Obesity

America spends as much as $147 billion annually on the direct and indirect costs of obesity. In the year of the most recent CDC study, 2006, that made up 9.1 percent of medical spending.  That is ridiculous.  Republicans and Democrats fight over what healthcare will save the government the most money but they ignore one of the biggest costs.  Obesity.  Millions of Americans in this country are overweight or obese (66 percent of Americans).  That is ridiculous! Look to your left and right.  Two out of the three of you will be overweight or obese.  The problem is not genetics when 2/3^rd of the population is overweight.  It is a cultural problem.  The government needs to take action to control this epidemic.  If it doesn’t Americans will have shorter lifespans and drown America in medical debt.

The first step needed by the government is the affordability of vegetables and fruits.  A dollar in this country can buy well over 1000 calories in potato chips.  With the same dollar, I could only buy 250 calories of carrots.  I could buy 900 calories in soda for the same price as 250 calories in orange juice.  This is ridiculous.  We are advertising unhealthy food by price.  Poor people as well as average Americans are more likely to buy the cheaper calories, regardless of nutrition.  This is a big reason why Americans are consuming so much fat and calories.  The salad is more expensive than the potato chips.  If the government stoped subsidizing corn, and started subsidizing vegetables, more people could afford healthy, nutritious food.  The greater availability of nutritious food would lower obesity rates, lowering the overall cost in healthcare.

The other problem with our culture is the workplace environment.  Too many Americans are spending 10 + hours a day at the computer!  That is an astronomical amount of time to be sitting.  Your body is meant to stand, move, and exercise.  With little movement or physical activity, your body starts to weaken and require fewer calories.  Your hunger level doesn’t go down at the same rate.  As a result, you gain weight.  This is a harder problem to solve.  The ultimate result for curing workplace laziness is standing and working.  Standing burns twice as many calories as sitting.  Workers who don’t want to stand can try a big rubber ball.  When sitting on a ball, you constantly use muscles to maintain balance.  This burns energy and keeps your body active. 

I will continue this post next week.    

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Respect

          You need to do a lot of different things to gain respect.  Respect comes in many different forms.  It can be physical or mental.  I nod of the head or just a thought. All signs of respect.  Before you get respect though, you have to respect yourself.

          Self respect is how you hold yourself, confidence, and pride.  Don't show shy body language.  If you hunch you shoulders and keep your head down, you look weak, and not worthy of respect.  Dress on how serious you want to be taken.  A suit looks a lot more serious than a t- shirt and shorts.  Looking professional is usually the first step to getting respect.

          If you work hard at what you do, you can gain respect.  You can gain respect by doing your job well.  If  you want respect in a certain area, you must try your hardest in that particular area.  People will see you hard work and determination and give you respect for doing it.  Being lazy shows people you don't care, and that you shouldn't get any respect.

          Helping out can also give you respect.  If you show that you are helpful, and can be trusted, people respect you.  They will come to you more often for things they can need done.  In return for doing it, you get more respect from them, and they put you in higher standing.

          All of these things can give you respect.  None of them are guaranteed to give you respect, but all of them make you more likely to receive respect.  In short; Dress nice, have confidence in yourself, work hard, and help others and your chances for receiving more respect will be very high.  

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Essay for Ap Lang

Humans consistently use wooden-headedness in all affairs.  It is so common, that psychology has coined a term for it: conformational bias.  Conformational bias is defined as looking for evidence to support your claim while spontaneously ignoring evidence that opposes your claim.  In the work place, managers often have wooden-headedness when considering candidates for promotion.  This phenomenon is also prevalent with religion when people refuse to accept any other notion, sticking to their previous beliefs.  Another example of wooden-headedness can be seen in government.  There is a constant flow of affairs that is affected by wooden-headedness.  It plays a huge role in all human affairs.

 

Managers in the work place can definitely be seen using wooden-headedness while making decisions.  Suppose the manager and candidate A are really good friends.  Candidate B is better qualified than candidate A and has also done better things for the company.  These facts do not give candidate B the automatic promotion.  Often times, a manager will give the promotion to his/her friend because the manager sees candidate A in a better light than candidate B.  The manager is seen using wooden-headedness.  Candidate B should have received the promotion but didn’t receive it because the manager didn’t base his decisions on facts and qualifications.  He chose the person for the promotion based on preconceived fixed notions. 

 

People are consistently seen using wooden-headedness in religious affairs.   Wooden-headedness in religion happens often when people of contrasting religions try and communicate their beliefs.   People of all religions are guilty of this.  When a Jehovah’s Witness comes and preaches to people, most people tend to ignore them.  They keep their preconceived fixed notions that their religion is the accurate one and the Jehovah’s Witness are wrong.  These people choose not to listen to evidence that is opposed to that of their preconceived fixed notions.  They would rather keep their beliefs and ideals the same than listen to people who have contrasting opinions.

 

Government officials are seen using wooden-headedness on multiple issues.  There are multiple examples of when government officials have used wooden-headedness.  Republicans often vote no on abortion because of their preconceived fixed notions.  They do not listen to the Democrats opinion on why it is ok to do.  They refuse to accept the concept and stick to their preconceived notions.  Democrats tend spend too much on entitlements.  Republicans do the same thing when gay marriage policy comes up.  They don’t listen to the facts and opinions contrasting their personal views.  They ignore them and vote on their ideals. 

 

Wooden-headedness is seen in all human affairs.  Managers in the workplace use it when choosing someone for a promotion.  People of religious faith can use it when they are talking to someone of a contradictory religion.  Government officials are seen using wooden-headedness when policy that is against core values is brought up.  This common phenomenon is seen in all human affairs.  People want to be right and will ignore facts and opinions of the opposite view to maintain their preconceived fixed notions.    

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Taking Responsibility

     People should take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities for their nation.  If everyone took more personal responsibility, it would lead to change and improvement to the community.  If people took more initiative to solving national problems, they would feel more involved and rake initiative to get laws passed in Congress.  Finally, more responsibility will give people a more accomplished feeling in their life. 

     Often times people are more involved in their own problems than the problems of their community.  This leads to people taking less responsibility of their community.  It is called the social loafing effect.  It is summed up pretty much in one phase:  Someone else will do it.  If everyone took more personal responsibly for their community, the community problems would be carefully addressed and the community would have multiple solutions to choose from.  The options could be discussed and the community could use the solution that gave them the best chance at solving their problem.  The more people in the community who care, the better the community will be.   

     When people take more responsibility for national problems, the problems get solved faster.  If everyone lets Congress know how they feel on the issues, Congress could make accurate, informed decisions based on the peoples wants.  Congress could stop arguing and just turn to the people and ask them what they want.  It would lead to a faster, more democratic way to solve national problems. 

     People feel a sense of accomplishment when they solve problems.  IT makes people feel fulfilled and that they have a purpose to their life.  People who feel fulfilled are less likely to commit crime and have a higher life expectancy.  Less crime promotes for a better society and less community problems.    

     People should take more responsibility for the community and for national problems.  It helps solve problems quickly and efficiently.  It also gives people a sense of purpose and fulfillment.  More responsibility promotes for a better society and a higher quality of life.

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Time Wasting

     Some teachers have the wrong priorities.  They spend the first ten minutes of class lecturing about how much time we waste of hers.  We talked for 20 seconds after the bell rang.  She talked for 10 minutes about wasting time.  Doing the math, we would have to talk 30 times in her class to equal the 10 minutes she wasted.  Some teachers focus on controlling their class.  They feel if the students are totally cooperative, they will have an easier time teaching them.  This is true but total cooperation comes at a price, resentment.

     Time wasting is an interesting subject in school.   We spend 35 minutes walking to different classes.  Is that a waste of time?  Teachers give work time for students when the work can obviously be done at home with no teacher help.  Is that a waste of time? If students come to school to learn, why waste their time with useless rants and time fillers.  Instead, if teachers can’t muster up a decent lesson plan, tell us of a life lesson they have figured out the hard way.  Show the kids something they will use in the working world.  Talk to them about something that interests them.  The biggest resentment I see from kids is when teachers assign meaningless homework. 

     How do teachers instill the maximum amount of knowledge into kid’s minds?  This is the real question teachers should be asking.  The answer will vary from teacher to teacher and subject to subject.  Two traits are universal in instilling knowledge: humor and common sense.  Kids don’t pay attention in class because the material is not interesting to them or they are tired.  Humor keeps kids on their feet and paying attention.  It’s very hard to fall asleep when the teacher is making jokes.  Common sense is another necessity.  If your students don’t understand the material, connect it to something they do understand.  This concept is so lost in the modern teaching world.  The best way to learn new information is to assimilate it to something you already know.  In the thirst for knowledge, time wasters are detrimental to success.  Students waste time yes, but teachers are just as guilty.  Together, we can change to become more efficient and learn as much as possible.   

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Sushi House Server

Oye Vey.  That is all I can say about my first server experience at a restaurant.  There are so many aspects to waiting that people never consider.  Waiters work hard and have to get a lot done so people can just come in and eat. 

When I started training at sushi house, the manager told me to study the menu.  I spent the next two hours just staring at the menu, trying to memorize menu items.  When I finally had some of the names memorized with their corresponding menu items, I went up to start shadowing.  Needless to say, I had memorized the wrong types of things.  I needed to know what kinds of vegetables are in the food.  I had memorized all of the wrong things.  Damn.  The manager chuckled a little and sent me to the back of the kitchen to start learning the kitchen. 

The kitchen is straight forward unless you don’t know the menu, in which the kitchen is really confusing.  There are multiple waiters moving around, preparing salads, soups, rice, and entrée dishes.  The problem with learning everything is false confidence.  You think you know how to prepare curtain dishes until you make it and learn you did it wrong.  The scolding follows as you are shown how to do it again.  There are curtain ways to hold glasses and poor water and everything.  You have to do it their way.  If you don’t, the scolding starts again.

The hardest part about being a server is the technology.  Servers are supposed to know how to book tables, put in orders, separate sushi orders, hold dishes that take little time, print checks, print tip checks, and adjust tips.  There is so much the computer can do.  People always seem to want a special order for their meal.  Whenever someone asks for something special, it takes extra time to input the order.  Then, you have to go to the kitchen and make sure they understand what is different.  If you don’t, and the cooks mess up the order, the server has to pay (full price) for the meal.  Mess up one table and your night’s earnings are gone.

There is a lot of terminology among the waiting staff.  Most orders are shortened because customers order quickly.  Drinks are all abbreviated and even renamed.  The lingo can be a big much as a new trainee.  There was no warning or explanation with the lingo.  Use context and figure it out.  Thanks, that’s a lot of help.

In the end, the tips are worth it.  It is strenuous work that requires a lot of mental and physical effort.  Waiters work very hard and deserve the tips.  Trust me.  

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Commentary on Gun Rights Article. CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/americas/analysis-connecticut-shooting-mann/index.html

            

              This article really spoke to me.  I have researched quite a bit on the shootings and possible options.  There were ten options I heard: Strengthen gun laws, Keep gun regulations the same or relax them, Arm the schools, Improve school security, Cut down on violence in the media, Improve mental health care, Cover the families, focus on parenting, bolster kids’ social skills, and report it.  All of these have pros and cons.  This article spoke on the fact on arming the schools and gun laws. 

            Obama has been very conservative in his speeches about the action he will take as President.  When you look at the strings behind him, it starts to make sense.  He is a man of the people.  Gun rights and laws are split 50/50 on both extremes in this country.  “It would bring about another civil war to decide this problem.”  They are on the money on this one.  Recent polls show that the country is split on the issue.  They are on the extremes and butting heads.  Any big action will ignite uproar and chaos.    

            They also state guns won’t go away from our culture and PACs.  All over the country, ours shelves are stocked with guns.  It is a common item.  Many law abiding citizens take part in hunting, shooting, and collection.  There are also thousands of killers that own guns.  They said it would be impossible to take their guns away.   I also agree with them.  It’s valid.  A majority of people will hide their guns and protest until they get their guns back.  The issue is to split to take drastic actions in either direction.  The PACs, such as the NRA, also assure guns in our country.  The NRA started as hunting enthusiasts, but turned into one of the most powerful PACs.  The NRA succeeded in helping four out of every five candidates it endorsed in the 2010 congressional election.  An alliance with the Republican Party assures that they will never stop influencing elections.  There will always be a large opposition to strict gun laws.  That is why there has been a loosening in the gun laws in the past decade.  Most states allow people to carry their guns into most public areas. 

            The author suggests we negotiate with the NRA and Congress to ban automatic weapons and try and tighten gun laws slightly.  He also states that an increase in protection at the schools would deter possible assailants from a rampage.  If there was a rampage, the officer would be there to eliminate the threat.  Although it is expensive, I agree that there should be a cop with a gun in every school.  We live in a world of guns.  There is no feasible way to remove guns from our society.  We need to protect the children and make them feel safe.  The article hits the blunt reality that we can’t take away guns.  We can only protect the children.  Hopefully some action is taken.    

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