My News and Society Blog

ByBryan Cooper World Food Programme (part1) Ideas for: Haiti, Pakistan, Somalia, Africa, Brazil, Nepal etc. Make a collection at your local branch of 'free cycle' on the internet! Need a driver to collect the vast amount of unclaimed free children's toys, children's clothes, children's books, etc.Need a depot to keep all the toys, clothes etc.Be able to book a flight with the WFP (Book an air drop). From this: WFP-free cycle coordinators must be employed to set up links to the WFP to achieve...

ByRod Ventura Most of the recent end of the world theories are connected with each other. These days, end of the world predictions have affected the minds of people. Some are freaking out about the rumors going on. In the past, there are end of the world theories that have failed. However, up until today, there are recent end of the world theories that has yet to come. Here is the list of some of the recent end of the world theories: Predictions About Armageddon - The world has witnessed two...

Just over three hundred miles south of Hyderabad, the hub of all the IT giants including Microsoft and Google in India, nestled amidst the rocky hills lies the temple city of Tirupati. Not only does this obscure place on the map attract millions of Hindu pilgrims from across India and the world, it also plays the starting point of to an intriguing multi-million dollar business - trade of human hair. Surpassing Mecca, Jerusalem or Rome in terms of pilgrim numbers, every year more than 30...

A measure working its way through the Michigan Legislature would make the state the nation's 45th to allow residents to carry stun guns as a means of self defense. Wisconsin became the 44th on November 1. Stun guns, which discharge an electrical current between two frontal prongs to temporarily disable an attacker when they make contact is differentiated by Tasers, which shoot out a pair of electrically charged probes up to 15 feet, more like a handgun. The Taser has more often been in the...

Ethnocentrism: "An unbridled and unfiltered belief that one group is superior to another." Ethnocentric though, and ethnocentric prospective can be a prism through which cultural structure, cultural diversity, and cultural competency may be shaped and unquestionably, evaluated. Essentially, there are pros and cons, as with any provocative issue, and this one claims no exception. There is no sense in denying that ethnic pride, and ethnic focus, often produces positive outcomes relative to any...

What was the biggest event of 2011? The Japanese tsunami, the US or European debt crises, or the deaths of Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, or even Steve Jobs? Or was it something else? In a year where the world's population reached 7 billion (October 31), Gregorian Year MMXI has revealed no less hype, drama and tragedy than we're used to seeing. Perhaps in terms of enormity the following ten events can be considered (in reverse 'countdown' order of importance) the biggest, most memorable:...

ByLindsay F Mineo is a topic that sparks robust debate among scientists and animal behaviorists. Obviously people have the ability to end their own lives voluntarily, but do animals? When animals go off to die is it suicide or some instinctual habit of sickness or old age? Why would an entire pod of more than 60 whales beach themselves? One whale might be sick and dying and unable to support himself in order to breathe, leading him to travel to shallow waters and eventually (purposefully or...

ByLindsay F Mineo Since the beginning of human settlements have been altercations between people and elephants and it's led to a lot of deaths on both teams. Elephants are destructive animals: it's what they evolved to do. You don't get a 4-5 ton animal without a little muscle. African elephants tear down trees and destroy vegetation, which can be good for the environment as it fosters new growth and allows much smaller animals the chance to eat the leaves of felled trees, but it's not so...

ByLindsay F Mineo Back in my day a cell phone (when it became affordable for the non-wealthy) was for emergencies. As a sophomore I used 30 minutes each month on my Nokia to call my mom to pick me up from practice, and occasionally let my friends do the same so there wasn't a long line at the school phone. When that phone died I didn't have another until I was in college and was able to sign my own contract. A few years later when my little sister was in high school and everyone had a cell...

ByLindsay F Mineo I must have been around 6 years old when I last went to a circus. My aunt and uncle took me and my sister, who would have been around 4 or 5 at the time, to a tented circus. We ate cotton candy (something I never particularly liked but felt that as a kid I should eat it) while we watched the performances and I remember having the feeling that my aunt wanted us to have more fun than we were having. My sister might have been too young still to really know what was going on,...

ByLindsay F Mineo It's been a while since Americans have had horse meat. Sure we eat cows by the million, but horses are our symbol of the freedom of the Wild West, our quintessential cowboy mode of transportation and trusty companion. And now horse meat is back on the table. In 2006 Congress stopped federal funding from going to the inspection of horses for slaughter, and because all animals and slaughter houses must be inspected by law it effectively banned horse meat from the United...

ByJuly Warkowski Let's talk about everything Polish: culture, food, fashion, modern brands, as well as Polish heritage, and travels in Poland. Poland is a country that has changed tremendously in the last two decades. As economists point out, it is one of the largest economies in the European Union, and the only one which hasn't suffered from the last recession. Economic development is accompanied by changes in many other fields, including Polish culture, fashion, lifestyle of contemporary...

My choice would have been to put this message out later in 2012, but on December first, I realized that nothing could wait, the timing of a message is equally important to the content. Here are seven points and a conclusion that I can only pray that many will give careful consideration to, as we enter what promises to be, the most critical year of our entire history as a nation. It may not even need to be said that terms like liberal and conservative, the right wing and the left have ceased...

ByWilliam L Rogers The Fair tax is a tax proposal that would replace all federal income taxes on personal and corporate income with a new consumption based tax system. The fair tax would tax us only on what we choose to spend on new goods and services, used goods would be exempt under this proposal. While the fair tax might sound like a good idea at first. When you stop and think about it, the fair tax proposal does not sound quite as good as some might lead you to believe. The fair tax taxes...

ByConnie H Deutsch What would it be like to watch your home burning down to the ground and you escaping with just the clothes on your back while a team of firefighters stand around refusing to put out the fire, and seeing their fire trucks sitting in the distance doing nothing to help? Unbelievably, this is what happened to a couple who hadn't paid a $75.00 annual subscription fee to their fire department. In the underworld, this is known as a protection fee. If you pay it, your business can...