My Comments to various articles

In response to: 5-Year-Old Left Behind – Parents don’t notice for 14 Hours

How does a parent not realize their 5 year old is gone? It’s not like a teenager, who, if randomly disappeared would have a mild idea of what to do. This is a little kid who could have easily been captured by perverts. Think about it, a little kid, who doesn’t even know his last name, wandering around the middle of nowhere near his home at night? That screams danger. I’m surprised the kid is okay, I’d be really hesitant to give the child back to his parents. I understand thinking he was in the other car, but you think they would’ve noticed, even if not at night, at least in the morning, unless the kid is completely self-reliant. Though since he didn’t even know his last name. I doubt it.

In response to mostly negative comments about Walmart: Best and Worst 2008

All this stuff about “Walmart’s stuff is from a third world country.” NEWS FLASH Most things are, haven’t you heard about Dell’s “customer service” ? It’s not just Walmart, it’s bigger companies, with more expensive products. I don’t think it’s fair that they get so little money, but the fact is, chances are we wouldn’t be able to live nearly half as comfortable as we do without them. Looking around at items a lot of them are “Made in China” “Made in India” “Made in Mexico” and so forth. Not everyone can afford the more expensive model, Walmart helps make life more manageable by having lower prices; and yes they’ve had their scandals, but haven’t most companies? Congress and government-the people who run our country have scandals.It happens, it’s not right, but if Walmart helps people survive and makes things easier on people (especially with this tough economy) I think it’s good. It helps from lower class people falling under completely, because many people can’t spare the extra money. While CEO’s are getting huge bonus’s and getting their third house, people can barely afford the little one they have and how gas prices were it only made things tougher. Walmart makes things a bit easier.

My response to:A Debate About Teaching Abstinence and a rant about society

Does this really need to be said? The whole idea of no sex before marriage is mostly a religious belief to begin with. I don’t have a problem with it, I really don’t, it seems like it’s a safer, better idea. The reality-however- is that kids are engaging in more risqué behavoir.The fact is the pregnancies are the problem (at least that’s what the article says the problem is) since abstinence only has been proven to work as well as kids who don’t learn anything about sex (meaning, it’s doesn’t teach kids anything) while teaching kids safe sex has been proven effective. The choices are really simple, have a bunch of kids who haven’t been taught anything about contraceptives OR who have been taught that they don’t work which results in them thinking ‘why bother using them’ and THE RESULTS being an epidemic and a baby boom. This would be because half of them don’t understand what contraception is, while the other half was told that it wasn’t effective. Due to this there would be a rise in pregencies. OR we could have a comprehensive education, while kids ARE NOT encouraged to have sex by any means, they’re told that if they make that choice there are ways to help prevent preganancies, they’re told the different methods, told that it can’t just be relied on the girls or the guys, and that the only true way to prevent STDs and pregenancy is to stay abestinent, but are told of STDs and the symptoms. This is what America needs. It’s going to happen eventually (be if before or after marriage) so why not tell them how to keep safe and healthy? You don’t reject information to kids about colds “Oh, if we don’t tell them colds exist, they’ll never get one” that mentallity doesn’t do anyone any good, telling them “you must wash your hands a lot, you must eating healthy, you shouldn’t share drinks, etc.” that is how to keep them from a cold, same with lice “don’t share hats, combs, etc.” I’ve seen classrooms who have taught abstinence only and it’s a total joke, one think that stuck with me was “It’s like russian roulette” is how they described sex and they pretty much said if you have you’ll die. Which is utter farce, because that would wipe human beings from the earth instantly. No one would exist, because without sex we wouldn’t be able to reproduce-hence the end of our species. It’s a joke, have I said that yet? Meanwhile. I’ve also been in a comprehensive class and it doesn’t promote sex by any means, if anything it tells you just the opposite, the only difference is you know, when the time is right, how to be safe.

Note: This next, um, book-haha I write too much. Is focused on women and the stresses their under from society, so I will be mentioning things, others might not feel comfortable with, just a warning.

I’m going to point the finger at how our society values looks so highly, it’s not just girls ‘are only pretty if they’re skinny and have flawless face’ it’s guys who ‘need to be ripped’. It’s a sad world, it’s not just our country. Though constantly the ads alone are enough to drive people to think about all the imperfections they have ‘get smoother skin’ ‘get rid of dark circles and puffy eyes’ ‘get stronger, shinier hair,’ ‘get rid of cellulite’ ‘reduce wrinkles in only X days’ and it sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Because most people aren’t happy with themselves, they think ‘I’m pretty good lookin” but they always think in the back of their mind ‘well I wouldn’t mind losing some weight’ or ‘I wouldn’t mind having a better complextion’. All the ads they show have models in it and although it’s their job, the fact is models tend to be tall and slender. Their job is to be pretty (I do realize there is more to it than that, you need to be able to pose and present yourself perfectly in any media) However, people see the pretty and they think ‘why can’t I look like that’ or even something as simple as ‘I wish I had their _____’ and it could be anything, legs, eyes, skin, complextion, nose, eyebrows, nails, etc. I’ve gone into a rant, but this society is so focused on looking beautiful, and what defines beautiful in our society? Being attractive to the opposite sex. If we can acheive this, people think, then we’re beautiful. This thought is what leads to things like eating anorexia, bulimia, depression, self mutiliation, and even thoughts of suicide. If our society based less on looks these effects wouldn’t be nearly as extreme, because they’d be saying, ‘it’s okay if you’re a little chubby’ ‘it’s okay if you have a bit of an acne problem’ The problem is that with obesity on the rise, we continuously hear how ‘being fat is bad’ and although they try to advocate being healthy, it comes out being a ‘be skinny’ ad and the message of being healthy gets eaten by societies values. I cherish Dove for their self esteem workshops, I remember seeing the ad I almost cried, because this girl was simply saying how she would be happy with who she was no matter what society said. On Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty it shows 3 women who aren’t the typical ‘thin, gorgeous’ type. They’re realistic views of beauty and it shows them happy, proving you don’t have to look anorexic to by happy. Also they have a quiz called Body Fact & Fiction, they explain why something is true or isn’t true, they even show who Ken (the barbie doll) has changed over the years, how he went from having a lean body to a ripped body over the years and that abdominal definition is painted on some models. They touch on things like shaving, in which they say: “In the media, we rarely see body hair of any kind, but that’s not a rule– just the current trend. If you feel it is time for you to start shaving your legs and underarms, the choice is yours. Just remember that all body hair isn’t unnecessary (your eyebrows prevent salty sweat from getting into your eyes). (Directly taken from Dove’S Campaign for Real Beauty’s “Body Fact & Fiction” Quiz)   They explain how studies have proven that the more women look at magazines, the worse they feel about themselves. They go into what I had said earlier, they’re told to be “less hairy, smell better, have whiter teeth, and larger breasts” (Dove)  “There has been a 444% increase in cosmetic surgery and 91% of people who under go cosmetic surgery are women” (Dove)  I’m going through the quiz right now and apparently there are more than a few things I didn’t know. I used to be an athlete and as a female I thought it was normal for females to not get their period, I thought ‘oh,well I’m just working so hard and the body doesn’t want me to be slowed down’ I figured it was a primal thing, if you push your body hard to be in motion (I swam) thne your body must think it’s in a rush and halt the period so you don’t get ‘eaten’ or whatever your might be running from. Turns out this isn’t normal, oops, and apparently it can lead to brittle bones, long term health problem, stress fractures and what not. It could also be the sign of an eating disorder, so the best way to prevent this is, if you’re not getting your period, you need to make sure that you’re eating healthy. Also, stretch marks are a sign of a sudden growth, like during puberty, but after time they’ll fade and wont be noticible at all. You also can’t control how your body looks like, it’s genetics. It’s normal for a girl to gain 40-50 lbs. during puberty. “92% of girls want to change something about their apperance” (Dove) They have this section where you have to tell if the photo was photoshopped or not, they all looked real to me. There was one really skinny girl in a bikini, they had photoshopped her to make her bust look significantly bigger than it really was. .It’s scary how the industry is able to blur the lines between reality and fiction, it makes people think they’re not good enough for society and really the fact is-society isn’t goood enough for them-or anyone.