Kids Say The Darndest Things, Corrupted Little Snots

When I look at the world today, I notice many children who are living life in the spotlight. This worries me because in the past kids have had a very hard time growing up when their younger years are as celebrities. Are we putting our children out there too early?

What more perfect example to prove my point than, Macaulay Culkin. He starred in Home Alone's 1 and 2, and probably would have been in Home Alone 3, had he not been involved in a few other things.

Before his downfall, he was regarded to as the best adolescent star since Shirley Temple. VH1 ranked him as the number 2 child  in the "100 Greatest Kid Stars." He was living the dream. Making money to live off of for the rest of his life before he was even legally allowed to work. But maybe this is the problem. In 2004 he was arrested for possession of Marijuana, Xanax, and sleeping pills. He was put in rehab, and has not really been heard from since this.

Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen were little girls role models in the 90's and early 2000's. They started off on the set of full house, and continued to make their own movies such as, "When In Rome," and "Winning London." The Olsen twins developed their own clothing line, and Forbes ranked them as the 11th richest women in 2002. But things could not stay perfect for long. In 2004, Mary-Kate checked into a rehab in Utah for Anorexia. There were some beliefs that she also had a drug problem but, with confidentiality of the records at the clinic, this was never proven. Ashley was posted in the National Inquirer with her eyes half open and glazed over, accused of being high. She denied these rumors. Then Mary-Kate became caught up in the Heath Ledger death. Heath Ledger had a 15 Minute long massage scheduled and when the masseuse showed up, he was found dead in his bed, naked. Heath died of an overdose. Strangely, the masseuses first two calls were to Mary-Kate Olsen, then she finally called the police. Rumors speculated that Mary-Kate was with Heath before he died, and that they were doing drugs together. But, again this was never proven. 

The Olsen twins and Culkin are not the only child stars who have been led astray. Lindsay Lohan, Demi Lovato, Jodie Sweetin, Drew Barrymore, Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense), and Corey Fieldman also had problems with substance abuse after they were child stars. Miley Cyrus has also become untamed since she began her career on the set of "Hannah Montana." She had a semi-nude photo shoot, and lately her wardrobe and her songs have not been very, "Disney Channel" of her. But what is the problem? Why do child stars have a knack to get into trouble later on in life. It could be that they have so much money, and do not know what to do with it. It could also be that their early lives were run by Hollywood, and they did not get to grow up like normal kids and go into a sort of depression because of this. And, with so much time spent away from their parents, they do not get grounded like normal kids, they do not learn wrong from right, and never develop maturity. Whatever the reason, we have a problem on our hands. With Justin Bieber never saying never, and Rebecca Black being really excited about Friday, and Willow Smith whipping her hair back and forth, we could be in for more child stars going bad very soon. Only time will tell. Hopefully these next generation children will learn from the Olsen twins, Lohans, and Culkins mistakes and get it right.  

To Corrupt To Be Let In, Your Locked Out

I do not know if you are familiar with what is going on in the NFL right now, but there is a lock out going on presently. This means that if the Players Association and the NFL do not come to terms, there is a chance that there will be no professional football next year. This will upset millions of people not only in the United States, but all around the world.

Baseball has been long referred to as America's Pasttime. But since 1985 football has prevailed. The most recent Harris Poll shows that it doubles baseball. So this is a very sticky situation and could mean alot of companies and corporations are going to be hurt tremendously if there is no football season next year. One of the ones that will be hurt the most is DirecTV. According to Bloomberg news DirecTv's NFL Sunday ticket, which allows you to view every game that is played every week, generates more than 600 million dollars a year for this satellite company. If there are no games, there is no NFL Sunday Ticket. And with the introduction of U-Verse last year this could put DirecTV out of operation. 

No NFL season also hurts other corporations. Fans are a huge part of revenue for the income of money. The ticket sales, along with souveneirs, and even hotel rooms produce big bucks. With no games, hotels that usually see a lot of business during the NFL season are preparing for lack of sales this upcoming year. 

You may be asking yourself, why is this lockout happening? What is the problem? Well, the Players Association, who represent all the players of the NFL and the NFL are not getting along. They have roughly 9 billion dollars to split up and the players do not think that they are getting paid enough, and the NFL is not willing to pay more. The Players believe that they are in risk of harm, and deserve something in return. Yes, everyone in this situation is greedy. They are worrying about splitting up 9 billion dollars while people around the world are worrying about putting food on the table. In 2008 the NFL owners opted out of the Collective Bargaining agreement set in 2006, and played last year without a Salary Cap. So until they can reach a new agreement, we will have to scrape by without football. And these businesses that make most of their money during the year during the NFL season, will have to figure out a way to get revenue, or a way to make wage cuts.  

HIV=Thin Wallet

Assuming that most of you readers do not know who Abbott Laboratories Pharmaceutical is, Watch this video before reading any further.

In 1996 Abbott Laboratories introduced Norvir, a medicine used to treat HIV. Around the time of Norvirs launch, it was discovered that when taken in small quantities with a Protease Inhibitor, Norvir would boost the results of that other Protease Inhibitor. This made sales at Norvir skyrocket. Having Norvir, and also the only other Protease Inhibitor around gave them a major edge in the medical world. This would all soon change.

In 2003, Reyataz was introduced into the market by Bristol-Myers Squibbs. Reyataz is designed to be mixed with Norvir, but it had to be purchased separately. Then in the same year, GSK introduced Lexiva, another Protease Inhibitor drug that competed with Kaletra.

On December 3, 2003 the medical world was about to be shaken up. Abbott raised the price of Norvir by 400 percent, but kept the price of Kaletra the same. A deal was set up however, to where if you purchased them both at the same time, the price of Norvir would drop back down to its original price.

The increased price in Norvir violated U.S. Antitrust laws, because Abbott exploited it's monopoly position as the sole producer of Norvir.

Coca-Cola, Quench Your Corrupted Thirst

When I think of drinking a nice, cold, refreshing coke, corruption is the last thing on my mind. When I go bottoms up on a Coke, I am looking for some nice, fizzy refreshment, not a life lesson on corrupted companies. Well come to find out, the labels should read, "Corrupted-Cola."

A brain fart resulted in my lack of a creative blog post to satisfy all of my fans. One simple google search, and here I am, just trying to make people happy. I searched google for, "corrupted corporations," very original I know. What came up was a list of the top ten corrupted business in America today, number 4 on this list was the Coca-Cola company which came as a bit of a surprise to me so I furthered my research to, "killercoke.org." What I would find would forever change my outlook on Coca-Cola.

Corruption begins in the hiring process. If you do not have connections and know someone who currently works for Coke, odds are against you getting hired. Even if you are the most talented worker, if you want a positition that someones family member wants, they automatically get the positition. As messed up as this is, "who you know" hirings are gonna happen at any company. This is just a prick of the finger to the corruption at Coca-Cola.

The first murder was documented in Columbia in the year of 1990. Apparently a worker was acting up, got into it with a guard and was murdered right there.  Since then 7 people have been murder at Coca-Cola plants in Columbia, the last one being in 2002. Coca-Cola will deny these allegations, but are very shady when it comes to getting an investigation going to figure out the culprits. They refuse to give an independent investigation and have misled the public away from it. On the Coca-Cola website you can find all kinds of links to take you to anti-corruption sites, and "Coca-Cola Cares" slogans everywhere, trying to cover up these allegations.

Coca-Cola is the largest beverage manufacturer in the world, and with any success is gonna come failure. They fail at keeping their business as pure as they claim for it to be, and failed at abiding by the law. I do not see too much happening to Coke in the the long run just because of the name they have, and the sales they produce yearly. It would be a David and Goliath case, but David took down the giant once, I wouldn't say that it couldn't happen again

Music, Or Is It Really?

In today's world I feel like the music industry has made a far fall downhill. It seems like the popular songs today, and the artists who make the most money are shallow. Just a catchy rhythm and chorus and a few decent lyrics in between. No real depth of meaning in the lyrics, just something that people can sing along to. We need a revolution.

Take Justin Bieber for instance. I may be walking on thin ice with all of the female readers right now, but that is a risk I am willing to take. I do not respect his music at all. I am not saying that he is not a talented artist. I know that he can play the guitar and the drums, and he does have a good voice, but the lyrics. I feel like his career has been prematurely blown up by his looks, and majority of his fans are girls between the ages of 12 and 18.

Listen to the song above, "Baby." The chorus is just him repeating the word "baby" over and over. Typical popular song today, catchy rhythm and a sing along chorus with shallow lyrics. It did not take much skill to create this song, nor many of the songs that he sings. I feel like this is a statement that applies to many of todays popular artists. 

 My blogs allude to a need for a revolution. So I chose my favorite artist singing a song by the name of REVOFEV, or Revolution of Evolution. Kid Cudi is, in my mind, one of the realest artists out there today. Every lyric to every one of his songs has meaning, and most of his music is about his life and struggles everyday people have to go through. I am not implying that he alone is the turn around for music today, but he could be the stepping stone. As he said in the video he is all about his fans, and how they have his back. He does not make music to impress people, he makes it so express himself, and if you like what he puts out then so be it, if you don't then again so be it. He is quoted saying in an interview that he sees music genres as, "races" and sees segregation between all of them just like human races. He says, "what I'm doing is trying to end the segregation between genres, and just fusion them together to make one super song, but do it to where it's appropriate." This statement goes along with what I am trying to get at.

Music is a passion of my life, and I pride myself in what I listen to. Music in my mind is one of those things that we could not live without. It gets me through good times and bad times. When I am struggling with something, I usually turn to Kid Cudi, or a band named Incubus. Both of them have strong, deep, meaningful lyrics. No note is wasted, and each verse means something. I believe that this is real music. Not the pop sensations with sing-a-long songs. This is the revolution, to the music world.

A New Age

Smart cars are becoming a very common item in the world today. With the ozone layer being tested by pollution from cars and factories, and gas prices increasing every week, we need a revolution. Smart cars may be just what that revolution is.

The Smart Car began with a man named Nicolas Hayek. He wanted to invent a small car that would be fuel efficient, and be easy to park. In 1994 development began on the Microsoft Compact Car which would be the first smart car. In 1997 the car was unveiled and was put on the market the next year. This would begin the drive down the road to the right track, in a Smart Car.
http://www.smartusa.com/

Smart Cars claim to get 33 mpg in the city and 41 on the freeway. This is very good compared to cars such as the Hummer, which gets a staggeringly low 14 in the city and 18 on the freeway.

A revolution has begun. Since the Smart Car was invented and put on the market, other car companies have decided to go green. The 2011 Chevrolet Silverados are able to swith from a V8 to V6 and even down to V4 whenever needed. This increases their gas mileage and is a very efficient and creative idea. Other trucks this year such as the Dodge Ram and the Ford F-150 have taken the same steps. In the car world Hybrids have been invented to help raise gas mileage in sedans.

The Smart Car was the start to making steps in the right direction. With resources in the world thinning out, and the recent happening in the gulf, gas prices are skyrocketing.Talks about global warming are rampant, so something had to be done. Step by step I see in the future all cars being green, and maybe one day we wont need gas at all. Instead of gas pumps we will have charging stations for electric cars. I do not think that we are far, and it will not be long. 

Sexual Content, Too much?

In todays society I feel like sexual content is everywhere. It is almost impossible to keep a child growing up sheltered from seeing things that they should not see. With this early knowledge of sex, children are more prone to become sexually active at early ages. They see it in the movies and TV shows that they watch and feel like it is not that big of a deal. This could be a cause of the rise of teen pregnancy in America today.

According to livestrong.com, teen pregnancy is the highest in the U.S. than any other country in the world. On average, 1/3 of teenage girls in America are pregnant before they turn 20. Also, communtiy.michiana.org says that in 1955 only 6% of teenage pregnancy occured outside of marriage, today it has rose to a staggering 42%. What is the cause of this? There can be many, but the one that keeps popping out to me is the increase of sexual content everywhere in the world today. In fact, on the same road that my high school was located, there was also a strip club. I had to drive past that strip club every day from 7th grade to 12th grade. Another fact that I feel I should make clear is that I attended a private Christian school. I am not dropping this to show how good I am at all, but to show that even when trying to keep your children sheltered, and sending them to private schools, you cannot avoid it. It is everywhere.

I frequently watch the MTV network, and cannot sit through one show without seeing a condom commercial. Knowing that my little sister watches MTV religiously, this bothers me. I do not want her knowing about a "Trojan Euphoria," or a "Magnum." Granted, I see MTV making moves with shows like "Teen Mom," showing girls that it is not good to have a baby, and that it can ruin your whole life. But, just the other day right after a showing of "Teen Mom," the show "Skins" came on. If you are not familiar, this is a show about sex and drugs and parties. So all across America young teenage girls tuning into their favorite show of "Teen Mom," all saw the show "Skins" right after that.  

Disney has even been accused of having subliminal sexual content messages in their movies. Some of them may not be caught the first time through, but when a young child loves a movie they will watch it nonstop! After all these viewings it is inevitable that they will notice it. Seeing sexual content in their favorite Disney Movie that mommy always lets them watch when they have been good could produce false thoughts in the kids head.

In order to reduce the teen pregnancy in America, we must look at ourselves. We have to make an effort to keep sexual content out of our kids' lives at early ages. It is hard to do this, with it being in movies, and even on the way to school, but it is not impossible. Teen pregnancy is not the highest in America for no reason at all, it is the loose interpretation of, "too much."