February 2018

Falconer

The Torrey Pines High School

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Vol. 43, Issue 5, 24 pages

www.tphsfalconer.com

Japanese exchange students make second visit to TPHS

photo by jocelyn tzeng/falconer

KAZOKU MEANS FAMILY: The 12 Japanese exchange students from Kyoto Girls High School who visited TPHS from Feb. 2-9 tour TPHS’ campus, go into different classrooms and observe the classes and learning environment. This is the second year that TPHS has hosted the Japanese student exchange program.

By Kahyun Koh and Alexei Serguienko FEATURE EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER Twelve Japanese exchange students from Kyoto Girls High School in Kyoto, Japan attended TPHS from Feb. 2-9, marking the second consecutive year the school has hosted the Japanese student exchange program. This year, seven TPHS students are each hosting either one or two students.

The exchange program was arranged through Skyus, an organization that provides services for study abroad programs in California, which offer “high-quality education,” according to its official website.

In order to graduate from Kyoto Girls High School, a private school whose curriculum is centered primarily on world languages and international affairs, seniors must attend the weekand-a-half study abroad program in the United States.

“This study abroad opportunity is the last assignment they need to complete before graduation,” TPHS Japanese teacher Sato Umabe said. “[The study abroad program] teaches students to be global citizens.”

As it did last year, the week kicked off with a beach party at Moonlight Beach, planned and carried out by the school’s Japanese National Honors Society Club.

“There weren’t many changes [to the Japanese study abroad program] from

last year,” Umabe said. “Since this is the second year, I’m more comfortable with what is happening … Although, I wanted to give them the opportunity to have more discussions with my students in Japanese classes and more reflection time before they left.”

During their week-long stay at TPHS, the Japanese exchange students were able not only to test and develop their English-speaking ability but also expand their cultural understanding of the United States. The exchange students compared the culture between Japan and the U.S., ranging from the noticeably-larger U.S. food portions to the contrasting fashion trends in the two countries, according to TPHS Japanese student Avery Osman (12), who hosted two students from Japan.

“In Japan, [the people] don’t really take showers but [bathe instead],” Osman said. “There is also a really big language barrier, so I learned how to be more helpful and outgoing … and be less shy and more open about things.”

According to Osman and her two Japanese exchange students, Reina Mizutani and Yuna Matsunaga, they enjoyed participating in a variety of activities, with their favorite being shopping at the Westfield UTC mall was the most memorable activity they enjoyed together.

“I like the [Japanese study abroad program] very much,” Mizutani said. “I

really liked going hiking [at the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve], going shopping, going to Starbucks and going to parties … the weather was very good.”

While the Japanese study abroad experience got high marks from both guests and hosts, the language challenges complicated communication between the foreign students and TPHS students.

“Listening to English and understanding [it] was very difficult because it’s very different from reading and doing English exercises in a textbook. Especially because the rate at which the English is being spoken is very fast, simple phrases or slang … like ‘What’s up?’ can be confusing and strange,” Matsunaga said in Japanese, translated by Umabe.

Despite continued language and cultural barriers, Matsunaga and Mizutani see the study abroad program as a unique learning opportunity that they would want to experience again.

They also feel that the program has indeed helped them become improved global citizens.

“I want to learn how to speak to many people all over the world,” Matsunaga said.

On Feb. 9, a farewell party was held for the 12 exchange students.

After leaving San Diego, the students continued on to tour Los Angeles for several days before returning to Japan.

Sara Jacobs (‘07) running for Congress

By Farhan Hossain FEATURE EDITOR Sara Jacobs (‘07), TPHS alumna and granddaughter of Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs, is running for California’s 49th congressional district — currently held by retiring Congressman Darrell

Issa — which extends from Del Mar, Solana Beach and Carmel Valley in the south to San Juan Capistrano in the north.

After graduating from TPHS, Jacobs attended Columbia University and earned a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations, and later a

Masters of International Affairs. She spent the following years at the U.N. where she developed a strategy for dealing with large amounts of data related to humanitarian crises; her strategy was later implemented in the U.N. response to the Zika virus.

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february 15, 2018

Cheer hosts Formal at San Diego Air and Space Museum

By Colette Chiang STAFF WRITER TPHS Cheer hosted an “out of this world”- themed Winter Formal on Feb. 10 at the Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park.

Limousines and party buses pulled up to the curb at 8 p.m. on Saturday night and were greeted by Assistant Principal Michael Santos, as well as parent volunteers and teachers.

Students were then split into two lines: a line on the left for girls, and one on the right for boys.

At the front of the line, Principal Rob Coppo and police officers checked the contents of purses and bags, discarding items like gum, cough drops, hand sanitizer and perfume.

“I got there at 8:15, so I kind of expected the [line], but it was annoying, going through security,” Bella Russo (10) said. “They did [this] last year too, but not as intensely. [The police officer] almost threw away my lipstick, but she didn’t.”

According to Santos, this process keeps students safe, and is done at every dance.

Students then checked in with their ID cards and headed for the dance floor. Some students didn’t enter until 9 p.m., since the “no entry after 8:30” policy was not enforced.

“I feel like formal was better than last year,” Hannah Sun (10) said. “The venue this year was unique and there were a lot of different activities we could do.”

The event was planned two months in advance by the cheer team, according to cheerleader Sydney Paul (11).

“We got these shirts that we wore every Thursday to advertise for [formal],” Paul said. “They had the formal logo on them.”

The theme was based on the museum because “it was a really nice location,” according to Paul.

The venue, with tables and planetthemed decorations, had galaxy-colored lights, as well as model airplanes above everyone.

In the middle, there was a glowing blue fountain that brought light to the dance floor, where attendees spent most of their time.

Next to the very small and packed dance floor was a wall filled with purple lights and a projection of a giant, white moon.

On the opposite side, there was also a simulator, which was made up of a chair that moved in coordination with a projection of a roller coaster on a screen.

“They had two rides,” Russo said. “There was one that was really scary, so I didn’t go on it, but I went on this one that was like a virtual reality, with driving. It was like driving on a course, with stick shift.”

According to Paul, the exhibits were “really awesome,” and the simulators were “really fun.” She thought that those rollercoasters “were one of the best parts of formal.”

I feel like formal was better than last year.

The venue this year was unique and there were a lot of different activities we could do.

Snacks, which were available at the Cosmic Candy booth, included popcorn, saltwater taffy, Pixy Stix and hard rock candy, according to Paul.

“There was popcorn and a bunch of candy, like unlimited candy, [as well as] water,” Paul said.

The DJ played a variety of music, and, according to Santos, the dance floor “seemed a bit crowded, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.”

Paul’s favorite songs were from “High School Musical,” though “there was also a lot of popular rap songs and dance songs that everyone plays and knows the lyrics to.”

Some of these songs included Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow” and Bruno Mars’ “24K Magic.”

When not spending time on the dance floor and singing along to the lyrics, students also took photos in the photobooth, looked at the various decorational displays and “had a great time overall,” according to Sun. The photobooth, which had a red and white airplane in the background, allowed students to edit, send and post photos on Instagram directly from the booth.

The photos were sent to phone numbers that students entered on the touchscreen number pad, and could later be viewed through the app Simple Booth.

The event was funded solely on ticket sales, with 760 tickets sold, compared to 901 tickets sold last year.

The date for the next TPHS dance, Prom, which will be hosted by ASB, has yet to be announced.

Hannah Sun (10) student

The short film “Friendship Club,” created by Japanese National Honor Society members won the Grand Prize at the Japanese Film Festival and the members received $200. The theme of the film is anti-bullying.

Actors: William Colsey (10) Eric Li (10) Nathaniel Chen (11) Hayden Crawford (11) Emily Smith (11) Audrey Yeah (11) Tynan Groot (12) Mikey Ha (12) Ava Hanna (12) Lauren Hanna (12) Karen Dai (12) Justin Rico (12) Akari Takimoto (12) Raquel Valdez (12) Yerin You (12) Camera: Eric Li (10) Rianne Lynn (12) Editor: Eric Li (10) infographic by angela liu

photos by christy lam/falconer

A SKY FULL OF STARS: Attendees sit at tables with outer space-themed decorations around them and model airplanes hanging above them (LEFT). A variety of refreshments were avaliable for attendees, such as different candies like Milky Ways and Starbursts (RIGHT).

First Place: TP Team 1 Third Place: TP Team 2 Team 1 Participants: Jeff Ren (9) Torrey Duan (10) Kevin Ren (12) Carine You (12)

Team 2 Participants: Jerry Huang (10) Sumith Nalabolu (10) Eric Oh (10) Jackson Shen (10)

Individual Awards: First Place Overall: Kevin Ren (12) Fifth Place Overall: Sumith Nalabolu (10) Ninth Place Overall: Jeff Ren (9)

Varsity Small Hip Hop: First Place JV Large Hip Hop: Second Place Co-ed Hip Hop: Second Place Varsity Large Hip Hop: Third Place Varsity Medium Hip Hop: Fourth Place

The following juniors were nominated

by TPHS staff to attend the Global Leadership Conference at the University of San Diego on Feb. 22, 24 and 25.

Girls: Jade Babcock-Chi Shannon Brownlee Gabriella Cary Amelia Cho Stella Chung Isabella Collins Giselle Cruz Paige Lendrum Makena Macias Wendy Mendoza Devyn Solo Sydney Willden

Boys: Eamon Aalipour Brian Driscoll Noah Garcia Connor Jabbar Ben Jackel Jacob Li Daniel Maas Alexander Marzinotto Matthew Myrhum Eshan Talluri Mohab Wahdan

Lincoln-Douglas: 3-1: Farhan Hossain (11)

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SARA JACOBS CONTINUED FROM A1

She also served in the U.S. State Department under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and later as a foreign policy adviser for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. A self-described policy-wonk who prefers “to be behind the scenes,” Jacobs never thought she would run for Congress.

However, Jacobs felt concerned about rising income inequality and the “unfair” economic state of the country.

“I didn’t feel like there was anyone in office who was working on fixing that problem,” Jacobs said.

According to the Gini Index, San Diego County ranks 25th for U.S. counties with the highest income inequality. Business Insider’s list of the most expensive zip codes in the United States includes Rancho Santa Fe and Del Mar, which are both in the 49th district and serve as feeder neighborhoods to SDUHSD. “Congressman Issa has put in policies that only benefit the wealthy,” Jacobs said. “My focus in office will be working to close that opportunity gap in the economic sense and making sure everyone has access to affordable housing and health care and college.”

Jacobs’ economic platform attracted the endorsement of E.M.I.L.Y’s List, a group that funds female candidates.

“Sara will deliver a fresh, new approach to government that creates economic opportunity and works for Southern California families,” the Democratic-affiliated super PAC noted in its endorsement of Jacobs.

E.M.I.L.Y’s List also took aim at Congressman Issa, claiming he has “failed to stand up” for his constituents, instead voting for “President Donald Trump’s agenda.”

According to political analysis site FiveThirtyEight, Issa’s voting record aligns with Trump’s 92.2 percent of the time.

Issa’s press release regarding his retirement did not cite a reason for stepping down, stating only that the decision was made with “the support of [his] family,” but, as with other retiring Republicans, there has been speculation that the reason may be to avoid a difficult re-election campaign. Clinton won Issa’s district by over 7 percentage points during the presidential election, and Issa won reelection in 2016 with less than a percent point advantage.

Thirty-eight House Republicans have so far announced they will not run for reelection, a number of retirement notices that, according to CNN, is larger than and accumulated faster than previous years, which has led to speculation that Trump’s record low popularity has triggered a mass exodus of Republican lawmakers before the 2018 midterm elections.

Issa’s office did not reply to multiple requests for comment.

“Issa’s retirement reflects what we have been saying this whole time, which is that he no longer represented the interest or values of this district,” Jacobs said. “We have been talking to voters up and down the district and what they are looking for is change.”

If elected, Jacobs is unsure of the amount of work she could accomplish with the Trump administration.

“In general it seems that they are entirely intransigent and do not share any of my values,” Jacobs said. “I would be hard-pressed to find an area where we could collaborate, but I wouldn’t foreclose upon that idea if it was for the benefit of my constituents.”

One of Jacobs’ biggest concerns with the current administration is its foreign policy.

“The Trump administration has done a detriment to U.S. leadership in the world,” Jacobs said. “We are no longer respected by our allies. People don’t believe the word of the United States when they sign onto a deal or when they commit to something with their allies. We have emboldened our enemies and created some vacuums of leadership that will not be good for U.S. national security.”

Eleven months after the election,

news there are dozens of vacant positions in the State Department, including key ambassadorships to important allies like South Korea and Saudi Arabia. Jacobs would not confirm whether or not her contacts in the State Department agreed with the numerous leaks reporting mismanagement and frustration under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

“I will say that the very few of my friends who are still there are not very happy,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs’ knowledge of American foreign policy stems from her career experience on the East Coast. While a lack of local credentials may limit her name recognition, her billionaire grandfather Irwin Jacobs’ company, Qualcomm, is the 6th largest employer in San Diego, according to the City of San Diego’s 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report.

Although a massive economic generator of tax revenue and jobs, Bloomberg News reports Qualcomm has the 10th largest stockpile of offshore cash for a U.S. company, with an estimated 92.9 percent of its cash, or $26.8 billion, outside of the reach of the Internal Revenue Service.

Jacobs, who has never worked for Qualcomm nor ever been involved in “their decision making processes,” supports closing tax loopholes that allow U.S. companies to hoard cash overseas, and, if elected, would support legislation that “makes sure that we are adequately taxing corporate dollars and incentivising them to be investing it in the U.S. for the benefit of the U.S. economy and U.S. workers.”

Irwin Jacobs is also a frequent and generous donor, having donated millions to Democratic candidates, and, according to CampaignMoney.com, donated $481,800 during the 2016 election cycle. Despite her family connections, Sara refutes the characterization that she is tied to the Democrats’ establishment donor class.

“I will admit that I have a very different upbringing than most people, and I have been very fortunate,” Jacobs said. “I believe it is my responsibility to use those advantages to make things fair and better, and just like we need men to be part of solving the issues around sexual harassment, we need the wealthy class to be part of solving income inequality so that we can actually have a sustainable solution.”

Jacobs’ interest in public policy and sense of civic duty first appeared in high school.

“Torrey Pines was actually where I first started paying attention to the U.S. government, and U.S. politics,” Jacobs said. “Mr. Trupe was a big influence on me, and [so was] Mr. Harvie’s physics class.”

History teacher Lars Trupe remembers Jacobs’ presence in class.

“She is very ambitious, hardworking, always looking for alternative ideas … she was an outstanding student,” Trupe said.

Trupe remembers that Jacobs was always polite during political discussion in class.

“She always had her political beliefs, and she wasn’t afraid to express them, but she always did it, even for a high school kid, in a very mature way,” Trupe said. “She didn’t demean people that had different perspectives, but instead [looked] to educate and persuade them.”

While Trupe will not disclose how he will vote, only saying he was interested in “change,” he is still “very excited for her.”

“When I was [at TPHS], it was a huge class, I think something like 1,200 students, and learning how to interact with different people who had so many different experiences and things to bring to the table really helped me throughout my life,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs’ advice to current TPHS students: get work experience.

“Internships are really good opportunities to expand your network and have people know you so when you graduate they can advocate for you, and help you get the job that you want,” Jacobs said.

The primary is on June 5. The top two candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will advance to the general election on Nov. 6.

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SDUHSD enforces revised, updated attendance policy

By Daniel Kim STAFF WRITER On Jan. 26, the SDUHSD sent an email to all parents about the updated attendance policy, available on the district website, in order to clarify common misconceptions regarding absences at school.

In the new version, two significant changes regarding unexcused absences have been recommunicated to ensure for widespread compliance and a change was made to policy on leaving campus because of an illness.

One clarification made by the SDUHSD is that verified absences and excused absences are considered different in the attendance record.

Unless a student is absent because of mandatory attendance in a court case, a doctor’s appointment or an illness, the absence is unexcused, no matter the reason.

All other causes for missing school are considered p e r s o n a l absences, which allows teachers the discretion to allow make-up work or not. On the other hand, students can call student in two days prior to their absences for verification to notify their teachers beforehand that they will not be in school.

“One of the things that caused confusion were college visits,” TPHS Principal Rob Coppo said. “I would have to tell parents that a college visit is not technically an excused absence. People would look at me as if I was crazy, and it is that way because it is a personal excuse. If you have a personal excuse, your teachers, at their discretion, choose what you can make up.”

Even some school-related activities, such as competitions for clubs and sports, can lead to unexcused absences. Although the student’s obligation to a tournament is clear to the district and administration, it does not fall into one of the three categories for excused absence.

“I believe that for competitions, individuals should notify the attendance office beforehand. Anyone going to a competition knows when it is, so I feel that if someone fails to provide notice,

they are deserving of an unexcused absence,” Farzaan Kaiyom (12) said. “If notice is provided, however, I do believe that students do not deserve unexcused absences, especially for academic activities. I believe there is a limit for personal absences, and I think that it should be expanded for students with frequent competitions.”

In addition to excusing absences, the updated policy makes clear the procedure for leaving school during school hours from illness. Students are required to check in with the health office before leaving campus because of two reasons. The first is so that, in case of emergency, the school can track the student’s location or status more easily. The other purpose of checking in with the health office beforehand is to consult with students who may have serious health issues and provide whatever help is needed to them.

Excessive absences that can be avoided prove to negatively affect the school and the students. The school, which is funded through ADA, Average Daily Attendance, receives more funding when the annual average attendance is higher.

Also, students who miss an excessive number of days risk not fulfilling the required number of hours needed to graduate high school.

“I think they made the rules harder because you can easily call yourself out of class,” Jiwoo Kim (10) said. “They are more concerned about attendance since if we don’t have enough hours we won’t be able to graduate.”

According to Coppo, attendance is gradually becoming a concern in all high schools throughout the county, as students begin to have more flexibility in their schedule. When Coppo was a student at TPHS, students had few excuses to miss school; however, TPHS, over time, has developed an increasingly competitive atmosphere, with students who are in college courses and national competitions.

Hoping that students take school more seriously, Coppo believes the school board developed a new attendance policy in order to clarify the requirements and expectations for the student body.

I think they made the rules harder because you can easily call yourself out of class.

They are more concerned about attendance since if we don’t have enough hours, we won’t be able to graduate.

Jiwoo Kim (10)

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The Dow Jones industrial average, a stock market index based on U.S. companies, experienced a 1600-point drop, its largest trading-day point drop in history. Before closing, the market recovered slightly, but was still down over 1000 points and 4.6 percent from opening. The Dow is still up 21 percent from a year ago, despite the largest decline since 2011. S&P 500 and Nasdaq, additional stock market indexes, took similar plummets of 4.1 and 3.78 percent respectively.

Cape Town is currently facing an extreme shortage of one of the most important resources: water. Residents have been given a limit of 50 liters of water per day, almost nothing compared to the 80-100 gallons the average American uses daily. This region is experiencing the most brutal drought it has ever had, and is projected to reach “Day Zero” in mid-April.

“Day Zero” is when the region will have to shut off taps to its 4 million residents, leaving the city without access to water.

The Maldives government declared a 15-day state of emergency early Feb. 6, local time. Speculation points to the recent Supreme Court decision to revert terrorist charges against nine opposition leaders, which current President Abdulla Yemeen’s government rejected, as the reason for the declaration. Within hours of declaring the state of emergency — which restricts freedom of assembly and allows the government to search and seize property as well as make arrests — two of four of the Supreme Court Judges and former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Yemeen’s half brother, were arrested.

Information from ABC, Business Insider, CNN, National Geographic, The New York Times, Reuters and The Washington Post

On Dec. 5, 2017, the International Olympic Committee officially banned the Russian Olympic team from the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea for doping at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

However, on February 1, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld the appeals of 28 Russian athletes.

Later in the week, the IOC rejected a request to invite 15 athletes whose bans were overturned, citing new evidence that questioned the “integrity of these athletes.”

words by ellie ahles and vlada demenko infographic by angela liu

Rats! Power outage during finals Biz Management class hosts TPHS affects classrooms in E, G buildings Women in Business Symposium

By Annie Cheng STAFF WRITER On Jan. 26, the last day of finals for the first semester, a power outage that left the school with no internet and some classrooms without light for the entire school day occurred at TPHS. According to Principal Rob Coppo, the reason behind the power outage was that the night before, rodents had eaten through wires in electrical boxes offcampus.

The power outage affected not only TPHS, but also surrounding homes and buildings.

Classrooms in the E and G buildings were left without light, but lighting was not affected in other buildings. Administration aided teachers in finding and transferring their classes to classrooms that had power.

“The administration office found the available room [for my classes] quickly before school started,” Japanese teacher Sato Umabe said. “Mr. Harvie, who did not have a class that period, let us use his classroom.”

According to Coppo, it was nice that the day the school did not have power was a day with only two class periods. On the other hand, for Umabe, it was unfortunate yet “slightly interesting” that it landed on one of the finals days.

The power was reinstated by workers from San Diego Gas and Electric approximately 24 hours after it went out. The electrical box is located offcampus near the Torrey Highlands Park on Lansdale Drive, according to Coppo’s secretary, Grace Lisle.

Although the main problem was that there were no working lights in classrooms, the internet outage was also a problem. Both internet and light power come from the same source, so when the lights went out, so did the internet.

Communication from administration to staff members was not completely blocked off by the power outage. Teachers were still able to receive messages and emails from Coppo and administration through their phones.

Yerin You (12) was in her Advanced Placement Computer Science class during the power outage. None of the computers could turn on, so students did not do anything in class. Like many other classes, “no lights worked, so we stayed in the dark and had the door open for light to come in,” You said.

Even with the unplanned power outage, staff and students adapted well and the school day passed smoothly.

“The amazing staff at TPHS were able to fully carry out their classes without too much trouble,” Coppo said. “I also really appreciate that no teachers had to submit semester grades late because students were not able to take the final on the assigned finals day.”

According to Umabe, during her teaching days at TPHS, a power outage has never occurred before, and she is glad that none of her students panicked.

“The power outage was uncomfortable because the Wi-Fi and lights were down, but it wasn’t too troublesome,“ You said.

Although power outages at TPHS are uncommon and temporary, there are still solutions that can be implemented in case another power outage were to happen in the future.

“It’s San Diego, there is nice weather,” Umabe said. “If a power outage happened again, I was thinking about putting desks outside and taking the final there.”

Coppo also recommends that “students go to class” in such situations. According to him, there are always some students who try to find reason to get out of school, but a power outage at school should not be one of them.

By Esther Choi STAFF WRITER The first Women in Business Symposium, organized by the Business Management class, was held the morning of Feb. 7 in the Lecture Hall.

All the speakers at the symposium were all successful women who discussed their careers and were recruited for the event

by Business Department chair James Anthony. Anthony and business teacher Jacqueline Niddrie invited students from their classes, the Falconer, Yearbook and Video Film classes to attend, among others.

The event included presentations from the five speakers, a question and answer session and lunch with the speakers afterward.

Celeste Pritchett (12), one of 11 female students in her Advanced Business Management class, helped plan the symposium by giving the presenters an outline of topics to discuss at the event, and she was inspired by the successful women.

“The symposium only piqued my interest further in a business career,” Pritchett said. “Executive positions are rarely held by women — only 4 percent are — and I would like to be one of the women to grow that 4 percent into something much larger.”

The symposium was also an inspiration to Sage Glass (12), who learned more about the business industry.

“The symposium was successful in that girls of all ages were able to get a real life account of business and the challenges it may entail,” Glass said. “The speakers told us about what they do day to day, specific experiences and even tips for our future life in the professional world.”

Pam Hendrickson, the mother of a TPHS student and the founder and owner

of Content Solutions Group, was a speaker and an organizer of the symposium.

The symposium’s purpose was to “empower [female students] with more confidence, more clarity about some of the different paths they can take and a stronger sense of how they can build a successful career in the world of business, while balancing it with other life and family goals,” Hendrickson said.

The goal of the first Women in Business Symposium is to raise interest and enrollment in the business classes at TPHS, one of which has about a one to four ratio of female to male students.

According to Anthony, the idea was formulated when there was a consistent pattern of “low numbers of females in the business class” and he wanted to see if there was something he and the speakers could do to “address the students’ needs in the business world.”

The students from the symposium have a similar opinion.

“The symposium was [held] to persuade young women of our high school to take a chance and join the business world,” Pritchett said. “It is scary because [the business world] is male-dominated, but we cannot diversify the business world without adding more girls to it.”

The future of the Women in Business Symposium depends on the reception of the students.

“We have to ask the students who attended the symposium if they felt it was successful, as it is their feedback and input that matters most,” Hendrickson said. “We also hope we can conduct more events like this in the future to help the students at Torrey Pines as they make important decisions about their future.”

According to Anthony, about 100 students attended the Women in Business symposium during their second and fourth periods that day.

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PRO

By Jeremy Chung STAFF WRTER

On September 5, President Donald Trump deliberately ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and left conditions for DREAMers, unauthorized immigrants who came to America as children, in a chaotic state as they may face deportation. Since Trump’s seemingly outrageous decision to end this policy, DACA has been the subject of constant debate and negotiation.

His new four-part proposal requested funding for a border wall with Mexico and increased funding for Border Patrol will be provided. He has also proposed banning U.S. citizens from sponsoring their adult children, parents and siblings for green cards and that the diversity visa lottery, which provides about 55,000 people per year from countries with lower levels of immigration an opportunity for U.S. citizenship, be eliminated. In exchange, he has promised a path to citizenship for numerous unregistered DREAMers. According to a study conducted by Pew Research Center, there are currently an estimated 690,000 registered DREAMers in the U.S. Trump’s proposal will increase the number to 1.8 million. The thing with this proposal is that it puts the Democratic Party in a bind and Trump is well aware of it.

The Democratic Party’s electoral strength largely depends on Hispanic support. According to a study conducted by Pew Research Center, 64 percent of Latinos identified with or leaned toward the Democratic Party in 2016. Preventing the deportation of the DREAMers and providing them with legal protection has now become a necessity for the Democratic Party.

Since Trump’s proposal will more than double the number of of DREAMers, the Democratic Party needs as much support as possible.

President Donald Trump has proposed a controversial immigration bill that provides a path to citizenship for DREAMers but also tightens border security and cuts legal immigration.

Since Trump’s proposal, many people have confidently jumped onto the conclusion that more immigrants are always better than fewer. What they don’t know is that they’ve rushed to this judgement largely uninformed.

Our current immigration system is more than desperately in need of reform.

With all the economic changes the U.S. has experienced in recent decades, the regulation of our immigration system still operates under outdated rules established back in 1965. The system favors foreign relatives of current residents and disregards qualifications. About two-thirds of all legal immigrants enter under these familial preferences.

Only about 15 percent are allowed to immigrate to the U.S. under employment preferences which are typically granted to those who are “priority workers” or possess desirable skills. The current system is inefficient because it doesn’t provide more immigration opportunities for those with qualities more beneficial for employment.

In return for Trump’s proposal to end the diversity visa lottery, he hopes to replace the current plan with a merit-based immigration policy. The policy will pave a path to citizenship to immigrants who are more eligible for employment and will overall help the U.S. economy.

Although many people argue that the proposal is un-American, the argument is outdated because the lottery system already requires immigrants to have a high school education or two years of experience in skilled work. They must also endure criminal, national security and medical checks. Essentially, the U.S. has already been screening the immigrants coming to America.

It cannot be disputed that this proposal is one of the smartest moves

by Trump. If the Democratic Party refuses to agree to Trump’s proposal, it will suggest that they are willing to trade DREAMers for the lottery system and the familial preference for migration. Rejecting the proposal will also position them as soft on border security. President Trump has put the Democrats in a bind and they both know it.

In response to a question asked to Americans by Quinnipiac University in January:

Would you support a bill that allowed undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to remain in the United States legally?

75%

18%

YES

NO

said

said

State of the Union Addresses are often used to tout a president’s upcoming agenda. While president Donald Trump certainly discussed tax cuts and trade, he also wasted no time unveiling a new, fourpronged immigration plan. Trump is bargaining with Democrats. In exchange for offering protections to DACA DREAMers, Trump is demanding $25 billion for his border wall and other protections, an end to the visa diversity lottery and the end of “chain migration.”

What Trump may not realize is that this plan hurts more than it helps, and therefore should not be passed in its current form.

By limiting immigration, Trump believes he is helping America economically. After all, a recurring talking point he used during his campaign was that immigrants are “stealing jobs.” According to the Huffington Post, however, the opposite is true. Immigrants are more likely to start businesses than the average American, which, in turn, creates more jobs boosting the economy.

What’s more startling is that, according to the National Foundation of American Policy, 51 percent of U.S. companies valued over $1 billion had immigrant founders. Also, the jobs that immigrants take up are often ones that Americans would not do, making them a vital part of our economic stability.

Another reason why Republicans and Trump say the plan is needed is to prevent killings carried out by gangs like MS-13, whose members are mostly immigrants. While there is no denying that the gang killings are horrible, when put into scale, MS-13 is small in the United States.

According to the Huffington Post, MS13 gang members represent only one percent of the number of criminally active gang members nationwide.

It is also important not to paint all undocumented immigrants with the same brush. A study by the libertarian Cato Institute found that illegal immigrants were 44 percent less likely to be incarcerated than natives.

Legal immigrants are 69 percent less likely to be incarcerated than natives.

In January, the Department of Homeland Security put out a report that falsely stated that that

CON

By Michael Nirula SPORTS EDITOR

immigrants who came into the United States through the visa diversity lottery were more likely to be tied to terrorist attacks. The Cato Institute disputed this claim when it found that found that lottery visa holders actually killed only eight out of the 3,037 Americans killed by foreignborn terrorists since 1975.

And, while the plan hurts America economically and does not make a large dent against crime, perhaps the worst part of the policy is that it is grossly un-American. Despite a few bumps in the road, America has largely attempted to make immigration more fair and humane.

That is why we have ended programs like the Chinese Exclusion Act and why we created programs like the Visa Diversity Lottery. Ending the diversity lottery would shoot us in the opposite direction. Despite its shortcomings, many people argue that those who are standing in the way of Trump’s plan, Democrats in Congress, should take Trump’s grand bargain.

But, when looking at the cards that Democrats are giving up — measures that would, according to the Financial Times, halve U.S. immigration and give Trump $25 billion in funding for a possible border wall — it should be clear that they should ask Trump to cut a better deal. And while Trump says there is no budging room with the plan, objections from both parties, including from Republican senators like Lindsey Graham, should make it clear that it must be restructured.

As the debate over immigration rages on the senate floor, members of both parties should remember that immigration boosts, not hinders, the economy, has historically been supported, not rejected in the U.S and that any plan that halves the amount of U.S. immigration must be declined.

opinion

tphsfalconer.com

the falconer

A7

Staff editorial: Facebook unfairly censors and targets conservatives A picture of a perfectly-calm baby receiving an immunization shot. A picture of a young, unclothed child, whose clothes were burned off by napalm, crying as she runs away from the horrors of the Vietnam War. Both are censored

by Facebook for being “shocking, sensational, or overly violent.”

Most of us, in some way or another, are acquainted with the Constitutional phrase “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” However, the great significance of the First Amendment is often mindlessly overlooked and taken for granted in today’s close-minded society.

Facebook’s widely-controversial censorship of hate speech, speech which attacks a person or a group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, is a multifaceted policy that should be removed because it compromises the protections under the First Amendment. That is, unless the post under discussion presents an actual, direct threat, such as comments or posts inciting violence against specific people or organizations.

Facebook claims that its mission is to “bring the world closer together [and] see the world through the eyes of others,” according to its website. But its censorship simply undermines its mission.

One of the most hotly-debated blocked posts is a one by William Hicks, a conservative writer for a British political commentary website called Heat Street, reading “Trump is not antiMuslim (but) anti-ISIS. We are too busy being politically correct.”

After posting the message, Hicks was slapped with a 30-day Facebook suspension for an innocuous, mere political speculation that did not even fall into any of the categories Facebook qualifies as punishable hate speech, which include: “direct threat, selfinjury, dangerous organization, bullying and harassment, attacks on public figures, criminal activity, sexual violence and exploitation, or regulated goods.”

The censorship of harmless opinions suggests how little tolerance Facebook has for specifically conservative viewpoints on controversial political topics. This is concerning, to say the least, because there are undeniably many other forms of hate speech floating around social media that contain much more volatile and hurtful content than Hicks’. To put it simply, Hicks’ words neither come close to classifying as hate speech nor pose any particular threat to others, but are simply a declaration of a commonly shared political viewpoint.

A former Facebook news curator’s claim that “ninety percent of the [Facebook] team identified as liberal, including the copy editors, who essential had the final approval of topics,” according to the Breitbart’s website that only exacerbates the situation.

Furthermore, it cannot be denied that the “hate speech” that is supposed to be censored

by Facebook is too omnipresent and inevitable to be blocked completely and effectively.

Considering that millions of people of diverse backgrounds and beliefs use Facebook on a

daily basis, hate speech, assuming that it is not directly threatening, is also a reality that Facebook users should expect beforehand and learn to anticipate.

It is well known that Facebook’s News Feed is tailored for an individual user’s interests through programming algorithms. Therefore, it is rather unlikely for hate speech to appear on a Facebook user’s feed unless the user actively seeks it by liking or following certain pages containing hate speech. People can simply stay away from such pages or block Facebook users in order to help filter out the appearance of any undesired hate speech, if any, on their feed.

In the end, this is not to say that all

forms of Facebook censorship should be discouraged.

G o i n g forward, Facebook s h o u l d

evaluate and censor posts on a careful, caseby-case basis, instead of senselessly blocking harmless conservative posts like Hicks’ because they are simply in disagreement, especially if the content does not even qualify as hate speech according to their own standards.

Facebook is its own private company, after all, and offers its services free of charge to millions of internet users worldwide. It should have the power to reform its own regulations, including altering its censorship policies, to ultimately uphold its mission to meld together people of different perspectives a n d backgrounds.

art by amrita moturi/falcon artist

photo from us embassy of mexico

Partisan attacks on the FBI are weakening our democracy Today’s Republican party has taken partisanship to a level never before seen in the United States. Politics has always been nasty and divisive, but with the Republicans’ various recent attempts to undermine the FBI and Department of Justice, they have proven that they value remaining in power more than a functioning democracy. By deceiving and misleading the very people who elected them, they have found a way to delegitimize anything and everything that could threaten their power.

There was once a time when the truth mattered, when facts were the center of every story. Sadly, under this new administration, that is not the case. The Republicans have realized that if they forcefully repeat the same talking points, whether true or not, they can convince a substantial number of their followers to believe whatever they say. In 2015, a poll by Reuters found that 84 percent of Republicans reported favorable views of the FBI. Today, according to a poll by Axios, that number has dropped to 38 percent. If you are not frightened by that statistic, you should be.

Authoritarian leaders undermine democracy through attacks on state institutions that are supposed to be neutral, like the FBI and the courts. Whether it was Trump requesting “loyalty” from since-fired FBI Director James Comey, asking former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe who he voted for then pressuring to resign or trying to fire the man leading an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia, Trump has proven that he did not pay attention to the whole “checks and balances” part of his government class.

The release of California Representative Devin Nunes’ memo by Trump and his Republicans is nothing more than propaganda designed to undermine the FBI –­ the same FBI that Republicans once ardently defended. The document alleges that the FBI tricked a federal court into granting a warrant to spy on former Trump campaign advisor, Carter Page, by hiding that a dossier prepared by British spy, Christopher Steele, was funded by Democrats. The Republicans claim that this corrupts the entire investigation into the Trump campaign, with Trump even tweeting that it “totally vindicates” him.

Republicans are trying to sell the controversial release of this memo as a way to proving transparency. However, if that were true, then Trump would not have vetoed the release of an opposing memo from California Representative Adam Schiff.

Even if the memo, which both the FBI and DOJ have said is misleading and omits “fundamental facts”, were true, it really doesn’t mean much. The White House, Republicans and Fox News have presented the information in this document like it is the biggest political scandal since Watergate, which is a complete misrepresentation of the facts.

Keep in mind that the investigation had already been going on for several months before the warrant was granted. Page had been on the government’s radar since 2013 when investigators discovered he was targeted for recruitment by a Russian agent. To obtain a warrant to spy on an American citizen, the dossier would have been only one small part since investigators are required to show probable cause that the person was working as a foreign agent. Since the warrant was approved it has been extended, which means that investigators found new information beyond the original warrant. The decision to publicize the cherry-picked memo is just the Republican party taking advantage of people’s ignorance of how our intelligence courts work so that if the Russia probe does find wrongdoing in the Trump campaign, the agency won’t have any credibility.

Another attempt to mislead the public and delegitimize the FBI came from House Representative Ron Johnson, who said he had found evidence of anti-Trump bias and “corruption at the highest levels of the FBI.” His “evidence” was a series of texts that disparaged Trump between two FBI agents. Johnson raised questions about Barack Obama’s involvement in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, citing a text that said “the president wants to know everything we’re doing.” What Johnson conveniently left out was that Obama was referring to the investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 election, not into Hillary Clinton. In fact, the texts were sent several months after the investigation into Clinton had concluded.

One might hope that at some point members of the GOP will realize the harm they are doing to our democracy, but that chance is slim. It has become clear that Republicans care only about winning their next election, and that the consequences can be dealt with later.

by Sammy Hallal

Falconer The Torrey Pines High School

We, the Falconer staff, are dedicated to creating a monthly newspaper with the intent of encouraging independent thinking, expanding our knowledge of journalism, and providing the TPHS student body and community with a truthful, unbiased news source, in accordance with our First Amendment rights.

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The Falconer is the student newspaper of Torrey Pines High School. Its content, which is the responsibility of the Falconer staff, is not subject to administrative approval. Unsigned editorials represent the opinions of the staff, while opinion columns represent the writer’s perspective. Advertisements do not represent endorsements. The Falconer, an open forum, welcomes signed letters or guest editorials on pertinent issues from the TPHS community, which may be submitted to room 102, via email at falconer.ads@gmail.com or to Mia Smith’s mailbox in the administration building. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

Editors-in-Chief Business Managers Copy Editors News Editor Opinion Editor Feature Editors Entertainment Editor Sports Editor Photo Editor Adviser Staff Writers:

Sumin Hwang Anvitha Soordelu Estelle Kraft Lauren Zhang Bea De Oliveira Eve Gross-Sable Angela Liu Sammy Hallal Farhan Hossain Kahyun Koh Ellie Ahles Michael Nirula Anton Schuh Mia Boardman Smith Annie Cheng Colette Chiang Esther Choi Jeremy Chung Vlada Demenko Dhathry Doppalapudi Daniel Kim

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A8 the falconer

opinion

february 15, 2018

Democrats should give Trump the border wall and make DACA demands in exchange

By Bea De Oliveira COPY EDITOR

Thousands stood in the crowd. Hats and shirts branded with the logo “Make America Great Again” formed the red ocean of people, chanting the same three words, “Build the wall!”

It was not a question, but a demand — one on which President Donald Trump promised to deliver.

One year into his presidency, the wall is still

a dream in the minds of many Republicans. A dream that has been blocked by the Democrats and various Republicans in the Congress.

Their argument focuses on the cost of the wall, as well as practicality. Covering 1,000 miles of rocky and unused terrain, the proposed wall will cost $40 billion according to Konstantin Kakaes, an international security fellow with non-partisan and non-profit think tank New America Foundation. The exact cost, however, is an estimate, and as many facts of the Trump administration, is contested by both Republicans, who predict it will be lower, and Democrats, who foresee higher costs. One factor not in doubt is that the money will come directly from American tax dollars.

To construct the wall, Trump targets Mexicans, stating that they will be the ones to pay for it. Tactics such as raising taxes on Mexican imports, as well as investing in travel

art by neilah soliday/falconer artist

visa and border crossing fees are only two of the many theories the Trump Administration has come up with to obtain the money.

These alternatives will not be enough to pay for the construction of the wall. To pay for the wall, Forbes Magazine predicts that existing taxes on Mexican goods will have to be quadrupled, causing U.S. companies to source their goods from elsewhere. This attempt to pay for a wall that will result in no revenue for the U.S. will ultimately cause a great loss of money.

The price tag of the wall and difficulty the government will have in obtaining the necessary land, not to mention the ecological destruction that it will cause, traversing essential wildlife corridors between Texas and Mexico, according to BBC, almost guarantee failure in a successful construction.

Even if the wall is started and funded, there is no chance that it will be completed by the end of Trump’s first term, and if he is not re-elected, may never be finished.

Now, these statistics may look as though they are merely points that Democrats can use to contest the wall and prove that it will never work, but the imminent failure of this wall must begin to be looked at as a positive.

As the minority party in the Senate and Congress, Democratic policies have been just about impossible to pass the Republican Congress, which favor more restrictive immigration policies, like banning travel to the United States from various countries such as Venezuela.

The reluctance of the Republicans to change their stance, as well as Trump’s threats of a government shutdown if the issue of immigration is not resolved, show the desperation of the Republican party to pass its bills. To Trump, the shutdown will be “worth it for our country.” This ultimatum is a result of a political gridlock, one that Democrats can and should take advantage of.

The solution to immigration issues is simple:

allow Trump to pass his plans for the ill-fated border wall, in exchange for policies extending Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a path for immigrants to earn citizenship and to improve the Immigrant and Naturalization Service.

It is indeed the perfect plan: give Trump permission to build his dream wall, which will take a significant amount of time to plan and construct — more time than Trump has left in his term.

The only glitch in the plan is the reaction of the Democratic voters. If Democratic Senators like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who have openly opposed the wall and Trump in a public manner, allow the wall to be built, it may result in voter distrust, which could be devastating with the 2018 elections quickly approaching. It comes down to imminent importance of the conflict, voters or an immigration bill with agreeable policy.

Saving taxpayers billions of dollars, as well as providing immigration policies that allow for DREAMers (beneficiaries of the DACA program) to extend their stay in the United States may be enough for the Democratic voters to excuse the politicking over the wall. Republican voters may be more inclined to vote for Democratic representatives who support the wall, too.

In a political standstill, with threats of a government shutdown, the time for compromise has come. By giving Trump permission to build his border wall in exchange for immigration policy, the Democrats win a vital piece of legislation, one that has been contested for multiple presidencies. It is a winwin situation.

It is true that the Trump supporters covered in red may be getting their wall, but the Democrats will gain something much more important: a policy that will apply to the American people, and the victory in a war that has been fought in the Senate for years.

It is now my turn, as a Democrat and liberal, to chant, “Build that wall!”

PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE News Editor Angela Liu (11) reflects on how her close relationship with her parents has influenced the person she has become and her view on the world around her.

When I was little, I thought my parents had the answers to all of my questions, like most kids do. As I’ve grown up, while I have learned that my parents do not, in fact, know everything, my respect and admiration for them has not changed. I know, it sounds like I’m just saying this to kiss-up to my parents, and you might be thinking I chose to write about them only because I had no other ideas of what to talk about in this article that’s supposed to be about me. But if you know me, you know that I am, and pretty much always have been, very close to my parents, something I admit to basically anyone. As I’ve grown up, I’ve noticed that my peers have slowly transitioned from jumping at the chance to brag about their parents to complaining about them and frequently getting annoyed with the restrictions they place on their freedoms. But for some reason, my feelings about my parents never quite changed from what they were when I was a little girl, as I still value them as much as I did then and continue to see them as the people I am closest to.

Perhaps the fact that I never had any siblings to share my childhood experiences with contributed to my close relationship with my parents, to whom my friends and I often fondly refer as Joan and Peter. When I was little, if I wasn’t dressing up and playing pretend in my backyard by myself or with my friends, I was with my parents. Going on annual summer vacations has been one of our traditions since I was about six, and those trips to places all around the world have also contributed to

our closeness because we have experienced the world together. I am constantly asked if I like being an only child, and my response has always been “yes and no.” When I was younger I always wished I had an older sister, or someone who could teach me about fashion and boys and who could always give me sisterly advice. In more recent years, if I am longing for a sibling, I usually imagine having a little brother or sister since I love little kids. But, I think having just my parents in my immediate family is the main reason why I am so close to them, and now that I know what having that close relationship is like, the thought of not having it seems unbearable, not to mention unimaginable, after being their daughter for over 17 years.

Being close to my parents translates to countless hours spent simply talking with them since I was little, allowing me to learn about an endless number of things. From many long and enjoyable conversations with my dad, I have learned about politics and lies, the society I live in and its unspoken rules, manners and etiquette and different practices and lifestyles of people around the globe, especially those in China, where my parents came from after they graduated from college. My mom, who happens to be the person I look up to most in this world, has helped me find my sense of style and taught me about different science topics for as long as I can remember, and she has modeled how to be a strong, smart and kind woman for me to mimic in hopes of one day being as admired and hardworking as she is.

photo by alexei serguienko/falconer

ANGELA LIU

I am enormously grateful for my parents’ knowledge and the fact that they continue to share it with me, as I feel that them doing so has made me into a more compassionate, understanding person who can see the world from multiple perspectives. When I was little, my world extended only as far as the borders of San Diego, and now, thanks to my parents, I am able to appreciate my world by comparing it to the lives of many others. Even listening to my parents tell stories about their childhoods — which were very different from mine and not even that tough compared to what many children in China currently go through each day — and the experiences that brought them here to the U.S. with their highly successful careers has allowed me to recognize how fortunate I am and appreciate them even more for all that they have done for me so I am able to pursue my dreams.

And just to clarify, I appreciate my parents not because their world revolves around me (although I know and am thankful for all the time and energy they spend on helping me succeed); I appreciate them for continuing to pursue their own dreams and inspiring me to work as hard as they do to get what I want in life. I look up to them because I know they overcame dozens

of challenges to achieve their goals, and they have always encouraged me to do the same.

They taught me that nothing will be handed to me and that there are no guarantees; they encouraged me to dream big, and they never discouraged me from going after what I want, even if it was something I knew they might have doubts about. While my dreams for my future have changed since I was little, my parents’ support of them has remained constant, and I credit that support and encouragement for my confidence in what I am interested in and my ardor in pursuing it.

In a couple of months when I will head into the last year of living under my parents’ roof before graduating and leaving for college, knowing that I have and always will have my close bond with my parents comforts me a great deal. It may seem like this article is more about my mom and dad than it is about me, but their background, knowledge and unconditional love and support have made me who I am today, and I know I would be completely different if I didn’t have them by my side. They are the people I am most grateful for, and if I’m writing about myself, crediting both of them for helping me grow into who I am is something I know I cannot omit.

opinion

tphsfalconer.com

the falconer

A9

Analysis: How Pope Francis is different from his predecessors Ellie Ahles ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

Pope Francis represents a lot of firsts for a Roman Catholic pope: the first pope from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere, the first Jesuit pope since the eighth century, Pope Francis has proven himself to be a newage progressive in changing times. So, if the question is sink or swim, Francis has chosen swim, but dragging the Vatican with him has caused some controversy.

Seeing as how I am not Catholic, I feel it is not my place to determine whether or not the pope is “too liberal” for the church. However, basic research makes it clear, even to me, how Francis is different from his predecessors.

Francis has found himself at the center of many social issues, guided by his own sense of morality rather than the accepted policy of the church — and some within the church argue that the sole purpose of the pope is to further the ideals of the church. Francis has consistently strayed from the traditional views of the church on a few topics. When it comes to homosexuality, former Pope Benedict XVI called it an “intrinsic moral evil,” while Francis has asked “Who am I to judge?” Francis opened a temporary window for women who have had abortions during the “Jubilee of Mercy” year to recieve forgiveness, had a closed-door conversation with and reportedly embraced transgender man Diego Neria Lejarraga, washed the feet of Muslim migrants and women and issued a papal encyclical encouraging Catholics to fight climate change.

Francis, wherever he may be on the political continuum, is an absolute source of change within the church. That said, this change is all soft. Coming in sweeping statements, the pope has not made many of these views part of doctrine, instead using apostolic exhortation and his position as pope to encourage certain behaviors.

Among the social issues Francis has taken on, he has made real change with rules on annulment and remarriage within the church.

According to the (United Kingdom) Guardian, newspaper, Francis has faced resistance from one Cardinal while encouraging “Catholic priests to give communion to some divorced and remarried couples, or to families where unmarried parents are cohabiting.” Some Cardinals in opposition to these rather liberal views, views that directly oppose those of his predecessor Pope John Paul II, have mentioned making a formal declaration of heresy.

Most opposition results from his changes regarding marriage. His decision to speed up the annulment process and offer communion to the divorced and remarried has met with more resistance than other issues, despite being a common practice in the United States already.

Recently, rumors have floated around about Francis possibly retiring. According to German newspaper Deutsche Welle and the National Catholic Reporter, Francis has been appointing more “liberal” and “progressive” Cardinals.

Francis also has come under fire for promoting archbishops who have broken with Church teaching on the sacraments to positions of influence in the Vatican, “picking any bishop he likes” as the National Catholic Reporter put it.

According to the podcast “Holy Smoke,” Francis wants to make three more consistories, gatherings of the College of Cardinals wherein the pope could elevate new Cardinals to the College before he retires. Doing this would make more than 40 percent of the College of Cardinals people appointed by Francis and possibly more inclined to vote for a pope with similar views — therefore, in the words of “Holy

Smoke,” “keeping his legacy safe.”

Francis’ legacy, however, is confusing. Many suggest that Francis has still not established “what sort of pope he is.” While the direction Francis takes the church may be up for debate, the fact that he is different from all his predecessors is not.

Francis, as an important religious leader, and is much more “liberal” than those before him. He takes a progressive viewpoint, and as the leader of the Church, he is consdiered by faithful Catholics to be “infallible in matters of faith and morals.” However, viewing Francis as merely a public figure, I would call the man a realist — perhaps left-leaning on some social issues at most. To quote “Holy Smoke,” Francis seems to appeal to the “people in the margins” and non-Catholics in his attempt to “detoxify the Catholic church.” As the holy leader of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, approximately one-sixth of the world population, there are many who have been cast aside by the Catholic Church’s past restrictive views.

That said, the pontiff found himself on the wrong side of a scandal mid-January by incidentally riling victims of sexual abuse when he supported Chilean Bishop Juan Barros, according to National Public Radio. Barros maintains that h e

was unaware of the abuses his mentor, Reverend Fernando Karadima, committed and Francis continues to support Barros, though the pope later issued an apology to the sexual abuse victims, acknowledging his harshness with the situation.

I think Francis, of course, has his heart in the right place. He has found himself in many controversies, making it easy to confuse one’s opinion of him with one’s opinions on what he stands for. The papacy, confusing as it can be to understand as an outsider, is in good hands with Francis. While he may do as he pleases at times, he is a source of revolutionary and modern change for the church as it stands — a change the church may eventually look back on happily.

art by sumin hwang/falcon artist

The United States Olympic Committee must protect its athletes EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

“Little girls don’t stay little forever.”

Two hundred sixty-five women have come foward to accuse sports doctor Larry G. Nassar of sexual abuse. He pled guilty to ten counts of sexual abuse, but was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison for child pornography charges, 40 to 175 years for sexual abuse from the Ingham County (Mich.) Circuit Court and 40 to 125 years from the Eaton County (Mich.) Circuit Court, according to the New York Times and ESPN. Nassar is getting the justice he deserves, but it is too late. USA Gymnastics, the national organization for competitive gymnastics in the United States, should have taken action earlier, regardless of whether they had one complaint of inappropriate behavior or 200 reports of sexual abuse. U.S. Olympic sports organizations inherently deal with young athletes, and they need to provide necessary protection against sexual assault.

Beyond gymnastics, Olympic swimmer Ariana Kukors stepped forward on Feb. 8 to accuse former swimming coach Sean Hutchinson of sexually abusing her when she was 16, according to the Huffington Post.

Hutchinson allegedly started asking Kukors for nude photos of herself and then started making sexual advances toward her and making her participate in “everything but intercourse” during practices and in hotel rooms away at competition before she had turned 18, according to the Washington Post.

Hutchinson denies all allegations of sexual assault, and claims that the only relationship he had with Kukors took place after the 2012 Olympics in London, England, when she was a

legal adult, according to CNN. The Department of Homeland Security raided Hutchinson’s home and seized many electronic devices in search of the hundreds of nude photos Kukors claims Hutchinson has of her, but he has yet to be officially charged of any crimes, according to the Washington Post.

According to the Chicago Tribune, over 290 coaches and officials associated with U.S. Olympics sports groups have been accused of sexual abuse since 1982, spanning 15 sports, and officials have justified their reluctance to reform their child protection regulations by calling the regulations too expensive and personally invasive.

But it is also personally invasive to allow a doctor who has been accused of sexual misconduct to continue to work with young athletes before a complete investigation has been carried out.

Nassar was a popular sports doctor who worked at Michigan State University, but also worked with athletes from USA Gymnastics, Holt High School and the

art by carla hansen/falcon artist

By Anvitha Soordelu

gymnastics club, Twistars. Some Twistars parents and a few MSU athletes complained about inappropriate behavior, but no action was taken, according to the New York Times.

In 2014, Nassar was cleared of a misconduct allegation through a university investigation, but he was instructed to have a third person present while conducting sensitive exams and to wear gloves while working, yet he was still allowed to conduct his examinations, including one called “intravaginal adjustment,” unsupervised, according to the New York Times.

The complaint against Nassar originally started with gymnast Maggie Nichols, two-time Olympian Aly Raisman and Olympian McKayla Maroney in July 2015, who also handed over videos of Nassar performing his procedures, including ones of him demonstrating his techniques and use ungloved hands between girls’ legs. Gina N i c h o l s , M a g g i e’s mother, was instructed not to tell anybody about t h e

complaint by USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny, who took over a month to contact and involve the FBI in the investigation into Nassar.

Raisman was also told to keep quiet, and in an interview with the [United Kingdom] Guardian, Raisman said, “[USA Gymnastic’s] biggest priority from the beginning and still today is their reputation, the medals they win and the money they make off of us.”

Maroney, on the other hand, was allegedly paid off to sign a financial settlement to keep quiet about Nassar, according to the Guardian.

Despite all these allegations, Nassar was still allowed to practice, and was not fired from MSU until September 2016, after former gymnast Rachael Denhollander publicly accused Nassar of sexual misconduct in the Indianapolis Star, according to CNN. Nassar violated hundreds of young athletes, but it would not have gone this far if MSU or USA Gymnastics had taken the first report of sexual abuse seriously. Nassar, especially because of his proximity to young gymnasts and high school students, should have been suspended after the first report of sexual abuse and during the investigation, rather than being allowed to practice and violate more young women in the process.

After Denhollander stepped forward in the 2016 article, more and more young women accused Nassar of sexual misconduct, he failed to hide hard drives with over 37,000 images and videos of child pornography, which police eventually found, according to the New York Times.

These organizations create the teams that compete at the Olympics, and they need to be held accountable for knowing about the inappropriate and criminal way in which some young athletes are treated. If over 290 coaches and officials have been accused of sexual misconduct over just 30 years, something is clearly wrong. Measures must be put in place to protect athletes when they are put in a position where they are unable to speak out and stop their abusers.

A10 the falconer

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february 15, 2018

Academic strength and performance at TPHS draw students whose families move into the SDUHSD in the hope their children will win the college admission lottery with entrance into elite and selective schools.

As the blistering San Diego sun slowly sinks below the horizon, quiet suburban neighborhoods and their surrounding canyons are bathed in cool darkness, the coral sunset bleeding into cerulean blue.

Allison Kelton (12) stands in her backyard, gazing at the sky; she feels a wave of nostalgia that reminds her of her hometown, Reddington, New Jersey. To Kelton, the chaparral is a drastic contrast to the lush, towering oak forests that were common near her old home.

Every year, hundreds of new teens take their first steps as TPHS students. Many are freshmen, coming from one of SDUHSD’s feeder middle schools and are immediately surrounded by familiar faces. However, a handful of new Falcons move from outside of the district for one reason only -- to attend TPHS. “Torrey Pines is pretty well known,” Briani Zhang (11) said. “Everyone’s says, ‘Yeah, that’s the school where everyone has really good grades and a lot of people go to prestigious [colleges] and it’s very well known for its academics.’”

Ranked 51st in the U.S. News and World Report list of California’s best high schools, TPHS is well known across the country for its academics, sports and extracurricular activities. According to the June 2017 Falconer College Map, the school sent 18 seniors to 7 of the 8 Ivy-League campuses. Furthermore, San Diego, California’s second largest metropolitan area, is a hub of scientific activity that provides TPHS students with internship opportunities at technology and biomedical companies and UCSD’s research facilities.

“We are a high-achieving school,” Principal Rob Coppo said. “Our students do really well; we have phenomenal teachers, we’ve got great facilities and great communities, great houses, our athletic programs at all the schools [in the district] are top notch and that’s an attractive piece for people.”

The atmosphere at TPHS and the programs offered to students are attractive, and it signals the most common path that students at TPHS are preparing for after graduation.

“You guys offer a lot of APs,” Rinna Yu (10) said. “That was good and bad at the same time, because my parents would pressure me to take more APs but it was also good because it will look good on college apps.”

With over 25 Advanced Placement courses offered and a participation rate of 70 percent in courses, TPHS is the perfect stepping stone for the 90 percent of its students prepared to attend 4-year colleges.

Kelton’s feet are a quiet whisper as she quickly hurries down the crowded corridor on the first day of school. Foreign faces surround her at TPHS. No one dresses or speaks like they did in New Jersey, but, according to her parents, it will all be worth it. Going to TPHS can get her into a good

photo by lauren zhang/falconer

college.

“I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding,” Coppo said.

“People don’t get into a better college because you went to TPHS. The colleges are a little smarter than people give them credit for; they look at transcripts.”

Although TPHS may not guarantee acceptance into an Ivy League school, most students who live in Carmel Valley, Rancho Santa Fe and Solana Beach are pressured to attend and get into good colleges.

“People have higher expectations in colleges and in choosing more prestigious schools,” Zhang said. “They prepare for [college] by taking outside classes, taking SAT prep and college consulting classes. At my old school, people didn’t really do that.”

With at least a dozen college consulting firms in Carmel Valley, and many more in the larger San Diego area, TPHS students with the financial means have their pick of help with standardized testing, essay writing, and more. But while services for these consulting firms can run up a bill of thousands of dollars, the parents of these students aren’t

[TPHS students] prepare for [college] by taking outside classes, taking SAT prep and college consulting classes. At my old school, people didn’t really do that.

Briani Zhang student

often put off by the price.

As students filter into the crowded room, happily chattering amongst themselves, Zhang stands in doorway surveying the classroom to find an empty seat. She chooses one in the back corner, too nervous to introduce herself to any students. The transition to a new school is proving much more difficult than she thought it would be. Luckily, the TPHS Peer Assistant Listeners (PAL) quickly made her feel welcome.

“On the first day I came here, the people from PALs gave me a tour of the campus,” Zhang said. “They had a lunch for the new students… that made me feel welcome.”

The lunch held by PALs, is a weekly gathering for all students who would like a place to spend their lunch and meet new people. For Kelton, the pizza was the main allure, but she found that it was a great way to bond and meet new students.

The positive atmosphere and welcoming students allow for a smooth transition to the TPHS environment. No matter why students move, they will find a home at TPHS if PALs had its way.

It has been seven months since Kelton took her first steps as a TPHS student. Now curled up next to her cat Echo on the back patio couch, the night sky and chaparral-filled canyons no longer look foreign to her.

by Bea de Oliviera and Elaine Song

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TPHS students often feel pressured by their parents to choose high-paying STEM majors, forcing them to balance personal desires with parental expectations.

As an eighth grader, Bella* (10) watched her mother navigate the complex college admissions process with her brother John* (‘16).

After guiding her son through both successes and failures during his rigorous high school experience, Bella’s mom became even more determined to mold her second child into “the perfect candidate for college.”

At a young age, Bella discovered she liked building things, and took a beginning engineering class in seventh grade. Yet her mother, unlike Bella, saw engineering not as the projects her daughter was tinkering with, but rather as a practical college major that can potentially provide her daughter a stable income and comfortable future.

“I feel like the reason my mother pressures me so much is that she wants me to have a good career, but she sometimes forgets about my well-being, and that it’s my life, not hers,” Bella said.

Today, Bella’s high school career revolves around completing a checklist of goals outlined by her parents, in hopes that she will major in engineering at the “perfect school.” Instead of changing Bella’s mind to seriously consider engineering as a future career, however, her parents’ pre-fabricated plan for success has drained Bella’s initial middle school-era interest in the subject.

“She has forced me to join or start multiple organizations or programs that I was never interested in,” Bella said. “The pressure from my parents has made me sort of resent the career because they have made it so stressful to pursue a passion ... Doing something engineering-based is just not fun anymore.”

There are many reasons why parents push their kids into choosing certain majors. For Bella, “having a good career to get into college and live a successful life” is an explanation she has heard too many times.

According to a report by the Department of Commerce, majors in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subjects earn, on average, 29 percent more annually than their non-STEM counterparts. Furthermore, research by the Department of Education found STEM majors were more likely to be employed and retain fulltime jobs. While U.S. unemployment rates have dropped to pre-2009 economic recession levels, the it still faces rising income inequality, housing and rent prices, and a shrinking middle class.

Economic anxiety, however, causes certain parents to push their children into STEM careers, leading them to believe that the stability and above-average pay offered by STEM degrees is the only way of achieving success. This belief that STEM is the only option for monetary success is described as a “mass delusion” by Arizona State University professor of Psychology Suniya Luthar in a 2015 article for Atlantic Magazine.

According to a Washington Post article, it is common for parents to excessively worry about how much their children will make if they choose to pursue certain academic fields, like STEM subjects, over other ones, like literature. Contrary to most STEM and business majors who earn median annual incomes between $60,000 and $80,000, the average humanities major makes around $50,000 —“enough to fit comfortably in the American middle class,” according to the Washington Post.

While it may be true that most STEM graduates earn higher salaries, it is irrational to solely base major salary differences on a

student’s decision to pursue a certain major. A study by economists at Yale found that “half of the premium earned by STEM majors can be explained not by what they learned in college, but by the greater intelligence, diligence and other characteristics” they possess. In other words, an individual’s drive, diligence and determination are ultimately the main factors that contribute to their eventual success in whichever field they choose.

“Music and art have tough job markets,” according to Hamilton College Consulting founder and CEO Chris Hamilton. “I’ve got a friend. He was an art major, and he created a company that does artwork for Hollywood studios. He was really good at talking to people, [and] realized he could build a business. He made a reasonable living as an artist, [but] now makes more money than most doctors and lawyers.”

A study found that only 27 percent of people actually have jobs that are related to their college majors, so it is important to note that “choosing a major is not choosing a career,” according to the Washington Post.

“When I look at my own friends, one is the VP of Bell Helmets, and his major was psychology,” Hamilton said. “Another friend is a medical doctor, but his major was philosophy.”

Over the many years of consulting thousands of high schoolers, Hamilton has rarely witnessed parents who put pressure on their kids. Whether that’s because parents are on their “best behavior” when attending a consultation or not, according to Hamilton, he most often sees parents who say they want their kids to pursue whatever interests them.

“Parents in Carmel Valley are pretty sophisticated and realize that there are many paths [to achieve a certain goal],” Hamilton said.

While he admits that “the most popular majors are the so-called ‘good’ majors: computer science and engineering,” Hamilton says that the students who are interested in those subjects choose their career because it is something that they sincerely enjoy doing.

Additionally, cultural differences largely contribute to the wide variation in parenting methods practiced across different families.

“If you have a family where your parents grew up in a different country, an exam determines what majors are available to you,” he said. “Some majors are more prestigious, [but] our system doesn’t really work that way.”

Hamilton believes that excessive academic pressure subtracts from the student’s ability to enjoy the learning experience.

“It’s a mistake to push kids to study things,” Hamilton said. “If you really love something and get A’s, that’s going to impress people. It’s your life, and you should want to go to your classes.”

Summit College counselor Jackie Woolley agrees that students should focus on their interests and not let classwork overwhelm and define achievment.

“Colleges really want to know how you spend your time when you’re not in class,” Woolley said. “Your [college] essays are your opportunity to showcast what you’re passionate about so [colleges] get a better feel about how you are as a person, not just as a student.”

Looking back at his high school days, Hamilton understands what it is like to be pressured into pursuing a STEM career. After many intense discussions with his parents, it wasn’t until the end of his sophomore year in college that he was able to confidently declare

february 15, 2018

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tphsfalconer.com

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English as his major.

Luthar’s research found that the strength of a parent-child bond “I get a lot of people who think they’re going to be doctors, but then is inversely related to the financial status of a household. In other change their minds in college,” Hamilton said. “[Or] once a week, words, kids from wealthier families experience more problems with some smart, nice kid in 10th grade will say, ‘I want to go to Harvard, their parents. and I want to be a business major.’ Harvard doesn’t have a business “My mother definitely puts my career and my future monetary major [for undergraduate students].” success over my happiness,” Bella said. “She really doesn’t care what Starting a major is very different from completing it, “given my emotions are, or how I am doing.” attrition rates of 48 percent Bella “[doesn’t] feel that close among STEM majors” to [her] mom,” so she often according to Cal Newport, a finds herself seeking sympathy computer science professor from her father, who “shows at Georgetown University. more affection and is more Students who choose majors concerned” about her physical only to please their parents are and emotional well-being than more likely to lose motivation her mother. However, her and eventually give up, father’s occasional display of according to the Washington sympathy is still not enough Post. to make Bella feel that her Bella’s only motivation “parents entirely care about to pursue a STEM career [her] as a person.” comes from her parents’ own “[The pressure] makes me expectations. feel like as a student and a “The emotional pressure daughter, I will never be good that they have put on me can enough for college or anything be horrible, mentally,” Bella else in life,” Bella said.

Bella* said.

What her family does not Raised in an Indian realize, is the destructive effect STUDENT household with two parents their demanding parenting working in high paying methods have on their fields and an older brother daughter, who only keeps her who attends a prestigious troubled feelings to herself and university, Bella feels that she her closest friends. has even more pressure to enter into a STEM-related career because “I’ve never been able to share my feelings of how this pressure had of her impressive familial background. affected me, mostly negatively, because I feel like that will get me “Parents show their children off like a trophy, so anything and ridiculed,” Bella said. everything that your child does is like your reputation,” Bella said.

Despite having two more years of high school, Bella already “It’s the culture that Indian people are always smart and never fail dreads her college application process that awaits her. While she in school.” may dislike the rigid path her parents have put her on, as well as its Unsurprisingly, conflicts in familial relationships due to academic effects on their relationship, Bella has reluctantly admitted defeat, pressure are not exclusive to Bella, but are frequently seen in upper- accepting the inevitability of becoming the engineering major of her middle-class households that suffer from similar situations as Bella. parents’ dreams.

My mother definitely puts my career and my future monetary success over my happiness.

She really doesn’t care what my emotions are, or how I am doing.

*Names changed to protect identities

of U.S. News ranking of 2017 highest-paying jobs are in the following STEM fields: medicine, engineering and technology.

of students are stressed by their school work.

of students with stress said it was caused by school, making it the most common source of stress.

*Information provided by The Hill and US News

of students are stressed by postgraduation plans.

infographic by farhan hossain/falconer

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Finn Taylor’s move from London to San Diego gave him inspiration for his art, which he makes in AP Studio Art and sells online.

A sandy-haired high schooler, his slightly-hunched back illuminated by the gentle glow of the clip-on lamp attached to the top of his sloped desk, picks up a pen and slowly marks his sketchbook.

Finn Taylor (10) became interested in art at 10. Come sixth grade, Taylor clutched a drawing of an octopus to his chest, grinning from ear to ear after he won first place in a class doodle competition. His artistic talent has only grown since that small but thrilling victory four years ago.

Born in London, Taylor and his family moved to San Diego last August because of his dad’s job. Even after being in the U.S. for the past seven months, Taylor is still not familiar with some elements of American culture and customs.

In the beginning, Taylor was somewhat reluctant about making the dramatic move to the U.S. He was uncomfortable leaving the everything about the home he knew so well, from his friends to the little shop that sold fish and chips near his neighborhood “I didn’t want to leave my friends behind,” Taylor said. “[But] if I didn’t move, I’d probably regret it.”

His fingers have a mind of their own as they gracefully travel across the sea of white before him, filling its emptiness with small, black dots.

Taylor finds inspiration from an array of different sources, which includes movies like “Spirited Away,” artists like Paul Jackson and certain types of music.

Perhaps the main source of influence for Taylor and his artistic style is horror movies.

Taylor particularly enjoys creating drawings of villains like Pennywise and No-Face from “IT” and “Spirited Away.”

“I get inspired by film, so if I see something I like in a film I draw it,” Taylor said.

Among others, Jackson and Kerby Rosanes are two artists from whom Taylor takes inspiration.

Although Taylor and his two role models are similar in that they all use pen and ink, the three differ mainly on what subjects they draw.

Taylor picks up the pen and he is transported to a world of his own.

Everything about the room is silent, except for the mysterious instrumental music in the background and the satisfying scratching sounds of pen on paper.

To Taylor, San Diego is more “creative” than London. He is attracted to the street art, a

photo by jocelyn tzeng/falconer

different, yet exciting source of creativity for him. He finds American artists notably friendlier than the “serious and depressing” British artists he is used to.

“There are more artists over here,” Taylor said. “You’ve also got L.A., where there is a lot of film.”

The silver needle of the clock hanging above his four-poster bed crawls to the top of the hour. Yet the hand stops moving.

Art has dramatically shaped Taylor’s life by allowing him to “see things more creatively.” As an artist, his unique perspective permeates even the smallest details in life.

“I just appreciate[s] the effort that goes into making a film I’m watching … I feel like I understand how long it took or actually how hard it is to do,” Taylor said.

The multitude of black-and-white ink drawings that flood Taylor’s Instagram are testaments to his passion for experimenting with dark and eerie themes.

“I like to draw things that I think look cool and tell a

One of Taylor’s favorite pieces, the skull perfectly encompasses his dark and fantastical artistic style.

meaningful story,” Taylor said.

Over the course of many evenings, a shape slowly starts to blossom from the tiny army of dots flecking the canvas from white to gray.

Taylor’s artwork is unique because it also often strays from realism. Taylor prefers drawing fantastical concepts for one important reason.

“I recognize that [the realism pieces] are good,” Taylor said.

“But when someone draws a really accurately drawn picture, like a baby’s face, I just feel like they could do something better because I feel like they could just achieve that with taking a photo.”

Two hollow caves for eyes. Mouth agape, revealing a row of chipped or missing teeth. The sandy-haired figure examines his work. The cracked skull on the paper stares back at him.

Taylor sells his art online through Society6, a website where shoppers can browse through accounts run by independent artists. Customers have the option of buying the art directly or a print on a customized object, like a pillow or t-shirt. So far, Taylor has only sold prints of his work, but he is open to taking commissions on both Society6 and his Instagram.

Although Taylor has not nailed down his plans for the future, he knows that he will pursue a career in the humanities, while keeping art as a hobby.

Tilting his head backward, Taylor turns off the lamp.

Submerged in darkness, he leans back in his chair. He closes his eyes and paints a picture of his next project in his mind.

by Annie Cheng and Esther Choi

february 15, 2018

The words “government shutdown” sound so catastrophic and scary, almost like a Purge-type situation. While a government shutdown might not indicate a period of lawlessness and anarchy, there’s no denying that it has other negative implications.

A shutdown occurs when Congress fails to pass a budget resolution for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1. The Jan. 19 shutdown was caused by partisan disagreements regarding both the budget and whether the resolution would be tied to solutions for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Past shutdowns have been the consequence of other political disagreements, like Republicans’ attempt to impose restrictions on the Affordable Care Act in 2013.

Health care policy became directly related to the federal budget with the new ACA legislation because the government would have to provide funding. After toggling the shutdown bill between the Democratic Senate and the Republican House of Representatives, the two could not reach agreement and entered the fiscal year with no spending legislation.

The functions of the government are categorized as either essential or nonessential; nonessential services are those that are unavailable during a shutdown. That includes, but is not limited to, the closure of certain monuments and national parks as well as the halting of some Internal Revenue Service enforcements and fee collections, which contributes to direct costs for the federal government. Post offices, border control and the military keep functioning. According to the Obama White House Archives, 850,000 people were sent home per day at the peak of the 2013 shutdown, and 120,000 fewer private sector jobs were created in the first two weeks of October. Even employees of some essential offices do not receive pay until a shutdown ends, so despite the many functions that keep operating in the midst of a shutdown, lots of people are harmed by shutdowns in a multitude of ways.

While closures are taking place, the task of Congress is drafting a spending bill that a majority will vote for, which is usually only short-term so that employees can get back to work without having to wait for lawmakers to decide on long-term legislation. Each day that the government is closed, results in exorbitant amounts of money being lost by the government and its employees. The Jan. 19 shutdown ended after the adoption of a spending bill that funded the government only through Feb. 8. Despite the fact that the bill did not address the fixes for DACA, Democrats voted in favor of it because they did not want the government to remain immobilized.

A government shutdown, then, is a consequence of lawmakers’ failure to compromise over divisive issues, which are often thrown under the rug due to the pressure to reopen the government.

by Eve Gross-Sable

cca hosts 7TH aNNUAL writer’s conference Canyon Crest Academy’s Creative Writing Club will host its seventh annual Writers’ Conference on Saturday, Feb. 24 at Canyon Crest Academy from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. According to club co-president Sophie Camilleri, the conference is exclusively for high school students.

The club has sponsors and holds fundraisers throughout the year to ensure everyone can attend the conference for free. “[This conference] is the only free writers’ conference for high school students in the country,” Camilleri said. “We are very thankful to have CCA administration and CCA ASB support us to hold this event every year.”

This year, 24 speakers will be at the conference, most of them authors, but also screenwriters, directors, songwriters, publishers, poets and journalists. Author Elana K. Arnold will be the keynote speaker at the conference, whose speech, “The Transformative Power of Art: Radical Truth Telling in Fiction,” will focus on drawing on one’s past to write fictional stories.

“In about 45 minutes, I will explore the elements of my personal history that informed the writing of my novel ‘What Girls Are Made Of,’” Arnold said. “In addition to discussing my own past, I’ll be exploring how creators at-large transform their pain into art.”

Arnold hopes her speech will inspire other writers to use their own experience as inspiration for their own fictional work.

“I hope attendees will leave the talk with a better understanding of how a writer can craft fiction from real-life experience and may feel empowered to explore their own dark wells in a search for artistic fodder,” Arnold said.

According to Camilleri, other speakers that CCA’s Creative Writing Club anticipates to draw large audiences are CEO of Hamilton College Consulting Chris Hamilton and runner-up on the eighth season of America’s Got Talent and TPHS alumnus Taylor Williamson (‘04).

“We have Chris Hamilton presenting his very popular presentation on college essay writing, and are excited to have TP [alumna] Williamson as our inspirational speaker,” Camilleri said.

Author, screenwriter and producer Abdi Nazemian is also excited to speak at the conference and engage the student attendees.

“The name of my 45-minute workshop is ‘Movie, Book, Play, TV? How to Decide What Your Story is Meant To Be, and Write in Multiple Mediums,’” Nazemian said. “I’m very excited, as each of these mediums has given me different opportunities for storytelling. I plan on discussing the creative and market forces that led me to hop across mediums and to engage students in a workshop that explores the unique challenges and opportunities each medium provides.”

According to Camilleri, the conference will follow the same format as previous conferences with Keynote Speaker Arnold giving the first talk of the day and different presentations available for attendees in the morning. The club will host hands-on workshops in the afternoon and Williamson will close the conference with an inspirational talk.

The conference organizers like to invite different speakers each year to “make things interesting for returning attendees.” This year, a panel of authors will be discussing writing books that feature LGBTQ themes and characters and how to handle such subjects appropriately as writers.

“We have an LGBT panel that will be discussing the influences of their characters in writing,” co-president of CCA’s Creative Writing Club Prisha Kukkal said. “This has not been done in previous years, and we are happy to have them speaking at the conference this year.”

Co-President Claire Lee (12) hopes students will attend the conference and take advantage of the various opportunities to learn from the

numerous established authors and interact with other students from around San Diego also passionate about various genres of writing.

“The Writers’ Conference provides students an opportunity to learn from established writers and professionals in the publishing industry and connect with their peers through their mutual art form: writing,” Lee said. “I hope the students who attend the conference become exposed to a variety of different writing fields … because the Writers’ Conference provides that wide array of speakers. But above all, I hope students come out of the conference feeling inspired with their writing.”

This year’s conference was primarily organized organized by the three co-presidents of the Creative Writing Club, Camilleri, Kukkal and Lee, who began planning the conference in August. Two hundred and twenty students from 24 high schools in San Diego County attended last year’s conference, which is the maximum number of attendees allowed, and Camilleri predicts this year will likely see a similar number of attendees.

“We have capped our numbers at 220 attendees, and we tend to hit this number most years,” Camilleri said. “We may be able to accommodate more [students] closer to the day, depending on funding.”

Those interested in attending the conference should register at the conference’s website, ccawritersconference2018. weebly.com, to choose which sessions they would like to attend as well as to secure a free lunch and seats in each sessions.

by Angela Liu

Keynote Presenter:

Elana K. Arnold 2017 National Book Award finalist

photolarae from photography elana arnold photo from casey

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the avocados were not overpowering and, most importantly, the burrito was well-constructed and easy to eat. My only complaint was not the burrito itself, but rather with Breakfast Republic’s signature hot sauce, which did not provide enough heat.

Breakfast Republic took French toast to the next level. The Banana Split ($6) side dish was a piece of culinary art. Complementing the four slices of french toast were bananas, powdered sugar, walnuts, chocolate sauce and, to my surprise, a sizable scoop of vanilla ice cream. While all the elements made for a delightful dish, I especially enjoyed the thickness of the french toast and the brûléed bananas.

My meal was paired well with the In House Fresh Squeezed OJ ($3.75). Had I been more adventurous, I could have ordered their “Antioxidant shots,” which feature a variety of exotic juices, hot teas or a variety of latte and coffee options.

Obviously, I aired on the unhealthy side with my meal, but Breakfast Republic’s menu includes vegetarian options like the two Veggie Breakfast Tostadas ($10) and vegan options like the Vegan Madras Curry Scramble ($12).

While I ate at the Encinitas location, some of

Breakfast Republic’s other locations include Carmel Valley and North Park. They are open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., which helps with especially late breakfasts and brunches.

Overall, Breakfast Republic provided a delightful meal, which more than made up for the long wait time.

With meals served on large, no-nonsense platters and a bar in the front of the restaurant, Breakfast Republic provides for a fun, loud, dynamic brunch. In contrast to the relaxed and laid-back atmosphere many breakfast cafes have, Breakfast Republic fits a different profile with their rowdy but enjoyable atmosphere.

by Michael Nirula

jokes throughout our meal made the experience much more enjoyable and the service, despite being a crowded, small restaurant with only two servers, was attentive and fast.

It was clear to me that Lockwood Table cared a lot about presentation. Everything from the design of the plates to the wooden chairs was wonderful and modern-looking. They set out little water cups with lemon and cucumber slices to add to the laid-back and natural atmosphere.

To start, we ordered the Walnut Butter ($8), which I was instantly addicted to. Though it was just walnut butter served with some toasted multigrain bread, honey and strawberries, it was amazing. Looking back on how I inhaled it, I realize I probably should have savored the taste a bit more. The butter, creamy and sweet, paired perfectly with the toast. It came served on a unique square wooden plate, only furthering the modern theme of the restaurant. Though my biggest pet peeve is when people take photos of their meals, I’m not going to lie, I snapped a quick pic.

For my meal I decided to get the Big Hilo Sandwich ($11.95). The sandwich came on a multigrain

bread with tomato, red onion, avocado, turkey, sprouts and basil pesto sauce. Each ingredient worked with the others to make the perfect sandwich. The tomatoes, onions and avocado were fresh and tasty. The sprouts, an interesting addition to a sandwich, were crisp and refreshing, adding a bit of a crunch to the already amazing sandwich. Nothing, however, could top the basil pesto sauce spread on the toasted multigrain bread.

I also tried the Rancho ($10.25), a baked egg sandwich served on a croissant with bacon, turkey, avocado and gruyère cheese. The croissant was buttery and not too flaky, like they often are. The light sandwich made it a perfect choice for brunch; served on a small, whiterimmed plate with two juicy orange slices.

As you probably concluded from my review, I will definitely be returning to Lockwood Table. The delicious food, great service and relaxing atmosphere made this cozy little restaurant one of my new favorites.

by Sammy Hallal

Breakfast Republic 6025 Village Way San Diego, CA 92130

After arriving at Breakfast Republic’s Encinitas location for an 11 a.m. brunch, I encountered the restaurant’s biggest letdowns immediately — scarce parking and a 15-minute wait for a table of two. The restaurant does not take reservations, which can make breakfast or brunch especially difficult for larger parties. That said, I later found out that my meal more than compensated for the wait.

As I waited, I noticed the restaurant’s wooden floors, walls and tables, as well as a vibrant green wall of plants which made for an earthy, enjoyable atmosphere.

After being seated, I began to realize that the restaurant had a more distinctive theme: eggs. I first noticed the chairs in the waiting area were egg-shaped, then the theme was made clear by the egg-shaped salt shakers and lights, which were enclosed in “egg whisks.”

After a 15-minute wait, my California Breakfast Burrito ($13) arrived, which was bloated due to a combination of eggs, avocado, potatoes and sausage, effectively making my mouth water. The eggs were fluffy,

photo by david vapnek/falconer

I usually spend my weekend mornings sleeping until noon to make up for the sleep I missed during the week, so when I was told I would be reviewing a brunch restaurant, I honestly wasn’t very excited. After eating at Lockwood Table, however, I was pleasantly surprised.

I met up with some friends at the restaurant and I was impressed before even looking at the menu. The quaint restaurant, located on Cedros Avenue, was trendy and relaxing. I sat at the table my friends had been patiently waiting for me at, and the waitress politely poked fun at me for being 20 minutes late (better late than never, right?), which I thought was hilarious. Her continuous

Naked Cafe is a restaurant that you could easily use to demonstrate San Diego stereotypes. Situated right next to the beach, you can smell the ocean breeze all throughout your meal, while the advertisements on the table try to sell you various flavors of kombucha. While I only frequent the beach around twice a year, I decided to try and access my inner Californian by reviewing a restaurant 10 yards away from one of San Diego’s most popular attractions.

Despite it being a Saturday morning, the restaurant was mostly empty when we arrived around 9 a.m. The restaurant was well-lit by natural light and despite the shack-like exterior, the restaurant appeared to be very clean and well-kept. After reviewing the menu and photo by hayoung park/falconer

photo by joceyln tzeng/falconer

lockwood Lockwood table cafe 346 South Cedros Ave Solana Beach, CA 92075

asking the waitress for her suggestions, we decided to order the Tailgate Tacos ($12), the Plate of Prosperity ($12) and the Yin and Yang with an added egg ($12.50).

The first item we tried was the Tailgate Tacos, per the waitress’s suggestion. The soy chorizo was almost firetruck red and appeared to be dripping juice onto the plate. The soy lacked the body and texture of actual pork, but was savory and wellseasoned. The corn tortilla was luckily thick enough to absorb the moisture, and had a very robust corn flavor that complemented the filling well. I didn’t end up eating the heaping side of beans with the taco as I didn’t think that the dish needed any more moisture, but I unconsciously continued snacking on them throughout the meal and with the other dishes.

The Plate of Prosperity at first glance simply looked like a giant mound of quinoa, and it didn’t prove to be much more. Although the egg whites and the spinach made for a light flavor combination, the entire experience was shadowed by the neverending flowery quinoa. The soy sausage in the dish surprisingly replicated the texture of real sausage, but the “sausage” lacked any actual other flavor besides the bland soy. Ultimately, I felt that I needed another meaty substitute to supplement the egg whites and I found myself scooping beans from the Tailgate Tacos onto my plate. The side of homemade salsa added a nice kick to the dish and I ended up asking for second helpings.

naked Naked cafe

106 S Sierra Ave Solana Beach, CA 92075 The best dish, by far, was the Yin and Yang, a bed of crispy potatoes underneath a layer of beans, avocado, sour cream and jalapenos. The outer layer of the potatoes provided the perfect crispy coating to contrast the creaminess of the avocado and the sour cream. The flour tortilla was much thinner than the corn tortilla and the homemade salsa proved to be the ideal compliment to any dish on the menu. The sunny-side up egg atop the dish didn’t add a ton of flavor, but the added protein did make the dish more filling. By the end of the meal, we ran out of the lighter toppings and were left with a mixture of melted sour cream, beans and potatoes, but even those elements alone were delicious together.

While the quality of the food varied from dish to dish, all the meals were exceptionally healthy and the portions definitely justified the price. Whether you’re fresh off a morning beach run or simply fresh out of bed, I would definitely recommend Naked Cafe as a spot for a light meal to start off your weekend.

by Sumin Hwang

entertainment

tphsfalconer.com

photo from capitol records

The trailblazing rap trio Migos, featuring Quavo, Offset and Takeoff, has made its return to the rap game after a dreadfully long one-year hiatus. Migos recently released its third studio album, “Culture II,” a sequel to their wildly popular 2017 project, “Culture.” With two 2018 Grammy nominations for “Culture,” “Culture II” has become one of the most

Before he became Rich Brian, Brian Imanuel was just a 16-year-old Indonesian boy who had gained internet fame for his comedic Vines and tweets.

He later entered the hip-hop scene as Rich Chigga, and went viral. His controversial music video, “Dat $tick,” features Imanuel and his friends with alcohol and guns while he casually says, “n***a.” Some saw it as a mockery of hiphop and black culture. His stage name, a mashup of “Chinese” and “n***a,” didn’t help.

With the start of the new year, Imanuel announced via Twitter that he changed his name from Rich Chigga to Rich Brian, admitting that it was a mistake and promising to more culturally sensitive.

“I was naive and I made a mistake,” Imanuel said. “I now go by ‘Brian.’”

He released his first album, “Amen,” on Feb. 2, and it immediately hit number one on the iTunes Hip Hop Chart, making him the first Asian artist ever to do so. The album as a whole focuses on Imanuel’s transition from living in Indonesia to becoming an icon in the U.S. The title and opening track is especially representative of this theme. “Amen” discusses his career and how his life has changed with it. My first impression of the song was that it was just another

photo from rca records

The fifth Justin Timberlake album, “Man of the Woods” was released in early February. Because his previous album, “The 20/20 Experience - 2 of 2” was released five years ago, my expectations for the new album were high, adding insult to injury when I realized how disappointing this release is.

The first and most popular song

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highly anticipated hip-hop records of 2018.

“Culture II” starts off slowly with forgettable tracks like “Higher We Go (Intro)” and “Supastars.” These tracks provide nothing new for Migos as the group braggadociously strings together bars about fame and stardom over trap beats. However, the album recovers quickly with three consecutive standout songs, starting with “Narcos.” Over a sample of a French classic, “Les Difficiles De Petion-Ville,” the group executes each verse perfectly. Offset’s versatility as an artist is clear, as he provides both a catchy hook and solid verse. This banger is followed by “BBO (Bad B*****s Only),” an up-tempo song about Migos’ infatuation with beautiful women. Both Quavo’s and Takeoff’s flows are highlighted this in this track. Following “BBO” is the best song on the album, “Walk It Talk It.” The catchy repetition that Migos is famous for is at the forefront of Quavo’s hook, while Drake provides arguably the best verse on the entire album. This track is guaranteed to be a club hit with the group’s usual trap sound.

However, Migos tries a completely new sound with “Stir Fry,” as Quavo displays his mastery in hook creation. The album closes with “Made Men” and “Culture

National Anthem (Outro).” Both tracks summarize Migos’ rise to fame and what “Culture” and being unique means to each of them. The lavish piano melodies layered on top of these beats provide a very laid-back vibe and end the album on a high note.

One of the first and most obvious characteristics of this album is the colossal size of “Culture II.” With 24 songs spanning an one hour and 45 minutes, the album feels like a chore to listen to. In the music industry today, listeners don’t have

superficial rap song, but the lyrics were unexpectedly personal, a nice twist. His verses are genuine and unforced, making him seem much more real, all while the

apart from other rappers is showcased on this track. He effortlessly delivers his verses and even as the verses get faster, he doesn’t get too hyped.

The best song on the album is definitely “Occupied.” From the very beginning, it’s a banger. Very catchy and infectious, I caught myself nodding along without even realizing. It’s a great party song, standing out from all the other tracks, especially without a featured artist.

Next up was “Attention” featuring Offset, a low point in the album. It wasn’t horrible, but a Migos member feature calls for a certain level of expected quality, which the song just doesn’t deliver. It wasn’t special in any way and opened with a bad hook, Offset’s verse was the only even slightly enjoyable part. Rich Brian and Offset really missed the mark with this song.

I wasn’t expecting any great vocals on the album, but “Arizona,” featuring AUGUST 08, the newest addition to the 88 Rising team, proved me wrong.

AUGUST’s vocals were outstanding and soothing, accompanied by Rich Brian’s smooth, flowing verse. SZA seems to have strongly influenced the song, delivering one of her more typical, relaxed feels, which is a nice conclusion to the album.

Rich Brian is able to showcase his

comedic personality and skilled lyricism while still keeping “Amen” as fun and youthful as he is. Through his debut project, Imanuel proves himself to be a serious hip-hop artist, not just a basic SoundCloud rapper.

by Dhathry Doppalapudi

unorganized mess of noises. Unlike the previous song, “Supplies” couldn’t be helped by any change, it only got worse as it went along.

Next we come to the title track “Man of the Woods,” which just like “Filthy” is a cluster of different noises that he has tried to pass off as an instrumental. The only thing that was different about this song is that he tries to add a beach vibe

once again, creates a disconnect between his voice and the background.

The only song I can say I genuinely enjoyed on this album is “Morning Light,” a track that was soft and gentle compared to everything else on this album. For once his vocals matched the beat perfectly and the layering fit. Alicia Keys’ voice also helped this sweet melody.

The background featured the hums of a gospel chorus and a gentle guitar, that complemented Timberlake’s higher notes.

This track surprised me as I was getting used to the underproduced vibe from the rest of the songs, and was met with a melody I honestly had no issues with.

It does not make up for the rest of this album, but I did replay it a few times, to its credit.

Clearly, this album was not the best Timberlake has ever produced.

The overall lack of stability within the songs, disjointed feeling between the vocals and instrumentals as well as the feeling that he was trying too hard to appeal to modern music culture made this album unpleasant to sit through. I hope Timberlake redeems himself in the future, because this album just felt like a waste of time, like JT got lost in the woods and couldn’t find his way out.

by Vlada Demenko

bass goes hard in the background. In the song, Imanuel refers to how he taught himself English by watching YouTube videos and listening to hip hop. He also reflects on the hate he’s gotten for moving away from home.

Overall, the songs in this album can be divided into two general categories quick-paced rap songs and slower, Tyler the Creator-esque songs. “Introvert,” the fourth track, fits the second category. It features Joji, a relatively unknown artist who gained fame after coining the Harlem Shake, singing the calm, but depressing, chorus about feeling lonely and isolated.

“Yeah, hole in my soul, don’t know how to fill it up/Cannot let nobody in, hopin’ that they understand.” Rich Brian sings in a slightly monotone, yet calming voice. He isn’t a very talented singer, but it works in this song. The lyrical skill that sets him

of the album, according to Spotify, is “Filthy,” a strange combination of different instrumentals that have two effects on the song overall. For one, the background sounds hectic, as though it was not produced by a professional artist.

For another, Timberlake’s vocals are easily overpowered by the intensity of the instruments. The track starts off strong, but the transition abruptly brings us into the starkly different chorus. The dark, electronic beat is coupled with sections of lighter vocals, and are all woven together with sudden transitions. The worst part of this song is the ending, where the vocals crackle off, and are replaced by slightly disturbing howls and a woman’s dialogue.

Next up, “Supplies,” is a sad attempt to feed into pop culture’s enthusiasm for rap music. Although this track is obviously not a rap song, the rhythm of the lyrics and incessant use of the word “girl” give away Timberlake’s purpose for creating this track. The most frustrating part of this song is the clear disconnect between the vocals and the rap-influenced instrumental. His voice is layered heavily, and he sounds too electronic for the bass-boosted background. He then transitions, very poorly, into a ballad that is accompanied by what sounds like a 14th century lute. It felt like one big,

the time or the attention spans to listen to extremely long albums, which is why even industry giants like Kendrick Lamar and JAY-Z created superior albums well under an hour in 2017. With significantly less lyrical depth and musical versatility than Kendrick and JAY-Z, Migos has no business creating an album of such length. Unfortunately, this strips away a main component of the success of “Culture,” which was a higher quality experience in a fraction of the time. Migos

into this one, but it ends up sounding like something that is reminiscent of the background music of a “Spongebob” episode that plays when Spongebob goes jellyfishing with his friends. It is hard for me to tell exactly what the lyrics mean, but we know for certain that he is singing about his relationship with a girl, presumably his wife. “And nobody ever will understand what we do/There’s only one me and you.” This track exhibits the same problems: too layered, poor instrumentals and awkward transitions.

Timberlake lowers his voice greatly and

has always been a group to emphasize quantity over quality in the past and it’s disappointing to see the group decide to create yet another unnecessarily lengthy project.

Another glaring issue with the album is the production quality. According to Migos, there were 18 producers who worked on “Culture II,” a stark contrast to “Culture” the tracks on which were produced by Zaytoven, Metro Boomin’ or Murda Beatz. Because of this, Migos was able to establish a very specific trap sound on “Culture”, while still varying the tracks enough to keep the listener engaged. “Culture II” sounds completely different from track to track, never consistently sticking to Migos’ previously identifiable sound.

Where “Culture” dominated rap headlines for months and was widely considered one of the best hip-hop albums of 2017, “Culture II” lacks sonic variation and is a largely forgettable album. The legacy of this album will always be plagued by its inability to live up to the glory of its predecessor.

Overall, “Culture II” a lot discernible issues. Many of the tracks are forgettable, while a few have a chance to become radio hits.

by Luke Modugno

photo from 88 rising music, empire distribution

A18 the falconer

Meryl Streep is the most nominated performer in solely acting categories with a total of

entertainment

february 15, 2018

, nominations

Information from the Academy, Box Office Mojo, MSN News, Internet Movie Database

are all tied for the most nominations for a single film with 14 Academy Award nominations each in their respective years. photos from international movie database infographic by sumin hwang

tphsfalconer.com

entertainment

the falconer

In former President George Bush’s official portrait, the Texan is displayed in the Oval Office, his hand resting on a chair with a cushion emblazoned with the presidential seal, the Resolute desk visible behind him. Bill Clinton chose to stand in front of an ornate fireplace with a porcelain vase on the mantle.

At the end of every President’s term, the Commander-In-Chief’s portrait is painted, a longstanding tradition started by George Washington, whose portrait depicts him holding a sword with a gold handle. Before television or the internet, the portrait provided one of the few, if not only, visual representations of the nation’s leader. These portraits were orchestrated to display the President in a positive light, given the opportunities to display the President’s stature and leadership. Theodore Roosevelt famously destroyed his original after he felt it threatened his masculinity, and had a new artist remake it.

Today, the widespread access to pictures and information about the President has diminished the authority the portrait has in defining a President’s reputation. Despite that, modern presidents have continued to maintain traditional depictions of power and leadership in their portraits.

On Feb. 12, former President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama unveiled their portraits at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Their portraits, however, were a departure from traditional depictions. They opting for two portraits that embrace their upbringing and African American identity.

The president’s portrait depicts him seated in front of a wall of vibrant green foliage that is encroaching on the 44th President, a few leaves branching onto his chair and over his legs, as if in a few hours he will have been sucked into the plants. Among the leaves are flowers representing various parts of his identity.There is a white jasmine flower from Hawaii where he grew up; blue African lilies representing his father’s Kenyan heritage; violets, the state flower of Illinois; and bright, multicolored chrysanthemums, the official flower of Chicago, the city where Obama’s political career began and where he met Michelle. The former First Lady’s portrait shows her sitting, one hand under her chin, in an overflowing dress with geometric shapes inspired by African American quilt prints from Alabama. Michelle’s skin is an ashy gray, a conscious decision that artist Amy Sherald makes in all her artwork to minimize the influence of race.

Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley, the artists behind the portraits, were selected for their artwork’s thematic elements, ranging from social justice to black culture. While the portraits have received criticism from deviating from precedent, the Obama’s purposefully chose their artists because of their focus on African American experiences.

Wiley’s previous artwork predominantly depicts black men in street wear and sports jerseys with intricate and psychedelic floral backgrounds.

At the Smithsonian’s unveiling ceremony, both artists noted the importance of the opportunity and the influence they hoped the portraits would have.

“This is consequential. This is who we as a society decide who to celebrate. This is our humanity,” Wiley said. “The ability to be the first African American painter to paint the first African American president of the United States is absolutely overwhelming,” Wiley said.

Sherald hopes her portrait of a black women in a position of power inspires future generations.

“They will see an image of someone who looks like them hanging on the walls of this great American institution,” Michelle Obama said of black girls, “And I know the kind of impact that will have on their lives because I was one of those girls.”

Among dozens of almost identical portraits of white men, Barack Obama’s vibrant portrait stands out and defies the norm for presidential paintings. Discussions of potential presidential candidates for the 2020 election include names like Indian and African American senator Kamala Harris, and Cuban Senator Marco Rubio, candidates that might not have been deemed viable before the Obama presidency. It is only fitting then that the former CommanderIn-Chief’s portrait reflects the groundbreaking change brought by the first black president to the U.S. political landscape.

“What you represent to this country is an ideal — a human being with integrity, intellect, confidence and compassion.

And the paintings I create aspire to express these attributes.”

“The ability to picture something bigger than that piece of South Central L.A. — [Barack Obama] saw it, [Obama] did it, thank you.”

Amy Sherald on Michelle Obama

Kehinde Wiley

photos from the new york times

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Falcons crush in 51st straight league win

By Luke Modugno STAFF WRITER

The Falcons (25-2) handily defeated Carlsbad High School (10-15) 73-54 at TPHS on Feb. 9.

The Falcons got off to a slow start as the Lancers got right to the rim on their first possession. This sparked a 3-point barrage from both sides, as sharpshooter Bryce Pope (11) nailed a triple. Carlsbad came right down the floor, found an open shooter off a pick, and nailed another three.

Brandon Angel (10) quickly responded with a 3-pointer of his own, giving the Falcons an early 10-5 advantage.

The Falcons began to struggle on defense, unable to stop Lancer fast breaks.

Although Finn Sullivan (12) took a tough charging foul that ignited the crowd and his teammates, the Lancers ended the first quarter on an 8-0 run.

Heading into the second quarter trailing 1516, Pope took control on offense, knocking down a three and converting on a pull up midrange shot.

However, the Lancers continued to shoot efficiently, k e e p i n g themselves in the game.

As the second quarter rolled on, the Falcons were able to make a run thanks to Angel and Michael Pope (11). Michael Pope found an open lane to the hoop, giving the Falcons an easy layup, while Angel continued to knock down threes. Then, after a Falcon miss from the three-point line, Sullivan attempted a put back dunk, but narrowly missed. Bryce Pope continued to help out his team as he boxed out the Lancers for a rebound and converted an and-one opportunity. The Falcons went into halftime up 33-29 over Carlsbad.

The Falcons picked up right where they left off on the offense once the second half started. A pair of Bryce Pope threes and a driving layup by Sullivan gave the Falcons a 39-31 edge, their biggest lead of the night.

The Lancers seemed unable to stop the Falcons from getting to the line, as Michael Pope and Sullivan were able to get fouled on back-to-back possessions.

Afterward, The Falcon offense really kicked into gear, as both Bryce Pope and Ryan Brown (12) found driving lanes straight to the rim for easy layins. Ending the third quarter on an 18-8 run, the Falcons were feeling relatively comfortable heading into the fourth.

Leading the Lancers 51-37, Angel continued his hot shooting night with yet another 3-pointer and the Falcon defense began to tighten up, allowing only 10 points for the rest of the quarter.

The staunch defense was devastating for the Lancers, as the Falcons continued production on the offensive end.

Bryce Pope got another midrange jumper to fall, while Angel played solid defense and came up with a steal, igniting a Falcon fast break and an easy Bryce Pope layup.

The onslaught on offense didn’t stop, as Angel set as Michael Pope hit Sullivan on a huge alley-oop jam. The student section went wild, shifting the momentum in the Falcons’ favor.

“Yeah, I think it was able to shift momentum. I think it was one of the plays that got us back into the zone after the Senior Night celebration before the game,” Sullivan said.

With just 1:38 left to play and a healthy 18-point lead, Coach John Olive subbed in all seniors who hadn’t been in the game.

We are able to be so consistent in our league because Coach Olive knows how to teach so well and develop new offenses for the new types of teams he is given each year.

Bryce Pope guard

One of the five seniors was Team Manager Ben Marks (12). Clearly a student section favorite, the team got the ball in his hands as much as possible. Off a Carlsbad miss, Marks secured the ball and brought it up the floor as the point guard.

He sized up his defender, and released a series of shifty crossovers and behind the back dribbles, before pulling up for a deep, contested three. The ball swished through the net, prompting a wild celebration from the student section. “MVP,” chants broke out when Marks took his place at the free throw line after getting fouled.

As time expired, the Falcons took the win on a final score of 73-54. The victory marked the 51st win in succession for the Falcons in league play, spanning across three different seasons.

“We are able to be so consistent in our league because Coach Olive knows how to teach so well and develop new offenses for the new types of teams he is given each year,” Sullivan said.

The Falcons played Sage Creek High School Wednesday after the Falconer went to press and will hit the road to take on La Costa Canyon High School tomorrow.

photos by hayoung park/falconer

from downtown: Ben Marks (31) crosses over a defender before draining a deep three. He had four points (TOP).

Kevin Kampfer tightly defends a Lancer (MIDDLE). Finn Sullivan (5) hangs on the rim after attempting a dunk. Although Sullivan was unsuccessful on this try, he did dunk later in the game (Above).

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tphsfalconer.com

DAY IN THE

LIFE

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After nine years of practicing ice hockey in sunny San Diego, Jack Rogaski (11) looks to continue his pursuits in college, with the support of his hockey-oriented family.

It’s tradition for the Rogaski family to sit down for dinner together and then go their separate ways to their respective ice hockey practices. To Jack Rogaski (11), and his brothers Luke (9) and Hank, family dinners are, of course, for talking about schedules and work days, but more importantly, for discussing ice hockey.

A family sport, ice hockey came into Jack’s life through his cousin Teddy Rosser, whose family encouraged the Rogaskis to look into the sport.

“My older cousin played it; his family told us about it and we went out and tried it,” Rogoski said. “We started doing learn-to-play stuff and then just found we loved it.”

By the age of 10, Rogaski had won his first tournament.

“It was a Christmas tournament. The first game I won went into overtime, and we won 3-2.

I was playing for some tournament team that was just thrown together, but that was my first [game].”

Jack’s hockey career began with his Jack Rogaski participation in in-house student and recreational leagues, playing offensive and defensive positions on teams. When he was old enough to fully understand ice hockey, Jack committed to defense because it offered him more playing time.

Currently, Jack plays for the La Jolla Country Day High School Torreys, but he started out playing for local San Diego teams like the San Diego Jr. Gulls and the San Diego Oilers. Luke plays in a local recreational league, and Hank played for the Gulls, while attending Earl Warren Middle School as a seventh grader.

TPHS does not have an ice hockey team, so CIF rules allow Jack and teammates Jake Goldberg (12) and Carter Chaison (10) to play for La JOlla Country Day. The boys aren’t the only family members who are hockey-heavy.

Mom Pamela Rogaski playing recreational roller hockey and father Michael Rogaski plays ice hockey with his sons.

Despite a busy schedule, the Rogaskis help each other prepare and be ready before their games, even if it is just providing the right kind of food.

“I would say if it’s an early morning game I’ll eat a nice bowl of cereal, but if it’s later in the day, some kind of pasta or maybe some chicken,” Jack said.

Other than food, Jack gets ready for his games by taking an extra minute in the locker room to listen to his pre-game playlist of rock and rap.

As a family of hockey players, the Rogaskis spend time together at the gym twice a week, and Jack and Michael work on their upper body strength and legs to stay in shape. Jack used to play soccer as part of his training regimen, but stopped so that he would be able to clock more hours at the gym.

Jack uses the strength he spends so much time maintaining to his advantage in the rink. Once, he pushed it too far, spending 16 minutes in the penalty box after receiving a head contact penalty and a few tripping penalties within one quarter.

“At first I was kind of [scared of checking],” Jack said. “I’ve always been one of the taller kids growing up, so at first, I was nervous, but then once I realized I’m bigger than everyone else, I got into it a lot more.”

While Jack has found a passion for ice hockey alongside the rest of the Rogaskis, his successful hockey career has not come without a price. “[The biggest challenge] is time management,” Jack said. “We do have three practices and a game each week, all while I’m trying to find time to do homework and classwork.”

Despite his interest in continuing to play ice hockey, Jack isn’t actively looking to commit to a college for ice hockey, but if it helps him get in, then he’ll play for his future college team. But at the moment, his plan is to play on a rec or club team after his high school playing days are over.

Dinners are important to the Rogaskis; it’s not only their time to talk hockey together, but also when they support each other through their hockey endeavors. Jack picks up his jersey, with 58 emblazoned on the back – it’s no mistake that it’s the same number as Jack’s No. 1 hockey idol, Chris Letang, who plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins – and heads out the door for another practice.

by Estelle Kraft

My older cousin played it, his family told us about it and we went out and [tried it], we started doing learnto-play stuff and then just found to love it.

photo by david vapnek/falconer

A22 the falconer

Cheer wins 2nd in competition

By Sammy Hallal OPINION EDITOR On Jan. 13, the TPHS competition cheer team placed second in a regional competition at Tustin Union High School.

TPHS Cheer competed against the six other teams in their division, varsity show cheer intermediate (lg/super). They went up against schools like Temescal Canyon High School, La Costa Canyon High School, Valencia High School and Steele Canyon High School. The team prepared their routine for multiple weeks before competing.

“We hired an outside choreographer to work on our routine and we practiced every day during our seventh period Cheer P.E.,” head cheer coach and advisor, Suzy Chodorow, said. “We also had some outside practices at Cali Coast Gym in San Diego.”

Prior to the competition, the team met at TUHS to practice the routine before it was their turn to compete. “[Warming up] was pretty hard work and it felt like forever,” Kirsten Loedel (12) said. “As we got closer to competition time, we gathered in the warm up room where you get one chance to run through your routine on mats before you compete…

Right before we went on, the seniors gave a pep talk and got everyone ready to get out there.”

Practicing both at school and downtown, the team had “been working nonstop” to prepare. According to Amanda Yen (11), the “week leading up to the competition was stressful” due to several last-minute changes to their routine.

Since the start of the competition season, the team has had multiple injuries that forced them to reset formations, counts and stunt formations.

“We practiced the routine one last time and it wasn’t perfect, but this was our first competition of the season, so we knew that we would have time to work on this and improve our routine for the later competitions,” Loedel said.

Despite the complications the team encountered, they still managed to place in second place and hope to continue to perform well in their future competitions.

“When they announced our name we all sprinted out onto the floor and got into our positions,” Loedel said. “We gave it all we had for the couple minutes that we competed with our loudest voices and sharpest motions... Our strength in this competition was our energy and loud voices. We got the crowd excited. We also hit our jumps well. Everyone hit them at the same time with sharp motions. We looked powerful and unified.”

After performing the routine and learning that they placed in second, the team was “relieved” since they now knew what to expect in their upcoming competitions.

“I truly hope our team can just stay healthy with no more injuries,” Chodorow said. “We have a solid routine now and with continued practice and dedication, the girls can do amazingly well! We have a Showcase at Downey High School. It’s not a competition, but an avenue for school’s to showcase their routine and have judges give critiques. Our last competition will be at USA Nationals in Anaheim.”

TPHS Cheer qualified for USA Spirit Nationals at their previous competitions in January. Teams can qualify for the contest by recieving 75 percent of the total possible points at any USA qualifying event.

“Before Nationals, we hope to work on our stunting sequence and add back in the more difficult skills that we took out of our routine for the first competition, Loedel said. “We also want to add more tumbling because that gives you a higher score since a certain number of people per team are supposed to tumble in order to get maximum points.

Going forward, the team hopes to continue putting on a “clean routine.” On Feb. 17 they have a showcase at Downey High School and will compete at the USA Spirit Nationals from Feb. 23 to 25 in Anaheim, CA.

sports

february 15, 2018

Macario is espnW’s Player of the Year

By Graham Rice STAFF WRITER TPHS alumna and Stanford soccer star, Catarina Macario (‘17), earned ESPN’s National Soccer Player of the Year due to her nation-leading “point total.”

Macario’s 16 assists and 17 goals (goals count as two points in the point total) place her point total of 50 at 4th on Stanford’s all-time list, behind Olympic gold medalists and FIFA World Cup champions, Christen Press and Kelley O’Hara.

Dominance in scoring and setting up her teammates on offense, helped Stanford reach a program record of 91 goals and a 23-1 regular season record. Macario also qualified as one of 15 MAC Hermann Trophy semifinalists, awarded to the top soccer player in the nation. Despite losing the award to her senior teammate, Andi Sullivan, Macario earned the Freshman of the Year honor from TopDrawerSoccer, along with a position on the first team of TopDrawerSoccer’s Best XI. Following a goal in Stanford’s first game against Marquette University, the only game Macario didn’t start, she went on to record 9 points in her first three starting games. Macario earned back to back “Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week” honors for the weeks of October 24 and October 31, and was awarded “PAC-12 Freshman of the Year.” Macario carried her impressive freshman year performance into the NCAA tournament, totaling 12 points in the six tournament games with two assists in 3-2 National Title win over UCLA. Since moving from São Paulo, Brazil to San Diego in early 2012, Macario has

photo courtesy of david bernal

going for goal: Caterina Macario (‘17) takes a shot from the penalty spot and scores. The goal was one of Macario’s 17 goals this year and helped her win ESPN Women’s POTY and Pac-12 Freshman of the year (ABOVE). consistently dominated her competition.

Her success at TPHS includes breaking the high school record for goals scored in a single season with 34 in 23 games, earning a spot on the All-CIF First Team, all while being member of the San Diego Surf Soccer Club from 2012-2017.

Early success in both CIF league play and Elite Clubs National League with San Diego Surf earned attention from many schools and a commitment to the University of California-Berkeley before

her senior-year-decision to commit to Stanford. Her change proved successful as she joined Stanford’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class as the number three player in the nation.

Despite her top-tier talent, Macario is not eligible for the United States Women’s National team until 2020 due to U.S. citizenship requirements. However, Macario and the rest of the Stanford Cardinals are poised to bring another national title to Stanford.

Girls Basketball tops Lancers 59-49

By Vlada Demenko and Kahyun Koh STAFF WRITER AND FEATURE EDITOR The girls basketball team (15-9) dominated Carlsbad High School (14-7) on Feb. 9th with a final score of 59-49.

TPHS began with the first layup of the game, which was immediately answered by the Lancers with a layup of their own.

Despite that, the Falcons pulled ahead by making a three-pointer and creating a strong lead over the Lancers after Rachel Shen (12) scored three three-pointers during the quarter. Overall, TPHS clearly played the first quarter with high energy in both offense and defense.

“Our strengths were that in the beginning we started off strong. We had good control of the ball and hustled well.

We were playing together really well.”

Cami Kangleon (10) said.

Beginning with a 23-11 lead, the Falcons played tough to begin the second quarter but CHS played tougher. Tough defense from the Wildcats forced hard shots for the Falcons. Despite this hard defense, the Falcons managed 14 points after a lot of intense altercations for the ball. By halftime, the Falcons remained comfortably ahead.

“Our strengths were our passing the ball and taking good shots and weaknesses were fouling too much.” Rory Hetrick (9) said. “We’re working on our shots and making good layups.”

The third quarter was very successful as the Falcons scored 20 points against the Lancers. Although TPHS scorede well, their energy began dwindling just as CHS began to swat or pick the ball away from them. Both teams were continually stealing from each other, but the Lancers were especially aggressive in their attempt to overtake the Falcons tough lead of 17 points. Through this intense effort they begin to catch up and get closer to passing the Falcons, but thanks to the initial energy and lead TPHS had, it made it hard to surpass to victory.

“I mean we certainly started off really well, but we either ran out of gas or lost a

lot of energy on the fourth quarter because they made it a lot closer than we wanted or even expected. We were separated by a twenty-something gap and they closed in on us by an impressive ten,” Coach Dave McClurg said.

The final quarter was by far the weakest quarter the Falcons experienced in the game, only scoring an insignificant two points from a late layup. All of the power the girls possessed in the very beginning during the first two quarters seemed to have ran out as they continually missed shots and the Lancers gained ground on them by becoming extremely threatening in their offense, making a total of 15 points in a final attempt to up their energy and eliminate the Falcons’ lead.

The Lancers earned multiple rebounds and even more layups to the dismay of a drained TPHS team. Regardless of their ending strength, it was too little, too late as the Falcons escaped 59-49.

“I would have to say we out-hustled everyone on this court,” Kaiya Dehaan (10) said. “Overall, I would say that it was a very good win and we rebounded decently.”

Dehann said the team can work on communication and organization, but overall, put forward a “solid effort on the court, breaking a lot of sweat.”

The Falcons play La Costa Canyon High School at LCC on Friday at 5:30 p.m.

photos by david vapnek/falconer

points in the paint: Beryl Davis (10) drives down an open lane, hoping to beat her defender to the rim. Davis and the Falcons put 20 points on the scoreboard during the third quarter (TOP).

Maddie McClurg (2) gets as close to the basket as possible before choosing to shoot a “floater” over a Lancer. Ball control and a great hustle allowed the Falcons to lead early (ABOVE).

tphsfalconer.com

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rachel shen varsity girls basketball february 9 6:41:49

camera: nikon d610 lens: nikon 24-88mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR iso: 8000 exp: 1/800 seconds f/stop: by david vapnek

the falconer

A23

Thursday, February 15, 2018

All the news that’s sh*t to print

Ask Grenadine Help! My dad had an affair with my best friend, so now my parents are divorcing. That means my brother and I will have to leave Rancho Santa Fe and live with my mom in Carmel Valley, like some upper middle class losers. How can I find a rich sugar daddy to support and protect me from having to see Honda Odysseys?

Dear Jaxyenne, Before I give you any advice, let me first say that you better have turned your read receipts on when she was texting you begging for forgiveness. A real best friend would’ve gone for your brother, not your dad. As far as sugar daddies go, you might want to weigh your options before asking a complete stranger for his credit card.

What I would first try is going on Rate My Teachers and seeing who at your school has the most star power.

Make sure to read the comments; you’re not looking for a good teacher, just someone who has been there long

enough to have a benefits contract and bonus.

If you have no luck, Rate My Professors is a good option if you’re in search of someone who’s easy on the eyes, but won’t go easy on the spending. A chili pepper next to their name means you’ll be dipping your spoon in the chili pot soon enough, and be back to bourgeosie before you know it!

If all else fails, remember that your ex-best friend’s dad is up for grabs and probably lives in the “poor part” of Fairbanks ... an eye for an eye, right?

Love and luxury, Grenadine

ADVERTISEMENT FROM ALLY JENSEN

“Fish trees” maintained by staff out of disdain for student body Before you read this story, I urge you to embark on a walk to the gym.

Take a deep breath. Can’t quite place your finger on that smell? Guess what?

It’s fish!

TPHS staff members were spotted carefully watering the smelly white trees, or the ornamental pear trees, on campus.

“Every year I see a freshman pass out walking by the gym from their scent,” the anonymous teacher said while giggling. “I still have three years before I can get a full pension, and these trees make the time pass by faster.”

Students are offended by the smell and wish the TPHS administration would remove the trees, but the chances of them being removed seem slim.

“Like honestly, the trees smell the way my SAT score would look if my tutor didn’t take it for me,” Ashleigh Leighye (11) said. “Luckily for me, I

don’t smell too much of them. This nose is mostly decorative. Thank God for plastic surgery!”

Despite widespread unpopularity, the TPHS administration is unlikely to remove the trees.

“We would remove the trees if we had the money,” TPHS administrator Ahyll Khwuitt Inayeer said. “However, admin believes that our funds would be best spent on an exclusive, staffonly underground smoking lounge.”

On the contrary, administrators actually believe that the trees are beneficial, forcing kids to go to class early and decreasing tardiness.

“We believe that getting to class on time is in our students best interests,” Inayeer said. “By exposing our students to the fish smell we are simply teaching them a lesson about abstinence.”

Fun fact: If you google “fish trees” a picture of the ornamental pear tree comes up.

Semen-ly beautiful, up close these monsters have the power to impregnate an entire flock of Falcons #CHAOS #whiteout

Teacher finds O pen on the ground in the student parking lot, tries to write with it Student blasting Culture II in parking lot in G-Wagon sues over car getting egged

PHOTO

BY ROBBIEGY PHOTO FROM BILLBOARDJOHNSON/FAL-

The Perfect Crime: Students pull Shawshanklevel stunt to escape hotboxed bathroom

Grunion Exclusive: Formal party bus spotted actually entering the Formal venue Student calls friends out on Snapchat after receiving only 10 Valentine’s Day Grams

PHOTO FROM BLACK DIAMOND LIMO PARTY BUS OKC

This page is entirely fictional. by the Falconer staff