"Fauxmance"... really?

I was caught slightly off-guard today when, on the home page of CNN, there was an article about Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. Maybe it's because I went to see the midnight premier of "New Moon" last night or maybe it caught my attention because it wasn't exactly the type of thing I expect to see on CNN's home page. Either way, I was intrigued and decided to see exactly what the article was about.

"Are they or aren't they a couple? That's the multimillion dollar question fueling the "Twilight" franchise." By 'they' the article refers to Robert and Kristen. "Really?" I thought to myself as I continued reading; I know for a fact that I didn't go to see the movie last night because I cared about whether they were dating in real life. I mean, sure, it might be nice to know, but I wonder... Is that all people really care about? I expect people would still have gone to see the movie even if they knew the truth about their love life.

But if all that people care about is whether Rob and Kristen are dating then what does that say about us as a nation? Why are we so concerned with what is happening in celebrity's lives?

American?

Earlier this month, my dad was reading the newspaper when he came across an article about the New York marathon. The title claimed that for the first time since 1982, an American man had won the race, and immediately he had my attention. Meb Keflezighi broke the tape in 2:09:15, a personal best. Now, when my dad read this name, he stopped. If you just look at the name you may wonder, is this guy really an American? (Or, at least, that's what my dad wanted to know.) He kept reading and discovered that Keflezighi had emigrated to San Diego in 1987 from war-torn Eritrea, as one of 11 kids. He became a US citizen in 1988.

Even after reading that he had become an American citizen my dad's reaction was that this guy wasn't REALLY an american, and I'm still trying to understand why... maybe it's because he emigrated here rather than being born here, but isn't that what all of our ancestors did? What does it mean to be an American? Are some people more American than others? Why?

Life as a Trevian

I'm sure most would agree that life at New Trier is not exactly typical high school experience. I mean, sure we have extracurriculars and classes and a social life to balance out. However, even though we have a student body of nearly 4,500 kids we have NO school spirit and have more divided "cliques" than most schools do (Mean Girls the movie is based on our school for all of you who didn't know). Of course, this is not what I would consider the bulk of the difference; it's the competition among classes that I consider our most distinguishing factor, and it's not always a good thing. Friday was the end of the first quarter for us, and so we have recently been receiving grades from our teachers, and you will come to understand how competitive people are when you learn that people are disappointed when they get B's. But why? That's above average, right? For most people, yes, but in a school bursting with genius', a B can look pale in comparison to another student's straight A report card. This may sound ridiculous to some, but comparing ourselves to others has come to part of who we are, and how are brain processes information.
I'll be perfectly honest; I try so hard to do well, and I get really frustrated when I do poorly (remember what poor means in this context). But when I try to look at it from an outsider's point of view, I really don't understand why we are all as competitive as we are. Is it because of the environment we were raised in or do we force this upon ourselves? I know we have pressure to do well from our parents, and an expectation to get into a good college, but is it subtler than that? Would we be as competitive without the pressure from our parents?

National Emergency

As of Saturday, the H1N1 (or swine flu) virus has officially been declared a national emergency by President Obama. This is due a rapid increase in cases across the country. The declaration allows Health and Human Services to aid local health care facilities that would otherwise be unable to deal with the pandemic themselves. Some people, however, seem to be slightly skeptical of the action. One administration official called Obama's action a "proactive measure that's not in response to any new development." According to CNN, since April, when the pandemic first hit, there have been millions of cases, at least 20,000 people have been hospitalized, and more than 1,000 have died, and it is continuing to spread. 46 states have reported widespread flu transmission; this would not be unusual except that it is extremely rare for the flu season to peak so early.

People lined up to wait for their vaccine

I understand that for the elderly and the young, especially, the virus can be deadly, but for the majority of the population, the swine flu is just a longer, harder version of the flu. So I start to wonder why this has been declared a national emergency. It seems to me like everything has been hyped up by the media to make it seem worse than it actually is, and I wonder why.
Does the media want people to think that it that much worse or do they honestly believe that the swine flu is so severe? And why might they want to think this pandemic is a bad as they are making it sound?

Fake veteran faces 'stolen valor' charges

How Richard Strandlof decided to construct a lie about surviving the 9/11 attacks and a roadside bomb in Iraq, no one knows. He even went so far as to say that he had a metal plate in his head from the explosion that he escaped. He now claims he didn't mean to cause any harm, but there are certainly plenty of repercussions for lying that you are a military veteran. According to the FBI "the penalty for his crime is up to one year incarceration and a $100,000 fine."

Before his lies were discovered, he stood by politicians and spoke on behalf of veterans. He even created a group called the Colorado Veterans Alliance. Now we know the whole thing was a lie. He wasn't at the pentagon, he never served his country, and his real name is Rick Duncan. According to CNN, he denies being a pathological liar, but claims he suffered from "some severely underdiagnosed mental illness". Doug Sterner has catalogued numerous people claiming to be veterans who have never served in the military, and he says it is not unusual for those people to claim a mental illness in order to cover for themselves.

What he has done does not only affect himself, but hundreds of others. The group that he created took money away from legitimate causes for veterans. Also, any person who claims they are a veteran is going to be questioned and come under the scrutiny of the media because people know that others have lied before. I know he claims he didn't mean any harm, and this may very well be true, but the fact is, lying almost never has positive outcomes.

Personally, I don't believe that he has a mental illness, so why would someone lie about something as big as this? Did he really think he could do any good or get away with it forever?

Do numbers lie?

Today in American Studies class we started off with the significance of numbers, and we got into the matter of whether or not numbers could lie. One classmate said that she had heard the quote, "The figures can't lie, but the liers can figure." This really got me thinking... Can numbers lie? While I completely agree with the second part of the statement, and know that people can pick apart the data to get the answers or conclusions they want, I'm still not so sure about the first part. The numbers can be influenced by someone's bias, even if they are real numbers, but what if they make up the numbers? Aren't the numbers lying if they are completely made up? In some ways I think that they are, but I also feel like it's the person who made them up who's the liar and not the numbers because the numbers came from somewhere, even if it was just inside that person's head. This to me is that hardest part about figuring out whether the numbers are lying or not...
In class it seemed that we came to the decision that the numbers couldn't lie, but a bias could be applied to the way they are presented or even the way the data was collected, but I still don't know. What do you think? Can numbers lie? 

Waiting with bated breath...

I don't know about the rest of the Chicago population, but I'm guessing they are all as excited as I am to hear whether Chicago gets the bid for the 2016 summer Olympics. The results are said to announced sometime Friday, and even the Obamas have put in a good word for the city...

But what would happen if we did get the vote? Undoubtedly, the Olympics would cost a large sum of money and we are spending about $100 million on the bid alone. In an article I read recently the reported estimate cost is $3.8 billion (I'm not even really sure if I can grasp how much money that is...), but Robert Livingstone, an expert in the Olympic selection process says, "It will probably cost more..." The city, however, still has a strong argument due to the fact that we don't need to do much to augment the infrastructure that is already in place. Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College, even seemed to think that Chicago could make money from the Olympics if we can learn from cities like Atlanta and Los Angeles. This surprised me quite a bit... I always thought of it only as how much it would cost and not that there was even really a possibility of making money. Which makes me think... If the city can make money is it worth the huge amounts of money it will cost us now? The city has put in their bid, but is this good for the city or will we regret it if we get the bid?