Are Professional Athletes Over paid?

In my previous blog, majority of the comments disagreed saying that professional athletes are overpaid. Many viewers felt that the money that professional athletes make should be distributed to other professions that help provide security for the world. I noticed that most of the people that felt this way were females. I believe that most females feel this way because majority of them do not understand what it takes to become a professional athlete.

Is the fast food industry responsible for America’s obesity?

It seems that we all eat fast food. At least one quarter of American adults eat fast food everyday. It's easy, it's filling, and it's convenient and inexpensive. Compared to other foods it's something that working people and ordinary people can go out and enjoy on their lunch break. McDonalds is the of course the most popular fast food chain. The all-American meal is hamburger, fries and a coke or a shake. McDonald's revolutionized fast food. They introduced a way to eat food without knives, forks or plates. Most fast foods can be eaten while steering the wheel of a car and the restaurants are usually drive through.

The food looks like food that you would make in your kitchen, but it actually has become a manufactured commodity. French-fries at all the fast food chains use to be made by potatoes peeled in the back room and cut into strips. Today they are made in large factories, frozen and processed. The size of the meal you order makes a huge difference. The fast food chains have been making larger sized items at really no cost to the company. People just don’t understand the harm done, but they want to cry about the doctor bills when they become so unhealthy their life is at sudden risk.

Just about all the food in a fast food industry is processed; so much of the flavor is destroyed. So flavor has to be added. For example chicken McNuggets contain different additives including beef extract, the French fries contain animal products and they won't say which animal, and the buns and condiments also have artificial additives added to them.

Dietitian Cathy Nonas hints, “we need to watch what we eat. “ Parents and these companies should be more responsible when it comes to consuming and marketing fast food to children. Fast food is heavy on fat, salt and sugar, and reduced nutrient. Fifteen percent of American children are overweight and the number is growing. Fast food is quick and easy and working parents resort to it and it's no fuss and you get a toy.

Personally I can’t say I don’t eat fast food because I do, but I do try to avoid it if at al possible. I agree that it is a personal choice to choose what you eat, but the fast food industries should have to pit nutritional facts on their products simply because some American’s still don’t know and understand how harmful the food is. If the food is so real and rich like they advertise, then why are the fast food industries still hiding nutritional facts from their customers?

I do not think fast food should be shut down by any means, because it can come to good aid when someone is in a rush or just too tired to cook. I do think that fast food companies should be forced to improve the quality of their products and warn the general public of their product if it is bad, not try and reel in ever American to eat the unhealthiest hamburger ever made. About 300,000 people die each year from being obese or overweight, this is second only to smoking. Fast food isn't the only reason people are gaining weight, but it contributes to it.

Hip-Hop, The Way it is Changing

Many people agree with me and disagree. This could be considered an opinion but the facts are right there. Rappers don't want to talk about what goes in around them and tell about the hardships. Rappers now want write something catchy to get on the radio to sell albums. That's not what rap and hip-hop was about when it started. We have seen a huge change in rap and hip-hop some say its for the good some say its for the bad. When people get money hungry they'll do anything for it. That's what happened to all the rappers and hip-hop as we know it is dead.

Facebook: Is it really a good way to stay connected with friends?

After reading my peers opinion from my blogs, I have come to the conclusion that Facebook has gotten completely blown out of proportion and people have become addicted. It is now turning into a waste of time and it seems that people don't use it for the right reasons anymore. If people really want to stay connected with friends I think there are better ways than using Facebook. The younger generation is our future and if their wasting their time with things like Facebook, the future doesn't look too bright. In the end, I think Facebook is a fun thing to do, but people shouldn't let it control their lives.

Celebs & Their DADT Efforts

In my last two posts I centered around celebrities bringing this unjust law to the forefront in the media. Different stars like Lady Gaga and Russell Simmons are shining light on this issue in their own way. In this continuation, I want to give my feedback on what difference their efforts are ACTUALLY making. Or if they are making any strides at all. President Obama has stated that the repeal of the DADT policy WILL end under his watch, however he wants the congress to repeal the law and not the courts. DADT was ruled unconstitutional earlier this month by a California federal judge. Then two days after recruiters were told they were allowed to let openly gay soldiers sign up for active duty, the defense department pulled out stating the DADT policy is "back in force and effect". I would like to see more action from the president. Yes, I know we are in the midst of a recession and a war, but what happened to the days were the president could do more then one thing at a time? I wonder if the president has even seen lady gaga's video addressing the senate or Russell Simmons' letter. This is a national issue, we do not have equality for all and until we do, we will not give up until gays are appreciated in every facet of life. 

Games and Learning

There has not been very much feedback on this topic, but the few that has been presented were positive towards my argument. Which it would be rather hard not to agree with all the facts at hand. Not to mention the in class discussion of a virtual learning game, and the game being Second Life. So not only are parents looking for games to help the learning process for children, but school systems are doing the exact same thing. It does not come to any surprise, yet the only question is "why did it take so long?" Now I'm not saying that every school should take this option, but if the school as a whole is struggling with a few subjects I see this as an easy solution. In The Washington Post there was an article about SMART Technologies. That the problem that many teachers have with keeping their students grades up is the ability to keep them entertained and interested with the work at hand. The article showed that it is not the lasted and greatest that the student always need, but just something to help the attention span of the child. Video games should not be a tool that is forced upon students, but simply an alternate learning solution that never seams to fail.

Monsters in Your Pants (Part3)

Colleges most likely have way more students that you had at your high school back home, and with more students comes more awareness of your surroundings.  Make sure that if you’re going to be sexually active in college, than you better gain full trust and get to know your partner very well. Do you know who your partner has slept with previous to you? Well you might think you do because of what he/she has told you, but you can never be one-hundred percent sure.  Being that you’ll never know for sure who your partner has slept with before you; when you decide to sleep with him/her, just know that you’re always going to have a chance at catching a Sexually Transmitted Disease. Statistics shown from “Sex, Lies and HIV,” The New England Journal of Medicine, reveals the following information: 34% of men and 10% of women have told lies in order to have sex, 68% of men and 59% of women have been involved with more than one person that their current partner doesn¹t know about, and 47% of men and 42% of women would understate the number of their previous partners in order to convince someone to have sex. From these statistics alone, such information has basically said that more than half of our sexual encounters could be simply lies for all you know. Could sex possibly mean more to our college students than their peers or sex partners? Just think about it, if we have the nerve to lie to get sex, than we obviously know that we could past our dangerous STD to another. Maybe it’s that we for sure know that we’re positive, or think that with a condom you can’t past on your sexually transmitted disease. In this type of situation, lies can eventually turn into death for a student. “Most HIV and STD educational programs are taught at the high school level. Very few are taught at the college level. Many of these programs discuss HIV and STDs primarily from an informational or clinical point of view (transmission, symptoms, etc.). Unfortunately, many of these programs do not discuss behavioral risk reduction issues like condom negotiation skills, and ways to talk to a potential sexual partner about HIV/STDs” stated in a response from the body Q/A’s, by Rick Sowadsky. Although we might think we’re too old for a sex talk, this just might be what college students need. Another big problem could be that we just don’t know how to ask our mate if he/she is positive for an STD, so we simply don’t. I would like to be STD negative and figure out a way to ask my partner, being overly cautious seems to be the only solution to the stop of sexually transmitted diseases these days.