12. February 2010 by student.

In america we associate success with material possessions and if you are able to indulge yourself in whatever possible. The more indulgences you have the more successful you are. Everyone knows this but what about failure? How can we tell when someone’s life is a complete failure. Do they have no material possessions or indulgences or are they not even a blip on the worlds radar. What if we take a successful athlete such as Carl Lewis (100m sprinter) and a high school student Joseph Byrd (100m sprinter) and compare them. Carl is successful because he can run the 100 in 9.86 seconds but Joseph is not considered successful at the moment even though he can run the 100 in 10.4 seconds. Dose the .6 seconds make or break you for success? So if Joseph is not successful is he a failure or do we have a waiting period before we make a judgement? Going back to the lack of material possessions and indigenous; we can consider a homeless person to lack both of these for the sake of argument. By federal definition a homeless person is “an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations.” Yet a college student living in a dormitory can be considered homeless. It is temporary (usually 1 semester), its is privately operated (by the college itself), and it is a students primary nighttime residence. Is a college student without or lacking material possession and indulgences? So what is a failure; what if we had a person naked no family all alone wandering around with no purpose at all. We can consider him a complete and utter failure right. But then again if this man finds a 100 million dollar lottery ticket is he now a success. Dose a 1 inch by 2 inch pice of paper make him successful. In the end no one can put a concrete definition on failure because it means something different to each and every one of us. For me failure is being unhappy in anyway. To you maybe it means being happy because u want to be an angry person. No one knows beside one person, yourself.

Posted in Introduction to Sociology | 2 Comments »

12. February 2010 by student.

  On Monday an 86-year-old woman, Jeanne Marie Owens-Libby,  was arrested on a warrant for allegedly missing a court date. The original charge was leaving the scene of an accident with property damage.  Upon arrest she made a statement to the arresting officer  “I knew i had court, but i was not feeling well.  I tried calling but kept getting a recording, i didn’t want bother anymore.”   This was the second court date date missed for the same offense.  While i understand the necessity for everyone to be held accountable for their actions despite age, race, or social standing i still have to wonder if this bust wasn’t a little ridiculous.  I know that the apprehension of this notorious criminal was required by law but i wonder if maybe those tax dollars can be used to fight actual violent crimes like rape, murder, or theft.  I also wonder if this wasnt a hundred percent preventable.  I see two ways right from the start, one is mandatory annual drivers tests for persons over the age of 80. Second why not have someone on duty to answer courthouse phones  so when a senior citizen calls to reschedule a court date due to illness someone will be there to document it.  Instead we cant get a hold of the person in charge and we get arrested.  This whole case just shows how a little confusion and a little government inadequacy can add up to a big problem for anyone. 

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12. February 2010 by student.

The United States has the strictest drinking laws and yet has the most drinking-related problems among our nation’s adolescences.  Evidence shows that with reducing the drinking age to 19, it would help lower the abuse of alcohol among young people. Alcohol abuse is mainly seen among University students.  Those under the age of 21 are more likely to drink heavy or “binge”.  For example, 18% over the age of 21 are heavy drinkers, compared to 22% of all students are under the age of 21.  Although 21 is the legal age to purchase alcohol, many college students under this age still are consuming alcohol, irresponsiblely.  Most students act in this way as a “badge of rebellion against authority,” to show a symbol of “adulthood.”  There has also been a significant increase in cutting class after drinking from 9% to 12%; missing class because of a hangover has jumped from 26% to 28%; getting into a fight after drinking rose from 12% to 17%; and getting a lower grade because of drinking rose from 5% to 7%.  All of these factors indicate behaviors of irresponsible drinking.  Most abusive drinking is seen outside of adult supervision.  The 21 year old age drinking law is not working and is counterproductive.  We need to change our prohibition law and teach responsible drinking ways to those who chose to consume alcohol. We allow an 18-year-old to get married, vote, enroll in college or enlist in the military because our society believes at that age we are able to accept the challenge and have the ability to make decisions as an adult.  As Americans we should understand that responsibility comes with drinking, just like we do in voting, getting married, working, joining the military or college.  Many college presidents seem to believe that lowering the alcohol drinking age will decrease the abuse of alcohol. I believe that many students want to drink and since they are unable to willing fully, they will take the risk.  More freedom and more rights will show that we trust those who utilize alcohol.  It shows we believe they can make the right decision.  With more freedom, students will not be so willing to abuse the use of their freedom as well.  Responsible drinking could be taught through role modeling and educational programs.  These situations are giving young adults the opportunity to be allowed to drink in controlled places such as pubs, restaurants, and official school functions.

If adults would learn to have calm attitudes towards those youth who drink, more social responsibility, more maturity and self-control could be expected of them.  Lowering the drinking age to 19 would reduce the abuse of alcohol by youngsters.

Posted in Social Problems | 1 Comment »

12. February 2010 by student.

America is the largest consumer of Cocaine, Heroin and Marijuana.  (The World Factbook)  These drugs are mostly smuggled in from Colombia and Mexico.  If we can’t stop the smuggling of illicit drugs, how can we guarantee protection from terrorists?  I really think our country should try harder to stop the drug trade and maybe they will solve the threat of terrorism.  I am not surprised that drugs are smuggled in from Colombia because #1 The Bahamas do not cooperated with US Maritime Law (The World Factbook) and #2 there just aren’t enough Coast Guard patrolling our coast.  In Florida our Coast Guard Stations on the southwest coast are Key West, Ft Myers, Tampa/St.Pete.  If a suspicious vessel is noted by a citizen… It may take several hours for the coast guard to respond.  It is most likely that Coast Guard only catches vessels smuggling drugs/terrorists that they have previous information on. 

Also because America is the number one consumer of cocaine, heroin and marijuana, drug use is becoming a part of our culture.  Teens often experiment as a right of passage. Drugs don’t seem like a bad thing because they are so readily available.  Just saying “NO”  is not a working.  Americans need to realize that this is a big problem and we need our government to take it more seriously than just imprisoning our citizens.  The smart thing would be to stop the problem at the root and not let the drugs enter our country. 

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

12. February 2010 by student.

I am for Socialized Health-care and I will tell you one reason why.  The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world yet our infant mortality rate does not show that.  We are 180th in the world. (1 being the worst and 223 being the best).  All the socialized health-care countries like Italy, Canada, United Kingdom and Cuba have us beat.  Oh yes, CUBA has a better infant mortality rate than the United States.  Several of the former U.S.S.R. countries are right on our heels when it comes to infant mortality rates.  These are some of the poorest countries in the world.  I got my information from the world factbook.  The information is from 2009.  Here is the site: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html  

Health-care is a civil right.  This a right that should be guaranteed to each and every citizen.  If I choose to bring a child into this world, its chance of life should not depend on if i have enough money to afford health-care and right now it does.  I think this is one of the reasons why the rest of the world looks down on Americans.  The rest of the world sees Americans as people that don’t care about the poor in our society and don’t think everyone deserves the same civil rights.  I have had the opportunity to talk to several Canadians that spend half the year in FL.  They said that they like living here but would never consider becoming an American citizens because of our health-care system.  I have heard people argue that Canada’s and the United Kingdom’s health-care systems aren’t very good and the wait times are months to years ect…  However, I ask every Canadian and English person I meet about their health-care system and have not once heard this argument acknowledged.  I deserve health-care and so do you.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »