Crazy Law Suit: Subway Sandwich isn't a true "foot long"

 While watching the nightly "NBC Five" news last week, I saw a very strange news story. A man named Nguyen Buren  from the North side of Chicago went into a nearby Subway with measuring tape and found out that  his footlong was just one inch shy of twelve inches.  Many would think that being an inch too short is no big deal--I mean come on, it's just a sandwich.
  But this sandwich controversy could be worth  more than just your "five dollar footlong" because Buren is allegedly seeking damages in excess of 5 million dollars for misrepresentation of a product. 
 I personally think this is beyond ridiculous and shows how desperate people are to get money. Ever since the '92 McDonald's coffee case, where a women was awarded with 3 million dollars for damages after spilling hot coffee on her lap, people will make unfathomable claims to be awarded money in court.

Do you think this man is crazy for asking for five million dollars over missing one inch of a footlong? 

Final Exam: Just Do It?

     As the first semester of American Studies has come to an end, I feel like I have become a more knowledgeable person about many different American topics and events in our history. One particular topic really stood out to me throughout the year: slavery.

    To the right, I chose to analyze a political cartoon about Nike sweatshop labor.  This artifact surfaced on an anti-sweatshop Ezine (a magazine only available on the web) right after a Bangladesh sweatshop fire in November of 2012 that killed 112 people and injured hundreds.

     This is an important American contemporary artifact because it depicts current "slave like" conditions, even though slavery was abolished over a century ago. The boss of the "sweatshop" I think is portrayed as a slave master. He has pointy "shark" like teeth, spikes on his shoes, he is triple the size of the workers. All these characteristics must instill great fear in the workers. A vary obvious feature of the man is that he is white, while all the the workers are colored, which make them look even more like "civil war era" slaves. The workers are weak, wearing the same outfit (in different colors), a minority race, and sitting on a bench working with a machine that has smoke spewing from it. If this image doesn't scream SLAVERY to you, you must be from another planet.

    This artifact relates to my American Studies class because we spent a lot of time talking about slavery, civil rights, and sweatshop labor. Throughout these past five months, our class has analyzed countless numbers of texting ranging from movies to short stories, so  I would like to analyze three different texts--a historical document, short story, NPR audio clip--and show the striking parallels between the texts and my artifact.

Why Do Schools Have Finals?

As finals are approaching quickly, students all over the country are frantically reviewing and studying everything they have learned in the semester. On the day of the final, a sleep-deprived, anxious student is not going to perform to anything close to their potential. So why do we take tests that some up four months of learning? How is it in anyway beneficial? 

Well, it's not.

According to Helium, a website where prominent writer post their work, finals "encourages students to take short-cuts and learn only what is needed for the exam, rather than rewarding those who have worked hard to learn all that they can throughout the year". Instead of having finals, we should just to learn "everything we can throughout the year", rather than studying a plethora of material the night before for an hour long test, where we are almost guaranteed to forget all the information the next day.

What do you think? Should high schools have finals? 

GDP Per Capita: Panama VS. USA

    Over Winter break I went to Panama with my family for some hiking, exploring and relaxing. While I was there, we took many taxis and one in particular really stood out. Income came up in our conversation, so my dad asked the driver, "what salary are people considered well off and happy?" Without hesitation, the taxi driver replied, "$12,000 a year; people are really comfortable and happy with that". I was quite shocked because in the US poverty line is roughly $11,000for one person. However, in Panama, the poverty line is roughly only $1,150. I wonder, why are the numbers are so different?

 Well, to really understand we have to know the  GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita between the two countries. According to nations encyclopedia, the USA average gross income is $36,300, while  Panama's is only $5,900.

Have you been to another country that has a low GDP per capita?