Anorexia Nervosa

I was looking at an article about eat disorders, the first thought that came to my head was that these people are probably too afraid to eat. So I went and searched up what it meant to have eating disorder and the what I found from Wikipedia was that it means a condition based on abnormal eating habits it can be either excessive or insufficient food intakes. As i kept reading the article i saw that a girl had anorexia. This is what i was thinking of when i saw the title of the article.
I went in deeper read about anorexia on the health guide section of the New York Times. I find it kind of sad how some people have these kind of eating problems, in my opinion i think this is caused by peer pressure. In society there are always people that are considered "abnormal" because they are somewhat different from us. Some people are afraid to gain the tinniest of weight because they are afraid they will be laughed at. I have seen people being laughed at just because they are slightly larger in size. So people try to lose as much weight as they can so they can fit in. Some people simply change their clothing styles to fit into society, which i find quite okay because they are not really doing any harm to themselves. Anorexia is a bigger problem because our body needs a certain amount of food to keep us healthy. True, we might gain weight because we eat but if we don't eat it will create a greater harm. I don't like to hear people saying how others are fat even when they have a weight which fall into the average weight of a teenager, they call them fat just because they are heavier than them. 
People should be themselves instead of trying to be like the rest of the world. If everyone tried to be normal than everyone would be the same. People would think only a certain brand of clothes are "cool" or a certain type of hairstyle is "cool" so it would be likely many people would have the same styles and same clothes. A lot of people would look alike, so where would be the fun in life? People should be different because normal is just too boring.

http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/anorexia-nervosa/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier

Cholera in Haiti

“A cholera outbreak has killed scores of people in central Haiti, President Rene Preval has confirmed.” At least 196 people have died and so many others have been hospitalized because of Cholera. The worst infected are the kids and elderly, like always. They got infected because of the water they drink, not only did they suffer from the earthquake from before now there is a outbreak of cholera.


Cholera is an easily treatable disease. A person who has Cholera should rehydrated immediately so all they have to do is have administration of oral rehydration salts to replace lost fluids. A person would think that with this kind of easy treatment less people would die from it. So why is it that people in Haiti are dying from this kind of disease?

We sometimes spend money everyday to buy things we don’t really need even I do sometimes spend money wastefully. The government also spends a lot of money on unimportant things, they fund for different technologies created everyday. Like the invisibility cloak, why spend money on unnecessary things when we can do so much more with that amount of money. I bet the invisibility cloak costs a lot of money, if we take one fifths of the amount spent on the cloak we can help that people in Haiti who are suffering form Cholera. This is why I say people invent things for their own gains, rather then spending some money to buy some rehydration salt for the people in Haiti we go buy some unnecessary things. I hope that things can turn out well for them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11608551
http://www.who.int/topics/cholera/treatment/en/index.html

Should a Sociopath go to jail?

This question has bothered me for quite awhile. I remember I heard a law stating that psychopaths who kill cant go to jail instead they go to insane asylums to treat their mental illness (apparently it is not their fault they kill others when they are mentally ill).
Basically this article is saying a male named Yang Jiaqin suffers from hallucinations so he attacked a 63-year- old neighbor, Wu Wenguang, and struck him in the head with an ax. When Mr. Wu was in the hospital getting stitches for his wounds the police chief said to him ““When crazy people hurt somebody, there is nothing we can do.” After a few days Mr. Yang attacked three innocent kids when they were leaving school. He used a cleaver to slash at a first grader, then he turned to a 8-year-olf and sliced his arm and neck, the third boy who was 14-years-old escaped with a slash on his shoulder because he “fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ After leaving the crime scene Mr. Yang killed a 70-year-old woman who was making firecrackers, and a man who was watching a television drama on his sofa. He slashed the man’s wife and a girl drawing well water. Later on Mr. Yang got captured and got sent a psychiatric hospital.
I am speechless when I read this article, I don’t know what to feel exactly. Many people say that it is not their fault when they go on a rampage since being a sociopath is largely genetic, but isn’t it still killing. If this sociopath took a life doesn’t that mean that their life should be taken too? There is a saying “an eye for an eye and a life for a like” but does that really apply to this scenario? I feel really confused when I think of this topic because a part of me feels like no matter who kills it is still wrong but another part of me feels like those sociopaths wasn’t thinking clearly when they killed so its not really their fault. If these sociopaths are only sent to a hospital for treating their mental illness then what of the families that had their beloved killed? Do we just ignore them when they are weeping for their dead loved ones just because this killer wasn’t able to control himself? In my perspective I think both sides are immoral because if one supports the killer it would be unfair to the family in sorrow but if one was to stand for the family and demand the killer to go to jail it would be unfair to the killer because it wasn’t their choice to kill.
One may think I am cruel to say that the sociopath shouldn’t go to jail for killing but the thing is, we can’t blame it on a person that didn’t have a choice. This person, or in this case Mr. Yang, didn’t have the option to leave the person alive or not. Gandhi once said, “an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind” it means that we can’t always take revenge because if this cycle continues nothing good will ever come from it. It is wrong to let the sociopath go but it is more wrong to arrest a man/ woman for something he did not have control of.


Reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/world/asia/11psych.html?pagewanted=1&hp

A Huge Step Forward or A Huge Step Backward

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11686303

"Scientists in the UK have demonstrated a flexible film that represents a big step toward the "invisibility cloak" made famous by Harry Potter."-Jason Palmer
In this article it talks about this flexible film that can manipulate light to render objects invisible. So maybe there are still some work that need to be done to get the invisible cloak like the ones in Harry Potter but no doubt that with our advanced technology scientist can probably create one perhaps in less then 5 years. What happens when they create this kind of cloak? "Physicists have hailed the approach a "huge step forward" but to me this is a huge step backward because in my eyes new technology never end well. It is true that a invisible cloak can be of good use but what if a person of a evil intention got ahold of it. A person could steal and the camera won't even catch this person because he/ she was invisible. It is true that a item is not good or bad it is how it is used. A hammer can be used to nail, nails but a hammer can be used to wack someone on the head and kill them. I am not saying that it is wrong to invent this cloak because there are still some good use to it but I think it is better not to invent it. If God wanted us to be invisible he would have create a invisibility cloak for us when he created Earth. It is strange how almost all the new technologies might go agaisnt god, eventhough some are there to help us. I think that we shouldn't invent more things like these because we don't really need it and I think that we invent these type of new things because humans are to greedy and they are not satisfied with what they have now. We keep inventing new things and we never stop because we want to step beyond the boundry that is set for us in the world. This new invention will bring us backward and hurt us because this new invention so capable of so many different things if a person uses it in a wrong way.
I think this cloak is a bad idea!

Creation vs. Evolution

A few weeks ago in my language arts class we were talking about different creation stories, including the Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh. About two weeks ago in my science seminar class we talked about evolution. It got me thinking about how the world actually started and the fact that science and religion can never really agree with each other. Science is all about hard facts whereas religions are more about beliefs. The only similarities that those two have is that both are trying to give a reason for the origins of everything. In science the world began with the Big Bang and soon things settled and animals evolved to survive; in religion it says that god created the world in six days.

Personally I am not a very religious person so I don't even believe in god(at least I don't think I do). The question that I have is that if god did created the world in six days then who created god? Or that if it was one divine god that create the world then why are there so many different religions that believe in so many different gods? There is no proof that god made things appear, but at the same time there is also no proof on something that god made happen out of thing air.

I think the idea of the Big Bang and evolution seems more likely then god because for me, I like to hear the evidence before actually believing in what someone told me. Evolution makes sense to me because it states that we humans and many other living organisms evolve because we need to survive and those that don't are doomed. We have to evolve because the things around us are always changing and i believe it because it makes sense to me. But I am not judging anyone who believes in god, all i am saying is that evolution seems more logical then creation. Science might explain to us that how we come to be and science might be around us everyday but it doesn't give us hope. Religion is something people belive in so that people can feel comfort and it can get some people to become more ethical becuase they believe in a higher being that might punish them if not.

http://www.keacher.com/files/comics/evolution_large.png

Is Assisting Suicide Moral?

Dr. Jack Kevorkian is known as Doctor Death he "helps many people who are badly affected by their serious health conditions to hug death." He helps them commit suicide in a sort of way so they won't have to suffer anymore.
So the big question that everyone is debating about is whether or not this is moral. Is it okay to kill people just because they are suffering? It is after all considered murder.
I think it is okay that he is "killing" people to put them out of their misery. What is a life when you live it full of agony. For me I would rather die then live a life full of pain, but I probably wouldn't be able to do it once I am down to the decision. I think Dr, Jack Kevorkian is actually doing them a favor because probably many of them don't have the guts to kill themselves but they don't want to live either. If it wasn't for him these people that he helped killed would still be in a lot of pain. I think what he is doing is not considered murder because those people are the ones that wants to be killed so asks him to do it. It actually takes a lot of guts to do what he did because it takes a lot of guts to bring himself past the fact that the patients are dying in front of them. I actually support him just because he is putting the patients out of their misery but it won't be a excuse for some crazy psychopath to say that they killed the victims because they are in pain. He should be considered a hero, why should he not be happy to hook the patients up to the machines. The patients are literally better off dead.
On the other hand it brings out the question who gives him the right to kill these people? He is no god, he has no right to decided whether or not these people should live or not. What makes him different from another killers? He is still killing/ taking someone's family member or friend away.
Is it okay for him to be "killing" these people?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/opinion/05tue3.html?_r=1

Gay commits suicide

According to the Declaration of Independence that all men are equal, but is that really true? In the article “Internet blamed in Rutgers suicide” it states that a gay student Tyler Clementi, committed suicide because his roommate recorded a video of him having a sexual encounter with another man. This was not the first time that a gay person has committed suicide "Tyler is the fourth highly publicized gay teen to kill himself in four weeks.” So if all men are equal then why do the gay guys have to hide themselves? If the gay guys don’t hide themselves then they would be harassed. There are many times those men who prefer men are being teased at just because of their indifference. How can they be themselves knowing that people might look at them differently and treat them differently? Why should gay people be an exception to what is said on the Declaration of Independence?

Further more, the roommate and the accomplice were only charged with invasion of privacy. The roommate should be charged for association with death; it was because of them that an 18-year-old committed suicide. They shouldn’t be recording anything personal without the approval of the person being recorded. I find it kind of sad that the roommate would do such a thing and post it on the Internet. Apparently some people these days just don’t have the brains to think of the consequences.

Something I found interesting was the title of this article, the part that states, “Internet blamed.” When I saw this I thought why would the Internet be blamed it was the roommate that killed Tyler. After thinking it through and reading the quote on the article, which says, “Cyberspace has given every one of us an almost magical ability to invade other people's lives,” I find this to be quite true. People can post anything on the Internet without consent from someone else because the Internet allows them to do so. The Internet is full of possibilities including invading other people’s lives. Everything has a good and bad side, the Internet can teach us and help us find information but it can also mislead us by telling us false information posted up by someone else. It is like a stapler, one can use it to staple paper but when used in a wrong way one can staple someone and hurt him or her. If the Internet is capable of doing bad then why do we use it? We can’t always set rules to prevent people from doing things because those rules don’t even work. In fact there might be more problems because some people like to break rules. Perhaps we should just ban the use of internet but that would also lead to so many inconvenience? That doesn't mean that there shouldn't be change, one day I think we will finally all agree on how to make the internet safe.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/10/03/Internet-blamed-in-Rutgers-suicide/UPI-35021286124844/

Who is stealing Spongebob??

I was searching whether Spongebob will make a person stupid or not, then i came across a topic saying that spongebob is a gay cartoon. After I read the article i still didn't get why spongebob would make a person gay, so I clicked on a link from the news and saw this. It said that "Who’s stealing SpongeBob? Authorities are baffled" When I saw this i was actually kind of shocked. I thought to myself who would be so bored to steal something like this. Personally I watch Spongebob a lot because I think it is really funny. I continued to reading the article and it said that this Spongebob balloon costs $500 so I was thinking "OMG that is one expensive Spongebob, no wonder people are staling it. Maybe I should steal one too." If someone gave me this huge Spongebob balloon for my birthday I would be so happy. Who wouldn't want this, but I don't think I would really go as far as stealing this from Burger King. First of all it is against the law to steal and I probably won't find one in Taiwan.
If they are afraid that the huge Spongebob balloon would get stolen then just stop putting these expensive balloons out for everyone to steal. True, it is probably something to get the kids to buy their burgers; but in case they didn't notice yet, the amount of burgers that they sell to kids in one day is probably maybe $250, which is half of the price of the big balloon. I think it is not worth it to spend $500 to replace a big balloon. Perhaps Burger King should start selling these giant Spongebob balloon and see if there are people who are going to buy it instead of stealing it. I wonder if the people who stole it are adults or teenagers. If it was adults they probably stole it for the money or perhaps to make their kids happy, after all some parents will do just about anything to make their kids happy. If it was teenagers they probably just want to steal it to show it off to their friends and show them that they could steal something this big or that they have a huge Spongebob balloon.
I don't think anyone should steal, what if someone steals your stuff? Would you be happy? Before a person attempts something they should think about how it would make others feel.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6632661/ns/us_news-weird_news

Banned Books, Now Banned Authors

I have no idea why they are banning books in the first place. If a person feels like that a certain book is full of violence or inappropriate things then they could just stop reading it. Why would they want to ban it? Others might like the books, I don't think a group of people who feels like certain books are inappropriate should get to decide whether the book should stay on the shelf or not. They should leave it on the shelf so other readers gets the chance to decide for themselves. Some "inappropriate" books may contain a deep meaning to it, like Lord of the Flies. This book has been banned in some places but it teaches the readers that in our human nature we can do anything to survive, which includes killing each other.
I think banned books week should be kept because that is the week when people celebrate the freedom to read the books that they want. Although I don't read much but once I get started I can't stop. I don't like it when someone tells me to read this book or that book, or when they tell me "you can't read this book because it is not suitable." In my eyes I like it when I get to choose the book I want to read, I don't want someone to tell me what I can't read. Strangely enough the books that some people find too violent are the ones that I like the best. So I really do think that getting rid of this banned books week is not a good idea.
First they decide to ban books but now they are also banning authors. Maybe the author wrote one book that might be full of violence but that doesn't mean all the other books are full of violence. I think people overreact sometimes, they probably don't even know what they are doing.
We should appreciate the books we have now, who knows what book/author might be banned next. Perhaps the book that you like the most will be the next book that is banned.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100929/us_time/08599202235600

Girl frozen in time may hold key to ageing

http://www.fun-on.com/science_brooke_breenberg_girl_frozen_in_time_ageing.php

This girl, Brooke Greenberg, is very different from us because she doesn't age. She might be the person that helps scientist understand the whole aging process. Imagine it, in the near future where people can live up to 150years old. What if we didn't age, we would have a more time to spend it with our loved ones. Although it all seems great but I think that we shouldn't try to alternate our genes like this. I am not a religious person but i do think we should let fate decided when we die. We shouldn't defy against these rules.
I do feel kind of bad for Brooke, she can never experience the things a teenager could experience, she can never experience the things an adult can enjoy. The good thing is that she would never need to carry the responsibility that a adult and even teenagers need to carry. She won't experience the stress a college student will have. It is also a benefit for her that she can't think like a 16 year-old teenager because if she did, she would probably feel depressed that she is stuck in a one year-old's body. I would probably go insane if I was in a body of a young girl while my actual age was 16. The things that i would miss out, i would watch all my loved ones age while i stay in this body. No one should endure that kind of pain.
When I was watching the video clip on the bottom of the article I saw that Brooke had a caring family by her side. The family of hers loves her so much that they spend all their time with her, never leaving her alone. It is good to know that she has this kind of loving family by her side. I am impressed that their family accepted this change, i know it is their job as a family member to accept another family member no mater what, but sometimes changes are hard.

Just when I thought T.V shows don't lie

I have always been watching medical television shows like "Grey's Anatomy" and "House." In the television shows whenever a patient has a body part that severed, such as a finger or leg, as long as the patient places the limb into a box of ice then the doctors can reattach with no problem. Turns out those television shows are just a big fat lie.
While I was looking through the news report something grabbed my attention, there was a picture of a men with some missing tooth titled "What to do when body parts fall off." So i clicked on it and started to read the contents. It says that Jim accidentally severed his middle finger and some parts of his index finger. They decided that in-order to keep Jim's middle finger they had to put it in ice. The thing is, that was probably a bad decision, or so the nurse from the Swedish Medical Center said. The nurse told them that they should have kept the finger cold instead of putting it directly on ice because if the vessels get in contact with the ice it might damage the vessels and make reattachment hard. Then it goes on talking about what a person should do when their tooth falls out, or when the eyelid goes behind the eye.
This article is actually kind of gross but at the same time very helpful since it teaches the reader how to deal with these kind of situations. I have always thought about what I would do when my finger gets severed. The first I would have done was to throw it in ice because that is what the patients do on the shows. Now that I have seen this article I will follow the steps so that the doctors can reattach the finger with no complications.
Next time when your finger, toe, arm, or leg gets cut off then you would know that you shouldn't put it in ice, because if you do then you might forever lose that part of your body. Another important thing, don't believe television shows because they are feeding the audience false information such as, putting a person's severed body part in ice. If you want real information go to the Discovery Channel or any educational channel.

Cohen, Elizabeth. "What to Do When Body Parts Fall off - CNN.com." CNN.com International - Breaking, World, Business, Sports, Entertainment and Video News. Web. 17 Sept. 2010. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/16/things.fall.off/index.html

I can't believe my eyes and ears

Last Saturday night I decided to watch the Discovery Channel. For some strange reason I started to watch the Discovery Channel a lot recently, which I normally don’t do. Something caught my eye that got me to keep watching this channel that day; which was the ID Investigation Discovery, when I saw the title the thought that came to my head was it must be about some person who killed many people. To my surprise, it was about a guy called Ned Snelgrove who has killed 2 women and almost killed 1 woman. The first person that he killed was called Karen Osmun, her girlfriend. A few years later he met a girl called Mary Ellen Renard, he danced with her and so he got Mary’s trust. After they finished dancing Mary decided to go home but she had car troubles so Ned offered to help out, and said that he wanted to follow her home just in case the car breaks down. Once they reached Mary’s house he tells her that he needs to use the restroom. Like any other civilized person Mary let him into the house because he helped her out; once inside he ripped her clothes off and stabbed her, even though she was almost dying she still struggled and got free from Ned. Then she started to call for help, which resulted in Ned fleeing from the scene. Mary was badly injured but she still survived and got a chance to tell the police officers about the whole thing. Soon after that the police started to search for him and found him in a hospital because he tried to commit suicide. He got sentenced for 20 years but because of “good behavior” he got out of jail in 10 years. 2 years after that, he killed a 32-year-old single mother but this time he argued that he didn’t do it. After a few days he tried to commit suicide yet again but failed. Once the police got all the evidence to prove that he killed the last victim he was sentenced to 60 years to prison.
This sick twisted guy disgusts me!! He even wrote letters about how he can’t help him self whenever he is near a woman, he always tried and resist the urge of doing something; he said that he just couldn’t resist but to kill those women. How disturbing is that!! He must be a psychopath! The thing that strikes me the most in when I saw this was when they decided to let him out just because he had good behavior. Are they born stupid, or did that have to work on it? Haven’t they ever heard of faking!?? Seriously!! I really believe that no one, and I do mean no one, should be let out of jail just because of good behavior. Before I saw that he got to the third person I was thinking, “ holy crap! They are seriously going to let him out.. Damn they must be stupid because he will probably just kill some innocent person again.” I was totally right, and it is not because I am smart; it was because any logically person would know that he would go out and kill again. He even sent a letter to his inmate and told him that he will "pick up where he left off." Not only did he not regret what he had done, he even decides to keep going. This guy is sick in every way. He committed suicide TWICE!! Just so he could avoid the police; if he wanted to commit suicide because he regretted it then why didn’t he stop when he got out of jail? Although he said that he tried to kill himself the second time because the police kept accusing him of something that he didn’t do, but I’m not going to believe him. At least not after seeing the things he wrote in the letters.
The lesson that I have learned from watching this is that never let a stranger follow you home just because he danced with you and fixed your car. If you trust your instinct and let him follow you home then you better prepare yourself. The other lesson is, don’t follow a stranger home when you are in a bar, because the last time a women followed a guy out of the bar she got killed. And yes, I am assuming you don’t want to be killed.

Great... more bugs

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/science/31bedbug.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=science

Check out that news.. it will gross you, just when you think cockroaches are gross!
It is saying that bedbugs don’t transmit diseases but they are gross!! I hope they all die off just like the time they disappeared for a long time. Now they are saying its hard to kill them, so what am I suppose to do when they nest at my house!? I was even more shocked to hear that if you’re allergic to dust bunnies it actually means you’re allergic to bedbug poop. I’m not joking here, dust bunnies are bed bug poop in clumps. To think I played with dust bunnies when I was young… thinking of it makes me sick. Now they even mention how they hide and you cant feel them when they bite you!! WHAT THE HECK!! Does that mean if there were bed bugs under my bed then I wont feel them crawl on me at night???? I hope they all suffer, all those bedbugs! I haven’t even mentioned the best part! They even live in theaters and hotels!! What am I suppose to do? Stop living in hotels when I travel!!? One of the guys on the news said “People should be aware, but not panicky.” Ya right! Ever heard of reverse psychology? If you tell me not to panic, I panic. So I guess when some people say “sleep tight don’t let the bed bugs bite” they are not kidding.