26. April 2010 by student.

In today’s society it is a common norm to see all beautiful people all over the media; from hot models in car ads and half naked buff men advertising jeans. The avenge American does not look like a Hedi Montag or a Brad Pitt. Plastic surgery has sky rocked in America because we have set in our minds the if you want to get in where in life you have to be drop dead sexy and  look young. Over 10.2 million cosmetic surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed in the United States in 2008, according to statistics released  by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. The Aesthetic Society, after collecting multi-specialty procedural statistics since 1997, says the overall number of cosmetic procedures has increased 162 percent since the collection of the statistics first began. The most frequently performed nonsurgical procedure was Botox injections and the most popular surgical procedure was breast augmentation. Botox, Known as Botulinum Toxin. When used in tiny amounts it can temporarily paralyze a muscle and reduce or eliminate wrinkles or frown lines without harm. In 2008, women across America had over 2,239,024 botox procedures done, and men accounted for only about 225,099. These numbers are crazy and people do this for what to look good for a few more years? Why are people so scared to get old, everyone does no one stays young forever. The American obsession with youth and beauty  is making itself known across the world. According to surveys taken by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the top procedure in many Asian nations is eyelid surgery because many Asians want a more “Westernized look.” Brazilians, however, ask for liposuction most often because they are on the beaches so much with bare bodies on display. There are plastic surgeries for every little thing you could think of from Botox, Boob jobs, lipo , face lifts, belly buttons makeovers to change a “ outie” to a “innie”  and even Feet lifts. No matter how little  the imperfection is people are brained washed to think they must change them and be perfect, and  people are willing to try to be perfect no matter the price tag that comes along with it.

Source:  http://www.cosmeticplasticsurgerystatistics.com/statistics.html#2008-HIGHLIGHTS

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26. April 2010 by student.

Fashion in women has changed tremendously over the course of time. In the earlier renaissance period, women wore big, poufy, long dresses. In the 1960 women still just wore dresses but they were becoming more revealing. They were getting slimmer and the collars were becoming A-lined. The ‘70s was the time of Disco. Women wore skirts, micro, mini, or maxi. They started wearing tank tops and knit wear. Women also wore flared pants and platform shoes. Tie-die and peace signs was also very fashionable at this time. Punk fashion also developed in the 1970s.The 1980s was known as having the worst fashion. Everyone was just trying to find themselves in this time. Women had short hair and wore layers upon layers of clothes. Some examples of ‘80s fashion include leg warmers, parachute pants, oversized shirts, and jumpsuits. The 1990s had a positive trend from the ‘80s disaster. The school girl look of baby-doll dresses and thigh-high stockings was the look. Slip dresses worn over t-shirts were also popular at this time. Baggy and colorful jeans were in, too. All of these different trends has made it into today’s fashion world.

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26. April 2010 by student.

Society supports certain types of families and creates challenges for others.  5.6 million People are sharing a house and are not married. Of those 5.6 million people 700,000 are gay or lesbian. I personally think marriage is better than cohabitation because it provides a more stable setting in which to raise kids. Just 5% of children go on to live with both parents until age eighteen compared to 70% of children born to married couples. Research also shows 60% of cohabiting couples eventually do split up and men run the risk of losing legal rights to their kids. Cohabitation can also weaken a relationship because partners get used to relationships with less commitment.

                Although I want to believe in happily ever after, statistics show that four in ten of today’s marriages will end in divorce.  In order to get divorced one or both parents claimed the other was at fault for ruining the marriage but now we have no fault divorce (can file irreconcilable differences). I believe that due to this no fault divorce laws, more and more people jump into marriage and then divorce when things get tough or don’t go as planned. In the NORC national survey, 51% of people say divorce is too easy to get. Divorce not only affects the partners but children as well. I believe marriage should be for the long run and although yes things happen that lead to divorce many things can be solved if you put your all in it.

                 The United States has the highest divorce rate in the world. This is due to how easily a divorce can be obtained. However in recent years a few states have enacted Covenant Marriage Laws. These laws allow couples, when they marry, to choose a conventional marriage or a covenant marriage, which is harder to dissolve.  They agree to divorce for only limited reasons and agree to enter counseling if problems arise in their marriage. However this has not been widely viewed as a solution to the high divorce rates.

                Families are the foundation of a healthy society and the Structural Functional View agrees. According to this view families create a stable and caring environment for children and look to one another for emotional support. The high divorce rate is higher now than before because of the how easily or how many excuses you can find to get out of it.  Marriage would benefit all if it was not rushed and in a way “researched” so you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into.

Posted in Introduction to Sociology | 1 Comment »

26. April 2010 by student.

There are many excuses that people make to explain the wage gap between men and women. Almost all of these arguments have to do with a woman’s physiological attributes: women are not as educated or qualified as men, women aren’t able to perform the same tasks as men, women are a liability because of their obligations to their family, etc. Holding these views of women in the workplace is a severely outdated and inaccurate way of thinking. The only way of truly understanding the gender wage gap would be to evaluate it on a sociological level. For example, assume a woman is the next logical candidate for a promotion at her workplace. However, the boss hires a male colleague that is less qualified than she. If the woman had been trying, in her own way, to impress her boss and show that she was worthy of the promotion the boss could have totally overlooked her accomplishments. It is possible that he misinterpreted them altogether, instead viewing these signs as an expression that she was content with her current job. The boss, being male, may recognize signs and accomplishments in a fellow male colleague, and interpret those signs as the employee being qualified for a promotion. In other words, males may be more likely to interpret the positives in other males’ work due to relate-ability, but find it harder to recognize the same accomplishments in a female. It could be as simple as males being able to mentally relate and read other males more so than women, and therefore promote, hire, and pay other males more.

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26. April 2010 by student.

Chabely Sepulveda (EDISON) STEM CELL RESEARCH

　The first know living thing that ever existed was a cell and we all began the great journey of life as a single cell that begging to multiply many times. We humans have more than 200 types of cells. But what happens when your cells just stop multiplying and your body eventually weakens to the point of death what would you do if there might me a cure, TRY IT RIGHT? Nowadays that technology has gotten so advanced and we have many sources that we can use scientist have discovered stem cell and they are useful to repair and replace damaged cells and also have the potential to drastically change treatment of such condition as cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and even a paralysis for example. Most of the research that has been done about stem cell has been conducted on embryonic stem cell lines, this culture of cells derived from four to five days old embryos also known as fertilized cells.Stem cells research opponents say that the use of embryos that are discarded by fertility clinic should not be used for this purpose at all since it is inhumane. On the other hand there is a legislation related to stem cell research know as the Dickey-wicker amendment that became a law in 1996, congress since then renews this amendment yearly. this amendment totally bands the use of tax dollars to create human embryos, so this means that the stem cell research is being conducted at private clinics.

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26. April 2010 by student.

plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of form and function. plastic surgery can make you look beautiful and at the same time it can turn u into a hot mess. some people just do it for fun and it’s not a funny thing, it can cause your death. it is a surgery like every other surgeries.

reconstructive surgery were being carried out in India by 2000BC. plastic surgery has been growing in popularity the past several dacades with more dollars spent on cosmetic procedures year after year. people nowadays are not satisfied enough with their natural beauty, so they have to confiscate things. let’s take an example of Michael Jackson the king of pop music who had mutiple plastic surgeries before he died, so that’s why  nobody can figure out what has caused his death. beauty is natural, it’s not something you can buy.

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26. April 2010 by student.

My family values are extremely important to me. My mom is a single mother of 3 and I feel that she did a great job of raising my siblings and me. Growing up, my mother took us to church every Sunday and Wednesday for bible study. She taught us to say yes ma’am, no ma’am, yes sir and no sir. The kids today have absolutely no respect for their elders. They think everything is supposed to be handed to them on a silver platter. My mom made sure that we got good grades in school. She checked our homework and requested weekly progress reports for our teachers.

My sister is a middle school teacher and I’ve gone and sat in on her some of her classes and the kids that she teaches just don’t care about their grades. They are already talking about dropping out while the kids were saying this I was thinking in the back of my head that if I would have said some of the thing they said my mother would have slapped me so hard that I would have never had that idea again. The kids just don’t care about their futures and have no parental control now a day they just do as they please and feel that they are grown up and can make their own decisions but in real life they are just little kids that have a rude awakening for when the real world hits them.

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26. April 2010 by student.

AIDS

Everyone knows, or at least heard of AIDS. AIDS as we know it is the acquired immune deficiency syndrome. AIDS is becoming a huge social issue, with such a high raise in it from year to year. AIDS affect everything from social, religion, and economy issues. This is a sad thing, and people need to open their eyes more to everything that is going around them!! The thing that gets me the most about this is that AIDS in other countries affect children the most, and anything that can harm children seriously makes me upset.  Hundreds of thousands of children across the world become infected with HIV every year with out treatment, and the results of this are death. “At the end of 2008, there were 2.1 million children living with HIV around the world.” This statistics gets to me, because 2.1 millions children is sickening. Just alone in 2008 an estimated 430,000 children became newly infected with HIV” leaving many people curious just how large the numbers will come in the year 2012. Another fact that is totally mind blowing is “Of the 2 million people who died of AIDS during 2008, more than one in seven were children. Every hour, around 31 children die as a result of AIDS.” It is rising if we like it or not, and most sociologists try to look at the situation in the sociological perspective by looking at why this is happening and how it effects society as a whole. It affects society as a whole because it has everyone worried with the numbers going up and how to stop it from rising even more.  Big religion leaders are not helping this situation in Europe at all because prominent religious leaders have publicly declared their opposition to the use of condoms to help reduce the chances of sexually transmitted diseases, and scientists are trying to beg these leaders to promote it to help reduce HIV and AIDS not make the chances higher because people believe the use of condoms are bad rather then seeing them as protecting from deadly diseases, and experts honestly believe that condoms are the only way to currently stop this epidemic.  In economic issues “HIV and AIDS affects economic growth by reducing the availability of human capital.[8] Without proper nutrition, health care and medicine that are available in developed countries, large numbers of people suffer and die from AIDS-related complications. They will not only be unable to work, but will also require significant medical care. The forecast is that this will probably cause a collapse of economies and societies in countries with a significant AIDS population. In some heavily infected areas, the epidemic has left behind many orphans cared for by elderly grandparents.” It’s just an on growing thing that needs to be looked at before it gets even crazier. Countries like Africa, Asia, and Latin American places are in great danger where the numbers triple each year with people being diagnosed with HIV.  Three huge misconceptions about AIDS are “of the most common are that AIDS can spread through casual contact, that sexual intercourse with a virgin will cure AIDS, and that HIV can infect only homosexual men and drug users. Other misconceptions are that any act of anal intercourse between gay men can lead to AIDS infection, and that open discussion of homosexuality and HIV in schools will lead to increased rates of homosexuality and AIDS.” I mean how ignorant can you be?!? Having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS. ?!? That is just absolutely crazy. AIDS is affecting so many people from the ones who are diagnosed with it, to the families and communities around ones who have it. It is a sad thing and if people opened up their eyes and actually look at everything that is going on then maybe we could take a step closer in the right direction.  AIDS are here if we like it or not, and by being aware can truly save a life.

http://www.avert.org/children.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS#Economic_impact

Posted in Introduction to Sociology | 1 Comment »

26. April 2010 by student.

Alcohol has been popular since Europeans first settled this land. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that alcohol became negative due to the immigration tide. It was said Germans drank beer, the Irish-whiskey, and the Italians –wine. People began to worry because with all the immigration it was assumed that drinking problems would ensue. In 1920 Congress passed the eighteenth amendment which outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcohol. Prohibition gave organized crime more power and money than before because they charged high prices for smuggling and selling alcohol.

                Alcoholism is the addiction to alcohol. More than four in ten people in the U.S have been affected directly or indirectly by alcoholism. Approximately 18 million adults have had a drinking problem but only 2.8 million seek help. Alcoholics Anonymous is a successful treatment program that teaches its members that they will always be alcoholics who must actively work to control their addiction for the rest of their lives.  Analysts put the total cost of alcoholism in the U.S (reflecting accidents to lost days at work) at about $200 billion per year. With the exception of nicotine, alcohol is the most addictive drug available legally without a prescription.     

                In a study of college students: 40% said they binge drink (consuming 4 drinks in a row at least once in the past two weeks), half of these students were extreme binge drinkers (3 or more episodes in the past two weeks). Of the 20% of students who are heavy drinkers they consume 70% of the alcohol used by All students in the U.S.  Binge drinking causes 1,400 student deaths and 500,000 injuries each year. Also 400,000 students claimed they had unprotected sex after drinking alcohol and causes 70,000 cases of date rape each year. In 2005 police made 556,000 arrests for disorderly conduct involving alcohol, 1.4 million arrests per year for DUI’s and 40% of people in jail report they were under the influence.

                According to some students alcohol eases social interaction. Alcohol helps calm you since it is a depressent. It is ok to drink in moderate amounts and yes it can get out of control if not regulated. Even with these statistics alcohol is not viewed negatively by a majority of people. It is a way for people to get to know each other and enjoy a drink together.

Posted in Introduction to Sociology | 1 Comment »

26. April 2010 by student.

Alcohol has been popular since Europeans first settled this land. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that alcohol became negative due to the immigration tide. It was said Germans drank beer, the Irish-whiskey, and the Italians –wine. People began to worry because with all the immigration it was assumed that drinking problems would ensue. In 1920 Congress passed the eighteenth amendment which outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcohol. Prohibition gave organized crime more power and money than before because they charged high prices for smuggling and selling alcohol.

                Alcoholism is the addiction to alcohol. More than four in ten people in the U.S have been affected directly or indirectly by alcoholism. Approximately 18 million adults have had a drinking problem but only 2.8 million seek help. Alcoholics Anonymous is a successful treatment program that teaches its members that they will always be alcoholics who must actively work to control their addiction for the rest of their lives.  Analysts put the total cost of alcoholism in the U.S (reflecting accidents to lost days at work) at about $200 billion per year. With the exception of nicotine, alcohol is the most addictive drug available legally without a prescription.     

                In a study of college students: 40% said they binge drink (consuming 4 drinks in a row at least once in the past two weeks), half of these students were extreme binge drinkers (3 or more episodes in the past two weeks). Of the 20% of students who are heavy drinkers they consume 70% of the alcohol used by All students in the U.S.  Binge drinking causes 1,400 student deaths and 500,000 injuries each year. Also 400,000 students claimed they had unprotected sex after drinking alcohol and causes 70,000 cases of date rape each year. In 2005 police made 556,000 arrests for disorderly conduct involving alcohol, 1.4 million arrests per year for DUI’s and 40% of people in jail report they were under the influence.

                According to some students alcohol eases social interaction. Alcohol helps calm you since it is a depressant. It is ok to drink in moderate amounts and yes it can get out of control if not regulated. Even with these statistics alcohol is not viewed negatively by a majority of people. It is a way for people to get to know each other and enjoy a drink together.

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