I chose the Houston Chronicle to read as my local newspaper. Of all the article titles I searched through, an overwhelming amount related to shootings and deaths, bringing me to my first problem--gun violence.
In the article titled “Employee in critical condition after shooting at Spring Pizza Hut,” the incident of a Pizza Hut in Spring, TX being robbed and a worker being shot 3 times is described. This article poses many issues, including robbery and assault, but the biggest issue here seems to be the critical condition an innocent employee was in because of the illegal use of weapons.
The article “Houstonians are more positive than ever, Rice survey shows” talks about the results from the 2020 Kinder Houston Area Survey from February and March. While this survey was conducted right before the coronavirus pandemic hit, founding director Stephen Klineberg stated that this year’s results were one of the most notable in 38 years as it displayed the positive hopefulness of locals. This didn’t prevent political and economic issues to arise, and respondents claimed traffic to be an ongoing issue in Houston--making it the biggest problem for residents. Almost 30% of the 1,000 Harris County residents face this problem of congested traffic and holdups.
In another article, “Arts and crafts and social distancing — Houston summer camps adjust for coronavirus,” the YMCA in Meyerland faces the new problem of only allowing 9 students and 1 adult in each of their classrooms. This severely undercuts staffing and revenue, but one staffer named Terrie Eley stated that the hardest part is maintaining social distancing when she said “‘That’s the hardest part all day, keeping them 6 feet apart, 6 feet apart, 6 feet apart.’” YMCA workers, parents who are struggling to get their children into day programs and children who face possible infection all hold a problem here.
“Vegan activists protest Spring meat processing center amid COVID-19 pandemic” discusses protesters in Spring, Texas fighting against the issue of Fisher Ham and Meat Co. staying open despite the pandemic. Protesters see the problem as slaughterhouses providing the perfect setting for new strains of viruses to develop, while members of the meat processing facility see the problem economically and weigh in the complications of unemployment and layoffs. There were about a dozen protesters standing outside the facility, and one of the organizers claimed that the virus could spread among animals to humans even quicker if factory farms keep running under these circumstances.
“Freeport under boil water notice” explains a water system leak in the city of Freeport that released potentially hazardous bacteria. This introduces the problem of unhealthy drinking water, and the whole city is under an emergency notice meaning that every resident in Freeport has the problem of unclean water.
Hey Jung!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that gun violence, traffic jams, and child care safety is a huge concern for communities. These types of problems virtually has an effect on everyone in the city. I liked that you picked out problems that are very common in the US, but this leads to a very vague "who" when fleshing out an opportunity.
Hi Jung,
ReplyDeleteGun violence is and always be a major issue within our society, no matter where we are living. Traffic jams and child care are always something that has presented opportunities within our society, and if we open up to these opportunities, then the options are endless.
Hi Jung!
ReplyDeleteI found all the summaries of the articles very interesting and can say you picked some great articles for this assignment. My favorite part rather was how you interpreted the assignment for each article to be from the same local newspaper. The way I was able to complete my assignment was that I chose different local newspapers from the major cities of Florida.