Arranged Marriages

How would you like it if your parents had to choose your life partner? As some people believe that arranged marriages are successful, I believe that there could be many disadvantages of arranged marriages. In most of the Middle Eastern countries marriages are arranged by parents or friends of the couple. I think that because countries in the Middle East are not diverse as in the United States is why the divorce rate is so low. Also, the majority of the people follow the same traditions and culture which allows everyone to practice everyday living in the same way. It would be very easy to find an individual not following the norm of what the society follows. On the other hand, since America has a diversity of many nationalities, Asian Americans that practice arranged marriages seem to be unsuccessful? Marriage is a commitment filled with trust, love, respect, empathy, acceptance, and commitment. Love and attraction does not come to a human within one day of just meeting someone you have never known in your life. Usually in the Middle East couples are not allowed to date because it is considered a sin. however in today's society things have changed to a more modernized time where as some parents recommend one to two dates just to get a feel for what the opposite person is like. Instead of falling in love before marriage couples tend to fall in love after marriage because both peoples relation grows and comes stronger. In arranged marriage people go with the mind, information acquired about the person, assuring that a person will be taken care of for life. i feel as if arranged marriages are still being conducted so that the tradition of arranged marriages dont break for the upcoming generations. American born Asian's should not get arranged marriages due to the differences of lifestyles to an individual born and raised in the Middle East. Are these arranged marriages just to keep faith in the cuture?

Advertisement in today's society

Advertisement in today's society is to sell us what we don’t need, to sell us values, and to sell us concepts of normal. There are three significant aspects for advertising: 1) A persuading selling message, 2) prospects for the products or service, and finally 3) at the lowest possible cost. The first aspect deals with how to persuade people in believing that the product that is being advertised is absolutely salutary. The second however identifies which target group the commercial or the ad will be advertised to. Finally the last phase deals with the economical issues like how low the products price has to be in order to grasp the customer's attention. Advertising is designed for one purpose - to sell. To achieve this goal, advertises are willing to stretch and distort the truth, just to convince people to buy their product. In many cases, an advertiser may convince buyers to purchase their product by stating that it has been tested and found superior. In reality, the product is not likely to be better than any other. Our moral values are being degraded by the bombardment of impropriety by the media. The media and advertising images display what is perceived to be the perfect life. The models are beautiful and slim. Their bodies are fit and the couples are sexy and if you do not have the beauty or the sexy body, the advertisement have the products to fix it. The images on screen can make you feel like a failure if you are not beautiful, fit, the perfect car, and have the ideal mate. A lot of people do not have the perfect body, nice teeth, long hair, and nice abs. The media makes you feel that if you don’t have those things you are not beautiful or have the perfect body. A lot of times when you see someone else with the perfect body you get down about yourself. It kills your self esteem and you’re depressed. Sometimes it motivates you to turn your body into that perfect body. But majority of the time you’re jealous and afraid to show your body. When you’re out in public sometimes you might think the public see you as fat, lazy, and all you do is eat. We know in today’s society that most of the crap on screen is bogus, but for some unknown reason we rush out to buy the products or gadgets reaching for perfection. The media makes you feel if you live on the wrong side of town you are dysfunctional. The media also makes you feel that if you are overweight you are lazy, but don’t worry you’ll die soon unless you buy the muscle drugs to melt away the fat. There are cumulative effects of the media. Teenage girls that are fat and overweight have poor self esteem due to all the thin slim females’ models that are in shape. Young male thinks sports and sex makes them popular. Because the media plays a role in the life of everyone, we are constantly fooled with idealistic things that make life better. As a result, we are always trying to take the next step to get that one perfect thing.

Skin Color

When we were talking in class about different races and how poeple of certain races are treated differently here in America it reminded about how there is still discrimination among races themselves when it comes to skin color. I noticed in almost every foreign country light skin is always more preferable than dark skin especially for women. Men can still be found attractive if they are dark skinned but women on the other hand are considered ugly if they are dark. I think every skin color is beautiful and should be embraced by everyone. I've always encountered dark skinned men as well as light skinned men and they are both equally preferable. I've also talked to a lot of people who are intimated by lighter skinned people. In India, there are a plethora of lightening creams available for young girls to use and get a tone preferable to Bollywood actresses. It is unrealistic and absurd for everyone to be the same skin tone, and it should equally attractive and not discriminative in any way. I was watching the Tyra Banks show and it showed African Americans that were dark skinned and light skinned. Some of the light skinned people actually thought they were superior to dark skinned people. This was shocking because I did not know this existed in the United States. I went to the beach with some friends and they were passing the sunscreen with an SPF 75 to prevent themselves from getting darker and i found it very amusing because i thought they were using it to prevent themselves from getting sun damage. However, they did not realize the concept that being naturally dark was not something to be ashamed of because every color is natural and beautiful, a god-gifted color. Overall, as the quote says, "You can't judge a book by its cover," similarly, a person should not be judged by his skin color, and should be judged by what is inside.

The Man, the Legend

Michael Jackson was a legend. He accomplished so much in his personal life and was an icon of peace and love for his vast fan base spanning decades. One thing that struck me in is untimely death was that the news hounds did not rest in spilling dirt about him. It wasn't bad enough that they smeared his name when he was alive, but in his death they shed "light" on his alleged other son. I sat and looked at many of my friend's statuses on facebook around the time of his death and he touched so many of their lives. Listening to radio shows, so many callers phoned in to say how it was Michael who helped them carry on when there was no more hope or reason to keep going on. I didn't look to Michael like he was a spiritual leader or something, but his music demonstrated to me that the love and peace he sang about was possible. Even though there is war and poverty, he taught that we as a society had no right to turn our backs to injustices going on in the world. It's sad that he passed due to (now ruled a homicide) drug-related complications. Was he the King of Pop? Did he indeed surpass Elvis Presley? We might never know. But one thing is certain: Michael Jackson rocked the '80s and '90s.

"choose life your mother did"

I never understood why so many girls get abortions. I don’t understand why they can’t just use protection or get on birth control. I know and understand things happen but there are ways to prevent it. I feel as though people don’t have right to take life. I was driving today and I saw a bumper sticker and it said “choose life your mother did” and I was like damn and it really got to me because I felt like women don’t realize why they are here because their mothers didn’t choose to abort them and I feel like many people don’t see that. Girls have sex and get pregnant and certain situations come up like money problems or problems with parents which are understandable but why in the first place would you go have sex knowing the outcome. Everyone is educated about sex through middle school and high school. They are taught about different ways to protect themselves. I think people think abortion is the ok because it makes life easier for them. Abortions are not always safe they are harmful to the person that gets one it could cause a person to become sterile and not have kids in the future. I understand there are situations where it would be ok to get an abortion like if a girl was raped and she got pregnant and she didn’t want to keep the baby because of the pain it would cause her emotionally and mentally. There is also if a female is pregnant and the birth of the baby is going harm her or the fact there is something wrong with the baby. There are situations that abortion could be used for that are humane but I don’t think abortion is the right thing because when life is created it is not meant to be taken. It’s for it to grow and have life.

President Obama's school speech

so many critics were so worried about the presidents speech and I just thought it was ridiculous. Republican politicians were saying that the president would use this time to talk about his "liberal political agenda". Why would he do that? This speech was intended to inspire and push kids to take responsibility for their schoolwork not to sway them to one political view point or another. ( http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/ )I think it's crazy that schools and parents were completely opposed to having their children listen to the presidents speech. He's the president of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Maybe your child is slacking in school and this speech would inspire him to do better. I don't think it should matter whether or not you like the president, he is a smart man, in the highest position of power trying to help our youth get inspired to do better, to want more, to never give up. People these days are not looking at the facts and forming educated opinions, they just jump on the bandwagon of the political party they belong to or the views of their parents ect. On that note, what has happened to having respect for our president? I never liked Bush but I still respected him because we voted him into that position and he was my president.

the so called independent female

This may sound a little sexist but growing up in Africa i learned that a females role was really just to cook, clean, take care of the kids, and stuff like that. I also learned that females that were not at that stage of life yet were suppose to start developing characteristics and traits that would help them in those task. But when i came to America, i saw that it was different here. Females out here have a bigger role in society but with that being said they still exhibited the characteristics of a female with the goal of motherhood and all that comes with that. But that was then and this is now. the female of the present day is a whole different being all together. females now days like to refer to themselves as divas, boss, and "miss independent". Diva is said to be a female version of a hustler, while miss independent is a female that doesn't depend on males for anything. she got her own house, her own car, her own, and does what she wants whenever she wants. I'm not saying all females are like this but i would say from my generation down this is all what they striving for. At first i didn't mind the whole movement of the new female till it start effecting me personally. So not to long ago i start talking to this girl right. At first I'm like man this girl bad, cool, smart, and funny; So I'm sitting there saying to myself ima wife her. So one day i ask her how would you describe yourself in one word. Tell me why this girl called herself a diva. So being the nice guy that i am i chose not to hang up on her and i asked her how would she describe a diva. She started by saying as beyonce would "a female version of a hustler". then proceeded to say "I'm a boss, i do what i want whenever i want. i don't need no dude for nothing but for some fun every now and then. and sometimes now even that."and eventually she finished by saying" if he don't like it then he can leave, ill get another one". So the whole time while she talking I'm telling myself there is no way the girl just let those words come out here mouth. like here got this smart, beautiful girl , with a mindset of a dude. yo someone please tell what these females are thinking...