Assignment 16: Anne Nombe

For us high schoolers, our day-to-day life often feels like an endless cycle. We wake up on school mornings. We get ready and come to school. We go to sports or to clubs or to theater or to band, and when we get home, the best of us, at least, ignore the heap of homework we told ourselves we'd do that night. We push it to tomorrow morning and go to bed, ending our day. Or so we thought, then we get a text at 11:30 asking us about the physics we thought was due tomorrow but is actually due at 11:59 that night. It doesn't surprise us since we're used to dealing with this kind of stress. Because of all this, we tell ourselves we hate our continuous circle of a "cycle," but it really isn't so bad. Not compared to others. 

For example, let's talk about a certain cycle that affects a certain group of people in our society. These individuals, they wake up and get themselves ready. They probably go to public school, then come directly home, having no after school activities to partake in. No homework piles up on their desks. Sounds like a pretty good "cycle" right? Better than ours at least. 

But what if I told you that that isn't it? What if I told you that one part to this cycle, one dark, twisted part is obscured from the public's eyes? These individuals don't just live happy, work-free lives with stress-free cycles. The worst part of their cycle doesn't revolve school. It revolves around the treatment they receive at home. It circles around the abuse, the battery, and the neglect. Yes, this is what finishes the cycle of a child in an abusive household. 

In the fall of 2015, this cycle of child abuse came to an end for a 7-year-old boy in Kansas named Adrian Jones. After months of being forced to stand outside in the cold in only his t-shirt and jeans, being forced to rummage through his own trashcans for food, and being forced to stand in his parents' filthy pool overnight, all while they documented his torture, everything revolving around Adrian's abuse came to a stop. Why? Because his parents had abused to the point of death. And when they were done, they fed his remains to pigs. 

Unfortunately, Adrian's story isn't the only one of such cruel, inhuman treatment of children. Take the case of Alize Vicks. She was only 2 years old when her foster mother ended her life by throwing her 5 feet, head-first, into a coffee table. Both stories are clearly connected by extreme neglect and abuse, but also by the lack of action. In both Adrian and Alize's stories, the most shocking, pitiful fact is that some had actually seen the abuse and alerted child protective services in the state. The outcome: no help for Adrian or for Alize from the organizations that are supposed to save children like them. 

The story of these two children, whose miserable day to day lives were terminated by death instead of by CPS, is becoming much too common. NPR's National Desk Correspondent Pam Fessler reported that approximately 1,500 child abuse victims died in 2013. In 2015, the Child Welfare Information Gateway, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, found that this number increased to 1,670. The Child Welfare Information Gateway equated this to the death of five children every day. Five children who could have grown up to make incredible contributions to our nation, had they been rescued from their violent cycles. 

I'm sure you didn't know any of this before I relayed the facts to you. And that is one of the largest problems with child abuse cases. They simply do not get enough coverage to the public or care from the government to force a change in the child protective system. While "major news"-worthy topics such as tax plans and Donald Trump's tweets run rampant through our headlines, child abuse fails to make the front page. This lack of awareness can be deadly. For instance, the Lexington Herald Leader found that in our state of Kentucky, cases of child neglect have increased from roughly 10,000 cases in 2012 to over 15,000 in 2016. 334 of these cases have resulted, or nearly resulted in death. Yet many Kentuckians don't even know these overwhelming statistics, because they are pushed aside for more "newsworthy topics and policies". In the words of Louisville State Representative Tom Burch, our state will "pass legislation against abortion all day long, but once the babies are born, they’re on their own." 

So victims of child abuse don't make the headlines. They have Child Protective Services to rely on, right? No. While that should be the case, programs such as the Department of Children and Families and other child welfare groups often fail to act upon serious child abuse cases, such as in the case of Adrian Jones. The boy's biological mother and her family had reached out to the Kansas DCF numerous times, and Adrian's trauma was even documented by doctors, yet none did anything to save him from his inevitable death. These child welfare programs, as stated by the Denver Post, are often times disjointed, as the case in Colorado. Colorado social work is determined by county, and because of this, "state officials cannot pinpoint the average workload of caseworkers, and cannot fire or discipline a county employee". The flawed system failed to protect young Alize Vicks when neighbors called to warn CPS because the social workers didn't follow through with child welfare protocol. Even though they knew of her situation, the social workers deemed it not serious enough for intervention until she was found dead. 

Both the lack of awareness from the public and the ineffectiveness of child rescue organizations are dangerous factors that when combined, often result in the loss of a young life. 

These factors are always combined. 

It’s time to fix the problems with child welfare. I know I spent a lot of time detailing the problems with CPS, and though I may have led you to believe that the poor work done by social services is why cases of child abuse continue to grow in severity, it’s not entirely true. It’s not just the duty of the state to protect children, but the duty of our citizens and schools as well. We need to teach our children more aware of child welfare policies, and to encourage them to speak up when they feel unsafe at home. “Screening” or pushing away calls of child abuse, should be eliminated, as half the children in 2007 who died due to neglect were "screened calls". We need skilled, responsible social workers to respond to every possible instance of abuse that gets called in rather than dismissing a case because it doesn't sound imperative. We could do this a number of ways, but I believe the best action is to have our Congress pass new legislation that instills child welfare education in schools and establishes new, national requirements and tests for state social workers. Through all of this, even though child abuse may not get a bigger spot in the daily news, we can do our best to end these perilous cycles of abuse through working harder as a country to save child victims rather than allowing death to do it for them. 

Page BreakWorks Cited 

Blewett, Kate, and Brian Woods. Innocents Lost. Innocents Lost (Child Neglect Documentary) - Real Stories, True Vision, 1998, www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWLVyi7Fv48. 

Cheves, John. “Child Abuse and Neglect up 55 Percent in Kentucky since 2012.” Lexington Herald Leader [Lexington], 3 Feb. 2017, www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article130535059.html. 

“Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities 2015: Statistics and Interventions.” Numbers and Trends, 2017, www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/fatality.pdf. 

Fessler, Pam. “Child Abuse And Neglect Laws Aren't Being Enforced, Report Finds.” NPR, National Public Radio, 27 Jan. 2015, www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/27/381636056/child-abuse-and-neglect-laws-arent-being-enforced-report-finds. 

Osher, Christopher N, et al. “Abused Children’s Cries for Help Were Ignored.” The Denver Post, www.denverpost.com/2012/11/10/abused-childrens-cries-for-help-were-ignored-2/. 

Schmidt, Samantha. “Boy, 7, Was Tortured to Death and Fed to Pigs. State Agencies Failed Him, Says Lawsuit.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 1 Sept. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/01/boy-7-was-tortured-to-death-and-fed-to-pigs-state-agencies-failed-him-says-lawsuit/?utm_term. 

Skeen, Sarah, and Mark Tomlinson. “A Public Health Approach to Preventing Child Abuse in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Call for Action.” International Journal of Psychology, vol. 48, no. 2, 2013, pp. 108–116., doi:10.1080/00207594.2012.737467. 

YouTube, NBC, 1970, www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbEkt66OjEA. 

Assignment 16: Maggie Anderson

Fish Farming

We’re all human. And we all enjoy eating. And we all appreciate the fact that our species no longer dies by forty. But if we want to continue to this trend of rising health and longevity in a growing population, we need to maintain our nutrition. Predictions put our population at 9.7 billion by 2050, up from 7 billion in 2015, meaning our planet will need 70% more protein by 2050. Due to cost and space restriction on land, the best place to expand this production is the sea. Another advantage of fish over meats such as beef is the fewer resources needed to grow a fish. Due to the fact that they are cold-blooded and float all day, they need considerably less feed to live; therefore more feed is directly translated into meat. Fish also consume less feed and, ironically, much less water.

But commercial fishing is not the solution. It depletes the ocean’s resources and will soon become unsustainable in a growing population. One solution is fish farming, the practice of raising fish in an enclosed space such as a net in the ocean or a pool on land so that when fish are needed they can easily be pulled out and prepared. Aquaculture can create more meat than can be hunted; creating a healthy, and sustainable, environment that makes the fish healthy, happy, and delicious.

Downsides to fish farming exist, and they have bubbled to the surface and made a large splash in the minds of consumers. One concern is overcrowding. Having fish packed together in concrete pens isn’t good for anyone, least of all the fish. Crowded conditions lead to disease, genetic problems, and the buildup of naturally occurring chemicals such as ammonia, which destroys the water, as well as harming the fish. Most fish farm owners regularly treat their farms with antibiotics to keep their fish alive. This is worse in offshore farms, where the contaminated water can harm wild fish and infect them with diseases from the farmed fish if they come into contact.

 Feeding these fish creates a further strain. Salmon and other popular fish are carnivorous, and they require 30 billion tons of forage fish such as sardines to feed the larger fish in the farms. Most of this is given to the fish in pellets that contain fish meal, fish oil, and plant based nourishments like soy. This creates another strain on the ocean as the continued extraction of wild forage fish continues to deplete populations and ecosystems.

These problems are, however, solvable. One easy solution to the feeding problem is to raise more omnivorous fish that can be fed without the use of fish meal. This is already happening, and the use of forage fish per pound of farmed fish has dropped 80% in the last fifteen years. Fish oil is high in omega-3 fatty acids, however, and is harder to replace. The oil is created in algae and goes up the food chain through bigger and bigger fish. Omega-3 is already being extracted directly from algae which also reduced chemicals that accumulate in farmed fish.

Another solution is to mimic the natural environment. Nowhere, in the ocean or anywhere else, does an ecosystem with only one species exist. Diverse ecosystems naturally clean themselves up. One cleaning method lets the rest of the ocean do all the work. A farm off the coast of Panama is situated in waves that can reach up to fifty feet, unlike most farms, which are built in more sheltered locations. This washes away old water, destroying any chance of build up and sending the debris off to other parts of the ocean. As tests have reported clean water surrounding his pens, it is assumed that the waste is being eaten by plankton. In this way the farm both produces a sustainable food source and helps the surrounding ecosystems.

An even more profitable way to clean your waste water is to create your own ecosystem. A man named Stephen Cross has built one such farm off the coast of British Columbia. His main product is sablefish, which he feeds. Down current from the sablefish pens are baskets of shellfish such as cockles, oyster, scallops, and mussels. These feed on fish excretions and live alongside sugar kelp which reduces bioethanol, converting waste into plant tissue. Below the fish on the sea bed are sea cucumbers to handle heavy organic waste. This system could work with almost any type of fish in almost any environment. Not only is it healthy for the outside environment, as all impact is neutralized within the system, it’s economically smarter. All the plants and animals used can be sold, for the cost of only feeding the fish.

Fish farming is going to have to take off if we are to avoid famine. And it doesn’t need dramatic overhaul to bring it up to these standards of sustainability; it’s already heading there fast. Even in the past fifteen years have standards improved. Farmers and countries are realizing that fish farming is efficient and that farms that are better for the fish and the environment also make more sense economically. This isn’t an uphill battle for sustainability against the force of the economic goals of those involved; it’s an easy, and peaceful, win for both sides. If you want to ensure the prosperity and progression of future generations, act now and support fish farming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Animal Welfare Institute. “Fish Farming.” https://awionline.org/content/fish-farming Retrieved    June 22, 2017.

Bourne, Joel. “How to Farm a Better Fish”. National Geographic. June 2014, pp. 93-111.

Stone, Daniel. “The Other Other White Meat.” National Geographic.             http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/special-features/2014/04/140430-other-white-    meat-fish-aquaculture-cobia/. Retrieved June 22, 2017.

Velings, Mike. “The Case for Fish Farming.” TED. October 2015.             https://www.ted.com/talks/mike_velings_the_case_for_fish_farming?language=en.            Retrieved June 22, 2017.

Assignment Sixteen – Jessica Ewing

    I was once told by my mom that if any of her kids ever told her that they were gay, she’d have them packed up and admitted to a counselor by the end of the week. Needless to say, while I am openly gay at school and out in the community, in my home life I am still fiercely closeted. I live every day in fear of what may happen if my family were to find out about my sexuality. LGBT youth, like myself, still face oppression and hate, even in the wake of strides towards equality such as the legalization of gay marriage in 2015.
But today, I’d like to talk about this ongoing homophobia and how it is still plaguing our society, hurting primarily LGBT youth. First, in our government. With the Trump administration and their profoundly pro-religious standpoint, the LGBT community is facing discrimination now more than ever. Second, in our homes. Families that refuse to accept their children for who they are greatly damage their child’s psychological well-being. And finally, in our communities. Stereotypes greatly hinder LGBT progression, and prejudice alienates LGBT youth from their more religious family and friends.
    Firstly, since President Donald Trump was elected into office, LGBT rights have begun to gradually vanish, starting from the day after he was sworn in and all LGBT content was removed from the White House and Department of State websites. While that doesn’t sound very profound, it was a small step that helped pave the way to larger, more destructive, decisions.
In February, the Departments of Education and Justice revoked the Obama administration’s guidance on equal access to facilities for transgender students in schools, and just this past October, the Trump administration passed a “license to discriminate,” allowing for federal agencies, businesses, and other organizations to refuse to provide services or employ LGBT people. Transgender writer and activist Janet Mock said that “the federal government does not protect us from discrimination when we’re trying to apply for a job or keep our job”; indeed, the Human Rights Campaign cites that over half of all Americans live in an area of the U.S. where LGBT people are at risk of being fired, evicted, or denied services because of who they are, and with the passing of this License to Discriminate, that number is only projected to increase.
Secondly, home life for LGBT youth can be distressing, especially if they live in a family that are unaccepting of LGBT rights, forcing them to remain closeted and in fear of what may happen if their true identity is discovered. Even if a child is out, homophobia still plagues families, many putting their prejudices before their own children. Actor and gay activist Neil Patrick Harris puts it perfectly: “Parents need to be more accepting of who their kids are and less concerned about who they think they need to be.”
The effects of an unaccepting family can be detrimental on an LGBT child. The Trevor Project, a crisis intervention organization for LGBT adolescents, cites that while LGBT youth are five times as likely to attempt suicide as heterosexual youth, those who come from highly rejecting families are roughly eight and a half times as likely to attempt suicide as those who come from families with little to no rejection. This means that for kids like me who are trapped in this situation of being who we are and not being accepted by our families for it, we’re over 42 times as likely to attempt suicide as our straight peers. The psychological damage done by something as seemingly simple as an unsupportive family can be catastrophic to LGBT youth.
Finally, stereotypes and prejudice in communities hinder cultural progression towards LGBT acceptance and equality. The all-too-familiar stereotypes of the feminine, lispy gay males or the butch, pixie-cut-sporting lesbians interfere with the reality that LGBT people can look and behave in any way, just like straight people. The confinement of these stereotypes brings many people to invalidate those who identify as LGBT by claiming that they don’t “act gay enough” or don’t “look gay.” I’m not even able to count the number of times I’ve been told that I “can’t be gay” because I don’t look like the stereotypical idea of a lesbian. Frankly, it’s rather disheartening and tiring to hear other people dictate what I should be based on their narrow-minded judgments.
Speaking of judgments, prejudices against the LGBT community are rampant in our society today, particularly in religious circles. Christians and Muslims alike disparage the LGBT community, in many cases refusing to even get along civilly with them. Teacher Wazina Zondon said concerning her childhood, “Being queer or being gay or being lesbian was never an option in our [Muslim] family,” stating that by coming out as lesbian, she not only put herself at risk, but also jeopardized her father’s integrity and dignity in their Muslim community, due to their traditional Muslim practices.
On the Christian side, Tates Creek Christian Church, which is not far from here in Lexington, was one of many churches that ignored the 2015 Supreme Court decision to allow same sex marriages, stating in their wedding policies that “the use of the church for a Biblical marriage should be recognized as a privilege, and not a right...we will not permit wedding ceremonies or events in our facilities between same-sex couples, transgender individuals or couples...or other arrangements not in accordance with scripture.” Well, according to the scripture, God loves all, and Jesus said ‘love thy neighbor as thyself,’ so why is the LGBT community being told that because we happen to love somebody different, we can’t be treated as equally as a straight couple when wanting to get married? This hatred from the religious populations, the ones self-proclaimed to be built on the foundation of the love of God, now get to determine other people’s happiness?
    Writer and producer Dustin Lance Black once said that “every day we don’t have full equality [is another] day those messages are still being sent that gay and lesbian people are second-class in this country.” The trends I’ve discussed here today demonstrate that exactly: the regression of LGBT rights in our federal government since the dawn of the Trump administration, the psychological harm inflicted on LGBT youth from a disavowing and rejecting family, and the ongoing hatred and bigotry in the form of stereotypes and intolerance from Christians and Muslims. Well, even though it feels like equality is backsliding with the rise of anti-LGBT legislation and more open discrimination in our communities, I have hope that this generation of LGBT youth will grow up to see a better, more equal future for the next.









Works Cited
“Facts About Suicide – The Trevor Project.” The Trevor Project, 2017, www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/preventing-suicide/facts-about-suicide/.
Greenfield-Sanders, Timothy, director. The Out List. The Out List, HBO, 27 June 2013.
Lunn, Sherri A. Trevor Condemns "License to Discriminate" – The Trevor Project. The Trevor Project, 6 Oct. 2017, www.thetrevorproject.org/trvr_press/trevor-condemns -license-discriminate.
O'Hara, Mary E. “How has Trump's first 100 days in office impacted LGBTQ rights?” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 26 Apr. 2017, www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/first-100-days-how-president-trump-has-impacted-lgbtq-rights-n750191.
Peters, Stephen. Trump-Pence Administration Unleashes #LicenseToDiscriminate. Human Rights Campaign, 6 Oct. 2017, www.hrc.org/blog/breaking-trump-pence-administration- unleashes-license-to-Discriminate.
“Talking about Suicide and LGBT Populations.” Issuu, Movement Advancement Project, 24 Oct. 2011, issuu.com/trevorproject/docs/talking_about_suicide_and_lgbt_populations.
Tates Creek Christian Church Wedding Policy. Tates Creek Christian Church, Jan. 2016, s3.amazonaws.com/media.cloversites.com/bc/bcb9d2e5-d9d9-48d1-9e5d-0e9f1c8de4c3/documents/WEDDING_POLICY_-_01-2016.pdf.

Assignment 16 - Ben Sanner

Speech Manuscript

What's the hardest position to play in sports? Some say it is the goalkeeper in soccer, while others say it is the catcher in baseball, however most believe that it is the quarterback in American football. That is why names such as Russell Wilson, Andrew Luck, and Derek Carr along with other quarterbacks around the league have been guaranteed tens of millions of dollars, in some cases hundreds of millions to play for their teams in the years to come. Meet Colin Kaepernick, a mobile 29 year-old free agent quarterback with the fifth best touchdown to interception ratio in NFL history, for those of you who do not know what that means just know that it is really good. Most of you have probably heard of the protests going on in the NFL the last two years, well the man that started it all was none other than Mr. Kaepernick himself. He chose to take a knee in a peaceful gesture attempting to use his platform to change a nations social conscience. Whether you agree or disagree with his public protest during the national anthem to spotlight police brutality on people of color, he did bring a lot of attention to it. During the time of the protests the NFL's T.V. ratings went down and the league lost millions of dollars in revenue. Whether the league acknowledges it or not they have a problem, and unless they soon realize how to get players and owners to work together on it, their product will undoubtedly continue to suffer. 

For quite a bit of time now African-American players in the NFL have voiced their anger that, in their opinion the NFL owners are effectively blackballing Colin Kaepernik on the sole means of his political stance. They are not wrong in their anger as lots of evidence supports their conclusion. 1. Far less talented quarterbacks have signed with new teams while Kaepernick remains unsigned. 2. Multiple owners from around the league have been critical of Kaepernick's form of protest. 3. President Donald Trump has attacked Kaepernick repeatedly in many forms. He has not been charged with a crime, nor has he been accused of breaking any aspect of the NFL's cba. He has done nothing but exercise his right of peaceful protest which is protected by the constitution. He plays the most valuable position in sports and he has shown he could excel in it before. So how could you argue anything other than he is being blackballed as a reason that he is still a free-agent?  

One of the main reasons T.V. ratings have gone down is that people have disagreed with the protests of Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players because they believed these players were disrespecting the flag by kneeling while the national anthem was being played before every game. And who could blame them, they heard it from President Trump Himself when tweeting about a weekend of NFL protests saying, "If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues he or she should not be allowed to disrespect … our Great American Flag and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, YOU’RE FIRED. Find something else to do!” The president in this context has misrepresented the situation, as the players are not protesting the National Anthem but rather they are protesting police brutality against African Americans. This tweet among other items contributed to widespread decline of viewership in which the league had a loss of revenue. 

Now let's focus on the NFL owners, who possess the cash and spotlight to provoke change – as well as the means to give Kaepernick a job. Owners want to raise their bank balance. By people tuning in and loving the NFL shield. In the past, they believed they would be able to control the effects of Kaepernick's protest by simply not signing him and letting fade into unemployment. As they thought that what he was doing would in no way affect their money due to the many fans who would want him to simply shut up and play. Well it has affected their money and now numerous players such as Malcolm Jenkins, Marshawn Lynch, and Michael Bennett have joined him and through this time the narrative has changed from, "Who will stand with him?" To now, "Who could possibly stand against him?" The time is now for Owners and players to unite as one and use their outstretching resources to not only accomplish their goal but also to return the NFL to the glowing product that so many love. 

Now just recently a big first step was made in that the NFL owners along with the NFLPA have agreed to a $90 million deal to fund the players' activism efforts and to support them in doing so. Now this is just the first step, and lots of work still has to be done but the future looks bright for the players in their activism efforts as well as for the NFL in the years to come. 

Page Break 

Works Cited 

 Garber, Megan. “They Took a Knee.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company 24 Sept. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/09/why-the-nfl-is-protesting/540927/.  

 HBO, director. Hard Knocks. Hard Knocks, HBO, 2001, www.hbo.com/hard-knocks.                                                   

Reid, Jason. “We May Have Seen the Last of Colin Kaepernick in the NFL.” The Undefeated, The Undefeated, 7 June 2017, theundefeated.com/features/we-may-have-seen-the-last-of-colin-kaepernick-in-the-nfl/.                                                                              

Smith, Stephen A. “The NFL Has a Kaepernick Problem That’s Bigger than Just Kaepernick Now.” The Undefeated, The Undefeated, 17 Aug. 2017, theundefeated.com/features/nfl-has-kaepernick-problem-thats-bigger-than-just-kaepernick-now/.      

  Snyder, Deron. “SNYDER: If Kaepernick Can Play, Why Isn’t That Enough?” The Washington Times, The Washington Times, 7 Aug. 2017, www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/7/colin-kaepernick-can-play-why-isnt-enough/.