East High Spotlight

East High School1600 City Park EsplanadeDenver, CO 80210

Sp tl ghtvolumeLXXXXIXoctober2012

in this issue...

Conquering their fifth yearSuper seniors at East

An Open Letter to Apathy pg. 12

Giving Up the DreamSenior Cuts: A neccessary evil or a needless tradition? pg.16

War on WalmartA propsoal for a big store creates even bigger problems

The Baby Vote

East High’s brand-new voters and political activists come together to educate and mobi-lize massive political forces, and they’re fighting on both sides of the isle.

pg. 6by harryforbes

pg.4

pg.9

[news]page 2 october 9th 2012

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

EDITORS-IN-CHIEFAndrew Wise & Joie Akerson

MEDIA DIRECTORSGabe O’Connell &Alessa Barton

SENIOR EDITORKeaghan Dunn-Rhodes

BUSINESS MANAGERChris Harder & Andrew Palmquist

NEWS EDITORAbbey Lew

FEATURES EDITORGrace McCabe

IN-DEPTHDenise Meeker

STAFF WRITERSEmma Costain, Aubin Fefley, Harry Forbes, Gracie Freels, Eli Goldin, Chad Hanna, Marin Johnson, Kyrianna Killingbeck, Flanders Lorton, Owen Mathews, Ezra Pratt, Sean Price, Brody Rastall, Noah Reynolds, Dylan Salzman, Abigail Sawyer, Spencer Soicher, Carson Stoltz, Natalie Torres

PRINTED BY BARNUM PRINTING

East High Spotlight, Room 210A, 1600 City Park Esplanade, Denver, Colorado 80206

720.279.4629 | [email protected] | www.eastspotlight.com

CENTER EDITORAdelaide Sandvold

OPINIONS EDITORAli Oksner

SPORTS EDITORDaniel Hartman-Strawn

REAR END EDITORJoe Harrison

PHOTO EDITORWillow Turano

STAFF ARTISTJax Downs

SPONSORMr. Mark Ajluni

PRINCIPALMr. Andy Mendelsburg

Some material courtesy of American Society of Newspaper Editors/MCT Campus High School Newspaper Service.

The Spotlight is published by the student newspaper staff of East High School. The views expressed are those of the individual students and do not necessarily reflect those of the sponsor or of the staff as a whole. Student editors, not the administrators or the Denver Public Schools Board of Education, are

responsible for the content published.

They Said What?!by chrisharder

“I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too.”

“Oppan Gangnam Style!”

“A dollar makes me holler, honey boo boo!”

“We’re the best team in the West. We’re so deep, so talented, so versatile.”

“Given the truth of how this was handled, CNN patting themselves on the back is disgusting.”

Philippe Reines, State Department Spokesman, on how CNN found US Ambassador Christopher Stevens’ journal and reported on the contents before notify-ing his family. Stevens was killed in the riots on the US Embassy in Libya on September 11th, 2012.

Honey Boo Boo Child, (aka Alana Thomson), a seven-year-old beauty queen on TLC’s Toddlers and Tiaras. She’s known for her sassy attitude and “go-go juice.” Her TV show had higher ratings

than the Republican National Convention.

Mitt Romney, in the first presidential debate at DU. Telling moderator, Jim Lehrer, that he would cut public funding to PBS.

Ty Lawson, Denver Nuggets point guard.

Psy, Korean rapper and Youtube sensation who received over 366 million views and was num-ber one on iTunes.

John Peterson is a man of ac-tion, and even after 27 years

of teaching, the district’s new teacher evaluation caught him by surprise. A call from the Independent Institute (a con-servative educational organiza-tion) informed the East U.S History teacher that in order to receive a “distinguished” rat-ing, he must promote student activism. This questioned his role as a teacher, and he im-mediately advocated against the standards.

Denver Public Schools and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) conjointly developed a pilot program called the Leading Effective Academic Progress (LEAP) evaluation system. The nationally recognized program was put into place two years ago after Senate bill 191, the Great Teachers and Leaders Bill, linked teacher evalua-tions to the progress of their students. The committee is comprised of DCTA members and DPS teachers, principals, and administrators. They regu-larly request feedback from the community. This time, Peter-son had plenty to comment on.

Changes to the evalua-tion were made right before the 2012-13 school year. The original draft read-A Distinguished teacher:-Encourages students to chal-lenge and question the domi-nant culture.-Encourages students to take social action to change/im-prove society or work for social justice.

According to Peterson, “There is a line between getting students to think critically and pushing students to be an ad-vocate.” Pam Benigno, director

at the Independent Institute adds, “I truly believe this is an abuse of power.”

Many have wondered how these requirements will be enforced since they relate to DPS teachers of all subjects and all grades.Some have interpreted the vague word-ing with a left/right stance and concluded that teachers were expected to take their students to an Occupy protest and/or a Tea Party rally. AM 850 KOA radio host, Mike Rosen concludes, “[Students are] not there so that they could be trained to be outside activists, they’re there to learn basic academics first and foremost.”

Debby Hearty, Office of Teacher Learning, de-fends the statements saying, “Education that causes action is really important, it’s what our kids do with what they learn, does that translate into expecting kids to go out and protest? No, no necessarily.”

Alan Chimento, a veteran East teacher, has a vast background in student activism. Thirteen years ago he and eleven West students challenged the school board and brought attention to the dilapidated conditions of their high school. “In other words they challenged the

East Teacher Objects to Leftist Language In District

Teacher Evaluationsby abbeylew

(continued on page 4)

Teacher John Peterson opposes new teacher standards

[news]october 9th 2012 page 3

The Denver Debate Review:The Dems, the GOP, and the Swing Voters

Apple pie, baseball, and democ-racy are a couple of things that

really define America. One of American democracy’s great successes are the presidential debates. The debates are one of America’s oldest and finest means of showcasing the candidates, the tradi-tion goes all the way back to 1858 with Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.

Mitt Romney was voted the overall winner of the first debate. On Oc-

tober 4th, the day after the debate, the Denver Post’s front page read, “Round one: Romney.” Mitt did a lot of things well in the debate, starting with refuting Obama’s points. Whenever the president claimed something, Romney explicitly said why it wasn’t true, and gave several reasons for it. This helped to validate his points, while at the same time, make him seem more educated on the sub-jects. Unlike the Project NewAmerica poll suggested it might, the debates didn’t seem to swing voters very much. On CNN there was a graph displaying swing voter reactions to the debate and it didn’t seem to vary much between the two candidates. Since Romney’s behind in the polls, convincing the swing voters will be vital to his campaign. There were a couple of things that Romney could have done better. The first is making his plan clear. When East senior Audrey Preston was asked

Many people thought that the presi-dent had a surprisingly weak first

debate. After a lively showing against McCain last year, Obama seemed tired. He looked older than his opponent, and overall, just worn down. Audrey Preston described his showing as “detached.” She also commented on Obama’s repetitive-ness, pointing out that the president attacked Romney on several issues that he had already responded to, while not attacking him on some of his recent gaffes, like his infamous 47% comments. Sophomore Evan Segal re-marked on Obama’s lack of willingness to engage. He said, “It was almost as if he went into the night expecting the debate to be more for show than any-thing else, while his opponent came to debate.” There were, however, a couple of things that Obama did do well. Segal commented that Obama didn’t do as badly as everyone thinks. He believes that Obama did a good job of finding a middle ground on issues, showing that he is willing and able to compromi and achieve bipartisanship. One thing that never lets Obama down is his articulation, and the night of the debate was no exception. He was “very articulate, as per usual,” Preston remarked. The debate, although in favor of Romney, was not a blowout, and that’s something the president can settle with.

what she thought Romney could have improved on, she replied, “He doesn’t have a realistic idea of how to close the deficit while keeping taxes low and investment in defense, education and infrastructure high, and his policies are vague.” When Obama spoke about the debate afterwards, he criticized the exact same thing that senior Mark Garret did: Romney’s flip-flopping on issues that he seemed adamant about beforehand. Garret said, “I think it’s kind of dumb that Romney keeps changing his ideas.” Romney’s first debate was overall a successful one. He was con-sidered the winner by most people, but he didn’t win by such a significant margin to really help him win the election.

Romney Obama

This year, the first of the four debates (one will be a vice presidential debate) was held at University of Denver, on October 3rd. Project NewAmerica, a poll-ing organization, recently did a survey on the four western swing states: New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado. The survey reached 4,588 voters, 42%

of which replied that the debates would be the single biggest thing determining which candidate they voted for. The poll also found that voters don’t seem to care as much about the candidate’s stance on specific issues. They care more about having a president that they can trust, and the debates are known for changing the public’s perspective of the nominees.

Colorado has not yet decided which candidate to vote for, and the debate didn’t seem to do much to sway the public’s opinion. Both Obama and Romney showed their strengths and weaknesses while debating Wednesday night, and here’s a review of what went right and wrong for each candidate.

VS

Upcoming Debates -October 11, 2012 Vice Presidential Debate 7:00-8:30pm in Danville, Kentucky on foreign and domestic policy. -October 16, 2012 Presidential Debate 7:00-8:30pm in Hempstead, New York on foreign and domestic policy. -October 22, 2012 Presidential Debate 7:00-8:30pm in Boca Raton, Florida on foreign policy.

To listen/watch the debates, tune into C-SPAN, ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC. Cable channels include CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC

by dylansalzman

[news]page 4 october 9th 2012

Walmart Foes Resist Proposed DevelopmentSparks fly as community debates the merits of new project at 9th and Colorado

by EzraPratt

Walmart” was the single word on everyone’s

mind at the Seventh Avenue Neighborhood Association meeting held on September 27th. Over 100 residents of the area gathered to voice their opinion on the possible construction of a Walmart. The store is part of a plan put forth by Fuqua Development to redevelop the former Uni-versity of Colorado Health Sciences site off of Colorado Boulevard and 9th Avenue.

Representative of Fuqua Development, Marcus Pachner, presented detailed analyses and plans in an effort to advance the project. Denver District 10 Councilwoman Jeanne Robb, an opponent of the plan, also spoke about the city council’s position on the proposal. This meeting is just one of many that have been held over this development. Since it was announced in June that Walmart would be a possible anchoring tenant, there have been several protests chal-lenging the Walmart and many people have dedicated themselves to stopping the construction.

The largest catalyst for the protest against the construction is the fact that the developer has requested Tax Increment Funding, or TIF. TIF is the use of taxpayer money to subsidize the redevelopment of blighted or abandoned areas. Fuqua representa-tive Marcus Pach-ner, who spoke at the meeting, specified that the Walmart would not receive any TIF money, and the money would go towards demolition of the hospital, remediation of the land, and adding new infrastructure such as roads sewage and power.

Even with this fact, Jeanne Robb, whose jurisdiction includes the development, opposes the Walmart along with the rest of City Council who denied TIF financing for the develop-ment. Robb stated during the meet-

ing that she did not believe a Walmart would be built because to the city’s denial of granting them TIF money, and she was met with loud applause and cheers.

The financing of the develop-ment is not the only issue residents have. Resident Barb Leon says, “My biggest concerns are increased traffic, including

large trucks in an already congested area.”

This concern is not unique to Leon and residents have a good reason to be alarmed. Accord-

ing to Pachner, a 2008 study done by Shea Properties said the development could increase traffic by nearly 14,000 trips per day. However this is far less than the 27,000 the former hospital drew.

Crime is a major concern for many people as well. “The Walmart will increase crime because it is open 24 hours and because the store is so large many people could steal items,” says

freshman Grace Romer. It’s true that Colorado has seen

some crime increase around Walmart stores. According to the Denver Police Department, there were nearly sixty incidents at the Walmart in Stapleton compared with just seven to the Target in Northfield.

Walmart’s contoversial busi-ness practices and its effect on smaller retailers and proper-ty values also rankles many. According to Wayne Sirmons the President of Mayfair Neighbor-hood Incorpo-rated, “Walmart is a predatory retailer. They sell products extremely cheap due to their large buying power. They eventu-ally make it so that every one job they add results in two jobs lost from other businesses.”

Senior Tom Spano is also concerned with Walmart’s effect on the

area: “It’s generally bad for the economy to have a place like Walmart because they say they make jobs but pay at very low wages.”

While there are many reasons for residents’ protest against Walmart, there are two sides to the argument and, as sophomore Mike Tenor puts it, “You can’t get in the way of free enterprise.” This is the argument of many Walmart proponents.

Many proponents believe an increase in traffic will benefit local businesses. Tenor went on to state that, “Walmart can only benefit the local economy by putting more money into the area through sales taxes. More people will be drawn to this neighborhood if they are going to the Walmart and they’re bound to spend mon-ey in other area businesses for stuff such as food and gas.”

In terms of the build-ing’s design, Marcus Pachner, emphasized at the meeting

that this will not be a traditional big box Walmart with a massive parking lot seen in suburbs around the nation. It will have underground parking, and will not have a tire or garden center. Many people at the meeting disagreed

with Pachner’s claims of the develop-ment’s urban design. Pachner drew laughs from the crowd when he compared it to the Gaylord and Pearl street urban shopping districts. With the pub-lic disagreement over the construction of Walmart and the de-nial of TIF funding from city council, Fuqua is having to either redesign the

project or outright drop it. If the project is dropped, the hospital could sit vacant and decaying until another developer comes along with the funds necessary to bring it back to life.

Want to join the fight against Walmart? Go to: http://stopwalmartcolorado.com/Or contact Mayor Michael Hancock: [email protected] 720.865.9000

Jeanne Robb: [email protected] 720.337.7710

“They eventually make it so that every one job they add results in two jobs lost from

other businesses.”

Representative of Fuqua Development, Marcus Pachner

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[news]october 9th 2012 page 5

Weird things you should know...by dylansalzman

BRITISH MEATY TREATS Most Americans think British people are sophisticated. The accent, along with England’s glorious history, makes people from the U.S. respect the Brits. But what most Americans don’t know is that unsafe rat, goat, and sheep meat has recently been sold for high prices on the English black market. The meat may contain the AIDS virus, according to the BBC, so it’s not something that’s exactly safe to eat. As gross as American rats may seem, we need to remember that it could be worse -- they could have AIDS.

BAGEL LOOK-ALIKES

In a country that is notoriously unfriendly, one person received a special welcome from the new leader, Kim Jong Un. After fleeing the country while fearing for his life in 2001, he returned on September 18th. Who was this hero? A war general? The chief of police? None of the above -- it was Kim Jong Il’s personal sushi chef, who taught Kim Jong Un to play

games like tennis, basketball, and jet skiing. If you’re looking

to take a nice, relaxing vacation to North Korea, making quality

sushi and babysitting might be your ticket in.

NORTH KOREA -- AS HOSTILE AS IT SEEMS?Sharks usually seem like a harbinger of death, not life. Movies like Jaws have inspired a fear of the toothy fish in our culture. But in Kiribati, an island in the pacific islands, an islander named Toakai Teitoi was “led to safety” by a great white shark. After being lost in the ocean for 15 weeks, he woke up on September 11th to see a shark bump- ing against his hull. He followed the shark until he came across a boat that brought him to safety. The jour-ney was not without fatalities though -- Teitoi’s brother in l aw died from dehydration.

Every American thinks that other country’s cultures are a little strange. But taking American breakfast food and mak-ing their heads look like it is more than a little strange. “Bagel heads” are a growing body modification trend for Japanese citi-zens who have been injecting saline into their foreheads, the process makes their heads look like bagels for about sixteen hours. So next time you’re craving a bagel, remember that in Japan, people are crav-ing the same thing -- only not for food.

Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln, or Teddy Roosevelt, or Susan B. Anthony, or Martin Luther King Jr.; they all challenged the social norms and status quo and the way of thinking and I think that’s what makes our country great. We have free speech, its a key component of who we are as a country, as a democracy, and we’re built on the competition of ideas.”

Being a U.S. History and Economics teacher, Peterson understands that topics

of protest and rebel-lion come up, “Some students will figure out what issues are impor-tant to them and they’ll go out and become part of that whether or not I teach them. Once students effectively have been taught to think, they can decide for themselves if the dominant culture is worth challenging or if they want to promote

dominant culture,” Chimento states. Although the board turned them down, Chimento still believes school should be a safe place to learn activism and being politically active should be encouraged.

According to Superintendent, Tom Boasberg, DPS is currently the fastest growing school district in a U.S. major city. He states, “I don’t think there is anything necessarily left-wing, right-wing, center-wing about that, this is about develop-ing kids to be critical thinkers, to be productive citizens, and I think it’s in the greatest tradition of our country. You can have whatever po-litical viewpoint that you like and agree or disagree with them, but whether it’s

social justice.”Peterson is credited to bringing at-

tention to the subject and has appeared on both 9news and the Devil’s Advocate, a show run by Jon Caldara, head of the Independent Institute, to speak about the controversial statements. Caldara claimed, “When I see social justice, I see the Occupy movement, they hold the signs that say social justice and now if you don’t bring your kids to the Occupy movement, you’re not going to be dis-tinguished. I never expected that when I sent my kid to school, a good distin-guished teacher would be turning my kids into social revolutionaries.”

So what is the definition of social justice? In an excerpt from his editorial on ednewscolorado.org, Peterson states, “Social justice” is a loaded term used to advance left-wing ideologies like income equality and redistribution of wealth.” He concludes by stating that students need to formulate and pose their own thoughts and that by urging them to challenge the dominant culture, it is basically “thinking for students.”

Chimento defines social justice as equity. “Equity is not equality. Equity is getting what you need and the oppor-

tunity to achieve the American dream.” East Sociology teacher, Mr. Hernandez views the whole issue as “a spontaneous concept with more than two sides and a lot of gray area.” He states, “Schools should promote critical thinking, and that is what will eventually lead to social activism.” On September 24th, an email from DPS Chief Academic Officer,

Susan Cordova, informed teachers that the wording had been changed to more appropriate wording, Boasberg

announced, “The wording wasn’t the right wording, and it didn’t capture the appropriate intent we had.” The new requirements now read:

“A distinguished teacher encourages students to think critically about equity and bias in society, and to understand and question historic and prevailing currents of thought as well as dissent-ing and diverse viewpoints and culti-vate students ability to understand and openly discuss drivers of, and barriers to, opportunity and equity in society.” Peterson approves of the new criteria. Although the wording may have been removed, East students will likely con-tinue to question the dominant culture whether or not it is taught in school.

East teacher ignites controversy over new evaluation

by abbeylew

GREAT WHITE HOPE

(continued from page 2)

The Controversial Standards

A Distinguished teacher:

1) Encourages students to chal-lenge and question the dominant culture.

2) Encourages students to take social action to change/improve society or work for social justice.

“We have free speech, its a key component of who we are as a country, as a democracy, and we’re built on the competition of ideas.”

[features]page 6 october 9th 2012

Legislation that’s made now will affect us when we become college-aged kids

and become adults, so it’s going to change the ideologies of people then. It’s best to get educated now. It’s best to learn about your government and get informed so you can inform other people too.”

The words of senior Greyson Holle mirror those of the Ancient Greek phi-losopher Pericles who stated over 2400 years ago: “Just because you don’t take an interest in politics doesn’t meant that politics won’t take an interest in you.”

Both of these statements echo the sentiment that several politicians have discussed in recent years. Hitting sev-eral formerly inactive demographics, such as Latinos and Senior citizens, have been essential for politicians in the last 50 years. However, unintentionally, they have hit one group that is often dormant: teenagers.

In this age of Facebook and MTV, politics is pretty low on most teenagers’ priority list, right after clipping their toe-nails but before doing their math home-work. However, in the past couple of years, kids at East have taken a dramatically new approach to spending their free time: they’ve started to get involved in politics. They don’t just want to have mean-ingless politi-cal discussions -- they’re trying to inspire their parents, classmates, and uninformed strangers.

“I worked as a Summer Organizer for Obama, with my friend Dominic Diaz, and we really wanted to contin-ue our work with the campaign,” says

Calves and Foals:

by harryforbes

Youth influence in politics at East and beyond

sophomore Chris Dudley, co-President of East High Forward, along with Diaz. “We decided that it’s really important to get high schoolers involved in the cam-paign, especially in a swing state like Col-orado, where every voice does matter. So, we took over Young Democrats Club.”

After renaming the club “East High Forward,” inspired by the President’s re-election slogan, the young liberals start-ed to get to work. However, the desire to support candidates has not only affected East’s large liberal population, but its conservatives as well.

“Republicans are a minority here, and most Republicans here either don’t know that they’re Republicans or are afraid to come out because it’s such a looked down thing at East,” says senior Greyson Holle, President of the Conservative, Libertar-ian, Independent, Republican (or CLIR) club, the conservative counterpart to the liberal East High Forward. However, low member turnout has not deterred Holle’s spirit.

“We may not have an ability to vote, but we have helped out with campaigns. It’s not very hard for youth to get involved

in politics. A lot of kids say ‘I can’t vote,’ or ‘Politics is for adults and that shouldn’t be something for kids,’ but I totally dis-agree. All the things that are happening and

that people talk about and what happens in DC affects kids,” Holle says.

The club meetings aren’t anything fancy. The groups get together, some-times order pizza, and talk about issues relevant to them. At a recent Forward

meeting, members threw around a ball, answered icebreaker questions, and talk-ed about why they supported the Presi-dent.

“I really relate to the Affordable Care Act. That was a big plus for me,” said one member.

“I’m supporting him because he says he supports equality for every-body, and his policies reflect that,” said another. Each answer is ar-ticulate a n d w e l l thought o u t , as are views held by CLIR club members. These aren’t just kids that think that taxes are bad or that weed should be le-gal. These are kids with well-thought out beliefs and ideals. They stand for what they believe in, they say exactly what they think and exactly what they mean, which is more than you can say for some politicians.

Both clubs have very different politi-cal views, but their goals are quite similar. They want to stay informed. They want to register voters. They want to make a dif-ference. The interest in politics hasn’t just been a factor for young people at East. Young people from around the country are starting to pay attention to govern-ment. A recent study showed that around 23 million Americans under the age of 30 voted in the 2008 presidential election, an hefty increase from just 3.4 million in 2004.

“I think more Young People are tak-ing an interest in politics because, to

be quite honest, President Obama has helped to make politics relevant and sexy,” says Jabari Smith, a Youth Out-reach Field Organizer for Obama for America, President Obama’s grassroots campaign. “I think that young people feel that more is at stake than ever before. Our President has not ignored issues that pertain to youth, especially regarding his stance on education and equal rights for all regardless of ethnicity, creed, or ori-entation.”

With an election coming up in No-vember, many students from these clubs will be voting or educating others on how to vote. And maybe, a few elections down the road, these current members might just be on the ballots themselves.

The Spotlight asked...

“It’s best to learn about your government and get informed...All the things that are happen-ing and that people talk about

...in DC affect kids.”

“

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Sophomore Hannah Ghasemi participates in a recent Forward Meeting.

“I support the GOP candidate Mitt Romney be-cause he supports cutting taxes for the middle class and I agree with his policy on healthcare.”-Vinny Dominguez, Sophomore

“I support the President [Obama] because he’s a great role model for students like myself. He also looks at how to make our country better for everyone; gay or straight, rich or poor.” -AJ Harper, Sophomore

“In this election I am most likely voting Liber-tarian due to Gary Johnson’s social views...I was like ‘Hey, I don’t agree with Congress, so here’s an anti-Congress candidate.’”-Abe Mamet, Senior

Who are you supporting in the presidential election?

realized that he wanted to make a documentary about fighting spirit.

To Setareh, fighting spirit means giving 150% of your ded-ication to whatever it is you are doing, whether it be in a sport, school or family. Setareh explains that the purpose of this documentary is to explain to people how to apply persever-ance in their everyday life; how it can be gained and how it can be applied to whatever we do. Most of all he wants to highlight the difference between a successful and unsuccessful person and explain that it is possible for anyone to become successful if they dedicate everything they have, passion, dedication and perseverance in what they are doing.

The Japanese people in his film include a tea master, the last bamboo craftsman alive, Judo masters, and a couple musicians. Setareh hopes that this documentary will motivate everyone from adults to teenagers like himself and believes that his message will be clear to the whole world. “Fighting

spirit has really made me who I am today and I hope that it will help every one who watches it and expand their world”. Setareh has already received a donation to get him started from First Bank, who loved his idea after meeting with him, even though Se-tareh was so nervous. He is planning to start making his documentary about fighting spirit

next summer. However, even after receiving the funding from First

Bank, Setareh still needs more financial help. He hopes this will come as more people become aware of his project.

Setareh is aware of the challenges he will face along the way but is ready to face them. “The biggest challenge will be money and also getting the right footage to keep this docu-mentary interesting.” Setareh wants to get all of the right footage so he can keep his project interesting so everyone watching it can be impressed. His biggest goal is to garner a big audience so his hard work can be appreciated.

[features]october 9th 2012 page 7

by gracemccabe

Fighting Spirit: One East judoka’s determination to make his documentary dreams a reality

Sweat slowly ran down Shayan Setareh’s face and body, although the fancy black suit covered it up. He looked up at

the building before entering, only to find a massive high-tech office building with lots of security and a receptionist look-ing at him intently. He entered the First Bank headquarters in Lakewood, anxiously going over his presentation, trying to convince himself that there were no mistakes. Sixteen year old Setareh sat in a big brown chair for twenty minutes, which seemed like an eternity, while he waited for the banking officer who could either crush his documentary dream or help him make it big as he wanted.

Shayan Setareh is a junior at East High School whose dream for the past three months has been to make a docu-mentary reflecting the perseverance and dedication in Japa-nese teenagers when they practice their Judo skills. Judo is a martial art and Olympic sport that originated in Japan in 1882.

When Setareh traveled to Japan this past summer to practice his Judo skills, he never imagined that he would love it so much to make a documentary about it.

During Setareh’s stay in Japan he did Judo every day, something that has been his passion for the last six years. But he didn’t always like Judo, much less be so passionate about it. Six years ago Setareh’s step father pushed him to do Judo because he believed that Setareh could be good at it. His first year was hard because he was not used to the hard exercises this sport required and as could be expected for someone just starting, he wasn’t very good at it. “I did not like Judo at first because it’s not fun not being good at something, but I kept with it and now it’s my favorite thing to do.” But after many years of practicing the sport, today he loves it so much his dream is to compete in the Olympics. Setareh says that he loves Judo because he loves the exercise and the confidence that it has brought to his life. “Knowing you’re good at something and if you love doing it, then well, that’s even better.”

During his one month stay in Japan, Setareh was hosted by a Japanese family and learned how to live like a typical Japanese teenager. This included attending school and eating many new things, like octopus, which he didn’t like. Setareh was impacted immediately in many ways by the Japanese people, whether it was the food they ate or the close relation-ship they have between students and teachers. Most of all, he became inspired by the people he met along the way.Every day as Setareh entered the Judo gym and saw how hard the young Japanese Judoka’s worked to improve their skills, he realized how much better he could be. That was when he

by natalietorres

“Fighting spirit has made me who I am today and I hope that it [the documentary] will help everyone who watches it and

expand their world.”

Ways to get over the post-

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Junior Shayan Setareh has big dreams in judo and in filmmaking.

top10...The

Homecoming blues

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The red and white glitter cloud has set-tled, the body paint has been put away,

and it’s back to business as usual at East High School. The Spot-light offers some tips for perking up and getting through the monoto-nous weeks to come.

1. Who says you can’t have your own spirit days? You can still dress like an 80s Jazzercise instructor to liven up any old Thursday.

2. Just because the school dance is over doesn’t mean the party in your heart has to stop raging on! Start an im-promptu dance party in the hall-way.

3. Go to sporting events any time for a quick dose of Angel pride.

4. Find solace in the fact that with every falling leaf and crisp breeze, we get that

much closer to ski/snow-board season in Colorado!

5. Start planning for Halloween! It’s only

three weeks away and if you expect to still go

trick-or-treating as a 16-year-old than a legiti-mate costume is required.

6 . Take some time to breathe. It’s the beginning of a new six weeks and you definitely won’t have time to take a break once those projects start piling up again.

7. Congratulate yourself for making it through a East High homecoming dance -- you survived the blinding lights and crazy teenage mosh pits. And only a few people

noticed how sweaty you were.

8. Go pull a prank on GW. Or not. (See page 13)

9. Photobomb senior pictures in City Park.

10. Go to a corn maze, haunted house, pumpkin patch or any other of the activities that are special to autumn.

DAVID LYNN ISE AIA W Architecture Urban Design+

1110 EAST 17th AVE DENVER CO 80218

w w w . d a v i d l y n n w i s e . c o [email protected]

PHONE 303.446.5965 FAX 303.830.1124

[features]page 8 october 9th 2012

Bringing Back the Beat:

On a Saturday night at the end of September, on the stage of Boettcher

hall, I watched as an 81-year-old man took flight. The flight may have only lasted a moment, and he may have only risen about three inches off the floor, but David Amram was soaring.

The occasion was a celebration of what would have been Woody Guthrie’s 100th Birthday. Guthrie laid the groundwork for most of the great Amer-ican music of the 20th century, one of the first people to write music about the real America, about the working class people that define the culture of this country. “This Land is Your Land” is largely remem-bered as the quintes-sential Woody Guthrie classic, but it sits at the top of a long list of depression era ballads and folk music that inspired the likes of Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger.

Since July 14th, which would have

been Guthrie’s actual 100th birthday, celebrations of his life and music have taken place across the country, from the Summer Stage in Central Park, NYC to his home town of Okemah, Oklahoma. Guthrie is being celebrated as far away as Vienna, Austria, as well as Munster

and Bad Hanof, Germany. The celebration at Boettcher Hall on September 22nd was Denver’s contribution.

So back to David Am-ram, the flying 81 year old. Amram is one of those once in a generation, truly bril-liant people whose name many more of us should know. He is a contemporary of Woodie Guthrie, and has worked with the likes of Jack Kerouac, Allen Gins-burg, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Langston Hughes, even modern art-ists like Johnny Depp. His resume would likely run

your printer out of paper. But in watch-ing Amram work, what’s clear is that he knows exactly what perfection sounds like. Whether he is playing one of the

nearly 30 instruments he has mastered, or conducting the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, as he was at Boettcher, every last bone and tendon is his wiry frame, he constantly strains to find that perfect sound. When he takes his seat at the Piano or his place at the center of the Orchestra, his eyes close, and he seems to breathe sound and rhythm.

And he came to East, along with Josh White Junior, a massively talented and epically bearded blues musician. Together, they gave the single best guest assembly I have ever seen at East. The kids in the auditorium that day weren’t texting under the seat, they weren’t talk-ing or sneaking out or shouting stupid obscenities. They were listening, and

watching these brilliant musicians work. It was a rare jumping of the generational gap and proof that, contrary to popular belief, teenagers can actually appreciate a little culture every once in a while.

The East High Choir was also a part of the performance, offering some strength to the chorus of “This Land is Your Land”. It was a great example of East’s clear connection to this commu-nity, our appreciation of past legacies and our forging of new ones. Amram’s generation was one of major artistic expression and social change. Ours can be similar. The greatest test will be if any of us can match Amram’s energy, or, for that matter, Josh White Junior’s beard.

Beat generation musician David Amram performs a Woody Guthrie tribute at East

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Musician David Amram brings the spirit of the Beat Gen-eration to East in Woody Guthrie tribute

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East band teacher Keith Oxman plays with Amram and Jones at the assembly

by andrewwise

[in-depth]october 9th th 2012 page 9

“If I really can’t graduate from high school it is going to stick

with me for the rest of my life.”

by joieakerson and denisemeeker

SUPER SENIORSRescuing their high school career

Matthew Jesseman was never one to follow the masses. He has two

large tattoos: a big black panther that curls around his calf and a flower em-blazoned on his arm. He designed both tattoos, but he won’t talk about either. Jesseman became vegan last year on his own accord. He rides an old scooter and he laughs when he describes how it smells like a motorboat and sounds like a lawn mower. He works a full time job at a restaurant downtown and he has always loathed high school. But one of the biggest decisions of Jesseman’s life sent him careening onto a path so far from the masses that it can only be described as lonely: Jesseman is one of a few students who just entered their fifth year at East High School.

These fifth year students are known by some as “super seniors,” and often needed the extra year of high school to get credits that they, for whatever rea-son, could not obtain during their first four years at East.

Jesseman’s track to super senior-dom began his freshman year. Within a month he had latched onto a bad group of friends, “bad influences,” he calls them. They habitually began skipping class, and school became a secondary nuisance to make time for “other things.” For four years, worries about school were repressed and for four years, no one said much to stop him. He figured he could make up the missed time with online classes his senior year. Admit-tedly, Jessman had good times. Those memories have now been singed by regret, tarnished by the day in the coun-selor’s office where he learned that “there was literally no way I could graduate” from East High School, and even online classes could not compensate for his lack of credits.

The choice to re-enroll as a student for a fifth year certainly wasn’t Jesse-man’s only option. He could’ve dropped out and gotten his GED. He could have dropped out and continued with his job. He could’ve just dropped out and given up. When presented with this same choice, nearly 1 in 4 Colorado teenag-ers choose to drop out. But for him, the decision wasn’t really a decision at all: “It was pretty easy because I knew that’s what I wanted to do. But coming to terms with the fact was actually pretty difficult.”

Everyone in Jesseman’s life is still telling him to quit. His coworkers laugh at him, his friends say he should drop out, and his mom thinks it would be

easiest if he just got his GED. But Jesse-man hasn’t made his life choices because they’re the easiest option. “I never liked high school, I still don’t…” he says, “but

I had to do it for me. I think if I really can’t graduate from high school it is go-

ing stick with me for the rest of my life.”Jesseman has entered a huge transi-

tion time in his life. He is buckling down and doing the schoolwork he has ig-nored for years, and says he has stopped “acting like I’m better than high school. Because these are my classmates, and this is my school.”

One of his fellow classmates Chris Green, is also a fifth year student at East High School who also feels that his su-

per seniordom at East was a result of his lack of ambition as a junior and senior, rather than an inability to keep up with the schoolwork: “School isn’t something that’s hard,” he says seriously, “I just didn’t give it my 100 percent.”

Green admits that he has always been “slightly behind, [but] not enough that I couldn’t have graduated last year. I had the support.” His support system was his family and the academic success class that he took last year, which aims to keep kids on track towards gradu-ation and open up opportunities. But even these were not enough to keep him afloat.

“It was on me whether I capitalized on my opportunities,” he says of the decision to become a super senior, “I became okay with the fact that I wasn’t going to walk.”

Like Jesseman, it was the adjustment more than the decision itself that was difficult. "I would say it was hard the first week back just getting questioned by everyone that I didn't talk to or tell last semester, but now its just like normal me coming to school because [I'm] trying to finish up and move on to my next adventure."

However, many others have not been as persistent: a credit deficit can be very hard to make up after some bad decisions are made early on in a high school career. And while there are only a few super seniors, there are many who’ve slipped through the cracks and now find themselves alone like Jesseman and Green now do. Jesseman doesn’t blame his situation on anyone but himself, but he figures there “has to be an answer,” some way to find the kids who are falling off the tracks towards graduation.

The East administration recognizes this, and they have taken some measures towards keeping students on the right path. Principal Andy Mendelsburg says East is now “tracking kids differently.” They rearranged the counseling office this year so that there is one counselor, Terita Walker, specifically for “off-track” students. She monitors their progress with Student Advisor John Najmulski. Freshman are watched closely if they had less than 85% attendance in middle school, and those students’ average at-tendance rate is now 96%.

Chris and Jessman are now both on track and inching closer and closer to the end of their high school career. “When December comes around I’ll be ready,” Green says with steady eye contact. Because in December, Green will be leaving East. And this time, he’ll be leaving for good.

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Ake

rson

They’re funny when they hap-pen to someone else, but not

when they happen to you; car pranks are a trend at East High that happen often but rarely get reported. Junior Jackson Bock can speak from experience when it comes to this. Bock’s Mini Cooper has been saran wrapped and had the windows blacked out. Regard-ing the most recent incident he states, “Someone either peed or poured lemonade on my handle.” However when asked about his opinion on the car pranks, Bock

The parking lot is security guard Keith Norris’s turf. Before dawn

breaks and even before the earliest students arrive at school, Norris grabs his walkie talkie and traverses over to the parking lot where he stands every morning, fastidiously monitoring and watching students as they file into the parking lot. “I do the same routine every morning”, Keith says, “I put on my safety vest, set up the cones, and monitor the lot as the students come in”. He is fulfilling his duties as the parking lot patrol in the mornings, and in the after-noon he guards the halls of East High, but very

few stu-dents

know his story and background. Norris came a long way from his

hometown of St. Louis, Missouri many years ago. He moved here on a whim in 1992, when he decided just to “give it a chance.”

His first few jobs in Colorado were as a security guard in numerous night-clubs and restaurants. When he was offered a position at East, he realized that there was no other high school at which he’d rather work because he just loved the vibe that he got not only from the staff but also from the student body. His love for East runs strong: he has worked here for sixteen years now.

Norris will do whatever he can to help out East High. He has many tools in his shed that are handy at anytime in the day, and uses to cones to enforce a slower speed limit in the parking lot. “I’ve already had to jump peoples cars four times in the last six weeks,” Norris says. “I don’t stand in the parking lot because I am told to, I do it because I want to.”

While some students complain about his efforts to regulate students in the parking lot and the hallways, Nor-ris reminds students that his methods are purely to maintain the safety of the parking lot: “Kids pull in so fast,” he says, “I don’t want anyone to get hurt, screw that.”

One of the students who doesn’t always agree with his antics is senior Elizabeth DeRose. “He’s a funny dude,” says DeRose, “But his cones drive me

by marinjohnsonnuts.” DeRose doesn’t agree on the tactics Keith uses with the cones in the morning. She believes that the cones

cause too many prob-lems with the time and that they cause way too many traffic jams.

“Keith cares about our students and wants us to do our best and be safe, but the cones are unnecessary,” agrees junior James Daley.

Last year, Norris’s life took an unexpected turn and he had a seizure while at his post in the parking lot. “I was just walking through the parking lot when all of a sudden, bam! I was on the ground.” Luckily for Norris, four girls from the senior class watched it happen and grabbed Keith’s walkie talkie and immeadiately called for help “Who knows what would have hap-pened if they wouldn’t have been there,” Keith says, “but all I can say is that my accident drew me closer to East High School along with the staff and stu-dents. It really did.”

Norris wakes up early every morn-ing just so he can come and do what he loves best at the place that he loves best: East High School. He lives his life not only for himself but also for the people around him. “People trust me,” Norris says, “and that’s a real good feeling.” To those who don’t understand or disagree with what he does, Norris greets them with open arms: “If you don’t know me, come up to me and get to know me.”

Driven CrazyPranking Pandemoniumby brodyrastall

just thinks of it as his friends trying to have some fun, optimis-tically stating, “It’s all good, and it kind of makes me keep my car semi-tidy.”

Another student, junior Emma Gaytan, can em-pathize with Bock.

Gaytan’s car had a bag of sunflow-er seeds dumped into the win-dow, along with a note criticizing a bad parking job.

“I don’t know who it was, but it was annoying to have to clean up,” she says. Most students who

are pranked are just as clueless, left wondering who or why.

One would think that car pranks are a problem that would be reprimanded, but they are mostly overlooked. When asked about his opin-ion on the car pranks in the parking lot, security guard Keith did not acknowl-edge it as a big problem, “I haven’t seen any happen-ing, and they must just be quick--in and out.”

So, unfortunately, whether the intentions be-hind them are good or bad, the best you can do is hope they don’t happen to you.

What is the future of the East High parking lot?

all photos by willowturano

An unfortunate surprise left on the seat of junior Emma Gaytan’s car.

Post-lunch garbage left upon an innocent car.

See how Angels adorn their automobiles

Keith’s Corner Super Stickers

“Someone either peed or poured lemonade on my handle.”

“People trust me and that’s a real good feeling.”

On a typical fall morning, the air is crisp and the streets are quiet. The

sun’s glowing light is refracted through the black haze of exhaust that hangs over East High’s parking lot. Students skedaddle to class with science projects and Starbucks in tow. As the lot fills up the latecomers parked in the back briskly begin the lengthy walk to the building.

More than 290 East students drive to school every day and, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a typical passenger vehicle emits 5.1 tons of carbon dioxide annu-ally. A female African elephant weighs about five tons. That means that East High School is emitting at least 1,402 tons of carbon dioxide each year which is equal to about 280 African elephants.

For some people, the idea of walking or riding a bike to school is out of the question, but seeing as so many students are in East’s district, it shouldn’t be so difficult. At the begin-ning and end of the year the bike racks are packed, but there are still dedicated cyclists who will ride in the sun or the snow.

Floyd Trujillo, a substitute teacher at East explains, “I ride my bike all year because it’s cheap; cars are too expen-sive. I can get anywhere in the city in ten to fifteen minutes and I never have to pay for parking.” Trujillo has it fig-ured out: by riding his bike everywhere he gets exercise, helps the environment, and avoids traffic.

The good news is that about thirty years ago 46 percent of sixteen year olds were licensed but in 2008 only 31 percent of sixteen year olds were licensed, this according to a study released last year by the University

of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

Senior Lucas Atwood has recently made the switch to a more economic and environmentally savvy mode of transportation. “I pay less than five dollars a week to fill up my scooter and that’s all I need to get to and from school.” By using his scooter, Atwood no longer has to worry about the obligations of driving out to lunch or giving his friends rides home at the end of the day.

Sophomore Amanda West rides the bus and hour and a half every morning from the area around DIA to school. “I have to be at the bus stop at 5:45 AM and make two to three bus changes ev-ery morning,” remarks West. The choice to bus was decided because West’s fam-ily wanted to save money on gas and her parents wanted to spend less time in a car.

As students find different ways of getting to school like riding bikes, skateboards, walking, and taking the bus, there are still so many students who still drive when they don’t need to. A recent study by Spotlight reporters found on a single morning in Septem-ber, there were more than 175 cars with two or less people. There were only ten cars with more than three people. Ten.At least 100 students are driving all by themselves every single day.

As the school day ends, worn down students file back to the park-ing lot, throw their junk into the trunk and drive off in a dozens of directions. Once everyone has left, the parking lot sits empty and exhausted, hoping that tomorrow’s students will help relieve its backache by driving fewer cars and making a bigger difference.

Ruining the EarthOne Car at a Time

by abbysawyer

Annual Carbon Dioxide Emissions of the Average Car

5.1 Tons of CO2A Female African Elephant

=

After a long day at school, a late night of homework, and greatly

insufficient sleep, senior Hannah Rawlings rises at 5:45 to prepare for her forty-five minute drive to school. As her black CR-V chugs 10 miles across Denver, the last thing she wants is to arrive at school without a place to park. So far this year, the parking lot has been almost ninety-eight percent full every day and that’s before most of the sophomores have turned sixteen and been licensed. Rawlings’ parents live on opposite sides of town so in her case, a car is an absolute necessity.

As more and more East students drive to school, there’s the possibil-ity of the student parking completely filling up. Parking availability on the Esplanade is practically nonexistent after 7:00, the staff and visitors’ lot is usually full and off-limits to students, Detroit Street parking is only allowed in two-hour intervals, and metered spaces along Colfax aren’t in the budgets of most students. This problem hangs over the Angels, faculty and students alike.

The real question is, who deserves these increasingly valuable parking spaces? While having a person-al car is convenient, does the conve-nience justify a student and his or her next-door neighbors on either side each driving five blocks to school separately? Collectively, the time it would take for those three students would likely take half as much time as the ride for a student like Rawlings. While imagining a situation where the student parking is full before school even starts, she says, “If I found out that those spots had gone to people who could easily walk to school, I would think that it’s not fair to the kids who have to drive over thirty minutes to get to school.”

Distance is an issue for a large number of East High students. From Green Valley to Golden, Thornton to Littleton these Angels struggle with getting to school, and the farther away they live, the harder it is to predict traf-fic. The hordes of cars on their way into

Driven Crazythe Denver Tech Center can prolong Rawlings’ journey from her mother’s southeast Denver home. “I actually got lunch detention this year because of tar-dies,” she says. And while punctuality is extremely important, most East students live “in front of ” any traffic-heavy loca-tions other than the daily struggle up Josephine, therefore keeping them from any unexpected delays.

Not only are these students negatively affected at school, but this situation can hurt schoolwork at home as well. Rawlings says, “I have to reor-ganize the way I manage my time and my lifestyle every time I switch [parents’ houses].” Rawlings divides her time between the two houses in three-week segments “so that it lines up with the six-week grading periods. “ However, the

effects of the time differ-ences reflect themselves in her school-work. When she’s with her mom, Han-nah has to factor in a lot more time for things that many others take for grant-ed. “When I’m at my mom’s I

have less time for homework, extracurriculars, and I’m further away from my friends which is a really hard transition.” Even worse, she notes, “…last year there was actually a pattern in my grades. They would drop every time I switched houses and then go back up just to drop again the next time I switched.”

Hannah Rawlings is a prime ex-ample of the people who will be most affected by this parking dilemma. She needs her car as much as her backpack or calculator. Shes stresses about finding a place to park on top of the anxiety typ-ical of high school seniors. An assured parking spot in the East High student lot will allow her to be on time for school and to thrive, as all East Angels should.

Not Enough Space For All by adelaidesandvold

Hannah Rawlings,

who works after school and lives 10 miles away:

5:45

6:45

5:00

Mark Garrett,

who has 1st period off and lives 4 blocks

away:7:45

8:10

2:55

What is the future of the East High parking lot?

When do you...

wake up?

leave for school?

get home?

[opinions]page 12 october 9th 2012

Last month, a war raged in the streets of Chicago.Sort of. Ok, so the Chicago teacher’s strike

wasn’t all that violent. It was mostly teachers in matching t-shirts dancing and singing in picket lines. Kids wan-dered around aimlessly, and parents ran around flustered and complaining, try-ing to throw together basic lessons for their children. And then, just as it had begun, it was over.

A lot of us probably barely noticed. It doesn’t exactly affect us all that direct-ly. Our teachers seemed to be showing up every day, so what was there to worry about? Why should we care?

Basically, these teachers are fight-ing for us. Education policy is largely created by administrators and govern-ment entities, the people in control of the school districts who see students as numbers in a data set, each with a test score and a price tag. They do not know us, they do not understand our passions or desires, and they don’t care to.

It is the teachers who have an im-pact on us, not the tests. One huge part

Schoolyard Brawlby andrewwise

Dear Apathy,Ours is a connected generation.

You must have heard it thousands of times. Everybody has. That the endless onslaught of technology is drowning us, and our developing brains are turning to mush in front of a screen. Violent video games, constant social networking, cell phones at too young an age. These are some of the things that worry our elders and have them taking newspaper editorials, parenting magazines, and a great many scientific studies at top name universities by storm.

Today’s wired world is by no means an unimportant issue, and as young people, those same studies have shown that (surprise!) too much time in front of a screen isn’t good for our brain devel-opment or mental health. And neither is binge drinking. Or smoking copious amounts of weed. Or sleeping less than eight hours a night (Please. It’s like the nation’s leading doctors were never in high school.) But although these issues are credible, they are not the biggest, the baddest, the scariest thing affecting the high school population of America. It’s that slumped gray ghost, with heartless,

because it makes the data more clear for administrators and politicians.

The real world is not built on tests. It is built on open discussion and collabo-ration, on thinking and doing and creat-ing. Teachers know this, and the best of them do a fantastic job facilitating this sort of work. It is the teacher who asks

a failing student if everything is alright at home, the teacher who opens up the world in an accessi-ble way, to question

the societal norms around us. That can’t be done by a test preparation textbook or the miserable reading samples that are interspersed within the SAT.

The direction that the administra-tion in Chicago was taking would have

the goal of teaching everyone the exact same things in the exact same way, re-gardless of who they are and how they learn. The corporations that write these tests and materials, like McGraw Hill and Harcourt Educational Measure-ment, will continue to make billions of dollars as we spend more time memo-rizing and testing, and less time think-ing and learning.

That was the war fought in Chi-cago, one battle in the long siege that will determine the look of education for the foreseeable future. And that future includes ours. In 2010, the Colorado state government signed into law Senate Bill 191, which mandated that 50% of a teacher’s evaluation be based on growth shown through benchmark assessments.

This fight will happen here, and I say we stand on the side of the teach-ers, because in twenty years we won’t re-member tests or text books. My teachers haven’t given me my test scores. The best of them were too busy helping me find out who I am.

In twenty years, we will remember the people who opened our eyes to new worlds. And maybe there is an argu-ment that teachers are all greedy jerks and only governments and superinten-dents have our best interests in mind. But it is an argument that needs to be had, amongst ourselves. So please, argue with me. But at some point, we will have to choose a side.

dead eyes telling the world “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.” Telling the world it’s okay not to care. It’s You.

There are two sides to this story. Some may argue that caring too much is a problem for many of today’s teens. But I am redefining You: You manage to take as many high performing students prisoner as you do couch potatoes. Our society’s whole-hearted obsession with getting into a good college seems to be taking over and leading to a plethora of clubs, sports, and community service on top of AP and honors classes. Our per-petual struggle to appear “well-rounded” seems to lack a place for You. But you are sneaky. You are there. See, the dictionary definition of the word apathy is “an absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement.” It is a terrible thought that “well-rounded” teenagers can be mere machines, moving through the motions of life stressed, overworked, depressed -- barely even living at all. The other side of the story is that our over involvement, our attempts to live free of you, is actually working to feed your fire.

There is no point in a high school

student playing four sports, heading two chari-

table organizations, and taking four AP classes if he’s not fully invested in these ventures. How much better would it be if he picked one cause that he really cared about, or dropped the extra sport he only plays because it seems like it’s his parents’ favorite? By doing things he truly enjoyed, he could have the pas-sion, the emotion, and the excitement. He wouldn’t have to put up with Your blandness, Your characteristic lack of pizzazz, Your lack of style. Not least of Your various crimes against humanity is that You manage to indirectly ruin things for people trying to live outside of your influence. Apathetic people who join activities purely to pad their resume are, put simply, a real downer for the rest of the group. And on a grander scale, people who go through life carrying your curse, devoid of feeling, are a bum-mer for the rest of us.

But You, Apathy, are not undefeat-able. We can watch the news, read the newspaper, or at the very least scroll though the little slideshow thing on the Yahoo! homepage. Awareness is the first step to your demise. We can choose

to follow the barest bones of politics because we realize that generations of men have died for our political freedom. Those of us old enough can and should vote. We can accept that political ads are kind of maddening but that this is not a good enough reason to eschew politics completely. We can find the things that make us livid, and work to change them. We should strive to become better peo-ple, but we cannot do this numbly. We must experience that warm fuzzy feeling inside that comes from helping save the world, and this must be our primary motivation for continuing to offer assis-tance. We can take classes that interest us and try to get more out of school than a social life, but we won’t let that social life go either. We can use some of our extravagant technology to get involved and raise awareness (But let’s be honest. We all know that liking a picture of an abused puppy does nothing), and maybe then we can prove to our parents and grandparents that they don’t have all that much to worry about. We can work together. We want You dead.

Sincerely,Aubin Fefley

An Open Letter To Apathy

“The real world is not built on tests.”

of the fight in Chicago was the weight that standardized test scores would hold in the evaluation of a teacher. Some argue that these teachers are trying to avoid evaluation and get away with bad teaching, but the truth is that such an action would force teachers to teach di-rectly to a test, which hamstrings their ability to actually conduct a lesson. That pressure put on the teachers over these tests would quickly be transferred to students, whose grades would depend heavily on testing and test preparation. There are kids who are strong with tests, and there are kids who aren’t. It is unfair and discriminatory to favor those who are good at them simply

[opinions]october 9th 2012 page 13

I could spout out some cliché and tell you that we shouldn’t fight fire with

fire. I could preach that we should be the bigger person and rise above George Washington’s juvenile prank

of coating our ‘E’ in green paint and writing anti-Angel profanity on the walk-way. I could go all self-righteous-hippie on you, and conde-scendingly click my tongue while I

watch revenge-hungry students think about how they’re going to retaliate.

But I won’t do any of that, because the reason we don’t need to get back at GW for their pitiful attempt to tarnish our school spirit doesn’t have to do with us at all. The truth is that these pranks don’t do any damage to the students. We’re no less united, no less proud of East because of some green spray paint – we walked passed it, scoffed, rolled our eyes, and promptly forgot about it.

Last week, East High was violated by people who call themselves patriots.

They came by cover of night the night, with hateful intentions and green paint. Our beloved building was helpless to defend itself against this cruel onslaught from a bunch of jealous creeps. When we arrived that fateful Friday morning, calls for a response rang out in unison. It’s time we answer them.

East is the greatest school in Denver. By far. That’s why we end up on the re-ceiving end of weak pranks like this, but if we’re going to maintain our reputation we cannot take this lying down. We have to let schools like George, South, and Montbello know that not only do we beat them in just about every sport, not only are we better at speech and debate, not only do we send more kids to better colleges, but we are also considerably better at pulling off pranks.

It’s time we let them know that they have absolutely nothing on us. Being the bigger person is just a nice way of saying we’re being weak. This is high school. This is our last chance commit acts of questionable legality in defense of our friends and classmates. We are wildly creative and talented with skills that have the potential to unleash humili-ation and shame on anyone who even considers messing with us.

Lets be smart about this. Like

Defending our Honor Revenge Isn’t Sweet for AllPrincipal Mendelsberg looks over the wreckage

Janitors clean up George Washington’s prankOur rival’s lame work

by andrewwise by joieakerson

painting a beautiful mural of an An-gel ascending above and angry, short, Napoleon-like patriot on their wall or bolting a massive, Macy’s thanksgiving day parade style balloon emblazoned with an E A to their roof. No felonies, because that just makes us look stupid. But we can’t just allow this school to be assaulted without seeking justice. So lets do something awesome, and remind everyone who we are.

Meanwhile, it was the East administra-tion who had to deal with the backlash, the cost, and the clean up. It’s simply not worth making those who work for our education and safety expend energy and time they don’t have.

I love East just as much as the next person. And I’m a fan of a healthy school rivalry – loud cheers, wild crowds, obnoxious amounts of face paint – that’s all great. But I’m not crazy about making our janitor spend hours on the esplanade cleaning up graffiti. I’m not super cool with spending $7000 to clean up the mess left by a few impulsive and uncreative lawbreakers (really GW? The best you could come up with was crossing out “Angels”? I’m completely in awe of your sheer wit...) when our classes are already bursting at the seams, our computers need to be updated, and our friends and peers are still in need of financial assistance.

We already have the best athletes, students, and administration. Let other schools have the best delinquents -- it’s a title we can afford to give up.

And as much as I loathe GW, I would not wish the same wasteful en-ergy and resource expenditure on them, especially if it’s due to East kids. In the end, we’re all Denver Public Schools -- united by low budgets and dilapidated buildings. We have better things to do with our time.

To retaliate or not to retaliate? Spotlight Editors-in-Chief duke it out.


WHAT‘SCOOL:by noahreynolds

Illustration by Jax Downs

It’s a Thursday afternoon at East High School. A short redheaded kid is walk-

ing around with a tape recorder in one hand and a notepad in the other.

He’s searching for the coolest, hip-pest, most popular kids at school. He wants to know what makes them tick. How do they pull it off? And most of

all, he is determined to find a story. This student is me.

I discovered something stunning on that hot September afternoon; East kids are NOT cool.

What? Not cool? How is that pos-sible? Is this the apocalypse? What has the world come to?

East students know a lot about indi-viduality and how to express themselves. No denying that there’s a lot of variety in the student body.

However, when I conducted my interviews, I was extremely nervous. I knew that if I didn’t represent myself well, I would not get what I wanted. I re-

ceived many comments, but no one answered my question, “what makes a cool kid,” seriously and none were even remotely polite about it.

One comment I received was, “Yeah, everyone is cool,” then the sophomore girl proceeded to mouth to her friend next to her, “except the losers.” Both girls wore black skirts had their faces drenched in makeup. They both smiled almost as if it was choreographed. They giggled, looked back at their phones and left as quickly as they came. Another student leaned in closer to my recorder so that everything that rolled off of his tongue could be duly recorded. “Um, black kids are the coolest,” then he looked back to his friends for his well deserved high fives and walked away.

One kid simply said, “What the f!@# are you doing?” This is a simple and short phrase that perfectly sums up the immaturity of some East High School students.

There should be no reason that anyone is treated this poorly by his fel-low classmates. It has become apparent to me that these students glorify bul-lying into a sick game that is meant to embarrass and humiliate other students. A “cool” kid will walk around with his friends insulting everything in sight.

Teens define cool by clothing. They call sagging ‘sick’ and Sperrys ‘tight.’ Plus mid-calves and bro tanks are “steezy.” The way we judge people should be by the strength of their character, not by the appearancen of their clothing.

I wish I could say that East is full of awesome and welcoming kids.

I wish I could say that the vibe at East is kind and pleasant. I wish I could

A look at the not-so-angelic behavior of today’s East High Students

say that all East kids care about each other and their well-being (what’s on the inside).

I wish I could say these things, but I would be lying.

This is an issue far beyond a kid’s vanity. As people, we can’t change this perception of cool overnight. And we certainly can’t solve it by putting posters up and post facebook statuses (some-thing that the Kony 2012 did some time back).

We can’t let fellow classmates treat each other like this. We are all old enough to know right from wrong. This

social hierarchy of high school should not be the deciding factor in whether we are good people or bad people.

A truly cool person is one who treats others with respect and dignity. A cool person is one who takes pride in who they are and never tries to change themselves otherwise. A cool person is also one who makes smart decisions, doesn’t spend their entire weekend partying just to look cool in the eyes of others. Most of all, it’s someone who ap-preciates what East has to offer. Instead of getting wasted, hang out with your friends and watch movies. Have friends who like you for who you are. Have friends who you don’t have to act dif-ferently around. Students can have fun without getting trashed every weekend. I know thats hard to believe, but it’s true.

More than anything I want to be proven wrong. East is an amazing com-munity that should evolve and grow.

How I was treated, and how I have seen and heard ways other kids are treated, makes me, to say the least, dis-appointed to be an East Angel.

RANTS RAVES

“If Mitt Romney becomes president, I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.” -Sage Casalini, 11

“Democracy just messes up everything because people think they have too much of a voice and they get out of control!” -Quinton Swiney, 10

“It's time for change, better change than we had four years ago, that Obama promised us! He put us into six teen tril-lion dollars of debt just this past year! He's tried to help the country and he has failed miserably!" -Greyson Holle, 12

“Currently, Americans are blinded by this notion that they have to elect either a Republican or a Democrat. The president is the pawn of the party, but when you elect third party, you’re breathing new life into Ameri-ca!” –Abe Mamet, 12

“I want President Obama to win because he supports gay rights and my mom is gay.” – Dahlia Lopez, 10

“Romney has his foibles, you could say, but you can live with him I think. I know it’s kind of a minority thing to say, because we’re in Denver, there’s a bunch of liberals, and it’s hard to find those good-looking Republicans.” -Conrad Try-bus, 10

AND

They call sagging ‘sick’ and Sperrys ‘tight.’


Honesty is overrated. The truth: we can’t all achieve our

dreams. Hard work does not equal high profit. The world is a horribly and deeply un-balanced place where terrible things happen to wonderful people. Every day. Karma, my friends, does not exist.Motivated yet? Ready to take action?

No. The truth is the worst. The truth is suffocating and scary and overwhelming. But you can keep it from consuming you.

Another truth: the human brain can be tricked into happiness. Without drugs. The more you force that smile, the happier your body will tell your brain to be. That’s incred-ible. It proves that it is possible to lie for good.

A lie is a powerful motivator.Remember the first time someone told

you that you could do or be anything? It may have been your first grade teacher or your mom or Dora the Explorer. You heard that phrase and your tiny little brain unleashed your gargantuan imagination. You wanted to be an actor, an astronaut, the first African American president. You were going to live in a house made of marshmallows with a bubble gum trampoline. Now, let’s set aside the fact that you can never, ever be the first African American president. Think about those dreams. Those dreams pushed you through elementary school. New dreams pushed you through middle school. Now you’re sitting here, in high school, and your greatest dream is to actually get through high school. Something happened in there. The truth set in.

You realized that attaining your dreams was going to be hard so you gave up. You and America have that in common. Somebody, a few years ago, told us that he could bring about change. It wasn’t a lie; so much has been improved. But because the total trans-formation we wanted four years ago isn’t to-tally complete, we’re giving up. True change is slow. Worthwhile goals take patience. Patience is not about time: it’s about trust.

Realistically, you’ll probably have to face the truth someday. You’ll settle for medioc-rity and you’ll let your youth fade. But for now, you can do anything. You are young and fortunate and powerful beyond your understanding. You are an educated, healthy, American teenager with absolutely nothing to keep you from revolutionizing our world. Hold on to that lie right now so that maybe, someday, you won’t have to sit in that grey cubicle of your nightmares, looking forward to another Friday night living in your moth-er’s basement. Let that lie push you through high school and college and beyond. Let that lie motivate you into making it the truth.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LIES

by alioksner

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, and Lance Arm-

strong. All have recently been under fire and been ridiculed for their use of anabolic steroids. All were once awe-inspiring and loved by the American people. And all that changed when they were revealed to each have been taking steroids.

We looked up to these men, we wanted to watch them and be like them. When those men played the entire country stood behind them. Why would they take that away from us? Steroids are a beautiful thing and should be mandated for every profes-sional sport.

From 1999 to 2005 Lance Arm-strong was the most inspirational per-son in America. We were all united, strong, and moved. The year before his first win Armstrong had done the impossible by surviving lung and tes-ticular cancer. He then went and did the impossible again by winning the Tour De France. Seven consecutive times.

During this spectacular time, Armstrong took synthetic testoster-one and human growth hormones. As Lance Armstrong falls from the grac-es of the American People, I ask, why are steroids such a bad thing?

In professional cycling every other rider dopes. The winner dopes, the loser dopes, and the guy who gets injured before the race starts dopes. Lance Armstrong doped, and it was awesome when he doped, for him and for the country.

Baseball sucks. Nobody likes it anymore and I am a huge baseball fan. It is too boring and too old-fashioned.

Baseball started out as a game played by children during the summer. Then the white adults took it up and trans-formed it into a national pastime. Baseball has evolved, the prime ath-letes turned from white to black, black to Asian, Asian to Latino, and then from Latino to … what?

The next progression in baseball has to be an athlete who is bigger, bet-ter, faster, and stronger. The answer? Steroids, players will hit the ball far-ther, run faster, throw harder, and look, well, more awesome.

Football is truly an American sport. We sit on our butts watching other men get demolished by even bigger men and we laugh when it hap-pens. While we eat and drink beer inside our house, we enjoy the toil of men strug-gling to make a living. When an in-finitely more athletic person than I screws up, I yell and scream about how much he sucks and deserves to be benched while I wheeze to walk up a flight of stairs.

Why Steroids are Good for Sports

A primary argument against the use of steroids is the fact that they are incredibly unhealthy and exten-sively damaging to the human body. However, football, along with every other sport, is a tremendous health risk already. As a football player, you get stomped on in the head on a daily basis and your life expectancy is already cut short by about 15 years. Why wouldn’t you take something that could help you and your family live those years more comfortably?

In the future you could poten-tially see a seven foot tall, 250 pound man who can run two-and-a-half

minute mile get tackled by an eight foot tall, 450 pound man. You could see a baseball play-

er hit a ball seven-hundred feet. A pitcher throw a two-hundred miles-per-hour curveball and a basketball player dunk from half-court. Sports can achieve more, players can reach new levels, all with the help of ste-roids.

Dope Is

Dopeby seanprice

“Better yet, make them mandated to all players.”

[sports]page 16 october 9th, 2012

Trapped byTroubled Transfers

Athletes Stuck in Limboby chadhanna

As the clock ticks down to zero on a Friday night at the Stutler Bowl,

the scoreboard reads a disappointing 49-0. The football team has just lost its third straight game. Heartbroken, senior Quincy Brown sits and watches his team lose, knowing he can’t do anything about it.

Brown is a top notch athlete with good grades being recruited by elite football colleges such as Missouri, CSU, Air Force, and Notre Dame. Unfortunately for him, he moved into East High’s district after attending Ad-ams City High School through sopho-more year. The Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA) has strict rules against athletes transferring schools for athletic purposes.

Article 18 of the CHSAA hand-book is a ten page long set of rules for transferring students. In Brown’s case, he is in violation of choos-ing to go to Adams City, and when he moved into East’s district it was not considered an official move by CHSAA. This means that he is not allowed to play on the Varsity team for the first five games of the season.

“I did everything right,” says Brown when asked why he was ineli-gible to play, “I had to move into the district for personal reasons.” However, CHSAA still considers these personal reasons against the rules.

These rules may seem unfair to the athletes in violation of them, but they are set with good intention. Most of the rules are to prevent schools from recruiting players, restricting athletes from transferring for athletic reasons only, as well as other cases along these lines.

Lisa Porter, the new Athletic Director at East, has been vigorously working to find ways for transfer-ring athletes to be able to play. “I can advocate as much as I want but I have to follow the governing rules,” explains Ms. Porter. In the fall sports season alone she deals with between 40-45 athletic transfers, each with their own backstory. “We want every kid to play,

but we want to play fair and by the rules.”

As she tells the spotlight this infor-mation she pulls out a three inch thick binder with all the paperwork for the transfers coming to East. Because East is a popular choice for athletes, Ms. Porter deals with more transfer waivers than any other school in the district.

There are numerous rules and exceptions for transferring athletes. In some cases they get to play the full season with no problem, others get to play for half the season, and some don’t get to play at all. When an athlete is in violation of the transfer rules and has to sit out, a transfer waiver can be filled out to advocate for the athlete to have full eligibility. These waivers more often than not are denied. “I put forth five waivers to allow players to play the full season

this fall, but only one of them was accepted,” explains Ms. Porter.

Brown’s waiver was one of those denied. He did every-thing in his

power to try to have full eligibility for this season. “I sent in letters, and they got super personal with me and still won’t let me play,” says Brown. “They wanted all of my personal information like the lease to my house.” These things are asked for by CHSAA to consider whether the move is bona fide or not. “Now the colleges that expressed inter-est towards me won’t have film on me for the first half of the season,” Brown states with dismay. When asked how he felt about being denied full eligibility a cold look came over Brown’s face and the only thing he could say was “I am heartbroken.”

The application of CHSAA’s rules are different for every situation. Regard-less of the public’s perception of them, CHSAA says they must be followed. At for Brown, he must wait one more game before he is eligible to play. One more game of being tantalizingly close to pur-suing his passion. CHSAA says the rules are there for a reason, but sometimes these rules are heartbreaking, making victims of the innocent.

Article 18: (1800.21) A student who transfers to a member school follow-

ing the close of school for the summer and before the beginning of the school year...will be ineligible for varsity com-

petition in the first 50% of the maxi-mum regular season contests.

How DPS and CHSAA ath-let ic ru les sometimes br ing students down

[sports]october 9th, 2012 page 17

the Red TapeRules are a necessary evil. They have assisted or pro-tected everyone.Everyone has encountered times....

Times when we wish we could have thrown them all away just to get what we wanted.....but

A rule should do more good

than h a r m .

photo by DanielHartman-Strawn

Letting GoHow East Seniors Handle the Cut

by eligoldin

She brought me into the room, she knew that I’d been working really

hard, harder than almost anyone else had, but she said I wouldn’t be the right person for the team. It’s just really disap-pointing.”

These are the words from a senior whose high school athletics were cut short this year. This confrontation oc-curs in Coach Beth Hinz’s office every year when she decides who to keep on the varsity soccer team. Before each school year starts, Coach Hinz is forced to make a choice that will change the lives of ten or more kids in their senior year. The most difficult decision that a high school coach faces each year is who to choose for a select position from among a large collection of student athletes.

Coaches at East are required by the DPS Athletic Bylaws to cut any seniors who do not make the varsity team. Coach Hinz has to decide on athletes after sometimes less than a week of try-outs, and with over 100 kids vying for a position, that is a very dif-ficult task.

“It’s always a diffi-cult decision when you are talking about kids’ lives and soccer and East and being involved, so we try and weigh everything.” Hinz said.

The tough judgment that Coach Hinz and other East coaches have to make is to tell these seniors that they are not good enough to play the sport that they love. “The most difficult thing is when you think about [how]...these guys have probably played soccer together their whole lives and then you say that they’re not going to play soccer...you wonder how it impacts their lives,” Hinz said.

Former baseball Coach Howard Karsh has a different strategy in going about his cuts. “If I have a quality guy, who has put in four good years, good student, good citizen, [who] can con-tribute to the team in some capacity, I will generally give him the benefit of the doubt for his senior year.” In other words, the benevolent baseball guru would keep a player who is not neces-sarily the best player, but one who is

working hard and is a good person. Karsh continues, “Anytime that you cut somebody, you are basically telling them that their competitive baseball career is over.”

Fortunately, some seniors are able to move on to another sport and enjoy an active senior year. “I didn’t play [soccer] all summer. I wanted to play with my friends and I was bummed that I couldn’t make that happen this year,” said senior Aiden Acquisto, who had played soccer all three prior years on JV. When he didn’t make the varsity squad it opened up another opportunity for him to excel at tennis, a sport he played in middle school. So even though he was disappointed about being cut, he bounced right back to playing a new sport, varsity tennis. “I love tennis,” Acquisto remarked, “It presented a new opportunity for me.”

Others are impacted heavilly by the fact that their high school sport is over. “It kinda makes senior year not a great year. Not a good year at all.

I’ll prob-ably be OK, but it really kills,” says an anonymous athlete who was cut from

the varsity team this year. The question arises; should this rule exist?

The East High athletic director Lisa Porter says, “It’s a philosophical decision made by a coach.” Porter’s opinion is that the DPS rule is accept-able because the athletic programs have to build younger players so that the school can compete at a varsity level.

Hinz commented on her tactics for choosing the team saying, “If it’s going to benefit the team to keep a senior on as far as maybe leadership, then we’ll keep the senior, if not and we have younger players that we need to de-velop, then that’s the direction we’ll go.”

This painful decision that coaches must make is very difficult for every-one involved, but, barring a major protest by the East community, the rules are here to stay.

DPS Athletics Regulations Bylaw: (4) Seniors will not be allowed to play at a lower level [than Varsity] in any sport.

“

[sports]page 18 october 9th, 2012

team at East. Cerake claims that his running skills give him an advantage on the soccer field. “ I don’t get tired during the game, and other play-ers get tired and I still have lots of energy.”

However, Cerake’s professional dreams strictly involve racing. “I am a pretty talented runner, and there are tons of kids who are good at soc-cer, [while] I’m just an average soccer player.” He continued, “My dream is to go to the Olympics and represent the United States.”

In regards to Cerake’s future, he has already talked to the coaches from Brown University about running for them in two years.

For such a prominent student athlete, Cerake is very modest. He has proven he can run with best at the Junior Olympics, but when asked how he thinks he compares to other elite runners in the nation, Cerake said, “I think I have a lot to work on, I don’t think I’m on their level quite yet.” Regardless, it is clear that Cer-ake Geberkidane has a bright future ahead of him.

Running with

a Purposeby spencersoicher

Cerake Geberkidane isn’t your typical student

athlete. Going into the summer of his junior year, the long-legged, gangly runner with crazy hair – and even crazier long distance speed – was of-fered a spot on the USA Junior Track and Field team. Cerake competed at the 2012 Junior Olympics, where he finished first in the intermediate boys 3,000 meter race and came in third in the 1,500 meter dash. And despite the obvious sig-nificance of his recent achieve-ments, the track prodigy wasn’t always aware of how talented he really was.

The origin of Cerake’s inspiration is his father, who had a passion for the sport of running. Cerake has memories of watching marathons with him as a child, showing how at a young age Cerake’s father had begun to exert his influence

on his son. “He told me to go for little runs and I just started to

adapt and began to love it. Its amazing that my dad got me started, and I thank him for that.”

As Cerake grew older he began to realize his special gift. “ I started to notice I was really good freshman year. Then in tenth grade I started running even faster and coaches would come up and speak to me and talk to me about my skills.”

After being recognized by coaches, and further realizing his own ability, Cerake started work-ing even harder, pushing himself everyday to run. “Everyday I ran at least 5 miles...because I want to be fast and I got encouraged by people telling me how good I was. It kept me pumped!” exclaims Cerake as he explains his motiva-tion.

For Cerake, running and family have continued to be interconnected. Cerake often runs against his brother Ashi, a senior at East, in meets. “Its competitive and its fun. I love running against my brother. Its so fun!”

Like his brother before him, Cerake plays on the varsity soccer

“My dream is to go to the Olympics and

represent the United States.”

East High Student SpecialsTwo cheese slices and a

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[rear end]october 9th, 2012 page 19

Have you ever been so obsessed with something that you do it, think about it, or wish you

were doing it for 97.562 percent of the day? Have you been so dedicated to that thing that you spend $5,479.12 buying equipment to better accomplish your task?

And have you had a total of twenty-eight sepa-rate wrist surgeries to correct problems induced by this life-consuming activity?

If you answered yes to two or more of these questions, you’ll know how senior Kira Board feels about texting. But instead of being happy about winning the Guinness World Record for “Most Texts in a Day,” she was annoyed because she thought she should’ve won a few other awards, too.

“That can’t be right! I’m sure I qualified for other things!” She vented. “I text every, like, three seconds! My texting skills are so bomb that- ” Diving for her vibrating phone, she was unreach-able for further comment. The old world record, 5,436.5 texts, has been completely shattered by the new one: 65,978.42 texts.

The coveted “Most Texts” award was not the only one given that day. Other students also received distinguished prizes such as the record for “Most Flexible Thumbs,” “Best Use of Chat Speak,” and “Text Containing The Most Letter Z’s” among others. Not everyone was as disappointed over these results as Board.

“I never thought I’d get two awards in one day!” sophomore Carl Pelt-Unell, winner of “Fast-est Text,” and “Shiniest Phone” exclaims, holding up his medals proudly in one hand and his now-famous phone in the other. “I was just answering

Texting Teens Triumph With Torn Thumbsby ifreelsgood

my buddy’s question about my favorite shade of magenta, and I had to finish really fast before the teacher came and took my phone. I was forced to sneak into the Deans’ office to steal it back before the award ceremony, but they caught me. Now I have sixteen months of lunch detention, but it was totally worth it!”

None of this came as the slightest surprise to the teachers at East, though they did express wishes that it hadn’t been made into such a big deal. “I don’t see why we have to throw a party for this,” said Drawing and Painting teacher Roy G. Biv. “I mean, I know these kids text like crazy. I’ve seen them sometimes in the back of class, pretending to draw a lion while they’re really giving a detailed account of last night’s rave to their friends sit-ting three feet away. We should round up all their phones and vaporize them, or even put them into a gi-ant cannon and shoot them into the Sun where they can melt, never to be used again!”

The parents of some students shared simi-lar sentiments, bemoaning how their kids “live for their phones,” but some took the opposite

view, including Board’s mother.“I always felt bad for Kira. She wasn’t very popular

and I knew she didn’t have a single friend. She never got any attention because she always brought her lunch to school. But now, she has a medal and she’s going to be in the paper. This is a great day for our family.”

Ms. Board added, “Although I do wish she’d stop tearing the tendons in her thumbs. She’s had to get those replaced fourteen times last year, and that isn’t particu-larly cheap.”

The controversy has died down for the most part, but several

winners still wear their med-als to school, keeping them bright and polished so that they can take lots of selfies with their phones in a bathroom mirror and

post them to Facebook.

photo by Willow Turano

One student celebrates his texting achievements.

[rear end]october 9th, 2012 page 20

It was a typical Tuesday morning for Obi Livious. He hit his snooze button

a few too many times and had to rush to avoid the inevitable hall sweep that was to come. Obi swerved into the parking lot and snagged the closest spot. He dashed past the turf and onto the Esplanade. Obi wasn’t paying attention and tripped when he looked up at the clock tower. Flying a couple feet, he smacked his face into an unfamiliar red surface. When Obi rose he noticed something he had never seen be-fore in his entire three years at East. It was a massive red figure that seemed similar to the letter E. This day changed Obi Livious’ life forever.

“I knew I was going to inspect it after school but I had to get to class at the time.” Livious recalls. “I had so many questions. When did it get there? Where did it come from? What is its significance? All of which I still haven’t answered for certain but I

Rush Hour

Student Discovers Red Figure in Front of School

comic by playin’jax

by big-foot’s-harri-son

The nonsense included in the “Rear End” section does not represent the views of the Spotlight staff, the editorial board, the sponsors, the de-fault puppy, DPS’s new techno ringtones, King Backroom, News Dino, the inverse of InDesign, or disobedient duck tape. The point is, the “Rear End” is intended for comedic effect and should not be taken seriously.

“Rear End” Disclaimer

have come to some conclusions of my own.”In the weeks following his experience, Livious took his new-

found passion to a new level. With the support of Old Man Chi-mento and his new followers, Obi officially founded The Great ConspiracE Club.

At their weekly meetings the club discusses possible explana-tions to a mountain of questions they have developed. Club member Al Eyons’ explains, “The E is clearly from space. It is a message from alien life saying that they exist. As for the reason as to why it is an E, we are pretty sure that it is a sign telling us either Extraterrestrial or even Existence.”

Other members of the club have begun establish-ing a new philosophy about this figure, like that it is not an E at all but an M, a W, or even a 3. These conflicting views have helped the club thrive. Club president Obi adds, “We are growing every week! We now have a whopping 4 committed members. We debate each other to the point of tears at times. It gets pretty intense.”

To raise money for further research and investigatory tools the club has started to sell food at lunch and after school. The club recently purchased a Geiger counter with the money they made in order to check the mysterious ‘E’ figure for radiation in hopes of drawing further conclusions about its origin.

The Great ConspiracE club is getting more and more recognition and is finally making a name for itself. While its members are dedicated and per-sistent in the clubs’ cause, the majority of students just seem to be smacking their palms to their faces in astonishment.

Horoscopes

LibraGemini Aquarius

Taurus Virgo Capricorn

Aries Leo Sagittarius

Cancer PiscesScorpio

Guess what? They’re selling lives for 50% off at Kohl’s this week. The stars suggest you get one.

The stars regret to inform you that your sacrifice of a fresh-man will not get you extra credit on your Aztec culture unit.

The space-time continu-um hates you, tomorrow you’ll have to repeat your 3rd period class over and over.

If your name starts with any letter of the alphabet, you have a likely chance of being locked away in Keith’s park-ing lot house.

This Thursday, your environ-mental science class will give you a piranha. This makes you the first person in history to have your homework eat your dog.

Go to the doctor and get that thing on your back checked out already.

The stars say... well noth-ing really because they can’t speak.

You will get a remedial lesson in physics when you discover that gravity doesn’t give you a break when you carry fragile things.

You will meet a tall, dark stranger next Saturday and he will proceed to ignore you just like ev-eryone else.

The stars suggest you be-ware of mysterious holes in the sidewalk that may try to consume your soul.

The following Wednesday after next you will be the unfortunate victim of a music room accident and get hit with a drum set. Bah-dum chh.

Your theory that life is but a dream will gain more support when evil clowns come to your 1st period.

phot

o by

will

ow tu

rano

by ifreelsgood

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