Our Youth Today

Before I get started, I will be away for the weekend and will continue posts on Monday morning (or Sunday evening if I am not too tired).   Moving onwards.  There seems to be a distinct disconnect from a good portion of our youth today from the world around them.  While this is not indicative of all youth, (lets focus on pre-teens through teenagers here) there does seem to be an increasing number who are not aware of those around them and show a lack of civil behaviour towards others.   Now I know that teenagers are rowdy, love to have fun and can be a nuisance to those around them from time to time, but there are ways this can be done while still being at least somewhat aware of how their actions are impacting those around them.  I was a teenager once along with everyone reading this, but it seems that when we were younger, we at least held a higher modicum of respect for others and generally tried to be disruptive only amongst ourselves. 

Last night I volunteered, as I do every Thursday evening, at a soup kitchen in New Haven feeding the homeless.  Every week there are a few regulars there accompanied every week by a different group.  Most of the groups that come have teenagers that assist in serving the food and cleaning the tables after people are done eating.  Some of the regulars who volunteer are in fact students at my wife's high school.  These "regulars" are driven, respectful individuals who do not stop working till everything is done.  In fact, I would consider them more adults than teenagers in their actions.  The other group last night had a few teenagers there who were absolutely clueless.  They did fine serving the food from what I could tell, but after they were done, they sank into their own little world and seemed to use the eating area as their "playground".  They would half-ass the cleaning of the tables, leave tables uncleaned completely because they were oblivious, and in general just got in the way.    If someone were walking between tables, they wouldn't even move if you said "excuse me."  (Am I being overly picky here, yes, but a little decency and awareness of others around you is always appreciated). 

Unfortunately, I see this more and more when I run into teenagers.  While there are those that are outstanding, there are others who are just so self-absorbed that they convey a lack of respect.  In general, there seems to be a diminishing ability on their parts to interact with others an a substantive level.   There are many causes for this; one being a distinct lack of parental influence in their development, and two, a reliance bordering on obsession with their technology (cell phones) to connect them to others.  (There are other influences, but lets stick with two for now.) 

In regards to parenting, there is still an overwhelming desire on the parents part to see their children succeed, but when it comes to dealing with personal or school issues, they seem unable to confront their children about it.  They would rather sweep the problem under the rug, not deal with it, or blame it on others when the root cause is mostly their lack of involvement.  Part of the issue comes when parents have to work extra long hours, whether by choice or by necessity, and don't make the time to talk to their children, teach them about respect and responsibility, and help guide them through their tumultuous teenage years.  Will teenagers listen to parents, not all the time, but by being there and talking to them every day, they are more likely to unconsciously learn from their behaviour.  If all they have to go off of is their peers behaviour and what they see on TV, it is no wonder that they show a general disregard for others.   Parents need to be involved in the raising of their children and can not just rely on school to teach them everything.   Yet it seems as adults get more disconnected, so to do the teenagers who they are raising. 

Cell phones and the internet, fantastic innovations and, these days, a necessity to living life for most people, has driven a wedge between individuals and their ability to communicate in depth with their peers.  Conversations have been shortened to "tweets", texts are easier than phone calls, and sitting on the computer has become easier for most people that sitting down around a table with a group of friends and talking.  While this new technology has increased the overall interconnectedness of the world and brought people closer together virtually, in actuality, it is slowly driving people on a personal level apart.  Adults are more capable of handling technology recognizing that human interaction is still a vital part of every day life, but the people it affects most are the teenagers.  In their developmental stage, they take in everything, whether it is good or bad.  When they see the world walking around with a cell phone glued to their hands, staring down at the screen in complete disregard for others, they follow suit and on some level come to believe that this is the way the world runs. 

There is no way to eliminate cell phones and technology, nor would I advocate doing so, but it leads back to parenting.  Parents need to be ever more vigilant in how their children use technology and the effect it is having on them.  The groundwork must be laid early to cultivate our youth into outstanding citizens.  Some parents do this, but their numbers seem to be diminishing.  While I advocate more involvement of parents with their children, I do not however advocate involvement to the point where their life feels controlled.  There is a fine balance that must be struck during a child's teenage years between lack of involvement and overbearing.   Ultimately it is up to each parent as to how they will raise their child.  All I am saying is that maybe some parents need to review how they are doing things and take a more vested interest in their child/children.  Simply by showing more interest in what is going on in their lives can make an impact. 

Ultimately, teenagers will be teenagers.  They are rowdy, fun-loving, eccentric, hormone filled visages of future adults.  Lets not take away their youth, it is the only chance they have to act as they do, but let us try to instill a sense of respect and responsibility both for themselves and for those around them.  If we truly want to change the world, it starts with the youth.  We can make changes amongst ourselves and others, but if we do not change the mentality of the youth, our world will continue unchanged because our youth will remain unchanged from who we are.   They must ultimately choose their own path through life, but we can help guide them, offer advice, and be there for them to fall back on when they slip.  Lets all have a little more respect for ourselves and others.

Totalitarian Iran

The Middle East and North Africa have been embroiled in protests, demonstrations, and an imminent civil war in Libya.  Yet the one country we hear about only briefly through all of this is Iran.  Have they had some protests?  Yes, but they have not lasted more than a day and then the news snippets about them go away.  Is the problem still there?  Absolutely.  Iran has an entrenched President, suppossedly democratically elected back in 2009, yet he shows no signs of leading a democratic country.   Those who ran against the current president claim the election was rigged and that is the only reason that he was able to get re-elected.   It seems that unfortunately, the police and security forces are doing an excellent job of killing any protests soon after they begin.  They inject themselves into the protests, blending into the mob, and as soon as someone begins protesting, they are dragged into a van, beaten, and taken to a prison.  There is no freedom so to speak in that country unless you voice your opinion in concert with the president and the powerful religious leaders there.  If you are looking to run a totalitarian state, Iran is the example to follow.

Part of the problem stems from the utter lack of outside information available to the people of Iran.  All that they receive is created and distributed by the government, an explicitly anti-western establishment.  They call the protests western influenced sedition movements and plots against their country.  Similar to the fact that Iranian citizens have limited or no accesibilty to outside media, the rest of the world also has very little knowledge of what is actually going on in the country.  Do we get news from there, yes, but it is limited in its scope and most of it is recieved through individuals and the internet as foreign journalists are explicitly prohibited from even entering the country.  

The biggest issues behind the protests at this point seem to be the imprisonment of the opposition leaders, those that ran against the current president in 2009.  Without access to their leaders (who some in the government are calling for their execution), the protests are feared to be lanquishing.  However, the protesters return, only to get beaten and imprisoned again.  Part of the issue that the protesters have is congregating in one place.  The security forces sometimes are larger than the number of protesters and essentially lock down cities, preventing people from accessing central points and from forming a cohesive group.  They also attempt to keep everyone in check, consistently downplaying the effectiveness of the protests, the size, or the effect it is having on the government. 

So how do we approach Iran.  Unfortunately, outside of offering our support for the protesters, it is very hard to do much.  The U.S. already intervened back in the 70's, and look where that got us, not very far.  To try and even inject a modicum of humanitarian assistance is futile with the veritable lockdown of the country against any foreigners.  What we can offer is ideas and suggestions in hopes that they receive them and can unify a movement against the government.  First, as much as they support their opposition leaders who have been imprisoned, their leaders are not effective without the ability to communicate from behind bars with their supporters.  It is necessary to find a new leader, one who can embody their ideals and unify them in secret.  A force of protesters must be built up that exceeds the number of security forces in place if they are to succeed.   This must obviously be done "under the radar" or else the government will get the upper hand and put security forces in place before any protest begins.  Granted, these are ideas are not easy ones to actually fulfill or carry out especially with big brother watching over everyone's shoulder.  There is also such a divide in the different levels of society that to breach those would be another major undertaking.  The protests must move beyond support of the arrested opposition leaders and move to support freedom of speach, and other freedoms that people enjoy in a democratic nation.  These are the ideas that can galvanize a resistance movement. 

They do have the internet there and they do have some access to outside information as someone from Iran has actually read a post on my blog.  Lets offer them support, give them ideas to run with, and help them anyway we can to oust their current government lead by President Amagonnapoop.   Someone, who as a leader of a country, can deny that the Holocaust even occurred, should have no right to lead that country.  His whole way of governing is based on mis-information and fear.  Those can only last so long before more and more people realize what they are missing out on by living in a free, democratic society.  Lets put our collective voices together and help them make a difference.  If you are reading this, then don't just read it, post a comment and start some discussion amongst your peers.  Unless discussion is started, whatever is said here will fall silently into the depths of the internet, unable to inspire or affect anyone.

Women, Media, and Weight Loss

The image of women as portrayed by the media, fashion, and Hollywood has changed drastically from even 50 years ago.  Back then, women were portrayed with wider hips, more voluptuous curves, and overall,  they were actually representative of the general population, i.e. they weighed more.  Today, the image portrayed by fashion and Hollywood is one of an almost skeletal frame, super narrow hips, and an enhanced bust line.  The media heightens this by pushing this image in front of us any chance they get along with "new and magnificent ways of losing weight."  The most unfortunate part about this is that the youth of this country absorb this heightened media image of a 90-110 pound woman as the de facto image they should strive to become regardless of the effects.  To be fair, not everyone buys into this, but it seems difficult not to do so when women are constantly bombarded by these images.  Just take a look at Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus, etc. whose ribs are almost popping through their skin.  On top of not being healthy, they are flat out being poor role models.  They themselves buy into this image portrayed by the media and other outlets. 

Some of the scary side effects of women and girls buying into this image are the eating disorders that can be associated with losing weight, anorexia and bulemia.  These women and girls, after finding it admittedly difficult to lose the weight through diet and exercise, turn to starvation and binging and purging as options to make sure that they remain skeletally thin.  This depletes their bodies of necessary nutrients leading to possible organ failure, depression, or death if left untreated.  The media however, only briefly touches on these eating disorders and instead continues to portray these skeletal women as role models.  (By media I mean TV, magazines, internet, and newspapers.) 

Over the past few years, there has been a new diet program that has been gaining popularity even though no studies done support its efficacy.  This program involves a 500 calorie diet combined with daily injections (performed by the patient herself) of hCG, a fertility hormone.  It is speculated that this hormone assists the body in getting rid of fat from unwanted areas.  However, all scientific studies done show that the main effect it has is one of a placebo effect.  The hormone itself does not actually aid in losing the weight, the women taking it just believe it does and thus continue on their 500 calorie diet, losing the weight on their own.  The other half of this, the 500 calorie diet is fairly close to starvation.  The average person eats between 1800 and 3000 calories a day.   This hormone/diet program is not even that affordable.  The initial cost for one visit and a month's supply can range anywhere from $800 to $1200 dollars.  (Let me be clear, if this works for some people, go for it, I however would advocate against it.) 

This is just another in a continuous string of diet programs, weight loss supplements, and such that are effectively pushed to help women attain the ideal image.  Overall, the idea of weight loss is fantastic, but there are very simple ways to achieve it.  All I am saying here is that all these programs coupled with the media's portrayal of ghastly thin women as the "ideal" leads to a problem.  There are many women out there who don't know when to stop dieting, trying to take off and keep off as many pounds as possible.  Every person is different and there is no ideal weight.  Even taking 5 women of the same height, their ideal weight for their bodies will differ.  There is a standard portrayed where every person at a certain height and age must weigh a certain number in order to be ideally healthy.  Everyone is different and this must be taken into account. 

So what is the overall message here?  Weight loss is great, if done through natural means (obviously something I advocate), but women must be careful how much they buy into the portray of the ideal woman by the media, fashion, and Hollywood.  Get to a weight where you feel comfortable and do it at your own pace.  You have your whole life to lose the weight, why try and do it in 2 months, or even 6 months.  It takes some people years to get down to a weight where they feel comfortable and there is nothing wrong with that.  Especially in regards to weight, it is sometimes good to practice a little delayed gratification.  Once you get there, you can look back on the process with pride and a sense of accomplishment.  Do what is good for you, not what is good for everyone else.  Start leading a healthy life and don't buy into the "ideal woman".  There is no ideal woman.  There are only individuals who are fantastic no matter what they look like.