In today's, September 28, "Daily Trojan" the headline article, along with a picture, was about Walter Cronkite. He attended USC's campus yesterday and spoke to students about journalism in a Q & A session. The article regarding this event was well written by staff writer Rachel Gallegos. It is important that students are aware of the amazing things that USC has to offer. This story hit a personal note because I was among the few that were able to attend. I also was able to ask Mr. Cronkite a question: How did you handle the emotional toll of journalism and what recommendations do you give to future journalist? His response was very enlightening about how one does get hardened through the stories that they have to cover, but one also must stay in a stable state of mind. Are all the opportunities that USC has to offer for its students not amazing?

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has been devastating and heart breaking, for the most part. Thousands of people are left without homes, family, food or shelter, and those are the more fortunate ones. The hurricane captured the lives of many individuals. Although all of this has been brought to all of our attention, an area which is not so readily covered is the impact on nature and animal life in the south. An article published on www.cnn.com talked about eight trained dolphins were moved from their residence to at pool at the Marine Life Oceanarium in Mississippi, which had withstood the hurricane of 1969. According to the associate press, when the hurricane hit the dolphins were "pulled out into the Gulf of Mexico." Animal rescue experts were very worried for the dolphins, especially for two of them who had been born at the aquarium and therefore had never been out in the "real world." Fortunately, all dolphins were rescued and are now being taken care of. The article stated that all of the dolphins look like they will be okay, even with cuts and some being 100 pounds underweight. I felt that this article is important because of the lack of articles that have been touching upon the animal life that was also destroyed when the hurricane hit. It is so nice to have heart-warming articles in a time of such devastation. I also find it interesting how quickly these animal rescuers got to the scene to find the stranded dolphins, where as it took days to help fellow Americans who were stranded on their rooftops. The animal experts were doing their job, and doing it well. One can not help but ask... Why was the government not immediately on scene helping out nearly destroyed humans?

The above mentioned article can be found at: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09/21/katrina.dolphin.rescue.ap/index.html

All over the news there are stories of death, destruction, hunger, and so many more devastating thing. Especially in the south after being hit by hurricane Katarina. A story that I found inspiring and touching was in the "Los Angeles Times" sport section. This was the story of the New Orleans Saints vs. The Panthers football game last Sunday in Carolina. The game was tied until kicker John Carney kicked a 47-year field goal, with three seconds left, and won the game. I was fortunate to see the kick live and it sent chills down my spine. The Saints were by no means predicted to win that game at all, according to the article in the "Los Angeles Times" written by Sam Farmer, the Panthers was the team selected by "Sports Illustrated" to be the Super Bowl champions. I believe this story is so important because in such a hard time for all of those people in the south, especially in New Orleans, it is amazing to have such a heart-felt story come out. One of the players were quoted in the story as saying "We wanted to give those people in the shelters something to cheer about." It may not be food, it may not be clothing, but it is definitely something to increase cheers.

First News Entry

There are many different things going on in the news right now. It seems the majority of the attention is focused on the devastation that has occurred from the Katarina hurricane. One thing in particular that caught my attention was when celebrities were speaking out about the horrible things that happened to the south and how we can all take part. Such celebrities as Mike Myers, Chris Rock and Kanyae West were speaking up about the importance in helping these victims. They were reading a teleprompter that had been set up for them before, except Kanyae decided to not go along with the reading. He was saying how we all need to help and then he jumps to "Bush hates black people." Although I understand his frustration with the fact that the Bush administration cut out emergency funds, it was extremely ignorant for him to make that statement. I believe this news story is very important because of how unfortunate it is. That network had gotten celebrities to speak out about helping, to encourage others to help as well, its sad that a celebrity would use that time to burst out with ignorant comments. I am by no means a Bush supporter, but there is a time and place for everything and its incredible sad that when the time is used what meant for the thousands dead and even more homeless and stranded.