http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/us/food-stamp-program-helping-reduce-poverty.html?_r=1

Food Stamp? Giving out food? I think, out of all the group organization that were created so far, this is the most effective organization. This is an article, basically about the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Association Program). By 2009, it has decreased 8 percent of poverty! That is a lot of people! Also, it has 46 million members within the organization. Because it is so great and effective, I think that this should be made worldwide! I think that everyone else in the world should be a part of this. This article also talks about the number of members decreased/increased. So far, the food stamp is being accepted everywhere and should be forever! This is working very well.

I really do want to know what IS a food stamp. This talks about how food stamp is all so great and is being accepted everywhere in America. What is it? What is it that makes it so great? The food stamp is helping the people in poverty a lot. As I said, it alleviated around 8%.How is it that the food stamp is SO effective that it alleviated 8%?!? No other organization could do this. But this can! What IS the food stamp?

In the article, it is said that the percentage of the members dropped a bit last December. If it was me, I would never drop out of the organization. As long as it’s helping the percentage of poverty positively, I’ll never quit helping. I think this is great and is the greatest organization of all. So far so good and I think that this should be keep going on!

http://gizmodo.com/5903021/bp-oil-spill-aftermath-eyeless-shrimp-clawless-crabs-and-fish-with-oozing-sores

Who predicted that the BP Oil Spill that happened in 2010 would have its after effects in 2012? Nobody! The seafood in the Gulf of Mexico has been suddenly hit by destruction of the seafood and mass mutations. Then the scientists and fishermen who worked in the Gulf of Mexico for 20 years pointed to the BP Oil Spill after thorough inspection. It was found that the solvent used to clean up the oil was mutagenic, and the grandchildren of the fish that were present during the BP Oil Spill would be affected by the solvent. The rate of seafood found in the Gulf with lesions or sores were one tenth of a percent. That was prior to the oil spill. After the spill, the percentage increased to 20%, some areas going up to 50%. The problem here is: nobody is stepping up to take control of the situation! The BP doesn’t take the blame, neither does the government.

The immediate question is: who will take control of this situation and get it over with? At this rate, with nobody wanting to take the blame, the rate of genetically mutated seafood will increase and the number of edible seafood will decrease dramatically. Why doesn’t the US Government step in a spend some money to solve this situation? Okay, let’s say the government does nothing because the price of solving this problem is too expensive. Then the rate of genetically mutated seafood will increase, as I said, and the number of edible seafood will decrease! Additionally, around 40~50% of America’s seafood comes from the Gulf of Mexico. Then as time passes, they will have no seafood of their own. This means that they’re going to have to import their seafood, which costs a lot too! One time is okay. But this will be going on for years and years and eventually, the amount of money spent of imported seafood will be greater than the amount of money spent on the cleanup of the oil spill!

If I was in the place of anyone, fishermen, scientist, government, BP, or even a normal citizen, I would help. Not helping to clean this up will cause a long-term effect on the seafood. As the article stated, the solvent used were mutagenic. Therefore, that means even after the oil is cleaned up along with the solvent, since its mutagenic, it WILL continue for a few generations. So the sooner we help clean this oil spill up and get it over with, the sooner we get to taste the seafood found in the Gulf.

http://lingro.com/translate/http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/apr/11/dhaka-bangladesh-slum-dwellers-eviction?newsfeed=true

A small flick of a match can lit a whole forest. In this case, the government were evicting the people so that the government could build new roads. The government told the people to move back 10 feet away from the road and guess what the government did? They brought bulldozers and destroyed everything within 50 feet from the road. All the homes of the people were destroyed, all the belongings, clothes, food, EVERYTHING was destroyed. Now the people depend on NGOs like Brac, to hand out food for the people. The only clothes they have are the ones they are wearing. They even can’t pay for their schools anymore. The people have started to revolt against the eviction and they clogged up a street, refusing to move until the government stopped the eviction. This might lead to a revolution! The people also want a new home from the government. They say that they are determined to stay where they are, until the government finds them a new home.

First of all, why is the government so heartless? Maybe I sound too cruel here, but really, don’t you think so too? While the bulldozer was destroying everything on its path, it is said that a young girl was squashed beneath the bulldozer. If then, why didn’t the driver stop? Was the driver only following orders? If the driver had a heart, he would stopped. If the government had a heart, they would’ve never done this to their citizens. Okay, widening new roads is not a problem. However, what the government did here was that they lied to the people that they were going to only widen the roads 10 feet at the both sides. So then the people went ahead and moved out. But then here comes a bulldozer and destroys everything within 50 feet from the street. That’s about 16 meters. 16 meters is more than you think. Anyways, my main question is: why is the government widening their roads? What is their purpose? Is it so important that they have to evict their own citizen and even kill some?

If I were in the shoes of the government, I would not have done this. This is cruel, way to cruel. It is violating the human rights! Taking away their homes and forcing them to another house that they don’t belong in? Are we, the government, that powerful to control other people’s lives? The more outrageous thing is that the government DIDN’T provide the people with new homes. So there they are, wandering around in the streets, open to the rain 24/7 and sleeping outside. Changing perspectives, if I were in the shoes of the people, I would’ve done what they did: revolt against the eviction. This is not right. The government have no rights to take away our unalienable rights no matter how strong and powerful they are. They are taking away our homes and putting us on the streets. The government is supposed to CARE for their citizens! Is this caring? NO! This is treating the people as trash, as nothing. They were starting to revolt against the government by clogging up the streets and demanding for the eviction to stopped. Anyone, if they were in the shoes of the people, would’ve done that. I would’ve done that too. Overall, this is not right, and this should be stopped immediately.

I wish I had five wishes. Only five. My first wish is that I hope my sister graduates well in her university. You might think that I’m so kind, but I’m actually wishing for this because if she becomes successful as a teacher, which is her major, she can earn a lot of money and give some to me! My next wish that I hope my father’s business won’t fail until he dies. All I hope is that he will be as successful as he is now. If he fails and his business falls, then our family would have no hope. Anyways, my third wish is that I hope my family, including me, could live a happy life. A long, happy life. My fourth wish is that whatever job I take when I grow up, I hope I will be successful with it so that I can make my family, my own family, happy. I guess money is the key to happiness. People say they can be happy without money, but can they? They’re going to live in poverty and miss mealtimes. Anyways, my last wish is… Something I can’t tell. It is really private for me. Nobody knows, not even my parents, except for me. I really want this wish to become true because I really long for it! Not only that, I longed for it for quite a long time. In conclusion, those are my five wishes that I really long for and want them to become true.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/06/in-south-sudan-girls-are-given-away-to-settle-family-feuds.html

Why are girls treated less than boys? No, why is Sudan giving up their family members to solve a feud between two families? In Sudan, families are giving up one of their daughters. Atia Odongi was 8 years old when she was chosen to pay the price of her brother crime of killing a man over a cattle dispute. She has been constantly raped by her new family in the hope of getting a new child to replace the killed one. She was beaten up if she tried to fight back. By the age of 14, she had tried to commit suicide twice.

Why can’t the Sudanese Government hold a trial to the man the committed the crime? That would be much more fair to both the families. Repaying their price by giving off one of their female family members is the act of taking their rights to live and to be free, which is an unalienable right! I don’t think this is right, nobody thinks this is right. The right to live is given to everyone when they are born. What makes the family have so much power that they could take away the rights to live and be free of their daughters?

If I was Atia’s place, I would’ve…actually committed suicide. To live a life like that, get raped, get beaten up, become a slave, it’s no use living. There’s no purpose to life! I would really die than to live a life without any purpose. I think as a community, we have to stop this.  South Sudan is a part of UN! Then why isn’t the UN stepping in and trying to solve this problem? Are they ignoring this problem? If they are, they don’t have a heart. I hope the reason is because the UN doesn’t know how to stop this. However, this should stop soon and quickly because this is really altering the human rights to live and it should be not something humans can control.

http://www.usatoday.com/USCP/PNI/Nation/World/2012-04-11-BCUSNeighborhood-WatchLawyers4th-LdWritethru_ST_U.htm

Emotionally ill? That sounds too fake for me. In this article, it states that Zimmerman has run off to a hiding place. Nobody knows where he is located. Zimmerman’s lawyers have been trying to contact him, but they have no way of contacting him. It is said that Sonner has been talking to Zimmerman everyday for the past few months. Lawyers say that he has been suffering emotionally and that suffering emotionally might’ve been the cause of his sudden disappearance. However the lawyers don’t want to accuse Zimmerman for a crime, because they are afraid that Zimmerman might take off from the country.

What I strongly think is that I think all of this is simply a show: a lie. Why would Zimmerman have gone into hiding? If he was confident and that he was sure that he was only defending himself from Trayvon, he would’ve have hidden. However, there must’ve been something that made him hide. All this being mentally ill and accusing Trayvon Martin for attacking first seems all too fake. I think he’s making this up just to cover himself. About the hiding? Maybe he could’ve bribed some people into not telling anyone where he went. Now you might think that I’m being too imaginative but this is what I really thought about!

If I was Zimmerman at this situation, I would’ve admit what I did and if it Zimmerman actually killed Trayvon, I would be honest and turn myself in. Yes, you heard that right. I would turn myself in. I would rather die than live my life running away from the police and hiding from the people. What kind of life is that? Or I would rather live in a prison than live my life like that. They at least give you food in prisons! As a community, if Zimmerman actually did bribe anyone, the people who was bribed should be honest and just turn them in. What if, just what if, Zimmerman actually was emotionally ill and he turn into a serial killer? That would cause trouble. So in conclusion, if I was Zimmerman, I would turn myself in. Also as a community, we should help the lawyers and police find Zimmerman, for our own sake.

1. One of the things that I do well as a writer is that I can easily make an author’s writing as mine. What I mean by this is when I read books, I start to recognize the author’s writing style and I begin to remember his/her style unconsciously. This is the reason why I try to read many variety of books so I can adapt to many authors’ writing style and make it mine. But I can’t adapt to an author’s writing style by reading his/her books only one time so I try to read, again, as many books of that specific author. I read the original Declaration of Independence a lot of times, and I copied a lot of the Old-English style that was used in the original piece of writing.

2. I had lots of problems with how I should structure my writing. My goal for this writing piece was to combine the Old-English feeling of the original Declaration of Independence, and the somewhat of the Modern-English feeling. I knew that I had to be be careful with the wording and the structuring because if I phrased it wrong, it would’ve been awkward and the reader would keep tripping on my writing. There was only one person I could ask for help that knew how to phrase what I wanted to say in the style that I wanted: Ms. Richert. I asked her a lot of questions when I was stuck on how to structure a sentence. I kept asking questions like, “Ms. Richert, does this make sense?” or “How could I phrase this?” and I would tell her what I wanted to say. Thankfully, she helped me and it made it a lot easier for me to finish this writing.

3. When I first started out my writing, I asked my friends for some grievances. The first thing I finished when I started my writing was to finish my grievances. That way, I knew WHAT I was trying to write and for WHOM I was writing for. Then all I did was read the original Declaration of Independence. I compared it with mine a lot and I tried to copy its style of the Old-English: I capitalized the first letter of the word I wanted to emphasize, I used old words such as whom or whilst, and my wording and my structure was like Old-English. Yet, when I read my writing, it kind of had a Modern-English feeling too, which I really liked.

4. If I were to start this assignment over, I would want to change the topic to something worldwide so I could research more on it, and think more deeply upon it. Therefore, my writing would have more depth to it and it would sound much better. Right now, my writing is kind of “floating on the surface of the mind.” I didn’t give it much thought… I didn’t have to because it was such a small topic: what I didn’t like about my school! But if we were to do this again, we could choose topics from the articles New York Times or the USA Today. And there are lots and lots of information and articles about one topic. I could research further, get to know the topic better. I would put a lot of my opinions inside the writing that would help the reader understand my mind. Therefore, if we were to repeat this assignment, I would change the topic to something worldwide.

When in the course of student life, it is obvious to Separate from teachers and the parents and become Independent. All wrongdoings of teachers have been hidden from the world. But now we, as students, should open what was hidden to the rest of the world by writing a Declaration of Independence.

It is Obvious that, as human beings, we are Equal of Rights and that there should not be any Tyrants. We all have Unalienable Rights: to be free, to live, and to strive for happiness! Opinions of students should be asked and considered before arriving upon a decision. However, it is clear that our opinions have been ignored, and because of that, we have the Right to change the teachers so they won’t ignore us again. No, it is our Responsibility to change what has been done: to change the Philosophy of teachers! We understand that light and temporary reasons should not cause a stir amongst the teachers and students. But, it has been Undeniably shown that, for the past months, our opinions were Ignored and delivered to deaf ears. And we predict that if the teachers are not stopped, this will go on forever. Therefore, as we have said, it is our Responsibility to change the teachers and strive for what we believe is right! Here is the list of what you have Done and why you Deserve a change.

1. “The Principal is having absolute Tyranny over the students. Why must he get to decide when we, students, want our activities/events?”
He has claimed that all after school events were to be placed in between 4 to 7. First of all, most sports teams End at 4:30 to 5. Why can’t events take place later? Is there a particular reason? Or is it that we are untrustworthy? What have we done, as students, to disprove our responsibilities? Second of all, we should have the Rights to choose when we want our events! What are we? We are Humans! It is declared throughout the whole world that all beings are Equal and have the right to Say and Decide what they want. This act is taking our Rights away!

2. “The Principal has decided to not let students stay at campus overnight.”
Again, What have we done to make ourselves not trustworthy? He says that, “Oh, students might Break things. They might Misuse the equipment. They are not Trustworthy!” Please, if there is, give us Any examples of students breaking school property or misusing the equipment. After all, how can we do bad things and misuse equipment when there are teachers around?

3. “Lunch price is not reasonable compared to the quality and quantity.”
60,000VND for a set lunch that’s the size of a fist? That is not Reasonable. Not only that, the food’s quality isn’t even good. It doesn’t mean that it tastes bad, it just means that it’s not worth the price. I think the price should be about 40,000VND because that is much more Reasonable for a lunch that’s the size of a fist, And that doesn’t even taste that good.

4. “Inconstant amount of homework tire the students out.”
The main reason we are bringing this up is that if you, teachers, are going to give out  homework, please give it at a Constant rate. What we mean is that sometimes you give No homework, and other times you give Loads of homework that causes students to stay up all night. We think that students should have a Maximum of 1 hour and 30 minutes of homework each day, because it has been proved scientifically that typical teenagers cannot Concentrate at one’s highest for more than an hour.

We didn’t want this to happen. It would all have been fine if only you, teachers, didn’t “abuse” us. If only you had listened more to our opinions with open ears and minds, we would have been much more tranquil and would not be rebellious. But this, Ignoring our opinions and having absolute Tyranny, has happened over and over again and it has forced us, students, to revolt against it.

As students, we declare what is Right and what is Wrong. We claim our Unalienable Rights! We have the right to choose what time our events should take place, to choose the price of our lunch, and to choose to stay overnight. We have never proven ourselves untrustworthy. We have the Right to do anything we want to do. Everyone should have Equal Rights, whether it’s students or teachers. We are willing to do Anything to Declare for Independence. Anything.

Patriotism is disloyalty!
Arduous struggle for liberty.
Suffer yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss,
Listen to the song of that siren till we transform you into beasts!
Give me liberty, or give me death?
BLEH,
There is no peace!
Chains are forged,
War is inevitable.

Three million people,
Armed in the holy cause of liberty,
You are still too weak!
There are no longer any room for hope, only death.
War is actually begun,
God will raise up friends to fight our battles for US.
We are invincible!

No retreat but in submission and slavery,
We must fight!
Let it come,
For we are invincible!
War-like preparations cover your water and darken your land.
Freedom or slavery,
Or…DEATH?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/23/bully-r-rating-appeal_n_1298051.html

Sami Omar

Guess what? I have been bullied too! I have been beat up, spit at, sweared at, called names at, and etc. They even threw water bottles at me, ordered me around. It is NOT fun to get bullied. It hurts you. Not only physically, but mentally also. Not only that, it lets down your pride and ruins your reputation. It really hurts.

“Who’s the bully in this case — movie mogul Harvey Weinstein or the MPAA ratings board?” says the article. Of course I think its MPAA ratings board. I strongly disagree to what the MPAA did because just because the movie uses a few swear words doesn’t mean that it should be rated R. There are lots of movie out there with swear words which have been rated PG. So why can’t this?  Because of MPAA, the public cannot see this movie, it cannot be shown in schools, and children are not allowed to see it without their parent’s permission. Why is MPAA making the matter of bullying worse? Why are they “bullying” the Weintstein Company?

Moving on, how could the MPAA turn down this movie when an actual child who got bullied came to see and begged to reverse their choice? I think this is just not right. I know the kid’s feeling because I have been bullied too! This movie should definitely be publicly shown. I personally think, maybe I’m being a little harsh, that the MPAA is a bit “cold-hearted.” Just because THEY’RE not getting bullied and THEIR children are not getting bullied, doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t care for others too!

I agree with what Weinstein said, “It’s better that children see bad language than bad behavior,…” Everybody has some sort of bad language and it’s not evil to use some. It’s impossible to not use any. Also, most people will forgive you if you use bad language. However, bad behavior goes on for your whole life and it determines your life. If you do bad things too much when you’re young, you will go the wrong way!

Therefore, concluding my blog post about whether the movie, “Bully” should be rated R or PG-13, I really think that it should be rated PG-13 so that the public can see it. If they see it, they will realize the seriousness of bullying and they will try to stop it. Until then, no one will realize that so many kids are committing suicide because of bullying.