Marissa’s Ideas

How To Deal

Into the October night, as her breathing halted and resumed, they explained how they met in Texas, though both were from Minnesota, and that they fell for each other at first sight. “And we told her that we’ll let her go,” Mrs. Kilibarda said, “and that it’s O.K. to go.”

How do you tell mothers and fathers that their new born child, with-in days, or hours, their new, precious child is going to die.  Complicated problems that can’t be reversed, serious conditions that can’t be altered. No one knows how to fix your child, what do you do?  What do you do?  Traditionally, doctors and nurses dealt with babies born with fatal problems by taking them away from their mothers , and fathers, to die. But in the 1970s, a movement began offering parents another way to deal with the death of a child at birth, by acknowledging the grief they feel and, creating family and spiritual rituals around a stillbirth or early death.

    “I tell them this will shake up their relationships with their family and friends, it will shake what they believe about the world and their faith,” said the Rev. Peter Lund, a United Church of Christ minister

There alterantive ways to abortion.  Some may be harder thatn others. Hospice is giving families a way ato change their view on their new-borns death.  Death is never easy, but at least this a way to “cope” with death.  You never know what lesson you can learn from such, horrible, and disasterous events.

LINK TO ARTICLE 

Alcohol is Becoming A Factor

“He shot up some contractor’s rental car,” said Phil Cave, a lawyer for Specialist Lillis, 24. “He hopped in a Humvee, drove around and shot up some more things. He shot into a housing area” and at soldiers guarding the base entrance. Six months later, at an Army base near Baghdad, after a night of drinking an illegal stash of whiskey and gin, Specialist Chris Rolan of the Third Brigade, Third Infantry Division, pulled his 9mm service pistol on another soldier and shot him dead.
Alcohol, which is strictly prohibited in the army is becoming a problem. Crimes involving alcohol are increasing as the time the troops are in Iraq increases. Their are 240 cases which involv a roughly equal number of drug and alcohol offenses, although alcohol-related crimes have increased each year since 2004. Despite the military’s ban on all alcoholic beverages — and strict Islamic prohibitions against drinking and drug use — liquor is cheap and ever easier to find for soldiers looking to self-medicate the effects of combat stress, depression or the frustrations of extended deployments, said military defense lawyers, commanders and doctors who treat soldiers’ emotional problems.
This is a srioius problem in our army. Is there another way for our army to relieve their stress? They are in the middle of no-where, and they don’t know if they are coming home or not. Not only that, but they don’t know if they will wake uop in the morning, everything and anything is possible. they don’t get to see what is happening with their families here. They hardley get connection to their world, their familiar world. And not only that, but they may not even be supported here. But these aren’t excuses, they are just observations. Maybe they should be allowed to come home, to get back their mental health, because in Their foreign territories, they aren’t in such a good shape.

LINK TO ARTICLE

Learning is Easier!!!

Scientists studying how sleep affects memory have found that the whiff of a familiar scent can help a slumbering brain better remember things that it learned the evening before. A rose bouquet — delivered to people’s nostrils as they studied and, later, as they slept — improved their performance on a memory test by almost 15 percent.

Scientists have always thought that they could speed up the process by which students learn their material.  But not only have they sped up the process by which they learn, they are also making it possible for us to remember the info. better.   

this article is very exciting for students, in a way.  It may become easier, and easier for us to learn, and keep what we learn longer.  It is a long schooling process that we face, and knowing that peple are trying to make it easier for us is good.  I don’t think that we will find all the methods they discover to be help-ful, but we may find it to help-ful. 

LINK TO ARTICLE

To Have, Hold And Cherish, Until Bedtime

        Not since the victorian age have architects seen so many “orders”  for two master bedrooms in one home.  Sociologists, and even the couples themselves say it has nothing to do with sex.  They say  it is mainly about different sleeping patterns.  One may be off to the gym, on the computer, or working.

       In a survey in February by the National Association of Home Builders, builders and architects predicted that more than 60 percent of custom houses would have dual master bedrooms by 2015.  What could be called the home-sleeping-alone syndrome is not limited to the wealthy. For middle-income homeowners, it may be a matter of moving into a spare bedroom, the recreation room or the den.

     I found this article very surprising.  I thought that sleeping in the same bedroom with your spouse was very important.  I can see the benefit of sleeping in another room, especialy if your spouse is keeping you awake.  I am pretty sure that I will be sleeping in the same bedroom as my husband, but if he was constantly keeping me awake… he would hav to go 🙂 ! 

LINK TO ARTICLE

Next Generation Buisnesses

“Family Hands Off Its Buissness, And Its Philosophy”, is a good read.  Louis Padnos Iron, and Metal Comapny, is going through a hard time.  The Family-owned buisness has the owners, who are in their 50’s, and they want less hours, but the next generation from their families are only in their teens.  So they hired six men who will train to be like “Padnos”, trained to act the family members, until the teenagers can manage the buisness.

 This article is a good read.  The Author tells us the facts first. And then the dillema that the family is facing, and at the end of the article the author tells us what the family is doing about it.  It is written very readable (if that’s a word)

The Author write in a very professional tone.  I think that the article could be more expressive about how bizzare this is, if the author wrote it from the teenagers point of view?  It is written to any reader who is interested in running buisnesses.  I reall liked the article, it shows us we may be able to find a ceative solution to a difficult problem.

Link To Article

New Airport X-rays?

This was a very interesting article.  “New Airport X-rays Scan Bodies, Not Just Bags,” is an article about how airport security is using another method, rather that what they call the “pat down”, to check for weapons, or liquid bombs on a person.  The Machine they are using is as comparable to the size of a vending machine.  The person steps inside, and a picture pops up on a screen it’s  a picture of whats under your clothes.  The machine takes focus off the unique contours of your body, that way it will be less personal.  The public has not been forced to go into the machine at airports, but it is being used as an option. 

The main point of the machine is too make our airports safer.  The machine has a program on it that intentionally blurs the picture projected so that you can see a collarbone, but not the contours.  But the pictures on the site seem very revealing.

I think that this is an alternative for people who are not totally comfortable with the “pat-down” search.  But it seems as though a ‘picture” could be worse.  The picture on the screen takes the focus off the contours of your body, but they are still present.  It could be awkward for someone to see.   And It may be a violation of our rights, it’s almost like a strip search?

Link to article

We’re All different in Our Own Way, by Joshua Yuchasz is a great essay.   Joshua talks about how he is different and why we should always be accepting of other people’s diffences.  Joshua grew up with a differnce about him that other people may not have he has Asperger’s Syndrome.  He knows what we would see as “random facts”. 

This is a reflection of good writing because Joshua Uses his real life expiereince to support an opinion of his, to be okay with being different, and accepting deifferences.  He tells us what he believes in a story that is interesting to read.  It also has a “flow” to it that allows us to read without wondering what is going on.

     This is a great piece because we sometimes forget how precious differences can be.  We may label Joshua as a “weirdo” but this man has a story.  He stands up to people who want everyone to look a certain way, who want simalarities.  Joshua tells us why accepting other people is so important.

This I Believe

“There Is No Blame; There Is Only Hope” an essay by Ann Karasinski is one of my favorites.  This essay is how Ann struggles with her daughter’s heroin addiction.  She expresses what any mother might express, who is there to blame?  Her friends?  That may be the case, but Ann decides to lame herself.   Ann talks abou thow she tried to “fix” her daughter,  how she became a drill sargent.  Ann says she drilled the 12 steps into her daughters head.  But it doesn’t work, but then Ann figures it out.  She knows that the only thing she can offer her daughter is love.  So she does.  She doesn’t try to fix her anymore, only love her.

      This piece is good writing because it is so open.  You can see how Ann struggles, she is like a regular person.  Ann never makes excuses for her daughter.  Ann tries to fix her daughter, the same way that we would try too fix our own daughter or our friend, but can’t.  We feel her pain. 

     This is a good ” This I Believe” piece because it is something we can relate to.  Not exactly the problem but we can relate to the struggle.  We all have had a problem that we can;t do something about.  Just loving someone is a good message and that’s a good piece to write about.

Anna Nicole Smith

Anna Nicole Smith.  Drama, drama, and more drama.  But Anna has left a child alone on this earth, and that child doen’t have a mother.  Not only that, but her little daughter doesn’t even know who her father is.   

Anna Nicole Smith’s autopsy was performed this morning and the police held a press conference saying there was no evidence that her death was a crime. The medical examiner said no pills were found in her stomach, although the final determination of the cause of death will take another three to five weeks. He did rule out any physical injury, such as blunt force trauma, gunshot wounds, or asphyxia (meaning she didn’t suffocate to death on her own vomit), and said the death could only be attributed to natural or chemical causes.

This article is personal to a reader.  The writer wants to clear Anna’s name, so no one can say she overdosed, or committed suicide.  It seems as though the author wants  us to Anna as a regular person.  Which she is, just that since she was famous, her life got smeared across the magazines and around the gossip news.  I think that the audience for this piece are readers who are interested in Anna

A Woman For President

The Home of the Brave, and the Land of th Free, America.  A place for equal opportunity.  So how is it that we have never had a woman president, a minority president, a non-Christian president?  I have no clue.  But America is taking a step forward.  A woman president at Harvard University.

“Feb. 9 — Harvard, the nation’s oldest university, plans to name Drew Gilpin Faust, a historian of the Civil War South, to be the first female president in its 371-year history, university officials said Friday.  Mary Waters, the acting chairwoman of the Harvard sociology department, said: “It’s been a lonely place for women, very lonely. There aren’t many of us.”

I really liked this article.  This is great news if you are a woman.  Women have always been the people to clean, the people to stay home, but not anymore.  We have come so far in this day and in this age.  Harvard is a very prestiges school and for a woman to get the postion is taking a giant step forward in  society. 

Link to Article