This has been deep thoughts with Ben Catus

With the termination of Scott Weiland, addition of Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, and upcoming release of a new EP, the Stone Temple Pilots have been garnering a fair amount of media attention (comparative to anything that is not about Miley Cyrus or her VMA performance).

In February of 2013, Weiland, the original vocalist of the band, was fired, reportedly due to his drug abuse and consistent tardiness. Not too long afterward, Bennington was hired to fill. Since then, there has been tension between Weiland and the remaining three members.

Weiland attempted to tour solo under the name of Stone Temple Pilots, with a backing band attempting to impersonate the original band, resulting in the other three members filing suit. In response, Weiland filed a counter-suit, claiming that they have no right to the name.

Currently, the band is going under the name “Stone Temple Pilots with Chester Bennington”. The band is now touring and has their latest EP, High Rise, due to be released in October. So far, he has been generally well –received as the new front-man of the band.

As per class requirement, I took the opportunity to sit and observe people for 20 minutes. Since I saw plenty of people this Labor Day weekend, I found this assignment to be no difficulty, except for the fact that I have to work off solely memory since neither a laptop nor a pen and paper were at hand when I did this. Regardless, impressions were left on my head and I shall write them down…

In Worthing, South Dakota, this labor day weekend, there was a Christian music festival known as LifeLight. During this weekend, Christian bands would play music for free all while overpriced food and merchandise was being sold in shaded areas. The free music, of course, attracted many people looking to see a show. With multiple bands playing at multiple stages, many people were walking back and forth between stages to see different bands as well as purchase consumables from various vendors. I sat at the center point of this location in order to look at all the people that had crossed paths.

Objective: Needless to say, the place was crowded. Numerous people of various subcultures walked across the plane to see generally positive, encouraging, and occasionally headbanging music. Occasionally, there were groups of people walking with “free hugs” signs. Some people traveled in groups of friends, in such case they were generally dressed alike (possibly to more easily find each other). Others traveled as families (though not as often), in which case the similarities usually were determined by genetics as opposed to fashion sense. Nonetheless, as humankind is often referred to as a social animal, it can be expected that people would travel together in groups of people that share similarities of some kind.

Subjective: Because we hate different things. Just kidding. Not all of us do. But this festival was a good way for one to see how us humans long to belong. Not only by the patterns of conglomeration that people tended to, but also the fact that people came for music and speakers that told everyone that there is Someone out there who loves you for you. That’s simply how humanity is, whether you believe in God or not, it is obvious that

1. Humanity is far from perfect
2. We all need a place to belong to

Sometimes, people search for that through something as simple as a hug. I couldn’t help but feel that a lot of the people with “free hugs” signs weren’t just there to give affection as much as they wanted to receive it, even if it was from a random stranger. Personally, I thought it was just a way to get attention, but this idea soon dawned on me when I contemplated the reason why so many people were here.

And that’s a blip of the experience I had at LifeLight. Feel free to ask any questions about it.

For a small amount of people in the upper Des Moines area, the family name of “Haas” may ring a bell. Pretty soon, though, the name will do more than ring a bell. Scott Haas, of Algona, has been rated top newscaster for CNN, and believe it or not, this is only his first year with the station.

Scott Haas grew up in small town Algona, and from the start, he was destined for success. Being involved in many activities, including speech, theatre, band, choir, mock trial, student media, and even taking the position of Germany’s Nuclear Engineer for the Algona chapter of Model U.N., Haas figured out early on how to get the job done with numerous other things getting in the way.

After high school, Haas went to the prestigious Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, to major in Mass Communications. Along with student media, Haas was also involved in theater, and Symphonic Wind Ensemble (SWE). Buckling down to focus on student media, he single-handedly made MCTV, Morningside’s TV station, the top viewed station in Siouxland for the Spring of 2016. Since then, Morningside has become recognized as the nation’s top school for Mass Communications.

So far, Haas has been doing nothing but fulfilling his dreams. In a recent interview, he stated that being on television for journalism had been his dream. He has also stated that his inspirations are George Lucas and Andy Samberg are his inspirations. Could this possibly mean that we’ll see Haas on the silver screen in the future? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, Haas will continue onto journalism, utilizing his newly discovered mutant powers of unlimited shape-shifting (yet another dream of Haas) to get the most exclusive information from the most reliable sources.

Thank you for reading the Upper Des Moines Register.

I know this is late, but I’ve been severely hesitant to start up a blog again because the last blog I ever did was on Myspace, and we all know how that site works. Additionally, my C & C instructor was not quite fond of my informal writing style, and has docked me multiple times for how conversational I am. Regardless, I am overcoming fear and attempting to get back into blogging for the sake of my grade point average. Additionally, I need to ramble online again, because my words have been leaking into my everyday conversations and I start kicking myself for talking too much… I don’t really use social media for what it’s meant to be used for.

Speaking of social media (see how I segued there?), it’s starting to be used as its own form of journalism lately. In fact, I get most of my news from researching what people are posting about on Facebook. I have limits though, I can only take so much complaints about Miley Cyrus and the people who complain about her (seriously, I’m seeing complaints about the complainers). But pressing issues such as the missile crisis in Syria is something that I look into when I see it mentioned on Facebook or Twitter.

One site (that’s not quite social media) that was mentioned in the article was Reddit. Now, that can be a good source for reliable and relevant news, but, it can also lead you wrong, depending on which parts of Reddit you’re surfing. As Redditor myself, I can vouch that there are people who will intentionally fabricate news for the sake of comedy, and that there are way too gullible people out there.
But as I had mentioned, it all depends on which part of the site that you are on. /r/worldnews is a good source to news sites that post articles about things going on in the world. People that post comments on those subreddits tend to be more serious in demeanor (unless, of course, the news is light enough for people to joke about). /r/pics might be helpful too, depending on what is going on in the world. On the other hand, if one were to visit /r/funny, reliable news is not likely, as people have a tendency to exemplify, rehash, and photoshop things to take on a more comical effect. It’s never to a terrible degree, since the things that show up are based off of a general consensus of approval via “upvotes’ and “downvotes”. You would not likely find something overly offensive unless you were surfing /r/imgoingtohellforthis. Then it would have to be offensive.

You know what? I’m going too far into detail about this site. Social media and internet have been figuratively labeled as murderers of the news, but in all reality, it’s just a reshaping, if not modification, of modern news. People still broadcast on the news. It may not get as much attention from the general population as it used to, but news is still being broadcasted, and as far as I can tell (which is an unreliable viewpoint), it’s not declining. In face, many news stations are now asking people to “like” them on Facebook and “follow” them on Twitter. They can still broadcast (since it’s technically a broad cast) news and other information to a general audience, it’s just not in the same format through the same medium.

In all reality, news and journalism are never going to die. As far as I can tell, it’s like energy and mass: it can’t be destroyed, but it can be converted into a state that is not quite as recognizable and deceptively similar to destruction. Even if journalism dies out on television and radio, it will still be alive in its clone on the internet. Jobs may deplete, but that’s just conversion of journalism from a job you get paid for into something like driving a car (most people do it, and those who don’t tend to be socially outcasted to a certain degree). Similar to how musicianship started out as a communal thing, turned into a professional thing, and then turned into a corporate thing with communal and professional things of it still going on. Not the best analogy, but I think I’ve made my point.

If my point has not come across clearly, I legitimately apologize. There is a reason that this site is called “Ramblings”. Don’t say that I didn’t try to warn you through subliminal messages. I am fully open to personally speaking about this issue (be it be the current state of journalism or my blog). Thank you for reading all the way through this; Give yourself a pat on the back.

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