The Hawkeye » Editorial

Humanity naturally destructive

Navarre Kerr — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:50:36 +0000

An attribute of man that is and always has plagued society is the tendency to cut down other’s work. People have the tendency to cast aside a multitude of demonstrations or products as tumultuous and trivial. The downfall is that those people fail to realize or even understand the countless time and tribulations the producers or creators most likely endured throughout the process of the entities completion.

For instance the student body is eager to state the perceived pitfalls and failures of an assembly, morning announcement broadcast, newspaper, and virtually anything else that an organization or a member of the student body or community has spent the time and turmoil to create or put together.

People must first understand the potent fact that renowned English writer Alexander Pope so aptly pointed out “…to err is human…” It is surprising how many people, especially teenagers, forget this seemingly obvious fact about every mortal human. People like to believe that their actions would turn out nothing short of perfect and others were merely idle or careless with their work.

Untactful as it may sound, those who make condescending remarks about another’s work should open their closed mind and close their open mouth. Unless they have done the exact same task while in the shoes of the creator they have no right to assume the level at which the final product should have turned out.

People fail to see all the preparation and dedication that go into creating the seemingly minutest of products. It takes a minimum of 10 highly competent people to create a morning announcement broadcast, a minimum of a week to create an assembly with extremely persistent and dedicated members, and an editorial cabinet of a minimum of 15 well qualified journalists to create a publication.

Those who are not fundamental assets to the production have no right to even begin to judge how something should have gone or should have been done. Even with the skills and diligence necessary in order to put something together a person cannot judge what other factors are present in a person’s life that could contribute to the quality of a production or final product.

Most students who are involved in extracurricular activities have numerous responsibilities entitled to them as well as a full course load and an ample amount of personal issues in their collective consciousness; all of which they must deal with on a daily basis. Even the smallest tribulation can have substantial adverse effects on the completion and execution of a demonstration or product. Countless circumstances take precedence over a school production.

Also the condescending statements only discourage the creators. Saying that something was horrible certainly isn’t going to make the creator all the more eager to continue their productions. If anything it will scathe their self-esteem and give them the impression that their work can never be good enough. Adults and peers like to polish their fellow colleagues’ tarnished hopes, but scientific fact has proved that the mind remembers harsh words and actions four times longer than it remembers good will.

In short, follow the age-old axiom “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” If more people follow this and stop spewing cutting and singeing words from their mouths then the creators will have fewer burdens on their minds, potentially enabling them to produce something worthy of outstanding merit.

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Mini Editorials: A short opinion about everything happening now

admin — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:50:33 +0000

Originality + school spirit

First it was decided that homecoming should be longer than a week and then there were even more random spirit days for little apparent reason. Frankly, five homecoming days and some assembly days of dressing up to show some sort of contrived school spirit is enough for us. And now Spring Fling WEEK?! We have already seen students dress as old people, we have been through at least two battle of the sexes weeks, we have done other school spirit day possibly twice this year and still it continues. When there are no more original themes, it may be time to slow down, especially when the only people who dress up are those required to greet at the door.

Spring sport shockers

Spring sports is coming to a close, and the big surprises: baseball and soccer. Both teams proved all expectations completely wrong, in very different ways. Baseball is going to state! Soccer… not so much. Everyone else is playing on past the regular season, too, which is unusual for our teams. In the individual area, bits and pieces of tennis, track, and golf, are heading off to the great beyond. Unfortunately, since there are no more home games from this point, it is going to take even more persuasion to get student support.

Hello? Mother Nature?

It’s May now, so that means all sunshine and perfect weather… or so we thought. April seems to be stretching a little long. This whole bipolar weather situation is just not working. When one wakes up in the morning one should have the right to look out the window and predict what should be worn. Instead, we have teens sporting tank tops in the rain and parkas in the sun. Not to mention the random bouts of hail storms. Please mother nature, figure it out!

Who’s hot? Us. Check it out.

The most positive thing that we could come up with this issue — our new website: “www.thehawkeye.org.” Check it out because it’s actually finally a cool, real working site, not to mention it gets updated way more often than necessary. You can even follow us on twitter at MTHSports and become a fan of us, or whatever it is called now. Seriously though, go to the site, comment on something and click around so that our web editor can pass her senior project. Thanks.

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Sports and music are equal

Peter Bowman — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:50:06 +0000

I’ll just come out and say it. Music is not harder than sports, and sports are not harder than music.

Most musicians in this school would agree with me in saying that, a band for example, is comprised of one team trying to achieve one goal: a flawless performance. No other opponents. No fields to run. Just one band sitting on stage and performing music.

In sports like football, for example, two teams are competing head to head, trying to get a single ball into their opponent’s end zone and they are intent on laying out any guy who’s got it. Music involves one team. Sports involve two. Put in this perspective, sports appear to be harder.

The equivalent to a running back plowing through the deffensive line while getting stripped of the football in front of thousands of people would be this: Imagine a band performing on stage. They’re about to begin to play when all of a sudden some members of another high school band jump up on stage and begin to shout and clap and wave their hands. Then, the entire audience is yelling “Mess Up!” and “No Pressure!” Then the people from the other school take away one-third of the band’s instruments. Now, things are starting to look as difficult. That’s what it would be like for a music group to experience the last play of a football game that’s on the line.

As for the mind set of both sports and music, both require the sense of getting “hyped up” before performing. What do you think is going on in a huddle before a football game, or a team meeting before a basketball game? For music, it requires a mental attitude to prepare for what’s ahead. Last year for example, I had the privilege of playing in the MTHS Jazz Ensemble 1 at the Paramount Theatre in front of 3,000 people! We performed a “Yes!” Clap, gradually speeding up our rhythm. It got us fired up, and we undoubtedly put on the best performance of the night. I honestly don’t believe that an athlete with little experience could pull that off.

You cannot say music is harder than sports or vice versa. I guess it really depends on where you stand with your amount of experience toward one or the other. What genre of music? Which sport? How strong is your opponent? I’ve heard people who know only one side of this argument, and quite frankly they don’t make much sense to me. Sports and music are equally as challenging.

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Abortion is a necessary human right

Chris St. Marie — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:03:32 +0000

How can a society reconcile charging someone who kills a pregnant woman with double homicide, and yet permit a woman to have an abortion? The answer is very simple, and also a key to understanding why abortion opponents are incorrect. Women have a choice as to what happens to parts of their own body. A fetus, dependent upon them, attached to their body, is a part of them. This is how the process is morally acceptable, though even if it were morally questionable, banning abortion would do very little to stop it, and likely just end with a large quantity of dead pregnant women who attempted to perform abortions on themselves. It is easy for the primarily religious opponents of women’s rights to justify this, as what they really wish to punish is promiscuity.
The same people who pretend that their reason for being against abortion is the poor little dead babies are the same people who are unwilling to support measures that might decrease the number of abortions while protecting the right. The same people who pretend STDs and pregnancy motivate them are the same who support abstinence-only programs that propagate both. The fear of sex, especially WOMEN choosing to do so, is what motivates people guided by silly and unsupportable religious principles. Sex, in the 21st century, can be almost consequence-free with our current knowledge and contraceptive devices. No matter how much progress frightens people, we cannot allow their terror to deny women basic rights over their own bodies.

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Don’t Talk to Police

Chris St. Marie — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 04:27:53 +0000

Compliance with our judicial system is important. If you are subpoenaed, it is important to report to the court and answer questions with honesty to preserve a fair and effective legal process. Up until this point, however, no one should ever talk to police or comply in any way as far as their rights extend. And your rights extend very far. The job of a police officer is not to make sure you have a good day. These people are paid to make arrests and obtain convictions. It is absolutely necessary to exercise your right not to make incriminating statements about yourself, and if you absolutely must speak with the police, to do so through a lawyer. Always exercise your right to refuse searches of yourself and your property without a warrant, no matter what tricks a cop may use to make you believe you are not completely within your rights to not speak with them.

Some time ago, I heard a Terrace student recounting a conversation he had with a police officer attempting to obtain some kind of information from him, in which he was warned that his status as a member of the baseball team could be in jeopardy if he did not cooperate. Despite this obviously empty threat, he should have at that point refused to talk to the officer at all without the family lawyer present. There may be situations where it is unavoidable to associate with police, to perhaps report stolen property (the officers who take down this report will likely be no help whatsoever in recovering your property), or if your house is undergoing an armed robbery at that exact second (it is not impossible that the officers who arrive will simply shoot you with the weapons the vast majority of them will never have to draw for any legal purpose). Police are an armed and uniformed gang sponsored by the state. Always remember your rights, never consent to searches, and do your best to not talk to cops.

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Religion is Institutionalized Rape

Chris St. Marie — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 06:56:37 +0000

A common thread among the Abrahamic religions are backwards and laughable treatments of human sexuality. On the surface, it would seem this presents no harm to the public at large if members of the religious community wish to have clumsy and awkward virgin sex on their wedding night, but there is a very real danger in their desire to impose their views of what sexuality should be upon others. In a particularly disastrous case, priestly celibacy has led to a system in which supposedly extra-trustworthy, sex-deprived men are left in positions of power over defenseless children.

Most are aware of the hundreds of millions of dollars the Catholic Church has had to shell out in restitution for “a few bad apples”, but less are aware of how much more they would like to keep it covered up, at the expense of children. The current Pope was in charge of the policy of keeping child-molesting priests from facing criminal prosecution, and in one case, failed to dismiss a priest who had molested over 200 deaf boys. Of course, many Christians will point out that the Pope is not the final authority of Christianity, only the head of a sect. But this problem is not limited to Catholicism. Jesuit religious leaders were found to have sent 28 child-abusing priests to a remote area of Alaska, where they committed over 300 cases of molestation. Even the very prophet Muhammad of the Islamic faith married a six-year-old girl and had sexual intercourse with her when she reached age nine. These people presume to dictate the sexual practices of Americans, pushing the failed policy of abstinence education in schools, denouncing possibly lifesaving contraceptive devices as “sinful” and, of course, keeping homosexuals from marrying when they can’t keep them from having sex with each other. Religious sexual hypocrisy and sexophobia has and will continue to take a terrible toll on our society if we do not take progressive and rational stances on these issues.

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Healthcare is a Moral Imperative

Chris St. Marie — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 04:56:07 +0000

Some days ago, I overheard a student voice the opinion that Americans should not have to use their hard-earned money to pay for the healthcare of others. While this seems a reasonable sentiment on the surface, it is akin to complaining about having to pay for the fire department services of lazy poor people when their house is burning down.

Health care is not some bourgeoisie amenity providing facelifts for welfare recipients. America is only just now catching up to what many European countries realized decades ago, which is that healthcare is a right that human beings are not obligated to go bankrupt for. What this recent healthcare reform has done benefits everyone. Insurance companies used to be able to drop coverage when patients became sick, including children.

While our current bill may not be perfect or as universal as some other countries, this represents a much-needed step away from the insurance industries ability to kill you or take all of your money. It is no surprise that the countries with the highest standards of medical care, such as Sweden, also offer it universally. While it may be difficult to abandon our inborn American greed and hatred for helping out society at large with “our” hard-earned money, the 21^stcentury demands a different standard of respect for the rights of our fellow human beings.

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Grinding to a halt

Alex Herbig — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:12:48 +0000

The grinding that students partake in at our high school dances is much too sexual and should not be so openly accepted. Take a step back and observe the dancing for what it is. Even Wikipedia points out the inherently sexual nature of grinding saying: “grinding is a type of close partner dance where two or more dancers rub their bodies (especially the genitalia) against each other in a sexually suggestive manner.” If you take away the music it’s just people rubbing their bodies on each other. The fact that it’s being done in a public school setting makes it unsettling to me. Have we come to a place where grinding is socially acceptable action even though it is about the most sexual thing you can do with your clothes on?
Teenage guys deal with an immense amount of sexual desire and grinding is a way for guys to release it. I have participated in grinding and will argue that it is indeed nothing more than such a release. However, what concerns me is what kind of message that we, the men of this school, are sending to the women of this school when we participate in a form of dancing where the sole purpose is to fulfill our sexual desire. I feel that any respect for women that we bring to a school dance doesn’t make it though the doors of the school on those late Friday nights; it is left outside and meets back up with us as we walk out. In an over-sexed world it has become difficult to find men with integrity who respect women. As Terrace men, I feel that we could be an amazing example to others by treating women well.
Many girls look at grinding as little more than “suggestive.” I want the girls to understand what it means to a guy. Most girls cannot comprehend that a guy can visualize a girl with her clothes off and engaging in something sexual with them at any time they want. It sounds unbelievable, but it is so true.
What is a fun Friday night for a girl is a sexual fantasy come to life for a guy. So, many girls I have talked to look at it as an innocent form of entertainment, but it is not. Going to dances and having multiple guys wanting to dance with you, hold you close, it all makes you feel wanted. The one thing a high school girl wants more than anything else is to feel wanted and loved; I can’t express how much I have come to understand that.
So, this is my suggestion to Terrace girls: Ask yourself what the intentions are of the man that I am trusting myself with?
If we can all come to the understanding that school dances are much too sexual and should not continue in the way they have, then that may other problems. ASB and other organizations profit greatly off of these dances. My call to action is that we as a student body can recognize the need for change and make dances friendlier to different kinds of dancing.
I am not alone in my opinion.
There are many students who agree and are discontent with going to dances because of grinding.

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How about a cup of self-respect with a side of decency?

Hannah Beidler — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:49:31 +0000

As some of you may have noticed there are a few coffee stands down the street from our school. One such coffee stand is the Blendz bakini barista stand. This bikini barista stand is an absolute disgrace. Not only is it degrading to women, but right down the road from an educational building full of young adults.
After a very entertaining interview with one of the nineteen-year old baristas, it could not be clearer that this coffee stand is entirely immoral. When asked about what her family thought about her job, all she could say was: “they don’t know, because they are really religious.” It was obvious why the barista did not want to tell her parents, because it is wrong to sell her body to desperate men. She also had a boyfriend who did not want her working at the stand.
Besides the fact that this coffee stand being all around degrading for employees, it is just down the street from a high school. Students constantly have to drive and walk past the stand to get home or to school and it sickening for the students who do not want to see a half naked woman standing by a full body length window on their way to school. The Blendz coffee stand reveals their employees, allowing the little kids in the back of a car, to the old married men to stare in and fantasize.
After ordering a tall iced caramel macchiato from the stand for four dollars, and then comparing it to a Starbucks equivalent for three dollars, it was obvious why the coffee stand tries to use hardly dressed women to gain customers. The coffee from the Blendz stand was smaller than the Starbucks coffee and it did not taste as good as the Starbucks coffee.
These stands are a bad influence and are destroying the minds of men. They are corrupting society and turning it into “a man’s world.” It is disgusting to watch all the women give up their dignity so a man can have his thrills.

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New district bus policy may save money, but is unfair

Jordan Moore — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:48:52 +0000

Approximately 3,000 students in the Edmonds School District were left searching for other means of transportation to school this year as the news of the loss of state funding for bus services was spread. Families living within a one-mile radius of their child’s school received a letter in June, stating that “you live within a one-mile radius of your student’s school, which is recognized by the state as a no-bus-service zone.” This part of the budget cuts for the 2009-2010 school year is said to “free up approximately $500,000 annually that can be used to support students in the classroom.”
The district offers up other means of transportation, such as walking to school, a parent driving them to school, or walking to a bus stop outside of the one-mile radius. But is this fair to those thousands of students left behind? “They come through the one-mile zone, so why don’t they pick the kids up along the way?” states junior Joe Muriekes. Bussing kids who live miles from the school is reasonable, asthey would have little to no other means to get to school, but to pass up the many students who live a reasonable distance from the school seems unfair. If they are in a direct route, why not pick them up as well? Here’s another suggestion: why not make the radius smaller?
Michael Ward, senior, states “getting kids to school is a necessity.” The President of the U.S. ispushing to get more kids to go to school, as an education is probably the most valuable thing you can have in this country. And with budget cuts, we are making it less possible. What about the students who were reliant on the bus services? School should be made more accessible to students, not harder to attend, and what good is saving funds to support the students if we are taking away the one main source that gets them to school? None whatsoever.
While Ward states to the opposing side, he also adds, “that’s fine and dandy for me, cause I drive to school.” There are indeed many students that already drive to school, and many who also already take community transit or get a ride by a parent or with friends, as well as still take the school-provided bus. For these people, the one-mile rule does not affect them. However, everyone should be concerned for the students who are affected. And who says that more won’t be affected as time goes on?

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