Admit it, it’s a bit strange when someone you haven’t talked to in years “friends” you on Facebook, but you disregard your hesitations and accept because who wouldn’t mind a few extra “friends?” After all, according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s unofficial mission is to make “the world more open and connected,” and in regards to using Facebook as a connecting tool, what’s wrong with seeking out some old friends with its help? That person who contacted you out of the blue could simply be reaching out to an old classmate just because they wanted to see what the connection between the two of you could bring. It could be that this person is starting work in a field in which they noticed you have been working for some time, and your hypothetical friendship could allow you to help them further their career. That would be a positive example of Facebook making the world more open and connected wouldn’t it? And most of the time this is how Facebook works, making it an excellent social tool. However, there are a few things that some Facebook users do or share that simply are not things that need to be on Facebook.

The whole social networking phenomenon has millions of Americans sharing everything from photos and favorite songs, to their birthdates and details about when and where they went to school. Some people are offering these precious details, on sites like Facebook, to whoever would care to look. A Consumer Reports survey found that more than half of adults who use social networks post information that puts them at risk for identity theft and other cyber crimes, and more often than not these people are unaware that they are putting themselves at such risk.

A survey of 2,000 U.S. households in January showed 9% of those who used social networks were indeed victims of either malware, identity theft, or scams of harassment within the last year

No one wants cyber criminals to rob them blind, but that is a risk a person is assuming should they decide to offer too many personal details on their Facebook page. The people at Insure.com add that ill-advised Facebook postings increasingly can get insurance policies cancelled or cause significantly increased payments for everything from auto to life insurance coverage. And by now, almost everybody knows that those drunken party photos could even cost you a job, too.

You can certainly enjoy networking and sharing photos, but you should know that sharing some information puts you at risk. Although what really constitutes risky information? What should you never say on a social networking site?

Here’s a handy list of things users should stop posting on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other social network:

Your Birth Date and Place
Sure, you can say what day you were born, but if you provide the year and where you were born too, you’ve just given identity thieves a key to stealing your financial life. A study done by Carnegie Mellon showed that a date and place of birth could be used to predict most — and sometimes all — of the numbers in your Social Security number.

Your Current Home Address
It should be obvious that it’s unnecessary to include your home address on your Facebook page, after all, your real friends already know where you live. A study recently released by the Ponemon Institute found that users of social media sites were at greater risk of physical and identity theft because of the information they were sharing. Some 40% listed their home address on the sites; 65% didn’t even attempt to block out strangers with privacy settings. And 60% said they weren’t confident that their “friends” were really just people they know.

Your Phone Numbers
Watch where you post your phone number. Include it in your profile and, depending on your privacy settings, even your most distant Facebook “friends” (think exes, elementary school contacts, friends-of-friends) might be able to access it and give you a ring. Sharing it with Facebook Pages can also get you in trouble. Developer Tom Scott created an app called Evil that displays phone numbers published anywhere on Facebook. According to Scott, “There are uncountable numbers of groups on Facebook called ‘lost my phone!!!!! need ur numbers!!!!!’ [...] Most of them are marked as ‘public’, and a lot of folks don’t understand what that means in Facebook’s context — to Facebook, ‘public’ means everyone in the world, whether they’re a Facebook member or not.”

Your Every Waking Moment
Facebook is not Twitter, although it is understandable to not know the difference. Your updates sound the same when you try to be insanely prolific and most people do not care what you’re doing every thirty minutes. If they do, perhaps they have an ulterior motive, like maybe they’re curious to know when you are usually away from home so they can pay your house a visit.

Statuses Mentioning Being Away From Home
Don’t post status updates that mention when you will be away from home, advises New York Times columnist Ron Lieber. When you broadcast your vacation dates, you might be telling untrustworthy Facebook “friends” that your house is empty and unwatched. “[R]emind ‘friends’ that you have an alarm or a guard dog,” Lieber writes.

Confessionals
You may hate your job; lie on your taxes; or be a recreational user of illicit drugs, but this is no place to confess. Employers commonly peruse social networking sites to determine who to hire — and, sometimes, who to fire. Need proof? In the not-so-distant past, an emergency dispatcher was fired in Wisconsin for revealing drug use; a waitress got canned for complaining about customers, and the Pittsburgh Pirate’s mascot was dumped for bashing the team on Facebook. One study done last year estimated that 8% of companies fired someone for “misuse” of social media.

Scandalous or Drunken Photographs
By now, nearly everyone knows that racy, illicit, or otherwise incriminating photos posted on Facebook can cost you a job (or worse). But even deleted photos could come back to haunt you. Here’s a simple rule to live by when posting photographs of yourself and allowing yourself to be tagged in photographs: if you wouldn’t show them to your parents, you’re not going to want to show them to the Facebook community. Employers and co-workers can and will get a hold of these pictures and you will be fired for them. Unfair? It may be, but putting these pictures on the internet gives employers the right to find them. So consider the possibility that everyone will someday see the photos you’re posting to Facebook before you do.

In the end, a little commonsense when using social media sites can prevent unnecessary trouble for you later.

Posted by Alex on December 6, 2010 at 1:08pm.

Are teachers afforded the same rights as regular citizens in regards to their freedom of speech? Apparently not while at school due to a federal appeals court ruling on October 21 that teachers have no First Amendment free-speech protection for decisions involving their classrooms’ curriculum.

“Only the school board has ultimate responsibility for what goes on in the classroom, legitimately giving it a say over what teachers may (or may not) teach in the classroom,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, said in its opinion.

The decision came in the case of an Ohio teacher whose contract was not renewed in 2002 after she caused controversy amongst parents over reading selections she assigned to her high school English classes.

Evans-Marshall, who was hired in 2000 with a yearlong contract, received positive reviews her first year and was rehired for a second term in 2001. However, that fall, during a reading of Fahrenheit 451 and an examination into why books are censored, the teacher allowed students to pick books from a list of even more frequently challenged works.  This lead to some students electing to read Lesléa Newman’s picture book, Heather Has Two Mommies, which celebrates diversity in family structures.

In October, 2001, after word of this got out, about 25 parents attended a public board of education meeting to “express concerns about the appropriateness and merit of some materials that had been assigned to the students as optional reading.”

A month later, the number of protesting parents who attended the board of education meeting grew to 100 and the teacher, Shelley Evans-Marshall, had 500 signatures petitioning the school board against her, calling for “decency and excellence” in the classroom. Evans-Marshall also had various run-ins with her principal prior to the parents’ petitions, so despite positive performance reviews before the controversy, the principal’s subsequent evaluations increasingly criticized Evans-Marshall’s attitude and demeanor and her “use of material that is pushing the limits of community standards.” Then in March of 2002, the school board decided not to renew her contract, citing “problems with communications and teamwork.”

Evans-Marshall sued the Tipp City, Ohio, school district and various officials in 2003, alleging that her termination violated her First Amendment free-speech rights. In 2005, the court said that it appeared that Evans-Marshall’s termination was “due to a public outcry engendered by the assignment of protected material that had been approved by the board.”

The suit proceeded until the school district defendants sought summary judgment last year. A federal district court granted the defendants’ motion on the grounds that Evans-Marshall could not prove a link between the community outcry and the school board’s decision not to renew her.

In its October 21 decision in Evans-Marshall v. Board of Education of the Tipp City Exempted Village School District, a 6th Circuit panel ruled unanimously for the school district and other defendants, but on other grounds. (The appeals panel said the teacher had clearly shown that “her teaching choices caused the school board to fire her.”)

But while Evans-Marshall’s case satisfied two earlier Supreme Court standards on public-employee speech (Pickering and Connick), her case could not survive the court’s most recent decision in this area: Garcetti v. Ceballos. In Garcetti, decided in 2006, the high court held that public employees do not have First Amendment protection for speech “pursuant to” their official duties.

“In the light cast by Garcetti, it is clear that the First Amendment does not generally insulate Evans-Marshall from employer discipline, even discipline prompted by her curricular and pedagogical choices and even if it otherwise appears (at least on summary judgment) that the school administrators treated her shabbily,” said the 6th Circuit opinion by Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton.

“When a teacher teaches, the school system does not regulate that speech as much as it hires that speech,” Sutton wrote, borrowing language from a 7th Circuit decision in a similar case. “Expression is a teacher’s stock in trade, the commodity she sells to her employer in exchange for a salary. And if it is the school board that hires that speech, it can surely regulate the content of what is or is not expressed, what is expressed in other words on its behalf.”

The judge questioned how a school system could operate if all teachers had First Amendment rights to make their own curricular decisions. What if a school board, with their students’ best interest in mind, has decided that a particular curriculum benefits students more than what an individual teacher may be proposing?

“Evans-Marshall may wish to teach Siddhartha in the first unit of the school year in a certain way, but the chair of the English department may wish to use the limited time in a school year to teach A Tale of Two Cities at that stage of the year,” Sutton wrote. “When educators disagree over what should be assigned, as is surely bound to happen if each of them has a First Amendment right to influence the curriculum, whose free-speech rights win? [. . . ]Placing the First Amendment’s stamp of approval on these kinds of debates not only would demand permanent judicial intervention in the conduct of governmental operations, but it also would transform run-of-the-mine curricular disputes into constitutional stalemates.”

What do you think about freedom of speech in the classroom? Surely the freedom of speech that students are afforded in the classroom is limited, so is it that different for teacher’s to be also?

Posted by Alex on November 10, 2010 at 3:01pm.

Most people would agree that the opportunity to appear in a summer blockbuster, especially a movie with the “Transformers” series pedigree, would be an opportunity of a lifetime for an aspiring actor.

However, those same people might also be of the rationale that no one could ever reasonably expect that they might be putting their lives in jeopardy should they make that appearance.   Blockbusters like the heavy metal laser-light shows that are the “Transformers” movies are supposed to be productions that employ the highest caliber of professionals.  People who do not make amateur mistakes.

Unfortunately, Gabriela Cedillo’s life was indeed put in jeopardy and it was because of an accident that took place on the set of “Transformers 3.”  Cedillo is now at Loyola Medical Center and has been for over a month.

As the movie was being filmed in Hammond, Indiana, she was working as an extra on the set and was injured as she drove her car on Cline Avenue for the filming of a stunt. Cedillo had to be airlifted to Loyola hospital after the stunt went awry and she suffered a serious head injury that left her in critical condition.

The 24-year-old aspiring actress was then reported to have had to undergo brain surgery the night following the accident.

Although Cedillo was not part of the stunt team, she was behind the wheel of her car when a cable towing another car snapped, whipped around, and smashed through her windshield, striking her in the head. Authorities said in their initial statement, “Preliminary investigation revealed that shortly before 7 P.M, the movie crew was filming a stunt using numerous vehicles and drivers. During this stunt, an object struck a 2006 Toyota, hitting the vehicle, and then went through the windshield hitting the driver.”

The first thing that comes to mind in a situation like this is, “OK. Who screwed up?”  Obviously movie crews prep stunts like this all the time, yet injuries, especially of this severity, are rarely heard about in the news perhaps because stunts usually involve stunt-people, not extras.

Assuming Paramount Pictures had Cedillo sign some sort of waiver that released the studio from liability should something happen, was she even aware of the type of scene she was going to be filming, or was the studio taking advantage of over-zealous young actors and actresses who would be eager to do anything to be a part of the production?

Cedillo’s brother said that while his sister is still unconscious, doctors and family are hopeful because they’ve noticed some movement as she sleeps. As of September 23, she was said to be in stable condition and showing small signs of improvement, but she still could not speak or eat on her own.

Cedillo has had to undergo numerous surgeries — including a tracheotomy for a ventilator, a tube being placed in her abdomen for feeding, and a procedure to remove pressure and provide relief for her brain.

Todd Smith, a representative for Cedillo, told RadarOnline.com she is still in the ICU at Loyola Medical Center in the Chicago suburb of Maywood and is somewhat responsive. ”They periodically remove the ventilator and she can sometimes breathe on her own,” Smith said.

No doubt, expenses will be piling up for Cedillo’s injuries, not just for her current treatment and stay at the hospital, but what she may be dealing with in the future. In fact, Smith did say, “Paramount is recognizing responsibility for those bills,” in regards to the exorbitant medical costs that will now end up being taken care of by the production company.  However, any lawsuit filed by Cedillo will no be limited to Paramount. There will be multiple defendants ranging from the studio, the director of the film, the manufacturer of the tow-truck, the manufacturer of the cable and any other party that was involved with the stunt. She would have to either prove their negligence in ensuring her safety, or disprove any possible defense that there was “assumption of risk,” on Cedillo’s part in being involved in the stunt. Given the extent  and permanency of her injuries and the fact that she was not at fault, a lawsuit is inevitable even if Paramount covers her medical bills. The multiple defendants will no doubt try to say that the other defendants were responsible. It will interesting to see who is ultimately held liable.

Despite the legal outcome, the incident is a tragedy.  Cedillo was no doubt excited to have the opportunity to be part of such a large-scale production.  Obviously Paramount Studios, and those involved in the production of “Transformers 3,” never intended for anyone to get hurt.  They’re just trying to please as many fans as possible by making the new film as big and bad as possible. Unfortunately, that came at Gabriela Cedillo’s expense.

Posted by Alex on October 5, 2010 at 2:40pm.

Have you ever gotten to a point in your life where you absolutely needed a large amount of cash and you already exhausted every option? You tried to use credit cards, borrow from family and even sell a few possessions, but you still came up short?

A payday loan can be a valuable resource in those times of need, but should really only be used in that absolute worst-case situation.

One might be tempted to take out a small payday loan so they can take an unexpected weekend trip or make that big-ticket impulse buy, but that typically leads down the path to debt, and possibly, eventual bankruptcy. If one is not financially responsible, taking out multiple payday loans can eventually cost a lot of money. Lenders’ advertising message of easy access to cash loans may mislead people into paying substantially more than what they thought they originally bargained for.

People are finding themselves overwhelmed by payday loan debt more frequently than ever, but one can avoid such a predicament by only borrowing what’s necessary and having a real plan that will allow them to pay it back.

A common situation where a payday loan might be useful in a worst-case scenario might be something like the following:

At some point in everyone’s lives their car breaks down. They take it to a mechanic and find out the repairs will cost over $400. Like a lot of today’s middle class, they don’t have that kind of cash lying around and their credit cards are maxed out. To make matters worse, they need the car to get to and from work and/or school, so those repairs need to get finished quickly. This particular scenario really is a worst-case scenario and that’s what payday loans are supposed to be meant for.

Payday lenders such as Advance America, Cash America and ACE Cash Express claim to serve as a lifeline to those with no other options for cash by allowing customers to borrow against future paychecks. According to reports, these lenders can charge an average annual interest rate of 455 percent on top of fees of $15-18 per $100 loaned.

A USA TODAY article written in 2006 by William M. Welch highlighted a U.S. Defense Department report that stated “the average borrower pays $827 on a $339 loan.”

Non-partisan watchdog Public Accountability Initiative (PAI) co-director Kevin Connor, who co-authored the report, “The Predators’ Creditors,” which was issued jointly with community group network National People’s Action (NPA), said in a press conference that pay day lenders are attractive to the big banks who continue to finance the industry because “Americans were losing their jobs and homes in record numbers [in recent years], but they still had their family treasure to borrow against.”

Those who resort to payday lending typically earn a low-income, and possess few assets because these are the people who are the least able to secure normal, lower-interest-rate forms of credit. Since the payday lending operations charge such high interest-rates, and do nothing to encourage savings or asset accumulation, they have the effect of further depleting the assets of those in the communities they serve, effectively making life harder for many of their customers.

The Dallas Morning News reported that, in 2008 the U.S.’s largest payday lender, Advance America, “made $4.2 billion in payday loans and charged $676 million in interest and fees.” And “Cash America, a pawnshop operator and payday lender based in Fort Worth, recorded net income of $81 million last year [2007] – a 132 percent increase in just four years – on total revenue of $1.03 billion.”  The bottom-line is that payday lenders are not necessarily your friend when in need, rather they are businesses that, like any other, seek to be as profitable as possible.

Yet, it is rather difficult to argue that payday lenders offer a service that is more predatory than beneficial to its customers. After all, the need for emergency cash when there are no other options will always be present in our society, and payday lenders do in fact meet that need. However, the average consumer needs to make themselves more aware of the terms to which they are agreeing by taking out a payday loan.

Sometimes people act irrationally out of desperation, but even the desperate have to understand that amassing more debt is only making the hole they’re in deeper.

What do you think of payday lenders? Have you ever received a payday loan? Do you think it was more beneficial or detrimental to you situation?

Posted by Alex on September 24, 2010 at 1:03pm.

How many of us have scoffed at the warning given by movie distributers about illegal copying or distribution of the film we are about to watch? Probably not too many people live in fear of the big, bad distributor knocking on the door, seeking a bag of money as retribution for downloading or streaming their film on the web. Well…thanks to U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer, perhaps more people should be.

On Friday, September 10, the Judge Collyer allowed the holder of a movie copyright to subpoena the names of people accused of illegally downloading and distributing a film over the Internet. Similar to the witch-hunt to find Napster users led by the not-so-charitable rock band Metallica in 2000, the German limited partnership Achte/Neunte Boll Kino Beteiligungs Gmbh & Co KG, a creator and distributor of motion pictures, is suing internet users who are accused of copyright infringement after downloading the film “Far Cry”, a film the company holds the exclusive license to the copyright. The partnership identified the Internet protocol (IP) addresses of computers associated with the alleged infringement. It then subpoenaed the Internet service providers (ISPs) seeking names of individuals associated with those addresses. Thus, the ISPs had to spill the beans.

Upon being notified by their provider, some of the customers challenged the subpoenas, but courts have upheld that Internet subscribers do not have an expectation of privacy once they give their information to an ISP.  It’s probable that those who were subpoenaed were feeling remorse not only for being on the wrong side of the law and standing to lose thousands of dollars, but also because they put themselves in that position over a film such as “Far Cry,” which is a video game adaptation.

What do you think about this? Is it OK that Internet service providers were forced to give up such vital information? Are most people aware they are putting themselves at such risk, even if they’re only downloading a single lousy movie like “Far Cry”?

Posted by Alex on September 16, 2010 at 4:53pm.