Posts tagged ‘USA Today’
Holiday Travel Advice
I’m thankful that for the first time in five years, I can have Thanksgiving dinner with my family simply by jumping in the car and driving a couple of hours west. (A drive that is, incidentally, way easier than it was when I was a student thanks to I-99 and some road-widening on Route 22. No more interminable five-hour bus rides from State College to downtown Pittsburgh for me!)
Those of you who need to brave the airport should take a look at these travel tips from Ben Mutzabaugh ’97 EMS, USA Today’s travel guru. He stresses something I’ve always aspired to, although I’ve not always achieved it: No matter how frustrated you are, be nice to the airline employees.
Lori Shontz, senior editor
Ben Mutzabaugh on Continental’s “Nightmare” Flight
When I interviewed him last year for a Q&A in our Nov/Dec 2008 issue, USA Today airline expert (and my old Collegian colleague) Ben Mutzabaugh ’97 EMS mentioned a “passenger bill of rights” that had been proposed in Congress. Among other things, the legislation was aimed at preventing the sort of interminable ground delays that most frequent fliers have sat through at one time or another. An extreme example of just such a flight over the weekend—a 14-hour trip from Texas to Minnesota that included a six-hour ground delay—gave Ben plenty to blog about. Though you might not want to read it if you’re claustrophobic.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Is the Recession Ending?
If it is, a bull market is on the way—if history is any guide, that is.
A news story in USA Today quotes several experts on what the next year holds for stock prices. One of those experts is Jeffrey Kleintop ’95g, chief market strategist at LPL Financial in Boston; he’s less sure than the others in the story that any stock market rally can be sustained.
Kleintop was one of the Penn Staters who participated in our roundtable discussion on the economy in our July-August 2008 issue. He excels at explaining complicated economic phenomena in lay terms; as a result, he gets quoted in the news media quite a bit.
Tina Hay, editor
A Penn State Expert On Jon & Kate
I’ve never watched Jon & Kate Plus 8, and I’m not someone who has much interest in reality TV. But I guess it’s a sign of the times that when such a couple decides to divorce, national media call on legitimate legal scholars for their opinions. In that, at least, Penn State can offer a voice of reason: Robert Richards, distinguished professor of journalism and law in the College of Communications and founding co-director of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment at University Park.
As this Jon & Kate thing is apparently pretty huge news, USA Today asked Richards for his take on the couple’s divorce filings being kept private in Montgomery County, Pa. Richards argues that the records should be kept open, since it’s the dissolution of a marriage through the public courts. That case is countered by privacy advocates who say that the family’s business should be kept just that. Whether the fact that this particular family agreed to do a reality show on national TV has any effect on that privacy argument, I have no idea.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Coquese Washington on Women’s College Players Leaving Early for the Pros
Lady Lion basketball coach Coquese Washington has only been a head coach for two years, but that doesn’t mean she’s not an expert on some big stories in the women’s college game. Washington’s unique resume — a standout player at Notre Dame, she went on to a professional playing career in the WNBA before getting into coaching — made her a perfect source on one of the big offseason stories in the women’s game: Rutgers junior Epiphanny Prince leaving school early to play professionally in Europe. When USA Today went looking for perspective on Prince’s story, Washington, the rare NCAA coach with pro playing experience, was an obvious choice.
The good news for Lady Lion fans: Washington’s high-level playing experience appeals to the kids she’s recruiting, too — especially the ones good enough to have their own dreams of playing pro ball. Look for that fact to start having an impact on the court soon.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Getting the Full Spectrum on Evolution
Penn State biology professor Blair Hedges is the co-creator of the TimeTree, which the the project’s site describes as a “public knowledge-base for information on the evolutionary timescale of life.” A science blogger at USA Today quotes Hedges putting it in slightly simpler terms: “The ultimate goal of the Timetree of Life initiative is… to discover when each species and all their ancestors originated, all the way back to the origin of life some four billion years ago.”
The format is a bit dense for laymen; when I tried to figure out the evolutionary difference between me and a clownfish (my four year old is a big Finding Nemo fan), I can’t say the result — 454.6 million years — left me feeling any wiser. But it promises to make research a lot easier for some evolutionary biologists out there, which I imagine is the actual point.
If nothing else, this graphic representation of the TimeTree would make an excellent wallpaper for your desktop.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Joe Paterno in New York
Every spring, the Alumni Association and Nittany Lion Club take Joe Paterno on the road to speak to alumni in a few different parts of the country. This year it’s the East Coast’s turn, and Joe made the first of three “Evening with Joe” appearances last night, this one in New York City. His visit there attracted a few members of the news media, who met with him before the event—check out the stories that USA Today and ESPN.com got from talking to him.
I went to an “Evening with Joe” event some years back and got a column for the magazine out of it. It’s quite an event. People line up to get him to sign autographs (they bring him all kinds of stuff to sign—photos, football helmets, even a breadbox-sized replica of Beaver Stadium), he poses endlessly for photos, and then he gets up on stage and talks about next season and whatever else is on his mind.
Tickets are still available for Joe’s other two appearances this spring: May 5 in Arlington, Va., and May 17 in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania.
Tina Hay, editor
How Come I’m Always in Zone 4?
Here’s a question I ought to pose to Ben Mutzabaugh ’97, the USA TODAY air-travel guru whom we featured in our November-December issue: What’s up with this boarding-by-zone thing that the airlines have become so fond of? And, more to the point, why am I always in the last zone to board?
It doesn’t matter, really, although sometimes if you’re in the last zone and the plane is small, all of the overhead storage bins may be full by the time you get on. That happened to me coming back from San Francisco the other day, and I had to check my carry-on bag, which by definition held all of the stuff I didn’t want to check, like my laptop and my camera equipment. And, of course, when I got to State College, guess which one of my bags didn’t make it? I got it the next day, but sweated a lot until it arrived.
I wonder how the airlines assign the zones. I posed that question on Facebook the other day and Rob Biertempfel ’87 had an amusing theory: “I am convinced no one ever is assigned zone 1,” he said. “They just announce it and see who has enough guts to walk up to the gate in a bald-faced lie.”
But seriously, I’m curious. Do they board the people in the window seats first, then the aisle seats? That would make sense. Or do they board back to front? That could work too. Or do the people who paid more for their tickets get to board first?
I have no idea. Do you?
Tina Hay, editor
Fascinated by Flight 1549
I don’t know about you, but I can’t get enough of the miraculous story of the USAirways jet that landed in the Hudson River last Thursday. I’ve read the online stories, looked at the slide shows, watched video of the plane landing on the water as if it were a runway, looking so natural and effortless that you’d think planes landed on the water like that all the time.
I just thought I’d share with you a link to one of the many stories written about the event. It’s from Penn State grad Ben Mutzabaugh ’97, who has a blog about air travel for USA Today. Ben is someone our senior editor Ryan Jones has known for many years—Ryan called him to our attention last year and encouraged us to feature Ben’s expertise in the magazine in some way. So we ran a feature-length Q&A with him on the subject of air travel in our November-December 2008 issue.
And wouldn’t it be great if Captain Sullenberger happened to be a Penn Stater? What a great story for the magazine that would be. No such luck—he’s a Purdue grad.
Tina Hay, editor
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