world war 1

On April 13th I attended Midway Village for their World War 1 reenactment.  I had a very good experience during the event I believe they were able to pull off the feeling of being in that time era very well.  What I found funny was that there was a drill sergeant who was asking for volunteers to perform drills.  As soon as he began doing his drills his attitude also changed he began making fun of the volunteers while giving them orders.  There was even a little boy pointing at people and telling them that Uncle Sam wants you.  After I was done watching the drills I moved on and listened to a doctor discuss about different treatments he would give to wounded soldiers.  He discussed how if a soldier came in contact with mustard gas they would begin by completely stripping him down and washing his body with bleach while washing the hair with gasoline and also pouring an acid solution in their eyes.  He was able to show us how to put on a gas mask properly and described that they would also give heroin in order to relieve some of their pain.  It was interesting to me that I found out that if you were in the British army and you got trench foot it would be considered as a federal offense because it disabled you from serving in the war.  Overall I had a very good time at this event I had learned many new things about World War 1 and I would definitely attend again because would like to see the battle scenes and spend a little more time there.

HUM 3

Gerald Chacon

HUM 112, Section D030

April 20, 2014

WHY HUM

In order to finish my associates degree my Guidance counselor was listing the number of Humanities classes that I had left to take.  Out of the different types of Humanities classes that she had read I choose this one HUM 112, D030.  When I asked her what the class was about she had described it to me that it mainly consisted of art.  To me this seemed to be a class that I would enjoy.  One reason why I believed I would enjoy the class is because I have always had an interest in learning about art and the history that goes a long with it.  Since I have watched a lot the history channel as I have grown up I thought that I would be able to grasp the material much easier because I already had a basic understanding of it.  Within the first day of class it was funny to me that the majority of the material I had already heard of it either thru television or books.  Although this material is not all that new to me I am still very anxious to learn more about ancient Roman art and the subject I would like to learn the most about would be of the city of Pompeii.  While I was a little kid I had done two small projects about Pompeii.  One of those projects included me having to make a small clay model of the volcano.

HUM 2

Gerald Chacon

HUM 112, Section D030

April 20, 2013

A True Giant

I am surrounded by people in my life that play such important roles in my life.  My mother and father are the ones that brought me into this world and raised me to be kind and respectful towards others.  My grandparents have showered me with their love and knowledge about the world.  Although my parents and grandparents have been everything to me the person that I could consider a giant in my life would be my brother.  One reason why my brother has been the perfect definition of a good older brother is because he has always been there when I've needed him the most.  From calling 911 when I was ran over as a child, and also from keeping all his promises to me when I needed him to help me with my car.  Throughout my life I have always looked up to him and have wanted to be just like him from picking similar clothes, having the same hair style and also having a passion for working on cars. When I was able to buy my dream car he was the first one to help me finish it up as my project car. While he was going to mechanic school  he was slowly helping me finish my dream car. The more he would learn about cars the more it would make me strive to go to the same mechanic school.  Soon after I graduated high school I had already registered for the same mechanic school.  It made me feel happy that my brother always gave me encouragement to stay strong and finish my school. But as I came close to the end of my studies I began to feel scared.  Realizing that being a mechanic really wasn't for me as a career more as a hobby.  What gave me fear was the fact that I would have to tell my brother that I was no longer to be a mechanic.  After letting him know that I was no longer going to be a mechanic it truly made me feel that my brother is a giant to me. He did not feel disappointed or angry with me.  Instead he gave me the best advice that I could ever hear.  Which was that I should never be someone whom I'm not but to be what I really want to be.

HUM 1

Gerald Chacon

HUM 112, Section D030

April 20, 2013

Modern Day Genius

For many people it may be difficult to really point out who today would be labeled as a true genius.  In my opinion I believe if I had to label anyone as being a modern day genius it would be Stephen Hawking.  He has been one of the biggest contributors to science and math in our present time.  When the world genius is brought up not much people put into consideration that being a genius , is someone that is a master at many different subjects. as for Stephen Hawking he could be considered a genius for many different reasons.  One reason why I believe Stephen Hawking is a genius is because he is able to easily do elaborate mathematical equations in his head.  He has mastered the ability to learn in different ways as he struggled with his motor neuron disease.  When he was no longer able to write he created visual methods in order to understand and also used geometry to better understand problems.  From this day Stephen Hawking's has received 12 honorary degrees.  Some of the many things he has mastered at are Theoretical Physics, Cosmology, Natural Science, Astronomy, Writing, and Mathematics.  Some may question this and say that he may not be compared to Leonardo Da Vinci or any other past genius, but the fact of the matter is that he can.  Hawking may have not mastered all of the similar types of things that Da Vinci did but the fact is that he doesn't have to in order to be considered a genius.  The reason for this is because times have changed and today people have a much easier way to get a hold of education than they did 350 years ago. I'm sure if Da Vinci had grown in the same time period as Hawking he would not tried mastering all of the different subjects he has before.  Overall Stephen Hawking has been one of few people today that many people can agree on for being a genius. Whether he is lecturing about radiant energy of black holes or simply writing a children's book his mind is always moving. 



Stuck in the Past

            As growing adults we continually see a change on many young adolescents.  Many times we will automatically assume that the younger generations of adolescent’s are completely different from older generations.  Theoretically this is not all entirely true we are actually being a little close minded when saying this. We are usually very quick to judge and to state that this younger generation is very different, but when looking at the big picture it is not necessarily that this generation is why it’s different. It is more of the fact that the world surrounding this generation is what’s really making the biggest effect of this generation.   

            When you look back at past generations you may see very close similarities but each and every single one is different. This is not exactly stating that it is the people itself that is what’s different but more of the fact that the world is the true thing that is changing and creating these newer generations to adapt to the new environment. In the article “8 Reasons Why This is The Dumbest Generation” from Boston.com it states different reasons why this generation is the dumbest one from past generations. One of the reasons stated today this generation does not read books and that they do not want to. This is very far from being the truth it’s in comparison to saying that they don’t like listening to music anymore because cd sales are at the lowest they’ve been in many years. It is not that this generation does not like reading books but it is more of the fact that they are reading novels electronic rather than having an actually hard copy of the book.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/374185?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=what&searchText=is&searchText=nature&searchText=vs&searchText=nurture&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dwhat%2Bis%2Bnature%2Bvs%2Bnurture%26amp%3Bprq%3Dnature%2Bvs%2Bnurture%26amp%3Bhp%3D25%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bso%3Drel%26amp%3Bracc%3Doff

 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3083429?seq=3&Search=yes&searchText=nature&searchText=nurture&searchText=vs&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dnature%2Bvs%2Bnurture%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff&prevSearch=&resultsServiceName=null
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/3032655?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=what&searchText=is&searchText=nature&searchText=vs&searchText=nurture&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dwhat%2Bis%2Bnature%2Bvs%2Bnurture%26amp%3Bprq%3Dnature%2Bvs%2Bnurture%26amp%3Bhp%3D25%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bso%3Drel%26amp%3Bracc%3Doff

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/gallery/dumbestgeneration?pg=3

http://psychology.about.com/od/nindex/g/nature-nurture.htm

http://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=what+is+nature+vs+nurture&prq=nature+vs+nurture&hp=25&acc=on&wc=on&fc=off&so=rel&racc=off

Final Draft Suicide

Suicide should never be an option for someone nor should it ever be encouraged no matter what the case may be, it is more of something that we should rather help fight or better understand. Life, it is truly a beautiful thing, for some of us it is something that we cherish and adore so much that the thought of suicide would never be involved in our mind.  For others in this world it is just something that they can not handle or neither want. Their life does not satisfy them. it may not satisfy them for a number of reasons either that they feel horrible for the actions and chapters that they have created in their life or that they feel like they will never be able to succeed in their long aimed goals. The majority of these people have gone through large amounts of time contemplating if suicide would really be the key to help put an end to all of their pain and suffering. The real problem with these types of scenarios is that some people in this world actually believe that suicide may be an overall benefit for both the people thinking of it and for those who are only spending their time looking after the people who make an attempt at it. It is one of the worst types of proposals that has been brought forth to create a better world. Instead of encouraging people to make the wrong decisions we should better help those that need it in these troubling times.

Tauriq Moosa a tutor in ethics at the University of Cape Town, South Africa is the publisher of “Should we help prisoners kill themselves”. In his article Moosa discusses about a man that wants to be put to death rather than to live the rest of his life incarcerated. Although Moosa believes that the man should be denied his proposal for him to be put to death or to commit suicide. He does believe that there should be prisoners that do deserve the right for them to either be killed by the death penalty or either to let them commit suicide for it may only provide a benefit towards the persons needs and the society for not having to spend money on a person that is only wasting space. Moosa describes that the only way that we should aid a person to kill themselves is that when we have a criminal that committed a crime that is so severe or when we have enough evidence that can confirm that it will cost more to take care of the person that needs intensive care then it will be to simply let them take their own life. During times like these Moosa believes that it is when we know for sure that the person actually committed the crime when they are willing to give up their life because they know that they have done something completely wrong. Even with all this being said it still does not provide good enough evidence for us to let someone take their own life. Whether it being someone that is being cooperative and pleading guilty we should not let that be a reason for them to commit suicide. I can agree with how Moosa believes that life in prison is in a way worse than the death penalty but it is still not right that he believes that if the crime is that severe the person should be able to commit suicide or be killed capitally.

While aiding a criminal that is trying to commit suicide may help society save money and time, it does not mean that it will fully give a positive reflection to the community. In turn it actually has a more opposite effect to it. The reasons why it could have a negative effect is that by letting criminals commit suicide you are letting society believe that it is right for someone to commit suicide if they have good enough reason to do so. It is times like these where a person that is thinking about suicide may take it in the wrong way. Suicide can be no more than just an extremely difficult checkpoint in their life where they are stuck on that is truly the best way to resolve their problems.

In the year 2010 alone there was a total of 38,364 deaths that were caused by suicide, leaving it to be ranked the 10th main cause of death in the United States. Although the total number of deaths caused by heart disease was  597,689  in that same year. People must still put into consideration  that the amount of attempts of suicide were 959,100. That is almost double the causes of death by heart disease . No one chooses to have heart problems they either are genetically more prone to getting them or either get them by a lack of diet or exercise. Suicide on the other hand is considered to be more of a choice rather than being something that was already placed into your genetics. It may be true that the majority of people that attempt suicide do not usually go through it, but for the ones that do end up going through with it  leave a much bigger scar in the lives of their loved ones.

In the article “Struggling to understand Suicide” by Ron Rolheiser president of Oblate School of Theology he talks about a friend that he knew that attended a funeral of a man that committed suicide. He mentions that in the funeral  the brother of the man that committed suicide gave his speech about how his brothers death was such a more harder one, than one that is caused by a much more natural cause. But he compared  his brothers suicide to a similarity of a cause of cancer. Although cancer and suicide are different he mentioned that suicide was more like an emotional cancer. Suicide a.k.a “emotional cancer” is similar to cancer because it can be dealt with almost in the same ways. Saying that people could actually be treated to take it away and possibly cure it, they could also be treated for it just so they could live the rest of their remaining life or that they could not be able to do much with it and eventually end up only dying from it because it is something that is either too strong to overcome. Describing that suicide gives a much darker hole to the feeling that comes from the person’s loved ones. The families can no longer think of the person the same way anymore that they are usually more less talked about in conversations in order to not create a more depressing feeling. He closed his speech by saying that no one really knows why he choose to end his life but the only way to  better find out would, be to better understand suicide.

I could not agree more with the description of the mans speech. I as well had a friend of mine commit suicide and my feelings and my reactions were almost the same as the description of that same family from Ron Rolheiser’s article. It’s a feeling that ‘s much more different from someone that passes away by a natural death. Everyone was in shock as to why he would have actually done it . People were aware that he was having relationship problems but this still made people question if there would have been a way to actually stop him from doing it. It is not as simple to just stop a person from hurting themselves. Just because you may stop them from hurting themselves that one time doesn’t mean  you will always be there to protect them. The fact of the matter was that my friend desperately needed help and it could have easily been prevented if his family would have payed more attention to the signs that he was showing to them. None of my other friends had the slightest idea that he had mentioned he would kill himself if his girlfriend left him, but his family did and they only had mentioned it after he had gone through with it. With the help of positive reinforcement by the use of love from family could make the biggest impacts on whether or not someone will commit suicide.

    In the journal  “Collective Efficacy, Family Attachment, and Urban Adolescent  Suicide Attempts”written by David Maimon,Christopher R. Browning, and Jean Brooks-Gunn has provided numerous amounts of information stating how efficacy  and family attachment plays a major role in suicide for the youth. As I described earlier that suicide was the tenth main cause of death in the United states overall but while looking at the statistics from the causes of adolescent deaths suicide actually places in third for the leading cause of death for kids in the age group of 14-25. Some of the reasons for such a high suicide rate in this age group is based upon how the family is attached to one another the majority of the time suicide is at a much higher risk for those adolescents that do not have that much family attachment. Generally a typical family that stays close to one another will tend to have a much smaller amount of depression growth than that of a family that is apart and does not communicate. My friend  had fit almost of these types of characteristics ranging from his mother and father being divorced and him rarely having much communication with his family he was also 18 years old  right in between the age group for the causes of teen suicide. Maybe this all could have been prevented by his family showing more support. But it is not as simple as that sometimes showing too much family attachment can actually be more of a downfall to a child rather than a good benefit. All of these scenarios matter in terms of what type of position the person may be in.

    Brooke Donatone a psychotherapists from New York City wrote “Why Millennials Can’t Grow Up” for the reason to explain to people that making too many decisions for your children can lead to be a terrible thing. It is also called helicopter parenting where the parent is always hovering around their child in order to always make decisions for them. In the article Donatone describes one of her patients story and how the girl named Amy is too scared to grow up on her own. She is 30 years old now and still does not know what she wants to do in her life and she is completely overwhelmed with the decisions she is faced to pick without the help of her parents. This types of scenarios  can be extremely difficult for people to face alone. The majority of these types of situations will have an ending result of severe cases of depression which may lead to suicide. Although suicide may not seem to be an option for the average person  when they are unable to make a decision it will actually play a major role into a person that is unable to make decisions for themselves. But this is where we are able to help prevent attempts of suicide where we are able to notice a change in the persons personality.  There are many different ways on how depression can be controlled and by being able to control depression it can play one of the main important steps in committing suicide.

    Controlling depression has been handled in many types of forms but there is no real exact cure. Some ways people have been controlling their depression is by simply  going out and taking walk, having a nice venting conversation with friends or even just going out and meeting more people rather than being  home and away from society. These are some of the ways people may be able to  help control depression without the help of any type of medicine. When a person is at a point that he or she is unable to control their depression they may need to be prescribed medicine in order for them to not reach an uncontrollable melting point. There have been numerous amounts of antidepressant drugs that have been created in order to help control severe types of depression. Abilify, Adaphin, Zoloft and Prozac are just just a few of  many antidepressants that  are most commonly used for helping control depression for all types of people. A large chunk of these types of antidepressants have been used to help prevent prison inmates commit suicide. People like Tauriq Moosa  believe that it is sometimes more expensive to help treat suicide in jails and prisons for they do not provide a good benefit to our society. It is only then when Moosa believes it is right for  prisoners to be allowed to commit suicide for it will only create a greater good for this world. It may sound like it would be a benefit to people when the average person hears it but in reality that is not all to true.

    In “Preventing Suicide In Jails And Prisons”  written by the World Health Organization discuses the negatives that occur when suicide occurs in a prison or jail. Many people may not even think of these small things when a suicide occurs in a prison or jail to some people they think it will only create a benefit but in turn that is actually the opposite in most cases. When a suicide occurs in a prison it can escalate to a huge political scandal that also begins to worsen when it is fueled by the media covering it. One way it creates a negative cause is that it will affect the police officers that help look after the inmates that try to commit suicide. Although they are not being hurt physically it can actually still leave long term emotional scars from seeing the sheer scene of a person that has committed suicide. When suicides like these occur and are displayed by the media it will also cause negative encouragement to those who currently undergo thoughts of suicide it will give them more of a reason to do it. It is said that their is one suicide attempt approximately every three seconds and that their will be one successful attempt every one minute. Although people still may not care if people in jails and prisons commit suicide it does not mean that we should let them go with without  trying to stop them.

    When being faced with these situations we should not merely look past them but we should look into how we can help solve them. Everyone has made mistakes in their lives, some more than others but it shouldn't be a reason why we should let some of the worst people commit suicide. Life is such a beautiful thing and should never be wasted sometimes people that make the worst mistakes in life can end up turning everything around and using their flaws to better encourage those who have felt like they once did before.

  

Rough Draft Depression

Depression is not looked at as a serious illness but many people in America have it and therefore should be studied a lot more because it can lead to serious health issues and suicide. There are people that want to focus more on other health risks in America such as Heart Disease, Cancer, Kidney Renal failure etc. But this does not mean that we should limit less the studies on depression for it can be just as serious and it is destroying the lives of Americans.

One type of way depression is ruining the lives and families of America is because of suicide. In the year 2010 there was a total of 38,364 deaths that were caused by suicide leaving it to be ranked the 10th main cause of death in the United States. Although the the total number of deaths caused by heart disease was  597,689  in that same year. People must still put into consideration  that the amount of attempts of suicide were 959,100. That is almost double of the causes of death by heart disease . No one chooses to have heart problems they either are genetically more prone on getting them or either get them by a lack of diet or exercise. Suicide on the other hand is considered to be more of a choice rather than being something that was already placed into your DNA. It may be true that the majority of people that attempt suicide do not usually go through it, but for the ones that do end up going through with it  leave a much bigger scar into the lives of their loved ones.

From “Struggling To Understand Suicide” by Ron Rolheiser president of Oblate School of Theology he talks about a friend that he knew that attended a funeral of a man that committed suicide. He mentions that in the funeral  the brother of the man that committed suicide gave his speech about how his brothers death was such a much more harder one, than one that is caused by a much more natural cause. But he compared  his brothers suicide to a similarity of a cause of cancer. Although cancer and suicide are different he mentioned that suicide was more like an emotional cancer. Suicide a.k.a “emotional cancer” is similar to cancer because it can be dealt with almost in the same ways. Saying that people could actually be treated to take it away and possibly cure it, they could also be treated for it just so they could live the rest of their remaining life or that they could not be able to do much with it and eventually end up only dying from it because it is something that is either too strong to overcome. Describing that suicide gives a much darker hole to the feeling that comes from the person’s loved ones. The families can no longer think of the person the same way anymore that they are usually more less talked about into conversations in order to not create more depressing feeling. He closed his speech by saying that no one really knows why he choose to end his life but the only way to  better find out ,would be to better understand suicide.

I could not agree more with the description of the mans speech. I aswell had a friend of mine commit suicide and my feelings and my reactions were almost the same as to the description of that same family from Ron Rolheiser’s article. Its a feeling that ‘s much further different from someone that passes away by a natural death. Everyone was in shock as to why he would have actually done it . People were aware that he was having relationship problems but this still made people question if there would have been a way to actually stop him from doing it. It is not as simple to just to stop a person from hurting themselves. Just because you may stop them from hurting themselves that one time doesn’t mean  you will always be there to protect them. The fact of the matter was that my friend desperately needed help. But it wasn’t just medicine that he needed. It would have had to been help far greater than just medicine.

Another way depression is ruining the lives of Americans is that it is beginning to be more commonly found throughout the youth of america.  This plays a very crucial role how the future of this country could be affected by it. A majority of people that suffer from depression are college students. It has been reported that there is up to thirty percent of college students get so depressed that they are not able to function properly. This is a very large chunk of the percentage of students that are enrolled into colleges. By being able to better treat and control depression it will let the college students be more focused and in turn give them a better outcome of  their school.

These most recent years have been extremely hard for Americans especially since the economy has gone down so far. We have been reaching numbers of disemployment very similar to ones that from back of the days of the Great Depression. This  type of situations have only been worsening the amounts of depression. People loosing their jobs and not making enough money for their families has been causing them to get even more depressed. It has been splitting families apart by causing the number of divorces in America to increase.

When divorces occur it ultimately leads to many different types of depression, not only towards one person but possibly to the whole family. From the “Journal of Health and Social Behavior” written  by Ranae J. Evans and Robin W. Simon they conducted studies on how many percentage of people have depression or any other type of mental illness. Their test and studies performed were mostly done to many different age groups and also performed types of races which they believed to show a big difference from which ethnic groups have a higher depression rate than the other. Also in the “Statistics and the nature of Depression” written by G. Dunn, P. C. Sham and D. J. Hand they go through other types of studies that were conducted in the past that show how such a large percentage of people have it. Although the studies that are talked about in this article are very dated they still give almost the same percentage of people with depression. The only way to really solve this issues is to go beyond the studies that we conduct for depression and try to do more research on antidepressants or more natural medicines that will give us less harmful side effects.

There are many different types of medicines that are prescribed to help stop depression. The name of a couple of these medicines are Doxepin, Bupropion, Ariprazole, Citaploram, and Alprazolam otherwise known as Xanax and also to be known  as the most widely used antidepressants. But with all these different types of antidepressants creates another problem. Many people become in desperate need for their antidepressants that they in turn get in a way addicted to the drug because they will feel that they cannot properly function without it. And in worse cases people may actually have an opposite effect on the drug entirely. These type of medications can cause a person to increase their thoughts on suicide, and feel very agitated.  Sometimes it may not be the simple case on to having to just take a pill in order to control your depression.

We as Americans have had a bad habit at always looking at medicine to be the key to cure of all our diseases and illnesses. But when looking at other studies and different methods we can begin to see that depression can also be reduced by doing simple things. Exercising your body can in turn create some of the most similar types of chemicals that you get from medicine it will help reduce your stress and better control your depression. Exercising will also help improve your physical and mental health. For people wanting to do more research on heart disease and other health issues exercising would be a great way to help both people with depression and other deadly related health issues. Also being around people would help lower your depression by not making you feel alone sometimes all a person needs is just a little bit of companionship.

Although many of descriptions that have shown and proved to you help treat depression are ones that someone could almost clearly see it does not mean that we shouldn’t try study and do more research on other types of treatments of depression. Weather it be a form of physical, mental exercise or it being treated by an antidepressant there are numerous ways on how to help stop or treat depression. But it has to be pushed for us Americans to continue studying it more and more for it will always play a devastating and gloomy role in our culture.