Would you still eat fast food if you knew this?

The topic of fast food should concern everybody because at one time or another we’re eaten it. The big issue that I’ve been concerned about is where it comes from. I watched a video that showed a lot of pink goo being processed into chicken nuggets. This article identifies the pink goo as left over meat processed together to form more burgers or chicken nuggets. This is not unusual for businesses to use all of the product that they can so I can’t blame them in this perspective. What caught my eye was when they get this leftover material they clean it using ammonia that will kill the e.coli. Ammonia is also used in glass and  window cleaning products. So many American’s are eating ammonia along with their burgers. The strange part is that the USDA hasn’t said anything about it. Not only is it injected in fast food, it also goes into school lunches. Shockingly, the ammonia doesn’t always kill the bacteria that it is supposed to kill because there have been traces of e.coli and salmonella in beef products. The USDA calls ammonia a “processing agent” so it’s okay to be in our foods. But if they hid using ammonia to clean the beef that we wat what else could they be hiding?

This article came from http://www.naturalnews.com/027872_ammonia_beef_products.html

Nelson Mandela’s surgery.

Earlier, I was on Twitter and I was looking for a story to relate to our class. I ran across a link about Mandela being in the hospital because he was having stomach troubles. Come to find out he had a hernia so that’s why he was in the hospital. Mandela is 93 years old and this caused me to think about the average lifespan of a black male and he has out lived that expectation by at least twenty years. So I started to think about where he lived and the environment in which he lived. He was the King of South Africa and he spent 27 years in jail for going against the apartheid government. While he was in jail he came down with tuberculosis. This is all important information because in class we learned that an individuals living environments determine how long they live but I would like to say that this does not apply to Mandela because he spent many years in bad living situations and he is still living. So this makes me think that environment doesn’t have as much of an impact over the way that we live. I think that we give it more credit than it actually deserves. Individuals may be affected by their environment but it doesn’t mean that they are necessarily going to die any sooner than the next person. Mandela is recovering fine and he is scheduled to be released as early as tomorrow if everything continues to go well.

This article was found on http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nelson-mandela/9105799/Nelson-Mandela-recovering-in-hospital-after-diagnostic-procedure.html

Research topic

My research question is about gangs, why people choose to join them, what comes out of being involved in them and everything in between. This issue is worth addressing because it not only affects the gang itself; it affects members of the community as well. This is so because every time something happens in a “bad part of town” people automatically relate it to gang activity. Well at least that’s how it is where I’m from. Society sees gangs as a threat and they only acknowledge the bad things that go on inside a gang but maybe, just maybe they’re not all that bad. Of course violence is never the answer to any problem but other than that maybe they are people like us and have different ways of finding friends. If this is the case then they may have had good intentions on joining a gang. I just want to know what their motives are for either joining or being affiliated. This subject interests me because a lot of people I know and care about have gotten themselves wrapped up in gangs and younger children are joining them. I asked one guy why he was in a gang and he said “because my brothers are in it.” Personally, I think that it is sad that these kids really don’t know what they are getting themselves into. I already know that it is like anything else in the world, there are going to be people in higher ranks than you are and you have to listen to them. I also know that they are not allowed to talk about what really goes on inside their gang and the things that they do. I also know that gangs have evolved in many ways over the years and some females are joining the gangs. I have questions about that also: why would a female want to join a gang? Some websites say that they join for protection. What exactly do they want to be protected from? Once these individuals are in these gangs how do they get out? Do they get out? Some people say that they would want to die in a gang so that they can be respected but how long do they expect that respect to last? Do individuals realize what their decisions do to their family? I have a lot of questions on this topic because I am really passionate about it. So I may need to cut some of my questions out. There are a lot of things about gangs on the internet. My instructor informed me that there was a program on Frontline called “Cease Fire” so I’ll definitely look that up. I can also look on some documentaries that show notorious gang leaders in prison. I can also look at articles that see gangs as a threat to their community. Also, it would be helpful to review the statistics to see where people in gangs end up whether it’s in jail or dead. I could use more places to look but wherever I look, I’m sure that the information will be sufficient.

So far this semester…

So far this semester I have been doing three weekly blogs and read articles that dealt with the health and wellness of both poor and wealthy people in different parts of the world. I also did some research on the problems in Robeson County. I learned that little things such as having sidewalks in the community makes a difference in the health of the residence of that area. Believe it or not, sidewalks promote exercise because they are a safe place to walk away from the traffic. I also learned that this area is not high on the health charts they have a lot of health problems in this ares. I continue to struggle with procrastination because often times i put the hardest things last, and in the end I make things harder on myself because I spend more time stressing over the project rather than doing it. If I could do this project over I would have started earlier than I did because when we were given the due date, February seemed further away then it actually was. I also would have interviewed someone else because I don’t feel like I have a strong interview. I also would have asked more questions because I think I am trying too hard to have a perfect project that I focus too much on details that don’t really matter. These changes would strengthen my research because I would have put a little more thought into my work and I would have had more time to correct any mistakes that may be in my reflective letter. Overall I think that I am capable of producing a petter portfolio than I have.

Advantages and disadvantages of oral histories.

While doing my oral history project I ran into a couple of issues in which thought were unnecessary so I decided to look up some advantages and disadvantages from other individuals perspective. The most common disadvantage was after a while, people start to have skewed memory and they tend to tell the story the wrong way. Sometimes individuals try to make themselves seem like the “hero” of the story which results in an unrealistic story. There is no way that we can tell who is being honest in their interview. There is also the chance that the person that is being interviewed really just wants to give yes or no answers just to get the interview over with. An individual can tell if they are being rushed and that makes the person conducting the interview more nervous than they were in the first place. The most worth while advantage is learning about the past from other individuals point of view. I also like to read oral histories of slaves like the one of Mr. James Cape http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snvoices05.html. This project was a learning experience for me that I will never forget.

I found this information from http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071208015435AAfppUw

Are The Texas Lottery Proceeds Going To Education?

The education lottery is something most people (like myself) pay no attention to. I never really sat down and thought of the lottery benefitting the educational system. As much as i hear people complaining about how education has gotten worse this makes me think if the lottery money is really benefitting education in any way. Many public schools are experiencing budget cuts, lay off’s, and larger class sizes; things that the lottery should be helping to improve  but there are more problems than solutions. State Sen. Wendy Davis stated that “people mistakenly think the lottery funds a majority of public education, but it’s not even close.” The proceeds just added $1 billion dollars to the states school fund. The money ended up getting taken back out. So in my opinion the name education lottery is misleading because it doesn’t support education all that much. Maybe they just want people to think the proceeds go to education so that they will be more willing to spend money on it.

I found this article on http://fbworkroom.blogspot.com/2011/05/are-texas-lottery-proceeds-going-to.html.

Occupy’s Next Stop: Foreclosed Homes.

I haven’t heard of Occupy Wall Street until it was mentioned in class on Thursday, so I looked deeper into the subject. One article caught my eye and it was about this family in Brooklyn, New York who were living a homeless shelter because their house had been foreclosed on. This article caught my attention because they were run out of their house when other houses were vacant. They decided to move into a house that had been vacant for three years. Members of Occupy Wall Street agreed with their decision also. I would support them because they have two young children and they shouldn’t have to suffer for the decisions that the big banks choose to make. The article also said that the people of  Occupy Wall Street would “plan to guard the house” so that the family would not be evicted. But after all of this dies down whats to stop the banks from coming to foreclose this house? Also what if the police get involved while the members are guarding the house, what will happen to the family? In the video that was with the article they talked about how they got support from other individuals, not only the people in the Occupy Wall Street movement. There was a lady in a similar situation that told the woman who moved into a house to help people whenever she can because everybody was struggling to make it and that it would come back to her. That piece of information can also be used as a life lesson because whenever you make it out of your current situation you can’t forget the people who helped you to get where you are. You also can’t forget that somebody helped you so it’s only right that you help someone else when you can. I love stories like this because they are so inspiring. If communities continue to stick together the world will be a better place because people will have love for their fellow-man.

I found this article at http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/occupys-next-stop-foreclosed-homes.

Oral history-“I am happier now without my voice than I’ve ever been with my voice.”

This oral history came from  http://storycorps.org/listen/page/2/. This oral history was conducted by René Foreman and her daughter Michelle. René talks to her daughter about some of the trials she faces while living with an electrolarynx. She has an electrolarynx because she had cancer in her esophagus leaving her unable to speak. This selected audience for this oral history is pretty much whoever wants to listen to it or finds it interesting. I learned that oral histories can be on any topic under the sun and most of them are really interesting. I liked this story because she told how people treated her since she talked differently but she wasn’t ashamed she stands up for herself whenever someone has something negative to say to her. This shows how we treat people that are different from us most of the time people don’t stand up for themselves like she does. In my eyes this makes her a remarkable individual.