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I grew up with parents who came from lower-middle class or poorer families and built themselves up from nothing to comfortable middle class earnings (75k combined, but they're divorced now)... Sporadic members of my family have been able to gain their college degrees, but through grants from the government.

As it may be known by most; unless a student is married, has dependents, or is a veteran, we are considered dependents of our legal guardians until 24yrs old! At 18 we can go to war, but not until 6 years later are we "allowed" to be considered true adults in the financial world. Because of this, myself and MILLIONS of others that come from middle class families who have lived on their own and supported themselves since 18 are stuck when it comes to getting financial aid if we want to go to college. According to the government, our parents make too much money for us to get assistance, but in reality- not enough for our parents (if they're even involved in our lives) to actually pay for our schooling. So instead, we're all stuck with getting high-interest loans that end up nearly doubling when repayments comes to fruition.

As a 22yr old working three jobs who by her own income is considered "lower class", not currently in school after completing 3yrs due to the amount of loans I've racked up and has been independent by the nation's standards, but not the government's, I'd love to see a politician who actually addresses this disgustingly common issue. We don't have anybody to financially save our hides but ourselves, the government refuses to see that as a possibility.

Lest I even begin to touch on the lack of health care for people like me, as it is not offered for part time students and/or part time workers. Universal health care please!

posted 5 years, 1 month ago
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As part of the "Iraq Generation" in my early 20's, I must agree with most commentary thus far on the show that we as a generation are so removed from the situation.

Though we may or may not be well-informed about it, the "Apathetic Generation" may be a more appropriate term for the bulk of the people in my age group. It seems to be a complete polarization between we who are involved in the Iraq news daily and those who put more weight on television programs like "Lost" and if they look good enough to get laid.

As long as our news coverage is filtered and more emphasis is place on material entertainment, our generation as well as those following it are doomed to continue being apathetic and completely ignorant. The information needs to be essentially shoved down the throats of our generation for us to grasp the severity and devastation of the situation. Our generation needs to be able to relate the war back to their own lives and well-being beyond what the Bush administration's blanket statements regarding to "our freedoms".

Personally, I am disgusted by probably 75% of my generation. There was a time in our history when being involved and well-informed was a right and considered mainstream. Nowadays, it seems that taking a stand... ANY stand, on actually pertinent issues beyond who should win American Idol is considered counter-culture by that 75% who live in ignorance.

I commend people like Aria Joughin and all the others of my generation that actually get involved, stay informed and strive to move towards informing our peers.

posted 5 years, 2 months ago
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It's interesting to me that nobody has brought up the point that on Facebook and more recently, Myspace offer privacy options... Facebook doesn't allow random users to see a person's profile beyond extremely basic stats unless you are 'friends' with the person... Even then, one has the option to allow a new 'friend' to only see a customized limited profile.

As far as myspace, there has been the option to make your profile 'private' to the general public... Same with photos- as a user on myspace; the option exists to either keep your photos/blogs viewable to only yourself, to just your friends or to anyone.

In response to detectives and officers creating fake profiles to gain information/trust from users... Doesn't this seem more than slightly intrusive and illegal to anyone else?! It seems as though they assume all social networking website users are ignorant, possibly even unintelligent that just add random people to their friends list regardless of who they are.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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