Hold on a minute, if this lifestyle is normal, why is it getting so much attention? It also bugs me that the National Day of Silence is a holiday dedicated to homosexuals. I get that homosexuals suffer and have suffered just because of who they are, but blacks don’t get a holiday. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is not a holiday for blacks; it’s for a leader, not a race.

Where’s the holiday for the Jewish? I don’t mean their religious holidays; I mean a holiday that was made in response to their suffering and discrimination. There is none. Well, it seems to me that for such a normal thing, homosexuals are getting quite a bit of unnecessary attention.
Before you decide to start hating this piece of writing as well as me, homosexuality is a doubtlessly natural thing, and I’m aware of this, and thusly support it.
My first point is that for such a minor thing, and yes, discrimination against homosexuals is a minor thing—go read about the enslavement of blacks or this thing called the Holocaust—it’s receiving an incredibly excessive amount of attention, particularly considering the goal that is trying to be reached. It seems that homosexuals want to be noticed more than they want to be accepted.

Now on to my second point, since when is not talking an appropriate way of getting a message across? Nobody hears about unhappy employees not speaking because they want better work conditions. No, they go and picket.
“But how do you picket discrimination against homosexuals?” one might ask, and I’ll tell you how. Or, even better, a person previously mentioned can show you how. Dr. King is a great example of how discrimination can be fought, and I think the homosexual community should learn from his example.

On a final note, if you’re going to support the day, take it seriously. A not-to-be-named student started out the day using electronics to communicate with others, in spirit of the holiday. Nine minutes into first period, they decided they “gave up.” Seriously? It’s not a game. Nor is it a challenge. It’s to show support, not see how long you can last without talking.

Additionally, when I pointed out the failure of dedication, the anonymous student responded, “At least I’m showing support,” and motioned to the pink triangle on their shirt. I’m really getting sick of people thinking that there’s a “correct opinion”. Even though I support gay marriage, otherwise known as “marriage,” it disgusts me that people think that there’s only one opinion. If that were true, there would be no need to show support.

I was recently told that the opinion of a homosexual friend of mine concerning homophobic terms doesn’t matter because he’s not an “active member of the gay community.” So, apparently only “active members” matter. If this were true, the only homosexuals that matter would be the ones that make an enormous deal about their sexuality.
It blows my mind that the same people requesting absolute tolerance can be so incredibly intolerant. It’s the huge fuss that’s being made over this newly discriminated sexuality that happens to be the exact reason why it’s discriminated against.
People think that it’s not normal because it’s made into such a controversial subject, even though it’s a completely natural occurrence and is observed relatively frequently in wild populations of all kinds of animals.

If homosexuality is going to be accepted by this great, although failing nation, it needs to be normalized, not shoved in everyone’s faces as something that absolutely needs to be accepted.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

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.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

As I, a woman, I stand for who I am because I represent half of the world with my gender. In an article published by the Chicago Tribune the writer was enlightening ladies on how to make their eyelashes longer so that they can “look prettier.” That is the first problem with society. Everyone believes that women need make-up to be beautiful. Where did this come from? Why don’t men have to wear make-up to look good?

Most women wake up every morning and have to spend at least an hour to get ready so that they can look decently attractive for the opposite sex and their peers around them. We women have to go through so many tough things in our life already and on top of all of this we have to impress other people around us to be liked. For example, in the city, at school, or at the work place, the pretty ladies are always the ones that turn heads and make people want to talk to them. The reason that most of them are so pretty is because they have an inch of fake on their face.

To add on to this dilemma, I have another point on the tip of my tongue. As we all know women are not respected in society as much as men are. Men are the winners, they bring home the most money, and they can do more in the world, get more work done and have more authority to respect. Not many people will listen to a woman who is telling her story but if a man is speaking the world stops to listen. Still in China right now, and most likely the rest of the work, women are not respected. They are treated near to nothing just because they are not male.

Females are required to go through tougher situations in their life. They have to deal with more problems and have less authority. We already have enough drawbacks as we are and yet society is till trying to add more by telling us to buy make-up to look “pretty, beautiful, attractive.”

All in all, I believe that we are all equal. Men and women have their differences of course, no one is the same. However, we shall not be treated as the lesser value. Everyone makes the world go round, men and women alike.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

People who are not related to Joshua are likely to forget this story. Many other troubling situations are happening around the world and this is one out of millions. However, this tragic story is important because people around our community, right now, are having a difficult time. Because of their difficult situation, they do harmful actions like suicide.

Also, this article has little information about Joshua’s death. It mentions a lot about his achievements and options or feelings of people who actually know him, but it is likely that people will focus on the information about his achievements instead of remembering about his death. More background info on a topic will make the information stand out and if it is something important, it will cause people to take action wanting to get involve with the topic.

In this case, Joshua’s achievements stand out and there is nothing for the reader to take action about this topic. It is likely that people like myself will forget about this tragic information because it does not have any thing to do with me. The article does not cause me to want to take action in doing anything about the problem about of suicide. It did not explain how it happened or how to prevent other horrible situations like this to occur again.

The editor needs to gather information about why suicides happen. He or she can get the information by asking the family member, or if it’s too personal then the editor can look up the information online about teenage suicides. The original article is already good, but adding more information this story will get more attention from the readers. Some information could be from websites or charts about teenage suicide.

Hopefully, everyone from all different age groups will start reading this article and take action by preventing this trouble situation from happening again. Even adults will read this story about a teenager and have an impact because even adult suicides happen. Not just students reading the school’s newspaper for fun or interested in other articles like sports. However, we cannot forget about other deaths that happen too, like Keagan Starkel’s death. I’m sure that if there is more information on the cause of suicide then this article will impact people even more.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This choir is also an audition choir, meaning that you can’t get in unless you try out. You have to be good to get in this choir, and they do challenging things. This choir recently went to the Sno-King Festival. They got a 1-, or an almost perfect score. (Think of it as an A-). Nobody was told about this except for friends of the choir members. This is a very good score and the choir didn’t get recognized for getting it.

Woman’s choirs can never be as good or sing as challenging music as Dynamics. They have guys, which allows them to sing in five or more part harmony. With only girls in the choir, we can only reach up to four part harmony. Because of the economy failing, schools are not letting girls choirs go to big competitions. For the competition at CBC, only two girls choirs signed up this year. This is including Accents. Schools should give girls choirs a chance to compete as well.

All I’m asking is for Accents to get a little more recognition. After all, you do have to try out to get into this choir as well as Dynamics. No, they are not as good as Dynamics, but they are better than a regular choir and they deserve to be in the spotlight a little bit as well.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

As Dr. Seuss has said in “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,”

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?
It came without ribbons,
it came without tags.
It came without packages,
boxes, or bags. And
he puzzled and puzzled
‘till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought
of something he hadn’t
before. What if Christmas,
he thought, didn’t come from a store? What if
Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?”

The Grinch understood that Christmas is not just a word. He even knew that it could not be bought it stores. This has not been the case these past years here in the United States. Our nation has been
bombarded by political correctness; our desire to prevent offending others is growing. Instead of calling a person a “garbage man or woman,” one would say “sanitation worker.” Although these terms sound much kinder than otherwise, names don’t change reality.

Political correctness censors a person from truly expressing themselves to protect the minority, and with that it restricts the language people can use. One of the biggest controversial examples is saying
“Happy Holidays” instead of saying “Merry Christmas.” As a majority, avoid saying “Merry Christmas,” because it feels like one is oppressing the minority. But because of this, our holiday spirits are hindered and unshared with others whom celebrate other holidays, and therefore, not recognizing
other cultures by saying “Happy Holidays.”

Of the 100 students surveyed here at MTHS, 95 students celebrate Christmas, two students celebrate Eid, three students celebrate no winter holidays, and none surveyed celebrated Hanukah and Kwanzaa. Though this is not a scientific study of students here at MTHS, it is clear to see that the majority celebrate Christmas. These 95 students will be wishing their peers a “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Eid” this holiday season. However, if they knew the person does not celebrate the same holiday, 76 of the 100 students would say “Happy Holidays” instead. This result shows that for every four students, three would say “Happy Holidays.” The reason is because they are afraid of offending the person.

This brings up another question. What would it look like many years from now here in United States, when more and more immigrants come to America from the four corners of the world? These immigrants with their own holidays and culture— would we, say “Happy Holidays” as to not offend them? Would more and more Americans say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” or other specific holiday greetings? Political correctness is using terms that would not alienate anyone outside of the majority. It is affecting our way of celebrating holidays, stifling it, to make sure no one feels upset. It turn, it makes people say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” and “holiday tree” instead of “Christmas tree.”

Why are we limiting our holiday spirits when as mentioned, names do not change reality? The United States of America, full of culturally diverse citizens, should respect the many cultures. That does not mean they should go about and be politically correct. It means that they should not avoid the cultures
present in America by saying, “Happy Holidays.” Americans should be proud to say their holiday greetings, proud to know that United is not just of one culture but of many cultures that make the United States. By being able to say, “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Hanukah” or others, people are not excluding another individual. They are saying this nation is made up of many people that come from different backgrounds, and they take pride in that. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Hawkeye staff editorial represents the views of the Executive Council

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.