Today is my last day as an intern at the News-Herald.
It has been fun. I’m a little sad to leave although I’m happy to be graduating. Working at a Downriver paper has been great. It gave me a chance to learn about a region I live in. It’s been a blend of familiar and unfamiliar experiences since I live in Dearborn and used to live Downriver.
Being in the News-Herald’s newsroom was fun. The reporters and editors who make up the newsroom are an entertaining and funny group of people. I couldn’t have asked for more helpful and friendly people to work with while I completed my internship. I learned a lot about writing and generated a lot of clips. I even had some stories on the front page so I’m grateful for that. I also gained valuable interviewing skills as well as phone etiquette.
I had a lot of fun working on my stories too. The stories on Pearl Harbor, the Kids-TALK Advocacy Center and the legislative forum were my favorites because the whole experience was interesting and enjoyable. I met some great people. But every story I worked on turned out to be fun and interesting.
I’m glad I got a behind the scenes look at the News-Herald. I hope to freelance next year and keep in touch with everyone I’ve met over the semester.
And my favorite Disney movie is either Beauty and the Beast or Cinderella. :)

Last week, the revelation that it was Walt Disney's birthday sparked a bit of a debate in the office. By a bit of a debate, I mean me telling everyone how wrong they are about what Disney movies are their favorites.

To me, good Disney movies can be divided into three different categories: Classics, Blockbusters, and Underappreciated. If they don't fall under one of these, they're probably awful.

Classic is a loose term, but can easily include the older animated features: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1939), Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo, Bambi and so on.

But not every old Disney movie is a gem, and not every character is immortalized. For instance, can you tell me who this is?

Yeah, I had to look him up too. That's Jose "Joe" Carioca, one of the Three Caballeros. Yeah, you guys probably don't know what that is either because it rarely sees syndication. Believe it or not he was in more than one feature too, he co-starred in Saludos Amigos alongside Donald Duck, also a caballero, the year before Caballeros released. Ah, the days when white women were cast to play hispanic women and starred beside animated birds.

The Classics wrap up around the 1970, covering Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and up through The Sword in the Stone and The Aristocats. After that we slip into more familiar terriroty of blockbusters, like The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, and the underappreciated films between.

Underappreciated probably consist of different movies for different people. Some of them people may consider underappreicated, like Mulan or Lilo and Stitch, still see regular syndication on the Disney Channel or its affiliates. Truly underappreciated films are ones that did something different and pulled it off.

The animation in Hercules was different, in a good way, and coupled with the movie's amazing score made it one of my absolute favorites.

The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under took the usual Disney ingredient of animals helping people to a whole new level, where the animals, in this case mice, save children, and they were great. An oppressive ginger as the antagonist in the first film followed by a scary bushman with a pet iguana in the sequel.

It's not easy to pick out the truly bad movies, because to most people, some of them have some level of charm. But they're wrong.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame. When the stooge-esque trio of gargoyles are the best part of the movie, and slapstick hasn't been funny in decades, there's problems.

Brother Bear? More like smother bear. Please, reduce my oxygen supply instead of making me watch this movie.

Home on the Range. A movie I had never heard of until I looked at the list of Disney animated features. Then I saw that Roseanne Barr voiced the lead, a cow. The irony slayed me and I moved on.

*Note there is a difference between Disney movies and Disney Pixar movies. Don't come up in here telling me I forgot Toy Story or Finding Nemo. Cuz you'll sound dumb. And yes, I know The Lion King Exists.

David Coon, a Woodhaven High School student has been in the newsroom several time this semester. No he's not technically an intern, he's a job shadow for our own Jackie Harrison-Martin, but we won't hold that against him.

Today he sat in on our daily video news cast, 2forU. Check him out in today's version below, and check thenewsherald.com everyday for a new edition.

Here is a link to the print version of the story.

Nursing homes are curious places. The older people who reside in them are full of useful stories because they have lived a long time. But it can be difficult pulling valuable information out of them.

Looking for people who have lived long enough to remember Pearl Harbor, I visited a nursing home in Southgate.

Walking the hallways with the nursing home’s director, I met a lot of interesting people. Some thought I was somebody they knew from a long time ago while others wanted only to talk about specific dates like their birthday or the Kennedy assassination. And there were a few who had incredibly vivid memories of an event that happened 70 years ago.

One tiny woman who was born in 1930 remembers a bulletin interrupting a radio program she was listening to with a friend. She not only remembered what she was doing, this woman remembered the address and location of her parent’s home in Detroit on Omaha Street. It wasn’t that her mind was sharp. The director said she can remember much more about the past than the present.

The most impressive recollection came from an 86 year-old woman named Helen who could remember the general feeling of fear that surrounded her Detroit community after news of the attacks. It was clear that her mind was still very sharp.

I had never been to a nursing home before my visit yesterday. I’m glad the opportunity came up. It gave me a chance to talk about issues and events I wouldn’t have thought of on my own. And to meet a woman named Mary who will turn 105 on January 1.