Good Night, and Good Luck.....

Was a compelling and interesting flick. Well the movie made it seem that everyone, not just the press, was afraid of this guy. It happened in a confusing and tramatic time in our country. Communism was a big threat and was the hot issue. Kind of like terrorism today. Americans were willing to do anything to get rid of communists. They gave into the radical politics of Senator McCartney. It was a good portrayal of the outing of McCartney's contridictions. They showed the risks the journalists faced when they aired the news report. There were other media outlets that wanted to attack McCartney, but the coverage had to be flawless and unbiased otherwise McCartney would attack them ruthlessly. McCartney was on a downward spiral towards failure but when cbs came out with this story it excellerated his demise.

EO Wilson lecture

I went to the EO Wilson lecture last week. He was a very good speaker. He talked about micro organisms. He talked how we have to save the world. How we are killing so many species and how we (humans) might be responsibe for the 6th major extinction our world has seen. He says that we came from the same micro organisms that we are destroying on a daily basis. Most of the destruction is in the rainforests of South America. The cost of doing this would be justified. it would cost billions upon billions of dollars. But if we don't do it our future generations will be facing the problems of a distinction. He was well worth going to and was a very good speaker.

MSU gets visit from anti-abortionists

An anti-abortion group displaying pictures of aborted fetus arrived on MSU’s campus last Monday.

The group is known as the Missionaries to the Preborn, distributed pamphlets containing photos of mutilated babies. The pamphlet titled “The American Holocaust Photo Display: Why we show the bloody photographs of the Murdered Preborn.” The pamphlet read “Our prayer is that people would be moved with compassion for the helpless preborn when they see these photographs and act to see the blood shed outlawed.”

The group originated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The group was formed in 1990. They began by blockading abortion clinics. Recently the group has been showing pictures of aborted babies. Since 1990, eight Milwaukee abortion clinics have closed.

The group angered some MSU students. A man associated with the group shouted at students “God hates you” along with “You are going towards hell.”

The group’s founder, Matt Trewhela, said “We’ve looked at a thousand pictures of aborted babies. We haven’t found a pretty picture of an aborted baby yet.” Trewhela said the response of MSU students was no different from anywhere else they go.

Some MSU students shook hands with the members. The students thought they portrayed a positive message and were glad they came to MSU.

The culmination of the day occurred when the Missionaries spread out in front of Montana Hall. The Missionaries were met by students carrying signs for pro-choice views. Some students handed out condoms and gave demonstrations on their use.

The Missionaries were at MSU as part of a tour through the western United States. Proto toe coming to MSU the group was at a campus in South Dakota. They plan on going to Wyoming and Nebraska next.

Govenment might be telling us everything

The people living under a government shouldn’t have to worry about the government watching them. However the government does watch over their people and they know more about our actions then we do about the government’s actions. If the people run the government then we should know everything that is going on. Well it doesn’t seem to work that way. We elect our government and the people really have minimum control after that. The government only displaces a small portion of what they are actually doing to the public. It is usually through the press and is controlled heavily (by the media). But is this really true? I am sure if you really want to find out what the government is doing you could read through pages and pages of forms and spreadsheets and get to the bottom of it but people don’t seem to care enough. Same with the government. The government could look into anyone’s personal lives. But they just don’t bother. If the government reported everything they have been doing on the nightly news, America would get sick of it. If you want to know what our government is doing you can find it some way or some how.

911

Since 911, American culture has been slowly returning to normal. For the first year people were in shock. The economy was in shambles and talks of a war worried the country. A few years passed and in my opinion, America’s culture seems to be back to normal. It used to be that you would hear about 911 in some way shape or form. I only hear directly about the attacks on the anniversary.
You don’t hear about the attacks any more but you hear about the effects of the attacks. Our country has moved on to the war on terror, Usama Bin Laden, Iraq, and Iran. This is the lasting effect of the attacks. Even with all of this going on Americans don’t pay attention to any of it. As long as the war isn’t here or if they directly know someone in Iraq, Americans don’t care. It doesn’t affect their daily lives. That is the difference between the war and 9/11.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a big problem in American high schools and colleges. Why is this a big problem? I think it personally has to do with the competition in the classroom. Schools are more competitive than ever. The standards have been set and many students believe they need to cheat to achieve these requirements. Ninety-percent of college students believe that cheaters never get caught. For the most part these students are right. Professors are reading so many papers they don’t pick up on plagiarism. According to plagiarism.org, ninety-percent of plagiarizing college students claim to never being caught or disciplined. The whole system is messed up. If College students don’t see anything wrong with plagiarism, and the college doesn’t do anything to catch and punish these students, then how is plagiarism going to be stopped? The penalties for plagiarism are rather high but who cares if the university isn’t going to ever know.
The standards that define plagiarism are rather clear. I think they should be followed closely. For example, if a student forgets to attribute a source, meaning, to claim another’s knowledge as his or her own, the student should be punished. The student doesn’t have any authority. Although it sounds severe, this logic should be used in all degrees of plagiarism. If the rules are not enforced in this area then it will carry over to other plagiarism, ie copying complete papers off the internet. It makes me mad that someone who doesn’t even write their own papers is earning the same degree as me while I had to slave away at all my papers.