http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/education/welcomed-with-kisses-stanford-freshmen-risk-the-kissing-disease.html?pagewanted=2&src=mv
What do you guys think about this? Should the greater focus be on mass medicine or on the fact that Stanford has a school endorsed kissing event? Do you think this promotes or leads to greater risk of irresponsible sexual behavior on campus? Do you approve or disapprove of this tradition?

I think this is very relevant to the latest feature in the Tam News, and a good segway into more discussions about gender issues. This is a very heartfelt and personal article and i really felt a connection with the mother writing the story. I felt that I understood where she was coming from with her Halloween tricks in the early years, and also saw her progression as she accepted what her son wanted, no matter how much she wanted to protect him from all the people who would judge. It is a well written, highly relevant article.

What I think is detrimental about children so young being exposed to so much technology is that not only does it decrease their ability to play creatively, especially by them selves, but it hurts their social/emotional growth. My 10 year old cousin loves video games and angry birds, etc, and that is all he wants to talk about or do. As a result he struggles in school not just behaviorally and academically, but socially as well. Up until very recently he did not really have any friends, and now the friends he does have often get tired of talking about nothing but video games. I think I a way to put a more positive spin on a child's use of technology is to make it a more social activity. For example, like the little girl who loved to see her photos on the iPhone, another one of my little cousins loves to look at family photos on the computer. But instead of sitting and swiping by herself, a parent or older sibling always sits with her and makes up funny captions or engages her in dialogue about what she is seeing. This way it is an opportunity for her to socially and mentally engage, she remembers pictures and sometimes makes up captions of her own.

Glenn Greenwald and Bill Keller both write for a living, so, as expected, the language was interesting, engaging and informative. I, personally, switched sides of the arguments a few times. As I am not a fan of objective writing, I went in to this article assuming that I would be siding with Greenwald. But by the third or fourth letter, I was backing Keller full-court. While I think Greenwald makes a valid point about everyone having opinions that offer themselves up constantly, even in the most subtle of ways, I agree with Keller in his argument that that fact alone should not keep journalists from striving to reveal objective truth. Greenwald made one other point that hit home with me, that in trying to be truth based, journalist often end up "opting instead for a cowardly and unhelpful "here's-what-both-sides-say-and-I-won't-resolve-the-conflicts" formulation." I have read many an article where I got to the end and had no better idea what to believe or which side to take, and it is exactly because of this that I support Keller's quest for news writing with as little subjectivity as possible. So often I have wished and hoped and prayed that there was just one article I could read that would give me facts and nothing but the facts so I could then form my own opinion. Greenwald complains that then facts are often misrepresented, with journalists trying to be "too fair" in their portrayal. This reminds me of a favorite preschool-teacher-saying, "what is fair is not always what is equal." And although we, as new journalists, are taught to be objective, we are also taught that fair is what's in the facts, if one side had more evidence, you can mention it more frequently. One of Greenwald's ideals that particularly bothered me as well was that journalism was becoming boring and need to be made more "interesting." This is all to eerily similar to the movie we just finished in class, The Network, where they, too, are trying to spice up their form of mass media communication, at all costs. The result is an entire society's unquestioning devotion to a singular, charismatic, opinionated person. Just one person's individual thoughts, opinion, and ideals were shaping a nation. This is exactly what impartial journalism rightfully tries to avoid. By presenting readers with just facts, you are giving them the option to choose their own opinion, instead of presenting them with opinions that they might misperceive as facts. The last factor I'd like to discuss that played a role in my change of heart was each journalist's style of writing. Greenwald has a dramatic, semi-over the top, wordy style of writing. While I might use all those words to describe my own writing, there was something about his that rubbed me the wrong way. His insults seemed to be much lower blows, and were delivered much less tactfully and with much less wit than Keller's. Keller had a clean, intellegent style of writing, yet it was not with out personality. A sassy comment here, a well placed dig, and short, direct, Edna-like sentences kept his writing style crisp and relatable. So, amusingly enough, I found my own opinion changed by an opinion piece about opinion and now support objective (or as near as we can get) journalism. I still don't like it, and would much prefer to write long, rambling, passionate, rants stuffed to the brim with my own biases, but I see it as the better, and only option, in the world of news writing. Well done, Keller, well done.

I agree with all of these comments, I had to end up just skimming the article because it was a real tough read. His aggressive language and stance on the subject makes his article seem more appropriate for an ALL CAPS INTERNET ARGUMENT than an article. That aside, he makes good points but they are lost in his writing style.