Global Issues

I am amazed at the number of charity sites there are available today that help alleviate world hunger, from simply clicking, to playing vocabulary games, the majority of the sites that I found are free to the general consumer. But, I wondered, how does this work? Well, I did some research to find out, and it’s quite a good idea.
These charity sites make money the same way that Google and other search engines make money, through advertising! One can “Fight Hunger with a Click” as http://www.thehungersite.com claims by clicking the big button and opening a page that has many icons from sponsors. What is great about http://www.thehungersite.com is that it is also in direct relation to the breast cancer, children’s health, literacy, rainforest, and animal rescue site. This entire network allows you to help six causes without letting go of a penny! On top of being able to contribute to these worthy causes without donating, an interested help giver can also shop on http://www.thehungersite.com. This is something I’ve done myself very much, and all of the profits raised go to either the Mercy Corps or America’s Second Harvest. This site also offers to send you daily reminder emails so you to help you find the time to give for free to fit your busy schedule.
Some other sites that are games that test your vocabulary and trivial knowledge include http://www.freerice.com, where each vocabulary word you get right donates 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program, and http://freeflour.com, which tests your knowledge of trivia to donate a few grams of flour for every right answer. Not only are these sites great for some semi-educational entertainment when you are bored or procrastinating, but they help provide the hungry with essential carbohydrates (rice and bread) all on advertising money! These sites are a great way to alleviate world hunger.
One more site that is similar to http://www.freeric.com and http://freeflour.com is http://www.freepoverty.com. This site is dedicated to providing clean water for those who have to walk miles to the nearest source. In this site, you play a game where you try to guess where the city is on the map of the world, and depending upon how close your guess was, up to ten cups of water can be donated for each guess.
A child dies every five seconds from hunger, we, upcoming generation, can put an end to world hunger, but the most important ingredient to solving any problem is action. Everyone can contribute to this worthy cause, and it doesn’t cost a penny.

I live in a suburban area. I know that I should be grateful to live here–one of the the safest cities in the country, maybe the world–but yet I can’t help but feel dead and lifeless here. The concrete and planned communities and shopping districts with fountains and green grass lawns drain me, tire me. I hate the artificiality of everything, the way I have no connection here with the earth, the way I have no idea what the landscape would look like if there were no buildings. I hate the fact that people keep green grass lawns and never use them, keep green grass parks and never walk in them. And the fact that the green grass lawns and parks are an affront to the nature of things, they shouldn’t even exist–we live in a desert climate where it rains only about a week out of the year. I like going out into Arizona and New Mexico, out into wide open spaces where people’s homes blend into the landscape, cohere into a bigger picture. Here, everything is constructed and artificial and disjointed–nothing really makes sense. It’s sick and grotesque. It fills me with a sense of sorrow and hopelessness. A sense of loss.

How many of you live in a place like this? Please describe to me where you live. Do you feel that when you look around you, you can see a natural landscape? Or is it planned and artificial? Keep in mind, just because you see plants and trees does not make it natural. For instance, where I live, there are many green parks and lawns, but these are completely unnatural, considering that I live in a desert climate. In light of our state’s current water shortage, it seems excessive to use so much water keeping our lawns green (especially when it seems that so few people these days even enjoy them; people maintain their lawns using timed sprinklers, and rarely go outside - parents are at work all the time, and kids spend their time on video games or the computer).

There are many positive things about the place I live: it is safe. It is clean. For the most part, people are kind and respectful of each other. It is racially diverse. But nevertheless, I think the artificiality of the area contributes to a sense of artificiality in our lives. There is a lot of waste here that goes on - consumerism is very much in vogue.

I’d like to hear about the environment you live in. What does it look like? Where do you go when you feel like connecting with nature? Can you describe what the natural landscape is like? What kind of ecosystem do you live in (do you know, or does the concrete cover everything up)? What are the positive and negative things?

Elise made a post on one of my other entries that reminded me of the subject of censorship. She pointed out how it is hurtful to use certain terms like “gay” and “retarded” to criticize things. But when she posted, the words were starred out (like this ****) as if it was an expletive. Clearly, whoever set up this blogging website felt (correctly) that words like that can be offensive. However, is this going too far? Elise was using the words in an appropriate and sensitive way, yet she was censored.

This brings up many questions.

 1. Should certain words be censored, no matter the situation? So far, I’ve seen many people’s words be starred out like that, and the only result is confusion and frustration - it’s hard to read. None of the censorships seemed truly merited or necessary. I could imagine a situation in the future where maybe someone said something truly offensive; however, that has not happened yet. And perhaps if it happens, we can take them as individual cases and edit them as necessary when the time comes.

2. Should words ever be censored? It is one thing to allow people to use offensive-type words as long as they are not being used offensively. It is another thing to allow them to use them in a truly offensive way. Do you think people should be able to say offensive things and not be censored? Please think carefully and consider the fact that different people find different things offensive: if we censored everything around us that we found slightly offensive, no one could say anything. So when is it appropriate to censor someone’s speech, if at all?

 Please give this your serious thought. It’s a huge issue in our society today. Just recently, a  boy was arrested for protesting in front of a Church of Scientology. He held signs that called them a “dangerous cult”. What do you think? Is it right that he was arrested? After all, he is offending people’s religion. It could be your religion. Your friend’s religion. Would you like someone calling your church a cult and standing outside making your religion look bad? Then again, we live in a free society. So isn’t it okay to let people offend you once in a while, no matter how frustrating it may be to you? Isn’t it right to let them voice their opinions, no matter how backwards? After all, if everyone’s opinion gets heard, not censored, not hidden away, then all viewpoints get a fair share of the spotlight. If an idea is bad, silly, or offensive, then perhaps it will fade away on it’s own, simply because people have been able to hold it up to the light, evaluate it, and see it for what it is. When you censor people’s words, this takes away the opportunity for others to make this kind of examination. Things get shady, grey, muddled up.

What do you think?