The Woes of the U.S. Economy
The one and only way you will survive is to keep our Earth healthy. Now do you care?
Environmental inequalities were the discussion topics in Sociology 207 at the University of Oregon on a Tuesday morning. Terms used by the professor included the collapse of biodiversity, natural disasters ruining life, consumer society relating to the decline in wildlife and an increase in waste, pollution, global warming, deforestation, etc. Nothing could have been more depressing then sitting in a class for an hour talking about the devastating future of the world. All of this discussion then led into a film clip of Leonardo DiCaprio’s “11th Hour”. As the lights dimmed down for the film, my emotions began to take over and I feared for the future of humankind.
Sure, I can see the impact in my life. Gas prices are now at $4.15 a gallon, salmon fishing has been banned from the Oregon coast, and the rainy season will not stop! To help, I attempt to ride my bike as much as possible or walk to my destination, I try to recycle everything, and I attempt to bring a reusable bag when I go to the grocery store. It’s about time to discuss what’s good in life though. There has to be a few things in life to keep people happy and motivated to make change for our future.
It became a mission of mine to discover hope during the ‘economic crisis’ of the United States. Since positive stories are hard to come by, here is a motivational list of good news:
1: Obama wins Oregon primary. 58% of Oregon Democrats voted for Sen. Barack Obama. It was an amazing time to experience as a college student because it is rare for Oregon’s May primary to achieve the kind of attention and multiple visits from leading presidential candidates. According to Blogger News Network, Obama stated, “It’s time we made this a national commitment to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and take the equivalent of 32 million cars’ worth of pollution out of the atmosphere.” I vote for change!
2: Graduation and summer vacation. June means summertime for most U.S. students. This means a sign of sunny weather and time to play. This could be a good time to discover something you are good at, play with neighborhood friends, and visit family who is very important to you. Graduation also means that new and inspired minds are entering the economy. Hopefully one of those minds will lead to discovery.
3: Personal choice. There are many topics surrounding our lives that can bring us down. A positive thought is that we have the opportunity to make choices for what we do and purchase. Consumer society isn’t something easy to quit. The consumption addiction in the United States builds our economy. We shouldn’t stop consumption, but we should choose to protest against corporations and buy local and sustainable. It’s an invigorating thought that we can all make changes to help the world we live in by ‘going green’.
4: Imaginations create invention. Along with the ability to make change is the freedom we have to imagine. We have the power to save the ecosystem if humans rethink how we live. That may be a thought that seems impossible, but there are discoveries being made to improve life on Earth. If humans reunite with nature and use its benefits for betterment, change is possible. An increase in the use of solar, wind and water power can eliminate our reliance on unnatural pollutants for energy.
I have hope for the future of our world. There may be issues trumping society, but if we start now we can continue life for the future.
Mike Bellotti Dinner Auction and Golf Classic
The Muscular Dystrophy Association and Mike Bellotti will host their 16th annual Dinner Auction and Golf Classic in an effort to raise money for families coping with neuromuscular diseases.
- Mike Bellotti Dinner Auction
Saturday, May 10, 2008
The Club at Autzen Stadium
- Golf Classic
Monday, May 12, 2008
The Mike Bellotti Dinner Auction consists of a live and silent auction. Auction items include gift certificates at 6th Street Restaurant and Sports Bar, Pizza Pete’s Italian Kitchen, Mucho Gusto, rounds of golf at Roseburg Country Club, accommodations at the Valley River Inn and much more.
The golf classic is held for teams that make donations to the event. Proceeds go directly to MDA to benefit research and families coping with neuromuscular diseases.
Sponsorship packages include a:
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- $4,000 Gold Sponsorship
- $2,700 Silver Sponsorship
- $1,700 Bronze Sponsorship
- $375 for an individual golfer
Founded in 1950, the Muscular Dystrophy Association is the largest nongovernmental support for neuromuscular diseases. MDA generates extensive research, services, and professional and public health education in large part through individual and private donations, enabling the organization to provide services for free.
Visit our Web site for registration and further information.
My Apologies
Dear Blogosphere,
I apologize for my absence. I spent two weeks on the beautiful island of Oah’u working for Camp Adventure at Pearl Harbor Navel Base and needed some time to adjust to the new school term. I am back now!
~Jackie
Attention
My portfolio and resume are recently updated. Check them out by scrolling to the Resume and/or Portfolio tab on the side of your screen.
Thank you!
Thank You Camp Adventure!
What’s better than the opportunity to help children AND get a free trip to any location in the Northern Hemisphere? These are just a couple of the benefits of the Camp Adventure Youth Services Program.
Camp Adventure is an opportunity for college-aged students to make a difference for the lives of others. The program works directly with the military and sends students to continents like Europe, Asia and North America to provide summer camp to children age’s five to ten.
Camp Adventure pays for travel expenses, like room and board, gives students at the University of Oregon 18 upper-division college credits and gives a living stipend for the summer. The only catch is that students need to be CPRPR and lifeguard certified and pay for uniform and college credits.
I have been involved in the Camp Adventure program for the past three years. I spent my first summer in Germany and my second on the island of Okinawa, Japan. I will be doing the spring break camp in Hawaii and plan to direct camp in Denver, CO this summer.
My travel experience and benefits are overwhelmingly beneficial. I’ve learned about cultures in this world, seen many famous sights and met some of the most amazing kids ever. I would highly recommend participating in this program if you like kids and are interested in travel.
Twitter Benefits
Tell me what you’re doing in 140 characters or less. Is this a challenging question? Well, people are answering it every day (sometimes multiple times in a day) because of Twitter.
When I first heard about this social networking gadget, I thought it was silly. People sit at their computers letting the world know how they feel, what they’re wearing and whatever else they think is important. Who cares?
Then, it hit me. We’re always taught to write simple sentences in our journalism courses. What’s better than using this tool to send people the latest news in one or two sentences? No one cares about the fluff; your audience wants to know the core of every message and move on with their day. This is an interesting alternative to getting news compared to what I origionally thought.
Nedra Weinreich also made a great point in her “Twitter for Health” blog that non-profits can use Twitter to benefit others. The site quickly gets messages out to the public to provide motivational support, respond to disasters, publish information, etc. An example of this is when the Los Angeles Fire Department used Twitter to post news about the October 2007 California wildfires.
I guess it’s time to stop thinking this social networking tool is a joke and embrace it for the quick information people can receive. I hear it’s also fun to play with. I just joined (follow me @jvoth1).
Targeting to Women
I’ve been taking journalism classes at the University of Oregon for four years now. As I’m finishing up the college victory lap, I realized that the majority of the classes in the School of Journalism and Communication host more females than males.
I’m currently in an Advanced PR Writing Class. Of the 16 people in this class, there are only three males. According to Monika Djerf-Pierre, by 2005 women made up half of the journalism profession. This means that women create more media content. Social media are among the outlets journalists use to effectively communicate their message.
This may not seem like an interesting conclusion, but Beth Krietsch, columnist for PR Week, made the point that because more girls are creating Web content, more marketing agencies are targeting their messages to girls. She continues to write that women outpace their peers in areas of blogging, Web site building and creating social networking.
This opens the world of marketing to a changing demographic and is a good tip to keep in mind if a company needs to create a social media campaign.
International Relations
The most important aspect of understanding foreign affairs and global issues is creating equal ground between a plans decision maker’s and beneficiaries. Developing countries have a low sense of power because of oppression and poverty.
Bush recently made a trip to tour five African countries for the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program. It is a five-year $15 billion plan for providing AIDS relief, fighting malaria, improving infrastructure and education and giving military help.
This aid to Africa follows the top-down approach of development issues. The money will help human development within Africa, but if the beneficiaries in Africa don’t understand the need for change, they won’t learn new methods to maintain human development in the future.
The African nations were thankful for this U.S. aid. According to other countries around the world, it came at an interesting time. Al Jazeera English reported that Bush may have had a hidden agenda.
There is a rumor throughout Africa that America plans to put a military base in Ghana because of U.S. dependence on oil imports from Africa. Bush took his power to his head when he stated that this rumor was “bull” or “baloney”. This language is unprofessional coming from our president.
It’s difficult to expect future relationships with countries if America always appears to have hidden agendas. Creating good international relations is important to the future of our country. Any American leader needs to make sure that the language they use translates professionally to beneficiaries.
Generate Skills in School
Most of my fellow seniors are nervous for graduation. Well, not graduation, but the abrupt change of lifestyle we will experience afterward. The transition is a day looming in the near future. The potential for the rest of our lives is around the corner, but the majority of graduating seniors don’t know what they will be doing after the caps are tossed into the air. Frightening!
We can only hope that the classes we’ve had and the experiences we encountered throughout college instilled valuable lessons within us to help snag the best jobs. In my Advanced PR Writing class with Kelli Matthews, we are spending a lot of our time learning aspects of social media. We have set up our blogs, made a social media strategy for a company and created a podcast. Without real-life job experience I question how much all of this information is used.
According to “my 2 cents” written by David Reich, social media knowledge will help our future in PR. It is the method that most PR practitioners will use to disseminate their information to various media outlets. Apparently we are learning the most important aspects of PR.
Other than social media, the core of PR is learning how to write. Chip and Dan Heath explain the acronym SUCCESs in their book Made to Stick. The trick to writing, and writing well, is simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories.
It’s good to know when you’re learning the top aspects of a field. After graduation we will find that it’s not what we know, but if we know how to use the material for our specific clients’ needs.
Government Wants Money Put into U.S. Economy
It’s a dream come true when you are told that you are getting paid for no reason. But, there has to be a catch if the money is not coming from a raise, loan, or paycheck, right?
The United States national debt is skyrocketing and in order to stimulate the economy, the federal government has a plan to give U.S. taxpayers checks of several hundred dollars.
The goal of giving the taxpayers the money is to put money in the hands of middle-income Americans as soon as possible. People who paid income taxes would get 600 USD and couples would get 1200 USD if they filed jointly. People who did not pay federal income taxes, but made over 3000 USD, would get 300 USD per individual.
As many as 116 million Americans are eligible for these checks. It has potential to lead to higher consumer spending and increased business investment this year.
Pros: Potential to decrease national debt and increase consumer spending.
Cons: Middle-class Americans could use the money for personal savings or use the money to spend on leisure activities like international vacations. For this reason there is potential to increase the already $4.2 trillion national debt.
Sure, money is great, but where is the government getting all of its money with a looming $53 trillion coming due in four years when baby-boomers retire? Let’s hope that the future President can answer this question.
jvoth