I am jazzed up because my finally semester of schooling starts next week. It should only last until about mid to end March (I know but I am not looking the exact date up right now). For 5 days a week from 8am-5pm I will be fully engrossed in classes so time should fly. Now if I could only get a job so as soon as I was done with the POST test I would be working...

For about the past week here in Minnesota it has been pretty chilly, which I guess isn't out of the ordinary for this time of year, but the temperatures have been close to what they are in about October. It was like: "Hey spring is finally here, psych!"
But at least the grass is green, the trees are blooming, and the long lost birds are chirping in the morning. You never really realize how much you miss those subtle things until they have been absent for awhile. This past weekend the wife and I went to the Walker Art Center, while there took some pictures of the greenhouse. Here are a few:

Looking at these just helps me get through the winter-flash back days.

Another sign that summer is almost here is the fact that this semester of school is almost over for me, THANK GOD! I have one more week of regular classes and then the week of finals. Then I will wipe my brow off and go in search of a part-time job to supplement our income. Which will be nice, not only will I not go stir crazy by being home all of the time, but we will get some more money. 

So today I don't have any classes but that doesn't mean I won't be at school all day. I am going to school this morning to listen to Alexs Pate read from his works (he is the guy that Steven Spielberg commissioned to novelize Amistad). And hopefully I am going to be able to interview him at a little later time because I have to leave that event before it is over. I have to leave because I am going to be interviewing the student class president about a tuition freeze rally that is happening at the state capital today. Which I will also be attending. All of these things I am doing for articles for the student run newspaper (the Northstar). It sucks when I have a day off and it isn't actually a day off, if only I were getting school credit for the newspaper stuff.
Update yesterday we had a message on our answering machine that our iPod Shuffle 1GB is in at the Apple store, so we have to call them and pick it up. When though? 

I had a newspaper meeting today which I felt went quite well. In case I didn't mention this before myself and a few others on the paper staff (if you can call it that) decided at the end of last semester to form an Editorial Board, so that there isn't just one massive job of EDITOR. So we don't rely so heavily on one person and the paper fails if that person disappears or is lazy. So my self-proclaimed position is second in command, Assistant Editor in Chief. Our first issue comes out in about two and a half weeks, although I did not write anything for that issue. The issue after that I am much more involved in the second issue (the beginning of the semester everything just happened at once and so extracurricular activities suffered hence no article for the newspaper's 1st issue).  

That's right folks I am done with this semester. Took my last finally tonight and I am done until January 11, 'aught five. Except for one class that the professor needs a swift kick in the behind, I am quite pleased with my progress. Especially since by next fall I will be enrolled in skills, you see I am going to school for a AS degree in law enforcement, I want to become a copper. No not a copper tea kettle, a police officer. So now what am I doing, chillin' I just ate some Chipotle, and am having a brewsky . Oh joy and rapture. Another note for those of you that have been paying attention, I have failed to mention what Kim has won as a prize. So here it goes Kim has won none other than a bottle of champagne . I will be bestowing her with this great gift that she won for submitting a banner for my site contest. For those of you that would like to win a prize stay tuned because another one will be coming up at the end of the year. And now for some mood music.... 

So on Wednesday I had a final and last night I had another in another class. Now I only have one left and that is on Monday. I cannot wait for my small break of like 2 weeks from school. I need a breather, you never notice how strung you are until the end is in site. I apologize for my lack of posting....but I have major writer's block right now and the list that I made of things that I wanted to talk about is waning and unmotivating....hmmm I'll get something highly poignant up soon. In the meantime occupy yourself with this, and this and this. This last one is some fun my friend David (not the one with the blog site, another David) and I had in Seattle in 2001. Oh the memories. Enjoy! 

Ok so now I have spent pretty much all day surfing the web using Blogexplosion, and I haven't done any studying but oh well. I don't really need to right now anyway, but crap. Speaking of procrastination, I got my Office Series DVD delivered last week. Trista and I watched almost all of it, except the very very last special episode. I don't want to I want the Office to last forever with me, I don't want to see the end. Oh well...Now I have to go to class tonight and actually feel like I am accomplishing something today, something besides trying to generate more traffic here. I have gotten better at posting often now, I made a list of things i want to talk about and I keep adding to it before the list is all used up. I hope to avoid writer's block by doing this, we shall see. So anyways more to come tomorrow.  

Once again I have been published in my school newspaper the Northstar. Here is my second article, it is more of an opinion piece.
 

Media Bias: your problem; your responsibility
By: Russell C Schlick 

With all of the accusations flying around about bias in the media it is hard to figure out what is going on and where to get nonbiased information.
Well I have news for everyone: no matter how much you want an unbiased media it is not going to happen. All media is biased, it is your job as an educated reader to dig through the bias and get the in-depth story. If you do not want to, or just don’t dig a little deeper, then you will just have the biased information in front of you. But you can do it, heck you’re in college right?
First of all I said that the media is biased, why should you believe me? I mean, if it is true that all media is biased then I am biased and I might not be telling you the whole story. Journalists all have a personal bias, but through editing and other guidelines most of that bias is filtered out. Something you need to understand though is that conveying news to the reader/listener/TV watcher is all about telling a story. Nowadays the news outlets only survive by getting many to read their stories, and if the story is not catching then why read it? Look at the scandals of Jayson Blair at the New York Times, David Kelley at USA Today, and Stephen Glass at The New Republic. Do you think that these journalists would have been able to carry on in such a way for so long if they weren’t good at telling stories? Obviously a lot of the blame goes to the publications themselves for not fact checking their reporters, but it is easy to understand how they slipped through the cracks. There is not enough manpower, time, or money to fact check every article of every journalist to a T, so there obviously has to be some trust of the reporters.
Some news outlets have a confirmation bias, which just tells you everything that you already believe. There is nothing new put out there to make you think more, it just confirms what you already think.
Another issue is the fact that objectivity in the news is impossible. If you were to remove the writer from the reporting and just report facts then it is hard to wade through the plethora of information out there. If we as journalists are just supposed to report what two sides say about an issue and leave it at that, we fail to contribute anything to the intellectual discourse of this society. If we were to just report what each side said about an issue we would just be mouthpieces for them. Without dissecting the situation and offering a take on the issue from both sides and then also offering an educated analysis of it, we would be biased against the truth. Let me offer an example. I report that a suspect was arrested in connection with a bank robbery. A witness to the robbery said that the suspect was Ben Affleck. When I question the police about the situation they respond with “We are not able to release the identity of the suspect right now.” A story with just that information would lead you to believe that Ben Affleck robbed the bank. But what if we reported that the witness whom we interviewed was a fourteen-year-old young lady that was obsessed with Ben Affleck, but was recently devastated that he hadn’t responded to her many fan letters and because of that had a grudge against him? That would put the story in an entirely different light wouldn’t it? Or how about if we didn’t even report to you what this witness said because we felt it didn’t jive with the story? This is of course an extreme example, but stranger things have happened in this society.
Another reason that objectivity is impossible is because with news being a business now, it is about producing an audience. As mentioned earlier, journalists must produce an audience to consume the news that they make. If they do not produce the audience they do not have a job. Right there you are able to see that news is about entertainment – if it doesn’t entertain, people won’t pay attention to it. Look at PBS and Minnesota Public Radio, those are hot cakes for unbiased information but how many of us actually sit down and watch the Newshour with Jim Lehrer in the evening as compared to watching Crossfire, or another of the umpteen other “news” shows out there? I am going to guess not many.
Now that I have dashed your hopes of getting your news in an unbiased format, I will give you a few tips to get through it all and consume the news better. Keep in mind that the real story is never going to be served to you on a silver platter, if you want to know what is going on you need to do the work.
Use multiple sources, read more than one newspaper (many different ones, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, etc.). I guarantee you will get a better sense of the situation if you read more than one take on the story. If you watch a news program and you see a story that interests you, look for more information in newspapers, news magazines, or even get a book on the matter. You will learn a lot more from multiple sources than from that 30-second clip that you saw on CNN. Also be critical of your news sources. If you are more critical of your news and look into what you find hard to believe you will become a more educated consumer of the news. No one should just reconfirm everything that they believe; you should challenge yourself in your thinking about the world we live in.
If we didn’t challenge our views of the world we would still believe that the moon is made of cheese and the world is flat.  

I finally finished with the book Amazing Grace. I was reading it for my class Families in Crisis, and had to write journals on the chapters about sociological stuff. I highly recommend this book to everyone. If you read it and don't believe it, I feel sorry for you because of that blackhole in your chest that has replaced your heart. It is an interesting take on poverty and sheds some light on the former mayor of New York, Rudy. The policy that was taken towards the poor was "pull yourself up by your bootstraps, yet the city didn't allow you to own boots". At least that is my take on it.  

So I have to catch the bus this morning and ride it for about 90 minutes for a 15 mile trip. Involved are two transfers, and a quick stop in downtown Minneapolis today. Isn't that dedication for school? Well we would all like to think it is, but this is what I have to do to get to school when Trista needs her car. Oh the joys of being vehicle less and not having many options. Oh well it is kinda exciting, everytime I do it I feel more in tune with the cities and I don't know just cool. 

So before I am off for the long trek to school, and then being stranded out there becuase the ride back would be like 2-3 hours and I would have to come back at like 3 or 4pm. Can you say yuck! Anyways so before I am off just checking the news out.

ODB died? What is up with that?
Rice will replace Powell. ......(special interests.....own oil tanker named after her, but come on everyone has that, that is nothing special...)
And unfortunately that is all I have time for. And a special shout out of "thanks!!!" goes out for Musings Northwest for bestowing upon me great knowledge, and also to Secondtoughest.com for the acknowledgment. Thanks everyone!!! 

So I am a writer, well at least I think so. I have a goal of writing a book, someday soon. To refine my skills I decided to write at my College newspaper the Northstar. Here is my first article for them, that was just published this past week. 

I tried to scan in a picture of my article, and it turned out not so good. And also it just wouldn't show up once I published it so I just put it on here, I can trust you all to not plagiarize from me now right...?
 

Military draft under review
By: Russell Schlick 

On October 5^th, 2004 the US House of Representatives voted 402-2 against H.R. 163, also called “The Universal National Service Act of 2003”. H.R. 163 is a draft bill requiring youth to serve two years of national service, mostly military service, but what service means exactly could be redefined by the President. As it stands, citizens between the ages of 18 and 26 would be required to fulfill this obligation unless voluntarily enlisted, accepted in a military academy, or accepted as an officer candidate. The exact requirements and the full text of this bill and others like it are available on the web at: http://thomas.loc.gov/ . An interesting fact about H.R. 163 is that the sponsor of it, Rep. Charles Rangel, even voted against it. In a press release, released on the same day as the vote, Rep. Rangel stated “I am voting no, because my bill deserves serious consideration.” (The full content of Rep. Rangel’s press release can be found at his website, http://www.house.gov/rangel/). Although this bill was overwhelmingly defeated in the House, our nation’s youth still cannot relax. There is a version of this bill in the Senate that is still active.
On January 17^th, 2003 S. 89, the Senate version of a military draft bill, was introduced in the Senate, the same day that the House bill, “The Universal National Service Act of 2003”, was introduced. This bill was read twice and referred to the Committee on Armed Services, where it now stands. This is the serious consideration that Rep. Rangel wished for his bill. If the Senate passes S. 89 it then gets referred to the House. If it passes in the House it then goes on to the President for final passage into law.
Even though both Presidential candidates are on the record as opposing a military draft, our military is currently suffering from a “backdoor draft”. A “backdoor draft” refers to the military’s stop-loss program. This is a program that prohibits those that have fulfilled their commitment from retiring. Units that are “crucial” to the war effort have enacted these policies to ensure that they have enough personnel to accomplish their missions. Another issue that is on the forefront for our nation’s military is the extension of deployments. Units that have were originally deployed for one year have had their deployments extended anywhere from six months to eighteen months longer.
These issues are affecting college students now or at the least will in the near future. There are thousands of college age citizens that are a part of our nation’s National Guard or Reservist forces that have already been affected by the “backdoor draft”, and the extension of deployments. With the draft bill a part of reality, and more deployments appearing inevitable for our part-time military now, millions of youth are about to be affected.