Gambling #2

In today's research I read through one my sources in depth from Gale Virtual Library about all the background behind gambling and the lottery. Within this database it linked me up to another article that was very interesting about a personal story from Tony McDew where gambling took over his life. McDew was a technician who was doing pretty well bringing in income, but he always felt that he needed to make more money to buy things for his girlfriend and have more spending money. This was when he turned to gambling as another hopeful source of income. As he first experienced playing on the slot machines he made some money, hearing the lights go off and goes spill down into his pocket. This glimpse of victory was only a bad turning point in his life as Tony became very addicted to this game and didn't want to stop playing. McDew never had any drug problems, but he explained the exhilaration of winning by saying, "it's like you're getting high" and this addictive lifestyle took over for him. He even went far enough to compare himself to a crack addict cause it was something he couldn't stop. He kept losing thousands of dollars playing these games and he had to make excuses to his wife as if he was jumped and robbed and that's why he never had any money as he was taking his paychecks straight to the casinos. Overall he lost over $35,000 and he is a prime example of the basis of the pathological gamblers he get addictive to this game and take a very negative turn in their lives. Though this billion dollar industry is helping the government in some ways with having more spending money, it is ruining the lives of many citizens lives in terms not allowing them to consume in the economy.

Gambling Post #1

Today I searched through several different databases to learn more about my topic of gambling and all the places it impacts from the people to the government. Overall I gathered together six sources today from many websites from the library subscription database to other great sources such as CNN and the Chicago Tribune. One of the websites that was very insightful to me was ABC-CLIO which talked about the economic side of gambling. The gambling industry is one of the most profitable business areas in the entire world and it is intriguing to see if this business will help or hurt the economy. It could go either way because on one side of it, the government will be able to generate billions of dollars in revenue and then they are free to spend it on necessary things that will help the country out. On the other side of it, the consumers will be losing so much money from the addicting game and then the consumers will not have money to spend within the market of the economy making the economies profits lower. Through ABC-CLIO they took the approach that this industry actually helps out the economy as more money comes into the economy instead of it staying with their consumers and allows the government to spend money of necessary things such as construction and maintaining parks. This sources believes that if there is more money in the government, they will have more money to build necessary things, that will help generate more jobs in these areas. This is just the beginning of my research, but the facts and analysis I learned from this one article has not swayed me to believe that gambling actually does help out the economy as a whole.

NBA Veteran Jason Collins coming out

NBA twelve year veteran center Jason Collins has came out today and announced he is gay becoming the first male athlete in professional sports to come out as gay while being active as a player. This is a monumental moment in the sports industry because when role models such as Collins have things like this all built up, it is hard for them to let out, as they are uncertain how the media and the rest of society surrounding them will react to it. In the article I read about this news off USA Today Collins said, "I even got engaged. I thought I had to live a certain way. I thought I needed to marry a woman and raise kids with her. I kept telling myself the sky was red, but I always knew it was blue." This shows he had some insecurity about living his life the way he should and just since it was the social norm to marry the opposite sex he believed back then he should do that. After the news was surfaced all over the media he got major support from athletes all over the country supporting him and his decision to stand up for himself and be his own person. Collins who played this last season with the Washington Wizards also got much support from their organization, and as Collins will be a free-agent this offseason it will be interesting to see where he goes from here. It might be weird for some of the players to hear about this news, but you can do nothing except support someone like this who was the courage to do something like this as an active player so i'm sure he will be able to stand up for others in a similar situation that he was in.

School shooting's continuing to occur

About 30 minutes ago I just heard the news of a student who pulled out a gun in his classroom and attempted suicide in the classroom when shooting himself.  The investigation is going on currently trying to find out why this student decided to act upon himself inside a classroom and his intentions around it. The only news they have gathered so far is that the student was not trying to cause any harm to anybody else besides himself as the students all gathered in a separate room crying. The kid is at a hospital currently in critical condition where they are trying to keep him alive from this shooting. There are several problems involved in this case one being gun control that has been a major issue in the United States. The U.S. has more deaths by shootings than any other country in the world and this is partly because of the easy access kids have to guns. President Obama and others are trying to make changes to prevent these tragedies from occurring by making the gun laws more strict in a push to make citizens feel more safe. The other issue raised here besides gun control is the mental health of Americans. Many citizens in this country have mental health problems, but are not given the correct treatment to help them deal with them, which can lead to them acting out making them threats to society. In part with health care, it should include mental health as well because it as just as much as a problem as the regular situations health care covers. With these mental health problems involved in many U.S. citizens it is causing them to have horrible thoughts making them feel self-conscious, leading them to do horrible things like this and attempting suicide just like this kid did. President Obama has a lot of problems on had and he needs to make a strong push to stop tragedies from helping and solve the issues of gun control and health care.

14 year-old professional Phenom

With The Masters golf tournament starting up yesterday continuing through Tiger Woods has not seemed to be the major headline of the tournament, rather 14 year old golfer from China Guan Tianlang makes history as the youngest player to ever compete in a major golf tournament. Tianlang was the winner of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship which helped put him in this position to be able to compete with the best players in the world in this tournament. To even think about a kid playing in this tournament at my age of 18 is crazy, but the fact that this kid is in eight grade and has not even experienced high school is unbelievable that he is competing a such a high level. On top of being the youngest to ever compete in this golf tournament, he amazed many viewers yesterday as he played unbelievable on his first day in the match shooting a 73 just one over par putting himself in place to qualify to making the cut. He has already surpassed all the expectations on the first day by playing this well, so if he makes the cut that would be a remarkable accomplishment. He only weighs about 130 pounds and he is able to crush the ball with his drives putting him in position for success which is so impressive. I will continue to watch this tournament over the weekend and no matter how Guan does in the rest of the tournament he will still be the headline story. I am excited to see where this kids future goes starting at such a young age and from this start he might go down as one of the best golfers of all-time if he can keep up the work and live up to his current hype.

 

Hidden Biases

After looking over my results from this test it showed that I have a moderate preference for European Americans compared to African Americans. When looking at this data I am not very surprised by the outcome because in today’s society whites are more associated with good characteristics and blacks with bad ones so I think it was first nature for me to react in this way even though I feel that I do not have any bias towards one race over the other. Dating back to the days of slavery African Americans were always seen in a negative aspect and given the labels are lesser human beings associated with bad reputations. Now that slavery is over there are still the stereotypes for blacks that they are involved in gangs and crime laying a horrible image on their culture. I feel like this test cannot be an accurate interpretation of bias just by this game being played by everyone as it seems like most people will get similar results whether they have racist opinions or are neutral like I am.

When analyzing this page covering the stereotypes and prejudices that occur around the world every day, people have to understand that to have these stereotypes are much different than discriminating against others. People might have some opinions about race just because of how people are perceived in society, but there is a huge difference when people actually express their beliefs by singling out other races. This discrimination is all derived from the prejudices and stereotypes and are the building blocks that make people act on their opinions and discriminate against certain culture groups. As seen in the media people always try to exaggerate the truth and that is what starts all these stereotypes, prejudices, and biases, so after reading this page I have realized that the mass media is a vital piece to the reasoning of all these reputations for certain races. Hidden biases can make an impact on how I act because though I may not believe I have these biases, based on how things are perceived in the media and in society I naturally have these opinions and can force me to act in certain ways when being around these groups of people.

After taking this test from Harvard University it has given me insight to the reasons people are still so segregated today just like it was shown in the film “I Sit Where I Want”. In this film many students tried creating a movement to desegregate the seating arrangements in the lunchroom so that there were a variety of races sitting with each other instead of all the groups at the lunch table being separated by their race. The information I learned today has helped me discover why these people where not really able to make a change to who they sit with due to the hidden biases that everyone has. Since all the races where sitting with each other every year at lunch they felt more comfortable being around their race and since they didn’t know much about other races because of stereotypes they had if scared them away from trying to open up their horizons and interact with the other races. I think people need to try and block out all the stereotypes they have towards certain races and cultures and give them a chance because if you open up your opportunities and try to learn more about other cultures it can help eliminate the negative hidden biases and help to meet more people, creating a larger range of friends

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Lil' Wayne in Coma

On Friday March 15th the news came out the YMCMB rapper Lil' Wayne was found in a hospital in critical condition after he suffered a serious seizure that caused him to be in a coma. This story was completely blown up all over the media as TMZ reported that Wayne was in a near death situation and this news erupted all over the social media of Twitter and Facebook.  Dr. Michael Privitera, a professor and the director of the Epilepsy Center at the University of Cincinnati Neuroscience Institute explained that these seizures could happened for various reasons. In Wayne's case it was believed that this occurred due to the overdose of strong prescription drugs like codeine, in which Wayne is notorious for abusing. Wayne has had previous incidents of a seizures in the past, but nothing serious has happened from them like the one from this weekend. YMCMB President Mack Maine was very angered with the media coverage of this story when it was reported his fellow rap artist was near death as the media blew up the story and exaggerated some of the facts. The prescription drug of codeine cough syrup has been popular in the rap industry as one of the drugs that has been abused and there have been concrete evidence of this drug having an extreme negative effect on the body as former rapper Pimp C and DJ Screw both died from the overdose of this drug. The main problem here is that these rappers know the negative affects of this drug such as seizures that could lead to death as it has with the prime examples of former rappers. If this incident to Wayne doesn't stop him from abusing this drug, then I don't know what will because as he was reported to be in a coma and near death it should show him the signs that death could be upon him if he continues this path. Hopefully this story will make a difference to some of the drug abusing that is going around the world and make a stop to people torturing their bodies like this.