1) What's wrong with this front-page Argus news story? (Don't rewrite--just identify problems in structure, content and mechanics, and explain what you would do if you were asked by your editor to rewrite this story. You may print the story out and submit it with your corrections, or explain your corrections on a separate sheet of paper and turning it in to me or emailing me, [jplath@titan.iwu.edu], whichever is easiest. Deadline? Next class period.)

America as a melting pot took on a whole new meaning this past Sunday. Representatives of North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia prepared a spread of international dishes to accompany their songs and dances for Carnivale in the Main Lounge.

This year's theme, "Cultural Superhighway," had both ethnic and technological meanings. Alpna Bhatia, chairperson of the food committee, explained.

"As telecommunications become more advanced, the world becomes a smaller place. This technological improvement can be used for cultural enrichment by taking advantage of increased mobility," she said.

Carnivale was a joint effort of the International Society and the International House and attracted over 100 students and approximately 15 host families.

The South American folk duo "Frontera" made up of Professor Cecilia Sanchez-Harris, from the Wesleyan Spanish department, and Dr. Carlos Parodi, an ISU faculty member, kicked off the entertainment portion of the evening with their performances of "Ojos Azules," a song thought to originate in the Andes, "Malagunas," a seranade, and their rendition of "Guantanamera."

Dmitri Dadakas and David Yerkes took the musical tone northward with their performances of two songs popular in America: Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" and Guns-n-Roses' "Patience." Dadakas also performed a Greek song.

Heather Olt represented the United States of old with her acapella performance of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and Meara McIntyre sang "Nell," a French operatic selection.

Jenna Goeden began the showcase of the world of dance with an American tap dance routine. Claire Healy organized an Irish street dance performance, and Pallavi Kuriyedath followed with "Bharat Natyan," a classical Indian dance depicting Lord Shiva, a mythological god of dance.

Kuriyedeth said she felt Carnivale was well-received by the audience. She also said that American students learn more from coming to a university such as Wesleyan and being exposed to many different cultures in one place than the international students themselves do from trying to assimilate to American life.

"International students in Bloomington play a much greater role in teaching American students than any ambassador in Chicago [does]," she said.

For the finale, a group of students performed in finale, "Dandiya Raas," a 2,000-year-old traditional dance of western Indian origin in which each participant holds a pair of sticks and taps them against a partner's.

This melting pot of entertainment was an appropriate prelude to the ethnic smorgasbord that followed. Among the foods served were Indonesian chichen; Miso, a Japanese tofu soup; Rice Pakor, an Indian dish; Toad in the Hole, an English sausage; and Spanish rice. The students also served Bulgoki, Korean grilled beer and flan, an hispanic custard.

Bhatia said she was pleased with the turnout.

"I was hoping everyone enjoyed the food and that there was enough for everyone to enjoy," she said. "This was my first time as food chair. Next year we'll try planning more in advance. With this we can offer a broader selection and greater quantities of foods."

At the close of Carnivale, the international students presented Malinda Carlson, associate dean of student affairs, with a painting done by Lai Chooniganan. Bhatia said Carlson is always around for international students to talk to and works well with them through their special pre-school orientation program and her strong support of the International Society.

2) "The lead [of this Argus story] doesn't work" --a common complaint of editors. "Write a new one."

With its large expanses of natural land, the Illinois Wesleyan campus hosts an array of animals whose appearances are familiar to students.

But to the consternation of many animal lovers this fall, a number of students have reported a relatively unusual sight--sickened, convulsing and apparently dying pigeons.

According to officials of the University and a local pest-control company, the birds are victims of a pesticide commonly known as Avitrol, used by Wesleyan since August in an attempt to control the area's pigeon population.

Bob Aaron, director of Wesleyan's News Services department, said that the University had contracted American Pest Control of Bloomington in August to apply Avitrol in selected campus areas which pigeons had favored for roosting.

The decision to do so, he added, was in response to a potential health hazard created by the birds and the feathers and droppings they leave behind them.

"There's no question within the medical and scientific community that pigeons create health problems," Aaron said. "What we are doing here is not unique."

Aaron said that the University became concerned about the accumulation of pigeon droppings around the entrances of Presser, Kemp and Magill Halls. The droppings were being tracked into the buildings by pedestrians and were finding their way into the air intake units at Presser as well.

"There are several diseases that pigeons carry, largely affecting the respiratory system, which remain behind in their feces," Aaron said.

He cited two diseases commonly passed from pigeon droppings to humans--histoplasmosis and hypersennsitivity pneumonia--which can be contracted simply by inhaling bacteria living in the droppings.

Histoplasmosis, a lung disease which affects four million people annually, holds a 90 percent fatality rate if left undetected, he said. Hypersensitivity pneumonia, commonly known as "Bird Handler's Lung," also results from prolonged inhalation of organic dusts left by pigeons.

"We felt that there was a potential problem here in our community, and that action had to be taken for our size of community," Aaron said.

Shortly before the beginning of fall semester, the poison was mixed at a 1:19 ratio to corn and placed in designated areas around the roosting sites.

Ideally, Aaron said, once it is ingested by members of the flock, the sickened birds would send distress calls to the other pigeons, which in turn would be frightened away.

"Some birds will just get sick from the poison," he said. "A very small percentage die." He added that he had not heard any reports of dead birds since the summer.

Chris Haggarty, a representative for American Pest Control, said that the purpose of Avitrol "was not to kill pigeons, although a few--five to 10 percent--may die." He added that the company had used the poison at "numerous" other locations in Bloomington-Normal.

"[Avitrol] is an avicide used not only by us, but commonly by other pest-control administrators," he said. McLean County Health Department representative John Hirsch affirmed that Avitrol was "a controlled substance" sold only to licensed pest-control companies.

"Nothing to do with city regulations ever came up in our negotiations with American Pest Control," Aaron said.

While the poison may be legal, the sight of birds sickened by the poison has alarmed some students, one of whom was concerned enough to rescue a stricken pigeon and call the local humane society.

Junior Jennifer Greenwald and a friend were walking toward Ferguson Hall in October when they saw a pigeon staggering about the parking lot and attempting to fly without success.

"It was obviously sick," Greenwald said. After placing the pigeon in shelter and calling the humane society, she was told the only thing that could be done for the bird was "to put it in a shoebox in a dark room and let it die."

"I would think that the poison would pose a threat to other animals," she said.

The threat of poisoning animals other than pigeons is minimal because of the size of the bait and the nature of pigeon flockes, Haggarty said.

"If other birds would get into [the bait] it would be an extreme rarity," he said.

Many birds are not grain feeders and refrain from eating corn except in the sparse eating conditions of fall and winter, Haggarty added. The kernel size, he said, is too big for smaller animals, and pigeons flocking around the bait vehemently refuse to let other birds near it anyway.

"We try to do a great deal of watching the flock, to monitor other animals that might be nearby," he said. "But the pigeon flock often will not let other birds inside their ranks."

Greenwald described several cases when students, upon finding a sick pigeon, would go so far as to break the bird's neck "to put it out of its misery." "But these pigeons might have surived the poison's effects otherwise," Aaron said.

For birds that do die from the poison, Aaron said, the pest-control company usually makes an attempt to pick up carcasses that might be noticed by passers-by, possibly creating a public-relations disaster.

"Birds are very difficult to control, as there will always be people who love them and who will react very negatively to the idea of poisoning or killing them," Hirsch said.

Aaron stressed that the University's control program would be "periodic" and that "the sole object is to get the pigeons to leave. We want a mass migration," he said.

3) "We have spatial problems--give us eight additional line spaces." (Before lazy editors changed the font size or leading to make something fit, they would look for paragraphs where the last line contained only a word or two-three. Cut that amount of words from the paragraph and PRESTO! you save a line . . . and you tighten up your copy. Try this method with the Argus story below. Since the www. cannot accommodate original line breaks, a slash "/" is inserted before the last line of each paragraph. If you prefer, you can cut whole lines or paragraphs to achieve the eight lines, but be sure to defend your choice.)

More than seven months after a robber's bullet threatened to end his landmark singing career, Wayne Messmer stood at the pulpit of Evelyn Chapel with his baritone voice intact / and a message to spread.

The 1972 Illinois Wesleyan alumnus, perhaps the most famous singer of the national anthem in American sports history, delivered a stirring guest sermon, "The Power of Prayer," Nov. 30 / at Evelyn Chapel.

"I stand here as living proof that miracles do / happen every day," he said. Messmer, who has sung the national anthem for the Chicago Cubs and White Sox baseball teams and Blackhawks and Wolves hockey teams more than 3,000 times, is one of the most / recognizable figures in Chicago sports.

But his singing career was nearly cut short last April 9 when he was shot in the throat / during a robbery attempt on Chicago's West Side.

Early that morning, Messmer had left a sports bar and was getting into his car when he saw a teenager approaching him, a gun in his hand. When he quickly shut his car door and attempted to drive away, a second gunman who had been standing behind him fired, striking / Messmer in the throat.

"In a moment like that, you go to your instinct," Messmer said. "My first reaction / was, 'Oh God.'"

Messmer drove back to the bar to get help with the bullet still lodged in his throat. By chance, the tie he had been wearing that evening stuck in the bullet hole and controlled the bleeding. He was transported to Cook County Hospital, where 13 other gunshot / victims had been taken that weekend.

When Messmer awakened, his brother and wife were standing at his bedside. His brother provided him with a slate, on which Messmer wrote, "Is this in the news?" His wife responded, / "You have no idea."

"I had become the surrogate voice of the national anthem--the 'anthem guy,'" he said. "When people found out that the 'anthem guy' had been shot, they were irritated. The fact that I was shot in the throat made the occurrence / repulsive."

Messmer said he could not speak for two weeks--his vocal cords had been "tickled" by the bullet. During that time, cards from fans began arriving "by the hundreds," he / said.

"Eight out of 10 cards said, 'I'm praying for you until you can speak again,'" Messmer said. "The message I was receiving was prayer, prayer, prayer--from people of all denominations. I thought that even if I would never speak again, I was doing something good here. I'm uniting all denominations around / prayer."

Messmer said that before the shooting, he had prayed for a number of things, such as physical and emotional strength and enlightenment. Lying in his hospital bed, however, "I started praying for some kind of guidance--not to be made well so I can sing and make a lot of money again," / he said.

"I was saying, 'Whatever is supposed to happen is out of my hands,'" he said. "Once I told myself that I would accept God's will, I immediately / started feeling better."

The gunman was a 15-year-old boy--a fact that still frightens Messmer. "I think I could have been a tin can on a fence post and gathered the same reaction," he said of the incident. "It's a scary thing to / think about."

Messmer noted that during the weekend he was shot, more shooting victims were treated at Cook County Hospital than in Japan during / all of 1993.

The fact that he was able to recover his voice defied medical opinion, he said. "There's no possible medical explanation for why I have recovered," Messmer said. Rather than ask why it happened to him of all people, he prefers to concentrate on the positives of / his experience.

"When you try to find out why, sometimes you don't have to ask," Messmer said. "If there is a reason, you will find it sometime. It could / happen to anyone, anytime.

"As I was thinking about prayer and my recover, the cards began arriving," he continued. "I knew I was not 'taken' for a reason. My mission became really clear--to demonstrate the power of / prayer in our everyday lives."

Six months after the shooting, on Oct. 14, Messmer took the ice at the Rosemont Horizon, where the International Hockey League Chicago Wolves were opening their season against the Detroit Vipers. As more than 16,000 fans applauded, he sang the national anthem for the first time since he nearly lost his / voice.

Messmer also sang the anthem at the first IWU men's basketball game at the Shirk / Center.

Messmer reported his voice as being "about 75 percent" of what it was. But that hasn't stopped him from singing, or from spreading his message of / the power of prayer. "Does prayer always work? Of course not," he said. "If everyone got what they wanted all of the time, the consequences would be disastrous. I simply pray for God's will to / be done."

For the boy who nearly took Messmer's voice away--not to mention his life--and for the millions of other American criminals who contribute daily to the country's myriad social problems, Messmer had / another message.

"You can knock us down," he said. "But we'll get right / back up."