I
January 2016
features
the stentorian [ ncssm
2016 Presidential campaigns
pulling in big bucks
By Hannah Shaw
Staff Writer
Jeb Bush (R)
With the 2016 Presidential
Election less than a year away,
the presidential candidates and
their respective campaigns
have dominated major media
outlets. In the political world,
a large part of discussions
have focused on Political
Action Committees (PACs),
Super PACs, and how much
money candidates and outside
groups have poured into their
campaigns.
But exactly how much
is that money, really? Lots
of large numbers have been
thrown around and misleading
infographics have inundated
popular websites, but it’s
hard to keep track of all
those millions and billions,
especially when most of us
rarely handle more than $50 a
day.
For one thing, it helps
to have all of the numbers
organized in one helpful,
simple chart.
It is easy to see that a lot
of money is being spent here.
However, there is so much
money that it is hard to imagine
having that much money at
once, never mind spending it
all on presidential campaigns.
A better way to understand
the massive budgets of these
campaigns is to see what else
one could buy with all that
money.
With the $24,814,730 that
Jeb Bush (R) has spent on
his own campaign, you could
buy 150 medium-sized houses
in Durham, or rent a two-
bedroom apartment in New
$103,222,384
$24,814,730
Carty Fiorina
$3,482,728 ■
$8,496,013
Hiifar/ Clinton ID)
$20,291,679
Mike Huckabee
$4,492,421 ■
$77,471,604
$3,246,20) g
Ted Cfuz(R)
$38,655,257
$26,567,298
Donald Trump (R)
$0 t
$5,828,922
Bemie Sanders (D)
$25,044 I
$41,463,784 ■
John Kassch tR)
SO I
$4,388,168 ■
Ben Carson (R>
$7,295,668
$31,409,509
■Martin O'Malley
$588,865 I
$3,289,726
Marco Rubio (R)
$17,315,782
$15,615,638
Rick Sarrtorum (R)
$310,962 I
$1,054,336 i
Chris Christie |R)
$14,369,145
$4,208,984 ■
$859,244 r
George RaakUR} ,
Rand Paul {R}
$5,788,107
$9,442,031
Jim Gilmore (R|
$193,094 I
$105,807 !
York City for over 500 years.
The . amount of money
outside groups have spent
on Bush could pay off the
student loans for over 3,600
college students in America.
Democratic candidate Hillary
Clinton’s $77,471,604 in
campaign fimds could buy
over 258,000 iPads, or 2,300
new cars.
Even the $5,828,922
Trump has spent on his own
campaign, almost a paltry sum
in comparison, could buy over
12,000 personal computers -
enough to give every student at
NCSSM 19 laptops.
As Nov. 8,2016 draws near,
consider where these massive
sums of money are coming
from, and more importantly
what exactly they’re being
spent on.
Campaign finance reform
is a constantly contested issue,
and hopefully this election
season helps to educate a
new generation of voters on
the tumultuous relationship
between money and political
power.
Jtll Stem (3)
701 r!OiJi;?n-;qmOO
$0 I
_ $217,351 i . ,. ,fj..
[o'lrlo? 7sr! jilqp-vl)
photos courtesy of opensecrets.org
Comparison of 2016 presidential
campaign funds as of Oct. 16, 2015.
The first bar represents outside
money, and the second bar represents
candidate committee money.
Gram-O-Rama to perform on February 12
By AJ Goren
Editor-in-Chief
A cast of 17 students, a
script, and a stage. It may
sound like your typical
NCSSM drama performance,
but Gram-O-Rama is anything
but.
Students in the Gram-O-
Rama class, which is offered
only once a year as a core
elective, spent thieir second
trimester churning out comedy
based on a most unlikely
source material: grammar.
Featuring nounless ad
vertisements, sentence-type
monologues, and a whole lot of
puns, this year’s Gram-O-Ra
ma show is entitled Malprac
tice & Malapropisms, and will
run in the E'TC Lecture Hall at
4:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 12.
Seating is limited and
demand is high, so make sure
to swing by early to secure a
spot in the audience.
Over the course of the
trimester, the Gram-O-Rarna
students wrote over 100
sketches for 16 different
exercises under the direction
of instructor Ross White.
Flowever, fewer than 30
sketches have made the final
cut to be featured in the show.
Among those sketches not
chosen to see the glamorous
lights of the Lecture Hall stage
are ‘TE13: Intro to Lying with
Topics,” a Types of Sentences
monologue by senior Mack
Harrison which begins with
the simple sentence, “I love
physics,” and “Bad Husband,”
an exploration of Homonyms
by junior Cailyn Kirkaldy in
which a wife angrily remarks to
her husband, “I asked for rolls.
And you brought back a script
for Romeo and Juliet with all
the Tybalt lines highlighted!”
To which her husband retorts,
“Well what do you expect?
You’d make a horrid Juliet.”
The script for the show
represents a diverse mixture
of grammatical exercises,
mostly taken from the course
textbook written by Daphne
Athas, the creator of the course
and its original instructor at
UNC Chapel Hill, where it has
continued to be popular.
For their midterm
assignment, students also
created their ovm exercises
5
photo courtesy of AJ Goren
to explore other facets of
grammar not covered in the
book.
Junior Darvin Heo devised
an exercise to look at the
important role of punctuation,
while senior Jules Amosah
created one to demonstrate
the unique qualities of
autoantonyms - words which
have multiple meanings that
are the opposite of each other.
Senior Seth Hollandsworth
investigated the psychology
of different vowel sounds, and
senior Sarah Morrow played
with the use of narrative point
of view.
Students frequently wrote
sketches in pairs or groups as
well. The show is ultimately
a team effort, and includes
contributions from each
student toward directing,
rehearsal, revision, publicity,
and more.
Members of the class
debuted a Christmastime teaser
video - the Passive Switch
version of a Mariah classic,
written by Heo and senior AJ
Goren - in December.
The Gram-o-rama cast
flexed their passive voice
muscle once more with a teaser
performance of “Riptide” by
seniors Gabriella Williams
and Seth Hollandsworth at the
January Koffeehaus.
Students can also be on
the lookout for a new Jargon
Melody teaser video on the
way soon from the creative
mind of senior Camille Griffith
and featuring Goren and
seniors Maison O’Neil and
Kevin Jarman.
For more information about
the event, contact instructor
Ross White or any of the
performers listed above.