Jayson Blair

When we watched the video about Jayson Blair, I couldn’t believe some of what I was hearing. To me what he did was horrible. “I fooled some of the most brilliant people in journalism,” said Blair. This was a quote I found that he said. Just by this quotation, it looked as if this was a game to him. He did not seem to care about others, or who he might hurt in the process.

After watching Shattered Glass, I compared it to this and yes they are similar; however, they are also different in a lot of ways. A similarity that I saw was that they both did not follow journalism ethics. They lied to their editors and coworkers, and fabricated stories. Blair however sank to a new low in his made up stories. He talked about fallen and missing soldiers. There was a lot of sensitive material that he was assigned to that he should not have messed with.

In my personal opinion, Blair still seems to be lying. “Having said that, it sounds as if in many ways you are a pathological liar,” Katie Couric said during their interview. I do not believe that Blaire has told the entire truth and I think that he is using his situation to exploit himself. I fully agree that he is getting too much attention and now he is trying to sell a book. The title of his book, Burning Down my Master’s House, was an insult to many I believe too. The title suggest he is comparing himself to slavery, however I think that is far from the issue.

I do believe that Blair had many personal problems. Despite the issues in his private life, he should not have used it as an excuse to compromise his professional work. If he is or was mentally sick he could have taken a number of steps to prevent this from every happening.

Education Takes a Cut

The ongoing issue with education is now taking a turn to cut school days out of the school year for the Los Angeles School District. An agreement between school district officials and employee unions was already agreed upon; now it just needs to be voted on to be finalized. I think that there are some pros and definitely some cons to this proposal. First this will save jobs, keep class sizes low, and save the district a ton of money. However, it also can hurt instruction. In my opinion I think that if this is the only way and last resort to this problem, then they should do it. But, I think that this can cause a harmful effect in the instruction for the children. The students are going to be losing seven valuable days of learning. Even though class sizes won’t be as much, they will still be big and now the teacher has to figure out someway to cram more and more information into the students. To me education has also been on the back burner. I think that more funds should be allocated toward education. There are things that can be cut back from before they start cutting back on education. The foundation for how our society works and functions is based on a child’s education. I know California, along with the rest of the country is in a financial crisis, but I think that there is careless and reckless spending in other areas that need to be assessed before teachers and students are the ones suffering. If cutting school days from our schools doesn’t work, then what’s next?

Healthcare

While watching the video of President Obama signing the healthcare legislation, I wasn't a big fan. To me the whole thing was just a big ceremony on congratulating him over and over. I understand that a lot of people want to congratulate him, but to me the whole thing was just over the top and I'm not sure if this healthcare plan deserves a congratulations.
I do think that healthcare is very important, but from what I understand this could cost a lot of money and I don't know if we should be spending that kind of money with the economy the way it is right now. It is said that this will cost Americans over 1 trillion dollars. According to CNM News Network, this bill will be very pricey and all Americans will be required to purchase insurance or they will have to pay a fine. Just like what the article says, I don't understand how some people will be able to pay for this, especially during these bad economic times. For these reasons, I don't think they should make healthcare mandatory, at least not now.
While I am still trying to figure everything out this bill has to offer, I feel that I can not completely disagree or agree with everything in it. While doing my research and listening to the video, I am a little confused on what exactly the bill is saying. I understand the basic concepts of it, but because they still need to settle a lot of details out, I am puzzled by some of it.

Online or on Campus?

I believe that online classes have certainly been an asset to the education world. A number of people who never had access to go to universities or community colleges now have a chance to get a degree because the price is acceptable to their budget. Others who are working parents and don’t have time to go to class can now take a course in their own living room. The students who can’t sit and listen to a lecture for three hours can now take as many breaks as they want. Online courses have shown many benefits to the ever changing society we live in; however, with any great development we need to be careful to manage and design these classes to adhere to the academic qualifications that our students need.
Personally, I can not take strictly online courses. I believe that one of the benefits of education is getting individual contact in the classroom and hands on experience. By being in the classroom students are socially interacting, which is also helping them develop necessary skills for their futures. I also think that not all teachers are qualified to teach online courses. I do not agree that they should be letting just any teacher teach these courses. Just because the class is cheaper and online, doesn’t mean they should give up the quality of the teaching. Although I see many advantages for online learning, I do not support the idea of an entire degree being earned solely through the internet. I can already see that online education is going to continue to grow; hopefully, in the years to come there will be mixture of online, hybrid, and in class learning for students and the on campus experience will not be completely torn away.

Starbucks Graduate 2/2/10

Being promoted to assistant store manager at 21 years of age is a big accomplishment, especially for a college student. Stephanie Garcia will obtain her official title of Assistant Store Manager of a local Starbucks in El Monte after her training is completed the beginning of March. Also a University of La Verne Senior, Stephanie never imagined being debt free when she graduated college. With tuition and additional college costs adding up to over 100,000, Stephanie has managed to pay for more than 30% of it. Her pending promotion and last two years of employment at Starbucks has paved the way for her college education. Stephanie started out as a typical freshman, exited and eager for a new life of living on campus and fun filled activities. She acquired a job here on campus in the Housing Department her first year to meet new people and pass the time. However, after her first two semesters Stephanie realized how much money her mom spent on tuition. Sophomore year Stephanie decided to take things into her own hands and pay for her own college expenses. Stephanie landed a job unexpectedly at her hometown Starbucks. For the last two years she has worked her way up and it has paid off in more than one way. Stephanie has a great job and as of this Friday she will be debt free. After college Stephanie will be able to enjoy spending time with her family and working on building a career in business management. Not many college graduates can come straight out of college with a smile on their face and money in their pockets; Stephanie Garcia can definitely do that while she enjoys her Grande iced, single shot, Caramel Macchiato.