Looking into the past?

As of right now, we are in full swing of the MLB playoffs, a showing of the greatest baseball teams in a tense 7 game series. But whats being focused in upon is not the baseball. Its the umpires (referee or baseball). Day after day it seems as if the only thing being debated is if the correct decision is made in game.

Saturday night marked one of  the craziest night in MLB World Series baseball.  And the call was wrong...But how on such a grand scale with millions of fans across the country watching could the call be wrong? Instant replay comes into question due to the fact that it still isn't used in modern sports.

"So now the outcome of the game is not being influenced by a call that could have been corrected", says Matt Kawahara of the Sacramento Bee. I agree with Kawahara completely because with the introduction of replay, sports of all kind would become more correct so that a game isnt decided on a fluke of a decision. 

What the media doesn't show

Within the past couple of weeks, Geico has been running a a commercial with the comedic twist by saying, "everything on the internet is true". Although many people seem to brush this off and don't think much into it; in my mind, Geico is brining up a pretty big issue even if they mean to or not.

Adrian Peterson, Minnesota Vikings superstar running back, was given some terrible news with in the past couple week due to the death of his son; who was killed by Peterson's stepdad. This really does sicken me to even have to hear about this as no one deserves to suffer like this child. But after watching an interview, Peterson didn't seem upset and he didn't manage to shed a tear throughout the whole issue so I decided to look into it more

The media made it out to sound like a terrible situation, but don't get me wrong it is. The only problem I had with the whole situation was the fairly significant detail that almost every single news station failed to report on. The first time Peterson met this child was in the hospital only days before the child passed. I personally think its unfair for the media to not include crucial details to any news story because it changes the entire bias from the person watching or reading about the event. 

News stations have been doing this for a long time and it doesn't fully show the issue at hand in many different examples. After hearing of this situation, I, like many other people across the world was stunned to hear that someone would hurt a child to the point of death and I felt extremely bad for Adrian Peterson and his family. My mindset changed when I had to do my own research to understand all the facts. When a news station/newspaper/radio show ect. doesn't include details, people are led to believe the wrong things very quickly, just like the "everything on the internet is true" mindset. Im not going to go as far as saying that it should be illegal to give false information but these news outlets are lying to their viewers directly.

The question I propose is as follows: Why isn't the media getting enough negative feedback when the fail to accurately report on a story? And/Or, Have you ever noticed the media present a story that didn't have all the facts straight?

Is life just a point system?

            As a Junior in high school, standardized tests and point systems have been something we have seen since 3rd and 4th grade. 

           Today, while in the act of turning in an essay my teacher gave me the option of turning it in two days from then, to take a final look over to make sure everything was going ok. Sounds great, right? Expect the first words out of my mouth were, "Are we going to have points taken off for turning it in later." After thinking about what I said it dawned on me that standardized tests, essays, or even high school related assignments have all become a numbers game. 

Its seems as if we don't care about improvement or academic growth but rather than spending our time and energy on the way in which to maximize the amount of points from a specific assignment. In addition, on of my teachers quoted a professor who said that more time is spent on the logistics of assignments and grading scales rather than learning or practicing new techniques both for writing and other subjects. 

           School has become a numbers game. Higher education is becoming harder to get into and what seems to matter the most during college processes is the one or two standardized tests you take during your Junior year. More emphasis is put on achieving a certain grade rather than improving a skill that will be helpful later in life. 

The question I pose is, who is to blame for this "point system" and why?

Why do we have IPads again?

This week, a Los Angeles high school came out and said that the IPads that they provided to student were not actually being used for education. What a shocker. One teacher against the use of the IPads said, "they kind of should have known this would happen." I completley agree with this teacher because IPads, in my opinion, provide no more educational benefit than pen and paper.

People in favor of the IPads would most likely say that the technology is good and its really effective to take notes or type in class. They also say that IPads can combine textbooks for lower costs, and the decreased weight from the IPad puts off a considerable amount of weight from the average textbook.

In my experience IPads are more often used for games and entertainement than for education. In addition, I find that the weight put on by backpacks is not considerable at all and doesnt seem to be a problem for kids who have been lugging around heavy backpacks for their whole lives. Pen and Paper seem to be more effective because they are quicker and more efficent to take notes on and charging isnt a constant worry.

"Dont pay me"

The Government shutdown of 2013 is still in progress and has shown little to no progress in its first day. Hundreds of thousands of people are out of Government filled jobs and they could be for a substantial amount of time.

Congress woman Ann Wagner posted a picture via her twitter  of a letter she sent to the man in charge of the payroll for congress asking to have her pay revoked for the duration of the shutdown. She also included the #fairnessforall (fairness for all). Let me also point out that she voted for and pushed for a shutdown to help put an end to Obamacare

What a great person right? Witholding her salary because she doesnt think its fair. The only problem is that this would be against the 27th amendment of the Constitution and thus her petiton for getting paid would be thrown out as to not break the constition.

Was it a publicity stunt? Probably. She could have  kept it a secret that she asked for this or she could have donated the money for that time to a charity that could really benefit. Nowadays it seems that many politicans are only trying to look good in the public eye rather than actually creating a positive direction for the US governmet. In my opinon this is one of the main reasons why an agreement could not be made over Obamacare nor many bills in the past.

Ask yourself if this action by Ann Wagner was a publicity stunt or was she genuinely serious? Are actions like these factors that are negatively affecting our