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.