• http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=34174

• http://saigonecho.com/eng/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=938:testimony-of-rev-john-tran-cong-nghi-on-international-religious-freedom&catid=57:featurednews&Itemid=119
• http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,,,VAT,,4f55c6bc11,0.html
  

For our English class we are doing a “you and the world” project, for my topic I chose abortion.  Now a day’s in the United States abortion is legal but it is still a topic that raises a lot of controversy. Over the years there have been many debates on whether or not a women should or should not be able to make the choice on whether they want an abortion. As a fourteen-year-old girl this issue becomes one that is close to home. Not because I have ever been pregnant nor have I ever had a need for an abortion, but it brings up an issue on a larger scale of civil rights for women. A mere century ago women gained their civil rights in America, what does it mean when the government starts deciding what we can do with our bodies? Have women taken three steps forward just to take four steps back? My blog will focus on what it means to have an abortion in America, and whether or not it should be legal for women to make the decision on their own. 

In every state in America it is legal to have an abortion. Whether or not it is accepted, or even accessible is a different story. However this wasn’t true 30 years ago, but it all changed with Roe V. Wade which was a Supreme Court case in 1973 that legalized early term abortions. Abortion was legalized but because of the cost it is still difficult for many to get it, it can cost any where between 350 to 1000 dollars. Only 17 states in America provide funding for poor women who want abortions. For many this still makes it difficult to go through with abortion because they are living in low-income households.

            Most women who have abortions get them because it isn’t the right time for them and because of situations that they don’t want to put a young child in. For this reason 52% of women who get abortions are under 25. Being 25 it is difficult to afford it and that’s why organizations like Planned Parenthood are important because most health insurance companies don’t cover abortion or contraception. Over the past years in a study done by the Washington Post an increase in the percent of people who think abortion should be legal has risen. However there still is an issue on the underlying issue of how the government feels about it.

There are those that believe that law enforcement resources are being wasted and statistically speaking most drug users never get caught. In the efforts of wasting less resources on drug trafficking the government should spend more money on those in need of treatment, rehabilitation, education and training programs. Enforcement of marijuana laws are expensive, 6 years ago 500 economist supported for legalization of marijuana because prohibition costs $7.7 billion per year. Taxing marijuana could prove to be profitable. "The federal government should decriminalize marijuana and tax the revenue" A study done by Fraser Institute found that both legalizing and taxing marijuana can produce a considerable amount of revenue. Which is quoted by a reporter from Fraser and Institute.

Furthermore, needless to say the enforcement of marijuana laws are just cruel. First offenders who are among the 700,000 Americans arrested for possession yearly who are fired from their jobs and taken away from their families then placed in to the prison system, that turns first time convicts into harden criminals. Research has also shown that marijuana a drug that is not legal is far less harmful then alcohol and tobacco, both legalized. Marijuana has been repeatedly proven not to cause cancer, heart disease, brain damage, liver disease, emphysema, or any other health issues. It is not harmful to the body. In fact it has been proven to be less harmful then legal drugs. Both tobacco and alcohol cause over 700,000 deaths per year combine while marijuana has never been responsible for a documented death. There is evidence that suggests marijuana causes impaired short-term memory loss, however new studies show that the impairment is caused by THC's link to a previously misunderstand enzyme in the brain. New studies on how marijuana interacts with the brain may help to treat Alzheimer's disease and Epilepsy. 

     My topic for the "You and the World” project is Genetic Testing: A New Improvement In Our Lives Or A New Era of Social Injustice. I specially chose this topic because I am fascinated by my own identity based on my DNA. To first know myself is an essential step to interact and associate with other people based on the knowledge of my personality, behavior, and etc. 

      Imagine you could one day look at your genome straight from your tablet. This scenario was thought to be an inconceivable task decades ago. But, as the Human Genome project took an remarkable achievement in humanity, sequencing genomes is possible. But, it would took $350,000 and an extensive time to sequence one genome. But, everything was starting to change as new technology made sequencing genomes faster and less costly (less than $500). It may gave rise to an era about self-acknowledgement or, is it? 

      Biotech companies, like DeCode me, and 23andMe placed a feature called the odds calculator to predict the possibility for that individual to contact certain diseases. To avoid these risks, people will adjust their lifestyle, prevent, and ask for treatment before the illness strikes. It means that people’s health rates and life-expectancy of the world will increase. However, sometimes people could not distinguish from possibilities that have countless variations from facts. Therefore, resulting the individual to be overwhelmed by results that are tested by only a fraction of their total genome.   

    There is a Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) that guarantee security and privacy for all people’s genome results, but who will stop the economy from choosing the best people into their companies, colleges, athletes, and etc? Even with the protection of the GINA, will it prevent any and all future possible invasions of privacy toward genetic information as this technology become more and more popular and efficient? Will we proceed into the society featured in “Gattaca”?

   You in The World Project

Our English class project is called You and the World. This project is for us to get interested in events that are current and research information about an issue and tell others about it so we can educate ourselves and other people. We have to post our information on our blog and debate about our topics with the class.

My issue is how hard it is to found a job. There are alot less job openings in the U.S. today. The number of job openings in U.S. declined again in December. There was a decline in the economy, it was usually 4.5 to 5 million open jobs in America, now there are only 3 million. The U.S. economy is supplying an extremely low number of jobs. The government said that there were only 36,000 jobs added in January. Although an upgrade 150,000 jobs per month is enough just to keep up with our population growth. We begin to fall farther and farther behind.

All across the nation, state and local governments are swiftly cutting jobs. Government jobs use to be considered some of the safest jobs accessible, but now all government jobs local and state are facing terrible budget crunches. Actually it has gotten so serious that some cities are cutting their police forces by up to 50 percent.

Recent college grads are having a hard time finding a job.  Today’s graduates understand how bad the economy is now and how hard it will be to land their first meaningful job. Those who graduated between 2006-2008, their salary was $30,000 but for recent grads it has dropped to $27,000. According to Kate Helfrich a graduate from Case Western Reserve University, says “ I’m definetley feeling a little anxiety regarding the loan payment. You hear about programs that offer loan repayment and sign on bonuses, I don’t feel like we’ve seen that as much since the recession hit.” Bridget Coyle, who is also a graduate, wants to be a social worker, but this desolating unemployment rate is making it extremely tough. Besides this she is still very confident.

One idea of reducing unemployment is to break the cycle. There are many ways to break it.  One way is to provide government funding to companies who are becoming bankrupt. Another is get involved in technology because that is now in demand of our industry.

Bibliography:

Video, Slim Job Growth In April

Click here for more information.

 Click here for my bibliography.

Women and girls take up most of the trafficking victims, but that’s not to say that trafficking is not a real threat for everyone. In fact, there are more slaves today, an estimate of about 3 billion, than in any other time in history. While some people would immediately say that they couldn’t see any reason that this would ever happen, the trafficking industry takes in about $32 billion dollars of yearly profit. In fact, money is primarily the reason for trafficking. Poor families often sell of their young girls to rich family members or brothels in order to make some money. 

Human Trafficking is a real issue for everyone in the world- nearly every country is involved as either a country of origin or destination. Not only that, but also only one person gets convicted for every 800 people trafficked.

So why did I immediately think of human trafficking? Well, many reasons. I’ve already been involved in campaigns to end this horrific occurrence. One of the organizations that I’ve researched, and donated to, is the Not For Sale campaign, which essentially raises awareness and money to save victims of trafficking around the world. However, more recently, my good friends uncle created a movie called “Horse & Rider.” The film was created in partnership with Freedom Firm, which is another organization dedicated to rescuing victims of human trafficking, specifically those of sex trafficked victims in India. The film follows the stories of two girls who were rescued from the trade, and are now in a rehabilitation center. I was asked to sing on the soundtrack for the movie, along with a few other girls, and it was a great experience to get connected and proactive in the fight for the end of human trafficking. I realized that human trafficking is a huge issue across the globe, and no one is safe from it.  

So now we know what human trafficking is, and how big of an issue it is. But how can we help? What can we, as citizens, do? I think it’s also important to think about what has been done already, how far has that gotten us? How much improvement has this cause seen, and how much can it expect to see within the next few years?

So we all have to pick an issue to write about that we want to change. The issue I want to focus on is corruption & censorship. Both are connected and worldwide issues happening sense the beginning of time. People are changed, frightened, affected, killed, abused, misled, and hurt because of these issues. Has anyone ever even tried to stop corruption in jobs, education, homes, and government?

 Corruption is basically when others, a place, an object, a belief, or television changes people.

 Censorship is just when something is blocked off to someone based on their age, gender, race, etc.

-For those who want detailed and brainy definitions:

Corruption is spiritual or moral impurity or deviation from an ideal. In economy, corruption is payment for services or material, which the recipient is not due, under law. This may be called bribery, kickback, or, in the Middle East, baksheesh. In government it is when an elected representative makes decisions that are influenced by vested interest rather than their own personal or party ideological beliefs.

 Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication, which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body.

Political

State secrets and prevention of attention

Religion

Educational sources

Copy, picture, and writer approval

Creative censorship

Self censorship

Books

Films

Music

Maps

Internet

Types of corruption:

Politics

Police

Philosophy

Jobs

Education

Etc.

Many think that corruption is awful and censorship is moral. The thing is, both of these are decent and terrible. Nothing is ever all good or all bad. Food is fine if you eat the right ones and the right amounts. If you eat too much or the wrong ones then it becomes a problem.

 Corruption is unpleasant if it hurts others but all right if it’s to protect someone. Censorship is fine if you’re keeping 5 year olds from watching adult swim but it’s dreadful if you’re taking advantage of being able to censor something. Why isn’t censorship enforced all the time? Why do some parents use too much censoring?

Trayvon Martin was a 17-year-old boy walking back from the store with a hoddie over his head with a Arizona and a bag of skittles in hand. According to the Los Angeles Times, the watchman of their gated community (George Zimmerman) had saw Trayvon looking suspicious. He then approached in the 17-year-old in his vehicle with bad intentions. Zimmerman was also on the phone with 911 at the time and reported that Trayvon looked to be a “real suspicious guy” a “black male” walking around. The police told Zimmerman to back off, but he then took it into his own hands. He approached Trayvon Martin armed, and from there on, they got into a fight. In the end, Trayvon Martin ended up dead, while George Zimmerman had a few cuts and bleed from the back of his head. Zimmerman was charged with 2nd degree murder after several months of investigating. 

 My personal opinion on this case is that it was a racist act of violence. Nowadays, it’s all about the survival of blacks. I agree with the quote Trayvon Martin was killed by a stereotype. George Zimmerman is just the guy who fired the gun. - Leonard Pitts

 Trayvon was un-armed; there was no reason for Zimmerman to shoot. If they got in a physical confirmation that all it should’ve been. If Trayvon was a different skin color, I think the situation would have been different. I feel as though Zimmerman felt over powered and couldn’t beat Trayvon cause he was so much bigger than him that he had to use a weapon. I also think that people shouldn’t be targeted because of their race, but that’s apart of racism. There’s nothing we can do about it. People are going to be racist if they choose to. Trayvon Martin was killed by a stereotype. George Zimmerman is just the guy who fired the gun. - Leonard Pitts

    
The Scene where Trayvon Martin was shot.                                   

    
Trayvon Martin's body being carried to the 
                Funeral home

 
 Million Hoodie March for Trayvon Martin.


                    Trayvon Martin

     
              George Zimmerman