Ink Exchange

The novel Ink Exchange is the second novel by Melissa Marr set in the mysterious world of faery. It is a companion novel to her bestseller Wicked Lovely, in which readers are first introduced to the mysterious world of faery.

Leslie is a teenage girl. she is trying to live a normal life, but since her mother has left the family, her father has become a chronic drunk and her brother a druggie. She finds herself working hard to pay the bills, having almost no money for herself. Her brother has even used her to help him get money. Leslie feels that she needs a symbol of something that is hers and hers alone. Therefore, she goes to one of the tattoo artists in town, someone she has come to know pretty well after looking at tattoos for several months. Feeling that she needs something out of the ordinary, she chooses a tattoo from his private collection, one that will belong to her and only to her. But little does she know that others are interested in the same tattoo and as a result, her. She has no idea how much the tattoo will actually change her life.

Irial is the king of the dark fey. The fey live in the same world as the mortals, yet they have their secrets and strange habits, for they are not always visible to humans. The dark fey have a strange need. They do not have emotions and they must feed off of the emotions of fey. Yet the emotions must be dark not light and happy. A peace has settled now between the Winter and Summer courts so the sinister emotions that the former winter queen, Beira, so readily channeled they are starving and weak. Irial must find another way to feed off of others in pain, like the mortals, in order to prevent a war in which all the odds would be against his court. So he prepares to connect Leslie to him through the tattoo that she is about to receive. once she is bound to him, he will be able to feed off of her emotions and the emotions to the mortals near her will be channeled through him to her.

But their are two little factors that he did not count on when he chose Leslie for his girl. One was that her friend Aislinn was queen of the Summer Court and that she would do everything in her power to help her friend. The second is the presence of another fey, Niall, in Leslie's life. Niall has worked in the Summer Court as an advisor to the king for nine centuries, but he had a previous history with Irial in the Winter Court. He becomes very attracted to Leslie as he guards her like Aislinn has asked. Inside, he wars with his desire to have her close to him like he used to do with mortals and his consciousness telling him not to hurt her. He remains true to Leslie throughout the novel, even after she has been claimed by Irial.

I would strongly recommend this book to any teenager. Its a great read and it will keep you interested every moment of the novel. Go and read it instead of sitting here in front of the computer.

A World Without Journalism

People may think that journalism is a mediocre field that really has no effect on their life. But if you can, imagine a life without journalism. Journalists are free from the government. According to dictionary.com, journalism is "the occupation of reporting, writing, editing, photographing, or broadcasting news or of conducting any news organization as a business." If there was no journalism, we would live in a world of oblivion and ignorance. Journalism is the backbone of our country, the United States of America. Citizens of the U.S. have the responsibility to make an informed decision when voting for a public office. When we vote for high public offices like the president, the news media is in on every single move that they make. Without the freedom journalists have to collect information, we would be at a loss for information.
I remember when I first realized what the importance of journalism is in the U.S. when my mom made me and my brother watch All the President's Men on PBS. The two journalists in the story were the key factors to unraveling the Watergate Scandal and guiding the evidence towards Nixon, resulting in his resign, just prior to the vote of impeachment by the Congress, in which all odds were against him. Without the essence of journalism and the free press, our country would cease to exist as the world leader that we are today, for the people would not have the opportunities that they do in this world today

Inverted pyramid article on the AirFrance crash

Early Monday morning, an AirFrance flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, France disappeared from radar over the Atlantic Ocean and debris was found in the area where the plane last made contact by the Brazil Air Force.

France 228 people were aboard the plane and all are suspected to be dead. Brazil believes that they have the technology to find the jet, since they have the technology to dig twice to three times the depth they think that the plane has sunk.

The cause of the crash is yet unknown but it is known that the plane was flying through an area known for storms. As a result lightning is being considered as a cause for the crash. If that is confirmed, it would be the worst plane crash since 2001 (not 9/11).

Officials have said that it is very unlikely that any survivors will be found. Brazil is hopeful that they will be able to recover the black boxes although France is skeptical that they will be able to find anything.

Terrorist attacks have notbeen ruled out yet by the French government. If the black boxes are found, they will provide more information to why the plane crashed; however, limited information is available at this time.

Brazil is doing everything in its power to try to locate the plane and its black boxes and has a number of aircraft and naval vessels searching the sea for the downed plane.

Dance Mock Shell

http://www.dance4it.com/ballethistory.htm This website gives a nice summary of ballet, not only its history but also some of the highlights of the dance form. It is a good spot to start to taking a look at ballet.

http://www.centralhome.com/ballroomcountry/history.htm This website provides links to articles on the history of many of the different ballroom forms of dance

http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab82 This website provides a general overview on dance, its role in different cultures, and its evolution from its earliest forms to what it has become today.

http://dance.about.com/od/famousdancers/tp/Famous-People-in-Dance.htm This website provides information on many different dancers from Anna Pavlova and Martha Graham to Fred Astaire to Patrick Swayze and Micheal Jackson (yes he actually is listed there).

http://dance.about.com/od/typesofdance/tp/Dance_Types.htm This website provides short descriptions of different types of dance styles from ballet to hip-hop to country western as well as links to more information on the styles.

http://www.dance4it.com/greatdancers.htm This website provides short descriptions on many different dancers, even more than the website above.