Organ Donor Registry

One of the biggest crises America faces today is the lack of organs. There is always a shortage of needed vital organs for people waiting on the organ donation list. According to womenshealth.gov, there are 92,000 people who are on that waiting list. Everyday that they don't have that needed organ is one more day closer to their death. Coming from the same source, EIGHTEEN people die EVERYDAY waiting for an organ. Only SEVENTEEN people each day get a new organ, out of the 92,000 people who need an organ. Why do you need a perfectly good organ when you are dead? These need to be going to people who still have a chance at life. There are many reasons why people don't become organ donors. First off, someone could just skip over the organ donation indication when he is filling out his driver's license. Some people lack the knowledge of the crisis at hand and they are uninformed about the process. Sometimes when a person has marked that they want to be an organ donor their family can change it. I don't see why organs are so important to the dead. They aren't using them anymore. The process isn't as gruesome as some people may believe, in actuality is quite simple. After the person has passed away, there is a routine surgery to remove the organs. After that the body is neatly sewn back up. This process does not interfere with funeral plans. One act of kindness could save up to SEVEN people. Almost every organ can be used in some way to help save another life. Just few organs used are the heart, kidney, liver, and lung. This one act could help a mother with polycystic kidney disease or a grandfather with coronary artery disease. I think that a law should be passed that every American citizen with a driver's license/ state ID will be a registered organ donor by default, unless they indicate "no". This will help the people who are suffering from these horrible diseases, and if a person is really opposed to giving an organ they can mark no. It is not taking away anyone's right because they can still choose no. I think the majority of people wouldn't mind being an organ donor, but they don't know how to sign up for it or they are too lazy. Something needs to be done about the thousands of people dying each year waiting for an organ.   -curlycue

Majority Of Americans Never Use Physical Education After High School

CEDAR RAPIDS, IA—Kevin Higgins always hated gym class. Like many of his classmates, he questioned the relevance of things like "exercise" and "physical fitness," and wondered if these skills would ever provide any practical, real-world benefits. Though he endured more than 720 hours of gym over 12 years, the 32-year-old accounting clerk said Monday that he has still never used physical education once in his life.

"I don't know why they bothered teaching us all that stuff," said Higgins, who since graduating has not once encountered a situation that required him to move his body at a sustained pace or keep himself in healthy shape. "I mean, come on—when will I ever need to physically exert myself for an extended period of time?"

Higgins is not alone. According to a recent poll, nearly 85 percent of all Americans admitted that, since entering the real world, they have found very few reasons to utilize the concepts they learned in physical education. In fact, most high school graduates claim that despite their gym teachers' insistence that this knowledge would come in handy later in life, they have still never used bending, breaking a sweat, or coordination.

"I remember my gym teacher droning on and on about this thing called 'physical well-being,'" Higgins said. "I still don't even know what that means."

Many educators and high-ranking health officials maintain that it is essential for young adults to learn such valuable skills as participating in activities and interacting with peers, increasing the intake of oxygen and nutrients to the blood, going out of doors, and moving. However, thousands of Americans have nonetheless gone on to lead very successful lives without ever bringing their heart rate over 120 beats per minute.

Erica Burnstrom, a 28-year-old aeronautics engineer living in San Jose, CA, said that abstract concepts such as aerobic activity and raising one's knees above the hips in a rapid "pumping" motion have not added any appreciable value to her day-to-day life.

"I never use any of that stuff, like walking quickly for five minutes," said Burnstrom, who paused from using the Pythagorean identity to solve for the cosine of 71° and 144° in order to speak to reporters. "I understand that my phys-ed teacher needed to know all that stuff because that was his job, but I'm not some specialist who needs to lie flat, lift her torso into a sitting position, and then return to the original position for a living."

"I wish they'd have taught us useful things in gym, like sitting at a computer and ordering things," Burnstrom added.

Many Americans claimed that once they finished high school, skills such as increasing joint mobility and building muscle strength were no longer necessary.

"If something needs to get from one place to another, I can just use my cell phone, or hop in the car. And I know they say that physical education promotes balance, but that's what my cane is for," said Miami, FL resident Keith Monahan, 32. "The only thing I still use from gym class is that occasionally I'll throw on some sweatpants while I'm sitting on the couch watching television. So I guess I learned that."

Omaha insurance salesman William Haylor, 43, said that when his 8-year-old son asked him how to do a chin-up, he realized that he had simply forgotten.

"I know I used to be able to do that, but for the life of me I can't remember," Haylor said. "They're really hard to do. I think that's why I stopped."

"I wish I could help him out," Haylor added. "But what's the point? He's never going to use it anyway."

In response to these findings, many Americans have urged the government to stop wasting millions of dollars on useless physical education programs and start focusing on real problems, such as obesity, arthritis, and chronic back pain :)

Global Warming - Hot or Not?

I began reading a book called "Unstoppable Global Warming," by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery. It poses a question: Is current atmospheric warming due to natural causes, or is it caused by the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities? The authors challenge the theory that global warming is man-made.
The book declares, "NASA acknowledges it had accidentally inflated its official record of surface temperatures in the U.S. beginning with the year 2000. The revised data now show 1934 as the warmest year, followed by 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, and 1953. Four of the top 10 years on record are now from the 1930s, before human emissions could have been responsible, while only three of the top 10 (1998, 2006, 1999) are from the past 10 years."
There has been no warming trend in the U.S. since the 1930s. This information undermines claims that the effects of global warming are a direct result of emissions or pollution. There have been two comparable warming periods in recent history: the Medieval Warming (950-1300 AD) and the Roman Warming (200 B.C. to 600 AD). Evidence from Greenland and Antarctic ice cores have proven that there have been 600 moderate cycles like these in the past million years.
Three scientists (Willi Dansgaard of Denmark, Hans Oeschger of Switzerland, and Claude Lorius of France) were awarded the Tyler Prize (virtually the equivalent of an environmental Nobel) for their efforts in the discovery of the "1,500-year cycle."
What is the 1,500-year cycle? Good question.
"In 1983, Dansgaard and Oeschger were among the first people in the world to see two ice cores, each nearly a mile long, that were then being brought up from deep holes in the Greenland Ice Sheet-bringing with them 250,000 years for the Earth's layered climate history. These men then began the frigid, laboring task of counting the layers and analyzing their contents to reveal Earth's past climatic changes."
By means of their newfound discovery, the researchers could use the ratio of oxygen-18 isotopes to oxygen-16 isotopes in ice to reveal the air temperature when snowflakes fell to Earth year-by-year for the past 2,500 centuries.
The two scientists expected to see big ice ages in the ice-layered record. Instead, Dansgaard and Oeschger discovered a smaller, moderate temperature cycle. They estimated that the average length of the smaller cycle was about 2,550 years. With the help of later investigations, researchers have revised that estimation, reducing it to only 1,500 years, thus the 1,500-year cycle.
Evidence that Earth's warming is natural is found in more than a hundred professionally published journals, with hundreds of co-authors, cited in this intriguing and unique book.
The authors of "Unstoppable Global Warming" remain confident in their studies. However, they are disappointed that "the public has remained unaware that the 1,500-year cycle offers the only explanation for the modern warming that is supported by physical evidence."
The data is there. Global Warming should not be a political issue, because it cannot be stopped by the passing of a law. It is inevitable, a persistent cycle begun millions of years ago. I encourage anyone to read this book. It is fascinating to realize that a "problem" our nation has been force-fed for so long, is in fact an act of nature.
-bomchickawahwah

George W. Bush: America's All Time Low

 

            One month after the terrorist attacks on September 11 2001, President Bush achieved the highest approval rating of any U.S. president, 92%. However, Bush has also set the record for the highest disapproval rating of any United States President.

 

[Notice: Different polls and sources yield different disapproval rating results.]

 

          According to a Gallup poll, Bush's disapproval rating is at 69% -which is not only the highest of the Bush administration, but the highest disapproval rating in Gallup poll history. A CNN poll indicates that Bush is the least popular president in American history. In this poll, 71% of Americans disapprove of how Bush is carrying out his presidential duties. Bill Schneider, a CNN Senior Political Analyst, said, "He is more unpopular than Richard Nixon was just before he resigned from the presidency in August 1974." Nixon's disapproval rating in 1974 was at 66%. "No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup Poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president's disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark," said CNN's polling director, Keating Holland.

 

          According to a poll by the American Research Group Incorporated, Bush's disapproval rating is at 75%. This source also showed that Republicans tend to support Bush at a higher rate than Democrats, however, the approval rating is still low. Forty-three percent of Republicans approve of Bush's overall job performance and 51% disapprove. Among Democrats, only 2% approve and 96% disapprove. On the way Bush handles the economy, 98% of Democrats disapprove and only 1% approve. Forty- one percent of Republicans approve and 58% disapprove.

 

          I, personally, am not a huge fan of W. Bush. I feel that he may have good intentions sometimes, but his methods and actions are too rash and not well thought out. The No Child Left Behind Act is an example of this. NCLB sets high qualifications for teachers, placing even more stress on them and making it more difficult to become a teacher. Also, NCLB encourages (and rewards) teaching children to score well on the test, rather than teaching with the primary goal of learning. The war in Iraq is another rash action that should have been better planned. Our reasons for being over there are ever-changing. Yes, it is good that we have liberated all of those people, but the cost was a lot of American lives. Now we have the problem of when and how to pull our troops out. Lastly, the issue of our economy is not completely Bush's fault, but he could be doing more and making better choices to help.

 

            Overall, there are many possible reasons behind Bush's record high unpopularity. I only mentioned a few. Bill Schneider, from CNN says, "Support for the war, the assessment of the economy and approval of Mr. Bush are all about the same – bad."

 

Do Schools Have the Right to Search Students’ Lockers?

In this world of increasing violence, even schools are subject to what results from it. There are always just a few people that ruin it for the rest; the ones who use their lockers as a place to stash drugs, alcohol, and even weapons. To fight against this schools have been randomly searching students’ lockers. Some schools even have police dogs that search for them. Schools can open lockers if they have evidence to suspect that something is wrong with a student.

Locker searches are a practical way of trying to keep schools safe, but many people have a problem with them. Many people say that locker searches violate The Fourth Amendment of The Constitution of the United States of America. “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures…” School officials don’t need a warrant or a probable cause to search lockers, but only a reasonable suspicion. If a teacher or school official searches a student who is thought to have drugs, alcohol, or weapons, but turns out clean, that teacher is restricted from searching students any longer. But if a teacher searches a bag or locker for cigarettes, and finds a bong, or pipe, that teacher can continue the search because it is likely that more will turn up. The use of sniffing dogs and metal detectors can be used at anytime because they don’t invade the privacy of the students.

But I believe there are other, better ways to cracking down on the problem of students having illegal things in their lockers. Though I think this should really only be implemented in schools that frequently have the problem of students having illegal substance with them. Principals can have metal detectors installed in the school to detect weapons. There could also be a few security guards who patrol the school. Having metal detectors and security guards would dramatically decrease the crime rate, because knives and guns would be easier caught. To eliminate the drug use of students, there could be a random drug test in the school. The students would be less likely to do drugs if they knew that they could be tested for drugs at any time.

I don’t think random locker searches are the best idea. They invade students’ privacy. And there are better solutions then locker searches. But I do think that if there is proof or a very strong suspicion that a locker or a student has illegal substances or weapons then a school official should be able to initiate a search.



-Regina Philangie

Using Radiation to Clean up Our Food?

Using Radiation To Clean Up Our Food

 

One not-so-well known food safety action was created at the beginning of August 2008 by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). Quite simply, the new act allowed producers to zap spinach and iceberg lettuce with radiation. At first, this sounds ludicrous, but apparently, just the right amount of radiation kills micro-organisms such as E. coli and salmonella.

Although zapping away bacteria sounds like a wonderful idea, irradiation is not the "cure-all" the agency is looking for. Most food-borne illnesses come from viruses that will not be destroyed by irradiation. So while it may be safe and effective for destroying some pathogens, it will not solve all our food problems. Yet, everyone seems to agree, irradiated food is safer than food that has not been treated.

Believe it or not, irradiated food has been around for a while, although this is the first time irradiation has been allowed on vegetables. The FDA has allowed beef, eggs, poultry, oysters and spices to be irradiated, but the people don't tend to buy these products. "People think the product is radioactive," said Harlan Clemmons, president of Sadex, a food irradiation company based in Sioux City, Iowa. This is due to the fact that the FDA requires these foods to be labeled as irradiated food, which scares off consumers.

Supporters of irradiation say that the new technology can help reduce the risk of illness and the number of outbreaks. Critics condemned the FDA saying that irradiation reduces nutritional value, creates unsafe chemicals, and ruins taste. Deciding which one is right is up to you to decide.

 

~PixiStix

Increase In Teen Sexual Activity

Increase In Teen Sexual Activity
Today in our society all of
our T.V. shows glamorize
sexual activity. Due to this
it has shown that teen
pregnancy has also increased
because of it. The youth in
our nation are so exposed to
such a vast extent of sexual
content it is no wonder
more are becoming
sexually active. Recent
studies show that those who
view a lot of sexual content
are twice as
likely to get someone
pregnant or be pregnant than
those who view the least
amount. Also ask yourself
this, how often do you think
parents are censoring what
their children are watching?
Younger children are
watching naughtier shows
every day so it is no wonder
teens are becoming
sexually active earlier.
Even in our cartoons there
is a large amount of sexual
innuendo take Family Guy,
Futurama, and South Park.
Granted they are all
hilarious, but the fact
remains. The youth in our
nation are having constant
images of hot, steamy sex
shot into their mind every
day. We have to do something
about this. I will admit our
television shows are not the
only reason for an increase
in teen pregnancy. A number
of factors take play in
this: single parents, broken
families, poverty, and the
list could go on. The point
remains though there has
been a drastic increase in
teen pregnancy that
corresponds with television
programming. We need to find
a solution to this problem
though. I am not saying take
the shows off the air,
what we need is a better
sexual education. We should
educate our youth to
understand what they are
seeing and teach them safe
sex. Straight up abstinence
programs normally don't
work, so we should educate
and protect our teens
instead of just telling them
to not have sex. They need
to be prepared
because we can't predict
every eventuality
Our sex ed classes take
place in junior high, how
does that help? All that
did was explain the
reproductive process, it did
not show us how to act. We
should start teaching it
more in high school and
address the issue directly.
After all high school is
when
most teens are becoming
sexually aware of themselves
and noticing the opposite
sex.

- Bulbasaurus 75