Not Against Headphones

Throughout my life, I have always owned a device that required or could use headphones. I have never thought anything of it. Headphones have been controversial but there is really no need for that. Some people just need to escape from their everyday lives and that is how they do it. They put their headphones in and people know that bothering them would not be a good idea. I have always loved having headphones; they allowed me to listen to the music that I wanted to without having any interruptions. One place that I love to use them is when I am walking on campus. Listening to music makes walking on campus so much more interesting. I am pretty sure that other people do not want to listen to my music when they are on campus also, the headphones allow for this privacy. Not everybody listens to their headphones with the volume all the way up. The children that are losing there are losing it because they do not know they safe zone for headphones.  I do not believe that headphones cause an antisocial tendency, that is just ludicrous. Yes, music should be enjoyed by all but sometimes, people just want to be left alone and that makes plenty of sense to me. Without headphones, many people could not enjoy music when they are sitting in a library or lounging in the park. Headphones make it more fun to enjoy your music. 

Overpaid Athletes

Before this reading, I did not fully realize just how much money the athletes that we watch on television make in a year. To think that these people, who are just playing the game they love, make so much money is just ridiculous. These people do not work; they just play baseball or football all day. Yeah, the sport takes a lot of work and you are away from family sometimes but that doesn’t mean you need to make millions of dollars in a year. Athletes should be paid less, the less money they are paid the cheaper it is to attend an MLB game. Many people do not get the chance to enjoy a really Major League Baseball game in their lives, which is because they are just too expensive. They have to charge a lot to make up for the players salary. I believe that athletes deserve a pay reduction, now. These people are just going to keep asking for more unless there is something done. If money really is not important to you, than why do you keep asking for more and more? You can live just fine with 7 million dollars a year; there is no reason to bitch. Athletes earn way too much money, it needs to stop. 

What is SOPA?

According to the author, Brian Barrett, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is essentially a bill that will allow intellectual property owners to shut down a website that they believe is copyrighting their material. There has been a lot of controversy over this bill because if it passed, random websites would be shut down and we would not have a clue. SOPA has been postponed as of right now but voting should happen sooner or later. I honestly do not think it is going to pass because there are so many people that are completely against it. According to Brian, SOPA is just a bad thing. It should never ever be passed. The Stop Online Piracy Act is just like any controversial bill before it, it will take forever to vote on it or maybe eventually it will just disappear and nobody will remember SOPA. SOPA is aimed to protect United States property, and in some way that is a good thing, but the internet is a different story. The internet is not something that is meant to be controlled, no matter how hard the government tries to control it, they cannot. If this bill was passed, the internet would change as we know it today. SOPA just should not happen, and that’s that. 

College Athletes Should be Paid

This argument makes a good point. College athletes do raise a lot of money for their school; they also give up a lot of their free time, just for the sport. There are many sports that are in a college that do not make a profit. But the ones that do, they work hard for it. These athletes do deserve to be paid, maybe not as much as someone in the NBA, but enough to allow them the opportunity to not have a job. These students do not have enough time to get a job and sometimes there academics suffer because the sport comes first. Yes, they are usually going to school for free, but what about spending money? These athletes do a lot of work and they earn the money that they should make. I agree with everything that was stated in this reading. These students deserve to be paid. They make a profit for their school so they in turn should be paid back for all of the hard work it takes. There is so much money in college sports, not paying the players sounds pretty ludicrous. It takes a lot of work to be on a sports team while trying to maintain your studies, they should be paid. 

Fliers, Think Before Turning on Electronics

This reading got me thinking about how many times I have had my electronics on while flying. I never thought that it really mattered if you left your phone on. When I had a phone that I knew how to put in airplane mode, I would. But, most people do not what airplane mode is. If just one cell phone, laptop, or tablet can cause a plane to go down, than I will definitely make sure that I am not the one to cause that. Flying can be scary to begin with, but if someone in the cabin does not turn off their phone, they are just raising the risk. Many people think that the no electronics rule on an airplane does not matter, well obviously it does. Cell phones, tablets, can laptops have caused many accidents, whether airplane or vehicle. People just need to learn how to live without their communication for a couple of hours. Is it really necessary to put everyone’s life in danger? Well, I do not think so.  Whatever it is that you are doing, can probably wait until later. I try to adhere to all of the rules when I am on an airplane, I do not want anything to go wrong. 

Reading 5

This reading brought to me a whole new insight as to how prevalent hazing is. Hazing is a terrible thing. People are beaten and mentally abused just to obtain entry into some club or fraternity. Innocent individuals die from hazing just because they want to be in that club. Hazing is not needed to make sure that someone is good enough to be in the club. Robert Champion just wanted to play his music for everyone to hear, he did not deserve to die. He shouldn’t have died when he did. Colleges and universities need to pay more attention to hazing on campus. But not only do they need to pay more attention, they need to punish the people who have been participating in the practice. Punishments should be more severe and the students should actually be afraid of the consequences of getting caught. Something needs to be done. There is no need for people to be beaten and scorned just for initiation into a club, sport, sorority, or fraternity. After suspending over 100 students from the band, wouldn’t you think that administrators would catch on? Well, obviously not because an innocent student is dead and many others are emotionally and even physically scarred.