Three topics

After much pondering I came down to three ideas of possible topics for the research essay.

The first overall topic is not very original: Teen Pregnancy. But I want to take another twist on it. In the past and currently in many societies teen pregnancy is the norm or standard. Our society consideres teen pregnancy because now there are fewer and fewer married teens since women now have the opportunity to have careers, take their time choosing a mate and must have financial stability in order to have a child according to today's western society. However in the past women got married at a younger age, and the main goal of getting married was to have children. In many parts of the world the life expectancy is very short and women have children at a young age. Not that I think that these archaic practices are best, having been brought up in a western society I do not find having a child at a young age ideal, but nature made us in a certain way and the media and society are very hard on teen pregnancy when it is just part of our instincts to reproduce during the child-bearing years. So my main question is: Is the media making us think that teen pregnancy is bad, or is it really bad?

The next idea is kind of controversial, and I have no background information at all on the topic. But I was thinking for many people homosexuality is considered to be "bad" or practically "evil." These are typically people who have not had contact with someone who is gay or lesbian and they are most likely judging based on the media's representation of gays. They are considered promicuous, flashy, and as predators. From my experience with gay and lesbians very few fit into the stereotypes illustrated on television and in movies. How does the media affect their role in society?

The last of my ideas for the research paper is how television often replaces interaction between young children and parents. Very often, while a parent is busy working, cooking or doing other chores children are plopped down in front of the TV watching "educational" shows (just so parents feel better). Since some parents then believe that the child has been sufficiently exposed to educational material they do not try to teach them things themselves. I understand that some people have to work and cannot have a lot of time to spend with their children, but that does not mean that the little time there is should not be dedicated to "quality" time exposing children to their surroundings. Cooking, cleaning and other things are terrific learning opportunities and leaving the child in front of the TV does not promote learning or family values.

Well I would be happy to get your feedback on these topics or any suggestions to make these topics more interesting.

Thank you!

Ethics?

Why on earth does someone who is being investigated in an ethics probe think she has a chance at being the next president? This is my big question whenever I hear something about Sarah Palin in the news. When you read about her career you realize that it is just marked by controversy in relationship to abuse of power.
There are many different examples as to why she should just disappear from the limelight. Many of them are for abuse of power as public officer in Alaska. She fired a librarian when she was mayor of Wasilla, for her role in refusing to censor some books in the library. She has been investigated for having fired a commissioner for not firing her ex-brother-in-law. There are investigations due to the role the company her husband works for in relation with the gas pipe line to be built in Alaska. To make matters worse she resigned as Governor of Alaska, with no substantial reason given. Not to mention that I am morally opposed to some of the points she stands for, such as teaching abstinence (not that I don't think abstinence is something that should be taught, but she opposes teaching safe-sex and other things that should be considered as well). She is in favor of book censorship, and pro-guns.
I believe that when we consider someone for president they should be ready to ethically resolve the matters in the country, if not it's just a dictator in the making. They should reflect and respect the people in the country and show that they can but personal convictions aside and reflect the nations wishes, not make choices based on someone divorcing their sister. Although I would love to see a woman in the White House, I don't believe she stands for our gender, she led Alaska like a high-school click and if you did not agree with the popular girl, you were kicked out. Lastly, if she could not stay in office as governor for about one more year due to ethics probes, how much time will she last as president? She should not be wasting people's time and money. The only "good" thing I think she did was being this controversial, McCain had no chance in winning with her as a running partner. Enough wasting ink and reader's time with including her in the news, all that is happening is that we are feeding her ego and she may actually believe she has a chance at becoming president.

"Voces Inocentes" ("Innocent Voices")

This movie ends with the statement "more than 300,000 children are recruited into armies in more than 40 countries".
I believe that statement can summarize my anger when watching this movie. A true story about a child in El Salvador during the civil war that occurred in that country in the 1980s. The movie illustrates the children's suffering and pain in war stricken areas. Even though this movie is about one particular war, I believe a child's innocence is global and I can easily imagine children in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and I am terrified of actually finding out where else this could be happening today.
The movie, a true story narrated by Chava, follows the life of an 11 year old boy during the civil war. The vivid illustration of boys getting recruited into the army at the age of 12, the nightly shootings through the village between the army and the guerrillas contrasted with the innocence of children playing and trying to go to school. For me there was nothing as painful as seeing the army go into the school and have the principal read out names of boys to take them away into the army. Or when the child hears the bullets going through the house and kill their little next door neighbor, a pretty little girl who was best friends with his sister. The innocence of young love and discovering that the little girl he is crushing has been killed in her own house by a bomb or grenade. No child should have to suffer like this.
The movie also shows how the women who were left alone in the villages after their husbands, brothers and fathers either were "drafted" into the army, joined the guerrilla forces or fled the country. These women had to provide for their children and protect them from a type of violence and loss that no mother would want their children to grow up in.
This movie is very well made and shows the war from the point of view of a child. Throughout the entire movie all I feel is anger of seeing children's innocence killed. In a situation such as the one portrayed in this movie you don't care who is right or wrong, whose at fault for the war, all you see is the pain of the most innocent victims.

War on Hunger

The attacks on September 11, 2001 impacted us all. Most of us remember where we were and our reactions. The fact is that many people died in a terrible apparently unprovoked manner. Although I agree that the 9/11 attacks were awful the fact is that many more people die daily in ways that could easily be prevented.

This image tries to put into perspective the number of people that are starving in the world with something most Americans can relate to. We obviously cannot witness 824 million people starving. To most of us the concept of starvation is foreign, something we have never suffered from or witnessed, whereas we were all horrified when we saw the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. Since then, the "war on terrorism" has been a priority for our government, politicians and many people who have served in our armed forces. But few government officials touch the subject of "war on hunger". We have not separated billions of dollars to solve the issue of approximately 35 million people in the United States who are going hungry, let alone world wide. The image effectively gives us a point of comparison of a number of people we can relate to and makes the viewer aware of the huge disparity in the numbers.

The controversy behind this image is using a very sensitive time in our history which has provoked a long and costly war (not only in dollars but in human lives) which many of us believe has been completely justified in order to protect the world from terrorists. Meanwhile it makes us aware that we all turn a blind eye to an issue as delicate as people who die everyday from something as simple as not having food to keep them alive.

Personally, I am against all wars. I was also horrified and frightened at the 9/11 attacks, but I am much more horrified of the idea that millions of people do not have enough to eat. Growing up, my mother would have me make food for those less fortunate than me, mostly children who lived in the slums in my country and I would take it to them, this gave me a huge perspective of how blessed I was. I mean I have never been rich, but I always had a plate of food on the dinner table. I would watch children that were my equals similar in age and size, scarf down the food as if it would run away, we would drive by garbage dumps with children walking through them in search for scrap metal in order to make some money and therefore have access to food. (Since my childhood, the military dictatorship in my country ended and there are many laws in place that protect and provide nourishing meals to children, and the number of children searching through garbage has gone down tremendously.) These altruistic actions my mother taught me since a very early age has made me a compassionate person. I was always taught to make sure that everyone had there basic necessities met. To me it is very difficult to conceive that the idea of spending trillions of dollars on a war that has cost many more lives than the attacks that triggered it is justified. If the effort and money that has been placed on the war had been placed on making sure all children had access to food and water, I would sleep better at night, wouldn't you?

Internet Safety

Internet safety and actions related to this subject are discussed in both articles. The first article “MySpace and Sex Offenders: What is the Problem?” discusses the experiment which MySpace ran in order to weed out possible sex predators and reports on the conflict between MySpace and government entities over the findings. The government was concerned about the amount of time it took for the social-networking site to find and remove sex-predators the site contended that due to the lack of a national sex offender database the process was long. Another valid point discussed in the article was that the search considered the names reported by MySpace users and sex offenders could very well use aliases. The second article “MySpace Not Responsible for Predators” reports on the case of a fourteen-year-old girl who was raped and murdered after meeting with a person she befriended through MySpace. This person is reported to have been a sex offender and the victims family are suing MySpace because they allowed a registered sex offender identify himself as a young boy on the networking site. The author in this article sustains that the victim should have made better choices and the parents should have provided better guidance. The responsibility in the matter of internet safety is portrayed through two points of view through these articles. Even though I agree that it would be wonderful that social-networking sites had better control of their users, I am a firm believer that ultimately we are responsible for our own actions and their consequences.

One of the things I enjoy most about the internet, and I think I am not alone here, is keeping in touch with friends and family with whom I could have lost touch if it were not for modern technology. Younger generations use it to make friends and reach out socially. In either case I do not find anything wrong with the concept of social-networking sites. However, in the same way that I do not believe that just because I meet someone who appears to be a certain way I do not immediately go somewhere with that person or share my bank account information with them, I would not go somewhere or share personal information with someone from a social-networking site without some sort of guarantee of who the person really was. Even when meeting someone in person there have been endless accounts that the individual turns out to be different than what judged at first impression. Online precautions must be taken to another extreme. There is no actual way to verify who is typing on the other end. One of my Facebook friends, whom I know personally, goes by the name “Whatdo Ucare”, his parents gave him a more caring name. My cousin is tagged as being in a picture of a bunch of cute puppies, I can calmly tell you my cousin is human. Being conscious of all these innocent changes in profile or misrepresentations, I think it comes down to the personal responsibility we have and, in the case of children, the responsibility they must be taught and the interest and protection parents must have in there online usage.

My stance on personal responsibility is mostly influenced by the examples that my family has given me. On one hand my father in many aspects gave me the example of how not to take responsibility for your actions and my mother how to take complete responsibility for yourself. From them I learned that we cannot blame the situation we are in on other people. Sure it would be wonderful if social-networking sites had the technology to control the age, identity and intent of everyone who joins, but other than a web site that confirms your identity through fingerprints or DNA, I do not see it possible to stop people from misrepresenting themselves. In the meantime I think the public should be aware of the dangers that lurk on the web and take responsibility in order to protect themselves.