9. December 2011 by student.

Cell phones are fastly becoming one of the most accident prone devices in our country. Most adults who drive admit to have engaged in distracting driving behaviors. According to a HealthDay poll from November, 2011 we see that more than 2,800 American adults who responded to the poll gave the following results. Answering a text takes away your attention for about five seconds. That is enough time to travel the length of a football field. While teenagers are texting, they spend about 10 percent of the time outside the driving lane they’re supposed to be in. About 6,000 deaths and a half a million injuries are caused by distracted drivers every year. Talking on a cell phone while driving can make a young driver’s reaction time as slow as that of a 70-year-old. Over 1/3 of drivers have sent or received text messages while driving, and 18% said they do it regularly. 36% percent have read a map while driving, and 10% do it “sometimes” or “often.” About 13% of adult drivers have surfed the Internet while driving. Results of the poll showed that younger drivers were more likely to engage in distracted driving. Men were more likely to drive while drowsy, drive after drinking, read a map, use a GPS system, and use the Internet. Approximately 86% of drivers said they ate or drank while driving at some point, and 57% said they do it “sometimes” or “often.” Although some of these statistics are hard to be stopped many have ways to fix them. Aside from the obvious answer that we should all be more responsible I think there is a great solution to solving one of the biggest problems, the use of cell phones in a car. One of my few ideas to eliminate the use of cell phones start with mandating when we can use it. All cell phones come with a optional GPS tracking device. This is something that can be checked or unchecked on modern day android phones. With phones being as savvy as computers now I think it isnt hard to ask these cell phone companies to leave GPS tracking on phones without an option of removing it. The next step will be to automatically shut GPS tracking off of our cell phones when the phone see’s that the car has been in motion for more then 2 miles. The next step would be very similar, all phones will automatically covert to airplane mode once in motion for more then 2 miles. Airplane mode will prevent any calls or text messages from coming in aside from emergency calls, it will also disable GPS, and Internet surfing. There are few ways to make people stop using their phones while they are driving directly but I do feel that this is one that should be considered. Another solution to help mandate this abuse of the privilage to drive would be to not allow for a driver to have an android or iphone if they are caught texting or web browsing while driving. With that said I think all states should have it illegal to drive and talk unless it is on a headset or bluetooth. We have many states like New York who already follow the policy to ticket those caught talking on their phones while driving but becuase of the people who just dont care we need to start to remove that privilage from those who make it dangerous to the people around them. This would not be a hard concept to follow. If someone is ticketed for texting or web browsing online, or even swirving while talking on the phone, these people would have their cell phone carrier notified with the police report and their accounts would be suspended for atleast a year. With the way we are so absorbed in technology these days I think it would be safe to say that if someone was removed their precious phone for this long they would hopefully learn from their mistakes.

Michael Simons

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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

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

8. December 2011 by student.

Rick Scott decided to make drug testing welfare recipients a fixture in his legislative agenda upon being elected Governor of Florida. The majority-Republican state legislature pushed through the bill no problem, which meant that all those applying for welfare benefits had to undergo a mandatory drug screening. The point of the bill was to save the state money, but even those savings are disputed.

A federal judge in Orlando issued an  injunction on the law in late October, which halted the need for drug tests to apply for welfare. Her decision was based on the 4th Amendment ban on illegal searches and seizures. She believed that the state had not provided reasonable suspicion or probable cause, both necessary for such a process to occur.

This is just another example of the classism of Rick Scott’s administration. Who made the distinction of public services strictly welfare? What if all those receiving Bright Futures money or grants or Medicare were drug tested? The people who are being required to pay for these drug tests (between $25-$45 a piece) are living around the poverty line, and have families to support. Asking them to pay for a drug test when that could mean less food for their families is an awfully classist sentiment.

The best part about this entire process has been that approximately 2% of those tested have failed. That means that statistically, welfare users in Florida are less likely to be drug users than the general population. The myth of the drug-addled welfare queen that Rick Scott and his administration like to believe are the source of waste in government has once again come to light.  Ultimately, the law will most likely be struck down as unconstitutional (just as a similar law was struck down in Michigan), but the offensive and classist nature of the law shows just how concerned those in power are with the well-being of the less fortunate.

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8. December 2011 by student.

Another reason that unemployment is so high is because companies are downsizing to manage the economic crisis today and keep operations at minimal costs. These companies are downsizing personnel and the first thing they do is cut high paying jobs in the majority held by experienced people mostly over 45 years old. Many employees over 45 years old are being laid off and replaced with young, freshly graduated out college people; because young college graduated are being paid less because they don’t have the experience. The mature group will face age discrimination in some point and will have difficulties competing to get jobs. A great number of people under this category are considered underemployed. According to a poll conducted by Gallup.com, Underemployment is at 18.1%, an increment of 1% from last year. Underemployment is defined as people working part-time willing to work full time and people that are “overqualified” or “over educated”. In addition, these employees, with high education and vast experience are struggling to support families, and to save for retirement. Furthermore, many people are dipping their hands in their retirement funds to help make up difference in income and  in most cases, they may have to work until the day they die. 

Posted in Social Problems | 2 Comments »

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.

Some estimates show that nearly 1 in 4 women will be a victim of sexual violence at some point in their lives. For some, it is the most tragic experience of their lives. That’s why earlier this year I was stunned and appalled when I read a New York Times article discussing the gang rape of an 11 year old in Cleveland, Texas.

The New York Times article discussed how the 11 year old victim was allegedly raped by 18 men (ages ranging from middle school to a 27 year old) in an abandoned trailer. The author of the article, James C McKinley, had the audacity to write in a paragraph attempting to shift blame from the rapists to the 11 year old victim.

“Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands — known as the Quarters — said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.”

The way someone dresses is not a replacement for verbal, non-coercive consent. Besides that, she’s 11 years old and her mother was quoted saying in the NY Daily News that she still enjoys teddy bears and you could easily tell she was 11 years old. Mr. McKinley selectively left out any pertinent quotations like that, but instead relied upon casting the blame onto the victim and later in the article, her mother.

It’s no surprise that in our culture, the media continues to perpetuate this rape culture. Facebook continues to maintain pages on its website that promote rape culture and hate speech towards women. The actions of the media effectively normalize rape culture and victim-blaming at the emotional expense of the victims.

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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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8. December 2011 by student.

Titile-“U.S. and Chinese Officials Duel on Economic Issues” 

A delegation of senior American economic officials led by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. rolled through a long day of meetings Wednesday with their Chinese counterparts, picking and poking at many economic issues while encountering arguments from the Chinese on several fronts.  A stronger Yuan would make exports from
China to the
United States more expensive and American exports to
China cheaper. Some economists say a currency appreciation would ease the trade deficit with China, which soared to nearly $300 billion this year.   “We are not in favor of excessively fast appreciation of Chinese currency,” said Chen Deming, vice minister of commerce, who is scheduled to become the minister next year. American officials say that
China is worried that raising interest rates, slowing the economy and allowing the value of its currency to rise will shrink the economy and throw people out of work, leading to instability.  Other agreements signed by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and Susan C. Schwab, the United States trade representative, called for market openings in some limited areas like exports of American medical devices. American officials were dismayed to learn, for example, of the latest action by the Chinese this week in barring imports of American-made films, many of them
Hollywood blockbusters.  According to American officials, Ms. Schwab in one meeting raised other issues, including what she said was a lack of authorization for American credit cards and insurance services, and also the monopoly of the official news agency Xinhua.  This is going to be an ongoing journey to try and eliviate the debt from America.  With the economy in the state that it is now, our economic future is very unceartian to achieve the hieghts it reached in the early 2000’s.

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8. December 2011 by student.

Although this is an older article, I would still luike to take the time to aknowledge the social problem and shed some light on possible solutions.  According to a report issued on money in
Italy, organized crime represents the biggest segment of the Italian economy with a monstrous 127 billion dollars.  The list goes on from weaving factories, to tourism to business and personal services, from farming to public contrasts and many more.  Criminal activity occurs in almost every economic aspect of
Italy.  Given that, many businesses outside of
Italy would be hesitant to export there goods to an uncertain new area where many problems could be created.  Companies are not going to be willing to send their products where payoffs may have to be undergone and other such activities.  Since organized crime has the highest GDP of your country, many of the products will most likely be made domestically, which assists
Italy’s own economy.  Although there are both pro’s and con’s to this in my eyes the government needs to crack down and let it be known that this can no longer occur.  At first it will be detrimental to the country, but in the long run it should become benificial to both employment rate and the overall economy.

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