Drug Abuse in Adolescence 

   There are many types of addictions in the world. One bad one is drug addiction. There are many types of drugs and variations in strength. There are two types of drugs ones that help you that you can get from the pharmacy and ones that are bad for you and buy them illegally. In adolescence many teenagers experiment with drug abuse. Even though the percentage of drug abuse from teens has gone down since the early 21st century, it is still a big problem.

   Many teens like to experiment with new things. Obviously one thing teens like to test out is drugs. According to drugabuse.gov 35.1% of high school seniors do marijuana/hashish. There are many other types of drugs that teenagers use such as adderall, vicodin, tranquilizers, and many more. Marijuana is the most common drug among youth. Many people think that marijuana isn't that bad for you but according to drugfreeworld.org "One major research study reported that a single cannabis joint could cause as much damage to the lungs as up to five regular cigarettes smoked one after another. Long time marijuana smokers can suffer from bronchitis, brain abnormalities, can effect sperm count, and others.


    Adolescents often think that they will just do it that one time. Until they do it again and again and become addicted. Being addicted to drugs can become a big deal. Being addicted can cause death in many ways such as an overdose. Many people go to rehab. Although some people don't ever go back and stay sober many go back and become addicted again. Once people get hooked it will be a struggle.

   
    Drugs for adolescence has become a growing social issue in the last couple of decades. Kids are now learning in their curriculum about drugs and all the harm they can do to someone. The kids are showing sites of improvement, since 1997 the use o illicit drugs has gone about 7%. Many kids have learned more about drug abuse and it is making a difference. 

    Adolescence and it's problems with drug abuse is a big deal. People have really been making a bigger deal about it. Teens need to be even more informed about the harm that drugs cause. People still die, go to the hospital, and have their lives ruined because of drugs. Overall drugs have been making a steady decline in the past 20 years and hopefully that decline continues.

Forge

By Laurie Halse Anderson

   Forge is about a young african american named Curzon during the american revolution. Curzon was a former slave, when he see's someone being attacked by a red coat. Curzon throws a rock at him and then the other boy kills him. He goes to the boy and learns that his name is Eben. Eben thanks him and asks if he wants wants to join the army. Curzon agrees. Curzon makes friends and enemies through the book, but eventually gets along with everyone. He is in the 16th Massachusetts regiment. He has a smaller group that he becomes close to. Even though he escaped slavery he finds that it is also very hard to be a soldier. 

    When Curzon first starts talking to Eben after they kill the red coat they hear gun shots in the distance. When the two get there, there is a battle going. They both decide to go in. The americans beat the british in this particular match. Eben tells Curzon that he would like to thank him. He brings him to his house and brings Curzon to meet his uncle who is a high ranking military officer. Curzon agrees to join the army. They originally go to a camp where Eben and Curzon makes friends and enemies. 

    

     Their division is sent to a different camp. This camp has many problems. The group does not get enough food. They make a thing called rock cake. Even though it tastes terrible it gives them a source of food. One day a man comes with a horse and gives them a canteen. When they open the canteen it is filled with food. The group bonds over different struggles and overcome their differences.

     

    The group has to do many things on their own. One major thing that they have to build their own house. The group is assigned different duties, such as cutting down trees or digging. Even though Curzon is a free man now things are still hard for him. John Burns is very rude and makes fun of him a lot. Other people are also very mean to him. Curzon is faced with the struggles of hunger because there is not enough food. Also he is faced through battles.

    I thought that this was a really good book. I like how the story went into depth of what it was like for someone back then. I have read many stories about the american revolution but I thought it was really cool what the author did. One the that I like about it is that even though she put real events she also blended in fiction. Also about I like how it talks about two struggles back then. The author talks about slavery and the American Revolution. Overall this is a great read for anyone who likes historical fiction. Next time you are looking for a book I would suggest you read this

Should College Athletes Be Compensated

  While NCAA executives make millions of dollars, the athletes who actually play the sport aren’t paid a penny of the fortune. Compensating college athletes has become a controversial topic these past few years. The NCAA has refused to pay the athletes. This issue has been everywhere from US News to ESPN. Many people think that college athletes should be compensated and many think they shouldn’t. After contemplating this issue thoroughly, it is evident that college athletes should be compensated for their play because payment provides athletes with financial security, creates a less hierarchical system, and acknowledges the athletes’ hard work.

      Scholarships aren't enough to provide college athletes with financial security. Many people think that college athletes don’t need to be paid because they are receiving scholarships. However, this is not true. John Oliver from the show LAST WEEK WITH JOHN OLIVER said that, "in the event of a serious injury, an athlete can be dismissed from his or her scholarship, and for some athletes the result is having to withdraw from college because athletics was their only source of funding." This indicates that scholarships do not provide financial security.  If the NCAA is allowed to continue this practice of discontinuing scholarships in case of injury, the NCAA at least needs to give the students financial compensation in case of injury, if not ban the practice all together. Nevertheless the NCAA’s excuse for this practice, which is that players are covered by injury insurance, is not validated by the facts. The Daily Caller reported that "although the NCAA has an injury insurance policy up to $20 million on each individual athlete, they rarely qualify for it.” It does not make sense that the NCAA has this policy if no one can use it. The fact that, according to Oliver, "scholarships are a two year agreement that universities sometimes abuse when deciding whose scholarship should and should not be renewed,” demonstrates that scholarships do not provide the financial security that athletes need.

      The NCAA has too much hierarchy and inequality in the system. For example, by 2013 “40 coaches from the 50 largest public universities in each state were that given state’s highest paid state employee after total compensation was factored.” However, without the players there wouldn’t be jobs for the coaches. Some coaches, such as Nick Saban, make over 7 million dollars a year.   It is unfair that for all the coaches make the athletes don’t make anything for all they do. As a matter of fact, college athletics is a full time job. As an illustration, an NCAA poll reports that “college athletes are spending more than 40 hours a week in uniform.” This doesn’t give athletes the time they need to study, do homework, or have a paying job. John Oliver notes that, “In the 1950’s the then Executive Director of the NCAA put forth the amateurism/student athlete model as a means for universities to avoid covering athletes for workplace compensation.” He later follows this up by calling their bluff, saying “If it is really all about the romance of amateurism, that’s fine. Give up the sponsorships and the TV deals.” This shows the hypocrisy of high-ranking, high-earning college athletic directors arguing for amateurism. meanwhile, some people say that if the athletes are compensated they will not work as hard. All you have to do is look at the NBA or the NFL to see players who are making loads of money and play extremely well.

          Currently the NCAA doesn’t adequately acknowledge its athletes’ hard work. The NCAA makes more than 11 billion dollars in annual revenue.  Furthermore, the NCAA uses these funds to build “lavish facilities to woo the latest and greatest high school recruit and high salaries for administrators and coaches.”  This demonstrates that universities have the money to compensate their athletes but choose not to use their resources to acknowledge the people doing the work. Alexander LaCasse writes in the Christian Science Monitor, “Where does this enormous revenue stream leave the athlete, whose performance and results on the field bring glory and massive amounts of money into their respective institutions?”  Although some people argue that college athletics isn’t a career and therefore the athletes should not be compensated. However, the definition of “career” in The American Heritage College Dictionary is “a chosen pursuit; a profession or occupation, the general course or progression of one’s working life.” This definition proves that being a college athlete is part of a career and therefore the athletes deserve compensation as an acknowledgment of their work.

It is time for the NCAA to develop a system for compensating college athletes.  The executives must acknowledge that their profits derive from the athletes and pay the people who are doing the work.  While the opponents’ strongest argument not to pay students for their labor is that the students receive scholarships for their education, frequently students don’t receive scholarships that have been promised them due to injury or for other reasons. Many times scholarships don’t cover the full expenses of students, leaving them financially insecure. The disparity between the pay of executives and the financial status of the athletes is unfair.  Can you think of another sector of American society in which people who create billions of dollars in economic value receive no payment for their work?  Profits from college sports are continuing to increase. It is only fair for the people who make that possible to be compensated fairly and treated well.

  

      Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a book about a boy who lost his father in the 9/11 attacks. The book talks about the boy's adventures through the book. He is a little different than most kids. The author goes into depth about that. The book's main characters are his grandma, the boy Oskar, the mom, and the dad, which is mostly flashbacks. The book is about how people can experience loss and how some people cope with it. 

     

      The book starts off with a story. Oskar is asking a lot of questions and answers like, "What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and then played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls?" Oskar is different. He is always very enthusiastic and energetic about what he does. He also only wears white. Oskar walks all around and doesn't take the subway because he is scared to.

         

      Oskar is very close with his grandmother. They hang out a lot. She lives across the street and sometimes they show each other notes through the window or use a two-way radio. They go on adventures together and get to talk a lot to each other. The grandma tells a lot of stories. For example, stories about Oskar's grandpa because he is not there any more, and even though they are interesting Oskar gets tired of the stories. 

         After the story of his father's death, Oskar finds a key in his father's closet. He begins to find clues about the key. He starts an adventure to try to find what the key meant. He becomes intrigued and visits a lot of strangers houses to see if they knew is father or knew about the key.

            All in all this is an amazing book that I definitely recommend to read this book. The book takes you through this amazing journey.  The theme of this book teaches you how far people will go for the loss of their loved ones. I think this is one of the best books I have ever read.

       

              

     In the article "the Case for Paying College Athletes" by Marc Edelman, the author wants the reader to know that it is unfair and not right for college athletes to not be paid by the NCAA. Paying college athletes has become an item of interest in the last few years. College sports is a major industry generating "11 billion dollars in annual revenues." The author makes the point that college coaches make an extreme amount of money, "head football coaches at the 44 NCAA bowl championship series..." were "the highest paid public employee's in 40 of the 50 U.S states, is the state university's head football or basketball coach." The author argues not only that it is immoral not to pay the student athletes, but probably illegal too, he states that in "section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, in pertinent part, states that 'every contract, combination... or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce... is declared to be illegal.'"  These three quotes show first of all that there is enough money to pay the athletes, second the evidence shows that there are other people who profit off the hard work of the athletes, and third there are laws in this country that try to prevent this kind of thing from happening.
   
      The author the reader to feel anger at the injustice in the NCAA system. The author uses several craft techniques. First the author uses a controversial topic that gets the reader's attention. The author then used real-life examples, like coaches pay to other public employees pay, and he finishes by reinforcing his message by saying "the argument against allowing pay to student-athletes arises many from greed and self-interest."
 
      While I already agreed with the author's opinion, the points Edelman made, make it seem way more urgent then I previously thought. After reading the article he highlighted for me that not paying college athletes is completely unfair. I took away that people need  to be aware of this problem and that fans should speak up for the rights of college athletes. Furthermore, I want to know why, even if they won't pay the college athletes, the NCAA board won't let athletes make money off their merchandise and other promotional equipment.

  Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see the future? In the book Numbers by Rachel Ward, the main character, Jem, can see the date of when people die. She has seen the number of when people will die for as long as she remembers. When she is fifteen, Jem meets a boy named spider. The two are accused of bombing the London Eye, a big ferris wheel. Spider and Jem run away together and fall in love. The only problem is that Jem can see the date of Spider's death, which is very soon. On the date of when Spider is supposed to die, Jem is overcome with sadness. She thinks that if she is dead that the numbers, the dates when people will die, won't exist. Instead of her jumping off the church roof and dying, Spider slips off the wall and sadly falls to his death. The author conveys the idea that seeing the future isn't always a good thing.

 In the beginning of the story Jem can see the numbers but she doesn't know what they mean. The author shows her in a stroller reading out the numbers she sees in the people that pass. Then she sees her mother's number "and all the time, as we we sat there eye to eye her number was there, stamped inside of my skull:10102001". She soon learns what it meant, "four years later, I watched a man in a scruffy suit write it down on a piece of paper: Date of Death:10.10.2001." This shows us that her ability is connected to her mother's death, which is a terrible loss in her life.


 She sees the date of when the love of her life Spider, will die. She is so sad because Spider doesn't know that he is going to die soon, but Jem can't tell him because it isn't right. After they are accused of the bombing, they run away. At first Jem and Spider get away at first, but then Spider is caught.
When Jem and Spider are finally reunited it is the date that Spider is suppose to die. Jem thinks that
if she doesn't exist then the numbers won't exist and Spider won't die. Jem is going to jump off the top of the church, but Spider stops her, after they talk and she has calmed down, "he spun 'round to face me, ready to jump down. Our eyes met, and we held each other's gaze; my warmth and love for him reflected right back to me. It was going to be alright. And then his foot slipped on the we stone and his balance was gone."


   Jem becomes pregnant with spider's baby. When she has the baby boy, she can not see the numbers any more, she is very relieved. Jem's foster mother Karen dies of illness, she had known that she was going to die on that day. At the very end of the story Adam's teacher calls Jem in for a conference.
The teacher talks about a drawing Adam made. "Above the head of the taller figure, arching over like a rainbow, was some writing I think you meant to write mommy, didn't you, Adam? No miss, I told you. It's not her name. It's her number. It's Mommy's special number." This is a big twist to the happy ending. Jem must be super upset at that moment.


   The author does an excellent job overall making the case that seeing the future is problematic. The only problem is that she causes too many people die very young. Most of the major characters die very young. While this makes the book even more dramatic and sad, it is unnecessary. Even if the most of the characters lived long lives, she could still make the point that it is a burden. Reading this book makes the reader glad that they can't see the future.





























































     

Faithful Elephants

Benji Timoner

806

  Faithful Elephants is a twist on a regular children’s story—instead of beginning in sadness and ending in joy, it opens in happiness and ends in darkness. The true story takes place in a zoo in Japan during World War II. It tells of how three elephants were killed under orders from the army so that they wouldn’t escape and rampage through the city. The author, Yukio Tsuchiya, shows the impact of war on animals and people.

In the story the author uses the setting to express feeling and anticipate the variation of mood from beginning to end.

   The story starts at Ueno Zoo with cherry blossoms in full bloom. Tsuchiya describes the setting by saying: “Their petals are falling in the soft breeze and sparkling in the sun. Beneath the cherry trees, crowds of people are pushing to enter the zoo on such a beautiful day.” The author uses this setting to create a picture and feeling of happiness and peace. The author adds to the mood of joy by describing two elephants performing tricks, “While blowing toy trumpets with their long trunks the elephants walk along large wooden logs.” These playful elephants will be contrasted to the other elephants in the story. 

    The mood immediately shifts from happiness to foreboding when the author introduces a new setting. “Not far from the cheerful square, there stands a tombstone.” This sentence leads into the story about how the army was afraid that bombs would hit the zoo and let the animals loose, so they killed all of the big animals. When they tried to poison the elephants it didn’t work, so they starved the three elephants to death. The zookeeper loved the elephants so much that “he could only pace in front of the cage and moan.” That shows how empty everyone felt about what was happening. This section leads us to an ending of sorrow.

    The concluding setting paints a depressing picture. As the elephants lie dying, they can barely see “the white clouds floating in the sky over the zoo.” This is depressing because it is so beautiful and it is the last thing they will see. The story ends in the same way it began, with the description of cherry blossoms falling. However, the mood has changed completely: “The cherry blossoms fell on the grave, like snowflakes.” This demonstrates how much suffering happened in this zoo.

     From beginning to end the author takes us on a journey of moods. The author not only introduces different settings to create different moods, but also contrasts the same setting to highlight the mood of sorrow at the end of the story. In the beginning, the cherry blossoms are falling on a happy scene of life, but at the end they are falling on a scene of death. This shows us that tragedy happens even in beautiful places.  Because the author uses setting to make us feel the tragedy of the elephants at the zoo, the story makes us aware that happiness and peace are very precious.

Summer Reading

My name is Benji and this is my blog I will be writing about book stuff. My favorite genre is suspenseful mystery. I also like some historical-fiction. I'm not a big reader but if I like a book i'm not going to put it down. I especially don't like reading during sports season.

This summer I read a series called Blackbird it's author is Anna Carey. It is my personal favorite book ever. The book is about a group of runaway kids who are kidnapped have their memory temporarily erased. The kids are brought to an island where there are these people called hunters who hunt the kids and try to kill them. The boss Theodore Cross calls it a game. The hunters have a system that makes it so that they don't get caught. The main characters are Sunny but that's not her real name, Ben, Rafe, Salto, Devon, Izzy, officer Alvarez, Theodore Cross, and others. This is a series that i couldn't put down and finished in 2 weeks. It's definitely a must buy this year. I also read a book called The Last Dragon Slayer It was ok but it was my assigned book it's about a girl who becomes the last dragon slayer and there is a prophecy of when she kills the dragon if your the type of person who likes mythical dragon books then I would read it.That's my first blog I hope you liked it.