Prerevision
Controversy is nothing new to American politics. For years politicians have argued and shouted to convince the voters that they were the correct choice for the country, that they had the solutions to everyone’s problems. But over the years there has developed a disturbing trend in political debate. While politicians argue over what should be done and what can be done, there has been almost no debate over what they are allowed to do. Simply stated over the years the government has forgotten, or just plain ignored its constitutional restraints. Many politicians view these as inconveniences and are often quick to bypass them when they are able. This has become a huge issue in politics, and it is an issue that no one is talking about.
When the constitution was created the framers had to basic principles in mind. Creating the groundwork that would allow them to build a new government, and the limitation of that government’s power, to assure that it was never abused by those in control. As stated by the tenth amendment “Powers not delegated to the United States By the Constitution nor powers nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people.”(Amendment 10, Constitution).
Final revision
Controversy is nothing new in American politics. For years politicians have argued and shouted in order convince the voters that they were the correct choice for the country, that they had the solutions to everyone’s problems. But over the years there has developed a disturbing trend in political debate. While politicians argue over what should be done and what can be done, there has been almost no debate over what they are allowed to do. Simply stated over the years the government has forgotten, misinterpreted, or just plain ignored its constitutional restraints. Many politicians view these as inconveniences and are often quick to bypass them when they are able. This has become a huge issue in politics, and it is one that no one is talking about.
When the constitution was created the framers had two basic principles in mind. Creating the groundwork in order to build a new government, and limiting that government’s power, to assure that it was never abused by those in control. Many people know basic Constitutional Amendments such as a freedom of assembly, the right to a fair trial, protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. These amendments limit the government’s actions by forbidding any act that goes against these basic rights. But there is another amendment that is less well known by the American public that is broken fairly frequently nowadays. The tenth amendment which states that “All powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor powers nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people.” (Constitution) Basically any power not given to the federal government by the constitution is held by the individual states, this along with other parts of the constitution is designed to keep the government’s power from growing to large.
When designing a website many people are tempted make it look as impressive as possible. Sparkles in the background, a funny font (maybe comic sans would work!), flashing colors, a cute picture. Unfortunately by designing a site this way you usually end up with the most god-forsaken ugly webpage that any one has laid eyes one. At that point it doesn’t matter how good your sites content its because people are going to take one look at your homepage and head for the hills. A webpage is like a introduction paragraph for a essay, or the first chapter of a novel. Its job is to draw your reader in and bring them the content of your site in an easy efficient manner. Because this is the sole purpose of your web design it doesn’t need to be needlessly complex or a work of art. It just needs to work. In this case the simpler the design is the better it works, the easier to use the more likely people will use it.
Now it I take this description to my own blog I can see it passes most of the interface tests. Its easy to use and can be figured out at a glance. It isn’t needlessly showing or complex. The design is acceptable and the colors match well enough so that the site is not unpleasant to look at. The professionalism on might site is a serious issue though, many or my journal entries are riddled with grammatical errors. The font could also be more appropriate and the titles of each writing piece are not always indicative of what the topic is. I will now redesign my blog In according to my criticisms.
“One hour later”
What has surprised me the most is that not much has changed in my web design. When I created this blog I chose the background very carefully, I wanted to find one that was humorous and would fit nicely in the bog format. After digging through all of my pictures I could not fit one that fit better then my current one. I changed the colors around but found that the scheme I liked best was my original. The things I did change however I think have improved the blog by just a bit. The first thing was font. I changed everything to a nice standard times new roman. While it is not the prettiest font to look at it is however the standard font for a reason. That reason it that times new roman is very pleasant and very easy to read. The next change was going back and giving all of the blog entries appropriate titles. Without them my reader would have no clue if a particularly entry was about until they started reading it. That was just inefficient and needed to be changed. The final thing I changed was formatting. Some of my words in were crossing over the color lines on the blog making them more difficult to read. So in the end no major changes happened to my blog, but the small changes that I made seemed to have enough impact.
1
Usually when one is waking back to their dorm after lunch there is not much to be scene. Fellow students, occasionally some facility, the many friendly squirrels that inhabit the Penn State campus. However over the past two weeks some people have been experiencing a different sight on Penn state lawns. Hordes of students, all donning green bandanas. The game Humans vs. Zombies is in full swing and has created an interesting occurrence around campus. Just last week I was walking back to the Beaver dorms in the Pollock section of campus when I looked up and saw over twenty “zombies” gathered together in front of the building. The students were planning some sort of attack on a group of humans that were attempting to complete a mission. As they hung around talking and planning a group of five students, wearing orange arm bands and carrying nerf guns came into view. Soon enough a shout went out from among the zombie students as they took off chasing the small group of survivors as other students passed by. While the chase was the main attraction it was bystanders who were the most interesting part of the moment. Some walked by with a disgusted look on their face, some laughed, some ignored them, some even asked how they could join in. Within a few minutes of the charge, both the humans and the zombies were out of sight and the campus quickly returned to normal, as if the entire even was forgotten.
2. Q: “So why did you decided to participate in the Humans v.s. Zombies game?”
A: “I don’t know it seemed like fun, I’m not sure you need another reason” (Scott Moser, 1rst year Penn state student.
Q: “What else does the club do beside HvZ?”
A: “Oh there are a ton of other games in the club, Humans vs. Zombies is only a one event that the club runs, there is other stuff going on every week.” (Lee Diase, second year student)
Q: “Why does the club use nerf guns?”
A: “Probably because you can’t really hurt someone with a nerf gun, and there’s no real way you could mistake it for a real gun” (Lee Diase, second year student)
a. The urban gaming club runs the following games, capture the flag, manhunt, territories, and assassins, Humans vs. Zombies, scavenger hunt, and many ad, hoc games.
b. The Humans vs. Zombies game tracks its participant’s status (i.e. who has been tagged and who has tagged the most people) by having all of their participants signed up electronically with a custom game code.
c. The urban gaming club occasionally runs charity games to raise money for worthy causes.
d. Humans vs. Zombies is not a Penn state exclusive game, there are many games held at many universities all over the country.
Sources
Humans vs. Zombies | The Official Site of the Humans vs. Zombies Game. Web. 30 Sept. 2011.
Penn State Urban Gaming Club – Nerf™ Battles, Humans vs. Zombies, Assassins, and More at PSU. Web. 30 Sept. 2011.
4.
Two areas I feel I need to do more research in are in the inner workings of the clubs. I would like to know if the club has ever met with any opposition from the campus administration, as this is common in other schools. I would also like to learn how the club got started and who first thought of the idea. To learn more about these two areas I will likely have to interview one of the senior club members. This may prove difficult however as many classes have exams scheduled in the next week and people may not have time to meet with me.
The podcast "Number 1 Party School" provide an interesting story about the drunk actions of students at Penn State. The main issue of the piece is to examine what the title of "Number 1 Party School" really means. The main issue the podcast is that the title of "Number 1 Party School" is not a positive title when you view it from the point of view of the professors, the staff, the police force, and the community it is a very negative concept. The reason why this issue was investigated seems to be to attempt to spread awareness about the actions of drunken students and the affects that they have on the people around them. The podcast is primary aimed at students. I believe that parts of the story are aimed at students who tend to binge drink. It forces them to take a cold sober look at the actions that they have and might take again and forces them to consider how absurd it can be. It also speaks to the dry students and the community of state college, telling the story from their point of view and sympathizes with what they have to go through on these "drinking weekends". A particularly powerful part of the podcast was in the beginning when the listener gets the chance to experience all the events that were witnessed in just that half an hour period. Another well put together piece was when the interviewer shadowed a police officer on patrol. The audience not only got to see things from the officer’s point of view but also got to hear the stories of what the officers have to deal with on a regular base. The conclusion drawn by the end of the report was that Penn State does have a drinking problem, but that it is a problem that is not easily addressed. The podcast lists many attempts by the administration to curb drinking, all of which have failed. It is also brought up that success in this matter is very hard to examine as there is no real way to know if what you are doing is having an effect. The research that was included in this report was mostly gathered first hand through the use of interviews and investigative reporting. Other information that played more of a secondary role in the podcast was mostly statistical data, percentages of students who drink and what the drinking numbers where for certain years. The narrative techniques used were very impressive. Since the entire report was presented through audio the reporter was able to weave sound bites of his interviewees with his own exposition. The smooth transitions from to topic to topic and from section to section really improve the listening experience. The last thing I will say about the recording is what really impressed me was the stance the article took. It didn’t look down upon or condemn drinkers as being lazy slackers and it didn’t attempt to portray the administration as tyrannical. It let the leader make their own opinions about each group by listening to each groups own words, and it really made the piece into something special.
Anne Lamont offers many pieces of to aspiring writers. Everything from "don't write for success" to how to deal with critics, but the one piece of advice I found to be the most important was when she addressed the topic of how to start. “Just start writing” As someone who has always had some sleight desire to try my hand at fiction writing, but lacking the experience to put together a long story this particular piece of advice had a huge impact on me. Don’t think you have experience, “just start writing”, not sue if it’s going to be any good, “just start writing”, don’t have the faintest clue what you want to write about, “just start writing”. Whenever I write I tend to try to get the perfect version of my work in the first go and as a result I will often spend a lot of time sitting at a computer screen until I have things worded just right. The idea of just writing, no matter how bad or unimportant the writing is was completely foreign. But as I experimented with the style I found it extremely helpful. As further explained in bird by bird if you just start writing you might write three paragraphs that are absolutely awful, but paragraphs 4-6 might turn out to be gold. The simple statement of just start writing is also extremely helpful in dealing with writers block. A bad case of writers block can be as aggravating as banging ones head against a wall. But if you just start writing, even if you write complete nonsense that has nothing to do with your paper, it suddenly becomes much easier to segway back into what you are trying to write about. After using this style of writing my papers have taken much less time without experiencing a significant drop in quality. If anything they have gotten better since I can now spend more time on the second half of the paper, which previously always had a rushed and unfinished feel to it. When I wrote the rough draft of my personal memoir required for my English class I felt it was is was by far more balanced then a lot of my previous works. I believe that by immediately starting to write a distinct style begins to appear in ones writing. The style of the writing in bird by bird has a good flow to it; its transitions are consistently natural and have provided appropriate segways to new topics. I believe that when an experienced writer gets out of a block by just writing, they become very experienced at making appropriate transitions from paragraph to paragraph. Even if every paragraph you create in this process ends up being cut from the final draft, a lot of time the transitions you created by free writing from paragraph to paragraph have a natural feel to them and can be used to great effect in the finished product. So in total I feel by following the simple 3 word piece of advice I am able to vastly improve the efficiency and timing of my writing
