Interesting Topics

The US war on terror has allowed for many technological advancements to take place. Along the rugid Afganistan and Pakistan region lies a hostile force determined to oppose justice and US foreign policy. Unmanned Ariel Vehicles are now making headway to becoming a critical facet of American strategy in fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. In recent years the US Air Force had been training more piolits to fly UAVs then traditional fighter planes.

At Penn State there is a healthy mix of students who attended private and public schools. The question is whether or not a private school was worth the $25 thousand or even more. Is the academic environment truly better then public schools? And have the private schools better prepared their students for success then the public education system.

QUALMS

Don't Ask Don't Tell

In the United States of America every human being must be guaranteed the right to choose their sexual orientation. Whether they dawn a military uniform or a suit makes no difference. The Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy as of right now obstructs citizens of their constitutional rights. The notion that gays would impede unit cohesion is simply false. One can simply look to the British forces. The famed British special Forces force the SASA allows homosexuals to serve. In fact the gays serving in the British army have faced little to no harassment and are still one of the world’s premier defense forces.

Drone Attacks

In the 21^st century warfare has appeared to be somewhat unconventional especially in Af-Pak region. Senior level Taliban and Al-Qaida leaders often base their operations along the North Western Frontier Provinces. This is a region in which the Pakistani government has allowed to be semi-autonomous. Thus since American forces are “technically” not allowed to set foot in Pakistan the use of drones has been extremely effective. First drone attacks are unmanned ariel aircrafts which insure no NATO casualties. In addition it has eliminated hundreds of terrorists bases/operations while keeping civilian casualties to less then 2%.

Merit Pay

The future of the United States rests in the hands of the education system. Today we are not only falling behind the industrial countries but also the developing world in terms of educating the youth. The current system of tenure has don’t little to improve the quality and standards of the system. Merit pay offers an incentive for teachers to truly tap into the potential of their students. The pay grade system for public school teachers is based off of seniority and amounts of credits. Teachers like every other occupation should be held accountable for their success or failure.

IPSO FACTO MERIT PAY

The US Department of Education in 200 reported that nearly 50% of all teachers leave their profession within five years due to low salaries. The public education system in America is failing to prepare the youth to become the leaders of tomorrow. Thus many school districts have implemented the Merit Pay system in order to ameliorate the situation. This journal will discuss the implementation of merit pay which has already helped thousands of students discover their potential. Criteria that will be used in order to evaluate the system of Merit Pay will:

1. Bonuses should be based on student growth, not on level of attainment. 
2. Performance based teacher compensation fosters collaboration among teachers and staff, and avoids creating counterproductive competition.
3. All school employees are eligible for substantial performance compensation. 
4. Does Merit Pay offer a better alternative to the “seniority” based pay? 
5. End of the day the students have to succeed.

Now that there is solid criteria we can dive into this contested issue. Merit Pay revolves around individual student improvement. Teacher effectiveness is not measured by standardized exams, but rather the level of improvement achieved by the student. By rewarding growth, an incentive for educators to teach low-performing students would arise as they are given great room to showcase their students growth.

While those who claim that the fundamentals of Merit Pay or flawed, the Vaugn Next Century Learning Center proves them wrong. In innercity La, was an average poor K-12 public school. However when the school implemented Merit Pay, this once “failed school” went to win numerous awards. In addition this innercity public school earned the National Blue Ribbon Schools Award; an award, which recognizes top public and private schools nationwide. This is a living testament to the opportunity and potential a merit pay program has to offer to the students of America.

One of the big concerns in the education system regarding Merit Pay is competition among teachers. According to the Office of Education policy, the performance pay model institute at Vaughn and school districts nation wide have succeeded in fostering collaboration. What many fail to grasp, is that a large percentage of performance pay is based off of school wide growth. Thus it is in the best interest for teachers to collaborate amongst each other to insure a high level of school wide improvement. Dr. Ritter Chair of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas states “In fact, teachers in our merit pay schools are rewarded for the improvement in their own classrooms and for the gains of students throughout the school.” Ipso facto performance pay will ensure teacher collaboration.

Another factor that concerns unions is the notion that not all teachers would receive performance compensation. The Cato Institute touches on this point, “all employees within the school should be eligible for a performance pay bonus, not just teachers of core subjects.” It is imperative that teachers in the arts, physical and special education receive proper compensation based off of their performance.

What this system allows is for teachers to be recognized for their outstanding ability to teach and inspire. It puts all teachers on a level playing field. The current system bases pay off of seniority and credits. The component missing is the quality of education the students receive in the classroom. Teacher pay is rarely effected based on student performance. However seniority many times is valued more then the knowledge taught to the youth. This present system is unfair and unjust.

Schools in areas where graduation was unfathomable now have almost 100% graduation rates thanks to Merit Pay. It must remain clear, that the Merit Pay systems outlined are not hypothetical, but are substantive arguments that have all been implemented in American public school systems. "The relative decline of American education is untenable for our economy, unsustainable for our democracy, and unacceptable for our children. We cannot afford to let it continue. What is at stake is nothing less than the American dream." It is because I passionately agree with President Barack Obama, that performance pay is only just.

BLOOD PHONE

1)

As I sit in the zombie lounge studying for my chemistry exam I glance around the room to see if anything out of the ordinary is going on. What I see is the usual texting, Facebook up on laptop screens and people confined to their own world listening to their ipods. I would never have thought that acts of injustce were being funded by those studying among me on the in this silent study room (hence the name zombie lounge) where the slight creeking of a chair brings malicious glares.

Columbite-Tantalite or coltan for short can store high amounts of electric charge and is used in almost all of our portable electronic. It is a murky mineral with greatest deposits in the failed state of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC may be on another continent but the mineral is an intergral component in our devices that we can not live without. Imagine walking down the neverending pathways of Penn State, counting all the students/professors who are chatting on the cell phones, jamming to Kanye and techno on their mp3 players or just writing an essay on their laptop. One thing in common between ALL students at PSU is their love for Colton.

The limits of mineral far exceed just these devices. It is in Nuclear Reactors, ABS breaking systems, air bags, F-16s and much more. Infact the list is nearly endless.

The method of extraction is by forced labor and often leads to early death and slavery. The extinction of the massive apes to feed the workers is a byproduct. Coltan is mined by panning the ore with water. A small group can mine up to a kilo per day. Imagine the gold rush of California almost 2 centuries ago! This is sold for $300 in the final market. But the miners barely make $1-3 per weel if they are lucky to not lose it to the rebel forces or stolen by others. Civil war in these countries exacerbates the situation leading to wholesale slaughter of innocent humans. Even the United Nation reports that Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda are involved in smuggling Coltan, though all three nations deny this.

To feed all these miners, many of the mighty apes of Congo National parks have already been killed and fed as bush meat. The rivers have been polluted, the people have been savaged. Most of us who use this product, unfortunately have no idea that Coltan powder is in our batteries and how it came into the battery. We are a very pragmatic bunch of and rarely do we allow discrimination to exist once we come to know about it. So next time you text your friend or log on Facebook, remember those in the Congo who live in abominable conditions. Maybe in the next few years we can start to use “gorilla-safe” cell phones.

2)

“I just spent over $2,000 on my laptop. And I got a new phone for 150 bucks” 

-Matt Freshman 2014

“Blood diamonds all over again”

                               -Pranoy PSU 2014

“That is some sick stuff. I am surprised a lot of people don’t know about this yet. I had no clue these acts against humanity were being perpetrated for my iphone." 

Thadeous Freshman 14

“That’s why I don’t have a cell phone. This is a very important issue that needs to be brought up in international trade organizations and such. Very few people know about this and that needs to change.”

Miss Hoftman High School English Teacher

3)

The “colton rush” led to:

“violent expulsion of many farmers and their families, from their land, at the hands of rebel groups and ruthless businessmen.[28] These forced displacements particularly affected those properties where coltan could be found in abundance and in certain cases, slave labor was used in the exploitation of these coltan-rich areas.”

-Gonzaga Journal of International Law

Eighty Percent of the World colton reserves are in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

- American University report

On average Students change cellphones every 12 months.

-MSNBC

College Students annually spend over $10.5 billion on electronics. 

-Pittsburgh Post Gazette

4)

I feel that there is an abundance of inforamtion on the topics of colton. What I would like is to research more on the connection to PSU students. I feel like by promoting awareness about the subject more students would to give more in depth interviews. Talking to computer science or engineering professors could provide me with technical data. 

PROFESSIONAL PARTIERS ONLY

"We cannot rank Penn State University against other schools in the party category because we feel it is unfair to rank professionals against amateurs"

-Playboy

This institution will be my home for the next four years. The Pennsylvania State University is a solid academic environment with a work-hard-party hard atmosphere. Compounded with top notch engineering, business, liberal arts programs and the best party scene in the nation, we as Nittany Lions have much to be proud of. This American Life chose to investigate what it took to be the #1 party school in the nation. And so the journalists from this nationally acclaimed radio program descended upon the doorsteps of our college, fraternities and homes.

These journalists arrived in our pristine valley to expose the reality behind the #1 party school. A school where even Playboy states that partying that goes on here is incomparable to any other institution. Setting up their base of operations in a small local house situated in the midst of Frat Row, they wait for the brouhaha to commence. It is a football weekend night. The reporter within the first 30 min witness multiple acts of public drunkardness, urination and general anarchy. Through interactions with these intoxicated students many serious issues were brought forth. Underage drinking and high blood alcohol concentrations are the issues that plague Happy Valley. Ironically State College was bestowed the title of the safest place to live in the country. The reporters follow a cop for a night. The crimes of the night are all centered around drinking. 

Reporters from The American Life highlight what it takes to be the number one party school. From mucky fraternity floors to pissing on bushes, listeners begin to feel that weekends at Penn State are exclusively crazy. It is true that drinking is rampant here. It is true that President Spanier and the University have exhausted almost all options to decrease underage consumption of alcohol. This article holds a mirror up to the students who desecrate the name of this prestigious university. The callous attitude of these students end up in date rape cases, violence and property damage. These are very real problems in our society, in our utopia.

Let it be known to all, that these topics are common practice in most public colleges. Problems of this ilk are faced in most public universities. It is just the magnitude of students, over 38,000 students from every state of the country that can seem overwhelming. 5% of students is 1,900 students!! All of this within a mile of the University. I personally do not agree how they define Greek life at Penn State. As a pledge at a fraternity, I partake in parties. However the most important aspect of Greek Life is the concept of brotherhood and service. Fraternities that have sold morals such as Sigma Nu, Beta Theta Pi and Phi Gamma Delta are completely misjudged and overlooked. Depicting Greek Life as a place to have rampant sex and getting drunk is simply not the case at all. 

Interestingly this article does highlight serious issues that plague our university today. Backed with solid observations and quotes this radio program holds up a mirror to our puerile actions.

First Draft?

“this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated.”

-Anne Lemont

My perception of prolific writers like Hemmingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald was that, some sort of divine inspiration guided their pens. Lemont in her essay states that society tends to believe authors first drafts end up becoming their masterpieces. That heavy tomes in the library which I could barely pick up, were written with ease. That works like Grapes of Wrath, The Color Purple and Atlas Shrugged were produced out of an excellent first draft. Through my experiences as well as Lemont’s this is quite the contrary. 

Writing literature of any kind takes more then a first draft. The notion of hundreds of iterations of a work is simply unfathomable to many who are not accustomed to writing. Many in society are under the impression that writers just stretch there fingers and type away creating a Pulitzer Prize winning novel just from their first draft. Though I many wish the process to be this simple in real life, it rarely is. For me, I write everything that comes to me. I view the first draft as a source to find raw ideas and phrases that are jumbled up together. Writing my raw thoughts on paper allow me to rearrange them as well as cut and add details that enhance the story. Then I take these changes and start my 2nd draft that is more focused and organize my sentiments.

First drafts serve as a starting point. It many times will be incoherent, ungrammatical and disorganized; however all your ideas are on paper. Similarly imagine a garden with beautiful flowers amidst a jungle of weeds. A gardener simply has to eliminate the undesirable weeds, rearrange and add a few new vibrant flowers. Almost everything in the garden was originally present. The gardener just edited the region to look nice. This represents the transition of the first to the second draft. A “shitty first draft” allows for the writer to freely express their thoughts, not having grammar etc to concentrate on. This shitty first draft is the raw material that over a period of time will become a piece of art. This is a process that takes time and perseverance. This is the process that even epic writers must go through.

Travails of a Father

It is said that the greatest pain for a father is to see his children amble upon a path that brings nothing but misfortune and grief to themselves and those around them. Before your very eyes, witnessing your son squander his potential, steal from younger siblings and fall into the horrific depths of hard drugs will irreparably damage your psyche. These horrors creeped into the life of David Sheff. A father of three, Sheff never relinquished the flame of hope for his eldest son who was a drug addict. His memoir paints the heartbreak and emotional rollercoaster which is the nightmare of every parent. Sheff eloquently pens such a personal story that the reader cries along with the father through the journey of the relationship with his son. His vivid description makes it no mere essay but a shining beacon of excellence that should be used by all writers as a gold standard!

As I peruse through memoirs of all kinds, Sheff’s stands out. His message is mixed with remorse as well as guilt towards the raising of his son. The writer is faced with an epic challenge of curing his sons drug addiction and lifestyle of debauchery. The father faults himself and runs through a plethora of “what if” scenarios. Though the severities of many of our problems are nowhere comprable to those of the father, we find similarities with how we cope in times of distress. As a writer I take from this a valuable piece of advise, write something that somewhere in the world people can identify with.

Anyone who reads this moving piece will understand the gravity of drug addiction on the entire family. To see how the actions of a son and older brother effect the household is truly eye-opening. This is a must-read article for all especially for parents. It allows people to peer behind the veil of a very serious issue that impacts millions of people in America.

Reading this article has provided me a great deal amount of insight into the proper content and organization of an interesting and gripping memoir. The vivid description of emotions captivate the reader. This is crucial for all writers. A memoir must retain the legitimacy of the certain events written about, but at the same time must be interesting for readers. The honest depiction of emotions the family goes through creates a fresco in the minds of the readers. They become part of the family. Sheff has done a great job of conveying his feelings.  

I aspire to write articles which inspire true emotions in the reader. My thoughts and feelings must be articulated in a descriptive manner such that my words will transcend the paper. This is my goal and reading David Sheff’s article has helped me discover it.