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Angela Velazquez AdvisorGabby Hirneise Editor In ChiefKamren Gilbard Opinions EditorShoshana Dubnow Sports EditorLauren Bukoskey Arts &Entertainment EditorAnita Ramaswamy Student News EditorChuck Dries Online Editor http://chaparralashes.com

“Kill the Redskins!” “Send them down the Trail of Tears!” “Watch your red-skinned back.” More consistent with slaughter than with sport, these are the threats that erupt during a typical Redskins football game. Although Washington Redskins owner, Dan Snyder, feels that this imagery is not offensive, some Native Americans feel that the distortion and commoditization of their cultural identity is a form of aggression. In June 2014, the U.S. Patent and Trade-mark Office ignited backlash from the team when it cancelled six of the franchise’s feder-ally registered trademarks for being offensive. This ruling may fail to restrict the com-mercial use of racial slurs, but it has made us increasingly aware of the ‘inadvertent’ subjugation of ethnic minorities. “American Indian mascots are harmful not only because they are often negative, but because they remind American Indians of the limited ways in which others see them. This, in turn, restricts the number of ways American Indians can see themselves,” a psychologist at the University of Arizona, Dr. Stephanie Fryburg, warned. In a recent report titled “Missing the Point: The Real Impact of Native Mascots and Teams on American Indian and Alaska Native Youth,” The Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan organization, criti-cizes schools with Native American mascots for fostering “racial microaggression” by transforming “learning environments into hostile environments.” Last year, there were 62 high schools in 22 states using the Redskins name, according to a project published by the Univer-sity of Maryland. “Missing the Point” authors Erik Stegman and Victoria Phillips believe native appropriations terrorize American In-dians, whitewashing the problems indig-enous communi-ties grapple with daily, such as

poverty, extreme health disparities, education inequalities, and high suicide rates. Accord-ing to Stegman and Philips’s analysis, these mascots’ abuse of native traditions breeds animosity. “Our cheerleaders dressed up one of our own [students] in a Halloween ‘Pokeahottie’ [Pocahontas] costume and tied her to a stake after dragging her out on the field in shackles against her will,” a Miwok student and foot-ball player in California, Dahkota Kicking Bear Brown, explained. “They proceeded to dance around her, acting as if they were beating her and treating her like a slave. This is the most sickening halftime show I’ve ever witnessed.” Besides bleeding into campus politics, the Redskins controversy is amplified in Arizona. In early October, the Cardinals vs. Redskins game in Glendale set the stage for conflict between team executives and native protesters. About 100 Native Americans from tribes all across Arizona gathered to protest. Snyder tried to mitigate negative atten-tion by inviting Native Americans for a free tailgate and photo op. Among the attendees, were students from Red Mesa High School on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. Unlike most Native Americans, students from Red Mesa don’t see “redskin” as an insult, and Snyder’s generous donations to the school have helped reinforce this way of thinking. “I don’t know what [they] mean that it’s

a racial slur,” Red Mesa junior Mckenzie Lameman said. “It’s not a racist slur if it originates from a Native American tribe. It’s always used in the context of sports.” Although the term originates from indig-enous peoples, it refers to the bloody, scalped head of a Native American sold for cash. Despite overwhelming outrage from the general public, Snyder remains firm in his decision to use aspects of Native American culture to represent his team. “A Redskin is a football player. A Redskin is our fans. The Washington Redskins fan base represents honor, represents respect, represents pride,” Snyder refuted. The Native American community has erupted in anger over Snyder’s lack of coop-eration, arguing that he is more concerned with protecting the team’s traditions than those of actual people. On “Native Appro-priations,” an online forum, several tribes started a petition entitled “Natives Against Redsk*ns.” With over 5,000 signatures, the petition questions ‘how’ and ‘why’ references to genocide and the perpetuation of stereo-types are “honoring” Native Americans. The United States appears to have a histo-ry of using of ethnic minorities for economic gain, particularly with the settlement of this nation. Between usurping land from natives and prolonging the institution of slavery, we’re hardly alien to this racial stratification. However, the Cleveland Indians, the Chicago Blackhawks, the Washington Redskins, and other teams who do not intend to be insensi-tive, do not offend all Native Americans, and

even donate to reservations. While Chief Wahoo, the Cleveland

Indians mascot, can take off his costume after the game,

cultural insensitivity is a problem Native Ameri-

cans will unfortu-nately continue to

face, regardless of what they’re

wearing.

spread made by : Shoshana Dubnow4

-Kamren Gilbardopinions editor

Out of the 35 million athletes between the age of 5 to 18, 40% play sports for their school. Just by listening to the announcements, checking social media, or walking around campus on game days, it is obvious that sports have a huge impact on Chaparral students. Sports are a significant as-pect of what defines Chaparral as a whole. So, what would happen if Chaparral athletics did not exist? Even though every sport has its unique group of support-ers, football rallies the biggest crowd because it is Chapar-ral’s most popular sport. “[Football] draws something to do on Friday night,” Chaparral P.E. teacher Coach Sanchez remarked. Between the long line for Birdcage shirts, the band running through the halls, and the music blasting in the cafeteria, it is clear to see that students are drawn to sports. Classmates don’t need to be an athlete to enjoy the univer-sal Chaparral pride. “Even if you aren’t playing in the game, you are still excited for it since everybody at school is excited for it,” junior Scott Mionis elaborated. An absence of Chaparral athletics would create a lack of enthusiasm among students. Sports offer an escape from the hours of homework and a chance for students to show off their abilities to their peers. “Without sports, Chaparral would be a lot less diverse and motivated. Sports teach students how to motivate themselves and how to listen to directions and in certain cases how to be a leader” varsity basketball player Ryan Bayster commented. Not only would the disappearance of sports possibly be detrimental to students’ learning, but enrollment would also decrease. “I’m not in any sports, but I still wouldn’t come [to Chap-arral] because [the sports] act as an outlet to do fun things outside of school,” junior Kelsey Sullivan admitted. Though denying the students’ sports would change the school’s reputation, academics would continue to play a major role. Chaparral’s top-ranked academic performance could owe some of its credibility to sports. According to Kansas University, students who play sports outside of school do better in school. Not only do athletes become more academically gifted, but playing sports also

increases the graduation rate. “Anytime you have to budget your time to do your home-work, you have to make yourself do the work and get it actually done,” Coach Sanchez explained. Students also need to maintain a certain grade point aver-age to stay on any sports team which motivates students to, at the very least, pass their classes. “It drives students to be more determined and to set goals for themselves that they want to pursue. It gives them more encouragement to get good grades,” Sullivan said. If sports weren’t at Chaparral, what would take their place? Sullivan thinks money and time would go into theatre or science, but Mionis hopes the focus would shift to robotics. “There are a lot of other schools that don’t have football teams and have robotics teams. There’s a team up in Flag-staff that has pep rallies for robotics. If we didn’t have foot-ball, robotics would play a bigger role,” Mionis predicted. Without sports, students would be missing out on op-portunities to explore a different activities currently hidden under sports’ shadow. Chaparral students would be able to experience the satisfying lessons taught in the Science or Arts departments. Even though a disappearance of sports would allow for an expansion of a vast number of activities, sports open the door to athletic scholarships. “Sports are a gateway to a higher education and many players take advantage of this. If Chaparral were to discour-age sports, many kids would be incapable of pursuing this higher education,” Bayster declared. “Pursuing a higher education” is exactly what most high school students wish to achieve, whether forced by their parents or not. Sports allow people to entertain a profound new environment in which learning can lead to new grounds, and Chaparral, without these opportunities, would be missing out tremendously.

TIM EOUT

Winter 2014 5SPORTS

-Lauren Bukoskey a&e editor

Athletes prepare their bodies in many different ways to ensure their success in competitions, but Peter Jackman may be the only person to have surgically made himself uglier for one. Hailing from England, Jackman was the world’s most famous gurner. ‘Gurning’ is the art of making the ugliest face possible, and it has been going on competitively at the Egremont Crab Fair for more than 800 years. Peter Jackman won the World Gurn-ing Championships four times in a row with his face the ‘Bela Lugosi.’ He has made TV appearances on a number of networks, including BBC, and has starred in commer-cials.’ However, just like any mainstream sport, certain competitors with certain types of abilities are more likely to succeed in the competition. “It’s usually the older people who do best in the competition, because your skin moves around more, a bit like your grandma,” Karan Clement, organizer of the World Gurning Championships, explained. “It also helps if you don’t have any teeth.” As any ambitious athlete would do, Jack-man took the opportunity to give himself an advantage. In 2000, Jackman had his teeth removed for gurning. He was then able to pull his lower lip all the way over his nose. Another strange cosmetic competition is the World Beard and Mustache Champion-ships, a contest gaining popularity through-out the United States and hosted last in Portland, Oregon. ‘Competitive bearding’ comes originally from Germany, where the first world cham-pionship was hosted in 1990. Even as the competition moved to other countries, like Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, Germany remained the top contestant. Recently, the competition has begun to even out, and the German and American teams are neck-and-neck. “[Growing a beard or mustache] is a good form of expression,” a competitor from Oregon, Ethan Barrons, remarked. “I think it’s ultimately the best accessory a man can throw down.” Accessories are not all a man can throw

down in international competitions. An-other possibility is his wife, if he makes a mistake in the Eukonkannon Wife Carrying World Championships. The Wife Carrying World Champion-ships, hosted annually in Finland, draws around 500 competitors from a dozen different countries and more than 8000 spectators. The men can carry their wives in whatever manner they find to be most ef-fective while navigating through an obstacle course. The woman does not necessarily have to be the man’s wife, but she must be at least seventeen years old and weigh at least 108 pounds. “Our wife carrying experience was not only one the best experiences of our travels, but of our lives,” an American couple par-ticipating in the competition declared. “We could have never imagined what to expect and could never have expected anything better.” The first-place couple wins the wife’s weight in beer, but for those athletic people looking to win an edible prize instead, cheese rolling is the ideal option. For hundreds of years, people have been rolling cheese at Cooper’s Hill in Glouces-tershire, UK. The competition is simple-- the competitors gather at the top of the hill and the guest of honor presents an eight-pound wheel of cheese. After a countdown from three, the cheese is rolled down the hill, and the competitors chase after it. This competition is anything but easy. “When you stand at the foot of the hill, it towers menacingly above you; you look up and up to the top, you realize you are looking up at the sky!” the author of Cheese Rolling in Gloucestershire, Jean Jefferies, elaborated. “So steep is it, that the rays of the sun rarely fall on the slope itself!” For those who are terrified by the prospect of running down such daunting hills, the art of worm charming is a much gentler, nature-based competition. Worm-charming was born of another sport: fishing. Looking for bait, people de-veloped elaborate ways to charm the worms out of the ground. Naturally, when people get good at an activity, they want to prove

they are better than everyone else at it. This desire allowed worm charming to morph into a competition. Generally, competitors are given thirty minutes and a three-by-three plot of land to charm as many worms to the surface as possible. They cannot use water or other ‘stimulants.’ This may sound like a sport dependent on sheer luck, but at an impres-sive 567 worms, the world record proves that there must be more going on. The most successful method is ‘twang-ing,’ or sticking a garden fork into the ground and banging on it rhythmically to make vibrations in the dirt, but the diver-sity in methods is incredible. A Telegraph reporter attending a competition in the UK found people blasting rock music, playing xylophones, using knitting needles, even tap-dancing on wooden planks to lure out the worms. Clearly, worm-charming takes skill, but even for those with no musical, cosmetic, or physical skills, there are ways to be com-petitive. For example, a pet can take center stage in a contest like rabbit show jumping, a Swedish-born miniature version of horse shows. With specially bred rabbits and rising international influence, rabbit show jumping events are surprisingly intense competitions. Surprising intensity is a description that fits all of these contests. In an environment where certain sports and competitions tend to claim all the fame, it’s easy to forget the huge range of skills people perfect for com-petition. It can also be easy to forget that the whole idea of sport is to have fun. These offbeat contests come with a wonderful mix-ture of competitiveness and excitement. “The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting in above aver-age effort,” former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, remarked. No one can deny the effort that goes into these contests, and the prize will never be fame or riches; just the joy of hard work paying off and maybe a nice wheel of cheese for the competitors to take back to their day-to-day lives.

competitionG u r n i n g

spread made by : Shoshana Dubnow6

-Sophia Tomany staffer

Wackletics

According to the NCAA, the National Collegiate Athletic Asso-ciation, 538,676 high school students play men’s basketball. Another survey claims that 67,000 high school students play rugby. Only 5,300 students from kindergarten through high school play scholas-tic chess. The dramatic divide in participants is due to certain sports being more publicized than others. Students at Chaparral are generally associated with their participa-tion in mainstream sports such as football, basketball, and baseball. Recognition for students who play less publicized sports is rare. Max Bartlett, a junior at Chaparral, has participated in an online game called League of Legends since June of 2013. League of Legends is an online game that randomly generates a group of six people who play on one team, and another six who play on the opposing team. Each player possesses different powers, which are used to attack, invade bases, and attain gold. The games take anywhere from 30 to 50 minutes to complete. “You get to learn a lot about teamwork. You play with random people you don’t know,” Bartlett explained. Tournaments for League of Legends take place each year. There have been prizes for up to two million dollars, and millions of view-ers log in to watch the tournaments. Many aspects of Professional League of Legends are similar to those of mainstream sports. “Professional League has a lot of similarities between professional sports. Instead of being sponsored by brands such as Nike or Adi-das, most professional [League of Legends] teams are sponsored by electronics companies such as Samsung,” Bartlett described. People typically differentiate electronic sports, and commonly ac-cepted sports by saying that gamers are lazy timewasters. Although online sports do not require the physical skills of active sports, they depend upon decision-making and strategy to win. “E-sports will probably never be on the same level as football or basketball, but I hope people will start to recognize E-sports’ similarities to mentally demanding games such as chess or weiqi,” Bartlett said. Scholastic chess participants number very few, but junior Javanshir Pashayev has played chess since he was eight years old. Pashayev was inspired to start chess because it was a popular sport in his home country of Azerbaijan and was popular among his family. During elementary school, Pashayev competed successfully at chess competitions. Pashayev and many other chess players remark how chess has positively affected the way in which they think.

“Chess has made an impact on the way I think. When I do math, it gives me a way to see a problem in a 3-D model,” Pashayev reflected. In order to achieve advantages and checkmates, chess players must plan their approach to the game from their first move. “The most annoying thing about preparation is that I think of one plan and my opponent counteracts that plan. All the time I spent thinking six moves ahead, eight moves ahead, was all for nothing and I have to think of a new plan,” Pashayev said. Chess prepares its players for spontaneity. It challenges players to adapt to unfamiliar situations quickly and wisely. “Chess has taught me how to be calm and patient in various situ-ations. When I have committed a fatal move in a chess game, I will stay calm and try to recover. The exact same process can be applied in life,” Pashayev said. The concepts of understanding unspoken communication in chess relate to the element of body language in horseback riding. Senior Maddie James has been involved in horseback riding since she was in first grade. She was inspired by her sister and father who rode before her. A couple times a year, James competes in the hunter-jumper event with her Holsteiner Bay horse, Tanner. Visiting the stables everyday is a mandatory aspect of horseback riding. After arriving at the stables, James socializes with her riding friends and takes care of her horse by grooming, tacking, and then riding him for 45 minutes. James manages to ride her horse six times a week. Following her riding time, she cleans and feeds her horse. “It’s made me a pretty responsible person. You can’t really com-municate with voices with the horse, so it’s hard to understand what the horse is saying and feeling. It’s just trying to mix together and understand our body languages,” James reflected. Horseback riding has given James the ability to have a tacit con-versation with her horse, improving vital communication skills. This ability becomes pertinent in real-world situations when people must be able to recognize the body language and implications of hard-to-read people. Players of any sport, from basketball to chess, utilize their talents. Games involving strategy, tactic, and observation incorporate and promote indispensable conduct. Odd sports may not make the ESPN headlines, but athletes learning the values taught in these sports could change the world someday.

While large crowds gather at the Friday night football games, some Chaparral

students are busy with not-so-

ordinary sports.

competition

Maddie James

Winter 2014 7SPORTS

-Allyson Mann staffer

According to Brooking News, sports facilities typically cost the host city more than ten million dollars. Sports may be a big money maker, but they also have the potential to be an even bigger money waster. The dominance of sports has taken away from a variety of

other activities. Sports are everywhere today, but are other programs, such as theater and robotics, still given their fair share? Professional sports leagues are billion dollar industries, and the United States has even gone to the extent of using tax dollar

money to create massive sports stadiums. Subsidizing takes place when the American people contribute taxes to the production of something intended to reduce prices for the buyer. Subsidizing is causing a lot of uproar. According to CNN Opinions, the

American people view the system as “unfair” and “stupid.” Chaparral athletics are heavily advertised through flyers, fundraisers, the Birdcage, and announcements. In comparison to

the emphasis on sports, the theater department is pushed out of the spotlight. “I definitely think we [theater] should have more money for advertisement and to become more out there because we

[theater] do a lot of things to create publicity,” junior Annalise Cavender said. The advertising controversy also involves a split between the boys’ teams and the girls’ teams at Chaparral.

“The boys team seemed to be advertised more on the announcements than the girl’s team. I hear all the time that ‘the boys team is here,’ ‘the boys team is there,’ when the girl’s team is just having a home game right around the

corner,” Chaparral girl’s tennis coach and History teacher Coach LeDuc said. Each department at Chaparral has a certain amount of money to spend. Money for a music department trip

is never mixed with money for football buses, so the team seeks advertisers Football is fortunate enough to receive special funding through grants, sponsors, funding, and donations.

Last year, the $200,000 renovated Chaparral fitness room was unveiled. The Arizona Sports and Tour-ism Authority covered two-thirds of the cost of the weight room construction. The rest was covered by

a booster as well as Airpark Dodge Chrysler Jeep. Coach Conrad Hamilton, the head Firebird football coach, secured a $8,000 grant from the NFL to buy additional weight lifting equipment. Confusion

resulted from speculation about how the fitness room was paid for when there are still unfinished projects around the school.

“The D building is disgusting! You walk in and you want to walk out because it’s so gross. We still have the construction on the amphitheater that’s not even done yet! They have

been working on it since last year. It’s absolutely mind boggling,” Cavender reflected. Student government has also run into the problem of communicating to students

what they are buying and how it is benefitting Chaparral. “Students sometimes don’t realize what their money is going to. Some-

times you really don’t know what you’re getting when you buy your $25 homecoming ticket, but you don’t get that return on your investment

until the night of homecoming when you show up to the dance,” Chaparral’s student body president Nina Kravetz explained.

“But when you are buying a T-shirt for Play Big, you immediately get your T-shirt and know where your

money is going.” The issue of funding at Chaparral cannot be

solved in a day, a month, or a year. However, it is important that we continue to work

at a resolution. Until this change is made, one thing remains cer-

tain-- Chaparral students will continue to excel in all

programs, regardless of how much money

the program has to spend.

Sports have always been well-funded by our communities and schools. But does the emphasis on sports detract from other important areas?

Pay to Play

spread made by : Anita Ramaswamy8

-Skylar Ramsay staffer

wasted

Since the psychedelic craze of the 70’s, and even before that, drug use has been associated with high school culture. Today, the phenomenon is chronicled through state-administered surveys and prevention programs. Every student in the Arizona public school system will take a substance abuse survey at some point dur-ing their high school career, and while the answers may vary between schools and students, many wonder about the true extent of the drug and alcohol culture in their own academic communities. In Scottsdale, a city that is often criticized for embodying the hedonistic party culture that Frank Ocean sings about in “Super Rich Kids,” drug and alcohol use have a long history. As of now, drugs are not rampant at Chaparral or others schools in the Scott-sdale Unified School District; however, this was not always the case. In 1986, according to the Mohave Daily Minor, a cocaine bust occurred in the Scottsdale area involving about 84 people, most of whom were Chaparral students. Califor-nian Christopher Adams pled guilty to providing these students with cocaine to circulate through schools in the system. Though very few students were sentenced to jail time, the scandal continued to be associated with the school. At the time, this million-dollar cocaine ring was the largest to be broken in Arizona. Years later in 2000, five students were expelled for distributing LSD at Desert Mountain. Although drugs are less of a problem in the Scottsdale area as of now, their pres-ence in the SUSD school system is still a concern to authorities. In fact, the Mari-copa County Sheriff ’s Office conducted an investigation in 2005 with Scottsdale schools to gauge the amount of drugs in circulation among high school students in

the area. During this investigation, many students disclosed that they had witnessed other students using drugs on campus. In one case, a high school student claimed to have seen a cheerleader using metham-phetamines as a “diet program.” From this investigation, authorities were able to identify a heroin drug ring in the school system. Eleven Mexican immigrants were arrested for supplying heroin to these Scottsdale students. These individuals claimed to have targeted Scottsdale students for their wealth, hop-ing to maximize their profits. Sheriff Joe Arpaio has identified this phenomenon as an indicator that drugs may be more prevalent in the system than one would think. “We have serious drug problems in our schools. Actually, this may be just the tip of the iceberg,” Sheriff Joe Arpaio said in an AZ Central article concerning the 2005 heroin bust. Though there is no denying that drugs are present in SUSD high schools, there is a more common illegal activity that is taking place: the use of alcohol. Accord-ing to Arizona Youth Survey results, alcohol has the highest percentage of use among all grade levels with cigarettes and marijuana following closely behind. Considering that these substances are illegal for minors, what entices students to risk the legal consequences? The answer lies with accessibility. Most of these students gain access to alcohol from friends, parties, and home, which explains why it is so prevalent. Simi-larly, most students who admit to using marijuana claim that they receive it from friends. With alcohol and drugs being so readily available, it’s no wonder students are willing to use them. One would expect other conditions such

as home life and the stresses of school to be responsible for this illegal behavior; however, most students claim to use alco-hol and drugs for other reasons. Accord-ing to the 2012 Youth Survey results, the highest percentage of students admitting to using alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs claimed to do it because they wanted to “get a high or a good feeling,” wanted “to try something new or exciting,” or wanted to “have fun.” These reasons are indica-tors that students use these substances to experience new things rather than to re-duce their stress level, which is a common use of drugs and alcohol among adults. According to the West Virginia School of Public Health, the number one reason people drink alcohol is for the effect. Alcohol has a large effect on the central nervous system, often doubling as a depressant and stimulant. Additionally, alcohol and marijuana are known for causing feelings of euphoria and a release of tension. This survey result, however, represents the general population, includ-ing all adults. For high school students, motives to drink differ. According to the data from the Arizona Youth Survey, stu-dents are drinking alcohol out of curios-ity, which happens to be the second most common reason people drink alcohol. Although Chaparral has long transcend-ed the stigma of being a “party school,” substance abuse still occurs among many students and social groups. We’ve gone from being stereotyped as “super rich kids with nothing but loose ends” to the top 22nd school in the nation. A strong academic reputation does not mean that drug and alcohol abuse is nonexistent at Chaparral, but our new focus is certainly a step in the right direction.

Substance abuse has long been an issue in high schools across the country. Although the problem

persists at Chaparral, it seems to be on the decline.

Winter2014 SPORTS&STUDENT NEWS 9

-Gabby Hirneise editor-in-chief

Entering the vast world of our subconscious can be scary, but

also thrilling. Considering that dreams and nightmares are created

solely from imagination, the human mind proves to be an aston-

ishing place.

Dreams are a series of thoughts, images, or emotions occur-

ring during sleep. The average person has up to seven dreams per

night. However, not everyone remembers what they dream about.

According to psychiatrist Dr. Louis Heller, guest speaker for

Mrs. Danis’ psychology class, when you go into a sleep state,

your brain waves are settling down and they’re in different levels;

they’re in a beta active state. The cycles are about 30-40 seconds

per cycle. When you sit down, you go into the alpha state; it’s

more relaxed, and brain waves slow down. Then, you go into the

theta state, which is the state we begin to enter sleep, and then the

brain goes into the delta state.

Everyone has different types of dreams. Some are enjoy-

able while others are rather horrifying. But what do they mean?

Dreams are unique to everybody. Symbols such as animals,

places, or people can be used to tell us what the person feels at

that moment in time.

“Every year before school, in July really early, I’ll have a dream

where I can’t find my glasses, and I keep falling asleep in the hall-way, and I don’t have my schedule, and I keep going class to class

asking “am I in this class?” and people tell me they don’t know,

senior Betsie Dries said.

The three most common dreams are being

chased, falling, and being nude. Normally

when a chasing dream occurs, it

means that the person is running

away from an important situation in

their life. Falling can portray loss

of control, reckless behavior, or

insecurity. Nudeness normally

means feeling exposed and

insecure in some way. The

fourth most common dream

that people tend to

have is about school.

Any student can get

nervous easily right

before school starts,

so it’s no surprise

Dries has this kind

of dream annually. A repetitive dream usually

means the brain is working through some sort of

conflict between the conscious and the subcon-

scious. Once the conflict is resolved, the dream stops recurring.

Psychologically, dreams have a huge effect on us and

our everyday lives. They have the power to determine

our mood and change our ways of feeling towards different situa-

tions in life.

“I think it’s more if we’re upset about something, it’s just that

emotion coming out in a different way. I don’t think it’s like we’re

trying to work through something, I think it’s just how we’re feel-

ing,” AP Psychology student Laurel Tomlinson said.

Many people use symbols to interpret different dreams. A com-

mon way of dream interpretation is analyzing symbols in dreams.

Nightmares portray the unpleasant sides of human emotion in

dreams. They normally are disturbing in some way, manifest-

ing themselves into some sort of serious, or possibly horrifying

conflict. Tomlinson describes one of her horrifying nightmares.

“I was Jimmy from American Horror Story, I was in a prison

cell, and I was with Seal. They were checking the cells and I

was trying to escape. I hid in his cell pretending I was crazy. The

prison guard came over so I attacked him and sprinted away, but

they caught me and brought me back into the isolated cell. ….and

the end of the dream was just me in a field running away from the prison” Tomlinson said.

Although this nightmare could be classified as weird and unusu-

al, it holds meaning. For example, in general, a prison represents

being held back, unable to express one’s emotions or feelings for

an unknown reason.

Three types of dreaming are dream paralysis, REM

sleep, and lucid dreaming. Dream paralysis is a

condition in which, upon waking, a person is

aware of the surroundings but is unable to

move; most of the time this happens when

waking up or going to sleep. REM is a

stage in the normal sleep cycle during

which dreams occur and the

body undergoes marked

changes including rapid eye

movement, loss of reflexes, and increased pulse rate and brain

activity. Lucid dream-

ing means dreaming

while being aware of,

and in control of your

thoughts.

These kinds of dreams can be

mind blowing to experience when controlled, but some

are difficult to achieve. Because we spend a third of our life unconscious,

there is still much to discover about it. Dream inter-

pretations and analysis are just the beginning of finding amazing information about our unknown mind.

As Dr. Heller said, “Some people say the final frontier is space, but it’s really our own minds.”

Head Cloudsin theWhen we go to sleep, we enter alternate worlds through our dreams and nightmares. Some-

times, these worlds parallel our real lives. Does our subconscious reveal who we truly are?

spread made by : Anita Ramaswamy10

-Jianna Corvo staffer

WE WANTYOU(TH)

According to the Census Bureau,

youth age 18-29 years old make up

21.6% of the population in the United

States, but they only make up 13% of

the electorate. In the 2012 presidential

election, the United States saw 45%

of its eligible youth (18-29 years old)

show up to vote. While it’s well known

that we will never see 100% turnout,

that 45 stands in stark contrast to the

69% of over-65 year-olds that showed

up to the polls that year. Other voting

age groups had similarly high num-

bers. It’s worse in Arizona than it is in

other states, as only 38.1% of youth in

Arizona voted in the last presidential

election. When examining midterm

elections, the numbers are even more

bleak. While there isn’t much data

on the breakdown of voter turnout

by state for non-presidential-election

years, exit polls conducted by Edison

Research found that the youth voter

turnout for this year’s midterm was

21.5% nationally.

Ellie Dries, working with an orga-

nization known as Inspire Arizona, is

trying to register more Chaparral kids

to vote.

“I was excited to start voting and be

civically active but, like a lot of other

people, I was really intimidated by it.

I really didn’t know how to actually

register, and it wasn’t really laid out for

me,” Dries said.

Chaparral, in contrast to the 21.5%

turnout state saw for the 2014 political

midterm elections, saw a 58% turnout

rate in the senior superlative elections

for this year’s yearbook.

“The lack of participation - I didn’t

think it was just passivity. I didn’t think

it was just people didn’t care. That is a

huge reason but I didn’t think

that was it. I think maybe it

was just too intimidating or

too inconvenient for young

people to register, so that’s

kind of where my idea came

in to do presentations to all

the senior classes,” Dries said.

Before the 2014 midterms,

Dries started presenting to se-

nior and junior classes and registering

students to vote.

“After the midterms pretty much all

the seniors are able to vote so I went

around to the classes with forms, and

I got the help of a lot of other excited

students who were into speaking. We

went around and actually registered

people and talked about why it was

important for us as young people to

vote,” Dries elaborated.

She also visited a couple junior

classes where she talked about why

it’s important to vote and ran “pledge

to register” drives. She had juniors fill

out cards with their email addresses on

them, so when they turn 18, they will

receive an email with a link to register

and instructions on how to do it.

“My presentations with them were

more geared towards why they should

get excited, and what they can be

doing now a year before they actually

register. The whole idea is that we’re

the ones who have to live with the deci-

sions [others make],” Dries continued.

Dries got involved with Inspire Ari-

zona when she attended a leadership

camp at Northern Arizona University

and met someone else who was doing

similar work trying to get youth more

involved in politics.

“Every group is made up of indi

-vidual people. By voting, you’re saying

that you’re important and young peo-

ple are important,” Dries explained.

As she started working with Inspire

Arizona to register seniors to vote,

Dries began to see just how important

it is for every single person to vote. She

sees the importance of getting more

youth voting regardless of their party

affiliation

“We [young adults] are a huge de-

mographic that candidates aren’t even

gearing themselves towards. Because

we don’t vote, they have no reason to

gear their platforms to appeal to us.”

The youth vote only made up 13% of

the total 2014 electorate, and politi-

cians know that.

“We want candidates to answer to

us; we want lawmakers to consider

us, not just the people who are voting

who are three times our age. That’s

why it’s really important to me,” Dries

concluded.

Winter2014 STUDENT NEWS 11

-Chuck Dries online editor

Aliens: are they fact or fiction? Is there really life on other plan-ets? You have probably asked yourself similar questions at least once in your life. Perhaps humans will never really know because we lack concrete proof that such life forms exist. The only evidence lies with those individuals who claim to see things that are “out of the ordinary.” For example, people from all over the world report UFO (unidentified flying objects) sightings and alien abductions regularly. Many people, including scientists, have different opinions on whether or not extraterrestrial life is a possibility. “I believe there could be [life on other planets], but I think it’s unlikely, in my personal opinion,” Astrophysics teacher Mr. Mil-lam said. Contrary to popular belief, planets with liquid on their surfaces

may not be able to sustain life. For example, Earth has “dead zones” in the ocean where no organisms can survive. A planet also needs to be a certain distance away from the sun to host life, so that the temperature is not excessively hot or cold. “A lot of times scientists will throw out theories like ‘there are habitable worlds out there,’ but all they really mean by that is that those planets have water on their surface. We have to have a lot more than liquid water to have life on Earth, or on any other planet,” Millam said. Some scientists are sending out missions to explore planets that could potentially sustain life. For example, Kepler is a space observatory that was sent to explore Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. “Kepler’s scientists think that 10% of the solar systems out there

SPACE ODDITIES

OUT OF THIS WORLD

“I only sing in the shower. I would join a choir, but I don’t think my bathtub can hold that many people.”

-Jarod Kintz

Sheep can recognize a face up to two years after seeing it.

spread made by : Gabby Hirneise12

A group of kangaroos is called a mob.

BELLA BABIONE

“Jiffy” is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

BELLA BABIONE

Cherophobia is the fear of having fun.

BELLA BABIONE

JESSIE MYERS

“I am not a vegetar-ian because I love animals; I am a vege-tarian because I hate plants. “

-A. Whitney Brown

There are more combinations for a deck of playing cards than there have been seconds since the beginning of time as we know it.

ISLEY LOPEZ

JESSIE MYERS

The word “crisp” starts at the back of your mouth and ends at the front when enunciated.

ISLEY LOPEZ

SOPHIA TOMANY

The odds of dying from a dog bite and the odds of being sainted are about the same.

SOPHIA TOMANY

could have a habitable planet,” Earth and Space science teacher Mr. Mattisinko said. There are billions of other galaxies filled with stars, so there is a good chance that there is some planet besides Earth that is able to sustain life. Scientists believe that humans might be able to inhabit another planet in another 50 years or so. On most planets, space stations would need to be built because the conditions are too harsh to support human life. Potential hosts for life include Mars and Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. Scientists are considering sending a mission to Europa in the future to explore the potential of a 2 ½ mile ocean beneath its frozen surface. Scientists are not the only people with theories on this topic.

Chaparral students also have their beliefs as to whether life can exist on other planets. “[I don’t believe] anything like humans [can live on other plan-ets], maybe microlife [could exist], but it would take a long time for a planet to sustain life,” freshman Cate Hughes said. For many years, people have questioned the theory of life on other planets. As scientists continue to investigate our solar system, perhaps we will someday come across proof of extrater-restrial beings.

Winter2014 FEATURES 13

-Bella Alvarez-Maximilien staffer

ASHES students were asked to share quotes and facts that express an interesting

outlook on the world

In 2007, an Amer-ican man named Corey Taylor tried to fake his own death in order to get out of his cell phone contract without paying a fee. It didn’t work.

SHEYANNE PAULSON

India has a Bill of Rights for cows.

SHEYANNE PAULSON

There is a city in Turkey named Batman.

OLIVIA COTTINGHAM

15% of the air you breathe on a subway is human skin.

The Pentagon has a plan in case zombies attack the United States.

AVA HENDERSON

If you type the word “askew” into Google Search, the page tilts slightly.

AVA HENDERSONNight vision gog-gles tint everything green because the human eye sees more shades in green than any other color.

ANITA RAMASWAMY

“Everyone knows I’m a lash girl by now. When I don’t have my lashes, I feel naked.”

-Nicki Minaj

ANITA RAMASWAMY

“I’ve Bin Drinking Distilled Water For So Long That When I Drink Normal Water It Feels Like I’m Swal-lowing Huge Chunks Of Aluminum.”

-Jaden Smith

OLIVIA COTTINGHAM

OLIVIA COTTINGHAM

From horoscopes to star charts, every-body knows something about astrology. Sometimes these star predictions are ac-curate. Other times, they miss the mark. Despite varying accuracy, many people just can’t get enough of horoscopes. Astrology is a Greek word translating to, “science of the stars.” It involves the study of the patterns and relationships of stars and planets in motion, birth charts, and synastry with other individuals. Astrology is known as one of the oldest philosophies still in use today. In ancient times, and up until recently, astrology has been used to predict future events such as the outcome of wars, economic trends, and even personal events. In nineteenth century B.C.E, farmers would use constellations to detect the season if it could not be observed by seasonal weather changes. Similarly, a star sign’s pattern could be used to indi-cate the end of a season. For example, Scorpio’s star pattern is only visible in the northern hemisphere during the sum-mer, so it’s presence indicates that spring has ended. Generally, farmers benefitted from the use of these star patterns. The stories behind the constellations, historians hy-pothesize, were created to aid the farmers in remembering the star patterns.

Besides helping farmers, the alignment of the stars also aided nomadic tribes and many others by giving them a sense of direction. For example, if they needed to head north they would follow the North Star. Astrology not only aids people with time and direction, however. Many people find it to be mentally stimulating. People use their birth charts to compare their signs and find a deeper understand-ing in their relationships. By comparing a couple’s birth charts, one can find areas where their natures could come into conflict. Known as “synastry,” this kind of analysis reveals the areas of a relationship that could be improved or need change. Some individuals believe that star signs can even uncover a person’s characteris-tics. “As an individual, I would say it [astrology] is just a way to interpret how someone will be before you really get to know them,” sophomore Ryley Sigmon said. She is a strong believer of astrology but does not believe it is scientific. Some people believe that it’s more faith based than science, considering there really is no scientific evidence concerning astrol-ogy.

Sophomore Tatum Trainor, who is also a big fan of astrology and zodiac read-ings, uses astrology as a self-expression of sorts. “Horoscopes are not the same for everyone; it is how you would take it and put into your life,” Trainor said. Some people respond to their daily horoscope by altering their behavior. If their horoscope says they will lose their wallet if they go to the mall, they avoid going to the mall. If it tells them to stay inside all day because there’s negative energy surrounding them, they may just call in sick to work. Astrology is a very reassuring tool for self recovery, no matter how far someone takes it. If life starts to feel like a series of meaningless events, astrology can be a comforting sign that maybe everything happens for a reason. It is a used as a tool for finding oneself, connecting events, and discovering reason. Astrology is interpreted differently by every individual and is still relevant to many lives, despite the fact that it dates back to the third millenium B.C.E.

WH

EN

ST

AR

S

AL

IG

N

the

spread made by : Gabby Hirneise14

-Jessie Myers staffer

Fear. Its prevalence is such that we may as

well fear our own breaths. Whether rational

or irrational, our fears shape our behaviors,

attitudes, and relationships. Fears develop

most often from survival instincts and

evolved, innate necessity. We fear what we

do not know. And yet, we also fear what we

do know.

Sometimes, though, our fears are just

plain weird.

“[I fear] The Muppets, specifically Ker-mit the Frog,” an anonymous Chaparral

student confessed.

Another anonymous student admitted to

a fear of feet, while others can be heard mentioning fears of

lamps, light bulbs, ceiling fans, windows, and other seemingly

nonsensical and outrageous fears. But the key disconnect be-

tween the common “fear” and the aforementioned peculiarities

is the term “phobia.”

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines phobia as “an exagger-ated, usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particu-

lar object, class of objects, or situation.” There’s

the rub: inexplicable and illogical. The Mup-

pet fearer suffers from automatonophobia,

fear of puppets; the foot hater, podophobia.

What appears most shocking about these

people’s phobias is that they are completely

unfounded in terms of personal endanger-

ment, and stem instead from harrowing

personal experience. “The Muppets don’t endanger

me in any way, so it’s not like

I’m going to die if I’m around

one,” the automatonophobe

said. “When I was younger, I

had this dream where Kermit the Frog was hiding under my bed, and I

got out of bed, and he grabbed me by the

ankle and pulled me from under the bed.

He started singing Christmas songs, and

then started eating my face.”

Terrifying, no? The prime con-

tributor to this person’s fear is

not that Kermit will literally come and kill her; she knows

that. But the nature of irratio-

nal fears and phobias is such

that, especially as young

children, we are prone to

cowering in horror at things that are presented as inescapable in

our lives. As an impressionable child, a felt frog consuming your

face with merriment seems undeniably real. In a study conducted

by the University of Michigan, researchers found that even

newborns are conditioned to fear certain things simply through

the odors emitted by their mothers when the mother reacts to her

fears.

To put this all in current terms, look no further than the furor

surrounding the Ebola crisis. All across the United States, citizens

are clamoring for a solution to the presumably ever-present

pandemic that is Ebola in America. Yet, what these Americans,

along with many news media sources, forget is that the likelihood

of their catching the disease is slim to none. And yet that fear still

stands strong. Ebolaphobia, like many other phobias, has its foun-

dation in fear of the unknown. That panic which comes from such

fear is what tends to blind people into believing that the end must

surely be near. It is what makes 80% of Americans, who affirmed this in a recent CBS poll, believe that anyone who has returned to

the US from West Africa should be quarantined.

In truth, these Americans are afraid of what’s now

very close to home, regardless of the magnitude.

Rather, we see no reason to fear these terrors

unless they are near to us. What makes

almost all phobias so strong and

even debilitating is that they

hit close to home and often

do seem inescapable.

The memories of that

hellish Muppet dream still

lurk in the girl’s mind. Feet are

attached to almost every single

person on Earth. Ebola is real.

And sometimes we have no choice

but to face these terrible things.

But you will not suffer at the

hands, feet, legs, tentacles, or frog-

mouths of what you are afraid of. These

fears are, in all manners of the word,

irrational. Which also means they aren’t

dangerous, and perhaps people will

sleep easier at night when they

admit to themselves that they

have nothing to fear but their lack

of knowing.

NOTHING FEARto

BUT...

Winter2014 FEATURES 15

-Damion Beal staffer

Rap's GOOD Rep

They got 99 problems but prestige ain't one Rap music has always occupied a controversial spot in the societal psyche. As a by product of a fundamentally counter cultural move-ment that started in the streets and not the schools, this genre has long been confronted with skepticism from the older generation. Our rap idols of 2014 enjoy the same level of popularity as classic stars such as Prince and Metallica. In fact, Eminem, hip-hop’s biggest star to date, has sold over 100 million albums across the globe. The genre has irrevocably influenced our modern age, but how can rap recon-cile itself with the serious social issues it must confront? From misogyny to gang violence, rap’s “bad rep” is largely influ-enced by the content of its lyrics. The Best Tickets Data Collective examined the five most popular rap albums from every year since 1985 and found that each album contained an average of 217.7 instances of profane language. But the controversy doesn’t stop with f-bombs, as many rap songs depict details of law-breaking actions. In fact, earlier this year, the Baltimore police used rapper Young Moose’s lyrics depicting crime as evidence that his real-life criminal activity was premeditated. Rap hasn’t always been associated so strongly with the darker sides of society. In fact, Yale University scholars point out, it originally emerged as a product of the Af-rican oral tradition, as a means for people to speak out on important issues. Journalist Christopher Farley explains that mass commodification has damaged modern rap. He argues that the genre has been transformed from a protest movement into an economically lucrative form of entertainment to be bought and sold. “Corporate America’s infatuation with rap has increased as the genre’s political content has withered,” Farley states. “Ice Cube’s early songs attacked white racism; Ice-T sang a song about a cop killer; Public Enemy challenged listeners to “fight the power.” But many newer acts are focused almost entirely on pathologies within the black community. They rap about shooting other blacks, but almost never about challenging governmental authority or encouraging social activism.” How, then, listeners wonder, did rap go from a positive influence to an ostensibly negative one so quickly? The answer is that rap is a dichotomy. On one hand, it is an accessible means of social commen-tary. Even America’s best-known egotist, Kanye West, has focused many of his lyrics on racial relations, addressing issues as monumen-tal as the history of civil rights and the controversies surrounding private prisons. But in the very same songs, he references party drugs, glorifies alcohol abuse, and subjugates women. In order to under-stand the nature of this polarity, one must examine the origins of rap itself. Becky Lanchard of Stanford University clarifies this mixed history. “If rap music appears to be excessively violent when compared to country-western or popular rock, it is because rap stems from a culture that has been steeped in the fight against political, social, and economic oppression. Rapping about guns and gang life is a

reflection of daily life in racially and economically stratified inner-city ghettos and housing projects. Violence in rap is the outcry from youth whose world views have been shaped by experiencing deep economic inequalities divided largely along racial lines,” Blanchard stated. Rap, then, is not the cause of a violent culture, but a by product of it. Rappers write lyrics about the worlds they know. And while the voices that seem the loudest in rap may be the ones promoting vio-lence and oppression, a visible counterculture exists within the genre itself. Female rappers such as Nicki Minaj and Angel Haze promote feminist ideals, both through their lyrics and their everyday speech. In his popular album, “good kid, m.A.A.d City,” Kendrick Lamar raps about the tragedies of his childhood in Compton, a community torn by internal strife and gang violence. Rap’s most-Googled figure, Drake, wrote a song, “Look What You’ve Done,” expressing his love for his mother and his uncle. As rapper Ice-T once said, “If I hadn’t had the chance to rap, I’d either be dead or in jail.” Clearly, this com-

plicated genre cannot be defined by its negative stereotypes. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., of Harvard University explains

the dichotomy inherent to the genre. “Rap has always been animated by this complexity

of meaning and intention. This is by no means to absolve artists of the ethics of form, particularly in the artist’s capacity as a role model for young people, but rather to point out that fighting for defending rap against those who would silence its voice,” Gates said. Like any other art form, rap may not always be politically correct. But art exists as a way to chal-

lenge the status quo. When impressionism deviated from the longtime tradition of classical painters, the

art world was scandalized. When Shakespeare made the once-bourgeois world of drama accessible to every so-

cial class by hiring actors based on talent rather than econom-ic status, the wealthy and powerful expressed their disapproval. And when rap music emerged to tackle issues such as racism, poverty, and inequity, backlash was inevitable. As a movement, rap has a long way to go before it can be regarded as truly equal. Until we understand the issues rap lyrics pose, and engage in critical discourse about them, our society will be unable to reconcile these messages with rap’s original purpose of ignit-ing much-needed social change. We cannot solve this disconnect simply by expecting our rap idols to become more socially conscious. Instead, we must listen to their points of view and start meaningful discussions about how the genre, as well as our society, can be more inclusive. After all, music doesn’t create reality: it mirrors reality. Like poetry or plays of eras past, rap’s audacious tone and unpretentious language make it the perfect means of expression for young people today. So instead of discounting the genre for its negative aspects, we must try to understand these influences in context. If we listen closely, we’ll hear the voices of a new generation, longing for diverse representation in society.

16 spread made by : Lauren Bukoskey

-Anita Ramaswamy /student news editor

DRAWN

TO

ART

-Aubrey Tully staffer

Winter 2014 ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT 17

Art: the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination. Imagination is responsible for all art in the world, and while most people associate art with painting and sculpting, they rarely recognize it in their everyday lives. “Art is what you do. How you dress. The way you love some-one, and how you talk. Your smile and your personality. What you believe in and all your dreams. The way you drink your tea. How you decorate your home. Or party. Your grocery list. The food you make. How your writing looks. And the way you feel,” actress, Helena Bonham Carter said. Art cannot be confined. It is in every aspect of life; it can be found in fashion, makeup, and on a canvas. With fashion, people are able to express themselves and their unique personalities. “Fashion is like an art for everyone to participate in because everyone gets dressed in the morning and has some inspiration for it,” senior Paulette Lyon said. Although everyone participates in fashion, it takes hard work, talent, and dedication to produce inspiring work. “Fashion is more of a job to get dressed, and it is kind of like an inspiration for the younger grades to dress well so that they can learn from it,” Lyon reflected. Lyon started the Fashion Club at school and was accepted into Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) where he hopes to pursue a job as a celebrity stylist or as a fashion designer. Fashion has helped shape the futures of countless people and has opened the doors for a whole new industry. People such as Tyra Banks, Tommy Hilfiger, and Diane von Furstenberg have all made a career for themselves through their skill in fashion. The ability to evoke a feeling through fashion is a difficult task; it involves choosing the right colors, patterns, and designs. The

creativity and imagination behind such awe-inspiring pieces dem-onstrates the basis of true art. Working with fashion, makeup elicits a reaction or sense of feeling that is different for every individual. Everyones’ makeup is distinct, and the amount, color, and technique defines a person’s look and personality. Dark, black makeup suggests a gloomy mood, while light pinks suggest a happy, carefree disposition. “I think makeup is like sculpting. I wanted to be a makeup art-ist when I was younger, and it seemed really fun. Makeup changes the entire face,” junior Shayne Meyer explained. Makeup artists have to practice various techniques to change one’s features. They must be able to transform someone into a new, fascinating character or beauty queen. Each face is unique, and makeup artists have to master the art of application to adapt to any face. Although fashion and makeup are not traditionally thought of as art, painting has always held that title. Painting is a skill that very few people can perfect, and is almost impossible to learn. “I was kind of born with it. I have this thing called color syn-esthesia where you associate letters and numbers with colors,” Meyer noted. This natural talent is used to express ideas and give meaning to a once blank piece of paper. People often disregard art as a hobby, but it is actually a way of life. Everyone creates art everyday: through their wardrobe, makeup, and personality. Most people are not able to see the art that surrounds them, but when they open their eyes, they are able to see a whole new world.

Shayne Meyer

Paulette Lyon

-Aubrey Tully/staffer

ah-dThe Illuminati is supposedly everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Whether this secret society is real or faux, the Illuminati has intrigued people all over the world. The Illuminati was founded by Adam Weishaupt, a Jesuit-educated rational-ist philosopher, in the Bavarian town of Ingolstadt, Germany. Weishaupt’s group grew from a group of Jesuit priests, into a council of five men, one for each point on the pentagram. This council of five men was called “The Ancient and Illuminated Seers of Bavaria.” The Illuminati spread throughout Europe, gaining 2,000 supporters and members across Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, and Italy. The secret society has one main goal: world domination. The Illuminati believe in a one-world religious ethic and central-ized control of the world’s economic sys-tems. The Illuminati allegedly has a string of government-funded programs connected to including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Interna-tional Criminal Court. These relationsips ostensibly give the Illuminati easy access to brainwash the minds of hundreds of thousands of people. With this dominance, they could be able to manipulate people through the press, the educational curriculum, the political leader-ship of the nations, and almost every other form of communication that reaches the

real world. Controlling the world’s major banks, the Il-luminati would have the power to create recessions, and depressions. They are able to insert themselves into the mind of the public and control the voting for world elec-tions. The elite group wants to gradually brainwash other people into believing that globalism, the centralized economic control and one-world religious ethic, is necessary to save mankind. While the Illuminati dates back to hundreds of years ago, it manages to stay relevant in pop culture today. While some might not know what the Il-luminati is, there are numerous symbols representing the pres- ence of the soci- ety. The Eye of Providence,

the eye inside a

trian-gle

on the back of the one dollar bill, is alleg-edly the main symbol for the Illuminati. It is the all-seeing eye of God, reminding people around the world that the Illuminati is always watching. The all exclusive group is also featured in

many songs of this century, mostly the rap genre. In Gamma Ray’s song, “No World Order”, he mentions the soci-ety, claiming that it is trying to control him. “Illuminati, you’ve come to take control. You can take my heartbeat, but you can’t break my soul. We all shall be free,” Ray wrote. The perplexing society also has many references in parody shows such as Ameri-

can Dad and The Cleveland Show. In season two of American Dad, an episode entitled “Black Mystery Month”, aired in which there was a secret organization involving the origin of peanut butter called “The Illuminutty.” With all the mysteries that lie behind this captivating group of elites, one cannot help but be curious of what the Illuminati really is. Our world may never know the truth about the Illuminati.

-Sammi Markus/ staffer

... or is it?

18 spread made by : Lauren Bukoskey

Clowns wear two faces; their onstage face with the makeup, oversized clothes, and red nose, and their real face, as average as the next person’s. When in costume, clowns are wildly popular, whether they are making people laugh or making people cringe with fear. What is it about clowns that has captured the interest of society for so many decades? The art of clowning dates back to Egypt al-most 5,000 years ago, when the royal families would have Dangas, or African pygmies, impersonate Egyptian gods and dance around to amuse them. Ever since then, different countries have taken pleasure in the enter-tainment provided by these performers, only changing their names and appearances. The Ancient Romans had Sannios, a type of mime. Jesters entertained the kings and queens of England and were beloved by many. However, the clown that immedi-ately comes to mind, with the white makeup and exaggerated features, originates from Joseph Grimaldi. Clowns today are nicknamed as Joey, named after Grimaldi. Grimaldi was famous for his physical comedy, visual trickery, and a singing audience. Grimaldi re-lied heavily on audience participation, playing jokes on them and doing “call and response” with lines from his songs. He captivated his audiences and shaped the future of clowning. Today, it is not as common for clowns to be hired for a child’s birthday party or featured at a circus. Instead, clowns are coming back in new and horrifying ways. From movies to TV shows to social media, clowns are alive and well. Stephen King’s movie It features a killer clown named Pen- nywise, who terrorizes and murders children, feed- ing off their deepest fears. American

Horror Story created its fourth season, Freak Show, fea- turing a terrifying clown character

named Twisty, who, scarred by his past, turns psychotic when he fails to make kids laugh. Disturbingly, there have been sightings of people dressed up as clowns in California, England, and France. The friendliest of them have

only stood and stared, even posing for pictures with those who sought clowns

out. The more menacing beat citizens with pipes or chased them. A clown phobia

has been rooted into the hearts of today’s society, whether it be born from pop culture or for reasons that stand on their own.

“They just kind of freak me out,” senior Tyler Tignini admitted. “I’ve never really liked

them. The large smile and all that, it just doesn’t look appealing. It just looks

freaky to me.” It seems that many people are struck with this case of “coulropho-bia,” or a phobia of clowns. Is this bad rap hurting the clown-ing tradition? Many clowns feel like

they do not deserve these attacks. “I got into this gig to make [crowds]

laugh, not to make them upset,” profes-sional clown Mike Jeynes says to Colum-

bia News Service. It seems that more and more people have stopped

associating clowns with birthday parties and balloons and laughter, but more with fear. Clowns have been a favorite feature of haunted houses, depicting them as insane crea-tures. “I went to a haunted house for Halloween, and they had a whole clown section,” Tignini recalled. “That was (awful).” The evolution of clowns has taken many twists and turns, from the comical Danga to the witty court jester to the Joey’s we know today. Highlighting the dark side of the clowning profession has certainly captivated the attention of audiences everywhere, regardless of its effects on clowns themselves.

From making balloon animals to killing with saws, what has our culture done with clowns?

YOU’RE JOKING, RIGHT?

r

Winter 2014 ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT 19

- Isley Lopez / staffer

Between the cotton ball diet and the apple cider vinegar cleanse, many people seem to have an infatuation with trying new ways to lose weight and be healthier. These people are unaware that what they are trying actually undermines their health and endangers them. Dating back to 1558, when people began to develop more secular interests, diets have always been a big subject all over the world, but just recently have we have experienced a “health craze”, where new ways to improve our health are appearing each day. Thinking that these diets will yield results more quickly than exercising and eating healthy meals, many people are hungry for losing weight. As a result, they delve into diets or cleanses without doing any research. Rising obesity rates have caused us to be more obsessed with our health and image. According to the Trust For America’s Health “adult obesity rates have doubled since 1980, from 15 to 30 percent, while childhood obesity rates have more than tripled. Rising obesity rates have significant health consequences, contributing to increased rates of more than 30 serious diseases.” Our increased fear of being “fat” motivates hyper attention to health. “People are realizing how unhealthy they are, and they try to make an effort to change their way of life, but they are trying to change themselves in all the wrong ways,” junior Sophia Nordlie said. Celebrities offer false hope to people who are looking to improve their image because many celebrities get plastic sur-gery or starve themselves to make them look as if they have the “perfect body”. For example, Victoria’s Secret models eat only egg powder and drink gallons of water each day for a full week prior to fashion shows or modelling shoots. We value these women because of their beauty, but we are the ones who are making it okay to eat cotton balls or just eat celery. Despite the fact that these diets have become socially accept-able, people have the choice to follow another path. By researching these celebrity diets and attempting to duplicate them, people find themselves worse off than before. Celebrities are perpetuating false information about diets and weight loss, causing people to listen to dangerous health advice. Focusing on the weight loss benefits of dieting and juice fasting makes many people unaware that these so-called “healthy diets” are actually very unhealthy and can worsen their health. In addition to celebrities, social media, television shows,

and movies also influence the way that people think about themselves. “Media has a large impact on this stage because of all the obesity documentaries and websites are showing up. Even social media has an effect on this because people can become self-conscious about what they post online because of their health,” Nordlie explained. Although many people spend hours on their cell phone each day looking at Instagram or Snapchat, they cannot take five minutes out of their day to research the health cleanse or diet that interests them. According to the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, “detoxification refers to a set of interventions aimed at managing acute intoxication and withdrawal.” People have experienced dehydration and starvation from the diets they perform in attempt to “clear their bodies of toxins”. Rather than helping people lose weight and clear their bodies of toxins, the diets harm their bodies and can actually lead to an unhealthy amount of weight loss. “Severe juice detox diets can lead to fatigue, indigestion, poor skin tone, muscle pain and weakness, halitosis, and unexplained weight loss,” registered dietitian Nicole Cormier said. Other studies have shown that a lack of nutrients and food causes heart problems and slow metabolism, leading to weight gain. Although we are always looking for new ways to be healthy, the extreme health experiments do not work in our favor. As a society, we have always valued appearances; however, our “image obsession” has become more pervasive over the past decade. By weighing themselves constantly and telling themselves that they are “fat”, many people want to lose weight quickly but do not have time to go to the gym. The easy alternatives to slim down are juice cleanses or extreme diets that involve little to no eating for extended periods of time. “People go to extremes to make it look like they are sick and they are starving. There is a distinct difference between trying to become healthier by watching what they eat and wanting to look like a Barbie,” Kroop stated. Despite the sudden craze to be healthier and lose more weight to improve their image, the extremes that people go to in order to achieve their goal push them further away from where they started.

YoU arE

WhAT

YoU eAT

-Chloe Christakos staffer

spread made by : Kamren Gilbard20

The children awoke at six in the morning, just in time to get ready for their first class of the day at the orphanage. But they aren’t actually orphans--they are several of many African children sent away from home to be taught by under-qualified ‘voluntourists.’ Voluntourists are people from wealthy countries who dedicate their vacation time to visit and volunteer in unfortunate communities. Over the past few years, voluntourism has become extremely popular, especially in families. A booming industry has materialized due to the popularity of voluntourists. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), over a million people each year sign up for community service trips. However, their efforts to help a community are often more harmful than helpful. The multi-billion dollar voluntourism industry has switched from being focused on the improvement of specific communities to be-ing focused on the welfare of the volunteers. “In all [volunteering trips], the operational equation is the same: wealthy Westerners can do a little good, experience something that their affluent lives do not offer and have a story to tell that places them in the ranks of the kindhearted and worldly wise,” CNN reporter, Fareed Zakaria, said. Whether or not the tourists care to admit it, there are many problems with the industry of voluntourism. The selection of volunteers is particularly concerning: anyone with money and time is able to travel to voluntourist destinations. Consequently, many unqualified individuals are given important jobs in these host com-munities. Often times, tourists reduce job opportunities for locals by offer-ing free labor. According to Haiti Partners, a group of philanthro-pists that help Haitians through education, two-thirds of the Hai-tian population do not have a formal job. Over seventy-five percent of Haitians make less than two US dollars a day and half of the population makes less than one dollar a day. The poor economy coupled with the infiltration of voluntourists causes many locals to feel like the effort to pursue certain careers is pointless. In order for these developing countries to improve from community service, the industry needs to be more selective about the people who are admitted into these countries.

Some experts believe the rise in voluntourism is stunting the growth of less affluent countries. “There is no question about whether the doctors and volunteers who flew into Haiti right after the earthquake helped. They did. But there are big questions about where the international aid has gone and how to truly promote long-term development and pov-erty relief,” philanthropist Dorinda Elliott said. Elliott visits Haiti often. She traveled to the country right after the earthquake in 2010 and then returned to see what kind of progress was made. To her surprise, little improvement had been achieved since the last time she visited because the locals became reliant on the help of other countries. According to the Organization for Co-Operation and Develop-ment (OECD), the aid from foreign countries to Liberia totalled $765, million which makes up 73 percent of its national income. Although this money was intended to improve education, all of the 25,000 people who took a test to get admitted into the Univer-sity of Liberia failed to pass. The importance of a proper education should be stressed to the voluntourists. Education is one of the aspects of voluntourism that needs to be salvaged. By improving education, people of impover-ished communities can make long-term steps towards an economi-cally safe and physically safe environment. Voluntourism has caused people to be less concerned with the well-being of the community and more concerned about how they can use their personal experiences for personal gain. Although some voluntourists are altruistic, others possess ulterior motives, such as: looking ‘good’ on college applications, gaining skills, hav-ing noble stories to tell, and feeling a sense of accomplishment. However, there are some people who have good intentions. People who travel to support places such as Haiti out of the pure kindnesses of their hearts are the people who really make a dif-ference. By creating a more effective process for screening volun-tourists and focusing on truly helpful community service, work to improve impoverished communities will reach its full potential.

VOLUNTOURISM

-Ava Henderson staffer

Winter 2014 OpiniOns 21

"Oh my gosh, I totally have Ebola!" Since Ebola reached the United States, this is the typical response anytime a person coughs, sneezes, or complains about their seem-ingly fatal allergies. Despite the fact that there have only been ten reported cases of the Ebola virus in the United States, and only two of these cases have been fatal, the fear of Ebola has skyrocketed. This fear may be irrational, but it’s not unusual. Ebola is mainly found in Africa, and until this year, there have been no new strains since 1994. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 7,069 cases of Ebola in Liberia since March of 2014, and from these cases there have been 2,964 deaths. These startling statistics provoked Americans' unease when the virus spread to the United States. Valerie Reyna, professor of psychology at Cornell University and director of the Human Neuroscience Institute, feels that this uncer-tainty accounts for the absurd response to Ebola. “If a risk is unfamiliar to us-something that we've never experi-enced and may not understand the actual of level of risk associated-it tends to produce more dread,” Reyna elaborated. In addition to the blind concerns about Ebola, miscommunica-tions have amplified mistrust towards the so-called “experts.” The credibility of public officials and news outlets deteriorated when two nurses residing in the United States contracted Ebola, despite previous assurances that it was impossible for hospital work-ers to get infected if they followed the proper protocol. Amber Joy Vinson and Nina Pham are both nurses who worked with Thomas Eric Duncan, one of two patients in the United States to die from Ebola. Luckily, the women are fortunate enough to have survived the life-threatening virus. However, these two instances of miracu-lous recovery have hardly suppressed chaos in the U.S. Not only did this occurrence result in an unexpected public reac-tion, but the presence of Ebola on social media has also heightened alarm. A map tracking tweets mentioning "Ebola" or "#Ebola" found that 10.5 million tweets exploiting the virus were sent in a three-week period, and these statistics fail to account for the thou-sands of other posts on alternative forms of social media. Influential figures have harnessed the power of social media to perpetuate falsehoods about the disease. “Ebola has been confirmed in N.Y.C., with officials frantically try-ing to find all of the people and things he had contact with. Obama's fault,” Donald Trump tweeted. Even though he triumphs as a real estate mogul, Trump is digging himself and his followers into a pit of ignorance with his outrageous allegations. The general public made foolish comments as well. “Can't deny I'm worried about ebowler,” “Wait, so is ebola a band or a disease?,” “Ebowla (sic) is the start of the zombie apocalypse.” These are only a few among thousands of tweets illuminating the lack of “ebowla”

(sic) awareness. While people are preoccupied with their ludicrous beliefs about the virus, companies are capitalizing on this absurd crisis. Crooks are setting up fake charities targeting naive people who believe that they are supporting an African child infected with Ebola; but in reality, they are only stuffing the pockets of a scammer. Similar occurrences take place when a tsunami, flood, or epidemic strikes. In addition to the charity industry, the stock exchange is also infil-trated by the swindlers. In August, the Financial Industry Regulato-ry Authority, (FINRA,) warned investors about companies claiming to provide products that protect against the spread of Ebola. Crooks will attract investors for the illegitimate company, but the process ends with investors being left without a profit or an advance on Ebola research. "News coverage of Ebola is likely to catch the interest of 'pump and dump' scammers looking to capitalize on fears of a potential pandemic," Gerri Walsh, a FINRA senior vice president, comment-ed in response to the August warning. People twisted enough to take advantage of the widespread ter-ror are also causing the public to remain unaware of the effective measures being taken to prevent Ebola. This blindness is a missed opportunity to placate worries about the virus. "The Ebola virus spreads through direct contact with the blood, secretions or other body fluids of ill people and indirect contact -- for example, with needles and other things that may be contami-nated with these fluids," deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Emerging Zoonotic and Infectious Diseases, Stephan Monroe, said. Although Ebola has no vaccine or cure, doctors know how to control it. "Ebola is a virus that can be stopped and not spread in hospitals. The stakes are higher, but it's easily inactivated with typical hospital disinfectants," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director, Tom Frieden, explained. These highly competent doctors are working in a top notch facil-ity, the Emory hospital. This containment ward is equipped with every safety protocol imaginable. The vents are specialized. There's an intercom and plate glass that separates patients from visitors to prevent direct contact. Health care workers wear protective suits. The hospitals are prepared, and the United States as a whole is prepared, yet the public refuses to believe it. It is a natural human instinct to fear something that could cause death. However, people often spend too much time dwelling on this possibility instead of educating themselves about the actual situa-tion. Doctors can offer their patients medicine and vaccines in an attempt to rid them of infections, but there is not and never will be a cure for the fear of Ebola.

SOC IAL

CONTAGIONThe fear of Ebola is more contagious than we think...

-Shoshana Dubnow sports editor

spread made by : Kamren Gilbard22

From violent video games, to police bru-tality, violence is all around us. It brings us back to the age-long debate of whether we are becoming more violent. Researchers have difficulty reaching an unanimous conclusion, especially since there are so many factors to consider. On one hand, domestic violence rates have gone down, according to Senator Joe Biden’s “The Violence Against Women” fact sheet. However, in a study conducted by Dr. Leah Gunning Francis, homicide rates are up by thirty percent. So is it all just the media try-ing to scare us in to watching the six o’clock news? Or is there more to the story? Violence has been seen as natural human instinct since the beginning of the human race. Even before ancient Roman times, vio-lence was seen as “eye catching and glamor-ous.” Regular brutal, armed combat was seen as entertaining and as normal as going to the movies. Now it’s definitely common knowledge that society has improved since the ancient Roman gladiators. Hu-mans don’t crave spilled blood as much as they did in ancient times, but has the world really improved as much as we’re led to believe? Young children are brought up watching violent movies and playing video games, both of which exacerbate the violence present in today’s society. In a study conducted by the Radiological Society of North America, scientists have actually proven even a week’s worth of exposure to this can change an average person’s brain chemistry. Ac-cording to the National Television Violence study, a study conducted from 1994 to 1997, 61% of programs somehow contained violence, while 44% of violent characters played ‘role models;’ most of their actions warranted little or no punish-ment. This portrayal of violence in the media shows how violent behavior rarely has consequences, giving people free reign in terms of what they can do. In 2011, Dr. Yang Wang did a study on the effects of a week’s worth of a violent video games on healthy males age 18 to 29. The results showed that there was less activation in the frontal brain regions, which helps stop you from making impulsive deci-sions based on aggression. According to Craig Anderson, director of Iowa State University's study of violence,

exposure to violent video games negatively affects children as well. “A closer look at kids who played more hours of violent video games per week re-vealed increases in aggressive behavior and violent tendencies, compared to those who played fewer hours a week,” Anderson said. The aggression doesn't stop there. In 2005, Florida was the first state to pass the ‘Stand Your Ground’ law. Since then, 22 other states have passed it as well, and a study directed by economists Cheng Cheng and Mark Hoekstra from Texas A & M University on the law, found that in states that passed the law, homicide rates went up seven to nine percent. The ‘Stand Your Ground’ law states that if

you feel at risk or at harm in public, you can use lethal force to defend yourself. A seven to nine percent increase sounds relatively harmless but taking a closer look, you real-ize that ‘Stand Your Ground’ is doing a lot more harm than good. NPR correspondent, Shankar Vedantam, interviewed Hoekstra. “‘We find that there are 500 to 700 more homicides per year across the 23 states as a result of the laws,”Hoekstra said. “There are about 14,000 homicides annually in the United States as a whole.” According to Hoekstra, ‘Stand Your

Ground’ is responsible for over 50% the ho-micides in the United States; that fact alone shows the law should be terminated before it gets worse. “If police forces in other counties are like they are in St.Louis then I think this could inspire others to stand up for what’s right,” a former citizen of Clayton responded when asked if she thought the brutality would be-come an issue in the greater United States. Critics claim that as a society, we are not becoming more violent, bringing up the fact that the rate of violent crime has de-creased 72% since 1993. The issue with this is that the 20th century is actually known as one of the most violent periods in human history. Around 191 million people died due to acts of violence. According to the World Health Organization, from 1993-2011, violence has declined significantly. How-ever, over the last three years, violence has

increased by almost 40 percent. Moreover, saying that society has improved since

1993 isn’t saying much. What we need to realize is that violence is simply too common. In media we hear more about

the evil in our world then we do about the good. That focus alone is enough to make us all wonder if we are becoming more violent as a species; we glorify it, we profit from it. The abuse of authority happens far too often in places

where protection is in high demand. Our job isn’t just to draw attention to the epidemic of violence, but to

do whatever we can to make sure those who are wronged

receive justice.

DISTURBING THE PEACE

-Nicole Wilbert staffer

Winter 2014 OpiniOns 23