Lewinski wasn’t the only person who Clinton screwed

If you are a college student with a political science major, he may have screwed you, too

The media had a field day with their coverage of the Monica Lewinski sexual relationship with former President Bill Clinton. Anyone of college age should know the 42nd president’s relations with his intern. What happened behind closed doors may never fully be known, but the one thing that should be known is what former President Clinton and many other politicians are doing to college students across the nation. They’re making the already-tough-to-break-into politics job market even harder to get into for college graduates.

I would bet money on deals that happened between Lewinski and certain political parties so that she will have no financial worries in the future. What I’m worried about is the students who are looking for internships in the political arena to get some “real-world-experience” before they graduate. These students are only trying to boost their resumes in hopes of getting at minimum a decent job. Unfortunately, who is going to hire a White House intern from when Clinton was president. What potential employer isn’t going to think “well, I wonder if this one had ‘relations’ with the president, too” when he or she sees that on someone’s resume?

To the media, Clinton’s affair was just personal. Many left-wing media outlets followed up every story about Monica with one about how well the economy was doing because of the president. Because it was thought to be only personal, it was cast aside in the judgment of many people because it just didn’t affect many people.

In some dark corner of my heart, I feel genuinely bad for Lewinski for going through that. I feel worse for any other intern or page whom went through similar situations. Up until this point, who has even thought about all of the other interns who are back at square-one all because they were trying to get ahead. As it turns out, these “personal affairs” may actually be hurting college graduates.

Most of the people who were interns during the last presidency have already made it through the system and are now either successful despite set-backs or flipping burgers at the local fast food joint. The problem now is the current ring of politicians who just cannot keep their hands to themselves.

In 2006, former senator Mark Foley resigned from congress after being caught sending explicit text messages to former pages. In 2001 “congressman” Gary Condit was found to have had an affair with intern Chandra Levy. This illustrates just two of the more well-known affairs. If one wanted to see the full impact, one would have to include nearly every politician who has had a sexual affair with anyone. What employer would take a job candidate seriously if they knew the candidate had worked under Eliot Spitzer as an intern?

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.

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.

Explicit Language

Everyday we hear members of parent’s council or another entity complaining about how something is too explicit for their children. Everyday the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, puts another restriction on what can be said on the air. The American government is increasing the limitations of what the media can say.
At the same time the Americanized dialects of the English language are becoming more and more loose; words that used be considered vulgar, are now generally accepted by much of the American population.
Although I cannot speak for the entirety of my generation, I will point out that there are not many words that you will not hear coming out of our mouths. These words that I cannot mention in this article, because they are “bad words,” are so socially accepted that no one even turns when they hear them spoken.
As journalists we are told that we have to not use these words and other “vulgar” comedy because it is “for the greater good of society.” We cannot expose children to these words because it would be very bad if they heard it from a reputable source versus from their friends.
I don’t understand why I can say whatever I want to at the grocery store and no one can stop me, but if I am in front of a microphone, I cannot say *bleep.* If I am in front of my computer working on a newspaper article, I cannot type $&#@.
Since the phrases freedom of speech and freedom of the press have been thrown around so much, they have lost most of their meaning. These two important amendments to the American government no long stand for what they used to.
It has gotten to be so bad these days that if you slip up and accidentally say one of those “bad words” you will be heavily fined by the FCC. And that does not even include all of the suits that will be filed by those fanatic parent groups.
I feel it is sad that I cannot *bleeping* say what I *bleeping* want to.

Why Smoke?

There are over 400,00 deaths in the United Stated every year from smoking related illnesses. Then why in the world would anyone want to do it? 400,000 is nearly .14 percent of the population of the U.S., and while that does not sound like much, it’s a lot considering it’s a conscience choice to smoke.
I would have written this article with a million statistics and facts about smoking like that according to the American Heart Association, each cigarette that you smoke takes and average of 8 minutes off of your life span, but instead I’ve decided to just give you my opinion.
Smoking is dumb, period. I fully support the many local governments that have begun to enact smoke-free ordinances. In the end, it is a personal choice for whether or not one wants to smoke, but when you look at it, what is good about smoking? You look cool to your peers? Smoking is so not cool.
What is worse is that when you smoke, if you smoke around people, you are breathing out secondhand smoke for other people to inhale. Secondhand smoke is just as bad as puffing on a cigarette.
Why would you want to shorten your life as well as other people’s lives to do something stupid?

Are the states at fault for lousy drivers?

Across the United States, teenagers are becoming licensed drivers. They practice for months with parents, they take the written test, and then they take the driving test. In some states they are required to also take a driving course. But is this enough? Why are the requirements to become a licensed driver different from state to state? Why are some more lenient on requirements than others? Are these differences the cause for so many deaths among teen drivers?

According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 36 percent of deaths among teens is due to motor vehicle accidents. In 2004, 4,767 teens. aged 16 to19, died of injuries from vehicle accidents. I think the reason all of these accidents and deaths happen is because teens are not taking hard enough driving tests. In some states the requirements to get a drivers license is harder than in others. For example, in the state of Georgia the minimum score a driver can get is a 70 and in Washington they have to get an 80. According to Stateline, the restrictions that are placed on states cut the fatalities of drivers by 19 percent.

After going to the different DMV websites for different states I realized just how different the requirements were. In Washington, the teen must be 15 1/2 to get their learners permit. The driver must be in the car with someone 21 or older and must have 50 hours of supervised driving, including 10 night hours. They are required to take a driving course before they can take any of the exams. When the teen goes to get their drivers license they must take a written exam and make an 80 percent and a driving exam and also take a drivers exam which also requires them to make an 80 percent.

In Georgia, teens must be 15 years old to get a permit. They must have 4o hours of supervised driving and 6 hours of night driving. When the teen goes to get their license they must take a written exam and a driving exam, that only requires them to get an 70. Although these Georgia regulations are not as tough as the Washington regulations, the licensed driver has a lot more rules to follow. These rules include passenger restrictions, time restrictions, and time of day restrictions.

Arkansas has one of the most lenient driving requirements that I have seen. Teens there can be 14 to get a learners permit. I don't know why they would want to, but that is their policy. There is no amount of supervised driving time, no supervised driver restrictions, and no passenger rules. The leniency of these rules has given Arkansas second place to having the most teens deaths in 2001, according to state master. I don't know if Arkansas is still in bad standings, but if their driving requirements are still the same, I doubt it.

These are just a few of the state requirements in the United States. Could these requirements be the cause of the 36 percent of teen deaths from motor vehicle accidents? I think so.