Month: October 2023

The story I will be telling revolves around the growth of marijuana use in the United States. The periods being covered range from the early 1900s until the present times. Marijuana, or weed, has become a widely used substance in America in the past century, and there is an ongoing debate on if it is a good thing.

This is an important topic to be discussed because of the massive growth. Marijuana use has jumped significantly in recent years, and we still do not know much about long-term side effects. Not only has it grown in usage, but the government has been behind this growth. Knowledge of this substance can help you stay informed of the harm it can cause and why the country is allowing it. 

This topic interests me because of what my parents have said about it versus what I see now. They not only call it ‘pot,’ but they also know little about it and say it was not around when they were in high school in the 80s. I have noticed a growing number of people my age being involved with smoking weed and can get it very easily.

This craze started at the beginning of the 1900s when Mexican immigrants brought marijuana for recreational use, which was not a thing in the United States before. The substance quickly started to get banned in many states until the decriminalization of weed starting in 1973. 

The full legalization of marijuana began in 1996, starting with California. At this time, it was only legal for medical purposes. In 2012, the substance was legalized for recreational purposes in many states. Now, more information about weed has been collected, and it has been linked to mental illnesses such as depression and schizophrenia. There is also a big scare about it being laced with fentanyl and more issues about the research and selling of the drug.  

The book I picked out from the Penn State library is called In The Weeds. It is by Clayton J. Mosher and Scott Akins, and the book was published in 2019. It covers all of the governmental processes regarding the banning and legalization of marijuana in different states. The book also goes on to cover the areas needed for improvement and the issues arising from this legalization.

This is a vastly growing substance in the United States that has many differing areas to cover. The government has expanded the use of marijuana and it has affected the people in the country. The paradigm-shift is ongoing and a lot has happened regarding it in the past century.

The Ted Talk I picked to analyze is said by Becky Kennedy and is titled “The Single Most Important Parenting Strategy,” which I have linked above. She is a parenting psychologist who helps parents with issues they may encounter when raising kids. 

The central theme of Becky’s speech is the idea of repairing any arguments you may have with your children and self-reflecting. She states how all parents yell at one point or another but that parents need to relax and think. Kennedy believes apologizing is not the best option, but instead, trying to repair the relationship by talking and reflecting. 

I linked this Ted Talk to the idea of gentle parenting and how that has been a paradigm shift in recent history. Parents used to be strict with their kids and would yell and occasionally lightly hit them as punishment for their misbehavior. Kids were also hit with a paddle in school. In today’s day and age, that would be shunned and completely unacceptable. The shift in thought over this type of punishment has been immense over the past decade.

This has been a shift in both thinking and actions because it changes how people think about parenting and how they act on it. Parenting used to be viewed as a thing where it was your kids, so you could do whatever you wanted. It was also harsher because that seems to be the only way for kids to behave. Now, people think that gently talking to kids and being nice is how to make them behave, and it is ‘terrible’ to be aggressive when punishing your child.

This speech was very knowledgeable and focused on one specific topic. Becky talked about the psychology of kid and parent relationships and how people have trauma from being yelled at from a young age. She also made the strong point of parents having self-blame that leads them to be depressed and think they are a bad person. She says to take responsibility and be open; this is another shift because parents used never to take blame and would parent the kid to not step out of line instead.

The speaker had strong hand signals and used her voice well to portray emotions. She was clear and kept the speech interesting the whole time. She was a bit over the top and dramatic at points, but that could work in her favor most of the time. The speaker was energetic and gave a speech to teach people something, not a presentation with slides next to her describing an object. Overall, there has been a paradigm shift in the idea of parenting and this speech was an example. 

This sticker caught my eye as I was scrolling through political bumper stickers. Maybe because it is white on a black background or has a cartoon aspect when most were just a nominee’s name, but the viewpoint was apparent as I looked at it. 

While this sticker shows a specific debatable view, it also endorses a political view, which is why I thought it would be perfect to analyze. When looking at this bumper sticker, What it is trying to portray is obvious. The saying on the sticker reads, “thanks Biden,” and hints at the rising gas prices the United States saw in many areas around the country. 

Now, what is stated is different from what the sticker means. It is not meant to thank Biden but to thank him sarcastically. It implies that the gas prices are too high and would be lower if someone else was in office. 

The cartoon depicts a cartoon person trying to pull the empty gas arrow to full. This expresses the struggles of getting gas at the moment and how the expense was too much for some people’s income to handle. The cartoon allows the bumper sticker to be slightly lighthearted while expressing the person’s views. 

The commonplace and ideology of the American people was that gas prices had risen significantly, but the two political sides claimed it happened for different reasons. The political view of the person with the sticker is related to the pipeline shutdown. Stopping the pipeline inhibits the United States from producing oil for gas and causes us to rely on other countries. 

Biden stopped the pipeline for environmental reasons, and conservatives did not agree with it. This leads to conservative people putting stickers like this on their cars. The ideology of the American people tends to be that conservatives care about foreign relations and not relying on other countries’ goods for the good of the economy, while liberals care about the harm oil could do on the environment.

This topic is political and can be debated by the two sides. People use items like bumper stickers to express their views to other people and try to get a quick message across. I believe this sticker is effective because it has short wording, and the cartoon is easy to understand without being too political or aggressive. 

Bumper stickers show the freedom of speech the United States provides for us, and we should be grateful that we can express our views to the world without repercussions.