The non-existing issue

So my final essay for the class, was a topic that I have been wanting to write about for quite sometime. I am all for gay marriage and almost cried when I heard that some states have passed it. It feels good to be in a somewhat progressive world, even if it has taken decades and longer. 

This issue is very personal to me on very many levels. I have numerous homosexual friends and couples, along with being a homosexual myself. I am a human, I am easily to get along with and I have a double helix like everyone else in the world. 

The fact that I am a homosexual is not a flaw or a defect it's just added information to who I am. 

That's like someone with tattoos all over, could be the executive of a large corporation for lawyers, and may have a family of two. The opinion of the person that you have known has not changed at all, you just now know more about them. 

And I think that with that being said, gay marriage should really be something that should be legal. 

To me marriage is the ultimate expression of love.

I have heard so many lame things against having gay marriage. “It'll disrupt the structure of marriage,” “it's not okay in God's eyes,” please, save the overused crap for my funeral. 

There are a heck of a lot more people in the world that have messed up what marriage is who are heterosexual. People who cheat on other people, people who have sex with prostitutes, people who marry multiple people. 

Yeah, exactly so all your lame accusations hold no ground now anymore. 

If anything gay marriage is more respectable in some ways. I know of one couple that have been together for almost 20 years, totally faithful, best friends and the cutest couple I have ever seen, and they aren't married, not because they can't (although the subject still stands) but they are a great example of what a relationship is. 

Whereas another couple I know, heterosexual mind you, that was together for almost 10 years and one had cheated on the other at least three times. 

Yeah, put that in your vacuum cleaner and suck it. 

I mean for goodness sake people, even our president wants it. Granted he was against until he need more votes from people and our population of fabulous fairies were his life line, but still. 

The main foundation of the United States is the concept that the majority should rule, however, the rights of minorities should also be protected. This is the reason why the Bill of Rights was established along with equal protection and anti-slavery amendments. 

As such, denying marriage to a gay couple is the same as denying marriage to a bi-racial couple. 

And considering I'm both, do not even tamper with such things. It could get ugly, just a warning. 

As earlier mentioned, marriage is the ‘ultimate expression of love.’ The only reason why gay couples get married is because they love one another. If love is not the foundation of marriage, then all marriages; gay or not, should be criticized and examined. 

Each couple planning to get married should undergo a test to prove that they really love each other. I mean gay couples have been called animals before, why not strap the other side down and treat them like the animals they think we are. 

I bet that would shut them up real quick, especially if there was infidelity on one side. 

Basically I just wanted to touch on the fact that there really is nothing wrong with it. It's a relationship, it has all the same elements of any other kind of relationship. We have fights, we have sex, we go on dates, we have a family. 

It's not like gay people just fall from the sky in a rainbow parachute, but if it did the only reason you should be hating on us, is the fact that you should be jealous of such an entrance into the world.

An Epidemic

I think for my first story about cyber bullying went very well. I will admit I did have a hard time coming up with a topic and this came to from a commercial I saw on television about how people are trying hard to eliminate bullying in general. I decided to write about this topic since

I have dealt with bullying of my own growing up. Elementary and middle were not the best years of my life, and rarely are for most kids who don't know where they fit in the crowd. I had my share of name calling, pushing, laughed at. However, I never became the bullier as I got older, I taught myself to not care about what other thought about me if it wasn't nice or positive critiquing. 

I had heard about cyber bullying when I was in high school but never really looked into it till now. There have been countless stories of teen suicides due to online bullying and I decided to take a look to see if anything was being done about it. I understand it is hard to control who talks to you or your kids online, but the reality of it is, parents should be supervising what they're kids are doing on something as powerful as the internet and people who talk to random people online should know that talking to a stranger can set you up for anything. 

One thing I have found to be very true when dealing with technology that lets you communicate is the fact that you will most likely say something through text that you might never say in person. 

With that being said if you are 200 miles away from someone online that you know you will never meet and you have an argument with a parent or boyfriend, or just had a bad day you can take your anger out on any one that falls prey to it. You can call them names, degrade them in the worst possible ways, and you might feel better after letting your anger out or just being rude, but you most likely wont care about what the other person will feel like after. 

After some research about technology in our modern society it seems that younger and younger generations are being introduced to electronics that allow you to inter the internet. 12 year olds have their own cell phone, 9 year olds have iPad or iPhones.

 Not only is this irresponsible of the parents for giving kids technology of adults that wont even have enough sense to monitor them while they use the device, they opened a huge door to the outside world of bullies and strangers. 

For example my 10 year old niece just received an iPad for her birthday. There is no app for internet thankfully, in my opinion she is not ready for that, but there are games that you can get and have to be on wifi to use them. 

The only flaw is on some games, random strangers can start playing with you. On some games you are even able to leave comments to each other. 

My niece is just a baby and is in 2nd grade, of course she's not going to understand a game as fully as some 16 year old that happens to call her inappropriate names while playing the game. This is a very mild level of bullying but it still can have some effects to some people. Thankfully my sister caught on to it fast because my niece was smart enough to tell her about it.

I think that's what people should really be teaching. The fact that there are some really rude and nasty people out there who do not care about other people's feelings and will say whatever they want, no matter who it is, what they did, or even how old they are. 

People need to teach kids to walk away from bullies both online and in person. Basically I wrote my paper to make more of an awareness about it and how people can help stop it. What parents can do however, is teach to their kids instead of preach to their kids. 

While parents are aware of the dangers that lurk online, children are often blissfully ignorant. There are ways to teach internet safety that are creative and interactive. As someone who was a teenager not so long ago, I can attest to difficulties that arise from listening to parental lectures and advice.

Although I now understand that my parents always had my best interest in mind, it was not so clear during my moody teenage years.

The reality of reality shows

I have always found reality shows to be entertaining, mostly because of the type of reality shows I was watching. When I watched Oprah, Jude Judy, Wheel of Fortune or Who's line is it anyway, I did not automatically think, “I'm watching a reality show,” I thought “wow, this is really entertaining.”

Today when I hear the phrase reality show, I think of people acting stupid, being drunk, causing unnecessary fights. Basically showing the more stupid side of our society. Shows like “Jersey Shore,” or “keeping up with the Kardashians,” are just just false images of what peoples lives are like, and to be honest, WHO CARES?

I wanted to write about a subject that I have found to be a growing problem.

It just seems like you give a producer and director a random topic, like coupons, and they'll make an outrageous reality show out of it. Add some actors, some ridiculous drama, throw some cash around to keep the actors happy and you got yourself a teenage television hit.

Oh, and television executives are cheap and think viewers are morons. Sorry to pull back the curtain and reveal this harsh truth to you, but I feel it is my journalistic duty to be honest and expose frauds whenever I see them. Pulitzer, please

Seriously, though, it’s not like any of this breaks startling new ground, but it’s still interesting for anyone who hates reality television as much as I do and wants an excuse to yell and scream about it a little. The worst one I worked on in terms of manipulation was probably a dating competition show.

That one basically just put some oversexed drunken kids in a house and let them go wild. Sometimes the producers would ask a contestant something like, “what do you think about Steve? You don’t like him?” And the contestant would say, “no, I’m not going to say that I don’t like Steve.” And the producers would ask us to cut everything except, “I don’t like Steve.”

Now, most of us know that's how shows work sometimes, but if we are so engulfed in it and find it entertaining, why would we care about it? It's funny, it doesn't deal with our own drama, and we get to see people talk about others behind their back.

One example I find humorous is the show called, “Bad Girls Club.” Basically the show is a bunch of hussy girls 21-30 years old running around in a fancy mansion, drinking, partying and fighting. Literally, that sums up the show. And like most reality shows they do the whole, “I hate her, she's dumb,” “this girl needs to grow up,” all that jazz. And then when they have a reunion with all the girls, they are some how all fine and friends and have kept in touch.

How is this possible and even remotely logical if the things they said on the show are RECORDED and put out in the public? Are they shut in some room for months while the show airs and they aren't allowed to watch?

But in all honesty, people who watch these shows are not going to think about things like this. This is why I wanted to shed some light on this topic. You can't watch something on television and find some truth to it, because without knowing it you could make it a part of your everyday life.

 I wont lie, I got addicted to watching “Bad Girls Club,” and after a while I started talking sassy and mean, more than a usually do, because I thought it was cool and I had been entertained by the same thing. That can be a bad combination for anyone.