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Education In the World (Op-Ed)

Posted by Chelsea Smith in World History - Block on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 11:26 am

​        Every morning I wake up at 6:30 a.m. and get ready for school. I am in tenth grade and everyday I dread this activity so much. But these feeling for an American teenager are normal. I have heard every kid in my class talk about how they much rather be home then be in school. Honestly, doesn’t everyone feel this way? Would you pick writing a paper or going to school over watching cartoons or a baseball game? Americans are lucky though, yet they don’t act like it. Do they understand that they seriously have it made?

 

            Look at the facts, In South America on average a child has fourteen years of formal education, but in Africa on average a child has four years of formal education. Ten years. Kids go to school for ten years less in Africa then they do in South America. Think, how much less would you know if you took away ten years of your education? In Africa they spend on average $48 US dollars annually per child where globally there is on average $629 US dollars spent per child for education annually. India spends 3.3% of its GDP on education while on average developed countries spent 5.8%.

 

            Since America spends the most on education, you would think they have the best students because of the amount of possible opportunities, right? In reality, the national drop out rate is 31%, 31 students out of every 100 drop out and never even get a high school diploma. That averages out to about 7,000 students that drop out of school each year in the United States. Our country spends so much money on education that other countries don’t have and our kids are just deciding not to attend?

 

            In China before 1949, the literacy rate was 20% of its people, but today they have a rate of 99% of their youth can read and write. In about 60 years China has increased their literacy rate by almost 70% and yet America can’t even seem to keep more then 75% of their kids in school until the end of senior year.

 

            In Afghanistan less then one third of the people are literate, but just this past month President Hamid Karzai, tried working things out with the Taliban. He and his men are having talks with them about creating peace for the schools in the war torn country. One of the people quoted in the recent articles said, "We are not afraid of guns and bombs, but don't burn the schools of your sons. Don't burn the schools of your daughters." Afghanistan is in a war state and yet the death of their selves is not the first thing on their mind, their ability to be educated is.

 

            We have countries struggling and can barely put out money for education, others that are fighting as hard as possible with their life on the line to maybe get education for their children, and some lucky countries that have climbed the mountain of hard ache and are still trailing along strong, and yet the one country that has it easy, can’t even have the honor of giving 80% of the country a high school education. Now explain it to me, to the whole world, how does that make sense? Why can’t we mange to make kids want have an education? There are kids dying to go to school and America has kids that decide not to go. The honor of education is placed in front of them and yet they aren’t able to look at it and be grateful enough to accept it and treasure it with their hearts. 
Tags: smith, History
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The Magic Plant

Posted by Marley Utzig in World History - Block on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 11:26 am

“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. 

Tags: mutzig, History, Op Ed
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Prostitutes are people too: op-ed

Posted by Daniel Wirt in World History - Block on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 11:24 am

​Prostitution goes on throughout the world. In some cultures and countries it is considered to be okay, however in the majority of the United States it is considered to be “not okay” and there for is illegal. It is still done however; it is done because people need jobs and if a person is really that in need of a job they will go to the lengths of selling themselves for sex in order to live. I don’t feel as though this should be kept from a person when it could be the only way they can survive.

            Cigarettes are a suicidal tool, nothing different then a razor against your skin. Yet, currently in the United States there are 3.4 million high school students smoking their lives away. Cigarette smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke result in approximately 443,000 premature deaths per year. This is something that is killing millions of people and yet it is legal? Why? Because the amount of taxes that the country gets off of tobacco is overwhelming. The state with the highest tax on cigarettes is New York. As of 2009 it was 4.35 dollars. Mix that with all the smokers and you have an immense amount of money. The total annual public and private health care expenditures caused by smoking is 96 billion dollars. That is insane. Cigarettes are a hole in wallets and lungs. Yet prostitution that doesn’t cause any harm is illegal. 

            Alcohol is another razor to the skin. It is an infestation of the liver and has caused a ton of deaths over the years. On October 5th 2010 the state representative, Brad Bennet, from Delaware was charged for a DUI. This means that he was driving while drunk. A state representative drinking you might ask? Yes, it has not been the first incident like this. People of the law drink, and they drink because it is something they want to do. Brad went on to say, “ The past few months have been very trying for both me and my family dealing with personal issues.” I guess because he is having some problems with his family that everything is just okay. However in a case where Gordon Hintz, a Democrat, paid a $2,032.50 fine because he went to a massage parlor offering prostitution. He wasn’t even accused of using the service yet he got the fine.

Gay marriages have been a huge controversy for years. It is against religions and there for religion is running the government. The government is not allowing to have gays to marry because of “God’s rules.” People that are gay do not cause any harm to people. They do not cause problems and being in a marriage with someone of the same sex does not cause any disturbances. I was once told that a marriage should be between two people that love each other and that will do anything for each other. People who find love in the same sex are not wrong. They have just found something that has made them complete. Something that is hard to come by and taking that away from them because of a religion is absurd. Prostitution is also against religions for having sex before marriage would make you a whore.

            Prostitution is illegal because; you can’t tax it, want triumphs over need, there for the people running the government don’t want it, and finally religious aspects. These things run the government and make something that causes no harm to be illegal.

 

Tags: History, dwirt
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DRUGS, MONEY, AND CORRUPTION

Posted by Nathan Giello in World History - Block on Friday, February 11, 2011 at 10:23 am

​Ceasar: Open, Middle of the summer, thuderes yelling, and fighting, “Bang!” singular gunshot rings out, attention focuses large bolder, Ceasar appears at the top of the bolder.

My friends! Welcome.  I am glad to see you have come, I’m glad to see you all leave your nice cool home into the heat of summer. But now is not the time for small talk. You’re standing right now in the center of the canyon tunnel pass, the biggest  drug route known to us. Each of you are the best of the best in you cartels, 10 cartels sending 10 delegates, each cartel having 4,000, and there’s over a hundred more small cartels. That’s over 40,000 hardcore members, 40,000 more counting, affiliates and 30,000 more not organised but ready to fight. Thats more then 100,000 soldiers that are ready to fight! Now there no then tens of thousand policia in the whole country, giving us a massive avantage. Muy buenao, no?
[begins to pace]
Now think of it one all powerful force. One Cartel. One cartel that controls everything! Nothing would move, without us allowing it to happen! Think of it, we can control everything, the air ways, the border, everything! We could tax the crime syndicates, and control the policia. We could own this country.

The problem in the past has consistantly been the policia turning us against one another. We have been unable to see the truth, because we’ve been fighting for traffic ways, or precincts, and our turf, our little piece of turf. que el total de mierda mis amigos. The turf is ours by right. It is all ours!

With an alliance we would be able to slowly take america as well, branching to every state, controlling their gangs, and crime. We can remold the country into our own image of power. We would have the ability to produce 300 times the amount of coke, marijuana, and meth. And with all this extra product we would be send our products over seas, becoming an international Cartel.

All we have to do is keep up the general truce.”



Tyrone Biggums : Open, sitting on a park bench in the middle of the night, rocking back and forth, pale, sweaty, and paranoid.

I’m a user of some if the most dangerous drugs in the world. I'm talking about cocaine, but not just cocaine, heroin and any other hard drug you’ve heard about. If it could get me high I’m on it. But until now i had to get my drugs from different cartels.

You’re goin be shocked to hear it, I know I was but there is talk about all the cartels are going to form an alliance. Yeah, an alliance,  is the most dangerous thing in the world and the reason it's the most dangerous is because they are deadly and powerful apart, with them as a one thing man, prices are goin through the fuckin roof.

Druggies use to get high so we can escape problems. But with this alliance we are goin to be screwed, shit it wont just be druggies, it will be the pigs too. the cops will be screwed too, they are out numbered, out gunned, have less then half of the resources the cartels do.



Robert Joseph Smith :
Open, leaning back on a chair, boots on the table.

I hate  fucking mexicans! All their drugs, and guns, and the death they bring with them.
Why?
[lunges forward in the chair]
They took somthing from me, they took everything from me.  things that i can never get back, they took him away, without even a warning, or a reason. He was incecnt, he was just a boy. after he was killed, she became depressed, an...and, killed herself.
But thats none of your fuckin concern you little prick.
they compensated for what they did very well, offered me a job, pay, very nice pay. You know what I’m sayin santos?
I know i could get locked up if i continue to do buisness with them.
So? So nothin,  i don’t fuckin care! I make more a week then i do in a year, smuggling them over the border, and lettin them destribute wmd’s and drugs. Whos goin to say anything anyway? You? Hahahaha, you would never, who do u think IA is goin to beleive? a rookie fresh out the academy, or a tenured vet? Hahaha even if you snitch on me, they will be after you, and thats the last thing you want right?
How bout this, i talk to Ceasar, see if hes got an openin, and you could get a slice of the bread. What do you say to that, hmmmm?
Well think about this while your at it, you would make twice as much a week, then you would in a year. Your kids would be set for life, you and your wife too.
[Leans back into the chair, putting boots on the table]
Ok, i’ll give you till tomarra then the deals closed. Oh and by the way, if you mention this to anybody, i might make a visit to you wife and kids, do you under stand me?
Good. Now go check the east wing.



Michael Gabriel Santos :
open, Sitting at the dining room table looking at bills

Shit!
[puts bills down, puts his hand on his forehead slowly swiping back]
Why did he tell me that?
What is the pourpse of tellin me that he works for Ceasar.  is he trying to test me. Is he even legit?
He didnt seem like he was playin around.
And if he wasnt screwin around, why would he offer me a “position” with him?
what the hell should i do? Should I take the deal, he says he makes a lot, and money is a real scarce thing now-a-days.
I really need the money. WE really  need the money, its not every day someone offers you a six didget salary, we’re bearly gettin by with what im making now, and
between the kids schooling, both the morgages, mom and dads care.
But if I get cought, then everythings screwed, my family needs me. My family needs the money.
And even if i dont do this, what would i do bout smith, i couldnt live with myself if i just let him continue to endanger American citizens, but i cant report him, he knows where i live, and i have to protect my family.
And the likely hood of us getting cought is slim.
But i just dont know.
I cant beleive that im really trying to decide between morals, or money.
FUCK!!!!
Thats it i’ve made my choise, im goin to........
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Maraan

Posted by Matthew Ferry in World History - Block on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 2:02 pm

Movie on 2011-04-10 at 22.38
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