Awareness

September is National Eye Cancer Awareness Month. I bet that more than half of the people that will read this did not know that it was. It's somewhat shocking that there is so little said about eye cancer and that there isn't much that we like to say about it. I think that those that have not been affected by eye cancer have never seriously thought about their chances of developing it. I know that I had never known anyone that had eye cancer until I met my cousin Betty. She was only 18 months old when she was diagnosed with retino blastoma or childhood ocular cancer. Even an infant can develop something that could take down the strongest men on earth. How unfair for life to set such a high hurdle for such a young woman, but Betty is an astounding child and an incredibly strong one. With more research maybe we could find a way to regenerate lost tissues due to surgery or finding better ways to treat it that wouldn't be so invasive to the surrounding organs or tissues. If you would like to do something to raise awareness for this terrible disease and wear a yellow ribbon on a shirt a couple of days next September or just visit www.cancer.org/cancer/retinoblastoma/

The Uppers

Lower-upper class and Upper-upper class seem to be differentiated by a small handful of things. There is not much in my eyes that actually creates these labels. The small distinctions are things like buying overly expensive things because they want the best of the best. These material people shell out money like it's nothing because they can and they want to. They have to keep up the appearance of upper-upper class with all of their name brand, top-of-the-line items so inevitably they spend more money and perpetuate the notion that there are two different types of upper class people in this world.

A much more evident line is drawn between middle class and working class. I think that people in working class live paycheck to paycheck without almost any luxuries. Middle class people aren't too much higher on the totem pole, but they do have the money to buy gifts and have things that they wouldn't if they found themselves in the working class. 

Just to show that people can laugh at themselves no matter how much money they have here is a Monty Python video.

Social Deviants :P

Control theory advances the proposition that weak bonds between the individual and society free people to deviate. Labeling theory states that social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance. These two theories seem to come to mind when I watch this video. The first attacker of the man in the business clothes is labeled by the reporter as a punk for kicking the man while he was down. He said that it was a terrible thing to do and showed the true extent of these two assailants' deviance while putting the deviant “in their place” with snide remarks coolly calling him a coward. These two most likely do not interact with everyone like the rest of society does. Their weak ties and complete lack of social justice just goes to show that control theory actually represents a great number of criminals because they become somewhat numb to others and act out or deviate from the social norm. 

WARNING: due to the GRAPHIC NATURE of this video some people may be offended