Social Awareness Project

Contents

Log on Newspaper Articles

Response to Nonfiction Article

Poem on Social Issue

Reflection Log about New York Times Articles on Social Awareness

Monday, November 24, 2014

In Ferguson Lives Upended By Uncertainty

Summary: In early August this year, a teenager by the name of Michael Brown (African-American) was shot by a police officer named Darren Wilson (White). The grand jury was still deciding on the decision about what will happen with Darren Wilson. He says he shot Michael Brown in self-defense, but Michael Brown had no weapons on him. Lots of people were outraged by the shooting, and are protesting in favor of Michael Brown. People are protesting because they think the shooting was unnecessary, and he was shot primarily because he was African-American. Lots of schools in the nearby area have closed school early because they are waiting on the result of the trial. The police are taking extra precaution, and hospitals are also anticipating fights breaking out, so they are saving room for the future patients.

Reflection: I think I would take the side of the protesters, since this kind of thing has happened before where someone feels intimidated by an African-American because of the stereotype of them, and acts violently because of that. I think that Darren Wilson should lose his job at the very least, but if he doesn’t go to jail then he should leave the town because a major population of the town is African-Americans. They would probably hurt him because of what’s he has done. It’s unfair how African-Americans are treated like they’re dangerous when they’re no more dangerous than everyone else. The mayor could fix this by having a powwow between the police and the citizens, so that the police can realize that they don’t have to consider the people dangerous just because of their skin color.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

U.S. to Require Calorie Count, Even at Movies

            Summary: Earlier this week a law was passed regulating calorie information on all items in grocery stores and movie theaters. When the laws for calories initially came out, they was mainly directed at places like fast food restaurants, chains, and other places like that. The F.D.A. did cover a lot of unhealthy places, but they failed to make people more aware of one very unhealthy place that lots of people love to go to: the movie theater. There are so many unhealthy options at the food counter in the theater, and lots of people don’t realize it. Also, grocery stores have lots of items that don’t have the nutrition facts on them because they are made at the store, but this law will make sure that every item has all necessary facts on them.

Reflection: The United States is the most obese country in the world. People need to be able to know what they’re consuming, because maybe that can help try to prevent them from becoming so overweight. I think it’s good that this law is being passed because a lot of people eat a lot of very unhealthy foods like popcorn or soda at the movie theater, and don’t realize how many calories and how much fat they’re taking in. Some companies might be reluctant to put the nutrition facts on their products, but that just means that you shouldn’t be buying from them in the first place if they don’t want to tell you what you’re consuming.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

University’s Image Suffers After Campus Rape Report

            Summary: The University of Virginia has been facing some issues recently because of problems involving rape. It started in 2010, when a male lacrosse player named George Huguely V murdered Yeardley Love. The issue has progressed from there, and a school once known for its scholarship, safety, honor codes and etiquette is being questioned by people everywhere because of what the school is doing about the issue of rape. Apparently the university treats cheating and stealing more harshly than rape. The university is trying to deal with the issue instead of taking it to the police, and a lot of people are protesting because they’re not expelling the kids who raped other kids, and some kids feel unsafe in the university.

Reflection: I think the University of Virginia should take this matter to the police because they aren’t doing what the students want, and that is affecting the status of the school. If kids don’t feel safe, then someone needs to make them feel safe as soon as possible. Even if the school tries to keep watch over the students who might rape someone, that will not help, because more people will just be influenced by them and the problem will just spread. If the University of Virginia wants to keep its status as “the school isolated from the terrible world we live in,” they need to hand the issue over to the police or do something helpful.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

A Racial Divide Remains Over Views of Justice

            Summary: After several incidents like the Ferguson shooting and the rioting after the beating of a black man by a police officer, a man by the name of Paul McLemore has questioned whether African-Americans are treated better than earlier. Judging by facts from different polls over the past few decades, it seems that white people have it a lot better than African-American folk do. Although the two races do a lot of stuff together, “they frequently go home to separate worlds where attitudes and experiences toward the police and courts not only are not shared, but are not even understood across the racial divide.” There are some very scary facts that prove how differently the two races have it. Huffington Post had a poll and found that 62% of African-Americans versus just 22% of white people thought it was Officer Wilson’s fault in the shooting of Michael Brown. The difference between the two races in the eyes of the law is a lot different then a lot of people think: “At the end of 2013, 3 percent of all black males of any age were imprisoned, compared with 0.5 percent of whites. In 2011, one in 15 African-American children had a parent in prison, compared with one in 111 white children.”

            Reflection: I think that these facts are very frightening, and something has to be done about it. African-Americans are treated a lot worse than white people because of stereotypes and that can cause things like police brutality. A lot of African-Americans distrust the justice system because the system tends to not have the law work in their favor. In the case of something that has to do with the law where a white person says something and an African-American person the police officer would most likely take the white person’s word. I highly dislike how whites are treated as a higher or superior race than African-American.

Wednesday, November 26th, 2014

E.P.A. to Introduce Sweeping New Controls on Smog-Causing Ozone Emissions

Summary: The Obama administration was expected to release an environment regulation to curb emissions for ozone. “’Ozone is the most pervasive and widespread pollutant in the country,’ said Paul Billings, a senior vice president of the American Lung Association.” Besides all the lives that ozone is taking, it is making tens of millions of people sick everyday. People have been waiting a long time for this regulation to come out, which will hopefully lower the current threshold for ozone pollution from 75 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion, or maybe even as low as 65. Over the course of the next year, the E.P.A. is planning on making two more Clean Air Act rules, which will hopefully cut greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. The air quality has been improving over the past few years, and these new rules will definitely help with pollution and the ozone.

Reflection: I think pollution and the ozone emissions need to be lowered as soon as possible. The pollution is hurting lots of people every day, and if those very same people cause something that is hurting people, then the government should be doing something about it. I live in New York City, a place with lots of cars and other things that pollute. On a typical night, if I look up, I can only see very few stars because of the ozone emissions. That just proves how much we are polluting every day. With this new regulation law, I think ozone emissions will be lowered because it aimed at power plants and factories, which are a huge chunk of the people and things that are polluting the air.

Thursday, November 27^th, 2014
Wyoming Devises Plan to Expand Medicaid

            Summary: Wyoming has become the most recent state hoping to expand Medicaid by making a new plan. The plan would provide Medicaid to over 15,000 low-income people. If lawmakers approve the plan then it will hopefully take effect in 2016. Matt Mead, the governor of Wyoming who created the plan, “wants to require some people who receive coverage under the expansion to pay something toward the cost.” People earning 100 to 138 percent of the federal poverty level would have to pay monthly premiums, which would range from 20 to 50 dollars, depending on household size and income. People earning less than 100 percent would not have to pay the monthly premiums. Instead, they could owe small co-payments for certain services, as well as the higher (100-138 percent) income group.

            Reflection: I think it’s good that Matt Mead is giving Medicaid to more people, because a lot of people in our country do not get all the health care they deserve, and this will help get more people at least a part of what they deserve in Wyoming. Hopefully from there more states will follow suit and more citizens everywhere in America will get better health care. I also think it’s cool that Matt Mead intends that people who earn less than 100 percent of the poverty level won’t have to pay monthly premiums, and instead, they will be able to owe small co-payments to selected services.

Friday, November 28th, 2014

Restoring Lost Names, Recapturing Lost Dignity

            Summary: For a very long time, a psychiatric hospital by the name of William State Psychiatric Hospital buried its patients once they died. There was one thing different from how we typically bury graves, and this was that they didn’t put the persons name on the grave, only a number, which corresponded with names recorded in old books. A man by the name of Lawrence Mocha dug graves for about half a century. He did it with only a pick, a shovel, and a wooden template. With these tools he was able to dig and bury over 1,500 graves until he died, where he got the same treatment the rest of the patients did: being put in a nameless grave in the ground. A retired school teacher by the name of Colleen Spellecy wants to try and uncover the names of these long since dead patients. There are over 55,000 graves without names, but the State Office of Mental Health has denied her requests to resolve this mystery. She is still trying her best, but it is very hard since the books with the recorded names have been damaged and some are lost.

            Reflection: I think it is terrible how all these graves go nameless because no one will ever be able to find you again, even if they try. It’s not just the fact that the State Office of Mental Health turned down Colleen Spellecy, who I think is pretty respectable for trying to do this, even if she gets little to no gain from it. It’s also terrible that the books with the recorded names, which were one of the best and only ways to find out which number corresponds with which deceased patient, have mostly been either damaged or lost. It’s not just this one graveyard that have nameless graves, but many others, and it is a huge mystery to who these people were, and I think it would be fabulous if Colleen Spellecy and the other people helping out could find out who these nameless people were.

Response to Smoking

Cigarettes and other tobacco products are some of the most popular products in the United States. The article “Kicking the Habit”, by Robert K. Elder in Upfront magazine in The New York Times, discusses tobacco and its rise and fall. It started when Christopher Columbus discovered it in 1492, and saw his crew becoming addicted to it. Tobacco started to spread, and by the 17^th century tobacco had spread around the world. It started to become so popular that cigarettes became a part of American soldiers’ rations during World War I in 1914-18. Cigarettes continued to be very popular until a report was published by the U. S. Surgeon General in 1964, linking tobacco to lung cancer. Tobacco’s popularity has changed drastically over time, from unknown to very popular, and then from very popular to a lot less likable.

            Cigarettes became popular through many different forms of media, such as advertisements.   The ads came in all forms. They were in magazines, commercials, and television shows like The Flintstones, who endorsed Winston cigarettes for several years. Even the White House was promoting cigarettes: In the 1930s and ‘40s, a long-stemmed cigarette holder was part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s public image”. Lots of respectable people endorsed cigarettes like actors, “trustworthy” physicians, and even Santa Claus. Everyone wanted in on this rapidly growing product, but didn’t realize what it was doing to them yet. Through all of these different media and people, cigarettes became more and more popular, and everyone wanted in on this rapidly growing product, but these consumers didn’t realize what the cigarettes were doing to them yet.

            Nevertheless, after the report from the Surgeon General came out in 1964, even though smoking was very popular, a lot of people became wary and cautious of it. A year later, according to the Upfront article, “Congress began requiring warning labels on cigarettes, starting with ‘Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health.’” More and more studies started coming out stating the dangers of smoking and even second-hand smoking. Cigarette prices skyrocketed because of sin taxes and more and more smokers gave up their now classified “dangerous” habit. However, one of the worst blows to the cigarette industry was in 1994 when CEOs of many tobacco companies swore that they thought nicotine is not addictive. Because they failed to say that nicotine was both harmful and addictive, the companies lost many multi-million dollar lawsuits later on. The author of the Upfront article didn’t show opinion on the issue of smoking, but the fact that he talked a lot about how smoking’s reputation fell shows how he might have thought smoking was bad for you.

           Everyone thought cigarettes were good to smoke at one point in time, and people including doctors promoted it. It started out as a very popular product, but once a report relating it to lung cancer came out in 1964, it went down from there because people started to realize how bad cigarettes are and what they did to people who smoked them. Once people started to realize how bad cigarettes are more and more people quit. As the article stated: “Today roughly 18 percent of American adults describe themselves as smokers… That’s a big decline from the 42 percent of Americans who smoked in 1965.” Even though the percent is a lot lower, the CDC still says that smoking is the leading cause of preventable illness and death in the U.S., and more than 480,000 Americans die from smoke-related illnesses (lung diseases, stroke, heart disease, and more) each year. Smoking is terrible for you, and everyone knows that it can give you lots of terrible diseases and things like that. That’s why smoking is not as popular as it used to be, and it’s all because of the article the Surgeon General wrote in 1964. The author of the article taught me that it took a long time for people to realize that a very popular product was bad for you, but once they did, lots of people quit this addictive habit.

Feel the Suffering

America, the streets are paved with gold,

And so is everyone’s bank account

As I walk down the street

I can hear all the selfish complaints

“Ugh I can’t finish this”

“But I want to watch tv!”

“My phones running out of juice”

You all think their lives are so rough, but

Millions, maybe even billions would take your place in a heart beat

We aren’t able to comprehend what true struggle is though

You think you have it bad?

If you could hear what third-world countries were screaming

“When will we be able to eat again”

“Are the soldiers finally gone”

“Mommy, why aren’t you moving”

Take a step back and look at what the rest of world is like

Feel what they feel

Struggle as they struggle

Complain how they complain

Then you can consider how important that television show really is.

Refection: I wrote this poem because I was thinking about how many complaints I hear about being unsatisfied with what you have without putting it in perspective. I was able to use my school environment as an influence for some ideas of what hardship means to different people. I also thought about how lucky we are to be living in America: one of the wealthiest nations in the world. There are so many people who live in very poor countries and get very little water, food, and very poor shelter. People think here that their life is bad because they don’t have the newest iPhone. Over in these very poor countries scattered all around the world are people who wouldn’t think of even getting an iPhone to keep in a million years instead of having to built or take apart. I would like to help these people, and I know a lot of other people would like to help them too, but with the world we live in it would be near-to impossible for someone like me to communicate all the way out to them. I do feel that the more of a voice we get the better, and maybe eventually maybe a small portion of these very poor people can be saved from this nightmare.