Fighting Flu Without Big Gun

The push for swine flu prevention is in full swing. The Obama administration is worried about the sudden increase in the numbers of cases of the flu, while the projected public immunization date is still a month away. The Department of Health and Human Services is partnering with many different groups with hopes of spreading the word about better hygiene and flu prevention. The Obama administration is remaining positive about the situation, believing it is better to be over cautious than to under react.

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Dalzell, S.C.

Over Labor Day weekend, I took a trip to visit my best friend and her family in South Carolina. While I was there, we went to a little sub shop in Dalzell, S.C. It was an interesting experience. The food was decent, as long as you did not question what it was actually made of, and the atmosphere was pleasurable.
My friend has two little girls, Zarina, 2, and Zariah, 3, who were more than ready to eat some lunch. We ordered a pizza , but decided the girls would not be able to wait that long for food, so we added on an order of nachos as an appetizer. After a good half hour, the waitress brought out our styrofoam plates and plastic silverware. She informed us our pizza would be out shortly with our nachos. My friend was upset that our nachos had not arrived sooner and wanted to take them off the order, but the waitress told us we could have them for free because of the wait.
Our food arrived shortly after that. The pizza was delicious, but the nachos were another story. Mystery cheese seemed like a good name for the lumpy yellow substance on the chips. We learned the valuable lesson of not ordering the nachos at the sub shop in Dalzell, S.C.

Lead

The lead is the most important part of your article. It seizes your reader’s attention, pulling them deeper and deeper into the depths of your story. Writing a good lead can be very difficult. If you put too much information in your, you can make the story difficult to comprehend. Too little information can be dull and turn your reader away.
The key to a good lead is emphasizing the unusual. News is happening all around us and the audience can read it in many different papers. You have to pick out the most unusual piece of information about the story you are writing and use that to set your story apart from the rest.
Every part of your story has some essential components to it. These essentials become more important in the lead. The lead must be written by keeping an impartial opinion. If your thoughts and feelings begin to show in your lead, your entire story is going to be biased. It is also very important that you keep your audience in mind. If you are writing for a high school paper, you are going to use different language and topics than if you were writing for a health journal.

Paper Review

On Katrina Anniversary, Obama Targets Red Tape in Rebuilding

Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125155269388369431.html

President Barack Obama remembered Hurricane Katrina today. It has been four years since the horrible natural disaster struck New Orleans, LA. Rebuilding has been tough for many locations, but President Obama promises the citizens of New Orleans have not been forgotten. His future goals for New Orleans involve everything from additional police officers to construction of new schools. President Obama plans on making a trip to New Orleans within the year.

Top 3 Noteworthy News Moments.

My first noteworthy news experience is actually linked with two different papers. The first paper was a Wis. wide satirical paper, that poked fun at real life events. The paper would often feature a story about a different town from all over the state. The time had finally arrived, my town made it's debut. The story was about a little boy named Billy. He came home every day from school to a drunk father who beat the living day lights out of him and a mother with a gambling problem. The community was appalled by the supposed satire and many citizens were convinced it was a true story. Our local news paper had to run a story explaining the meaning behind the original article so the community wouldn't go on a witch hunt for little Billy's parents.

My second noteworthy news experience is held in high admiration. In order to fully comprehend the worthiness of this article a little bit of explanation needs to go into the background of my hometown. It is a small farming town with no more than a couple hundred people living there. It is the kind of town that doesn't handle change well, but fights desperately to stay alive in today’s economy. The local school decided to have an event called Diversity Day. It featured many different speakers, but the number one attraction was a homosexual couple. The community did not want their children being exposed to this, so they protested the event. In the end the event was canceled. Despite the communities beliefs the paper printed a wonderful interview with the couple. It explained a lot of challenges the couple faced, especially in a small town. The article also did a good job of explaining the fact that all the couple wished for was tolerance, while simultaneously reminding the community about the golden rule.


My third noteworthy news experience was being able to write for our high school news paper. Our school was too small to have it's own paper, but we had a few pages in the local paper. I pitched an idea to the editor about an ongoing short story about an elderly lady reminiscing about growing up in a small town. I interviewed many people from the community and took their memorable small town events and changed them slightly to fit my character. It was great to see everyone's perspective of small town life. The overall opinion of life in a small town is always changing, it is definitely a love hate relationship. It was a great feeling to have the power to share these wonderful stories with the rest of the community.

Introduction

Hi, my name is Randi. I am attending college with the hopes of gaining some direction in my life. I went to the University of St. Thomas for two years and wasn’t quite sure where I was headed. I have always known English was my passion, but I didn’t want to end up a starving artist on the streets. I transferred to ARCC with hopes of expanding my horizons, but I find myself being drawn back to English and literature.
My husband, Matt and I were married a few months ago. My maiden name is Leek, which is what ended up on the class list. Sorry for any confusion this caused. We bought our first house this summer and are busy enjoying life.
I work full time at everyone’s favorite cable company. When I’m not on a call at work or have some free time I am busy writing . I have a strange problem of killing off all my characters in my books. I hope to develop my writing abilities to avoid this in the future. I am looking forward to developing my writing skills and getting to know everyone in this class.