Instead of worrying about issues that don’t necessarily concern us, America should look towards changing the bigger things that do and will impact us for the generations to come. A problem lies closer to home - in our schools.

According to Death & Taxes: 2011, which happens to be the most accurate collage of government spending we will ever get our hands on, the spending towards education has gone up six percent from last year. That’s swell, but there is also a section that tells us the percentage from ten years ago to now. So, that means that the difference between 2001 and 2011 is one percent. This only lead to a total spending of almost 50 billion.

Shocking, I know. The only possible explanation would mean that our funding for the knowledge we teach has dipped down in the past decade and is now finally starting to come back up, to the highest point it’s been at in ten years. Our values our put in other departments, which may only help us on the short term.

That’s sad.

The standards for education seemed to have lowered over the years. Between wars and recessions, our children have not be given the best that this country has to offer. This lacking has resulted in schools being a place of dread, in opposed to expectation.

In Philadelphia, a ten-year-old boy punched his teacher, leaving her with a black eye and him with a minor arrest. And, just last week, that same child was found carrying a BB gun on school property. Him, among countless others, have threatened and assaulted teachers and this is pattern is one that can be spotted throughout our states.

Across the country, in Chicago, many students find that they cannot attend the schools that they were aiming for. Despite the fact that have been going to school for the fifteen years of their life, what their records show isn’t good enough. That the education they have received isn’t what colleges are looking for.

We are limited, us students. Sure, we are given an education, but the way things are going, it’s doubtful that it will get us anywhere in life. Living in a country where degrees mean everything and fewer jobs exist than the day before, it’s all about intelligence. It’s a dog eat dog out there. And, if the country that you live in fails, no one succeeds. Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, answered to the problem of our education by stating that now is the time to change the face of American schooling. That with the million or so teachers retiring, we need fresh, becoming educators to take their place.

And yet here we are, with no sense of reassurance, with no means of support, this country now decides that it is the best interest to improve the American meaning of education. The ten years that have passed can never be taken back - and the students who were denied the wisdom they tried to obtain can never relive their chances at success, it’s too late for them. Maybe the future holds more opportunity for change in our system, and in turn more opportunity for the youth of our nation. But for now, in this moment in time, we must focus our attention on the hole that have dug ourselves, one that will take years dig ourselves out. Look towards the future. Change the world to come if we ever want our country and our meaning of education.

Hey you guys want to go to the circus, how about to your neighborhood video game store and pick up the latest ‘Pokémon’ game? Hey you know what, this is just like asking someone do you want to go see a cock-fight or maybe a dog fight, wrong right?

Everyday in the United States animals are being beat, set on fire, and killed because of something someone needs such as food, shelter or someone to take their anger off. Most animals do not live to see the day of light before someone is taking them away from their mothers, habitats, etc.  When you think about animal abuse where do you see it happening? The basement of some unknown man, children, people who abuse their families. Animal abuse comes in different forms from everywhere, any zoo that took the animal out of its habitat to put it in a cage and watch it, the circus, practically if there is a animal in a show or anything such as these things, and their not being used for what they should be used for it is animal abuse.  

Most people do not understand that animal abuse is like someone abusing a child. Animals are living beings just like you and I, and they have feelings too, and they also can do things that would help us if we were ever in any type of horrid situation.

People who abuse animals are not taken through the consequences of people who abuse other people. In Belmont County there is this man named Jeffery Nally who tortured a lot of animals. When he was sentenced he had only gotten trialed for signs of a serial killer., not only is this event more then signs of a serial killer he should’ve been given 30-life in jail. He killed all of those animals like it was nothing, then he saved their skin, teeth, and bones for souvenirs. Nally was booked into the Northern Regional Jail on 29 counts of animal cruelty, one count of domestic battery and one count of kidnapping. Bail in his case has been set at $450,000, with a bail like that most people say he won’t be bailed out, but what if he breaks out, he shouldn’t have bail; murders don’t have bail nether should he.

            Some people who look at animal abuse are also just blinded by the good things. Circuses, everyone loves a circus. All the animals are happy a joyful and love their jobs right, WRONG. Most circuses put their animals through tortured to get them to do that famous stand up trick you guys like. What about jumping through that flaming hoop you love that. In an investigation of a Ringling’s Circus you saw things that most people would say, oh that was an act or something like that to save their points that circuses are filled with good people, but most are not. Circuses train animals as if they are not living, they take things like whips, belts, sticks and repeat hit them with it. When you think of this what would you label it as, simple horseplay, some animals need more force to learn then others. This is not labeled as a simple case of animal abuse.

            Animal Abuse is labeled by two things, what is and what isn’t animal abuse. Any torture or harmful acts towards animals is, and always will be animal abuse. When people treat their animals like it’s their child that is not animal abuse.

“Cannabis, what is that?” some people ask. Okay, how about Marijuana? Are the first things that come to your mind images of hippies and giggling potheads? If it is, then you need to turn your view around. The Marijuana Cannabis Hemp plant may just be the miracle that this world needs.

 “The War on Drugs.” This “war” started in 1969, and since then has cost the government (and American tax payers) more than 2.5 trillion dollars. Last year they spent over 15 billion dollars on the “war.” A little over 400,000 people have been arrested for drugs offenses this year. Half of them were arrested for Cannabis.

 Around the 1950’s marijuana laws were set into effect targeting the Mexican-Americans and other minorities. The media campaign that followed it was full of twisted truths and a plethora of lies. Movies like “Reefer Madness” were part of this campaign and delivered a false message that using marijuana would drive people crazy. The attack on Cannabis was full of racial hate and greed. Harry J. Anslinger, head of the DEA, made multiple racial and inappropriate comments. He used scare tactics by telling the public that “you would become violent and attack white women,” and “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”

 Drugs are put into different schedules. Each schedule is how helpful the drug is medicinally. The first schedule means there is no medical help from the drug and the higher the schedule the more it does help. Cocaine is in schedule two. It used to be used to numb gums at the dentist and in liquid form would stimulate your eyes at the optometrist. Marijuana is in schedule one meaning no good uses have been found for it by the Federal Government (yet). This means they are obviously ignoring the fact that many people self medicate with marijuana every day to calm pain arthritis, nerve damage, chemotherapy, etc. Tests have been done proving that it slows cancer, lowers blood pressure, and for some patients, it’s very much needed. A patient with Multiple Schlerosis who would shake so much he could not talk, after self-medicating, he was able to calm down and have a full conversation without shaking.

 The Declaration of Independence, something you learn about in grade school, was drafted on hemp paper as most paper during this time was written on hemp. There are many products that hemp can make and the materials that it makes are ten times better then the competing products such as paper, cloth, pasta, milk, lip balm, and all types of oil. Hemp is a different type of cannabis then marijuana and you cannot get high off of it because there is no THC (Tetra Hydra Cannibunal) in the plant. Hemp was grouped in with cannabis because it is 99% the same plant except that it does not produce THC. This coupled with the fact that paper and fuel companies were losing money to the products that could be generated from the hemp plant.

 I could go on for pages about the Marijuana Cannabis Hemp plant. This plant is powerful and helpful. Yet we label it with terror and hate. The main thing is that this plant is getting a hard time because of ignorance and non-acceptance.