BLACK FRIDAY

The day after Thanksgiving is known as black friday. It is considered the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, and as a result, almost every store in the country rolls out big sales on products. Over the past few years, the black friday craze has gotten more and more insane. People line up outside stores like WalMart and Best Buy hours and hours before opening so they will have a better chance of grabbing a sale product before they are all gone. Some stores even opened their sales on thanksgiving this year. While having a big sale sounds like a good way to kick off the holiday shopping season, it is turning citizens into crazed zombies and slaves to products.

Around noon on friday, a saw a video online that had just been filmed at a WalMart in Chicago. In the video, a massive crowd of people are fighting over the last few boxes in a certain section of the store. Punches were thrown, people were kicked, children were hit and thrown out of the way. It was absolute chaos. And all of this just for 30% off of an Xbox or a new TV... The DAY AFTER we give thanks with family for the things we have. It is disgusting! After black friday passed, the videos and stories continued to pour in of similar fights and arguments. There is another video in which three women are fighting over an item, and one of them pulls out a taser and uses it on one of the other women. I just don't understand how people are this crazy. It is very sad, and makes me worry about what people will do if food or electricity runs out...

Bieber Fever

Justin Bieber has been a huge star for a few years now, and it doesn't seem like he will be going away too soon. When he first came into the public spotlight he was a little kid with a very high pitched voice and a funny bowl cut type thing that made girls faint. As he got older and his voice changed, his personality seemed to have changed and his music type changed as well. He cut his hair, got tattoos, started doing punk stuff with his "posse", and doesn't quite sing about loving only one girl forever anymore.

I remember seeing a video a few months ago of Bieber and his crew walking through the kitchen of a night club (very intoxicated) and Bieber urinates in the mop bucket in the kitchen. Next, Justin or one of his friends says something along the lines of, "You ought to feel lucky that I just did that in your mop bucket". This boldness and very self centered ego is bringing a considerable amount of bad attention lately.

This past spring, Justin made a comment while visiting the Anne Frank house that brought in some serious outrage. He said that he would have hoped Anne Frank would have been a fan of his. I am not really sure how I feel about this comment, but I really don't think it deserved the outrage it received. There are too many unknowns in the situation and out of context, we don't know exactly what he meant by it. Additionally, we have to remember that he is in general very self centered and has a large ego, so it is understandable that he would want to tie in this historical figure with his fame. However, I don't think it was a malevolent comment. Perhaps he should have held his tongue or phrased it better, but I don't think it deserved the attention it got. I DEFINITELY think that people need to focus a little less on silly celebrities like this clown and focus on important things in the world. It is fine to listen to celebrity's music, watch their movies, etc... But don't spend too much time blogging about what Katy Perry had for dinner last tuesday, because it really doesn't matter.

Well, going against what I just said, what on earth is with these pants?

Johnson & Johnson

The recent lawsuit involving Johnson & Johnson, a major pharmaceutical company, is truly disgraceful. It is sad to hear that a company who's products are marketed to promote health and wellness to people would market antipsychotic and anti-seizure drugs to people who they are not meant for despite major health risks. I understand that the company wants to sell more products and make more money, but of course this is not the way to go about doing that. Putting buyers at risk to increase revenues, especially children and the elderly, is one of the worst things a company can do in my opinion.

Now, Johnson &Johnson payed 2.2 Billion dollars in fines for this. This seems like it is a huge amount of money that would actually set the company back for their terrible actions. However, it is almost nothing to them. In 2012, Johnson & Johnson's revenue was about $67 billion. I don't think the company should be forced to shut down or anything, they are still a (semi) reputable company that sells good products that people use every day. But, the penalty definitely should be big enough for them to have to pay the price for what they did. People cannot be manipulated in unsafe ways like this, especially when it comes to medicine.

New Tobacco Laws in NYC

In the United States, tobacco use is responsible for roughly 440,000 deaths per year. Additionally, about 8.6 million people in the United States suffer from some sort of tobacco-caused illness. Clearly, tobacco products, cigarettes especially, are very unhealthy. In fact, about $96 billion dollars are spent each year on public and private healthcare for smoking related issues. And although tobacco products bring in immense amounts of tax revenue, this is money that should not, and would not be spent on healthcare if it were not for the mass use of these tobacco products.

Despite the major issues that tobacco causes, I do not think it is the right move by the Mayor of New York City to enforce this law to raise the purchasing age to 21. Just as when Mayor Bloomberg proposed the ban on large soft drinks, it simply is not the right approach. For example, if someone wants 64 ounces of soda, but the 64 ounce containers are not allowed, they can simply buy two or three smaller bottles, and they have what they want. In the case of the tobacco age increase, someone who is underage can simply leave the city limits to buy, or, as it is very easy to do in the city, ask someone older to buy them. It is a futile attempt to reduce the problem.

 Although I think the law is wrong, it means well. In my opinion however, there is a much better approach to fixing the issues with tobacco death and illness in this country. If more effective programs can be started to educate children on the dangers of tobacco use before they are tempted to experiment, the illness and death statistics will decrease because use will decrease. I don't believe that the government implementing laws on personal choices like this is the best way to govern a people. Educating the people and helping them make the better decisions on their own will be much better in the long run. Instead of young rebellious teens being upset that they can't buy cigs anymore, in a few years we could have a group of teens who know the harmful effects of tobacco and avoid it because they want to be healthy.

PIRATES

There have been two major stories in the news lately about pirates or piracy. The arctic30 group that got arrested after boarding an oil ship in protest of drilling, and the abduction of two American oil ship sailors by Nigerian pirates off the coast of Nigeria. In my opinion, the second issue is the more serious matter, because the Americans were abducted by real pirates who are very dangerous. Oil ships like the one these two men were abducted from have become an increasingly popular target for pirates from west Africa. When reading the suggested article, I came across a point that said West African governments don't allow the large oil ships are not allowed to have armed security guards. This seems very irresponsible to me, because it is obvious that there is a problem with pirates in these waters. Restricting the ships from protecting themselves seems to encourage these pirates to attack ships because they know the people on the ship would not be able to defend themselves. The ships traveling in these waters need to be able to protect themselves, because it could take a lot of time for help to arrive.

The Shutdown and the Debt Ceiling

The recent government shutdown in my opinion is nothing but the result of childish behavior from both parties. This shut down did not need to occur. But procrastination and unwillingness of the house and the senate to compromise or at least work together to build a better America caused this to happen. Instead of working to sort out the health care reform and the debt ceiling issues, it seems to me as if both parties stood there with their arms crossed and faces pouted like a child who didn't get the toy they wanted as the clock ran out and the debt ceiling was reached, resulting in the shutdown, which further delays the process of figuring everything out. Regardless of my own political views, both parties are at fault, and it is a shame that it happened.

On a related note is the debt ceiling itself. The idea of  this "ceiling" and mainly how the ceiling is dealt with has perplexed since I first heard about it. I thought, why have this debt ceiling if every time the debt is about to reach the ceiling, it is simply raised? It seems pointless to have this limit if the government will not obey the limit and make proper cuts as well as reforms to actually decrease the debt instead of increase it by less. I understand it is not easy to do that, but the supposedly smartest and most powerful people in the nation that were elected for this very job should figure it out!

"Biker Gang" and Alexian Lien

The recent incident involving the "Hollywod Stuntz" motorcycle crew and Alexian Lien has made major news over the past few weeks. Many articles have jumped to blame the "biker gang" and to defend Lien. However, it is totally necessary that both parties are blamed. This "gang" (which, according to the article is not your typical leather vest biker gang) was clearly disrupting traffic, speeding, possibly inciting rage, and of course, beating the New York man, all of which are against the law. However, Lien should have expected what happened to him considering the way he acted towards the motorcycle street riders. By picking a fight with this Stuntz crew, who are obviously people who don't mind breaking the law, he was certainly playing with fire. When he lost his temper and sped over one of the riders, he certainly could not expect that the bikers would just disappear trouble free. Both parties are responsible for the damages done, so both should be held accountable legally. This is a good reminder for us about how we should drive and respond to other people on the road. Causing problems can only lead to more problems, and reacting poorly to people causing problems will only make problems worse.