Good food, hopefully good company and the makings of a good memory. Thanksgiving is one of those few holidays that do not rely of religious affiliations; it’s about the founding of the country that we call home.
So who is it that profits from this holiday? The food industry, gas stations and airlines.
I am lucky, I attend a college that gives me a week off for Thanksgiving, so I get to go home and spend time with my family, but a lot of college students are not that lucky.
I do have the unfortunate luck to work at a restaurant that is open on Thanksgiving and will most likely be working on Turkey Day with two other girls. Being 21, I am one of the few bartenders, and people love their alcohol. It’s not that bad though, my family and I celebrate Thanksgiving a day early and one of our cooks, Mrs. Brenda brings us food. And this is some good, southern cooking.
I always end the holidays a couple pounds heavier and I would complain, but the food is just too good to not eat.
I am half Hispanic, so on Thanksgiving there are always some food items on our table that normally don’t find its ways onto other families’ tables. I was wondering what it is that other people love about Thanksgiving. What food item does your family eat on Thanksgiving that you don’t think others’ do?
I don’t know about other people, but people who are not members of my family always find their way to my house on Thanksgiving. This year will be the sixth year that we will be having more than the four Lee’s at the table joining in our Thanksgiving festivities. I just don’t like for people to be alone around the holidays. So I take them home with me 
Well I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and is as blessed as I am to have a loving family to spend time with. And if you don’t, that you have friends that you love and consider your family– spend time with them, they are the family you get to chose, not the one given to us.
It is one of the biggest rivalries in college football. It is the one day that Alabama fans and Auburn fans just can’t seem to live harmoniously with one another. Anywhere you go in the state of Alabama people are either clothed in orange and blue or crimson and white. You can’t got anywhere without hearing a “Roll Tide” or “War Eagle.” It is the one day that everyone is a football fan.
I had to run some errands yesterday before the game. As I was waiting for my food to be ready at a Birmingham deli, I saw a little girl with a pink sweatshirt on saying “I’m a Bama Girl.” As I walked into the next store, I passed a father holding hands with his two sons, both sporting Auburn jerseys which matched their dad’s.
I once heard that on the day of the Iron Bowl, whatever city it is in becomes the most populated city in the state that day. What kind of power does this game have over our state? It’s unfathomable.
I’d like to meet the person on each campus that is in charge of Iron Bowl festivities. Who has that lucky and very stressful job? Who is it that plans the parking, celebrity guests and opening ceremony? Every time I think about it, I get a little jealous. There’s someone out there who works hard for so long to have everything perfect and on the day of the game watches thousands of people enjoy their hard work and knows they won’t get an ounce of credit from 90 percent of those people.
So to whoever you are, that has planned Iron Bowl festivities this year and in years past, good job. I bet you’ve taken stress to a new level, but I hope it paid off.
War Eagle and Roll Tide (whatever floats your boat, don’t want to offend anyone).
All semester long poor Robert has been trying to convey to us the importance of proof-reading all or our articles before publishing them on here and on loveliestvillage. Honestly, I do try. I read through my stories twice, once backwards and check it in Microsoft Word, but mistakes still creep in.
Today as I was reading the headlines on MSNBC, I see that others have found checking your work might be valuable. A typo in a New York law on drunk driving is taking driving under the influence to a new level:
“Lawmakers approved a bill that sets the standard for driving while intoxicated at 0.18 grams of alcohol in a person’s blood. But a person’s body can produce that much alcohol naturally.”- MSNBC
Did you find the mistake? It’s supposed to be blood alcohol content and not ‘grams.’ This law was supposed to go into affect this week, but is going to be delayed because the typo has to be corrected.
The lesson, ladies and gentleman, is if someone were to have looked over this document (and known about drinking and driving laws), they would have caught the mistake. So to all you who depend on Word to find your mistakes, take another look, it’s not always an incomplete sentence or a misspelled word that will get you.
(How did I do? Any mistakes?)
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. It always has been. It’s the one day of the year that you can be someone you’re not, wear something totally uncharacteristic and get away with it, and eat tons of candy in the name of Halloween.
And according to CNN, I’m not the only one who enjoys the “dark” festivities. People are pulling out all the stops and decor for the occassion, potentially spending up to $3.3 billion. That’s a lot of candycorn and fake spiderwebs.
The celebration of Halloween dates back to the Celts celebration of Samhain on October 31. The Celts believed that teh veil between this world and the next was thinnest at this time of year. And they had recently completed their harvest and would celebrate by offering foods to the gods. They gathered the food by going door to door, which has now turned into “Trick or Treating.” They were also afraid of the spirits returning to the earth so would carve scary faces into their torch-like sources of light, which has now become the tradition of carving pumpkins.
Growing up I looked forward to carving the pumpkins with my parents and then baking and eating the seeds. It was something that I always count on, because I knew that my parents would both be there to help.
I know there are those out there who do not celebrate Halloween because of it’s dark connotations, but I think you’re missing out on a great experience and depriving your children of some wonderful memories that they could look back on. I never associated Halloween with devil-worship. To me Halloween meant me, my mom and my brother were going to to buy some costumes together, pick out candy and the prettiest pumpkins. And that night my dad would come home from work and we’d carve them together. It’s a tradition that I think more people should share and I miss it.
So to all out there who do celebrate this holiday, Happy Halloween.
Last Monday, October 9th, Edelman’s Rick Murray visited Auburn. Here at Auburn, public relations students have had the unique opporntunity to blog frequently on our own blog and on our other website Loveliestvillage. We are some of the few students learning this technology that is evolving every day.
This past summer I was one of the two pr interns at Camp ASCCA, where I worked on the website and took pictures. There I blogged everyday about campers, counselors, staff members and the camp life. No other nonprofit organization has done anything like this and it caught some peoples’ eye. I recieved many emails this summer from graduate students who were using my experience as part of a project they were working on or their thesis. I didn’t know that what I was doing was such a big deal, but apparently it was.
So this past Monday, in front of my class and Murray, I made a presentation about camp and what I did and why I chose audio over video or vice versa. I was a little nervous and not that prepared, but I hope he liked it.
Then after we showed him all of our projects we all went to dinner at the Village Tavern. Good food, good conversation and God willing I may have a job when I graduate.
For the past couple of weeks there has been string of school shootings.
Just yesterday I turned on the television to see yellow tape and police officers surrounding a school and a reporter explaining how a man went inside and now children are dead.
It happened in Nickel Mines, Penn. According to CNN, a man walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse, let all the boys leave, lined up the girls against the blackboard, bound their legs with wire and opened fire. Then he killed himself.
Last I heard five of the dozen girls he held hostage are dead; the youngest one was 6-years-old.
Last week on Sept. 29, a man walked into a classroom in a Bailey, Colo. high school, took six female students hostage. According to MSNBC, the “shooter sexually assaulter the students” before he shot one and then himself.
Earlier that day, a 15-year-old student in Cazenovia, Wis. walked into his school and shot his principal. According to USA Today, the young man did it because he was upset about a punishment he had received earlier that week.
On Sept. 17, two young men shot five basketball players at Duquesne University. Four of those students have returned to campus and has moved to rehab on Monday (MSNBC).
There was news of a shooting that took place in Canada just a couple days before that. My memory is consistent with this information I found on Wikipedia about a shooting at Dawson College in Montreal, Quebec, Canada:
One victim died at the scene, while another 19 were injured, eight of whom were listed    in critical condition with six requiring surgery. The gunman later committed suicide by    shooting himself in the head, after being shot in the arm by police.
All of these took place in a matter of weeks, but you can find reports going back to 1996 when this epidemic seemed to begin.
How do we stop this from happening? What aren’t we doing for our children that made them turn to such rage? People have blamed it on everything from bad parenting to video games, to hate propaganda. But no matter what you blame it on, we still have a problem.
In 2002 a young man stabbed another student at my high school and that young man died. After that there were metal detectors at every entrance students could come in at, police officers patrolling the hallways and stricter rules about what was and wasn’t allowed on school property.
Is this what every school is going to turn to? Are schools going to be forced to promote their safety precautions to get parents to enroll their children in those schools? Is that going to be a new role for school systems’ public relations directors?
I don’t have any answers, I wish I did, but I’m shocked and dumbfounded at what I continuely see on the news.
My prayers are with the families of the victims. There are no words that can console a grieving heart, especially over the loss of a child.
I recently recieved an email telling me a story about Denzel Washington:
“Don’t know whether you heard about this, but Denzel Washington and his family visited
the troops at Brook Army Medical Center, in San Antonio, Texas (BAMC) the other day.
This is where soldiers who have been evacuated from Germany come to be hospitalized in the United States, especially burn victims.
There are some buildings there called Fisher Houses. The Fisher House is a Hotel where soldiers’ families can stay, for little or no charge, while their soldier is staying in the Hospital. BAMC has quite a few of these houses on base, but as you can imagine, they are almost filled most of the time.
While Denzel Washington was visiting BAMC, they gave him a tour of one of the Fisher Houses. He asked how much one of them would cost to build. He took his check book out and wrote a check for the full amount right there on the spot.
The soldiers overseas were amazed to hear this story and want to get the word out to the American public, because it warmed their hearts to hear it.”
I hope this story is true and with pictures, I’m leaning towards truth.
But whether or not it is true, this good publicity is spreading throught the email world. And word of mouth, or email, is a great form of publicity.
I always liked Washington. I never had a reason not to, but because of this story there is a greater chance that I’ll go see a movie that he is in.
This story is an excellent example of publicist’s, public relations director’s and/or public relations’ team’s dream for their client. It’s free, good publicity. What more could you ask for?
A reputation can make or break a company, product and person. In public relations you want to keep your client in a positive light. And with a story like this, Washington’s pr team is most likely having a party.
Even those who don’t support the war will read this story and think Washington did a good thing. Helping those who need it; helping the families of soldiers stay close to their loved one.
With this said, if Denzel Washington is thinking about hiring a new member of his public relations’ team, let me know. I graduate this fall and need a job.
This Saturday a 14-year-old girl was rescued after being able to send a text message to her mother telling her that she was okay and the location of where she was being kept.
This unlikely case might be something that cell phone companies start using to their advantage. Ethically would it be right to use this to promote text messaging?
People will do anything for their kids… thinking that having the ability to text on their cell phones may save your child might be an insentive for someone to add that to their cell phone plan. Now whether or not cell phone companies use this to their advantage is what will be interesting to see.
A public relations campaign that would promote text messaging, as a potential safety precaution could be profitable, but would it be ethical?
I guess I should say that I am happy that the young lady was found safe and unharmed (for the most part), and that she thought of texting her mother was really smart, so I guess her family is grateful to the cell phone company that the man had, who abducted their daughter. (Because it is the sales associate who convinces you to add that to your plan.)
To sum this up, I guess I’m just looking to see if any cell phone company actually has the guts to use this to promote text messaging packages. In my opinion, it is ethically wrong. The family might end up saying something, but for a cell phone company to use it, that might be crossing the line.
Unless you’ve been living in a hole for the past week, you’ve heard about the recent outbreak of E. coli which has been linked to fresh spinach. According to MSNBC, one person has already died and, at least, 109 are sick. Cases are still being reported, with seven new cases beign reported this Sunday.
The Food and Drug Administration has linked a California company’s fresh spinach to the outbreak. Natural Selection Foods LLC, the country’s largest grower of organic produce, including fresh organic spinach, has recalled some of it’s brands for fear of contamination and another company, who’s spinach they purchase from Natural Selection, has recalled all of it’s spinach products.
So watching all this, and being a fan of the occasional spinach salad, I’ve started to wonder who else Natural Selection sells it’s spinach to and who uses it and has yet to realize it. For example, salad bars in restaurants. How are we supposed to know what brand of spinach is laying out there for us to eat?
As this dilemma continues, I wonder what kind of crisis management Natural Selection is going to use. Just in the MSNBC article, it already seems like they’re going the wrong way about it. They were caught in a lie:
“Bro also dismissed a claim by Natural Selection Foods LLC, the country’s largest grower of organic produce, that its organic spinach products had been cleared of suspicion. “The FDA has not cleared any products from the list and continues to recommend consumers avoid eating fresh spinach products,†Bro said.”
Is Natural Selection going to give any compensation to the victims of this outbreak? What if more people continue to get sick and die? Currently, the FDA is investigating the irrigation system, what if they are still contaminating products that are being sent out, or it is contaminating another one of their products? When it comes to any kind of outbreak, you can never take too many precautions or have too many back-up plans.
It will be interesting to see what happens if or when they find out what caused the contamination and what Natural Selection will do if people continue to get sick. It’s times like this when pr can have it’s finest and worst moments.
In a way it is related to public relations, but in a huge way it’s not. But today I don’t care. Five years ago today changed many people’s lives and I’m going to write about it.
Five years ago today, two planes flew into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon, and another crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. And today is the fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001.
According to this website, on that day 2,973 people died and 24 remain missing. Those were mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends, and neighbors. Average people who were just going to work, flying home, going on vacation…who knows.
Where was I? I was a junior in high school and on the newspaper staff. I was sitting there watching either Good Morning America or The Today Show while working on that month’s layout. And we all just sat there. Stunned. Not knowing what was going on. Not knowing anything.
That day changed my life forever. The way I treat people and my feelings towards the people I love.
Not only did I change, but I think everyone did.
On the pr aspect of it, there was a nationwide campaign promoting going to war with Iraq, changing procedures of everything. Everywhere you went something changed and they weren’t hiding it. Everything had an explanation, there was always someone talking about the way it was, what is being done and what could be done. Especially when it came to airports. Everything changed, some say for the better, some say otherwise. And their campaigns were all about safety. Saying that things are changing for the better.
I guess you could consider that one of the biggest public relations campaigns ever. They convinced enough people to vote for a man who said he was going to take us to war. So I guess a pr professional would look at that and consider it a successful campaign.
It’s another story when you look at the results of the war that so many of us approved of. I wouldn’t want to be the person who has to tell a mother that her son was killed because of a successful pr campaign.
I’ve watched a mother be told that her 18-year-old little boy (and yes, I say little boy, because at 18 you are still not a man. You’re supposed to be going off to college and learning how to grow up, not going off to fight a war) was dead after leaving for Iraq just two weeks before that. That is not a success.
Five years ago today, the world stopped turning. At least that’s what it felt like, and nothing was ever the same.
One of the largest campaigns was launched in the U.S. and it was successful and we are living in our success to this day. Watching our success come back in coffins draped in American flags.
Get off the computer and go tell the people you love that you love them.
God Bless Everyone, no exceptions.
