26. April 2010 by student.

Drug abuse includes the use of an illegal drug such as heroin or LSD, prescription or over-the-counter drug such as cough syrup, or socially acceptable drug such as tobacco and alcohol. I was prescribed hydrocodone when I injured my side last week. I took the amount that I was prescribes and while I was on the medicine I felt like crap and useless. I don’t understand how people like the feelings of these types of drugs and can get addicted to this so easily. In my personal experience, one of my family members was addicted to over the counter medicine. It was very hard on my family as well as myself to see my Uncle Nate either on the medicine to where he couldn’t function correctly or where he was looking for the medication. If he didn’t get the medication that he was badly addicted to he would get very hostel and he was once arrested for stealing so that he could trade for the medication. This tore my family apart and I haven’t talked to him in 3 years because his addiction got out of hand to where he was stealing more and more and getting arrested more and more. I hope that he will straighten his life out and get better he is a big part in our family but we can’t help him anymore he has to do it himself now.

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26. April 2010 by student.

Organ transplantation, the surgical replacement of a patient’s diseased or damaged organ with a healthy organ from a living or deceased donor, is generally a last resort for patients in the final stages of illness. Even so, there are far more people seeking transplants than there are donor organs available. In the U.S., more than 75,000 people are on the waiting list for transplants; only 1 in 4 will receive them in time to save their lives. I feel that I have lived a healthy life and I am an organ donor. If it comes to the day that it’s my time to move on and I’m not on this earth anymore I would want them to take my organs because helping people in my eyes is the best thing that I would be able to for the community and giving another person a shot at pursuing their life to the fullest.

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26. April 2010 by student.

AIDS- acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. One can contract the disease through different bodily fluids such as breast milk, semen, vaginal fluids, blood and pre-cum. This disease causes the individual to have a low immune system and after a while their body will no longer be able to fight off infections and things as little as the common cold. I know someone who has contracted the disease if is very hard for them to pursue a normal life now because they have to watch everything that they do because they either don’t want to come in contact with people or if they do come in contact with someone they don’t want to spread the disease to them. He is a wonderful person and he wishes everyday that this would just be a dream that he would wake up from and become as he says” normal again”. I feel that he is normal in every sense but just have a very infectious disease that reduces your immune system so that you can get sick from almost anything. He stated that he should live in a bubble so that he won’t get sick and so he will stay out of the hospital. Ever since he found out that he was infected, he has had to take medicine everyday and he will have to do that for the rest of his life.

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26. April 2010 by student.

         Homelessness is something everyone in the world is aware of.  I am sure that everyone can feel somewhat of a deep sense of sadness when you see someone on the street. It tares me up so much because I believe no one deserves that. Homelessness also meaning “ sleeping rough” is the condition of people and social category of people who don’t have a regular house or dwelling because they cannot afford, pay for, or are otherwise unable to maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or they lack, “fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. Homelessness is more than just being without a house. The vast majority of homeless people are actually entangled in one or more struggles that threaten their self-sufficiency like drug addictions, medical issues or just can not stand on their own two feet. The thing is though that Sociologists look at homelessness as a whole and to see how it affects not just them but society as a whole. People who just do not have the money for a house are not the only ones who are being affected by homelessness. Examples of how it can effect others is by how about a young child who ages out of foster care systems at 18 and has no where to go or a woman escaping an abusive relationship with nothing but the clothes on her back. There are so many examples of ways to become with out a home or a place to sleep. This to me I feel as if everyone has the right to have at least somewhere to sleep at night, and lay their head down somewhere safe. One fact that shocked me was about 1 in every 200 persons in the United States was in a homeless facility in that time period. That statistic is crazy!  What is even more sad is out of everything homelessness effects children the worse. I can see how people few down sometimes on the homelessness but NO child and I mean NO child deserves that. Homelessness is everywhere from all over the world, to the United States, to even right into your community. Just Florida alone has an estimation of 83,391 people are homeless and that does not even include hurricane victims of 2004 and 2005 hurricanes. Homelessness in just Florida has tripled since 1991!  With experts from all over trying to lower these numbers, it is crazy there is no decline, but rather a incline. If everyone would care, then maybe you could see a change but the only way to fix this is everyone take a small step towards helping others. Sociologists look at society different that the average person. Sociology tries to understand society from a deeper level while trying to understand the underlying forces that affect the way society works, and in homelessness they try to look at the bigger picture of why it happened and how it effects society as a whole. Sociological Perspective feel as if homelessness comes from the lack of jobs society has to offer and addictions people have to deal with daily.  All we can pray in is to maybe one day in the far future everyone will have the oppuritunity to have a nice bed to sleep in and a home to always come home to. Everyone PLEASE go help, even if it means giving a dollar. Even a dollar can change a life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States

 http://www.homelessofhc.org/HChomelessfacts.htm

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26. April 2010 by student.

Pollution is caused by various industrial and agricultural processes, population growth and movement, and transportation. For thousands of years, people lived off the land without permanently harming it. However, since the beginning of the industrial age in the mid-1800s, the concentration of pollutants has increased greatly and has challenged the environment. We need to start to work on keeping the earth clean and stop pollution because if we don’t stop it not we will be in big trouble in 10 years to where there will be no drinking water or that all the animals such as fish and other aquatic animals will die out. If the animals start to die out we will not be far behind because the food chain will be messed up and then we will have nothing to eat as well as nothing to drink. We need to start protecting the water ways because that is the only hope that we have to surviving for a long period of time on this planet.

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26. April 2010 by student.

Since it is easier for teens to get birth control in today’s society, I think that it causes then to start having sex at a younger age because they aren’t as afraid for becoming pregnant. According to 4parents.gov, 1 out of 3 teen will become pregnant before the age of 20. Personally, I like the idea of teens having access to birth control because it cuts down on teen pregnancy and abortions. Abortions are very bad on anyone’s body especially teens. The teens aren’t going to stop having sex and some aren’t going to use protection.  A con of this is that it might make teens have more unprotected sex which will lead to STDs as well as pregnancy because no birth control is 100% effective which will lead to abortions.

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26. April 2010 by student.

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26. April 2010 by student.

Have you notice that in today’s time that we are seeing more and more young girls getting pregnant? That’s right, “three-quarters of a million teens between 15 and 19 become pregnant each year.”(Teen Pregnancy Statistics) So why aren’t we doing something to stop this from getting worse? Is it because we don’t want to have to deal with talking to your kids about sex, well those parents who are open about sex with their kids I think will get through to them then those who are not. Getting pregnant as a teenager is not an easy thing, there comes a lot of things you need to think about and now the most important thing in you life is your new baby, not you life anymore. Teen pregnancy leads to many things like dropping out of school, financial responsibility, and also a higher risk for you and the baby.
I would say more than half of teen mothers who get pregnant drop out of school. They usually only get their high school diploma’s or their GED’s, but very rarely do we see teen mothers take their education any further than a high school diploma. This is mostly because teen mothers can’t handle the stares and whispers from other people. So this is what leads them to be a stay at home mom or go straight into a full time job, so they can pay for the cost of the baby. Now I know this is something we never want for our children to go through, until they are a lot older and have graduated from college and have their career in order. Plus having to deal with all the whispers and stares from other students, there also comes the morning sickness. Morning sickness is a major problem, because it causes the teen mother to miss class which then leads to missing the important information being taught in class. An article by Family First Aid, said that “only one-third of teen mothers receive a high school diploma and only 1.5% have a college degree by the age thirty.”
Now with dropping out of school, there comes the responsibility of financial aid that needs to be provided for the new baby. It was said that it takes about  five thousand to seven thousand dollars a year to raise a baby. This is quite a large amount, now do you think that teen moms are ready for a life like this where there is bills after bills? No, this could lead them to be homeless and in debt because they are way over their head in bills. And this is something that a baby shouldn’t have to grow up in a situation where they are living paycheck to paycheck. Its not good for the mother and the baby. I also think that this is something a new mother is not ready for and won’t be able to handle it.
Being pregnant at such a young age can cause many health risks for you and your baby like, premature labor or delivery, low iron levels in your blood, swelling, high blood pressure and protein in your urine, and also having your baby with a low birth weight. You can help prevent these things by eating right, getting enough calories in your diet, gaining the right amount of weight, avoiding alcohol and smoking, and many other things. But how many teen mothers do you think will actually follow these rules or know about these sort of things. They may know the general things, but are they really going to follow everything and get regular check ups. Mostly not, because those who are poor  won’t be able to afford these kind of medical bills and this is something that can lead to hurting the baby and also yourself if not getting check on by a doctor. Not only do teen mothers have to worry about these medical problems but also the risk of having another child. “About twenty-five percent of teenage girls who give birth have another baby within 2 years”, said an article by Health Communities. Cause have one baby as a teenager is hard enough, now try putting a second baby into the situation.
So that’s why the best way to avoid these kind of problems of being pregnant at such a young age is to not have sex in the first place or until you are ready and ready to have a baby. Also there is many other options you can choose to do if your not capable of raising a new baby or don’t want to raise it, you can always give it up for adoption. Teen mothers just need to realize the consequence of raising a new baby at a young age and need to make sure the baby is being raised in a healthy home. Being pregnant is not all fun and games, because most teen moms drop out of school and have a hard time providing for the baby.  I strongly believe that teen pregnancy is something most teenagers can’t handle and think its better for them to wait to have sex, so they don’t have to worry about the consequences of a baby.

Teen Pregnancy Statistics. About.com-Womens Issues, 14 June 2008. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. <http://womensissues.about.com/od/datingandsex/tp/Teenpregancy.htm>

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26. April 2010 by student.

Juvenile criminals are on the rise in the communities around the country. I feel that is happening because of the stuff on TV, what they listen to, and the video games that they are playing. I think that all of these things are having a huge impact on the way they are going to live there lives. This is a huge problem because if the teens are going to take the path to a life of crime then the prison systems will have to be ready to put a lot more people into the system as well as possibly make more room for them. I think that a little censorship and parental control in this country would go along way and show to kids that stealing, shooting, and dealing drugs is not the way to make a honest living and that they should try and get there education so that they can get a well paying job and stay off the streets and out of trouble.

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26. April 2010 by student.

During the 201st episode of South Park, the mature cartoon show on Comedy Central, they had quite a controversial issue on it. The Muslim prophet Muhammed (who is rather controversial to portray in a negative way) was portray as a person in a bear suit. People from the organization of www.revolutionmuslim.com saw the episode and stated “We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.” They got so offended that they questioned the lives of these two comedy cartoon writers. That is so unbelievable to me because they make fun of nearly every type of color, gender, race, religion, what have you, and no one seems to care. You don’t see death threats from Jews when Moses is depicted in an unbecoming position, you don’t see death threats from Christians when Jesus is put in ‘bad’ position. We live in a country which prides itself on freedom of speech, in which we can say whatever is in our hearts and in our minds as long as its not threatening or violent to someone else. These Islamics need to realize that its not something they have to watch and it is up to them whether or not someone watches the show or not. But the notion that some radical Islamic group IN AMERICA, would make a threat against two mens lives, is chilling. These radicals however say its not a threat, just a warning that may come to these men in the future. The comment written on this website is very ugly, but it is not specific enough to get anyone arrested for what they wrote. They keep posting on their website that “The dust will never settle down.” These extremists have even went to the extent to look for the addresses of Matt Stone and Trey Parker! The episode was not only funny, but it also addressed an essential piece in the times we are living. There are one group of people, that think they are above criticism. This is an assault on the freedom of expression and we have to defend it and stand by Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

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