theSpiderWeb

I do not know! I am lost! (Act shocked)

Models, Actresses, Music Artists and other “A-List” celebrities. These are the kind of people that teens, and pre-teens, alike compare themselves to everyday. When little girls think that they must look like Britney Spears or Heidi Klum to get somewhere in the world, it leaves them with the thought that they always need to be thinner and, for the ones who can afford it, the need for plastic surgery.

Four% of plastic surgeries performed today are on teens. The percentage is not a lot but when you really think about it, 4% is a lot for something that should be on a strictly needed basis. As of 2003, the most popular procedure was rhinoplasty (nose surgery) with almost 43,000 done. The second most popular was otoplasty (ear surgery) which is a procedure that reshapes the ears so they lay flat on the head. Some non-invasive procedures done on teens are chemical peels, microdermabrasion, and collagen injections (a “filler” used to reduce the sagging of skin) to reduce to visibility of acne scars.

Most teens believe that plastic surgery is a godsend; however, as we all know, nothing good comes without the bad. The side effects of plastic surgery can be horrific if not sometimes fatal. For example one doctor, a staff pediatrician at Ochsner Clinic Foundation, had one of his patients lose part of his ear after his otoplasty because he contracted an infection while it was healing. The cartilage of the ear has poor blood supply and good blood supply is imperative in healing properly. See this full article here.

Not to long ago, in November of 2007, a prominent figure’s, Kanye West, mother died following a tummy tuck and breast reduction. Many people have also gone in and had simple procedures done and have ended up looking “worse” than before. We all know about Michael Jackson, Demi Moore, and Salma Hayek and many more. Before and after pictures here.

Nevertheless, what makes these already beautiful celebrities, these people who little girls and teenagers look up to and admire, want to mess with their faces and bodies? The media and the people for which they work.If the celebrities start to gain weight then the media will attack them and shred them to pieces like they did to Britney Spears, who I might add has had two babies back to back, when she did a show for the MTV Music Video Awards.

Another problem that tells teens they need plastic surgery is the hit t.v. show Nip Tuck. This show makes reality look like life is a non stop party for the rich and beautiful. Although that is what life is probably like for most of the rich and beautiful, they are not perfect despite the way it seems on t.v.

If the media did not play such a huge role in our lives, we would not have eating disorders, the thought of plastic surgery and the other problems that our society must face today. So the next time a teenage girl goes into a doctor’s office and decides she wants a nose like Ashley Tisdale or another A-list celebrity and the doctor performs the surgery maybe he will realize what he is doing to her. Or a teen who has always been told that she should model because she is so pretty goes into a modeling agency and they tell her she isn’t skinny enough or pretty enough maybe they will realize, and care, that they are slowly ruining that girl’s image of herself if it isn’t already gone.

They’re everywhere! Everywhere you look, if you have the right training, you can find “hidden” rhetorical strategies with your “rhetorical eyes.”

Allusion to the Bible by Casting Crowns, The Voice of Truth

“The kind of strength it takes to stand before a giant
With just a Sling and a stone
Surrounded by the sound of a thousand warriors
Shaking in their armor
Wishing they’d have had the strength to stand”

Polysyndeton by Reba McEntire, So, So Long

“So long, so good, so fine, so real, so right,

so long, so fine, so long…”

Anaphora by Julius Caesar

“Veni, Vidi, Vici”

“We came, We saw, We conquered”

Personification by Antony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

“O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth…”

Not everyone understands it, not everyone sees it, but isn’t it funny how everywhere you look you see these funny little things. I bet the next time you look at a poem or listen to a song you will notice these rhetorical strategies with your “rhetorical eyes.”

As of 1999, there were 968,000 illegals in the United States. The number of illegal immigrants has approximately increased to about 11 to 13 million today. School registration should be one ways to identify illegal immigrants and the children of illegal immigrants need to be banned from attending our schools because their parents do not pay taxes.

            Illegal immigrants do not pay taxes because they do not have social security numbers and are not registered. No matter what anyone says, education is not free and yet the children of the illegals are receiving a free education at the cost of the taxpayers. The schools are paid with taxpayers money to allow children the opportunity of “free education”. 90% of the taxes that homeowners pay go to the schools for the upkeep, maintenance, supplies and other needs of the school. The illegal immigrants do not pay these taxes because most of them do not own houses; they just rent them.

            The funds spent on special requirements for illegal immigrants are taken away from the taxpayers’ children. The schools have to use money to hire someone to teach these students in Spanish or his or her native language; thus resulting in less and less money to be “spread” around to the “regular” classes. The schools then have to hire more teachers to teach the same classes because there are too many students to have just one class for that subject.

            There has been a 14% increase in school enrollment between 1990 and 2000. About 250,000 illegal immigrant children are enrolled in our school systems every year.  To be put plainly, the illegal immigrants are overcrowding our schools. There are no places to sit in lunchrooms. The cafeteria in my school is constantly being added on to because there are not enough tables for everyone to sit at comfortably. Another overcrowded area is the most important: our learning environment: the classrooms. My school has had to use mobile homes, a.k.a. module buildings, so each teacher could have his or her own classroom. Some classrooms, like my English room for example, were even cut in half by adding a dividing wall so they would have enough room on the school grounds for the “mod” buildings. We have also had a shortage of books that are needed for the classes taken. My math teacher had to re-order about 10 more books because she had not planned to have so many “move-ins”. The result of which, she had to spend money that she had not planned on spending and thus cutting her budget more than was expected.

            Many people believe that illegal immigration to be “good” for our economy. However, most of the people who believe this have jobs that require a higher education and are, therefore, “untouchable”. What happens to the people who are laid off because an immigrant is willing to do hard labor for less money than they are?

• Cocian, Lisa. “M.a. Students Try to Reple Illegals.” Illegal Immigration - Americans for Legal Immigration. 22 July 2007. 6 Nov. 2007 <http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2405>.

• Groening, Chad. “Oklahoma No Longer OK for Illegal Aliens.” One News Now. 16 May 2007. 6 Nov. 2007 <http://www.onenewsnow.com/2007/05/oklahoma_no_longer_ok_for_ille.php>.

• Lollie, William. “Illegal Immigrants Want Rights Without Responsibilites.” Community Forums. 20 Mar. 2007. 6 Nov. 2007 <http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/21/opinion/commentary/20_04_263_20_07.txt>.

• “The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration.” Impacts of Illegal Immigration: America Infrastructure. 6 Nov. 2007 <http://www.usillegalaliens.com/impacts_of_illegal_immigration_american_infrastructure.html>.

My fourth article was written for the New York Times by Julia Preston. This article supports, wholly, my undying belief that the employers of illegal immigrants should have to pay for what they are doing. These employers are the “magnets” that are luring these people to our country and I think it time for the magnets to be demagnetized.

The article starts out by saying that there are laws currently going through our government that would “crack down” on employers currently hiring illegal immigrants with false Social Security numbers. The proposals that were supported by President Bush died in Senate in June. The author goes on to say that many officials are rallying for something like this and will start enforcing these rules soon. Mrs. Preston, the author of the following article http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/washington/08immig.html?_r=1&oref=slogin  interviewed Russ Knocke, the Department for Homeland Security spokesman. He said the following, “We are tough and we are going to be even tougher. There are not going to be any more excuses for employers, and there will be serious consequences for those that choose to blatantly disregard the law.” Ms. Preston goes on to speak more of how the employers hardly ever pay attention to the “no match letters” sent to them by the Social Security Administration. The article then takes another attitude and says that the laws that are suppose to affect the illegals will also affect other people. People who,when they got married or something like that, forgot to inform the Socail Security offices of their name change. They said another problem with the employers just “firing” the illegals is that they can take that same SS number and go to another employer with it so “buy some more time” before they are “found out” again.

With this article I can honestly say that I can see both sides of the line. I can see that we definately do need to start “cracking down” with the fake social security numbers because we do. The illegals that do not have a real social security number are doing nothing but stealing, even if they are working for their money. But then I can also see where all the corporations will be effected by this rule because of the “no name matching” notes that the corporations are sent. This is a result of lack of communication between the SS Administration and the person who is being “looked at”.

Sources

Preston, Julia. “U.S. Set for a Crackdown on Illegal Hiring.” The New York Times- Washington. 8 Sept. 2007. The New York Times. 15 Oct. 2007 <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/washington/08immig.html?_r=1&oref=slogin>.

Obviously I am utterly and completely against having illegal immigrants in our country. I agree with having immigrants, I mean our country was founded on immigration, but the fact that some of these people believe that it is their right to come into our country and use our money and take our jobs it absolutely disgusts me. My third article is from NumbersUSA and is a sub-topic under “Illegal Immigration” called “Mass illegal immigration is NOT inevitable.”

In the article the author starts out by saying that mass illegal immigration is not inevitable. He says that obviously Congress and the president want all of these illegal aliens because they have done naught to stop them. They have declined ways to help control the constant flow, they have gotten rid of effective enforcement, and have decided to reward those who have disobeyed the laws and have gotten away with it. He then goes on and gives the reader a hyperlink to the following website http://profiles.numbersusa.com/ that shows which side of the card our congressmen and women have voted on. The authors attitude is more against the ways that our government is “attacking” this problem than the illegals themselves.

I absolutely agree. We cannot stop illegal immigration all together, unless, of course, we got one of those electric fences they have on Jurassic Park but even then I do believe that the illegals would find a way across. I also think it is safe to lay the blame at the feet of our government. They have all the chances possible to take some action and “fight” against our constant problem of illegal immigration but instead they worry about other “insignificant” problems. Illegal immigration needs to be put back down to a minimum like it was so many years ago and the illegals that are constantly flocking to our doors need to be removed, not rewarded.

Sources

Beck, Roy. “Illegal Immigration.” Numbers USA. 8 Oct. 2007 <http://www.numbersusa.com/interests/illegalimm.html#top>.

As we all know, we face a prominent problem of illegal immigration; but before we blame it all on the Hispanics, and although it is many of them, we must step back and realize not all of our illegals are from Mexico. Of the 8 million illegals we have in this country, approximately 78,000 are from the countries we are currently fighting. (http://www.cis.org/topics/illegalimmigration.html)

The second article I have researched for my class project on illegal immigration portrayed a neutral feeling towards the said problems at the beginning but about the middle it gave off some negative vibes. It started off by stating many statistics that happened in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. One of them was the fact that our illegal percentage, in 2003, as said by the INS, has, to the surprise of no one, gone up by 1 million people from the 7 million estimated in 2000. Out of those 8 million were an easy 78,000 from the countries we are dealing with on the war on terror. But you must remember that in 1999 of the 968,000 illegals, 210,000 either died or went home on their own, 63,000 were removed by the INS, and 138,000 were given green cards as the “normal legalization process”. Approximately 1.5 million green cards were given out in the 1990’s. It is said that this is due not to the legislation’s amnesty but the embrace of illegal immigration and therefore showing how easy it is for an illegal to become legal with the “exemptions”. According to the INS, only 412,000 illegals were deported back to their country. Of course the Census Bureau also came out with their own statistics. They said, that in 2000 their were 8 million illegals and the net increase in the 1990’s had to have been about 400,000 to 500,000 people a year. The article continues on to say that the magnets to these illegals is the jobs and the family members already in the U.S. An average illegal receives about 1/10 of an average American person’s pay so therefore the companies hire to save money. The average “problem solver” is, of course, the border “enforcement”. It says the border enforcement is long overdue yet no one is really paying attention. (http://www.cis.org/topics/illegalimmigration.html)

Seeing these statistics and reading this article really opened my eyes. We really cannot put the blame at the feet of the Mexican people. Yes, 3/4 of our illegals are from Mexico but not all of them. We have illegals from the Middle East, Russia and many other countries. I think we blame the Hispanics more because that is all we see on the television and because their country is right below ours. My second article touched on the subject that I wrote about in my 1st article: The magnets that our greedy business owners set up and the free services that the taxpayers of the U. S. are forced to pay when they can’t, which is most of the time. It also touches on the border control problem. It says we need to build up our border enforcements but how are we suppose to build our border enforcements when we don’t have enough resources? How are we suppose to send more men and women to guard the border when 3/4 of them are in the Middle East setting up a government for them that they don’t even want?

Sources

“Illegal Immigration.” Center for Immigration Studies. Center for Immigration Studies. 30 Sept. 2007 <http://www.cis.org/topics/illegalimmigration.html>. 

       The author ’s unbelievable disgust with our country’s lack of action against the illegal immigration problems show that not all people are “okay” with these people coming into our country and taking over, raising our taxes, and displacing honest working Americans because the illegals are willing to work for less. I agree with everything the author says except the fact that patrolling the borders and building fences will only slow down these people. I don’t think patrols or fences are going to stop anybody. Some way, some how they will get in and even if we focused all of our resources on fighting back we still will never win in the fight against illegal immigrants.

       My first article lays the blame for our illegal alien “problem” at the feet of the greedy employers who knowingly hire these illegal immigrants for less than they would hire an average “American”. The author speaks out in antagonizing outrage about how the hiring of these immigrants ”leads to displacement of legal workers, further degradation of benefits, and [the] deterioration of the middle class” and also about Bush’s proposed “Guest Worker Program”. He states that the last “government promised” amnesty happened in 1986 with the 4 million immigrant problem we, the United States, were facing at that time. Now with Bush’s “Guest Worker Program” the government is “breaking” that promise and is once again going to gift amnesty under this cover name. In the author’s opinion, he states “By rewarding lawlessness, we are simply inviting more of the same”.  He also speaks about the extra money the taxpayers of the U.S., the legal American citizens, must pay so these illegals can have free health care, free education, free living, and free criminal justice. “[The average household of illegal aliens, in California, uses $3,463 of the taxpayers’ money every year].” His disgust shows when he speaks of these aliens and the way they arrive in our corrupt country. Trafficking and drug cartels are only two of the many ways that these people are getting in. He seals his case by, again, briefly discussing the actual reason for his writing, the employers who willingly and illegally hire the 20 million illegals we have in this country. He says they need to be prosecuted to fullest extent of the law and then, with the help of our government, and only then will the number of illegals actually decrease.

       The author of this passage beautifully wrote about his disgust with the way our government is handling the immigrant problem. Our politicians are fighting and arguing about it but nothing is ever happening. All we have are a bunch of fat old people sitting on Capitol Hill surrounded by their lavish lifestyles and never even touching the problem. His opinions on the employers of these illegals mirror my own. They need to be prosecuted and called out for damaging our economy and making the taxpayers pay for their employees free living. The amnesty that he talks about amazes me also. These people come into our country illegally and when we get tired of trying to hunt them down we just grant them amnesty and say, “okay, since you have been here illegally for, say, 4 years or so you can become a citizen with this little card I’m going to give you”. I am absolutely disgusted with this and believe that we need to crack down. Now I haven’t thought of a way to do this yet but I am only 16 so I’m working on it. 

Sources

“Illegal Immigration.” Americans for Better Immigration. 21 Sept. 2007 <http://skymail-immigration.blogspot.com/>.