Gambling

Gambling is basically betting anything on something when there is a chance you might loose what you have bet. Most of the time people gamble money on sports events or card games.

Many religions see gambling as sinful. I don't think there is a major problem with gambling, after all thousands of people gamble on the lottery every week, it's when it becomes an addiction is when it becomes a problem.

Gamblers Anonymous has 20 questions to determined whether someone is addicted to gambling or not. They included, "did gambling affect your reputation? Have you ever felt remorse after gambling? Did you ever borrow to finance your gambling?" This is obviously when gambling has been taken to the extreme.

Apparently Jeremy Kyle suffered from a gambling addiction according to wikipedia his marriage to Kirsty Rowley only lasted about fourteen months because "Kyle had carefully concealed a destructive and expensive gambling habit from her over the course of their marriage. This included stealing money from her bank account, and accumulating thousands of pounds of debt to fund his habit."

When gambling is kept under control and is used for pleasure and isn't an addiction then I think it is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. However, like anything when it is taken too far, and becomes a need rather than a want and other people's lives are affected because of someone elses addiction to spending money, then I think it is a bad thing.

www.gamblersanonymous.org/20questions.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Kyle

X-rated Adverts

Apparently if we can link an advert to sex we are more likely to buy it, but is this a good thing?

Almost all adverts have got some kind of sexual connotation, whether it's women walking around in their underwear or people practically snogging each other for a hair dye advert. Obviously adverts don't have age certificates on them but should they? There is a flake advert which was banned recently for being too sexy, "executives from the chocolate company apparently thought it was so racy it would either corrupt our nation's morals, or portray Flake eaters as some kind of free-love hedonists with lives of wild abandon."

But is it all bad, after all the really shocking adverts which we talk about are the ones which stick in our heads... so they've done their job. If sex does make us want to buy something then it's natural for the advertisers to use sex to their advantage. The only way we could stop sex being used is by not buying the products or by complaining to get the advert banned.

I think unnecessary sex in adverts is annoying but I can understand why they do it.

www.walletpop.co.uk/2010/03/08/cadburys-flake-tv-ad-banned-for-being-too-sexy/

Bullying

The question on many children's lips is why do people bully? The answer is always that bullies are victims themselves or that they are actually cowards. I don't personally believe any of these reasons and I don't think they are that helpful to people who are being bullied.

It is such a serious thing and I don't think that young people appreciate the power of their words and actions. Children kill themselves over bullying or move schools (which is a huge deal just in it's self), I've even known students to be taken out of school completely and be home schooled. It is also a difficult thing to tackle, even if a school cracks down on the problem they can't stop it happening completely. There are cases of children being bullied on the way home from school on the bus and there is also cyber bullying.

Cyber bullying is when threatening or nasty messages are sent through any kind of interactive device, such as the Internet, a text message or email. It must only involve minors otherwise it is cyber harassment. Cyber bullying has also resulted in young people committing suicide.

There are organisations designed to help young people who feel they are being bullied such as child line and other websites which will take emails from young people. I think that it is still such a major problem in some teenagers lives' and that more education should be put into anti bullying campaigns at all ages. We should come at anti bullying from the same angle as anti drugs.

www.stopcyberbullying.org/what_is_cyberbullying_exactly.html

Nasty or natural?

Why is it that as a nation we really enjoy seeing people embarrassing themselves on national television? The auditions for 'Britain's Got Talent' are on ITV1 at the moment, and most of the show is of bad auditions where people get booed or do something totally outrageous. This is obviously because it makes good television and the viewer finds it more entertaining. It's the same with 'Big Brother', the house mates which are weird in some way are always the ones which stay in until at least the middle of the show. Then of course there's 'I'm a Celebrity. Get Me out of Here!' where the viewers relish at the sight of a celebrity doing a horrible tucker trial. I think this is an odd thing that we as the public do, but it isn't something we would openly admit to in everyday life. We discourage our children from laughing at others and yet we happily watch people being made a fool of. You could argue that they choose to put themselves in that situation, which is true, but who chose to air them on T.V and for what reason?

"The reason we enjoy watching people trip, fall down and hurt themselves, otherwise known as schadenfreude, because it results in positive self-evaluation. Simply put, when others are made to look like fools, we subconsciously feel better about ourselves!"

I think this belongs in my Being Bad blog because it is something that we all do but it's not something that we may be overly proud of or would admit that we enjoy other people's misfortune. Laughing at people when they aren't meaning to be funny could be seen as a form of bullying which is definitely bad.

http://www.ask-kimberly.com/2009/05/why-do-we-laugh-when-other-people.html

Bad Parenting

Whether or not they are doing a good job is something that parents worry about all the time. However the truth is that all parents worry about the same things and have problems with the same things.

When it comes to bad parenting most of the time it is a matter of opinion. Some people may think that putting a child in reins is the same as putting a dog on a lead where as others would see it as a form of safety. Some parents don't have a routine for their children and let them go to bed when ever they want and see it as letting them have freedom and responsibility, whereas others have very regimented routines and see it as keeping their children healthy and well organised.

There are horrible stories of parents making fatal mistakes, such as a the news story of a toddler who accidentally shot herself because she mistook her step dad's gun as the toy Wii gun, as he left the real gun lying on the table. This could obviously be called bad parenting as it was irresponsible for the man to leave his loaded gun within reach of a toddler.

The programme Super Nanny shows Jo Frost turning the lives of people around as they struggle to cope with the parenting issues. Supernanny.com has got lots of links and tips on how to be a better parent.

www.nowpublic.com/world/three-year-old-girl-shot=herself-after-mistaking-wii-gun-2588834.html

http://www.supernanny.com/

Road Rage

The AXA advert at the moment shows people having road rage while they are walking around. The advert says something like 'you wouldn't behave this way on foot'. Which is right we wouldn't just randomly swear at someone just because they walked in front of us on the pavement. So why do we get road rage?

It's no lie that when we're in our cars every other driver is a worse driver than you are. If they make a mistake that effects you then it's your responsibility to let them know they did something wrong by honking your horn at them! But it's also true that most of us wouldn't behave that way if we were walking through town. I think it's because our cars act as a barrier between us and the other person, and it gives us dutch courage or makes us just plain rude. Also if you're stuck in a traffic jam and are late for something then it's the only way to let out your frustration.

However, there are instances where it has been taken too far, "a motorist shot and killed the driver of another car "because he was driving too slowly". A large crowd was blocking the parking lot exit of a nightclub. A driver who was growing impatient with waiting for an opening drove his car straight into the crowd, seriously injuring seven people." These are extreme situations where the people involved probably had some kind of anger management issues but I don't think they should be completely dismissed.

I think road rage belongs in Being Bad because it is something that most drivers have done at some degree but it is not something that we like to admit.

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=facts-and-fictions-road-warriors

Bad Music

"Come here rude boy, boy can you get it up?

Come here rude boy, boy is you big enough?"

This whole song (Rude Boy by Rihanna) is full of sexual innuendos and just generally about sex. And yet it is played on the radio and is on the Now! 75 album which is bought by millions of young teenagers. There are so many songs which hint at a sexual theme, some more obvious than others. Some times it is even in the song title, Sexy Chick by David Guetta, Sex Me by R. Kelly, Sex On Fire by Kings of Leon and there are so many more.

If artists aren't singing about sex then they are normally swearing, even the once thought child friendly star Miley Cyrus has swearing in her song Talk is Cheap. On itunes there is explicit labels on quite a few songs. You can sometimes get the radio edit version which has had the swearing taken out, but if the song sounds just as good with the swearing taken out of it then why bother having it there in the first place?

Like someone else has said in an online blog "it's ok to use it a few times to express feelings" but when swearing is used excessively it almost looses its meaning and becomes pointless. A good example of this is the song Real Nigga Role Call by Lil Jon and Eastside Boyz, even the title could be offensive to some people.

I think the main reason there is bad music around is because the artists are reflecting on what is going on in the world at the moment, and we do live in a very sexual culture. The swearing is probably just a form of expression because after all that's what music is all about.

http://forums.musicforte.co/swearing-in-music-good-or-bad-dont-give-a-f***--t5176.html

Racism

Racism: "a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others"

Centuries ago when we still had the slave trade white people strongly believed that they were a different species to black people and so they justified treating their slaves like animals. Even before the slave trade native Americans were thought of as savages by the white English invaders.


I think that today racism is aimed at Muslims due to the terrorist attacks of the last ten years. There are anti-Islamic websites which focus on all the crimes that Muslim youths have committed and parts of the Qur'an which have probably been taken out of context.



I think racism is an awful crime which has been going on for many, many years. I think most people are guilty of it at some point even if they don't mean to. I am surprised that racism still goes on today as we live in such a multi-faith and race country. It is sad that the days of the slave trade, Martin Luther King and the Nazi's aren't long behind us.

www.dictionary.reference.com/browse/racism

Nasty Comedians

I recently went to one of the comedy nights the university holds and the main act didn't swear or be rude about anyone apart from people who were in the audience or who only he knew, it was actually really refreshing and funny. I think this proves that comedians don't need to be nasty about people to be funny.

Channel 4 have recently started a comedy roast programme where celebrities such as, Sharon Osbourne, Bruce Forsyth and Chris Tarrant, appear on the show to be roasted by comedians such as, Jimmy Carr, Jack Dee, Sean Lock and Alan Carr. Jonathon Ross appeared on the show to roast Bruce Forsyth and "several papers let loose their latest wave of fury at Jonathon Ross last week for his "outrageous attacks" on Bruce Forsyth. Ross, the Mirror claimed demurely had labeled Forsyth "f**cking ugly" and told him he had missed out on a knighthood because he "had done a lot of s***"."

Other celebrities have got themselves into trouble with the media for saying nasty comments about other people while they were trying to be funny; for example Jeremey Clarkson called Gordon Brown a "Scottish one-eyed idiot".

It's true that we have all laughed at someone or made a joke about a friend which we knew was going too far as soon as the words left our mouth. However I think that when these main stream celebrities say nasty things about other celebrities it is bad because they're not just embarrassing them in front of a small live audience it's pretty much in front of the world, which must be absolutely mortifying!

www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/05/comedy-roasts-channel-4
www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/feb/06/jeremy-clarkson-gordon=brown-insult

Reuse. Reduce. Recycle.

I think that this is a relevant topic to the current world we live in. We are surrounded by ideas which will make us more environmentally friendly. There are recylcing bins available to everyone, there are hybrid and electric cars, there are energy saving light bulbs, there are solar panels and wind farms and even washing detergents which have been designed to work at 15 degrees to save energy on heating.

The government have introduced park and ride schemes to try and cut down on the amount of cars on the road, there is also the scraping scheme which means that if you scrap your old car then you can get a new car which has a smaller carbon footprint.

There have been films made about the end of the world and a new ice age (The Day After Tomorrow). There have been countless documentaries and news stories about global warming and the new weather systems which are sweeping the world. Al Gore's film 'An Inconvenient Truth' is all about giving people a wake up call and giving them the truth about global warming and the devastating effects it could have on our planet if we don't do something about it now. For most of the film Al Gore gives many shocking facts, shows charts which show our CO2 levels to be off the scale and upsetting images of the retreating levels of snow on the tops of mountains and the ice caps.

There is scientific evidence to suggest that global warming is causing the polar ice caps to melt. Apparently "the Earth's temperature has increased by about half a degree Celsius... the sea level has risen 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20cm) in the last 100 years". 'An Inconvenient Truth' shows that after one of the last ice ages a huge amount of fresh water from Canada flowed into the Atlantic Ocean and disrupted the golf stream and sent Western Europe into another ice age for nearly a thousand years! Al Gore then jokingly says that this will never happen again because there isn't a giant mass of ice anywhere near that area, the screen behind him then moves up slightly to show Greenland, which is currently melting.

To help reduce the worlds CO2 emissions we all need to do our little bit. There are 12 top tips from climatecrisis.net which include, checking that your tires are properly inflated, cutting meat out of your diet one day a week to save water, plant a tree and there are more. It seems like there are so many options that we have, we just need to start taking them and stop being bad for our planet.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question473.htm

www.climatecrisis.net

Response to Natalie Robinson's- Weed and Wisdom

I think that like most things weed only becomes dangerous when it is over used. I don't know much about Rastafarian's but if it really is part of their religion then I think that perhaps exceptions should be made, however it is still an illegal drug so making those exceptions would probably be easier said than done.

According to Frank "cannabis is the most widely used illegal drug in Britain" the drug also increases the risk of users "developing psychotic illnesses including schizophrenia". I think that just because it doesn't harm everyone doesn't mean that it shouldn't be labled as bad. Stealing is still bad even though not everyone gets caught.

www.talktofrank.com/drugs.aspx?id=172

Body Modification

Before I did this blog my image of body modification was mostly of strange people who thought it was somehow art.

I did some research on body modification and I've found that there are lots more ways to modify the human body than I first thought. For example, there's scarification, piercings, branding, tattooing, sub-dermal implants, stretching skin, filing of teeth and even animal imitators (one of the most well known is probably Cat Man, who is in the picture).

After watching documentaries on YouTube I've learnt that there are many reasons for people to want to change their body in some kind of way. In many African tribes it is because of beauty, lip plates and scaring make the women appear more attractive, scaring can also indicates a right of passage that a person has entered into, such as childhood and adulthood. Scarification on women shows that the are strong enough to endure the pain of childbirth. Other body modifications show what tribe the person belongs to.

I have found that many animal imitators feel that they were born to be that animal or that (like the 'Lizard Man') it enhances their career. Most of the modifications for animal imitators is tattooing however some have had substances inserted into the skin to make them look more like their particular animal. It is against the law in America for cosmetic surgeons to do this type of procedures, so if they want metal pins to hold whiskers in their forehead then they have to have it done without anesthetic and without a doctor.

Some psychologists think that extreme body modification indicates some kind of abnormality and the, extreme, religious view is that you should love and honour what God gave you and how he made you. I don't have a very strong opinion on body modification, but I have learnt more about why people do these things to their body and that actually quite often it's more of a need than a want. I think some of the African tribal customs are very extreme, I have attached a link to a video about it but it is not for the faint hearted, but there are people from western cultures who are trying to educate them. For many people body modification is their form of income and others do it because they are very artistic and just love tattooing, the body is a blank canvas to them.

A video on African Tribal body modification: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwOXmjTsvs

A video on Cat Man: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIFAU9iBQ10

A video on Animal Imitators: www.youtube.com/watch?v=woupH5cyPI0

Response to Graham Quirk's- I'm a swearer, deal with it

I think that at certain times swearing is acceptable, however I hate hearing people swear infront of young children or shouting a swear word at the top of the voice in the street. Although there are times like when you're in pain when 'oh sugar' or 'oh crud' doesn't really covers it.

"Many researchers believe that it helps relieve stress and blow off steam, like crying does for small children." I think that there may be some truth behind this when we think about when and why most people swear.

http://people.howstuffworks.com/swearing1.htm

Response to Miles Ball- Smokers (cough!)

I think it's quite odd that despite all the heath risks and information that we have about smoking these days that new smokers start everyday!

I also agree that having a choice is (99% of the time) a good thing no matter what other people think at least we've been able to choose. I don't think that people always make the right decision because I'm not sure there are many circumstances when smoking could be a good decision.

This website outlines all the health risks of smoking:

www.netdoctor.co.uk/health_advice/facts/smokehealth.htm

Response to Natalie Robinson's- The Trouble of Alcohol...

It's ironic that intoxication stemmed from religion. Now it is the complete opposite, most religions dislike alcohol, I think it's because you aren't in full control of your mind or body. People's use of alcohol has changed, we now use it for socialising or giving ourselves dutch courage.

I like the angle you took on your blog, rather than concentrating on all the bad sides of drinking you looked at the history of it.

This website suggests that beer was used in the stone age as beer jugs have been found.

www.2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/Controversies/1114796842.html

Response to Tracey Greenstall's- Drugs

I found your blog very interesting to read. I've done a blog on drugs but you looked at it from a different angle than I did.

It's a harsh fact that people do die from drugs, thankfully I haven't ever had a personal experience of that, but I think that sometimes that's exactly what it needs to take to stop people taking drugs; and even that doesn't work sometimes. I still remember a shocking drugs talk I had at school when I was about 13, the man told us about all the friends he had lost to drugs. Even hearing all his stories it still didn't stop me trying drugs, which I do regret now just because it was such a pointless thing to do!

Response to Jacky Cheung's- Abortion

I don't think I would personally have an abortion because I don't really think it is morally right, but at the same time if I knew someone who'd had an abortion I wouldn't think any less of them. As you said, it is a very distressing and hard decision to make. And I do agree with your statement of "who are we to judge whether someone else should abort or not?" I think it is too much of a personal matter, not only circumstances but emotionally as well, for people to tell others what to do.

It such a controversial topic that most people have an opinion on but at the end of the day it is the mother who needs to make the final decision, as it is her who has to go through everything, what ever she decides!

To have a law which is radical on either scale would take away this very important decision. Barack Obama when asked "At which point does a baby get human rights?" he responded by saying, "I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade" and when asked the same thing John McCain simply said "At the moment of conception".

www.justfacts.com/abortion.asp

Response to Nicola Gorthy's- Smoking whilst Pregnant

This is something I've never quite been able to get my head round either. I appreciate that it would be very hard to completely stop if you are addicted, but if it's possible then some forward planning wouldn't go a miss- start to cut down before you're even pregnant?! Your personal experience has shown that you can never be sure how it will effect your baby and I personally don't see why anyone would want to risk it.

I'm not a smoker myself so maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way but if a doctor told me I had to stay in bed for 9 months I would do it! It would be hard but for the sake of my child I don't think I'd give it a second thought!

The medical advice is very clear, you shouldn't smoke. A website lists all the risks to the unborn baby, I think that this is the most shocking, "babies born to mothers who smoke... are twice as likely to die from cot death. There seems to be a direct link between cot death and parents smoking". That to me is more than enough persuasion!

http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/health_advice/facts/pregnantsmoking.htm

Response to Atta UI-haq's- Drinking Alcohol

I think to ban drinking alcohol completely is a little extreme as, you did mention it, there are people who do drink but not in excess. You have mainly concentrated on binge drinking, which yes is dangerous for your health as an over dose of alcohol can kill you. However, I don't think there is anything wrong with having a glass of wine with a meal or having a few pints in a pub with a group of friends. Most adults when they do drink use it to relax, having a glass of wine while watching TV, go for a drink down the pub after work or have a drink with a meal.

"The very acceptance of being allowed to consume alcohol, regardless of the amount, quite simply leads to many problems", I'm sorry but I don't think I agree with that. I think that the majority of the country are not alcoholics and can control their drinking, so when they have a few drinks, or even more than a few, they do not behave badly.

My opinion on drinking alcohol is that the Government should educate young people so that they know that it is not necessarily alcohol which is bad for you; it is the amount that you drink and how you drink it. ""It doesn't make a difference if you're drinking every day or once a fortnight, exceeding the recommended guidelines is risky," says Dr Michael Wilks. "Saving up your weekly units so you can drink them all on a Friday night is not the way to interpret the Department of Health's advice.""

http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/features/health/how-much-is-too-much

Response to Emily's Blog- Spit or Swallow?

I agree with you, it does look absolutely disgusting and is a huge turn off! I didn't realise it could spread diseases, especially such serious ones as TB! That makes it ten times worse.

I've noticed that sports players spit a lot, especially footballers. What kind of an example are they setting to their young fans who follow their every move and want to be just like them? They get into trouble for spitting at fans (obviously!) but I think they should get into trouble for spitting on the ground. Why can't they just swallow it!?

Comment to Being Bad- What is it? Bad Cinema- Kids.

I completely agree, I think there are lots of films which reflex what life is like for some people. I think Kids and other films like it show the extremes of young people's lives, yes teenagers do go out, get drunk and take drugs but I definately think it is the minority of lives which are similar to the characters in films like Kids or TV shows like Skins.

I'm not sure that "bullying, sex and drugs are becoming more prominant" because that has definately been going on for generations! I think these films are important in terms of keeping people in the know that this sort of thing does happen.

Infidelity in films

There are SO many films which involve some kind of infidelity.

Titanic: Rose cheats on her fiance with Jack.

The Notebook: Allie cheats on her fiance with Noah.

Mean Girls: Cady goes against the "rules of feminism" and kisses Aaron while he's still with Regina.

Love Actually: Two of the couples the couples have a type a affair, one of them is only a kiss.

Sweet Home Alabama: Melanie was technically married to Jake the whole time, so falling in love with Andrew would have been cheating on Jake but then she cheats on Andrew by kissing Jake.

The list goes on, but in all these films, apart from Love Actually you don't see the other side, how the cheated feel, (although you do in Mean Girls but it's not really serious).

It seems that films make infidelity seem less serious and it always results in a happy ending with hardly any conflict. When in reality this really isn't the case. But film makers have a motive which is to make money and apparently "two-timing, cheating mates sneaking around furtively in the dead of night under the cover of darkness and deceit sells tickets".

www.movingpicturesmagazine.com/NewsViews/tabid/60/entryid/2531/Commitment-to-Infidelity.aspx

Children having children

I happen to have a religious view on this subject but I don't want to drown this blog in biblical references.

In 2000 The Independent found that "one in four girls has underage sex but fewer than one third go to family planning clinics". These are frightening statistics but of course this doesn't mean than young people aren't using contraception as there are other ways to get it. Inevitably with underage sex there is underage pregnancy which, according to The Guardian in February 2009, rose for the first time in 7 years and a £20 million sex education package has been announced.

So why are teenagers, and even in some cases children, having sex so young? I don't think it is completely because of boredom or peer pressure, although obviously these things come into it. I think many teenagers are in loving/fond relationships and they genuinely think they are "ready", so at least the idea of sex and love hasn't been lost. I am a firm believer that children should be born into a married family (although that doesn't necessarily make their life anymore secure).

Teenagers and children are being brought up in an environment where sex is everywhere, in shops, music, film, the media and it is just something that you do when you feel like it. The idea of no sex before marriage is laughable! But if you think about it that is a very nice idea. Schools are educating safe sex rather than no sex. I think that if we brought our children up knowing that sex is wrong before a certain age then I think a majority of teenagers would wait (obviously this wouldn't work for everyone, the same way no drugs education doesn't).

I think that this is a type of bad behaviour because it is against the law, can be very damaging psychologically and can lead to another person being brought into the world in possibly bad circumstances. And yet despite this many teenager do have sex and babies too young.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/one-in-four-girls-has-underage-sex-report-715505.html

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/27/teenage-pregnancy-rates

Was Guy Fawkes an outlaw?

"Remember, remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder, treason and plot..." It is a very English tradition to celebrate fireworks night on the 5th November and to burn a Guy in the middle of a bonfire. But does this Guy Fawkes really deserve such remembrance or was he just another mindless martyr?

Infact it was not Fawkes' idea to blow up the Houses of Parliament, that was Robert Catesby, Fawkes was an ex-soldier who was trained in explosives and he was a Catholic. I think Guy Fawkes fits in with the other outlaws and bandits mentioned in the lecture because he wasn't harming everyone, he was making a stand against the discrimination of Catholics. Other Catholics probably would have seen Fawkes and the other plotters as good people defending their faith. Their plan, as we all know, didn't go ahead and after a tip-off letter was sent to one of the MPs, Guy Fawkes was found along with the 1800 pounds of gunpowder. He and the others were charged with treason and were hung, drawn and quartered on 30th-31st January 1606.

And yet 400 years later we still celebrate Guy Fawkes. The day was probably originally set up as a warning to other Catholics and a day for English people to remember that their King fought off such a threat and that the British throne is still intact.

But who knows what King was on the throne at the time? I didn't know until I researched, it was King James I by the way. It is the criminal's name that we remember and know about. In hindsight King James probably should have ignored the day and not done anything else about it. So in Guy Fawkes' case it was not really his actions as an outlaw which kept him in the history books it was how other people reacted to him, an extreme case of this is with Deadly Daring Deadwood Dick who never even existed!

I think Guy Fawkes and other such people who have committed crimes survive history because they evoke people's feelings and most people have an opinion on them. There is a Facebook page which calls Fawkes a hero! However if the same thing happened today then Guy Fawkes would probably be called a terrorist and wouldn't be remembered, just like the names of the London Bombers more than likely will not be remembered.

http://bristishhistory.suite101.com/article.ctm/the_gunpowder_plot

www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2247069534

Drugs- Crystal Meth

I have recently researched the drug methylamphetamine (crystal meth). It is said to give you a high better the heroine and it can last up to 24 hours. "It can bring on a feeling of exhilaration, and increased arousal and activity levels. People feel more awake and it suppresses appetite". It is very addictive and causes long term damage to the body psychologically and physically. If the drug is abused for a long time then when a person stops taking the drug they may not be able to experience pleasure again because the brain actually shuts down that area of the brain.

America are in the middle of a meth epidemic and have a website specifically for the use of meth and how to stop people using it, the effects and symptoms of it and a discussion. Under the entry of a mother who lost her son to meth is a little story of hope; "Back in the early 90's is when I started using meth. I liked it because of the energy it gave me and the weight I lost. I did it not realizing what it would do to my life. I lived on the stuff, eating occasionally, and not sleeping for days and days... I did meth for at least 7 years. I was addicted. The drug is NOT easy to give up, but I did it. NO rehab, but self determination. I seen people around me losing everything. I seen people getting thrown in jail, we had Dea come to my house looking for a lab in front of my kids, thankfully we were not the cooks, we were just the users. Reality hit me dead in the face that this was not the life to live no longer...It's not easy to get over drug addiction... I did it and have been clean for 10 years now." This extract into a meth users life shows that the drug completely controls your life, even endangering your children. Like many addictions, mothers will not give meth up whilst they are pregnant and obviously this effects the unborn child.

This sort of Class A drug abuse is a lot worse than using Class C and even some B drugs as you can get addicted to meth very quickly because 'real life' doesn't appeal to you as much and so the vicious circle begins.

A very detailed and opinionated discussion has started online because someone has asked for heroin and meth users to give their opinion on whether he should try either substances. Just by looking at the first page, many of the comments put a preference on heroin as meth is "one of the most addictive and damaging drugs around".

It seems that most people get into meth because they do not realise how addictive it can turn out to be or how physically damaging it is. At first it seems great, it makes you happy, you can stay awake for ages (perfect for parties), it makes you loose weight and it all lasts longer than other drugs! But then it seems that this drug can very quickly turn around and take you out by surprise.

www.talktofrank.com/drugs.aspx?id=178#effects

http://bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=492592

Bad Cinema

The film Kids is definatley a film which belongs in bad cinema. It covers a wide range of taboo subjects such as underage sex, alcohol and drug use, rape, gang violence and animal abuse. The film is very disturbing at times but at the same time it is definately "a wake up call to the world" (The New York Times). It is apparently a realistic depiction of what some teenagers lives' are like, which is why it is an important film which should be used to educate people.

There are a few films and TV programmes which show teenagers behaving badly, Thirteen and Skins being two. They are shocking at times but I think it's important to see this sort of footage as it gives teenagers a chance to see what can happen if they go completely off the rails but without it seeming like an educational film and possibly to remind parents that the same things are still going on as they were when they were younger.

Cheating

Cheating on tests is something we've all done at some point in our lives, whether it was over hearing someones answer in a pub quiz or writing notes on the back of our hand in school.

It is mostly to do with our natural will to want to do well and not to feel like a weak link and so out of desperation we cheat, it could also be down to bad preparation so five minutes before the test we scribble some notes down and hope for the best. For some people it becomes a habit and so like any other habit it needs to be broken. There is quite a lot of excitement involved in cheating, "Am I going to get caught?", and so for some it may be an adrenaline rush.

It's been found that children only really start to deliberately cheat when they reach the age of 10 and up wards, younger children may cheat but will see it as their way of helping another child. So why do we come to an age of cheating?

It could be that we have just got more intelligent in the idea of doing the least work for the biggest gain, Dan Ariely also came up with some results which suggest that "people cheat based on whether they think they'll get caught and the level of punishment they'll receive".

The other type of cheating is cheating on a partner. This could happen for a million and one different reasons each specific to the relationship. It is a lot more common that people may think, msnbc conducted a survey and found that "22 percent, have cheated on their current partner. The rate is even higher among married men".

This is obviously a serious thing for both the cheater and the cheated as it can destroy years worth of relationship, there are thousands of websites devoted to telling you if your wife or husband might be cheating on you, what to do if they are, tips on how to cheat successfully and even how to get your revenge on them. But how do people get into the situation of having two relationships at the same time? Like I said before it would be impossible to go through all the reasons why people cheat but the main reasons are possibly these:

Boredom, a long term relationship brings many hurdles which some people don't feel they can over come.

Distance, the out of sight out of mind scenario.

Being promiscuous, some people find it hard to commit to one person.

Falling for someone else, people may find that they are with the wrong person.

All these reasons may seem valid to the cheater but for the other person in the relationship it can leave them feeling used, stupid and unworthy.

I think this subject comes under being bad very well because, unless the person marries their new partner before splitting with the old, it's not illegal and it's something that normal people do but it is not considered a good thing to do and the cheater if often seen as the 'bad guy'.

www.glass-castle.com/clients/www-nocheating-org/adcouncil/research/cheatingbackgrounder.html

www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/ted-1/

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17951664/ns/health-sexual_health/

Not wearing a seat belt!

This is something that really annoys me because it is such a simple thing to do and it can quite literally save your life! And yet so many people don't wear their seat belts, and worryingly it is often children who have their parents in the car.

The legal side of wearing a seat belt is that the driver is responsible for everyone in the car under the age of 14 to be properly fitted with a safely belt, and a £500 fine can be given if you are caught without your seat belt on but no points on your licence. The statistics are in support of wearing a seat belt, "seat belts save 15,000 lives in the U.S. every year, every 13 minutes someone dies in a traffic accident, seat belts reduce the risk of fatal injury by 45 percent".

So the law is clear on it and so are the statistics. Every new car has a three-point seat belt for every seat, rather than a lap belt for the middle seat. So what are people's excuses?! ""It's uncomfortable", "It's a hassle", "I just don't remember"." I personally think these are pathetic excuses and people are just stupid for saying them. When it comes to children I think there is a certain amount of them knowing that they are supposed to and so by not putting it on they are being rebellious.

I know that on school trips on the coach we never used to wear our seat belts, the teacher would come down the aisle saying has everyone got their seat belt on but as soon as they'd gone to sit down we'd take it off again. Shockingly American school buses are not fitted with seat belts at all and they are only just starting to debate having them fitted, but amazingly COSTA (the Connecticut School Transport Association) are concerned that students wouldn't be able to get out safely in an emergency, and this is after a school boy was thrown over three seats and consequently died in a collision because he didn't have a belt.

So why don't adults wear them? Someone has asked "What is the main reason people don't wear seat belts?" and the answers coming from the people who don't are to do with not wanting to follow orders from the government, feeling restricted and uncomfortable, not thinking they need one, being too fat, having medical issues and freedom of choice. I can understand that sometimes when something is uncomfortable we don't want to wear it, like woolen jumpers, or when we feel restricted in a tight top we want to take it off, and everyone likes to feel like they have a choice, but really we have don't have a full free choice on anything! But if I knew that wearing a tight woolen jumper that I had to wear would safe my life I think, probably begrudgingly, I would wear it!

I don't think I'll ever understand why people don't make this simple choice but it seems that each side of the argument has very strong views, and I'd like to say that it only effects them but the truth be told it doesn't. Even if you are wearing a seat belt but the person behind you is not then the force of them hitting the back of your chair could kill you or if it is someone under the age of 14 who thinks it's cool not to wear a seat belt then they could cost the driver a lot of money, the aftermath your accident could ruin the lives of your family and friends when it could have just been a bit of a shock for you. The list could go on! Basically not wearing a seat belt is selfish, stupid and irresponsible!

www.lawontheweb.co.uk/seatbelts.htm

www.churchmutual.com/documents/RASeatbelts.pdf

www.nbconnecticut.com/news/local-beat/Bus-Crash--84624587.htm

www.answerbag.com/q_view/74624

Masturbation

What was/is the problem with masturbation?

In the past, as the lecture showed, people went to extreme lengths to prevent children from masturbating. The main problem with it in the past was that it was considered to be not only sinful but also damaging to your health, so naturally parents didn't want their children to start. The "problem" of child masturbation still occurs today, a worried mum wrote to a doctor on an online blog about her five year old son touching himself to fall asleep at nursery. The doctor relates the behaviour to thumb sucking or curling hair as a form of soothing themselves, but unlike those habits it must be done in private.

Similar to the past where masturbation has been related to sin and illness it is now linked with child abuse. While this may be the case it seems that it is more likely that the child is simply doing it because to them it feels nice and they don't see anything wrong with it. So why do adults still have a problem with masturbation if it appears to be a perfectly natural thing?

I think it's is similar to why we don't want to hear or see other people having sex or why we consider nudity to be embarrassing. It is a Westernised view that there are certain ways to behave which have probably stemmed back from colonisation when whites wanted to make the people from these new lands appear more barbaric, "they don't even wear clothes!"

It does seem that there is a difference between female and male masturbation. A BBC website describes female masturbation as almost an accident and they don't really know what they are doing, "most women who are currently without a sexual partner tend to ease their loneliness though the intense study of bubble baths, romance novels, and chocolate. Some women also attain emotional release during these times of stress by exploring their nether regions in solitude." Whereas male masturbation has a far more natural theme, "from the day the male foetus' hands grow long enough to grasp at their "third leg", until the man in question is dead and buried, the penis is a constant source of amusement and amazement to those of the male gender".

I think masturbation will always be a social taboo but at the same time I don't think anyone really wants to try and stop it from happening.

www.medhelp.org/posts/Child-Behaviour/MASTERBATIO/show/278080

www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A427204

www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A219061

Lying with integrity

People lie all the time, from silly things like saying you don't know where something is just because you're being lazy to much bigger things like lying in court,which is against the law.

So is there an unspoken hierarchy of lies, which are alright to say and which are definitely not? Yes, I think there is. Saying to someone that you like their children when you don't is an acceptable lie because the only person who is being effected is yourself; where as if you'd said you didn't like their children and told them the truth then it would probably end in an argument and upset everyone. Then I think there are medium lies which do affect the other person but only if they found out but the lie makes them feel better, like saying that someone looks nice in their clothes when they don't look that great. Then there are big lies, where if the person found out they would be very upset, like saying you haven't told their secret but you have; this is also a trust issue which would make it worse. Finally there are huge lies which affect a number of people, such as lying in court which is against the law and could result in a more serious punishment.

I actually think the world, to a certain extent, is a better place because people tell little white lies. If everyone told the truth all the time then I don't think it would be a very nice world to live in, all the little lies which people tell t0 protect peoples' feelings and even children's innocence would not be there, it would be the end of Santa Claus! The film 'The Invention of Lying' shows this very well, Ricky Gervais' character invents lying and then discovers how useful and damaging it can be.

However, a world where no one lied could be good in other ways, we'd be able to trust politicians and we could believe everything we were told. Other reasons why lying is wrong come from a BBC article about the ethics of lying, "an untrusting world is also bad for liars- lying isn't much use if everyone is doing it... lying is bad because it's a basic moral wrong... some religious people argue Lying is bad because it misuses the God-given gift of human communication".

There is a definate link to lying and religion, one of the ten commandments is "Thou shalt not give false testimony" the Quran even threatens that liars will go to Hell, "be carefull of falsehood as it is the compainion of sinners and both will be in Hell". This seems a little extreme that just by saying someone's hair looks nice, when really it looks like they've been dragged through a hedge, surely this is better than hurting their feelings, but if some religions are to be followed by the word then you could end up in Hell!

www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/lying/lying_1.shtml

Bad Behaviour

The fact the prostitution is still legal in the UK and it's only the advertising which is the problem suggests that it is the idea of people prostituting in their view that people don't like. What goes on behind closed doors is fine, seems to be the thing. It is still a job which many people aspire to do but it is "the oldest profession" so there must be something keeping it around.

Obviously one of the things keeping it around is the want, people must still want prostitutes otherwise they wouldn't still exist! Also, it's probably quite hard to police as it's something that can easily be hidden.

Prostitution is also seen as a form of abuse or type of slavery. It has been used throughout the ages, "from the Aztec time where Cihuacalli (House of Woman) became a legalized place for prostitutes to provide sexual services for men; to the Babylonians' time where each woman had to reach, once in their lives, the sanctuary of Militta (Aphrodite or Nana/Anahita), have sex with a foreigner as a sign of hospitality for a symbolic price ; and right down to the ancient Rome and Greece where slavery and sex ran alongside one another".

I think I tend to side with the 'if it doesn't affect my life then it's fine', because I feel it's none of my business what people do, generally. If one of my friends turned out to be a prostitute then I wouldn't stop being friends with them but on the other hand if my daughter said she was a prostitute then I would be disappointed and probably try and talk her out of it but still I wouldn't disown her or anything.

Smoking

I'm not a smoker but my family does. I went through a phase of wanting to smoke when I was about 16 but I think that was mostly peer pressure.

I don't see the problem with smoking, I understand the peer pressure side and that elderly people smoke because when they started they didn't have the same knowledge that we do now and it's now too late for them to quit.

I do think that it can add a sex appeal to some people but mostly only in films, I don't think I have ever seen anyone in 'real life' I've found particularly attractive because of their smoking.

The government are obviously trying to deter people from smoking, introducing the smoking ban, increasing the legal age to buy cigarettes etc, but I'm not sure it's making a major difference. Health secretary Andy Burnham has said that "one day, in the not too distant future, we'll look back and find it hard to remember why anyone smoked in the first place", this was from a BBC news article about the government wanting to half the number of smokers by 2020. The article goes on to say that related illnesses to smoking costs the NHS £2.7bn. every year, but a smoker may come back at the NHS by saying that the amount of tax they have to pay on their cigarettes is probably more than enough to re-pay that bill!

I think there will always be smokers even if the few remaining are just exercising their free will. I do feel sorry for smokers because even on job applications you can be asked if you're a smoker and as a non smoker, for some reason I'm always happy that I can answer no to that question in case it jeopardises my chances. I think the changes the government are making are good, as no one can deny that smoking is bad for your health, but on the other hand it does seem like it's becoming slightly extreme.

www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8490490.stm

Field Trip

I think we should go to Las Vagas. There is lots of gambling and drinking, plus it would be fun to go to America!