Social Media

Recently at school we had an incident involving social media that I'm sure most if not everyone is well aware of. We spent a whole class period discussing it and knowing how quickly word travels in the high school world you probably heard about it even if you weren't in class that day. This post is not meant to bring up that particular situation or any individual problem that anyone has had with posting things on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or Instagram. It's just meant to warn you that what you post on the internet really does matter and can follow you down the road. Now I know I probably sound like some parent lecturing their kids about the dangers of the internet and all the negatives that can come from it, but they really do speak the truth. For me personally I've never had any issues with things I have posted and I truthfully credit that to my Grandma. For two years of my early life I lived on my grandparents farm sleeping on a cot in a cramped bedroom but I know for a fact that I learned the most in my life by far during those two years. Everyday my grandma was lecturing me over something different whether it was "Don't get to close to the microwave; they cause cancer! Don't overuse the word 'like' it makes you look less intelligent!" or "Be very careful if you ever get a Facebook, kids get in a lot of trouble with them!" Being young some days I didn't want to hear what she was lecturing me about. But everything always stuck with me. That's why to this day I keep all of my social media accounts on private and still avoid posting anything that can be taken in any negative way. I recently deleted my Facebook, but before I did I got on one last time and scrolled through all of the posts of my 'friends' that I had and actually got a great kick out of it. I honestly could not believe the audacity some people had with what they posted. Talking about all of the drugs, drinking, and sexual activity they partake in just made me sit back and laugh. While kids in our age group are out there posting stuff like that on their unprivate social media accounts you and me can really look forward to our future job interviews feeling like a million bucks while our future employer is scowering through posts, pictures, and tags finding nothing but positive things. (424)

Skizzy Mars Concert Part 2

Much earlier in my blog posts I wrote about one of my favorite up and coming artists, Skizzy Mars. I was lucky enough to go and see him in concert back in October and it was an awesome experience. Now more recently I was lucky enough to go to yet another concert of his in Iowa City. The concert was originally supposed to be on a Friday night, and practically everyone I talked to in Cedar Rapids had a ticket. Unfortunately about 4 hours before the concert Skizzy sent out a tweet stating that he would not be able to perform due to an illness he had and would not be able to perform until next Wednesday, which pissed a lot of people off to say the least. After the first cancellation basically everyone got refunds and I really thought about it, but I decided since he was one of my favorite artists and I had two days until Spring Break I would still go. It was not worth it. When we first got there it was about 10 minutes until Skizzy came on, expecting the place to still be pretty full. To my somewhat pleasant surprise we were able to waltz our way right to the second row because the venue was only about a fourth full. (356)

NFL Pro Bowl

The National Football League's reward or recognition to the best players in the league every year is a game at the end of the year known at the Pro Bowl. This is kind of like the Major League Baseball All-Star game, except the MLB all-star game has some sort of a meaning in it unlike the NFL Pro Bowl. Whoever wins the baseball all-star game, will get home field advantage during the World Series that year. But, with the Super Bowl it really has no sort of real meaning to the players as the Super Bowl is played at a neutral site every year. Also, with football being such a physical and violent sport, the players really can't risk injuring themselves in the middle of the year so the game must be played after the regular season is over. It used to be played after the Super Bowl so that the players who were participating in the Super Bowl could compete, but there was almost zero interest from fans now that the actual season was over so they actually moved it to the weekend before the actual Super Bowl itself. It also used to be the two conferences would compete against each other but now even that interesting part of the game, as they now just get two retired NFL stars and draft the players from a big pool of all the Pro Bowlers. In my opinion this has really taken any sort of competition between the two conferences out of the game. It is practically like a touch football game out on the field as most of the players are much more concerned about not hurting each other or themselves, more importantly. Which I completely understand as they really are just looking out for their own careers instead of risking their entire livelihood and job on a silly all-star game that in the long run really will not even matter. That really is the problem out of the entire event, how are they able to make things more interesting unless these players are willing to go all out and risk themselves just for the entertainment of NFL fans and viewers. Also, I think another reason why very few people are interested in the Pro Bowl is because it is just at the end of the season kind of to cap it off and really has no meaning on the actual meaning of the season.

American Sniper

American Sniper has been probably the most anticipated movie of the new year. This movie personifies and captures the life experiences of the most decorated sniper in the American military of all time, Chris Kyle. Mr. Kyle is supposedly known for having almost 100 documented kills in battle across the world within the Iraqi and war on terrorism in the Middle East. There have been plenty of mixed emotions on this movie, most controversial. Some people coming from military backgrounds completely love the idea of this movie and celebrating one of the greatest veteran's Americans have ever seen. Now some people who are completely against the idea of war and killing would much rather have peace. They then condemn what Chris Kyle was doing and elect to either not see the movie or have taken to social media to voice their opinion or disgust of what is going on across the big screen. I actually just saw two of my peers who go to Kennedy arguing the other night on whether what Mr. Kyle was doing was acceptable and should be viewed as an American hero or a man who was killing innocent people half way across the world behind the cover of the United States Military. Another thing that the people who disapprove from the film is that there are things in the movie that have been speculated and haven't been proven, in fact they even have been proven to be false. This was also a part of his book that he said, things such as when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans him and a few other elite snipers were reportedly sent to station themselves on top of the New Orleans Saints football stadium and pick off or kill any looters going around parts of New Orleans. This was proven to be completely untrue and just a plain lie by the soldier himself. That being said, in my own opinion I believe every American who enjoys their freedom and walks around United States soil freely should appreciate what this man has done for his country, whether the truth has been stretched about his accomplishments or not. Chris Kyle was killed by a former soldier suffering from post traumatic stress disorder while trying to help veterans at a firing range. He has also guest starred on many different television shows such as top shot, a show where veterans and police officers to compete to see who is the best marksman. (410)

Patriots Deflating Balls

Tensions are beginning to rise and blood is starting to boil as the 49th super bowl comes around on February 2nd with the Seattle Seahawks facing off against the AFC championship's winner the New England Patriots. New England has had to overcome a lot of adversity this year, trying out three running backs throughout the year and Tom Brady making comments about his team in a negative manner. Not to mention the Patriots were finally starting to break out of the spotlight that the Spy Gate scandal brought them a few years ago as the NFL uncovered them trying to steal the other teams plays and officials with binoculars trying to pick off signals of opposing teams. This seems to all have been brought back into speculation and consideration after the American Football League's conference championship, the game before the super bowl, as the Patriots were found to be deflating their footballs by a considerable amount in order to get a better grip on the ball, allowing Tom Brady to make much more accurate and precision passes. No one argues that either way the Patriots would have won that game, it was a complete blow out, but it is the thought of it that matters. Who knows? Maybe the New England Patriots have actually been doing this terrible thing all year and have been gaining a relatively large advantage against opposing teams. I definitely think it would be a good idea for the Patriots to lose draft picks within the next year, if not over the next couple of years. I hate when cheating is exposed in professional sports, fans pay huge amounts of money to see these athletes perform at their highest level and I think it is ludicrous for them to take an unfair advantage just for a few points. I was rather angry the first time this happened, why should the Patriots think they are good enough to cheat other teams. Who knows truly how many games they have won and other teams have lost from this cheating, but in the end of it, it's the thought that counts. If this was an NCAA ordeal or even a high school matter I think this would end up being a much bigger ordeal, definitely resulting in the loss of scholarships, or the taking away of wins and awards in high school. Maybe even the suspension of play and the death penalty for a serious enough offense. (408)

The Amanda Knox Story

The Story of Amanda Knox, one of the craziest and most mysterious murders of the twenty first century across the pond of America in the beautiful sights of Italy. Amanda is originally a resident of Seattle, Washington where her father is a very wealthy man excelling in business and trade. Amanda got very good grades as a high school student and with her family's wealth she was given the opportunity to study abroad for her first year of college in the amazing country of Italy. When she first arrived there it was everything she hoped it would be, she met an amazing boyfriend who had a nice apartment she could crash at whenever, the drinking age here was only 18 making it completely legal for her to go to a bar for a few drinks, and even marijuana is nearly decriminalized there making her college experiment a pretty good one. She moved in with three other roommates in a place known as the flats, kind of a townhouse that houses a pretty large amount of college students. Everything is going well until one day Amanda arrives home and it appears as though her apartment has been broken in to. She is frightened by this so she decides not to enter and goes to find her boyfriend who is much more fluent in Italian and they end up calling the police to report the break in. Once the police arrive things become much more serious, her roommates door is locked which seems unusual as she never does that. The police end up forcing their way into the Italian girls room and they are horrified at what they find, a young girl, extremely bloody, and dead laying in the middle of her room. At first, Amanda seemed very innocent but then things began to change, she seemed to have little remorse and was almost past the death of her roommate within days of the tragic event. She was going out shopping and joking around with her boyfriend. The police also found it strange that the attacker had time to clean up and they uncovered that the break in was actual staged, as they had to of had a key to get in the front door. Amanda kept changing her story and eventually her boyfriend even flipped on her completely contradicting her former alibi, forcing her to change her story again. To this day the murder is completely unsolved as there is no physical evidence to prove that Amanda was not there at the time of the killing leaving her out of reach from the police. (433)

Jesus Camp

The other night I was looking up some documentaries on the internet to try and find something new and interesting to watch to spice up my Friday night as I was sitting at home. Even though I don't really have any sort of opinion or practice any sort of religion, as I took AP Human Geography my freshman year and we had a whole unit on different religions around the world from different groups of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and many more. I saw one specific documentary that caught my eye called Jesus Camp, a film that follows a week long Angelical Christian church camp and what goes on within their time there. It starts off following a specific group of kids that are almost all homeschooled and how their life differs from the normal, public school going kid. One of the most interesting parts of the entire film is a mother having a talk with not even middle school age child about how ridiculous evolutionism is and how there really is no other answer to the creation of this Earth other than God himself and the idea of creationism. Being in public school my entire life ever since middle school science we have learned the idea of humans evolving from similar creatures, not the idea that God created our entire beings with one swift move of divinity. Things get even crazier once they actually get to the camp itself. They have some very extreme beliefs as they talk about how the devil is around us at every moment and how if Harry Potter was a real person, he should be sentenced to death by the hand of god as all forms of warlock and wizardry are forms of the devil. I think possibly the most ridiculous part of this entire camp is at one prayer they end up getting on the topic of George W. Bush, an Angelical Christian himself, also president at the time of this being made. They have a cardboard cutout of the man himself and they are practically praying to him as if he were the second coming of Jesus or something even though he is so well known for his mistakes while in office and putting the United States into its most recent war. With this film exposing the ridiculous practices of this church and basically making a joke out of the camp, it would be shut down and not return the year after the documentary premiered. (413)