Black Friday Opening Times Controversy

Black Friday has always been a day that people look forward to every year. They spend a day eating lots of food and spending time with their families and then they get to spend the next day shopping. Lately, stores have started opening earlier and earlier for those Black Friday shoppers who like to get a head start. This year, some stores are even open as early as 5 on Thanksgiving Day.

This increase in opening time has caused a lot of controversy among people. Many people believe that stores shouldn’t be open that early. People should be able to enjoy time with their families and they shouldn’t be requiring people to work on Thanksgiving. There has even been petitions on Facebook. People are trying to tell people to boycott the stores that open super early and only shop at the stores that are opening at midnight or later than that. 

The petitions on change.org have people signing up to boycott these stores as well as people calling the store and complaining about how early they’re opening. People are complaining to these stores about taking their family away from them on the holiday and making them work. 

I have an aunt who works at Target and the last couple years, having the stores open early has been a problem for us. Normally my whole family comes down to our house for Thanksgiving but for the last couple years we have had to go up to Minnesota for Thanksgiving because of the fact that she has had to work at 5 or 6 on Thanksgiving night. 

I don’t think that people should completely boycott these stores that open early but maybe if people didn’t shop at those stores for the first couple hours that they open, the stores wouldn’t have a reason to open that early. I think that people should be able to spend that day with their families, and especially the people who have families that live out of town and they may not get to see very often. 

Every year the opening time for stores gets pushed up more and more and every year people get more aggravated about the fact that their families won’t be able to spend the whole holiday with them. If they just keep moving up more an more, then what say that theses times won’t be up and these stores opening at like 3 or 4 in the next couple of years. If the opening times of stores go up, then it feels as though the importance of Thanksgiving will begin to go down with people having to work and others wanting to get that early start on Christmas shopping.

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Victoria's Secret Changes Latest Ad After Lots of Backlash

Victoria’s Secret is known for their “perfect” models with their “perfect” everything, but lately that view on things has received backlash in society. So when Victoria’s Secret released their newest ad, with the saying “The Perfect Body,” on their website, people went absolutely crazy.

With petitions on change.org and strong social media response, people didn’t waste any time at all to tell Victoria’s Secret how much they disliked the ad. British students were the ones who created the change.org petition and it got more that 27,000 signatures. The students demanded that Victoria’s Secret apologize for their use of the phrase “The Perfect Body.” They claim that the use of the phrase promotes negative body image.

With all the feedback, Victoria’s Secret didn’t comment and instead quietly changed the phrase on the website to “A Body For Every Body.” Although this phrase is somewhat better, it’s still not great. The students still think it’s promoting the negative body image because all of the girls in the image have the exact same body type. What people would really like would be for the company to change all of their posters in stores, apologize and pledge to not use anymore harmful marketing in the future. 

The thing that’s most bothersome about the whole situation is that Victoria’s Secret has yet to comment at all on the situation. They were outed by people and changed their slogan yet people continue to talk to them and they will not comment or say  anything back. The company will not admit that they were wrong in the situation and that they shouldn’t have put it up on their website.

Victoria’s Secret has always been the company that makes girls feel insecure. Their use of the skinny, tiny models and many phrases about skinny, perfect bodies have made so many people dislike this use of negative body images. Girls should be able to feel comfortable in their own skin and not have to worry about body typing. Society today has made girls think that they have to look a certain way and they should be comfortable with the way they look. 

Body typing like this has been a major contributor to all of the body issues that girls have. To deal with these issues, they have tried to conform themselves to society’s version of the “perfect body” through ways that aren’t good for their bodies. These students should feel proud of the way that they spoke out against Victoria’s Secret and body typing. If everyone in the world could just feel more comfortable of themselves and their bodies, we wouldn’t have to deal with all of the issues of body typing. 

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British Honor Fallen Servicemen

On November 9, 2014 the British preformed a ceremony to honor all of the fallen servicemen who have risked their lives for the sake of Britain. It was a particular important date in the country’s history as this year is the 100th anniversary of the start date of World War 1.  The British first joined World War 1 when the Germans invaded Belgium, who had already declared themselves neutral in the whole war. The British decided that they could no longer sit back and ignore the problems, so they declared war. 

The entire royal family was present at the ceremony and it really hit home with some of them as both Prince William and Prince Harry were/are active servicemen in the British army.  All the Princes laid wreaths on the tomb as their wives stood from a balcony above and watched on. The wreath laying was followed by a moment of silence which then ended with a single cannon fire and the Royal Marine buglers playing the Last Post. After the short service, the whole royal family followed behind the Queen as they left the memorial while the entire audience applauded them.

Prince Harry even paid his respects the the cause with an unplanned trip to Afghanistan where he laid a wreath there and read from the gospel before he joined his fellow servicemen for the a song performed by the Royal Artillery Band. This service was greatly appreciated by so many people in Britain who had family members or friends who spent time committing themselves to the service of the country. 

Hearing about this service especially hit home for me who has had countless numbers of family members who served in the military. My Dad was in the Navy, my Grandpa in the Marines and my other Grandpa was in the Army during the Vietnam War. The one family member who really makes me see the meaning of bravery was my Great-Grandpa who spent time serving in the military for the AirForce.

My Great-Grandfather was in World War 2 as a pilot, but sadly he wasn’t able to make it home. His plane was shot down while he was flying across the jungle and it wasn’t until years later that they were able to locate his body. This service that the British put on for the fallen servicemen was completely touching and I really wish that somewhere in the United States, we would have a ceremony like that.

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