Remember when your high school civics teacher would give you extra-credit just for watching the news or bringing to class a newspaper article on the latest goings-on in government or international affairs?

Well, for most of us, those days are long gone. But just because we don’t get class credit for keeping up with the news, doesn’t make it any less important.

Unless you’ve been in a dark and smelly pit recently, not including your already-gross-in-only-a-week dorm room, you’ve heard about recent changes in the Supreme Court.

And, hopefully, you’ve been paying attention. Now is the time to turn on TV broadcasts or buy a newspaper from the box on the corner.

The media have recently been over-saturated with talk of the Court’s influence on abortion, gay rights, the death penalty, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum. And even if you do occasionally read the news, it’s easy to block these tedious things out-sometimes it seems as if people care about nothing else but these issues.

But, we must pay attention to the world outside of our ivory tower. These recent developments in the Supreme Court have more tangible and less ideology-laden ramifications.

For instance, the court, just before the retirement of Justice O’Connor, passed a decision in favor of the use of eminent domain for the good of the private sector. At SLU, such a decision defends recently controversial acquisitions like the Peerless Restaurant Supply building, which SLU purchased after litigation and has demolished to make room for the new research building.

Likewise, the court recently settled a case that holds peer-to-peer software companies liable for infringing on copyrights. Such a decision may affect college students everywhere.

Read the news to know and understand what’s going on in the world around you. You’ll notice that some of it-tedious, ideology-laden arguments included-is important.

At very least, you’d make your civics teacher happy.