Blog Post #2

Siarra Cummings

Feeding Starving Children

In my first blog post I told you guys that I decided to do my project on feeding starving children. My first post was basically about my views on the issue and my passionate reasons on making this more aware. I talked about different organizations I would like to get involved with like feed my starving children organization. Also a little background story on why I chose to do my You and the World project about this topic.   

I decided to go deeper in my research of starving children and I looked at the whole world and what they were doing about it. One of the website I came across is Do Something. Do something is an organization that lists facts about world hunger and gets the word out.  They do different campaigns across the world and take action on feeding starving children. 98% is the percentage of world hunger that is in underdeveloped countries. Most countries in Asia and Africa has the highest count of people suffering from hunger. 1 in 15 children die from being malnourished in underdeveloped countries as well. Sometimes it’s not about whether or not a parent can feed a child, it’s about where they live and if they have enough resources to get food. Some parents don’t have the right resources to get out of the places they live and affects their family and them as well. The organization’s main focus is on everyone not just children and I think that’s important too.  

This is a map from Unicef about children in different countries dieing from hunger related issues. Most of the children dieing reside in Africa and Asia as I stated in the last paragraph. Every 10 seconds a child dies from hunger related issues and it’s sad.  We lose about 3 million children every year from cases like this. That’s why I wanted to research this problem and see what people were doing about it. The problem is decreasing since organizations like FMSC and the Hunger Project have gotten involved.

In my research I have learned a lot of things about my topic. People are aware of starving children and they are doing something about it. I decided to research more on what people are doing about it and what countries are doing well with helping others. Most of you already know about the Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) organization that was stated in my last blog post. They are one of the biggest organizations worried about this problem in the world but we need more. I decided to look up organizations that were helping kids with hunger and a website that popped up was Save The Children.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to complete my interview for my project but I did get most of my questions answered from the Feed My Starving Children organization. I already knew that they were a Christian organization but I wanted to know why. When I talked to one of the ladies that worked at the organization she said the it’s God who call them out to give food to the malnourished children. Like when I went to one of their packing sites every time they ship food out to children they don’t know sometimes if it’s actually gonna get there (thankfully 99% of the meals get where they need to go). So they pray over the food and I think it was a wonderful thing to experience and watch. One of their main saying is food is the foundation, it all starts with the food. As of now they have 3 nutritional based foods. Each pack of food serves a different purpose. They have Manna Pack Rice which is their first product and what they make the most of. They get volunteers to actually make these Manna Pack foods so we can all help and have that purpose.

Check out my annotated bibliography for more!

In the previous blog post, I talked about two things: deep poverty in Philadelphia and hunger as a result of it. In this blog, I’ll be talking about the same thing, except it’ll be told by a woman who has been through the worst possible situations. But before I tell her story, I have to inform the new viewers about what deep poverty is.

This is a picture my mom took of me while writing down notes I took when I was conducting my interview. I was writing down what the lady was saying and made notes to myself.

Deep poverty is when someone is living under the income of $6,000 a year. The difference between poverty and poverty is that you would have to be making under $20,000 a year to be considered living in deep poverty. Even though Philadelphia has the highest number of people who are living in deep poverty within the Nation’s most 10 populous cities, it has a low range of homeless people living on the streets. About half the people living in poverty are living in deep poverty. I personally thought with the amount of people living in deep poverty that the number of homeless people would be more than 700 in Philadelphia.

This is a picture of me talking to the lady. I was asking her a question about her experience with hunger.

For the original research plan, I conducted a formal interview about a 26 year old African American’s experience. I was originally going to do a field observation, but I couldn’t arrange a time for one. The questions that were asked to the person I interviewed were basic, straightforward questions. I’m going to include some question and answers that I think are important to hear. I started off the interview by saying my name and what the interview was about; Kyla Gladney-Enos and deep poverty. I then told the time and the date; 7:19 PM on May 5, 2017.

The first question was, “How long have you lived in deep poverty and what was your experience like?" She answered, “Umm, I’ve been living in deep poverty since I was about 16. It’s kind of hard, but if you know how to make it work, then it’s not as hard as you think it is.” I didn’t know a lot of people have budget plans, but they do. I’m starting to think more and more people are coming up with plans. The second question was, “Did you ever experience hunger? If so, how did you manage paying your bills and feeding yourself? If not, what did you do to help yourself not be hungry?” She answered, “Umm, yeah, I experienced hunger a couple times. Uh, I would just like work. If I was working, I would always try to pay half of the bills, and try to buy food with the other money.”

This is a picture of my work after I was finished taking notes. The left monitor has the interview questions, while the right monitor has my notes.

Writing the questions were not that hard. I didn’t spend a lot of time stressing over my questions. While I was asking the questions, I should have asked more questions about her answers because that would have given me a deeper look into her life. My questions were answered the way I wanted them to be answered. She answered them in complete sentences and gave a brief synopsis of her experience. I already knew a lot about this topic, so I didn’t really learn anything shocking, but some of the things she said surprised me. I personally think kids who grow up in poverty have a hard time getting out of it because that’s what they know. I’m still wondering how people who are living in deep poverty don’t wind up being homeless because as time goes on, prices of simple things start to increase. For my Agent of Change part of this project I think I’ll make a care package for the lady I interviewed. I’ll have nice quotes and museum information that she could use.

In my first blog post I talked about my personal experience with domestic violence as well as someone else's. I talked a lot about my father and my step father. My mother's father was an abuser  so she married another abuser thinking it was normal. I talked about another woman who went through an awful relationship where she was abused both physically and mentally. She was kept away from her family and friends for what she thought was love  

This is a picture from 2003 of me, my dad and my sister

For my original research I did an interview with  my mother. I saw her go through a lot of domestic abuse and I wanted other people to know her story. I asked 5 questions about her experience and the long lasting effects of domestic violence.

The first question I asked was “What’s your experience growing up and being married to an abuser?” She said that growing up with an abuser she made it seem normal. In her eyes everything wasn’t good or bad, just normal. She said she hated yelling and the constant anger around her house. “I hated the yelling.  That was probably the worst part as it never seemed to end and happened all the time.  Nothing was ever good enough for my father.”  Then when she grew up she married a man who was similar to her father. He yelled and threw things. Nothing was good enough for him either.  SHe had to lie to her friends about bruises and she wasn’t allowed out without his permission. She said canceling plans was a regular for her. He didn’t allow her to go out when she wanted to. “I routinely had to cancel plans with friends because I wasn't allowed to go out and I remember one time that we were supposed to meet a friend out for lunch and he would not even let me call to cancel because he was so angry, so I had to just have her waiting at a restaurant and us never show up.” She had to leave her friends waiting in restaurants because he wouldn't let her out.

The next question in my interview was “Why did you stay?” She said her main reason for staying how long she did was that she wanted a 2 parent home for me and my siblings. Her mom stayed with her father until all her kids were grown. My mom thought maybe things would get better. She thought that having a 2 parent home was better for us and she relied on the hope of everything getting better. “ My mom had stayed until we were grown and I thought that it would be better for you to grow up in a two parent home.  It had been my experience and I wanted that for my kids too.  I really normalized the experience and thought that in time, it would get better.  Clearly, that didn't happen.”

The third question was “How did you get out?” She said that she got out when my father left. He left once and came back. My mother being thinking things could still change she let him back. He then left again. This time she didn’t know where he went, she didn’t know when he would be back. Almost a year later he came back. My mom had been on her own for almost a year. She got her confidence back and knew she could do this on her own so she didn’t let him back. After that he was gone for good.

The fourth question was “What do you think now about your actions and choices then? What advice do you wish you could give yourself?” My mom said that looking back at everything she knows life was hard but she wouldn’t change it. After all this she has me and my siblings. She just hopes that we don’t have relationships like that in the future. She hopes that everything is better in the future.

The last question I asked her was “What were the long term effects after you you got out?” The main effects she mentioned was self esteem issues. “Depression and self-esteem issues are definitely long lasting impacts of the experiences I have had.”

I did some research about the long term effects of domestic violence. Many people experience depression. A lot of people feel unworthy of real relationships and healthy relationships. Other people experience post traumatic stress disorder. They suffer from flashbacks and nightmares.

There was a woman who was in abusive relationship for years. She was not only physically abused but she was verbally abused as well. Her abuser called her things like “whore” or “slut”. It took  her a while to finally recover after she was out of the relationship. She felt unworthy of a good healthy relationship. ALthough she finally got her life back, she will have to deal with these feelings of depression and anxiety for almost the rest of her life.

My Annotated Bibliography

Hi, it’s Kai Payton again. In my first blog, I introduced my You & The World project which I’m doing on premature births. I gave basic information about premature births, such as about 380,000 babies are born prematurely a year in the U.S. A premature baby is a baby that was born 36 or fewer weeks from their initial due date and can cause many problems. Some of those problems were stated in my previous blog post so if you haven’t read it check it out. I also talked about why I chose to do premature births and it was because my aunt had a premature baby and it was a hard experience for her.

In this blog, I wanted to know more about the experience and how other families felt so I researched some stories from other mothers that had premature babies. The first story I found was from Catharine Aboulhouda’s family. Catharine was born weighing 1 pound and 11 ounces with a bleeding brain, a heart defect, and a heart murmur. She was due in October but was born in July. Catharine came home from the hospital after 113 days of being hospitalized there but she still needed monitors and oxygen. Now she’s a healthy little girl that is traveling around the country to share her story to help others understand how serious premature births are.

Another story I read about was from Tyler Jameson’s family. Tyler’s mom said she “developed preeclampsia with her first baby and was hospitalized on complete bedrest.” Tyler was born by emergency c-section at 26 weeks due to placental abruption. Placenta abruption is when the placenta detaches from the womb and it’s rare for it to happen. He was born with “respiratory distress syndrome, apnea, anemia, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, intraventricular hemorrhage, patent ductus, arteriosus, jaundice, and infections.” Some of the infections he was diagnosed with were sepsis, pneumonia, and bacterial meningitis. Due to his prematurity he had to get 2 surgeries when he was 6 months. Tyler has grown since then and shows no signs of disabilities that are common in premature babies.

I also did an interview with my aunt recently (The one who had Jase). She went deeper into her story about the experience of having Jase and the difficult times she had going through it. It was helped me think back to when Jase was going through his struggles. She explained that the experience when she first had Jase knowing that he was premature was like an “out-of-body experience,” and she didn’t realise how severe the experience was until later on. She also said that one of the things that got her through the experience was gospel music and praying. This adds to my understanding of Premature Births because I got  personal opinions from a mother that had a premature baby. It still amazes me how premature births can happen to any mother and if they want to do something about it it’s very expensive.

-Picture of The Interview With My Aunt and The Interview Questions

Overall with this blog post I wanted to get real stories from other families that experienced what my aunt experienced because some cases are more severe than others. I also wanted to share some of my personal connection to the topic to show why I care about it.

Hey everyone, I’m back again to tell you more about eating disorders. For an overview about what they are, see my last post. To recap, eating disorders are a medical issue when a person’s diet and relationship with food is severely damaged in some way. There are four categories of eating disorders: Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge-Eating Disorder, or Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorders (OSFEDs). They can cause a person’s body to rapidly deteriorate to the point of death, if not treated.

Last post, I didn’t talk much about treatment for eating disorders, so that’s what I’m going to talk about now. According to Akron Children’s Hospital, treatment for eating disorders “focuses on helping kids cope with their disordered eating behaviors and establish new patterns of thinking about and approaching food.” This means that the affected person is being coached to think more positively about food and its purpose as nutrition, not to be abused or deprived of. There are different types of treatment: short-term inpatient, partial inpatient, intensive outpatient, and outpatient care. These can be combined or used one after the other, like a timeline. First is short-term inpatient, which is used when the patient is too physically or psychologically unstable to be home, and needs to receive medical help and/or therapy everyday. Then there’s partial inpatient care, where the patient needs to be at the hospital often, but isn’t a danger to themselves if at home. After that comes intensive outpatient, which means that the patient is home full-time, but receives medical and therapeutic help on a regular basis. Finally, there’s outpatient. This is when the patient has reached a much more stable relationship with food and life, is becoming much healthier, and is just in therapy, usually once or twice a week. Throughout the recovery process, it’s estimated that about 168 hours per month are invested in healing. However, sometimes treatment for these disorders are hard to get. In fact, less than half of people with eating disorders actually get the help that they need, with the statistics going as low as only 6% of patients getting treatment (this rate for bulimia, specifically). Part of this is due to people’s unawareness of what eating disorders are and how dangerous they can be. It’s also sometimes due to lack of health insurance to be able to pay to get checked into inpatient care, for the sometimes required medical tests and medicine, and therapy.

There also seems to be a stigma around eating disorders due to a lack of knowledge. I conducted my own survey, distributed to SLA students via the advisory memo and direct confrontation, and asked about how much the students know about eating disorders, how aware they are of their prevalence, how they learned about eating disorders, and how they see them in our community. The answers were downright dreary. Of the polled students, almost 70% have known someone with an eating disorder, and 22% have had one. That’s crazy, that eating disorders are so common, even in our own community. I also asked about what eating disorders people have heard of, the majority being Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. This shows that awareness for eating disorders is low, to the point where only one or two disorders are widely known. Wake up, anorexia isn’t the only eating disorder! To see exactly how people think, I asked the recipients what comes to mind when someone says “eating disorders”. The most popular answers were: “Anorexia and Bulimia”, “skinny girls”, and “overeating”. This shows that people have a very one-dimensional view of eating disorders.

To see how students felt about eating disorders in our community, I asked about what they knew and felt. On a scale of 1-5 (1 being “I disagree completely” and 5 being “I agree completely”), students were asked to rate how much they agree with a statement. Most rated a “4”, for whether or not they feel eating disorders are a problem in our community. What’s outrageous is that not a single student said that they completely disagree that eating disorders aren’t a problem. That means that every student to take my survey thought that eating disorders are at least a little bit of a problem in the SLA community. Most people also rated a “2” on the statement “Students are well educated on eating disorders.” Therefore, the majority of students who took my survey think that we should learn more about eating disorders. I agree with this, because I have never, in any health or eating course, learned about eating disorders. I was never talked to about eating disorders, I learned about these disorders from a book and the internet, like a large number of my surveyors. Most of the people who took my survey also agreed that eating disorders aren’t talked about enough in our community, which I personally agree with.

As you can see, I and other members of the community feel that eating disorders are an under-communicated about problem. Eating disorders aren’t talked about much in our community, meaning that the only information people get about eating disorders, if any, is from their own research and the internet. Shouldn’t we be learning about this stuff in school, or from our parents? How can we know how bad these things are for us if we barely even know what they are. If someone finds out about bulimia, but doesn’t know all the consequences, they may think that it’s okay to get food out of your system in those ways. This needs to change. Therefore, I am going to raise awareness for my Agent of Change piece of this project. I intend to make one or two posters to hang up in our school, talking about eating disorders and their statistics, and to make a video. This video will talk about my own experience with eating disorders, as well as what they are and treatment for them. I will also include help resources for any struggling. I intend to show this video, perhaps at a grade-wide advisory if possible. Tune in next post to see how this all goes!

Hi again! As you may have read in my first blog, my name is Asnain Khan and I am currently working on a project called “You and the World” for my English class. This is my second blog post of the project, and I am here to inform you even more about the environmental pollution in Philadelphia. If you are reading this and haven’t read my last post, you can access it here. In my first blog post, I talked about what environmental pollution is like in Philadelphia and what some of the main causes and effects are. I also talked about the different types of pollutions. In this blog post, I will informing you about the original research I have done and some new research I found about pollution in Philadelphia. Without further ado, here’s my post!

Since my first blog post, I have done more research, and conducted my own original research. As part of my own original research, I created a survey, which I sent throughout my school. My goal with my survey was to see if the SLA students were aware of the environmental pollution encasing Philadelphia, and what they thought about it. The questions I asked were: What grade are you in? Are you aware of environmental pollution in Philadelphia? What do you know about environmental pollution in Philadelphia? What do you think are the main causes environmental pollution? How many of these types of pollutions have you heard of? Did you know that Philly is the 10th most polluted city in the United States? Did you know that each year in Philadelphia, an estimated 126 lives are cut short and 284 people are hospitalized due to excess air pollution? Did you know that Philadelphia area's pollution earns an “F” from American Lung Association? Did you know that ozone and particulates exacerbate chronic obstructive lung disease, requiring more than 280 Philadelphians each year to seek hospitalization or treatment in an emergency room? On a scale of 1-10, how much do you agree with the following statement? Environmental pollution is a major problem in our community. On a scale of 1-10, how much do you agree with the following statement? Environmental pollution is often talked about in our community. On a scale of 1-10, how much do you agree with the following statement? Students are well-educated about environmental pollution? Finally, do you think that people should know more about environmental pollution in Philadelphia? I felt that these questions would be helpful to determine everyone’s knowledge on this topic.

For my survey, I got exactly 50 responses. The majority of responses were from freshmen (72%). From the results I got, 86% of the students in SLA are aware of pollution in Philadelphia and 14% are not. This was kind of surprising to me, because people don’t really talk about pollution at all. When I asked what people knew about pollution in Philadelphia, many answered that it is very harmful to humans. Following this question, I asked what people thought were the main causes of environmental pollution, the majority of the students answered “people.” This shows that many people believe we are the main cause of the pollution. I also asked about what type of pollutions they have heard of, the majority being air and water pollution. This shows that the awareness of pollution, and types of pollution, in Philadelphia is low.

*This image shows the percentage of people that answered this question. 86% answered “yes” and 14% answered “no.”

*This image shows the answers to the question, “what do you think are the main causes of environmental pollution?” This shows that the majority of the students answered “people.”

*This image shows how many of these types of pollutions the students heard of. As you can see most of the students picked “air and water pollution.”

After that, I wanted to see if people knew the facts about pollution in Philadelphia, so I wrote down a couple of facts and asked the students if they knew about them. The questions were “yes or no” questions. The majority of the students answered “no” for all of the questions. I wasn’t surprised by this at all, because I knew that the awareness of pollution is low, so we can’t expect people to know that facts. To see how the students felt about environmental pollution in Philadelphia, I simply asked how they felt. Students were asked to rate how much they agreed with a statement from a scale of 1-10 (1 being “definitely disagree” and 10 being “definitely agree”). Most of the students rated a “10,” for whether they felt like environmental pollution is a major problem in our community. I expected this, because pollution is a major problem in our community. Also, the majority of the students rated a “4,” for whether they felt like environmental pollution is often talked about in our community. This makes sense, no one really talks about pollution in our community. Finally, most of the students rated a “4,” for whether they felt like students are well-educated about environmental pollution. I definitely agree, because many people don’t know about pollution and they aren’t taught about it in schools. The last question I asked was, “do you think that people should know more about environmental pollution in Philadelphia?” 98% of the students answered “yes” and only 2% of the students answered “no.” I would answer yes to this question as well, because I feel like students aren’t taught about environmental pollution as much as they should be.

*These are all images of the facts I wrote and asked the students if they knew it or not. As you can see for all of these questions, most of the students answered “no.”

In addition to conducting my own research, I did some new research online. In my last blog post, I didn’t go deep into the effects of air pollution in Philadelphia, so that’s what I am going to do now. I am also going to include new facts about air pollution in Philadelphia. Air pollution in Philadelphia makes people sick and cuts lives short. It irreparably damages lung tissues in ways similar to secondhand tobacco smoke, leading to a wide range of health impacts. Air pollution also triggers heart attacks and strokes. It causes diseases like chronic bronchitis and lung cancer. Air pollution can even send people to the emergency room with respiratory problems, cause asthma attacks, and contribute to respiratory illness in otherwise completely healthy people.

Most people think of air pollution only on days when the news announces an air quality alert, warning about high levels of smog and advising citizens to limit outdoor activity due to the health threat posed by smog pollution. Unfortunately, people in Philadelphia aren’t exposed to air pollution just a few dozen times a year on bad air days. Philadelphians breathe polluted air day in and day out throughout their entire lives. Much of the pollution comes from burning fossil fuels for energy, in cars, trucks, power plants and industrial facilities. Many of these pollutants are invisible, but they are everywhere.

Air pollution in Philadelphia is a serious and persistent problem. The American Lung Association gives 28 neighborhoods in Philadelphia an “F” for air quality, and that’s just for smog pollution. Philadelphia as a whole has the second worst chronic air pollution problem, worse than every state but California. Air pollution poses major health risks for Philadelphians, especially children and the elderly. Air pollution shortens lives, sends people to the hospital and the emergency room, and triggers asthma attacks. These are merely the most visible signs of the health threats posed by polluted air, as this pollution affects every individual in Philadelphia by reducing lung function and increasing the risk of illness.

Nor are we safe on days when air pollution levels are below those recognized by the government as meeting federal “safe” standards. Ozone smog and particulate soot can cause health problems even on days when pollution levels are within the “safe” standards set by federal officials. This is especially true for people who live, work, or play near busy roadways. Pollution from traffic can be high near roadways, even when overall air pollution levels are relatively low. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics notes that, “In numerous cities in the United States, the personal automobile is the single greatest polluter, because emissions from millions of vehicles on the road add up.” Scientists are now finding that children who live or go to school near major highways are more likely to have respiratory problems, including asthma.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Congress adopted the federal Clean Air Act in 1970, it established the goal of setting and achieving air quality standards protective of human health by 1975. Nearly three decades later, Philadelphia’s air still fails to meet established health standards—standards that may not even be fully protective of human health. With the rollback of key air pollution policies at a federal level—and with increased motor vehicle traffic population, and overall energy use threatening to undermine the progress we have made toward cleaner air—Philadelphia has reached a critical juncture. Solutions do exist. From modern emission controls for cars and power plants to effective transit systems, we have the technological know-how to significantly reduce air pollution in Philadelphia. By adopting public policies that put these technologies to work, Philadelphia can reduce air pollution and help millions of its citizens to live longer and healthier lives.

For my Agent of Change, I am going to raise awareness. I am going to make a video about pollution in Philadelphia to inform more people about it. I will make sure the video is set to public, so that people can see it. I am going to post the video up on facebook and even show it to people in school. The next blog is on it’s way, stay tuned in!

Check out my annotated bibliography for more information!

Public Defenders Overloaded

I have recently realized the public defender system first hand. Realizing how big of an issue it is, I decided to inform the people of how big of problem it is with this project. I found out that the problem is affective to the people who can’t afford an expensive attorney. I was stunned to find out the average time a person talks with their public defender before appearing in front of the judge is 7 minutes. This information is listed in a document, you can read here.

Throughout a year a public defender is recommend to get 150 felony cases, but they are getting way more.  Even if they had enough time to get the cases done, they don’t have the same resources the private attorneys do. People don’t realize how public defenders are deprived of resources such as time for working as hard as they could and witnesses. The public defender system is never the same in different states. Each state is entitled to write their own criminal codes. This could also hurt the person under precaution.

I interviewed a public defender, Michael Arthus. He happens to be a very experienced public defender who gave meaningful first hand information, letting me in on a closer look for the system. There are public defenders who handle the trails and public defenders who are handling appeals. Those who handle the trails will normally be in the courtroom everyday appearing in front of the judge with their clients. Those who do the appeals are mostly sent for research. In Brooklyn, which in every state is different, are given 75-100 cases at a time to juggle. Mr. Arthus says that throughout all his odds he still fights his hardest for the justice for his clients.  

This is a picture of a Brooklyn Defender System Logo...

I also interviewed Taylor Rogers. Taylor, who is my sister, had her case in the hands of a public defender recently. She said that she didn’t even know who her public defender was until day of the court date. Her public defender talked to her 20 minutes before appearing in front of the judge. She does feel as though her public defender did her more justice then she could’ve done. The public defender was “kind” just very busy and rushing when you are having conversations. She feels as though he put forth his best effort and did everything he could.

This picture is a public defender. He is working hard to get his many cases done.

Throughout this project I realized how different each state’s public defender offices are. As I read this article, “I’m a public defender. It’s impossible for me to do a good job representing my clients.”, I found that in New Orleans to avoid layoffs because of the budget cut the entire staff will go 4 weeks in a year without being paid. They’re asked to do way more then an attorney with less material and less everything compared to an attorney. The author of this site says that their clients who can’t pay their bail are focused to sit in jail for 60 days until the district attorney decides to arraign them. During this project we have a part where we need to be an agent of change in our issue we choose. Iḿ thinking about making a website for informing people on how overly overworked the public defenders are. This will be first hand information and give people more notice to the issue and hopefully get the ball rolling on the issue.

This problem among the public defender hasn’t seemed to get any better, it just seems to worsen. What will come next??? Public defenders are going to not be able to deal with the impact of the case overloads as time continues. This research has helped my understanding of public defender so much further than what I thought. I really hope so see some justice among the system, even baby steps help!! I’ve learned that in the justice system money can take you a long way..

Visit my annotated bibliography here!

Catcalling

On the news you hear about violence, rape, crime, but you never hear about catcalling because it happens a lot and it’s not considered illegal. Catcalling is a form of street harassment and it is very disrespectful to women. This is when men or a man and even teenage boys call out to a random beautiful women. They usually whistle at them, ask for there number, and saying that they are very beautiful. They do this because most of the time they think that they can get sex. They go for women who has some type of issue in their life with there family or anything else.

When a women are teenage girl is catcalled it is very disrespectful and most of them don’t feel good about themselves. It doesn’t matter of thr guy is really hot and sexy most women don’t like it period. It makes women feel unsafe and uncomfortable. Most of the time women are catcalled the person is in a group and they are scared that they might get raped. If the women doesn’t say anything back such as “thank you” they are considered to be a slut, bitch, or a whore.  Even though most women don’t like it some actually do, they just really like the attention. Women don’t want to be just focused on their looks and if you absolutely need to comment try to get to know the person first.

Men proclaim that women should not complain about being catcalled when other men are being catcalled and not making a big deal of it. People say that men scare women, when they go somewhere in a crowded space or walk at night they are most likely to be harassed. This is why women go places unusual with her friend so they can try to prevent this. Women get catcalled everywhere, in the subway, on the street, it doesn’t matter.  You may think that part of the reason for catcalling is from what women are wearing. Sometimes this is true but sometimes it doesn’t matter what they are wearing, you could be fully covered up and it still wouldn’t matter. Men will use their imagination to see women in a more pleasing way. This happens everywhere in the world, some places more than others.

One person who was involved in Catcalling was Bill O'Reilly with Perquita Burgess. There offices were really close to each other and he walked by her most of the time without saying a thing. Sometimes he would grunt at her for no apparent reason. Every time Bill passed he r he would look up and down at her to check her out, it this gave her chills. He would call out to her when they walk by and in the elevator. At one point he called her “Hot Chocolate” and she immediately felt creeped out. Donald Trump stood by Bill and said that he did nothing wrong. She just couldn't believe that our president would defend him on this and how he uses his power to intimidate women.

Bibliography

The Forgetfulness of the WNBA

This image is showing how many people attended a WNBA game. The estimated amount was 2,326 people.

Have you ever wondered why the WNBA doesn't get as much recognition as the NBA? Have you ever wondered why the WNBA does not have their own video games, famous sneaker lines, or social media attention? Well, according to an article by a Sports Illustrated writer, Jeff Pearlman, The WNBA isn't and will never be a popular league. Well, why is that? For the past 14 years, league employees have been trying to figure out why. Surveys have been conducted, marketing experts have tossed out every possible slogan. Simply, the majority of sports fans simply don't crave women's professional basketball. Jeff Pearlman explained how the WNBA isn't appealing or interesting to watch. Men aren't really interested in watching women play basketball because when men watch basketball, they look for aggressiveness and competition, which the WNBA doesn't have. As blessed as women like Parker and Lauren Jackson and Diana Taurasi are at basketball, their skills are not as appealing as Lebron James and Michael Jordan. Basketball fans want to see LeBron James dunk and Ron Artest lock down an opposing scorer. They want to see players such as Stephen Curry shooting threes and Kyrie Irving breaking people ankles.

Women in the WNBA don’t dunk like men do in the NBA. That is why men say the WNBA isn’t aggressive enough.

In 2009, the championship series between Phoenix and Indiana averaged a .4 rating on ESPN2. That Is about 548,000 viewers. The NBA Finals drew 18.2 million viewers. This is a huge gap. The WNBA didn't even reach 1 million views while the NBA reach 18 million. Even though the WNBA did not reach many views, this was still an achievement for them. It was an achievement because the league celebrated a 73 percent rise from the previous season. The WNBA doesn't usually have many viewers that watches their games.

Have you ever heard of the WNBA player Maya Moore? Most people haven't because the only people they know that plays in the WNBA is women like Skylar Diggins or Sue Bird. Maya Moore is a small-forward that plays for the Minnesota Lynx. According to an article by Lyndsey D'Arcangelo, Maya Moore has been compared to Michael Jordan as his female embodiment in women’s basketball.

Maya Moore is known as one of the most athletic and aggressive Women in the WNBA.

Maya also has her own sneaker line through the Jordan brand, but she doesn't seem to get much attention or publicity. Maya wrote an essay for The Players’ Tribune, called Invisibility. She talks about the hard work she puts into basketball to get to get to where she is today, and how disappointing it is that all that hard work goes unnoticed. Basketball fans don’t really care about the stories off the court. They care about basketball products. Unfortunately, the product isn’t televised as much as it needs to be. The league’s best teams aren’t showcased like they should be, in order to market product.

According to Brian Mazique, the WNBA was founded 20 years ago, but there's never been a video game made with its players and teams for fans. Publishers don't believe they would sell enough copies to cover the cost of production. They also believe they wouldn't be able to make a huge profit. It will take more production to deliver a full WNBA release than the NBA games. The licensing shouldn't be an issue, but 2K would have to get female motion capture talent if they hope to make the game look and play authentically just like they make 2K17 look.

Image from WNBA 2k prototype

The WNBA should have as much recognition because they NBA because they work just as hard. The WNBA does not get paid as much as the NBA.The NBA has more views and more money. Half of the W.N.B.A.’s 12 teams lose money, and they benefit from revenue generated by the N.B.A.’s national television and sponsorship deals. The $25 million that the WNBA is getting from ESPN is a small fraction of the N.B.A.’s average $930 million payment from ESPN and TNT. There is an issue with equal payment in the NBA and the WNBA. For women such as I, I believe that there should be equal payment because I love women's basketball with all my heart. If I ever decided to go far with basketball, I would want to get paid the same amount because I am working just as hard. Basketball means a lot for me and as I get older, I will work harder and harder. For more information, click on the Annotated Bibliography

Hello, my name is Shyann Davis and I am going to Science Leadership Academy. For my You & The World project I want to speak on the topic of HIV/AIDs. HIV is also known as Human Immunodeficiency Virus and AIDs are known as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. They are both transmitted through unprotected sex. This can be through anal and vaginal sex. Having oral sex isn’t very common to give someone HIV/AIDs but it is still strongly recommended to have protection and make sure you are checked to see if you have HIV/AIDs. This is a very serious topic that not many people know about. Some know much, but others know very little. Many people would feel uncomfortable talking about protection, sex, and the risks of unprotected sex, so my goal for this project is to spread awareness of HIV/AIDs   so people can learn some of the risks of having unprotected sex.