Yesterday, Today, and Beyond

In the United States, people of many diverse backgrounds develop different kinds of relationships. People of different races, ethnicities and cultures interact in a variety of ways within communities throughout the nation. Americans have become accustomed to attending school, working, shopping, attending religious services and many other daily activities with people who may not look like them. Romantic relationships are more likely to develop between people of different races and ethnicities the more people are integrated in society (Wu et al. 733). This makes logical sense, since someone is not likely to marry someone he or she has never had the opportunity to meet or interact with. As neighborhoods, schools and workplaces become more racially diverse, the opportunity and likelihood of interracial romantic relationships increase. Although society as a whole may seem more accepting of interracial relationships and marriage, resistance to them often stems from within families. Accordi...

Dallas is a large, bustling city that is full of history and well known throughout the nation. As with any metropolitan city in the United States, there are many opportunities for individuals and families to thrive. Like most large cities, Dallas is also prone to higher rates of poverty and crime. There are many aspects of life that someone wanting to raise children may want to know about any city they would choose to raise their kids in. Dallas is a truly multidimensional city, but is it a good city to raise children?  There are many factors that would make any city a promising place to raise children.             One of the first things that may come to mind when raising children is education. Do the public schools in Dallas prepare students for life after high school, whether the student chooses to go to college or start a career? Dallas Independent School District (DISD) reports that it educates about 160,000 students ev...

The Logic of “BUG CHASING AND GIFT GIVING:  THE POTENTIAL FOR HIV TRANSMISSION AMONG BAREBACKERS ON THE INTERNET” I am very interested in the phenomena of bug chasing and gift giving.  This is not a term I had ever heard of before.  Bug chasing is when someone looks to get infected with HIV on purpose.  A person that knowingly wants to give someone HIV is known as the gift giver.  This concept seems so bizarre and foreign to me because I had always thought of HIV and AIDS as a very negative, undesirable and deadly disease.  I looked on the internet and found out about this phenomenon and the terminology surrounding it. The main purpose of “BUG CHASING AND GIFT GIVING:  THE POTENTIAL FOR HIV TRANSMISSION AMONG BAREBACKERS ON THE INTERNET” was to explore the prevalence and possible reasoning behind someone intentionally becoming infected with HIV (Grove and Parsons 2006).  Since bug chasing and gift giving is a relatively new idea, there have...

Chimney sweepers in England in the 1700’s were exploited young children (often orphans) who were sent into scary dirty chimneys to do hard manual – eventually fatal – labor for very little pay.  In Williams Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience , he describes the lives of chimney sweepers in two separate poems by the same name – “The Chimney Sweeper.”  Each poem comes from a different perspective, that of innocence and of experience.  Blake’s condemnation of society and religion is plain to see in the two poems.  Blake makes us take a hard look at the lives of these young children and the impacts of society and religion for these children. “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake, shows how vulnerable young children were exploited by being forced to clean chimneys at a very young age.  In “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence , the children feel like it is their “lot in life” to do this hard work, but they have...

Wallowing in complexity is a concept of giving a lot of deep thought to a complex question.  It involves coming up with a question first of all.  Also, the problem must be thought of from many different angles and different ways to address the problem than may initially come to mind.  Wallowing in complexity means that you can look at and analyze your questions from at least 2 different perspectives:  yours and the opposition, but possibly even more perspectives.  This concept involves understanding the history, context and important facts about your question.  Wallowing in complexity means opening your mind to many possible outcomes.  You may need to do research or conduct studies to attain more information about your complex question.  By doing these kinds of high level thinking and delving deeper, you could change your own mind or the question itself may be changed.  Wallowing in complexity is a great tool to basically have an internal di...

It is important to consider your audience when writing because that will frame what information is relevant to the reader and what may be superfluous.  I used to work for a transportation company.  If I were to write using abbreviations and other jargon related to big rig trucks, most people would not understand the meanings.  I remember when I first started that job; I felt like I was reading another language.  I think Mr. Rogers was a person that was particularly skillful and attentive to preparing for and speaking to his audience.  He chose words and explained things in a way that a young child could understand, yet he did not talk down to them.  He was really pretty amazing in the way he could talk to children in a normal respectful way, yet explain concepts that were sometimes very deep.  The more research I have done on Mr. Rogers, the more I have come to appreciate his wisdom.  He once received an award and was called up to speak as he rec...

In Tim Urban’s “How to Beat Procrastination” blog, he defines procrastination literally as “the action of ruining your life for no apparent reason.”  Although this article is entertaining and can be quite funny, the ultimate tone is serious.  Urban deduces some harsh consequences for the procrastinator “to become enslaved by a self-defeating, self-fulfilling prophecy” of continuing to do things that just don’t work and don’t help him or her to achieve his or her goals.  He likens the procrastinator to an addict; the person wants to change and plans to change, but just can’t.  Urban shares some very disturbing sentiments:  the things that must be done will be rushed, stressed and not done very well; and the things you really want to do will either be started and not finished or you will not even try to start.  Urban wants to help us understand the pitfalls of procrastinating and what we can do to work towards beating procrastination.  He uses every ...