Boring chain stores

In a recent article that I read titled "In Praise of Chain Stores", written by Virginia Postrel, she states that America is known to be a "boring" location for foreign travelers.  She says this because no matter where in America you go, you're bound to run into a walmart, mcdonalds, starbucks, and so on.  But for those traveling from other countries, may not be used to these stores.  They arn't used to a Walmart, where they can buy food, clothing, and electronics all in one mega-store.  If you were used to shopping at a mom and pop store all your life, and you walked into a giant store like walmart, wouldn't you be amazed?  I get where the author is coming from, for myself, when I travel to other states, a lot of the things I see are very similar to my home area, but many things are different.  On a recent travel to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, just on the main drag, you will find mini golf, go cart racing, Titanic museum, bungie jumping, and more restaurants than you could imagine.  I have personally never traveled to another country, but I feel that is more exciting to most then looking at an old historic building for an hour.  And if you are one to look at old historic places, America has many to view, including the statue of liberty.  So how is it that someone could call America the most boring country to travel to just because we have chain stores?

Being Watched

Recently, I have been in progress of building a motor for a Camaro which its original motor spun a bearing.  Throughout this build process, I have been taking extra time to clean, paint, and polish parts of the motor to have it show-car condition.  One night last week I was working on polishing the ends of the heads when I realized I forgot to buy aluminum polish, so I decided to make a trip to walmart.
When I arrived at walmart at roughly 10 p.m., I noticed I was one of probably only 10 customers.  I walked in and headed to the car section.  As walmart sells multiple different waxes, I was in the isle for some time doing research on my phone about what the best polish available to purchase is.  I then begin to notice this man, standing in the same isle as I was, only feet from me, well this is a store so I thought nothing much of it.  After picking out a polish, I went to look at paint gun accessories as I needed a new regulator.  Once again, I seen a man, looking in the same isle as me, but facing the other direction.  I decided to pass on the walmart regulator and headed for the check-out with my polish.  After paying, the lady at the exit door told me to have a good night.  As I was walking out the second line of doors, I heard "Excuse me", from the woman why just told me have a good night.  I turned around and heading around the corner was the same man I had seen multiple times, following me around walmart.  The woman asked to see a receipt!  Apparently, walmart has undercover security, that are not very sneaky, and he must of thought I was up to something because he had told the woman to call me back and check to see if I purchased the polish, and to check to make sure I didnt stuff anything else in my bag.  I feel as though walmart could tell there employees to watch closer, and not just assume a kid in the store is trying to steal something!.

Preparing for college?

All throughout high school I was told "the more words the better" when writing an essay for a class.  Although this never made since to me because I felt that my papers as well as my peers, drug on and on, just to meet the couple of thousand word quota for the assigned paper, of course I listened to receive a good grade.  With that being said, high school is to prepare you for college, correct?  Wrong!  Now that I get to college, fewer words arn't "better" to say, but less is more in a since in chapter ninteen that I read titled "writing with style".  Apparently the "filler" words I used in high school such as: at all times, in order to, should now be simplified to always and to.
I do understand where my high school was going when they wanted more words, which would of been to make sure we are capable to writing a lengthy paper to grade us on grammer and other aspects of a paper, why do they consider it "preparing for college" if the day I get here, writing styles change..

Overweight

As I logged onto my computer today to do my usual morning aol.com look-around, I seen a news article where a school, upset a childs mother.  At first, I thought to myself, oh great!  Another angry mother over nothing kind of story, but I figured why not read more into it.  To my surprise, she had every right to be furious at the school!  The Flordia school sent a letter home with an 11 year old girl, stating that she is "overweight".  Since when are schools health physicians?  They should be focused on learning, and only learning.  Allowing an 11 year old girl to read a note the school wrote stating she is overweight could cause the girl to have self-esteem issues.

I do not fully disagree with schools doing health check-ups on students (if the parents are fully aware), but until a certain age, results to any health related problems should be given directly to parents, not to an 11 year old girl that is able to read that the school is calling her over-weight. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/08/kristin-grasso-florida-school-letter-overweight_n_4058460.html?1381260343&icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl7|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D388540

Race

In an article I read, "Race and the White Coat" by Rahul K. Parikh, he states that minorities, specifically African Americans, are not as healthy as whites.  He say's they are known for higher rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, HIV, cancer, asthma, and other chronic illnesses.  He then tell's us that doctors do stereotype other minorities, which I think is fair!  Some people are upset by this, but it is not racism.  Minorities are known to not take medical treatments as serious as whites.  They are more likely to ignore what the doctor tells them, such as not taking the prescribed medicine.  If I were a doctor, and I had a patient continuously coming in for the same issues, just to find out he is not taking his medicine, I would begin to stop prescribing him.  In the same sense, I would also be less likely to give him a kidney transplant over someone else, who has been cooperative with me.  So being biased against minorities is not a problem, as these show in studies to be true in many cases.