Where would I go?

I was filling out an application for a potential internship in NYC and I had this question posed to me:

If you could take THREE industry-related field trips, anywhere in the world, where would you go? What and/or whom would you visit and why?

I had to think about my answer for a couple of minutes... New York? Los Angeles? CNN is here in Atlanta? Where would I go? After a while of thinking, I made my decision:

Tokyo, Japan, Beijing, China, and Mumbai, India. The particular portion of the communications industry that I want to go into relies heavily on technology. Those three places I feel are going to be the places with the next major equipment changes in the field. I would visit the Research and Development divisions of the leading audio/visual manufacturing companies to learn about what is coming up next and how I can implement it in the future.

Lewinski wasn’t the only person who Clinton screwed

If you are a college student with a political science major, he may have screwed you, too

The media had a field day with their coverage of the Monica Lewinski sexual relationship with former President Bill Clinton. Anyone of college age should know the 42nd president’s relations with his intern. What happened behind closed doors may never fully be known, but the one thing that should be known is what former President Clinton and many other politicians are doing to college students across the nation. They’re making the already-tough-to-break-into politics job market even harder to get into for college graduates.

I would bet money on deals that happened between Lewinski and certain political parties so that she will have no financial worries in the future. What I’m worried about is the students who are looking for internships in the political arena to get some “real-world-experience” before they graduate. These students are only trying to boost their resumes in hopes of getting at minimum a decent job. Unfortunately, who is going to hire a White House intern from when Clinton was president. What potential employer isn’t going to think “well, I wonder if this one had ‘relations’ with the president, too” when he or she sees that on someone’s resume?

To the media, Clinton’s affair was just personal. Many left-wing media outlets followed up every story about Monica with one about how well the economy was doing because of the president. Because it was thought to be only personal, it was cast aside in the judgment of many people because it just didn’t affect many people.

In some dark corner of my heart, I feel genuinely bad for Lewinski for going through that. I feel worse for any other intern or page whom went through similar situations. Up until this point, who has even thought about all of the other interns who are back at square-one all because they were trying to get ahead. As it turns out, these “personal affairs” may actually be hurting college graduates.

Most of the people who were interns during the last presidency have already made it through the system and are now either successful despite set-backs or flipping burgers at the local fast food joint. The problem now is the current ring of politicians who just cannot keep their hands to themselves.

In 2006, former senator Mark Foley resigned from congress after being caught sending explicit text messages to former pages. In 2001 “congressman” Gary Condit was found to have had an affair with intern Chandra Levy. This illustrates just two of the more well-known affairs. If one wanted to see the full impact, one would have to include nearly every politician who has had a sexual affair with anyone. What employer would take a job candidate seriously if they knew the candidate had worked under Eliot Spitzer as an intern?

Explicit Language

Everyday we hear members of parent’s council or another entity complaining about how something is too explicit for their children. Everyday the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, puts another restriction on what can be said on the air. The American government is increasing the limitations of what the media can say.
At the same time the Americanized dialects of the English language are becoming more and more loose; words that used be considered vulgar, are now generally accepted by much of the American population.
Although I cannot speak for the entirety of my generation, I will point out that there are not many words that you will not hear coming out of our mouths. These words that I cannot mention in this article, because they are “bad words,” are so socially accepted that no one even turns when they hear them spoken.
As journalists we are told that we have to not use these words and other “vulgar” comedy because it is “for the greater good of society.” We cannot expose children to these words because it would be very bad if they heard it from a reputable source versus from their friends.
I don’t understand why I can say whatever I want to at the grocery store and no one can stop me, but if I am in front of a microphone, I cannot say *bleep.* If I am in front of my computer working on a newspaper article, I cannot type $&#@.
Since the phrases freedom of speech and freedom of the press have been thrown around so much, they have lost most of their meaning. These two important amendments to the American government no long stand for what they used to.
It has gotten to be so bad these days that if you slip up and accidentally say one of those “bad words” you will be heavily fined by the FCC. And that does not even include all of the suits that will be filed by those fanatic parent groups.
I feel it is sad that I cannot *bleeping* say what I *bleeping* want to.

Definition of Terrorism

Osama bin Laden is generally accepted as a terrorist by people in the United States. But, to much of the al-Qaida organization, he is considered to be a hero. According to many of their beliefs, bin Laden did the world a favor when he organized terrorist bombings across America, and therefore from al-Qaida he is praised for his heroism. To them, Americans are considered the devil. To us they are considered the devil. But wait, this brings up a new question.
Is George Bush a terrorist? Political views aside, certainly by the logic that we have established, members of al-Qaida, more importantly their families, must believe that President Bush is no better than we think bin Laden is. But wait a second, the leader of the apple-pie-loving, bald-eagle-protecting, flag-waving, in-God-we-trust United States of America cannot be a terrorist…
Now stop right there. I am not saying that George W. is a terrorist; I am just trying to show you how confused many Americans are about the definition of the word terrorist.
According to Webster’s dictionary, a terrorist is a person who terrorizes or frightens others. By that definition, my own loving dad is a terrorist: I was definitely frightened from ages four to six just because of the stories that he told me about the boogey monster. I think we can safely agree that this definition may be just a little too broad.
If you break it down, the word terrorist has two parts, ‘terror’ and ‘ist’. Traditionally we add the suffix ‘ist’ to adjectives that we want to turn into a type of person. Whether or not that is the accepted way of creating words is another debate entirely; we can use slang however we want. The word terror means an intense fear, according to the American Heritage Dictionary. That is still very broad, but maybe it is not wrong. Maybe terror, like most adjectives, is in the eye of the beholder.
Maybe calling someone a terrorist is saying that in your opinion, that person frightens you. When Fox News calls someone a terrorist, it means that the producer or the writer is afraid of this person. When President Bush calls Saddam Hussein a terrorist it is because he is frightened by the thoughts that his father instilled in him about Hussein.
Maybe as Americans, we should be better people and not throw the title terrorist around so loosely.

Why ban books when you can set them on fire?

All across America parents are fighting local and even state legal cases about whether certain books should be banned from school or public libraries. These parents say that they are attempting to get these books banned because they contain foul language, suggestive themes, against religion, or whatever reason suits them for the time being. These parents will go to every expense to get these books removed from the shelves. Why? What is the big deal if their kid becomes a little educated to the real world? Hell, they do not even get to experience it until they get out of college. Do these parents plan to hold their kids hand until the day the these kids get their diplomas? How in the world are they going to survive the real world?

These parents claim to be sheltering their kids from the pains that run rampant through the world. In Georgia this week, for instance, a mother from Atlanta is trying to get the Harry Potter series pulled from the shelves. Why? Because they are against God. This mother thinks that she is protecting her children from Atheism. But from a different perspective, maybe these parents are just trying to control their kids and run their lives. How are these people any better than dictators across history? Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, and Hussein all removed books that did not agree with their agendas and/or doctrines. But at least they were smart about it: Why just pull the books off the shelves when you can BURN THEM?! In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, life without books really was not to bad, was it? Other than the fact that everyone's life was controlled by the sole sources of information.

My thoughts to kids: Read Everything! There is no limit to the knowledge that you can gain from reading.

My thoughts to parents: No one is making your kid read these books. Your children need to learn on their own what the real world is like. Choose your battles, let the kids have their books, but you can still go battle what kind of music is available or what video games they can play.

what does not matter for you may matter for someone else

In most news media, they are supposed to call people by what they want to be called. In some cases that is easily defined, but for some individuals this is not so easy. Transvestites, bisexuals, gays, and lesbians may have a different name for themselves than that of which they are. To find out what the person wants to be called, the reporter needs to ask. If a person is called something they do not want to be called, it could cause problems for the person but also for the news organization. Most news media uses this same policy. The ethics behind this policy is that if the reporter does not ask and puts what they want in the story, they are discriminating toward that person. That particular person may not be what the reporter says and it could very much ruin their reputation. I am not sure, but I think libel can come in to play here.

In my opinion it does not really matter. If a person wants to be called something other than what they really are, I think they should be called that. To make my opinion about this issue, I had to kind of look in their perspective. They know they are not the same as everyone else, and they don't want to be called the same thing. If I were a lesbian, which I am not, I would want to be called a lesbian because that is what I would be. But others, like transvestites, may want to choose the gender he or she would like to be known as. For people of different gender than what they are makes it really hard on news media. If the person does not tell the reporter what they want to be called, it can cause issues. First of all most people don't want to ask. It may seem rude or impolite. I think if a person has a questionable gender and is going to talk to the media, they need to tell them what they want to be called.

Mass Advertising or Mass Execution

Have you ever noticed the billboards that line the highways? Sure you have; everyone has. They're annoying, boring, and worst of all, they are DISTRACTING! Sure, some of them are interesting, for instance the Chic-fil-a billboards with the three-dimensional cow statues never cease to amaze me. BUT, these billboards, especially the few interesting ones, are extremely distracting. What's the big deal? Aren't advertisements supposed to catch your attention? Yes, but my question is: ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO KILL YOU?

Over 40,000 people were killed in traffic accidents in 2005 alone, thats about one death in every 13 minutes. According to the US Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), nearly 25% of these deaths are attributed to drivers being distracted. That's over 10,000 people each year! The NHTSA released a statement that 30% of distracted drivers are distracted by cell phones. That still leaves 7,000 people who die each year from distractions. Now I'm not saying that all 7,000 deaths are because of billboards, and there are no statistics to prove either way, but just think about how many possible deaths each year could be caused from this accepted form of mass advertising. And billboards are only one form of advertising.

What about television? You can turn on the television and watch depressing news about murders, wars, rapists on the loose, and anything else that you may find depressing. You switch to other channels where you can watch reality television shows that showcase people doing extreme stunts where there is a rather high chance of death. With television being so depressing these days, it is no wonder that the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) says that out of the 30,000 suicides each year nearly 29,000 are of people who are suffering of depression. Having not even touched on television advertisements, one can almost see how television might actually have helped caused some of this depression. Everyday teenage girls across the world watch television commercials that tell them how imperfect they are. These commercials tell them that they aren't pretty, that they are overweight, that they aren't smart, or that they will never succeed in life because they aren't perfect like these television models. What does this do for the self-esteem of these teenage girls? It drops it dramatically, and low self-esteem is a major cause of depression. And depression is a major cause of suicide. Teenage boys are watching shows like Jackass where stupid people do stupid potentially fatal, or at least painful stunts. These boys who are watching these shows go out and attempt these stunts that often end up having fatal results. Although these shows do not air until later in the evening, the commercials for these shows do not even include the "Do not try this at home!" small print. Also the commercials for every cartoon seem to be exploding with violence. What does this say about violence and death to these boys?

The internet is another place to get bad advertising. With over a billion people online across the world, the internet is a great place for advertisers. But does anyone ever questions these annoying advertisements? No. Kids go online every day to sites all over the internet that include advertisements of people doing stupid stunts, or more advertisements telling people how imperfect that they are. Aside from that, what about all of the advertisements for all of the violent games that appear on the internet? What about the pop-up advertisements for the videos of people doing stupid things?

How many deaths can we attribute for the psychological effects of advertising? How many deaths can we attribute to the distractions from the reality? What is the media, with all of its power trying to accomplish? Is it mass advertising or mass execution?

UPDATE: Maybe I'm not crazy after all. And oddly enough, it seems like other people agree: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1271015,00.html?f=rss