Verde Volume 12 Issue 4 by Verde Magazine

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INDEX VOLUME 12 • EDITION 4 • PALO ALTO HIGH SCHOOL

THE LAUNCH Short Features 7 Compiled by Anabel Homnack and

COVER When the Big One Strikes

Amanda Groziak

NEWS Briefing 11 Compiled by Ally Messick and Manon von

PROFILES From the Peace Corps to 48 War and Peace

Kaenel

FEATURES Prescription Addiction 14 by Sarah Jacobs True Life: I shoot Guns

Home Cooked Help

by Maytal Mark

The Prehn Dynasty

by Emma Tucher

CULTURE The Watch 54 by Zachary Stanton-Savitz

>>LEFT Crazy for Cards (pg. 26)

A Campus Changed

The Sculptor’s Story by Jessica Madej

^^FROM TOP TO BOTTOM Eve by Elizabeth Silva Higgins (pg. 32), Fielding a Legacy (pg. 36), Anatolian Kitchen (pg. 54) by Mira Khanna and Emily Efland

by Camille von Kaenel, Elise Bruguera, Manon von Kaenel and Gadi Cohen

It’s a Musical!

Farmer’s Market Photo Essay

A Pleasing New Plaza

Prom Through the Years

PERSPECTIVES The Wrong Plans for 32 Planned Parenthood

Biting into Birch Street

Crew-saders

The Chocolate Garage

by Emily Kellison-Lim

Getting Hired

by Sharon Tseng and Emily Kellison-Lim

A Classical Taste by Allison Chang

Debunked by Melissa Wen

by Ava Dordi

by Anabel Homnack

by Margaret Kadifa by Amanda Groziak by Melissa Wen

by Jacqueline Friduss

by Scott Kleckner and Jackson Miley

A Road to Change

Literature’s Next Chapter

Creating Change through Education

by Caroline Ebinger

by Allen Wu

by Manon von Kaenel

TOP The Sculptor’s Story RIGHT True Life: I Shoot GUNSS

<<FROM TOP TO BOTTOM The Sculptor’s Story (pg. 50), True Life: I Shoot Guns (pg. 19), From the Peace Corps to War and Peace (pg. 48)

by Margaret Kadifa

april

cover

by yelena kasianova

Follow Verde on Twitter at twitter.com/verdemagazine Our tweets can’t be beat!

volume 12 edition 3

verdeexcerpts

“You could see the field buckle and warp slightly and the power lines that run down Alma were exploding with small blue flashes ”

Page 40

Steve Foug, Social Studies teacher “The Big One”

“All of us boys were all registering for the draft. There were a lot of discussions about, ‘If you get drafted, will you go to Canada?”

Page 26

Ace Allen, Paly class of 1969 graduate “ A Campus Changed”

“You could be getting a counterfeit drug, you could be getting a different dosage of the drug, you could be getting a totally different drug. You may think all blue pills have the same thing in them; well they don’t. It’s roulette”.

LETTERS TO THE EDITORS Letters received in response to Verde postings on The Paly Voice at http://voice.paly.net/verde “Life on the Curb” One of the best articles I have ever read from a Paly student. Keep up the great work. — “Paly Student” “Independent bookstores cater to Palo Altans” FYI, Books Inc. is also a full-fledged independent bookstore - locally owned and family run just with multiple locations. — “Hut” “Coal, Sheep-herding and Scholastic Aid” Thanks for profiling me in your last issue, but I have an important correction that should have attention brought to it. I run my company and app with another Paly student (his name is Adrian), but the article was written as if the app was a solo effort. I tried to make that clear to the author but it didn’t get put in the article. — “Freddy Kelisson-Linn”

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Russel Hayman, former executive for the Drug Enforcement Administration, “Prescription Addiction”

Page 14

“There is a lot of unhappiness in chocolate: there is child slave labor and really bad pay for farmers, so we’re focusing on carrying bars that have a really positive impact on the world.” Sunita de Tourreil, owner of The Chocolate Garage “The Chocolate Garage”

Page 66

““One doesn’t worry about pulling up pants before running”

Kay Van Der burg, Paly’s A.P English teacher “From Peace Corps to War and Peace”

Page 48

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from the editors

volume 12 edition 4 april 2011 Staff List Editors-in-Chief Sonali Sastry Camille von Kaenel Max Cohen Ally Messick Manon von Kaenel Managing Editors Margaret Kadifa Sarah Jacobs Business Managers Emily Efland Emma Tucher

We rarely feel threatened by our environment here in California, which makes sense. With an absence of tornados, hurricanes, and blizzards, there isn’t much to be worried about. Well, except for one thing, the price for our sunny days and clear skies: earthquakes. Although these disasters only strike once in a while, they often become the topic of conversation. But how much at risk are we? In fact, how prepared are we? With the 2010 Haitian earthquake and the recent earthquake in Japan, Verde analyzed what a major earthquake would mean for Paly. Check out “When the Big One Strikes” on page 40. On another note, we decided to reexamine the issue of illegal consumption of prescription drugs. In the recent motion picture “Limitless,” Bradley Cooper stars as a failed writer who discovers a miracle drug that enables him to complete all necessary tasks efficiently and effectively, as well as temporarily boosting his intelligence and potential. The film is purely fiction: no such pill actually exists. But take, for instance, Adderall, a drug used to increase focus and productivity. Adderall is an example of a host of drugs that are prescribed in doctor’s offices and pharmacies across the nation, but are being abused by teens for an extra step to get ahead or for recreational use. Staff writer Sarah Jacobs explores this issue and how it relates to Paly in “Prescription Addiction” on page 14. If you’re looking for something a little lighter than drugs and earthquakes, turn to page 68 for “Rocky Virgins No More,” by Maytal Mark and Gadi Cohen, a look at “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” still in theaters 36 years after its release. As our era as editors come to a close, we want to congratulate the new leadership team that will be at the forefront of tomorrow’s issues. We are happy to announce that Verde’s new Editors-inChief Scott Kleckner, Maytal Mark, and Emily Kellison-Linn, and our Managing Editors Caroline Ebinger and Allen Wu, will take over as of next issue. They have worked hard, and we know they will continue to uphold and further Verde’s tradition of excellence. — Sonali, Camille & Max

Short Features Editors Amanda Groziak Anabel Homnack Online Editors Allison Chang Mira Khanna Art Director Yelena Kasianova

Photographer Jacqueline Friduss Cartoonist Ava Dordi Staff Elise Bruguera Gadi Cohen Camille Couchon Caroline Ebinger Emilia Kellison-Linn Scott Kleckner Alex Lenail Jessica Madej Maytal Mark Jackson Miley Elizabeth Silva Zach Stanton-Savitz Sharon Tseng Melissa Wen Allen Wu Adviser Paul Kandell

Palo Alto Unified School District 25 Churchill Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94306-1099 Publication Policy Verde, a feature magazine published by the students in Palo Alto High School’s Magazine Journalism class, is an open forum for student expression and the discussion of issues of concern to its readership. Verde is distributed to its readers and the student body at no cost. Letters to the Editors The staff welcomes letters to the editor but reserves the right to edit all submissions for length, grammar, potential libel, invasion of privacy and obscenity. Send all letters to verdeds-10-11@googlegroups.com or to 50 Embarcadero Road Palo Alto, CA 94301. All Verde stories are posted online — and available for commenting — at http://voice.paly.net/verde. Advertising The staff publishes advertisements with signed contracts providing they are not deemed by the staff inappropriate for the magazine’s audience. For more information about advertising with Verde, please contact the Verde business managers Emily Efland and Emma Tucher by e-mail at verde.biz.paly@gmail.com or call 650-329-3837 for more information. Printing & Distribution Services Verde is printed five times a year in October, December, February, April and June by Fricke-Parks Press in Fremont, California. The Paly PTSA mails Verde to every student’s home. All verde work is archived — and available for commenting at http://voice.paly.net/verde.

february

[ OPINION ]

staff verdict Teachers should use online resources to greater enhance student understanding

he best teachers keep their students engaged and informed. Yet, even the most dedicated teachers have trouble keeping their students interested in tedious material — and even the most committed students can find immense challenges in demanding classes. It should be the goal of every school, including Palo Alto High School, to enable student learning and expand students’ capacity to absorb teachers’ instruction. Verde acknowledges the extra time it takes teachers to fully utilize online resources and applauds these efforts. We even encourage more teachers to take advantage of the Internet as well. Those teachers who don’t use InClass or Infinite Campus should learn to adapt them to their class; other teachers should learn to update. From creating a student wireless network to upgrading its grading system to Infinite Campus, Paly has made numerous efforts to utilize technology and improve the state of education in its classrooms. In particular, some Paly teachers have taken advantage of Infinite Campus and InClass to benefit their students. Infinite Campus has made it easier for students to check their grades and find their missed assignments. Instead of having no access to grades online or having to check numerous sites, students instead have one resource that is refreshed constantly with all of their grades. Access to grades allows students to monitor their standing in the class throughout the semester and receive instant feedback about grades. Many teachers have also used InClass to help their students stay on top of the material. For example, in AP Chemistry, all class lectures are uploaded onto InClass. If students are absent or did not have time to write everything down, they can complete their notes at home, at their own individual pace. In providing InClass, Paly allows students to avoid frantic note-taking in

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class, where they can instead focus on the teacher. In AP Psychology, quizzes and tests with answer keys are uploaded onto InClass. This makes studying for finals much more efficient for students as they have instant access to practice questions. Another website — paly.net/classnotes — lets diligent student volunteers upload their notes, with the help of Teresa Calano. Students who are struggling with the material can then use the uploaded notes to better understand it. Though reading materials online are an excellent resource, students cannot use them as a substitute to a teacher’s lecture. Teachers opposed to online resources often argue that students will start disregarding the educator at the front of the classroom and only learn from the computers on their desks. Online materials, however, give students one more way to learn. A student can read the textbook, listen to a lecture and then reinforce this information by going over the class notes online. Online resources will enable students with divergent learning styles to learn at their own pace. In today’s day and age, most Paly students are used to streamlined online content. After all, teachers should aspire to become even better than they already are; incorporating the Web into the classroom through InClass, Infinite Campus and other websites will help them do exactly that.

Study materials posted online could cater to students’ different learning styles.

- Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Verde staff

THELAUNCH SHORT STUFF

photo by ANABEL HOMNACK

HOW TO: make chocolate lollipops With spring in full swing, it’s only appropriate to have some flowery lollipops to go with it. Whether you celebrate Passover, Easter or simply enjoy the season, these lollipops will be sure to boost your spirit.

Buy flower molds, colorful chocolate disks and lollipop sticks from a craft store, such as Michael’s.

Melt the chocolates in the microwave until they are soft but not runny.

Spoon the melted chocolate into the mold, using different colors however you like. Add lollipop sticks if desired.

Refrigerate the chocolates.

Take them out and enjoy!

photos and text by CAROLINE EBINGER

5 Questions with math teacher Deanna Chute Math teacher Deanna Chute teaches Algebra 1, Geometry, and Intro to Advanced Calculus. She continues to be one of the most energetic Palo Alto High School teachers. 1. What do you do to stay so energetic during class time? I don’t really have to do anything. It’s a natural thing for me. I’m not that awake when I get up, but eventually I get going. I don’t really notice it. I just really enjoy doing my job and that helps me out a lot. 2. What is in the famed pink coffee cup that you have with you every class? Is it filled with rocket fuel? Contrary to what you may have heard, it is definitely not rocket fuel. It’s never come up before, but it is a medium roast coffee with fat-free vanilla half and half. I used to have to stop at Starbucks and get coffee on my way to work, but now I make it at home. I have it every morning. 3. What was your most memorable prom moment from high school in the 80s? One year in high school, I believed that I needed the perfect tan for the perfect dress for prom. So, I decided to sunbathe while my parents were away. I

photos and text by SCOTT KLECKNER

thought it would be quick and easy. I don’t know what I was thinking using baby oil! It was the 80s! I stayed home and [burned] myself to a crisp and had second degree burns two days before prom. I had to go to the hospital to get treated, but I still went to prom in my perfect dress and my less-than-perfect tan.

4. What was your most memorable experience outside of school and college? It was a totally random thing that I just wanted to do. I took a photography class in Italy. I was in Tuscany for a month doing photography and had a great time. I just wanted to get out and shake up my world. 5. Most seniors are looking forward to (or dreading) college acceptances, what things have you learned outside of academia that you could not have learned in college? I think this whole obsession with college is completely insane. Sometimes it is just important to just go and see the world. Because I’m a teacher, I’ve had a lot of time to travel. I’ve learned that its important to keep your options open and go your own way. Sometimes the best paths are the ones you don’t see coming. april 2011

Where Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re From... t Lindsey Lam (freshman) Born in China and lived there for five months.

t Dominic AlShamari (senior) Born in Moscow, Russia lived there for five years.

Claudia u Schafer-Tabraue (junior) Lived in England for 14 years.

t Ernesto Cruz (campus supervisor) Born and raised in El Salvador until age 19.

Eveli Mayfield (freshman) u Born in Estonia and lived there for three years.

u Apoorva Ram (junior) Born in India and lived there for five years.

TOP 5: Nearby Spring Destinations Top 5 compiled by staff member SHARON TSENG photos and text by SHARON TSENG

1. Foothills Park Miles of trails have an abundance of wildlife, inclucing deer and coyote. The park provides designated picnic areas, a seasonal campground and nature programs. t

3. Monterey Bay Whale Watching

Get a glimpse of the majestic grey whales on their return trip from Baja California to their Arctic feeding grounds, on a Monterey boat trip.

4. Yosemite National 2. Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival Park u Yosemiteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s waterThe Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown promises falls, baby animals and variety flower blooming, performances and an arts and crafts fair. of wildflowers makes a great Most activities will be free of charge.

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5. Mammoth Mountain This destination is popular for spring skiing. This location also offers a variety of artisans and music festivals.

Briefing

NEWS THE LATEST AND GREATEST

The Palo Alto Unified School District could face cuts in state funding next school year of anywhere from $330 per student to over $1000 per student, according to PAUSD Board of Education Member Dana Tom. Gov. Jerry Brown has abandoned the idea of a June ballot measure that would exend current tax rates and mitigate the budget cuts because of conflicting GOP demands, and the state is now looking for other solutions. In response, the Palo Alto school district is gearing for another year of severe budget cuts. PAUSD funding would decrease by a minimum of $3.9 million (2.4% of PAUSD’s $160 million budget), but could decrease by as much as $13.3 million (8% of PAUSD’s budget), according to Tom. However, PAUSD’s goal is to minimize the direct impact on students, according to PAUSD Board of Education member Barbara Mitchell. By drawing on reserve savings, cutting operational costs, and reducing the number of non-teaching positions, the district will hope to close the budget gap while having little effect on the classroom.

Whooping cough vaccine, now required for students A new law requires that 7th-12th graders be vaccinated for whooping cough before they attend school, starting the 2011-12 school year. Students must provide medical documentation of a whooping cough shot for the upcoming year, according to Terri Weber and Heather Kavanagh of the Paly Health Office.

PAUSD State Funding (in millions of dollars)

Big budget cuts coming 25 20

Annual PAUSD Funding Recieved from State $20.2 million in 2006-2007

$11.8 million (estimated) in 2010-2011

15 10 5 0

‘02-’03‘ 03-’04 ‘04-’05‘ 05-’06‘ 06-’07‘ 07-’08‘ 08-’09‘ 09-’10‘ 10-’11 (estimate) School Year Accrording to PAUSD Second Interim Financial Report, 22 March 2011

18 months ago, the district went through a similar budget-cutting process, and were able to cut 2.5% of the school’s budget, according Palo Alto Online. “Bleak won’t begin to describe what we’re looking at,” State Senator Joe Si-

mitian said during his annual Education Update in February about the potential effects of these budget cuts on schoolfunding. text by emily kellison-linn

UC tuition could increase The University of California’s tuition may be pushed up past $20,000 a year, nearly doubling the tuition, according to a speech that Gov. Jerry Brown on the week before spring break. UC regents will increase tuition in an effort to close the UC’s funding gap, which totals $2.4 billion for 2011 to 2015, according to an article by the

DailyCal. One potential plan included annual tuition increases of up to 12 percent to mitigate the deficit, but no action was taken in that direction. Brown may not increase tuition so significantly if he is able to strike a deal for a special election to ask voters to extend tax increases, according to an article at KESQ.com. text by ally messick april 2011

[ NEWS ]

Earth day activities at Paly To celebrate Earth Day, Friday April 22, the Paly Environmental Initiative Club is preparing lunchtime activities on the Quad from Tuesday, April 19, to Friday, April 22. by caroline ebinger

Tuesday Jewelry sale Eating contest

Wednesday Eco tie dye Jewelry sale Eating contest

Thursday

Friday

Guest speaker (ERC) Jewelry sale Eating contest

Jewelry sale Eating contest

Survey shows self-esteem drop tion with the youth in the community. The results of the Developmental Assets Survey taken by Palo Alto Uni“The results are reflective of relafied School District Schools October tionships with adults in school, neighborof 2010 show that a number of local hood and the community,” Amy Drolette, students are deemed “vulnerable” when PAUSD Coordinator of Student Services said. “This is an opportunity to continue it comes to mental health. to have conversations with youth.” The survey, which represents 4,055 The survey suggested that, as stuPAUSD students, focuses on identidents grow older, the percentage of fying the number of assets: restudents who maintain posilationships, values, and tive attitudes diminishes. experiences, that chilFrom elementary dren have. Survey school to high school, officials say that the percentage of Palo a high number Alto kids who reof assets directly of Paly students ported having a self correlates to a esteem dropped drop in high-risk reported to have a from 71 percent to behavior (viohealthy lifestyle. 45 percent and the lenceand suicide) percentage of students and an increase in who thought they mainthriving behaviors (doing better in school tained a healthy lifestyle and helping others). plunged from 90 percent in elThe survey results were ementary school to 41 percent in high finally revealed and discussed at the school. However, some percentages did March 22 School Board meeting. not always fall as children matured. StuThe district plans to collaborate dents’ sense of purpose rose from 47 perwith the Developmental Assets Sub cent in elementary school to 70 percent in Committee of Project Safety Net to middle school but then dropped again to take action toward better communica56 percent in high schoolers.

41%

text by sharon tseng

By the

NUMBERS

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percent chance of a magnitude 6.7 or higher earthquake occurring in the Bay Area before 2032

The city is planning to build a waste treatment plant in Palo Alto’s Bryxbee Park, a decision which has angered local residents.

The Palo Alto City Council was to vote April 11 on whether to build an anaerobic waste-to-energy plant in Byxbee park to manage organic waste. Since the idea for the plant came up four years ago, Palo Alto residents have debated over whether sacrificing parkland to build the plant will be beneficial to the community. “This is an issue that has been divisive in the community,” council member Greg Schmid says. “The final vote is far down the road, with many steps in between.” The steps include a referendum on Nov. 11 on whether to keep the 10

acres of parkland the plant where the plant would be built. In the meantime, members of the community are considering the economic and environmental consequences of the plant. “Half of them (environmentalists) believe the dedicated parkland should not be used for quasi-industrial process,” Shmid says, addint that the other half, believes that the environmental benefits of processing organic waste override the parkland issue. In response to concerns about the plant’s potentially negative effects on the rest of Bryxbee Park, Schmid points out that a regional water quality facility already exists in the park, and says that some claim that the plant would be expanding recycling facilities rather than destroying the park. But he also points out that the population has grown 10 percent in the last decade, without any expansion of parkland, and so others say that this is the wrong time to take parkland away. text by melissa wen

Need a summer job? The Palo Alto City Library will put on a workshop for teens searching for summer work on Thursday, April 28 at the Cubberley Center. The workshop will focus on local job and volunteering opportunities and offer advice on filing applications, preparing for interviews, and building resumes. “We’ve presented the same workshop last year and it was very well attended and very well re-

percent of Paly students watch Glee.

ceived,” says Palo Alto teen librarian Laurie Hastings. “It is useful information for teens who are looking for a job or volunteering over the summer.” The workshop will happen from 4 to 5 p.m. Space is limited, and teens grades 6-12 can register by visiting the library’s Calendar of Events online at www.cityofpaloalto.org/library or calling 650-329-2436.

Spotlight on student art elise bruguera

melissa wen

Waste plant in park sparks controversy

Art teacher Margo Wixsom proudly displays student artwork.

Blue Coat Systems will host a student art showcase that will include pieces from students Thursday, May 12. Paly photo teacher Margo Wixsom has entered 30 student pieces in the contest, which has awarded Paly thousands of dollars in past contests, according to Wixsom. “We win money and it comes directly back to the art program,” she says. Wixsom encourages students to come to enjoy the art and free food. In addition, all who attend are entered in a raffle and eligible to win iPods, gift cards, and maybe an iPad. “This is one of the biggest events for high school art in the Bay Area,” she says. Wixsom says that she handed out $1,250 worth of visa gift cards as individual prizes for 1st place, 3rd place, and many honorable mentions last year. Categories include painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography/ digital art, and prizes range from the $50 for individual contributions to the $2,500 school grand prize.

text by elise bruguera

percent of Paly students who say they have gone to Planned Parenthood

text by elise bruguera

volunteers for the Meals on Wheels program at Paly. april 2011

Better recycling for a better world caroline ebinger

alex lenail

As the admin team liaison to the Green Team, Jerry Berkson is excited about the Green Team’s plans for Earth Day activities and a new recycling program.

The Paly Green Team is implementing a new recycling program to start in time for Earth Day, on Friday, April 22. The Green Team will be replacing the current educational posters, which feature images of what objects to place in the trash, compost, and reyccling containers, with text-only signs. “I think everyone here [at Paly] is willing to do the right thing [recycle],” said Jerry Berkson, the admin team liaison to the Green Team. “I just don’t think they’re willing to spend the time to do it, without more simplicity.”

The Green Team is also making a set of videos to air on inFocus. There will also be “Got Green?” posters around campus. The Green Team’s goal for this program is to remain simple in order to encourage all students to recycle and compost. A district report stating that high schools are doing worse at recycling and composting than elementary and middle schools encouraged the Green Team to renovate their program. “If I can do it, anyone can do it,” Berkson said. text by caroline ebinger

Another win for Woj

Journalism advisor Esther Wojcicki poses with her students and her award. Esther Wojcicki, endearingly named “Woj”, the journalism advisor of the Campanile, recently received the Charles O'Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award recognizes “a sustained record of outstanding teaching" from acverde magazine

ademic journalism programs around the nation. It is the highest honor the CSPA can award a teacher. “I think they gave me this award because we are reaching out beyond just teaching our own students and building a program,” Wojcicki said. text by alex lenail

Middle school students cancel Japan trip Palo Alto middle school students originally planning to visit Japan this summer will stay in California after district officials called for reconsideration of the trip amid concerns over radiation and limited resources. Read the full story by Jeffrey Lu at http://voice.paly.net/node/26933

Jamboree contest seeks hidden talent

Roxanne Mehta, co-creator and coordinator of the You Made It! Jamboree event, is excited to see art work.

Calling all creative students! Palo Alto’s second annual You Made It! Jamboree is welcoming entries from Palo Alto Unified School District students — due on April 18. You Made It! Jamboree is an opportunity for PAUSD students to showcase their creative talent. To enter, students need to sign up on youmadeitjamboree.com, the event’s website. All entries will be displayed on May 14 at the plaza in front of City Hall, according to event organizers. The event is sponsored by the Palo Alto PTA. “After noticing that there is just so much hidden talent among our students, we thought that this would be a good way to showcase some of their amazing creativity to the community,” co-creator and coordinator and Paly parent Roxane Mehta said.

text by margaret kadifa

FEATURES

PRESCRIPTION ADDICTION TRUE LIFE: I SHOOT GUNS HOME COOKED HELP A CAMPUS CHANGED GETTING HIRED A CLASSICAL TASTE DEBUNKED

photography by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS and SARAH JACOBS

14 19 21 24 26 28 31

Prescription Addiction Are we hooked on prescription drugs?

Text by SARAH JACOBS Photo Illustrations by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS and SARAH JACOBS

ate doesn’t remember much of her nightmarish ambulance trip to the hospital after she overdosed on two Xanax pills and five Ambien pills early one morning last year. She had begun taking Ambien (typically prescribed for insomnia) when her parents gave her one to help her fall asleep. Everyone reacts differently to medications, however. “Ambien makes me crazy and trip out,” says Kate, a Palo Alto High School junior. “I once thought I was on a roller coaster when I was in a car, and [I] forget a lot of things when [I’m] on Ambien. It doesn’t make me tired at all. The first time I took it, I ended up running around my house and I was like ‘Oh, God, the walls are talking to me’.” Besides Ambien, which Kate says she used to take once a week or once every two weeks at parties or dances, she also occasionally took Xanax (an anti-anxiety drug). “Xanax just makes [me] feel really drunk,” Kate says. She often combined it with alcohol — “One shot equals three shots on Xanax,” she says in haphazard mathematical bravado. Besides the risks medical professionals say are inherent in unauthorized prescription drug use, this time without a doubt Kate had taken it too far. “All I remember is puking over my shoulder and talking to the police, and I was pretty much out of my mind,” she says “It was like a daze. It was sort of peaceful,

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even though I was puking.” Kate, whose name like those of other students mentioned has been changed to protect her identity, is one of a growing number of Paly students and people nationwide who are trying drugs other than those typically available to students looking to get high — prescription medications. The abuse of prescription drugs is an increasingly common form of abuse for high school and college students across the country, according to the National Institutes of Health. Kate began using Adderall to help her with her schoolwork during her sophomore year before she began using Ambien and Xanax. “It’s sort of a trickle effect,” Kate says. “You start Adderall and then you can’t sleep, so you start Ambien and then you need to chill out because you’re all jittery because of the Adderall and then the Ambien, so you start Xanax. … It just becomes a trifecta of bad ideas.” Changing Times The National Survey on Drug Use and Health says that the most commonly abused medications are pain relievers including opiates like Percocet and Vicodin, tranquilizers and sedatives like Xanax and Valium, and stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall. Whatever the drug, however, prescription medications are finding their way out of medicine cabinets and into the hands of students at a rate that is troubling to many doctors

and drug experts. A survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2009 found that, to date, more than 20 percent of the nation’s teens say they have taken a prescription drug without a doctor’s prescription. Of students at Paly, almost one in six of 267 surveyed in a random anonymous poll in March said that they had tried prescription drugs illegally. Neither is the trend confined to the student population — in 2009, about 7 million people (more than 2.8 percent of the US population) reported past-month, non-medical use of psycho therapeutic drugs, according to the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. Although the number of Paly students who report that they have tried prescription drugs illegally is relatively small, there are those at Paly to whom it is not only known, but common practice. “All of my friends do it,” says Paly junior Carl, who first tried prescription drugs in his freshman year. Carl says he has tried opiates, stimulants, and other kinds of medications, and regularly uses medical drugs recreationally — “to get high”— and to stay awake to finish school assignments. “But I don’t have a problem,” Carl says repeatedly and emphatically. Kate says she has been surprised to find out how many students at Paly abuse prescription medications. “It’s a lot of people you wouldn’t expect,” Kate says. While 15 percent of all students and

22 percent of seniors say they have tried prescription drugs illegally, according to Verde’s survey, only 28 percent said they believe prescription drug abuse is a problem on campus. Of those reporting prescription drug abuse, 85 percent said they had done it for recreational purposes and 41 percent said they had done it to help them with schoolwork. These percentages show an increase in the number of Paly students who use prescription drugs. In a 2002 survey conducted by Verde, 12 percent of polled students said that they had taken prescription drugs for recreational purposes. “I’ve found that it’s become a growing trend that kids have been taking prescription medication from their parents, from their relatives, in addition to sometimes buying them on a street. … It’s obviously really, really dangerous,” says Nanelle Newbom, Palo Alto Police Department School Resource Officer. “I think it [prescription drug abuse in Palo Alto] is a huge problem.” Across the nation, the increases are alarming. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found that the number of teenagers who admit to abusing prescription medications tripled from 1992 to 2003, while in the general

population such abuse had doubled. Prescriptiondrugabuse.org describes young people’s illegal use of prescription drugs as an epidemic. “If the 1960s can be described as a ‘marijuana decade’ and the 1980s can be defined by rampant cocaine abuse, then the first 10 years of the 21st century may someday be seen as a time of overwhelming abuse of prescription drugs.” Experts ascribe the increase to an amalgam of factors, most notably, the increased availability of prescription drugs in general. Between 1991 and 2009, prescriptions for stimulants increased from 5 million to nearly 40 million, an 8-fold increase, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Meanwhile, prescriptions for opioid analgesics — such as Oxycontin and Vicodin, usually prescribed for chronic pain — increased from about 45 million to approximately 180 million, more than a four-fold increase. Prescriptions for ADHD medications increased by 72 percent between 1995 and 2000.

Kate thinks that some of the main reasons prescription drugs are replacing their street counterparts is that they are easier to get, generally less expensive, and perceived as easier to get away with. “It [using prescription drugs] is just convenient and not quite as scary in a sense,” Kate says. Roulette Another commonly cited explanation for the trend is the misperceptions people have about the safety of using others’ prescription drugs. People think that, because they come from a doctor, the drugs are safe. Although it is true that people have a better chance of knowing what they are getting when they use prescription medications as compared to street drugs, which are notorious for being laced with other substances, Palo Alto Medical Foundation physician Catherine Baker says that it is never safe to use someone else’s prescription. “You don’t necessarily know all the potential effects of taking the

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medication if you weren’t the one who talked to the doctor about it,” Baker says. In addition, drugs can potentially interact in a very dangerous way, according to Baker. “For example if you are taking a cough suppressant (that has a sedating effect) and then someone else’s medication that was prescribed for itching (also very sedating) it could potentially suppress your respiratory drive, your drive to breathe, to the point where you would fall asleep, stop breathing, and die.” “When you start mixing, that’s where it gets bad,” says Kate, who has seen firsthand effects of using more than one drug at once. “My friend was on Adderall when we were smoking right after finals, and she started puking. It was a really scary eye-opener because I had no idea what was going on. … I didn’t know she had taken Adderall for finals.” Russel Hayman, former executive for the Drug Enforcement Administration (which regulates the sale, manufacture, and distribution of medications under the Controlled Substances Act) and coauthor of The Healthcare Executive’s Guide to Fraud and Abuse Issues and A Guide to Complying with the Stark Physicians’ SelfReferral Law agrees that prescription drug abuse is dangerous for several reasons. “They may think they know what they’re buying, they may think they know the dosage that they are buying, they may think they are being real smart, but you don’t know exactly what you’re getting,” Hayman says. “You could be getting a

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“You may think all blue pills have the same thing in them; well they don’t... It’s roulette.” — Russel Hayman, author and former DEA lawyer

counterfeit drug, you could be getting a different dosage of the drug, you could be getting a totally different drug. You may think all blue pills have the same thing in them; well they don’t. … It’s roulette.” On top of the safety risks, using prescription drugs without a prescription can have serious legal ramifications, according to Hayman. He describes the legal difference between possessing, buying, or selling street drugs or prescription drugs as “not that different.” The US Congress classifies some prescription drugs, those with the potential for abuse, as “controlled substances.” These are organized alongside other commonly abused drugs into four schedules; heroine, for example, is in schedule one. “If you take a controlled substance and then sell it, you are basically engaging in drug dealing,” Hayman says. “Depending on the schedule and the quantity, it could even be a felony under federal law…

for example if you are out on the street selling a certain amount of heroin or you are out on the street selling a certain amount of any prescription drug that is also a schedule one controlled substance, it is the same crime.” Many students nationwide are unaware of these dangers or are willing to take the risk. After marijuana, prescription and over-the-counter medications account for the most commonly abused drugs. In a 2010 study by the University of Michigan, the prevalence of drug use in the past year among 12th graders was greater than five percent respectively for Vicodin, amphetamines, cough medicine, Adderall, and tranquilizers, and just under five percent for OxyContin and sedatives. “I can’t possibly impress on teens enough the importance of taking care of themselves, taking care of their own lives,” Newbom says. “The most important things with regards to prescription drug use and sale and possession is not the legal aspect — it’s the safety aspect and the long-term effects. They [prescription medications] can damage your liver; they can cause you acute injury obviously if you are driving and you have taken Vicodin or OxyContin or whatever. Also, they tend to be closely associated with other risky behaviors.” The Source One of the questions that presents itself to police and educators trying to keep minors safe is where they obtain the medications. Some students find friends

“If the 1960s can be described as a ‘marijuana decade’ and the 1980s can be defined by rampant cocaine abuse, then the first 10 years of the 21st century may someday be seen as a time of overwhelming abuse of prescription medications.” — Prescriptiondrugabuse.org

or acquaintances with prescriptions. In a study of students in Wisconsin and Minnesota, 34 percent of kids diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder said they had been approached to sell or trade their Ritalin or Adderall, two drugs commonly used to treat symptoms of ADHD. Jeffrey, who attends Los Altos High School, says it’s also common for people to take medicines from friend’s parents’ medicine cabinets at parties, and he knows several people with ADD or ADHD who sell extra drugs from their prescriptions for stimulants. “It’s not that unusual for juniors and seniors to take an Adderall before the SAT or a night of studying,” Jeffrey says. Hayman says that no matter how they are obtained, it is illegal to have prescription drugs if your name is not on the prescription. “If you walk into a pharmacy and steal them, that’s a crime,” Hayman says. “If you take them from your parents’ medical chest that’s also a crime — illegal possession of a controlled substance.” According to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 59 percent of students who use prescription medications without a prescription say they got it from a friend or relative. “They [Prescription drugs] are surprisingly easy to get,” says Kate, who actually had a prescription for Adderall for a short time last year, even though she does not have ADD or ADHD.

“Most doctors have had the experience of having a patient [ask for a prescription they don’t need],” Baker says. “There have been situations where I’ve prescribed medication when I’ve actually thought the person had some condition — back pain is a common one — where [I thought] they were really suffering… You start to realize over a period of time that the person is actually abusing this medication or getting extra so they can sell it… You get that sinking feeling that ‘Oh, I’ve been played’.” Most people aren’t really aware of the scale of prescription drug use. “People think of illegal drug trafficking and they think of heroin and cocaine, but they really need to think of illegal drug trafficking as including this enormous trafficking of diverted prescription drugs,” Hayman says. “If you look at the volume of drugs that end up being diverted and sold on the black market, it’s shocking.” Schoolhouse… crack? More common perhaps even than the recreational abuse of prescription drugs, particularly in high schools and universities, is the use of stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall in an attempt to gain an academic edge. “Adderall makes you focus way better,” Kate says. “It’s sort of like steroids, except for school instead of sports. … Most of my friends have at least tried Adderall. … [it] really does help. Especially for people who just need an extra push for school.”

Kate says that at one point, she was taking Adderall nearly every day. “I would do it just to write essays at night, just to do homework.” This trend of “neauroenhancement” was examined in a study at the University of Kentucky. The study found that about 80 percent of juniors and seniors in sororities and fraternities and 34 percent of undergraduates in general had tried stimulants. Of those, 43 percent said it improved their overall scores by one letter grade, and about the same percentage said it improved their scores by two letter grades. Kate describes similarly dramatic results from her use of Adderall. “The first time I took Adderall was for a math test sophomore year,” Kate says. “My fingers and my toes were numb and I was twitching. I finished the test in 15 minutes and it took everyone else 50. … I got an A. I just remembered stuff better, I performed better, it was faster.” Almost like the mysterious MDT in the new box office hit “Limitless,” stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin can seem like miracle drugs in a way. They allow users to focus better and more productively, and can delay the effects of sleep deprivation. What could be better than a drug that allows you to do your homework all night long, remember everything you have studied, and stay awake for the test the next day? A similar drug called Provigil, typically prescribed to sufferers of narcolepsy to help them stay alert, is already being used for truck april 2011

drivers and surgeons on long shifts and in the US Air Force for fighter pilots on extended combat missions. A “60 Minutes” piece from April 2010 suggests that taking neaurostimulants like these may be commonplace in the distant future. However, in a time when professional athletes like Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong are being slammed for their use of performance enhancing steroids, mental performance enhancers raise the same question — is it cheating? And just as athletes blame the incredible competition of their sports for prompting their use of steroids, some would say that if our schools foster an atmosphere where students feel compelled to take drugs to keep up, we need to examine our system. Then of course there is the health aspect. Ritalin and Adderall are actually in the same class of drugs as cocaine, and can be highly addictive, according to Baker. Baker says that drugs like Ritalin interact differently with the brains of people who actually have ADD or ADHD and those of people who don’t. “If you’re under a lot of pressure to perform and have a lot of demands on your time, I can understand how it seems really tempting to say ‘Well, if it [a stimulant] works so well for them [people with ADD or ADHD] and they are getting that advantage, why can’t I get that advantage too?’ but it just doesn’t work that way,” Baker says. “I’ve had a patient who took a medication because

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they thought it would help them to finish a paper over night who had to spend the night in the emergency room on a heart rate monitor because their heart-rate was so high. They were trying to get a little bit of an edge, and they ended up basically ruining that semester.” Kate says that in the end her excessive use of Adderall really did affect her health negatively. “It trickled into insomnia for me,” Kate says. “At one point I couldn’t sleep, so I would go a couple days without sleeping and for Adderall especially, [a common side effect is] it really decreases appetite, so I was borderline anorexic at the end of sophomore year.” “Sometimes people feel that it [stimulant use] is the only way they will be able to do all the things they need to do, but you just don’t know that really even worse things could happen,” Baker says. “As tempting as it is, to resist that temptation is much smarter. … If you don’t have ADD or ADHD, taking these medications won’t help you and is much more likely to do you harm.” For Kate and others like her, however, Adderall and other prescription drugs will continue to be a way to keep up in school, let off steam, or just have a little fun. Though Kate has cut back since her emergency room drama, she says she still enjoys Xanax once in a while and uses Adderall occasionally on late nights. She says, however, that she will never forget the lesson she learned that night. “I thought I was going to die in the back of the ambulance.” v

What’s Out There? Methylphenidate — Brand name: Ritalin. A stimulant with effects similar to those of cocaine and amphetamine, Ritalin is often prescribed to treat ADHD. It’s stimulant effects include appetite suppression, wakefulness, increased attentiveness and euphoria. The drug can also increase heart rate and blood pressure and can be addictive. Dextroamphetamine sulfate — Brand names: Dexedrine, Dexampex and Ferndex. Like Ritalin, this stimulant is attractive to students as a study and diet aid. It is usually prescribed to treat ADHD and narcolepsy, and facilitates better focus and alertness. Withdrawal symptoms include stomach pain, trembling, severe depression, extreme weakness or tiredness, and anxiety. Oxycodone — Brand names: Percocet and Percodan. It is a narcotic similar to codeine, but is more potent and has a higher dependence potential. It is often prescribed for pain relief. Hydrocodone — Brand names: Anexsia, Hycodan, Hycomine, Lorcet, Lortab, Tussionex, Tylox and Vicodin. Sales and production of this narcotic have increased significantly in recent years, as has illicit use. — source: The New York Times Online — photos courtesy of Calvero, roleATL, amayzun, and pahamr from Creative Commons

True Life: I shoot guns Police Explorer in training for the real world Text by ELIZABETH SILVA Photography courtesy of MICHAEL KAN

here was a live shooting in the mall. My three friends and I were lying there, wounded, waiting to be found and rescued. There were two holes in my body, in my knee and my thigh. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. Charging down the stairs, the police yelled and asked where the shooter had gone. All we could do was ask for help. Others were scattered around the mall with shot wounds. After the first round of police officers were through with the building search, we were allowed to move and rearrange ourselves before the next team came in for their training. The blood was everywhere. The gunshot wounds looked so fresh and my pants were ripped from the “impact” of the shot. The officers were dressed in their full-on S.W.A.T uniforms and they crept through the building cautiously. This was all just an intense simulation. We were helping train the Stanford Police, and I was playing the role of an amateur victim. This is the kind of stuff I can’t get enough of, so I was thrilled when I got the chance to be a Police Explorer with the Palo Alto Post, or unit. I joined in August 2009 because I was always interested in law enforcement and wanted to know more in-depth the role of a cop.

At my first meeting, I loved the welcoming atmosphere. Though my first meeting was about mountain lions, we’ve also covered handcuffing, officer safety, domestic violence lecture, detecting deception, use of force, felony traffic stops, and bomb investigating. My responsibilities include crowd and traffic control at events including Stanford home football games, Palo Alto airport day, D.U.I checkpoints, President Obama’s visit to Palo Alto and the Paly Parade of the Champions. My fellow Police Explorers and I have done middle school recruiting, serving at Olive Garden for a charity (Tip A Cop- Special Olympics), Chili Bean Contest, active shooter (help officers train by being victims in scenarios), art and wine festival, May Fete parade, runs (Moonlight, Juana Briones etc), Pebble Beach and Palo Alto Concours. As police explorers, we are required to attend the Basic Academy within the first year that we are enrolled. The Academy lasts nine Sundays. I attended the 69th Basic Academy in September 2009. The Basic Academy was intense. I dreaded the first day, from the minute I arrived at the College of San Mateo parking lot, 7 a.m. sharp Sunday morning; the red shirts (cadets who have already gone through the Basic Academy) began yelling at us, the new and confused cadets. That was when I realized the academy would be militarylike, discipline-wise at least. Everything must be taken seriously in training or you might be asked to drop. It was probably the physically and mentally hardest day of my life. P.T (physical training) was traumatizing, and lectures were long. We had P.T first thing; we ran, did push-ups, ran some more and did even more push-ups. During our lecture time, we were required to take notes and have them april 2011

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT; Searching for the active shooter during SWAT training; loading the magazines; rapelling in search and rescue training; responding to a staged situation involving an armed subject; graduating from the 69th Basic Academy in 2009. typed by the next Sunday. If you didn’t have them or made a mistake of any kind you would get “gigged.” At the beginning of every day from the first day we would start out with three “gigs” or strips of paper with our names, police department we represent, and our squad number. For every gig taken away you would owe 10 push-ups at the end of the day. Before taking our seats in class we had to recite the phrase “Never Quit, Be Responsible, and Look After Your Own.” Then we were allowed to take our seats. Sergeant Bob Eastman, who was a drill instructor from 1986 to 2004, incorporated this phrase in to the Basic Academy training. He recently received the 2010 Silver Beaver Award, the highest award that can be achieved within the Boy Scout Council. In the past 77 years, only nine volunteers have received this award. I had very interesting experiences while I did my homework. I was able to sit in a court and listen, and afterwards I was able to speak to the bailiff (deputy in court room). On my ride-along, a ride with an officer during his shift, I was in a very exciting and eye-opening car chase. The officer and I had just started by checking on the

garage. Next thing I know the driver is turning the corner and begins speeding up after tricking us to believing he was about to pull over. We had a Sunday in the South City Police Department where we took the physical agility test, which is the test Police Officers take. We also got to fight the “red man,” a scenario where the cadet plays the role of the officer and the red man plays the role of the criminal or victim. The red man dresses in red sparing gear from head to toe to protect him-self and the cop has a baton. The police officer tries to settle the situation and get him under control by using commands at first but it ends in the cop using the baton. Then we got to shoot. We learned that in training, when using any type of firearm, real or not, you must treat it like it is loaded and only point it at something you are willing to destroy. I received the Top Gun award in the 69th Basic Academy and in the Advanced Academy. All the cadets in the 69th Basic Academy met on a Saturday for a day in Huddart Park to learn search and rescue, CPR, and first aid. At night around 9 p.m. we all went in search for a “lost” person

I was in a real car chase on my first ride along with Palo Alto police.

in the forest, and we needed to apply all the skills we had learned about searching, finding and then rescuing. It was a day full of bonding for the first time. We started the day together at 7 a.m. with dropping(push-ups) before boarding the sheriff ’s bus and being scolded on the drive to Huddart Park with the consequence of silence on the way. When we came back at 11 p.m. we sang all the way home with the red shirts. The Basic Academy taught me the definition of what true discipline means. By the end of the ninth Sunday, the last day of the academy, I didn’t want it to end. I learned to follow orders. Then came graduation. The upside was knowing that it was only the beginning of being a police explorer, the academy was the base of other events I would be able to attend. I have also graduated from the Advanced Academy. It was only a week long, but everyday a new theme. It wasn’t militarylike, which was a relief; the ranks above us (the cadets) were the police officers. We were allowed to drive the police cars one day, shooting range another, swat training, self defense and domestic violence mixed with D.U.I’s (drivers under the influence) the last day. While at the start of my training, I played the role of the victim, I learned that one day a simulation can become reality; now I will know how to handle situations where real victims are involved. v april 2011

Home-cooked Help

Volunteers provide food for families in need Text by MIRA KHANNA and EMILY EFLAND Photography by EMILY EFLAND

DEDICATED VOLUNTEER Parent Sharon Witte has delievered meals to families for over six years.

omeone knocks on the door. An anonymous donation -— a home-cooked meal — sits in a cooler on the doorstep. Although the donor and receiver may never see each other face to face, they are linked through an organization that supplies comfort and support through food to families in need. This organization, Meals on Wheels, has a Palo Alto High School chapter that provides meals to families dealing with death, severe illnesses, or other crises. Maria Lim, Paly’s Academic Resource co-coordinator, has been a parent volunteer and coordinator for the school’s Meals on Wheels program for five years. While she believes in the strength of the program, she notes that it faces difficulties with publicity. “The biggest challenge has been getting notification about situations,” Lim says. “Families don’t always know that our program exists and don’t always ask for help. We rely a lot on word of mouth. A smaller challenge is fitting people into the schedule. It’s a lot like a puzzle, getting

the pieces to fit just right. We fortunately have so many willing volunteers that we often have more meals offered than days available.” Currently, Paly only has one family receiving meals from the school’s Meals on Wheels team, although there are several Paly families who receive support from other groups. “Sometimes we aren’t providing any meals, sometimes we have multiple families to support,” Lim says. Meals on Wheels inspires many of the people who receive meals from the program to in turn volunteer to cook for other families in need. Sarah, a Paly parent who wishes to remain anonymous, received her first meals from Meals on Wheels in 2009 when her husband passed away. As the coordinator, Lim called her to see if her family could use any help. For two weeks, Sarah and her family received meals from different volunteers. After experiencing first-hand the generosity of the program’s volunteers, Sarah says she decided to give back.

“It [receiving meals] gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of caring people, and it brought me comfort,” Sarah says. “It also reminded us of the very generous nature of many Paly community members.” Although Sarah become a volunteer one year ago, she has yet to cook her first meal - a fact possibly attributed to Lim’s explanations about Meals on Wheel’s lack of publicity. However, Sarah has been contacted by Lim and plans to cook her first meal at the end of April. “I’m planning on cooking Hawaian chicken and rice pilaf and making a fruit salad,” Sarah says. “The chicken will have to be marinated for 24 hours but the whole meal preparation shouldn’t take more than an hour. The only important thing is to keep people’s dietary restrictions in mind.” Sarah notes that volunteers must also pack their meals in containers that do not need to be returned, because donors and receivers do not meet again. When Sarah received meals through the program, she says that most of them april 2011

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“All I could think of was, how my making a meal was nothing compared to the dayto-day courage and grace with which they faced their situation.” — volunteer Sharon Witte COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS Meals on Wheels coordinator Maria Lim enjoys being “part of a community that supports each other in good times and bad.” consisted of hearty, home-cooked comfort food, such as lasagna, pot pie, beans and rice, pot roast, and soups. While some donors keep their privacy, others reveal themselves to the families they cook for. Meals on Wheels respects the privacy of all those who receive meals by keeping these families anonymous. Parent Sharon Witte signed up to volunteer for Paly’s Meals on Wheels program in 2004, although she began volunteering in different schools’ Meals on Wheels programs since her children were in preschool. “When families had babies there was always a sign-up sheet so that we could provide meals for the family when they were busy with their newborn,” Witte says. “Through the years I’ve been happy to make meals for families who were in need, for whatever the reason. I love to cook and it seems that bringing a nice meal to someone in need is the least I can do to help.” The Meals on Wheels volunteers try to plan meals according to each family’s needs—including the time of delivery,

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food allergies, and their likes and dislikes. Lim coordinates more than 80 volunteers who participate in the program. Similar programs exist elsewhere in the Palo Alto Unified School District, including at Jordan Middle School and Duveneck Elementary School. “When a request comes in for assistance, I determine what the family needs and wants and then pass the request on to our volunteers,” Lim says. “The volunteers then let me know when they are available and I plug the volunteers into the schedule. Finally, I let the family know who is coming on what day and leave the Paly Meals on Wheels cooler at the house so meals can be delivered without disturbing the family.” Lim began volunteering at other schools, and has always been on the list to cook meals. She took over the coordinating position last year, when the former coordinator could no longer finish the year. “I had a senior [student] last year, and I have a freshman [student] this year, so I knew that I could give some continuity

to the program,” Lim says. “Now that I’m working at Paly I’m better connected to hear about situations that need our help. It also is a volunteer position that is flexible in its timing which works best for me.” According to Susan Paul, a Paly parent and Meals on Wheels volunteer, most volunteers serve meals two to three times a year. Paul’s favorite meal to serve is a chicken dish with rice, carrots, and salad, using a family recipe. “It is always heartwarming to see how our communities support people they often don’t know,” Paul says. Witte agrees, noting that the Paly community provides a solid foundation to help families get back on their feet. “The best part is feeling like I am helping a family through a difficult time,” Witte says. “I remember bringing a meal to a family whose son was being treated for cancer. They really enjoyed the meal that I made and gushed about how good it was. All I could think of was, how my making a meal was nothing compared to the day to day courage and grace with which they faced their situation.” v

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A Campus Changed

How the Vietnam War and ensuing draft rocked Paly and Stanford in 1969

Text and photography by EMILY KELLISON-LINN

magine a nationally broadcasted reality television show featuring a giant drum filled with 366 tiny capsules, each containing a day of the year from January 1 through December 31. It’s like a giant bingo game, but with one important difference. If you are a young man and an American citizen, and if your birth date is among the first numbers drawn, you will soon be called up and required to fight in a war. For Palo Alto High School students at the end of the 1960s, this scenario was not imaginary, but very real. In the midst of the Vietnam War in 1967, the United States government instituted a draft “lottery” to decide in which order young men would be called to serve in the war. This lottery was broadcast live on television, and nearly every student tuned in nervously. Everyone interviewed for this article recalled their draft number instantly. Gary Fazzino, Paly’s senior class president in 1969-70 and former Palo Alto mayor, faced the reality of the draft in his senior year of high school. “I remember sitting at [fellow classmate] Joe [Simitian’s] house in December ’69 or so,” Fazzino says. “Joe’s [birthdate] came up 300th, so he was in great shape.…I came up number 8, which put me in pretty difficult shape.” By attending Stanford University after graduating from Paly, Fazzino obtained a student exemption from the draft, and the war finally ended before his graduation in 1974. However, the shock of seeing his birthdate on the screen never left him. “I was very nervous when I saw that number 8 come up,” Fazzino says. The Vikings react The sudden reality of the draft had a significant impact on Paly. Fazzino at-

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tended a Palo Alto High School of 1965 and 1966 that resembled a school in a small Midwestern town. Football games and dances ruled the school’s conservative social atmosphere. “Everything at Paly seemed to change on a dime in 1967,” Fazzino says. “Before, Paly was very traditional, very focused on football and social events. In 1967, with the draft protest, things began to change very quickly.” “The first protest I remember in Palo Alto was in the fall of 1967,” Fazzino says. A group of students called the United Students Movement, originally founded at Cubberley High School, began speaking out against the Vietnam war, the draft, and several local concerns, including the district’s ban on athletes wearing

“Everything at Paly seemed to change on a dime in 1967.” — GARY FAZZINO, class of ‘70

long hair, according to Fazzino. The Paly administration tolerated student unrest, even cautiously encouraging student expression of ideas. “I was a moderate liberal,” Fazzino admits. “I always worked within the system.” Along with student body president Joe Simitian, now the region’s state senator, Fazzino brought many speakers onto campus to address students about current issues. These events were always well-attended by students, according to Fazzino. “There was a big open amphitheater in the middle of the school where they

would bring speakers every few weeks or so,” says Ace Allen, who graduated in Paly’s class of 1969 and is now a professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Allen vividly remembers attending an on-campus speech by Stanford’s student body president David Harris, a controversial figure of the decade who was husband of folk singer Joan Baez. Meanwhile, discussions about the draft inescapably slipped into everyday school conversation, Allen says. “All of us boys were all registering for the draft,” Allen says. “There were a lot of discussions about, ‘If you get drafted, will you go to Canada?’ ” Fazzino remembers that conversations about the morality of the war and the draft dominated many social studies and English classes. Almost every student was immersed in these discussions. Allen, however, argues that there was not a large amount of diversity in student opinions about the war. “At the student level, I don’t remember… a lot of interacting among students about the merits of the war, because everyone I knew was opposed to it,” Allen says. In 1969, Allen found himself voted “Most All-American” in the yearbook’s senior polls. This came as an ironic surprise to Allen. “At the time, for me, to be called Most All-American was not a flattering thing, because I was honestly not proud to be an American,” Allen says. Eventually, Allen made peace with the award, and even learned to appreciate it in the context of his activism at the time. “It [participating in protests] actually felt extremely American to me, being able to appreciate that I disagree with what our country is doing, but I can protest that without consequences,” Allen says.

DIFFICULT MEMORIES Stanford grad Greg Osborn consults an album of news articles from his years in ROTC The view from Lytton Plaza University Avenue, along with the Stanford campus, acted as a magnet for anti-war demonstrations in 1968 and 1969. Students flocked repeatedly to Lytton Plaza in displays that were largely peaceful, but became increasingly violent as the months passed. “I remember several times, my twin brother and I would sneak out at night from our house and go to downtown Palo Alto, when there were demonstrations,” Allen says. “That felt pretty exciting.” Allen recalls a candle-filled scene at the demonstrations that included activists young and old, from those who deeply involved themselves in social activism, to those who simply sought a thrill. “When you’re 17, you have no clue what’s going on,” Allen says. “All you know is that there’s something pretty cool going on.” On multiple occasions during the summers of 1968 and 1969, protests on Lytton Plaza escalated into violence, as young people protested the city’s 11 p.m. curfew and noise ordinance, and resentment grew against the police. Downtown on the evening of July 4, 1970, Fazzino found himself in the midst of one of these riots. “There were lots of students there, and some radicals decided to start throwing rocks at Lytton Bank across the street,” Fazzino says. “Glass started breaking, rocks started flying, and the bands continued playing past 11.”

Military tensions at Stanford At Stanford, students faced being drafted into the military as soon as they graduated from college. With combat seeming inevitable in his future, Stanford class of 1970 graduate Greg Osborn made a decision that many student radicals deemed treacherous. While at Stanford, Osborn enrolled in the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a college-based training program for military officers, eventually rising to student commander of the unit. “It was really pretty simple,” Osborn says. “If I were going to have to go into the military, I’d rather be an officer than a private. I’d rather have some control over my destiny.” As a highly visible military leader on a predominantly anti-war campus, Osborn was frequently persecuted by his classmates for his connection to the military. Most commonly, students would yell rude phrases at him as he passed. Osborn is mostly ambivalent about the treatment he received from other students, as he is about the peaceful anti-war demonstrations he experienced. “I just did what was asked of me by my country,” Osborn says. “I can’t conjure up any animosity or ill feelings towards anyone.” The one phenomenon, however, that deeply angered Osborn was the frightening violence of some of the Stanford protests. Stanford’s professor of military science received shotgun blasts through

his living room window; later, a Palo Alto police officer lost a leg to a rock launched at him by a student. Osborn received his first terrible impression of the war while still in high school in Culver, Indiana. The school held annual Veterans Day assemblies to honor those who had served in the military. “They would read the names of all those killed in combat,” Osborn says. “I can remember hearing the names of people that I knew, before I had even graduated. Hearing those names was a tough thing.” As the war continued into the early 1970s, national conflicts became more serious. In mid-1970, President Nixon extended the war into Cambodia, fueling student protests nationwide; in May of that year, the Ohio National Guard killed four student demonstrators at Kent State University. At Paly, Fazzino recounts, this shift manifested itself as a sense of hopelessness among many students, and a loss of interest in school politics in favor of national issues. In spring of 1970, the Paly student body exercised their democratic power by voting to abolish student government entirely. “We were going to have an election as people [past officers] graduated, but there was so little interest in student government,” Fazzino says. “The feeling was, ‘What is the point of talking about student government issues when there is so much else going on in the world?’ ” v april 2011

[ FEATURES ]

on-Linn

photo by Emily Kellis

Getting Hired

FEEDING TIME Short uses a grabber to feed the sharks at the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo

Students spend time working with everything from fish to figure eights Text by EMILY KELLISON-LINN and SHARON TSENG Photography by EMILLY KELLISON-LINN and courtesy of WILBUR GI

etween school, homework, and social activities, almost all Palo Alto High School students will testify that finding time for everything in their lives is a struggle. Some students, however, manage to fit in a further time commitment — a job. Student workers at Paly are a minority, but they still make up a sizable portion of the population. According to a recent Verde survey of two English classes from each grade, 15% of Paly students work for pay. It may be hard to make time for such

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a commitment, but according to Work Experience teacher Meri Gyves, students usually rise well to the challenge. “The busier a person is, the better time management they have,” Gyves says. Gyves knows students who have jobs ranging from working in astrophysics labs, to caring for animals at the zoo, to working behind the counter at food shops. “I am shocked every day by the jobs kids take,” Gyves says. Gyves notices that in recent years, more students have expressed interest in lab or computer-related jobs. She says most students work to fund

their personal purchases such as gadgets and gas, or to save money for college. Work Experience, a lesser-known weekly course offered at Paly, helps students perfect interview skills, create professional resumes, and learn the laws regarding underage workers. “People can be very smart but they don’t know how to interview or present themselves,” Gyves says. She helps students find a job and instructs them on key skills for a successful job experience. Here’s a snapshot of some unique jobs Paly students take on: >>>

Sophomore Wilbur Gi does not receive money or volunteer credit for his work as an ice skating instructor at Belmont Iceland. Instead, he gets something a little different: punch cards. Skaters at Belmont Iceland use punch cards to access the rink, meaning that Gi skates for free. Gi, an ice skater since he was 10 and a half years old, started helping out with group lessons at the Belmont Iceland ice skating rink three or four years ago. Gi skates almost every day for one to three hours. Because he spends so much time at the rink, helping out seemed like a simple way to give back. “I know everybody at the rink so it’s just kind of cool to hang out and help out,” Gi says. However, unlike a fixed, daily job, Gi only teaches at the rink three or four times per month. The benefit of skating for free isn’t the biggest reason he decided to start teaching ice skating. “I don’t really do it to get the money,” he says. “The best part is seeing little kids get better.” According to Gi, the kids, ranging from ages three to ten, view Gi and the other teenage ice skaters who also help out as positive role models. Gi says many little kids enjoy seeing him when they come for group lessons. “A lot of the times, you see the same kids over and over again because they come back,” he says. “Most of them get better over time.”

NAME: Kevin Hu OCCUPATION: Immunology Lab Intern While most high school students can only dream of a future working in a professional lab, senior Kevin Hu bikes to the Nolan Lab for Immunology at Stanford University three or four times a week and spends three to five hours writing programs for stem cell research in bioinformatics — a combination of computer science, statistics, and biology. Hu started working in the lab last summer for eight hours every day. “I do the normal work in the lab along with some programing, mostly geared towards developing visualizations and data analysis,” Hu says. Hu explains that his work mainly focuses on how cells communicate through immunologic pathways and “trying to determine what causes what in an immune response.” As the only paid high school intern in the lab, he regularly interacts with the professors and graduate students who also work there. “The best part of the job is being able to meet and talk with all of the people in the lab,” he says. “These are people who have gone through everything that I hope to go through in the next several years, so they have great advice and are really helpful.” v

f Wilbu r Gi

Felicity Short gently lifts fillets of raw squid from the counter, slices each one lengthwise, and drops it into a stainless steel bowl. An odor of chopped fish pervades the small room, but Short doesn’t seem to mind as she carries the bowl over to the shark tank. It’s lunchtime. As an employee at the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo, Short, a junior, runs and supervises young children’s birthday parties. She also spends several hours a week caring for the zoo’s animals, feeding them and giving them medical attention. Short began volunteering at the zoo earlier this school year, when she was required to complete 15 hours of community service for her Living Skills class. “It was about a five-minute walk from my house, so it was convenient,” Short says. In fact, she enjoyed the experience so much that she decided to continue helping there long after she reached the 15-hour mark. Eventually, the museum offered her a paying job running zoo birthday parties. Short also appreciates the experience that the job gives her. “I really like animals,” Short says. “It’s also good for college, because I want to work with animals [in the future], and I have a lot of responsibilities [here].” Handling the animals is Short’s favorite part of her job, especially one reptile in particular. “His name’s Devon. He’s a ball python, and he’s my favorite animal there,” Short says.

NAME: Wilbur Gi OCCUPATION: Ice Skating Instructor

$11.48 per hour

Source: A Verde survey administered in March to 267 students in two Engish classes from each grade.

urtesy o

Paly students earn an average of

photo c o

NAME: Felicity Short OCCUPATION: Museum & Zoo Employee

SMILES AT THE RINK Gi greets a young skater visiting the Belmont Iceland skating rink

april 2011

[ FEATURES ]

A Classical Taste Classical music fans express their passion for the genre Text by ALLISON CHANG Art by YELENA KASIANOVA

he screeching, yet elegant sound of the violin emanates from the amphitheater on a brisk Saturday evening. Inside, forty sets of strings unveil a sonorous melody, each player sporting flushed cheeks and smiles in their eyes. These concerts, put on by the El Camino Youth Symphony, are triennial productions that attract families, friends, nearby communities, and lastly, classical music fanatics. Like the hackneyed “needles in a haystack,” fans of classical music are increasingly difficult to find. Palo Alto High School freshman Aaron Slipper is one such classical music

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lover who enthusiastically remembers his own music career, and how he grew to love instrumentals. “When I was younger, I was concert master of ECYS’s youngest orchestra,” Slipper says. “When I was six, I started taking piano lessons, where I greatly increased my knowledge and understanding of classical music, and began loving it almost to the exclusion of all other types of music.” Listening to the late Beethoven Quartets on his iPod while he walks to school, Slipper reveals his passion for the genre. “While I enjoy music from different cultures, I seldom listen to non-classical

music,” Slipper explains. “Classical music is by far the most interesting, beautiful, emotionally and intellectually satisfying form of music. As the years have gone by, I have broadened and deepened my appreciation for it.” However, Slipper concedes that classical music at Paly is not exactly the mainstream pop that blasts from students’ headphones. “Paly reflects the mainstream tastes in society at large, where ‘pop music,’ by definition, has broad appeal,” he says. “Pop, rock, and other popular forms of music are more emotionally accessible. There is also a common misconception that classical music is repetitive and boring,

“There’s a kind of passion behind it that you can’t really find in mainstream pop.” — SENIOR ERIN CHEN

whereas to me, the converse is true: there is no form of music more varied, inspiring, and emotionally appealing than classical music.” Fellow classical music fanatic senior Erin Chen addresses similar criteria. “I think classical music is boring to some people,” Chen says. “Admittedly, I find some classical music very dull, but it depends on the composer and one’s own preferences.” Chen further delineates the allure of a wordless, purely instrumental form of music. “There’s a kind of passion behind it [classical music] that you can’t really find in mainstream pop,” Chen says. “Classical music has the challenge of trying to communicate emotions without lyrics, and when it does so successfully, the outcome is brilliant.” Sophomore piano prodigy Hilda Huang supports such a corollary, recognizing the universality of classical music. “I believe classical music is a great example of the power of harmony to transcend words,” Huang says. “We often find translational difficulties with pop music; I imagine it would be difficult to listen to Slovakian pop music, considering I have absolutely no knowledge of the language.” Additionally, Huang acknowledges the discrepancies between pop and classical music, attributing relatability to pop music’s modern successes. “In pop music, the text finds a hardier audience than the music itself,” Huang says. “Students can relate to the text, which often talks about real life

situations, but in classical music, harmony is of an idealized nature. I love classical music because of the way it feels to me; it is ingrained deeply into who I am.” According to sophomore Yoko Kanai, classical music provides an endless outlet that mainstream music cannot. “It can convey so many more emotions than modern music,” Kanai says. “There is no emotion or idea that can’t be conveyed through classical music. I think the only reason why people don’t like it is because they don’t know how to analyze or understand it.” Some ascribe the low number of classical music fans to the prevalence of pop culture. “Classical music isn’t mainstream because pop culture is dominating the media,” sophomore Sergey Smirnov says. “Apparently kids now want something loud, atonal, with a huge beat, and heavily auto-tuned, which is what current pop music is.” Former Paly music director Darin Ishimatsu brings together these multiple perspectives. As a symphony musician himself, Ishimatsu relates the way people listen to music. “I think the way people listen to

“There is no emotion or idea that can’t be conveyed through classical music.” — SOPHOMORE YOKO KANAI

music today is both good and bad for classical music,” Ishimatsu says. “It’s bad because everyone has access to nearly every piece ever recorded at the click of a button and it changes how people listen. I sometimes find myself listening to just a minute or so of one song and then clicking a button because I’ve already found another song I want to hear. On the other hand, technology is also good for

classical music because people can find it so easily now. It is so cool that kids know music from the Beatles or other ‘classic’ popular music. “ Ishimatsu also remembers his early exposure to the genre, and how changes in breadth of music have affected the classical music audiences today. “My mother had a cassette tape of Mozart’s 40th symphony that she played fairly regularly when I was growing up” Ishimatsu says. “I didn’t even like it the first five or six times I’ve heard it, but after a while it started making sense to me and I grew to love it. I’m not sure that today’s kids have the patience to grow to like something like that because they have access to so much music. Back then, we only owned about five or six tapes so we listened to them over and over.” There has been extensive research regarding classical music and spatial reasoning in the brain. French researcher Alfred Tomatis coined the term the ‘Mozart Effect’, referring to the idea that listening to Mozart improves shortterm improvement on certain mental tasks. In 1999, Georgia governor Zelle Miller provided Mozart’s CDs to every new mother in the state. At the same time, Florida passed a law that required toddlers in all state-run schools to listen to classical music every day. But new mothers can rest assured; both the New York Times and ScienceDaily reveal current studies which indicate that having babies listen to classical music does not contribute to augmented mental capacity. “I recommend listening to Mozart to everyone, but it will not meet expectations of boosting cognitive abilities,” says Jakob Pietschnig, lead author of a study conducted at the University of Vienna in 2010. Ultimately, the persistence of classical music in society today rests in the hands of its listeners. “I hope classical music will always be a part of our culture,” Ishimatsu says. “Time is great at weeding out the bad music. I’m sure there was lots of bad music written during the time of Beethoven, but his music has survived over the years because people still find it moving and interesting today.” v april 2011

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[ FEATURES ]

: d e k n u b de

flation e d e d a r g d n a lity Do ap availabi issions? m d a e g e l l o c affect LISSA WEN

Text and Art by ME

ike many students, I worry about getting into college. Going into sophomore year, I couldn’t help comparing my own academic performance to that of my friends, who attends school in Los Altos. I noticed the multiple Advanced Placement classes on her schedule, and the fact that she earned better grades than me in similar classes without spending the same high amount of hours studying. And then I thought uh oh. It seems to be a concern that many Palo Alto High School students share. Does the Paly’s alleged “grade deflation”, the averaging down of grades, lower students’ chances of getting into their dream colleges? Is the perception that Paly has less availability of AP classes than other schools correct? Do students at schools with the most AP choices and the easiest classes have an advantage? According to Paly college advisor Alice Erber, this concern is unwarranted. “Most high schools have a profile,” Erber says. “Colleges receive a profile with every application. They know Paly. They know our profile, they know our community, they know the rigor of our courses.” The profile found on Paly’s website and sent out to colleges with every transcript shows the number of courses that Paly offers, as well as activities, awards won, and grade deciles, which show what

10th of the school population every GPA falls in. Admission officers not only examine the number of AP classes a student takes, but also examine the number of AP and honors courses offered at each school and decide whether an applicant has been taking advantage of academically challenging opportunities. Bard College admissions officer Greg Armbruster says that comparing

DON’T WORRY Anxious about how you compare to kids at other schools? According to admissions officer Greg Armbuster, colleges know what kind of GPA and class schedule is feasible at Paly. students between different schools is difficult. “Over time, we see how well students from a particular high school have done at

Bard,” he says. “Paly is a long-established, rigorous institution, whose students have traditionally been successful at Bard (and elsewhere),” he says. In addition, Erber says that as far as she knows, there is no actual grade deflation at Paly. “If you’re getting a B, you’re getting a B,” she says. However, it is true that Paly may have higher academic standards than some other schools. Armbruster admits that these differences are more subtle, although Bard does try to detect them. “When we read a poorly written personal statement or supplemental essay and see that the candidate got an ‘A’ in AP English composition, we begin to suspect the veracity of the other grades as well,” Armbruster explains. “Also, when we look through our records and see that 3.0 GPA students from one school have always done well at Bard, but 4.0 students from another did poorly, it’s pretty clear which institution inflates its grades.” But, again, he emphasizes the necessity of evaluating students within the context of their own school. Paly students can breathe a sigh of relief — it looks like, truly, college admissions officers do take into account the amount of work we put into our classes. “I would offer that successful Paly students are adequately prepared to continue their academic success at any of the colleges that accept them,” Armbuster says. v april 2011

PERSPECTIVES The Decision cartoon by AVA DORDI

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PLANNED PARENTHOOD A ROAD TO CHANGE LITERATURE’S NEXT CHAPTER CREATING CHANGE THROUGH EDUCATION

34 36 38 39

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april 2011

[ PERSPECTIVES ]

The Wrong

Plans for

Proposed budget cuts would do more harm than good Text by SCOTT KLECKNER and JACKSON MILEY Photography by ALEX LENAIL

n February, Planned Parenthood gained national attention as Congressional House Republicans attempted to remove federal funding for all of its facilities. Although Republicans are opposed to Planned Parenthood for performing abortions, their reasoning for defunding Planned Parenthood is misguided. If they really want to reduce the abortion rate, then defunding a service that prevents many more abortions than it performs is certainly the wrong way to do it. According to The New York Times, the bill succeeded in the House, but failed in the Senate. Though ended, this episode

is just one of many in a long-standing battle over abortion rights. The landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court case renewed the debate when it used the 14th Amendment, which, among other things, also defines who qualifies as a citizen, in its ruling to declare abortions legal up to 28 weeks into pregnancy. The controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood clinics has grown over time, and the 2010 Quinnipiac University Poll shows that almost half of Americans are in favor of cutting funding for Planned Parenthood. In the recent debate, House Repub-

Mar Monte Planned Parenthood affiliate sources of funds 2010*: Medi-Cal and related (21.6%)

Mar Monte Planned Parenthood affiliate medical visits 2010*:

Family planning visits (78.6%)

Pregnancy tests and counseling (5.0%) Primary care, adults (4.7%) Pediatric care (2.0%) Pre-natal care (1.6%) Abortions (3.0%) Sterilizations (<0.1%) Other services (5.0%)

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licans argued that the vote was necessary to stop funding that might possibly be used for abortions, a practice which many people oppose on a variety of moral and ethical grounds. But their efforts are counterproductive, and targeting Planned Parenthood is the wrong way to scale back the number of abortions in the United States, according to Congressional opponents to the proposed legislation. The Mar Monte Planned Parenthood affiliate, which administers much of central California as well as parts of Nevada, provides statistics which counters the idea that Planned Parenthoodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main

Family PACT (58.1%)

Private insurance and self-pay fee for service (5.5%) Government grants and contracts (5.0%) Contributions (7.5%) Other (2.3%)

*Source: Planned Parenthood Mar Monte Overview & Client Demographics 2010 report

s %)

Research Act of 1970, “none of the funds function is abortion. Abortions account for only three per- appropriated under this title shall be used cent of all of the visits to the Planned Par- in programs where abortion is a method enthood centers, according to the Planned of family planning.” In fact, Title X actually reduces the Parenthood annual review for 2010. Guadalupe Rodríguez, Planned Par- number of abortions performed each enthood Director of Public Affairs for year in the United States according to a report entitled “ConSilicon Valley, Alamtraceptive Needs and eda, and San Mateo Services: National County, explains the and State Data, common misconcep2008 Update.” Title tion. X planning served “I think the asso7,105,670 clients and ciation with people is actually helped avoid most generally abor616,300 abortions tion, but in our local through preventative affiliate, 97 percent of health care, the report all funding is used for states. preventative health One thing is cercare,” she says. tain, though. This isThe funds, which sue is not going away had been proposed to anytime soon, accordbe scaled back, are acing to Rodríguez. tually not involved in — Guadalupe Rodríguez, “Title X funding abortion funding at all. Planned Parenthood director of is an appropriations Title X is the public affairs for Silicon Valley, bill that has to be apfunding plan which Alameda, and San Mateo County proved every year in was up for review in the House and the Senate, and which was the Congress,” Rodríguez says. If lowering the number of abortions in danger of being defunded. However, it does not appropriate is a priority, then defunding Title X and funds for abortions to the centers the plan Planned Parenthood may not the way to supports, a point which is made abun- go about it. “Republican attacks [in Congress] dantly clear in its wording. According to section 1008 of the are aimed at reducing the rates of aborFamily Planning Services and Population tions in the United States, but cutting Title X funding does not do that,” Rodriguez says. U.S. Federal Expenditures 2010: “It is very, very paradoxical to go after reducing Title X Interest on National abortions by removing (0.000089%) Debt (4.6%) funding that prevents Department them.” of Defense Medicaid (8.2%) Although House (18.7%) Republicans want to defund Planned Parenthood, they should be Medicare (12.7%) considering expanding its funding. If they reOther (36.2%) ally were committed to reducing the abortion Social Security rate, then they should (19.6%) recognize that Planned Parenthood can help to achieve that goal. v

“In our local affiliate, 97 percent of all funding is used for preventative health care.”

Planned Parenthood by the numbers: Percentage of ... 2010 Federal Budget allocated to Title X:

0.000089%

Title X funding going to support abortion:

Paly students who have gone to Planned Parenthood*:

15%

Of these 15%:

67% went for birth control 17% went for STD testing 16% went for General Health *Statistics based on an anonymous Verde survey of 203 Paly English students in March

Impact of Title X**: Women in need of contraceptives (2008):

17,428,270

Women with contraceptives by Title X (2008):

4,683,290

Abortions prevented:

406,200

**Information provided by Guttmacher institute, a non-profit endorsed by World Health Organization april 2011

[ PERSPECTIVES ]

The Road to Change

How to make University Avenue a more popular hangout Text by CAROLINE EBINGER Art by YELENA KASIANOVA and AVA DORDI

DOWNTOWN An artistic rendering of a car-free University Avenue shows more outdoor dining possibilities.

everal times each year, Palo Alto residents flock downtown during community events, such as the annual Palo Alto Festival of the Arts, when University Avenue is free of vehicles. We gather downtown on these unique days for a united community experience and a chance to stroll down the broad boulevard of University Avenue. Having grown up in an East Coast town with a downtown that was so disjointed it could only be identified by an insignificant sign that I didn’t notice for seven years, I was at first impressed by Palo Alto’s downtown. However, once I visited the downtowns of neighboring cities, I was no longer spellbound by Palo Alto’s. After taking a tour of Europe a few summers after I moved to California, I was even less captivated. I believe that downtown Palo Alto needs to learn from these other cities by incorporating more chain and boutique stores and by limiting car traffic.

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The array of boutique shops, such as Cranberry Scoop and Fina Lifestyle, in downtown Los Altos and the many cafés and chains like Pottery Barn in downtown Burlingame make these places destinations for people from other cities. When I visit downtown Palo Alto, however, I am unenthusiastic because I am probably not hungry enough for a three-course meal and because I am not there to buy an oriental rug. Of course, downtown Palo Alto is home to Restoration Hardware, American Apparel and Chico’s, but I believe it needs to become an even greater destination. To do this, University Avenue needs an array of chains that are popular enough to draw in people who have their own downtown destinations. This would also draw Palo Alto’s visitors into surrounding boutique shops. “I know that several large chains are considering moving into downtown spaces,” says Sidney Espinosa, Mayor of Palo Alto. This makes the idea of blocking off University Avenue to

“Proponents [of a car-free University Avenue], like me, envision a more pleasant pedestrian experience.” — SIDNEY ESPINOSA, Palo Alto Mayor

cars even more attractive. Many downtown areas in France, Germany and Italy are car-free and pedestrian friendly. Strasbourg, France, for example, has a main strip of shops leading up to a cathedral that is completely free of cars. In parts of Florence, sidewalks are wide enough to fit an entire building. In Palo Alto, however, where we should be taking advantage of our incredible Northern California weather, the sidewalks are not even wide enough for adequate outdoor seating. “The idea of a car-free University Avenue is often raised,” Espinosa says. “Proponents, like me, envision a more pleasant pedestrian experience.” While it would be ideal to stop all car traffic on University Avenue, this is currently unrealistic due to traffic flow and parking. “Important considerations are parking and … traffic flow,” Espinosa says. According to Espinosa, “the impacts [on traffic flow if University Avenue were made car-free] have not been fully studied.” To allow for gradual change and to assess the logistics of a car-free University Avenue on an average day, University Avenue could first be made car-free only on Sundays. “We already receive many complaints about the inability to find parking downtown,” Espinosa says. “We are considering additional parking garages.” A new building has been proposed to replace the Shell station on Lytton Avenue that could alleviate the parking issue if the bottom of the building were made into public parking. In addition, the parking lot next to Spot Pizza could be converted to public parking or a parking structure. Espinosa also mentions that some businesses are afraid a car-free University Avenue would hurt them because “customers could not simply drive up to their front door.” Though satisfying businesses is a concern, consumers would be required to walk on a car-free University Avenue, which would then increase business’ exposure to consumers. With a wider space to walk, cafés could allow room for outdoor seating more spectacular than Pasta?’s attempt, where a few tables are squeezed alongside the window. As an interim measure, Palo Alto could also invest in tall decorative flower

boxes to block the noise of the cars from seating areas, as downtown Los Altos has done. This environment would harbor more casual lunches and dinners than University Avenue now does and would block out noise from loud, passing vehicles. A wider walking area would also help boutique stores because they could display merchandise outside of their formal shops, allowing for casual browsing. In order to make Downtown Palo Alto live up to its charming looks, we need to limit car access and allow for more chain stores to draw people in, more boutique shops to keep them interested, and more expansive outdoor eating areas so they can make a day of it. v

A DIFFERENT DOWNTOWN Percent of Paly students who said they would go to University Avenue more often if it had ...

more sidewalk space for casual, outdoor dining:

49%

more sidewalk space for entertainers or casual shop browsing:

55%

Source: an anonymous survey given in March 2011 to 267 Paly students of all grades in two English classes from each grade

april 2011

Literature’s Next Chapter Borders’ crisis foreshadows a new age Text and Photography by ALLEN WU

BORDERS One of roughly 200, San Jose’s Borders store is clearing its shelves as it prepares to close down.

his summer I enjoyed the luxury of reading a book, Pride and Prejudice, on an iPad. It was not a monumental experience, as reading electronically is hardly different from turning paper pages. While some argue that physical books are special, it seems just as easy to sit by the stereotypical fireplace with an electronic device in one’s lap. The term bibliophile is really a misnomer. The attraction some people claim is not to the small sheets of paper bound together, but to the stories and information. Paper has been the conventional instrument of dissemination, but as technology progresses we are seeing the rapid growth of more advanced parchments. In recent times, many have begun to warn of the extinction of books, paralleling environments’ cries about the trees they come from. Recently, bookstore giant Borders has captured national attention by announcing bankruptcy. According to the Wall Street Journal, Borders is closing more than one third of its 600 stores all across the country; the company has stated that the stores it is shutting down are collectively losing $2 million dollars per week. Though Palo Alto’s own Borders has been spared this fate, stores in nearby Los Gatos and San Francisco are shutting down. A Borders employee who wished to remain anonymous attributes the Palo Alto store’s survival to its location. “Where we are, people have a lot of money,” he says. “We never really had to worry about being closed.” Borders’ losses cannot be attributed primarily to an economic downturn or poor business decisions; rather, it has been hurt by the rising popularity of alternative ways to buy books. What separates this super book chain from its bigger com-

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petitor, Barnes & Nobles, is B&N’s more successful system of online purchasing. Both these companies, however, are struggling in comparison to completely digital stores such as eBay and Amazon. Because our Borders is remaining open, we will not feel any of the immediate effects of Borders’ financial difficulties; if anything, the Palo Alto store may become busier if regulars of nearby closing stores migrate to ours. However, no city or region will be able to avoid the longterm consequences and implications of Borders’ bankruptcy. In the short term, Borders’ closures will strengthen competitors like B&N, but if other bookstores begin to weaken as well, then the physical book itself will begin to decline. In the near future, books may be moving even more increasingly onto electronic formats. What does this mean for readers? What will happen is not a reduction of quality reading, but a dilution. As of now, the publication process serves as a bar that hopeful writers must exceed in order to share their writing with the world. If books make the leap into the digital age, there will no longer be any cost required to distribute copies of a work across the world. Every individual will become a publisher. The phenomenal writers will continue to produce reading material, but so will many others who would not pass the publication trial. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but traditional readers may find themselves wading through more lower-quality texts in order to search out excellent writing. It would be meaningless to evaluate this change for better or for worse. No matter our complaints, we must acknowledge that this is the direction literature is moving toward. v

Creating Change Through Education Teacher of Freedom Writers shares her experiences teaching at-risk youth Text by MARGARET KADIFA Photography by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS

y the time the credits rolled at the end of the doc- of high school. Who cares if I can solve differential equations umentary The Freedom Writers: Stories from an Un- when kids like Calvin do not have parents with whom to live? declared War, I was in shock. Among others, the During career month, I heard Kavita Ramdas, senior addocumentary told the story of a girl named Maria visor, former president and Chief Executive Officer of Global who, as a preteen, joined a gang and was in juvenile Fund for Woman talk about asking the same questions that I hall shortly after and of a boy named Calvin who suffered paren- did. She was once convinced that she didn’t need a college edutal abuse before being thrust into foster care. cation. Instead, Ramdas wanted to live in rural India to assist The Freedom Writers: Stories from an Undeclared War depicts impoverished farmers. After a little while, one of the older farmthe high school experiences of a group of underachieving, of- ers said something roughly along the lines of, “Kavita, you are a ten physically and emotionally abused Long Beach, Calif. high terrible farmer.” The farmer went on to tell her that she had the school students who were freshman in 1994 and not expected opportunity for education and the best thing she could do for his to graduate. Their lives were changed by an optimistic, young cause was to take advantage of this opportunity. An education English teacher named Erin Gruwell who encouraged her stu- would give her the skills to spread awareness about his hardships. dents to journal. These journal entries have since been published I don’t have to face the challenges that the Freedom Writand made into a feature film, The Freedom Writers. All 150 self- ers did, nor those with which the students from Oakland still proclaimed Freedom Writers graduated from high school and grapple. But I acknowledge these challenges and make were integral in the creation of the documentary. it my mission to use my opportunities to solve them. Gruwell and several of her students came to Paly Helping others is not about an impulsive, though wellearlier this month to show a rough cut of their docuintentioned, act when an individual is motivated by mentary. Myself and other Paly students were joined by guilt. Instead, it is a well-thought-out decision, where a group of students from Oakland. one identifies what it is about him or herself that can The lifestyles of Gruwell’s students were foreign best serve others and use that strength. to me, but the kids from Oakland looked This is what Gruwell did 17 years ago. She used as if they could relate. After the docher empathy to relate to students whom no one umentary finished, a few of the had ever tried to understand. Gruwell knew kids from Oakland said that their that each of her students had a story to tell, lives were similar to those depicted and by encouraging them to journal, she in the documentary. helped guide to graduation 150 kids who Compared to the kids from Oakwere thought to be lost causes. land, I felt incredibly spoiled. I have Gruwell’s students now use their life never had to dodge bullets in my experiences to talk to high risk students neighborhood, deal with abusive parabout the importance of an education. ents, or suffer from addiction. I, and Calvin, the boy who spent years in foster many Paly students, have some of the care, is now a nurse and speaks to youth. highest quality lives in the world. Upon exitGruwell’s empathy was still evident ing the theater, I had no idea what to say to last Friday at Paly. Her story reminds me why Gruwell, the Freedom Writers, or the kids I want to be educated. It is easy to feel inept across the aisle from Oakland. when trying to help others, but the decision My immediate desire was to take evto overcome these feelings of inadequacy and ery kid from Oakland out to ice cream, use an education to serve others is something and then fix their lives. As with the other CHATTING WITH STUDENTS: to which I am committed. This is just what times when I have interacted with people Erin Gruwell introduces the Freedom Gruwell and Ramdas have done. They inenduring injustices, I questioned the use Writers’ documentary to Paly students spire me to follow in their footsteps. v april 2011

COVER When the

... The community’s response to a shaking natural disaster Text by ELISE BRUGUERA, GADI COHEN, CAMILLE VON KAENEL and MANON VON KAENEL

or Steve Foug, Palo Alto High School social studies teacher and ‘91 alum, the afternoon of Oct. 17, 1989 promised the usual routine of football practice at the Paly campus. Team members were on all fours, plodding through the last exercise of the day — “bear crawls,” Foug calls them — when they noticed that something was wrong. “I got up from a rep and thought I was dizzy from exertion but the stands, which had wooden benches back then, were shaking violently,” Foug says. “You could see the field buckle and warp slightly and the power lines that run down Alma were

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exploding with small blue flashes.” Team members sprinted to the center of the field for cover. At the Paly pool, the water polo team was ahead of Wilcox High School, 13 to 1. As the players dove for the ball and raced through the water, waves started to build up. They would eventually reach five feet, according to Joe Chow and Brian Wong, Paly water polo players at the time. “Some guys were thrown out of the pool and onto the deck, and others got slammed against the pool walls,” Chow and Wong say in an article by The Campanile. “It felt like we were in a giant bowl and someone was rocking it back and

forth.” The coaches immediately ended the game and sent everyone home. It was 5:04 p.m. and the San Andreas fault had slipped in the Santa Cruz Mountains, causing a 6.9 earthquake on the Richter scale that would rattle the San Francisco Bay area and the Monterey Bay, according the the U.S. Geologic Survey website. Sixty three people died, most of them crushed during rush hour by the collapse of portions of Interstate 880 in Oakland. A part of the Bay Bridge collapsed. The warm-up for the third World Series game was interrupted by the shaking, which was televised live to the nation.

“You could see the field buckle and warp slightly and the power lines that run down Alma were exploding with small blue flashes.” — STEVE FOUG, Paly ‘91 alum and social studies teacher

“The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake ended decades of tranquility in the San Francisco Bay region,” said Robert Page of the USGS on the organization’s website. “It was a wake-up call to prepare for the potentially even more devastating shocks that are inevitable in the future.” We call it “The Big One.” Ever since elementary school, this future earthquake has existed as a vague, nagging threat. However, the recent disasters in Haiti, Chile, New Zealand and Japan have shed light on the Bay Area’s vulnerability. The crumbling houses you saw on television coverage about Japan? Some warn that might happen here as well. Although no tsunami risk exists for Palo Alto, the United States Geological Survey has found a 63 percent chance of a magnitude 6.7 or higher earthquake occurring somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area before 2032. That means a major earthquake in our region is twice more likely to happen than not to happen in our lifetime. The question, then, is not if “The Big One” will ever really happen, but rather what will happen to our community when it does. The Bay Area is fragmented by several faults, all accommodating the motion between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate. According to a 2008 USGS Bay Area earthquake probability

DESTRUCTION

Shaking from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake scattered the books from the library’s shelves and damaged the Tower Building. forecast, an earthquake is most likely to occur at the Hayward-Rodgers Creek Fault system, which has a 31 percent probability of undergoing a damaging quake. This fault, which runs through Oakland and other East Bay cities, is predicted by the City of Palo Alto Emergency Operations Plan to cause an earthquake as large as 7.5, which would qualify as a “major” earthquake. The other Bay Area fault likely to produce an earthquake is the San Andreas fault, the culprit of the Loma Prieta earthquake and the closest fault to Palo Alto. It has a 21 percent chance of causing another damaging earthquake, with a maximum magnitude of 8.3. This would make the Big One fall into the same category — “great” — as Japan’s March 11 earthquake, which was measured at 9.0.

ourtesy

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, PANILE

CAM of THE

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1989

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“The structural carrying capacity has not been upgraded to the level where the building would not sustain major damage during a major event.” — 2007 PAUSD Facilities Master Plan

CRACKS 89

ILE, 19

PAN HE CAM esy of T

The Tower Building experienced damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

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hat October afternoon in 1989, Sandra Pearson was still in her office in the tower building. After two years as Paly’s principal, she had become accustomed to the monthly routine — the emergency drills, the tedious, perfunctory troubles. But when the earth shuddered and the lights boomed off, Pearson realized that neither she nor the school was prepared for an earthquake. “When it hit, I stood in the doorway of the office, looking out into the main office, and I could see all the bookshelves and all the books on the floor,” Pearson says. “I couldn’t do anything for a while, until it stopped shaking.” With the chain of communication completely broken — she was one of only two administrators still on campus, and the phone lines had disconnected — she felt completely vulnerable. “There could have been someone in a remote area trapped under a book case,” she says. “It was challenging to do a

art by GADI COHEN and ELISE BRUGUERA

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quick visual inspection.” After she ensured that the people on campus were safe by walking through every classroom, office and hallway, Pearson finally left campus at 6 p.m. El Camino was shrouded in darkness; all the streetlights were broken after the quake. “The cars were just creeping along, and it was an eerie feeling,” she says. “It felt like a big cloud, a big nuclear cloud was hovering, and the people had just gone into slow motion.” While she drove home to her own significantly damaged house, she left a spooked campus: emptied of sports teams, its library littered with fallen books and the Tower Building precariously cracked. According to an article published by The Campanile, visible cracks materialized where the tower separated from the main building, making it unsafe for administrators and guidance staff members to work in their offices. While the Tower Building’s safety was assessed and repairs made, the peo-

ple — the administration, the guidance office and the auditor — who worked in it had to relocate. Meanwhile, debate raged as to whether to dismantle the building or simply conduct repairs. Because of strong community support for the preservation of the historic building, according to a Campanile article, the Tower was eventually repaired.

ccording to the 2007 PAUSD Facilities Master Plan, many of Paly’s buildings have been gradually getting upgraded since 1989. Various bond measures, including the current $378 million “Strong Schools” bond, have funded these upgrades over time, says Bob Golton, the district’s co-Chief Business Officer and Bond Manager. The Facilities Master Plan reports that “this upgrading improved the life safety capability of the building in the protection of its occupants.” A 19-month long investigation by t h e California Watch, released April

7, 2011, reaffirms the general safety of the district’s buildings. None of Palo Alto’s schools are on the list for a Letter 4 project, used to designate buildings with “known and unresolved safety issues,” according to the investigation. However, several projects within the district and at Paly have been designated a Letter 3, which designates projects “missing documents that suggest safety problems.” Though safer than most other schools, then, many of Paly’s old buildings still fail to meet state building standards, says Golton. “The structural carrying capacity has not been upgraded to the level where the building would not sustain major damage during a major event,” says the 2007 PAUSD Facilities Master Plan. In the event of a large earthquake, more damage than the Tower Building cracks after the Loma Prieta earthquake could be expected. Both Paly and Henry M. Gunn High School are at relatively high risk for shaking. On a scale of one to five, with five being the highest potential

for shaking, the Association of Bay Area Governments places Palo Alto’s two high schools at a level four. Though the California Watch investigation reports that Paly is not in a zone of liquefaction (in which the wet, loosely-packed ground literally liquefies), the school will likely experience much shaking and potentially significant structural damage, especially to old buildings, during an earthquake due to proximity to fault lines. The immediate concern, however, will not be about structural damage as much as about student and staff safety. If a major earthquake strikes during school hours, students and staff will go through the practiced motions: ducking and covering, walking to the football field, organizing into groups. Some people may panic, but the emergency drills practiced several times a school year offer a valuable framework to the school’s response, according to Victoria Geen-Lew, a member of the PAUSD Emergency Preparedness Committee

(PEPC). “The first thing we want to do though is make sure that everyone who’s on school is safe,” Geen-Lew says. By law, the school and all public agencies are required to follow the Incident Command System format during an emergency. Developed in the 1970s, the system sets up the chain of communicattion

Paly’s Emergency Response Teams • The Search and Rescue teams conduct a sweep of campus, reporting and rescuing victims. • The Medical Team sets up a First Aid Station. • The Facility and Utility Team checks pipes, lines and buildings for structural, fire electrical, and chemical hazards. • The Traffic and Security Team patrols campus, blocks off damaged areas, and directs frazzled parents. • The Counseling Team assists worried students and parents. • The Student Release Team unites students and parents. • The Logistics Teams distribute food and water, set up restrooms and handwashing stations, and erect tents and other shelters.

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SUPPLIES

Every family should have prepared barrels of supplies. Paly’s supply shed contains food and water for every student and staff member for 72 hours.

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What about the city of Palo Alto?

isaster preparedness was one of the Palo Alto City Council’s top five priorities for both 2010 and 2011. Yet, the city is still under-prepared for an eventual earthquake disaster. A lack of active officers -- according to the Palo Alto Firefighters website, only 30 firefighters are on duty daily as of 2009, down from 39 in 1976 -- and the difficulty in responding quickly to multiple searchand-rescue operations and fires means that the city’s resources will easily find their limit during an earthquake disaster. “We would be overwhelmed very quickly after something like Japan’s [earthquake],” says Dennis Burns, the Palo Alto Police Chief. Though the city’s departments are under-prepared, they are making efforts to improve, says Burns, by working together and

educating residents. One of the assumptions in the City of Palo Alto Emergency Operations Plan ( June 2007) stated that “the City’s resources will be quickly exhausted during a disaster. Therefore, residents, non-profit organizations, local businesses and others need to be prepared for an emergency.” The Palo Alto Fire Department has organized a group known as Palo Alto Neighborhood Activities (PANDA) and trains volunteers in light search and rescue, radio communications, and first aid. PANDA’s members become the local Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), part of a national organization dedicated to educating and training people in disaster preparedness and response. “I realized that the only way I was going to get any kind of help in the event of a major earthquake that would affect Palo Alto was to be prepared myself,” says

after a disaster, from the head count at the student and staff level to the major decisions mutually reached by the city and county. According to Kathie Laurence, Paly’s assistant principal and a member of PEPC, the recent wireless system installed at Paly has facilitated the system in the school. But the drills and the ICS communication are only a small part of the district’s planned response to a major disaster. As night starts to fall, some students and staff may yet remain at the football field. The lights are out, phone service does not work and there is no way to find out about the damage at home. The crowd trickles toward a large shed at the end of the track, carrying tents and food out onto the football field for the night. “There are enough supplies [in the shed] for every student and every staff member for the first 72 hours after a ma-

jor disaster,” Geen-Lew says. In addition to food, water, tents and blankets, the shed also contains supplies for emergency response teams of trained staff members. This is a change since the Loma Prieta earthquake. According to Pearson, fear surrounding Paly’s unpreparedness for a major disaster led to the creation of a district-wide committee to assess and implement ways to respond properly to a future earthquake. One of the results was the storage trailer, whose stocks are replenished every year. Another result of the new wave of earthquake awareness is Paly’s designation as a community shelter. Both federal and state law require schools to be open as public shelters after a disaster, and Paly’s large facilities, kitchen and restrooms match the criteria, says Geen-Lew.

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NOVA

KASIA ELENA art by Y

A FAULTY AREA Paly lies between the Hayward and San Andreas Faults. Bob Paugh, who is retired Paly teacher Kaye Paugh’s husband. He has been a PANDA volunteer since the program was formed in 1998 to combat floods in the city. “Essentially, that’s true for every household.” Additional reporting by Julia Poppy

Whether an earthquake hits during or after school hours, the football field and supply shed will still be very much in use, providing shelter and a gathering place for nearby affected residents.

hough the recent earthquake disasters around the world have raised temporary earthquake awareness among residents, says GeenLew, there are people working behind the scenes every day to improve our safety in the face of a major earthquake. “We are always making better preparations within the district and all the schools,” she says. v See voice.paly.net for web-exclusive Verde coverage of this issue.

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What are you going to write your college essays about? Find topics that show you are interesting. Figure out what voice works for you. Produce essays that show who you are.

Christina B端chmann, Essay Coach Years of experience with college applications at Castilleja. Trained to screen applicants for Yale. acbuchmann@earthlink.net 650-704-2875

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PROFILES

FROM PEACE CORPS TO WAR AND PEACE THE SCULPTOR’S STORY THE PREHN DYNASTY

48 50 52

photography by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS

[ PROFILES ]

From Peace Corps to War and Peace

Retiring English teacher discusses her career and adventures abroad Text by MAYTAL MARK Photography courtesy of KAY VAN DER BURG and MAYTAL MARK

ell me more about My Fair Lady,” Kay Van Der Burg says, leaning on her desk, listening intently. She nods her head, sharing in the enthusiasm of seniors Stephanie Spector and Arielle Fish-

she asks more questions, each with the same tone of genuine curiosity. “I find Paly students endlessly entertaining,” Van Der Burg says. “From the student who tries to talk me into seeing it his way to the students who argue vigorously about the existential meaning of a piece of literature, I am constantly amused and invigorated.” Retiring this year, Van Der Burg leaves behind a legacy of strong relationships with her students. “I actively, emotionally care about how my students are doing on a daily basis,” Van Der Burg says. “I am passionately in love with teaching high schoolers. I will miss their personalities, strong opinions, idealism, humor, and their drive to have fun. After retiring, Van Der Burg plans to travel more, catch — KAY VAN DER BURG, up with books and music and Paly English teacher take more time to relax. “I am so looking forward to the freedom to travel to some man as they tell exotic places, sit on the beach in some stories from warm climates, learn to be a grandparent rehearsal. A in September,” Van Der Burg says. “I’m Palo Alto High not sure I won’t want to teach a class afSchool English ter being out a year,” she adds. teacher, Van Der Growing up in a small Wisconsin Burg’s empathy town, Van Der Burg developed a love and interest in for traveling and exploring the greater student affairs world, attending a different school for are evident as each year of college. She finally gradu-

“I am passionately in love with teaching high schoolers. I will miss their personalities, strong opinions, idealism, humor, and their drive to have fun.”

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VDB’s Picks

Kay Van Der Burg shares her favorite books and authors To read for herself: Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky “I love Dostoevsky.”

KENYAN SAFARI

Van Der Burg poses while on tour in Kenya

ated from Marquette University with majors in English and theology and minors in philosophy, sociology and psychology. “I have always been fascinated with the connections between literature and the social, psychological, and religious thought of the times,” Van Der Burg says. “I read a wide variety of literature, and not always for enjoyment, but for learning about the time.” Van Der Burg later got a master’s in counseling and a master’s and Ph.D. in Educational Leadership at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. When not teaching, Van Der Burg enjoys “creating crafty works,” including greeting cards and cross-stitch. “I know how to knit, crochet, embroider — I grew up in harsh winters,” Van Der Burg says. Van Der Burg has also had the opportunity to travel to Spain, Portugal, the Bahamas, Niger, China, Turkey and Russia and has stories rivaling those in the novels she teaches. “There was the time in the Peace Corps in Niger, West Africa,” Van Der Burg says. “There was no plumbing, so one’s personal business was taken care by squatting over a dug hole. As I started, I heard hissing from the hole and looked to see a snake rising up in the hole — toward me. One doesn’t worry about pulling pants up before running.” In addition to her international adventures, Van Der Burg was also politically active during the 60s and 70s. “Fortunately, I never got into the

drug scene, but tie dye and peace symbols were standard attire and my hair reached my waist,” Van Der Burg says. “I marched for non-segregated housing, a huge movement in Milwaukee, and against the Vietnam War.” Van Der Burg’s political activity almost took a dangerous turn when the Milwaukee 9 invited her to break into government draft files and pour blood on them. “I said no,” Van Der Burg says. “They got prison terms. They were deeply committed people who believed in the social gospel, so I admired them, but chose to stay within the law.” Still passionate about social justice, Van Der Burg’s political activism took a back seat to her children. Van Der Burg’s captivating stories are not limited to countries abroad. “A student asked me in class if my hair was ‘real’,” Van Der Burg says. “I feigned amused shock that he would ask such a personal question. The girls assured him it was a rude question and the guys couldn’t see why. Come Christmas, this student publicly presented me with a bottle of Clairol’s Nice ‘n Easy.” Van Der Burg has undoubtedly touched the hearts of students throughout her years teaching at Paly. “I got a thank you card from a student who just graduated from college and was reminiscing about his high school experience,” Van Der Burg says. “He wrote: ‘If there’s any good in me, you had a part in putting it there.’” v

To teach:

Wild Swans Jung Chang “I appreciate that it is a true story of three generations of Chinese women — from foot binding and serving as a concubine to the Cultural Revolution and escaping China.”

To recommend: Zelda Nancy Milford

“F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s wife — the excitement of the 20s juxtaposed with her descent into mental illness.”

Favorite Author: Jane Austen

“I love her satire.”

Movie adaptation of a book: The Lion in the Winter (1968) James Goldman starring Katherine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole

“The sarcastic, ironic dialogue of this historic play about royal succession is unfailingly entertaining.”

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PROFILES

]

The Sculptor’s Story Sculpting the commitment, artwork and friendship of an artist Text by JESSICA MADEJ Photograpy by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS

he sculpture’s gray hands are gloved in dust. A small amount of clay, rolled out into a long, string like piece, is slung over Palo Alto High School senior Becca Dixon’s shoulder. A clay female body sits crouching on the table beside her, with hand-less arms wrapped around knees. Dixon forms mountains and valleys into the lump of clay until a hand is formed. Eventually this particular hand would end up holding a clay mask, and be a part of one of Dixon’s many sculptures. The Zone A dusty boom box in the corner of the room plays the Beach Boys and the Beatles in the background. Students are gathered around wooden tables, working on various art projects. “Come Together” plays as Dixon takes off the plastic wrap from her covered sculpture, her friends gathering

THE HEART OF THE MATTER Becca Dixon connects the brain and the heart to three heartless and brainless figures.

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round to see her progress on the body sculpture. “She will not even tell us half the time what she is doing,” Kimberley Hallsted, a close friend, says. “We just have to wait and see.” The art teacher, David Camner, floats around the room, stopping to give his “two cents” about student’s work. The Beginning Dixon found her artistic forte in clay sculpture during her sophomore year after trying other artistic elements. “I didn’t really know much about clay and sculpture,” Dixon says. “I just progressed until I became a sculptor with clay.” Dixon attends Advanced Sculpture at Paly, taught by Camner. “Becca’s been with

“[the sculptures] are an easy way to express my feelings without talking about them. Anyone could relate to them.” –Becca Dixon

me for a few years now,” Camner says. “She has developed into probably the best sculptor here in Paly.” “You get better,” Dixon says. “When I was a sophomore I didn’t really know how to tell a story with the sculpture, but now I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it.” The Muse The naked female body and a chest with a heart ripped open, above, are only a few of Dixon’s recent pieces. “Her ideas are strong,” Camner says, “and she sees them through.” “When I plan it out, it’s how I am feeling,” Dixon says. “But then when it is done and people look at it, then it will speak for itself. They are an easy way to express my feelings without talking about them. Anyone could relate to them.” Dixon’s surroundings—the people, the school—are her inspiration. “It is people in general,” Dixon says. “They [the sculptures] are views that I have, like [the way] I view people at Paly.” But Dixon does not consider everything she molds with her two hands a sculpture. “Something that has meaning, like my people, I would consider them sculptures,” she says. “I made a giraffe, I would say that that is just a little art,” Dixon says. “It is just not a sculpture.” Though the inspiration comes from many places, the meaning behind it is a work in process. “I will critique them with her,” Camner says. “That is when we will get into

the prospect of meaning.” Commitment When most students are still asleep in their beds, Dixon is already on her way to work on her pieces. “She is really dedicated she comes in at seven o’clock every morning, and at noon time” Camner says. “[Dixon] works in here everyday.” Dixon explains that she often gets up at six and arrives around seven at school to get to work on her sculptures. “Nobody is here,” Dixon says as she points out the parking lot. “It is great.” Every minute of Dixon’s time is used to work on her projects. The sculpture of the woman above took Dixon a month to complete. “Her demeanor and her hard work rubs off on the other kids,” Camner says. “She is a quiet leader.” The Tools On the dusty table beside Dixon’s sculpture rests the book “Modeling the Clay Figure: A Sculptors Guide to Anatomy.” Looking at books to see the object of interest helps Dixon make her sculptures realistic. The detail that Dixon puts into her sculptures makes it seem like she is a 3-D copy machine, taking the image and turning it into a sculpture. To make her giraffe, she looked at a picture book of giraffes. Her hands made creases and elongated the clay where she

needed to make legs. In the end, the giraffe has textured spots, and long neck, standing on its own four feet. The Name Game “Naming things is really hard,” Dixon says. “I think you do not need to name it. You can just look at it and whatever it means to you is the name of it.” Dixon’s sculpting is unique and she is currently focused on a specific genre. “Becca’s work has taken on maturity,” Camner says. “She’s kind of got her own thing going now, she is working the figure, whereas no one else is right now. And so she’s really developed that on her own.” Dixon’s work speaks for itself. However, for now her sculptures are not for sale. “I hope she has the ability to do that,” Dixon’s mother, Lynn, says. “It is a tough career though.” Dixon’s work is on display, not just on the many shelves of her house, but also in the art room. “At the end of the year we do a district art show,” Camner says. “And of course her work is gong to be in that.” Promptly at 3:25 p.m., Camner yells out, “Last one out closes the door.” The chairs are put up on the dusty tables. Becca places a plastic bag over her sculpture to keep the clay from drying. She carries the half made sculpture to the shelf, where art projects are made to wait another day until completed. v april 2011

[ PROFILES ]

The Prehn Dynasty How the Prehn family has dedicated their careers to this district. Text by EMMA TUCHER Photo by SANDRA TUCHER, JOY HELSAPLE and PAUSD

ary Prehn, principal of Escondido Elementary School, colors my elementary school memories of sitting cross-legged on the black top for a weekly meeting, walking the cake-walk in the end-of-the -year carnival, or finally, shaking his hand as I crossed the stage for the last time at graduation. Three years later, in our final year of middle school, many of us Escondido alums entered Jan Prehn’s, Gary’s ex-wife, classroom to learn U.S. History. One day, Jan fell sick and her comical, young son, Michael Prehn, took over as a substitute. Now, our friend’s siblings recount stories of seeing Michael around the Walter Hays campus. Across the city at Terman, our fellow Escondido graduates were similarly surprised when meeting history teacher and Gary’s nephew, Ross Helsaple and his mom, Gary’s sister, Joy Helsaple, who both work at Terman. The extended Prehn family has become a fixture in our district. Gary Prehn Gary’s history with PAUSD started long before he ever became Escondido’s principal. He grew up in Palo Alto and attended local schools along with his brothers and sisters. Before becoming a principal, a job he has had for the last 20 years, he taught elementary and middle school for 12 years. Given that he grew up in Palo Alto, he felt like this was the perfect place to

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launch his career. “PAUSD is a great school district that serves a wonderful community,” Gary says. “Being a part of Palo Alto my entire life, it felt like a natural and wonderful place to begin my teaching career. “ He has worked at Escondido, El Carmelo, Los Ninos (Ohlone’s current site), Loma Vista ( Juana Briones location), Jordan, and Jane Lathrop Stanford as both a teacher and a principal. “The kids are great, parents are very supportive, and the teachers amazingly talented and professional,” Gary says. While he doesn’t see his family in his day-to-day job, he enjoys the proximity and the connectedness that working within one district brings. Coming up on his fifteenth year at Escondido, he enjoys the school for its unique approach to education, including the Spanish Immersion program. “Escondido embraces cultural diversity and celebrates the academic achievements of its student,” Prehn says. “The teachers are very talented, work extremely hard, and also have a lot of fun. The kids are wonderful and it is so ‘real world’ to have kids from over 30 countries that speak over 20 different languages.” Gary believes that seeing a school change is empowering. “I love to see positive change and the excitement it generates among the teachers, parents, and students,” Prehn says.

Jan Prehn Jan Prehn’s unexpected retirement from PAUSD surprised many of her students. After 27 “wonderful” years within the district, she ended her career in December 2010. The untimely death of her mother, father, and friend led her to decide that it was time to take time for herself. “Fate seemed to be telling me that it was time to focus on my own life and to make some changes,” Jan says. “I will really miss the interesting students who, over time, filled my life with laughter, interest, curiosity, and even occasionally, pathos.” Jan started working in this district after graduating from Stanford University and marrying Gary Prehn. Due to conflicting schedules between herself, her husband and school-aged daughter, she decided, after working as the Dean of Residential Education at Stanford, to return to teaching. “I had taught English in another state for a short time,” Jan says. “But I wanted to work in a really good school district.” When her friend Sandra Pearson was promoted to principal of Paly, she decided to step in as the drama teacher. “[Pearson] talked to me about applying for the drama position since I had been an actress earlier in my life,” Jan says. “The rest is history, as they say.” Jan enjoyed the proximity to her family working for PAUSD offered.

LEFT Gary Prehn delivering a speech at graduation TOP Jordan Middle School RIGHT Ross Helsaple (L), Joy Helsaple (M), and Michael Prehn (R)

Her nephew and sister-and-law work at Terman, her son at Walter Hays, and her ex-husband at Escondido. “Not a bad family representation, huh?,” Jan says. “Not too many people realize that we are related because we have different last names.” She has worked at Wilbur Middle School, Jane Lathrop Stanford, and then transferred to Jordan Middle School when it opened up. She has loved her 27 years of teaching because of the people that have surrounded her. “My favorite aspect is the people,” Jan says. “The very bright students, dedicated parents, and fabulous colleagues.” Michael Prehn Michael Prehn, who many Paly students recognize from his quirky oneday stints as Jan’s substitute, is currently working as a special education aide at Walter Hays. He, like his cousin Ross, was educated in the Palo Alto school system. He continued his education at Harvard’s Divinity School where he earned his Master’s Degree. Currently, he is in the process of interviewing at various graduate schools in Educational Psychology while he works at Walter Hays. “My older son, Michael, is going to graduate school beginning in June,” Gary Prehn says. “He will begin a 4-year program to become a school psychologist.”

Joy Helsaple Joy Helsaple, Gary Prehn’s sister, was born and raised in Palo Alto and attended Ortega Elementary School, JLS (called Wilbur Junior High at the time), and Cubberley High School. During her twenty-year long career, she has been employed by JLS, Nixon, and Terman. Joy most enjoys working with middle school aged students because she views the preteen years as a critical period. “It’s so important in middle school to feel safe because it’s such a crazy time in your life,” Joy says. “I love doing my job but also I also try to be an adult that the kids can talk to if they feel the need. I think of the kids as an extension of my own family, I’m their mother from 8-3.” Her own three children have gone through the Palo Alto Education system and her son, Ross, now teachers at Terman. “I end up seeing kids go from kindergarten through high school and I love it when they come back and visit me,” Jan says. “I have students come back and see me from my first year working in the district.” She was an original member of Terman’s staff and feels deeply connected to the school. “I have been here since day one and the feel and philosophy of Terman is what keeps me here,” Joy says. “We try to build a sense of community and make everyone feel welcome.”

Ross Helsaple Ross Helsaple, an 8th grade Social Studies Teacher at Terman Middle School, has worked in PAUSD for 6 years after growing up in this district. He attended local rivals El Carmelo, JLS, Gunn, and attended college locally to stay close to his family. “One of my favorite aspects of being in PAUSD is working with some of my old teachers and being able to thank them for all the hard work they did for me,” he says. Ross appreciates his family’s connection to PAUSD because it facilitates close relationships between students and their families. “It makes it great to be able to connect with all the different families,” Ross says. “Because our family covers the span of elementary schools and middle schools. We find out from students that they know one or more of us, or their mom or dad went to high school with somebody and it makes a good connection.” Between Escondido, Juana Briones, El Carmelo, Jordan, Jane Lathrop Stanford, and Terman, the Prehn family has pledged years of dedication to PAUSD through educating children of all ages and walks of life. “Because we all work in the same district,” Gary says. “We always have great stories during family get togethers.” v

april 2011

CULTURE The Watch

IT’S A MUSICAL! FRESH AND LOCAL DELIGHTS THE PLEASING PLAZA PROM THROUGH THE YEARS BITING INTO BIRCH STREET CREW-SADERS THE CHOCOLATE GARAGE ROCKY VIRGINS NO MORE

55 57 59 60 62 64 66 68

Recent and Upcoming Compiled by ZACHARY STANTON-SAVITZ

MUSIC MOVE LIKE THIS

MOVIES 13 ASSASSINS

New Wave rock paragons The Cars broke up in 1988, the year after they released their last album. The Cars have come together once more, however, and are releasing a new album, Move Like This. The band has already released a few songs, including “Sad Song” and “Blue Tip,” which evoke The Cars’ classic sound — a sound which has influenced so many artists around today — while adding in some modern polish. Move Like This comes out on May 10.

Director Takashi Miike is primarily known for his strange, ultra-violent horror and action movies, such as “Audition” and “Ichi the Killer.” He is coming out, however, with “13 Assassins,” a more traditional movie about a group of assassins in feudal Japan whose job it is to take out the shogun’s ruthless younger brother, to prevent his ascension to the throne. Early reviews have praised the scope of the film, and its relative accessibility as compared to Miike’s other, harder to stomach films. “13 Assassins” comes out in limited release on Apr. 29.

GAMES PORTAL 2 The only thing that ails Valve Software’s game Portal is its brevity. The concept of the Portal is simple: The player is given command of a gun that can create portals on solid objects, which a player can then travel through to access otherwise inaccessible areas, and solve puzzles. Valve took the premise, and used it to craft a wonderful set of challenging and mindbending levels, all within a beautifully realized world, over the course of a subtly implemented story line. Portal 2 takes place a good while after the events of the first game — the facilities within which the first game took place are in shambles.. It will be a significantly longer game, and players will have to employ the use of more than just the classic portal gun. The game will also have a new multi player co-op mode. If Valve sustains the puzzle elements and the deadpan humor that made the first game so great, then Portal 2 will be a success, so long as the game stays fresh throughout. Portal 2 will be made available through Steam and in stores on Apr. 19.

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TELEVISION THE KILLING “The Killing,” a new series from American Movie Classics, remade from a Swedish show that became a hit in the United Kingdom, focuses on just one murder: the drowning of a high school senior. As much of a mystery as the show is, it is also an engaging drama — beginning to explore, within the first two hour premiere, the depths of all characters involved, from the victim’s family, to the investigators, to the suspects. All of it is wrapped in the dark atmosphere of the Seattle area, and supported by some great performances. Though “The Killing” is similarly deliberately paced, it has the advantage of having narrative coherence early on. Hopefully the show will shape up to be a refreshing and satisfying antidote to a sea of episodic precedurals. Fortunately, early reviews have been quite positive. The Killing plays on Sundays at 9 on AMC. The Killing photo courtesy Rainbow Media 13 Assassins photo courtesy Magnolia Pictures

It’s a musical! The evolution of the musical in American television Text and Art by AVA DORDI

ne wall of Palo Alto High School’s Academic Resource Center looks different than the rest. It is neither a showcase for student artwork or photos, nor a plea for tutoring help. Instead, this wall is covered in various posters and photos taken from a magazine article about a television show. This wall is a shrine to “Glee.” With “Glee,” a musical comedydrama about a high school glee club that has become increasingly popular in its second season, it seems that musical television is making its way into the hearts of many Paly students. This is evidenced by the many posters on the ARC wall as well as the Paly choir hosting its own “Pal-Glee” concerts for the past two years. But “Glee” did not invent the television musical. How far back does the musical go? How much is it really influencing us now? Let’s take a musical walk through time. One of the first musical series on television was “Once Upon a Tune,” a short-lived 1951 show which presented fairy tales and some popular stage plays as musicals. This series showed the first example of a TV series involving regular musical numbers, but it lacked the continuity that most modern television shows retain today, according to the website musicals101.com, which contains a list of most musicals on American television until 2008. Interestingly enough, “I Love Lucy,” a popular sitcom of the 1950s, seemed

to start the trend of a musical episode in the middle of a regular non-musical series. The so-called “musical episode” was seen in a dream sequence of a 1956 “I Love Lucy” episode. The concept of a musical episode seemed to become more popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Supernatural adventure shows like “Xena: Warrior Princess” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” as well as TV comedies “Scrubs” and “That 70s Show” all had musical episodes at some point, with varying degrees of success. Fans of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” for example, often rank the musical, “Once More, with Feeling” as one of the best episodes in the entire series, as they did in SFX Magazine’s “Worlds of Whedon” issue. The makers of “Xena” obviously found the musical concept to be a good one, because two

STATISTICS

40%

of Paly students watch “Glee.”

years after airing “The Bitter Suite,” they created a second musical episode, “Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire.” These musical episodes were likely quite significant in demonstrating to a modern audience that singing on television could work for a television format, paving the way for shows like “Glee” to succeed. “That’s Life,” a comedy following the life of a young couple running 32 episodes from 1968 to 1969, was the United States’ first attempt at a musical comedy series. This show featured a combination of original and existing songs. Today, “Glee” is similarly starting to mix a few original songs into its episodes alongside covers of existing songs. A short-lived 1990 police drama, “Cop Rock,” attempted to incorporate cops and robbers breaking out into

Paly students watch “Glee” for the... plot, songs characters, 26% and songs plot/characters 69% 5%

*statistics based on a survey given to 267 students of all grades in various English classes

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[ CULTURE ]

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MUSICALS ON TV Once Upon a Tune Mar. 6-May 15, 1951 I Love Lucy: “Lucy Goes to Scotland” Feb. 20, 1956 That’s Life Sep. 24, 1968-May 20, 1969 Cop Rock Sep. 26-Dec. 26, 1990 Xena: Warrior Princess: “The Bitter Suite”/”Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire” Jan. 31, 1998/Jan. 17, 2000 GLEE MANIA “Glee,” now in its second season on FOX, won the 2010 and 2011 Golden Globe awards for Best Television Series - Musical or Comedy. song throughout the series. However, viewers likely found the juxtaposition of musical numbers and gritty cop drama to be too bizarre, because the show was quickly cancelled after eleven episodes. It was so critically panned that in 2002 TV Guide ranked the series #8 on its “List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time.” “Cop Rock” serves as an influential example of what not to do if one wishes to create a successful musical show. “Hull High,” another 1990 musical TV series, was a teen drama that took place in a high school. “Hull High” got cancelled after eight episodes. Perhaps it is because, unlike “Hull High,” “Glee” initially only featured pre-existing songs sung during practices or performances by the school glee club. This may have helped viewers ease into the idea of watching a musical television series, because they could enjoy listening to covers of songs they are already familiar with. As “Glee” moves through its second season it has begun to feature more traditional “musical” numbers,

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where people spontaneously burst into (somehow perfectly choreographed) song in unexpected places. By now, though, a substantial fan base is already in place, so “Glee” will likely be successful for at least a few more seasons to come. So what have we learned? Musicals can be quite popular, as we are currently seeing with “Glee.” They can also fall flat on their faces, as in the case of “Cop Rock.” It seems that while audiences are willing to suspend their disbelief at seeing characters burst into song to watch a single musical episode of a pre-established show like “Buffy” or “Scrubs,” asking a viewer to accept the premise of “gritty cop show meets Broadway” is a bit too much. If the singing makes sense in context, like “Glee,” viewers seem to be more accepting of the concept of a musical series. So “Glee” is probably sticking around for a while. Assuming, that is, that they don’t start transforming their police information desks into pianos and singing about how hard it is to be a cop. v

Daria: “Daria!” Feb. 17, 1999 Ally McBeal: “The Musical, Almost” May 22, 2000 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Once More, With Feeling” Nov. 6, 2001 Even Stevens: “Influenza - The Musical” Jan. 25, 2002 That ‘70s Show: “That ‘70s Musical” Apr. 30, 2002 Scrubs: “My Musical” Jan. 18, 2007 Glee Sep. 9, 2009 Source: www.musicals101.com

Fresh and Local Delights Farmers’ Markets offer an environment for shopping and socializing Text and photography by ANABEL HOMNACK

ometimes a visit to the supermarket does not satisfy flavor and health wishes. Spending time at a local farmers’ market may just do the job. Such a shopping experience may involve ripe fruits and vegetables, freshly cut flowers, flavorful prepared food creations and delicious baked goods. The Palo Alto California Avenue and Menlo Park Santa Cruz Boulevard markets are environments in which you can learn about organic products, run into friends and surround yourself in color and happiness. 1: Santa Cruz Pasta Factory, a family owned business, sells 24 kinds of ravioli,18 pastas and 12 sauces at 4 different farmers’ markets. 2: Local, colorful, fresh flower arrangements are popular at farmers markets. 3: Participating in 100 farmers’ markets per week, Bolanis East and West Gourmet makes all natural vegan food from scratch. 4: Cole Canyon Farms, located in Monterey, offers vegetable and herb seedlings. Sold in many bay area nurseries and grocery stores. 5: Roli Roti sells, select free range meets from family run farms, at 25 farmers’ markets during the winter and 40 during the summer.

1 1

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[ CULTURE ]

6: Far West Fungi grows and distributes California specialty mushrooms. 7: Uncle Ros Take and Bake Pizza can be found at seven farmersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; markets from Santa Cruz to Menlo Park. 8: This vendor started selling nuts in 1980 and now offers 40 unique flavors. 9: Cache Creek Lavender started selling flowers at various farmers markets in 1998. The business now offers other products such as soap and bath salts.

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A Pleasing New Plaza Students and staff enjoy new Science Plaza Text by MARGARET KADIFA Photography by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS

t is a perfect Wednesday afternoon at Palo Alto High School — 74 degrees and sunny. Students lounge on lawns, and nap on benches, including the ones beneath the blossoming trees in the new Science Plaza. The Science Plaza replaces a lawn between the science building and the portables. It is one of many future gardens that will be scattered throughout campus, according to landscape committee member and Paly parent Anne Anderson. Developments for future gardens will be discussed at a landscape subcommittee meeting on Apr. 7. “We want to create outdoor spaces on campus that appeal to students,” Anderson says. Making the new gardens environmentally friendly is also a priority. In the Science Plaza, the landscaping committee is testing materials, including permeable pavement instead of typical asphalt to address Paly’s poor drainage that could be used for future gardens. “We’ll be installing benches, plant material and permeable pavers that are environmentally friendly because rain water will be reabsorbed into the ground,” Anderson said. The Science Plaza is not a replacement for the Memorial Plaza which was on the quad prior to the installation of portables. The Memorial Plaza was constructed for former Paly student Sherwood Hoogs and former science teacher Andrea Erzberger. However, the Science Plaza will be a small memorial for Erzberger and makes up for some of the space lost by the portable installations according to Anderson. Many enjoy the new plaza. “The space is a little small to use as a regular teaching space,” science teacher

Josh Bloom says. “[But] I can take students out there to do a demo.” Paly freshman Ethan Look appreciates the plaza as well. “It [the Science Plaza] seems like a nice place to hang out,” Look says. Principal Phil Winston adds, “It [the Science Plaza] is beautiful. I think we need more of that on campus.” Plans for future Paly gardens are primarily dependent on the completion of construction related to Strong Schools Bond. Eventually, much of the area around the coming buildings will be developed, according to Anderson. “I’m on a landscaping subcommittee that is working on plans now to create beautiful spaces once the construction is finished,” Anderson says. “In the meantime, we wanted to provide spaces for students to enjoy their campus.” v

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[ CULTURE ]

Prom Through the Years 60 years of Paly’s biggest dance Text by AMANDA GROZIAK Photo courtesy of 1958 Campanile

pringtime at Palo Alto High School induces a flurry of talk among upperclassmen about dresses, tickets and dates. Indeed, since its creation in the 1950s the Promotion dance at Paly, fondly called “Prom,” has grown in size, cost and attendance. As students gear up for this year’s 2011 prom, Verde took a look at some of the previous proms and how the promotion dance tradition has changed over time. The History According to The Campanile, the first senior prom was held on April 26, 1952. Paly called the dance the Senior Ball back then, and the student body held this event after its counterpart, the Junior Ball. The student body decided that for this one dance, seniors, juniors and sophomores could attend. The prom tradition continued as a

SMILE BIG Upperclassmen attended the 1958 prom in the Paly Gym. Students Elliott Smit, Bonnie Latttin, Don McPhail (standing), Tibby Storey, Gretchen Ransler, and Patsy Flint (sitting).

formal dance up until the seventies. Old copies of The Campanile newspaper from the seventies which contain prom information for this decade are missing from the Paly library. Paly Librarian Rachel Kellerman attributes this to the library’s

location switch during this era. Paly graduate and retired Paly teacher Kay Paugh says that during the late 60s and early 70s, the Vietnam war took center stage and says Prom was pushed to the side. However, prom regained its impor

TIMELINE OF PALY PROMS

1952

1954

1956

Cost unknown Paly Campus First Senior Ball

$2.50 per couple Paly Campus Theme of “Fan tasy in Abstract”

Cost unknown Paly Campus Theme of “Sea of Dreams”

1965

1966

1984

$3 with card Unknown venue Theme of “Mardi Gras”

$3.50 per couple Elks Club Theme of “Le Mer”, JuniorSenior Ball

Cost unknown Sunnyvale Hilton Held on March 23

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1957 $2.50 Paly Campus Theme of “Italian”

1985 Cost unknown Sunnyvale Hilton Held on March 15

1958 $2.75 Paly Campus Theme of “The Twelfth of Never” 1987 $25 per person De Anza College Theme of “The Spring Soiree

tance and remains to this day one of the biggest Paly dances. Venues and Themes The old proms, or Senior Balls, were held on the Paly campus until the early 60s. The first off-campus site of the dance was at the Menlo Circus Club in 1961. The Campanile claimed that this was the first time the dance had been held away from campus in 25 years. Since then, Paly has held the dance at numerous locations around Palo Alto and San Francisco. In past years, Prom or the Senior Ball was held at the Menlo Circus Club, the SF boat dock, De Anza College, Sunnyvale Hilton and the Elks Club. Recently, upperclassmen attended the dance on a boat called the S.F. Bay Belle on Pier 3 in San Francisco, the S.F. Galleria, and City Hall in San Francisco. This year’s prom will be held at the Westin Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco’s Union Square. The Price Ticket prices have steadily increased over the years. The Senior Ball of 1954 charged $2.50 per couple, whereas last year’s prom cost $110 with an ASB card and $120 without, according to records kept in the auditor’s office. In the past, Paly has used the money from other dances such as winter formal and homecoming to pay for prom expens-

1959 Cost unknown Paly Campus Theme of “Emer ald City”

es, according to auditor Julia Sing. “The money actually comes from people paying for the tickets,” Sing says. “Whoever pays for the tickets like the students or the parents.” Sometimes they have raised the money from donations to the school, parking permits and ASB card sales. However, due to the low turnout for school dances in the past few years, the student body does not have the same amount of money to use on prom. The administration still spends the same amount of money on prom but must now raise the cost of tickets causing some students to be financially unable to pay the full price. Paly has been paying more and more money for the use of facilities and locations to hold the dance, as the records in the auditor’s office indicate. The records also show that San Francisco City Hall in 2008 cost about $54,500, the S.F. Galleria in 2009 cost approximately $56,000 and last year’s S.F. Bay Belle cost about $60,000. The Transportation Until 2009 Paly students witnessed a clear split between those well-off enough to afford to hire a limousine to drive them to the dance and those who needed to ride on the school-provided limousine. Former Paly principal Jacqueline McEvoy decided to end this limousine tradition for the 2009 prom insisting that prom

1960 $3 per person Paly Campus Carnival with activities and a dance

1989

1992

Cost unknown Unknown venue Theme of “Mi night in Monte Carlo”

Cost unknown Santa Clara Decathalon Club “An Evening in Elegance”

1961 $3 with card Menlo Circus Club Carnival and dance 2008 $95 without card; SF City Hall Cost $54,518*

*info from Auditor’s office; only available from 2008 to present

attendees all ride on school-organized buses in an effort to support equality and opportunity to all Paly students regardless of their financial abilities, according to The Paly Voice. For the proms of 2008 to 2010, transportation has cost anywhere from $12,600 to $16,880. Paugh recalls her prom memories from high school and how most students travelled to the dance. “It’s gotten a lot more complex,” Paugh says. “We always drove ourselves; there were no limousines. You would drive in private cars and you would pretty much stay the whole time.” The Culture In the early years of prom, students dressed up in formal attire, but the dance was a formal boy-ask-girl event. “[At my senior prom] I remember what I wore,” Paugh says. “It was a dressy dress and the guys would usually wear the white jacket. That was the style at that time, white jackets were really the thing.” In recent years, prom dresses may be either long or short. Paugh adds that in her year girls never showed any knees. The Wrap-Up Prom has survived to celebrate its 60th anniversary at Paly. It livens up each spring and prepares us to say goodbye at the year’s end. It truly has earned a place in our hearts. v

1963

1964

$3 per person Menlo Circus Club Theme of “New Orleans”

$3 per couple SF boat dock “Moonlight Cruise on the S.S. Viking”

2009

2010

$135 without card; SF Galleria Cost $55,863*

$120 without card; SF Bay Belle Boat Cost $59,683*

**from The Campanile and personal accounts april 2011

[ CULTURE ]

Biting Into Birch Street Bistro Elan’s new supplement offers fresh food and charm Text and Photography by MELISSA WEN

he interior of Birch Street, one of Palo Alto’s newest cafes, centers around a bustling stainless steel kitchen, where the chef hovers over dishes, and the stove fills the room with sizzles. Square marble tables line the walls, and the lively chatter of customers disperses through the compact space. Sunlight gleams off the spotless floor. Shelves of flour-dusted bread and silverware stack up in a corner; this, the sunny floors and the two cookie trays on the counter, proclaim cleanliness and the kind of peace only found on weekends. Although the quiet lunchtime cafe has only existed since late January, it is a supplement to Bistro Elan, a restaurant on California Avenue that has existed in Palo Alto for 16 years. Currently the items on the menu are identical to Bistro Elan, although aside from the most popular dishes, they do change according to the seasons. Owner of both restaraunts Andrea Hyde formed Birch Street for the convenience of having two locations, and also just to try something new. She plans on serving dinner someday, although she hasn’t decided on when. “Most of our customers from there [Bistro Elan], come here,” Hyde said. “It’s cute. It’s very fun because it’s so small.“ According to Hyde, the main way that Birch Street stands out lies in the produce. All of it is from the Farmers Market, and completely natural. For example, Hyde can name on the spot the pork used in the Spaghettie all Amatriciana: guanciale, a type of bacon made from organic pig jowls and acquired from La Quercia, a meat provider in Iowa. I decided to try the guanciale myself. With only a few customers present on Saturday at 11:30 am, the food I ordered arrived in minutes, carried by a pleasant, soft-spoken waiter.

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PERCHING ON BIRCH STREET Birch Street sits on a corner of-surprise!-Birch Street, looking both inviting on the outside and through the huge glass windows. The Spaghetti all Amatriciana, featuring tomatoes, guanciale, and pecorino and Parmesan cheeses, stood out with unexpected zest. The tomato sauce tasted as fresh, and the bits of guanciale added crunch and savor. The roast beef sandwich, filled with red onion, fried capers, and horseradish mayonnaise on a baguette,— paled slightly in comparison However, the dish still tasted fresh and pleasantly light, with the horseradish adding a necessary spice. Especially impressive were the waffle chips, a house specialty made from local potatoes, which tasted like a lighter version of potato chips. I took a second trip around early afternoon, to a fuller restaurant but equally fast service. First I tasted the Swedish yellow pea soup, featuring ham and a cup of dijon mustard on the side. The soup was comfortably hot when served, and tasted slightly sweet and pleasantly mild, the perfect prelude to a meal. Although

the dijon did add spice, in my opinion it clashed slightly with the flavor of the soup. The fresh white shrimp sandwich, also served with waffle chips, consisted of juicy shrimp and crunchy cucumbers smothered in dill mayonnaise served on top of toasted Pan di Mie bread. The cucumbers added excellent texture and the warm bread mellowed the creaminess of the mayonnaise, although the dish still bordered on excessively creamy.

“Most of our customers from there [Bistro Elan] come here. It’s cute. It’s very fun because it’s so small.” — BIRCH STREET OWNER ANDREA HYDE

FRONT ROW TO FOOD Here, the chef prepares a fresh batch of sandwiches. Birch Streetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s open kitchen gives customers a front row view of food preparation. Like Bistro Elan, the food here is California French, which incorporates Californian ingredients in a twist on French food. Hyde compares it to the difference between Mexican food in Mexico and in California: we call it Mexican food here, but cooks in Mexico arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite as inclined to drench their food in cheese. She names Jeremiah Tower, a celebrity chef who opened his restaurant Stars in San Francisco in 1984, as the father of French Californian cuisine. Items on the Birch Street menu range from conventional hot dogs to pricier cast iron seared steaks. Overall the food, light rather than hearty, reflects the quality of the ingredients. The prices of main dished ranged from $13 to $17, a little pricey for the moderate portions. However, the fresh ingredients and lovely atmosphere are worth the cost. So far, Birch Street is a valuable companion to Bistro Elan, wrapping up in its small package a friendly environment and the perfect weekend meal. v

SPICY SPAGHETTI piping hot.

A plate of Spaghetti all Amaticiana is served on time and

april 2011

[ PHOTO ESSAY ]

Crew

saders

Whether in glistening sunshine or pouring rain, the Northern California Crew team rows on. Text and Photography by JACQUELINE FRIDUSS

ABOVE: Head varsity women’s coach Jennifer Aguirre directs rowers in the Port of Redwood City at a mid-March practice. ABOVE RIGHT: Archbishop Mitty High School senior Diana Beck warms up on the erg machine before the regatta. FAR RIGHT: Carlmont High School juniors Ryan Ahrling (left) and Douglas Miller (right) and Menlo Atherton High School junior Jason Heinen (center) row in the men varsity eight boat. BOTTOM RIGHT: Paly senior Lexie DeStephano rows.

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or Northern California Crew, “rained out” is not an option. The club, which rows out of the Port of Redwood City and includes 13 Palo Alto High School students, held its only home regatta of the season Sunday, March 20, despite stormy weather and a power outage at the boathouse. According to Paly senior Lexie DeStephano, “People do [crew] for their teammates.” “During the race you think about all the people in your boat and you don’t want to let them down.”

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[ CULTURE ]

The Chocolate Garage A Palo Alto resident shares her passion for chocolate and social activism Text and photography by MANON VON KAENEL

am at The Chocolate Garage, in downtown Palo Alto, which is exactly what it sounds like: a garage transformed into a small specialty chocolate store and tasting event venue. Founded by Sunita de Tourreil, The Chocolate Garage’s unique charm lies partly in its philosophy of “happy” chocolate. “Happy chocolate is chocolate where the farmers, or anyone who is on the supply chain, are getting a good deal,” de Tourreil says. This can mean the chocolate is organic; single-origin, where the makers work directly with the farmers over a long period of time; direct or fair trade certified; or locally grown and produced. “I call it happy, which is a very sort of generic, bland term, but it’s because there’s so many different ways for chocolate bars to have a positive impact,” de Tourreil says. By promoting “happy” chocolate, de Tourreil hopes to help improve cocoa farmers’ conditions. “There’s a lot of unhappiness in chocolate; there’s child slave labor, and really bad pay for farmers, so we’re focusing on carrying bars that have a really positive impact on the world,” de Tourreil says. According to an International Institute of Tropical Agriculture study conducted in 2002, cocoa farmers in West Africa earn only $30-$110 in wages per

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year. Of the 600,000 cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, the Save the Children organization BITE SIZE Customers enjoy free tastings estimates that as many of de Tourreil’s artisanal chocolate. as 15,000 children are forced to work as slaves. In addition to helping cocoa farm“I saw that one of the best ways to ers, de Tourreil praises her bars for bring- address basic things like access to clean ing happiness to the consumer as well. water so children don’t die of diarrhea be“There are all kinds of natural chem- fore age 5, or really preventable illnesses, ical structures and compounds in choco- was being addressed through a sustainable late that have positive effects on people,” way of paying farmers for the chocolate de Tourreil says. “People say that it helps that they were making,” de Tourreil says. put people in a better mood, and it’s supDe Tourreil and Greg Wolfe, her posed to have anti-oxidants.” “business and life partner,” started up a De Tourreil is trained as a molecular fund to invest in companies like Yachabiologist, and was studying the human na Gourmet. But the organization soon form of mad cow disease at University of changed direction. California, San Francisco, before devel“Pretty quickly we realized that peooping the idea of helping cocoa farmers ple like to eat chocolate more than they by promoting “happy” chocolate. liked to talk about socially responsible in“When I left that job [as a medical vesting,” de Tourreil says. “So we found a researcher], I wanted to do something way to do chocolate tastings and educate that was still involving health, and mak- people around chocolate and still use the ing an impact on health, but something funds and the profits from those tastings more basic than this disease that I had to feed our fund that we would use to inbeen studying that affected very few peo- vest in small companies.” ple,” de Tourreil says. The Chocolate Garage came about Part of her inspiration came from when Wolfe rented a space for his nonwitnessing first-hand the work and ef- profit, and inherited a small garage along fects of Yachana Gourmet, an organiza- with it. The two decided to renovate it and tion based in Ecuador devoted to helping thus The Chocolate Garage was born — it cocoa farmers. officially opened June 2010. HAPPINESS de Tourreil displays her “happy” chocolate bars.

“The mission for me is to connect the consumer, the end user, the person who likes to eat chocolate, to the farm person.” — SUNITA DE TOURREIL

“It [the formation of the Chocolate Garage] was kind of a combination of wanting to have more impact health-wise and then finding chocolate a really good means to connect with people,” de Tourreil says. To connect with people through chocolate, de Tourreil opens The Chocolate garage generally every Saturday, when she also manages a picnic table out on the street in front of the Garage during the downtown Palo Alto farmer’s market. She offers customers tastings and numerous chocolate bars, which cost between $5 and $23. “What I like to do is have people taste chocolate before they buy it, because it’s kind of overwhelming, to see so many bars and know what the differences are between them,” de Tourreil says. The chocolates have an astounding variety in taste and texture. Some have a distinct lemon flavor, others are spiced with cinnamon or chili or cloves, and still others have nibs of salt or coffee or pepper, all with varying degrees of sweetness and smoothness. De Tourreil makes up for the relative smallness of The Chocolate Garage with her visible passion and knowledge for chocolate and the diversity in quality chocolate she offers. De Tourreil also hosts scheduled tasting events during which she has groups blindly taste different types of chocolate, discuss their preferences, and learn about the cocoa production process. “I usually go through that this is a cocoa pod, and it grows on trees in and around the equator, and explain a little bit about how they grow, where they grow, and then once they’re picked by the farm-

ers, how you process them,” de Tourreil says. De Tourreil’s demographic tends to be more women — because “women are more faithful chocolate eaters than men,” according to de Tourreil, but the tastings, which cost $25 per person with a minimum of eight people, are open to anyone and can be scheduled by contacting her at sunita@thechocolategarage.com. De Tourreil also occasionally hosts other events, such as chocolate-making workshops or guest speakers from “happy” chocolate-related professions, that are publicized on her website (www.thechocolategarage.com) or her Facebook page ( w w w. f a c e b o o k . com/TheChocolateGarage.) “[These events are] kind of out of the box and a very different experience,” de Tourreil says. After attending an event or a tasting, the customer becomes a member with access to the discounted membership prices for the chocolate bars. In the future, de Tourreil hopes to form a connection between a community in Central or South America and the Palo Alto community, through education and trips to cocoa farms. “The mission for me is to try to connect the end-user, the consumer, the person who likes to eat chocolate, to the farm person,” de Tourreil says. v

A PASSION FOR COCAO de Tourreil offers tastings to her customers. april 2011

Rocky Virgins No More

Venturing into the raunchy culture of midnight theater Text by MAYTAL MARK and GADI COHEN Photography by GADI COHEN

he first number is a striptease. As a pair of disembodied red lips sprouts from the screen’s utter darkness and mouths the opening song, a pale, black-haired 20-something walks to the stage and peels off her outfit piece by kinky piece to reveal lingerieinspired bra and panties, all the while lip-syncing to “Science Fiction Double Feature.” It’s almost 12:30 a.m. Sunday morning at the Guild Theater in Menlo Park, and tonight’s “Rocky Horror Picture Show” cast — or the Bawdy Caste, as they call themselves — has just begun tonight’s performance, in which the cast members mirror the characters in the original movie as it is projected onto the screen behind them. Half an hour before, the cast was preparing outside, as audience members slipped in with $8 tickets in their hands.

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Rain slaps the pavement; cast members in full costume and makeup smoke their last cigarettes before sauntering inside. Security guards pat us down, checking for weapons and illicit substances. Inside this dark, shabby theater, its walls plated with golden wallpaper and ornaments, Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” blasts from the speakers. A group of shirtless teens dances to the music next to costumed college students and middle-aged couples; the crowd spills into the aisles, giggling with antici — (“say it!”) 1— pation. Suddenly a man with a pillowhunchback and a wig of receding blond hair speaks. Realizing his microphone doesn’t work, he yells: “PAAATRICK! Fix the f---ing sound!” The audience cheers and jeers — the beginning of a two-hour orgy of audience-fed entertainment. Though

it flopped at the box office in the months following its release in 1975, the RHPS gathered a cult following hinged on an infamously profane and sardonic audience-participation script. Those new to the franchise realize soon upon walking into the theater that everything occurs according to a script, often varying from city to city. The hunchbacked man — otherwise known by his character’s name, Riff-Raff — calls the Virgins 2 to the stage. Waves of young people with lipstick Vs smeared on their faces — pushed away from their seats by friends — rise from their seats and amble to the stage. There, Riff-Raff leads them in an oath of allegiance to the spirit of the show, right hands raised, left hands “somewhere naughty.” After a smackful of birthday spanks to celebrate an enthused cast member’s birthday, Riff-Raff again takes the stage, this time warning the audience that “the Rocky Horror Picture Show may be offensive! It

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Dr. Frank-N-Furter introduces his newest creation: Rocky. Brad and Janet take a picture at a friend’s wedding. Trixie sings the opening song: “Science Fiction Double Feature.” While singing, Trixie strips and foreshadows the rest of the show.

includes sexual situations, homosexual situations, bad dancing, bad music, murder and an inordinate, f---ing amount of profanity. If that’s not what you came for, you might want to get out right now.” The audience cheers, and the show begins. Even before the girl starts to strip, voices shoot from all around. At first the audience members appear to be sneering — they scream “asshole!” when character Brad Majors moves onto the screen and “slut!” when his fiancee Janet Wiess joins him there — but when they start speaking in a haphazard unison, it becomes clear that they are actually reciting lines from an already-memorized script. Clearly, a movie about two characters that stumble upon a mansion belonging to transvestites from outer space asks for relentless heckling. As a litany of sexual comments and profanity-laced screeches pour from the regulars in the front row (F--- the

back row! F--- the front row!) , 3the show continues, complete with audience-participation dance numbers and condomballoons bouncing from all corners of the theater. Toward the end of the night, audience members rise as if on cue to share a slow dance as the song “Don’t Dream It” plays in the background. Perhaps this is why the RHPS still endures as a cult film. The sense of complete freedom that pervades every sing-along and sneer produces a culture in which audience members can be accepted unconditionally. After the final bow, the audience trickles out of the theater, bleary-eyed and smiling, onto the rain-soaked pavement. Laughing and joking, groups of friends pass under the yellow street lamps. Amid the darkness, a sense of community still lingers, connecting each group to the next. v

THE VIRGIN’S GUIDE: 1. When Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) pauses as he says “anticipation”, the audience yells “say it!” 2. Virgins: RHPS first-timers 3. After the lyric “in the back row” is sung in “Science Fiction Double Feature”, audience members yell “F--- the back row! F--- the front row!” 4. Another RHPS tradition: throwing objects related to what is happening on the screen. Virgins, beware of projectiles! april 2011

David T. Constant, D.D.S. Victor Leong, D.D.S. Orthodontics for Adults and Children 2875 Middlefield Road Palo Alto, California 94306 (650) 321-7066 (650) 327-5069 FAX 70

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april 2011

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