Prohibition

The Prohibition was the banning of all intoxicating drinks in the1900s. As the eighteenth amendment  this was a not a very enforced bill. Not only was it not enforced  but the fact that it was illegal made many people more adept to breaking the laws. Bootleggers came about and made their own alcohol, "moonshine", and also there was an incredible amount of crime that ensued after this amendment was passed. Thankfully, the twenty-first amendment appealed the eighteenth. This was a good act because banning alcohol did not make people want to quit drinking, but added fuel to the fire. In The Great Gatsby, there is quite a bit of drinking (understatement). The only characters that do not drink are Daisy and Gatsby, and for that they are deemed as having a good reputation because they are actually in control of their actions unlike many of the other characters. While drinking was and still is a major issue in society, people need to learn how to be like Gatsby and Daisy and have the ability to dictate their actions. This could be possible with just a bit of will and self-respect.

Who Cares About the Dying People?

Los Angeles Times
David Horsey
Feb. 17 2013
Last week a humongous meteor had blazed into Earth's atmosphere at about 40,000 mph and had exploded above the  Russian city of Chelyabinsk. Thankfully, no one had died but a lot of damage had been done and about a thousand people were injured, but did America rush to help Russia? Nope. Instead they decided to sit back and find people to blame, just like they always do, just like with Hurricane Sandy. A bill came up in Congress that asked for funding to help rebuild homes and buildings, but still some Congressmen believed that the government needed to cut spending and be more conservative. The writer of the article brought up a great example of what Congress would end up doing even when the world was to end in three minutes. He said, "Two minutes before Armageddon, somebody will still be trying to figure out how to make a quick buck off of it and he’ll have friends in Congress insisting that it’s the American way." This just shows how corrupt and self serving our supposed Free and United America truly is. Our major figures in government do not actually care about the people, what concerns them is how much they can stuff into their pockets without getting into too much trouble. It is quite funny how a man can be sentenced from thirty to life in prison for not paying taxes (which to the governments eye is like stealing) while a murderer can get sentenced to about five to ten years. The government only thinks about how to keep their money and how to get more and manage to convict others who steal, while in the whole scheme of things they are the ones stealing from us. 
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-meteors-20130217,0,1170605.story

The Daily Show

Satire is a word with different meanings, but one thing most people connect it to is entertainment. While there are many satirical TV shows, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, are some of the most popular shows that manage to insult everything that catches their eyes. In the clip I saw of The Daily Show with the guest star Admiral General Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen), there were many satirical targets starting off with third world countries, dictators, and political figures that are accepted in society, but have the same qualities of some of the most famous dictators in the past decade. The purpose of the clip was not only to advertise the movie Dictator or to entertain, but also it wanted to show how corrupt some countries really are. Korea was mentioned in the clip. The show managed to undermine Korea's abilities in technology in a funny way. The biggest technique used to satirize was exaggeration with the case in which all of Korea ran out of toilet paper; understatement, when they loosely talk about nuclear weapons as if it is not a serious topic, and plenty of ambiguity in a perverted sense. The satirist wants the watcher to understand how different and yet how similar America is to the third world countires in the sense of their leaders. While there were many attacks at governing officials, many of them were indiscreetly added.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEPSJF7BYOo

Oh, Parents...

The Onion
January 31, 2013
(There was no specific author's name on the article)
Twenty-six year old product manager Wayne Landgraf thought it would be a good idea to bring his parents to work to introduce him to his colleagues. Not only are these colleagues the people he sees every day at work, but they are also the people that hate his guts. It is said in the article that most of his colleagues go through great lengths to avoid him, and occasionally manage to find an empty room where they are able to gossip about the man. Wayne decided that his ma and pa should put faces to the names he talks about so very often. He hoped that his parents would mostly be on his side, but, oh, was he wrong. At the end of the day, Wayne found his parents entertaining his fellow workers with stories about (sorry for the language) "how much of a little a****** he was as a kid." Why do parents always manage to embarrass us further, or even worse, to do exactly the opposite of what they're supposed to do? The pain growing inside Wayne Landgraf is felt by many. The most surprising part of all of this is the fact that someone took the time to actually write an article about this man and his stupid problems.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-brings-visiting-parents-into-office-to-meet-co,31092/