“I have learned how to cry silently in a bathroom, and how to run really fast.” These are the sad words from an unfortunate girl. We live in a society where an outstanding number of teenagers take advantage of this right we call “education”. School can be ill-mannered, and the way you are treated can be based on external features. In Emily’s case, she’s been called a slut, whore, fat, ugly and even a bitch. However, I highly doubt that she has any of those qualities. I, as a student find this heart breaking to read the thoughts of another individual. To hear their pain, their misery and how they view life. It hurts even more to know it happens at my school too.
At one point of my life, and I think for most people too, we’d call people who reported on their peers “snitches”. Today, I have a whole new perspective on what it means to report to an adult. No one can understand another person’s feelings perfectly, but they can have a good idea about how they feel. If you see someone being hurt, whether it’s physically or mentally, wouldn’t you want to stop the abuse? Most of the time a lot of people are being picked on for no reason, and if there is a reason, it’s usually smaller than the later outcome of the whole conflict. Maybe if someone would have just “snitched” on whoever was bullying Emily everything would have been better. Emily was being abused because she was hated, but to fight against the haters they must fear something. That something they fear is a “snitch”, who I like to call a responsible and caring person.
Emily looks at her life as a fight, segregated by rounds. She lives her life being defeated, round after round. She feels as if she has lost the fight, Emily quotes, “They broke me down, I had no backbone, no will to succeed, no will to even get up in the morning.” Emily has been defeated in life so many times that she doesn’t even have the will to fight back, and even when she moved to another school, she says, “A few people from my old school showed up at my new school the next year. So my problems multiplied.” Having the ability to run away from your problems is great, which is what she did, however she’s been tailed from former haters of her old school. What I think about this is that people should be more open and warm hearted out there. It’s not rocket science to see that the girl is upset, it’s pretty obvious. She was in an helpless position, the only help she could get was from someone else, so why didn’t anyone help her? Are the teachers blind? If I was a teacher and I’ve seen a student constantly being depressed every class, I would ask what’s wrong and advise the child to go to the guidance office. School is a bond of brotherhood and sisterhood, but it can also be the nest of your enemies. Most of the time you have a friend that will stand up for you when threatened by an enemy, but in Emily’s case, no one stood up for her. In fact, more of her friends left her not knowing whether to believe her or not.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Freedom of Speech - a Rotting Fruit
Freedom of speech was probably the sweetest fruit the political tree has ever bare. Everyone had the freedom to say what they felt, to express their inner feelings to a local or national level, and to be proud enough to call their selves democrats. However, this fruit has been left in the sun for too long, and now it’s starting to rot by the abusers of this right. Perhaps it is just natural for us humans to take advantage of all the rights that we’re given, but we’ll only notice how we take advantage of it until the day it is taken away from us.
To begin, everyone has the freedom to say whatever they want. If you have a problem with the police, or the president, or even little things like the way people dress, you’re free to express your thought in multiple ways. You can probably guess that a lot of people express their selves through the media. In relevance, the media is tied to internet monsters like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc. Where the average citizen like you and I can express their selves in whatever fashion, and attract thousands of viewers, in some cases, millions. In contrast, there are some people that abuse the right of freedom of speech. You probably already know of this, but some people still preach about racism and hating blacks, whites, browns etc. There are also people promoting religious segregation. Surprisingly, I personally find this hard to believe, but they are also sites that promote Nazi’s, and you even have the right to be a member.
Freedom of speech is a great thing, and we certainly would have a rough life without it. However, some people take advantage of it and make it rough for the people who want to enjoy it. For example: People might write blogs on why black people are inferior to white people, the most you can do is comment on it – but do you really believe it should be there in the first place? Just the presence of it there would upset the heart of millions. Therefore, the abuse of freedom of speech will affect the people who want to enjoy it.
To begin, everyone has the freedom to say whatever they want. If you have a problem with the police, or the president, or even little things like the way people dress, you’re free to express your thought in multiple ways. You can probably guess that a lot of people express their selves through the media. In relevance, the media is tied to internet monsters like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc. Where the average citizen like you and I can express their selves in whatever fashion, and attract thousands of viewers, in some cases, millions. In contrast, there are some people that abuse the right of freedom of speech. You probably already know of this, but some people still preach about racism and hating blacks, whites, browns etc. There are also people promoting religious segregation. Surprisingly, I personally find this hard to believe, but they are also sites that promote Nazi’s, and you even have the right to be a member.
Freedom of speech is a great thing, and we certainly would have a rough life without it. However, some people take advantage of it and make it rough for the people who want to enjoy it. For example: People might write blogs on why black people are inferior to white people, the most you can do is comment on it – but do you really believe it should be there in the first place? Just the presence of it there would upset the heart of millions. Therefore, the abuse of freedom of speech will affect the people who want to enjoy it.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Science: Fallacious or Marvelous?
The field of medicine is something every living specie on this planet depends upon, but like any other field, they have their ups and downs. The accumulation of decades of both historical and modern science has brought us to the point where we can cure things that we couldn’t have imagined. Things like a broken spine, heart failure or even a malfunctioning body. It would be safe to say that modern medical science can now be compared to miraculous, but what happens when medical science has ethnically crossed the limit? It has been argued that the field of medicine is degrading the value of life by the use of stem cell research, full-body transplants and over pricing Medicare products.
Stem cells are basically unspecialized cells that do not have any purpose, they might seem useless, but they have the ability to become specialized cells. In other words, they have the ability to copy cells and replicate them. If someone broke their spine, fragments of bone that will never grow back will be out of place, therefore paralyzing the victim from the line of fracture and below. If stem cells were placed in between the cracked surface of the spine, they will then begin to mimic the bone cell structure and replicate themselves, therefore making a spinal connection to the nervous system and relieving the victim of being paralyzed from the spine below. It seems pretty great right? Wrong. Stem cells are found in every human body, but are most abundant in human embryos (undeveloped baby, seen when pregnant). Modern science has found ways to unite a sperm and an egg to create a zygote, also known as an embryo; they are cloned within a petri dish. The main purposes of the cloned embryos are to be terminated and extracted of their blastocysts (stem cells). In other words, human embryos that can develop into a normal human being like us are being cloned and killed for the sake of the injured. That can be compared to murder by some, other classify it as a necessity.
Although modern science has walked a long successful path, we haven’t reached the stage of actually transferring a healthy brain to another donor’s body. It’s completely hypothetical. Even if we’ve reached that far, would full body transplants be morally ethical in the first place? The truth is that it wouldn’t, and because there has been a lot of debate of body’s being donated to hospitals these days, scientists and biochemists alike have been attempting this type of transplant for a very long time. But where do all the experimental body’s come from? They were most likely donated, but the scientists fail to mention that the body of the donor is being experimented on to whoever mattered to the donor. In the story of Alice, little does Mrs. Jarred know about her deceased daughter Gail’s body being transferred to Alice’s brain. She only finds out after the transplant is complete. She was sobering along with her husband. Think of Mrs. Jarred as a round character, if this were to happen today in real life, the outcome of sorrow and pain wouldn’t be so different from what Mr. and Mrs. Jarred felt.
Finally, the over pricing of Medicare products. Luckily we live in a country with free health care, but in countries like American where you have to pay $50 to refill an asthma container and $250,000 for a heart transplant is insanely inappropriate. Considering that nearly one-third of individuals in the U.S. were obese in 2004 would be an alright reason to at least cut down heart transplant costs due to fat blocking arteries, and they said “smoking” was an expensive way to die. Fortunately, it’s not the whole world that faces the same medical cost explosion like the States do. For example, an asthma container in the States would cost around $50, in Cuba it’d cost around 5 American cents, enough to make anyone with asthma sigh a wheezy breath of relief.
Medical science has saved an unimaginable number of lives since the human species began. But like any other action on this planet, they have their positives and negatives. Their negatives include inappropriate ways to extract stem cells, attempting to switch human bodies without letting the loved ones of the donor know, and the over pricing of medical products.
Stem cells are basically unspecialized cells that do not have any purpose, they might seem useless, but they have the ability to become specialized cells. In other words, they have the ability to copy cells and replicate them. If someone broke their spine, fragments of bone that will never grow back will be out of place, therefore paralyzing the victim from the line of fracture and below. If stem cells were placed in between the cracked surface of the spine, they will then begin to mimic the bone cell structure and replicate themselves, therefore making a spinal connection to the nervous system and relieving the victim of being paralyzed from the spine below. It seems pretty great right? Wrong. Stem cells are found in every human body, but are most abundant in human embryos (undeveloped baby, seen when pregnant). Modern science has found ways to unite a sperm and an egg to create a zygote, also known as an embryo; they are cloned within a petri dish. The main purposes of the cloned embryos are to be terminated and extracted of their blastocysts (stem cells). In other words, human embryos that can develop into a normal human being like us are being cloned and killed for the sake of the injured. That can be compared to murder by some, other classify it as a necessity.
Although modern science has walked a long successful path, we haven’t reached the stage of actually transferring a healthy brain to another donor’s body. It’s completely hypothetical. Even if we’ve reached that far, would full body transplants be morally ethical in the first place? The truth is that it wouldn’t, and because there has been a lot of debate of body’s being donated to hospitals these days, scientists and biochemists alike have been attempting this type of transplant for a very long time. But where do all the experimental body’s come from? They were most likely donated, but the scientists fail to mention that the body of the donor is being experimented on to whoever mattered to the donor. In the story of Alice, little does Mrs. Jarred know about her deceased daughter Gail’s body being transferred to Alice’s brain. She only finds out after the transplant is complete. She was sobering along with her husband. Think of Mrs. Jarred as a round character, if this were to happen today in real life, the outcome of sorrow and pain wouldn’t be so different from what Mr. and Mrs. Jarred felt.
Finally, the over pricing of Medicare products. Luckily we live in a country with free health care, but in countries like American where you have to pay $50 to refill an asthma container and $250,000 for a heart transplant is insanely inappropriate. Considering that nearly one-third of individuals in the U.S. were obese in 2004 would be an alright reason to at least cut down heart transplant costs due to fat blocking arteries, and they said “smoking” was an expensive way to die. Fortunately, it’s not the whole world that faces the same medical cost explosion like the States do. For example, an asthma container in the States would cost around $50, in Cuba it’d cost around 5 American cents, enough to make anyone with asthma sigh a wheezy breath of relief.
Medical science has saved an unimaginable number of lives since the human species began. But like any other action on this planet, they have their positives and negatives. Their negatives include inappropriate ways to extract stem cells, attempting to switch human bodies without letting the loved ones of the donor know, and the over pricing of medical products.
The New Set of Teenage Problems
"Saturday Climbing"
Our parent’s once had their own set of similar problems that teenagers today have to deal with, but teenagers now have a new set of troubles that our parent’s cannot compare to. Although our parent’s might have had their similarities with us, be it relationships with males or females, fights at school or bullying, our technological age has struck the teenage society in both a positive and negative way. The positive side isn’t the matter of the issue now, but rather it’s the negative’s that makes us differentiate between our parent’s generation and our teenage generation today. Some of those problems include: cyber bullying, sex and love addictions, as well as body image.
To start off, Cyber bullying is when technological communication is used to deliberately hurt or harm another’s feelings through the internet. Note, hurt is not referred to physical pain but refers to internally harming another person’s feelings, typically teenagers. For instance, a normal 16 year old girl goes home, finishes her home work and heads onto the computer. She open up her msn and logs into Facebook. Just yesterday, she posted up a decent frontal picture of her face as a profile picture on her Facebook profile. Today she logs on, and gets multiple notifications saying how ugly she is, that her acne is horrible, that she looks so alienish and so forth. Cyber bullying can be compared to alienation, except that they’re being alienated online which can later lead to isolation at school. Our parent’s might have had the internet, but it wasn’t as popular as now, almost everyone has an msn account or facebook, and it’s hard to say if a teenager can survive without internet. Since the general teenage population has internet (and facebook, msn etc.), they are all potential victims of cyber bullying.
To further my point, there is also something called sex and love addiction. Of course, this existed even back in our parent’s generation, but the severity and freedom that our teenagers risk today is dangerous, and even potentially fatal. For example, teenagers in Guyana wouldn’t be able to loiter around where ever they want, and even if they could, they’d have a certain time limit, and even if the time limit is obeyed, they can’t be caught with another girl, especially during school! What I’m trying to say is that our teenage society has so much more freedom than before to go anywhere they want. They can go meet a girl, rent a room and have sexual intercourse anywhere that shows signs of privacy. And if they’re above 18, they legally have the right to be out before midnight. There are some cases where a parent would call the police because their child is not listening to them when they say don’t go out, say home tonight, but the cop proceeds with the child’s rights that he can be anywhere within the district, as long as he/she comes home before midnight! But that’s not all; we also have a lot more diseases and illnesses like AIDS, and different types of HIV’S. Add AIDS to the equation of freedom and you have a lot more teenager putting their lives at risk compared to our parents generation.
Lastly, in our parents generation there were overweight people, but not as many as today. Also, they were not that many advertisements being displayed on physical body image. So everyone was pretty much “mmeh” about how nice their body looked. Now-a-days, we have more obese teenagers than healthy teens and a ton more advertisements on body imaging than advertisements on helping the poor! This is bad, because this puts a lot more pressure on the people who want to lose weight, but they can’t because it’s too hard! So they give up and just live their whole life with a subconscious thought in the back of their heads of how disgusting they look. Obesity isn’t the only problem though, they are also teenagers that are malnourished, and even some that are bulimic. Matters have gone so far, that there are some cases where an unhealthy teen might have died or committed suicide due to his “unappealing” body condition. To clarify on one point though, some teenagers might find their body appealing, but in reality they’re actually malnourished, and so die from starvation thinking they were thin and beautiful.
In conclusion, our parent’s generation didn’t have to deal with some of the problems teens today have to deal with. They didn’t have to worry as much about cyber bullying, sex and love addictions, as well as body image. And these are obstacles that our parent’s couldn’t find as an obstacle in their generation, but we teenagers have to face today.
Our parent’s once had their own set of similar problems that teenagers today have to deal with, but teenagers now have a new set of troubles that our parent’s cannot compare to. Although our parent’s might have had their similarities with us, be it relationships with males or females, fights at school or bullying, our technological age has struck the teenage society in both a positive and negative way. The positive side isn’t the matter of the issue now, but rather it’s the negative’s that makes us differentiate between our parent’s generation and our teenage generation today. Some of those problems include: cyber bullying, sex and love addictions, as well as body image.
To start off, Cyber bullying is when technological communication is used to deliberately hurt or harm another’s feelings through the internet. Note, hurt is not referred to physical pain but refers to internally harming another person’s feelings, typically teenagers. For instance, a normal 16 year old girl goes home, finishes her home work and heads onto the computer. She open up her msn and logs into Facebook. Just yesterday, she posted up a decent frontal picture of her face as a profile picture on her Facebook profile. Today she logs on, and gets multiple notifications saying how ugly she is, that her acne is horrible, that she looks so alienish and so forth. Cyber bullying can be compared to alienation, except that they’re being alienated online which can later lead to isolation at school. Our parent’s might have had the internet, but it wasn’t as popular as now, almost everyone has an msn account or facebook, and it’s hard to say if a teenager can survive without internet. Since the general teenage population has internet (and facebook, msn etc.), they are all potential victims of cyber bullying.
To further my point, there is also something called sex and love addiction. Of course, this existed even back in our parent’s generation, but the severity and freedom that our teenagers risk today is dangerous, and even potentially fatal. For example, teenagers in Guyana wouldn’t be able to loiter around where ever they want, and even if they could, they’d have a certain time limit, and even if the time limit is obeyed, they can’t be caught with another girl, especially during school! What I’m trying to say is that our teenage society has so much more freedom than before to go anywhere they want. They can go meet a girl, rent a room and have sexual intercourse anywhere that shows signs of privacy. And if they’re above 18, they legally have the right to be out before midnight. There are some cases where a parent would call the police because their child is not listening to them when they say don’t go out, say home tonight, but the cop proceeds with the child’s rights that he can be anywhere within the district, as long as he/she comes home before midnight! But that’s not all; we also have a lot more diseases and illnesses like AIDS, and different types of HIV’S. Add AIDS to the equation of freedom and you have a lot more teenager putting their lives at risk compared to our parents generation.
Lastly, in our parents generation there were overweight people, but not as many as today. Also, they were not that many advertisements being displayed on physical body image. So everyone was pretty much “mmeh” about how nice their body looked. Now-a-days, we have more obese teenagers than healthy teens and a ton more advertisements on body imaging than advertisements on helping the poor! This is bad, because this puts a lot more pressure on the people who want to lose weight, but they can’t because it’s too hard! So they give up and just live their whole life with a subconscious thought in the back of their heads of how disgusting they look. Obesity isn’t the only problem though, they are also teenagers that are malnourished, and even some that are bulimic. Matters have gone so far, that there are some cases where an unhealthy teen might have died or committed suicide due to his “unappealing” body condition. To clarify on one point though, some teenagers might find their body appealing, but in reality they’re actually malnourished, and so die from starvation thinking they were thin and beautiful.
In conclusion, our parent’s generation didn’t have to deal with some of the problems teens today have to deal with. They didn’t have to worry as much about cyber bullying, sex and love addictions, as well as body image. And these are obstacles that our parent’s couldn’t find as an obstacle in their generation, but we teenagers have to face today.
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