Reading Log - Articles Review
Belson, Ken. “A 5-Concussion Pee Wee Game Leads to Penalties for the Adults”
Little boys under the age of ten years old play football like adults, without the rules and with injuries and traumas. The Belson’s article tells about a football game between two preadolescent teams – Tantasqua and Southbridge. The game was cruel; five boys from the Tantasqua team had head injuries. However, the coach of the Southbridge team “accused the Tantasqua coach of not properly training his team and jeopardizing them by not forfeiting” (Belson). The article focuses on the impunity of such coaches and violent actions of their players. Though the coaches were suspended, the problem was not solved. The boys had sustained concussions but four of them continued playing football for the same team.
The parents of those boys wanted them to play football, and nothing could be improved by the national organization Pop Warner, which has done many things to protect children from head injuries. Though the organizations like Pop Warner cared for their team members, nothing could be changed if both parents and coaches would think about the children’s health rather than the win.To support a claim that children’s health depends on the adults, one can look at the coach of Tantasqua, who did not stop the game even when the conditions for it became too bad. He wanted “the boys to score” (Belson), in spite of their minority and head injuries. However, such behavior is inadmissible, and the coaches like him should be punished. The rules exist for the game but they are ignored by referees “under pressure from parents and coaches” (Belson).
The worst is that the adults are not suffering from violence but they expose children to danger. The article makes the readers think about their sons who play football and try to protect them from violence during the game and be not afraid to complain about unfair treatment. The win is not the essential event in their children’s lives. After reading this article, one should reconsider his or her views on this issue.
Bordo, Susan. “Never Just Pictures”
The worst nightmare of the modern young men and women, as well as adolescents, is being fat and big. The author of the article “Never Just Pictures” Susan Bordo argues that the slim-look fashion is the problem of today’s society. People look at the advertisements of thin models and try to be alike. They go on a diet, eat nothing, have eating disorders and problems with hormones; they do everything to become anorexic-looking men and women, like their idols do. Moreover, the author claims that there are more than just pictures – the problem is much deeper than it seems to be. In Bordo’s article, it is said that the advertisements of “heroin chic” models “are telling us that depression is beautiful, that being wasted is cool” (Bordo). Bordo asks whether …
