Fourth Meal

Our current younger generations, which have been dubbed Generation X and Generation Y, have some new tendencies when it comes to eating habits. What used to be a light midnight snack has now turned into a full meal into the late night hours. Taco Bell calls it Fourth Meal: the late night meal between dinner and breakfast.

Now, don’t think that Taco Bell came up with this idea, they just realized that people our age like to eat again after dinner. Taco Bell just trade-marked an idea that was already formed. It is only recently that businesses have noticed this trend.

It really is no surprise that our age group eats this late meal, since we stay up all hours of the night. “I’m up late at night anyways, so I just eat again,” says Clayton Bennet, a freshman.

This late night meal has not just been noticed by Taco Bell. In fact, most every fast food restaurant in the US is open until at least midnight. Many McDonalds, including the one in Cornelia, are open 24 hours. At other restaurants, if the main dining room is not open, at least the drive-thru is open until midnight or later. Even Piedmont’s new grill is open until midnight so that anyone who has a late night food craving can get some good food for a decent price.

But it is not necessarily a 4th meal. Many people, especially college students, do not often eat breakfast, or eat a very light one. Sophomore Tomas Montilla says “I don’t get a chance to eat breakfast everyday. So some nights, I go eat a third meal at like ten or eleven.”

For those of us who usually eat breakfast, we are not really eating any extra food. Actually we eat about the same amount, just evenly distributed over four meals instead of three. And it turns out that doing this might actually be healthier, as long as you do not eat too close to when you go to bed. In fact, based on a 2001 study conducted by a group of doctors at Emory, people should eat four to six smaller meals each day. The study goes on to report that eating smaller meals will help to raise body metabolism.

Whether or not it is truly healthy is debatable, but whether or not it will be a new meal that is here to stay is not a question.

In the next couple of years, these young generations who are used to eating a late meal, will be finally getting good salaried jobs where they can afford to eat at more expensive fancier restaurants. I believe that when these generations get to this point, you will see these four- and five- star restaurants open for another meal between 10pm and midnight.

My Atlanta

Someone was telling me the other day that when you enter metro Atlanta, that you are no longer in the south. This made me think. Atlanta is south of the Mason-Dixon line. Atlanta is where General Sherman marched through en route to the sea. But at the same time, most things that define something as being southern just are not found in Atlanta. Really, Atlanta is not part of the south.

I was born and raised all thoughout metro Atlanta and I have not lived anywhere else until I came to Piedmont. Therefore, when I realized that my hometown is not really part of the south like I thought it was, I wanted to figure out what the identity of Atlanta is.

According to the 2000 census, Metro Atlanta is one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the nation. In fact, between 2000 and 2006, Atlanta grew 20.5%, faster than any other metropolitan area in the US. Atlanta is a big city, but when you think about it, every other big city has a special identity that is all its own.

Washington DC is the headquarters for the government. Los Angeles is the headquarters for television. Hollywood is where most of the film industry is located. Seattle has coffee and the leftovers from the tech burst of Silicone Valley. Las Vegas has gambling as does Reno. Orlando, Miami, and the rest of Florida are resort cities. Honolulu has beaches and beautiful girls. New York City is basically the communications capital of the world, not to mention there are certain styles of pizza, steaks, and hotdogs that are native to the city. Chicago has these same limits on certain foods. Detroit is the car manufacturing headquarters of the US. Philadelphia has amazing cheese steaks and is the city of brotherly love. Boston at least has its own accent. Nashville has country music. Dallas and Houston have the whole cowboy stereotype. Huntsville, Alabama, a city that is only a fraction the size of Atlanta even has the space center.

What does Atlanta have? Nothing really. Atlanta is basically a mixture of a whole lot of other cities. The only thing that Atlanta can even remotely call its own is the Center for Disease Control, or as it is more commonly known: the CDC. But even still, that is not really an identity.

The name of the city is not even special. It was named Atlanta as a shortened version of Altantica-Pacifica because of its location with the railroad. The only nicknames for my hometown that are listed on Wikipedia are “Hotlanta and the A-T-L.” At least Atlanta has a few tourist attractions, like the Georgia Aquarium, the World of Coke, the CNN center and many others, but because of all of the outside influence, I believe that Atlanta never will have its own identity.

Freedom to be Searched

Recently a high school in Colorado has been put under investigation because the principal would search through students’ cellphone text messages. The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, says that this is an invasion of privacy. My question is: how has the school invaded these students’ privacy?

I believe the school has every right to search cellphones and even PDAs and computers. Let’s say a couple of upper classmen are planning to pull a prank on a couple of freshmen that could be potentially harmful. If theses students were sending text messages about it, and a principal were to see these text messages, the school administration would be able to put a stop to it.

Or, just take a look at any of the recent school shootings. Just think had someone looked at a couple of the emails that were written by the gunman at Virginia Tech, don’t you think that someone would have been able to prevent this tragedy from happening. And certainly the two gunmen at Columbine High School communicated somehow beforehand about their plans. If the principal had seen a text message or something, wouldn’t that principal have done something about it?

From my perspective, if a student does not want something to be searched, then that student shouldn’t bring that to school with them. Basically, if you know that a principal will take up your phone or laptop and then read your text messages, just don’t bring your phone or laptop to school. I mean, certainly this principal had a reason to have the student’s phone in the first place.