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JerseySmarts.com

Archives for September 2007

Students Loans Make Borrowers Feel Like “Prisoners”

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There are only a few issues out there that I am overly passionate about. Among the highest on my list are student loans and how the great increase in student loans are slowly eroding the very concept of The American Dream. It’s frightening.

The team at USA Today has been on the front line of this issue since before there was any kickback scandal and before it became chic to cover student loans in the weekend papers. Which brings me to their latest offering, published online today.

Student loans sew seeds of economic ills

This story does a good job covering how the cost of going to school has increased while the available funding has only increased in the private sector – where money costs a good deal more than if it were borrowed from the government.

Many people who read about the current student loan crisis often view people in the article (like Ms. Kristin Cole in this article) as complainers or whiners. These folks often say that the people in the articles could have just as easily gone into the military or not gone to school. Well that’s a ton of bullshit. I can sympathize with Ms. Cole and her current plight. Remember, it was only a year and half ago or so that I was featured on the cover of USA Today about my own student loan debt.

The biggest problem that I faced after that article was printed was the problem of projection. People LOVE to project their situation on to your life if you’re covered in one of these articles. It’s pathetic, really. I scoured the internet after my article was printed and aside from the ignorant comments about the school I attended and whether or not I should have gotten a Masters Degree, the biggest discussion I saw was NOT about me and my situation, but rather about the people posting online and THEIR situations!

I got news for you folks, my story was on the front page for a lot more reasons that you read in my article! As I told the young woman who wrote the article, my case is becoming the new “classic” case of hyper-political correctness hurting people who have otherwise noble goals in life. In my case, I was a young, white, smart, middle-class, male who lived in the suburbs and had a list of leadership activities on my college applications a mile long. But because I was a young, white, smart, middle-class, male who lived in the suburbs there was literally no “free” money for me to attend college. Change any one of those variables and I would have gone to school for free; however if you’re in my position it is expected that you have family money to pay for your schooling.

Well that’s the biggest ton of bull crap that I’ve ever heard of. I come from a normal American family – not the Warbucks clan! But while I’m on that subject, let me say that I couldn’t be happier that I come from the family that I come from. Not only are all of my relatives awesome, but I’ve seen spoiled rich kids come to college (and in Grad School) who are so naive and so downright stupid that I would never want their money if being a moron came with it!

So to Ms. Cole in this article – I hear and understand your pains. Good luck!

DVD Review: Smallville, Season 6

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By now it should be obvious that I’m a Smallville freak (not to be confused with a meteor freak). My story is simple: I bought Season 1 on DVD one day because it was selling for $20 and I had only ever heard good things about the show. I plowed through Season 1 in a few days and immediately ran out to get Season 2 (even though I was extremely sick and wasn’t moving out of bed at the time)! I managed to get through the first 4 seasons while Season 5 was still on the television. So I didn’t watch and waited for Season 5 to come out on DVD, watched it in 2 days, and then began watching Season 6 last September.

Of course, my schedule screwed me and I started missing shows so I stopped watching completely…which means that I had to wait an entire year for the f’ing DVDs to come out! I bought the DVDs earlier this week, watched them all, and still managed to miss the first episode of Season 7. Thank God I have DVR these days!

Season 6 was great. The show has grown-up so much over the last 5 years that it’s really become a great show with many adult themes. Sex, desire, marriage, lust – all of these play a major part in many of the episodes. This is the season that sees Lana Lang marry Lex Luthor and ultimately “explode” in the final episode. We follow Clark track escaped convicts from the Phantom Zone (which is where Zod exiled Clark at the end of Season 5). In fact, Season 6 ends with Clark fighting against the last – and strongest – escapee from the Phantom Zone.

One thing that really pissed me off about this season was the fact that Lana seemed to wind up in the hospital in the majority of the episodes. At one point, I think she was in there for a few episodes in a row! How long can you play out that storyline before it gets old? We get it, she’s physically weak, emotionally tempered, and sexually strong. We know! Move to the next friggin’ level of her character development!

The introduction of Jimmy Olsen was good for the show – or at least I think so. His interaction with Chloe really brings a different side of her character out for the fans to enjoy. It also clearly puts Clark in his own little world where he’s essentially alone. I mean even his Mother has Lionel Luther to lean on! Oh, and speaking of Annette O’Toole and John Glover, they (once again) steal the season with their acting. As do Chloe and Lois Lane (Erica Durance). Tom Welling is also great as Clark Kent as is Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor.

But honestly, at this point in the show’s history it is unnecessary to go over the excellence of the cast. They’re good – and if you don’t believe me then watch on Thursday nights at 8pm on The CW.

Season 6 was a great season and I’m looking forward to another excellent season!

Monmouth University & Long Branch to Formalize Invasion of Student Rights

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Today’s Atlanticville had an article about “improving relations” between Monmouth University and its surrounding municipalities – namely Long Branch. I love Long Branch and I think some exciting and creative things are going on over there. I’m also a university alumnus who fought vociferously for students’ rights while an undergraduate. I consider myself privileged to continue that fight as I get older and move up and on through the game of life.

But what always gets me is how the students at Monmouth, by and large, don’t care about this fight. Taken from today’s Atlanticville:

Hayes told the council that the city and the university will be taking their partnership one step further this year and will be sharing information on the addresses of students living off campus.

“We have been able to make some significant headway,” Hayes said at the meeting. “It looks like the university will be willing to share some information with us about where students are housed, for the purpose of safety.”

Anyone who knows the story about the people involved here know that this has nothing to do with student safety. Kevin Hayes is the head of the inspection department in Long Branch. He’s been sued time and time again by local landlords for not granting Certificates of Occupancy for completely well-groomed and maintained houses. And not that it should matter in this particular case, but Hayes’ son was a Long Branch police officer who was one of the major causes of problems between the off-campus students and Long Branch. Hayes, Jr. and another young police officer in Long Branch were shaking down minority students in their off-campus homes and raiding their drug caches…so THEY could sell it on their own!

Of course they got no prison time because they’re politically-connected and this is New Jersey, but it makes me sick to read that the students “get a little better every year” when there are deep, troubling problems on both sides of the argument.

But when you have a student body that doesn’t give a hoot, what are you to do to stop these injustices? Re-read that selection from the article above – that’s illegal, folks. Going to school at a college does not permit that college to share your information with the local police force – especially when that police force has been sued in the past for being overzealous in their enforcement against college students and when they’ve even had to remove officers for shaking students down!

The university surely won’t tell the students anything about this – they relish the fact that 99% of the university community are lemmings who do what they’re told and (even worse) believe what they’re told. This is a tragic reality not just at Monmouth, but many of today’s private colleges and universities. You want to read something even more disgusting?

“If a student is involved in an issue of misconduct off campus, the police will send a copy of the report to us and I will review it,” Nagy said. “We will charge the student under the code of conduct. The student will go through the city’s court and through the Monmouth University court.

“The student is charged twice,” Nagy said. “Just because you do not physically live on campus does not mean you can do whatever you want. A student’s actions affect our reputation.”

That’s right folks – forget about your 5th amendment rights against double jeopardy! You get charged TWICE for the same “crime” in this circus! And having been through that rodeo once or twice, I can tell you that the school’s judicial officers know that this is illegal. Students are often cited by the local police on a Thursday night and expected to go through the university judicial process within a week or two when their actual court date is a month or more away. In essence, the school attempts to find you guilty before the United States legal system!

When you bring this up to the university, they cite their student code of conduct. Most students (with a head on their shoulders) then cite their Constitutional rights. The university ALWAYS comes back with the fact that they are a private university and do not need to respect those rights…which is a lie thanks to President Clinton. President Clinton signed something called the Higher Education Amendments of 1998 which snuck in the provision that if a private university receives ANY federal funding, they MUST respect the Constitutional rights of the students.

That’s generally when you get the university to sit down and start tapping their foot.

But what does it matter? Civil rights have gotten so bad in the Long Branch/Ocean Township area that an article like this can actually be published, describing how the entities intend on destroying students’ rights, and no one will do anything about it. Watch – we’ll get another edition of the Atlanticville next week and there will be no student response…

There’s just no passion any more in undergraduates.

Looking for a New Car – Any Ideas?

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Over the last week, I’ve been researching new cars – I think it’s about time that I get a new one. My current 1999 Chevy Blazer has served me well for over five years now, but it’s breaking down slowly. I’ve spent some $6,000 keeping the truck on the road this year alone.

I’ve been looking at the Equinox from Chevrolet, so if anyone knows anything about that vehicle, please let me know. At first, I was convinced that I would get a hybrid, but the added cost for a hybrid is beyond my pay grade! My price range is somewhere between $20,000 and $25,000. Sure, I could afford much more, but I don’t think that a vehicle should cost you any more than that…I’m not in it for the luxury or the style, I’m in it to get from Point A to Point B!

That being said, I’m looking forward to enjoying some modern features in whatever new vehicle that I purchase. For instance, I’d like to be able to play my iPod as well as have a navigation system – maybe even heated seats! I’m also looking forward to having a high-quality audio system in the car, which I’ve never really had before.

Anyway – any one have any ideas? I’m looking for an affordable SUV with decent gas mileage (something better than the 17 miles per gallon that I get now)!

2007 NJ Province Fall Workshop a Success!

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On Sunday, September 23rd, over 110 undergraduates and more than a dozen alumni volunteers from Sigma Pi Fraternity gathered on the campus of Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. These undergraduates represented some 37% of the total undergraduates in the New Jersey Province of Sigma Pi Fraternity.

The purpose of the annual fall workshop is to focus on the various keys to success for each of the chapters in the province. While we generally have a broad array of presenters speaking on a variety of issues, this fall we took a different approach. We invited Josh Orendi from Phired Up Productions, LLC to come in and run the entire workshop.

I’m pleased to say that Josh and Phired Up hit a home run in New Jersey!

Some of the feedback regarding Josh and his outstanding Phired Up presentation:

He really had an effect on the chapter here at FDU and we’re already putting into effect his recruiting methods. Also his methods turned the little wheels in our heads and we are tweaking some of our previous ways of doing things into a combination of his system and our own to make it work best for the chapter.

This is just one of the bits of feedback that we’ve gotten from our undergraduates. From an alumni advisor’s perspective, the Phired Up team is easy to work with and presented no problems in setting up this workshop. And while I’m going over the workshop, the team from Rowan University’s conference services was great to work with, too. I highly recommend working with both Rowan University and Phired Up!