Linghaozeng's blog

Helping Haiti or Nor ?

I'm not saying Americans shouldn't help but somehow Americans are sending 100 million to them but the levee system in New Orleans continues to be far from safe. The 9th Ward is still in ruins 6 years later and looks a lot like Haiti. Maybe a little more time and money on our own downtrodden peoples is in order. Haiti is a poor 3rd world country but they have been a sovereign nation just as long or longer than other Caribbean countries but somehow the country gets worse and worse. You can never really help people who aren't willing to help themselves. They have the same resources as other countries in the region but they just don't have the will or the motivation to pull themselves up out of the mud. Cuba, Jamaica, Dominican Republic and other neighbors of Haiti have somehow managed to improve their situation over the last 200 years.

A nation possessing the wealth and power of the US should be in a position to help Haiti, at least temporarily, and this is something countless Americans have already done privately, donating millions. But these same Americans might not think it’s a good idea to provide government healthcare in their own country. Does this mean they simply do not care? Americans who donated to Haiti may not believe, for instance, that we should send our military to stop the genocide in the war-torn nation of Darfur, something liberals have long advocated using the same “we can’t stand by and do nothing” logic many conservatives used with Iraq. In continuing to just stand by, does this make the US “immoral?” Will Hannity soon devote significant portions of his radio and television programs to highlighting Darfur, a country that’s “being pillaged, and people are being raped and murdered and slaughtered?”

Growing up Script

I agree with Doyle when he said, “Anyone over the age of 40 who spends much time with kids recognizes that growing up today is dramatically different.” Each generation of young people and their families faces new, and perhaps more challenging, circumstances. Today, life for young people is characterized by shrinking family incomes and growing options with regard to careers, beliefs, and lifestyle choices. More transient lifestyles result in isolation from extended families and a breakdown in the feeling of community. Today, therefore, youth need greater self-direction and poise than ever before to successfully move from adolescence to adulthood.

Today’s community and social structures place high demands on young people and their families. Fortunately, though, those systems also offer varied forms of support. Most communities have counseling services, specialized groups, hotlines, and educational courses for both youth and their parents. Indeed, stress is coming from all sides for today's average teenager – fortunately, he or she isn't alone. Some might say that we are overstressed and overworked. But, this is for a few years. We are not going to be this way our entire life. The teenage time is the most important, and because of that we are going to need to be a little over taxed for a while but it would be worth it. Over all his ideas are good but I think that his interpretation of today’s teen society is a little bit off. Yes, we don’t have as much time as we used to but we are generally smarter than people over 40, some of the time, not always. I think that incorporating his ideas would be a great idea, but not because we are over taxed, because change is a good and positive thing.

Best innovation

In my view, the best invention is the AIDS Vaccine. At the end of 2006, an estimated 1,106,400 persons (95% confidence interval 1,056,400-1,156,400) in the United States were living with HIV infection, with 21% undiagnosed. In 2008, CDC estimated that approximately 56,300 people were newly infected with HIV in 2006. If we count these incidents in a worldwide range, the number of the HIV would be more appalling. More than 20 years after the AIDS virus was identified, researchers have devised the first immunization to protect people against HIV infection. A six-year trial showed that the vaccine, which consists of two shots that given individually had failed to protect against HIV, is modestly effective, reducing infection 31% among those receiving the regimen vs. those getting a placebo. Scientists are still trying to figure out how the vaccine decreases infection risk, since the shots did not affect the level of virus in the blood of volunteers. A vaccine is not exactly a novel intention, but one that’s designed to fight HIV certainly is. The vaccine is not approved for use yet, but it’s first to make any headway against HIV, that’s the start. Diagnosis of HIV infection is still a stark issue for us today. And this new invention provided us with a immediate progress in this difficult battle. Because many HIV patients are those people with little income, people also need to concern about the patient’s capacity about affording these medicine with developing new ways to deal about this stark issue.

Social Network

Social networking websites have become a household name in today`s world. Whether it is our personal or professional life, they are a truly great way connect with friends, colleagues and establishing new relationships online. Not long ago, we used to associate the term `social networking` with something which was personal and tangible. However, with the advent of the Internet, we have now become more eager to display our social networking capabilities on the web.

Apart from the social benefits, social networking sites can be used to document school research, promote artistic talents and experiment with other forms of content creation. They provide a way to interact with others who share the same interests and to get constructive feedback on ongoing projects.

Along with these benefits come some risks. Most social networking sites are open to all, especially MySpace, which means that your teen could be exposed to harassment, bullying or sexual advances.

A greater danger is that teens may become targets of pedophiles. The anonymity of some social networking sites makes it easy for unscrupulous people to target young teens and engage them in harmful conversations. It's easy for predators to pose as teens and lure children into harmful real-world contact as well. Most social networking sites have privacy controls in place, but teens seldom use them. Active monitoring of profiles and behaviors catches some predators, but not all of them.Another risk is identity theft, which can occur when teens share too much information about their name, date of birth and location.

It's up to parents to make sure their kids are safe when they use social networking.

Barbie Dolls

 It has been argued that Barbie dolls reflect a highly sexualized image and circumscribe girls' play by emphasizing prescribed roles and patterns of interaction. Children learn at a very early age what it means to be a boy or a girl in our society. Through a myriad of activities, opportunities, encouragements, discouragements, overt behaviors, covert suggestions, and various forms of guidance, children experience the process of gender role socialization. Toys can always provide direct influence on children.From the moment of birth, children begin to form relationships with others. As they grow, hopefully these relationships deepen and enable them to handle many and varied relationships with individuals outside of their initial circle. The ability to build and further relationships, make complex judgmentsand exercise fair play can all be enhanced with toys, such as Barbie dolls.  The feature of Barbie doll is very self-imposing.  She had blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, long legs, a voluptuous chest, slender waist, and flawless skin. What woman wouldn't want to have features like that? This brings up my next point. Although Barbie has these incredible features, her measurements are very unrealistic. It is feared that by dramatizing stereotypical feminine roles during play, girls will internalize and later embody such roles. Girls has become obsessed with fashion, beauty and possessions. Barbie belongs to a bygone age. It is perhaps time for her to pass her crown to a more inclusive, realistic successor.

The way a woman values herself has shifted from pride in sustaining a home into a maze of self-indulgent pleasures.  Their obession with beauty brought by barbie dolls actually is their obsession with indealistic world. Consider that recent surveys have shown girls as young as eight worrying about their weight and developing eating disorders. The reality is a big contrast to their imaginative world.  Girls love barbie dolls because it provides them a shelter from realistic barrier.  

Dear Soldier,

 

Our war in Afghanistan is a justified war against the Taliban and al Qaeda regime. The source of your hardship is the failure of counter-insurgency. In order to succeed in fighting the war, we need a change to the present situation in the FATA and Kandahar region.  The new strategy is what so called counterterrorism plus, which will enable you to do nation building at the same time pursue the terrorists. I hope you all have a fantastic holiday.

Life 101

It should come as no surprise that, if I think life is for learning, I would view the process of life itself as a classroom. But it's not a dull, sit-in-neat-little-rows-and-listen-to-some-puffed-up-professor-drone- on-and-on classroom. Life is experiential. In that sense, life's more of a workshop.  I like to think the workshop/classroom of life is perfectly arranged so that we learn what we need to learn, when we need to learn it, just the way we need to learn it. The operative word in all that is need, not want. Life's lessons come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes what we need to know we learn in a formal way, such as taking a class or reading a book. Sometimes we learn by an informal, seemingly accidental process: an overheard comment in an elevator, a friend's offhand remark, or the line of a song from a passing radio. Therefore, I consider the range for class “life 101” is extremely big and bestowed teachers tremendous ways of teaching.

The first thing teacher needs to let student understand is what life is. This is a huge topic. Maybe even teachers  do not understand life either. But it’s necessary for students to understand the responsibility and importance of lives. In our society today, we have witnessed to many tragedies in school.  It seems endless for the increasing casualties in school. One reason for these accidents is that many teenagers underestimate the value of life. So teachers have the responsibility to grasp their students return back in the right track and let them understand how precious life be. In doing so, systemic method of teaching must be accepted. And the corporation between parents and teachers to defend bad influence to student is necessary also. Positive lessons are not always taught in positive ways. A flat tire (hardly a positive occurrence) can teach any number of lessons: acceptance, the value of planning, patience, the joy of service (if another person has the flat tire), the gratitude of being served (if another person helps you), and so on.  There are any number of lessons we can learn from any experience--both uplifting and "downpushing."

Texting and its Consequences

 

Texting messages are not that so harmful to a society. In fact, by bringing diverse people together, text messages can help to strengthen the intimacies between different people. Recently popularized social network system like Facbook and Twitter, for example, brought previously diverse people together into a integral whole. A friend from Ohio could interact with you every day, or every minute.

The ultimate worry of many people is, will text messages hurt students academically? The answer is no, for academic exchange can help students gain a better perspective of the world around them, and triggering their own desires for a further plowing. In fact, as students talked more and more, their ability to reason an their ability to observe will be increased. Thus, texting is ultimately beneficial to students.

As helpful as texting can be, it is a double-sided blade that will advance as well as harm the people

Texting messages are not that so harmful to a society. In fact, by bringing diverse people together, text messages can help to strengthen the intimacies between different people. Recently popularized social network system like Facebook aaor Twitter, for example, brought previously diverse people together into a integral whole. A friend from Ohio could interact with you every dayk, or every minute.

The ultimate worry of many people is, will text messages hurt students academically? The answer is no, for academic exchange can help students gain a better perspective of the world around them, and triggering their own desires for a further plowing. In fact, as students talked more and more, their ability to reason an their ability to observe will be increased. Thus, texting is ultimately beneficial to students.

As helpful as texting can be, it is a double-sided blade. Those who are addicted to text messaging will eventually failed to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Texting will slowly become a private space to evade daily stresses. As high school students worry about their GPAs, they should also seriously consider whether to reduce their texting massages. After all, a plethora amount of texting will eventually hurt those who are most into it.

Spending most of your time in a cell phone, rather than doing something meaningful, is the most futile effort. While cell phones are becoming more than ever powerful, more than ever interactive, and more than ever complicated, human being is the original inventor. The reason that technology is advanced is to facilitate our daily life, not to dominate it. By becoming the slaves to cell phone, we are debased ourselves. Thus, reducing Cell Phone Usage is important.

To reduce is not to eliminate, we have to admit that cell phone had become an indispensable part of our society. But we need to change our daily activity.

Cheating and Its Consequences

 

Cheating is the result of the defects of the policies. While I understood that no system could be perfect, there is numerous loopholes created intentionally or unintentionally for some people to take a better advantage. Standardized Tests, for example, was defective under the fact that the number of people who are taking the test, and the  number of teachers who are correcting the test is severely inclined. Thus, those who decided to take a advantage might not necessarily cheating, but they are committing a crime against equality and fairness.

Cheating, however, might not be necessarily poisonous to the society. On the premise that there is no utopia, people should take advantages of the loopholes, because those who succeed has paid attention to them. Facebook, for instance, grappled billions for they recognized the need for social interaction in the society. Apple succeed because they understood more than any one of their competitors that mobile device would one day dominate the world. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Saches never failed because they knew how we wanted more. Thus, the most exigent thing we should do is not to eliminate those loopholes, but find them.

 

lowering Age drinking

I strongly opposite the statement about lowering drinking age will make mamaging on alcohol more enforicible and more enffective. We see Gordy's tragedy is not the result of restriction of underage drinking but the distorted value about drinking . Many teenagers saw drinking as a excting risk or a transformation to adulthood, evenmore as the appeal of individualism. MacCardell's idea of giving drinking license to teenagers has nothing to do with alternationg the false attitudes of drinkging. He ignored some of the implications of their recommendations, fail to acknowledge their own complicity in the campus drinking problem, and ultimately gloss over better solutions to bingeing.  In the campus, without restriction parents. teenagers actually share more freedom than usual. If the act of lowering age of drinking is excuted, the potential risk about drinking in campus might be rampant. Lowering the drinking age would have dangerous long-term consequences: Early teen drinkers are not only more susceptible to alcoholism but to developing the disease earlier and more quickly than others. A person's brain does not stop developing until their early to mid-20s. During this period, alcohol negatively affects all parts of the brain, includcognitive and decision-making abilities as well as coordination and memory. Adolescent drinkers not only do worse academically but are also at greater risk for social problems like depression, violence, and suicidal thoughts. Actually, lowering age drinking will be not helpful at all.