High Point Mump-iversity

Mumps. High Point University has the mumps. So does Elon with six confirmed cases, but I don't go there, so it's not as relevant to me. As per the last official email from Campus Concierge, there were eleven confirmed cases on campus. As is to be expected with any campus-wide event like this, there will always be talk and rumors about what is happening. I heard a rumor saying that there were forty-two (42) students in quarantine, but again, this is just a rumor. The quarantine is set up for people who show symptoms, but haven't officially been diagnosed with mumps yet. There was even a girl in one of my classes who had it.Other rumors include that students might be evacuated from campus, a rumor that we might not be allowed to leave campus, and another rumor that HPU might extend fall break to allow for the campus to be sanitized.

HPU is also providing booster shots on campus this week, and I am sure most everybody will be getting one. I will, despite my hatred for needles. In addition to these booster shots, High Point University has also sent out precautions to take to reduce the chance that students will contract it. "It is important to remember that mumps is a virus, transmitted very similarly to the flu or other diseases spread by droplets in the air. The recommendations for reducing the spread of mumps are similar to the steps we take to avoid the flu." You can help prevent the virus from spreading by:

• Covering your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze and putting your used tissue in the trash can. If you don't have a tissue, cough or sneeze into your upper sleeve or elbow, not your hands
• Washing your hands often with soap and water
• Avoiding sharing objects that might have saliva on them, like water bottles or cups. Do not share drinks, cigarettes or other nicotine devices
• Disinfecting frequently touched surfaces, such as doorknobs, tables and counters

I know everybody on campus is worried about it, even though they may not show it. Everyone is aware what is going on, and I hope everyone takes the necessary steps to prevent it from spreading further. I myself am not that worried about getting it, but I know there is always a possibility.

History and Impact of the Typewriter

For the past two weeks in class, we had to split up into groups. We each were assigned a different technology that shaped communication since the beginning of mankind. My group consisted of the typewriter (which I will discuss), Instagram, CD's, Drones, and the Personal Computer.

Since the 14th century, scholars have unsuccessfully attempted to create what they called a "writing machine." This machine allowed for the user to press a button and have a letter inked on paper, rather that writing everything out by hand. The first successful attempt at this was in 1873, when Remington & Sons Co. developed the first commercially available typewriter in history. It got its name from the movable-type printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1440's. (A "type" was what Gutenberg called each letter in his printing press.) Throughout the rest of the 1800's and into the 1900's, many different improvements were made to it, such as the addition of the "shift" key which literally shifted the keyboard over to access the uppercase letters. The standard layout of the keys was the QWERTY layout we know today, but the layout could vary depending on what country you are in. Typewriters allowed many women to join the workforce in World War I and World War II, and typewriters were standard in many offices until around the 1970's and 1980's. In the 1970's, a company called Diablo Systems created the first ever electric typewriter, and this would eventually give rise to the electric keyboard as we know them with computers today.

I personally found it very interesting to research the typewriter. I knew it was invented after the American Civil War, but I also learned several things I didn't know about it. For example, I learned that the concept was born and people had been trying to invent it since the 14th century. I am kind of surprised that this wasn't invented sooner after the invention of the printing press in the 1440's. Especially since the printing press was invented during the Renaissance, it makes sense that the typewriter would be the natural progression from that.

Click this link for a timeline of the typewriter's history.

The Mad World

For this week' blog, I wanted to write about a video I watched. The video is an animation in black and white of a little boy walking through a crowd. He notices that everyone around him is looking down at their phones, and don't even know that he's there sometimes. He keeps trying to get their attention, but everyone else is so preoccupied with their phones that they are unable to see him. The only time people do notice him, however, is when he accidentally interrupts what they are doing on their phones and they become angry at him. This causes him to become very sad and to sit on the sidewalk and not even attempt to get anyone's attention because they will either ignore him or become angry with him.

The video shows how everyone today is extremely hyper-connected and obsessed with their phones. We as a society have become so addicted to our phones and being connected to the world that we have lost our ability to connect with others. We spend so much time on Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat and Facebook that we have almost forgotten what is means to have a real, genuine relationship with someone else. I think this video is very representative of our society today and how we worship technology and being connected and the temporary validation we get from a certain number of likes and comments. There is another part in the video where it depicts everyone watching a video of a girl happily dancing, but everyone makes fun of her. This leads her to be ashamed of herself and eventually leads her to commit suicide. And this does happen today. People do become depressed or commit suicide because of mean things people day or do online.

The video ends with a massive crowd of people looking down at their phones, unaware of the cliff they are about to walk over. It is only once they reach the cliff that they realize what has happened, but by that point it is too late. Being connected isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can become very detrimental to society once it gets in the way of face-to-face connection with people.

The American Conservative and Anti-War

For this week's post, I explored two websites - Antiwar.com and The American Conservative. Both websites are news sites, and both largely portray a conservative point of view of America and what should be done about the issues that face this country. AntiWar is a website whose slogan is "Your best source for antiwar news, viewpoints, and activities." The website focuses on world news as a whole, not just what happens in America. It does have news articles that have United States news, but they are very heavily focused on global news. You can even search for news by country on the site. The American Conservative, however, only deals with United States news, if you couldn't tell by the name of the website.

I did find it rather difficult and confusing to navigate the Antiwar website, as all the links to articles were the entire headline, and there would be multiple headlines smushed into each other. This makes the homepage look like one giant block of text with a few images interspersed here and there. The American Conservative, however, was very easy to navigate. Everything was nicely organized and each news article had a picture with it and was in its own little box. They advertise themselves much more elaborately and give a better statement about themselves than AntiWar does. "The American Conservative exists to promote a “Main Street” conservatism that opposes unchecked power in government and business; promotes the flourishing of families and communities through vibrant markets and free people; and embraces realism and restraint in foreign affairs based on America’s vital national interests."

If I were to pick one of these sites to get my news from, I would pick The American Conservative because they present their information in a more professional manner that it seems AntiWar does. AntiWar also sounds like more of an extremist group than The American Conservative does.

Fakebook: How a Loophole Allows for Fake News

I recently read an article about a loophole that allows Facebook users to get around their updated policies and post untrue things. Since 2016, Facebook has been part of the fight against fake news and the spread of misinformation. In order to combat these things, they have recently updated their policies and disabled a feature that allows people to do this. This was possible the "link preview" feature, which allows users to post a preview of a link or news article on their feed. The preview includes an image, sample text, and headline of the article, and all of these elements are taken from the website to be formatted on Facebook. This feature allowed people to edit the headline of the article to make it say whatever they want. As I said before, this feature was disabled in June of 2017, and Facebook no longer allowed it's users to edit anything about the link preview.

However, someone has discovered recently that this feature is still available. An anonymous source notified Mashable of this glitch, stating "If I am posting something from Mashable from a Facebook Page about how important vaccines are, I could now change the headline to say 'New Report Finds Vaccines Are Bogus.'" A few days later, this person messaged Facebook directly notifying them that the glitch had resurfaced. Facebook responded saying "We received your report and appreciate your patience as we work to fix technical problems on Facebook," the company said. “Though we can’t update everyone who submits a report, we’re using your feedback to improve the Facebook experience for everyone.”


This seems like a pretty standard Facebook response.

Also recently, Facebook has had issues with their Groups feature, which allows people to communicate with each other privately, Some groups have been created for the use of propaganda, conspiracy theorists, or for things that violate Facebook's terms of service. They issued a statement saying that their policies still apply, and are enforceable, to Facebook Groups.

It seems to me like Facebook has a lot of work to do in regards to the spread of misinformation.

The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Brief History

The United States Supreme Court has been around since the beginning of our country. It was established on March 4, 1789 in accordance with Article III of the United States Constitution. It established that the Court would have judicial power over all cases that come to it, but that's about it. It doesn't say how many people are to be on this court or the process by which they would receive a case. It just simply states that the Supreme Court would exist and have judicial power over cases. So at this time period in the country, they had just declared their independence from Great Britain and fought and defeated them in a war over it. Later, in 1803, the court case of Marbury v. Madison set the precedent of "judicial review." A precedent is a case decision that can be looked back upon to help decide more recent cases. Judicial review means that the Supreme Court has the power to "review all actions by all departments of government and deem them constitutional or not." This basically means that the Court has the power to decide whether or not the rest of the federal government is complying with the Constitution. This is part of the checks and balances system in place to make sure that no one branch of government is more powerful than the other two.

I did find the video very interesting. I liked getting to hear the justices opinions on what the day-to-day life of a Supreme Court justice is like and how the Court has evolved over time. They mentioned that they all shake hands with all the other justices before they sit down to discuss a case, because if you make that physical connection before you argue, you are less likely to "hold a grudge," as one justice put it, with someone else who disagrees with you. I also found it humorous to hear that there are three kinds of arguments in the Court: the one you prepare to make, the one you actually make, and the one you with you would have made. They used a lot of terms in the video I am not familiar with, so it was kind of challenging for me to understand what they were talking about, but I found the whole thing to be very interesting and to see how the Court has grown and evolved over time.

And if anyone wants the links to the videos, here they are: Part 1 and Part 2.

A Defense for College Athlete's Free Speech

I recently read an article about an incident of First Amendment rights, specifically those of freedom of speech, being violated. This particular article was published in January of 2018, so this happened not that long ago, and told of a university violating the First Amendment rights of one of its student athletes.

The student's name is Donald De La Haye, and he was a football player for the University of Central Florida (UCF). He received an athletic scholarship, which he said is the only thing that allowed him to attend the university. Donald, like most teens and young adults these days, is an avid user of social media. He had a rather large following on Instagram and YouTube, with over ten thousand YouTube subscribers. He posts his own content regularly about his life and what it's like being a college student. These videos are monetized, meaning that YouTube essentially pays Donald for uploading his original content. UCF, however, doesn't like that he gets paid for uploading videos to YouTube.

According to the University of Central Florida, this violates NCAA by-law 12.4.4, which is part of a larger by-law which "limit[s] student expression, including when a student receives compensation in connection with the use of a student’s name, image, appearance, or physical attributes." The university then kicked Donald off the football team and rescinded his athletic scholarship.

The First Amendment states that all citizens have freedom of speech, and this right to freely express oneself should not be limited because that person decided to attend a university that adheres to the NCAA by-laws. I do believe there is something to be said about following rules, but when the rules begin to limit a person's freedom of speech, I believe that particular rule should be rethought. Being represented by the Goldwater Institute, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and Roetzel & Andress, LPA, Donald has asked the University of Central Florida to undo its unlawful decision by restoring his scholarship. The court case is De La Haye v. Hitt.