Egotism, Greed, and Pride: How they are killing our society slowly

            It is said in the Bible: “Pride cometh before a fall.” If that is true then our modern day society is on the verge of taking a very profound fall from grace. It seems that nowadays every time I turn on the television I hear stories about how people kill people for selfish reasons, and to make matters worse our society has begun to consider these occurrences the new norm for living in a globalized world.

            Relisha Rudd, Monday Easter shooting at the national zoo, and the South Korean ferry boat accident all are stories that serves as examples of how our society has become overwhelmed by egotism, greed, and pride to the point of many senseless, untimely deaths. It is these three elements that ravish the core of our Christian moral beliefs that we hold as scared in this country. Long gone are the moral value and codes of: “Do unto others as you want them to do unto you,” or “if you have a coat and you see your brother in need give him one of your coats”. No, these and many other moral codes have been replaced by new codes: the laws of self-preservation, take what you want, do what you want and get rich or die trying are all things that are not only destroying the most sacred of relationships but it also forming in its wake a heartless, evil, and unrepentant nation in its path.

            “Mother is the name of God on the lips of children everywhere,” said Brandon Lee in The Crow. To me and many other people around the world this is more than just a famous one liner said by a deceased actor in a cult classic film; it is the basis of how scared motherhood really is to not just God but to people in general. However, now more than ever mothers are abusing their relationship with their children for their own personal gain.  Such is the case with Shamika Young. Shamika Young is a young mother with four children, who became infamous nationwide by breaking the scared bonds of motherhood.

Just how did she accomplish it? It is believed by many that she sold her child to a shelter janitor by the name of Khalil Tatum. Ms. Young’s story starts when her child was reported as missing too many days. When the school called her to find out why, she had missed so many days the mother came up with a clever hoax to throw the school officials off her scent.  The hoax consisted of giving the school the janitor’s number in this case Khalil Tatum’s number and telling school officials that he was the child’s doctor. The school decided to take further steps and call social services to schedule a meeting with her at the shelter she lived in which was D.C. General Homeless, but Ms. Young was a no show. That was when the social services called the police and filed a missing person report. By the time the report was filed Relisha had been missing for about a month. As time went on Mr. Tatum’s wife was found murdered in a hotel room, but there was no sign of Relisha or Tatum. Then about two to three weeks ago Mr. Tatum himself was found dead. Relisha has still not been found.

Her mother on the other hand has used her daughter’s disappearance to get her fifteen minutes of fame. She has been giving interviews commenting on friend’s photos on Facebook and talking about living her life. It got so out of control that final the blame was being put on the family where it belongs. The current Mayor Vincent Gray said that this came about because of what the family did in selling that child and not telling the cops the whole truth. In response to this the grandmother said that it is not true and she is hurt that people think that way about her family. Make no mistake: only the soulless and heartless can throw their child under the bus in order to make a profit off of it, which is a clear example of egotism, greed, pride and just plain evil. Only a coward would run from a situation instead of sticking it out and turning it into a success story.

  There is a code of the sea that a captain goes down with his ship. There have been many famous captains who have followed this code like Captain Edward Smith captain of the Titanic, who went down with his ship this captain after deployed all the life boats he had to deploy.  He made the ultimate sacrifice, which was his life, in order to save as many lives as he could. Yes, he truly lived by the code that captains go down with their ship. However, what would happen if a captain did not live according to this code. That is the heartbreaking lesson that 476 families learned the hard way when two weeks ago Captain Lee Joon-seok of the ferry ship abandoned his entire crew and passengers to die on a ship that was sinking into the ocean.

            One truly has to be evil and egotistical to lie to people’s face and tell them that they will be fine as long as they stay in their cabins. All the while knowing that the ship is sinking and if they don’t get to a life boat they will die, instead of warning his crew and passengers and loading them onto the lifeboats. He took upon himself to save himself by getting into the lifeboat and rowing away as the ship started to sink beneath the ocean. To make matter worse he is so prideful to think that just by saying sorry it could right the tremendous wrong he did to both his crew and passengers that his sorry could give the families tranquility. These people died because he could not own up to his responsibilities as captain and it needlessly cost these people their lives.

            This brings us to our final example of how these elements affect our society and that is the recent shooting at the national zoo on Easter Monday. This recent shooting marks the third time in two years that the Easter Monday events at the national zoo in D.C. have closed with a violent event following them. The police do not know what they motives are for this recent shooting, but the fact that people were injured over what may be a gang-related issue shows how greed, egotism and pride are running our country. Gone are the days when justice, peace, honest, and love run the country; they have been replaced with egotism, greed,
and pride. This is not just a national problem, but a worldwide problem. If we don’t fix this problem our children will be left to the mercy of the backstabbers, murderers, and heartless people who do anything to make a profit for themselves, and that, my friends, is no way to live.

                                                                

Reported by Nadia Johnson 

April 24, 2014

W.O.W Radio Blogger

Achieving my weight loss goal

Ever since I started college and packed on the freshmen 15 pounds, I have been trying to lose weight. It has been a war with some battles, I have won.  I lost over 30 -40 pounds. But, when I sustained a lower back injured, I gained all of it back, plus some. This time is going to be different. I know many of us say that and every time, we try to lose weight we tend to fail. But this time, it will be different, because I will be writing a blog about it. That’s right, for the first time in my weight lost journey, I am not only chronicling it but I also, sharing it. And hopefully, we can draw strength and hope from each other and achieve our weight lost goals. So, here we go one, two, and three: here comes the new me.

            The first step in my weight lost plan was to find a work out plan that I would stick too. I started with walking my neighborhood track and for five to eight miles. After I finished each mile, I would jump rope a 100 times and do arm curls with the hand weights. This was all well and good, in fact, just doing this alone without any change in my diet, I lost about eight pounds. I started searching for new ways to lose more weight. So I decided to join the local YMCA. I joined but found that because of my mother’s birthday and winter holidays that I gained back, about five -six lbs. Then by the end of January, I lost six pounds, just to put it back on again because I fell for the diet pills hype that promise me, I would lose 20 pounds in two weeks. 

            So after I stop taking the diet pills, I got the common cold that turned into one of the nastiest version of the flu bug, I had an epiphany. I realized that I had already known how to lose weight.  My only problem was consistence. So instead of taking short cuts, I decided to do Nutrisystem diet system. It has worked for me, in the past and I figure it could work for me again.  I plan to buy it from QVC store because it is cheaper. On QVC the 28 day program cost $176.0 a month, compared to the $238. from Nutrisystem website. I also went back to the gym, on at least 2-4 times a week and started swimming again.

            I have decided in order to keep my sanity about losing weight that I was not going to be a “scale hog”. This means I am not going to weigh myself every day to see if I lost a pound or not. This time around it is going to be different, for this time, I am losing weight for me and only me. I am not losing weight to get or kept a man, to meet my mother’s standards on how I should look, or to even feel better about myself. I am losing the weight for me and I am doing this with the goal in mind, that the extra weight does not make me nothing but unhealthy.  I have to stop comparing myself to famous celebrities and weight loss champions, who get paid to lose a huge amount of weight in a small amount of time. I think that, women put too much significance on our weight and not enough on who we are as individual which I think is a real shame, for we don’t realize that we are teaching unhealthy body images to young girls.  Not every women is cut out to be a size zero or two and that it is okay to be a size six or twelve, as long as you are healthy. This is what we need to drive home to anyone consistent man, women or child, what weight loss is truly about practicing a healthy diet and active lifestyle.

            What is my exercise and diet routine? Well the answer is drinking Nutrisystem protein shakes for the next 28 days and following a strict exercise schedule, which includes rocking climbing, swimming, kick boxing and body pump classes.  I have also decided to take a fat burning pill called NV diet pills. I know what you are thinking that I fell for it again, but these pills have helped me lose about 15 pounds in the past so I think that is worth a try. On top of this I have decided to exercise at home before I go tot the gym with my Walk five Miles workout DVD.

            Even though my diet success story has just start or restarted depending on the angle you are looking at it is my hope that by the end of March, I would have lost some weight although, if you want to know how much weight I have lost, then tune in, for my second of my weight loss story, at the end of March. Until then, I wish all who are taking the weight lost journey with me the best of luck. I will update you on my weight loss story at the end of March “Go Weight Lost Gladiators”!

 Reported by

Nadia Johnson

Blogger/Reporter

March 21, 2014