Read a article, about how a doctor went ahead and operated on a pregnant HIV women at the time of successful delivery.

The woman was in her last stage of pregnancy and many hospitals refused (no action taken for denial of service) to entertain her as she was HIV positive (I guess social stigma)

The doctor initially was reluctant to take up this as the hospital did not have the required infrastructure but later took this as a challenge with his staff.

After the successful delivery and taking all the right precautions for the same, he was hailed for this noble deed by everyone.

I think they had too, because it was a gamble taken by the doctor to save a mother and unborn child.

On the other hand, if something would have gone wrong, things would have been different, like:

1. Relatives of the women would have stoned the hospital
2. The so called bosses who appreciated the doctor would have recommended his suspension / termination
3. His doctors license would have been cancelled
4. And above all the MEDIA would have sunk his image instead of showing the good side of the doctor

All said and done,” ALL IS WELL THAT ENDS WELL”

Good luck to the doctor “Gautam Pratihar” for his future services to man kind

Details of her death were not released as that time.

Family members of the deceased were captured saying they will really miss their sister so much. They also sent their condolences to the children the deceased left behind.

The Bedford Police Department earlier confirmed they were seriously investigating the death.

The deceased according to Authorities was found inside an out building on the property.    Mary Kennedy, 52 was married to Robert F. Kennedy. Robert however filed for divorce in 2010 which sparked lots of media controversy exposing many happening in the marriage of the two.

AP Photo; Getty Images

Reaction from African-Americans to Admiral Obama’s abutment for same-sex alliance continues to be mixed, with some atramentous ministers beyond the country aboveboard criticizing the admiral this accomplished Sunday, and aggressive to vote Republican, or not all, in November.

But from the belvedere of Trinity United Abbey of Christ in Chicago, the Rev. Otis Moss III challenged that stance. He apprehend an accessible letter to his aggregation on same-sex alliance , and what the Bible teaches about Christian love. His letter targeted those in the blackclergy and association who’ve absitively this one affair abandoned will actuate their abutment the additional time about for the nation’s aboriginal African-American president.

Here is Moss’s letter:

My Brother: Tell your aggregation who are allotment of your apostolic affiliation to “live their accepting and not appoint their faith” for the Constitution isdesigned to assure the rights ofall. We charge apprentice to be added than a one-issue association and seek the admired association area we may not all agree, but we all admit the fingerprint ofthe Divine aloft all of humanity. There is no agnosticism bodies who aresame-gender-loving who absorb arresting places in the anatomy of Christ. For the clergy to adumbrate from accurate chat with quick dismissive claims devised from poor biblical scholarship is as sinfulas unthoughtful accepting of a apostolic position. Back we accomplish biblical claims after soundinterpretation we run the accident of adopting a doctrinal position of abysmal confidence but bare of love. Abysmal accepting may bell in our position, but it is the belief oflove that armament us to prayerfullyreexamine our position.

The catechism I accept we should affectation to our congregations is, “Should all Americans accept the aforementioned civilian rights?” This is a radically altered catechism than the one you aloft with the ministers, “Does the abbey accept the appropriate to accomplish or not accomplish assertive religious rites.” There is aberration amid rights and rites. We should never distort rights advised to assure assorted individuals in a pluralistic association against religious rites advised by accepting communities to acquaint a apostolic or doctrinal perspective. These two questions are answered in two fundamentally altered arenas. One is answered in the amphitheatre of borough agitation area the Constitution is the certificate of authority. The added is answered in the branch of ecclesiastical councils area theology, censor and biblical mandates are the allegorical ethos. I do not accept ecclesiastical councils are able to appearance borough legislationnor are borough assembly able to appearance religious rituals and doctrine. The academy of alliance is not beneath advance as a aftereffect of the President’s words. Alliance was beneath advance years ago by men who beheld women as acreage and accouchement as trophies of sexualprowess. Alliance is beneath attackby low wages, aerial incarceration, arbitrary tax policy, unemployment, and abridgement of education. Alliance is beneath advance by clergy who affirm abstemiousness yet anticipate annihilation of dispatch alfresco the bonds of alliance to accept assorted diplomacy with “preaching groupies.” Same-gender couples did not account the aerial annulment rate, but our boyish angle ofrelationships and our disability as acommunity to appear to grips with the belief of adulation and charge did. We still abash sex with adulation and affair with commitment.

My father, who is a adept of the civilian rights movement and retired pastor, eloquently declared the analytical attributes of this electionwhen speaking to ministers this accomplished anniversary who affirmation they will cull abutment from the Admiral as a aftereffect of his position. He stated, “Our Ancestors prayed for 389 years to abode a actuality of blush in the White House. They led over 200 bondservant revolts, fought in 11 wars, one actuality a civilian war area over 600,000 bodies died. Our mothers fought and were dead for women’s suffrage, our grandparents were lynched for the civilian rights bill of 1964 and thevoting rights act of 1965…my ancestor never had the opportunityto vote and I accept it is my angelic assignment to cull the batten for every affiliate of my ancestors who was denied the appropriate to vote. I willnot acquiesce bigoted ministersor astern politicians the achievement of befitting me from my angelic appropriate to vote to shapethe abutting for my grandchildren.”

“The academy of alliance is not beneath advance as a aftereffect of the President’s words.”

Gay and lesbian citizens did not account the bread-and-butter crash, foreclosures, and advance aloft bloom care. Poor underfunded schools were not created becausepeople admiration according aegis beneath the law. We accept abundant assignment to do as a community, and to affirmation the Admiral of the United States charge authority your apostolic position is absurd. He isPresident of the United States of America not the Admiral of the Baptist assemblage or Bishop of the Sanctified or Holiness Church. He is alleged to assure the rights of Jew and Gentile, macho and female, adolescent and old, Gay and straight, atramentous and white, Atheist and Agnostic. It should be acclaimed the Admiral offered no legislation, or controlling order, or present an altercation afore the Supreme Court. He artlessly declared his claimed conviction.

If we cartel abduct abroad from the babble of this debate, we will apprehend as a abbey we are alleged to “ Do justice, alive benevolence and airing humbly with God .” Gay bodies accept never been the enemy; and back we use rhetoricto advance they are the antecedent of our problems we lie on God andcause tears to breeze from the eyes of Christ.

I am not allurement you to change your position, but I am advertence wemust break in chat and not acquiesce our own claimed affecting prejudices or doctrines to anticipate us from seeing the possibilities of a admired community.

November is fast approaching, and the alcohol of Ella Baker, Septima Clarke, Fannie Lou Hammer, Rosa Parks, A. Phillip Randolph, James Orange, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther, King Jr. angle in the balustrade of heaven adopting the question, “ Will you do justice, alive benevolence and airing humbly with our God ?” Emmitt Tilland the four little girls who were assassinated in Alabama during adoration did not die for a Sunday academic complete chaw to appearance antipathy for one accumulation of God’s people. They were dead by an evilact allowable by men who believed in article over love. We serve in admiral this day because of a man who believed in adulation over article and died on a acropolis alleged Calvary in a arenaceous Palestinian association 2,000 years ago. Do not let the address of this agitation accumulate you from the polls, my friend.

Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images

Before Admiral Obama had evenannounced his abutment for same-sex alliance, Newsweek was accepted to do article drastic. Time magazine’s awning , featuring a mother breast feedingher 3-year-old, afflicted acceptance over what Newsweek , accepting apparently cornered the bazaar on arguable magazine covers, would do to one-up its competitor. A Newsweek agent alike accepted that afterwards editor Tina Brown saw the Time cover, she laughed and said ,“Let the amateur begin.” Abiding enough, Brown and the blow of the Newsweek editors were able to appear up with an abstraction that created aloof as much, if not more,controversy—and discussion—as Time ’s: a awning featuring an angel of Obama with a bubble aura over his head, aloft the banderole “The Aboriginal Gay President.” Poynter argues that “ Newsweek ’s awning is provocative,fun to riff about, and a banderole in the arena that says book journalism still matters. Kinda makes you achievement the amateur continue, doesn’t?”

1. Jim Loewen at Salon

Loewen disagrees with Newsweek ’s awning story, arguing that Obama is not the United States’ aboriginal gay president. Not alone is he not gay, we’ve already had a gaypresident: James Buchanan, he writes. “There can be no agnosticism that James Buchanan was gay, before, during, and afterwards his four years in the White House. Moreover, the nation knew it too—he was not far into the closet,” Loewen writes, pointing to belletrist amid Buchanan anda acquaintance in which he laments the move of his lover to Paris. “I havegone a admiring to several gentleman, but accept not succeeded with any one of them,”reads the adduce from Buchanan’s letter. “I feel that it is not acceptable for a man to be alone; and shouldnot be afraid to acquisition myself affiliated to some old maid who cannurse me back I am sick, accommodate acceptable dinners for me back I am well, and not apprehend from me anyvery agog or adventurous affection.” Loewen argues that the acumen Americans don’t name Buchanan as our aboriginal gay admiral “is that we accept a affecting acceptance in advance … Buchanan could not accept been gay then, abroad we would not seemmore advanced now.”

2. Eric Randall at The Atlantic Wire

As Andrew Sullivan himself accustomed , the banderole for his awning article was not advised to be accepted literally. Newsweek was not attempting to “out” Obama but rather was authoritative a comedy on Toni Morrison calling Admiral Bill Clinton “the aboriginal atramentous president.” But Randall credibility out that this isn’t the firsttime that advertence has been made. Obama has alert been alleged the aboriginal woman president: aboriginal in 2008, by Newsweek ’s Martin Linsky , and afresh again by The Washington Post ’s Kathleen Parker in 2010. The altercation in both cases was that Obama’s wisdom, values, and administration appearance were agnate to that of a changeable leader. In 2009 the Associated Foreign Press asked if Obama was the aboriginal Asian-American admiral while, the aforementioned year, Geraldo Rivera appropriate he ability be the aboriginal Hispanic president. Then, in 2011, New York annual declared him the aboriginal Jewish president. “Expectations were aerial that editor Tina Brown would do article about attention-grabbing to mark this occasion, but this accomplishment seems, well, cliché,” Randall writes . “It wasn’t activity to be continued afore addition outed our aboriginal black, female, Jewish, Hispanic, Asian-American admiral as gay.”

3. Rick Klein at ABC News

While the “first ____ president” adumbration has been acclimated before, never has “gay” been the backup word. And, as Klein credibility out , the acceptation of the awning lies in the actuality that such an angel of the Democratic admiral isn’t a alarming affair for the party. “A move that any antecedent Republican applicant for admiral would accept apparent as a rainbow-wrapped allowance has been met haltingly by the GOP’s accepted bearer,” he writes. Instead, “the admiral has confused on a above cultural affair where, polling suggests, demographics are on his side, if not necessarily politics. And the attack has apparent addition anniversary expire area the Obama economywas not advanced and center.”

4. Brad Knickerbocker at The Christian Science Monitor

“Is Obama the ‘first gay president’?” Knickerbocker asks . Added important, will it amount for the election? No, he suggests, citation several arguments that theexcitement over Obama’s change of assessment on gay alliance does not concealment bread-and-butter apropos that assume to drive votes. “According to a new Associated Press-GfK poll, Americans are growing added bleak about the economy, and administration it charcoal Admiral Barack Obama’sweak atom and better claiming in his bid for a additional term,” writes Knickerbocker. So conceivably the Newsweek cover’s better affair is its focus on a position of the president’s that is of little acceptation to the election.

5. Twitter

The surest assurance of altercation is whether it consumes the Twitterverse, and on Monday, Twitter was all over this week’s Newsweek cover. Our admired tweets apathy the admiral and ask what the aboriginal adult thinksabout all this. @Indecision wrote , “Michelle Obama is activity to cast back she sees that Newsweek cover,” and the Dennis Miller Show joked , “re Newsweek awning Wouldn’t Michelle acquaint you he’s thefirst Bi-President?”

6. Press Secretary Jay Carney

Amid all the speculation, analysis, and acknowledgment surrounding the cover, what does the man himselfthink about actuality adorned with a bubble aura and dubbed “the aboriginal gay president”? We’re not absolutely sure. On Monday morning, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dodged questions about how the admiral reacted to the Newsweek cover, adage he wasn’t abiding if Obama had apparent it.

1. Jim Loewen at Salon

Loewen disagrees with Newsweek’s cover story, arguing that Obama is not the United States’ first gay president. Not only is he not gay, we’ve already had a gay president: James Buchanan, he writes. “There can be no doubt that James Buchanan was gay, before, during, and after his four years in the White House. Moreover, the nation knew it too—he was not far into the closet,” Loewen writes, pointing to letters between Buchanan and a friend in which he laments the move of his lover to Paris. “I have gone a wooing to several gentleman, but have not succeeded with any one of them,” reads the quote from Buchanan’s letter. “I feel that it is not good for a man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.” Loewen argues that the reason Americans don’t name Buchanan as our first gay president “is that we have a touching belief in progress … Buchanan could not have been gay then, else we would not seem more tolerant now.” 

2. Eric Randall at The Atlantic Wire

As Andrew Sullivan himself acknowledged, the headline for his cover essay was not intended to be understood literally. Newsweek was not attempting to “out” Obama but rather was making a play on Toni Morrison calling President Bill Clinton “the first black president.” But Randall points out that this isn’t the first time that reference has been made. Obama has twice been called the first woman president: first in 2008, byNewsweek’s Martin Linsky, and then again by The Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker in 2010. The argument in both cases was that Obama’s wisdom, values, and management style were similar to that of a female leader. In 2009 the Associated Foreign Press asked if Obama was the first Asian-American president while, the same year, Geraldo Rivera suggested he might be the first Hispanic president. Then, in 2011, New York magazine declared him  the first Jewish president. “Expectations were high that editor Tina Brown would do something typically attention-grabbing to mark this occasion, but this effort seems, well, cliché,” Randall writes. “It wasn’t going to be long before someone outed our first black, female, Jewish, Hispanic, Asian-American president as gay.”

3. Rick Klein at ABC News

While the “first ____ president” trope has been used before, never has “gay” been the fill-in word. And, as Klein points out, the significance of the cover lies in the fact that such an image of the Democratic president isn’t a terrifying thing for the party. “A move that any previous Republican candidate for president would have seen as a rainbow-wrapped gift has been met haltingly by the GOP’s standard bearer,” he writes. Instead, “the president has shifted on a major cultural issue where, polling suggests, demographics are on his side, if not necessarily politics. And the campaign has seen another week elapse where the Obama economy was not front and center.”

4. Brad Knickerbocker at The Christian Science Monitor

“Is Obama the ‘first gay president’?” Knickerbocker asks. More important, will it matter for the election? No, he suggests, citing several arguments that the excitement over Obama’s change of opinion on gay marriage does not eclipse economic concerns that seem to drive votes. “According to a new Associated Press-GfK poll, Americans are growing more pessimistic about the economy, and handling it remains President Barack Obama’s weak spot and biggest challenge in his bid for a second term,” writes Knickerbocker. So perhaps the Newsweek cover’s biggest issue is its focus on a position of the president’s that is of little significance to the election.

5. Twitter

The surest sign of controversy is whether it consumes the Twitterverse, and on Monday, Twitter was all over this week’s Newsweek cover. Our favorite tweets disregard the president and ask what the first lady thinks about all this. @Indecision wrote, “Michelle Obama is going to flip when she sees that Newsweek cover,” and the Dennis Miller Show joked, “re Newsweek cover Wouldn’t Michelle tell you he’s the first Bi-President?”

6. Press Secretary Jay Carney

Amid all the speculation, analysis, and reaction surrounding the cover, what does the man himself think about being adorned with a rainbow halo and dubbed “the first gay president”? We’re not quite sure. On Monday morning, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dodged questions about how the president reacted to theNewsweek cover, saying he wasn’t sure if Obama had seen it.

There has yet to be a study that can find any solid link between violent video games and people committing violent acts. So do video games really make us more violent? Youth violence often gets blamed on video games, but not other violence. In fact, violent video games may even reduce aggressiveness by acting as a safe outlet for anger and stress.

The battle over violence in video games has been going on since the 1970’s, when a game called Death Race was released. The purpose of the game was to run over “gremlins” that many claimed looked too much like humans. Ironically, people protested by dragging Death Race machines out of arcades and burning them, that is violent in itself. Almost every time there is a major violent crime, the blame is placed mostly on video games, especially when youth are involved. There have been many attempts to pass legislation against violence in video games, with few being successful. In 1994 the video game industry voluntarily established the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to try to avoid government involvement. As video games continue to become more realistic, so does the concern of the effects of such graphic violence.

One of the biggest concerns most people have about violence in video games is how they affect youth. Parents are concerned that children are playing video games that are too violent for their age. Whether violent video games effect teens and adults or not, many fear that younger children may be more easily influenced by the violence. If this is true, it should be the parents’ choice and responsibility to decide what they allow their children to play. Letting your child play with knives may not be in their best interest either, but there is no specific law against that. It is just common sense that the parents would not give knives to their child. Since there is little research that effectively decides if violent video games affect us, it is the parents’ choice to make. Video game historian Keith Feinstein notes that: “the Columbine shooters played with pipe bombs in their basement and no one stopped them from playing Doom. But no one stopped them from building pipe bombs in their basement, either”. As for the rest of us, we will not be turning into mass murderers anytime soon. Research has found some negative effects of video games pertaining to violence and aggression, but these effects are minimal, and are comparable to many other sources of violence in our society, “some media-violence researchers recently published an article suggesting that reading passages from the Bible with violent content increases “aggression” in much the same way that video games supposedly do. So if video games have to be restricted from children, apparently so do at least some portions of the Bible”, “And, of course, videogames aren’t the only pastimes that could lead to aggression: dodgeball, paintball, and a bad beat in Texas Hold ‘Em can heighten arousal, too. Dr. Vincent Mathews, a radiologist at Indiana University who has studied the brain’s response to violent video games, suggests that the effects of these other activities would be comparable. “I would think that paintball or dodgeball would show similar results,” he says. “But no one is calling for these games to be banned””.  We are surrounded by violence, so why pick on one source that is no worse than the rest?

There has been a lot of research done to try to prove violent video games do make us more violent. Many claim that their results show this is true. However, most studies have produced varied and inaccurate results. Publication bias is a huge issue, “Admittedly, publication bias (the tendency to publish articles that support a hypothesis and not publish those that do not) is very likely a widespread problem in the social sciences and is not unique to video-game studies”. In my own research I found it more difficult to find articles defending video games than I did articles that accused video games of more than just making us more violent. Publication bias can also be linked with over exaggeration, “social scientists may be too prone to make big and frightening pronouncements from weak results”. Other studies have been flawed due to factors like using outdated video games, “Reading the fine print in the Dill and Anderson study, for example, reveals that the researchers used outdated, mismatched games and required an absurdly brief amount of actual playtime from the subjects”. In addition, for some reason there has been very little long term research done. How can we possibly determine the effects video games have on us if we do not conduct studies that last for more than an one or two hours at a time? If there were to be any drastic effects of playing violent video games they would not all be instant. Dr. Dmitri Williams of the University of Illinois said “You can’t study people for 20 minutes and know what’s going to happen to people in society 10 years later”. Another obstacle that hinders any research done is the inability to replicate or allow for actual acts of serious violence. Although it would be effective, we can’t give test subjects a loaded gun and see what they’ll do with it after playing a video game for 10 minutes.  ”We can’t have people assault, rape, or murder someone” in the lab, says Dr. Brad Bushman, a University of Michigan psychologist who studies the effects of media violence. After sorting through all the studies that have been done, and take the above issues into consideration, there remains no significant proof of any link between playing violent video games and becoming more aggressive or violent, “My meta-analysis concluded that there was no evidence to support either a causal or correlational relationship between video games and aggressive behavior”.

            If video games have been accused of making us more violent for many years now, and no one has successfully been able to prove it, why are we still worried about it? To fully understand where this fear of violent video games came from, you must first understand who the people that have this fear are. Looking back in history, there has always been something that parents of a certain generation were afraid of because they thought it would harm the youth of that generation, “Like Elvis in the 50s, or Dungeons & Dragons in the 1980s, videogames are still viewed as the dangerous scourge of youth culture”. It is mainly the last generation, who are unfamiliar with video games that blame them for the youth violence they see on the news. Many are intimidated of video games because they do not understand them and the complex culture and effects that surround them; “when people are frightened, oversimplifying a complex problem becomes attractive as a quick, easy fix to an otherwise imposing cultural barrier”, “it is the underlying technology that frightens older generations who can’t comprehend the fast changing mechanics shaping the way the world interacts”,”They do not understand the modern language. They become frightened of what they do not understand.” says video game historian Keith Feinstein. What a lot of people have forgotten is that it is not just youth who are playing violent video games. Many people in their twenties and thirties have grown up with video games and continue to play them. However when there is a violent crime committed by an adult, no one questions if video games are to blame, “We are for some reason more interested in violence when it is committed by young people. But we didn’t ask what kind of music and video games Tim McVeigh [the Oklahoma City bomber] was into” said Sociologist Karen Sternheimer, specializing in pop culture and youth at the University of Southern California. This is the perfect example of how we can blame video games for our problems without looking at the bigger picture. Violent video games have essentially been stereotyped.

One thing I have found odd about all this video game controversy is that we have overlooked our own intelligence. If we are smart enough to conduct studies about their effect on us, then are we not smart enough to know when a game is a game, and not to try to relive it in real life? “Video games, like the rest of the media, form a faceless specter that we have called into being with our own internal desires for sex and violence, yet can turn against when we need a straw man to blame for our own recklessness”, maybe we need to stop blaming video games, and take a look at ourselves: “people who had previously filled out questionnaires reflecting an even-keel personality were less aggro after playing a violent game. Those who had a more aggressive disposition were more susceptible to these heightened emotions”. So there is hope for our intelligence yet, it seems that violent people are more affected by violence in video games. Thus one can assume that people who commit violent crimes are just violent people, not mindless killers brainwashed by Grand Theft Auto. So what does that make the rest of us who play video games? Normal, “The British Board of Film Classification conducted a survey that found that “the violence helps make the play exhilaratingly out of reach of ordinary life…. Gamers seem not to lose awareness that they are playing a game and do not mistake the game for real life.”.

            What if we have this backwards? What if, instead of thinking violent video games causing us to replicate that violence in real life, replicating violence in video games actually stops us from committing said violence for real? It is not a completely absurd thought. Maybe when we are angry and feel like punching the next person who says something to us, we can go blow someone’s head off in a video game and that will take the anger away. Although it probably depends on the type of person you are, I fully believe that taking your anger out on video games is very effective, as well as safe. I personally can relate to this. I also find playing all video games relaxing regardless of the level of violence in them. Now some people may agree with this, some may not, but there is one thing that may support this actually being true, “The numbers do not lie. Violent crime is down, but violence in video games is up”. Violent crimes have been going down over the same time period where video games have been growing more popular and more violent. No one knows if this is because video games help prevent real world violence or if the two facts are unrelated and just a coincidence, but how can video games be making us more violent if the facts prove the opposite? “Could you imagine how far the debate on global warming would have gotten if the earth’s atmospheric temperatures were decreasing while pollutants were being released?”

            With all the research that has been done, it is still unclear if video games do make us more violent. What we do know is, if there are any effects at all, they are minimal. Since it remains a matter of opinion, the only thing we can do individually is make our own personal decision on what to play, and what to allow our children to play. Researcher Craig Anderson, chair of Iowa State University’s Department of Psychology said it best in my opinion, “It’s society, not science, that must decide how to deal with the negative effects of violent video games”. Is this going to stop me from playing video games with violence in them? No, so if you don’t mind, I will now go back to peacefully playing Call of Duty.

Like any amateur, Obama started out his Hollywood style productions as any producer wood, through trial and error.  He first hit the scene with his stage setting of a podium that looked just like one the real President had at the time.  Well Obama has grown since then and with a little help from his Hollywood chums, his stage presentations have gotten a little better.  He is no Selznick, but he is evolving.

Compare his productions of the past, one of his signings, or a personal appearance, to the one of recent.  “The script is ready and we need to do this in one take, Break a leg everybody.” North Carolina votes on gay marriage. Biden goes on first announcing that Obama is pro gay.  Enter Obama the very next day announcing the same thing.  Yes these shows are short but Obama makes his point.  He is ready for the Gay community to vote for him but will they?  Only four years before, Obama insisted that marriage is between a man and a woman.  Now he never flip flopped, he evolved because as any good Hollywood producer knows, only republicans flip flops.

It is all about production.  Once Obama was speaking on a stage with the setting behind him being that of ancient Greece. It is only a matter of time he shows up in full costume.  That probably wont happen, because he although the main actor in his plays, he is really the Producer.  He is good at doing voices but that is only on special occaisions.  Ues he could sing like Al Green, and even show compassion in his voice like a Dr. King.  He got that one from Oprah.

All kidding aside, before Obama walks out on stage to make a point, you can bet he had a lot to do with the prep work beforehand.  He cues the Media in, on what to say, and sent out the smaller actors to speak up what his issue du jour is.  The plays are growing thin and the public weary.  The audience is thinning, and Obama is regrouping.  Oh the suspense, oh the drama. 

Let’s look at few examples: Living in Europe from 1960s to he end of millennium I remember how there were barely any terrorists a decade prior to 9/11. In Europe the Italian Red Brigades from the 1970s had retired, IRA was talking peace not war anymore, and Basks … I don’t know, we didn’t here about them at the end of the millennium.

If we looked a little further there was Palestinian Liberation Organization in the Middle East. In the 1990s the media addressed those people who fought for Palestinian state as fighters for Palestinian liberation or something similar but soon after 9/11 they became terrorists.

Events of 9/11 have two opposite stories. The mainstream media took the one that the government launched; about few Islamic terrorists who had learned to fly those huge jets and crashed them into three buildings. On the other hand the mainstream media keeps ignoring the other story, which claims that those attacks were actually inside job, which purpose was to basically establish conditions for the state of emergency.

Another huge event that I remember clearly how the mainstream media was pushing for its own truth was beginning of the war in Iraq. The obvious question is, who created weapons of mass destruction because, clearly, Iraqis and Saddam Hussein didn’t, as it was shown later. Was it the government or the media or were they working hand in hand?

More importantly for me were the differences in reports about invasion on Iraq. The mainstream media traveled with the US military and served as a mean to spread their propaganda among the American public. On the other hand, there were independent radios, which employed freelance journalists, who reported live via satellite phones from the other side of the front. They painted quite a different picture than the mainstream media, however, not many people listened to those radios, just as not that many people have heard those, who have claimed that 9/11 events were work of the US government or a small group of individuals closely linked to the government or being part of it.

Those are big stories, huge events that have affected the entire world. One may ask, why would the media do something like that, why they wouldn’t honestly and truthfully report about facts and events.

Well, it’s all about money at the final analysis; and I don’t mean necessary money that the media makes directly. That is minor. The big money is somewhere else. Let’s look at the war in Iraq and postwar events: the entire situation was artificially created and some companies are now making fantastic amounts of money there. Their owners most probably don’t complain because of that and, if I had to guess, I’d say many of them own shares in some main media outlets as well or at least play occasional golf game or have dinner with their owners, if you know what I mean.

Similar thing happened in the US after 9/11. The government created entire new department and have poured incredible amounts of money into that and related enterprises that are being run by private companies, which are in hands of … you guessed it. That is just one segment of a much bigger picture.

There are many other stories that media reports or creates if necessary, which purpose is more or less entertainment for the masses but the underling essence is the same – to directly or indirectly make money for handful of people.

One of the biggest manipulators in the modern history, Hitler’s minister for propaganda, Joseph Goebbels reportedly once said: ““If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” Apparently, JFK, the thirty-fifth President of the United States said something very similar: “No matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as the truth.”

In the conclusion, we can sadly establish that media has been a crucial factor in not only changing but also creating the reality. I say sadly because the media does that under the influence and for the benefits of a very small group of individuals, who shamelessly run the show behind the scene. 

Hopefully, a day will come when the media will start helping to create and support a positive and kinder reality, which will promote values such as love, peace, compassion, understanding, and kindness.

We, the consumers can help us get there a bit faster by simply ignoring current mainstream media. Just imagine the effect it would have if every single person turned off their TV and radio and didn’t buy any newspapers anymore. Just imagine how much the world would change on better for you if you did that.

The media, especially the television, is the number one source of information about sex for teenagers. “The average teenager watches 3 hours of television per day which comes to 20,000 hours by the time they graduate from high school; more time than spent in the classroom”(Teenage Sexuality). The truth of the matter is, teenagers are interested in sex, but they aren’t getting the right kind of information. “40% of teens say they get ideas from TV about how to talk with their partners about sexual issues” (Teenage Sexuality).

The root of the matter is the media. Sex is everywhere on television. Sex is even used to help advertise a product. As the book Signs and Symbols states,

“The saying that ‘sex sells’ is equally true of any other imagery that appeals to human emotions, such as the use of people’s instinctive response to babies to sell a product. But sexuality is probably the most common ‘attractor’, and is widely used in marketing, both subtly and blatantly. Most advertising uses conventional sex symbols, depicting women as objects of lust and men as dominant. Both the film and advertising industries continually explore and push the limits of sexual explicitness. Sexual imagery generates the greatest impact, inducing excitement and outrage, when it tugs on the morals and taboos of a given culture.”

Sex is definitely not a bad thing, but sex is bad when uninformed teenagers are doing it. “Human beings are first and foremost sexual creatures, and to ensure the continuation of the species nature has ensures that sex is a pleasurable, health-promoting activity” (Signs and Symbols 160). This is the reason why advertising with sex actually works, and why television shows and movies are popular with sex. This is the reason why sex is bad when uniformed teenagers are doing it. According to the article, Teenage Sexuality, In the United States, almost one-third of 15-year-olds and 71 percent of 18 year-olds have had sex and almost one million teenage women become pregnant each year.

The only way to fix these problems is to inform teenagers in high school about the media and sex. It is advisable to hold discussions about sex in an English class, as long as the discussion does not get personal, or graphic. Conducting this discussion would be hard, but necessary. According to the article, Sex Education,

“The skills young people develop as part of sex education are linked to more general life-skills. Being able to communicate, listen, negotiate with others, ask for and identify sources of help and advice, are useful life-skills which can be applied to sexual relationships. Effective sex education develops young people’s skills in negotiation, decision-making, assertion and listening. Other important skills include being able to recognize pressures from other people and to resist them, dealing with and challenging prejudice and being able to seek help from adults – including parents, and professionals – through the family, community and health and welfare services.”

One hard part about holding this discussion is that everyone has different views, opinions, and attitudes towards sex and different aspects of sex. “For example, some health messages emphasise the risks and dangers associated with sexual activity and some media coverage promotes the idea that being sexually active makes a person more attractive and mature. Because sex and sexuality are sensitive subjects, young people and sex educators can have strong views on what attitudes people should hold, and what moral framework should govern people’s behaviour – these too can sometimes seem to be at odds” (Sex Education). The topic that teenagers are most interested in, and is the root of the problem, are moral and cultural issues.

Sex Education should also have a goal of what the educator wants to instill in his or her class. The article Sex Education has stated:

“Effective sex education also provides young people with an opportunity to explore the reasons why people have sex, and to think about how it involves emotions, respect for one self and other people and their feelings, decisions and bodies. Young people should have the chance to explore gender differences and how ethnicity and sexuality can influence people’s feelings and options. They should be able to decide for themselves what the positive qualities of relationships are. It is important that they understand how bullying, stereotyping, abuse and exploitation can negatively influence relationships.”

Along with just serving information to the class, get them involved. Do activities or even games. Some sex educators come to classes in middle school and tell them that they should wait until marriage to have sex, and also play games and do activities to help prove why it is better to wait until marriage. This could be another “trial” by educating through fun and games, while still effectively getting information across. One game my class played in middle school was, “Spin the Wheel of Sex”. We would spin the wheel and see what would happen, or what could possibly happen in real life. Sometimes it would land on the “pregnant” slot, or “HIV” slot. To keep the realism in the game, there was one slot called “free”, where there were no consequences of sex that time, but the odds of getting the “free” slot was slim.

I enjoyed that “trial” in middle school, and I actually learned a lot. They taught most of the diseases you can get, and all of the consequences that can happen. What also got the message across was that the educators were teenagers also. Peer-to-peer education, in my opinion, works the best because of the level of trust and respect you have for that person just because they are just like you.

All in all, this problem of uniformed teenage sex is caused by the media. The only way to solve this problem is to get into the classrooms and directly inform teenagers that sex is good and bad. The educators have to keep the class entertained and must get them involved one way or another. If more teenagers were informed, then less diseases and teenage pregnancies would occur.

1. O’Connell, Mark, and Raje Airey. “Signs & Symbols.” The Complete Encylopedia of Signs & Symbols. Hermes House. Print.

2. “Sex Education That Works.” AIDS & HIV Information from the AIDS Charity AVERT. Web. 01 May 2011. <http://www.avert.org/sex-education.htm>.

3. “Teenage Sexuality Facts, Teen Sex Facts, How Media Influences Sex in Teens, Factors That Influence Teenage Sex & Sexuality Fashions on Saviodsilva.” Personality Development Courses in Mumbai, Best Personality Development Courses in Mumbai, Andheri, Malad, Bandra West, Dadar, India. Web. 01 May 2011. <http://www.saviodsilva.net/r/xs53.htm>.