“Horne’s legal tap-dancing undercuts rule of law” by Peter Northfelt

We’re at it again with Arizona State Attorney General Tom Horne. Rather, he’s at it again.

Yavapai County AttorneySheila Polk found that Horne violated Arizona’s campaign finance laws when he ran for attorney general in 2010 and accepted around $400,000 from an outside group which was chaired by Kathleen Winn, his aide at the time.

We could have been done with this earlier in the year, but Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery and Secretary of State Ken Bennett didn’t count their p’s and q’s and the lawsuit to bring Horne to justice over the issue was thrown out on procedural grounds.

I’m not sure if this is just confusion on the part of three Republican elected officials or if they are colluding by simply playing dumb. At the very least, a lot of people who hold responsibility for the laws in Arizona are messing up.

The State Press
Arizona State University

Full article here.

“New tailored Google ads risk user privacy” by Cecilia Callas

The company updated its terms of use on Friday to allow these “shared endorsements,” stating that its Google users will soon be seeing their names, faces and comments in ads beginning Nov. 11.

The reviews will be pulled from content they’ve shared on Google or other Google services such as YouTube. That means that anything you’ve ever written on a YouTube video could be exploited for Google’s advertising purposes.

Despite the usefulness that personalized endorsements could provide to Google users, the new policy is not only an invasion of privacy, but also a little tacky.

In regards to privacy, Google users probably never imagined that their reviews would one day be used to help Google profit and to help advertisers sell a product. Their words and online support for products were written when no such endorsement policy existed, and had Google users known their words could one day be much more visible in Google searches, they might have worded a review differently or simply not written one at all.

The Daily Trojan
University of Southern California

Full article here.

“Humanities majors’ post-grad fears are unwarranted” by Maia Ferdman

As a global studies student with an English minor, I shudder at my prospects after graduation.

Friends, family and even people I’ve just met ask me how I am going to turn my degree into something useful – in other words, how I am going to make money.

In reality, humanities and social science majors provide broad-based skills that are applicable to any job, said Barbara Van Nostrand, an academic adviser based in the Department of Musicology.
She has heard of an English student who went on to be a comedian, one in applied linguistics who works for Google and an Italian major who worked for the Obama campaign.

Recent surveys commissioned by Northeastern University reveal that skills like critical thinking, effective and clear communication and problem solving are in high demand among employers. Humanities students happen to excel at those very skills, compelled as we are to read closely, micro-analyze and debate profusely.

The Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles

Full article here.

“Punish kids by detention, not detainment” by Marissa Mararac

When we think about crime, the first thoughts that usually come to mind are robberies, murders or even speeding on the freeway. However, children are being arrested for crimes that lack the same level of unlawfulness.

[An] arrest of a child occurred in Arvada, Colo. An 11-year-old boy with attention deficit disorder was handcuffed, photographed, fingerprinted, and thrown in a jail cell after he drew an offensive picture about his teacher during class in October 2011, according to the Daily News. The boy was doing what his therapist had suggested he do in class, instead of throwing a tantrum. Regardless of the facts, the boy was put on probation and charged with a third degree misdemeanor.

Children 13 years old or younger are being arrested and taken into custody by authorities for actions such as writing on a school desk or relentless bullying. These are minor infractions that could, and should, be handled within a school. Kids should not be given the same types of punishments that robbers and reckless drivers receive.

The Daily Evergreen
Washington State University

Full article here.