Hilltopper Rants

Helmet Laws

2009-11-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

Helmet Laws
By: Ben Spencer
Should helmet laws be motivated by scientific evidence or by groups of people that can pay lobbyist the most money? Some bikers would say it should be personal preference and not laws that make them wear helmets. Most of the scientific studies show that motorcycles in general are a more dangerous form of transportation than cars and trucks. These studies also show that individuals involved in motorcycles accidents had less serious injuries if they wore helmets than those riders not wearing helmets. These facts alone show the importance of wearing helmets. In addition to fewer head injuries, helmets should be required to help decrease cost to anyone involved in paying for healthcare.
Although it is proven that helmets are important in motorcycle safety, there is also proof that individuals wearing seatbelts in automobiles have less of a risk of severe injury and death when involved in an accident. It is the law in most states that everyone in the vehicle is buckled up. It is also the law that small children be buckled up in a car seat that meet state regulations. So why is it that bikers have freedom of choice but those in automobiles are made to “click it or ticket”?
If motorcyclist are given freedom of choice as to whether or not to wear a helmet, should a law enforcing other “riders” of vehicles to wear helmets be enforced? There are studies out that show the number of individuals operating all terrain vehicles wearing helmets have a better outcome when involved in accidents than those that don’t wear helmets.
Motorcycle and bicycle accidents are frequent and often unavoidable. It is often the cyclists are difficult to see when they use busy roadways. When the accidents do occur, head injuries are very likely to occur when there is no protection. Scientific research has been done to prove helmet use minimizes head injuries by as much as 88%. Many cyclists even admit that the use of a helmet “saved their lives” when involved in an accident, but unfortunately when given the choice most cyclist chose not to wear helmets.
Opposition to enforcing helmet laws comes primarily from biker groups and associations. Bikers argue that helmets should be optional and not mandatory. They simply don’t want to be forced to wear them. They also feel wearing helmets is unattractive and “un cool”. More importantly bikers think that helmets are uncomfortable and cause neck pain and injury because of the stress the helmets put o0n their necks due to the weight of the helmet.
Currently there is not a universal law that covers all motorcycle riders in the state of Kentucky. There is a partial law that requires 20 years and younger to wear helmets when riding a motorcycle. Kentucky’s ATV helmet requirement states that riders under 16years old must wear a helmet at al times and riders 16 years of age and older are required to wear helmets on public property. The law also states that motorcycle riders that are 21 years and older can have the choice of wearing no helmet if they can prove they have medical insurance coverage. There are currently no required bicycle helmet laws although it seems that more bicyclist wear helmets than motorcyclist.
Almost 50% of motorcycle crash victims do not have private health insurance coverage so most of their medical bills are paid by medical and other government funds theirs puts a huge drain on healthcare and on state and federal budgets, many times it is not just the cost of medical care immediately following the crash. Traumatic brain injuries are permanent disabilities and require lifelong medical care. If helmets were a requirement rather than a personal choice, there would be fewer head injuries and a decrease in cost to anyone paying for healthcare.

By: Ben Spencer

Hybrid Cars, Are they really worth it?

2009-11-10T10:00:00.001-08:00

As being “green” becomes more and more important to the nation, people are trying various methods to reduce their global impact on the environment. One method that has been popularized by the media is the shift from conventional cars to hybrids. A hybrid car uses a small gas engine that is supplemented by electric motors. These cars produce very low levels of emissions, and in some situations provide a better alternative than a conventional car. But many hybrid owners are finding out that their cars don’t always live up to the claims and expectations associated with hybrid cars. Claims of increased savings from buying less fuel, better mileage, tax breaks, and other incentives of ownership have been well reported by the media and have gained acceptance and considerable interest with the general public, but as time goes on owners find that they are not seeing the proof to back up those claims.

Hybrid cars work by supplementing their small gas engines with electric motors powered by a battery pack. These electric motors help to supplement the smaller gas engine at times when more power is needed such as passing on the highway or starting from a complete stop. When stopped at a red light or stop sign the car’s electronics automatically shut down the gas engine to reduce pollution from idling, and when the driver begins to move again the electric motors start the car off, and after a certain point the gas engine is brought back online. It is because of this system along with the smaller, lighter, engine and better aerodynamic elements that allow these vehicles to achieve the low emission levels and high gas mileage, which are the main selling points of these cars. To most this sounds like the ideal solution to help lessen pollution and ease our demands for fossil fuels, but in most cases I believe that a conventionally powered car is a better option. When on the interstate or local highways, where a driver rarely needs to stop, a small fuel efficient car is better suited. Contrary to popular belief most of the time the hybrid’s gas engine is providing the power to drive the wheels while the electric drive train is dormant. This makes a hybrid no different than any other comparable car in most driving situations. Hybrids do offer better gas mileage, but normally the difference between a hybrid and a conventional car (often the same model but without the hybrid option) is only around two or three mile per gallon. Since most people commute long distances to and from work a hybrid owner would not get the full benefits that the car offers.

On the other hand, if a person lives in or does a majority of their driving in a city, a hybrid would be the better option. When driving in or near a city the most common driving situation that a person would encounter is stop and go traffic. This is where hybrid cars are in their element. With a conventionally powered car city driving is where drivers see the worst efficiency and the most wear and tear on a vehicle. Unlike a hybrid, a conventional car relies solely on its gas engine to get it moving and it is this cycle of starting and stopping that reduces fuel economy and places a lot of stress and wear on the engine and drive train. . Another disadvantage that plagues conventional cars is when they are idling while in traffic or when stopped. This wastes untold gallons of fuel every year and also contributes to wear and tear on the engine, because if the car is not moving the cooling system is not working as efficiently and prolonged idling can and does lead to serious engine problems as the car gets older. In these driving situations a hybrid is the best option. When in traffic or at a stop light the hybrid’s computer automatically shuts down the gas engine which saves fuel and reduces emissions. When the car resumes motion the electric motor starts the car off and once a certain point is reached the gas engine is brought back online to power the car and recharge the batteries. But all these benefits come at a price.

I feel another issue that plagues hybrid cars is the costs associated with them. Obviously, since hybrid cars have more advanced electronics and a second drive train (the electric drive system) those costs are going to be factored into the sticker price. That is a give in, no matter what the product is the more advanced it is the more it is going to cost. The problem lies in the “premium pricing” that many dealers add to the cost of the car above the sticker price on the windshield. This “premium” pricing is brought about by the low number of hybrids being produced, which is directly related to consumer demand. Once hybrid technology can be better utilized and made affordable to the average consumer the demand for these cars will increase, but until the price for these cars can be brought down to the point where it is actually a viable option for the average driver the full benefits that these cars offer, both environmental and monetary, will not be utilized to their full potential. Another way that I feel many consumers have been misled is in the reported savings from buying less gas. Studies have shown that it often takes years for a hybrid owner to see any long term savings in regards to money spent on gas. This is partly because of the high cost of the car offsets the savings on fuel until the car is paid off, and it is at that point where a hybrid owner can begin to see long term savings.

There is no doubt that hybrid cars offer a great opportunity for a person to help reduce the impact that humanity has on the environment, and one will get no argument from the writer on this issue. But what is in question is the true effect that hybrids can have. In many driving situations a conventionally powered fuel efficient car shows only a slight difference in fuel efficiency when compared to a hybrid (Hybrid). So a new car buyer can get a car that has close to the efficiency of a hybrid, but for thousands less. Hybrids have their strong points and areas that they do in fact, surpass conventional cars. Hybrid technology is only in its second generation and as technology improves these cars will be better suited to the average person, which is what is limiting these cars. As the technology improves and becomes more efficient in more than just city driving these cars will be more widely accepted by consumers. Hybrids are a great alternative for some, but for hybrids to be a real benefit to not only the environment but to the average driver, they need to become a viable option for everyone.

By Adam Wilck

The Dangers of Tabloids

2009-11-10T09:46:00.000-08:00

It is a common act to flip through a tabloid magazine while standing in line at the grocery store. A person will subconsciously look at its pages and ignore every message it is giving through the models in it. Tabloids and magazines have created the false sense that for a woman to be beautiful, she must be thin. This misconception is the reason why today women of all ages have so many insecurities. Therefore, change in the way women are depicted in the media is needed, and there should be efforts made so that women of every size and shape are represented in the pages of magazines rather than only the stick- thin models.

Many magazine editors and Fashion designers would fight this point that what is printed in a magazine is not meant to create chaos to all the women in the world. They would argue that thin models are without many of the curves an average sized woman would have, and therefore, it is much easier for clothes on the runway to be fitted on them. Also many magazine editors would cover up any accusation of harmful propaganda due to dietary supplements being advertised in its pages by saying it’s the advertising business that sells space for a company to use up. Also as a fashion or women’s magazine, they encourage healthy lifestyles which would include reducing the amount of excess fat on a person’s body.

The reason I believe this portrayal of women in media is problematic is because the tabloids show women as skinny Barbie doll “look-alikes”. In the world today this is unrealistic and unfair. It is fine if you are thin, but the world cannot assume all women even have the capability to become that thin even if they wanted to. Human beings grow to be all different shapes and sizes, so it is unrealistic to believe all women must fit a certain standard just to be thought of as beautiful. “An average woman in today’s [society] is 5’4” and [usually] around 130 to 140 pounds” (ParentingTeens). Based on this calculation, it is unfair to declare all average sized women are not beautiful due to their weight in proportion to their height. According to tabloids, a truly beautiful woman looks like a runway model which on “average is 5’11” and about 115 pounds” (ParentingTeens). This would mean only two percent of all women living today could be classified as beautiful because “around ninety-eight percent of women are larger than the average super model” (ParentingTeens).

The second reason the tabloid’s portrayal of women is misleading is because the tabloids create a false sense and definition of what beauty is in modern society. The pages of magazines are full of skeletal-looking models who show off lose fitting clothing and the latest trends. Covers of tabloids and magazines alike criticize celebrities for being either too skinny or too fat. And everywhere a person looks, there is another advertisement on a weight loss supplement or fad diet that is sure to make a person thin and trim in just weeks. This stress put on young women is developing worries of weight in younger and younger girls as the years go on. “Eighty-one percent of ten-year old girls have a fear of becoming fat sometime in their life” (ParentingTeens). There is also a shocking statistic that “ninety-one percent of women college students have tried to lose weight by dieting while living on the college campus” (ParentingTeens). This constant publicity has created a false definition of beauty in a form of a tall thin model. The true definition of the word beauty is “a lovely person or thing” (Merriam-Webster). There was no definition anywhere that stated that beauty was meant to be thin or light weight, so beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

The third reason I believe women of all shapes and sizes should be represented in the pages of magazines and tabloids is because it will eventually create a new found confidence in women of the modern age, and hopefully encourage a healthier life style in young girls. Women are so easily influenced when looking at a magazine full of stick-thin models. They see that as a sign that this is how the world wants them to look. But if magazines were to ditch the propaganda for diet supplements and exchange them with local gyms and work out facilities in cities, women would realize that being fit and healthy is just as beautiful as being thin. If young girls could look through a fashion magazine and see the glamour that every sized woman can have with the right outfit that would prove to them that you can look beautiful in your own skin. Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder, and all women can represent beauty in different ways. Now all magazines need to do is market this idea that beauty is everywhere and not just on the runway.

The fourth and final reason why I think this change in media is possible is because we are the future leaders of this country and the world. As the upcoming leading generation in our society, we should not only demand change but also form the right to set the standard of beauty for ourselves. Media viewers do not need a magazine telling them how they need to look to be thought of as a beautiful person. No runway model or definition in a dictionary can tell the women of this world what true beauty is, because there is no definition. Human beings were created to be different and look unique from one another. So in theory, it is impossible to categorize all women to look the same. So by representing all the different forms of beauty in the pages of a magazine, no definition ever has to be made.

Some form of change needs to take place as soon as possible to stop this crime from occurring any longer in the society we live in today. Years ago, women embraced curves, and plumpness was a sign of wealth and status. I am not saying we need to make that radical of a change, but magazines do need to start including more well-rounded groups of women on to their pages. Women of all shapes, size, ages, and ethnicities should be in some way honored. If a magazine or tabloid wants to target the female population as its viewers, then those magazines should do the courtesy of representing there viewers in the pages rather than only unrealistic runway models.

Work Cited
“Beauty.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online.
2 November 2009 .
"Eating Disorders Statistics." About.com:Teen. The New York Times Company. Web.
2 Nov. 2009. http://parentingteens.about.com/cs/eatingdisorders/a/eatingdisorder5.htm.

BY: Jordan Turner

Lower the Legal Drinking Age

2009-11-10T09:17:00.001-08:00

Even though there is strong objection by law enforcement officers, a movement is being made to lower the legal drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen. The United States is one of the only countries whose legal drinking age is above eighteen. Seventy-eight percent of Americans are against this. However, I believe that lowering the legal drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen would have major positive effects.
One reason I believe the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen is because drinking is seen as “forbidden” among young adults. Therefore, high school kids and college students under the age of twenty-one are more likely to be binge drinkers. Since students don’t know for sure when they’ll be able to drink again, they try to drink as much as they can and get as drunk as possible. Among drinkers, thirty-two percent of under-age compared to twenty-four percent of legal age are heavy drinkers. Among college students, twenty-two percent of all students under twenty-one compared to eighteen percent over twenty-one years old are binge drinkers. According to the Institutes of Medicine, ninety percent of alcohol that is consumed by underage drinkers is during binge drinking. Between 1993 and 2001, eighteen to twenty year olds showed the largest increase in binge drinking episodes among Americans. Statistics clearly show that the twenty-one year old legal drinking age is not working.
The second reason I believe the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen is because a person is considered an adult at the age of eighteen. You can vote, adopt children, serve on a jury, and serve in the military. But despite all of these important responsibilities you are trusted with, you cannot buy or drink alcohol. This fact makes it not very surprising that a huge number of young people choose to drink under the age of twenty-one. If one might risk their life in war, why shouldn’t they be able to enjoy a beer?
Some opposers of the idea claim that the legal drinking age of twenty-one has saved more lives in vehicle fatalities. However, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, safety belts and air bags saved 18,000 lives in 2004, while the legal drinking age saved less than 2,000 lives. If you take a quick glance at the graphs, you will see that there has been a decline in traffic fatalities. However, the decline began in 1982, which is two years before the law changed. In addition, the decline has happened in every age group, not just people within the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. It is very likely that the decline in vehicle fatalities is caused by an increase in seat belt use, airbags, and safer cars.
The third reason I believe the legal drinking age should be lowered to eighteen is because even after 25 years of having a twenty-one year old drinking age, 5,000 young people under the age of twenty-one die of alcohol-related crashes every year. More than sixty percent of those deaths are a result of accidental injury, homicide, and suicide. Clearly, the legal drinking age of twenty-one is not working.
In conclusion, the legal drinking age should be lowered from twenty-one to eighteen because of the fact that minors are more likely to be binge drinkers, one is considered an adult at the age of eighteen, and because of the fact that the legal drinking age isn’t decreasing the number of alcohol-related fatalities. Young people need to be taught about responsible drinking at a younger age so alcohol-related fatalities can be prevented in the future. This can be done by lowering the legal drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen.

By Kelsey Johnson

Abortion and pschological effects.

2009-11-10T09:11:00.000-08:00

Abortion has taken a head on collision with today’s society. Used to back in the day Abortion was looked down upon and was even illegal. But today it is considered legal and the first thing that is brought to a young girl’s attention when she gets pregnant in high school. Society looks at abortion as just another “thing” that women are using to get out of problems they cannot handle; children. But what these women don’t understand is that having an abortion isn’t going to make everything all better. As a matter a fact it can actually make matters worse. After abortion a minimum of nineteen percent of women have suffered from PTSD, which is a psychological problem. Therefore I disagree with abortion and believe that it should still be considered illegal.
One effect abortion know to have on the mother is suicide. Sixty percent of all women who have had abortions report suicidal intentions. Twenty eight percent actually attempt suicide. Suicidal attempts and thoughts have become more and more common amongst adolescents. They get dangerously depressed and think that what they did was wrong. Young teen girls figure that if they were to ever tell a future man in their lives what they did they would not want them; they feel that they will have no life after, due to the abortion. I believe teens today see abortion as an escape route. They think “oh if I get an abortion I will still be able to go to college and become successful without having to hassle with a baby.” But after the abortion I think most of them wish they wouldn’t have actually gone through with it. That they wish instead of crying themselves to sleep because of guilt they were rocking their crying child to sleep. Most girls think of suicide as a way to reconnect with the child that they killed.
Abortion doesn’t have only have psychological effects on just the mother it also effects the family. My grandmother is evidence of just this. My mom was fifteen when she became pregnant by a man that she hardly even knew. My grandmother was a single mom at the time with two children, barely making it; she wanted the best for her daughters. She wanted them to have everything that she didn’t have as a child herself. So when she found out about my mom being pregnant she forced her to have an abortion, thinking that she would be able to live a normal life and not have to have the burden of being a teen mother. To this very day my grandma tells us all the time that she regrets making this choice. My mom began using drugs at the age of 13, and now my grandma believes that if she would have made her have that child at fifteen she would have grown up and realized her mistakes. So instead of my mom being burdened with teen motherhood, my grandmother is burdened with the guilt of killing her first grandchild. She prays everyday that god will forgive her for the mistake she made.
Another effect abortion has on mothers is it can lead to divorce or relationship problems. After having an abortion many women have a difficult time forming long lasting bonds with people, or even holding onto the bonds they already have. Divorce is very likely to happen since the mother would have a low self esteem, which causes sexual dysfunction; communication goes from talking everyday to not talking at all.
Just the other day I had a conversation with a group of people about abortion leading to depression. One person in the group said “that abortion is a decision that woman make, they know the consequences, they know the risks. How can we tell that their not just “acting” like their depressed just to attention because they want people to feel bad for them?” Honestly this person did have a point. But then again how can you tell if anyone has emotional problems or psychological problems? Abortion is just one of the many leading causes to this psychological problem, many women have reported to regretting what they did after having an abortion. Many have turned to Alcohol to sooth their problems and some have even turned to substance abuse. Just because we can’t see it on the surface does not mean that these women are not hurting inside.
Eleanor Ramsey has written and compiled a series of true stories of post abortion stories. This story stood out the most to me. “Thirteen year old Stacie, came home from school one day, when she met her neighbor on the way, her neighbor told her that her mother was out killing her baby at an abortion clinic. After this Stacie refused to go to school, and refused to listen to her parents. She begged her mom to have another child; her mother was unable to conceive again. Soon Stacie started dating a sixteen year old boy and after that she became pregnant. By having this child and how she had begged and begged for her mother to have another child shows that Stacie grieved for the brother or sister that her mother had killed. She felt that she could get rid of the grief she had by having a child of her own.” (Ramsey) page 33. By reading this story it proved to me more and more that abortion just isn’t worth it. It can affect the mother, and the family. Even after researching the opposing side of my argument I still find no reason why abortion should be considered legal. It leads to many tragic events. Psychological problems are just one of the many events.

Who's the Best?

2009-11-10T09:10:00.000-08:00

In the world of music many stars rise over the years, to be forever know as legends of what they do. Mozart, Bob Dylan, Eddie Van Halen, Elvis Presley, Neil Peart, all have been considered to be the greatest at what they do at one point in time. But in modern heavy metal music today, a great dispute is out as to who is the best drummer in the industry, with two of the top contenders being Lamb of God’s drummer Chris Adler, and Slipknot’s drummer Joey Jordison. I would argue that the answer is, without a doubt, Chris Adler.
There are many different qualities and characteristics that go into consideration when you’re deciding whom the better of two musicians are. Some of these include sound, performance, skill, technicality, style, and difficulty. With both Adler and Jordison having new albums come out within the last year, it has put a big spotlight on them, and made people wonder just who is better. Many would argue that Joey Jordison’s technical speed throughout Slipknot’s entire songs would make him the number one drummer in the world. It is undeniable, that Jordison does have some very difficult beats to play, due to their complexity and constant double bass drumming mixed with lightning speed. But Adler one-ups Jordison in the fact that, Adler’s drum fills, are near impossible to do. A drum fill is a transitional point in a song (like going from the verse to the chorus for instance) that is based around a drum change. The way that Adler arranges his fills are often beyond belief, throwing in insane patterns between his hands and feet at speeds that demand a second listen every time you hear the songs.
Also, Adler’s style is one that is hard to comprehend even after you see it. One of the biggest reasons that Adler has such a difficult style to match is because he is actually a left handed drummer, who plays on a right handed drum set, something that is rarely seen in the drumming world. Adler’s style truly shines during live performances with the band, in the sense that what you thought you heard on the cd, is actually so more complex than it seemed. It’s almost as if he’s just letting his arms explode from his body, and his feet are programmed to do their job flawlessly. His accuracy live is dead on, playing every beat as if it’s woven into his DNA, which assures you that what you hear on the cd’s is not product of fancy studio magic, it’s the real deal.
A third quality that sets Adler above and beyond many of the top heavy metal drummers of today, is his love for his fans and supporters. Many drummers who know that they’re famous, know they’re a big name musician, loose sight of the reason they became famous… their fans. But Adler never has. His humble personality keeps both his feet on the ground (and on his bass pedals) and his head where it should be. During any live show, if Adler gets a minute in between songs, he runs to the crowd, giving them high five’s and even a drumstick or two to some of the luckier audience members. This not only keeps him on excellent terms with his fans, but also makes the shows for the band he’s in much more interactive, which in turn keeps people wanting to always come back for more. It seems that Adler never turns down an interview, and always has a smile on his face. His personality makes people love him for more than his awesome drumming skills, which can be one of the most important qualities there is when it comes to being know as the “greatest” there is at something. And Adler’s combination of attributes set an even more promising future for him to become know as the best there is.
Every video you watch on YouTube, or on the television that has Adler in it, you get a feeling like you’re there, like you’ve know him all his life. And yet his skills never cease to amaze you as you watch him play. It doesn’t matter if it’s the first time you’ve heard the song, or the hundredth time, Chris Adler’s drumming style and presence has an uncanny effect of making you always want more, which is what makes him the best drummer there is in heavy metal.

Anthony Falcone

Don't Blame the Media

2009-11-10T08:28:00.000-08:00

It is obvious that the media has changed over the years. From “I Love Lucy” to “South Park”, most would say that it has changed in a harmful way, and that the media negatively influences the young adults in today’s society and therefore is the cause for many teenage problems such as teen pregnancies, teen crimes, teen drug abuse, and depression in teens. However, I do not believe that the change the media has made is to blame for these teen problems.

In today’s society sex appears everywhere—on television, in magazines, and even on the radio (Stossel, 1). In previous years sex it was considered not moral to show the amount of sex shown today. However, even though young people in the present are constantly exposed to sex, according to an article sponsored by ABC News, rates for both rape and teen birthrates have recently fallen (Stossel, 2). Pregnancy rates among teenage girls have also greatly declined (Stern, 1). The Centers for Disease Control confirms that since 1990 teen pregnancies went down forty percent and rates of teens that actually gave birth to a child dropped thirty percent (Sternheimer, 1). Karen Sternheimer, Ph.D. and sociologist at USC says in her article “Don’t Blame Pop Culture for Teen Misbehavior” that pregnancies that occurred in teens that viewed sexual shows on television out of the fifteen hundred teens surveyed was only about thirty-six (3). Rates of rape among young people under eighteen were said by the FBI to have also decreased by fifty-two percent (Sternheimer, 1).

People cannot blame the media for youth crimes either because crimes that are being committed by adolescence in the U.S. has been dropping. According to the FBI “rates of serious violent and property crime among youths under age eighteen plunged forty-nine percent” since 1990 (Sternheimer, 1). Since that 1990 mark, rates for crimes such as murder, serious assault, rape, and robbery committed by adolescence of the same age group have all dropped (Sternheimer, 1). The FBI reported that murder rates when down sixty-six percent, serious assault rates declined twenty-eight percent, rape rates decreased by fifty-two percent, and robbery rates fell thirty-two percent (Sternheimer, 1). Of one-thousand six hundred teens surveyed only thirty them said they both visited violent websites and committed a seriously violent act (Sternheimer, 3).

Television has positive influences on today’s youth (Barbour, 3). Advertisers have attempted to use television to help change the behaviors of young people in a positive way (Barbour, 3). The media has made “efforts to modify behaviors such as smoking, drunken driving, and even poor nutritional habits” through the television, radio, and even in some magazines (Barbour, 3). Attempts to change these behaviors are shown in anti-drug commercials like “Above the Influence”. These commercials are shown on TV, broadcasted on the radio, and are even in magazines such as “Cosmopolitan”. All those who hear or see these ads are told that their voice is the only one that matters and to use that voice to be above the influence of drugs. In television shows such as “16 and Pregnant” and “Sex Rehab” on MTV viewers are shown that there are consequences to sex. “16 and Pregnant” allows viewers to see that having a child at a young age is a very difficult thing to do whether you keep the child or give it up for adoption. “Sex Rehab” shows those who watch the show that sex has not only child bearing consequences but also emotional consequences.

Some might argue that the media allows things such as sex, drug abuse, and crimes to be exposed and because of that youths are shown these things. Marty Klein, Ph.D. and author of “America’s War on Sex” was quoted saying, “The truth is children think about sex whether we want them to or not, children think about sex. [They] don’t need [the media’s] help to think about sex” (Stossel, 2). I feel that this is true. Young adults don’t need the media’s help to think about sex, drugs, or crimes. They will think of these things on their own, so the media cannot be blamed for the actions or misbehaviors of adolescents.

Trophy Generation

2009-11-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

The Trophy Generation
In society today children are raised in an “everybody wins” culture, in an attempt to avoid the emotional pain of failure for those who aren’t as gifted as their peers. The educational system is suffering from this coddling of children, students expect A’s instead of earning them. Also since those children were never exposed to failure and criticism society has become hyper sensitive to everything that isn’t politically correct. The entitlement they feel is apparent in the number of ridiculous lawsuits that are filed everyday because their feelings were hurt. The United States is producing a “Trophy Generation”: Overconfident under achievers who will not measure up to the work ethic of past generations as well as breeding a society full of mediocrity with a false sense of entitlement and something needs to be done about this.
The United States has been producing the Trophy Generation for the past twenty years and the way children were coddled and raised in the “everybody wins” atmosphere is about to affect the work place in ways never thought possible. The effects stem from the individuals childhood parents, teachers, and coaches are at fault, the children were praised and given trophies when they excelled and even when they failed, in an attempt to prevent damaging their self-esteem. Because of this most of the Trophy Generation who are about to enter the workplace feel a sense of entitlement never before seen. The Wall Street Journal quoted Natalie Griffith, manager of human-resource programs at Eaton Corp "Their attitude is always 'What are you going to give me,' "It's not necessarily arrogance; it's simply their mindset." The Trophy Generation expects a large of amount attention from employers on how their doing, also they want everything to be spelled out clearly and have a highly structured work environment. They want the best benefits and flexible work hours for family and personal time, high salaries, and quick promotions and if their demands aren’t met they move on to another company. The only problem with this situation is that they are for the most part unwilling to make trade-offs. Our society needs to stop promoting the everybody wins attitude, if it continues what will happen when the baby-boomer generation retires and we are left with jobs that the Trophy Generation doesn’t feel is worthy of their talent or skills. There needs to be separation in the workplace to create a stronger economy and society not everyone can be a CEO of a company.
Another area of the United States that is beginning to feel the effects of the Trophy Generation is the educational system. An example of this is the “no child left behind act”. Schools curriculum has been changed so that the standardized test that students must take is the material that is taught in an effort to increase test scores, but the deeper understanding and concepts of the material is lost. Also in an effort to bring everyone to the same level state minimums are required, which in some cases leads to the canceling of programs that don’t help achieve those goals such as ones that gifted, talented, and high-performing students are in. Some schools are more attentive to the needs of the students who don’t care about school and don’t put in the effort than the gifted students who are the future of this country. Furthermore some students feel entitled to an A regardless of the amount of work they put into it. Back in high school I can remember multiple occasions when a student was dissatisfied with the grade that they had received usually because it was a failing grade and they didn’t understand why. They would argue with the teacher saying that the teacher didn’t inform them that they were not doing well in the class, or that the teacher wouldn’t help them, even though in both cases the students never took the initiative in the situation. This is mostly a result of the fact that their parents guided them through every situation so they feel that that’s how it will be for the rest of their life someone will be there to hold their hand. The results of this are extremely evident when test scores from U.S. students are compared to that of world. “The scores from the 2006 PISA test showed that U.S. 15-year-olds trailed their peers from many industrialized countries. The average science score of U.S. students lagged behind those in 16 of 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group that represents the world's richest countries. The U.S. students were further behind in math, trailing counterparts in 23 countries.” There needs to be a crackdown on the educational system more emphasis needs to be placed on the gifted programs, teachers need to stop compromising with students about the grades they have received.
Individuals born since 1980 have been raised with the ideals that there is no such thing as losing and that the world will be handed to them regardless of the amount of work they put into it. Granted the Trophy Generation seems to be more driven than previous generations, and has set lofty goals for themselves. It’s the way they handle failure that is a problem, they don’t believe they are ever wrong. American Idol is a leading example of this, countless numbers of horrible singers audition every year regardless of how bad they are. They believe in themselves so much that they are blind to the truth, that they have no skill in singing and when the judges tell them that they didn’t perform well, they take it as a personal attack instead of constructive criticism and it’s that everyone wins attitude that is to blame. In addition look at the number of ridiculous lawsuits filed everyday by people whose feelings were hurt. Dr. Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at the University of San Diego, “concluded that Trophy Generations are narcissistic: focused only on themselves and incapable of acknowledging or appreciating others' points of view or circumstances. Twenge's conclusions are based on her analysis of the data from a standardized narcissistic personality inventory. Analyzing data from published reports, Twenge concluded that the average college student is 30 percent more narcissistic in 2006 than was the average student in 1982 (Business Week).” This could become an even more serious if the trend of doting parents and coaches rewarding mediocrity continues. Schools curriculum needs to be overhauled as well, to keep up with the rest of the world, and teachers need to become stricter and create a more independent classroom environment. The U.S. needs to end the “everybody wins society”, we created a narcissistic group of individuals who feel entitled to everything there is, have no sense of what failure is, and who are falling behind the rest of the world in education. Unless something is done about this the U.S. economy could continue this downward spiral, because the Trophy Generation won’t be able to live up to the work ethic and effectiveness of previous generations.

Aaron Gingerich

lower the legal drinking age

2009-11-10T00:33:00.000-08:00

Sinclair Dotson
English 100
Dr. Molly McCaffrey
2 November 2009
[Lower the Legal Drinking Age]
As it stands, the legal drinking age in the U.S. is twenty-one; however, we all know that underage drinking is a relatively common occurrence. The country’s written laws may say one thing, but teens and young adults are definitely writing their own rules. The drinking age is getting younger and younger; nowadays kids are drinking as young as in middle school are sneaking visits to there parent’s liquor cabinets. Kids in high school and college are pushing the physical limits of alcohol intake like never before. This is dangerous behavior that is going to happen regardless, but what’s more frightening? These situations happening or these situations happening and when drinking related emergencies arise these teens and young adults being less inclined to call for help. Underage adults are less likely to call for help because of fear or retribution. The U.S. government should lower the drinking age, because it will benefit everyone in many different ways.
You and a group of friends go to a party, and you are all under the legal drinking age. You’ve been drinking and one of your friends, also drinking, turns pale and begins to vomit. You think this is common for someone who is drunk, and help her to the bathroom. Her breathing then becomes irregular and she is unresponsive. You are afraid she may have alcohol poisoning, but what can you do? You and your friend are both underage and have been drinking, do you call 9-1-1 for help? You will have to tell them that you were drinking. You decide to keep yourself and your friend out of trouble by not involving the police; she should be fine if you give her some water and bread. Your friend finally passes out, but never wakes up. Emergencies like this happen, and when underage young adults have been drinking they are less likely to reach out for help for fear of getting into trouble. If the drinking age was lowered young adults would be less hesitant to call for help when alcohol related emergencies arise.
Drinking is often thought of as a “forbidden fruit”, therefore underage drinking may seem like the “cool” thing to do for young adults, and since it is forbidden it is out of control. If the legal drinking age was lowered young adults would be expected to drink more responsibly. Barrett Seaman, the author of “Binge: What Your College Student Won’t Tell You”, says “If you lower that drinking age— make drinking no longer a forbidden fruit but rather something that young adults do with older adults who have learned how to handle alcohol responsibly— then you reduce those behaviors than increase them…”(Johnson). If the legal drinking age is lowered young adults are less likely to binge drink and more likely to drink less and responsibly. Rarely in countries where the legal drinking age is lower will you see belligerent drunk young adults in public settings. If one is allowed to do something and isn’t conditioned to think it’s something you shouldn’t do, one is less likely to feel the urge to attempt it.
The law recognizes a person of eighteen years to be a legal adult. An eighteen year old adult can buy tobacco legally, he or she can legally attain an unrestricted driver’s license, and he or she can be charged as an adult in a court of law. If eighteen years of age constitutes a legal adult, then why can a legal adult not be allowed to buy alcohol? This is a very simple and logical reason that the legal drinking age should be lowered. There is no reason why a legal adult should be restricted from purchasing and drinking alcohol is they are considered an adult in the eyes of the government.
Lowering the drinking age should not only be done for logical reasons, but it will also benefit us by decreasing the fatalities due to alcohol related emergencies not being responded to, as well as educating young adults on how to drink responsibly. The United States government should follow other countries in lowering the legal drinking age.

i had a question about my works cited. my quote was from a person that was being interviewed by a reporter who reported the story online. do i cite the person who said it or the article from msnbc.com or do i cite both and how would i cite both?

A Country Without A Language

2009-11-09T22:19:00.000-08:00

Although the overwhelming majority of the people in the United States  
speak english as a native language, it is not the official language of our country. Nothing is, actually. Technically, there is no official language of the United States. 82% of the population of the U.S. think that english should be officially chosen as the language of the United States and so do I (Mount). English should be the official language of the United States.

When this country was established, the ground work of laws and basic rights were written. They are known as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The language these documents are written in is english. The large majority of Americans spoke it back then, and the large majority of Americans speak it now. In 1780, John Adams proposed that english should be the official language of the United States and since then, it has been proposed many times by congress (Mount). It is a fact and is widely known that the United States has been an english speaking nation since it was created and that its constitution and foundational documents are in english.

This country is spending billions of dollars to compensate for non-english speaking Americans. Bilingual education alone costs billions of tax payer’s dollars each year. This country has spent over $100 million dollars in studying bilingual education and has found that teaching english, which is also burning a hole in this country’s pocket, to ESL (english as a second language) kids isn’t as effective as english immersion programs (Mujica). Last year, Los Angeles spent $3.3 million to print election ballots in seven languages and hire miltilingual poll workers for the primary election (Mujica). It is also estimated that Los Angeles spends $106,000 a day on full-time court interpreters (Mujica). San Francisco spends in upwards of $350,000 per each languages that documents must be translated into under its bilingual government ordinance (Mujica). The health care industry is also experiencing problems with bilingualism. Why the U.S. Needs an Official Language, an article written by Mauro Mujica in 2003, tells a story of a “22-year-old immigrant who won a $71 million settlement because a group of paramedics and doctors misdiagnosed a blood clot in his brain. The man's relatives used the Spanish word “intoxicado” to describe his ailment. They meant he was nauseated, but the translator interpreted the word to mean intoxicated. If this country had an official language of english, and these immigrants had the responsibility of learning it while they are living in this country, millions of dollars of settlement money could have been saved and this man could have been properly diagnosed.”

Not making english the official language of the United States is putting an encumbrance on the millions of people who were born in America and also into an english speaking family. If it were mandatory for all immigrants to learn english upon entering the country, the rise of non-english speaking Americans would start to diminish and the english language would continue to reign supreme. I am not taking a stance against immigration in any way, I am, however, saying that it is up to the immigrants entering this country to learn english and put a stop to the burden that they are putting on us by not being able to communicate properly with them.

Some people may say that by establishing an official language, we are taking away the rights of the people that live here. They say America is a country of diversity and making everyone conform to english will take that diversity away, the same attribute that makes this country so great.

Although America is a country of diversity, no one will loose their rights by making this decision. By choosing english as the official language, America will unify towards something and it will make the well being of all Americans better if everyone in this country could communicate with eachother.

In conclusion, the United States should change it’s legislature so that it has an official language of English. Making english the official language of the country will heighten the quality of all American lives.

By: Kyle Knight

Unions: A Prehistoric Invention

2009-11-09T21:35:00.000-08:00

My mother works at a company that considers 35 hours a week full-time. She receives well above minimum wage and consistently receives overtime and holiday bonuses. She has stock options, a 401(k), and health insurance. What she doesn’t have, though, is a labor union representing her. My mother works at Target. She has all of the things that unions fight hard to get for their members, yet a union has never set foot in her store. This makes me question why unions are still around. They are an old invention and their effectiveness today is questionable. They were once an asset to workers, but because many of the problems they were created for are now almost non-existent, labor unions are highly outdated and unnecessary, creating more problems than they do solutions.

Unions help members who are unjustly fired get their jobs back and aid their them when they are having trouble at work. These benefits seem simple, but unions can twist them and cause employers trouble that they doesn’t deserve. Kenny Rogers, a former Major League Baseball pitcher, assaulted two cameramen in June of 2005 while with the Texas Rangers. He was suspended for 20 games and fined $50,000. However, according to a Wall Street Journal article on the incident, due to the baseball players union’s “chronic obstreperousness... Rogers will be paid 100% of his salary during his hiatus” (Moores D8). The punishment was also “...being contested by the union” (Moores D8). It is not only sports players that receive this treatment. According to a Wall Street Journal article, Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, during an education conference, said “...union work rules prevent principals from firing the bad teachers and rewarding the good ones” (“Non-Union Jobs” A10). He also said that “‘this unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy’” (“Non-Union Jobs” A10). That may be so, but it is not nearly as crazy as this story my mother told me: a woman who worked with my mother at Target also had a job at Kroger, a grocery store. She had a history of alcohol abuse and one day stole alcohol from Kroger and drank it while on the clock. She was promptly dismissed. However, Kroger is a union company and the union demanded that the employee not only be re-hired but that Kroger pay for her rehabilitation. This practice is ludicrous. While it appears to help a union’s members, it is really hurting them, along with the employer. Rogers did not deserve to be paid his salary after assaulting those two men and it sets a terrible precedent for other misbehaving athletes. Teachers shouldn’t be kept on a school’s payroll if they are underperforming and teachers who do their jobs proficiently should be paid more than their ineffectual counterparts. Employees who drink on the job are a danger to themselves, their co-workers, and customers and shouldn’t have their rehab paid by their employer.

Unions claim to represent their members and lobby lawmakers to get bills passed that will aid them. This is true, I won’t deny it, but unions rarely put their members’ agendas before their own. In a Wall Street Journal written by John Zogby, president and CEO of Zogby International, a renowned polling firm, he stated “...I asked voters whether the AFL-CIO spoke for them when they went to the polls. The answers produced a real surprise: Among unionized likely voters, just 27% said the AFL-CIO spoke for them all or most of the time” (A10). That was in 2005. Four years later, unions continue to push legislation that most members do not support. Take the Employee Free Choice Act as an example. According to a Commentary article from October 2009, “the bill’s chief provisions authorize union formation in a workplace by ‘card check’- a euphemism for replacing a secret-ballot election on the potential unionization of a workplace with a system by which unions could secure exclusive bargaining rights through authorization cards...” (Rubin). This is harmful to workers attempting to form a union, because the vote are no longer anonymous. However, “...organized labor has deemed the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act its ‘number one legislative priority’ and has undertaken a vigorous national ad campaign on its behalf” (Rubin). This blatant practice of putting the organization’s agenda over its members’ needs is a terrible policy. Unions are not lobbies. They employ lobbyists, but they should be lobbying lawmakers based on the opinions of their members, not the suits in the corporate office.

Suits in the corporate office are better than the shady characters that have had connections to unions throughout history though. According to a Congressional Quarterly report on the history and future of unions “according to federal authorities, union and mob bosses often team up to demand kickbacks from union members in return for prime job assignments. Crime families also have been known to demand money from contractors in exchange for ‘labor peace.’ And contractors on union projects sometimes must pay salaries for ‘ghost’ employees- crime family members who either don’t show up or show up but do not work” (Prah). These practices have occurred since the 1950’s and continue today. According to the same report “by 2004, the Labor Department’s inspector general had 359 pending labor racketeering investigations, of which more than a third involved organized crime” (Prah). Mob ties aren’t the only corrupting factors. A St. Louis Post-Dispatch article from October 2009 reports that “the president of a national labor union was arrested... for allegedly taking $20,000 in bribes from a St. Louis lawyer, the U.S. attorney’s office said” (Patrick). This widespread criminal activity within unions sullies their supposedly good intentions and brings their legitimacy into question.

When unions were first formed, working conditions in many industrial workplaces were terrible. Pay was minimal and workloads were nigh impossible to complete. Unions came into workplaces and brought many reforms. They presented the problems in front of Congress, which passed legislation improving workers’ conditions and pay. I do not deny that unions have done a lot for workers. However, because Congress has passed several laws over the years protecting workers and insuring certain benefits, unions are unneeded. They do more bad than they do good. And union membership is steadily declining, with “...less than 8% of private sector workers unionized” (Zogby A10).

According to Zogby, “...39% of workers believe that while unions once were necessary, their time has passed...” (A10). My mother is one of these people. She may work at Target but she is able to get union benefits without the union headaches. With a misuse of policies, a practice of pushing their agendas over their members’, and a history of corruption, unions are unnecessary and outdated, creating problems when they should be creating solutions.

By Noah Frederick

The Cost Of College

2009-11-09T20:43:00.001-08:00

In today’s civilization, it is becoming more and more strenuous to attain a job without a distinguished level of education outside of high school. Currently many High School students today have hope in furthering their education at a well acclaimed University but for many the price of attending college is beyond what many can afford.

According to CNN.com, statistics show that college education rose 82 percent over the past decade which exceeds three times the rate of living. It also outpaced the basic necessities many families need such as medical care and food which isn’t a good look at all.

This is something discussed between many and a lot feel that the overwhelming cost of college makes the decision of attending it somewhat of a debacle. Scholarships and financial aid remain an option to those whom certify and/or apply, but imagine being raised by a single mother like my very own whom at times put her needs aside in order to make sure the needs of her children were met regardless the situation. Financial assistance isn’t a choice for all. Struggle is something we all endure but others experience it to a further extent.

LoveToKnow.com states that 34.6 percent of students raised in low income housing obtain greater chances of either dropping out of high school before graduating, or get characterized for not furthering their education to a higher level such as attending college. Raised under the influence of a single parent’s knowledge, such as myself, my mother did not obtain aspirations for the college life. Stats say this result in their children (me) not going as well; because that’s the only individual they have to look up to.

Yet independent and strong willed, she continuously stressed the fact that college was the only way out of a life of grief and hopelessness. I believe if college cost declined, adolescents of my age would look at universities with endless high hopes and gain the feeling that it may be a once in a lifetime experience.

Contrary to marital status, students also turn to the streets as a form of “education.” Presuming street knowledge outweighs anything taught in a classroom, gangs and violence, drugs and/or alcohol become their elucidation. To the understanding of African Americans, blacks are more likely to seize failure affecting not only themselves, but the people and the society it surrounds. African Americans constantly get looked down upon and convey the stereotypical burden of unimportance on their shoulders. Also, pregnancy and marriage occur at younger ages and the ability to find a commendable paying job becomes hard due to under qualification. This occurrence traces back to the fact that if college cost decreased, more and more people could progress worry free. For those of reassurance, sparse opportunities arise to whosoever explicit themselves.

Conversely, college grants equip those whom permit. Only problem, a Merit-Based grant essentially looks upon the grades of such student and their overall GPA. There’s also Financial aid, a positive given which basically estimates you ability of receiving help towards college expenses in the form of money.

Lastly, athletic scholarships are offered to those whom show an advanced skill in the sport of his or her choice. Sportsmanship and ability vastly get looked upon as well as academics. This determines the fate of benefiting money in the form of a full ride scholarship.

To try and solve this situation, I believe the income individuals bring home annually should be looked at. For instance, my mother’s situation exhibits the ideal example. She accumulates a gross of around $18,500.00 a year. This may seem like a dissent amount but from time to time it feels as if we live from check to check. I undertook the opportunity of FASFA, and in the end I was still short and left with debt to pay.

Lastly, looking at minorities could exclude a portion of the problem. Seeking diverse races, ethic beliefs, and unique talents could increase this happening. The creation of more essays could also put a cease to those who may feel left out and bring minorities and the majorities together.

I believe the price of attending college is holding many back from their future dreams. Its something that should be really considered and will help make difference towards the well-being of future youth.

Does Tanning Equal Death?

2009-11-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

A person’s chances of contracting skin cancer increase by seventy-five percent if they use a tanning bed before the age of thirty. However, America is seemingly ignoring these facts. People around the country go to tanning beds year round to get a beautiful summer glow. Unfortunately by doing this they are destroying their skin. According to many researchers, those who use tanning beds can and will greatly damage their skin The use of tanning beds can become a very serious addiction for some people and should thus be eliminated by the government. In my personal opinion the use of tanning beds should be stopped or limited so people do not over use them. I believe this for two major reasons. First, tanning beds cause skin cancer. Second, Ultra-Violet light causes severe eye damage. These are the reasons I believe the use of tanning beds should be limited to the public.
The first reason I believe tanning beds should be regulated is because they can cause skin cancer. Most tanning beds use ultraviolet bulbs. These bulbs give off mostly UV-A rays. UV-A rays go deep into a person’s skin and can disrupt cells involved with the body’s immune response, which can increase the chance of developing melanoma and other skin cancers. Regular exposure to the sun and tanning beds can lead to the risk of three types of skin cancer. Basal cell, Squamous cell and Melanoma. Basal cell is a benign type of skin cancer, which causes scarring. Squamous cell is generally benign but can spread through the body if it is not taken care of. Melanoma is the most deadly types of skin cancer.
My great grandmother and grandfather lived on a farm and they spent a lot of time in the sun. There was also a lake near by and they loved to sun bathe there. My great grandmother had a mole on her back from the time she was a little girl, but as she got older her mole became darker and misshaped. When a doctor finally noticed the mole, he told her to stay out of the sun as much as she could. He then removed the mole and discovered she had Melanoma. The doctor was too late; the mole grew back and the Melanoma had spread further through her body. My great grandmother became very sick and ended up dying from the Melanoma. She passed away in her late forties, which is very young. Her death was extremely hard for my grandmother and her siblings.
Tanning beds produce the same UV-A rays as the sun. In some cases tanning beds can be more dangerous than the sun because there is a more concentrated distribution of UV-A rays to the skin. In her online article Tanning Beds- More Dangerous than Sunlight? Dr. Melissa Stoppler writes about how many people feel having a tan is an attractive thing, but in reality a tan is a sign of skin damage.
The second reason I believe the use of tanning beds should be limited is because ultra-violet light can cause serious and permanent eye damage. There are three major eye problems ultra-violet light causes. First and foremost, ultra-violet light is a direct cause of cancer of the eye. Second, ultra violet light increases a person’s chances of having cataracts. Third, ultra-violet light causes retinal damage. As a result of these reasons, I have personally concluded tanning beds should be limited, in society.
While there are a great number of disadvantages when it comes to the use of tanning beds, there are also a few positives. One example of this is, ultra-violet light increases vitamin D in one’s body. Vitamin D thickens the bones. Which in turn makes for a healthier life style. However, while the increase of vitamin D is no doubt a good thing, it does not off set all of the bad effects caused by tanning beds. Tanning beds do more harm than good.
In the early years of our country it was attractive for a woman to have fair skin. This has since changed. “The lifetime risk of melanoma as we know it today is about 1 in 75 whereas 70 years ago, this number was 1 in 5,000 (*******).” This is a very drastic change. The biggest difference between fifty years ago and now, is the addition of tanning beds to society. While in some cases tanning beds can be good for a person, in most cases this is not true. The ultra-violet light used in tanning beds is deadly. There isn’t a simpler way of putting it. Ultra-violet light leads directly to skin cancer and can cause severe eye damage. People need to educate themselves when it comes to tanning beds. However, this isn’t a role people should have to worry about. The government needs to step in. If they don’t we could lose a vast amount of our generation. For these reasons, the use of tanning beds should be limited, and possibly banned. So, we might preserve our skin and our life spans.

-Kristi Genton

Vaccine Pressures

2009-11-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

H1N1 (swine flu) has recently received much attention from the American public. It seemed like an unstoppable menace. At first, vaccines or drugs to combat the virus were nonexistent. Now government health officials claim that another outbreak of the swine flu is on its way. Unlike the first outbreak, a vaccine is available to help stop the virus from spreading, and been administered to public and health officials. Vaccination efforts are putting more pressure on doctors and nurses. Even with the threat of a second outbreak of the swine flu, people in power should not pressure doctors and nurses into taking the H1N1 vaccine.

Some officials, like Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services Secretary, claim the pressure for doctors and nurses to become vaccinated does not exist. According to Sebelius, “There continues to be information circulating that somehow this vaccination campaign is mandatory. It is not. It is voluntary” (Stein). Although this statement may be true for some hospitals and states, it is certainly not true for others. New York requires all of its health care workers to receive the H1N1 vaccine (Stein). In addition, MedStar, a non-profit health-care system, is mandating that all of its 25,000 employees be vaccinated (Stein). The fact that MedStar and New York are forcing these workers to take the swine flu vaccine clearly shows the vaccination program is not voluntary. If these intuitions continue to force their doctors and nurses to become vaccinated while hiding behind the excuse of putting patient’s health first, then other states and medical establishments will be tempted to do the same.

It would seem that Medstar and New York’s mandatory programs would protect patient health. However, the first reason I believe that nurses and doctors should not have to be vaccinated is because the vaccine was manufactured too fast for a full understanding of the side effects. Many nurses feel that the vaccine has not met regular safety standards. Tara Accavallo, a registered nurse at Stony Brook’s neonatal intensive care unit, says, “This vaccine has not been clinically tested to the same degree as the regular flu vaccine”(“First they”). My aunt Dawn Howard, a nurse at Kensington Nursing and Rehab, says, “The vaccine has not been out that long and I do not know what the side effects are.” She is also concerned about the shot’s potential effect on her unborn child. Certain batches in production have been found to contain mercury (“First they”). This deadly toxin can cause serious nerve damage (“First they”). Moreover, the swine flu shots contain immune adjuvant, a chemical associated with disorders like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus (Baylock). In addition, neurologists, in the UK, received letters from government officials warning that the swine flu vaccine, in some tests, caused Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a potentially lethal brain disorder (“First they”).

From these hazardous chemical ingredients and risk of brain disorders, it is easy to see why some doctors and nurses are uneasy about the vaccination. These health care providers are in a better position to understand the dangerous implications of these chemical additives than the people who force them to take the vaccine. I understand the vaccination is an attempt to put the patient’s health first, but I do not believe that the health of those who care for the public should be last.

Aside from the unpredictable side effects, the second reason I believe that doctors and nurses should not have mandatory vaccinations for the swine flu is that there are other methods of controlling the spread of the swine flu. Workers could wear medical safety masks when dealing with patients infected with H1N1 or working in an infected area (Stein). Safety masks decrease the chances of the virus entering the airways of the wearer. In addition, clean hygiene is an effective method of stopping infection. Washing one’s hands before and after dealing with sick patients particularly reduces the chance of spreading any disease. These practices, applied to the medical environment, would be enough to eliminate the need for doctors to be vaccinated. The high pressure placed on doctors due the swine flu vaccine is “really sucking the air out of the room to deal with infection control in a more comprehensive manner” (Stein). Instead of a potentially harmful vaccine, these less threatening methods should be the first line of defense for our doctors and nurses.

While the public has been warned of a second outbreak of swine flu, our doctors and nurses should not be forced to take the H1N1 vaccine. The vaccine contains dangerous chemicals linked to several depilating disorders. Other methods of preventing the spread of swine flu such as facemasks and good hygiene are preferable to the vaccine. Nurses and doctors should have control over whether they get the vaccine for the swine flu rather than be pressured by their employers or state governments.

By Jarad Williams

Works Cited

Baylock, Dr. Russell. “Vaccine more dangerous than H1N1 flu.” The Bovine. Wordpress.com, 29 October 2009. Web. 1 November 2009.

“First they came for doctors and nurses.” The Bovine. Wordpress.com, 25 September 2009. Web. 29 October 2009.

Stein, Rob. “Many Health-Care Workers Required to Get Vaccines.” Washingtionpost.com. Washington Post, 26 September 2009. Web. 29 October 2009.

Confusing Contraceptions

2009-11-09T10:35:00.000-08:00

Parenthood is one of the hardest jobs a person can have. Raising a child while still in high school though can be even harder. Teen pregnancy is an issue that society has tried to reduce by educating teenagers about ways of pregnancy prevention. Abstinence is stressed as the most effective form of pregnancy prevention, but teenagers are also urged to use other methods if they choose to engage in sexual activity. In order to more effectively prevent teen pregnancy, however, teenage girls should be better informed about the different methods of birth control.

The most well known form of birth control is a condom. What many do not know though is that there are other forms recommended by doctors. According to Planned Parenthood, there are ten different types of birth control that all work differently and may not be best for everyone. There are those such as condoms and the sponge that can be bought over the counter while others such as the daily pill and vaginal ring must be put in by a doctor (Planned Parenthood). It is important for a teenager to be aware of how each works in order for their choice to be as effective as possible.

Although all forms of birth control are supposed to prevent pregnancy, they are not always guaranteed to work. This may be because the female is using her birth control incorrectly, but even if she was, not all forms are still completely effective. Because of this, it is important to understand the effectiveness of which ever method a female may use. According to Planned Parenthood birth control chart, methods such as the cervical cap or the vaginal sponge result in fifteen to twenty-five per hundred females becoming pregnant each year. Other methods that are not over the counter, such as the shot or the patch, however result in only two to eight per hundred females becoming pregnant each year. Knowing about the chances of becoming pregnant while using birth control can inform the user of things to be aware of and ways to make their choice more effective.

While some women may be confident in their choice of birth control, there are also multiple myths that prevent women from having correct information. One common myth that sometimes prevents women from using the pill, for example, is that birth control causes cancer. According to “Steven Goldstein, MD, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York University School of Medicine in New York,” though, studies have shown that birth control pills actually reduce the risk of certain cancers if continued to be used correctly (Bouchez 1). Another more common myth, however, is that a tighter condom on the male partner will increase chances of not becoming pregnant. The fact though is that using a tighter condom actually increases a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant because “a condom that is too tight is more likely to burst during intercourse” (Bouchez 2). No matter what method a female may decide to use though, they should always be aware of the myths and facts to better prevent an unintended pregnancy.

Another factor a woman should take into consideration when choosing birth control is what the probability is of contracting a sexually transmitted disease (STD). Of the ten existing forms of birth control, the only form that can prevent the transmission of STDs is a condom. Unlike the other forms of birth control, condoms can cover an infected genital area or prevent the exposure of infected secretions from either partner (CDC 1). According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), however, a condom’s protection is only effective if it is used consistently and correctly and covers all the genital areas infected (1). Women who may choose to engage in any sexual relations with multiple people should definitely take this into consideration.

The most important thing for teenagers to know about birth control though is the health risks. Although male and female condoms may only cause irritation or an allergic reaction, all other forms of birth control have more serious health risks (Health and Human Services). According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, birth control pills, the patch, and the vaginal ring, for example, may cause blood clots, stroke, heart attack, or vision problems depending on the condition of the patient (1). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also says that diaphragms, sponges, and cervical caps can cause toxic shock syndrome if left in for a long period of time (1). Diaphragms may also cause urinary tract infections, and cervical caps may result in an abnormal pap smear (Health and Human Services). There may also, however, be other side effects that are less serious that teenagers should also be aware before using birth control such as headaches, weight gain, and mood swings (Health and Human Services).

Some would argue that teenage girls should not be informed about birth control because it would make them more prone to engaging in sexual activity. While some girls may choose to use birth control for sexual purposes, it should be noted that others may choose to use it in order to reduce cramps and mood swings during their periods rather than for sexual purposes. Whatever a teenager’s reason may be for choosing to use birth control or not though should remain their business. Either way, all teenage girls should be informed about birth control so they can be confident in their choice of pregnancy prevention.

Strong Christian Morals

2009-10-05T19:47:00.001-07:00

I was raised up on strong Christian morals, and could always justify my actions with the knowledge of what was right and wrong. I always tried my hardest at whatever I did, and strived to be the best person I could be. I was the person that anyone could look to if they were having a problem, or if they needed advice on anything. So why did I so readily give up on all that I believed in, all that I was, on that one night? That one night that changed my life forever.
It was the spring of 2007, and I was on my way up to St. Louis with one of my closest friends to visit his family for the week. I was 16 years old. We rode in the back seat of his mothers’ car, with her driving, and his grandmother napping in the passenger seat. The cool breeze of the air conditioning filled the car, and mixed with the overpowering scent of new leather was almost mesmerizing. Listening to my favorite music playing loudly through my cd player I let the powers at be seduce me into a strong sleep that would last until we arrived at our destination later on that night.
As we arrived I fell out of the car and went around to the trunk to grab my bag. My friend stretched his arms out and grabbed a blue gym bag from the bottom of the pile. He leaned in close to me and quietly said, “I got the stuff in this bag dude, alright? I’m going to put it under the bed in the room we’re staying in. We’ll get it out once everyone goes to sleep. Cool?”
I nodded as he spilled out the orders, and without giving it a second thought agreed to everything he said. “I got it man, this is going to be sweet!”
We went into his families beautiful home where I was introduced to his Aunt and Uncle, shaking their hands, somewhat nervously I’m sure, and introduced myself back to them. The homey scent of apple pie hung pleasantly in the air throughout their house, and candles were lit in every room making everything feel extra cozy. We were led to the room where we would be staying for the night, and shown where the bathroom was right across the hall. After our hosts were positive that we felt at home they quickly left us so that everyone could be off to sleep.
My friend and I got comfortable in our room, and sat down and hung out for a few hours. He continued to look at his phone to check the time. The last time he checked it, it was 12:25 A.M. “Alright man, I’m going to check to see who all’s up. Just stay in here.” I was quick to listen to him as he was the experienced one with these matters. He slowly opened the door leading out to the hallway, and quietly closed the door behind him. I sat in patience waiting for him by myself in our room. He came back about three minutes later with a mischievous smile across his face. “They’re all in bed… We’re good!”
I watched as he quickly pulled out the contents of the blue gym bag and sat them on the bed. Two shot glasses, a fifth of vodka, and four beers to top it all off. He grabbed one of the shot glasses and stretched his arm out in my direction. I looked at it sitting there in his hand, questioning it all for the first time now. I looked up at my friend, as he was staring back at me. “Here you go man, take it.” I grabbed the glass from his hands, and held it steady as he poured the crystal clear liquid into it slowly. I could smell the strong, unmistakable scent of the alcohol fill the room. We held our glasses up to each other’s, said cheers to having an awesome night, put the glasses to our lips, and tilted back, letting the burning drink flow quickly down our throats. We did this over and over.
I woke up to the pitch-black darkness of an unfamiliar room. I immediately knew that something wasn’t right. Then I realized what it was. I was vomiting… Everywhere. I quickly got up, trying to hold the disgusting bile in until I can find my way to the bathroom. But it was no use. By the time I get in the bathroom I had left a trail of stomach fluid and alcohol leading all the way back to the room I was staying in. It got on the sink, the mirror, the toilette, the carpet, the rugs, everything. I stood there, looking at myself in the mirror, not having a clue of what I needed to do. I reached for my phone in my pocket to see what time it was. 3:25 A.M. I did my best to clean up what I could with some water and toilette paper, and stumbled back to the room. I felt as if the world was spinning around me, as I slowly opened the door up. I turned on the lights, only to see my friend passed out laying sideways across the bed. He didn’t even move. I turned the lights back off, layed down, and passed out.
When I woke up later on that morning the sun was shining through the windows so brightly that I could barely hold my eyes open. I saw that my friend had already gotten up, so I forced myself up off of the ground and dragged my feet to the kitchen. The normally bad taste of morning breath mixed with the old vomit from earlier and created a taste that was so horrible it cannot be described. I tried to recall events from the night before, but everything seemed somewhat like a big cloudy dream. As I turned the corner to the kitchen I saw that I was the last one to wake up. I sat at the table, and tried to look better than I felt.
“What happened to you last night?” my friends mom asked. I rattled off some story about having too much beef jerky and root beer, which caused me to have an upset stomach and puke everywhere. I thought to myself that there was no way anyone was going to believe me. But she seemed to buy it, along with everyone else, and the subject changed as breakfast was being served. After breakfast we all parted ways from the table to go and get ready for the day ahead. When I got back to the room my friend and I were staying in, he closed the door behind us and sat down on the bed.
“Dude, last night was so much fun! We have to do it again when we get back in town.” I couldn’t help but think that he wouldn’t feel quite the same if he had experienced exactly what I had, but I agreed that it was fun, and began making plans with him for the next weekend anyways.
Things went on as they were planned for that day, and the rest of the week, until the last day of our vacation. We were staying at my friends other family members house, and he and I were downstairs talking when all of a sudden his eyes get huge. “What is it?” I ask.
“Dude, I just remembered I left all the empty bottles in the closet at the other house!”
This was a disaster. There was no hope for us now. I quickly began to freak out as I could feel the air around me getting so thick that you could cut it with a knife. My friend quickly sensed that I was getting very scared, and assured me that he would just have his cousin go over and get the bottles before his Aunt and Uncle had time to find it. It took him a long time to convince me, but eventually I calmed down, and tried to not worry too much about what was going to happen after that. Like my friend kept telling me, everything was going to be fine.
Needless to say when we got back home from the trip, everything was not fine. In fact, before we got back my parents already knew about the alcohol bottles that we left in the closet. Apparently my friends Aunt found them shortly after we left their house and told my friends mom about it too. We were so stupid to think that we could honestly get away with it all. Not only did everyone know that I lied about the vomit in the bathroom, but no one trust my friend and me anymore. It was the worst feeling I had ever felt in my life when my parents just starred at me. I could feel their disappointment. I knew better than to make those decisions.
So needless to say, I didn’t get to drink with my friend the next weekend, or any weekend after that. I put that night behind me and repented from acting like that anymore. My friend did not. He went on partying as I knew he would. We grew apart over the years, having less and less in common as we got older. We became two very different people. We now have such different beliefs in the way that we should act, that it’s hard to believe that we ever were friends. But we were. We were best friends, who hit a fork in the road, and each took a very different path. And without getting caught that night in St. Louis, I may not have taken the path that led to the place that I am very happy to be at today, the path that led me back to being me.

2009-10-01T08:32:00.001-07:00

Not what it’s hyped up to be.
One of the worst days of my life happened on a day that for most highschoolers is hyped up to be an amazing experience and something they will remember forever, and that day happens to be senior prom. At first I wasn’t even going to go to prom, I hate dressing up, and I didn’t have a date that I was willing to pay for. Luckily for me I ended up asking an extremely attractive girl from a different school so I was actually excited to go. It’s the night before prom I have my last track meet before the state meet; I had qualified for state so I was super excited. I was about to run my last race of the meet didn’t think much of it didn’t really warm up at all. The race starts I get the baton get sixty meters into the race my leg tightens up take a stride then POP my hamstring tears. I finish the race and only make it worse; I walk off the track in immense pain. After the meet I call the girl and tell her what happened she is pissed this is only the beginning of some of the worst twenty-four hours of my life. The next morning I wake up my leg is bruised and doesn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would, so I roll out of bed and onto my leg pain shoots up through my hamstring I can barely walk to the bathroom. As the day progresses the pain only gets worse even though I’m pretty much drugged out on pain medication and icy hot. I contemplate if I even want to go to prom anymore but I figure I have already spent a lot of money for this I might as well go. When she finally showed up I was pissed off I hate dressing up, and being injured made it all the better. My date Julie was in a crabby mood for some reason when really she had nothing to be pissed about. Pictures were a disaster I hate taking pictures and so did she, and she brought one of her friends who I had never met so It made me feel all the more awkward. By the time pictures got over I was ready to get out of there, so we get in the car and start driving to prom. She isn’t talking at all making it all awkward just sitting on her phone texting away. This continues for around 20 minutes and I start to realize I have no idea where I’m going, in my rush to leave me house I forgot the directions, so I’m pretty much completely lost. After an extra 30 min of driving around and a couple phone calls I finally arrive to my senior prom late. When I walk in my friends who were supposed to save me a seat with them, didn’t save me one there table is full so I had to find a table and sit with people who I didn’t really care that much for. So we sit down I introduce my date to the kids at my table who are more acquaintances than friends, my date replies in a condescending tone, I finally realize how bad this night is going to be, then I remember the after party where I can drink my sorrow away. I go talk to my friends for awhile until dinner is ready, they give me shit for getting lost and bringing a date that’s so stuck up but we talk about how great the after party is going to be so it cheers me up a little bit. They start serving dinner and of course my table is the last table to get served, I’m starving when I see the food I become greatly disappointed and disgusted at the same time. I don’t think anyone could possibly classify it as food but I’m hungry so I get some anyway while my date sulks at the table saying she isn’t hungry. After I get done eating I feel sick and finally music starts playing and people start to get up to dance. With my leg being messed up I didn’t even want to try to dance so I start talking to my date so that maybe she can put her phone down for more than 10 seconds. As the night progresses I get in a worse mood all my friends want me to come dance, so I figure what the hell senior year might as well. I ask my date if she wants to dance she looks at me and says no, I’m in utter shock this whole time she is being a horrible date because I wasn’t able to dance so when I finally do she shuts me down. I start thinking to myself how this night could get any worse. I finally decide after sitting for about 2 hours that I’m tired of this and want to go home. So I say goodbye to all my friends who are all pissed at my date for being such a bitch. So I leave my senior prom about an hour and a half early and head home and wait for everyone to get back so I can go to the after party. When we get back to my house my parents asked why I was back so early and I told them bs story thinking maybe my date will be more fun once we go to the party. We both change our clothes and just chill in my basement for awhile watching TV, there’s nothing good on so I tell her to pick a movie. For some reason she picks Grease, I figure I won’t have to watch that much of it because I will be getting a call about the party soon. 20 min later I get the call I was waiting for, but unfortunately my friend TC told me this “Hey whats up yeah the party has to get cancelled the cops know about it and called my dad and said they would be monitoring the party and if any drinking was going on they would bust it” I don’t think I have ever been so mad and disappointed in my life. I ended about taking some medicine for my leg and going to sleep around 12 how pathetic. My senior prom which was supposed to be one of the highlights of my senior year and one of my best memories from high school turned into one of the worst days of my life.

By Aaron Gingerich

Guts and Glory on Friday Nights

2009-09-29T18:11:00.000-07:00

Guts and Glory on Friday Nights

Friday nights is typically the favorite night of the week for all high school kids, and quite frankly, the favorite night for most adults as well. We look forward to Friday nights because on Friday nights, the work week or school week has ended. The weekend is a little time for rest and relaxation, a time to let loose and celebrate. For me however, my Friday nights were much more than getting a couple days off from school. My Friday nights started in the locker room shortly after school and were filled with grid iron: blood, sweat, and a few tears.
During my senior year, there was a game with a cross town rival and I was always hyped up and mentally prepared for the cross town rivals they were the Warren Central Dragons. This particular school always did something to our school right before we were playing them in a game. This particular game, they took week killer and killed the grass to where it burned their school initials on the 50 yard line of our field. So I was fired up and ready to get revenge in this game. The whole team was fired up.
As a defensive lineman, nose guard was my position on my high school football team. I was lined up straight across from the ball. My job was to try and tackle who ever had the ball, but at the very least, stop the run up the middle. There is not a lot of glory when you are a lineman whether it is defensive or offensive. The glory goes to the quarterbacks, the running backs and the receivers. They are the players that always have the ball and make all of the scores. The guts however, come from the lineman. They do the hitting, the clashing, the tackling and most of the bleeding.
This night was pretty typical from the start. We huddle in to our team meeting, going over last minute play instructions, before we file out of the locker room strutting to the field. I was one of four captains that night so the four of us arms locked together to meet the officials and the captains for the Dragons at mid field. We knew the night would be good as we won the toss. We elected to defer the ball to the Dragons and we would receive the kick off at the beginning of the second half. We held them scoreless on their first possession and then we took over the ball. As the first half advanced, we held them scoreless and we were up 21 to 0 personally I thought that we should be up even more I wanted to beat them as bad as we possibly could with no mercy considering what they did to our field.
After half time, we rolled back out to the field to start our usual warm up drills so we could put this team away for the season. The third quarter we started strong and again held them scoreless, but we scored two more touchdowns to end the quarter 35 to 0. It was about midway thru the fourth quarter, we were all getting a little tired and sluggish. The sound of helmets banging together, and pads and equipment hitting together had just become a buzz. The grunting of the players, the yelling and cheering of the fans, I had just tuned out. I was completely zoned in on the football. About that time, the football was stripped from the Dragons running back and it fell to the ground about two feet from me. As focused as I was, I scooped the ball up and tucked it under my arms. I ran as fast and as hard as I could, my heart was racing and sweat was dripping down into my eyes, never looking back until I had reached the end zone. I looked around in disbelief as there were no penalty flags on the ground. I had scored my first touchdown ever.
It probably seems like not such a big deal because most teams have several players who score touchdowns all of the time. But when one considers the guts and the glory, the linemen usually have all of the guts and none of the glory. Defensive players play most all of their football careers and never actually touch a football. That night during that game, I had both guts and glory and the most memorable night of my high school football career.

By: Ben Spencere

Not What its hyped up to be

2009-09-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

Not what it’s hyped up to be.
One of the worst days of my life occurred on a day which for most high school students, is hyped up to be an amazing experience and a so called rite of passage that will be remembered forever. My original plan was to not even attend the prom at all, therefore avoiding the hassle of finding a date worth the outrageous cost of the event, and even worse dressing up something I hated doing. Luckily enough for me I ended up asking a cute girl from a different school to prom; I was actually excited to go. It was the night before prom I had my last track meet before the state meet; I had qualified for state the previous night and I was super excited to run again. I was about to run my last race of the meet and didn’t think much of it and didn’t really warm up at all. That turned into one of the worst decisions of my life, and pretty much ruined the next twenty-four hours of my life. The race starts I get the baton; sixty meters into the race my leg tightens up I take a stride then my leg made a popping noise and my left leg collapsed. I finished the race and only made it worse; I walked off the track in immense pain and find out that I partially tore my hamstring. To make matters worse when I called my date to tell her the news she was disappointed and angry, a mood which would continue throughout the next twenty-four hours.
The next morning I was relieved to wake and find that my leg didn’t hurt quite as bad as I expected, or so I thought as I lay in bed. When I attempted to walk to the bathroom however, I find that the pain truly is as bad, if not worse than I had expected and I struggled to walk the few steps out of my room. As the day progresses, the pain only begins to worsen, and I am forced to take pill after pill of pain medication and basically bathe in Icy Hot as I contemplate if I am even going to prom. The sole reason for choosing to go at this point was nothing more than the incredible amount of money I had already spent preparing for this day; a day that should have been one of the best of my life. When my date finally arrived, I was completely stunned by how amazing she looked and thought to myself maybe this won’t be so bad after all. That all changed quickly when her crabby demeanor only made my own attitude worse as we posed for picture after picture, neither one of us enjoying the moment in any way. After the photo shoot finally ended, I was so immersed in leaving that I forgot the directions to the prom. The drive there became the most awkwardly silent car ride of my life.
I finally arrive to my senior prom extremely late, only to find that my friends had not saved my date and me a seat at their table, forcing me to eat with people I didn’t care for as my date texts on her phone and replies to all our table’s questions in an extremely condescending tone. I find solace for the night lying in the promise of an epic after party where I can drink my sorrow away. As the food arrives at our table, I’m disappointed and even slightly disgusted at its quality, but I am still forced to eat by myself due to my date’s refusal to eat the food. While the dancing begins, I sit at the table with my date desperately trying to talk to her about anything, since I was in too much pain to dance. After what feels like several hours of coercing minimal conversation out of her, I decide to risk the unavoidable pain and ask her to dance. I ask my date to dance but I’m shocked and humiliated when she rejects me, stubbornly remaining in her seat, silently, for another hour. I start thinking to myself how this night could get any worse. After that agonizing hour I finally decide to leave and go home with my date and wait for the after party. So I say goodbye to all my friends who are all pissed at my date for being such bitch.
When we got back to my house we both changed our clothes and just hung out in my basement for awhile watching TV, there was nothing good on so I told her to pick a movie and am immediately regretful when she chooses Grease. Twenty minutes later I get the call I was waiting for, but unfortunately my friend TC told me this “Hey, what’s up? Yeah the party has to get cancelled the cops know about it and called my dad and said they would be monitoring the party and if any drinking was going on they would bust it” I don’t think I have ever been so mad and disappointed in my life. In a fitting end to my disaster of a day, I pop a few more pain pills and fall asleep around midnight. They say that senior prom should be one of the most memorable experiences of your time in high school, and I am positive that night will surely be a memorable one but not for the reason I had hoped.

By Aaron Gingerich

No title yet

2009-09-29T10:29:00.000-07:00

It was three in the afternoon and I had just been released from school. A soon as I went out the door I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. When I checked the screen to see who was calling a number I didn’t know was scrolling across the screen. I answered the phone with a confused “Hello?” to see who was calling, and I was answered by the familiar voice of Jeff, a friend of the family.

“Hey matt I just wanted to let you know that we had to take your dad to the hospital.”
“What is it?”
“The doctors think he has appendicitis.”
“Ok, I’ll have to go back to the house first then I’ll come up there.”
“Alright, your sister already knows, and she will be looking for you.”

We ended the conversation so I turned my head to look for my sister. She had already spotted me and was on her way. We walked to my car together and I let her know that I wasn’t worried because appendicitis was a common thing. So we threw or things in the backseat of my car and headed off.

At the hospital we were in the ambulatory surgery waiting room. My sister, mom, and aunt were in the secluded area of the waiting room with me. Come to find out what I thought was a common ailment was a little more. His appendix had burst and perforated his colon. His insides were a mess and he would be in surgery for a while. Jeff was on his way while I thought about the way my dad acted for the past week.

Not exatly sure how to word the body yet so this is all I have.

Matthew Graham

My Ozzy.

2009-09-29T10:01:00.000-07:00

On a Tuesday night in late August, I spent the night at my Dad’s small Jerry Seinfeld apartment in Tennessee. Like many times before, my dad shows me a rough audio recording of his band, mixed just the night before. During the listening session I found myself fighting sudden aches of hunger, so acting as any needy daughter would, I got up and looked for something to eat. As I make my way through the small, groggy, living room I found myself in a maze of music equipment. Stumbling over guitars, drums heads, and huge half stack amps, I made it to the kitchen with just a stumped toe this time. I limped the rest of the way making animal like sounds. Relief finally struck when I got to the pantry. When I swung the door open, my findings were a box of saltine crackers, a can of tomato soup, two bags of Lays Chips, some cherry Koolaid packets, and a box of Jew Jew Bee’s. I closed the pantry door. Next I stepped over to the refrigerator, and its contents were no more promising: a half a pound of hamburger meat, a can of mushrooms and a gallon of 2 percent milk. I looked through the kitchen into the living room where my dad still remained in the same position on the couch listening closely to his songs booming on the speakers. I looked closer and noticed that dad looked frail, swollen and looked as though he’d been beaten. For some reason this image made me feel like crying. This kind hearted man, never got to live his dreams, my dad, the smartest man I know, trudges through each week making enough to cover only a small percentage of what he owes to this economy. I wanted to just make everything okay for him. My dad’s only problem isn’t that he wasn’t talented, but he never properly planned for life. He tells me to take his life as a lesson. Contrary to the ever so popular belief that one should set high goals, keeps optimisms and hopes strong toward their dreams, I believe that in order for one to fulfill their dreams, that they must first work hard, and for Pete’s sake have a backup plan.
During high school you would find my dad not in school, but at home playing guitar. My grandmother tried with all her might to get him on the right track. Little did she know, my dad’s grungy rock attitude feed upon his mothers bickering as motivation to question authority further. My dad spent his high school nights partying with whoever was willing. He jumped from rock bands to garage bands, and even to metal bands. Music was his only true friend, and his only legal escape. His dependency on it had become increasingly strong, and seemingly success borne.

In October of 1986 my dad met my mom at a house party in their hometown. My mom had played bass for one of the bands playing at the party. My dad had told me she sat down beside him talking to her friends. Dad said he recalls having a lot to drink that night, but not enough to be unnervous about sitting beside beautiful, talented lass. Dad said he burped obnoxiously without meaning to, and turned hot red in the face. With shame he scooted his body the other direction and let out a faint, shaky “excuse me.” He told me that this beautiful girl, now 2 feet away turned around and looked at him with a funny facial expression and said “wow that was at least an eight”. Thus starting a conversation, and creating a Mark and Jenny world, only they could enter. How romantic.

As time went by my dad grew content with life, he had the girl of his dreams, he had a band, he was unemployed, and he had talent. He was so content that he had decided to quit school.

From this point Dad settled down with a seemingly solid dedicated band. With his girl playing bass and his brother on the drums, he had no doubt in his mind that success was just around the corner. High hopes arouse when a heavy set, British gentleman promised a record deal in Nashville at one of their bar shows. For days Dad rubbed it in parents’ face, his teachers face and even some of his friends’ face.

The big night dad Dad found himself at his closet unsure of what to wear, being that he was soon to be the biggest rockstar, what better to wear a grungy flannel t-shirt and ripped up jeans. Right?

Later that night dad drove his little 1982 Toyota truck to Nashville praying that the hunk of metal would get him there and back. He prayed that there would be no rain so his equipment wouldn’t drown. He prayed for the best, that this would be the big come through. He was beginning to see the light. He started to think about the crazy things he would demand backstage before each show. He thought about where he would live. God had a different plan for him.

When he and his band arrived at the address given to him, he got out of his truck and looked around. He saw a troubled neighborhood, one that looked as if a dark cloud always hung around it, or is that rain?
He looked for a bigger building. To his surprise he found himself looking at a rundown place that looked just like a drug dealers house, but he was sure that this was his destination because a little sign out in the yard read ”Danny’s studio”. Alright! The band started to make their way up the broken pavement, and up wobbly steps to the front door. Before they could even knock they heard a weak voice say “he’s not there”. “what?” said dad as he looked in the direction from which it came from. He saw an old lady who seemed to have almost popped out of the bushes beside them. “Yes” she said, “He’s not there”. “well, where is he?” Said dad. She paused for a second and said “he went to jail for selling crack”. “Well, that’s Promising” said dad as he high stepped it off the porch, looking around for hidden cops. He got to his truck almost crying. All the way home, it rained.

Just a couple of years later, Dad’s band became tight and each of the band members became better musicians. But news from my mom made the band come to a screeching halt with the words “I’m Pregnant”. So like any young teenage guy my dad paused for the longest time and came back with the words “it’s not mine”. My grandparents listened as my mom and dad fought in the back bedroom. Two hours later my mom ran out of the room crying and dad followed soon after.
“I can’t believe you’re still worried about our stupid band” said my mom.

Only time changed my dad. As months went by, he saw my rump in mom’s belly though hard about things as they were, he turned himself around. He got his first job at sunbeam in Portland Tennessee, and worked 12 hours shifts in order to support his soon to be family. Before you knew it he was just about excited as mom was about having a little version of him running around.

On January 23, 1991, I was born to my parents during the worse time possible for them both. We all lived with my grandparents who showed the biggest amount of support. Dad loved us, mom and I soon became his life, we were all he’d ever thought about. Yet he still had a strange desire to play music, and a positive feeling that his music career wasn’t over. He yet again quits his job.

One year later, the band reunites my parents played shows at every bar in Nashville. And years following, the band changes with replacements of drummers and singers, and 2nd guitarist. In the middle of this chaos my grandparents had pretty much adopted me since mom and dad were on the road a lot.
In, 1994 my parents had made enough money to buy them a house, and placed just a few feet away from my grandparents. Though they never stayed in it, it was still theirs and not mom and dads.
After many attempts and failure my parents never grew tired of music.

In summer of 1997 my dad’s life and crumbled under his feet when he discovers my moms disfaithfullness to the guitar player in the band. With little time my dad packs up and leaves to his parent’s house. He had lost his wife, his baby girl, and he was once again broke.

It’s disheartening how life bites the nicest people in the ass. My dad turned his life over to God, he tries to see me every weekend, he has a job at the bottom of the pyramid, and he stills lives with his parents most of the time.

Music is played on the side now, only when he gets time. He plays music with people who are old enough to be his father.

Music has always helped my daddy cope, yet it tore his life apart in the end.

Haley Jones

The Last Time Through The Air Lock

2009-09-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

Some of my fondest memories from high school came from my involvement in marching band. One of my favorite memories was the final marching band competition during my junior year. This was the first year that we had ever gone to the Bands of America Grand Nationals in Indianapolis, Indiana. In the world of competitive high school marching band this is the equivalent of the Super Bowl. In November bands from all over the country, some as small as sixteen members while others numbered over three hundred, compete for a national title and bragging rights for a year. Until this last year the event had taken place at the RCA Dome. This venue was unique in that the material that made up the roof of the dome was held up by air pressure and a long standing tradition at Grand Nationals is for all competing bands to pass through the “air lock” to get to the field. Though it was necessary to do this because of how the Dome was designed, it became a rite of passage for all competitors.

The day before the last performance of my junior year started early for us. We had left school at around seven o’clock the night before and had got to the motel at around one o’clock in the morning. Taking into account that the last game of the World Series was on and the usual getting settled in to a new place, no one got to bed before two thirty, and we had to be up a five for breakfast and at the practice site by seven. The day dawned cloudy with light rain, high winds, and a forecasted daily high of thirty-three degrees without the wind chill. I had the presence of mind to bring warm clothing and to dress in layers, but my friends weren’t as well prepared, and as a result morale suffered. To say practice started off badly would be putting it mildly. There were people not paying attention, not being prepared, and just not caring what they were doing. Not four days before we had just won our fourth state title and I’ll admit we all felt pretty cocky going into this competition and the first half of practice reflected this. It got to the point where our band director, Mr. Harris, called us all off the field and told us to “get it together or we were going to withdraw from the competition get back on the busses and go home.” After that little “pep talk” we started to get our act together and practice started to turn for the better.

It should be understood that while it was mostly our state of mind and our lack of energy that contributed to the morning practice going the way it did, the adverse weather conditions did play a part in it as well. One of the most prevalent difficulties we as a band faced that day as far as the weather was concerned was the temperature. Thirty-three degrees is considered cold by most people but add to that almost constantly gusting winds with light rain mingled with sleet and it becomes ten times worse. I had on several layers of warm clothes and when the wind hit me I might as well have had a tee-shirt on, there were times it seemed like the wind was going through me. We were all thankful when we broke for lunch and got the chance to warm up, and adjust our attitudes.

After a break for lunch we found a second wind and were able to turn the practice around and end the day on a high note. We all knew that if the next day’s practice went the way it did that day we wouldn’t have a prayer of holding our own in the competition.

The next morning everyone seemed to move with a purpose and practice that morning went much better than the one that took place the previous day. Even the weather seemed to cooperate with us. The biting cold and the almost constant wind gusts had been replaced by bright sunny skies and temperatures that topped out in the upper fifties. We all took this as a sign of good things to come. During the bus ride the mood was light. At one point someone started singing their part of the show and slowly everyone started joining in with their parts. With both drum majors conducting us “sang” the entire show from the first down beat to the end of the show. To this day I do not know who it was that started it, but I’m glad they did because it allowed us all to cut up a little bit and relax our nerves because going into a competition like Grand Nationals, there is no room for nerves.
Once we arrived at the Dome we went immediately into warm-ups. While the musical and physical warm-ups were important, our mental warm up is the one that meant the most to us. I cannot fully put into words the full impact that the mental warm-up had on all of us. It is something that one has to be a part of to truly understand but at the same time, have no explanation for. The closest I can come to describing what took place is the funneling of all our emotions fear, joy, pride, and a host of others into one small tightly compacted form leaving only pure focus and determination to show on our faces, in our eyes. With that ritual completed we left the warm-up area and stepped into the air lock.

The first performance seemed to take just a second, eight minutes and fifty-two seconds compressed into an instant, one second the show started and the next I was playing the last notes of the show. When I experienced this I knew at that moment that I had held nothing back and had put myself into my performance. And looking around as we walked off the field I knew that all eighty-eight of us had done the same thing. We had taken all of our emotions that we had packed away and then released them using the performance as a vehicle to convey them to the audience. The emotions written into the music mixed with those being given off by us, the performers, creating an experience that no one will ever forget.

After the run we went into the stands to await the announcement of the semi-finalist bands. Our performance marked the end of preliminaries in which ninety-four bands participated; most of them were three to four times our size. Of these bands only thirty-two would get a place in semi-semi finals and only twelve of those thirty-two would get a spot in finals. As the announcing began we all counted down until only one slot remained. The announcer paused for dramatic effect lasting only a few seconds, but to us it felt like hours. Then we heard what we had all been hoping for, we were in semi-finals.

The warm-up process repeated itself but this time there were tears in our eyes. The upcoming performance marked not only the end of our season, but the end of our senior’s involvement with the band. Young men and women who we have developed close bonds with, had less than ten minutes left in a program that they had poured their hearts and souls into for the last four years. It was also the end of an era. We had been given the honor of being the last Bands of America Grand Nationals semi-finalist band to ever pass through the air lock and take the field at the RCA Dome.

Our semi-finals run went as well as the first, but like I said there’s only room for twelve bands in finals, and Bands of America doesn’t really like bands of less than one hundred members. On the bus ride home that night when most of the others had fallen asleep I allowed myself some time for reflection. A big theme that we always pushed for was having no regrets. And looking back on the season, each competition, every practice, and even all the way back to band camp remembering the highs and the lows, chuckling to myself at the funny moments and sniffling at the sad I had a smile on my face when I fell asleep.

Arriving back at school at four thirty in the morning after a week that started out with nearly freezing to death at some random high school and ended with memories and experiences that I will never forget, I got my duffle bag and walked out to my truck in the parking lot. After tossing my stuff in the bed and climbing into the cab, I recalled what I had been thinking about on the bus. As I pulled out of the parking lot I knew that I had no regrets.

By Adam Wilck

Machine Shop Disaster

2009-09-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

Performance test was the only thing racing through my mind as I walked slowly to my CAD and CNC programming class, computer controlled machine tools, Friday afternoon. I was in no hurry for the test, but the slower the pace the more anxiety built in me. I opened the door to the class at two o’clock and was struck by the smell of oil and cutting fluid. I kept out of the way of the running machines and entered into the computer room. It looked more like a surgical operating room: clean, swept, and all the tools placed in order for the tasks of the day.

Then I placed my book bag by my computer and grabbed a piece of butter board, a block of plastic, and sat back in a chair waiting for my turn at the machine. I ran my fingers up and down the smooth yellowed butter board trying to calm myself. The mini mill, a small computer controlled mill, would only take fifteen minutes to complete the part, but it felt like an eternity sitting in front of the blank computer screen. The minute hand slowly ticked by.

After staring at the black screen, I went over the operating procedure in my head a thousand times, forwards and backwards. The machine was going to cut a rectangular journal, shave the right side of it down by two inches, and then drill four quarter inch holes in the short side. I had studied the procedure religiously the night before and asked my teacher every question about the mini mill imaginable. Still nervous, I cycled through the procedures and checked them again for accuracy, just like one of these computers in the room.

Soon as the clock read two fifteen, the teacher called for the next student. I entered the mini-mill room and heard the door close shut. A man could have heard a pin drop in the room. I was completely isolated from the entire class with the machine.

At the same time as the door shut, I swept the surgically cut pieces of butter board form the keyboard of the computer. The pieces littered the floor and air. I placed the block tightly in the vise and inserted the cutting tool into the collet (tool holding device). I opened my file on the computer and slowly pressed the go button, but the mini-mill sat there lifelessly for a moment.

“Error!” the computer shouted in bold red letters.

Immediately, I shoved my face right up to the screen to read the remark. The computer had found unreadable code in line ten. I had already checked the program but scrolled to line ten and saw the problem. Two plus signs sat at the end of the code. I had put them there by accident when I added lengths to find the origin of the part. I deleted them and went on. It was odd that marks meaning positive accomplishment were causing me trouble. The machine started again. Two twenty ticked by on the clock.

At the same time, the whistle of the cutting tool echoed through the room, and the machine hummed to life. I thought “finally success.” The arm of the mini-mill slowly moved the cutting tool in small increments towards the part. The bit began slicing the correct pattern, but it was just trimming air. The mini-mill had moved the cutting tool seven inches off the block. I slapped the emergency stop button, and scrolled through the code again, but my untrained eye found nothing wrong. I looked at the clock over my shoulder and saw two fifty, ten minutes left of class. Simple mistakes had devoured priceless time.

Meanwhile, my heart raced, and sweat rolled over my face fogging the lenses of the safety glasses. I took them off and looked at the block without the film of anxiety. With shoulders hunched, I lowered my head.

“Okay,” I thought nervously, “Let’s reset the cutting tool’s starting position.”

I carefully redid the math and set the bit back in position. The clock stated 2:55, five minutes remained of class. Again, I slowly pushed the start button.
For the second time, the machine buzzed and rapidly moved the cutting tool to the right side of the block to mill the first journal. My pride rose then suddenly fell with the mill’s next movement. The tool bite into the part like a dog on a bone and sliced through the middle of the block. I punched the emergency stop. My body was drained and limp. I stood in the mini-mill room staring at my deformed block. It was three o’clock, and class was over. I wandered out of the room with the deformed block in my hand towards the teacher’s desk.

“Finished?” he asked.

I looked him in the eye and confidently stationed my misshapen part on his desk.

By Jarad Williams

Keep Me Posted

2009-09-29T00:18:00.000-07:00

Parents always want their kids to keep in touch with them. They want to know where their kids are and that they are safe at all times. My parents are the same way, they need to know that I am in a secure area and surrounded by either people I know or people that aren’t going to attack me. If I keep in touch with the they are in the know and feel comfortable letting me do what I want, but when they are uniformed, situations begin to spiral out of control.

After work one night, around 9:30ish, I had made plans to go out with some friends to a field party. One of those parties that I should have probably worn a good sturdy pair of and pair of shoes that I really didn’t care to see the true color of after the night was said and done. I told my dad where I was going: “to a party somewhere in West Nashville”; also that I was going to be with my best friend Matt, who, at times, I think my parents love more than me, and our go-to-guy friend Chris; therefore I’d be well protected. My dad agreed, finishing our little phone conversation with his I’m-being-a-good-parent-phrase, “you shouldn’t stay out all night”, but I took that as more of a suggestion, rather than a command; as most teenagers would. All summer I had been coming in at around 4 or 5 am, so I thought this night was not going to be an exception. After clocking out, locking up and hopping into Matt’s car we were on our way. Forty-five minutes later, after watching the darkness get darker on the way to this “party”, we came across what was said to be the entrance to the field: a space in the trees, gravel path, marked with a small American flag stuck in the ground. How patriotic. We turned in thinking that the party was going to be just around the corner, but instead we drove for about eight more minutes through what looked like scenes from Jurassic Park: a huge barn, abandoned cars, turned over boats, a couple of broken down trailers, all surrounded by intense foliage.
I said, “If we break down we’re calling 9-1-1, and no ones opening the doors to this car until day light”.

Finally we started to see cars, ones that weren’t sitting on blocks, lots of them. Once parked, we walked to the main clearing. There we found about 250 plus drunken kids, stumbling about, laughing and chattering away with friends. To the left: a huge generator in the back of a fire-truck-red Jeep Wrangler truck with a spot light shined directly at the party, and at the small bonfire, as if the heat itself wouldn’t keep the drinkers from wobbling towards it; loud speakers blasting top 40; and to the right: two huge coolers filled with a mixture of who-knows-what punch, surrounded by half empty cases of beer. We couldn’t walk ten steps without crunching on one of those all-too-familiar and way-inconspicuous red cups. It had rained almost all that week, so the ground was extremely muddy and slick. While attempting to mingle gracefully I lost a flip-flop to the brown grassy gook more than a couple times and the bottom half of the legs to my jeans were soaked all the way through. Oh, the outfits we ruin to be able to say, “We were there”. After a couple cups of the bitter red juice, I was definitely networking my way to the top of the party, too bad I wouldn’t remember anyone’s name I shook hands with. I met a couple of Vandy kids, some from UT Knoxville, Chattanooga, some from Brentwood and Franklin, and some were just too drunk to function and could barely state their names.

After stumbling and stuttering a tad myself we decided the party was dying down and that it’d be a really great idea if we headed out before some of the other dizzy kids decided to try their luck at escaping the jungle. Matt, being the only sober one, was our driver. With Chris in the back-seat, and I riding shotgun we were off over the rocky bumps and slushy turns, back through entrance of Wrong Turn to Dead End; luckily escaping any run-ins with inbreeds and the sound of banjo music. On the long ride back to civilization, I wore Matt’s sunglasses while we all tried a butchered attempt at a Jackson Five song. I remembered that my phone had died earlier at the party, I think I remember something about Matt’s dying too. Oh well, I thought, as long as my parents knew I was with Matt then I didn’t think they’d care. We dropped Chris off, and decided to just leave my car at the studio where I worked; I’d get it tomorrow, since I was working again. We then went to Matt’s house, where I guess we thought we would sit out my intoxication. We turned on Law and Order SVU, our favorite show, and that was the last thing I remember.

I pulled my eyes open as a very pale blue peeked through the window. Oh my God. It was morning; I must have fallen asleep on the floor. I felt my face grow hot, my heart pumping faster, my ears rang, and a vein pulsated in my temple. I jerked up and ran over to the chair where Matt was sprawled on, his head hanging slightly. I shook him and yelled.
“It’s morning! Oh my God, my parents are going to kill me; they’re going to kill us both! We have to get back to my car!” He started to move, but I was already waiting to go. My phone was still dead, no telling how many times my dad had probably tried to reach me; and with Matt’s phone dead too; oh God, this could not end well. We rushed to the studio to get my car; I was definitely more than awake and aware enough to operate a vehicle. In our separate cars we both rushed to the end of the parking lot. It was times like these where I truly wish my car could teleport. I was half way home before I realized my music was on, but when I did I immediately shut it off; I felt even more nervous with it playing the songs from last night. When I pulled into my driveway I half expected to just be able to just sneak in through the garage and my parents to still be asleep, but I was horrified to see my that my dad’s car was missing. Was he out looking for me? Could this get any worse? I turned my key in the lock to open the door and then walked through the threshold of doom. I heard my mom upstairs give a loud huff. She walked to the top of the stairs and glared down at me, saying nothing, and then finally,

“I don’t think you know how much trouble you’re in. You’re father has been trying to get a-hold of you on the phone since 3am, and he’s been out looking for you since four.”

Oh shit. It was six now. I ran into the kitchen there my phone charger lay on the table; I plugged in my phone and turned it on. Oh no. Seven texts, 23 missed calls, and 2 voicemails! My life was officially over. My phone started to vibrate in my hand. It was Matt.
“Yeah?”

“I just passed your dad on Cloverland; he looks pissed.”

“Awesome! Thanks for the good news. I’ll call you back after the beating.”

I hung up as I heard the front door open, then I felt my lungs depress and my stomach bottom out. Here it comes, the yelling, the screaming, the total imprisonment for the rest of the summer and maybe even my life, goodbye world, hello Alcatraz. Then I saw my dad walk in the kitchen. He did look really mad, good call Matt.

“Have you lost your mind? What the hell were you thinking? Your mother has been crying all morning, she’s sick to her stomach. We thought you had been abducted, Sinclair. I went to the studio and saw your car, but you weren’t there. I drove to Matt’s and his car was there, but there were no lights on in his house. I was on my way back there to beat down his door and get him to tell me where he thought you might be. I was about to call the police. We thought you were dead somewhere.”

I stood there just listening to him, I didn’t say anything. Then something weird happened: He came up to me and gave me a hug.

“We didn’t know where you were, your phone was off, and we had no idea what happened to you,” he said still holding me. “We want to know where you are.”

Then I realized that, even though I was still in major trouble, it wasn’t that I was just getting yelled at for doing something stupid. My dad was just glad to know that I was safe. If I had called to tell him where I was none of this would have happened. If I had just kept in touch with them like they wanted, I wouldn’t be in the trouble I was in. From then on, I was going to always have my phone charger with me and always let my dad know where I was. For the rest of the summer I had better be in that house at or before 11:59 pm, from then on I would always always always keep them posted.

by sinclair dotson

Living With The Regret

2009-09-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

Lacey Hutchison
Professor McCaffrey
ENG 100
October 6, 2009

As the song Watching Airplanes by Jason Aldean was playing on my voicemail, my eyes started tearing up because I knew it was Jamie. We were fighting once again. I couldn’t keep going back and forth with him. Either we were together or not. But, we could never make up our minds to be apart. We were never happy apart. So, these fights always ended happily together. A week of contemplation went on.
On October 8th, a week later, I was sitting in a Glasgow High School cheerleading meeting discussing nationals. The meeting started at 5:30 pm and was suppose to be over an hour later. Of course it was now 6:50. We were finally leaving. Saying my goodbyes my phone was receiving call after call, but I kept pushing the ignore button. That conversation could wait.
Obviously, Brittni needed to talk to me because she called my moms phone when we were on our way home. I was driving down the road and I could hear Brittni crying on the other side of the phone. Mom handed me the phone because she couldn’t understand her. Being as close as sisters I could usually make her sentences out. Putting the pieces together, I heard her say car wreck, Jamie, and not making it. Enough was said. My stomach dropped. Tears started flooding my eyes. I lost it. Pulling into the house, I was numb. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t have the strength to walk. I couldn’t think of what I needed to do. I couldn’t function. My step dad had to remove me from the car and place me on the couch. I laid there mute with tears rolling down my face. The only thoughts were this couldn’t be true, and I had to get to him.
Moving me back to the car, now in the back seat, I had to be at the hospital. I was reciting everything in my head and what needed to be said. (Jamie you are everything I want and more. You are my first, true, and only love. I couldn’t imagine being without you.) As we were pulling up to the hospital I felt like I saw the whole town of Glasgow standing around just waiting for answers. I just wanted to hear that he was alive. He couldn’t leave me with a little fight. It was so stupid and pointless. I just wanted to be hardheaded. But now in my situation I am trying to remember the point of being hardheaded. I walked through the double doors of horror to find Momma Sue, Papa Jack, and Jackie. Nothing could ever explain the dismay I saw in their teary eyed faces with the sounds of hysterical screams. The coroner was standing outside of his room. I wanted reasons, answers, and explanations. I wanted to know why my Jamie wasn’t here with me to help me through this like he always had. Trying to pull myself together, the coroner starts to tell me that two guys called in…
“One driver swerved to miss the impact. Jamie swerved the opposite. At that very moment, the wheel was taken over, unfortunately not by his hands. Jamie’s vehicle began a series of flips and turns. While the vehicle was crashing in on him, he was thrown out and forced onto the ground. When his body skidded across asphalt, and tumbled through the grass it made it hard to recognize his facial area. From all the flips in the vehicle, then being ejected from the vehicle, it had crushed his skull. He didn’t have a chance at life.” Jamie was demolished finally after the world stopped turning around him. The coroner pronounced Jamie Adams dead on scene at 6:36pm on October 8th, 2007.
Once again in tears, I didn’t know where to begin. In less than a two hour period I saw my whole life crumble before me. This all came about over an unconscious fight. Five years of my life just disappeared in an instant. The thought of that stupid fight just kept flashing in my head. The thought of never being able to take that fight back. Life was short and taken so soon. Now, two years later, I still live with the memories, the hurt, and the regret.

Lacey Hutchison

Pessimism at its Finest

2009-09-28T22:39:00.000-07:00

My second semester of senior year was a bit of a joke. My first block, I aided for a gym teacher who had a free period first block. Meaning I could come in late and when I did get there, I could watch sports center for an hour and a half. My second class of the day was a cooking class in which participation was the grade. My third class of the day was basically a student run psychology class where we could virtually talk the teacher out of giving us any work whatsoever, and my last class of the day was my only "real" class, and unfortunately was calculus.

On thursday I received an unusually large amount of homework one night and decided to put it off until my free hour and a half at the beginning of the day the following morning. There was my first mistake. I stroll into the gym the next day only to find out that there is a school wide assembly going on and was scheduled to take up all of first block. No problem, I think to myself, I'll just do it during second block. Wrong. I forgot we were cooking a big meal for one of our exams that day, which also took up the whole block. Now onto psychology where, first thing, my teacher collects the writing assignment that we were supposed to do last night. Needless to say, I didn't have it. So now, over the weekend, I had to finish the assignment that was due, and do ANOTHER one due to the fact that I didn't turn the first one in on time. Awesome. Now onto calculus where, again, my teacher collects homework first thing. I get a zero on the assignment and she proceeds to pass out tests from last week, which I found out that I failed. After receiving the tests, she gives us a new one to take. I didn't know this at the time, but I would end up failing that one as well. Now so far my day has consisted of a plethora of late grades on homework and two failing test grades. And I haven't even been to wrestling practice yet...

Now that you've seen my day through the school aspect, I'll walk you through my day through a wrestling perspective. The first thing that hits me this morning, and every morning, is the hunger. The last thing I ate was a granola bar at 8pm the night before. I get to have two pieces of bread for breakfast today, which needless to say, does absolutely nothing to help my hunger. All day I am hungry and dehydrated and tired and keep losing the little focus I have. At lunch, I'm forced to sit and watch my friends eat from the taco bar, which is absolutely superb by the way, while I eat my canned chicken and an apple.

Finally, school lets out and it's time to go to wrestling practice. I wrestle in 171 pound weight class, meaning that on saturday morning I have to weigh 171 pounds exactly or less in order to be qualified for the tournament. It's kind of an unspoken rule that if you don't make weight, coach beats your ass in practice the following week, and let's just say you never miss weight again. So before practice, I weigh myself hoping to see maybe 174 or 175 pop up on the red and black digital screen. When I saw the number, my stomach dropped. I weighed in before practice at a staggering 178.2 pounds. My coach peeks as the scale and just laughs. I had to lose 7.2 pounds before the following morning. Man, this day just keeps getting better and better. I layer myself in sweats and start running before practice begins. Then, a two hour practice ensues, and I stay after for about forty-five minutes and jumprope non-stop. When I'm done jump roping, I just lay down on the mat. I'm pretty sure I was paralyzed for a couple minutes. I had been running on empty all day and was ready to quit wrestling and school forever. As I was looking up at the fluorescent lights, I was wondering why I put myself through all this, and if it was worth it. I strip down and walk slowly over to the scale. 171.2. Good enough for me, I'll lose two pounds in my sleep.

I have can of chicken and a small glass of water for dinner, and as I'm laying in bed, pondering the universe, thinking about the fact that I have to wake up at five the next morning, I realized that the best thing that happened today was that I was only .2 pounds overweight at the end of wrestling practice, what a shitty day...

By Kyle Knight

To Have Loved and Lost

2009-09-28T20:47:00.000-07:00

It was the day I had been looking forward to yet seriously dreading for the past few months. I honestly don’t really remember that day very well. I’m not sure what I did, ate, or anything of that matter. That night, on the other hand, is very vivid in my mind.

I had plans to hang out with the guy I had been seeing for the past nine months. The doorbell rang three minutes before he said he would be there, but I was ready and excited about our evening out together. I smiled as I opened the door to see his beautiful face and looked into his gorgeous green eyes. He hugged me and came in and talked to my parents for a few minutes even though I was ready to leave and have some alone time.

“It was the polite thing to do,” he said.

Finally, it was time to leave. He opened the light blue Cadillac CTS passenger door, and I climbed in. We went to a nice restaurant called The Winter Garden, and sat down to a candle lit dinner. We hadn’t actually been out to do something nice on our own in a while, and it was nice to be “alone together” even though we were in a restaurant with several other people. Our waiter came to take our order and even though my date could have told him exactly what I wanted, he let me order a water and shrimp alfredo and just smiled as if to say, “you’re so predictable” since I always ordered some kind of alfredo. He ordered water, which was predictable, and chicken alfredo which I would have never guessed since he always changed up what he ordered. He wasn’t nearly as predictable as I was, but in my opinion that was part of the reason our relationship worked as well as it did. He kept me on my toes, and I loved it.

Our food came out as the live band started to play music. Halfway through our dinner a slow song came on, and he asked me to dance. We had never danced together, not once in the entire nine months that we were together. As the band played “For the Good Times” we danced, and I gazed into his soft eyes and realized that in that moment I was happier than I could ever remember being. I wanted to freeze time and spend forever in that moment, but I knew I couldn’t do that, and it hurt because I also knew that I wouldn’t have another moment like the one I was having for a long time.

The next morning I was supposed to be leaving for college nine hours away, and I had no clue what would happen to us after I left. Would we try to make things work or would we grow apart and never speak to each other again? I forced those thoughts out of my mind as we shared the most amazing chocolate cheesecake and an order of delicious tiramisu, which I had never tried before. As the desserts melted in my mouth, I made sure I didn’t think about the negative things. On my last night at home, all I wanted to do was be happy with this amazing man that I had only one more guaranteed night with.

Time flew by, and before I knew it, it was time for me to go home. He drove me home and when we arrived there he came into the house with me. After making our presence known so my parents wouldn’t worry, we sat on the couch hand in hand watching House, one of our favorite shows to watch together. We sat there for what seemed like an extremely short period of time and all too soon he said, “I need to be going. You have to drive a long way tomorrow, and you need to get some sleep so you won’t be tired.” I didn’t want to let him go, but we walked out onto the screened-in front porch of my house anyway. As he went to leave I asked him to stay with me for a little while longer. I practically begged him to stay until uncontrollable tears fell from my eyes. I felt as though I was having to say goodbye forever, and my heart was breaking into a trillion tiny pieces. It was the most horrific feeling ever. I hated watching him leave even when I knew I’d see him the next day, but this feeling, the uncertainty of whether or not I’d ever see him again, was unbearable. I stood there pulled into his chest, and cried on his shoulder as he held me tight.

I continually tried to stop the sobs and repeatedly failed. After what seemed like an eternity of crying, the man of my dreams took me inside and put me into my bed. I continued to ball my eyes out as I lay in my bed. He stood at my bedside, and his presence was enough for me. It was all I really wanted.
It had been nine months since the start of our relationship, nine long yet amazingly short months, and things weren’t supposed to be the way they were in that moment.

“I wasn’t supposed to be able to fall in love with you!” I said through tears as my voice cracked. “I wasn’t supposed to be able to fall in love with you.”

I wasn’t supposed to, but I did and the pain of the doubt that things would ever be the same was excruciating as I sobbed. He had been standing there at my bedside for what seemed like at least an hour. He promised to come see me in the morning before I left, and I could finally control my tears. There was at least one more time for me to see him and be held in his muscular arms as he hugged me. One more guarantee of slight happiness.He and I talked for a little while longer, and he kissed me goodbye for the night.

The night seemed to pass by extremely slowly. I tossed and turned in bed trying to get some sleep, but I couldn’t succeed at the task. Everything was going through my mind. There were so many uncertainties, and so much to wonder. What would the future hold for me? I had no idea, and I was like a small child trapped in a nightmare—helpless and afraid.

I finally fell asleep, and the morning arrived very shortly afterwards. The love of my life arrived at my house as he said he would to see me off. The two of us sat down in the dining room with my parents and my fourteen-year-old sister. We all discussed my future, and they all seemed assured that I would do great at Western Kentucky University, the place I had signed myself away to when I accepted my softball scholarship. The only thing I was certain of on the other hand was the fact that I would miss every single person sitting in that room with me.

It was time to leave even though I didn’t want to go quite yet. We walked out to the front yard. My little packed Scion tC sat in the driveway awaiting my departure. As I received the last kiss from the most amazing man that I would ever be sure of, I desperately wanted to stay and not leave for college, but I knew that I had to leave otherwise I would regret it.

“I meant everything I said last night,” I told him.

“I did too,” he said.

“I don’t like the ‘L’ word,” I said. “It scares me.”

“I don’t like it either. It’s ok.”

“Well, I ‘L’ word you,” I said with a grin.

“And I heart you,” he told me with a smile which made me grin even harder.

We both laughed at the childish comments that were made, and it felt good to laugh in the last moments of being with him. Neither of us wanted to cry so it definitely beat that.

I climbed in my Scion and drove away, leaving behind the only man that I have ever loved besides my father, and although it felt so wrong, it didn’t seem that awful. There seemed to be some hope for the two of us and even a little more hope for my future. I had never believed in a love so strong that it would last through anything, but in that moment, whether it was out of pure desire for something like that fairytale ending or something else, I felt as though there was such a thing as true love always.

Nine hours later I arrived at the Western Kentucky University campus. It was where I would be for the next four years. It was my new home, and surprisingly I liked it even more this time than the last two times I visited. I settled into my room, getting everything unpacked, and met my roommate who was also a softball player. Some of the other freshman girls on the softball team were also on our floor. I met them all, and somehow, by pure luck I guess, we all got along well. It was really nice because now I at least somewhat knew some people.

The next week, Master Plan week, was fun. It was the week before classes started when a majority of the incoming freshmen came in to meet new people and get to know the campus. I met a ridiculous amount of people that week, and every one of them was kind and welcoming. I met all the girls on my floor that week, and made some friends that would last forever. Western was a place that I was starting to feel comfortable in, and I enjoyed that comfort as much as I was starting to enjoy the school.

It’s been about a month and a half, and I’m still here at Western. Even though at times I wish I was home with my family and the most amazing man I’ve ever known, I can’t imagine myself anywhere else. I find myself enjoying my time here rather than disliking it more every day. I’m chasing my dream of playing Division I softball, and I’m glad none of the people I love asked me to give that up for them. I still keep in touch with all of them even though it’s hard to do sometimes because of my crazy schedule, but every time I talk to them it brightens my day and gives me hope for the next. I keep taking it one day at a time, and although I still don’t know what my future holds, I do know that no matter what, the people I love will always be there to support me.

by:Kimi Wagner

Legally Wrong

2009-09-28T20:06:00.000-07:00

It was the spring break of my senior year and I was so excited for the week ahead of me. I had been working so hard in school that I was ready for a break and I was definitely ready for some fun. My friends and I knew that this had to be the best spring break ever because it was our last one of high school.
Monday rolled around; the first official day of break. I picked up my two friends Krissy and Kate and we headed to Starbucks to make plans for the day. It was a beautiful sunny day in Cincinnati, Ohio and my friends and I were probably the happiest girls in Starbucks that early afternoon. We decided that even though we didn’t have very much money we would go to the mall and look around anyways.
The first store we went to was Dillards. As we entered the store we passed the shiny merchandise and went to the escalators. We headed to the second floor, which was the juniors department. The second floor of Dillards had become our new favorite place because we had shopped there for several occasions that year. We began picking up silky shirts and beautiful spring dresses. Even though we knew we couldn’t afford them we still wanted to experience the fun of seeing what we looked like in them. After gathering several articles of clothing my friends and I headed back to the dressing room.
Torturing ourselves, we stood and admired the beautiful clothes that were on our bodies. I had on the prettiest white silk shirt that was held up around my neck by a silver chain. Krissy had on a lacey tank top with the perfect flowing skirt to match. Kate had on a dress that hung perfectly on her body. We loved how we looked in the clothes and I knew that it was pointless to have even tried them on; but then Krissy said something that had never even crossed our minds. Krissy whispered, “You guys, we should just take the clothes!” Coming from a very religious family, I knew that stealing was wrong, but at the time all I could think about was how much I wanted that shirt.
Standing is the dressing room the three of us began whispering different strategies of how we could take the clothes. “We can just put on the clothes and then put our own clothes over them!” Kate whispered. “I’ll just stuff these shirts in my purse.” I said with a low voice. Lucky for us there were no sensors on the shirts so we didn’t have to worry about any alarms going off when we left the store. I ripped the tags off the shirt and shoved it in my purse. Krissy kept the tank top on and slipped her own shirt over to hide it; then put the skirt in her purse. Kate did the same thing as Krissy. She ripped off the tags and put on her own shirt over the beautiful new piece of clothing. My stomach was in knots. Even though there were no sensors I was still so scared that we would get caught. We opened up the dressing room door and walked out. We took the escalator back down to the first floor and headed towards the exit into the mall. My heart was pounding. I had never done anything like that before and I didn’t know if we were going to get away with it. We approached the exit. We were out. We were safe. Suddenly a rush of excitement went through me. Krissy and Kate began laughing; I joined them. I couldn’t believe we had gotten away with it, but in the back of my mind I could feel the guilt. We decided that since the previous mischief had been so easy, we might as well go to Macy’s and see if we saw anything we liked.
We entered Macy’s and went directly to the juniors’ section. This was much different than earlier in the day. We weren’t just looking anymore. We were looking to conquer because now we knew that the clothes could be ours; or at least we thought. We began gathering different articles of clothing. At this point it didn’t seem like we were doing anything suspicious; so we felt safe. Once we had gotten several items we headed towards the dressing room. In the dressing room I put two shirts in my purse while Kate and Krissy put more shirts on underneath the clothes they already had on along with the stolen shirts from the store before. “Do you guys have everything you want?” Krissy asked. “Yeah, yeah let’s just get out of here!” Kate whispered as she walked towards the door. We were ready to leave and that’s when the terrible knotting feeling in my stomach began again. We opened the door and walked out. An older female who was standing in the dressing room followed us with her dark eyes. I figured I was just being paranoid. We drew near the exit and once again we made it out safe. After about ten seconds of being out of the store a lady came up to us and pulled out a badge. “Good afternoon girls. I’m an undercover working for Macy’s,” she said sternly. “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.” At that moment my heart dropped. I had a huge lump in my throat and I desperately wished that I could take everything back.
The three of us followed the woman to the back of the store. She put Kate and I in a room together and put Krissy in a room next to us. I began crying and all I could think about was how disappointed my mom was going to be. I could barley handle it. I knew from the moment I put that first shirt in my bag that I was doing something wrong. The older woman from the dressing room came in, took our purses, and began pulling out the stolen clothes. She told us that if we were wearing anything to take it off because we were already in a lot of trouble. She started asking us questions; what our names were, how old we were, what our parent’s telephone numbers were and so many more questions that I can’t even remember because I was so scared and upset. After being interrogated they told us that they were going to call our parents. I felt absolutely horrible. Not only did I feel bad because I did something that I knew was wrong, but I knew that this would crush my parents. I come from a very religious family so situations such as this are a very big deal. Once the phone calls were made the undercover worker and the older woman came back into the room that Kate and I were sitting in. They told us that we were going to be fined for the clothes that we stole and that we weren’t allowed in that Macy’s for two years. When we were finally allowed to leave the undercover worker walked us out of the mall.
I called my mom when we got in my car and she said that we would talk when I got home. I dropped Krissy and Kate off at their houses and headed home. I walked in my front door and my parents were waiting for me in the living room. I started crying immediately and then tears filled my mom’s eyes. We sat in my living room for about an hour talking about the whole situation. The hardest part was that they weren’t even mad; they were just deeply disappointed in me. I had done something that was so out of character for me that it was going to take a long time for them to trust me again.
I was grounded for about two weeks. My spring break was completely ruined all because I thought I had the right to take something that wasn’t mine. It didn’t matter that I was grounded or that I didn’t get to have the spring break that I had hoped for. All that mattered was that I had let my parents down and I knew that I never wanted to hurt them again.

Kristi Genton

The Troubles of Imperfection

2009-09-28T19:46:00.000-07:00

I’ve always been a major perfectionist. When I was in Kindergarten, my teacher pointed this fact out to my mother. Mrs. Brown showed my mother where I had erased so much on my paper that it had holes. My mother worried that I would take this to an extreme and be a “worrier” in the future. She was correct. I’ve always worried myself to a frenzy over any little problem. I’ve tried to solve the problem, but it’s hard because of my grandmother. I’ve always felt like I had to “walk on eggshells” around her because she is always judgmental of everything I do. Since I have a very tenderhearted personality, it’s hard for me to let her know my thoughts and feelings.

“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen you?” she shrieks.

“No, Grandmama.”

“Five weeks! Five! You’re staying too busy. What have you been doing every night? You need to be staying at home and getting rest. It’s not good for you to be running around all the time!” My grandmother was completely serious when she said that. She really thought that everyone should sit at home all the time unless it was necessary to be out. I was actively involved in high school with cheerleading and other extra-curricular activities, not to mention I had a social life as well. It didn’t matter though, nothing was ever good enough for her.

“Kelsey, you’re acting right aren’t you? You know right from wrong. You know you’re not supposed to sleep with boys before you’re married. How much time are you spending with this boy? Is he going to be able to take care of you?” My grandmother asked as she passed the mashed potatoes and gravy around the table. I always thought grandparents were supposed to spoil you and love you unconditionally. I suppose every family is different, but my family isn’t one to be harsh natured.

“Yes, Grandmama, I’m acting right. I’m spending enough time with him, but not too much that I can’t get my work done. If I was planning on marrying him I would worry about whether or not he could take care of me. Since I have no plans of getting married right now, I’m not going to worry about that.”

“Hmph” was the only response I got from her. However, that didn’t mean her speech was over.

“Well, I know you’ve been talking about going to college. You don’t need to. You just need to find a good husband that will be good to you and take care of you.” How do you respond to something like that? I would never choose to be taken care of by my husband. Moreover, I definitely would not lose the opportunity to go to college and get an education. Even though my parents told me to be respectful of my grandmother, I couldn’t let that one go.

“I want to go to college. I don’t want to have to depend on anyone else to take care of me. Who knows if I’ll even get married? Who’s to say that if I do get married, I won’t end up getting a divorce and having to provide for myself and two or three kids? Women can do more than be housewives.” Needless to say, that didn’t please her. Her eyes on me felt like needles piercing my skin. I could tell that my parents were mortified, and I was nervous. I could feel the beads of sweat building on my forehead. It felt like an eternity until she finally responded to me.

“You need to be saving your money. Any extra money you have needs to be put in savings in case you ever need it. I know you’re wasting all you make on running around and eating out. Eating out all the time is expensive. You’re living beyond your means. Just because other people are doing that doesn’t mean you have to.”

By this point, I was tired of the lecturing and complaining. I wanted to sprint out of that house as fast as I could. My temper was flaring and my heart was racing. Her beady eyes stayed on me the entire time. My parents were staring down at their plates waiting for my next move. I wanted to tell her how I hated her attitude and constant rants. How she made me feel like the scum of the earth every time I went to see her. I wanted to let it all out at that point. But, of course, I let it go.

A Cancerous Evening

2009-09-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

Blake Allen
Dr. Molly McCaffrey
ENG 100-6
5 October 2009

A Cancerous Evening

It was an early summer morning. When my father a thirty-one year old man who looked to be in the best shape of his life, left for the hospital (Sometime during the summer of 2000).I was just nine years old, and had not known the purpose of this visit, maybe a simple check-up I wondered. My siblings and I imagined the things he might be doing whether it was intense surgery, or maybe the doctor is letting him ride around in an ambulance. In the back of my mind I thought perhaps something was wrong. That possibly it wasn’t just a check-up. I didn’t say anything about it. My siblings always thought I worried too much so i kept to myself.

Hours went by, and still no sign of my parents. I suddenly heard the rocks crumbling in the driveway and the doors of the car close softly. We all ran to the door as we used to do, when mom or dad would arrive home. Mom had an upset look on her face but also scared, as for dad he walked in quiet and nervous like he had something to say. Immediately this worried all of us kids because dad was never the one to be quiet. They told us to go into the living room and sit on the couch, and that they would join us in a minute. We had a big couch that took up most of the room, so we all jumped on and took a seat. We would usually go to this couch whenever there was an important announcement for the family. But those minutes I sat there seemed like hours. As I sat on that couch I wondered what was so important to tell us. Finally my dad walked into the room with my mom right behind, and said

“Guys you may or may not know the meaning of what I’m about to tell you, or what it is that is wrong. But I have cancer, non Hodgkin’s lymphoma to be exact. I’m going to be ok” he said in a voice of what seemed like horror.

I looked at everyone after he said those last words and nobody really knew what to do or say.
I thought to myself

“What if he’s not ok?”

So there I sat for a few minutes quite confused with all these thoughts soaring throughout my head. The house had been at a dead silence for while. I sat waiting for mom or dad to do something or maybe one of my brothers to react. But nothing happened. Everyone had been staring at the ground not knowing how to take the news. When dad suddenly started to cry. Almost immediately after, it seemed everyone was crying and I had felt tears running down my face like never before. I could not control it. Never had I experienced something like that moment. I stood up and ran to my father. I wrapped my arms around him and then felt everyone else join in. For that moment in time we all forgot about the cancer, for we were a family, stronger than any other.

As everything started to settle down mom and dad had started a movie for the family to watch together. The movie went on and one by one it seemed everyone was falling asleep. Except me, I could not bring myself to the realization that dad would be ok. I had heard so many things about cancer at my young age, and had never heard a success story. I had been looking over at my father trying to be secretive when he spotted me. He had gotten up and walked towards me, and held me. Rocking me back and forth. I then told him simply that I was scared. He looked down to me then told me repeatedly

“Blake I know this is scary. But I will be ok there is nothing you need to be worried about.”

I didn’t say anything. I sat there thinking of everything he had done for me and all that he meant to me. Again I broke down. He kissed my forehead as I looked up at him and saw a tear rolling down his face. I had started to fall asleep. When he told me,

“Never forget how much all of you mean to me, I love each and every one of you and will die for all of you. I will always be here. ‘This family is stronger than anyone person or thing in this world and no matter what happens we will be there for each other.”

When I heard these words it gave me a certain comfort that I cannot explain. But I felt at that moment everything was going to get better and all would be fine. I then fell calmly asleep in dad’s arms. Not worrying about anything or anyone. Almost as if I had no care in the world.

Eye Problems?

2009-09-28T18:53:00.000-07:00

Eye Problems?

I was thirteen years old, just a seventh grade kid. I was an honor student, an athlete, and a student council member. Never really had any history of medical problems, only a broken bone or two, nothing at all serious through my life.

One day in religion class, our teacher was lecturing and writing on the dry erase board. Religion class was always very easy no matter what age group or grade, so it got quite boring. This particular day was one of those boring days. So as my teacher was writing on the dry erase board I was day dreaming and thinking about what I was going to do when I got home. Then I began reading what was on the board, but I wasn’t really paying attention to exactly what it was I was reading. So I got bored and randomly closed one eye to read and then the other. I noticed my vision was not nearly the same in both my eyes. I turned to the girl next to me; Rachel was her name. I asked, “Can you see clearly with both of your eyes?”

She replied back to me, “Well… yeah!” as if I were joking.

I sat there and kept checking both eyes. Right and then left, over and over to make sure this was correct. I came out with the same result every time; that my right eye was definitely a lot worse than my left.

As I came home that day I told my mom of course what I had noticed. When I first told her she did not believe me. So it was time to test it out and prove I wasn’t making it up. She wrote with big letters on a piece of computer paper, and stood on the other side of the kitchen as I sat at the bar. I covered my right eye, and could read everything perfectly, all the words without hesitation. Then covered the left; this time however, I could not read it at all. We knew something wasn’t right, but didn’t know how to treat it at first. Do we go to the doctor right away, who do we tell, who can help? Those types of questions went through our heads all day.

About a week later I had practice for my travel baseball team. I hadn’t seen a doctor yet. I was always a good hitter as well as defender when it came to baseball. In fact in every sport I never had any noticeable vision problems. My coach, who happened to be my best friends’ dad, was giving soft toss. Soft toss is when somebody is on one knee and while on one side of you they underhand a ball for you to hit; a very easy, routine drill that we did at almost every practice. It was my turn and I was ready to hit. The first ball goes, I swung and missed. Then the second, third, fourth, I missed every single one. He looked at me and I looked at him with disbelief. I took a deep breath to settle down and clear my head. We soon started again, but with the same results missed every single one.

As one would guess my mom and I were in the eye doctors’ office within the next week. I took so many tests; I had never been to the Optometrist before. So we had to do everything that first visit. After not doing so well with the reading from a distance portion of the tests they had to take pictures of my eyes. Unfortunately the pictures did not turn out well for me. He had never seen anything like it; he had no idea what it was. He had told my mom and me that I would never be a pilot, or never be able to drive and possibly never be able to participate in athletics. This obviously freaked my mom out. I was worried but I told myself long before this had happened that no one or anything was going to bring me down and keep me down.

We traveled the entire state for the next few months looking, searching for an eye surgeon or Opthamologist, who would be willing to operate without worry or hesitation. Everyone we talked to would not do it. Imagine going to see the best of the best doctors and have them tell you they don’t know exactly what it is and they cannot help you.

In about three months time my mom had found a doctor in Cleveland, Ohio who seemed like he could help. So on to Cleveland we went. We finally get there and this hospital is very nice, The Cleveland Clinic it was called. As we walked in, it definitely boosted our spirits because it looked like a top of the line establishment. It is our turn to see the doctor, I cannot recall his name. We do all of the tests. It became routine for me, I found myself doing things they needed before they would ask because I had done it so many times before. After the tests he left to examine everything. He returned and regretfully told us he will not attempt the surgery because he is uncomfortable with it. He did not want to make a mistake because me being so young it could be a very fragile area of the eye. But all was not lost with this doctor. He recommended us to an Opthamologist near us. His name is Dr. Anthony Capone, the guys’ mentor. He tells us he is the best doctor in the country when it comes to dealing with these things.

We go see Dr. Capone a few weeks later. The hospital where he worked was in Beaumont. Beaumont is about two hours from where I live. He comes in to see us and of course we go through all the routine procedures. After everything he tells us exactly what it is. A condition called F.E.V.R, where a person has too many blood vessels in their eye. This causes blood to leak onto the eye creating a scar over it. On top of that scar blocking my vision I also had a detached retina. But he didn’t shy away from anything. He spoke directly to me and told me what he could do for me. I was one hundred percent comfortable with him and the overwhelming confidence and reassurance he gave me. I had seven eye surgeries with that man. He helped my vision increase immensely and I could not thank him enough. Dr. Capone uses my story, pictures, and medical history as examples for teaching about the disease overseas and in the United States.

I have very minor vision problems now. Although I do not have any depth perception, doctors have told me that I am just used to it so I compensate for it. They told me I would never play any kind of sport especially contact sports or a sport like baseball where one would obviously need exceptional depth perception and vision. They all said this, all but one Dr. Capone. I was a three sport Varsity athlete in the following sports, football, baseball, and basketball. I had All-League honors in each and was a three year lettermen, two time District Champion, two time Regional Champion and a League Champion, in the sport they said “I would not be able to excel in,” baseball. I am proud of this not because of the accolades but because I proved to myself what I can do and what others can do if they keep going in life with a positive attitude, and they surround themselves with good, positive people as well.

Myles Allen

Fitting In by Not Fitting In

2009-09-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

I applied to the Xposure Journalism Workshop in March, was accepted in April, and attended from June 10 to 21 2007. It used to be called the Dow Jones Minority Journalism Workshop, but the program lost its sponsorship, changed names, and started accepting everyone. When I arrived on the Western Kentucky University campus, for registration and a meet-and-greet, I wasn’t paying attention to the other workshop participants. At the barbeque party the workshop directors threw for us I noticed, amidst the smoke of the grill and the plates of hotdogs and hamburgers, something that immediately set me apart from everyone else: my lack of melanin.

It’s okay, I thought. I can get along with anyone, no matter the race.

After the barbeque party, we made the trek to the residence hall we would call home for two weeks. I hung back from the rest of the group, silently contemplating how I would try to fit in. I used to have this habit of developing personas based on the people around me, so that I would be accepted. As I combed through all the personas I had used in the past, I came across one I had never used: myself. Over the course of the workshop, I came to the realization that this “persona” was the best I had ever used.

When my roommate, Johnathan, and I got to our room, we unpacked and talked. His heritage was black and Hispanic; mine wasn’t. We had so many similar interests though: a common affinity for Japanese culture, similar musical tastes, and a shared appreciation for writing. We were different, but nobody would be able to tell if they had heard us talking that night.

The next day, I became more acquainted with the other workshop participants. We talked over eggs and bacon in the morning, in the class room in between lectures, and in the cramped rooms of the residence hall. That first official day of the workshop was an almost non-stop gabfest. The workshop directors thought it was because we had to write profile articles on one another, but it was more than that.

The following day, during the time I wasn’t listening to a lecture or writing, I talked to Johnathan and two girls. Nirasha and Tiffany were their names, and just like with Johnathan, I learned we had similar interests.

A few days later, after a week of nonstop listening and writing, we used our Friday evening to go to the mall. Johnathan and I, along with another boy I had come to talk with frequently named Daniel, traversed the mall together. We looked like the strangest mixture of people but we knew that we were really one homogenous group. We were different, but nobody would be able to tell if they had seen who we really were.

Two days later, on Sunday, Johnathan, Nirasha, Tiffany, Daniel, and all the other workshop participants decided to hold a prayer service, in lieu of going to church. I didn’t attend because I didn’t normally attend church or other prayer services. That fact didn’t alienate me from them, or lower their respect for me. Everyone understood that even in a group as tight as ours, we wouldn’t always be exactly the same.

As the workshop was coming to a close we began preparations for our goodbyes. We could hear them rattle around in our brains; they kept coming close to our lips, but we didn’t let them out yet. Our bodies started bracing themselves for embraces, and our eyes dammed up our tear ducts for the eventual torrent.

Before the workshop I had rarely truly been myself. Johnathan, Nirasha, Tiffany, Daniel, and everyone else in the workshop brought out who I really am. We had shared interests, common experiences, and similar personalities, but we were different in several ways. Race was the difference I had immediately noticed at the barbeque, but there were other diversions. Those differences didn’t matter though, because those differences are what made us get along so well. We all managed to fit in by not fitting in with each other.

And in the end, we were different, but nobody would be able to tell if they had watched us those twelve days.

By Noah Frederick

Learning Truth

2009-09-28T13:47:00.000-07:00

Jacob Turner, or Joo Sung Lee, was born in Seoul, South Korea on June 1, 1996. On November 18, 1996, I along with the rest of the Turner family welcomed this little boy as an addition to our home in Louisville, KY. Nothing ever seemed different to me growing up as a child. Jacob was never seen or treated differently than any other member of the family. He was Asian, but nationality was never a factor to us. He was a Turner, my brother, my friend. And to that little boy, I was not only a member of the family; I was his protector and role model.

Everything I did, he would copy, and continue doing over and over again until he too, could do it. But then there came a point in life, when he was about six or seven years old, where things started to seem odd. When Jacob spoke, he could not pronounce any vowels, only consonants. He also had a particularly hard time remembering the alphabet, writing, and reading. My mother put him through speech therapy and tutoring from that point on. Eventually, he transferred to a local public elementary school that had teachers that specialized in learning disabilities. All seemed under control until the first week of school started.

It was strange; Jacob would come home from school every day and run up to his room and cry. I was the only one in the family that ever noticed it. He never wanted to play or talk to anyone, which was not like him. He just seemed miserable. So one day after school, I followed him to his room and asked him what was wrong.

He then began to say, “Jordan, I have no friends. Nobody likes me there. I sit alone at lunch, play alone on the playground, and get tripped and pushed just because I am Korean. They always tell me I am dumb because I cannot read, and Asians are supposed to be smart. I am the retarded Asian. Jordan, what is wrong with me? I hate this.”

Then he just started crying, and would not stop for hours.

The next day was a Friday. Every Friday my brother had tutoring at an elementary school walking distance from our house. It just so happened I was off school for a long weekend, so I volunteered to take him to his tutoring lesson.

I only had to have been there for about twenty minutes before I saw my brother walk out into the hallway, where I was sitting, to go find the restroom. I had placed myself comfortably in the hallway right across from the water fountain, and on either side of me were the men and women’s restroom. My brother walked past me and disappeared behind the closed door to the boy’s bathroom.

The next thing I heard was a scream. That’s all I heard; the sound of my younger brother screaming from behind that closed door. Without even thinking, I ran in.

When I walked around the corner of the bathroom of this elementary school, I saw my brother curled up in a ball in the corner of the bathroom covering his head with his hands. Hovering over him was a slightly taller boy who looked about the same age as I was.

He was yelling at Jacob telling him, “Go back to where you came from. You can not even talk right! What is wrong with you? Asians are supposed to be smart; you’re just the dumb Asian kid who cannot read or even talk! You are such a loser!”

Well, to this kid’s surprise, he had a much unexpected visitor in the room with him. Without hesitation, having only the picture of my brother huddled in the bathroom corner completely helpless, I went after him. I had never been so brave and tough in my life. I had a rush of adrenaline going through my veins that could have allowed me to lift cars or run through burning buildings. Whatever I had to do to make sure my brother was safe. I ran up to this kid, I never caught his name, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and spun him around so fast I am sure I gave him whiplash. I towered over him and pushed him up against the wall.

I glared at this boy with such disgust. I hated everything about him. I hated the little smirk he had stretched across his chubby, sun-burned face, and I despised the fact that he thought he was so much more superior to everyone else walking those school halls. Well, I felt this would be the perfect opportunity for a reality check.

I looked at him and said in a very stern, quiet voice, “Get the hell off my brother. Not so big and tough now, are you? How would you feel to get beat up by a girl? Bet all your friends would love that.”

He replied in a shaky voice, “Dude, please don’t do that! I would never live it down.”

I just looked at him. I stared at him for a couple minutes and then finally said, “Then step away. Back down and never even look my brother in the eye again, or I will make sure to invite all your friends to watch me kick your butt. You think you can make fun of my brother? Yeah well, I guess you must feel really cool beating up a kid half the size of you. Walk away.”

The kid ran out, and I never saw him again.

My brother never went back there after that day in the bathroom. I told my mom everything that had happened. I could not get it through my head why everyone was so mean and cruel to my brother, but they acted normal towards me.

I grew up that day in the bathroom. I learned boys cry too, even the tough ones. That a child’s biggest fear is what their friends will think of them. I also realized something else, no one is perfect. We all have our flaws, and there is nothing we can do to escape it. Life is in no way an easy thing to get through, but as my dad always told me, “If everything in life came easy, a person could never become stronger.” And through my little brother, I discovered the misunderstandings about stereotypes.

BY Jordan Turner

Fantastical Nightmare

2009-09-27T16:07:00.000-07:00

Even after a year and a half of my ex-boyfriend Marshall calling me drunk, I still could not help but show compassion for him. I met him on April 24, 2006 of my freshman year in high school. As a trusting, naïve freshman with Marshall as my first boyfriend, though, I believed that he was “The One” I was going to marry. He was the boy of my stereotypical childhood fairytale. My fantasy relationship was too “good” to last though and disintegrated at my feet four months later. Marshall became a pagan and was demonstrating outwardly disturbing tendencies, such as setting his pants on fire while he was still wearing them. I immediately decided I wanted to break up with him. What I did not realize though was it would take another separation before I would be rid of him entirely.

A year and a half after our first break up, I had not seen Marshall, yet I was still determined to work things out. I even attempted “phone dating” him so we could at least talk during the six-month period my mom designated as “Marshall-free” time. Needless to say, though, his questionable habits resurfaced, and I began to desperately look for my way out. I tried avoiding Marshall, but I did not realize that my true saving grace would be embodied in another man.

On November 11, 2007 of my junior year, a couple months after Marshall and I started talking again, I met Jeff Logsdon when I was playing matchmaker between two of my friends. I was still phone dating Marshall and did not want to be “unfaithful” in my practically non-existent relationship, but there was something about Jeff that had me unconditionally in love with him. I knew then I had to separate myself from Marshall completely.

The next morning, I sat in class contemplating how I was going to extinguish my ties with Marshall for good. After being apart for so long, I expected it to be easy. He had also told me a few nights before that he still had feelings for another ex-girlfriend of his, so I thought maybe I could use that as an escape hatch. I was looking for anything to get me out of the whole situation.

After countless deliberation, I decided lunch would be the best time to break up. Being at school, I figured the atmosphere of everyone around me would make the process easier. I was set on making it brief and simple. I rehearsed what I was going to say over and over again like a broken record.

When the bell rang for lunch, I steadied my heartbeat and made the call.

“Marshall, I was thinking. You told me the other night that you still loved Haley, and she still loves you. Well I think that if you two still feel strongly about each other, we should break up, and you can move to Texas with her. I feel bad that me being in high school is holding you back.”

I waited anxiously for a response, but what I hoped was only going to be a few minutes turned into almost three and a half hours in my school counseling office.

Marshall did not take what I had to say lightly at all. From the moment I said break up, he began to exclaim every profanity ever verbalized. It was like a treacherous sea of emotion whirl pooling me into a bottomless trench of guilt.

“It’s another guy isn’t it!?” Marshall shouted accusingly.

“No, it’s not!” I said, secretly attempting to compose the raging dam of tears behind my eyes.

With my walls of composure weakening, I quietly commanded, “Don’t worry about it.”

Marshall grew quiet in preparation for his next bombardment of blasphemies. I desperately wanted him to stop, but he proceeded to spear at my emotions with an unforgettable tone of harshness. Instantly, I realized how utterly immature I had been to put myself in that position.

“I hope that someday a guy rapes you, takes your virginity, and gets you pregnant.”

Marshall’s “curse” of rape is what reincarnates itself in my memory the most. He knew rape has been one of my most prominent fears and deliberately used my fear against me. I have been lucky to not have experienced that horror, but it still hurt to be talked to so degradingly.

Still sitting outside my school cafeteria, far past the end of my lunch, I made my way to the counseling office with Marshall’s tyrannical rampage continually buzzing in my ear. I figured it would be better to be on the phone in the counseling office than get a detention for not being in class. My counselor from freshman year let me use her office to talk to Marshall. I felt dreadfully embarrassed, but I did not know where else to go.

As my phone began to die, Marshall made his last blow at my withering affections. He threatened to take his life, and I took the bait. When it was all over, Marshall had duped me yet again. My dean of students had called EMS, but when EMS arrived, Marshall was totally fine. I felt like a gullible idiot.

What made everything more humiliating though was Jeff had been waiting outside to see me before he went to work. I apologized for longer than could possibly be written, but Jeff comforting my exhausted body let me know my nightmare was finally over.

Marshall had toyed with my vulnerability for the last time. All the drama did not amount to anything, but I should have known better than to attempt to renew my youthful apparitions. In the end though, I realized it is not possible for all fairytales to have a happy ending, but there can always be a new beginning.

Equality Today, Not What it Should Be

2009-09-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

As we go through our day-to-day lives, there is a ton of things that just fly by us without us even giving them a second thought. Or maybe for whatever reason, people just choose to pretend like they don’t see these things. But there’s one in particular that I am sick of letting it just “fly by me,” and I think it’s time I say something about it… Why is it that it’s okay for a College or University to label itself an all black college, but if any school tried to label itself an all white college, it would be thought of as racist?

I’ve said it jokingly with my friends dozens of times, “Why can’t I go to an all white college? I mean, it’s not racist, black people do it every day. I just want to get in touch with my roots… ” Every time I get the same response… “No way bro, that’s totally racist.” Seriously, what the hell!? I thought we were all in it for equality, right? I guess not…

It’s no question that racism is not equality. And given, as a nation, The United States has put together a lot of effort to in the past to get rid of all segregation and racism from our belief system. But has it really reached the stage that we want it to, or is it just taking another form?

If you quickly browse the Internet on the topic, it’s not hard to find that there are over 80 Accredited Colleges and Universities in America that claim to be a “Historically Black” School. (“historically black” is a cheap disclaimer to their name, that’s totally just a cop-out.) And if you continue your search, you’ll find that there are zero Colleges or Universities that have anything to do with being a “White” school. (I think that other colleges that didn’t accept blacks in the 60’s should be labeled as a “historically white college.” I mean, that’s what they are, right? Both types of colleges gladly accept all races now, through legal mandates, but if it’s okay for one to label itself as a “race specific” university, then it should be okay for the other.) Now some would argue that there are plenty of historically white schools in this country, and that I am arguing towards a mute point… But they’re missing out on what I’m getting at. It’s the label I’m arguing, towards, not the fact. The majority of schools in America are historically white schools. But they’re not labeled as one. It’s a given, right? If it’s not historically black, then it’s historically white. No label needed. WRONG! That is not equality. Either the labels need to go, or they need to be accepted for any school. Period. America is has made so many great strides towards equality in the past! We can’t just let it stop now…

I believe that all people are created as equals, and that no one should be tied to a skin color or nationality. But in order to obtain this equality, it has to be enforced to all, not just those who have had problems with it in the past. Giving one race, religion, or category of people special rights, privileges, or advantages is a just as racist and unequal as denying them from them. I mean seriously, at the rate things are going in this country, white people are going to have to fight for freedom from racism just as African Americans did throughout the 1900’s.

Shouldn’t the common courtesy of being equal be shared to everyone?

But think about it… Can’t you just hear the controversy and uproar already, an all white, or even historically white college. I can see it now…John Stewart would tear that apart. It’s because, already, your mind tells you, “all white” equals racist. THIS ISN’T RIGHT! America has to get rid of these preset and assumed judgments that all white people are racist against blacks, that are being pushed upon the up and growing generations of our nation. I believe it’s setting us up for one hell of a bad future. Imagine, the revolts and protests for equality of the mid 1900’s turned on its head and back for round two in the mid 2000’s.

I just don’t want to sit around and watch it happen. So what am I proposing? That the racism and segregation in the country be stopped. REALLY STOPPED! I know that calling a school historically black, or any color for that matter, is not exactly a hot issue in the press today, but that doesn’t mean it should be ignored. To truly achieve the equality this country deserves, you can’t just sweep little issues under the rug and forget they every happened. That does nothing… It’s something that I believe has a simple solution, that would be far too difficult to achieve unless we were all really in it together.

I want to be equal! I want the same rights and privileges as everyone else! I want what’s right! And I want what’s fair!

- Anthony Falcone -

Quit Stalking me on Facebook Mom!

2009-09-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

Every teenager needs a little privacy from their parents. That’s why we get things like Facebook. A place where we can talk to our friends, post certain pictures of our crazy weekends, and not have to worry about mommy and daddy checking up on us. We would go crazy if they knew everything we did all of the time. The thing is is that it’s hard for that to happen when our parents are on Facebook stalking our every move.

Facebook started out as a way for college kids to keep in touch with each other. Soon after this college craze took over, high schooler’s started using it as well. That is when I got my Facebook account. I thought it was cool that I knew what everyone was up to but it wasn’t like I was stalking them, their status updates and pictures just popped up on my news feed. After a few months of having a Facebook account, my parents figured out what it was and decided they needed one to. It was okay at first because they just got on there to find some old friends from high school and catch up. Now they want to add my friends and try to be the cool parents and talk to everyone. I don’t think so Mom. Just because my friends talk to you when they see you at Wal-Mart does not give you the right to be Facebook friends with them.It really pisses me off when I get a call from my mom or dad and they are like umm what were you doing at this house? Or why were you with this person when you were supposed to be with someone else? I am 18 years old and I can take care of myself thank you very much. I moved away to college for a reason and they just don’t seem to understand. I mean it’s okay if my mom calls me like once a day to check up on me and see what I’m doing, but when she calls me every time I update my status or add new pictures it makes me want to scream!

Now don’t get me wrong, there are parents on Facebook who actually keep to their own business and don’t bother their kids. But when they are like this most likely their kids are 30 years old and have kids of their own and haven’t lived with mom and dad for 15 years. My mom however still thinks I’m in 3rd grade and that I need her permission to add a new friend on Facebook. It KILLS me when she sees that I have added someone new and takes it upon herself to add them too. She has to check out everybody and then give me her opinion about that person. I don’t care if she likes the person or not. It’s my life and my Facebook and I can be friends with whoever I want.

The last and biggest thing that gets on my nerves about my mom having a Facebook account is when she writes on my wall and on my friends walls.

Mom I know that you love me and I’m your favorite daughter, you don’t have to tell me on my wall 13 times a day. Thanks. My friends also know that you love me so you don’t have to tell them either. Another thing, when I don’t write you back after you ask me how my day has been there is a reason for that. I don’t want to talk to you on Facebook. One simple phone call can take care of all the above mentioned.

I thought in the beginning it was cool that my mom had a Facebook account. When I thought she would mind her own business and her friends and not bother with me or mine. I try to tell her all the time to know her limits but she always seems to forget what they are. It’s’ kinda like telling a small child that they don’t need all of that candy before dinner but they eat it anyway. Mom,I don’t need you to tell me who I can and can’t be friends with. I don’t need to ask for your permission when I go out with my friends at night. I don’t have to explain myself every time you see a picture of me and you don’t know exactly where I was. I am in college now. I live on my own. I make my own rules. I’m responsible for my own actions. I know you are worried about me, but I can make it without you Facebook stalking me all of the time.

Victoria Watkins

Hilltoppers Class of '13 said...
This post has been removed by the author.
September 10, 2009 11:33 AM
Hilltoppers Class of '13 said...
Whats working: The idea for the blog is great, its a legitimate thing to discuss and is a good thing to bring up, overall its just good.Suggestions: Change the title to have something to do with parents.By: Aaron Gingerich
September 10, 2009 11:34 AM
Molly McCaffrey said...
The title is outstanding and very funny too--Aaron is right that you might want to mention your parents though. Maybe you could say "Quit Stalking me on Facebook, Mom!" I also think your voice is just right. I especially love this line: "I don’t think so mom. Just because my friends talk to you when they see you at Wal-Mart does not give you the right to be Facebook friends with them." (Though "Mom" should be capitalized when you are addressing her directly.) And I laughed out loud when I read about your mom adding friends that you've added. Also, when you say your mom has to know her limits, it's both funny and interesting. Maybe you should compare her to a young child doing something wrong and having to learn about their limits. If you do, be sure to come up with a specific example. The second and third paragraph need to be flipped because the third is really an extension of the introduction.Also, the thesis and reasons are not yet stated as clearly as they need to be. In fact, I wonder if your thesis should be that "Parents should not be friends with their children on Facebook" or even "Parents should not interact with their children on Facbook" because that would be a more clear assertion of your main point. Then your reasons could be more clearly stated too. (Because they're not yet.) Also, the paragraph about writing on the wall should be separated from the point about why you don't respond to her questions because those are two separate ideas. A minor point: I don't think you have "a Facebook." I think you should say that you have a "Facebook account."
September 11, 2009 8:23 PM

High School Football Coach or...Manslaughter Convict?

2009-09-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

As a former high school football player, I have been very intrigued in the ongoing trial of former Pleasure Ridge Park High School coach Jason Stinson. I have been following the case day by day reading and listening to various testimonies. Just to be clear, there is no mistaking the fact that a tragedy occurred that hot August day and a vibrant young athlete lost his life. It is also apparent to me that for a parent to lose a child must be the most devastating and life changing event that could ever occur. But to accuse this coach of manslaughter almost seems as though the parents are just looking to blame someone for the loss of their child. Again, having played the sport for 4 years in high school and 2 years in junior high, I am fully aware of the requirements and demands made by the coaches and staff. There have been many days that I thought I would collapse in the heat, going in full gear at 3:00 in the afternoon on a hot July or August day. Practicing day after day in the sweltering heat can eventually take its toll on you. All of the coaches make the same basic demands and they are all regulated by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA). The KHSAA not only enforce rules upon the coaches and their staff, but also they make all of the rules. As has been shown in all of the school investigation of this case, Coach Stinson followed all KHSAA on that tragic day. To make a long story short, the father of the victim was at the practice and not one time during practice showed any concern that the kids were being over worked in the heat. The victim was on a certain ADHD medication that causes increased dehydration and other effects that may increase the risk of heat exhaustion. So, there are a lot of facts in this case that I think should exonerate the coach from criminal charges, but his career and his life have been shredded in a million pieces.

When you think about it, there are tons of people that could be to blame, if blame is what you're looking to place. There were other students who said that the player complained all day of feeling bad, could they be to blame since they didn't try and stop him from practice that afternoon? There is the maker of the drug Adderall who list the possible side effects on their package inserts, but they don't warn against practicing football in the heat, should the drug company be to blame? There were the parents who knew the side effects of the drug and what possibly could happen when on the medication and being in the heat. They didn't stop their son from being on the football team, should they be to blame?

Again, this is an absolute tragedy, but so many factors play a role and it seems impossible to me to put blame on one person, the head football coach, for the death of this high school player. The coach who puts hours and hours of time in for these kids to even have a football team. The coach who made all of the players run (as all high school coaches do). There was no difference in this coach than any other high school coach that would run a practice. He was just in an unfortunate situation where this tragedy occurred. I think the parents who are pressing charges should step back and take a look at themselves rather than trying to put blame on someone else.

By: Ben Spencer

Theres Sumthin In The Water..!!??

2009-09-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

Before I even graduated from high school there were so many of the younger girls getting pregnant. They weren’t just from my school, but all around town. It seemed every other week there was another one. My response would always be, OMG!..U SERiOUS…theres sumthin in the water! But no!. There aint nothing in the water. There just doing it to themselves…on purpose??? U would think! It jus didn’t make any sense. It was absolutely ridiculous! Shit happens but there are plenty of ways for it to be prevented. *Keep your legs closed. * Wrap it up. * Simply get on the pill. Its such a big deal and these LiTTLE GiRLS just don’t get it. They may think they’re ready but they not!

There’s this one group of friends and out of SiX of them ONLY TWO haven’t been knocked up YET. Sad to say but they’re most likely to be next. They’re on the same o’ stuff too!....So I was right! Sittin at home on facebook and I get a txt from my girl talking about, [[girl tell me y …. is pregnant!]] No shocker at all…I had already told myself she was next!.. When you walk around telling people your pregnant cause you want a little bit of attention knowing damn well your not & on top of that all you ever talk about is how you hate to use condoms….ummmm that’s what happens!

It makes me so mad, and you’re probably wondering what the hell do I care for? I better just be glad it aint me. TRUE! But I personally know these LiTTLE GiRLS and it pisses me off because they’re all so pretty, could be smart and could have so much going for themselves but they’re tryna grow up too fast. Wanting a little bit of attention and now they really have it being the talk of the town. Okay it’s not the end of the world and its possible for them to take care of their kids and finish school and even go off to college. It’s just not going to be easy and takes a alot of time and work. Anythings possible and they can get past this mitake they’ve made. How far they get is the big Q! I wish them the best of luck BUT I still don’t feel sorry for them at all!

To wrap it all up all I have to say is don’t be like them and go out of your way and character for attention and to make others happy when your not happy with what your doing Your going to more than likely end up like these girls walkig around with a baby bump by someone who cares nothing about you nor does he want to be with you. Look at what your then stuck with. That aint even koo! Its not one of the most smartest choices so don’t put yourself in the position of letting it happen to you. Be Smart!
By: Tiara Cambron

Who Doesn't Want to be Angelina Jolie?

2009-09-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

I am so tired of people blabbering on and on about being good citizens and all that crap. Like what, you go and recycle? Or let me guess, you give money to your church every Sunday? Like seriously, kudos to you. I mean sure, that’s great and all, but have you ever considered doing more? Like, actually taking a giant leap and adopting to change a life, a child’s life, instead of just doing the bare minimum and saying you are some kind of ‘hero” in this world.

So, my biggest pet peeve in this entire freakin’ world is when people actually give a crap what others think of them. Like sure, no one wants to be stared down walking down the street, I feel the same way…understandable. And, we all want to be “liked and accepted” in this world. But I’m not talking about all that stuff. Think about this, and I’m sure you can think of at least one family you know that this describes perfectly. You know those families who only care about the TITLE and the MONEY. Like the ones who only wear the “latest trends” and drive the nicest cars. Yeah, those people. Well, to me, they are dumb. I get it, everyone want to be admired and look nice, but I hate how they only care about their appearance and what everyone else thinks of them. Well, WAKE UP CALL… everyone thinks you are rich, arrogant, snobby jerks who don’t think about anyone but yourselves. These people are so concerned about being different and what others would think of them, that they never do anything to help out some innocent child just because it might make them become a little bit “out of the norm”. Well screw that!

We all keep up with the latest celebrity gossip right? This means we all know that the new trend is to have babies…or adopt them. Just think, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Rosie O’Donnell, and Barbara Walters all did it. So, to all those families out there who think it would be “too weird” to have some kid of another race, start reading your damn magazines! These celebs really don’t have to do anything with their lives except walk the streets looking beautiful, but they constantly go out of their way to help out those less blessed than themselves. They support charities, volunteer for organizations they support, and donate massive amounts of money. For example, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are gorgeous. That’s a fact, and there is no one out there that can disagree with that. They could pop out ten kids of their own, and they could all grow up to be super models and movie stars. But no, instead they take their butts over to random third world countries and adopt kids that having nothing without their help.

And yeah, I agree adopting is way too freakin’ expensive. Given, you have to spend the money to get the kid, to fly to get them, and then, you still gotta raise them for the rest of their life. But here is the catch; you get to save a life. Like, for real, STOP and THINK about that for a second. You can save the life of some kid who would probably die by the age of twenty if no one helps them out. You can help give some kid a chance in life to make something of them self. Hell, maybe to even amount to everything you could never be in your own life. Now really, who doesn’t think that would be tight to say?

Now, I’m not just on some rant about adoption because I feel like it, I actually have a purpose. I have two adopted brothers from South Korea. My youngest blood-related brother died when I was four years old, and my mom swore on her life that she would never have another kid again. Well then, being a stay-at-home mom, she got bored out of her mind when I went to school. So she adopted. I know, great story. But now being eighteen years old, it made me open up my eyes a little more to this big crazy world we live in. I notice those homeless people sleeping on the streets, and listen to those crazy-long commercials about all the kids starving in Africa. It made me realize how much I need to help and how so many people out there have the resources and stuff but are too lazy or arrogant or something to actually do something about it. And I get it, not everyone wants kids. It’s true, they can be a hassle, smell, make messes and all sorts of other shit. But consider it. And if you are really against the idea still, consider doing something with your life. We all don’t have the luxury of being rich and famous. But even if it is volunteering at a local orphanage, or taking part in the Big Brothers Big Sisters foundation, you are SAVING a life. You are letting a kid know that someone out there gives a shit about what they do in their life.

So as my final words in this blog: To the people who have adopted or are considering adoption… props to you. To the people who are doing all they can to help out kids in this world in some way even if it’s not adopting… keep up the good work. And to those people out there who think they are better then everyone else, and use all their time and money on themselves without giving a second thought about others… get off your lazy asses and do something with your life so maybe one day I can actually call you a real “hero”.

The Rich and Famous who adopt:

http://www.collegeaffairmagazine.com/tag/meg-ryan/

http://www.parents.com/family-life/celebrity-parents/moms-dads/celebrity-moms-who-adopted/?page=3

http://celebrities.adoption.com/

Depressing School Books

2009-09-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

Kids these days need help. They're messed up, they're depressed, they’re killing themselves. Literally. It just seems like young people need counseling more than ever. If we want to help our youth we need to try and get them pumped, happy, excited to be alive! That brings us to what kids do, or are forced to do, all the time: go to school. They go to school where they are assigned to read books, such books that are said to be great works of literature that everyone should be forced to read at some point or another in his or her life. But what are these books, really: As I Lay Dying, Of Mice and Men, The Bean Trees? They consist of tragedies, memoirs of darker days, novels where the main character questions the importance of his or her own life, and coming to the conclusion: not very important. No wonder these kids are depressed! If I were forced to read about being betrayed at birth by my parents, or my mother dying and me having to lug her rotting corpse all over the damn place, because I was just too poor to bury her (thanks, Faulkner for that pleasant image) I'd be seriously messed up too. Lovely literature? Yeah, no, I think not.

I think back on reading those books in high school, how painful it was, mentally dragging my feet though all the depressing crap that these authors think anyone in the right mind wants to read about. I mean really. Oh please? Can I read another? I crave knowing the pain and anguish of other people. I just jump up and click my heels when I hear we’re reading about a kid getting stranded in the wilderness with nothing but a freaking hatchet. NOT! It’s horrible! I’d rather have someone back over my arm with a car, seriously. Listen to kids. They voice how much they dislike the books. Curriculum should change, like right now. Think of how test scores would skyrocket if kids were allowed to read things they actually wanted to read; but no they’re stuck reading sucky-boring-make-you-want-to-cut-yourself-literature that all the “wiser” people of society say are just fantastic, wonderful, moving piles of words.

Let's take Of Mice and Men for example: sad and depressing, a mentally handicapped man who's life ultimately sucks a great deal of crap; and what else is it? It's required reading for high school sophomores. You don’t hear kids waking up in the morning and saying, “Oh I just can’t wait to read that awesome book about all my family members dying. Kick-Ass!” That isn’t what kids want. Wait to read those things when your old, or already nearing death, or have nothing better to do and just want to feel really really sad. All people talk about is how our youth is disturbed, they’re screw-ups, they’re never happy… No-Duh. We’re forcing them to read, listen to, and comprehend the most depressing crap that’s out there in a quaint little published paper package. We need to get kids reading the happy classics. Come on, people, even Shakespeare had some comedies.

by Sinclair Dotson

Buying Used

2009-09-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

Surely everyone has heard of the cash for clunkers program that was going on recently. The government funded program where you could bring your car into the dealership and get a rebate on a new one. Then they had to crush the old car. The whole time this was going on I was amazed at the turnout. I can’t believe that so many people would buy new cars when used ones are so much cheaper even without the rebate. Why would anyone be willing to spend over 20,000 dollars on a new car when they could get one that runs perfectly fine for 3000? I’m not so materialistic that I have to go out and buy a brand new mustang even though a massive amount of people drive them. Honestly, I’d be content with a geo metro as long as it ran alright.

I really don’t know why more people don’t buy more of their shit used. It’s not like it would kill them to take a trip to Goodwill or a pawn shop every once in a while.

With so many people complaining about the economy, it would make sense for them to go out and buy some used stuff instead of buying all of their stuff new. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper. If you think you’re too good for Goodwill or similar places then there are places like Plato’s Closet that carry lightly used name brand clothes. Most people have enough common sense to take care of their stuff and it's not like a store would buy it from them if it was messed up anyways. Even if it was defective most stores have a return policy. I always regret it when I find something cheaper at another store; whether it’s used or new.

Every once in a while (usually when I become extremely bored) I’ll save up and then spend a large (at least to me) amount of money on something to occupy my time. On my most recent splurge bought a brand new Yamaha bass. I’m kind of ashamed of how much I paid for it but it was definitely worth it to me. But about a week later I took a trip to another guitar store and found that they had the same bass that I had just bought new available used for about 200 dollars less. Now it had a few dents and scratches, but the sound is the only thing that matters to me. It was too late to do anything about it though. I just had to deal with a $200 dollar loss that could have gone toward pedals. Things like that happen once in a while and it just bugs me when I don’t try to find it used first. I just assume that it would be difficult to actually find something I want instead of just picking things I like out of what they have.

If you don’t care about the money, then you could do it for the environment. If you buy something used from the store you’re saving it from going to the dump as well as another from being manufactured. My phone would have been 50 dollars new but I just got the refurb version for free and it works fine. Now I guess your could argue that reducing production of products would reduce jobs but if they had them handmade instead of by machines it would increase the jobs. There are too many things that affect job availability to get away with placing the blame on certain things. Buying used should be considered more environmentally friendly than buying products made with recycled materials. Especially since most of the time they just put a price tag on a used product while recycled materials have to be processed and made into new things.

The best thing I like about buying used is that usually the stuff comes with “no frills.” It lacks all the fancy features used as selling points on new products. I’m perfectly fine with having just what I need. For example my car still has a cassette player. Also, the gas gauge, rear windshield wipers, and some other little things don’t work that well which made it a lot cheaper. When you get a new car you’re paying for On-star service, Bluetooth compatibility, heated seats and all of that other stuff you don’t really need to get from point a to point b. Why should you pay for that extra technology when all you really need is a car?

I guess that I’ve just grown tired of everyone always flaunting their new things at my high school. I’ve always been fine with buying my clothes as cheap as I can no matter what brand. I’ve never really cared where it came from as long as it worked. Hell, I have some clothes from Goodwill and consignment shops, I doubt if you could tell them apart from my newer clothes. Buying used things is definitely better than buying them brand new imo.

By: Matt Graham

my college issues

2009-09-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

College is a place that will broaden my mind, open me up to new experiences, and ensure a brighter, hopefully much richer future.

OR SO I’M TOLD. But right now, all I keep thinking about is my problems with college.

Walking to my first class on a cool August morning, I was surrounded by high buildings, construction workers, squirrel’s running around to and from trees, never-ending stairs, and dazzling tall trees. It then struck me how beautiful our campus is.

Then you walk in a building…

Now all you see is flickering lights that need to be changed, smelly students sweating as they pass by because the air conditioning is not working well, clocks that don’t work and classrooms that look like you just stepped into the year 1950. Our campus is stunning from the outside, but once you walk inside, it’s a whole other world.

The truth is Western Kentucky University has been around since 1907. It’s understandable that the buildings are old and that is very much so a public school. However, that does not mean that the school cannot afford new chairs or keep the air conditioning working or change the batteries in the clocks.

Another problem I have with my college is my Professors. About half of them I like, the other half act like it’s a chore to come to work and teach. My math Professor can’t even do her own math problems that she puts on the board and acts like a fifteen year old school girl with a crush any time a cute boy asks a question. She giggles and smiles really big. Yes I understand that she is young and that this is her first year teaching, but I cross the line when I have to tell her she did a problem wrong on the board every time I have class.

My third problem at my campus is that the students do not have enough parking spaces. I have 8 am classes this semester and in order for me to find a parking space anywhere; I have to be ready to leave my apartment by 7:10 the latest. During the first week of classes I watched two adults fight over a parking space when a man in a white pickup truck raced to steal a spot from a woman that was taking her sweet time to park. The two idiots jumped out of their cars, got in each other’s faces and started yelling and calling each other names. Finally the man got back in his truck and drove off. I laughed and kept walking.

And last but not least, my number one issue with college is that there is never enough time to do everything. I’m a full time student and am taking 16 hours this semester which means I am in class from 8 am through 2 pm Monday through Friday. After class, I might have an hour to eat and get ready and then go to work until 10 or 11 o’clock at night. This work schedule varies sometimes depending on how much work we have. Also, we have floor sets almost every Monday night that can go as late as 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning.

Why do I work so much you ask? I don’t have a choice. I’m putting myself through school while helping my mom pay bills. This hectic schedule leaves me little time to do my homework, leaving me no choice but to do homework on breaks in between classes, 15-30 minute work breaks and after I get home from work. My busy schedule hinders my sleep in order to get everything done. Also, my eating habits are very unhealthy. Most of the time I am forced to resort to fast food, microwaveable meals and eating a lot of packed sandwiches from home.

In conclusion, let’s fix our air conditioning and our clocks, not hire stupid Professors, and maybe open more parking lots. Unfortunately my issue about not having enough time to do everything will persist, but not everything can be fixed anyway so that’s ok with me.

By Dalila Begic

Drink Responsibly!

2009-09-10T09:27:00.001-07:00

You always see that girl at the parties stumbling her way around, or that guy pouring beer on everyone yelling frat bath because he thinks that is appropriate. Why is the consumption of alcohol taking place if people cannot hold themselves together while drinking? There is a difference in going out and having fun then going out and getting highly intoxicated and acting ignorant! This is college, a place where people can achieve a succeeding career, so how did you make it here? I just figured that college involved being smart. Maybe try focusing on the term “Drink Responsibly!”

A night out with the girls is supposed to be a fun time. Then plans tend to be ruined when you end up having to babysit your friends. My friends can tend to sometimes be that girl. At a party one night I decided to be the designated driver. It was pretty obvious walking into that party that no one else was in any shape to be. I’m still having a good time dancing and mingling with everyone. I walk in the DJ room and there is one of my friends pasted out on the couch. Really! Obviously she was way past her limit. So, I go over there and make sure she is even still breathing. While checking her pulse (because you literally have to do that with this girl) I smell something horrible. Looking to see what was around me I was trying to figure out what it could have been. Finally I realized she had thrown up and it was in her hair. I try to get her up to take her home and she wasn’t budging. I let her lay there while I kept checking on her… The next thing I know she is gone. I start looking around for her and I find her sitting in a corner of the room with her legs spread wide open. She seems very lady-like at this point. I finally have some of the guys get her in my car and take her back to the dorm to put her in bed. Not remembering what all that happened I had to remind her the next night. I was telling her about the throw up and she still had yet to wash her hair! Why would someone ever want to be put in a situation where they can’t control their body, and wake up the next morning with not having a clue what happened last night Some people call that a successful night but its more like being back in pre-school.

Alcohol has a tendency of changing people’s attitudes toward others. Having disrespect towards someone while you have been drinking is probably the worst idea. Bad situations always come about. Don’t have the courage to disrespect anyone, especially your designated driver. Once again another night of me being a genuine person, or a designated driver, and this intoxicated girl wants to start yelling in my face, and telling me to shut up, and take her to this place, and being very disrespectful! Her actions were all because some guy didn’t give her what she wanted to hear. Sorry but I’m not going to deal with that attitude when your actions aren’t even my fault. One more word and she was getting smacked, and that one more word didn’t take long to come out and neither did my hand across her face! Luckily it was one of my sorority sisters so the argument ended when she felt the tingling on her face. Who in their right mind would disrespect their sober ride? When alcohol can change your attitude to disrespectful then it obviously doesn’t need to be in your possession. Going back to my point on this is college and a little common senses and respect should follow!

Following up on going out, the most humorous entertainment is seeing the change, and how differently people act with alcohol. Girls giving lap dances make out sessions on the dance floor, walking into a bedroom with a guy (we all know what’s going to happen), or leaving with a guy (that ones an obvious, your not staying in your bed tonight) is something I or hardly anyone else would do when they are sober! Even though there are those few exceptions, it’s just not logical! What makes you think that a one-night fling will ever get you a guy? I know you might be intoxicated but have you lost your mind? That one night fling is going to add up to be with multiple guys. Then who wants a girl that has been ran through by all his friends. But while your walking on campus the next day and the guy doesn’t even acknowledge you, remember it was that drunken slut coming out of you and he just wanted you for the sexual relations. This might sound kind of harsh but be realistic! So next time your at a party, don’t fall for a boy (literally) so he doesn’t have to pick you up off the ground!

So does anyone want to party! But partying with preschoolers isn’t my thing so put your big girl panties on! I’m trying to have fun, not check pulses! You know your limit, if not then college isn’t for you! Go for classy instead of trashy (trust me classy is always an advantage)! Have respect for more than just yourself. You will go farther in life, or for now closer to that next party. Don’t live with regrets. So think about going home with that guy. Is the outcome going to be worth it the next morning? Obviously it’s college life so live it up! But Drink Responsibly!

Sincerely, Lacey Hutchison

I Love College, Anyone?

2009-09-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

College, it was supposed to be this great new experience Excitement and fun were supposed to be everyday things. Well, that’s what I thought at least. I was coming to a big new school and whole new place to play the sport I love--btw that’s softball--and of course to get an education. It was a chance for me to start over and be anything I wanted to be, instead of just lil’ miss homecoming queen and class salutatorian like it was in high school. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy high school. I actually really loved it, but college was a chance for me to do new things and have more fun than ever. Going far away from home was giving me the chance to lose my old reputations and create new and make these new reputations into anything I wanted others to see me as. Anyway, besides missin’ my friends and family at home, it was supposed to be freakin’ amazing! Like the best time of my life,right?

Wrong! It isn’t all that freakin’ amazing after all. Yeah, college has its perks, of course, like meeting new people and making new friends, more guys and better looking guys, parties on the weekends, better teachers, etc., etc. But there are so many things that just bug the crap out of me. Take freshman classes for example, they can be so so so boring! Like can we not just talk about things that no one really cares about? Falling asleep in those classes is like an everyday thing for me because it seems like a waste of my time, and I can’t seem to pay attention because it’s so boring. What’s the point in even going? Why can’t we just discuss stuff that I actually might use in life or maybe stuff that I might be an incy bit interested in? Maybe that’s too much to ask. On top of that, getting used to everything that the good professors expect from you is crazy hard. They give you so much homework and so many out of class assignments and expect you to do so many things on your own, unlike high school teachers who basically spoon feed you for four years of your lives. They should make that crap just a lil’ harder so students will know at least a lil’ bit of what to expect when they get to college. Or is the actual point of high school to set you up for failure once you get to college? It doesn’t make much sense to me, cause that’s four years of my life that I’ll never get back, and I didn’t get much of anything out of it at all.

Having to get used to a new setting and new people and being away from home without really knowing anyone pretty much sucks ‘til you get used to everything (which I don’t have time to do) considering my situation. So just imagine being an athlete on top of being a “student first” as they keep preachin’ to us—not that I’m sure they mean it. Anyway, you’re probably thinkin’ “Oh, it’d be great.” Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong and that it most definitely has its disadvantages like waking up at 5 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for lifting. Really? Like we don’t get enough exercise climbing the dang hill twice a day, every day to get to class. They act as if we get way too much sleep too, so we should have to wake up before the sun comes up to make sure we don’t get too much sleep. Then, on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have conditioning in the afternoon where we run our butts off. Add outofseason practice 3 days a week (and now that we’re about to start our fall season real practice 6 days a week) to the list, cause you can’t forget about that. Now tell me this, when are our bodies supposed to recover from all the stresses they’re going through? It’s not like we’ve ever done this much physical activity or had this much class work to do before now, and we don’t even have time for anything--no time to sleep, eat, drink, shower, do laundry, or even do homework. So remind me again how we’re supposed to be STUDENT athletes (students first remember) when we don’t even have time to do our own homework?

Oh, and about a social life, it’s nearly impossible to have one as a student athlete, but if you do decide to TRY and have a social life in your tiny amount of free time, just be aware that there are lots of guys creepin’ and they be creepin’ hard. Always askin’ for numbers and stuff, and then they want to text you all day long. I don’t have time for that! It’s like everyone is all up on me. As if having coaches, trainers, professors, and teammates in my business aren’t enough, now some people I don’t even know wanna be around me and text me all the time. Really? Get off me!

So my question is, does anyone in my position really, truly love college? Idk, but people keep telling me that it gets better even though it doesn’t seem like it will. They’re telling me that adjusting to what is expected of you as a student athlete and adjusting to a new setting and new people all at the same time is the hardest part and that it only gets better. I sure as heck hope they’re right cause if it gets much worse, I’m not gonna have any time to eat or sleep--no lie. So I’m hoping that things get better and that they get better real soon because I’m tired of being tired and not being able to love college!

by Kimi Wagner

Clinging to Life

2009-09-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

To say that these two incidents that happened so close together was an eye opener is an understatement. Two young people in their prime now face a long road that neither of them may fully recover from. It really opened my eyes to just how fragile life is and how it could happen to anyone.

I had just come home from work when my mother informed me that Leighann, the daughter of a close family friend, was just involved in a terrible car accident and that she was now in surgery. Leighann had lost control of her car and it had rolled a few times before finally coming to rest on the side of the road. As a result of the accident she suffered severe brain injuries, facial fractures, and a lacerated spleen but she survived that crucial first night and we began to have a glimmer of hope for her recovery. Her family, who was obviously concerned about her quality of life due to the extent of the injuries, voiced these concerns to the doctors. But all the doctors said that if they didn’t think that she had a fighting chance they wouldn’t be taking the measures that they were to save her. Last week there was a breakthrough for Leighann, she was actually able to follow some simple instructions such as, giving them the “thumbs up,” squeezing the hand of a nurse, and so on. Unfortunately, later that same week, doctors discovered an aneurysm in her brain and immediately rushed her into surgery. Prior to the surgery, the doctors gave her a 25% chance of survival and we began to fear the worst. But, despite the odds, Leighann pulled through. Again it seemed like she would recover quickly but two days later she suffered a small stroke. Fortunately it occurred in the area of the brain where the damage from the accident happened, which meant that there was no new damage to worry about. Currently Leighann is still in intensive care and is showing signs of improvement but, she still has a very long way to go.

The day before I moved into my dorm for orientation week I got a phone call from a friend of mine from high school. Fifteen minutes prior Matt Hodge, another one of my friends from high school, was involved in an accident with a train. The train had clipped the back of his car and rolled it several times. At first all indications seemed to be good and the first day everyone was confident that he would be back on his feet soon. The next day, as I was about half-way to where I currently attend college, my friend who had informed me of Matt’s accident the day before called with an update. When I heard his tone of voice I knew right then it wasn’t good. I was told that Matt had about a 1% chance of survival due to severe brain injuries; similar to what Leighann had sustained. But unlike Leighann, his injuries occurred in the brain stem, which makes survival less likely and a full recovery with full capabilities even less so. All day while I was moving in I was expecting and dreading the call telling me that Matt had passed. But despite the tremendous odds against him, Matt made it and is very slowly improving.
What struck me was that two similar accidents happened to two people that I knew in a very short span of time. Leighann, a nursing student, who was almost ready to graduate and Matt had just started his senior year of high school. Both were about to start new chapters in their lives and now even this is in question.

I took from these two events a lesson, “Take advantage of every opportunity that is given to you.” Even though I’ve heard that same line for years from I don’t know how many people, it had never really sunk in until then. I am starting on a new chapter of my life; the path I create here in college will pave the way for who I will become in the future. It’s unfortunate that it takes events like this to make one realize just how much he or she has going for them and how little time they really have. Every day I see people who go about living their lives taking for granted that they will be around to see the next sunrise and think, “Oh it’s not going to happen to me” or my personal favorite, “I’ve been driving for years” and “I know what I’m doing.” I say to those people now, “Never take life or anything for granted, you have one shot in this life. Don’t screw it up.”

Two people who I’ve known for years, both bright, outgoing, and caring people now face an uncertain future. Both are recovering but it will be a long, long process before doctors will be able to tell exactly how much permanent damage was done. The hope is that the both of them will be able to live happy and productive lives but only time will tell. For any and everyone who reads this, please, don’t take anything for granted and live every day like it was your last.

By Adam Wilck

Better Than Your Old Boring Workout

2009-09-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

All right, somethin’ I’ve seen, lately, is people concerned about their fitness. You can see this through the selling of ads about gym memberships and exercise equipment. I also hear people sayin’ they don’t have the time or the money that goes into carin’ about their health. Well, you might be usin’ the wrong method- weightlifting. Ditch all that, man, and use something that works for you and not against you. You need to use isometric exercise.

Isometric training is a form of exercise in which a lot of tension keeps the muscle from moving . The muscle stays in the same position for seven to twelve seconds.

Let me tell you about my experience with weightlifting, and I am sure everybody can relate. I was just like anybody else when it came to gettin’ in shape. I lifted weights out the yin-yang. I lifted heavy, lifted light, tried bodybuilding, and tried Olympic lifting. I got bored and tired with all of them. I got hurt with these methods too. Bench presses tore up my elbows, and lunges put too much pressure on my knees. The gym was a joke. Heck! It was like a zoo. I was runnin’ around trying to find equipment that was open. I was falling around wannabe Arnold Schwarzeneggers posing for themselves in front of the mirrors. I had to wait on people, who most of the time were goofing off and wasting my time. All that stuff came down to me losing my motivation and dreading lifting weights, even using my home weights.

I didn’t let that stop me. I needed to find something better, and then I found a book called Isometric Power Revolution. From then on, I was hooked on isometrics. My first workout with iso’s was amazing. You really feel the tension and all the muscle fibers comin’ in to play, as you try to make your muscles move in seven to twelve seconds. I could really feel my muscles straining against the tension, something I could never do with weights. Man, that’s the key right there. When your muscle is under extreme tension and in a fixed position, all of the muscle fibers are used. This means you are going to build more muscle because you use more muscle, but weights cannot do that. When you’re lifting weights, your muscle is always moving. It is never under tension long enough to use all of the muscle fibers. Only a few fibers are developed, and this can lead to injuries (my elbows and knees, remember). Let’s try an isometric to show you what I mean. Put your hands together in front of your chest and push against them hard for twelve seconds. The muscles are workin’ now.

A lot of you die hard weight lifters are going to tell me that isometrics won’t work because heavier weights are not lifted every workout to make the muscle work more and grow. Listen up. You are still thinking in terms of weight lifting and not isometrics. I started to get better at figuring out the amount of tension to use, the more I practiced isometrics. I could use more tension every workout. The more tension I used meant I worked more muscle, but I was pushin’ as hard as I could every workout. This is what you have to do. You have to use more tension every time, to work the muscles. The right amount of tension will cause the muscle to ache.

Injuries, forget about ‘em! I never got hurt using isometrics. My knees and elbows were safe. Heck! They got stronger because I didn’t have to deal with the heavy load of weights tearin’ them down. Isometrics keeps your joints still, so there is no sudden jerk or twist that can mess them up.

Busy schedules are no problem. I discovered iso’s in high school. They fit perfectly into my full schedule, which didn’t allow much time to work out. Being a busy college student, I can still squeeze isometrics into my day. I just bust out a seven-second hold, whenever I have some free time. You don't have to suffer through one to two hour workouts anymore. Do you have seven or twelve seconds to work out? Come on! Since isometrics doesn’t use weights, you can do them anywhere. You can’t find that kind of freedom with weights or the gym.

No weights and gym memberships means no more wasted money comin’ from your pockets. You can save some cash.

So what do you have to lose, man? You lose nothin’! Well, you do have to give up expensive, time wasting, useless weights and gyms. That sounds like a plus to me. Try a better system, which only gives the best. Try isometrics.

By Jarad Williams

This Is Just a few Steps above Slavery

2009-09-09T23:06:00.000-07:00

This is just a few steps above slavery

There are times where we find ourselves in damned if you do and damned if you don’t situations. Too often at times we may feel that we are tugged from all different directions, and rather we like it or not, we have hold our chins up, smile, and act as if we hadn’t just been screwed by someone or something. No way. I’m going to bitch. I think I have plenty right to. If your curious, the story starts like this. I work at Cracker Barrel in Franklin Kentucky. Last Week when I view my schedule, I found myself wanting to pull every strand of my hair out when I discovered that I had to work my crappy, unruly, sickening, pathetic, last resort waitress job during my very first week of college. Come on, as if I Hadn’t suffered enough during the summer, and if I do recall correctly, I asked for this entire week off . I thought it would almost be implied that one’s first week of college is usually complete chaos. But with no ability to feel sympathy, my boss has yet again pulled a fast one and scheduled me to come in at 4 and work till close everyday of the freaking week. My boss knew I had a class at 4 every Tuesday and Thursday. I printed out a copy of my schedule for his own keeping. Should I had fucking framed it for him? I have no idea what’s keeping me from punting his kid. So, With terrible feeling, I trudged through this week and broke the constant urge to cuss or at least held it under my breath. God forbid I got any sleep. I remember asking myself over and over again, why do I get this treatment, all I wanted to do is better myself. Why do all college kids get treated as if we have no other life outside work. I belive employers should be extra flexible on students enrolled in school because we have less time to spare, than most adults.

One day on my 30 minute drive to my job, I began to think to myself, and I realized a sad truth, every job is like this, every job I’d ever had. A job that is flexible enough to give you convenient hours merely doesn’t exist; on second thought not many jobs exist period nowadays, yet I still couldn’t help feeling alone. I waited and prepared for college for 13 years now, and on this glorious week I felt unnecessary stress that made me sick. And I was already behind. Right before I left I remember looking at people sitting on benches here at Western and talking to friends, laughing, and looking as if they were settled and just waiting for the night to come with really nothing to do until then. And the worst feeling suppressed me, a feeling of helplessness, I HAD to go to work, and I HAD to act cheerful about it, I kinda felt like an outsider tapping on a glass wanting in so bad. I think It was the first time in my life that I actually wanted to stay home (or my dorm) and do my homework.

Some of you might feel me. A safe bet says that most of you guys are begging me to stop bitching about my job and quit already. That would solve everything, I could just find another job so easily, perhaps one closer and less life-controlling. Chyea, maybe in the 1980’s or 1990’s. At this point, with the economy, and the “debt” we own, it’s surprising to me that I even have a job at my age. And Finding another job would be like finding a leprechaun in Ireland (if your into that kind of jazz). At this point some of you might be wondering why I make such a big deal out of a job, and why it’s so important to have a job during college. Get a grip busta, most college kids have to work their way through college, with little support from their parents..

I guess my Main focus would be to spread the awareness that jobs in general, expect way too much from college kids who, they know damn well, doesn’t have a lot of time to spare. I’m not asking for special treatment, I’m asking for some slack or at least show some soul. This should have been a golden rule a long time ago. Education always comes before work.It should be implied by now. And this rule gets broken too often. Which, could very well explain the lack of management shown in these crappy little life-consuming jobs. I tried for laws to support my case, but sadly, I couldn’t find a single law to back me up here. Which is a freaking problem. Every employer knows that they have you by the leash and even though they’re poor managers, they know that you’ll put up with the bull shit because where else is there to go?

Sometimes, after busting my ass at work , I come home, and I realize that I lose more and more hope towards humanity. I don’t understand how these people sleep at night knowing that they’re breaking the very last limb someone might be holding onto, I don’t comprehend even the slightest to how Managers could hold such a higher rank than others and show such poor management. If I really wanted to be a bitch I could say that those same people envy the young, they could be jealous of our opportunity to better ourselves, whereas bad decision making destroyed their chance.

To sum it up, It was bogus that I’d worked my ass off last week, even though I had asked for a break from work. Maybe I shouldn’t question since I’m lucky enough to have a job? But it has always been my nature to question if I feel ’'m treated unjust. Or maybe I shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds? But wait.. I’m a server.

Food for a thought…

By: Haley Jones

Quit Stalking me on Facebook!

2009-09-09T22:06:00.000-07:00

Truth about college

2009-09-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

Coming into college, I had a lot stereotypes.

The first thing I was worried about was my roommate; since I got into the Honors program and was in the Honors dorm, I envisioned a nerdy-ass kid with no social life, a recluse who just chilled in the room all the time and wanted it quiet...or worse: he had a social life, but was obsessed with some crazy shit like that Magic card game or the thing where he dressed up and played with foam swords. I was afraid he wouldn’t want any people in our room, or he might smell really bad, and leave huge messes all over and use all my stuff and eat my food.

Since I live with the Honors kids, I thought it would be quiet every night, since kids would be studying. They wouldn't go out or play sports at all. I also envisioned that all the frat guys would be a bunch of douchebags who thought they were too “cool” for everyone else, and would just talk trash about everyone not in their circle of friends... the same goes for the sororities; I figured they would be stuck up and too busy being gorgeous to hang with non-frat guys.

I thought the parties would consist of a bunch of guys with a couple of girls here and there, kids doing keg stands all the time, people throwing up, and kids doing hardcore drugs...just overall a disaster. I was also extremely concerned about classes. I worried that my classes would be full of a shitload of kids in a huge lecture hall, where the professor didn't even know my name and gave out incredible amounts of homework.

Well, I was completely wrong about all my stereotypes...which really shouldn’t come as a surprise to me or anyone else.

As for my roommate, I had added him on Facebook to see what he was like and at first, I was like "There is no way me and this kid will get along at all." I was wrong! He is not the nerd I expected; he enjoys playing sports, has people to hang out with, and doesn’t care who I bring over to hang out or what time I get in at night. He's actually pretty awesome.

The other Honors kids aren’t what I expected at all, either. For the most part, they go out and party and if they don’t, they're up till at least two in the morning, hanging out in the hallways or in peoples' rooms. Some of the kids even love soccer as much as I do, and we either play in the hallway or go outside and play pickup games...so they're not all anti-sports people like I expected them to be.

Now the thing I was most concerned about (and what I thought I would be the most strongly against) was going to and hanging with the Greek kids at their parties. Last week, I went to a couple of parties and was extremely surprised by what I saw when I walked in.

Firstly, I didn’t expect them to be very responsible as far as rides go, but they actually pick you up at your dorm and drive you home at the end of the night. When I first walked in, I expected to be excluded and get the cold shoulder, but the exact opposite happened; people immediately greeted me and started talking to me and got me something to drink.

I also expected these kids to not be very intelligent, and not be able to carry a conversation, but again I was proven wrong; I found someone to talk to each
night. They also don’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, which came as a huge surprise to me. Also, they weren’t as careless and irresponsible as I expected them to be. They didn’t let things get outta control to the point of complete stupidity. Even when the cops showed up one night, they stayed calm and cool, and nothing bad ended up happening.

As far as sororities go I expected them to fulfill the typical stereotype of being amazingly good-looking, but only having half a brain and being total bitches to anyone not in their “circle of friends.” Yet again I was proven wrong...sort of. The girls WERE amazingly good-looking, so that part was true, but having only half a brain wasn’t true, seeing as a couple of the smartest girls I have met so far are in sororities. They didn’t ignore people either. They were really easy to talk to and were quite friendly.

So overall my impression of the Greek kids was 99% wrong. They are cool people who aren’t the complete losers the media has made them out to be.

Also, though classes were a scary thing to me (I imagined huge classrooms with at least 100 kids and professors who were pretentious old pricks, who were unrealistic about the amount of work they were giving out and didn’t know any students names), I now see that I was, again, wrong. Luckily for me, all of my classes are fairly small and the teachers, so far, are nice and have given out a reasonable amount of work.

So my stereotypes about college were almost unquestionably wrong. I see it as something you have to come and experience all on your own without the influence of others, before you jump to conclusions and make judgments. You will most likely be surprised by the people you meet and by everything else about college that has been falsely portrayed and told by people!

You Can Make Me Move But You Can't Make Me Like Where We Move To

2009-09-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

WARNING: The following is highly inflammatory and will offend you... if you are from Kentucky that is.

Imagine if you were forced to move from the United States to Russia. You had no choice in the matter and you wouldn’t see your friends ever again. You’d feel terrible and lonely and you’d be pissed off at your parents for forcing this change on you.

That’s how I felt when I moved from California to Kentucky.

I had to leave what I had called home for most of my life. The only image I had of Kentucky was that of hillbillies, rednecks, and Confederate flag waving Ku Klux Klan members.

After living in Kentucky for almost four years, I can say that Kentucky’s lifestyle and culture is terrible. There are so many things wrong with this state that it is almost impossible to list every fucking thing. While the hillbilly, redneck, KKK member image didn’t turn out to be (completely) true the state is still messed up. Kentucky is terrible compared to California for six reasons (actually, I have more than six but these are the first that come to mind.)

1. I have never seen as many churches in one city as I have in Louisville, Kentucky. These aren’t just small, simple ones either. The majority are huge, ornate mothers that are one step down from those scary mega churches that have crazy shit like gyms, restaurants, and gift stores in them. Don’t get me wrong, there were big churches in California, but not like these. Seeing the churches in the Ville, it seems like they all had a contest to see who could make the biggest, most ridiculous house of worship possible.

2. Everyone talks about Southern hospitality and how nice everyone is in the South. Based on my experiences I say this is false. People seem to be bigger assholes in the South than in California. People in California seemed to care more about each other than people do in Kentucky. You wouldn’t have to worry about little differences (like religion) when talking with someone. And people treated immigrants better in Cali than they do in KY. I don’t know where the idea of Californians being dicks and Southerners being nice came from but we need to switch those two ASAP. At least when it comes to Kentucky. For all I know, people in other Southern states could be the nicest people around.

3. The American education system is fucked. We all know this, although some like to make believe it isn’t, but I didn’t find out till I moved to Kentucky. Now, I’m not saying that Kentucky’s school system is the worst (that honor would obviously go to West Virginia) but I have never been as confused about school objectives as I was when I was in the Kentucky school system. What the fuck is a writing portfolio and why should I care? My mom told me those were phased out in California around when I was born. Let me ask this as well: Why does the Kentucky school system wait until the 9th grade before it requires students to read To Kill A Mockingbird? I read that in the 7th fucking grade. Another thing is, what is wrong with the literacy level of the kids in this state? Even the simplest of words are mispronounced. My classmates always fucked up words that should be known by the 12th grade. In CA, we were taught to analyze words and find out how they were said. Apparently that isn’t taught in KY. Oh, and the CATS test? The less said about that travesty, the better.

4. Everyone in the country has an iPod or some other MP3 player now, but back in ’04 not a lot of people had them. When my family moved to Louisville, everyone had them and if you didn’t have one, you weren’t cool. Materialism is all over America (hell, it’s all over the world,) but it is heavier in Kentucky than in California. Whenever a hot, new product comes out everyone has to have it: the Xbox 360, the Wii, the iPhone... you name it, they have to have it. Teenagers are the main culprits of this materialism and they rarely seem to get the stuff with their own money. People in California didn’t judge you based on what you had. There was no snickering if you didn’t have the latest “hot” thing. Plus, teenagers bought stuff with their own hard-earned money in CA.

5. This one irritates me the most: U of L vs. UK. I really don’t care which one is better. Sure, there were college rivalries in California but people never talked about them as much as they do in Kentucky. I mean god damn, who really gives a shit?

6. Oh, and another thing: no one actually cares about the Kentucky Derby, so stop making a big deal over it. Celebrities only come to be seen and get the hell out of Kentucky when the main race is over.

The majority of my reasons come from living in Louisville. I have been to other cities in Kentucky though, and they are just as bad as Louisville. Lexington, Frankfort, London: all terrible. Overall I have to say that Kentucky is far too different for me to like. I know accepting differences is expected and it is un-PC not to, but when the culture is as vile as it is in Kentucky I have to refrain from doing that.

Lassie Can Wait

2009-09-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

Personal Disclaimer: In no way do I find animal cruelty to be a good thing.

You know what I really hate about TV? I hate those pointless commercials that take up all the “valuable” five minutes of time that you have every day to watch TV. I mean think about it. The Gieco commercials with the stereotypical cavemen could have cavemen somewhere feeling terribly offended. There are also those TV commercials that have important info but are, shall we say, STRAIGHT UP NASTY!!!!!!!! (i.e. the Clear Blue pregnancy test commercial that feels the need to visually show you how the pee reaches the testing strip…EW!!!).

Although these commercials are rather trivial, the one commercial that probably annoys me more than any other commercial I have ever seen is the ASPCA commercial. It’s like they feel the need to make you cry your way through a box of tissues while bombarding you with disturbing pictures of wrongfully treated animals. To make things worse, you get to hear Sarah McLachlan’s speech encouraging YOU to help save an abused animal that you will A) probably never meet (so its kinda like giving financial aid to the animal you never had) and B) probably help fund the pound that will end up putting it to sleep because of the surplus of animals that already live there (ok that’s kinda harsh but you get the general idea).

After that little shpeal, you may be wondering why the hell I would be so cynical to something that is for a good cause. As I said earlier, I am not opposed to stopping animal cruelty in any way. I love animals. What does piss me off though is that people are focusing more on saving the lives of animals rather than attempting to protect people, particularly children, from domestic abuse.

While I’m sure the ASPCA does not mean to lessen the importance of protecting victims of domestic abuse, it is still something that I feel very strongly about. One reason I feel so strongly is because of the greater impact a grown child will have on the world. An animal may be a loving companion for when we are sick or sad, but can they help other victims of domestic abuse or increase awareness of how others can help? I’m pretty sure there is not a single human being that understands “bark.”

Another reason I feel that child abuse is a more important issue to address is because of the effects abuse can have on a child physically and emotionally. Physically, a child can experience broken bones, possible disabilities, and sometimes even death depending on the extremes of the abuse. There are some teen parents, for instance, that completely ignore their child from birth and throw them in the trash can (I don’t know how it is in your city, but sadly, I know there have been some in Louisville).

Emotional abuse can also be incredibly damaging to a child. Abuse that they receive as a child may later affect how they act towards their kids as adults. The phrase “monkey see, monkey do” is very true for children because they learn by actions of others. A child does not know any better unless they are taught by a parent or other guardian.

Ok so after reading all of this, you may be thinking: “Well this may be true and all, but what am I supposed to do to help? I’m not a social worker or a lawyer. I can’t just take a kid away.” Well no duh Captain Obvious, BUT there is something that you CAN do. Unlike the ASPCA, in most cities, if not all, there is some form of a homeless shelter or women’s shelter that is dedicated to helping victims of domestic abuse. . Rather than just simply sending money, working with domestic abuse victims is more effective because it lets them know that somebody somewhere loves and cares about them. They also feel more self-sufficient because they have a loving support system to back them up. Any “genius” can pick up a phone and dial the 800 # on screen, but taking time to get to know a person is much more valuable.

Now, you may also be saying: “Well helping out sounds fun, but how am I supposed to help out these women and children if I don’t see commercials advertising where the shelters are?” You most likely won’t see shelter commercials for the protection of the people already living in the shelters. What you CAN do though is look for a local shelter on the internet (hey you’re already on there!), or you can be “hip and fly” and search in the old fashioned yellow pages. You don’t have to be an adult to volunteer! Doing so is not only helping the people that live in shelters, but also making you feel better about yourself.

It is very important to be aware of any domestic violence present in your community. For more information about helping abuse victims, talk to a service director at a local church. Most churches are associated with either a homeless or women’s shelter that is always open for YOUR assistance. If you are still one of those people that feel strongly about helping animals, I encourage you to help out, but don’t limit yourself to just one cause. Find a medium between saving the puppies and helping out the community, but please, don’t forget about the kids. It’s not just their future, it’s yours too…

*Jenny Simon*

Is Television Affecting the Teen Pregnancy Rate?

2009-09-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

Remember in “I Love Lucy” when Ricky and Lucy couldn’t even sleep in the same bed? Well, in television shows today, not only do they show people in the same bed but they go as far as making a point to show people performing sexual acts to keep the viewers attention. Many channels directed towards certain areas such as music and family, now include much more. What used to be Music Television Live (MTV) is now a channel that has shows about young people and their sex lives. Also, what was once a kid-friendly ABC Family, has turned into a channel that focuses on telling kids how to have sex. They practically want you to be sucked in to the more sexual scenes to make the show more appealing to minors. Especially in shows directed towards young teenagers, which got me thinking: if TV shows stopped encouraging teen sex, wouldn’t the rate of teen pregnancy decrease?

The first time I remember seeing a pregnant girl in my school, I was in seventh grade and the girl was only in the eighth. The older I got, the number of girls becoming pregnant increased. I never thought much about it until my friends were the ones who were getting pregnant. Starting at that point in my life, teen pregnancy seemed to be accepted more and more.

My belief for the major cause of this problem is media and the things that society is letting it portray to young adults. Several decades ago people did not even talk about how babies were made and now they are practically showing it being done in television shows and movies. Society today is becoming more open than it once was and therefore causing kids to see and hear things that used to not be informed to people at that age.

Lately I’ve been watching “The Secret Life Of The American Teenager” on the ABC family channel. The show is about a girl who gets pregnant the summer before her freshmen year of high school. Many of the characters in the show are either participating in sex or talk about their plans for sex. The lives of these characters seem very appealing and that is what pulls viewers to watch the show. I’ve had several conversations with my friends about this show and why they think we are so interested in it. People are so interested in this show, and shows like this, because the media has made this lifestyle look fun, exciting, and sometimes even glamorous; which is why, I believe that many young people go out and try to imitate some of the things that they see on television.

TV shows are sending out the wrong messages to young boys and girls. There is a line that the TV industries have crossed, and it should be stopped. There is a difference between informing kids about sex and then virtually demonstrating it on television. Just because it is a natural part of life doesn’t mean it should be advertised so openly. If all that is filling kid’s heads is sex and that it’s okay for there to be shows that illustrate people their age participating in it, why wouldn’t they do it themselves?

Television is everywhere. In her article “Don’t Turn Off the TV Week”, writer for The New York Times Lisa Belk in informs readers of how big a role television truly plays. She writes that the average child watches 1,680 minutes of television per week and that 50 percent of children from the ages 6 to 17 have TV’s in their bedroom. Young kids are constantly in taking what the media is putting out into the world.

So many kids are influenced every day by television, friends, family, and movies. From what people see on the news to what they read in magazines, they listen to society because they feel that society knows what’s best for them. Maybe we should take a step back and look at the way life used to be. Perhaps having strong moral values and stricter rules like people used to have could help prevent certain problems, such as teen pregnancy. We really need to think about what we let our younger siblings, friends, and future children watch. If the media isn’t going to change what they are advertizing on television, then it is our job as friends, teachers, parents, etc. to control what we are letting be watched in our homes.

-Kristi Genton-

Southern Hospitality

2009-09-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

Southern Hospitality

Living in the north (Michigan), you would hear things about “Southern Hospitality”, whether it was on television, the radio, or in your household everybody has heard the saying somewhere. I am currently living in Bowling Green, KY because I attend WKU (Western Kentucky University) for college. I never thought this saying would be so real! Now experiencing the south first-hand, it’s obvious that it wasn’t just a saying. Do I think there is a specific reason for this? No, but if I had to say it most likely would be the expectations and traditions of southern living.

There is an overall friendliness about people here. I don’t know if it’s the air, heat, or could it be the smells experienced here? Whatever it is people are overall nicer in the south. What is known as common courtesy here in Kentucky is going out of your way to do something, up north in Michigan. It’s just the natural way of living and going about your business in the south I guess.

Do not get me wrong, by NO means am I saying northern people are rude, or inconsiderate or impolite! I wouldn’t hate on my people like that, they just don’t have that “SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY”. Maybe it’s the natural persona of southerners to be nice. Like in the movie “You Me and Dupree”, Dupree explains to Carl that he has somehow lost his edge, his “CARLNESS”. His “CARLNESS” makes Carl... What is CARLNESS? Well it is very simply Carl! It’s the Carl everyone likes, the Carl everyone relates to. So perhaps Southerners “Carlness” or “Southerness” if you will is that they are nice to basically everyone.

Your probably wondering why I think people in the south are so nice. Well here is an example, I will walk into a store not ever seeing the people in it before because I am of course from Michigan, I will have the door opened for me, have people ask me “How are you today son?”; or even have someone just start a nice pleasant convo with me in line. Back home if I did something like that to a random, they would probably be like “What the FUCK was that guy’s problem?” Or they would say sumthin like “Was that guy HIGH or DRUNK?”

Also another example of some pretty mean stuff. A friend of mine who is a freshmen at Michigan State University and obviously new to the bus system, her and her friends park way the hell on the other side of campus. (MSU is a pretty BIG campus compared to WKU) So in order for her and her friends to get to their dorm they need to get on the bus… No problem right?! But NOOO! She tells me the first bus was okay no problem at all. Then God forbid she has to change busses. So they change busses and my friend being who she is put her bus slip or whatever they use for busses, in wrong notta BIG deal. But this ignorant ass bus driver decides she’s gunna go off on my friend who I mind you, is a young girl, kind of emotional, and she is a freshmen first time bus user. The lady says to her and I quote, “Umm excuse me you’ve left the nest, your parents aren’t here to help you anymore, start learning to do things yourself!” Hearing this I was like WOAH! I wonder what would happen if I jumped on the bus or shuttle here and made a mistake. Would the son of a bitch yell and fire on me like that? NO! He or she would not. That’s typical Michigan bullshit. Here they would say sumthin like, “Oh no honey do it like this”. Or they would make an example of you but not by persecuting you! They would probably show everyone how it’s done properly for next time so they don’t make the same mistake.

Overall my experiences in both places have been good. But the difference in the way people act and treat each other is really just so obvious. Like it just makes where I’m from look bad as hell. Being from where I am from, maybe it’s just me who thinks this. Although I am pretty sure I am not the only one. If you haven’t experienced the north my advice to you is… Well don’t! It’s not that great a place. It snows a lot, it gets stupid cold out, and there are basically no reasons to go there unless you have family and you like to travel around I guess. But I will stick to my opinion for the time being because the majority of people down here have been very exceptionally well behaved and well mannered. I have not come across someone who was not generally nice to me.

So Southerners I say to you, “Thank you! And y’all keep up the good work”.

- Myles Allen

I DON'T NEED NO ENGLISH!!!

2009-09-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

NO I DON’T NEED NO ENGLISH!

I don’t know about everyone in this world but one thing I do know is me and what I hate. There is nothing I cannot stand more than improper English. I can’t stand double negatives, bad sentences, or mispronounced words! I don’t know why, but that is ME I can’t stand it. The main reason is that there is just no excuse for it, you take English classes from the time you start school until you graduate one day. Even in the workplace no one will hire someone who can’t even put a sentence together. It just makes you sound brainless when you say something like “I have went to that show” instead of “I have gone to that show” now come on everybody let’s try a little harder to sound more professional. We will call these people our Uncle Jerry. We all have or know someone who has an Uncle who just doesn’t have it all there and tries really hard to be the center of attention but in the end doesn’t get any because he is un educated and unable to carry a human conversation.

As an example that I personally cannot stand would be when people say “I seen your brother the other day.” I have a friend that does this constantly! OMG, talk about pissing me off right. I will correct him every time. But of course he still does it, he will say he is correct and he does not give a shit what anyone or any text book tells him. A typical Uncle Jerry.

Uncle Jerry’s are also people who talk like the title, they need to take a look in the mirror and ask “REALLY THAT’S HOW I'M TALKING!!” I mean seriously just read the title out loud…….WTF right! How dumb can you sound? I refuse to believe people do not know when there speaking wrong. Now I understand slang and talking with your friends having your own words that only your group know about because I do it too. I use words like dope, goon, gwop, tight, ish, rainbox, ladida, and many others. But when you purposely try to sound dumb while in a public setting such as a classroom that’s just ignorant and annoying as hell. Believe me I am not the only one who does not want to hear you I am sure that your parents want to “hear” the money there spending on your education or your teachers would like to think there is still hope for you and you cannot possibly talk like that.

Another reason I can’t stand bad language is the fact that I grew up in a house and went to a school that pretty much demanded excellent grammar. Going to a private school may be the reason it upsets me so much but who knows maybe just personal reasons. In my experience my high school was filled with Uncle Jerry’s, who would use bad grammar (transferred to a public high school) whether it were to teachers, police officers, parents, coaches, you know what pretty much whoever they talked to. It turned out most of these people were from public schools. Now I’m not saying private schools have better education or anything in that nature because that is just not true, but what I am saying is that it seems to be more acceptable at public schooling and such to use poor language and not learn the proper use. Whether you had gone to a public school or a private one bad usage of language is everywhere and you cannot stop it but we can try. I say we start correcting people, telling them what they’re saying wrong or what it is they don’t know. Not making them feel stupid but just telling them the correct sentence or word usage. But then again to prove a point you may want to make them feel stupid so the message is clear you sound like a LAME ASS!!

The thing I just do not get is what is so hard about using English correctly? Do young teens think there cooler if they sound stupid, like it’s not the cool thing to do to be smart? Ha-ha think about that for a second you’re called “cool” for looking stupid... man looks like society may be screwed up in more ways than we thought. Now I am nowhere near being the smartest kid on the planet, in the school, or in the class (only graduating high school with a 3.3) but at least I have the pride and decency to try and sound more intelligent and professional.

You must ask yourself where these people think they will get jobs. If I was hiring and I was giving someone an interview who talked with such poor grammar there is no way they are going to get the job. Now everyone has had experiences where they have had to select people as captains, representatives, or any instance you had to hire someone, and they will all tell you they chose the best person qualified. “Best qualified?” I wonder who that would possibly be, the person who acted like they had not gone to school at ALL or the person who is speaking in SENTENCES. Bad grammar affects things we do not even realize are being affected such as jobs.

So I leave you all with this Obama talks about change well let us start our own change, how about we change the way we talk, let’s correct people even if they think we are just being an ass. Hopefully bad English and Uncle Jerry’s have pissed you all of as much as it has me and we make strides to improving as a whole.

---Blake Allen

Greek Life is More Than a Party!

2009-09-09T12:35:00.000-07:00

Greek life at tons of universities has gotten the rep of being just one big party with drunk guys, slutty girls, tons of kegs, and spiked drinks. A ton of stereotypical dorks think that new members in sororities and fraternities are beaten with paddles, not allowed to eat for a few weeks, made fun of in front of the whole campus, and forced to be a “taxi service” for the active members. THEY’RE WRONG!!! These stereotypes are a huge reason why incoming freshmen decide not to “Go Greek.” I’m sure initiation rituals like these are a part of Greek life at other colleges. I can assure you, though, that those rituals aren’t a part of WKU’s Greek program. I’m an Alpha Delta Pi here at WKU, and I can’t think of one bad thing to say about my sorority or the whole Greek program, for that matter! In fact, I can think of several wonderful things Greek students do for WKU.

Greek organizations here at WKU stay busy in tons of events to raise money for their charities. Each sorority and fraternity helps other Greek organizations in their fundraisers, too. For example, Alpha Delta Pi’s big philanthropy fundraiser every year is the “Teeter-Totter-a-Thon.” For this event, the members of Alpha Delta Pi go to different public places around Bowling Green and teeter-totter all day. While we’re teeter-tottering, we ask people to donate money to the Ronald McDonald House. We also help in Kappa Delta’s “Shenanigans” and Pi Kappa Alpha’s “Pike Tug” fundraisers, just to mention a couple.
Thousands of dollars are raised each year for lots of different charities thanks to the hard work of WKU’s Greek students. Ok, you tell me how many college students can really say they do that kinda stuff if they aren’t a part of the Greek community? I guarantee you it’s not many! Kids are lazy these days, and they don’t care about anyone but themselves. Being in a sorority or fraternity helps kids such as these get off Facebook and get involved in something that matters!

And don’t think for a second that sorority/fraternity members aren’t focused on school. Every sorority and fraternity has a certain GPA that members have to keep to stay off probation. Probation = getting stuck with all the crappy jobs like cleaning toilets after dances. Yuck! So, to stop this from happening, grades are checked all the time, and study groups are created for girls that are having trouble making the grades. If a dance or charity fundraiser gets in the way of your study time, you put school first and hit the books. Members are rewarded within their organization for having good grades and studying with other members. Academics are the main job for students, and the Greeks here at WKU keep it that way. My sorority is proud of the fact that we had the highest GPA among the Greeks last semester.

One of the best things about being Greek at WKU is getting to know the alums. Sororities and fraternities have chapters all over the place. We all know jobs are hard to find in this horrible economy. Alums help Greek students find jobs and put in good words of rec for them. Even if a student moves clear across the country, it’s likely that their will be alums from their organization just about anywhere they go. In fact, an Alpha Delta Pi alum helped me get the job I have now!

Greek life is awesome for new students on Campus. It helps new students meet new people and get involved in different activities. The active members help the new guys/girls find their classes, too. I mean, c’mon, who really knows how to find classrooms in Tate Page on the first day? It would help to put the classrooms in order by number, but what do I know?
I’d say the most important reason why the Greek life is fabulous is that it helps you build lasting friendships. Many girls and guys in different sororities and fraternities will tell you that they never had a true group of friends until they became Greek at WKU. During my very first day as an Alpha Delta Pi, all the active girls treated me like they had known me their whole lives. Every time they see an ADPi walking on campus, they always go out of their way to stop and say hi. It really gives you a “home away from home” feeling.

Sorority and fraternity members have to get involved in at least 2 other extra-curricular activities on campus like Student Government and College Democrats. Being involved on campus looks really good on job resumes, so it’s a smart thing to do. I decided to get involved in College Republicans and the Dynamic Leadership Institute. Being active on campus really does make your college experience great.

The thing that hooked me on my sorority when I went through rush was the fact that it’s a Christian based sorority. We say the 15th Psalm first thing at every meeting. I think its awesome for college students not to lose sight of their faith. Alpha Delta Pi has weekly bible studies, and once a month we join a different fraternity for their bible study. It’s a great thing to be able to share your faith with your good friends.

So, are you guilty of believing these stereotypes about Greek life? If so, STOP!!! Its not cool. Greek organizations do a lot of positive things for the campus. Greek members raise money for charities, stay focused on school, have access to alumni networking, become more well-rounded, and gain lasting friendships. I can’t think of anything more awesome to be involved in! If you’ve understood anything you’ve read so far, I might have convinced you to join the Greek community!! I hope so:)

Why America is Fat

2009-09-08T21:29:00.000-07:00

Why America is Fat

Being fit is a relatively simple task. Yet some find it not very EASY. America has the highest obesity rating in the world. Obese people are EVERYWHERE! I see them every day and it’s extremely unhealthy. Maybe they should all go on diets. But many people who go on diets find they don’t work. It’s also because they don’t really know what they are putting in their bodies. Straight up, I think the majority of Americans need to start exercising more and eating better.

Does anyone ever wonder why Americans keep getting fatter despite our best efforts to reduce the amount of fats in food? Have you ever seen food labels claiming that they have reduced fat or even no fat? So you may be asking, how the hell are people getting fatter when they go on low fat diets? Any long term diet that counts fat out of the equation completely isn’t a smart diet at all, because believe it or not, fat isn’t the problem..sugar is. Sugar has very little nutritional value and stores in the body as fat very quickly. Fats are important in making sure your metabolism works correctly, and a strong metabolism makes it easier to lose weight. So in a sense, eating fat doesn’t make you fat, not eating it does..which is a pretty profound way to look at it..almost contradictory even. But it’s true.

Another thing that Americans don’t realize is that carbs aren’t the enemy. Carbs with lack of exercise is the enemy. Carbs give you an energy boost for your workout, however, they will be stored as fat if they aren’t burned off. Sugar is also stored as fat. Actually, sugar is turned to and stored as fat faster than fat you eat in foods, if you can wrap your mind around that.

Another reason why Americans keep getting fatter is because of advertising. If you see an advertisement for a multi-grain bagel, you might think you’re getting a healthy on-the-go snack, right? Wrong. The word you’re looking for in front of the word “grain” is WHOLE. Whole grains are the key. Just because there are multiple grains in that bagel, it doesn’t mean all those grains aren’t processed. And processed grains such as white flour, used to make white bread, store in your system exactly like sugar, which like we learned earlier, turns very quickly into fat. I also saw on a peanut butter ad that said “1/3 LESS SATURATED FAT!!!” I looked on the label of the “fatty” peanut butter and saw it only had 3 grams of saturated fat to begin with..meaning that this new peanut butter has 2 grams of saturated fat. These labels aren’t lying or tricking you..but they aren’t quite telling the whole truth.

This brings me to my next point. Nutrition needs to be paired with exercise. Now I used to be a high school wrestler, I can tell you a million different ways to make the number on the scale drop. Ya know..no carbs after noon..sleep naked with a fan on you and the window open to shiver pounds off..sleep with a bunch of sweats on and the window closed to sweat the pounds off..eat only apples all day..and spit in bottles..another popular weight loss tactic among us wrestlers was to eat little or nothing at all. But no matter what crazy diet I was on, one thing remained constant..the fact that I was on a vigorous workout regimen.

I worked my ass off every day for 2.5 to 3 hours in the wrestling room..many times twice a day..including thanksgiving..and christmas. No breaks. We were lucky enough to have one of the nicest high school facilities in the state and quite possibly one of the best in the nation. But you dont need to have nice facilities to maintain a healthy weight and stay in shape. Hell, ive seen tons of people who are extremely in shape and athletic who also work out in shitty gyms. The key is WANTING to work out and WANTING to be healthy. Whether its running, doing the elliptical, chuggin’ along on the stair master, or just playing in the back yard with your kids..or your parents. Get some sort of exercise every day. Your life span will increase and you will feel great. Carrying around excess weight is a bitch, and not only is it your fault for putting it on, its also your fault for not taking it off.

Too busy to work out? No, youre not. Everyone has 24 hours in a day. Arnold Schwarzenegger had 24 hours in a day and he became a pioneer for body building. Donald Trump has 24 hours in a day and he owns over 400 companies and is a billionaire! What im saying is if Arnold has time to become a beast, and Donald has time to rule the universe, you should be able to fit an hour of exercise into your schedule each day.

I’m not saying that everyone needs to go join the wrestling team or even a health club to stay in shape, I am, however, saying that America needs to get off it’s fat ass and start exercising and eating correctly. It’s really not that hard people.

By,

Kyle Knight

Extra credit

2009-09-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

Extra credit to . . .

1) the first person to post an appropriate picture for our profile

2) the first person to come up with an appropriate tagline/subhead for our blog

3) the first three people to post an interesting (and related) sidebar

How to post your draft

2009-09-08T20:11:00.000-07:00

I want to remind you all about a couple of things relating to the drafts of your blog post . . .

1) First of all, as I said today, your drafts need to be between 750 and 1000 words. Use your "word count" to make sure you're in that range. (This would be about three pages double-spaced if you were turning in a hard copy, but you are NOT going to do that.)

2) Once you're finished with your draft, you need to spellcheck it and proofread it at least once. (I wholly recommend printing it to do this because we read differently on screen than we do in print.)

3) After that, log into the blog we created today. See your email account for login info.

4) Click "new post."

5) Copy your draft and paste it into the window on your screen. (Do not include any of the info at the top of your paper—like the date or your name or my name—and do not use MLA format. You'll do that for your next essay.) Add a blank line between paragraphs (rather than indenting paragraphs).

6) Be sure to put your title in the title window and your name—"By John Doe"—at the end of your draft

7) Feel free to use the links and the picture options and the bold and italic options if you'd like

8) When you are finished, hit the "publish post" button.

9) Then hit "view blog" to view your draft on the blog.

10) The draft is due—and should be posted—before our next class on Thursday. We will be using these drafts in class, so make sure it's posted!

Also, a couple of tips:

• If you're have trouble finding your blog voice, try writing in second person. You might even address the letter to someone you know—preferably someone young—so that you can imagine yourself talking to them.

• Don't be afraid to include short paragraphs. On a blog, sometimes paragraphs are as short as one sentence or even one word if you're trying to make a point.

• As I've said before, feel free to use slang, curse words, and even texting symbols that are well known—like LOL or OMG.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Dr. McCaffrey