Big Brother is watching you, students....

[It's pretty obvious that the average CollegeCandy reader has some very strong opinions. Opinions that she likes to share with everyone on the site. We love a strong woman (unless she happens to be charging at us with her fists raised), so we thought we'd give her a real forum to discuss her thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. Every Friday I'll be featuring a hot topic (like cheating confessions! ) and leaving it up to you, the readers, to duke it out. So, read it and get your debate on in the comments section below!]

Ah, George Orwell, how miserable you made my life in high school. But look, now it’s happening again – except this time it’s not Mr. Orwell’s fault that I’ve got Big Brother on the brain (no, not the TV show… is that still on?). This time it’s Northern Arizona University and their plan to install an attendance system that electronically reads student ID cards to tell if you showed up to your giant lecture course. Yeah, OK, first thing I thought when I heard about this was “so you just have to get a friend to carry your card to class, no big,” but the more I think about it, the more qualms I have.

In the school’s defense, attendance is important and even though we all know it, when that 7:30 alarm goes off, sometimes it’s easy to just ignore that little fact. I know more than one person who lost scholarship money over their grades just because they skipped out on class a few too many times. We should show up to class, but we don’t always, so I can get why the school is trying to step up and actually help (force) its students to do the right thing for themselves.

But still, this rankles me (rankles, really? Did not see that vocab word coming). One of the glories of college is that you finally get to make choices for yourself, even if those choices are stupid and detrimental (enter Jose Cuervo). You’re paying to go to college, so why shouldn’t you be able to skip out if you choose? Not to mention that people with jobs/families/extracurricular sometimes have to miss classes legitimately and then make up for it. Sure you’ll have to accept the consequences of that later when you have no freaking clue what the final is about, but a big part of higher education is about becoming a grown up and taking responsibility for your actions. This system pretty much replaces the “holy crap, I really should have gone to class and learned this shiz” moment with a glorified kindergarten teacher. Oh, and did I mention that they’re spending $75,000 of federal stimulus money to put in said glorified kindergarten teacher? Yeah. Awesome.

Am I being a little too paranoid about Big Brother? Am I not giving the school a fair shake? Or is this really as ridiculous as it seems to me? Duke it out!

Email just isn’t private anymore. Everyone knows that. Big Brother is always watching — especially if you work at a giant company where CEOs have enough money to have you killed, stuffed into a bag, and “disappeared” forever.

Which is why it’s hilarious to read about people using their work email to send private messages. How naive can you be? Don’t tell your honey about all the bad things you want to do to him that involve chocolate syrup. Don’t send a bitchy diatribe to your best friend about how your boss has constant armpit stains. DON’T DO IT.

Unless you want to end up like these people.

[photo from www.amazonmortgagecentre.com]

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Oddly, these two news stories are more Orwellian than Orwell.First we have this little ditty. It’s an article about how the Russian government dropped cement from sky-high heights through the roof of an unsuspecting citizen.

What’s odd about this (besides the obvious falling-cement thing) is that this happened because, in preparation for Russia Day (?!), the government was “seeding the clouds:” inserting liquid nitrogen, cement powder, and silver iodide into the clouds so that it won’t rain. And what’s more, they’ve been doing it for the past 20 years.

That’s right, friends. On Russia Day, all skies must be clear, by order of the government. Do the citizens know this? Or do they think that it’s a miracle that it never rains on national holidays?

On to the next creepy government story.

In Romania, citizens so despised the living candidates that they reelected a dead mayor. For realz.

Yeah, they knew he was dead. So what? As one profound villager says, “I know he died, but I don’t want a change.”

Gosh, if we knew it was that easy, we could have all just voted for JFK every year.

Oddly, neither of these two tales is from the good ol’ USA. Is our government slacking off in its world-renowned Big Brother ways? Is the news just tired of reporting it? Or have we, finally and just in time for the new election, just become complacent?

[Image courtesy of http://capefeare.com/]