This Is My Generation...

Television hasn't been around that long, but some of America's most important times have been spent sitting around it watching worldwide historic events. TV producers recognized the television's importance and made an effort to portray the "every day American family".

"American Dreams", a television show airing from 2002-2005, depicted the everyday 1960s family. Although I didn't live through that time period, I fell in love with the family depicted on the show and, according to my Mother, the accuracy of the time portrayed. The dad is the head of the household. He is kind, but firm with his family. The mother is a housewife, typical of women then, but she feels restless. She did eventually go to college for some courses. There are four children in the Pryor household. JJ, the oldest, is a football star but he eventually gets drafted for the Vietnam War. Meg, the center of the show, is struggling to find her own identity. She dances on American Bandstand. Patty is a genius and youngest brother Will was stricken with Polio as an infant and now walks with braces.

This show captures the innocence of the time, but also the private battles going on inside the home. This was the time before hippies, rebellion, and where father really did know best. This show was good wholesome television that taught me about what I wanted to be like. They dealt with issues like drugs, drinking, school, and disobeying adults but in an appropriate way. It was a drama so not every show was cleaned up all neat and tidy at the end of the hour, but yet the audience was always left with a happy feeling.

This show didn't depict my generation, but I feel it's the most accurate description of America by a television show.

"I'm like the Lady Gaga of the Ice"

Legend has it I was only one week old when I first saw the winter Olympics. Okay that's a little bit of exaggeration...my mom watched them while she was up with me in the middle of the night when I was only a week old. Anyways, when I was 10 my real appreciation for the winter Olympics began. I sat in my den, fixated on the screen where Tara Lipinski won the gold in figure skating.

Since then I have favored the winter Olympics and the athleticism that goes with it: The grace of figure skating, speed of speed skating, the danger of skeleton, and the pure athleticism of snowboarding. Not to mention watching people literally fly during ski jumping.

This year my eyes are focused on Johnny Weir, an American figure skater. Overall, he placed 6th but he was number 1 in my heart. For the man that wears sparkles and feathers and said he wanted to make Lady Gaga proud with his costumes, I salute you!

Writing this article I decided to do a little research about the pinnacle in winter sports. Did you know summer and winter games occurred the same year until 1994 when they began alternating every other even year?

As I write this the USA is winning the medal count with 30 and Germany is next in line with 26 so go team America!

Playing Ketchup...Why Fast Food Goes to Your Waistline Fast

We as a culture want everything fast. The internet can get us any information we need fast. Cell phones and text messages allow us to contact anyone, anywhere, anytime. We want our food just as fast. It used to be people used meals as a time to sit down and bond over good conversation with those they care about. Now, it's something you buy in your car and scarf down on your way to somewhere else.

Not only is this food fast, but it's FATTENING! It's been studied that men and women should eat roughly 2,000 calories a day: less for women and more for men. A McDonalds big mac has 590 calories! That's over 1/4 of the daily calorie intake for the average American.

Not only do we eat like this and not even think twice about it, but we're PROUD OF IT! We have websites bragging about the obscene amount of food we intake and show it off. No wonder why the world hates us.

Proofedding nd whey its imprtont

We all know the embarrassment of getting a paper back and seeing misspelled words or sentence fragments circled in red pen.  These are easy things we could catch if we just had bothered to re-read our work.  It may sound like a simple thing but I can tell you first hand that I've gotten many an essay back where something....even just one word...was misspelled.  

What Goes Up....

Let’s say you're five years old at lunch time and the person next to you has a Dunkaroos. You really want his Dunkaroos so you offer to trade him your Fruitopia. The person on the other side of him offers they're Lunchables and an Oreo for the Dunkaroos. This little boy with the ideal dessert has the upper hand because he has what everyone wants so he can demand whatever he wants for it....

THAT is supply and demand.

Technically The law of demand states that, if all other factors remain equal, the higher the price of a good, the less people will demand that good. In other words, the higher the price, the lower the quantity demanded. Like the law of demand, the law of supply demonstrates the quantities that will be sold at a certain price. But unlike the law of demand, the supply relationship shows an upward slope. This means that the higher the price, the higher the quantity supplied.

REAL LIFE EXAMPLE (besides the lunch table)

The show "Pawn Stars" on History Channel offers perfect examples of this. They acquire old or rare things which are already valuable. They also are on television which makes people want their products. These factors lead to the owners of the shop being able to sell their products for even higher escalated prices. The most expensive item in the shop is a 2001 Super Bowl Ring which is being sold for $60,000. The ring itself is hard to earn and even harder to buy (let's face it...anyone that gets a Super Bowl ring would be dumb to part with it) so when there is one for sale, people will pay out the nose for it.

They also use demand when it comes to how much they will pay for an item. They think of it in terms of how much someone will pay them for it; after all, they are in a business to make a profit. Someone may come in with a rare painting and demand $50,000 for it but if they are only going to sell it for that much, they will only offer $30,000 for it. In this case there is not enough demand for the product so the price needs to be lowered.

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is just that....horrible

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a 2008 movie, stars Neil Patrick Harris as shy, love-sick Billy who leads a double life as mad scientist/superhero Dr. Horrible. As Billy, he secretly longs for Penny, the auburn haired beauty who does her laundry beside him every Tuesday and Thursday. His double life consists of building freeze rays and death rays and battling his nemesis Captain Hammer.

One day, Billy/Dr. Horrible is attempting to remote control a car in order to get a critical piece to his invention. In a bizarre turn of events, this is the exact same moment Penny finally approaches him requesting signatures for her petition to get a house for the homeless. Because of his distraction the car gets away from him and almost hits Penny! Thankfully someone else steps in and pushes her out of the way; unfortunately for Dr. Horrible that person is Captain Hammer.

The movie progresses from there dealing with feelings of despair, anger, and love all while breaking out into random, harmonic melodies. The songs are catchy and upbeat (for the most part) but very random.

This movie is too unbelievable for me. As a fan of musicals I held high hopes which were dashed at the first song. Besides the random choruses of mustached mariachi singers, called “The Bad Horse Chorus”, the songs were thrown together almost like an afterthought.

The dialog also seemed forced and unnatural. Overacting seemed to play a large part in the qualifications for the actors. They spoke loudly and with strange contorted facial expressions. There were funny bits of dialogue here and there but it was usually the actor’s comedic timing or the inflection of the voice that made the moment humorous.

Another problem is the lack of chemistry between both Penny and Dr. Horrible as well as the absence of chemistry between Penny and Captain Hammer. Captain Hammer is in love with himself entirely too much to ever consider loving someone else and Penny just seems….awkward the whole time. Not to mention the fact that in real life Neil Patrick Harris is gay so seeing him “in love” with a woman is just weird.

Overall, this is not on my list of top movie musicals. Give me Chicago, Phantom of the Opera, or even The Wizard of Oz any day. It was a good try, but like Dr. Horrible’s original freeze ray, it failed.

Worldwide Fashion!

Look around the room and its easy to see what fashions are popular here in America. Jeans and tee shirts are the casual staple. Sperrys and flip flops adorn our feet. Northface keeps us warm and baseball caps of our favorite American teams featuring America's favorite past time are on our heads. But what about the rest of the world? What is fashionable to them?

Lets start with an easy one: France. Chanel, Dior, and YSL are all very famous, and very expensive, French brands. French fashion is world famous Even the Champs Elysees, the place where French people buy their clothing, is famous. And contrary to popular belief, French people do not wear stripes and berets.

Another well known face on the fashion market is the Harajuku style out of Japan. Mixing eclectic patterns with cute animated characters, the style is distinct and reflects the wearers creative style. It was popularized in America by Gwen Stefani and her harajuku girls. It references an area around the Harajuku train station and it often mimics anime, or manga, characters.

Lastly, I'd like to focus on Indian style. Although we in the West may think of Indians in boring clothes, the truth is that although much of their fashion is traditional, it is far from boring. Typically Indian women wear a Sari, a long traditional outfit. These Saris, however, are elaborate and beautiful. Usually containing bright colors and embellished with flowers and beads, they make a statement. Also interesting fact, Indian brides wear red. White is actually the color they wear at funerals.

Holier Than Thou

I'm used to religion being an uncomfortable topic to talk about. As I am usually the "token Jew" around, especially here in Statesboro, I have been told I am going to hell more times than one should ever hear.

According to a statistic there are 78.4% of American adults that consider themselves Christian versus 1.7% that claim to be Jewish. Consider that number when you also think that 16.1% of American adults call themselves "unaffiliated". This means there are more American adults without a religion rather than those who are Jewish.

So as if there aren't few enough of us in the world, we have a number of those who disagree with the Jewish religion angry enough to verbally attack us. "Anti-Semitism" is a big enough problem to have its own name, have multiple groups that us (Nazis and the KKK anyone?) and fuel a world war.

Celebrities have even gotten in on the Anti-Semitic trend. Mel Gibson famously went on a drunken rant in 2006 telling a reporter that Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world and asked the cop if he was a Jew. Soon after Gibson met with Rabbis and members of the Jewish faith and "payed reparations."

Then this week Gibson was asked about the incident on a news show. He proceeded to curse and get angry at the reporter saying "That's almost four years ago, dude. I mean, I've moved on. I guess you haven't."

You may have moved on and gotten over it Mel Gibson, but when I look at you that's the first think I think of. I'm glad he has a movie career and a family life, but I personally am still not a fan. Sure he's apologized, but as an actor he's supposed to be a role model. As much as I judge Kanye West for saying that George Bush doesn't care about black people, I also judge Mel Gibson for not caring about us Jews.

You're a towel!

What do Cheech Marin, Matthew McConaughey, Whitney Houston, Michael Phelps, and Sir Paul McCartney all have in common? They all smoke (or used to smoke) cannabis aka marijuana. Marijuana is currently illegal in America except for medical use (and even then it's frowned upon) but why?

Depending on which article you read marijuana is either the safest recreational drug available or worse for you than crack. http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/ tells you that "There is no convincing scientific evidence that marijuana causes psychological damage or mental illness in either teenagers or adults" and "Most people who smoke marijuana smoke it only occasionally. A small minority of Americans - less than 1 percent - smoke marijuana on a daily basis. An even smaller minority develop a dependence on marijuana. Some people who smoke marijuana heavily and frequently stop without difficulty."

On the other hand http://www.drugabuse.gov/Infofacts/marijuana.html says that "long-term marijuana abuse can lead to addiction; that is, compulsive drug seeking and abuse despite its known harmful effects upon social functioning in the context of family, school, work, and recreational activities. Long-term marijuana abusers trying to quit report irritability, sleeplessness, decreased appetite, anxiety, and drug craving, all of which make it difficult to quit."

Drugabuse.gov...if you're trying to convince me that weed is as bad as crack don't say "or example, cannabinoid withdrawal in chronically exposed animals leads to an increase in the activation of the stress-response system and changes in the activity of nerve cells containing dopamine." Instead, tell me the actual effects on HUMANS. Secondly, that same site later claims smoking mary jane can lead to schitzophrenia. Bill Clinton has admitted to smoking reefer. Would he have been president if he had schitzophrenia?

If weed were to really be this bad for you no one would doctors prescribe it for glaucoma and cancer? They don't prescribe ecstacy for cataracts or acid for AIDS. If you don't like it...don't do it. Simple as that. As for those who want to do it, why does it hurt you? They're not going to be murdering someone for being high. More than likely, they'll be sitting on the couch watching South Park

Puppy Love

So with graduation right around the corner I keep thinking about what comes next. A job definitely and with that hopefully comes a house and someone to come home to. Not what you're thinking...I want a puppy! I am absolutely puppy CRAZY right now but before I get one I needed to know what laws would actually apply to me. Sure GA has laws on how to discard a dead dog or how to properly breed your dog but those don't apply to me. I was more interested in a few others.

1) any damage done by dogs is liable by the owners.

2) dogs in GA are required to wear a collar; removal of that collar is illegal

3) dogs outside of their "enclosure" need to have either a leash or a muzzle

These laws are designed to keep the dogs safe and keep those around them safe. For more dog info go to http://www.animallaw.info/statutes/stusgast4_8_21.htm#s26

After you follow the laws be sure to follow the most important one...LOVE THE DOG