#10 Listening Post- Eichenberger Lobby, A.K.A. the Hall of Justice

  Nerds assemble! In college it's good to find friends who you can relate with, finding your people is important. Now, personally i'm a social Jack-of-all-trades and I can hang with just about any crowd but the students in Eichenberger Hall are......special creatures. I chose the lobby and my fellow dorm mates as my listening post because I spend the majority of my free time there. Since Eichenberger is the engineering and nursing dorm you can expect that the students are borderline geniuses, at least when it comes to math. I have a slightly different perspective being a mass communications major, while i'm pretty versatile as far as conversation skills go, when they start talking math my ears turn themselves off.  So often times when they're banging out 12 pages worth of circuits homework i'm less than useful but when they need help with an essay i'm their golden goose. To be honest I try to steer the conversations toward waters i'm more familiar with and that often leads to humorous interactions or half-cocked debates about nonsensical topics.

  An example of what qualifies as news for our lobby is essentially anything pertaining to entertainment in a wide array of categories such as video games, television, comic books, or memes. The latter of which being one of the most discussed. No topic is safe from becoming a meme in our hall. I've been following the struggle in Hong Kong since it is a matter of freedom of the press and the people, and it's also a known fact that I love basketball. Both of which were combined into a now heavily circulating meme which we witnessed live. The NBA has recently reprimanded anyone who showed support for Hong Kong such as the Rockets GM. Well a child at NBA game had other plans. He baited the dance cam by waiving around an L.A. Clippers shirt then when the camera zoomed in he dropped it revealing a shirt showing support for the citizens in Hong Kong. We were shocked, impressed, and couldn't help but laugh at how this kid stuck it to the entire organization which was more concerned with profit loss than freedom.

Kid Pulls an Elegant Bait and Switch in Support of Hong Kong

  Now some of our other topics are a little to "edgy" for this blog so we'll move on to video games. We often spend our free time playing video games such as Super Smash Brothers, NBA 2k, and Mario Kart in the lobby. In between rounds we often discuss what's new in the world of video games whether it be Blizzards censorship of Hong Kong protests, over priced memberships for failed games like Fallout 76, or reminiscing on the lies that No Man's Sky sold its customers to try and boost sales. If there's a new game in development Eichenberger lobby most likely has the scoop. The same holds true with films, but that's mainly due to my contributions. I'm also known in some circles as the movie guy, you name it and I've probably seen it. We're always up to date on which comic books are being adapted for the big screen and what TV shows are due to come out in any given month. I think I stirred a ton of excitment when I shared all the titles that will be available with the launch of the Disney+ streaming service.

All Known Titles Coming To DIsney+ on Launch

  While the news and info we share may not be seen as particularly important by most its what we enjoy. We're all nerds to some extent and it's nice to have a place to talk about our interests with like minded people. This isn't to say that we don't have the occasional "Is water wet?" or "If there was no friction could we grab things?" debate. All in all we mainly congregate there to have a good time and we always manage to achieve that.

#8 Public Records- Texarkana Restaurants by the Numbers

  As a food devotee who's eaten his way through most of the restaurants in the Texarkana area it's interesting to see what scores local establishments get on their health inspections. As someone with experience working in a fairly nice restaurant I feel like I have a solid insight into what sort of violations are commonly taking place. Interestingly enough only Texarkana, Texas businesses are listed so I wasn't able to retrieve my own place of employments rating.

Health Inspection Ratings

  As a loyal Cane's customer sometimes frequenting multiple times a week after work I was happy to see their score was 100. Having taken a peek into the kitchen I can see why they were able to get a perfect score, everything looked immaculate. Fast food restaurants are often knocked as unclean but that all depends on management, I've seen many upscale restaurants with much dirtier equipment and spaces. It's notable that Osaka's, a high class hibachi joint, received a rating of three points lower. Cane's also managed to score seven points higher than Longhorn Steakhouse. Now reasons for this could include the types of food prepared. More health violations tend to occur in places that work with raw meat. So in a way upscale restaurants can have significantly higher chances of mishandling food and perpetuating food born illnesses.

     
  The lowest score on the list is Lee's China which comes in at 69 (nice). I can see why Lee's might have received this score. The kitchen and dining area often appear visually dirty but the food tastes quality so I usually try to ignore the warning signs. Maybe i'm playing a dangerous game but a 69 isn't the lowest possible score that could have been given. Chinese restaurants tend to catch a bad rep around the Texarkana area from Golden Palace to China King Buffet there are clear violations and they look grimy in general but the prices and food aren't bad so much like me people try to ignore it.

#7- Campus News- "5 rapes reported on SLU campus in 8 weeks"

  Since August 9th there have been five separate reports of rape concurring on the Saint Luis University. Four of the occurrences happened in university housing and one happened near Herman Stadium. A quote from a student interviewed said "It's really sad that it's that many in such a short amount of time,".

Clery Report for SLU

SLU Campus

  By decision of the victims none of the rapes are being investigated by the St. Louis police. Instead the incidents are being handled by the Title IX office. Coordinator Anna Kratky had an interesting view on the situation, "I would be very worried if our numbers were zero, right, because we know these things are happening. And if they are happening, we need to know about it so we can help our students"

Anna Kratky, Title IX Coordinator 

  It is interesting to note that Washington University and UMLS have had zero reports of rape. Also a university twice the size of St. Louis University, the University of Missouri-Columbia, has the same number. Kratky feels like there aren't more incidents at SLU but that students are more comfortable reporting them. "When you say the number five what that means to me is that students here at SLU know how to report, they know where my office is and who I am, and they know how to get the support and resources that they may need after something like this happens,”.

More Info on Title IX and The Fight to End Rape on Campus

Based on statistics showing that an estimated 20-25% of female students will encounter some sort of sexual assault on campus then Kratky's stance makes perfect sense. Sadly preventing these crimes completely is nearly impossible but at least on campuses like SLU victims will have a safe place to turn to so they can get the help they need.

Original Article

#6- Campus Crime, Duke University vs. Southern Arkansas University

The Clery Act requires Colleges to publish annual crime statistics, After viewing SAU's statistics I decided to take a look at a larger school such as Duke University. I found the comparisons interesting due to size and differences in safety protocol. I found that even with more extensive safety measures Duke has a significantly higher crime rate.

Clery Report 2019 Duke- https://forms.hr.duke.edu/media/police/2019%20Annual%20Clery%20Campus%20Security%20Report.pdf

Clery Report 2018 SAU-https://cd1.saumag.edu/police/files/2019/09/2018-Clery-report.pdf 

To break down some numbers on the reports themselves Duke has a 65 page long report dealing with all the various incidents and the sources of help for victims on campus. In comparison SAU only has 45 pages. Duke seems to have more resources to deal with these criminal acts but that is likely because duke is proportionally larger. SAU had an enrollment of around 3, 546 whereas Duke had nearly 5 times that with around 15,892.

Looking at crimes like "fondling" SAU only had one reported incident in 2018 whereas Duke had 13.

As far as domestic violence SAU had 2 incidents and Duke had 20. Stalking seems to be a major issue at Duke whereas SAU had few incidents actually reported, so much so that there wasn't and official category for that particular statistic at SAU. Stalking was up from 16 cases up to 38. Duke has a fairly high number of motor vehicle thefts which doesn't seem to be as big of a problem on our campus.

https://today.duke.edu/2018/09/duke-releases-annual-security-report

One thing shared by both schools is the distinct lack of murders. The only murder that took place involving Duke was their NCAA finals run.