Chaos of Ferguson

Ferguson Missouri and racism in general is a very touchy subject today in America. Everything about racism in today’s society is so controversial and instead of fighting about if we are doing it or not, we need to just stop judging people for the color of their skin. Not generalizing, although sounding great, probably will never happen because it has never happened before in history and it won’t happen just because of the way people function, we make assumptions that often shouldn’t be made, we must try our best to stop.

                So instead of offending people or making accusations at certain people, let’s talk more about how Ferguson was handled as a country. Ferguson is a situation that if controlled better, wouldn’t have turned into total chaos. I’m all for protest, protest is a very good thing and it makes for a better country and world but the police force, the “peaceful” protestors, and of course the media elevated everything to a new level.

                It just takes a few people to ruin a party. What I feel like was a good idea at first, protest for something the people of Ferguson believe took a sharp turn for the worse when looting, violence, and other nasty things broke out around the town. Protestors stopped caring about Michael Brown and the situations surrounding that and started only caring about how to become a nightmare for the police and because of that, looting and harsh reactions from the police occurred. Protestors stopped protesting and just decide hey, let’s destroy this city’s reputation and go crazy on the police because we can, its kind of sad really that the city will forever be slandered because of this incident.

                Police didn’t help the cause either. Pointing semi-automatic weapons at unarmed civilians really doesn’t make any sense and the amount of force the police used to try and stop these protestors is a bit ridiculous. It’s odd that police are even allowed to do these things, pointing a gun at someone is a huge no-no unless you actually want to kill the thing you are pointing at and it really gives a bad persona for police forces around the country. Keeping back a few hundred protestors with such heavy weaponry causes a much larger controversy and the St. Louis police really shouldn’t have tried to be such a force. 

The Media

                The media, everyone always bags on them for over exaggerating, lying, and keeping the public from information just to promote business. Ferguson shows how powerful and influential the media can be. Showing reports and accounts of violence every 5 minutes on major new sources really causes a sense of worry for the general public. What started as a small protest in a suburb of St. Louis turned into a nationwide head line that everyone was talking about. It really blew everything out a proportion and fueled even more violence and rage into the public and Ferguson, Missouri.

                It’s scary how much our society is affected by the media. Television, newspapers, magazines, and most importantly the internet are so interconnected into our lives, everything thing we know about the world, we get from the media.   We want to know what’s going on in the world, all the bad things, the joyful things, the scary things and the fantasizing things. The media provides such an easy way to get this information but by allowing them to be our source of news, they can control what we know and what we think. Information can be manipulated, changed, and altered to the media wills, news as we know it could be totally different. Maybe I sound like some extremist who think that the government is full of lizards from another galaxy but the media can really hurt our world, a lot. Information is so valuable in today’s society because if you have the information, you have the power and the people of this world in your hands.

                Along with changing our information, our idea and our beliefs can be heavily influenced by the media. TV, magazines, and others try to be as charismatic and nice to change peoples beliefs. Talk shows and other shows where people express their opinions are examples of where your ideas of life can be changed by a simple TV show.

                Although I like everyone else love to hate on the arrogant and selfish media, technology and news has become such a plus for society. We know what’s going on thousands of miles away, we can figure out how to help, we can communicate with people in the blink of an eye. Communication as a whole has accelerated so quickly and news can travel in a matter of seconds across the world. Globalization has made us closer as a planet, our national and regional identities have started to fade and now we come together as a globe. Wars have come to a major halt, although there is still violence, our world has become so much more peaceful and we can now focus to create a better earth, all thanks to the darn media. 

For Mother Russia

                Russia is really losing it when it comes to respect around the world. Vladimir Putin can be seen everywhere being the butt of jokes and getting no respect. He is acting like a baby and maybe I’m just biased towards the freedom of the USA but Vladimir’s lack of strong leadership and not being able to just grow up could cost some serious problems for his people and his country.

                The fallen giant has now starting to take the stage again, the Winter Olympics could have been a major boost for Russia, bringing publicity and money to the mother nation. But that never happened because of how terrible the games were prepared and how they were set up. Along with a major failure of the games, Crimea and maybe the annexation of Ukraine is something that has been in the news quite often lately. Because of all the actions Russia has taken, along with terrible diplomacy displayed by Mr. Putin, the whole world is turning against Russia and they won’t survive long without the world’s support.

                Vladimir Putin probably realizes this but is taking no action to help the cause. His country’s economy is crippling with inflation and a stagnate trade. Sanctions from western countries has caused this poor economy along with oil companies in the middle east reducing oil prices so Russian oil companies can’t compete.  By putting themselves in a terrible economic position where no one wants to help them (not even China, their closest ally) the Russian people in trouble. I get so mad that an arrogant leader who thinks he’s hot stuff and just destroy people’s lives, a lot of people’s lives.

                Although an easy solution isn’t just going to happen, I feel that if Mr. Putin would quit trying to get the gang (U.S.S.R/ Satellite countries) back together and would use some actually diplomacy with other counties, maybe, just maybe, the  world might start to like them again. They wouldn’t be the big bad Russia anymore that we see on TV, they could be the loving Russians who are always drinking vodka. Once they become the drunk lovers of the north, they can work on that terrible economy and infrastructure which is something in desperate need of attention. I really don’t want to see Russia’s great army being shown to the world.

GMOs

                They have been debating GMOs (genetically modified organisms) for a long time; it is one of the most controversial subjects in science. Changing the makeup and DNA of an organism to make them different is now a routine thing in science. Most of the foods we see in the grocery store are these modified organisms. They are all classified as these mutants, their genetic code or makeup is changed to give those better characteristics or traits that make them more than the rest of the farming environment.

There is a major controversy over whether or not these genetically modified organisms help or hurt humanity. They have helped us by creating so much more food.  Millions of people are eating today instead of starving because of these discoveries and scientifically modified and advanced crops. Each crop can yield so much more along with farming being much less work and hassle, creating cheaper and easier food supplies. Crops also can be modified to create healthier foods, resistance to pests, diseases, and pollution make produce much better compared to organic foods. You can read more about genetically modified organisms here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_organism).

                GMO’s have been fought over since they were first being used in the 1970’s. People argue that genetically modified foods could have side-effects that effect out health. While most, if not all, studies have shown no correlation or side effects of genetic modification, there are still concerns surrounding these foods.  Changing an organism’s DNA is dangerous because we may not know what we are doing when we change an organism’s genetic code. Like I have said in past posts, we do know a lot about our world but we far from know all of it. Strict regulations also must be taken to protect our farms and our supply of food. The government has to set strict rules to limit companies from either completely taking over the world’s food or completely destroying it with GMO’s. Gigantic farms and companies cannot run the food of the world; small farms and nice people need to be in charge of the food of the world. There might not be any scientific evidence that tells us that eating organically makes us healthier, but we should still be worried about the threat genetically modified organisms possess.

                I personally believe the advantages out weight the disadvantages, almost a billion people are fed because of genetically modified crops. Problems could arise though but based on current evidence and science, I think that we should eat and be thankful for these mutants.   

Oil and water

                Oil and water do not mix well. It’s nearly impossible to separate them and they don’t blend at all. Oil is not good for the environment; it kills animals, makes them extremely dirty, and can totally wipe out a species. Oil is important to the world and economy though, so major ecosystems are risked to get more oil through deep-sea drilling.

                The BP oil spill is still the major example of this. In 2010, the worst oil spill in history happened off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf. Oil gushed into the Gulf after a giant explosion of a deep sea oil rig. Read more here (http://ocean.si.edu/gulf-oil-spill). The animals and Louisiana’s oceanic habitat took a major hit from the spill.  Turtles, fish, geese, and other animals that rely on water for their habitats were devastated.  Their water turned into oily grossness and many smaller organisms were killed, completely messing up the food chain. We really don’t hear much about the oil spill anymore; BP mostly covered it all up even though they are extremely less credible now.  Just because we don’t hear about it anymore doesn’t mean everything is better.

                Completely messing up an ecosystem like that changed that area forever. There is still oil in the gulf, although there isn't much anymore, it’s still enough to have an effect on the state of the organisms that call the gulf home. Populations of fish, birds, turtles, and others are at an all-time low due to the spill. Read more here (http://www.nwf.org/what-we-do/protect-habitat/gulf-restoration/oil-spill/effects-on-wildlife.aspx). Generations were killed off causing total chaos in the food pyramid. Eggs were polluted, animals were lost without their prey because population dropped, and some many other consequences occurred and are still occurring 4 years after the spill.  

                Oil runs our modern economy. It’s known as black gold and is becoming far more valuable and important due to a higher demand and a lower supply.  Deep sea oil is prevalent because of how cheap and big the drilling area can be. Land drilling costs more because of the cost to buy land and drill while deep sea drilling is cheaper to get than land, but it is hard to get to. Deep sea drilling isn’t absolutely essential for our modern world. With advancing technology of other energy sources, we might see the dependence on oil become less and less.  That is a good thing because one disaster from these oil rigs can cause the whole environment around it to go black. 

Ebola

                You know about it Ebola if you haven’t been living under a rock for the past month.  It is a Bacterium that is having a serious outbreak in western Africa and now it is causing a major concern for, not only the African countries, but everyone else around the world. It’s a huge conversation starter.  When someone coughs you always hear someone say “It’s Ebola”. It interests me that although it has killed a few thousand in Africa and a few foreigners, it gets so much more publicity than something like Malaria or Tuberculosis which kills so many more people every year, especially in Africa.

                We can all thank video games, Hollywood, and some good traits for pandemics for causing this giant popularity and scare of the disease. Pandemic movies and video games have imprinted in our minds the ability that one super bug has, which is wiping out humanity. Although pandemics have been overhyped, they are still something to be prepared for. Any microorganism that is very good at spreading and killing can kill us all off just like that. The United States government and hospitals has really taken some heat lately for how it’s controlled the very minimum Ebola outbreak here at home. The way everything was handled made it seem like we really aren’t ready if something threatening our country was spreading in the US. There were no major procedures or rules set in place to help quarantine the patients, most hospitals don’t have the equipment to take care of an epidemic.  It is scary how unprepared we were, patients and people who have the disease could walk around town and were not quarantined for a long period of time. We need to step up our control of diseases like this, it is really important and if we aren’t ready for a super bug, bad things could happen.

                There are many other illnesses and diseases that cause major problems and kill a lot more people. Ebola is just an example of a disease that can turn into a pandemic if we aren’t careful. Steps must be taken to eliminate diseases like this before the spiral out of control and become a threat to humankind. 

Antibiotics

                Penicillin was one of the greatest inventions in history; it saved hundreds of millions of people. Today penicillin is absolutely worthless when treating bacterial infections and diseases. Doctors sometimes use it for its placebo effect on patients who “really need antibiotics”. Nature evolves with the situations given to it and bacteria can do this at a rapid pace. They can evolve so rapidly they might be catching up with us humans, the fastest evolving beings in this world.

                Bacteria are catching up with technology. We keep creating new antibiotics but over time the bacteria will gain a resistance and the medicine will be useless. As humans, we evolve unbelievably quickly which has made us incredibly successful but if bacteria are faster and become one step ahead of us, we are toast and they flourish in a world of globalization and humans.  Hundreds of antibiotics have been created and treated patients until they are unusable. Sooner or later if we aren’t careful, we will run out of treatment and bacteria can spread rampantly across the world.  

                Doctors are now much more careful when handing out antibiotics. People need to realize that a cough is not a good reason to go get antibiotics; we cannot over use them to the ground. By being cautious, bacteria can hopefully take longer to evolve and become resistant. Handing out antibiotics all willy-nilly can lead to some serious consequences. Research for new ways of killing bacteria is also becoming a major priority as the super bacteria scare is increasing. This week, scientists are using lipids and membranes to essentially bait bacteria into getting killed by our immune system. You can read more here (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141102160004.htm). I think this research is absolutely essential.   Biased on how fast bacteria are evolving, we are quickly running out of antibiotics to kill this nemesis. If we run out of antibiotics with no other treatment, sickness and infections will become untreatable leading to millions of deaths. Funding and focusing on research of new methods will keep humanity from being destroyed by the microbes that surround us.  We don’t want any zombie apocalypses or pandemic attacks. If the popular game, Pandemic ever happens where we run out of antibiotics, get a ticket on the next ferry to Madagascar before it’s too late.