#17- Opinion (International), Coldplay Cares

  Recently hit band Coldplay has decided to suspend their most recent tour. With their popularity fluxing over the past few years it seems like and odd move. It turns out they have a good reason. Coldplay took a look at the environmental damage tours can cause. Their new album Everyday Life recently released which left fans eager to see them on tour for the first time since 2017. The album is quite good, with songs like Orphans, which feel very characteristically like Coldplay. While I'm a music fan and even more of Coldplay I understand their reasoning completely.

  According to Chris Martin, front man for the band, it is vital that musicians take a stand against climate change. As influential as celebrities and musical artists are it makes perfect sense that they would be great advocates to spread awareness. Since they deemed the tour ecologically irresponsible they will be doing two live shows in Jordan which will stream via YouTube for all the fans to watch. Personally I think it's admirable that Martin and his band mates are leading the charge on eliminating unnecessary carbon emissions and plastic waste. He claims that they won't launch the tour until they feel they can do so in good conscience. They would like the next tour to be carbon neutral if at all possible.

Chris Martin on recent tour cancellation

  With themes of humanity and saving the Earth the new album gives us something to think about. It's refreshing to see megastars care about something important. Martin not only talks the talk, he walks the walk. He often drives electric vehicles and donates to stop climate change, he is also a big fan of renewable energy and recyclables. While i'll still be attending the HellaMega tour early next year featuring Green Day, Wheezer, and Fallout Boy I hope that they'll take a page out of Coldplay's book and try to make their shows more environmentally friendly

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#16- Opinion (Local), Closed for Thanksgiving, Tradition or Outdated?

  As someone who's had "inconsistent" family gatherings over the years it's nice to have other options around the holidays. Thanksgiving is about taking a day to be thankful for what you have but in a way it has become equally about one other vital thing.....the food. So if you don't have a family from straight out of a Rockwell painting where can you go to enjoy a meal? In Texarkana options have been limited for as long as I can remember but as people my age start to set out on their own or start families they have a different way of doing things. Many younger people don't do traditional holidays anymore. Restaurants are realizing this and making changes. Some people are of the mind that all restaurants should be closed for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons include the idea of all the workers getting to spend time with their family, the idea that people should be with their family instead of eating out, or the misconception that everyone has someplace else to go.

  While I do enjoy spending time with my family there have been times when I wasn't able. I also understand from my time working as a waiter that you can make big money on holidays. The fact is some people don't have families and would like to use the holidays to bolster their wallet. I understand the struggles and I believe in the restaurant industry that there are usually always enough people to fill out a staff who don't feel forced to be there. This isn't necessarily the same situation in all professions but it does seem to be the case for Texarkana's eateries. Thanksgiving is a great time to be open, competition is limited, tips are usually generous, and it fills a need for customers.


What's Open In TK?

  While it isn't a super pressing issue I find it hits home for me in particular. I've been at ends with my family on a holiday and set out to find a place to enjoy a meal with my friends or my sister. It's slightly depressing to have the exclusive option of drowning your sorrows in Denny's hash browns and chocolate milk. It's nice to have more of a variety. Even if you enjoy an actual family lunch, it's always nice to go out late and have a dinner with your extended family. Personally I'm glad to see restaurants meeting the lifestyle demands of the modern consumer.

15- Entertainment or Pop Culture, The Mandalorian Review

  Recently Disney Plus launched an of course as a film devotee I had to get a subscription for "research purposes". One of the Disney Plus originals available on launch was The Mandalorian. Now I've been a huge Starwars fan since before I could walk so I went into this show with extremely high expectations, after all it's been hyped up so much in the media recently. With Pedro Pascal starring and Jon Favreau as one of the lead producers it was a must watch. I've been a huge fan of their work as well so needless to say I was stoked to finally get my hands on an episode of this show.

The Mandalorian Trailer.

  To give any non-Star Wars fans some background this show takes place five years after the fall of the Empire in Return of the Jedi. It follows a Mandalorian bounty hunter making his living across the galaxy. Other famous Mandalorians include Jango Fett (genetic model for the clone troopers) and legendary bounty hunter Boba Fett. The Mandalorians are essentially a race of helmet wearing, blaster toting bad asses.

The Mandalorian Trailer 2

 I finally sat down with my room mate (who isn't a huge Star Wars nerd like me) and watched the first episode of the series. All I can say is wow. This show proves Star Wars can work well as a live action television series which opens up tons of new possibilities and bodes well for the upcoming Kenobi show also on Disney Plus. This show felt like it belonged in the Star Wars universe, the blend of practical effects and CGI was seamless. Pascal played his role to perfection with his cool steely voice and wonderful costume acting. The shootout scenes were action packed and even had a joke or two tossed in. I enjoyed Taika Waititit's Bounty Droid character especially. In addition to being visually stunning the story had just enough mystery to be compelling but not give too much away. The ending had a surprising twist involving a very prominent alien in the series who's origins have been a mystery so far, he was thought to be the only one of his kind. I won't say too much about that but I can say that overall even my roommate was on the edge of his seat. I think The Mandalorian may have made a fan out of him yet. I highly recommend this series to anyone, Star Wars fan or not.


  Need to brush up on your Star Wars knowledge? Check out Wookiepedia.

#14- Trending, Gotta Go Fast

"Dear God, please kill it with fire."- Jonah Rathburn

  Recently Sonic has been trending on social media, but this time it's for a good reason. As many know the design for the live action Sonic movie featured above was......not well received. The CGI specialists went to work after the outcry's against sonic's creepy incarnation flooded the internet a few months back. The team did a complete redesign of the character and some aspects of the film. 

 This is the one time complaining on the internet actually got something done. The memes ran rampant and bombed the twitters of anyone associated with the film. The original trailer was honestly pretty terrible, that's me being lenient. The new design was a hit with long time Sonic fans such as myself. While the old trailer caught flack for featuring the song Gangster's Paradise by Coolio I almost wish that they had kept it, I found that usage hilarious. However, this new less terrifying Sonic is a drastic improvement. All in all he seems more expressive and closer to the character we all know and love. After the success of Detective Pikachu this  film is trying to live up to the hype and keep the video game movie curse broken for good.

  New vs. Old Trailer

#13- International Feature News, "Bloodhound" Attempts to Break Land Speed Record

  What do you get when you cross a supersonic jet with a dragster? A literal "Highway To The Danger Zone", the answer is the Bloodhound. This super car is designed for one thing and one thing only, speed. As someone who doesn't race cars or fly jets for a living anything over 100 miles an hour seems fast to me but for the crew of the Bloodhound that's a crawl.

Bloodhound SSC

  
  With high performance stock cars reaching over 200 miles an hour this is still only a 5th of the projected speed of the Bloodhound. It is estimated that with the proper modifications and conditions that it can break 1,000 miles an hour. This would shatter the current land speed record of 736 miles an hour by a fairly large margin. The record holding car named Thrust SSC looks significantly more impressive but it's what's under the hood, so to speak, that matters. 

Thrust SSC (not a Pod Racer sadly)

  As a Starwars fan this monstrosity impresses me, partially due to it's sheer speed but also partially due to the fact that it resembles a Pod Racer. The Bloodhound recently clocked in at 501 miles an hour and is said to be at least a year from attempting to break Thrust's record. Here is a video of the recent Test Footage of Bloodhound. Forgive me if I make another Starwars comparison by mentioning how much the Bloodhound blasting across the sand of the South African Desert reminds me of Luke Skywalker gliding over the dunes of Tantooine.

90-HP Napier , 1905

  It's amazing to think how far automobiles have come over the past hundred or so years. The first car to break 100 miles came in 1905 with the 90 horsepower Napier featured above. This may seem like a pretty hefty achievement for such an early date but what we've succeeded in doing the last 20 years surpasses that by leaps and bounds. I am personally excited to see what the future holds in terms of speed an ingenuity in the field of automotive advancement.  

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#12 Numeracy- Basketball by the Numbers

Basketball is all about breaking records, I personally enjoy taking a look at players who exemplify this mindset. The names of players like Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Lebron James, James, Harden, and even Russell Westbrook come to mind. These players have scored in troves and put many others in the league to shame.

Let's talk triple doubles, first off a triple double is when a player achieves double digits in three statistical categories. The record for most triple doubles in NBA history belongs to Oscar Robertson . At 6'5 Oscar brought a different dimension to the scoring game at the point guard position. Think Magic Johnson but smaller. Robertson was a fantastic combination of speed and skill to net himself the all time highest amount of triple doubles at 181. The only person who comes close to this achievement is Russell Westbrook with 140. But it is fair to give Westbrook respect in the sense that he is the only player to average a triple double in two seasons.

Let's talk about the truly impressive numbers, single game scoring. When people think of scoring Wilt Chamberlain comes to mind. The man was an absolute freak of nature in the best possible way. "Wilt Chamberlain could run a 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds, had a 45+ inch vertical, and could bench press 500+ lbs (all while being 7’2, weighing 280+)". While these figures are questionable most people don't doubt them due to the sheer force Wilt exerted when he played and his previous achievements in track and field. This athleticism put him above and beyond any player of his day. It was almost child's play for him to put up massive amounts pf buckets including the NBA's only triple digit scoring from a single player with 100 points. It was no stretch for Wilt to put up 70+ points. He did it 6 times that I can personally recall from the record books. The only person who came close to breaking into triple digits was one of my childhood heroes Kobe Bryant who put up 81 points in a game after dropping 62 in only three quarters earlier that month. I'm a huge fan of prolific scoring, personally two of my favorite high level scorers of all time are Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony. Obviously I had to name drop Melo because I've always been a fan. But none the less the NBA has had some of the most impressive athletes in sports history. Whether it be the "super freak" athletic ability of Wilt Chamberlain, the high flying dunks of Vince Carter (who holds the NBA record for oldest active player and the only player to have played in three different decades), or the blazing quick speed of De'Aron Fox (who I have seen outrun Russell Westbrook, widely regarded as one of the leagues fastest players, on multiple occasions)