GOP Debate. Yawn.

And I’m not just yawning because it’s nearly one in the morning…

So I don’t think I could let this night go by without blogging about the Republican CNN YouTube debate. Part of this is because it interests me, part is because I have six more blogs to do before Monday. But it could be worse. Much much worse.

Right off the bat, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney got in this petty argument incited from the first question on immigration. Poor Anderson Cooper is trying politely, but desperately to keep the candidates moving with the schedule for the debate; neither man will shut up. I felt bad for him. Giuliani is backed into a corner for his “sanctuary city” immigration policy, so he jabs at Romney for hiring illegal immigrants in his house. Once everyone got back on track, it seemed that the questions came smoothly and each candidate answered on topic (for the most part).

I predicted in my earlier blog about this debate that the GOP would have the most difficulty dealing so closely with the American people in an unscripted environment. Romney made a big stink, as you probably remember, about answering the question of a lowly snowman; he suggested that the imposed snowman in a video wasn’t worthy of inquiring a potential President of the U.S. I felt that the Republicans handled the spontaneity of the video questions very well, but their answers were still rehearsed and dull. Granted, I missed the last 45 minutes of the debate; I had to go to choir, so don’t hold me to whatever happened to the end. Not one of the candidates said anything unexpected or out of their comfort zone.

Watch it. Decide for yourself.

Even though I was less than impressed with the Republicans today, I still love the idea of placing the tradition of a presidential debate in the hands of the electorate. Maybe I’m just in a Constitutional mood, but what better way to increase voter efficacy, involve a reticent generation and ensure that candidates are staying true to issues of the people? It might not be traditional, but these new debates raise the standards for both leaders and constituents. Kudos. Kudos to everyone.

Here are some articles on the debate’s better moments.

Mike Huckabee’s fantasy of Clinton on Mars.

The joke is on you New York City! Your taxpayers helped fuel Giuliani’s affair, bet you feel duped. Giuliani’s response. I guess I believe him.

A good pre-debate article.

A good response to criticisms from the “good pre-debate” article.

Sorry Colbert, a million Facebook supporters doesn't mean jack.

I’m sorry. I’m not quite sick of talking about Facebook yet. Rest assured that I will be sick of talking about it after today.

As far as Facebook and politics go, I found opinions all across the spectrum. Personally, I see great potential for Facebook to have a substantial effect on the upcoming election; however, this effect will only go as far as the lazy college students that created the phenomenon to begin with. It’s much easier to join a group supporting Barack Obama than to actually go out and vote for him; it will be interesting to see if Facebook supporters will show real support when the time comes. This poll asked 239 people what kind of effect “Facebook campaigning” would have on politics. 129 (54%) said the impact would be minor, 84 (35%) said there would be no effect, and 26 (11%) said the effect would be enough to sway the vote.

Really, there’s no way of knowing for certain how social networking websites will effect the election until election day, or the primaries at least. This section of blogs argues that people use Facebook merely for recreational purposes, and will be turned off by applications that offer opportunities to engage in debate (such as US Politics, which I mentioned prior). This intrigued me; so I found an interesting study done on how Facebook users spend their time. Because I can’t hope to explain the data in a way as exciting as the riveting circles on the website, I suggest going there and looking for yourself. The findings surprised me, and they show that the argument claiming that Facebook users aren’t interested in political applications or groups (as shown by the low activity with applications and group browsing in comparison to other activities) can carry some weight. Still, I stay with my original pessimistic prediction; the 18 – 24-year-olds, while they willingly place pictures of Ron Paul all over their profiles, might not make the real world sacrifices to go out and vote.

The other article is slightly older; I think this may contribute to the optimistic outlook it takes.

This article offers a humorous interpretation on the Facebook’s effect on the election.

Facebook and the Media/Advertisers.

There’s this application on Facebook that supposedly tells you how much your profile is worth. I added it and it didn’t work. It says that by taking your number of friends, photos, wall posts and other posted items, it can determine how much your page is worth to advertisers. When the article was written, calculations found the average profile to be worth $725. People who are more active with their profile will be “worth more,” and vice versa. But, like I said, the application didn’t work for me.

Regardless, the article makes the point that Facebook is a lucrative way to potentially reach a very specialized set of the population. It’s clear that advertisers have already gotten in on the business; this article shows how advertisers can use a profile’s “Personal Interests” to make their services more individual. If this seems like exploitation of your privacy, you should know that advertisers use this technique to control not only the ads you see on Facebook.com, but also the ads you might see on a completely random website.

From the article; “…if you’ve listed in your profile that one of your favorite bands is Coldplay, you might see an ad for their CD or concert tickets when browsing a random web site like ESPN. And who might sell these ads? Microsoft, who already has access to tens of thousands of advertisers through a variety of online advertising initiatives within the software giant’s online offerings.”

I include all this info on advertisers because, until now, ads have always been present with the media. Social networking websites are one of the first areas where the advertisers have beat the major media corporations to the punch. Every major media company exists today because of it’s advertisements, but it didn’t start out that way. At first, advertisers needed a newspaper or radio station to reach people; no longer, now Myspace and Facebook have already collected the people. This article talks of why media companies are slow to join the Facebook party. I have no doubts that the media will become much more prevalent in social networking sites. I think it would be awesome to wake up, open my Facebook page, and find breaking news from The Arizona Republic on my news feed right alongside relationship updates and wall posts. It’s only a matter of time I suppose.

Simply reading this title proves my point.

I found a good article today. It’s not so much an article, more like an announcement.

“Facebook, the popular social networking site, has become a full-fledged platform for communicating, sharing and advertising. ABC News is betting that it will become a platform for political coverage, as well.

ABC News and Facebook have formally established a partnership -- the site's first with a news organization -- that allows Facebook members to electronically follow ABC reporters, view reports and video and participate in polls and debates, all within a new 'U.S. Politics' category.”

This is a pretty big deal. Facebook has 55 million active users. Half of these users are in college or high school. If that’s not a media outlet to a huge chunk of impressionable minds, I don’t know what is. By allowing any user to create an application, the media has the opportunity to reach and impact the political decisions in a way different from a newspaper or magazine. The application supported by ABC is called “US Politics;” it allows users to display candidates and politicians they support, participate in debates, and a convenient link to look at recent ABC news on the application’s homepage. Just the fact that you, kind reader, are on Facebook reading this blog serves to represent the ability of anyone to display their opinions in a popular, prevalent way.

The utilizations of social networking websites for the media are endless; so endless that I’m going to do more poking around on the ole world wide web for more information.

An interview with Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

The last paragraph of this article brings up an interesting point. “After ten months online, a Facebook group called ‘1,000,000 Strong for Barack Obama’ has only 164,000 members, but a parody group called ‘1,000,000 Strong for Stephen Colbert’ topped a million members in just ten days.” Ah, funny people always prevail.

Fulfilled wishes can be bittersweet.

I’m going to write about this article today. Besides being depressing, I see this new development with the Iraq conflict as a big step for the U.S. government. The only reason I say the article is depressing is because as I read, even though I am in no way a fan of what has gone on in the Middle East, I couldn’t help but detect a despairing tone in it. It’s like the government is like a young child who has been told Santa Clause doesn’t exist; the government has, in a sense, given up all their hopes for a positive ending to the conflict. So while part of me has a great deal of respect for the Bush administration, another part of me feels bad for them; they have come to terms with the reality of the situation. Maybe it’s just me, but I think this sympathy comes from the way in which the article was written.

I think that a more liberal individual would have much less sympathy for the administration. At nationalpriorities.org, there is a count showing the total cost of the Iraq War. (It’s pretty cool, you can compare the war costs with spending on housing, education, children’s’ health and other neat things.) As I’ve sat here with the window open, I’m watching the total go up by roughly $1,000 every second. That’s pretty intense. At 6:53:50 pm, it reads $471,449,320,678. I divided that amount by the total population of the United States (303,447,068), and found that to cover the cost of the war, each American would have to surrender $1,553.65. This number first struck me as small, but it’s $1,553.65 from every man, woman and child in the United States. Again, it’s pretty intense. But more importantly than monetary figures, 3,875 have been killed since war began on March 19, 2003. I have to wonder how the families of those killed feel about the government lowering their expectations; personally, it’s almost as if every effort made up until this point is somewhat invalidated.

Really, I guess I would just be curious to see how others interpreted the article. I believe it was written with a conservative bias, and this is why it evokes a certain feeling of remorse for the government.

Or I could just be feeling moody. Who knows?

I’ll conclude with the same point I’ve made many times. The way in which the media portrays the facts has a monumental effect on how these facts are perceived. The Spanish-American War, the Tet Offensive, Watergate, and more recently, The Daily Show/Colbert Report are all evidence of the relationship between the media and overall perceptions.

Jon Stewart the next Walter Cronkite? (part 2)

So I did some substantial searching (well, not so much me, but Google did quite a bit of work), and found more articles on The Daily Show, but they weren’t very friendly.

This article, like many of the others I found, mentions a growing cynicism among the American youth caused directly from The Daily Show and other satirical celebrities (Howard Stern, Michael Moore, etc.). The blog also has numerous links; this makes it my favorite.

I find this an interesting phenomenon. These bloggers are suggesting that while The Daily Show/Colbert Report are educating their viewers on important political developments (as I talked about yesterday), the efficacy of these viewers is dropping. Any show with a strong support from youth can be very impactful; mostly because youth, by virtue of being young, don’t know anything. So a teenager who knows nothing about politics or current events other than the watered-down versions on Comedy Central is going to absorb all they hear from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert like it’s complete truth(iness). I’m not surprised in the slightest bit by these findings.

This article really drives home this depressing result of a funny show that happened to talk solely about politics. I think the author might be a little on the extreme side, but his evidence is pretty much irrefutable.

On a lighter note, Colbert gave this comment to graduates of Knox College (which is why it sounds vaguely like a sermon); “Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it,” he said. “Cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying ‘yes’ begins things. Saying ‘yes’ is how things grow. … ‘Yes’ is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say ‘yes.’ ”

And who says he needs writers? Come to think of it, he probably didn’t write that.

After all this writing I’ve done on the youth being influenced by satirical cable news shows, this last piece of information I will leave you with shows that the Internet is still the best source for the promotion of political awareness. I stole it from the first article. Do you ever get the feeling that some of your best work is done in vain?

Well I sure do.

The Colbert quote is from this awesome article.

Jon Stewart the next Walter Cronkite?

With this sorry excuse for a school week coming to a close, I’m going to relieve some growing frustration I have for the writers’ strike. I’ve been without my nightly political satire for almost three weeks; I don’t need to tell you that it’s rough, you probably know already.

I’ve already said that I don’t consider The Daily Show/Colbert Report to be real journalism, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t affected the political/current event education of the masses. While this article is old, it’s information is viable today. CNN found that viewers of The Daily Show knew more about politics in 2004 than non-viewers. That’s a pretty big deal; though I might not equate Stewart or Colbert’s accomplishments with those of Walter Cronkite, the overall effect of the shows is one that accomplished broadcasters can only dream of. Despite the shows’ notable success, Stewart and Colbert are missing a key characteristic found in every typical news show. I’ve been a journalism student less than one hundred days, and I can still tell you that the lack of objectivity will forever distinguish Comedy Central’s news from real news.

This article offers a little criticism on Stewart’s business of criticism.

“Stewart, who has called the Iraq war a mistake, is more likely than Jay Leno or David Letterman to ridicule Bush while going easy on Kerry, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found. ‘He's an outstanding comedian, but clearly he does comedy from the Democratic left perspective,’ says Republican strategist Mike Murphy. ‘A lot of people who watch Stewart and howl at the jokes already have their minds made up in the presidential race,’ ” Howard Kurtz, of The Washington Post, writes.

So it’s very obvious that both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert “report” the news with a liberal bias, but what does this have to do with college students? Well, believe it or not, there is a ridiculous amount of research done on this topic. A study called The Daily Show: Candidate Evaluations, Efficacy, and American Youth claims that the 18-24 year olds are the largest age group viewing the show and 54% of this entire age bracket reports The Daily Show as one of their news sources. I will do you a favor, and not hyperlink this study; it will lead you to a 28-page PDF, and no one wants that. Every study I found is based on the election of 2004; so before I embark on a mission through the world wide web to find something more recent, I’ll leave this subject for a later date. By later, I mean tomorrow. I wonder how many times I will suffer the consequences of procrastination before I learn the lesson.

As a departing note, my roommate and I took our recycling out today. Seven bags. It was a good time, and a long walk. But, we have doubled the floor space in our dorm.

It's not easy being green.

I had heard about Freerice.com, but hadn’t visited until today. Now I’m rather addicted. Turns out my latest addiction feeds people; it’s awesome. The powers that be also extended my deadline for this project, also awesome.

Wow. Today is Awesome Day.

Speaking of the liberal agenda (world hunger), I shall continue my little section on college students and their liberal-ness. Today I want to touch on the environment and how I see a bit of a departure from the liberal college student stereotype when it comes to sustaining the environment. This whole topic comes from a conversation regarding the “recycling” program in my dorm, Hassayampa.

Let me break this down; every room in Hassayampa comes with a blue recycling bin. Great right? Of course, until you take into account that the only outdoor bin to place your bags of recycled stuff is about a ten-minute walk away. Ten minutes isn’t that far or long, but when you are carrying a huge box full of a month’s worth of newspapers and no one offers to help, the distance becomes annoying. As a result of this unfortunate distance, my roommate and I haven’t taken our recycling bags out in about two months. We still recycle, but the bags just chill in the entrance to our dorm. From what I hear, most students living here use their handy little blue bins for their recycling, but the recycling bags go in the outdoor trash bin because it’s too far to walk to the recycling bin. If I didn’t complain about this regularly to my roommate, our recycling bags would end up in the trash can as well.

Teenagers don’t like to inconvenience themselves. I’m no exception. On more than one occasion this semester, my roommate and I have been victims of the low flow plumbing Hassayampa tends to brag about. It wasn’t fun, pretty, or convenient in any way. I have no idea how much water this complex saves by using low flow plumbing, but when I couldn’t shower or pee in my own bathroom, I was quite irritated.

Azcentral.com has this list of 52 things people can do to improve their green living. Some of the items are student-friendly, such as carpooling (no one wants to be a DD if they don’t have to), but others are suggestions the average student would turn down in a heartbeat. Turning off/unplugging electronics, avoiding bottled water, becoming vegetarian, turning off lights, buying used products, all these options strike me as being tasks a student wouldn’t do voluntarily.

The whole reason our environment is degrading can be attributed to mankind’s dislike of inconvenience; it’s why global warming even became an issue. I don’t know why, perhaps it’s just an egotist tendency of people my age, but I feel like college students have complete disregard for their environment.

This study compared the environmental habits of business majors with environmental studies majors. Their results aren’t outside of anything you’d predict, I just found it interesting that they picked this topic in the first place. I’m not positive this will load for everyone.

Here is another list of ways to save the environment, but it is specified for college students.

This article has to do with an increased interest in careers in alternative energy due to increased research and publicity of global warming.

War is a major faux pas.

Just to keep things spicy, I’m going to take a different route with tonight’s blog. Personally, I find the whole peace trend to be too watered down to make any sort of real impact. A website called Cafepress.com, which sells products made by individual members, has 2,150,000 products with a peace related message.

I would say, in general, college students do not know how to show their support for a cause without a t-shirt or bumper sticker. Band t-shirts are a result of this; as are the magnetic yellow ribbons that ask So even though the whole rising peace movement is gaining most of it’s popularity through it’s rival, materialism, I found that Americans are actually going out and physically supporting the logos on their chests. The Peace Corps has seen a significant increase in the number of its volunteers,

I’m sorry, I’m going to talk about the presidential election again. It’s important to notice where peace falls in the upcoming presidential election. Each democratic candidate at least mentions the immediate necessity for a plan to take the U.S. out of Iraq. Earlier on in the year, John McCain saw a fairly significant drop in support after he backed President Bush in his war efforts. Arguably, he will continue to take hits for his endorsement of an increased military commitment.

People are sick of being at war. 68% of Americans disapprove of the job George Bush is doing in Iraq and 54% believe that a victory in Iraq is no longer possible. The greeting card company, American Greetings, published this article on the increase demand for cards giving a message of peace. These turbulent times inspire the need to mail a wish for peace along with the yearly family Christmas photo. War is not hip right now; those who support it are probably getting some crap for it. Lo and behold, there is another reason for the peace epidemic that has come to affect so many college students and other liberal hippies.

Besides being ironic, this article just puts yet another spin on the idea of peace.

"All we are saying..."

I’m going to write for a little while on the tendency of college students to be liberal. I say “a little while” because I really have no idea or agenda for these blogs, this series on liberal behavior is no exception. I’m going to wing it.

I started thinking about some bandwagon political messages that teenagers tend to subscribe to. The one that sticks out most in my mind is peace. When you start thinking about it, the cry for peace has infiltrated countless aspects of the adolescent community. Granted, this is my first experience in the college environment, so this peace epidemic might be something that started 40 years ago and never went away. But because I’m getting my first taste of this vague hope for peace, it’s peaked my interest. This wish for peace I’ve noticed could also be contained to the type of students I commonly work with. Regardless, I would challenge someone to walk around on this campus for an hour to count the references to peace. Everyday I see tie-dyed clothing with messages of peace, John Lennon shirts with peace signs, peace signs in dorm room windows (other than my own) and even on Facebook (are you a member of “I Bet I Can Find 1,000,000 People Who Just Want Peace?”) and YouTube (there are 240,000 hits when you search the word “peace”). Now this isn’t Miss America’s stereotypical wish for “world peace,” or hippie peace from the 70’s; peace has become cool. I would go as far as saying that peace is now a trend. And all brainwashed teenagers want to get in on the action.

Other than the obvious causes for this movement, such as an unpopular war, I started to wonder if peace is so popular among college students solely because people this age are typically more liberal than the rest of the population. Much of the media college students consume is thought to be left-wing oriented (The Daily Show/Colbert Report, Rolling Stone and CNN). But surely liberal media alone hasn’t been the single cause of an entire historical trend among college students. This article is a few years old, but it says some interesting things about the lack of political diversity on many college campuses. One of the comments from that article mentions that most college students don’t have a family to care for or similar responsibilities, this makes them more likely to be liberal. My main theory remains; as teenagers are exposed to more new information, they form different opinions. For me, I’ve never been surrounded by this many people my own age with developed political beliefs. Being able to discuss war strategy or the use of abortion in the line at Einstein’s is a completely foreign experience (I know, I need to get out more). Normally I would only talk with my stubbornly conservative parents about politics and the like. Life in college is revealing to me an entire spectrum of liberal beliefs that are actually educated and legitimate.

Speaking of my stubbornly conservative parents, my expert powers of persuasion have made my mom open to the idea of a pierced eyebrow. Just had to throw that in; I’m really excited about it.

I’m fairly certain that I’m not alone in this collegiate exodus to the left (dark) side. So, in a circular fashion, I think I’ve found some support to the reasons behind the peace movement. I’ll continue these peace rants later.
I found this videoto be a perfect example of the universal promotion of peace among youth. After watching it, feel free to hug a tree or send your unfinished Big Mac to any third world country.

Hmm...no title today.

I’ve gotten myself into a little problem. Today is November 11th. By November 26th, I have to complete 25 blogs. I’ve done eight. Can I get a “yikes?”

However, Clinton’s lead in the polls has been drastically reduced. This is exciting news.

But for dinner my vegetarian family decided to have “veggie tacos;” veggie tacos are made with “ground beef” created from soy. It was nearly the most repulsing thing I’ve ever eaten; after some barbecued chicken feet and a terrible cranberry sauce experience in the Hassayampa Cafeteria.

I digress. But to digress, I believe I should’ve initially made a point from which to digress from. I’m pretty sure I hadn’t made a point yet.

Whatever, in desperation (resulting from paragraph numero uno), I found this article. I know, I always have random articles to read, and I’m sorry. I apologize further because this is a long article, but it’s really interesting and otherwise none of this will make sense. Try taking the test; it’s kinda fun.

I’ll first start by saying that I think the study neglects a few key aspects of a typical college education. For instance, the reason college freshman passed the test and seniors failed it; is simply because they forgot menial facts after four years. I think it’s safe for most colleges to assume that incoming freshman should be well-studied in areas of civil literacy; so of course they aren’t going to cover this material in the typical Government 101 class. I won’t deny that this basic information on the history of America is vital to anyone who claims to be an American, but it’s not the responsibility of a university to teach these facts.

So my big problem with this whole issue isn’t that universities aren’t teaching students the right information, I find it ridiculous that college students don’t take the initiative to learn or remember these things on their own. This is where I get all worked up about how ignorant the typical teenager is. I’d like to share this story; in my math class, there is this girl from Southern California. So on the Tuesday after the fires in Southern California made the front page on every major newspaper and were the lead story on nearly every nightly newscast, my math teacher told this girl for the first time that her hometown had been evacuated. After learning this, she promptly left class; hopefully to go call her family and read the paper.

Seriously? I mean, I’m really just surprised and shocked to point where I’m not even going to say anything else. Which is pretty intense for me.

I’m just very annoyed by the stereotype of college students who don’t keep up on current events. And I guess that’s where I’ll leave for tonight.

I swear to you on my life that I ALWAYS write these blogs before I read the comments on each article. Here’s a person that agrees with me on the article. I agree with this one as well, but it takes a different perspective.

Quagmire.

So I stumbled across this article in my travels through The Huffington Post. Take a look; Bush-haters will like it. Personally, I found what Bush said to be naïve and very narcissistic, but that’s just my opinion. On a whim, I decided to ask my friend Katie Wilson, who happened to have seen Bush’s comment on CNN, how she felt about it. She is a freshman, biology major from Wisconsin, and she’s in choir with me. Katie’s brother just returned home from a year of service in Iraq and Kuwait. I was curious to see what she would say given her unique vantage point.

“When he left, he was really exciting about going. He thought it was going to be a really good cause. But as the months went by, his letters got more and more depressing. He escorted supply trucks back and forth between Kuwait to Northern Iraq. He never really experienced any difference that he himself was making in what he saw there. He had great experiences with individual people there, he gave children toys and things. But, from what he said, there is a lot more chaos and anarchy then there was. It’s dangerous, crime at night is up; some soldiers in my brother’s battalion didn’t make it back. From what I’ve read the cities are a lot less buttoned down then they were under Saddam.”

In my journalism class, we are learning about Watergate (I think this could possibly be the eleventh time I’ve “learned” about Watergate), but more specifically, the effect the scandal had on the media and how the government communicates with it’s constituents. I’m finding it difficult to really trust what people like President Bush and General Petraeus say most of the time. They have the precarious job of striking the exact balance between being honest with the public, and not freaking them out badly enough to incite a mob or create terrible administration ratings (well, they had their chance). There is always, always, always going to be a different perception to any given situation. That’s where the press comes in! Awesome, a blog and a career affirmation all wrapped into one!

I would also like to commend Bush for knowing the definition of “quagmire.” The President of the United States knew something I didn’t. I feel better now; every once in a while, he worries me.

My Roommate.

Because I have a shocking and quite depressing number of blogs left to do for my project, I’m going to start interviewing some students on campus. Hopefully I’ll be able to find students that represent many different angles and views, especially ones different from my own. I really need to stop talking about myself; it’s a problem.

On that note, I’m going to start by interviewing my roommate, Sydnie Cotter. I do this for a number of reasons; the first, she is a freshman psychology major and I’m interested to see how the average, non-journalism major goes about their media consumption, the second, because we are sitting around waiting for the plumbers to come fix our bathroom (I will not elaborate) and we have nothing else to do. I also want to try a less conventional interview style; I find Q and A interview style sort of awkward when I’m talking with my roommate for a story that will ultimately end up on Facebook.

Like I said, Sydnie is a freshman psychology major; she may go to law school after getting her B.S. (ironic), or she is quite interested in the minds of criminals, I don’t know what that profession is called. She hails from the tiny town of Miami, Arizona, with approx. 15,000 people (It’s tiny in comparison to my hometown anyway). As far as a political affiliation, she tends to identify more with the Democratic party, but she remains open-minded. Well, a very “in-your-face,” assertive, opinionated kind of open-minded.

Sydnie is quite knowledgeable about the world, for someone who isn’t graded on her mastery of current events; she watches the news once or twice a week, leisurely. More or less, she feels like she keeps up on current events; “I’m not totally ignorant to what’s going on in the world. I don’t enjoy watching the news; I just don’t want to feel dumb. Being at college has definitely made me more aware of current events. Because there isn’t a single person I really talk to everyday, like my parents, I have to rely on myself to stay informed. If I didn’t know something, most likely, someone around me did and could tell me what was going on.”

But my burning question for her had to do with her upbringing in a smaller town, and the possible differences in her political beliefs after not only moving to college, but a college in an urban area. Regarding this, she said; “In a smaller town, people don’t seemed to be as bothered with staying on top of what happens in the outside world. People there aren’t ignorant; they just are more concerned with their close-knit relationships within the town.”

So looking at Sydnie’s media habits, I didn’t see the shocking difference between her and the average journalism major I expected. I’m pretty sure there has to be a painfully ignorant college student out there somewhere (because seriously, this is ASU); I’m ready to find them, not with the premeditated intent of making them feel stupid. However, if my questions have that effect, I won’t feel bad about it.

There is no relevance to this link. It’s just funny. Had to get my Colbert fix for the evening. Those stinkin’ writers are depriving me of new, fresh comedy. I had to watch Scrubs reruns; it was such a tragedy.