The most important characteristics in a political contender are experience, stability in decision-making, and a passion for bettering the world. Sen. Clinton embodies all of these essentials.Clearly, Sen. Clinton has the experience necessary to effectively run the United States. Not only has she been a senator for the last eight years, but she also lived alongside President Clinton for his eight years in office, observing and helping in the running of the country firsthand.

I slip the small white controller into my hands, toggling the right thumbstick with my finger. Checking to see if my headset is firmly on my head, I give a shout.In conjunction with my Call of Duty 4 battle cry, my mother gives a shout of her own. Except this cry is much more intimidating, the cry of a woman angry with her lazy son.

What a person wears expresses who they are. But what happens when our expression gets out of control? A new dress code, that’s what.Two dress codes were proposed on April 12, 2007 at a Clarke County School District meeting. The first code is similar to what we already have, stating that kids must dress in good taste. The second is an attempt to take away any freedom we have in deciding what we wear at school.“The (stricter) dress code is the same as putting us in uniforms; you’re taking away our originality,” Clarke Central High School sophomore Alisha Kelley said.

Last year, in my junior year, teachers and counselors began to say “college” every other word. Halfway through the year I decided that I would take a step off the traditional road of education to take a path less traveled.An option that has been gaining popularity in Europe and, more recently, the U.S. is taking a year off. Sometimes it feels as if we’re being rushed down an assembly line to be fit into place in society. After high school - the last level of learning we are required by law to complete - what next? College? The workforce? The Marines?The trend of taking a year off, or taking a gap year, originated in the ‘60s with students traveling abroad or volunteering in the Peace Corps to take a break from education or the work force.

As she saw her 6’ 5″ Russian father sitting in the waiting room of the emergency room, she saw a tear run down his face. That tear let her know how serious the situation was. In her 14 years of life, she had never seen him cry.A nurse punched in a code, and the double doors to the emergency room opened. She followed the nurse to the room where her mother was staying until she was taken into surgery. She was shaking as she opened the door; she saw something she never expected to see. Her frail, thin mother was lying on the hospital bed literally scared for her life.The girl walked up to the bed and approached her mother slowly. Her mother was white in the face and shaking. She was wearing the flimsy hospital gown. There were IV’s stuck into every place possible. The girl sat down next to her mother’s white hospital bed.The mother told the girl about the risky and often unsuccessful surgery — to correct her aortic dissection. There was a tear from her heart to her pelvis. The chances of survival were slim; there was a staggering 80 percent mortality rate.

I am a Crowe. It’s the way I have always defined myself: as a proud member of an eccentric family. Ever since the day I was old enough to open my eyes, I found myself immersed in the loud, crazy and always unpredictable environment of family events.Over the years I have observed that some things about us never change. We, as a family, love to do several things more than any others: we love being together, we love eating, and most of all we love to tell stories.The scene is usually about the same no matter where we are. Picture a group of about twenty people: younger kids scattered around, teenagers, adults, and maybe some less familiar faces. Picture these people crowded into a room somewhere, finding a place to sit wherever they can, all listening intently to a story that has most likely been told to them more than one time already.

I sat in my room in my pink armchair. My friend’s voice buzzed in my ear, chatting about this and that. Then she said it. …..”Hannah, let’s go on a diet.” That was all that she said, but it was still enough to have me sigh inwardly about how stupid diets were. They are not something I agree with. In fact, I oppose most diets. It’s not about the food you eat, it’s about how much of an effort you make to control the amounts of what you consume.Nonetheless, I gave an ‘I-don’t-really-want-to-but-OK-anyway’ reply. I was all for supporting my friend, and considering she wasn’t the “extreme diet” type I figured this might be a healthy decision. Plus, the “baby fat” on my stomach was getting annoying. The deal was done and all that was left was to set the rules. Diets are nothing without guidelines.Our diet is simple: eat healthy, exercise, and, if by chance your food choice is not the healthiest, pay close attention to proportion. After all, neither of us thought we were fat, we just wanted to lose that little stomach pouch and maybe go down a pant size at the most.

Foot and Mouth Disease. African Swine Fever. Rift Valley Fever. Classical Swine Fever. Nipah Virus. Hendra Virus. Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia. Japanese Encephalitis virus. All deadly and incurable. All possible diseases to be studied right here in our own backyard.Many fear that if a National Bio and Agro- Defense Facility came to Athens, the research would negatively affect human safety and the environment. They point to several important and as yet unanswered concerns. While bio-terrorism is a real threat that needs to be researched, we should not consider bringing this facility into our community until these and other important issues are fully addressed.First, although the safety record for these box-within-a-box containment labs is very good, none have been built on this scale before. This lab is expected to host a whole herd of large and small animals to be test-infected.

Spring semester at Clarke Central High School is unmistakable. The dogwood trees are in bloom, the front lawn is glazed with dew and there are strangers who look roughly a year older than me teaching all of my classes.The slow trickle of student teachers into the halls of CCHS begins during fall semester, but by spring, it seems as if there are two or three hopeful, seemingly adolescent student teachers in each room.They stumble through the halls like oversized freshman and sit timidly in the back of classrooms waiting for the teacher to introduce them to a group of unwelcoming students. “Class, this is Ms. So-and-so. In a few weeks, she’ll be teaching our class for a little while.”

I felt stupid. In awe, yes, but stupid is the key word in the whole experience. Before March 27, I considered myself aware.I glance over the newspaper in the morning, frequent channels like CNN and MSNBC and listen to NPR on occasion. I even get excited when my subscription to Newsweek arrives in the mail. Heck, I’m a student journalist.But as I sat in the audience of the Classic Center on that Thursday, I realized just how uninformed I am. I, along with a packed auditorium, was there to see five former Secretaries of State have a bipartisan panel discussion of current foreign affairs.The group consisting of Henry Kissinger, Warren Christopher, James Baker III, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell came together to make suggestions for the next president of the United States. It’s an event held every four years, before the presedential election.