Month: September 2020

Steven Postolka talked in an interview about his way from being a student at Morningside College to working as a lawyer for Sioux City.

In 2007, Postolka started studying Political Science and Mass Communication at Morningside College in Sioux City. He graduated in 2011 and went on to law school at the University of Iowa.

He studied there for another three years, before he went on to working as a judicial law clerk for just under two years. Afterwards, he did private practice in Spencer, Iowa. Since the beginning of this year, he is a lawyer for Sioux City or more specifically the city council.

When asked where he sees himself in five years, he responded that he will probably stay in Sioux City for a while. He gave examples of coworkers who have been working at the same place for over ten years.

On the question, if he felt that Morningside prepared him well, he answered that it did. He interacted a lot with the professors at Morningside which prepared him well for grad school. There, he also learned how to write.

He explained that “[t]his is not a get-rich-quick business.” The most important thing for a law student is hard work.

Postolka also said that the most difficult part of his job is the clients. He explained, “They come to you, because it’s the worst day of their life.” He added that as a lawyer “[…] you often have to deal with the ass-hand of humanity.”

Stranded Overseas, Thousands Beg Australia to Let Them Come Home by Livia Albeck-Ripka (The New York Times)

A lot of Australians are stranded over-seas and can’t get back home. There are restrictions in place which only allow 4,000 Australians to return to the country per week. It is estimated that about 100,000 Australians are outside of the country right now. It is close to impossible to get a flight to the continent if people don’t book business class or first-class tickets. Many people can’t afford those tickets and some don’t have time to wait for the situation to improve, because they need to get back into the country to avoid violating any visa requirements. In another example, a woman got the virus while being overseas. She was told by the government to stay there until she was healthy again. But now, afterwards, she can’t get a flight.

The journalist seems to have had several interviews with people who were affected by the situation. She mostly wrote about people’s problems and complaints and used individuals’ stories to give some more specific examples of common difficulties and problems with the situation. She also used a lot of citations. I think she did that to make the examples more “believable”. It makes the people and their stories appear real. More importantly, she used them to express varies opinions and complaints without making it seem like they were her own thoughts. If she quotes someone, it’s someone else who said it and she is just repeating it. She appears to be objective, because they are technically not her complaints and opinions.

Tour de France Crowns Young Champion to Close Its Pandemic Edition by Elian Peltier (The New York Times)

The article is about the Tour de France, what changes were made due to the virus, and who won it. It starts with describing that Tadej Pogacar, 21, from Slovenia won the tournament. He is apparently the first champion of the race from Slovenia and he is also the youngest winner in the post-World War II era. He won three jerseys: a yellow one for general classification (current leader), a polka-dot one as the race’s top climber and a white one for the Tour’s best young rider. Then, the article explains how he won. Basically, he won a race on Saturday with and insurmountable lead. The next paragraphs talk more about the race itself and the consequences of the virus. Afterwards, an Australian who placed third overall, Richie Porte, gets mentioned. Lastly, Pogacar gets quoted.

The article basically tells me everything I need to know. It informs me about the main event which is who won the Tour de France and it gives me some background information about the winner and background information about the winner himself. It appears to have been written in the format of an inverted pyramid. The only thing that I really don’t like very much is the lead. The article is not about how Pogacar is struggling to fathom how he won. It’s more about who won it, what’s special about it, and the Tour itself. The lead is a little misleading in my opinion. I would have included that he is the youngest winner since WWII instead of his struggle to fathom how he won.

‘The Devil All the Time’ Review: Down-Home Livin’ and Dyin’ by Manohia Dargis (New York Times)

This article or movie review is split up into a lead where the story’s genre is mentioned, it’s summarized in one sentence and Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson are named as two famous actors who play in it. The next few paragraphs describe what kind of movie it is and some main characters and events that happen in it. Then there is another summary of the plot that goes a little more into detail. Next, the movie gets analyzed a bit and in the end, technicalities like the framing, lighting, music, and costumes are being complemented. The last paragraph is about things that stood out and made this movie different from other movies. The main thing that was also mentioned previously is the fact that the whole cast is white and there are no black actors and characters. The fact that the movie is an adaptation of a novel is mentioned in this paragraph too.

I think that this article has somewhat of an inverted pyramid structure; some main information is in the first paragraphs. A lot of people read reviews to find out if this movie interests them or not. The reader of the review can get a feeling or an idea about what kind of movie this is in the first few paragraphs. If it sounds interesting the reader will likely proceed to reading the next paragraphs too. Next, they get a summary of the movie which would probably be the next important thing of interest to the reader. If they like the plot they move on to the rest. Most readers might be interested in an analysis of the movie which comes next. Only few are usually interested in the quality of the picture and music, etc. The only two things that I would criticize: I don’t fully agree with the placement of the last paragraph, although it seems to function as a conclusion in this review and therefor makes sense in the end. Secondly, while I like the way that this review was written, I (as an international student) sometimes had trouble understanding everything and there are a few parts that I had to read twice to get what they are supposed to mean. I also personally usually like references to other movies, but I don’t know “The Night of the Hunter”. Because it was made in 1955, I doubt that a lot of people in my generation or close to it know it either. Maybe a different and younger movie could have been used as a reference or the referenced movie could have been described shortly.

Duncan said that the situation weirds her out.

Ashley Duncan, a sophomore at Morningside College, talked in an interview about Covid-19 on campus. She explained that she finds the situation interesting, but it also weirds her out.

“Covid on campus is very weird and feels very strange to me.”

She thinks that the college is trying it’s best to deal with the virus on campus, but rules are not enforced which was visible at the football game against North Western; at least half of the audience didn’t wear masks and didn’t social distance. However the college announced that these rules will be enforced in the next game.

Another problem according to Duncan are the circumstances in quarantine. Apparently, students who live on quarantine floors don’t always get food for example.

Some students are handling the situation pretty well and follow most guidelines. But a lot of students don’t; they don’t wear masks everywhere, especially not in residence halls.

Women’s soccer in the is having a big year filled with major accomplishments in the National Women’s Soccer League.

The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) was the first U.S. pro sports league to start and complete a quarantined tournament. July’s Challenge Cup was a success and drew record TV ratings according to Axios Media.

The new season has already started on September 5 and will end on October 17 with 18 matches in total. CBS announced that the delay of the football season by the SEC created openings which were filled by the NWSL. CBS will continue to stream a Game of the Week till the end of the season.

Another positive development for the NWSL was its announced expansion in the next two years. According to NWSL Soccer and ESPN, Racing Louisville FC will join the league in 2021 and a team from Los Angeles which is nicknamed Angel City will debut in 2022. The Athletic published in a report that a Sacramento team will debut in either 2021 or 2022. 

The LA team is owned by a group composed almost entirely of women. According to CNN, 31 founding investors are listed on the team’s website and only four are men. The group of investors include some Hollywood stars, including Natalie Portman, Jennifer Garner, Eva Longoria and Jessica Chastain. Angel City’s President Julie Uhrman told CNN Sport about Portman’s commitment that: “You can see that she really gets behind causes that are important to her and she does meaningful work for those causes.” Uhrman added, “she [Portman] wanted to take her commitment to elevate women’s athletics, to address pay equality and to make it public and meaningful.” Serena Williams and 14 former US soccer women’s national team (USWNT) players are part of the founding group as well. This results in a large group of tens of millions of followers on social media which is going to give women’s soccer in the US a new publicity which hasn’t existed for this sport before.

According to CBS, California will get two more professional soccer teams throughout the next three years, one of them being a men’s soccer team in Sacramento. A report from The Athletic states that a women’s expansion Sacramento team could join the NWSL in 2021. The date might get pushed back considering that the men’s side has already made that decision due to the global pandemic. The men’s team is set to play at Papa Murphy’s Park which is a stadium that holds 11,500 visitors. This capacity meets NWSL expansion guidelines, but the stadium lacks proper locker room facilities.

I am sitting at a table in the lobby of the Science Center. It’s quiet except for the occasional opening and closing sounds of doors and the humming sound of electricity and machines. The humming is a mix of the air conditioner, air filters, lamps’ electricity, and the vending machine.  I can’t smell anything, because I am required to wear a mask her. From time to time, people enter the building through one of two doors that are right next to the lobby. Once, a young woman comes in carrying a few stacks of paper that are wrapped in foil. As she arrived in a golf cart and she wears a Morningside sweatshirt, it’s safe to assume that she is a student who is working and has to deliver the stacks of paper somewhere in the building.

During the whole time, another young woman is sitting at a different table in the lobby. She has a laptop, a MacBook Air to be specific, in front of her. A cellphone, two pens, an air pod charger and a laptop case are placed on both sides next to the laptop. She is wearing air pods in both ears and her eyes are fixed on the laptop’s screen. She seems to be watching a video, because YouTube is opened on the screen. All of this points to the assumption that she is a student.

Towards the end of my fifteen minutes long observation, the student’s cellphone starts ringing. She picks up and starts talking to someone, but I can’t make out what she is saying or who she is talking to because of her mask. All I can tell is that her answers are all rather short. They mostly consist of one to three words although her most common response is not a word but rather an affirmative “Mh”. The call lasts about a minute. Afterwards, the student returns back to her previous activity.

Apart from that nothing really happens here during my observation.

College Quarantine Breakdowns Leave Some at Risk by Natasha Singer (The New York Times)

The article is mainly about students opinions on how colleges and universities try to get Covid-19 under control on campus. Several students from various universities, like UNC, Notre Dame, etc, have been interviewed. The general opinion seems to be that students who get tested positive get quarantined or isolated quickly but the conditions in those isolation and quarantine areas are bad. Students in quarantine who don’t know if they have the virus get roomed together with students who got positive test results. Those students get unnecessary exposure to the virus even though they might not have it themselves. Many universities don’t have any staff in those areas. The food is bad and conditions in general are bad. A lot of quarantined students also use the same laundry rooms that all the other students use. There was one example given of a plan that appears to work pretty well: Tufts University near Boston has significantly reduced dorm occupancy and is testing all students for the virus twice a week. It has also installed modular residential units on tennis courts and a parking lot for up to 225 students with infections, rather than house them in a dorm. That way, the lack of elevators in resident halls is not going to be a problem and in emergency situations, the patients room is easily accessible. On top of that everyone gets tested twice a week. In short, universities are doing a good job for people who want to take initiative and don’t want to spread the virus, but they are letting too much stuff fly under the radar and they don’t consider the mental health of affected students.

The article’s lead basically mentions the most important information. But I feel like the article repeats itself several times. In my opinion, there were too many too similar examples. The article could have been a little shorter if the journalist would have summarized some similar examples or used one example as the main example and then only added parts from other examples that differ from the main example. If I would have written the article, I might have put the student’s quote in the end (“They are doing a good job for people who want to take initiative and don’t want to spread the virus,” Mr. Hennen said. “But I think they are letting too much stuff fly under the radar.”) and another quote from a different student (“One thing that needs to be taken care of more is the mental health aspect of it all because it is very, very scary having coronavirus,” Ms. Terry said of her isolation experience. “We’re college students. We just moved away from our homes and it’s very stressful.”) closer to the top, because I like to write articles using the inverted pyramid and those quotes summarize students’ opinion very well.

Gas flooded sewer lines for two blocks around 48th Street and Correctionville Road.

Gas got on streets, ditches and sewer lines according to police reports. The situation was serious for two hours until the gas was flushed away.

Four families were evacuated because of the sewer-line gas and Cars were rerouted through side streets.

The cause of the spilled gas was a Texaco gasoline truck that overturned on outskirts of the town.

            Fire Chief Charles Hochandel said: “The firemen followed catastrophe and hazmat procedures set up beforehand for just such an occurrence.”

A fire fighter fell out of a tree when he tried to rescue a cat.

Fire fighter Bob Harwood climbed 50 feet in an oak tree to get a cat. He dropped the last 15 feet when a dead limb broke.

Harwood broke his left leg in the fall. He was admitted at St. Luke’s Hospital and said he is doing “just fine”.

The calico cat landed on Harwood and is fine. It belongs to Suzanne and Samantha Decker, Charlie and Kim Decker’s twins.

The accident happened at 102 11th Ave.