Going Green: Eating Organic verses shipped in foods.

In the article “Eating Food That’s Better for You, Organic or Not”, Mark Bittman says, in referring to organic food, “It seems to have become the magic cure-all, synonymous with eating well, healthfully, sanely, even enthusiastically.” In reality what was really needed was to just eat the proper foods, especially plant foods. The America public was eating too much junk food and as a result becoming obese. The organic movement brought this to the American public’s eyes.    

However, from the time they started the organic food movement there has been a lot of controversy over whether organic foods were healthy for us or not. Mark Bittman, of the New York Times, stated that “In the six-and-one-half years since the federal government began certifying food as “organic,” Americans have taken to the idea with considerable enthusiasm” I remember when foods were grown locally. The foods were fresher and tasted better. Fresh foods also kept their flavor better because they were brought to your local grocer straight from the farms. The farmer did not pick the food until it had ripened properly. If you like to cook you know the fresher the food the better the meal will be.

Of course going completely organic wasn’t a bad idea. People were concerned about all the chemicals being used to keep insects off the crops. They were afraid that these chemicals were harmful to humans. In order to be called organic food, it needed to be grown naturally, without any chemicals being added. The Federal Government set strict guidelines on what could be called organic. This means no insect repellants or chemical additives, like nitrogen, or other fertilizers, to enhance growth. You also had to use natural compost for fertilizer. Another reason for going organic was that all of the chemicals used to protect the crops from insects, or enhance growth, were polluting our rivers and streams and killing the fish.

Foods today are brought to you local grocer from as far away as 1200 miles. Some foods are shipped to you from other countries. The food loses flavor and nutrients in transport. They have to be picked before they are ripened in order to keep a longer shelf life. This is a very good reason why consumers should buy locally. Not only locally grown vegetables but milk as well. 

When I was a kid there were several local mom and pop dairies. You did not have to worry about old milk getting to your local grocer. Not too long ago the milk companies were worried about how sunlight depleted the calcium out of the milk and as a result put milk in containers that kept the sunlight out.  Now the farmers raise the cows organically without shots or chemicals in their food. Daniel Indiviglio of The Atlantic wrote “Opening an organic farm probably has a pretty high entry cost. The cows were raised on grass or hay out in the pasture. Most traditional farmers give the cattle shots with a lot of antibiotics. It was believed that these antibiotics would be consumed from eating these processed animals. As a result, humans were getting too many antibiotics into their system. The human body built up a resistance to these antibiotics which prevented humans from using antibiotics in order to fight off illnesses. But with organic milk, under strict government guidelines on organic foods, the farmers don’t give their cows these shots.  

Going organic helped bring the people’s attention to what we were doing to our world and to ourselves. But it came at a cost to the American public. It seems that every time someone wants to do something for the good of the consumer, it comes at a great cost. Everything that had an organic sticker on it increased in price at least twofold. Katie Zezima mentions in her article printed in the New York Times that “income has soared 20 percent, and supermarket orders were skyrocketing. But soon the price of organic feed shot up. Then the recession hit, and families looking to save on groceries found organic milk easy to do without”. This did not make much since to me because the cost of insecticides and chemical fertilizers was removed from the cost of growing the food. The food was grown locally verses being shipped in. This eliminated the cost of transportation.

Of course on the up side of the equation the farmer did better profit wise because of the higher prices for his farm products. But this only lasted for a short time. After the new wore off of this fad consumers got tired of paying the higher prices and went back to buying the less expensive foods. Another problem for the organic farmer was the downturn of the economy. The consumer couldn’t afford the higher priced organic foods and started to buy the less expensive foods grown by traditional farmers. 

Steven Gray, Organic Consumers Association, writes “because of the organic movement in the U.S. all of the major food chains have started to get on the band wagon with stocking their shelves with the organic foods. By doing this it should bring the cost of organic products down through competition. If this happens the consumer should go back to buying the healthier organic foods”. 

If you don’t want to buy from your local markets, you can always grow your own organic foods in your backyard. I grow several vegetables in my garden. I also use natural compost in order to grow these vegetables. I never use insecticides on my plants. I love to be able to eat these vegetables fresh out of my garden. This is my way of going green and cutting back on my carbon foot print. This is also my way of feeding my family fresh foods with all of their natural nutrients in them fresh from the garden. If more people were to grow small gardens in their own yards this would help in a big way in cleaning up our environment as well as becoming healthier.

Fresh foods grown locally, not only helps in promoting healthy bodies, but it also helps your local economy as well. You keep the money locally instead of sending it out of state or out of the country.  

In the long run going green and eating organic foods is healthier all around. Everyone should do their share to clean up their carbon footprint in order to have a cleaner healthier world for ourselves and our grandkids.

--Donald Hampton

Are Violent Video Games Linked to Aggressive Behavior?

There are many studies and research groups who claim that violent video games, such as World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto, have some kind of direct link to the aggressive behavior in children. Somehow, I simply cannot grasp how video games can be more harmful than the issues that revolve around families and the influence that other peers have on children. I have played numerous video games, and I certainly do not consider myself an aggressive or angry person. My two brothers also played plenty of violent video games throughout their childhoods, and even though they are a bit more aggressive than I am, taking into consideration the fact that they are both grown males, I don’t consider them aggressive guys either. In fact, I agree with Jason Della Rocca, program director for the International Game Developers Association in 2006, when he stated that, “It's easy for people to point to games and say that they brainwash people or make them act in certain ways, but in reality, there are social pressures and family issues, and a huge range of factors that go into how people behave. Games are just an easy scapegoat” (“Real-World Violence”).

The research that has been conducted shows that when subjects were shown images of both violent and non-violent images, the subjects who had more experience with violent video games displayed a lower response rate to the violent images than the subjects who had not played many video games (“Real-World Violence”). In other words, the researchers place the blame for a child’s violent behavior on video games, claiming that the children are not as disturbed by violence because of the exposure they have had to it. However, just as Della Rocca said, I believe that the games are just a kind of scapegoat for most people. Society is full of violence, hostility, and criminal activity, yet people continue to blame video games for their children’s aggressive behavior. I work at a daycare in Van Buren, where I have seen, and heard, countless encounters with our director and a select few of the parents discussing the violent outbursts that their children have had. Nearly all of them are concerned as to what the source of their child’s behavior is, but not one of them will admit to any kind of problems at home, even if the director is simply inquiring about how often the child rough-houses with his or her siblings. The kids themselves will confess to fighting with brothers and sisters, and many of them idolize their older siblings, who argue with, curse, and yell at their parents. I’ve had several conversations with parents about how much trouble they are having with an older child, but when they are confronted with the fact that a younger child is behaving the same way, they deflect and blame it on something else. Some parents are clueless as to why their child is screaming profanities on the school bus, and I often have to hold my tongue so that I don’t say, “Well, ma’am, it’s because when you get angry with your child, you scream profanities at him. Therefore, when he’s ticked off because some fidgety kid kicked the back of his seat, your child is going to turn around and scream profanities at him.”

Even though they refuse to say anything about the child’s behavior at home, almost all of the parents have had something to say about the violent video games that the child has been playing, and how the games must have something to do with their vehement behavior. If this were the case, you would think these parents would cease to buy the games, or at least check the rating. Parents could check the rating and content of any video game before they even leave their house. The Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB, is dedicated to assigning ratings for computer and video games so that consumers, especially parents, can make an informed purchase decision. You can find the ESRB labels, which include content descriptors and rating symbols, on the back of any video or computer game case. Many people are familiar with these symbols, but the ESRB have the rating symbols, along with the descriptions of each symbol and a recommended viewing age, in the Rating Guide portion of their website (ESRB). With the ESRB, parents could easily prevent their children from possessing such hostile games, but if they did, what would they have to blame for their children’s behavior? When parents blame the video games for the actions of their children, I can’t help but wonder about what the parents were doing while the kids were playing them. Parenting is a full-time job, and if a mother or father can walk away while their nine year old son is completing a mission on Grand Theft Auto that involves picking up several prostitutes on the side of the street, then I would have to say that these adults are severely lacking parenting skills. As a witness to many of the outbursts, I don’t see how these video games are affecting the behavior of these kids. However, I do see how the lack of discipline and moral values in the families are affecting them.

Some researchers, such as Michael Hoffman, believe that violent video games only affect the unstable youth. In his blog post, “Survey: Violent Video Games Only Affect Unstable Youth”, he reports that most teenagers maintain the same anger level after playing a violent video game as they did before. The ones who did have a change their anger level had a very significant change, some nearly doubling the original readings. He believes that only the gamers whose emotional states can be susceptible to game play are the ones we need to worry about, while the stable personalities are capable of handling the violence (“Unstable Youth”).

Personally, I like how Andrew Sullivan puts it in his blog, “The Daily Dish”. He simply states, “New evidence suggests we should chill about violent video games” (“World of Peacecraft”). Indeed, I do believe that we should re-focus our attention to the society around us and the families of our children rather than the games they play. The researchers may not realize it, but these kids take in more from the people and the environment around them than they do the fictional scenes they see on the television screen.

--Tarrah Fears

Exploiting Children Online

You Tube has become a worldwide phenomenon. Ordinary, everyday people now have a quick and easy way to post videos for anyone with internet access to view. There are music videos, movie clips, personal performances, how to videos, the variety is endless. Take Ok Go on Treadmills for instance, the band Ok Go released a choreographed video of its band members dancing on treadmills to You Tube and received over 1 million views in the first six days. The video got the band’s name out there, and they were later asked to perform the routine on the MTV Video Music Awards. On the other side of the spectrum, you have Charlie the Unicorn, which is an animated video about a unicorn named Charlie who journeys to Candy Mountain where he is eventually ambushed and one of his kidneys is removed. The randomness of this website is mind blowing. The freedom it has given to everyday people has created instant celebrities. Many of these internet phenomenons are only mere children. Lisa Belkin is the author of Motherlode, a parenting blog associated with the New York Times. Belkin did a piece on children who have received fame in the form of “hits” via You Tube. The question that arises is how much is too much?

For years parents have been accused of pushing their child prodigies into pageants, recitals, or auditions for their own personal benefit whether it be for money or fame or both. We’ve all heard the stories of the cheerleader moms who went to the lengths of murder to get their daughters on squads, or the pageant moms who force their little girls to practice hours upon hours every day instead of going outside to play. Then there are the parent’s who drive their children to audition after audition in hopes of getting them noticed. However, with today’s technology, pushy parents can show off their precocious child to the entire world with a few simple clicks of their mouse. You Tube has opened up a whole new can of worms for aggressive parents. What happens when the stage parent goes viral? Sadly, we don’t know the repercussions that these videos may have as the child grows older. In a Mom Debate that asked the question: “Is is okay for parents to upload a video of their child on You Tube?” over 1,000 people responded; 63% responded no, only 37% responded yes (Mom Debate).

The ever popular “David After Dentist” video is roughly a two minute clip of 7 year old David DeVore in his father’s car after a minor oral surgery before the drugs had fully wore off. The adorable little boy has charmed millions of viewers from his slightly out of it state. The video was originally taken as a means for David’s father to send to his wife to assure her that David was okay after his surgery. But once it was uploaded to You Tube, a debate began over where the line is drawn between entertainment and exploitation. This video is so popular it has received over 57 million views (Belkin). Because of the popularity of the video, it is sure to follow poor David into puberty and probably the rest of his life. David’s father has recently quit his job to market T-shirts and bumper stickers with the trademarked question “Is this real life?” (Belkin). Whether this is setting a responsible example of parenting or not is up for questioning. In an interview with CNET, David’s father, also named David stated, "The fact that I even taped it at all was really because of David's personality. If he were a sensitive child or was embarrassed easily or didn't see the humor in things, I wouldn't have taped it from the beginning” (Kids on You Tube). Yet, no one can predict how other people will perceive the video or if it will haunt poor David later on in his life.

By far one of the most personally disturbing videos I came across in my research was one in which young children performed a scene from Scarface. It was originally posted with the description being an elementary school play of the “Say hello to my little friend.” machine gun scene, but later it was admitted that these were child actors hired by director, Marc Klasfeld. The children were specifically selected by a casting agency that is known for finding child look-a-likes for adult stars (Elementary School). There were a few minor changes in the script. The machine guns were replaced with plastic ones, the cocaine was replaced with a pile of popcorn and a particular four letter word was replaced with “fudge”. The video has over 3 million views (Belkin). The fact that the children were paid actors doesn’t change the fact that the things they are doing and saying in the clip are inappropriate for their age group. I was personally disgusted. To me, this felt like abuse, it isn’t healthy for children their age to be exposed to that type of graphic violence and language. In the interview with CNET, even DeVore said "I respect the creativity and how the guy went about it and all that and the fact that these were child actors maybe toned it down a bit for me, but it still kind of makes me cringe a little bit," when referring to the Scarface video (Kids on You Tube).  What negative effects could these actions and words have on the children’s lives now, or as they continue to mature? Only time will tell, but my gut feeling tells me that it won’t be good.

The fact is that we won’t know the effects You Tube has on children until the generation matures and we see for ourselves. It is kind of a scary concept to consider. We won’t know how much of an effect it has until it will be too late. It is the parent’s job to make decisions for their children. Maybe the next decision should be to not put that video online and keep it private.

--Emily Potter

Sexting

Sexting is the process of sending nude or semi nude pictures of yourself or others to other people to another person via a text message on a cell phone. This is considered pornography if sent by someone who is underage it can be considered child pornography. Child pornography is considered by law to be a sex offense, committing a sex offense can cause you or the person who sent the message to have to register as a registered sex offender. The reason I have chosen this topic is because I have seen it happen and I know it happens. I have seen the images or videos that have been made by people I can only remember one in particular and this one happened at a party my junior year of high school. A friend of mine had had just a little to much to drink that night and decided it would be fun to go streaking. As he was streaking a few another person had decided to video tape him in his escapade. A few days later when I saw him at school I saw the video as well and he told me that he had decided to never drink again. In this case the ending turned out to be good my friend stopped drinking, and the video was deleted from the phone of the person who took it and it didn't spread very far. There are other cases In which this wasn't the ending of it. It ended in many other people other than 1 person having the picture or video because someone broke up with the other or someone made them mad, just general teenage high school drama and may have been sent to more then a couple hundred people.

There was a article in the new york times called “Sexting May Place Teens at Legal Risk” and it says that “One in five teens may be a child pornographer risking life in prison — for the crime of taking and distributing naked pictures of themselves.”. It seems like a ridiculous statement and in my opinion it is but the thing is is that it is true. In a separate article “'Sexting' investigated at N. Hartford school" there is a report of "In Pennsylvania, six teens ages 14 to 17 face child pornography charges for sexting each other ". According to sentencing.us the sentencing for child pornography is between 188 and 235 months (16-20 yrs.) or 20,000 to 200,000 $ fine at the least. Child pornography is classified as obtaining taking or distributing nude or semi nude pictures of a minor (under age of 18) this can be classified into 2 different scenarios. One being that the picture is of a pre-pubescent minor, that is a child who is before puberty usually the age of 13 or lower and post-pubescent or after puberty. The charges are generally very severe if the charge comes in the classification of pre-pubescent generally max prison sentence. On the other hand post-pubescent charges are much less severely punished generally the minimum sentence depending on the case. There are many other cases that also have a factor in how severe the punishment is on the copine scale you can find the scale here.

Sexting seems to be the current sexual endeavor that most teens tend to enjoy. Sexting may seem harmless and most teens rarely think of the consequences, but the consequences are much more severe then most people think. While it seems as though “everyone is doing it” it still is not a very smart idea especially for anyone under the age of 18 and is no longer considered a minor (its still stupid even though you are 18 in my opinion). Also never accept a picture of someone or send a picture to someone if they decide to text it to you or you them (even if you do believe that they are trustworthy). Even though you may think that you can trust them with a picture of yourself or they think they can trust you don't send the picture, they could get mad at you or you at them and things could get out of hand very quickly and easily. Just think about how many people you know and how many phone numbers are in your cell phone just from your school then think that they have just as many and so does everyone in that persons phone book. The picture that you send or they send could easily be sent to 500 people within a matter of seconds so the bottom line is think before you act.

--Keith Westphal

A Paperless Society

Today we live in a digital society; the invention of the internet has allowed us to communicate instantly via e-mail and various social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Bills can now be paid online, without a single piece of paper exchanging hands. Research has become immediately gratifying, with numerous search engines, and you can even download entire books with just a click of your mouse. As the internet continues to relieve paper of its duty, we begin to imagine a paperless society. However, could life as we know it actually function without paper?

This question was also brought up by Jen Lukenbill in her blog The Journey Towards a Paperless Society.  Lukenbill argues the cons of going to paperless society.  She claims paper is still a necessity.  Paper is needed to make labels for prescription bottle so medications are not given to the wrong patients, mail in general even with online billing and shopping, because everything you buy online still needs some form of paper product to be boxed or packaged and sent to you, no matter its packaging it still uses paper.  Then she brings up another very interesting point that may be the most important.  Our children learn brainstorming, critical and creative thinking skills while sitting down with a piece of paper (www.aboutmyplanet.com). 

I agree with Lukenbill.  I don’t think we can live without paper.  We need it for virtually everything.  Paper is still needed to label prescription bottles, as Lukenbill pointed out, instruction manuals, our mail, items in stores, like food boxes.  Most importantly, I think our children need paper to develop critical and creative thinking.  Do you remember using paper in elementary school when it was time to draw?  I remember sitting at my deck in kindergarten with a sheet of paper and paint in front of me, making finger paintings of my family and smiley face on the sun.  “Kids learn creative thinking and brainstorming if you sit them down with paper, glue, markers, glitter, and other bright materials. Of course, they could learn creative thinking in front of a monitor, too, but it wouldn't be nearly as fun (Lukenbill).  Not only drawing on paper developments the minds of our children, but the printed books they read while growing up do as well.

Young adult author and teacher Kami Garcia argues in her blog, Do Libraries Really Matter, how important printed books are to children.  I also agree with Garcia when she claims that libraries really do matter, because they offer access, opportunity and identity (http://kamimgarcia.typepad.com).  Many children all over the country live without books, either their parents are too poor to buy them or don’t value them at all, and the only way for a child in these situations to access a book is through the library.  “Denying them that access is equivalent to racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic segregation. As a country, we complain about the level of illiteracy, unemployment, and crime -- yet we are denying people the one thing that will allow them to rise above these conditions -- education.  To pursue or further one's own education, you need books” (Garcia).  Without access and education, you are taking away opportunity in a way. A book, like a sheet of paper, is a tool for children to shape their imaginations and expand their understanding of the world.  Garcia also claimed that books can help a child shape them into the person they will become.  I agree with her.  If you give a kid who likes animals a book about animals and how to take care of them, maybe that would lead he or she to become a veterinarian.

Now books are being converted to eBooks, or electronic books, and downloaded onto eBook Reader devices, Apple iPads, and Amazon Kindles instead of printed (Lyons). Also with the support of people like Microsoft researcher Bill Hill, who supports eBooks in his article Toward a Paperless Society, claiming the electronic book will make books available anytime, anywhere.  I disagree with Hill on that claim, because going to eBooks would still deny some children of books.  There are still families in the country without a computer or internet access at home, and many do not have the eBook reading devices, nor do they have the money to get those resources.  So what are you supposed to do if you don’t have that capability?

In my opinion, we are not ready for a paperless society.  We use paper too often, and it is essential in completing day-to-day tasks, such as printing records, mailing snail mail, reading the newspaper, a magazine, or a book.  Paper is crucial to our children’s development and education, and if we want our children to continue to grow and develop creative qualities, we should not take away their tools for creativity.

--Letitia Elkins

Guns, A Growing Problem

The sale of firearms is becoming more and more common. Young children, gangs and all of the wrong people are getting their hands on guns. The increase of deaths due to guns has raised 10 % in the last two years.

In the article “more guns= less or more crime,” Andrew Sullivan argues whether or not guns increase crime. He said, “guns are dangerous weapons and everyone is getting a hold of them.” Guns definitely increase the crime rate. I totally agree with this article. Many young kids are getting guns from their friends or they are stealing them from their parents and killing other children. Also, gang members are buying and selling illegal guns. Gang members use guns every day, these are the type of people that need to be watched. The government talks about other countries getting weapons illegally, but never mention illegal guns in the United States. China sales the United States illegal guns costing over 10 thousand dollars. Guns are very dangerous and I think that only certified people should own them. Gun stores and pawn shops should be watched and controlled on gun consumption and sales. The homicide rate is continuing to grow and should soon be put under control. Guns are making the world we live in a scary place.   After 60,000 deaths from firearms use over the past two years, America is in a gun crisis. Yet gun laws remain weak, gunmakers continue to promote killing power, and gun dealers accept no responsibility for the criminal use of what they sell. As the laws are now written, a blind man can buy a gun.

In 2008 four hundred and ninety- three people were murdered in Maryland, 70 % of which were from guns. The FBI stated that guns are the majority use in homicides. Licensed gun dealers would have to keep records of all transactions and would be subject to audits by the state every two years. In recognition that alcohol abuse often contributes to violent act, the legislation rewrites existing law to make it more difficult for a “habitual drinker” to legally obtain a weapon. Gun- rights advocates have already started blasting the proposal as an attempt to violate the Second Amendment rights of law- abiding citizens.

State Sen. Brian E. Frosh has introduced a bill, The Firearm Safety Act of 2010 that could possibly save more lives. This act lets police officers wiretap those suspected of dealing in illegal guns. State law currently allows police officers to listen in on the conversations of those suspected of murder, rape, gambling, insurance fraud and other crimes, but not illegal guns sales.

In the article From China, with bullets by Andrew Ross, China is said to be the biggest importer of illegal guns. In 1996, The United States seized 2,000 assault weapons worth $ 4 million dollars. Also, the U.S. had two representatives of the giant Chinese arms companies. There is a vast, lucrative international black market trade in small arms and light weapons. Think of the pictures we see from Liberia -- teenagers running around with guns; warlords in Somalia who pretty much chased our troops out of Mogadishu. All these people depend on this global underground traffic in AK-47s. This is unbelievable, there are young children age 6 in foreign countries carrying around guns.

The amount of guns and ammo last year cost 1.4 billion dollars. Also gunshot wounds last year cost 25 billion dollars. I think this is bizarre. These statistics are very high for something like this, guns almost averaged with tobacco sales. The cost of billions is a lot of money for guns and ammo and care for gunshot wounds. I had no idea that illegal gun distribution brought in so much money. If a person gets caught selling an illegal gun, they can be fined up to 2.6 million dollars and serve long term jail time. Over the past two years firearms have killed 60,000 Americans, more than the number of U.S. soldiers killed in the Vietnam War. Handguns account for 22,000 deaths a year. All of the facts are outrageous. Who knew that guns would become so dangerous and society would corrupt more rapidly.

All in all, gun use is a growing problem and people should take more precautions. If we can stop huge serious drug deals, then the FBI should be able to stop illegal guns being sold and imported. If the U.S could just control who gets a hold of guns the world would be a safer place.

--Paige Gammill

Has Bullying Grown?

Bullying is a form of hurting an individual to make one feel better about oneself. A manner for people who are jealous, sad, hurt, depressed, or just cold hearted, to pick on someone they may not know anything about to make themselves feel like a bigger person.

My personal opinion on bullying is that it is out of control. There are more and more teens, kids, and even adults getting harassed by other people. All the way to the worst point that people are deciding to take their own lives. One example I am keeping up with right now, is the Phoebe Prince story, a fifteen year old girl from South Hadley High School, Massachusetts who commits suicide due to bullying by a group of fellow students at her high school. The story I am keeping up is written by Helen Kennedy at http://www.dailynews.com. She just starts off talking about where Phoebe was from and how nine students are being charged for her suicide. I totally agree with everything she stated in her article and how she feels about the whole situation.  So at this time nine students have been charged with a month long campaign of bullying. More students have been brought in for investigation. I plan to follow the whole story from start to finish seeing how our own law enforcement, public schools, and court systems handle this whole situation. I hope to hear, even people who weren’t involved in the devastating suicide will find it in their hearts to stand up and do what’s right if it will help out Phoebe’s investigation. I hope it ends with the kids getting what they deserve and seeing some ways in the future they can help prevent this from happening again.

 I come from a small school in Lavaca, Arkansas where the graduating class was sixty-four, with over twenty of them being foreign exchange students. I can’t say that I didn’t ever witness bullying going on, but I do have to say that there wasn’t that much. Which is wonderful for us, but there is no telling how much bullying goes on in larger schools around the world. I personally have been bullied, but sadly not by people who were like the average bullies, just by my friends. When I say bullied, I don’t mean like a everyday thing like most bullying is done, it was just this little thing a couple of my guy friends would do when I walked by that made me feel uncomfortable. I didn’t take it in as bullying because they were my friends, but still didn’t fell to well when it was happening I couldn’t imagine what Phoebe was going through. It probably went on for a good month and a half, then I guess they just forgot about it and quit. Sadly to say but it was the truth. Strongly I never took it to heart, but some people just don’t have the man power or strength to do so, they take things to heart where they start to break down from the real person they are and leads to hurting themselves or even taking their lives. People who get bullied day after day becomes weaker and weaker as times goes on. It’s a sad process and we as teens see it more and more every day.

I think even though there was not much bullying in the schools in the west back then, kids still fought amongst themselves and the dads would have their shoot outs downtown for another cowboy looking at them the wrong way. Bullying has defiantly grown from the western lifestyles up until today. Now a day’s kids and teens fight or pick on kids on an everyday bases. We have teens or even mid teens hurting themselves in suicidal ways because the bullying gets so bad. My personal opinion on the whole situation is, “Stop the Abuse”, I think it’s getting way out of control and people are not taking the responsible routes to taking care of the situations. Everybody has their days where they may not feel their best or think they even deserve to live, but by law have to attend school. So when kids get to school the last thing they need is someone that is getting their heads down even more. Teens don’t care though, they will do anything to make that person feel the worst possible and will not stop until they succeed.

I do believe we have taken more outlooks on the topic over the centuries. People have changed so much over time. I believe people have changed their outlooks on the world and have changed a lot since the early western times. I think people are meaner and have lost a lot of respect for everything and everyone. With this being said, of course more crime and bullying would arise. More and more teens are getting addicted to drugs or more and more drinking under the age, more juveniles in the detention centers, but this all doesn’t compare to me as much as someone torturing another human being day in and day out. Putting someone so far into the ground and crushing their hopes of each day being a new on to the point where kids and teens have their whole lives ahead of them thinking of taking their own lives.    

In conclusion I pray we as people will stop being mean to our fellow sisters and brothers and learn to be nice and respect each other as who we are. Drop the immature and non important drama that leads to bullying or thinking bad about another and just live by the golden rule, “Treat Others How You Want to Be Treated”. I know we all have our days, but may be in time we will all realize it’s really not worth it to be mean and say hurtful things to innocent people to make ourselves feel better for a couple of minutes.

-- Ashley Moore