Black Friday: A Dark Day

I am one lucky guy. My birthday is November 22nd, which means that my birthday is always around one of the best days of the year to buy gifts: Black Friday. A day infamous for "door busters" which are sales that are so ridiculous that people will "bust down the doors" of a store to take advantage of them. If I was an alien coming to Earth on Black Friday, I would be horrified at the barbaric rituals before me. In 2008 a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death as 2,000 people tried to break into the Wal Mart for the sales. That may be the most extreme case, but look at this one of many riots formed outside of a store on Black Friday:

Is this the kind of behavior we promote with this "holiday"? The phrase "doorbusters" clearly implies that this kind of behavior is expected at these stores. I think fighting others for material goods is disgraceful to our society. America is founded on the fact we all have the right to Life, Liberty , and the Pursuit of Happiness. Pitting shoppers against each other for buying a cell phone goes against this idea, as the sale could probably have been organized in such a way that this sort of riot would never have happened.

How do you think Black Friday could become less barbaric? I think online sales are the future, since the only fighting is for who gets on the server for the store's website. Should Black Friday even be respected by Americans? Let me knoooooow!

Graphic Advertisements are OK?

Wherever you look, Chicago is littered with advertisements. Whether they are on benches, billboards, or pieces of paper rolling on the ground, advertisements are made to attract our attention. If I'm not mistaken, the word is a derivative of the latin words "ad" and "verto" which when put together mean "to turn towards".  One issue that comes up is whether advertisements oppress the speech and thought of those that observe them. For instance:

This ad won an award from the Catholic Mass Media Awards in the Philippines. It is a print ad which shows a baby nailed to a board as if he was Jesus, showing that any abortion you have could have been Jesus. It is a very off-putting ad, especially from the blood on the child's arm. Would an ad like this be allowed in the United States? They are expressing the freedom of speech, after all, and there isn't anything that would cause violence from this picture. A similar example of an ad like this was shown in the US as a video. It was banned on Youtube, however it was constitutional for the images of late-term aborted fetuses to be aired on TV.

I think that advertisements like this may not incur violence or unrest, but they certainly incur unrest in my stomach, and I think that is reason enough that Americans shouldn't have to be subjected to graphic images like this. What do you think?

Preparation, or Conservation

As many know, hurricane Sandy hit last week, and has caused billions and billions of dollars of damage to the east coast. This is the first time I've ever heard anybody use the term "Superstorm" in my life to describe a natural disaster. It surprised me that despite being one of the most developed countries in the world, this natural even caused unprecedented destruction and panic. Many fear of what is to come in terms of natural disasters, which is the subject of an article I read from the New York Times, called "Protecting New York City, Before Next Time". In the article it states:

"...climate experts say, sea levels in the region have not only gradually increased, but are also likely to get higher as time goes by..."

This means that it's only getting easier for places along the coast of the Atlantic ocean like New York City to be flooded in the future. The main reason for water levels rising is thought to be global warming, which many scientists have claimed is preventable. New York City, however, doesn't seem to be trying to prevent high water levels, it's preparing for them.

“Our goal was to design a more resilient city,” Mr. Cassell said. “We may not always be able to keep the water out, so we wanted to improve the edges and the streets of the city to deal with flooding in a more robust way.”

Already, people's plans are turning away from conservation and more towards preparation. So what is the plan to save Manhattan from flood waters?

"ringing Lower Manhattan with a grassy network of land-based parks accompanied by watery patches of wetlands and tidal salt marshes...through a series of breakwater islands made of geo-textile tubes and covered with marine plantings."

While it's an interesting thought to see New York having preventative swamps, I think that the moment we saw Global Warming coming, we should have worked to prevent it, rather than riding it out and paying the price now. Not only will it be expensive to terraform New York, but the idea itself may or may not work. What do you think? Is there still time to cut back gas emissions and pollution so that we don't have to pay the price later?