Tag Archives: The Tern

F1: Lewis Hamilton wins the 2014 World Championship in Abu Dhabi thriller

Abu Dhabi – From the chequered flag in Sâo Paulo, the world knew that the 2014 Formula 1 World Championship would end with a bang. With double points on the line, and a mere 17 point gap between them, the fight was on between Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

Rosberg once again proved himself as the fastest in qualifying, beating Hamilton out for pole by a mere 0.386 of a second. Close behind the Mercedes were the Williams of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa, who played a major factor in Sunday’s season ending race at Yas Marina. Meanwhile, the starting grid was shaken up after the FIA disqualified the qualifying times of the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo due to a pair of illegal front wings.

The race began with Hamilton getting an amazing start over his teammate, rushing up the left-hand side of the track and never looking back. Rosberg held his own against Massa, while Bottas was swamped by the pack, falling back considerably from his 3rd place start.

Rosberg’s troubles began on Lap 23, when his car suffered an ERS failure, crippling the German’s Mercedes and leaving Hamilton wary to push his own car too hard. In part because of this, Hamilton laid off for a good portion of the race, letting Massa take the lead, and have a decent chance at his first Grand Prix win since that fateful day in Brazil in 2008 when Hamilton won his first World Championship, beating the Brazilian out by just a few seconds. Rosberg was able to stay in the race to the end, despite the recommendations from the team that he retire. He finished the race in 14th, having been lapped by Hamilton on the last couple of laps.

Red Bull was able to recover from their pit-lane start, with Daniel Ricciardo challenging Williams’ Valtteri Bottas for 3rd and Vettel taking the fight to his 2015 team Ferrari. Fernando Alonso finished his final race at the Scuderia in 9th, finishing the season in 6th with 161 points. The Spaniard has yet to conform where he will be in 2015, though the rumours of a return to McLaren are still circulating.

McLaren’s Jenson Button had a good finish in 5th, on what could be his last Formula 1 race. The Briton has been in the sport since 2000, winning the World Championship in 2009. His Danish rookie teammate, Kevin Magnussen, finished in 11th, having spent the race in a dogfight with the Ferraris, Toro Rossos, and Force Indias.

Sunday saw only one incident, with Pastor Maldonado’s tailpipe erupting in flame on Lap 26. Other retirements included Toro Rosso’s Russian rookie, and soon to be Red Bull driver, Daniil Kvyat on Lap 14, and Caterham’s Kamui Kobayashi of Japan on Lap 42. Caterham’s No. 2 driver for the weekend, Will Stevens of Great Britain, finished in 17th.

The results of the 2014 Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix are as follows:

  1. Lewis Hamilton, Great Britain, Mercedes AMG Petronas, 1:39:02.61, 50 pts
  2. Felipe Massa, Brazil, Williams Martini Racing, +00:02.500, 36 pts
  3. Valtteri Bottas, Finland, Williams Martini Racing, +00:28.800, 30 pts
  4. Daniel Ricciardo, Australia, Infiniti Red Bull Racing, +00:37.200, 24 pts
  5. Jenson Button, Great Britain, McLaren-Mercedes, +01:00.300, 20 pts
  6. Nico Hülkenberg, Germany, Sahara Force India, +01:02.100, 16 pts
  7. Sergio Pérez, Mexico, Sahara Force India, +01:11.000, 12 pts
  8. Sebastian Vettel, Germany, Infiniti Red Bull Racing, +01:12.000, 8 pts
  9. Fernando Alonso, Spain, Scuderia Ferrari, +01:25.800, 4 pts
  10. Kimi Räikkönen, Finland, Scuderia Ferrari, +01:27.800, 2 pts
  11. Kevin Magnussen, Denmark, McLaren-Mercedes, +01:30.300, 0 pts
  12. Jean-Éric Vergne, France, Scuderia Toro Rosso, +01:31.900, 0 pts
  13. Romain Grosjean, France, Lotus, lapped, 0 pts
  14. Nico Rosberg, Germany, Mercedes AMG Petronas, lapped, 0 pts
  15. Esteban Gutierrez, Mexico, Sauber, lapped, 0 pts
  16. Adrian Sutil, Germany, Sauber, lapped, 0 pts
  17. Will Stevens, Great Britain, Caterham, lapped, 0 pts
  18. Kamui Kobayashi, Japan, Caterham, retired, 42 laps, 0 pts
  19. Pastor Maldonado, Venezuela, Lotus, retired, 26 laps, 0 pts
  20. Daniil Kvyat, Russia, Scuderia Toro Rosso, retired, 14 laps, 0 pts

There will be a season recap article coming your way in the next week or so, looking back at the key moments of 2014. Also, the 2015 Formula 1 season preview will be on its way come New Years’ under the banner of my new newspaper, The Tern.

Thanks so much for following the 2014 Formula 1 World Championship with me here at sthosdkane.com . I will be back in a week or so with a season recap article.

Katherine Blanner on Ed Sheeran

Katherine Blanner writes the Books to Read column for The Tern.

Katherine Blanner writes the Books to Read column for The Tern.

Red-headed British pop culture sensation Ed Sheeran is captivating the hearts of society through his two albums X and +. Sheeran began his music career with various EPs and self-composed tracks released on the Internet. The song “A Team” led to his popular debut. It is the combination of immense guitar talent, high vocal range, poetic lyrics, and overall adorableness that have skyrocketed Sheeran to the tops of the charts.

Each one of his songs has a unique beat deriving from a lovingly played acoustic guitar. It is his passion for the audible experience that contributes to the overall pleasantry of his musical opus, distinctly setting him apart from other artists. He composes his music as though the melody and rhythm have been inscribed upon his soul, weighing upon his heart until it has been conveyed in a ballad sung by his vocally rich pipes.

In addition to acoustic excellence, his poetic only elevates his harmonious quality. It is known that love in mankind’s greatest struggle, toyed by each human within his or her heart, as it distinctly leads to mortal happiness. Sheeran has, as conveyed through his lyrics, exceptional knowledge of such. He has loved, struggled, and reflected immensely. This can be reasonably inferred from nearly all of his songs, particularly “Tenerife Sea,” which appears on X: “We are surrounded by all of these lies/ And people who talk too much/ You got the kind of look in your eyes/ As if no one knows anything but us/ Should this be the last thing I see/ I want you to know it’s enough for me/ ‘Cause all that you are is all that I’ll ever need/ I’m so in love, so in love…” In this, Sheeran captures the universal human desire to love perfectly despite mortal imperfection. His words are more than mere “feelings” atop fluff, but rather a painful acknowledgement of broken hearts, triumph, and the deliberate willing of the good of another. Perhaps it is not that modern music has to be a reflection of society—indifferent, skewed, and ignorant of matters of the heart—but rather embracing of the blessings and skirmishes of life and love, as Ed Sheeran has conveyed through his music.

His brilliance is perfectly accompanied by his overall preciousness. A full-faced, stocky, tattooed, scruffy ginger is not precisely what has been previously noted as “hot.” However, the combination of his melodic sentimentality and cuddly appearance has made him outwardly charming.

It is the permutation of unparalleled aptitude, romanticism, and charm that has plummeted Ed Sheeran to the popular culture spotlight, redefining the way his audience considers the world.

Books to Read: “The Fault in Our Stars” – Katherine Blanner

Katherine Blanner writes the Books to Read column for The Tern.

Katherine Blanner writes the Books to Read column for The Tern.

Every high school girl has a chick flick that they are obsessed with. It has transitioned from The Notebook to the Twilight saga, to The Vow, and now has become, undoubtedly, The Fault in Our Stars. John Green’s novel was published in 2012, dispersed evenly among the nerdfighter population and those simply seeking “feel good” books. It has recently become a film, enjoyed primarily by those who possess estrogen. All of the reviews of such a book have been positive, however, most discount for the true moral of the entire novel.

Briefly recall Aesop’s fables. Does not every story end with a lesson? These gems of knowledge, a take-away, if you will, plague every book, film, narrative, or even piece of music known to mankind, be it intentional or unintentional. This, again, is the case for The Fault in Our Stars (TFIOS). Examine first the novel itself. It is a pleasant little love story of a terminal, cancer ridden girl and a super hot smart boy with one leg. They meet on page four and instantaneously fall in love. Flirting prevails, they obsess over a book, meet a certain author, and then the boy dies. Every girl reading it cries.

I must admit to not being “every girl.” I did not find TFIOS a compelling novel that challenged my philosophical outlook on life, therefore I did not weep from its tragedy. However what I did find was a portion of John Green’s outlook on life. He is searching, just as we all are, to find purpose, happiness, and therefore meaning. In his novel, the love struck teenagers, a bit melodramatic and Romeo and Julietted, are dually searching for meaning. The struggle of cancer is so real, immediate, demanding, and tragic that it does become, in a sense, their religion. This is the meaning of their life, to get over cancer. Searching for more, Hazel and Augustus turn to a book, as many of us have in times of tragedies. However, theirs is not the inspired word of God, but rather a book that relates to them particularly well, “An Imperial Affliction.” This book becomes their bible.

Here is the end of their search for religion, in which they both are unfulfilled. It must be understood that this is reflective of John Green. However, Green rarely reveals his ideals of religion or theism, so it cannot be confirmed. Nevertheless, it can be assumed, from The Fault in Our Stars and his past works, that he is desiring of religion and coming up empty.

Extra: Journeys to and From Home becoming The Tern

Greetings to all of you! To my frequent readers over the past year and a half, I am most thankful. I have decided to move forward with my website, and my ambitions, and launch an online newspaper. I have chosen to name the paper The Tern. The name comes from a small sailboat, The Arctic Tern, which my parents co-owned in the ’90s. The boat was docked at Monroe Harbor in Chicago.

The Tern will be a politically centre-left paper that ultimately will have a global focus. However, for now for the sake of my own sanity, this enterprise will focus primarily on the United States with future desks to open in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and France. At present I have come to an agreement with the following writers, who will write the various sections of The Tern:

Politics: Frank Kane, This Week in Washington, Seán Kane: UN Observer

Sport: Seán Kane: Formula 1, Mac Chapman: Soccer

Lifestyle: Maggie Weir

Film: Cullan May

The Tern will simultaneously published in French as La Sterne. All of the English language articles will be translated into French. This paper will at first not be a daily, nor a weekly, nor a monthly. Rather, individual articles will come out on their own respective days of the week.

If you have any interest in writing for The Tern, please email me at sean.kane@ternnews.com

Again, a thousand thanks to all of you for your readership!

-Seán Kane.

Editor in Chief at The Tern

Rédacteur en chef: La Sterne