November 2015 • Estd. 1892 • Vol. 123 #8 • Published Monthly • www.ihstattler.com Ithaca High School, 1401 North Cayuga Street, Ithaca, NY 14850 • FREE
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
BONAN TAGON: ESPERANTO FEATURE page 9
Teachers Want Higher Pay Amidst Contract Negotiations By JOHN YOON Since October, students and staff at IHS have been greeted by blue, letter-sized signs posted around school that exclaim in a grimly mocking tone, “Welcome to Ithaca High School, home of some of New York State’s lowest paid teachers.” The signs state that ICSD teacher compensations rank 579th out of 667 school districts in New York State. According to the SeeThroughNY database, the median salary for teachers in ICSD is $51,217. The poster indicates that 30 teachers resigned from the district last year to take positions at other districts that pay higher wages, and add that ICSD teachers earn significantly less than those at Groton, Horseheads, TST BOCES, Auburn, Watkins Glen, Cortland, Lansing, Whitney Point, Trumansburg and Union Springs, citing public statistics. Since the Ithaca Teachers Association (ITA) contract’s expiration date, June 30, 2015, the terms and conditions from the previous agreement, signed July 2012, are in effect until a new settlement is reached. Eventually, once an agreement is reached between the representatives of each party, members of the union will vote the proposed contract. Negotiations between the ITA and Superintendent Luvelle Brown had begun even before the expiration date, but end date for the negotiations is still unknown. “The Ithaca Teachers Association and CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
THE MARTIAN:
NBA
page 17
page 20
MOVIE REVIEW
PREVIEW
Student Athletes and Drug Abuse at IHS By LUCA GREENSPUN and ABE MESSING, Staff Writer
Like many other high-school athletes, athletes at IHS are exposed to many illegal substances. While the consumption of such substances is strictly forbidden, many students still partake regularly in recreational drug and alcohol use. Through a poll, it was found that more athletes than one would think are active or past users. Out of a random sample of 83 athletes, 34 admitted to having done drugs or alcohol within their respective seasons. Some individuals came forward admitting that they had even experimented with hard drugs; drugs such as cocaine, LSD, molly, ecstasy, and acid were all mentioned. The most common drug used was marijuana, with 34 active users in the past three months. Every student that had done a more severe drug than marijuana as well as alcohol had also done marijuana. Listed below are some of the more interesting responses that were given, as well as a table providing the poll’s results: Q: “When was the last time you smoked marijuana or drank alcohol?” A: “I smoked weed with my friends yesterday.” Q: “When was the last time you smoked marijuana or drank alcohol?” A: “I smoke weed regularly.” Q: “What are all the drugs you have done in your lifetime?” A: “Let me think ... molly, cocaine, PCP, LSD, ecstasy, and weed.” (this particular individual accounts for much of the hard drug use shown in the poll) Drug
Marijuana
Marijuana and cocaine
Marijuana and molly
Marijuana and LSD
Marijuana and ecstasy
None
# of Users
34
3
1
1
1
49
While these staggering results obviously point to a high level of substance abuse amongst student athletes, there are also more in-depth questions to be raised. For one, do student athletes use drugs more or less than regular students? CONTINUED ON PAGE 26
OPINION
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THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
Editorial
Split Decision:
Should the School Deal with Student Mental Illness and Substance Abuse? Mental illness and substance abuse can scar any youth for the rest of their lives, and among IHS students, the issue appears to be real and common. Meanwhile, psychologists and social workers at IHS seem to be primarily aimed at serving a specific group of students who are mandated to receive the services on a regular basis. Therefore, students in crises are often left unnoticed. The Tattler editorial board attempted to address the issue but failed to reach an agreement. Should the IHS administration take a more assertive role in dealing with mental illness and substance abuse for the entire student body?
Staff 2015 – 2016 Editor-in-Chief
John Yoon ’16 editor@ihstattler.com
News Editor
Pearse Anderson ’16 news@ihstattler.com
Opinion Editor
Liz Rosen ’16 opinion@ihstattler.com
Features Editor
James Park ’17 features@ihstattler.com
Arts and Entertainment Editor
Emma Karnes ’17 arts@ihstattler.com
Yes.
No.
Signed, Liz Rosen, Emma Karnes, Claire Saloff-Coste, Luca Greenspun, Bridget Fetsko, Annika Browning, Emma Roach, and Pearse Anderson
Signed, Daniel Xu, James Park, John Yoon, Tristan Engst, Elen Uchigasaki, Kenzo Uchigasaki, and James Yoon
Mental health problems and illegal substance use among IHS students are real and common. Although statistics for IHS’s rate of mental illness are not available, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) says that 20 percent of youths aged 13–18 live with a mental health condition. NIMH also says that the average delay between the onset of symptoms and intervention is eight to ten years, a length of time that cannot be explained or excused by the ambiguity of mental-illness diagnoses performed on minors. The delay between when mental-health issues arise and when they are dealt with is completely unacceptable. Existing programs at IHS that are meant to address these issues are ineffective and simply not enough is done at this school about mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, drug abuse, and other life-altering difficulties. The school should pursue more aggressive programs to deal with these mental health and drug abuse issues. Teachers and coaches are well-placed to intervene for the benefit of students grappling with mental health and should be trained in doing so effectively. According to the school’s directory, IHS has three nurses, two social workers, and one psychologist. None of these health professionals regularly come in contact with students and it would therefore be unreasonable to expect them to take responsibility for noticing the changes in
Sports Editor
Luca Greenspun ’17
It is easy to note the proliferation of mental health issues and drug abuse by high-school students and turn to teachers and educators for help. After all, students who are suffering from such problems spend much of their time in school, and when their personal issues are left unchecked by their parents, shouldn’t it be the responsibility of teachers—whom students see multiple times every week—to come to their aid? But things are not quite so simple. Yes, student drug use in high school is alarmingly high, but to immediately place the burden of solving the problem on teachers makes little sense in the context of the high school environment. Friends, teachers, and coaches alone are not as well-equipped as professionals who can methodically identify larger-scale environmental contexts where behavioral issues arise, which is necessary for prevention of these issues. What effects would the introduction of psychological counseling and recognition of issues in the field of pedagogy bring to the classroom? Only a dilution of the foremost goals enshrined in teacherhood. No mathematics, science, history, or fine arts educators receive any semblance of benefit within the bounds of their respective curricula in being able to recognize when students have personal issues—there are jobs for people who wish to help students in that way, such as social worker or psychologist. School is first and foremost a place for learning, not a menCONTINUED ON PAGE 5
sports@ihstattler.com
Back Page Editor
Claire Saloff-Coste ’16 backpage@ihstattler.com
Center Spread Editor
James Yoon ’17
centerspread@ihstattler.com
Copy Editor
Daniel Xu ’17 copy@ihstattler.com
Photography Editor
Bridget Fetsko ’16 photo@ihstattler.com
Layout Editors
Kenzo Uchigasaki ’16 Elen Uchigasaki ’18 layout@ihstattler.com
Business and Advertising Manager
Andrew Stover ’17 business@ihstattler.com
Webmaster
Tristan Engst ’17 web@ihstattler.com
Distribution Manager
Emma Roach ’16
distribution@ihstattler.com
Social Media Manager
Annika Browning ’17 sm@ihstattler.com
Faculty Advisor
Deborah Lynn advisor@ihstattler.com The Tattler is the student-run newspaper of Ithaca High School. It was founded in 1892 and is published monthly. As an open forum, the Tattler invites opinion piece submissions and letters to the editor from all community members. Drop off submissions in E25, email them to editor@ihstattler.com, or mail letters to: The Tattler 1401 North Cayuga Street Ithaca, NY 14850 The Tattler reserves the right to edit all submissions. Submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of editorial staff.
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THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
NEWS
Teachers and BoE Updates Community Collaborate By LISA YOO to Help Students Find Jobs By JOHN YOON JOHN YOON
Ryan Notarpole, from Challenge Industries, teaches career skills to Secondary Transition Program students. The program primarily helps students learn practical skills that can transfer into employment.
Far removed from most classrooms, in a quiet corner of D-building, a team of passionate teachers and members from the community helps a group of 10 eager students reach the critical milestone of graduating and transitioning into productive adulthoods. In its sixth year of running, the Secondary Transition Program has supported students with special needs. Two teachers, Ms. Karen Kiechle and Mr. Nick Pemberton, teach these students standard subjects like English, Global History, Math, and Science, along with social skills and practical life skills that can be transferred into real careers like farm work and gardening. They are helped by teaching assistants and aides who support the daily needs of these students. “It just used to be a life skills classroom,” Kiechle said. “Now, they learn something they can utilize in real life and be productive citizens.” The program has brought students back from BOCES to home districts, which has helped save money and include more kids in their communities. Recently, teachers Mr. Scott Breigle and Mr. Robert Tuori collaborated with the program on building the High Tunnel. Secondary Transition Program students are planting spinach, garlic, and tulip bulbs to sell in the spring to make money to put back into the program, teacher aide Ms. Rae Williams said. Helping hands are also coming from outside of IHS. Jobs skills teacher Ryan Notarpole comes in two days a week from Challenge Industries, a non-profit, community-based agency that helps people get jobs. Thanks to Notarpole, several students have already been able to get jobs. The program has linked students with housing, Medicaid, and leisure activities, along with work at dishrooms at Ithaca College and Cornell, custodial work in the community, landscaping, and a farm club where students participate in growing, packaging, and selling produce in the summer. The Cornell Cooperative Extension has offered a CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
Welcome to the new Board of Education (BoE) column! In this column, student board reps will be sharing with you all the current news from the latest BoE meetings. This school year’s student representatives to the board are Abia Smith ’16, Max Fink ’17, James Whitehead ’16, and Lisa Yoo ’17. We represent IHS at biweekly BoE meetings, informing the board members about what is happening at the high school. We also get to see and hear issues that are brought up and discussed with the community at these meetings. For the past several weeks, we have had a plethora of happenings at IHS to report to the board. These include club recruiting, Link Crew welcoming freshmen to IHS, Open House for high-school families, and fall sports. We also spent time encouraging board members to come to games and talked about homecoming week, from spirit week to the pep rally to the homecoming dance. We don’t just talk at these board meetings—we open our ears to matters the board discusses that influence the whole community. One of the most important topics brought up has been the district’s independent audit, which assesses how it has been doing financially in the last year. ICSD’s revenue and expenditure are evaluated: if revenue is greater than expenditure, that means there is leftover money, but if expenditure exceeds revenue, that means there must be a loss of money from the fund. In the past couple of years, expenditure has exceeded revenue, partially because of the plateauing of the state budget but also in part due to ICSD’s high ambitions and personal goals. Another topic is the Athletic Placement Policy (APP), a state policy that requires middle-school students to pass certain tests in order to participate in high-school level sports The APP includes not only tests of athletic ability, but also ones for physical maturity and size which are seen as unreasonable in the eyes of many. In fact, many parents have come to the BoE to express complaints with the current state of the APP. One of the tests gives the evaluated student a Tanner score from 1 to 5, which rates physical capability (height, weight, strength/endurance, stage of puberty). Under current policy, any given student needs a Tanner score of four in order to play up. The BoE agreed that such policies were unfair, and decided to bend the limits as far as possible with compromise: under the tweaked district policy, students wishing to play up JV sports can be judged on a JV–freshman Tanner test, while a varsity Tanner score only applies to students applying for varsity sports. The new requirements stipulated for noncontact and contact sports make it easier for middle-schoolers to play up in sports that don’t necessarily require kids to meet a physical size limit. We encourage you all to participate by sending in suggestions for what to talk to the BoE about at meetings, as well as to attend meetings yourselves. Board meetings are brightened by the board members’ dry humor and snappy comments. If you can’t come to the meetings, they are livestreamed on TV, and archived videos of past meetings can be found on YouTube.
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NEWS
ICSD TEACHERS WORK WITHOUT CONTRACT CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1.
the District have been bargaining very collaboratively,” Brown said, “but ultimately were unable to reach a final agreement to take back to the members for their vote.” The ITA and the district jointly filed for an impasse in October, which has allowed a third-party mediator to give assistance in bringing the parties to resolution. Historically, Piasecki said, there have been many times when certain employee groups have had to operate under an expired contract at ICSD. Some have taken short periods of time, and others, several years before a settlement was reached. Currently, all five bargaining agreements affiliated with ICSD are currently expired, according to the bargaining agreements posted on the district website. These include contracts between the superintendent and the Education Support Professionals, which expired June 2014; the Ithaca Principals and Directors Association, which expired June 2013; the ICSD Employees Association, which expired June 2012; the Ithaca Substitutes’ Association, which expired June 2013; and the ITA. “The Employees Association union and the district both knew that their contract negotiations would go well beyond the targeted negotiation date for a new contract,” Brown said in an email. “Both sides are working very collaboratively to bring a new contract.” He added that the Ithaca Substitute Association and the Education Support Professionals are close to resolving their collective bargaining as well. “Updating contracts is a good thing for both the employer and the employees as things change over time and language becomes outdated,” ITA President Adam Piasecki said. “Often, new laws and regulations are made by the state or result from court rulings, and therefore need to be incorporated into contracts.” Several areas will be updated through the collective bargaining process, such as curriculum, assessments, professional development, job postings, transfers, maternity and other leaves, health and safety, substitutes, and professional development. Nonetheless, it has often taken longer to reach an agreement on certain topics, he added. The hottest of these topics for the current teachers union negotiation is compensation. The issue of low teacher salaries has generated the most distress. “The situation with teachers’ salaries hasn’t changed since those articles were written,” Piasecki said, referring to articles written in April and May 2014 in The Tattler about teacher salaries. “In fact, it has gotten worse.” One IHS teacher said that ICSD teachers’ salary increases have been lower than the inflation rate and their growing insurance bills. Under the current contract’s terms, he said, teachers have earned progressively less over time. Due to various restrictions in the district’s budget, the state’s aid formula, taxes and other sources of revenue, teacher compensation has not risen to catch up with inflation and rising insurance costs. Another teacher was concerned about how the district hired multiple administrators in newly created positions while teachers still earn less than half as much as each of them. Working year-round, as opposed to about ten months as teachers do, central administrators earn nearly three times as much as teachers. In the ICSD Executive Team, each member earns $134,774 annually. Principal Jason Trumble earns $137,470 and Superintendent Brown, $185,711, according to the New York State Education Department website. “I would be better off finding a new job,” another teacher
THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
said, citing that his salary is in the fifth percentile among teachers in the state who have taught for as many years as he has. Still, what keeps him at IHS despite the low salary is the other great teachers with whom he collaborates, as well as the highly motivated students he gets to teach. Both Piasecki and Brown said they could not publicly comment their opinion on teacher salaries until mediations end. But responding to the outcry, Brown said in an email that the union members ultimately voted to accept the current terms and conditions their negotiation team bargained for. “Sometimes, unions accept smaller increases in salaries with an understanding of an employer’s financial status,” he said. “But in all instances, nothing is in a contract that is not voted on by the members of the union.” Though in a community based on education, Piasecki said, the situation is “very alarming.” He said that teachers must be treated with respect, including how teachers have a say in their teaching and in their classroom along with being paid a professional and competitive wage. “When teacher turnover is high and morale is low, I think many community members see that as a concern and would like to see it addressed.” TEACHERS AND COMMUNITY COLLABORATE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3.
gardening curriculum for these students. The Ithaca Youth Bureau and Challenge industries have also helped place students in jobs in the summer. For all youth, graduating from high school represents a critical personal and educational milestone. Finishing high school provides undeniable economic advantages in the form of steady employment and higher wages. To graduate, students in the Secondary Transition Program must meet a separate set of learning standards. Primarily, teachers adhere to the New York State Career Development and Occupational Studies standards, which requires students to learn about the workplace, academic subjects, interpersonal skills, technology skills, managing information and resources, and systems skills. As everyone else, these students are also subject to a separate testing program called the New York State Alternate Assessment, which are administered in their 18th year or last year of school. Once they meet all the standards, they receive a Skills and Achievement Commencement Credential, which is not considered a regular high-school diploma but indicates that the students have met the alternate academic achievement standards. To help its students meet these standards, the Secondary Transition Program employs a unique learning system created by TST BOCES. The curriculum is designed to be appropriate for students’ cognitive skills and includes a strong life skills program, Kiechle said. While the Secondary Transition Program aims mainly to prepare its students for their life after school, it is also a place where its students feel welcomed. “People can, very rudely, not see these students as viable and important in our school community,” she said. Williams said that the students are sometimes bullied or ignored. “They’re sensitive students,” she added, recalling that the students have had to leave the cafeteria in the middle of eating their lunches because of the profanity and loud swearing. To the teachers, treating these kids with kindness and respect is of utmost importance. “They’re just like everybody else. They just want to learn and they just want to be included in something that’s bigger than themselves,” Williams said.
THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
NEWS
SPLIT DECISION: SHOULD THE SCHOOL DEAL WITH STUDENT MENTAL ILLNESS AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE? YES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2.
disposition associated with the onset of mental illness. Teachers and coaches, on the other hand, see students almost every day and can come to be closely acquainted with each student, to the point that they are better-placed than our school’s health professionals to notice the symptoms of mental illness. Some may question why it should be the place of teachers and coaches to intervene in the personal affairs of students, rather than parents. The simple fact of the matter is that some teenagers are uncomfortable sharing with their parents and may go out of their way to obscure the truth. Instead, students often share their struggles with their friends, who do not know how to help and can sometimes do more harm than good when they advise from a place of ignorance. Obviously, it would be better if students felt like they could go to their parents, but they cannot be allowed to suffer alone until such a time. Suicide is the third leading cause of death in youths aged 10–24 (NIMH); even non-suicidal self-injury occurs at a rate of 8 percent in youths aged 7–16, according to a 2012 study by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Given these statistics, inaction is impermissible. It should be the school’s responsibility to provide teachers with the tools to help. As was mentioned previously, well-intentioned intervention can be more dangerous if it is based in ignorance or executed poorly. Every few years, training should be provided in recognizing the symptoms of mental illness. This training should also include an open workshop in which coaches and teachers are taught how to tactfully reach out to students and counsel them to seek professional help and open up to their families. Just having six additional trained and sympathetic people checking up on students when they see them in class every day can help symptoms of mental illness be caught early. With such a system in place, students will not have to struggle alone for so long before receiving help. When two people interact 45 minutes a day, five days a week, 40 weeks a year, as teachers and students do, it is impossible not to form a bond, and coaches meet with students for even longer periods. Any teacher should want to help someone they think is suffering. Even if all a teacher wants is to impersonally convey information, the teacher must recognize that a student cannot learn well while simultaneously dealing with serious health issues alone. Therefore, to do their job well, the teacher should respond to the moral imperative to help as best they can. Simply put, IHS is currently ill-equipped to fully support the mental health needs of its students. The connection between educators and students should be embraced and put to use. Teachers and coaches should receive the training they need to responsibly fulfill the moral obligation to help students struggling with mental health. Involving everyone in the school community and fostering a kind and embracing environment throughout the school is crucial. It is the community’s attitudes that are most influential to the ways students express their own emotional problems and psychological distress and whether they disclose these symptoms and seek care. Putting such a program in place would be a great step towards supporting all aspects of health at IHS.
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SPLIT DECISION: SHOULD THE SCHOOL DEAL WITH STUDENT MENTAL ILLNESS AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE? NO CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2.
tal health clinic. Any training teachers receive should maximize their ability to teach effectively. Promoting the training of teachers in recognizing students who are suffering from personal issues related to drugs and/or mental health is an inefficient use of time and financial resources when the matter it relates to should be completely separate from education in the first place. If anything, such training pushes the burden of responsibility past a critical point for teachers, who are already struggling to keep up with the tasks of preparing teaching material and grading papers, not to mention painfully long working hours and often low pay. Forcing them to think about which students may be doing marijuana, or if the student in the corner who always wears long sleeves may be self-harming, could be an exhausting component for those who just want to teach and do it properly; as a result, not only the teacher but potentially the entire class suffers. The mission to reduce the impact of behavioral health conditions among students can only be fulfilled by a team of professionals who specifically aim to address the problems at a larger scale. Professional therapists, social science experts, and the community at large, should provide a beneficial environment for relieving students with problems, not educators. A large-scale strategy like this has specific advantages over strategies that focus exclusively on the individual argued above. Because this strategy targets a much broader audience, it has the potential to produce widespread changes that have long-term, substantial effects. Especially in Ithaca, where drug use rates and cases of mental illness are relatively high, addressing this problem requires active, collaborative involvement of lawmakers, local officials, and community leaders. As a community, we must make it more conducive for individual students struggling with the aforementioned issues to seek out help from professionals. If we really are to take student issues as seriously as possible, the answer lies in gathering reliable statistics, understanding and analyzing the social environments in which youths abuse substances or develop mental health issues, creating barriers that make drugs less accessible to youth, and spreading awareness as clearly and as far as we can. To suggest that teachers should receive mandatory training in recognizing symptoms of addiction, depression and/ or abuse not only flies in the face of other students’ education, but diverts the problem from its source and forces teachers to verse themselves in tasks completely unrelated to those specified by their job descriptions. A strong professional body should be introduced outside of the school to combat large-scale problems, keeping the matter separate from education while aiming to provide services for those with issues outside of school, so that they can lead healthy and productive lives.
OPINION OPINION
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THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
The BEST: Ithaca Bakery Sandwich By LIZ ROSEN Like most Ithacans, I consider Ithaca Bakery an essential part of the local cultural landscape. Its logo is easily recognizable from the many bumper stickers, hats, and t-shirts spread throughout town, and one can hardly claim to be Ithacan if one has never tried at least a bagel from the bakery. Over a lifetime of patronage, spent sampling sandwiches from all parts of the incredibly expansive menu, I have found the absolute best sandwich Ithaca Bakery has to offer: the Danby Revisited. The Danby is both complex and simple. On the surface, it is just another turkey sandwich. Delve deeper, however, and one will discover that light but wholesome ingredients combine to make this sandwich a winner. Start with the bread. The Danby Revisited comes on handsliced multigrain, which has a thick and fluffy inside but a for-
midably chewy crust. Then there’s the parsley-garlic dressing, daintily spread over a thick layer of turkey and made all the airier in contrast. I would do terrible things for a lifetime supply of this dressing, so please believe me when I say that it is the best part of a great sandwich. After the dressing and turkey is a tomato, and then a layer of creamy avocado. This superb sandwich is elevated above its competition by the masterful combination of hearty ingredients, as the comfortingly dense is contrasted with the wonderfully weightless. While some sandwiches have simply too much meat and others barely put a dent in one’s hunger, this sandwich fulfills, meets, and exceeds all expectations. The Danby is both a solid meal and something one could eat again and again, leaving it a cut above the rest and clearly The Best. Note: No, the author was not hungry when this article was written; immediately afterwards, however, she did have a hankering for a good pickle.
College-Ruled Rules By JAMES PARK ty, and you must be willing to put effort into your work. Wide-ruled paper, unfortunately, promotes bad habits that undermine such a belief. The more relaxed spaces provided allow a “clever” student to write little while managing to quickly fill up a page. Not only does this harm the student, but it’s also quite likely that the teacher won’t be impressed either when he or she realizes that your two-page essay is actually only a paragraph with five words per line. Compare that to the style of college-ruled paper, whose tighter lines and capacity for more content exudes a professional quality and efficient design. If you are currently a wide-ruled kind of person, I’d heavily advise you to consider swapping your alliance. Of course, wideruled has its own time and place for use, but sadly high school is not included in the list. Think of it as the Comic Sans font—it exists, but who would ever take you seriously for using it? IMAGE PROVIDED
Since middle school, I’ve been a staunch supporter of college-ruled paper. I always held in contempt the inferior caste of wide-ruled paper—was there any real reason for the lines to be spaced so far apart? This year, unfortunately, having played the hapless fool and bought school supplies one day before school started, I ended up with only five wide-ruled notebooks to sustain me for the whole year. Terrible, I know, but the resulting experience only strengthened my conviction that college-ruled is truly superior. I’ve found the transition from sophomore to junior year rather difficult for a variety of reasons—one of which is the shift from “well I don’t really need to take notes” to “take notes or fail every class.” Especially in a class like AP U.S. History, where a night’s homework is basically reading half of a chapter and then converting obtained knowledge into notes for future reference, it becomes essential that you have as much space as possible to write things down. But wide-ruled paper, by design, discourages such economic use of space. Analysis of college-ruled to wide-ruled paper shows that the standard width of a line in college-ruled paper is 9/32 inches, while in wide-ruled a line is about 11/32 inches. A seemingly minuscule difference, yes, but this amount is compounded noticeably over an entire page. On a standard eightinch by 11.5-inch sheet of paper, for instance, college-ruled has six more lines per page than wide-ruled paper—enough to squeeze in that extra paragraph and save the next sheet for another day. Wide-ruled paper also feels a tad immature. Gone are the elementary-school days of happily scribbling print and cursive across entire pages, the letters spilling generously out of the lines. With high school and beyond comes a certain responsibili-
THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
OPINION
PAGE 7
Working for the Weekend: Student Employees By LIZ ROSEN I recently joined the ranks of youth workers, meaning that now, like many IHS students, I have a part-time job. There are many reasons to take a part-time job: for the money, for the resume-building experience, for something to do. However, one must ultimately weigh the costs of working during the school year with the benefits. Are the hours spent at work instead of with friends or studying worth it? Without a doubt, a job during the school year is worth it. Although most high school–aged employees make minimum wage, as financial dependents, for the most part we are not counting on our earnings to support us. Instead, the money allows young people to rely less on their parents for pocket money while also learning how to manage money better. It is definitely more difficult to part ways with one’s money when one knows exactly how many difficult customers one had to deal with to earn that money. Through my job, I was also exposed to the realities of taxes for the first time, and also received the option of setting aside a certain percentage of my wages for retirement. While I chose not to start saving for retirement just yet, it was certainly a reminder of the huge responsibilities awaiting me once I turn 18 that I would not have received without my job. As a senior currently going through the college application
process, I am also undeniably reaping the benefits of adding a job to my resume. Discussions with admissions counselors have alerted me to the fact that it is not as common as one may think these days for students to have part-time jobs, as they often choose to focus on grades, sports, or clubs instead. Having a job during the summer or school year shows good time-management skills and makes a student stand out. Lastly, a job offers something interesting to do. Unless one is employed on an assembly line (which is highly unlikely, between the dearth of blue-collar jobs and abundance of child labor laws), work provides a distraction from the academic concerns that preoccupy students during the week. When I am at work, I can stop thinking about the demographic transition model and level of biodiversity of benthic macroinvertebrates in Fall Creek and instead focus on learning new skills, like using an espresso machine. My job gives me opportunities to diversify my skill set and an escape from the academic minutiae that sometimes buries me when I get sucked into schoolwork. Although my diminished free time occasionally forces me to prioritize in undesirable ways, I am happy to be part of the young workforce. When it comes down to it, the benefits of working outweigh the detriments.
Homecoming 2015 Review By CHLOE WRAY, Staff Writer & ABE MESSING, Staff Writer There’s a spirit among the students of IHS, or rather a lack thereof, when it comes to school events. The administration always sets up many rules and regulations, and as a result both those hosting and those attending must meet far too many guidelines. Considering the usual ambivalence towards many new events, the turnout for the Sadie Hawkins Homecoming Dance was admirable. The dance created buzz, stirred interest, and attracted a commendable amount of people. There was, however, room for improvement both for the dance itself and the policies surrounding it. IHS’s past in relation to dances is stormy, with the homecoming dance being “outlawed” for several years for rather mysterious reasons. Last year, the senior class organized a fall dance—a nice attempt, but one that fell short of being necessarily successful. Word on the street is that the cancellation of the homecoming dance almost half a decade ago was due to misconduct. To that end, the stringent regulations on this year’s homecoming dance may have been enforced to prevent said misconduct. To the dismay of many, tickets were only on sale until the Thursday before the dance, which prevented many who were unaware of this deadline from getting a contract signed and attending the dance. Therefore, many students failed to take the contract seriously, forging signatures and providing inaccurate parental phone numbers for convenience. The Thursday deadline seems to have been created to allow the associate principals time to sign off the names of students who bought tickets. Is this a precaution to avoid the chance of misconduct at the dance? Do the APs really have a chance to check the legitimacy of every single phone number? For something that should be easy and fun, the APs seem to be exerting a lot of effort.
Students must also jump through hoops and be conscious of a deadline in order to purchase a ticket. It seems as if there is much more room for things to go awry at a sporting event such as a football game than the homecoming dance. Why are tickets available at the door at a game, but not at the dance? The rulings for these events seem arbitrary, as if one bad thing is reason enough to ruin the ideal ease of a harmless dance. As for the actual dance, it was anticlimactic and relatively ordinary considering the amount of hype it received and its stately formalities one would expect at a classy gathering. All the streamers, balloons, and lights in the world would have a hard time concealing the mundane nature of the cafeteria, so there was expectedly little that could be done in that regard. Upon entrance, the chaperones happily accepted your $12 ticket and directed you towards the dance. However, before entering the dance, you were required to visit a coat check. A $12 ticket was pricey to begin with, but a mandatory coat check seemed a little much. With the $12 ticket, you may have expected free refreshments; however, a bite-sized cupcake, a dixie shot of soda, and a cookie came out to a grand total of almost seven dollars. For these prices, airplane food seems reasonable by comparison. It also seemed as if more could have been done with the proceeds, considering the hefty prices. In the future, the earnings of the dance could be invested in decorations, and more importantly, food. A coat check does often come in handy, but charging for it defeats its purpose. Perhaps in future years the ticket could just be bumped up to $13 and the coat check could be deemed “complimentary”. A good effort was put forth in organizing the Sadie Hawkins dance, and with the aforementioned improvements in mind, it is a hopeful start to a legacy of future IHS homecomings.
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Fiery Foods and the Srirachaization of Flavor By PEARSE ANDERSON
PEARSE ANDERSON
Cornell Plantations celebrate the Year of the Pepper.
“I would start off with scrambled eggs with Chorizo sausage with red chile sauce on it,” Dave DeWitt tells me. He’s 71 and balding, but when I meet him, his most distinguishable feature is his constant energy. It’s like he’s uncovered some great secret and must show everyone what truly is happening. “For lunch I’d have a green chile cheeseburger. I’d have red chile enchiladas for dinner, and that would complete my chile pepper meal. Now, I don’t usually eat chile peppers every meal, but I do have something hot and spicy every single day. It’s a very pleasurable thing, and when you reach that level of pleasure you miss it when it’s gone. I can show you, in my pocket, I have a little canister of red chile powder so I can do that.” I don’t need to see the canister—I believe him. Dave, once labeled the Pope of Peppers, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on chile peppers and spicy foods, a section of the food world he describes as the “fi-
ery foods industry.” He has published 23 books on chile peppers and launched the Chile Pepper magazine, the National Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show, and the Scovie Awards. Recently, after the Cornell Plantations declared 2015 to be the “Year of the Pepper,” he led several workshops and lectures on the history and use of chile peppers at the Plantations. Even his shirt is chile-based, emblazoned with chile peppers of varying colors across the Hawaiian-style fabric. Dave has written about food for decades and he has had immense success as a chile-pepper expert. Here is a food product that has been constantly conquering popular cuisine decade after decade. Imagine Footloose, but replace dancing with the consumption of spicy food. But doesn’t everyone love an underdog story? In this case, chile peppers were an underdog. Originally isolated to Mesoamerica, chile-pepper seeds were spread by birds
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across Florida, America, and Arizona. Portuguese and Spanish colonists, notably Columbus, further dispersed the range of peppers where they were adored en masse. Chile peppers moved further east in some inverted version of Manifest Destiny where they bettered everything they touched, whether it be Hungarian economy or Bangkok street food. Thanks to the spice trade between Pacific islands, chile peppers soon had circumnavigated the entire globe within a century of Western introduction. Chile peppers have since climbed the leaderboards faster and stayed at the top longer than nearly any other exotic food item (see: the recent bubbles of cupcakes, kale, and, to a degree, bacon). “The bastions of blandness are going away, and chile peppers are taking over. I see no end in sight of it,” Dave tells the audience at his Cornell Plantations lecture. Then he tells me, “We have this subtle infiltration of the whole American system.” That doesn’t sound like
“Americans love the extreme: they love the fastest, the hottest, the most dangerous; that kinda stuff. And it sticks out.” an interesting segment of food culture, that sounds like an alien invasion, a Communist overthrow, the seeds of a conspiracy. “Americans love the extreme: they love the fastest, the hottest, the most dangerous; that kinda stuff. And it sticks out.” That’s when it hit me: with chile peppers becoming so powerful, we needed a new underdog to move on to, to place our foodie interest in. I honestly believe this is why pickles are being reborn for the modern era. This triggered what I have dubbed “the Srirachaization of flavor. Srirachaization (noun): 1. the act of infiltrating and saturating a market or cuisine in a virus-like manner, akin to the development of Sriracha. 2. the act of overusing a trendy food item, especially a spicy ingredient, in circumstances when the lack of that item would not have made a significant impact on a meal. 3. the state of being Srirachaized (apply to any of the above definitions). Some people are edging to extreme paranoia thanks to the popularity of chile peppers that Dave calls “capsisum madness.” In Ithaca, we are beginning to experience the Srirachaization of flavor as more and more of our meals become needlessly spicy for the sake of trendiness. Walk to the Commons and Mia’s calamari is drizzled with Sriracha. Head off towards Stewart Ave and your Banh Mi sandwich at Luna’s is topped with jalapeno, cilantro, and Sriracha mayo. Red’s once served me chicken and waffles with Sriracha-infused maple syrup, and then Waffle Frolic served me chicken and waffles with maple syrup-infused hot sauce. It’s spreading. And once you poison the well, how long will it take for that toxin to be flushed out of the supply? Enter Kate Krader, Restaurant Editor at Food and Wine magazine and author of one of my favorite food essays,
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“Are Big Flavors Destroying the American Palate?” I first found the piece in Holly Hughes’ Best Food Writing 2014 and was mesmerized with the philosophical and futurist questions Krader raised in relation to chile peppers. “When a dish isn't laced with chiles or some kind of fermented paste or doused with vinegary sauce, I can pass it by,” Krader wrote in the article. “I've accepted the fact that I crave a hit of fire, acid or funk in my food. The question I'm working through: is this an evolution or a devolution?” It wasn’t until I found this article online that I saw the image that accompanied it: a massive, colorful, green chile cheeseburger. Dave’s favorite. No matter the details, The Pope of Peppers took offense when Krader began to wander into his fiery food backyard. “Someone who’s so critical of chile peppers must have some innate fear of hot and spicy things,” he tells me, eyes wide. “Hot and spicy is not here to destroy taste buds. There’ve been many famous people, like Julia Child, who’ve said that chile peppers destroy taste buds. And she was being the Donald Trump of foods.” Dave heads off into a tangent after this about the time he fought with Julia Child about the biology of taste bud replacement. “The point here is that chile peppers and spicy foods that are popular all over the world don’t destroy taste buds. It’s just another type of food people are liking. It’s not a fad, it’s not going away.... I go to other countries, and if the food is wonderful, I don’t add any chile peppers to it. I mean, I don’t destroy Italian food by slathering it with hot sauce. I don’t destroy French food by putting hot and spicy stuff on classic French dishes. There’s enough flavor in those dishes that you don’t really need chile peppers. Where you need chile peppers is how they got into the food system originally: spicing up potatoes, spicing up manioc, the most bland foods you can imagine. They need something!” Dave is an optimist towards hot and spicy cuisine, and he has every right to be: he was a founding father of the industry. But his words seem almost quixotic at times. Krader brings her realist, questioning perspective to the table. “As I debate whether my obsession with in-your-face flavors is a good thing or not, I consider the downside,” PEARSE ANDERSON
THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
“Have I lost the ability to appreciate the nuances in an elegant dish of sole in nasturtium broth?” she wrotes. “Does everything I eat now taste to some degree like Sriracha? Have I lost the ability to appreciate the nuances in an elegant dish of sole in nasturtium broth? If a new Chinese restaurant isn't using a lot of Sichuan peppercorns and shrimp paste, will I dismiss the cooking as boring? I think I can still appreciate delicate flavors, but there's the strong possibility that I'll try the nasturtium broth once and never again.” When I talk about the Srirachaization of flavors destroying the American palette, or poisoning the well, this is what I’m talking about. Not, as Dave describes, explicitly ruining flavor by turning everything hot, but making
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THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com PEARSE ANDERSON
“in-your-face flaprevent an excess). vors” the usual. This is known in game theory as the I fear this creates prisoner’s dileman unrealistic standard of food. Imagma. ine you’re at a Thai Krader ended her place and you enjoy article with “Maybe, an extremely hot I thought, I’m bekhanom chin nam coming addicted to ya, a delicious noofood with incredidle dish. Next dinble texture. My evonertime you return lution continues.” to your local diner This evolution has and are surprised, been happening for disappointed realmillennia. At one ly, that what you’re point, humans were eating isn’t all that conquering the elehot. Nothing like ments of form, temthe noodles. And perature, and cookso, like Krader preing techniques. dicted, you don’t In a way, we have try it again because ruined all of them it doesn’t give you by adopting them; that kick, that rush. we have turned At this point I them all into excess am no longer writthanks to thouing about chile pepsands of prisoner’s pers. Chile peppers, dilemmas. Texture, like sex, drugs, thanks to moderncars, video games, ist cooking and the the Internet, and oil introduction of moreserves, are just lecular gastronomy, the vehicle to the is rising about the same question peotrends of hot and ple have been askspicy foods. We will ing for centuries: ruin texture too. when does a blessAs genetic engiing become a curse? neering develops, The answer—”when food will become the blessing is takone of the first en in excess”—has items we modialways been the fy. We wouldn’t same, but the thing start with creating Kids and families participated in the Family Pepper Party at the Cornell Plantations. about excess is that whole new foods, it’s unmeasurable. but shifting the flavors of already made ones. I have no Dave claims that there is currently no environmental idea if there is an institution that would be able to limit issue that could significantly hinder the growth of chile or regulate such products. Forget designer babies, soon peppers. And I expect chile peppers to be added to more we will have designer flavors. What’s stopping someone foods and for the Srirachaization from producing a beet that tastes of flavor to continue. Somewhere fifty times better? Or a cacao vaon this timeline, the blessing of riety better than anything ever chile peppers will become a curse, imagined? If the current evolution because they will become a new of trendy elements of food (the normal. And just like that, we will order of development being: lowly forget about them. Not because origin, adoption by foodies, prischile peppers will disappear, but oner’s dilemma of Srirachaization, because they’ll become integrated pleasure, normalization) contininto our way of life. ues, and if Dave’s statement on Perhaps this is inevitable. If going back to bland is unlikely, I you had the option to better your food, to add pleasure predict that we will create heaven and then consume it. to your meal, why not? Your neighbor will. Your friend Cuisine could have evolved a billion different ways if not will. Despite everyone being rational (just trying to have for this evolutionary track. But that’s fine. Humans have a good meal), they will not cooperate to lessen the Sri- always been ingenious people, and there will always be rachaization even when it is in their best interests (to new niches of food to explore. Our evolution continues.
Somewhere on this timeline, the blessing of chile peppers will become a curse, because they will become a new normal.
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I seem to be forgetting that this article isn’t about politics, genetic engineering, global citizenship, economics of scarcity, philosophy, or game theory. It is about an idiosyncratic, balding man who can comfort kids with gardening facts just as well as he can ramble about green chile cheeseburgers for half an hour. He cannot stand idly by as the world turns and people take sides; it is up to the Pope to decide the excommunication of a person on idea. Dave is no mere man, he is the Pope of Peppers, and it is his duty and honor to comment on these big ideas because no one else has his power. In an interview about her article, Krader said that “Here in New York City, a bunch of French restaurants have been opening recently. It's the trend here. It's a return to a little more subdued cooking. I have to say I'm not freaking out. I feel maybe my palate is evolving and I'm coming back to quieter flavors.” This evolution Krader, Dave, and I speak of has not been perfectly charted. Things may begin to cool off, to return to their roots. Either way, our tastes are secure. Take comfort in sitting at the dinner table at night with a Tupperware of leftovers next to you at a bottle of Tabasco and knowing that, however food evolves, it’s going to be delicious. It’s going to be comfort food.
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The Tattler
Creative Writing, Photo, and Art Contest 2016 Everyone at IHS is invited to enter! All entries become part of our annual Literary Issue, which will be published in January. Please send us your best work to editor@ihstattler. com by midnight Sunday, December 6, 2015, in the following categories: photography, visual art, creative nonfiction, poetry, and short fiction. Indicate your name, grade, and the title of your work in your email. You may enter as many pieces as you like in one or more categories. No late submissions will be accepted. Entries are judged by The Tattler staff in the following criteria: originality, creative use of techniques, insight, impact, and quality. We will evaluate entries anonymously and we may slightly alter or reject them if deemed appropriate. Winners will be announced in January in The Tattler Literary Issue. First, second, and third place winners are nominated in each category, but the first place winners receive a prize! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
Write for the Tattler! Send submissions to editor@ihstattler.com
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Bonan Tagon: Esperanto Feature By CASEY WETHERBEE
Since I started learning Esperanto in June, I have been asking people— friends, family, even mere acquaintances—if they know what it is, and nine times out of ten, they didn’t. People figure out that it’s a language from context, but from there, they’re completely clueless. I don’t blame them. The first question people usually ask is for the country associated with it, as most languages, like Hungarian, Japanese, Malay, Armenian, etc. are immediately connected with a country of origin. To answer that question, there isn’t one. Esperanto is a constructed language (colloquially known as a conlang), which means that someone invented it. People create conlangs for a multitude of reasons, including easing human communication, adding a layer to a fictional world (think Klingon, Na’vi, Elvish), or just as a form of experimentation in linguistics. Esperanto was created in the late 19th century by L.L. Zamenhof, a Polish ophthalmologist who witnessed bitter conflict in a time when hate and prejudice between various ethnic groups—Poles, Jews, Russians, Lithuanians, Tatars, Germans—was commonplace. Zamenhof believed that the root of these problems was the mutual misunderstanding brought on by the lack of a common language. For years, he worked on creating his own language then struggled to raise enough money to have it printed. Zamenhof’s hard work culminated in the publication of La Unua Libro, or The First Book, in 1887. Though Zamenhof originally called his conlang Internacia Lingvo (International Language), people adopted the name Esperanto from his pen name, Doktoro Esperanto (Doctor One Who Hopes). Esperanto began to catch on in Europe, gaining thousands of followers within a decade. People also start-
ed learning it America: I discovered an article in the Cornell Daily Sun from March 1907 called “Esperanto Invades Cornell” that reads, “Esperanto is the new universal language recently devised by Dr. Zamenhof, of Warsaw, Russia [sic]. Its growth has been phenomenal, having already gained a foothold in 31 countries, and all of the larger universities are now beginning to take an interest in it.” Nowadays, over 2 million people speak Esperanto with some degree of fluency, and world congresses of Esperanto speakers have been held on every continent except Africa and Antarctica. So why did so many people take an interest in Esperanto? Perhaps I can answer that by describing my own experience. Firstly, it’s easy to learn. Since I started learning less than four months ago, I’ve reached a level of proficiency in Esperanto that is about equal to my skill in Spanish—which I started about four years ago. Much of that is owed to Esperanto’s lack of irregularities. In fact, La Unua Libro contains only 16 grammar rules. I learned how to speak in the present, past, and future tenses in a day (you just change the endings of verbs, which don’t even need to be conjugated). Secondly, I admired the mission. Lots of people say that it’s pointless to learn Esperanto because its mission is to unite all of the people of the world under one neutral language, and clearly it isn’t even close. I don’t give this argument any credit. It’s like someone saying that politicians are all horrible, and for this reason, they refuse to vote. It’s not an impossible mission, though it will be if everyone adopts a fatalistic attitude about the language problem. Thirdly, I fell in love with the culture and the community of Esperantists. Esperanto is something that I
can unabashedly gush about to people who don’t know about it, but I also love speaking it with other people. I’ve spoken with people from other states and even other countries in Esperanto, and there’s something gratifying about using it, especially if it bridges a real language gap between myself and the other speaker. There are ways to apply it practically as well. The Pasporta Servo is a hospitality service for Esperantists that publishes a directory of people around the world who are willing to host other Esperantists, often for free. My dream is to travel the world, lodging with Esperantists and experiencing the cultures of each country while being able to communicate in Esperanto with the natives. My passion for the language encouraged me to form the IHS Esperanto Society this year with Andrey Shakhzadyan ’17, a fellow Esperantist. I wanted to spread Esperanto knowledge at IHS and figured that starting a club wouldn’t be a bad way to start. As of this writing, we have about ten members, though admittedly almost all of them are personal friends. Despite this, we hope that more people will show interest in joining and learning to speak Esperanto. We’ve played games such as frazludo (literally sentence-game), which is a sentence-building game using a board and word cards. In addition, we’ve watched videos in English as well as in Esperanto. My hope is that we’ll be able to attend an Esperanto convention in upstate New York or Canada or host an event that uses Esperanto at the school. The IHS Esperanto Society meets in K120 on Tuesdays after school. If you have any interest in language (though there’s absolutely no commitment to learning) or simply relaxing after a long day, you should consider stopping by.
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Duffett’s Buffets: Northstar House By GABBY DUFFETT GABBY DUFFETT
A standard brunch served at Northstar House.
Northstar House, a small locally-owned restaurant located in Fall Creek, is rumored to have a killer brunch, which led me to choose it for this edition of “Duffett’s Buffets.” I must admit that I am not the biggest fan of the “brunch” concept. For one, I hate breakfast, but what I truly hate is ruining a perfectly good meal by serving breakfast food for lunch. Luckily, Northstar also serves sandwiches on their brunch menu that are completely untouched by any sort of breakfast-type food. In addition, my friends said that the place was a pretty hot spot, and so we decided to check it out. My friends and I elected to eat outside. The atmosphere in the back was somewhat lacking, with just a few tables situated next to the parking lot and absolutely no visual appeal. The floor was in desperate need of sweeping, with leaves scattered everywhere. The atmosphere would have been improved if we had come at night, in which case there would have been lights hanging above the tables. The inside of the restaurant did appear to be slightly better, with a nice seating area near the bar (which mainly focused on beer), even selling nifty growlers for draft beer enthusiasts. If I were to return, I would definitely opt for an evening table outside as I feel the atmosphere would have been slightly more pleasing. Brunch was pretty standard: sandwiches, burgers, a couple of salads, and your typical brunch entrees. I ordered a BLT with a side salad, opting to stick with a
more “lunchy” entree as any egg-related dish is simply not my scene. The sandwich seemed to be prepared on some sort of french bread, with a little bit of mayo and thick and crispy bacon. Both the salad and the sandwich were overall very tasty. But I didn’t feel that impressed because, well, anyone can make a decent BLT. My friends ordered the french toast and the roasted garlic burger, which both seemed to be fine as well. I was actually rather jealous of the roasted garlic burger, which was prepared on a brioche bun with cheddar cheese, tomato, onion, greens, and a garlic aioli; all in all, it looked and tasted pretty darn prime. What especially disappointed me about Northstar was their absolutely hideous service. The food took a rather long time to arrive, and our server neglected to refill our water and did not ask us how our meal was. What really pushed the service to the edge, though, was the fact that once we received the check, they refused to split it. What they should have done in the beginning was ask us if we wanted separate checks, and their refusal led to a slight issue at the end. They ended up agreeing to let us pay with multiple credit cards and cash, and my frustrated friends decided to display their anger by partially paying for their meal with coins. Surprisingly, the waitress took the change, though with a displeased look on her face. Northstar claims to be “Fall Creek’s Neighborhood Spot for Fine Food, Lively Libations and Nice Nice Vibes,” a statement that I would frankly have to disagree with. Despite the decent food, the restaurant barely displays those “Nice Nice Vibes” that it claims to have.
Rating: The hideously poor service caused me to reduce Northstar House’s rating from what would have been 3.5 Duff Buffs to 2 Duff Buffs.
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NaNoWriMo By EMMA KARNES
IMAGE PROVIDED
National Novel Writing Month, abbreviated as NaNoWriMo, begins this month.
This article is 475 words. NaNoWriMo, an abbreviation for “National Novel Writing Month,” is an international project that challenges participants to write an average of 1,667 words every day from 12:00 am on November 1 to 11:59:59 pm on November 30. That’s about three and a half article’s worth of words every day. In the end, winners of the challenge have a 50,000 word piece of writing: the minimum length of an official novel. If you’re thinking that for a creative endeavor this campaign seems to be awfully focused on numbers, then you’d be right. The whole basis of NaNoWriMo is quantity over quality, which may sound to some a painfully ignorant view to take on art (“The Old Man and the Sea!” literature snobs will screech, “The Giver!” “The Great Gatsby!”,), but it really is a legitimate and fairly successful approach to combating writer’s block. When faced with a strict daily word quota, there isn’t time for googling the meaning of your middle name, daydreaming, nor trying to make up new emoticons with your punctuation keys: there is limited time and a mountain of a word count to climb. The NaNoWriMo website even helps you track your progress with a graph of your word count superimposed with a graph of the necessary word
count advancement to reach 50,000 by November 30. Along with graphically displaying your progression, the NaNoWriMo website also serves as an online global community of established and amateur writers alike trying to reach their goal. You can find local events in tangent with NaNoWriMo in your community—often just strangers gathered in a coffee place or library, typing away madly on their laptops. The website provides links to writing advice blogs, advertises now-published novels from past NaNoWriMos, connects participants to other writers in their area with similar literary interests, and, as of 2008, even offers some writers a single, free, paperback copy of their novel. (This final offering was made possible by NaNoWriMo’s partnership with the self-publishing company CreateSpace.) Participation in NaNoWriMo is a commitment to many late nights of delirious typing and many classes spent thinking about characters rather than listening to teachers. Your creativity, and your time-management skills, will be stretched to new lengths. But in the end, you will have an incredible reward: a novel of your own making starring characters of your invention, all made possible by a month of very hard work. This November, challenge yourself to write like you never have before. Even if 50,000 words is unrealistic for you, set another goal for yourself and work hard to reach it. If writing a novel of any length isn’t really your thing, reading is always the comfortable alternative to writing. And if November’s National Novel Writing Month theme seems difficult, just wait, because December is National Novel Editing Month.
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Staff Feature: Keith Harrington By DANIEL XU
A familiar face to many who have passed through Boynton Middle School, the former eighth-grade Social Studies teacher Mr. Harrington now plays the newly-minted role of Dean of Freshmen at IHS. In his first few months on the job, his amicable and forthcoming nature has already attracted attention even from those who didn’t know him previously. I decided to interview him to find out more about his fascinating job, prior teaching experiences, and life. Daniel Xu ’17: Tell me a bit about your background: childhood, education. Keith Harrington: I grew up in Ohio, just south of Cleveland, in a little town called Medina. I went to Garfield Elementary School, then a junior high school, then Medina High, and graduated from there. It was really a small town feel at the time: it wasn’t a suburb, it wasn’t a city; it was actually a little bit like Ithaca. Our high school was about the size of IHS, and we had two junior highs that were like Boynton and Dewitt, so it’s interesting that I ended up here. After high school, I went to college at Kent State University and majored in middle childhood education. I got a minor in science and social studies. DX: Science, huh? I didn’t know you were into that. KH: Yeah, actually, I always saw myself as a science teacher. That’s how I started out. I taught science for my first five years as a teacher and it was only after I moved to Ithaca that I started to teach history. DX: What did you do before coming to IHS? It’s common knowledge that you were a Social Studies teacher at Boynton, but your career is more extensive than that. KH: I’m actually really proud of my teaching career. I did my student teaching in a school called Callejo Americano in Quito, Ecuador. I traveled a little bit before that; my grandfather was an archeologist, so we went to the Yucatan and Baja in Mexico to explore some of the ancient sites. Those expeditions were specifically focused on the Maya. But it was mostly just exciting to go to Ecuador, learn Spanish, and just get a completely different experience. So that was cool—I just stayed there and did my student teaching and some substituting, and traveled for a while. When I came back, the job market was a little weird and I was ready to leave Ohio. I enjoyed it, I liked it there, but I got into mountain biking and rock climbing and kinda wanted to be somewhere else. So I headed out to Las Vegas and taught at Cashman Middle School. Cashman is a pretty large school, inner-city, almost 100 percent free and reduced lunch. The year I got there, we were transitioning to wearing uniforms to try and eliminate some of the gang violence coming out of the community and into the school. And I loved it. I just had a blast. There were these huge classes of students that I wasn’t used to working with, coming from Northeastern Ohio, and I learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself, I learned a lot about the U.S. and how diverse it is, how different it is geographically. I think that was really formative for me and I worked early on to try to improve my teaching really quickly. Another huge moment in my career was when I came to Ithaca and I switched from teaching science to teaching social
studies. I had to completely reinvent my curriculum, rewrite all of my lesson plans, and acquaint myself with a completely different population of students. And that kind of pushed me back to see what’s at the root of teaching—what the most important things you maintain are no matter what you’re teaching. I could talk for a long time about that, so just cut me off there. DX: Your current job title is Dean of Freshmen, but that by itself is a bit vague to those not in the know. What exactly do you do here at IHS? KH: When I was still in Las Vegas, I had a stint as the Dean of Discipline there. That job taught me a lot about working with students and gave me the focus on positive behavior that I try to work with today. Because of that experience, I’ve come to realize that having a staff member who focuses on interacting with the younger students is incredibly important: it helps the freshmen make a smooth transition from middle to high school and gives them more choice in their new setting. I worked with Mr. Trumble at Boynton to help establish my current position. I’d say the original idea came from him. DX: It’s only been two months since school started, but what are your impressions of the high school so far? Your job? How is working at IHS different from working at Boynton? KH: Honestly, I’m very happy here. I’d always been a teacher before arriving at my current position, and that’s a completely different experience from what I do now. My personal view as a teacher I always felt was somewhat myopic: every day, I’d have the same routine, see the same people. Now I get a macro view of the high school, and I get to see what all of the teachers do rather than just sit my own classroom. I’m not yet sure how different the two schools are. DX: What’s an average workday like for you? KH: Despite my limited time on the job, I think I can safely say that there’s no such thing as an “average” workday for me. Every day is different: before, when I was a teacher, I rarely worried about events during the day, but now I have to keep track of schedules, meetings, all that stuff; often, there’ll be an unexpected incident with a student who’s in some sort of trouble and I get to talk to them about that. I guess on an average day, I would arrive at school around zero period, check my email quickly, then go to the cafeteria and try to chat with some of the students. When the bell rings, I’ll begin walking the halls and generally try to spread a positive attitude. I usually have a meeting in the morning and daily meetings with the counselors, as well as fourth-period lunch duty; I also meet with Mr. Trumble during the day to talk about my job and plans for the future. In between all of these things I’ll occasionally drop into classes and do three-minute walkthroughs, just observing each teacher’s style and seeing how the students are doing. In general, I get to learn a lot more about people doing these things and it’s been a great experience so far. DX: What’s your philosophy when it comes to teaching? KH: I truly believe that every single student has the ability to learn and improve themselves. To foster that potential, school should be a positive and safe place CONTINUED ON PAGE 18
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Center Spread
Celebrating American Indian Heritage November is National American Indian Heritage Month. It is a month of celebrating and educating people about the rich and diverse cultures and traditions of American Indians and also the significant roles they have played and still do in the United States. All graphics, excluding the one in the center, are provided.
The Iroquois The Iroquois currently occupy New York, Pennsylvania, and parts of Ontario and Quebec. Before colonization, the Iroquois were semi-sedentary agriculturists who settled in villages, each comprising hundreds of individuals. The Iroquois called themselves the Haudenosaunee, or “the people of the longhouse”. As of today, approximately 80,000 Iroquois live in the United States and another 45,000 in Canada. The six major Iroquois nations are Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. These nations have united under the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to end inter-tribal fighting and to bring long-lasting peace. Many scholars credit the Iroquois as being a model upon which the U.S. Constitution was based.
The Longhouse served as a place of spiritual, cultural, and social activities, the seat of government, and a symbol of security. They could be as much as 200 feet long.
Seneca The Seneca, or “the People of the Great Hills”, were the most populous of the Haudenosaunee Nations, which the ability to raise over 10,000 warriors by the seventeenth century. Total population: 8000+ Languages: Seneca, English, other Iroquoian dialects Religions: Longhouse, Handsome Lake, Kai’hwi’io, Kanoh’hon’io, Kahni’kwi’io, Catholicism, various Christian denominations Seneca Nation addresses: 90 Ohiyo Way, Salamanca, NY 14779, 12837 Route 438, Irving, NY 14081
Tuscarora The Tuscarora Indians were the last to be added to the Iroquois Confederacy. They were once one of the largest American Indian nations in what is now North Carolina. However, today, most Tuscarora live in New York and Canada. Total population: 17,000+ Languages: Skarure, English Religions: Kai’hwi’io, Kanoh’hon’io, Kahni’kwi’io, Christianity, Longhouse, Handsome Lake, other Indigenous religions Tuscarora Nation address: 5616 Walmore Rd., Lewiston, NY 14092
The flag of the Iroquois represents the Hiawatha wampum belt, which comprises of 38 rows of wampum beads. The belt is the emblem of unity among the Iroquois nations.
THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com Cayuga
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The Cayuga Nation, “The People of the Great Swamp,” is made up of five clans: Bear, Heron, Snipe, Turtle, and Wolf. Each are family lineages. It currently does not have a reservation of its own and its members live among those of the Seneca.
The Tree of Peace is an important symbol of peace in Iroquois tradition and in the historical record of diplomacy between the Iroquois and the Westerners.
Total population: 5,300+ Languages: Gayogohó:no’, English, other Iroquoian dialects Religions: Kai’hwi’io, Kanoh’hon’io, Kahni’kwi’io, Longhouse, Handsome Lake, Christianity, other indigenous religions Cayuga Nation address: 2540 SR-89, Seneca Falls, NY 13148
Mohawk The Mohawk, once fierce warriors, were known as the “Keepers of the Eastern Door”. They guarded the Iroquois Confederation against invasion from the East. Total population: 29,000+ Languages: Kanien’kéha, French, Mohawk Dutch, other Iroquoian dialects Religions: Karihwiio, Kanoh’hon’io, Kani’kwi’io, Christianity, Longhouse, Handsome Lake, other indigenous religions Mohawk Nation address: 412 St. Route 37, Akwesasne, NY 13655
Onondaga The Onondaga, or “The People of the Hills”survive today as a sovereign nation, living on a portion of their ancestral territory, maintaining their culture. However, Onondaga culture continues to meet the challenges of the modern world. Total population: 80,000+ Languages: Onöñda’gega’, English, other Iroquoian dialects Religions: Gai’hwi’io, Kanoh’hon’io, Kahni’kwi’io, other indigenous religions Onondaga Nation address: 3951 Route 11, Onondaga Nation, Nedrow, NY 13120 Corn, beans, and squash were the staple of the Haudenosaunee diet. These “Three Sisters” were considered special, as they were believed to have been given by mother earth. Songs were sung to give thanks.
Oneida Oneida means “People of the Standing Stone”. This name is based on a legend in which the Oneida were pursued on foot by an enemy tribe, who turned themselves into stones that stood in a clearing within the woodlands when the Oneida people disappeared instantaneously. Total population: 100,000+ Languages: Onyota’aka, English, other Iroquoian dialects Religions: Kai’hwi’io, Kanoh’hon’io, Kahni’kwi’io, Christianity, Longhouse, Handsome Lake, other indigenous Religions Oneida Nation address: 2037 Dreamcatcher Plaza, Oneida, NY 13421
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Things That Will Kill You in Ithaca: Gorges By EMILY HONG IMAGE PROVIDED
A view of Taughannock Falls.
Ithaca offers countless attractions for those who appreciate nature’s wonders. Take Taughannock Falls— the impressive waterfall carves a 400-foot gorge, being three stories taller than Niagara Falls. As prepossessing as it is, Taughannock remains a perpetual danger zone. Having once been undersea, the Taughannock gorge carved through layers of sedimentary rocks like sandstone, shale, and limestone: soft rocks that are vulnerable to Ithaca’s unforgiving winters. Water that slides into cracks in the gorge freezes as the temperature drops, expanding and loosening rocks. When summer comes, the ice melts, meaning certain parts of the gorge could potentially break off in a rockslide. In August 2005, Deborah Rowen of New Jersey was an unlucky victim of this case. She was standing with her family on the base of one of the falls when she was struck in the head and buried under a rockslide. The state was not at fault for her death, however; the family voluntarily walked into an off-limits area after seeing other people lingering around, ignoring warning signs. Incidents like this have occurred quite frequently in Ithaca. Rockslides are not the only precarious features of Ithaca’s gorges and waterfalls. Numerous people have jumped off the bridges that span Ithaca’s gorges in suicide attempts. Many have simply slipped and fallen to their death, but in some instances, people have jumped for fun. Twenty-year-old Eric Richardson died in Ithaca’s Second Dam from an apparent diving accident just this July. Despite Richardson’s death and various other warnings, people still continue to dive into the water. "I’m just not afraid of that kind of stuff," one teen said. Both locals and tourists continue to risk death in these dangerous locales. What could possibly go wrong? After all, Ithaca is gorges.
THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
STAFF FEATURE: KEITH HARRINGTON CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11.
for everyone, so that every day, all of us can pay it forward. Personally, I always try to be as positive as possible and make that positivity infectious: when I walk through the halls, I’m always smiling; I’ll give some students high-fives. I’d say that my philosophy would be to ensure that everyone is always taking time to do their best. DX: What are you looking forward to in your time here? KH: In the switch from teaching to administration, one of the biggest things is that I’m no longer writing lesson plans and grading papers, which I used to do after school. My schedule was, get up in the morning, be in school by 7 or 8, get through the day, and in the evenings I’d go home to eat and get back to work on rewriting lesson plans, grading papers, and doing research. Now I don’t have all those things to do, so I’m really excited about having more time in my life to go to concerts, go to games, stuff like that. I’m looking forward to continuing to try to make more connections between the high school and the middle schools. The way I’m thinking about it in my mind is like a bridge, and I want to make that bridge as beautiful and inviting and safe as possible so that it’s really a smooth transition for kids to come out of middle school. I feel like a good long-term goal would be for students to come out of middle school and right into high school and feel like that was a really smooth, perfect transition; that it was time to make that. Other than that, I think I changed some of the podcasts I listen to: I’m listening to a lot more podcasts that are focused on educational leadership and administration so I’m trying to learn as much as I can. I’m looking forward to working with PLCs and groups of teachers and trying to support them now, like I had so many teachers supporting me.
FEATURES
THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
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The Hall Monitor By DAVID SHENG
What question do you have that you never had the courage to ask?
Meghana Gavirneni ’19: “Why would I have the courage to ask it now?”
Max Fink ’17: “Why don’t I question everything?”
Zoe Wilkie-Tomasik ’18: “How do you want to die?”
Yuuki Real ’18: “Why don’t they spend more money on the bathrooms?”
Toby Brisson ’18: “Why are people sexist?”
Finnian Kelluray ’18: “Why are TV sex scenes so awkward?”
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THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
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The Legacy of Bathroom Graffiti BY AMALIA WALKER and CHLOE WRAY, Staff Writer
A new era has been ushered in, leaving behind the etchings of a generation of IHS alums. Once immortalized, these musings and troubles have been reduced to sheer woodchips. Never again shall we see the words of the wise or the uplifting that has graced the doors of the girls’ walls. On the other hand, never again will we be victims to words of the past. Rest in peace, stalls of the past; we won’t miss your mysterious sticky coating, but we will mourn for the art that has been lost. The new stall doors mark a new age, and with them come the potential for years of new graffiti. With a fresh start, one can only hope that the bathroom graffiti of IHS sticks to the cheerful and clever rather than the harsh and mean-spirited. Though the sturdy new red doors are exciting, the renovation left us with little to work with. However, after just a few restroom visits, this inspiring poem manifested itself, seeming almost as if one person had gone around writing various lines of her poem in each wing. She must have been waiting for us to compile it all, so here it is! Carry this poem as a reminder of the past, and inspiration for the future of bathroom graffiti.
Wind-up: Part 2 By JAMES PARK
It was still early in the morning, but people were already on the street, shuffling along in sleepy, muted crowds. Few running cars were to be seen. Especially with the approaching winter, people seemed less willing to get up so early. In an hour or so, however, I knew the place would be bustling with activity, chilly or not. We moved quickly; Winder’s broad stride and untalkative nature had me jogging to catch up. It was only 10 minutes before we came across the yellow crime-scene tape that blockaded our destination. There were a few curious onlookers standing by. Winder flashed his identification to the guard, who gave a bored glance and nodded us along. We were in Crowley Square, the popular tourist center now deserted save the several officers wandering the area. Streamers hung loosely from the surrounding buildings while paper plates and scraps of food littered the cobbled streets. There had evidently been a festival of some sort last night. “The murder must’ve happened just a few hours ago,” I noted. Winder glanced at me. “Yeah,” he admitted after a pause. “They had a celebration, finally finished up the renovations. Ended at just about three. An hour later, one of the shopkeepers is cleaning out the alleyways and finds the body, blood still warm. This way.” A group of officers glanced up as we approached, their faces hardening as they caught sight of Winder. They didn’t seem to notice me, however, and so I remained behind Winder, staying quiet. “Of course they sent you,” groaned one officer, a burly fellow with developing jowls. “I thought we’d at least get Krig or someone else.” Winder narrowed his eyes. “Krig? Is he coming?” When the man shrugged, Winder sighed irritably and began to walk past them, but another, taller officer blocked his path. “Who’s the girl, Winder?” the officer queried. His dull voice fit his pale blond hair and grey eyes, which stared unwaveringly at the detective. “You know we can’t just let any tramp come in here.” I tensed, staring at Winder from behind. The second they knew my identity, they’d turn on me as well. “This, Lieutenant Weir,” Winder said with forced politeness, “is my new assistant. I don’t feel any obligation to introduce her, as that might put a CONTINUED ON PAGE 17
THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
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Watching The Martian By TRISTAN ENGST
“They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially colonized it. So, technically, I colonized Mars. In your face, Neil Armstrong!” You might have guessed from the title that The Martian is about aliens. In a way, you’d be right, because the movie stars Matt Damon as Mark Watney, a human astronaut stranded on Mars. The movie casts an optimistic view of human spaceflight by glamorizing NASA and its astronauts. The Martian begins when a severe storm comes upon a team of astronauts on Mars, threatening to blow over the rocket that they need to return to Earth. Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) decides to abort the ARES III mission and leads her team through a blinding storm of wind, dust, and pebbles to the rocket. But they don’t all make it: Watney is knocked away by debris and appears dead. After a few tense and dramatic minutes of searching for their comrade, the sad and stricken team blasts off into space in the nick of time. Of course, Watney isn’t actually dead—yet. He’s stuck on Mars with no way to communicate with Earth, not enough food to last until the next Mars mission, and no good way to get to where it lands. Luckily, Watney has a few ideas for how to survive. Lifeless martian soil, bacteria-ridden human feces, and potatoes combine to make food. Supplying the Pathfinder rover with power allows him to communicate with NASA. Water for the potatoes comes from burning hydrogen gas—and as we know from the Hindenburg disaster—this is extremely dangerous. Back on Earth, NASA discovers that Watney is still alive after Mindy Park (Mackenzie Davis) discovers that one of the mission’s rovers has been moved while reviewing satellite images—and so start the schemes to rescue Watney. Where a superhero movie would show superheroes epically beating up villains, The Martian shows engineers solving probWIND-UP: PART 2 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16.
strain on your intelligence.” The burly officer reddened, but Weir responded with a cool smile. “But,” Winder continued with feigned resignation, “if you absolutely insist on a name, just call her...” He glanced sidelong at me. “Oh, I don’t know, Newt. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He brushed past Weir and stalked into the alleyway and I followed, feeling the stares of the officers behind us. “I appreciate that you didn’t tell them who I was,” I said. Winder grunted. “But where’d you get the name Newt?” “Would you rather that I called you Toad?” He caught my glance and sighed. “It was the name of my old assistant. We never called each other by our actual names, it was too risky. Especially for the cases we worked on together.” Was Winder not his real name? I was curious, but it was at that moment that we saw the body. All other thoughts
IMAGE PROVIDED
The Martian is a hard science-fiction movie that first aired on October 2. It’s based on a book (which was originally published as a blog) by Andy Weir.
A screenshot from the film.
lems in a very glamorous way. Much of the attitude seems to be “This is the only way Watney will live—so who cares if it’s extremely dangerous!” Watney uses a piece of highly radioactive metal as a heater. He launches himself into space in what is essentially a convertible. Watney’s fellow astronauts blow an airlock off of their spaceship and use the escaping air as thrust. And consider this: “I admit it's fatally dangerous, but I'd get to fly around like Iron Man.” This is the vibe of the movie. As British physicist Brian Cox put it, "The Martian is the best advert for a career in engineering I've ever seen." As a proponent of STEM, I have to admit that I’m biased in favor of the movie. It was a thrilling and mostly-realistic two hours and twenty-one minutes of science-filled fun, replete with lines like: “Technically, Mars is international waters, meaning Maritime Law applies. And since I am illegally commandeering a vessel in international water under maritime law, that makes me a pirate. Mark Watney: Space Pirate.” The verdict? If you’re into STEM, this film is a must-see. And even if you’re not, seeing The Martian is well worth your time.
vanished; I felt nauseous and took a step back. Even Winder looked slightly perturbed. Weir appeared behind us. “Horrifying, isn’t it?” he remarked, his face still impassive. “You think you’ve seen them all after 13 years, but every once in awhile something special still manages to appear.” Winder shook his head. “Damn.” Crouching down, he began to inspect the body closely. Weir continued on. “We think the victim is Carl Sand, a street musician who frequents the square. Pretty popular, plays the guitar. Several people who were here last night remember Sand performing at the festival, but said that he was gone by midnight.” Winder looked up from the body. “Someone had some fun with this murder. These aren’t just incisions—look at how forcefully this cut terminates, through the right hip.” “Perhaps it’s a friend of yours,” murmured Weir. Winder ignored him. “Newt, come take a look.” With some reluctance, I approached the CONTINUED ON PAGE 18
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THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
Tokenism By BENJAMIN SALOMON
to·ken·ism ˈt ōkəˌnizəm/
noun the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a workforce. Tokenism is not actual equality, it is the appearance of equality. For kids in high school, this might not be one of the things they notice in class, or at home, but they are still exposed to it. Very few people notice the tokenism in their daily life, but if you play video games, you know exactly what it is. Here are some prime examples of tokenism in video games today. Halo Reach The Halo series is near and dear to the hearts of many gamers. The story of the games and development of well-established characters from Master Chief to Cortana is undoubtedly rich. However, Halo Reach, the 2009 prequel to the main series, introduced a variety of new characters in the new Noble Team, each with different abilities and personalities. The featured characters are Carter, Kat, Jun, Emile, Jorge, and Noble 6, who is the playable character. Kat is the subject of the tokenism in this installation. Kat is the only female military character in the game, so she is given the generic characteristics of a female fighter in shoot ‘em up games: little guns, a troubled past, and a snappy attitude towards her male counterparts. She is never portrayed the way Emile and Jorge are— as big gun-wielding badasses who are nearly invincible. Even in choice of weapons, it is clear who’s tougher (Kat with a pistol or Jorge with a minigun?).
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corpse. For a while we sat there, analyzing the grotesque scene, Weir standing over us with a bored air. The mutilated corpse lay across the red-stained ground, unprotesting to our examinations. After a few minutes, I noticed something. “Hey, Winder,” I said. Winder continued to stare closely at a laceration but nodded for me to continue. “Take a look at the wound on the arm here, on the upper arm. The flesh is almost completely hacked away.” He took a glance, then furrowed his brow. “Interesting,” he muttered. “That’s the only severe injury on the arms, too...” His voice trailed off, and for a second he was frozen in thought, his eyes wide. Weir walked up to the detective. “Found some giveaway clue yet, Winder?” Winder turned to face the lieutenant, his face already switched to one of annoyance.
She is the team's technological mastermind, and for all the times that coms go down or mysterious signals are identified, Kat is tasked with getting to the bottom of it. This is essentially the only advantage she has over her other team members, however slight it is. Even in her death, Kat is not given an equal amount of carnage or bravery as the other Noble members who die, especially since she is the only character to not kill multiple enemies while she is being killed. Kat is a complex character, and she does have some abilities and power, but she’s at nowhere near an equal level to the male characters in the game. Fifa 16 We all know the jokes about how you dominate 90 percent of the possession, but then your friend scores some completely ridiculous game-winning goal that was the most BS thing you’ve ever seen, right? However, no matter how crazy the goal is, the goal scorers are consistent throughout the franchise. Goals are netted by Messi, Ronaldo, Ibrahimovic, Neymar, and… Abby Wambach? That’s right, Fifa 16 features the women's national teams as well as the men’s. So how is tokenism related? Well, how many times has someone told you, “Yo Joe Schmo, you hear about that sick goal in the WMLS yesterday?” I know for sure that I haven’t heard it, let alone knew that there was a women's version of the MLS (Major League Soccer). Women are seriously underrepresented in the world of soccer, not just in games, but in the real world. FIFA has spent nearly $900 million on soccer, with only 15 percent of it going to women’s soccer and its events. The men’s team made more money losing to Belgium than the women’s did becoming world champions. This has me very suspicious about their inclusion in the latest installment of the FIFA games.
“Not if you keep bothering us with your inanity,” he said testily. “Tell you what, Lieutenant, I just remembered that I have to finish up some paperwork for my last case. Chief’ll have my head if I don’t, and besides, I think there’s some information there that’ll help me out. I’ll be back in a bit.” Weir’s lips pressed together. “Do you expect us to just wait here for you?” Winder glared at him. “Well, you could. Or maybe you could search the area for a discarded cleaver or some other heavy, bladed weapon; it’s probably in one of the trash cans around here. Hell, you could even try looking around for his guitar—pretty strange that a musician wouldn’t have his instrument with him, especially after a gig. I’m sure you’ll think of something.” The detective rose to leave, his head briefly passing by my ear. “4:00, Norberry Precinct,” he whispered. Without another word, he strode out of the alleyway and disappeared.
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Interview: Student Musician Kieran Loehr By VEDA CHICKERMANE
VEDA CHICKERMANE
I sat down with Kieran Loehr ’16, a student who many feel represents the spirit and energy that we try to emulate in our IHS music programs. He is the first chair in the IHS Concert Band’s alto saxophone section, and is also the first chair for his instrument in the IHS Jazz Band. His excellent performance at NYSSMA (the official New York State music competition) has resulted in his acceptance to the All County Band in High School two times, being the first chair for alto saxophone in Area All State (another honor band), and even making it into New York’s most selective band, Conference All State. I asked him a few questions about being a member of band and of his personal musical accomplishments.
you to be there too. While the people in band may not be your best friends, whoever you manage to reach out to will reach back, and help make you a successful member. VC: Who are some people who have influenced your musicality? KL: First and foremost it would be my music teachers. Nicki Zawel, Mike Treat, and Joe Salzano are just a few of the many music teachers who have taught me a lot. One of the most influential lessons I have learned from them is that to become a great musician you have to listen to the great musicians, so I would also say that some professional saxophonists like Sonny Stitt, Steven Mauk, and especially Charlie Parker have had a big influence on my musicality.
Veda Chickermane ‘19: To start, how long have you been playing the saxophone? VC: Do your skills as a player and a member of band have an Kieran Loehr ‘16: I started playing impact in your everyday life? Kieran Loehr ’16. saxophone during third grade at the KL: Definitely. From singing to pop culMontessori School. I guess that means I’ve been playing for ture to tapping drum beats with my hands, the rhythmic a little over eight years now. lessons from the saxophone as well as those taught in our music education classes are everywhere. VC: What inspired you to choose saxophone as an instrument? How has it shaped your life? VC: I heard you got into Conference All State, easily the most KL: I think I first heard the saxophone in kindergarten when selective band for high-school students in New York State. I was listening to some jazz with my mom. Playing the saxo- What was the process of getting in like for you, and what are phone has impacted me in several ways, by not only making your feelings about it? me a more musical and artistic person, but introducing me KL: I am really excited to be a part of the Conference All to some of the most amazing people. I love going to band State, which takes place during the first week of Decemeveryday, and through just the high school I joined several ber. Getting in took quite a bit of work, and was extremely different groups like the Pit Orchestra, Pep Band, Sax Quar- nerve-wracking. Right around AP testing, I had to practice tet, and Jazz Band. almost every day to prepare a solo and get it into amazing condition. Also, for Conference All State auditions, you have VC: When do you have time to practice? What is the key to to have an accompanist, so I had to work with an accompabalancing schoolwork, other extracurricular activities and nist during two weekends before the audition so we could your music? figure out good communication and musicality. I barely reKL: I practice every now and then after school, but mainly member the actual audition, but I do remember practically during the weekends. Practicing isn't imperative for success shaking before I went in. No matter how many times you in school, so to make sure I get time to practice I generally audition, you still get nervous. do it early in the day, before I feel the pressure of all my other commitments. VC: What are your plans with music once you graduate? Will you continue playing? VC: What is some advice that you have for the incoming KL: No matter what I do with my life I am sure that I will freshmen in band? What are the keys to being a successful keep playing saxophone. I will hopefully go to college next and productive member of band? year, and while I don't think I will major in music, I definitely KL: Band is definitely a great family. Coming into high school will audition for any small bands or ensembles available. can honestly be tricky, and even after five weeks you may not have quite found your group yet, but my main advice is to reach out. Everyone in band wants to be there, and wants
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SPORTS
Athlete Feature: Kevin Miller By MARLO ZORMAN, STAFF WRITER For years, Ithaca has been a swimming powerhouse in Section 4, easily crushing every other school in the district. Despite an extremely deep roster, a big reason for the team’s success is Kevin Miller ’16. In his junior year alone, Miller broke a total of four school and pool records, had two top-three finishes at states, and became an All-American in the 500-yard freestyle. I sat down with Kevin and talked to him about what pushes him to do so well and his plans for the future. Marlo Zorman ’16: Right off the bat, what are your plans for college? You must be getting recruited, so what are your top college choices? Kevin Miller: The two colleges I was looking at are Cornell and Penn State. Ultimately, I decided on Cornell, and I’m committing pending my admission. I just connected much better with the team and coach there. For a long time, Cornell has been considered one of the slower Ivy Leagues, but recently they’ve started to have strong recruiting classes. The program has a lot of potential and I really want to be a part of that. The chance to help improve a program and be a part of something like that is not an everyday experience. I’d like to study business. Both colleges can give me an excellent education, but since Dyson is a smaller program, there’s more intimacy among professors and students. MZ: What are the most important lessons you’ve learned during your years of swimming? KM: One of the biggest things I’ve learned is to be open to criticism, making sure you’re listening to your coaches. For the most part, coaches know what's better and you have to learn to listen. I’ve also learned that It’s important to take the sport seriously and treat it with respect, but you can’t get to the point where if you fail it’s the end of the world. You should never be scared of failure. Sophomore year, I was so bent out of shape about wanting to break Alex Meyer’s record I was losing sleep over it. I thought I didn’t accomplish anything unless I got that record. That led to me swimming slow times. During the next meet, when I was much more relaxed, I was able to swim a lot faster.
MZ: I know swimming can be very time consuming. How do you balance swimming and schoolwork? KM: It’s definitely a time commitment, but it’s doable. I’ve never actually had any trouble balancing schoolwork. Anytime I do poorly in a class it’s because of me, not swimming. You just have to learn to manage your time well. The biggest problem for me was stupid classes like gym and health. If athletes didn’t have to take classes like gym they could have a study period, or even take another class. Not having that burden would be a huge help in accommodating schoolwork. MZ: Who or what has had the biggest impact on your success as a swimmer? KM: Since I was ten years old, I’ve never had the same coach for two consecutive seasons. [Kevin competes for IHS and club teams; each team has a different Coach] A seasoned swimmer would look at that and think it’s impossible or crazy, having to adjust to a new schedule and coach every season. I agree, but it helps me because I’m able to hear and receive so many opinions on how to swim, train, and recover. Each coach gives you tips and over the years all of those ideas have accumulated. I’ve been able to combine the good qualities of all coaches: that really helps. A big thanks goes to [Coach] Mike, he’s been there for me since seventh grade. I’ve had a big impact on myself too. There’s no other person on the pool deck who can motivate me like myself. It has to CONTINUED ON PAGE 23
NBA 2015–16 Preview By THEO COWETT
The looming season of NBA action beginning on October 27 is already full of mystery. The iconic Kobe Bryant’s career seems to be coming to a close, while rising stars such as Andrew Wiggins hope to build on their strong opening year. Many unknowns are currently swirling around the NBA. How will Kevin Durant fare after returning from injury? Will Bryant be able to bounce back after his Achilles tear? Where will the offensive rebounding powerhouse Tristan Thompson be playing this season? To learn the answers to these questions, we must wait for the upcoming season. For now, here are my tentative predictions of the top four teams for each conference. West 1: San Antonio Spurs A team full of successful veterans coached by the mastermind Gregg Popovich, with the addition of all-star Lamarcus Aldridge the Spurs seem to be poised for a title run. A possible downfall for the Spurs could be injuries; to win they need to stay healthy. 2: Golden State Warriors The defending champions seem like an easy choice to be number one—they return two sharp shooters in Klay Thompson and Steph Curry and a strong defensive anchor in Draymond Green. As seen in previous years, however, repeating a championship is often challenging, and I expect the Warriors to struggle and have a little “hangover” from their championship success last year. 3: Houston Rockets Lead by the 2014–15 leading scorer James Harden, the Rockets are hoping to build off their tremendous season last year. Expect Harden to be highly motivated to win this year following statements made about how he believed he should have won the MVP award over Warriors player Curry. With their scrappy point guard Patrick Beverley returning from injuries, look for improved defense from the typically offensive Rockets. 4: Oklahoma City Thunder With Kevin Durant returning from injuries to once again pair with the most athletic PG in the league, Russell Westbrook, the Thunder looks to be a dangerous team. There is no denying the ability the two aforementioned stars have, but to survive in the western conference you CONTINUED ON PAGE 23
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SPORTS
ATHLETE FEATURE: KEVIN MILLER CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20.
come from yourself, you have to be motivated enough. You have to want the post-season accolades enough to endure the pain. No one can make you want it more than you can. MZ: Who’s been your biggest role model throughout high school? KM: I’d probably have to say something cliche like my brothers or my father. Recently it’s been my two older brothers: my oldest brother Dan has a job in NYC and is a full-on adult, doing really well. My other brother Dave is in London and is doing excellent schoolwork and swimming incredibly well. They’re both really good role models. MZ: How do your teammates help you improve as a swimmer? KM: In practice, I never want to be seen as a slacker. So I always do more than they do and work harder. Doing that allows me to have some bragging rights, but I only ever use those in some situations. Their presence there makes me want to be the hardest worker on the team, just to know that I’m pushing myself a little harder than they are. It could be seen as a self-centered view, but at the same time it’s important for me to push myself harder than they’re pushing themselves.
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NBA 2015-2016 PREVIEW CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20.
need a strong bench to support the starting group. The two stars will be able to carry this team to some wins, but to become title contenders the Thunder’s bench needs to improve. East 1: Cleveland Cavaliers In the comparatively weaker eastern conference, the Cavs are an outlier in that they will be able to easily challenge any of the teams in the west. With LeBron James leading the way alongside Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, the sky’s the limit for this team. The Cavaliers’ loss to the Warriors in last year’s NBA finals will act as motivation for LeBron, who will demand the best out of his teammates. Love will hope to play a larger role in the offense while Irving hopes to bounce back from injury. A big piece of the puzzle, Tristan Thompson, is yet to sign back with the team, but an actual departure from the team seems very unlikely. 2: Atlanta Hawks The Hawks return to the 2015–16 season with all of the players who contributed to their tremendous success last season. Point Guard Jeff Teague seems to just get better and better, and aspires to build on his great performance last season. By re-signing Power Forward Paul Millsap, the Hawks keep their core group of Teague, Kyle Korver, and Al Horford together for another run at a championship. The departure of DeMarre Carroll was not great for the team, but I don’t believe this will affect them greatly due to a deep bench. The Hawks may do well in the east, but will struggle against the Cavs and western conference teams. 3: Toronto Raptors The additions of Anthony Bennett and DeMarre Carroll to the Raptors’ roster looks to pay off. Bennett, the former number one overall pick, appears to have lost a ton of weight and has shown why he was picked number one. Carroll is a tremendous defender who will serve as a lockdown man on defense for the Raptors. DeMar DeRozan will continue his offensive prowess alongside high-flying dunker Terrence Ross. The Raptors also resigned Jonas Valanciunas, who I believe is one of the most underrated centers in the league. The Raptors seem keen on improving once again this year. 4: Miami Heat Miami has suffered a lot of challenges since the LeBron era ended. Dwyane Wade has struggled with injuries while Chris Bosh was fighting a life-threatening illness for the majority of last season. The mid-season addition of PG Goran Dragic seems to have been a great decision. The Heat drafted one of my favorite players, Justise Winslow, who is an NBA-ready player who will do great things on the defensive end. With Dragic, Bosh, and an aging Wade, the Heat will remain around mid-table in the eastern conference.
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THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
STUDENT ATHLETES AND DRUG ABUSE AT IHS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1.
Although there is currently no statistical data, Mr. Trumble ventured an estimate that “Student athletes probably experiment [with] or use drugs on par with non-athlete students.” Certainly this must be true, but do student athletes have even more of a tendency to use or experiment with these substances? Trumble said that student athletes probably use drugs and alcohol slightly more than non-athlete students, citing that sports-related parties are arguably the grounds in which most alcohol and drug use takes place. According to our poll, around 41 percent of those surveyed said they have used marijuana. The Community Coalition for Health Youth’s survey results from 2014 show that around 30 percent of 12th graders in Tompkins County reported use of marijuana. It also stated that use by local youth is higher than national rates. In addition, he said that athletes are naturally seen as icons—even in a small setting like high school—so when a star athlete shows up at a party, the pressure on that athlete to do a kegstand is exponentially higher than it would be for any average Joe. Although many athletes distance themselves in an effort to keep their performance at the highest level, the number of those who do use marijuana is alarming. “Ithaca has a problem concerning drugs and their availability,” Trumble added, “and is what I would call, generally, a community with a more relaxed atmosphere than other communities in the surrounding area.” He added that student athletes in Ithaca are certainly more exposed to substances than those in other areas, and as a result of this magnified exposure, it is likely that stu-
dent-athlete drug use in our area is higher as well. For the same reason, student athletes in Ithaca are also very susceptible to addiction. While the Athletic Code of Conduct outlines clear punishments for drug and substance-related infractions, it doesn’t prevent all student athletes from abusing drugs, Trumble said. When dealing with talented student athletes who suffer from addiction, Trumble believes the issue must be dealt with using care and close involvement from all those involved—including the coach. “For us to just throw them off a team for eternity, we might be missing an opportunity to help save somebody,” Trumble said. Trumble said that he has always held student athletes to a higher standard than non-athlete students, as athletes have a higher expectation of poise and responsibility as representatives of the school. Still, questions remain to be answered. With all things considered, how much is too much? Where must the line be drawn? Should the school and administration overlook the horrifically real problem of addiction in sports merely to follow a code of conduct? Additionally, is the use of alcohol and drugs by student athletes necessary, or at the very least unavoidable, as a means of offloading the stress that comes with their role in the student body? What Trumble has to say on the matter is perhaps the most astute assessment of the issue yet: “Young people really need to understand how to leverage their body for their own gain, their social and emotional well-being, and their sense of longing for their school, and recognize the ill effects that drugs have on them.”
THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
PENULTIMATE
PAGE 27
NOEL BENTLEY NOEL BENTLEY
Invisibility Cloaks are sold during the Wizarding Weekend at Press Bay Alley on October 31st, 2015. The event turned this Ithaca location into Diagon Alley for a Harry Potter halloween.
October in Pictures
A child dresses as a skunk for Halloween during the Wizarding Weekend at Press Bay Alley on October 31st, 2015.
RUTH WITMER
MAGDA KOSSOWSKA
NOEL BENTLEY
A wild apple tree after the first snow of the season on October 18th, 2015.
A woman celebrates halloween and shows school spirit on October 30th, 2015 at Ithaca High School.
ELEXUS AYIKA
A view of crowded streets near the Ithaca Commons during the 33rd Ithaca Apple Harvest Festival on October 2, 2015.
BRIDGET FETSKO
The Saint Catherine of Siena Church Choir performs at a concert celebrating the church’s new Steinway piano.
A view of Cayuga Lake.
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THE TATTLER • NOVEMBER 2015 • ihstattler.com
BACK PAGE Five Beautifully Animated Movies To Watch By CLAIRE SALOFF-COSTE IMAGE PROVIDED
IMAGE PROVIDED
Secret of Kells
The Garden of Words
This movie by Cartoon Saloon is the story of a
The second Japanese title on this list is by Ma-
young Irish boy who wishes to complete a magical
koto Shinkai. Known for hyper-realistic images, es-
book. As a result, he has to leave the community he
pecially when it comes to lighting, it’s impossible not
is walled within even as the enemy Vikings approach.
to be blown away by almost photographic images of
It’s a story of friendship and courage that’s great for
natural scenery. The story follows a boy who wants
any age, and not only is it wonderfully colorful, but
to become a shoemaker who forms an unexpected
there’s a well-planned geometric aspect to it. This
friendship with a woman he meets on a rainy day in
one’s on Netflix, to boot! (Also by Cartoon Saloon:
a garden. (Also by Makoto Shinkai: 5 Centimeters Per
Song of the Sea.)
Second.)
The COOLNESS SPECTRUM
COOL Football team victory Five years until Kanye
IMAGE PROVIDED
IMAGE PROVIDED
Full denim-clad octogenarian Holiday Ambiance
Waltz with Bashir
Tales of the Night Tales of the Night is a French film directed by
Unlike the other entries on this list, Waltz with
Michel Ocelot which is made purely of silhouette an-
Bashir is a mature and unflinching war documentary.
imation. That means that every object in the film is
Our main character is trying to reconstruct memo-
pure black, surrounded by beautiful and astonishing
ries from his time as a soldier in the Lebanon War of
colors. A boy and girl meet together with an old tech-
1982. With stark contrast and powerful images, this
nician every night to tell and perform tales of adven-
isn’t a movie to be taken lightly. Folman is both the
ture. (Also by Michel Ocelot: Princes et Princesses)
director and main character. Waltz with Bashir was
Football team almost winning HoCo Decline of American Values
nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 2009 AcadeIMAGE PROVIDED
my Awards and is officially banned in Lebanon.
OCTOBER SUDOKU SOLUTIONS 2
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The Tale of Princess Kaguya This classic Japanese tale (based off of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) is directed by Isao Takahata
and scenery.The Tale of Princess Kaguya is about a tiny girl found in a bamboo shoot whose discoverers think she’s a divine being. They do everything to make her royal, but she discovers that may not be what she truly wants. (Also by Isao Takahata: Grave of the Fireflies.)
Mispronouncing names Manspreading Football bus tackles car
UNCOOL