Wonderful Spring eh? Punxsutawny Phil Sued

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/22/us-usa-weather-groundhog-idUSBRE92L18920130322

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/26/groundhog-pardon_n_2954772.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

     Well I don't know about you guys, but when I look outside the word "spring" isn't the word that comes to mind. I'm not sure why, but I just don't connect the word "spring" with snow and sub-freezing temperatures plus a bone-chilling wind. But hey that's just me. I was pretty excited for an early spring, I was ready to be finished with this horrid cold and shoveling frozen precipitation. Then, most likely just to spite me, the weather remained cold and even had the audacity to snow again. Now, I was not happy about this, not at all, but I wouldn't say that I was angry, just dissapointed and sad. I knew it wasn't some evil guy trying to make it snow and end summer vacation, although I did toy with the notion that maybe Punxsutawny Phil purposely gave the wrong prediction just to mess with us feeble minded humans. After all, that's exactly what I would do if I was an all-knowing groundhog who people looked to for long term weather forecasts.

"Adult Film Industry Star" Teaching?

     So, let's talk about teachers. Personally I like teachers. They're generally kind and helpful, and they devote almost all of their time to helping students learn things that they'll need (or so they say) for the rest of our lives. Since some people see their teachers more often than their own parents I think it's safe to say teachers can have a huge impact on the lives of their students. Luckily our school systems have realized this and for that reason conduct extensive background checks, and only hire people they believe will have a positive influence on a students development and are also just fine with having an extremely small paycheck for the amount of work they do changing society. Or at least, they usually filter who they hire pretty well. there's always a few people who will slip through the cracks, my eighth grade english teacher for instance. If my memory serves me correctly (other MOQers can correct me on this) I believe we opened our book a grand total of four times the entire year, turned in maybe six assignments (on which we all got the same grade) and spent most of the class listening to her talk to the girls about her personal life. Needless to say many parents were outraged, the school received a mountain of letters throughout the year, and Ms. Taylor didn't come back for a second year of "teaching".

     Now, that I could understand, it wasn't so much the school's fault for hiring her, she seemed like a normal person with the potential to be a good teacher. But there are certain instances that I don't completely understand the logic behind. For example, hiring an actress from the... "adult film industy", to teach a sex ed class. What, don't believe me? You think I'm making this story up just to get this blog done? Well I wish I was, but I'm not. Here's your proof, the original article that I'm writing this blog about. The University of Illinois recently had a week long sex education course. The instructor was a woman by the name of Annie Sprinkle. The course included speeches by Sprinkle about life as an actress in the adult film industry, a presentation on "eco-sexology", a free "sidewalk sex clinic", and a screening of a movie by the name of "Annie Sprinkle's Amazing World of Orgasm". The course apparently included "hands-on" (but fully clothed of course) participation by the students, and received some criticism about the films and clips used. It obviously wasn't enough criticism though, as Annie currently visits numerous colleges around the country to teach sex education. Apparently she isn't the only person in her line of work to have an interest in teaching either. Another school (Los Angeles County Elementary School) was severely criticized for inviting a former actress named Sasha Grey to read to first and third grade children. Find the story yourself, or here's one version.

So what do you think? Is it right allowing people with these pasts our teach our future adults and leaders of society? Many parents have already given their blatant opinion but let's hear from the huge audience of people that happen to read my blog.

Original article (again): http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/09/16913843-porn-star-teaches-sex-seminar-at-the-university-of-illinois?lite

Bonus article (a second time): http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45270845/ns/us_news-life/

P.S. Do you guys have any clue how hard it was not to use that compound word that starts with a p?

Real Life Lorax Events in Beijing

     Has anyone happened to see a movie called "The Lorax"? Well for those of you that haven't the movie is based off the Dr. Seuss book by the same title. In the movie environmental pollution has become so bad that all the trees are dead and people live in a large city where a rich guy found a way to make clean air and is selling it like water. The book (and movie) was meant to send a message telling everyone what the world could end up like if we don't take care of it. When I watched it I thought it was something that wouldn't happen for many, many years but I've now become aware that it may be a not so distant future. Beijing, as in that place in China, apparently has horrible air pollution and smog levels. It's to the point where visibility is often below 100 yards, the government has taken certain cars off the road, factories were shut down, and people are being told to stay inside if at all possible because of the danger to your lungs. EPA officials at the American embassy there say that the Air Quality Index, which measures the amount of fine particles in the air, has been hovering near the top of the chart all month and is extremely hazardous.

     To protect themselves from the "dangerous air" many people are taking matters into their own hands and buying masks online. Taobao (a large Internet shopping site in China) sold over 100,000 masks daily in January, and that was just in Beijing. Many citizens aren't buying just normal medical masks either, some are buying full scale gas masks and wearing them throughout the day. Several rich government workers and politicians are being criticized for buying extremely expensive air purifiers for their homes. One wealthy entrepreneur is being praised for his work as he tries to do something about the bad air. Chen Guangbiao is bottling fresh air and selling it. He's literally having air in other places bottled in soft drink cans, having it shipped to Beijing, and selling it for what equals about 80 cents a bottle. Every can has a picture of him on it and says "Chen Guangbiao is a good man".

     "If we don't pay attention to environmental protection, in 10 years every one of us will be wearing gas masks and carrying oxygen tanks on the streets," Cheng told ABC News. "By that time, my canned fresh air will be a necessity for household," he predicts. Is this what our world is coming to? We're selling and buying air because ours is actually dangerous to breath? I think it's time for a change on a global scale. We may be one small step away from the world we live in today, and the world we see in this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKVHBguZOBY&sns=em

Original article: http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=18352787&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.smithsonianmag.com%2Fsmartnews%2F2013%2F01%2Fchinas-air-pollution-is-so-bad-that-one-entrepreneur-is-selling-fresh-air-in-cans%2F

A (Somewhat New) Strategy to Control our Minds

     February 3, 2013. We all know what day that is. It's the day that six-tenths of the American population will be sitting on their couch watching an amazing Super Bowl performance, while the other four-tenths of us will be on someone else's couch watching an amazing Super Bowl performance. Ha! Yeah right half the people watching the Super Bowl are just in it for the commercials (these are completely made up statistics mind you). The Super Bowl has made quite a reputation for having the greatest, and also funniest, commercials of the year. Advertisement companies know this of course and are now banking on it as they create new ways to get just a little more out of every video. Any video game players will know their new technique well and you'll be able to testify to its effectiveness: trailers and competition.

     When a new movie or much-anticipated video game has been announced the people making the product don't rely on just the good name and reputation of their company to sell the product, they use trailers. The point of these trailers is to reveal just enough about the game or movie to make you hungry to know more, they make you think it's going to be interesting and amazing to raise your anticipation for the finished product. Unless your product is Call of Duty, your reputation doesn't sell merchandise, anticipation does. That's what the trailers are for, they raise are anticipation for the new game or movie to the point where we know that we absolutely must have it. It would seem that commercial industries have figured that out and are now releasing commercial trailers (or commercial previews). That's right, commercial trailers, it wasn't a typo. They're giving you a trailer...of a commercial. How does that work you ask? It's simple really, and extremely effective so far. Instead of just releasing the full commercial the night of the Super Bowl as in the past, they're using the worlds multitude of social networking systems to start competitions. Many companies such as Doritos and Coca-Cola are going to show fan made commercials along with their professionally made commercials at the Super Bowl. They're deciding which video to put on the air primarily through popularity, which commercial gets the most votes. This voting system is hilarious really, because it's free advertisement. The very fact that you vote for a video, means that you watched the video, and whether you know it or not watching it made you want whatever it was selling. For instance the "Goat 4 Sale" Doritos commercial. Who didn't want Doritos after watching that?

     So now you know what all those YouTube and Facebook videos are all about. They're plots to control your mind and make you watch the Super Bowl commercials with just a little more vigor. I'm quite positive that it'll work too, even after you've read this. But please, I implore you to give your opinion on the matter, and maybe even say what the best commercial is so far.

Original article: http://m.nbcnews.com/business/super-bowl-ads-its-go-viral-or-go-home-1C8119016

Gun Violence and Video Games?

     Gun violence. Everyone agrees that it's horrible and is occurring far more frequently than in the recent past. This understandably has made gun control a popular topic of discussion and a prime concern for public officials. Many ideas and plans have been proposed to curb gun violence. Some are more practical than others, some are quite drastic, and then there are a few that simply don't make sense to me. One such proposal is that video games have made today's youth more violent and dangerous. It's an idea that's risen up before, and always ends up getting nowhere. Either way it's here again to make the parents of teenagers second guess getting their child that new video game which is of course rated M (for mature) like the vast majority of popular games are today.

     Only this time, the proposal was made by the president, and the work and research is being done through Congress. Now as an owner of many violent video games you might think I'm worried that Congress is launching a formal investigation into the effects my favorite pastime may have on the youth of our nation. In reality it's completely the opposite. Congress leading this investigation means the investigation will be very thorough and that it will uncover anything and everything that there is to find on the subject. I believe that when they get to the bottom of the typical male American's true favorite past time they'll discover that it's just that, a past time and a way to have fun with friends and family. Then maybe the next time someone tries bringing this up, or banning video games even (which has been tried before) they'll see that there was already research done on the subject and come to the simple conclusion that if the United States government couldn't prove video games have a bad affect on human behavior, then their private investigator certainly won't be able to either.

     These are simply my own thoughts though. Maybe it'll be discovered that playing violent video games changes something deep in the recesses of our complex brains and it actually is a contributing factor to all the violence we've been seeing lately. But I doubt it. Please though, feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below.

http://m.usatoday.com/article/tech/gaming/1839879

My name is John Oscar Israel Ford III. I was born 4 months prematurely in March of 1996 which caused plenty of problems that I of course don't remember. I have three sisters and one brother, and although I love them dearly, they each annoy me immensely. I'm a sophomore in high school and my favorite classes are English and Spanish. In my free time I enjoy playing video games, reading books, listening to music, watching movies, and playing basketball.