Great Idea!! My answer to high text book prices..

Its been a while, but I got a good one for you.......

This is a problem that is quietly growing across colleges in the united states.

Why are textbooks so damn expensive, why do we have a new edition every year when the same information is in the past seven editions. Now I've really realized this being an accounting major. Accounting really has not changed in 50 years, but we get a new edition to our texts every year. WHY? Now I know textbook companies are greedy and they are just trying to make more money off of us year after year. We all know they are greedy pigs, we get it, but why are our teachers and colleges requiring us to get the new edition. Why can't we just pick like edition 4 of some book and stick with it, and maybe every like 4-5 years then you can switch editions. I just don't understand why twice a year I have to go to the book store and drop five hundred dollars on four books and three of them are used. This is just getting ridiculous and nothing is changing. I even went as far as emailing our senator at the time asking for maybe the senate to look into a price ceiling for the amount they are allowed to charge for college textbooks, but you know how our lovely government works I got an email back maybe a month later that was like a email that they send to everyone that emails them with my name cut and pasted at the top. I want to change this though I have an idea a quite good idea!!

Now this idea I'm sure is out there I actually think apple tried to make this a while back but it flopped, but I feel they just didn't market it well enough because this is a revolutionary idea. Now Apple, Sony, or Microsoft would be very able to create this product, and with the help of Google and Rhapsody or any download companies this could change the act of buying textbooks forever.

Here is my idea. We are going to use Apple as the company to make this product because I feel that they are the best possible candidate for this undertaking. The idea is that Apple comes out with a notebook size touch screen almost like a ipod that only holds digital textbooks. Now try and picture this for a second a notebook size ipod that holds digital texts. If you have this I don't care if it costs 500 dollars it is totally worth buying. If you have this device and you can download every text online through itunes for like 10 dollars a text, every college student in the world would buy this. Not only are you saving tons of money on books, buy you also only need to carry around one book all day ant that's your little Ibook (as i want to call it). The only thing that needs to be created is a way we can take these texts and copy them into a digital format because we know that these publishing companies are not going to agree to release digital copies because they will lose so much money. But if we can get some little computer geniuses like the kids that figured out we can copy music online and share it for free. Why don't we do the same thing for textbooks help each other save money.

This maybe a ridiculous idea but I was sitting in class today and I thought of it (shows how much I pay attention in class) So if you are an employee of Apple or any other company and you read this, hey give me a call I could use a good job....lol

Barack Obama on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Barack Obama on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

I recently watched Barack Obama on the Tonight show and i thought this would be an interesting post. Now I don't have much to say I just feel that everyone should watch this video especially if you are planning on voting here in the 08 election.

If you notice.... this man has a sense of humor.... how freaking refreshing is that. That is what America needs right now a man that is intelligent and has a sense of humor..... from the words of Lewis black.... "The fact of the matter was that this country every time it comes down to war completely losses it sense of humor when we do that we come dangerously close to what we hate about our enemies. A terrorist is a person without humor at all, and we began to act like this, and neither side neither side knew exactly what they were talking about...."

I've read his book, Barack Obama: The Audacity of Hope, and if you ever get a chance you should read it also. He talks about not accepting money from lobbyists, which I won't even fucking go there that is a whole different blog at a later date, and not bashing other candidates. Why do we bash each other on TV when we run for office. Why? What is the purpose.

But anyway I don't want to say to much just watch this video and listen to this intelligent man and listen to the way he carries himself and speaks well on his feet. Listen to his sense of humor and how he just rolls off all the shit people say about him just cause his name is Obama. If you don't like him and you don't like what you see that is a good too. As long as we can make up our minds of what we want and what we don't want that is what is important. All i know is he has my vote.....

Obama 08'

Have You Ever Said to Yourself, High School is a Joke....

Recently I was sitting in class here at IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) and I began to think, What did I actually learn in high school? Then as I thought about it more, it actually got a little scary. I can not recall one single thing that I solely learned in high school. I know throughout out the education process from the time your a kinder gardener taking a nap on a carpet square to the time your a graduate from college or high school, you will learn many important things. As I sat there in class I thought to myself "what the hell did you learn in high school". If you sit back and think about it what did you learn in high school that was not a repeat of something you learned in elementary school. I mean yea high school might build on certain concepts you learned and you probably did grow your math skills or maybe learned a couple life skills, but do you really feel that 4 years are required to learn that.

Now you might be thinking "wait this kid thinks that high school should be thrown out" and the answer is no this is just to get you thinking that maybe its time to change the way we learn. Did you ever stop and (I refer back to my first post) Ask Why are kids these days diagnosed with ADD and attention disorders and why did our parents not have these problems? Have we ever thought that maybe our race is evolving and getting smarter and maybe our generation and the generations after us are getting bored. This is why ADD is so common, we are bored people. We don't want to sit and school and learn about the Indians and the revolutionary war and biology theories from the 1900's year after year after year. Enough is enough already, yes learning about our past is important, but how do you expect us to be young visionaries and thinkers if all you do is pound into our heads shit that doesn't even matter anymore. One thing that really makes me mad is when in high school or college or elementary school for that matter, our teachers ask a question like "What year did the great depression take place?" and i know the answer but all i want to say is who cares if i know that or not.... why does this matter, why are you wasting my time by teaching me about something I learned ten times over already. Another one is when they ask you about the Magna Carta.... Why the hell should I care, in 2037 when we are the leaders of this country do you think I will give a damn or even remember what the Magna Carta was. So in the future, (for all you future teachers) lets start teaching the children about the stuff that is going on right now, like how our government is in shambles and how we are at WAR RIGHT NOW, not WWII, or Vietnam or the Revolutionary war, how bout we learn about the Iraq war and why we are there and maybe get kids thinking and asking questions. I just hope in the future we don't force our children to learn about Sept 11th and the Iraq war over and over and over again. Yes its important they know it happened and why it happened but we need to inform them whats going on in their world right now.

I just want to explain this because I feel the education system in this country is trash. Many other countries in the world have far superior educations which actually make us look terrible, and its quite embarrassing. I have a perfect example of embarrassing for you. Recently my old high school was in the process of getting plans together to build a new school, and we had the basic problems of the local people being angry that their taxes would go up and blah blah blah. The thing that really tipped me off was the elderly group that was against the new school said we didn't need it. (the old school was standing forever my grandparents graduated in it my parents graduated in it and I graduated in it) Our school was old it needed new technology new computers maybe some more equipment for the science department, it needed updated. Well the elderly people felt that this was unnecessary and i quote "we grew up without computers and we did just fine". This is the shit I'm talking about, We need to change the way we teach, we need to change what we teach. The only thing that the department of education has changed in the past 10 years is that they have instated the no child left behind law. Now I don't want to be ignorant but if you can't make it through a certain grade because your not mentally capable, guess what your not mentally capable and you should be held back and try again the next year. That's just how it works "if you can't do something you try, try again" that's what all of our parents have told us since we were six. It wasn't "if you can't do something we will pull some strings and make it easier for you so you don't have to worry".

I just say, hey my generation lets change some things lets make our children intelligent make them learn from the mistakes of others but also have the ability to be visionaries and thinkers and develop new ideas that could revolutionize the way we live our lives. If we can't teach them this at a young level how will we ever be able to improve and prosper this country.

Ask Why......

I titled this blog....Ask Why for a reason. Many of my blogs are going to ride on the premise "Ask Why". This will be an ongoing discussion of people of our generation (18-28) to ask why about the things that are going on around them.

Ironically this Ask Why statement actually comes from the late great company Enron, where there company motto was Ask Why. Later the motto jokingly turned into "Ask Why, Asshole" after CEO Jeff Skillings called an investor an asshole. The irony of this is that a company that's motto was "ask why" had an entire corporation that not once ask that particular question which later as we all know led to their demise.

What I am trying to say is that there are a lot of things with wrong in the United States and the world for that matter, that our generation is going to have to clean up. From now on I would like for you when you read the paper or watch TV or anything just ask why. Why are things the way they are? Should we change them? or Why did we change them? We need to ask the media, the government, the businesses, the school systems everyone.

Now I know you may ask me why I am doing this why are you writing this blog what is your point? (and if you are you are on the right track already) Well my point is not to be some kind of world changer or political figure or know it all, I am just a regular 21 year old on the verge of getting out of college and entering "real life" and these are just my opinions of the world around me from my perspective, from the perspective of an average student from a normal family with a normal life, someone that many people my age can relate and understand and maybe (hopefully) agree with.

So in conclusion I would like to say read my blog with an open mind, after you read it even if you believe what I say or not take it with you and think about it throughout your day whether your at work or school just think about it question the things people do, question the things i say, question the things you do. Just Ask Why.....