America's Most Used Drug

Allow me to begin this blogpost by saying, I'm an insomniac. I average about 4-5 hours of sleep a night. Because of my unique sleep schedule, I feel as if I have formed a very close, personal relationship with joe. My cup of joe. Every morning.

Unsurprisingly, I often get criticized for my coffee drinking habit, as it is a nationally accepted notion that coffee is horrible for you because of the caffeine, which is infact America's most used drug. I am often told that the caffeine in coffee stunts your growth. But what most people don't know is that, that "fact" is actually a wives tale. It stems from a study conducted on the elderly where the subjects ages 65-77 drank eighteen ounces of caffeine daily and had greater bone loss over a period of three years when compared to 65-77 year old's who did not ingest caffeine daily. A more recent study compared the bone gain and bone density of 81 teenagers, some with very high caffeine intake and some with very low caffeine intake, over a period of six years. The study found that the teens with the highest daily caffeine intake at the end of the study had no difference of bone gain or bone density than the teens with the lowest caffeine intake. And no growth stunting. 

Though, not having the fear of stunted growth isn't the only reason why coffee is okay to drink, coffee actually has many health benefits too. According to this article entitled "7 Health Benefits of Coffee" from the Huffington Post, experts tend to agree that for the effects of coffee on the body, "....the good largely outweighs the bad for most people...". 

The article's listed seven health benefits are:
-Coffee can help you proofread better

-Coffee can lower the risk of depression in women

-Coffee can potentially save your brain from Alzheimer's
-Coffee could lower a man's prostate risk
-Coffee could ward off skin cancer
-Coffee can protect you from type 2 diabetes 
-Coffee can decrease the risk of developing Parkinsons


These health benefits prove that the consumption of coffee can actually be beneficial to a person opposed to the popular belief that it is harmful. I am glad that coffee is finally getting the justice it deserves because it is amazing, in my opinion. But, like anything, coffee is best in moderation, so drink wisely. At the end of the day, America's most used drug is thankfully not as dangerous as it's cut out to be. 

Lee's Live Expletive

Lee Corso

Yesterday morning, during ESPN's College Gameday show, while joking around, reporter Lee Corso used a curse word. He used the f-word. 


You know, the one that ends in K. 


And of course, half an hour later, into the first quarter of the Michigan-Nebraska game, ESPN aired an apology from Corso saying, "Earlier today on College Gameday, while picking the SMU-Houston game, I got a bit excited and used an expletive that I shouldn't have used". 


Swear words have always been taboo in American society, but sometimes I think the public puts too much meaning on them. It's just a word. And I bet most, if not all, viewers that day had probably heard the f-word before. 


In fact, it seems that everytime a cuss word gets uttered on live TV, there is a huge uproar. Viewers complain and a video of the event turns viral on Youtube. But why do people care so much? I understand how parents do not want their children to be exposed to that kind of profanity, but if the parents actually ever took their children to a college football game, I can promise them, their children will hear the f-word many more times than once. Hopefully as parents, your instilling good enough judgement into your kids for them to know which words are and aren't acceptable. One cuss word they hear on ESPN College Gameday is not going to taint them as human beings. 


All in all, I just do not understand why live reporters especially always have to use perfect language. Can you imagine how hard it is to be perfect and make no mistakes while hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, are watching. 


Now, I'm not condoning the use of cuss words on TV, and I'm not saying that it's okay for reporters to use them all the time. But once in a while, that's fine. I'm sure you wouldn't want so many strangers criticizing you when you make one mistake. So to everyone that's criticizing the **** out of Corso, please cool down. 


Yours Truly,
Chrisanthy S


A full article on Corso's f-bomb can be found HERE.

An Ignorant Generation

Last night, my friends and I treated ourselves to a dinner at Flat Top Grill. Overall, we had a great time. It was great food, great atmosphere, and great company. Though, one part of the night really ticked me off. It was while we were waiting to be seated. There was a lull in conversation, so I brought up the Penn State scandal. To my astonishment, none of my friends knew what the Penn State scandal was. Perhaps the biggest scandal of college football, and not one out of the five of them had ever even heard of it. 


This caused me to start wondering about how many other American teens are unaware of current events. My research led me to a study done by Harvard regarding how many American teenagers pay attention to the news. The study states that some "28% of Americans between the ages of 12 and 17 said they pay almost no attention to daily news, and 32% said they pay only casual attention to one news source a day". 

This statistic genuinely alarmed me. In my point of view, one needs to be educated in current events in order to be a functioning member of society, even if one is only a teenager. So, I began to question why such a low number of teenagers read the news. The only teenagers I knew for a fact didn't read the news  were these five friends from Flat Top. After talking to them, I realized that the news is just not a priority for them. Their lives are too much wrapped up in homework, after school activities, college searching, work, friends, family, facebook, and sleep to pay attention to the news. 


But really, I don't think the news is that difficult to keep up with. If a teenager just takes 20-30 minutes out of everyday to focus on current events, they will most likely have a good basic knowledge of current world happenings. 


The study also states that: "Among people age 18-30, 48% said they pay attention to daily news, and only 23% of older Americans said they largely ignore news." So luckily, eventually in life, the news does become a priority for most. Teenagers will mature into functioning members of society after all. 


Nonetheless, on Monday, I will begin schooling my friends on current events during our fifth period lunch whether they like it or not. 


If you want to learn more about the Harvard study click HERE.

Guilty Humor

This past Wednesday, my level nineteen American Studies class embarked on a marvelous fieldtrip into the depths of downtown Chicago. This journey included a visit to the Smart Museum of Art, the Osaka Japanese garden, and a viewing of the Chicago-based play, Clybourne Park.

The plays plot begins in 1959 with a white couple moving out of their home in the predominately white Clybourne Park neighborhood of Chicago and a black family subsequently moving in. The idea of having black neighbors bothered and upset many of the white couple's white neighbors. The play then flash forwards to present day, now-predominately black Clybourne Park neighborhood at a meeting of neighbors pertaining building codes. The topic of race gets brought up at the meeting and it does not end pretty causing division between the neighbors.

The play gravitated on the topic of racism in Chicago and how it's changed (or perhaps not changed at all) from fifty years back to present day.

Division Between Neighbors in Clybourne Park

To symbolize racism fifty years ago, certain white characters bluntly expressed their concerns of a black family moving into their neighborhood.
To display racism in present day, there was a number of racist jokes that got thrown around. Jaw dropping, incredibly offensive, sometimes disturbing racist jokes. Racist jokes that I do not feel comfortable quoting on my school blog. But all in all, these jokes were quite funny.

I've always been taught that racist jokes are not to be laughed at. Not only because they are hurtful to the ethnicity of the joke, but also because you never know who is watching you laugh at something that offends them. In the incredibly liberal area where I live, you DO NOT want to be known as a racist and talk travels quick. But the thing that amazed me the most about the racist jokes in Clybourne Park was that everybody laughed at them. Well maybe not every single person in the audience, but it sure seemed like it.  But why are racist jokes okay to laugh at when watching a play and not okay to laugh at in real life?

I've developed a few theories to try to explain this phenomenon:

1. It was dark in the theater and everyone was fixated on the play, not you. So no one would ever know whether or not you laughed at these jokes.
2. You heard the majority of the audience, black and white and everything in-between, laughing at the jokes, so it was okay, because everyone was doing it.
3. The play is a form of entertainment and they had plenty of jokes not pertaining to race, so you knew it was also a comedy and the jokes were intended to be laughed at.

I know these theories can be seen as ridiculous, but they are my best speculations at this point. If anyone else has any other theories I would very much like to hear them, because this was quite an experience for me and any insight would be appreciated.