Recently in Whitney Bruce Category

   
    Interlaced with multi-choice, true and false, and essay questions is the advertisement Molto's Pizza 14" 1 Topping Just $5, in bright red writing. 

    Jeb Harrison, history and economics teacher at Pocatello High School in Idaho, used advertisements on homework assignments and exams to pay for school supplies for his students.

    "I just wanted to find a way to save money.  We have to sell ads for our yearbook, for our school newspaper.  I don't think this small amount of advertising will change my classroom," said Harrison according to AP.

    The drastic downturn in the economy has caused public schools nationwide to experience lower budgets.  According to NPR the high school posted signs by all light switches to remind everyone to conserve energy and save money by turning off the lights.  Clearly the Pocatello School District is focused on saving money. 

    But even with this lack of money in the school system, is it appropriate to allow ads to be printed on schoolwork?

    I think this is ridiculous and completely unnecessary.  As do many of the parents in Harrison's school. 

    They're so many different ways to raise money without distracting students during their tests or assignments by loud red ads printed on their work. 

    Lots of students would be affected by these ads negatively and possibly perform worse.  With attention deficit disorders diagnosed more frequently in the 21st century, any unnecessary distractions should be removed from the classroom.

    Harrison argues that the ads could help students understand the current economic crisis and compare this time period to that of the Great Depression . 

    This is not a valid point. 

    High school students understand that everyone is pinched for cash right now.  Regardless if students spend money excessively or if they fail to pay attention to the news, they are informed that the economy is in the gutter and if they are not, then that is the school's responsibility to inform them on current events.

    Harrison and the Pocatello school district are not the pioneers of this idea.  In December AP reported that Rancho Bernardo High School in San Diego also printed ads to generate extra spending cash for the classroom.
 

    However, at this high school teacher Tom Farber charged different prices for different levels of exams.  For example quizzes cost $10, tests cost $20, and final exams cost $30 to print advertisements on.  According to the AP he raised $625 in one semester.

    Despite the money raised from advertisements the distraction this could cause students is more important.  It is shame that the school districts had so little that this felt like their only option to raise money for supplies. 

    School districts and their community should come together and generate ideas on how to help students succeed without distracting them by pizza ads. 
   

    The inside of my stomach jerks and twists every time I think about the possibility of his death or injury.  The terrible chance that my cousin, Casey, who is the closest thing I have to a brother, could be maimed or killed in battle, horrifies me.  The missions he will go on will be treacherous, dangerous, and most terrifying of all, top secret.  As a new Navy Seal and he will begin his gruesome training after graduating from the Naval Academy. After two years of training to become a Seal, I will rarely know his whereabouts in the world.

      Most beginner Navy Seals don't even make it through the two years of training.  I heard the drop out rate is around 90 percent.  So even if he gets through the training, then what? Will he be shipped over seas on a secret mission? Or be in intensive combat?  How will I even know where he is? 

    The only chance of me knowing his location is if I get a phone call.  The worst phone call I may ever receive.  The call telling me he is on his way back to the U.S., back to Dover, Delaware in a metal coffin.

    The Obama administration changed the ban at the Dover Air Force Base on photographing the victims of war last week.  The ban has been in place since 1991 and was established during the first Gulf War.  The purpose of the media ban was to protect family members during the mourning period.

   Now my family and other military families are now given the choice if they would allow media coverage at their son or daughter's ceremony at Dover.  The opportunity to choose between a private ceremony and one photographed, shows respect for the family members of fallen military heroes.  That respect for military families will not go unnoticed. 

    "We should not presume to make the decision for the families, we should actually let them make it," said Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

    I cannot imagine what it would be like to not have a choice if a journalist could photograph my cousin's remains.  For such a decision would not be first on my family's mind at that time.

    Gates made a remarkable change by simply giving military families an option.  If he had tried to enforce media coverage at Dover, then there would be an uproar among families; however, this freedom to decide seems fair.     
 

    However, many still disagree with the new ban.   Many were critical that the ban on Dover Air Force Base was to present a positive outlook on the war and inhibit the general public from seeing the cost of war.

    In an MSNBC article, David Perlmutter, a documentary photographer and journalism professor at the University of Kansas stated that controversy in America over photos of war dead goes back as far as the earliest battlefield photography.
   
    That controversy has been prominent in organizations based on military families.  In the USA TODAY article John Ellsworth, president of Military Families United said, "It's pretty obvious that the Pentagon did not discuss this [the media ban being lifted] with us."  



 

    According to National Public Radio in 2004 Senator Biden of Delaware, stated that he thought the policy was shameful because soldiers remains were "snuck back into the country under the cover of night."

     According to USA TODAY Biden fully supports the current removal of the ban, "I have always believed that the decision as to how to honor our fallen heroes should be left up to the families.  The past practice didn't account for a family's wishes and I believed that was wrong."

    Critics say Americans don't realize the full cost of war because they don't see the dead in large numbers.   I disagree.  I think Americans who have been affected by war know all too well the cost.  The cost of death.  The cost watching the coffin solemnly be placed down in the Dover.  And luckily the government has approved a choice to allow families to decide for themselves if that moment should be private or public. 

    Last month as President Barrack Obama finished the new stimulus plan, the billion dollar economic project was out shadowed by bigger and fatter news.

    The media industry was buzzing with the news of Jessica Simpson's potential weight gain. According to Access Hollywood US Weekly cropped President Obama out of a family photo to make room for a photograph of Simpson on the cover. 
   
    "Yeah, it's a little hurtful," he joked with NBC's Matt Lauer. "You got replaced by Jessica Simpson!" Matt told the President. "Who's in a weight battle, apparently," Obama said. "Oh well!"

    News industries and bloggers alike, judged the 28 year-old singer and actress in a black tank, high wasted jeans, and leopard print belt.  Simpson was performing at 99.9 Kiss Country's annual chili cook-off in Pembroke Pines, Fla. according to the New York Post where photojournalists snapped photos that made the front page of the tabloids as well as national newspapers and news stations. 

 
    The tabloid coverage on Simpson's body type pushed her name to the top of USA TODAY's Celeb Heat Index, a calculated index that records the most searched celebrity name.

    As the nation works to cut costs and tighten budgets, the news media wants to increase their revenue as well.  This story was not just covered in the tabloid articles but appeared on national networks such as FOX, CNN, and NBC. The battle to have the most popular news proved that journalism at this point in time is more focused on the business aspect of journalism rather than stories to educate and inform the public.
    

    For example the New York Post poked fun of Simpson through multiple articles and an extremely malicious cartoon, depicting her as someone severely overweight. The article said," Wow, Jessica Simpson looks as if she could be an offensive lineman for her quarterback boyfriend [Tony Romo for the Dallas Cowboys]."

    What kind of image does this portray to young girls who look up to Simpson?  What is the purpose of this kind of media coverage? Who benefits from this knowledge? No one except the media industry.

    The New York Post printed the story under the headline of "Regional News." The idea that a celebrity's weight gain could outshine current events shows how consumed our culture is image. I think more adolescents knew about the issues of Simpson than the peanut butter recall in Georgia. When media is more focused on celebrity coverage than on hard-fact news, the public will lose access to important information.

    News organizations that pride themselves on reporting the news that truly matters also published stories about Simpson. On the Early Show for CBS, they interviewed Simpson prodding her to answer questions about how she was doing, only a few days after the tabloids had her infamous picture in the high waisted jeans.

    US Weekly, OK!, and People Magazine all printed photos of Simpson on their covers.  Articles in the magazines compared the change in Simpson's body to her formally fit "Dukes of Hazards" figure.


    The popular television show TMZ took the story to the extreme by saying that Simpson's decision to wear the denim jeans "was the most significant issue in the country," a sad headline when there are so many other important issues from a plane crash in Buffalo, New York to the recession. 

    On the TMZ website comments were left under the articles and videos about Simpson saying she was "fat as hell," and "entertaining the idea of becoming a pro-wrestler." 

    Comments like these about Simpson were discussed on CNN's Showbiz Tonight.  Commentators and discussed the limits the media should place on harsh criticism about personal changes in anyone's weight.

    FOX News and USA TODAY also discussed the media coverage and reaction that the star's photographs have caused.

    Despite the comments being harsh, nutritionists and mothers are furious with the media networks for over publishing this story on Simpson's weight. With the excessive coverage, mothers fear that their children too will become obsessed with their own weight. The possibility of eating disorders could increase when young girls see magazines plastered with before and after photos of Jessica Simpson's different body types.

    This double standard of women in the spotlight versus men in the entertainment industry is unfair.  Luckily Simpson seems confident enough in her body that she is proud of her curves.

    In a Harper's Bazaar magazine in 2007 she said, "Curves are better. Honestly, movie stars should be voluptuous and beautiful, and models should be voluptuous and beautiful. I don't get the whole rail thing. It's not good for your heart, it's not good for your mind, it's emotionally destructive, it really is."

    Simpson's brother-in-law Pete Wentz responded to the countless stories about Jessica's new figure in an MTV article, "I think that the media puts too harsh of a spotlight on women in general, and I think it's a bummer," he said. "Real beauty is on the inside, man."


   
   


   

    Media should be placing political figures in the spotlight.  Instead of attacking people for their physical images the news should focus on what they do and how they perform in their particular jobs.  To mock someone like Simpson sends the message to young girls if she is "fat" then what size are they? Media should be simply informative and not bash someone for their appearance, even if their appearance created their entertainment persona.