Books Going Green

As we are all well-aware, it has become "trendy" to care about the earth and it's well-being and since then, many campaigns have been launched to help preserve and protect our natural resources. These movements have all been categorized in the new coined term "going green", and the next big thing in saving paper is Electronic Readers.

These are devices that let you store books on them, and you read them electronically. It's a portable device that is conveniently sized, like a regular sized novel would be. It is meant to be convenient and save paper. The most popular one out now is Amazon's Kindle. The Reader from Sony is the next most popular such device. And there are others in the works by other companies such as iRex and Plastic Logic. Barnes and Noble has just released their version of the Electronic Reader today, and hope that it will provide some features that competitors can not.

Some cons to these new electronic readers include price. Both Amazon's new version of the Kindle and Barnes and Noble's recently released version cost $259, which does not include whatever books you would like to download to the device.

So, which one to buy? Well, Barnes and Noble has an agreement with Google to have free access to about 500,000 books that Google has scanned from university libraries. These free downloadable books are NOT available for free on Amazon's Kindle.

Although the market for these devices is small now, many say that the Electronic Reader will eventually replace the paper book all together. The convenience it has and the resources that it saves are two great reasons why the Electronic Reader may become the way we will always read in the future.

Rock Bridge High Homecoming

With the month of October, many things probably come to mind. Fall, leaves changing, warmer clothes, baseball playoffs, and Halloween. But for the past four years, homecoming has also been on that list for me, a high school student. Now, being a college freshman, the word "homecoming" has a bit of a different meaning. But on Friday night, with my roommate Rachel Kiser, I was able to remember what homecoming meant as a high schooler when I visited her

homecoming game, at Rock Bridge Senior High.

Although this wasn't my high school, just sitting on the cold, hard bleachers under the "Friday Night Lights" brought back memories of my high school homecomings, as we sat there bundled up with our hot chocolate screaming for boys that we didn't know to make a good play. We excitedly watched the marching band perform their contest show, "Winter", and remembered what it had been like to work that hard to perform for less than ten minutes each week.

Rachel and I compared notes on our respective highschool's homecoming cultures. They had some differences, for instance, in Texas we make our dates "mums and garters" which is a tradition completely unique to highschools in Texas and a select few in Arkansas. At Rock Bridge, the homecoming queen candidates participate in some embarassing antic during the lunch periods each day the week of homecoming such as tricycle races and dance-offs. There are some traditions that appear to be nation wide, however, such as themed dress-up days, and a parade on Friday which features the homecoming queen candidates and different school organizations such as Student Council and Key Club.

Overall, we came to the conclusion that homecoming week is something pretty much everyone looks forward to in the fall, and the sense of community achieved during that particular football game every year is unprecedented by almost any other, making it a tradition that is here to stay.

Eventually, the nine homecoming queen candidates were forced to shed their heavy coats that were over their gorgeous gowns as principal Kathy Ritter read their names and organizations they were involved in as they walked to their respective yard-lines on the field with their dates on their arms, and Monique White was crowned.

And finally, the peak of the night came when the Bruins won, 36-32.

MU Student Faces Lawsuit After Using Entrepreneurship Skills to Launch "The South Butt LLC"

18 year old Jimmy Winkelmann's two year old company, "The South Butt" now faces a lawsuit from The North Face for trademark infringement.

Yes, "The South Butt" is exactly what it sounds like. A direct parody off of the company The North Face, which promotes an active lifestyle and has products such as clothing and camping gear. The South Butt, has a similar logo to The North Face. So similar, in fact, that North Face is claiming the logo similarity could cause "consumer confusion as to the source, sponsorship or affiliation of particular problems and services that could dilute or tarnish the distinctive quality of the famous and distinctive TNFAC marks." Winkelmann even goes so far as to make The South Butt's slogan, "Never stop relaxing" a direct rip off of The North Face's "Never stop exploring".

Winkelmann's family has supported him in this process since day one. His Uncle who works for a printing business for marketing products originally helped him get his product out, his father who is a stock broker helped the company get officially recognized by the state of Missouri, and also helped him find a lawyer to work through these legal issues.

Winkelmann's parents and lawyer are aware that the corporate giants don't always win in court with these infringement lawsuits, and say that he really has nothing to lose in pursuing the "American Dream".

At this point, Jimmy and his family aren't sure what actions the North Face is planning to take, but they are sure that they are willing to fight for their own rights, as a legitimate company.

picture from : http://abcnews.go.com/Business/teens-south-butt-apparel-irks-north-face/Story?id=8712101&page=1