23. March 2010 by student.

 The feminist movement was a big deal for the women during the times of 1848-1920. The first movement in 1848 called for men and women to be treated equal and for women the right to vote. This made society instable for a while. This has affected our culture greatly. Now days, women can go to college, vote, and do more things that men can do than in earlier years. In other aspects things haven’t changed. In one way, women still don’t get paid as much as men, but it is getting close. Another way is women own only 1 percent of the world’s wealth, and earn 10 percent of the world’s income, despite making up 51 percent of the population. Women are also underrepresented in all of the world’s major legislative bodies. This feminist movement has had affect all over the world. It doesn’t affect the higher class as much as the lower or middle classes. Many of the higher class women have to work so they don’t see that wealth isn’t dispersed equally amongst women and men.  The middle and working class does. The higher class can usually buy their way into anything.  Since the earliest twentieth century, some feminist have allied with socialism. In Britain, the feminist allied with the Labour party.

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23. March 2010 by student.

When people think bodybuilding, one person automatically comes to mind, and that is Arnold Schwarzenegger, arguably one of the best bodybuilders of our time. He is the face of bodybuilding as most people know it and an icon that many people look up to, winning multiple Mr. Olympia’s and starring in many films. However, this article is not about Arnold, I’m sure you have watched some of his movies or have heard of him somehow. But looking at what bodybuilding has become nowadays, it has progressed so much since his time. There is so much that goes into the contest prep of bodybuilding, constantly working out to gain the necessary muscle mass and cutting the fat and water weight in the months prior to the competition. There are many bodybuilders that follow this strict regimen and work hard to be successful and get where they are in this very completive sport.

Bodybuilding, by definition, is a form of body modification involving intensive muscle hypertrophy, where one engages in many different exercises to gain this effect. Many bodybuilders display their physiques to a panel of judges, who assign points based on their appearance. The muscles are revealed through a process known as the “cutting phase” - a combination of fat loss, oils, and tanning (or tanning lotions) which combined with lighting make the definition of the muscle group more distinct. And the greatest honor that can be attained is the winning the Mr. Olympia competition.

However, we are also living in the steroid era where it is so easy to take anabolic steroids and gain the muscle mass needed to compete in competitions, or gain an edge in a certain sport. Bodybuilding, though still popular, is getting a bad rap, due to all the steroid use scandals associated with some people in the profession and other sports. When people see a bodybuilder or any other large person with a built/stout frame, they automatically think that they had taken steroids to get that result. Many bodybuilders do not necessarily use performance enhancing drugs, but there is a long list of supplements that do not include “steroids” or any type of hormone that will increase performance drastically. But just using supplements doesn’t indicate that steroids are being used. Of course it will assist them to a certain degree, but it is not something that can be relied on to build muscle without working out or any other type of strength training. Bodybuilding is not something that one can just pick up and be successful right away. Many years of training and hard work are put into preparation of competing in the sport. Monitoring weight and body fat percentage are crucial to bodybuilding while minimizing the loss of muscle mass. Even the week prior to competition, there is an art to just cutting weight and losing the necessary fat and water to attain the end result when you see them going up on stage.  Even their diet is evaluated to the point where all the nutrition value is known and added to attain the most nutrition out of every meal. Pretty much the whole is dedicated to training and preparing for bodybuilding, and constant strength training year round to achieve a certain muscle mass. If steroids were involved in the process, with the constant training and dieting, it would be evident to conclude that it were being used, or if they had more free time on their hands than all the other typical bodybuilders, and not to mentions the sudden impulses from constant use, thus the term “Roid Rage”. And many go through routine drug testing to check for illegal substances, which include, of course, anabolic steroids, prohormones, and diuretics. So don’t be so quick to assume that all bodybuilders necessarily take steroids to achieve the physique that they have, and it’s a lot harder than just picking up a set of weights.

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23. March 2010 by student.

Florida’s educational system is not producing the quality and quantity of graduates to ensure it has the high quality leadership, workforce and citenzry needed to sustain a vibrant society and economy.  Our children are not reaching the levels of education as some other parts of the United States.  Academically Florida’s educational system is behind many other states across the U.S.  It makes me question why is this happening and what needs to be done to improve this situation.  This is all beginning from the time the kids start kindergarten and eventually moving up through high school.  It is mandated by the federal government for all schools in the United States to have certain testing for the students.  In Florida these are called FCAT tests.  The students must receive a certain score on these tests in order to pass the grade and move onto the next grade-or so you would think.  Learning standards are the goals by which states and school districts must meet adequate yearly progress as mandated by No Child Left Behind.  The school district selects curriculum guides and textbooks that are reflective of a state’s learning standards and benchmarks for a given grade level.  The NCLB says it will hold schools accountable, close the gap between minority and white students and offer opportunities for those who don’t make the grade.  This with the option of school choice gives parents the choice to change their childs school if the school doesn’t “make the grade”.  Since the school districts can set their own standards, in a sense they can lower the test scores so that it seems that the kids are doing well enough to “meet the grade” and are not measuring up to the standards academically as compared to other states.  A problem contributing to this is the simple fact that some parents just don’t care about their kids education.  If the parents don’t care or make the time for their kids and their education, why should the kid.  This is a proven fact and is shown statistically to decrease a child from reaching their full potential.  This is quite sad.  Another thing we can look at is our teachers.  Are they really qualified to teach our kids?  One would think the teachers would have an extensive amount of training and degrees to teach.  This is not always the case.  These teachers have to pass a test, but do they continue on and get the skills needed to teach all the areas in the classroom.  These are all areas that need to be addressed to improve our educational system in Florida. 

Three out of every ten ninth graders will drop out and never obtain a high school diploma.  Of the seven that will graduate high school, only four will go on to college or graduate school.  Forty percent of those students will need remediation.  Over 13,000 high school seniors did not have the skills and knowledge needed to pass the FCAT in 2003.  This is not something new about the educational system in Florida.  This has been going on for many years and little has been done to improve the situation.The little efforts that have been made in attempt to fix this problem has not been successful.  Due to this, there has been a major negative and costly  impact on our children and ultimately our society.  Our children are not reaching their full potential.  We need to make some changes to our system or things will not change.  Our children will continue to fail these FCAT tests,  may or may not graduate and then never go onto college.  Times today are very hard and we must be educated and have a college degree to just have a decent job to support ourselves as well as our families. 

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