Whitney Houston's Legend Lives On

Recently, Whitney Houston passed away. The cause of her death is still unknown. But everyone knew what an impact she made on the music world and what an amazing voice she had.

Over her lifetime, she had 2 Emmy Awards, 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, and 22 American Music Awards. She was discovered by Arista Records label head Clive Davis. Houston released seven studio albums and three movie soundtrack albums, all of which have diamond, multi-platinum, platinum or gold certification.

Whitney Houston is the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits including "Saving All My Love for You"; "How Will I Know"; "Greatest Love of All"; "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)"; "Didn't We Almost Have It All"; "So Emotional" and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go".

Houston was a mezzo-soprano, and was commonly referred to as "The Voice" in reference to her incredible vocal talent. Her vocal range extended from G below middle C (G3) to high B-flat (B♭5. She was third in MTV's list of 22 Greatest Voices, and sixth on Online Magazine COVE's list of the 100 Best Pop Vocalists with a score of 48.5/50. In 2008, Rolling Stone listed Houston as the thirty-fourth of the 100 greatest singers of all time, stating, "Her voice is a mammoth, coruscating cry: Few vocalists could get away with opening a song with 45 unaccompanied seconds of singing, but Houston's powerhouse version of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" is a tour de force."

Whitney Houston's vocal styling has had a significant impact on the music industry. She has been called the "Queen of Pop" for her influence during the 1990s, becoming a rival to Mariah Carey and Celine Dion. Stephen Holden from The New York Times, in his review of Houston's Radio City Music Hall concert on July 20, 1993, praised her attitude as a singer highly, writing "Whitney Houston is one of the few contemporary pop stars of whom it might be said: the voice suffices. While almost every performer whose albums sell in the millions calls upon an entertainer's bag of tricks, from telling jokes to dancing to circus pyrotechnics, Ms. Houston would rather just stand there and sing."

Not only did Whitney influence people with her voice, but also with her ability to break down racial barriers. During the 1980s, MTV was becoming popular and received harsh criticism for not playing enough videos by black artists. With Michael Jackson breaking down the color barrier for black male artists, Houston did the same for black female artists. She became one of the few black female artists to receive heavy rotation on the network following the success of the "How Will I Know" video. Following Houston's breakthrough, other African-American female artists, such as Janet Jackson and Anita Baker, were successful in popular music. Baker stated that "Because of what Whitney and Sade did, there was an opening for me... For radio stations, black women singers aren't taboo anymore.”

It is obvious that Whitney had a substantial impact on the music world. Her voice was unlike anyone else’s and no one could quite match her talent. She was beautiful and sang to an almost perfection. Although I myself haven’t really listened to her as much as some other, from what I have heard, she’s unbelievably talented. Nowadays, we don’t see these kinds of voices, the kinds of voices that move you and hit all the right notes.

Whitney may have passed, but her legend will live on for being such an important part to great music.

Obama's New Plan

Birth control has been a huge social issue for a long time. Many people oppose it, while many people are for it. But recently it’s been getting a lot of attention due to President Barak Obama’s new birth control plan. He has called for religious groups to offer free contraceptive coverage for their workers.

Now this, to me, doesn’t seem entirely crazy. With the health insurance most jobs receive, free contraceptive is included in it. So why can’t people that work for religious groups have that too? If a Catholic woman works for a church, they don’t cover birth control in her health insurance plan but if a Catholic woman worked at a business corporation she does receive free contraception in her health insurance. They both believe in the same God and follow the same ideals, but just because one works for the church then she doesn’t get the birth control included in her health insurance plan? How is that fair?

Although I’m in favor of this plan, many, many Catholics are not. In the Catholic faith, birth control is not to be used. The faith does not believe in it and finds it to be a sin. In Catholicism, you are expected that you will only have sex after marriage so you wouldn’t need birth control. Wanting birth control then implies that you plan to have sex before marriage.

But sometimes, that isn’t even the case. Birth control actually helps for women’s menstrual cycles to be less of an issue. Some women have really bad cramps during their period and get extremely nauseous. By using birth control they can lessen their symptoms. Why should a woman be denied of that? She may still believe in sex after marriage but she just doesn’t want to deal with having such horrible menstrual cycles. I don’t see how that’s fair to deny her the right to have them be free under her health insurance plan.

Some Bishops around the nation had these things to say:

"We as Catholics will have no choice but to cover the cost for health insurance which provides such so-called 'services' that we consider immoral and cannot choose in good conscience."

Accusing the Obama administration of violating their first amendment rights, "We Catholics will be denied the right to follow our moral consciences, as well as the ability to offer health coverage for our employees."

"It forces us back into a position that we find untenable," said Patrick Cacchione, director of the Illinois Catholic Health Association. "We're not going to pay or provide or participate in something that we think is immoral."

Barak Obama, being under pressure, actually backed down on Friday to this new law he wanted to propose. He demanded that insurance companies step in and pay for the coverage instead.

I think this issue is going to continue to go back and forth but I really do like what Obama has in mind. I do understand that it goes against the beliefs of the Catholic Church, but I think all women should have that same coverage. Whether a woman is using it so she doesn’t become pregnant, or she’s using it to lessen her menstrual cycle symptoms, it’s the right thing to do to let them decide. If a woman is a true Catholic and gets this coverage, she wouldn’t need to use it, right? So what’s the worry? Besides, most Catholics I know (me being included) don’t follow every ideal the religion displays. So honestly, I don’t see it as a huge problem.

Annoying Retail Companies

Does anyone else find it super annoying that stores have to have people sign up for their personal credit cards?

Sears employees are required to ask every customer if they want to sign up for 1 of their 3 credit cards otherwise they get written up. But who would want that card?? It has a 25% interest rate! Nobody wants to sign up that! Why would the employees be judged on their performance based of the credit applications they have? Isn’t the customer always right? If they don’t want it, then they don’t want it.

Kohl’s also has their own credit card. The employees are required to ask about the customer signing up 3 different times during the single transaction. 3 times?! Really?! Are they going to suddenly change their mind once you ask them the third time as opposed to the first two?

I think it’s really annoying that retail companies do that. If you’re really going to revolve around customer service, the question needs only to be asked once and if the customer says no, then it shouldn’t be brought back up.

Good Mood Music

Listed below is some of my favorite good mood music. It’s the kind of happy music that really puts you in a good mood.

Michele Buble – I Haven’t Met You Yet

This song is awesome because he’s just so optimistic about meeting his love. Even though he’s never met who he will fall in love with, he’s promising that person that he will be selfless and committing to them. It has a really upbeat harmony and the rhythm is great too. The chorus is probably the happiest part:

And I know that someday it’ll all turn out

You’ll make me work so we can work to work it out

And I promise you, kid, that I’ll give so much more than I get

I just haven’t met you yet

Drake Bell – Makes Me Happy

Drake Bell got his start form Nickelodeon and has been musically talented during his entire career on there. Towards the ending of the seasons of “Drake and Josh” he wrote and performed the song “Makes Me Happy”. The title really speaks for itself. Throughout the entire song he’s describing how happy he feels to love this girl and exactly how it feels to him. It has a great beat and it’s hard not to sing along when you’re listening to it. The whole song revolves around this kind of idea:

You're everything I need, handed from above
I can't get enough of your love
Cause it makes me happy

Jonas Brothers – S.O.S

Now the previous two songs were about love and how nice it is to be in love. It’s really hard to be happy when things are going wrong in a relationship. However, the Jonas Brothers found a way to describe that in a fun “I don’t care anymore” kind of way. They talk about their relationship going downhill in a way that makes you kind of laugh and realize that it’s not worth it to have that kind of relationship. The song starts off with this:

Told you I made dinner plans
For you and me and no one else
That don't include your crazy friends
Well I'm done
With awkward situation's empty conversations

Mika – Lollipop

In general, Mika is just a really fun guy. He’s really funny in his music and it’s always so different from the mainstream that it’s refreshing to hear. It’s really easy to sing along with and learn the words quickly. Most of his music is easy to just dance to as well. It’s just music that makes you smile. This song talks about love too, but why you should watch out for it or avoid it. The starting of the song into the chorus goes like this:

I went walking with my momma one day
When she warned me what people say
Live your life until love is found
'Cause loves gonna get you down.
Take a look at the girl next door
She's a player and a downright bore
Jesus loves her but she wants more
Oh, bad girls get you down.

Sing it!
Sucking too hard on your lollipop
Oh, loves gonna get you down

Fat Cats

Many people argue over the term limits of the president. I don’t think that the presidential term limits need to be changed, but the Congress needs to have a term limit. The fact that someone can continuously get re-elected however many times they want is unfair and doesn’t let change come easily.

In Congress, slightly over half the members are Protestant. However, considering that Protestants consist of more than 3 different practices for different parts of the religion, then Catholics (at 30%) are the majority of Congress. Jewish religion is represented by about 9% of the Congress members. Mormons make up almost 3% of Congress, while Buddhists and Muslims only represent .4% of the Congress population. Some religions aren’t even represented in Congress.

Although there is a separation of church and state, wouldn’t it still be fair to let everyone have their national population percentage of their religion also represented in the Congress? Some bills that pass or do not pass have a lot to deal with religion, like abortion rights. We should be able to have Congress set to an amount of terms so we can get new people in every so often to represent their own religion.

Another reason we need to keep adding new people to the Congress and taking out older people is because racism isn’t as prominent today as it was a while ago. Some men in the congress are still against blacks because that was the time they were raised. Doug Lamborn, born in the mid-50s, just recently had called Obama a ‘tar baby’. He said being associated with Obama was like being stuck to a tar baby. Although he claims he’s not racist, someone who didn’t see people based on their color would never refer to Obama as that.

Jim Sensenbrenner, born in the early 1940s, had actually used a stereotype for black women to describe the first lady, Michele Obama. He said that she “lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself”. Many people know that a stereotype of black women is that they have ‘ghetto booties’. For a congressman to refer to her as such is incredibly rude and can definitely be taken not only stereotypical, but also racist.

Mark Neumann, born in the early 1950s, had said that gays are unacceptable and he would never hire a homosexual because they are “promoting their agenda”. Louie Gohmert, also born in the early 1950s, is against the ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy and thinks homosexuality is just “perverse, social experimentation”.

Often these kinds of congressmen are referred to as the ‘fat cats’. To elaborate, they are the idea of the big fat white man who can’t give change a chance and is stuck in his ways. This isn’t how the congress should be. It should be diverse and open minded and trying to change to better the society. Being against colors and religions and sexual orientations isn’t helping society. We’re all equal so we should all be represented in that way. We shouldn’t be represented againt.

Iowa Fog

Recently, fog has been impacting Iowa, reducing visibility to zero in some parts of the state. But what is fog?

Fog is a collection of liquid water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated locally (such as from a nearby body of water, like a lake or the ocean, or from nearby moist ground or marshes).

So it is because of the moisture from the recent snowfalls that the fog is so prominent.

Redheads Deserve Respect

We’ve all heard of bullying happening to homosexuals, overweight people, and different types of races. But what about redhead bullying? Surprisingly, people with red hair get bullied often as they grow up.

It seems to have become more popular after the popular cartoon, "South Park." The show regularly features its characters harassing redheads, and several years ago started to run an episode which featured a "Kick a Ginger Day." Now each year, on Nov. 20, dozens of redheads have reported being kicked by classmates and strangers who have a problem with their hair color.

Many redheads also find the word ‘ginger’ to be very derogatory. Everyday kids will get picked on and called names and made fun of all because their hair is red.

One woman said she actually gets her hair pulled in public by stranger as they hiss ‘ginger nut’. She also gets verbal abuse from passing cars and has to deal with her co-workers making ‘ginger jokes’.

Three young boys (one 13 and two 12) were arrested for bullying on redheads. They threatened to injure him online and would try to follow through at school. One young girl got her legs kicked from behind (due to South Park’s “Kick A Ginger Day”) and she was really terrified. She said she has heard other people say that they get kicked many, many times.

There aren’t very logical reasons as to why redheads get bullied. One idea suggests that redheads are short-tempered so it’s ‘fun’ to mess with that. However, that is a stereotype of redheads. Another idea is because of propaganda such as South Park. When kids watch South Park they think it’s funny and acceptable to bully redheads.

Now this may seem like South Park is an awful show and influence (Which I personally think it is) but in their defense, that’s not what the episode really portrayed. Many people misunderstood what the episode was trying to achieve. South Park used gingers to mirror the struggles of the black civil rights movement in the United States. However, if you rearrange the word gingers, it makes a derogatory term for blacks, so the N word. This indeed was a hard idea to grasp considering the imaginable intellects of the people who watch South Park, but the idea of bullying gingers because of it got way out of hand.

All bullying really is is teasing someone because they’re different. Doing so only because they are different is one horrible excuse. Everyone deserves respect until they prove that they don’t deserve it. A redhead has zero control over what color their hair is, it’s all just genetics. So why would you bother them as if they made a really ‘odd’ choice? Most students now wouldn’t dare single out an African American and call them names. But for redheads it’s okay? It’s not okay! No one deserves to be bullied. People that bully are just horrible and need to realize what they’re doing to their victims.

Being different is a good thing. Everyone is unique and that’s how we were made. We are all supposed to be different and look different and if people can’t accept that then they need to keep their comments to themselves. Nothing is wrong with having red hair, or black skin, or prefer the same gender. Everyone deserves a chance and bullies need to realize that too.