Keeping us Gleeful

Fox’s new hit series, GLEE, brings something back that has been missing from the Airwaves for some time: the tv series that revolves around the dreaded high school years. Not since Judd Apatow’s “Freaks and Geeks”, has there been a show that so clearly grasps the awkward, terrifying and inspiring moments, that defined high school for us. The show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, (creator of the Hit-series Nip/Tuck) furthers his obsession wish pushing the envelope with his new prime-time network slot.

            The show leaves no stereotypical stone unturned. The shows writers introduced the shows main student characters throughout a montage of each of their contributions (or them making a mockery of) Glee Club. The Soul-singing African-American girl, Mercedes, the flamboyant Musical-boy Kurt Hummel,

Rachel Berry, portrayed by Spring Awakening’s Lea Michele, leads the way as the school’s over-achieving, musical-loving nerd: “You might think that all the boys at my school would totally want to tap this, but my Myspace schedule keeps me way to busy to date.”

Perhaps Jane Lynch’s character, cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, puts the show over the top, with her speaking the pilot episode’s first piece of dialogue to her group of overworked, dehumanized cheerleaders, while they try to perfect a human pyramid: (whom she affectionately refers to as “cheerios”) “You think this is tough? Try being water boarded!” Later in the episode she yells through the bullhorn to her spiritually shattered team of teenage girls to improve their formation, adding at the end, “…and I want the agony out of your eyes!” These mannerisms quickly earn her the title of most loveable and hated character in the show. “I love minorities so much, I’m thinking of moving to California to become one!” Jane Lynch, an openly gay activist, takes her

In the first season of the show the creators have already thrown in teenage pregnancy, marital infidelity, bullying and bigotry into what seems like a perfect microcosm of current American society that is Anytown U.S.A.

My one gripe about this show is the musical numbers that are ever-so-cleverly slipped into scene transitions of the show. I know it’s a show about glee club and happy-go –lucky kids singing show tunes, but for  1 to 3 and a half straight minutes? And sometimes up to  3 times an episode? It may become a quickly-tired gimmick. Lets hope that GLEE keeps us “gleeful” for the rest of the season.

Making the Grade

With schools and many other social and state-run institutions becoming more progressive, Hillsborough County has decided to join in, with its education board proposing to lower the weight of Exams on a student’s GPA from 33% to 25%. That 8% will no doubt drastically change many student’s overall GPA, generally in a positive context, but it may also stir up some controversy over such a drastic change. .” Some people argue that it isn’t fair to our students, which may be true, but there are other arguments saying that its appropriate.” So said Denny Jost, General Director of Education in Hillsborough County. The mild-mannered civil servant of two decades goes on to explain how the vote came to fruition in Hillsborough county: .” “Being an administrator for 20 years, the issue of exam weight has always been debated… many wondered if it was too heavy. 27 districts were polled in the state, and Hillsborough had the heaviest weight, (33%) of exams on final grades. Some weighed in at 25%, but the most popular weight seemed to be 20%. Only in one other school was at 33%… and that was an honors program..
Students in the County do not seems too worried with the vote that will take place on Tuesday, October 6th: Paul Bernhart, a Junior at H.B. Plant High School is optimistic about the vote. “I love the idea. I just started sending in my college applications, and if this changes the grade for the better on my transcripts. It will really help.” He quickly adds in: “ Especially I had to miss an exam today because I was sick.”
A follow up piece will be written following the vote on Tuesday.

Television: The New Great American Pastime

As the new Fall semester begins, students and faculty alike always have a similar event they are looking forward to: The new fall Television season. With many classic shows having come to an end at the end of last season, such as NBC’s Scrubs, and ER, its a mystery what views will be tuning into. Senior, Matthew Ludwig, had much praise for what he has seen. "I really like this fall so far. The shows are changing the pace of where there headed. House specifically has brought a 180 twist on the plot, fringe is great, CSI is always a classic. Smallville’s superman is finally manning up and getting his super powers, and Heroes finally has a good storyline… even though they are kind of stealing from X-Men.”
Many viewers aren’t happy with this turn of events. Senior, Barry Rosenbloom, had this to say about the new season: “One of the networks… any of them needs a new show. Most of the shows I used to watch, like Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared and Arrested Development, have been canceled for a while now. Even though NBC canceled “My Name is Earl”, I think they still have the best lineup so far. But one of the stations, or all of them, desperately needs to start airing new ideas and material.
One new show, “Bored to Death,” a new HBO series, starring Jason Schwartzman and “The Hangover’s” Zach Galifanakis, may be the remedy for what seems like stale television. Only the ratings and time will tell.

Jews in Canoes

The Jewish High Holidays may be over, but Hillel at UT’s president, Louis Gold, reassures everyone that the year’s activities have just begun. “We’re organizing a canoe day trip/rafting trip that we are going to call ‘Jews in Canoes. It’s not going to be on campus, obviously, but we’re pretty excited about it. It’s in its preliminary planning stages, but it should happen some time in October.” A UT Senior, Gold has just started his second annual term as Hillel at UT’s president. His day is filled with planning events, organizing members to attend, and develops new ways to recruit new members. Luis breaks down the ideas of Hillel and its goals “Hillel is a way to unite Jewish students, and help them get in touch with their Jewish roots, in a non-religious way, which is what makes us unique from other Jewish organizations. We’re more of a casual social network, rather than a religious entity.”
An all Jewish organization, Hillel aims to unite the scattered individuals from across campus, along with those from USF, for social activities and the occasional religious service. Barry Rosenbloom is one of the new recruits for the organization. Although he got a late start in the organization, he is currently very excited to see what Hillel has to offer. Leaning back in his chair, He says, “Luis told me last semester about Hillel, and I decided to join. I’m just waiting for him to send out some flyers.” He looks over to his friend and starts to laugh: “I’ll be there man, just send out the damn flyers already!” All three men shared a good laugh at the stressful predicament that is organizing events, and getting the word out about them.
Aaron Feld, who has been sitting relatively quietly while his friends took command the conversation, pipes up and talks about his recent experience with the organization: “I went to Rosh Hashana dinner on Friday night, it was really nice. It was held on the 9th floor of Vaughn, and it was really just perfect for the kinds of kids who showed up. The food was great, and I met some awesome people. I’ll defiantly be attending more events this year.

UT Football: Where Have All the Good TImes Gone?

Every year, as we move farther into the autumn, we can always count on two annual events: the leaves changing colors, eventually falling off the trees, and the mass hysteria, that is the college football season. From tail-gating to bodies doused in school colors,; students, players and outside fans alike get to follow their favorite school, and hope they can get to victory.
Unfortunately, any student who has attended UT for their Freshman year on, never had the chance to root on their school’s football team., the 20 year UT veteran, and Associate Athletic Director, Gil Swalls, has never seen a UT Football game during his career. Despite this, he is still very knowledgeable about the former football team. When asked about the team, he said: “ They existed up until 1974 .They actually won the Tangerine Bowl. They would even play teams that are currently power teams such as Miami, and beat them, quite a bit. The Board of trustees, I think they had a what was almost a private meeting, and based on the documents I’ve read, they were facing a deficit; from what I read was 100 thousand dollars, which in 1974, they thought was meaningful to them. But its funny, because we were the main event. Our games would bring in 20,000 fans to the football stadium. As far as Tampa football went, we were the talk of the town in the late 60’s, early 70’s. Some people think that the Buccaneers bought us out because they happened to start in 1974, and moved into Tampa Stadium, but I think we could have coexisted.”
The idea of not having a school football team is definitely one that stirs up conversation among students. Samantha George, a UT Junior, puts it frankly: “It pisses me off that I can’t go to football games, and I’m pretty jealous of my friends who go to schools that have one.” Other students are not as bothered by the lack of a team. Chris Bieluch, a UT Junior,, tell us his Plan B to catch college ball games. said: “ Yea, I wish we had a team, but its not a big deal. I follow USF instead, the games aren’t that far away.”

The Partisan Game: Obama’s Speech to Students Sparks Dialogue.

The Partisan Game: Obama’s Speech to Students Sparks Dialogue.

Tuesday September 8th, 2009, marked President Obama’s first address to America’s school children/ Much controversy has been swirling around many of President Obama’s comments, as well as the concern of how his words my affect his impressionable audience of schoolchildren, who ranged from kindergarten to 12th grade.
The President managed to distance himself from any truly politically-charged comments, opting instead to encourage the students to work hard and stay in school: “.” Obama spoke with his usual gusto, grasping his audience’s attention and minds, as only a powerful leader and influential speaker can do, occasionally dropping a light-hearted joke, and even reflecting on his own childhood: “id some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have.” Keeping in his usual manner of good-heartedness and a strong sense of humor, he kept his audience of adolescents
Citizens still carry a large burden of skepticism, but are still keeping open minds about what Obama aims to accomplish in these next 3 years. Others were worried that the President would corrupt out nations youth with subliminal and literal messages of radical socialism. However, when the dust settled, the world was still turning, America was still a democracy, and our nation’s youth was still innocent and freethinking. Mary Anderson, a second year GWA professor at UT, as well as a mother of two, believes that mountains were being made out of molehills, and that the President’s remarks were harmless. “It was well received on both sides of the aisle. For all the ruckus that surrounded this speech, it definitely seemed like a waste of time in the end. It was a stay in school/ work hard speech. I don’t really know where this flurry of indoctrination came from, or why people think the president would try and influence our children that way. His job is to lead our country, our children included.”
Others were not as positively receptive the president’s remarks, and are suspicious of the administrations motives by having him speak to an audience which spans so widely across the age demographic. Adam Gordon, a UT Junior, who already has mounting college debt, felt that the President was trying to push a socialist agenda, and was using his speech to the students strictly as a publicity stunt. “I think he was trying to get the point across that you don’t need a father necessarily to succeed, and he was trying to reach out to students (inner city children) and while that is great, we already have state psychologists who are paid to counsel these children at school. With that said, we have more pressing issues. He promised to get our troops out of the Middle East, but just sent more troops into Afghanistan. He has yet to take any positive action in helping the Economy resurface, so it seems inappropriate at this time for him to set up a huge photo-op for himself. As far as the fact that he spoke to children, I believe it was just a publicity stunt, especially because it was televised across the country, which opens up the door for people to fall under the impression that these children are his number one concern. While it was a nice gesture towards our nation, and a grand idea Obama has much more work to do, in many other sectors that are concerning our citizens right now."

John "Funny-Bone" Jacobs

For some students, moving into the dorms can seem to be the most stressful of days. For others, it may seem like a total bore. But sometimes, there’s that story that is worth telling repeating all night, at the off-campus kegger down the street. UT Sophomore, John Jacobs, talks about his experience while buying a television off of Craigslist. "We drove to some shady part of Ybor, and picked it up off some guy who has an apartment there. We just gave the guy $600 cash for it and loaded up a 42 inch TV. It was pretty funny.”
A fitting story, for a student who has a passion for writing comedy. He has had works published his high school year book, as well as this week’s edition of The Minaret “It was a piece about the nightlife at UT, specifically the bar and club scene.” When asked how long he knew he wanted to spend his life writing, he replied. "It was in my senior year of high school that I started realizing I wanted to write full time." Continue to look for the Washington DC native’s writing as more will be published in future editions of The Minaret.