Hazing: Being in the Haze

I am a swimmer at my school which means that when people look at me and see what my team and I do, they will judge not only our swim team but our school too. For some reason, the swim team is notorious for getting in trouble with hazing. The year before my freshman year many of the freshman at my school were taken out of the Varsity conference meet and were not allowed to swim due to the fact that they were apart of hazing. A teacher had overheard some of the swimmers talking about their senior night and because of this, many of them were not allowed to swim at Conference. Last year when I was a junior, there was a hazing incident and some swimmers had to clean up the mess that they made. It is truly disappointing that hazing happens at all. Yet it is even worse that when just a few or just one swimmer does something wrong like hazing, the whole team gets judged based off of what that one person did. This happened to me in school once with a teacher. I was dressed up getting ready for one of my first meets in my freshman year and she asked me what I was dressed up for. As soon as I said swimming she did not want to know anything about it and looked at me differently and treated me slightly different ever since I had said I was a swimmer. She had done this because she knew about all of the hazing incidents that had happened and did not support our team even though there was no way I was even apart of anything except the team because I had just joined. I couldn't have even been involved in the hazing or any incident that may have happened in the past. Treating people differently even when they have just joined a team and are just trying to find a fit in is wrong. That is how hazing begins in the first place, people feel uncomftorable so they bring others down to make themselves feel higher or better. In order to stop the cycle of people judging our team, teachers, students, and familys have to forgive what people have done in the past and accept the people who are on the team now. People should not be judged for what others have done and although this doesn't happen, the world could be a nicer place if we tried.

College Search

The search for the right college comes as a challenge to many teens. Picking a school where they will live and study for the next four years. Personally, the most daunting task for me was having to pick a school that had enough programs in which I may be able to switch into knowing that nearly 80% of freshman change their major within the first year plus on average college students will change majors three times in the course of their college career. I am one of the first people in my grade to have been accepted admission and confirming that admission into college. Another problem that many adults do not see about picking a college is how peers look at that school. Although I was able to brush aside my friends comments on this school it was a tough school to just look at at first because of what my friends said about it. I am going to Iowa State next year and many of my friends said it was a shoe in school and was at par with CLC. I eventually did my research on it and found out that it fit everything I wanted including scholarships. When I told my friends that I was accepted and had accepted their offer to their school they looked at me dumb struck because of the facts that they "thought" they knew about Iowa State. After their disapproval speeches I told them that they had one of the top electrical engineering schools in the country and that stopped them cold. It is a hard step to look at colleges on your own and drawing your own conclusions before you take into consideration all of the things your friends or family may say before hand. On my own college search I found that many colleges were a good match for myself and I found that this is okay. There is more than one college that is right for someone! That is something that every person looking at a college should know at the beginning of their college search. The reason that I have this blog post today is because I know how important a college education is. Some statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics studied the unemployment rate and compared people's education from there. They discovered that only the high school educated population has a unemployment rate of 10.8%, for a associates degree 8.2% and for a college degree 4.4%. Having a college degree not only increases the chance of finding a job but also making more money. A person who has a bachelor's degree on average makes about 20,000 more than a person with no bachelor's degree. By knowing  a few tips on finding the right college, a person can not increase their yearly pay check and obtain a higher chance at getting employed but also enjoy the education that they are getting.

Time Management

Deerfield High School is one of the best High Schools in Illinois and is even ranked nationally as 258th best in the nation even compared to private schools. This can be incredibly demanding on students to be able to reach these standards. Much of this is due to the hard work that the students do to achieve such high test scores. What many people do not stop to think about is how important it is for students to have some down time through all of this hard work these students put not only into their studies but their extracurriculars. Many students are apart of the extracurriculars at DHS, nearly 85% of students are in someway involved with DHS activities. Many students have a difficult time dealing with the stresses but a harder time juggling all of their extracurriculars and school. I for example, in the past week was involved with STUNTS and Boys Swimming and Diving. I was up by 5 am to go to practice, had school, swam until 5:30pm and then went to STUNTS til about 9 pm when I finally got home and had to do my homework. I did this for the whole week and it is a huge struggle to be able to balance school, swimming, STUNTS and getting enough sleep to be ready for the next day. Our schools should run some type of program to teach other students how to prioritize their school work and their extracurriculars without just punishing them for not being able to keep up their grades. In an essence, a time management class. I feel that this would fit in perfectly with  freshman advisory because many students do not do too much in this class and having this experience could greatly help them learn lessons that they will use throught their life without dealing with the consequences of not doing their work without being told how to manage their time to start with.

Curfew

The law in Deerfield says that a minor, someone under the age of 18 must be off the streets or sidewalks and public places by 11pm from Sunday to Thursday and by 12pm on Friday through Saturday. On Saturday I decided to go out with some band friends at someones house who was just across the street from me. It was a very relaxed gathering where we listened to music, had some m&ms and discussed many of the impressive Stunts acts. I got a call from my parents asking when I would be home and I said around two in the morning. I then got a call from them again saying I had to come home right around 12pm because that was curfew for Deerfield. I tried telling them that it was okay if I was late because I was across the street yet they insisted that I came home anyways. Sometimes, rules should be bent when no harm can come from bending them. I was at a very safe enviornoment with people that I knew where nothing could have gone wrong. Even if anything had went wrong I had a very easy escape route, going directly to my house which was across the street. Just because the sun goes away and it becomes later at night shouldn't mean that a person should be home or off the streets. Deerfield is a very safe place with no gang activity and a very open community. Why should there still be a curfew just because it is a certain time of day? Do bad things only happen at night? Curfew is most likely in place to stop people from drunk driving or roaming around the streets making a racket. Yet the people that are drunk are over 21 which means that curfew does not affect them. Why does the law want to stop teenagers from hanging out with their friends at a certain time of day? Possibly because law makers believe that teenagers can find other times to hang out with their friends yet most of the time teenagers are busy with other activities during the day and cannot find time during the day to just hang with their friends. For example, school begins and goes to 3:30 and I have swimming til 5:30. I would have hardly any time to hang with my friends on a friday night because I would only be able to hang out from 6-11. Curfew should be changed to allow teens to be able to socialize outside of their school or other activities.

Death Penalty Information

1. I believe that the death penalty does enough to protect the wrongly accused to find a way out of the death sentence. One thing that helps people keep away from the death penalty are the mitigating factors and that should help with avoiding the death penalty. There can also be motion for a new trial if new information becomes available which may show the defendant is not guilty. There is also Federal Habeas Corpus which makes sure that the person who is being tried in the court has the power to imprison a person and make sure it is not illegal. There is also Clemency which, if there is new or sufficient evidence, will allow that person to be found guilty.

2. Which of these (if any) are the most humane? Should any be considered “cruel and unusual” according to the 8th Amendment? If so which? Why?
Hanging is very much cruel and unusual punishment because instantaneous death very rarely occurs and the person being hung normally ends up with slow asphyxiation and is a painful and slow death sometimes taking up to 45 minutes.
 Firing squad is not as inhumane or cruel as hanging but still is. If the firing squad misses on purpose or on accident the person will die a slow death from blood loss.
The electric chair is also cruel and unusual because sometimes the person will survive the 30 second shock and they will have shock after shock until they die which I believe is very inhumane.
Using a gas chamber is also cruel and unusual because this way of death is can be slow and painful. This way of killing someone is basically the same as strangling someone to death and I believe that it is very inhumane and wrong to kill someone by strangling them to death.
Lethal injection is the only humane way of killing someone because most people do not feel pain while they die. They are put to sleep and because of this, the feel no pain while they die and I believe that because there is such a low chance of a painful and slow death, it is the most humane.

3. Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia all have more death penalties than inmates in death row which is interesting because many of the states either have more inmates such as California which has 633 inmates and 13 people executed which is drastically different than these states. Many of the states use lethal injection as either their primary way of using the death penalty or their secondary option which must seem like the most non-cruel and unusual punishment and the most humane way to execute someone. The southern states have many more black people that have been executed than the northern states and after taking a look at the number of white people executed, it seems to be a more equal number between the south and north. It seems that the south has a bias of wanting to kill more black people than what the north does. Also, the south has more people executed than the north which is an interesting concept.

4. I believe most of the death penalty was very fair except for the part which describes how someone can be sentenced the death penalty if they kill someone under 12 years old. I believe that it does not matter how old the victim is. If a person kills someone else they should receive this penalty or a life in prison. I do not understand why if the person is under 12 it matters more than a 13 year old. I believe that all of the reasons for the death penalty were fair yet I do not believe the death penalty should be allowed because for many, it does not bring the family of the murder any better feelings of healing once that person has been executed.
The death penalty does not exist in Illinois anymore and I believe this is because of the amount of innocent people on death row whom were found innocent. Also a great deal of people were allowed clemency and it seems that the death penalty was just not working for Illinois.

5. I believe that the guesses I had made in the previous answer were correct because I guessed that the death penalty just did not work for Illinois and this is an obvious truth for all of the people who looked at all of the statistics of the death penalty. It seems that there is a 97% chance for someone to receive the death penalty if they killed a white person vs. a black person or other person. Every state releases people because of evidence of their innocence and this number increases each year which could show that many people have been wrongly convicted in the past. Public support has also been dwindling down over the years as people are not supporting the death penalty as much as they used to. Nearly sixty percent of people believe that the other options such as life without parole or life in jail would suffice rather than using the death penalty. It is also interesting that there are so many more cases of the death penalty have had executions in the south than in the north east. 1032 people have been executed in the south compared to the amount of people executed in the north east which is 4. This is a drastically different number and there must be something going on behind this with such a drastically amount of people who have been executed. From looking at the Death Penalty Information Center, I have come to the conclusion that they are trying to show that the death penalty is not in the favor of many and that there are many inconsistencies which makes me lose much of my faith in the death penalty. Mainly in the part of there being so many mistakes with people being innocent and yet recieving the death penalty or people being found not guilty after a closer looking at their case.


http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf

Marijuana a no-no

Marijuana is a plant that contains  delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, a chemical that releases dopamine into the brain and gives the user a "high" feeling. THC, otherwise known as  delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol works on the parts of the brain that deal with memory, thinking, sensory and movement. The most common method of using marijuana is by smoking it. This brings the air into the lungs and then quickly disperses the drug throughout the body. Not only can this drug damage lungs, but it can also become addictive. Nearly 9% of people who use marijuana are addicted. Daily users are more likely to become addicted with their chances being at 25-50% compared to the 9%. What marijuana does is increase the heart rate for nearly three hours after use. A study has shown that this can cause a nearly 4.8 fold increase of the chances of a hear attack because of increased heart rate after the first hour of use. Marijuana contains nearly 50-70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than what tobacco contains. This can also cause an increased chance of cancer because of the high amount of  carcinogenic hydrocarbons. Nearly 15.7% of eighth graders have used marijuana in the last month, four years later that percentage jumps to 32.3% and two years later nearly 42% of twelfth graders have used marijuana in the last month. Marijuana use is a obvious problem within the teenage scene considering that nearly half of teenagers use marijuana which is an illegal drug. Although the uses of marijuana seem to do very little bodily harm, marijuana has shown to have a significant amount of effect on a persons social life. Many users of marijuana have shown that they have a harder time reaching life goals, impaired their chances at reaching higher points in their careers, social life, and cognitive abilities. Work has also shown that people who take marijuana take more sick days, have increased amount of tardies and work related accidents, and even a greater job turn over rate. One thing that many websites do not bring up are the amount of people that die because of drugs. Many people die in drug wars over marijuana and one way that I have heard of thinking about this is  from my band director. He said: is it really worth it to take that hit, impare your judgement? Is it really worth it to take that hit and let the people who die in the drug wars, the family members, children and others who die in those wars for you to take that hit?" something to think about...

Dumb Debt

America is quickly falling into debt. This should not be a problem in the long run, if America decides to pay off its debt quickly or when it has time, there should be no problem with it. Yet America is getting into the habit of borrowing money and not paying it back, something that many citizens of the US are doing too. Some citizens believe that they can go out and take a credit card to buy everything that they want. They then max out their credit cards and the card will not allow them to buy anything else. People that max out one credit card then move onto another carrier because they see it as being allowed to use 10,000 dollars and only paying 100 dollars a month, something very easy to do. Yet as they max out credit card after credit card it can become overbearing and then the person who began this trend cannot pay all the first payments on all of their credit cards, they begin to have late payments and interest too. This is very similar to the problem the US Government is having. The US keeps using money on its programs and to help out the US, and they have to be loaned money either from the public or foreign investors in order to keep up with their bill. Yet this is not the only kind of debt that the Government is in, it also has been taking money out of other programs and using it for the now, thus putting a debt into certain programs that are promised a certain amount of money such as the Social Security program.
The debt back in 1940 was 2 Billion. In 1950 it was quarter of a trillion. In 1960 it was just under half a trillion. in 1970 it was just above half a trillion. In 1980 it was one trillion. In 1990 it was three trillion. In 1995 it was five trillion. In 2000 it was 5.6 trillion. And today in 2013, it is 16 trillion dollars in debt.
There is a trend to this spending and it has not changed in over sixty years. If America wants to get out of its debt then there must be a change in policies. Yet this does not seem like it will happen because the US debt department as guessed that in 2016, the US will be in nearly 22.5 trillion dollars. This trend has to end and soon if America is to still exist.

Uneven Waters

Within the sport of swimming, there are not many ways to cheat. With everyone starting at the same time, using technological devices to see who touches the wall first, there is not much leeway for cheating. Although what a swimmer can wear may be the way for someone to get the final point in a race. Many swimming races are determined by tenths of a second, such as comparing the top times in the American and US Open for the 1500 freestyle. Larsen Jensen raced a 14:49.29 and Peter Vanderkaay raced a 14:45.54. With times being this close in a long event such as the 1500 free, it comes down to what a person is wearing and the amount of friction that they have with their body rubbing against the water. Many serious high school students have times that are very close together when they go against each other in Conference. What can sometimes make that 100th of a second difference is what kind of suit that they are wearing. This becomes a very serious issue for some swimmers if they have financial issues. Some suits can cost upwards of $600 such as the SPEEDO fastskin III. Many fast skins stop working the way that they are supposed to after just a few uses becuase of way that devepers use to make them. Having financial issues and trying to afford a suit at this price can sometimes become and impossibility while a swimmer from a more privileged area may be able to buy this kind of suit and not put in the kind of time and training that the other less privileged swimmer may be putting into their training. With this in mind, IHSA has banned long legged fast skins for swimmers and must be cut off at the knees. They have also said that the suit cannot be longer than the shoulders and that for men, there can be nothing above the waist. These rules are fair because swimming is about seeing who can be faster, not to see who can buy the newest technology and beat someone else. By banning certain types of suits or making the suits smaller it reduces the prices of fast skins that are avaliable for high schoolers to buy. By doing this, IHSA has made the playing field more level because although some fast skins are still legal, the ones that high schoolers can use for competition standards are much cheaper. This is fair for everyone because by making the suits cheaper, more people can have the opportunity to buy them and use them for races. By doing this, they are making the playing field more even for everyone.
For myself, I see this as an advantage because my family will not buy me a fast skin. But when conference came around my junior year,I was able to beat out nearly everyone in the 50 free. Although many of them were wearing fast skins, I was able to overcome some of them because of the time I took to prepare myself for that race. If it were not for the regulations that IHSA has, I would have probaly taken a low ranking in conference due to the suits that the other high school students were able to buy.

Speech Codes on Campus

 

Some college fraternities such as Beta Theta Pi are deciding to throw parties that depict white people dressing up like black people and enforcing stereotypes. Other people that come to these parties dress up like KKK members and then they pretend to lynch, beat, and yell at the black people because they think it is fun. The acts that these college students are making are incredibly immature. Although I believe that many of them are just doing it just for the fun of "it", what they are doing can be incredibly offensive and is racist. What these college students are doing is enforcing stereotypes and making fun of people just because of the color of their skin. These acts should be banned from campus, but not illegal. They are only detrimental to people to find this offensive and it can do nearly nothing that could help with the education of the people involved in these activities. There are other ways to have a fun time but stereotyping and pretending to lynch someone is not okay. Students have a different kind of speech when they are at school, and I believe that this is one of those acts which should be banned from schools. In the "real world", it is okay although it still is wrong. People have the right to act in this demeaning manner because of the First Amendment.
Iowa State seems to have put down policies that are very strict. So strict in fact, that many of the people on campus do not use their First Amendment rights that they are granted because they are so afraid that they will be punished for exercising those rights. Iowa State has the Red Light from Fire and they have this because many of the students do not use their First Amendment rights because they are so scared of being punished. Many colleges have changed their policies so as to not scare students to use the First Amendment to their advantage yet, the Iowa State administrators have not changed it and thus that is what makes the administrators.
This does not change my feeling for the school because as an engineer major, I do not think I will have to worry too much about exercising my First Amendment rights to accomplish what I need to do. I also do not have very strong feelings for many things so not being able to express my opinions is not that important to me although I know it is for many other people going to Iowa State. The policies that are put in play seem to be very strict going as far to say that any type of prank or something that someone may find unwelcoming is not allowed. I believe that all of the policies that they have are legal, they are just very detailed and thus, very strict.
Iowa State would immediately come down upon them and most likely kick them out of their school. The only reason that they would possibly be expelled is because if someone were to do one thing, it would be incredibly easy to break more than one rule. I would agree with the school's reaction because I believe that as a student in a school, a student has less rights of speech than if they were an adult in the "real world".
I agree that FIRE is doing what they believe is best and that they are trying to guarantee rights for all students and allow them to all be accepted. I believe that in some cases FIRE may be going too far. They try to include everyone and I think that in order to understand the "real world" one must also be subject to the criticism and rights being taken away from one. I only say this because there will be cases where someone will not be able to fully use their First Amendment rights and one must be able to know how to cope and use their limited speech to still get their point across.  The codes that FIRE has protects students but so much so that they can not see anything outside of their little bubble which can eventually become detrimental. Nothing that FIRE does will really hurt people, only not expose them to experiences that they must know how to deal with when the time comes.
Fire is a good website dedicated to giving freedoms to students. They are looking to include everyone and hope to give everyone the chance to have a higher education without being offended or restricted in any way.

Obesity Thrives in America

Obesity is a burden to the American society. Nearly anyone can say it is bad for someone to have, it causes health problems in the long run it can be costly. Nearly two thirds of American adults are obese. This used to not be as "large" of a problem as it used to be. In 2000, the BMI percentage of any state was never above 30% and yet in 2010, there are twelve states that have a BMI percentage of 30% or greater. This shows that people in America are becoming more obese than what we used to be. This is now an issue that America should have its eye on as Americans can watch as its nation becomes more obese. Many believe that a large contributing factor in this obesity epidemic is fast food. This is true in some ways, fast food was not as big as it used to be back in the early 2000's and it is hard to prove. Yet fast food cannot be the only factor at fault. It involves many factors. Some of these include the popularity of video games. With more people on the couch playing video games or watching the big game, they are not out doing things. During the big economic crash of 2008 many people saw the best way to save money was to go and cancel their gym memberships.
Many people believe that with an economic crash, they should save their money as much as possible. Some do this by going out to eat at fast food restaurants because they are so cheap. The problem is that in the long run, it can cost more for the person who decides to take this tactic. The costs related to obesity related medical costs was nearly 147 billion dollars. When one is to think about how expensive, it does not seem that expensive when covered by the one third of the United States who are obese. But when the math is completed, it turns out to be near 1,500 dollars per each obese person compared to the average person with medical costs. Not only is being obese costly in the medical field, it is also bad for the body.
It is difficult to show how fast food and health problems are related, but the connection to obese people and fast food is much more connected. In a way, eating fast food can cause health problems because of the chance of becoming obese. Some health problems that come with being obese are stroke, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. Many of these diseases are preventable but being obese opens up many more opportunities to contract these diseases. These preventable diseases should be easily kept off yet because people are obese, they are getting sick. This is especially true in children in the 20th century.
17% of children are now obese, that is nearly 12.5 million children/ adolescents. The number of adolescents that are now obese has nearly tripled since 1980. This is becoming a larger problem than what America may believe especially with kids having these kinds of statistics. This epidemic of obesity is something that can be stopped although it has not, over the past few years.
An easy way to help keep off obesity and the diseases that come with it is to eat healthy and exercise. Around thirty minutes of moderate activity a day helps with having a healthy lifestyle.
Illinois has tried to do their part in keeping obesity out of their public schools by making Physical Education mandatory for at least 4 times a week. I have discussed with my cousin in Wisconsin and she only has PE twice a week, nearly half of what Illinois school kids have.

The Illinois Pension System

Illinois has many problems with dealing with their pension system. Illinois funds about 43.4% of the pensions it is supposed to fund. It is considered healthy to support the pension systems at least 80%. Illinois also faces a 83 billion dollars in unfunded pensions. Illinois seems to be doing a lot of things wrong but they are trying to set the record straight. They are attempting to get rid of their unfunded pension debt and are now one of the top taxing states in America along side New York, California and Maryland. Illinois thinks that changing the year that government workers may retire, 55, and making them wait longer will help them deal with the pension, which it will. The problem is some people get sick and die even before they reach fifty five or they get so old that when they retire they cannot do the things they dreamed of anymore because they are so old. I believe that this it is wrong to raise the retirement age, but I do believe that what they are doing with education is worse. Governor Quinn said that there will be more cuts to education to help the pension system. I see education as one of the most important utilities that America has and what Illinois is doing is destroying their education system. I believe that many people see education as something to cut because it does not affect them anymore, everyone voting is done with their government funded education. I believe education is the building blocks of everything that this country has because everything that is made, decided is by (hopefully) people who have had a good education. By cutting education, the US is not going to be what it is now because the people leading this country are going to be the people who were starved of education.

The Constricting Pledge of Allegiance

The pledge is something that should not be mandatory to do and yet in schools it is something that is mandatory. I agree with the decision from West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette which says that students do not have to say the pledge of allegiance. The pledge is something that should be said with your heart and soul and if someone is not willing to say it in that way then there is no point in even saying it. I agree with Mark Silverstein when he says "beliefs and ideals of liberty and justice should be voluntary" because I believe that people should say the pledge out of their own will and not be forced to say it, thus taking away the freedom (something that this country was founded on) that every American should have.
I believe that in Lipp v. Morris, when a student would not stand for the pledge, the student deserved to be punished because the law at that time only covered a student who would not talk. I believe that students should be allowed to stay seated and not say anything just as long as it was not disruptive to those saying the pledge. A similar case to this is the Holloman v. Walker County Board of Education which concluded that a student had the right to raise his fist during the pledge as long as he was not "disrupt(ing) the educational process or the class in any real way". I believe that as long as whomever is not saying the pledge or doing something disruptive should not be penalized for it.
I disagree with the measure saying "under god" should be in the pledge. Although President Eisenhower signed it saying that this measure should be added to the pledge, I believe that the government and religion should be separate, in the same way that the government does not force its people to take on a singular religion. A major problem is that the pledge is supposed to be said in school. With the laws about church and state being separate, the measure "under god" should be taken out without any hesitation. I agree with Goodwin who believes that the measure "under god" should be taken out because of his reasoning when he states "the inclusion of God in our pledge therefore would acknowledge the dependence of our people and our Government upon the moral directions of the Creator".
The Pledge should not be mandatory to be recited and it is not, students are allowed to opt out yet still to this day, students are not protected from the law to stay seated or to do something else that could possibly be judged as "disruptive".

Environmental saftey

I drove through the corn lands of Illinois about a month back going on a visit to a few colleges. On my way there I saw all of the wind turbines out in the fields gathering energy from the wind. I have always been interested in alternative energy and I hope that someday the world will lean away from energy such as oil and nuclear energy. I have a belief that clean energy is the way of the future since we will destroy ourselves if we do not find another source. A large factor of my belief that we need clean or cleaner way to gather energy is because of global warming. Many disagree or do not believe that it exists but I believe it does. The temperatures of the ocean are rising ever so slightly and the weather is something that is becoming unpredictable and more extreme such as the harsh winters the Britain experienced and the roasting summer that America experienced. Although many people I talk to do not believe that this is true I strongly believe that it is. There are those that are trying to find greener energy, such as when I got a text from my girl friend about electricity being used for cars which was then quickly followed by a picture message of cars being filled up by odd looking gas pumps. Some understand that  green energy is the way of the future, and that this will help the rest of the world prosper. Without people that believe in a "greener" future, our future generations will have greater problems that we have today.