UNH & Town of Durham Hit with Power Outage

According to UNH Alerts, the university campus was without power for about 90 minutes. Updates were pushed to students via text messages and emails saying that both PSNH and UNH officials were working to resolve the issue. Campus, however, remained open even with the lack of electricity to light up classrooms.

I live in an apartment on Madbury Road right across the street from Sigma Nu, in the spine of downtown Durham. There was power when I woke up this morning at about 9 a.m., and all was well.

However, when I arrived to my work-study job at Pettee Hall on the opposite side of campus about thirty minutes later, I noticed the cave-like darkness, and hoards of students outside their classrooms socializing in confusion.

As soon as I arrived at the second floor (I had to take the stairs instead of the elevator), my boss alerted me that the building was out of power, and had been left in darkness for about an hour. Obviously, the dreary, overcast October morning didn't help the situation.

So, students just stood outside classrooms, while faint light from sparse windows illuminated hallways. Professors waited patiently to try and teach a class without light, computers, or PowerPoint presentations. I maintained busy by doing "busy-work," since I couldn't access any of our computers due to the outage.

At 11:17 a.m., the UNH Alert system notified campus that, "UNH Police have issued an All-Clear. Power restored to Campus."

Suddenly, as I was trying to sort out paperwork in the darkness, Pettee's power supply seemed to roar to life, as with the rest of campus; the lights flickered on, and the air circulatory supply breathed a sigh of relief.

It's just another day on campus, where the status quo abruptly changed, and is now restored.


As J.K. Rowling would say, "All is well."

Former President Bill Clinton Speaks at UNH

Former Pres. Bill Clinton spoke at UNH on behalf of President Obama's 2012 campaign this afternoon.

The event took place in UNH's Field House on campus, where it was full to the brim with spectators. 

The President had a lot of positive information to say regarding Pres. Obama, claiming that Obama has produced over 4.5 million private sector jobs since he took office in 2008. Apparently, 700,000 public jobs at both the state and local level were lost when Bush took office.

On talking about education, which President Clinton prioritized in his speech, he said, "the university and college system is a great hope for the 21^st century, middle class economy." He also said that almost every single new job will be created by someone who has a four-year degree.

Clinton strived to further the gap between the republican and democratic parties, by giving voters two choices: celebrating diversity in an interdependent world, or driving a stake through the heart of it; sharing prosperity, or living on your own; using constructive cooperation, or being in constant conflict. "This is not rocket science," Clinton said. "The contradiction is between being self-reliant and taking a stand for yourself."

In addition, Clinton addressed the issues of family and the average working-class family. "This is a country that values work and family, and you shouldn't have to raise your own children in poverty," Clinton said. According to Clinton, who talked about Gov. Romney's recent sting on the "47%" of Americans who do not pay income tax, most people who do not have enough money to pay an income tax would love to make enough money just so they were able to pay it. 

Clinton closed the rally, noting that no republican or democrat could have fixed the economy in less than four years. Clinton urged the attendees for Obama's vote by saying the president's economic plan is better both for the longterm and the short-term.  "We're better if we go forward together," Clinton said.

The Benefits of Spiritual Groups at UNH

The University of New Hampshire has more than 200 organizations on campus. Greek Life, student government, political groups, and religious organizations are just a few genres. Out of these organizations, six of them are devoted towards religion and spirituality. Cru, formally known as Christian Impact, is the largest on campus, boasting 150 members.

Cru is a part of what was known as Campus Crusade for Christ, a worldwide movement of college students who follow Jesus Christ. Members are committed to deepening their own relationships with God through community while exposing others to the benefits of Christianity and “accepting” Christ as their savior.

Cru provides time to reflect, question, and strengthen faith. The organization welcomes newcomers to explore what Christianity is and what it looks like in college. Smaller groups are available for those who want to be involved in more intimate discussions, such as Bible studies, and smaller more personal groups, called Life groups. Members also meet at events such as bonfires, Frisbee, or movie nights.

Weekly meetings take place in Horton Hall in room four on the basement level. The auditorium fills with over a hundred people, with seats to spare. The meeting starts with an opening hymn. Everyone sings with their arms outstretched singing about the glory of Jesus, love, and life.

Various speakers stand up in front of the crowd and explain different events that Cru puts on. God is always a part of the message, and people cheer for one another. It is a lively room filled with music, joy, friendship, and bonding.

The student leader of the group is sophomore Sarah Gilman. She became involved in Cru after getting involved in a life group, where she found satisfaction and fulfillment from Jesus. Gilman loves the community of those in the group.

Tim Schuman is the adult advisor to Cru. Although he is not a faculty member of UNH, he has been working with college students as a ministry advisor for over 30 years.

“I love doing campus ministry with college students,” Schuman said. He has been on and off the UNH campus with campus ministry activities since 1985. Schuman said that Cru is a safe place to learn whatever anyone is interested in learning. “We try to explain Christianity as simply and clearly as we can,” Schuman said. The group tries to address three basic issues: what it means to have a relationship with Jesus, why Jesus died on the cross, and learning the message of the Christian faith.

Cru also is involved with other on-campus spiritual organizations, such as Chi Alpha Campus Ministries and Greek Inter Varsity.

Riley Doenges, a 21-year-old social work major at UNH, joined Cru because she wanted to have a relationship with Jesus. She loves the community and has made many lifelong friendships. “I think it provides a different outlet for some people who don’t enjoy partying and going out,” Doenges said. “It’s still like having relationships with people and being involved on campus without having to give in to social pressures.”

Melissa Ryan is a second year genetics major from Gilford, NH. Ryan joined Cru because she was searching for a community. As a freshman, she had a hard time fitting in with others. 

Ryan gets a God-centered community where members push each other closer to God in their faiths. “I think that spiritual things are not normally talked about, and if people are wondering, they can feel really intimidated just asking anyone about it,” Ryan said. “Cru provides a safe place to learn about spiritual things and not be judged for what you believe."

Ryan, who grew up Catholic, never talked about God with her family at home. Cru taught her to have a relationship with Jesus, and the community itself reached out and cared for her, as they do with others. “It’s on God’s love and not their own,” Ryan said.

Politically Charged & Politically Correct

While on Twitter (what a Surprise), I noticed two interesting articles.

One article was posted as a public opinion by an editor of the New York Times. I thought it was interesting and relevant for class, since it talked about how some readers did not like the usage of the words “illegal immigrant” in its newspaper.

The article reads, “[The word illegal immigrant] is clear and accurate; it gets its job done in two words that are easily understood.”

I thought that it was interesting to learn about the steps that modern newspapers presently take to come across as fair and neutral for everyone, and to use terms that do not offend readers.

The article closed with, “This is not a judgment on immigration policy or on the various positions surrounding immigration reform, or those who hold those positions. Nor is it meant to be uncaring about the people to whom the words apply. It’s simply a judgment about clarity and accuracy, which readers hold so dear.”

Another interesting story that I stumbled on while surfing Twitter was about the Pennsylvania Voter ID Law and how a judge ruled an injunction to the case.

The article conveyed that the law was designed to prevent election fraud among voters, but critics argued that Republicans were trying to sway younger people and elderly people from voting. I personally agree with the latter, but that is irrelevant. 

With the ruling, voters can vote without an ID, as long as they’re registered. If I was a PA resident, I would be sighing relief.

Articles Courtesy of The New York Times and NBC News.

Surfing Twitter and the Huffington Post

I have been constantly on Twitter following the updates of many news organizations around the world (and the country).

I have been finding a lot of relevant and interesting information via Twitter. Who knew that Twitter would become so popular just by informing the world about news-related events?

Of the news organizations that I follow, the Huffington Post is probably the most up-do-date blog when it comes to news. It’s also one of my favorite sources of information. Biased? Maybe.

I saw a Tweet from Huffington Post Saturday that stated GM had recalled almost 41,000 cars due to a “defect” from manufacturing.

Apparently, the vehicles were manufactured from 2007 - 2009 with plastic parts connected to the fuel pump which could crack. According to the article, if the crack gets long enough, fuel could ultimately leak out of the vehicle and be a potential hazard for a fire.

I think that Twitter is honestly the most reliable source for information, because you can read headlines in under 160 characters or less, which takes about a fraction of a second. Theoretically, you could navigate major headlines of newspaper in under a minute. 

Navigating the news in this way is very important because it is the quickest and easiest alternative from going to random websites and scrolling all over a cluttered page filled with gargantuan amounts of information.

Article Courtesy of The Huffington Post.

Headlines, and Media, and News; OH MY!

My relationship to news, I’ve learned over the past few weeks, has changed dramatically. I currently believe that American media is extremely biased, unreliable, and has hidden agendas. I personally think that anything having to do with world news that is shown in America is not at all accurate, and is misshaped to make Americans ignorant about how the world truly feels about the country. Scare-tactics are also used, and I think that totally undermines journalism and makes it inept as a field. That’s my own politically-charged opinion about American journalism.

I believe that news does not generally capture my attention, including my generation as a whole, because news does not mean anything. America is fed on a diet of capitalism, advertisements, celebrity gossip, and pointless reality shows, which are all IN THE NEWS. That stuff isn’t news. It’s artificial jargon to plump up media airtime and further decay the American brain.

News, to me, is something interesting, but it’s incredibly vague. It can be anything, or everything, but it can’t be everything. Otherwise it wouldn't be relevant enough to call it news - obviously. It has to be interesting, cool, and mystifying, but it doesn’t have to be a forest fire, or someone dying in a car crash. I’m not saying it has to be important, but I personally hate the typical baby-and-pet-left-in-the-car-story. Yeah, it’s tragic and shocking, but is that all that matters? Sure, that contradicts my point from before as to why my generation does not care about news, but I feel like general information regarding mankind as a whole is what makes news, well, news. 

To elaborate, a volcano blowing its top in Italy would be news. So would learning that the sun is going to become a white giant in 2.1 billion years. Or that Global Warming is proved to be a hoax, or that blue whales are going to be instinct. You get the idea. I think that telling the news in a compelling and creative way is also one of the most important factors to journalism. To be a journalist is to be a magnificent story-teller, whether it be orally or through print. Thus, the inverted pyramid style of news writing does not suit the purpose of being creative. It is boring, old-fashioned, and does not measure up to modern day standards of writing. But, that's just me. To be frank, it's just about being informative on all sorts of information.

When I was a kid in elementary school, my mom always had the Today Show on. I loved growing up with their way of telling the news. It was extremely entertaining, informative, and compelling. They told news-breaking stories in a professional manner, yet kept an element of enjoyment. I also liked, and still admire, watching CBS’s 60 Minutes. It’s a fantastic, and an extremely reputable and reliable program. The correspondents ask all the right questions and hold nothing back. It’s quite frankly the most phenomenal journalism at its finest.

Journalism could better satisfy the needs of myself as well as my peers by remaining objective as well as relevant to worldwide society. I’m sick of biased fluffy jargon! The future of journalism in all its glorious forms should be held to an exceptional and extraordinary literary standard that rivals mainstream media. It should be accepted as an informative art, not some overrated "story" that we want to throw in the face of the audience to capture their attention.

But then again, what do I know? I’m just an opinionated and amateur “journalist” with a lot to say and little experience.

The Debate Over Gun Control

The National Rifle Association came to the University of New Hampshire Thursday to educate students on the Second Amendment and gun control. The meeting was held in the Wildcat Den on the first floor of the Memorial Union Building, where about twenty people were present – a quarter of them women.

The presentation started with a brief historical introduction of the NRA. Headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, the NRA started a program entitled, “NRA U” about five years ago. The sole purpose of NRA-U was to educate college students around the country about the benefits the NRA provides its members.

Founded in 1871 in New York after the Civil War, the original purpose of the NRA was to provide a scientific study of marksmanship. It became the oldest sportsmen and civil rights organization established in the United States. Presently, the NRA’s focus has shifted to protect every American’s Second Amendment right to bear arms. Four million due-paying members make up the association.

The NRA, supposedly nonpartisan, cannot function with standardized gun control laws, and tends to favor Republican candidates who strictly back up the Second Amendment. The seminar evoked how gun control does not necessarily minimize crime, which may be biased with incidences of unreported violence involving guns. However, just as freedom of speech and freedom of religion are granted to Americans in the Bill of Rights, so is the right to bear arms. Therefore, the Second Amendment must be respected and followed on its own just as the other amendments.

According to the NRA, instead of “banning” guns, or enforcing stricter gun laws that infringe upon constitutional rights, their plan is to educate gun-owners and youth about firearms. The association also upholds existing laws to control crime with effective law enforcement strategies, and punishes criminals with harsher sentences instead of the average citizen.

However, as recent gun U.S. gun tragedies have climbed, from the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007, to the most recent Colorado shooting during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises this past summer, a debate about guns is still hot-to-the-touch. 

Concealed gun laws vary in all states, and the state of New Hampshire, where one needs a permit to carry a concealed weapon, recently passed a law in January to cease public institutions, such as university campuses and sporting venues, from banning firearms. Gov. John Lynch vetoed the bill for obvious safety reasons.

College students take the gun control debate and the Second Amendment quite seriously. Steven Pampreen, a business administration major, has a somewhat neutral view of the subject. “I think that the intent of the [Second] Amendment was to allow people to individually protect themselves without relying on the state,” Pampreen said. “I think that is still a worthy goal.” Pampreen explains how inequality is the problem, not firearms themselves, since some states, such as New York, make it extremely difficult to buy guns, even though it is still legal to do so.

Coty Donohue, 21 of Somersworth, thinks it is important for any country to protect its citizens, never mind a country that is supposed to be a world leader. “When there is almost one firearm per American, 105,000 gun injuries occurring a year, and roughly 50 percent of those injuries being accidental, I think it’s clear that a lack of gun regulation is a lack of protection.”

Samantha Spaeth, 20, of Manchester thinks gun control is a double-edged sword. “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” Spaeth said. She brings forth the argument that even if guns are made illegal, there is still a black market, so guns will never go away. Instead, firearms may become a specialized things like drugs. “I think you should be able to have a gun, but I don’t think you should be able to walk around with it. If you have one in your house, that’s a complete different circumstance.”