Entries from November 2013 ↓

Paper 3 News Package

This is later than even I expected it to be. I am an irresponsible student, that’s all I can say. Some friends wanted to hang after supper, and I was dumb enough to say yes. Regardless, I’ve gotten it typed out. I will come back with the audio of this and the last broadcast assignment tomorrow, after I have at least rested. Also, I must get up at 6 for work, so at least 4 hours of sleep would be helpful. My apologies for all the late work.

In today’s media scene, one might ask whether or not hard copies are still relevant. With Netflix for movies and TV shows and iTunes for music and games, it’s easy to get a media fix without leaving the house. But does that mean everyone is doing it that way?

It may vary from person to person. Take Mel Kiser, for example. Mel is a freshman at Morningside College. She’s an average girl who loves to cheer and loves music even more.  “… Like, a 10, on a scale of one to ten.” For the most part, Kiser uses iTunes to get music, but sometimes, other sources work just as well. “I like to listen to music on YouTube a lot too.” In spite of this easy access to music, Kiser remains faithful to hard copies of music. “If I like ‘em, or if they’re like older artists, then I’ll try to get their cd’s online.”

But music isn’t the only thing that Kiser has a passion for. “I love movies too- I like action movies, so… every action movie comes out, I try to watch it.” Not just movies, but TV shows too. “I actually buy all the seasons of TV series on DVD…” Unlike music, though, she prefers hard copies over digital files. “I do not, because they’re usually crappy quality, so I’d rather just buy it so I can have it at all time.”

Are you on the same pages as Mel Kiser? Feel free to tell us at our E-mail. Or if your prefer hard copies, we still accept snail mail.

In the meantime, experience another way to get songs…

Learning music just became a little bit cheaper. The Academy of Fine Music, in North Sioux City, opened up this past September. “My mom wanted to make it more affordable, because a lot of kids are in a lot. If its over-priced people just aren’t gonna do it. And so she just wanted to make it affordable and allow for everyone to learn music…” explains Jenna Likness.

The Academy of Fine Music is a low price music studio that allows children aged K-12 to learn piano, voice, violin, or guitar. It’s a modest business, sharing a building with two other local businesses. Owned and operated by Brenda Likness, she also receives some administrative help from her daughter, Jenna.

But that’s not the only thing that makes the Academy unique. Most of the teachers there are Morningside students. “She submitted a brochure to the music department and they knew a few students and those students knew a few students and it just grew from those few students.” Though, there are a couple of Dakota Valley students working for the Academy.

Despite most of the teachers being students themselves, the results of the lessons have been quite productive.  “My mom’s gotten E-mails from parents saying, ‘my child’s learned so much in these couple weeks than they’ve learned in a different place and we’re just really happy with what they’ve learned and they just like coming every week.”

Perhaps it’s the method of teaching that makes the Academy of Fine Music so effective.  “They’re one-on-one, thirty minutes, just you and the teacher, which allows you to learn a lot more [than] when it’s a big class.” Likness also went on to explain how different books are given to students so that they may learn a larger variety of styles of their instrument.

Soon enough, the Academy of Fine Music might have to move to its own building. “It’s already growing out of space right now.” When asked about whether her mom would get a new place, Jenna answered, “I’m sure she’d like to open up her own, that way she wouldn’t have to worry about noise from the dance studio.” Maybe they’ll get enough money to have their own building.

Speaking of construction…

With a growing student body and academics, Morningside campus is expanding and constructing new buildings. For the most part, the construction has been fairly easy. “So far, smooth sailing… No mistakes there. Everything’s happenin’ so fast that they ain’t keepin’ up with us. We’re waitin’ on red iron. Particular pieces, ‘cause you can’t build without ‘em.” I managed to get ahold of Marc Curl, the General Formen of the project.

According to Curl, the crew is working very hard on the project. “Usually, if it’s an 8 hour day, we do what we need to do in 8 hours.” That’s including weekends. “Just to get ahead of winter, you know?” With winter approaching, the crew is buckling down on getting things done. “… when winter comes, we usually turn on the hours because it’s going to get cold…”

This is all in an effort to get it done by deadline. According to Curl, that would be, “… a year from now. There’s a lot of steps to get to that point.” Despite the heavy load up ahead, Curl and his team are optimistic about this project. “So, we got a lot of work here… It’s an awesome project to be part of.”

This has been “Ramblings” with Ben Catus.

Interviews to whet your apetite.

Mel Kiser Jenna Likness Interview with Marc Curl

I need to get more organized with these news comment titles

Article in Question: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/moose-eating-shark-rescued-in-newfoundland-harbour-1.2434102

Now this is a story that caught my attention. The gist of the story: A man is driving down the road when he sees what he thinks is a beached whale. Upon closer inspection, he sees that it’s a shark on shore with a giant chunk of moose in its mouth. The man, with the help of another passerby, pulls the chunk out and gets the shark in deep enough water to swim again. Witnesses applauded upon the sharks departure.

It’s funny, because scientists later mentioned how it might have been better to have left the chunk in the sharks mouth, to reduce risk of getting bitten by it, as well as the fact that the shark may have been going weeks without food, and wasn’t actually choking on the chunk of moose, but had just gotten that far to shore to get it. Regardless, what these guys did was PRETTY manly. I can only imagine how their buddies would try to top this story over a few drinks (Yeah, I know, I took that from the article).

Personally, I would like to see a movie made out of this. Maybe a mash-up of Jaws and Free Willy. I don’t know. Regardless, this is something that can easily be a conversation piece.

Cactus out.

News Comment 11-14-13

Article in Question: http://www.digitalspy.com/celebrity/news/a508189/matt-damon-i-get-mistaken-for-mark-wahlberg-all-the-time.html

So apparently this is a thing. People legitimately confuse Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg. This has come to the point where the two have had to confer about it to figure out how to resolve such a situation. It has come to the point where they actually pretend to be each other and sometimes even fake signatures.

Now I know this is a short article and anything in this that makes it longer than the article itself is expected to be fluff, but do you honestly think that the two look so alike that people confuse them? Wouldn’t it likely be possible that, upon hearing their voices, that they’d be able to tell the difference.

Maybe I’m just an audio guy, but Damon speaks in a distinctively lower voice in the register that Wahlberg very rarely uses. Not to mention the Bostonian accent that Wahlberg sometimes sports. Maybe I’m just being to analytical/cynical (cynalyitical?) about it.

Drug Abuse News Comment

Article in question: http://news.rutgers.edu/research-news/addicts-may-be-seeking-relief-emotional-lows-more-euphoric-highs/20131106#.UnuwyPmkqUY It explains how addicts might be abusing drugs simply to avoid lows rather than to attain highs.

This article somewhat surprised me. Not for the information that it had, but for the fact that the data attained in the tests was treated as some unusual discovery. I don’t want to seem cynical and/or sardonic, but I thought that it was pretty obvious that addicts get stuck in addictions because of the lows that they get once the high wears off.

When I was in school, they made it clear in simple that hard drugs are bad for you. “What comes up must come down.” So the better the high from a drug, the worse the low you get from withdrawal.  Based off of testimonies that I heard from recovering drug addicts, it seemed fairly evident that the addiction became less about getting high and more about not being low.

Though, I will credit these scientists for providing factual scientific data about such a thesis. They experimented with mice and listened to the sounds that the mice made, based off of their emotional state (it’s explained more in-depth in the article). It just sort of bothers me how they treat the information as if it’s something profound and/or surprising.

Maybe I’m not taking into account the fact that they may have not been exposed to this sort of information before. Again, regardless of how they treat the information, they did a good job attaining it.

News Comment for 10-31-13

Article in Question: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=psychological-power-satan&WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook

As someone who is fascinated by ideas of Christian mythology as well as psychology, I couldn’t resist reading when I found this article. I was a little bit of a lost, at first, as to where Satan was involved in all of this, but then the article tied it up all together at the end.

The article basically elaborates how studies show that the belief that people can be pure evil correlates with harsher punishments. The idea that someone is unredeemable makes one feel that penalties need to be harsher. At least, that’s what the studies seem to indicate.

Personally, I believe in pure evil, but I don’t believe that it can manifest in human form. I believe that it can distort the way that people see the world and cause them to do evil things, but they may not have entirely evil intentions and/or they are not entirely in control of their actions.  I highly recommend the article if you enjoy psychology.