Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Necessary? Unnecessary?

Today we are playing necessary vs. unnecessary. I give you an article and you tell me if what they are trying to do in the article is unnecessary or necessary.

First up, the cell phone:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/us/police-tracking-of-cellphones-raises-privacy-fears.html?_r=1&ref=ericlichtblau

Next up a potential new California law:

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/03/27/california-bill-would-punish-student-teacher-dating/

Finally, a little laughter:

http://news.yahoo.com/laughter-clubs-catch-stressed-hong-kong-041602266.htm

While some of the schemes in the above articles may be unnecessary your comments are necessary to make the blog more interesting so, Comment Away.

4 comments:

Pat said...

Hmmm... is tracking cell phones necessary? In some cases, I'd say yes. If I had to call 911 from my cell and didn't know exactly where I was when my car broke down, for example. I personally have no objection to it on any level, and if they want to risk being bored to death, they can even listen in when I talk on my cell.

Making May/December teacher/student relationships a felony seems to me to be going too far. Oh, yeah, in some cases the teacher is really just a predator, but in others, he's (it's usually a he but not always) just a foolish romantic. I wouldn't be against banning student/teacher relationships altogether while the student is still in school. Once the student is of age and out of school, they can do what they like.

Couldn't get to the last one until I went to Yahoo.com and searched for "laughter club". It's an interesting article. Laughing when nothing is funny is very hard--ask any actor. But I can imagine when you get a lot of people faking it, it becomes funny and they start really laughing. Sort of a "fake it till you make it" theory, which actually might help some people.

Lady DR said...

I'm not sure tracking cell phones is necessary. I can see where it might be helpful in some cases, expedient in some cases, but I also have a tendency to be a bit leery about abuse of the practice.

I agree with Pat on the student-teacher thing. Making it a felony, unless there really is an issue of pedophilia involved, seems a bit extreme. I'm in full agreement that student teacher relationships, while the student is still a student, should be banned, but how one enforces that is another question. In this case, it sounds like the mother had no idea what was going on until her daughter and the teacher went public. Which raises the question - why the heck did they go public? Now, *that* was really unnecessary, IMHO.

Couldn't get to the last article. From what Pat says, it's a case of you feel the way you act, countering the issue of you act the way you feel.

William J. said...

Hi Pat

I kind of see where tracking of cell phones could be a good thing. Finding those lost in the words. Finding a kidnapped child and so on. But I am extremely leery of having my privacy taken away by the government. If they asked my persmission ahead of time then I'd probably agree put to give them that power over my life, I'm skeptical.

I also agree making a relationship of any kind a felony (exception - abuse of any kind) is going overboard. Banning the relationships on campuses I'm all for.

Laughing is hard when there is nothing to laugh about. I wonder if it wouldn't be so hard that it takes away the benefit. But as you point out it can be catching and funny.

Bill

William J. said...

Hi DR

I am with you on the cell phones. Could be helpful but not yet, it scares me a little to much.

It looks like we all agree about the student teacher relationships.
Abuse or pedophillia all for making it a felony. Misguided judgment, no thank you. Ban the relationships. Going public was kind of stupid.

The last article was about laughter clubs springing up. The main purpose of the club is to force people to laugh.

Bill