The topic of health care around the country is a sticky one to say the least. Depending on what political party you put your faith in or what point of view you examine the situation with, the main thought that should come to one’s mind is this, morality.
How is it that the self proclaimed powerhouse of the world, the most industrialized society, doesn’t have a universal health policy for protecting its citizens. How is it that health insurance companies can deny possible patients because they have too may jobs and are seen as a liability? The simple fact that one can be consider ‘working too much’ is appalling. How is that the very principles the country were built on, that hard work will get you somewhere in this country, is now being seen as a liability to health insurance everywhere.
The United States government is telling its citizens that the well being of the insurance agencies and the stability of the economy is more important than the health of the citizens. What the government is not telling the people is that the new health care bill would not only benefit them, but make the treatment more affordable. As mentioned in an article seen here, the addition of the uninsured to health insurances will dramatically cut the amount of uninsured. A woman with a $12,000 operation who is uninsured would now pay $5,000 for the same operation under the new health care bill. Numbers and instances like this across the country will only benefit the American people over time. On top of this, the American citizens who are born with a pre-existing disease that they can not control, will now be guaranteed coverage by health insurances.
I am not here to hammer away at the Republican Party or the doubters of the bill, I am simply stating that people need to stop looking at the numbers of the bill and focus on the key point at hand. The bill promises stability and peace of mind to citizens across the country, not just the old and fragile, but the young who were born into less than average circumstances or an individual with a pre-existing condition. The nay sayers who claim the bill is supporting those who are lazy and don’t work, need to take a look around and research how the business works. The overall health insurance market is an over priced scam and it is time for a change. I think people need to give the bill a chance and rather than bashing it, congratulate the president for finally making a change the people voted for.\

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This is another official update to the original “Shift Happens” video. This completely new Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist. For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://mediaconvergence.economist.com/ and http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/.

Content by XPLANE, The Economist, Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Laura Bestler. Design and development by XPLANE, http://www.xplane.com/

I can remember a couple years ago when MySpace was the new thing to have because it was the start of social networking on the Internet. I thought it was so awesome you could have your own personal page where you can have music and a place where your friends can write comments to you. Everyone would try to compete to see who could get more friends. It was great! But then as people became more familiar with this new technology people began using it to deceive.

Problems began developing and there were many incidents, such as issues with sex offenders using MySpace to mislead people using fake pictures and fake identities. I believe this turned away many people by but because it was the only real popular social network no one had a choice of switching to a different one. As a couple of years went by Facebook came into play. Facebook was a new social network that people could use that was just as fun as MySpace, but much easier to use and safer. As Facebook was growing people began to like the fact that Facebook was very organized and more adult savvy than MySpace. It has a much more sophisticated atmosphere with its dull yet prearranged look. People began to lose interest in MySpace and joined Facebook. One of the big differences Facebook offers that MySpace does not is its live chat you can have with your friends. This was a big step because it combined instant messaging with a social network website. Facebook also has live status updates, which MySpace does not have. As all of these new things were developing, MySpace began to become threatened by Facebook and tried to compete with them by copying them in many ways including a program called Applications.

MySpace will most likely keep declining in their popularity if there is a constant continuance of new social networks being created. Of these new networks one of them is a website called Twitter. Unlike Facebook and MSspace, Twitter is more about just updating your personal status and spreading new ideas to other people. Celebrity Ashton Kutcher recently started a competition with other celebrities to see who could reach one million friends first. This act is just another distraction to lure people away from MySpace. These social networks like any other business are constantly competing with each other. MySpace is not the only one out there anymore and it is now very easy for someone to create something new and better. MySpace put themselves in a hole without knowing it because they did not make a good enough effort to make their website safe for all. MySpace is declining because of the danger behind it, its unoriginality, and the number of growing and more popular social networks.

Photo Credit: captain simon’s mandolin

“1 friend request” says the little notice at the top right hand side of your Facebook home page. You click on it and the next thing you know your own mother has created her own Facebook and friend requested you. Do you accept? Do you deny? Or do you ignore it and hope it goes away? Recently more and more people have been joining the popular networking site known as Facebook.

Facebook is the world’s newest growing Internet phenomenon. If you were to look around a computer lab at a school, chances are that most kids, despite the rules, would be on facebook. It’s a way for kids to keep in touch, post pictures and videos, write notes about whatever is on their mind. The site is an addiction that has captured most of the youth community, and is expanding rapidly.
The website started out by targeting just college students, requiring a college e-mail as a login username and only allowing those students whose college had a specific network. From there, Facebook began to spread to all the colleges around the nation it began to open itself to high school students as well. Once the site was open to both high school and college students was when Facebook took off. At first it was easiest for private high school students to create a profile because like college students, they had school e-mails mirroring college students’. Public schools soon broke into the networking system as well. Then, the next thing everyone knew, middle school students began to shy away from the popular MySpace site to the more secure Facebook site. When middle school student began joining Facebook was when the site became open to all networks, including business and geographic. With such a wide networking system that allowed many different people from all over the world and of various ages to join, the site became larger than MySpace and the fastest growing website to date.

The growing numbers of facebook users are not student like many would believe. The large numbers of people that site has taken in is n great contribution to mother’s creating pages. According to the inside facebook and an article written women over the age of 55 have started to overtake facebook. Staggering numbers of more than 717,000 women over the age 55 have created facebook pages and are actively using them. The astonishing number of mothers on facebook brings up the question of their children’s reaction to their mothers having pages and “friending” them.

For the most part, children’s opinions are divided on the idea of their mothers having a facebook. Many don’t mind being friends with their mothers while others find it more mortifying. Most believe that their facebook pages are open and find that their mother on facebook doesn’t bother them. In fact a small amount feel that their mother’s are some what “cool” being so up on technology. On the other hand, others feel that the once teenager ruled website now being filled with adults is violating privacy. Many teenagers, especially girls, found that facebook was a place to escape from their parents thus having a place all to themselves. However, at the same time, those girls are also considered to be ones with something to hide.

From the adult perspective, many of the mothers have said that they are not on Facebook to spy on their children necessarily (however, that can be an added bonus). Their primary purpose is to reconnect with people from their high school or college years as well as their friends from work or other experiences. In essence they are on Facebook for the same reasons many students are. Facebook, is, just as the tagline says, a place that “helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” No matter the age or the purpose.

Photo Credit: pshab