Falling Crime, Teeming Prisons

        The number of people in jail is increasing, while the crime rate is decreasing. The relationship was confusing at first, but then it made sense. The crime rate is decreasing because everyone who committed the crime is in jail, overpopulating the prisons. "The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, yet 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.", this is pathetic. Is this because of incompetent parents, the area which we grew up in, or the bad economy? There are many factors that could affect this statistic, but none are mentioned in this article. "Spending on prisons has reached $77 billion a year" and now we have to wonder if we really want our tax dollars to be spent on criminals that probably have never paid into our government because they are spending life in prison. Prisons are now being used as a, "warehouse for people with drug or alcohol addiction", with less than half of the inmates being charged with a violet crime. We need prison reform.
      The New York Times editorial is very informative and influential. They want prison reform very badly and expressed everything in a short, but strong manner. I would not want to be the one in charge of prison reform, but this problem will not go away overnight. Prison reform was put on the back burner because of the weak economy, but its now or never to fix this ever-growing problem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/falling-crime-teeming-prisons.html?src=recg

Can you become addicted to anything?

          Are you addicted to exercise? Addicted to food? Addicted to gambling? Researchers are proving that people can become addicted to anything that heightens the pleasure area of the brain.They are now examining brain scans from multiple tests, one being involved in women addicted to money. The scans proved that the women were happier when they received money, but also when they gave it to charity. The more money they received, the happier that they became. Rats are common "test dummies" and were used in an experiment involving cocaine. Drugs such as cocaine, lite up the pleasure centers and actually rewired the brain to increase cravings. You can compared the normal brain scans to the one addicted to cocaine and tell the difference, the addicted one's is lite up like the Fourth of July. Now doctors are considering if people can also become addicted to exercise. With the information they have now, the answer is pointing to yes because exercise releases endorphins and other "happy" brain chemicals and people become addicted to that happy feeling.
         Writer, Nicholas D. Kristof, is a very informative, but light - hearted writer. He jokes about his own possible addiction to exercise and keeps the tone light and enjoyable. He himself does now make any predictions about what future results might be, but is convinced that people can become addicted to anything. I found this article enjoyable to read and very interesting. I would like to see some of these brain scans to see for myself if people can really be addicted to anything.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/kristof-addicted-to-exercise.html?src=recg

You want to Track Me? Here you go, F.B.I.

         Imagine being followed by the government? Your every move is noted and every person you meet is open to investigation. This is Hasan M. Elahi life. When traveling back to America, he was questioned for months by the F.B.I., accusing him of having explosives and asking him where he was on September 12, 2001. Luckily, Elahi had his phone which had his schedule with detailed accounts of his daily events. He used this, and passing polygraph exams, to convince the F.B.I. that he was not a threat. So once he was cleared an agent told him to call whenever he was planning on flying, Elahi agreed, but he went one step further. Elahi set up a website with a complete schedule of his entire life, complete with picture of the places he had been, the flight number of every plane ride, satellite images of him walking down a street, and more. Elahi wanted to make sure that he was never accused of anything like this again.
       Elahi compares his website to Facebook because they both have picture and "status updates", but his site came first. Elahi is very brave to tell this story because many people could read the first three line and think that he is a terrorist, but that is not the case. He tone is a little sarcastic when talking about the F.B.I. and how they can now watch his every move. I find it a little creepy that he set up this website with pictures and wrote about his whereabouts in such detail. Anybody could see this information and what happens when a crazy person gets their hands on this kind of personal information, it's scary. I would never set up a website like this, but it seemed to work out for Elahi.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/giving-the-fbi-what-it-wants.html?_r=2

At Elite Schools, Easing Up a Bit on Homework

           We all know the burden of  homework and the toll that it takes on our stress levels. I am not a fan of homework and get very stressed out about it almost everyday. Lisa Waller, director of the high school at Dalton, is a very smart women. She understands the stress that homework puts on the elite students and focus' on the importance of sleep. It a very common thing to hear someone talking in the hallway about how they stayed up until two am finishing a paper. I am a fan of sleeping, if I could I would never wake up, but that is just not realist. I am so happy that someone is realizing how important sleep is to an average, stressed out high school student. "Denise Pope...looked at 496 students at one private and one public school and found that those with more than 3.5 hours of homework a night had an increased risk of physical and mental health issues, like sleep deprivation, ulcers and headaches", this is not a situation worth continuing. It gets worse, "In a separate study of 26 schools, Ms. Pope said, 67 percent of more than 10,000 students reported that they were “often” or “always” stressed out.", and this number will not decrease unless action takes place. Now I am not complaining about HHS workload a whole lot, especially compared to some of the elite New York private schools mentioned, but teachers never seem to understand that many other teachers give homework as well and soon it all piles up into a stack so high that a student is buried by their homework.
       Jenny Anderson, from the New York Times, seems to be a very understanding women. She sides with the students, believing that too much stress on a young student can cause some serious damage. Her target audience is students because they will agree with her beliefes. It was a nice article, with simple sentences, interesting statistics and a clear point of view. All school's should follow this trend of less homework in hopes for more sleep.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/education/24homework.html?pagewanted=2&ref=general&src=me

To the unavoidable death and taxes, add airline fees

        Are you serious? Continental Airlines charges a $50 service fee to refund a deceased person's ticket. First you will need to contact the airline's refund department, then provide a death certificate, and finally give a credit card number. Is America becoming too greedy and ignoring people's feelings? I know that some people will try and create schemes to make money off the airlines and that is why airlines need to be careful, but a fee for a dead person, that is a little extreme. Airlines are charging a fee wherever they can to make a profit in these hard economic times.
        Mitch Lipka is a caring writer who sympathizes with this concerned reader who first complained about the fee. He supports this person who is clearing going through a tough time in their life. Lipka's sarcastic view of the airlines is apparent in the quote, "A lot of businesses, the airlines certainly among them, are much better at taking money than giving it back". I support Lipka, airlines can fee for overweight bags and changing your seat, but not for a death.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2011/10/15/unavoidable-death-and-taxes-add-airline-fees/SlbKIvPQ6I3hs9Qba10mlL/story.html

Why Europe matters to Mass

        As if we didn't have enough to worry about, now we have to worry about Europe's economy too. Massachusetts and Europe's has various economic ties one of them being, "Heat Trace Products LLC, a Leominster manufacturer of cables for heating and cooling, weathered the 2008 recession by finding international markets for its products. Today, Europe accounts for more than one-third of its sales", that would be a huge loss if Europe's economy fell, impacting many towns close to our own. Europe also invests a lot of their money into Massachusetts mainly in tourism, "European tourists account for nearly half of all spending by international visitors to the state." Even if Europe's economy shifts slightly the people of Massachusetts might feel the crunch on our own economy. Even though our local news stations might only focus on the declining economy here in America, we should also pay attention to the international economies that could impact us in a big way. We would be foolish to care only about our own economy.
        Author Megan Woolhouse is not foolish. She knows that our own hometown economy is very important, but to also look at the big picture and not be as close minded. With the whole world in a recession, we need to focus on how to help everyone because every countries economy impacts another. Woolhouse is an informative writer who wants to change the minds of people who only care about America. The world is like an ecosystem, if one country fails, we all fail.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2011/10/15/mass-feels-repercussions-europe-falters/giIZZkdjl3EUwuLZeYOhZL/story.html

States Adding Drug Test as Hurdle for Welfare

           America is in a bad economic state right now and we need to take precautions to make sure that our money is going towards people that really need it and not to people who spend it on illegal drugs. A supporter of this new idea that the government should drug test people that collect aid says, “Working people today work very hard to make ends meet, and it just doesn’t seem fair to them that their tax dollars go to support illegal things", and as someone who has money taken out every week from my paycheck I want my money to be spent wisely. At times America was naive to think that no one collecting money used it to buy illegal drugs, but as the budget got tighter the government needed to make sure that the taxpayers money was not being wasted. The largest debate was, "Money has also been an issue — the sides dispute whether the savings in unpaid benefits will eclipse the spending on administration, including the cost of testing." and that is a valid point. The government should look into the annual cost of testing to see if it will actually cut down on costs or just add on to the growing deficit.
     Writer, A.G. Sulzberger, is a very informative writer that presents both sides of the story. He wrote this article to inform Americans that their money would not be given to drug addicts in this recession. Many say that this new bill is stereotyping low-income families, but they should not take offense to this if they have nothing to hide. Sulzberger uses many facts, numbers, statistics, and dates to inform his readers. Towards the end of the article, Sulzberger points out that not everyone admits to recent drug use on forms that they fill out for the government so we could never get an accurate account of how much money the government would save. Sulzberger does not know if the bill will pass in Congress, but for right now it is just a heated debate.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/us/states-adding-drug-test-as-hurdle-for-welfare.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&src=un&feedurl=http://json8.nytimes.com/pages/national/index.jsonp

My Mother Never Worked

          "Do you believe that a homemaker who has never been a wage earner should be entitled to a Social Security death benefit for her survivor's?" I do believe that parents who stay at home should receive a death benefit because they are up in the morning getting the children ready for school and then they get to work on all of the housework. Their day starts early and ends far beyond five o'clock like any other average American worker. They are the ones stuck at home with a never ending list of things to accomplish. These stay at home parents raise the children, teaching them their first words and showing them how to make a bed. This is much more important than being a car salesman. Mothers and some fathers across the nation are raising the next generation of hard working Americans, that is a lot of pressure. My mother does much more in a day than an accountant. She wakes up at six to feed the dogs, horses, and cats and then gets to work on cleaning stalls, grooming the horses, walking the dogs, going to the grocery store, doing loads upon loads of laundry, and then on top of all of that she also has to drive all around town picking up and dropping off her three daughters at various after school activities. To add onto that her husband is a merchant marine and gone for six months of the year. She is a single parent for six months of the year and has to balance a lot and the government is telling her that she won't receive a death benefit? Ridiculous. Welcome to America.

Hiring Locally for Farm Work Is No Cure-All

     All day, every day you hear about the recession and unemployment rate that will not seem to go down, but when American workers are offered a job on a farm most of them quit by their lunch break. Many said that the work was too hard for only earning $10.50 an hour. To me this is pathetic. Colorado onion farmer, John Harold, thought that instead of hiring foreign farmers to harvest the crops this summer he would hire some locals that were out of work. He and many other farms who decided to help out the local economy made a bad business move. These American workers were complaining that they were unemployed and when a summer job presented itself they took it, only to quit six hours into it. Are Americans becoming that wimpy? Many politicians are complaining that we are sending jobs overseas, if they want to fix the problem they might need to talk to their states residents to tell them that work is not suppose to be easy, that is why it is called WORK.
      Author, Kirk Johnson, is very upset with America's work ethic. He believes that Americans are lazy and complain all the time and I have to agree with him. He said, "Still, Mr. Mattics said, he can’t help feeling that people have gotten soft. " and Johnson supports this viewpoint. Johnson's audience is most likely unemployed Americans and he wants to make the point that you might need to get a minimum wage paying job now and just deal with it until a better opportunities arises. Johnson also brings up the immigration debate because John Harold does hire Mexicans for the summer through a government run program. The American government is allowing Mexicans into America for six months to work on farms and do all of the jobs that American's laugh at, this is wrong. What happened to the days when Americans were proud to grow the food that they eat because it looks like it is long gone and no one seems to care.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/us/farmers-strain-to-hire-american-workers-in-place-of-migrant-labor.html?_r=2

Busted On Brooklyn Bridge

          Would you ever join a protest? Thousands of people did last Saturday on the Brooklyn Bridge, protesting against bank bailouts. The protests have been going on since September 17th and are most likely to continue on until elected officials acknowledge the problem. The group of protesters are marching up and down Wall Street trying to get their point across. The protests are gaining a lot of media attention, " I saw at least a couple dozen camera crews, reporters and photographers"( Page 1), which helps the protesters get their point across to even a larger audience. I am with the protesters, Why should banks be bailed out when the nation has a 9.1% unemployment rate (google public data explorer)? One protester said, " If the cops arrest 100 people, it’s the best thing they could do for us" because he knows that the more attention that is received, the better the chance of getting what he wants.
          Justin Elliott, a writer for Salon.com, is on the protester's side. He is not afraid to go on the protester's journey from Wall Street all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge. Elliot's language is simple and easy to read, flowing from sentence to sentence. His audience is mainly people on their way to work, reading on the bus or subway, in his attempt to keep his fellow New Yorkers in the loop about what is going on right outside their doorstep. Elliott used the cover of this week's Wall Street Journal to back up his thesis. I don't believe in violence over simple things, but these people have been forgotten by their elected representatives and it was time that they stood up for themselves.

http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/02/occupy_wall_st_saturday/

For Hackers, the Next Lock to Pick

          Before the Internet it was not necessary to protect your computer form viruses and before the invention of the smart phone nobody needed to protect their flip phones from hackers, but times have changed. Many people that own a smartphone have apps that can pay their bills or set the alarm on their house, but what would happen if a hacker got that information? The new money maker in the world of the smartphone is protection. McAfee is taking control and I don't blame them."One in two Americans will have a smart phone by Christmas 2011" *  and this means a larger profit for anti-virus giants like McAfee and if I were them I would defiantly invest in it too. Everywhere you look there are advertisements for a new smartphone and they are becoming a lot more popular. Personally, I do not have a smartphone, but I would like to have one. It has the ability to do amazing things and most people are willing to take the risk of being hacked.  


          Author, Claire Cain Miller, seems to be a very technologically savvy person. She knew all of the correct technical terms and uses them to her advantage. This article is used to warn the smart phone owners of the world and to inform others before they make the choice to buy the newest and most impressive technology. Miller is a data oriented writer, using many numbers to defend her thesis. An example of this is, " It automatically tracks 700,000 mobile apps and updates Lookout whenever it finds a threat" (Page 1). Miller's approach to explaining the growing problem simplifies it for non-tech savvy people which allows a larger audience to understand her work.


*http://gigaom.com/2010/03/26/1-in-2-americans-will-have-a-smartphone-by-christmas-2011/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/technology/companies-see-opportunity-in-stopping-cellphone-hackers.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hp&adxnnlx=1317587410-b7YNzH8Eq oHVffVsqJD3Q