Final Exam: Current Events Portion

1. The conflict in this story is that the Labays, the family that owns and runs Nau's Enfield Drug, wants to demolish an old house that they own and sell the lot. The Old West Austin Neighborhood Association is fighting against this because they believe that the house has historic value. I think the Labays should be allowed to demolish the house because they need the money, the house has become a nuisance to them, and as long as it's indisrepair and uninhabitable I don't really think the house has any value. The compromise proposed has been to subdivide the lot to preserve the house but allow development on the other portion. I think this is a good compromise because it protects the interests of both parties.

2. UT and A&M have entered the bid together to operate a nuclear weapons lab. The two universities would "provide research expertise, workforce training and independent peer review of the work done at Sandia." I think this would be a great opportunity for UT and A&M and that universities should be allowed to do this sort of thing because it greatly expands the research and learning opportunities for their professors and students.

3. The latest news in the Bill Cosby sexual assault saga is that Cosby will stand trial for at least one of many accusations, as ruled by Judge Elizabeth A. McHugh. I strongly agree with the judge's decision because, it seems to me, no forward motion has been made in any of the accusations against Cosby and it's about time. Cosby's lawyers argued against this ruling. saying that the former district attorney promised to never prosecute Cosby if his testified in another civil suit. I don't think that arguments has any merit because it seems to me like that's kind of obstructing justice and has no legal standing. I think this story deserved to be on the front page because it's a very high profile case that a lot of people have been following for a long time and have a great deal of interest in.

4. The School Board voted on Monday night to rename Robert E. Lee Elementary to Russell Lee Elementary. Russell Lee was a Depression-era photographer, lived in the area, and founded UT's photography department. The name was chosen to replace the problematic "Robert E." but still allow people to refer to the school as "Lee." Some people wanted rename the school Bettie Mann Elementary after the campus's first African-American teacher. In a compromise, the kindergarten wing of Lee has been named in her honor. It was kind of awkward because some people felt that keeping Lee wasn't really doing anything to change the nature of the name. I honestly feel pretty neutral about the whole thing. I did think that we should rename the school and I'm glad that it happened but at the same time I didn't go to Lee so I don't place that much value on calling the school "Lee." To be honest, they probably could've renamed the school anything and I would've went with it.

5. A predicted oucome of the Baylor sexual assault scandal is that the university's president, Ken Starr, will be terminated. Pepper Hamilton Law Firm has compiled a report about the sexual assault allegations against multiple Baylor football players and how the school had failed to competently handle the situations. Now I don't think I have enough information to have a clear opinion on the matter but I do think that whomever was responsible for the failure to protect those women should be held accountable and should be punished accordingly.

Grace London Feature Edited

Junior Grace Schmidhauser is working hard as the year draws to a close. Finals are approaching, she just was inducted into the National Honors Society, and she’s working on her upcoming album. Wait, an album? Yes, an album (her third, in fact) because Grace isn’t just your typical McCallum student. She’s also a local musician that goes by the name “Grace London.”

It all started with The Wizard of Oz. Grace credits her preschool obsession with the movie and its songs as her first experience with music and the first sign of an inclination towards the art form. She started classical guitar lessons at 7 years old and by the time she was 9, it was clear Grace wanted to sing and perform. Replacing “Schmidhauser” with “London” (because it’s more memorable and easier to say), a young Grace started out by playing small coffeeshop shows. By middle school, after a brief stint playing with the pop punk band Residual Kid and auditioning for America’s Got Talent, she was a fully fledged songwriter and established musician in the Austin scene. However, Grace thinks that her young age definitely had a certain degree of influence on her early success.

           “When you’re a 9-year-old girl, people are going to be really nice to you either way,” she explained. “People think you’re kind of cute, and it’s kind of a novelty.”

           Novelty act or not, Grace was certainly talented and has worked to make the difficult transition to becoming a performer who will be taken seriously. Refraining from performing as much during her freshman year, Grace focused on refining her writing skills and working on developing her music to new levels of maturity. She also chose not to capitalize on her age anymore, something she could have easily done as a 14-year-old girl. Grace also had to get used to being treated as an older performer, not a child who got compliments thrown at her every time she took the stage, competing for attention against other adult musicians, trying to be taken seriously, and not being seen as “just good for her age.”

           “I was kind of used to people constantly praising me and being really nice,” Grace admitted.

           Grace, only 16 and has already been writing and performing for seven years, has only one year of high school left. Although there is that certain amount of uncertainty that’s present in all upcoming seniors’ lives, Grace knows for sure that she will continue to write music and pursue a career in the music industry, though perhaps not exclusively in performing.

           “There’s so many jobs in the music industry, and I don’t want to limit myself to just performing aspects of it,” she said. “Songwriting for other people is something I’d be really interested in.”

It was a New York University summer music program that she went to last year that made Grace aware of the many options that she had as a musician. Having a steady job—whether songwriting, producing, or music journalism—she realized, allows her to continue to perform and make music without having to compromise any of its artistic integrity to make money. Now she plans to go to college not just for music, but also for business, songwriting, and production, or perhaps get an internship somewhere where she can learn the skills necessary to be successful in the music business and make connections in the industry. While she is interested in other aspects of the music business, Grace still plans to write music and perform after high school.

            “I definitely want to continue to pursue a career in performing but I don’t want to limit myself,” she said.

When asked if she thought she was a successful musician at the present moment, Grace stuttered. Of course, relative to other 16-year-olds, she is. She has a booking agent and a website, a Spotify page and an album review in The Austin Chronicle. If you hold her career to the definition of success that many people have—fame, money, playing sold out arenas every night—she hasn’t even made a dent. Grace, however, says that that’s no longer her definition of success. It was when she was younger but not anymore.

“I don’t know, I’ve accomplished a lot of things that I’ve wanted to by this point in my life,” she said. “I wouldn’t call myself a successful musician but I think that I’ve been successful in trying to grow in my music and working really hard on it and making sure that I’m setting myself up to pursue that later on in my life.”

Check out Grace’s music of iTunes, Bandcamp, Spotify, and gracelondon.com

Extra-Credit Photograph Assignment

A mother comforts her son after his father attacked her and then wielded the knife at deputies who shot and killed the man.

This is my favorite picture I saw in this archive. The personal moment between the mother and son is very emotionally overwhelming. I also find the strength seen in the mother's face incredibly interesting. She's the one who was attacked and yet she is comforting, not the one being comforted. I think it's a display of a mother's strength and resolve when it comes to her child.


The Ring-O-Fire gives riders a different view of the Florida Citrus Festival.

I think that the angle of this photograph is very clever. The caption talks about how riders get a different view of the festival while we, the audience, get a not often seen perspective of the ride. Also, the color composition of this photograph is very well done. Orange and blue are contrasting colors, making the photo look more balanced and dynamic.


William Mills celebrates after the Razorbacks knocked off the heavily favored SMU Mustangs.

Capturing Mills in the middle of celebration and making him the sole subject of the photograph gives the audience a sense that they're sharing a very personal, joy-filled moment with him.


WHO”S WATCHING, a sexual predator lives within one mile of most homes in the state of Florida.

I think this illustration/photograph is very haunting and unsettling, illustrating the presence of sexual predators in a child's life. It captured the subject matter.


Tom Stephens holds a gun to the head of his wife, at an Arlington, Tx 7-11, after being served with divorce papers. The siege ended with one clerk dead another shot and Stephens committing suicide.

This image is incredibly disturbing which is why I think it's so good. Sackett dares to throw this not often seen image of domestic violence directly in your face, no fancy angles or distortion. It's straightforward and the audience has no choice but to look at it.


Deputies restrain David Letterman’s stalker Margaret Mary Ray as she becomes belligerent and aggressive during her competency hearing.

The moment this image was captured is very important. It's in this moment that the picture tells a story, the woman's sanity (or lack thereof), her distress, and even the power of celebrity. It certainly makes me uncomfortable looking at it but I think that that was Sackett's purpose.


A couple stand with their infant in the door of a van they call home in a Houston encampment known as Reaganville.

This is another case where Sackett intentionally simplifies the photograph (this time adding in black and white, nothing is more straightforward than black and white) to make a statement. He doesn't approach the subject in a roundabout way, by making the photograph straightforward, he makes the audience look at it and face the realities of modern poverty head on.


Abdelelmajid Aassal takes a cigarette break at his Kissimmee, Florida home that took a direct hit from a tornado.

The combination of chaos and calm, the ruined house and a smoke break, offers interesting contrast to the photograph.


A priest searches for the dead to administer the last rites after Delta Flight 191 crashed in Dallas while emergency personnel follow and remove the bodies.

The distance this photo was taken from is interesting because it depersonalizes it. We don't have to look at any dead bodies, we can barely even tell that's a priest.


A sand hill crane checks the surroundings.

I like this picture because it reminds me of those Japanese prints of herons and cranes. It calls to mind culture, serenity, and refinement.

Current Events Quiz 6.1

Mr. Winter, I have no idea why this was never posted. My apologizes.

1. If Jack Lew's proposal is acted on, Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackson on the 20 dollar bill and other women and civil rights activists will be added to the $5 and $10. Originally planning to put a woman on the $10 (replacing former secretary of the treasury and founding father Alexander Hamilton), the decision to switch to the $20 may have something to do with the immensely popular rap musical about Hamilton, Hamilton. This proves that the arts and popular culture do have some degree of influence over government.

2. Three government employees have been charged with covering up evidence of lead contamination in Flint, Michigan. This has been called a "rare" development because the people at fault were only neglectful, not corrupt. The three things the Flint government did that caused this disaster were not replacing the old lead pipes that contaminated the water, switching their water source in order to save money (the new water ended up being corrosive to the pipes), and not addressing the issue soon enough. Flint's governor has pledged to drink filtered Flint tap water in order to show that it is safe. This will probably encourage residents to feel safe and use the filtered water.

3. The Clinton and Trump campaigns are both "invigorated" because of their big wins in the New York primaries. As of April 21st, Trump had 845 delegates out of the 1,237 needed to be nominated and Clinton had 1,930 out of 2,383. Next Tuesday, the primaries for Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island are happening. In Indianapolis, Trump protested the Republican nominating system. Clinton's win in New York upset Bernie Sanders's winning streak.

4. The Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA) is suing the Texas Education Agency because of a new evaluation system that tied teachers' scores to standardized test scores. The TSTA says the new system is complicated, does not tell teachers how exactly to improve, and does not even accurately reflect a teacher's performance. They say, because of this, that it's unfair and violates state law. The article mentions AISD as adopting their own scoring system which limits the use of standardized test scores. Test scores will account to 10% of the teacher's rating as opposed to the 20% in the Texas Education Agency's system. A value-added model rates a teacher's success by examining the test scores of an individual student over time. This is exactly what the TSTA is protesting, saying that a student's progress relies very little on a teacher's performance. 

5. Volkswagen has made a deal to pay back U.S. customers who own diesel-fueled cars that cheat on emissions tests. The money involved is about $1 billion dollars and some might receive more money than others depending on the make and model of their car. Last September it was found that some Volkswagen cars had cheated during laboratory emissions tests and were actually polluting while on the road. Volkswagen will probably have to pay much more than $1 billion, as they face a charge of as much as $20 billion dollars for violating the Clean Air Act.

6. Surfing dog catches waves in Port Aransas: Gerilyn and Jason Hibbler of Port Aransas have taught their Belgian malinois, Halo, to surf and now thier doing the same for shelter dogs in the area. By doing this, they bring business to Animal Shelter, as the images of the surfing dogs are shared on social media and garner attention of potential dog owners. Teaching the dogs to surf has also helped the couple cope with the loss of their daughter who died in a drunk driving accident in 2013. 
I chose this story initially because the title caught my attention. It was unusual and made me want to read more. I don't think it was exactly newsworthy or important but it definitely used novelty to it's advantage and was a lighthearted and touching read.

Grace London: McCallum's Own Hannah Montana

According to McCallum junior and musician Grace London (more commonly known by her legal name, Grace Schmidhauser), it all started with The Wizard of Oz. She credits her preschool obsession with the movie and it’s songs as her first experience with music and the first sign of an inclination towards the art form. 

            She started classical guitar lessons at seven years old and by the time she was nine, it was clear Grace wanted to sing and perform. Replacing “Schmidhauser” with “London” (because it’s more memorable and easier to say), a young Grace started out by playing small coffee shop shows. By middle school, after a brief stint playing with the pop punk band Residual Kid and auditioning for America’s Got Talent, she was a fully fledged songwriter and established musician in the Austin scene. However, Grace thinks that her young age definitely had a certain degree of influence on her early success.

            “When you’re a nine year old girl, people are going to be really nice to you either way,” she explained. “People think you’re kind of cute and it’s kind of a novelty.”

            Novelty act or not, Grace was certainly talented and has worked to make the difficult transition to becoming a performer who will be taken seriously. Taking a year off from performing during her freshman year, Grace refined her writing skills and worked on developing her music to new levels of maturity. She also chose not to capitalize on her age anymore at this point, something she could have easily done as thirteen and fourteen year old girl. Grace also had to get used to being treated as an older performer, not a child who got compliments thrown at her every time she took the stage, competing for attention against other adult musicians, trying to be taken seriously, and not being seen as “just good for her age.”

            “I was kind of used to people constantly praising me and being really nice,” Grace admitted.

            Grace, only sixteen and already with a seven year long and counting musical career, has only one year of high school left. Although there is that certain amount of uncertainty that’s present in all upcoming seniors’ lives, Grace knows for sure that she will continue to write music and pursue a career in the music industry, though perhaps not exclusively in performing.

            “There’s so many jobs in the music industry and I don’t want to limit myself to just performing aspects of it,” she said. “Songwriting for other people is something I’d be really interested in.”

It was a New York University summer music program that she went to last year that made Grace aware of the many options that she had as a musician. At the program Having a steady job-whether songwriting, producing, or music journalism, she realized, allows her to continue to perform and make music without having to compromise any of its artistic integrity to make money. Now she plans to go to college not just for music, but also for business, songwriting, and production, or perhaps get an internship somewhere where she can learn the skills necessary to be successful in the music business and make connections in the industry. While she is interested in other aspects of the music business, Grace still plans to write music and perform after high school.

             “I definitely want to continue to pursue a career in performing but I don’t want to limit myself,” she said.

When asked if she thought she was a successful musician at the present moment, Grace stuttered. Of course, relative to other sixteen-year-olds, she is. She has a booking agent and a website, a Spotify page and an album review in the Austin Chronicle. However, if you hold her to the definition of success that many people have-fame, money, playing sold out arenas every night-she hasn’t even made a dent. However, Grace says that that’s not her definition of success, it was what she wanted when she was younger but not anymore.

“I don’t know, I’ve accomplished a lot of things that I’ve wanted to by this point in my life,” she said. “I wouldn’t call myself a successful musician but I think that I’ve been successful in trying to grow in my music and working really hard on it and making sure that I’m setting myself up to pursue that later on in my life.”

Check out Grace’s music of iTunes, Bandcamp, Spotify, and gracelondon.com

Newspaper Layout Vocabulary

Flag: text that states the name of the newspaper in large, bold letters across the front page; includes the volume and issue numbers, publication date, and city and state where the paper is published

Folio: page number

Byline: text that identifies the writer of a story

Jump: text that identifies where a story is continued

Story Dividers: those lines between different stories so that you can separate them from each other 

Screen: shaded area

Infographic: a graphic that provides facts or information like a chart or graph, not a photograph

Masthead/ staff box: the names of the publisher, editor, and other important people

Bastard measure: the one thing on a page that's different to create variety

Raw Wrap: text that extends into a column along the headline

Reefer: text or a graphic that refers to a story elsewhere in the paper

Wild Art: a photo that doesn't accompany any story

Pull Quote: a graphic treatment of a quote pulled from the story

Ears: the white space on either side of the flag

Banner: a wide headline extending across the entire page

Kicker Headline: a small, short, one-line headline

Wicket Headline: a headline that consists of two or more lines of a secondary headline above one or more lines of a primary headline

Tripod Headline: a headline with a primary headline on the left covering two lines, next to lines of secondary headline

Hammer Headline: a headline style that features one or more lines of primary headline above one or more lines of a secondary headline

Modular Design: a design system that views a page as a stack of rectangles

Text Wrap: text that wraps around an image

L-Shaped Text Flow: L-shaped article with an image or something in the bend of the L

U-Shaped Text Flow: the same as above except it's a U

Other High School Newspapers

1. My favorite newspaper front page that I saw was The Broadview from Convent of the Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco. I like it because the layout is clean and professional looking. They have important articles on the front as well as a table of contents and nothing ridiculous or embarrassing. I also like how the title has the Golden Gate Bridge in it.

2. The Viking Saga from Northwest High in Grand Island, Nebraska immediately caught my eye because of how horrible it was. It's so ridiculous.

3. My favorite headline was "A Primer on Memes" because what respectable paper publishes an article like that? It's so cringworthy, it's hilarious.

4. Nine headlines, they have all the articles in the paper listed.

5. All the fonts are modern fonts. They're not really gothic like The New York Times of The Boston Globe. The titles are typically the largest text on the page and more often than not, there are no stories on the front page, just a picture and maybe some headlines.

6. Some newspapers were broadsheets and others were news magazines.

7. To be honest, I didn't see a lot of consistent similarities other then that almost all the newspapers used the same techniques to make their front cover look appealing.