Daylight Savings Time

We do it every year; changing our clocks when daylight savings arrives. We wake up tired from losing an hour of sleep, but why do we even have daylight savings? Why do we still have daylight savings in the first place? The article End Daylight SavingsTime conducted a survey and asked people why they believed we still continue Daylight Savings. Many people answered, “To help farmers.” However, that is not the case as many farmers generally oppose the action of daylight saving time. Farmers must wake at dawn no matter what the time is or what the clock says, so they struggle to sell their crops to their consumers who do observe daylight savings.

Modern daylight savings did not begin because of farmers, but because of World War I. Germany was the first to implement daylight savings according to Time and Dates clocks were first turned forward at 11:00 p.m. on April 30, 1916. The purpose of daylight savings was to minimize the use of artificial lighting in order to save fuel for World War I. Many countries who were involved in the war followed in Germany’s footsteps and began to observe daylight savings time including many European countries and the United States. Many countries began to revert back to the standard time used before World War I. However, daylight savings was brought back again when World War II began when countries needed to save vital energy and resources for the impending war.

Daylight saving time is observed by over seventy countries worldwide; affecting almost one billion people every year. The beginning and end of daylight savings varies from country to country.

Although daylight savings may have been useful during World War I and World War II, today in the twenty first century it is not. It does not benefit anyone. It does not benefit us, as we lose an hour of sleep each year when we convert back to standard time. It does not benefit farmers and their working conditions but actually makes it harder for them to sell to their produce to consumers who do use daylight savings time. It does not save electricity. In fact when Indiana began observing daylight savings in 2006, there was a 1% rise in the use of electricity. According to the video: Daylight Savings- How Is This Still A Thinga study shows there is an increase in car accidents and work related injury the week after daylight savings has ended. So with all this you have to wonder why we still have daylight savings. 

Samsung Galaxy S6

Samsung Electronics Co. is trying to regain its competitiveness after Apple released its new IPhone 6 with bigger displays. The new Samsung phone the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge wraps around both the right and the left sides of the phone. This design is similar to the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge. However, the Note Edge only had the right side of the screen curved instead of both. The new Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Edge also use premium materials which changes the view of the phones as many believed that the phones appeared to look cheap with its plastic backing.

Some advantages to the curved screen are being able to check notifications by swiping the curved part of the display without the need to unlock your phone in order to check. The Samsung also lets you set up five contacts to have a specific color designation. If you receive a call from someone and your phone is face down on the table, the sides of the screen will light up the color you designated it. Another element which was changed in the new Galaxy phones was the plastic designs on the back, now the phones are wrapped in Gorilla Glass.

After the reveal of the new Samsung Galaxy phones, Samsung’s shares increased by as much as 3.8 percent or one million, four hundred nine thousand won which as the company’s highest since June twelfth, in Seoul, South Korea. The Galaxy S6 models will go on sale worldwide, including in China, where most consumers are beginning to want larger devices so it can be a phone and a tablet in one. Due to this, consumers in China have been purchasing the new IPhone, because the large amount of sales of IPhones in China, the Samsung Co began to decrease its sales. 

Apple tries to compete with Samsung by creating a wider screen and a thinner phone through its new IPhone 6 while Samsung has begun to create a phone with a cascading screen on both the right and left sides of the screen and using Gorilla Glass for the backing.

Valentine's Day

Whether you are in the Italian city of Verona and writing one of the one thousand letters addressed to Juliet, or one of the twenty two hundred thousand people who are popping the question of marriage, Valentine’s Day is going to cost you a lot of many if you are planning to buy a gift for that special someone.

The most popular theory about Valentine’s Day origin was when the emperor Claudius II did not want his Roman men to marry during a time of war. Therefore, Bishop Valentine took action, went against the wishes of the emperor and performed wedding ceremonies in secret. After the emperor discovered this betrayal, Bishop Valentine was jailed and executed. During his time in jail, Bishop Valentine wrote a note to the jailer's daughter and signed it “from your valentine”.

How do we celebrate Valentines? By buying expensive gifts that they would not buy themselves such as candy hearts, roses which die in two weeks after purchasing them, tacky Valentine’s day cards which would hold a deeper meaning if you made one yourself, and diamond jewelry in the shape of a heart.

According to Weau: Fun Valentine's Day Facts more than thirty six million boxes of candy are sold during Valentine’s Day and on average men spend 130 dollars on Valentine’s Day. About eight billion candy hearts will be produced, one billion Valentine’s Day cards will be bought, and 50 million roses will be given on Valentine’s Day.

A day to remind your partner and yourself that you both love each other is a waste of money economically; unless you are single then you can buy all the candy you want after Valentine’s Day when everything is half off because the stores need to get rid of their merchandise.

The Japanese Journalist beheaded by Isis

The beheading of the freelance veteran reporter, Kenji Goto by Isis is one of the many killed by the terrorist group. The United States of America reporter, James Foley and American-Israeli Journalist Steven Sotloff were among the various Westerners who have been murdered by Isis. Goto would often work with other filmmakers and Japanese television producers.

Freelance reporter, Kenji Goto

Isis, the Islamic Terror Organization, clams it has beheaded Japanese reporter, Kenji Goto weeks after they had behaded another Japanese hostage. The forty-seven year old journalist left Japan last fall when his youngest daughter was three weeks old. His wife, Rinko Jogo first heard from his Isis captors on December 2^nd. According to Rinko and others who had spoken to Kenji Goto, he had gone to Syria to try to save the other Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa.   When Isis first captured Kenji Goto, they demanded ransom money for his release. They demanded that the Japanese government pay two hundred million dollars within 72 hours of the video for the release of Kenji Goto.  However, negations changed when the Japanese government did not comply with Isis’s demands. An audio recording of Kenji Goto was released soon after.

The audio recording, which has surfaced online, was the voice of a person who claims to be Kenji Goto speaking in English. In the recording Goto stated that Haruna Yukawa had already been murdered by Isis and blames Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for not preventing Yukawa’s death. Goto also says that Isis has changed their demands instead of money; Isis wants the release of an attempted suicide bomber, Sajida al-Rishawi. Sajida al-Rishawi failed to detonate in a string of deadly terror attacks at Jordanian hotels in 2005. When Shinzo Abe said Japan would not give into terrorism and would not give into Isis demands, Kenji Goto was beheaded on Saturday.

Like many other cases where civilians are held hostage by terrorist extremists groups, the negotiations between terrorists depend on morals. Is it right to give into the terrorists and give them something they want such as money so they can gather more resources to become stronger and cause more chaos? Is it right to let an innocent civilian die when you know you can save him? When we all know that a life is precious, what’s the right thing to do?

The mother of Kenji Goto, Junko Ishido

Resources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2924582/Have-ISIS-beheaded-Japanese-hostage-Country-expresses-outrage-new-video-emerges-appearing-captive-holding-picture-fellow-captive.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31075769

http://nypost.com/2015/02/01/japan-mourns-journalist-beheaded-killed-by-islamic-state/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/world/middleeast/islamic-state-militants-japanese-hostage.html?_r=0

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/31/middleeast/isis-japan-jordan-hostages/

American Health Care System

Many people do not have health care and if they do it is usually privately funded by an employer. Some citizens do, however, have government funded health care.  

According to Heath Triage, in 2012 47,000,000 American citizens were uninsured in health care. In fact, the United States of America is one of the few industrialized countries in the world that does not provide universal health care to its citizens. However, many countries such as India, Israel, Japan, Taiwan, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Scotland, Northern Ireland, England, Wales, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, Portugal and Spain do provide universal health care. Many people believe the citizens of these countries have free health care because they pay more taxes for universal health care; however, that is not the case.

John Green explains in his video the United States of America spends more tax money per capita than many of the countries that have universal health care, and most of the people who have health care do so privately. Only about 28 percent of American citizens receive health care by government funding. The United States of America, like many other industrialized countries should be providing universal health care.

According to What makes the United States health care system so expensive- Introduction by Aston Carroll health care spending can be explained by wealth. When countries become wealthier, they begin to spend more on health care. However, the more money that is spent, the more you exhaust your resources such as the United States. 

The picture below depicts the large sums of money that is spent in the United States of America for health care compared to other industrialized countries.

 

Working on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time to spend with family. A time to spend with friends. Black Friday is a time of capitalism and consumerism. However, lately stores have been opening their doors earlier and earlier for the past years; meaning that more employees must spend their Thanksgiving Day away from family to deal with enraged shoppers.

According to USA Today a number of retails chains such as Target, Walmart, Macy’s, Best Buy, and Toys R Us are opening on Thanksgiving Day. Other retailers have decided to open on Friday (The Home Depot, Barnes & Noble, Hobby Lobby and Costco).

Everyone deserves quality time with friends and family, especially for those who work in retail with unpredictable hours. One Kmart daughter of a Kmart employee, Jillian Fisher, asked Kmart to allow workers to take the day off for Thanksgiving if they wanted to. However, one Kmart employee stated their manger told them, “Everyone must work Thanksgiving and Black Friday. No time off.” Employees have no choice and no say in the matter. International Business Times stated that in a report done by an Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll more than fifty five percent of employees working on Thanksgiving are being forced to work shifts.

We as consumers do not understand how much retailers and other workers sacrifice in order for us to enjoy buying luxury products that are on sale.  However, retail employees are not the only ones who must work on Thanksgiving Day. Jacob Davidson recently posted on article with statistics from an Allstate/National Journal poll stated one in four Americans who will work on either Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, or New Years Day. The twenty five percent of people who work on holidays make it possible for us to enjoy our time off. These workers included doctors, firefighters, policemen, and a retail techie.

We as consumers take Thanksgiving lightly. We’ll be standing in line for cheap electronics and other merchandise; stealing time away from the employees who work on Thanksgiving Day but want to be at home with their families. We should spend time with our friends and families creating memories which last a lifetime instead of purchasing material objects we’ll use for a couple of years and throw away after getting the latest model.  

Common Core

Common core was adopted in 2010, and was created without the input of educators. It is sweeping the nation, almost as if it were a zombie apocalypse, with many states agreeing to enforce this new method of teaching in their schools. According to The Common Core State Standards, common core is suppose to "clearly demonstrate what students are expected to learn at each grade level…" with " …the best elements of standards-related work in all states and other countries to date."

However, in some states common core showed no sign of improvement in test scores what so ever. In fact the scores of students decreased. The statistics in the US News shows the second round of test based on Common Core teachings. In New York thirty-one percent of students gained the title of proficient in English language arts. Before Common core was set in motion, there was a three percentage point difference between whites and Hispanic eight graders on the English proportions of the tests. When Common Core was introduced to students the gap grew to be twenty two points. Why should Common Core continue if the test scores of students do not improve, but decrease dramatically?

Its not just New York which has faced problems of decreasing test scores after they instituted Common Core. Each time a state has given its students one of the two Common Core tests, students' scores were below their average.  The Common Core standard is not fair because it requires critical thinking and mastery of topics. You cannot expect an English learner to analyze a passage with depth and understanding like a native speaker.

This picture above shows the traditional mathematical way of solving a problem, and below shows the Common Core way.

When Common Core first began forty-five states and the District of Columbia agreed to test this new method of learning which the government provided money for. However, according to CNN, 10 states have already dropped Common Core, with more states likely to follow in their example.