September 2016 • Estd. 1892 • Vol. 124 #1 • Published Monthly • www.ihstattler.com Ithaca High School, 1401 North Cayuga Street, Ithaca, NY 14850 • FREE
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
ITHACA POLICE THE CASE DISCUSSES JAYWALKING
FOR TRUMP
LIFE AFTER COLLEGE: GRAD SCHOOL AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
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page 11
page 15
The New Teachers’ Contract Is More Complicated Than You Thought
Noah Sorensen’s Ride for Hunger
By JAMES YOON
By JAMES PARK
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IMAGE BY JAMES YOON
a year, and it’s been confusing not only to students but also the 600 or so members of the association because it’s been a fast timeline and a lot has happened. If you recall, we, as a group of teachers, entered the 2015–16 school year under the old contract without a new one, and the district and the ITA declared impasse back in November. And then we were in a process to get to some type of settlement. What happened in the February–March time period was that the two parties came to an agreement: a one-year deal retroactive to the beginning of that time
This summer, IHS student Noah Sorensen ’17 took on quite the daunting task. With only his Bianchi Volpe bike and a few essential supplies, he decided to ride alone across the entire United States—nearly 5,000 miles coast-tocoast—in an effort to raise awareness about world hunger. Through the flat deserts to craggy mountains to lush forests, he’s been pushing his own limits and inspiring others along the way. His full blog is on bikingforworldhunger. weebly.com. I interviewed him halfway through his trip in order to get a firsthand account of his experiences and his ultimate goal. During a day off with relatives in Hastings, Nebraska, Sorensen laid out his entire plan on the phone. “I started from Portland, Oregon, and I’m planning to end at Portland, Maine,” he said. “So from Portland to Portland.” Sorensen got a plane ticket to his starting point and set off on June 29, riding about eight hours a day. He rode 800 miles down the coast into California, making his way through the Redwoods before crossing over into the Nevada desert, where he had to drink three-and-a-half gallons of water a day. After that was Utah, where he “found some pretty neat rock formations” before crossing over the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. After that, he went up into Nebraska. He said he’d continue along through Iowa and Illinois to Chicago before making the last stretch
Adam Piasecki in his ITA office: “For many of us, in the start of the 2015–2016 school year, we took home less money than before.”
Adam Piasecki is the president of the Ithaca Teacher’s Association (ITA), which recently came to a long-awaited settlement with the Ithaca Board of Education (BoE). The 2015–16 school year, which was astir with teachers and community members who rallied for better ICSD educators’ salaries, ended with a new contract that supposedly addressed many of the hardships teachers had faced over the years. James Yoon ’17: Why is this contract so important? What went into this contract? Adam Piasecki: So it’s been a whirlwind of
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OPINION
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
Editorial
How to Solve the Student Debt Crisis More than ever, the issue of student loans is gaining attention in the United States. Approximately $1.3 trillion in student loan debt is spread out among over 43 million Americans, and factors such as wage stagnation will only continue to exacerbate the problem. However, the debt crisis can be ameliorated if the federal government takes action, specifically by pumping more money into education and capping private loans. First, though, it is important to understand the two different types of student loans—federal and private loans—and the differences between them. Federal loans come directly from the government, and come with a number of benefits, including fixed interest rates, tax-deductible status, and income-driven repayment plans. Private loans come from lenders such as schools, banks, and credit unions, and their benefits largely depend on their source. Many private loans, unlike federal loans, require payments while the student is enrolled in school, and are often more expensive due to higher interest rates. So why wouldn’t everyone get federal loans, if they’re so much easier? Most federal loans are need-based, which is almost entirely determined by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), and many people (depending on their family’s income) may be denied federal aid even if they need it. There are many different kinds of federal loans with different interest rates and borrowers, and some are subsidized, meaning that the government will pay for your interest while you are enrolled in school. Often, though, they cannot cover all of the fees for college, making grants and scholarships very important. Private loans exist to fill any gaps that federal loans cannot cover, but since they are based on credit score, they may require a cosigner in order to be obtained. There are also a number of payment plans for student loan debt. For both federal and private loans, full deferral allows people to put off repayment until six months after graduation. Standard and extended payment plans cover periods of 10 and 25 years respectively, over which time people pay monthly installments that gradually increase over time, intended to mimic salary increases earned by professionals. Additionally, there are payment plans that are contingent on the income levels of the borrower. These plans do not exist for private loans, however, for which the primary options involve paying off debts upon enrolling in school in order to prevent interest from accruing. All of these plans are based upon monthly repayments. Currently, millions of Americans face thousands of dollars of debt. Some solutions to this crisis are simpler; for example, many financial aid award letters have ambiguous wording that fails to differentiate between grants and loans, and many students put off payment without knowing what that means. Interest accrues when a student chooses a full deferral plan, and many students are shocked at how much they owe upon graduation. Better disclosure could help many families weigh their options and make smarter decisions. There are many proposals for long-term solutions that would help people who currently owe money to the govern-
ment or to private lenders. Some people may qualify for loan forgiveness programs, such as the Federal Direct Loan Program. People with certain incomes may qualify to have a portion of their monthly payments forgiven if they earn below a certain threshold. Additionally, people may have their loans forgiven by working in public service. Applying for these options through the government is free, though there are many scam “Obama Student Debt Relief ” organizations that charge graduates money for signing up. Don’t be fooled. Many Congressmen—mostly Republicans—have suggested expanding private loans as a solution to the debt crisis. This perspective falls in line with the faction that decries big government and wants the federal government out of the student loan business entirely. However, this would only push people into borrowing from predatory private loan companies. The exorbitant interest rates that these companies charge force students to borrow more and more money to go to college and pay exorbitant fees for tuition and boarding. Economists warn of a student loan bubble that has been brought about by this cycle, and it would get worse if the government stayed out. The federal government has to invest more in education in order to lower tuition, thus reducing the bubble and the amount of students in debt. Having indebted citizens is bad for the economy; borrowers who owe thousands of dollars delay purchasing a home, starting a business, or saving for their retirement. As the bubble has grown, states have slashed support for public education, which has forced colleges to raise tuition in order to make enough money. Increasing funding for education can lessen the burden on students, who are turning to student loan companies like Sallie Mae in order to pay for their education, which shouldn’t be that expensive in the first place. Additionally, the federal government should increase access to subsidized federal loans in order to decrease the extent to which people depend on private loans. Finally, the amount of money that people can borrow from private lenders should be capped at about $10,000; if anyone needs more than that, the government should be helping anyway. We’ve dug ourselves into a deep hole; the Bush tax cuts gave us the shovels, and we started digging during the Great Recession. As tuitions rose, the hole got deeper and deeper. However, we can drop our shovels now. The hole may still exist for decades, though it will gradually get smaller as people qualify for debt forgiveness and learn more about their options. Right now, it is important that the government focus on diminishing the student loan bubble before it pops. 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 September 20 to be included in the September 2016 issue. The Tattler reserves the right to edit all submissions. All articles, columns, and advertisements do not necessarily reflect the views of editorial staff. To read The Tattler online, visit our website at www.ihstattler.com.
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
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Staff 2016 – 2017
IMAGE BY EVELYN WEINSTEIN
NEWS
Editor-in-Chief
Daniel Xu ’17
editor@ihstattler.com
News Editor
James Yoon ’17 news@ihstattler.com
Opinion Editor
Luca Greenspun ’17 opinion@ihstattler.com
Features Editor
James Park ’17
features@ihstattler.com
Literary Editor
Emma Karnes ’17 literary@ihstattler.com
Arts Editor
Amalia Walker ’17 arts@ihstattler.com
Sports Editor
Ben Salomon ’17 sports@ihstattler.com
Legend says that participants relied on a bagel-only diet throughout the conference.
The 2016 National Technology Student Association Conference By JOSEPH YOON
Back Page Editor
Abe Messing ’17 backpage@ihstattler.com
Center Spread Editor
Vaynu Kadiyali ’19 centerspread@ihstattler.com
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Magda Kossowska ’19 photo@ihstattler.com
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Faculty Advisor
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On the night of June 26, 2016, 19 students departed from IHS on a 13-hour bus ride to the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee, along with 20 students from DeWitt Middle School (DMS), to represent the New York State delegation in the 2016 National TSA Conference. The advisors of the team—Evie Weinstein, Karen Kiechle, William Sauve, Scott Breigle, Dave Buchner, and Bob Walters— worked painstakingly to provide the students a comfortable, while also affordable, trip. With over 6,000 passionate and enthusiastic students competing in events ranging from Video Game Design and Biotechnology Design to Extemporaneous Speech and Problem Solving, the IHS and DMS students experienced chaos and rushes of adrenaline while hoping for their best in their events. During the first general session, the conference had a lively and upbeat atmosphere, with hundreds of people rushing to fit into small openings on the grand stage. However, as the week progressed, the excitement dampened and the optimism ceased. It was a tough week of competition; participants woke up at 5 a.m. every morning only to trudge through another day of constant stress and confusion, overpriced food, and lack of direct sunshine. For many, the grind was visibly too much to bear: there were thousands of droop-
ing heads and eyes struggling to stay open during competition events and general sessions. Only the ear-aching and bass-filled music was able to keep the students awake. It was even worse during the business meeting, a parliamentary procedure of passing amendments and choosing the TSA officers of 2017. People yelled and booed, wanting to go back to their rooms to relax. Despite the participants’ struggles in trying to stay alert amidst making last-minute adjustments to perfect their competition entries, the IHS and DMS teams still managed to excel in many areas. The IHS chapter finalized in five events: Biotechnology Design (7th), Music Production (2nd), Scientific Visualization (4th), System Control Technology (5th), and Technology Bowl, Oral (4th). The DMS chapter finalized in six events: CAD Foundations (3rd), Construction Challenge (5th), CO2 Dragster (6th), Environmental Engineering (10th), Junior Solar Sprint (5th), and Website Design (8th). As a delegation, the team finalized in nine group events and two individual events, the latter of which were both earned by Jacob Yoon, a rising 8th grader at DMS, in CAD Foundations and CO2 Dragster. Although there were several obstacles and conflicts preventing the students from doing their best in their events, overall, the team pulled through and considered this year a success.
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THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
Discussion in IPD about Jaywalking; IHS Students Divided on the Issue By CHLOE WRAY
IMAGE PROVIDED
On July 19, the Ithaca Police Department (IPD) announced that there would be an increase in the enforcement of jaywalking laws. In a media release issued by the IPD, Officer Jamie Williamson wrote: “From July 22nd to July 25th the Ithaca Police Department will have extra police officers on patrol looking for violations committed by pedestrians. Officers working these extra patrols will be patrolling during various hours of the day and night. Officers will utilize a zero tolerance approach for all violations observed. The goal of these designated patrols is to increase pedestrian safety within the streets, sidewalks, and crosswalks in Ithaca.” This announcement coincided with increased traffic within the city as a result of GrassRoots, but may also have been triggered by the surge of Pokémon Go players who flooded the Commons and downtown Ithaca following the game’s release on July 6. In an article by The Ithaca Voice, Officer Williamson admitted that there had been no specific complaints about Pokémon Go players, but that there had been an increase in pedestrians stepping in front of vehicles and outside of crosswalks.
“If they can, why can’t you?” —Kolkata Police, 2013
Article 27, clause 1152 “crossing at other than crosswalks” of the NYS Vehicle and Traffic Law states, “(a) Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway.” In accordance with both NYS law and the formal definition of jaywalking, pedestrians have the right to cross at will as long as they do so with regard for traffic and do not endanger themselves or approaching vehicles. The original statement by IPD lacks a definition of what is considered a violation and does not alert pedestrians to what may cause them to be penalized. Much of the reaction by community members, on IPD’s Face-
book page and in the comment threads of various local news sources, included calls for increased ticketing for drivers and bicyclists instead of punishments for pedestrians. Following the initial announcement, another media release was issued on July 21 by Officer Williamson: “After listening to concerns from the community, both in favor and against, the IPD has decided to postpone the scheduled patrols for pedestrian violations this weekend. Chief Barber stated ‘We will gather more data on the issues surrounding pedestrian, bicycle, and motor vehicle crosswalk safety and will develop a comprehensive strategy to address the problem.’ The IPD prides itself on listening to the voices in our community and this is a great example of folks expressing their concerns. Later this summer, the IPD is planning to invite the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Council (BPAC) as well as other members of the community for an information gathering session to develop solutions on how best to keep our streets and crosswalks safe for everyone.” According to several IHS students, a ban on jaywalking would be an inconvenience more than anything else. Rylee Ebner ’19, who walks downtown frequently, said, “knowing that I could be ticketed for crossing the street is just annoying. I jaywalk a lot because it’s easy and I don’t think it’s very dangerous, so it just seems dumb to punish people for something they do all the time.” Others see this proposal as a positive development, in favor of safety for pedestrians. “People take too much for granted in this town and need to understand that laws are laws for a reason,” Ian Wilkie-Tomasik ’17 said. For a large portion of IHS students, however, this ban would be of little consequence, as they are not downtown walking enough to mind one way or the other.
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
NEWS
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into the New England area. Sorensen talked about his cause in-depth and with great enthusiasm. “I’m raising money for World Vision, an organization to fight against world hunger. I first learned about them while working with my church, where we’d do some fundraisers for them. That kind of got me interested, and I wanted to do something… a little bigger.” His fundraising page on his blog, too, describes his motivation: “I don’t have many talents to contribute to the issue [of world hunger]. But this is why what I am doing is so exciting, because I don’t need those talents. I am using the gifts I have to do something I can do.” Sorensen frequently stopped at large cities or towns, where he would hand out small cards about his cause and take the time to talk with others. By early August he’d received 43 percent of his goal of $15,000. Despite massive encouragement from others, Sorensen admitted he had rough days. “I’ve run out of food once… it was taken by some little animal,” he remembered. Being stuck in the middle of Nevada then, he was forced to ride 220 miles without rest to the next town for fear of completely running out of energy. He has had mental setbacks, too, as he occasionally reflected on the slight absurdity of his goal. “I think that there’s a point every day at which I just think why am I doing this?” he laughed. “But it helps to remember that I’m not doing this for myself; it’s for a good cause.… I just kinda suck it up, and in a few days I pretty much forget about it. It won’t affect me in the long run.”
period, which was July 1. We settled in March so there were only April, May, and June left in the school year. So, we needed to immediately start negotiating to reach a new contract. In mid-June, the school district and the ITA had entered the “Facilitated Intensive Negotiations Process,” during which both parties agreed to start and end with an agreement within a timeframe of three days. And that process seemed to be a more effective way to reach a settlement, one which many ITA members hadn’t experienced before. So it was a new way for us to do it and we hope that if a similar process is needed in the future, we’ll know that it’s available. What that did was, by June 17, there was a “Tentative Agreement” which was signed off by myself and the superintendent, that was going towards ratification. So I had to put forward the information to the membership, a large portion of which was already up to speed as to the details of the tentative agreement. The communication about what goes into the negotiation stems from the membership’s feedback. The tentative agreement was ratified by the membership on June 24 and was approved by the district at the June 28 BoE meeting, which meant that the contract for 2016–19 went into effect on July 1.
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Noah Sorensen ’17 on the coast of Crescent City, CA.
He had some pretty cool experiences too, the most memorable being an encounter in the redwood forests of California. “I was going up this little path, walking my bike up. I was going along and I turned a corner, and I saw an elk. A big, giant, male elk the size of a truck just standing there,” he recounted. Trying to maintain eye contact, Sorensen slowly backed away while managing to take some pictures, when to his horror the huge animal began lumbering towards him. “I started sprinting the other way.… I lost my footing on the side of the trail and fell off, landing in some bushes. The elk just stopped around where I’d fallen and looked around a little bit before leaving.” Finally, Sorensen spoke about how the ride changed his own perceptions, thanking the overwhelming support he had received since he started planning last October. “It’s helped me a lot, getting to see the rest of the country like this, and what’s more, I’ve been able to help out in the lives of others through my actions. And that’s just a really good feeling.” If you want to take a look at Sorensen’s entire adventure, definitely check out his blog.
JY: What is the greatest challenge you faced as president of the ITA? AP: There were many challenges. The contract is a big process that involves a lot of work with not only a team of your colleagues, but also reaching out and working with everybody to come up with proposals to figure out what needs to be addressed. A lot of time goes into it and and it’s challenging because sometimes, people don’t realize that it isn’t as simple as just writing down proposals in a few hours—no, it can take many, many days over the course of the year to get a contract. Also, when you reach that point, we have certain laws that we have to follow and I have to make sure that I am communicating those out because a lot of people who are not fully trained don’t understand what should happen and what can or cannot happen. It’s hard because my colleagues in the association are busy and this is another world that you have to somehow follow and learn about. So I think making sure that everyone understands the process is tricky. The other thing is that the process is not a science. There are different ways to negotiate with the district. The facilitative intensive negotiations were a new way to negotiate and we weren’t sure how it was going to work. Neither was the school administration. But we just needed to do it. And we were hoping that it would work. So talking and having those conversations with people about the fact that the negotiation process is not a science and telling them “Here’s why we need to do this” can be challenging because we’re all in 12 different buildings and some of us live outside of Ithaca. Not everybody is hearing and reading about the news at the same time. When you’re in that state, it’s really hard because anybody wants everything that they want and that’s unfortunately not how it works. That’s why it’s called negotiations, and that’s why it’s called a settlement; we have to reach a compromise, which can be a challenge. There were also challenges that we faced during collective bargaining. In my capacity of being the president of the ITA, there are a lot of things that I do on a daily basis that are confidential and are very personal, so I can’t always disclose those. I’ve always had to deal with legal issues, which cannot be heard so much beyond a few sets of ears. I think that that’s always been an issue: having people recognize the amount of work that goes into running the association. Basically, we’re a non-profit organization and I’m largely responsible for making sure that we’re following all of the laws reCONTINUED ON PAGE 6
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garding things like taxes and income-filling. JY: In what ways was the facilitative negotiations process different from previous approaches to negotiating contracts? AP: There were fewer proposals made from both sides for discussion, as we were given limits for the number of times we could bring something forward. Everyone had to commit to the days that were set so that no one could say, “Oh, my schedule isn’t looking good that day. We’ll move it to tomorrow.” So our goal was to reach a settlement at the end of those three days and not prolong the process beyond that. Before, meetings would get moved or people couldn’t make it to them, so we’d try to have the session anyway but then people would be missing. Having a process in which we could have everyone at the table in a room encouraged us to listen and to discuss instead of knowing that we had an infinite amount of time to keep negotiating. JY: What were the best and and the worst moments of your job last year? AP: The best thing was knowing that I had the support of my colleagues while going through the process of negotiations to impasse, to the one-year settlement, and then right back in this new progress that we were experiencing. I was very happy to hear from my colleagues that they were proud of my bravery and happy that somebody with this role was willing to continue the conversations with the district administration and make sure that their voices were being heard. It was my voice as well, but obviously, my first priority was making sure that their opinions and concerns were being brought forward. I was thanked over and over again and that was a great, great thing. No matter what settlement comes out, it’s really hard to satisfy 100 percent of the people because of the compromise factor, but the negotiations team did everything we could to make sure that the feedback was met by the team. JY: What is most rewarding about your role? AP: I have learned so much about all the different areas that my colleagues do. We aren’t just classroom teachers. We are also psychologists, social workers, counselors, therapists, physical education teachers, music directors, pre-K teachers, AP teachers, Regents teachers, and all of the educators in every grade level. We are all working very hard and it’s been very valuable to be able to communicate out to the district: this is what all of our colleagues are doing and these are the struggles that they have. The other thing is obviously helping peo-
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THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
ple. This role is one that is of great help to other people. We play a huge advocacy role for people in many situations; not just salaries, not just benefits, but how they can get or renew their teaching certifications, how they can go about maternity leaves, how they deal with medical leaves, or communicating with a colleague over a disagreement with or a violation of the contract. So it’s a big advocacy role and I’ve learned a lot about how to advise people.
money, but earning the same money. So if you are a teacher and your salary is frozen into the next school year and the insurance rates go up, or other type of tax rates go up, you actually earn less. So for many of us, in the start of the 2015–2016 school year, we took home less money than before and that was really hard. The goal is to always reach a settlement at the end of that contract year so that you’re not operating under an expired contract. It’s the goal every single time.
JY: Are teachers happy in their jobs? AP: Overall, teachers love teaching because that’s who they are and chose to be. Nobody goes into the field just to see if they’ll like it. Teachers have had teaching in their core. I’ve talked to many teachers who said that they wanted to become teachers even from an early age. We get a few here and there who became teachers as a second career thing but most of us had teaching in mind right from high school. But as an upperclassman, you probably have learned that being a teacher is not an easy job. It’s not easy for any of the fields that I just named. It’s hard for pre-K teachers. It’s hard to be a psychologist. It’s hard for special educators, and so on. They’re all tough jobs and that’s why we want to make sure that we’re being paid professionally and that we have schedules that allow us to still have families and be able to take care of ourselves, because we have demanding jobs that require countless hours in a week and weekends just to keep our heads above the waters. But what’s happening to the teaching profession is not necessarily because of students or curriculum or the duty of teaching, but it’s the stuff that comes down from legislators, governors, state-education officials like the Board of Regents that is not in line with the reality of what it really means to teach. The arguments in the past few years have been about state-standardized assessments, Common Core standards, and obviously the teachers’ evaluation systems. And those can hit teachers really hard.
JY: What positive effects have already taken place or will have taken place in the next three years due to this contract? AP: The 2015–16 settlement actually solved around 20 or so issues of the contract, not just those proposed by the ITA but also those that the district wanted to address. The thing is, just over the course of the contract, things can evolve. For example, laws change so you have to update it to make sure that the contract matches the law. The 2015–16 contract updated many things, which was great, because when we went into the new process, it allowed us to focus on the major points, which were salary and insurance and things like that. So I think for the next three years, we’re really looking at a lot of things that were addressed in the contract and that will compel us to collect more information about what still needs to be changed, so that we’re prepared to enter the spring of 2019.
JY: What were the problems that motivated the ITA to reach this contract? AP: Well, it is within the law that the district and the association that represents the employees come to an agreement. There are loopholes through which we can go for a long time without a renewed contract. The problem with our contract is that when we don’t have a renewed contract, our salaries are frozen. We also don’t have a step system, so you don’t get a little bit of a bump just because you have years of experience or anything else in terms of the quality of your work. Having an unrenewed contract can prevent us not only from earning more
JY: Are there problems that the agreement failed to address? AP: I don’t think any agreement ever fails to address something, because that’s how the negotiations process works. Some things get brought to the table and just become null and void proposals. They go off and you bring them up either individually or address them next time. JY: What is your vision for the ITA? What will the ITA look like in five years? AP: So I have many visions, but I am only one person and the ITA only has one administrative assistant. The other officers and chairpersons who assume roles within the organization are busy because of their teaching roles. There is not a lot of time to keep addressing all of the goals and visions that we have. So each year, we adopt a resolution to work on something and different committees set some goals to accomplish things. Hopefully, in five years, we won’t have to deal with another expired contract. But we never know. I would also hope that in five years, we will be beyond the issues that come down from the federal and state levels. Hopefully, those will be resolved through the other actions that teachers and parents do CONTINUED ON PAGE 7
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around the state. I see us being a really involved association in the community. Right now, teachers don’t have so much time to do that but it’s always a goal of ours to stay active. For example, this past year, we held a storytelling event for our students, and we’ve supported other organizations like the tutoring program. We’d like to extend the roles we play in the local community. Another piece is—and I’ve talked about this with a few of my colleagues—trying to figure out how we can support and push social justice and human civil rights issues. And we’re working with the community and students on that.
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And that led to many conversations about where and why teachers are going and leaving. We, as an association, emphasized that we not only want teachers and educators to come here, but also to stay here as well. And we brought that argument up and I think that’s one of the reasons why we got a lot of support for proposals. We need to make sure that the district does something to help this problem. The association doesn’t set the salaries. It comes out of the negotiations process. This three-year contract is starting to address both the recruitment and the retention problems and we’re thankful that it’s been recognized by the district.
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JY: Would you give me specifics about how exactly the new contract helps recruitment and retention? AP: The new contract sets the increases for the returning teachers and sets the incoming starting salaries for new teachers. JY: Was whether or not teacher salaries impact student performance ever in the discussion? AP: No. There isn’t so much data out there that can draw a correlation between those two things. But if it were true, then our salaries really needed to be increased because the quality of education students get here is very, very good. So if we were to look at that, we did kind of read it up in terms of the district giving awards, the high percentage of graduation rates; if that’s going to be looked at, then yes, teachers should be paid professionally and respectfully. JY: Do you think there will be more teacher protests? AP: Well, not in the next two years, because we’re in a new contract, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be any conversation around where we still are in terms of salaries. But in terms of protests, there was never a protest. There was a rally; it’s a way to bring the community together for their support. But what we saw last fall is not something we should expect to see in the next two years.
If you think your premiums are low... it’s probably JY: Are there new statistics about where the median ICSD teachers’ salary stands, percentile-wise, both in NYS and nationally? AP: Well, that obviously became a huge discussion over the year and a half here: the difference between median and average salaries and so on. And we’ve dealt with all that during the negotiations process, especially since this is not a science either, even though you might think that it is since it deals with numbers. But what one data report shows may not be the information that all districts put in. So I think the district and the ITA will start using the data sources that we have agreed upon, and we’ll have to see where we are in a few years. But we probably will discover that we still haven’t closed the gap and that’s obviously something that will have to be raised. This settlement was not a be-all and end-all settlement, and we left the settlement knowing that. JY: How does the contract attract good new teachers and help teacher retention? AP: So that was exactly why we went into impasse last fall. We were trying to communicate to the BoE that because of the salaries and the percentages we paid for our benefits, we were losing people.
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THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
OPINION
The Truth Behind Truancy, or Why You Should Skip Senior Skip Day By JACOB SILCOFF SchoolTool attendance features being used as a cheap and effective alternative. The biggest benefit this system would lend to the school is the incentive system it creates. Students would work harder in classes they don’t like or are struggling in so they can get the grades they need to be able to skip. It also forces people to only skip when they know it won’t adversely affect their class grade. For students, not having to sit through boring and useless lectures would be a plus. Honestly, there is no reason anyone should have to listen to a 45-minute lecture on stoichiometry if they don’t feel they need to. I’m confident that every single student at IHS can think of a class they took where they would have received a totally fine grade without showing up half the time. Most importantly, such a policy would reduce the obsession and culture that revolves around skipping. The most infuriating embodiment of anti-skipping attitudes can be found in our school’s library. Showing up just a minute after the bell rings usually means lines out the door, which is not only boring but cuts into the already limited free time students at IHS crave. Worse, signing in is an unnecessary pain, with administrators requiring that schedules be shown in needlessly specific ways; SchoolTool, for instance, is not accepted when shown from a phone, but is from a Chromebook. This makes no sense and even librarians I’ve talked to admit the rule is pointless. The best solution so far involves students carrying their student ID cards (which not many students do), and going to their APs to get stickers showing their free periods (which is a pain, and, once again, no one really wants to do it). While some students opt for this, many don’t. I personally want to spend as little time near my AP as possible. All of this prompts me to ask a simple question: why are we doing this? It certainly isn’t to actually prevent skipping. During a student council meeting, I asked administrators why they couldn’t just check attendance records taken by teachers that already detect skipping. They explained that it was simply an idiosyncrasy. In other words, administrators are so worried about students skipping and going to an alternate
place of learning that they need not just one, but multiple systems in place to make sure those delinquent kids don’t go to the library. This is infuriating to me. Due to a fear of truancy, admins are creating a system where it would be easier for students to skip school and smoke pot under the bridge than to go to a library, where their whereabouts can be monitored and they can learn from a plethora of books and academic resources. In addition, this superfluous security ends up inconveniencing the vast majority of students trying to use the library legitimately. I see no reason why students should not be allowed to simply sign in with their name (for use in the event of an emergency, such as a fire), without any need for ID, pass, schedule, Chromebook, or a long wait. The majority of students should not have to suffer because administrators feel a need to punish a minority of skippers, especially when the suffering comes due to a redundancy. ILLUSTRATION BY JOSEPH YOON
“Senior Skip Day” is a day during which seniors at our school (or any school) commit mass truancy. It is a long-held and hallowed tradition here at IHS. Seniors take this day so seriously that I remember some of my AP classes last year being nearly empty. Naturally, this sort of “sticking-it-tothe-man” mentality would be something I could get behind; however I find that in many regards, the tradition lends too much legitimacy to the anti-skipping attitudes of the administrators, and should thus be abandoned. By orchestrating a collective act of defiance, students send the message that they are doing something that is in some way wrong. Taking a day off should be perfectly acceptable for students in good academic standing, be they seniors, juniors, sophomores, or—and I shudder to say it— even freshmen. Before delving into the arguments for relaxed truancy rules, I think it’s important to see why these rules exist in the first place. According to Strategies For Youth, a government-sponsored website aimed at strengthening and improving the relationship between police and youth nationwide, truancy laws are designed to ensure that students with learning disabilities, family issues, and fear of bullies don’t flunk out of school simply because attendance is difficult. The key is to note the demographic the law has in mind: people who are struggling in school and at risk of failing. With this in mind, I propose the following: students should be allowed to skip any classes in which they have a 90 or higher. Teachers don’t need to accommodate skipping, and students would be responsible for getting homework assignments in on time and turning in tests and quizzes. For example, it would be okay for a student to skip a day in AP Chemistry if they just want to take notes online and aren’t worried it will lead to a drop in grades. This of course means that no administrative time will be spent trying to catch kids in the act (e.g. waiting outside of the parking lot, hiding out at Slope Day, going to Papa John’s on Tuesdays to punish students without senior privileges). All such efforts would be—and honestly, should be by now—entirely digital, with
It is important to note that allowing students to skip does not have any effect on the demographics that truancy laws are actually concerned about; the whole point of the law is to protect those at risk of failure. By limiting the scope of truancy to only those we are actually worried about, more time and effort can be spent pursuing students that legitimately need help without harassing students who aren’t doing anything wrong. Obviously, not all skipping is good. Don’t skip in a way that jeopardizes your grades or hurts a teacher’s ability to teach. If the entire class agrees to skip on one day, that can hurt a teacher’s ability to teach effectively and throw off their schedules. With this in mind, I encourage students to skip, but skip responsibly.
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
OPINION
PAGE 9
September Electoral College Prediction By VAYNU KADIYALI Following the massive gatherings of both the Democratic and Republican party elites at their respective conventions earlier this summer, our nation now braces itself for a grueling and aggressive 100-day stretch before Election Day in early November. The Republicans have attempted to reconcile after this cycle’s historically large and divisive field of candidates prevented the electorate from even choosing one with a popular vote majority. Post-convention polling had indicated that the party gathering has convinced a larger-than-expected majority of Republicans to back their general election candidate, Donald Trump, a trend which seems to be in reverse following controversial remarks. On the other side, Bernie Sanders supporters have appeared to back Hillary Clinton at similar rates to those of anti-Obama voters after the 2008 Democratic Primary, indicating that this general election should play out similarly to those of previous years for Democrats. Every day and every poll brings us closer to drawing an opinion about how this race will end. I give my updated (my previous prediction can be found on the Tattler website or in the Opinion section of last year’s June issue) general election prediction in the map below. To understand this map, it is important to understand the shades. IMAGE PROVIDED
The states that are in the lightest shade are those that Trump is nearly assured to win, and those in the black shading are those that Clinton is assured to win. The states with a dark background and white hashes are states with close polling where I believe Clinton will win, and those with a light background and black hashes are those with close polling with a forecast favoring Trump. I have evidently provided some new predictions. I previously believed that Utah was not in play, despite close polling, due to the state’s huge weight towards Republican candidates in past elections. However, the huge margin by which the state voted against Trump in the primary as well as the determination of the Gary Johnson campaign to gain ground in the state may result in it being a close three-way race, with each candidate winning about a third of the vote. While it appears demographically unlikely that a third-party candidate will prevent a Trump victory, the 70 percent of Utah’s Republicans who voted for Cruz in the primary are among the nation’s foremost “Never Trump” advocates and may gravitate away from giving their electoral votes to a Republican for the first time since 1968.
Next, I have decided to not include three traditional “purple” states—Wisconsin, Colorado and Virginia—as swing states this year. Wisconsin’s harsh voter restriction laws are close to being overturned, providing Clinton with an additional buffer onto her current eight to 10 percent lead in polling. It is important to consider that the state went for Barack Obama in 2012 despite the home district of Mitt Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, being located there. Virginia is in a similar position for a completely different reason. Clinton’s selection of Tim Kaine, the wildly popular senator and former governor of Virginia, gives her a big boost in a state that has already shown gravitation away from Republican politics, as evidenced by its voting for a Democratic Governor and two Democratic Senators. Lastly, Colorado has been designated by both campaigns as being of lower importance than in previous years, implying that both Trump and Clinton believe it will be a safer blue state than expected. The last interesting update is Indiana. It is the home of Trump’s running mate, but also a state Obama won in 2008. The Trump campaign believes it is a state where they will not have to put in many resources to win; they believe that the popularity of Mike Pence, Indiana’s current governor and the GOP Vice Presidential pick, will be enough to keep it in play as a red-tilted state. However, one reason that Mike Pence decided to join the Trump ticket was because he knew that he would face a tough re-election at home and that the ability to earn national acclaim and potentially the number-two spot was more rewarding. Indiana will have a Senate race this year, featuring the popular Democratic ex-Senator Evan Bayh who holds onto a large polling lead. Likewise, Indiana will also have a race for the governorship where the Republican primary is filled with second-rate, uncompetitive candidates due to Pence’s withdrawal. If Indiana’s Senate and Governor races both go blue, it may allow Clinton to be propelled to victory in the state by her favorable party affiliation. In this election, the four states that can truly be dubbed swing states are the delegate-rich Georgia, Ohio, Florida, and the smaller but equally important Nevada. In all of these states (with the exception of Georgia), there is also a competitive Senate race, and it is likely that whichever party wins the presidential contest in these states will also gain the respective Senate seat. This is very important to Democrats, who see an opening to gain control of the currently Republican-heavy Senate. Georgia has traditionally been a red state and its Senate race is less competitive, but migration to Atlanta’s suburbs has resulted in it coming into play this year as a potential Clinton win. Because of the controversial nature of the Trump candidacy, I have projected all of these states to go to Clinton. Trump making improvements in his dismal polling or even winning any of these states—most likely Ohio and Georgia—wouldn’t be at all surprising, though, and would lead this election to be highly contested. This year’s election will be an unprecedented one. We have never seen a candidate as despised as Donald Trump seeking the highest office in the country, and the fact that he may even win is a testament to the fact that this nation desperately desires an unconventional solution to our new problems. Hillary Clinton too faces issues, but has been coasting to huge polling leads in the past month. This slate of candidates may result in competition from third parties and unique state races that will shape not only the presidency, but the composition of our national legislative bodies for years to come.
OPINION
PAGE 10
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
The Case for Graduating Early By AGNES SYDENSTRICKER As of February 3, 2017, I will be in Palmerton North, New Zealand, high-school diploma already in hand, although I’m currently a senior. How is this possible? I’m graduating early. IHS allows students to graduate once they have amassed the required 22 credits to graduate. New York State is one of 24 states that allows students to graduate early. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, roughly five percent of all students across the U.S. graduated early as of 2004. So why graduate early? First and foremost, you can start college or work sooner. This option saves time, energy, and potentially money. Why wait anxiously through four years of high school? Moreover, getting a head start on college means graduating college earlier as well as entering the workforce sooner. If starting college early isn’t of interest, taking a gap year after graduating is a great option. Many high schoolers don’t know what to study in college, and gap years provide the opportunity for new experiences—such as traveling, interning, and working—that can help them discover their interests before going to college. Gap years also provide students with “real” world experiences that foster greater independence. A student who graduates early can take a gap year and still start college at the same time as their high-school peers; however, they will have had valuable
Heroes
&
Villains IMAGE PROVIDED
IMAGE PROVIDED
Najih Shaker Al-Baldawi (pictured), an Iraqi Muslim who hugged an ISIS suicide bomber to absorb the detonation at a shrine, saving countless lives.
experiences that their peers couldn’t have if they stayed in high school for all four years. Personally, I’m graduating a semester early in order to join my family on sabbatical in New Zealand. There, I will immerse myself in a new culture, explore new educational opportunities, and travel to new places. Hopefully by the end of my time in New Zealand, I will return to the U.S. ready for college with a host of new insights and experiences. While IHS has provided me with a stellar education, I believe certain things can only be learned outside of the classroom. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that graduating early isn’t a walk in the park. Satisfying all of the graduation requirements in a shorter time frame requires tremendous commitment and meticulous planning. Because of this commitment, anyone who decides to graduate early should have a legitimate purpose for doing so. You don’t want to end high school early without knowing what you are going to do next. With hard work and dedication, however, graduating early is possible and can be tremendously rewarding. Being able to walk across the stage a semester or even a year ahead of schedule with exciting opportunities to come is definitely something worth celebrating.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte (pictured), who urged citizens to actively kill all drug addicts and dealers and has claimed “I don’t care about human rights.”
Muhammad Ali.
ISIS, which has carried out at least 15 terrorist attacks since June, resulting in over 700 deaths internationally.
India, which managed to plant nearly 50 million trees in 24 hours this July. The country has pledged to increase forest cover to 95 million hectares by 2030.
The officials behind the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, who have been criticized for corruption as they scrambled to hide the crime, pollution, and mismanagement of the city.
Joe Biden, who oversaw the marriage of two gay officials at the White House.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who closed down more than 1,000 private schools, 1,200 charities, and 15 universities after a failed coup to overthrow him.
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
OPINION
PAGE 11
The Case for Trump By JACOB SILCOFF The only thing I hate more than Donald Trump is an echo chamber. So, for the sake of diversifying the political discourse at IHS, I’ll put my personal views aside to give a legitimate case for why Donald Trump is the best candidate for president in this election. First, let me be clear on at least one thing: I’m not an idiot. I won’t waste my time trying to persuade IHS students that conservatism is the way to go (to anyone who wants to try, good luck). However, there are quite a few reasons why liberals should be thrilled to have Trump as POTUS. Clinton and Trump are some of the least popular nominees in the history of their parties. Their approval ratings are abysmal, and both have been caught up in potentially career-ending scandals—take Clinton’s emails, or the fact that Trump is literally scheduled to sit trial for fraud immediately after the general election. In all likelihood, the president we elect will end up being a disappointment. This creates an inherent advantage for the losing party when it comes to the 2020 election. Essentially, if Trump becomes president, he’ll do a terrible job and severely tarnish the reputation of the GOP as a political organization. Just as George Bush’s failures paved the way for Obama in 2008, so too could Trump’s failures enable the election of a more extreme liberal in four years (we don’t know who that will be, but I plan on voting for Kanye West in 2020). Meanwhile, if Clinton wins the election, she’ll almost certainly do a poor job representing the Democrats. Be it through overly moderate compromise that dissuades the Sanders-loving left or perhaps through involving the U.S. in more unsuccessful wars, a Clinton election will likely hand the presidency over to a more extreme conservative in 2020 (remember, Trump is a moderate in terms of policy by many measures). I suspect Ted Cruz knows this, and may very well have used his controversial RNC speech to give himself an edge in 2020. This advantage should not be taken lightly. Washington Monthly is saying that the 2020 election will be “the most important election of our lifetimes,” speculating that the winner of said election “stands to nominate at least two Supreme Court nominees that will tip the balance of juridical decisions for the next several decades.” Jeff
Cox, a political analyst for CNBC, goes further, speculating that “not only is the 2016 election not the most important election of our lifetime, it may in fact be the least important.” He predicts the next four years will go something like as follows: “More fighting but nothing in the way of decisive maneuvers against radical Islamic terror; little economic growth in U.S., with a likely recession that will be countered with more zero interest rates and money printing; and most importantly, intensified levels of Washington gridlock where little if any meaningful legislation makes its way through Congress.” In other words, winning this election can be a major loss in terms of party cred. The question then becomes whether or not giving the election to Trump is a worthwhile sacrifice. Many are afraid that he will turn the U.S. into some sort of fascist state, that he will go through with his crazy policies and burn this country to the ground. I feel confident in saying that those people are just as crazy as they think Trump is. We all know that the whole wall thing is never going to happen, with former President of Mexico Vicente Fox going so far as to say “I’m not paying for that f***ing wall.” Banning all Muslims would never happen (the courts would never allow it), and the claim that Trump would somehow silence his media critics seems incredibly unlikely given how entrenched free press is in American culture, in addition to how much his critics love to make fun of him (I would imagine he loves the free publicity that The Daily Show and its ilk give him). I would even go so far as to say that some of Trump’s policies are relatively agreeable. He supports funding Planned Parenthood, he has said that he’s “fine” with affirmative action, and supports legalizing marijuana for medical use nationwide (and would leave recreational use to the states). Clinton, on the other hand, is a war hawk who voted to get the U.S. involved in the same conflicts that created ISIS to begin with, and has consistently demonstrated compliance with big money in politics. Specifically, Trump’s nationalism, while one of his most satirized talking points, is something that should resonate with all Americans. The fact that so many of our products are produced from the sweat, blood, and innocence of third-world chil-
dren without so much as a thought given to them by American consumers may not be what first comes to mind when you hear “Make America Great Again.” But the mockable quality of Trump’s talking points is not an excuse to ignore the serious problem of companies circumventing not just the law, but basic morality by simply leaving the U.S. Trump’s disdain for companies that escape taxes and give American jobs to foreigners is laudable. On that note, take his thoughts on foreign military intervention: “I watched as we built schools in Iraq and they’re blown up. We build another one, we get blown up. We rebuild it three times and yet we can’t build a school in Brooklyn. We have no money for education because we can’t build in our own country. At what point do you say, ‘Hey, we have to take care of ourselves?’ So, I know the outer world exists and I’ll be very cognizant of that. But at the same time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially the inner cities.” It is very arguable that every single foreign military intervention we’ve ever taken part in has made things worse (before you say it, remember that World War II led directly to the Cold War, which could have meant the nuclear destruction of humanity as we know it had we not been so lucky). I feel very secure in knowing that Trump, unlike Clinton, who voted for the war in Iraq, might let us stop killing Muslims (odd wording, yes, but that’s how ISIS and other such groups see it, and that’s exactly the rhetoric they successfully use to recruit members to their cause. Take, for instance, the fact that American drone strikes on ISIS led to a massive surge in membership in the following months) and start helping our poor. My dream for our country, and it may be one that other liberals share, is that at least some of our massive defense budget can go to other branches that need it, like education, health care, and public works. This November, consider voting for Trump. Birds may not land on his podium, but at least he’ll screw over the GOP and probably won’t spend more of your tax money murdering people in the Middle East or allowing companies to break the law by leaving the U.S. I truly believe he can help make America great again, even if that greatness comes only after 2020.
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THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
FEATURES
A Day at a Farm I found myself in the rustic fields of Brooktondale, 10 miles or so out from Ithaca, on a clear and sweltering Tuesday morning. A single dilapidated sign peeking out in the middle of a winding road was the only indication of my destination, with the entire place nestled comfortably against a dense woods. I would’ve driven right by if it weren’t for a familiar figure just behind a stretch of trees, and I hurriedly signalled my mom to stop the car. Dressed rather excessively to protect against the glaring sunlight, I walked up the driveway to greet a man with a smile and a handshake. It had been nearly a month since I last saw Robert Tuori, IHS chemistry teacher and proprietor of Nook & Cranny farm. We’d talked a bit about his farm during the school year, and a few emails were all it took for me to get a job as a farmhand for a day. Two other IHS students, Jason Wang ’17 and Ronan Perry ’16, would also be helping out, in addition to the more permanent employees. I had a cup of coffee, home-brewed by Tuori himself, and then we headed a few miles out to his fields, a fairly large expanse surrounded by trees. It was around 11:00 a.m. when our first task commenced: harvesting garlic and hanging it to dry. We used pitchforks to gently extract the bulbs from the soil, after which we grouped them into bunches of 10 before tightly winding them with twine. Two bunches went with one length of twine, each one tied to an end. While not exhausting, the work was tedious, especially in the heat. We switched jobs at intervals, from harvesting to tying to hauling. I mainly worked on tying the garlic together, and a pile of the stuff began to grow at a surprising rate. Slowly, we made progress through the long row of garlic, a trail of disturbed earth and unused rope scattered in our wake. With the final crops of our harvest pulled out and prepared for drying, we stacked them high on a trailer and drove to a nearby shed, where some older garlic was already hanging from the rafters. We three students quickly scurried back and forth, handing the tied garlic to Tuori, who was perched up on a stepladder. At long last we stepped back to admire our handiwork: bundles of bulbs hanging expectantly like Christmas stockings from the wooden beams. Some quick calculations gave us a total of 1,400 bulbs from the day’s work.
Tuori looked faintly annoyed, muttering about a higher expected yield, but we got back into the car and drove back to the fields. Upon returning, an enormous pile of fertilizer greeted us. A shovel was placed in my hands, and we began to scoop the dark, loamy material into wheelbarrows for scattering on the now garlic-free space. After 20 minutes of that came weeding a long row of onions. Despite all the clothing I’d brought, gloves were conspicuously absent, and my already roughed-up hands quickly became covered in dirt. I grimaced as my fingers accidentally closed around a particularly spiky plant, its protest at being removed loud and clear against my sensitive skin. Small bits of conversation floated among us as we inched along the ground. I talked a bit with Mike, one of the farmhands, who’d been to Hawaii just a few months back and eaten the best Thai food he’d ever had. Finally, Tuori called for a break, and we slowly regrouped near our cars for lunch. The other workers headed out their various ways to grab a quick meal, while we students (we’d all brought our own lunches) followed Tuori back to his house to rest. After eating and playing around with Tuori’s dog, we once again drove out, this time in another direction to a much wider field than before. However, only a small portion of it, marked off with a rectangle of bare soil from the rest of the verdant meadow, belonged to Tuori. Tuori had hauled along a tilling machine, a dusty, largish device which rattled noisily along its two wheels, two handles poking out from behind for steering. The other workers slowly arrived, one at a time; the first brought out a collection of hoes from his car (Tuori, upon hearing some muffled snickering, drily remarked upon the immature minds of all teenagers). We began our final and most strenuous task of the day: hilling potatoes. The tubers had to be well-buried underneath the soil to grow effectively, and so we were tasked with breaking up the hard, rocky earth and piling it around the long stems of the plants. An army of weeds, many of which were far taller and more resilient than the potato plants themselves, was present to slow our progress. The tilling machine was used to break up the soil to
IMAGE BY JAMES PARK
By JAMES PARK
Robert Tuori finishing up another hard day in the fields.
make it easier to work with, but we still had to do the manual labor. The scorching sun bore down unbearably on the shadeless field; I was infinitely grateful for the green sunhat that rested on my head. I learned how to hold a hoe correctly to avoid hurting my back. Our water bottles were quickly drained in breaks between hilling, refilled from a large Mason jar, and then drained again. The carcasses of eviscerated plants littered the ground in limp heaps. Three hours became a blur, the monotony of our work broken up only when we finished a row or took a quick rest under the shade of a nearby tree. It was mindless and exhausting, but strangely enjoyable; I remained determined and put in my best effort until the last row had been completed. With the sun slowly making its way towards the hills in the distance, most of the workers decided to call it a day and bade farewell. We returned to Tuori’s residence, where a check for $55 was written for each student worker, representing seven hours of hard work. We chatted among ourselves for a short while before leaving for our homes, ready to sleep off a day’s honest work.
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
FEATURES
PAGE 13
Restaurant Review: Texas Roadhouse
Pretend It’s Summer Once Again
By JAMES PARK
By CHLOE WRAY
Having lived in Texas for the first half of my life, I felt that the Texas Roadhouse that opened up on South Meadow Street this May seemed a promising place to relive old tastes from the South. Unfortunately, some quick research showed that the chain restaurant had nothing to do with Texas and was originally founded in Indiana. Disappointing, yes, but I was hopeful that the food would still be enjoyable. Along with my good friend Daniel Xu ’17, I went one early afternoon, hoping to take advantage of the “early dinner” deal for a small discount. The place was crowded when we first arrived, but within minutes we were ushered along to a table by a friendly, if hurried, waitress. The atmosphere was loud and cheerful; country music blared constantly above the general hubbub, working in conjunction with a simple, woody interior designed to give off a rustic feel. About once an hour or so, all the servers in the restaurant participated in some line dancing to a particular tune, much to the amusement/cringes of onlooking diners. Upon taking our seats, fresh rolls and peanuts were provided as complimentary appetizers as we glanced through the menus. The peanuts were as exciting as you’d expect, but the rolls were very well-made, still warm, with a light, buttery texture. They came with a spread, the taste of which I couldn’t quite place; it was very much like butter but just a tad sweeter. I managed to eat three before Xu advised me to save some space for the actual meal. In addition to our free appetizers, we ordered a plate of cheese fries and a bowl of chili. Although they were delicious, in retrospect, the decision to order them was a poor one. The quantity of cheese fries provided was, for two people, alarming; a monstrous pile of thick fries slathered with rich cheese and bacon bits. We could only eat about a third before our stomachs began to feel heavy, and a significant portion was brought home in a take-out box at the end. Thankfully, the chili was of moderate size and was, if not amazing, at least satisfactory. Price-wise, the appetizers weren’t too bad, coming to about $9 altogether. Heed my advice, though: come here only with a minimum of three people. Finally, the main entrees arrived, each of us having ordered a 6 oz. sirloin steak with two sides. The major disappointment came when I made my first cut through the meat. Despite having ordered a medium-rare steak, the color and texture inside indicated that it was rare at best. Not having a very picky palate, I could manage this, but the worst came when I began to chew on my meal. The steak was rubbery and slimy, giving in slightly like a wet sponge before my teeth could find any purchase. The taste, too, was greasy and artificial, and I couldn’t help but wonder if my entree hadn’t just been nuked in a microwave prior to serving. I couldn’t eat more than half, and instead focused my attention on the mashed potatoes and corn that came with it. Those I found much more to my liking, but unfortunately my stressed stomach could handle only a few more bites. Meanwhile, Xu found his medium-cooked steak, which he’d ordered with another bowl of chili and green beans, surprisingly appetizing. He continued to enjoy the chili, but the green beans were, I’m sorry to say, abysmal. They really were awful, and I say that as someone who’s eaten a lot of green beans in my time. In fact, when you drown them in excess oil and overcook them to the consistency of warm paste, I really don’t think you can qualify them as veggies any more. Truth be told, after finishing what we could, we were in no mood for dessert and soon left. The overall price of around $30 (each entree was $10), while average, was certainly not worth the mediocre dinner. Overall, Texas Roadhouse is sadly no different than the Chili’s or Applebee’s of Ithaca: higher-priced dining for low-quality food. With so many other restaurants scattered throughout Ithaca, many of which are locally-owned and much tastier, you should think twice before deciding to grab a meal here with your friends or family.
Most of your friends were jet-setting the globe, racking up numerous internships for their resume, managing to write a perfect college essay, studying for the SAT/ACT/PSAT/SAT II, and scoring some killer Instagram posts to boot. So every time someone asks what you did this summer, you feel a little subpar. While some people genuinely feel healthiest spending their time indoors in front of the TV or another screen, most of us tend to become slightly stir-crazy after binge-watching our fourth Netflix Original in a row. So instead of looking at social media and crying your eyes out because your life isn’t as “exciting” as some of your friends’, go outside and make the most out of what Ithaca has to offer for the rest of the summer (you still have until September 21!) and year-round. Between the CFCU Downtown Summer Concert Series, concerts at Taughannock, Ithaca Underground, “Dan Smalls Presents” concerts, and independent shows, this summer there is practically a concert every night of the week, plenty of which are free and most of which are all-ages. Keep up with concerts and you now have something to do almost every weekend. Ithaca is an epicenter for music in the region, boasting hundreds of local bands. Whether you’re into bluegrass, jazz, punk rock, or rap, you have a cultural hub at your fingertips (literally; just open Facebook, find a show, click “going”, and go!). Go for a walk, go for a swim, take a hike, ride your bike, meditate in the woods. Ithaca isn’t called “gorges” for nothing. If you happened to travel near or far in the past months, you surely found yourself missing home. And if you didn’t, someday you’ll find yourself realizing you took the Finger Lakes for granted. Concerts and events downtown may be harder to get to, especially at night, but chances are you live within a mile of a gorge, creek, or trail whether you know it or not. Go outside and explore a bit. People always say one of the best ways to get to know yourself is through travel. People travel to this region and are changed by it all the time. Resting, refueling, and recharging for the year ahead is what makes summer so essential. You can pack in as many trips as possible, but you still need some downtime after a nine-month barrage of work. For me, summer is the perfect time to read. High school has continuously drained me of the energy and desire to read, let alone comprehend books. So let summer, or any period of rest during the year for that matter, be a chance to fall back in love with reading, and rediscover the joy you took in devouring Harry Potter during elementary school. Read, draw, write. Nurture your mind creatively, in ways you have been deprived of by textbooks and tests. The next few weeks of summer and the whole year ahead of you could be your best yet. Go outside, take advantage of all the resources surrounding you, and step back from the burden of school every once in a while, if only to pretend it’s summer once again.
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FEATURES
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
Club Feature: Green Team By MAGDA KOSSOWSKA IMAGE BY RUTH WITMER
The 2015–2016 Green Team aided the creation of the new garden last spring.
A strange phenomenon occurs when ICSD students make the transition from the middle schools to IHS. Suddenly, a disregard for compost grows, and the compost is contaminated while the trash is filled with biodegradable materials. In fact, the level of contaminants in the school’s compost reached a point in 2015 where Cayuga Compost could no longer accept the compost for several months. They agreed to resume taking the school’s compost under the condition that IHS would work to lower the contamination. IHS students in Green Team have been working to do their part in the fight for the environment. This has mainly included spreading awareness about conservation throughout the school. Green Team organizes the collection of classroom materials at the end of the school year for future reuse, as well as the distribution of caps and gowns at graduation. When the threat of lead in the water arose and large water dispensers dominated the hallways, Green Team urged for the plastic cups to be recycled and for students to bring their own reusable water bottles. Last spring, the art exhibit “Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers” was welcomed to the halls of IHS. The prints show an artistic manipulation of wasted materials in the U.S. One series showed one million plastic cups: the amount wasted on U.S. airlines every six hours. These prints were later hung in other schools throughout the district. Green Team’s main focus is perfecting the composting system. Several generations of IHS Green Teams have experimented with numerous creative methods to encourage students to compost. These have included signage, special lids with openings that would allow only certain wastes into the compost bins, the beginnings of an educational video, and compost monitoring. With limited resources, however, most of these approaches were abandoned. Signage is unclear or generally ignored. The video has taken longer to finish than originally expected and remains incomplete. National Honor Society members have occasionally monitored the compost as part of community service hours, but not frequently enough to make a significant impact. Fortunately for the carbon footprint of IHS, a group of Cornell students at the School of Engineering has reached out to Green Team for a sustainability project. This may provide an alternative
to the cycle-inefficient composting, since the engineering students have access to more resources. When Cornell students met with the Green Team in May, they came up with the idea of constructing a solar-powered motor to rotate the compost. This aerates the organic materials to speed up the process of decomposition. The resulting nutrient-rich soil can be used in the school’s garden. In order to keep the level of contaminants low, the Cornell students have agreed to give insight on the usual procession of signage, the arrangement of the waste bins, and compost bin lids. Furthermore, they have agreed to educate the student body about composting through presentations at the start of this school year. Besides composting, Green Team has been attuned to other forms of climate action. In May, Green Team held a screening of Disobedience, a film released last April about the use of civil disobedience to halt climate change. The documentary tells how in 1978, a scientist working for Exxon Mobil, a gas and oil corporation, discovered the climate would change due to emissions. Exxon “climate-proofed” its oil rigs and predicted a five-year window of time in which the problem could be fixed. Then, along with other big oil companies, Exxon founded the Global Climate Coalition, a group whose purpose is to spread doubt about climate data. Now, nearly 40 years later, climate activists across the world struggle against coal power plants, extraction of the crude oil bitumen from tar sands, lignite coal mining, and oil pipelines. Money from fossil-fuel companies has a lot of clout in the government. Since so many economies are built on or dependent upon fossil fuels, it will be necessary to make monumental changes in them. Additionally, the Paris Agreement, created at the United Nations Climate Change Conference last December, is not legally binding, meaning that the nations involved create their own voluntary goals for cutting their emissions. After the screening of Disobedience, students discussed local environmental issues to research, including the Constitution Pipeline that would transport natural gas in New York State, fracking, extreme weather, and gas storage underneath Seneca Lake. The safety of the environment can be protected at even the level of a public school system by conserving resources and spreading awareness of the issue.
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Life after College: Graduate School and Entrepreneurship By DANIEL XU
IMAGE BY DANIEL XU
students are busy with the linear flow of their lives and dwell on the present rather than an uncertain future. It is nevertheless important that at some point before graduation we realize the details of our options and understand why we should take one path or the other. As someone who enjoys learning, I have always seen myself staying in academia in the foreseeable future. This viewpoint was based purely off instinct—with no experience in a real job, the scope of factors that I considered was very limited. So this past summer I interned at a Beijing-based startup called Woo Space for two weeks in hopes of learning more about life after college. I was able to talk to the CEO and his employee about their business experience and the decisions that led up to it. The interviews in this article are conducted from a business-focused perspective. The interviewees’ statements should not be taken as absolutes, but rather as advice from someone who has been in your shoes.
An interior view of Woo Space, a Chinese startup that has grown rapidly since its founding in July of last year.
High-school students rarely spend time considering the future, not so much out of inability to do so as pragmatism. Freshmen have all the challenges of high school ahead of them, with college still four years away; seniors scramble at college applications with no time to think about what comes after. But we all know that school is not forever and that adult responsibilities lie ahead. Parents and institutions promote acquiring work permits and attending summer internships as preparation, although students may instead think in terms of earning quick cash or improving chances of acceptance at a reach school. Many students are already set on going to college as a default option. Once you earn a four-year degree, though, the situation becomes much more open-ended: you can devote yourself to several grueling years earning a graduate degree, or you can face the professional world as an adult. The advantages and disadvantages of each option are unclear to most high-school students. When someone says they plan to get a PhD, do they know why, or what that entails? When someone says they want to make money on Wall Street as soon as possible, do they have informed reasoning behind that? More often than not, the answer is “no.” High-school
Undergraduate studies have transient influence. Woo Space can best be described as a makerspace that rents out its office space to other startups. Since its founding in July 2015, it has rapidly expanded across Beijing and established five branches in addition to the original office. Woo Space held its first anniversary publicity event on July 24 for over 1,000 attendees. The CEO of Woo Space is a man named Randy, a Class of 2012 Cornell graduate known for trotting around his facilities in a T-shirt and loafers. He’s the casual type of boss who would be indistinguishable from a regular employee on the basis of demeanor or dress; his success with Woo Space at such a young age, though, speaks volumes about his ability. I had the opportunity to ask Randy some questions about his path and opinions on grad school. Randy’s time at Cornell was rather unexciting. He chuckled as he described Ithaca as “very middle of nowhere” with “not much to do unless you have a car.” “Mainly, I think, my college experience, what’s memorable about it is that I did a semester in D.C. and a semester in Beijing; I think those two were actually the standout for my entire college experience,” he said. Still, Randy had been pushed in a very particular direction by his college environment, and after graduation had initially decided to go into consulting with a degree in economics. “I was always interested in business, but when I got to Cornell, I realized that everyone who was interested in business goes into investment banking or consulting. There’s really just two paths, no one really was into corporate,” Randy said. According to Randy, this kind of tracking for career paths is a common occurrence at all Ivies. Business majors specifically tend towards investment banking and consulting because those are two of the best jobs for making money right out of college, and everyone tries to compete for them. Now, with the rising popularity of startups in the past few CONTINUED ON PAGE 16
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Experience means networking. To actually get a venture company started—or succeed in getting any highpay job position—you need perseverance, patience, and some key connections. Although ostensibly Randy was on course with an ordinary job at BCG, in retrospect, the time he spent there can be seen purely as preparation for his present position. Being in China for three years with BCG was enough for Randy to build up a comfortable network to the point where he felt that the reward from venturing with a startup exceeded the risk should it fail. “[Networking helped me to] one, get an investment, because one of our investors I’ve actually known for three years, so it’s
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not just like the first time we met. Second, [networking] also helped me in terms of being early to get the startup marketing, and things like that,” Randy said. He proceeded to give an example applicable to any sort of job in the U.S. or China. “So I think there’s an assertion in the West; there’s a negative connotation with connections. But it’s not necessarily true. It’s actually the same everywhere. So for example, if your dad works as a managing director at Goldman Sachs in New York, you are for sure going to get an interview. Like, you know how bankers choose resumes, right? So if you are interviewing for Goldman, they essentially just throw out the resumes of everyone whom they don’t know of, because everyone, on paper, looks amazing. But at the end of the day, if they know you, it just makes you stand out a little bit more, okay?” The college environment is relatively sheltered and actually prevents you from getting the kind of business network you need to quickly succeed on the entrepreneurial level—or at the very least, slows down your progress significantly. One of Randy’s employees and longtime friends, Diana, told me about her own time at college. Growing up in the U.S., she attended college at UC Berkeley as a prospective business major. “I think freshman year, you take a lot of fundamental classes that you don’t really feel like have any real life application,” she said. “Sophomore year I actually took a gap year, cause I met this entrepreneur and I was kind of sick and bored of taking a lot of classes and not knowing what to do with them.” Corroborating Randy, Diana looked back on her gap year away from school as the highlight of her college experience. She spent three months working on overseas operations and marketing at the entrepreneur’s San Francisco office and then moved to Shanghai, where she worked on game development for the rest of the year. That first startup experience in the “real world” completely changed her view of her future path, and when she returned to Berkeley, she took the initiative in getting involved with other startup efforts. “I think real life and school are very different,” Diana said. “The ironic thing is that first of all, I didn’t really study after my gap year; I worked most of the time. But my GPA was higher because all of a sudden, you’re trained to learn and do things more effectively and you kind of feel like you know what everything’s worth. You understand like ‘Why am I taking this class,’ right, like in this class, I get to learn about this and how I can apply it to my life or my work.”
Like it or not, getting accepted at any job past your first requires you to have connections and the network to reach out to them. That is what working experience is all about. Picking up skills and intuition in the field along the way is a bonus that makes up for any missed academic education. Graduate school and business mesh poorly. ILLUSTRATION BY JOSEPH YOON
years, the options in business have opened up. Randy’s first job was at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG)’s Beijing office. It was a stable job that most people would be happy with, with the only off-the-beaten-path factor being that it was in China. As a dual major in China and Asia-Pacific Studies (CAPS), Randy was confident in his choice to leave the U.S. “In China, you have stateowned enterprises, you have private enterprises, and you have multinationals. So, all these; they’re very different. And BCG was a great chance for me to be in the culture of a Western company but have a chance to interact with state-owned enterprises.” For someone as ambitious as Randy, though, staying at BCG wasn’t good enough, and he quickly turned to China’s emerging startup industry for a venture. He was only 25 years old and three years out of college when he decided to open up Woo Space as a brand-new startup. “I realized how in your 20s, it should really be all about first your experience, and second your network,” Randy said. “So the fastest way to get both of these is to actually do your own thing because as you’re pushing your company to grow, you’re pushing yourself to grow, because if you can’t grow then your company is going to stagnate.” As it turned out, Randy would be leaving BCG—and consulting—for good. The influence of peer groups and professors may dictate the first steps you take after graduation, but things are perpetually in flux and your decisions should inevitably align with your personal goals once you figure them out. At the end of the day, undergrad isn’t as all-important as it is made out to high-school students. For those whose jobs deviate from their university studies, it may even be forgettable, like it is for Randy.
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Randy and Diana are both people who like to be in charge of their own pace. Randy had a clear vision of what he wanted to do: from the very start of college, he was focused on business. After her gap year, Diana realized that she was more interested in the experience and network startup has to offer than her unfocused studies. I was curious if either of them had considered going to graduate school. Both of them had. Diana in particular had actually taken her GREs and prepared for law school, but ultimately decided against it, referring to law school as her “backup plan.” “I used to be very keen on getting an MBA (Master of Business Administration),” Randy said. “That was actually one of my life goals.” He told me that after graduation, he had initially planned to spend three years at BCG and then two years at one of the U.S.’s top business schools—such as Harvard, Stanford, or the University of Chicago—but reconsidered after he started up with Woo Space. “I realized that two years for school is actually a very, very long time. There’s so much you can do in two years if you’re trying to do your own thing,” he said. Diana more or less echoed his sentiments: “I think startup is a lot of [skills] that you’re not gonna learn in school. It’s more of, you learn through a lot of experiences and like actually doing shit. And I think doing startup really trains your learning curve ability.” This type of thinking is undeniably results-oriented. Randy and Diana speak from the perspective of two young entreCONTINUED ON PAGE 17
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preneurs with a developing startup that is experiencing dramatic growth. What matters, though, is that on a personal level, both of them looked back on their choice to take a chance on Woo Space and were happy with their decision. Instead of being in school learning the material for six or seven more years, they were able to experience it for themselves and succeed in the real world. They made the “right” choice when it came to graduate school because their decision had been informed by working experiences juxtaposed alongside their regular college experience—for example, if Diana had not taken a gap year, she could very well be in law school right now. The payoff in that respect varies with an individual’s personality and goals, but Diana would probably be worse off had that been her track. Graduate school may be a tempting option for some, but first you need to have a clear objective in mind. If you know you want to continue studying all your life and become a professor, you can consider going for a PhD. The return on other graduate degrees is much less defined, especially if you plan on going into industry like Randy. “I think Master’s actually has no value. Whatsoever. Please do not waste time on getting it. There’s only one good reason for getting a Master’s, and that’s that you didn’t get a job as an undergrad,” Randy said. “I mean, if you’re talented enough then no one’s gonna say ‘You don’t have a Master’s, we’re not gonna hire you,’ especially if you’re in the States. In China, they might do that [chuckle]. But in the States they’re not.” According to Randy, getting a Master’s or MBA or other professional degree is only relevant if the process is used as a conduit for networking, which can be done more efficiently anyway if you go into the field instead. The network built up from an MBA is also not necessarily helpful for ambitious projects such as startups, since you don’t just want people on the same level as you. In the professional world, people have to be judged solely on their accomplishments rather than their accomplishments plotted against their age on a Cartesian diagram. In that sense Randy’s track can be seen as a “get rich quick” type of mentality, where you want to get on a high level professionally in as short a time span as possible. “Once you hit 22 years old, you graduate; you’re in the same landscape as someone who’s 50. That’s just the reality of it, right. So there’s just no point in me being proud of being mature for my age or doing
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well for my age,” Randy said. “In terms of grad school, that just delays you from going into the real world and from actually doing things—actual things, versus a school environment. Because a school environment is always a bubble. It’s a huge bubble, especially the Ivies.” Past the risks, the entrepreneur experience yields immediate reward. If you plan on following in Randy’s footsteps and going into startup, there’s a lot to take in first. Like with grad school, a vision and a clear plan of action are a must. Unlike with grad school, you also need countermeasures in case the worst-case scenario occurs and the startup is a bust. Everyone knows the Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg stories of a genius student dropping out to chase their own startup dreams and winning big because of it. What you don’t hear about is the innumerably larger amount of people who tried the same and failed— because they failed. When that happens, you can’t count on getting a decent job anywhere just based on your school. That only works for your first job. Once you have any work experience, that’s all you’re held accountable for, and if that experience involves crashing with a startup company, it’s a tough sell. “As a student, if you want to do startup, don’t drop out. Just take a gap year. It’s actually the safest thing you can do. And if your startup is actually doing really, really well, that’s when you can think about dropping out,” Randy said. Although Randy wasn’t a student when he began with his startup, he still made sure to have backup plans. “Honestly, at the time I was starting it, if it fails, it’s okay. I can go to [business] school, I can get any corporate strategy job, I can go back to BCG. Right now I have a lot of great choices where it’s all pretty high pay and I don’t need to worry about it. But if I didn’t have BCG, I just had Cornell, and I did a startup and it didn’t work out—I’m f***ed.” But Woo Space did work out, and it’s expanding fast. Randy’s making significantly more money than he would have had he stayed at BCG, and at age 26, he has already made a name for himself in Beijing’s business sector. The rooms of Woo Space are filled with fledgling startups and bustling activity. Like the architecture, the atmosphere is friendly and open. “I think what Woo Space does very differently is that they actually build a very vibrant community, so all the people here— well, at least most people here—are very close with each other; like you see me saying hi to everybody because we all know each other,” Diana said.
PAGE 17 I asked her and Randy for some overall impressions on their startup experience. “I think definitely getting involved in startups is a fast way to kind of see how industry is,” Diana told me. “I think I would recommend to just dive into industry that [you’re] interested in and just hang out and chill there for like half a year and see how things slide. And I think afterwards [you’ll] find more direction as to what [you] want to do. And in your whole entire spec of life, one year is nothing. It’s really worth it to do it. And you also learn a lot of skills there, so either way it’s definitely worth it.” “I mean, it sucks to be a startup entrepreneur, right? It’s just stress all the time,” Randy said. “And it’s actually a weird feeling because we have over 50 employees now, and technically, I pay them, right. So it’s quite strange of an experience to do something like this as such a young person. But at the same time it’s very exciting because you see all of this going and you see everyone’s drive; how everyone has the same goal and is trying to make the company better.” “I think I will probably be a serial entrepreneur for the rest of my life,” he added. How do you make your decision? I didn’t really do much at Woo Space apart from the research for this article. But just being in the business environment and seeing the organization, how people interact, and conducting the interviews gave me a lot of food for thought. Much of what Randy said applies less stringently to most people. Most people do not plan on going into business. But his infield experience and retrospective on college let me see where he and people like him are coming from. Like all high-schoolers, I can’t hope to make an informed decision based solely on my previous knowledge because of the uncertainty of how things will end up. Although I’ll probably end up making the same decision that I would have had I not taken this internship, talking to someone who was in my spot just seven or eight years ago and is now the CEO of a successful startup helped with my situation. I realized why I wanted to do what I currently want to do, with some amount of experience informing my beliefs. I suggest that all students do at least one internship before going to college. It’s unlikely that it will dispel any preconceptions, but it’s important to see all sides of an issue before forming an opinion. That’s something that is universally applicable, whether it be occupational, journalistic, or even trivial. Hopefully in this way you too will find success in your future endeavors.
Four Defining Moments of the Summer By VAYNU KADIYALI This summer has been very eventful. The current events, political moments, and sports matches that took place this summer will influence the course of the coming year, and even decade. Here are four of this summer’s defining moments, two international and two domestic, which we will be hearing the true significance of in the coming weeks.
Cavaliers Win NBA Title IMAGE PROVIDED
The most memorable sporting moment of this summer was by far the Cleveland Cavaliers’ tremendous victory in the NBA Finals on June 19. Just as school let out, a grueling fight for the world-renowned basketball league’s title was ensuing. Despite facing the Golden State Warriors, the team with both the league’s best-ever regular-season winning record and a loaded roster with more All-Stars than any other NBA team, the determined Cavaliers, led by the generational talent LeBron James, erased a 3–1 deficit in a best-of-four series to win in a harrowing Game 7. LeBron dominated both the highlight reel and the scoresheet in the last three games and was able to take home the trophy to his struggling hometown after two previous NBA Finals failures with the Cavs. Now, while Kyrie Irving’s game-winning three-pointer and LeBron’s block—both with one minute left in the series—were both impressive, even more so was the party the Cleveland threw in honor of the winning team’s homecoming. 1.3 million people, or three times the population of Cleveland, showed up to celebrate the victors and the end of a 52-year-long sports title drought in northern Ohio.
British EU Member Referendum IMAGE PROVIDED
The event with the largest international influence this summer was the United Kingdom’s decision, in an extremely close referendum, to exit the European Union. Those supporting the eventual exit, the “Brexit” faction, cited the globally resonating issues of a desire to control illegal immigration, a concern over economic stagnattion in highly developed economies, and a distrust in foreign bureaucrats making decisions with domestic impact. In making this decision, the UK set an example for the types of tumultuous situations that could occur as a result of inaction by elected officials. While many in America have already stopped thinking about Brexit altogether, its impacts will be recurring and resonant. Britain still has considerable global influence, and any fluctuation in the valuation of its economy will result in global economic turmoil. The British government will need to rewrite and re-sign several diplomatic agreements and trade pacts in order to regain its global footing, but this will take considerable time and effort, slowing the country’s growth to a point where many predict recession. Overall, it is too soon to know what impact the revolutionary EU Membership Referendum will have, but one can foresee that each and every one of us will find a direct—and likely negative—link to it.
IMAGE PROVIDED
Turkish Military Coup On July 15, Turkey experienced an attempted military coup. While this event was not widely covered by the media, the repercussions of this incident will surely be felt by Americans in the future. As a member of NATO, Turkey is a key player in maintaining American military operations in the Middle East. All U.S. airstrikes on ISIS originate in Turkey. That the country’s military is at odds with the government connotes the frightening implication that America may soon have no major help in the War on Terror. However, the more lasting consequence of this event will be personnel purges by the country’s semi-autocratic president, Recep Erdoğan. Erdoğan has already fired thousands of judges and government officials, leading many to believe that he aims to gain absolute control over his nation. He will continue to revoke freedoms and end dissent for the next few months due to the absolute control he gained during the state of emergency, an alarming and divisive prospect for a nation already struggling to find unity. Overall, the coup in Turkey will have many lasting effects on foreign relations, and is a defining moment of this summer as well as in Middle Eastern history.
IMAGE PROVIDED
Republican Party Convention History was made for a second time in the city of Cleveland in mid-July as the Republican Party held its quadrennial convention there. Delegates—assigned to vote for candidates based on primary results—as well as party elites, influential cultural figures, and members of the media were all present at the conference where Donald Trump was handed the nomination to run as the party’s presidential candidate. Most of the convention’s memorable moments, however, were not uplifting speeches as in the past, but instead gaffes and cringeworthy moments. These included Melania Trump’s speech, which included lines plagiarized from Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention address, Ted Cruz’s non-endorsement of Trump in which he asked Republicans to “vote their conscience,” Trump’s fiery and provocative speech that was contrary to what the party had asked of him, and a series of interruptions by delegates seeking to “Dump Trump” and nominate somebody else. The four-day convention set the tone for the following month of the Trump campaign’s worsening organization and the deterioration of Trump’s public image. We will all remember this unconventional convention as a key tipping point of this year’s election.
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THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
Hall Monitor By DAVID SHENG
To the Tattler editors: What is one thing you should never do in your freshman year?
Magda Kossowska ’19: “Don’t get involved in too many things.”
Andrew Stover ’17: “Don’t procrastinate.”
Amalia Walker ’17: “Don’t forget to be yourself.”
Ben Salomon ’17: “Don’t smoke pot.”
Casey Wetherbee ’17: “Don’t compare it to middle school.”
Annika Browning ’17: “Don’t be mean to your teachers.”
Emma Karnes ’17: “Don’t forget to appreciate your link crew leaders.”
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Vaynu Kadiyali ’19: “You should never date anybody, because you create bad relationships with others before you have the maturity to handle and appreciate a true relationship.”
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Tristan Engst ’17: “Never do something that’s boring or stupid just because someone said so—at least not without ranting about it.”
James Yoon ’17: “Don’t be afraid to be spontaneous.”
Francesca Chu ’18: “Don’t waste your time on things you don’t enjoy.”
Daniel Xu ’17: “Don’t join too many clubs.”
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THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
LITERARY
A Circular Argument By ABE MESSING
A circle never struggles to make ends meet A line going forever in repeat It’s perfect, but saying it’s the best because it’s the best is some circular thinking And although it’s pointless, it has so much meaning
There is no end, there is no beginning A picture of the life that keeps on spinning Where does it start and where does it end? With no end in sight, it keeps winding along an infinite bend
A circle never cuts corners, dignified and honest It will always come back for you, just like it promised You could say it’s well rounded, far better than a square A circle is the best, it’s only fair
Come full circle with me, see what I see Surely you will have to agree Circles are life and circles are time The watch on your wrist, the thoughts on your mind
And maybe if our two circles meet one day They’ll overlap and we can square this all away Don’t be foolish; just be square with me, son And we won’t have to circle back to square one
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
LITERARY
This Is Not a Confessional By CASEY WETHERBEE
I sat down in the metal folding chair, ready to talk, and, hopefully, ready to be listened to. I knew exactly what I was going to say, which hardly ever happens. Usually, I would try to tell people like you what exactly was going on, but I never could. I’d always start crying, which is weird, and my face would get all hideous and I could tell I was repelling you in my special way so I shut up. But today was the day, I guess. I don’t think there was anything special about it now that I think about it. It was just a hot day in the middle of June. One of those days where you just want to shrivel up and die, because you feel like you’re going to shrivel up and die. I think I got a sunburn as soon as I set foot out the door. Once I entered the cool air conditioning of your little space, I felt some temporary relief. That’s what I’ve been telling myself up to this point. It’s only temporary, it’s only temporary. This goddamn heat. And I can just step into an air-conditioned room, and then it’s fine! Anyway, I was crystal clear. My voice was even—no cracks, no stuttering—and I think I was calm. Which was weird. I noticed your mug, next to your fingers, which were drumming in a sort of wave pattern, and it had a flower on it, which I thought was kind of stupid, but I didn’t say anything. I just kind of stared at it while I was talking, and after a while I don’t even really know what I was saying, and I think tears were streaming down my face, which was weird. And your mug looked so dumb that I couldn’t handle it so I finally looked back at your face and your eyes were wide and your eyebrows shot up to the ceiling and your mouth was in an O and I just kept talking, my voice still in a monotone that I could hear but I wasn’t really listening to, in a sort of detached way that my daughter had noticed I had been doing often. And then I was trying to keep talking but there was cold, black metal in my hand, tapping my teeth, which was weird, and I kept trying to talk but I don’t think you were listening, and I’m still crying but not sobbing because it’s just tears, not that gross facial contortion, and you’re slowly standing up and now you’re pointing at me. I’m not talking anymore and you start mouthing something and I can’t hear you but I think you said “Don’t shoot” and I
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LITERARY
I Thought I Found You By LUCA GREENSPUN
I thought I found you Sitting by the chestnut tree Your hair then Longer than it used to be I thought it passed, time Like a tumbleweed You looked at the sky Like you must’ve known you looked at me I think do you remember The way you used to look at me The light it caught your hair then Like the yellow of a bumblebee You must have thought it this way How numb could it really be I scurry, heading home now Run to keep myself from stumbling You glanced again there now and then To wonder if it’s really me I apologize from far away For again my mind’s been stealin’ me You tell yourself It couldn’t be I tell myself I think I did See you by the chestnut tree
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Our Thoughts on Death By LUCA GREENSPUN
I think maybe it’s black Frank thinks what I say is whack Jenny’s into Buddha and all that jack Frank says to Jenny there’s no way you’ll come back Rob interjects—he’ll put money on it—it feels like a thick brown rope with no slack Willy claims he knows what it feels like; forever trapped under the weight of an elephant’s ballsack Frank tells Jenny she’ll find out if she doesn’t stop smoking crack I feel around my pockets for a little round tin; I’ve got a lip to pack Big truck screams like the amplified buzz of eighteen yellow-jackets Whack, I fly, like a ball on a tennis racket Frank gets shot like a bunny-rabbit Jenny never kicks the bad habit Rob gets stabbed by a tribesman’s spear just for looking at it Willy, cocky, switches lanes fast, his car smashed to bits Next I’ll be a king-pin of an offshore gambling racket I bet Jenny came back as a yellow-jacket
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THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
Journal Entry By LUCA GREENSPUN
Sitting inside this ancient Roman basilica, it’s easy to believe there is a god. The vaulted dome ceiling gives way to a deluge of heavenly light, beckoning my soul to ascension. A golden Jesus looks me square in the eyes, unamused by my bewilderment. His sculpted features flood with boredom and apathy as he taunts me. “Go ahead,” he says. “Do it.” I shift my gaze from the aging martyr, and to the ceiling once more, then the floor. The silence is broken only by a confused gaggle of Ukrainian tourists, but they exit quickly, rushed out by the disapproving gaze of a tight-lipped preacher. The preacher himself, however, accounts for most of the noise inside the building once the Ukrainians have made their flight. For several minutes he shuffles about the podium. His veins pop as he rearranges archaic texts on a bookshelf twice his size. His heavy breathing circulates the building, tickling the ears of sightseers and sinners alike. He drops a book while aiming for the fifth shelf, and it falls squarely on the marble floor, thudding with force. The preacher twitches with embarrassment, like a squirrel shaven of its fur and put on display at a variety show. He nearly crucifies himself right there alongside my shimmering friend, but he opts to go on living and scurries out a hidden door behind the altar. A businessman enters from the street, clad in silk tie and stern in his demeanor. When he reaches an empty pew (almost all of them are) his knees drop to the floor. His previously firm jaw now begins to shake and tremble with the fear of God. He eats his snot and tears begin to slip down his face. His face becomes hidden in his palms as he lays his case before God. Tourists become unnerved and file out, fleeing the holy scene. The hushed whispers are replaced by the inconsolable man’s stifled sniffles. His tears fall one hundred stories, and disappear into glossy white stone. The preacher now returns in fancy robes and golden necklace, compensating for his prior folly. He enters eagerly expecting to save his honor with the tourists. He is greeted only by the inquisitive gaze of a quizzical youth, and the crying of a grown man. His smile fades. Tasked with more of the Lord’s work he makes his way down the steps and into the aisle. His audience gone, he’s got no choice but to inoculate this plagued citizen with some words of biblical wisdom. As he walks to the man, his eyes shift to me. He knows my interest is purely nonreligious, and his stare sends me out the door. I exit. A gasping gypsy grabs my ankle, her dark skin filled with more cracks and crevices than the coliseum. I shake loose, and as I walk home the intrepid stench of the Tiber fills my nostrils. I contemplate returning to the church, and laying myself humbly before the Lord, as the businessman did. I don’t. But Rome was fun.
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
LITERARY
Ode to a Stuffed Panda By JAMES PARK
Lying under the table there so still Left unnoticed against your own will That still furry face stares with no scorn Yet within me a sense of guilt is born I reach out to stroke your dusty fur Perhaps think back to what we once were Once happily nested on my bed A green shoot in mouth—but now instead You sit alone with nothing to chew Except upon memories when I left you Every secret I had, we’d always discuss You’d hear my problems without a fuss Now your scuffed ears hear no voice Sadly forgotten without a choice I spared you when that huge box came out To store every plush I didn’t care about But now, you have the worst fate of all All alone against the cold blank wall Once you were my greatest friend But even greatness comes to an end.
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LITERARY
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
Haiku of the Month By DANIEL XU
Eclairs or cookies Though I may be a glutton I just cannot choose
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ARTS IMAGE BY JONATHAN SHERRY
What Reality TV Shows Don’t Tell You about Competitive Dance By BELLA CULOTTA
A dance recital performed by students of Perkins School of the Arts.
Competitive dance has become more and more popular over the years, commercialized by shows like Dance Moms and So You Think You Can Dance, but most people don’t really know what it’s like to be on a competitive dance team. There are many different forms of dance; most competitive studios offer ballet, tap, jazz, acro, lyrical, and contemporary/modern. Larger studios usually have a style that they specialize in and focus on in their choreography and technique training. For example, I dance at Perkins School of the Arts in Norwich, NY, which concentrates on modern and partnering, for which we have weekly classes. Our partnering consists of partner lifts and counterbalancing between two to four people. As a result, we also have about three hours of conditioning a week. Our male dancers and strongest female dancers are expected to lift and cross-train during the week. To be on the competition team, most studios have a required number of ballet, conditioning, and technique hours that they have to fill. Depending on the intensity of the studio and the dancer, students train between three and 15 hours a week, not including choreography. Most studios bring a combination of solos, duos, trios, small groups, and large groups to competitions. Depending on the level of the dancer, about four to 16 hours are spent for choreography and cleaning solos, duos, and trios. Larger numbers require blocking and are usually rehearsed weekly or every other week for an hour or two starting in the fall until competition in the spring. Competition dancers at larger studios are each usually in seven to 15 dances, not including solos. At my studio, we choreograph and block until March, after which the teachers come in with different alumni and artists as an extra set of eyes to help clean our dances. We perfect them for two more months before heading to competition. Dance is an art and a sport, but the competitive side of it is an industry. Competitions are not regulated like school sports are; they come from companies created by choreographers, teachers, and entrepreneurs. There are probably around 30 dance competitions that
I can recognize by name and even more that I have never heard of. With that said, there are a couple that are well-known, and the best dancers and studios attend them. In my opinion, the current best is Dance Awards, followed by Showstopper, Hall of Fame, DancerPalooza, Candance, and American Dance Awards. Each competition consists of a certain number of regional competitions followed by one or two national competitions. For example, many larger competitions have about 10 regionals all over the U.S. (and sometimes Canada) and one national. Dances usually have to place at regionals in order to make it to nationals, but some competitions allow all dances because it brings in more revenue. At each national there is a solo competition that involves interviews, classes, auditions, and performance. To compete in those, you need the money to pay all the fees and you need to score in the top 10 solos at regionals. Some schools send dancers to multiple regional competitions to increase the chances for them to place in the top 10 and compete for the title. While competitions are businesses and can be monetarily biased, there are good ones that are known for unbiased, high-quality judges and are attended by schools all over Canada and the U.S. At nationals, the pressure is high. Not only are you performing in front of thousands of people daily, but there are famous choreographers and recruiters in the audience or watching live streams from companies and colleges. Beside the personal career opportunities, there is usually $20,000 to $50,000 in prize money available. Individual studios rarely get more than $5,000 for award-winning large dances, but solo and class prizes, as well as choreographer, costume, and People’s Choice awards, add up. My studio brought back almost $10,000 from nationals this year. The money isn’t the only reward for the hard work and high pressure of competition, however. The bonds created on dance teams are very tight, and the training and networking brings many dancers through college and into the professional world.
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
ARTS
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German Theatre Crosses Borders By ERIN HILGARTNER Of all the arts, theatre has an especially intense power to move us to a new perception of society. This summer, I spent three-and-a-half weeks in Germany after winning a merit trip prize from the American Association of Teachers of German. It was a study trip with two weeks in Nuremberg and one week in Berlin, during which we saw the sights of both cities and got familiarized with their cultures. I saw a few theatre performances during my stay in Germany, but the most memorable by far was ROOTS, a circus-theatre show in Berlin that told stories through acrobatics, dance, puppetry, and drama. All of the performers were well-rounded in circus arts but specialized in certain areas—for example, some performers specialized in contortion, pair acrobatics, or trapeze. However, the show was exceptionally theatrical, with each dance and routine telling a unique story through movement and visuals. At the beginning of the show, a man wearing a top hat appeared mysteriously out of the darkness and introduced us to a cast of lavishly costumed characters. The first half of the performance was in the style of an old-fashioned circus, full of over-the-top clowning (complete with a slapstick fight, ThreeStooges-style, over a woman), expert puppetry, impressive dancing, and amazing acrobatics—at one point, one woman who had just been “killed” in a theatrical dance was carried up the trapeze by another woman, and they did tricks and flips together 30 feet in the air on the trapeze, one woman limply pretending to be dead the whole time. Visuals were sometimes projected onto the back wall, and at one point we were shown a video of many identical white mannequin heads next to a single mannequin head painted with brightly colored makeup and adorned with a wig and flowers. The made-up head was then painted over with white paint, presumably to make it look like the other heads, but the shape gave it away as different, as the wig and flowers were still underneath the white paint. After the paint had dried, someone came at the head with a hammer and broke off the white paint to reveal the original colorful head underneath. But the head was changed; its makeup was smeared, with remnants of the white paint still stuck in the mannequin’s wig and on its fake eyelashes. This video seemed to be a commentary on society’s power to promote uniformity and whitewash uniqueness. In keeping with this theme, the next dance of the show featured every cast member wearing identical khaki-colored trench coats. The dancers held on to each other, binding themselves in a small clump, and every so often one or two dancers would try desperately to escape the group, only to be pulled back in by the others. Eventually this dance dissolved and transitioned into a new dance, sans trenchcoats, with graffiti projected onto the back wall. Trapdoors in the floor were opened to reveal trampolines, onto which the performers jumped and used to run up the back wall and do flips and tricks. As the performers were running up the graffiti-covered wall, trying to reach the top, it became clear that it was supposed to represent the Berlin Wall, which divided the Soviet-controlled East Berlin from the city’s west side for 28 years during the Cold War. Having just seen some of the remaining pieces of the wall in the city that afternoon and learned about the oppression
that took place on the East side, I found it very poignant when the cast members finally jumped high enough and were able to stand on the ledge at the top of the wall. The curtain closed, and Act I was over. The rest of the show was performed in simpler, more modern costumes and less makeup, without clowning, miming, or over-the-top scenes. It felt more honest, with performers talking directly to the audience. Videos from rehearsals were projected onto the back wall, showing the cast members attempting acrobatic tricks in sweatpants inside a warehouse where the unpainted, unfinished set resided. The whole second half of the show felt bare and genuine, like the white paint had been cracked and brushed off the head. The women who had done a routine on the trapeze in the first act did another trapeze routine together which they kept interrupting to argue, accusing one another of doing it wrong. Although this felt more real than the pretending-to-be-dead shtick of the first act, it was, in reality, just as staged and rehearsed, so the genuineness was ultimately an illusion. However, illusion or not, this style makes the audience feel closer to the performers (a feeling that was intensified when one of the women carried an audience volunteer up in the air with her!). Cirk La Putyka, the company that put on this show, is from Prague, Czech Republic. The company says this performance chronicles the development of the circus arts from their beginnings in the early twentieth century through the present day, breaking at intermission at the pivotal year 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. They designed this performance with the intent of putting it on in the Chamaeleon Cabaret, a famous Berlin theater—an undertaking that makes sense given Berlin’s rich history in the areas of artistic expression and repression. Just the fact that this Czech company is able to perform in Germany is a performance of its own; seemingly simple things like this would be impossible in a world in which the Berlin Wall still divided the city. This kind of artful reminder of the delicate freedoms we enjoy makes me all the more grateful that we don’t have any walls on this continent.
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THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
Finding Dory
Curated
By CORINNE HILL-JAMES
September By CHLOE WRAY Everything about September is undecided. It’s not quite fall, and it’s not quite summer. You know your schedule, but you don’t know your classes—the teachers, the students, the dynamic. It’s school, but no one is in the swing of things, and the work has yet to set in. It could be just another year, or it could be the year. It’s cliché, but it really is what you make of it, and it will be all the more bearable if you go in with the right mindset. Let this collection of items and ideas get you through September. IMAGE PROVIDED
Song: Paul Simon’s “Wristband.” It’s Paul Simon, so the voice is familiar, but the song is off his new album Stranger to Stranger. If nothing else, the song will remind you of your GrassRoots wristband. If you listen, though, the song is about how one time Paul went outside and the bouncers of his own show wouldn’t let him back in without a wristband and he was like what the heck. So maybe you’ll be able to relate when someone asks you to show them a pass or why you’re in H-Courtyard and you’re like come on, I belong here. Either way, it’s a mix of the new and the old; perfect for September. Book: In Our Time, by Ernest Hemingway, is a collection of short stories. This book is practically as undecided as September, and if you don’t know what is going on the whole time, it’s okay. Hemingway’s “theory of omission” is basically “less is more,” and he lets this collection be exactly what you want it to be. Let go of conventions and attempt to understand Hemingway. No matter if its style frustrates you, this is a quick read that won’t be too overwhelming at the beginning of the year. Honestly though, I bought this book at the book sale so I have no idea if it exists at libraries or stores in the area. If you can’t find it just go for anything Hemingway.
IMAGE PROVIDED
IMAGE PROVIDED
For many of us who were very young kids when Finding Nemo was released in 2003, that was the very first movie we ever saw at the movie theater. Some of us may have had to leave the theater in tears less than 20 minutes into the film. Others stuck it out and stayed for the entire movie, being transported into the underwater world for the great search to find Nemo. This first impression stayed with many of us for 13 years and defined our reception of the long-awaited sequel, Finding Dory. If you liked Finding Nemo, the sequel is not only a super exciting revamp of a childhood classic, but also an entirely new Pixar experience to love. Cameos from the first movie were frequent, but not excessive. Finding Dory didn’t fail to include any character I had hoped would make a reappearance. The characters of Dory, Nemo, and Nemo’s dad Marlin seemed to be accurate developments of those characters in Finding Nemo. New characters, such as the seven-legged octopus Hank, nearsighted whale shark Destiny, and sea lions Fluke and Rudder, were just as lovable and added a new layer of humor. The plot was surprising and exciting, with as many twists and turns as the original adventure of Finding Nemo. It was successfully geared towards the same audience that had grown to love the original classic, fulfilling our every hope as a sequel and so much more as a standalone movie. However, if you were a young child, brought to the movie theater by your parents, who was looking for fun, happy, family-oriented entertainment, it might have been a disappointment. There are some scenes scary or tear-jerking enough to urge a fiveyear-old to run out of the theater bawling. That aside, what stood out the most in Disney’s attempt to create another timeless childhood classic was the theme of inclusion and acceptance. There is a strong emphasis on catering to individual differences and disabilities. Dory herself suffers from short-term memory loss, but with the support and acceptance of her fellow fish she manages to overcome the challenges of her disability. Many other major characters struggle with some sort of disability or difference that they overcome with the encouragement of others. Disney is undoubtedly promoting a message of self and social acceptance, stressing that every individual is important regardless of their differences. Unless you are a fragile movie-viewer easily frightened by a young, lost fish’s woes, or you hated Finding Nemo in the first place, I strongly endorse Finding Dory and excitedly encourage you to get ahold of it if you missed it in the theaters. If you have a friend who is struggling to accept themselves, invite them to view it with you; Dory offers some invaluable lessons from which anyone—be they five, 15, or 55—can learn.
Style: People talk about back-to-school shopping, but I’ve been shopping all summer. Throw on a denim jacket over all your new dresses, shirts, or whatever else. Suddenly your look is cooler, yet warmer. A new shirt with an old jacket is a combo that has September written all over it. Spot: Hopefully, it’s still warm. So go outside. You probably won’t have real homework until the end of the month, so carry on with your carefree summer attitude, to an extent. Pretty soon it will be below zero and you will hate Ithaca. Have some fun now to look back on in a few months when you want to hibernate forever.
THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
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SPORTS
Muhammad Ali: Boxing Legend and Civil Rights Activist By JASON WANG IMAGE PROVIDED
Muhammad Ali in his prime.
On June 3, 2016, we said goodbye to Muhammad Ali, former boxing heavyweight champion and civil rights activist. After being hospitalized on June 2 for a seemingly mild respiratory illness, Ali’s condition quickly deteriorated and he died the next day from septic shock. Muhammad Ali burst onto the boxing scene when he finished Sonny Liston twice in a row to win the WBA, WBC, and The Ring heavyweight titles. Perhaps the most well-known image of Ali was taken after he knocked out Sonny Liston in just one round and shows him standing over Liston, yelling in triumph. After those stunning victories, he would go on to defend his heavyweight titles for three years before being suspended from the sport for draft evasion. Ali would return to reclaim his heavyweight titles and defend them twice before losing by unanimous decision to his greatest rival, Joe Frazier. Ali’s rivalry with Frazier is one of boxing’s greatest, ending with a trilogy of fights. Their animosity would inspire bad blood in boxing for years to come, but future boxing rivalries such as Roberto Duran v. Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson v. Evander Holyfield, Arturo Gatti v. Micky Ward, and more recently, Juan Manuel-Marquez v. Manny Pacquiao, would pale in comparison to the Frazier v. Ali matchup. After Frazier handed Ali his first professional loss in 1971, Ali would return to beat Frazier by unanimous decision in 1974 and by TKO in 1975. Despite Ali’s illustrious boxing career filled with title defenses and knockouts, however, his impact on the civil rights movement
stands out as one of his most impressive achievements. When Ali turned 18 in 1962, he signed up for the draft, but he was classified as Class 1-Y due to his poor spelling and writing ability, meaning he would only be drafted in times of national emergency. When the Vietnam War began in 1964, the U.S. military lowered its standards and Ali became eligible to be drafted. After being notified of the situation, Ali publicly stated that he would not fight in Vietnam, citing his belief in Islam and that he should not fight in any wars unless it was declared by Allah or the Messenger. He added that it would be nonsensical to fight the North Vietnamese while African-Americans were being discriminated against in his own country. Ali famously said, “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?” When Ali was supposed to be inducted to the U.S. military, he refused to step forward. As a result, he was stripped of all boxing titles and his boxing license, and was arrested and imprisoned for five years. For standing up for what he believed in and advocating rights and equality for African-Americans, Ali was punished severely. To boxers and athletes all over the world, Muhammad Ali remains a great inspiration and role model for his athletic achievements, but his stand against systemic racism and a war that he believed was unjust motivated many others to take a stand and strive towards equality. Thank you, Muhammad Ali; you will not be forgotten.
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THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
MLB Update: Who Expected This? By MATT MACKENZIE It’s been almost three months since I last updated you all on the happenings of Major League Baseball (MLB), and as predicted, nothing has gone the way I predicted it would. Let’s start with my World Series picks: White Sox and Mets. Oops. As I write this, neither team has a winning record. Who expected that? The National League, known for its dominant pitching and for Clayton Kershaw, currently has no clear favorite for the Cy Young Award (awarded to the best pitchers in MLB). Who expected that? The Royals, defending World Series champions, have a losing record. Who expected that? Seemingly the only constant of predictability is that it is yet again an even year, though the San Francisco Giants again appear poised to make another postseason run. Who expected any of this? Going into the season, there seemed to be a clearly defined picture of the pretenders and contenders. When perusing certain sports sites, one could find titles like “Expect Less Parity in Baseball this Year,” or “(Insert Team Name Here) Poised to Dominate the League.” There were the top five teams, and there was everyone else. Again, oops. Instead, we got more unpredictability and a surprising run at contention from the Colorado Rockies, as well as a lesson in the perils of trusting media sports “experts.” The Miami Marlins went from a 71–91 season last year to the second Wild Card spot. The Dodgers lost Clayton Kershaw, the only player keeping them in contention, but then proceeded to play better. Daniel Murphy, a career .280 hitter, is the frontrunner for National League MVP. The Yankees were sellers at the trade deadline. That’s right. The most stubbornly successful franchise in baseball is committed to rebuilding. Two All-Star pitchers from last year came close to losing their rotation spots, and another actually did. Chris Sale of the White Sox was suspended for cutting up all of his team’s uniforms before a start in a bizarre form of protest when he didn’t want to wear a throwback jersey. There are five teams within five games of a playoff spot in both the American and National Leagues. And let’s not forget the Cleveland Indians’ 14-game winning streak that started immediately after the Cavaliers won the NBA championship. There was a seven-hit game, a 30-inning scoreless streak, and a knuckleballer in the All-Star Game. And Bartolo Colon hit a home run. What a wild ride. Still, contenders have emerged amidst this beautiful chaotic mess. The Washington Nationals, Texas Rangers, Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants, and the Indians come to mind. All of these teams made moves at the trade deadline to boost their odds at a World Series run, and the Rangers came away with the “grand prize” in former Milwaukee Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy. However, it’s still too early to definitively call a winner; no team stands out from the rest. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, their cold and hot streaks, and their records are nearly identical. Besides, in a season like this, trying to make any more predictions would be a self-defeating proposition. I will leave you with this, though: if you dare make a prediction, go with the team you least expect to win it all. That prediction is probably the most likely to come true.
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PENULTIMATE
Tristan’s Angst
Field Trip Forms By TRISTAN ENGST Okay, I understand why ICSD needs students’ medical information for field trips in the incredibly unlikely event something goes wrong. What I don’t understand is how they manage to lose the medical forms after every single field trip. Two field trips about a week apart? Two medical forms—long and tedious to fill out, and completely redundant. They must accumulate, but are never used again. It wouldn’t be terribly surprising if ICSD hired someone to make sure the medical forms for each field trip got lost promptly. Of course, the fact of the matter is that there are a great number of field trips, and since no one is perfect, it stands to reason that some poor soul in ICSD must have at some point forgotten to lose the medical forms. Considering how adamant ICSD is in making students submit new medical forms, I can only speculate as to the horrible demise of this ill-fated employee. “You forgot to lose the medical forms!” roars the Director of Bureaucratic Inefficiency. “Are you trying to subvert us? Assistant Director, fetch me the branding iron! Mwahahaha! Afterwards, you’ll copy your phone number 10,000 times!” ICSD doesn’t have enough money to pay its teachers well, so why pay someone to lose perfectly good paperwork that could be reused? Now I have to congratulate the Athletics Department, because they’ve consistently resisted the incursions of the Department of Bureaucratic Inefficiency. Sometimes, late at night, members of the Department of Bureaucratic Inefficiency try to take over the Athletics Department, quietly cackling as they sneak up to the doors of the Athletic Office. But they’re always met with fierce resistance: “You won’t ruin athletics for ICSD kids!” screams the Athletics Director as she fends off the invaders with well-placed baseball-bat swings. “Out! Out!” And out they go, bloody and bruised.
Peanuts Cartoon By LUCA GREENSPUN
DIFFICULTY: LUDICROUS
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THE TATTLER • SEPTEMBER 2016 • ihstattler.com
BACK PAGE
Horoscopes By ABE MESSING
Virgo (Aug. 23–Sept. 22): How can someone so smart be so dumb? It’s the eternal question that the unintelligent part of you prevents yourself from answering. Be careful not to remember to forget everything. You’re a genius or a psycho or maybe both. Hang in there, you’ll land on your feet. Libra (Sept. 23–Oct. 22): Stop flexing in the mirror and get in the gym. It’s never too late to get your summer bod in gear. Also, use that as a motto for your life. The mirror is society and the gym is real life. You get out what you put in, you get nothing out of how you see yourself in society. Stop searching for the perfect lighting and just make it happen. Scorpio (Oct. 23–Nov. 21): When the bread is stale, slice it thin and call it toast. You can be sort of a liar to others, so make sure to be honest with yourself. If you’re going out of your way for someone else, it’s probably because they’re blocking the road. Go full steam ahead with the horsepower of 10,000 steeds. Sagittarius (Nov. 22–Dec. 21): You’re not crazy, just misunderstood. You’re the anchor on a ship with drunken sailors. Stay grounded until you’re ready to fly. Remember where you came from, and don’t sink the ship when you get off of it. Capricorn (Dec. 22–Jan. 19): You certainly don’t believe in anything having to do with Zodiac, but you kind of like reading them anyway. Having “one of those faces” that people recognize is causing you a lot of unwanted stress. Aquarius (Jan. 20–Feb. 18): tbh i seen u in the hallways and ur cool i guess we shud talk more. Pisces (Feb. 19–Mar. 20): You believe that cutting corners makes you a more well-rounded person. If you’re not entirely sure about a deadline this year, it’s important to be on the safe side and not do it at all to avoid the risk of accidentally using your free time to do school work.
Aries (Mar. 21–Apr. 19): You talk a lot but don’t really say anything. You keep moving forward but you don’t really go anywhere. Maybe it’s time to ask yourself if what you want is the same as what everyone else wants for you. Taurus (Apr. 20–May 20): You believe in a second chance for yourself. Although, you find yourself repeating “Get em’ next time” all too often in your bathroom mirror. Your time will come; just remember your greatest ally is yourself. Gemini (May 21–June 20): Failure is the mother of success and honesty is the father. You’ve got an appetite for failure’s son and revenge is just an appetizer. Life is a full-course meal; don’t eat dessert first and don’t gobble your food. Cancer (June 21–July 22): Wear your socks inside out for a week straight. It’s scientifically proven to enhance your vertical height by more than a foot. Just don’t tell anyone else or it won’t work. Leo (July 23–Aug. 22): You’re one of a kind—certainly the coolest of your breed. You really know how to get people to like you even when you’re in a slump. Just know that you’ll always have your charm with you.
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The COOLNESS SPECTRUM
COOL Simone2
Pokémon Go
Eating tomatoes off the vine
College visits
People playing Pokémon Go
Drought
Lit summer work
Ryan Lochte
UNCOOL