Courtney Mccormack

Welcome!

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My name is Courtney Mccormack. I am 17 years old and I live in Columbine in the USA.
Columbine is a town in Colorado with a population of approximately 24 280.
I was born and raised here with my parents and my little sister.
Last year I graduated from columbine highschool, which is where I met my boyfriend Ryan Coder.
And also where the tragic Columbine high school massacre took place. Last year, 20th of April 1999,
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 15 people at my school, and injured 24, including me.
I was lucky I only got shot in my arm.


This is a video from the massacre.

My speech

USA is a wonderful country, though it has many faults. One of the things that I think should change is the prevalence of Violence.
We experience violence everywhere: our movies, TV shows, computer games, news papers and our music.
I think this is the basis of our youth culture and gun culture. You even see it in the way we talk to each other.
The US has more guns and gun deaths than any other country. Also, in the US, per 100 people, there are 88 guns.
While in Japan there are only 6 guns per 100 people. Want more proof? Less than five percent of the world’s population
live in The United States, while we have almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.
But what can we do about this? Cultural change starts with each of us, one at a time.
Start with your relationship to yourself. Treat yourself with the love and respect that you deserve.
Then let that love and respect go out to others. Clean up the ways you talk to yourself, your inner “Self Talk”.
Practice forgiveness. See that nobody is less worth than somebody else. Don’t allow violence or racism to creep
into your life via negative input, of any kind. Take action: vote to reduce poverty, inequality, and unemployment.
Be more active in your own community. BE the change you want to see in the world.

Malala Yousafsai & Martin Luther King Jr.

Malala Yousafzai was born July 12 1997 in Mongora, Pakistan.
She is 17 years old and is a Pakistani activist who fights for women’s right to an education.
In the first few years of her life, Mongora was a peaceful place, but then Taliban came and took control.
They destroyed the girls’ schools, which made it harder for them to get an education.
However, Malala Yousafzai fought for the girl’s rights and refused to be treated as if she was less worth than a man was.
In October 2012, Malala was shot in the head by a man from Taliban when she boarded her school bus, which was full of girls.
Malala miraculously survived and kept fighting, and it paid off. In 2014, she became the youngest person ever to win Nobel’s peace prize.
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Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.
He was an American activist and Baptist minister. He was leader for the African-American civil rights
movement in the United States from the middle of the 1950s, until his death April 4th in 1968.
He held the speech “I have a dream” in front of more than 200 000 people in 1963 in Washington.
“I have a dream” contains the belief that someday all men could be brothers.
He won the Nobel peace prize based on his work combating racial inequality by using nonviolent methods in 1964.
Martin played an important role in ending the segregation system in the South and other areas.
We count him as one of the greatest leaders for African-Americans through history.
Martin Luther King Jr. was killed April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
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These two incredible people have a lot in common, like; they both fought for what they thought was right,
they both won Nobel’s peace price, they both fought non-violently, they are both freedom fighters,
they have both made a difference in the world and they are both amazingly brave and strong.
The differences are; Martin Luther King fought for civil rights and equality, while Malala Yousafzai is fighting for women’s rights.
He was an American Baptist minister; she is a Pakistani school student. He fought for equality in the USA whilst Malala fights for equality in Pakistan and all the other places where women do not have the same rights as men.

We can conclude with that these two have made different differences in this world, but what they have in common is that they did something amazing, and people look up to them and are forever grateful that they did what they did.


The ''I have a dream'' speech.

Animal rights

Animals are often used for studies in a variety of settings, including tests to check if different types of drugs, cosmetics and other substances are safe. Whether or not humans should be allowed to use animals for testing purposes, however, is a controversial issue. There are both upsides and downsides to using animals for testing, but the government, the scientists, and the society in general have not yet reached an agreement on this ethical issue.
One of the biggest advantages of animal testing is that it allows researchers to create new medications and treatments, going forth in the field of medicine and elevate the health of society by saving people’s lives. For instance, many drugs used to treat or prevent cancer, HIV, diabetes, infections and other medical disorders or diseases of the body, have resulted from tests that have been done on animals. Even if people do not support testing cosmetics or other non-essential substances on animals, many support the practice for this reason.
Animal testing also allow researchers and scientists to test the safety of medications and other substances that humans have regular contact with. Drugs, for example, may cause significant risks to humans, so testing them on animals first gives researchers a chance to see the drugs' safety before humans get to try them. While scientists are aware of the differences between animals and humans, the similarities are seen as big enough to produce relevant, convenient data that they can then apply to people. Animal testing reduces harm to humans and saves lives, not only because the exposure to risky substances are reduced, but because resulting medications and treatments have such positive influence on the overall aspect of life experienced by humans.

Critiques of Animal Testing

One of the dominant detriments to animal testing is that a huge number of animals are hurt or even die because of experiments and testing. Sadly, many of the medicines etc. used on animals never receive consent for human use. Those who are against animal testing think this is a very important point, because humans gain no direct benefits as a result of the downfall of these animals. They also argue with that animals are different enough from humans to make the results of animal tests untrustworthy. An associated criticism is that testing brings stress to the animals, meaning that the animals do not react to experimental substances in the same way that they might have done in circumstances that are natural for the animal, making the results of experiments less accurate.
Using animals as subjects for research also costs a lot of money, because the animals need food, shelter, care, doctoring and treatments added to the costs of experimental substances. Long-lasting or multi-phase tests can raise the price of the practice simultaneously. The price that is actually paid for the animals is also important to considerate; there are companies that breed and sell animals intended for testing.
Animals may not be able to speak their mind, but they are living creatures just like us. They deserve rights just as humans do. They feel both physically and psychologically and they are capable of suffering too.

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