What's the Deal with Black Friday... No Pun Intended

I had two and a half days to spend visiting with my family back home and it was nowhere near enough but I am thankful for what time I did have. My mom spent all 3 days in the kitchen and by the time I left her house we had enough leftovers to feed an army. It is insane how much food she prepares. We always have ham and turkey with tons of sides to choose from and this year practically all the sides and desserts were made twice, once for most of us and again without glucose for my aunt. I swear if my mother didn’t have to work she could feed all the hungry within a 50 mile radius! It was fantastic as usual and over entirely too soon. Especially since I had to head home after we ate to prepare for my Black Friday shift at work.

Which brings me to Black Friday and my question to everyone, what is the appeal? I cannot imagine fighting the crowds to shop in general much less camping out days ahead of time? Some of the sales this year didn’t even wait until Friday; Wal-Mart started at 10 pm on Thanksgiving Day. By the time I got to work at my part time retail job at 5 am Friday most of the crowds were gone. Targets’ parking lot was practically empty. Apparently by 5 am the masses had already wrapped it up and headed home to finally sleep. My shift was 5 am to 10 am and we were so slow I ended up leaving an hour early. So having those sales increasingly early every year doesn’t seem to be doing any favors to the non-big box stores or for that matter probably not so good for the local restaurants either. Maybe it is just me and my lack of enthusiasm for competitive shopping but I just don’t understand it. 

The hordes of people grabbing at the same few $3 toasters, after trampling everyone around them, just doesn’t scream Holiday Spirit to me. There are already reports of violent outbreaks around the nation this Black Friday. A woman in California used pepper spray on her fellow shoppers so she could cut to the head of the line. Her bad behavior was rewarded when she was able to pay for her purchases and leave the store before the police had even arrived. I cannot even imagine. It is sad when you rank the success of your event by the lack of casualties but so far Wal-Mart is happy with the outcome because although there have been numerous shootings, tasing, and pepper spray incidents no one has yet to die. Well hallelujah! So between people being attacked inside the store over an x-box sale or in the parking lot while being robbed I think it might be in the best interest of rational people to stay home and take advantage of Cyber Monday instead!

Penn States Priorities

We will probably never know all the depravity that took place at the hands of Jerry Sandusky but there hardly seems a doubt that something very dark was going on. What he did, to god only knows how many boys, is unforgivable and what Penn State did to cover it up is even worse. They enabled him to sexually abuse young boys for years. Take a moment to let that sink in; they enabled him to sexually assault, rape, sodomize, molest, attack young boys. I don’t care if people are college football fans or not if you can’t recognize the epic moral failing of Penn State than I feel sorry for you. Hearing news about people dropping gifts off in front of Joe Paterno’s house makes me want to scream. I get that football is a religion for some but get a grip people, this man probably knew (I would bet $$$ on it) what was going on and he chose to do nothing. Why is he being idolized? So what if he coached a winning football team, that accomplishment will always be eclipsed by his deplorable judgment. Everyone at Penn State who knew what was going on, suspected what was going on, or in the case of a few, saw what was going on should be held accountable for their massive failure.

I might just be in a blind furry about this but I think Penn State should lose their entire program. My husband assures me that I am over reacting but I think Penn State needs to take some time to reevaluate their priorities because football does not come before the safety and security of children. I can’t help but look at the people who turned a blind eye with distain and loathing. Why didn’t they call the police? Why didn’t someone step forward to protect these young boys? Why was football more important than the safety of Sandusky’s victims? Why was the program more important to Penn State than the children? Most of all, why did Mike McQueary who stated that,  “hesaw a naked boy, Victim 2, whose age he estimated to be 10 years old, with hishands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked[Jerry] Sandusky”, walk away from that? I can imagine no scenario in which I would walk away from a child being victimized. Penn State’s powerful program will most likely come out of this a little tarnished but if I had my way they wouldn’t come out of it at all because apparently they do not understand that people/children come before a game!

               

Syphilis Awareness Campaigns Past & Present

 Recently I had to do a group presentation in one of my classes that our group chose to do over syphilis. I handled the entertaining segment of our presentation and I thought I would rework it here to share with everyone because even though it is over a pretty heinous STD it is still pretty interesting and our country's history with handling awareness is pretty entertaining!

The numbers of reported primary and secondary syphilis diagnoses have varied widely since reporting began in 1941, from a high of almost 95,000 in 1946 to a low of around 6,000 reported cases in 2000. As of 2009, 62% of syphilis cases in the United States were attributed to homosexual males. Although the majority of current U.S. syphilis cases have occurred among homosexual males, syphilis among heterosexual males is also an emerging problem. Syphilis is a curable disease with early diagnosis and treatment; however, being infected and treated for syphilis does not mean that you are immune to future exposure. Syphilis can be prevented much like any other STD, by using latex condoms every time you have sex or oral sex, by abstaining from sex all together or through a mutually monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner.

STD awareness campaigns started with the US military and their aggressive public information campaigns to limit sexually transmitted disease among the armed forces, which makes perfect sense when you consider that penicillin didn't go into wide use until after World War II, meaning syphilis  remained serious threats to the troops and the Army's staying power. In the beginning most of the ads played to the soldier’s patriotism by asking them to avoid venereal disease for the sake of their country. This ad is pleading with soldiers to consider both their country and their wives and children back home. 

Here is a British ad focused on warning the ladies that all the rosy cheeked soldiers coming into town are bringing syphilis with them. 

Eventually most ads were aimed at warning men about the dangers of sexually active women though and this one is an obvious example of that. A little too obvious so that it borders on cheesy but it gets the point across I guess.

Here the woman pictured is venereal disease as the label on her chest reads and the soldiers are cleverly warned not to be “her pin up boy”. So cleaver!

Syphilis awareness ads today are much different than the previous ads but then again so are the issues surround the disease. Our battles with syphilis aren’t as dire with today’s modern medicine but the disease hasn’t been eradicated so there is still a need to educate the public.

Using condoms during sex is relatively understood but for some reason people do not always think to use them during oral sex.

Syphilis Sucks is a brilliant ad that uses a condom disguised as a lollipop to generate awareness that STDs are most certainly transmitted during oral sex also.

Alberta Canada’s public health authorities launched an innovative campaign that parodies the popular Plenty of Fish dating website. In an effort to raise awareness about the rate of syphilis in the province they designed the website plentyofsyph.com to look just like any other dating site complete with profiles of syphilis infected singles. The site though is less about hooking up with syphilis carriers and more about disgusting the population into better safe sex habits.