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The Odd Orange Journal
Have any interest in
reading the “Hunger Games?”
Maybe “The Scarlet Letter?” or
“Huckleberry Finn?” Well, de-
pending on the school you attend
in the United States, you may not
be able to get this chance. These
books, along with many others
have been showing up on a
banned books list in school dis-
tricts across America. These
books have been banned due to
political, religious, sexual or social
grounds. The following two arti-
cles editorialize this subject from
both sides.
Pro Book Banning
Without question, cer-tain books should be banned in schools across the country. As a teen aged student and avid reader, I have personally come across many books which I feel should not be read in schools for a varie-ty of reasons. Many books available to teens and pre teens are not appro-priate due to the extreme use of profanity. If we are not allowed to use such language in common speak with our peers in school, then why would be exposed to its content? It seems hypocritical for adults to tell us to use proper and respectable language and then give us a novel filled with the opposite. Some books contain
extreme violence. I recently read
“The Outsiders” which in-
cluded gang violence and
murder attempts. In today’s
society and in light of the
growing number of violent
incidents in schools, I think
it is unjustifiable to expose
middle school adolescents to
such violence. This also can
apply to the recent “Hunger
Games” craze.
O t h e r
book content contains rac-
ism. While the literature of
Mark Twain may reflect the
attitudes of the time period
to which it occurs in, it is
socially unacceptable to be
forced to discuss this in class,
as it seems to only stir hatred
among the diverse popula-
tion we attend class with. The
racial language expressed is
negative and I have spoken to
classmates who find it hurtful
and bothersome.
We are at an age
where the things we read have
an impact on our actions and
decisions. I believe that if
schools allow us to read books
that contain the wrong con-
tent, then students would learn
the wrong things to do when it
comes time to making choices.
Many pro book banners be-
lieve that children and young
adults pick up their behavior
from TV, music, friends and
books. By banning certain
books, students will not be
exposed to conduct that they
can imitate…(Continued pg 3)
Pro’s & Con’s Book Banning In Schools
Upcoming Events: 3rd Marking Quarter Begins January 2014
Volume 8, Issue 2
Fast Food Frenzy 2
Pro/Cons Book Banning In Schools
3
Catching Fire: Book V.s Movie
4
Cities Get Cycling 5
Comic Zone 5
Video Games 6
Staff Profile 6
Super Bowl Analysis 7
Dear Crabby 7
Inside this issue:
Odd Orange Journal
Staff:
Advisors: Mr. A. Cicenia,
Ms. A Corino, Ms. D.
Levine
Contributors to
this issue:
Zoë Broncel,
Christina Wright,
Jake Knoll, Chloe
Citron, Elijah
Glantz, Carter
Nunes, and Jack
Wilde, Stephen
Lehren, Janine
Bacchus-Joseph,
Jonah Sachs, Ama-
ra Okafor
Page 2 The Odd Orange Journa l Volume 8, I ssue 2
You are what you eat; coloring, addi-
tives, sugars, fat and worse of all, fla-
vorings.
A family gathers around a table for
dinner. They all dig in. Not one comple-
ment is said about the food. They have
a reason why. It tastes the exact same
as yesterday, the day before that and
the day before that and so on. So they
just eat the food and move on to the
next meal. Food used to just be eaten
to live as merely a survival tool; A ne-
cessity like air. The idea was simple, eat
just enough to live by. People grew it or
killed it, prepared it themselves and
then ate it and life went on. Taste had
nothing to do with it. “Scientists now
believe that human beings acquired
the sense of taste as a way to avoid
being poisoned. Edible plants general-
ly taste sweet; deadly ones, bit-
ter.”(Schollsher 106) This is the reason
most people prefer candy to lemons.
Now, what food means to people has
been changed, reinvented and de-
stroyed. Food is revolves around taste
and looks. Fast food restaurants have
taken advantage of human taste buds
and could cause a possible obesity
epidemic.
The problem: Our society is getting in a
pickle
A 7th grade student took a poll of fifty-
six people on how often they ate fast
food. According to this survey, two
said they eat it every single day, elev-
en a few times a week, twelve once a
month, and 31 said they rarely ate fast
food. However, looking at data col-
lected from Gallup.com, in America,
only 4% of people can say they’ve
never eaten fast food. The rest of them
eat it at least a few times a year. An-
other 4% eat it every single day. A
shocking 28% of people admit they
know it is not good at all for them. At
least 9% of these people eat fast food
at the minimum of once a month. As
little and unimportant these percent-
ages may seem, when the fact is
added that the population of the
United States is 317,190,300, that
mere 4% turns into about 12,688,000
people eating fast food every single
day. They fill their bodies with sugars,
fats, flavoring and artificial coloring.
Why are they choosing to put this
into their stomach to go into their
bodies? It tastes good. Primarily,
most flavors in the United States are
made in one factory stretching down
the New Jersey turnpike. They work in
laboratories with thousands of chemi-
cals that will be mixed with others to
make new tastes. McDonalds takes a
special beef flavoring and puts in it
the french fry fryer (Eric Schlosser).
“Processed foods are like a blank
canvas” (Schlosser 144) they can
taste like anything the scientists have
created a flavor for. Moreover, the
problem is, fast food has no nutrition-
al value even though it tastes good.
Fast food is just empty calories.
Therefore, people fill up on some-
thing that doesn’t help their body.
They may think they are eating and
becoming full so their job of feeding
their bodies is done. However, they
may have plenty of food but are still
directing themselves towards malnu-
trition. Fast food companies do not
care that they're serving empty calo-
ries and are not truly serving real
food. They are only selling processed
chemicals with flavoring in it to make
money. A stay at home mom who is
in charge of cooking most meals for
her family said, "The fast food industry
has done a great job making bad
food taste great.”
The solution: a simple diet that’s easy as
pie
An easy way to solve the problem of
the overuse of flavoring is to stop eating
so much fast food for taste alone. It is
okay to eat fast food once in a while,
but too much will be dangerous. Eating
more fresh food will lead to a healthier
diet. Fresh foods do not have any fla-
voring in them because companies
cannot put flavoring in unprocessed
foods. Drinks on the other hand, are a
lot harder to monitor because most
juice blends are flavored. The best way
to avoid flavoring in drink is to stick to
drinks that say “100% juice” and are
from a bottle not a can.
The possible outcome: a bitter sweet
victory
There is no perfect solution regarding
healthy foods but it is a good start to
reduce one’s own intake of fast food.
This will help decreases the total intake
of the consumer and may lead to a
decrease in the use of flavorings world-
wide. For example, Yoplait had high
fructose corn syrup in most of their prod-
ucts. A consumer asked for no high fruc-
tose corn syrup and they completely
removed it from all of their products. This
success could spread to major world-
wide companies. As a downside, food
wouldn’t have as much flavor. Meats
less meaty and fruit less fruity. However,
in the grand scheme of things, a less
sweet candy will be better than every-
one being a giant bowling ball of fat!!
So next time you grab that Big Mac, just
remember why those added flavors
may be the taste of an epidemic al-
ready at full speed.
By Christina Wright
Fast Food Frenzy!!
Pros and Cons: Banning Books (cont’d from pg 1.)
all while reading other classics which are
free of such age inappropriate material.
Opposed to Book Banning
Do we live in America? Isn't
this the home of the free? Freedom of
choice? The Fifth Amendment? Not
lately it seems, as many schools across
the country have begun to debate
whether certain books should be banned
in schools.
In my opinion, granted that I
still have one, banning books keeps stu-
dents from learning at their best ability
and they don’t learn realistic problems,
situations and history. We can’t hide
from mistakes this great nation has made
in its past dealing with racism and war.
In school we are taught each day that we
become stronger by learning from our
mistakes. Are we not supposed to learn
from the injustices which play a role in
early classics such as Tom Sawyer or
Huckleberry Finn? It offers a brief
snapshot of our history during the
time period along the Mississippi.
Books such as the Harry
Potter series have also found them-
selves shelved. Critics say that it has
religious overtones of demons and
immoral behavior. They also believe
that the choices of the books hero,
Harry Potter, are anti-heroic decisions.
This seems a little crazy to me. If
books like Harry Potter were banned,
students would lack imagination.
These are the type of books that keep
us glued to our Kindles or Nooks. We
know they are fantasy and are simply
pleasurable. Perhaps we are to be just
given boring novels where we lose
track of our place because our minds
wander into the “this is so boring.”
Banning books do not make our his-
tory or problems go away. They make
us become more open minded when
new situations arise and keep us from
making the same mistakes over and
over again.
Page 3 The Odd Orange Journa l Volume 8, I ssue 2
Someone 200 years from now is reading a
book about book banning in the early
2000’s, shaking their head in disbelief and
feeling sorry for the people of this time…
or maybe that will be banned also?
COMING
IN
APRIL!!!!!!
SOMS ALL SCHOOL MUSICAL
APRIL 4-6
By Zoe Broncel
Catching Fire is
the latest of the Hunger
Games books to be made
into a movie. I looked for-
ward to seeing the movie be-
cause the book was so amaz-
ing. However, when compar-
ing the two, I noticed some
interesting differences.
When I got the book, it
was so detailed and intricate,
I couldn't put it down. Catch-
ing Fire was a must read, in
fact it kept me up all night
reading. I would go try to go
to bed but then I would think
to myself, is Katniss dead?
Who is going to win the quar-
ter quell? I don’t want Finnick
to die! I was in no way disap-
pointed with this book. Few
authors can write a brilliant
sequel, and Suzanne Collins
did this amazing thing.
The movie was also
good, but to be honest, I was
disappointed. The movie left
out some major details that I
thought made the book so
great. In fact, after seeing
the movie with my family, I
ended up having to describe
the whole book in great de-
tail. This was because they
wanted to know more than
what the movie provided
them. My brothers and I did
think this was a great movie,
but hands down the book
was better. Even though the
book had more detail and
pizzaz, I am still glad I went to
see it in the theater. One im-
portant thing that the movie
mirrored the book on was the
ending. They both left you
Catching Fire: Book Vs. Movie
Puzzle Printable: Sudoku!!!
Page 4 The Odd Orange Journa l Volume 8, I ssue 2
with a cliffhanger, desperately
wanting more.
Having read the third of
the series, I am definitely look-
ing forward to the next movie
based on the book. Overall, I
would recommend you read-
ing the book over watching
the movie, but if I were you, I
would do both and decide for
yourself which is better!!!
Ride Don’t Drive – Cities Get Cycling
Americans spend a shocking amount of time in their cars each year. In fact, a recent Texas A&M mobility study found that Americans average thirty-eight hours a year stuck in traffic. It’s even worse in the major cities where commut-ers can easily spend sixty hours a year sitting in traffic. “One solution to all of this traffic is getting out of your car and taking public transportation, walking or biking to work” (theatlantic.com).
All of that sitting in traffic is bad for your body as well as the environment. ‘"Congestion caused urban Americans to travel 5.5 billion hours more and to pur-chase an extra 2.9 billion gallons of fuel. This adds up to 56 billion unnecessary pounds of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by idling commuters’” (the atlantic.com). Sitting in your car for hours each day is clearly unhealthy for people. Countless studies have shown the link be-tween sitting for long periods of time and a growing amount of health problems includ-ing obesity, heart disease, diabetes and, of course, stress from being in traffic. “By switching from driving to cycling, people would, on average, live three to 14 months longer because of increased physical activi-ty” (usatoday.com). Biking is not just good for your body, it is also great for the envi-ronment. Biking doesn't produce any air pollution or need natural gas or coal. It’s all leg power!
Cities all over the United States are investing millions of dollars into bike share programs. “The health benefits of cycling in an urban environment outweigh risks posed by air pollution and accidents, a new study has concluded” (usatoday.com). When peo-ple start biking regularly, that single act is helping the environment because bikes, in a way, are activated by your own personal green power. New York City has recently joined other U.S. cities in establishing bike
programs that reduce traffic and pollution and can also im-prove the health of the city’s residents. Citibank has part-
nered with New York City and invested mil-lions of dollars into creating their Citibike program which now has a fleet of 7,000 bikes. So far, the bike program has been a success says Debby Feinberg, the general counsel for the Partnership of NYC. “The bike share program has exceeded expectations and is considered a huge success. There have been over 5 million trips since the program launched last May. Some days we see over 40,000 trips made on Citibikes,” said Fein-
Page 5 The Odd Orange Journa l Volume 8, I ssue 2
berg. There was concern about bike safety in New York City streets with all of the traffic, but so far in New York, there have been no major injuries. “Much of the community was con-cerned at first, but there have been only a hand-ful of injuries to date and no was has been killed since the program started” said Feinberg.
However, it wasn't exactly an easy job to create the NYC bike share program because the city had to pave new bike lanes and carve out space in already crowded streets. “At first, lots of communities resisted the bikes because they didn’t want the bike racks to take up valua-ble street parking spaces,” said Feinberg. “But now that people see how successful the bike program is, more people want access to Citibikes and more people are becoming com-fortable with bike lanes and cyclists in New York City streets.” Another one of the great things about the pro-gram is that it’s pretty inexpensive to rent a bike. The program aims towards getting people of all economic backgrounds riding. An annual membership costs $95 which includes unlimited 45-minute trips A 24-hour pass costs $9.95 plus tax and a 7-day pass costs only $25 plus tax, a very reasonable fee for the convenience of rid-ing around New York City (citibikenyc.com). It’s much cheaper than a taxi!
By Jonah Sachs
Comic Zone!!
By Janine Bacchus-Joseph
Are Video Games Art? Here is a ques-tion, do video games count as art ?The defini-tion of art from the dic-tionary says (art is) "the expression or applica-tion of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power." By this definition, you can say yes because if you really think about it, any-thing can be art. So a better question is, do video games qualify as high art?
The answer gen-eral answer is no, but some games do come
close. Games like Cry-isis, Bioshock Infinite, Portal & XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and The Walking Dead do come very close. However, the reason that they don't qualify is that they are missing that ‘thing’ that made films like The Godfather considered high art. All of those games can be consid-ered art for these three reasons. One, they all have a visual appealing style. Second, each one of those games have a certain amount of im-mersion. And finally, each one of them gives you the thing that makes video games dif-
ferent from other medi-ums, choice. Choice in video games gives the player the ability to control the story, which is some-thing different from oth-er forms of escapism like comic and movies. But they still miss that special something to make video games spe-cial. So even if video games don't qualify as a high art now and are not revered in the same spectrum as well-made movies or well-written comic books, they have that ability to do so in the future. And yes there are some video games made just for pointless escapism, but
Page 6 The Odd Orange Journa l Volume 8, I ssue 2
there are a growing number of video games who try to be more than that. If this pattern con-tinues, maybe in years to come video games will get the honor of be-ing called high art. By Stephen Lehren
Staff Profile: Mr. Cameron Parke
What do you like the most
about SOMS?
I enjoy the students and the amaz-
ing teachers I work with.
Is there anything that drives
you crazy at SOMS?
Three things drive me crazy: Stu-
dents screaming in the hallway, the
8:15 bell, and Ms. Myers’ glass eye
(only kidding about the last two, or
am I??)
When you were in school, what
was your favorite subject and
why?
My two favorite subjects were social
studies and science. Both of those sub-
jects, to me, have had the most connec-
tions to real-life situations.
What do you enjoy doing in your
free time?
I enjoy running and playing tennis, as
well as reading, travelling, and listening
to music.
If you could be any person in his-
tory, who would you be and why?
I’ve always found Spartacus really inter-
esting, since he led a largely successful
uprising against Rome and quite possibly
could have conquered Rome if he
chose.
As the Super Bowl ap-
proaches, teams ready up for
the big game. Analysts at ELI-
AS sports bureau believe that
the Seahawks will clash head
to head with the Denver Bron-
cos. Who will win? Not even
the analyst gods can predict
the victor. Why are those
teams in the top spots?
Throughout the 2013-
2014 season Broncos (13-3)
Quarterback Peyton Manning
(brother of Eli Manning) has
thrown for a total of 5477
yards and 55 touchdowns. That
is the first time a player above
35 has thrown for more than
1800 yards! Not all the credit
can go to just the QB, tight
end Wes Welker has received 9
of those touchdowns. This ties
the record for first in TD's
(shared with Jason Witten).
Every team has it's strong
points and it's weak spots.
The Bronco defense is defi-
nitely the weak aspect of the
team. The defense ranks last
in interceptions and forced
fumbles.
Now, let's not forget
about the unpredictable Sea-
hawks (13-3). Led by sugar
high running back Marshawn
Lynch nick named “skittles”
and star Quarterback Russell
Wilson, the bay birds expect to
hit jackpot this season. Unlike
the Broncos, they have no in-
credible defense or offense,
but the team chemistry is so
incredible that the team is like
a home full of ripped, athletic
and adrenaline crazed kids.
Cornerback Richard Sherman has
had an unbelievable season with
8 interceptions, including 1 pick
six. When these two teams
meet, the Broncos wide receivers
will be in for a bumpy ride!
It is now up to the fans to
decide, who will win Super Bowl
XLVIII. Will it be the Berserk
Broncos? Or the sensational Sea-
hawks?
Super Bowl Analysis
by Elijah Glantz
Dear Crabby, An Advice Column by Crabby Stinkernews
The Odd Orange Journa l Volume 8, I ssue 2
Dear Crabby,
I am being stalked
on Facebook by a certain
boy in class. I blocked
him but he keeps sending
me messages from other
people’s accounts. The
last message was very mean
and made me cry. What
should I do?
Sincerely,
Stella Stalked
Dear Stella,
This is a case of cyber bullying. You
should tell your parents to report the
student to the principal at your
school. Trust me,
this loser has a
problem and they
most likely will
continue to terror-
ize kids if you
don't put an end
to it. You will
also be saving the bully a hospital trip
from the next person who may just take
matters into their own hands!
Dear Crabby,
I just turned 13 and I
have never had girlfriend. I
am becoming very desperate
and I want a girlfriend be-
cause all of my friends have
one. It is very frustrating
and I'm going to go crazy
if I don't get a GF. Please
help me!
~Desperado
Dear Desperado,
Although you feel lonely, I have good
news for you. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Most 13 year olds don't have a GF or
BF. Of course, you can go ask out every
girl in class, but nobody meets the per-
fect girl that way, and it will make you
look as desperate as you feel. Good
things happen to those who wait. Look
at me, I’ve been waiting for 50 years!
Page 7