I have noticed multiple “Truth Commercials” about smoking and they use graphic images to show you the “dangers” of smoking. What you don’t see is truth commercials for alcohol and graphic images of the damaging effects that it DOES cause.
Despite the thousands of people who are killed every day due to alcohol related accidents and the millions of people who die due to drinking too much alcohol, alcohol in our society has been glorified with all of it’s many commercials of sexy women surrounding men who are drinking this beer or that wine. You see it all over billboards advertising how great it is.
Facts about alcohol:
Brain: Alcohol interferes with the brain’s communication pathways, and can affect the way the brain looks and works. These disruptions can change mood and behavior, and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination.
Heart: Drinking a lot over a long time or too much on a single occasion can damage the heart, causing problems including:
Cardiomyopathy – Stretching and drooping of heart muscle
Arrhythmias – Irregular heart beat
Stroke
High blood pressure
Liver:
Heavy drinking takes a toll on the liver, and can lead to a variety of problems and liver inflammations including:
Steatosis, or fatty liver
Alcoholic hepatitis
Fibrosis
Cirrhosis
Pancreas: Alcohol causes the pancreas to produce toxic substances that can eventually lead to pancreatic cancer, a dangerous inflammation and swelling of the blood vessels in the pancreas that prevents proper digestion.
Cancer: Drinking too much alcohol can increase your risk of developing certain cancers, including cancers of the:
Mouth
Esophagus
Throat
Liver
Breast
Is this something that we should really be glorifying? Now let’s take a look at the alcohol related deaths
Alcohol is responsible for 1 in 10 deaths – this is simply someone dying from too much alcohol
Alcohol related accident deaths is 1 person died every 48 minutes.
In 2009, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico made it illegal to drive with a BAC of .08 or higher. Of the 10,839 people who died in an alcohol-related crash, 7,281 (67 percent) had drivers with BACs above the legal limit
On New Year’s Day, 468 people were killed in car accidents. Alcohol-impaired driving contributed to 40 percent of them.
More than 181 children were killed due to drivers who were drunk.
Now you tell me why is alcohol being glorified in our society and why is there not more advertisement about the dangers of alcohol? Not just to your own body but, the bodies of others.
I have watched carefully as every few months a new “Truth Commercial” comes out about smoking and cigarettes. I’m amazed at how little information they actually provide. So I’m here to tell you what the anti-smokers won’t.
Fact # 1: You can get cancer (lung and mouth cancer) even if you have never smoked and even if you have never been exposed to smoke.
Fact # 2: If you have a long family history of cancer (regardless of their smoking status), you are predisposed to also getting cancer.
Fact # 3: None of these things are considered when a smoker happens to get cancer. What the truth commercials don’t tell you is that those people were already predisposed to getting cancer or they did many other things which could have developed cancer.
Fact # 4: You will not always get cancer, have premature babies or any of the other “risks” that are associated with smoking. You’re not completely doomed if you do smoke and if you enjoy smoking, you shouldn’t be scared into quitting.
When my now 19 month old son was 17 months, I started noticing signs that seemed off about him. I knew the typical toddler behaviors but my son, was different. I had already known the signs of autism from all of my medical research/background. Yes, he was very different. During the day he seems really focused on tapping things a certain number of times, holding his ears at the slightest noise and getting extremely emotional over seemingly nothing. He also had other odd things such as being focused on only saying a few words, doing the same thing every day and cowering at the thought of talking to people he doesn’t know or being around children.
Having an Autistic child is very difficult and having an Autistic Toddler is extremely exhausting. I can easily say that I was not prepared for this but, I’m doing the best I know how. Thank God for support groups. So anyway, my son is so focused on the few things he’s obsessed with that he doesn’t like anything to change or go wrong in his routine and therefore, we basically work around his schedule.
For example: My son likes to play with the pup’s we have, go outside and play with his rocks and grass (When I say his, I mean that he has chosen pebbles that go every where with him), go to the store, play with all of the playground balls that he has and tap on things.
That may seem like a lot but, with him it’s so limited and he’s so focused on everything that he does, he’s not interested in anything else. Sometimes he even wakes up in the middle of the night to perform his “rituals”. It’s very stressful because well, my husband and I don’t get much sleep and it’s hard for us to change his schedule at all. Now, some people have actually said to me “He’s a kid, you’re the boss, just make him do what you want”. It’s not that way with an Autistic Toddler, it simply doesn’t work because, unlike temper tantrums that most toddler’s have, our son actually has full on mental breakdowns that make it impossible for him to function.
He is also extremely attached to three items of his, a stuffed caterpillar, a blanket with whales on it and his pebble rocks. Those items have to go along with us any where we go.
I think that Autism is very much misunderstood by those who don’t know anyone that has it and everything is difficult with an Autistic child. For instance, even simple tasks such as bathing, changing his pull up, changing clothes, putting him to bed, talking loud (even if we’re not speaking to him), public environments, being around other kids etc. it becomes very intense and very stressful to just do simple things that some people take for granted.
To know that our son may never fully develop and that he may need help the rest of his life is almost devastating. Will he be able to have a family? Will he be able to ever have a career or go to college? We don’t know the answer to that yet and we won’t even be able to guess that until he’s much older. For anyone who has an autistic child, I’m sure you can relate to these things. Whether or not you have an autistic child, please comment on this blog and tell me your thoughts.
As I have come across a multitude of news stories and videos that seem to be targeted more towards Christian’s, I have found a multitude of comments where Atheists have crossed into videos of Christian’s and use them as a platform for their hatred towards God and all that Christian’s believe in. As I have spoken to some of these Atheists, I realize that many of them are angry at God for one reason or another and so they have decided that, if he “Can’t perform miracles” in their life then he must not exist.Then you have the classic statement “God is a fairy tale” or “He’s as real as Santa”. It seems that sometimes it’s easier to just follow others than to stand out in a crowd. Christian’s become offended that Atheists came into their “zone” to begin with and there starts a war.
On the Atheist hand, they believe that Christian’s are infringing on their rights and that all Christian’s are hypocrites who are trying to deceive others into believing a “fairy tale”. There are organizations like the Freedom from Religion Foundation who are fighting hard to have prayer and bible study removed from schools. They spend all of their free time on either terrorizing Christian’s for their beliefs, mocking Christian’s or simply putting their opinions out there. Often times when a war erupts over beliefs, Atheists begin to curse at those who believe in God.
During all of this, there are many crimes going on currently that are targeting people with certain beliefs. “The quickest way to start a war, is to start a conversation with religion” (Quote by me). Even if there’s nothing that indicates religion, it will still quickly become the subject because, all it takes is for someone to make the comment “God bless them” or something similar and let the war begin. Then you have others who are completely confused about what they believe as, I came across a young man recently who claimed to be Atheist and at the same time claimed to be demonic. I can either assume that he doesn’t know what Atheism consists of or he’s trolling the internet. That’s what makes all of this so difficult, figuring out who’s just having a bad day and wanting to be a trouble maker vs those who are serious about what they are saying.
If you visit http://answers.yahoo.com and you go to the Religion and Spirituality section, you will find the wars that I’m referring to. Thousands of questions which erupt in all out wars over the belief in one thing or the lack there of. It seems that no one can live in peace due to the senseless arguments with strangers. I think people will forever debate what’s really going on in the world and people will never share one core belief but, there has to be a way to at least calm the situation so that wars like this don’t turn into more real life violence.
As for me, I believe that Christian’s should leave Atheists (and other non believers) alone and vice versa. If everyone stayed in their own “zones”, things wouldn’t get out of hand. Please leave me your comments and tell me what you believe and what you think, you will not be judged by me.
Public breastfeeding has now become widespread and now a trend has been started where women are taking pictures of them breastfeeding and posting them all over social media. Although I have no problem with breastfeeding in general, I also don’t want to see it on my news feed. I think that people who do this are trying to seek any type of attention they can get and honestly, they are exploiting their children. Allow me to explain.
When I first started seeing these pictures my initial thought was “What in the world are they doing?!” I couldn’t believe that someone would post a picture of their child feeding from their breast on social media and actually try to defend it by saying things like “It’s natural”, “All women should do this” and of course my first reaction was to say “What’s next?! Showing your baby’s poopy diaper, that’s natural and that’s what happens when the milk digests”. Now some of you may feel that I’m wrong here and I’m sure you will because I have been called an idiot and ignorant on social media.
I feel that this is exploiting children because, the women on there who are trying to prove a point do not take into consideration that pictures are on the internet forever and when that child grows up enough to be on social media, the last thing they want to see is them sucking milk from their mom’s boob. It’s embarrassing just like taking pictures of your kid using the potty for the first time or giving them a bath.
I look at it this way, I don’t want my child to see your boob flopped out any more than I want a man to whip out his penis and pee in public. That’s natural but, I don’t want to see it. There are options to not disrespect other people’s children in public and they won’t look away because they are kids and kids notice everything. When people have suggested that these women use covers or feed their kids breast milk in bottles they fire back and say “My child won’t take a bottle” or the famous one “Why don’t you put a cover over your head while you eat” first off, that doesn’t make any sense, a child should not ever be solely dependent on it’s mother’s nipple alone and I don’t suck on anyone’s boob when I eat, I eat with a spoon and a fork. I believe that both of those common reactions are excuses to “Prove a point”.
If a man cannot “be natural” and pull out his penis and pee in public, a woman should not be allowed to expose herself and flop out her boob. People are arrested for peeing in public, having sex in public or exposing their self in any way in public and I believe that flopping your boob out is also exposing yourself in public and should be punishable by law. There’s no excuse why you need to do that. It’s not natural to do that in public and it will not be accepted. I will not allow my child to see a woman’s breast at his young age. I’m not against breast feeding but, there are other ways to do it and regardless of what the mother says, I think that it needs to be enforced.
Recently, there was a story on a woman who went to a public place called Discovery Place in Charlotte, NC and she was told that she would have to go to the bathroom to breast feed her child. She became angry and went to the news with it and of course attention seeking women praised her for standing up for herself. However, she has no right to take her baby to a public kids play place and flop her boob out in front of all those children and I do feel like the company had a right to say what they said. Though she tried using the excuse that she paid for entry and that they don’t force patrons to eat in the bathroom, it’s an invalid argument. The fact is, children are extremely curious and I don’t want them staring at another woman’s boobs. Children are imitators and they do sometimes try things like that on other children when they see an adult having it done by a baby. That is not natural and I won’t stand for it.
Final Conclusion: If you refuse to cover up and you refuse to feed your child from a bottle, stay at home. I will not have to explain to my child why you have your boob exposed and I will not leave a place that I paid for because you want to cause a mess of drama.
We have all seen homeless people at one point or another. Many people refer to them as “Trash”, “Druggies” and “Lazy”. However, what do we really know about these people who appear to be useless trash littering the streets? Well let’s start out with a few facts
NOT all homeless people use drugs
NOT all homeless people are lazy
NOT all homeless people have bad intentions
You might be thinking that I’m an advocate for the homeless and in a way I am. You see, there have been many times where I have given money to select homeless people and I’m not talking about your average coins. I’m fairly good at determining who will use the money for things they really need and who won’t. None of us who help the homeless know where our money goes after we hand it off.
America is supposed to be a land of opportunity but, we have found fairly fast that our current President (like many previous president’s) misuses a lot of the money printed. We’re all aware of the trillions of dollars being spent on useless wars, lavish trips for the President and his family and even state of the art rehab facilities for Sex Offenders. It’s no secret that money is not being spent on using abandoned buildings to create large shelters for the homeless in any state.
Though money would be well spent if the President had his head on straight and chose to help the citizens of the United States first, this will be very unlikely to happen in the near or far future. This is due to each new President trying to follow the lead of the previous president. As you all know, the last 3 president’s have spent countless American dollars on things that do not benefit America.
So, who will care for the homeless? Many people go about their daily life and ignore the homeless and some even make petitions to have them removed from their make shift homes. After all, no one wants to look at eye sores right? What we all fail to realize is, any one of us could become homeless at any time. No one is guaranteed their jobs will last and many people will have been laid off in order for those jobs to be transferred overseas or people will simply be replaced by new, fast technology like Robots and Drones.
When talking about what are the options of the homeless, you must keep an open mind. In the first place, many homeless people have lost their jobs, their homes, their families and have very little left over. Finding a new job becomes harder when you have limited experience, you have no address or phone number to list on your application, you cannot arrive to an interview dirty, you have no resume to go along with your application, etc. It’s hard enough for people who are not homeless and who have degrees to get a job. At this point, most all jobs are impossible to get.
Another myth about the homeless is that they are all drug users or alcoholic’s. This is a poor assumption as some homeless, have never been addicted to either and even if they are, you must realize that being on the streets is the hardest thing you can imagine. It’s no life for anyone and those people suffer badly every single day.
Many homeless people become criminals over time as they become more desperate to survive and usually pocket change isn’t enough to sustain them. They also may commit crimes in order to have shelter and even though jail is hard, it’s still food and a place to sleep. This does not mean that all homeless people do these things but, who could blame them if they did?!
There are many abandoned buildings all across the United States and some have been recently closed. Some of these buildings such as old factories or even hospitals could be a great place for the homeless to live. In particular, a hospital that has been closed down would allow many homeless to occupy the floors and each one would have their own room and bathroom and sometimes even put two people to a room. Now, the funding part is a different story. When it comes to funding an operation like this, many people will need to pitch in and since we already pay taxes for things like overseas wars and lavish trips, the tax money would be better suited to pay for the homeless to survive in these already built buildings. It would also be possible if more people would chip in to help. It surprises me how many people complain about having to deal with the homeless but, won’t chip in for something that would get them off the streets and out of your hair.
I believe that if more people would take the time to actually talk with these people, you will realize fast that they are normal people who have been under bad circumstance for far too long. However, you cannot categorize all homeless people as belonging to one group like “Drug user” etc.. as a matter of fact, many of the homeless people I have talked to have stated that they were once married and had children but, they lost their jobs (due to no fault of their own) and they were unable to sustain their self or their families and ended up on the streets.
It has become a situation where, many of the homeless have no where to go at all. Some have families who abandoned them a long time ago and others cannot get into a shelter because, they are packed too full and no one else is allowed inside. This is a terrible situation to be in and you must keep an open mind and decide what you would do in this position as it’s too easy for people to say “Get a job, bum”. Think about what you say before you say it. The fact is, you don’t know the person and you don’t know what they are going through and therefore, you cannot judge them. This is simply about having the respect for another human being who has been unable to get their head above water. They are no different than yourself other than, you’re privileged and they are not.
If everyone would take the time to pitch in by donating blankets to them, taking them old clothes you don’t need, make extra sandwiches and bring some water (feeding them), sitting down and talking with them, just being supportive can make all the difference for these folks. You don’t need a lot of money to help them, just sharing what you already have can go a long way. I want everyone to please consider what I have said and pass the message along. Thank you for reading my blog on homelessness.
AmplioRecorrido 