My first year with the Herald

What, you mean to tell me that I don't have any stories to write for The Herald until August?

All kidding aside, it's been a fun year writing for The Herald. I've written over 50 stories this school year, mostly in sports, but I've tried my hand at opinion writing as well. Well, one opinion story, but whatever.

When I was at Southeast Arkansas College (the third of my four institutions of higher learning, heh), I wasn't able to write for a school newspaper because SEARK didn't have one. So, when I transferred to ASU last fall, I had to get my feet wet again. Once I got my first story for The Herald done (football preview), I knew I was back in the game.

I've learned so much this year because I've been part of The Herald. I've also become a better writer because of my experiences this year. That's not to say that I've never been a good writer, because before ASU, I was a good writer. It's just that I'm a better writer here in April 2006. That's the way it should be, though.

There are so many memories that I'll take from my first year writing for The Herald. My beats were volleyball and women's basketball. Covering women's sports has never been a problem for me. Sports are sports, regardless of gender. It was a pleasure to cover volleyball and women's basketball this year, it really was. Thanks to those two sports, I was able to do two solid features of Randilyne Volkmer and Amber Abraham. Feature writing is my favorite part of journalism, to be honest with you. I hope that next year, I can do more features.

In addition to volleyball and women's basketball, I also covered football, men's basketball, baseball, and rugby. I traveled to Lafayette, La. for the New Orleans Bowl where I wrote a 1,200 word story on the game. It was the longest story I've ever done. And I wrote the story on basically no sleep. Welcome to the rest of my life. Heh. I also covered the Sun Belt Conference Tournament along with Andrew and Keith. If you heard the press conferences on the radio, you heard "Jeremy Muck, Arkansas State Herald." Some people have told me that I have a voice for radio, but I don't know about that. For now, I'll just stick to print journalism.

As far as staff accomplishments, I was named staff member of the month twice and earned staff member of the semester honors for the spring. A sportswriter earning staff member of the month and semester? I still don't know what to think about that. I guess that means that my fellow staff members think that I'm doing a good job. Thanks, y'all.

The Herald is a great way to produce clips and experience for the future. You can't do that if you're sitting on your ass playing Madden 2006 while playing on the rookie level. There is no substitute for experience, folks. It amazes me that there are so many students in the journalism department that don't write for The Herald. We are always looking for writers, so don't hesitate to come by Room 224 and grab an application and talk to someone who works for the paper. Hell, I'm always willing to talk to anyone who wants to write for The Herald.

I've enjoyed my first year at ASU, but more importantly, I've enjoyed writing for The Herald this year. Thanks for reading The Herald, y'all. Here's to an even better year in 2006-2007!

Fake "Clinic" Cons 17-year old girl

An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend to one of Indiana's Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into a so-called "crisis pregnancy center" run by an anti-abortion group, one that shared a parking lot with the real Planned Parenthood clinic and was designed expressly to lure Planned Parenthood patients and deceive them.

The group took down the girl's confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their "other office" (the real Planned Parenthood office nearby). When she arrived for her appointment, not only did the Planned Parenthood staff have no record of her, but the police were there. The "crisis pregnancy center" had called them, claiming that a minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will.

The "crisis pregnancy center" staff then proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days, showing up at the girl's home and calling her father's workplace. Our clinic director reports that the girl was "scared to death to leave her house." They even went to her school and urged classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion.

The anti-choice movement is setting up these "crisis pregnancy centers" across the country. Some of them have neutral-sounding names and run ads that falsely promise the full range of reproductive health services, but they dispense anti-choice propaganda and intimidation instead. And according to a recent article in The New York Times, there are currently more of these centers in the U.S. than there are actual abortion providers. What's more, these centers have received $60 million in government grants. They're being funded by our tax dollars.

Even if you don't agree with Planned Parenthood and their practices, you have to agree that this is just wrong. Harassing a young girl and her family is no way to address this issue. This is no way to treat people.

A bill has just been introduced in Congress to stop the fraudulent practices of fake clinics, but it desperately needs more support. Tell your representative to take a stand: anti-choice extremists must not get away with this any longer!

Please visit http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/clinics

You sing a sad song, just to turn it around

After four years, it was over.

I remember going into The Herald, Arkansas State University's student newspaper, as a freshman with thoughts of writing for a newspaper somewhere (now it is a job that I'm shoving aside in pursuit of becoming a chef, but then I wanted to be the print version of Bill O'Reilly and Dave Barry mixed together). Loved watching the news, couldn't get enough of the news, and thought that the New York Times had everything right. Now I hardly ever watch the news, and I think the New York Times is too high and mighty with their liberal editorials.

Four years and two year's worth of being an editor later, I walked out of The Herald tonight, with my sports page complete. Not just the sports page, but a small portion of life was complete.

I feel like I've done it all when it comes to The Herald: I've covered news, sports, taken pictures of both: wrote funny columns about my grandma leaving me stranded beside the road, columns where I poured my heart out about my anti-abortion feelings, and columns reviewing tobymac's latest CD.

I've been the Opinion's editor, which still remains my favorite position that I had on The Herald, Editor-in-chief, and just recently, sports editor. It's been a blast, but I had no tears as I shut the book on this part of life. I had Andrew play the song "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter (the song played when a contestant leaves American Idol) as I walked out the door, a free man. I thought it was fitting, although it was far from a Bad Day: it was a great day in life.

Ladies and Gentleman, I am done.







This post was taken from my personal blog, which I am shamelessly plugging on this site. Visit at http://blog.myspace.com/dustinfaber for my post-ASU exploits, as I will not be able to post to the Herald-exclusive Blog.

Sports: Dixon much too young to pass away

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncw/news/story?id=2400335

WEST POINT, N.Y. -- A month ago, 28-year-old Army coach Maggie Dixon left the Christl Arena court on the shoulders of jubilant cadets after leading the women's basketball team to its first NCAA Tournament berth.

On Friday, Dixon was mourned in a chapel across from the U.S. Military Academy's campus, a day after she died following an "arrhythmic episode to her heart."

Dixon and her brother were the first brother-and-sister to coach teams in the NCAA Tournament (Jamie Dixon is the head coach of Pittsburgh).

You don't have to know Maggie Dixon to be saddened by this. I'm sure all of us know one or two people who we would describe as good, kindhearted and loved by all. Now imagine that person being taken from you.

Much love and prayer goes out to Jamie and the rest of the Dixon players, and the Army basketball team, who just a few weeks earlier, hoisted Maggie in the air and carried her off the court in celebration of the team making the NCAA Tournament.

If every college had a coach like Maggie Dixon, life would be so much better.

Sports: Wrestlemania 22 thoughts

It's late at night, as watching Wrestlemania at Wings to Go pushed back time spent on The Herald, which in turn is making it a late night to post this. So if my thoughts aren't coherent enough for you to put together, I'll apologize when I get some sleep.

My negative thoughts about Wrestlemania 22? None that would make me not plunk down $10 to see the show, if I could do it over again. Most of my negativity is focused on my favorites not winning their matches, so you really can't call them negative, just disappointing from a sole fan's standpoint.

Minor gripes would be the Triple-threat match between Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton, and Kurt Angle for the World Heavyweight Title not lasting longer, no appearances from Bret Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan, or The Rock, and a ridiculously STUPID entrance from John Cena.

Hey John, I know you want the fans to love you, but your "I'll appeal to Chicago's fans by pretending to be Al Capone" entrance was ridiculous. This involved a 1930's style car with tommy-gun wielding gangsters driving up to the ring, the gangsters, patrolling ring-side with their "guns," and John Cena coming out with a 1930's zoot-suit shooting a tommy gun. Lame.

HHH's Conan-the-Barbarian entrance, descending to the ramp in a throne was equally cheesy, but I, along with the Chicago crowd on TV, LIKED HHH. So he gets some sort of pass.

Anywho, what did I like? Plenty of spots (moves) that made you gasp, cover your eyes, and scream "Holy crap!" Three that I can think of off the top of my head would be Edge spearing Mick Foley to the outside onto a flaming table, Shawn Michaels doing an elbow drop onto Vince McMahon from a 16-foot ladder (with McMahon head-first inside a trashcan while laying on a table), and Mickie James doing this sick-looking leg-breaker with Trish from the corner.

Since more detailed accounts of these matches are located online (www.lordsofpain.net, for example), I won't drag you through that. But I will say that this year's Wrestlemania was much more fun to watch than last year's edition. Fun moves, and better than expected matches (Foley vs. Edge and Shawn Michaels vs. McMahon's hardcore matches made for great television, James vs. Trish was a women's match that, for the first time in a long time, got a lot of oohs and ahhs for their wrestling ability, and Cena vs. Triple H for the WWE Title wasn't bad either, even though Cena won).

Truly worth $10, in my opinion

This is a post from my personal blog, which I am pimping out on this blog because 1, it is relevant in both places, and 2, I want more readers! Visit my blog at http://blog.myspace.com/dustinfaber