Writer advocates staying informed

During my entire childhood, my parents always encouraged me to take the initiative to learn and discover on my own. I read voraciously, devouring books in hours. At my peak, I read over 70 pages an hour and one summer I read over 100 books. I've always had a thousand random facts floating around in my head.

My decision to enter the world of journalism hasn't done anything to stem the tide of information. In my opinion, everyone should read some publication by a news outlet everyday, preferably a major metropolitan one like the New York Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, or the London Times, merely so that they have a grasp of what is happening around the world.

It shocks me, then, when I run into people that are uninformed or apathetic about world events. I don't expect everyone to care about every little thing, but the world is much bigger than Commerce, and there are very new, exciting and frightening things happening.

We have unprecedented social unrest in the Middle East. Everyday people are toppling tyrants that have been in power for decades by merely protesting. There was an earthquake in New Zealand that reduced much of Christchurch, the second largest urban area in the country, to ruble and killed at least 100 people. State senators in Wisconsin and Indiana are refusing to attend legislative sessions in hopes to suspend legislation that would weaken unions in both states.

Even in Commerce there are news items that affect the daily lives of students, faculty and staff and community members. New restaurants are being opened even as old ones close, the administration and faculty are trying to come to grips with a 12 percent budget cut, and the university is changing a college structure that has been in place as long as anyone can remember.

Here are some suggestions for staying up-to-date in current events:

-Create a Twitter account and follow your favorite news sources. Twitter allows you to have what is essentially a headline feed, allowing you to read stories that interest you more in-depth while catching all major headlines.

-Subscribe to e-mail updates from a major news organization, like the New York Times.

-Watch news organizations' YouTube channels. Most major metro papers have some kind of news update that gives you the basic gist of the day's stories.

-Buy a newspaper and a Starbucks beverage and spend an hour reading it. Not only will you relax, you'll have a greater appreciation for the world you live in.