Class Assignment 2

      Onyango Obama, the half-brother of President Barack Obama’s late father, was stopped last night, in Massachusetts, for suspected drunk driving. He had failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign, causing the fast reaction of a police officer to push on his brakes to prevent a collision.

            Police officer Val Krishtal said that Obama failed sobriety tests and blew a reading of 0.14 percent on a blood-alcohol breath test; keeping in mind the legal blood-alcohol limit is 0.08percent. He was then arrested and taking to Farmington, about 20 miles west of Boston. Obama pled not guilty to the charge of drunk driving and was held, on a detainer from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, without bail. His immigration status could not directly be confirmed, and a spokesman for ICE declined to comment on Obama’s immigration case.

            Obama was later booked in at the police station and was asked if he wanted to make a phone call to arrange for bail.

“I think I will call the White House,” he stated, according to a police report filed in District Court.


CORRECTION:
            Onyango Obama, the half-brother of President Barack Obama’s late father, was stopped last night, in Massachusetts, for suspected drunk driving. Come to find out Obama is also going under investigation of his immagration status.

            Police officer Val Krishtal said that Obama failed sobriety tests and blew a reading of 0.14 percent on a blood-alcohol breath test; keeping in mind the legal blood-alcohol limit is 0.08percent. He was then arrested and taking to Farmington, about 20 miles west of Boston. Obama pled not guilty to the charge of drunk driving and was held, on a detainer from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, without bail. His immigration status could not directly be confirmed, and a spokesman for ICE declined to comment on Obama’s immigration case. 

           “I think I will call the White House,” Obama said, according to a police report filed, when he was asked if he wanted to make a phone call after he was finished being booked in.

Class Assignment 1

Story 1:

Killing everyone on board, a military airplane crashed yesterday afternoon. The crash happened not too far from Chile's Juan Fernandez Islands, in the Pacific Ocean.

Twenty-one people have been reported dead, this time, including a popular Chilean television personality Felipe Camiroaga. Chile officials say that searchers and fishermen found four bodies, two women and two men, this morning. Chilean Defense Minister Andres Allamand says “After a search involving the commander in chief of the FACh (Chilean air force), the conclusion has been reached that the impact was so powerful it would have led to the instant death of those on board the plane.” If there are any, the President, Sebastian Pinera, said that the government will do everything they can to recover as many bodies as possible.

It is shocking because Chile has one of the best air-safety records in Latin America. The last time the air force had a plane crash was in 2000 on the south coast of Chile; that day fourteen people died. The time before that was way back in 1991 off the same coast and twenty people died then.

Story2:

Atrial Fibrillation is something millions of people worldwide suffer from each day. This pasted Sunday a new drug that could help with this problem, was introduced in Paris.

European Society of Cardiology was the place that everything took place. The results were published on the website of the New England Journal of Medicine. The study of the new medicine, Eliquis, included 18,201 people and 1,034 clinical sites in 39 countries, including the United States. Studies showed that the drug prevented 21 percent more strokes then the medicine, Warfarin, which people are taking now. It helps with 31 percent fewer incidents of major bleeding. It also reduced total deaths by 11 percent.

Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer expect to introduce the new drug for approval to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by the end of 2011. If it does get approved its makers plan to trumpet in its marketing campaign. “It’s a remarkable achievement. This is one of the most significant advances in cardiovascular medicine in the last five years, no question.” said by Dr. Valentin Fuster, a past president of American and World Heart Associations.

Story3:

Tropical storm Lee has brought many rain storms and floods all across the gulf coast. Warnings have been issued all the way from the Louisiana-Texas state line to the town of Destin in Florida.

Thousands of people along the coast have no power. Some parts of Louisiana and Mississippi have no power because of heavy rain and wind that knocked down power lines. There are also pats that have started flooding, getting to businesses and homes as well. It is expected for the storm to dump more than a foot of rain across the Gulf Coast. Officials have ordered evacuations of bayou towns that are coming up on the storms list.

76-year-old, Eva Alexie, who lost her house in 2008 due to Ike, did not heed orders to evacuate. Her new house today sits 8 feet above ground. About a foot of water stood beneath her home Saturday (today). “I should be used to this. It happens pretty often. I just thank God it won’t be getting in my house this time.” says Eva in good spirit.

Breaking Down A Lead

Here is the lead:


FoxNews.com - "Looks like some drug smugglers are trying to spice things up.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers arrested a man trying to sneak $1.4 million worth of marijuana into California in boxes of hot sauce.

A 39-year-old Mexican citizen arrived at the Otay mesa cargo facility Friday driving a tractor attached to a trailer filled with boxes. The Tijuana resident claimed the boxes were full of hot sauce, but when officers ran the vehicles through the port’s x-ray system, they found inconsistencies in the cargo."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/06/us-customs-officers-find-more-than-ton-marijuana-in-hot-sauce-shipment/#ixzz1XDX9229O


In the lead the author first catches the readers attention with an interesting topic, weed. From there they start to bring up the 5w's: who, what, where, when, and why. How, is often brought up or later explained.


Everything that the author wrote in this short article had a purpose. There was no extra thrown in; they gave the reader enough information to know what happen. It starts with telling the reader what the law officers found [what]. They also tell the reader who found all the weed and who the man was that did it [who]. Then how much they found, which was about 2330 pounds of weed. It was being smuggled to California [where] on Friday [when] in a shipment with hot sauce [how]. With $1.4million worth of weed people can tell [why] he was trying to get all of it in Cali.


The little that the author did write is just enough for a good lead, but if one was to write the rest of the article, they would go into further details on the incident. It was written in good lead form and the important information got out to the reader without going into full detail.

From Doing It, To Teaching It

Although being out in the field and being on top of things can be interesting we still need people to teach the students how to know what to do when they get there. 

No matter if it’s being a film critic, writer, cartoonist, or whatever it may be Eric Harrison has had his foot in a lot of things but now settles down at Texas Southern University where he has become a professor.

Being a cartoonist paid Eric very little, but he would still do his job to his best. It wasn’t much but he did it anyways. That was at the start of his career.

Being one of the founding members of the Houston Film Critics Society has giving him the chance to go around the world to such places as France and Japan. There they would interview him about different movies and Hollywood.

He has appeared in many places; some being CNN and ABC. Not only TV is where Mr. Harrison’s work is seen, his essay Imitation on Life appears in the book The Dawn at My Back, reading for University of Texas Press.

Being from Houston, "TSU was a part of me growing up." Eric says. Being at TSU now gives him the chance to teach others what he has learned from all his moving around during the years. He can fill others heads with good words and good information for the next generation to go out into the field. 

Being a reporter for the Los Angeles Times has giving him the chance to interview many people such as, film directors, stars, editors, and many other industry positions. While there he wrote many film critics and reviews for all types of movies. 

"If I had to choose I love to be the fly on the wall" he says to his student when ask what kind of observation he likes doing the most. Sitting back sometimes can get you more information than asking questions. Mr. Harrison knows how to do both.

Sometimes you have to step out the box to see the whole picture of things. One of his biggest projects was when he went undercover to work for Public Housing. He needed a great story and he got it! "I would do it [go undercover] again", he told his students. He went in on a mission and the 2weeks he was undercover he got the information he needed and then turned it into a great story.

In 2000 Eric got the opportunity to become his hometown's chief film critic for the Houston Chronicle. He would hold that position for 5 years.

Just things like that show how much passion Mr. Harrison really has about his career. That's why he brought all his knowledge into one of the classrooms at TSU, so he could share his passion with their students and get them to where they want to be as well.

Eric Harrison claims that he still hasn't done everything quite yet. Still left on his list of "To Do", is to write a book. We'll be looking out for that.