Legalizing Assisted Suicide

Legalizing assisted suicide, also known as voluntary euthanasia, is one of the most widely discussed and debated topics all over the world. While the number of supporters seems to be growing, as made evident by the number of countries and even a few American states that have legalized assisted suicide, there are still a great number of opponents who see voluntary euthanasia as morally reprehensible. Pro-life supporters, such as the National Right to Life Committee and the Roman Catholic Church, see assisted suicide as nothing more than giving doctors permission to commit murder. Instead of listening to pleas of the terminally ill patients, pro-life supporters believe we should just give them medicine to alleviate some of the pain they are experiencing until a natural death occurs. To me, it seems more cruel and morally corrupt to stand by and do nothing but attempt to relieve a terminally ill patient's pain, than to listen to a patient's dying request and ease their suffering under their own terms. Suicide is not an illegal act, yet opponents of voluntary euthanasia seem intent on keeping it a crime. In essence, pro-life supporters believe terminally ill patients are not capable of making a life and death decision, and elect themselves to speak on behalf of them, against the dying patient's wishes.

Compare/Contrast Nudity

Both photos of Tyra Banks and Jack Black have something in common. Both are using partial nudity to their advantage as a way of selling something to the public. However, Tyra and Jack use different appeals as a marketing campaign. Tyra, an internationally-known supermodel (now retired) uses her scantily clad sex appeal in runway shows as a way to sell lingerie to the public. In this day and age, beauty for women often means having a thin, toned frame with the perfect assets to compliment it. Tyra is using her supermodel body and looks to make women want to buy the outfit and men to beg their women to buy the outfit. Jack Black, however, use comical nudity as his selling point. Obviously not of the ideal body type of today's standards, Jack Black tries to appeal to consumers' sense of humor as a way to promote his movie, Nacho Libre. With his bare-chested, fishbowl belly, skin-tight tights, stand-alone mustache, and dishevelled hair, Jack Black is not trying for sex appeal as Tyra was, but is instead putting emphasis on the features most do not normally find attractive. So, while both are using nudity as a selling point, they chose approaches that best suited their intended audiences.

Vigilantism- Still Illegal

Porn On A Plane!

I believe that porn should be allowed on airplanes, but I also think there should be some guidelines that come with it. While I see how people can be turned off by the thought, I don't think that censoring what people can and can't view over the internet is the right way to go about solving the issue. I don't suggest that people who plan on viewing pornography during the flight need special seating or curtains. I think that instead they should only allow pornography to be viewed if they have specialized screen covers that allows only them to view their computer screens. Wearing headphones to block out the sound is a must as well. Specialezed seating, personal curtains, or some sort of checklist allows everyone on the plane to have an idea of what you are viewing. Specialized screens, however, keep nosy seat neighbors, children, and flight attendents from knowing what you are doing on your computer, while keeping you satified at the same time.

Black Men and Public Space Claim

In "Black Men and Public Spaces," Brent Staples examines the racial profiling he experiences as a black man, using his experience as a 22-year-old walking the streets at night frightening away a white woman as his primary example. While I agree that this is a type of racial profiling, I believe that, as a woman, it also had a lot to do with being more vulnerable than men and thus more easily targeted, especially at such a late hour, by criminals. Add to that the fact that black men a responsible for such an abundance of crime, it's no wonder the woman became frightened. Personally, I believe she made a wise choice, despite the fact that Brent Staples wasn't going to cause her any harm. It was better for her to be safe rather than sorry. Too many news stories of women being abducted, raped, mugged, and killed at night have made our breed much more fearful in this day and age. We train ourselves to take notice of potentially hazardous situations so that we can avoid becoming victims. When the white woman in Brent Staples' story saw the 6'2" bearded black man in a military jacket walking behind her, she was only doing what finely tuned instinct told her to do: avoid a potentially dangerous situation, regardless of whether or not Brent Staples' feelings might get hurt.

Vigilantism

Vigilantism has long been a part of American Culture. Through literature, television, movies, and plays vigilantes are often glorified and idolized by people all over the globe. From childhood, we are told stories of "heroes" who protect the poor and weak from the rich and powerful, we are hypnotized by the acts of wild west outlaws on television, and we envy the abilities of assassins in our favorite movies. However, when fiction suddenly becomes reality and individuals decide to take the law into their own hands, most people tend to condemn the acts committed by real-life vigilantes, predicting that should vigilantism become acceptable behavior, all that is being accomplished is disestablishing a justice system put in place to secure people's rights and guarantee people's guilt or innocence. It seems vigilantism mainly stems from the belief that the government is corrupt and/or ineffective in punishing criminals. Out of this comes vigilantes who take it upon themselves to deliver their own brand of justice. In a kind of backward logic, they become criminals themselves in a miguided effort to punish criminals. While a vigilante may see his course of action as an act of good done with the best intentions, they tend to be blinded by their own objective. Vigilantism can be like the flu, easily spread from one person to the next, eventually affecting so many that it becomes an epidemic.