lauren

Johanna Munoz has long, dark hair that reaches the middle of her back.  Large, black glasses frame her light brown eyes. A small diamond, from her lip piercing, sticks out from below the right corner of her mouth as she talks. Her voice is enthusiastic, just like her smile. Johanna’s cheerful demeanor is almost contagious. Her car is filled with books, notebooks, candy, toys, and an apron. Johanna’s optimistic attitude is necessary for her chaotic life.

Johanna Munoz was born to Lolo and Maria Munoz on February 7th, 1992 in Sioux City. She attended East High and was very active in Student Council, Freshman Fusion, Mentor’s in Violence Prevention, and Show Choir. Johanna was no stranger to chaos. She now attends Morningside College where she works 3 jobs and takes 15 hours of classes. Johanna works at Morningside’s mail office, Beyond the Bell, and is a waitress at her parent’s restaurant, El Tapatio.

In addition to Johanna’s busy schedule, she is also needed at home. Johanna’s parents both came to the United States from Mexico when they were in their twenties. Despite living in the U.S. for roughly 20 years, they still struggle to speak English. Johanna usually does her best to help translate, when she has the time. Johanna is hesitant to call her self a fluent speaker. She says, “It’s really hard when you grow up in the United States to become fluent in English and Spanish.” She admits that her English is better than her Spanish, but her parent’s speak only Spanish in their house, so she needs to know “the basics”. “For the most part,” She says, “I know what all the words are [in Spanish], I just mess up my tenses sometime.” Johanna says she has the most difficulty when she’s translating at her parent’s Doctor’s office. “I’ve never used, or have heard some of the words they need me to translate,” She explains. ” I try to describe the word to my parents until they understand what i’m talking about.” Johanna explains that sometimes very simple transactions turn into a long process.

It’s Johanna’s nature to be cheerful and generous. It’s almost a requirement for her, if she wants to keep her sanity amidst the hectic schedule that she somehow manages.

The internet is littered with men flexing their muscles, or demonstrating other random talents that could attract potential mates. Some sites have taken advantage of this, mostly for entertainment purposes. These sites openly display everything from embarrassing photos to extremely sad, desperate, or, of course, perverted pick-up lines.

Antidate, An(n)als of Online Dating, It’s Not A Match, A Bad Case of the Dates, It’s Not OK, OKCupid, and Dating is Terrifying are only a couple of sites that explore the horrific attempts that men, and a hand full of women, have tried to get a date. But why have people made a mockery out of these attempts at dating? Tracy Clark-Flory of Salon.com thinks it could be based on several reasons. Number one, it may be easier to swallow some of these poorly planned attempts, if daters knew they weren’t the only ones getting these messages. Number two, it could be a self-esteem booster. Online daters may be single, but at least they can be thankful for not dating some of these goons. Reason number three: anxiety may make online dating difficult, so making a joke out of it may be helpful for some online daters.

Online Dating Disasters

Jack Faith found himself lying down somewhere outside of Happy Jack, Arizona as a 1000- acre fire roared towards him. After trekking through 3 miles of dry land and 4 canyons, wearing an 80 pound rescue pack he almost collapsed. Jack said “I was just existing. That’s all I was doing.. I just watched the fire come right at me. My crew did everything to help me out. I probably would have burned if they weren’t there.” Jack needs a life of excitement. Following the pack isn’t for him.

Jack Faith was born to Jack and Geane Faith 25 years ago. He grew up east of Hinton with five other siblings. Jack was the youngest of six and as you may be able to tell he was named after his father. Jack Faith has dark shaggy hair, which almost seems to match the color of his deep brown eyes. A beard surrounds his now smiling mouth as his brother and his friend comment on Jack’s wild personality. Cody, Jack’s closest friend, describes Jack as “the most adrenaline junkiest person I know.” Cody goes on to say, “Jack is the type of guy who will do whatever, whenever he wants. He hates being a follower.” Jack’s brother, Greg, agrees and continues to say “Jack is the craziest person I know, who would voluntarily walk into a burning forest?”

Jack’s journey towards becoming a forest firefighter started three years earlier, when he went to school at Western Iowa Tech. While he was sitting in his Macro Economics class he realized he wasn’t where he wanted to be.  He said, “It hit me at that moment that everyone was doing the same thing and I didn’t want to do that.” Jack’s love for the outdoors brought him to his next conclusion. So several months later Jack moved to Ames. He started taking classes at Iowa State for Forest Ecosystem Management. His classes revolved around the study of air, water, soil, and of course, trees.

Jack graduated from ISU on a Saturday. That Tuesday he moved to Happy Jack, Arizona to fight fire. Over the course of 3 years Jack’s crew was sent to fight fire in every state on the West side of the United States except for Washington.  He said his six man crew would spend weeks, some times a month in one location. When Jack’s crew was responding to a wildfire, he was usually the chainsaw man. His crew also performed search and rescue for children or injured hikers. Jack recalled one night in Texas when 200 houses burned down in one night from a forest fire. He said, “By the time my crew got to the site, it was all black. There was only ash and partial structures of the houses remaining.”

Jack survived the 1000-acre fire without a scratch on him. His crew was able to protect him from the fire. However, it was at the point that Jack realized how much danger he was putting his crew in. After the fire season was over Jack returned to Iowa to live in Smithland with his brother Greg. He now works for Barkley and Faith construction. He enjoys construction work for the time being, but only time will tell where Jack ends up next.

The owner of Ridley’s Rides and Ebay seller, Kim Ridley uses his want-to-be-model daughter to uhhh “advance” the appeal of his cars.

Kim Ridley says, “Girls and dogs attract people’s attention.” But shouldn’t this father feel at least a little repulsed by the thought of strange men looking at his daughter’s mostly naked body?

Of course, this isn’t going over well with everyone. Lindsay Cross of Mommyish makes a point of saying that this relationship is disturbing. This father is objectifying and sexualizing his own flesh-and-blood daughter for personal gains.

This strange situation just makes you wonder what are they thinking? This father- daughter relationship is clearly bizarre. However, the blame doesn’t rest solely on the father. A 20-year-old woman should know this is an inappropriate relationship.

Father- Daughter love

Frito-Lay is attempting to kick up one of there original products- Cracker Jacks. After 105-years there will be another version of Cracker Jacks on the market, that’s if the FDA approves it. The new version would be called Cracker Jack’D. As of right now the Cracker Jack’D product does not meet FDA regulations because the caffeine additive has never been approved for snacks.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is concerned that caffeine is slowly creeping it’s way into too many products. MiO contains 60 milligrams of caffeine per squirt and Jelly Bean’s “Extreme Sport Beans” has 50 milligrams of caffeine for every once. The CSPI worries that this is just the beginning of the caffeine craze.

Cracker Jacck’d

Here’s Lauren:

Final Broadcast

Shelly Dankert, a conservative Nebraskan known for her blogs on NebraskAttitude, let it be known that she was not happy with the results of the Tuesday night Presidential election. Dankert expresses her feelings in a 24- minute YouTube clip. She makes comments like “Thanks a bunch, Paulqueda!” and then continues to curse like a sailor.

To say the least, this video has gotten some pretty negative feedback. Most commentators poked fun of the drunk YouTuber rather than holding her accountable for her rant.

I thought this article was interesting because it discussed the bad combination of booze and YouTube. This is one of those situations where you can learn from someone else’s mistake. Social media sites are accessible almost anywhere, anytime. These sites allow users to express their opinions in a very public way. Once that information is out, it’s out for good.

Shelly

Socialites beware! A new study suggests that spending lots of hours on social media sites may lead to symptoms of depression. There’s no surprise that The American Academy of Pediatrics has called this phenomenon Facebook Depression.

Susan Sorenson, a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, calls the interactions on these social media sites “pseudo-socializing”.

Mrs. Sorenson said, “The interactions users have online, through a computer screen, are not actual interactions.”

She believes this type of socializing may be leaving people feeling lonely and cut off from the rest of the world. Mrs. Sorenson guessed that isolation is a common symptom that researchers are finding. She suggests that limiting the amount of time you spend on these social networking sites is key to reducing your likelihood of getting “Facebook Depression”.

In the entertainment world:

AMC’s top-rated show The Walking Dead is jam-packed with surprises. But even this show has been following one of the season’s trends- amputations. Yes, amputations. According to The Hollywood Reporter some of televisions most watched shows including Grey’s Anatomy and American Horror Story have been brutally chopping off limbs.

The idea is that amputations are horrifying to most people. But not everyone, Austin Bright, an avid Walking Dead fan, says he wasn’t grossed out by the bloody amputation that aired two weeks ago. Instead he said, “It was an educated move. It was the only way they could save Herschel. They had to amputate his leg before it infected his whole body!”

Speaking of survival, we all lived through another election season. This season was bursting with parodies-galore. An article in The Georgetown Independent explains that these spoofs may alter our opinion of politicians.

College Humor released a song inspired by Sigh’s song “Gangnam Style” that featured a Mitt Romney impersonator. This parody, called “Mitt Romney Style” has gone viral.

According to The Georgetown Independent public figures have been mocked since the Revolutionary War. Even Benjamin Franklin printed cartoons that poked fun of colonial officials. In an article called The Palin Effect the author discusses how the SNL parody of Sarah Palin has negatively affected her public image beyond election season. In my interview with Melissa Bubb, a college student and Romney supporter, she says, “I really thought the video was hilarious but it didn’t sway my opinion.”

You may think about picking up a second language after hearing this story.

Here’s Lauren Sorenson with the story:

Elephant Story

Lena Dunham, a 26-year-old writer for HBO, starred in a controversial ad campaigning for President Obama. Dunham gives listeners advice about their “first time” voting. In Dunham’s clip she makes comments like, “You want to do it with a guy who brought the troops out of Iraq” and “it’s super uncool to be out and about and someone says, ‘Did you vote,’ and ‘No, I didn’t vote, I wasn’t ready’.

If you haven’t guessed, Dunham’s ad plays on the idea of losing your V(oting)-card. Some critics say comparing sex to voting is tasteless, but to college students this is funny. This double entendre is witty and appeals to college aged students.

In Alexandra Petri’s article called Is Voting Like Sex? Lena Dunham’s First Time With Obama, she explains that the ad is aimed towards first voters. She says,

“Voting is a mess. It’s not sexy, unless you prefer your encounters solitary, furtive and surrounded by strangers. It’s about as fun and sassy as anything you do in a church basement. If you’re lucky, the booth doesn’t smell.”

Even though the experience may not be as sexy as the ad makes it sound, it is still “one of those awkward duties of adulthood”.

This ad calls on students to get out and vote. This is exactly why this clip is newsworthy. College aged material is not very common during election season. Which is unfortunate. Funny, interesting material opens a passage into politics. Getting educated on politics is important for college students because it will have an effect on their future.