News stories post

Here are all my news stories from HCOM 284, in the awesome format called copy and paste!

The Hookah Phenomenon

By: Martin Wilson

MONTEREY- Is inhaling Hookah any safer than smoking cigarettes? To students at CSUMB and other college campuses across America, it seems like a safe and fun way to get high. However, this is not the case.

Experts from institutions such as the National Cancer Institute and the American Lung Association believe Smoking Hookah can lead to complications such as cardiovascular and lung cancer, nicotine addiction, and other diseases that result from cigarette smoking.

But how does Hookah work, and how does it differ from smoking something like a cigarette?

Hookahs, or water pipes as they are commonly known as, originated from ancient India, The Middle East, and ancient indigenous tribes. After they took their modern form in 16^th century India, Hookahs continued to gained popularity in Eastern society and eventually Western society in the late 20^th and early 21^st century as mass cultural proliferation occurred.

Hookahs as we know them today are used to smoke specially made tobacco, by indirectly heating the tobacco with embers or charcoal, while filtering the smoke through a liquid which is then drawn though a rubber hose to a mouthpiece.

Those who smoke hookah believe that through this process, the harmful substances that would normally be taken in when smoking cigarettes are filtered out, and what comes out is only the sheer essence of tobacco. However, this is the exact opposite that actually occurs.

According to a study from Drs. Thomas Eissenberg of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and Alan Shihadeh of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon published by the National Cancer institute, a typical 30 to 60 minute session of Hookah smoking can be equivalent to smoking dozens or even hundreds of cigarettes, especially when it comes down to intake of toxic substances, such as carbon monoxide, smoke, carcinogens and nicotine.

The intake of smoke can be almost 40 times the amount of smoking 1 cigarette, while the intake of nicotine could be almost as much as 1.7 times the amount of smoking a cigarette, according to a bulletin from the NCI.

Although there is evidence of severe health risks associated with smoking hookah, freshmen like Tristan Tank believe that the risk to their health is minimal.

“Hookah smoking is way safer than smoking pot, cigarettes, or other smokables, it’s fun to chill with my friends at night and breathe in some nice cherry flavored tobacco, and besides I only do it every week or so, and I don’t get sick“.

Health experts are concerned of this perception held by young adults such as Tristan.

According to the Tobacco Policy Trend Alert published by the ALA, more than 90% of beginning water pipe smokers believe cigarette smoking is more addictive than smoking hookah. As a result, hookah continues to grow as a popular recreational activity amongst University students and young adults in the ages of 18-24.

Only time will tell if this phenomenon is projected to grow as time continues, but for now, there seems to be no sign in the decline of Hookah smoking here on campus and abroad.

Whatever the case may be, Tristan will continue to partake in the smoking of hookah with his friends at school.

“Its great stuff, and as long as there’s Hookah to smoke and cool people to chill with, it’s no biggie for me”.

next one: 

The Education you don't care about.

Apathy and action towards the continued crisis in the American educational system

By: Martin Wilson

It was a meeting that started like any meeting of a similar nature. There were pamphlets, handouts, and chairs all placed in designated areas in the room. Students, faculty, and alumni formed a circle in the room that continued to swell with people. They were all waiting eager anticipation of the start of the meeting. As the clock struck the 7 pm, the speaker graced everyone with a warm welcome, and addressed the crowd on the purpose and intent of the meeting, “Today, me and my associates hope to provide you the facts and information your are entitled to know about the privatization of higher education, at CSUMB and abroad, and the hypocrisy of our schools so called, 'vision statement' and what we plan to do in truly realizing the statements original purpose”. With that solemn statement, the process began once more to revitalize the spirit of activism, liberal ideology, and social action that came with our campuses founding. But is their even a chance for CSUMB's activist tradition to return?

Some say yes, others say no, and the vast majority says I don't care. Whatever many people think about the issues that students face, they will continue to occur. Classes continue to increase in size, experienced and overqualified professors are removed in favor of more inexperienced professors who require less to maintain, the CSU Board of trustees continues to raise student tuition or other associated fees by 30% without the opinion of students taken into the decision. There is also the monopoly of companies like Sodexo on campuses across the united states, which are private entities that are not accountable to the public (teach in handouts). These issues and others are the main rallying call behind organizations such as the Student Action committee, a chapter of which exists in our university. They aim to revitalize the spirit of students. Demonstrations, handouts, and teach in's.

In order to remedy some of the issues with our campus and the university system as a whole, the pro-education organizations such as SAC have suggested levying taxes and and other restrictions on corporations that maintain environmentally harmful business practices such as oil extraction, mining, logging, power generation, dirty chemical production, etc. These organizations also stress for more transparency in both the public and private world, along with commitments to green energy initiatives, and free, quality, public education. Although the organizations are there to push society to addressing these issues, they lack the human resources necessary to make their points clear on a grand enough scale that impacts those in power.

One of the specific gripes that SAC aims to address in our university is the lack of the commitment to the original vision statement crafted by our school's founders. Although our school is one of lowest cost to attend CSU's in the system this comes at certain costs. These include the necessity to cater to private entities to pay for university bills, such as Sodexo. There is also the reduction of financial aid and scholarships for poor or minority students, in favor of wealthier prospective students. Inflated housing fees, expensive meal plans, and a watered-down curriculum are amongst the greatest issues that our university and its students continues to face

So what will the average student do to pay for all these costs? Well with the Recession and the California budget crisis clamping down on programs such as Cal grants and other forms of financial aid, there leaves one option other than paying out of the pocket...Student loans. Although universities offer varying amounts of Subsidized loans, additional funds may still be needed in order to cover all expenses, and these unsubsidized loans, is where the compounding of the debt can begin, leading a student in financial ruin as soon as they finish their degree. Never mind the fact that a student graduating between 2009-2012 will have a far harder time finding employment after they graduate compared to those who graduated before the rescission struck the world.
In the end, these issues will continue to persist, plaguing the university system in America as a whole. There will be organizations such as SAC that will continue to fight for reforms in the government and in the education system, they will fight for the future that they believe were are entitled too. However without a popular movement to follow along with these organizations, there will still be many curious issues to everyone who will be or have been a part of education in America, unless your wealthy of course. Because then a full ride from your parents or a sports club to a private university will be the best time of life. For the rest of the population, debt and degree that’s value continues to depreciate is all that Americans can look forward too.



Sources:
CSUMB prospective students financial need estimation
The California State University website, statistics section
Information courtesy of Teach in officials.

will upload more after I find them >.<

Comparitive news rant

I come to all of you bloody bloggers today with another post about something. That something of course, is how 2 news stories about the same event, reported by different news outlets have subtle differences that expose the various bias and angles found in the supposedly unbiased news media. (SHOCKING!)

The news story in question of course, is the Walk out of  UN delegates during a speech by Ahmud Ahmadinejad.

Here's one from everyone's favorite, BBC news!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11402101

And in the other corner, its middle eastern counterpart, Al Jazeera!

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/09/2010923184345332707.html


Right off the bat, you cant tell that Al Jazeera Focused more on Iran and its funny leader, than the BBC did. Both news outlets discussed the walkout, the 9/11 conspiracy speech, the sanctions and the Obama speech. However, BBC went into more detail about Mr Obama's speech. BBC choose to emphazise the commitment of making peace between Isreal and Palestine.

The BBC also mentioned the other topic's involved in the UN Meetings, such as the issues in Somalia, Sudan, Climate change, and UN reform, and touched more on the UN's commitments.

Al Jazeera, on the other hand, only  mentioned a small portion of Obama's speech, and did not discuss any of the broader issues in the middle east. Their primary angle focused on Ahmadinejad's speech, the effects on Iran, and the reaction by senior US officials. Al Jazeera also mentioned the protests taking place outside of the UN building by people of mostly Iranian origin. The protests themselves involved fake scenes of hanging and stoning, along with people stained with fake blood. One could almost say they were having a good old violent BBQ. Jokes aside, this example lends credit to the idea that different news organizations and their reporters take different angles to similar stories, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does blur the line between opinion and fact in the Mass media.

Thanks for tuning in!

PS. if you made it this far, here's and extra treat for being awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBA_lxUiwSg

Later you sexy people!

American News Media...lolwut?

EPIC BLOG ENTRY FUN TIME!

Yep so this is my first ever blog, entry, whatever you can prefer to call it, and because of the standards set on me by a certain Human Communications Professor, it is restricted to being related to something called modern news media, if such a thing exists (sorry study of wumbology!). So here we begin our foray into the ever so bizarre world of the BREAKING NEWS! Well now that the formalities are out of the way, we can actually begin speaking about the topic at hand, the state of American news media.

For all of you who live under a rock or prefer too, American news media is widely considered to be laughable, and/or cute, depending on your perspective. From what I can tell, American news tends to be misguided, ratings based, and full of idiots who prefer to scream their incoherent babble into our precious ears. I believe American news lacks substance, sources, and an understanding for what is really considered news. American news also misses the important issues in society, misrepresents the facts of the story by letting bias and non-journalists meddle with the news making process. American news also allows censorship to be practiced under our Nations facade of free speech, sacrificing the necessity for questioning power for profit or positions, and worst of all, committing genocide to the idea of intellectual conversation in an informed society. So then, why do we let them get away with it? Why do we let news be misrepresented, sensationalized, and used as propaganda? I'll tell you why, its all your fault, you fools! You need to learn to not take everything for face value, be curious, and look for the facts of the story, lest you be fooled into believing something thats not true. For example, if a news outlet like CNN said wine was giving you herpes, would you look into it further? would you see who said this, and what proof they have to give credit to this concept? Or would you accept it as fact without a second thought? Maybe we'll find out after these commercial breaks, where later they can tell us what drugs we can buy or what counseling we can take to save ourselves from this horror.

Alas, I digress...

Now ,from what I had learned as a wee boy, news was supposed to give us an idea of what was going on in the world. It was supposed to expose the injustices in society and at the same time, be the force that pushes people in the right direction. However, news media these days focus on entertaining us, rather then getting us informed. They feed us fluff, rather then providing us with vital nutrition. The monopolization of Independent news outlets is one of the key factors that furthers the severity of the situation even more. But why is this bad? Because if we are only getting news from several sources, then we only hear a small portion of whats going on, from only a few perspectives, and whose to say these perspectives are all balanced and fair, like FOX prefers to say? I mean, come on, why is it necessary to be so focused on one issue like a certain celebrity trail or one hostage situation at one particular Discovery channel HQ (epic cameo) while the rest of the of the world moves on without us...Its just absurd if you ask me (and not in the good way either :O). Instead, We should be following everything around us, not one drama in a small part of the world. Because, (brace yourselves)The United States of America is not the only place in world where shit goes down...OH SNAP!

Now, one last thing before I go back to playing Starcraft 2 (you should too). I want to briefly touch on the issue of journalistic integrity. which of course, is not an oath that journalists take when they begin their career. Its more like promising to be honest, sincere, truthful, thorough, and unbiased in your reporting. Which of course doesn't really happen, I mean why would you want to ruin your fruitful association with a certain interest group, in order to expose one of their ugly truths? I mean hell, I like my complimentary "company retreats" and "compensations" like the next guy, So why care about journalistic integrity? I mean come on, like any smart economist, the rewards far outweigh the risks, and whose going to keep an eye on me anyway? No one thats who.

So in the end, are journalists the only ones who can have journalistic integrity? Actually, anyone can have it, from the blogger across the street or the anchor in from a massive news organization can have journalistic integrity in regards to bringing our attention to any sort of news, whether it would be in your local town or in a far-off place like kazakhstan (5 dollars to the person who can point that place out on a map). So long as that story has some real substance to it, and provides us with some insight into and issue or event of which we had no previous knowledge of, its news. Well theres my 2 cents into this, now go off and do something interesting, like inventing a cheap alternative for water purification. Or you can just sleep. Your choice, you lazy bumhole...

Martin Wilson
The local madman