“The Josh Clark Show” January 24 2012
Ladies and gentlemen, the day has finally come!
The first podcast of “The Josh Clark Show” is finally finished and ready for the big times!
I will be posting the links to the podcast on this website (they will load from iTunes) and I am working to get them up as quick as possible. The feed for iTunes is something that I’m really adement about getting started. I’m sure it is really cool to have something that you’ve created and really poured your heart out into sitting with the big leagues on iTunes.
Look out for more information about the iTunes feed of “The Josh Clark Show.”
As always you can listen to my show on WSKB 89.5 FM, or on the online feed here. The link to the podcast for the January 24th show will be posted when it’s available on iTunes!
Joshua Clark
Editor-in-Chief
The Joshua Report 2.0
Iowa Caucus
This past Tuesday saw the most influential preliminary race of the 2012 election season, the Iowa Caucus. While most people focus on the general election and focus their judgement on the nominees, there are still a few die-hard political junkies that focus on the caucuses and primaries like it’s their job.
This caucus definitely threw us for a loop. Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, came in at first with 25% (and the plurality) of the votes. Rick Santorum, senator from Pennsylvania, came in a skin-of-the-teeth close second, also with 25%, but eight votes shy of beating Romney. The biggest surprise of the event came from the third place finisher, Texas congressman Ron Paul, with 21% of the votes.
The political junkies are claiming that Santorum is going to give Romney a run for his money when it comes to the nomination. However, I do not believe this is true. This election season thus far has been about upswings.
First it was Michele Bachmann, the representative from Minnesota, who in my opinion resembles Sarah Palin wholeheartedly. Bachmann was the media’s pet, flashing her picture and playing her sound bites daily on the nightly news or the talk radio shows. Whether it was positive attention or negative, Bachmann had the media’s spotlight. Unfortunately, Ms. Bachmann has decided to drop out of the election due to her last place finish in the Caucus with 5%.
The next media pet was Rick Perry, the current governor of Texas. Perry was a very popular person when he was in the media. He was gaining interviews with the Sunday morning shows, he had his face on the cover of Time, he was everywhere. However, when he made some stumbles in a couple of the debates, including one where he couldn’t recall the cabinet positions that he would eliminate, the media knew that Perry’s 15 minutes of fame were over. Perry finished second-to-last with 10% of the vote.
Their next focus was the ever-moral former Speaker-of-the-House Newt Gingrich. Newt was also popular, but his views I feel are not mainstream enough for his campaign to ever pick up some actual steam. He’s too radical for the average voter, and his several divorces and scandals are not going to sit too well with the Bible Belt voters, aka the Iowans. Gingrich has recently had a falling out with the media and finished in forth place with 13% of the votes.
This brings us back to Rick Santorum. Santorum has now become the focus of the media due to his views, but not because their popular with the public, but because they’re awkward considering the fact that he is a prominent political figure in American life. He recently compared gay marriage to polygamy, something that is not going to sit well with the LGBT community, even though they are traditionally left-leaning. His sleeveless sweaters may be the talk of the media, but it won’t be for long.
I feel that the challenge for the Republican nomination will be between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Paul, in my opinion, is the politician that everyone looks for but never gets. He isn’t a fat-cat in Washington, he’s a doctor from Texas that thought he could do a better job than the people that were there. His Libertarian views are attractive to people who want to get back to the roots of our Constitution and shrink our government.
One of my favorite views of his deals with the presidential salary. The presidential salary currently sits at $400,000. He feels that the salary should be equal to the median salary for all American workers. This currently sits somewhere in the mid-to-high $30,000′s. This would mean that the president should have the incentive to try to raise that, considering the fact that the median salary would now be equal to his salary.
Romney is most likely going to be the nominee, and not because his views are popular either, but because of his super PAC. Don’t get me wrong, Romney has some sound views and opinions on changing this country for the better, but the super PAC that he formed for Iowa worked really well to getting his message heard by his potential voters. The robocalls, the negative ads against Gingrich (that resulted in Gingrich calling Romney a liar), the volunteers all helped Romney win the Caucus.
Now, something could be said for Santorum, being only eight votes away from beating Romney, but I attribute that to him being the media’s current pet. There is no correlation, in my opinion, to Santorum’s campaign and his views and him coming in second. I mean, the man lost the second-to-last election he competed in by 18% because he ran a poor campaign. There is no reason for me to believe that all of a sudden he has the key to beating Romney.
Romney’s steam-roller of super PACs will overtake anyone who steps in his way, mark my words. It will be Mitt Romney vs. Ron Paul at the Republican National Convention. You heard it here first.
Joshua Clark
Editor-in-Chief
The Joshua Report 2.0
Recent Happenings, Vol. 2
The last post I wrote for the blog was in November, and so it’s been a while.
Lately, I’ve been working on finishing the semester off. I registered for classes for next semester; this time I got to pick which classes I was going to take. I definitely vetoed taking any Math or Science classes, and went for the more history and psychology classes. Next semester, I’ll be taking Western Experience II, State and Local Government, Intro to Psychology, Intro to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, and English Composition II. My schedule is stacked.
Also, I’ve been focusing my efforts on my radio show. The Josh Clark Show airs on WSKB 89.5 FM on Tuesdays from 6-8 pm. I don’t know if it will have the same time slot next semester, but I’m hoping it will. It went from a random mix of stuff in the beginning, to a somewhat organized, respectable show toward the end. My last five shows were the best and each one improved on the other.
The first of the “best five” featured Dylan Reese, aka Reese McFly, his manager Bobby Hobert, and his videographer Sam Scrivner. The interview went very well and it was probably what broke me out of my shell as far as being a radio DJ goes. The flow of the show was good, and at the end, Reese performed a freestyle so it went well.
The next show featured Joel McAuliffe, and Reed Sutherland and Vassilios Karsaliakos of ”The Varlets.” That show was also really good, mainly because Reed and Billy performed acoustic versions of their more well-known songs. It felt like a radio version of MTV Unplugged. (I wish they brought that show back.)
After that, Joel came on the next two shows, kind of acting as an unofficial co-host. I still had Mike Flaherty and Ryan Daley coming on, but Joel was the closer, if you will. He is one of those guys that knows how to be a radio DJ (a little too well if you ask me) and knows how to fill awkward silences or fill extra time with meaningless banter. He will be joining me next semester as the unofficial-official co-host of the show. I’m looking forward to having him on.
I also have been working on getting recordings of the show, so that when the show is done, I can turn it into a podcast and it could be distributed on iTunes. People could listen to my show while they’re driving to work, driving to school, working out, etc. Although I don’t expect too many podcast subscribers, it would still be cool to have my show available on the internet for people to check out. It progresses the success of the online feed in that it enables people to save the show in mp3 format and listen to it on the go.
In conclusion, I will be writing more often on the blog I hope. 2012 will be an interesting year, and we should see drastic changes in some way. I don’t know what these changes are, but I hope they’re good ones. Some of you might think that those changes include “the world ending” or Nostradamus’ prediction, but I think that those predictions are often false. (Y2K, etc.)
Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Joshua Clark
Editor-in-Chief
The Joshua Report
Recent Happenings
I’ve been pretty busy here at Westfield State University.
Last Wednesday, I was asked by the editors-in-chief of The Westfield Voice to stop by the office after I returned from work.
When I stopped by, they said they had two questions to ask me. They started with the good news first before the good good news.
They first asked me if I was interested in going on an all-expenses paid, week long trip to Paris, France to attend a couple of seminars. Of course I said yes! The seminars have mostly something to do with journalism and/or politics. I guess last year they had somebody from the U.S. Embassy speak to the conference.
The reason why they wanted to ask me lead to their second question. They wanted to know if I wanted to take over for them as the editor-in-chief when they graduate next year. I, of course, said yes again.
I went back to my dorm and started planning out a re-design of the newspaper that I would try to institute next year if not when I take over. I included my design here. “My redesign, revision 1“
I’ll keep my readers posted on the trip and my redesign project.
Joshua Clark
From ‘The Voice’: Op-Ed: Election Day and its many lessons
Elections are always a sore subject for many people. There is a cliche that says that you should never bring up politics or religion in a conversation at a party or function. And with good reason–people hate talking about them. Political discussions always lead to arguments or heated debates on which candidate has the better platform, better speeches, or in some cases, better looks.
Politics has always been a fun topic for me. I’ve always liked researching it, learning the politicians’ views on topics and making up my mind on which candidate I’d support and why. It wasn’t until I was registered to vote last year that I decided to take what I’ve learned from my research and put it to good use.
I grew up in Chicopee, Massachusetts, a city of about 50,000 people that is on the other side of West Springfield across the Connecticut River. I went to Chicopee Comprehensive High School and while I was there I took AP U.S. History and AP U.S. Government and Politics. Those classes helped me learn and understand politics on a broader scale than what I had previously thought. They taught me to analyze and filter what is propaganda, spin, and just flat out lies. During my sophomore year, my Pre-AP U.S. History teacher (now a Vice Principal there) founded a Political Science Club that met once a week on Wednesdays and discussed the current events and how they were all related.
One of my friends and a founding member of the Poli-Sci Club was Joel McAuliffe. In Tuesday’s election, he ran for a School Committee At-Large seat against a 22-year School Committee member who instead of running in his ward, was trying out running for an At-Large seat. Joel got very heated during some debates that we had in class and even shut out others’ opinions asserting that only his was right and not including anyone else’s. Over time, this has calmed down, but watching him argue passionately about a topic, whether it be the wars in the Middle East, the health care bill that President Obama was pushing through Congress, or a simple ordinance that was being proposed in Chicopee, showed me that Joel would make a serious candidate someday.
The fall after he graduated from high school, Joel took out papers to run for State Representative for Chicopee against the well-established incumbent Joseph Wagner. He called me up and asked me if I’d go around to several houses with him getting signatures for his petition. I reluctantly obliged and went around with him. Some of the voters that we talked to decided that Joel was inexperienced and needed some training, whether it be college or at least some college courses before he makes such a jump like that.
Imparting what I learned from politics thus far, I told Joel that he should try to start a bit more locally, maybe jumping into maybe a School Committee race, or a City Council race. Jumping into state politics where even tried and true politicians have come short was risky and something that looked to me like a waste of time, money, and resources.
Joel listened. This year, he ran a clean, honest campaign against his opponent. I stood out with Joel holding signs on the busy Granby Road rotary in Chicopee, I put the lawn sign in my yard, I even stood outside of my polling location in my precinct holding his sign urging voters driving in to vote for Joel at the last minute.
All of it came up short, however, as Joel lost the election only garnering about 40% of the vote. His opponent, being on the School Committee for the previous 22 years, beat him. Talking to Joel on the phone after he conceded, he said that he isn’t going to give up. He’s going to keep on fighting the good battle until he wins.
The moral of the story? Politics could be dry, boring, and sometimes frustrating. But perseverance as a candidate can go a long way. Name recognition, perseverance, and downright luck can win a candidate the position he longed for only if he wants it. Joel’s campaign and ensuing election has nothing to do with Westfield State or this newspaper but the lesson to be learned here does. Starting from the bottom and working your way up to the top is an effective way to get what you want, no matter how many times you have to get back on the ladder.
Power’s Back On
The power has now been restored to my neighborhood and I’m back posting on the blog. My house got its power back Sunday night, and so my girlfriend and I left campus to sleep there while the campus was still out of power.
It’s times like these when you realize how dependent we are on our phones, computers, and other electronics. People in the lines and aisles of the grocery store were getting frustrated at the lack of provisions that we had. The store I work at lost ice, batteries, and other “essentials” causing people to wonder why we weren’t adequately prepared.
Luckily, many of the people without power are getting their power back and we’ll return back to normal.
This year has been wacky with the tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, and now this. Who knows what’s next, a volcanic eruption?
