Pulled Quotes

In a recent article in USA Today, an 8th grader was suspended from his school in New Haven, CT for purchasing a bag of Skittles from a fellow classmate. The article briefly discusses the situation that occurred, and highlights the academic credibility of this student – whom was apparently Vice President of his class. However, after this incident, the school took that title away from him. His suspension was originally set for 3 days, but has now been brought down to just 1.

An article like this is newsworthy for the sheer principle of the matter – why is such a miniscule, innocent situation being taken so seriously? Disciplinary actions should not be the consequence for a couple of kids passing off candy to each other in class. I can side with the school in the fact that the buying and selling of something like candy may only pave the way to other more illegal, profitable transactions between students, but thus far, that is not the case. This reminded me of a time in the mid ’90s when I was in 5th or 6th grade, and the fad of playing with “pogs and slammers” were banned from school, because of how the trading and selling of such items were beginning to make students competitive, jealous, and hostile towards one another. Also, it obviously took away from the concentration we are supposed to have in an educational setting. So, this article can probably hit home for anyone who has ever had their school take something away from them: pogs, slap bracelets, short skirts, and even candy.

CNN online edition recently reported on claims made by Geraldine Ferraro claiming that Barack Obama was only a presidential candidate because of his race.  Though such an issue is important, especially since Ferraro is one of Clinton’s top aides in her campaign committee; the article only spent a short amount of time discussing the issue at hand before moving to political issues of the candidates, and other various semi-related past news on the presidential race.

The article just did not have enough to report on.  After discussing the main issue in the first few paragraphs the writer tangents to information that is only vaguely relevant to the article and seems to wasted the readers time.  If the reader wanted to know about candidate platforms they would read articles specifically on those issues, articles that explore those issues, instead of just jumping around and barely touching many fairly useless points.  Though the article started with promise it ran out of information and ended up using unnecessary filler.