The Current Online

The Current won the following awards from the Missouri College Media Association for 2008 publications at two-year colleges:

First Place
Michael Bartlett, Sports Column: Runners Aim for Personal Best
Mike Blake, Editorial Cartoon: Babel
Mike Blake, Non-editorial Cartoon: Finals
Current Online, Website
Current Online, Multi-media: Biden visits Longview

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by Amanda Rose

Being on your period is bad enough. Not having an extra quarter is even worse. Or, what about when the only quarter you deposited gets stuck in the machine and you have to pry it out with your key while “hurry up stupid machine” races through your head.

Sure, every girl has been through this dreadful situation at least once out of the zillions of periods they have had. I am not one to steal but I feel bad when I see someone panicking trying to get their quarter to fit just right into the machine which, in return, is supposed to deliver that sacred wrapped up piece of plastic we call a tampon. I know I have been in this situation several times in the past where my quarter has gotten stuck. That is why if I forget or lose my quarter or don’t arrive at the situation prepared, thank goodness my hands are small. They fit right into the hole and around the corner, with a little wiggling, out pops a tampon.

Usually, I try not to interfere in the personal business of others but if I see someone struggling with the whole quarter thing, I will most likely help them out. I am not sure how I know how to slip tampons and pads out of a machine, but desperate times call for desperate measures. If you were in this situation, wouldn’t you do the same?

by Amanda Rose

Longview students stood trapped outside and inside the Liberal Arts building early on May 2, 2008 waiting for the doors to unlock.
After fifteen minutes, the doors began to open and students swarmed the entrance doors in a hurry to make it to class. Student Brandi Brown said she was mad.

“I thought it was some bull$#!*. They should have the doors unlocked when I get here. It was windy out and on top of that, I had to walk on some wet@$$ grass to get to another door.”

Neither professors nor students were sure why the doors had all gone into lockdown condition. Some were scared that it was dangerous to be outside while others didn’t care and just wanted to go to class. Students inside and outside the building were afraid of being late for classes. They communicated through the glass doors of what was going on. Some tried the handicapped button several times while others tried other doors throughout the building hoping to find an exit. No success was found through these options.

Longview security officer David Cooper who responded to the scene said that he received the call at 9:35. Cooper said that he was not sure what went wrong but that it might have something to do with the storm that occurred the previous night.

Longview student Kimberly Christianson was concerned about her professor when she did not arrive to the class on time.

“My professor is always on time to the minute. She came in five minutes late and told us that she was locked in the LA building. We did not believe her at first then we heard it from our friends. It was crazy.”

by Amanda Rose

Going Green, the latest trend, has many employers and consumers thinking twice about recycling. “Going green” means helping the environment by protecting the natural resources we currently have. According to an Ivanhoe Broadcast News article, “Reusing and Recycling is Beneficial,” each year American families dispose of 2,460 pounds of paper, 540 pounds of metals, 480 pounds of glass, and 480 pounds of food scraps. For a typical family of four, that adds up to about 4,000 pounds which is approximately 1,000 pounds of trash being thrown away per year per person.

Only 20 percent of materials that can be recycled actually get recycled. The remaining eighty percent end up in landfills. Ivanhoe reported that if this continues at the same rate, in ten years, more than half of the nation’s landfills will be overflowing. Reducing, reusing and recycling all play a significant role in saving the environment and helping to reduce landfill space for future years.

Reducing can be an action taken to help conserve. Consumers worldwide waste electricity, both on their job and in their home. Examples include leaving lights on during the day when no one is home, leaving the light on after leaving a room, or even leaving the computer on overnight at work. In the U.K. alone last year, consumers wasted $217 million by failing to turn off their computers at night.

According to Siemens Technology, if consumers would just turn off their computer monitor it would save 75 percent of the overall energy consumption of a PC. Computers alone produce hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide every year. This adds up to a lot of wasted energy that is negatively put back into the environment.

Turning electricity off when it is not being used tremendously helps reduce and save energy. By 2009, the U.S government will require that consumers only use compact fluorescent light bulbs in their homes. These light bulbs are more expensive than the average bulb used today, however, they use 75 percent less electricity than the standard bulb and are warranted to last up to nine years. According to the MCT Campus, electric bills would be $600 million lower nationwide if every American home replaced just one light bulb with the compact fluorescent bulbs. These bulbs can be purchased at Wal-Mart, Target, and hardware stores.

Going Green has many notable stores striving to meet the needs of those consumers who wish to go green. To help celebrate earth month, on April 19, at 8 a.m., Wal-Mart is giving out one million custom made reusable shopping bags to its customers. These bags normally sell for one dollar.

Plastic bags take as long as 1,000 years to disintegrate. Reusing these bags helps keep them out of landfills which save space. Many grocery and one stop shop stores such as Hy-Vee, Price Chopper, Wal-Mart and Target now provide customers with an option of helping to go green by using less plastic bags. Th e stores have recyclable bags that they sell for 99 cents. Customers receive fi ve cents off their purchases every time they use their bag or bring it back to use it. Bags are located at the front of the store. When consumers purchase these bags, they make a commitment to partner with the stores and save paper and plastic bags. Consumers who purchase them no longer rely on the store to supply them with bags, but simply carry their own to and from the store. Hy-Vee also has bins for plastic bags to be recycled at both sides of the store upon entering.

When an item can’t be reused anymore, it can most likely be recycled. Examples of items that can be recycled include paper, plastic, batteries, metals, glass, ink cartridges, clothes, oil, and tires to name a few. Many of these items don’t get recycled today and end up in landfi lls. Most recyclable products have a label stating if they are recyclable. Recycling helps the environment and keeps the landfills from filling as fast. Longview’s Phi Theta Kappa president Peggy Boone discussed how Phi Th eta Kappa is going green on and off campus. “We have a service project that is part of our honors topic called Operation Green, where we’ve collected probably 10-15 large bags of plastic bottles already for recycling,” Boone said. Not only do Phi Th eta Kappa members collect recyclable items, they are presented with them as well. Boone said that, “For our regional convention, the host chapter presented us with green cups. These cups were recycled and made from corn.” A recycling bin is located outside the Phi Th eta Kappa offi ce for recycling purposes.
Many companies have switched to dealing only with distributors for their resources who use recycled products.

They are trying to produce zero waste and only use renewable energy resources. This is an attempt to reduce greenhouse gases which contribute to global warming. Wal-Mart wants to become environmentally friendly, and they are not alone in this growing trend. According to the National Association of Manufacturers, companies could be saving $19 billion a year if they use their resources wisely. Cargill, a global food processor, is turning waste into energy. Th ey are using meat scraps to make methane which replaces high-cost natural gas. From Wal-Mart to meat manufacturers, companies are spending less green to save more green and are improving our environment in the process.