Entry 2 Sept/17/13

Toronto Firefighters Fired Over Inappropriate Tweets

17, September, 2013 The Toronto Star

Three firefighters of Toronto named Matt Bowman, Lawaun Edwards, and a third fireman who's details are insufficient, were fired because of their social media posts being seen as degrading to women. Their posts were in violation of city policies and was "not acceptable for city employees," fire chief Jim Sales said on Monday. The firemen's sexist tweets were quotes from shows like The Office and South Park with the exception of fireman Lawaun Edwards tweeting about a woman ordering coffee with the overuse of the word "like". Bowman's Twitter account has been deleted while Edwards' is protected. What has happened to the third fireman's social media account is unknown. 

I think that the firemen deserved to be fired because they clearly didn't follow the city's social media guidelines as employees. These guidelines state that employees "can't engage in harassment, personal attacks or abuse toward individuals or organizations, and not use language that is discriminatory, hateful, or violent towards identifiable groups or that incites others to discriminate, practice hate or violence." Although it seems that the firemen were only quoting television shows, it is disrespectful and breaks the city employee social media guidelines and I think that they should be forced to do some community service and be able to get their jobs back after an appropriate apology.

Entry 1 - Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Syria crisis: Barack Obama puts military strike on hold

11, September, 2013BBC News

This article states that President Obama prefers peaceful solutions to the Syria crisis and does not want to use military actions. Over 100,000 people died since the uprising against the Syrian government started in 2011. Russia announced a plan on Monday for Syria to halt the possession and production of all chemical weapons and Syrian President, President Bashar al-Assad quickly responded saying he welcomed the plan. Syrian Minister Walid Muallem made a public commitment to the Russian plan saying, "We are ready to inform about the location of chemical weapons, halt the production of chemical weapons, and show these objects to representatives of Russia, other states and the UN." The Syrians are likely to allow the chemical weapons to be destroyed.

In my opinion, I think that the Russian plan is a great solution to the issue of chemical weapons in Syria because it avoids war, death and destruction. I don't think that Syria would do anything to hurt this plan. For example the French said that this could be a trap which I don't agree with because the Syrian military is definitely much weaker than the militaries of the UN and they wouldn't want to fight that war. This is why I think that the Russian plan is a great solution to the issue of chemical weapons in Syria.