On the HPV shot...

The HPV vaccine is given to teenaged girls and young women in a series of 3 shots, and should prevent 70% of cervical cancer cases. It appears to be an extremely beneficial vaccine, but since it has only been around for less than 2 years, it could cause side affects years from now. 2 states in the US have made it a law that all girls MUST get this shot. This is controversial because some families believe that it is their decision whether to get the shot for their daughter or not. One reason for this is because of the unknown side affects. Another reason is that cervical cancer is spread from the man to the women through sexxxual intercourse, and parents believe that if they give their daughter the shot to prevent cervical cancer, they are condoning fornication. I agree that the government shouldn't demand that girls get this shot, at least until we know that there are no side affects, but I don't think that parents should not let their daughters get this vaccine just because they think it might make their daughter have sex. Even if they have the vaccine, they still have to worry about other things, such as STD's and pregnancy, and if they are not concerned with these things, then they're probably not concerned with contracting cervical cancer either. Plus, if that girl grows up and gets married to a virgin who has no STD's and is a very decent person, that doesn't make her chance of getting cervical cancer any less. It is better to protect your daughter now against something the man she marries can't control, than not let her get the vaccine and end up regretting it when she gets older and contracts cervical cancer.

On superpowers...

If I could have any super power in the UNIVERSE, i would want to be able to read minds. That way, I could tell if someone was lying to me, which would let me know who my real friends are.

Plus, people probably think really weird things when they know other people can't hear, so I'd always be amused.

On the perfect vacation...

My perfect vacation would be with a couple of my closest friends. We would start out taking a flight down to Florida, and staying at The Yacht Club in Disney World. After spending a week rotating through the Disney parks, we'd get back on a plane and fly to Bora-Bora. We'd stay in a gorgeous villa over the water, and get very tan. From Bora-Bora, we would head over to Italy. We'd start out in Venice, then visit Florence, Rome, and finally Capri.

It would be pretty sick, not gonna lie....

On food I would never eat...

1. Dogs, cats, bunnies...basically anything that is a normal house pet.
2. Any part of an animal that isn't normal meat...such as liver...kidney...stomach..etc.
3. Sushi
4. Fish-eye soup
5. Rat
6. Strawberry / Raspberry / Blackberry
7. Banana
8. Bug
9. Reptile

On dog fighting...

Many people believe that dogs are born fighters. Dogs are only as good as they are brought up, just like humans. Believe it or not, we're animals too. And just like other mammals, we usually grow up to resemble our parents. If dogs are brought up to fight and hurt other dogs or even other humans, then they don't know that what they are doing is wrong. If it is drilled into their heads that fighting is what they are supposed to do, what they are born to do, then they believe that. Dogs put total trust in their owners, and when their owners treat them badly, the dog is not responsible for any actions. This is the same as when dogs are brought up being hit and yelled at every day, they might lunge at a child trying to bite them, because they associate hands with pain. People who abuse and fight dogs are no better than any other animal on this earth. Many of the dogs that go through this pain and fighting are either killed while participating in it, or they are found after being hurt over and over again without any medical attention. The sad part is, most of these hurt dogs have to be put down just because they either can't be healed and are in too much pain, or because they seem ferocious and cannot interact with other people. All these behaviors should be blamed on the dogs owner and honestly, I think the owner should be euthanized rather than the dog.

On illegal immigration...

I believe that illegal immigrants should not be allowed to vote because they are not citizens of the United States of America. Therefore, they should not be allowed to decide who runs a country that they do not belong to. I have no problem with immigrants in general, but if they have not passed the tests, they have no right to be a citizen and vote here. If I was to move to another country and become a citizen there, I would do it the right way: by taking the steps necessary to obtain a citizenship. I don't understand why people from Mexico come illegally into the USA, march on the streets saying that "no human is illegal," and rip down our flag to put up their Mexican flag. If they love it so much, why don't they just go back? No need to take jobs away from actual US citizens and cause chaos on our streets if they are still completely loyal to their native country rather than the one that they want to live in. We have a test to become a citizen for a reason. It's not a punishment, it's a way to keep our country safe and free of criminals.

On the death of a 7-year-old sister...

The two teens that murdered their 7-year-old sister should be charged as adults and get sentenced to at least 25 years of prison. Period.

On hugging in school being banned...

I think it is ridiculous that a school would actually issue students detentions for hugging their friends. In my experience, hugs are only friendly gestures that don’t convey anything “sexual” or “promiscuous” in any way. Obviously, if teenagers go overboard with PDA, the teachers probably should take action, but it seems really dumb to me that they’re getting in trouble for any contact with eachother.

On casinos in Philly...

Building a casino in Philadelphia will be detrimental to our city in many ways. First, it will increase poverty because it is generally lower class adults who go to casinos to gamble, and it will cause many more people to become homeless. Casinos also attract a bad crowd, including prostitutes, thieves, and substance addicts. This is going to corrupt Philadelphia and make it even more unsafe than it already is. If you go into Atlantic City, you will notice how dirty it is and how careful you have to be when you go there. Just walking through the city, you are guaranteed to see numerous prostitutes standing on every corner, and old men stumbling around drunk at ten in the morning. Casinos are not beneficial to any society because although they do bring about a decrease in our taxes, in the end all we are doing is taking the money away from our poorest citizens and using their poverty as a way to deduct taxes from people whose taxes do not need to be deducted.

On stop-and-frisk...

I think that the stop-and-frisk policy is overall helpful, because in the cities that it is used in, it has increased the amount of gun seizures significantly, by 65% in Kansas City alone. Also, the number of gun crimes went down by almost 50%, which is a lot using only one policy. Although people say the police can be racist in choosing who they are going to stop and frisk, it’s still proving to be helpful so I think it could be a good way to protect Philadelphia against gun violence.

On giving middle schoolers birth control...

I do not think that it is a good idea to openly provide birth control to middle school students, especially without their parent’s consent. Honestly, if you’re not mature enough to tell your parents that you need birth control, then you’re not mature enough to be having sex. Also, whenever you have a doctor’s appointment you have to tell them what medications you are taking, and there are a lot of side affects of birth control that parents should look out for. You can’t take certain other drugs when you are on birth control, and if there is a medical emergency, your parents need to know what medications you are on, maybe in order to save your life. I don’t particularly object to the idea of being able to prescribe birth control at middle school, but I don’t think that it is even safe to give them the medication without telling the child’s parent. It is not the place of the school to take the parent's role in deciding what is right for their child. Even though middle school girls are getting pregnant every year, the school still provides other forms of contraceptives such as condoms, which are 95% effective if used correctly (note: birth control is only 4% more effective when used correctly). Obviously, if these students are already taking advantage of these, then they must be using them incorrectly, which would lower the effectiveness to 87%. I really don’t think that it is particularly necessary to provide middle school children with birth control, because they are provided with other types of contraception that should work almost as effectively, and wouldn’t cause potential harm to the girls.

On what I would bring...

If I had 10 minutes to take anything out of my house before it burned to the ground (excluding my family), I would take my clothes, my shoes, my Bears, my medicine, my jewelry, my TV, my laptop, my blankie, my pictures, and my special drawer.

On hurricane Katrina and the California wildfires...

Our government took longer than it should have to respond to Hurricane Katrina. I believe that this was because they were not ready for that huge of a natural disaster when it happened, and they learned from their mistake. The government responded much faster to the California fires, and I do not believe that this was because of the types of people that lived there, but just because they learned from Katrina and were more ready to take on the disaster. Plus, floods seem to be harder to evacuate and harder to control than fires and Katrina had much more of a rapid affect on the New Orleans area than the California fires did. Although the fires did a huge amount of damage, they were more easily controlled than the Katrina floods were and people were more prepared to deal with it.

On getting the attention of the US...

If I had the attention of the entire United States, I would say that we should not get homework other than studying, school should start at 9 AM rather that 8, and we should only be in school Tuesday through Friday. I also would say that EA needs to chill out with their sports requirements because not everyone is amazing at every sport…

On pop culture in schools...

Pop culture should be taught in school, because music, movies, and other forms of pop culture can be beneficial to a liberal education in various ways. Watching movies can help understand themes or concepts pertaining to many classes, such as science and history, and music lyrics can be used in English class. At Smith College, they offer a course specifically on popular culture in America over the last 150 years. In the description for the course, it states, “It starts from the premise that popular culture, far from being a frivolous or debased alternative to high culture, is in fact an important site of popular expression, social instruction, and cultural conflict, and thus deserves critical attention.” I think that just because teachers don’t like popular culture in our generation, it reflects our society and is important to learn about now, and will be even more important to look back on over the next century. People in my parents’ generation seem to think that the popular culture from when they were growing up was more wholesome and useful than today’s pop culture, but in an article from the New York Times, it says “Researchers are reporting today that first-person-shooter video games -- the kind that require players to kill or maim enemies or monsters that pop out of nowhere -- sharply improve visual attention skills. Experienced players of these games are 30 percent to 50 percent better than non-players at taking in everything that happens around them…in tasks as diverse as flying, driving, radiology and airport screening.”