Historically Incorrect Canoodling

By Stephanie Coontz

This article, "Historically Incorrect Canoodling," is about the history of valentine's day.Valentine's day was made by the Roman Catholic Church to limit sexual activities and love. They didn't want people to love each other, they believed that women were just for bearing children and that was all. You weren't allowed to love anyone back than. But later, people turned the holiday into a love fest. No one, back then, believed that love was real or that you should love someone or be in love with someone.

Valentine's day was named after a Christian priest who was "martyred in the third century." It is said that Valentine didn't follow a rule with conducting marriages for soldiers and he fell in love with his jailor's daughter. He wrote a letter to her before he died and said "From Your Valentine."

The church then made the February of 14, St. Valentine's day. It wasn't in favor of love, it was to honor a roman goddess of marriage and love.  A festival was created called Lupercalia on Feb. 15, and the night before was when boys drew a girls name from a jar to be their sexual partner for a year.

One-hundred years after the 17th century Europeans and Americans had agreed upon letting marriage be of love and letting women chose their own lovers.

I believe that how Valentine's day started was extremely crazy. First or all, they started it after some man who was executed for something that made absolutely no sense. He loved his jailors daughter and sent her a letter. And the fact that the day the Valentine's day used to be a day that  boys could pick girls names at random as a sex partner for the year??! That's ridiculous. I'm glad that the holiday changed and Americans and the Europeans had agreed upon the whole marriage ordeal. I'm happy for Valentine's day because that's the day that the person you're with can show you just how much she/or he loves you!

Belly Button Bacteria

By The New York Times

This article,"Belly Button Bacteria,"  is about how scientists found a new species in people's belly buttons. Scientist "swabbed five-hundred belly buttons and analyzed sixty samples with surprising results." They found over two-thousand species. Over a thousand are new to the science world.
"Some of the bacterial discoveries were downright strange."
A man had a species in his navel "common in soil in Japan." He had never been to Japan.
Someone else had held bacteria from "Polar ice caps."
Scientists and researches are hoping to collect more DNA from the navel bacteria. More research may lead to find that belly button bacteria may play a role in people's health.

I think that belly button dirt is so nasty. I believe that it is one of the worst the that can be on your body. I mean, they are getting swabbed for the tests but why do they have the dirt in their belly buttons anyway? It shouldn't be there. I remember a time when a girl had showed me the belly button dirt on her finger telling me that it's supposed to be there, and if you take it off, your belly button will fall off or fall apart. All i could do was laugh. It was one of the funniest and the stupidest thing i have ever heard. And what made it even funnier was that she was dead serious.

Give Lance Another Chance?

Cnn

This article,"Give Lance Another Chance?, is about how Lance Armstrong cheating his way to the top and everyone seeing him as a disgrace. He lied about cycling and for a very long time. He apologized to his charity, and will be interveiwed by Oprah. Some say that he still has a chance to redeem himself despite of what he has done and others say that he shouldn't be forgiven and he is no longer trustworthy.
Frida Ghitis said,"Lance Armstrong's story of triumph over adversity captured the imagination of millions around the world, including people like me, who don't usually spend a lot of time absorbed in following sports news. That's because Armstrong's achievements recovering from cancer and then breaking records in the cycling world made him a source of inspiration, an icon of hope."
"The important ethical question isn't wether Lance deserves a second chance. Chance to do what? Cheat in seven more tours? Lie about it seven more times? Bully seven more teammates into doping? He behaved badly and is rightly censured," said Randy Cohen. "But that should be the beginning, not the end, of this disheartening story."
"No, he gets no second chance from me," said Roxanne Jones. "There are too many reasons to question his apology."
"He's almost 42, forget about it." said Jeff Pearlman.

While others have their opinions about it, I have mine. I didn't really know anything about Lance Armstrong until I read this article. I've heard of him of course but i never knew what he was famous for. If he cheated his way to the top, who cares? Who says that this man shouldn't be given a second chance? Everybody makes mistakes and it may take a very long time for a person to learn from the same mistake. He more than likely lied about it because he didn't want to be viewed differently by the public eye as a bad role model. He wanted to be great and an encourager, so of course, he lied but people lie all the time. I believe that he should be forgiven because if the show was on the other foot, someone would probably want people to forgive them as well.