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(10/22/12 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I hate TMZ and celebrity news outlets with every fiber of my being. TMZ focuses solely on celebrities and celebrity-based news. Basically, if there’s a public toilet Christina Aguilera took a dump in, TMZ has found it and has already rigorously dug through it in the name of journalism. While they’re obviously the most guilty of the bunch, TMZ isn’t alone in its mission to destroy any semblance of a personal life for celebrities. Fox News, ABC and CNN all have portions of their programming set aside for delving into the lives of movie stars. Maybe it’s just me, but I have no idea why people feel the need to know every single thing there is to know about the celebrities they love. Who cares whether Lindsay Lohan is going to go to rehabilitation? Does it really matter at this point? Fame has already made her into a dried-out husk of the person she once was, so can’t we just let her be?Aside from the fact that this practice is just boring, I think it’s extremely invasive. I know that with fame comes the death of privacy, but is nothing sacred? I’m all for hearing the latest news about celebrities and their assortment of creative projects, but there’s a line, and it’s been crossed many times. It’s gotten to the point in which a personal life no longer exists if your name is even slightly recognizable. In what way do we think we have the right to go rooting through these people’s lives like this? Remember when news outlets like this drove Britney Spears crazy? If someone followed me around all day, demanding information about my relationship status and taking my picture like that, I probably would have gone insane, too. I don’t see why the acceptability of this should be based on whether I have a new album out. So lay off the celebrities, and give them some slack. We might like to have them up on pedestals, but they’re human.Just like the rest of us. — kevsjack@indiana.edu
(10/16/12 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s midterm time in Bloomington again. It is a time for stress, hair pulling and realizing you just aren’t good enough. Midterms have officially become the bane of my existence.In the mess of forgotten notes and skipped readings that become my life during midterms, my coffee addiction is pretty much the only thing that keeps me sane. As a service to all the help it has given me, I’d like to educate you all on my favorite little psychoactive drug.Developed by the Coffea plant, the caffeine found in coffee was originally evolved as an insecticide.Lethal to tiny bugs, caffeine was found to have profound benefits to humans by early Middle Easterners.Appearing in the Middle East during the 15th century, the stimulant made its way to European popularity at the time of the Enlightenment.It remains to this day as the second most traded commodity in the world after oil.As a citizen of one of the biggest coffee consuming countries, I have a pretty strong coffee habit. With my 4-5 cups every morning, I’m doing my level best to contribute to the $4 billion of coffee that America imports every year.And it’s not surprising Americans are so taken with coffee. The caffeine in coffee affects dopamine production in the human brain similarly to cocaine and amphetamines, making coffee America’s favorite and most used psychoactive drug.But why shouldn’t we partake in this wonder drug? Coffee increases concentration, it’s marginally cheap, as long as you stay away from whatever slog Starbucks is trying to pass off as coffee these days, and it’s been proven to have no major health effects on the average human. In fact, studies have shown that caffeine withdrawal is perhaps the worst side effect of the drug, making quitting coffee the worst part about coffee. With all this evidence behind it, I’m only surprised that coffee isn’t more popular than it already is. It makes us smarter, faster and more focused without major health complications to the average person.So drink on, my fellow drug addicts, and keep reaping the benefits of this amazing brew.— kevsjack@indiana.edu
(10/08/12 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Like most people who watched the presidential debate last week, I’m of the opinion that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney mopped the floor with President Barack Obama. It’s pretty easy to see how Romney did it. Obama exuded the personality of a wet carrot. But regardless of whether he came out on top, Romney had some low points. Specifically, his plan to cut funding to the Public Broadcasting Service was perhaps one of the most asinine and uninformed attacks I heard the entire night. To begin, the funding for programs like PBS is laughably small. Count von Count wouldn’t even bother trying to add it. Investment in public broadcasting in general equates to about one-hundredth of a percent of the total annual federal budget. Specifically, PBS funding requires about $445 million of that, less than one-thousandth of a percent of the budget.This is clearly over-the-top budgeting on Romney’s part. I understand that the nation is in a deficit and that we need to save as much money as possible, but cutting a program that doesn’t even register as a percentage point is too much, especially when that funding is so vital.Stations in the more rural areas of the country depend heavily on federal funding, with upward of 60 percent of their budget being traced back to the government. Without governmental funding, these stations will surely shut down. But perhaps the most aggravating bit of this whole situation is that Romney doesn’t seem to know or care what he’s cutting. PBS is a learning channel that broadcasts countless programs to better our nation’s youth. History Channel may have sold its academic soul to the gods of reality TV, but PBS stands resolute in its goal to educate in a fun and engaging way.Its rate of success with children is remarkable. PBS is watched by 81 percent of all children between the ages of 2 and 8.When Romney looks at programs like PBS, he seems to see only dollar signs. PBS is so much more than that. It’s been such a huge part of our culture for so long that you’d be hard-pressed to find an adult who didn’t learn the alphabet along with Big Bird.We need programs like PBS now more than ever, and cutting them, as Romney plans to, is nothing more than shortsighted. — kevsjack@indiana.edu
(10/01/12 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With the Curiosity rover’s discovery of an ancient riverbed on Mars last week, there’s been a bit of a backlash about “useless” scientific research. These detractors say a rock-collecting robot millions of miles away from Earth has no practical value and that all the money going to projects like Curiosity should be sent toward things like medical research. This nearly always happens whenever NASA does something cool, but it’s got me thinking about how we seriously devalue curiosity-driven scientific research.The Curiosity rover itself might not find anything that will affect the average person. It probably won’t find a rock that will make your car go faster, and it might not stumble on technology left behind by ancient Martians.The reason we need to fund research like the Curiosity missions isn’t just what we’ll learn when we get there. It’s what we’ll learn on the way.As the old saying goes, the journey is the destination. Take astronomer and engineer John O’Sullivan. He spent years trying to find and measure the radiation given off by black holes only to be beaten to the punch by Steven Hawking.Sounds like a stupid and pointless venture on O’Sullivan’s end, right?Well, it depends on your perspective. Sure, the guy didn’t find what he was looking for, but the techniques he used in observing black hole radiation are used internationally and have lead to one of the most profitable inventions to come out of the Internet age. We know this invention as Wi-Fi. The list doesn’t stop at O’Sullivan. Newton had no idea his research would lead to the use of communications satellites. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, couldn’t have known its research in particle physics would lead to the Positron Emission Tomography, or PET, scanner, saving countless lives. All of these things and more can attribute their creation to scientists being curious about the world around them.We can’t possibly know what the next Wi-Fi will be or from where the next revolution in medicine will come. We can’t even be sure that the Curiosity mission will do anything do advance society.The only thing we know is that the greatest revolutions in human history have come from scientific curiosity, and to stifle that would only put a cap on how far we as a species can go.— kevsjack@indiana.edu
(09/24/12 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I had a little time to kill last week, so I picked up the remote and started flipping through channels. After wading through hours of “Jersey Shore” reruns and running into an abomination called “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” I’ve made my decision: Reality TV is destroying television. I’m not going to say that everything on television now is complete and utter filth. I like my “Breaking Bad” just as much as the next guy, and I know a plethora of scripted TV shows that are worth their time on air.But the filth that is reality TV has just gone too far. To start, reality TV is in this weird twilight zone in terms of realness. Sure, Snooki doesn’t have lines that some writer is forcing her to say, but producers have been known to nudge people in certain directions to add more drama. Just look at “The Hills.”And that’s nothing compared to the contracts that most reality TV stars have to sign before they even set foot in front of cameras. They must agree to things such as not being able to change their physical appearances and must give the producers the right to portray them however they want. Producers aren’t looking for reality. They’re just looking for something they can package and sell as reality. I could forgive all of that. Selling something as reality when it’s not is dumb, but it’s not the main reason why I can’t stand reality TV.The worst thing reality TV brings to the table is the constant, empty drama. No one watches these shows because they love the relationships and want characters to succeed. Why would anyone want to watch a show where everyone got along and played nice?People watch reality TV for the fights. They want to watch Mike and Ronnie fight it out on “Jersey Shore” over some stupid argument, and they want to point and laugh as Snooki is arrested. Producers make sure to showcase as much human suffering as they can.The problem starts when you realize these are real people. The concussion Mike received was real, and Snooki really did have to go to jail. These aren’t characters on a screen, they’re real people who suffer real consequences. Treating them like puppets here for our amusement is cruel and wrong, no matter how annoying or useless they are to society.— kevsjack@indiana.edu
(09/17/12 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With September slowly creeping by, I’m noticing that students all around campus seem to be hitting a wall of academic endurance. The excitement of being back on campus is gone, and in its place is the stress and boredom that school brings.But as you slog through your assignments and grumble about waking up early for class, remind yourself that your education is worth it. With the current economy, a good education is becoming more and more vital to staying ahead in the world.That’s not just on a personal level, either. Citizens’ education is going to play a vital role in shaping how America will fare in generations to come. Sadly, either America can’t or just refuses to see this, and we’ve allowed our educational system to rot. If there is a center to the rot of American education, it must be its educators. But the importance of educators seems to have been lost on us, judging by teachers’ salaries. The average starting salary is about $34,746, compared to the national starting average of college graduates of $44,020. These low salaries are coupled with the terrifying tuition costs graduates must face after graduation. The average American college student can expect to rack up $27,200 to $34,000 in debt, a number just terrifying enough to make even the most passionate and talented of prospective teachers think twice. And recent students are definitely choosing not to teach, as the number of new people becoming educators is falling every year. With fewer potential fresh candidates every year, it’s no surprise the educational system has stagnated. America, once the leader in high school graduation, has dropped to the middle of the pack. Low graduation rates weren’t just something America used to bring up at dinner parties to feel important, either. About 13.8 percent of all high school dropouts are unemployed, compared to 8.7 percent of people who graduated high school. This higher unemployment rate means less people buying things and paying taxes, something that should be avoided in a recession. In fact, the U.S. misses out on about $192 billion annually in income tax due to dropouts each year.Considering the fragile state of the economy, a number like this is worth fixing. We need to fix how we teach people. We need to rethink how we pay our teachers and whether high tuition profits now are worth refusing future generations the tools to compete globally.More and better-educated citizens are the key to America’s future in the world, and it’s something worth investing in.— kevsjack@indiana.edu
(09/04/12 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention last week sparked controversy in the media, most of which I would agree is his fault.His lies ranged from saying the president hasn’t released a deficit reduction plan, which he absolutely has, to blaming President Barack Obama for the closing of a General Motors plant, which didn’t happen during his presidency.And that whole thing about Obama being the center of America’s credit downgrade last summer, even though the credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s said the GOP’s refusal to raise taxes was mostly to blame? Did he think we were going to magically forget what happened a year ago? While Ryan’s address was filled to the brim with lies and deceit, but the issue extends beyond what the VP hopeful said to the party Ryan represented when he gave that speech. If his speech meant anything, it was that the Republican Party is stooping to outright lies to oust Obama.For proof, we need to look only at the 2008 RNC. In her speech, then-vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin had choice words to say about then-presidential candidate Obama.She accused him of wanting to “give you more orders from Washington” and “take more of your money.”While I wouldn’t use the words she did, at least there was truth in what she said. Obama campaigned for a larger governmental presence, and he had a plan for tax reform.These are what we in the business call facts. Facts twisted toward an agenda, but facts nonetheless.What went wrong with this election season’s GOP?The Republican Party isn’t stupid. There’s no way Ryan and his speech writers could have blocked the memory of stubbornly refusing to negotiate about tax reform last year.And the GM plant gaffe? What am I supposed to believe, that they forgot Obama came into his presidency a month after the plant shut down due to high gas prices during Bush’s presidency? I’m not exactly the biggest fan of the president at the moment. Actually, his involvement in the accidental arming of Mexican drug cartels last spring has pretty much booted me off the Obama train.But deceiving the American people to bring him down is completely unacceptable.I understand there is a certain truth-tweaking that happens in politics, and I know Obama is certainly guilty of it. But blatantly lying to trick voters is disgusting.I can only hope that the public haranguing that Ryan’s speech catalyzed has taught them what most of us learned in preschool: Lying to get your way is wrong.--kevsjack@indiana.edu
(08/27/12 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Neil Armstrong, one of the greatest men to ever grace this planet with his existence, passed away on Saturday due to complications following heart surgery.He was 82 years old.Armstrong’s remarkable actions as the first man to step on the moon will be remembered as a tremendous moment not only in American history, but in the history of all mankind. He will be remembered as a testament to the amazing feats humans can perform with great perseverance. However, as Armstrong was always apt to point out, the moon landing was not about him. He reveled in the mystery and wonder that space had in store and was always a strong advocate for America’s space program. This, beyond anything else that defined the man, truly made him a hero in my eyes.Using his public image, Armstrong blasted President Barack Obama’s cuts to the NASA space program, calling Obama “poorly advised” on matters pertaining to space and space exploration. This is the kind of thing I like to see out of public figures, and this is why Armstrong has always been a personal hero of mine. Not only did the man walk on the moon, but he used the publicity from it to fight to try and save the American space program when it was in trouble. And it needs saving. Armstrong’s amazing life is proof to how much we need space programs, and I hope his death will remind people of the amazing wonder and awe that space exploration should inspire. When we landed on the moon in 1969, we made history, but more importantly we made heroes that will live on in the collective memory of mankind forever.Centuries from now, when human colonists reach out to the stars to find new places, they will look back to Armstrong and what he accomplished in his life. And when they look back, they will look back on a man of courage and bravery, a man who did what was considered impossible. It will inspire them to do wonderful things such as I cannot even imagine. This is the legacy left by Armstrong. I am honored that I could live during his lifetime. — kevsjack@indiana.edu
(07/22/12 10:46pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As someone who works in a store that has a radio station playing 24/7, I hear a lot of commercials. More than I’d like to remember, actually. And while most of the repeats make me grind my teeth simply at the sound of their intro, there’s one commercial I actually have a problem with.In Illinois (and perhaps everywhere else — I’m not too familiar with inter-state commercialry) a new state-sponsored commercial has popped up. It features a narrator stating that people should always wear their seatbelts, on the off chance that a zombie might be in the back seat of your car. It also reminds you that wearing your seatbelt is the law, and that you will be pulled over for not wearing one.While this commercial is mind-numbingly stupid on its face, what really irritates me is the law that’s hidden beneath it. Yes, the infamous “Click it or Ticket.”Now, I’m not saying that wearing your seatbelt is stupid or lame in any way. I instantly put mine on the second I step into a car, having done it literally hundreds of thousands of times before without even thinking about it.But it is not my government’s right to make me wear one.My safety is my concern, and as a functioning adult, I pretty much have it down. I know seatbelts can cause injuries, but I also know they can be the only thing stopping me from flying through the windshield in a high-speed crash. I’ve weighed these risks against each other, and I’ve made my decision, and I hope anyone legally able to drive would do the same.But the government’s micromanaging of its citizens doesn’t stop on the road.For quite some time now, it has been illegal to smoke inside many establishments in the U.S. That doesn’t just mean hospitals or schools. Most places of business in many states cannot let their patrons smoke indoors.At this point, most people jump up and proclaim the dangers of secondhand smoke. Sure, the smoker might have made his decision to destroy his lungs, but what about the people around him? Don’t they have a say?No. They don’t.As long as this smoker is in an establishment where the owner allows smoking, neither the non-smokers nor any government official has the right to put out that cigarette. Anyone who doesn’t like smoking reserves every right to take their spending money elsewhere.And sure, the owner might lose some customers that won’t like the smoke in the air. But that is exactly how American businesses are built. Certain businesses cater to two different types of people, and as such, they should be allowed to run their businesses as they please.All this micromanagement is not good for this country. I understand the government officials think it’s for my best interest, but don’t I know what’s best for me?It’s all squashing personal choice and allowing the government to make my decisions for me.— kevsjack@indiana.edu
(07/15/12 9:55pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last week, I wrote an article on the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle and why people should be excited about it. And after all the research and work that went into it, I was glad to see what I wrote being generally well received. In fact, it was picked up by Google News and was displayed on the Google News homepage.I was pretty excited about this at the time and, honestly, I still am. However, as with most things, there was a downside. As the slight popularity of my article grew, so did the amount of sites online copying my article onto their site without my consent.While most of these sites were nice enough to at least link to my article on the Indiana Daily Student homepage, many did not. In fact, a few took my name off the article altogether and slapped some advertisements next to it.Basically, these latter asshats had stolen my article without telling me and were now making money off it.Now, I’m a pretty easygoing person. And to be honest, the fact that I was getting so much press made up for most of my anger. But this really got to me, and it reminded me of the recent fights about SOPA and ACTA.For those who have been living under some sort of Internet-proof rock, the Stop Online Piracy Act and Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement are both acts recently proposed as counter-measures to online content piracy. While the latter is an international affair, SOPA was strictly within the U.S.These acts are supposed to combat the rise in piracy of “intellectual property,” such as illegally downloaded songs and episodes of “Breaking Bad.” And while trying to stop people from stealing might sound like a noble cause, these acts are far from ideal.Both SOPA and ACTA have far-reaching consequences to Internet freedom. They allow the government to monitor a person’s online activity if they have even the slightest proof this person has been pirating content.In fact, Internet service providers have the right to release any and all of your Internet history if they are given the slightest proof you’ve been involved in any sort of content piracy. Basically, these acts spell out the end of Internet privacy and freedom.Now, as someone who has had their intellectual property stolen, I can say the entire experience sucks. The people who did this to me didn’t just steal words on a page; they stole the hours of writing and research that went into those words.But that does not give me or any government the right to disregard all personal freedoms. I absolutely think these people should pay for stealing my article, but they don’t deserve to have their rights stripped away.If this had happened in the ’50s, and had these people stolen my article from a printed newspaper, would they have been blacklisted? Would their phones have been tapped and would they have been put under constant surveillance?Thankfully, SOPA was cut down months ago. And while the European Union has refused to sign ACTA into agreement, acts like the Canada-EU Trade Agreement are back doors for many of ACTA’s frightening policies. It seems governments will stop at nothing to monitor their people unfairly.I understand the Internet has changed things, and I understand it’s hard to redefine real-world laws in a computer-age. But that does not give any government the right to trample on the rights and freedoms of any human being. — kevsjack@indiana.edu
(07/08/12 7:46pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With the jubilation and excitement known only to hardcore nerds, The European Organization for Nuclear Research announced Wednesday that the infamous Higgs Boson particle had finally been found. And with this momentous discovery came the inevitable air of boredom and confusion from the general public. Now, I’m obviously no scientist. My 10th-grade lab partner and her singed bangs can attest to that. But I’ve always been interested in scientific discoveries, and as such I’d like to do my best here to try and explain what the Higgs Boson is, and why you should care. To put it very, very simply, the Higgs Boson gives objects their mass. When we think of mass, we tend to think of how much “stuff” an object has to it. The more of this magical “stuff” the object has, the more massive it is.Like most amateur scientific theories, this is completely false. How things actually get their mass is by interacting with the Higgs field, which is just a group of Higgs Boson particles that spans the universe.The Higgs field is a lot like a lake in that it interacts similarly when things try to move through it. Think of a water skier, skipping across the top of the water with almost no trouble. The water isn’t pulling on him very much, and he can therefore move with ease.But what happens if he doesn’t have skis? If he were to fall and sink into the water, the water would pull on him more and he would never be able to go as fast as when he had skis. The Higgs field, like that lake, interacts with whatever moves through it. Much like an electrical charge, if an object have been “positively charged” with mass, the Higgs field will interact much more heavily with it and the object will sink into the field. But if it isn’t positively charged with mass, like light, the particle skips across the Higgs field like our water skier. Of course, I’ve watered this explanation down ridiculously, but the discovery of Higgs isn’t what’s most important to me. What I’d really like to answer are the two age-old questions when it comes to scientific discoveries like this: Why should we care and why should we keep spend money on research like this? Quite simply, because it’s pretty cool. I’m all for curing diseases and making the world a safer place, but decreasing the bad parts of the world isn’t the only thing we should be doing with our time and money. We are the first species in the history of our planet to have the ability to understand the universe in a complex way. The only reason the “modern world” is modern is the human desire to break down and understand the world around us. We need to know how it all works, and discoveries like the Higgs Boson only further our understanding and our connection with all that surrounds us. I think that’s something that needs our funding, as well as our attention. So, will this discovery irrevocably change the course of human history? Will we become a better species for finding the Higgs Boson? I don’t really know the answers to all this, but I’m excited to find out.— kevsjack@indiana.edu
(07/01/12 9:03pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s been a little more than a week since President Obama’s Fast and Furious scandal started to gain traction, and I’m still reeling from it. For those who don’t know, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives recently came under fire for creating a gun-walking operation called Operation Fast and Furious.Basically, the ATF was attempting to hunt down some upper-level gun runners and drug dealers in northern Mexico by selling marked guns that could later be traced back to these people. This isn’t the first time the ATF has done something like this, but it is the first time it has been met with such a disastrous outcome. Of the 2,000 guns the ATF originally distributed, only 700 have been recovered, none of which were found on high-profile suspects. But this isn’t even the worst part of it. Not only did we lose about 1,300 guns on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, a region known for violent drug cartels, but these guns have actually started to show up at crime scenes across the region. They’ve been linked to the deaths of many Mexican citizens and at least one U.S. border patrol officer. So, why does this involve President Obama? Well, certain testimony from ATF officers, as well as certain documents, pointed to the White House knowing that this operation was in full effect. Of course, this all would have been cleared up quite easily had President Obama stuck to his original campaign promise of full transparency. But, like the true politician he is, President Obama enacted his first use of his executive power Wednesday to stifle documents that might lead this operation back to his administration.Now, I’m pretty pissed off that this all happened without the ATF even attempting to inform local Mexican government officials. And I’m extremely disturbed my government used tax dollars to help fund Mexican drug cartel terrorism. But what really gets me is that my president literally has a legal get-out-of-jail-free card. Whether he knew about this operation is a completely moot point now, as he’s allowing those who did a free pass from further investigation. He’s attempting to let people who caused the death of a U.S. federal officer go free just so he doesn’t have to answer some embarrassing questions. Not only does that make him a liar, but it makes him a coward, and we cannot let something like this be swept under the rug.— kevsjack@indiana.edu
(06/24/12 11:09pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Much as it has for most modern college students, the Internet has become a gigantic part of my everyday life. When I need to research something, Wikipedia is usually there as a jumping-off point. If I’m having a bad day and need some consoling, a picture of a cat in a teacup will always be there for me.And to be honest, I’m not even sure how people solved petty arguments before Google.What if I needed to find out when “Alien” came out? Was there a number you called? Did the library have a section for that?But for all its charms, the Internet continues to get a bad rap. Usually, naysayers point to Internet causing a disconnect from other human beings.For instance, instead of using a cat to cure my blues, I should go out and actually socialize with people.And while the cat example is most likely a case of introversion gone wrong, I’d like to argue that, for the most part, these people are wrong. Not only is the Internet not causing people to disconnect from others, it’s actually allowing people to connect on a level they never have before.In order to explain this, we must turn to a web comic called “The Oatmeal.”For those who don’t know, “The Oatmeal” creator Matthew Inman recently wrote a post about how frustrated he was at a comedy site called Funnyjunk. His anger stemmed from Funnyjunk putting some of his comics on its site without asking him or giving him compensation. Basically, they stole some of his content and made advertising money off it.Hearing about this post, Funnyjunk’s lawyer wrote a letter, demanding “The Oatmeal” remove its post about Funnyjunk as well as give Funnyjunk $20,000 in compensation.Though this was obviously an attempt to scare him, Inman moved forward, undaunted, and responded to this by setting up a donation account. He planned to raise at least $20,000 through donations and, as a gigantic piss-off gesture, planned to donate this money to the World Wildlife Fund and the American Cancer Association.Of course, this donation would only occur after Inman sent a picture of the money to Funnyjunk, along with a drawn picture of the creator of Funnyjunk’s mother having sex with a bear.And while this Internet battle has been pretty interesting to watch, the real interesting piece of all this was the community backing “The Oatmeal.”In a little more than 24 hours, “The Oatmeal’s” donation page received $116,000.This is absolutely incredible to me, and it shows how amazing the Internet is at getting people together and focused.In this situation, Funnyjunk is the big guy on the block. The website is gigantic; therefore, Funnyjunk collects a lot of advertising money. “The Oatmeal,” while pretty popular, doesn’t even come close in this regard.In any other time, Funnyjunk would have ground Inman into the dust and then swept him aside so it could screw the next content creator on a clean floor.But we don’t live in any other time.And in this one, the Internet is an amazing tool that gets people connected. In about one day, fans of “The Oatmeal” got together to tell Funnyjunk they would not allow such bullying.That’s not exactly something that could have been done so easily without the Internet connecting these people. — kevsjack@indiana.edu
(06/10/12 10:09pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Unlike many of the people who read this fine newspaper, I actually live outside Indiana. I currently reside in Naperville, Ill., which is about 45 minutes away from Chicago.Usually, this little piece of information about myself goes almost completely unnoticed, as it should. It’s not really an interesting fact. However, a few weeks ago people absolutely bombarded me with questions about where I live. The culprit behind this change? Of course, it was the NATO summit in Chicago subsequently followed by (at this point) the guaranteed protests.I don’t live anywhere near the center of all of this in Chicago, so I didn’t feel the brunt of this massive amount of people streaming into the city. But I have heard some horror stories of having to wade through oceans of people, or planning a seven- or eight-hour trip that should have lasted two.It was absolutely insane down there, but not just because of the NATO protesters. There were actually anti-protesters — people taking the time out of their days to protest the protesters who were protesting NATO. A little confusing, I know, but stick with me.Now, one of the main ideas the original protesters in Chicago were trying to get across was “Healthcare over Warfare.” Basically, this is the idea that NATO, as well as America, should cut back on defense funding in favor of putting that money toward medical care.Of course, this sparked a pretty hot debate within the crowd.The way I saw it, a majority of the original protesters seemed to think America’s military is always a bad force in the world and should be stopped, while a majority of the anti-protesters seemed to think America could never be wrong and should be allowed to do whatever it pleases. To be honest, both views repel me.Perhaps it’s my personality, but I’ve never understood completely polarizing views like these. I just can’t seem to convince myself that one country could be either the source of all good or all evil in the universe.To an extent, the original NATO protesters are completely right. America does get away with a lot of aggression and it definitely spends too much on defense and too little developing a better healthcare system.But I also agree with the anti-protesters in that the idea that America should completely gut its military is ludicrous. I would love to live in a world where such things were unnecessary, but I don’t live in the world of my choosing.This is the real world, where the guy with the biggest stick and the largest wallet wins.Sadly, neither side could see this, and the protest raged on. And although it’s all done now, I still think this idea of extreme polarization is an important one.Progress cannot be made when people have already made up their minds in such an extreme way. As I said before, this is the real world that we live in. And in the real world, compromises are a part of everyday life.I wanted pancakes and orange juice for breakfast this morning, but I had stale Cheerios with something that might or might not have been milk. That’s life.Now, I’m not saying we should drop all our dearly held beliefs. I’m not saying we should acquiesce to whatever the group wants — there are very few times in history where that turned out well.But maybe listening to each other and working to find an agreeable compromise is better than what’s going on now. Cheerios and gross milk are better than nothing. — kevsjack@indiana.edu
(06/03/12 10:02pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As many of the readers of the Indiana Daily Student know, writers like myself actually get paid for the articles we submit each week. It’s a small incentive to keep writers writing, and it lets me boost my ego slightly by being able to call myself a “professional writer.”However, what most people don’t know is what we get paid. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say it’s not exactly a livable wage. It’s because of this, and because of that fantastic out-of-state tuition I have to pony up every year, that I had to get a full-time job.Now, I have no problem working the job I have. I know times are still tough for some people and we live in a society that necessitates the trade of labor for financial gain. Cash rules everything around me and all that.The thing I’ve been having a little trouble with is the amount of people I know who are finding out I now have a full-time job. These people are usually older than me, and the conversation almost always comes back to how useless my generation is.“Good for you!” they’ll say, slapping me on the back. “It’s good to see young people taking initiative! You see, that’s what’s wrong with this generation. No work ethic.” Statements like these irritate me, mainly for two reasons.First of all, they assume that my generation is the first to be called lazy, apathetic or just generally less than the one before it. This, of course, is completely untrue.Even Plato ragged on the generations that came after his. Despite being one of the fathers of logic and reason, Plato still fell prey to youth bashing. He said young people “ignore the law” and “disobey their parents.” He even noted that “their morals are decaying.”Decaying morals, huh? Sound familiar? If you were to go back and search newspapers from every year for the past 100 years, I guarantee that at least once a month an article could be found decrying the decay of “traditional morals.”And while the fact that people generally ignore information like this is seriously annoying, it isn’t what really gets me.What really irritates me is that this whole idea assumes that my entire generation is the exact same, which couldn’t be further from the truth.Sure, my full-time schedule might make me seem hardworking when compared to slackers, but what about the 22-year-olds who work two jobs to help their families? Am I lazy because I don’t work 60 hours a week?And what about the German teen who recently devised a solution to a mathematical problem that baffled Sir Isaac Newton? Hell, he’s accomplished more by 16 than most people have by 40.My point here is that thinking an entire generation is or isn’t lazy is ridiculous. Plato’s complaints obviously didn’t mean much. If morals had been destroyed in his time, what would Fox News be able to shout about every other week?So, don’t lump my entire generation together, expecting us all to be the same. I’m neither a sinner nor a saint for working full time. I’m just trying to pay some bills. — kevsjack@indiana.edu
(05/13/12 11:49pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As most people have heard by now, President Obama voiced his support for gay marriage on Wednesday. Whether this was a response to Joe Biden doing what he does best (read: blurting things out uncontrollably) is uncertain, but it certainly was quite a historic moment for the White House. While I think it’s great that this issue is getting the attention it deserves, I won’t talk about the subject of gay marriage itself here. Quite honestly, it’s been done to death and I’m not so sure I’m the man to talk about it. Today I’d like to talk about why I really was ecstatic to hear the President’s statements this week. Specifically, why I’m so excited to see Obama finally commit his support. Perhaps it’s my cynicism, but I’m pretty sure President Obama didn’t suddenly have a change of heart. Or that his “view on the subject was evolving,” whatever the hell that means.No, the reason the President is solidifying his stance on gay marriage is the same reason he was so hesitant to take a strong stance in the first place: votes.Throughout his first term, President Obama did his very best to skirt the issue. It’s an emotional issue for many people, and upsetting some of those potential voters could have cost him the election. It was best to avoid until after election season.But now, considering the stance Romney is taking on the issue, it’s easy to see why the President has made this decision. If the idea of gay marriage was so repulsive to the independents Obama was initially courting, they most likely wouldn’t have liked his wishy-washy stance on the topic. These independents would probably have voted for Romney’s anti-gay marriage stance anyway, so going after them was a futile endeavor. So, why does all this make me happy? Well, I’m hoping this whole “honesty” thing becomes a trend. I’m completely sick and tired of politicians tip-toeing around the political arena when talking about the actual issues and yet running into battle when it comes time to bash their opponents’ stances on these same issues. It makes no sense.I absolutely hated Rick Santorum, but at least he was consistent and vocal in his views. Even if it did turn his name into one of the dirtiest sexual terms I’ve ever heard in my life. But why are these strong stances so important? Why is it such a bad idea for the President to side-step every question asked of him? Well, because it doesn’t help the voters out in the slightest.Like I said, my opinion as to why Presidwent Obama has finally come around to gay marriage is that he wanted to drop the voters who don’t support it and gain those who do. This immensely streamlines the voting process.Now, independents don’t have to waffle between Obama and Romney, trying to decipher hours of “political talk.” We can cut through miles of red tape and finally start to move toward solving these issues. — kevsjack@indiana.edu
(05/06/12 11:22pm)
In this century, the human race has done some pretty
amazing things. We’ve cured diseases, invented countless devices and somehow
made Kim Kardashian a celebrity. But the thing that continues to amaze me is
the fact that people find going to the moon mundane.
(04/23/12 12:48am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With Lil 5 week finally behind us, I’ve been looking back on the best and the worst of it. And throughout all the terrible concerts and binge drinking that I’ve seen, the one thing that will always stick in my head will be the drunk fights I saw.Anyone who’s been at a party for more than 10 minutes knows what I’m talking about. Two normally level-headed people have too much to drink, start getting a little rowdy and then someone steps on someone else’s shoes and shit hits the fan. All-out warfare begins. Sometimes it’s a long bout of simple name-calling, other times it’s a flat-out boxing match. But these drunk fights happen all the time, and they’ve made me think about why people fight. I think most of it has to do with our inability to empathize. Sure, Drunk Douchebag #1 is angry his shoes have been smudged, but he should at least try to understand why Drunk Douchebag #2 did it. Maybe he was bumped or pushed, or maybe he has more on his mind than a pair of $75 Nike shoes. Whatever the case, insta-punching him in the face probably isn’t the right answer. But this inability to see the world from someone else’s view isn’t strictly confined to drunken brawls. Things like racism and homophobia thrive off of the human inability to sympathize with someone who doesn’t think or look like them.Homophobia, a key example of an inability to understand a different view point, is causing serious problems. In fact, gay teens are five times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual peers. Homophobic people ostracize and fight against what they can’t understand, just like Drunk Douchebag #1. But instead of a pair of shoes, these people are literally gambling with the lives of others. It’s a shame to see something like this in modern society, but luckily there’s a somewhat easy cure. Use your words. Conversation among these types of people is absolutely essential for us as a society to move on. They need to talk with those they don’t understand, and at least attempt to see their point of view. — kevsjack@indiana.edu
(04/08/12 10:57pm)
With Snooki getting pregnant, there’s been a backlash of people
questioning why we allow celebrities like her to become as famous as she
is.
(03/25/12 11:35pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Like most fans of the series, I was absolutely ecstatic when I heard “The Hunger Games” was going to be made into a movie trilogy.Now that the first film is actually here and considering the relative critical acclaim it’s been getting, I couldn’t be more excited to see it. Here’s to hoping the series helps clear away the stank from young-adult fiction that Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series left behind. Seriously, I hate you so much that it hurts sometimes, Meyer.But with the film’s release last weekend, I’ve been thinking about film adaptations of novels.Film adaptations have been given a pretty bad rap recently. The main complaint is that they serve as money-generating machines for movie studios that need only market the product to an already existing, ready-and-eager audience.Now, this has some truth to it (surprise, surprise, the movie-industry is filled with greedy ass-hats).But the important thing to remember is that these films are made by directors who are usually devoted fans themselves. They want to bring the characters to life in a respectable way just as much as the fans do.“Hunger Games” Director Gary Ross has often expressed not only his love for the series but also a concern that the main character Katniss Everdeen be played by the right actress.In fact, he so badly wanted the character to be played correctly that he took advice from the author herself, Suzanne Collins, in casting Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. That doesn’t sound like something a money-focused director would do.Fine, you might say, film adaptations making money for movie studios has about as much to do with the films as publishers making money from the books themselves. But films aren’t works of art like novels are. Isn’t distilling a book into a two-hour movie just dumbing down the message?No. And shame on you for being condescending to cinema.Film is a legitimate art form with the ability to spread important ideas and opinions, bring to light tragic flaws within society and make people truly care for characters that technically do not exist.This is exactly what novels do for us, and simply sweeping films that attempt the same under the rug is like throwing away a valuable form of expression. Sure, liberties must be taken in making sure length-requirements are met. But when done right, this doesn’t mean the film is worth any less than the book.With all of this, I think we might need to reconsider our collective opinion about film adaptations of novels. Of course, Hollywood is always looking for its next big money-maker. But directors who truly care about the novels they’re adapting do exist, and they do their best to present the story in a respectful, dutiful manner. We should at least give them the chance of an open mind.— kevsjack@indiana.edu