Black Friday: The Death of Thanksgiving

So, I was just informed by my girlfriend who has a cousin that works at Best Buy, that customers were lined up outside their building since 9:30 am Thanksgiving morning. This just brings me back to the comment I made in the Discussion Board the other day. Capitalism and Consumerism is killing the holiday spirit. Instead of celebrating with their families, people waste an entire day just to be the first in line at some mega sales event, which is put on just so the corporations can make tons of more money than they already have. It's like the don't even care about the holidays, or the fact that these corporations and business are forcing their employees to lose out on their own holiday's with their families, so they can be up early on Black Friday, or in the case of Kmart,who was open yesterday, miss out on thanksgiving day.

Instead of lining up outside at early morning hours, people should boycott so those employees can still have a holiday, and see their families. Its not their fault that they have to work minimal wage jobs just to get by in this expensive world, which only gets more and more expensive each day.

Balloon Boy

So I was sitting in Crimson with my roommate earlier tonight waiting for him to get his dinner, and I saw on Fox News an update on the Henne Family. The ones who had claimed that their child was trapped inside a weather balloon that was flying away. Apparently they had fabricated the entire story just so they could get some sort of reality show deal. Which really pissed me off. You call in this fake emergency that gets nationwide attention, causing tons of emergency responders to search in vain for a missing child, who wasn't even missing. This is the problem with society today, and this is the problem with what is put on television. All these stupid reality shows about the stupidest things, and about the most ridiculous people. It is sad that this is what our entertainment has come to. The sad thing is, once they serve their sentence, if any, they'll probably get a tv show anyway.

“Hispanic students aspire to higher education but face barriers”

So I finally managed to find sometime to read that article that Dr. Ingvoldstad sent us about Hispanic students. I found it to be very sad news. I myself believe that education is very important (though I will admit at times I do not put my full effort into it, something I am striving to change) and I wish that there was a way to help these students. I can't really see grants being that helpful since they often enough do not provide enough money, but maybe if we had a system similar to Sweeden or other European countries where higher education is free. Though that would require people to pay more taxes, which no ever seems inclined to want to do. Granted I myself bounce back and forth on the taxes thing, but there are times when I feel it would be more beneficial as a whole for the people who have a hard time taking care of themselves, such as Hispanic kids who can't afford to pay for school. Anyway, you should take a look at the article if you haven't already, see what you think.

Limbaugh Again

Alright, so I know that I already blogged about this guy this week, but he is really pissing me off. I was reading an article on NFL.com about his response to being dropped from the (I was very happy when I heard about this part). But apparently on his show Thursday he was giving his reaction to this situation and among one of the things he said was "what happened to him was an illustration of 'Obama's America on full display.'" Now this quote really pissed me off when I read it, it is so blatantly racist it is disgusting. It angers me that this man has such a following, and that people actually respect his opinions. I mean I am all for the Bill of Rights and normally I am not one to stop someone's free speech, but I really wish someone would take this guy off the air. His words are poisonous to the country, and to all of his listeners who take his word as fact. Anyway, I thought this was relatively pertinent to class discussion, since it was a very racist remark, made by a racist man.

Communications Panel

So I don't know if any of you were able to attend the panel of communications majors in the RCC today. My Business and Professional Communication class with Dr. Litvin attended instead of the regular class meeting, and I must say it was very interesting to listen to all of the cool stuff these majors were doing. It really made me wish that I had not chosen skewed path I had, going from Poli Sci to History, and instead chosen to be a Communications major instead. The graduates seem to be enjoying what they are doing, and I must say they're careers do sound fun and enjoyable. I wish I had been smart enough to do try an internship somewhere, because from what a couple of them said, especially the recent grad who is with the chamber of commerce, they are very helpful when trying to get your foot in the door. I also found it interesting and slightly amusing, that it was unanimous among the panel that they suggest keeping your text books, I never really thought some of them to be that interesting or useful, but they are damn expensive.

Anyway, just thought I'd say that from listening to this panel and from my own experience with my unofficial minor in Communication Studies, I think you guys have a pretty cool and enjoyable major. I just wish I hadn't been foolish, and thought more about that decision, so maybe I could have partaken in it more. But oh well, no point living in regrets.

Racist Rams?

So I guess Rush Limbaugh has made some nasty comments about the NFL, a lot of them borderline racist. Apparently he compared league games to watching the Bloods and Crips fight, just without weapons. Yet for some reason he still wants to buy a stake in an NFL team, saying that he loves the NFL and the St. Louis area. I personally really hope that he is not able to buy into the league, I feel like this would be a bad reflection of the NFL's values, especially considering the racist remarks he has made. The good thing is that there are players who will refuse to play for the Rams if he is able to buy a claim, hopefully this will help affect the current owners decision.

SNL

So I was browsing CNN and I came across an article about an Obama skit on SNL, and apparently it's caused a bit of a stir among the political community. I guess the current Obama impersonator in a sketch was responding to the criticism of the Republican party that Obama was "turning the country into something that resembles the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany." His response was that he wasn't actually doing anything.

I find it really amusing that CNN is reporting on this, and that anyone finds this sketch to be a big deal. Sketch comedy, and comedians in general always take shots at politics and presidents all the time. John Stewarts been doing it for years, but no one really thought it was a big deal. I guess however it has sparked some discussion in the political community, which again I found slightly surprising. I never really thought that SNL held much influence anymore, personally I never really found it to be enjoyable since the early to mid nineties, guess I'm in the minority there.