Is Not Our Kind of Place

In the McDonald’s essay “Is Not Our Kind of Place” Amitai Etzioni talks about the negatives of teens having routine fast food job at McDonald’s. In his essay he talks about how McDonald’s is routine and never changing so the young workers don’t learn any new skills, leaves little room for creativity, and is un-educational. Etzioni compares this routine to robots and states that fast food franchises are breeding grounds for robots working for yesterday’s assembly line. Also that working odd hours impacts their attendance and school work. Amitai says two thirds of high school students hold at least a part time job and McDonald’s is the main choice “easiest to get into” for students. He also talks about how there is no adult supervision, to cut cost’s they hire other young adults to supervise. This leaves the student’s thinking they can do what they want when they want. I am at 50/50 with Etzioni’s statements, I think fast food franchises can impact students negatively but there are a lot more than just the job influencing the student’s behavior.

I think the McDonald’s essay is coming from a person who just had a bad day’s point of view. At first he talks about how working at McDonald’s is negative then moves on to fast food franchises are negatively impacting students. Then he talks up KFC, Hardees, and Baskin-Robin’s which all could be franchised. Moving on, he talks about a positive study done on students working at McDonald’s. He moves back and forth between McDonald’s, franchises, and fast food restaurants, I am not sure where he’s at; actually I am kind of confused! Any WHO, I can agree that fast food jobs are not the best start but have to argue that they are a start. I have never worked at McDonald’s but as far as routine goes every job has a routine. Don’t we all drive to work punch in, and start our job which is pretty similar to the previous day, eat lunch at about the same time and punch out at or about the same time every day? I worked at KFC the place he talked up and that was pretty much a routine job. Half of what I could understand I can agree with the other half I could not. 50/50 is where I stand.       

Serve or Fail

 The article “Serve or Fail” written by Dave Eggers, talks about how community service in colleges can shape a student’s future. A lot of students go to college treating it as if it were high school. They will study, get their work done, and prepare for exams. Eggers feels this is not enough, being in college means you are or are nearing adult hood and need to see the other side of the street and help out in our community. More colleges are taking the community service approach and giving credit for doing so. In 1999 Michael R, Veon introduced a bill to require over 90,000 students to perform 25 hours of community service annually. Overall America would have 60 million more volunteers than nonprofit organizations.

This is a great article and I could write on this subject forever. I think this is a great idea and I have seen it in schools. My first quarter in college, I was required to do community service for a globalization class. I got to choose a group that fit what I wanted to do for the community. A lot of people choose food shelters but I wanted to reach people on the other side of the law. I chose to find a way to help reintegrate felons coming out of prison. I designed and printed out hundreds of pamphlets and dispersed them to prisons all over MN. The program is called Friends of Felons and it helps felons find housing, jobs, counseling, and even housing supplies from other nonprofit organizations. I believe having community service in college’s can benefit the college student in amazing ways and have a great impact on how they look at life.      

Overdiagnosis In America

The article I chose to read “Overdiagnosis In America” was written by Ted Gup, Special to the New York Times. Over diagnosing from doctors is becoming a more common thing as society evolves. Bipolar, ADHA, depression, ADD, are only the beginning of the most common diagnosis thrown at patients. This article describes how a man lost his child and feels it is because he gave in and allowed his child to take pills for ADHA. At the age of 21 Teds son died in his dorm from an over dose of Adderall, heroin, and alcohol. He states that 6.4 million kids in the United Stated are diagnosed with ADHA and are taking medication.

This is a good subject because I also believe that too many kids are taking medication for ADHA at a young age. My son is 9 years old and started taking Adderall 1 year ago because he was getting in trouble at school. While he was taking the medication he received better grades, and no longer got into trouble. The down side to giving kids medication like in the article is that they can become dependent on the medication. Using medication at a young age may influence teens to try different drugs. I think Ted has a point with over diagnosing patients, but I can also see where he is grieving. This discussion can go many directions with different people but overall I think doctors are throwing pills at people 

The Dead-End Kids

I chose to write about an article from our book called The Dead-End Kids. This article was written by Michele Manges, a writer from the Wall Street Journal. She describes how teen are working part time jobs that are teaching them nothing in return. Some of these teen are working long hours and showing up for class late, sleeping in class, getting bad grades, or are not showing up for class at all. Michele thinks that in the near future due to our economy it will only get worse.

I disagree with this reading. I do not think it is the responsibility of the business to teach anything to their employees besides how to do their job. I think it is important for not just the parents but also our schools to emphasize the importance of money and having a job. It is the parent’s job to pound into the kid’s head how important saving money, going to college and being successful is. Let’s say you own a business and someone come in harping on you because you haven’t taught their kid anything of worth what are you going to tell the parent? 

Dear Dads: Save Your Sons

The article I was assigned to read “Dear Dads: Save Your Sons” Talks about the difficulties a women has with her son not growing up with a male figure in his life. After counseling and numerous attempts to alter his behavior the mother in the article is hopeless. Being fifteen, in a gang, drinking, coming home days later, and not having any respect for elders is a sure sign of poor parenting and a missing father figure. This article show a lot of useful information on the subject but fail to mention anything about mothers “sexist.”  

This article made me mad/confused and brought back some old memories. My mom and dad had me at a young age and my dad left when I was two months old. I saw him very little growing up it was always mom and grandma. I had got in quite a bit of trouble as a teen and was in and out of court “with mom.” I dropped out of school when I was 16 and worked full time because I had my son to take care of. I made a lot of poor choices and never listened to my elders when I should have. I do not blame my dad for this however; I think he is a bad influence and a drunk.

I was confused reading this article because she starts the first couple of paragraphs making it sound like all dads that are not with their families are bad, then towards the middle switches it to a lot of the are good. I think she should talk about the moms a little bit more and not put so much on the dads. I have a friend who cannot see his daughter because his ex is mental and like the power trip and child support that she and her new boyfriend enjoy. That’s my thoughts, anyone have any feedback for me?

Shawn Opgaard

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks started her lifelong goal by attending meetings in respects to NAACP which helped her to gain the confidence to speak up and take a stand. Rosa parks is known as the woman who would not move to the back of the bus. That set a bus boycott which lasted over a year and gave her the title of “mother of the civil rights movement.” Rosa spent over a decade with a local national association for the advancement of colored people.

After reading this article about Rosa Parks, I now have a much clearer picture of who she is and what she has done. Rosa Parks is a huge part of the black community and has been looked up to as one of the most respected women movement leaders of all time. She took charge, inspired people of all ages, and made a huge change which is still in the changing today. Rosa Parks who passed away on October 24^th 2005 will be missed but will still motivate people of all cultures and races worldwide.   

            I think beside Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks was a huge part of the black community and brought it to where it is at today. She gave strength, inspiration, and helped bring the black community to where it is at today. She was a great woman who helped many in need and gave hope to people who had none.

Shawn Opgaard

Gun Control

The article I chose the read http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/gun_control/index.html is explaining the different gun control laws passed by different presidents. Starting with Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968 and ending with Obama in 2012. Gun control is a touchy subject and brings a lot of mixed feeling to a lot of people. In 1994 president Bill Clinton passed the first bill to ban certain kinds of assault weapons and to require a background check before purchase.  In 2008 the Supreme Court ruled that the bill of rights include a guarantee of the people’s right to own a gun. I know this is a touchy subject and different people have a different look on the situation, but banning guns in my opinion will only cause more crime. I think a better screening, not selling full auto weapons, and a stricter standard of sale would be more beneficial than the total ban of weapons. Obama just stated he will try to pass the ban as soon as possible and allow illegals into our country, ha four more years of suffering.   

Phoebe Price

Phoebe Price was a 15 year old girl who committed suicide after months of being bullied and harassed by other students. The students bullied her at school, Facebook, and while she was walking home. In one of the incidents a girl threw a pop can at her. Even after she hung herself in her house they continued to bully her on Facebook. Numerous faculty members, teachers, and administrators at South Hadley High School even witnessed the physical abuse and did nothing to change it. Two males that were involved in the bulling and harassment received charges of statutory rape.

Bulling should not be accepted at schools or anywhere. Every day student are bullied and harassed at school, and I do not believe that schools are doing enough fair punishment to make it stop. I believe the school did not do enough to protect Phoebe Price from being bullied and harassed. I think it is very sad that this happen to students and that some teacher are aware of it and do nothing.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/phoebe-prince-south-hadley-high-school-new-girl-driven-suicide-teenage-cyber-bullies-article-1.165911#ixzz2KB7GpqkA

Blog Post 2

Before I read the article I thought how crazy is this person, now I am 50/50 and can understand some choices she had made. If I was an applicant at her business, I would never even be able to walk in the door. I have the worst grammar and punctuation known to man. I can see where in the position it would be important to be accurate on detail, but on the other hand if a person more qualified is turned down because of a mistake and not knowing grammar to the T, is ridiculous and a form of discrimination. I guess that is the advantage business owners have. They can hire who they want, choose why to or why not to hire people, and where it say they do not discriminate, HA YEAH RIGHT! 

My Introduction

My name is Shawn Opgaard. I live in Faribault MN with my wife and two kids. I work full time at Ryt-Way as a line lead. My schedule is pretty tight with work, school, and spending time with my family. Some interests/hobbies I have are Hockey, Xbox, outdoor activities, and spending time with family. My main goal is to succeed and continue to progress in different situation that approach me in life.

I am pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business science. One day I hope to own a business that will continue to grow and am successful. I am not sure what kind of business I want to start yet, but I have a few in mind. Continuing my education is important to me because starting a business can be hard and without proper knowledge of business, communication, economics, math, writing, marketing, etc. you are only cheating yourself and hindering your chances of being successful. Plus if it comes down to it, I can always use my degree to become a supervisor which is also fine with me. Thanks for reading my introduction/blog.