The Fourth Estate 2017 November issue

LAGUNA BLANCA SCHOOL

VOL XXIII

ISSUE 2

NOVEMBER 2017

NEWS

FEATURE

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11 12 14 16 17 18 20

Spirit Week Genetically Altered Babies Chaos in Charlottesville DACA and the Dreamers

Illustrated Interview Stephen McClaran '44 How I Became Dogs Understanding Emotion Pumpkin Carving Hugh Hefner Shertzer's Wall

OPINION

LIFESTYLE

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40 42 43 44 45 46

Conservation Corner Parking Oops Keeping Up with Reality Creating a Mooovement Why Men Can't Cry

Phone Consumption Musicians Stand the Test of Time Fall Instagrams (De)Stress Eating Graduates' Dorms Tattoos

SPORTS

COVER INFO

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FEATURED Bella Gavasse '19 PHOTO Camila Lemere '18 BACK COVER Itziar de Pedro

Football Injuries Katherine Perez Tries Football Stance of the Staff Sports Summaries Interview with Shauna Ericksen

OUR TEAM EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Aura Carson Rose Houglet Carina Tedesco CREATIVE DIRECTOR Sonya Kotler COPY EDITOR Jackson Hurley

MANAGING & OPINION EDITOR Kailea Hieshima SENIOR ADVISOR Jack Stein INDEPENDENT STUDIES EDITOR Caylin Zimmerman

BUSINESS EDITOR Amanda Skinner

WEB DIRECTOR Sydney Edgecomb

SPORTS EDITOR Kelly Bickett

WEB DESIGNER Jules Bernard

LIFESTYLE EDITOR Kendall White

NEWS & FEATURE EDITOR Julia Fay

SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR Ava Morouse MAGAZINE STAFF Ian Brown Daisy Finefrock Beau Glazier Kathryn Norris Phoebe Stein Mia Waters Jack Zhang FACULTY ADVISOR Trish McHale, MJE

PHOTOGRAPHER Katherine Monroy ARTIST Beau Glazier WEB STAFF Itziar de Pedro Annelle King Lucas Lambert Sofia Martin-Fouroohi Hannah Miller Patrick Otte Zane Zemeckis

Letter from the Editors

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fter creating our first ever summer issue, the Fourth Estate staff came back to school with 14 new students and 48 blank pages.

In this issue’s Stance of the Staff, we chose to cover the lack of respect and encouragement for women in sports — an issue that has affected the female athletic community not only in the “real world,” but also at Laguna.

Our staff also addresses a plethora of other issues, from designer babies to musicians that will stand the test of time to racism to football injuries.

Another exciting event of the past few months has been winning a CSPA Crown Award for the second year in a row — something the Fourth Estate has never done before.

Sonya Kotler, Carina Tedesco, Kailea Hieshima and Rose Houglet also won individual awards from Columbia University for their work on the magazine last year.

As we look back on our hard work from last year, we are full of pride and excitement for the new year.

MISSION STATEMENT The Fourth Estate is an open forum created for and by journalism students of Laguna Blanca Upper School. We hope to use this space to cover events, interviews, and topics of interest in greater depth.

Our creative team of photographers, artists, and writers strive to capture the voice of the students and tell their stories in a compelling way. Our staff seeks to be a platform for creative expression and to report on events and ideas of importance to our readers and to focus on topics of significance and interest to inform and entertain the school community.

LETTERS TO THE EDITORS The Fourth Estate welcomes guest columns and letters to the editor. Letters must be signed and must be no longer than 400 words. Editors reserve the right to edit for length, clarity and/ or taste. Anonymous letters will not be published.

The Fourth Estate reserves the right to reject advertising. Opinions expressed in this publication reflect the perspectives of the staff whose goal is to inform our readers with reliable information.

Editorials represent the voice of the staff and are voted on by the entire staff and appear as Stance of the Staff. Columns and commentaries are labeled as such and represent the opinion of the author. The Fourth Estate publishes five issues per year with a senior insert in the last issue.

SUBSCRIBERS We mail issues to subscribers and advertisers and exchange papers with high school journalism classes across the country. The staff strives for accuracy and when factual errors occur, we will correct the error in the next issue.

COLOPHON This is the first issue and 23th volume (published in November) of The Fourth Estate. Laguna Blanca School, 4125 Paloma Dr., Santa Barbara, CA 93110, Contacts are available at tmchale@lagunablanca. org, (805) 687-2461 x317 or www.thefourthestate.net. Laguna Blanca School has an EK through 12th grade student population of approximately 400, with 100 in the Lower School, 110 in the Middle School and 182 in the Upper School, and a faculty population of approximately 60.

The Fourth Estate is an 8.5 by 11 newsmagazine, created on Apple computers on Adobe InDesign Creative Cloud, using Gill Sans and Caslon font families and printed on glossy paper by aPrintis, free for students and $40 for a yearly subscription.

The magazine is distributed to all Upper School students through the school’s advisory program and sent by mail to subscribers, with 400 copies printed per issue. We are associated with NSPA, CSPA and JEA.

Oscar Houglet ‘21

Avery Hughes ‘19

Annabelle Finefrock ‘18 & Laurel Kujan ‘18

Kelvin Chen ‘18

PAGE Aura Carlson PHOTOS Katherine Monroy & Kelly Bickett

For more spirit week photos, check out: www. thefourthestate.net

Freddie Russell ‘22 Merrick Hahn ‘20 (left) & Sasha Hsu ‘18 (right)

Katherine Perez ‘19

Beau Glazier ‘20

Priscilla Abrego ‘20

Sullivan Israel ‘19

From left to right): Seniors Caylin Zimmerman, Kathryn Norris, Aura Carlson, Kelly Bickett, Clay Rodgers, and Rose Houglet

Designer Babies Developing technology called CRISPR-Cas9 is making it very realistic for scientists to be able to edit the genes of any organism quickly and inexpensively. With this new era of molecular biology, the possibilities seem to be endless.

WORDS Kendall White GRAPHIC Jules Bernard

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ifty years ago, if you said that computers would take over ment becomes a routine practice. This correction of a genetic everything from shopping to small talk to dating, no one mutation through CRISPR could potentially lead the way to would believe you.Yet here we are. Science fiction became preventing thousands of other genetic diseases and is only the our new reality. We are at a very similar point today with genetbeginning of such research. ic engineering.

With the use of CRISPR-Cas9 to edit genes becoming more Until recently, gene editing was extremely expensive, complirealistic, it is plausible that this technology could help produce cated and time consuming. Now, with a new technology called “designer babies.” Because CRISPR edits someone’s genes, these CRISPR-Cas9, it costs much less, takes only a few weeks to connew genes are passed down to the next generation. If we begin duct experiments and is very simple. CRISPR-Cas9 is a group of to edit the genes of humans, we will gradually but irreversibly molecules that can edit DNA. Cas, originally found in bacteria, change the human gene pool forever. In other words, modified is an enzyme that works like scissors. Scientists have a way to humans could alter the genome of our entire species. take this cas enzyme and direct it to cut desired DNA, disabling Most likely, the first “designer babies” will be created purely specific genes and replacing the cut genes with new ones. CRISto eliminate genetic diseases and disabilities that we commonPR-Cas9 can delete, tweak or totally replace the genes of any ly think of as harmful to a human’s health. As Eric Faust, math organism more cheaply, easily and efficiently than ever before. and science teacher at Laguna, put it, once the first genetically CRISPR literally has the potential to change humanity forever: engineered baby is born, “the genie is out of the bottle and it’ll including the creation of designer babies, the end of congenital never go back in again.” disease and even eternal youth.

Eventually, our idea of normal and healthy will change and we At a basic level, CRISwill start to use CRISPR to edit more and more genes that we PR allows scientists to consider to be a disadvantage Imagine having a population of Albert explore the different to our children. Faust provided roles of individual genes a great example stating that as Einsteins working on the world’s probby observing what our desire to use CRISPR on the lems. Then, think of the possibilities of happens when they are human genome increases, “genes what we could accomplish” — Eric Faust might be edited to prevent turned off, and thus see the function of each attention deficit disorder because gene. This level of research could be very helpful to our society. drug therapy is seen as being detrimental to children’s overall The more functions of specific genes we discover, the more pohealth when compared with gene therapy” adding, “frankly, that’s tential we have to target these genes and edit and correct them. probably true.”

Scientists are also working on using CRISPR-Cas9 to introHow far will people go with this, though? If you go in to make duce genes for disease resistance in wheat, introduce a malaria your child immune to Alzheimer’s, why not also give him or her blocking gene in mosquitoes, and even remove HIV genes from enhanced reflexes, perfect eyesight, superior intelligence, or infected cells in humans. design your baby boy to be 6’3 with blue eyes. Senior Jackson Recently, a joint team of South Korean and US scientists Hurley remarks, “evolution is not supposed to happen in so few successfully (for the first time ever) corrected a disease-causing generations, by way not of natural selection, but on the whim of mutation with CRISPR-Cas9 in human embryos. The system scientists.” It is hard to trust humans to handle the responsibiliremoved an inherited heart disease that affects 1 in every 500 ty of their own genetic matter. people and leads to sudden cardiac arrest. Those who have So now comes the difficult question: to what extent is using the disorder have a 50/50 chance of passing it down to their CRISPR-Cas9 to edit genes ethical? Opinions vary from person children. Results showed that after the embryos developed in to person. Faust believes that,“we need to be smarter and we the lab for a few days, two thirds of them were disease free. need to be more resilient to various types of bacteria and virusHowever, safety is a concern with the latest research and much es” and, “if we can use CRISPR to ensure the long-term survival more investigation and time is needed before the experiof our civilization, then it is something that we must do.”

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Biology and STEM teacher Staci Richard said, “if we over think the ethics questions in the early stages it could limit our scientific progress. I think we have an obligation to explore these powerful technologies that have the potential to cure diseases and end suffering.” Richard continued, “the question becomes at what point in the acquisition of knowledge do we need to step in and sink our teeth into the ethics debate?”

Senior Sophia Fay believes “Crispr-Cas9 is ethical when it is being used to stop the inheritance of certain drastic/life-threatening genetic diseases.” However, Fay is concerned that with the option to design our babies: “individuality will lessen and our gene pool will shrink.” Fay also believes that it is unethical to use CRISPR for things like “eye color, intelligence, athletic ability, musical talent, hair color, height and so on.”

Fay brought to light her concern on how CRISPR could create a larger divide between the upper and lower classes. She explains, “assuming the option to design your baby is an expensive procedure, only the wealthy would be able to afford it.” However, Richard believes that “technology always has the potential to divide society, but in this case, with an efficient and cost effective mechanism for gene manipulation, it could also bring this type of technology to a broader population.”

When asked if they would edit the genes of their own children interviewees responded similarly. Fay said, “I would only change the genes of my child if his or her life was threatened by some sort of genetic disease.” Faust’s opinion was more drastic saying, “I would have no issue with altering [my children’s] genome in order to decrease the likelihood of [them developing a horrible disease]” adding, “just like I have no issue with giving them a vaccine that might prevent them from developing some sort of horrible illness.”

Richard said, “if I were a mother in the future and had the opportunity to excise a detrimental gene—why wouldn’t I?” Ultimately the possibilities CRISPR-Cas9 has given us are mind blowing— from curing all genetic diseases, including cancer and Alzheimer’s, to genetically engineering humans to be equipped for space travel and life on other planets. Truly, the possibilities are endless and will change life as we know it.

As Faust said, “Imagine having a population of Albert Einsteins working on the world’s problems. Then, think of the possibilities of what we could accomplish.”

This is not happening today, and extensive technological and ethical challenges stand in our way. Wrong edits still happen, as well as unknown errors that can occur anywhere in our DNA. Richard believes that our generation “will need to make choices about gene manipulation for our children, at least for certain diseases.”

She adds, “I don’t know if you will be choosing other genes such as athletic and musical ability, but you will certainly be determining the societal choices and direction in these areas.

CRISPR may be too much power for humans to have in their hands and could be abused for horrible things. Banning it would only lead to research going to secretive places with no rules or ethics, so to make sure that research is done with caution, reason, and oversight, we must not ban it.

Most of us have something wrong with us. In the future that could lie ahead of us, would we be have been allowed to exist?

Could this just be a step in the evolution of intelligence? CRISPR-Cas9 has given us the potential to extend life expectancy, end disease and create a population of superior humans. What has been in science fiction is going to become our new reality.

NEWS 7

Chaos in Charlottesville WORDS Julia Fay, GRAPHIC Jack Stein

Recently, debates over whether to remove or maintain monuments of Confederate war heroes in Charlottesville, Virginia have led to both violent and peaceful demonstrations in Virginia and all over the country. One event in particular, the “Unite the Right” rally, was especially chaotic and led to the death of three individuals, one counter protester and two state troopers.

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magine young Jewish children playing in a park named after Hitler. It seems wrong, doesn’t it? This, of course, does not happen in Germany because it is illegal to publicly display any symbol relating to the Nazi party. However, in America black children frequently play in the “Lee” and “Jackson” parks of Virginia and other places. This is because the meaning of these monuments is not entirely clear: while many argue that Confederate monuments symbolize messages of racism and hate, others would disagree, saying that they are historical monuments meant to remember how present-day America came to be.

Recently, the removal of Confederate monuments has stirred up an immense amount of controversy, coming to a head in Charlottesville,Virginia. In February, the Charlottesville City Council voted to remove a statue of Confederate war hero Robert E. Lee from the Robert E. Lee Park (later renamed Emancipation Park). This decision quickly ignited retaliation, and within the next few months groups were arguing that the removal of the statue would go against certain state laws that ban cities that attempt to “interfere” with historic monuments and memorials. This law had previously stopped Confederate statue removal attempts in Alexandria and Loudoun County.

On August 11th, a violent march took place on the University of Virginia’s campus. Several hundred men and women carrying torches and shouting “You will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us,” marched around the university’s signature building and to a Thomas Jefferson statue, where they were

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met by a group of counter protesters. A brawl quickly transpired and the police struggled to contain the violence.

This controversy continued into the next day, and ultimately reached its climax at the “Unite the Right” rally, led by Jason Kessler, which was created to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue.

This rally took place in Emancipation Park and was scheduled to start at noon, but protesters showed up hours before to march. Members of this protest included white supremacists, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, neo-Nazis and various militias. These marchers carried all types of racist banners and were chanting things like “white lives matter” throughout the entirety of the rally.

Violence ensued shortly after the start of the protest, and law enforcement declared the gathering as an “unlawful assembly,” while Virginia’s governor, Terry McAuliffe, declared a “state of emergency.” Approximately half an hour later, a car rammed into a group of counter protesters, killing a 32-year-old woman named Heather Heyer, and injuring around 19 others. Police quickly arrested James Alexander Fields and three

others after connecting them to Heyer’s death. The unprecedented violence that took place on this day galvanized people to take action and sparked emotional responses from all over the country.

The question that initiated this conflict still stands: is it appropriate to honor those who seceded from the United States and supported our nation’s most shameful institution, slavery?

There are certainly arguments for both sides. While some may think it is entirely disrespectful to showcase these people, despite their military prowess, others may argue that the statues are not necessarily meant to sym-

TIME LINE OF EVENTS IN CHARLOTTESVILLE

Protesters and counterprotestors arrive at Emancipation Park long before the “Unite the Right” rally is scheduled to start

08/11/17

1 P.M. 5 P.M. 7 P.M.

Right rally brought forth crowds of racist people, many of them carrying firearms, who ultimately created a violent environment.

However, while the majority of the protesters at the Unite the Right rally were white supremacists and their racist views don’t necessarily symbolize the ideals of many other people who wish to preserve the statues, there is still a fairly large percentage of people who want to keep them up, for varying reasons.

This issue of white supremacy clearly runs deep in America and the recent events in Charlottesville and many other places have certainly put it in a spotlight.

Although the original intent of these Confederate statues was likely to honor the men who fought in the Civil War, to some people, the statues have come to represent the racism that was especially prevalent throughout this period.

As a free society, the American people must continue debating this issue until a solution or compromise can be agreed upon. Every voice deserves to be heard as there are wide-spanning opinions on the topic and ultimately the recurring debates will help society progress.

8 A.M. 08/12/17

Approx. 11 A.M.

bolize the reasons behind the war.

This perspective would likely reason that the statues are meant to recognize people who showed immense bravery and military expertise.

The statues have been up for a long time and removing them might arguably be discrediting history—it is meant to make Americans remember their past. The Civil War was a significant event in American history, so some might assert that trying to erase all memories of the war is not a sufficient solution either. In order to avoid similar mistakes in the future, we must remember the past.

The violence that transpired in Charlottesville was completely unwarranted and appalling.

While there are arguments for both removing and retaining the statue, the Unite the

Richard Spencer leads a white nationalist march through the University of Virginia’s campus

Violence breaks out before noon.

Law enforcement in Charlottesville declares the gathering an “unlawful assembly,” while the state’s governor announces a “state of emergency” Dodge Challenger rams into a group of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring at least 19 others Surveillance helicopter crashes, killing two state troopers, Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke, M.M. Bates Law enforcement announces that they have arrested James Alexander Fields and three others after connecting them to the car-ramming incident.

08/13/17

Vigils are held across the country to honor the three dead and many more injured.

NEWS 9

DACA and the Dreamers Imagine being told there is one single policy keeping you in the only country you’ve ever known, and that now this policy is being threatened.

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ACA is an immigration policy made by President Obama in 2012 that protects the undocumented immigrants in America.

In order to be eligible for the program, they must be under the age of 16 and must have lived in the United States since 2007.

DACA recipients also have to adhere to a strict set of rules, or else their cards are taken away. For example, they can’t have a criminal record of any kind, and if they commit any crimes in America, their cards are revoked.

In February, Trump said, “DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me, I will tell you. To me, it’s one of the most difficult subjects I have because you have these incredible kids. We’re gonna deal with DACA with heart.”

On Sept. 5, Trump decided to stop accepting new DACA applications, and announced that his cabinet would be working on a solution to deal with the 800,000 immigrants who rely on this act to live and work legally in this country.

The Santa Barbara community has in our community responded that they also been showing their opinions on did support the way the Cabinet has been dealing with this controversy. the topic. There was a rally held by the Many people supported Trump and the city of Santa Barbara this September, work he has been doing. where people showed their support Through a Fourth Estate poll we for DACA through marching, chanting learned that not everyone in the and carrying signs.

Salud Carbajal, the representative for Laguna community is aware of these controversies. our congressional district, helped lead the rally. He expressed People speak of second chances; his disagreement with Trump’s policy and said, I believe that this group should “We have a president be given a first chance, let alone a who is running on xenophobia. He is coming second one.” after the Dreamers …

We learned that the people who are because it’ll boost his numbers and aware are very divided in their opinpopularity with his base.” ion of how the government has been Spanish teacher Señor Flores has a personal point of view on this condealing with it.

Some think that what our president troversy. An immigrant to America and his Cabinet are doing is despicable, himself, he knows about the feeling of while others are in support of their not knowing what your fate might be.

He said, “I do know that what Trump decisions.

One student responded to the poll wants to do is cruel. People speak and said, “I am disappointed that this of second chances; I believe that this group should be given a first chance, let influential program is being wiped away, and I hope that those protesting can alone a second one.” have an impact, and, hopefully, make a Not everyone is against the Trump Administration’s rulings. Many people change for the better.”

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WORDS Phoebe Stein & Daisy Finefrock GRAPHIC & PAGE Sonya Kotler

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The Illustrated Interview with Pisci Abrego

What makes you smile?

Dogs.

If you could have a superpower what would it be?

Telekinesis.

What’s your dream pet?

Spider Monkey.

Draw a self portrait

Who’s your favorite celebrity?

Liza Koshy.

Where do you come from?

Santa Barbara.

If you could invent anything, what would it be?

Time machine.

Who’s your favorite fictional character?

Hermione Granger.

Who’s your favorite food?

Waffles.

FEATURE 11

Interview with

Alum Stephen McClaran: Class of ‘44 WORDS Peter Smith PHOTOS Carina Tedesco PAGE Rose Houglet

What types of classes were offered and what were the graduation requirements?

I had really four teachers: Mr. Spaulding, Mr. Heggie, Mr. Townsend and Mr. Cash. Mr. Townsend was mathematics, Mr. Heggie was literature, and Mr. Cash, was the manual arts teacher.

I don’t know what the specific requirements for graduation were, everything we did was aimed towards a degree in high school. It was a very small class there were only, by grad-

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uation time, three of us. Two received diplomas and one received a certificate of attendance, I was lucky I got a diploma.

Can you share a specific memory of your time at Laguna?

What are your impressions of city of Santa Barbara now compared to 1944?

Big! Grown very much since I lived here as a youngster.

Could you describe one big change that you have noticed in Santa Barbara?

I have a vivid memory of one of my self-appointed accomplishments which I constructed in manual arts class. It was a little wall unit (a what-not shelf), It’s more Spanish than it used to be. I know Miss Pearl Chase wanted Santa which one of my grandchildren has Barbara to be more Spanish Colotoday.

In October, Laguna had a very special visit with one of its oldest alumni Stephen McClaran ’44. The last time Stephen recalls being on campus was “sometime in the 1960s.” He currently lives in Hawaii and was in California to celebrate a family wedding. During his visit to Santa Barbara, Stephen spent some time on campus with our interview team from the student magazine, The Fourth Estate. Leading the interview was his great nephew, Peter Smith ’20, who is in his second year at Laguna. Below are excerpts from the interview.

nial, and it has become that. I know if she were still alive she would be very pleased at what has happened architecturally.

exam to the Naval Academy, I worked as a fireman at the Marine Air Base in Goleta. Following that, I went to Princeton. In 1946, I received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy and remained in the Navy until 1970.

After you graduated in 1944, where did you go to college, and what did you do after you graduated college?

Do you have any engaging or interesting stories that happened to you while you were in the After I graduated, I was hoping to go to the Naval Academy. I went to a Navy? prep school in Long Beach for a short stint, and after taking the entrance The most significant was a collision

with a couple of Russian ships in 1947—70 years ago.

Where did you go after you left the Navy?

I settled with my family in Honolulu, where I lived as a child, and I still live today.

Could you name one teacher who impacted you or your life?

Mr. Townsend and Mr. Heggie were both very important in my life.

FEATURE 13

An Interview with Heart Surgeon

Dr. Dominic Tedesco WORDS Caylin Zimmerman PHOTO Carina Tedesco

Cardiothoracic surgeon and Medical Director of Cardiac Surgery at Community Memorial Hospital, Dr. Tedesco, talks about his journey to becoming a surgeon and what his job is like now.

Dr. Tedesco has been recognized as one of the Los Angeles area’s top doctors, according to Los Angeles Magazine. He was also recognized as Physician of the Year at Community Memorial Hospital and received special recognition from the American Heart Association. For aspiring doctors or Grey’s Anatomy fans, we got the inside scoop on what it’s really like to be a heart surgeon.

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What did you want to be when you were young?

I was always kind of raised to be a doctor; it was something that was kind of expected of me.

How did your father influence you to become a doctor? Why a heart surgeon, specifically?

When I was young, I would go with my father to see patients and make house calls. When I was in medical school, I often times would work in my father’s office as a family practice doctor and he would see coughs and colds and high school physical exams, and that is when I decided I wanted to do something a little more exciting than that.

Did your family support you in your path to become a surgeon?

Having parents in the medical field, I was very supported with my decision.

Although my father didn’t support my path to partake in intercollegiate athletics.

Can you describe what it was like performing your first openheart surgery as the lead surgeon?

The first time, I was extremely nervous and stressed. It was hard to sew because my hand was shaking so much.

What kind of student were you in high school?

I got mostly As and Bs and competed in sports. I was also a little rowdy.

In your opinion, what kinds of skills must a heart surgeon possess?

Compassion, persistence, extreme focus, technical skills and leadership qualities.

Describe what you do.

I have been a heart surgeon for the past 28 years. I evaluate patients for their need for heart or lung surgery, perform those operations, and administer postoperative care toward their recovery.

At University of Michigan, what was you major?

I took all the prerequisites for medical schools, but the Bachelor in General studies allowed me to take all of those without a specific major.

Do you have any suggestions for kids who don’t know what they want to come?

Yeah, just experience as many things as you can, so that you can make a good decision in doing what you really enjoy.

Medical school is known to be very grueling, is there anything specific that helped you to get through medical school?

Yes. I think the fact that I had such demands on my time during college, such as school and sports, that once I got to medical school and my only focus was academics, I actually thought it was easier since I had been well prepared in time management during undergraduate school.

Could you describe a case that stands out the most to you?

A twenty-seven-year-old lady with two babies came in with a viral myocarditis and had a cardiac arrest on the way to the operating room. We were doing CPR and I put in both left and right assist devices for the failing left and right ventricles. She subsequently has had a full recovery after the devices in for about a month.

What is the most rewarding aspect of your job?

The satisfaction of taking people who are critically ill and performing an operation on them, and seeing them fully recover and go back to a fully functional lifestyle.

What do you like least about your job?

Having to tell a family that their loved one died. Losing a patient is an inevitable part of the job, but it never gets any easier.

How has the technology in your field changed or improved since you first started, and how do you predict the field will change in the future?

I think everything is moving more toward minimally-invasive therapies.

Examples such as trans-catheter valve replacements, coronary artery stenting.

Has there ever been a moment in college or your career where you have doubted yourself?

Of course. There are always going to be times when something doesn’t work out the way you want it to, and as a surgeon or athlete you always look at yourself first and see what you could have done differently in order to create a better outcome.

And what did you do to re-encourage yourself?

You just have to keep going. It doesn’t stop, so the next patient comes, and you have to just focus on that. You have to learn to put things behind you and put all your focus on your next feat.

What would you tell a high school or college student who wanted to become a heart surgeon?

You have to really love what you are doing because it is a difficult and stressful work. You have to find it very gratifying, otherwise you won’t be able to keep the strenuous pace day after day.

Are there any common misconceptions about heart surgeons or the field?

I think there’s sometimes a misconception that heart surgeons make tons of money, and you certainly make adequate money, but you aren’t mega rich from being a heart surgeon. I also think there’s a misconception that heart surgeons are prima donnas, and very egotistical.

FEATURE 15

How Much Can Dogs Understand?

WORDS Julia Fay, GRAPHICS Beau Glazier & Julia Fay

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or a long time, people believed that dogs could understand the tone of people’s voices and associate some sounds to objects, but could not recognize concepts, such as bigger or smaller.

Recently, a research study in Budapest, Hungary has shown that dogs are capable of more than we originally thought.

This study used 13 family dogs and had each of them sit in a scanner that measured their brain activity. First, the dogs listened to their owner’s voice saying both common phrases used for praise and neutral words while varying their tone.

The researchers monitored the brain activity of each dog as they listened to the sounds, and found that the dogs processed the words and the tone of voice separately.

Word recognition lit up in the left hemisphere of their brains while tone was registered in their right hemisphere, which is the same way humans process language.

Although the dogs could process familiar words regardless of tone, they only registered praise words as positive attention when it was spoken in a praising tone.

The results of the study show that while dogs might not entirely grasp the meaning of all familiar words, they can distinguish between words they have and have not heard before, and tone can reinforce emotions when speaking.

Studies show that the average dog can understand approximately 165 words including basic commands and other terms.

Words that are associated with actions or objects are easiest to learn. For example, most dogs can understand that the word “leash” is the rope that goes around their neck for walks, but they don’t understand what its purpose actually is.

Body language and context also play a large role in communication. Dogs communicate with each other primarily through body language, so it makes sense that they are very sensitive to our body language.

Besides registering words, dogs can recognize human emotions. If you have a dog, you have probably noticed your dog perk up when you’re scared, or have heard the phrase, “dogs can smell fear.”

This is because dogs, like humans, have a habitual response to fear and when they associate body language with human reactions, they gain an understanding of what humans are like when they are afraid.

This, along with their sense of smell, that is thousands of times more acute than ours, makes it easy for dogs to detect intimidation in humans. Besides fear, research studies have shown that dogs can recognize many different human emotions by combining information from different senses.

The capacity to recognize emotions in a different

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species was a unique human skill up until now.

To do this requires a system of internal categorization of emotional states, which means that dogs must form mental images of positive and negative emotions and are not just displaying learned behaviors when responding to human expressions.

A study published in the journal Applied Animal Behavioral Science shows that dogs can experience empathy and that they adjust their behaviors based on the behaviors exhibited by their owners.

Dogs are more likely to approach a crying person than someone who is behaving normally, and, they respond to sadness with submissive behavior. They have become so attuned to human emotions that they can even sense when humans are being rude to each other and they negatively evaluate people who are angry or rude to their owners.

The one emotion in dogs that is still disputed is whether or not dogs can feel guilt. Most dog owners claim that their dog has a specific guilty look — drooped head, lowered ears, wide eyes — after doing something shameful, but experts have discovered mixed results when trying to test these theories.

There is an abundance of evidence that suggests dogs experience primary emotions, like excitement, distress, fear, anger, joy, and love. However, evidence for secondary emotions like jealousy, pride, and guilt, is extremely rare in animals.

This lack of evidence is likely due to the fact that secondary emotions require a degree of self-consciousness that may not exist in other animals besides humans.

The findings in experiments done on a dog’s ability to experience guilt were complex, but the majority of the results concluded that dogs are not able to feel this emotion.

It is thought that the “guilty look” is simply a submissive response to an angry owner talking down to them. The reason that a dog will not continue to do something wrong, like destroy furniture, if their actions result in their owner being stressed or angry is because a dog is able to connect this response to their behavior and can understand that pleasing their owner is important.

Dogs’ inability to experience guilt cannot be entirely ruled out, however, because other mammals with similar neural processes are capable of feeling secondary emotions, including guilt. In order to fully understand the complexity behind secondary emotions in non-human animals, more research on animal cognition must be carried out.

Dogs can perceive much more than we have given them credit for in the past, so the next time you’re with your furry little friend remember that they are sensing all the love and affection that you’re giving them.

Journalism vs.

Yearbook Pumpkin Carving PHOTOS Sonya Kotler & Sydney Edgecomb PAGE Rose Houglet

alism

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Yearbook

Carina Tedesco ‘18

Fourth Estate staff members competed with the La Honda staff to create the best carved pumpkin.

After voting on Instagram, the La Honda staff won the competition.

Itziar de Pedro ‘19 & Kelly Bickett ‘18

Athena Boyle ‘19, Stella Haffner ‘19, Jordan Bollag ‘19, Maddy Lazarovits ‘18, & Merith Velasquez-Jimenez’18

FEATURE 17

The

www.thefourthestate.net

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GB B &

Hugh Hefner: The Good, The Bad and The Bunny WORDS, GRAPHICS & PAGE Carina Tedesco

With the recent death of Hugh Hefner, it is important to weigh both his positive and negative contributions to the Sexual Revolution and the Civil Rights Movement.

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hen a celebrity passes, our society must decide how we will remember him or her. Typically, we choose to recognize the best qualities of the dead and selectively forget their flaws. Although it is respectful and important to appreciate the positive contributions of the deceased, in order to not repeat mistakes of the past, it is irresponsible to ignore their faults.

One surprising example of this is John Lennon. As a prominent anti-war advocate, our society has given John Lennon the ultimate pacifist persona. However, the factor that is almost always ignored is that, as confirmed by a former member, Lennon was a close supporter of the IRA, an Irish paramilitary organization that was known to use terror tactics such as public bombings and shootings. In fact, many of our most beloved United States presidents of the United States are remembered in solely a positive light, despite their moral faults: the majority of our early presidents owned slaves, yet fought for the freedom of white people.

Yet, our history books either lightly touch upon this or neglect it altogether.

With the recent death of Hugh Hefner, a contradictory figure even while living, many people are falling back to this trend: ignoring his faults and exclusively praising his positive societal contributions.

Just two years into his publication, Playboy Magazine, a predominantly male-targeted lifestyle and entertainment magazine known for its nudity, Hefner agreed to publish an article so controversial that no other progressive magazine or newspaper would publish. The article was titled “The Crooked Man,” and was about a dystopian future where homosexuality was the majority and heterosexuals were outcast. Hefner received floods of hate messages, yet calmly responded by saying, “If it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society, then the reverse is wrong, too.” Hefner had no shame in his support of gay and lesbian rights, including same-sex marriage and transgender rights, decades before they gained significant popular support.

In addition to LGBTQ rights, Hefner was a strong advocate for the rights of African Americans and of women: for desegregation and for reproductive rights. During the Jim Crow era, Hefner hosted concerts where black and white musicians would perform together on the same stage. For his magazine, Hefner hired both black and white journalists and even featured interviews with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. In addition, in the 1960s, Hefner was one of the first to publicly promote black women as beautiful.

Hefner used not only his platform, but also his fortune to help support what he called human rights. He created his own nonprofit that raises awareness and funds for sexual health and rape crisis centers.

Although it is important to recognize Hefner’s contributions to the Civil Rights Movement, his contributions to female objectification should neither be ignored nor forgotten. Playboy Magazine, despite its support of minority rights, had an overwhelmingly greater role in the promotion of women as sexual objects.

Hefner claimed to support women’s rights and to be the “father of the sexual revolution,” however his magazine pioneered the normalization of submissive female icons. Multiple studies have proven that porn contributes to sexual aggression toward women and even abuse.

Not only was Hefner’s magazine contributive to sexual abuse and aggression toward women, but his personal life promoted the same. Throughout his life, there were multiple accounts of sexual abuse by Hefner reported by various women. In 2015, Hefner’s former girlfriend Holly Madison reported that Hefner controlled her choices of makeup and outfits and required her to participate in unwanted sexual acts at least twice per week.

If our children read about Hugh Hefner in their history books as a figure who contributed to the “sexual revolution,” it is important that they also are informed of his contributions to female objectification and understand both the highlights and the flaws of historical figures.

FEATURE 19

little gems History instructor Kevin Shertzer tells us the stories behind the items on the walls and in his classroom.

Q: What’s the first thing you put up?

“I don’t really know. It slowly evolves every year. Student work, really, if you really look at it is the dominant thing in here. I used to have a bunch of history stuff, but it kind of changes as things happen, like last year I put up a cool winter picture of Yale. I put up the picture of the [soccer] team last year — [then sophomore] Alex Koke brought it in, and she was like “You’ve gotta put it up.” I put grand-grandma up just recently.”

Q&A

Q: How do you pick the flags that go up on the ceiling?

“Well, I initially ordered like hundreds and hundreds of dollars of flags and all this different stuff.

For the most part there are two concepts: one is what I teach — like we reference communism, Germany, South Vietnam, Korea — and the second one is just trying to create a hodgepodge of areas — so Africa, South America, Asia, the U.S., Middle East, and then some historical flags. I ordered a bunch, but like this [Cuban flag], minus the pudding stains of course, came back from Alethea [Paradis] who went to Cuba and brought it back for me. I think the rest of them I got on travels. I just think [having the flags] gives a cool look — it makes it a little smaller but hopefully more comfy. I put the POW-MIA one up recently, and I changed that one to the Ugandan flag in memory of Davies — I can’t remember what was there, Turkmenistan or something that really didn’t mean much to me. I guess the third thing is flags that I think look cool. So, it’s a teaching tool, it’s a hodgepodge of the world and, you know, the decor is very important.”

Q: What is the item that came from farthest away?

“Geographically, probably some of the money. A Chinese student gave my this kind of [bird sculpture]. I got this [image of all the teams in the 2010 World Cup with their names in Vietnamese] in Vietnam. A lot of stuff comes from Cambodia — like my weapon storage facility [aka] a chopstick container [filled with pencils]. There’s some money from Africa. You could do this one, I went to a talk from a guy who was on the International Space Station and he brought back that sticker. I don’t know, I try to put up the stuff that’s meaningful from what happens during the year.”

Civil War Bills

Sochi Bill

“This thing’s worth a lot: it’s payment in the Civil War, 50 cents from North Carolina — my cousin got it for me.”

“This one was brought back from Russia by a thoughtful student; it’s a Sochi Olympics [bill]. “

Two Dollar Bill “This is another stack — some two [dollar bills]. This one’s really weird.”

“So, I get these stacks — people go on vacation. People are amazing about giving me these stacks of money. I had my own collection, [too].” www.thefourthestate.net

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WORDS Aura Carlson & Rose Houglet PAGE Rose Houglet PHOTO Sonya Kotler

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1. Ho Chi Minh, 2. Sulieman I, 3. George Washington, 4. Napoleon, 5. Rasputin, 6.

Queen Elizabeth 1, 7. Menelik 11, 8. Leonardo da Vinci, 9. Clemenceau, 10. Oda Nobunaga, 11. John Brown, 12. Winston Churchill, 13. Mom, 14. Dad

Korean War Bills “These are military money [bills mostly] from the Korean war, so this is what the military guys would get — my cousin got me these as well. So, if you were a soldier this is what you’d get to spend money. I don’t really understand why they would do it this way, to tell you the truth. I guess the military would buy [the bills] in mass and it would save them money somehow, it made sure that there was less corruption, or if they were killed the enemy wouldn’t get a bunch of money. I really don’t know.”

“I initially started with copies of Civil War bills that I got from visiting Gettysburg.”

Do you have a favorite item on the wall?

“Surely that [painting based around Washington crossing the Delaware River on Christmas]. It was made by an eighth grader who told me I was boring. She was sitting there like this, doodling, and it was clear that she wasn’t paying attention. So then I talked to her mom, and I finally took [the girl] outside and asked her, “What’s going on?” And she said: “History’s boring, and you’re boring.” And I was like “there’s not much I can do about that,” and it was just one of those things where you don’t really know what to say.

Pretty much the whole year was push and pull with her — she’d get B-somethings, you know, she was a smart girl but she just didn’t apply herself, and there were a lot of parent teacher meetings.

“And then she got into tenth grade (or maybe it was at the end of ninth grade), and I had her again because I did eighth and tenth back then. I asked her to do this painting because she was an amazing artist. The idea was [Washington’s] crossing the Delaware and then in the boat are 11 people that I chose to try to represent all of the world and all of history, and then my mom and dad are in the back. Some of the way she represented them are a little creepy but there’s Ho Chi Minh, representing obviously Asia and the Vietnam war; Sulieman I; Clemenceau; Rasputin; Queen Elizabeth I; Churchill; John Brown; Menelik II; Napoleon; Oda Nobunaga; and Leonardo da Vinci. And then I wanted my parents in the back boat.

“It’s the most meaningful because this painting just totally turned her attitude not necessarily just towards me but towards history — she majored in History and Art in college. It was just one of those moments where you feel like you had an impact, and it was in a very different kind of way, I don’t really know why or how but [young people] often get pigeonholed into being a certain way but it doesn’t always turn out that way down the road of life, so it’s a reminder of that to me when I encounter a student who is having difficulty.”

FEATURE 21

A Dying Sport WORDS Kelly Bickett & Javier Abrego, GRAPHIC Jules Bernard

Health issues have plagued the game of football for years, and if they are not addressed soon the game could be on its way out.

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t is quite obvious that football is a very dangerous sport, and one of the most vulnerable parts of your body while playing the game is the head. In the past couple of years, there has been new findings about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease in the brain linked to repeated blows to the head. CTE causes myriad symptoms, including memory loss, confusion, depression and suicide, mood changes, loss of consciousness, poor impulse control and dementia.

Although CTE can only be diagnosed in a postmortem autopsy of the brain, many who have been diagnosed with CTE shared similar symptoms.

In a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Ann McKee, the leading neuropathologist in the study, examined 202 deceased football players’ brains.

According to the Jama Network, the study found that, “CTE was neuropathologically diagnosed in 177 players including 3 of 14 high school, 48 of 53 college, 9 of 14 semi-professional, 7 of 8 Canadian Football League, and 110 of 111 National Football League players.”

While most of the high school players had only mild pathology compared to the college and professional players, CTE can be contracted at an level of play. There is growing evidence that CTE is related to participation in football. Dr. McKee commented on her findings, “It is no longer debatable whether or not there is a problem in football — there is a problem.”

A similar study conducted by Boston University found 86 cases of CTE in 91 former NFL players’ brains.

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CTE destroys cognitive functions which leads to mood problems. This could potentially cause former NFL players to have a short temper.

The New York Times noted, “Football players in the United States are disproportionately charged with crimes of violence as compared with other professional athletes.”

However, concussions, mild traumatic brain injuries caused by a hard blow to the head, are another possible culprit of the disproportionate levels of violence among football players.

Football is a sport which emphasizes aggression, and when players are taught this at a young age, it can really affect them in the future.

Every year, football leagues across the world think of new ways to stop these head injuries, but there is only so much they can do.

Although coaches can teach “good” tackling form by staying low to prevent head and neck injuries, head to head contact is inevitable and inherent in the nature of the game.

A player can mostly recover from a concussion in a few weeks, but the

longterm effects can be devastating.

Football has been around for decades and is loved by millions, but the consequences and long term effects, for a long time overlooked, are starting to change the way society views the

game.

Football is dying.

As more and more research comes out about health problems of former NFL and college football players, more parents are taking their kids to soccer practice

instead of football practice.

The New York Times’ John Kass interviewed John Herrera, a dad and coach of the Wheaton Rams in the Bill George Youth Football League in the western suburbs of Chicago.

Kass described the decline, “Just four years ago, we had so many boys signing up for football, we had five teams at this fourthgrade level, and from five teams of fourth-graders four years ago, what do we have now?

One team. Just one.”

Football supporters argue that all sports have physical contact like soccer, boxing or rugby, but none compare to football.

The brains of young children, because they are still developing, are most at risk from brain health issues from football.

It is not just the concussions but also the long term health effects that come from repetitive hitting of the head in tackles.

Marc Buoniconti, a former college linebacker who was paralyzed from the shoulders down in a football game 32 years ago, founded the Miami Project, a program to cure paralysis. “I love football. The things you learn at football — the teamwork, the camaraderie, learning how to win, how to lose, the practice, the discipline — everything is so important that you learn in football that you can apply to your life.

[But] no matter what you do, you are always going to hit the head. The head leads the body and no matter how you try to protect the head, it’s just the type

of game where the velocity is just too fast and people are too strong, and there is nothing they can do to really protect the brain. The equipment just doesn’t exist.”

What makes football so dangerous is the design of the game.

According to Kass, “the high impact collisions and sending bodies crashing in high speed is what makes it awesome and dangerous and fun to play.

Heads get in the way. And football provides not only concussions, but by design, multiple hits to the head.”

When asked about why football is popular, football Laguna’s Coach Shane Lopes said, “It’s human nature for people to want to watch or be entertained by violence.”

Kass still believes that something must be done, and suggests, “abandoning face masks, enlarging the ball to make it difficult to throw, switching to one platoon football.”

The NFL’s top health and safety official acknowledged a link between football and CTE and the League has begun to steer young children toward flag football, rather than lose them entirely.

High school football is a different game from the NFL explains Lopes, “there is certainly evidence that the brain is adversely affected by collisions. I’m not as concerned about those issues with our high-school players because the hitting is not the hard. The guys are smaller and they aren’t moving as fast.”

Football is a dangerous sport, but it is very significant in American culture.

Hopefully, these new studies will change the game to save both football players, and football from dying.

SPORTS 23

What is it like being the only girl on the team?

Do you feel you were treated differently than the male players? (Elaborate)

Well, I mean, starting off in preseason it was pretty scary but as time went on I felt really welcome and at home with all the boys because I’m already really familiar with everyone.

I don’t think so, the only difference would be in the locker rooms; if they are having a game, and they need waters, I can’t go in. But tackling I remember during preseason where I would run the drills exactly the same as they would.

What led you to want to play football?

WORDS Beau Glazier GRAPHICS Kailea Hieshima & Beau Glazier PAGE Kailea Hieshima

An interview with junior football player Katherine Perez

Personally, I have always wanted to play football, I’ve just never been given the opportunity to play, and I also wanted to stay in shape.

As a little kid growing up, I remember always seeing little boys playing football and I was super interested in it, but when I tried to join with the other kids they said ‘why would a girl want to play football? You’re probably not even good.’ I feel like that also motivated me. I felt ashamed to want to play football and felt like I had to put that emotion behind me and not pay so much attention to it.

Do you feel you were treated differently than the male players? (Elaborate) I don’t think so, the only difference would be in the locker rooms; if they are having a game, and they need waters, I can’t go in.

But tackling I remember during preseason where I would run the drills exactly the same as they would.

What is it like being the only girl on the team?

Well, I mean, starting off in preseason it was pretty scary, but as time went on I felt really welcome and at home with all the boys because I’m already really familiar with everyone.

What were your biggest takeaways from this experience?

Your mind gives up before your body does. If you push yourself, you can do it.

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Do you have any regrets? (Elaborate) I have no regrets at all. The only regret I have is getting my concussion, because my concussion made it so that I couldn’t continue playing football. I am still ‘on the team’ but I can’t get padded up because I lost so much time during my time out.

Do you have any words of wisdom for other girls who want to play football?

Do it. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and go outside of the box, and don’t feel ashamed for wanting to do something that other girls usually are afraid of. Do it if you really want to, with all of your heart.

What are your opinions about girls playing traditionally male dominated sports?

I think it’s great. Honestly, girls can do an awesome job too. Girls are powerful too.

Expand more on the feminist movement.

I feel like as more girls are playing football it empowers women, it makes them feel like they are at an equal stance which should be all around the world where men and women have an equal stance in the world. Women can do anything they want to do.

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here’s really no denying it: women have fought to be where we are. For decades before the 19th amendment was passed, countless women have picketed and protested, putting themselves in danger so that their daughters might be considered citizens. But even though we had seemingly won the war, there were and still are a multitude of battles left behind.

Among these, the subject of this piece: sexism in sports.

It would take years to count all of the instances where women have proven that they can, in fact, excel in sports.

Tennis player Serena Williams has won 23 Grand Slam Singles titles, 14 Grand Slam Doubles titles, two Grand Slam Mixed Doubles titles, four Olympic gold medals, and countless other accomplishments.

Track and field star Jackie Joyner-Kersee holds the world record of 7,291 points in heptathlon, a combination of seven track and field events, for both women and men, and six Olympic medals.

American Basketball Coach Pat Summitt has led her teams to 1,098 career victories, and spearheaded the transformation of women’s basketball from an unrecognized club sport to a recognized Olympic sport.

And of course you have Billie Jean King, an accomplished tennis player who, in 1973, accepted a challenge from then 55-year old male Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs. Saying that she thought “it would ruin the women’s tour and affect all women’s self esteem” if she didn’t win, King went on to win 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in a match now known as the “Battle of the Sexes.”

In this match, she was able to illustrate that women weren’t (and aren’t) the nerve-filled weaklings that many skeptics depicted them to be. And this isn’t even a fraction of the women who have written history through their sports achievements.

But, despite all of these accomplishments and many more, we are still threatened, put down and considered idiots.

Look at Serena Williams, who was told that the only reason she has been able to excel to the extent that she has is because she is “built like a man.”

Or sports journalist Julie DiCaro, anchor for 670 The Score and a columnist for CBSchicago.com, who was told, after reporting on rape allegations against Blackhawks player Patrick Kane, that “one of the Blackhawks players should beat you to death with their hockey sticks.”

These women have clearly proven themselves — Williams through her numerous titles, and DiCaro through her existing commentary for established outlets — but they are still disrespected and shoved aside.

These, however, are specific examples.

In both sport participation and coaching, we see much lower numbers of women than men.

According to Women in Sport, 1.5 million more men than women participate in sports each month, and only 18 percent of qualified coaches and 9 percent of senior coaches are women.

Furthermore, we have insults like “you fight like a girl,” or “you run like a girl,” or almost anything that ends in “like a girl,” telling our children that it’s not okay to be a ‘girl’ who plays sports, a mindset that is honestly very upsetting. Because we are girls, and we should be encouraged to play

sports rather than be used as insults.

But I can’t ignore the fact that women are biologically different than men, with different hormones, structures and proneness to injury.

The two main hormones at work are, for women, estrogen, and, for men, testosterone. Estrogen in women results in an increase of body fat, while testosterone allows men to have larger skeletal muscles and hearts, as well as increases the manufacture of red blood cells, which absorb oxygen and give men a greater aerobic advantage, according to the New York Times.

Furthermore, while women tend to have more flexible joints, allowing for a greater range of motion, they also tend to be less muscular and more prone to joint injuries.

Realistically, men’s sports are entirely different than women’s sports.

As Williams put it, “the men are a lot faster, they serve harder, they hit harder... a completely different game.”

The point is:,women do not need to play with the men, we do not need to be put to the same standards as men, because, realistically, strength and achievement is all relative. A top female athlete is not going to be at the same level as a top male athlete.

What we do want is for people to agree that our accomplishments are because of our own hard work, not because we are built like men.

To be considered reliable sources when speaking about sports. To be encouraged to play sports rather than told that we are weak, and too much “like a girl.”

We want to be respected.

SPORTS 25

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TENNIS WORDS Ian Brown PHOTO Ava Morouse

he girls tennis team has had a strong start to their season over the last month. While they lost their opening game 10-8 to Orcutt Academy and lost to Santa Barbara High 14-4, they rebounded in their next matches.

This included a 13-5 win over Nordhoff and a 10-8 victory over Carpinteria.

The lady Owls were tested against the St. Bonaventure Serpents, tying them overall with matches won forcing a point differential tiebreaker; they came out on top 88-75.

One of the more significant changes this year to girls tennis is the separation into varsity and junior varsity teams, as the program now has enough new players to split into two sections.

“Tennis is going great so far. I love being out on the courts and playing with the team. I am happy to have Coach Rob

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Cowell again this year, and I think Coach Lauren is doing a great job with the JV girls as well,” said senior varsity player Sophia Bakaev.

When asked about how the season was going, Coach Rob said, “Very well. We played a rigorous schedule from the beginning of the season. We went up against teams that were Division 1 and Division 2. Those are teams that are two divisions ahead of us, at least.” He continued, “The turning point for us was when we beat Carp High, which is a team that we’ve never beaten in my time at Laguna.”

The expansion into two separate teams is a testament to how quickly tennis is expanding at Laguna. “We will see how the season goes but I am optimistic — we have a large team with many talented players. Go Owls,” Bakaev said.

Nina Wolff ‘20 returns the ball over the net.

FOOTBALL WORDS Kelly Bickett PHOTOS Katherine Monroy

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hile losing two seniors, gained sophomore Koby Skinner, freshman Oscar Houglet and junior Katherine Perez. Perez joining this year marks the first time a girl has played on the football team in school history. Unfortunately, Perez received a concussion after getting knocked over in a preseason practice, making her ineligible to play with the team in games.

After many years of participating in the Condor League, the football team has decided become a freelance team, Coach Shane Lopes explained, “Freelance means [that] we do not have a fixed league schedule, so every game that we play is against a non league opponent, which means that in order for us to qualify for the playoffs, we have to [win 75 percent] of the games.”

Senior Javier Abrego commented on the football team’s going freelance “This year hasn’t been very different from previous years. Freelance puts a little more pressure on our team since we have to win a certain amount of games to get a bid for playoffs, but overall, it is the same team chemistry.”

To start off the season, Coach Lopes set up a friendly scrimmage with Villanova Prep to get the boys ready for tough competition. The team won the first three scheduled games against Valley Christian High School, Desert High School, and East Valley, then suffered their first loss at home against Amino Robinson.

The boy’s closest battle was against Valley Christian. “Valley Christian was our best game in the sense that we were compet-

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ing for all four quarters with a good opponent,” said Lopes. The Owls ended up on top with a final score of 32-24.

The senior players are exceptional role models for the younger players. “What makes it easier for the Owls is that there are a lot of senior veterans on the team, so they know what to do, and it takes less time to learn new plays and schemes,” said Abrego.

The Owls won two blowout games against Desert and East Valley High School, winning both 64-0. Coach Lopes commented on loss to Amino Robinson, “It was 44-0 at half-time, but the final score was 60-20, and they didn’t pull their starters out at half time, which reaffirms to us that we are just as competitive as them because we outscored them in the second half. So it is really up to our mindset: our mindset wasn’t good going into the first half, but it was better going into the second, and the results showed that.”

The Owls also endured their second loss of the season against Cate. They tied up the game in the fourth quarter at 20-20, but unfortunately, fell short, losing in overtime 32-20.

The team showed their hard work and spirit during the homecoming game against Milken. To start off the game, senior Laird Fowler caught a touchdown pass thrown by junior Ty Trosky.

The Owls went on to win the game 84-6. The Owls are currently 4-2 in freelance play. When commenting on the future of the season, Abrego said, “We’ve got a lot of talent and so much potential, and we can definitely have a season to remember.”

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CROSS COUNTRY WORDS Rose Houglet PHOTOS provided by Flickr

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fter winning the Condor League’s girls team and individual categories and sending a number of athletes to CIF last year, the Cross Country team set the bar high. But, as this season begins, senior Clay Rodgers explained that this year is no different: “I’d say the we have a ridiculously strong girls team while the guys are strong but still warming up.”

The first meet of the season, the Ojai Invitational at Lake Casitas, was a large race and not part of the Condor League — with over 300 male and 200 female runners participating in the event.

According to Coach David Silverander, “It was the first meet of the season, so it was an introduction or a re-introduction to racing for everyone. The level of competition there is quite high, because there are a lot of larger schools, so it’s a great for our small team to see what that end of the sport looks like.”

Next was the Cate meet, where the Laguna team finished second behind Cate. Silverander described how “the Cate meet was our first chance to see our other Condor League competitors in action, and it also provided another convenient opportunity to get in an extra race beyond just league competition. Everyone ran great, particularly the ladies who set the bar high for the rest of the season (and have continued to deliver).”

Sophomore Julia Guglielmo, who is new to the team, placed ninth and described the meet as “a huge move for me in the season because I improved so much.”

Sophomore Pisci Abrego, who came in fourth, agreed, saying that “the Cate meet was the most important so far, because we had a little more competition than we currently have in the Condor league.”

The first Condor League meet took place at Dunn, where the girls’ team took over the podium — Abrego placed first, senior Aura Carlson second, freshman Daisy Finefrock third and Guglielmo fourth. Unfortunately, the girls were not able to win the team segment of that race, due to their being too small of a team.

The boys placed fifth out of six teams at this meet, with Rodgers placing at 12th, sophomore Ian Brown at 21st, junior Sherlock Jian at 34th, freshman Lucas Chen at 63rd, freshman Peter Smith at 48th and sophomore Kai Nakamura at 13th.

As the team progresses through the Condor League season

Josh Baron ‘19 runs with the ball past Milken defense.

Pisci Abrego ‘20, Aura Carlson ‘18 run at Laguna’s home course meet.

Sherlock Jian ‘19, Peter Smith ‘20, Ian Brown ‘20, Kai Nakamura ‘20 and Clay Rodgers ‘18 start Laguna’s home course meet.

with high chances of qualifying for CIF and winning team and individual titles, senior Isabelle Davenport explains that “this season, because it’s my last one, I look forward to having fun with all of my friends and my beloved coaches… And because it’s the last year I really feel the weight of each meet being the last [time] that I will ever run it.”

No matter how far the team goes this year, Guglielmo explained that although “Cross country is the hardest sport [she has] ever competed in because it’s all a mental game.... in the end, it’s so rewarding because you feel like you have accomplished so much.”

Alex Furukawa ‘18 rushes through the defensive line.

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VOLLEYBALL WORDS Javier Abrego PHOTOS provided by Flickr

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alk into Merovick Gymnasium on a Wednesday night and you’ll see cameramen, parents, teachers, faculty, students, a group of rowdy boys, and the Laguna Blanca girls varsity volleyball team, ready to defeat their next opponent. The girls are having another incredible season with an overall record of 26-4 and a league record of 6-0. They have taken down rivals San Marcos (15-8) and Santa Barbara High School (6-16), two big games for both the community and the team.

“Being a small school in a town of huge public schools, like San Marcos and Santa Barbara, makes us underdogs. So, when we are able to prove the city and the crowd wrong, it’s a great feeling,” said senior Kelly Bickett.

The team has had a number of players who have stepped up.

The addition of sophomores Ainsley McGovern, Audrey Murphy and Macy Christal added “tons of positive energy” said junior Margaux Murphy. “They have all become such solid players we can rely on; it’s great having them on the team.”

Maddie Walker has become one of the team’s go-to players, “She has definitely stepped up this year as one of our setter. She has grown tremendously as a player and learned to stay cool under pressure” said senior Sophia Fay. The Owls now prepare for playoffs, where they hope to go all the way for a CIF championship and then compete for a state championship.

Two years ago the Owls fought their way to the finals and beat Alta Loma for a CIF championship, but last year they fell short to Woodcrest Christian in the semi-finals.

This year the team has been moved up to Division 5 and will be facing unfamiliar teams. Coach Jason Donnelly said, “Heading into the playoffs we will be focused on whatever opponent is opposite us in the bracket. I know our girls will be prepared for whoever it is we face, and we are looking forward to challenges of Division 5.” Seniors Laurel Kujan, Bickett, Sophia and Julia Fay, Kendall White, Kathryn Norris, Caylin Zimmerman, and Abby Corpuz plan to lead the Owls to another CIF Championship.

“It doesn’t matter how big the school is; it matters how talented each player is, and how we act as a team that wins the game,” said Bickett.

Andrew Tolles‘19

Andrew Tolles ‘19 tips the ball over the net.

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Abby Corpuz ‘18 tips the ball over the net.

Margaux Murphy ‘19 hits the ball past the Ojai Valley middle blocker.

BOYS

5 BEACH VOLLEYBALL

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WORDS Ian Brown PHOTO Ava Morouse

he fourth season of the Laguna Blanca’s boys beach volleyball team is off to a strong start. The team has played three games: one against Santa Barbara High School, which they unfortunately lost, and two more against Dos Pueblos and San Marcos, both of which they won. While Laguna may have been much smaller than these public schools, they put up a very good fight, and were ultimately able to triumph over some very competitive teams.

Sophomore Caetano Perez-Marchant, a sophomore on the team who currently has three wins and four losses, seemed confident about our showing so far. When asked whom Perez-Marchant wanted to highlight on the team, he responded “Roth and Tony, for developing their skills for the duration of the season.”

After a victorious start, the players seem confident about their ability to perform in future games. When asked about how he believes the team is performing, coach John Roberts said, “It’s been going really well. We’ve improved a lot, we’ve worked hard, and we’ve had some really good wins.”

Coach John highlighted Kyle Aitchenson and Andrew Tolles, saying that Andrew “is going to be a very important player in the next couple of years,” and that Kyle “is also a very skilled player.”

He also mentioned the ability of some of their newer players, mentioning that “it is always nice” to have new team members be so strong at the game. Beach volleyball is a growing sport at Laguna, and their strength this season during matches ensures that the sport will continue to grow in years to come.

An Interview with Shauna Ericksen INTERVIEW Kelly Bickett PAGE Aura Carlson PHOTO Camila Lemere

Where did you go to college?

I received my bachelor’s in Athletic Training from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2012. I finished my master’s of sports conditioning this year from A.T. Still University.

What previous schools have you worked at?

I have worked at Cate School for the past 3 years. Prior to that, I worked at a couple of physical therapy clinics: San Luis Sports Therapy in Santa Maria, Cennahan Lompoc Therapy and Hayashide.

When did you decide to become a trainer? Why did you chose to become a trainer?

I knew in high school that I wanted to be a physical therapist after receiving therapy for a knee injury. When I got to college, I found out I could provide therapy specifically for athletes by becoming an athletic trainer. I knew right then.

What do you like about Laguna Athletics?

I felt right at home with the students and coaches. The athletic program is very small, which makes managing and preventing injuries a little easier; however I encourage everyone to be involved in athletics. Your high school experience is not complete without a team sport.

What is your favorite sport?

It is really hard to pick a favorite sport. I played softball and water polo growing up and now play roller derby, and I am a runner. I enjoy watching all sports because of my competitive nature.

What is your opinion on stretching?

Dynamic stretching before sports is extremely important in preventing injuries and making sure the body is warmed up and ready to go.

Please explain the concussion program that you have started?

Thank you for asking! The C3Logix program is an integrated concussion management system. Using the iPad as the assessment tool we utilize an accelerometer and gyroscopic data to assess balance, visual acuity, processing speed and reaction time.

These are common faculties that get disrupted after a concussion. Having baseline values in these categories help the sports medicine team determine the severity of a concussion and estimate length of recovery. Data is uploaded to a cloud database that doctors can access during evaluation.

Why is important to exercise?

Motion is lotion and exercise is medicine. Exercise and strength training are crucial to keep the body functioning. It helps the heart and lungs get stronger to pump more blood to the brain.

The brain releases good hormones that increase awareness and productivity and improve blood.

What is an interesting fact that no one knows about you?

I was highly involved with home economics for 8 years. I held several positions of office at regional and state level in the student led organization FHA-HERO. I also played the clarinet for 8 years and was in the high school marching band.

What is an interesting fact about the human body and working out?

The human body’s capability to adapt to stressors imposed by exercising, to become a more efficient machine. Every single system affects another. The biochemistry that takes place is beyond fascinating and the more good fuel we ingest and the more we exercise, the better environment we create that allows these biochemical reactions to occur.

SPORTS 29

The Jellyfish Apocalypse WORDS & GRAPHIC Jules Bernard

A bold title for the small benign jellies we can see on the shores of our Santa Barbara beaches, but jellyfish pose a real threat to everyone on the planet.

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s our oceans take in more and more of the carbon we produce, through a process of molecular bonding, the oceans’ pH lowers. This means that the oceans are becoming more acidic. This change negatively affects Elasmobranchii, a category of predators including the sharks I have talked about in previous articles, and animals with exoskeletons, including Crustaceans, Turtles, and Mollusks. In fact, almost every animal in the oceans will be negatively effected by the increased acidity, except jellyfish.

It’s not necessarily that they enjoy acidic water itself, it’s the set of conditions that accompany it.

Jellyfish polyps can sit dormant for decades, cloning themselves continuously, waiting for the perfect conditions. To really understand the true dangers the jellyfish pose, we first have to start with the basics.

Let’s talk about reproduction. When a male jellyfish reaches sexual maturity, he releases sperm into the ocean that swim into the mouth of the female jellyfish to reach her eggs. After being fertilized, the eggs turn into microscopic larvae that drift through the ocean until the find a hard surface to cling to. That larvae then turns into a tube that creates stacks of baby jellyfish. Each tube creates more than one baby jellyfish, the tubes, technically called polyps, then continually clone themselves to create more and more baby making machines. This may seem overwhelming, that every two jellyfish can create millions of cloned baby jellyfish, but the good news is that polyps don’t reach the stage where they turn into stacks of baby jellyfish unless conditions are just right.

This may have kept populations from booming in previous years, but, unfortu-

cause some jellyfish have adapted to grow their own food. In a freshwater landlocked quarry in Florida, jellyfish have adapted to live off single celled algae they grow on their tentacles and underside by floating upside down to expose the cells to sunlight. In fact, there are only five states left in the United States that haven’t had their freshwaters infiltrated by jellyfish species, according to National Geographic. We also know that with jellyfish species living in the arctic waters as well as the Indian

Help!

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What to do if you get stung

DON’T

nately, the “perfect conditions” for the mass discharge of jellyfish that has been building up, aligns perfectly with the effects of climate change. We still don’t know nearly enough about jellyfish, but what we do know is that polyps prefer to bloom into jellyfish when the water is warm, one of the biggest effects climate change has already had on the ocean.

We are creating safe havens for these dangerous creatures by dumping and allowing fertilizers to seep into the seas.

When fertilizers run off into the waters around them, the phosphorus and nitrogen compounds, that help plants grow on land, encourage rapid algae growth on the ocean’s surface. The algae then use up all the fertilizers’ nutrients and then die and decompose. This creates hypoxic conditions, which means there is less oxygen in the surrounding waters than is needed for organismal survival. In dead zones, little life can survive the decreased oxygen content, but jellyfish find these areas to be ideal breeding grounds. With more than 405 dead zones classified around the world by Scientific America, they are the ideal bloom zone. Blooms are thick pulsing carpets of jellyfish, like the scene in Nemo except with possibly millions of one type of jellyfish, instead of the hundreds depicted on screen. With no natural predators, jellyfish are free to reproduce as much as they can with no casualties.

You may think, so what if jellyfish can live there, it’s not like anything else can?

Unfortunately, jellyfish are able to survive in all ocean climates. They have an ability to store oxygen within their bells that allows them to live near hydrothermal vents and in dead zones. They can live in areas where absolutely no other animals can or where there is no food be-

Use vinegar to rinse off tentacles Apply heat

Use seawater to rinse off tentacles Pee on it

Scrape off the tentacles Apply ice

Ocean, temperature is not a limiting factor in all jellyfish migration, but poisonous jellyfish do prefer warmer waters. Jellyfish cannot be stopped by any climatic or habitat factors.

So, how will all of this affect us personally?

We all fear sharks, but jellyfish have a far higher death toll.

According to the US

National Science Foundation, in the Philippines alone, box jellyfish kill 40 people per year.

In Hawaii, the much loved Waikiki beach is a breeding ground for Box Jellyfish. Box Jellyfish are more poisonous than other jellyfish stings. In June, the monthly swarm of thousands that occurs eight to ten days after the full moon, was particularly bad.

The first day, 88 water goers were stung, and the next day 63 were. Box Jellyfish stings require hospitalization, and the excruciating pain can last for over a month in certain cases. Our beaches and lifestyle will dramatically change as poisonous, warm weather jellyfish migrate farther up the coast. Beach goers must become more wary of their surrounding as these monsters continue to become a more real and painful threat.

It isn’t just our recreational lifestyle that will have to change. In the United States, most of our energy comes from power plants of some type. Whether it’s nuclear, coal, or hydroelectric, all require influxes of water. In 2005, the water that was used to cool down a Swedish nuclear plant’s reactor became full of jellyfish and caused it to shut down. In 2013, a similar incident occurred at the same plant.

In 1999, the Manila Power Plant’s cooling facilities became blocked by a bloom of jellyfish. The coal plant had been supplying power to 40 million residents and for 10 hours the area had a complete blackout. This year, Israel’s Electric Corp. power plants, that draw their coolant water from the Mediterranean, almost suffered massive failure because a jellyfish bloom was clogging the intake areas. These jellyfish are becoming real threats to our lifestyles, and the Jellyfish Apocalypse has begun.

OPINION 31

PHOTO Gary Robinson

Why the senior lot should be reserved for seniors and faculty members WORDS Mia Waters PHOTO Sydney Edgecomb PAGE Mia Waters & Kailea Hieshima

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urning 16 means one thing: driving, and, with driving, comes parking.You’re excited to show off your car and newfound driving abilities.You pull into school and take a prime spot in the widely recognized, very convenient senior mini-lot.

When I was a freshman and sophomore, the lot near the training room was strictly seniors, and no underclassman would dare to park there. This is how it had been for years. When the tiny class of 2017 was unable to fill all the spots, they generously gave us the remaining spots. Now that the senior class of 2018 has 51 students, I believe the senior lot should be reserved for faculty and seniors.

I also think that your senior parking privilege should be able to be revoked. The rule is that whenever anyone leaves campus they are supposed to sign out in the main office, but nobody follows this rule. This rule is necessary to follow because if there were to be any sort of drill or disaster you won’t be accounted for, causing faculty to panic. If this were to happen your teachers and fellow classmates would jump to the conclusion that you are stuck on campus and unable to make it to the field safely. This is not the most ideal situation.

In order to effectively enforce this rule would be to take away the senior’s parking privilege if you are seen leaving without having had signed out. This way, seniors will actually have an incentive to sign out before leaving campus.

Underclassmen don’t need to drive. Their classmates are not all driving, and they have been doing just fine being dropped off so far. Seniors usually have no other choice. Imagine pulling into school with five minutes to spare and the closest spot is all the way by the roundabout.

Even though you got to school early, you spend three minutes circling around the parking lot looking for a spot, and by the time you find one you have two minutes to park and run up to class. Unless you’re a star cross country runner, odds are you’re going to be late to class.

I can see how this will cause a commotion in the lower grades, but this is the logical way. Obviously if there are empty spots and it’s the second period of the day, the lower class man should be able to park in that lot. But the loss of seniors’ parking privileges, a part of the long term attack on senior sovereignty, must be reversed, lest seniors have valid excuses for being late to class.

This parking dispute has been around for the last three years and it’s time to put it to rest. This may not seem fair to the other grades, but it’s part of high school. The years before us went through this and so should the years below us.

Oops.

WORDS & PAGE Kailea Hieshima

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he weirdest, most confusing, most racist thing I’ve ever had anyone say to me was “oh, I thought you were one of the lucky ones adopted from Asia.” The confusing part was not what she had said, or how she had said it. It was the fact that she had said it in the first place, and the fact that it didn’t even cross her mind that that’s not something you say to a person.

Mind you, I had never met this woman before. I had not seen her in passing, not smiled at her in Starbucks, not been crossing the street at the same time as her. This was just some random woman at 1:00 a.m. in the same emergency vet clinic as us, telling me that she thought I looked like I had been adopted from Asia because my mother “looked white.” Who does that?

Apparently, that woman.

But she’s not the only one. My mother described that when I was just a youngster, still in a stroller, a woman walked up to her and asked her where she got me. Honestly, people, find some tact.

The fact a child looks a little bit different from its parent, or its skin color is a little bit lighter or darker, does not mean that it is adopted, and even if it is, who cares? If you want to know where to adopt a child from Asia, there’s this thing called Google that might have something on the subject. But that’s not what this is about. This is about the fact that people don’t have filters. They don’t think before they talk, and they don’t know when to stop.

Free speech is a basic right that gives us the privilege to say what we want, when we want, but it shouldn’t be used to objectify or put down other people. And when words just pop out of your mouth, and you don’t think before you speak, the odds of objectifying someone or offending someone are much greater. I guess what I’m saying is that we need to learn how to think before we speak.

Think about how our words will affect others — and use them for good rather than evil. Because the fact that people still find it okay to use insensitive, unthoughtful speech, shows that our world is moving backwards, and we need to find a way to change that.

OPINION 35

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eality TV has catapulted us into an age of shallow role models and conversation starters. I can’t get through a day without hearing some mention of the Kardashians or Jenners, nor can I spend a Monday night without a post from @bachelorabc promising “the most dramatic season of the Bachelor.”

And even before Donald Trump was elected President, I couldn’t get away from his voice and his face on TV every week.

The idea of having an hour each week dedicated to following around seemingly normal people as they go through their “normal” days, try to have “normal” relationships, and get in a surprising amount of meaningless discussions and fights, has catapulted people with zero talent to the very top of the celebrity stratosphere.

Whether it be the Kardashians, the contestants of the “Bachelor,” or Donald Trump himself, these people have managed to climb to the top of not only fame, but also our conversations.

They have achieved this seemingly impossible feat without genius, humor talent or entrepreneurial spirit. The bulk of their success is thanks to luck, a camera and a ridiculous amount of drama.

The Kardashians are everywhere.

They have single-handedly redefined beauty standards in America, dictated fashion trends and created empires in modeling, fitness, makeup, clothing, apps, video games and even books.

And, of course, TV. In the 10 years “Keeping up with the Kardashians” has been on TV, the family has become a staple of American society and values, turning these standards towards money and superficiality.

These women have taken the reality out of their lives — they get lip injections at 16, become teen billionaires, go through unhealthy relationships, start families at 20...all while filming it for American society.

The American Dream of achieving success through hard work, determination and initiative has been replaced by the American Dream of perfect hourglass bodies, eight Lamborghinis in the

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garage, a rapper boyfriend and a life where no talent and little effort can lead to endless wealth and status.

I’m someone who gets ridiculously excited when a new season of the “Bachelor,” “Bachelorette” or “Bachelor in Paradise” is starting. Even though I find the show absurd, sad,and ridiculous, I can’t keep from watching it.

The idea that 25 people truly believe that they are going to meet their soul mate on a national TV show, date that soul mate with 24 significant others, and end up living happily ever after is both captivating and senseless.

But perhaps the craziest part of the whole show is the fame the contestants find long after the cameras stop rolling. Contestants usually quit their jobs, amass hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, post sponsored photos, and end up with podcasts, blogs or separate TV shows. No special talents went into these contestants becoming celebrities with their own brand deals, fashion lines and talk shows.

Donald Trump became a household name thanks to his history with reality TV. It is in his rise from reality TV one can see the power reality TV has on an individual and a culture.

Although “The Apprentice” may not have guaranteed Trump’s election as president, it certainly was a catalyst for it. The show portrayed Trump’s lavish life full of Trump towers and never ending golf courses.

It portrayed Trump’s anger-fueled but charismatic personality. So, when Trump decided to run for presidency, he already had millions of fans eagerly awaiting for his bold statements like “You’re fired.”

It’s easy to look at reality TV and the obsession that comes along with it and say: Why do we even care? But as the networks, magazines and news channels continue to feed our obsessions with these fabrications of society, the effects of reality TV are no longer inane moments to which just a few people can relate. We are seeing now that Reality TV is reshaping the way our society functions, from the way we love to the way we vote.

We are seeing now that Reality TV is reshaping the way our society functions, from the way we love to the way we vote.”

Keeping Up with Reality WORDS Kathryn Norris, GRAPHIC Sofia Fouroohimartin

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eginning freshman year, I was excited and inspired to start my own club. I decided to start an animal rights club after coming to the conclusion that it seemed to be the least represented cause. I made a sign and gathered a very small following of friends who also shared an interest in helping animals.

Empowered and restless to spread the word, I set up my booth and sign up sheet at the club fair. However, it turns out people were more interested in the snacks I had to offer than the movement I was promoting. During the fair, I was surprised by the small number of emails on my clip board, but more than that, I was surprised by how many snarky comments I got. People were coming up to me and blatantly asking “do you have any steak?” or making jokes about hunting squirrels and shooting birds.

The fact that people even considered saying these things, and did, was dumbfounding and heartbreaking. Throughout the year, I started to notice and listen to people as they nonchalantly discussed horrifying subjects like slaughtering various animals.

I often asked myself: “Is it just me? Am I overly sensitive?” I did not find any of this uncompassionate banter amusing. In truth, I was not overly sensitive John Lennon once sung, “living is easy with eyes closed.”

Ignorance is truly bliss.

It is easier to shut out the truth than to face it with open eyes and open hearts. Needless to say, my club did not make it through the year. I decided to end it due to lack of support and also because I concluded that taking a more practical approach to the issue would be a better way to begin changing people’s minds.

I will keep defending animals within my community, and I do hope to build awareness, to instill the compassion, and to further the conversation.

We, as a species, are on the brink of a quantum leap and we need to fight for compassion, the antidote to all of the world’s suffering.

I hope in a half of a century we will be ready to advocate for interspecies rights but until then, my fellow humans, let’s get our shoes and signs and march!

OPINION 37

Real Men Don’t Cry WORDS & GRAPHIC Jack Stein

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’m a 16-year-old straight white guy, and, in general, things are pretty easy for me.

I don’t have to deal with discrimination about my race, gender, or sexual orientation on a daily basis like too many other people my age around the world.

With that in mind, however, there is still one societal expectation regarding men as a whole that is a problem not just for me and other people at Laguna, but for men young and old across America.

In 21st century America, teenagers are constantly subjected to a bombardment of pop culture, and it’s pretty awesome for the most part.

Thanks to smartphones and computers, our lives are saturated with movies, music, celebrities, artists, video games, apps and essentially every conceivable form of entertainment almost constantly.

So it only makes sense that the artists and figures who create the media that we consume constantly would shift to become role models for the modern high schooler.

While many of these pop culture figures are hardworking, responsible creators that serve as excellent role models for young people, the society that created them is much less benevolent.

Societal standards and norms have warped the everyday person’s idea of what a teenager should be, and these expectations can be really unhealthy.

If you want to see society’s ideal man, the best place to look is to our action heroes.

Since the dawn of movies we’ve seen the gradual evolution of the male protagonist. From the brooding, stoic gunslinger depicted in the Eastwood spaghetti

westerns to the brooding, stoic hero of the 90s crime dramas á la “Pulp Fiction” and “Goodfellas” to the brooding, stoic hero depicted in whatever gritty superhero blockbuster Marvel or DC is churning out this summer… well, I think you can probably detect a theme.

And yes, with movies like 2017s “Wonder Woman” or “Atomic Blonde,” female representation in action blockbusters is gradually improving, which, while amazing, still doesn’t fix another pressing issue in the world of protagonists: even in our progressive society, the average male hero lacks the most basic human character aspect: emotion.

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nuclear family.

The enormous influence of TV and advertising, rising titans in the world of entertainment at the time, propagated several harmful gender roles that still have a strong effect on families and people today.

The man was established as the caregiver, the rock of the family unit, infallible and emotionless. He does his job and comes home to a warm meal prepared by his wife, who has also been hard at work all day: cleaning the house, taking care of the kids, and preparing a meal for her husband.

Of course today, as individuals, we can easily understand how absurd these ideas are.

To restrict men or women to a certain lifestyle, i.e. being a homemaker or a breadwinner, determined by their gender is absolutely ridiculous.

But it was only around the 1970s when American men and women began to question these ideas, and the women’s liberation movement became the prevalent social attitude of the next generation.

But men remained chained to the flawed role of the overconfident, long-suffering, stoic master of his domain.

But as a human being, and especially as a teenager, I often have very strong emotions. Social stresses, the sometimes overwhelming workload of the challenging Laguna classes that I’m taking, the time commitment of several taxing extracurriculars and the constant, looming presence of college just around the corner can be really overwhelming.

However, as a man, I am raised not to deal with these emotions and stresses in a

As a man, I am raised not to deal with these emotions in a healthy way... and there’s something inherently wrong with that.

For all the scenes of heroes landing punches and beating up aliens, super-villains or evil robots, there is a notable lack of scenes of these same heroes talking about how these battles make them feel.

I’m not trying to sound preachy: it’s just a fact. And this lack of emotional representation, derived from a stigma about men displaying emotion, is proving to be toxic for modern teenagers.

Many of today’s gender roles and stereotypes can be dated back to America in the 1950s. The 50s, under the looming threat of the nuclear bomb, gave rise to something much more dangerous: the

healthy way. Social stature and others’ perception of masculinity — two things that we have been raised by media and culture to view as incredibly important — are considered to be mutually exclusive with showing and talking about our feelings.

And there’s something inherently wrong with that.

At Laguna, I got lucky. I managed to avoid most of these stigmas and social pressures by finding a warm and supportive group of close friends (funny enough, mostly women) with whom I can feel comfortable talking about my feelings.

But Laguna is a progressive, inviting community. The problems that I have to deal with on a daily basis are much less

The best way to approach this problem is with understanding. A lot of guys can feel trapped and even scared — high school isn’t an easy time for anybody.

Most high schoolers are still figuring out their identities, and that’s really hard to do in an environment where you don’t feel comfortable being yourself or expressing your feelings.

And guys don’t necessarily need to tell everybody exactly how they’re feeling all the time. That would be ridiculous for anybody. What’s important is that they know they have the option to talk to their close friends, including other boys, about how they feel without having to worry about

feelings and problems, and, even if they don’t talk to you specifically about it, make sure that they get the help they need to get through whatever it is.

Because we’re in high school, where a problem that may seem stupid to some people can be devastating to another.

Artists have begun to adopt this mindset. Chance the Rapper, Childish Gambino and Lil Dicky are among some of those in the rap world — one that has traditionally frowned on artists that reject typical masculinity — who are showing more and more emotional openness in their lyrics.

“Modern” action heroes, like the character Baby from the movie “Baby Driver” are also proving that to be an awesome, interesting protagonist, you don’t necessarily need to be an emotionless statue.

But universal social change is hard. It’s up to students like those at Laguna to put in the effort to make the world a better,

extreme than what many other young adults across the country have to.

And since these kids told, both overtly and subliminally, that talking about their problems and their feelings will make them “less of a man,” or “gay,” and these are things that they feel will make them lose respect and status in their communities, none of these problems get fixed. And even if the problems themselves may be small, their consequences can be severe.

Teenage boys feel isolated, alienated and completely alone.

This inability of our society’s men to deal with our problems can lead to depression, or worse: harm to themselves or others.

being judged as uncool or disrespected.

And, putting gender aside for a second, if you have friends who seem like they may be going through something that they’re afraid to talk about, make sure to let them know that they have an environment where they can openly talk about their

safer place, and sometimes that can take as little as showing a bit of compassion.

And if being “masculine” means that you can’t open up to your friends and family, then maybe as a culture we need to find a new standard for male coolness.

OPINION 39

52%

LAGUNA STUDENTS’ AVERAGE DAILY PHONE USE Data from the app Moment downloaded for 18 days

1 hour 2 hours 5 hours

of students go on their phone in the bathroom

Rose Houglet Aura Carlson Mia Waters

7.7 in 10

people go on their phones when they wake up in the morning

30.9%

28.5% 19.5%

12.2% 8.9%

apps students spend the most time on Night

Evening

6.4%

Afternoon

Morning

3.2%

56%

34.4%

times of day students go on their phone the most all data gathered through a Google survey answered by 125 high school students

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Are YOU Addicted?

WORDS Aura Carlson GRAPHICS Jack Stein

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ou are at In-N-Out.You’ve just ordered a number 2, which includes a medium sized drink.You have paid your $5.65, so you make your way over to the soda dispensers.You fill your cup with Minute Maid Lemonade. Then you look up and see there are no places to sit, so you lean against the counter supporting the bench where everyone else is sitting.You open your phone, open up Snapchat, look at all the stories, open up Instagram, scroll through your feed until there’s nothing new. It’s over, there’s no more entertainment.

Your phone goes back into your pocket and you take a sip of your lemonade.You actually look around at your surroundings, and you notice that everyone’s eyes are glued to phone screens.

No one notices the family of a mom, dad, grandma, and child interacting only in sign language. No one notices the In N Out employees laughing behind the counter. People aren’t interacting. People aren’t noticing what’s happening in the world around them.

According to Digital Mobile Radio (DMR), adults in the U.S. spend an average of 2 hours and 54 minutes every day on their phones. That’s about 86 hours per month and 1,032 hours per year. For teenagers, the numbers increase.

According to a Common Sense Media study, on average, teens who own a smartphone spend four hours and 38 minutes everyday on their phones. Commenting on teenagers’ use of phones, Atlantic reporter Jean Twenge said, “The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health.”

At Laguna, according to a Google survey sent out by the Fourth Estate answered by 125 students, 61.5 percent said they think they open their phones between 0 to 60 times per day.

However, according to a Deloitte study, on average, teens open

their phones 74 times a day.

According to the same Google survey, 48.8 percent of kids said they spend too much time on their phones, 59.4 percent claiming to spend the most time on Instagram and Snapchat.

When asked if she would be upset if she didn’t have her phone, sophomore Maeve O’Connor said, “Honestly, probably. If it’s way from me then I can usually go without it for a while, but if I know that it’s nearby, I usually go on it.”

Senior Clare Ogle, who doesn’t have any social media apps says that she actually doesn’t spend too much time on her phone, saying, “I see other people getting into it and obviously sometimes I feel like I’m missing out but then I see people so absorbed in it and I’m happy that that’s not part of my life.”

So, what are the actual reasons why teens and adults use smartphones so much?

Based off the results from the Google survey, it’s clear that the reason for people being on their phones for so long is because of popular social apps such as Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, etc. that have scientifically researched techniques to keep you on their app.

Yes, there have been studies that find using phones too much decreases our attention span and learning ability, but so far those studies haven’t stopped us.

Sophomore Sullivan Israel, who doesn’t own a smartphone commented on the issue saying, “the addiction, the cyber bullying, the bright light making it hard for people to sleep, the distraction, and the money is just not worth it. People often wonder what I do when I could be on my phone. I am outside. I am playing with my younger sister and enjoying every moment. I am reading. I am drawing. I am doing all kinds of fun things. There just isn’t room for a phone in my life.”

LIFESTYLE 41

I

n the world of music, some artists and groups are just… legends. The Beatles. Eric Clapton. The Rolling Stones.

Aretha Franklin. Nirvana. Janis Joplin.

These are musical groups whose music and effect on culture has been permanently stamped on the minds of people across the world.

The recent, staggering, spontaneous death of Tom Petty at 66 has really put a lot of things into perspective for musicians and music lovers.

Someone with such a cultural impact seemed immortal, and for him to be gone so soon seemed like a sick joke— but nothing, even music, lasts forever.

That being said, there’s some music that certainly seems that way. The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” placed by Rolling Stone

”

as the greatest record of all time, seems like a record that will never truly fall out of the public consciousness.

Compared to their godlike reputations, the humble beginnings of musical legends can be surprising.

When the Who, one of the most influential rock bands of all time, started out, they were just a group of poor English kids.

They thought there might be something to this whole Rock and Roll idea that was becoming popular in England, and they ended up laying the foundations for modern Rock and Roll and Punk Rock, and created the idea of the concept album as we know it today.

The real question is which artists from today will survive the next twenty, fifty, one hundred years?

Panic! at the Disco because of the cult following that they already have.

I challenge you to find one person who hasn’t heard a song by them.”

www.thefourthestate.net

”

Staying in Tune WORDS Jack Stein GRAPHICS Jack Stein

I asked junior Charlie Markham, modern music aficionado, his top picks for artists whose fame will last through the next fifty years.

Ed Sheeran, because he’s very famous right now and I think he’s got the talent, attitude and determination to keep doing well in the music industry and still look good in the public eye.”

”

Kanye West, somewhat because he’s still working on producing amazing music (“Life of Pablo” is an amazing album) and he can’t stand not to be in the spotlight. But in 50 years I don’t think he’ll be as famous for his music as he will be for his clothing company, Yeezy.”

PAGE Kendall White

#yourfallinstagrams TOP POSTS

Q&A with

RECENT GRADS WORDS Rose Houglet PHOTOS provided by Alumni

Were you going for a specific theme with your dorm room? If so, what was the theme? Did you and your roommate coordinate the things you bought?

Melissa: At first I did try to go for a retro themed dorm but I was so busy with work that I didn’t really have time to go out and get all the things I needed. My roommates and I didn’t really coordinate anything other than a refrigerator and vacuum.

Natasha: My dorm room does not really have a theme, as my roommate and I had not exactly coordinated our decorations, although we did know that we would both have white bedding. Despite not planning our decorations, my roommate and I did coordinate on more practical things, such as a rug, a tea kettle, a refrigerator etc.

How many roommates do you have? How did you get paired with your roommate(s)? Do you guys get along?

M: I have two roommates. At Chapman you take a short survey for housing.They pair you by that and your major/college.We do get along and hang out outside of the dorm, but it’s kind of tough sometimes because we do share a bathroom. Literally, just now, I came back from the library and needed to shower before going back, but my roommate was in there and she took FOREVER. But it’s fine. I’m fine lol.

N: I have one roommate. In the spring, she found me on Facebook and asked if I would like to room with her. After asking a few critical questions to see if we would be compliant, I agreed.We get along really well, and it’s nice because we are in the same friend group and have a similar idea for our intended majors as well.

Natasha Heyer ‘17

Melissa Silva ‘17 Where did you buy the majority of your dorm things?

M: I bought all of my things from Target.

N: Bed Bath & Beyond has a really great program where you can order the necessities online and pick them up at the Bed Bath & Beyond that is closest to your campus. For a lot of the decorations including posters, decorative pillows and fun crafts that served as a bonding opportunity for me and my roommate and that doubled as decoration, I relied mostly on Etsy.

Do you have any tips for the current senior class about moving into your dorm?

M: I think that you shouldn’t bring TOO many things for your dorm.

Just the basics. One of my roommates brought literally everything, and I don’t think she’s ever used them. She can’t even find some of the things she really needs because there are so many things in her containers.

N: As you probably know, college closets are very limited, so most people rely on under the bed storage. If you go to a school that is within driving distance from home, you can pre-pack tubs so when you get to campus all you have to do is put them under the bed, and you barely have to do any unpacking.This made the difference between how long it took for my roommate and I to unpack.

For more answers, please check out: www.thefourthestate.net

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fresh juices They have high levels of antioxidants like anthocyanin and are rich in Vitamin C, which helps reduce stress.

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WORDS, PHOTO & PAGE Phoebe Stein & Daisy Finefrock GRAPHIC Itziar de Pedro

pistachios

Feeling stressed out? Homework and studying taking over your life?

Here are 6 healthy and yummy foods that will help you calm down during the school year!

The rhythmic cracking of pistachio shells helps you relax and slows down your eating. It lowers your heart rate and provides you with a routine, which is always good when trying to be calm and relaxed.

avocados salmon

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Stress causes hormones like adrenaline and cortisol to course through your body. Salmon has properties that help counteract the stress and negative effects of stress hormones.

asparagus

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Asparagus is high in folate, which helps you calm down by reducing anxiety and tension.You can enjoy asparagus steamed, as a part of a healthy salad or even charbroiled with lemon and spices.

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6

Avocados are filled with glutathione, which is a chemical found in the body that stops intestinal absorption that causes damage. They also have a lot of vitamins B and E.

dark chocolate

Dark chocolate lowers stress hormones like cortisol, and it has antioxidants that help the walls of the blood vessels relax. It has natural substances that cause a sense of euphoria.

Some studies recommend for one to have a square a day to increase happiness, sharpen your mind and help clear your skin.

LIFESTYLE 45

W

hether you hate, appreciate, or merely disregard this art form, there is no doubt that tattoo culture is currently generating more and more influence in the world.

Initially invented around 15,200 B.C. E in multiple parts around the world as means of disguise and demonstrations of power, tattoos have been practiced by humankind since prehistory.

Tattoos saw human beings move out of the caves, take off animal skins, begin to perform agriculture, establish laws, become what we are today, and have remained for the most part unchanged, except that they have become more convenient and clean.

However, the purpose of tattooing has been completely altered. Decoration and conveying identity seem to be the major reasons for the existence of tattoos nowadays, and they are more popular now than ever before in American history.

Although society has always held slight discriminations toward those who have tattoos, it is of no doubt that tattoo culture is gaining more and more popularity.

According to Anna Sanford of AlterNet. org, “Tattoos are more popular than ever in the United States with the industry growing 13 percent annually between 2011 to 2016 and acquiring an unprecedented $1billion in revenue last year”.

Due to the continuous impact tattoos gain globally, some of the best companies in the world have issued direct policies for tattoos. The perspectives toward tattoos vary significantly among companies.

Long-standing prejudices against tattoos represent a challenge for the 45 million people in United states who have at least one tattoo.

According to skinfo.com, 37 percent of HR managers claim that body art will create hurdles for their owners’ career

potentials.

While at the same time, statistics show that our society is moving toward the direction where tattoos will be more widely accepted.

According to skinfo.com, among people 60 and older, 63 percent of them consider tattoos as inappropriate at work, while only 22 percent of people aged 18-25 agree with this.

Across the world, some companies openly show their appreciations toward tattoos.

Cosmetic retailer Lush, located in Poole, UK, believes that tattoos “encourage employees to be their authentic selves at work.” Their hiring managers are trained to be more inclusive and open-minded about other’s individualities.

Identity and decoration are two crucial and interrelated parts of the tattoo culture.

Social studies instructor Blake Dorfman, reveals how important it is to choose the theme of a tattoo, saying “it has to have a life-long meaning that can identify you, since it is going to be part of you for a long time.”

Dorfman has three tattoos: a Trojan on his back, the seal of the city of Santa Barbara on his leg, and a lion of Judah on his shoulder.

He got the Trojan tattoo as a freshman at USC. He spoke with joy as he recalled, “we beat UCLA in a football game, and, at that time, we really felt a sense of family and pride.”

Then, he pulled up the leg of his trouser to reveal his second tattoo, adding, “I got the tattoo of the city seal of Santa Barbara because it represents my roots.”

And about his third tattoo, he said, “The Lion of Judah symbolizes the force that drove away conquerors.” He greatly values this independence and grit.

He also has a tattoo with the word “strength” written in Swedish, his family’s country of origin, under the Lion of Judah.

The tattoo culture continues to convert itself from its origins of gang and crime to a mainstream art form.

WORDS Jack Zhang GRAPHIC Beau Glazier

Having known about the stereotype that centers around people who have tattoos, Dorfman holds optimistic view, “this is changing quickly, and I am happy to be part of the change. See? I am a seventh grade teacher with a stable family and I’ve got tattoos.”

Senior Sasha Hsu has six tattoos in total, each representing his values in different ways.

When asked about his favorite tattoo, he did not hesitate to choose the arrow right below his neck, which provides great motivation for him whenever he is feeling down. “An arrow needs to be pulled backward before forward,” Sasha said, “sometimes in life when you feel backwards, like you’re going nowhere, you must persevere in order to move on and progress.” When asked whether he will live up to the values his tattoos represent, Sasha answered firmly, “absolutely.”