Paly Green Team strive to make Paly a green school.

Enacted ban prohibits teens from using cell phones while driving.

The Campanile’’s guide to the best thrift stores in the Bay Area.

Once unheard of, the martial art Muay Thai is finding a place among the Palycommunity.

THAI MARTIAL ART

The Campanile Monday, October 1, 2007http://voice.paly.netVol. XC, No. 1

Since 1918

Palo Alto Senior High School

News...........................A1-A3Opinion............A4-A5, A8-A9Spotlight.....................A6-A7Sports.....................A10-A12Lifestyles...........................B1,

Features.......................B2-B7A&E...........................B8-B14

NEWS

OPINION

SILENT DRIVING IS GOLDEN

PALY GETS GREENER

PAGE A2

PAGE A3

PAGE B6

An opinion on the proposed “Fair Voting Act” and the possible GOP motives be-hind it.

IS THE GOP SNEAKY?

PAGE A5

VIKING FOOTBALL GROWING STRONG

BRINGING XC BACK

PAGE A11

NIFTY THRIFTY STORES

FEATURES

PAGE B3

Italian restaurant Vero, brings a piece of Italy to Bryant Street.

AN AUTHENTIC TASTE OF ITALY

PAGE B12

A&E

SPORTS

INDEX

SPOTLIGHT

Learn a thing or two about the new teachers on the Paly staff.

NEW FACES AT PALY

PAGE A6-A7

Palo Alto High School50 Embarcadero Rd.Palo Alto, CA 94301

P A I D Permit #44

Palo Alto, Calif.

NON-PROFIT ORGBulk Rate

U.S. Postage

By NolaN WoNg

Staff Writer

Palo Alto High School hired 22 new administrators and teachers this year, including a new principal and two assistant principals.

Dr. Jacqueline McEvoy, who had served as principal of San Mateo High School for seven years, was hired in June to replace current Palo Alto Unified School District Assistant Superintendent Scott Laurence as Paly principal.

“I’m really excited to be here at Paly,” McEvoy said.

New Assistant Principals Jerry Berkson and Kim Dio-rio replaced former Assistant Principals Doug Walker and Katya Villalobos. Berkson, previously Dean of Students and a Teacher on Special Assignment, took over Walker’s position after the veteran Paly administrator retired last year. Berkson is now an assistant principal in charge of discipline, attendance, athletics, extra-curricular activities and facilities.

Diorio transferred from her guidance counselor posi-tion at Gunn High School to become an assistant principal in charge of guidance, curriculum and instruction. She is also in charge of support programs and services such as the Academic Resource Center, the College and Career Center, Study Skills and Advancement via Individual Determination.

Diorio’s main goal in her new role this year is to familiarize herself with students.

“I can’t wait to start meeting students and getting to know them,” Diorio said.

Other new administrators in the Guidance Department

The Campanile recently met with new Prin-cipal Dr. Jacqueline McEvoy to discuss her goals and thoughts about Palo Alto High School.

The Campanile: What are your thoughts on Paly after having been here for a couple of months?

Jacqueline McEvoy: As you already know, Paly is a great school and has a strong sense of community. The environment here is extremely positive. Not only is it a beautiful campus, but the staff and students also have a really positive attitude. Everyone is dedicated to high standards for all students in every aspect of school life. The only downside is that there’s no Starbuck’s within walking distance!

TC: Do you have any special goals for Paly?

JM: In addition to the goals that are already in place at Paly, I would like to see more teach-ers, students and staff connect with other school communities that are similar to Paly and that are dealing with some of the same issues. That would give us an opportunity to share more of

By Mira Parekh

Staff Writer

The new Palo Alto High School Administration has begun strict en-forcement of the attendance policy with the arrival of the new principal Dr. Jacqueline McEvoy.

The policy will include more severe consequences and will now drop students after five cuts with an “F” on their transcript.

There will also be a maxi-mum limit of 48 hours to clear a cut. Previously, parents could call weeks after a cut was recorded and still be able to excuse it.

Many students were notified by their teachers on the first day of school about the stricter policies, and some feel that it is an unnecessary and potentially harmful move by the administration.

“A lot of teachers have marked me with a cut when I was really in class, and I wouldn’t realize I had a cut in the class until later on,” junior Erik Klingbeil said. “If this happened

our best practices (and we have many!) and learn some new techniques from our friends in other school communities.

TC: How does Paly compare to San Mateo High School where you were previously?

JM: San Mateo and Paly are two of the old-est schools on the Peninsula. They both have a rich history and alumni who are passionate about the school. There’s a saying at San Mateo, “Once a Bearcat, always a Bearcat.” I think the same is true at Paly: “Once a Viking, always a Viking.” San Mateo is much more diverse than Paly so the academic challenges are different. That being said, we have some of the same challenges as well. We have specific groups at Paly who are not performing as well as they should.

TC: What do you hope to accomplish by having a stricter attendance policy? Do you think it adds to student stress levels?

JM: The stress on Paly students is an inter-esting and important topic. I favor treating the causes and not the symptoms. If cutting [class] is related to stress, then it’s a symptom of a big-

ger issue, not the cause of the stress. We need to deal with the bigger issue. To not address cutting is to not hold students accountable for their behavior and the choices they make. It’s also a legal issue. School attendance is manda-tory for students under 16. There are specific legal consequences we must put in place if we are going to do our jobs correctly. The policy that is local to this district is the consequence of being dropped from a class. Since the student is being dropped from the class for disciplinary reasons, it will be a “Drop F.” The student will probably be asked to explain it on his or her college applications.

TC: Speaking of student stress, what will you be doing to address the overall problem?

JM: Again, this is an important issue and I really need to do more research on it. I think we need to address the causes of stress and do everything we can to provide students and

See MCEVOY, Page A3

Getting to know Principal Jacqueline McEvoy

Dr. Jacqueline McEvoy replaced Scott Laurence as Paly principal this year.

New school year brings new staff

By alaN CheN

Staff Writer

The Palo Alto High School ad-ministration recently implemented a stricter dance policy. Additionally it is considering buying breathalyzers to be used at school events.

According to Principal Jacque-line McEvoy and Assistant Principal Jerry Berkson, the administration feels that past school dances have not been “school appropriate.” The new dance policy aims to prevent “sexually explicit” dance and mandates that all students must dance face-to-face.

“We are legally responsible for the environment at dances,” McEvoy said.

To further protect the environment of schoolwide dances from becoming “sexually explicit,” the administration has strengthened its enforcement of old dance policies, which require wearing school appropriate clothing, maintaining courteous behavior and not consuming alcohol.

In addition, the administration has recruited more chaperones. However, chaperones have been in short supply.

“I’ve gotten many direct com-plaints from parents who feel uncom-

fortable chaperoning a dance due to the sexually explicit dancing,” McEvoy said. “This is a problem.”

To further discourage question-able dancing, Berkson and adminis-trators are also considering buying alcohol detecting devices, such as breathalyzers. Berkson said the sen-sors can be used actively or passively. The sensor has a powerful fan that pulls in the abuser’s breath and can test for alcohol levels or can be used as a regular breathalyzer.

Although the chances of pur-chasing the sensors are fairly high, Berkson and the rest of the adminis-tration are “still unsure” of the deci-sion. Even though the administration feels strongly about the policies, the students’ reactions to them are all of shock.

“The new dance policy epitomiz-es the general overreaction of the new administration to Paly culture,” Paly senior Andrew Nizamian said. “The collective naiveté of the freshmen par-ent chaperones didn’t exactly aid the needlessly restrictive policy.”

Despite the administration’s efforts to control the dance environ-ments, many students have doubts.

“I think that the administration will try limiting our dancing and some-

how we [students] will find some sort of way around it,” junior Aila Ferguson said. “Also, I think that it will make less people go to dances.”

But, Berkson said he feels that these adjustments will increase student participation as many are opposed to the drunk atmosphere at many dances.

“At Hillsdale High School, they had the same problem we do,” Berkson said. “Now no one drinks and everyone has a great time.”

“Dirty dancing” leads to stricter dance policy Breathalyzers may be bought to curb teen drinking at dances

Julia Benton/The Campanile

“Some of my teachers men-tioned that with the new policy, teachers can no longer be lenient with students.”

Jean Kimjunior

See ATTENDANCE, Page A3

See ADMINISTRATION, Page A3

Administration attempts to reduce student truancy

Paly’s cross country team looks forward to a promising season after a successful first season.

Paly beautifies campus

Students walk through an improved quad. These changes, along with changes to the parking lot and other landscaping improvements, are part of a plan to beautify the Paly campus. For more on Paly beautification, see page A2.

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanile

Hannah McGovern/The CampanileOne potential change in the policy will be the use of breathalyzers and a face-to-face dance policy.

Paly boys debut to mixed results, but look forward to a talented team and promising season. PAGE A12

THE HORROR, THE HORROR

now, consequences would be much worse.”

Some students are under the impression that the administration is making the attendance policy rules stricter to target lenient teachers and students.

“Some of my teachers mentioned that with the new policy, teachers can no longer be lenient with students,” junior Jean Kim said.

Other teachers however, did not get this sense from the policy. Pa ly Engl i sh teacher Kindell Launer feels that the administra-tion is simply fol-lowing up on the Paly attendance policy.

“We talked about the attendance policy at some of the staff meetings,” Launer said. “The administration simply seemed to want to revisit the policy.”

The biggest change made to the policy is the fact that students will now receive an “F” on their transcript for that class if a student is dropped

PAGE B1You’re invited to

the rocky horror picture show

News The Campanile

• October 12: No SchoolStudents get the day off, while teachers work during a district wide staff development day.

• October 15: College FairStudents and parents are invited to attend the college fair in the large and small gyms.

• October 20: PSATJuniors will wake up bright and early for their PSAT on Saturday morning in the library.

• October 26: Quarter Ends Students should prepare themselves for the quarter grades which will be sent home.

A2 • October 1, 2007

upcomingupcomingeventsevents

NEWSBRIEFSBy Jillian liu

Staff Writer

The Palo Alto High School cam-pus has undergone major landscaping renovations in an attempt to beautify school grounds.

Construction crews have already created an “X-shaped walkway in one of the four lawns in the Quad and orna-mented the edges with white benches.

The administration plans to plant trees and other landscaping features along the edges of the pathway, as well as name this area the Memorial Plaza.

“Those efforts should begin by October,” Assistant Principal Chuck Merritt said.

The Memorial Plaza is dedicated to two people: former physics teacher Andrea Erzberger and Sherwood Hoogs, a 1944 Paly alumnus and father of cur-rent Paly economics teacher Deborah Whitson.

The Parent Teacher Student Asso-ciation is largely responsible for funding and running Paly’s beautification project. Other contributors include Paly Class of 2007 and the friends and family of Hoogs.

“The project is largely a labor of love,” secretary to the Principal Carolyn Benfield said.

Once landscaping is finished, plaques will also be added.

The garden in front of the English Resource Center and library is another area that has already been targeted with beautification work.

Merritt said that it was built around the existing olive trees, and filled with plants and flowers that follow a “Medi-terranean” theme. Despite the benefits

of these new campus additions, student opinions of the campus beautification differ. Some have not even noticed the changes.

“I never use [the walkway through the Quad],” senior Jessica Lau said. “So it doesn’t affect me at all.”

However, there are many students who eat their lunch on the new benches now.

“They’re convenient,” senior Win-nie Ding said. “Now we don’t have to worry about sitting in sprinkler-muddied grass.”

Another possible addition to Paly’s campus is more bike racks. ASB Trea-surer Bowen Wang said that the ASB has $3,200 from parking permit fees that could potentially fund new bike racks around school.

“Ten percent of the parking permits are set aside for the purpose of beautify-ing the campus,” Merritt said. “It seems logical and appropriate that car parking fees help bike parking.”

There is also an ongoing tree project in the El Camino parking lot, as well as a sustainable garden project south of the soccer field that will also continue to the beautification of the campus.

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanilie

Paly students enjoy the Mediterranean-style benches on the quad during lunch. The Parent Teacher Student Association along with the Class of 2007 donated funds for the new benches in the quad.

By auster Chen

Staff Writer

Math Department Instructional Supervisor Radu Toma recently imple-mented a new rule intended to prevent students from socializing in the Math Resource Center, citing the noise level of students and the limited space as the reasons for the creation of the new policy. “People have to realize that it is impossible to work with loud noises when there are 16 teachers and over 20 teachers’ assistants, a third of whom are here at any time, trying to finish preparing for their classes,” Toma said. Some Paly students also noticed the increased noise affecting the work environment in the MRC.

“A group of students was asked to leave the MRC at the beginning of this school year because of the level of noise,” senior David Woo said. Not only is the MRC trying to main-tain low noise levels for the students who need help, but a new teachers office was built near the front door this year to accom-modate more teachers. “The main problem is that there aren’t enough desk spaces for those students who really need math tutors,” Toma said. “The students who require the most help aren’t getting it.”

The MRC currently has four tables with chairs to accommodate all math needs. Teachers’ assistants have first priority to the limited number of seats because the MRC was designed for studying math, Toma said.

“More than one teacher mentioned that they do not want to work in an uncom-fortable envi-ronment with loud noises,”

Toma said. “It prevents the teachers from preparing for their next classes.” However, some have benefited from the new rules.

“This year, because of the new rules, it (MRC) isn’t as messy,” math teacher Suzanne Antink said. “Last year, it took me hours of every day to clean up tables, pick up stuff, throw away food and wash the tables.” Toma also cited eating in the MRC as a problem. “At one point, there were up to a hundred people in the MRC, making loud noises and messes, turning the MRC into a club room,” Toma said. Some students disapproved of the new MRC policy, Toma said. The sign reading “MRC is a quiet study place” has been torn down several times. “I feel for the people who were asked to leave, but I feel much more for the people who need help,” Toma said.

Paly beautification moves forward

New rules aim to stop socializing in MRC

By tomer sChwartz

Editor in Chief

Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneg-ger signed a bill on Sept. 13 outlawing the use of cell phones, text messaging, PDAs and all hands-free devices by California drivers under the age of 18.

The current bill, also known as Senate Bill 33, will go into ef-fect on Jul. 1, 2008, the same date as SB 1613, which will force all adults to use hands-free devices when talking on their cell phones behind the wheel.

SB 1613 was passed in Sept. 2006.

Senator Joseph Simitian (D-Palo Alto) is the main author of both of these bills, and had a plain motivation for writing both of them.

“I wrote the bills because I thought that they would save lives,” Simitian said.

Simitian cites many studies to back up his case, including one by the California Highway

Patrol that found cell phone use as the number one source of distracted-driver accidents in California.

Simitian decided to write SB 33 while he conducted re-search for his first cell phone bill.

“When I worked on the hands-free bill in 2006, I came across data which indicated to me that there was a specific problem with teenage driving and cellular phones,” Simitian said.

According to the National Safety Council, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of teen fatalities, accounting for 44 percent of teen deaths in the United States.

Simitian also cited a report that claims 16-year-old drivers are 10 times more likely to get into car crashes than adults.

“It’s not clear whether the cause of the crashes is the inex-perience of these new drivers, or that these kids are not yet fully

developed in a biological sense,” Simitian said. “But no matter what the cause, these statistics should not be ignored.”

Since the law only applies to Californians between the ages of 15 and 18, many people are skeptical as to whether or not it was necessary to make a spe-cial law specifically for teens, Simitian said.

“While the age difference between a 16-year-old kid and an 18-year-old kid is not big, 16-year-olds have been found to be five times more likely to get into a car crash than 18-year-olds,” Simitian said.

Even though Simitian and his colleagues are confident that the bill will be safe and beneficial, some Palo Alto High School students are less enthusiastic.

“Since students still speed with the risk of paying high fines on speeding tickets, the low fines posed by this law will not cause many minors to stop talking on their cell phones while driving,” senior Laurence Varda said.

Overall, Simitian wants people to remember that while there are many petty details involved with SB 33, driving is a matter of life and death and should be taken seriously regardless.

“Teens should remember that they pose a risk to not only themselves, but to all of the drivers on the California roads,” Simitian said. “So the fewer distractions they have to deal with, the safer our highways.”

Teen driving law enactedJames Franco makes surprise visit to Paly

The Palo Alto High School Task Force recently changed its mission to accommodate district expansion without building a new comprehensive high school, and will now focus on more specialized options.

After the Planning Committee of the Task Force decided to withhold the idea of building a third comprehensive high school, the Task Force met to discuss alternate choices. While a third high school was not entirely removed from the group’s possibilities, the complexity, cost and time-frame necessary for such a plan make it illogical with the Task Force’s schedule and mission, Assistant Superintendent of the Palo Alto Unified School District Scott Laurence said.

“The Planning Team effectively came up with the recom-mendation for the school board, that [building a third high school] doesn’t make sense because it is complicated, expensive and too far ahead to use the resources,” Laurence said at the group’s meet-ing on September 19.

PAUSD superintendent Kevin Skelly agreed with the decision to remove discussions of a third comprehensive high school from the committee’s immediate agenda. However, there is agreement in the need to address the projected increase in student numbers.

“If each school increased by 280 kids, we would need 20 new full-time teachers, five full-time classified support personnel and enough Special Education support for 56 students,” Laurence said.

Another concern is cost. According to High School Task Force reports, it would take an estimated $12,988,182 to increase both Gunn and Paly to each accommodate 2200 students, and $24,142,306 to construct a new facility with capacities for 500 students.

Although growth in the district appears low when looking at individual years, the group recognizes that soon there will be hundreds more students in the district. According to Lapkoff and Bogalet Demographic Research, Inc., total enrollments in the district by 2011 are expected to range from 11,048 to 12,404 students, up from 10,814 in 2006.

“High school is such an exciting time in one’s life,” Skelly said. “We are trying to make it more meaningful.”

The committee will continue brainstorming and report the results of surveys disseminated to students and parents about some of their options at the next meeting on Oct. 3.

—Sarah Stringer Spotlight Editor

The Palo Alto High School Administration recently decided to increase its enforcement of the on campus biking policy.

According to the Paly Handbook, “bike traffic across cam-pus is prohibited from 7:45 A.M. to 3:30 P.M.– bicycles must be walked when on campus and may be ridden once you reach the parking lot.”

The administration revised the wording of this rule prior to the start of school in August.

Instead of simply issuing a verbal warning for breaking this rule, as was the case last year, the administration has announced that it will begin giving more severe punishments for multiple transgressions.

“For the first offense, we just warn the student,” Assistant Prin-cipal Jerry Berkson said. “If it happens again, two or three more times, we’ll write their name down and it becomes defiance.”

Repercussions for repeated offenses of this policy could be as severe as several hours of in-school community service for the student and the violation could appear on the student’s permanent disciplinary record.

Paly’s campus supervisors decided to change the policy because they felt that students biking on campus was becoming a serious issue.

“There are just too many people riding around at high speeds,” Campus Supervisor Scott Reese said. “We have teachers and kids getting run into and students are being knocked off their bikes.”

The administration hopes that by strictly enforcing the no biking rule, accidents will be prevented.

“The bottom line is that it’s a safety issue,” Berkson said. “A lot of students think we’re nuts but it only takes one student getting hurt for it to become a real issue.”

—Peter Lee Editor in Chief

By DeBorah zhang

Business Manager

Actor and Palo Alto High School alumnus James Franco, who played Harry Osborn in the popular Spiderman triol-ogy, visited Paly on Sept. 24 to observe classes.

“It was good for me to come back,” Franco said.

Franco arranged his sched-ule with English teacher Kaye Paugh, who has kept in touch with him since his graduation in 1996.

“I appreciated his gracious-ness, patience and willingness,” Paugh said. “He was very ex-cited to see Paly’s programs.”

Franco visited theatre class-es, English classes and the journalism publications.

“It was great to have an ac-tor speak to us,” junior and Film student Jennifer Jansen said.

Franco was voted “Best Smile” in the ‘96 yearbook and was on The Campanile while he attended Paly.

Franco rose to fame after starring in the televison movie James Dean. He recently re-turned to UCLA after a two-year hiatus to pursue acting. He visited Palo Alto for his creative thesis.

“I’m writing a novel placed in Palo Alto,” Franco said.

He has met with local histo-rians and the Palo Alto police.

“I came back to refamiliar-ize myself with the setting of my novel,” Franco said.

Franco also plans to direct Red Leaves, a movie about a Native Americans and is star-ring in the 2008 film Pineapple Express.

“Overall, visiting Paly was a great experience,” Franco said.

Hannah McGovern/The Campanile

Actor James Franco speaks to students in Kaye Paugh’s Film class. Franco also observed a theater class and met with Verde.

“I feel for the people who were asked to leave, but I feel much more for the people who need help.”

Radu Toma Math Instructional Supervisor

District vetoes third Palo Alto high school option

Student biking on campus to be more strictly controlled

Senate Bill 33Effective July 1, 2008, drivers under 18 may not:-call on cell phones-send text messages-use PDAs-use hands- free devices

newsbriefs

October 1, 2007 • A3 The Campanile NewsASB begins preparations for upcoming Spirit WeekBy Danielle Kim

Editor in Chief

After finishing up the annual Welcome Back Dance, Palo Alto High School’s Student Council has kicked into full gear for this year’s Spirit Week and Homecoming Dance.

“The goal this fall is to have an awesome Spirit Week that increases the happy atmosphere at Paly,” Associated Student Body President Mohammad Abid said. “Hope-fully all the events will run smoothly and everyone will have fun.”

Spirit Week, which will take place during the week of Oct. 29th, traditionally features school activities in which classes compete against each other before uniting the entire school together for the Homecoming football game and dance.

“It’s great to start the year with Spirit Week because it always builds cohesiveness between students,” Junior Class President Erik Klingbeil said.

As always, Spirit Week will include dress-up days, rallies, games and float-building.

However, Student Council has made a few changes to the school tradition.

For example, rather than voting on just a Homecom-ing King and Queen as in past years, classes will decide on an entire Homecoming Court.

“We are trying out new things by expanding our re-sources,” Abid said. “We want to have one or two more days in the big gym to accommodate more people.”

Similar to last year, scores will be posted on the ASB website, asb.paly.net as well as voice.paly.net, and will follow a new rubric recently made part of the ASB Constitution.

“The point system is laid out explicitly to prevent arguments or unfairness,” Klingbeil said. “In terms of actual scoring, however, the only change is that the Spirit Dances are now worth an additional 250 points.”

Though Student Council is currently focused mainly on Spirit Week, they have also begun work on a few other projects.

“We really want to set up a monthly meeting with the new principal, Dr. McEvoy,” Klingbeil said. “We would like to increase understanding between students and Dr. McEvoy by having more meetings and addressing specific issues.”

By Julia Shapiro

Senior Staff Writer

Palo Alto High School’s Advanced Placement Psychology classes have switched from paper textbooks to electronic online books for the current school year.

Also known as e-books, these new additions are the online equivalent of standard textbooks, with features such as online quizzes and flashcards.

The e-book also allows students to take notes on the material.“I was intrigued by the tools available for the students with the e-books,”

AP Psychology teacher Kathie Laurence said. “And they cost about half as much as the hardcover version of the textbook.”

Although AP Psychology e-books are more economically beneficial to the school than regular textbooks, e-books offered in other subjects may not have this advantage.

Most e-books cost less than paper textbooks; however the subscriptions for them do not always last as long as the textbooks do.

“In general, I love the idea of e-books,” Assistant Principal Chuck Merritt said. “However, until there are more publishers offering them, the cost will be in flux because the industry is in flux.”

Senior Anabell Cervantes is one of 135 AP Psychology students using e-books this year.

“I think it’s a good idea because it saves paper, but it’s harder for me to read from a computer screen than an actual book,” Cervantes said. “There are also a lot more distractions when you’re online.”

By yvonne lin

Staff Writer

Palo Alto High School’s Green Team, formed this past year, plans to execute a series of projects around campus to make Paly more environ-mentally friendly and “green.”

“The objective of the Green Team is to implement practices that have minimal environmental impact,” Green Team leader Kenyon Scott said.

The primary goal of the Green Team is to increase recycling on cam-pus. One recycling bin will be put into every classroom to collect used paper, bottles and cans, Scott said.

“Having one collection container for recyclables has been shown to increase the amount that people re-cycle,” Scott said.

The Green Team also plans to minimize Paly’s paper consumption. Initial efforts include the delivery of the daily bulletin to staff members

Although Student Council has met only once with Dr. McEvoy, both plan to develop the relationship.

“I would characterize our relationship with the prin-cipal as a friendly but growing one,” Abid said. “We hope she integrates us into her regular schedule and talks to us about student matters.”

McEvoy is equally eager to discuss policies and other student-related subjects with Student Council.

“We need to work together to make sure we’re on the same page and that the students and I understand each other,” McEvoy said. “I believe student voices should be heard and student leadership is the voice of the students.”

Looking to improve communication with the student body, Student Council will continue to develop the ASB Web site and fix the LCD monitor in the Student Center.

“The computer that fed into the monitor crashed last year,” ASB Tech Communications Officer Jon Shan said. “Paly teacher Scott Friedland is donating one, so we’re hoping that we can set that up soon.”

Student Council also hopes that improved relation-ships with student publications will prevent communica-tion barriers.

“When we have good relations with student publica-tions and students, it’s much easier to communicate ideas that we have,” Klingbeil said.

Student Council said it would like to establish a Paly Link Crew that welcomes each year’s incoming freshmen class, similar to Gunn High School’s Link Crew. However, with Spirit Week fast approaching, Student Council mem-bers plan to develop that idea later in the year.

“After Spirit Week, we can really sit down and think about the rest of the year,” Student Activities Director Alli-son Mullins said. “That’s when we’ll establish committees, begin projects and structure the rest of the year.”

Regardless, the 2007-08 Student Council hopes to have a lasting impact on Paly.

“We’ll definitely come up with something that will be our legacy,” Abid said.

Elizabeth Petit/ The Campanile

Student Council plans activities for the upcoming year, such as Spirit Week, dances, and football games. The newly-elected Student Council’s goals include increased communication with students and continued improvements to the Student Center, including a fixed LCD monitor.

The History and Social Studies Department also has 100 paper copies of the psychology textbook, allowing students to trade in their e-books for regular textbooks.

Senior Melanie Paulson is one of the 25 students who decided not to use the e-book.

“I have dial-up at home, so it’s too hard to connect to the Internet,” Paulson said. “I don’t think I would have liked using the e-book anyways. It’s easier for me to take notes out of the textbook because it’s more portable and reliable.”

Many of the Paly students who decided to use paper textbooks had similar problems to Paulson’s.

“You have to have fairly reliable Internet access and some people find reading from a computer screen uncomfortable,” Laurence said.

One advantage of using e-books is that it helps conserve paper and save the already worsening environment.

“Less paper saves resources and reduces amounts of pollution caused in the process of paper production, textbook production, distribution of text-books and the ultimate disposal and recycling of out of date textbooks,” AP Environmental Science teacher Kenyon Scott said.

Merritt said he took the environmental aspect into account when order-ing the psychology e-books. However, the cost of e-books mainly influenced his decision.

After observing the success of e-books in AP Psychology this year, Mer-ritt may look into ordering e-books for other courses as soon as he sees more cost-friendly opportunities and the industry becomes more stable.

via e-mail, as opposed to copying individual handouts.

“Paper copying is a shockingly large percent of the school budget,” English teacher Kevin Sharp said. “I would say 99 percent of the items could be done paperless.”

In addition, InFocus plans to air segments informing students about the benefits of “going green.”

“By working with the Associ-ated Student Body, we hope to get the word out that ‘Green is good’,” Scott said.

Similarly, students are encour-aged to view and print school assign-ments posted online.

“It is good that we are using less paper,” junior Sasha Targ said. “The budget can instead go to buying other school supplies.”

Sharp, who posts all assignments online, favors the new approach of minimizing paper use.

“Students can print assignments out or just read them online,” Sharp

E-books offers enhanced electronic experience

Paly Green Team cleans up around campus

said. “The system worked fine last year in my classes.”

Paly math teacher Kathy Him-melberger said she would rather hand out physical copies of assignments to her class than to use online ones.

“I am a visual learner,” Him-melberger said. “Having papers in

include Counselor Kerry Smith, Teacher Advisor (T.A.) Program Coordinator Anne Deggelman and College Advisor Alice Erber. New administrators Karla Larson and Ernesto Cruz were hired for the

everything we can to provide students and their parents with insight into the choices they are making and then make sure we are doing everything we can to provide the structures and support necessary for students to achieve their goals. For example, if the college application process is an issue that is causing stress, let’s make sure we have all the support available in place so that the process is clear and straightfor-ward and becomes more “routine” for students.

TC: Do you see any problems at Paly that

McEvoy expresses her concerns about Paly

need to be addressed this academic year?

JM: I wouldn’t call them “problems.” Paly has done a great job at identifying its issues and working on them continuously. One of the major projects for this year is putting together a new strategic plan for Paly for the next six years as a component of the school’s accredita-tion process.

TC: How do your policies reflect your concern for student needs?

JM: I’m strongly student-centered, but that includes balancing the individual needs of students with the needs of the entire student

for truancy.

McEvoy said that the reason for adding the consequence of an “F” on the transcript is simply to make sure that students receive a proportional punishment.

However, the current Palo Alto High School Handbook states the exact same policy as last year’s handbook.

This year’s hand-book also states that “each teacher will establish consequences for tardies that are ap-propriate for his or her class.”

McEvoy supports this aspect of the policy, citing consistancy as important.

“I support any policy teachers have as long as they make sure they establish it and are consistent,” McE-voy said.

Teachers will now receive a list of all the students who had cut their class at the end of each day as a confirmation.

“The consequences mirror those of college and real life,” McEvoy said. “Part of [the consequence] is also to make sure that students are not getting out of class not by default, but by the proper way.”

It has yet to be determined whether the administration will be ca-

pable of strictly enforcing the attendance pol-icy, or whether it will really prove as an ef-fective mea-sure in dealing with student truancy.

However there seems to be a general outcry from the students, while teachers seem to be in agree-ment with the administrations attempt to crack down.

“It’s Paly policy.” Launer said. “And frankly the administration should do its job.”

body. I also believe that we need to address the social and behavioral education of students as well as their academic education.

TC: How will you be meeting with student groups?

JM: I would like to meet with the Student Council on a regular basis and I’m trying to set that up now. Site Council also serves as an important advisory group to the principal and includes students. The student publications on the Paly campus are incredible and serve as one of the student voices so I hope to be hold-ing press conferences regularly.

Staff enforces a harsher attendance policy

my hand to write on helps me and my students learn.”

Other goals of the Green Team include reducing the amount of trash Paly generates, as well as conducting an energy audit to determine how Paly can more efficiently and economically use energy.

Allie Bollella/The CampanilePaly Green Team promotes recycling and electronic assignments by requesting teachers to use electronic assignments rather than paper.

Attendance and Campus Security Departments, respectively. Administrators hope that the increase in staff will help serve students better by offering more information.

Seventeen other teachers, including four Eng-lish teachers and five Special Education teachers,

ATTENDANCE, Continued from A1

MCEVOY, Continued from A1

“I support any policy school teachers have as long as they make sure

they establish it and are consistent.”

Jacqueline McEvoyPrincipal

New administration assists lacking departmentshave been hired throughout the school depart-ments due to increased enrollment, according to McEvoy.

“This staff is passionate about what they do,” McEvoy said. “My interactions [with them] have been extremely positive.”

ADMINISTRATION, Continued from A1

The Campanile

The Campanile is published by and for the students of Palo Alto High School. Unsigned editorials that appear in this publication represent both the majority opinion of the editorial staff and The Campanile’s continuing commitment to the promotion of students’ rights. The Campanile welcomes and prints signed letters to the editors on a space-available basis. Letters may be edited to meet space requirements.

Opinion The Campanile

A4 October 1, 2007

EditorialsLetters to the editorE-mail all letters to the editor totheeds08@googlegroups.com

Editors in ChiefTyler Blake • Danielle Kim • Peter Lee

Ryan Pfleiderer • Mia Pond • Tomer Schwartz

News EditorRebecca Allen

Lifestyles EditorKairen Wong

Opinion EditorChris Clayton

Photo ManagerHannah McGovern

Features EditorsHenry BeckerAmy Stringer

A & E EditorsSara ReihaniAustin Smith

Sports EditorsAlexi DaganSam Jones

Staff Writers

PhotographersMika Ben-Shaul • Julia Benton • Allie Bollella • Michela Fossati-Bellani

Stacy Levichev • Elizabeth Petit • Morgan Pichinson

Business ManagersGeng Wang • Deborah Zhang

Advertising ManagerErik Krasner-Karpen

AdviserEsther Wojcicki

The opinion of The Campanile

Spotlight EditorSarah Stringer

Please note: The Campanile only publishes signed letters to the editor. Please sign all comments addressed

to The Campanile.

Although Palo Alto High School’s new principal, Dr. Jacqueline McEvoy, has already implemented numerous policy changes during the first five weeks of the school year, she has failed to create dialogue between the school administrators and the student body.

The Campanile believes that McEvoy should immediately establish lines of communication with as many Paly students as possible.

While she has dropped in and out of a few classes, actual conversations between students and herself only took place in the advanced and beginning journalism classes.

The majority of Paly students have yet to put a name with a face and many Paly students do not even know the name of the new principal.

Although an honorable effort, McEvoy’s interview with InFocus, which aired on Sept. 24, was not seen by many students either because of technical difficulties or because students did not have a fourth-period class.

While The Campanile does not blame McEvoy for this particular incident, McEvoy needs to connect with as many Paly students as she can for numerous reasons.

First, creating lines of communi-cation with more students will help her quickly adjust to Paly’s culture.

McEvoy previously served as principal of San Mateo High School, a school vastly different from Paly in numerous aspects ranging from its ethnic breakdown to its athletics to its academic culture.

Certain policies or administrative techniques that worked well in San Mateo may not work as well here in Palo Alto.

While McEvoy asserts that the Paly faculty and student body may simply need to adjust to her admin-istrative style, she needs to attempt to adapt as well and meet the students halfway.

McEvoy needs to learn how Paly students think, and the only way to do that is to communicate with as many of them as possible on a personal level.

Furthermore, creating dialogue with students will help McEvoy create administrative policies that coincide with students’ needs, concerns and desires.

So far, the new administration has received a largely negative response from students, and even from some teachers, regarding its recent slew of policy changes.

By better communicating with students and staff, McEvoy can perhaps avoid forcing upon students a plethora of new rules and policies

that they deem excessive, useless and unfair.

Despite the fact that Student Council represents the voice of the rest of the student body, McEvoy did not meet with the organization until the eighth day of the school year, far too late.

This meeting came long after the administration revised or revisited its dance, attendance and other such policies.

If McEvoy had consulted the stu-dent body, or even its representatives in Student Council, before finalizing her changes to such rules, perhaps such altered policies could have been better tailored to fit the needs of students’ and therefore garnered a more positive reception when they were introduced.

Creating rules that both students and administrators can agree upon is obviously advantageous for all members of the Paly community, and would facilitate the administration’s attempts to enforce those mutually agreeable rules.

By speaking with as many stu-dents as possible, McEvoy will be able to make well-informed, beneficial policy decisions.

The Campanile believes this in-creased communication will ease the new principal’s transition to Paly.

McEvoy needs more interaction with students

Paly students express mixed feelings about dance policy

We would like to express our staunch support of the re-cently unveiled dance policy. This new school legislation is necessary to ensure that the safety and purity of all students is maintained. The pre-dance misdemeanors that students engage in are inappropriate, not to mention unlawful. Thus, the prohibition of freaking and drinking is well-advised.

–– Sophomores Sophie Bifrar,Malaika Drebin,

Gracie Dulik

We are interested in the new dance policies. We feel that they are unwanted and unneeded. By adding these new policies, we think fewer people will go and it will be less fun. We would like to hear how other people feel about the policies. Also, we would like to know why the new rules are being enforced and how they plan on stopping freaking since almost everyone freaks at the dances.

–– Sophomores Scott Witte,Ashkaan Khatakotan,

Wyatt Shaw

We would like to express a few comments and con-cerns regarding the new dance policy. People are going to do what they want before the dance, so do not spend our school money on pointless policies. We feel as though our first-amendment rights are violated when the administration takes away our freedom of expression through dancing.

–– Sophomores Maeve Stewart, Emily Fowler,

Hana Kajimura

McEvoy should engage in more personal contactwith students to understand thoughts on new policies

The Campanile believes that the new Palo Alto High School admin-istration created, implemented and enforced its stricter dance policy in an inappropriate manner.

The administration failed to communicate with the Paly student body during the drafting phase of the new rules.

Students were never asked about their opinions of what constitutes “inappropriate dancing” at school dances.

Ironically, this lack of student input during the creation phase of the new policy resulted in the failure of the administration to address the com-mon student belief that “face-to-face” dancing is oftentimes much more sexually explicit than traditional, “front-to-back” freaking.

Since the dances are put on for students, the administration may see a dramatic decrease in dance attendance if the students’ desires are not met, or at least addressed.

Furthermore, the lack of dialogue between the administration and the student body regarding the new dance policy once it was created resulted in most students being surprised at the Welcome Back Dance, the first dance of the year, when they were informed that they “can’t dance like that anymore.”

Few, if any, students knew of the new policy prior the dance. Even Student Council, whose responsibili-ties include hosting school dances, remained unaware of the alteration in policy.

Moreover, the administrator’s enforcement of the new policy at the dance was, at best, inappropriate.

Administrators referred to stu-dents with derogatory terms and more than one set of dance partners were told that if they wanted “to have sex,” they should “do it somewhere else.”

Such offensive language puts the new administration on shaky footing with the student population and is certainly not conducive to the “safe environment” that the administration is attempting to provide for the dances with this new policy.

While parents and teachers may feel uncomfortable about chaperon-ing at a dance in which students are dancing explicitly, Paly students certainly feel uncomfortable when they are spoken to in such a demean-ing manner.

Many students said they might have been more receptive to the new policy if they been aware of it beforehand, or if the new policy had been enforced in a more courteous, respectful manner.

Lastly, while The Campanile agrees that school dances should be held in an alcohol-free environment, the administration has gone too far by considering the purchase of breathalyzers.

In the past, law enforcement officials have always been present at school dances, and the job of prevent-ing underage drinking should remain in their hands.

The Palo Alto Police Department already equips police officers with breathalyzers, so the school should not waste thousands of dollars that could be better spent on other student needs such as textbooks or other classroom materials.

While The Campanile commends the administration for its efforts to make the school dances a more friendly environment, the administra-tion needs to consult the student body before it makes such drastic policy changes and to inform students of such changes in an appropriate fashion once they are implemented.

Lastly, in order to clean up the mess that they created with the first dance, The Campanile believes that McEvoy and the new administration should issue a public apology to the student body for anything offensive that they may have said while trying to enforce the new policy.

Enforcement of dance policy inappropriate

Offensive comments by chaperones expose problems in execution of administration’s new dance policy

Design EditorErik Krasner-Karpen

Nanor BalabanianCatherine BensonYelly BittonBecca BylerHannah BystritskyAlan ChenAuster ChenAlan ChuAllison ColemanZal Dordi

Rye DruzinChristian GallagherAlex GreeneChris GonnermanGabrielle HadleyMichael HamadaZach HarrisKevin HarveyDJ HsuehMikaela Kenrick

Laura KurtzYvonne LinJillian LiuJosh LoRyan McLeodMira ParekhJonathan ShanJulia ShapiroKelley ShinPauline Slakey

Annie VoughtAnna WaldronCrystal WangCassie WedemeyerAllison WhitsonElliot WilsonNolan WongLindsay YangGloria YuKelly Zhou

We have been taking a language at Paly for two years now, and we still feel as though we could not apply it properly. We do not believe we would be able to survive in France after “learning” French here.

We believe there is a fundamental problem with the method by which French is taught. The school attempts to use a combination of immersive and logical methods, and it fails at both. We and our fellow students recom-mend a more immersive program. The teachers may be competent, but without a well-designed, immersive curriculum, they cannot teach properly. Students taking languages in college will be ill-prepared.

We call upon the administration and the World Lan-guages Department here at Paly to work together with students and completely revise the program.

–– Sophomores Jordan Brown,Alex Heurta

Language classes fail to adequately prepare students

As strong supporters of Paly athletics, we feel it is unfair that students are required to pay to attend football games. Although we understand that the football team requires significant funding, we feel it is unfair that, as students, we have to pay to support our classmates. Therefore, we propose that ASB cardholders should be admitted to football games for free.

–– Sophomores Cassie Prioleau,Oana Enache

Students should receive free admission to football games

Students offer greetings to Paly’s new principal

I would just like to take a moment to welcome Ms. McEvoy to our school. She already seems to be a more personal principal. I was very impressed with how she came into our fourth-period classroom to

introduce herself. The interview she gave on InFocus also was fascinating. I really look forward to getting to know her, and I hope she will feel welcome at Paly

–– Sophomore Zareen Ahmad

Opinion The Campanile

Recently, the Republican Party in California introduced a ballot ini-tiative to be voted on by the general population, with the intention of di-viding up California’s electoral votes by congressional districts, granting only two votes to the winner of the state-wide popular vote. Currently, California grants all 55 electoral votes to the winner of the California popular vote.

While the professed idea behind this initiative –– the virtual negation of the Electoral College, as it concerns California –– would benefit the na-tion, this is not the true intention of the GOP.

The actual motives of the GOP in creating this initiative are far less beneficial to the nation. To the contrary, it benefits solely the GOP. Moreover, the initiative is blatantly unconstitutional.

Many people will be inclined to vote for this initiative due to its nega-tion of the Electoral College; however, such cannot be the true purpose of the GOP for several reasons.

If the GOP truly cared about “dis-banding” the Electoral College, then they would have introduced initiatives similar to this one in Republican-dominated states such as Texas and Tennessee. However, Republicans in those respective state legislatures have never proposed initiatives such as the one proposed in California.

If the GOP actually wished to ne-gate the current effects of the Electoral College on the presidential election, the GOP would have used its congres-

sional majority, in addition to the presence of a Republican president, to pass legislation to that effect. Al-ternatively, the GOP could have even tried to remove the Electoral College completely by means of a constitu-tional amendment. This would provide the same benefits as this initiative –– presidential election via popular vote, rather than via electoral votes –– without the inherent consequences of California’s initiative, which af-fects just one state. Once again, no such attempts have been made, nor even suggested, by Republicans in Congress.

Lastly, Re-publicans just coincidentally chose Califor-nia, the most populated state in the US, and consequently, that with the most electoral votes, all of which currently belong to Democrats, to first launch their initiative.

Furthermore, they coincidentally chose one of the few states which holds popular referendums, in which the state legislature can be bypassed in creating laws. Thus, Republicans have the opportunity to beguile the people of California into voting for an unfair initiative through ambigu-ous initiative names and through the profession of false motives for the Republicans own gain.

This initiative must be discredited as little more than a political ploy, aimed at securing approximately 20 electoral votes for the GOP during the next Presidential election, judging

from California’s political trend of close to half the state supporting the Republican Party.

If passed, the GOP will enjoy a severe political advantage during the next presidential election, as they will receive an amount of electoral votes roughly equivalent to those of Ohio, the swing-state that determined the 2004 presidential election, thereby granting President George W. Bush his reelection.

More importantly, this initiative is strictly and blatantly unconstitutional.

Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitu-tion clearly states that “each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may di-rect, a number

of electors.” Thus, this popular refer-endum, with the intention of allowing the general populace to determine the nature of the electors’ appointments to the Electoral College, is strictly unconstitutional, as it oversteps the explicit powers granted to the state legislature under the Constitution.

Thus, even if this initiative was to pass, it would be immediately struck down by the first judicial court that reviewed it, as the courts’ solemn, unchanging duty consists of denying such unconstitutional measures, as established by Marbury v. Madison over 200 years ago.

Such an initiative as this one, with the intention of negating the influence of the Electoral College on the presidential election, would

By Chris Clayton

Opinion Editor

benefit the country, but only if cre-ated under different circumstances, when all of the states would have the chance to put the Electoral College out of commission. The Republicans have chosen an inappropriate manner by which to put forward this idea, but this negligence does not invalidate the fact that the Electoral College is an outdated, useless organization that must be changed.

The framers of the Constitution established the Electoral College for fear of granting the people, who at that time were often uneducated and uninformed about the issues of the time, the power to directly govern. In turn, they feared that by granting the people direct power to elect officials, they would again lead to electing incompetent officials, and thus the framers established the Electoral College. They believed that having educated representatives of the general populace make informed decisions regarding the leaders of the nation, whose responsibilities include its governance.

While the Electoral College per-haps benefited the nation at the time, when communication between the elected representatives and the general populace took days, if not weeks, to complete, the Electoral College serves no such purpose today. Now, one needs to simply read a newspaper or access the Internet to discover the outcome of a vote or what the politicians in Washington are doing.

In an age of public education and the Internet, one simply cannot assert that the majority of the population can not obtain information regarding current events. If they choose not to

Republicans attempt to grab votesNew ballot initiative would split California’s votes by districts, violate Constitution

Teacher advisor system presents glaring flaws

Last year, Palo Alto High School teacher Mike McNulty’s advisory classes were left in a precarious state when he left for several months. The administration, unprepared for the crisis, scrambled to provide the advisees with advice for their future college admissions.

Among those who had to assist in such instruction were former Vice Principal Katya Villalobos and registrar Suzie Brown. Dur-ing the fourth quarter the advisory classes were handed over to Natalie Simison, a math teacher. This was her first time working as a teacher advisor (T.A.). Simison tried her best to adapt to her new position, although she was unfamiliar with her advisees and the advisory system.

The staff attempted to address the difficult situation, and therefore deserves the students’ gratitude.

However, this situation exposed an inher-ent weakness in the current advisory system. Teacher advisors must be able to assist students in navigating through the quagmire of the college admissions process.

T.A.s need to remain constant through-out the last three years of high school. By one’s senior year, one’s T.A. should know

a student well enough to write an accurate, informative, and most of all, helpful letter of recommendation.

In fact, T.A.s receive a free period during which they can write letters of recommenda-tion and strategize with advisees about the college admissions process.

If T.A.s change, the students experience a major disadvantage in the college admis-sions process.

The new T.A. may not know as much about each student as his or her previous T.A. did. This change can also give teachers who already have substantial work loads yet another

task, which can lead to tremendous stress both for the teacher and the students.

The administration needs to be able to ensure that the teachers who are becoming T.A.s have the time and skill for the job. They also need to be sure that there is a plan in place if a T.A. leaves for any reason, whether it be because they are changing schools, are sick or are taking a leave of pregnancy.

When Ms. Simison assumed the re-sponsibilities of Mr. McNulty’s advisory classes, the administration tried its best to fill the void. That type of situation had never occurred before.

However, because advisors are so impor-tant for college-bound juniors and seniors, the administration should have shown more care and cohesiveness. Instead, it showed a lack of preparation and disorganization.

Though the administration tried to fix the resultant problems, the new T.A. had insuf-ficient time to form a personal relationship with each student.

This relationship is a crucial component of the T.A.s’ ability to appropriately advise concerning the college admissions process and providing accurate letters of recom-mendation.

The staff of the guidance office deserve the students’ gratitude for their valiant effort,

but students were neglected by the process. The new administration will hopefully learn from the experience and establish a comprehensive plan in preparation for a future situation simi-lar, but not limited to, this one.

There are many outstanding teacher advisors, and they deserve much praise for their contributions. They provide accurate and meaningful letters of recommendation, and help guide many students through the complicated college admissions process. The system has been effective for a long time, but there are some important issues that need to be addressed in order to make the system more effective and efficient.

Teacher advisors should be allowed to volunteer for the position, rather than be as-signed the job at random. This would assure that teachers who are highly motivated to assume this position will do so. Teacher advi-sors should be coached extensively on how to handle their advisees, the college application process and letters of recommendation when they first receive the job. They should also be kept up to date with the constantly changing system of college applications.

The administration is obligated to assure that the teacher advisory system is well pre-pared and staffed to fulfill this crucial function for the students at Palo Alto High School.

Teacher advisor Kaye Paugh shows materials handed out to advisees explaining examinations such as the SAT I and II and possible post high school college plans.

Mika Ben-Shaul/The Campanile

Verbatim:

“Addicted to Face-book Club.”

“Unblock MySpace Club.”

“Sexy Club.” “Xbox Club.”

—Ariel Wagner,senior

—Ricky Minno,freshman

—Cory Valenti,freshman

If you could start a club at Paly, what would it be?

—Felipe Winsberg,senior

“I wish I could fly Club.”

—Zara Howard,junior

October 1, 2007 • A5

George W. Bush (36)

John Kerry (22)

A new initiative would split California’s 55 electoral votes among the two political parties, rather than having the winner take all.

Guidance office, administration ill-equipped for teacher advisors’ unexpected leave

Republicans have the opportunity to beguile the people of California into voting for an unfair initia-tive through ambiguous initiative names and through the profession of false motives.

stay informed, this is no fault of the system, but of those ignorant persons who will not take advantage of wide-spread information.

Therefore, such an initiative, if executed on a national scale, would be extremely beneficial for the United States.

However, this Republican initia-tive, created with the intention of ef-fectively stealing votes from the next presidential candidate for the Demo-cratic Party, must not be passed.

It is neither created with logical rationale nor through constitutional means.

California in the2004 Presidential Election

By rye Druzin

Senior Staff Writer

A6 • October 1, 2007

If there is one thing new social studies teacher Arlene Camm likes to do most, it is learning new things.

“I really love to learn,” Camm said. “If you take me to a museum you better leave me alone for a while because I’ll be reading everything and looking at every picture.”

Even the subjects that Camm teaches, A.P. Psychol-ogy and U.S. History, reflect her love of learning and understanding about the human behavior.

“Psychology is the core of understanding people,” Camm said. “It motivates people to work together and better understand each other.”

After graduating from high school in Virginia, Camm earned her degree in Economics and Political Science from Stanford University. She later returned to Stanford to complete her graduate degree in Economics.

Before coming to Paly, she worked with a professor in a research lab at Stanford. After working as a change agent for seven years, she moved to Apple Computers.

Camm is also a mother of four, and has spent hours working as a volunteer at her children’s schools, organizing events with PTA board members and working at her local church as the Sunday School Superintendent.

She is excited to be at Paly this year and cannot wait to learn new things from her students.

“I can really learn to be a good teacher here at Paly,” Camm said. “It is an excellent learning environment.”

—Nanor BalabanianStaff Writer

Several years after graduating from Gunn High School, Marta Covarrubias has returned to Palo Alto, this time as a Spanish teacher at both Palo Alto High School and Jordan Middle School.

“I love teaching because it is a truly noble profession in which your sole purpose is to help young adults grow both academically and as individuals,” Covarrubias said.

Before coming to Paly, Covarrubias worked in Washington D.C. for The Self Reliance Foundation, a non-profit organization. She worked on national phone hotline, receiving calls from non-English speakers living in the United States.

“I loved my work and the feeling I got from helping people in need,” said Covarrubias. “But I really missed the human contact, and got sick of talking on the phone for eight hours a day.”

Covarrubias changed her career, and decided to become a teacher.

She is currently teaching three Spanish 2 classes at Paly, as well as teaching Spanish 1A at Jordan.

When Covarrubias is not teaching, she dances.A Palo Alto native, Covarrubias went to Juana Briones,

JLS and Gunn, from which she graduated in 1999.“I loved growing up in Palo Alto and it is such an

honor to be back in my community,” Covarrubias said.—Allison Whitson

Staff Writer

Despite being new to teaching, intern Shawn Leon-ard has discovered that he fits right in at Palo Alto High School. He is currently teaching Introduction to Chemistry and Physics.

Leonard graduated from Paly in 1979. So far he has greatly enjoyed being a teacher and finds gratification in helping and guiding students.

“My whole goal is to prepare students to become good citizens and productive adults,” Leonard said.

Although he loves teaching so far, he finds certain aspects challenging.

“The biggest difficulties I face as a teacher are time management, knowing when to transition during a lecture and transitioning smoothly,” Leonard said.

While he encourages students to always put in their best effort, Leonard understands that sometimes they don’t perform to the best of their ability.

“I remember that I was not perfect as a student and therefore I do not expect perfection from my students either.” Leonard said.

The new science teacher is very family-oriented and spends most of his free time with his wife and three chil-dren. He is excited for the year’s progression and hopes the students will find it to be not only educational but entertaining as well.

“I think of myself as fun-loving,” Leonard said. “I love to have fun especially in the classroom.”

—Pauline SlakeyStaff Writer

Among the new arrivals to Palo Alto High School is Special Education teacher Lily Donchik, who teaches a variety of subjects, including Math and English, to students with developmental disabilities.

After graduating from the University of California at Santa Cruz, Donchik began teaching at schools in Oakland and San Francisco.

“I feel it is very important for students to have access to a good quality of life,” Donchik said. “All of my students are so smart and funny. They simply need some support to be viewed as valuable members of the school. It was not

For Heather Johanson, Special Education is about watching her students grow, mature and succeed.

“What I love most about my job is the kids,” Johan-son said.

A veteran teacher, boasting 10 years of experience, Johanson uses a structured approach to help students in the special education program at Palo Alto High School.

“My teaching style involves a lot of organization because it helps the students break down and understand their assignments,” Johanson said.

Outside her teaching career, Johanson pursues her love for art. Johanson concentrates mainly on sketches and oil paintings. Although it is hard, Johanson tries to incorporate art into her teaching, and uses her artistic abilities to help students learn.

Johanson has only been a special education resource specialist for three years, but she has already constructed a specific approach to advocate support for her students throughout their high school careers.

“I really focus on getting in touch with my students’ various teachers,” Johanson said. “I can better help the students that way.”

Johanson’s interest in teaching was sparked while she was volunteering in an after school program for students when she was a senior in college.

“I was a little bit late in deciding a profession,” Johanson said. “However, when I began working at this program it just clicked.”

—Kevin HarveyStaff Writer

Posters of Green Day, the Ramones, inspirational quotes and Bill Gates’ 11 Rules to Life are some of the items that cover Kirk Hinton’s classroom, but there is more than meets the eye to this new English teacher.

Now in his fifth year teaching, Hinton, a former Navy Seal, previously taught at Half Moon Bay High School and in France for a year. In France, Hinton taught conversational English to French students, where he taught them about English and American culture and helped them improve their English speaking skills.

Currently working on a master’s degree, Hinton has little time between teaching and studying, but when he has the time, he enjoys cooking and traveling, and is also an avid paintballer.

Hinton said that he looks forward to teaching at Paly because the students are motivated and want to learn.

Jake Halas, a recent addition to the Palo Alto High School Special Education Department, is contributing his experience and knowledge in both the classroom and on the field.

Halas first became interested in teaching toward the end of his college career.

“My mom was a teacher,” Halas said. “She was probably my biggest influence in my decision to become one.”

After college, Halas’ plan was to become a physical education teacher. However, he began teaching special education courses instead.

“At the first high school I applied to, and eventually taught at, they were short special education teachers and asked me to do it,” Halas said. “I loved it so much I just decided to stick with it.”

Halas began his teaching career in Manhattan Beach at Miracoasta High School.

Halas is currently an assistant football coach at Paly.

“I am really happy about being able to both teach and coach here,” Halas said. “I’ll probably be able to coach football and baseball.”

During his teaching career, Halas has created a set of philosophies that he uses in the classroom everyday.

“To teach special education you just have to be realistic with the kids,” Halas said.

Halas tries to model his conduct for his students to teach them good behavioral skills.

“My main goal is to teach them skills to help them get through everyday life,” Halas said.

Halas said that his greatest passion is teaching, and what he loves most about it is watching his students grow and succeed throughout their high school careers.

—Kevin HarveyStaff Writer

Arlene Camm

Marta Covarrubias

Lily Donchik

Jake Halas

Kirk Hinton

Heather Johanson

Shawn Leonard

Julia Benton/The Campanile

Arlene Camm

Mika Ben-Shaul/The Campanile

Shawn LeonardHannah McGovern/The Campanile

Heather Johanson

Mika Ben-Shaul/The Campanile

Marta Covarrubias

until college that I realized how important teaching is and how it can impact social justices in an indirect way.”

Donchik also believes that there is more to her students than society recognizes.

“People have these preconceived ideas and attitudes towards what they think my students are like,” Donchik said. “But in reality their biases are so ridiculous because my students have so many different skills and are a lot of fun too.”

When she is not busy teaching, Donchik enjoys spending time with friends and hiking. Some of her favorite television shows are “CSI,” “Entourage” and “The Wire”.

—Pauline SlakeyStaff Writer

Hinton also thinks that it is important for students to learn to think critically and to be able to express their ideas clearly, which is what he hopes to teach his students. However, he does not expect to be the only one teaching in the classroom; he hopes that he will learn from his students as well.

—Elizabeth PetitStaff Writer

Stacy Levichev/The Campanile

Jake Halas

Lily DonchikAllie Bollella/The Campanile

Allie Bollella/The Campanile

Kirk Hinton

Spotlight The Campanile

October 1, 2007 • A7

Katherine Woods, who is teaching Theater 1, 2, 3/4 and Stage Tech, is a new addition to the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Palo Alto High School.

A former actress herself, she loves to work with young actors.

“I love seeing students experience theater,” Woods said. “It is such a positive experience, and the students are so energetic.”

Before coming to Paly, Woods taught theater at vari-ous colleges and high schools, including Cañada College and Saratoga High School. She earned her Master of Fine Arts in performance from San Jose State University, after she completed her undergraduate work at Agnes Scott College, a small women’s liberal arts school located near Atlanta, Georgia.

“I wanted to be an actress,” Woods said, “but fell into teaching by accident.”

When she is not working, Woods likes to spend time with her husband and two children, ages 16 and 20. Her family enjoys going hiking, going to the beach and reading. Woods also likes to travel and go to the theater.

Woods is currently in the process of directing Can’t Take It With You, Paly’s fall production.

“I love Paly,” Woods said. “I am very impressed with the theater students and also very excited for the shows.”

—Allison WhitsonStaff Writer

Lisa Kim joined the Math Department this year and is currently teaching Algebra 1, Geometry and Trigonometry/Analytical Geometry A.

Kim was born in South Korea and moved to the United States when she was 11 years old. She continued her education in the United States and eventually gradu-ated from the University of California at Davis.

“Learning the English language was very difficult,” Kim said. “I despised reading and writing. So when I set out to find a major, I turned to math.”

Kim previously taught at Babola High School in San Francisco for seven years. She came to Paly because of its great reputation and good academics.

“Students are much more academically motivated at Paly,” Kim said. “I do not have to remind them why they should be studying. Here that has already been done.”

Even though she loves her current career, Kim did not decide to become a teacher until after graduating from college.

“After I graduated from college, I realized I wanted to give back to the church,” Kim said. “I taught Bible studies at a mission and decided that teaching was my calling.”

Although it has taken her a bit of time and work to adjust, she now feels at ease with Paly’s environment.

“I was a little worried at first, but after three weeks I am very comfortable,” Kim said. “I am very attached to my students.”

—Pauline SlakeyStaff Writer

Rachel Kellerman is now the new Palo Alto High School Librarian after Veronica Breuer, Paly’s librarian for 25 years, retired.

“I love helping students with their reading and research needs and working with teachers to help students complete their assignments,” Kellerman said.

After earning her degree in Psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles, she went on to finish her graduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley and received a degree in Education. After which, she received a masters degree in Library Science from San Jose State University. Before coming to Paly, Kellerman worked as the librarian at Addison Elementary School.

However, there is more to a librarian’s life than check-ing out books and asking students to keep quiet. Her true passion is her love of reading, which she hopes to pass on to her students.

“I wish students had more time to read for pleasure,” Kellerman said. “The Paly library is here for students, and everyone should feel that there is something for them here.”

As a mother of two Paly graduates, she knows what it’s like to be a student at Paly. From research papers to last minute homework assignments, Kellerman loves the challenge of helping students.

Kellerman has also created the new library web site which contains useful information for students and staff.

“Ms. Breuer really cared about students and their needs,” Kellerman said. “I hope to continue with that student-centered approach and move the library along as technology and students’ needs change.”

—Nanor BalabanianStaff Writer

Ambika Nangia has her hands full as a full-time math teacher and mother of a one-year-old daughter, but she is succeeding in bringing intelligence and experience to the Palo Alto High School Math Department.

Nangia was born in Los Gatos and raised in the Bay Area. She earned a degree in Physiological Science at the University of California at Los Angeles. She later got her graduate degree in Education from UCLA and went on to teach math in Los Angeles for three years.

“I love the math department here,” Nangia said. “I like their technique of collaboration and how they really work together.”

Not only does Nangia appreciate the new school and its system, but also she supports all the Viking teams with great enthusiasm.

“I love watching students play,” Nangia said.Nangia has various hobbies she pursues, including

making scrapbooks, doing yoga, hiking and camping. When she is not with her daughter, she is working on

correcting tests and preparing lesson plans for her Algebra 1, Algebra1A and Geometry/Algebra 2 classes.

Nangia said she is very impressed by the warmth of her students and the friendly welcome that she has received by the staff.

“It’s been really great being here,” Nangia said. “The students are really friendly. It’s a positive place to be.”

—Nanor BalabanianStaff Writer

Christopher Proctor, a new addition to the Palo Alto High School English department, has always incorporated teaching into his life.

“I think I have always been a teacher in some sort of way,” Proctor said. “I have three younger brothers.”

Proctor attended Stanford University and majored in computer science before switching to English.

“I realized that I didn’t want to spend my entire career sitting in front of a computer,” Proctor said. “I wanted to be around people.”

Proctor is currently teaching both Exploratory Think-ing I and Critical Thinking II and is looking forward to teaching his English classes with more technology.

Carina Stranos, previously the head visual arts teacher at the Marin School of the Arts, is now teaching yearbook and two sections of Art Spectrum at Palo Alto High School.

Stranos earned a B.A. in art and followed up her col-lege education with time in the Peace Corps. She lived in a small village in Cameroon, Africa, where she taught English and HIV education at a nearby school.

“I wanted to expand my world view and learn about the reality of daily life for the majority of the people on our planet,” Stranos said. “It is so vastly different than our life in America.”

It was during this experience that Stranos became interested in teaching. Stranos also wanted to contribute to the world in a meaningful way and “felt that teaching in a high need area of the world was a wonderful way to do so.”

After the Peace Corps, Stranos took a year off to around the world.

“I traveled through places like West Africa, India, Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia,” Stra-nos said.

Stranos happened to be in Cote D’Ivoire during a coup d’etat and also survived malaria, which she contracted while she was in Africa.

Outside of work, Stranos is also an artist and enjoys making encaustic paintings in her free time.

—Allison WhitsonStaff Writer

Theresa McDermott, Palo Alto High School’s new Foods teacher, didn’t always teach cooking. McDermott formerly taught sixth grade English at Terman and Jordan Middle Schools.

However, her several years of experience in the restaurant industry display her passion for cooking that existed long before her teaching career took off.

Rachel Kellerman

Lisa Kim

Theresa McDermott

Ambika Nangia

Christopher Proctor

Carina Stranos

Kathleen Woods

Mika Ben-Shaul/The Campanile

Carina StranosElizabeth Petit/The Campanile

Lisa Kim

Julia Benton/The Campanile

Ambika Nangia

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanile

Rachel Kellerman

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanile

Kathleen Woods

McDermott feels that the cooking skills taught in her Foods class are basic skills that every student needs to have.

“Not everyone will continue on in a subject like so-cial studies, but you’re going to have to eat every day,” McDermott said. “Cooking is something exciting that you will do for the rest of your life.”

While Paly has gone through several different Foods teachers in recent years, McDermott plans on staying at Paly for a while. In the coming years, she hopes to expand the Career/Vocational Education Department at Paly to include other home economics oriented classes such as interior design, textiles and gardening.

In addition to teaching three sections of Foods, Mc-Dermott also has two sections of Critical Thinking II.

Outside of teaching, McDermott enjoys spending time with her two children and gardening at home.

—Peter LeeEditor in Chief

Proctor is planning on incorporating real world sce-narios to the school curriculum by teaching his students how English skills are used in media today.

His first goal will be to show his students how to create wikis and web pages.

One of the main aspects of teaching that Proctor enjoys is seeing the progress of his students.

“I measure my success as a teacher by the success of my students,” Proctor said.

—Julia BentonStaff Writer

Christopher ProctorStacy Levichev/The Campanile

Spotlight The Campanile

OpinionA8 • October 1, 2007 The Campanile

Poetry analysis teaches useful skills

Congress must replace No Child Left Behind

Mika Ben-Shaul/The Campanile

An Advanced Placement English Literature student attempts to annotate a poem for the class. Students are expected to annotate poems thoroughly with little knowledge of poetry and limited instruction.

By Mia Pond

Editor In Chief

The only five classes that spe-cifically state poetry as a part of their curriculum are American Literature 11, Women Writers, Literature of Sport, Advanced Placement English and American Writers of Color, ac-cording to the Palo Alto High School course catalogue.

The Paly English Department does not offer an English elective solely dedicated to the study of poetry, a class that other local high schools have.

The English Department must strengthen and emphasize the depart-ment’s teaching of poetry.

This addition to the curriculum would further develop students’ literary analysis skills and improve students’ overall reading compre-hension.

Teachers expect students enrolled in freshmen and sophomore English courses, like Critical Thinking I, to “demonstrate their writing, vocabu-lary and language skills (sentence structure, paragraphing and punc-tuation) largely in the context of literature,” according to the course catalogue.

By incorporating poetry into the classroom environment, students would better understand and identify essential literary terms and devices. Reading and analyzing poetry allows students to observe the impact of dic-tion, tone, imagery, meter and syntax,

all of which influence every form of literature.

Specific poems would highlight key information of a specified focused area.

For example, a study of works by Puritan poets John Newton and William Cowper in American Classics would further explain and develop students’ understanding of Puritan-ism, The Scarlet Letter and other characteristics of that era.

In addition, poems can quickly demonstrate the effect of literary devices, relative to the length of the short stories and novels read in class. Poetry lyri-cally illustrates the themes and motifs of each story, and pro-vides an alterna-tive vehicle for understanding and appreciating the mechanics of literature.

Moreover, teaching and empha-sizing poetry in all English classes would better prepare students for college-preparatory classes and exams.

Both the SAT II Literature and Standard Testing and Reporting (STAR) tests include a variety of questions on poems, for which they test students’ ability to identify key themes, motifs, symbols and literary devices.

Students cannot be expected to excel in the poetry portions of these tests as the subject content is ignored in the majority of English classes.

If students were more familiar with poetry analysis, their success in college-preparatory exams and classes would undoubtedly increase substantially.

Students familiar with poetry would find the SAT II Literature test more approachable and academic performance in AP English and World Classics 11H would increase.

The government funds schools based on STAR test preformance. Thus, the English Depart-ment must teach and explain the funda-mentals of poetry to ensure continued state funding. This addition would not only benefit the overall education of students, but the entire school.

While teachers need to incorporate poetry into their respective curriculums, the English Department should also add a separate poetry elective.

The Castilleja School has an AP Poetry class, in which most students take the AP English Literature test in order to receive AP credit. If Paly added a similar class that solely focused on the study of poetry, inter-ested students would benefit from this opportunity.

Reading and analyzing poetry allows students to observe the impact of diction, tone, imagery, meter and syntax, all of which are apparent and influential in every form of literature.

By GaBrielle Hadley

Senior Staff Writer

Children learn from a very early age that school is a welcoming environment, one in which students are protected from harm and violence, free from judgment and critique, and entitled to their own beliefs. They also discover that most of these childhood lessons are false.

One particular issue does not coincide with the Palo Alto Unified School District’s standard for upholding all students’ values concerning religion.

Neither religious tolerance nor persecu-tion is a problem; it is more an issue of what PAUSD deems appropriate as a religious holiday.

This year many students were forced to miss days of school because of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, one of the most important holidays in Judaism.

This is not an unusual occurrence. Many more Paly students will be forced to either miss their religious observances or miss important schoolwork this school year.

Most religious holidays that the district observes revolve around the Christian calen-dar, which allows students of Christian faith to celebrate the holidays without missing important school days or events at the same time.

The Palo Alto school system allots time for these students each year. This year, stu-dents will receive days off for Good Friday, an important Christian holiday, which oc-curs the Friday before Easter Sunday. This is not only an important Christian holiday, but also a controversial one that is disputed by Judaism.

By choosing to respect only the Chris-tian beliefs of the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ, PAUSD is disregarding beliefs of students who do not practice Christianity. This is not an issue with Christianity, but an issue with PAUSD.

For many students, these holidays are times to celebrate their personal values, but for others they are just a day without school. This is unfair to the students who observe different religious holidays and are not given a day off from school.

Christianity is the predominant religion in the United States, and there is a large per-centage of Christians in Palo Alto. However, there is also a fairly large percentage of Jew-ish as well.

Likewise, several Muslim students are unable to attend services for Ramadan or the extremely important Islamic holiday Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice.

Students’ right to have time off for their faith or religious beliefs should not be neglected.

Additionally, teachers should not post homework assignments online and expect students to complete the assignments if they are observing a religious holiday.

The point of religious holidays is to ap-preciate and practice a religion, not to ignore beliefs in favor of an assignment for which the teacher refuses to hand out an extension.

After missing important class time and homework to observe a religious holiday, some students are forced to answer personal questions.

Religion is a personal and private matter that should only be discussed at the students’ discretion.

Students must notify their teachers ahead of time that they are missing class for religious reasons and deal with the teacher’s parameters, or face questioning from teachers when they arrive back at school.

It is reasonable to request reasons for absences, but it is unfair to pry into a student’s religious beliefs. These circumstances can be avoided if PAUSD creates more district-wide holidays that coincide with various religious holidays.

Obviously, the PAUSD should not give students days off for every single religious holiday. But the most observed religious holidays of the most practiced religions in Palo Alto should be given equal time off for celebration.

Schools should recognize all religious holidaysThe Palo Alto Unified School District fails to provide days off for important holidays in many of students’ diverse religions

Many Jewish students must miss school for:

Many Muslim students must miss school for:

Paly English leaves students unprepared for college-level English courses that require poetry analysis

By ryan Pfleiderer

Editor in Chief

With the seemingly endless war in Iraq, the Bush Administration quite possibly has forgotten about domestic concerns, one of the most important of which is the possibility of the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act.

This highly controversial pro-gram has been under attack since Congress enacted it in 2002, and now the legislative body has an opportunity to fix the act and to ensure that its basic principles continue to regulate America’s education system.

Congress should take this op-portunity to completely overhaul the entire act and replace it, as it has only ruined America’s education system.

NCLB attempts to help all elementary and secondary school students become proficient in math

and reading by 2014, but employs an ineffective and ultimately destructive approach.

If Congress chooses to reautho-rize the act, they will fail to fix the broken education system present in the U.S.

The Bush Administration has severely underfunded NCLB at the state level, but at the same time has required states to fulfill the provisions established by NCLB, or risk forfeit-ing federal funding.

In order to fulfill these require-ments, many schools have been forced to make budget cuts in subjects that are not tested under NCLB.

Thus, NCLB negatively impacts science, foreign language and the arts.

Schools have also been unable to purchase updated textbooks and school supplies, in addition to having to cut field trip funding.

In order to achieve the neces-sary requirements of NCLB, teachers must “teach to the test,” a style that many students, parents and teachers criticize.

Teachers have had to alter their curricula in order to cover the ma-terial presented on standardized tests, teaching a limited set of test-taking skills and covering a limited amount of knowl-edge.

Even the stan-dardized tests required by NCLB have inherent problems.

The states develop and create the tests that students must take, and many states simply lower the standards of the tests so that more students pass the test, which allows the respective

states to retain federal funding for the school.

Even after the states create lower standards, the requirements for the disabled and for students with limited proficiency in the English language

are still incred-ibly difficult to achieve, making these tests un-fair and imprac-ticable for these students.

But even if the tests were fair to all students, many teachers

and parents believe that learn-ing cannot be measured solely by achievement on standardized tests, and therefore the federal government cannot accurately measure students’ learning solely based upon these test results.

One significant concern regard-ing NCLB is the extremely high teacher qualification standards. Al-though NCLB creates these standards to ensure the absence of unqualified teachers, the requirements do elimi-nate teachers with qualifications to teach elementary- and secondary-school students.

NCLB requires teachers to have at least one college degree in a specific subject and pass numerous proficiency tests. Even teachers with years of experience must take these proficiency tests.

These standards have had adverse effects, resulting in major teacher shortages. The lack of teachers has greatly impacted schools in rural areas and inner cities, which generally have already poor education systems.

Earlier this year, Bush proposed an idea to allow school districts to relocate teachers to underachieving

schools, an idea that most teachers oppose.

Most importantly, NCLB fails to address the real reasons for why schools fail to meet the standards established by the act.

Some of the many reasons for which schools fail to perform at profi-cient levels include many unavailable resources, large class sizes, teacher shortages, damaged school build-ings, poverty and the lack of decent health care.

NCLB has increased the severity of these problems, which will continue to persist unless Congress legislates reform for the United States’ educa-tion system.

The numerous responsibilities of the federal government include providing children with the best edu-cation possible, and NCLB prohibits students from such quality learning experiences.

Congress should take this opportunity to completely overhaul the entire act and replace it, as it has only ruined America’s education system.

• Rosh Hashanah• Yom Kippur

•Ramadan services•Eid al-Adha

The Campanile

By Tyler Blake

Editor in Chief

The Social Studies Department at Palo Alto High School recently elected to switch from standard to electronic textbooks, or “e-books,” for all Advanced Placement Psy-chology classes. This decision is a commendable effort to modernize the Paly education system and increase students’ abilities to utilize technol-ogy, which is vital to success in the modern economy.

E-books offer many features that standard textbooks simply cannot. They allow students to highlight, un-derline, and take notes “in” the e-book without incurring the steep penalties of book damage.

In addition, e-books facilitate active reading, which is proven to in-crease comprehension and retention of information presented in the textbook. E-books are also accessible from any computer with Internet access, which is beneficial for two major reasons.

With e-books, students no longer carry heavy textbooks from home to school and back again. They also eliminate the frequent problem of leaving textbooks at school when they are needed for homework, or vice versa.

Another benefit of this new tech-nology is that it exposes students to valuable technological experience that will be necessary for future success in the workplace.

Although some Paly students may be unable to access the e-books because of limited Internet access, e-books are still a step in the right direction to advance students’ tech-nological abilities.

Should the e-book program be used in more classes, especially to lower-level courses, students’ tech-nological knowledge overall would almost certainly improve. Anything based on technology can experience malfunctions, but this minor detrac-tion pales in comparison to the myriad benefits that e-books provide.

E-book technology benefits Paly students

The Social Studies Department also effectively negates these techni-cal difficulties by allowing students to use traditional textbooks if they wish.

Other classes are also beginning to further incorporate technology into the classroom. The AP Environmental

Science textbooks, although not en-tirely electronically based, offer nu-merous online resources that students can take advantage of.

Additionally, the laptop carts that circulate around the school also fore-shadow an era of increasing reliance upon technology in today’s schools.

AP Psychology employs a newer, lighter alternative to conventional textbooks

As the world becomes increasingly digitized, it is imperative that Paly continues to stay ahead of the curve. The Social Studies Department has achieved significant technological advancement through the e-books program, and deserves to be recog-nized for their progress.

City Council should improve Embarcadero underpassBy DJ HsueH

Staff Writer

Many Palo Alto High School students who walk or bike to school travel through the Embarcadero Road underpass. At least once a week, some unfortunate bikers crash into each other or pedestrians in the dark and dangerous passage.

Palo Alto City Council must divert attention to the unsafe conditions of the underpass and provide financial resources to improve such conditions.

With all the recent renovations in Palo Alto, including the repaving of Embarcadero and other city roads, the Palo Alto City Council must consider improving the Embarcadero Road underpass.

Simple changes, such as repaving the sidewalks, improving the lighting, painting a lane division and increasing the length of the railing would greatly increase the safety of bikers and pedestrians alike.

Adding barriers to the ceilings would also prevent pigeons from entering the underpass.

Sometimes in life, situations arise in which the police are unavailable to administer justice against criminals, particularly when they are the ones committing the crimes.

The police, while effective, are neither omnipotent nor omnipresent, and often cannot arrive at the scene of a crime until long after the criminal has fled and the victim has suffered the damage.

In such scenarios, it is the duty of the people to take a stand against such criminals and prevent them from committing heinous crimes before serious damages befall the victims of the crime. It is necessary that the intended victims exercise self-defense through crime-deterring measures, such as the use of pepper spray. Physi-cal self-defense and certain martial arts could also facilitate the prevention of criminal activities.

Recently, a criminal assaulted and robbed a woman in Palo Alto. According to the Palo Alto Weekly, she was “hit in the face twice and robbed of her purse.” This unfortunate event could have been prevented had this woman possessed a deterrent. Deter-rents would cause criminals to think twice about assailing such protected persons on future occasions.

Different methods of crime-prevention, like pepper spray, are con-venient as a first line of defense. They can scare off assailants. Additionally, martial-art techniques would present a psychological as well as physical defense for the intended victim. An individual trained in the martial arts would be able to both present himself or herself in a confident and defensive manner, and better anticipate the ac-tions of the assailant.

By using these deterrents, the would-be victim could respond effec-tively through swift defensive blocks and lightning-fast offensive punches and, in the end, the potential victim would less likely to suffer physical harm or financial loss.

Thus, the presence of deterrents, which would be provided by the local government of each city or region participating in this crime-prevention effort through a moderate increase in government expenditures, paid for in the normal fashion by the local government, will decrease the number of criminal activities occurring in said regions.

However these extra, short-term payments will result in a decrease in reliance upon actions by law enforce-ment, and will similarly allow more-immediate action in apprehending criminals.

Although criminal activities are not ubiquitous in Palo Alto, one cannot deny their presence, nor that many of these crimes may appear from neighboring locations where certain individuals may conclude the neces-sity of exhorting their own vigilante social equality agendas.

Thus, the criminal’s previous experience with persons capable of defending themselves will deter the criminals from committing their nefarious schemes in the future in the cities and regions participating in the crime-prevention effort.The case must be made for citizens to exercise self-defense measures in the form of pepper spray and martial arts. The benefits to the citizen takes precedent over the consequences of the inability to defend him or herself.

Another benefit would include the costs to the local governments, who would not have to use as much funding to protect its citizens.

Herbert Hoover may have failed to live up to his promise of “A chicken in every pot, and a car in every ga-rage.”

However, should these measures proposed be employed in an effective manner by our local governments, we can be sure that there will be, “A wal-let in every pocket, and a self-defense measure up every sleeve.”

ASB should make budget available to the public

A chicken in Every pot...

Jon Shan & Chris Clayton

E-books provide students with numerous benefits beyond those available through traditional text-books, and Paly should strongly consider expanding the program across the school to help keep up with the increasing pace of technological innovation.

People would no longer have to navigate through pot holes and trash in the dark underpass.

Bikers often fall from their bikes as they struggle to maneuver through the pothole-ridden sidewalk.

“I hate walking through that place,” junior Jessica Kuo said. “It’s full of flies and the other day I even saw a dead pigeon under the rail.”

During the most congested times of the day, before and after school, bikers speed down the ramps.

If any bicyclist makes a sudden stop, they trigger a chain reaction and several students fall off their bikes.

Pedestrians cannot hear bikers approaching due to the roar of the cars, and when these persons collide, they are thrown dangerously close to the oncoming traffic.

Most of the time, the underpass is too narrow for people to avoid accidents.

http://www.ebooks.bfwpub.com/psychmod.php

ASB Secretary Kristen Witte and Sophomore Class President Charlie Lin discuss Student Council plans, the majority of which remain unknown to the larger student body at Paly.

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanile

By erik krasner-karpen

Design Editor

While Palo Alto High School students may disagree about how the Associated Stu-dent Body (ASB) should budget its money, everyone agrees that ASB should actually budget its money. According to the Student Council Constitution, the ASB must "estab-lish an annual budget,” which the Treasurer must "update monthly.”

However, the student council has never actually published an "official budget,” Student Activities Director Allye Mullens said.

The student council manages approxi-mately $200,000 yearly, including funds under the discretion of Paly clubs. Since the ASB supposedly accounts to the entire Paly student body, that money belongs to the students. So, why doesn’t Student Council keep track of it?

Paly would clearly benefit from fiscal responsibility on the part of the Student Council.

If too little money remains in the Student Council accounts, events like dances and Spirit Week will go underfunded. If excess money remains, students are spending too much on ASB cards, parking passes, dance tickets, and other such sources of ASB revenue.

Without a budget, the Student Council must rely on sheer guesswork to deter-mine whether they are short-changing the students

The ASB has experienced the conse-quences of faulty budgeting. Prior to last year, the Student Council did its accounting on Post-It-sized pieces of paper, resulting in thousands of dollars going to questionable and sometimes inscrutable ends.

With the employment of Mullens as Student Activities Coordinator and Julia Sing as Auditor, the Student Council put an end to this practice.

In fact, over the past few months, Wang and Sing have drafted a comprehensive budget based on last year’s revenues and expenditures.

While the news is highly encouraging, the Student Council has yet to make its budget public.

The Student Council should publish its plans soon and update them regularly to show that its expenditures coincide with the will of the students.

The Student Council’s neglect to publish its budget reduces the Student Council’s own political capital by en-couraging mistrust among the students. A publicly accessible budget would show Paly students that the Student Council handles their money responsibly.

The newly available e-book technology enables Paly students enrolled in Advanced Placement Psychology to highlight text, view tutorials, record notes, and take quizzes and tests electronically from within an internet browser window, making material available anywhere.

“I’ve seen some close calls there,” junior Cory McCrosky said. “I never bike to school, but I’ve seen bikers crash into each

other, and I’ve even been hit by a bike while walking.”

According to the Palo Alto city budget, the council spends close to two million dollars each year to “enhance pedestrian safety and comfort.”

If the council allocated a small portion of that budget to

improve the Embarcadero underpass, the chance of accidents would drastically decrease. As the Paly student population continues to rise and new stores are added to the Town & Coun-try Shopping Village, the traffic through the already overused underpass will increase.

This poses a major threat to the community and safety of pedestrians who use the underpass. If the underpass is not improved soon, more accidents will occur and could result in serious injuries.

Opinion October 1, 2007• A9

“I’ve seen some close calls there... I’ve even been hit by a bike while walking.”

Cory McCroskeyjunior

Sports The Campanile

A10 October 1, 2007

Sam JoneS

Sports Editor

Both of Palo Alto High School’s Varsity water polo teams entered the 2007 season with high expectations of contending for the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League and Central Coast Section titles and are looking to build off solid beginnings.

Both Reid Particelli, the boys’ Varsity Head Coach, and Cory Olcott, the girls’ Varsity Head Coach, have led their respective squads to respectable starts in the opening tournaments of the fall season.

But with a long season left to play, the challenges already faced by the Viking squads have provided invaluable experience for the rest of the season.

“We tried to find the toughest tournaments possible at the start, knowing that it would definitely pre-pare us better for our upcoming league matches,” Particelli said.

The boys’ team started off the season strong. The Vikings won four straight contests in the annual John Schmitt Tournament, a competition held at the start of the season for the top 32 water polo teams in Northern California.

The team opened with a 5-2 win over Golden West High School. In the second round, they defeated Je-suit High School 4-3 in an overtime victory. The Vikings then proceeded to defeat Los Altos High School 5-3 and Menlo School 7-5 en route to the tournament final, which they lost by a score of 3-7 to Sacred Heart College Preparatory.

“We entered the tournament as underdogs to a lot of teams there,” senior captain Michael Fortune said. “We didn’t have anything to lose, so we snuck up on a lot of people and got some quality wins.”

The Vikings’ second place finish in the tournament was good enough to qualify them for the state tournament

at the end of the season, where they will face other top finishers from the Schmitt Tournament as well as the best teams from Southern California.

“The guys are really looking for-ward to the state tournament,” Fortune said. “Hopefully we’ll go against some strong competitors there.”

Next on the Viking’s schedule was the Scott Roach Memorial Tour-nament. Paly soundly defeated Leland and Menlo-Atherton High Schools, winning both games 9-4. However, the Vikings lost to Mater Dei High School 3-7 in the tournament quarterfinals and dropped the third place contest to Menlo 4-7.

Even with the disappointing end to the tournament, the players are happy about their play so far.

“There’s no doubt that we have exceeded expectations,” senior Neal Ketchum said. “We beat some of the top teams from Northern California and set ourselves up well for the rest of the season.”

Two key starters from last sea-son, Paul Reamey and Brian Huang, graduated, leaving the team with a substantial hole to fill.

“It was real tough losing those guys, but we can overcome not having any lefties,” Particelli said. “We just have to be creative using our righties and continue to be active on the left side of the goal.”

Nonetheless, this year’s team is loaded with veteran talent with 10 seniors, six of which are starters.

“It has been a long time coming, we want to make this a great season,” Fortune said. “We have a strong core of senior players who have been wait-ing for this year since their freshman season, so we’re going to make the most of it.”

The girls’ squad has experi-enced a much rockier start, starting off 2-3 in the opening week of play. The girls’ team lost their opener by a disappointing score of 7-11 to St. Francis High School, fortunately the

team rebounded in the St. Francis Invitational. The Vikings defeated Archbishop Mitty High School, the defending CCS Champions, 7-5 in a dramatic comeback victory.

“That was a huge win for the team,” senior captain Lizzie Abbott said. “To come from behind and beat the defending champions was a huge confidence booster for us.”

However, the Vikings were soundly defeated by Rio Americano High School, falling behind 1-8 in the first half before battling back for

The Paly girls’ tennis team is off to an impressive start this fall after suffering a demotion to the El Camino League in the Central Coast Section at the end of the 2006 season. In contrast to their 7-11 record last year, the Lady Vikes dominated in victories over Los Altos, Lynbrook, Wilcox, Cuper-tino, Los Gatos and Mountain View High Schools and now find themselves in a com-fortable position.

“This is a team that could go undefeated,” Head Coach Andy Harader said. “It is cer-tainly a strong possibility.”

With more than five players ranked in Northern California, Harader’s hope could very well become reality.

The roster is comprised of nine under-classmen, including five freshmen, causing some to wonder if there is sufficient leader-ship on the team and how the young players will respond under pressure.

“ I don’t think it’s really much of an issue,” junior Vrinda Khanna said. “All the girls get along fine and there really aren’t any issues about leadership of the team, or anything like that.”

The top singles player this year is fresh-man Janet Liu, who has dominated her op-ponents thus far. Ranked 18th for U-16 girls in Northern California, she is well groomed for the pressure of being the No. 1.

“I actually like the pressure,” Liu said. “It makes it that much more fun.”

That fun is something that last year’s team might have had a bit too much of.

“One thing that’s different about this team compared to last year’s is the seriousness,” Khanna said. “Last season the upperclass-men were significantly less motivated than this year’s team. Tennis was treated like a social club. They were much more interested in socializing than playing in matches.”

As a result, Harader decided to throw out the traditional rules, requiring even returning Varsity members to earn their spot on the team.Electing to go with a younger squad, Harader compiled a strong group of girls.

“There just wasn’t nearly as much en-thusiasm last season as there is this season,” Harader said. “There was no motivation.”

Against the Wilcox High School Char-gers, the Lady Vikes won 13 out of 15 sets that were played.

Liu devastated her opponent by a final of 6-0, 6-0 with minimal effort.

“There really isn’t much to say about that match,” Liu said. “It was not very intense.”

Junior Lindsay Yang had no trouble with Wilcox’s No. 2 singles player, winning in straight sets 6-0, 6-2. Yang demonstrated excellent movement to the net and used her control to cross up her opponent.

Freshman Mira Khanna, Vrinda’s younger sister, played in the No. 3 singles slot and quickly took the first set 6-0. However, Mira made several errors after losing focus in the second set, and nearly allowing her opponent to comeback into the match. Luckily, the younger Khanna held on to gain another win for the Lady Vikes, taking the second set 7-5.

Sophomores Gracie Dulik and Sophie Biffar won in the No. 1 doubles match with a final score of 6-3, 6-3.

“We could have played better, but it was weird because they were such soft-hitters,” Biffar said.

Vrinda, who was resting sore feet and an upper thigh injury, opted out of the singles matches and instead played No. 2 doubles with sophomore Christine Koepnick.

The pair shut down the Chargers with a dominating 6-0, 6-0 performance. The older Khanna said that the team needs a challenge to improve their own games, otherwise they will not progress.

After taking both Los Altos and Wilcox by a final team score of 6-1 the girls maintained their perfect season by grinding out a close victory at Lynbrook High School. The impos-sible dream season then proceeded as the Lady Vikes took Cupertino 6-1, then Los Gatos 5-2 before they baffled Castilleja’s Varsity squad at home 7-0 in a scrimmage.

The girls added another notch to their belt with a shutout victory over Mountain View to set themselves up for their match against Fremont, which they won 7-0.

Thursday’s victory over Milpitas High School by a final score of 5-2, provided the girls with yet another key victory as they enter October with a perfect record. Despite drop-ping the No. 1 and 2 singles matches, the Lady Vikes put in a strong team effort by winning all three doubles matches, and taking the No. 3 and 4 singles.

The Lady Vikes will take on cross-town ri-val Gunn High School on Wednesday, Oct. 3rd at 3:30 at Paly. Mountain View High School will take on Paly on Thursday, Oct. 11.

By Zal DorDi

Staff Writer

Julia Benton/The Campanile

a 8-12 loss. The Vikings then suffered another tough loss to Castilleja School 3-5, even though they lead for the majority of the game.

The squad rebounded against Menlo School, winning 5-4 in a sud-den death overtime victory. Though the Lady Vikes suffered some tough losses to start the season, they still remain optimistic about upcoming league play.

“We’ve started well overall, but we could have won some of the games we lost,” Abbott said. “Nevertheless,

I think that the team has built a solid base for the rest of the season.”

The girls’ squad is coping with the loss of former star player Tanya Wilcox to graduation, as well as other key leaders in Natasha Whitney and Alyson Mackenzie.

“It’s impossible to replace a player like Tanya,” Olcott said. “But I think the net talent on this year’s roster is even better than last season’s since we have so many veteran players.”

The roster has eight senior players and is extremely well balanced, so a

Water polo teams start season with high hopes

Hannah McGovern/The Campanile

Senior Scott Mielke prepares to shoot the ball in a team scrimmage during a Varsity water polo boys’ practice. The boys have begun the 2007 season strong in the John Schmitt and Scott Roach Memorial Tournaments and look to win the CCS Tournament this year.

Paly Varsity No. 1 singles player freshman Janet Liu warms up for her match against Cupertino. The Lady Vikings have done well so far, going 8-0 during league play.

By alexi Dagan

Sports Editor

Several sports teams at Palo Alto High School have instated strict anti-alcohol and drug policies for the fall 2007 season.

The boys’ cross country team’s policy was created and is enforced by Head Coach Jeff Billing and the boys’ water polo team’s policy was created by the team captains, seniors Michael Fortune and Geng Wang.

According to cross country captain senior Alok Subbarao, Billing had a meeting with all of the seniors on the team a week before school started to explain his zero-tolerance policy, and then extended the policy to the rest of the team two weeks later.

“People respect Jeff [Billing] and are definitely taking the policy seriously,” Sub-barao said.

Billing had two reasons for creating the policy.

“I felt that this was a group of guys who had a chance to do some special things, and I would hate for anything silly to get in the way of that,” Billing said.

This was not, however, Billing’s main reasoning in creating the policy.

“A lot of people in high school get peer pressured into drinking, even though it goes against their own morals,” Billing said. “I think most of the guys on this team already choose not to drink, but by me requiring them not to drink, it gives them another way of backing themselves up.”

While he knows the policy could be dif-ficult to monitor, Billing says he does not plan on policing anyone.

“One-third of the guys on this team are se-niors who I have coached for four years now,” Billing said. “We have a strong relationship that exceeds simply a player-coach relationship and I hope that we can trust each other.”

The boys’ water polo team has displayed a different approach to the subject. According to Varsity Head Coach Reid Particelli, Fortune and Wang approached him before the season began, saying that they had decided that there needed to be a team policy which would regu-late behavior that could be detrimental to the team and its success.

“They are a very close-knit team with strong captains, so it was a natural fit to leave it more in their hands,” Particelli said. “There was no need for a written contract.”

According to one senior water polo player, “Jerry,” who wishes to remain anonymous, the team has had only had once incident with breaking the contract this year, and although there is no official punishment, the policy is taken very seriously.

“We try to do things that won’t get us into situations where people will be drink-ing,” Jerry said.

These policies not only promote a positive environment, but a healthier lifestyle too.

“It’s really about being committed to the team and agreeing not to do something that shouldn’t be done in the first place,” Particelli said.

strong showing at CCS is in the cards. “I let the girls set their own goals for this season,” Olcott said. “And they want to win leagues and have a strong showing in the CCS tournament. If we can stay focused all year, we should definitely have a great season.”

The boys’ squad is also looking forward to a successful season.

“We plan to get even better as the season progresses,” Particelli said. “We are training to peak at CCS, because the guys are set on taking the section title this year.”

Hannah McGovern/The Campanile

Palo Alto High School sports teams are enforcing alcohol policies for their athletes in order to promote healthier lifestyles and success for the teams.

Water polo and cross country teams enforce alcohol policies

Girls’ Varsity tennis dominates earlyYoung team off to a perfect start to begin the 2007 season

Sports October 1, 2007 • A11 The Campanile

The Palo Alto High School boys’ and girls’ Varsity cross country teams are looking forward to a solid season after placing fourth out of 27 teams and seventh of 24, respectively, at the Lowell Invitational in San Francisco on Sept. 22.

Despite missing several top runners on the girls’ and boys’ teams, \both the runners and the coaches were pleased with their performance, but agree that there is a lot to improve on throughout the season.

Although not as challenging as the pres-tigious Stanford Invitational held on Sept. 29, the 2.93 mile course for Varsity and Junior Varsity teams consisted of several slopes and slippery mud caused by recent rain.

Sophomore runner Philip MacQuitty won the boy’s Varsity race with an impres-sive time of 14:59, beating 154 other runners and breaking the previous course record by a staggering 18 seconds.

Following MacQuitty, junior Charlie Avis placed 14th with a time of 16:01. Seniors Julius Berezin and Brian Karvelas finished 30th and 31st with times of 16:24 and 16:25, respec-tively. Senior Brian Hsueh also finished strong in 36th place, with a time of 16:28. Overall, Paly finished behind first place Los Osos and only seven points after Mountain View.

“I feel confident in the team,” MacQuitty said. “We’re doing great.”

For the Varsity girls, sophomore Regina Wang finished 27th with a time of 20:00, fol-lowed closely by junior co-captain Gillian Lui who came in 36th with a time of 20:23.

“Regina [Wang] was a beast out there, and she’s only a sophomore,” Lui said.

Junior Elizabeth Scott placed 45th with a time of 20:50 and sophomore Kathleen Higgins placed seven seconds after Scott.

Although senior Leah Gaeta began the race in front of all the Paly girls, she was unable to finish running due to a hip flexor injury.

Senior Mia Lattanzi, also injured, was unable to compete. Co-captain Tamar Ben-Shachar did not run because of religious reasons.

Nevertheless, the girls’ team still placed well, just behind Mountain View High School.

“The team did really well,” Higgins said. “Most people ran their best races ever. It also hurt more than ever, but it was a really beauti-ful course.”

“It was a really solid race,” Girls’ Head Coach Paul Jones said. “Add Mia [Lattanzi] and Tamar [Ben-Shachar] to the pack and we have a real solid team.”

The boys’ Junior Varsity team finished first out of 19 teams, placing five runners in the top 10 spots. Boys’ Head Coach Jeff Billing said that the team had a good chance to win.

Billing said that the Paly boys’ cross country team is one of the best he has ever coached.

The skilled team includes a diverse mixture of senior veterans and talented un-derclassmen.

The top four runners are sophomore Philip MacQuitty, junior Charlie Avis, senior co-captain Rajan Narang and junior Skyler Cummins.

Currently ranked 10th in the Central Coast Section (CCS) by the San Jose Mercury News, the team also includes returning seniors co-captains Alok Subbarao and Sam Jones.

“We’re expecting success on all different levels; from experienced seniors to freshmen who are just starting to run,” senior co-captain Brian Hsueh said.

The team is hoping to win the league title and perform well throughout the season.

Their biggest goals are to place among the top three as a team, and among the top five individually at the CCS Championships in November to qualify for the state meet, Hsueh said.

“We certainly have the capability, but we have some big competitors in Santa Clara, Gunn, St. Francis and Los,” Narang said. “We’ll have to get past them.”

All of the boys have been extremely focused preparing for the season. They have high expectations as a team and individually, Narang said.

Although the boys’ team contains many returning runners, the girls’ team has less ex-perience overall because all of last year’s top four Varsity runners graduated last in June.

The team now looks toward younger runners, including junior co-captain Gillian Lui, sophomore Regina Wang and three new Varsity runners: senior Leah Gaeta, senior Mia Lattanzi and junior Elizabeth Scott, Paul Jones said.

“We have a bunch of people this year who are really talented, including a lot of young runners,” Jones said. “I think we’ll be doing pretty well by the end of the season.”

“Even though the team is not as experi-enced as last year, as the season progresses, new runners and the team in general should improve because people will get more mileage in,” Ben-Shachar said.

The girls’ team, which is not currently ranked in CCS, will face challenging competi-tion including Gunn High School, Mountain View High School and Los Gatos High School.

Senior co-captain Ariana Hoyt said that many of the girls this year are very dedicated and are willing to prepare a lot.

High expectations for the boys’ team and talented young runners on the girls’ team set both Paly cross country teams up for success-ful seasons.

“We haven’t gone through enough of the season to see what happens, but we’ll definitely work hard and we’ll see what happens,” junior co-captain Sarah Haydock said.

The team ran at the SCVAL Preview in Santa Clara on Tuesday Sept. 25.

Although several top runners did not compete, freshmen runners Erin Kiekhaefer and Leigh Biraghi on the Junior Varsity team ran faster than several runners on the Varsity team.

Boys’ and girls’ cross country teams are primed and prepared to face tough competitionBy Lindsay yang

Staff Writer

“We are expecting success on all different levels- from experienced seniors to freshman who are just starting to run.”

Brian HsuehBoys’ Co-captain

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Senior Mia Lattanzi runs during practice at the Paly track. Both the boys’ and girls’ cross country teams are training to prepare for a promising new season.

Michela Fossati-Bellani/The Campanile

Cross country ready to dominate

SportsA12 • October 1, 2007 The Campanile

By Austin smith

A&E Editor

An overall 12-2 season record, a Central Coast Section title and a state championship berth; these are the achievements of last sea-son’s Palo Alto High School Varsity football team. Expectations of similar results will define this season for the Vikings. After the season’s first three games, the Vikings are 2-1 and have shown strength on both sides of the ball. However, there is still room for improvement.

It is a rebuilding year for the Vikings, who experienced several key losses to graduation, and have only five returning starters. The consistent success of the program has led to elevated expectations each year, as the team is ranked third in the San Jose Mercury News Power Rankings.

This success, recognized by the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League, is turning Palo Alto into a football powerhouse.

“This program has done wonders for CCS football,” Burlingame Head Coach John Phi-lipopoulos said. “They’re all class and we’re their biggest fans.”

The departure of last year’s starting quarterback Nick Goodspeed and starting running back Will Frazier, among others, has put pressure on the offense to successfully incorporate new faces. Junior quarterback Will Brandin has big shoes to fill and senior fullback Sione Mataele will be expected to carry more of the load this season. With his six-foot frame and powerful arm, Brandin has a lot of promise and, despite growing pains, is expected to succeed the quarterback role. His team has full confidence in him.

“I think he can be very good,” Head Coach Earl Hansen said. “He just needs to stay focused and keep his head clear.”

Brandin has the luxury of throwing to veteran wide receiver Mike Scott. Scott re-turns as one of this year’s key starters, with experience to accompany his quickness and instincts. During the 2007 season, Scott caught 25 passes for 410 yards and three touchdowns in addition to a monster performance in the state championship game where he caught 10 passes for 210 yards.

“I try to be a vocal leader for the younger guys,” Scott said. “But basically, I just try to go out there and help my team.”

The offensive line can be credited for much of last season’s success due to their size and ex-perience. Unfortunately, the Vikings lost all five starting linemen, includ-ing all-state guard Fred Koloto, now a freshman at San Jose State.

“I don’t know if any linemen could com-pare to last year’s,” Hansen said.

Taking over this year are seniors Michael Anderson, Jake Zebker, Tim Crown and Ryan Drebin. They lack the size of last year’s line-men, but expect to form a solid core of seniors with Varsity experience.

“They’ve improved a ton over the last three weeks, and they’ll make an okay tran-sition and get better all the time,” Hansen said.

To kick off the season, the Vikings traveled to the infamous “Murder Dubs” in Oakland on Sept. 7 to face McClymonds High School. Paly jumped out to a six-point lead on junior cornerback Will Holder’s 80-yard interception

return for a touchdown and never looked back. The Vikings successfully pounded the ball on the ground with Mataele, who had 17 carries for 113 yards and two touch-downs.

Scott showed im-pressive athleticism while hauling in many inaccurate passes, end-

ing the night with five receptions for 79 yards and an interception at free safety. The Vikings hoped to come out strong again in their home opener against Burlingame on September 14.

They did not disappoint fans, scoring early on an 85-yard touchdown connection from Brandin to Scott and holding on to shut down the Panthers 23-6.

The connections after the big touchdown were few and far apart and Brandin’s erratic play at the quarterback position was the story

of the game. He finished the game 8 of 19 for 144 yards and four interceptions.

“I wish I could have gotten the ball more,” Scott said. “The opportunities were there. I just want to get my quarterback on the same page.”

Another determining factor was the inconsistency of the offensive line, which forced Brandin to evacuate the pocket and throw on the run.

“The offensive line has to step it up and start providing some protection,” Scott said.

Mataele and Scott continued to show leadership on the field, as Mataele rushed for 102 yards and two touchdowns and Scott added another interception to his totals.

A critical match-up followed the next week when Oak Grove High School came looking for revenge after Palo Alto defeated them in the CCS championship game last season. It was a contest of unbeaten teams, both looking to compete for the conference championship.

Linebacker James McCollough lost a fum-ble on the game’s first play from scrimmage, from which the Vikings never recovered.

The Oak Grove defense shut Paly down, allowing only one touchdown for the Vikings, leading to a 27-7 victory for Oak Grove.

The Eagles plugged up the Vikings’ of-fense, holding them to 105 total yards. Oak Grove effectively stopped Mataele’s ham-mering running style, holding him to just 13 yards on 10 carries, and kept putting pressure on Brandin all night. The only score for Palo Alto came on a one-yard quarterback sneak by Brandin.

“We have to step it up on offense,” Han-sen said. “We had too many errors and only corrected a few of them.”

One of the biggest disappointments this season, thus far, has been Brandin’s play at quarterback. He has had difficulty getting the ball to his receivers. Although Brandin has had no help from the offensive line, he has underachieved in his role. Throughout all of this, though, his teammates have demonstrated their support.

“I don’t want to blame the quarterback,” Scott said. “I don’t want to blame anyone. We’re a team.”

The offensive line has failed to improve as well, and minor injuries to Crown and Drebin have not helped matters.

“We didn’t sustain blocks all game long,” Hansen said. “We have to block.”

The sole bright spot has been the defensive unit. Two dominant performances to start the

season and a gritty display against one of the section’s best, shows that these Vikings can still play the physical style of last year. Mc-Collough, who led the team with 122 tackles last season, returns to anchor the linebacker core, which also features another first-team SCVAL performer in senior Jordan Jefferson. Scott, playing both sides of the ball, leads a secondary that has five interceptions in three games.

“The defense has been great,” Hansen said. “Tonight against Oak Grove they were just on the field all game long.”

The Vikings should not be judged entirely by the Oak Grove game. Oak Grove is a CCS heavyweight, and they are one of the best teams in the Bay Area. The Vikings are a young team and improvement will surely come.

Fans should also keep in mind that last sea-son’s Vikings began the season in an identical manner. In 2006, Paly entered the third week of the season 2-0 and was defeated by Oak Grove 35-14 at home. The Vikings went on to beat Oak Grove in the CCS Open Division Championship game 23-21 and was unbeaten until the state championship.

“We learned some things about our-selves,” Hansen said. “We’ll be a stronger team now.”

By Eliot Wilson

Senior Staff Writer

The Palo Alto High School Var-sity volleyball team swept through their first four regular season games, dominating Menlo-Atherton High School, Evergreen Valley High School, Los Altos High School and Los Gatos High School.

The Vikings’ strong opening performance has sent an extremely powerful message to the rest of the teams in the Santa Clara Valley Ath-letic League.

Paly dispatched both M-A and Evergreen Valley with three-game sweeps. The Vikings continued their winning streak with victories against Los Altos and Los Gatos, their biggest SCVAL rival, despite dropping a game to each team.

“We get along really well,” se-nior captain Hillary Ford said. “We improved a lot from the Los Altos game by focusing on our passing to counter their tips.”

In the Vikings’ home opener against M-A, Paly held a 15-9 lead during the first half of the first game. The Vikings held strong, finishing with a 25-11 sweep, letting M-A score only two more points during the rest of the game.

Paly continued its winning streak during the second and third games, defeating the young M-A team 25-15 and 25-12, respectively, making for an overall three-game sweep.

“It was a good team effort,” Var-sity coach David Winn said. “We had a little bit of a mismatch because M-A has a young team. We exploited them just like we had practiced.”

Led by senior co-captains Ford, Jessie Juarez and Ali Bisset, the team boasts a wealth of talent. Four other seniors are on the team, as well as many talented juniors and sophomores.

“We have to use our chemistry to an advantage,” Winn said. “Our seniors are great team players, and the entire team works well together.”

For the Vikings, building team chemistry began early in the season. The team had several bonding activi-ties to help the team work together.

In addition, Winn is trying to get the younger players playing time to prepare them for the Central Coast Section playoffs.

In the season opener against M-A, every player on the roster had playing time. Before the playoffs, however, Winn’s team has been confronted with a few challenges.

“I scheduled the game against Evergreen Valley High School to prepare the girls for the hostile environ-ments they are go-ing to encounter in CCS,” Winn said. “They will be good practice before we get to leagues.”

The Vikings overcame their first test, defeating Ev-

ergreen Valley in three consecutive games. Winn has set lofty goals for the Vikings this year.

“Every year, I see us as under-dogs,” Winn said. “I don’t think people take us seriously. I would like to win most improved in the league and re-ally improve faster than everyone else, especially on defense.”

Ford mirrored these goals, and added words of advice for the team as they move forward.

“We can’t get down on our-selves,” Ford said. “We need to stay confident and keep hitting strong.”

“Every year, I see us as underdogs. I don’t think people take us seriously. I would like to win most improved in the league.”

David WinnVolleyball Head Coach

Hannah McGovern/The Campanile

Junior quarterback Will Brandin (right) passes the ball in the first Varsity football game of the season, in which Paly defeated Burlingame 23-6. Taking graduate Nick Goodspeed’s place, Brandin has big shoes to fill but has gotten off to a rocky start this season. Coach Hansen holds high hopes for the team’s improvement.

Michela Fossati-Bellani/The Campanile

Senior Ali Bisset (center) practices passing the ball while senior Hillary Ford (left) watches. Paly’s Varsity volleyball team is off to a great start this season, dominating their opponents in the first four games.

Volleyball team serves up victories to start the season

Vikings strive to improve their game

“I try to be a vocal leader for the younger guys. But basi-cally, I just try to go out there and help my team.”

Mike ScottSenior

distance he travels is not unusual — the Wilkes commute from Half Moon Bay and various guest performers travel from Sacra-mento or Los Angeles a few times a year to be in the show.

Shannon began performing at the Caste’s first live shows in San Jose at the age of 18, six months after seeing Rocky for the second time in a theater.

“When I was seventeen and an outcast in high school, I went to a show and met this fantastic gay man, the first gay person I’d ever met,” Shannon said. “Six months later, I found out there was a new cast forming and was there the very first night, so I’m an initial founding member of this cast.”

While in The Bawdy Caste, Shannon met Jared Wilke, then a college student on Barely Legal, after Jared did a guest performance with the Caste. They have been married for almost six years and have two teenage sons.

Jared, who now teaches geometry and Advanced Placement Statistics at San Mateo High School, saw Rocky for the first time in 1986 but did not start performing until ten years later, when he went to a midnight showing in Modesto and found there was no shadow cast.

“I had a couple of bottles of wine before the show and decided to start a cast right then and there,” he said. “I’ve been performing ever since.”

The Caste’s third codirector, Julie Barman, first saw Rocky at age 16 on a trip with her San Jose Jewish youth group. She

has continued to attend shows for three years and joined the cast at the age of 19.

Since its inception, the Caste has performed at many venues including theaters in Fremont

and a burlesque theater in San Jose. The Bawdy Caste employs roughly 50 peo-ple, including performers, security team and technical crew, none of whom are paid. Some cast members, like Purucker, are full-time students. Others have day-jobs.

“Going to work on Sunday morning is my least favorite part of being on cast,” Tatro said. “I’m an apprentice embalmer at a mortuary, so I have to be there at 9 a.m. to start preparing funerals.”

Cast members sell “Tranny Packs” of audience props before each show and accepts donations afterwards to raise money for costumes, props, set pieces and transportation to Nevada for Reno’s annual Artown Festival, where they perform every year to an audience of thousands.

Although Rocky is rated R and considered fairly risqué, adults are not the only attendees of the Guild’s bimonthly mid-night showings at the Guild.

“All kinds of people come to the show,” Caste codirector Jared Wilke said. “Ten years ago, it was mostly a goth thing, but these days, you get a good mix of people. We have a lot of families here. It’s been going for over thirty years, so a lot of them are parents who used to go when they were in high school or college who are now bringing their kids.”

An overwhelming majority of the audience members at Guild showings are Rocky Horror virgins, who participate in a “Virgin Sacrifice” initiation ceremony by performing the “Virgin

Dance,” being flogged with bull-whips or reciting the unofficial Rocky pledge of al-legiance. The Virgin Sacrifice varies from show to show.

After all the virgins pledge their alle-giance to Rocky, sixteen are selected to partic-

ipate in the next part of the Sac-r i f ice , w h i l e the rest

return to their s e a t s . T h e virgins stand-ing on stage divide into teams and complete a relay race in which they fill an opposing team member’s mouth with whipped cream and top it with a maraschino cherry, then orally remove the cherry and run back to their team. The virgin left with the mouth full of whipped cream is in-structed to swallow, not spit. The audience yells and cheers while the Bawdy Caste eggs the virgins on.

“A lot of people get dragged to the show by friends,” Caste member Brian Tatro said. “It seems like every regular brings two virgins. Most come to the show once but maybe one out of ten comes back again. It’s the diehards that keep coming back and it’s the diehards that eventually join the cast.”

Earlier that night, the line of theatergoers waiting to buy tickets stretched down the block as 24-year-old Caste member Jeb Purucker strolled around, dressed in a satin and lamé cape, shiny black corset, sheer thigh-high gartered pantyhose and curly black wig for his role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Purucker began performing in a Santa Cruz cast in 2003 but joined the Bawdy Caste in December 2006.

“I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed high-school senior when I came to see Bawdy Caste at the Park Theater just down the road,” Purucker said. “I remember security guard Goofy whip-ping me during the pre-show. It was love at first sight and I’ve been coming back ever since.”

Now a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz, Purucker drives up to Menlo Park for bimonthly performances at the Guild. The

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Features • A&E • People Monday, October 1, 2007The Campanile

What you ought to know

Chris Gonnerman

A&E

At the Guild Theater in Menlo Park, a crowd of about 30 audience members has lined up in the area in front of the screen to nervously await instruction from emcee Dano Reynolds.

Their ap-parel ranges from fishnet tights to khaki cargo shorts to camouf l age -

patterned suspender shorts. Boas, bikini tops and corsets are paired with jeans and miniskirts. One boy wears a red bra under a black taffeta dress and carries a parasol. Most have large “V” signs painted on their foreheads or cheeks with red body crayon, identifying them as “virgins.”

“Put your right hand in the air, put your left hand some-where naughty and repeat after me,” Reynolds yells. “I, state your name...”

“I, state your name...” the crowd of virgins intones.“Think The Rocky Horror Picture Show ...”“Think The Rocky Horror Picture Show ...”“... is the best f-king movie ever made.”“... is the best f-king movie ever made.”The “Virgin Pledge” is an opening ritual performed every

first and third Saturday of the month at the Guild Theater’s midnight screenings of cult classic camp film The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Reynolds is part of The Bawdy Caste, a group of Bay Area performers who act out the movie directly in front of the screen during the show. First-time attendees of a live Rocky show are called “virgins,” and their initiation ceremony has just begun.

Rocky, an eccentric spoof of low-grade science fiction films, is based on the 1973 British stage musical The Rocky Horror Show and has been shown at midnight screenings in theaters around the world since its 1975 opening. It is known as the longest-running audience participation film in history; it is customary for audience members to shout callback lines at the onscreen actors, throw certain objects at various cues and get up to do the movie’s signature dance, the Time Warp, in the aisles.

The movie revolves around Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a transsexual mad scientist who seduces a traditional newlywed couple after their car breaks down in front of his castle on a rainy November evening.

Members of the Rocky Horror Show shadow casts, like The Bawdy Caste, mime the roles of their characters directly in front of the screen as the movie is playing, sometimes with slight deviations from the script.

By HENRY BECKER

and ZACH HARRIS

B11

Sexually

Transmitted

danger

By ReBecca Allen

B2

By Yelly Bitton

In Search of Absurd ityBy Sara reihani

A&E Editor

B10

KAN YEDIG IT?

“Change” it up

Jordan’s singing sensationJulian Hornik

I’m sitting in Casa de Pan, a nice restaurant in Chiapas, Mexico. As I’m scarfing down my food, I look up and see two girls and two boys, ages three and ten. The kids look skinny and unhealthy and their faces are full of despair as they look at my hot plate of pasta. I strike up a conversation and find that they are there to sell the beautiful art their mothers made for no more then a dollar. Feeling horrible, I buy a couple of the weavings and a bird made out of clay and give them some of my bread and carrots. It is moments like this that I feel the only purpose of my life is to try to find ways to make other lives better, because I come from such a privileged location.

These kids are indigenous Mexi-cans of Mayan descent. I left for Mexico this summer knowing that I would be exposed to Mexico’s poorest state to learn about the Zapatistas, the indigenous people of Mexico, and to learn about the effects of globalization and capitalism. I did not know that I would be exposed to the extreme injustices that indigenous people in Mexico and all over the world have to live through every day, as they are forced to either conform to a culture that had taken over their own.

Before the Spanish conquest, present-day southern Mexico and northern Guatemala was home to the Mayan empire. Once the Spaniards invaded, the natives were forced into slavery and before long, most people had a mix of Spanish and native blood. However, there is still a fairly large native population that continues to endure racist policies and treatment from the Mexican government.

One such policy is the North American Free Trade Agreement, a policy formed by Canada, the U.S. and Mexico that eliminates tariffs on goods traded between the three. While NAFTA was supposed to raise the Mexican standard of living, it has instead costed indigenous Mexicans many jobs. On the same day NAFTA went into effect, January 1, 1994, the Zapatistas fought for their freedom, wanting to expose the harsh injustices they experienced. The Mexican army, funded and trained by the U.S., fought the Zapatistas for 12 days.

When I first got to San Christóbal, Chiapas, I realized the Zapatistas are a glimmer of hope. They build their own homes, work the land, generate electricity and have their own gov-ernment. Unfortunately, the majority of Mayans, who live in Chiapas, are forced to fight for basic human ne-cessities each day in an environment where they are seen as expendable.

The whole time I was in Mexico, I constantly wondered, why don’t we hear about the Zapatistas in school? With the exception of Foreign Policy H, which covers NAFTA, there are no opportunities to learn about the Zapatistas in school. It’s a shame that young Americans remain ignorant of people suffering outside of our bor-ders. The leader of the Zapatistas, Sub-comandante Marcos, says that the best thing Americans can do is pressure the U.S. government to stop providing the Mexican police with the military and communications equipment used to fight indigenous peoples.

I’m not writing this to bash my country or to make others feel guilty. I am writing this so more people might take interest in finding ways to pro-vide human rights to people who live wondering why their lives are filled with uncertainty, anger and sadness. We middle and upper-class Americans can make a difference. If American students aren’t properly informed in school of the plight of others around the world, the tragic condition of oppressed peoples will continue to be ignored. Human rights will never be earned by indigenous peoples like the Zapatistas if these issues are not touched upon in our schools. Without information and knowledge, change is impossible.

See HORROR, Page B7

Mika Ben-Shaul/ The Campanile

Features The Campanile

B2 October 1, 2007

By ReBecca allen

News Editor

As Palo Alto High School junior Cassandra waited for her results, her knee twitched nervously. She knew that choices and mistakes had led to this point, and was not ready to see what was in store for her.

These were not the results from a recent SAT exam or calculus test, but rather the results of her Sexually Transmitted Disease test.

“Cassandra,” who like all the other sources in the article has chosen to remain anonymous, had engaged in unprotected oral sex and was recommended by her doctor for STD testing.

“When I told my doctor that I was sexually active, she immediately asked me if I had engaged in any unprotected oral sex or vaginal sex,” Cassandra said. “I didn’t really think anything of it because I had never even thought about oral sex as being a problem.”

The results proved to be quite shocking to Cassandra; she discovered that she had Chlamydia.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Chlamydia is the most commonly reported sexually transmitted disease in America and is likely more common than reported, as the majority of women that have it are not aware of it.

“I had been drinking a lot at a party one time and I had started hook-ing up with a guy who is a freshman at Stanford,” Cassandra said. “I was in a good enough state of mind to not have sex with him but apparently I was too absent-minded to use a condom for oral sex.”

By cRystal Wang

Staff Writer

Palo Alto High School senior Willie Xiang knew he wanted to do something ex-traordinary this summer. He decided to bike over 3,000 miles of never-ending highways, barren deserts and formidable mountains from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast, over just six weeks.

“I figured that the end of junior year would be my last time to do something remarkable,” Xiang said.

Last school year, Xiang received a pack-age from Overland in the mail. Overland is an organization of adventure and teamwork for students ages 11 to 18. It offers biking trips in New England, Canada, along the Pacific Coast and across Europe and the United States.

The catalog consisted of over 30 different types of programs, ranging from biking and hiking to writing and studying abroad in France or Spain. Overland groups never exceed over

12 students and always include two or more highly experienced and spirited leaders.

Xiang selected the “American Chal-lenge,” which was rated the most difficult out of eight other biking routes in the catalog.

“I wanted to go on the trip that was the most physically and mentally challenging,” Xiang said.

Xiang set out on his adventure from Sa-vannah, Georgia. All the bikers were rising high school seniors or college freshmen, with the exception of the two counselors.

On the first day, the group only biked 20 miles but eventually averaged 85 miles per day.

“We wouldn’t really do much,” Xiang said. “We would bike, eat, sleep and the next day would be the same.”

Every morning, Xiang and his fellow biker friends woke up at five a.m. In one hour, they quickly had to pack their sleeping bags, take down their tents, brush their teeth and eat their breakfast.

Breakfast was always simple and con-sisted of either oatmeal with water, cereal with powdered milk or some fruits. After loading everything on their bike racks, they began a ten to twelve hour bike ride.

“We’d reach our destination at six o’clock, if we were lucky,” Xiang said. “Sometimes we got there at 10:30 and had to bike in the dark.”

During the day, participants had a few stops for water, as well as lunch and dinner breaks.

Though their days may have seemed monotonous, the breath-taking scenery that Xiang saw during the journey was extremely interesting and beautiful. The mountainous routes of the gorgeous Rocky Mountain Range enthralled Xiang.

“[Biking the Rockies] was an exhilarating experience,” Xiang said. “We would ascend about 9,000 feet and then descend approxi-mately 7,000 feet. Going down was fun. Hav-ing the wind in your face, you feel free.”

Because they were riding as a group, they did not have many opportunities to bike fast, Xiang said. The group usually kept a moderate speed and could not accelerate easily due to the weight of supplies.

The highlight of Xiang’s trip was the finale, reaching the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica.

“I think it was a success mainly because I made it across,” Xiang said. “Persevering through all the biking and soreness was a big accomplishment.”

One aspect of the trip Xiang strongly disliked was the hot and humid weather in the South.

“There were tons of mosquitoes,” Xiang said. “We camped out a lot in the South and we each got about ten bug bites everyday.”

Each person had to carry all necessities on the back of their bikes for the entire ride. The weight was especially onerous when biking uphill.

“Biking with weights sucks because you know you have to keep going even though your legs are about to fall off,” Xiang said.

Nevertheless, Xiang learned valuable lessons from the experience. After this trip, Xiang began to take care of himself a lot bet-ter than he used to.

“Even though my hygiene wasn’t good be-cause we didn’t have running water everyday to take showers or brush our teeth, I looked after my body,” Xiang said. “Before the trip I had my mom take care of me saying, ‘Do this, do that, keep healthy,’ but after the trip, I do things willingly like taking vitamins. I don’t need to be asked to do something because it’s healthy.”

Xiang also had to shop, cook and clean for himself during the trip.

“We didn’t have a mom or dad,” Xiang said. “I definitely became a more independent person after this trip.”

Though Xiang did not have his dad biking alongside of him, sophomore Ben Sklaroff did.

This past summer, Ben and his father, Arthur, biked from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast.

They started at San Gregorio beach, on the coast of California, and biked to the Kitty Hawk, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Biking participants followed a map from the Adventure Cycling Association, but they slightly modified the route on the map to meet their needs and preferences.

Although the idea was his dad’s, they did not start planning until last year.

“We were looking on the Internet, finding other people’s blogs of cross country trips, and talking [to people] at local bike shops,” Arthur said. “One was an experienced biker and even gave me a list of equipment.”

Ben and Arthur began their trip on Jun. 16 and finished it in 59 days, averaging 65 miles of biking per day.

“We wanted to take our time,” Ben said. “[Biking with] a group is faster [than what we wanted].”

Ben was glad to take this extended period off from school to go on this biking ride.

“[I enjoyed] the adventure of it,” Ben said. “Seeing new things, meeting new people, it wasn’t just the same old routine.”

The two bikers met new, friendly faces in every state they biked through.

“Some people on this route had places for bikers to stay,” Arthur said. “There was one person in Virginia who had been housing participating bikers since 1976. She had a separate house where she let bikers stay.”

Arthur and Ben met many people with an exceptionally deep passion for biking. They even met a man who was in the middle of biking around the world, Ben said. Arthur said that he thought this trip was a good time for Ben to isolate himself from his highly scheduled life that he normally has back in school.

“I think he enjoyed the opportunity of having a lot of time to have his mind run free,” Arthur said.

Arthur also believes that the father-son situation was enjoyable and free of petty arguments.

“We were pretty intent on doing the ride,” Arthur said. “I think we both had a mind set of what we wanted and needed to do.”

Ben said he enjoyed the experience, would definitely do it again and strongly recommended others to think about doing the biking trip as well.

“You have to be committed though,” Ben said. “[You have to be] the kind of person who gets on the bike and puts in effort.”

Xiang agreed with Ben and recommends that other students try the Overland program too, but only if they feel capable of doing it. After the completion of his program, Xiang’s views on biking have changed.

“Biking is much more of a mental sport,” Xiang said. “I thought it was a kind of physical activity. It’s about 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical.”

Commonly referred to as the “Silent STD,” Chlamydia is limited to no symptoms and a lack of public awareness.

“Since I didn’t have any signs of an STD like Herpes; how was I sup-posed to know?” Cassandra said.

However, even with the lack of visible symptoms, Chlamydia has the potential to be one of the most harmful STDs.

The CDC reports that Chlamydia can cause pelvic inflammatory disease which in turn may lead to infertility and reproductive system problems.

According to the CDC, there are almost three million new cases of Chlamydia each year, most of which are among adolescents and young adults (ages 18-24).

The CDC recommends that sexually active females 25 and under should be screened at least once a year for Chlamydia, even if no symptoms of the STD are present.

Last year, rumors of a herpes outbreak plagued Paly, though no cases of the disease were reported among students.

Herpes, unlike Chlamydia, is incurable, though the outbreaks can be managed.

Mildred, a Paly senior, was infected with Herpes two years ago, right before she began her sophomore year.

“I still can’t believe I have her-pes,” Mildred said. “It’s gross actually, but I guess I manage it well.”

Using medication like Valtrex, Mildred keeps her genital herpes outbreaks under control.

“It was actually pretty stupid,” Mildred said. “I am and was on the pill and I thought that would kind of

kill the disease once it got into my body. It’s not like he told me he had herpes, though.”

Contrary to what Mildred thought, the pill only protects against preg-nancy, and according to the CDC using both condoms and the pill is the greatest way to protect sexually active individuals from STDs and pregnancy.

“I use condoms now,” Mildred said. “You know, I don’t want to get other people infected because that would not be good. It’s completely gross and scary.”

Other students have also felt the sting of STDs, unknowingly trans-mitting the Human Papillomavirus, more commonly known as HPV, to each other.

“We had been in a relationship for a long time and it just didn’t make sense to use a condom anymore,” Menlo-Atherton High School senior Shelbi said. “I am on birth control and [my boyfriend and I] were only having sex with each other.”

Soon after, Shelbi was diagnosed with HPV. Doctors also told Alex that he most likely is an HPV carrier and gave it to Shelbi.

“I had only ever had sex with one person so it didn’t make sense to me how I could have carried a STD,” Alex said. “Her doctor told me that most guys, something like 85% of all men, carry HPV.”

According to the CDC, HPV is usually relatively harmless but does in some cases lead to genital warts and irritation. Over 20 million adults currently have HPV and at least 80 percent of all adults acquire genital HPV at some point in there lives, with most cases going unnoticed.

According to Mayo Clinic doc-tor Sandhya Pruthi, M.D., HPV is the leading cause of cervical cancer. Most women should take preventative measures against HPV, even if they are not yet sexually active.

“The vaccine Gardisil protects against the main types of HPV that cause cervical cancer,” Pruthi said. “[However] the best way to prevent sexually transmitted infections is to have fewer sexual partners and to always use condoms.”

Even with the constant barrage of safe sex or abstinence campaigns, many students appear to remain ig-norant. According to the CDC, one in every four sexually active teenagers will acquire an STD by the time that they are 19 years old. And even with the current teenage pregnancy rate down, Chlamydia, HPV and HIV cases have still increased.

“It’s hard to say that you have to use a condom every time, especially when you are in a committed relation-

ship,” Alex said. “But I am not willing to risk her or my safety, so it’s really worth waiting that extra ten seconds to get a condom.”

Cassandra agrees but also knows how easy it is to not use protection or just to forget.

“What’s important is to get tested,” Cassandra said. “STDs do not have to be a tragic thing. Once you get tested, you can deal with your situation and move on and make smarter choices.”

Paly students who contracted STDs had little to no information about using condoms. Awareness about condoms can help prevent the spreading of STDs like herpes and chlamydia among teens.

Paly senior Willie Xiang biked 3,000 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific, experiencing living outside while enjoying biking and cooperating with Overland’s 11 other fellow members. Xiang recommends the trip to any Paly bike lovers.

Paly students bike across countryOverland program offers students chance to bike from Atlantic to Pacific coast

STDs lead to more caution among students

Stacy Levichev/The Campanile

Stacy Levichev/The Campanile

Features The Campanile October 1, 2007 • B3

By Annie Vought

Staff Writer

There are better ways to score cheap, funky clothes than raiding your grandmother’s closet. Thrift shopping is one of them and it has become increasingly popular among young adults, attracting enthusiastic shoppers with low prices, unique finds and the sheer thrill of the chase.

Fortunately for Palo Alto High School students, opportunities abound throughout the Bay Area. But while monthly flea markets and sporadic estate sales can supply the most dedicated of thrift shoppers with unusual treasures, a customer’s favorite thrift store is special because it is always there.

Visiting a thrift store is necessary to know exactly what it sells, but having a gen-eral idea of what to expect can make all the difference.

Saver’s 875 Main Street, Redwood City

Patience is a virtue. Keep that in mind while making a stop at Saver’s — venues like this downtown Redwood City store are certainly responsible for putting the funk in thrift store shopping.

Rows of shamefully hideous coats and jackets stretch as far as the eye can see, but for those who look hard enough there is always something great in store. As implied by the slogan, “Thousands of unique items arriving daily!” there is a constant amount of junk to sift through before finding something worth buying.

As the floor is peppered by carelessly dropped clothing and accessories, heavily perfumed with the musty scent of dust, dogs and senior citizens, Saver’s doesn’t exactly give the impression of a shopper’s paradise. Many of the price tags here are laughable: even the rattiest of tops are marked at ten dollars just for the Liz Claiborne label.

Yet hidden beneath the decades-deep refuse lies a trove of treasures. So skeptics beware: if willing to get down and dirty at Saver’s in the search of that perfect pair of sunglasses or a vintage sequined dress, expect to emerge victorious.

Aardvark’s Odd Ark1501 Haight Street, San FranciscoLike most other shops on Haight Street,

Aardvark’s caters not only to the tragically hip, but to the tragically well-funded.

However, certain treasures are mysteri-ously affordable, trapped between racks of outrageously priced, unimpressive picks. The store’s well-organized selection is wide despite the store’s small square-footage, offering an interesting mix of army coats, flowery dresses, tie-dye t-shirts and flashy dance costumes.

The staff is helpful and knowledgeable, remembering exactly what the store took in the previous week. They are great at locating a particular kind of item or offering legitimate style advice.

Most merchandise is in good condition, but sometimes the salespeople will let custom-ers bargain for an item if it has a hole or a few buttons missing.

Accessories are neither plentiful nor in-spiring, but there are several racks of vintage dresses, handmade wrap skirts and a monstrous variety of jackets: tweed, lace, hounds’ tooth and everything in between.

Unfortunately, many of the prices here are appalling. Aardvark’s is terrific for shoppers with extra cash, but others will need to spend lots of time in here before finding something cool enough to shell out for. Most visitors seem to walk out empty-handed, but it’s always worth a look.

Held Over1543 Haight Street, San Francisco1960’s sparkly cocktail dresses. Eighties

valley girl minidresses. Held Over sells men’s ethnic vests, ‘70s psychedelic skirts, hoe-down ruffle tops and ancient Hawaiian t-shirts. No 0t only is the clothing organized by decade, it is unique and beautiful as well.

The store displays an undeniably enor-mous selection of vintage clothing in perfect condition beneath gold-painted pillars, velvet curtains and extravagant mirrors. Few items are overpriced — it’s hard to imagine such

well-maintained, high quality pieces costing anything less.

Nevertheless, buying from Held Over can be difficult for anyone other than a vintage fiend. Still, if in the area, pay a visit because even just wandering amongst the clothing here is fun within itself.

Wasteland1660 Haight Street, San Francisco Unfortunately, the most commonly

recommended used-clothing store on Haight Street is also the most overrated. Wasteland takes itself far too seriously; even sweaters from a few seasons ago are sold at “vintage” prices, and whoever picks the music at the store seems to enjoy metallic grinding and cat yelps.

The atmosphere is a bit pretentious and cold, as the air conditioning is ailing and the prices are far too high for their mediocre cloth-ing selections. Everyone can find something here every once in a while, but rarely can anyone score something remotely considered a “steal.”

Wasteland’s fantastical window displays are famous for creativity and weirdness, so take a look at this ever-changing exhibit, but try not to get too excited about venturing inside.

La Rosa1711 Haight Street, San Francisco“No photographs, food, drinks or dirty

hippies,” reads the sign at the entrance to La Rosa, one of the finest, tiniest, most beauti-ful vintage boutiques in the area. With not a single old T-shirt or baja sweater to speak of, this shop specializes in clothing from between the ‘20s and ‘60s. Each item is marked with the decade of the piece, and the employees are especially knowledgeable about clothing from specific eras.

The quality and age of the clothing means that few high school students are La Rosa’s customers, but the impressive collection at La Rosa does still draws a sizable crowd of admirers.

Men will also enjoy the “blasts from the past” store displays. Some of the slacks and blazers are more than 80 years old. With funky jazz, elegant wood accents and a dark-green carpet, it’s like walking into a museum, but a lot more fun.

Clothes Contact473 Valencia Street, San FranciscoAt this Mission District shop, nearly

every single item is priced by weight. Clothes Contact charges $10 per pound of clothing. Exceptions include women’s dresses (but who

cares, at roughly 12 bucks a pop for ‘60s and ‘70s fare) and men’s jackets. And if you’re looking for baja sweaters, make sure to pick up three of the hippie “drug rugs” here for a grand total of $10.

Not to be overlooked are the 99 cent racks in front of the shop, stuffed full with blazers, plaid skirts, vintage sweaters and more, worlds apart from the tattered tank tops and garbage-bag like dresses dripping off of most dollar racks at other thrift stores.

Also noteworthy are the trunks upon trunks of ancient fabric: the shop is simply overloaded with curtains from that sweet-potato-orange and mustard-yellow era.

Searching through scarves and shawls at Clothes Contact is a lot like dumpster diving because of the sheer size of the selec-tion. Cashiers will even adjust the price of a purchase when the object is heavy or when in a good mood.

The clothing here is not quite as fine as places like Held Over or La Rosa, but with low prices, Clothes Contact is not to be missed.

Thrift Town2101 Mission Street, San Francisco Crowded and noisy, navigating the San

Francisco outpost of this popular chain is an adventure in itself. It’s somewhat in the middle of Goodwill and Saver’s in terms of content, and is constantly bustling.

Make sure to take advantage of their Monday Night Football sale, which offers 30 percent off everything on Mondays between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Most of the newer things here are heavily worn and pretty junky, but there are tons of old men’s jackets and women’s dresses from the ‘80s in between it all.

The entire second floor is dedicated to housewares and old radios, typewriters, cam-eras and lamp shades. Like many other stores, the pricing does not seem to be consistent; some prices will make shoppers laugh, while others will spark tears.

This is a great place for cool old T-shirts (think Star Wars, the San Francisco Zoo and company productio0n tees) and there is a huge selection of Cosby-esque sweaters available. This store is also famous for extremely long lines and poor service, so be warned: Thrift Town is not a place for stress cases or those faint at heart.

Mission Thrift2330 Mission Street, San FranciscoThis popular sh00op is a hipster’s dream.

The funky old architecture, wild window displays and magnificent amount of clothing packed into such a small place make Mission Thrift a San Francisco favorite. Although a bit overrated, the store has a decent selection and most clothes are well taken care of.

But what really makes Mission Thrift so likable is the great vibe. This store makes you feel really cool. Almost cool enough to drop twenty bucks on a pair of vintage shades or a tie-dye shirt.

By Becky Byler

Staff Writer

Students had over 40 new clubs to choose from last Friday, with clubs ranging from global issues to long boarding battled each other for new members on Club Day.

“We’re really happy about the number of clubs this year despite the new rules for clubs,” Associated Stu-dent Body Presi-dent senior Mo-hammed Abid said. “Last year we had a number of clubs that dis-appeared after second semester and we want to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Last year, Paly boasted around 30 club choices first semester, which drastically decreased by the end of the school year due to increasing levels of club inactivity.

“Some of the changes in the club application include a financial plan and club constitution so that we are really sure that clubs are serious and continue holding meetings all year long,” Abid said.

The new club application process does not seem to hinder the start of new clubs so far, with 20 new clubs

having already been approved and 25 returning clubs from last year.

“There is a great variety in clubs this year, but we’re also seeing a lot of clubs focused on fighting world issues,” Junior Class President Erik Klingbeil said. “Last year we had Ac-tion in Africa and New Global Citizens but now there’s a lot more.”

Joining last year’s Action in Af-rica and New Global Citizens Clubs

will be the Global Lit-eracy Club, Model Citi-zen, Writers Across Bor-ders , Am-nesty Inter-national and Youth Can-cer Outreach Club.

“I’m really surprised at the sud-den popularity of this topic at Paly, but I guess that everyone just wants to help someone out,” Copresident of New Global Citizens junior Catherine Chiang said.

Chiang, who established the New Global Citizens during second semester of last year, hopes to expand membership this year. Chiang is ex-cited about all the clubs that will “help a lot of people.”

“It’s great having such a large number of philanthropic clubs since

now we can all make a difference in someone’s life,” Chiang said.

Clubs such as the Global Lit-eracy Club plan to raise awareness of global literacy. The club plans to host book drives for third world countries throughout the year.

“One of our club members has an uncle who started an orphanage and library in Afghanistan, and we hope to hold book drives this year so that we can fill the library with books,” Global Literacy Club President, sophomore Sarah Martignetti said.

Writers Across Borders is another club that plans to blend literacy with community service. Sophomore Asha Albuquerque, the club’s president, said that the club’s mission is to combine writing with fighting global issues.

However, not all of the new clubs have such high goals of fighting world issues. Others, such as the L33T and Long boarding Club just want to bring people with similar interests together.

“I firmly believe that clubs should be based on any topic you feel pas-sionately about,” Long boarding Club President junior Phillip Martin said. “Since I love long boarding, I decided to create a club for people who just want to hang out and have fun.”

The Chess, Bridge and Juggling Clubs were created by senior Chris Clayton with the intention of improv-

Fashionably thrifty:

Allie Bollella/The Campanile

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanile

Wasteland, one of several thrift stores on Haight Street in San Francisco, sells metallic shoes, vintage sweaters and retro dresses, but the prices are often too expensive for the average teenage shopper to afford.

Bay Area stores sell vintage clothing at reasonable prices

New clubs recruit members on Club Day

Paly student council members discuss new club rules and plans for Club Day, which took place last Friday during lunch.

“There is a great variety in clubs this year, but we’re also seeing a lot of clubs focused on fighting world issues.”

Erik KlingbeilJunior Class President

ing students’ ability and providing an intellectually challenging environ-ment for like-minded people. But Clayton insists that the clubs members are also there to “just have fun.”

Working towards greater intel-ligence is also important to many of Paly’s more academic- oriented clubs. Joining academic clubs from last year will be the Science Club, Chinese Club and Digital Art Analy-sis/Critique Club.

Each club is planning on focus-ing its efforts towards building and maintaining skills in the specified area, as well as providing an envi-ronment for people interested in the same subjects.

“We really wanted a group to practice our Chinese and further our study of the language, so starting a club seemed like a perfect idea,” Chinese Club President, junior Sasha Targ said.

Starting a club and becoming a member of numerous others seems like the perfect idea to many students at Paly.

The diversity of the clubs attracts a wide variety of people to become involved in student activities.

“I have a club just about every day of the week, but I don’t care about not being able to eat lunch,” sophomore Gaby Cahill said. “All the clubs this year seem so interested and generally committed to their cause.”

Features B4 • October 1, 2007 The Campanile

By Cassie Wedemeyer

Staff Writer

A literacy report issued by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) stated that one in four children in America will grow up not knowing how to read. In addition, one out of twenty adults is illiterate. But the

By Kairen Wong

Lifestyles Editor

Palo Alto High School sopho-more Hannah Crown sang in her first opera in first grade.

“It was with West Bay Opera, a professional opera company, and they needed children to play street orphans,” Crown said.

Opera, which means “work” in Italian, is a dramatic performance that is mostly sung and accompanied by acting, dancing and colorful scenery. Dominant in Europe’s music scene from its creation in the late 1500s into the 1900s, opera was written in languages such as Italian, French and German.

Crown is one of several Paly stu-dents who sing opera. Most students don’t sing all types of opera. Senior Andy Dwan specializes in singing opera written in Italian.

“Learning the Italian is not so hard, although the pronunciation gets tricky,” Dwan said. “It’s the technique that's difficult.”

Unlike Crown, Dwan only began singing opera in high school.

“I always liked singing, and one day I realized I could sing,” Dwan said. “I started lessons and tried out for a Paly musical, and it all went from there.”

For one Paly student, pursuing his operatic dreams meant leaving Paly. Cameron Latchford now attends the In-terlochen Arts Academy in In-terlochen, Mich-igan, a perform-ing arts boarding school.

Latchford said singing has been a part of his life ever since he can remember, but continuing his commitment to the art in high school proved to be difficult.

“The time commitment was extremely stressful,” Latchford said. “I had a lot of trouble rehearsing for operas, doing homework and having a social life.”

Latchford found that a large majority of Paly students are still uninformed about opera.

“The truth is, there’s much more to classical singing than just singing,” Latchford said. “You have to learn languages, take diction classes, music history classes, acting and dance. Opera singers don’t make much

money unless they are famous. But money doesn’t matter to me, as long as I get to practice my art.”

Senior Kate Fruchterman, who plans to major in voice in college, echoes Latchford’s sentiments on the difficulty of making it in opera.

“My goal is to sing opera, even though it is really hard to make it,” Fruchterman said. “There are a lot of sopranos out there, but it’s worth a shot.”

Sopranos normally sing the high-est part in a musical work, and in a four-part chorale sing the melody.

Fruchterman practices two hours every day, and is currently preparing for her college auditions. From Octo-ber to January, she practices with the Peninsula Teen Opera, an organiza-tion that performs at Woodside High School in January.

“Last year I was the lead in the Magic Flute,” Fruchterman said. “We had to practice six hours every Satur-day during [the] season.”

In order to pursue her dream, Fruchterman will take Italian and German in college. She has already learned French by participating in a French Immersion program.

“Probably the hardest place to end up is the Metropolitan Opera in New York, especially since opera is not as big a part of the culture here as in Europe,” Fruchterman said. “There are a lot of really good people out there,

but I’ve done well at auditions.”

Latchford’s dream is to at-tend The Julliard School in New York City. He said Interlochen Academy has been a great high school for him.

“The acad-emy is pretty stressful, but I’ve met all kinds of crazy artists who understand me,” Latchford said. “One of my best friends is a composition major who's writing a new opera. He wants me in his premiere. I loved this place from the start.”

Latchford hopes to perform in Giacomo Puccini's “La Boheme” one day.

“I love Puccini, and the plot is perfect for me,” Latchford said. “The characters are bohemian artists who live together, and it’s extremely romantic.”

Fruchterman enjoys compos-ers from the romantic era, include Giuseppe Verdi and Puccini.

“I’d love to be able to sing Puc-cini’s ‘Madame Butterfly’,” Fruchter-man said. “Suicide arias are really fun. There is one for [my role in the Magic Flute] that I sing. The woman is just going crazy.”

Although Crown is less focused on a career in opera than Fruchterman

and Latchford, she still hopes that she can continue in a similar avenue in the future.

“I have not really sung in many other operas,” Crown said. “I was supernumerary in an opera last year, and usually they don’t have people my age in operas. Hosever, singing

operas does help with other types of singing.”

Dwan also wants to continue with opera and musical theatre though he is unsure if he will make it a career.

“I’m not sure if I’ll continue it as part of my college education, but I’m going to keep doing it wherever

I go,” Dwan said. “I want to continue singing.”

Opera's unique type of expression is what appeals most to Latchford.

“The best part about singing is that you can express your emotions,” Latchford said. “You can sing what can't be spoken to anybody.”

Paly students pursue opera dreams

Mika Ben-Shaul/The Campanile

YES Reading Program is doing something about it.

YES Reading is specifically targeted to help underprivileged children who may not have the opportunity to get the extra reading help they need in school.

“We wanted to make a difference in our community and the lives of children,” said

Jean Bacigalupi, one of the founders of YES Reading. “YES Reading is seeing our dream come true.”

YES Reading was founded in 1999 when Molly McCrory, Mary Wright Shaw and Bacigalupi, three women committed to “improving children’s literacy and life op-portunities,” decided to open the first YES

Reading site at Belle Haven Elementary School in Menlo Park.

Since then, Belle Haven Elementary School, with the support of multiple agencies and school partners, has been tutoring children who have difficulty reading. Currently 330 students attend the reading centers at multiple YES Reading sites in the Bay Area. Most children who attend Belle Haven are from East Palo Alto and Menlo Park. Each child is paired with a tutor for two 45 minute ses-sions a week to work on his or her reading skills.

“The students thrive in one-on-one settings where they receive instruction twice a week,” Belle Haven Pro-gram Director Tyler Abe said. “The students feel safe making mistakes be-cause they are not intimidated by their peers’ reactions. When they come to YES Reading, they are enthusiastic because they are reading books at their level of understanding.”

Abe, a former teacher, has enjoyed her new role as site director in Menlo Park since she switched positions this past summer.

“Being a part of a literacy intervention program has allowed me to work with students who need the most support in strengthening their reading skills,” Abe said.

The student tutors have a major impact on how Belle Haven is run. Junior Sai Boddu-palli has been volunteering at Belle Haven for almost a year, and knows how his help benefits the students.

“I feel connected to these kids,” Boddu-palli said. “They really appreciate what I’m doing for them.”

Not only does the program help kids gain social and reading skills, but tutors also gain from the program.

“It feels really good knowing that these kids are getting the extra motivation that they wouldn’t have otherwise,” Boddupalli said. “Nothing’s really as great as seeing how much a kid has improved during the course of the year. It’s amazing to see how much a person can develop.”

All tutors receive reports at the end of the year that show students’ improvement.

“The tutors are an asset to YES Read-ing.” Abe said. “They represent diverse pro-fessional backgrounds and bring many experi-ences and insights to their students.”

While many teach-ers, tutors and students

are involved at YES Reading in Menlo Park, they constantly look for more volunteers.

“It’s definitely important for high school students to take advantage of the opportunities YES Reading presents,” Boddupalli said. “It really builds leadership because you need to know what to do with a kid for the 45 minutes you have with them and how to teach them effectively. YES Reading is based on volun-teers, so obviously the more kids who do it, the better it is for the program and the kids who need help.”

Students interested in volunteering at YES Reading volunteer for 45 minute sessions with each student they tutor.

Those who volunteer weekly work with the same students each week. Hours are flexible for tutors and work around tutors’ schedules.

“It’s great to have YES Reading because they help you to advance your reading,” a second grader at YES Reading said. “And then you can do or be anything.”

Senior Kate Fruchterman, who plans to major in voice in college, practices her vocals for a part in an upcoming opera. Fruchterman is one of the many students at Paly who participate in Bay Area operas, and will perform with the Peninsula Teen Opera this January.

Julia Benton/The CampanileA volunteer tutors a student at YES Reading in Menlo Park. Founded in 1999 by three women who committed themselves to improving children’s literacy and life opportunities, the program offers reading lessons to underprivileged children.

YES Reading offers underprivileged children tutoring

“We wanted to make a differ-ence in our community and the lives of the children.”

Jean BacigalupiYES Reading Co-Founder

“The best part about singing is that you can express your deepest emotions to yourself or a group of people.”

Cameron LatchfordFormer Paly student

Features The Campanile October 1, 2007 • B5

A stunning array of molten glass sculptures catch the morning sunlight, reflecting a kaleidoscope of colors. The pumpkins may vary in size and shape, but each is brilliant, and together they form a rainbow of colors across the fresh green grass. The Palo Alto community can come to the Great Pumpkin Fair to purchase the remarkable pumpkins.

Palo Alto High School ceramics students will fundraise for the Paly Glass Program by selling original glass blown pumpkins at the annual Great Glass Pumpkin Patch. The glass pumpkins will be available for sale at the Palo Alto Art Center on Oct. 6 and 7, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The pumpkins were made by alumni, professional artists and stu-dents and range in price from $50 to $150. Students and alumni volun-teered their time during the summer to create over 300 pumpkins that will be sold at the fair. Paly’s ceramics and sculpture instructor David Camner, said the Paly Glass Program will be fully-funded for the school year.

“I provide Paly students a stress free environment that fosters intuitive problem solving and artistic expres-sion,” Camner said. “To make things is to be human. Making art can be rewarding in ways not found in other endeavors.”

Camner began teaching at Paly in 1998, when he introduced his

three-pronged “Fiery Arts” program, offering ceramic sculpture, glass making and bronze casting. Today, Camner’s program has expanded into three Ceramics/Sculpture programs and two Advanced Sculpture classes, with a total enrollment of about 130 students.

“I love glass and felt that it would be great to have a glass program,” said Camner. “There are few glass programs in schools, even at most uni-versities, much less high schools.”

Last year, most of the glass pump-kins sold for around $80 and raised a total of approximately $7000 for the glass program, Camner said. However, the program hired a few professional artists to make some of the pumpkins. All of the paid artists donated their time, allowing all potential proceeds to go to the Paly Glass Program.

The Paly Glass Program has been involved in the Great Glass Pumpkin Patch for the past two years. Prior to that, student pumpkins were sold to the Paly community. The program re-ceived 60 percent of the profits, while the school received 40 percent.

“It’s great fun,” Camner said. “It is challenging, physically and men-tally, and intrinsically rewarding.”

Other projects in the Ceramics/Sculpture program include hand-building ceramic sculptures, Raku, mold-making with plaster, glass-casting, wood and stone carving, metal fabrication, lost-wax casting of bronze, found objects and mixed-media work.

Students prepare for annual Glass Pumpkin Patch By Cat Benson

Staff Writer

By Laura Kurtz

Senior Staff Writer

Palo Alto High School freshman Cisca Harriss has played many sports in her lifetime, but it is her most recent athletic endeavor that has caught people’s attention.

Since the mid-nineties, the Paly football program has been exclusively male, but with Harriss as one of the newest players on Paly’s freshman football team, that tradition is over.

According to Athletics Director Earl Han-sen, the only other female football player was a kicker who played in the mid-nineties.

Harriss has thought about playing football since she was in fifth grade. By the seventh grade, she had attempted to join a team.

Unfortunately, her middle school did not have a football team and she would have had to play for the club in her Oregon town. Although the club did not blatantly forbid her from playing, it made it difficult for her to sign up.

“None of the players on the team wanted a girl, and the coaches didn’t either,” Harriss said. “They were kind of sexist.”

When Harriss moved to Palo Alto in eighth grade, she opted to join the volleyball team instead of playing flag football. Yet, in the summer between eighth and ninth grade she seriously considered playing on the Paly football team.

“I knew a lot of kids that were playing football on the Paly team and I thought, ‘hey, why not?’” Harriss said. “So I just went for it.”

Over the summer, Harriss talked to her parents about her decision to try and play foot-ball the following year. Her parents’ reaction was far from positive and they spent most of the summer trying to dissuade her from fol-lowing through.

Neither of her parents enjoy the sport of football no matter who is playing it, Harriss said. But she believes that although they do not approve of football, they would have been less reluctant to let her play if she were a boy.

“My dad isn’t a big football fan and he’s not too excited about his daughter playing football,” Harriss said. “My mom is just wor-ried that I’ll get hurt.”

After constant nagging, her father finally consented to let her try out. However, when try-outs came, he said that he had been joking.

Harriss managed to attend the tryouts despite her parents’ begging her not to, and it was not until later that her parents realized that the freshman team was no-cut.

“When they found out the freshman team was no-cut, my dad was upset,” Har-riss said.

Harriss’ father was hoping that she would get cut from the team, which would bring an end to her football career. Now that she has made the team, Harriss said her parents are constantly asking her to quit.

“They have been trying to get me to do different things,” Harriss said. “My mom wanted me to do water polo or cross country and she even tried to bribe me. She offered to pay me to do rowing instead after the first week of practice.”

Harriss said that the main reason her parents are adamantly against her playing football is because they are afraid that she will get injured.

Harriss’ friends and soccer coach have also persistently attempted to persuade her to quit. Harriss’ soccer coach James Ellmore does not approve of football in general, and strongly disapproves of one of his players being involved in such a violent game.

“Football fans want to see people hit each other,” Ellmore said. “It’s like they are barbarians, smashing each other with helmets. There’s no grace, no flair, there are little bits

of skill, but I don’t know. I’m not a fan of football. I don’t want her to get injured.”

Ellmore maintains the same policy with all of his players.

“If any of my other players were playing this or rugby or any other sport where there is contact, I would advise against it,” Ellmore said. “Especially not anyone at this age where they’re growing so quickly ... I think that football is just the wrong sport for any teenager to be playing.”

Freshman Kimberly Hallsted, who plays on Harriss’ soccer team, also disapproves of her teammate’s participation in football. She believes that playing football is not in Harriss’ best interest and has tried to make her stop.

When Harriss first told Hallsted that she was going to play football, Hallsted’s reaction was less than positive. Although she does not fully support Harriss even now, Hallsted admits

that she has grown accustomed to the fact that Harriss is not giving up any time soon.

“I’m used to the idea of her playing foot-ball now because I can’t really do anything about it,” Hallsted said. “She doesn’t listen to me.”

Like many of the other people around Harriss, Hallsted does not want Harriss to play football for fear of injury. Hallsted also said that, as a teammate, she hopes Harriss will not get injured so that she will be able to play soccer.

While Hallsted has tried to dissuade Har-riss from playing football, she admits that the idea of a girl on the freshman football team is “pretty cool.” Hallsted also admires that Harriss has managed to keep having as much fun as possible playing football even with all the people around her telling her that it would be better if she quit.

“I respect her decision,” Hallsted said. “I do not know what I would do if I was in her position.”

Hallsted plans to attend the football games in order to cheer on her friend, regardless of her opinion about the situation. However, there are people who do not worry about Harriss and think that what she is doing is admirable and interesting.

At first, freshman and teammate Charlie Jones thought that having a girl on the team was interesting and definitely something he had never seen before.

“You usually don’t see a girl in football pads,” Jones said. “Everybody thought it was kind of weird tackling her at first but everybody got used to it and now it’s not.”

Teammate and friend, freshman Nate Velasquez said that he has never seen a girl playing football before. He thinks it got easier for the guys on the team to treat her the same, is that they stopped treating her like a girl and started treating her like a football player.

“They realized that she just wants to play football, so they just got over the fact that she’s a girl,” Velasquez said.

Jones said that while some of the boys on the team had problems tackling her at first, they soon became accustomed to treat-ing her as “one of the guys.” Like Hallsted, Jones thinks that it is it is impressive that she continues to play the sport despite the constant pressure to quit.

“I think it is pretty cool that she just goes over everybody and just says ‘I don’t care what you think, I care what I think’,” Jones said.

Seconding Harriss’ opinion, Jones said that it would be great for her to continue playing, and the more players there are, even if they are not all male, the better. Velasquez agreed that it would be possible for her to continue playing football.

Harriss’ younger sister Anja Harriss strongly supports her sister and understands why she is playing on the football team.

“She is really strong, and she is really hard core,” Anja said. “Football is a sport she would play. When we were little, we would always joke about how me and her friends would be the cheerleaders in high school and she was going to be on the football team, but now she’s actually on the football team.”

Anja said that her friends are proud of Harriss for playing on the team and have even thought about attending the football games just to watch her.

Harriss plans to try out for the team next year as a sophomore and is even considering playing Varsity if her schedule and family will allow it.

While the road for Harriss has not been a smooth one, she does not regret her deci-sion.

“I think that if you want to try something new, you should just go for it,” Harriss said. “There is not really anything stopping you but yourself.”

Female football player defies stereotypesFreshman Cisca Harriss overcomes gender barriers by joining Paly’s freshman football team

Glass blown pumpkins will be sold during the festival held in early October, proceeds will go to the Paly Glass Program

Morgan Pichinson/The Campanile

Hannah McGovern/The Campanile

Paly junior Tim Wenzlau works with professional glass artists to produce one of the many glass-blown pumpkins that will be sold at the annual Great Glass Pumpkin Patch at the Palo Alto Art Center.

Camner previously taught at Rhode Island School of Design, and received his Master of Fine Arts in Glass Sculpture at Santa Clara Uni-versity.

When he switched to teaching high school students, Camner was looking for a steady paycheck and a way to give back to society.

“Glassblowing is great because it’s a great medium for kids, and great for self-efficacy in students,” Camner said. “It’s hard and difficult, but when the kids overcome the technical prob-lems it can be very rewarding.”

Parent funding plays a huge role in the success of the glassblowing program, Camner said.

“Parents have been very support-ive of my program, in donations, at our Holiday sale in December and at our spring sale,” Camner said.

The parents also support the monthly Weekend Workshops, a primary source of funding, where glassblowing is taught to the public, Camner said.

“It’s great fun and often we have couples or families taking the work-shop together,” Camner said.

Although glassblowing is cur-rently only offered at four high schools in the nation, its popularity is growing in the Paly community.

Junior Jack Gayle, who has sold his work at the annual fundraiser for the past two years, plans to sell his glass pumpkins this fall.

“It’s not just an art experience, it’s a social experience,” Gayle said.

Despite opposition from friends and family, freshman Cisca Harriss follows her dream of playing on the freshman football team. Little did she know that she would be the only female football player at Paly in over ten years to play.

Features B6 • October 1, 2007 The Campanile

While other Palo Alto High School ath-letes head out to the field or gym after school for practice, senior Kelvin Wang and fresh-man Gaston Bolanos tape up their fists and head into the ring. While their gloves may be similar to those used in boxing, their fight will be much different.

Wang and Bolanos practice what is known as Muay Thai, a Thai martial art that is gain-ing popularity throughout the Western world through fighting competitions and TV shows like the “Ultimate Fighting Championship” (UFC), “K-1” and “Ultimate Fighter.”

Muay Thai is a rigorous form of stand-fighting that involves both kicking and punch-ing. It is the foundation from which many forms of Asian kickboxing have developed. Muay Thai is also known as the Art of Eight Limbs because, unlike many other forms of martial arts and fighting, it uses two hands, shins, knees and elbows to deliver powerful blows during a match.

Wang began attending the Fairtex Martial Art gym in Mountain View six months ago after being inspired by martial arts fights on TV.

“When I first began watching UFC and saw all the different fighting techniques, I knew I wanted to learn them and be able to do the things they did,” Wang said.

In competitions like the “UFC” and “K-1,” an international fighting tournament held in Japan, competitors practice Mixed Martial Arts, which is a mix of fighting forms that are all used during a single fight. The Fairtex gym itself is highly renowned in the world of competitive fighting and only has two U.S. locations, one in Mountain View and the other in San Francisco. The rest of the Fairtex gyms are in Japan and Thailand.

“Fairtex gyms are so highly regarded that in some cases, after a fighter has gone through years of training through the gym and has become a champion, he will change his last name to Fairtex in honor of the gym,” Wang said.

Muay Thai fighting gains foothold at PalyBy Michael haMada

Staff Writer

The USA Muay Thai team is even spon-sored by the Fairtex gyms.

“I was excited when I moved here from Peru and saw that there was a Fairtex gym nearby,” Bolanos said. “It’s really cool to be trained by Fairtex trainers straight from Thailand.”

Bolanos has been training in Muay Thai for the past six years. Wang said that in Thai-land, Muay Thai is more a way of life than

just a sport. Young boys will leave school in order to focus on Muay Thai and train all day. Most of these boys are from poor economic backgrounds and use Muay Thai as a way out of their economic struggles.

Like boxing matches, Muay Thai matches are scored by judges based on efficient punches and kicks, and whether or not a fighter had control over his opponent throughout each round. Unlike boxing, however, fighters are

not separated when they clinch up in a hold. In Muay Thai, these situations are the best times to score points by kneeing the opponent in the stomach. A fighter can also score points by catching an adversary’s kick and then throwing a punch at him while he is off balance.

Wang and Bolanos said that Muay Thai takes an incredible amount of dedication and physical endurance. Most people train two hours a day, five days a week. An average

training session can have up to six different types of workouts.

A real Muay Thai fight has three- minute rounds, so to emulate that in practice, each workout is done for three minutes at a time. A fighter usually starts off with four rounds of jump roping to improve stamina and leg strength. Then a fighter will move on to shadow-boxing with weighted gloves, where he will pretend to fight an invisible enemy in order to get his muscles ready for more intense physical strain. This is done for two rounds and then followed by bag work for five rounds.

Bag work consists of kicking and strik-ing heavy boxing bags scattered throughout the gym. Fighters grunt and yell as they slam their legs against the bags.

“Some of the trainers here have even competed in professional fights and you can see their matches on YouTube,” Wang said. “They will kick bags that weigh hundreds of pounds from side to side as if they weigh nothing.”

The rest of the workout consists of kicking against pads held by a trainer in the ring, core workouts and weight training. Both Wang and Bolanos hope to compete in Fairtex Mountain View’s next smoker fight. A smoker fight is a group of fights for fighters before they turn amateur, Wang said. So far, Bolanos is 2-0 in smoker fights including one knockout.

Muay Thai is a martial arts form full of tradition and honor. Before a match, many fighters will go through a religious ritual where they will dance around the ring, praying to the spirits and paying respect to their trainers. They dance around and pray at each corner of ring, which represents the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. It is also a time for fighters to collect their thoughts before the match.

“There are white non-Buddhist fighters who participate in these rituals too,” Wang said.

As martial arts gain popularity through new international fighting championships, it won’t be long before people of all ages gain an interest in the ancient sport of Muay Thai.

Morgan Pichinson/The Campanile

Senior Kelvin Wang attacks a punching bag during his training in the Muay Thai fighting style. Muay Thai, a martial art from Thailand, is gaining popularity because of popular international fighting tournaments shown on television.

Features The Campanile October 1, 2007 • B7

By HannaH Bystritsky

Staff Writer

He looked slightly paler and the

dark circles underneath his eyes had darkened overnight. To his peers, he looked as strange as he always did, but to his friends he seemed more temperamental.

After starting a new antide-pressant, “Max,” a Palo Alto High School junior who wishes to remain anonymous, started feeling even more depressed than usual.

Many teens suffer from differ-ent severity levels of depression or other psychological and emotional problems.

According to the National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center, one in every 12 adolescents experience depression in any given six month period. In addition, according to the Alliance for Human Research Protec-tion, 68 percent of parents believe that antidepressants are over-prescribed to teenagers.

“I’ve been on medication ever since I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and depression when I was nine,” Max said. “Sometimes I lose my appetite and other times I can’t sleep. Sometimes, it even worsens my depression.”

Many of the medications teen-agers use come with risks such as headaches, insomnia, nervousness, restlessness and weight change.

On the other hand, medication has helped many adolescents do better in school, be more social and form better relationships with their family.

“I took Clylert for my ADD for a really long time and it helped me a lot,” said “Adam,” a Paly sophomore who wishes to remain anonymous said. “I found myself being able to focus a lot more during class.”

Often, finding a medication that is most beneficial to a teenager is a long process filled with trial and error.

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“We live during a time when medication is a shortcut to find-ing the solution for many ills. It is much easier and less stressful to take medication,” said Michael Levin, a Psychiatrist specializing in children and adolescents.

Many teenagers diagnosed with social or emotional disorders such as clinical depression are prescribed medications without first offered alter-native treatments. For instance, behav-ioral problems may be helped simply by changing the patient’s diet.

Similarly, herbal remedies and other forms of Eastern medicine can be just as effective as prescription drugs. In addition, individuals do not experi-ence side effects like addiction.

“My grandma used to perform acupuncture on me and give me a lot of green tea and Asian herbs,” Max said. “Although it didn’t help me with depression, it made me feel better in other ways and improved my overall mood.”

In “Is Psychiatry for Sale,” a discussion paper for the Institute of psychiatry in London, researcher Joanna Moncrieff makes several conclusions.

“Western society is consuming ever larger quantities of prescription drugs and many of these are for psy-chiatric complaints,” Moncrieff said. “The pharmaceutical industry is now heavily involved in the organization of research into psychiatric drugs and the dissemination of research findings. Psychiatry provides fertile ground for pharmaceutical industry profits because it provides opportunities for expanding definitions of sickness to include more and more areas of social and personal difficulty.”

After a few days, the circles under Max’s eyes cleared up. He seemed to have regained a bit of color and he was more at ease, but his closest friends knew he still wasn’t feeling so great.

“Reno treats us like rock stars,” head of Caste security Kurt Narveson said. “We had about 5,000 people at this August’s show. Thousands of people doing the Time Warp together is a pretty wild thing to see.”

The Caste has been performing at the festival for nine years by spe-cial invitation and has made Rocky a highlight of the summer festival.

“This August’s show was com-pletely f***king insane,” Purucker said. “About 15 minutes into the movie, the toilet paper came out.

There was a continuous toilet paper fight and mosh pit going on in the auditorium for the rest of the movie.”

The Caste has attended Rocky Horror conventions in Tucson, Las Vegas and Hollywood and sometimes performs at the Clay Theater in San Francisco.

Most Caste members don’t tire of acting in Rocky shows because of the unique experience.

“I think Rocky still plays because there’s really nothing else like it,” Mr. Wilke said. “There’s really no other movie where you can yell and throw things and see people acting in front of the screen and not get thrown out. It’s just the whole experience.”

The film was a critical flop upon its release, criticized mainly for its camp tone of exaggerated sexuality. However, after being relaunched as a midnight movie in 1976, its fan base grew.

“In a lot of ways, it’s passé,” Narveson said. “It’s well past its prime. Its biggest time would be late 1970s to mid-1980s.”

Rocky fans, however, continue to put on and attend shows, aided by the emergence of fan websites and conventions.

“When you explain Rocky to someone who’s never been, they

think it’s the same movie every time and that the same people do the exact same thing,” Tatro said. “It’s very hard to describe how different it always is. People take their tops off, people overdose on alcohol – I’ve never been to a show that I haven’t walked away from with an unique story to tell.”

Many Caste members said the movie’s popularity endures in part because of the inclusive culture sur-rounding it.

“In high school I was obese and quite shy,” Barman said. “When I played Magenta, I was the sexiest person in the room. At Rocky, ev-erybody fits in. Rocky was the first place I felt like I belonged. You can do whatever you want and be whoever you want here.”

In between helping found the Bawdy Caste in 1995 and fulfilling her current duties as co-director, Shannon Wilke took a five-year hiatus from

performing during which she married and had children.

“I tried to be the normal house-wife,” Mrs. Wilke said. “It didn’t work out. All the other housewives were looking at me sideways. For the five years I was gone, I was in Rocky withdrawal. This isn’t just where you show up every other weekend; this is a family.”

Although Rocky has been added to the National Film Registry, a list of 450 films deemed “culturally, his-torically or aesthetically significant” by the United States National Film Preservation Board, its fans are less interested in its artistic merits than the customs of its society.

“When I watched it before I started performing, it seemed like a bunch of nonsense,” Swan said. “Now that I’ve watched it so many times and really studied it, I think it’s genius: the acting is amazing, it’s so much fun and it’s completely ground-breaking. I feel like it’s a really amazing piece of art.”

Tatro describes Rocky as his “religion and inspiration” but does not consider it high art.

“It’s so creepy to think that this actually started as real theater and evolved into this,” Tatro said.

Narveson has been working at Rocky shows since 1978 and been with the Caste for seven years. He sports a tattoo of the famous Rocky lips on his calf.

The disembodied lips are featured on the movie poster and sing the movie’s title song, “Science Fiction Double Feature.”

“In the way modern art is defined nowadays, Rocky is art, because most art nowadays is ridiculous,” Narveson said. “There’s a German guy who has an art show in Boston, and it’s an empty room with a light that turns on and off every five minutes. If that is considered art, Rocky is definitely art.”

Horror , Continued from B1

Mika Ben-Shaul/ The Campanile

Paly teens use various methods to fight disorders and depression

Members of the Bawdy Caste perform a lift during the Sept. 15 screening of the The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Menlo Park.

Rocky is a unique performance

A & E The Campanile

B8 October 1, 2007

By Josh Lo

Staff Writer

For those not content with watch-ing reruns on television, this season’s lineup offers plenty of new shows starting this fall. Returning shows also hit the small screen with new plots and adventures.

“Aliens In America”Mondays, 8:30 p.m., CW

One new show that is sure to be a hit is “Aliens in America.”

The show is about a Wisconsin mother who invites a foreign exchange student to come live with her shy teenage son with the hope that he will become more popular.

However, when the student turns out to be a Pakistani Muslim, her plan goes astray.

“Aliens in America” is a high school dramatic comedy that provides non-stop laughter of striking cultural differences. The show is not one to be missed.

“The Big Bang Theory”Mondays, 8:30 p.m., CBS

Another comedy show sure to be a hit is “The Big Bang Theory.”

The story line follows two brai-niac scientists, Leonard and Sheldon, who understand everything in life except women.

The show then brings in a new, pretty neighbor who teaches the pair a thing or two about love and relation-ships. As she tries to be helpful with

By Ryan McLeod

Staff Writer

The heat of summer is gone, and with it the incentive to sneak into an air-conditioned movie theater where the latest blockbuster sequel is playing.

On the bright side, fall offers a different reason to go to the movies.

Falling between the big-budget summer titles and family-friendly holiday blockbusters is a season where film festivals abound, indie pictures flourish and Hollywood stars are free to expand their acting spectrum in fresh and intriguing films.

Ira and AbbySeptember 14

Filling the position of the quirky indie romantic com-edy for the season, Ira and Abby looks to be a charming date movie with an extra twist.

The movie begins with a typical neurotic boy-meets-girl plot. The subject matter soon takes a depressing dive with the theatrical element of a bad marriage.

The couple’s quick and irrational decision creates a riveting story filled with comedic events.

Robert Carey is inexperienced in the director’s chair and the actors are hardly stars, but early comments from film festivals praise the depth of the script and the strength of the supporting cast.

The Darjeeling Limited September 29 The Darjeeling Limited is an offbeat movie now ap-

pearing at various film festivals that stars Owen Wilson, Adrien Broody and Jason Schwartzman as three brothers traveling on a spiritual journey across India by train.

The plot carries the estranged brothers into a num-ber of awkward and compromising situations, a premise similar to that of last year’s award-winning Little Miss Sunshine.

While the dysfunctional family vacation premise is nothing new, The Darjeeling Limited promises the addition of a vibrant and colorful setting. The movie’s presence in India will surely influence the film’s story line and will hopefully add to the overall character of the film.

Cinematographer Robert Yeoman has worked fre-quently with writer and acclaimed director Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) and their combined experience promises a well-crafted, intelligent film.

The Darjeeling Limited has yet to prove itself as co-medic gold, but it has a formula that promises success.

My Kid Could Paint That October 5 in select cities

The fall season also plays host to its share of fascinat-ing documentaries, including highly-anticipated My Kid Could Paint That.

Filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev, whose debut film, Fighter, examined Eastern European immigrants, documents the life of child prodigy Maria Olmstead, who at the age of four became famous for her artistic talent. Her abstract paintings were compared to those of modern artistic mas-ters Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock and sold for tens of thousands of dollars.

After “60 Minutes” called the authenticity of the young girls’ paintings into question, the Olmstead family found itself the subject of national debate.

Fall television lineup offers variety of new shows to viewers

her charms, they confuse her with their intelligence.

“Cavemen”Mondays, 8:30 p.m., CBS

“Cavemen” adds more humor to the mix of fall sitcoms. It tells of a southern suburban town seen through the eyes of three cavemen named Joel, Nick and Andy.

The premise of the show is about their attempt to conform to normal standards of society.

Facing discrimination, these three cavemen learn to cope with and live in a modern community filled with new and exciting adventures.

It is not certain whether or not this sitcom, based off a well-known Geico commercial, will succeed.

“Bionic Woman”Mondays, 8:30 p.m., NBC

Aside from the new comedies is an action filled show, “Bionic Woman.” The plot follows Jaime Sommers, a bartender and surrogate mother, who is nearly killed in a car accident.

The Bionic Woman, played by British actress Michelle Ryan, is saved

by a state-of-the-art operation that gives her new superhuman powers.

She has to survive the older model Bionic Woman all while taking care of her younger sister Becca, played by Lucy Hale.

Of course, there is romance in the plot, with character Will Anthros, portrayed by Chris Bowers. The show, based on classic superhero tales, is

sure to be a hit with its tried-and-true plot of impossible heroics. The twists will leave the viewers on the edge of their seats.

“Kid Nation”Wednesdays, 8 p.m., CBS

A new reality show creating much controversy is “Kid Nation.”

In this show, 40 kids from all over America spend 40 days in a ghost town testing their survival skills.

The show follows the children’s story as they overcome the obstacles of creating a new society in without adult guidance.

Working together in a world with no adults, they are pushed to their limits and far beyond.

“Heroes” Mondays, 10:30 p.m., NBC

“Heroes” returns for its sopho-more season and features people from across the globe with superhu-man powers, all connected with the ultimate destiny to save the world. Stunning and heart pounding, “He-roes” returns better than ever.

“Grey’s Anatomy”Thursdays, 8 p.m., ABC

The fourth season of “Grey’s Anatomy,” a romantic drama involv-ing interns and doctors at Seattle Grace hospital, returns with new plot twists. The show’s complex and dramatic story lines made it an audience favorite in its first season, and it has retained its popularity into its current season.

Courtesy of www.imdb.com

Cate Blanchett plays Queen Elizabeth I of England in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The sequel to 1998’s Elizabeth. Elizabeth: The Golden Age is one of a few sequels being released during this fall season.

Summer send off:

The television lineup this fall includes shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy” (upper left), “Kid Nation,” (bottom left) and “Heroes” (center). Other shows like “Cavemen” (upper right) and “Aliens in America” (bottom right) premiere for the first time this autumn.

Courtesy of Google Images

Bar-Lev’s documentary also questions whether Ol-mstead’s parents could be the true artists of the paintings. Bar-Lev lived with and documented the Olmstead family during the year Maria became a national celebrity.

My Kid Could Paint That was first shown at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and was well-received.

Michael Clayton

October 12George Clooney returns this fall to play in a legal

thriller.Michael Clayton is a fixer, a man hired to rig trials

for large corporations and law firms, who in the process changes the truth seen by the public.

The plot will details one four-day assignment of Clayton’s, using flashbacks to show more of the charac-ters’ personal lives.

Clooney is supported by a cast of first class ac-tors, including Sydney Pollack, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson.

Although this is writer and director Tony Gilroy’s first time behind the camera, his experience with penning the Bourne movies makes him an expert in handling ac-tion and thrills.

The talented cast and crew should easily be able to maintain the viewer’s attention, something that is often lost in complex legal dramas, making Michael Clayton a guaranteed box-office winner.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age October 12 One of the few sequels this fall is Elizabeth: The

Golden Age. The sequel to Elizabeth (1998) features Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I of England, a return to the role that made her famous.

Director Shekhar Kapur returns for this installment along with much of the original cast. Clive Owen and Geoffrey Rush both appear in major roles as members of Elizabeth’s court.

In this film, Elizabeth has already taken command of the throne and is now faced with dire threats to the country, including the falling colonization of Virginia and the attack of the Spanish Armada.

Along with the usual political drama, Elizabeth: The Golden Age is filled with illicit love affairs, thrilling court intrigue and superbly animated naval battles.

Appeal for this film shouldn’t be limited only to those who enjoyed Elizabeth. The historical, romantic and dramatic elements should make this film enjoyable to any moviegoer.

For a historical film, Elizabeth: The Golden Age surprises in having just the right ingredients to be an exciting box-office smash and an interesting new film this fall season.

American Gangster November 2American Gangster is likely to be one of the big-

gest box office hits this fall. Viewers are sure to enjoy this riveting action-packed tale.

Denzel Washington plays a crime boss operating in the 1970s who is pursued by an outcast cop (Russell Crowe). The story, based on true events and written by Steve Zaillian, portrays the two as similar characters who are inevitably forced towards a final showdown.The plot addresses racism as one of its major issues.

Washington’s character in the only black mob boss in Chicago, with a lot of hatred directed at him because of this.

Whether or not he becomes a character who de-serves sympathy in the eyes of the audience is left to director Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator, Blade Runner).

While the character has performed good deeds in support of his community and could be seen as a hero for surmounting racial barriers, he is also a criminal

and drug lord who uses coffins carrying dead soldiers from the Vietnam War to smuggle drugs to America.

Although this bad boy with a heart of gold role has been played before, Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer is sure to put an original spin on it.

Scott is known for creating films that are both box-office hits and critically acclaimed Academy Award winners. American Gangster is likely to end the fall season with a bang.

Six promising new movies to check out in the upcoming fall season

A & E The Campanile October 1, 2007 •B9

Since the announcement of its impending arrival in January, nothing has created more buzz in the world of technology than Apple’s iPhone. Introduced as a groundbreaking revolution in mobile entertainment, it has now been released to the world. But does it live up to the hype? Is it worth the cost?

It most definitely is. The iPhone may not be as epic as Apple wants it to be, but with only a few setbacks, it is an incredibly fun and useful device that is worth every penny of its newly lowered price tag.

The iPhone is essentially a computer utilizing a group of ap-plications that are all integrated with one another.

For example, one can listen to the iPod while looking at a Web page with a phone number listed on it. One touch will fade the music out and dial the number; a second touch will add it to your contacts; and a third touch will end the call and fade the music back in right where you left off.

Or, when searching for a Mexican restaurant, one can search “Mexican” in the Google Maps application. The locations of the closest Mexican res-taurants will appear. One touch will give the selected restaurant’s infor-mation; another will dial its number, open its Web page or find directions to and from it. The possibilities are endless.

Many worry about the miniscule keyboard and the battery life. Both are valid concerns. The keyboard is much too small, but with some prac-tice it becomes less of a problem. It is auto-correcting and can generally interpret what one is typing, even if the exact keys are not pressed. The keyboard would be more effective with a horizontal layout, similar to the one utilized with the Web browser.

The battery life is acceptable for those who do not use the iPod or YouTube excessively. It is a problem, however, for those who do watch a

lot of videos and browse the Internet a lot. In that case, nightly charging may be needed.

Display

The iPhone’s video and photo display is nothing short of breathtak-ing. The 3.5-inch widescreen pleases the eye with just about everything it displays. There is no better way to share photos on a mobile device, especially landscape photos that can be rotated to fill the full display.

Phone

Though it’s the central function of the iPhone, the actual phone is often the most overlooked due to all of the iPhone’s other features. The touch controls are simple to pick up and the contacts easy to maneuver through.

One fancy feature is the simple multi-line calling that makes confer-ence calls just one touch away.

Another feature is the new, iPhone-specialized headphones that include a microphone, allowing them to act as a headset. The microphone can also be pressed like a button to answer and hang up calls without touching the iPhone.

Text messages are also simplified, as the iPhone displays them as ongo-ing conversations instead of showing only one message at a time. It is more reminiscent of an instant message chat than text messages.

In fact, one of the only glaring omissions is an instant message sys-tem like ones that many other smart phones have.

The iPhone is especially revolu-tionary with its one-of-a-kind digital voicemail. Voice messages are viewed and played much like songs are on the iPod. They can be paused, scrolled through and repeated. There is no lon-ger a need to listen to ten old messages just to get to one new one and no need to call into the voicemail system and enter a password each time.

A recent introduction is ring-tones from the iTunes Music Store. For $1.98, one can buy a song from the store and select their own thirty

second clip of the song to upload to their iPhone as a ringtone. At the mo-ment, however, only a small selection of songs are available as ringtones.

iPod

A brand new style of iPod controls was introduced with the iPhone. The

iPod has two modes with which us-ers can find music, including a new cover-flow style.

The traditional list style is remi-niscent of earlier iPods, but has a dock of buttons at the screen’s bottom that allows one to easily jump from artists to albums.

The touch interface ultimately makes navigation more straightfor-ward, but falls short of the iPod Clas-sic’s click wheel in terms of ease of use. One of the main advantages of the click wheel is the user’s ability to skip songs or change volume without having to look at the screen.

The iPhone, however, requires full attention of both eye and finger to perform even simple tasks such as these.

The sound quality is first-rate, exactly what is expected of an ordi-nary iPod.

Soon to be released is the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, an application that allows the user to buy and down-load music directly to their iPhone and sync it to their computer later. Safari

A truly revolutionary component of the iPhone, the Safari Web browser allows one to view full Web pages for the first time on a handheld device in the same format they are found in on any computer.

Navigation can be a bit tricky — a mix of double-taps and finger pinches are necessary to zoom in and out — but Web pages can be easily accessed through a full bookmarks page and built-in Google search.

Safari can be displayed vertically, or turned landscape for a widescreen view of the web. The horizontal view also boasts a larger, expanded version of the standard keyboard, which is infinitely easier to use. One wonders why not all of iPhone’s keyboards are horizontal.

Many critics have expressed concern about the speed of the Web browser, especially without direct Wi-Fi connection. A connection without Wi-Fi is certainly slower, but with full cell phone reception it is not painfully slow.

With Wi-Fi, however, Safari runs smoothly and near the same speed of a computer. The problem is that there are so few open Wi-Fi networks that one is more often forced to use the slow cell phone reception.

E-mailWith the iPhone, Apple simply

gives its take on handheld e-mail, a staple of all high quality mobile devices.

Any Yahoo!, Gmail or AOL ac-count can be transferred easily to the iPhone. Any other accounts that can be synced from one’s desktop mailbox are also compatible. Multiple accounts can be added as well.

Scrolling is simple and messages can be deleted with the flick of a finger. Attachments can also be downloaded and viewed, but cannot be transferred to another application. For example, photos received by e-mail cannot be viewed in the Photo application.

YouTube

A component that drew much excitement upon its introduction, the YouTube application is certainly a first for a mobile device. However, it comes up short of expectations.

It is definitely great to have end-less portable entertainment, allowing the user to find quirky videos or listen to any song through music videos.

However, not all YouTube videos are formatted for the iPhone, and YouTube cannot be watched in the Safari Web browser.

The quality also fades signifi-cantly when videos are uploaded with cell phone reception and not Wi-Fi. So not only does it take a significantly longer time to load a video without Wi-Fi, the quality is also fuzzy and most of the time images are indistin-guishable.

The iPhone is sleek and sexy with Apple’s signature minimalist design.

An eight gigabyte model can be bought at a recently lowered price of $399, and as AT&T plans start at $59.99 dollars a month, the iPhone is an expensive investment. It may be excessive for those who already own a reliable phone and iPod, but it is wholly worth it for someone who is in search of a brand new phone and iPod.

Only the freshest ingredients are used at Fraîche, a small, colorfully decorated Palo Alto yogurt shop on Emerson Street that offers frozen yogurt along with a variety of delicious toppings.

Fraîche is well-decorated and the bright colors entice visitors to enter. One wall is paint-ed a vibrant orange, while a sign on another wall boasts the beneficial dietary effects of yogurt. Four plain metal tables are placed along one wall with a bench running along one side. Ev-ery table inside is usually occupied, but there are tables available on the sidewalk.

Orders are placed at the counter and fresh toppings are added as customers watch. The service is friendly, and employees will even recommend toppings that would go well with the customer’s yogurt. Staff members work efficiently, therefore a long line at the cashier moves quickly.

At Fraîche, the customer can choose between fresh organic yogurt or frozen yo-gurt. The three varieties of plain yogurt are Greek-style whole milk yogurt, organic low-fat yogurt and organic non-fat yogurt. The frozen yogurts offered are a plain, lightly-sweetened frozen 98 percent fat-free chocolate frozen yogurt, and 99 percent fat-free soy frozen yogurt. All of the yogurt is made on-site with European-style machinery.

The topping selection includes fresh fruit, such as strawberries, mangoes, blackberries,

blueberries, kiwis and bananas. Also available are apricot, oallieberry and peach jams, and chocolate shavings.

For those who want a crunchier topping, there are crumbled graham crackers, freshly roasted coconut flakes, sliced almonds and fresh granola. There are also three varieties of honey available.

Yogurt is available in three individual sizes. The four ounce junior size is $2.95, regular six ounce is $3.95 ($4.95 with two toppings) and the large nine ounce is $5.25 ($6.95 with three toppings). Each additional topping is $0.95. Take home pints and quarts are available as well for $6.95 and $12.95.

The prices are quite steep, but the flavor is well worth the expense. Since each individual can customize his or her own yogurt, it is hard to go wrong.

The plain yogurt is smooth and deli-cious. It goes well with any combination of toppings. The tasty frozen yogurt is ideal for a hot day. All three flavors are rich and have a delightfully smooth texture. They are made from the same base as the fresh yogurt, but with some milk and sugar. The natural flavor is slightly sweetened, but it is up to the cus-tomer to decide how sweet to make the choice of toppings.

The chocolate frozen yogurt is delicately flavored and leaves a slightly sweet aftertaste. The soy frozen yogurt, though a foreign idea to most, is also delectable. The taste of soy is very distinct, though not unpleasant in combination with some of the fresh fruit toppings.

Fraîche also offers an assortment of cof-fee drinks including lattes ($3.50) and New Orleans Iced Coffee ($3). There is also a variety of cold sports drinks available.

All of the yogurt products are made on-site because owners Patama Roj and Jessica Gilmartin said they believe that most home-made products are best for people. Custom-ers can see the machinery used to make the yogurt through a small window in the back of the shop.

“We wanted to create something that was healthy and delicious,” Roj said. “We think that you shouldn’t have to compromise.”

Both Roj and Gilmartin are from the East Coast, and have known each other for ten years. They recently decided to go into business together.

“We were really exited to create some-thing together that is our own,” Roj said.

They have created a truly amazing res-taurant. Fraîche’s yogurt is a wonderfully delicious treat.

Location: 644 Emerson Street, Palo AltoHours: Mon.-Thurs. 7 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Fri. 7 a.m.-11 p.m. Sat. 9 a.m.-11 p.m. Sun. 9 a.m.-10:30 p.m.Prices: $2.95- $6.95

“Fraîche”-est yogurt comes to downtown Palo Alto

Customers are given great service and a healthy selection of tasty yogurt. They can choose from a vast variety of toppings ranging from fruits to granola.

Michela Fossati-Bellani/The Campanile

Michela Fossati-Bellani/The Campanile

Apple’s sleek, sexy and new iPhone allows owners to call friends, listen to music, surf the net, e-mail others and watch YouTube videos.

Apple’s iPhone truly eye-catching Innovative new product sparks excitement in digital world

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Fraîche Yogurt

A & EB10 • October 1, 2007 The Campanile

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For those searching for a healthy, delicious meal, Zao Noodle Bar is the place to go.

Zao is a casual, Asian-influenced noodle bar that serves excellent food at reasonable prices. It caters to a wide variety of customers, whether they are a family with young children, a couple on a date or a group of friends out to dinner.

Located on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto, Zao can easily be overlooked due to its small entry-way, but it is one place that should certainly not be missed.

Zao’s dim lighting gives it a pleas-ant, warm feeling. Simple wooden rectangular tables that seat two or four line the walls, leaving enough space to comfortably walk by. Even on a busy night, there are open tables and the wait is short.

The waiters are friendly and will-ing to answer any questions about the menu, but are sometimes impatient and rushed to get the orders.

With no background music, the only noises are the sizzling sounds of the grill and chatter of customers.

The food is served promptly. Appetizers arrive about 10 minutes after ordering and entrees follow at appropriate times.

Zao stresses fresh and healthy ingredients and guarantees only the freshest produce and meat. These

quality ingredients are what make the dishes so mouth-wateringly deli-cious.

Like the name of the restaurant suggests, Zao Noodle Bar’s menu is comprised mostly of noodle dishes. But it does offers salads, rice dishes and appetizers like dumplings, tofu fries and soups.

The Zao Tofu Fries ($5.29) are a specialty at Zao, and for a good rea-son. The deep-fried strips of tofu are served with three different dipping sauces: spicy peanut, tamarind-ginger and chili-garlic.

The hot and spicy tofu fries offer a delicious twist to the traditional french fry. All three sauces are fantastic, full of spicy zing and compliment the taste of the tofu fries.

Another appetizer is the Lemon-grass-Coconut Soup with Rice ($2.99) which comes in surprisingly small portions. However, the tiny cup of soup turns out to be more than enough. The soup is creamy and spicy, but the coconut flavor is excessive. The abundance of flavor detracts from the soup’s overall taste.

Overall, the variety of appetizers is impressive and a great way to start the meal.

Zao’s salads are anything but ordi-nary. Noodle Bar offers unique salads that are bursting with flavor and fresh ingredients.

The Seared Cilantro Beef Salad ($9.69) is served in large portions and is big enough to share between two

or three people. The salad contains cabbage, onions and cucumbers, but its flavor is taken a step further with garlic ginger-chili marinated beef, bean sprouts, mein noodles and tamarind-ginger dressing with cilantro. The salad is presented in a big bowl that overflows with colors and textures. The beef in the salad is seasoned and cooked perfectly.

Zao also offers a wide variety of noodle dishes. There are pan-seared noodles, noodles in broth and Viet-namese rice noodle bowls. The pan-seared noodles are undoubtedly one of Zao’s specialties.

Monk’s Vegetarian Delight ($8.99) is as delightful as its name suggests. It is everything one could ask for in a vegetarian dish with an assort-ment of perfectly cooked veggies, mouth-watering sauce and delicious noodles.

The dish is a combination of tofu, shitake mushrooms, spinach, zuc-chini, green beans and yellow squash sautéed with Shanghai noodles. The zucchini is not bitter, but cooked to savory perfection.

However delicious the veggies and noodles may be, what makes this dish so amazing is the sauce — a sweet, thick, teriyaki soy sauce that enhances the flavor of the tofu and vegg ies.

Another pan-seared noodle dish is the Dan Dan Noodles with Chicken ($9.99) that consists of Shanghai noodles sautéed with chicken, broc-coli, green beans, carrots, squash,

Oodles of unique flavor at Zao NoodlesBy Kelley Shin

Staff Writer

Jordan student writes, records original pop songsBy yelly Bitton

Staff Writer

It’s a Wednesday afternoon and most kids are out playing sports, at a violin lesson or doing homework. Julian Hornik, however, can be found in his studio writing and recording his own original music. Hornik, a seventh-grader at Jordan Middle School, has been writing his own music for several years.

“I have been writing music since I was eight or nine,” Hornik said. “I started writing modern pop about a year ago.”

Aside from a year of piano lessons when he was six, Hornik is completely self-taught. His songs are generally piano-heavy and feature other instruments recorded by elec-tronic keyboard. All of his music and lyrics are original.

“Sometimes it just comes to me,” Hornik said. “I’m sitting there and lyrics just come into my head. Other times I think about what I learned at school and put that into a song.”

Hornik has a wide range of achievements. Several of his songs can be found online on his father’s blog or on YouTube.

Two music videos posted on YouTube were edited by Hornik and feature his songs “Change” and “Laceless Converse.” The two videos have a combined total of over 11,000 views.

“I try to look at other music videos for ideas,” Hornik said. “My dad or uncle usually film them for me and I do everything else.”

Hornik is also interested in theater. He made his debut at age six in a walk-on role in a production of Madame Butterfly.

He currently performs professionally with a number of companies around the Bay Area including Peninsula Youth Theatre, American Musical Theatre and TheatreWorks. Last winter, Hornik played the lead in a new musical called Christmas Dreamland.

“Christmas Dreamland was a really neat experience,” Hornik said. “It was my first huge role in a really big company.”

Hornik uses the money he earns from his performances to buy new equip-ment for his studio. Currently, Hornik is also rehearsing for a production of Oliver!, at Peninsula Youth Theatre in which he plays the title role.

Hornik’s side projects include writing an original musical version of Anne Frank and music for children’s books. Hornik has been given storyboards for various children’s books to be published and writes music for CDs to be sold with the books.

“Writing children’s music is really hard,” Hornik said. “It has to be simple enough to hum along to, but it can’t be annoying for the parents and the lyrics can’t be too hard.”

Hornik has won top honors for his vocal talents. Last year Hornik entered the Macy’s “Sing Your Way to the Tony Awards” contest and made it to the

Zao Noodle Bar

Location: 261 University Avenue Cuisine: Asian FusionHours: Sun.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m.Prices: $2.99- $11.99

zucchini and covered with a spicy peanut sauce.

While this dish is cooked similarly to and contains many of the same ingredients as Monk’s Vegetarian Delight, it tastes completely different. This dish is both spicy and creamy, and the numerous ingredients make the dish’s presentation colorful. The chicken is tender and goes well with the peanut sauce.

The desserts are just as unique as the appetizers and entrees. The Warm Banana Spring Roll with Chocolate Sauce ($4.99), a Zao specialty, is a flash fried banana spring roll with gelato, drizzled with chocolate sauce and customers can choose between two gelato flavors, vanilla and co-conut. The cold creaminess of the gelato and chocolate sauce contrasts perfectly with the crispy, hot banana spring rolls. This dessert is a master-piece and it is worth visiting Zao just for this sweet experience.

Overall, Zao Noodle Bar offers a great selection and a worthwhile meal.

semifinals in San Francisco. After winning the semifinals, Hornik flew to New York where he competed in the finals, singing in the New York City Macy’s. Hornik sang “Memory” from Cats and won the competition, which earned him tickets to the Tony Awards.

“Being on the red carpet, next to these people holding their Tony awards was amazing,” Hornik said. “I was just staring and thinking ‘wow.’”

Hornik has also been asked to sing at public events for different compa-nies, including singing the national anthem at several San Francisco Giants games.

Pamela Hornik, Julian’s mother, said Ju-lian has been responsible for his own career and has made and seized all his opportunities himself.

The seventh grader hopes to attend the San Francisco School of the Arts for high school and eventually New York University.

Afterward, he hopes to continue living in New York City acting, singing, writing shows and composing his own music for a

solo album. “It’s a kind of crazy idea, but that’s what I want to do with my life,”

Hornik said.

Courtesy of www.julianhornik.com

Jordan Middle School seventh grader Julian Hornik aspires to achieve pop music stardom through composing his own songs.

Zao Noodle Bar, located on University Avenue, offers a warm yet unique atmosphere and caters to a wide variety of customers.

Michela Fossati-Bellani/The Campanile

Eric Wu, D.M.D.Diplomate, American Board of Orthodontics

1865 El Camino RealPalo Alto, CA 94306

(650) 322-0288 (phone)(650) 322-0488 (fax)

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“Sometimes it just comes to me. I’m sitting there and lyrics just come into my head.”

Julian HornikJordan Seventh Grader

A & E The Campanile October 1, 2007 • B11

By Henry Becker

Features Editor

The “Good Life,” according to Kanye West, is defined by effort and payback, an essential combination that fuels his latest album Gradua-tion. “I go for mine/I gots to shine” summarizes Kanye’s sometimes overwhelming egomania and his ob-session with producing what he calls “stadium songs.”

Kanye’s reaction to feedback has never been so clear as in Graduation. Unlike his last two albums, Gradu-ation contains no breaks of rhythm or aimless skits and runs under 55 minutes. Graduation sounds tightly packaged and glued together with overlapping beats, swooning vocals and a storyteller’s ethic. “I Wonder,” arguably his most innovative song on the album, presses a smooth sampling of soul to a steady beat and an unusual addition of violin strings as Kanye talks about chasing dreams: “You can still be who you wish you is/ It ain’t happen yet/ And that’s what the intuition is.”

Much of Kanye’s intuition has proven to be fruitful. The success Kanye thrives on has never failed him since his 2004 debut, The Col-lege Dropout.But what differentiates Kanye from contemporary rap is his ability to maintain energy from each album to the next in his career.

While none of Graduation’s songs are as impressive as the hits “Jesus Walks” or “Gold Digger,” the album grows in appreciation with every listen. The appeal lies mainly in the intensity of the music. The hit “Stronger” hypnotically pounds to a sample of the Daft Punk song “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and

in “Champion,” a sample of Steely Dan asks “Did you realize/ You were a champion in their eyes?” Kanye ad-dresses issues of validity directly in “Big Brother,” referring to his mentor Jay-Z and growing into his own.

“Everything I Am” reflects an attitude of perfect honesty: “People talk s*** but when the s*** hit the fan/ Everything I’m not made me everything I am.” Kanye has always feared failure to impress.

Kanye shines with dramatic beats of strings and soaring choruses. Everything about his hit “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” suggests a star reproach-ing his own faults. It sounds oddly preachy, as though Kanye were talking down to himself. As the gospel hook swoons higher and higher, Kanye raps about his refusal to back down from his own expectations.

Kanye’s verbal manipulation in the song remains at its peak as he says, “They say I speak with such emphasis/ Ooh they so sensitive.” True, Kanye rhymes things like “isotoners” and “appollonia” in “Stronger,” but at least he does not rhyme “club” with “club” like rival 50 Cent.

Needless to say, Graduation has its faults. “Barry Bonds” makes too much use of Lil Wayne, probably the creepiest rapper who ever lived, and the low booming hook represses rather than pushes the song. “Drunk and Hot Girls,” surprisingly Kanye’s favorite song of the album, repeats a chorus as tiring as the simple pendulum motion of the song.

The second half of the album past “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” does not contain the same verve of the first half, giving no credit to Kanye’s ability to press energy into his songs. Nonetheless, Graduation ends leaving

Variety of artists to perform in the Bay Area this fallBy Gloria yu

Staff Writer

By ZacH Harris

Staff Writer

GraduationArtist: Kanye WestRecord Label: Def JamRunning Time: 52 min.

Kanye West shows he is “Stronger” than before

50 Cent’s Curtis shallow attempt at profundity

Kanye West and 50 Cent faced off for the title of Hip-Hop King when both of their albums, Graduation and Curtis, respectively, were released on the same date.

Courtesy of www.nymag.com

Northern California Peace FestivalCow Palace, San Francisco

This festival is an effort to promote peace in the Bay Area and establish multiracial events. Acts this year will feature tribute bands to Santana, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, U2 and a special appearance from The Snooky Flowers Flashback Band.

This event will combine with the “People for Peace & Peace for People” event at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 7. Tickets are on sale at Ticketmaster for $19.99-$39.99.

Boys Like GirlsWarfield, San Francisco

The rock band from Massachusetts will perform on Oct. 26. Boys Like Girls broke the music scene in late 2005. This East Coast quartet will be playing songs from their lat-est album The Great Escape with hits “Hero/Heroine,” “Learning to Fall.” “Dance Hall Drug” and “Broken Man.” Previously, Boys Like Girls completed nationwide tours with screamo bands like Cute Is What We Aim For and Hit the Lights. As a relatively new band in the industry, Boys Like Girls is prone to attract an energetic audience.Tickets are on sale at Ticketmaster for $20.00.

Bridge School BenefitShoreline, Mountain View

Coming this fall, the Bridge School, an

educational program that aids children with speech or physical disabilities to augment their ability to communicate, will be hosting their 21st annual Bridge School Benefit Concert. Featured at this event will be popular artist John Mayer, who will perform songs from his most recent album Continuum; Regina Spektor; the Canadian twins Tegan and Sara; and renowned heavy metal band Metallica. Ad-ditionally, there will be special performances by Neil Young, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Tom Waits and the Kronos Quartet. The concert will take place 5 p.m., Saturday Oct. 27 and 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 28. $39.50 general admis-sion, $75.00 for reserved seating, $150.00 for advanced tickets.

Gwen StefaniOracle Arena, Oakland

Notorious for her platinum hair, spunky wardrobe and edgy voice, Gwen Stefani is coming to the Oracle Arena. Expect a wide range of outfits, and flashy, shiny decorations. A wide range of music is to be expected, from songs in Love.Angel.Music.Baby like “Holla Back Girl” to “Wonderful Life” and “Orange County Girl.” The Sweet Escape. The concert is at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 25. Tickets avail-able at Ticketmaster, Clickitticket.com, and ConcertTickets.org at $66.50.

Maroon 5

HP Pavilion, San Jose Oracle Arena, Oakland

Hailing from Los Angeles, Maroon 5 is best known for their hit songs “Harder To

Breathe,” “She Will Be Loved” and “Sunday Morning,” which will be performed live in their upcoming concert. In 2002, Maroon 5’s debut album Songs About Jane won them the Bill-board Music Award, MTV Music Award for Best New Artist, and Teen Choice Award.

Their first song “This Love” became a radio hit as they made their first splash in the music industry. Their most recent release, platinum album It Won’t Be Soon Before Long, displays the warm vocals of Adam Levine in hit songs “Goodnight Goodnight,” “Wake Up Call,” and their number one hit on the radio “Makes Me Wonder.”

Opening for Maroon 5 will be The Hives. The show will be at 7:30 p.m. Nov 6. Tickets can be purchased at any Ticketmaster outlet for $48.50.

Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals

Paramount Theater, OaklandBen Harper & the Innocent Criminals will

play at the Paramount Theater in Oakland on Nov. 10. This concert will feature songs like “In the Colors” and “Woman In You” from their 2006 album Both Sides of the Gun to the most recent album, Lifeline.

Harper and his band were nominated for two Grammy awards in 2005 and won the Artist of the Year award in 2003.

This concert will be sure to display Ben Harper’s entire motley range of genres from folk, blues, and gospel to rock and reggae.

Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals will perform on 8 p.m. Nov. 10.

Jimmy Eat WorldThe Catalyst, Santa Cruz

This rock band from Arizona will make a Bay Area appearance as part of their 2007 tour. Featured songs include “Big Casino,” “Dizzy,” and “Firelight” from their new album Chase This Light.

Hits from the past including “Work,” “Pain,” and “Futures,” will be performed at as well. Their concert is at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 2.

Social DistortionThe Catalyst, Santa Cruz

This seminal punk rock band from Orange County, performs on Oct. 10 at 8 p.m.

Featured performances include songs from their most recent studio album Sex, Love, and Rock N’ Roll, which was released in 2004. The edgy and rebellious compositions of this are revealed in their songs “Story of My Life,” “Ball and Chain” and “Prison Bound,” which will also be performed.

Curtis

Artist: 50 CentRecord Label: AftermathRunning Time: 55 min.

Clockwise: Boys Like Girls, Jimmy Eats World, Gwen Stefani, Bridge School Benefit, Maroon 5.

Hip-hop mainstay 50 Cent returns with his newly released studio album, Curtis, a travesty of an album that is

only held together by a few mediocre beats.

With the extreme commercial success of his first two albums, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2003)and The Mas-sacre (2005), 50 Cent used his birth name as the title of what he calls his most personal album to date.

With confidence in Curtis and his musical prowess, 50 Cent chal-

lenged fellow rapper Kanye West, who released his new album, Graduation, on the same day as Curtis, to a sales battle. 50 Cent said aid that if he lost, he would retire from rap forever.

After the first week of sales, 50 Cent lost the battle by a whopping 266,000 albums according to Nielson SoundScan. Hopefully the American public has wised up and will stop buying what 50 Cent claims to be hip-hop.

The album’s first three tracks all revolve around the same common theme: guns. By the end of the track “I’ll Still Kill,” it gets old. The beat is no better, an annoying synthesizer over a drum beat that sounds like it was made on Apple’s Garage Band. Most successful hip-hop artists who rap about guns and murder can so because they talk about it with ease.

Without a central producer, most of the beats on Curtis sound disconnected and don’t flow from one track to the next. The best beats on the album are created by Havoc, half of the legendary hip-hop duo Mobb Deep. However, he only gets two beats on the CD, saving “Fully Loaded Clip” and “Curtis 187” from 50 Cent’s poor beats.

If the entirety of Curtis were pro-duced by Havoc or Jake One, another competent producer who only gets two songs on the album, then Curtis actually could have been a halfway decent album.

Like most rap albums in the past five years, Curtis is laced with heavy synthesizer, annoying bells and re-cycled samples.

Curtis isn’t all bad though, just mostly. There are a few amusing songs, in particular “I Get Money” and “Straight to the Bank,” simply

because they are the only songs on the CD with any kind of meaning.

“Straight to the Bank” is chorus-heavy, and has uninspiring rhymes and a surprisingly original and creative beat, but that’s not the important part of the song.

The chorus, which repeats “I’m laughing straight to the bank with this” and incessant laughter that sounds more like a middle-school girl’s instant-messenger conversation read aloud than a rap chorus. This is the only important part of the song, strictly because it’s true.

50 Cent can do whatever he wants and still make money, and that’s all he cares about. This is made pains-takingly clear with one flip through the booklet inside of the CD cover. Between the pages of 50 Cent eat-ing a handgun with a knife and fork and straddling a half naked woman, there are advertisements for all of his business ventures, including but not limited to, Vitamin Water, Pontiac and Reebok.

Curtis is not about creativity, as the album cover may indicate, with a stressed, angry or maybe just confused 50 Cent with his hands on his head and his brow furrowed.

Curtis is about making money, and is the only rational explanation for the travesty that Fiddy calls a hip-hop album. If 50 Cent stays true to his word he will soon be a distant memory in the heads of hip-hop fans and sports-drink lovers alike.

Courtesy of www.rollingstone.com, mog.com, allposter.com, elon.edu, popstarplus.com.

the listener with an appreciation for smooth production that never once betrays the effort behind the sound. Kanye’s creativity is stronger than ever in his new album as he contin-ues to redefine himself and the entire

genre of hip-hop with strong beats, a storyteller’s style and a healthy dose of egocentricity.

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A & E B12 • October 1, 2007 The Campanile

Vero serves up authentic Italian

Paly band Hella Original explores acoustic rhythms

Vero, located in downtown Palo Alto, boasts a homey atmosphere, reasonable prices, fresh ingredients and a wide variety of authentic Italian dishes.

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanile

By Alex Greene

Staff Writer

During what would usually be a quiet Saturday evening, Starbird Park in San Jose is filled with guitar music as the band Hella Original draws a crowd of over 150 fans. The band is made up of Palo Alto High School junior Sai Boddupalli and Lynbrook High School junior Vishak Visvanathan, who started making music together last November.

“Vishak and I have been best friends since the fourth grade,” Boddupalli said. “We always used to sing Linkin

Park songs for fun when we hung out. Last year I was looking for a band and a singer who had the same musical taste as I did, so I went to Vishak.”

Hella Original’s music includes vocals, acoustic gui-tar, piano and drums. True to their name, Hella Original produces original songs.

“I’m sure that there’s probably another band out there that sounds exactly like us,” Visvanathan said. “But we haven’t discovered them yet.”

Boddupalli plays lead guitar and writes most of their lyrics. Visvanathan sings and plays backup guitar. Boddu-palli classifies Hella Original as acoustic indie rock.

By AnnA WAldron

Staff Writer

For a truly authentic Italian meal and experience, look no further than downtown Palo Alto’s Vero Ristorante on Bryant Street. Walking through the glass doors of this small yet airy restaurant is like walking through a porthole leading straight to Italy. Instantly hungry diners are greeted with friendly smile and open arms by the Italian host, who doubles as the waiter.

The seating is very accommodating, as customers choose from about 10 indoor tables, able to seat any size of party com-fortably. Two cozy booths in the back of the restaurant and seats at the bar on high chairs get a view of the chef cooking in the open kitchen. On a warm day or night, two tables stand ready outside.

Vero is different from other restaurants because of its strong home-like feeling. Since diners are served by only one waiter, diners feel like they are guests in an Ital-ian home.

Usually open kitchens are loud with clanging pots, chefs calling out orders and huge flames flying up from the stove. The head chef at Vero is calm and confident, and looks like she is cooking at home for her family and friends.

The home-like quality makes the customer feel special and adds to the pleas-ant and relaxed ambiance. Hand-painted plates, small copper pots and black and white photos of Italy hang on the butter yellow walls.

Gentle Italian guitar music flows through the air, almost ruffling the leaves of the sprawling ivy plants that sit on shelves. Through and through the restaurant is truly Italian, to the point that the atmosphere can make diners forget that Bryant Street is right outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

It can be difficult to decide what to order because there are many different options on the menu, and every dish is reasonably priced. Appetizers and salads are $7-9, pastas and entrees vary from $11-18 and all desserts are $7.

Vegetarians, meat lovers and children will all find the menu quite pleasing with its wide variety of options. Also, every day there is a special soup, appetizer, entree and dessert, which keep the selections new and fresh.

The server is extremely kind, giving the diner plenty of time to decide what to order and offers infallibly good advice on which dishes to choose. After the order is placed, fresh white bread is brought to the table in a basket with a bowl of olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. The buttery and smooth quality of the olive oil balances perfectly with the tartness of the vinaigrette.

Every dish at Vero is fresh and the food comes quickly. The marinated calamari

Address: 530 Bryant Street, Palo AltoHours: Mon.-Thurs. & Sat. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri. 11:30 a.m. -11 p.m., Sun. 11:30 a.m.- 9:30 p.m.Phone: (650) 325 - 8376

Vero

Photo courtesy of Sai Boddupalli

Palo Alto High School junior Sai Boddupalli and Lynbrook High School junior Vishak Visvanathan created Hella Original last November. The band mainly plays acoustic indie rock at informal shows.

with The Campanile’s own Ryan Pfleiderer and Becca Allen

This edition featuring

Ryan Drebin

1in1700

Hannah M

cGovern/The C

ampanile

The Campanile: What has the transition from The Campanile to InFocus been like?Ryan Drebin: It’s been rough. There’s a lot more sexuality floating around on InFocus.TC: I find that hard to believe.RD: Everybody wants on everybody. You see the way the anchors look at each other?TC: Kati and Aidan?RD: Jessie and Andrew! There’s a fire between them. It’s burning. You could cut the sexual tension with a knife.TC: So, what’s the deal with the plaid shorts? RD: There’s something French about them. Something special.TC: You’ve got a wide variety of interesting t-shirts. Where do you get them? RD: You have to know where to find them; I used to get them from Threadless but somebody blew up the spot and now everyone has Threadless shirts. I can’t tell you where I get them now or else everyone else will go there too.TC: What about Blake Sumner?RD: Blake Sumner’s a fake Southern California Facebook dude. He surfs, he skates, he makes love to the women of the world. I think everyone should friend Blake Sumner, he’s a radical dude. He gets random wall posts from girls in San Diego. He’s obviously fake, I don’t know what they’re thinking.TC: Isn’t his profile picture a longboard? RD: One of his pictures is of a longboard, one’s a picture of a guy surfing, one’s an old guy who’s supposed to be his dad and there’s one picture of Blake Sumner.TC: What’s your pre-game ritual for football? RD: I go home take a nap. I’m not very interesting.TC: What’s your best pre-game dream? RD: What kind of a question is that? I dream of people of different ethnicities and racial… preferences… and sexual orientations… all getting along together. I sleep before football games, what do you want me to say?TC: If you had to choose one football player to –RD: Jake Zebker. You can fit your entire hand inside his belly button. Almost.TC: Why are you so spastic?RD: I guess I wasn’t held enough as a child. Some deep-seated issues.TC: What’s your view on prostitution?RD: Oh, jeez. I don’t know. Becca, what’s it like being a working girl?TC: Nice, Drebin.RD: You ever get lonely down at the street corner at night? The streetlight casting a halo of mediocrity over you. You ever just cry?TC: Name a teacher.RD: Mr. Drebin. I think I’m going to change my last name to Von Drebin.TC: What’s the background on that?RD: I dunno, it just sounds cool. The Von Drebins.TC: Like the Von Trapp family?RD: Exactly. All of my children come when I blow my whistle and they get in a line and crank that Soulja Boy. It’s gonna happen.TC: How’s your love life? RD: It has its ups and downs. It’s got a Goldilocks Syndrome going on: not too hot, not too cold, always just right.TC: How’s senior year going? Beat up any freshman?RD: I’m nice to the freshmen, unlike some certain seniors, the punk-nastyists. I was punk-nastied once by Tommy Angelopoulos.TC: Did you cry like Mia Pond? RD: I wanted to cry. I still haven’t gotten back at him. It was like a month ago but I haven’t forgotten; something’s brewing.TC: What do you think about ASB?RD: ASB does a pretty good job. The president is especially dashing. He’s good-looking. He’s my beast from the Middle East. He’s my everything … and more? I’d take a bullet for him ... maybe to the arm. TC: Parting words?RD: If you can’t make it, fake it. If you can’t fake it … I don’t know. Find another quote for me and put it on here. But don’t make it ridiculous. Make it something French.

“John Mayer, Brand New and Jack Johnson are our main [influences],” Boddupalli said. “We’re really open to anything.”

“I started to play [guitar] at the end of sixth grade,” Boddupalli said. “I started drums at the beginning of sixth grade, but I only got my drum kit last summer. I don’t really know when I picked up piano. One day I just started playing it.”

Although Boddupalli started taking guitar lessons last year, he is mostly self-taught. Some of Boddupalli’s musical talent also comes from watching his father play piano when he was a child.

Like Boddupalli, Visvanathan started guitar when he was 11 and is entirely self-taught. Although Visvana-than enjoys guitar, singing is his real talent.

“I sing in the shower, in my car, while walking, while talking, while doing homework,” Visvanathan said. “I just sing a lot.”

Hella Original has written about 12 original songs and recorded eight, most of which posted are on their Myspace page, www.myspace.com/hellaoriginal.

Boddupalli and Visvanathan also perform at live informal events.

“Usually our friends tell us ‘hey, they need a band here’,” Boddupalli said. “So we just go and play. It’s not a big deal because we don’t need to haul a drum kit, just two acoustic guitars.”

Both Boddupalli and Visvanathan have their sights set on a future in music.

“I definitely see it as a career,” Boddupalli said. “I want to go to Berkeley School of Music in Boston and either become a music teacher or go into the music busi-ness. It’d be awesome to keep the band going.”

Unlike Boddupalli, Visvanathan is keeping his op-tions more open.

“I work as a Tae Kwon Do teacher right now and I love spreading knowledge and working with kids,” Vis-vanathan said. “There are so many careers I want to have, including music. If this band goes well, there’s nothing that could keep me from it.”

For now, Boddupalli and Visvanathan are happy with how far they have come.

“For us it’s just about having fun and making the music,” Visvanathan said.

($7.50), cooked and served in a tiny iron skillet, sizzles on the table and gives off an aroma of fresh thyme and sea salt. The hunks of squid are big and pink, giving the impression that they are slightly under cooked. However, they are not rubbery and taste like they have just been caught off of the Sicilian Coast.

The Lampedusa salad ($8.50) is Vero’s take on the classic Greek salad. The salad consists of mixed baby greens, salty, aged crumbles of feta cheese, olives, thinly sliced red onions, cucumbers and baby yellow and red tomatoes.

The mix of colors and balanced fresh vegetables is a feast for the eyes as well as the mouth. A simple dressing of olive oil and dried oregano highlight the freshness and individual flavor of each vegetable. Another salad to try is the Capri salad ($8.50), tossed in a light olive oil and bal-samic vinaigrette. A hefty serving of meaty, lightly sauteed mushrooms, toasted pine nuts and shavings of Parmesan on a bed of baby spinach leaves is not only healthy, but very tasty. The simple dressings used in the salads never overwhelm the delicate flavors of the dish.

Although there are many unique dishes to choose from the others are widely differ-ent from the others, they are all united by one familiar flavor. Fresh parsley is used in almost every dish to brighten the flavors and add that distinctive Italian taste. The Tortellini alla Boscaiola ($13.50) is a must for mushroom-lovers. Six tortellini bundles stuffed with meat, carrots, garlic, toma-toes and parsley are smothered in sauteed mushrooms, freshly chopped tomatoes and a thin tomato sauce.

The dish has a strong mushroom flavor and the tomatoes add a hint of sweetness. The tortellini filling is delicious but it is un-fortunately not evenly distributed amongst the bundles. Most of the tortellini were just sheets of pasta tied together with hardly any inside. Out of six, only one tortellini was fully stuffed, which proves disappointing for hungry diners.

The Spaghetti alle Cozze ($13.50) is a simple pasta dish tossed in olive oil, white wine, cherry tomatoes, parsley and a hint of garlic. A bountiful amount of large mus-sels surrounds the spaghetti, and makes it a satisfying and well-balanced meal.

Vero offers portions that are just right, except with the Vitello alla Valdostana ($16.00). Tender veal scaloppine is covered with thin slices of lean prosciutto and a mound of melted fontina cheese. The cheese is rich and delicious, but there is almost more cheese and prosciutto than there is of the veal. The dish would have been com-plete with another medallion of veal.

The missing meat was disguised on the oval plate with a heaping amount of roasted potatoes. Luckily, the potatoes are

an amazing accompaniment. They have a crunchy, salty, garlicky crust, but are moist and warm on the inside.

Vero’s desserts should not be passed by. The Panna Cotta ($7.00) is a silky va-nilla custard made out of cream and milk. It is a rich dish, but tastes heavenly. The custard is smooth and melts in the mouth. The vanilla flavor is subtle, and each satiny piece leaves one wanting more. To make the dessert even more delectable, a bright red berry sauce is drizzled across the plate and over a frozen, sliced strawberry that rests on top of the custard.

While every dessert on the menu is mouth watering, the Crostata di Mele ($7.00) is a must-have. The warm apple tart is the perfect ending to a truly authentic Italian meal. The first bite is an explosion of warm cinnamon and homemade flavor. The granny smith apples are soft yet still firm and have just enough sugar and cin-

namon sprinkled on top. The crust is dense and buttery without being greasy like many pastry doughs tend to be. A scoop of ice cold vanilla gelato and a thin splatter of caramel finish off the winning dessert.

Vero is authentically Italian and lives up to its name which means “true” or “authentic” in Italian. Every dish is made from the freshest ingredients, as if they had been picked out of a garden.

It’s nice to know that there is a slice of Italy right here in Palo Alto.