November 2019

ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO TATTLE. Estd. 1892 • Published Monthly • www.ihstattler.com Ithaca High School, 1401 North Cayuga Street, Ithaca, NY 14850 • FREE

NOVEMBER 2019 VOL. 127 #3

Analysis of the Fourth Democratic Debate Page 4

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EDITORIAL

The “Athlete Advantage” in College Admissions

By THE TATTLER EDITORIAL BOARD

A

s many seniors can testify around this time of year, college admissions are a nerve-wracking and stress-inducing process. Every aspect of one’s high school career, from GPAs and test scores to extracurriculars and volunteer hours, is placed before a menacing jury of disinterested officers to be mercilessly critiqued.

As such, many students are forced to seek out the most eye-catching achievements during their high school years, which they only hope may land them a spot in the halls of higher education. The recent college admissions scandal saw several affluent parents resort to less-than-honest ways of securing a spot on college campuses for their children, in an attempt to cheat this system.

There’s a reason why this so-called “Varsity Blues” scandal involved both great sums of money and weeks-long media coverage.

Put simply, students and parents want to know how to gain even the smallest advantage over their peers in this ever-so-stressful process.

However, as it turns out, there is one particular group of students who enjoy a greater head-start in the admissions process than others: athletes. Increasingly, it seems as though colleges are looking to athletic achievement as the key to finding what they view as the “ideal fit” for their institution—a student who will actively participate in their community, bringing home trophies and prestige for the good of everyone involved. According to the 2001 book The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values, athletes received an average admissions advantage of 53.0 per2

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cent over the “average” applicant as of 1999.

This figure was higher than that granted to minority (20.0 percent) and legacy students (24.0 percent). The study controlled for students’ SAT scores to account for any academic factors that may have contributed to this phenomenon. Although the question of whether this advantage is “deserved” remains under debate, it is worth examining both the motivations and outcomes of this preferential treatment.

Multiple factors help to explain the importance of athletics during admissions.

On one hand, intercollegiate athletics are a massive business, and the combined profits from ticket sales, merchandising, television royalties, and the like provide a major incentive for colleges to prioritize athletic potential when it comes to forming their freshman classes. According to Business Insider, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) reported revenues of over $1 billion for the 2016-17 school year.

This number simply goes to show the immense scale of intercollegiate athletics, as well as the huge financial motive behind admissions officers’ preferences toward student athletes. After all, colleges have every reason to allocate their resources toward whichever department happens to be most profitable, and the persistent popularity of intercollegiate sports makes selecting topnotch athletes an obvious investment on their part.

Another (perhaps more covert) incentive for colleges to prioritize athletics centers on another controversial aspect of the process: family income. Many of the “rich kid”

sports that admissions departments consider favorably, including crew and squash, are not available to students in low-income neighborhoods. These sports can become clear indicators of an applicant’s socioeconomic status to an admissions officer, who obviously knows that wealthy alumni are likely to make hefty donations to their alma mater later on. Thus, placing so much emphasis on athletics in admissions can reinforce a seemingly endless cycle of privilege.

This not only hurts the integrity of the entire process, but can also degrade the value of other students’ achievements. After all, if colleges are doing everything in their power to help already affluent students attain even greater heights, regardless of their actual merits, then what becomes of the student who has had to start from lower rungs on the societal ladder? Although athletic achievements should certainly be considered as valuable as any other, problems arise when such achievements are used as a proxy for wealth, rather than a measure of the value that an applicant would bring to an institution.

Athletics are a crucial part of student life, and athletes deserve to be recognized for their hard work. It is also difficult to blame colleges for capitalizing on the immense popularity of intercollegiate athletics. However, the integrity of the admissions process can only stand if colleges treat athletic achievements as outstanding displays of students’ talent, not simply as proxies for wealth and privilege.

NEWS

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Rising Voices: Mothers in Activism

By GRACE LIM

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ecently, many people have heard of (or participated in) the Global Climate Strike, a large-scale movement that mainly encourages young people to “walk out” of school to protest the harmful effects of climate change. Students are raising their voices to demand action against a variety of catastrophic problems. But what you may not know is that moms all across the US are also doing their part and taking action against problems like gun control and climate change. These moms have banded together and formed large organizations to advocate for stricter gun laws and a transition towards environmentally friendly, renewable energy.

Mothers Out Front: Mobilizing For a Livable Climate is a large organization of moms who are advocating for an effective and quick solution to switch from burning fossil fuels to clean sustainable energy in order to preserve a livable environment for their children. There are many different ways by which members can get involved in this countrywide activist organization. Chapters are located in every state, and they even have their own in Tompkins County. Members can take action, volunteer, or deliver seminars/workshops to aid this cause. On June 10, Tompkins County secured a big victory in reducing gas plant emissions. Additionally, in response to the Mothers Out Front’s activism, the Dryden Town Board will upgrade the natural gas facility in Ellis Hollow, substantially reducing plant emissions.

Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America, which was founded in 2012, is a “grassroots movement of Americans fighting for public safety

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The Tattler is the monthly student-run newspaper of Ithaca High School. All currently-enrolled students at Ithaca High School are welcome to submit writing and photographs. As an open forum, The Tattler invites opinion submissions and letters to the editor from all community members. Email submissions to editor@ihstattler.com or mail letters to: The Tattler 1401 North Cayuga Street Ithaca, NY 14850 Send submissions by November 15th to be included in the December issue. The Tattler reserves the right to edit all submissions. All articles, columns, and advertisements do not necessarily reflect the views of editorial staff.

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measures that can protect people from gun violence,” according to their website. Shannon Watts founded the organization after the devastating Sandy Hook school shooting. Although the movement first started as a Facebook group, these online messages have grown to six million dedicated supporters. Moms Demand Action has established a chapter in every state and has more than 350,000 donors contributing to the cause. Hard-working volunteers have ensured that hazardous gun laws are repealed and are influencing the creation of many new gun violence prevention laws, including the Nevada SB143 law, which requires background checks on all gun sales, and bipartisan legislation that will reduce illegal gun trafficking. Various events are hosted by Moms Demand Action to take action against gun violence.

To learn more about mom-led activism, I spoke to Karla Hanson, a member of Moms Demand Action. (Moms Demand Action, a branch of Everytown for Gun Safety, formed in Tompkins County two years ago.) As a mom of two Ithaca High School alumnae and a faculty member at Cornell University, Hanson has a close connection to Ithaca. She began working with Everytown for Gun Safety, spreading awareness online, making donations, and reading legislative updates, in 2014.

Hanson has attended a lobby day in Albany and met many activists who have been successful in “propelling New York State to be a leader in gun violence prevention legislation.” With experience in hand, she brought her knowledge to the Ithaca community. She volunteered to be the legislative lead for Tompkins County and arranged a meeting with Tom Reed, our district representative. Activist mothers, activist youths, and elected officials were all present at this meeting. Hanson opened up communication between the youth and the decision-makers when she invited students from IHS to the meeting.

Of the intergenerational nature of activism, Hanson stated that “The synergy of moms and youth advocating . . . together was energizing.”

Mothers and students approach issues from different viewpoints, but both groups are energized to tackle the nation’s major problems.

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NEWS

Analysis of the Fourth Democratic Debate

By FRANCES KLEMM

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n October 15, the Democratic candidates for President gathered in Ohio for the fourth Democratic debate. Earlier, on October 1, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont was rushed to the hospital after a heart attack, enforcing the main worry that his age might make him unfit for the Presidency. During the debate, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Vice President Joe Biden faced the same criticism.

Prior to the debate, many voters were unable to see the political differences between Sanders and Warren. Warren had also secured her first lead over Sanders, right behind front-runner Biden. With Warren’s campaign on the rise, CNN stated that “the movement toward Warren is not attrition from Biden, but of lower-tier candidates losing supporters who have gone to Warren or, in lesser numbers, to Sanders.”

Heading into the debate with no opening statements, the moderators stuck to questions of minor disagreement. Questioning about the impeachment inquiry into President Trump took fifteen minutes and was a reminder that everyone on the stage wanted Trump gone. Each candidate took the time to warm up, which robbed viewers of real policy debate time. Following the theme of corruption, Biden was grilled on his son, Hunter Biden, and his involvement in Ukraine.

When the conversation turned to healthcare, Sanders and Warren led the charge in favor of Medicare for All, while the other candidates took the time to tear the idea apart. One noticeable difference in this debate was that Warren, who has surged 4

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in polls, was highly criticized by moderate candidates such as Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Amy Klobuchar, former Congressman Beto O’Rourke, and Biden. Yet whenever the debate got too intense, it seemed that New Jersey Senator Cory Booker was always there to referee, using his time to remind audiences of the importance of unity in the party rather than pursuing his own political points.

Though several disagreements were shown throughout the night, one topic revealed the opposite policies of entrepreneur Andrew Yang and Sanders. When discussing automation, Sanders maintained his promise of providing new jobs through a Green New Deal, while Yang repeated his policy of a universal basic income of a thousand dollars every month. This sparked a brief debate between Sanders and Yang, giving audiences a chance to see two opposite strategies, a sight rarely seen on the 2020 Democratic stage.

On the subject of foreign policy, the main issue was the Turkish invasion of Syria after President Trump pulled US troops out of Syria. The question was met with a general agreement that Trump’s plan was wrong. Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard criticized politicians who have supported the “regime change war,” while Buttigieg argued that the tragedy in Syria was “a consequence of a withdrawal and a betrayal,” instead of a consequence of American presence.

On the issue of gun violence, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro shone. The conversation

was divided between plans for a mandatory buyback of assault weapons and more moderate plans. The former secretary landed a fair point against mandatory buybacks, saying they were too unspecific, giving police “another reason to go door-to-door.” He was the first to address police violence, saying, “police violence is also gun violence,” which many candidates agreed with. Castro also mentioned Atatiana Jefferson, a black woman who was fatally shot through the window of her own home a week prior, as an effective piece of evidence.

One question from the debate that left experts and candidates confused was when a moderator asked the candidates to describe a surprising friendship, mentioning former President George W. Bush and Ellen DeGeneres as an example. This was met with criticism, as critical issues like immigration, climate change, and reproductive rights (although California Senator Kamala Harris did shout out the issue) were replaced with an Ellen question.

The CNN moderators were the ones who faced the most backlash after this debate. Their lack of questioning on important topics, the focus on age, and Ellen led them to be critiqued by candidates and experts on and off the stage. Buttigieg and Klobuchar had standout nights with their new offensive strategies, while the newest addition, investor and billionaire, Tom Steyer, made little impact. The next question is about who will hold on to enough donors and poll respondents to make it to the next debate, which will be held on Wednesday, November 20, in Georgia.

NEWS | FEATURES

House of Representatives Opens Impeachment Inquiry

By WILL THOMAS

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reckoning may have arrived for President Trump. On September 24, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced a formal inquiry into the impeachment of the President. Speaker Pelosi stated, “The actions of the Trump presidency revealed the dishonorable fact of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.” This was a harsh condemnation from Pelosi, who until this point had been hesitant to denounce Trump.

Trump’s actions were brought to light through a whistleblower (whose identity has not been confirmed), who spoke with a government official about a call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In this call, President Trump allegedly asked the country of Ukraine to investigate his potential political rival Joe Biden and his son. Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was an advisor for a Ukrainian oil company that has recently come under scrutiny. The company’s founder was accused of and investigated for money laundering but was not convicted; Hunter Biden was never implicated in said investigation. If Trump did, in fact, ask Ukraine for “dirt” on an opponent, that would constitute an impeachable offense.

Trump has made comments about involving foreign countries in elections be-

fore. On Thursday, October 3, President Trump was questioned as to whether he had asked the leader of China, Xi Jinping, to start an investigation into Hunter Biden, Trump said that while he hadn’t, it was “certainly something we can start thinking about.” He also said that, because the US is in trade negotiations with China, “if they don’t do what we want, we have tremendous, tremendous power.”

The White House issued an official statement denying all allegations of wrongdoing, calling the inquiry a witch hunt and also saying that the administration will refuse to cooperate with the inquiry. But the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives technically has the power to demand documents from the administration. This fact will likely create serious tension between Democrats and Republicans.

While the impeachment inquiry presents the first major obstacle to his presidency, does Donald Trump stand any chance of actually being removed from office? The short answer is potentially, but not likely, because of how the impeachment process works. For impeachment to begin, the Speaker of the House must open an inquiry into the President. This usually happens when it becomes clear that the President may have done something antithetical to the office’s purpose. Next, there are hearings, in which the House of Rep-

resentatives and Senate will hear from relevant officials, witnesses, and people close to the President. After that, there is a vote in the House. If a majority of the Representatives vote for impeachment, then the President has officially been impeached. It is important to realize that impeachment does not necessarily equate to removal. For the President to be removed, the Senate must vote for impeachment with a twothirds majority, or 66 votes, after conducting a trial during which more witnesses will testify. With Republicans holding 53 of the 100 seats, it is unlikely that 19 of them will impeach a President of their own party.

For Democrats, the strategy is likely to use the hearings to build momentum for the 2020 presidential election. Because of the seriousness of an impeachment inquiry, Democrats will be working to be thorough before calling a vote. Once it gets to the Senate, the Republicans will probably call a vote quickly, most likely win said vote, and therefore terminate the inquiry. Unless something seriously shifts, it is unlikely that Trump will be fully removed from office, but with 51 percent of Americans in support of impeachment (according to a Fox News poll on October 9th), the inquiry will continue to dominate much of the national political conversation.

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FEATURES

Hall Monitor: Underclassmen Edition

By LOUISA MILLER-OUT

If I told you the world was going to end tomorrow, what would you do right now?

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Sage Korfine ’23: “I would get on a plane and fly to French Polynesia.”

Hannah Shvets ’23: “Eat all the chocolate in my house, and go to Spicy Asian and order lots of food.”

Clara Tagliacozzo-Lee and Ondine Morgan-Knapp ’22: “Ditch this place and go get boba tea.”

Ammon Kellmurray ’23: “I would take out whatever loans I needed and get on a plane, go to a Norwegian island and watch the sunset.”

Artemis Inzinna and Ania Pillardy ’23: “Call all my family members and friends and say ‘it was nice knowing you.’”

“Fact-check it.”

Vicky Lu ’22: “I would download my playlist from SoundCloud, buy a speaker, and blast it for the world to hear as a final statement.”

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FEATURES

Recipe Review: Chef John’s Chicken Kiev from Allrecipes

By MJ STUELKE

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his is one of my favorite recipes! I make this for my family all the time and they love it! I made a couple of adjustments to the original recipe, because I found I had a lot of crumbs left over that I couldn’t use because they had touched raw chicken. To fix this, I use one cup of bread crumbs instead of two and only half a cup of flour. Also, I found that the cayenne takes away from the flavor of the garlic butter, but if you like spice, go for it. Any herbs work for the butter, but dill is one of my personal favorites. It is traditionally served with rice or straw potatoes to soak up the herb butter, but it also goes nicely with fresh vegetables.

Ingredients: 1. 2 cloves garlic, minced 2. 1 pinch salt 3. 2 tbsp. chopped parsley 4. 6 tbsp. salted butter 5. 4 8oz chicken breasts, pounded to ¼ in thick 6. Salt and pepper to taste 7. 1 cup flour 8. 2 tsp. salt 9. 2 eggs, beaten 10. 2 cups panko crumbs 11. Enough olive oil to fry, about one cup Directions: 1. Grind garlic and a pinch of salt together in a mortar and pestle until garlic is completely smashed. Add parsley and mix until completely incorporated. Pound butter into garlic mixture with pestle until parsley and garlic are fully incorporated into the butter. Wrap the butter mixture in plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold, at least 15 minutes.

2. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Place 1/4 of the butter mixture in the center of the wider end of each chicken breast. Fold the narrower end of each chicken breast up over the butter to form a tight pocket around the butter. Gather the sides of each chicken breast to the center to form a round ball. The top of the chicken will be smooth and the bottom will be gathered. Tightly wrap each chicken breast ball in plastic wrap, put wrapped breasts on a plate, and chill in the freezer until the gathered bottoms hold together and are slightly firm, about 30 minutes.

3. Whisk flour and 2 teaspoons salt together in a shallow bowl. Whisk eggs together in another shallow bowl. Pour panko bread crumbs into yet another bowl.

4. Remove chicken breast balls from plastic wrap. Gently

Image from Allrecipes

Chef John’s Chicken Kiev press each chicken breast ball into flour mixture to coat and shake off any excess flour. Dip into beaten eggs, then press into bread crumbs. Place breaded chicken onto a plate, cover with plastic wrap, and return to the freezer to chill until firm, about 15 minutes.

5. Heat oil in a deep-fryer or large saucepan to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 degrees Celsius). Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

6. Working in batches, cook chicken, gathered-side down, in hot oil until lightly golden on both sides, about 1 minute per side. Transfer to prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle salt over the top. Add a pinch of cayenne pepper for optional spice.

7. Bake in preheated oven until you can hear the butter start to sizzle on the baking sheet, about 15 to 17 minutes. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 165 ° F (74° C). Let rest for 5 minutes before serving. https://armagazine.com/2N58PZ3 NOVEMBER 2019

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FEATURES

Teacher Feature: Suzanne Nussbaum (Part One)

By ANNA WESTWIG

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uzanne Nussbaum, the only Latin teacher at IHS, is one of the school’s little wonders. Her office, hidden in the confines of K-Building, is stocked full of filing cabinets and various knick-knacks paying homage to a language that was spoken commonly thousands of years ago. She is often seen hurrying along the halls with a stack of Xeroxed worksheets in her arms. She has taught all of the high school’s Latin students since 2006—that is all of Latin I, Latin II, Latin III, Latin IV, AP Latin, an extra independent study, and Beginning Greek. She has done so with an unmatched dedication to both her students and Latin itself. In October, I had the opportunity of interviewing her over email and asking her about her life and experiences with Latin and teaching.

Anna Westwig ‘21: What was your early life like? Where did you grow up? Where did you go to college?

Suzanne Nusbaum: I grew up mostly in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. In my elementary school years, we moved around a bit (to San Francisco and New York City), because my father worked for the U.S. government, but most of the time we were in Maryland.

I went to Barnard College in the mid to late ‘70s and majored in Latin and Greek. This turned out to be a perfect place for me: it was a supportive, small liberal-arts college for women (so I figured that no one would resent my presence on campus) but also part of a major university. In my last two years as an undergraduate, they were kind enough to let me take some graduate courses in Classics, too. I went straight to Yale, to the PhD program in Classics. I didn’t wind up with the PhD because I never finished my dissertation, but I did a lot of course work, took exams, proposed a dissertation topic that was accepted, and (best of all) had the opportunity to do a lot of teaching of elementary and intermediate Latin, elementary Greek, and even some advanced Latin literature courses.

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AW: When did you first fall in love with Latin? Was there ever a time where you thought you weren’t going to pursue something Latin-related (teaching or otherwise) as a career path?

SN: I fell in love with Latin in high school, where I had the most marvelous teacher: Mr. Emery Eaton, who is elderly now but still with us, thankfully (a few years ago I had the satisfaction of getting in touch with him again by email). I had three years of Latin with him. I already was a “language fan”—I had some excellent French teachers, and that was the language I started with, but something about Latin really “clicked” for me. It seemed like a logic puzzle at first, and that was satisfying. I remember that, in the second year, it got really difficult, and I actually contemplated giving it up; I think it was only my affection for Mr. Eaton that kept me going . . .

The great payoff was in the third year, my senior year, when we read Vergil’s Aeneid. Very difficult, at first, but I remember my mother asking me what I liked so much about it: the story? The poetic rhythm? Figuring out what it meant? And I really couldn’t explain. But I was more or less addicted to it: we were supposed to read excerpts from Books 1, 4, and 6 (with some disappointment, Mr. Eaton had said we weren’t going to have time for Book 2). I found that, when we got to the end of Book 1 and were supposed to skip ahead to start Book 4, I couldn’t do it—I had to keep reading all of Book 1, then all of Books 2 and 3; so I just did it. (I wonder now how much I understood of what I was plowing through at home on my own!) I couldn’t stop then, and continued reading all of 4, 5, and 6. I remember nights working late with the radio on low, sitting at the kitchen table, figuring it out line by line . . . Incredibly enough, I didn’t even know—it came as something of a shock— that there were six more books to the story which I eventually read in graduate school.

AW: When/how/why did you come to teach Latin at IHS?

SN: When I showed up as a freshman at Barnard, I knew I would study languages. I signed up for French literature, Latin literature, and beginning Greek; I knew that if you loved Latin, you needed to go on to Greek as well. (Some people, like my husband Alan, go on to Sanskrit after that, and then they’re likely to wind up as Indo-European linguists!) My first Latin class was Catullus and Horace; I loved it. The same remarkable teacher (her name was Anne Sheffield) also taught the beginning Greek course, which was incredibly difficult. I remember thinking I had to quit when our class started participles, but after about two weeks’ work, it began making more sense, and I think that first year decided me towards “dead” languages.

I’m afraid I was a bit terrified of some of the students in my French class who’d studied in France and really spoke French . . . I had the privilege of studying with, among others, a great scholar of Horace (and Latin poetry in general) at Columbia, Steele Commager, who was a charming and charismatic teacher. If I’d any sense, I would have signed up to get a New York teaching certificate in Latin, and life would have been easier, later on, but I was so sure that I was going to be a professor!

So I went to Yale, where, instead of becoming a scholar, I had the opportunity to do a lot of teaching, and I remember thinking that it would be a great life, to have to prepare a work of Cicero to teach to intermediate college students every year—since, it’s really when you have to teach it that you learn it thoroughly yourself. This is the kind of life I’ve found teaching here at IHS, I’m happy and grateful to say.

On the strength of being almost done with my dissertation, I got a job teaching at the University of Cincinnati. One thing I learned there was that I couldn’t live without the man I later married, who had just moved to Cornell from Yale, so I left Cincinnati and moved to Ithaca. By coincidence, Hobart-William Smith Colleges in Geneva needed a one-year replacement for someone who’d gone on

FEATURES

leave, so I learned to drive, bought a car, and drove three days a week to Geneva and taught Latin, Greek, and classical civilization there.

The next year, the Latin teacher at IHS left in October. A call came to the Cornell Classics Department looking for someone who knew Latin; Alan heard about it and told me, and I got the job. This was October of 1987. I held the Latin job, which was Latin I, and Latin II and III (together in one period), for the next two years. Since I wasn’t certified, I needed to start taking courses in education (which I did in the summer of 1988). When I found out I was expecting our first child, I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to manage having a baby, teaching, and continuing to earn education credits, so I gave up the job and focused on my new family. About eight years and two children later, I had the opportunity to start teaching Latin to children ages 9 to 12, part-time, at the Montessori school my children were attending. Latin had been a tradition there (taught in an exploratory way, two halfhours a week for upper elementary school children), and the teacher who’d been doing it was leaving, so I offered my services! This was a great way for me to learn about teaching Latin, and I had something like twelve years there to work with, during which time the school expanded into a middle school program, of which Latin was a part (so Latin was a regular course, with as many class hours as, say, math, in seventh and eighth grade).

IHS had continued to offer Latin all this time: Mary O’Brian, To-

nya Anderson, Chloe Mills and John Hershey successively carried the torch; at some point, AP Latin was added to the curriculum. In 2007 John Hershey retired; I had filled in for him for several weeks, in the fall of 2006, and I had started taking education courses again. IHS hired me in fall 2007, and I’ve been here ever since.

AW: What’s a fun fact about you that people don’t know?

SN: The first student I ever taught the Ecce Romani I textbook, the textbook that we use for Latin I, was IHS’ own Ms. Kyle Erickson!

She was a student at the Montessori school when the middle school program was first added, and she was my most advanced Latin student. Luckily, out of the blue, the publishers who sold us the Cambridge Latin Course (used with the upper elementary kids) sent me an examination copy of Ecce Romani. I realized right away that this approach—in effect, “starting over” in Latin, but at a much more demanding level—was perfect for middle school and high school.

As seen from Mrs. Nussbaum’s responses above, she’s a thorough teacher. If you take Latin, you’ll learn Latin. So, to all the people questioning whether they want to learn this language or not, take this as an invitation, if you’re committed, to sign up in April. I can’t imagine a better person to teach you this beautiful corpse of a language.

A Statistical Look at Stress in IHS

By FRANCES KLEMM

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ational Stress Awareness Day falls on November 6 this year. This important day isn’t a holiday, but a gentle reminder to people worldwide that stress is very real and can lead to mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. According to Awareness Days, “Stress is a response to demands on the body and life, a response to crisis and fears.” According to a survey sent out to IHS, stress is a huge part of many students’ lives.

In the survey, 156 students used a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest, to describe how stressed they were on average. Fifty-seven percent of students replied that they were a 4 or a 5 on the scale. When asked where the majority of their stress came from, 75.7 percent of students reported “Workload— deadlines, homework, and tests.” Huffington Post states, “With exam pressures and college admissions anxiety at an all-time high, academic stress can become a daily struggle as early as middle school.” Judging from the survey completed by almost 200 students,

IHS stress levels and sentiments seem identical to high schools across the nation.

When asked about how their stress and grades were related, 46.5 percent of students said their grades were a 5 out of 5 importance to them, and 50.7 percent of students reported having three or more hours of homework every night. “Simple things, like a warm bath, listening to music, or spending time on a favorite hobby, can give you a much-needed break from the stressors in your life,” states Harvard Medical School. However, less than three-quarters of IHS students who answered the survey said they make having free time a priority in their lives.

An article by Medical News Today listed communicating as one of the main ways to decrease the stress in your life. “Talking to family, friends, work colleagues, and your boss about your thoughts and worries will help you ‘let off steam,’” the article states. But the IHS survey reported that only 33.8 percent of students talk to someone about their day on a regular basis.

Lack of sleep is also listed as a cause of stress among experts. On the IHS survey, 77.6 percent of students chose “Get more sleep” as an option that would help them get rid of stress as well as something they would consider doing, yet 49.1 percent of students answered that they got six or less hours of sleep every night. According to Nationwide Children’s Hospital, “studies show that most teenagers need exactly 9.25 hours of sleep.”

The lack of getting a good night’s sleep could be a large cause of stress at IHS. Remember to make sure you find activities that de-stress you, and make it a constant priority to relax and get as much sleep as possible. With the amount of stress that work, classes, sports, clubs, and family can give you, it’s important to ensure you take time for yourself. IHS students listed reading a book, talking to friends, and getting more sleep as activities that lower their stress levels. Don’t disregard things that help you relax, because they can be just as important as getting good grades on your road to success at IHS. NOVEMBER 2019

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FEATURES

Highlight: Brain Team

By HEEWON AHN

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he IHS Brain Team attended Nittany Lion Novice, its first tournament of the year, earlier this month. Four members of the team offered us their insights and impressions on their experience.

Heewon Ahn ‘21: You went to this tournament as a moderator; did anything surprise you about the experience?

Aidan Uckun ‘20: This was the first time I’d staffed for a college-run tournament, and I was really surprised by the lack of problems that we encountered. Everything was really streamlined and went smoothly.

HA: Do you have any tips for people who might be interested in joining the team?

AU: Put simply, if you want to get better at Quiz Bowl, pay attention in class. If you want to learn more about history, AP Euro is a great place to start. Read the textbook.

If you’re not the best at science, pay attention in your chemistry, physics, and biology classes. Pay attention in your APUSH classes, your AP World classes. And if you’re interested in joining, don’t be afraid to try it. Don’t be afraid to go to tournaments, to screw up. You will learn by going to tournaments, taking notes, and studying those notes. You’ll definitely find a subject you want to specialize in, and you’ll eventually improve a great deal.

HA: What’s your favorite thing about Brain Team?

AU: My favorite thing is that it turns a passion of mine into a valuable skill. For example, my specialty is history, which I wouldn’t have many opportunities to express in a high school setting. I also just enjoy going to competitions and doing well.

HA: Can you tell us about your favorite moment on the team so far?

AU: I’d say it was when I went to History 10

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Bowl for the first time. We went to nationals, it was amazing. It was like regular Quiz Bowl, except without all those pesky literature questions.

HA: What’s changed from when you first joined the team until now?

AU: When I first joined, I didn’t have much interest in it. To be honest, I just showed up because some people pressured me to.

Now I really enjoy it! I enjoy going to tournaments and kicking ass.

HA: Quiz Bowl covers a lot of subjects; what do you specialize in?

Raymond Wang ‘20: I specialize in literature, fine arts, mythology, and history.

HA: What are your favorite moments in Quiz Bowl tournaments?

RW: My favorite moment is when a question starts, you expect it to be challenging . . . but you realize that all your preparation and hard work has put you in a place where you can get the answer on the first hint.

HA: Do you have any tips for people who might be interested in joining the team?

RW: To get better, you have to be willing to put work in outside of class. Paying attention in class is excellent, but Quiz Bowl requires extra commitment outside of class. Studying scientific concepts and historical figures makes for excellent practice, especially for topics not covered in high school—religion, economics, anthropology, and so on.

HA: What were your first impressions of Brain Team?

RW: At first, I was kind of excited because I thought it would be based on trivia. I already had a lot of success with apps like Trivia Crack. But when I got there, I real-

ized it was more advanced and required “actual” knowledge. I’ve found that when you get to answer a tossup during a competition, it’s actually more gratifying than those trivia apps.

HA: This was your first time at Quiz Bowl; what did you think of it?

Louisa Miller-Out ‘22: I loved it. It was so fun. I had four caffeinated drinks, which could have led to my downfall. I had a ton of energy and had trouble controlling my emotional reactions to successes and failures.

Raia Gutman ‘22: It was great! There was so much adrenaline in my system, and I found it interesting to develop my strategy after each game.

HA: Do you have any advice for other first-timers?

RG: Just go for it. Don’t be afraid to go to tournaments and pay attention to practice problems during club. Follow your instincts, because most of the time, you’re on the right track.

LM: Write stuff down during competitions, and don’t let your nerves stop you from answering the questions.

HA: What was your favorite moment of the tournament?

LM: I liked getting that Louisa May Alcott question on power*; it felt great. Also, beating a team that had previously beaten us was really gratifying. There was also a bonus question about Hercules and his twelve labors. I read Percy Jackson when I was like ten, so I enjoyed being able to use that knowledge. *QB Terms: When a contestant answers a question before a certain time threshold, it’s referred to getting a question “on power” for

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more points ( fifteen points for power versus ten points regularly).

RG: I liked powering that Communist Manifesto question, since I had learned about it in AP World. It was really satisfying to get questions right because of what we had learned that week in AP Euro, to see that our work had paid off. Shout-out to Mr. Prokosch and Mr. Lesser for teaching us well.

HA: Did anything surprise you about the tournament?

LM: There were so many girls! I thought the gender imbalance would be really skewed, and that it would be completely male-dominated, but I was completely wrong.

RG: I was surprised that Connor was a leftist and a prep.

HA: Care to explain that last one?

RG: No.

An Experiment in Jazz: November 2019 Spotify Playlist

By LELAND XU

H

onestly, I’m not much of a jazz person. But I’ve been trying to get into it as we enter fall because life is very short, and there’s no telling when I’ll go deaf and utterly regret not making a Tattler article about a Spotify playlist with pieces I’ll probably never listen to again.

“Autumn Leaves” by Ryo Fukui If you’ve been on YouTube for more than a month, you’ve probably seen Ryo Fukui’s 1976 album, Scenery, pop up in your video recommendations, which is a great album all on its own. Most notable is his version of the 1945 standard “Autumn Leaves,” which builds up perfectly with a clarity that the original version

by Bill Evans, in my opinion, fails to capture. Sue me.

“Clair de Lune” by Kamasi Washington A common theme you’ll see in this playlist is the transcription of popular classical pieces into jazz interpretations. Everyone knows Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” the third piece in his Suite bergamasque, but Washington’s eleven-minute version not only retains some of the piece’s most famous sections with its original piano but uses them as motifs for saxophone solos and chords. Additionally, he throws in an orchestra and a backup choir to vocalize along with the melodies, as if that wasn’t good enough.

“Après Un Rêve” by Sean Harris and Claudia Hommel Another converted classical piece, except this time from French composer Gabriel Fauré’s collection, Trois mélodies. Sean Harris and Claudia Hommel focus on clarinets and drums instead of violins in order to capture that jazzy feeling, but still sing in the

original French lyrics as if to defy all expectations. Is this classical? Is this jazz? Who knows? Who cares? I don’t.

“Green” by Robohands A rather modern jazz piece that could easily fit in with one of the many lo-fi hip-hop compilations out there today, making excellent use of electronic synths and drum beats.

“Autumn in New York” by Chet Baker I don’t know why my friends all laugh at me whenever I talk about Chet Baker. What’s wrong with Chet Baker? You know, I remember listening to this piece while walking down the desolate and rainy sidewalks of North Cayuga Street after school, with nothing in my mind except how much I hated Ithaca.

“Hong Kong Blues” by Hoagy Carmichael If you’ve been keeping up with the news lately, you can tell that Hong Kong isn’t the best place in the world to be in right now.

Here, Hoagy Carmichael teleports you back to a simpler time: when the most scandalous crimes back then consisted of good old-fashioned opium.

“Full Moon and Empty Arms” by Freddie Hubbard Taking a page from Sergei Rachmaninoff ’s playbook, “Full Moon and Empty Arms” borrows a theme from the third movement of his second piano concerto, which is the only reason you should listen to it.

Spotify playlist link: https://spoti.fi/2pUNpF6 NOVEMBER 2019

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Joker: Where the Hero Becomes the Villain

By JINHO PARK “What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash?”

J

oaquin Phoenix’s Joker, directed by Todd Phillips, is a movie that makes you think. Joker is not about Joker, the supervillain. Joker is about Arthur Fleck, the mentally ill loner. This film iteration of Joker is unique in how it chooses to humanize the villain, which leaves the audience divided when Arthur turns from relatable everyman into psychotic murderer. When I found Arthur abused by strangers, struggling financially, and needing help for his mental health, I wondered: who is at fault for the Joker’s actions? Arthur Fleck, or the society that abandoned him?

There are plenty of scenes in Joker where Arthur Fleck is abandoned, bruised, and depressed. Arthur is assaulted by a group of teenagers, socially ostracized at work, and constantly made to be the laughingstock, a role that gradually strains him more and more. Watching such abuse is difficult, and is made more straining because the audience understands the social nuances that Arthur misses. Until the dramatic twist occurs, the film feels more like the exposition to a superhero movie, except this time, instead of rising above to become a hero, Arthur succumbs to society’s cruelty and becomes the villain.

It hurt when the twist came because of how he was set up to be our hero.

With every new horror he committed, I found myself racing to come up with excuses, with justifications for his actions. “He had a troubled childhood. He’s mentally ill. He’s been physically and mentally battered in the past weeks.” But all of these are excuses for inexcusable crimes, which I realized with every passing second.

Joker is painful to watch not because of how it humanizes the villain, but because all of us have an innate belief that society is inhumane. It is possible (and quite likely) that there are people like Arthur Fleck all around us who have been ravaged by our unforgiving society. As with all films, the scenario is amplified and exaggerated somewhat, but the premise of the film remains startlingly familiar. A large imbalance in wealth distribution, poor social infrastructure, issues with mental health, the affluent preying on the poor; Joker is horrifying not because of its violence, but because its world has real elements.

There are scenes in the film where this is acknowledged. When Arthur murders three privileged men, the media paints Arthur as the villain and promptly puts the men as the victims, but those who live in poverty, like Arthur, seem to find joy in the death of the men, which is another aspect of the film that feels rather familiar. The 12

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pitting of social classes against each other, with mutual hatred, is a theme we’ve grown to see in our world.

The film is brilliantly made. Todd Phillips brings a desolate city infested with rats and littered with trash as the background for Joker. Furthermore, Joaquin Phoenix is incredible as the Joker, in a transcendental performance that will likely win the Oscar for Best Actor. It’s difficult to put into words how good Phoenix is as the Joker, but perhaps the greatest praise I can give is that Phoenix is now who I picture when I imagine the Joker, even with past astoundingly exceptional performances of the Joker in mind.

Joker is brutally dark, and its ferocity and realistic portrayal of Arthur’s struggle is precisely what makes it both brilliant and petrifying. Joker embraces the unforgiving nature of society and shows a real side to its cruelty that mainstream film does not usually depict. It’s fantastic, and you should catch it on the big screen if you can.

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History of Thanksgiving in the United States

By LELAND XU

Image from Unsplash

T

here is a certain dialectic between how American students have perceived Thanksgiving over the course of their education. In elementary school, Thanksgiving is taught as an early multiculturalist and cosmopolitan landmark between the unfamiliar Native Americans and the white English pilgrims. But from middle school onwards, Thanksgiving is discussed primarily as a distraction from the future violence and oppression white settlers committed against the native populations in later centuries. Now in high school, how should we collectively perceive Thanksgiving? As a moment of civility between two cultures? A meaningless gesture before centuries of mindless suffering and dishonor, or a calm before the storm?

Everyone knows the basic story. Puritan Separatists fleeing from religious intolerance and persecution in England founded a colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts on December 12, 1620. The land they had settled on was conveniently empty, due to a 1616 plague dubbed the “Great Dying” that had wiped out the former inhabitants there. Before landing at Plymouth, the Mayflower reached New England and sent men to Cape Cod on November 11. The men had to steal food from homes, graves, and storages to prevent starvation. Even after

the pilgrims reached Plymouth, the winter and their lack of cultivation and fishing skills killed forty-four of them by March of the next year. By then, a chief of the neighboring Abenaki people by the name of Samoset had approached the colony with a desire to trade. Through Samoset, a relationship grew between the Wampanoag tribe and the colony. Samoset also introduced the pilgrims to Tisquantum, also known as Squanto, a Patuxet Native American and former slave who showed the pilgrims agricultural techniques. In 1621, fifty pilgrims and ninety Native Americans had an impromptu three-day feast in order to celebrate the harvest, which took place between September and November. The two groups ate turkey, geese, ducks, venison, fish, pumpkins, eels, shellfish, stews, and vegetables, and drank beer. After that, the Puritan-Native American relationship quickly deteriorated as more and more Puritan colonies sprouted in North America. Ultimately, the relationship collapsed completely in 1675 with King Philip’s War. Nothing good lasts forever.

Even before its conception, the U.S. participated in many unofficial Thanksgiving celebrations for religious motivations.

Presidents and state governors decided on a whim when Thanksgiving would take

place (though Thomas Jefferson refused to assign a date due to his own religious beliefs) until the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln, motivated by writer Sarah Josepha Hale, unofficially declared Thanksgiving to be on November 26. Franklin Delano Roosevelt later officially fixed the date, first in 1939 to support business owners during the Great Depression, then finally, in 1941, to the fourth Thursday of November.

So why does it matter? Who cares about the history of Thanksgiving? There is no clear answer to that inquiry, except for the eternal axiom that history matters only to those who wish to apply its lessons or mistakes to their own present and future. Can we, as high school students, really use the experience and meaning behind Thanksgiving in our own repetitive and structured lives? To the Puritans, a Thanksgiving dinner was commonplace. So why is the 1621 Thanksgiving the one immortalized into American history? Maybe, just maybe, its lessons of unity and eventual collapse can encourage us to make peace with our own strangers and outsiders this year. Or maybe, as we set our hearts down for Thanksgiving, we can take solace in the fact that the turkey meat we chew through was built on the graves of Native Americans trying to look for common ground.

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Tea Station Review

By MJ Stuelke Nothing is better than kicking back with a cup of your favorite hot drink, especially as the cold months arrive. Whether you’re a tea, coffee, or hot chocolate person, the feeling of enjoyment is universal.

Fortunately for us students, some teachers have picked up on that feeling. Mr. Prokosch, an AP European History and Global II teacher at IHS, has a wonderful tea setup in the back of his classroom. On a small, brown table sits an electric tea kettle and a choice of two coffee machines, which provide black, green, and herbal teas for his students to enjoy. Sometimes, there will be boxes of hot chocolate, which are usually gone within the day. (Recently a good Samaritan went to Costco and bought a box that was estimated to last a week.)

He has a shelving unit next to the table for students to store their mugs. Be careful, though, because many a cup has been broken by other students.

While some other teachers do have a tea station, Mr. Prokosch’s far surpasses any of his colleagues. Teachers, please take this article as a call to action to make a tea station for your students. Take a poll in your classes, perhaps, who would be willing to bring in tea bags for the class to share. This is a joyous addition that should be made in every classroom.

Mr. Prokosch’s famed setup 14

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Looking Through the Cracks: An Analysis of the Exhibition “How the Light Gets In”

By ETHAN CARLSON

S

ince September, the Johnson Museum of Art has been hosting a remarkable exhibit entitled “How the Light Gets In.” Organized by Andre Inselman, curator of modern and contemporary art at the museum, the exhibition features work by fifty-eight artists from twenty-nine different countries. It is an expansive show, stretching over three floors of the museum, that focuses on the impact that political boundaries have on both the world and the people living in it. More specifically, the majority

of works on display explore emotionally-charged questions of displacement, migration, and exile. They do so in a way that moves beyond the news headlines and personalizes the pain and suffering that people impacted by division feel. At the same time, the art is intended to restore dignity to those who have been cast away by divided spaces and forced to live in uncertain mobility. Given how large the exhibit is, it’s impossible to discuss all the works within it.

However, three pieces deserve particular mention.

The entire first floor of the exhibition is reserved for the massive, three-screened cinematic art piece Vertigo Sea by John Akomfrah. To see it, viewers enter a massive dark room, only lit by the three landscape screens, each one projecting a collage of images and sounds. The beauty and the horror of the ocean is its subject.

Akomfrah uses both films of his own and archival footage in an effort to convey to the viewer both the promise and danger that exists within the world’s oceans. For example, he integrates quotes

from Moby Dick (1851) and Whale Nation (1988) with violent scenes of whale hunting. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that he is intent on contrasting peaceful scenes of waves and wildlife with those of man-made political violence and environmental destruction. The work then forces us to grapple with how man has impacted the world’s oceans and to feel sorrow for the harm mankind has caused to both the sea and to ourselves. It is a brutal yet beautiful work of art.

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On the ground floor of the Johnson is Amerika by architect Jorge Méndez Blake. Blake was deeply impressed by Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel Amerika, which centers around the unfortunate story of a young man named Karl, who was forced to migrate to the United States as a punishment from his parents. Determined to create an equally foreboding sculpture, Blake built a 31-foot-long brick wall, with the novel wedged in the bottom center. The book’s awkward height creates noticeable gaps between the bricks above; Blake sees the book and the gaps it makes as a way to look through walls, both physical and cultural, which divide America from other places around the world.

On the second floor of the museum is Mohamad Hafez’s Baggage Series 4. The artist came to America from Syria in 2003 to study architecture but was unable to return to his home country due to the 2011 Syrian Civil War. Hafez created miniature buildings in order to overcome his homesickness. He constructed the buildings as ruins: lifeless skeletons of their former selves, just like the cities that were devastated by the conflict. This one, in particular, was placed in a suitcase, redirecting emotion of the sculpture from the people in Syria during the civil war to those who had to flee. It shows the trauma that followed the immigrants everywhere they went.

The whole exhibit, from top to bottom, has stories. Stories about those who have to live with the trauma they went through, and the trauma from how others perceive them. These art pieces embrace those who have been displaced, exiled, and lost with open arms by showing viewers how they feel, not who they are or where they came from. They show that the future may be grim for everyone. But from those imperfections, from those cracks in society,

the light can still break through, and the future may not be as dark as it sometimes appears to be.

“How the Light Gets In” will be on display at the Johnson Art Museum on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York, until December 9, 2019.

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2.2

The science fair …………… part 2

BY ADOWYN ERNSTE

NOOOOO!

Previously…

!

H CRAS

The science fair is tomorrow, and all of my hard work has been destroyed!

As MegaNerd boasts his victories, Seymour decides that he must win the science fair and beat MegaNerd at his own game…

finally…it’s…done …

maybe I can figure out something else!

I still have a little bit of time…

commence panic mode The moment of truth has finally arrived…

judge’s score

sma

sh

2 —

10 and in the darkness and silence there came…

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a sound…

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BEHOLD! judg

e’s s core

a fully capable artificial life form whose intellect is far superior to your own, a sentient being previously unknown to humankind!

11 —

10 Hey. dude.

that was so punk!

Love Your Sound, Man. You should really join my band,

Steaming Hellbath.

<insert sad trombone>

da band Seymour Shmoop: the Punk Trombonist

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Top 5 Places In Ithaca For Artistic Inspiration

By ANIA PILLARDY

F

or me, one of the most awkward parts of art is finding reference photos. I always feel weird using other people’s photos as references, but I can never find anything to take pictures of myself. Recently, I decided to change that. I picked and traveled around a few places in Ithaca to see how good they’d be for use as references in art. In the end, I found five.

Originally, I had a list of fifteen different places I wanted to visit and photograph that I compiled from existing lists of the parks and falls in Ithaca. To be specific, I looked on the official website of Ithaca, New York, and the Tompkins County Convention and Visitors Bureau in the Finger Lakes. I chose places based on whether I had heard about them, reviews from other people, and the images of them I could find online. My final list ended up being the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Sunset Park, Cascadilla Falls, Ithaca Falls, and the Cornell Botanical Gardens.

I chose the Cornell Lab of Ornithology because it seemed like a good place to practice drawing wildlife, people, and nature in general. They have an indoor area looking out onto a lake, and an outdoor area that includes four miles of trails through the woods. During my visit, I saw three chipmunks, multiple geese, one woodpecker, two squirrels, and two blue herons. There’s a lot of parking space and many benches along the paths that you can sit on to sketch, take photos, write, or just relax. A general consensus would be that this is a good place to draw wildlife and nature but not as good for practicing large landscapes, as there weren’t many.

The best location I found for practicing drawing landscapes was Sunset Park.

Sunset Park is a very small park with an absolutely gorgeous view. You can see lakes, 20 NOVEMBER 2019

highways, and hills incredibly well from there. Before conducting my “research,” I had never heard of this park, and from what I could find, it doesn’t seem like a lot of other people have either. If you were to go to only one place off of my list, I would recommend this one, as it was definitely my favorite and probably the most useful for drawing landscapes and nature.

If you have trouble drawing water, then I would absolutely recommend viewing any of the waterfalls in Ithaca. Two notable ones would be Cascadilla Falls and Ithaca Falls. The Cascadilla Falls Trail doesn’t get too close to the waterfall itself, but it still supplies a beautiful view. Out of all of the places I’ve mentioned, Ithaca Falls is probably the easiest to access from IHS. It’s eight minutes away from the school on foot! While there, I saw one heron, and I’m sure that if you stayed there longer, you could find more wildlife. This could also be a good place if you want to practice taking photos with a camera, as waterfalls can be

good places to play with shutter speed.

The final place I visited was the Cornell Botanical Gardens. For me, this was an obvious choice. If you’re the kind of person who partakes in “people watching,” this would be an amazing place to do it!

These gardens also have a variety of different plants for your sketching and viewing pleasure. There wasn’t much wildlife, except for a tiny stone pond I found with an orange fish in it. And though there were a large number people, there are also a lot of secluded and cut off spaces where you can sketch or take photos on your own.

Visiting these sites in Ithaca was something I genuinely enjoyed—both as a way to find references and just as a walk. I’d highly recommend a visit to at least one of these places, even if you’re not an artist! It can be a very tranquil experience that is both relaxing and energizing in its own way. I, for one, will definitely visit these places again sometime soon to enjoy the views all over again!

SPORTS

Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James

By WILL THOMAS

I

t’s easily the greatest sports debate of all-time: MJ or LeBron?

His Airness or the King? Air Jordan or The Kid from Akron? It will never end; it will keep changing until basketball sees one that is definitively greater than both or on the off chance LeBron wins five more championships and redefines his career. There is a lot of misinformation around this debate, largely due to recency bias, but we can’t strictly stick to facts here. That would be boring and it is impossible to accurately compare two players from different eras with different positions and one who was offensively restricted by an offense that the other would never have been subjected to (that’s Jordan in the triangle in case you were wondering).

So let’s start with a statement that sums up the greatness of Jordan. “Michael is a killer. If you give MJ an opening he’ll destroy you.

Michael smells blood. Michael is going for their jugular. They’re on life support and Michael is pulling the plug.” That’s not something you hear very often. Jordan was simply different. He was the most competitive MFer in the league. Jordan was so competitive that when teammate Rod Higgins beat him in ping-pong once he bought a table and became the best ping-pong player on the team.

This is a guy who would tip airport luggage workers and bet with his teammates that his bag would come out first. MJ also ripped the heart out of eight different very memorable teams: The Bad Boy Pistons, the Showtime Lakers, Pat Riley’s Knicks, Drexler’s Blazers, Barkley’s Suns, Shaq’s Magic, Stockton and Malone’s Jazz, and Miller’s Pacers, none of them ever the same. Jordan has had more iconic moments than any other basketball player ever. His 63 point-game against Larry Bird, “The Shot” against the Cavs in ‘89, the average of 41 points per game in the ‘93 Finals, the 72-win team in ‘96, The Flu Game, and the soul-crushing final shot in ‘98. There’s a good chance if you watched basketball in the ‘90s you remember where you were when some of those things happen. Before we get into LeBron and the head-to-head comparisons, here’s one more quality of Jordan’s: his charisma. When Jordan entered a room, people stopped talking and stared. His mere presence was enough to take over a room, be it six or six hundred people in that room.

Jordan loses points for how in his early years he destroyed a few of his teams just by ruining his teammates’ confidence. He obviously eventually embraced his teammates and dominated the league. His attempt at a comeback also stings; he should have walked away after the ‘98 finals and that’s that.

So we’ve covered all of the things that made Jordan special, so what about LeBron? He wasn’t as pathologically competitive as Jor-

dan, doesn’t have as many defining moments (although his chasedown block of Andre Iguodala is up there with any of Jordan’s), he has had more finals appearances but his results are a mixed bag (3 and 6 with a loss to a Dallas Mavericks team that they in no way should have lost to), so what does he have that Jordan didn’t? The answer is sheer athletic freakishness. LeBron is listed at 6’8 and 250 pounds and is considerably heavier and taller than listed. He also has the innate ability to shove some of the strongest athletes in sports out of his way like they were ragdolls. That was something only Wilt Chamberlain ever was able to do, and he was doing it to short white dudes who were essentially ragdolls anyways. Even Jordan wasn’t able to turn pregame shootarounds into an event like LeBron has. People will drive to an arena hours before the game starts just to watch LeBron goof around with teammates and casually throw down 360-degree windmills. LeBron has also expanded on Jordan’s turning of athletes into true celebrities, Jordan’s brand is considerably more valuable but LeBron’s is just about as influential.

Another major point in LeBron’s favor is his longevity, seventeen seasons this year with the end of his contract three years away. Jor-

Continued on page 22

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SPORTS | LITERARY

Michael Jordan vs. Lebron James Continued from page 21 dan, in comparison, played thirteen years (if you forget those two Washington years, which should most definitely be forgotten).

A common and damaging misconception in this debate that we need to disprove is that MJ had a vastly superior supporting cast, which is frankly not true. LeBron was truly saddled with some real stiffs in his early years. Edy Tavares, Okaro White, Jarvis Varnado, and Shaq’s bloated corpse all played minutes in years when LeBron made the Finals. Though MJ didn’t exactly have it easy with his early teammates either, Dave Corzine, Will Perdue, Gene Banks, and Josiah

Barrington (who I may have made up, but you wouldn’t know and that’s the point)! In fact, His Airness only ever played with two high-quality players Scottie Pippen, a top 25 talent with a perfect sidekick’s pedigree, and Dennis Rodman, a top three rebounder of all-time and excellent defender who was unfortunately so erratic and crazy that Jordan and Phil Jackson had to have several interventions with him just to keep him from killing the team’s chemistry. The rest of his teams were journeymen, backups, and no-names. Compare these with LeBron’s more recent teams, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh at the same time, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, and now Anthony Davis and Demarcus Cousins. If anything Jordan

had it worse!

Both of these athletes have achieved basketball excellence but in the end, only one can be greatest. It’s MJ. Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of alltime. Perhaps, if you were to take away the sheer meaning of what Jordan was and is, you could argue that LeBron is better at just playing basketball, but you can’t. Jordan is Jordan, he killed himself to win and in the end, he did, he dominated a sport to an extent that few have and fewer will again. In the end, he deserves the number one spot.

It’s a sign that for most of his career LeBron has worn jersey number 23, yet 23 belongs to someone else in our minds. It belongs to Jordan, and so does this victory.

Minthe and Kore

By MJ STUELKE “Minthe!” I opened my eyes at the sound of my name. The day was bright and sunny, with a sweet-scented breeze carrying flower petals across the world. The best thing, however, was the sight of my best friend barrelling towards me, dragging a suitcase behind her. Her long black hair billowed behind her as she ran, her brown eyes sparkling, her smile wide. She smashed into me, dropping her bag and wrapping me in a bear hug. I grinned, hugging her back.

After a moment, she held me at arm’s length. I took this opportunity to admire all the features I had missed for the past week.

Her almond-shaped eyes were a deep hazel, sparkling in the afternoon sun. Freckles dotted her cinnamon skin across her nose and cheeks, like constellations in the night sky. Her curly raven hair tumbled over her shoulders. She pulled me in for another hug.

“I missed you so much,” she lamented in a whisper. I smiled.

“I missed you too, Kore.” She smiled at me. “How was your time at your father’s house?”

Kore huffed. I had forgotten that she didn’t like to speak of her father. “It was fine, I guess. Awkward as usual.”

Kore was conceived during an affair her father, Zeus, had with her mother, Demeter. The only reason she visited him and his wife Hera was because he was king. It wasn’t fair, Kore should have been allowed a choice by now. And Gods know I would much rather have her here with me.

“I got to go shopping though!” She perked up.

“Amazing!” I smiled. “What did you get?”

She pulled two shopping bags out of her suitcase. She opened the first and set the second aside.

“I got two beautiful dresses,” she showed me. She held one up to her chest and twirled. It was seafoam green, made of a light, gauzy material. The front stopped right above her knees, but the back went all the way down to her ankles. She would look amazing in it. The second dress was darker, a deep plum. It was silk, and 22

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form-fitting. I laughed.

“What?” She pouted.

“Your mother is never going to let you wear that!”

“Oh, I guess you’re right.” Her face fell.

“You could always sneak it out and change later,” I suggested with a wink.

She laughed and playfully hit me on the shoulder.

“What’s in the other bag?”

Kore gave me a sly smile. “It’s for you!”

I felt myself blush. I was never able to repay her for the presents she got me. “Kore, you shouldn’t have.”

“But I did!” She handed me the bag. It was rather large, but lighter than I expected. It was pure white, with pink tissue paper poking out the top. That concerned me, as I am considerably more masculine than Kore, but she knew that. I quickly dismissed the fear and put my hand in the bag. I was greeted with a soft, cool fabric. I pulled out a long, hooded cloak that shimmered in the light. It was mostly black, but it shimmered with multicolored thread that seemed to change color when I tilted the fabric. It was beautiful.

“Kore,” I whispered. “How am I ever going to pay you back for this?”

Kore laughed, a melodious sound that carried on the wind.

“Don’t be silly, darling! This is a gift. Consider it a token of my love.” She laughed, puffing out her chest and stretching to her full height, in an attempt to look chivalrous.

I laughed and swatted her arm, but my mind was still reeling.

I dropped the bag that the cloak had been in, and slipped the garment over my shoulders, tying the ribbon around my neck. The silken fabric was soft against my skin, rippling in the breeze.

“The fabric is designed so it’s cool in the summer and warm in the winter.” She paused and looked at me with hesitant eyes. “Do you like it?”

LITERARY

“Of course I do! It’s amazing!” I pulled her in for another hug.

“You’re the best friend anyone could ever ask for.”

Kore pulled away. “Come on, let’s go make flower crowns.”

I watched her walk away and debated whether or not I should ask what was wrong. I shook my head, eliminating the worries, and followed after her.

We walked all the way across the field to a rather large stream, the banks lined with all kinds of wildflowers. Kore stooped down and started picking the prettiest ones and setting them on a pile of river rocks. She tucked a strand of hair that had fallen out of place behind her ear. She turned around and smiled at me, eyes glittering.

I shook myself out of the trance and walked to the edge of the stream, sitting down on the bank and letting my feet sink into the water. Small, silver fish came up to investigate, their metallic scales gleaming in the afternoon light. I giggled as one of them bit my toe.

“Minthe! Look at these flowers I found! I’ve never seen anything like them!” Kore called.

I glanced over my shoulder to see her holding up a large, dark red flower with bright white on the tips of the petals. I nodded and smiled at her, before turning my attention back to the water.

I brushed my fingers about an inch above the surface and willed the water to reach up and meet me. Naturally, it obeyed. I played with the small orb of liquid now floating above my palm, tossing it from hand-to-hand, then up in the air and letting it slash back down into the river. The little fish swam to the surface to see what the disturbance was about. I chuckled and turned back to Kore.

Except I couldn’t see her anywhere. I stood up and looked around. Still no sign of her.

“Kore,” I called. No response. Panic began to rise in my throat. I scrambled out of the water and ran back into the field.

“Kore!” I yelled again. I spun around in desperation, searching for any sign of her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flicker of movement. I squinted and saw the sun shining on black, curly hair.

That must be Kore. I took off running, my new cloak catching the wind, but not slowing me down. I called her name as I sprinted across the field. I could see her better now. She turned her head towards me, her eyes oddly blank.

“Kore! Are you okay?” When I was almost a hundred yards away,

my foot slipped into a rabbit hole, pain shooting up my entire leg.

I yelped and fell to the ground, seeing only red. When my vision cleared, Kore had turned away from me. A chasm had opened up in the ground in front of her, and she was descending into it.

“No!” I screamed, trying to stand. “Kore, no!” But as I watched, the ground swallowed her whole. I frantically scrambled across the field, ignoring the pain from my most likely broken ankle. When I reached the spot where she was, I looked for any sign of the chasm that had taken her. I clawed at the earth with my hands until my fingers started to bleed. I screamed until my throat was raw. Finally, I sat down in defeat, and a heartbroken sob tore from my throat.

She was gone. This was all my fault. I should have been paying more attention. She should still be here, sitting next to me. I set my hand on the ground and felt something soft beneath my fingers. I looked down and saw that it was one of the flowers that she had found. Tears welled in my eyes.

I stood up shakily, putting all of my weight on my good leg. I will find her, no matter how long it takes, I vowed to myself. I stumbled over to a tree, snapping two branches and tying them to my ankle with a torn strip of my dress. I gritted my teeth and stood up, prepared to search the entire earth.

“Took her away, took her away!”

My head snapped up as I heard the voice from above call.

“What? Who’s there?”

“Took her away!”

I looked up into the tree and saw a large, black crow.

“Took her away! To the Underworld!”

“The Underworld...” I muttered to myself. “Did Hades take her?”

“Took her away! Took her away!” With that, the crow flew off.

I shivered, not just from anxiety. Already with the absence of Kore, the world seemed to be getting colder. I squared my shoulders and limped forward. If Hades had taken her, I wouldn’t be able to get her back alone. I would have to go to Olympus for help.

I gritted my teeth as I walked to the famous mountain on the horizon, determined to get Kore back.

To be continued…

No One Makes Haiku Anymore

By LELAND XU I read a book on Haiku for this? Validate, please, my existence.

NOVEMBER 2019

23

LITERARY

A Nontraditional Thanksgiving

By LOUISA MILLER-OUT It’s Thursday, November 28. My immediate family, several grandparents, and a jolly bunch of cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and friends have all convened under one roof for Thanksgiving dinner, and the house is filled with laughter and light. Outside, it’s snailing, which does not mean that gastropods are descending from the sky, but rather that there is heavy precipitation and it’s like the disappointing child of snow and hail. The sun is practically below the horizon, and the sky is streaked with vermilion and purple. Deep gray clouds thickly populate the upper troposphere, depositing wet, grimy snailstones on the unsuspecting people below.

Inside the house, clusters of family members are interspersed between assorted pets, who are dashing around in a state of frenzied excitement.

The furniture is an eclectic mix of ancient, musty sofas and intricately decorated wooden cabinets, gleaming modern coffee tables and creaky rocking chairs, repurposed church pews and sixties-style bar stools. Toys from innumerable different childhoods are piled in every nook and cranny. Objects both new and old, representing over half a century of life, crowd every shelf. Enticing smells waft from the kitchen, while the foyer smells of cat litter, and the living room evokes a crackling campfire for anyone with a functional nose.

Now the feast is finally ready, and my family begins the arduous task of finding room for everyone at the table. When everyone’s squeezed in, we survey the exquisite banquet that lies in front of us. It took over a day’s work to procure and produce this glorious feast, and it is certainly a sight to behold.

There are mountains of roasted root vegetables and fluffy mashed potatoes as far as the eye can see. There are endless iterations of the obligatory Thanksgiving stuffing to accommodate everyone’s insane dietary restrictions. There are lakes and ponds and rivers of gravy, and there’s a bowl of cranberry sauce big enough for my smallest cousins to have a relaxing swim in, should they be so inclined. There are pecan pies and sweet potato pies and pumpkin pies and chocolate cream pies, and enough ice cream to satiate an entire group of theater kids fresh off their opening night. There are also the slightly more unconventional desserts, like cold, slimy, chia pudding, homemade banana-cacao cupcakes with avocado-based frosting, and a heavenly Pavlova, baked to crispy perfection and piled 24

NOVEMBER 2019

high with fresh, luscious berries.

All this, however, pales in comparison to the centerpiece. While most families carve up a juicy turkey, or in some cases a soy-based substitute, we have something better. What completes my family’s Thanksgiving dinner is not poultry, nor is it anything else traditionally consumed across America or Canada. Nor, for that matter, is it anything conventionally eaten in Africa, Asia, Antarctica, Australia, Central or South America, Europe, or in any of the world’s island nations. I know for a fact that my family is the only family in the world with this on our table, because our centerpiece is truly unique.

It’s incomparable, unreplicated, irreplaceable.

It’s Timothée Chalamet.

That’s right, Timothée Chalamet is in the middle of our Thanksgiving table. He’s posing elegantly, as still as a perfectly sculpted marble statue. He is clad in a pristine Roman toga, and a juicy bunch of grapes hang delicately from his slender hand. His ebony curls perfectly contrast with his creamy alabaster skin, and his green eyes glisten like succulent olives, ripened to perfection under the Tuscan sun.

Although his coral-pink lips softly curve upward, his jawline looks rigid and sharp enough to carve up a turkey. Timothée Chalamet is an almost supernaturally exquisite human being.

Ever so slowly, he begins to move, to break his solemn posture. Timothée gradually raises himself to a standing position. Suddenly, without hesitation, he breaks into a festive jig, and within seconds, every single being in the room, human, animal, and plant, is grinning with maniacal glee. The joy that Timothée Chalamet brings to my family each Thanksgiving is unparalleled. After his twenty-minute dance medley, he thanks his audience and proceeds to crowd surf, relaxing atop our hands as if he’s relaxing on a beach in Positano, basking in the late afternoon sun as the crystal-clear turquoise waves lap gently at the shore.

It’s still Thursday, November 28. As the sky darkens, Timothée Chalamet regales everyone with fabulous stories, impressions, improvisations, and various interpretive dances. He even performs a one-man version of the musical The Phantom of the Opera for all of us to enjoy. There is truly no limit to the joy Timothée Chalamet brings us each and every year. None of us have any idea why he consistently shows up here, but we love and appreciate him regardless.

LITERARY

Tangerine

By ANNA WESTWIG

We held the tangerine like a question behind our teeth; an orange globe of sun balanced on our tongue, shards of light splintering out into the heath.

We peeled it with crystal triplets, turning rind into wreath.

We felt it sting at our lips, that honey-shine of acid.

We held the tangerine like a question behind our teeth, warding off glossy-feathered corvids—their greedy beaks.

It trickled down my cheek, pure golden droplets, shards of light splintering out into the heath.

Dusk crept in, the fruit softened, its taste the Lethe: we forgot how to swallow, how to see, how to breathe— we held the tangerine like a question behind our teeth.

I nearly choke on unanswered sweetness as we meet the pounding insistence of the night’s beat. It cuts me open, shards of light splintering out into the heath, as the rhythmic shadow rises from underneath.

Like angels with cavities, we brace an ivory-ribbed sky.

We held the tangerine like a question behind our teeth, shards of light splintering out into the heath.

Madame la Guillotine

Peaches

By ANNA WESTWIG Fruit is the thing with innocence— so it’s odd that we call it flesh.

Holding with hands—omnipotence— children of farmers away from the thresh fields where peaches fall ripe, splitting open on earth, furred skin bursting, a type of sacrificial sickly yellow birth.

An offering to the children, ten and wild and hungry scampering through sylvan glades and finding a fruit tree.

By LOUISA MILLER-OUT

Shaking it, climbing it, picking it clean, fulfilling a destiny of propagation, lips dripping with juice, ten and mean, they gain a rural girl’s education.

I’m set to go, my blade is raised Around me, jaws have dropped, My lover lets go of my string.

Voilà, a heart is stopped.

What they find as their prize gives up freely as benefit that paradox. With bruised fist, the girl pries it open with a rusty knife. Whether it

A faultless person may be felled, A monster may walk free, And that’s all out of my control, ‘Cause, baby, c’est la vie.

is violent or not, she spills out the seeds on soft August clod.

She runs back over foothills, sated and finding herself a god.

The heads will roll, the bodies fall, It really isn’t fair.

What can I do about it, though?

I’m sorry, c’est la guerre.

And when sticky blood runs down to percolate through dirt and worms, we find the girls, ten and bound to instinct and all of nature’s terms.

NOVEMBER 2019

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LITERARY

Surrealio

By Ethan Carlson

“Aaaand you forgot to put the detonator on speed dial. Damn it, Steve!”

Microbe hunting.

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PENULTIMATE

Caption Contest

Winner of Last Month’s Caption Contest:

Each month, the Tattler provides a cartoon in need of a caption.

If you would like to submit a caption, check your school email for the November 2019 Caption Contest Google survey. The winning caption will appear in the December issue.

“So much for world domination.” ~ Anonymous ~ Thank you for all 38 participants for responding.

November Sudoku 2

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The Coolness Spectrum How Do You Prepare for Tests? If You Don’t Have a Strategy, This Horoscope Does!

By Ethan Carlson

Scorpio (Oct 23 - Nov 21):

You have too many tests already. You just wing them all at this point.

Sagittarius (Nov 22 - Dec 21):

You pester your teachers so much about what is on the test that they basically give you the answer sheet.

Capricorn (Dec 22 - Jan 19):

You just skip the day you have the test, saying you have a “doctor’s appointment.”

Aquarius (Jan 20 - Feb 18):

Daylight saving time (+1 hour!)

Taurus (Apr 20 - May 20): Oh, shoot, there’s a test?

Gemini (May 21 - June 20):

You read the whole textbook three times over.

Black Friday: Hail consumerism!

Cancer (June 21 - Jul 22):

You review by doing all of the homework you forgot to do to start with.

The leaves are falling

Leo (Jul 23 - Aug 22):

You go over your notes but can hardly read your own handwriting, so it certainly wouldn’t help.

Virgo (Aug 23 - Sep 22):

You cross your fingers and hope SparkNotes has the answers.

You say you have a photographic memory, but what you really mean is that you have a phone.

Aries (Mar 21 - Apr 19):

Libra (Sep 23 - Oct 22):

You make WAY too many flashcards.

Most of your study time is just making flashcards.

Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving leftovers

You study the period before the test.

Pisces (Feb 19 - Mar 20):

Cool

You study hard only to realize that the test was postponed to next week.

Not knowing how to cook a turkey

The 2nd quarter

Uncool