New York Times Reading Log - 10

One story that I found particularly interesting in today's New York Times was Justin Gillis and Joanna M. Foster's article about the insane weather the world has been experiencing over the last few weeks, or as the article calls it, "weather weirding."  Specifically, the aspect of the article that grabbed my attention was the part about the way in which trees that began to bloom early because of the warm weather may now be in danger because temperatures have dropped so far back down.

Last week, I wrote an article about the odd weather we have been receiving and one of the people I talked to as a source was Ron Christie, a Program Coordinator of UNH Agriculture Resources.  He warned of the weather fluctuation's negative effects on crop growth.  "All of this growth could be killed with a severe frost," Christie told me.  "The big danger is what could happen to fruit trees.  Fruit buds could be damaged or killed.  This could mean significantly lower fruit tree production this year," he said.  I found it very interesting, on a personal level, that my story and the research I did for the article, coincided with today's article in the Times. 

Another story that struck my interest was the front page article about the death of famous American poet Adrienne Rich.  I have read a few of Rich's poems in my literature classes here at UNH.  One that always stood out was her poem, Power.  It's sad to see the passing of such a literary great.

Lastly, I am an enormous fan of AMC's TV series Mad Men.  Like all other fans of the show, I am very excited that Don Draper and his crazy crew of Madison Avenue Ad men are back after a nearly 2 year hiatus.  I loved the season premiere, which aired this past Sunday, and in today's Times, there was an interesting article that appeared on page A20 that revolved around a particularly controversial scene from that episode.  

Evidently, the opening scene from the episode, which depicted a group of immature Madison Avenue employees dropping paper bags filled with water from their office in a high-rise building onto a group of African American protesters in the street, was taken directly from an article on the front page in a 1966 issue of the New York Times.  I thought that was really cool.  Even more interesting is that the reporter who wrote the story, John Kifner, doesn't even remember writing the article after all those years.  It's interesting what years of reporting will do to a person.

   

New York Times Reading Log - 9

More big news from the Supreme Court in today's Times.  It looks like Obama's health care law is on the route to being shut down by the Supreme Court justices.  This doesn't come as much surprise in my eyes, since this was a bill that was so controversial, and so roundly rejected by conservatives (despite the fat that it was modeled after a similar law that was instated in Massachusetts by Republican primary nominee Mitt Romney).  This could be a definite stumbling block for Obama entering campaign season, especially since the health care bill was one of his largest, if not most popular, accomplishments in office.  But hey, if he runs against Romney, I guess he could just blame it on him...it was kind of his idea, after all.

In other news: students cheat on the SATs and ACTs.  Wow.  That's a stunner.  So what's being done about it?  Photo verification for students is now a requirement to take the standardized tests.  That honestly does seem like an effective countermeasure, but I think the discussion needs to be made about moving away from standardized tests like these.  Colleges are already making moves toward not giving student's SAT or ACT scores as much weight as they once held in the application process, and I think that is the direction that we should be heading in more quickly.  What do these tests even prove anyways except for whether students can or cannot take tests effectively?  Not much. 

Another interesting story came on page A10 of today's paper:  Chloe Sang-Hun's article about North Korea's refusal to cancel plans to launch a satellite, even despite other world leaders' threats to withhold food aid and sanctions.  This just goes to show that North Korea is ready, willing, able, and committed to being the biggest pain in the ass to the rest of the world that it can be.  This should be an interesting storyline to follow.  Hopefully it doesn't end in some nuclear holocaust. I thought that maybe after Kim Jong-il died, that country would lay off on the craziness a little bit, but I guess not. 

  

  

Summer in March

The March of Summer

            Shorts, sun block, bathing suits, ice cream, Frisbees flying, and temperatures reaching the 80s.  Are the seasons confused?  After a winter that was much more like fall, spring is starting out like summer. 

Just three weeks removed from a snowstorm that gave UNH students their first snow day of the 2011-2012 school year, New Hampshire got an early taste of summer weather last week. Temperatures reached highs in the 70s and even in the 80s throughout most of the week, in an unusual burst of hot weather more reminiscent of mid-July than March.  UNH students took full advantage of the oddly warm weather, many donning summer clothes and taking to the outdoors.

            “I spent the gorgeous afternoon playing Frisbee with friends,” said UNH sophomore Jason Graham on Wednesday afternoon.

            “I took a walk in the woods, went fishing, and just enjoyed the outdoors,” said Jasmin Cesko, another sophomore.

            Students were not the only ones enjoying the change in weather.  The Dairy Bar, Durham’s popular ice cream restaurant, saw a sizable boost in business as customers flooded in for some cool treats.  Jane Calef, the supervisor at the Dairy Bar, said that she has never seen so much business this early in the year.

        “It’s been crazy,” Calef said, “Our numbers have almost doubled.  Usually it’s only like this if something’s going on at the [Whittemore Center].” 

            The unexpected heat affected student athletes as well.  In particular, the women’s cross-country team had to make changes to their normal practice routine to compensate for the high temperatures.

            “We had to go for a run in the woods today,” said sophomore Anne Twombly, a runner on the cross-country team, on Wednesday “It was too hot to run out on the pavement.”

            Although many students took joy from the unseasonable warmth, some couldn’t help feeling somewhat concerned with the strange weather.  UNH student David De La Rosa said that he believes the heat is a result of a long-term trend toward climate change, and that he is concerned about the weather to come.

            “I’m excited for hurricane season,” De La Rosa sneered, “The hurricanes are going to be crazy this year.  I think it’s all because of climate change.”

            Meteorologist Josh Judge of the New Hampshire news station WMUR was also surprised by the consistent hot weather that characterized last week.

            “I have never seen anything like it,” Judge said, “there is no precedent for it. We set six records [for temperature highs] on six days in a row, right back to back.” 

Judge said that although last week’s temperatures were highly unusual for March, a larger trend toward higher temperatures over several years would be necessary to prove that climate change was the cause.

“It is way to early to tell if it’s indicative of anything,” Judge said,  “Many of the records broken were set 50 to 100 years ago.  If it were to happen one or two more years in a row, then there would be a cause for concern.”

Judge also pointed out that the weather phenomenon known as La Niña was in effect during the past winter, and that that may have been the cause for the unseasonable weather. 

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, “During a La Niña year, winter temperatures are warmer than normal in the Southeast and cooler than normal in the Northwest.”  La Niña would indeed be a fitting explanation for the warm weather that has characterized both the winter and the early spring.

Mary Stampone, a New Hampshire State Climatologist, said that while she agrees that it is too early to determine if the weather is a result of climate change, it is indicative of a trend regionally.

“Weather patterns like these are short term responses to wider atmospheric circulation patterns,” Stampone said,  “You cannot directly relate the magnitude of one particular weather event to a long-term, global-scale pattern like climate change or the one specific part of climate change we refer to as global warming.  However, data indicates that over time, average March temperature has risen, and we have observed more extremes in weather patterns from year to year.  Therefore, this type of weather pattern is consistent with what many scientists have interpreted as the influence of regional climate changes on regional weather patterns.”

Whether climate change, La Niña, or pure luck was the cause of last week’s warm weather, UNH students shouldn’t plan too many trips to the beach just yet.  Forecasts call for a return of temperatures in the mid-40s and rain for the week to come.

New York TImes Reading Log - 8 (Thursday's paper),

Big Headline Alert!  I love it when the Times gets a little excited, and in today's paper, they had a larger headline than usual for the story about the Supreme Court's ruling that defendants have the Constitutional right to effective legal advice in plea negotiations.  This is definitely a story that warranted the increase in headline size, especially given that it was passed with the crossover vote of conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy.  It may cause a sticky situation in trying to determine the very subjective idea of "good legal advice," but it still marks an increase in rights for the accused.  And as a law professor is quoted as saying in the article, "[this decision] is the single greatest revolution in the criminal justice system since Gideon vs. Wainwright provided indigents the right to counsel."  So this is big news for sure.

I was also interested in the story about NFL coach Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints being suspended for a year without pay for his involvement in his team's "bounty scandal."  It is cool to see sports get on the front page for any reason, but I guess it's not so great to see the NFL marked by this controversy.  Payton deserves to be suspended, but it makes me wonder how many other teams in the league have a similar bounty, or "pay per injury" system in place.  Also, this makes Bill Bellichick look like a regular law abiding citizen.  All of a sudden spygate doesn't seem so bad.

In more news from the worst presidential primary of all time: Romney's campaign is an etch-a-sketch.  Of course it is...anything to keep Santorum's dying race alive.  It's annoying how everyone knows that politicians change their platforms between the primaries and the presidential election, yet everybody still gets infuriated if anybody admits it.

If Romney is an etch-a-sketch, Santorum is a crucifix.  And in a race of the "worse of two evils", I'd rather be able to shake and erase.

New York Times Reading Log - 7

A slow news day for the Times?  The A section only had 20 pages today.  Usually by Wednesday they're up to 24 or 26.  Am I crazy for noticing this? Maybe I should just stop trying to figure out a pattern in the way the Times prints their issues. 

I found the front page story about Mitt Romney sweeping the election in Illinois to be interesting, if not a little distressing.  It looks as though Mitt Romney is really picking up steam now.  After getting key victories in Ohio (by the slimmest of all margins) and Michigan, dominating Illinois seems to solidify him as the definite front-runner in my mind.

The article says that Romney's campaign has stressed that he is the best candidate to beat Barrack Obama in the Presidential Election.  I think I will have to agree with Romney, which is exactly why I wish he'd lose the primaries, and send Rick Santorum (whose hyper-conservative ideals make him somebody no social liberal would ever dream of voting for) to the chopping block against Obama. Romney poses a real threat to Obama in my mind.

What concerns me the most about a Republican candidate posing a threat to Obama's presidency is the current turmoil with Iran.  Obama, in my opinion is handling the situation with grace and tact by trying to put diplomacy before military action.  If a military and defense oriented Republican like Romney is to be our next president, it is my sincere fear that we will become involved in a war with Iran.

Republican President + Possible Nuclear threat in the Middle East = War

Sound familiar? 

New York Times Reading Log - 6

From a simple formatting perspective, it was interesting to see the larger font size and all capital lettering given to the "Wins in 2 Contests Help Romney Add to Delegate Lead" headline in today's New York Times.  Since I have started reading the Times, this is the largest headline I have seen, and I found it funny that it was warranted for a Super Tuesday that, despite adding to Romney's delegate lead, did not show decisively that Romney is now the definite front runner or winner.  

Newt Gingrich got an easy victory in Georgia, winning 76 delegates, and Rick Santorum won a pair of states, Oklahoma and Tennessee.  Notably, no candidate showed a clear enough majority in the prized state of Ohio.  

In a Primary Election that has been so very divisive and non-committal for the Republican party, it is clear the the media is scrounging for anything close to definitive.  When I first saw the emphatic headline, I thought that Romney had won the Primary, just as a first impression based on the size of the text.  When I read on, and learned that the news was much less decisive than that, I was perplexed.  I guess everyone has slow news days, even the immortal Times.

I also enjoyed the article by Abby Goodnough that was based in Leominster, Massachusetts.  It was humorous to see how underwhelmed many Republicans and Independents have been with Romney's performance in their own state.  What is perhaps more telling, is that many still voted for him.  American politics has indeed become a "best of 2 evils" game. 

New York Times Reading Log - 5

I found the article in today's New York Times by David M. Herszenhorn about Vladimir Putin's re-election in Russia to be interesting.  Although the article didn't have a "bias"per se, it was interesting to me how heavily it was being inferred in the article that the election was rigged.  I understand that Herszenhorn is not technically taking sides with this article, since all of the claims he mentions regarding the election's rigging are well documented by experts and by Russian politicians and citizens.  However, it is interesting how a writer can use evidence and perhaps a slightly slanted tone and really cast a negative pall over an event.

The negative vibes in this article even pervade the image that is on the front page, picturing Putin in front of an ominous looking, deep-red backdrop, pointing emphatically during what looks like a dramatic celebration speech.  I this picture, Putin looks like he just named himself evil emperor of the world or something.  The quotes that Herszenhorn attributes to Putin come across as ironic, especially given the heavy implications that the election was fraudulent.  

"We have gained a clean victory!" said Putin in his speech

This is not to sound as if I believe that Herszenhorn is wrong in his implications that the election was fraudulent.  In fact, I am inclined to totally agree with him.  Besides, it isn't really Herszenhorn making the claims after all, is it?  He simply chooses the angle with which to write it, and uses the evidence that supports it.  I think this article is so well written and  informative because it doesn't back down from speculation.  It just goes to show the persuasive power that journalism can have, even despite the practice's standards for avoiding bias.

Obama Speech in Nashua

In the face of escalating gas prices and criticism from Republican opponents, President Obama discussed the importance of diminishing the United States' dependence on foreign oil in a speech delivered to Nashua Community College on Thursday.

"Anybody that tells you we can drill our way out of this problem doesn't know what they're talking about or isn't telling you the truth," Obama told an applauding crowd, "We have to keep developing new technology new sources of energy."

Obama pointed out that during his Administration, America's dependence on foreign oil has decreased with each passing year.  The President even pulled out a chart that demonstrated this decline, and refered to it during his speech.

"Under my administration, America is producing more oil today that an any time in the last eight years," Obama said, "Under my Administration, we have a near-record number of oil rigs operating right now - more working oil and gas rigs than the rest of the world combined.  That's a fact."

Obama urged the audience to confront Congress, who he said has subsidized the oil industry with an  $4 billion in tax dollars annually.

"Let's put every single Member on record," he urged, "You can either stand up for the oil companies, or you can stand up for the American people.  You can keep subsidizing a fossil fuel that's been getting taxpayer dollars for a century, or you can place your bets on a clean energy future."

Obama placed emphasis throughout his speech on the progress his Administration has made in creating a renewable fuel economy in the United States.  He said that the use of clean, renewable energy has nearly doubled in the United States since he took office.

"We're taking every possible action to develop a near hundred-year supply of natural gas," Obama said, "something that experts believe will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade."

In a speech that was not given as a part of his impending campaign, Obama did take some jabs at the Republicans that are gunning for his job, showing that tensions between the incumbent and his Republican competitors is starting to mount.

"It's the easiest thing in the world to make phony election-year promises about lowering gas prices," he said,  "What's harder is to make a serious, sustained commitment to tackle a problem that may not be solved in one year or one term or even one decade."