Violence Amongst Youths

As we seen everyday, violence amongst youths is greatly increasing. Time and time again this is questioned, and many fingers have pointed to pop culture, or in other words the things that youths are influenced by. Sure we can say that it’s the video games, TV shows, celebrities, etc. But hold on a second, many people of legal age are also influenced by the same pop culture (and this does not go for everyone), but many of us know the difference between real life and what we see in entertainment. It’s not fair to say that games like GTA and Call of Duty make kids want to kill people. If the youth doesn’t know the difference between a game and reality, then someone hasn’t been doing their job (not saying the parent is the only one, this could be any adult like a teacher, etc, in the youth’s life).

So when looking at violent teens bringing guns to school, or beating each other up, shouldn’t we ask about their homes? Their parents? Their circumstance? I think that the worst part about current day society is emotions. We try to act as though they don’t exist, but teenagers are very emotional at that point in life, and any little thing can trigger them to take rash actions in a scenario. So for the many people that point to entertainment as the one to blame, maybe you should look twice and think about how you can handle the situation with your own influence. Perhaps pop culture may play a role in the issue, but when it comes down to it, the people surrounding a youth’s life are the most influential.

Our youth are our future, so don’t play the blame game, pay attention to them.

Genocide in Sri Lanka

Check out this article posted by the Boston Globe:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/03/31/the_silence_surrounding_sri_lanka/

At this time there is a mass genocide taking place in Sri Lanka. For those of you who are not familiar with this issue, it is somewhat similar to that of Rwanda. The global arena is being true to form, and ignoring or “silencing” the genocide and political issues (as in the case of Rwanda), when global relief, aid, and intervention is needed. Please help spread the word! Check out the link.