Paw Prints Newsblog

by Patrick Lebedinski

Terminator Salvation just hit theaters last week, and our governor’s face and voice flashed on-screen during a scene in the movie. Without question, that is where he needs to stay. To add on to that, our legislature should be shipped out to sea on a pontoon with a large hole in its side. As for California, we’ll  take anyone with a G.E.D. to replace the legislature! Sadly, they’ll do a much better job than our state government. You know it’s true.
Among Arnold’s proposals are a swift end to welfare payments for 500,000 poor and needy families and a cut in health care for one million children. Hey, I’m fine with those proposals, and my opinion is not biased by my middle-class, sick-once-every-two-years standing in society. He wants to cut welfare and health care, and so we should.
Mr. Governor wants to slash $70 million from the state park system and end vocational training opportunities for California’s inmates. Well, the parks will be gone sooner or later, and over 80% of inmates in California are repeat offenders within two years (MSBNC’s Lockup specials taught me something!). Goodbye state parks! And do I have a vocational training opportunity idea for the inmates! It’s called New Mexico’s former nuclear testing grounds, which they need to fire back up.
Everything previously mentioned is like a ray of sunshine in my already summery days. My problem arises in the proposal that California cuts the school year by a week to save money. Also, the California State University and University of California systems are about to lose an estimated $335 million in funding.
To be blunt, the K-12 education you receive in California is sub-par to say the least. The standards are low for the overwhelming majority of the future failures of America. That CAHSEE test during sophomore year measures your ability to bring a sharpened pencil into a room and not your intelligence. If you take out a week from the school year, people will end up with a lower intelligence level. Yes, a week of missed education can do that. Then again, a week away from California’s education might make you smarter. Quite the paradox.
Cutting funds to the CSU and UC systems is just plain idiocy. I thought we needed college to succeed in the future, but I guess not. Excuse me, I’ll take the management position at my local Taco Bell. Does that involve a pension, or is the guaranteed heart attack all I receive? Basically, you slash education and more people fail miserably at life. That will be a common occurrence for most of us anyways. We’re Californians!
But there is hope for the Golden State. We can hope for that large earthquake along that fault line that breaks us apart from the mainland U.S. Afterward, we secede and become our own country. Finally, we fabricate all our records. Those negative signs just need an extra line, and we have positives! It’s a quick fix– quicker than relying on our governor at least– for everything.

by Patrick Lebedinski

I recently read that many of the top economists in the nation expect the recession to end by the culmination of 2009 or at the start of 2010. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, except our nation’s top economists couldn’t even judge the change in gas prices over the previous summer. Why should we believe anything they forecast? Here’s a different forecast, an unsurprising one.
First of all, California – in basic economic lingo – is whole-heartedly screwed for the rest of time. Move out now or suffer. Think of it like Ben Franklin’s “Join or Die,” except it’s “Get Out or Die.” Who cares what our state’s problems are? After a year or two, there will be so many problems that anarchy– a better solution to our problems than our current legislature and tax laws– will reign supreme.
As for the nation as a whole, we will pull out of the recession. It would not be surprising to see us progressing into 2010 a recovered nation. Then again, it would be just as probable that the recession will drag on for days, weeks, and months.
A lot is happening these days in the United States. Gas prices are leaping forward. Luckily, our confident economists– the ones who said gas would hit $5.00 a gallon – see the price capping around $3.10 for 2009. Consumer confidence shot upwards in May; housing prices fell down. Our friends on Wall Street must be off of various medications because the stock market has been schizophrenic lately. Social security is in some huge trouble – imagine that!
Basically, the recession will end, assuming Wall Street learns to stop selling every time “bad, bad things” happen to our economy, gas prices don’t leap into last year’s highs, consumer confidence doesn’t play mind games with Wall Street, and other little things.
The recession will eventually end when the people in charge get a clue and figure something out. Perhaps the best option is just to fall off the face of the Earth and escape into a woodland area. Just pretend that you’re lost and build a home there, so you’re slightly better off.

by Mallory Stratton

The American Medical Association Alliance has called for R ratings for all movies showing teen smoking. They say that smoking on the big-screens leads teens to pick up the habit. Two years ago, Hollywood studios made a pledge to encourage producers to show less gratuitous smoking.  Despite the groups accusations, the head of the group that gives U.S. movies their ratings, said that “smoke has been clearing from youth-rated movies, a result of the film industry’s sensitivity to the issue.”
The alliance held a summer campaign this week intended to publicly shame studios into making smoking-free films. Dr. Jonathan Fielding, head of the Los Angeles County Public Health Department, said he “found that adolescents whose favorite movie stars smoked on screen are significantly more likely to be smokers themselves and to have a more accepting attitude toward smoking.” He also said that, “in all, 56% of the top box office movies with smoking released between May 2007 and May 2009 were youth-rated films– G, PG or PG-13.” Joan Graves, part of the Motion Picture Association’s movie rating committee, offered her own statistics, based on all of the 900 films rated each year, not just the top movies that Fielding included. According to her, the association has given no G ratings in the past two years to a movie with smoking. 55 were rated PG, and 21 got PG-13 ratings. Overall, 55% of the movies rated in the past two years showed some smoking, but 75% of those were given R ratings.
The American Medical Association Alliance, hoping to draw studio executives’ attention, hired a mobile billboard to drive around the major studios this week. It shows a teenage girl asking “Which movie studios will cause me to smoke this summer?” The alliance says they will keep an online scorecard for the whole summer to count “how many tobacco impressions each studio delivers to G, PG and PG-13 audiences,” Graves said. “At the end of the summer, whichever studio has delivered the most tobacco impressions to youth audiences will be named in a billboard that will run outside of their headquarters,” she said.
Motion Picture Association of America spokeswoman Angela Martinez said the group “is very sensitive to the concerns of parents about the purpose of the rating systems.” “It’s reflective of society,” Martinez said. “It’s really a tool for parents to help determine what their kids see.” Fielding said it should be absolute– not just a factor. “Any movie with smoking should be rated R,” he said. “And if they worry about an R rating hurting their profits, then they should work with studios to remove smoking from films that hurt youth.” Graves, whose committee makes the decisions, pointed out that a zero-tolerance policy like this would not be accepted.

by Lea Morgan

Along Fifth Avenue, right across the street from Central Park and The Plaza Hotel, next to the Apple store, F. A. O. Schwarz graced kids of all ages with its larger-than-life presence. F. A. O. Schwarz, having been around since 1862, has been one of the largest toy stores in the world. Just walking into the massive store makes you feel five-years-old again! With so much to see and do, it takes an hour or two just to get through the store. The inside, with its overflow of stuffed animals and random flying objects, is quite overwhelming. You know the store from Tom Hank’s movie Big, when Hank’s character is dancing on the giant floor piano? Unfortunately, this sort of nostalgic behavior is about to end– or at least be changed forever.
Corporate giants from Toys R’ Us decided to buy out the financially failing Schwarz toy store. Although Schwarz has been in bankruptcy several times over the last five years, they have always managed to pull it out alive and keep the business running. Not this time, it looks like. Thursday morning, the depressing news was announced that F. A. O. Schwarz would no longer be the greatest toy store known to man.
However, there was the slightest bit of hope! The New York (and a small one in Las Vegas) store will be running under the same name. It will still be called F. A. O. Schwarz, but will carry all Toys R’ Us’ products. Now the largest toy store chain in the country, it seems that Toys R’ Us’ only business competitors left are Wal-Mart and Target. Let’s just hope that what’s left of a legacy can still continue even under different management!

by Kelsey Berger

With the cancellation of one its signature television shows Project Runway, the Bravo TV Network had an empty time slot open that needed to be filled. Another design-related show took its place called The Fashion Show. In this show, fifteen designers are chosen for the show, and, as usual, one designer is eliminated each week. The unique aspect of The Fashion Show is that instead of each designer creating just an individual design, the designers are assigned to teams and must create a cohesive runway collection. Their collections are fitted to the models and a mini-fashion show is conducted to display the looks to the judges. The judges then pick the winning-– and losing-– teams, and decide then who will win and who will be sent home. The winning designer’s look is then sold online on Bravo’s website.

Emily Windham

Numerous fans were surprised when Kris Allen was announced American Idol on May 20th, 2009, whether it was pleasantly or unpleasantly. Now, some are speculating that he had unfair help in beating fellow contestant Adam Lambert. One sponsor of the program, AT&T, was accused of using their products to unjustly aid the contestant. AT&T confirmed that on the night before the finale, employees at a “pro-Kris” party used demo phones to send text messages to vote for Kris. Only AT&T users can send text messages to vote, so those who didn’t have the service used the demo phones. A few employees explained to the partygoers how to send “power texts,” which can create up to 10 messages at one time. However, American Idol often tosses out these kinds of mass text-message votes. In AT&T’s statement, they claimed that what their employees did was perfectly fair; moreover, that these votes couldn’t possibly have directly affected the conclusion of the show. It looks like Kris truly, and fairly, is number one, but is he really?

by Nick Lane

It’s been many, many years since anyone really thought Jack and Meg White of the White Stripes were actual siblings. But through all the rumors, the two are family.
According to the White Stripes website, Meg White married Jackson Smith on May 22nd. Smith is the son of Patty Smith and the late MC5 guitarist Fred Sonic Smith. The two were married in Jack White’s Nashville backyard. “A small party of close friends and relatives” attended according to a news source. Jack White, being the ex-husband of Meg White, seemed so willing to let the wedding happen right in his backyard. Jack and Meg must obviously be in good terms.

by Mallory Stratton

The Walt Disney Company announced a $1.1 billion plan for Disney’s California Adventure Park. The Sunshine Plaza will be re-themed and renamed Buena Vista Street, to represent Los Angeles in the 1920’s when Walt Disney first arrived there. It will feature mission-style buildings, and arches will replace the Golden Gate Bridge replica. The Sunburst Structure will also be replaced with a recreation of the Carthay Circle Theater, which held the world premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937. Red Car trolleys will be traveling from the plaza towards the Tower of Terror. Buena Vista Street is planned to open in May 2012.
The new Cars Land will have three attractions and will span 12 acres. The Radiator Springs Racers will be a “detailed dark ride that ends with an outdoor side-by-side dueling racing finale.” The other two attractions are more family-oriented featuring Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree, like the Tea Cups at Disneyland. Luigi’s Roamin’ Tires will resemble the flying saucers ride of the 1960’s Tomorrowland. Cars Land will take the place of the Timon parking lot behind Tower of Terror and is supposed to open in 2012.