Who will win a Grammy? Saint reporter Sam Swartout gives her take on the American music industry’s major awards.
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012 Volume 31, Issue 9
Battling Islamophobia | 3
Oscars point-counterpoint | 6
theSaint You left a lasting legacy, JoePa.
>>NEWS AQ celebrates Aquinas | 2 The annual week-long celebrations of St. Thomas Aquinas’ birthday is underway! Find out all the details, inside.
GOP primary update
Goodbye, Internet?
SOPA and PIPA shelved by Congress following Internet blackout as ACTA gains attention
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Perry and Huntsman drop out as Newt Gingrich makes unprecedented strides ahead.
>>A&E Haywire reviewed
| 3
Good? Bad? Ugly? Maybe all three? Saint reporter Katherine Mata packs a punch with this review.
Jr. Saints weekend
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Bring your sibling to a funfilled weekend at AQ!
Brickroad pizza
| 5
We checked out this local Eastown pizza shop. Our verdict? Read on to find out.
>>SPORTS Roller coaster season
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Reporter Clare Conway gives the scoop on the ups and down of the men’s basketball season.
Ultimate Detroit
| 8
Detroit has a new professional sports team. Saint reporter George Van Den Driessche has the details.
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Internet Blackout: Many websites shut down or modified their home pages in protest against PIPA and SOPA on January 18. Clockwise from top left: Wikipedia, BoingBoing, Google, Reddit, and Wordpress as they appeared during the blackout. By Jarrett Ardell The Saint Reporter For the past few months, the internet has been buzzing over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) that was introduced into Congress in October 2011. Both bills are framed as an attempt by the United States government to wield control over Internet content in order to combat piracy of media, including music and films. Justification for the bill has leaned on job creation and protection of copy written material, with the vocal resistance being concerned for free speech and internationally divided internet services. To protest the bills and their potential for disrupting the internet, many major websites, including Reddit, Google and Wikipedia, changed their home pages to display anti-SOPA/PIPA messages on Jan. 18. Many of the protesting websites,
including English Wikipedia and Reddit, shut down website services during the day on top of changing their home pages in what has been dubbed the Internet Blackout. While Wikipedia justified their blackout as an attempt to make viewers imagine a world where such bills could hinder free information, SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith said, “It is ironic that a website dedicated to providing information is spreading misinformation about the Stop Online Piracy Act.” The online community has rallied against the bill in massive numbers beyond just the blackout. Phone calls to representatives, statements of refusal to re-elect supporters of the bill and visits to Washington D.C. by website representatives to either eradicate or modify the bills have all taken place within the past few weeks.
These activists included members of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com, a review site whose contributors could be blocked from video production by the bills’ loose wording. “It’s so open ended and the language is so vague and verbose that no two people are deciphering it the same way,” said Paul Schuler, a member of the site who attended D.C. to speak against the bill on December 12. After several months of rallies, phone calls and rewording of the bill within the House, it would seem that the voices of opposition to SOPA and PIPA may have won out. On January 20, 2012, Chairman Smith officially announced that “The House Judiciary Committee will postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution,” thus postponing both bills indefinitely. While this news is a sigh of relief for those that have been resisting the
New sex ed standards start at a young age
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Updates needed: A team of education advocacy groups has put forward a new standard for sexual education that begins in second grade. By Sam Swartout The Saint Reporter How young is too young to be introduced to sex education? According to a group standard presented by Advocates for Youth, Answer and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, with contribution from health experts, advocates and educators, sex education needs to begin at a
younger age. In a new proposal for sex education in Grand Rapids Public Schools, students would be exposed to this curriculum beginning in second grade, and it would progress through high school. Each year a new aspect of sex education would be introduced. In the youngest age group, they would simply be taught the male and female anatomy. They would be
expected to be able to name both male and female reproductive organs. This would mean showing second graders photos of male and female sex organs. “I’m not sure that I would want my younger brother to be exposed to that sort of information at such a young age. I think second grade is just too young for that information,” said Aquinas College senior Andrew Kish, sports management major. By fifth grade, the students would need to be able to define, recognize and report sexual harassment. “We are also much more aware of the amount of child sexual abuse that occurs in our culture, and equipping children in elementary school to understand what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior by adults and older kids is a positive thing,” said associate sociology professor at Aquinas, Dr. Kathy Kremer. The final stage of the curriculum wo u l d b e i n h i g h s c h o o l w h e r e s t u d e n t s wo u l d b e e x p e c t e d t o describe symptoms and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. “Giving students the information to make an informed decision about their sex lives is good. Keeping information from them, that could help them, just isn’t right,” said Aquinas junior Roni Ranville, Spanish major. The issue of contraception would be introduced between sixth and twelfth grade, depending on the district. Abstinence would also be taught, as well as alternative ways to express love to significant others. Because every school does not have the same sex education requirements, it makes it difficult for every student to have the same
knowledge. The goals of the new proposal are to help steer some districts away from abstinence-only sex education. Experts believe that abstinence-only education can be ineffective for students. With sex in the media, on magazines, on television, in musicit is everywhere kids are looking. Teaching them better ways to protect themselves can be very beneficial. “We know that children are exposed to sexual content at a younger age t o d a y t h a n t h e y wo u l d h a ve i n previous decades. So equipping them with factual knowledge will help them interpret media and cultural representations, and perhaps refute misrepresentations,” said Dr. Kathy Kremer. Another goal of this proposal is to delay students from becoming s e x u a l l y a c t i ve . E x p e r t s b e l i e ve that if students are exposed to the knowledge and consequences that sex can have, students will be less likely to begin having sex. An option that parents of students will have is the ability to grant or refuse consent to their child receiving this information. Under the proposed guidelines, parental consent is required for anything having to do with contraceptives or HIV. If parents do not wish for their children to be exposed to this information, they can opt to pull them from the class during these lessons. For more information about this proposal, visit www.mlive.com and click on the education tab.
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bill for the past few months, the relief has been short-lived in light of the AntiCounterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which carries much of the same potential impact on copyright enforcement as SOPA and PIPA, according to anti-SOPA activists. ACTA was introduced during the Bush administration, and has been ratified by the United States. However, the European Union has not signed on. The EU’s potential ratification of ACTA in coming months is already stirring protest within internet communities. In light of Poland’s recent support of ACTA, the internet activist group Anonymous shut down Polish government websites on Jan. 23. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have refused to disclose the text of ACTA, stating in 2009 that doing so could do “damage to the national security.”
World news update By Laura Farrell The Saint Reporter & Matt Kuczynski Editor-in-Chief Greece: European stock markets took a dive on Tuesday morning as Eurozone ministers continued to push for lower interest rates with Greece’s private creditors. The private creditors, to whom Greece is indebted, must lower their interest rates to four percent before the E.U. provides 130bn euros in bailout funds. Afghanistan: Polio is on the rise in Afghanistan. Volunteer groups have worked diligently to bring down polio numbers in a steady decline. However, the number of cases of polio in Afghanistan tripled in the last year. . A major outbreak could pose a threat to neighboring countries. European Union: Croatia has made it clear that it desires to join the European Union. With nearly all of the votes from the Jan. 22 referendum counted, results are in, with over 65% for joining the EU. Croatia is scheduled to officially join the EU in July 2013, once EU member countries ratify the accession. Syria: Gulf Arab states are withdrawing from the Arab League’s observation mission in Syria. The Gulf Co-operation Council (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE) said that its states are removing their observers because Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s supporters had been trying to use the observers to avoid reaching solutions in the current conflicts.
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