caused by a bad decision.
ReplyDeleteTo Cody k
ReplyDeleteI agree with your blog that it was really ironic about how a firefighter got ran over by a firetruck. Also i agree the firefighter did have control over what happened he could have looked the right way and the fire fighter would not have been run over and killed.
i am intrested in hunters story because it is like mine but the only difference is that someone actually made the bad choice to go and shoot out street lights while plastered. The coincidence fascinates me because the littlest things can change everything. For example, what if the mom and the daughter were running three seconds late that night? would the bullett have just wizzed by?
ReplyDeleteBen B- Your tragedy kept me reading, wanting to find out what happened in the story. I also agree that a tragedy by choice is worse than a tragedy by chance, because the tragedy by choice could have been stopped.
ReplyDeleteI think Corey had a well thought out analysis of the article he chose. I agree with him when he said that if the navy would have listened to the man's mother two women would have been spared. I agree with his view of how tragedies by choice are worse then accidents because with a choice someone could have done something to prevent it.
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ReplyDeleteThere's an old saying: "One good deed deserves another". Nikolaus's article is interesting because it is a tragedy due to something good that someone does. When we think of tragedies, we think of revenge and violence. Its almost hard to think that tragedy can come out of a good deed. The man became paralyzed and got a ticket, but he saved the two womens' lives.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anthony when he said that the worst tragedies come from bad choices because as he said it could had been avoided if the individual would had made the right choices in life. Except that you don't know both sides of the story ,like Brendan said, because in these kinds of situations one side of the story is always taken away
ReplyDeleteMason I thought that your artical was very interesting and wierd to think about. I can't believe that someone actually was scooped up by a giant bucket and thrown into a fire. I agree with your statment saying that the whole incident could have been prevented if the Helicopter pilot had followed the rules and got the water farther out.
ReplyDeleteConnor M's post
ReplyDeleteThat is amazing that could happen and kinda scary. I would agree that no one had control over that situation.
I like Nick's blog. I think that the story he mensioned is deffinatly tragic because a man made a decision to dive in front of a bus to save the two womens life. This blog was well writen and it hit home for me. Also for the record, if I was one of the women saved and learned that the man got a jay walking ticket i would have offered to pay it for him, it would be the least I could do for the man who potentiallly saved my life.
ReplyDeleteCory- I agree with your comment of if somebody had made a different choice, would the wounded or killed still be alive? The concept of knowing that the person close to you could still be alive if one person didn't make that one bad choice is frightening. How sad or mentally insane muct one be to make such a bad decision to take something as precious as a life of someone else, or their own life. So sad.
ReplyDelete-Cody K
ReplyDeleteI'm inclined to agree with you about the firefighter. and he did have a lot to do with his own death. but if he had been standing where i think he was supposed to be then he should have been out of the way anyway, but maybe not.
I think that Cody's was the saddest, because if you could not save your child from a murderer, you would probably turn yourself in for letting your kid die, even though it was not your fault. I feel bad for the father and his wife but it was out of their control. I share my condolences for this tragic upheaval.
ReplyDeleteMasonR's article about the scuba diver who got pulled up by the forest fire helicopter sounded a little weird to me. I mean I never saw any actual news about it and I'm pretty sure mythbuster's did an episode on it and proved it impossible. But I do agree with you on that the pilots should follow regulations to prevent such tragedies.
ReplyDeleteConner M
ReplyDeleteI thought this story was crazy it is like from a movie like final destination to think some as little as a rock could do such a thing to someone this man had no way to stop he's death at all just weird things happen for a reason I guess in this case
I enjoyed Aaron's article on how the car company's should take more care into to there cars. The car company can prevent so many accidents if they only took more time to review and revise their product. I also agree with Aaron on how it would be much worse knowing that everything was fine, but that you made the wrong choice.
ReplyDeleteEminem- the only good white rapper has had addiction problems with percription narcotics such as valium, vicodin and methadone. Eminem overdosed on methadone, a heroin substitute equivilent to 4 bags of herion. He's lucky he did not die from his overdose. This is not a tragedy- not yet, but with addiction, relapse is almost inevidble and if something does happen drug related, it would be by choice. With drugs you ultimately do have the choice even though it may seem as if you dont. Tragedy is the most tragic when you have no control over it, ie getting hit by a stray bullet during a drive-by when you're walking down the street, or a spontaneous anurism or health problem. When you make a choice to drugs, you know there is a risk of getting addicted or dying, and you accept it, you are making a decision to put your life in the drugs hands.
ReplyDeleteI dont agree with Brandon L's commeent on the death of Larry King the small gay kid that was killed. I do not think that that he being annoying had any more reason to kill him. Yes these kind of kids can get under your skin but it gives no one the right to just kill them off. It is a tragic event and i feel sorry for Larry King
ReplyDeleteI thought Nick had a interesting article. I think that the people who sent the man the ticket have a jacked up sense of fairness. A man jumps in front of a bus to save someone and gets ticketed? Thats kinda stupid.
ReplyDelete