A Tax on the Stupid

I was recently read ABC's article entitled, "Mega Millions Fever: Tips for Buying Your Lucky Lottery Ticket”. This article, combined with a news video, tried to provide tips that would better the viewer’s odds of winning the lottery. Apparently ABC knows nothing about math, the lottery, and statistics, because the tips they provided are completely untrue.

The first tip they said is to pick your own numbers. They state that you have a greater chance of winning if you choose the numbers rather than letting the computer randomly pick the numbers for you. This is totally incorrect. Since the winning numbers are random anyway, it doesn't matter how the numbers were chosen.

Their second tip is to “do your homework”. They suggest going online and making sure the numbers you play have never won before. I going to assume that ABC didn’t do their homework because winning numbers are chosen completely at random. There is no combination of numbers that is overdue to be chosen.

The final tip they gave is to avoid lottery fever. When the lottery is high they suggest not go overboard with tickets because “the odds are still the same no matter how much you spend”. This is completely the opposite of the truth. Realistically, the more you buy the higher the chance you have to win.

Obviously ABC is trying to dumb down their articles enough to entice a less educated, more gullible audience. Instead of reporting on the news that is important to our country, ABC decided to encourage others to waste their money. There is only one tip that needs to be remembered before buying a lottery ticket and that is to not play the lottery.

The Death Penalty

I recently watched a video from the YouTube user ATXgambino entitled “Texas Death Penalty Video 2”. It is a pretty simple video with it only using a couple sentences and a string of photographs. It starts off by saying, “Texas Death Row Inmates.. Isn’t it MORONIC that our government kills people to show people that killing people is wrong?” After that it shows around three minutes of pictures of prisoners who are on death row while playing calming music. After the pictures, it ends by saying, “I’m not saying that these people don’t deserve to die. But WHAT IF ONE of them were innocent? What if it were YOU? Think about it…” It closes with an inmate giving us the finger while the screen says, “F--- The Death Penalty! And F--- it’s supporters!”

The mindset of the video’s producer is very clear, but its execution was lacking. Three minutes of flashing random people’s faces in the video gets old fast. I didn’t really understand that aspect of the video. How is that supposed to persuade me to joining their cause? The producer also used calming, relaxing music to try and coax people to feel sympathy for the prisoners. It seemed like the producer decided that if they couldn’t win people over with logic, they would try to use music instead. Now I will go on to the main point that the author was gunning for. The government isn’t “killing people to show people that killing people is wrong”. The government is killing people who have killed innocent individuals. Maybe it would have been a more fair argument if the user would’ve included a picture of the innocent person whose life was lost, next to the murder who took it. Finally, ending the video by showing an obscene gesture and using foul language made the video lose what little credibility that it already had.

Bad Education?

I recently read Sylvia Biu’s article entitled, “Homeschooling is a Bad Idea” on examiner.com. As I read, I was infuriated by some of the claims she tried to make about disadvantages of homeschooling. The article was extremely unprofessional and completely biased. Not only did she not include any sources to back up her position, it seemed like she also did no background research on the topic she was writing about. This could quite possible be one of the worst articles I have ever read by any news organization ever.

Starting off, Mrs. Biu declares that parents have to be a “previous honor student or a genius” in order to give quality education to their children. This is completely untrue. Many homeschoolers use very strict curriculums that clearly lay out everything the child will be taught for the day. Parents don’t have to be geniuses or honor students in order to successfully teach their child, they just have to be able to follow what’s already been planned out for them.

Mrs. Biu continues by saying that homeschooling is only for “severely disabled children or those otherwise unable to attend school for whatever reason”. It is very difficult to make me mad, but when I read that statement, I was extremely offended. Yes, homeschool is an excellent substitution for some disabled children, but it shouldn’t and doesn’t stop there. Homeschooling is an exceptional education method and while it might not be for everyone, it definitely works for a lot of people.

Next, Mrs Biu declares that homeschooling is “retarding a child by isolating him from the outside world”. Not only did she just bash all homeschoolers, she also used a word that offends many of special needs individuals. Homeschoolers are not social introverts. Many homeschoolers have a very active, thriving social life and are not shy at all. They participate in sports, go to dances, and have friends just like everyone else.

Following that she says that homeschoolers are missing the classroom experience and are losing out on being “challenged and encouraged by other students’ curiosity”. Homeschooling allows children’s natural curiosity to thrive. While public schools have to cater to the masses, homeschooling can focus on each child’s educational needs. If a child is struggling with a certain subject, they have the ability to stop and focus on that subject till they have completely mastered it, before moving on.

The next point Mrs. Biu makes is completely irrational. She says that schools are excellent monitors for abused and neglected children and homeschool children have no such oversight. It seems like she is try to infer that homeschooling parents like to beat their children. The only difference between homeschool families and public school families is the education method.

Her final point is that homeschoolers aren't learning healthy life habits. She continues by incorrectly assuming that homeschool children are taught in their pajamas in the middle of the afternoon. This is one of the biggest misconceptions there is about homeschooling. Homeschoolers do NOT just sleep all day and lazily decide when they want to start school. Many homeschoolers have an extremely strict schedule that they adhere to everyday.

I was homeschool my entire life until I reached college and I am, by no means, an idiot or even a social reject like this author tries to portray me as. It blows my mind how someone could write such an article and yet know nothing about it. It’s things like this that gives homeschooling a bad reputation.

Here is the article if you would like to read it for yourself: http://www.examiner.com/brooklyn-parenting-in-new-york/homeschooling-is-a-bad-idea