By: Me
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Filed under Other - Social Science by on Aug 12th, 2010. 
An Issue of Mixed Messages
How can something as prevalent, accepted, and accessible in our society as drinking alcohol be so harmful, unhealthy, AND illegal when consumed at or slightly above moderate intake levels? The simple asking of this question immediately uncovers a number of issues, one of which is the mixed messages that exist in our society about drinking alcohol.
The Accessibility and Acceptability of Alcohol
On the one hand, consider the thousands upon thousands of bars and taverns in the United States. Now add to this list the restaurants, night clubs, sporting events, festivals, state fairs, hotels, casinos, carnivals, etc. where alcoholic beverages are regularly served. Moreover, add the grocery stores, liquor stores, beverage stores, the Convenient Food Marts, the 7/11 stores, and the state stores where an adult can legally purchase as many bottles, cans, and/or cases of alcoholic beverages as he or she desires.
Is Drinking Alcohol Cool?
Not only is alcohol extremely accessible in our society but there are also a number of factors that reinforce the idea that drinking alcohol is “cool.” For instance, consider beer advertisements and commercials on TV. Indeed, it can be argued that some of the most memorable, funniest, and “best” commercials and advertisements on TV have been those that were associated with drinking beer. To push the point further, why would beer manufacturers spend millions of dollars for a commercial during the Super Bowl if this expenditure did not lead to more sales? From a slightly different perspective, consider professional athletes and movie stars who, by their actions and advertisements, reinforce the idea that drinking alcohol is “cool.”
Religious Rituals and Cultural Traditions
When religious rituals that make use of alcohol, cultural traditions that encourage drinking alcohol, special events and holidays that are associated with drinking alcohol, and the increasing popularity of adding alcohol to food for enhanced flavor–when all of these are factored into the equation, it becomes obvious that alcohol is deeply ingrained in our society. The point: when people are surrounded with alcohol and bombarded by events, traditions, holidays, and advertisements that are alcohol-related, it becomes part of their socialization process that in turn makes it easier to simply accept that they should drink alcohol if they are to “fit in” and become members of our society.
Alcohol Abuse and Drinking While Driving
If the prevalence, acceptability, and accessibility of alcohol represent the one side of the coin regarding the mixed messages in our society, then the dangerousness, unhealthiness, and illegality represents the other. Indeed, consider the numerous negative and harmful messages and statistics associated with alcohol abuse and drinking while driving that we have heard from the medical community, federal government, police, politicians, organizations such as MADD, and school and college administrators.
Mixed Messages and Their Consequences
When something like alcohol use is so intimately ingrained in the fabric of our society, it becomes extremely difficult to significantly alter its use and abuse in a comprehensive and beneficial manner. I assert that one of the consequences of the mixed messages about alcohol use and abuse in our society it that it becomes extremely difficult for many individuals, especially our youth, to realistically see the destructive, unhealthy, and sometimes fatal aspects of alcohol abuse.
The Influence of the Judicial System
Unfortunately, the judicial system and the ways in which it has dealt with alcohol-related offenses is another example of the mixed messages in our society about alcohol. For instance, until very recently, people who have received multiple DUIs have, in many instances, simply received a “slap on the wrist” for their alcohol-related behavior.
Fortunately, some states are becoming more reality and accountability-based and are making it a felony when a person receives his or her 4th DUI within a ten-year period. In Minnesota, for instance, this sentence includes three years in prison and a fine of not less than $14,000.00.
Incarceration AND Treatment
Sending people to jail for alcohol-related offenses, however, is not a viable “solution” unless the person receives help for his or her alcohol problem while incarcerated. True, the offending person is “off the streets” while incarcerated. When the jail or prison sentence is completed, however, a person who has received alcoholism treatment while incarcerated is more likely to become a responsible person who doesn’t continue to drink while driving and less likely to become a repeat offender.
Responsible Behavior
I am not necessarily disagreeing with those who preach “responsible behavior” regarding drinking. The bottom line, however, is one’s definition of “responsible behavior.” Let me explain. Let’s say that I have a lake that is used for swimming and that for whatever reason, hundreds of snapping turtles have populated this lake. Some people may say that “responsible behavior” in this example consists of warning all swimmers about the turtles and telling them to “be careful” while swimming. Others with a different point of view, however, might say that “responsible behavior” in this instance means warning the swimmers about the turtles, telling them to be careful while swimming, AND, at the same time, significantly reducing the turtle population so that there is less chance that the swimmers will get bit.
What Can Be Done?
If our society is more enlightened and more aware of the health hazards, fatalities, and destructive consequences of alcohol abuse and alcoholism, then why don’t we practice “responsible behavior” and make alcohol less available, less advertised, less glamorized, and less “cool” while at the same time increasing the advertisements, commercials, and public service messages that emphasize healthy and safe alcohol-free activities and lifestyles?
Copyright 2007 – Denny Soinski. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in any way, and give the author credit.
By: Dennis Soinski
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Filed under Self Improvement by on Aug 12th, 2010.
What is creativity? Have you ever heard someone say that person is creative? Do we really understand what a creative person is? Some of those we call creative do not see themselves as creative? Others we do not see as creative may actually be? We do not consider people who are smart creative, yet someone who is creative could also theoretically be a smart individual. But somehow the society norm has mixed the definitions somewhat? Someone who is smart uses their knowledge to solve problems is often considered a creative problem solver but not particularly creative. If they solve a very important problem, we often elevate them to the brilliant status. Creative is reserved for lesser in the minds of society for some reason?
Someone who is creative can be considered to be a dreamer or artist of some type. Often a person we label as creative is merely a person we do not understand or who lives an alternative lifestyle to the social norm or perhaps is somewhat off in our perceptions of what people should be like. Creative people or those we call creative are not necessarily the people we call doers or achievers, not because they are not achievers, but rather because they are not blazing the trail to be awarded with items of acceptance. Such things are simply not important to them. Yet creative people often are doing something and pursuing it with greater vigor than the rest of us, as they are doing it for themselves and in doing so are more fulfilled than the rest of us. That would appear to be a smart way to live.
It is interesting that we do not always consider creative people smart, yet we know those who are musically inclined are smart or they would not be able to what they do. In fact artists are often much smarter than the rest of us. Those famous artists in our past periods whether it sculpture, painting or symphony are always called brilliant or geniuses, but never merely smart.
Many believe that being smart is someone who has one, two, maybe three areas of knowledge memorized or a few piece of paper stating so and can tell you anything about those subjects. This of course is our societal definition of a smart human. We are told education makes us smart but even Calvin Coolidge warns us of educated derelicts.
The creative problem solver or the sculptor who turns nothing into something, that is not only a creative person, fore that person is all of these things; creative, smart, brilliant and a genius? Yet we in the Western World are so quick to label each person, as we thrust him or her into a definitional category and right or wrong we reduce their value to the whole in doing so. I wonder why we do that? Maybe you are a creative person and you can tell us; think on it.
By: Lance Winslow
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Filed under Self Improvement by on Jul 28th, 2010.
By: Kirsten
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Filed under Birds by on Jul 28th, 2010.
If you are a sociopath it means you do not follow rules of society and it probably means your mind works much different too. In fact it also probably means you have not been brainwashed into the political correctness of the forward progression of society. If so, then why is that a bad thing? Well in many ways it is not.
Yet the word sociopath is often used in a negative way. What is even more interesting is that there is a trend in the United States of many people breaking the political correctness and telling society to stick it when it comes to expected norms of society?
Being a sociopath means you do not follow the rules of society. Many people say that sociopaths are bad? Not so really, well they could be bad if they go around breaking laws and hurting people. But those who buck the trends of political correctness; artists, comedians, actors, writers and musicians are hardly unneeded in society.
In fact we need them very much to prevent our civilization from turning into a socialist beehive. For those whose brains work differently, we should be thanking you all.
Yet society, academia and those who think they are helping society by trying to be professional and then condemn others by using “Sociopath” in a negative connotation are not helping our civilization, as they use this as a tool to control and manipulate independent thinkers into their linear thought process.
And actually well nothing on Earth could be more damaging to the over all society than that. Consider this in 2006.
By: Lance Winslow
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Filed under Reference And Education by on Jul 28th, 2010.
By: BigDave
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Filed under Other - Society & Culture by on Jul 28th, 2010.
3. where do people in society get the messages?
4. why are these messeages considered important and who has a vasted interest in them?
By: Taz’Dingo
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Filed under Sociology by on Jul 28th, 2010.
By: Geomatch
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Filed under Other - Social Science by on Jul 28th, 2010.
Obesity is rapidly becoming one of the greatest health challenges of the 21st century. No disease is more common and causes more unnecessary illness or early death than obesity.
Filed under Health And Fitness by on Jul 28th, 2010.
Who makes the rules? Do you ever get tired of “this is required” and “that is required” no matter what it is you are trying to accomplish? How can someone let out his or her creative streak if there are always invisible stop signs?
What am I talking about?
I’m talking about everything … college requires you to take classes that are irrelevant to your interests and major or minor. They say that it will make you more “well-rounded”. Come on now. How does attending a math class half baked from the night before and listening to a teacher read the book to you make you more well rounded? Not to mention, the tests. The tests are multiple choice and you have to buy your own damn Scan-trons. If you want to know the truth, the learning process is the budgeting of your money and getting all the details right. Which Scan-tron do I buy? Where can I get the best deal on my textbooks — eBay or Amazon? How much money will I have left for Ramen Noodles if I buy this package of pens? If it’s not A and it’s not B, it must be C. Let’s get real. I’m not completely dissing college. I understand that there are professions that need the degree — doctors, dentists, architects — you know, jobs in which the public’s health depend on them. (I said architect because we don’t want buildings to come crashing down on us.) But even they are subject to taking required courses that don’t matter. It’s about making extra money for the larger entity, not necessarily about making well-rounded students.
Rules. I even had them at massage school. Aren’t they forgetting that some of their students are adults, not teenagers that just graduated high school and haven’t an inkling about what it’s like to live in the real world? I’ve worked jobs that pay two times more than what the people teaching me get paid, and they were telling me what to do and when to do it. I don’t appear to have a problem with authority, and really I don’t (I swear), but whenever I hear a condescending note come out of someone’s mouth, I can’t help but roll my eyes and wonder why I subject myself to such things. It makes my stomach sour when I see a woman old enough to be my mother clam up because someone basically yelled at her or “put her in her place”. It’s not right. We are adults. We know how to do our work along with taking on a full-time school schedule. Give us a break please. Don’t mark down that I am five minutes late for my clinical when I am there ten minutes before my scheduled shift, don’t charge me $260 for NOT attending one day of an elective for being sick, and then not have that elective available to me until after I graduate, don’t have the “principal” come in and yell at my class for being too noisy or forgetting to turn off our cell phones … we have lives, we are human adults, and we make mistakes. These rules only make the school look less of what they are trying to be, which is holistic, caring and open-minded.
Rules. Who ever decided what the format of a book or novel should be? Oh, uh … it HAS to be 70,000 to 100,000 words, it HAS to be 12-point Times New Roman (I DESPISE 12-point Times New Roman!), you have to have some “things under your belt” or “some articles published” before even considering writing something of that magnitude. Why? What does it matter? Isn’t someone who takes the time … perhaps years … to write the perfect novel, more persistent than the person who writes piddly articles for a Health & Fit Magazine? I would think so. And doesn’t it take more balls to write something from the heart than about politics, sports or the newest way to lose weight? But guess what folks? It all boils down to one thing — you guessed it — money. People make money writing about arbitrary subjects, because for some reason that is what the majority of people want to read. I just have to hope that there will be some people out there who will want to read something absorbing, frightening, interesting and unusual. Will there be? Who knows. But I’m going to break the rules to find out.
And having the college degree to succeed — that is the final “rule” of America that I will discuss today. I have met so many people that have college degrees that have no more good to say than someone that just graduated junior high. I have also met many people who do and don’t have degrees that are so wise beyond their years that my heart opens up to them and lets them in immediately. But for some reason, the ones with degrees (even advanced degrees) that are shallow, annoying and ignorant, tend to **** me off the most. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that I wanted school to be a part of my life at the time right after high school, and I didn’t go. I know that is part of the reason. The other part is that some people just assume that having the eduction makes them better, smarter and more important than people who don’t. They can’t even give you a good reason why. It’s just what they think. When I meet people like this, I want to scream in their faces, “SO WHAT!” So they went to school for 4-6 years full-time and did homework, went to parties and listened to interesting teachers for hours a day. SO WHAT. The majority did not work full time while doing this. Some didn’t work at all. THAT was their job — to go to school. How is that accomplishment compared to someone working and living in the real world instead of going though school? How? Yes, I know some people complete degrees as adults WHILE working full time … and those people I do commend very much. It’s the after high school crowd that annoys me. And I’ll say it many times before I die, I’m sure. It’s just a bone of contention, but I can honestly say it’s not because I want the experience now, I don’t, it’s because the ones that are having the experience don’t appreciate it, and they do not understand what the real world is until they are at least 25 or 26 years old. I confirmed yesterday that I no longer want to pursue an English degree when I met the strangest individual that talked for an hour about her hamster friend and how he speaks three dialects and sleeps on her pillow at night. She has a Master’s degree in English. Yikes. I’ll stick with where I’m at, thank you.
These are “A” Rules. Paying taxes. Not drinking and driving. Stopping at a stop sign. Don’t kill anybody. Don’t drink bleach. These rules make sense.
These are “B” Rules. Don’t walk across the street until the blinking light says so. Pay the city money for a sidewalk they decided to replace. Pay money to school when you change your mind about a class. Take yoga classes at school because it’s required. Don’t cuss in front of children. Don’t change careers or jobs too often. Don’t write a book, that’s stupid. Eat slowly. Don’t open a massage practice until you graduate. Go to the dentist twice a year. Get your eyes checked once a year. Go to the gyno once a year. Get all the tests and labs done that your doctor tells you even though you don’t understand why. Get your dog licensed in your city. Declaw your cat. Don’t eat eggs after the expiration date. Pour milk down the drain on the day it expires. Don’t move in with someone too soon. Get married before you live together. Getting married is the best day of your life. Kids change EVERYTHING. You have to buy gifts for people you don’t know because, well, it’s “expected” of you. Drive the speed limit in residential areas. Don’t let it be known that you spoil yourself sometimes … or god forbid, that you love yourself! Don’t write fragment sentences. Don’t question authority, even if it’s 86 years old.
“A” Rules are meant to be followed. “B” Rules are meant to be broken.
Have a very “B” day.
By: Jen Burmeister
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Filed under Society by on Jul 28th, 2010.