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WORLD
AND LOCAL
BLACKOUT
DRU SPILLER
STAFF WRITER
DSPILLER@SCMAIL.SPELMAN.EDU
During Atlanta's second snow and ice storm this winter, thousands of homes were
without power and heat for a few days. Over 150,000 people in Georgia were without power,
according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website. Most of the power outages were in
Gwinnett and Fulton counties.
“We had two days of being snowed in with no power,” Buckhead resident Wayne Davis said.
“We got through thanks to the fireplace and the grace of God."
Thankfully, for the students in the AUC the power on all three campuses stayed on
throughout the ordeal. There were a few cases of power going out, but it remains unseen as
to whether the weather or a blown fuse caused them.
"The power went out in my room on Thursday," Spelman College freshman Taylor Byrd
said. “I had to knock on my friend's door and ask to use her outlets to charge my phone.”
Plowever, Brean Derrett, a freshman at Spelman College, said, “Power outages weren't
a problem for me. Everything was working but the Wi-Fi, but then again, when does it ever go
quickly.
"I feel sorry for all of the teachers and students driving back home and to work. I’m
sure there’s a lot of commuter students in the AUC who have had a loss of power.”
The roads were cleared of ice and the AUC headed back to class on Monday. Many
students saw no reason for school to be canceled on Friday but several also voiced that it
was most likely a staff development day to decide how to proceed about the several days of
missed class.
Unfortunately, around 129,917 people in Georgia were still without power as of late
Friday. Most areas in metro Atlanta that were without power had been restored by Monday.
Residents of Augusta and Milledgeville still have a fairly significant amount of power loss, ac
cording to a recent report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Georgia’s power companies
hope to have power for all of their customers by the middle of next week.
ATLANTA'S SNOWPOCALYPSB
PART DEUX
TIFFANY PENNAMON
WORLD AND LOCAL ASSOCIATE EDITOR
TPENNAMO@SCMAIL.SPELMAN.EDU
After being surprised by a wintery
disaster last month, Atlanta was hit with
another snowstorm in less than two weeks.
This time, Atlanta was prepared - maybe too
prepared. To prepare for this past week's
“Snowpocalyspe,” Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed
and Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal closed public
schools and offices and advised citizens to
stay off the roads to allow emergency ve
hicles to salt clear roads of ice.
When another snowstorm was fore
cast, people flocked to grocery stores,
stocked up on batteries, and sheltered them
selves in their homes. One twitter user com
mented, “The South went from under reac
tion to overreaction.”
Plowever, the first snowstorm didn’t just
affect the South. It traveled up the eastern
coast to the Northeast region. States such as
South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia
saw inches of snow that haven’t been seen in
years. With captions such as “We just weren’t
ready” headlining major news networks, grid-
locked highways and power outages filled
the news.
CNN writer Catherine E. Shoichet
wrote, "While Northerners may laugh at their
Southern friends’ panic over a dusting of
snow, the threat is real: With relatively few
resources to battle snow and ice, public work
crews may have a difficult time keeping up
with any significant accumulation. Add to
that the fact that millions of Southern drivers
aren’t used to driving on snow or ice.”
This second time around, Atlanta
highways were eerily clear; no one wanted to
risk being trapped for hours just as thousands
were in the snowstorm two weeks before.
On Feb. 111, two weeks exactly from
the start of the first snow break, students
in the AUC were ecstatic when Spelman
College President Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum
announced that all AUC schools would be
closing due to inclement weather. Her official
statement from her Twitter account read,
“Bdsed on the most recent weather updates,
the AUC schools will close today at 1:30 pm.
We will be closed all day on Wednesday as
well.” This announcement was tweeted out
from Morehouse College’s official twitter as
well.
The initially fun freedom of the snow
break turned into reckless boredom in the
AUC. Cabin fever spread through the resi
dence halls and students turned to social
media to cure their boredom. At one point,
students began to tweet that they wanted a
refund for all of the days missed due to snow
and inclement weather.
Being private schools, Spelman
College and Morehouse College have the
discretion of closing or keeping open the
schools in situations like this. To uphold the
safety of students and administration, no
classes were held Wednesday, Thursday and
Friday to ensure that the ice melted com
pletely and no incidents occurred. The snow
break came to a bright and sunny end on
Valentine's Day with temperatures reaching
a high of 57 degrees. With four more weeks
until spring, students can only imagine what
unpredictable weather is in store for Atlanta.
KADIJAH NDOYE
WORLD AND LOCAL EDITOR
KNDOYE@SCMAIL.SPELMAN.EDU
TALES OF THE CONJURE WOMAN
A talk with Renee Stout, the artist behind the Tales of the Conjure Woman exhibit in
the Spelman College Museum on February 16.
HOURS:
Tuesdays - Fridays | 10:00 a.m.
Saturdays | Noon - 4:00 p.m.
4:00 p.m.
CLOSED
Sunday, Monday, holidays, summers, and official Spelman Col
@SpelmanMuseum
TANANARIVE DUE JOINS THE GRIO'S 100
Dr. Tananarive Due, professor at Spelman College and the Cosby Chair for
Humanities, is well-known for her works of science fiction where people
the main characters. Her works include “The Between,” “The Good House,
(in's Ghost,” and “My Soul to Keep.” She joined TheGrio’s Class of 2014 aloi
Laverne Cox, Colin Powell, and Ryan Coogler, the director of “Fruitvale Stc
@TananarlveDue
ig with
/srt **
.. teen in
FLORIDA MAN CONVICTED IN JORDAN DAVIS Kl
Michael Dunn was convicted of attempted murder for shooting into a car
cause of the “thug music.. He shot and killed Jordan Davis, a Marietta, Ga
2012. At the end of the trial in Jacksonville, Fla., the jurors convicted Dunn '
counts of second-degree attempted murder.
SNOWDEN DEVELOPMENT
A National Security Agency employee resigned after admitting that he pr<
Edward Snowden with a digital key giving him access to classified informa
Snowden then released information to the public about the NSA’s secret intelli
gence activities.
JOHN SINGLETON WILL DIF
John Singleton, the director behind “Baby Boy,” “Boyz N the Hood," “
tice," and many other films, will direct Tupac Shakur’s biopic. Si
directly with Tupac on the film “Poetic Justice.”
AUC STUDENTS INTERNING AT THE CAPITOL
AUC students are interning in the Georgia Academic Political Scholars Program
headed by Rep. LaDawn Blackett Jones, a graduate of Tennessee State University
and Tulane University Law School.
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER AND INSTAGRAM:
©THEMAROONTIGER
FOR MORE BREAKING NEWS
NSA: Naughty
r Nice?
MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER SCOTT
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
MAIL.MICHAELSCOTT@GMAIL.COM
Perhaps you are familiar with the memes showing President Obama listening in on
people's private phone calls. Perhaps, the depiction is over-exaggerated, but these memes
beg a series of questions. For example, how much access does the National Security Agency
have to citizens’ personal devices? Are we signing over our privacy when we purchase cell
phone plans
Since its creation in the 1960s by the federal government, the cyber world, formerly
introduced in the '90s as the World Wide Web, has been responsible for providing entertain
ment, compelling advertisements, managing online relationships, and even provided credible
sources for that elaborate essay that your professor plans to assign. Everything had its place,
and everything was good; but with good, comes peculiarity.
Like every other invention, an anomaly is born: like Vine from Instagram, or Black Twit
ter from simply, ordinary Twitter. As for the broad Internet, users began to deviate into darker
trenches, where one familiar group is prepared to follow, the NSA.
The NSA was formed in 1952 as a government-operated organization that takes pride
in its “Defending Our Nation. Securing The Future." motto, italicized on its homepage www.nsa.
gov. The mission is quite simple, to protect the nation from any possible threat. To do this ef
ficiently, the NSA divides itself in directorates represented by letters, and under that, subgroups
represented by numbers.
For example, the S directorate symbolizes Signals Intelligence, which focuses on “gath
ering information” in response to foreign threats, ultimately in compliance with the Executive
Branch of the United States Government. Under this department are various numbers that
are the breakdown of various committees and responsibilities, S3 for example: S32 is Tailored
Access Operations which targets foreign computers through cyber surveillance and S35 is the
Special Source Operations, which accrues data from domestic espionage programs.
With intelligence collecting operations such as the S32 and S35, American Internet us
ers hold differing perspectives. Some opine the S32 program to be effective and necessary for
national security against foreign countries, whereas the S35 program is deemed as intrusively
suspicious, or just perhaps suspiciously intrusive.
For example, most recently in Sochi, Russia, Olympic visitors have been warned about
hack attacks geared toward their digital devices. American news coverage expressed out
rage over this security threat, hinting at the importance of a national security team.
However, in the United States, domestic security action plans are met with bittersweet
defiance, particularly towards cellphone users. Ibrahim El-Amiin, a student at Morehouse said,
"The NSA creates a big level of discomfort... however, they're just trying to help people espe
cially since what happened in the 911 attack.”
When asked, Shaquille Hall, a student at Morehouse College said, "It is a possible inva
sion of privacy.”
As college students, our peers and faculty often express the dangers of sharing infor
mation on social media sites. In this day and age, cellphones have been havens that allow stu
dents to communicate directly with friends. As information surfaces regarding the expansive
capabilities of the NSA, our haven is under siege. While the NSA isn’t likely concerned about
text messages and phone calls regarding last week's move, their ability to access this informa
tion is fascinating.