9. December 2011 by student.

In a world where people are so concerned with rights of marriage, it surprises me that websites such as AshleyMadison.com exist. The site is designed for people who wish to have affairs outside of their marraige or for people to get involved with married men/women. If we’re so concerned with who is getting married, and how “wrong” it is for same sex marraige to be allowed and recognized, why isn’t anyone going against websites like these that support and ruin the sanctity of marriage.  It amazes me that the same people protesting the marriage of two men who want to pledge to be faithful to one another are the same ones signing onto the website to “meet up for some secret fun” http://www.ashleymadison.com/. Their motto is “Life is short, have an affair”..how about “Life is short, marriage is forever”. If straight couples are doing so bad, why not let same sex couples have a go?

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9. December 2011 by student.

In recent years, child obesity rates have skyrocketed in developing countries at alarming rates. The United States is one of the main victims of this statistic. Between the mid-1970s and the mid-2000s the percentage of overweight children ages two to five years increased from 5% to 13.9% and for children ages six to eleven years from 6.5% to 18.8%. Furthermore, overweight and obesity in teens increased from 5% to 17.4%. In 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 1.6 billion people over the age of fifteen were overweight and at least 400 million were obese.

Television, video games, and computers have replaced outside physical activity in the lives of most kids. While taking part in these activities, a child will tend to snack on food that is usually unhealthy. In addition, fewer children are walking to schools or riding their bikes. There is less recess time for children and fear of crime prevents outside play. Highly-processed, high-calorie meals and fast foods have replaced home made hearty meals. Instead of family meals, children are now snacking on foods such as cookies, chips, and sodas. Less than twenty percent of American children obtain the recommended serving of fruits and vegetables per day.

With obesity comes the possibility of serious health conditions it may cause. Although most are not likely to happen as early as childhood, they do develop rapidly in adulthood and may become more fatal. Some of the most common problems are type II diabetes, heart disease, bone and joint problems, etc.

Parents can play a big role in their child’s life by instilling correct and healthy habits. Serving healthy foods, methods like baking or broiling, eliminating junk foods, and eating meals together as a family can help children find an ideal weight.

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9. December 2011 by student.

Gangs are a social phenomenon that we must tackle, because the activity that the members engage is typically illegal and dangerous for other members of society. Such activities range from drug dealing to murder. The murder typically takes place against other rival gang members. If asked about gangs to anyone on the street their reply would be, it’s a bad thing. They don’t give anything to society or they cost tax payers money from the damage they contribute on the street. These damages could be distributing drugs on the street which leads to addiction and medicals costs for those people. Also, they damage property by shootings, and robberies.

            Are gangs a social problem? It depends on how you look at it. The statistics according to justice.gov gang activity has been rising from 2004 to 2008. The year 2007 and 2008 seems to level out looking at the graph. Another statistic taken from justice.gov is the statistic of membership. It is calculated that there is 1 million gang members in the United States and 21,500 gangs. That is quite a bit and rather intimidating. There is a couple of small problems with gang membership. The claim to be a gang member varies between different gangs. Gangs don’t keep a record (from what I know) of every single gang members. Also, people who associate themselves with gang members might be consider gangs members, even though they don’t consider themselves one.

            Why do people join gangs? This question is in essence what most people want to know, because if you can figure out why they join, then you can end it. Some research suggest that they join, because protection against other gangs, fitting in, money, friends, and family.

            Gangs are a social issue, but since crimes are going down and they are composed of the 90 percent of crimes in America, are they dying?

http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs32/32146/gangs.htm#Figure2

http://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/

http://people.howstuffworks.com/street-gang.htm

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9. December 2011 by student.

Have you ever bullied or been bullied? If you have bullied or been bullied then you should know how bullying feels like. Bullying is very negative and creates major problems for our society. Nothing good comes out of bullying. It could very well change or ruin a person’s life. In fact, it does ruin many people’s lives. Kids can be mentally scarred if they are teased often. Even worse, they could be killed or fatally injured if the bullying gets extreme. There are many causes for bullying which must be taken care of before bullying can be stopped. T.V. violence, families in poverty, and mis-teachings are just several of the many serious causes for bullying. Bullying must be stopped or prevented no matter how long it will take, it is a deeply concerning matter. Bullying does not always have to be childish play, it can be extremely violent. People may be bruised, injured, or even killed. Kids under bad influence may turn very violent. Parents, relatives, friends, T.V., music and pictures may all influence people, especially when they are depressed or are in a lowered state of mind. Violence on T.V. is a very big influence, particularly the wrestling and fighting shows. Also, T.V. shows are quite readily available for anyone to watch. Kids may try “moves” on people at school because they believe it’s cool. As well, cooperation from childrens’ parents is important, some parents actually encourage their children to fight to look cool or don’t teach them properly. Kids must take their own initiative, as well, they must find out what’s wrong and what’s right for themselves sometimes. Many kids don’t take bullying seriously. However, when a real incident occurs, they are unprepared, shocked, regretful, or dead. Bullying must stop, for it is destroying the lives and futures of many innocents, perhaps not killing them, but ruining them. People may end up physically distorted, paralysed, or dead because of bullying. Aside from physical harm, there is also mental harm. This is equally as destructive. Kids may become extremely depressed from being bullied. As a result, they may refuse to eat, become suicidal, or in return bully other kids to make themselves feel better. Although some of these examples of effects may not seem too serious, they really are. Commonly, there are incidents where bullied students go to school and slaughter many people and eventually kill themselves. For example, several weeks ago Killarney Secondary School had an angered student come to their cafeteria with a knife looking for someone. Dozens of innocent kids have been killed in these types of incidents because one or several kids bullied a student. Most of these incidents occur because a group of kids thought it was cool to bully, or just to show off. These peer pressure incidents caused a great deal of harm and suffering. However, peer pressure is just one of the many reasons bullying occurs. Disfunctional families, being bullied, bad moods, not being taught rights and wrongs are, as well, causes for bullying. As bullying runs amuck, many people will lose their morale, self-confidence, and determination. These people will become lost in despair and may find themselves bullying others which will only create more problems. We must put a stop to bullying. The results of bullying are all negative and very serious. In reality, many bullied people end up with seriously physically injured because people to do no know the extents of bullying. As well, other bullied people may remain in suffering and cower in their homes in fright of bullies. Many of these people have disorders which will “eat” at them till they die. If people are not aware of the potential consequences of bullying, they may have their lives ruined or shattered, or even worse, live to see their family or friends suffer. This bullying must be stopped and prevented before more lives are taken.

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9. December 2011 by student.

It is true that discrimination is rooted in human nature, but where does society learn to discriminate? Babies are not born to discriminate, yet as they grow they learn to. When first born, everyone is “neutral” so to say, and their childhood experiences influence who they grow up to be. Throughout a child’s life, agents of socialization such as family, friends, peers and culture will directly or indirectly teach them how to discriminate. These agents of socialization surround the child during their first few years and that is how they first learn about the world. “Discrimination should emerge at about age 4, when children apparently have a well-developed sense of group or social identity.” (Fishbein 38) This explains that children by age four are able to make connections and apply what they have learned or what they have been taught. Children also learn how to discriminate through observational learning. They often replicate what they see; therefore if they see someone they look up to acting a certain way, chances are they will mirror that.

Experiences as a child can stay with individuals and can shape their outlook towards others. When applying Erikson’s theory, if a child witnesses discrimination and does not resolve the issue, they carry it on into adulthood. By the time an individual is in their teenage years, they will be able to make distinctions among people based on their own experiences, feelings and teachings. This is important since in stage 5 of Erikson’s Theory, individuals are developing their own identity as well as forming social relationships. This involves choosing who their friends are and often times by doing this, discrimination takes place. Therefore, society and socialization are to blame for teaching children how to discriminate, making it a learned behaviour.

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9. December 2011 by student.

Poverty does not have one clear definition. It is a complicated, multi-faceted concept. For this essay the term ‘poverty’ will be used to mean a lack of access to basic resources including food, clean water, sanitation, education and capital. The term ‘absolute poverty’ signifies a population that is living below $1 (U.S) a day; therefore over 1.2 billion people on Earth are living in absolute poverty. ‘Relative poverty’ is poverty within a country. Although New Zealand has a high human development, there are still people within the country who are relatively poor, compared with richer people in the country. These relatively poor people are not living in absolute poverty but can be considered poor and are therefore living in ‘relative poverty’.

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9. December 2011 by student.

Over the last ten years the U.s. Postal has lost nearly 29% of its first-class mail by volume. Nearly 250 postal centers are on the verge of closing, that is over half of the postal centers around America. Sadly, many quaint little post offices with tremendous character will soon be gone. Character aside, these post office closings will account for 28,000 jobs being cut.(Washington Post) What was once considered a “good job” is soon to be extinct. How many more “good jobs” will be lost in the near future? How long will it take to see the effects of buying items made in China, and not demanding home grown products? We are seeing these effects now. Realize what the purpose of STIMULUS is, to stimulate OUR economy, not the THEIR economy. Let us not lose something else as special our United States Postal Service.

Jacquenese

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8. December 2011 by student.

Mass media is communication—whether written, broadcast, or spoken—that reaches a large audience. This includes television, radio, advertising, movies, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and so forth.
the mass media now has become a big contest with one another, so it seems. These programs are just like any other broadcast set to “entertain us”, “inform us”, and or “Persuade us”. What i thought the mass media was supposed to do was inform us about different/important events/news/ or upcoming things. Now that our culture has evolved so much it seems each media production service is just trying to get a crazier story to pull ahead of their competitors, instead of going against one another, what if we tried working together, the stories might get a little more uninteresting, but they will be truthful. The last thing we need right now is what we are being fed, a bunch stories that have nothing to do with us as individuals or even as a partial whole, in which these stores seem so exaggerated and biased. I’m 100% positive i can deal without the media.

“The current level of media saturation has not always existed. As recently as the 1960s and 1970s, television, for example, consisted of primarily three networks, public broadcasting, and a few local independent stations. These channels aimed their programming primarily at two-parent, middle-class families. Even so, some middle-class households did not even own a television. Today, one can find a television in the poorest of homes, and multiple TVs in most middle-class homes. Not only has availability increased, but programming is increasingly diverse with shows aimed to please all ages, incomes, backgrounds, and attitudes. This widespread availability and exposure makes television the primary focus of most mass-media discussions. More recently, the Internet has increased its role exponentially as more businesses and households “sign on.” Although TV and the Internet have dominated the mass media, movies and magazines—particularly those lining the aisles at grocery checkout stands—also play a powerful role in culture, as do other forms of media.”
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/topicArticleId-26957,articleId-26946.html

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8. December 2011 by student.

So, what is cyber bullying.  ”"Cyberbullying” is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones.” It’s been awhile since  have delt with this problem, but it still goes on today, all around us. based on “stopcyberbullying.org” Children have killed each other and committed suicide after having been involved in a cyberbullying incident.  i believe it, with all the anger and violence our children are being surrounded by, with there tainted adolescent mind i don’t think a child would have any trouble being a cyber bully and or doing said things to themselves or others. Schools have tried to make it apparent that this is going on but normally when the cyber bullying happens its off school grounds and if the school were to act upon that they would get sued. So we need to raise awareness outside of schools. Kids need to be taught morals and have proper guidance nowadays. if it wast for all the “poison” in our media and entertainment theory’s of living, i believe that our lives would be much less problematic. Their are many different ways to prevent cyber bullying but as parents we “ need to be the one trusted place kids can go when things go wrong online and offline. Yet they often are the one place kids avoid when things go wrong online.”

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8. December 2011 by student.

Most companies and businesses nowadays still do not allow your tattoos or “explicit”/body piercings to show, But why? “ Tattoos and body piercings have become commonplace for professionals in their 20’s and 30’s. According to Laurel Van Buskirk of the New Hampshire Business Review (2005), statistics show that 25-29 year olds have the highest occurrence of tattoos in the workplace. As we as people grow and adapt, you would think something like that would diminish the more that these things appeared in society. but apparently there is something about tattoos and piercings that says ” hi! I’m unprofessional”. Are they distractions, are they obscene, are they immature, what could it be that bans people to casual have their piercings in or have their tattoos showing as long as they are professional, or even at all, at the workplace.
Unfortunately, people judge people based on the way they present themselves, especially in the workplace. Choose your tattoos wisely.  According to a CNN article by Michelle Goodman (2008), Dave Kimmelburg, a lawyer from Boston who is tattooed says that it is better to stick to tattoos and piercings that can be easily covered up if you are going to work in a professional environment.  

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