I started this project with the intent of giving out three sets of quiz's regarding the news. First, a preliminary baseline to see what people knew about it without provocation to read it. A second, after a week of supplying people with the means to read it in the form of a newspaper in the student lounges and other popular student infested area's and then two more in the preceding weeks repeat it. The first week of quiz's showed that there was clear room for improvement in terms of news knowledge. The second week I watched for people to pick up the newspapers that I had placed in busy areas. Only one person picked them up in my time there. Others moved papers them on top of trash cans or left them alone entirely. Upon giving the second set of quiz's, there was absolutely zero improvement. Some people had told me they had been embarrassed by their last performance on the quiz and had watched the news in hopes of improving for this week. They did not. If anything their responses became farther off though some became better with their satirical answers. After giving around thirty quiz's, I realized the only thing anyone knew was what literally slapped them in the face. Even if it slapped them in the face, they failed to read beyond the four-word description of the event. For example, almost everyone knew there had been an earthquake in Nepal, but not a single person could tell what the capital city where much of the damage had occurred and were a steady stream of information had been coming from all week. The number of deaths? Every respondent said either, "a lot" or "no idea". When I asked people to comment on the pilot of the Germanwings flight that crashed a plane into the side of the French Alps in a mass suicide, four of the ten students knew about it only but only one knew details of the event such as the fact that the pilot seemingly practiced the event by flying the plane up and down.
I didn't come in expecting people to know all that much. This summer, I was talking to a someone who was going to be attending one of the nation's most elite institutions next year (Penn) and we were talking about places that I had traveled to. I mentioned that Rio De Janeiro was one of my favorite cities and her response was, "that's in Florida, right?". I was honestly dumbfounded. At the time, Rio was hot in the news with questions about whether or not they would be able to have the Olympic's in 2016. But more than that, this was a big time city, home of the Christ Redeemer, Ipanema beach, and one of the most scenic and famous views in the world. I asked her about a few more cities and places that I thought of as general knowledge places. A girl going to one of the top schools in the world knew absolutely nothing about the world. To me, this was shocking. How was it possible that someone so smart could be so oblivious to the world that we lived in.
I interviewed two people for this project, Ms. Anderson, the school librarian and Kevin Wiercinski, head of the history department. I asked both of them about how much they thought students at the school knew about what was going on in the world. Both of them responded that, for the most part, the answer was zero. With Mr. Wiercinski, the first thing I asked him about this dilemma was if it had been like that when he had been a kid. The answer was no. The reason, he said, was because now we have so much to distract us. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and hundreds of TV shows. For his youth, there was only the TV and it only had three channels. All news. As a result, the news was always on so he and others always found himself watching it. It wasn't that his generation was more motivated to know what was going on it was just that the news was at the forefront of media not behind ten Snapchats, eighteen text messages, fifteen new Instagrams, fifty Facebook posts and of course, everyone's favorite binge hobby, Netflix. At the same time, he stressed how good that some of these new social media outlets can be in delivering people the news. Where you used to have to wait for a new news circuit to get the latest update, now with sites like twitter, you can get up to the second updates of what is going on everywhere in the world. The paradox of social media is that it has made the world both so much closer, yet so much farther apart. When I asked Mr. Wiercinski if he thought Lawrence Academy was behind other schools in our news literacy he said no. He went on to explain that this was just the day and age we lived in. That is just the way that the world is today. Ms. Anderson, also expressed her dissent in the little that people knew about the news. She talked about in the past, putting up bulletin boards with news clippings and current events that she thought people would find interesting only to find that people were not even interested enough to stop and give it a first glance to see if they were interested.
In the end, I reaffirmed my belief that people in modern society, but those under the age of twenty-five, in particular, have a very limited knowledge of the greater world that they live in. Honestly, I don't feel as if this is going to be a problem that is going to get any better either. As technology advances, we will have more and more distractions keeping us away from worldly events.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
The Patriots, as everyone knows anywhere recently accused of deflating footballs before the AFC Championship game. The PSI was to low in the balls and as a result the NFL did a full-fledged investigation that ended with the release of the “Wells” report, that highlighted that it “more likely than not” happened and that Tom Brady, probably was “Generally aware of it”. A lot of people are questioning the legitimacy of the report. This, I disagree with. I think the report is correct I’m almost positive that Tom and the Patriots did this. Should Tom Brady be suspended? I think yes, he broke a rule and got caught; he has to pay the price for that. But does that put the legitimacy of the super bowl into question? Or his legacy? No. To me, his legacy is as stable as ever. Every athlete looks for a way to get ahead in a little way like that. Jerry Rice admitted to using stickum on his gloves, it turns out, the Colts actually did the same thing with their balls during the game. Tom Brady is guilty and deserves to be punished, but, he is still unquestionably the G.O.A.T.
Update
Brady suspended four games and team fined one million dollars. My first response to this is suck it up and eat it. But, to be honest, Ray Rice got two games for knocking his wife out cold. Four games seems a little excessive when lined up next to what Ray Rice did.
May 11th
Recently, there has been an upsurge in the amount of invasive species in the world. One that is talked about often, the Lionfish, a voracious predator from the Indo-Pacific that is destroying Caribbean Reefs continues to ravage. Another deadly invader in Italy is destroying not reefs, but Italy’s prized olive trees. Italy, the planet second largest olive oil producer is suffering from bacterial infections in its tree’s. The spittlebug, native to Brazil is chewing on the leaves and spreading the infection. Italians don’t know what to do and are panicking as the base of their livelihoods comes into question. Right now it appears the best course of action is to cut down infected trees and make a quarantine zone where the infected trees have been found. That’s however, is unfortunate for the many farmers who will lose huge amounts of profits due to the lack of production that will occur. This is also unfortunate for you and me, I like olive oil and since it will become less accessible it will likely become more and more expensive. That’s right, get ready to have your salads with vinegar only as some fine dining establishments probably including Lawrence Academy’s very own dining hall may soon send olive oil off with sriracha as a luxury item.
May 12th
Good news for coffee drinkers like myself. Today, a Times Opinion article talked about the misconception that coffee is a harmful drink that is bad for one's health. But studies have shown that coffee is very much not that. Coffee actually appears to have more beneficial effects than negative ones. For example, coffee speeds up metabolisms. Coffee also has been shown to decrease the chances of kidney diseases. Every single study into the claim that coffee stunts growth has also been proven wrong time after time. With mass-consumed products like Coke, Pepsi, Monster and Mountain Dew being consumed every day somehow Coffee has been dubbed the bad one despite having zero calories and a very small number of side effects.
May 13th
Today I read an article that seemed to be out of a twisted Sci-Fi novel. Kim Jong Un, dictator of North Korea was holding a meeting this week. Apparently, he became a little too boring for his Defense chief, Hyon Yong Chol who dozed to sleep during the meeting. Big mistake. As almost any boss would do, Kim Jong Un yelled at the man. Clearly not thinking due to being rudely awoken, Chol yelled back at Kim Jong Un. Unfortunately for him, that’s treason in North Korea, which is punishable by death. In the case of Chol, he was punished by way of being publically executed by means of an anti-aircraft gun. Well things clearly escalated quickly there. To me, this was yet another of North Korea’s Thursday, May 7, 2015
4/27/15
Today and for the last several days the leading story has been the tragic earthquake in Nepal. This last Sunday the country of Nepal was struck with a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake. The epicenter of the earthquake was fifty miles away from Kathmandu, the countries capital, and largest city. The unstable infrastructure of the country was put to the test and was not able to withstand the shaking. A thousand were pronounced dead with countless more injured on the first day. Today, the death toll has risen above four thousand. Massive rescue operations are still underway trying to find people trapped under rubble. Helicopters and rescue teams have been deployed all over the country including to Mount Everest were many climbers remain stranded and eighteen have already been confirmed dead. Nepal’s infrastructure has suffered an estimated five million dollars worth of damage. Coverage of the disaster has been the same throughout. The two words that have been thrown around most are desperate and chaos. Nepal was clearly not prepared for this disaster despite many warnings that a large-scale earthquake would be coming at some point. Villages closest to the epicenter have suffered the worst and have seen nothing in terms of the relief effort. Landslides have made these rural areas impossible to access even for the countries military. Media access has also been severely limited and thus it is difficult to fully assess the damage to the country or the death toll. The death toll was estimated to rise to about ten thousand but I think it will far exceed this when all is said and done because not enough is being done to access.
-Update, the death toll continues to rise and it is extremely hard to find an exact death toll. I am extremely saddened to hear that many expect that up to fifteen thousand lives have been lost in this disaster. More people are going to be lost if the United Nations and other relief groups are unable to reach the hard to reach areas with supplies, medical relief, food, and water. There are good signs of life, however. People are beginning to return to life and start up again, street vendors, and shops have reopened and roam the streets again. It is extremely sad to see the videos and pictures of people who are cut off from their families and are unable to reach their families.
4/28/15
The Police’s treatment of African Americans has been about as hot of a story over the last year as any story ever has. Most recently, the death of Freddie Gray, an African-American Baltimore man who died in police custody has been in the media. Gray was seen in a video being dragged screaming by police officers. He did not receive immediate medical attention despite serious damage to his spinal cord and resultantly died in police custody. All week peaceful protesters took to the streets of Baltimore to address this serious issue and speak out against what was wrong. Yesterday was Grays funeral and the protests took a drastic turn for the worse. The youth took to the streets and protests turned into riots. Cars were destroyed, liquor stores, malls, and CVS were looted and trashed and rioters through cinder blocks at passing cars. Fans exiting the Orioles game at Camden Yards were attacked and trashcans can be seen in videos being thrown. To me, the actions of these protesters shed a negative light on a good cause. They are protesting a good and righteous cause that seriously needs to be addressed. But they are going about it an absolutely horrific way. There is absolutely reason to be mad and reason to want to throw trash cans and reason to want to riot lay siege to the city will help absolutely nothing and any single person who thought what they were doing would know that. That being said, many people did. The people that spoke out against the violence such as the man in the skull shirt who blocked protesters from attacking police and any and all religious and political leaders. There were also lots of great moments of human integrity that I read about. Rival gangs laying their differences aside in order to fight for a cause and to maintain peace and help save their city.
Today after months of facing international criticism over its plans to execute eight prisoners accused of smuggling heroin into Indonesia, the country executed seven of them. Indonesia used these seven, as an example to try and quell the drug problem that their country is currently experiencing. Though I don’t agree with the death penalty as a general rule and disagree with the severity of the punishment compared to how bad the actual crime was. That being said, Indonesia’s drug problem is something that they said they were going to put their foot down and they are making an example of these people. It’s not right that they are doing it by taking away their lives, but all the same the countries drug policies needed changing and a statement needed to be made and they did just that. Once again, not condoning their actions.
5/3
Last night was the much-hyped Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. It brought many of the world’s celebrity’s to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas where a traffic jam occurred from private planes flying in from all over the world. The fight, however, was not as flashy as the audience as Mayweather spent much of the fight bouncing away or on the ropes. However, Mayweather was never really on the ropes in terms of being in trouble and it was obvious from relatively early on that he was going to win the fight. The real highlight of the fight, however, was watching Jimmy Kimmel hopping with Pacqaio’s camp into the fight.
5/4
In Garland, Texas two gunmen opened fire on an Anti-Islamist satirical competition. There was a contest of satirical cartoons of the prophet Mohammad. It is very offensive to Islamic people to draw Mohammad. This is the second time in less than a year that Mohammad drawings have drawn attacks from Muslim extremists, the first being the much publicized Charlie Hebdo attack in France. This attack once again brings up the question of what is “ok” to publicize or write about. Obviously, offensive pictures and killing people are on entirely different scales of right vs wrong and the actions of the killers are heinous and inexcusable, but does that make the satire ok? To me, there should be a freedom of journalism. In my opinion, suppressing the right to write what you want is suppressing someone’s freedom. Though words can hurt and be highly insulting by filtering what people are publishing is a slippery slope. By not allowing certain things to be published, I feel that we are opening up Pandora’s box. Censoring the media is a slippery slope and no matter how wrong what people are writing is if they want to write it they should be able to. I feel that if media is censored politicians will have the ability to choose what we read and thus use that to shape us into one large homologous thinking world. To me, America’s many different ideas and beliefs are one of its most admirable traits.
5/5 Update
ISIS has attempted to claim responsibility for the shooting in Texas. But many experts doubt that it was actually them and I agree. I think that these two extremists had nothing to do with ISIS and ISIS is just claiming responsibility to spread fear to the United States. ISIS survives and thrives on fear so it would make sense for them to take responsibility for something like this.
5/5
In 2005 when my plane touched down in Caracas Venezuela things were not great. The city held the unfortanate prize of the highest homicide rate in the world. Some of my relatives urged me maybe not to go and the US Government sent us a letter reminding us that it was in the so called “yellow zone,” or somewhere they wouldn’t recommend traveling. All the same my family and I went and had lots of fun. But if I went back today things would be significantly worse then they have ever been. The government is one of the most corrupt in the world and even before the large drop in oil prices, Venezuela was in the midst of an economic crisis. Now, do to corruption and struggling economy the country is struggling to provide its citizens with basic necessities. The corruption is so bad that, Edmee Betancourt, former President of Venezuela’s central bank estimated that twenty billion of the fifty nine billion that went to product imports in 2012 was lost to fraudulent transactions. An article I read today, by William Nueman and Patricia Torres highlights the fraud and explains how it is happening. The problem starts with the fact that Venezuela imports most of their goods. But the importers do not want to deal in the countries inflated Bolivar that is now worth a mere 1/278 of an American dollar. They want to use a more stable currency and thus deal in American money or Euros. So the Government allows this and lets them put the price on the goods once they have entered the country. Importers than bribe officials who allow them to claim that they are importing far more goods than they actually are, if they actually bring any goods in at all. After this process the importer often ends up with up to 60% of the flat money from the government without doing anything. Other money, is brought to the black market were American money is sold, and then used to by Bolivars and than sold again. This “bicycle” purposely boosts inflation and people are able to make tremendous amounts of money.
In France today the parliament passed huge new surveillance law in response to the increase in radical terrorism in the country. The surveillance allows authorities to look through people’s computers, emails, and other personal data with out almost a judiciary oversight. Some people find this to be necessary in order to eradicate terrorism. Others are adamantly against it and see it as an invasion of their rights. Many businesses are afraid that it will damage them because they are afraid customers will be dubious of their anonymity. I agree that something needs to be done to eradicate terrorism but I don’t think that an invasion of privacy at this level is the way to go.
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