The Blu Review

Photo by Naomi Ashman | The Blu Review

July 2014Vol.1

Austin

Inside this issue

Faulty box causes dinner distresspage 3

Solar powered cars begin 8-day cross-country road race page 8

Brave New Books prioritizes you, truth, knowledge page 6

Staff

BluBonnetsThe Blu ReviewASNE Reynolds High School

Journalism InstituteUT School of Journalism

300 W. Dean Keeton, Austin, TX 78712-1073

Naomi AshmanStaff Writer

Pablo CantuStaff Writer

Tabitha BrobstStaff Writer

Kelly SavioStaff Writer

Jessica MilesStaff Writer

MissionOur mission as a student-run, online-only publi-cation is to provide the community with quality, diverse, accurate, responsible, thought-provoking and authentic journalism designed to keep read-

ers informed in a timely manner.

Editorial PolicyThe Blu Review is an open public forum that in-vites comments and Letters to the Editor, which should be 400 words or fewer and must include the writer’s name and a method of verification. All submissions from readers are subject to laws governing obscenity, libel, privacy. Letters may be edited for length. Opinion pieces, including columns, reflect the opinions of individual writers, while unsigned editorials reflect the majority opin-ion of the three-member Editorial Board, not the school, the school district or any other employee. The Editorial Board includes all staff and makes final decisions on content.

Opinion: She’ll leave you with a smile

Naomi Ashman was born and raised in Hawaii. She serves as the Student Activities Coordinator and yearbook teacher at Kamehameha Schools which is a private school for students of native Ha-waiian ancestry. Inside and outside of the classroom her interest is photogra-phy, and she also loves to travel.

Pablo Cantu just com-pleted his 12th year as a teacher at Eagle Pass High School. He current-ly teaches government, economics and Yearbook II-III. Pablo has been the student council sponsor for the past 12 years and has also served as senior class advisor, NHS advisor, and UIL coach and cheer coach.

Tabitha Brobst is an English and journalism teacher at Columbia High School in Columbia, S.C. In addition to advising the school’s yearbook, the Columbian, she teaches English II Honors, critical reading and academic literacy classes. Tabitha enjoys watching Pittsburgh sports, golfing, traveling and snuggling up with a good book and a cup of tea.

Kelly Savio is the new advisor for The Charger Account, the online news publication at her alma mater, Dos Pueblos High School. There, she also navigates the waters of English 10 and English 10 Honors with her fabulous and quirky sophomore students. She spends her free time reading, trav-eling, and debating the Oxford comma with family and friends.

Jessica Miles has taught various levels of English/language arts over the past five years of her teaching career and began her journey as a journalism teacher in the fall of 2013. She currently teaches En-glish 9, in addition to her duties as teacher-advisor of the student newspaper, Rocky Roar, and the year-book, Silvertip.

By Tabith Brobst, staff writer Every education class I have ever taken came with a warn-ing: “As a first year teacher, don’t smile until after Christ-mas.” My first teaching job was in Columbia, S.C. This small-town girl was not quite ready for what an inner-city high school had to offer. Before the first bell rang on my very first day, I heard the words of ad-

vice of all those professors run through my head. Don’t smile. Don’t smile. The first bell rang at 8:00. And so it began. My first class of freshmen piled into my room, and, with my heart pounding out of my chest, I began my lesson on classroom rules and procedures. In an attempt to make that bland topic as fun and interesting as possible, I let a smirk escape from my lips. At that moment I knew that I would definitely not be able to make it until Christmas with-out smiling. I couldn’t even make it 20 minutes into the class. In that instant I realized that I wasn’t being myself. I am not

the type of person who is going to stand at the front of a room with a stone cold face and pre-tend that I don’t find my stu-dents, and often myself, hilari-ous. My first year of teaching defi-nitely had its share of horri-ble moments. Moments that caused me to want to scream and run crying out of the room. However, when Teacher Ap-preciation Day came around, I received a note from a student that said, “Your smile bright-ens my whole mood.” That note made me take a step back and realize that many days all that really matters is that I’m there for my students, with a smile on my face, ready for whatever the day might bring.

The Blu Review

Tabith Brobst | with permission

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Faulty box causes dinner distressDinner spill threatens to disrupt schedule at UTBy Jessica Miles, staff writerA cardboard collapse caused a culi-nary spill in the University of Texas at Austin Jesse H. Jones Communi-cation Center while two graduate as-sistants delivered dinner for teach-er-journalists on Tuesday evening.

Graduate assistant Rachel Mourao witnessed the accidental col-lapse that occurred shortly after 5 p.m. CDT while Chipotle cater-ing boxes were enroute to par-ticipants attending the American Society of News Editors Reynolds High School Journalism Institute.

“I tried to calm Dr. Sylvie but it didn’t really work,” Mourao said of the incident. “We’ve had earlier situations that were much worse.”

The cardboard collapse was the second incident to nearly derail the ASNE Institute schedule on Tuesday. A cooler filled with 40 pounds of ice and water start-ed leaking this afternoon caus-ing Graduate assistant Shannon McGregor to fear for her safety.

“I started to worry about hy-pothermia,” McGregor said.

The earlier disaster was averted when the two women dumped the water and ice in the women’s restroom sink.

Mourao and colleague Shannon Mc-Gregor are responsible for the meals

Sean Berleman, Micha Pardo, and Jennifer Castro serve themselves dinner after the spill. An earli-er spill nearly derailed the dinner schedule for these teachers.

provided to 40 students and facul-ty during the two-week long work-shop. McGregor said that she had never used Chipotle Catering ser-vices before and had not previously experienced this kind of accident.

“We have to make sure it’s here, whatever happens,” said Mourao. “We make sure it’s here for breaks.”

“Ellen (Austin) and Tracy (Sena) said these are the meals we want to provide and I’m a foodie dork

and was like, I’ll do that,” McGregor said. “I am the ‘grand puba’ of food.”

The spill required four peo-ple to clean up, but didn’t seem to impact the experience for participant Sommer Reider.

“I didn’t even know there was a spill,” said Reider. “I thought it was good. I have never had Chipotle before.”

Photo by Jessica Miles | The Blu Review

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Reach so high and touch the sky Photos and text by Naiomi Ashman, staff writer

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Reach so high and touch the sky Photos and text by Naiomi Ashman, staff writer

Left clockwise: Building cranes dot the skyline all over Austin, sunset over the Colorado river, one of many wall art around the city, ceiling in the rotunda of the state capitol, LBJ Library.

Bottom left clockwise: Statue of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Main building on UT campus, One Congress Plaza building, Round Rock Express ballpark.Stairwell at the state capitol, Tree on UT campus.

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By Kelly Savio, staff writerAfter one customer paid $59.95 for non-genetically modified organism tangy tangerine vitamins, Jared Barger stepped up to the counter at Brave New Books to buy a high-den-sity carbon water filter.

“It’s supposed to get 99.9 percent of the fluoride out of my water,” Barger said.

“Actually, about 90 percent,” Harlan Dietrich, who owns the shop, cor-rected.

“Okay, 90 percent,” Barger said. “The point is, I figure if the Nazis used it, I don’t want it. Water is actu-ally so delicious without it. And who wants to drink stuff that makes the guys handling it wear hazmat suites while they’re putting it in our water?”

“It also helps with the fluorosillic acid they started putting in there, which

has no long-term medical tests tell-ing us any effects it might have on us,” Dietrich said. “Water is just a cocktail of chemicals.”

Dietrich said he opened the store because he cares about you. He wants you to know the world be-ing sold to you is actually so much deeper, with more dimensions than you have ever imagined. In 2006, when he opened his bookstore, he stocked it with everything you and the rest of the general public could ever need to find the truth.

Multiple water filters of varying siz-es sit on the book shelves closest to the cash register. A water station where patrons can taste the filtered water before buying is close by.

Brave New Books also sells: a “9/11 Was an Inside Job” bumper sticker; shelf after shelf of books, including copies of the store’s namesake, Al-

dous Huxley’s “Brave New World”; a section of DVDs, inlcuding the documentary “Take Back Your Pow-er,” outlining the 2013 NSA spying scandal, and an assortment of or-ganic and paleo food and hygiene products.

Customers can reach the shop wedged between a bank and chain pizza parlor by descending a long flight of stairs on Guadalupe Street, just a block away from the UT cam-pus. Dietrich often hosts guest speakers, book signings, film view-ings, and other events in the small room with a stage adjoining the shop.

Brave New Books is the first book-store in the world to accept crypto-currency Bitcoin as a a form of pay-ment, and the first store in Austin to accept it according to the Texas Bit-coin Conference’s website. Cash, credit, and debit cards are also

Book shop works to inform the uninformedBrave New Books prioritizes you, truth, knowledge

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Book shop works to inform the uninformedlation. Freeman and the customer agreed the Libertarian party is not what it once was.

There is no shortage of customers for Freeman to speak with on Satur-day afternoon. They come in alone, with a friend, or with a group of friends. They range in age from ear-ly 20s to early 70s. They browse the plethora of book titles and all walk away with a bookmark that says, “Knowledge is Revolution”, regard-less of what they buy. Dietrich said he knows people think

he is crazy, and that bothered him at one time. He is not nearly so offend-ed now. “It’s just important to me that I cre-ate an environment where you can meet like-minded people, you can speak freely, have a discussion about things,” Dietrich said. “I want a place where people hear about the supressed science, the supressed media, supressed health info, su-pressed government, economics, history.”

accepted, but Dietrich is a strong advocate of the virtual currency Bit-coin. He said the currency will dom-inate the future economic world and help “change the tides of corruption in the current economic climate.”

Leland Freeman, who has known Dietrich since 2008 and often helps out in the store in exchange for free products, supports the mission of the bookshop.

Freeman said he spends a lot of time at the shop because he likes talking to the customers.

Taking a break from setting up chairs for that night’s speaker, Freeman talked to a man browsing the shelves about what a terrible person Wood-row Wilson was, the questionable morals of the Rockafeller family, the importance of supporting secession from various governments, and the vapid nature of the greater popu-

Brave New Books prioritizes you, truth, knowledgePhoto by Kelly Savio | The Blu Review

Buzzfeed compiled tweets from Twitter users comment-ing on 9/11 conspiracy theories. The most professed conspiracy was that attacks on Sept. 11 were an “inside job.”

Conspiracy Chatter

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Source: Twitter

By Pablo Cantu, staff writerNine solar powered cars started their eight-day cross-country race today in Austin, Texas, as teams composed of university students from around the world seek to be-come the winner of the American Solar Challenge.

This two-week competition began on July 14, with 23 teams from the United States, Canada, Iran and Puerto Rico brought in their so-lar powered cars for the first round “scrutineering” bringing the vehicles went through a series of inspections covering all aspects for the car.

Inspectors made sure that the so-lar cars were built in alignment with the regulations and met the required safety features. Scrutineering also tests the abilities of the drivers. All drivers are required to get out of the car without assistance within 10 seconds.

Passing teams go to the, Formula Sun Grand Prix, a three-day race where the team with the most com-pleted laps wins.

Solar cars than compete a minimum number of laps qualify for the eight-

Solar powered cars begin 8-day cross-country road race

Panels PropelPower Projects

day road race. Only cars proved reliable and safe on the track qual-ified for the road race. The num-ber of laps driven during the FSPG determined the starting order for the American Solar Challenge road race.

Solar Challenge favorites, The Uni-versity of Michigan came in first fol-lowed by Oregon State University, John Broadbait, Engineering Junior at the University of Kentucky said. The University of Michigan had won the past six challenges and was seeking its’ seventh straight win, Chuck Hutchins, University of Michi-gan sponsor, said.

Competing vehicles took close to two years to build. The cost to con-struct each vehicle differed from university to university. Cost of creating each car differed between universities ranging from $15,000 to $1,000,000.

Constructing costs came from dona-tions from corporate sponsors from around the world. The University of Kentucky had fewer than 10 corpo-rate sponsors while the University of Michigan had more than 50 donors posted on the trailer that transported

its solar car.

The nine qualifying teams began racing on July 21, at the University of Texas in front of Darrel K Royal Stadium, and race to the finish line in St. Paul, Minnesota. Along the way there will be several check points and stage stops. Each solar car is escorted by lead and chase vehicles that carry the other team members and equipment for roadside repairs.

Chase vehicles carry an observer who monitors the solar car’s prog-ress, with observers being the eyes and ears for the officials who get to experience first-hand the ingenuity and hospitality of the teams.

Although the vehicles can travel at speeds of over 100 miles per hour, they must drive the posted speed limit, or face penalties, according to contest coordinator, Gail Leuck, Contest Coordinator, said.

Plaques will be given to the team that reaches the stage stop in the shortest amount of time, Melody Singleton event coordinator said. The team that reaches the finish line in St. Paul will be awarded with American Solar Challenge Trophy.

Photo by Pablo Cantu | The Blu Review

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