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The Park School

POSTSCRIPTBrooklandville, MD Volume LXIVFebruary 13, 2003 Issue No. 5

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By an overwhelming majority,the senior class voted to accept a plan torestore off-campus privileges. The classhad been stripped of their off-campusdriving privileges for an indefinite peri-od as a result of reported daytime use ofdrugs and alcohol. David Jackson, Headof School, addressed the twelfth grade onMonday, January 5, explaining that therehad been numerous reports of drug use,and privileges would be suspended for aminimum of five days until the class con-structed a plan to make sure the behaviordiscontinued. Ordinarily,seniors have privileges,which include leaving cam-pus during any free timethroughout the day, as longas they attend all of theirclasses and meet other ob-ligations such as assembliesand class meetings. Whenthe privileges were suspend-ed, however, seniors had toarrive by their first obliga-tion and stay until their finalobligation. Faculty mem-bers were positioned at thePark entrance to make surestudents did not leave dur-ing the day unexcused.

For several weeks before actionswere taken, students and others reportedto faculty that seniors were going off cam-pus to smoke or drink and were comingback to class. This information was re-ported without any names, dates orspecific information. Jackson becameaware of an incident in one class throughseveral independent and anonymoussources. He met with the parents and stu-dent, but because the report wasconfidential, Jackson did not take disci-plinary action formally, but did requirethat the parents deal with the problem“through a health point of a view.” Ulti-mately, the drug test was negative.Jackson still decided to bring the issue tothe senior class anyway because it wasprobable that several students had beeninvolved at different times.

Jackson stated, “It’s very impor-tant when dealing with a problem, not bearbitrary or prescriptive and just say,‘something bad has happened, so you’re

all in trouble.’ It’s also wrong to force orpressure people to confess or come for-ward. We might have locked all theseniors in a room and said ‘you’re notleaving until somebody comes forward.’On the other hand, to simply say we don’tknow who it is and turn our heads is alsowrong.”

Jackson, the administration, andfaculty have several major problems withthe off-campus behavior. Primarily, it isillegal for students to smoke marijuana,and secondly, Jackson says, “it is danger-

ous to drive back andforth from school un-der the influence.”Next, Jackson be-lieves that if astudent comes toclass under the influ-ence, they “could notactively participate inclass the way a stu-dent should.” Basedon these problems,Jackson decided, “Ican’t stand by andturn my head awayand take no actionbecause I don’t have

solid proof.” Seniors’ privileges weresuspended for a minimum of five daysand Jackson added, “we’re asking themto come forward with something to stopthe problem, but we’re not asking for any-one to come forward and identify.”

The suspension of senior privi-leges has resulted in a conflicted twelfthgrade. Senior Evan Goodman comment-ed, “It’s completely unjustified becausethere’s no evidence.” Senior Grade Rep-resentative Aiyana Newton disagrees,saying, “It makes sense that it was eitherall of us or none of us. They are privi-leges, and we’ve taken them for granted.We really need to start over and earn themback.” Senior Jon Bookstein said, “I’vebeen off campus maybe once this entireyear, so I really don’t care. I think I wouldhave much rather had my senior privileg-es taken away than have nine or tenpeople in my grade suspended.”

Juniors have also been involvedin the discussion, as privileges will affecttheir class next year. Vera Eidelman com-

mented, “I think it’s interesting how manyangles there are. At Student Faculty Fo-rum people spoke about grade unity, andthere are questions about whether or notthey were doing the drugs, and if the prob-lem is that they don’t respect the school.”Junior Nick Hudkins responded, “The factthat teachers didn’t actually notice untilthey heard something means that the prob-lem wasn’t that great.”

A final proposal passed Monday,February 2 by a majority of the SeniorClass, with only four seniors votingagainst the plan. With the input of classofficers Alex Harding, Devona Sharpe,Jeffrey Moy, Aiyana Newton and AbigailKolker, Jon Weese drafted the proposalwhich stated: “The privilege of seniorsleaving campus shall be reinstated accord-ing to the following schedule: seniorsshall be allowed to leave campus duringx-blocks two days out of the week of theirchoosing. At the end of two weeks with-out incident, seniors shall be allowed toleave campus during x-blocks any threedays of the week. After a further twoweeks without incident, on the first dayof March, senior privileges shall be re-stored in full to those seniors who haveabided by the guidelines above.”

Other procedures include a re-vised sign-out sheet, which includes thestudent’s name, the time they leave, a spe-cific destination, and a telephone numberwhere they can be reached. When return-ing to campus, seniors enter through themain doors and “check in face-to-facewith a faculty member.”

Jackson has agreed to the proce-dures proposed by the seniors, whichconcluded, “the senior class proposedthese measures as specific, effectivemeans to control unsafe behavior whileoff-campus. A failure to abide by the pro-cedures outlined herein will result in theindividual senior forfeiting their privilegeto leave campus for the remainder of theacademic school year.”

Jackson reflected, “I think theproposal solution is practical, and a rea-sonable approach to helping students dothe right thing. The step by step approachdoes enable the seniors to earn back theirprivileges.”

by Laura Gordon ’05Seniors regain off-campus privileges

In their first bona fide perfor-mance, Park’s eighth graders overcamesignificant challenges and shined in Dr.Arlecchino or the Imaginary Autopsy.Members of the eighth grade, directed byGina Braden, performed Dr. Arlecchinoor the Imaginary Autopsy before half-filled auditoriums Fridaynight, Saturday, and Sun-day at the MeyerhoffTheater.

The play wasmirrored after the Com-media dell’Arte, a type of16th and 17th century Ital-ian comedy. Althoughthere is a basic outline tothe script, much of the di-alogue is filled byimprovisation. SaysDaniel Schwait, who

8th Graders perform Dr. Arlecchino or the Imaginary Autopsyplayed Pantalone, “All of the songs [wereimprovised] and so were the referencesto Oscar Meyer and Party City.” Schwaitburst into song in the middle of one sceneto sing the Oscar Meyer Weiner song.

Traditionally, the plays were out-side in town plazas. The stage was

portable and the troupe members carriedit with them when they traveled to differ-ent venues.

One of the distinguishing charac-teristics of the Commedia dell’Arte is themasks actors wear. Six actors wore masksduring the performances. Among them

was Franny McGill, who playedCapitano, “The hardest part wasgetting accustomed to the masks.The masks take on a personalityof their own.” Says Braden, “Theshape of the masks forces the ac-tor to speak in ways that areuncomfortable and exhausting.”

Nevertheless, the actorswere able to play the roles of theircharacters effectively, GinaBraden said: “They did a greatjob. They were finding theirbeat.”

by Ben Hyman ’06

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Mr. Roemer stands onguard for errant seniors.

8th graders perform in their first Commedia dell’ Arte play.

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News Immersion Trips Civil Rights Tour News Briefs

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Editorials Final Days Higher Standards Breaks

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Op-Ed Drug Generation State of Hate Senior Gift

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Special Issues Senioritis Strange Love Senior Behavior

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Special IssuesImmersion Week

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Commentary Man on the Moon Animal Rights Uproot Bush

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Arts The Point of View

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Reviews Aqua Teen Hunger Force Return of the King Angels in America

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Sports Basketball Indoor Soccer ____________________

POSTSCRIPT February 13, 2004

Upper School fundraisers are currently in full swing in theUpper School. The junior class took advantage of Valentine’s Dayby selling Data Matches, a survey which finds the student his orher perfect match for two dollars. They also sold carnations for onedollar and roses for two, which are being delivered today, in timefor Valentine’s Day. The Eight Notes and Vocal Chords sold Val-entine-O-Grams separately for two dollars. Both a cappella groupsallow students to choose a song and have the vocal group sing ittoday. Finally, the French Club sold French poems for seventy-fivecents, which were packaged and delivered today. The Asian Cul-tore Club also raised money by selling Chinese food to studentsand faculty on February 6th from Sonny Lee’s Hunan Taste of Bal-timore. They plan to use the profits to go to Asian Awarenessconferences as well as improve the New Year’s festival for nextyear. The senior class has been selling oranges and grapefruitsthrough a phone-a-thon to fund the Senior Prom and other endeav-ors. The Texas fruit is due to arrive later this month.

Brightly colored steamfused with casual music as over30 Upper School students per-formed in the winter CabaretJanuary 14. The performance,hosted by Senior Jon Booksteinand Junior Abel Fillion, was thefirst Cabaret in the Macks-FidlerBlack Box Theater. Stu-dents from ninth to twelfthgrade played instruments,sang, and rapped, individu-ally and in ensembles.Cabaret, which was origi-nally separated into twoacts, was compressed intoone set due to a predictedsnowfall, and a deadline toleave the building at 9 pm.

The Black BoxTheater allowed for specialeffects and a performancethat the former setting, theMiddle School Commons,could not accommodate.Sophomore Joe Rosenbergcontrolled sound and multi-colored lights for theperformance, and there wasalso a steam machine on stage.Junior Adam Huganir recordedthe event, which will be format-ted onto CDs and sold to benefitPark Arts.

Upper School musicteacher Adele Dinerstein and thePark Arts committee organizedthe event and provided food anddrinks for the audience, whopacked the theater. Parents andstudents paid three dollars for

by Laura Gordon ’05the show, plus a bar of soap forCommunity Support.

Due to the number ofparticipants and the unusuallyearly closing of the school, per-formers were limited to only onesong per individual or group.Some students, like guitar play-

er Sarah Gold ’06 and drummerBen Goldstein ’07 accompaniedmultiple acts. Senior Dan “D-Tox” Friedman rapped to a trackof music, and Upper School En-glish teacher Kirk Wulf sang andplayed a song on guitar. Saxo-phonist and Junior Matt Morganaccompanied Upper School En-glish teacher Howard Berkowitzon piano to the song “My Fun-ny Valentine.”

Students join campaign trail for Deanby Alex Harding ’04

Winter Cabaret movesto Black Box Theater

The 2nd annual Scrabble Tournament began last week with41 participants battling for the crown. The NCAA style single elim-ination tournament returns after last year’s success when CarlyPosner ’03 beat Nate Loewentheil for the title. On Monday, Febru-ary 9th, the month long tournament commenced its first round. TheScrabble Club has been generously funded by SFAF (Student FundedActivities Fund) with $60 for Scrabble boards and dictionaries. Thecreator of Scrabble Club, Jeffrey Weinstein ’04, commented, “We,I mean I, am very excited about this year’s event. It’s great to haveso many students and teachers come together and play the gamewe all love.” Newcomer Gregory “Assassin” Brandt has also en-tered the tournament, striking fear into the hearts of his opponents.The tournament is widely expected to be a hard-hitting tour de forcebetween Upper School Scrabble legends and upstart rookies.

News BriefsScrabble Club sponsors 2nd annual tournament

Upper School groups raise money for activities

New class starts in Paris

Matt Morgan ’05 solos with LWP.

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When the rest of theUpper School was immersed inactivities ranging from pencildrawing to French cooking, fivestudents were embroiled in thepolitical fray of the New Hamp-shire democratic primaryelections. Alex Harding ’04,Benjamin Rowland ’04, ErinMcMahon ’05, Jack McAn-drews ’05, and Allison S. Brandt’06 flew into Manchester, NewHampshire early on TuesdayJanuary 20 along with theirchaperone, Prescott Gaylord,husband of History teacherTina Forbush.

On Tuesday, thegroup toured the campaignheadquarters of the major can-didates: John Edwards, JohnKerry, Joseph Lieberman,Wesley Clark, Howard Dean,and Dennis Kucinich. Thatnight, they went to a rally forWesley Clark. At the rally, thestudents watched PresidentBush’s State of the Union Ad-dress and then listened toClark’s response to the speech.The next day, the group drove toPortsmouth, where they met thevolunteers and interns at the lo-cal Dean headquarters. For thenext three days, the groupworked for Dean. Studentscalled voters to convince them tovote for the candidate, deliveredDean literature to people’s hous-es, and stood on street cornersholding signs and waving atdrivers. The students spent

nights in volunteers’ houses.On Thursday night, the

students went with all the otherPortsmouth supporters on a char-tered bus back to Manchester fora rally before the debate betweenall the presidential candidates.They stood outside in the coldfor several hours chanting forDean before the debate, and thenwent to a restaurant with sever-al hundred other Deansupporters for dinner beforedriving back to Manchester ataround midnight. The next after-

noon, the group drove back toManchester and took a planeback to Baltimore.

The trip allowed thestudents to have an up-closeview of the political process.They saw Clark, Lieberman,Kerry, and Dean in person, andalso had close contact with themedia. Reporters interviewedseveral students over the courseof the trip. Ben Rowland alone

was interviewed by CNN Inter-national, a nationally syndicatedradio show, the San FranciscoChronicle, the Portsmouth Her-ald, and was photographed withJoe Lieberman. All the studentswere given a tour of an ABCNews bus and talked with anABC producer about the job ofthe media in the primary elec-tions. Rowland said, “It is a lotdifferent to see it in reality rath-er than just on a TV screen. Thepress had infested the state somuch that they had practically

become part of the popu-lace. Journalists wereeverywhere. It was reallyinteresting to see the rolethat the media played inthe campaigns.”

The trip gave thestudents freedom by al-lowing the group to alterthe plans once they ar-rived in New Hampshire.For example, they hadplanned on going toPortsmouth on the firstnight, but when they

heard about the rally for WesleyClark, they decided to stay inManchester for one night.

Students “had to workhard and didn’t get much sleep,”said Brandt, “but it was a singu-lar opportunity to get involved inthe political process and experi-ence a campaign first-hand. Itfelt good to be contributing tothe news rather than just readingabout it in the newspapers.”

NEWSby Rebecca Derry ’04

An experiment in senioryear electives began with aweek-long visit to Paris for ninestudents in search of a building.The trip, which took place overImmersion Week, set the stagefor three new classes in APFrench, English, and Historywhich focus on a single theme:an apartment building in Parisduring the German Occupation.

To make the courseswork, 11 students made a com-mitment last spring to enroll inall three classes. ChristineBroening is continuing APFrench, Peter Warren teaches thehistory of Paris during WorldWar II, and Kevin Coll leads theclass in writing fiction. Thecourses are highly experimentalin that the three classes are try-ing to work together toward acommon goal, the creation of aninteractive world of an apart-ment building, complete withrelationships, tensions, and his-torically accurate characters.

Each member of theclass is charged with creating acharacter from World War II Par-is during the GermanOccupation, and all of the char-acters live in the same apartmentbuilding. There are a wide vari-ety of ages, backgrounds, and

political beliefs, including anurse, cleaning woman, florist,school teacher, and journalist.

The history componentsupplies the context for actualevents and reactions taking placein France from 1939 to 1944. InEnglish, class members learncreative writing techniques andapply them to writing letters, de-scriptions of people and events,and narratives about or from thepoint of view of the characters.The French course provides anopportunity to role-play and ex-plore situations and reactions tohistorical events, to write lettersand journal entries in French,and to round out the charactersand their lives.

The group of nine stu-dents and two faculty flew AirFrance from Philadelphia Janu-ary 16, the Friday beforeImmersion Week. The extradays gave them a chance to getaccustomed to the time change.

“Finding the rightbuilding was important, saidAmy Weintraub, “because one ofthe premises of the English classis that concrete details are imper-ative in creative writing. Havinga particular building and neigh-borhood in mind allows peopleto write about the sights, sounds,

and smells with more genuine-ness and believability.”

In addition to foraysthroughout the city to find theperfect building, activities in-cluded interviews with peoplewho had lived in France duringthe Occupation, visits to relevantmuseums and sites, including amuseum focusing on the Resis-tance and a powerful memorialto the deportations during WorldWar II.

There was also a lot offree time for travelers to explorewhat interested them. As a re-sult, students visited everythingfrom cafés where Sartre wrote tocatacombs where the Resistancemet.

Parisians walk past the buildingPark students chose as theirs.


Some things you justhave to experience for yourself.That was the concept behind aPark and City College Trip tohistoric civil rights locations.

The idea for thetrip started three yearsago when Park facultyTraci Wright, CarolKinne and Stradine Cu-bera went on a tour of theSouth and traveled to dif-ferent places where therewas something to learnabout the civil rightsmovement. “Once wesaw the Civil Rights Mu-seum in Birmingham wewere convinced that stu-dents needed to see this, tounderstand what the civil rightsmovement was really about,”said Kinne.

“I wanted tovisit all of the sites I’veread about and I want togain further understand-ing by visiting them inperson. I want to gainunderstanding aboutwhat happened before,during, and after the civilrights movement,” saidPark Senior Dan Fried-man, a student organizer,and the only white stu-

dent from Park on the trip.The trip took place dur-

ing Upper School Immersionweek. The students flew down toAtlanta, Georgia where they

spent two days. From Atlantathey drove down to Birminghamto visit the Civil Rights Institute.

Afterwards, they drove to Mont-gomery, Alabama, where RosaParks’s famous bus incidentmarked a major change in thecivil rights movement. The

group also went to Selmawhere they walked across theEdmund Pettus Bridge, andTuskegee, Alabama, and theyvisited the Lorraine Hotel, thesite of the assassination ofMartin Luther King Jr. in1968.

The trip cost approx-imately $600 for eachstudent. Both schools wroteto different foundations seek-ing financial aid for studentswho couldn’t pay. Students

raised money through bake salesand Krispy Kreme fundraisers.City College had bake sales and

they did many of the same thingsas Park. Since the students fromCity College collected moremoney than those from Park, thestudents from Park had to pay$100 each.

“Oftentimes, the ParkSchool doesn’t get to spend timewith public school kids and thiswill hopefully break down bar-riers and lead to better mutualunderstanding,” said Wright.She says that Park worked withCity College on the tour becausethey were looking for a publicschool that was academically onpar with Park.

Nicole Love, a senior atPark and another organizer ofthe tour, said that she had takena similar trip similar this year’swhen she was in ninth grade. “It

ignited a passionfor me to learnabout civil rightsissues.” BothLove and Fried-man commentedon how they hadread the historyin school, butwanted to see thesites for them-selves to learneven more. His-tory teacher

by Everett Rosenfeld ’08

Park, City College tour Civil Rights landmarks

Daniel Jacoby also joined thetour with Park Seniors NikkiHasselbarth and Devona Sharpe,Juniors Yohance Allette, AdriaJohnson, Zach Leacock, TahiraTaylor, and Sophomores AlexBrooks and Dia Clark

“[I hope the kids will]take home a much deeper appre-ciation of black history and adeeper commitment to do some-thing meaningful with theirlives. Things aren’t perfect inBaltimore; some things needchanging around here,” saidKinne.

After the trip, attendeesshared their memories and writ-ings at an Upper SchoolAssembly. Their commentswere accompanied with photostaken from the trip. WJZ-TValso aired stories about the tour.

Throughout the trip,students documented their feel-ings after visiting the sites in anonline journal. Entries and pic-tures can be found at the ParkSchool website.

Molly O’Keefe ’08 suc-ceeded Jesse Naiman ’07 as theMiddle School’s geographychampion on Friday, January 16.Instead of studying for the Bee,O’Keefe used an unconvention-al method of practice: “Eversince I was young, we’ve had amap of the world in the kitchen.We’d play 20 questions identify-ing the locations of countries,and that practice helped me inthe Bee.”

The school’s finalistswere Elinor Hickey ’08,O’Keefe, Peter Treadway ’08,Jake Irwin ‘08, Ty Xanders ’09,Rebecca Knowles ’08, EthanHaswell ’09, Andy Marmer ’08,and Max Satran ’07. The mostcontroversial question was, “El-lis Island, whichserved as a point of en-try for immigrants tothe United States be-tween 1892 and 1954,is in the harbor ofwhich major city?”Hickey said Manhat-tan, while everyoneelse said New YorkCity. The judges took a whiledeciding that one. Their finalruling was that Hickey waswrong. Knowles was eliminat-ed in the third round.

On the next question,“In the summer of 2003, light-ning sparked a massive wildfirein Glacier National Park, locat-

by Dan Malone ’10

Middle School participatesin National Geographic Bee

ed in the Rocky Mountains inwhich state?” That questioneliminated Irwin and Satran.O’Keefe won the Bee on thequestion, “Where is the Po Riv-er located?” and O’Keefe knewthe answer was Italy. SaysO’Keefe, “We had just finisheda unit [in Social Studies] on Ita-ly, so I was confident.”

Mikey Wecht ’10 con-tributed to this article.

Creatures, mummifiedcucumbers, and a rug resemblinga pond are just some of the fea-tures of the new Lower SchoolScience Room. This classroomis located in the center of theLower School and anyone pass-ing by can’t help looking in andnoticing all that’s inside.

Lower school scienceteacher Rob Piper, a nine-yearPark School veteran, is veryexcited and has big plans forthis new space. This year ishis first year in which he hasa room to work from. Any ac-tivities were always done inregular classrooms or otherplaces around the campus, butas of Thanksgiving, Piper andthe rest of the Lower School’sscience program has changed.Now, as part of the many ren-ovations and additions fromthe most recent round of con-struction, the Lower School hasa brand new science room. Pip-er helped design the room withsome other members of the fac-ulty. They discussed what theyhoped could happen in thespace: “We wanted the room tobe used for messy projects andjust a place where kids andteachers can come and explore,”says Piper. He wanted lots ofworkspace for projects and ex-periments. It was also important

to have furniture that could bemoved around when necessaryand good storage space.

The room is bright andinviting with lots of windowsand a colorful tile floor. It has avariety of live animals and hab-itats, full-size models of thehuman body, microscopes, col-orful posters, science books and

almost any other resource a stu-dent would need. Piper also hasseveral wireless laptops that canbe used to move around and doresearch. The students are al-lowed to come in, look aroundand observe. There are giventimes when they are there towork on classroom projects.Piper’s old space was a smalloffice at the back of the LowerSchool library shared with librar-ian Laura Schlitz.

This new science roomhas gotten Piper started on somenew projects with the LowerSchool classes. The secondgrade set up a weather systemwith thermometers and otherequipment in the courtyard out-side of the room that they checkevery day. Piper has also start-

ed an experiment withbirdseed. He hung a few birdfeeders outside the classroom.Each bird feeder was filledwith a different kind of bird-seed. Judging by which andhow many birds come to eachfeeder will show which seedsthe birds like the best. He isalso making a mouse maze outof clear plastic extension tun-nels that will stretch across thewhole room. Then studentswill be able to observe themice in action. One more im-portant feature is the long

hallway just outside the room.Piper hopes that the hallway canbe used for projects where long-er distances are needed, such asmousetrap racecars.

“I hope this is a roomwhere children and teachers cancome and try out new ideas. Ialso like the fact and think it’simportant that the Lower Schoolhas a science room, not just theMiddle and Upper Schools,”says Piper.

by Emma Gross ’11

New science classroom invigoratesLower School nature activities

The group poses at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL.

Students work at a public garden inAtlanta on Martin Luther King Day.

A. Piper holds a skull in new LS lab.

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NEWS


Brooklandville, MD 21022February 13, 2004

CSPA Gold Medalist 2001-2002 , All-Columbian Awards in Coverage,Writing and Editorials, and Graphic Presentation

We welcome letters to the editors: [email protected]/upperschool/postscript

Postscript

Editors-in-ChiefAlex Harding, Aiyana Newton, Jeffrey Weinstein

Abel Fillion, Willie Miller

Columnists

Commentary EditorsVera Eidelman, Vitaliy Elbert

Ass’t Ed: Eric Gottlieb

News EditorsLaura Gordon, Allison Gross

Ass’t Ed: Ben Hyman

Liz Webber, Sara Welinsky

Contributors

Reviews EditorsPeter Schamp, Caitlin Stevens

Ass’t Ed: Yohance Allete, Charlie Hankin Arts EditorCarly Ries

Photography EditorsDavid Al-Ibrahim, Sarah Raifman,

Oliver Reid, Jill Papel

Faculty Advisors Susan Weintraub, Rachelle WorkNick Hudkins

Internet Editor

Sports Editors

Ass’t Ed: Brad Rifkin, Ezra Rosenberg

Dan Boscov-Ellen, Caleb Karpay,Ben Rowland, Jon Weese, Ben Warren

Copy Editor Liz Webber

Cartoonists

Final Days at Park

Higher StandardsThe senior class is a great group of peo-

ple; however, it is not clear how such a greatgrade can come together to produce such a largeamount of chaos and disrespect within such a se-rene and respectful community. It simply isinconceivable why seniors must fight and bickerover everything, even when we all have a com-mon goal in mind. Our time is quickly comingto an end, and we’ve spent far too much timefighting with each other. We should try to holdourselves to higher standards. This extends notonly to how we treat other people, but also howwe take care of ourselves.

Let’s make the hallways feel like Parkuse to feel: familiar spaces and familiar faces.Say hello, be polite, and make the most of thetime we seniors have left here. Put yourself in abetter mental place that allows you to treat oth-ers a little better. It’s the small things that keeppeople smiling during the day, and if you extend

some positive energy to someone, they are likelyto pass it on to someone else. Each of us couldbe the spark.

We all know that senior privileges arecompromised for the time being; don’t pout aboutit, take advantage of it and talk to someone youhaven’t spoken to in years. Turn what’s currentlynegative into a positive. We’ve lost touch witheach other and miss spending time with the kidswe used to play with out on the old blacktop infirst grade. We need to pack as much as possiblein our remaining time, experience people, have apositive effect on the community, and take in asmuch of our surroundings as we can. The schoolhas changed, we have changed, but that doesn’tmean we can’t still relate to each other or at leastrespect each other. We’re going to miss Park, andwe want to remember it at its best. We want Parkto remember us at our best as well, not like this.

-AKN

We at the Park School have an op-portunity that almost no other school providesstudents. While other schools force their stu-dents to undergo an excruciating week ofexams, we, Park students, are enjoying achance to immerse ourselves in somethingthat we would not be able to learn about dur-ing the rest of the school year. Some of theseexperiences turn out to be far more valuablethan what we could learn in our regular class-es.

Some of us had the opportunity totravel to New Hampshire and see the Demo-cratic campaign in person. This providedstudents a way to witness how the politicalprocess works on a smaller scale. Studentsslept on floors, made hundreds of phone calls,stood out in the cold for hours, and had anexperience that they will probably never beable to have again.

Others of us spent the entire weekworking with the Camera Obscura. Even ifthe students in the class had no significantexperience in visual arts and had no inten-tion of pursuing art in the rest of high schoolor college, they could use the week to culti-vate their interest in the Camera Obscura andto try something entirely different from whatthey were used to doing in school.

One of the problems that some peoplehad with Arts Immersion Week in the past wasthe limited range of activities. Since all of theclasses were related to art, students who did notwant to do art felt forced into doing somethingthey did not enjoy. The system that began lastyear, however, eliminates this problem by of-fering activities that cater to many differentinterests in the student body.

Furthermore, Immersion Week fits per-fectly with the Park philosophy. It providesstudents a chance to choose their area of studyfor themselves, and it extends beyond the tra-ditional boundaries of what a school teaches.At what other school would students spend anentire week involving themselves in a pencildrawing course or a rock climbing class? Whereelse would students be motivated to participateenergetically in a class even though they are notthreatened with a letter grade?

Immersion Week is exemplary of whatPark School stands for. Instead of just viewingthis time as a convenient break between semes-ters, let’s recognize its true worth as anopportunity to do something that few people areever lucky enough to experience.

-ASH

Kevin Coll, Jenny Cooper, Rebecca Derry, Ben Gamse, Sarah Gold, EvanGoodman, Leah Greenberg, Emma Gross, Rachel Kutler, Andy Lillywhite,

Dan Malone, Rebecca Martin, Michele McCloskey, Saba McCoy, Ally Oshinsky,Everett Rosenfeld, Allie Stein, Tahira Taylor

The countdown has begun for seniors. Some watch thedays fly by with jubilee, others with heavy hearts. Some of ushave spent most of our lives inside the protective, loving wallsof the Park School. The threat of our last days soon approach-ing has been hanging over our heads and we’ve responded intwo ways: senioritis and moping.

It is understandable to mentally check out once the ulti-mate goal of college application/acceptance has been achieved.It may be disrespectful to teachers and us, but it is a reasonableresponse to the newfound freedom of second semester senioryear. On the other hand, there are those seniors who’ve realizedjust how close the closing curtain is to their heads and respond-ed by moping in the halls; their actions are too well justified.You see them with a half smile on their faces, happy to still bewalking our halls but upset by the unavoidable end.

Each of us has probably gone through a bit of both mindframes in the past weeks. Instead of wasting our last weeks orlingering on high school’s rapid end, we should make the bestof what we have left. Though the senior class seems to be in aconstant state of discussion (read bickering) over issues thathaven’t been fixed in four years, we need to move past our dif-ferences and become responsible Park students. It would be ashame to leave Park after so many years of wonderful work onsuch a sorry note as our current situation. It would speak vol-umes of our grade to not merely move past this bump but toturn it into positive actions.

Let’s take the last two months before senior projects andmake a tangible difference to the school. There’s more to leav-ing a positive mark on the school than being the class thatrefurbished the seats in the theater. Let’s be the positive indi-viduals Park has taught us to be. We can do that in the classroomby engaging in a subject each of us care about. You can contrib-ute in one of your activities, focus on your art, your writing,your sport, anything to improve the image and lasting appeal ofthe class of 2004.

There have been many accomplishments in the seniorclass and each of us is capable of doing great work. Writ pub-lished its first edition this year as an independent Frenchlanguage magazine. Trés bien! Brownie has been working fe-verishly to put out the yearbook. Various clubs have doneincredible fundraising and grade governments are busy lookingtoward their next events. The Waiting Room, premieres in thecoming weeks and Tech Crew has been working long weekendhours to prepare for the play. Just look around and Park stu-dents are doing incredible things. If each of us picks an interestand pursues it, then we can leave Park with our chins up.

- JWW

EDITORIALS

We Break for Immersion Week


Call me crazy, but I pre-dict that, in less than 20 years,so many people will be diag-nosed with Attention DeficitDisorder (ADD) that it will be-come cheaper to have Ritalin inour drinking water, like Fluoride.I predict Park School, as awealthier and more medicallyattentive (neurotic?) community,will be among the first to putRitalin users in the majority.

I have two issues withthis phenomenon: first, why isthere so much ADD, when hu-man biology hasn’t changedover the last fifty years; second,what issues does a Ritalin soci-ety pose to its youth and theirattitudes towards drugs, and howshould we respond?The Problem

It’s obvious why it’s somuch more difficult to concen-trate now, in 2004, than it wasin 1974. Kids today are simplygiven so many more distractionsthan their parents, that simpleconsciousness is multi-tasking.Add in computers (which ourparents never had), where I canlisten to music, read e-mail, In-stant Message, and dohomework (that’s not evencounting various Net-based “pri-vate personal moments” of theJacksonian variety. But this is aschool paper so I won’t bringthose up). Now, I’m not (muchof) a computer geek, so Iwouldn’t be caught dead only

being online; I’d also be open-ing up some English HistoryMath Science French textbook,hoping to do my homework byosmosis or something. I mightget hungry also, and try not tospill marinara sauce on top ofRobert Frost’s disapproving vis-age. The point is, if you cannavigate modern life withouthaving your mind all a-clutter,you probably don’t have electric-ity in your house.

I’ll admit there are oth-er factors: girls tend to have aharder time concentrating onschool work in the presence ofboys, and vice-versa; and boysjust can’t pay attention exceptduring a Victoria’s Secret com-mercial.

Furthermore, we exer-cise so little, and when we do,we spend more time driving tosoccer practice than actuallychasing the ball. I assure youthat Ethiopian children who run10 miles back and forth toschool all day have very littledifficulty concentrating oncetheir exhausted little bodiesreach the classroom. We, on theother hand, store up all our un-used energy in a cushion of aderriere, a “ghetto booty” so fullthat Oscar Schindler would wanta piece of it.

So we’re a multi-task-ing, sex-obsessed, fat, lazygeneration, and the ultimate re-sult is that when it comes time

to do school work, we are so outof it we probably look stonedmost of the time (but more onthat later).

All three of these “mod-ern” symptoms arereally symptoms ofsuccess; we’re fatbecause we have somuch food, and wehave computers sopeople don’t have tohunt antelopes for aliving. Therefore,suggesting that weabandon our cars sowe can run to schooland shake our silliesout every morning isludicrous. However,with all this excessenergy, and all thesecompeting distractions, we arebecoming more and more anADD generation. So we treat itthe only way we have left: withthe fruits of the modern age,pharmaceuticals.The Problematic Solution

Pharmaceuticals aredrugs that the government agreesare good for people who needthem. But in many ways, it’shard for a teenager to understandthe difference between Ritalinand say, alcohol and marijuana.Both change the way a personacts, one for a more scholastical-ly viable reason, but both haverecreational benefits. Ritalinmeans Timmy can stop bouncing

off the walls and have a conver-sation, and Alcohol takes theedge off the edgiest peoplearound and helps them hang outwith people they otherwise

wouldn’t like. Welive in an artificialsociety, where emo-tions and behaviorare doctored and en-hanced by cocktailsof drugs. The curefor depression isProzac. The curefor ADD is Ritalin.Our psychoactivefriends, alcohol,marijuana, etc, arecrossovers, andclaim to cure any-thing from prudenceto sadness.

Our generation is in-credibly confused about thesearbitrary distinctions between“good” and “bad” drugs. Ourparents used drugs as a tool ofrebellion, but for us, drugs are aproduct of confusion, a revoltagainst a world where, to thegreatest extent in humn history,our minds are no longer inviola-ble. The situation grows murkierwhen we are told by adults notto use drugs because we are notyet responsible enough to drinkalcohol, or that the governmentthinks no one is ever going touse marijuana responsibly.However, we are responsibleenough to drive two tons of

heavy machinery at 65 miles perhour, and at the age of 18, we’reresponsible enough to liberatethe Iraqi people, but not to drinkchampagne to celebrate. Thesereasons only infuriate us more;even “liberals” can only take somuch of a paternalistic govern-ment.The Personality Fix

But the hypocrisy hasbeen there for a long time. Now,however, the hypocrisy is worse,for we are told we can “fix” ourpersonalities with certain drugs,but not with others, because,though both could severely in-jure you from an overdose, oneis more necessary than others fora safe and secure state, a politi-cal as well as personal state, onein where we can we follow com-mands without thinking ofJessica Alba and the BCS systemat the same time.

Hypocrisy has alwaysexisted, and human progress hasalmost always meant living lessnatural lives. The answer maynot be to “simplify, simplify,simplify,” but instead to analyzewhat social mores are pushingyou to become, decide for your-self whether these are rational toyou, and then make your actiona blend of your and society’s val-ues—such would be the ideal“life skills” education. If we cando things for the right reasons,we will have a clear conscience,if not always a clear head.

The Drug Generation--Just Say Yes! : A Rant in Three Partsby Caleb “Steve McClean” Karpay ’04

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by Ben Rowland ’04by Jon Weese ’04

An issue that has beenwidely considered by our classthis year is the senior gift. Whatcontribution to the school, weasked ourselves, would do themost good? We answered ourown question with many sugges-tions about how to distribute theapproximately fifty thousanddollars. Here are some exam-ples:

I seem to recall an arti-cle published in this augustperiodical a few years ago. Thesuperbly written piece outlinedseveral feasible plans to ease theburden of walking to classes inthe Wyman Arts Center. With thesenior gift fund, we could easilyimplement a system of movingwalkways, one of the more cost-effective measures proposed.

If others are reluctant touse my suggestions (as seems tobe the case), there are many oth-er possible uses for the cash: thepublications room, for example,could use an overhaul. As it is,

the “pub” is limited to the staffof Postscript and Brownie.These privileged writers enjoyimmense free space amid com-puters and myriad back-issues oftheir respective publications. Ifigure, if we add a few morechairs and another computer ortwo, we could allow the work-ers of both Yawp and Wrît toavail themselves of the facility.

A rather less inclusivesuggestion was to create a “se-nior lounge.” I think it would bea wonderful idea: after classes,what more could seniors wantthan to relax in their own space,perhaps enjoying a game ofbridge or baccarat? Those wait-ing in line for the shuffleboardcourt could avail themselves ofcoffee or pastries and discuss theseminal works of Hemingway orFitzgerald. The only issue left tobe decided: should we force ev-eryone to wear a monocle andadopt an affected British accent?It would certainly class the placeup a bit.

I hope that this bulletinregarding the senior gift hasbrought more of you “into theknow.” If you have any sugges-tions about what to do with acool fifty grand, please take it upwith a senior.

Senior Gift Ideas

OP-ED

Ok, so what’s the bigdeal here? No no no, I’ve got abetter question: why is there somuch hate in America? OnWednesday, February 4th, Massa-chusetts’ highest court removedthe state’s last barrier to gay mar-riage. Although this legislativebombshell was one of the mostprogressive, humanistic rulingsof the past twenty years, therewas little celebration outside ofthe gay community. Instead,mass demonstrations were heldin Boston lashing out against theruling.

Then, on Monday Feb-ruary 10th, Massachusetts Senateleaders created what they calleda compromise amendment thatwould keep marriage as a hetero-sexual institution but allowsame-sex couples to join in civilunions that would provide all therights and benefits of marriagein the state. Now this really

pissed people off. God forbidtwo men or women should havethe right to “marry.” God forbid,two human beings of the samesex, two citizens of the UnitedStates of America, a countryfounded on equality, should havethe same rights as two Ameri-cans of the opposite sex.

The truth of the matteris, we are stuck in the past, whenwhat we need to do is look to-wards the future. In 1800, asoutherner would have never be-lieved that slavery would ever beabolished, and he certainlywould never have believed thata black man would ever have thesame rights as a white man. Justas it was hard for slave ownersto imagine life without slavery,it is hard for conservatives toimagine a future without unequalrights for gays. It freaks themout. It is painful for conserva-tives to think that a gay manmight have the same rights as astraight man. These right-wing,religious radicals are filled withsuch hate, and it makes me sick.Does this progressive step to-wards equality in any way hurtanyone? No. Nevertheless, op-ponents of gay marriage filledout more than 18,000 petitionssigned by citizens across the

country. I guess I am just luckyto live in a family who has goodvalues, such as acknowledgingall citizens as equal members ofour society.

So is there a solutionfor us liberals? The only possi-ble one I can come up with is tocastrate all conservatives.Would it be better for all of so-ciety? Yes. Is it viable?Unfortunately, no. So I guess allwe can do is head out to our lo-cal grocery store, stock up onloads of junk food and soda, goback home, plop in front of thetelevision, flip on CNN (or FOXNews if you hate gays) andwatch it all unfold.

Ah yes. I almost forgot.In a statement Wednesday, Pres-ident Bush condemned theMassachusetts court’s latest rul-ing, saying: “Marriage is asacred institution between a manand a woman. If activist judgesinsist on redefining marriage bycourt order, the only alternativewill be the constitutional pro-cess. We must do what is legallynecessary to defend the sanctityof marriage.” Think about thatwhen you go to the polls in No-vember. Unless of course, you’rea gay-bashing chauvinist as well.

The United States of Hate


by Vitaliy Elbert ’04

Strange Love: How I Learned to StopWorrying and Love the Seniors

During the past fewcontroversy-filled weeks, the se-nior class has shown incredibleresponsibility. Poised and ma-ture, 81 young adultsunflinchingly yielded to allega-tions of the administration andaccepted punishment for what afew individuals may or may nothave done. One would expectthat ensuing perceptions of thegrade by the community would

embarrass the senior class mem-bers, even humiliate them.Wrong! It has made the gradestronger and more unified thanever. On the past two occasions,faculty at senior class meetingswitnessed an unprecedented ex-change of passionate ideas byseniors. Determined to restoretheir reputation to greatness, the

seniors will persevere as theyhave done in the past. They willget senior driving privilegesback. For, whether you know itor not, this year’s 12th grade isthe most talented grade in thehistory of Park School.

Since its Middle Schoolyears, the class has been nostranger to scandals–or accusa-tions at the least. However, thisis not because it is a class of

troublemakers, but because it isone of socially advanced individ-uals. Time and time againmembers of the grade have beenconfined to “Middle School”standards or “High School” ex-pectations when, in reality, theyhave been far more mature thanis indicated by their age. Forcea High School-level student to

attend Middle School and he toowill drink. Force a college-levelstudent to attend High Schooland he will rebel off schoolgrounds.

Still, the grade is morethan socially mature; its mem-bers excel in all facets of life.Academically, seniors havescored 1600’s on their SAT’s andmaintained 4.0 GPA’s. There arestudents in the senior class whoperform at the country’s finestmusic halls and some who will,without a doubt, appear at the-aters. On the sports field, manyseniors are recruited athletes,county all-stars, and metro areastandouts. It surprises none,therefore, that next year severalseniors will study at Ivy LeagueUniversities and compete at Di-vision I schools.

A soul unconvinced ofthe privilege they enjoy for be-ing around this year’s seniorsshould look harder. You haveless than three months left to re-vere these living legends.

Poised and mature, 81 young adults unflinchingly yielded toallegations of the administration and accepted punishment forwhat a few individuals may or may not have done.

Class of 2004

by Evan Goodman ’04

Senior Privileges

SPECIAL ISSUESI’m finally there! Sec-

ond Semester, senior year…andI’m just like everyone else. Sur-prisingly, I’m not even into anycolleges, but I still feel like it’stime to be a slacker. This sum-mer, I heard a college studentsay, “You’re never smarter thanyou were the day you graduatefrom high school.” I think it’strue. After completing FOUR-TEEN English self-assessments,I may not be able to write toosplendid, but at least I can writeabout my writing. I can watchSaving Private Ryan and Apoc-alypse Now and recognize whichwar was which. I have highermath-science literacy than any-one in my immediate family,even if I don’t have the gradesto prove it. MyFrench? Je le parle.And, of course, I’vealso taken a marvelousquarter of Drug andAlcohol Seminar, andan even better SexualHealth and Decision-Making Seminar, so I’msufficiently scared about theworld to never try having funagain. Oh, the places I’ll go!

Getting through 11years of Park is not a simpletask, nor should it be. But I didit, or at least am close to havingdone it, and now the beautifulcollege life awaits me, with

I Don’t Need No Education? Explorations in Responsible Senioritisby Caleb Karpay ’04

thousands of new people to meetand things to think. I’m readyfor that.

One of the most impor-tant things for teachers to realizeis that senioritis, the popularterm among educators for thissenior year malaise, takes on twodifferent forms. The irresponsi-ble form, as I call it, is when wehave the hubris to feel we are sointelligent or so done with highschool that X-blocks are forsmoking pot and that comingback to school completelyglazed is “OK.” Not being pre-pared to contribute indiscussions has a negative effecton everyone, and if one is in aclass with non-Seniors, it sets abad example of indifference.

However, it is understandablethat senioritis will cause perfor-mance on tests to drop. Moststudents don’t see tests as alearning activity but a knowl-edge manipulation exercise thatquantifies, by an agreed-on stan-dard, the “learning” that we wishto show to colleges. And, ofcourse, with the specter of col-

lege gone, taking part in the ar-bitrary parts of school that haveless to do with learning than col-lege admission are no longernecessary.

“Responsible” seniori-tis, however, does not reflect achange in the respect the studenthas for the teachers or the restof his/her community. Just be-cause I’m ready to go to collegeand leave Park doesn’t mean Idon’t still love my friends andthink my teachers are some ofthe best and smartest people I’llever have the pleasure to meet;quite the contrary, I fear that I’llnever be able to recreate the dy-namic, friendly (andmultitudinous other adjectives)atmosphere that I have come to

take for granted at Park. In fact,being faced with the end of ourPark career, we start to appreci-ate and take stock of everythingwe’ve accomplished. But – andthis is a big “BUT” – we, as se-niors, now see Park in context.After countless hours research-ing or visiting colleges we hopeto get into and attend, we real-ize that there are other places outthere with much more diversegroups of people. This is why,perhaps, senioritis is so severe atsmall schools like Park. I can’twait to go to a school where I

can get into fistfights over abor-tion rights with some Alabamaaristocrat. In this way, I wantsomething more than Park, but,this desire to experience more ofthe world is a great complimentto Park, that I would now wantto be an “active” member ofwhatever community I happen tobelong to. In these ways, senior-itis is almost inevitable at a smallschool that teaches the kind ofcommunity consciousness Parkdoes.

The college way of lifealso seems much more attractivethan the current set-up. I get tolive with friends, only go to twoor three classes a day, sleep in,eat at buffets everyday, and Iwon’t need to bother going more

than a few steps to find some-thing to do any night of theweek. In that way, I suppose, theyearning for college may implysome supercessionism; I’m agrown up now, I don’t need par-ents. But to assume studentshold the same attitude for theirteachers is a dangerous, andhurtful, assumption.

For while we may studysubjects at a “higher level” incollege, the quality of teachingwill probably never be the same.Instead of having teachers helpus write papers on the impor-

tance of point of view in TheGreat Gatsby, we’ll be writing(often on a NO-DOZ high) neo-p o s t - a n t i - F r e u d i a ndeconstructionist interpretationsof the choice of cars on page 26.It’s a reflection of the quality ofthe teachers at Park that year af-ter year, recent Park alums notehow seamless the transition fromPark was into this much more in-dependent, presumably muchmore demanding environment.

Back to the hubris is-sue, I think it is in part theconfidence Park slowly buildsup in the students that allows usto take the risks necessary for asuccessful transition, yet thisconfidence in our abilities cancome across as a “You have

nothing more you couldpossibly teach me” atti-tude. In this way as well,senioritis is the result ofa Park education, and ifsomeone doesn’t have“responsible” senioritis,something is wrong with

him/her.But again, we should be

careful, and only approve of “re-sponsible” senioritis, which isless evident in everyday actionsthan its evil “irresponsible” twin.For, when senioritis turns into anihilistic exercise, with constantnegative confrontations andchallenges to community stan-dards in and outside theclassroom, then senioritis is anevil, and stems from a disrespectof the school. And this may verywell have nothing to do withone’s being a Senior.The administration has

no hard evidence that any mem-bers of the senior class have everbeen under the influence of al-cohol or drugs during schoolhours. It seems ironic, therefore,that in a school that boasts a phi-losophy that trusts students, allsenior driving privileges weresuspended based on rumor. Fur-thermore, the administrationargues that illegal substanceshinder learning, but shouldn’t,according to the philosophy, ev-ery student be responsible for hisor her own education? No mat-ter which way you look at it, theadministration’s argument isflawed.

The confiscation of se-nior privileges is already causingdeep rifts in the community. Stu-dents are angry at each otherbecause some disregard the prin-ciple of why the administrationshould not have revoked theprivileges, and blame the gradeas a whole for not being able toleave school during the day. Inaddition, there is also some re-sentment towards teachersbecause they have acted withoutpresenting the class with clearproof. As a result, faculty mem-bers have become the enemies inthe eyes of students.

Some students will doanything to get their privileges

back, even if it means actingagainst their classmates. But,other seniors maintain that theprivileges were taken unjustly inthe first place and that no con-cessions need to be made by thegrade: “When did Park Schoolstart practicing guilty until prov-en innocent?” said JackMeyerhoff. For the most part,voices such as his aren’t listenedto because of certain class rep-resentatives who disagree withhis argument and discouragesuch comments.

I’ve heard many stu-dents tell me, “I’ll say anything,as long as we get our privilegesback.” But, they’re only help-ing the people who just want tocomply completely with the fac-ulty, without even realizing it.So, they make the class repre-sentatives think there’s moresupport for saying whatever theadministration wants us to say,when in fact these people justdon’t care about the ethical is-sue. And that issue is whetherPark students should be gov-erned by the philosophy of theschool or by faculty memberswho simply want to arbitrarilygovern the senior class.

If you want to fight forPark’s ideals, you need to makea stand with a letter, a meeting,or an article.


by Jenny Cooper ’04

Seniors: What Kind of Behavior Are We Modeling?We, as the senior class,

have 40 more days of school un-til we leave for Senior Projects.Some of us have been here formore than a decade, some foronly a few years. But new andold alike know what a Park ed-ucation is and what values thePark philosophy embodies. Ordo we?

Over the past twomonths, I have had to attendclasses with peers who are un-der the influence of marijuana,sit through presentations givenby classmates who are high, lis-ten to members of my classwhine and complain about thesuspension of our privileges, getyelled at by a classmate sayingthat he didn’t care about myopinions or what I had to say, tryto participate in class discussionsconcerning the reinstatement ofour privileges while classmatesare making farting noises andscreaming insults at fellow class-mates and teachers. I shouldprobably remind you at this pointthat, yes, I am talking about thesenior class, the 81 students whowill be graduating in less thanfour months. As I see it, there aretwo issues here: stoned studentsand a general lack of respect.The latter of these two is farmore important than the former.

It is no secret to stu-dents that a number of seniorshave come to school under theinfluence of marijuana and/oralcohol. (However, this behavioris not unique to the class of ’04.)For the record, the publicizing ofthis situation was not caused byone report about a single studentwho allegedly came to schoolhigh. There were many concernsand complaints from fellowclassmates directed to teachersand parents about students com-ing to class stoned at varioustimes.

Many of my classmatesargue that, “There is no proofthat we come to school high.”Or, “Teachers can’t even tell ifa student in their class is high;so what’s the problem?” Proofof marijuana use during schoolhours is irrelevant, and it is evenmore absurd to think that it mat-ters whether or not a teacher canidentify a stoned student. Whatreally matters is what studentsthink. At Park, where student in-put is essential to the vitality ofthe school, it is the responsibili-ty of the faculty andadministration to respond to thiscall for assistance in preservingthe integrity of the classroomand the value of a Park educa-tion.

So what should a schooldo when there are widespread,credible concerns voiced by stu-dents about classmates leavingschool and returning stoned?Well, the obvious and logical ini-tial response is to preventstudents from leaving school,and that means suspending se-nior privileges. Most of mygrade was outraged. Why wasthe school punishing our wholegrade for the actions of a “few?”They had no choice. Studentsdriving high, which they were,pose a grave risk not only tothemselves but also to society atlarge. If the school could take animmediate action that wouldcurb this behavior, they had to.And so they did.

However, they didn’tsimply revoke our privileges forthe rest of the year. In the truePark fashion, the administrationtreated us like adults; they gaveus the opportunity to earn oursenior privileges back by pro-posing a plan that would ensurethat we would use our privileg-es appropriately. There was oneproblem with this: our class wasincapable of holding a civil dis-cussion. The administration triedits hardest to treat us as matureadults (if we were mature adults,we would at least understand

when and where it is ok tosmoke up), and yet we pushedthem away and reverted to thelevel of third graders. Instead oftrying to come up with a plan ofaction, we wasted many classmeetings as members of theclass vehemently denied thatthere was an issue and whinedabout our lost privileges. And ontop of that, people constantly in-terrupted their classmates, yelledat others, and showed zero re-spect for their peers, teachers,and the Park community in gen-eral.

We are the Seniors, andas 17 and 18 year-olds we are theoldest students at Park. We aresupposed to be leaders of theschool and role models for theyounger kids. Underclassmenlook up to us. Our actions areseen by younger students as the“cool” and “acceptable” thingsto do. But what kind of behav-ior are we modeling? Coming toschool stoned, not using freetime productively, lashing outagainst our teachers and the ad-ministration without goodreason, shirking responsibility.Are these the footsteps that wewant the underclassmen to fol-low in?

Among the many val-ues that Park has instilled in me

is the notion that we as studentscan, and should, take charge ofour education and the impact wehave on our community. Withthat comes the need for respon-sibility and self-reflection. Whatis really going on here? This sit-uation is not a war between theSenior class and the administra-tion; rather, it’s a battle betweenthe Seniors and ourselves. Weshouldn’t be wasting our timebickering with the administra-tion and teachers; we should bediscussing matters amongst our-selves and coming to terms withthe fact that complaints and con-cerns were coming from fellowclassmates and that mistakeswere made. We, as a grade, needto take responsibility for our ac-tions.

In our last 40 days to-gether in the same building, myhope is that we can own up toour mistakes, overcome our dif-ferences, and simply act civilly.We don’t all need to be friends,we don’t all need to like eachother, we don’t all need to agree,but could we please just treateach other with civility, andmaybe even respect? Is that re-ally asking too much?

by Dan Boscov-Ellen ’04A Trying Time for the Senior Class

The last month in theUpper School has been a tryingone for my faith in progressivismat Park, filled with one bizarre de-velopment after another. Forthose of you who aren’t “in theknow,” here is a brief summaryof recent events.

Several weeks ago, Dr.Jackson and Mr. McGill called anemergency meeting of the seniorclass because they had heard thatseveral seniors were coming toschool under the influence ofmarijuana. Dr. Jackson told us(quite reasonably, I thought) thatwe deserved to be treated as re-sponsible adults, and that theadministration was not interestedin punishing everyone arbitrarilyfor the supposed actions of a few.He then abruptly turned aroundand did exactly that. The drivingprivileges of all seniors were sus-pended indefinitely, thuspunishing everyone. Well, if ourprivileges were being suspended,they must have some sort of evi-dence or proof, right? Ah,well…no, not exactly. Accordingto Mr. McGill, it was becausethere was a lot of buzz, or gossip,floating around concerning stu-dents coming to school high. Noevidence, no complaints fromteachers, but a buzz.

I thought this was ratherpeculiar, since just a few weeksearlier, in the midst of anotherembarrassing incident for theschool, Mr. McGill gave a speechin assembly about how students

should not put any stock in ru-mors, because most of the timethey were either greatly exagger-ated or just flat-our wrong. I agreewith him! After all, this is not theDepartment of Homeland Secu-rity. So tell me, is the PotSmoking Alert at code orange? Orperhaps it should be codegreen…anyway, the point is, Istill don’t see how these rumorsgave them the authority to act soharshly.

Though we did not thinkthe administration acted fairly,the senior class reacted very ma-turely, because we understoodthat they were acting out of con-cern for the students (almost asconcern for the reputation of theschool.) We heard almost no onewhining about the revocation ofprivileges. Rather, we came to-gether to try and figure out whatwe could do to rectify the situa-tion. The condition for us gettingour privileges back was that wehad to come up with a proposalwhich could convince the admin-istration that the problem wassolved. That is pretty much animpossible task, short of imple-menting breathalyzer andflashlight tests at the door eachtime a student enters the school.However, because we all feltgreat concern for the well-beingof our fellow students, we tack-led the problem and discussedwhat we thought needed to bedone. Lots of good that did us…

The proposal that we

ended up having to vote on waschampioned by our advisors andheavily influenced by the admin-istration, and included little ofwhat we had discussed in ourclass meetings. If the administra-tion was really looking for thekind of meaningless, arbitrarygarbage that that the present pro-posal calls for, they should havejust left us out of the process al-together; the current proposalexposes what they said abouttreating us like responsible adults,or even regular human beings, asnothing more than empty rheto-ric. Thus, our class wasstrong-armed into voting in thisproposal; we were told that if wewanted to be able to leave cam-pus ever again we should sign it.I didn’t vote for it, but I can un-derstand why many of myclassmates did…they just wantedto wash their hands of the wholesilly, sordid affair. And who canblame them?

The administration won-ders why people want to leavecampus? It’s because we, a gradewhich (contrary to popular opin-ion) is as full of sophisticated andmature young adults as any in re-cent memory, have to meekly putup with this kind of treatment. It’sdemeaning, degrading, and inde-scribably frustrating. You see, Isee myself as a student, not an in-mate. With that in mind, I’d liketo outline some of the key pointsfrom the proposal we had to voteon…and I’m quoting here from

the proposal itself, because Idon’t have the time or the creativ-ity to dream up this sort of drivel.

“Beginning Wednesday,the fourth day of February, andfor two weeks thereafter, seniorsshall be allowed to leave campusduring x-blocks two days out ofthe week of their choosing. At theend of two weeks without inci-dent, seniors shall be allowed toleave campus during x-blocksany three days of the week. Aftera further two weeks without in-cident…” Well, you get the idea.

“Seniors shall be re-quired to sign out on a newsign-out sheet, which willrequire…the student’s name, thetime they leave, a specific desti-nation, and a telephone numberwhere they might bereached…seniors shall arrive nolater than ten minutes before thebeginning of class…upon return-ing to campus, seniors shall enterby the main doors, where theycan check in face-to-face with afaculty member…a failure toabide by the procedures outlinedherein will result in the individu-al senior forfeiting their privilegeto leave campus for the remain-der of the academic school year.”And it goes on. Wait aminute…am I on parole? Forwhat? Sure, some of the condi-tions in the proposal make somemeasure of sense, like the sign-out sheet. But what in the worldis the reason for this incrementalphase-based nonsense, especially

when we have about two monthsleft before we leave for seniorprojects? A question doomed togo forever unanswered, becausethe system is absolutely arbitraryand does nothing to solve theproblem.

We gracefully acqui-esced to the administration whenthey suspended our privileges, in-nocently believing that theywould be as reasonable and ratio-nal about the whole ordeal as wewere. Our mistake. I can’t countthe number of times over the lastmonth that I’ve blinked in disbe-lief and thought to myself, “isthat a joke?” Normally, I like tobe here. I like to be with otherpeople who like to learn as muchas I do, who enjoy their classesand see the beauty of the thingsthey are studying. But the envi-ronment now has me angrilycounting the days until gradua-tion. The administration here hasnot just thrown our constitutionand our principles of positive ex-pectations out the window at thefirst excuse…they’ve stomped onthem and rubbed them in our fac-es. If I could resign from mygrade in protest, I would. I lovethe seniors to death, but the wholefabricated stigma which sur-rounds us is intolerable. I feelaffronted and insulted. I want tosee the proposal for how the ad-ministration intends to fix theugly mess they’ve made of ourphilosophy.

SPECIAL ISSUES


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Upper School studentsleft their heavy backpacks athome from January 20 to the23rd, for Immersion Week,which marks the one-weekbreak between the first and sec-ond semesters. After a five-dayweekend, during which teach-ers compiled grades and wrotecomments, students participat-ed in on and off-campusactivities to immerse them-selves in something new.Upper School Scheduler KimWecht, who was in charge ofImmersion Week, stated thepurpose of the week is to “diveinto something unfamiliar, ex-perience something new at anintimate level and come awaywith possibly a new skill or anappreciation for something.”

This is the second yearin which the emphasis on arthad been removed, and otherareas of interest were offered.Until last year, ImmersionWeek was known as Arts Im-mersion Week devoted solelyto art activities. Followingcomplaints from students whodid not want to spend four daysjust on art activities, studentsand teachers formed a commit-tee to evaluate otheralternatives. The committeedecided to maintain the notionof delving deep into a single by Allison Gross ’05

subject, but not just through alimited definition of art. Thefirst thought was to redefine orexpand what art truly means.“Most think of Pencil Drawingas art, but what about thisyear’s offering of Rock MusicHistory Video or history com-bined with the art of moviemaking?” said Wecht. Thus,one goal for Immersion Weekwas to take new areas and ap-ply them to art, such as history,rock music, science or food.

After last year, manystudents requested food activi-ties. To accommodate themthere were three food activitiesincluding Food and Movies,Vegetarian Cooking andFrench Cooking, all whichwere held off-campus at differ-ent student’s houses. Theseactivities were so popular thata lottery system was used todetermine who would be se-lected. Only those studentswho selected food as their firstactivity had a chance of gettingin, and still not all were able toget their first food choice.

Many other activitiessuch as Journeying and Jour-naling, Mountain Biking, RockClimbing, Animals in Captivi-ty, and Urban Issues met offcampus. Other activities in-cluded field trips as well. For

Spanish Immersion, studentsdined for lunch at Tio Pepe’s.Others who were in the activi-ty Hey Mr. DJ visited a radiostation, recording studio, andmet a DJ.

The week ended witha one-hour assembly. Some ac-tivity participants showed theaudience what they had donefor the past week. During theassembly students watched ashort play, The Tick Tock Man,which was adapted from Har-lan Ellison’s short story byJunior Andrew Schaeffer in hisfirst semester Play-writingclass. The Rock Music Histo-ry video was presented, as wellas the Animals in Captivityslide show. Senior Vitaliy El-bert remarked that the play inthe assembly “was really inter-esting, and it’s amazinglyimpressive that it could bepulled-off in a week.”

Junior Ahava Vogel-stein, appreciated the break.She said, “It was nice to stopthinking about work and to fo-cus on something that I havenever tried before.” Junior Al-exandra Golden responded,“The week was one of the mostmemorable experiences of theyear.”

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SPECIAL ISSUES

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1. Nicko Libowitz ’05 as lead actor in The Tick Tock Man.

2. John Gill ’06 practices before recording.

3. Erica Schleimer ’04 makes a costume.

4. Michael Roswell ’07 relaxes before going out for a ride.

5. Abel Fillion ’05 tries out climbing wall during Rock Climbing.

6. Derek James ’01 leads “Hey Mr. DJ.”

7. Joe Rosenberg ’06 adjusts recording equipment.

8. Jenna Breiter ’06 looks at her negatives.

The Week in Pictures

photos by Kim Wecht

A Change of Pace

POSTSCRIPTFebruary 13, 2004

Every day, NASA re-leases pictures transmitted fromthe Spirit rover in Mars’ GusevCrater. The spectacular picturesare almost reminiscent of AnselAdams’ southwest landscapes.They represent a mission withincredible educational value, thepinnacle of which will hopeful-ly be a answer to whether Marswas once a more habitable place– capable of supporting life.

The rovers also serve astest specimens, which can beused to create improved Earthlytechnology, such as that envi-sioned in a futuristic world.

But President Bush,who unfortunately has influenceover NASA funding, cannot dis-tinguish between learningvaluable science and venturinginto the realm of science fiction.His new space proposal to landa man back on the moon by 2020

and launch men from there toMars is absolutely absurd.Manned space exploration wasseen as necessary during theKennedy administration, butthings have changed since thenand it’s no longer important.

In 1969, when we firstwent to the moon, we were in anage where we felt it important topromote American superiority. Itwas the age during which webuilt the tallest building in theworld, twice. But Americantechnological genius and superi-ority has been established timeand time again. And, the SovietUnion has since broken up, leav-ing us with no great competitor.

In addition, the 1960sprovided no real alternatives tomanned space flight for in-depthresearch and exploration. Ouronly computers were main-frames the size of buildings and

those could not be launched intospace. But today, we have ad-vanced rovers with 20/20 visionand a plethora of multi-milliondollar instruments that can auto-

matically navigate dangerousterrain and handle –180 degreetemperatures while they engagein advanced scientific researchand promptly communicate it toEarth. Their spectacular photos

by Eric Gottlieb ’06If You Believe Bush Wants to Put a Man on the Moon...

The Real World, but Fake Animal Rights VS. Animal WelfareSo, here’s an idea for a

new T.V. show; let’s callit…something funny. As theviewer watches, the drama slow-ly unfolds: backstabbing, lying,cheating, admissions of love.And here’s the amazing part: itall happens through AOL InstantMessenger. It’ll be beautiful. Nojoke.

All the viewer sees areIM boxes popping up, differentscreennames, different fonts,different story lines, but all onIM. Let’s say screennameboyhas a crush on screennamegirl.With a bowl of buttery popcorn,we sit, captivated, as he admitshis undying affection for her,and, when she decides to rejecthim, we can watch as she strug-gles to find the perfect wordswith the help of screen-namebestfriend.

But, screennamegirldoesn’t have time to answer.Screennameboy, too afraid towait, signs off with a quick “g2g,hw.” And all we’ll see is the “?”she types in frustration to screen-namebestfriend as the screenfades to black. We’ll be sure totune in next week.

Okay, maybe this TVseries seems a little preposter-ous, a little hyperbolic. But thething is, it could definitely hap-pen. With all the drama InstantMessenger creates, all the falserelationships, such a show wouldbe the truest reality series outthere. Let’s say you never talk toPerson X. But when you get on-line and Person X’s screennamepops up on your buddy list, theimpersonal computer screen thatstares back at you rather thanPerson X’s face gives you cour-age. You IM Person X, “hey.what’s up?”

Maybe there will be nosubstance in your conversation.

Maybe there will be no actualconversation. But at least you’vemade contact. In real life, how-ever, this will change nothing –because this contact isn’t real.

Here’s another exam-ple: let’s say you have a fightwith Friend Y. You’re afraid totalk to her, afraid to look at her.You’re even afraid to call her.But IM...well, you feel fine onIM. You IM her and you can say

everything. I mean, there’s noway she’ll know what you actu-ally mean because there are nointonations or facial expressions,other than the amazing “: )”, butyou’re at least able to type outwhat you’re feeling. And, so,you two make up. But youhaven’t talked, and you haven’tseen each other. So, when yousee each other that next day it’sawkward. Because, after all,what do IM conversations real-ly mean?

Instant messagingmakes it so easy to create fakerelationships, advance superfi-cial ones, and alter meaningfulones in meaningless ways. Sure,in the IM world, all of thesefake, superficial conversationscan shatter your dreams or makeyour life worth living. But backin the real world, where you lit-erally talk to people, thoseconversations never happened.

Not even if you savedthem on one of those log things.Seriously.

As two proud membersof SETA, (Students for the Ethi-cal Treatment of Animals), aPark club with a member-countin the single digits, we feel theneed to clarify what we areabout. We are not animal rightsactivists, and in no way is ourspecific group related to PETA(People for the Ethical Treat-ment of Animals). We believe inanimal welfare: the health, hap-piness and well being of animals.

Now to clarify, animalrights are defined by the Ameri-can Heritage Dictionary as “therights to humane treatmentclaimed on behalf of animals,especially the right not to be ex-ploited for human purposes.” Ingeneral, animal rights activistsare more violent and extremeabout their ideas than we are.They truly believe that animalshave the right to live accordingto their own nature, free fromabuse and exploitation. As op-posed to our attempts to reducethe suffering of animals through“humane treatment,” the animalrights movement attempts to doso by preventing humans fromusing animals to their own ad-vantage altogether. Tom Regan,a leader in the movement, oncesaid, “We don’t want cleanercages, we want empty cages.”

A common quote linkedto animal rights activists, “a pigis a dog is a rat is a boy,” per-fectly portrays their radicalthinking. Following the guide-lines of this quote, one canunderstand why meat is consid-ered murder, owning a domesticanimal can be slavery, and hav-ing animals in zoos is consideredcomplete imprisonment. Theseactivists also deem all medicaltesting on animals immoral andtorturous. Often, animal rights

“vegetarian” has negative con-notations. All vegetarians areassociated with crazy activists,when many of them are justmaking a personal decision.

Similarly, the animalrights’ view that all testing onanimals is wrong seems too far-fetched. Although we wish therewere another way, animal testingis vital for disease research. Infact, four-fifths of all Medicineor Physiology Nobel Prize win-ners used animal testing for theirdiscoveries and experiments. Insituations of animal testing, it isimportant to consider whetherthe ends justify the means. Ani-mals may even play a role in thediscovery of a cure for cancer.However, we believe that thetesting of cosmetics on animalsshould never be legal. Horrible,inhumane, cruel, and pointlesstests should never be performedon animals to see if a particularbrand of eyeliner runs when wet.

The huge flaw in theanimal rights movement is theirviolent demonstrations, whichgave them the name “animalrights terrorists.” These violenttantrums deter the public awayfrom these activists and, as a re-sult, from their cause as well.Also, they waste their money onthe equipment and organizationfor their violent, and ultimatelyunsuccessful, displays of aggres-sion. That money could insteadbe used on a more effectivecourse of action, such as appealsin court and ad campaigns.

It is difficult as support-ers of the Animal WelfareMovement to be associated withanimal rights “wackos.” We arenot abolitionists and we are notviolent, we just want humanetreatment of all animals.

by Ally Oshinsky ’06 and Rachel Kutler ’06

and new knowledge providemore inspiration than an Ameri-can flag planted in Martian soil35,000,000 miles away.

There are also manydrawbacks to human spacetravel, both medical and eco-nomic. There are issues ofdangerous radiation, bone loss,psychological well-being, andmedical care. These issuesmay be difficult to resolve.

The cost of humanspace travel is far too exces-sive. The price tag of just theSpirit and Opportunity mis-sions was $800,000,000.According to the NASA web-site, a Mars-bound spacecraft

would have to be fifteen timesthe size, not to mention that itwould have to contain humansupport.

Other expensive tech-nological innovations needed

solely for this mission would in-clude a landing mechanism, asan airbag-cushioned crash land-ing is not suitable for a capsulethat contains human beings. Itwould also be very expensive tobuild bases on the Moon andMars and even more expensiveto build rockets on the Moon, asBush proposes.

Mars is an ambitiousgoal, and a valuable one, but ourresearch can be accomplishedfar more effectively and eco-nomically with lunar andMartian rovers. We may learnwhether there was ever life onMars and more about “worldsbeyond our own,” but we don’tneed to send people into space.Not to mention the dangers, it istoo expensive and provides nobenefits. Sometimes, sciencefiction must remain in the realmof science fiction.

groups go to extreme measuresto make their point clear. Theyhave been known to vandalize,bomb, and set fire to butchershops, slaughterhouses, medicalresearch facilities, and thehomes of research scientists.They spend their energy repri-manding “scapegoats” insteadof using their recourses and sup-port in a positive manner.

As part of the animalwelfare movement, we are amore moderate bunch, working“within the system” to changeanimal welfare problems withreasonable solutions. For in-stance, we agree that eatingmeat is a natural behavior forhumans—it is part of the foodchain. But, we believe that theconditions in which animals areraised for consumption, like fac-tory farms (where animals areraised for slaughter in crampedquarters with no veterinary careor sense of natural life), are ab-solutely inadequate and need tobe changed. In fact, many of uswill eat free-range meat (from areliable company, since “freerange” does not always meanadequate living conditions), inorder to be sure that the animalwas treated humanely beforeslaughter. On the contrary, ani-mal rights activists believe nomeat or animal products shouldever be consumed. But, this ide-al could never be realized;America and rest of the worldare too addicted to meat to everlet it go. America simplywouldn’t be America without itsbackyard barbeques and fastfood cheeseburgers. By defac-ing butcher shops and bombingslaughterhouses, the animalrights movement is just creatinga negative image for themselves.Now it seems that the word

COMMENTARYby Vera Eidelman ’05 and Sarah Raifman ’05


During the break be-tween semesters, we were ableto immerse ourselves fully in anon-academic activity duringeach school day. Because nohomework was assigned duringImmersion Week, we couldspend time as we saw fit afterleaving school. We were able toread a book, play an instrument,get together with friends, sketch,exercise, attend a concert, go toa museum, help at a soup kitch-en, cook dinner at home, spendtime with family, relax, and re-charge.

This leisure time is im-portant to students, and the mosteffective way to carry it into thenormal school year is to reducethe homework load. Park’s phi-losophy states that “it is theobjective of the school to pre-pare students in the broadestsense, not only for further aca-demic achievement, but also forthe continuing process of choos-ing for themselves from thewidest range of possibilities lifeoffers.” To ensure us of thischoice, we must be given achance to explore on our own.This is to say that learningshould not take place only in re-

lation to school.Admittedly, not all stu-

dents dedicate their free time toconstructive activities. Manyspend it on TV, computer games,or Instant Messenger. However,if we had more time to our-selves, we might be able todevelop deeper non-academicinterests. It takes time to get intoa new activity— that is why wehave four full days of ImmersionWeek.

It can also be arguedthat much of our unproductivebehavior is a way of coping withthe stress of having too little timeto ourselves. Students who workall day long during school, par-ticipate in after-school sports,rehearsals, lessons, and extraclasses, and then come home toa full night of homework are fi-nally left with so little time andenergy that they just feel likewatching TV and going to sleep.Even if it is suspected that cer-tain students would abuse freetime, it is important that theschool have positive expecta-tions of us.

A reduction of home-work poses a logistical problemfor teachers because there is a

Free Time Immersion

predetermined amount of mate-rial that each course must cover.This problem can be solved,however, and the potential ben-efits for students are worth thechange. Teachers could probablylessen the overall homeworkload while preserving its essen-tial content. Ultimately,however, if reducing the amountof homework means that cours-es are forced to cover lessmaterial, so be it. The overallquality of students’ lives is moreimportant than any class. It is notright for school to command so

The alarm goes off.Outside your window, you see abeautiful landscape: clean, un-plowed snow in a perfect, quietworld. Hope wells up withinyou that school might be can-celled! Spurred by your hope ofgoing back to your gloriouslywarm bed, you dial the school’snumber, pull up the school’s webpage, or eagerly listen to the ra-dio. The hope wells, wells,

wells… until that hope is brutal-ly murdered by Jim Howard’svoice on the Park School Eventsand Information Line saying thatschool is open.

Sound familiar? Well,lucky for me, at the end of themessage, Mr. Howard tells usthat the buses are cancelled. Ifyou, like me, are one of thosekids who take the bus, you kickback and sleep for another fourhours, enjoying your “snowday.” That is, until you return toschool only to realize that schoolwent on without you and that

by Kate Ewald ’05you now have double the work-load than before.

Now, sitting at homeenjoying my most recent “snowday,” something came to me: ifit’s not safe enough for the pre-cious busses to be running, is itsafe enough for students to bebraving the icy, snowy condi-tions outside? Do high schooldrivers (or their parents, for thatmatter) have better driving skills

than trained bus drivers? Whywould icy roads be safer for stu-dents in cars versus students inbuses? I’ll just put it this way: ifbuses shouldn’t be running, therisk of being outside in a carprobably mirrors the risk of afive-year-old running (with scis-sors) through a roomful ofbutcher knifes.

Plenty of Park studentsare riding school buses everyday. That means those kids can’tmake it to school when buses arecancelled unless parents go outof their way to drive them. Sure,

No Business like Snow Business

by Abel Fillion ’05

the school is not as liable if kidsare delivered to school in theirparent’s cars instead of in schoolbuses, but I think that the liabil-ity excuse is just shirkingresponsibility. If Park is openwithout their buses, when carsshouldn’t be on the roads, andsome first grade girl breaks herneck in a car crash, it’s still theschool’s fault to some degree. Isay, either have school open or

have school closed, none of thisin-between stuff. If the roads aretruly disgusting or unsafe, Parkshould be closed. If they’re notthat bad, Park should run as nor-mal. The only thing resultingfrom the school’s decision tocancel the buses is more carsadded to the carpool lane, whichcreates even more of a hazard inbad weather, and more kidsmissing school, which worsensour learning experience. Ourcurrent policy makes absolutelyno sense, and Park needs tochange it. Please, Park: Get real.

The Democrats need totake this country back fromGeorge W. Bush, and they needto do it by telling everyonewhat’s really going on.

The economy is, in mymind, the number one issue.“This is a jobless recovery,” iswhat analysts say. It’s not a re-covery at all, though. The stockmarket is rising because compa-nies are moving their jobsoverseas. This provides forcheaper labor so the companiesget more profit. But eventuallythis practice will destroy oureconomy. What these companiesdon’t seem to realize is that thepeople who purchase their prod-ucts are the ones that are beinglaid off.

Eventually, there willbe significantly fewer consumersof their products, and the com-panies will go out of business.“A jobless recovery” reallymeans a short-term recovery thatwill, in the long run, ruin oureconomy.

The tax cuts are the sec-ond biggest issue. The Bush taxcuts give almost half a trilliondollars to the richest one percentof Americans. This means thatwith Bush’s total tax cut plan,each of these families would re-ceive about $342,000 over thenext decade. If these tax cutscontinue to be implemented, therich will keep getting more.Right now, the top 1% of Amer-icans get about 20% of thefunds. In 2006, the top 1% willreceive more than 40% of the taxcuts, and by 2010, they will begetting more than 50%, yet theaverage American gets about$350 this year from their taxcuts. Why should Bush be giv-ing our tax dollars to the rich?

by Andy Lillywhite ’07The war in Iraq was

also ridiculous. President Bushclearly told Americans that wewere invading Iraq because theyhad weapons of mass destruc-tion. We were told that Saddamwas playing his usual games bydenying that he had any weap-ons, and we got tired of it andbombed Iraq. Then we took overIraq and captured Saddam, onlyto find no weapons of mass de-struction, though we did findthat we needed Halliburton, theoil company connected withVice President Dick Cheney towork in repairing Iraq’s oil in-frastructure. We gaveHalliburton $489.3 million ofthe U.S. taxpayer’s money.

Homeland security isalso an issue that seems like onethat Bush could use to his bene-fit, but it’s just the opposite. Theports and chemical plants inAmerica are still very suscepti-ble to attacks from terrorists. Infact, there are over 100 facilitiesin the U.S. that handle chemi-cals, which could be used toharm millions. These facilitieshave no established securitystandards.

On the issue of educa-tion, Bush’s No Child LeftBehind Act only funds schoolsthat pass certain standards. Weneed to fund the schools thatdon’t pass those standards andneed help.

To be honest, the Bushadministration has failed ourcountry. It does not providegood public education, it doesn’tkeep us safe, it’s destroying oureconomy, and engages in war-mongering at the expense of99% of U.S. citizens. The Dem-ocrats need to save this countrybefore it’s too late.

much of our time.Park School should live

up to its philosophy and “preparestudents in the broadest sense,not only for further academicachievement, but also for thecontinuing process of choosing

for themselves from the widestrange of possibilities life offers.”We need more free time apartfrom school to explore our owninterests. Let’s make the amountof homework a school-wide dis-cussion.

Uproot Bush!

draw

ing

by W

illie

Mill

er ’0

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COMMENTARY


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ARTS

Leah Greenberg ‘07“I Think You Lost What You Loved in that Mess of Details”

Allie Stein ’07

Leah Greenberg ’07“Stairway from Heaven”

Saba McCoy ’06 Sarah Gold ’06“Alcohol, Lines, Light, and Music”

Michele McCloskey ’05

One of the Immersion Week activi-ties was Point of View, a photo courseoffered by Gina Brocker, a student atMaryland Institute College of Art. Sheposed the question: “Suppose this wasyour last day on Earth, what would youtake a picture of?” These photos are asampling of students’ responses.

Point of View

POSTSCRIPT February 13, 2004REVIEWS

When Angels in Ameri-ca was transformed from a playinto a made-for-TV movie (re-leased on HBO), someone highup decided to remove the subti-tle A Gay Fantasia. I don’t knowwhy, because I can think of noth-ing better to describe the movie.

The opening credits inAngels in America, which fea-tures a thrilling digital flight overthe North American continent toNew York City, set the pace forthe rest of the movie. The storyis a sweeping epic, encompass-ing the real and the surreal. Itmingles the emotional intensityof people coming to terms withaddiction, sexual identity, dis-ease and death withAlice-through-the-looking-glasseffects. These include tripsthrough an icebox, ghosts, andan angel (Emma Thompson) de-scending from the heavens todeclare one of the protagoniststhe next prophet.

This mixing of fantasyand reality is mirrored in the

Disappointing. Over-blown. Anti-climactic. Bungled.These are just some of the ad-jectives I shall not be using todescribe the third part of theLord of The Rings trilogy. Howabout amazing, stupendous, jawdropping, and overwhelming?

Return of the Kingmust be the greatest adaptationof literature into film ever. Un-like other adaptations of books,Return lifts the script directlyfrom the book, giving the storyitself great accuracy. DirectorPeter Jackson only cuts awaythe most boring parts of thebook, and does not try to makeit more appealing by adding sex-ual content, profanity, orunnecessary violence.

The film works on bothmassive and intimate scales.Epic battles contrast with thestruggle for a single soul. Mon-strous violence contrasts withmoments of solitary grace.Armies upon armies swarmacross the screen, yet the fate ofMiddle-Earth depends onwhether a tiny person namedFrodo will drop a ring into a vol-cano. During the movie, I feltmore attached to Frodo and Samthan to other heroes in the sto-ry. With Frodo and Sam, theaudience obtains a closer, morepersonal feeling of the movie. It

At some point in thelast year, someone at Sony Pic-tures had the idea to set out andmake the most awful movie inthe whole world. They got to-gether professional writers andproducers and told them to makea terrible script about the dumb-est thing they could imagine, andthen to find the worst pos-sible group of no-nameaspiring actors to make itcome to life. Then theyfound a director whocould help make it all lookridiculous. I am sure thatsomeone at Sony Picturesreally did this, becausethey eventually came outwith You Got Served, afilm so terrible only some-one trying to make a badmovie could have ever se-riously released it.

This movie is sobad it’s surreal. The storyfollows two friends, Dav-id (Marques Houston) andElgin (Omarion), and theirdance “crew” as they compete(or “battle”, as they say in thefilm) in underground dance com-petitions. They’re unstoppableon their local circuit until Wade(Christopher Jones) shows upwith his comically spiked hairand Orange County rich kids. Heputs up $5000 to compete withDavid and Elgin, who struggleput up their $5000, only to loseit to Wade in the competition.Classically, the rest of the storywould center around the twofriends working and practicingto win the money back; this

Return of the King:

by Yohancé Allette ’05

You Got Served serves up bad cinemaby Peter Schamp ’05

Angels in America mixes fantasywith reality of AIDS epidemic

by Rebecca Martin ’06

is easy to understand Frodo’sstruggle, and see the utter hope-lessness of their situation.

In terms of computergraphics, this movie once againtakes the lead. If you thought thegraphics in the previous twofilms were good, they will blowyou away in Return. Gollum isone of the best computer-graph-ic characters ever made, next toYoda, and has voice acting thatis incredible. Between that andthe character’s organic lookingmovement, it is easy to mistakehim for a real actor. And forthose who read the books –youwill know of Shelob. I won’tgive away too much, but Shelobhas to be the best giant, killer,flesh-eating spider to ever ap-pear on the big screen. Period.

Return of the King isindeed the “crowning glory” inwhat is quite possibly the bestfilm trilogy ever made. For overthree hours I sat spellbound,watching the stupendous sagacome to fruition. Director/pro-ducer/screenwriter Peter Jacksonhas done a fantastic job of bring-ing the spirit of the charactersand visceral feel of the magicalplaces to vibrant life once again.Return is undoubtedly the dark-est, most epic, and mostsatisfying installment of thethree. A definite must-see.

would be bad enough. Instead,they get in a fight over David’sromantic involvement with El-gin’s sister, Liyah (JenniferFreeman), Elgin gets beaten upwhile dealing drugs to makemoney, and the two split up,forming different dance crews.From then on, all their friends try

to get them to make up, to noavail.

Basically, You GotServed is a collection of DisneyChannel actors and R&B sing-ers (the group B2K makes upmost of the leading male cast)dancing around in spotlessmock-thug clothes and speakingin the most forced and articulateEbonics I’ve ever heard. Thefailed cast also includes cameosfrom Lil’ Kim, MTV’s La-La,and choreographer Wade Rob-son. The only redeeming part,which the movie obviously sells

on, is the multitude of dancescenes. But even these scenesdrag, and nothing can escape theoverall cheese-factor of the film.I can’t begin to describe howdumb everyone looks and acts100% of the time in this movie,but for a sample, just watch thepreviews. This mixed with the

jumbling of the plotmakes the movie so ri-diculous it’s hard tobelieve.

However, Iwon’t say that it wasn’tfunny. This is one of theonly movies I’ve everseen that was just badenough to be amusing.There are other “so-bad-it’s-funny” movies, butusually they aren’t actu-ally funny, just bad. YouGot Served was comicalin that it attempted toblend the “thug life”with choreographedgroup dancing, whichresulted in a sort of

goofy mix between Bring It Onand West Side Story. The differ-ence is that Bring It On featuredfemale cheerleaders, not“thugs”, and West Side Story’sdancing wasn’t supposed to bebelievable. I wouldn’t be sur-prised if the sequel involvedunderground synchronizedswimmers just trying to make iton the street. Regardless of thesmall amount of entertainmentvalue in its dance scenes and thehumor of its bad quality, I stillsay this film isn’t worth seeing.Final rating: half a star.

weaving of the plots. The moviebegins with three seemingly iso-lated stories. There’s thepill-popping Harper Pitt (MaryLouise Parker), whose uptightMormon husband, Joe (PatrickWilson), struggles with admit-ting he’s gay. There’s PriorWalter (Justin Kirk), who is dy-ing of AIDS with a lover, Louis(Ben Shenkman), who wouldrather run from illness than dealwith it. And there’s Roy Cohn(Al Pacino), the real-life prose-cutor who sent Ethel Rosenbergto the electric chair in one of thedefining cases of the McCarthyera. Always a bully, he ends hislife alone and dying of AIDS.

As the movie unfolds,these plots become progressive-ly intertwined into one complexstory. This transformation is cre-atively assisted by casting oneperson in multiple roles— atechnique that is often used intheater, but rarely in movies. Forexample, Meryl Streep is theghost of Ethel Rosenberg, the

It’s hard to pick a bestshow out of the entire “AdultSwim” lineup on Cartoon Net-work, but Aqua Teen HungerForce may be it. Spun off of anepisode of Space Ghost Coast toCoast, the cartoon features threemain characters: Master Shake,a manipulative milkshake, MeatWad, a really stupid meatball,and Frylock, a box of frieswho has to keep the othertwo in line. The trio startedoff as detectives, but the fo-cus shifted away from crimefighting after the first coupleof episodes. Aqua Teen Hun-ger Force is really about abunch of fast-food menuitems struggling through lifeunder the same roof.

It’s an interestingpremise, and it has carried theshow to success. The completefirst season is now out on a two-disc DVD set. Fans can nowwatch all 16 episodes in se-quence and see the evolution ofthe characters over time. Youcan finally figure out what thatjoke in episode fourteen was re-ferring to in episode six, and youcan listen to the theme song asmany times as you need to fig-ure out what rapper Schooly-D

is saying. The special features,unfortunately, don’t really liveup to expectations. The mosttouted feature on the discs is thedirector’s cut of episode one,“Rabbot.” It’s not all that great.It looks like a poorly rendereddraft of the actual episode withcrudely drawn storyboards

thrown in every once in a while.If you buy this set, don’t

buy it for the special features;buy it for the show itself. Thebanter between the characters isgreat, as well as the appearanc-es from supporting characterssuch as Carl, the Mooninites, theLeprechauns, and the Mothman.I give the DVD four stars out offive and the special features two.I’m just waiting for season twoto come out.

proud yet concerned mother ofJoe, and, in a sensational trans-formation, an old orthodoxRabbi who presides over a funer-al at the start of the movie.Another thread that pulls the sto-ry together is the character ofBelize (Jeffrey Wright), a gaymale nurse who roams freely be-tween all the plots from the start.With a pitch-perfect perfor-mance by Wright, Belize is alsoone of the highlights of the film.

Set in the 1980’s, theoriginal play was written byTony Kushner when AIDS wasa new epidemic and still ignoredby the Reagan administration.Due to the change in climatesince, the HBO adaptation occa-sionally seemed a little heavyhanded. Yet its plentiful comicmoments save the movie frombeing sugary sweet. With won-derful sets, a compelling,fantastical plot and brilliant act-ing, Angels in America truly is aspectacular gay fantasia

by Charlie Hankin ’06

Aqua Teen Hunger Force:Fast Food Fighters

Epic filmmaking


by Brad Mendelson ’06Boys’ Fresh-Soph Basketball works toward tough playoffs

Girls’ JV focuses on futureby Ezra Rosenberg ’06

The Boys’ Fresh-SophBasketball team struggled earlyin the season. The team current-ly has a record of 4-10 and aconference record of 2-8. Fromthe beginning of the season, itwas obvious that this teamwould experience difficulty fortwo main reasons: they are veryyoung, starting four freshmen:and they play in the B-Confer-ence, where they face aggressiveall-male schools such as Boys’Latin, Gilman, and St. Paul’s.

The team has been

In a season that startedoff slowly, neither the team norfirst year head coach Kevin Collfeel disappointed. With a recordof 2-11, the players keep theirchins up and have set reasonablegoals for themselves: “We’veseen everyone once, and we justwant to do better than the lasttime we played them,” saidCoach Coll. He asserts, “Wewant a winning effort not a win-ning score.”

The team has donewell; in fact, they have eitherbeen very close or winning at thehalf in all except one game.Senior Aiyana Newton said, “Wecould have won a lot of games.We just had to put together a fullfour quarters.” Against Chapel-gate, the team was down by onlythree at half but lost by 20.

The B-Conference hasprovided ample challenge for theLady Bruins. The team has a lotof new talent, including fresh-men Meghan McMahon andMaggie Sachs. Sachs, at mid-season, showed no signs ofdespair and said, “We haven’tbeen winning, but each game theteam comes together a little bitmore, and by the end of the sea-son, we’ll be functioning fully asa team and start to win games.”

With the basketball sea-son winding down the Girls’ JVhas accumulated a record of 3-12.This losing record is notimportant to the team becausethey are focused on the future,looking to win their final sixgames of the season.

Assistant coach MaryAnn Jones, who runs the ladyBruins practices, is enthusiasticabout her team, “They are doingwell; they are a young team in aleague with more experience.We are beginning to come intoour own in the second half of theseason, gaining more experienceand skill.” She believes in herteam and her passion reflects onher players.

On Wednesday, Park’srival Friends came for whatwould be a hard fought gamefrom the openingtip. The Bruinsopened up a 13-2lead against theQuakers but it wass h o r t - l i v e d .Friends called atimeout and cameout rejuvenated.The team went ona scoring streak;when the buzzersounded at the halfthe score tied wastied.

competitive in every game, asCoach Roger Seidenman ’85 isquick to note, “Well, we’restruggling. In all of our losseswe’ve been competitive. In thesecond half of every game,we’ve been tied or down by one.We normally have five or sixminutes where we beat ourselvesand don’t have the offense to re-cover.”

Captain Ben Weinstein’06 agrees, saying, “Our offensetakes time to get moving, andour perimeter shooting is a

weakness, so we take a lot oftime to score.” Weinstein wasquick to add, “Our best way ofscoring is using our big men.We get it down low and try tocreate isolation.” Both Wein-stein and Seidenman were verycomplimentary of the team’sstarting big men Jon Weiss ’07and Ian Long ’07.

According to Wein-stein, the team stays in everygame due to its team defense.“The strongest part of our teamis our help defense. We know

The Bruins were deter-mined and came out of thelocker room for the second halfelectrified. Park opened up alead that they would never relin-quish to capture their second winof the season from the Quakers.A key performance came fromAshley Robinson ’07 whoscored 19 points in the game.

Captain Tara Gelb ’06commented on the game, saying,“We showed excellent effort inour win against Friends and itshows our continued improve-ment this season.”

Last week JV had a dif-ficult schedule of four games inone week. Despite their effortsthey went 0-4. On Monday thePark faced off against CatholicHigh and won their third gameof the season.

Girls’ Varsity stays strong defensivelyin a rebuilding season with new coach

Mr. Coll has introduceda piranha mentality and theme tohis team. Its piranha-D is anunforgiving full court press thatquickly causes turnovers. Thisdefense has created problems foropponents all around the league,but the only problem is the teamcannot capitalize and put pointson the board. The other problemwith the piranha style play isthat it causes exhaustion, whichhas been a large part of theirdownfall this season. The teamhas started doing more endur-ance training toeliminate theproblem. Theteam’s trainingand piranha atti-tude gave themthe edge in a re-cent overtime winagainst Maryvale.Unfortunately,they were notable to convertenergy into winsagainst Friends orTowson Catholic.

A seasonthat has begun 2-11 would bringdespair to mostteams, but thisteam is different,

by Wes Jamison ’05

SPORTS

and Mr. Coll is not ashamed tosay: “These are the best girls inthe world. I love my team, andI would go to war with them.”

The team’s spirits stillshine despite an unfortunaterecord, and Newton sums up theteam’s attitude: “This has notbeen disappointing even thoughwe’ve only won two games.We’re having fun and improv-ing, and that’s what it’s allabout.”

where everyone is on the courtand are quick to respond,” saysWeinstein. The team also hasgood speed and size, which al-lows them to fluster opponentsby setting lots of traps on de-fense.

The team has recentlycrushed John Carroll with ascore of 63-42. It was a prevail-ing game giving the teamconfidence. Two days later Parkwas matched up to one of thetoughest teams in the confer-ence, McDonogh. The team

started off strong taking the leadin the first half, but McDonoghpulled through in the second halfand took the victory winning by10 points.

Overall, this year’sFresh-Soph team has had manysuccessful games, and look to-wards heading into the playoffs.Seidenman is proud of the wayhis team is responding to suchadversity this season: “In thewords of The Boss, “We’re gon-na teach those boys who laughedtoo soon.”

Aiyana Newton ’04 puts up a jump shot.

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Jill

Pape

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Jill

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l ’05

Tara Gelb ’07 awaits a pass.

photos by Oliver Reid

POSTSCRIPT February 13, 2004SPORTS

by Ben Gamse ’05Indoor Soccer has strong season, loses to IND in semifinals

The Girls’ Indoor Soc-cer team on Wednesday finishedtheir season with a loss in asemifinal match against IND.The season was a struggle. Get-ting to this point shows agrueling toughness that didn’treally show through on the play-ing field during the semifinalgame. Arriving at the semifinalswith an exiting win against St.John’s in overtime is a huge stepforward for a team that startedthe season off with a new coachand many new players.

In the semifinal game,the Bruins looked lethargic fromthe start. They gave up a goalthree minutes into the game, andthe play of the Bruins deteriorat-ed from there. The end resultwas a devastating 10-1 loss thatmatched their level of play, butnot the season as a whole. TheBruins faced a well-skilled op-ponent in IND, and Park wasnever able to elevate their gameto the level that they needed to

win. By the half it was 5-0.Goalie/ captain, Julie Scherrwas constantly bombarded withshots.

Captain Katie Frankel’04 and Junior Erin McMahon’05 turned in strong efforts inthe midfield, showing hustle anddetermination. Overall, theteam just looked tired. One ofthe few bright spots for Parkwas a second half goal by Soph-omore Natalie Brown ’06. Itwas not enough of a spark, how-ever, as the team had alreadybegun to unravel. They had notfully recovered from their firstplayoff game against BrynMawr.

This frustrating gamewas not one that they’d be hap-py to end their season on. Untilthis point, the Bruins hadstormed through the seasonwithout looking back. Oftenplaying multiple games a weekcan be draining and requirestough preparation to match up

against other A-Conferenceteams. Since a shaky start theyhave driven forward, continuingto make practices productiveand efficient. Now they standhaving finished the season at 6-7-3.

The girls ended the sea-son strong leading up to theplayoffs. They had a three-gamewinning streak before finishingthe season with the two tough-est teams in the conference, St.John’s and IND. These weretwo aggressive teams and play-ing the games on consecutivedays proved to be more of achallenge, testing how theywould match up in a highly pres-sured situation such as theplayoffs.

Earlier this season, theyplayed St. John’s. It was a tightgame, tied at four for a long timeuntil St. John’s scored the win-ning goal with five minutes left.The next day, Park played IND,one of the toughest teams in the

A-Conference, and was able totie 2-2. In both games they putup a strong effort, and it was astrong way to end the season.

The four senior cap-tains of the team have led theBruins throughout the season.When asked why the team de-cided on having four captains,Coach Geoff Hoffman wasquick to emphasize that gettingto this point was a team effortand that “each captain broughtsomething different to the ta-ble.”

Captain Nicole Oidick’04 had come back from illnessto lead the offense. CaptainKatie Frankel anchored the mid-field, and Drew Fidler ’04 wasthe captain on defense. SaraWelinsky ’05 commented thatJulie Scherr “was a huge com-ponent of the team and keptthem in every game.” The gameagainst Bryn Mawr was perhapsone of their best games. Thegame was intense, with the

crowd roaring in the stands. Thegame ended regulation tied 2-2with goals by Nicole Oidick andLeah Bacharach. They went intoa five-minute overtime whereeach team played their best de-fense, as no goals were scored.The game resorted to a shootout. Five girls shot for eachteam, and Julie Scherr madethree saves. As Erin McMahonmade the fifth goal, Julie Scherrcame out with her fourth save towin the game.

Reflecting on the sea-son, Coach Hoffman says theyhave, “bonded as a united frontwith the common goal to win.”Since the beginning of the sea-son, one of the team’s maingoals was to stay united, sincethe team is relatively young andhas a new coach. This seasonhas been a good one. The girlshave showcased some strongsoccer. With a quarterfinal winunder their belt, they have a lotto look forward to next year.

The Boys’ JV Basket-ball team at Park has historicallybeen at the top of its conference.With a championship under theirbelt, and only one loss in twoseasons, the Bruins have been,

and still are, the team to beat.With an in-conference record of16-1, and an over-all record of21-1, the Bruins are the favoriteto take the championship for thesecond season in a row, and as

Head Coach DaveTracey says, “Our ob-jective this season is topreserve the crown.”

The team,which is made up onlyof sophomores, runs ahigh-pressure offense,often pressing for theentirety of a game. Thisseems to be the team’skey strategy, as it oftencomes out strong in thebeginning and maintainsits lead throughout thegame. This strategyworked remarkably wellagainst rival CalvertHall; Park dominatedthe whole game, out-re-bounding and shootingtheir opponent, to win itin the end.

When the Bruins playedAnnapolis Area ChristianSchool, Sts. Peter and Paul HighSchool, and Our Lady of Mt.Carmel, they had similar suc-cesses. In all three of thesegames, the team came outstrong, dominated the entiregame, and won in the end withroom to spare. The final scoreagainst Mt. Carmel was 76-19.

Something elseunique about this JV team,aside from being able tomaintain such a high level ofplay for an entire game, isthat every person on the teamis able to score during a giv-en game. There are, ofcourse, a few players whoconsistently rack up points –Alex Brooks, Zack White,and leading scorer Jake Rig-gons – but Coach Traceyemphasizes the depth of hisbench and explains that, de-spite keeping a starter on thecourt at all times for guidance

and leadership, he can count onany guy to get the job done.

Coach Tracey’s expec-tations are high this season, anddespite their one conference lossto the second-seeded team, BethTfiloh, he is confident that histeam will go all the way. In or-der to prepare for the playoffs,Coach Tracey says that his team

is keeping three important thingsin mind: selfless play, tending totheir hunger, and preserving thecrown. Coach Tracey assertsthat, “this team has jelled verywell,” and because all of theplayers always “work veryhard,” he knows they are men-tally and physically prepared todominate the playoffs.

Boys’ JV Basketball heads towards repeat championshipby Jen Webber ’07

dBrad Mendelson ’06 dishes pass to Eric Baylan ’06.White and Wiggins go up for rebound.

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Jill

Pape

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phot

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Jill

Pape

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photos by Oliver Reid

POSTSCRIPTFebruary 13, 2004 SPORTS

The Park SchoolBrooklandville, MD. 21022

Non-Profit OrganizationU.S. PostagePermit No. 2

Boys’ Varsity Basketball shoots to stay competitiveby Liz Webber ’04

Varsity Bruins at work challenging opponents; scoring pointsphotos by Oliver Reid

As the returning cham-pion of the MIAA C-Conference,the Boys’ Varsity Basketballteam has struggled to stay in firstthis season. Despite this, theBruins are strong, with an 11-6conference record, and remain aformidable opponent in theleague. As Head Coach JoshWolf affirms, “The team is real-ly starting to come together.”

On February 6th, theBruins defeated Sts. Peter andPaul High School for the secondtime this season at Park’s Annu-al Program Night. The night,which is dedicated to the seniorsas it is their last home game, wasa great success: alumni, parents,faulty, and students attended. Theconcession stand, proceeds of

which are given to Park’s Habi-tat for Humanity program, wasopen, and the junior class sold“Rally-Towels” to fundraise fortheir prom.

The entire team playedwell, dominating the boards andout-scoring their opponent fromthe three-point line. Jimmy Slat-kin ’04 had six points frombehind the arc. Paul Weitz ’05,the team’s lead scorer, had 21points, five of which were threepointers, while Captain PhillipPorter ’05 had nine points, threerebounds, three assists, threesteals, three blocks, and one in-credible dunk. Seniors AndreBrasser, Darryl Tarver, and Mar-co Fontana each had two pointsand a number of boards to help

the team to their ninth in-confer-ence victory.

This past Monday, theBruins beat Annapolis AreaChristian School, a team theybeat in the beginning of the sea-son 72-65, by ten points. Porterhad 16 points, 12 rebounds, fiveassists, five blocks, and Weitzhad 18 points and four rebounds.Dia Clark ’06 and David Berman’05 lead the defense with quickfootwork and high intensity.Brad Rifkin ’05 and Fontana hada combined total of 13 rebounds,five of which were offensive.

On Tuesday, Park pulledoff a nail biting victory over OurLady Mount Carmel, winning inthe fourth quarter by six after be-ing down in the third. Weitz

scored a staggering twenty-ninepoints, with thirteen points in thefourth quarter alone; he went 7for 10 from behind the arc andhad four rebounds. Porter alsohad an outstanding game, withseven points, 12 boards, fivesteals, and five assists. Rifkinalso had six points and nine re-bounds, five of which wereoffensive. Dia Clark had threecritical assists. The Bruins aretaking this year’s playoffs seri-ously and are doing all they canto prepare for the fights ahead ofthem. As Coach Wolf stated dur-ing his pre-game speech atProgram Night, “We’ve had threetough practices in a row. Theseguys did 43 sprints yesterday be-fore we even started practice.”

Coach Wolf explained that al-though he usually “nurses theteam before the playoffs, [heisn’t] going to this season.”Practices leading up to the play-offs will include sprints, one forevery free-throw missed, andother endurance building drills.

Senior Jeremy Silveragrees with the importance of“keeping up the intensity in prac-tice, so that [they] can take it outon the court.” Silver emphasiz-es the team’s need to “drive tothe basket and pound the balldown low.” The Bruins’ last in-season game is this today, Friday13th. They play at GlenelgCountry School, whom they beatearlier in the season 69-46, at6:30 PM.

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