Opinion Columns
Back before the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year, I happened to see a notice from the Iowa State Daily newspaper on Facebook. It noted that they were looking for opinion writers as the new school year began. At the time I considered myself "opinionated", but not too outspoken about them. Still, I figured "what the heck" and got in touch with the current opinion staff and started writing. I graduated in 2011 and closed my relationship with the Daily after making many friends, perhaps playing some role in the various ACP awards they won, and writing 46 different opinion columns with the paper. If you are looking at this page, I hope you can enjoy a few of these columns below and perhaps may enjoy any columns I write in the future.
As you go about your daily life, texting your friends, checking e-mail online, and Googling a question on your phone as you eat lunch, you may not stop to think about how much you depend on technology these days. Those marvelously advanced devices are great, but some of the technology underlying the devices occasionally treads on shaky ground because it was not originally designed with hundreds of millions of users in mind.
It was back in the eighth grade that I first started investing in the stock market for fun and profit. I've always been interested in making money in whatever way I can. After doing chores for my parents for years, I accumulated a hefty sum in my savings account, but some articles I read revealed that I could earn more in CDs — certificates of deposit, not compact disks — or in the stock market with my cash than the few pennies the bank paid me to hold onto it. So, after working for a year or so on my strategy and following stock prices in the paper, I told my dad that I wanted to play the market.
Listening to Eric Cantor, R-Va., talk to Katie Couric, I was seriously afraid. He expressed to her his feeling that the majority of Americans want the health care bill repealed. Couric interjected that exit polls showed that 47 percent of voters agreed with the health care bill while 47 percent wanted a repeal of the health care legislation — basically a 50/50 Republican-Democrat split.
Cantor then proceeded to note that 87 percent of Republicans and about 50 percent of Independents are against the health care bill and this "majority" has given him the mandate to kill that legislation.
I spent a portion of the weekend of Oct. 30 driving 255 miles with two other students to a big amateur rocket launch in Princeton, Ill., where I helped a student project team from Iowa State launch its custom carbon fiber rocket 6,600 feet into the air.
The rocket's motor ignited on command, spewing a bright blue flame as it pushed for the heavens. As it crested in its parabolic arc, it released its drogue parachute and soon landed nearby in a plowed cornfield. It was all part of a preliminary test of a large cache of electronics hidden within the rocket's jet-black frame.
News corporations and television studios need to stop trying to dictate what I watch and when I want to watch it.
It seems that the media industry is fighting the transition to digital media at every turn and has been doing so for more than a decade. Cable companies and news stations make big bucks by charging you for the 100-plus channels normally available on cable or satellite TV and then charging companies to advertise to you.
It makes sense that they don't want to give up their big paychecks as the world slowly realizes that structured television programming isn't necessary in today's digital age. But they need to realize that they must adapt to the new viewing environment or be left behind.
Pages
