The Communicator: Edition 3

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The Communicator Vol. 29, Edition 3 February 2014

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we’re online visit us on web: chscommunicator.com

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waste size joyce ivy foundation the art of ample samples the golden record behind the scenes: bob teacher love stories

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fryer to fuel pixie cuts steve coron legion editorials in your car

what we’re sayin’

Dear Readers,

Semester one has come and gone. Final grades are in and the time for comparing them and complaining is over. Now we look ahead to the final months of the year. Anyone with a calendar can tell you that Valentine’s Day is upon us. We hope that all CHS students embrace the spirit of the holiday.

It isn’t just about receiving valentines (and don’t worry if you receive less than Woody) or opening up about your secretly harbored feelings to a platonic friend. Instead, follow your passions. Make sure that you spend the coming months the way that you want. Take yourself on a date if need be.

CHS is a school full of passionate students. Some of us are looking for rigorous academic challenges and are even devoting portions of their summers towards their scholarly pursuits (8-9). Others have drastically changed their personal style in order to better reflect their personalities (28-29). You can also read about someone who is living his dream and is passionate about his job (32-33). And of course, it wouldn’t be Valentine’s Day without some stories of true, unconditional love- especially when they’re about people that you only see in front of a chalkboard (24-25).

Fall in love with something this month. Devote yourself to your sport, your favorite class or your friends. Spend time with the people, places and activities that bring you true pleasure. And, most importantly, on February 14th make sure you’re with someone you love – whether that be your grandma, your boyfriend or your dog.

Much love,

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letter from the editors

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we’re ready now

THE COMMUNICATOR

advertise. andersont@aaps.k12.mi.us

ISABEL SANDWEISS & ALEXANDER WOOD

Printing thanks to Edwards Brothers Malloy.

Editors-In-Chief

Isabel Sandweiss Alexander Wood

Managing Editors Kelly Arnold Madeline Halpert Jeffrey Ohl Marcelo Salas

Adviser

Tracy Anderson

Cover Art

Eva Rosenfeld Madeline Halpert Kelly Arnold Alex Wood

Staff Lachlan Angus John Douglass Cameron Fortune Hannon Hylkema Jacob Johnson Jett Jones John Kelley William Knight Jack MacConnel Casey MacDonald Gabriel Maguire Hazel O’Neil Caroline Phillips Nathaniel Porter Eva Rosenfeld Emily Ross

Hannah Shevrin Alona Shewach Sophia Simon Oren Steiner Dylan Stephens Hannah Tschirhart Milo Tucker-Meyer Obiageri Ugwuegbu Eliza Upton Abraham Weiner Cody Zeisler

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news

mlk assembly emphasizes importance of living his dream JAZZ MUSIC AND WARM AIR

welcomed Community High students to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Thursday, Jan. 16 for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. assembly, ringing in another year of celebration in his name.

This year’s theme was acknowledging Dr. King’s unfinished dream and how it applies to all minorities and identities. In previous years, MLK Day assemblies have been organized solely by the Black Student Union (BSU), but this year, BSU collaborated with CHS’s Poetry Club, Queer Straight Alliance (QSA), Jewish Student Union (JSU), Asian Student Union (ASU), Dance Body, Jazz Band, and Forum Council.

Emceed by BSU members Anabel Cruz and Pamela Quintana, the assembly began with a speech about Dr. King’s dream. The speech emphasized that King’s dream has yet to be completely fulfilled, despite over fifty years having passed since his famous speech was given.

A key component of BSU’s goal was to demonstrate how, in order to fulfill Dr. King’s dream, society must achieve complete equality, and not just harmony between black and white people. Four ASU members – Jasmine Chang, Lydia Krienke, Natsume Ono, and Franny MeLampy – drew attention to a racial controversy that happened earlier this year: 4

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eve kausch, matty hack, and hannah hesseltine sophia camp photo

a predominantly Asian fraternity at University of Michigan had stereotyped black culture through a party. ASU denounced these actions, and acknowledged that the playing field is not level for all minorities. “What’s most important,” read MeLampy, “is that we recognize that racial problems still exist.”

“The theme for this year’s assembly is Martin Luther King Jr.’s unfinished dream, and how that relates not just the white/ black struggle, but all sorts of minorities and gender and all types of race,” MeLampy explained. “Asian Student Union really wanted to be a part of that.”

While the assembly maintained a mostly optimistic outlook, there were a few solemn components. Students and teachers stood in front of the school and recited the first times they each noticed race. Some had positive memories, such as Steve Coron, whose grandmother invited over a young black boy to play with him when he was a child.

Others were much more upsetting — being told they could not enter a house because of their race, or that they couldn’t like a classmate because they “didn’t match.” Pictures from the civil rights era were shown, and included photographs of a black boy being attacked by white policemen, and a black man who had been shot, writhing on the ground.

Though the first encounters of race were ob-

viously at a different level from the violent confrontations of the mid-twentieth century, the segment served to show that racism has never left.

Students also read pieces that emphasized the prevalence of racial tension. MeLampy read an excerpt from Sherman Alexie’s collection of short stories, “Ten Little Indians.”

The excerpt was told from the perspective of a young American Indian woman, whose peers cannot acknowledge that a person from her race and background could be intelligent. Katie Taub read a powerful piece

by Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shahib Nye called “Kindness.” A poem by Aaron Samuels, presented by Oren Levin from CHS Poetry Club, resonated with many students and teachers. The poem, called “Covered in Grass,” is about Samuels’s African American and Jewish heritage. It told a story of his struggle to find his roots and being unable to trace back further than New York.

Two BSU students, Maya Anderson and Manasseh McClair, read a poem by Ann Arbor native Angel Nafis. The poem was about the stereotypes and discrimination that black women face day after day, because they are Black and because they are women. The poem ended with, “Black girl still jumps two ropes at once, trying not to get hung.”

Robert Stephens performed a dance to

Lauryn Hill’s “Zion.” The dance was inspired by the title of the song, because “zion is a word that means a lot of different things in a lot of different cultures,” Stephens said. “To Rastafarians, it means Africa; to Christians, it means heaven, so my dance is inspired by a paradise.” Afterwards, forum council members encouraged students to volunteer, as a way to get connected to the community.

The assembly concluded with a musical performance by Alexandra Cubero-Matos, accompanied by Lydia Krienke on piano.

Cubero-Matos sang Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” and her compelling performance earned her a standing ovation from the entire school.

BSU advisor and CHS English teacher Janelle Johnson declared this year’s assembly a success. The effort to include the entire school and all minorities made for an impressive presentation and truly emphasized CHS’s sense of community—one that em-

braces all identities and celebrates in our differences. “I just love that each group found a way to tie it into Dr. King and diversity and making sure we keep the dream alive and making sure that we volunteer and that we serve,” Johnson said.

Johnson doesn’t feel that students have to take drastic measures in order to honor Dr. King’s legacy. She believes that being kind and avoiding prejudice can accomplish this.

“To continue to keep an open mind, to say something kind to someone, or to do a kind gesture,” listed Johnson as ways of honoring Dr. King. “You open a door, you smile, you say, ‘Good job.’ Those are some of the things you could do.”

See more at: http://www.chscommunicator.com/front-page/2014/01/20/ martin-luther-king-jr-assembly-emphasizes-the-importance-of-living-his-dream/#sthash.tKqcP3t3.dpuf

Read this article and see more pictures and a video of the assembly by scanning the above QR code LEFT Community High senior Robbie Stephens performs a selfchoreographed solo TOP Community High Jazz Band members perform at the MLK assembly

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WASTE SIZE

community high needs to slim down on its consuption

alex wood & jeff ohl

ON ITS WEBSITE, COMMUNITY High School prides itself in being a Michigan Green School. The requirements to become a Michigan Green School include the compeltion ten activities from the four categories of Reduce/Reuse/Recycle, Energy, Environmental Protection, and Miscellaneous, with at least two activities in each category.

An example of an activity from the Miscellaneous category is “visiting internet sites that educate about the environment and support endangered ecosystems.” Thus, it’s not entirely difficult to become a Green School, in fact, it may be possible to use a considerable amount of paper while maintaining Green School status.

The nature of the FOS program makes it hard for the teachers to reduce the amount of paper that they use. Because the FOS classes are integrated, there are no textbooks that meet the courses’ needs. To decrease the amount of paper wasted, the FOS program introduced the use of scientific notebooks.

“We do [the notebooks] because the FOS program has been ridiculed over the years for always having the most handouts and wasting the most paper,” said Courtney Kiley. “They help me make fewer photocopies.

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You guys are still using paper because you’re taking notes and stuff, but I think it’s helped the school save money buying paper because we’re not photocopying as much.”

Kiley also believes that students are guilty of unintentionally wasting paper.

“You guys pick up a hand out on Tuesday and on Thursday, you need another one of the exact same handout because you can’t find it in your explosively disorganized backpacks,” she said. “Students could do a better job of managing these papers and being organized.”

The amount of paper consumed by the FOS program has taken a personal toll on Kiley.

“As the leader of the ecology club, I feel shamefaced,” she said.

Alex H. Wood (unrelated) is a junior at Community who went to Skyline for his freshman and sophomore years. Hho noticed quite a few significant differences between the two institutions.

Wood had heard of Ecology Club but hadn’t noticed any of their initiatives here at Community. Wood did, however, notice specific things that teachers did here at Community that weren’t being done at Skyline.

“Teachers will put stuff online that you can

print off if you want to but they don’t give it to you, so nothing goes to waste,” Wood said. “Very few did this at Skyline.” Wood added that three out of his five academic teachers would put assignments online instead of giving them to the students.

According to the National Wildlife Fund, 60 percent of school waste is in the form of paper. Kiley feels that it is impossible to eliminate all of the paper waste that classes produce. She believes that there are alternatives to using paper, but they are not all feasible for high school classes.

“If every kid had reliable internet access, you could do pretty much everything on Google Docs or something, which is cool and is what colleges are moving towards,” said Kiley. “But it’s not realistic to expect everyone to have those resources at home.”

Olof Carlson is a senior at Community and a member of Community’s Ecology Club.

“We have this one thing where all the teachers collect bottle caps and then we have all these bottle caps saved and we’re planning to let someone do an art project with all the bottle caps,” Carlson said regarding one of Ecology Club’s primary initiatives. Ecology Club also educates the next generation of kids about sustainable practices.

“Just a couple of weeks ago I went with a group, Danny Langa, Casey McDonald, Eva Rosenfeld, and Sophie Simon, and we talked to these 2nd-4th graders about their Eco Club,” Carlson said.

Ecology club also does green activities within Community High.

“We’ve collected extra recycling from rooms and plan on putting out more trash cans and recycling bins,” Carlson said.

Kiley says that saving paper is not often discussed by CHS teachers.

“In my seven years here, I think we’ve talked about it twice,” she said.

While Wood agrees that the school does not do all that it could, he thinks that CHS does a better job than his former high school.

“I would say that it’s a lot green-

er than most of the other schools in Ann Arbor but there is a lot we could do besides what we do now,” Wood said. “I think the teachers and the faculty [at Community] are more inclined to push kids to recycle stuff and bring their own water bottles and stuff like that, you know, little things.”

Kiley strives to be environmentally friendly, but she also points out that it isn’t always easy for teachers to make waste reduction a big concern in the classroom. “[Teachers] have a lot on our plates and thinking about saving paper maybe should be a priority, but right now, it’s not,” she said.

“Thinking about what you’re going to teach takes precedence over how much paper you’re going to use.” C

Recycling Facts There are just over a quarter billion tons of trash in the United States as of April, 2009.

Americans use 31.5 million tons of printing and writing paper each year, or 660 pounds per person.

When paper decomposes in landfills, it releases methane, which is more than 20 times as effective as carbon dioxide at trapping infrared radiation. th e commu nicator

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kelly arnold hazel o’neil illustration

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thanks to the joyce ivy foundation, community high females, along with other young women from the midwest, have enjoyed enriching summers at pre-college programs along the east coast

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t 1:00 AM Community High senior Katie Taub was drained. In the past nine hours, she had pored over more than 200 pages of text, on topics ranging from cultural anthropology to Russian politics.

She was 750 miles away from home, at Brown University’s summer pre-college program.

Having completed her first year as a student at Brown, resident advisor Candice Ellis entered Taub’s dorm room and related with her situation. Ellis shared her ideas on how to approach the constantly dense homework that Taub would be receiving over the next seven weeks. It was the beginning of a soon-to-be nightly tradition.

“Candice would come to our room last every night, just to hang out for an hour and talk to us,” said Taub. “I had a three page paper due every week.

That’s what she helped me through. My papers got better each week, because she would help me understand how to write a good paper that synthesized and cited the different things.”

In the second semester of her junior year, Taub submitted two applications for her summer program: one to Brown, and one to the Joyce Ivy Foundation. The Joyce Ivy Foundation accepted her application, and gave her a partial scholarship to attend the summer program.

While living on an Ivy League campus and spending time in Providence, RI, were both things that she predictably enjoyed during her time at Brown, Taub’s Introduction to cultural anthropology class was the most significant to her; it reaffirmed her love for the subject.

“Beforehand, I was pretty sure I wanted to go into something having to do with studying culture, but I was kind of leaning away from it,” said Taub.

“I remember texting my mom the first day of my cultural anthropology homework and saying ‘never listen to anything else I ever say, I want to be an anthropologist.’ I was so serious about it, and it still really holds steadfast.”

But without the scholarship Taub received from the Joyce Ivy Foundation, her time at Brown may have never happened.

“I probably wouldn’t have been able to go to Brown [for the summer program] if I hadn’t received the scholarship. I was pretty convinced that I was not going to get it, just because of how few people get the one I was applying for. But then I actually ended up receiving it, and I was ecstatic,” said Taub. about the foundation “The core of the Joyce Ivy Foundation mission is seeking to broaden the college horizon of young women from the Midwest,” said S. Caroline Kerr, the CEO of the Joyce Ivy Foundation. The organization gives scholarships for young women in high school to attend summer college programs at prestigious universities around the country.

The foundation has local roots; headquartered in Ann Arbor, the organization’s namesake was a Pioneer High alumna. Joyce Pritula-Schuler graduated in the Class of 1964 from PHS. She later died from breast cancer in 1999, at the age of 53.

Community High counselor John Boshoven is on the counselor advisory board for the foundation.

“Joyce left money in her estate to help students from Ann Arbor, originally,” he said. “To [help them] think about not just going local for college, but to go somewhere else: go out, go east, go to an ivy league school.”

Michael Pritula, Joyce’s brother, started the foundation in 2005. At first, the foundation focused on young women from Michigan. Nine years later, the program has expanded to seven Midwestern states: Michigan, Ohio, Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Boshoven was first contacted to help spread word about the foundation.

“Somebody told Mike that I existed as this pushy kind of counselor who loves to get kids involved in stuff,” said Boshoven. “Mike invited me to a

board meeting, and they basically said, ‘Help us with some ideas of getting the word out. Who should we be sending brochures to?’ And that was the beginning of it. We’ve begun a serious, pretty cool effort to try to bring counselors to the program.”

As for what the foundation is looking for in potential summer scholars, Boshoven emphasizes the importance of academic success.

“We want students with the highest grade point possible, because we’re going to be counting on the fact that high GPA females in high school are probably going to be high GPA females in college. We’re expecting these girls could be admitted to a college like Brown, Columbia, Williams, Smith, or Princeton, top academic schools that are highly highly selective.”

In fact, the girls who apply for the Joyce Ivy Foundation’s scholarships are already applying to summer programs at universities like the ones aforementioned. The colleges and universities that Joyce Ivy has partnered with span across the country: Barnard College, Brown University, Cornell University, Emory University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Smith College, Stanford University and Washington University in St. Louis. two programs, one summer Community High alumna Annabel Weiner was a summer scholar in 2011.

Her original plans were to study at Barnard at a one-week course, but due to the two-week minimum for Joyce Ivy scholars, she ended up signing up for classes at Washington University in St. Louis as well.

Weiner’s love for New York City was what drew her to Barnard at first.

“I looked at the schools that the Joyce Ivy Foundation funded and was really excited to see Barnard,” said Weiner. “I thought spending time in the city would be really fun, and that getting a taste of the independent college life would be a good experience.”

Each institution that Weiner attended offered interesting courses; at Washington University in St. Louis she took a photojournalism class, and at Barnard College she took a class titled “The Secret Life of Babies,” which covered the cognitive development of infants.

Weiner’s favorite memories from her summer programs were outside of class: in a city like New York City, seeing the sights was a must.

“After class my roommate and I, along with a few other friends from our hall explored the city. We went to the Met, the Moma, saw a really cool performance called Fuerza Bruta, ate cupcakes, people watched and more. I loved navigating the subways and feeling independent,” Weiner said.

She also took advantage of being at a college, and “exploring the intimate Barnard campus. I found new places to study each day,” Weiner said.

The rigor of the programs helped Weiner grow academically, and gave her confidence in her ability to tackle more leadership positions when she returned to school.

“I’m not the most outgoing person, so I was a little nervous for it, but I learned that everyone is in the same boat,” said Weiner. “I returned to high school with a lot of initiative, and felt up to the challenge of taking U of M classes during my junior year. I felt ready for the workload.”

Weiner also felt the programs gave her a boost in her approach to both her studies and preparation for college.

“I was challenged at Barnard, and since it was a very short program, there was an intense workload,” Weiner said. “I had a chunk of readings plus a 500 word essay to write every night. This course gave me an idea of what classes and work in college would be like. It was great to go to a place where I knew nobody and see that I landed on my feet.”

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the ann arbor school system allows six days before having to make up a day.

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feature

snow days. four snow days and winter is only half over cameron fortune

DEVIN WEEKS WAS FIVE years old when he had his first snow day. He remembers sledding down the playground hill with his mom and making a snowman, dressing it up in his mom’s winter gear: a luxury even at his young age. Today, over nine years later, Weeks, a Community high school sophomore, spends his precious snow days in a similar way.

“My favorite thing to do on a snow day is sleep in late then hang out with friends in the snow or watch Netflix,” said Weeks.

Now that Ann Arbor is entering the coldest and snowiest part of the year, snow days are finally becoming a reality, but still only occur once in a blue moon. Most years, Ann Arbor Public Schools receive less than three snow days. To counter this, some students follow nit-picky rituals to ensure the maximum amount of cancelled school days. Avery Farmer, another CHS student, said, “I wear my pajamas inside out, I run around the table five times, I repeat my snow chant, and throw ice cubes.”

According to Farmer his tactics work 50% of the time. For Farmer, his hard earned snow days are spent indoors to avoid the bitter cold weather. “I like to stay warm inside. On the next snow day, I will probably read a book, hang out with friends or just watch some movies.”

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Cold days and ice days are another less ‘talked’ about way to get school off in the winter. Last year AAPS surprised everyone with a snow day in late winter due to icy roads. Students were ecstatic, Weeks said, “I remember one day last year, when it was early February, and school was called off because of icy roads. No one saw it coming. I stayed inside that day and enjoyed not having any homework.”

Other people try not to contemplate the possibility of snow days at all because even thinking about one could jinx it, putting everyone’s day off of school at risk. Colin Jones a student who supports this theory said, “I do not do any special things before a possible snow day because I believe if I do do that, I will jinx it and we won’t have a snow day.”

Not all people advocate for snowdays. In fact, many adults do not like snow days at all for good reasons.

Patrick Gallagher, a parent of previous AAPS students, said, “Snow days can put families with young kids and no stay-at-home parents in a difficult position, they have to find someone to watch their child with little notice or stay home from work.”

“Generally we should not have as many snow days because then kids are in school less and don’t learn as much,” Farmer added. “The more time we spend in school each year, the better

off everybody is.”

Snow days are one of few things that kids of all ages can enjoy, no matter how one is spent, whether it used for homework, hanging out with friends, playing outside, or just relaxing at home. Snow days offer more than just a day off school. They give students an extra day to take a break from their long week and time to rest. Weeks said, “Everyone is upbeat and happy after a snow day, even the teachers.” C

Ann Arbor Average snowfall per month/year Days

14.5 11.3 7.8 2.4 0.5 4.4 12.1 53.0

Months

January Feburary March April October November December Year

Inches

16.4 13.0 8.5 2.7 0.2 3.1 13.4 57.3

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CHERRY REPUBLIC’S SAMPLERS ARE THEIR MOST POPULAR FEATURE AND STRONGEST ASSET

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pack of sweaty high-school cross-country boys bursts through the door of Cherry Republic, taking a break from their afternoon run to sample the delicious, expensive food that the store has left out in the open for customers to try. They grab large handfuls of chocolate-covered cherries, stuff them in their mouths, and continue on their way without buying anything.

For the Cherry Republic store in Ann Arbor, this isn’t anything out of the ordinary.

During the busier times of the year, the company will go through bowls upon bowls of samplers in a single day. Every customer is not only welcomed, but encouraged to try any product the Republic has to offer. And it works so well.

Cherry Republic is a company that began 22 years ago with a man named Bob Sutherland, who sold cherries, cherry cookies, and cherry T-shirts out of the back of his truck.

Over the years, the company has risen in popularity and expanded across the state of Michigan. Cherry Republic is a company that prides itself on generosity and customer service, and attributes its own success to exactly that.

“We want our customers to be able to try what they’re receiving before they purchase a $9 bag of dried cherries,” said Assistant 12

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jacob johnson

Manager Rita Jordan, with a half-smile and raised brow. “Customers should have an experience when they walk in the door. You can’t walk into a Kroger and try everything that you’d like to buy, and that’s a big difference.”

Samplers are a big part of what makes Cherry Republic so popular. First-time shoppers at the store will try a few samplers and instantly fall in love with everything the store has to offer.

“In Ann Arbor, we’ve had college students that just happen to walk in to try some samples, and now come in every month to buy something. If you can try it, you might as well,” Jordan said.

Of course, offering samplers can sometimes be hectic. During the busier months for business, the customers’ appreciation of samples can be so great that the employees have a hard time keeping up.

“In our Glen Arbor Location, there were days where I would fill up a bowl with samplers, set it down, and have to refill it again a minute later,” said Jordan, laughing.

Rather than being expensive and distracting customers from purchasing, samplers are fueling the fire for the Republic by drawing in an increasingly-expanding customer base.

Thanks to the addition of locations outside of Glen Arbor, where the company first

started, the company is expanding faster than ever.

There are plenty of people that take advantage of the incredible amount of free products available and walk in, sample, and leave without making a purchase. For Cherry Republic, this is not really an issue that they are concerned with. In fact, it tends to be beneficial in the long run, as Jordan explained.

“Usually, about seventy-five percent of people that walk in the store buy something.

If they don’t, many will talk to an employee about purchasing something the next time they come. People do come in here to sample and sample and sample all the time and then they leave. We see that all the time.

That’s fine with us.”

Even if you may not think you are in to buy something, coming in to taste Cherry Republic’s products makes countless customers liable to come back for more.

“One of these days they might come back and potentially buy something, no matter how much they sample. There’s a lot of Ann Arbor people that come and sample, but around Christmas time? I’ll see them back and they’ll actually buy something,” said Jordan.

There are always exceptions to the rule, but the number of people guilty of oversampling is not as large as it may seem.

“We once had a guy come in and start making himself a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich with his bread and our sample jars,” Jordan said. “It’s not that big of a deal to us.

If they were in there all the time we might have to say something, but that’s never been an issue.”

As the Christmas season winds down, the Cherry Republic in Ann Arbor is finishing up its busiest time of year. Employment at

the store will effectively double to make up for the incredible rush of customers anticipated. This loyal following ranges from diehard Republic fans to first-time visitors looking to buy their loved ones a (wrapped free of charge) gift.

Samplers at Cherry Republic are a symbol of the company’s complete focus on customer service and satisfaction. At the same time, they can draw customers in to make

purchases later, even if they may not consciously think about it. Whatever the reason, Cherry Republic proves that samplers not only work, but can define a business. The Republic’s samplers are delicious enough to draw in any passerby – and then leave them hungry for more. C

the communicator

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hello! let there be peace everywhere the golden record: chs edition eva rosenfeld

1977 - NASA launched the two Voyager spacecrafts to roam first the outer planets of our galaxy and then interstellar space, the region between stars. The mission holds great investigative value in its task of searching new worlds, but there’s something more personal (in the most global sense of the word) aboard: the Golden Record. The Golden Record is a phonograph record and essentially a compilation of the human race. It is who we are, who we’ve been, what we do and value and how we do and value it. On our Earth, countries are in many ways separate; ruled by separate governments and in the practice of separate cultures, but on a universal scale, we are one planet and one entity. This entity is what the record attempts to encompass through photographs, music, languages and greetings, sounds, printed messages, and even brainwaves. Floating through the cosmos is a 12-inch gold-plated disk containing everything humankind finds enough beauty and worth in to share with whomever might come upon the Voyager Golden Record.

Among many other things, the record contains:

• Greetings in 55 languages, like…

• Bengali: Hello! Let there be peace everywhere.

• Arabic: Greetings to our friends in the stars. May time bring us together.

• Amoy (Min dialect): Friends of space, how are you all? Have you eaten yet?

Come visit us if you have time.

• Ancient Greek: Greetings to you, whoever you are. We come in friendship to those who are friends.

• “Sounds of Earth,” like…

• • rain • volcanoes • chimpanzees • crickets • laughter • trains • Music that spans many cultures and time periods • Images showing life on Earth, our mathematic and scientific systems, and our views of the rest of our solar system (a trusting move if anyone were to ever discover the Record; it gives away our exact location!)

• The brainwaves of author Ann Druyan. She describes her thought process during the recording of her brainwaves: “To the best of my abilities I tried to think something of the history of ideas and human social organization. I thought about the predicament that our civilization finds itself in and about the violence and poverty that make this planet a hell for so many of its inhabitants. Toward the end I permitted myself a personal statement of what it was like to fall in love.”

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Audio recording of all of the music that perpetually emanates from the first floor i.e. the CD player, the jazz room...

If Community were to send off its own golden record into interstellar space, it might look something like this:

Brainwaves of a student who was having a really crummy day but then walked out onto the back lawn and saw Steve Coron dancing to Wutang with a group of seniors and a frisbee player apologizing to a hacky sack player for hitting him in the head and then [aforementioned distressed student] sees that all of his friends are laughing and waving him over and is overcome by a sense of beautiful CHS love and it is no longer a bad day by any means!

Image compilation of past CHS yearbooks, schoolwide front lawn photos, and Communicator editions.

Text of Free Verse and selected poetry club works, along with greatest-hit analytical essays hand-selected by Judith DeWoskin from her 29 years of teaching at CHS.

Photos of school murals and students’ artwork.

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news story

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shorts

TEN

What are you looking forward to most about second semester?

How do you think you’ve changed overtime?

My three photography classes, one of which is at WCC.

I’ve become more mature and I’ve become more skilled in my artwork. But definitely I’ve matured a lot.

How do you think other people perceive you?

I don’t really know and to be honest I don’t really care.

What are you most proud of?

My photography.

If you could describe yourself as a color which one would you be?

Blood red.

When is your birthday?

Nov. 12, 1996.

What is your favorite thing to do in the winter?

Play videogames and photography.

What is your morning routine?

Do you have any special connections with your birthday?

I basically get out of bed, shower, pack a lunch, and get out the door.

Not really it’s just another day where I get presents.

How would you describe your photography and artwork?

My photography is of life and everything encompassed in life as well as death, which is a part of life so basically I find composition and decomposition.

Lang Straub 16

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QUESTIONS

news story

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shorts

If you could be a fruit which fruit would you be?

I would be a pomegranate because they’re delicious and red, and sometimes when I get really embarrassed I get really red. Also they’re hard to open so people wouldn’t try to eat me.

What’s your favorite book?

What was your New Year’s resolution?

My New Year’s resolution was to actually start my homework before 11:00 at night and I’ve been doing that so far, so that’s good.

What’s your favorite color?

I just read this book that’s probably my favorite it’s called Manhattan Transfers. I really really loved it. And it’s just sort of about life in Manhattan, it follows all these different characters at the turn of the century.

Green. There are some scientific studies that show green is the most soothing color to look at, which I really like. It is just a calm color.

What is your morning routine?

If you could have one superpower what would it be?

I want the ability to control the elements. Sort of like Avatar. That sounds so dumb but I think it would be really cool to control fire and earth. I think that would be really cool.

I get up. I hit the snooze on my alarm a couple times. I check my email and then I get out of bed.

Then I listen to music while I get ready in the morning, and I kind of just put on mascara and put my contacts in. Then I hype up to go to school for the rest of the day.

What is your most distinct characteristic?

I think my physical characteristic that most people know me for is that I have this daunt in my eye that’s kind of weird. People say that I have brown-green colored eyes, but it’s just that my eyes are one color and then there is a splotch of another color, which is my defining characteristic. I think I’m known for kind of being sarcastic.

How do you relieve your anger or stress?

I walk everyday and that is just a really nice time for me to think about things and forget about other things.

It’s a good way for me to get exercise but also to clear my head.

Katie Taub th e commu nicator

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HUMANS OF COMMUNITY getting to know those familiar faces eliza upton

jeri schneider abby lauer

As she finishes up college apps Senior, Abby is feeling bittersweet about the thought of leaving Community.

“I’m really sad. I mean I kind of grew up here, and I came here on take your daughter to work days since I was in fifth grade, so I’ve always known I wanted to go to Community. Then when I came I was really happy, and I’ve just loved it for the last four years. Leaving is going to be really hard. There’s not going to be another school like Community, just a different one.”

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During her first year at CHS, as Media Specialist, Jeri has found herself enjoying students and faculty. Right now Jeri is working on cleaning out the library of old books, and ordering new ones.

Q: “What’s your favorite thing about working with students” A: “You guys give me a fresh perspective on things. I also really like your energy and your enthusiasm, and that kind of keeps me motivated to keep doing the work that I’m doing, and to not just feel like ‘Oh I’m so tired of doing the same old thing over and over again.’ You guys remind me that there’s hope. That sounds really hokey, but that’s my honest answer.”

claire colvin-st. cyr

As Intro To Lit comes to a close for freshmen, Claire discusses her love for reading.

“It’s like you’re escaping to another world. You can learn so many things.”

emre babbitt

Senior, Emre discusses his recent art project he created in the snow.

“It was kind of my claim to fame I guess.

During fifth block I noticed that there was a fresh sheet of snow on the ground and so the back lawn was just a big white canvas, and so I decided to display some of my artwork on the back lawn.”

quote of the month “I’m not a motivational speech person.”

-colin jones th e commu nicator

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alona shewach and oren steiner

Behind the scenes

BEHIND THE LIGHTS AND ACTORS IS THE HARDWORKING AND DEDICATED TECH TEAM alona shewach & oren steiner

It seems every weekend there’s another play or musical being performed by a high school or local organization. Whether it’s “Urinetown” at Community, “Rent” at Pioneer or “The Sound of Music” at Huron, students can find opportunities to get involved in theater all year long. Many people

have learned the ropes when it come to putting on a production. But for somebody who has never been involved in theater, the world backstage is a mystery. So what exactly goes on that the audience can’t see?

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“

The first time I ever did a play, I was really, really nervous. This person was backstage trying to help me calm down by holding me, and I was like, ‘Oh, thanks!’ But they were just trying to move me, and I was like, ‘Oh... uh...awkward.’

“Backstage is kind of completely hectic,” said James Harkey, an actor in Community Ensemble Theater (CET). “It’s quiet, mostly.

And it’s dark. Behind stage during the show is very tense. Hopes are high, and people are nervous. People are moving from spot to spot, trying to be in the right spot for their cues. Some people are waiting for their cue, and they just sit and listen to the show. Some laugh along, and some actors converse backstage about the audience.”

When putting on a show, the performances are the tip of a tedious theater journey iceberg. All of the hardest work is done beforehand so that the shows can run as smoothly as possible when the performances come along.

“It’s a lot of work early, and you don’t really know what its gonna turn out to be,” said Nicholas Hagopian-Zirkel, the student tech director of CET’s BOB: A Life in Five Acts, and Urinetown. “The director of the show has this idea and nobody understands it and then as the show develops you get what they’re saying.” As student tech director, Hagopian-Zirkel has the job of carrying out the ideas of the director, Quinn Strassel, and the tech director, Brice O’Neal. “I am the hands of the tech director and I’d like to think I’m the voice of the students.” He serves as an important link to the relationship between the student “techies” and the adult supervisors. He also keeps the lights, sounds, sets, and props crew on track.

As the show approaches, stresses can run high. “Two weeks ago I was thinking ‘Oh yeah, we got this. We’re pretty much done with everything,’ and then we did a runthrough and I realized there was so many things we were missing.” Being head of tech with a strict deadline is a challenge, but Hagopian-Zirkel wasn’t worried. “We always get

”

it somehow and I really don’t know how. But we definitely got it.”

Normal rehearsals can be anywhere from totally boring to completely insane. They can also be very tedious. Milo Tucker-Meyer, the title role in CET’s BOB: A Life in Five Acts, has experienced many rehearsals, but they tend to fall into a routine that is similar to those of BOB. “We get there, and then we all sit down, and our stage manager [Helen Januszewski] takes attendance,” Tucker-Meyer said. “Then Quinn [Strassel] will call us up and tell us what scene we’re running and we all get onstage and run it. Then he’ll stop us throughout the scene and tell us what we need to fix, and we go back and do it again and again until we get it right.” This can be an exhausting process, but it’s necessary to make the show the best it can be.

Doing a show can be really stressful for anyone. On top of memorizing lines and blocking, actors worry about getting sick and not being able to do the show. Ally Cubero-Matos, a senior who has been multiple leads in CET shows, is very worried before a show.

“I get a lot of stage fright, and a lot of people find that interesting with me, because I do a lot of shows and gigs,” said Cubero-Matos. “That affects me a lot in school. I’ve just always been afraid of having to talk. The one thing with theater that makes it easier for me is the script and knowing what to say.”

Anybody who has been involved in a show knows about the stress of tech week, especially CET President Briana O’Neal, who has been on the stage or behind the scenes for every CET production since her freshman year.

“Tech week is crazy,” O’Neal said. “It’s the week before the show. We have rehearsals every day, Sunday through Thursday, which

is our opening night [for this show].” Tech week rehearsals ensure that both techies and actors have everything ready for a real performance. The week starts with a 7-hour Sunday rehearsal where actors and techies go through each light and sound cue. It ends with a full dress rehearsal followed by a weekend of performances. Many tech week rehearsals last until 10:00 PM. “I really like tech week,” she said. “Some people say it’s really stressful, but it’s probably my favorite part of the show.”

But there are great aspects of joining a show that make all the stress worthwhile.

Doing such a demanding activity is very rewarding. Despite her fears, Cubero-Matos has found much success with CET: “My proudest moment and best feeling is one that repeats itself: when someone tells me that I have emotionally affected them or even made them cry because of a simple song or performance.”

It’s no secret that any show is an incredible amount of work. Tech week alone is enough to give some people doubts about being part of a show during the school year, but O’Neal thinks it’s totally worth it.

“My number one advice would be ‘do it,’” she said. “If you have even a shred of doubt, or if you even have the slightest want to do it, do it. It’s a really open environment. No one really gets shut out. It’s a great learning opportunity. If you don’t think theater is going to be be your strong suit, try it. Give it a shot, and you’ll probably end up loving it.”

Milo Tucker-Meyer added to O’Neal’s advice.

“Give it a try,” he said. “Because even if you’re not confident in acting or public speaking, everyone welcomes you in with open arms, and eventually you get where you need to be.” C

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Opting Out madeline halpert & marcelo salas marcelo salas photos

Jenni Lane was expecting. It was her second planned pregnancy,

and if her breezeful first pregnancy was any indication, she would be bringing a healthy, baby boy into the world. On the day of her ultrasound, however, things went from promising to disastrous.

Lane’s unborn son was diagnosed with an uncommon brain malformation. Her world took a turn for the worse.

“It was horrible. I laid on the couch for weeks and just cried. I didn’t want to be in the world outside of my home. I didn’t want to face people. I was just so sad about having to make that kind of decision,” said Lane.

Lane would have lost the pregnancy sooner or later, but, after considering her options, she decided to have an abortion as soon as possible. This decision did not come easy, but Lane knows it would have been exponentially harder if she was faced with the challenge of finding thousands of dollars to cover the procedure. Furthermore, continuing to carry the baby potentially could have been detrimental to her health.

Along with professional and familial support, there was another tactic that provided Lane with some relief: sharing her experience.

“For me, I felt like sharing that story because it was a terrible situation, but at least something good could come out of it, hopefully,” she said. “That was always my hope, that I was using the bad for good, and that made me feel a lot better.”

When Lane offered to share her story with Planned Parenthood, she was notified of new legislation that would drop abortion coverage from health care plans unless bought in a separate payment plan. An advocacy staff member with the organization asked her if she wanted to tell her story in front of the legislature, but her schedule was too tight to fit the two hour period of time for testimony.

The bill was eventually vetoed by Governor Rick Snyder, but this was only the first in a series of measures aimed at removing abortion from healthcare plans.

ABOVE A Skyline High School student recites her poem on the steps ot the Captiol Building in Lansing to a group of student protestors

ABOVE Mary Pollack, a Michigan representative from the National Organization for Women, converses with student protestors

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Opting Out Right to Life, a pro-life interest group, had their original bill passed in the house, but it was then vetoed by the governor. The group then gathered enough signatures to get the measure into law without Snyder’s approval.

Pam Sherstad, director of public information at Right to Life Michigan, explains the goals of the new measure.

“Abortion insurance opt-out act, as in the name, is to remove abortion as a standard benefit in health care plans which are a part of the exchanges available through the national health care and also in private plans,” she said.

Sherstad noted that the bill is primarily aimed at saving taxpayers money.

“When it comes down to it, Michigan’s citizens do not want to pay for another person’s abortion with their tax dollars or with their insurance premiums,” she said.

Whitney Mich, the coordinator of government relations for Planned Parenthood, has a different take on the potential outcomes of this policy. She argues that women have a right to basic health care, and what they want to do with their body.

“This policy sets a dangerous precedent by singling out abortion – a basic part of women’s health care – from all other health care services,” she said. “Insurance policy riders are not a realistic solution for women seeking comprehensive coverage. Insurance coverage should be comprehensive and allow a woman to make a decision based on what is best for her and her health.”

She adds that in five states: Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Kentucky, the riders are unavailable for abortions, even in life threatening conditions.

“This policy has consequences and will hurt women by limiting access for women in the most desperate of circumstances, whose care is often the most expensive and the most urgent,” said Mich.

She explains that while the price for an abortion out of pocket may vary, it is still quite costly. “[Abortions] later in pregnancy are normally due to tragic and unforeseen circumstances,” said Mich. “In these cases, they result in astronomically high medical bills during a trying and difficult time for women and families.”

ABOVE Student protestors line up on the steps of the capitol building

Hitting Close to Home When Sam Kennedy, a junior at Skyline High School, heard about the new abortion insurance, she, along with about twenty of her peers, journeyed to Lansing to protest the new legislation.

The student-organized group strongly disagreed with the purpose of the bill and the process it went through to pass.

“It will affect all women, family members of women, children of women who are born because their mothers cannot afford abortions,” Kennedy said. “It affects everyone. All women should have

abortion coverage; it should be covered as a basic part of their plan because all women have the right to health care and what they want to do with their bodies.”

The petitioners weren’t just upset with the outcome of this bill, though. Stavi Tennenbaum, a sophomore at Skyline High School says that this measure does not represent what the majority of Michigan voters would support, especially since they did not get a vote on this matter.

“Republican, right wing extremist views are not necessarily reflected by the people. 96 percent of Michiganians did not get a voice in legislature to-

day,” said Tennenbaum.

For Joshua Nacht, a student at Skyline High School, protesting was simply the most effective way to support the basic rights of others.

“We are taking a stand against this law,” he said.

“We’re taking a stand for freedom, we’re taking a stand for women, and we’re taking a stand for humanity.”

LEFT TO RIGHT Skyline high school junior, Ali Shahin, recites a poem in front of protestors; Community High School juniors, Liz Roy and Lucy Moran hold up signs that read ‘my body, my decision’

For more protest covergae SCAN HERE:

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how we met...

CHS TEACHERS SHARE HOW THEY MET THEIR PARTNERS isabel sandweiss

W

hen Chloe Root was a student at Community High School, she only asked her English teacher, Judith DeWoskin, for an extension once. The reason? She had fallen in love and simply could not focus on writing her paper. “(Chloe) came to me one day and she was very embarrassed,” DeWoskin said.

“She giggled a little and said ‘I desperately need an extension for this paper.’

Then she looked at me, shyly but very happily, and said ‘I fell in love this weekend.’ And I said ‘Okay, that’s a good thing to do, you can have all the time you need.’ And that was the end of it.”

Chloe had met Julian before in a gender workshop at the Neutral Zone, but it was in DeWoskin’s Chinese Literature class that she really got to know him.

Chloe was a junior; Julian was a fresh-

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man. Despite feeling like a “creepy upperclassman,” Chloe thought he was pretty cute. After Chloe ran into Julian at a school play and saw he had come with his dad, she was smitten.

They spent time together in class, in QSA and outside of school. On Nov. 4 of the next school year, they officially began dating.

“Julian used to walk me to my U of M class,” Chloe said. “He would always be late for [Community Teacher] Tracy’s class but she was always really nice about it. As a teacher now, I would have been really irritated!”

After high school, Chloe moved to Rhode Island for college and Julian remained in Michigan. To alleviate the burden of a long distance relationship, they talked on the phone almost every day and lived together over the summers. It

was tough, but Chloe believes it taught them to have strong communication.

One morning last year, Chloe got up early to get some stuff done before work.

Julian handed her a crossword puzzle; all of the questions were inside jokes.

As Chloe filled it out, she began to get the idea. The answer to the last question was “willyoumarryme?”

Chloe and Julian got married on a beautiful day last March, in a wedding that consisted of three friends and a Mock Trial lawyer who just happened to be at the courthouse that day. As they left the building, four of Chloe’s students surprised her and threw confetti.

“Julian is really kind and really thoughtful of the people around him,” Chloe said. “That’s my most favorite thing about him.”

H

M

ugh Huntley seduced Liz Stern with a Husky. It had one blue eye and one brown eye and reminded Liz, a sophomore at the University of Michigan at the time, of her pets back home. Hugh brought the dog - which really belonged to his roommate - to rehearsals for “The Trojan War Will Not Take Place”, a French play he and Liz were both a part of.

Hugh had a couple of girlfriends at the time, but that didn’t stop Liz. “I was just like, ‘I really like him and I will get him,’” she said. “So, I did.”

They started talking and flirting at cast parties, which slowly turned into taking long walks, which turned into dating. But then summer rolled around and Liz returned home to get a job and Hugh went back home to Pittsburgh.

Every Friday throughout the summer, Hugh took a bus from Pittsburgh to St. Clair Shores to spend the weekend with Liz. He returned home by catching a ride with a man named Sal Pimante, who had a big Cadillac and a job in Pittsburgh. They would leave town at one, sometimes two on Monday mornings; Hugh drove the long stretch from Toledo to Pittsburgh while Sal put his chair back and slept.

After college, they did a lot of traveling together. They liked to take Liz’s AMC Hornet station wagon - rusty and horrible - across the country to California, where they would backpack and hike and spend as little money as possible. It was on one of these trips that they decided to get married.

“We were sitting in a bar drinking beers and, after the second beer, one of us was like ‘we should get married!’” Liz said. “So, we had a third beer and decided ‘ok!’”

Liz, who was just 19 when she met him, has spent over half her life with Hugh. He is smart and interesting Liz is grateful to have him.

“He’s a great family guy,” she said. “He just takes good care of us.”

ath teacher Anne Thomas met Dan Rubenstein in her 9th grade geometry class. They use to arm wrestle each other during class - Anne, being a gymnast, would win - and they quickly became close friends. With the exception of one date to go see Star Wars, they remained only friends until their senior year prom.

“There was really no one else we each wanted to go with,” Anne said. “We decided to just go together as friends. So we did, but that’s when it dawned on me that I didn’t think he was just my friend anymore. The rest is somewhat history.”

They ended up at different colleges and dated other people. However, they remained close. They spent the first summer after college together in their hometown outside of Chicago. The second summer, Dan came to live with Anne in Ann Arbor. The third summer, Anne joined Dan at the University of Illinois.

When Dan was in grad school in Minnesota and Anne started her position at Community High School, they continued to make it work. After Dan finished, they planned to go to China together. On a walk one day they decided it was time to get married. Their wedding was sweet and intimate; Anne’s sister played the piano and Dan’s brother sang.

They got married when Anne was 29. It had been about 15 years since their first date, when Dan had asked Anne if he could kiss her goodnight, and she said yes.

Anne loves Dan’s sensitivity. She can talk to him about anything and talk about it for a long time. Dan always thinks things through and works problems out.

“I highly recommend just being in a relationship with someone who was your friend first,” Anne said. “It makes for a really strong relationship. And, it’s a fun story.”

Coming to Bulgaria A lion walks you home, claws just barely pricking your thigh, and you wait to be killed or delighted by his words.

“Two beautiful eyes,” says the voice of this dream, a poet’s line that proves why you’ve come all this way just to sink your hand into the dark earth of Thrace.

You pass lemon trees on your way, and they fade from green to black, forgetting Autumn.

Behind you, the road hurls taxis from Sofia, and ahead, unfurls over hills toward the sea.

Tonight you’ll sing the Beatles and lie out on fields the Socialists had left empty for factories.

You’ll dream of a daughter of Orpheus who comes down from the mountains to sing with you, her bronze skin reflecting the last rays of the southern sun.

And to her you’ll speak your broken, foreign plea:

I want one coffee, if you please.

I want wine, if you please.

If you please, I want you.

I want to speak to you like a claw,

enter you like a song you inhale.

– Ken McGraw

K

en McGraw and his wife Marieta fell in love with each other through poems.

They met in a teacher workroom at a foreign language school in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria. Marieta, a Bulgarian, was teaching students French; Ken was there through the Fulbright Program to teach English.

Marieta’s big smile caught Ken’s eye. He asked her a question about how to use the grade book. Then he asked her a question about poetry. Then she showed him a translation she had written of a poem by a Bulgarian poet that was about someone’s eyes.

“Then we started translating poems and trading them back and forth,” he said. “Once you start doing that, you’re lost.”

The first poem Ken wrote for Marieta was about a dream he had about a lion, a national

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animal in Bulgaria. After he shared it with her, there was no going back.

They dated for a few months in Bulgaria before Ken returned to the United States.

They applied for a Visa and Marieta came to join him. They got engaged a little less than a year after they first met. Now they have been married for 10 years. For Ken, it was a “pretty quick decade.”

Ken’s favorite thing about Marieta is her smile, which he now sees in their two year old daughter. They are saving money so Ivette can go meet her Bulgarian grandparents this summer.

“My advice to students of poetry is to be very careful writing a poem for someone else,” he said. “Because that kind of sealed the deal.”

M

ichael Vick, a 6’2 215 pound quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles has been struggling this season. Oops, sorry, that was for my other article that I’m writing on animal cruelty. Welcome back to a new season of Casey vs. Food. During my time off this summer, I did a lot of thinking. To be more specific, I did a lot of thinking about food.

I did something that I have never been capable of doing before: I attempted to empathize with the food that I eat. In other words, I truly tried to put myself in the shoes of the food that is passed through my luscious lips, butchered by my pearly whites and finally sent down my gullet to the pit of obesity. I realized that I didn’t feel bad for the food at all. If food didn’t want to be eaten it would cover itself in anything that starts with vegan and ends with gluten free. Food WANTS to be eaten. And with that in mind, I accepted my next challenge.

I headed over to Satchels BBQ on Washtenaw Avenue to try their unique, mouth-watering BBQ pork platter. Now readers, besides my dear mother and my dog Odis, you are the last people to whom I would ever lie to. I was extremely nervous for this food challenge. Let me tell you why. My whole life up until 3 years ago, I was a vegetarian. I know that is hard to believe considering my current extreme lust for meat and protein, but sadly it is true.

The first piece of meat I tried was bacon. One small slice of applewood smoked bacon from Benny’s diner, and I was sold. It was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. However, the real moment that I realized I had met my true love was when the smoky, savory crunch of the bacon accidentally fell into the maple syrup that was falling like raindrops off my pancakes. Seven plates of bacon later, I was slouched in my booth with a 10 pound bacon baby in my stomach. Long story short, I ended my breakfast mopping the floors. I am currently banned from Benny’s diner.

Anyway, the point of the story is that after that scarring adventure, I was forever frightened to eat pork. I always have to come up with excuses not to eat my Aunts honey baked ham on Christmas. “By the time I got to the ham my plate was completely full,” “You know, my mom made this exact same

thing last night, so I think I’m gonna pass this year,” and even in one extreme case I had to say “I’m sorry, I’m just am too emotional right now.

The last meal I had with my ex was honey baked ham...I don’t think I can manage to go down that road again.” What really sold that story were the tears. I really wish I could say they were fake tears...

But no. I was just really scared thinking about sinking my jowls in the juicy ham.

However, it was time to face my fears and man up. I was tired of flinching every time I walked past the hams at Plum Market. I was getting tired of the nightmares of pigs stampeding through my bedroom. I was tired of climbing out my bedroom window and hiding in my yard every time I smelled bacon in the frying pan when I woke up. It was time to eat pork again.

After downing half a bottle of Tums ultra strength 100 antacid/calcium chewable tablets ™, I walked into Satchel’s Barbeque. You know when you’re dreading something, and you wish time would slow down? Well in cases like these, time always seems to speed up. In what felt like seconds, I was holding my stomach’s nightmare. I think I would rather drink my mother’s carrot, rutabaga, kale, spinach juice than eat the enormous plate of BBQ pulled pork that was in my trembling hands.

As I took a seat I was wondering about a couple of things. First off, I was wondering if whoever pulled the pork that I was about to eat was crazy, or if they just loved preparing things that would make the consumer obtain an irreversable stomach ache. And secondly, I wondered if anyone would actually read this article all the way to this point or just stop after they found out this article is not about Mike Vick and animal cruelty. If no one reads this far I can say whatever I want, right? I am in love with Judith DeWoskin. I secretly choreograph all of the Dance Body concerts. Mom, Tulin Babbitt’s cookies are better than yours.

I lifted the fork to my mouth. As the pork passed slowly between my lips, my eyes grew bigger than Ego’s eyes when he tried the ratatouille. It was delicious. I don’t know why I was ever scared. I took bite after bite, each bite better than the last. The juices flowed between my teeth like rapids on a

river. The BBQ had a certain vinegary aftertaste that complimented the smokey pork perfectly. I had earned my manhood back. As the food on my plate got smaller, the food in my stomach got bigger. However, I kept going. I was not going to be denied this victory. With only a small smidge of pork left, I decided to dedicate the last bite to Courtney Kiley. Even though sometimes I eat so much food that it might feel like a have a baby inside of me, I will never actually know what it takes, and how strong you have to be to have a baby.

Good luck Courtney, we will miss you. Speaking of your baby, Casey is also a girl’s name...so...you know...it’s up to you I guess.

The last bite was mashed slowly in my mouth. I savored that victory. As I held my head high, and lifted the clean plate, I felt a strange sensation in the pit of my stomach unrelated to the plate of pork that was currently residing in my belly. My mind felt all fuzzy and I lost all coordination in my left leg. After a very confusing call to my dad, I was in his car passed out in the backseat. Hours later, I woke up in a cold sweat with my dog, in my bed.

I now understand that I should read the warnings on the back of the Tums ultra strength 100 antacid/calcium chewable tablets before taking half the bottle. “May cause drowsiness” read the label. In all my stupidity, I was a still a victor. I look forward to taking on my next challenge, one single piece of broccoli. Till next time.

P.S. Mom if you read all the way though, I love your cookies.C

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C

feature

fryer to fuel.

joe mcearchern makes biodiesel in his garage on packard street

“When Katrina hit, gas prices doubled over night so I had to figure out another way of doing things.” dylan stephens

T

hat’s what got me into this, I started with vegetable oil,” said Joe McEachern, a mechanic with a small garage on the south side of Ann Arbor where he manufactures an alternative fuel: biodiesel.

Three old Mercedes, a Silverado - all running on biodiesel - and a greasy 40 gallon bucket welcome you in front of his shop on Jewett Road, just off of South Industrial. One of the main reasons McEachern

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owns this garage and creates this alternative fuel is for his three biodiesel powered cars. The biodiesel powers them and gets him everywhere he needs to go. A form of biodiesel originated as early as the 1900’s and became more common and developed around the 1980’s. Biodiesel is an alternative to diesel fuel that can be used in most diesel engine cars and is derived from vegetable sources, such as soybeans. “Biodiesel is a

big part of the transportation business and it’s not going anywhere,” McEachern said.

McEachern started using vegetable oil well before he had his garage in Ann Arbor.

McEachern was living in a RV and couldn’t keep up with gas prices once Hurricane Katrina hit. “When Katrina hit, gas prices doubled overnight and I had to figure out a different way of doing things,” he said. With the new price of gasoline, he couldn’t main-

tain living in the RV, so McEachern bought a 1983 Volkswagen Rabbit in 2006. McEachern drove it unconverted - running on gas from a tank and not vegetable oil - for a while. Once the car started breaking down, he came to learn that vegetable oil could fix this 700 dollar vehicle.

Then, one day, at the Ann Arbor Public Library, he came across a book called “From the Fryer to Fuel Tank: The Complete Guide to Using Vegetable Oil as Fuel” by Joshua Tickell. With the help of this book, as well as the internet, he learned the basics on how to convert cars to run on just vegetable oil.

He did exactly that with his 1983 Rabbit. McEachern began to piece together a kit with parts he could find at Lowe’s, Tractor Supply, Home Depot and the Internet. He later sold the car, but did not stop working on alternative fuel. Soon after he opened up his garage, it was filled with a once-well known bus fleet, The Big Ten Burrito Party Bus. This is a bus that ran Tuesday to Saturday from 6pm to 3am and was filled up with college kids going to bars, and it was only two dollars a ride.

The best part was that it ran solely on vegetable oil from the party bus (BTB’s) and other local restaurants fryers that would exchange ads on the back of the bus for oil.

“I wouldn’t say vegetable oil had to do anything with the buses’ demise,” McEachern said. McEachern explained how the buses were bought at the end of their service lives and were often breaking down so, in the end, BTB spent on repairs all the money they would save on fuel.

The money they made from a week would all go back to McEachern’s shop, as the bus would break down so often it would end up there most of the time. “The waste veggie oil and buses were an awesome news story and people loved riding in them smelling the grease and everything.”

Now McEachern has a new approach–biodiesel. His garage has become more of a lab, with tubes running from end to end and huge drums filled with an innovative alternative fuel.

“Biodiesel in the end is something we run our trucks off of, it’s saving us money but it’s totally an experimental thing we aren’t making a profit off of it,” McEachern said. McEachern’s shop makes up to 80 gallons of fuel a week, but he can’t sell it because he doesn’t have a fuel license. He does, however, trade some to farmers at Seeley Farm, just a few miles North of Ann Arbor. Here, he gets greens for making fuel.

The process of making Biodiesel is fairly simple. It can be done at home with materials that can be found at Home Depot. McEachern uses his relationships with local restaurants to collect used vegetable oils. In his garage, McEachern has containers that hold 40 gallons with a built-in heater, and inside the container there are two basic elements he mixes with the oil: An alcohol, like methanol, and a strong base. Most people use Lye, a caustic solution, or commercially manufactured sodium hydroxide as the base, which McEachern says is “ a sexier catalyst it just works better every time.” You mix these two to make methoxide. The ratio is 8 gallons of alcohol to 2/3 gallon of base, and this will be mixed with the remaining amount of oil to fill up the 40 gallon container. Once it settles, the bottom will fill up with glycerin and on top of that is pure biodiesel, which is ready to go into any diesel car that accepts it. The cool thing about biodiesel is that it will actually clean up your emissions system. That is why you will see gas tanks at, for example Meijer’s put in 5% biodiesel.

Biodiesel is not only good for the environment it also cleans your emissions. It is a simple process that can fuel a car in an environmentally friendly way and save money.

“In the end you have a plant in the ground, which is sucking up carbon dioxide and then its compressed into an oil and then burned as a fuel. So the next generation is sequestering carbon dioxide from the first generation creating a cycle,” McEachern stated in a video interview from 2010.

Facts Biodiesel emissions have decreased levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and nitrited PAH compounds that have been identified as potential cancer causing compounds.

Biodiesel is biodegradable and non-toxic, and typically produces about 60% less carbon dioxide emissions, and it is produced from atmospheric carbon dioxide via photosynthesis thru plants.

“The waste veggie oil and buses were an awesome story and people loved riding in them and smelling the grease.” hazel o’neil art

Biodiesel is free from sulphur (< 0,001 %).

Biodiesel is easily biodegradable with no hazard to soil or groundwater in the case of accidents. th e commu nicator

29

the politics of the pixie cut

IT’S TIME TO DEFY THE GENDER NORMS OF HAIRSTYLES WITH CONFIDENCE

hannah shevrin

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unsure of what to do with my hair, I turned to women’s magazines. I truly thought that the answer to perfect hair lied in the glossy pages filled with overly airbrushed pictures of women celebrities. While I never really admired the tutorials on how to twist one’s hair into tangle-free knots with metallic ribbons entwined in it, or how to do a nine-piece braid that wraps around the ears, or how to get those perfect beachy waves without going to the beach (really, I could do without the sand), I did take one thing seriously: the face shape charts.

A face shape chart is a two-page spread of various face shapes (heart, oval, round, square, etc.) and the according flattering hairstyles. I would consult with my mother and sister to determine my own shape, and we settled on round. Wanting to rid of my long tresses, I remembered the days of being a young child with chin-length hair.

I considered returning to my days of blonde bobness, but realized I wanted more. As a ferociously feminist and debatebly obnoxious political 12 year-old, I wanted something drastic: a pixie cut.

The idea of a super short haircut excited me. I would be unique and bold among my mid-puberty female friends. However, according to the face shape chart, with my round face, a pixie cut would be a disaster on me- it belonged on a heart shaped face. When I presented the idea to my friends, they agreed with the chart, and even pointed out that my facial features would not work well with the style; my face wasn’t girly enough.

The way pixie-cuts or “boy style” haircuts are depicted in a magazines is that they are only acceptable among women who have dainty, fairy-like faces. Essentially what this says is that in order to have a more masculine style of hair, the face must be incredibly stereotypically feminine in order to balance it out, and to retain an overall womanly appearance.

Community senior, Eve Kausch, who recently cut her hair in the pixie style, observed that people have always told her she has the magazine-intended face for it.

“I get a lot of comments on how I have a good face for it. The woman who cut my hair said ‘She has a perfect everything for it.’”

Chloe Root, who teaches Gender Studies at Community, has had a pixie cut since she was twelve, and agrees that there is a particular beauty standard for women with short hair, but does not think women necessarily have to comply with it.

“I think it was in gender studies one day when we were talking about the “pixie cut” face, or that women with big noses shouldn’t have short hair, and I was like ‘Oops, oh well! Another gender norm crossed off the list!’” Root said. “I think it’s interesting that that’s so explicit now and that especially with Miley Cyrus and the fact that her hair created such controversy, but that people were like ‘oh she’s so pretty, she can do that’ kind of made that come to the formore for me in a way that I didn’t think about before.”

As a middle school girl with low self-esteem and beauty pressures rooted in a male dominated society, I abandoned the idea of the pixie-cut.

However, it was not just for facial reasons. I was scared of the comments I would receive for it. I was afraid that because I would have super-short hair, I would get the labels of “butch”, “masculine”, and the automatic assumption that I was gay. It wasn’t that I disliked or disagreed with these identities, but the idea that having short hair inherently entailed that angered me. I enjoyed the idea of a deeper political meaning behind the style, that women can have a typically male haircut, but I wondered if maybe that was mostly the reason behind it, and whether that was valid.

Kanako Fujioka, another Community senior, has been wearing a pixie cut for nearly a year, yet her reason behind it is not political.

“My pixie cut wasn’t me trying to demon-

strate that girls can have short hair because of course they can,” Fujioka said. “But regardless of what I thought, since people have told me that I look like a boy in a negative context I guess I now see how there is pressure out there for girls to look like girls. It’s easy for me to brush off those ‘you look like a boy’ comments and turn it into a compliment but I can see how it can be hard for others, especially for people who are struggling to express their gender.”

Kausch agreed that the intent behind a drastic hair cut does not need to have a deep-rooted symbolic intent, or be due to political values, but it tends to be perceived that way.

“Someone jokingly asked me if I got my hair cut because I was a feminist, which I didn’t,” Kausch said. “It’s more like because I am a feminist, I didn’t have any trouble cutting my hair off. I know that femininity does not equal womanhood, but also that having short hair does not necessarily mean I’m not feminine.”

Root pointed out that women never really embraced short hair until the 1920s, when women’s equality was evolving. The short hair was seen as a sexual liberation point rather than political, but it has progressed more into that.

While it’s certainly unfair to assume that every woman with short hair is doing it for a political purpose, there is still a subconscious and unintentional meaning behind it. It took a great deal of advocacy and time for a common acceptance of women with short hair. So there is still an underlying message of ‘I’m defying stereotypical gender expression roles’, which is critical for bringing justice to all oppressed female-bodied people.

However, I do not believe that women should have to have a certain face or ideology to cut their hair. It’s a form of expression, and does not need a meaning behind it for everyone. It’s hair. It grows from your body, and you have the right to do what you want with. Society should have no say on what it should look like or means to you. C

round

heart

square

• You can totally rock a deep part!

Deep as the Red Sea!

• Short hair looks amazing on you.

Strangers will definitely awkwardly compliment you!

• Consider yourself lucky, you’re the only one who can pull off long hair!

WHEN

I

WAS

YOUNGER

AND

• Although short hair does not look fabulous on you, you can pull of curls! Bring back the perm!

• Your face shape idols include Mila Kunis, Oprah, and John Quincy Adams!

• Embrace bangs! Sweep them to the side, front, back, up- whatever floats your heart-shaped boat!

• Your face shape idols include Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, and Grover Cleveland!

• You have an angular, strong jaw, great for chewing and being photographed!

• Your face shape idols include Megan Fox, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Barack Obama!

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an inside look:

steve coron THE MAN, THE ATHLETE, THE ARTIST cody ziesler

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T

he art program at Community has a history of helping exceptionally gifted students excel to the next level, as shown by the numerous works of art hung up in the art room, and the murals painted throughout the school.

Whether in a Ceramics class, Mixed Media, or Art & Design, the fruits of success are proudly displayed across the school in the form of murals, works hung up outside art rooms, and photos strewn across the first floor’s odd-number hallway. The prints show off the skill of various students at Community High. But what about the man behind the program, who teaches these kids how to make beautiful photos, film and digital alike?

Steve Coron first came to Community in 2003, and has been the man behind the film room ever since. He has seen numerous kids discover their love for art and photography at the same age he did, back when he attended Ishpeming High School in the Upper Peninsula. “[My] passion for art started when I was just a little kid,” he said. “I was always drawing, I loved to draw. So I’d sit at the kitchen table and just draw, draw, draw, draw, draw.

And I always liked looking at art books and stuff like that. So the passion for art is like really old,and I remember being in Kindergarten and we had art class and the teacher would go “Oh, wow, you’re really good!” So it was a combination of being encouraged, and also just really liking to do it,” Coron said.

“Photography really started when I was in high school, probably my sophomore year,” he said. “We had something like the Neutral Zone, and a friend of mine and the director of that teen center started a dark room in the basement of this teen center, and that was the first introduction to film photography. Then my parents bought me a film camera, and that was really cool, cause it really took over the whole town and everyone started doing photography.”

Coron, while being a jack of all trades when it comes to cameras - owning several film and digital alike - is a man that prefers the darkroom over the computer.

“I just like the process. I like the look of film, I like the way it’s more hands-on,” he

said. “I like the way the prints look on the page, and I like black and white. Not that I don’t like color, when I’m in a color mood, then I do my digital. When I’m in a “get serious about composition” and more artful photography [mood] I like the black and white. Some of my digital stuff is good, but I just don’t react to it the same way. I guess it just feels too easy almost, even though in some ways it’s not. It’s just as hard. I just love the feel of black and white film.”

Coron, however, did not always come off as an artist. He was a three-sport athlete at Ishpeming, playing football, basketball, and running track. His senior year, he was an All-American tailback, a jock in every aspect of the word, with a path he could have followed to become the next big offensive weapon for Northern Michigan’s football team.

He’d soon give that up.

Before he accepted an offer to play football at Northern Michigan, he decided that the life of a college athlete was not for him.

So on the last day of the Northern Michigan Football Recruitment Camp during the summer of his senior year, he elected to leave the life of an athlete behind, even after the coach there told him that he had a spot on the team if he wanted it.

Coron left his hometown to attend Western Michigan University’s art school for two years, leaving behind both his family and his potential legacy as a football player. After his sophomore year, however, he returned to Ishpeming due to homesickness, and attended Northern Michigan for a year (not playing football, of course). After that, he attended Eastern Michigan University for the next two years to receive his degree.

His joyful demeanor doesn’t clearly reflect one of a past-athlete, but Coron holds no regrets on the decision he made. The person he was --the artist-- and the person he was made out to be by his hometown --an athlete-- conflicted in high school. Ultimately the stronger, natural side of Steve won out once he attended college-- the same part of him that Community High School knows today.C

“

[My] passion for art started as a little kid. I was always drawing.

I loved to draw.

”

“

Photography really started in high school, probably my sophomore year.

”

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C

news

legion.

new ann arbor boutique hopes to improve streetwear in Michigan jett jones photo

madeline halpert and jett jones

On a frigid Saturday night, customers from all around Michigan gathered in a new store on Main street. It was packed. Legion, a new boutique store started by Mike Kao and his business partners, was opening for the first time.

Mason Kupina, an intern at the store and a senior at Community High, said the soft opening was a chance to incorporate fash-

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ion and people for the first time in the store setting.

“It was the busiest I’ve ever seen the store,” he said. “It was strictly for friends and family to come in and grab stuff before it officially went on sale.”

On the Nov. 25, Legion officially opened to all customers. Mike Kao and his business partners explained that this is something

they’ve been planning for quite some time.

“This is what I’ve always wanted to do,” he said. “We had been in the industry so long that it was the next logical step to take. We started our own clothing line [Chief] in 2010, so the next step was to open up a store for our own brand.”

Kupina feels lucky to be a part of the process.

“It’s a great opportunity because this is what I want to do when I get out of school,” he said. “I already have a job, but it’s nice to do something you’re really into. This is what I’m trying to do in the future.”

As an intern, he provides advice on popular clothing and is knowledgeable about the products they carry.

Kupina says that Legion tries to cater to every type of person. Their prices range anywhere from $28 to $180 for a T-shirt.

Kao says that while it may be more expensive, it is worth it for the high end quality and durability.

“A $180 shirt is an expensive shirt, but at the same time, the material is sourced out of the country,” he said. “Then it’s brought in and cut and sewn to a specific cut in Canada, and then brought over here. That’s what you’re paying for.”

He adds that often the price point of imported goods and things made in America are a lot different.

Opening up a new store did have its chal-

lenges, though. Kao explains that it might be harder than some think in a town like Ann Arbor.

“Getting our footing and getting out there with our demographic in Ann Arbor [is a challenge],” he said. “Ann Arbor is a hard area to open up a boutique in, which a lot of people wouldn’t think it would be a problem, because there’s so much money out here. But the thing is that Michigan as a whole is not really known for being on trend with fashion.

Out here in Ann Arbor, there’s a lot of people that talk local business, but they’re not necessarily the people that are buying it.”

On top of that, the process of actually getting the store together added another challenge for the new business owners.

“We probably did two months worth of remodeling within four weeks,” Kao said.

“That was kind of hard. We just grinded it out and put in like 16-17 hour days.”

Despite the challenges, Kao and his business partners have big plans for the store. He says that if the tennants upstairs decide to

switch locations, they might look into adding on. Kao, himself, also wants to diversify his store by bringing in local art and other heritage clothing companies.

“We do consignment on art right now, and we’d like to do more gallery shows for local artists, and at the same time, I would like to start doing high end consignments,” he said.

As for his plans for the fashion industry in Michigan and the midwest, Kao hopes that his store can provide some inspiration for expansion.

“There’s plenty of money in Michigan,” he said. “And once people start to become educated about textiles and clothing, and what fashion is, then our fashion community and clothing community will continue to expand.” C

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oby ugwuegbu sophia simon

student styles: mia prochaska

fashion C

M

ia Prochaska never fails to stun with her idiosyncratic wardrobe. The Community High junior uses fashion as an effective and stylish form of

expression.

“I think fashion is a person’s way of showing what they want to display about themselves to the world.” Prochaska said, “Whether people want to admit it or not if you see a stranger [it’s] the first thing you do is look at them normally looking at face, [and] body which includes clothes. Fashion is a good way of making a first impression about yourself.”

Mia’s mod style and the image she projects through fashion does a perfect job of capturing her distinctive, charismatic personality. In efforts to get to know the girl behind some of Community’s best style, The Fashion Page is taking a closer look at Prochaska’s routines, favorite stores and the mindset behind her first-rate fashion choices.

Many people do not view fashion as an art but rather the series of random events that somehow

f

featured on rap artist a$ap rocky’s facebook page

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>

result in them standing at Community’s entrance, bleary eyed, sporting faded jeans because they’re not fully awake at 7:30 am. While still looking fabulous, these people may not be aware of the specific choices and options involved in producing a consciously dynamic and stylish outfit. However, Prochaska approaches her morning routine with a little more intent.

“I focus on proportions more than anything,” said Prochaska. “For example, I love higher waisted pants and crop tops together because they give me more of a figure.”

Manipulating the rules of fashion to accentuate certain preferred curves of one’s body is an important element of fashion.“I’ll [also] throw on a long chunky cardigan because it balances out the tightness of the two bottom layers, making it more casual yet sophisticated enough ‘cause the layers are thought out a bit,” Prochaska said. Although the tasteful fashionista devotes a lot of effort to her stylish outfit configurations, she does not consider herself an artist, “The only people who

are true artists in fashion are the people designing clothes. My fashion sense is just things I like...I view myself more as an expressionist.”

Some fashion choices may be inspired by blogs, magazines, or else inspiritingly clothed random people walking down the street. Occasionally, Prochaska gets inspiration from YouTube, “I watch YouTube channels and ‘Clothes Encounters’ and ‘Fashion Rocks My Socks’ are my favorites.”

Using resources such as aspiring youtube channels are perfect for gathering inspiration to push your fashion choices out of their comfort zone and achieve an improved, more diverse level of style. Going to Community High School has affected Prochaska’s fashion tremendously. Because, Community does not have a dress code, Prochaska is allowed to push every limit of fashion and expression so she can test and better understand the boundaries and preferences in her personal style. C

TOP LEFT Mia sports a thin black top with a fun patterned skirt TOP RIGHT Prochaska rocks bright red lipstick with a floral blouse BOTTOM Mia looks great in her black and white top with a sleek up-do th e commu nicator

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news story

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editorial

an obitchuary. iputting an overused derogatory term to rest hannah shevrin

IDENTIFYING AS A WOMAN WHO is ambitious and outspoken in this society is apparently an excuse to be called a bitch. A word that came from the name of a female dog but was redefined to describe the wild mannerisms of women in the Roaring Twenties, is now a term thrown around as often as a frisbee is on a beautiful spring day at CHS. I’m a woman, I’m ambitious, and I definitely speak my mind. However, I hate being called a bitch. Whether it be from the mouth of a man or a woman, I have grown to detest the term.

When influential women like Nancy Pelosi, Condoleezza Rice and Jill Abramson are called bitches, it’s considered normal.

Why is it that when a woman gains power in a typically male-dominated field, her success is overlooked by her assertive and focused attitude? It’s surely significantly more challenging for a woman to become successful in the corporate and political world. Her method of achieving her goals must be different than that of a man’s. If she ever comes off as soft or sweet, she is viewed as weak, emotional, and feminine. Therefore, to be taken seriously, she must be direct, blunt, and fiercely determined. Her actions may be seen as aggressive and intense, and verbal reactions from competitors usually include describing her as a bitch.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons I cringe whenever my peers utter the term. When I hear my female friends call each other bitches, it disappoints me. While it is some-

times used in a friendly, joking way, I still feel uneasy about it. Are girls that willing to subject themselves to this verbal form of oppression?

Some women claim they’re being ironic when they use the word. It’s such a preposterous term, why not just roll with it? Some say they’re reclaiming it: using it in order to empower themselves, like what was done with the word queer in the LGBTQ community. They say “Hell yeah, I’m a bad bitch”, or “You say I’m a bitch like it’s a bad thing”.

There was a Weekend Update bit on SNL during the 2008 Democratic primaries that addressed how Hillary Clinton was frequently labeled as a bitch. Tina Fey comments on the issue by saying “And then what bothers me the most is that people say that Hillary is a bitch. Let me say something about that. Yeah, she is! So am I… You know what? Bitches get stuff done!”

I think that she appropriately pulled off using bitch in an ironic way. She was saying if Hillary’s a bitch, then so is she. They’re women who accomplish really awesome stuff, and don’t let people drag them down.

I presume that Fey does not appreciate constantly being called a bitch - she’s just trying to maintain her success in the comedy world, which has typically been a boy’s club.

However, she plays with the oppression to make an obvious comedic point. For that, I give her kudos.

While some women may truly be using it in an ironic or reclaiming manner, I have a

hard time believing that that is everyone’s intent. Is every single teenage girl posting pictures of her friends on Instagram with captions like “my bitches” or “the bad bitches” really attempting to take a political stance and alter the connotation of bitch?

At a certain point, it loses its humorous or political symbolism, and returns to its degrading manner.

So let’s stop calling each other bitches. It’s just not quite worth the irony yet.

The meaning and emotional effect of the word is too strong to disregard. It’s created gender stereotypes that have perpetuated extreme sexism in our society. Not everyone is ready to turn this oppression into empowerment. It takes strength and security to repel patriarchally prejudiced insults like that. We’re not all there.

And for that matter, let’s stop using bitch for everyone. A man who’s weak or sensitive shouldn’t be called a bitch. Someone who serves you shouldn’t be called your bitch. A person who complains isn’t bitching. And a woman who is honest and fierce certainly should never be called a bitch.

Just grab a thesaurus and learn some replacement vocabulary.

communicator policy The Communicator, being committed to the free exchange of ideas, is an open forum for expression of opinions. It is student-run; students make all content decisions. Letters to the editor are encouraged and can be sent to thecommunicator@ googlegroups.com. Signed articles will be accepted with no prior administrative review as space is available. The Communicator reserves the right to edit submissions. Furthermore, opinions expressed therein are those of the authors and not of this newspaper, Community High School, or Ann Arbor Public Schools. For our complete policy, please see www.

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google’s new e-tattoo is terrifying. kelly arnold

IMAGINE THIS: YOU’RE GETTING ready to head out for the day. As you finish up, you realize that you aren’t quite sure of how to get to where you’re going. So, naturally, you pull out your phone. And, without even turning it on, it already has the directions pulled up, without you typing it in yourself.

This isn’t just happenstance. It’s because of your new e-tattoo.

Google-owned Motorola Mobility recently requested a patent for a smart-tech tattoo. The tattoo goes on the side of the user’s neck. This new techie stick-on is a true multitasker; it’s main aim is eliminating background noise during the user’s interactions with other Google devices, but it can also read your mind.

Yes, it can read your mind. Stay with me.

When you speak to yourself in your inner voice, your brain still shoots mental spike volleys to your vocal chords, in a similar way to when you say things out loud. The main difference between the two is that the action

bad news. alex wood

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS bad press, but there is bad news reporting.

The problem is not always an abuse of the facts and truth, but a refusal to report real news. When cable brought the opportunity for channels solely devoted to news, the 24-hour news cycle began. The system was celebrated as a way to constantly keep the audience up to date on all of the facts.

However, the 24-hour news cycle is being abused. In the attempt to stay current with the inclusion of social media and other “hip” installments, these organizations have shifted away from their reporting base and moved towards a sensationalized version of events in order to please the average viewer.

The other day, I watched CNN. The network opened another hour with the story of a toddler who was filmed shouting obscenities. The recording had apparently become a viral video, which in the 24-hour news cycle, is apparently news. Viral videos become so popular because of their entertainment value. Instead of reporting news that truly matters to people, news com-

driving covert speech (mentally talking to yourself) does not create the full muscle contraction as does physically speaking.

The tattoo not only can pick up on subtle muscle contractions in the neck, but also includes a ‘galvanic skin responder’ which has capabilities of revealing the user’s true emotions. “It is contemplated that a user [who is] nervous or engaging in speaking falsehoods] may exhibit different galvanic responses than a more confident, truth-telling individual,” Basically, with the inclusion of a galvanic skin responder, it turns this seemingly harmless extension of a mobile device into a personal lie detector. Which means that if you really didn’t pay your bill that month, even as the most skilled liar, your new techtoy will give you away.

And the prospect of that scares me.

Not that I condone lying, but with the addition of this galvanic skin responder on a product that is already concerning, the future of tech is feeling a bit icky.

Remember when the iPhone came out?

We all love it now, but the fact that both Apple and Google (if the phone has the Google application) can know your location at all times is still a little creepy, even though most have become immune to the thought.

My concern is that, after this product hits the market, we will become immune to the fact that we literally will have a lie detector on us at all times(!!!). Also, it is evident that with the mind-reading capabilities of the product, Google will be able to tap into both everything we say and everything we think.

While this all may sound a little scary, keep in mind that a patent is just a patent; it may not even be an eventual Motorola/ Google product. But just in cause it does come out on the market, think twice before you buy, and once you do, think twice about thinking.

panies have gone for entertainment value.

This same line of thinking has perennially turned cable news into a mouthpiece for political extremists from both sides of the political spectrum. Using these characters or other types of shock jocks sensationalizes the news. These organizations think that it is in their best interest to have have people discuss the headlines in order to create more headlines because there’s no such thing as bad press, especially for news organizations.

The use of social media has also turned cable news into a wasteland. News organizations latch onto the first sign of news, even if it comes in the form of a tweet or other unsourced news. It’s as if the United Press Association’s saying “Get it first, but first get it right” has been shortened to “get it first”. This was exemplified in coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings.

The day after the horrific events, CNN was on the ground and reporting that a suspect was in custody, a statement not corroborated by any other news outlet. In an attempt at justice, the New York Post plastered a photo of two men, Salaheddin Barhoum and Yassine Zaimi, on its front

page, claiming that they were the suspects, a statement that proved to be false. The two are now suing the newspaper for damages caused by the erroneous headline. Apparently, the idea of a retraction is more appealing than being the second organization to release the story.

With more and more news outlets, the nature of the market has become much more competitive and unlike other markets, this has been detrimental to the quality of the product, the news. The news organizations are not competing with each other for who does a better job of reporting the stories, but instead look to beat one another in ratings. Even “60 Minutes”, a television program revered for its journalistic integrity, fell victim to the game when it overlooked the fact that the key source in its special report on Benghazi– a topic that every other news program had already spoken at length about– had falsified most of his testimony. It seems that good reporting for the benefit of the people is dying out; many news organizations produce their content to serve themselves.

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editorial

athletes and universities. ithe pressure

on high school athletes is too much to handle cody zeisler

EVERYONE ASPIRES TO DO WHAT they love as a career. Those who love to write dream of being authors, lovers of space dream of being astronomers and astrophysicists and elite athletes dream of being able to play their sport of choice at the professional level. College, however, is precariously placed between high school and professional level athletics, becoming an uncomfortable middle-ground for those who want to play their sport as a career.

Institutions of higher learning have stopped being a goal to shoot for from an academic standpoint for some, and are instead seen as a way to better an athlete for their future professional career.

The title of “student-athlete” is worn by a number of students at Community High School (including myself), and fortunately for the atmosphere of our school, the focus stays on academics. The majority of students here seem to want to attend a college, and a number of them even have a career in mind already. Some may want to attend

the University of Michigan, others want to get out and explore the world, possibly even taking a gap year to enjoy some added freedom before attending college. None, however, seem to be obsessed with becoming a professional athlete. Sports are seen as hobbies and enjoyable activities, rather than the sole way to make a living in their adult life. Furthermore, those who want to continue playing their sport(s) once they go to college manage to keep up good grades and receive exemplary scores on tests like the ACT and SAT. Unfortunately, the atmosphere of other high schools isn’t akin to our own. I drive to Skyline everyday for practice, and each day I am consciously aware of people on sports teams that will devote insane amounts of time to their athletics, staying after for extra practice, doing extra weightlifting, extremely committed athletes that could be playmakers in their respective sports, but when the season rolls around, they sit on the bench due to athletic ineligibility. Keep in mind, this is still in Ann Arbor; I feel that the

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hazel o’neil

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focus on athletics could be exponentially worse in communities and cities where high school sports carry a lot more weight.

While I believe extracurriculars can add to an individual’s growth, and that grades aren’t necessarily the most accurate way to depict one’s intelligence, they do reflect work ethic, and that is something that everyone needs in college. Statistically, the sport with the highest chance for a high schooler to play professionally is baseball, with a whopping .6 percent, while 11.6 percent of college players do. To play something professionally is a combination of skill, hard work, and near-infinite amounts of luck.

We should abolish the thought of teaching kids that their value is depicted solely through their athletic ability. Similar to telling people their value depends on looks, intelligence, aspirations, we should encourage growth as a person through education about the world around them. And if they play sports while they do that? So be it.

what’s in your car? eva rosenfeld

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sari greifer

My family has had my car for a really long time. When my sister got her license she got the car and then she went to college and when I got my license I inherited the car.

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the good and the bad “My mom and I took my car to go on college visits this summer out on the east coast. We took the car to New York and Boston and D.C. It was a really great trip and we spent a lot of the time in the car hanging out and singing to songs on the radio.”

“Oatmeal, I have oatmeal every morning.”

“I’ve got super odd mixes.

This is a U2 CD that has the songs Beautiful Day and Elevation. Elevation is my mom’s favorite song ever. So when I was little, my mom, my sister and I would dance like crazy to elevation and sing it. So I keep this in my car, and it brings back memories, I guess!”

“The first weekend I had my license I went to Wiards in the winter with my friends. I was super scared and it was Saturday night - a game night, so there were lots of drunk people out driving and it was pouring. The ride there was terrible and we all thought we were going to die. After we we were done we got back to the car and I had left my lights on and we had to ask these random guys to jump it... the first time I had it.”

“This is my dream-catcher that my friend Ella made me in maybe the seventh grade... she made them for me and her two other friends and I’ve had it forever so I just put it in my car when I got my license because I really like it. It’s special ‘cause Ella made it.”

“This got really messed up... It says Mac Attack #1 and Skyline Soccer. I forgot to give it to Casey, it’s been in my car for a really long time. But during districts [we] made this sign for Casey and went to his game and rooted for him, and I promised him I’d give him this sign, but it’s been in my car since then and I guess people have been stepping on it because it’s really messed up.”

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picture this

RECALLING INFLUENTIAL LOVED ONES THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHS isabel sandweiss

Adele Roy

Adele Roy taught her son, Griffin Roy, to have opinions about the world. More importantly, she’s taught him to never be afraid to share them. Because of his mother, Griffin is scrutinizing of what he doesn’t agree with and is always open with others about how he really feels.

When Griffin pictures his mother, he sees her painting. Adele is a very creative person and loves to paint with watercolors. She enjoys taking pictures of things that catch her eye and then expanding on the image through painting it. She meets with a painting group weekly to express her artistic urges. Griffin doesn’t often watch his mother paint but he enjoys her work. His favorite painting of hers is one of the shores of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula.

Although Griffin doesn’t paint much, he is creative in different ways. He and his mother are happy to see each other find happiness through their personal hobbies.

They also like to relax and read together– a nice break from their busy lives.

Griffin is thankful for the ideas his mother has given him. She has taught him the value of honesty and the importance of having an open mind. Without her influence, Griffin wouldn’t have the strong morals he holds today.

Roberta Grange

Roberta Grange was quiet. She was quiet in the way she bore her trials, quiet in the way she felt her faith and quiet in the way she expressed her love.

Growing up as a farm girl during the Great Depression, she learned how to bull through burdens without any complaints. She carried this quiet strength with her throughout her entire life.

Community high school teacher Robbie (Roberta) Stapleton remembers her mother as always being busy. Roberta was always cooking or sewing or keeping the house clean for guests. She was always managing. Being a preacher’s wife wasn’t easy but, of course, she never complained. She had married Mike Grange when she was just 19 years old and, three months later, he was drafted into World War II. When he left, he was teacher. When he came back three years later, he was a preacher. Roberta adjusted and adapted to this new life without a peep.

Roberta graduated as valedictorian of her high school class but she didn’t go to college. In her family, only the boys went on to higher education. Yet Roberta retained her intelligence and never sought any pity for her role as a housewife and secretary. Later in life she audited psychology classes at Michigan State just for the sake of knowledge.

Robbie’s favorite memories with her mother are when she became a mother of her own. She can remember Roberta playing with her eldest son under a blanket on the kitchen floor. These quiet moments were Roberta’s happiest times. During these years Robbie was able to embrace her mom as a woman- an equal- rather than just an authority figure.

Robbie enjoys this picture because, for once, her mother is at the center of attention. It was taken the day of Roberta’s retirement. Four months later, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Before she died, Roberta wrote an essay on her gratitude for life; she had always been a beautiful writer. Sometimes, Robbie pulls it out and reads it and remembers her strong, humble mother.

Robbie will always savor her mother’s strong, quiet love. She now holds that same fierce, deep devotion for her own children.

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art throb

Adrian Joll and Kelsey Rasmussen “I’ve always liked the idea of painting space and I loved the idea of working with spray paint and I’ve never gotten to work with it before,” said Joll.

“I heard Adrian’s suggestions for doing spacescapes and I was completely in love with the idea. It was really fun to create it with spray paint, which is something that you can’t usually easily control, but we created a lot of interesting shapes with it,” added Rasmussen.