Why Smoke?

There are over 400,00 deaths in the United Stated every year from smoking related illnesses. Then why in the world would anyone want to do it? 400,000 is nearly .14 percent of the population of the U.S., and while that does not sound like much, it’s a lot considering it’s a conscience choice to smoke.
I would have written this article with a million statistics and facts about smoking like that according to the American Heart Association, each cigarette that you smoke takes and average of 8 minutes off of your life span, but instead I’ve decided to just give you my opinion.
Smoking is dumb, period. I fully support the many local governments that have begun to enact smoke-free ordinances. In the end, it is a personal choice for whether or not one wants to smoke, but when you look at it, what is good about smoking? You look cool to your peers? Smoking is so not cool.
What is worse is that when you smoke, if you smoke around people, you are breathing out secondhand smoke for other people to inhale. Secondhand smoke is just as bad as puffing on a cigarette.
Why would you want to shorten your life as well as other people’s lives to do something stupid?

Are the states at fault for lousy drivers?

Across the United States, teenagers are becoming licensed drivers. They practice for months with parents, they take the written test, and then they take the driving test. In some states they are required to also take a driving course. But is this enough? Why are the requirements to become a licensed driver different from state to state? Why are some more lenient on requirements than others? Are these differences the cause for so many deaths among teen drivers?

According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 36 percent of deaths among teens is due to motor vehicle accidents. In 2004, 4,767 teens. aged 16 to19, died of injuries from vehicle accidents. I think the reason all of these accidents and deaths happen is because teens are not taking hard enough driving tests. In some states the requirements to get a drivers license is harder than in others. For example, in the state of Georgia the minimum score a driver can get is a 70 and in Washington they have to get an 80. According to Stateline, the restrictions that are placed on states cut the fatalities of drivers by 19 percent.

After going to the different DMV websites for different states I realized just how different the requirements were. In Washington, the teen must be 15 1/2 to get their learners permit. The driver must be in the car with someone 21 or older and must have 50 hours of supervised driving, including 10 night hours. They are required to take a driving course before they can take any of the exams. When the teen goes to get their drivers license they must take a written exam and make an 80 percent and a driving exam and also take a drivers exam which also requires them to make an 80 percent.

In Georgia, teens must be 15 years old to get a permit. They must have 4o hours of supervised driving and 6 hours of night driving. When the teen goes to get their license they must take a written exam and a driving exam, that only requires them to get an 70. Although these Georgia regulations are not as tough as the Washington regulations, the licensed driver has a lot more rules to follow. These rules include passenger restrictions, time restrictions, and time of day restrictions.

Arkansas has one of the most lenient driving requirements that I have seen. Teens there can be 14 to get a learners permit. I don't know why they would want to, but that is their policy. There is no amount of supervised driving time, no supervised driver restrictions, and no passenger rules. The leniency of these rules has given Arkansas second place to having the most teens deaths in 2001, according to state master. I don't know if Arkansas is still in bad standings, but if their driving requirements are still the same, I doubt it.

These are just a few of the state requirements in the United States. Could these requirements be the cause of the 36 percent of teen deaths from motor vehicle accidents? I think so.

Mass Advertising or Mass Execution

Have you ever noticed the billboards that line the highways? Sure you have; everyone has. They're annoying, boring, and worst of all, they are DISTRACTING! Sure, some of them are interesting, for instance the Chic-fil-a billboards with the three-dimensional cow statues never cease to amaze me. BUT, these billboards, especially the few interesting ones, are extremely distracting. What's the big deal? Aren't advertisements supposed to catch your attention? Yes, but my question is: ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO KILL YOU?

Over 40,000 people were killed in traffic accidents in 2005 alone, thats about one death in every 13 minutes. According to the US Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), nearly 25% of these deaths are attributed to drivers being distracted. That's over 10,000 people each year! The NHTSA released a statement that 30% of distracted drivers are distracted by cell phones. That still leaves 7,000 people who die each year from distractions. Now I'm not saying that all 7,000 deaths are because of billboards, and there are no statistics to prove either way, but just think about how many possible deaths each year could be caused from this accepted form of mass advertising. And billboards are only one form of advertising.

What about television? You can turn on the television and watch depressing news about murders, wars, rapists on the loose, and anything else that you may find depressing. You switch to other channels where you can watch reality television shows that showcase people doing extreme stunts where there is a rather high chance of death. With television being so depressing these days, it is no wonder that the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) says that out of the 30,000 suicides each year nearly 29,000 are of people who are suffering of depression. Having not even touched on television advertisements, one can almost see how television might actually have helped caused some of this depression. Everyday teenage girls across the world watch television commercials that tell them how imperfect they are. These commercials tell them that they aren't pretty, that they are overweight, that they aren't smart, or that they will never succeed in life because they aren't perfect like these television models. What does this do for the self-esteem of these teenage girls? It drops it dramatically, and low self-esteem is a major cause of depression. And depression is a major cause of suicide. Teenage boys are watching shows like Jackass where stupid people do stupid potentially fatal, or at least painful stunts. These boys who are watching these shows go out and attempt these stunts that often end up having fatal results. Although these shows do not air until later in the evening, the commercials for these shows do not even include the "Do not try this at home!" small print. Also the commercials for every cartoon seem to be exploding with violence. What does this say about violence and death to these boys?

The internet is another place to get bad advertising. With over a billion people online across the world, the internet is a great place for advertisers. But does anyone ever questions these annoying advertisements? No. Kids go online every day to sites all over the internet that include advertisements of people doing stupid stunts, or more advertisements telling people how imperfect that they are. Aside from that, what about all of the advertisements for all of the violent games that appear on the internet? What about the pop-up advertisements for the videos of people doing stupid things?

How many deaths can we attribute for the psychological effects of advertising? How many deaths can we attribute to the distractions from the reality? What is the media, with all of its power trying to accomplish? Is it mass advertising or mass execution?

UPDATE: Maybe I'm not crazy after all. And oddly enough, it seems like other people agree: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1271015,00.html?f=rss

Death Penalty

In my Writing for Mass Media class today, we had to decide (as a class) what to do our blog report on. The class (not me) decided to do it on whether or not there should be limits on what police can do during police chases. I was really digging the death penalty.

The death penalty, have it or not?

I think there should definitely be a death penalty. It helps Darwin in weeding this world of people who mess up the gene pool anyways. It may cost more to have someone executed but hell, it works.

Also, if you had big deal public executions, people could watch and see what happens if they break the laws.

First on death row should be George W. Bush, he should be put to death for the atrocities that he as committed against humanity. He's the cause of almost a quarter of the amount of deaths that Hitler racked up.
Also, there have been more deaths because of Bush than all of the Al-Queda and Saddam's reign because of Bush. Who's the terrorist now?!