I got the chance recently to go to a local concert. My friends from Mt Hebron High School play in a band named Just Plain Ridiculous. They were performing at Penguins Down in the Igloo in Arbutus, Maryland. So, I got together several other friends and we decided to go check it out.

As I climbed out of my friend's car when we arrived, I was instantly shocked at the scene of where they the band was going to play. Almost right at the cusp of Baltimore City there lays this tiny lit up sign that says “Penguins fine food and spirits”. It is surrounded entirely by grocery stores, a poorly lit road and some apartments. It struck me as a great place to have local bands connect with a local audience. We looked around, taking in the atmosphere, but then quickly went into the building to escape the frigid air, our concert tickets in hand to show we belonged here. We descended worn out steps into a dark hallway, with one man standing by a door asking for tickets. After we gave him our tickets he motioned for us to step through into the next room. As we entered this room my eyes were instantly transfixed, it was an shocking change of scenery. Right through a dark hallway, eerily lit, a bright scene awaited us. An open bar (for those with an ID) and a mass of tables surrounding a relatively well maintained stage. I turned my attention to the band up on the stage. They were fine, but they weren't the band I have come here to see. I would have to wait another 2 hours to see the highlight of the evening play, Just Plain Ridiculous.

Just Plain Ridiculous. From the first time you see this band perform live you will understand how truly well the band's performance fits the title. Delivering a catchy beat, intense punk rock riffs and some reggae thrown in on the side Just Plain Ridiculous is a band you definitely have to see. As you step into a room when this pop punk three piece plays you can see the raw energy and passion exploding from the stage. With Cameron Smith on guitar and vocals, Sam Waller on bass and vocals, and Jeff Reichert on drums and percussion they emanate a passion for their music that makes you want to jump up and dance. All three are extremely talented musicians with a showmanship that adds to their stellar performance. You can gage a good band by the reaction of the audience. With staggering old men and teenager alike dancing around in a frenzy to their music, the band's boisterous attitude can only be explained by three words, these guys are just plain ridiculous!

After the band's performance I would always take time to meander around the room and ask the people what they thought of the band, and quickly I would be enticed join in the conversations of 40 and 50 year old men saying how much fun they had. I heard regular customers by the bar saying how “they felt so young again,” and how “these guys have such a great sound and attitude, its just contagious!” .

For more information on this band, their song lists and the venues that they have played in the Elliott City area visit their face book and my space pages at:

plight://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Just-Plain-Ridiculous/26365523402?ref=ts

http://www.myspace.com/knowhowmd

As the holiday's approach, I have been noticing all the shopping going on around town. All this money changing hands raises a question about the one cent coin. Today, the penny seems more like a useless collectible than an actual form of currency. Our pennies just line the bottoms of our purses and pockets. People throw out their pennies at a passing glance.

The one thing that astounds me in our age of financial woes and shortcomings are the mistakes that we as a country continue to make in minting new coins. Our financial security might lie in each persons' ability to make safe and reasonable decisions when it comes to spending. But, when I look at how the government, it seems like they don't share the same sense of responsibility when it comes to managing our currency. One of our most frivolous spending shortcomings I think in America today is our continuation of making the penny. A number of different sources on-line report that the exact amount it costs to make a penny ranges from 1.2 cents to 2 cents per penny. In other words, it cost more to make a penny that what it is worth. A form of currency that costs a large percentage more to produce that it's face value, and is manufactured in millions every day, seems ridiculous. To me a currency of any type shouldn't be manufactured if its sole purpose is to cast our nation even farther into insurmountable debt, something that is increasing at an exponential rate day by day.

The whole reasoning behind continuing the penny, its historical significance and it being an easy change system, in our day doesn't really make much cents. Pardon the pun.

The notion that a penny is still valuable and important to our economy in our day is a pretty silly idea. The circulation of millions of pennies would still continue if we stopped producing them, and maybe some people would even treat the copper runt with some more respect. The penny is literally a symbol of America's frivolous wasteful lifestyle and our lack of appreciation for lesser currencies. By discontinuing the manufacturing of the penny we would not only be helping our crippling nation debt, but we would be encouraging Americans to save the pennies that they currently have. If there are less pennies, people will appreciate their value, and think of them as real currency.

I don't think the penny or it's equivalent makes much sense at all in most countries. When I went over to Germany this summer I noticed that the Euro cent has about as little value as our penny. The only difference is that the European cent is cheaper to produce and is worth more than our penny considering the exchange rate. The only real value I see in a single cent currencies is using them as for very minor, almost non-monetary, transactions of change. For example, when giving donations people are inclined to give away their left over pennies, probably a meaningless gesture from the person doing the donating. But I will admit that to some those pennies will eventually add up.

I don't want the cent to be completely abolished in our country. But, I do believe the manufacturing should cease until we can find a reasonable material alternative to the debt increasing copper used in today's cent. If we halted production of the penny, surely they would still remain in circulation for quite a few years, giving our country ample time to figure out another more financially savvy alternative.

As I am writing this, its the election day. It's finally here, and the anticipation in the air is palpable, built up so high that it almost feels like Christmas. Hordes of voters sporting McCain and Obama shirts barrage the schools, fighting their way in make their vote. I can't help but feel kind of left out, being under 18 I'm forced to sit on the sidelines. But I'm never content to watch my opinion go by as if it is completely meaningless.
This election will no doubt be a milestone, a historical event that I will remember for the rest of my life. I know the implications that this election might have for not only the future of my family, but for the future of my country as well. It's merely a shame that I can't even participate in such a big event. Despite how almost none of the students in my school are even old enough to vote, everyone has still taken a noticeable and public stance for their chosen presidential candidate. More students are voting for Obama than McCain in my school, as expected. Although the Obama supporters outweigh the McCain supporters in high school, the Republicans still remain loyal.
The amount of supporters for candidates is astounding to me. The stereo-typical picture of a teenager in Howard County is a slack jawed spoiled brat with no sense of politics at all. But that's far from the actual truth. The students in my school all seem to be well read about their candidate, and aside from the few sheep, most people seem to have their own reasons for why they support an individual candidate, usually based on the candidate's stance on certain issues.
Most of the issues that teenagers I know are concerned with are pretty obvious. The main issue that high schoolers are concerned with are age restrictions. From the drinking age, the voting age, to the age you can get your driver's license. Age restrictions have an enormous impact on high schoolers because it impacts all of us as a group. We are all people under 18, and there are no students that have reached 21. This makes a high school a battle zone for heated debates about why our next president should lower the drinking age, or why 16 year olds should be able to get a full driver's license with no restrictions. However ridiculous some people may interpret these issues compared to that of our faltering economy and the war in Iraq, these issues have a resounding effect on most high schoolers.
Another big issue is national security. I was surprised when I learned about how many kids are concerned with our safety and protection as Americans. Concern about our safety from terrorists is surprisingly a heated issue among high school students. I almost thought that high schoolers had an inferior grasp on political issues compared to the rest of America, but I was definitely wrong. Most of my classmates have very controversial, yet well supported beliefs about stuff that our grandparents would cringe at the mere thought of.
The most controversial subjects that are disputed at my high school would definitely have to be abortions and the war on drugs. No matter how hard you try, at my school you can't escape the endless raging debate over these two unrelated topics. These debates get so agitated that I'm sometimes afraid that they will end in a hospital visit. I think these two issues are so concentrated among high school students because of a strong religious faith among most high schoolers, with varying moral codes and opinions of the morality on these subjects of debate. Fortunately, high schoolers, unlike many other groups of Americans, are not really stuck in their ways and they are willing to listen to other points of view, compromise, and potentially change their position.
I believe that debating controversial topics is popular amongst teenagers because we are growing up in an era of information overload, and we aren't shocked by every little thing that we read or hear. Most teenagers surf the web for a majority of their day, and because of this they have a broad exposure to a considerable portion of controversial topics. This is a luxury of being a teenager. Our elders don't have nearly the amount of free time that we have. The adults of our world are living their own lives, with their own obligations, and they don't have the time even consider challenging their own points of view between juggling work, paying the mortgage, and raising their family. The only elders with as much time as teenagers are senior citizens, and they are occupied by their endless worries of why young people wear their pants so low.
Presidential elections cause controversy. And, high schoolers have a fairly high tolerance for controversy because of our generation's exposure and tolerance to so many disputed topics. Most 16 year olds I know would love to take the next step and also vote based on their beliefs and own feelings of the issues. I'm sure that the youth of any generation probably felt this way, and believe that they have a fairly unbiased view of the issues, not bogged down by their parent's prejudices. But, I think that today's high schoolers are better informed, more exposed to information, and more aware of issues than in the past. Maybe it is time to consider lowering that voting age?

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