"Little Girls in Pretty Boxes"

"Little Girls in pretty boxes", I thought was a very inspiring piece. I believe the author had more than one point in this piece. I believe the author was trying to express his points to society, parents, and even coaches or as they may seem to be Military instructors. I believe the author was trying to say that these young girls are working too hard and are not living a life that they should be living as teenagers. I also think the author was trying to say that these girls may seem to be happy and have it all, but really deep down inside they are emotionally and physically unhappy.
This author expressed his points by talking about how these athletes that are in gymnastics and the Olympics are being starved. The author makes a point stating that these young girls under the age of thirteen years old are having to sneak food into their hotel rooms at night because they are so hungry they can barely stand themselves. He states that these young girls are so hungry they are becoming sick and anorexic. These young girls are being pushed so hard by their peers, parents, and coaches. Parents and coaches supposed to be inspiring these young athletes? But, no instead the parents and the coaches are working these young girls to their death. These coaches are far from inspiring. In this piece it says that one point in time after a young girl's performance where the coach told the young girl that her nose was a distraction. How do you think that makes a young girl feel? This girl is now probably considering to get plastic surgery due to the fact that this coach insulted her so greatly. Also, in this piece it states that the coaches form of motivation to these young girls if they are not doing well is to tell them they are imbeciles, pigs, failures, cows, and so on. I think you get the point! Also, in this piece it talks about a young lady named Jennnifer Capriati, "who turned pro with $5 million in endorsement contracts at the age of thirteen and ended up four years later in a Florida motel room, blank-eyed and disheveled, sharing drugs with runaways," (Ryan, page 282). These young girls suffer so much from pressure, humiliation, and broken by their work.
Here is a whole paragraph from this piece "Little Girls in pretty boxes," by Joan Ryan. This paragraph was the most touching, interesting, and disgusting part of the whole story that I enjoyed the most.
"What I found was a story about legal, even celebrated, child abuse. In the dark troughs along the road to the Olympics lay the bodies of girls who stumbled on they way, broken by the work, pressure, and humiliation. I found a girl whose father left the family when she quit gymnastics at age thirteen, who scraped her arms and legs with razors to dull her emotional pain and who needed a two-hour pass from a psychiatrist hospital to attend her high school graduation. Girls who broke their necks and backs. One who so desperately sought the perfect, weightless gymnastics body that starved herself to death. Others -- many -- who became so obsessive about controlling their weight that they lost control of themselves instead, falling into the potentially fatal cycle of binging on food, then purging by vomiting or taking laxatives. One who was sexually abused by her coach and one who was sodomized for four years by the father of a teammate. I found a girl who felt such shame at not making the Olympic team that she slit her wrists. A skater who underwent plastic surgery because when a judge said her nose was distracting. A father who handed custody of his daughter over to her coach so she could keep skating. A coach who fed his gymnasts so little that federation officials had to smuggle food into their hotel rooms. A mother who hid her child's chicken pox with makeup so her daughter could compete. Coaches who motivated their athletes by calling them imbeciles, idiots, pigs, cows," (Ryan, page 282).
If that is not a touching paragraph you must not have a conscious. Also Joan Ryan makes a few points about saying the American obsession with winning and about how culture is so fixated on beauty and weight. Also saying that winning is not really all that counts, there is beauty, weight, class, clothes, and politics. Also saying that gymnastics and figure skating remove the limits of a girl's body, teaching it to soar beyond what seems impossible.
With all that being said and more is said in this piece "Little Girls in Pretty Boxes," it seems to me that Joan Ryan has made his point and has great support to back it up. I totally agree with everything that he has said and his points were absolutely astonishing and wonderful. I think that he is right these girls are being pushed way to hard. These young girls have so much pressure hanging over the shoulders each and every day and night. These young girls do deserve so much better, they need to playing with their friends or maybe even be out riding bikes. Riding a bike is considered a sport, Right? I agree with Joan Ryan, these sports are marvelous, graceful, and entertaining all the same time. Like he says when it comes to the point when these young girls are being pushed to make suicide attempts, starving themselves, being insulted, having plastic surgery because of a comment to succeed at perfection, and also when it comes to parents signing custody over to the girls' coaches. This is totally out of control and there needs to be a stop put to this. Let these young girls live their lives, be kids, and have fun. These babies are way too stressed out and have way to much pressure on their shoulders for being so young. These parents need to wake up and consider what their child is actually going through, what kind of life they are living at thirteen years old, and maybe even actually ask they child how they feel or how they are feeling about the situation and what is going on their lives. I think that Joan Ryan had some very good points and a big chunk of wonderful support to back up his points. Maybe this article will make some people open their eyes to what is actually going on in their teenagers lives.

Recommendation against Abortions

So, I have just changed my topic for my research paper. I am doing a paper about how I think abortions are still killing a human being. If I were to have to actually write a recommendation paper my plan would be to pass a law that states, only young women who are under the age of 20 should be allowed to get an abortion procedure done and they must pay for it with their own money so they might learn their lesson. If someone over the age of 20 wanted to get an abortion they could not. Their next choice would be to put the child up for adoption. So, basically I would have to put this law in front of a judge and try to get it approved. I believe this plan would make people realize that life is not a joke and it is not to be taken for granted. I think people will begin to think of life as a gift or maybe even a privilege. There are so many women today that cannot even have children and there are all of these women who are having abortions and killing babies that have not even been brought into the world. I think that this plan would benefit the women who could not have children. These women would be able to adopt these children and give them the love they deserve. I think the only drawback to this plan would be that we would have a lot of mothers that just deal with having a baby when they don't want the child and the child may be mistreated or not loved the way a child should be loved. I wake up every morning and look at my two beautiful children and think of how blessed I am to have them and their love in my life everyday. I don't know where I would be or what I would be doing if my children were not in my life.

Research Paper

I am considering doing my research paper about Christmas. But, not Christmas in general, I have visited websites about whether Christmas decorations should be allowed on school campuses or public places. I, personally am for Christmas decorations on school campus and other public areas. I think it is a good thing for people to be able to express how they feel about Jesus Christ's birthday. I think that people should be able to express how they feel about the celebration of the Lord's birthday. I also think that people should put up decor for other's, such as Hannukka. There should not be decorations for only one religion, everyone should be thought about during the holidays. These are just ideas that I am thinking about writing about. I think this will be a fun and interesting topic to read about and to see how others feel about the situation. This topic also, is definitely debatable. There are many other point of views that relate to this topic.

Celebrities in the media

Celebrities may be lucky and have all the money they need and all the money they will ever need probably as long as they live. But, do you know one thing celebrities don't have that me and you do? We have privacy. Everytime a celebrity goes to maybe Burger King that means they probably are depressed and on a splurging binge. Everytime a celebrity gets drunk, is on drugs, or in rehab we all know about it. Everytime a celebrity goes on a diet, develops a new relationship, gets a ticket for doing ten miles an hour over the speed limit we know about it. I think that we as individuals could definitely live our lives without knowing every twist, turn, skip, hop, and a jump each celebrity makes. This kind of information is broadcasted in everyday reading material, television, and even radio stations. This type of subject is almost simply impossible to avoid. There are a lot of things that our young children do not need to hear about the things these celebrities they look up to are doing. We have our privacy, so why can't these celebrities get a little privacy of their own? People today are so obsessed with what everyone else is doing and not focusesed on theirselves and their lives. These people are most likely to be called paparrazzi. So, you can see the point that is being stated here is that we as all individuals deserve privacy and others who need to mind their own buisness. People need to focus on their own lives.

Robert Ebert's Review "Memento"

While looking through Robert Ebert's reviews about all of the wonderful movies he has seen, I remembered a movie I just recently seen in my Pshchology 111 class this week. The move was called "Memento". It was a pretty good movie. I thing what Robert Ebert was critiquing in this film was the fact that the main charecter has short term memory lost. The main charecter had a tragic accident and can remember everything before the accident, but can not seem to remember anything that happens after the tragic incident of witnessing his wife dying. Even though the main charecter can not remember anything he continously leaves hisself notes about his wifes killer with tattoos all over his body. He is out for revenge he is investigating his wifes death and going to kill the man who raped and killed her. But what Robert was saying in his review was, "I don't understand on key plot-point. If the last thing the main charecter remembers is his wife dying, then how does he remeber that he has short term memory loss?" I totally agree, how can this man tell everyone about his condition but supposably he does not remember anything after this tragic incident that he has witnessed. So, I think you know where he and I are both going with this. If the main charecter can not remember anything, how is it that he can remember the short term memory loss.

Associates Degree in Nursing

My claim for my first Causal Argument Paper will be: The Registered Nursing Program for an Associates Degree in Nursing is one of the most Popular majors in society as of right now. I will be using support, facts, and statistics from a couple of websites I have visited. Some of my factual information will talk about the high demand for nurses in pretty much every state as well as in countries surrounding us. I will also be talking about the fair amount of pay that nurses receive for a job well done and well needed. Also, I will discuss the training programs, required fields, and different fields of the Nursing program. There is much more to talk about, I am not exactly sure of what factual information will be in paper. I do know that my paper will consist of some of this factual information and maybe even more.

Should we, as Americans have a responsibility to make sure that the Popular Culture we are exporting is of good quality?

(Claim) With Popular Culture being one of Americas major exports, there should be laws stating that both, we as Americans and Consumers should make sure that everything exported and/or imported should be of good quality. But first, what is Popular Culture? Popular meaning what is generally existing or occurring among the general public at the time. Then, there's Culture meaning something that is refined appreciation of customs, achievements, and many other subjects of a particular civilization. So, Popular Culture basically boils down to a set of ideas that has an effect on society and the situations, whether it be the ones that are forced upon us, or the ones we make as individuals by personal choice. Popular Culture has the ability to change on a whim for no apparent reason. You may even here of Popular Culture being called "High" Culture.
With Popular Culture being one of America's major export, everything exported should be of good quality. With Americans exporting foods, clothing, vehicles, electronics, medicines, and much more we as exporters to consumers should always be sure that our product(s) are of good quality. If our product is not of good quality we would likely lose a majority of our consumers.
What kind of value do you think consumers would want from our products that were just exported to them? I would hope they would want product of good quality. It is not the consumers effect that we should be most worried about when exporting our product, it is more the impact our product has on the consumer's society. Society is what makes the businesses what they are and they are what keeps the world spinning. Without society buying all products being exported, whether it be a car or a package of ground beef, our businesses would fail. It seems to me that whatever that person may purchase they would want satisfaction from that product when spending their hard earned money.
If I were to buy a car I would like to know that the car would be safe on the road for me and my family and why you say it is of good quality. Also, with a package of ground beef you would want to know that saying "good quality" you mean the meat has been inspected. That is where consumer's biggest worry should come in, red meats and other foods can cause diseased, if not thoroughly inspected.
So, all in all. We as Americans and as the consumers we export our Popular Culture to should make sure the product is of good quality. It is important for the society to be satisfied with the product they are purchasing and putting to good use.