Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Organ Donation Shortages

I read Anna’s blog about Organ Donations. In the blog, Anna discussed how she believed people should get incentives to donate their organs and I agree with her. She believes that if people get money in return for their organs, more people would be willing to donate their organs or a dead family member’s organs. Anna stated that there is a large organ donation shortage; because there are more people being put on the organ transplant waiting list everyday and not enough organs are being donated to keep up with this growing list of patients in dire need of help. A majority of the population already agrees with this statement and believes that incentives should be offered to people willing to donate organs. Although, not all people feel that providing incentives will fix this organ donor shortage. Some people feel that just because there is an incentive doesn’t necessarily mean that the number of donations is going to increase. She then said that she lost an uncle who was waiting for a liver transplant. So, I agree everyone should go to the DMV and get an organ donor sticker on their driver’s license. Because according to the Congressional Kidney Caucus, up to 14,000 people who meet the criteria to be an organ donor die each year. However, less than half of those 14,000 people actually do become organ donors. Although it is tragic when anyone dies from not being able to get a transplant, it is more tragic that almost 10% of those in need of a transplant are less than 18 years old. Something needs to be done about these organ shortages, because we can’t just let hundreds of people die, when there was a cure that could have saved them.

Intervene Now!

The United States and the United Nations are not stepping in to protect the minorities of the world. While the US and UN step back and don’t take the initiative to intervene, lives are systematically and brutally lost because the world remains silent on one of the most critical humanitarian issues of our day-genocide. The situation in Darfur and other genocide incidences are indeed desperate and the UN needs to review its past actions and current policies in addressing organized mass killings. Since, the UN has failed to intervene in these tragic genocides, the international community needs to generate different solutions to stop and prevent genocides from occurring. The day the world becomes silent about the things that matter, innocent lives will be taken. If people start supporting nonprofit organizations like the Darfur Australian Network and other genocide groups that care for the people who have been victimized by genocide, the world would be that much closer to eliminating genocide than if people petition for the world forces like the UN to intervene. Because it has been made apparent that the UN is not going to intervene in any cases of genocide, as seen in the Rwandan genocide and so many of the other cases of genocide in the past. The UN has proven it is not to be entrusted with such serious matters as intervening in genocide and saving peoples lives. By backing independent organizations, like the Darfur Australian Network, that can really make a difference in these victims’ lives. Also, through definitive action and cooperation genocide can be stopped and the public can help prevent any future genocides all together. Because truly, lives end when people don’t take the initiative to care.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Attractive Perfectionism

The L’Oreal Paris Company has Eva Longoria as one their spokes models for their cosmetic and hair products. The L’Oreal Company’s motto on their webpage featuring Eva Longoria is “A beautiful woman has confidence and strength of character.” Eva exudes these qualities and yet is she really an expert on cosmetics and hair products? I’m sure Eva doesn’t know the chemical makeup of her foundation or for her blush. However, she does know how to look good on camera and show off the product well. If you watch any of her L’Oreal commercials on sites like youtube, you can see all the comments that are mentioned afterwards by the viewers. Most of the comments state how perfect she is, how stunning she or how they wish they could be her. So I don’t have to guess about the success of having Eva as the spokes model for L’Oreal, because just from looking at the comments after the L’Oreal commercials online it looks like the L’Oreal is getting the kind of response they wanted. They were hoping to capitalize by attaching the success of Eva Longoria to their product and it has worked. Since the products are they are trying to sell are on how to enhance beauty, Eva is a good endorser for the L’Oreal Paris Company. Because enhancing beauty is what the company is all about and Eva is a beautiful person and demonstrates how their product will make average people have star-like qualities with their products. L’Oreal Paris was smart to pick her as their model, because so many girls aspire to look and have the success that Eva has and they think if they us the same cosmetic and hair products they too will look like that and have just as much success as she does.

Heated battle of the systems

Socialized medicine moving to the United States has become a heated topic in recent year political debates. Some people are all for the government paying for the healthcare of its citizens, because they claim that this system would be cheaper than the private healthcare system the US has now. While other people are strongly against the government funding healthcare systems. The article that supports a socialized medicine plan has some strong and compelling arguments with a lot of other sources to back up their arguments and ideas. However, some of the data is not backed up by any evidence. For instance, US citizens dying on the emergency table because they could not afford healthcare doesn’t have any articles or proof to back up his theory. If he could retain this evidence his argument could be even stronger. The article that is against socialized medicine doesn’t have any articles or data to back up the philosophies mentioned making his arguments weaker than the pro-socialized medicine article look stronger. Although some of the ideas behind the arguments are good, the ideas can’t be trusted because there is no supporting evidence to back them up. So while both articles state what the counter-arguments are and then continue by refuting these arguments, only the pro article has evidence to stand behind its ideas. If I were to rely just on the articles alone, I would lean pro-socialized medicine, but I would never make a decision that big based on two articles that I have read. I also have more background knowledge about the topic working in the healthcare field. The majority of the healthcare industry is against socialized medicine, because the industry would be losing millions of dollars if the system were changed to a socialized system. My mind hasn’t moved one way or the other after reading and considering both sides of the story on this issue.