If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated region on the planet. It may not be news to anyone who has access to a computer that the internet has drastically changed in the past ten years. One might not expect that the internet would be a topic frequented in a history class, but taking a journey back in time will reveal some specific areas in which the web has been altered since its innovation.

Email:  Its initiation in 1988 revolutionized the communication world. Now there are nearly 97 billion emails sent every day.

Google: So prevalent it acts as a noun and a verb. In just one month it typically has over 500 million visitors.

Instant Messaging: Spawning the catchphrases of the decade (i.e.: LOL, OMG, and TTYL) instant messaging was launched in the mid-nineties.

Music Downloading: There was the illegal kind, Napster, which was created in the dorm room of a college kid. And now there is the legal iTunes which emerged as a result of the impact Napster had on record companies.

YouTube: Google bought this user generated video-sharing site for $1.65 billion dollars in 2006.

Social Networking: From Xanga to MySpace to Facebook and all of their subdivisions there is constant growth in social networking. These sites are not only popular with teens, but statistics show that there are slightly more users between the ages of 45 and 65 than there are between the ages of 13 and 17.

The evolution of the internet was a growth that impressed technology advocates and has motivated them to seek out new ways to expand, resulting in the many milestones we have seen in our lifetime.

Christmas day is usually regarded as a peaceful holiday with family, food, and presents. However, around noon on Christmas day of 2009, the quietest day of the year, all hell almost broke loose. The disruption was a young, 23-year-old man from Nigeria named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to detonate a bomb on the Northwest Flight 253 plane flying from Lagos to Amsterdam to Detroit.

There were multiple signs that this was about to happen, but they went unnoticed. About seven months earlier, Abdulmutallab had earned himself a spot on a security watch list in Britain after applying for a visa to attend a dubious English university. After he broke off contact with his family to join the war on the West, his own father reported him as a possible threat at the U.S. embassy in Abuja. The day of the attempt, Abdulmutallab bought a $2,831 flight ticket and paid for it in cash. He didn’t leave any contact information with the airline and checked no bags.

No one, not even the American officials, had any clue that this was going to happen. Not until the plane was beginning its descent into Detroit did a few brave passengers step in to prevent what all the early-warning systems and security personnel could not: stop a terrorist trying to set off a bomb. As they were being strapped in for landing, an explosion came from the left side of the fuselage just over the wing. Alain Ghonda was the first to see the thick, dark gray smoke coming from the man in seat 19A. He alerted everyone by yelling, “Fire!” As he did, flames shot from Abdulmutallab’s lap.

Instantly, another passenger, Jasper Schuringa, leapt across the middle section of seats and threw himself on top of the bomber, shouting at his fellow passengers to pass water bottles and blankets his way. Two flight attendants drenched the two men with fire extinguishers. Abdulmutallab, torched and naked from waist to knees, was rushed to the first-class cabin and restrained. The whole ordeal had taken less than ten minutes.

This airline incident represented the second time in the past year that alleged Islamic terrorists have tried to launch a strike on America— and may be the first time that such an assault was directed from Yemen. That’s a reminder that the struggle against jihadism is not confined to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where U.S. forces are now stationed. In its near catastrophic outcome, the story of Flight 253 is a reminder that the war on terrorism is not yet over — and may be just beginning. 

After his last story publication over 50 years ago, the famous author of “The Catcher in the Rye,” J.D. Salinger, died in his New Hampshire home of natural causes.

When “The Catcher in the Rye” was published in 1951, the novel became an instant classic because of its’ relatable, teenage, main character, Holden Caulfield. Voted one of the Top 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to present by TIME magazine, there has been over 60 million of the book copies sold for its’ dry humor and truthful portrayal of an adolescent life.

The success of the literary genius did not cease, but continued in 1953 with the release of “Nine Stories,” which transformed the format of the short story with sharp observations and perfect dialogue and inspired authors like John Updike and Harold Brodkey.

Unfortunately, every great writer has his/her faults. Salinger told The New York Times in 1974, “Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.” With these thoughts, he bought a cabin in Cornish, NH in 1953 where he lived out the rest of his life, mostly in solitude.

His last two book publications in 1961 and 1963, “Franny and Zooey” and “Raise High, the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction,” were collections of work previously released in The New Yorker and revolved around the fictional Glass family. As his last work, Salinger had “Hapworth 16, 1924,” printed as a 25,000-word story that took up most of the June 19, 1965, issue of The New Yorker.

Despite his literary fame, Salinger has been known for his affairs with younger women that usually ended in heartache for the women. In 1998, Joyce Maynard published a memoir “At Home in the World,” which includes her recollections of her 10-month affair with Salinger when she was a Yale freshman. Salinger’s own daughter, Margaret Salinger, published a memoir in 2000 entitled “Dream Catcher,” a story about her estranged and complicated relationship with her father.

The only question that remains with the Salinger tragedy is whether the man actually kept writing. Anything that has been written since the release of his last publication would be contained in his safe at the Cornish house, but no one from the Salinger family or his literary representative are talking, yet. Thousands of his fans are praying for another book release, while their hearts are still breaking over his decease. If they are devastated, they may be keeping it to themselves from the advice of the author himself. In the words of Holden Caulfield, “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”

Principal Michael LaPorta received a phone call on January 7, alerting him of grave news; former teacher of East Hill Middle, Greg Ritter, had passed.

LaPorta had received a call from David Horvath, Principal of East Hills, that Ritter had shot himself earlier that morning.

“I immediately went into action mode,” said LaPorta.

Afterwards, LaPorta called an emergency faculty meeting. He had informed teachers of Ritter’s passing, and made sure that everyone would be able to cope with the loss of Ritter. In addition, teachers planned for the next day, knowing the next time students walked through the halls of Freedom, they would have heard of the news.

“I anticipated there would be a number of students who would be grieving the next day.”

The school formed its own crisis team, which included the Bethlehem Area School District’s psychologist in addition to various guidance counselors from around the school. The crisis team is not to be confused with the Student Assistance Program at Freedom.

Ritter, a former Boy Scout and Eagle Scout, was the adviser of Monagacci, a seventh grade program at East Hills that lasted for 13 years. Throughout this program, students learned various nature and survival skills, and went on various camping trips throughout the year. In addition to this, Ritter was the coach of East Hill’s cross country team.

However, the program ended in 2009 when Ritter was charged with having sexual relations with a young boy in Monroe County. He killed himself the day of his trial, when he had planned to plead guilty.

Prior to this, he had received national recognition by earning Disney’s American Teacher Award in 2000. He served in Pennsylvania’s National Guard from 1984 through 2000.

Ritter’s viewing was on January 13, and both students and faculty of Freedom High and East Hills Middle attended. LaPorta said that he needed to permit people to go to the viewing without consequence.

January 27, 2010 marked Apple’s latest tech market gift: the Apple iPad (or as most tech geeks refer to it, the iTablet).

After nearly three years of hype, Apple unveiled their iPhone on steroids to a select group of technology experts, media, and reporters. It was received with mixed reviews.

At first sight, the iPad appears to be an iPhone with a larger screen, a 9×7 inch screen. It includes many of the same features as the iPhone, with web browsing capabilities, media storage (currently in 16, 32, and 64gb capacities), app support with the full iTunes store, and comes with or without the 3G network, so AT&T carriers can rejoice (unfortunately, rumors of the iPhone and iPad coming to Verizon remain, for the time being, just rumors).

In addition, Apple has upped the ante of multimedia devices. The new software also comes with the iBook application. iBook allows users to download eBooks in epub format from the iBookstore, making Apple’s iPad the top competitor against Amazon’s Kindle, which until now has been the number one selling electronic reader device on the market with relatively no competition.

But despite many of the similarities, the iPad is clearly not the iPhone. As Steve Jobs, CEO and developer of the Apple trademark, said during the unveiling, the iPad is “much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone.”

While the iPad is still a newborn by Apple standards (expect many, many generations to come), the first generation of the iPad still disappointed some. With no new user interface, no flash support, no user-replaceable battery, no TV subscriptions, and no built-in camera (which many were eagerly anticipating), many reviewers are claiming no pressing need to replace laptops or desktops with the iPad.

This brings price to question.

As Apple is likely to do, anticipators of Apple’s latest device expected sky high prices. While starting prices are considerably less than anticipated, it definitely isn’t simple pocket change.

The cheapest model, the 16 GB iPad with wifi and no 3G costs $499, with prices ranging as high as $800 in some places. The most expensive model, the 64 GB with wifi and 3G, will cost consumers anywhere between $829 to a whopping $1100.

Though it certainly is a stunning device and a formidable tech gadget to ring in the new decade, many reviews are claiming it isn’t quite worth the money, despite its excellent performance. As it is, would-be buyers can decide for themselves just how inspiring the Apple iPad is when the device is officially released in March.

With the arrival of a new decade, many laws have officially been instated. From all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, the legislatures met in 2009, leading to the enactment of 40,697 laws, many of which came into effect on January 1, 2010.

In the state of California, various types of laws came as the world passed into a new decade. Some of these crazy laws include the paparazzi being sued for up to $50,000 for taking pictures of celebrities engaged in family activities; pet shop owners being required to use “humane” methods to kill rodents before feeding them to carnivores; and restaurants no longer being able to use oils, margarine, or shortening with more than half a gram of trans fat per serving.

In Texas, college freshman and transfer students will need to be vaccinated against bacterial meningitis before they can come and live on college campuses. Also in Texas, smoke detectors now need to be able to alert a hearing-impaired person if it is requested by the tenant.

Other laws affect states like Louisiana, where workers in stores are no longer allowed to sell lighters that appeal to younger children. A law that affects others of our age is in Oregon, where all children under 16 are now required to wear a seat belt in a vehicle, and the fine for people riding a motorcycle without a helmet will increase to an astounding $720.

In New Hampshire, Oregon, and Illinois, along with sixteen other states, drivers are now prohibited from sending text messages whilst operating their vehicle. A new break-out law was enacted in New Hampshire, where same-sex couples are able to marry under New Hampshire General Court HB 436. With the passing of all of these new laws, it is obvious that many changes will come about in American society as the decade progresses.

As I sit here writing this, the last strain of John Farnham’s You’re the Voice dwindles down to its final notes. A more appropriate song couldn’t be found on my playlist.

‘You’re the voice try and understand it, Make a noise and make it clear,’ he sings. I’m about to.

There are a number of sensitive subjects in Freedom High School, and as has been evidenced in many of my previous articles, I’ve made it my goal to prod each one of them with a giant stick. My latest victim: discrimination.

I don’t intend to label the word with the most malicious of connotations, but preponderance of veracity dictates that at least some modicum of light be shone on a problem that most simply choose to ignore.

Sitting in C-lunch for a half an hour every day since the beginning of the school year, it isn’t hard to see that certain leagues of people are favored over others. I use favored because it isn’t that people shift to a harsher disposition when dealing with specific groups of people, but that some groups are on the receiving end of the proverbial whip far less.

For instance, the jocks.

Maybe it falls on me that I’m not a more charismatic person. I sit at my lunch table as discreetly as possible (because in a school with population 1100+, it’s best not to draw attention to oneself). On the occasion that my table ‘participates in raucous behavior,’ no figure of authority in the cafeteria hesitates to take the stick to our hides, so to speak. Three tables down, the banging of trays on the hard wood, the harsh scraping of chairs, the cacophonous howls of laughter are nothing more than lunchroom background music. No one says a thing to them.

The halls.

School code states, in simple terms, no electronics. Anywhere. No cell phones, no iPods, no PSPs, not even a flashlight. I stick my hand in my pocket to shift my phone around, and the cameras are pointed at me, irrefutably saying, ‘I’m watching you.’ The person two steps ahead of me has their phone in their hands and their ear buds blasting a symphony of clatter in the already crowded hall. The hand of reprimand lies limp.

I would continue, but some sensitive toes may have already been trampled on.

I have little (read: none) reason to believe my article will change anything. I wrote about the appalling lack of heating in our school way back when and nothing changed, so it isn’t with the intention of usurping the prevalent mentality of charisma over law that I write this.

It’s John Farnham’s voice, telling me ‘not [to] sit in silence,’ that spurs me to at least bring it to attention.

In the United States, there is a wide array of issues that is on the mind of Americans, specifically the economic recession, the health care bill, and various other topics. On the bottom of this list is most likely global warming. With the recent failure of the Copenhagen climate conference, the rich nations and the poor countries of the world are not able to come to any agreements about preventing any further damage to the Earth. On the other hand, many countries are now turning to alternative energy sources to lower the amount of carbon emissions being released into the atmosphere.

Earlier this year, the United Kingdom proposed a project that will hopefully, by 2020, have 25% of the UK’s energy to be generated by 6,400 wind turbines distributed among nine different sites.  An assortment of German energy firms have been awarded contracts to build these nine wind farms with the bonuses of creating 70,000 jobs and reducing 40 million tons of carbon emissions a year. So, you ask, why hasn’t the United States gotten in on any of this action? Well, we may start using our brains soon enough.

The Gazoo Energy Group announced that Global Development, a company that is experienced with dealing with government agencies, will be helping the company secure a wind turbine manufacturing facility in New Mexico. With 300 new jobs for New Mexico and the ability to power 750,000 homes, a new plan has sprouted for wind turbines in Long Island, NY, as well. A 1,200 acre for Half Hallow Nursery installed by Eastern Energy Systems will be a part of New York’s goal to meet 45% of its’ energy sources through renewable energy by 2015. The rest of the country is catching up. Obama announced the nation’s new goal of having wind turbines to account for 20% of electricity in the eastern electric grid by 2024.

Although I am an advocate to lower carbon emissions throughout the world, if this plan is really going to cost $90 billion, I don’t think it should be the government’s top priority. Then again, with most of the major wind farms to be concentrated off the Atlantic Coast in federal waters and on land in Midwest states, they could create an endless number of jobs. Unfortunately, the generation of new jobs might be too late for this troubled economy. Could we follow the patterns of the other nations like United Kingdom to fight global warming and bounce back the economy? Only time will tell.

When I walked into the Monagacci classroom on the first day of 7^th grade, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Taking in the various live snakes and rats on one side of the classroom, as well as the giant moose head staring back at me from the wall, all I could think to myself was, “Somehow I have a feeling this will be a year that I’ll never forget.”

I didn’t know at the time how right I was.

Between the thematic projects my fellow Monagacci students and I worked on and the various camping trips throughout the year, we learned a lot about nature and what it meant to survive in the wilderness. At the same time, each and every one of us came to learn a whole lot more about life, and it was because of one man: Gregory Ritter.

Ritter taught us how to work together—to put aside personal differences and play off each other’s strengths to get the job done, whether it was simply putting a presentation together or dragging a sled full of backpacks through a muddy trail for miles in the dead of winter. He made us grow up by pushing us to limits we have never gone before and inspiring us to never give up. I knew he believed in me—he believed in all of us—and his belief in me, taught me to believe in myself.

It was because of him that almost everyone cried on our last day of Monagacci. We all knew that the memories he gave us were priceless, and that we would never even come close to having another experience like Monagacci. We had essentially become a family, all 56 of us, and he was like the father of our family.

So when Ritter decided to take himself away from us, we lost so much more than just a middle-school teacher.

We lost a friend, a mentor, a leader, and an inspiration. I don’t know whether the accusations about him that came out last spring were true or not, but what I do know is this: he changed my life the way he changed so many other students’ lives—for the better. What I learned from him was more than just facts about trees and insects and birds. I walked in to Monagacci as a child, simple and naive, but I walked out more mature, excited for any challenge because I knew Ritter had given me what it took to take on these challenges.

So I hope now, as we’ve said our goodbyes to a fallen hero, we can take the best memories of Ritter and hold on to them. Remember how he taught us to stay strong. Remember how he motivated us to be more than average. Just like we’ll never forget all of those crazy times in Monagacci, never forget the lessons we’ve learned from Ritter.

Video games rock.

I would try to convey the opinion in a more florid way, but essentially, there is no better way to say it than to say it. Video games rock.

‘Experts’ will tell you that video game violence is detrimental to children’s mental growth and development. By engaging in viral, nonsensical gore and violence, we are devolving to our baser instincts of partaking in bloodshed. Is this true? Maybe. But participating in bloodshed also gave us our independence.

Some say video games are too expensive, claiming that gamers are spending all their money on staying up to date on the latest upgrades, games, consoles (and Xbox Live accounts). If you can afford a $300 Playstation, cashing out fifty bucks for the newest game (which is then replayed or traded in for credit) shouldn’t be too difficult.

Video games hurt relationships. To that I say if you’re going to date a gamer, you do it with your eyes open. Besides, some of the greatest friendships are forged while battling rampaging zombies behind your TV screen.

A friend once told me my Xbox was robbing me of real life experiences. Clearly she’d never played a decent RPG before.

I could go on but really, the arguments get a bit trite.

It isn’t that I don’t agree with any of the above. But better to relieve the stress of one’s day hacking away at evil warlords on a TV or computer screen than in real life, right? And I may have sacrificed many a Friday night to break the latest achievement, but through these games, I’ve lived the lives of dragons, wizards, swordfighters, military generals, and more.

So I say again: Video games rock.