Mattawa's Funeral Home Horror (W5)

What if you found out that when you went to visit your mother’s grave, you were visiting another person’s remains. That’s the story of Shelly Condie. Shelly’s mother, Shirley, said she wanted to have an open casket funeral before she died. However, when it came to the day of the funeral, the funeral director, Timmy Lynn Smith, kept providing the family with one excuse after another as to why they couldn’t fulfill the Condie’s request. Timmy said that her body wasn’t fit to show as an open casket because she “didn’t look too well”.

Ed Wunsch had a burial for his brother, Henry, as well. The arrangement for his funeral was none-other than Timmy Lynn Smith. Around 4 days after his burial, Ed received a phone call that Henry’s body had just left for cremation. But wait, how is it that Henry’s body just left for cremation when he was already buried? Ed found out that the buried remains were those of Gerald Resmer, another Mattawa resident. Turns out that Gerald and Henry were actually acquaintances before. So, if Gerald was in Henry’s grave, then who was buried in Gerald’s? OPP Detective Sgt. Jeff Dagg and his team sorted out several sets of cremated remains and placed them in their rightful grave.

Timmy was taken to court and faced with a multiple charges. He pleaded guilty to 48 charges but never revealed his reasoning to why he did it.

This was probably the most surprising story I have heard in a long time. To think that someone that devious and so mental could do such a thing with deceased people is just inhumane. It’s a “hard-to-believe” story but at the same time you have to believe it because it’s fact. What’s even more interesting is that Timmy, the funeral director, was known to be a thoughtful, nice person. What could change a person to purposefully rearrange dead bodies? I guess no one will ever know since he chose to remain silent of his reasoning.

Although this is a disturbing news story, I think you should watch this because it just shows you what sorts of unnatural things are happening around Canada.

Inside The Wrong Body (CBC)

Gender Identity Disorder, or GID, is a diagnosis to describe someone who feels dissatisfied with their current state of gender. 16:9 on Global showed a little news story/documentary about GID and gave 2 examples of it. The two stories were that of Kim Petras and Josie Romero. Both of these little boys ended up choosing to be girls. Because I found Kim Petras’ story to be more interesting to me, I’m going to be talking about her in this blog.

Kim was born a boy named Tim, but soon found her body to feel awkward and uncomfortable. When she went to a psychologist, she received hormone blockers which basically block the male hormones from evolving so she doesn’t start growing facial hair and such. By the age of 16, she finally went to get surgery to “exchange” her genitals and she started to receive drugs to start engaging her female estrogen and diffusing her male hormones. After the surgery, she said that it felt right. It took 16 years for her to finally be and feel like herself. You may think that her parents didn’t feel the same way as she did about her gender transition, but they were with her from beginning to end. Her loving parents didn’t want to see her so unhappy all the time and they knew she did not want to be a he at a very young age. They didn’t want to make her suffer anymore than she already has.

To this day, Kim is now an aspiring German teen pop singer. She’s been on the news numerous times for her transgender story and her music. She’s about 17 years old so it’s been a year since her surgery and she doesn’t seem to regret it at all.

What’s interesting about this is that before I watched this story, my friend showed me a picture of her and asked me what I saw. Of course, I just said I saw a girl but she told me that this girl was originally a guy. I was so surprised when I heard that because she doesn’t look anything like a guy. It’s unbelievable to me since I had no clue and probably everyone else won’t know either.

I enjoyed watching this story as it was pretty much a happy ending for Kim. This also shows that even though children are going through difficult times and are picked on by others because of their gender or even race or culture, you still have a chance of living a normal, or even an extra-ordinary life.

Blog #6

The Boy Who Can't Stop Running

The youngest marathon runner is what he’s known to be. How old is he? A four year old boy. Now you may think that this is just another glory story, but in fact, there is a controversy about it. People do not find training a four year kid to run marathons a great idea because children shouldn’t be wasting their energy and burning their body fat at that age. For their age, all they should be doing is making sure they grow by eating healthy with a lot of rest, and start learning pre-school education.

The life of this boy before he started running marathons wasn’t what you call, top notch. He lived in the slums and obviously meant he wasn’t getting the proper nutrition and health care. Then, a Judo instructor picked him up from the slums and started to train him. He wanted that little boy to be good enough to qualify for the Olympics and win a gold medal. With this dream in mind, he began to train him on a daily basis, starting the day mostly around 5-6am. Although many people find this to be absurd, the little boy enjoys running and finds it as a passion.

I found this documentary to be very interesting because to know that a 4 year boy is running marathons and is better than most of the other runners is something you don’t hear a lot. Even though I know what the controversy is about, I feel that they should let him continue to run because it’s what he loves to do, plus exercise is always a good thing. It keeps the blood flowing and a better cardiovascular system makes you feel healthier.

I suggest those of you go on the CBC website and search for this hour documentary because it puts into perspective what you can accomplish when you put your mind to something. This kid is only 4 years old but he’s already running marathons and is known to be a future gold medalist. A little hard work goes a long way in the end.

60 Minutes

Although I’m not much of a fan of these news programs, the episode of 60 Minutes that I watched really intrigued me. I don’t remember the date of when this episode aired, as I watched it on the internet but the 3 main stories were: American soldiers in Afghanistan against IED’s, a paleontologist whose goal is to make his own dinosaur and Saddam Hussein’s secret weapon.

The first story was the fight against Afghanistan terrorist’s plants with IED’s. IED stands for Improvised Explosive Device, which in simpler terms means a bomb. The report stated that 75% of American soldier casualties were because of these, not vehicles or even firearms. Many of these IED’s are planted in dirt roads or fields for concealments and are triggered by the detonator which someone holds and triggers themselves.

When I watched this reporting team go on the American soldiers’ patrol to rid of any IEDs, I didn’t know what to expect. In my head, I already thought that just going for the ride is dangerous alone because it’s still pretty violent in the area, and now they’re going out to find hidden explosives. Then it showed a few IEDs going off, one even injured 2-3 soldiers in a vehicle and the vehicle itself was broken. The only thing I could think of was, what happened if those news reporters were in that vehicle? As they were doing interviews with some of the soldiers, I started to feel very sorry for them because of what they have to go through everyday. At any time they could lose their life and as many of them said, “you have to have a little crazy to survive.”

The second report was about Jack Horner, a paleontologist who stirred up a lot of controversy with his methods. Well, first off, Jack is no ordinary paleontologist. What’s different about him is that he’s dyslexic and did not go to college/university. Also, more importantly, what sets him apart from most paleontologists is that he does research by breaking fossil bones and “contaminating” them. Now you may be thinking that paleontology is preserving fossils but, and I paraphrase Jack, that he said paleontologists need to break open bones to see what’s inside like an egg. If eggs weren’t broken, then that’s just like having a Christmas present and never opening it.

Jack and one of his assistances also came to the conclusion that chickens are technically dinosaurs because they still carry some genes from them. They have similar looks with the same type of feet and even have similar bones. Within the next 5 years, Jack said that he would be able to create a dinosaur from a chicken and would call it dino-chicken.

I found these 2 stories most interesting out of all 3, which is why I touched on them the most. The American soldiers against IED I found intriguing because I am strangely interested in warfare, weapons and explosions. I thought the paleontology story was just as interesting because it was such an extra-ordinary story. No one would ever think about chickens being dinosaurs and that one day there will probably be a dino-chicken.

I recommend searching for these 2 stories on the internet and watch them because they are really interesting reports that not a lot of people think about.

When We Were Kings

Probably one of the greatest boxers, Muhammad Ali was the stepping stone in boxing history. This documentary tells the story of Muhammad Ali. It shows many behind the scenes as well as interviews and actual fights. One of the most important parts in this documentary was the fight between Ali and George Foreman. This fight has been known to be “The Fight”; speed against power. In the end, it was Muhammad Ali who overtook the champion and proved many people wrong.

I enjoyed this documentary very much because the time I watched it was when I started to watch boxing more often. I thought it was very educational as well as entertaining. It’s a great story for anyone, whether or not you’re interested in boxing or not because it has a lot of interesting visuals as well as information about Muhammad Ali and boxing in general. My favourite part was probably the actual fight between the two because I enjoy more fast-paced fighting than anything else. I felt that Muhammad’s story was sort of a Cinderella story because of his opponent’s career and how Ali won in the end.

George Foreman was known to be a powerhouse but at the same time, a man with quick speed for his size. Muhammad was known to be less powerful but faster. His motto was, “fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee”, which meant he was very light and quick but still packed a punch. This is exactly how the fight went in the end. Ali was doing fine during the first few rounds of the fight, but suddenly Foreman was starting to throw more punches and a lot of them made contact with Muhammad. A lot of people started to get worried about Ali because he seemed to not throw many punches and only stayed in a defensive stance throughout most of the beginning and middle of the whole fight. Within the next few rounds after that, however, Ali starts to show signs of a comeback. Foreman started to slow down and drop his arms more often, which gave Ali the upper-hand to knock him down. It turns out that being in that defensive stance was his plan to just wear Foreman out. In the end, Ali won the battle.

This is the kind of story that seems to be only in fairy tales and just a Hollywood story. It has a bit of everything in this documentary. A touch of comedy, action, and drama. I recommend watching this whenever you can.

Supersize Me

Obesity is a concern for many people that eat out a lot. The United States is known to be the fattest country in the world. Actually, that is true…Well, specifically, Mississippi is the fattest state in America where 1/4 people are obese. People have tried to come up with a way to stop fast-food restaurants from expanding by explaining to people that it’s dangerous for your health. Obviously that is true, but to prove that it’s dangerous to your life is another story. Morgan Spurlock decided to take matter into his own hands. For one month, Morgan’s goal is to eat McDonalds for every meal and see how his health develops.

The first 2 days seemed good for Morgan. He enjoyed eating the food as everyone does and he had no problems. The 3^rd day, however, while he was eating his meal in his car, he felt queasy and threw up out his window. Hs exact words the next day were, “Once you get through the 3^rd day, you’re good.” Every time he checked up at the doctors, they came to a conclusion that if he didn’t change his diet, that he would be at risk for health problems.

There are 3 rules to this concept:

1) He can only eat foods that are sold in McDonalds as well as drinks.

2) He has to eat at least 1 of every product within the month.

3) If the cashier asks to supersize, he has to say yes.

He also tried to level the circumstances by becoming as close as a regular American as possible. How he does this is that he has to limit himself to at most 5000 steps per day. If he feels he’s going to go over, he has to take a cab or stay in and order McDonalds for delivery. In the end, it was clear that an all-diet McDonalds was unhealthy and the statistics showed and proved that. Morgan went back to his normal diet as well as back to his normal health.

This documentary is, in my opinion, one of the most educational videos I’ve seen. I enjoyed watching it because it had a direct effect on me since I do eat a lot of fast-food. The visuals were well shot as well as the narration. I found that the clips where he talks about related topics (such as schools using junk food instead of healthy food) were very effective as well as it tied in to what Morgan was talking about before. A lot of things they mention put a different perspective in your mind. One part they showed how much sugar consumers digest from just soda in a week and it was a full glass bottle. And although I do have a new perspective with fast-food, I still tend to buy McDonalds even with this new knowledge, but now I don’t eat as much as before.

I strongly recommend everyone watching this, teenagers and adults because it really educates you about this serious issue and really makes you think differently about fast-food restaurants.

A Haunting (Hell House)

Ghost stories are a great way to entertain people. But for the Beckwith, they were part of a ghost story. Before we get into this story, let me explain a little bit about the show, “A Haunting”.

A Haunting is a documentary-style show that aired on the Discovery Channel. Every episode, it follows an unfortunate family’s experience with the paranormal in their home. It’s all based on actual events, however, the names of the people may have changed for security purposes. Each show is an hour long or around 45 minutes without any commercials.

The episode that I watched was called, “Hell House”. The summary of this true story is that a family moved in to a new house. The youngest female daughter (she’s also the second born child) had a suspicion about this house but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Right when they stepped in the house she felt unsafe and uncomfortable. After a couple of nights in the new house, the youngest and the oldest child started to experience unnatural things in their room. When they told their mother, she finally began to listen to them and believe them. They called in Ed and Lorraine Warren, a psychic research team, to investigate the house. The Warrens were the ones to resolve the Amityville Horror. After their short investigation, the Warrens agreed that their house was definitely haunted and said they would return in a few days to try and resolve it. When they returned, they brought a Medium and 2 researchers to record the paranormal activity with video and audio.

A Medium is someone who can communicate and interact with the spiritual world from the physical world.

A bit after they all started to get settled in the house, the Medium suddenly started to shake and began to write something on a piece of paper hastily. When she stopped, they all looked at the paper and saw she wrote “get out” several times. Frightened for their lives, the Beckwith family decided to call an exorcist. Because they can’t do an exorcism on a place, they had to use the Medium as the gateway to put an exorcism on the demon in the house. It was a battle that took over 8 hours until the demon was finally vanquished. The Beckwith family was finally safe from evil.

My personal opinion of the documentary was that it was very well done. I watched many episodes of A Haunting and all of them are very similar. The lighting is good because there’s not too much light that makes the scene more dark and scary, but there’s enough light that you know what’s happening. The composition is well done and the acting is pretty good as well.

For those of you who haven’t watched it, I suggest you do watch it because it does have a different documentary style plus it gives a lot of suspense to the viewer. It is scary at times but that’s what makes it an intriguing and addicting show.

Fifth Estate - Riding On Risk

So, you think you’re safe during your flight to your vacation? Well, that may not necessarily be true. Transport Canada could be the reason for your death on an airplane. There have been many allegations regarding airport security and how our safety could be at risk because of them. Many bag inspections are not fully inspections as they just let them go for convenience and time. What does this mean? Terrible, terrible consequences. Obviously without proper screening, anyone with anything could board the plane and risk the lives of many people.

Sam Garito, a Transport Canada security inspector, was arrested on weapons charge. In return to get his job back, he made an oath to never speak about what happened. He’s known to be as a terrorist now in Canada because of his selfless duty. His arrest a few years ago was an eye-opener on how Transport Canada really is and what they are actually offering.

I found this documentary to be very educational and shocking. I would of never expected airport security to be this vulnerable. It seems like our safety and protection means nothing to Transport Canada all because of a little time saver and for convenience. After watching this, I have a new outlook upon entering airports around Canada. Now I know that it may seem as if everything is running along smoothly and safely, it’s only a cover-up for the common people.

The actual filming and style of this documentary was done nicely, in my opinion. The shots were well done and the interviews had a way of grasping my attention. The visuals were appealing and relevant to the story being told as well. One of most interesting shots I found was the airplane flying in the background behind the woman sitting on the bench.

For those of you who have not seen this documentary, I suggest you watch it because you could learn a thing or two and change your whole perspective about Transport Canada and how “safe and loyal” it is. You can watch the full episode at: http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2009-2010/riding_on_risk/video.html

Band of Brothers

Probably one of my favorite mini-series based on true events, Band of Brothers is nothing but perfection. Band of Brothers, or BoB, occasionally airs on the History Channel during times such as Remembrance Day and Labor Day, or even just on a regular Sunday.

Band of Brothers is a WWII mini-series that follows the experiences of Easy Company(“E Company”) of the 2^nd Battalion, 506^th Parachute Infantry Regiment(PIR) assigned to the 101^st Airborne Division. Their missions consisted of: Operation Market Garden, the Battle of Bastogne and Omaha Beach.

What makes this documentary so intriguing is because of its visual appeal and camera movement. With both combined, it’s as if you were there with the soldiers during those times. The special effects of the bullets and the realistic sounds top it off as well, the icing on the cake if you will.

A lot of the camera movements during the battle scenes were hand-held because they wanted to make it feel raw and realistic; as if you were there with them to experience the explosions and gunshots. Every time a grenade went off near them or a mortar exploded, the camera would shake along with the blast to give the audience the feel of the power of explosives. The scenes when they are back in their headquarters, planning out the next attack or celebrating, it becomes more stable but still shakes a bit for that raw feel.

The content in this mini-series is all factual and based on historical events. At the beginning of each episode, they interview a few WWII veterans about certain events/battles that they will be showing in the episode such as Carentan or Omaha Beach. They discuss about their fellow soldiers, what was going on in their mind and how they felt.

I strongly suggest you watch this series because it is very educational and entertaining at the same time. If you want any previews of it, you could always go on YouTube and search for it. I believe it is one of the best documentaries, in my opinion. I HAD to buy it and it was almost $100. For those of you who haven’t watched it, go watch it now!

Woodstock

A lot of people say that music is their life. Well in 1969-1970, music was the broom that swept everyone away. Specifically one festival was the pinnacle of that year, which was Woodstock.

Woodstock had a tremendous impact on society in a few factors. The first is how the social power came to the teenagers and young adults. Before Woodstock, teens’ voices were never heard and did not count for anything. However, this all changed during the Woodstock festival. Young adults would threaten to raid if things did not go their way and officials couldn’t do anything. How they showed this in the actual documentary were clips of people behind fences and police officers trying to hold them down. Unfortunately for the officers, they ended up breaking down fences to reach the festival. Young adults also had enough power to make one of the concerts free instead of its original expensive price.

This documentary also had the use of the multi-screen or split-screen. This basically means that they showed 2 different shots/angles simultaneously on screen. The effect this has is it gives you two perspectives at the same time, giving you more information and has more interaction with you. Although it may seem like too much is going on, that fact that you’re getting 2 different perspectives makes it more intriguing.

I thought Woodstock was a very educational documentary. It showed us some of the many famous artists that have impacted our society today as well as showing the young adults with more social power. It also shows us that when you’re in an emotional state such as after a war, music can be a gateway to freedom and peace. To me, it had to have been in the evolutionary chart of music and of course, smoking marijuana.

For those of you who haven’t watched this yet, or haven’t had the knowledge of the Woodstock festival, I suggest you watch this documentary or read up on what happened because it might change your perspective on how music was such a great influence. It’s also been known to be an historical event. As the saying goes, “you don’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been.”