Prank master donates $500 to PAUSD for a 50-year-old prank.

The Viking, the nation’s only student sports maga-zine premieres.

The Campanile Monday, October 22, 2007http://voice.paly.netVol. XC, No. 2

Since 1918

Palo Alto Senior High School

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

Features.......................B2-B7A&E...........................B8-B12

NEWS

OPINION

VIKING MAGAZINE SCORES AT PALY

SWIMMING IN A POOL OF BEER

PAGE A3

PAGE A2

Paly’s new Code Red sys-tem against shooters: pro-tective or pitiful?

CODE RED CAUTION

PAGE A5

VIKINGS BOUNCE BACK FROM LOSSES

NEW SPORT SWEEPS ACROSS PALY

PAGE B5

VIKINGS SAIL THE OPEN SEAS

FEATURES

PAGE B3

The Green Elephant offers unforgettable meals to res-taurant goers.

ELEPHANT STOMPS THE COMPETITION

PAGE B11

A&E

SPORTS

INDEX

LIFESTYLES

Exploring the world of wild boar hunting with Paly senior Lance Taylor.

NEVER A BOAR

PAGE B1

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

See ELECTION, Page A3

Broomball attracts Paly students as a popular recreational sport.

After two disappointing losses, Paly Football gets back on track. PAGE A12

By AlAn Chen

Staff Writer

Students, pull out your neon green spandex and togas: Spirit Week, the most anticipated week of school is approaching.

This year, Palo Alto High School’s Spirit Week will begin on Oct. 29 and last through Nov. 2.

Following tradition, Spirit Week will consist of themed days on which students dress up in specific outfits, display class floats, compete in lunch competitions, and take part in spirit dances.

As always, each class will have a specific theme and each day of Spirit Week will be dif-ferent from the others. Every day will feature a lunch rally with games and activities that cost points.

“We’re going to keep some of the activi-ties from last year,” Paly Associated Student Body President Mohammed Abid said. “There’s definitely going to be a mattress race and a relay race, but we’re thinking of adding some new events as well.”

Not only will the lunch rally games change, but the morning rally might change as well.

“Even though our tradition is to have a morning rally,” Abid said. “We are considering a more elaborate morning rally or a night rally, much like the one at Gunn.”

Many students agree with the idea of having a rally at night.

“Having a night rally would be fun,” junior Alyssa Burton said. “I’ve been to the ones at Gunn and they’re really amazing.”

Although many changes were made to Spirit Week this year, the guidelines for how each class should dress will follow the traditional dress code, with only a few exceptions.

On Monday, students dress up as their theme, with the exception of seniors, who will dress in the style of the 80’s. Tuesday will be salad dressing day during which freshmen will be diet dressing, sophomores will be ranch, juniors will be Thousand Island and seniors as Caesar. Wednesday is color day: with the freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors in orange, red, yellow and green, respectively. On Thursday, freshmen will dress as babies, sophomores dress as teeny boppers, juniors dress as sophisticates and seniors dress as senior citizens. The entire student body will wear green on Friday to close out the week.

Furthermore, each class will have its own theme that matches its class colors. This year, the seniors have decided to make their theme “Go Green,” also known as Pro-Environment, and expect to win.

“Statistically, we are the best class,” Abid said. “Last year, we only lost to last year’s seniors by 2.5 points, so this year we should win easily.”

To keep a competitive advantage, the seniors’ float design is unknown and will be unveiled at float judging.

Although the other classes dress to match their respective class’ theme, seniors tradition-ally dress in the style of the 80’s.

“Dressing up as 80’s sounds like fun,” senior Jenny Ji said. “I think it’s better than dressing as Go Green.”

Even though the seniors may not dress to match the eco-friendly theme, the seniors hope their class slogan, “Save a Tree, Hug a Senior,” will catch the attention of the public.

Although the senior class has historically finished first, the junior class has high hopes to win this year, with the class theme of No. 2 pencils.

“I think our theme will do well because we can tie it in with our costumes and float,” junior Sarah Kurihara said.

Junior Class President Erik Klingbeil also agrees with Kurihara, and said he believes that

the spirited junior class can win this year’s com-petition. Furthermore, Klingbeil predicts that the junior class float, which will be classroom inspired, will also contribute to their chances of winning.

“We’ve always had amazing floats and spirit dances,” Klingbeil said. “This year, the dancers will be in desks on the float while other dancers come out of the float. Hopefully it will help us win.”

The sophomore class is equally as spirited

By PAuline SlAkey

Staff Writer

Many of Town and Country Village’s stores are increas-ing their prices due to the higher lease rates under the new ownership of Ellis Partners.

The Campanile could not reach the manager in charge of the Town and Country purchase, but according to Town and Country shops, Ellis Partners is increasing the rents of stores such as Douce France, The Cheese House, Spot’s Pizza and Rojoz Gourmet Wraps.

Of the many stores in Town and Country, Douce France is the first to have made price changes. According to Douce France owner Victor Marku, the store’s rent increased by 35% on Aug. 1.

The higher rent and price of food imported from Europe is hurting the store, forcing it to make changes.

“The Euro is going up in Europe, which means products such as cheese, bread, fruit and other goods are going to be more expensive,” Marku said.

Consequently, the price of Douce France’s food rose eight to ten percent. The popular ham and cheese baguette, originally $3.50, is now $4.00, while the focaccia has in-creased from $4.25 to $4.75.

Nevertheless, Marku has not seen a significant decrease in Palo Alto High School customers.

“I have not noticed a big change in the amount of stu-dents coming in,” Marku said. “If there is a change, it is a very minor one at the moment.”

The Cheese House has a lease, but the store is more concerned about a change in ownership. Rich Staehnke, owner of The Cheese House for the last 48 years, has decided to discontinue leading his business.

“I’ve been doing this since 1959 and the store needs some major remodeling and new equipment and it is more than I can take,” Staehnke said.

The Cheese House will close Nov. 1, and will re-open in February under new owners Nora and Sarah Hiken.

Popular student locations such as Spot’s Pizza and Rojoz are in the middle of their lease contract, which allows them to temporarily dodge the increased rent price.

But both plan to make changes when their leases end next year.

“We will probably have to move to downtown Palo Alto by Jun.1 when our lease is terminated,” Spot’s Pizza owner Kelly Marrik said.

Charlie Martinez, manager of Rojoz since 1998, said that when his store’s lease is over, he will probably have to increase the prices, but only by a few cents.

Paly students share common opinions regarding these changes.

“I would not continue to go to Town and Country if the prices were raised,” freshman Dianna Jansen said. “I think it’s unreasonable to raise the prices any further since everything is already so expensive. I think more and more students will discontinue going if prices are too high.”

Freshman Anna Glaves said she would probably con-tinue to buy food at Town and Country, but would not buy as much as she might have in the past.

“Although I would like to continue to buy the same amount I used to, I probably won’t,” Glaves said.

Candidates vie for School Board spots

Spirit Week launches classes into competition

Barbara Klausner

The only candidate who has taught in the PAUSD, Klausner is focused on making the School Board arrive at quicker, more definitive decisions.

“We must re-establish effective decision-making, informed by good lines of communication,” Klausner said. “By acting with the best information in a timely manner, the Board can develop fiscally responsible, comprehensive, long-term solutions and win back the community’s trust.”

With schooling from Cornell Univer-sity, Yale University’s Law School and New York University, and three children

Town and Country’s price spike dilemma

Sea Scouts, a branch of Boy Scouts, teaches students the tricks of sailing.

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanile

On Nov. 6, voters all across Palo Alto will head to the polls and elect three candidates to the Palo Alto Unified School District Board of Education. In charge of the superintendent and overseers of the whole district, the School Board has many responsibilities. Here is a description of the candidates.

2007 SCHOOL BOARD ELECTION | BY ZACH HARRIS

See SPIRIT WEEK, Page A3

enrolled in or graduates of PAUSD schools, Klausner has three main focuses in her campaign. The first is to make spe-cific targeted efforts and focus resources to support the best practices. She also wants to open up educational opportuni-ties to every student. Her last initiative is to collaborate with parents, educators and the rest of the community to create a sense of teamwork in the school system.

Pingyu Liu Liu, a physicist and freelance writer,

wants better physics and physical educa-tion programs, as well as higher moral standards in Palo Alto’s schools.

“Moral education is at the heart of community education,” Liu said. “A stu-dent with bad moral standards is a student whose education has failed. Honesty and

a willingness to serve in the community are at the core of moral education. Every student should serve their community.”

According to Liu, teaching phys-ics and other sciences would hopefully prepare future generations to better deal with environmental problems.

“I want students and parents to know the importance of physics.” Liu said. “Physics is so basic that each step of devel-opment generates huge impacts on society. I believe mankind is waiting for physicists to make a big leap: to make endless and clean energy from the ocean.”

Liu also wants strong communication between parents and students, and wants to find out what parents want most for their children’s education.

“I will make the board more respon-sive and interactive with parents by asking them what they want from our schools.” Liu said. “I will direct the Board and help to put our children’s education as the first priority.”

See The Campanile’s view on School Board candidates, Page A4

Coach Hansen cuts the girls’ golf team from the Paly sports roster.

GIRLS’ GOLF TEAM CHIPPED AWAY

PAGE A12

Allie Bollella/The Campanile

Paly juniors (left to right) Alyssa Burton, Amin Ronaghi, Jessica Apple and Jean Kim practice their choreography for the upcoming Spirit Dance, which is on Nov. 2.

What to do about CO2?“going green” spotlight, A6-A7

News The Campanile

• October 29: Spirit WeekStudents dress up and compete in daily activities to show class spirit through Nov. 2.

• November 3: HomecomingThe jungle-themed dance takes place from 7:00p.m. to 10:30p.m. in the big gym.

• November 12: No SchoolAll students and staff have the day off in honor of Veterans Day.

• November 16: Turkey Trot Students enjoy an extended lunch with a Thanksgiving Day Feast benefiting charity.

A2 • October 22, 2007

newsbriefsThousands of books collected, tens of hours worked and

hopefully hundreds of children helped: after a 10-day book drive, Jordan Middle School seventh grader Tatiana Grossman has raised over 2,000 books for the impoverished country of Botswana.

Located at the Palo Alto Children’s Library, the drive was started by Grossman on Sept. 22. It continued until Oct. 1, and raised over 350 books in the first two days.

“The purpose of this project is to supply kids in Africa with books, so that they can be educated, go to secondary schools and help their country,” Grossman said.

Grossman is a member of the Africa Library Project Network, founded by Chris Bradshaw, a Portola Valley resident. The Africa Library Project has been working on collecting books for African countries for over two years and has since started many successful drives’ including a Walter Hays Elementary School drive which raised over 3,000 books in which Grossman’s brother assisted.

“Chris Bradshaw gave me all of the information I needed,” Grossman said. “[She taught me] what I needed to do to collect the books.”

During the 10-day drive, the Palo Alto Children’s Library staff collected books for Grossman during the day, who then came after school with a stand to make sure that residents and library visitors were aware of the cause.

Know Knew Books, a used book store in Palo Alto, donated over 100 books, by giving Grossman free reign to take any pa-perback books. Additionally, the Friends of Palo Alto Library has donated a hundred books including sets of “Boxcar Children” and “Wee Sing.”

The first thousand books will be donated to a school in Bo-tswana which currently does not even have a library.

“I have about 2,000 books,” Grossman said. “I’m planning to send another 1,000 to another country in Africa.”

Grossman believes that going beyond the goal and getting a sea of great books for students illustrates the generosity of Palo Alto residents.

“It’s going better than I would have even dared to hope,” Grossman said.

—Rebecca Allen News Editor

By NolaN WoNg

Staff Writer

Palo Alto community members wheeled out their bicycles and put on their walking shoes during the first week of October for the Palo Alto Walks and Rolls Week.

The pilot event, spearheaded by Santa Clara County Supervisor Liz Kniss and Palo Alto Mayor Yoriko Kishimoto, advocated biking and walking to school, work or any other place within Palo Alto.

“The idea of ‘Palo Alto Walks and Rolls’ is to create a community event that is not only fun, but an event that promotes physical fit-ness and raises awareness of safe alternative modes of transportation,” Kniss said.

‘Walks and Rolls’ also promoted a cleaner environment, less traffic congestion and utilization of public transportation such as the Palo Alto Shuttle, the Marguerite Shuttle, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and Caltrain. The event encouraged a decrease in greenhouse gas emission by decreasing the number of personal vehicles on the road.

The idea for ‘Walks and Rolls’ came as a follow-up event to a “walkability workshop” in June this year, Kishimoto said.

By yvoNNe liN

Staff Writer

Fifty years after graduating from Palo Alto High School, Charles Monsalve, 68, sent a note and a $500 donation to Palo Alto Unified School Superin-tendent Kevin Skelly on Sept. 14 confessing his involvement in a “dastardly deed” that went unpunished.

According to Manslave’s letter, “the plot was a culmina-tion of two months of meticulous planning by these evil doers. I knew because I was one of them.”

The prank, instigated at the end of the school year, involved the dumping of two carloads of beer cans, a two-year accumu-lation, into the Palo Alto High School swimming pool.

“My friends and I had been in an informal club that resembled fraternity; we called ourselves ‘The Olympians’,” Monsalve said. “We were

Seventh grader raises over 2,000 books for children in Botswana

dedicated to drinking Olympia beer.”

To execute the prank flaw-lessly, the group planned escape routes with flashlight signals and students parked in cars at school entrances, using headlight sig-nals to warn those on campus of police intrusion.

A member of the Paly swim and water polo teams secured the combination of the locks to the pool area. Having spent two months conspiring, Monsalve said his group of pranksters were not worried about failure.

“We were very careful,” Monsalve said. “We could have been planning a bank robbery.”

The administration spotted the floating debris before class started on the last day of school, but the prank still caused an uproar and damage. For fifty years, the culprits were never apprehended, until Monsalve came forward and publicized his involvement in the prank.

“I wanted to square things up before my [50 year] reunion,” Monsalve said. “I had the idea of writing a letter for three months.”

He came forward 50 years later in his classmates’ honor and in remembrance of four co-conspirators involved, who have since passed away. Keeping a 50-year-old promise, Monsalve refuses to divulge the names of other members.

To compensate for the $50 spent in 1957 for the 16 hours spent cleaning up the pool, Monsalve enclosed a check of $500, adjusted due to currency inflation, to cover the costs.

“I would like to donate it to a needy student for a scholar-ship, or purchase something and donate it to the Palo Alto High School with the commemorate line ‘The Class of 1957, Palo Alto High School,’ Monsalve wrote in his letter addressed to Skelly. Skelly said the district’s business office will direct the

donation to Paly for the school’s use.

“I originally thought about some things that I had done in my younger days that I should probably make amends for as well,” Skelly said.

At the Paly Class of 1957 reunion, which occurred the week of Oct. 6, Monsalve’s confession received press which was “worth its weight in gold,” according to Joelle Simson, member of the 50th Reunion planning committee.

Since sending his confes-sion to the superintendent, Mon-salve has been interviewed by

press across the country and has been asked to speak on several talk radio shows.

“I am glad people have a sense of humor,” Monsalve said.

Gale Randell, another mem-ber of the 50th Reunion planning committee said it was hard to know who dumped the cans into the pool, but Monsalve seemed like a fun-loving guy who could be up to pranks.

Monsalve graduated from San Francisco State University and later married Darlynn Zees-man, whom he met in ninth grade. He retired at the age of 39. Monsalve is now the owner of Refinery Supply Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma and has lived in 38 different places during his lifetime.

“I do not want to encourage senior pranks, especially those that deface school property,” Monsalve said. “There are many good things with a sense of hu-mor that people can do.”

Kniss and Kishimoto kicked off ‘Walks and Rolls’ on Sept. 28 before the Palo Alto Baylands Moonlight Run and Walk. There were four major ‘Walks and Rolls’ activi-ties during the week. Many Palo Alto Uni-fied School District students participated in the “Walk and Roll to School” activity. Elementary school students were given rewards for choosing an alternative to driv-ing to school.

“Walk and Roll to Lunch” was held on California Avenue from Oct. 1-5. Community members who walked, biked or took public transportation to California Avenue were able to enter a drawing at participating restaurants for a free lunch or other prizes.

A “foot-powered parade” was held along Bryant Street on the morning of Oct. 6, and Neighborhood Walkability Workshops to discuss street safety were held at various locations throughout the week.

Kishimoto estimates that at least one or two thousand community members, largely comprised of elementary school students, participated in Palo Alto Walks and Rolls.

However, many PAUSD high school students were unaware of the ‘Walks and

Alternative transportation explored by city

Paly alumnus confesses to prank after 50 years

Palo Alto Children’s Library reopens after nearly two years of remodeling

See WALKS, Page A3

“I wanted to square things up before my reunion. I had the idea of writing a letter for

three months.”

Charles MonslavePaly Class of ‘57

By yelly BittoN

Staff Writer

The Palo Alto Children’s Library reopened after approximately two years of reconstruction on Sept. 29. The library features the addition of the Tree Top Room, located in the new north wing.

The library’s renovation began in De-cember 2005 after the Palo Alto Library Board found that the library did not meet current seismic standards.

The renovation originally began as a structural upgrade that included the

installation of energy-efficient heating and cooling systems and the remodeling of two of library’s bathrooms.

In addition, the newly renovated building also features a remolded “secret garden,” landscaping, and new furniture and library equipment.

“The renovation went really well,” Children’s Library Manager Melinda Wing said. “We actually opened ahead of schedule.”

The renovation added approximately 2,600 square feet to the 3,442 square feet structure, enlarging the library by more

than 50%. The renovation and recon-struction cost a total of $4.1 million, $3 million of which was covered by various community donations, the City of Palo Alto Infrastructure Reserve and the Palo Alto Library Foundation.

“The project started as a city proj-ect a number of years ago as a cycle of infrastructure repairs for re-roofing and earthquake safety,” Wing said. “They decided to upgrade the heating and cool-ing systems as well as the library features then at the same time. We wanted to make it more fun for the kids.”

The new library also features several wings, including the “Tree Top Room.” The room is designed as a space for quiet, comfortable reading and holds programs for the children. It includes an original, full-wall mural painted by local artist Jeff Peterson.

French doors open from the mural room into the library’s landscaped out-side garden.

There are special sections for learning-to-read books and a new pro-gram room used for themed story time such as story time with pirates or under the sea.

“We kind of outgrew the old space and now we have the room needed for story time and other programs,” Wing said.

Considered the oldest children’s library in the country, the library held a grand reopening party, which began with a “Parade of Books” to welcome back supporters and patrons of the remodeled library.

“It’s a historic building so we have been really careful in the restorations,” Wing said. “We hired someone special-ized in historical renovations to be sure everything went well.”

The library has been well received by children and local parents.

Rosa Massoudi, a mother of two children and Palo Alto resident, has been a frequent patron of the children’s library both before and after the renovation.

“It’s beautiful,” Massoudi said. “I am really impressed. We’re spending more time here after school, just coming and doing our reading.”

Bowman International School third grader Francesca Cohn is also a frequent user of the Children’s Library and sup-ports the new changes.

“I think it’s really cool,” Cohn said. “It is a great place for kids to hang out and just sit down with a book and put their head in a story. It’s really nice.”

Children enjoy the new Children’s Library, which opened Saturday after almost two years of renovation. The library’s improvements include a “secret garden,” various landscaping and new furniture and equipment.

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanile

Allie Bollella/The Campanile

After two Henry M. Gunn High School students were in-volved in a car accident driving to a Sept. 19 water polo game against Los Altos High School, Gunn may ban students from driving to games, according to Gunn Assistant Principal Tom Jacoubowsky.

The students in question received extensive medical atten-tion after the driver crashed into the freeway divider. One student fractured his femur, while the other lost the tip of his toe.

Gunn’s current driving policy allows student drivers to drive themselves to athletic games, as long as a parent has signed a note. Palo Alto High School also has a similar policy with student athletes driving to athletic games.

Palo Alto High School Athletic Director Earl Hansen said that Gunn’s policy, if implemented, will not affect Paly’s policy. Nevertheless, Hansen stresses the fact that Paly has no problem allowing students to drive themselves, but that students absolutely cannot drive other people.

Questions about the school’s policy were raised by admin-istrators and parents after the car accident, the second athletics related incident at Gunn in the past few days.

The first incident, involving a member of the cheerleading team, was not related to Gunn’s driving policy, although it prompt-ed a second look at athletic safety in the two high schools.

Hansen cites the lack of adequate bus numbers for school sporting events as a main reason for why students drive them-selves to games.

“When I came to Paly, there were enough buses to send all the athletes to games,” Hansen said. “Now, I don’t see as many buses.”

Despite the reasons for the large number of individuals driv-ing to athletic games, Jacoubowsky believes that letting students partake in unsafe actions is not a solution.

“It may be something we decide is just not worth the risk” Jacoubowsky said in a Palo Alto Weekly interview.

—Auster ChenStaff Writer

Gunn discusses prohibiting athletes from driving to sports competitions

In an effort to reduce greenhouse gasses, people all over Palo Alto biked and walked during the week of Oct. 1 through 5.

NEWSBRIEFS

October 22, 2007 • A3 The Campanile News

By Alexi DAgAn

Sports Editor

With the arrival of journalism teacher Ellen Austin, Palo Alto High School’s sports magazine, The Viking, published its first ever edition on Monday, Oct. 8.

Juniors Noah Sneider, Peter Johnson and Charlie Avis came up with the idea for a Paly sports magazine at the end of the 2006-07 school year. Seniors Nina Gertsvolf, Steven Tran and Austin Smith quickly signed on to round out the group of six Editors in Chief.

After completing their first production cycle and distributing out the first edition of The Viking to positive reviews, the staff recognizes that there are numerous things to improve on.

“We definitely need to work on getting stories in on time,” Sneider said. “People wanted more communication between the editors and the staff, but things will definitely go more smoothly the next production.”

Johnson agrees that with one production cycle’s worth of experience, things will con-tinue to improve for the magazine.

“Production for the next issue will have much more structure because we will actu-ally have something to work off of,” Johnson said.

Austin has been working in journalism ever since high school where she was both a staff writer and photographer at Rockford East High School in Rockford, Illinois.

Austin then attended the University of Illinois, where she was a staff photographer for the university’s newspaper. After gradua-tion, Austin moved to Minnesota in order to work at Cannon Falls High School. She got her first experience in working with a staff when she started an entirely new publication, the Cannon Falls Lantern, at Cannon Falls High School.

The Viking debuts to positive reviews

Fall play anticipates opening night

Julia Benton/ The Campanile

Paly’s new play, You Can’t Take It With You, opens Nov. 8. It features a romantic relationship between Alice Sycamore, played by senior Mika Ben-Shaul, and Tony Kirby, played by junior Alex Nee.

Claude EzranEzran, a high tech executive and immigrant from

France, believes that strong management skills are neces-sary for a successful school board.

“My business experience in managing people, project teams and budgets will help the Board function better as a team and become more effective,” Ezran said.

A strong advocate for better facilities planning, Ezran believes that a third high school or 13th elementary school in PAUSD may be necessary.

“We should not continue to add band-aid solutions to band-aid solutions.” Ezran said. “We already have 147 portable classrooms throughout the District, so a third non-comprehensive high school is definitely an option that should be considered seriously in this long-term road map. It could be intended for the 20 to 30 percent of our students who are not interested in going to a four-year college, to make sure that they still have an interesting curriculum that keeps them motivated and prepares them for a potential vocational or technical education after graduation.”

In Ezran’s 10 to 15 year plan, he would expand foreign language classes to sixth grade and eventually to elementary school levels.

He also wants to try and reduce homework and stress levels in Palo Alto’s middle and high schools.

“The homework workload could be more evenly distributed throughout the week and throughout the year.” Ezran said. “I also believe that more could be done to co-ordinate the testing schedules between different teachers to avoid having multiple tests on the same day.”

Camille Townsend Townsend, an active PAUSD volunteer and current

School Board President, is focused on maintaining and attracting good teachers to the district, and presenting a curriculum that fulfils the needs of all PAUSD students.

“Great teachers change lives.” Townsend said. “They engage students, stimulate imagination and raise perfor-mance. One of the board’s prime responsibilities is to attract and retain excellent teachers. We are committed to competitive salaries, enabling teacher collaboration and providing strong technology support. Innovation and basics go hand-in-hand.”

With last year’s major budget cuts, Townsend prides herself on the successful way that the School Board handled the money deficit.

“I made difficult budget decisions, keeping cuts away from the classroom while reducing the $6.5 million short-fall,” Townsend said. “Our financial picture is stronger, and

under my presidency, we have hired a new superintendent and have a unique opportunity for renewed purpose.”

As last year’s president, Townsend also helped enact healthy nutrition standards, green energy initiatives and a world languages initiative.

Wynn HausserA strong community leader, Hausser is passionate

about furthering the academic enrichment programs and correcting the enrolment and facilities problems facing the district.

“We must have a forward-thinking, district-wide, com-prehensive facilities plans that reflects plans for growth, not just maintenance.” Hausser said. “It should flow from a clear vision for what kind of school environments we want to have. The plan must clearly show how adding school capacity will affect car, bike and pedestrian traf-fic, and be vetted with local residents. We also should be environmentally conscientious by using energy-conserving practices.”

If elected, Hausser also has plans for a long-term strategic plan.

“A good strategic plan is a road map guiding the district’s direction for the next several years,” Hausser said. “It is a statement of what we intend to do, and by implication, what we will not do. It should establish clear

By JilliAn liu

Staff Writer

Palo Alto High School’s theater program is currently working on its fall play You Can’t Take It With You.

You Can’t Take It With You revolves around an eccentric and peculiar group of individuals, the Sycamores, each of whom has his own quirk.

After Alice Sycamore (senior Mika Ben-Shaul) falls in love with her boss’ son Tony Kirby (junior Alex Nee), a clash occurs between the two families. In contrast to the Sycamores, the Kirbys are an uptight and rigid family. As a result, both families must handle the stresses of the problems that arise, and eventually come to under-stand themselves even more.

The characters include Paul Sycamore, Alice’s father, played by senior Alex Rose-Henig, who makes rockets in the basement of their home. He works with the family’s former iceman Mr. De Pinna, who is played by senior Alex Gaya.

“Essentially the Sycamores do whatever strikes their fancies,” the-ater teacher and director Kathleen Woods said.

Senior Adrienne Losch plays Penny Sycamore, the mother who is a playwright who paints in her spare time. Alice’s sister, Essie Carmichael, who is played by senior Keely Flana-gan, makes candy but aspires to be a ballerina, taking ballet lessons from a very Russian anti-communist named Kolenkhov, played by sophomore Nathan Wilen. Her husband Ed plays the xylophone and prints anything that comes into his head.

Senior Andrew Nizamian plays Martin Vanderhof, the patriarch of the household who collects snakes and refuses to pay his income tax.

On the other side of the spectrum are the Kirbys.

“The Kirbys are very stodgy and proper, Wall Street types,” Gaya said.

Adding to the mix are Kolenk-hov’s friend, the Grand Duchess Olga Katrina, played by senior Nanor Bala-banian; a perpetually drunk actress, Gay Wellington; and the Sycamores’ family maid Rheba and her boyfriend Donald.

However, the obstacles that the families must overcome show them that they still function together, despite their oddities.

“They are anything but dysfunc-tional,” Flanagan said, “In fact, their love and willingness to be themselves contribute to the message of the piece.”

You Can’t Take It With You is a classic American comedy written by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman in 1936, according to Woods, It is a short, three-act comedy, and it is the first Palo Alto High School produc-tion directed by Woods, who is new to Paly this year.

“This play is very fast-paced and involves a lot of complicated entrances and exits, and more props than you can shake a stick at, and the main challenge, I would say, has been just sorting that out and ensuring that all the important action is visible and whatnot,” Gaya said.

Woods is quite optimistic about the play as well.

“It’s a fun show to work on,” Woods said. “The students are won-derful. They’re putting their all into it.”

You Can’t Take It With You opens on Nov. 8 at 7p.m. There will also be performances on Nov. 15, 16 and 17 at 7:30p.m., and a matinee showing on Nov. 10 at 4p.m.

After working there, Austin became the teacher advisor for the Rubicon, the newspaper at St. Paul Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota.

After several years at St. Paul Academy, Austin decided to take the job as Paly’s new-est journalism teacher and the advisor for The Viking.

“My experience at Paly so far has been really wonderful,” Austin said.

After a successful first edition, the Viking staff plans on producing five more issues throughout the course of the school year.

“I am really happy with it,” Sneider said. “The staff worked really hard, and we have gotten a good response from the Paly com-munity. People are really motivated to put together a good second issue.”

School Board candidates state their platforms and goals for PAUSDgoals and priorities and identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that need to be addressed.”

Melissa Baten CaswellA Dartmouth graduate and former PTA Council

President, Baten Caswell is dedicated to setting clear and manageable goals that the community can get behind.

“Representatives from our entire school community must collaborate effectively so that the new plan can guide the district reliably,” Baten Caswell said “Timelines and metrics will be critical for accurately tracking the district’s progress over time.”

Another top priority for the candidate is making the school board more accessible to PAUSD staff and the community as a whole.

“I will ensure that the Board works closely with our new superintendent in order to take our evaluators’ work to its crucial next stage,” Baten Caswell said. “There be specific, tangible systems and agreements which will ensure that all stakeholders - administrators, teachers, school staff, families and above all, kids - feel welcomed, respected and appropriately included.”

The three winners will be decided on Nov. 6 and will take their positions immediately, and with a new superintendent it looks like it’s going to be a busy year for the School Board.

ELECTION, Continued from A1

and thinks that they also have a great chance of winning.

“We got really close last year,” Sopho-more Class President Alex Freeman said. “I think that if we work hard, we could win.”

This year, the sophomores’ theme is the red carpet, where they will dress like celebrities.

“I think that the theme is really glamor-ous,” sophomore Hillary Yuan said. “I’m really excited to dress up like a movie star.”

Although the sophomores’ theme has been released, Freeman said that their float designs are secret, in hopes of surprising the judges during the float judging.

As always, the freshmen class is the un-derdog in the competition, due to their lack of experience. However, they hope that their fresh and creative theme, Goldfish, will help them take the win.

“We have a high chance of winning,” Freshmen Class President Chirag Krishna said. “The majority of our class is very spirited, and if we all work hard, then we will win.”

The freshmen float, which will be a large orange goldfish eating smaller fish of other class colors, will hopefully attract the attention of the judges, Krishna said.

Though all of the classes are prepared for Spirit Week, there have been hurdles along the

way. Rumors about the legitimacy of the junior classes’ previous and possibly current floats have been floating around campus.

For the past two years, the class of 2009 has been accused of excessive outside help on their floats.

“The only reason why their floats are so good is because the parents build it for them,” senior Carly Weinstein said.

Although many students agree with Weinstein, Klingbeil said that this rumor is a joke created by a previous Paly graduate student. Furthermore, Klingbeil said that he personally put in more than 40 hours into the floats in the past, and that parents only helped by managing power saws.

In addition to the accusations against the class of 2009, juniors, sophomores and freshmen have had a lack of male volunteers for the spirit dance.

“We simply don’t have enough guys,” Klingbeil said.

Krishna who also faced the same problem that Klingbeil had, said that it has been difficult to get male dancers.

“I think the guys are too embarrassed to be in the spirit dance,” said Krishna.

Without enough male dancers, points will be deducted from classes’ total score. However, classes aren’t entirely fazed.

“One way or the other, we’ll get some guys to dance,” Klingbeil said.

ASB seeks a spirit week successThe seniors on the other hand, did not

encounter this problem. “It was really easy to find all our danc-

ers, even for the guys,” Abid said. “We even needed to cut a few people out.”

Although Spirit Week is predominantly for the students, Principal Jacqueline McEvoy and Vice Principal Jerry Berkson can’t help but be excited.

“Although I don’t know much about Spirit Week at Paly, I’m extremely excited to see it,” McEvoy said. “I know it’s a really big deal for the school and I’m looking forward to it.”

Berkson feels similarly to McEvoy and also feels that Spirit Week is a large part of what makes Paly special.

“Many schools don’t have anything like Spirit Week,” Berkson said. “And compared with San Mateo, which also has a Spirit Week, Paly is definitely equally or more spirited.”

Despite the changes and controversies, Abid promises that Spirit Week will remain the same.

“I think that this year is probably going to be the best,” Abid said. “We’re going to have a wide variety of games and it’s going to appeal to everyone.”

Even though some of the activities will change to better entertain the students, one thing will ultimately remain: the drive, desire, and competitiveness between all of the classes that makes Spirit Week so memorable.

Julia Benton/The Campanile

Ellen Austin’s journalism class has finished its first edition of The Viking.

SPIRIT WEEK, Continued from A1

Palo Alto promotes biking and walkingWALKS, Continued from A2

Rolls’ event because most of the “Walk and Roll to School” campaign was focused on the PAUSD elementary schools. Those high school students who heard about Palo Alto Walks and Rolls strongly supported the idea.

“I bike everyday, so I think ‘Walks and Rolls’ is an awesome idea,” junior Evan Berg said. “’Walks and Rolls’ helps the environment and it gets people to exercise more.”

There will probably be another ‘Walks and Rolls’ Week next year to help increase awareness of transportation alternatives, Kishimoto said.

“Improvements to be made include more banners and more advance publicity,” Kishimoto said.

Additionally, a better plan will need to be made for next year, according to Santa Clara County Policy Analyst Paul Garcia.

“There were many things that we didn’t anticipate, many things that went wrong and

other things that went right,” Garcia said. “Next year we hope to have more preparation time and more involvement with more businesses and schools.”

Nevertheless, with at least one thousand participants, ‘Walks and Rolls’ was a relative success on its first try.

“I think that the Palo Alto ‘Walks and Rolls’ was successful,” Kishimoto said. “Hopefully we made some strides to encourag-ing more people to walk and roll throughout Palo Alto.”

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.

Opinion The Campanile

A4 October 22, 2007

EditorialsLetters to the editors

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

PhotographersJulia Benton • Allie Bollella • Michela Fossati-Bellani

Stacy Levichev • Elizabeth Petit

Business ManagersGeng Wang Debbie Zhang

Advertising ManagerErik Krasner-Karpen

AdviserEsther Wojcicki

The Opinion of The Campanile

Spotlight EditorSarah Stringer

E-mail all letters to editors to theeds08@googlegroups.com. The Campanile welcomes and prints letters to the editors on a space-available basis. Letters may be edited to meet space requires. Please note that The Campanile only publishes signed letters.

Many Paly policies have been instated or more strictly enforced this year, the least effective of which is the biking policy. Any student found biking on campus is likely to get a handbook waved in their face by Reese or Mary. This policy seems to have no redeeming aspects and is not highly publicized. Biking on campus seems to do no apparent damage whatsoever to the school, so long as students wear their helmets. It is simply not clear why the biking policy is being enforced more strictly, and what purpose it might serve. It would also be nice if students were not yelled at.

–– Shannee Braun, sophomore

Students disagree with “no bikes on campus” policyEarlier this year, the administration announced that

if a student is caught riding a bicycle on the Paly campus, he or she will be punished with community service work. Banning bicycle riding on campus inconveniences the hundreds of students who ride bicycles to school and does little to make students safer. Ironically, the people who enforce this bike policy do so while riding in golf carts or on bicycles. I think this policy should either be applied to both administrators and students or be abandoned entirely.

––Grant Audet, sophomore

Paly students should be allowed to ride their bicycles on campus when arriving at school in the mornings and when leaving campus after school. It is a waste of money and effort having someone out by the art building with their bikes or golf carts, waiting to tell students to walk their bikes. Alternatively, we could have a separate lane for walking and biking, at least next to the art building, that could hopefully be extended through the rest of the school.

––Elliot Sanborn, sophomore

With the Palo Alto Unified School District School Board election tak-ing place on Nov. 6, The Campanile would like to endorse Claude Ezran, Barbara Klausner and incumbent Camille Townsend.

In light of current issues, like Mandarin Immersion and the arrival of Superintendent Kevin Skelly, The Campanile believes candidates must be comfortable in leadership while remaining open to compromise.

Current School Board President Townsend has certainly proven herself worthy of reelection. An experienced leader, she has sound knowledge of the PAUSD and has had two children go through district schools. Townsend’s

staunch support of the Mandarin Im-mersion program has demonstrated her determination and willpower. At the same time, she has remained open to alternatives and has continually kept the district’s needs in mind.

Business executive Ezran’s straightforward nature and outside experience bodes well for a term as a School Board member. Ezran has consistently shown decisiveness on a number of key issues, a welcome trait on a board that has had trouble making decisions efficiently.The French-born candidate’s emphasis on cooperation will hopefully ensure that his resolve will not turn into stubbornness. The Campanile also believes Ezran’s

business experience and manage-ment skills will greatly benefit the board. Ezran is definitely capable of a successful term as a school board member.

The Campanile also recom-mends Klausner for School Board. Klausner’s experience as a PAUSD educator would be a valuable addition to the School Board. Her clear interest in student opinions and thoughts is encouraging, from a student’s perspec-tive.Hopefully, Klausner will continue to take student ideas into account as a School Board member.

The Campanile endorses Claude Ezran, Barbara Klausner and Camille Townsend for School Board.

Favorable candidates emerge in Board election

Ezran, Klausner, Townsend superior candidates for upcoming School Board elections

The staff of The Campanile strongly believes that while the new Palo Alto High School administra-tion’s stringent enforcement of the attendance policy is a step in the right direction towards cutting down on student truancy at Paly, there is a serious flaw in how the current policy is being implemented.

Right now, students who are ab-sent from a class only have 48 hours to get the absence excused. However, students with legitimate absences that should have been excused often do not find out that they have mistakenly been given a cut until long after the 48-hour grace period has expired. While teachers are e-mailed daily attendance printouts, these e-mails detail students’ absences from several days prior. For example, on Oct. 10, teachers were emailed about cuts that occurred on Oct. 2. Unfortunately, this practice is what makes the existing

attendance policy problematic. If a student was at a doctor’s appointment during third period on Tuesday, Oct. 2, the teacher would not have been able to inform the student whether or not that absence was excused until the fol-lowing Monday, 144 hours later. If the student’s parent had forgotten to call Paly’s attendance office to excuse the absence or the excuse had accidentally been mis-entered, the student would not be notified of his or her alleged cut until long after the cut became “permanent.” Thus, the innocent student would have been given a cut for an absence that should have been excused, simply because he or she didn’t know that he or she had been given a cut until long after the 48-hour time window had passed.

The simple solution to this prob-lem is both extending the grace period within which cuts can still be excused to seven days and making the time lag

between the day cuts happen and the day teachers are notified shorter. If teachers were notified of cuts within a few days of them happening and actively confronted students who received those cuts, any student who had wrongfully been given a cut could still get his or her absence excused within the seven-day time window. This change in the attendance policy would prevent students with verifiable excuses from accidentally receiving unalterable cuts, something that is frequently happening under the cur-rent policy.

Punishing innocent students through the enforcement of a flawed policy is unacceptable, no matter how many “real” truants are being caught.

With this simple adjustment, the attendance policy could more accurately punish students who are actually cutting class.

Attendance policyunfairly enforced

While new attendance policy justified, enforcement often accidentally punishes innocent students

Design EditorErik Krasner-Karpen

Nanor BalabanianCatherine BensonYelly BittonBecky BylerHannah BystritskyAlan ChenAuster ChenAlan ChuAllison ColemanZal Dordi

Rye DruzinChristian GallagherAlex GreeneChris GonnermanGabby HadleyMichael HamadaZach HarrisKevin HarveyDJ HsuehMikaela Kenrick

Laura KurtzYvonne LinJillian LiuJosh LoRyan McLeodMira ParekhJonathan ShanJulia ShapiroKelley ShinPauline Slakey

Annie VoughtAnna WaldronCrystal WangCassie WedemeyerAllison WhitsonEliot WilsonNolan WongLindsay YangGloria YuKelly Zhou

In this age of testing, when we want to see the highest possible scores, there is no justification for holding the SAT tests at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. The data is clear. It has been shown that a proper night’s sleep is beneficial to test scores, yet the early start time persists. A later time such as 9:00 a.m. or 10:00 a.m. would be much more reasonable. The common reasons given for school beginning so early, (jobs, daylight, sports practices, etc.), do not apply here.

I am the parent of a Paly senior and I object to the 8:00 a.m. start time of the SAT tests.

––Maureen Allen, Paly parent

Administration’s new policies unnecessary, excessive

SAT testing times disadvantage students

Though Paly students enjoy many liberties denied to people attending other schools, one cannot fail to notice some of our draconian policies this year. Consider, for instance, the tardy policy: students can be dropped from a course after only eight tardies in a semester, regardless of the fact that students, when tardy, are normally only so by a few seconds.

There does not appear to be any point in punishing such harmless mistakes, but, evidently, the administra-tion believes otherwise. Some people might even go so far to suggest that the policy is only a tool of oppressive authority, not a useful way to keep students in class; last year’s policy was more than sufficient.

The administration should consider reversing the unreasonable rules they have imposed on our school.

––Leslie Shen, sophomore

The statement in “Teacher advi-sor system presents glaring flaws” (Oct. 1, 2007) that teacher advisors are chosen randomly is incorrect.

Corrections All teacher advisors apply for the position and go through a selection process that includes an interview. The Campanile regrets this error.

The Campanile strives to only include factual and unbiased con-

tent. It is The Campanile’s policy to correct factual errors or misleading statements. Significant corrections will be noted in the upcoming edi-tion.

Please send corrections requests to theeds08@googlegoups.com.

As Palo Alto High School strives to provide its students with the best possible education through academi-cally rigorous courses, computer labs, and well-maintained facilities and resources, The Campanile urges all instructional supervisors to implement a standardized system for teacher evaluations.

Such reform could better estab-lish a consistent and fair platform for student voices. Other alternatives, like a monthly open forum between students and an instructional supervi-sor of an academic department, must also be considered to further promote constructive discussion between stu-dents and teachers.

Currently, the majority of Paly teachers use individual feedback

forms, specific to the classes they teach, and assign students to do them during class. While these evaluations are submitted anonymously, the pres-ence of a teacher can dramatically influence students’ honesty and criti-cism. Students would be better able to express true opinions and feelings towards specific classes if such forms were sent to students’ houses or were filled out through an anonymous on-line resource, allowing them to write in private.

While The Campanile commends each Paly department for distributing surveys and feedback forms, these results must be documented and reviewed by the respective depart-ment’s instructional supervisor, if not already done so. By directly receiving

the surveys, the instructional supervi-sor will be able to see the unfiltered criticism of all students, and thus be able to best insure the improvement of teachers, students’ overall educational experience and the relationship be-tween the two parties. Moreover, this opportunity will allow instructional supervisors to identify any common, structural complaints, apparent in the majority of a department’s courses and regardless of different lanes and area of subject.

The Campanile believes that a semi-formal meeting between students and teachers, regarding the overall strengths and weaknesses of Paly’s departments, would assist in improving such addressed complaints and furthering students’ education.

Paly needs standardized teacher evaluations

Standardized evaluations would allow students to present honest criticism of Paly teachers

CONPRO

Principal Charles Merritt said. “We wanted to see what went smoothly and what didn’t.”

Paly was prepared for the imagi-nary shooter this time and if the pro-gram continues, Paly will be much better prepared for a real threat.

Reflecting the preparation put into the drill, Paly had a plan for those students who were on campus and not in a classroom, and had established numerous safe-zones around the perimeter of the campus.

“We introduced the program last year and the teachers had their train-ing last spring,” Merritt said. “They also had a refresher training session a week before the drill.”

Eris said teachers were taught situational knowledge and told how the desperately violent mind works. Teachers were taught that a shooter will try to attack as many people as he or she can, trying to find easily accessible rooms.

The point of the barricades are not necessarily to stop the shooter completely, but simply to redirect and slow down his or her movements.

The line of sight concept is also important: due to the fact that the shooter needs to make a visual con-nection with his victim, something as simple as a bush can protect a student.

The school’s safety is clearly in far more experienced and knowledge-able hands than some students want to believe.

Although the system may have some flaws such as teachers having to go outside to lock their doors, the school is much better prepared in case of a shooter because of the drill.

The new drill was created by the Palo Alto Unified School District, and has been taught to all staff on every campus.

“Schools are an obvious target for terrorists and others who want to do harm,” Interim Chief Business Official for PAUSD Bob Golton said. “We therefore do Code Red training, in collaboration with the Palo Alto Police Department, to attempt to prepare for these events.”

Some of the most fundamental, but otherwise easily mended, flaws

Opinion The Campanile

Verbatim:

“A nurse.” “A pumpkin.”“A Christmas tree.” “A nun.”

—Tess Christy,senior

—Monica Bhide,junior

—Sam Juarez,freshman

If you could see Dr. McEvoy in a Halloween costume, what would it be?

—Hannah Mernyk,freshman

“A skater.”

—Evan Hahn,sophomore

October 22, 2007 • A5

By Chris GallaGher

Staff Writer

The Code Red drill at Palo Alto High School is not only a vital pro-gram of principle, but an opportunity to address the immediate reality that all Paly students must come to terms with.

The amount of stress and emo-tional turmoil that Paly students expe-rience is tremendous, as manifested by the student suicides of 2002 and 2003 and the school-wide stress survey taken in the past few years.

Due to these results and recent events, the risk of a student shooting at Paly is certainly no less than at any other school across California and is possibly more likely for this crisis.

Paly is wise to conduct a Code Red drill in case of emergencies involving a shooter or dangerous individual on the school campus.

The horrific memory of both Virginia Tech and Columbine High School are only the most prominent of recent school shootings. Even in cities as close as Oroville, 80 miles north of Sacramento, 30 students were held hostage by a student gunman. Fortunately, no one was injured.

According to Eric Baily of the Los Angeles Times, the Oroville student was depressed, possibly from a break-up with his girlfriend. If something like a break-up can cause a shooting, the school must be prepared for an emergency that could happen at any point in time.

Although there is indeed some room for improvement, the drill held Oct. 2 was a success. Teachers concealed the classes in darkness be-hind locked, covered and barricaded doors.

Paly Physics teacher Gul Eris said that she instructed her class to move to the other side of the build-ing should the shooter gain access to their room, distancing themselves from the shooter and locking doors behind them.

School officials, though, recog-nize room for improvement.

“Drills are meant to be learning experiences and this was our first Code Red drill at Paly,” Assistant

By Cassie Wedemeyer

Staff Writer

After the first Code Red drill at Palo Alto High School, many flaws that could threaten the safety of Paly students have surfaced.

Because this was the first official Code Red drill, there was ample room for error. These errors include circum-stances in which a shooter’s access to

By ryan mCleod

Staff Writer

The number of teachers who deserve job tenure far exceeds the number of mediocre teachers, especially at Paly. Teaching requires enormous dedication to one’s work and to one’s students.

Teachers receive neither enormous sala-ries nor great opportunities beyond those of-fered by their work. Tenure is a small reward of job security for their great dedication.

However, the administration does not dis-miss teachers as easily as parents and students would like due to the teacher-tenure program. The state law establishing this dictates that any teacher hired must be given protection under tenure after a mandatory two-year probation-

ary period, during which the teacher can be fired somewhat easily.

After those two years, the firing process becomes infinitely more difficult. The laws governing this process date as far back as 1921.

It has not been updated for over two decades largely due to strong resistance from the teacher’s union.

The only part of the law that prevents teachers from abusing the benefits of tenure dictates that every two years a teacher may become subject to review, and if the school deems the teacher’s performance sub-par, the school may choose to fire that teacher.

If necessary, the school must prove in court that the teacher is a poor instructor or is otherwise detrimental to students.

Therefore, the school cannot discharge a teacher without a compelling reason. In theory, the system provides protection for teachers from wrongful firing and also attracts new teachers seeking job security.

Unfortunately, the “fail-safe” method of detecting and dealing with poor teachers is often too cumbersome to be effective. While schools should be able to fire a teacher if a justifiable rationale for the dismissal exists, the red tape of the current tenure system prevents many districts from doing so.

If a teacher performs unsatisfactorily, the district cannot dismiss him or her prior to the completion of an arduous 12-step plan that can take over a decade.

Furthermore, legal fees involved in the process can cost thousands of dollars, which

has followed the procedure properly. There should not be any reasoning that says that a shooter will not harm some students but could probably injure others.

Any kind of incident could be cause for a student or teachers’ violent behavior, so the school should be ready for a Code Red drill at all times.

The drill on Oct. 2 proved that the school is not completely prepared for a Code Red drill if an actual incident were to occur. Effort was shown; how-ever, the execution was a failure.

There were some tactics that worked and others that did not. The school has not told us what they are going to do to improve what failed to work.

In the first Code Red drill, a voice over the intercom announced that a Code Red drill was in progress and each teacher was directed to exit the classroom and lock the door from the outside. This is a potential problem because the shooter could be outside of the classroom. The teacher would be an easy target as well as present-ing the shooter with an opportunity to enter the unprotected classroom and open fire.

The next part of the drill requires desks to be stacked in front of the door. Students and teachers then retreat to the back of the classroom and are told to remain quiet.

If the teacher is successful in lock-ing the door, the next step in the drill is to barricade the entryway with pieces of furniture. This is a major flaw in the drill because barricades would not provide protection if the shooter were to get inside the room. If anything, it just increases the time victims have to suffer knowing a shooter is trying to get to them.

The Code Red drill presents some mistakes that can be fixed. The shooter could decide to attack the main office, rather than classrooms. This could cut off communication between adminis-trators, teachers and students.

Also, both the Social Studies and Science buildings have a central room that is accessible from all classrooms. This means if the shooter could reach this central room, they could poten-tially reach every room in the building.

of the drill involve the doors of class-rooms. For those doors that open from the outside, teachers must exit their rooms to lock their doors. This puts teachers in danger.

Also, the doors that connect each individual class to the rest of the build-ing open from the inside, giving easy access to all other classrooms in any given building. Although the cost to replace these doors is high, the safety

students and staff members is slowed down but not ultimately stopped by the locked classroom doors and various furniture stacked on the inside. The hope is that the shooter will move on to another room to avoid capture if it is too difficult to get inside of a classroom.

But it should be impossible for the shooter to get into any room that

(Staged photo) Palo Alto High School students barricaded their classroom doors with furniture to hinder any intruders.

The staff and students must protect themselves if the shooter can access these rooms.

The Palo Alto Unified School District has failed to address all pos-sible scenarios that necessitate a Code Red drill. They should better analyze the potential locations of students dur-ing a Code Red drill and the means by which to protect them.

Simple solutions exist to the Code Red drill’s problems. PAUSD should consider any and all possible improvements to these problems. Deadbolts should be installed on the inside of classroom doors, eliminating the inability of teachers to lock doors from the inside. According to some Paly teachers, the district claims that the installation of the deadbolts would be too expensive. However, deadbolts are necessary to ensure the safety of Paly students and staff.

Assistant Principal Charles Merritt said he spent more time co-ordinating with the Palo Alto Police Department than actually organizing the drill. Also, the PAPD’s plan of ac-tion is different from the one created by PAUSD, according to Merritt.

The district and the PAPD need to collaborate to create a single plan to effectively protect students from on-campus threats and how to handle the situation to the best of their ability.

The safety of Paly students is a top priority of the community, and the Code Red drill failed to ensure the protection of the Paly students and staff.

The drill needs to be revised and improved, and the Paly administration and PAPD need to develop a plan that guarantees the safety of the students and staff members.

The Code Red drills need to better prepare Paly students and staff for an emergency. As of now, they are not sufficient to ensure such protection, and need to be fixed to prevent dam-ages to students and staff in the event of an emergency.

The Code Red procedure must be repaired and improved, before a legiti-mate emergency occurs at Paly. The solutions to this problem are simple, and the administration should not delay improvements on the drill.

of Paly students should be the school’s top priority.

The Code Red drill was a success overall, as was exhibited by the excep-tional performances of the PAPD, the staff and the new administration.

The amount of preparation that went into the drill proved useful and will ensure the safety of students should there be an actual shooting.

could be better spent on textbooks and other supplies.

According to the California Journal, one attempt to fire a teacher from the El Cajon School District cost over $300,000 in legal fees.

The state should alter tenure carefully. The last time an overhaul of the system was proposed was Prop. 74 of 2005, backed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The proposition would have extended the probationary period to five years and would have allowed tenured teachers to be fired after two reports of incompetency.

Sadly, some teachers’ performances do not coincide with the state’s expectations. For the sake of the students, teacher tenure must be amended.

However, selecting qualified teachers through a longer probation period is an unpopu-lar solution, and the possibility of simplifying the firing process is likewise unlikely.

More attention should be devoted to stu-dent feedback and correctional programs for teachers. If student reviews were mandatory, administrators could better realize problems with certain teachers.

If a teacher proved problematic, that teacher could undergo specialized training to improve his or her skills, reserving suspension or firing for truly ineffective teachers.

The protection of teachers and students should not be negatively influenced by one another. The state should not amend tenure by sacrificing one for the other, but rather should provide alternate paths to each goal.

Faults of teacher-tenure system need to be carefully corrected

Julia Benton/The Campanile

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Code Red drill creates controversyThe recent Code Red drill offered many students security, while others felt apprehensive and uncertain

Spotlight The CampanileOctober 22, 2007 • A6

By Cat Benson

Staff Writer

Melting polar ice caps and rising ocean levels are results of extreme climate change due to the earth’s global w a r m i n g . Pa lo Al to

Green’s revolutionary program gives Palo Altans a way to support renewable energy and help prevent carbon dioxide’s catastrophic effects on the environment.

A part of the City of Palo Alto Utilities program, Palo Alto Green delivers local

communities and businesses with 100 percent California renewable energy

for an average additional cost of $9.75 per month.

One household’s in-volvement with the program in one year is the equivalent

of growing 624 additional trees or driving 11,000

fewer miles ac-cording to Pa lo Al to

Green’s W e b site.

“Each individual can make a difference; combined together they are making a tre-mendous impact,” Palo Alto Green Program manager Brian Ward said in an interview with CBS.

The renewable energy supplied to Palo Alto comes from 97.5 percent wind energy and 2.5 percent solar-generated energy. The renewable energy funded by each subscriber contracted by Palo Alto Green is mixed into the power supply, offsetting exactly the home’s total energy use.

Subscription to the program costs 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, in addition to regular utility bills. One household enrolled in the program can release five fewer tons of carbon dioxide each year. If the entire Paly community subscribed, emission of around 8,500 tons of carbon dioxide would be eliminated.

“Most folks want to do something , but they just don’t know what to do,” Ward said. “Buying green power makes the most sense.

Not only does it have an immediate impact, it has a long lasting one as well.”

By Julia shapiro

Senior Staff Writer

For the past 30 years, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company has made a significant effort to improve the

environment through energy efficiency programs. On top of preventing a total of 125 million tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmo-

sphere, PG&E has also saved its customers approximately nine billion dollars by of-fering energy reduction rebates.

Although all of Palo Alto’s energy comes from Palo Alto Utilities, PG&E’s

energy efficiency programs provide important and beneficial ideas of how to reduce energy in Palo Alto homes and utilities.

PG&E offers customers rebates for energy efficient products, ranging from fluorescent lamps to wall or attic insulation. Purchasing fluorescent

light bulbs is considered one of the easiest ways to reduce energy use in residential homes.

Energy Star fluorescent lamps can save customers up to 75 percent in energy costs while using 66 percent less energy than standard incandescent lamps. Each lamp can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 315 pounds per year and up to 2,932 pounds over a product’s lifetime.

In order to encourage more people to buy energy saving products, PG&E guarantees a discounted price on each fluorescent bulb at the time of purchase, which adds to the amount of money a household can save by using the bulbs.

PG&E also offers rebates ranging from $30 to $75 for other Energy Star products such as dishwashers, clothes washing machines and air conditioners, all of which use 10 to 50 percent less energy than standard appliances.

In addition, PG&E promotes larger energy-saving products including cool roofs and insulation, with rebates given per the square foot, as well as promoting natural gas furnaces with rebates ranging from $200 to $300.

“Cool Roofs” reflect heat and reduce energy spent on air conditioning during the summer by keeping roofs 50 to 60 degrees cooler in the sun.

Thermal insulation is another efficient way of keeping houses at a constant temperature, as it decreases the use of both air conditioning and heating systems.

When insulation is not enough to keep a house warm, PG&E suggests using Energy Star qualified central natural gas furnaces, which can save up to 20 percent more energy than standard models.

In addition to the numerous energy-efficient rebates the company offers, PG&E recently launched a voluntary program called ClimateSmart, which enables customers to reduce their personal impact on the climate.

The program gives individuals the option of neutral-izing the amount of carbon dioxide they emit each month by paying an added fee on their energy bill.

For residential customers, the payment is usually less than five dollars and goes directly to funding new green-house gas emission reduction projects in California.

PG&E’s ClimateSmart program is said to be the first of its kind and hopefully will act as a role model for other energy companies.

PG&E also helps reduce climate change is by invest-ing in renewable energy sources such as solar panels. PG&E recently began administering the California Solar Initiative, a program committed to increasing the amount of customers using solar energy.

According to the PG&E Web site, the program’s goal is to install 3,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2017.

PG&E has also developed partnerships with other companies such as AC Transit, AT&T Park and Google, as a way of increasing the use of solar energy, as well as implementing solar energy programs among businesses.

One of the programs PG&E started is called the Solar Schools Program, which supports up to 40 public schools per year by providing them with solar panels which turn sunlight into electricity.

Through its extensive measures to help reduce climate change, PG&E continues to have an influential impact on the environment.

PG&E is considered the leading company in Califor-nia’s energy efficient programs, providing a role model to other companies throughout the United States and sending a hopeful message of what individuals can do to help save the environment.

PG&E helps consumers combat climate change

Palo Alto Green supports environmentalismDue to this revolutionary renewable en-

ergy program, Palo Alto has been named the first “green power community” in California by the Environmental Protection Agency, one of only five cities in the United States.

“Becoming an EPA-recognized Green Power Community demonstrates that support-ing renewable energy and renewable energy technologies is not only feasible but easy,” former Palo Alto Mayor Judy Kleinberg said to CBS.

To qualify, a city Palo Alto’s size must meet a standard of two percent renewable energy. Palo Alto currently sources thirteen percent and plans to increase the renewable energy supply.

“We have a goal to be 20 percent renew-able by 2015 and it looks like we’re going to hit that goal five years earlier,” Palo Alto Council member Peter Drekmeier said, according to a Palo Alto Daily News article.

At the close of 2006, about 140 local busi-nesses and almost 16 percent of Palo Alto’s residents participated in the Palo Alto Green program, totaling around 4,400 households

participating. A number of major businesses are also involved in the program including Hewlett Packard, Lockheed Martin, Palo Alto Medical Foundation and Agilent Technologies.

Palo Alto Green began in June of 2003, but just recently started to gain popularity.

“We had a program before and it was called ‘Future Green’ but no one participated in it. We decided to revamp the program and give it a new name,” Ward said.

Programs like Palo Alto Green can help reduce the United State’s dependence on fossil fuels, support farmers who lease out their land for windmills and provide more jobs in the growing industries of wind and solar power.

Although issues exist between windmill advocates and animal rights activists, Palo Alto Green is trying to prevent safety hazards for birds by installing large turbines that move slowly to prevent injuries to birds and keep the locations of the windmills out of migra-tion paths.

Eventually, Palo Alto Green hopes to lead the local community to self-sustaining future with 100 percent renewable energy.

October 22, 2007 • A7Spotlight The Campanile

By Kelly Zhou

Staff Writer

A quick glance at any major newspaper or news Web site will reveal countless articles bemoaning the imminent disaster of global warm-ing, advocating solutions supposedly guaranteed to resolve the growing problem or complaining about various “green”-related decisions the national government has made.

Just looking at major news ar-ticles over the course of a day, there were more than 37 different stories dedicated to the issue and possible solutions to global warming.

The public fervor and media frenzy regarding the issue of global climate change have reached such intensity that none of this media fixa-tion is at all surprising. As the media has increased publicity about global warming, most have eagerly jumped onto the “fight-global-warming” band-wagon without knowing exactly what they are supporting. Such individuals embrace all solu- tions that are labeled with the claim of “stop-p ing g lobal warming.”

H o w e v -er, this blind e n -d o r s e m e n t w i t h o u t c l o s e consid-e r a t i o n of the full details pro-motes seem-ingly effective solutions that actually may be inconse-quential or even harmful to the planet.

F u r t h e r m o r e , these people, under the impression that t he i r methods of fighting global warming are ef- fec t ive and benefi- cial, flaunt

their work with undeserved

self-righteousness, despite the inadequacy of

the solutions they wholeheartedly adopt.

The truth of the global warming situation is that it cannot be stopped, especially not in our current society. While many proposed solutions claim to be definitive answers, global warm-ing cannot be halted or even reduced significantly, according to numerous organizations, including the prominent British Association for the Advance-ment of Science.

Even if the entire world cuts emissions and uses entirely renew-able sources of energy (which is highly unlikely), carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to the earth’s rise in tem-perature) emissions will still surpass 2003 levels, according to a 2006 study by the International Energy Agency.

People rave, “We must stop global warming!” and demand with sanctimonious attitude that every-body recycle religiously and hold ga-rage sales to donate money to the polar bears, but they must understand the fine print of the problem and stop m i s - leading others; in our modern world, under no circumstances will global warming be stopped.

Not only will our earth steadily grow warmer, but some of the solutions proposed are ironic contradictions bordering on absurdity.

F o r example, one of the many

renewable fu-els people have

a d v o c a t e d for is etha-nol, which is

produced from corn.

Com-pared to the gasoline we use in our cars to-day, ethanol has less power and travels 25

percent fewer miles per gal-lon, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Moreover, ethanol requires more petroleum to make than it saves. Accordingly, ethanol produces more carbon dioxide emissions, thus contributing further to the global warming crisis.

In spite of this, people still unreservedly embrace ethanol as a possibility for the future because be-ing “green,” it carries a great deal of importance.

Another example is the concept of hybrid sport utility vehicles. SUVs, defined by low fuel economy and large size, completely oppose the goal of re-ducing gas consumption. Compare the

best-selling non-hybrid sedan of Sep-tember 2007, the 2007 Toyota Camry

(34 miles per gallon), to one of the best-selling hybrid

SUVs of 2 0 0 6 ,

t h e 2006

Toyo-ta High-land-e r ( 24 m p g ) . T h e H i g h l a n d e r t ravels significantly fewer miles than the Camry per gallon of gas, re-quiring more fossil fuels to travel the same distance and therefore adding

greater amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Even though hybrid SUVs are more expensive

and less beneficial to the environment than gasoline-powered sedans, they are still quite popu- lar due to their “green” con- nection.

Yet another example of the many inefficient global warm-ing “solutions” w a s L i v e Earth, a series of concerts

p e r -formed across the globe in July 2007 designed to raise money and awareness a b o u t g l o b a l warming.

A concert is inherently energy-consuming, as it requires vast amounts

Global warming solutions backfireEnvironmental opinion

of electricity, fuel to fly the art-ists, fuel for the viewers to travel to the concert, and various oth- er expenses. According to the organi-

zation Carbon Footprint, Live Ear th p ro -duced a total o f a b o u t

74,500 tons of

c a r b o n emiss ions ,

compared to the 10 tons an average person

produc-es in a yea r. T h e

p o s -sible increase

in awareness is not worth the immense, irrevo-

cable waste produced. The circumstances of

the Live Earth concerts are fundamentally at odds with reducing carbon

emissions. Not only are

t h e r e blatantly coun-t e r p r o - d u c t i v e solutions to global warming, but also more wide-scale, smaller solutions that are useless and nonsensi-cal, despite their good intentions.

For example, carbon credits, a popular concept championed by Al Gore, al- low people

to offset the amount of carbon diox-ide emissions they produce

e v e r y year by d o n a t -

ing a cer-tain amount

o f m o n e y (dependant on

the amount of carbon di-

oxide) to specific or-

ganizations involved in fighting

global warming. However, there are clear

problems with this initia-tive.

First, no carbon is off-set. The carbon people

produce does not magically disappear; merely, the consumers’ consciences are relieved.

Second, because these people think they have taken care of their carbon footprints, many act with more abandon and harm the earth further.

Another “green” so-lut ion currently in vogue is us-ing can-vas instead of plastic bags. Anya H i n d -march, a well-known bag designer, created a $15 cotton canvas tote bag decorated with the bubbly words “I’m not a plastic bag.”

The fad has already caught on, as the bags were used as goodie bags for the 2007 Vanity Fair Oscar party and all 20,000 bags were sold within seven hours.

Though the purpose of the cotton bags is to eliminate some of the 500 billion plastic bags used every year, the irony of the event is that many customers wrapped the designer bags in multiple plas- tic bags to protect against muggers, according to Time Magazine.

F u r t h e r m o r e , Hindmarch refuses

to use her bag when carrying

strong-smelling i t e m s such as fish that can leak. Hindmarch says “as a luxury fashion brand we are in a position where we can influence” according to BBC News, yet when she refuses to actively support using her tote bag, what message does that send to the people she “influences?”

In addition, although small efforts like turning off air conditioning and riding bikes instead of driving are important, they are negligible when looked at on a world-scale basis.

Enthusiastic attempts to solve environmental issues inadequate, counterproductive

From 2005-2013, China and India are expecting to build around 775 coal plants altogether, eliminating any pos-sible gains other countries make on reducing emissions.

In order to effectively and truly lessen the impact of global warm- ing, the

c o u n -tries of

the world a l l n eed to agree on radi -cal, clear

changes to their societies

and public policies that protect the

environment and prepare for the

impending effects of global warming, including increased disease and dramatic weather shifts.

While all of the propos-als for combating global warming have understand-

able aims and demonstrate admirable effort, people need

to fully understand the com-plexities of the global warm-

ing issue in order to actually make a difference.

A d v o c a t -ing frui t-less solu-tions while

maintaining a self-righ-

teous attitude that one

is sup-posedly

improv-ing the envi-

ronment is ap-palling and does

a b s o l u t e l y nothing to

address the rise in temperature our earth is currently facing.

Global warming cannot be stopped and claims to do as much are misleading and damaging to both the environment and the perception of the world’s citizens.

For more environmental opinions, turn to page A8

A8 • October 22, 2007 The Campanile

CONPRO

Recycling: beneficial or detrimental?

Paly should reduce unnecessary use of resources

Julia Benton/The Campanile

Recycling saves energy, renews resources and provides jobs worldwide, but it may be more harmful than beneficial. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, paper recycling factories produce more toxins than virgin paper manufacturers.

By Allison ColemAn

Staff Writer

Recycling conserves natural re-sources and energy, protects the envi-ronment and benefits the economy.

Finite natural resources used in products and packaging, such as iron ore, coal, limestone and trees are conserved when people recycle. By recycling, people help reduce energy consumption because using recycled materials requires less energy than creating new ones.

The process of collecting, pro-cessing and transporting recycled materials generally consumes less energy than that of extracting, refin-ing, processing and transporting new materials, since the materials have already been processed and therefore need no additional refining.

Recycling paper cuts energy usage in half and every ton of paper recycled saves 17 trees. Just one year of recycling paper at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees. Every pound of steel recycled saves enough energy to light a 60-watt light bulb for over 26 hours and recycling one ton of glass saves nine gallons of oil.

Producing aluminum cans from recycled products requires only five percent of the energy needed to produce aluminum and by recycling aluminum, one can save enough en-ergy to light a 100-watt light bulb for more than three hours.

Recycling reduces greenhouse-gas emissions and the emissions from pollutants. A nationwide recycling rate of just 30 percent reduces greenhouse-gas emissions by an amount equivalent to the output of greenhouse gases produced by 25 million cars. Trans-porting and refining virgin resources requires the use of fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and increase the United States’ dependence on oil.

Reducing waste, resulting from recycling materials that would other-wise be deposited in landfills, reduces pollution created by incinerators and landfills. Landfills harm the environ-ment by polluting groundwater and adding many harmful pollutants to the air.

Gases that escape from landfills typically carry dangerous chemicals from items such as paint thinner, sol-vents and pesticides. According to the

New York State Department of Health, women living near solid-waste land-fills from which gas escapes are four times more likely to acquire leukemia. Landfills also produce carbon dioxide and methane gases, both of which contribute to global warming.

Reducing the consumption of trees, which convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, helps prevent global warming and therefore benefits the environment.

In 2000, recycling and compost-ing diverted almost 70 million tons of matter away from landfills, saving space and reducing habitat destruc-tion and pollution. In 2004, recycling reduced greenhouse gas emissions by two million metric tons of carbon, air emissions by 587,000 tons and water emissions by 9,000 tons.

According to a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle, of the 92.2 million tons of waste California

residents created last year, a record 54 percent of that was diverted by recy-cling programs. That means only 42.2 million tons ended up in landfills.

Recycling also stimulates the economy by creating 1.1 million jobs and $37 billion in payrolls annually. It creates four jobs for every one job created in waste management.

Energy-efficient recycling pro-grams also save money because they cost less to run than waste collection, landfills and incineration. As more people recycle, these costs diminishes even further. Recycling clearly bene-fits both the economy and the environ-ment. It contributes to the maintenance of clean, pollution-free air.

Without recycling, global warm-ing poses an even more significant problem. Greenhouse gases that landfills and incinerators create are hazardous and destructive to human health.

By sArAh stringer

Spotlight Editor

Most people learn the importance of recycling at a young age and never question it as they grow older. Society expects them to embrace recycling along with the other two “R’s,” reduce and reuse. Yet this strong emphasis is misplaced and results in consequences not many realize.

Society too often portrays re-cycling as the solution to all envi-ronmental issues. Yet this view only exacerbates environmental issues; people consume carelessly, believing that recycling negates their wasteful-ness. It is not enough to use a plastic bottle and then recycle it. One must make a conscious effort to reduce consumption and reuse what he or she can to make the greatest impact.

Recycling involves certain ben-efits: it reduces the amount of waste

in landfills, creates jobs and, in some cases, creates more valuable resources. However, disadvantages also exist. When studying the amount of toxic substances involved in paper manufacturing versus paper recycling factories, the Environmental Protec-tion Agency found that the latter often had the highest amounts of toxic sub-stances. Similarly, recycling requires energy, water and other resources, and therefore produces the same pollutants involved in manufacturing virgin ma-terials. In a sense, recycling doubles the materials that would be used if only virgin manufacturers existed and con-tributes the same amount of pollutants involved in transportation of materials as waste removal programs.

Another myth about recycling is that it saves trees. Paper producers use pulpwood forests, and have incentives to replenish the population of trees to stay in business. Recycling paper

removes that incentive, reducing the desire to plant new trees.

Humans cannot continue con-suming and discarding; recycling helps curb the amount of trash added to landfills. Still, misleading information about recycling leads to the idea that the country is running out of room for landfills. According to Daniel K. Ben-jamin, a senior fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center, a ten-square-mile landfill would be enough to hold all of America’s waste for the next century. The earth is not quickly running out of space.

Also, trash trade between states is a valuable market, worth up to $4 billion. If this contribution to the economy ended, there would be major consequences and the nation would need to find a new way to make up lost profits.

In many cities across the country, including New York and Seattle, of-ficials are proposing mandatory recy-cling programs. However, recycling is not the only option to help the en-vironment. PERC, a group dedicated to solving environmental problems using market theory, believes that in-stating mandatory recycling, granting government subsidies or exaggerating the benefits of recycling only harm the environment. Just as in econom-ics, the “invisible hand” — the idea that individuals, in pursuing their own goals, act to the greatest benefit of society — and market incentives will guide producers and consumers to make conscious decisions and act to preserve the environment.

Society overemphasizes the posi-tive effects of recycling while ignoring the detriments. Instead of focusing so much on one flawed system, educa-tion should shift to teach consumption reduction. If consumers realize that much of what they use is wasteful and consequently reduce, people would both recycle and consume less. Likewise, if consumers reused materi-als instead of discarding them, there would be less demand for products, virgin or recycled.

Recycling is not the quick-fix solution to environmental problems. Reducing consumption and reusing resources should be the key focus of environmental education.

Society must realize the full ef-fects of recycling. No longer should consumers rely solely on meaningless, hyperbolic praise of the industry.

By nAnor BAlABAniAn

Staff Writer

Freezing classrooms during August and boiling temperatures during December are typical in some classrooms at Palo Alto High School, where teachers are unable to control the heating and cooling systems.

The number of students who have binders packed with paper handouts further indicates that Paly fails to allocate resources wisely.

Located in one of the most environ-mentally-conscious cities in California, Paly should better represent how to be more energy efficient and how to conserve resources, especially within its own classrooms.

The high demand for paper and the constant usage of the heating and cooling system should influence the Palo Alto Unified School District School Board to amend its policy for the usage of energy and resources.

During the 2006-07 academic year, the school spent approxi-mately $15,000 on paper, according to Budget Secretary Cheryle Eymil. This equates to almost 545 reams of paper.

Paper usage has, in fact, increased since 2004. Though the cost of paper has remained constant, the amount of money spent on it has increased from year to year. Accord-ing to Eymil, the school spent $13,661 on paper during the 2004-05 school year. The following year, this expenditure increased to $13,866. Last year, this amount climaxed to approximately $14,700.

Certainly there are circumstances in which paper is necessary in classrooms. For example, teachers need paper for exams, letters to parents and important handouts. Students may also need to print out essays and other homework.

However, there seems to be an excessive use of paper around the school.

To solve this problem, Paly must implement new policies to ensure energy efficiency.

The first change Paly should make is to switch to Henry M. Gunn High School’s new electronic attendance system, with which teachers can take roll electronically. Assistant Principal Chuck Merritt advocates this system and is trying to implement it at Paly as well.

A second policy should be to encourage teachers to rely more on InClass and other online services.

Many teachers distribute various assign-ments that they could post online without wasting numerous sheets of paper in each class.

Teachers should also rely on digital projectors as much as possible, instead of dis-tributing unnecessary papers that could easily be presented to the class on an overhead.

Towards the end of the year, students’ bind-ers and file folders are filled with unnecessary handouts, even though teachers could have made

many of these handouts available on InClass or displayed them on a screen, without print-ing them.

The school will save much more paper if both teachers and students thank about what they are printing or copying before they do it.

While many Paly staff and students recycle paper, not all of them may know exactly what occurs after they place paper in a recycling bin. After all, the United States has the highest rate of greenhouse gas emis-sions in the world.

Another problem that Paly faces is the wasteful heating and cooling system.

According to Assistant Principal Chuck Merritt, Paly employs a centralized heating and cooling system in which air, whether

cold or warm, constantly circulates in class-rooms.

The problem with the system is not that the air does not circulate, but that the system constantly uses hot or cold air, even when heating or cooling is not necessary.

Moreover, teachers do not have control over the air conditioning systems in their classrooms, so classrooms can become freezing cold on warmer days and boiling hot on colder days. Palo Alto rarely needs air conditioning, considering its Mediter-ranean climate.

Last year the school paid almost $8,928 for natural gases during May and June of 2007, a three percent increase from the year before’s payment of $8,698. While gas prices have increased, Paly’s use of natural gas has gone up as well. For instance, Paly used 6,624 Therms of natural gas in May and June of 2006, compared to 6,901 Therms the following year.

The wisest solution to this problem would be to turn off the air conditioning system completely, except during waves of unbearable heat.

Furthermore, the heating system should only be turned on only during the cold months between November and March. Although the state-required air-circulation in classrooms is necessary, the air conditioning system should be turned off when not needed.

Because of its location, Palo Alto pos-sesses natural air conditioning. Students and teachers need to accept that a small increase in temperature does not always require air conditioning to be turned on. One can sit comfortably in a classroom that is not the perfect temperature. In fact, it is blatantly hypocritical for Paly to advertise its envi-ronmentalist ideas when it wastes so much energy itself.

Finally, the school administration, the district, the staff and the students should all reconsider their daily habits when consum-ing energy and resources, and sacrifice a few comforts in the present to have a better, more rewarding future.

Opinion

Located in one of the most environmentally-conscious cities in California, Paly should better represent how to be more energy efficient, especially within its own classrooms.

Palo Alto High School’sannual paper expenditures

2004-05$13,700

2005-06$13,900

2006-07$14,700

2007-08 (projected)$15,100

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2

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The Campanile Opinion October 22, 2007• A9

By Jonathan Shan

Staff Writer

At first glance, InClass appears to effec-tively bridge the divide between technology and education, allowing students to access their assignments, review class notes and download homework assignments, all necessary comple-ments to classroom instruction. Upon closer inspection, however, various flaws are apparent in the program.

InClass fails to provide an intuitive, user-friendly interface and severely restricts content control, instead reserving powers such as course selection and home page layout solely for ad-ministrators. As a result, students and staff are less inclined to use the program.

Some teachers who attempt to use InClass are often frustrated and feel it is a waste of their time. They criticize InClass for not being user-friendly, an expected criticism given that InClass has not updated its graphic design.

InClass has the aesthetics of Windows 98, a far cry from current software and fails to have a modern user interface, requiring excessive clicks to navigate through the site. The fault lies in the program’s inability to be easily accessed and modified. This, in turn, affects students who cannot access their classes via InClass.

By ChriS Clayton

Opinion Editor

The state government of Cali-fornia, under Article X of the federal Constitution, establishes graduation requirements for all public high-school students under the jurisdiction of the state government. Similarly, colleges, both public and private, establish such requirements for ad-mission into each respective college. Unfortunately, these requirements, often unfairly disadvantage students interested in particular subjects, by requiring students to enroll in ad-ditional classes in subjects in which they profess less interest, thereby disallowing said students to pursue education in subjects they find inter-esting and might thus aspire to pursue a career in them.

While the high-school gradua-tion requirements, as established by the state of California, do not par-ticularly inhibit students’ pursuit of their interests, certain requirements must be diminished or removed. The two-year physical education require-ment, which neither the University of California nor most private colleges require, occupies two years that stu-dents could better utilize in pursuit of their respective interests. The physical education requirement has few, if any, intellectual benefits for students, and no significant physical improvement for students already participating in athletics. While Palo Alto High School allows for a preparation period for students participating in athletics, they do not extend such courtesy to students participating in athletics outside of Paly. Thus, the district must, when appropriate, exempt students from the physical education requirement through one of two methods: either by demonstrating sufficient athletic ability through a series of athletic tests, or by certifying enrollment in athletics, whether school based or otherwise. Such would allow students to better pursue their interests, sans the inhibition of the physical education requirement.

While the other graduation re-quirements are tolerable, certain of the UC requirements unfairly inhibit students interested in mathematics and the sciences. For admission, students must complete three-and-a-half years of English courses and four years of social science courses, versus only three years of mathematics and two years of science. Students interested in different subjects should be al-lowed equal opportunity to pursue additional courses in their respective fields, whereas those interested in English and history gain two ad-ditional year-long courses to pursue their interests. Students interested in the sciences and mathematics have fewer year-long courses to pursue their interests and therefore receive an unfair advantage. Students should therefore be granted equal opportunity through the decrease in the number of required English courses from three-and-a-half to three, which would allow those students interested in mathematics or the sciences to pursue additional courses in their respective areas of interest.

Furthermore, the UC system requires students to enroll in a year-long visual and performing arts course, thereby hindering students without artistic aspirations, as this requirement effectively forces these students to uselessly expend a year-long course from which they will derive little actual educational benefit. A student will benefit little from enrolling in such a course if his career interests do not coincide with the material presented, and thus that student will effectively lose an opportunity to enroll in a course which they find more interesting and could derive more benefit. Only stu-dents interested in the aforementioned areas should be required to enroll in these respective classes, while the rest need be permitted to enroll in classes from which they shall derive actual benefit, insofar as concerns their education.

For similar rationale, the district should also not require students to enroll in a one-year-long career or

vocational education course. Such courses inadequately present infor-mation regarding career opportuni-ties to students, as these students only receive information regarding a single potential career. Therefore, if students are dissatisfied with the class in which they enroll and there-fore determine they have little or no interest in pursuing a career in the corresponding field of study, they effectively waste a year-long course period through this requirement. The only viable solution to this problem, besides abolishing the requirement altogether, is to require students to enroll in even more of such courses, which would drastically increase the number of required courses for students, thereby disallowing them to enroll in courses of interest. Therefore, to further enable students to enroll in subjects pertaining to their respective areas of interest, the district should abolish this requirement entirely.

The requirement for students to enroll in one semester of Living

Skills needs also to be modified, if not removed entirely, for a variety of rationale. First of all, neither the state government nor most, if any, colleges, mandate students to enroll in any subject similar to the Living Skills course. Therefore, Palo Alto Unified School District could remove this requirement without repercussions from the state. Moreover, students are already acquainted with much of the Living Skills curriculum since, for example, students cover sexu-ally transmitted diseases, an integral component of the curriculum, in eighth-grade science. Furthermore, the Living Skills curriculum consists largely of ascertaining random facts –– such as the legal blood-alcohol level –– which have no practical use in everyday life –– in the aforemen-tioned example, because most people do not regularly have Breathalyzers on their person. In fact, the fulfillment of the most useful aspect incorporated into the Living Skills curriculum, the Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and

The Palo Alto High School administration has attempted to amend the inconsistency of program usage among staff, yet the adminis-tration cannot expect to unilaterally amend the flaws. The majority of the changes must come from the creators of InClass.

In addition, Paly students, despite their technological abilities, are unable to customize their accounts through methods such as signing up for classes on InClass. As a result, students who transfer classes find that they cannot access sev-eral of their courses, and are therefore deprived of the benefits provided by InClass.

The system must be revamped for addi-tional flexibility so students are able to enroll in the courses they take, instead of waiting for an administrator to grant them access to these courses.

While InClass fulfills its basic requirement of posting files and notes online, this capabil-ity is insufficient and lacks quick and easy navigation.

In an age in which Yahoo! and Google home pages cater to the user’s wants and needs, InClass

first-aid requirement, constitutes only one eight-hour period, a hopelessly inadequate time period for students to properly ascertain CPR and first-aid techniques, as well as process them in long-term memory. Instead, many students simply memorize such techniques for the test, which is administered on the same day as the training, and then shortly there-after forget most, if not all, of them. Therefore, PAUSD should abolish the Living Skills requirement, and instead administer CPR and first-aid training through a separate means, and over the course of many weeks so as to ensure students retain the knowledge they acquire.

The state of California, and colleges, both public and private, in general, should require students to enroll in fewer mandatory courses, and thus permit students to enroll in more courses that they actually find interesting, facilitating these stu-dents in determining potential career interests.

Curriculum requirements excessiveUnnecessary graduation requirements prevent students from pursuing subjects of interest

InClass lacks efficiency of current educational sites

is unacceptably arcane. While its developers in-sist that limited personalized features guarantees consistency, the times have changed.

Users desire the ability to customize their tabs, use graphic-driven buttons for naviga-tion, change course labels to better distinguish between classes and use graphical themes that

go beyond the simple color schemes that have long been abandoned by most Web sites.

While InClass pro-vides a means of com-munication between teachers and students, it has no solid foundation

to ensure optimum capacity. The program does not adequately connect teachers to the student body due to the lack of user friendliness and compatibility.

Until InClass fulfills these requirements, the Palo Alto Unified School District must upgrade the system to ease usage in order to encourage participation, or alternatively replace it entirely with a more effective alternative, which would provide the same results.

Many alternatives for the program exist, such as the free, open-source program Moodle, http://moodle.org, used by University of Cali-

fornia at Los Angeles, Intel and The Carnegie Foundation and can be a viable alternative to the current beleaguered system.

Like Firefox, Moodle is open source, mean-ing the code is universally understandable and is much more flexible, providing for diverse theme and layout schemes for easier navigation. It of-fers features that do not exist on InClass, such as surveys teachers can use for student feedback, a user-friendly grade book and a more flexible file sharing program.

In a 2005 study by Humboldt State Univer-sity, students were divided into two groups, one using Moodle and the other using Blackboard, the program that forms the basis of InClass. In the study, students preferred Moodle (35.7 percent) to Blackboard (21.4 percent) with 42.9 percent of students declaring no preference.

By adopting an alternative like Moodle, the Paly administration can allocate money otherwise spent on InClass to other necessary programs. A new program would give students and staff a clean slate to communicate.

At the same time, if Blackboard, the com-pany that created InClass, completely revamped the system to make it much more user friendly and feature rich, then InClass may present future Paly classes with a better version that transcends the problems that currently exist.

Course Requirements at Paly

English – 3.5Social Studies – 4

Science – 3

Mathematics – 2

Physical Education – 2

Arts – 1

Living Skills –

1 / 2

While InClass fulfills its basic requirement of posting files and notes online, this capability is in-sufficient and lacks quick and easy navigation.

Courtesy of http://k2.pausd.org and http://moodle.org The visually attractive layouts of the course tool sites displayed on Moodle Learning Center (right) contrast greatly with the old, cumbersome features offered by InClass (left). InClass must add customization tools and an user-friendly interface such as those in use by the University of California at Los Angeles, Intel and The Carnage Foundation.

I was once dubbed “that white girl who looks different.” Typically confused as Italian and sometimes classified as a Hispanic, I am what I am: my mother is half Italian and half Filipino, and my father’s parents are from West Plains, Missouri.

When my parents stand side-by-side their differences are clear. My father’s white skin, strawberry blonde hair and height is contrasted with my mother’s olive skin tone, black hair and shortness.

Holiday dinners further distin-guish my mother’s family from my father’s; just by the sheer volume of the food consumed, the great contrast between the two groups is shown.

For example, my mother’s family once ate two turkeys at Thanksgiving, while my father’s barely finished one and sent all family members home with enough leftovers to last several days. And while my peers consider me talkative and loquacious, I look shy and reticent compared to my maternal cousins, aunts and uncles. My extro-version cannot even be compared to that of my maternal cousins. Once near the end of a holiday meal, I could hear the roar of laughter of my Filipino and Italian family members from around the neighborhood block.

And yet, despite this clear char-acterization of my family, people are typically confused by my race. I am often asked the awkward question, “So what is your heritage exactly... What are you?” My father’s grand-father had even asked my mother where “her people” were from when they had first met. Typically, after I explain my ethnic background, people nod their heads in approval and start to list of other Filipino people they know or describe their own mix of ethnicities.

Simultaneously, my peers are shocked when I reveal my Asian heri-tage, unable to see a difference in my appearance. While I wonder if their lack of knowledge about Filipinos is responsible for their surprise, I can understand their astonishment — my hair color and skin tone only stand out among the whitest of Caucasians.

Although I am a quarter Filipino and was once referred to as “that white girl who looks different,” I do not see myself as an ethnic minority. Ethnic minorities are defined by the differ-ences from the racial majority.

I do not identify with that: I never experienced Filipino culture or visited the Philippines, and have little knowledge of appropriate customs and family traditions.

Although being Filipino is a part of my mother’s family background, these roots do not affect or influence me insofar that I never fully identified with them. If anything, my curiosity about my family’s heritage does not form a part of my identity.

However, while I do not see my-self as a racial minority, I am different from the majority of people.

As I continue to evaluate my identity and observe the impact of different influences, I am not affected by or shaped by the confusion of my race and the mix of my different fam-ily heritages. Ostensibly, I may sound racially conflicted. But I have the same concerns that everyone tries to avoid: I don’t want others’ perception of me to shape me.

Instead, my family has adopted its own culture, that has embraced independent values, beliefs and mea-sures of character. While I do not limit myself to others’ confused views of my race, I believe that I am only one of many who feel this way.

In doing so, our generation must redefine our racial identity. We should focus less on racial precedent and more on independently constructing our own identities. We are more than our family’s backgrounds and heri-tages; we are only attached to family customs and traditions as much as we want to be.

And we will be courageous in our attempt to do so.

MiaPonders...

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Sports The Campanile

A10 October 22, 2007

By Eliot Wilson

Senior Staff Writer

The Palo Alto High School Varsity volley-ball team’s five-game sectional unbeaten streak ended at home against unbeaten Homestead on Oct. 8, one of the top teams in the Central Coast Section.

The Vikings played valiantly in the first game during which Homestead’s star player was sitting out for an injury.

Paly came away with the first game of the best-of-five-series.

However, the return of Homestead’s Kat Fischer doomed the Vikings, who were swept in the next three games to lose 3-1.

“Homestead is one of the toughest com-petitors this year,” senior co-captain Hillary Ford said. “Kat Fischer is very good and the rest of the team is consistent around her.”

After the tough loss to Homestead, the Vikings trav-eled to Los Gatos High School on Oct. 10, looking to kick off the second half of their sea-son with a second victory over the Wildcats.

Earlier in the year, the Vikings had domi-nated the Wildcats 3-1, but in the rematch the Vikings failed to recapture that magic.

“It was a very close game and a good match,” Ford said. “It was disappointing; we probably could have done better. But Los Gatos is a good team and I give them credit.”

The Vikings are still a young team, and they will look to the next half of the season for experience and in order to prove themselves before CCS play begins.

“Our last two losses exposed our weak-ness and the fact that we need to keep playing well and finish the season strongly,” Ford said.

The Vikings finally got back on track in their game against Los Altos High School, the former team of Head Coach David Winn, who the Vikings had already beaten in league play earlier in the year.

The Vikings regained their magic touch against the young Los Altos team, beating the Eagles in three games.

Although the Vikings were favored in the contest, senior co-captain Jessie Juarez wanted to make sure that the Vikings were still on their game after the two tough losses to Homestead and Los Gatos.

“We wanted to get back to fundamen-tals,” Juarez said. “We needed to work hard and finish.”

The Vikings needed no motivation from their coach going into the game; two losses in league play was enough.

“I didn’t have to tell them anything,” Winn said. “We didn’t play well last week, and this week we’re com-mitted to staying focused.”

A f t e r t h e losses in which the Vikings’ weak serving game was exposed, Coach

Winn focused on serving to elevate the Vikings level of play.

“I put in a serving specialist and we practiced a lot of jump services,” Winn said. “I told the girls they needed to take more chances with their serves.”

Moving forward, the Vikings fully ex-pect to pick up where they left off before the Homestead game.

“During our losses, I think we kind lost our team chemistry and got separated,” Juarez said. “This game, we really united. We need to play as a team for the rest of the season.”

Coach Winn cautions his team to expect the unexpected in their upcoming game against

Saratoga High School, a team with a good defense and a wealth of talent. Paly has already beaten Saratoga once this year.

“Saratoga is tenacious,” Winn said. “We need to expect that balls that normally are kills won’t be. We need to think differently,

Michela Fossati-Bellani/The CampanileSophomore hitter Marissa Florant jumps for the ball during Paly’s game against Los Gatos High School on Oct. 10. The Vikings play Gunn at home on Oct. 23.

Vikings volley back after two straight losses

Volleyball

Scores

Upcoming games

Paly @ Los GatosOctober 10, 2-3 LLos Altos @ PalyOctober 16, 3-0 W

Gunn @ PalyOctober 23, 6:45 PM

Mountain View @ PalyOctober 25, 6:45 PM

“Everyone is very good, but these girls are very resilient. They just need to have fun and work hard, and don’t let anything get them down.”

Dave WinnHead Coach

and remain calm and play as well as we did against Los Altos.”

Coach Winn sees improvement in the young Paly team.

“The season has had peaks and valleys,” Winn said. “Everyone else is very good, but these girls are very resilient. They just need to have fun and work hard, not letting anything get them down.”

Juarez has similar hope for the future of the team.

“There were a lot of new girls,” Juarez said. “We connected really quickly. We may have fallen apart a little during the middle, but I think we’ll pull it together and win in the end.”

The Vikings’ upcoming schedule includes a game against Mountain View High School on Oct. 25.

Paly dominated both Mountain View High School and Saratoga High School teams earlier this year and are expected to beat them as well as Gunn on Oct. 23 before the rematch against Homestead on Oct. 30.

The Vikings are now in second place, two games behind undefeated Homestead and one game ahead of Los Gatos in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League.

After losses to Homestead and Los Gatos, Vikings regain their magical touch in a win over Los Altos

Cross country ahead of the pack

Junior co-captain Gillian Lui leads a pack of runners down the opening hill of the Crystal Springs cross country course. Both the girls’ and boys’ cross country teams have been steadily improving this season, hoping to capture league titles. By lindsay yang

Staff Writer

At the Stanford Invitational on Sept. 29, one of the most prominent cross country meets on the west coast, the Palo Alto High School boys’ and girls’ teams finished 10th and 17th overall, respectively.

Sophomore Philip MacQuitty finished second out of 304 runners in the five-kilometer course, coming in at 15:41 minutes. Junior Charlie Avis placed 34th at 16:42.

Seniors Brian Karvelas and co-captain Brian Hsueh also placed within the top 100 runners. Seniors Gilbert Choi and Jeremy Jacob and junior Skyler Cummins crossed the finish line as the fifth, sixth and seventh Paly runners, respectively.

MacQuitty, the only Paly Varsity boys’ runner who participated in the Clovis Invi-

tational on Oct. 6, finished second out of 95 runners that ran the five-kilometer course with a time of 15:32.

Although lacking runners for the Clovis Invitational, the Paly girls’ cross country team made up for it at the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League Crystal Preview on Oct. 9. The hilly 2.95-mile course will also be the site for the upcoming SCVAL Championship. Although the SCVAL Crystal Preview was an unofficial meet and some league schools did not attend, the girls’ team dominated the competition and performed exceptionally well.

“We had a strong race,” girls’ Head Coach Paul Jones said. “A couple of them were taking it easy because of the Hawaii meet.”

Race assignments were organized by grade rather than Varsity and Junior Varsity divisions. In the seniors’ race, the top senior runner was Leah Gaeta who placed fifth with a

time of 20:42. Although junior co-captain Gil-lian Lui had finished behind Gaeta at previous meets, she ran faster than her teammate and finished with a time of 20:31, placing fifth in the junior race and beating her previous course record. Sophomore Regina Wang sped past the finish line in third place at 20:48. Although less experienced, the top Paly freshman was Erin Kiekhaefer, who placed eighth at 21:55.

“Our top runners did really well,” Lui said. “I’m proud of the team’s performance.”

Although senior Mia Lattanzi and juniors Grace Park and Tamar Ben-Shachar did not run, other schools were in similar situations for the meet, Jones said.

The SCVAL Preview helped new runners familiarize themselves with the course, which they will run again at the end of the season.

“The meet was low-key,” boys’ Head Coach Jeff Billing said. “Many of our runners

did not go all out because of the Punahou Invite, but some of the freshmen did really well.”

Despite taking it easy, Avis finished third in the junior race with a time of 16:37. Paly senior co-captains Brain Hsueh and Rajan Narang and senior Jeremy Jacob finished 11th, 12th and 13th, respectively.

The first Paly sophomore to finish was Henry Jordan, coming in 16th with a time of 18:19. Freshman Brandon Dukovic finished ninth in 19:20.

After bringing home first, third and fourth place trophies from the Punahou Invite in Hawaii on Oct. 13, the Paly Cross Country team will finish the regular season at the City Championship on Tuesday and the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League Championship on Oct. 30.

Paly’s cross country team sent 28 mem-bers to run the 3.05-mile course for the first time in school history, and was the only mainland team in the competition.

“We decided to go this year because we have a great group, and we really wanted to make this a memorable experience,” Billing said.

The 15-person Varsity boys’ team won their division by three minutes, beating out the competition by over 50 points.

The Varsity girls finished fourth, 25 points away from winning a team trophy, and the Junior Varsity girls’ team placed third.

“With four weeks [until the] Central Coast Section Meet, crunch time has officially begun, and I challenged the boys before the race to forget about race times, mile splits and all those types of things, and to focus on competing,” Billing said.

The boys’ team competed well. Junior Charlie Avis finished fourth out of 162 runners at 16:57, 29 seconds behind the winner. The rest of the Paly team ran in packs for most of

the race, with the lead group of junior Skyler Cummins, seniors Brian Karvelas, co-captain Sam Jones and Jeremy Jacob finishing seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth, respectively, all within 15 seconds of each other. Ten seconds behind Jacob, seniors Julius Berezin, co-captain Brian Hsueh and Gilbert Choi crossed the finish line in 14th, 15th and 16th place, respectively.

Senior Mia Lattanzi came in first for the Paly Varsity girls’ team, returning from an injury, sped through the race in 20:41, finish-ing 12th overall out of 103 runners. Junior co-captain Gillian Lui placed 16th at 21:14 and senior Leah Gaeta finished 13 seconds later in 19th place.

Sophomore Kathleen Higgins ran one of her best races of the season, finishing 27th. Junior Jessie Kuo placed 29th, just seven seconds behind Higgins. Junior co-captain Elizabeth Scott and senior co-captain Ariana Hoyt ran solid races to finish 35th and 43rd, respectively.

In the Junior Varsity race, junior Grace Park battled junior Sarah Haydock for 12th place, but Park finished ahead at 14:23. Hay-dock finished 13th, just three seconds behind the first place finisher.

Sophomore Min Kim, who started out between 40th and 50th places for the first mile, ended in 19th with a solid time of 14:46.

Rounding out the Junior Varsity, juniors Lizzie Henehan and Tamar Ben-Shachar finished 27th and 33rd with respected times of 15:10 and 15:20. Sophomore Abby LaPier completed her goal of finishing the race after suffering a knee injury earlier this season.

After a season of constant improvements and success, both the girls’ and boys’ cross country teams face challenges in the SCVAL Championships and the CCS Championships, as they compete for the respective division titles.

Cross Country

Scores Upcoming meetsStanford InvitationalSeptember 29, 10th (Boys), 17th (Girls)Punahou InvitationalOctober 13, 1st (Boys), 4th (Girls)

City ChampionshipOctober 23, 3:00 PMSCVAL League Championships October 30, 2:00 PM

Julia Benton/The Campanile

Sports October 22, 2007 • A11 The Campanile

Girls’ varsity tennis team maintains perfect recordAfter a demotion to the El Camino League, girls’ varsity tennis is proving to be more successful than last year’s squad

TennisScores Upcoming gamesMilpitas @ Palo AltoSeptember 27, 5-2 WPalo Alto @ Santa Clara October 2, 7-0 W

Palo Alto @ MilpitasOctober 23, 3:30 PMSanta Clara @ Palo AltoOctober 25, 3:30 PM

Elizabeth Petit/The CampanileSophomore Sophie Biffar, one of the promising new varsity players, returns a serve in the game against Mountain View High School. The Palo Alto Girls’ Varsity Tennis Team has a record of 18-0-0.

By Zal DorDi

Staff Writer

After an impressive 8-0 start in the first half of the 2007 tennis season, the Vikings have maintained their perfect record with only a couple of weeks left to play until they begin competition in the Central Coast Sec-tion tournament.

The team, which began the season with nine consecutive victories before heading into the Palo Alto Invitational tournament, has not let a single match get away from them.

The Vikings came into 2007 young, but strong, knowing that due to their demotion to the El Camino League they would have to step up their game.

“The players on last season’s team were not very serious when compared to this year’s group,” Head Coach Andy Harader said.

Harader elected to compose the 2007 season squad of younger play-ers and with a large wave of up and coming, and highly skilled under-classmen.

The decision proved to be a good one too. The Vikings have thus far beaten every challenger they have faced.

After taking the first five matches of the season with a cumulative match score of 27-8, the girls strung together three consecutive match sweeps, beating Castilleja School, Mountain View High School and Fremont High School.

After cruising through their first eight matches, the girls finally met formidable league competition in Milpitas High School.

“The only real threat this year is Milpitas, but they can’t match our depth,” Harader said.

At the September match against Milpitas, No. 1 singles player fresh-man Janet Liu and No. 2 singles

player junior Vrinda Khanna lost their matches.

Luckily, the team’s depth man-aged to pull the Vikings through. After the No. 3 and No. 4 singles pulled the team even with wins, the three doubles teams knocked off their op-ponents without so much as a dropped set on the way to a 5-2 victory for the Vikings.

It has been a smooth ride for the Vikings since the beginning of the second half of the season.

The team won the Palo Alto In-vitational Tournament with ease and went on to sweep Santa Clara High School 7-0.

The Vikings’ next match with Henry M. Gunn High School did not affect the league, as the Viking’s demotion last season moved them out of Gunn’s league. However, it was still an important match.

“We always try to set up a meeting with Gunn, it’s always a good chal-lenge for us,” Harader said.

It seemed like it was more of a challenge for Gunn. The Vikings proved why they are the team to beat in 2007 by handing the visiting Titans a 5-2 loss.

Cupertino High School was the third team to fall during a brilliant first week of October as the girls went 3-0 in match play, and won with a cumulative score of 19-2 over op-ponents. On Oct. 10 the girls traveled to Menlo-Atherton High School for a non-league match up and a possible CCS pairing.

After dropping the No. 1 and No. 2 singles and No. 3 doubles matches, the team used their depth to overcome Menlo-Atherton by taking the No. 3 and No. 4 singles and then the No. 1 and No. 2 doubles matches to upset Menlo-Atherton at their home ground by a final score of 4-3.

On Oct. 16 the girls traveled to face the Fremont High School

Firebirds. Without fail, the Vikings continued their dominance of their league competition with a 7-0 romp of the Firebirds to put the Vikings at 15-0 and 9-0 in league play.

The Vikings, with only two matches left, will look to finish the 2007 season with a perfect record.

They will play Milpitas again on Oct. 23, which should prove to be their most important match of the regular season.

On Oct. 25, the Vikings will be back home to close out their incred-ible season against Santa Clara, a team whom they beat earlier in the year 7-0.

Adversity has not escaped the 2007 tennis squad. Despite a perfect season thus far, the girls have seen injuries hamper some of their stron-gest players.

Liu and freshmen Mira Khanna and Emma Marti have each experi-enced injuries that have slowed them down this season, but they have main-tained a strong level of play to keep the Paly squad moving forward.

“Injuries have been the biggest issue for us, but overall for me, the this season is going really well,” Khanna said. “But in CCS we’re going to be facing some good teams like Monta Vista High School. We really need more of a challenge if we’re going to be able to raise our games to beat a team like them.”

Paly will attempt to capture the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League Championship, which takes place at Mountain View High School, starting on Oct. 30.

However, winning the SCVAL tournament is not their primary goal as the team will enter the CCS tour-nament during the second week of November. Going into the tournament, the team will hopefully have the El Camino League division champion-ship under their belt as well as an

untainted record. Coupled with the Vikings’ abso-

lutely perfect showing in the standings this season, the girls will also sport a youthful and highly energetic spirit. The girls have stepped up their play after last season’s disappointing fin-ish and will attempt to bring glory back to the once weak varsity tennis

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SportsA12 • October 22, 2007 The Campanile

By Austin smith

A&E Editor

After painful back-to-back losses, the Palo Alto High School Varsity football team has found its winning ways again, tallying two consecutive wins to improve to a 4-2 record (2-1 in league) and a number 13 ranking in the San Jose Mercury News.

The Vikings started the year strong against McCly-monds High School, running opponents into the ground on offense and utilizing quickness on defense.

After beating Burlingame in their second game, the Vikings offense fell stagnant, and the team was defeated 69-14 over a two-loss span that included a nightmare 42-7 loss to division rival Los Gatos High School. But with a resurgence of gritty quarterback play from junior Will Brandin and excellent play on defense, the Vikings came alive once again.

During the Oct. 5 game against Mountain View High School, Paly scraped out a 28-21 win thanks in part to the defense’s three forced fumbles and long interception returns by senior safety Mike Scott and junior safety Will Holder. Brandin was solid in the passing game, relying

on his standout wide receiver Scott, whom he found eight times for 119 yards.

With senior fullback Sione Mataele out sick, senior Brandon Boyd skillfully filled in, with an impressive 74 yards on 21 carries. Brandin also ran for three touch-downs.

The Vikings returned home to face Milpitas High School on Oct. 11 in front of a live television audience on Comcast Sports Net. With added pressure, Paly answered the call, deftly cruising to a 27-7 victory.

“We played a very good football game against a very good football team,” Head Coach Earl Hansen said.

The defense was once again effective, forcing four turnovers and holding a solid Milpitas offense scoreless until late in the fourth quarter.

“We had to tackle well and we did,” junior corner-back Harry Woolson said. “We didn’t allow a lot of first downs.”

Paly’s secondary played well, intercepting three passes, including an interception return for touchdown by senior linebacker Kevin Johnson.

“Milpitas has three solid receivers,” Woolson said. “We played off them and just shut them down.”

The Paly defense has been almost completely rebuilt this year, after all but four members graduated. The Viking defense has swarmed opponents and taken pressure off the offense, allowing no more than seven points in an impres-sive three out of six games this season. They have forced an incredible twelve turnovers in that span.

The offense finally put the pieces together, playing consistently in all facets of the game. The running game continued its steady success, with Mataele returning to rush for 56 yards and a touchdown, and senior running back James McCollough running for another 53 yards. Brandin attributes the offense’s success to the players up front.

“The offensive line played their best game tonight,” Brandin said. “We all played our best tonight.”

Brandin, a first year Varsity starter, struggled earlier in the season but has exhibited poise as the season has worn on.

“I’ve started to click with the receivers,” Brandin said. “We’re getting to know each other better on the field.”

Brandin has done whatever the team needed him to do in order to win, whether it is running the ball on the ground or vastly improving his passing game. The most telling sign of his maturity is how he has begun to run the offense smoothly, even when key players around him are taken out of the equation.

“They went after Mike [Scott],” Hansen said. “Will [Brandin] was great at spreading the ball around.”

The team looks ahead to the season’s final four games. Winning is a necessity should they look to defend last year’s De Anza League title. The schedule plays in the Vikings’ favor, as they will face opponents with a combined record of 8-15-1. But the team knows that they will need more than luck to make it back to the playoffs.

“We really need to practice hard and prepare ourselves well,” Woolson said.

By Kelly Zhou

Staff Writer

Palo Alto High School’s girls’ golf team was cancelled at the begin-ning of the school year due to lack of interest, according to Paly Athletic Director Earl Hansen.

Hansen said he did not register the girls’ golf team in the Peninsula Ath-letic League for the fall sports season because support for the team dwin-dled last year. Hansen said he posted an announcement of a meeting for all those who were interested in joining the team in Paly’s Daily Bulletin last spring.

H a n s e n said that when no girls showed up, he was forced to cancel the team.

However, juniors Young Hsu and Melanie Maemura, co-captains and founders of the team, had a different take on the situation. They believe Paly’s female golfers have continu-ously supported the formation of a team.

“I didn’t see the announcement on the bulletin,” Maemura said. “I don’t know if it was actually there. [Hansen] knew we were passionate about golf. He had no evidence to suggest that there was no interest.”

Neither side remembers when the bulletin announcement ran.

Though Hansen said he fully supports a new girls’ golf a team, team members said they felt he was reluctant to create the new team.

“I don’t think Hansen’s really supportive of the team,” Hsu said. “He’s not that active about it. I don’t think he understands how much we want it.”

Hsu, Maemura and the other girls’ fight to create a golf team began when they were freshmen during the 2005-06 school year. Numerous problems arose when they tried out for the boys’ team, so Hsu and Maemura decided to form a girls’ team. Only five students are needed to form a team, and the

juniors got eight signatures from dif-ferent female golfers. Maemura and Hsu did not understand why Hansen would be reluctant to start a team, but they, nevertheless, felt he did not fully support their effort in founding the team.

“[I don’t think he thought] it was a priority,” Maemura said. “Trying to communicate with him was really frustrating.”

However, Hansen eventually approved the team. Expect-ing to have an official team in the fall of 2006, the girls were thor-oughly con-fused when the team did not material-ize.

“I talked to [former Paly assistant principal Doug] Walker during sophomore year because there wasn’t a team,” Hsu said. “I don’t know why Mr. Hansen didn’t sign us up for [the league], but Mr. Walker supported [having a girls’ team] and he was happy we were initiating it.”

Walker formerly oversaw Paly’s sports programs but left last year, handing off those responsibilities to the new assistant principal Jerry Berkson.

As preparations for a team began again, Hsu and Maemura tried to make sure the team would not fall apart before registration in the league.

“We talked to Hansen a couple times during sophomore year,” Mae-mura said.

According to Maemura, Hansen told her last spring that there would be a team this fall. There was a coach and enough funding and interest to form one.

However, to the girls’ surprise and disappointment, Hansen declared there would not be a girls’ golf team this year.

“I got all the names [of the team members] and all the information so that we could do it, but no one showed interest last year or came in and talked to me,” Hansen said. “If

they had all come last year, we’d have a team now.”

Team members, however, strong-ly dispute this claim.

“I definitely talked to him a few times at the beginning of the year and I emailed him too,” Hsu said.

The team members expressed outrage when they found out this fall about Hansen’s bulletin announce-ment and why the team had been disbanded.

“I was shocked,” Hsu said. “I didn’t know about the [bulletin]. Personally, I don’t think it’s a good way to publicize. If he had told me, I definitely would have made posters and put them all over the school.”

Other members of the team voiced similar reactions.

“My immediate reaction was anger,” Maemura said. “I couldn’t believe that after all this time, after two years of struggling and final suc-cess, in the end there was no team. He knew our names and phone numbers. If we spent two years trying to fight for something and then we didn’t show up for one meeting, I think he should have contacted us.”

The girls on the team said they ultimately felt disappointed and frus-trated about the situation.

“I thought it was unfair that [only] the boys had a team,” potential team member junior Maddy Mihran said.

Maemura and Hsu said they up their usual sports because they trusted that Hansen would register the team. This fall, Hsu and Maemura would have been on the Varsity tennis and cross-country teams, respectively.

“Young and I practiced together,” Maemura said. “It was so sad that all our hours of practice over the summer were for nothing.”

Hansen said he is willing to make a girls’ golf team for next year, as long as “the girls show a long-term commitment.”

Despite all of the problems they have faced, the team members refuse to be deterred; the girls believe in making sure golf is available to all girls at Paly.

“My hope is that next year, we will really have a girls’ golf team,” Hsu said. “I’m determined to make it possible.”

Varsity water polo teams off to solid starts Vikings skillfully charge ahead with exceptional determination, winning records in leagues

Girls’ golf team cut from rosterPaly football finds success

Hannah McGovern/The Campanile Paly Varsity water polo players seniors Scott Mielke (left) and Geng Wang (center) crash the Mountain View High School hole set as senior goalie Will Simon (right) prepares for a shot. The girls’ team had a shaky start but both the girls’ and boys’ teams have demonstrated their strong potential to claim CCS titles.

Junior Will Holder fights to break a tackle from the opposing Mountain View High School secondary.

Philip Homnack/The Paly Voice

Palo Alto High School’s boys’ and girls’ Varsity water polo teams are playing in domi-nant mid-season form, opening league play with a combined 7-1 record.

Led by senior co-captains Michael For-tune and Geng Wang, the boys’ squad is off to a blistering beginning with an 11-4 start and an impressive 4-0 De Anza League record.

“We are right on par with our expecta-tions for this season so far,” Fortune said. “We’ve been able to avoid having any bad losses, and the only teams we lost to are seri-ous contenders.”

The Vikings dominated in their league opener, winning 11-4 at Monte Vista High School on Sept. 27. The next day, the boys’ team placed second in the Saint Francis In-vitational.

The team soundly defeated Archbishop Mitty High School 9-4 in the first round, set-ting the stage for a semifinal match against rival Los Altos High School. The Vikings prevailed with a score of 9-8 in a grueling triple overtime contest, finally ended by a goal from Wang.

The Vikings lost in the tournament final to St. Francis High School 8-12.

However, the squad rebounded quickly, beating Los Altos 5-4 at home in a critical league match on Sept. 30.

The Vikings then defeated Henry M. Gunn High School on the road 11-7 on Oct. 1 and extended their winning streak at home with a 12-8 win over Mountain View High School.

The boys’ team has continuously im-proved over the first month of the season, especially in terms of its depth.

“Our bench players have really stepped up and gotten much stronger,” Fortune said. “It is awesome because now we can really rely on our backups if our starters are tired out mid- or late-game.”

The squad’s surprising success in the early season has the team feeling more confident after each victory.

“The guys’ vision for the season has re-ally evolved over the past few weeks,” boys’ Head Coach Reid Particelli said. “It seems like every time we win, they believe more

and more that we can take the Central Coast Section title this year.”

Likewise, the girls’ team has greatly improved over the first month of competition, overcoming an unsteady 2-3 start to reach an 8-7 overall and 3-1 league record.

The Vikings opened their league play with a monumental win at Fremont High School, crushing the opposition 22-4 on Sept. 27.

“It was definitely a fun game to play in,” senior captain Lizzie Abbott said. “Having such a huge lead enabled us to try some new things, but after a while we did feel bad for the other team.”

The girls’ squad then placed sixth in the NorCal Championship Tournament on Sept. 28, beating Menlo Atherton High School 6-5 in the first round. In the second game, the Vikings lost to Rio Americano High School 6-12, moving them to the losing bracket.

The Vikings then proceeded to defeat Johansen High School 8-7 and won by forfeit against Miramonte High School, setting up a challenging match against defending CCS champion Archbishop Mitty.

The squad lost to Mitty 5-9, finishing with a solid 3-2 record in the tournament and placing sixth overall.

“The girls played extremely well in the NorCal tournament,” girls’ Head Coach Cory Olcott said. “Their play really showed how far we have come in just half a season.”

However, after a strong weekend of play, the Vikings dropped a crucial match to Los Altos 9-11 at home on Sept. 30.

The Vikings led for most of the game, but Los Altos came back and won in overtime.

“It was a really tough loss,” Abbott said. “It was our game to lose, and we dropped the ball.”

The Vikings bounced back just a few days later on Oct. 1, winning 16-9 on the road at Gunn High School. They followed this game up with a 17-3 win over Mountain View at home on Oct. 9.

Although the team is playing well, the Vi-kings are continuing to improve their game.

“Each person is really realizing their potential and stepping into their role,” Olcott said. “We have made huge progress on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.”

Both the boys’ and girls’ teams have met expectations so far this season, and are look-ing to capture league titles and have strong showings at the CCS tournament.

“The team is playing hard each and every game to prepare for the postseason,” Particelli said. “Once the CCS tournament rolls around, we are only going to have one gear and one way to play, and that is all-out.”

Scores

Upcoming games

BOYSMountain View @ Paly

October 9, 12-8 W GIRLS

Mountain View @ PalyOctober 9, 17-3 W

BOYSLos Gatos @ Paly

October 24, 3:00 PMGIRLS

Los Gatos @ PalyOctober 24, 5:00 PM

Water polo

By sAm Jones

Sports Editor

“I don’t think Hansen’s really supportive of the team. I don’t think he understands how much we want it.”

Young Hsu junior

A&E

Lifestyles

FEATURES

Features • A&E • People Monday, October 22, 2007The Campanile

A giant among Giants

Ryan Pfleiderer

FEATURES

Trick or treatCan You Kick it?fresh off

the grill

B12

B6 By Amy Stringer

By Amy Stringer

B7by

Anna

Waldron

What to do this halloween

Hannah McGovern/The CampanileSenior Lance Taylor draws his 50-pound wooden pull recurve hunting bow, which he uses to hunt all types of animals, including Wild Eurasian hogs, more commonly called boar. He hunts with a pack of dogs at dusk or in the early morning, when the boars come out to feed. Below, Taylor performs various stages of gutting a boar.

Leader of

the Pack

On a recent trip to Monterey, California, Palo Alto High School senior Lance Taylor let loose a pack of hunting dogs on a hog and fol-lowed as they chased it, barking and taking bites at the hog. He shot the boar with a hunting bow and then stabbed it twice in the heart. Taylor then dragged the 95-pound boar onto the back of his All Terrain Vehicle and brought it back to a ranch where he hung it upside down, skinned it and gut-ted it. The hog was then packed up and sent to the butcher. Taylor plans to eat the hog sometime later this week.

Taylor has hunted his whole life. Whether it be rabbits, deer or other small game, he has hunted them all.

“I’m from the East Coast, where people hunt all the time, so it’s a regular thing for me,” Taylor said.

Different hunting parties go off with their dogs usually around dusk or in the early morn-ing and scour the hunting grounds for game.

“The boars come out to feed around dusk and we will go around looking for tracks or other markings to hunt down the hogs,” Taylor said.

Sometimes a hunter will let their dogs sniff out the boar, but normally they will go out looking for them on their own. Taylor hunts with a pack of pit bulls owned by other people he hunts with. According to Taylor, most people do not hunt with pit bulls because the dogs are ferocious and the hunter needs a pole to unlock their jaws. When a dog is to be bred as a hunting dog, its owner will send the dog on hunts with older dogs and it will naturally pick up traits from them.

“A young dog will tag along with a pack of hunting dogs and once they find a boar and

it gets its first taste of blood, it will just want more and more,” Taylor said.

Hunters want a dog that will go straight for the throat of the animal and corner it until

a hunter can come and finish off the kill.“Last time I was there we spotted a good

sized boar and sent our dogs after it,” Taylor said. “Then a few moments later they came running back and when we were kind of con-fused. We looked off through our scopes to where the boar was and saw a mountain lion disappear over the ridge.

Mountain lions are dangerous to hunters and their dogs, so hunters immediately leave hunting areas if a mountain lion is spotted.

“One of my good friends lost two dogs to a mountain lion,” Taylor said.

While Taylor typically uses a hunting bow, his father uses a scope rifle to pick off game from hundreds of feet away.

“I remember this one time when my dad shot a boar from 300 feet away, and the bullet went through one eye of the hog and out the other,” Taylor said.

Most hunters try to get as close as possible and mount their rifles on some kind of stable surface to get more control of their shots. Taylor uses a 50-pound wooden pull recurve bow, which is much less common than the compound bow. Taylor’s bow is made of fine

wood and heavy string. The tips curve away from the archer. Only five percent of all bow hunters use curve bows, which are significantly harder to use. Compound bows use cables

It was a cool October Sunday afternoon, and Pac Bell Park was filled to the brim with 41,000 anxious fans. I took my seat nine rows up from the third base dugout. There was a slight breeze coming off of McCovey Cove, and the smell of fresh garlic fries and hot dogs was in the air. It was the final game of the season, Giants versus Dodgers, and the end of a season that would go down in history.

Barry Bonds stepped into the box in the bottom of the first, no one on, two out. Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Dennis Springer went into his mo-tion, and delivered a 3-2 knuckleball. Bonds turned on it, and launched it into the right field bleachers. 73 home runs. I had just seen Barry Bonds make history. I stood with 41,000 other fans and watched Bonds trot around the bases. I witnessed one of the greatest moments in baseball history, and now, six years later, Barry’s career is over, or at least with the Giants.

I’ve grown up watching Barry play for the Giants, and now I will never see him in a San Francisco uni-form again. Barry is the reason I went to see the Giants play; I think that’s why the Giants had sellout crowd after sellout crowd. People can complain that Barry is a jerk, that he may have taken performance-enhancing drugs and that he is the most arrogant person who has ever walked the earth. But when Barry hit a ball into McCovey Cove, everyone was on their feet cheering.

Even the anti-Barry fans were in awe of his power, his speed, his field-ing ability and the way he dominated the game. I’ve been to dozens of Giants games, but the best were the ones when Barry hit a shot into the stands.

So go ahead, put an asterisk on Barry’s 756th-homerun ball. It won’t make a difference in the end. Barry provided excitement, he kept base-ball in San Francisco, he’s the sole reason that fans continued to watch the Giants.

So where will Barry go now? Who would want to sign a 43-year-old, injury-prone ballplayer that is con-stantly surrounded by controversy? Some would think of it as purchasing a used Volkswagen with thousands of miles and ripped seats. But very few people realize that Barry can still play. Barry still has the best hand-eye coordination in all of baseball, he can still drive a ball 400 feet and he is still a leader. Barry would, even now, be a valuable asset to any team, and it is too bad that the Giants have given up on him.

I would have loved to watch Barry strap on the elbow armor over his Giants uniform one more time, and to hear Mike Krukow call another Bonds homer: “He hits it high, he hits it deep, it’s outta here!”

But we’ll never see Barry sport number 25 on the back of a San Fran-cisco uniform, we’ll never see him walk up the third base dugout steps and we’ll never see Barry round the bases in orange and black.

All I hope is that Barry doesn’t play for the Anaheim, excuse me, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (it’s ridiculous, I know). But seriously, could Giants fans watch Barry wear an Angels uniform? I hope Barry ends up playing for a talented ball club, one that has the potential to win the World Series.

If there is one player in all of baseball who deserves a champion-ship ring, it’s Barry. As a devoted Giants fan, it pains me to watch Peter Magowan let Barry go, but I know it’s the best for the club. The Giants are in a rebuilding stage, and it’s time to clean up the veteran roster. Let’s hope that Barry plays next year and takes home a ring.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. On behalf of all Giants fans I thank you, Barry Bonds, for an amazing 15 years in San Francisco. No one can replace you Barry, not even Pedro Feliz.

Okay, who am I kidding?

and pulleys to make generating leverage and aiming much easier. According to Taylor, a hunter aims for the stomach area of the hog to hit the vitals.

“I’ve hit hogs in the haunches or face and they just continue running,” Taylor said. “One time we chased a hog throughout the whole night after I had wounded it, but it eventually got away.”

Taylor also carries a Kimber .45 automatic pistol. Boars have been known to charge and kill humans. According to Taylor they can spear you with their tusks or trample you to death.

“I have a friend who was hunting boar and the boar charged him and its tusk pierced his leg and pinned him to a tree,” Taylor said. “He had to shoot the boar in the face to finally get free.”

Even though there are many legal restric-tions, it is quite easy to go hunting in California. Once a person becomes 13, they can apply for a hunting license and take a two-day course to learn about the different rules, regulations and safety precautions of hunting. Taylor received his rifle training at Coyote Point Rifle and Pistol Club in San Mateo. Once someone has their

license all they have to do is get a permit if they are going to be hunting on public land.

“I usually go to Fort Hunter Liggett to hunt,” Taylor said. “They have all sorts of game there.”

There are restrictions on how many of each type of animal one can kill on a single hunting trip or during a hunting season. For game like deer, hunters must purchase a tag from a hunting equipment store that permits them to kill one deer.

While the Humane Society of the United States pushes to end sport hunting, many pro-hunting organizations argue that it helps keep certain species from overpopulating. Wild Eurasian hogs exist in 56 of California’s 58 counties where they overrun the environment, disrupt the ecosystem and ruin species of life indigenous to California.

“Most of these groups are just wor-ried about excess use of guns and how there should be more gun limitations, but I’ve always believed that killing and eating your own game is more humane than getting your meat from factories where all they do is breed animals to be slaughtered and packaged away,” Taylor said. “It’s more fresh.”

Taylor plans on going up to Alaska next year along with his father and join a hunting outfit to hunt elk and caribou. They have even talked about going to Africa to hunting crocodiles.

“You can hunt pretty much anything with the right permits,” Taylor said.

Taylor has hunted rabbits, squirrel, pigs, deer and boar throughout all of his hunting adventures. Of all the animals he has taken he says he enjoys eating venison and pig the best. According to Taylor, boar tastes just like pig.

Taylor also enjoys fishing and backpacking and plans to hike the John Muir Trail, which is a 211 mile-long trail, from Yosemite to Mt. Whitney.

“I like all sorts of things that have to do with the outdoors and just living off the land,” Taylor said.

Hunting is one of the world’s oldest practices and still has a strong following throughout the world. With proper licenses and permits, hunting can be an exciting adventure for anyone who dares to do it.

Courtesy of Lance Taylor

By Michael haMada

Staff Writer

Features The Campanile

B2 October 26, 2007

Slam Poetry Club President junior Dan Schwartz recites one of his original poems at a club meeting on Monday during lunch.

Hannah McGovern/The Campanile

By Tyler Blake

Editor in Chief

Slam Poetry, though unknown to most Palo Alto High School students, is making a name for itself on Paly’s campus. Slam poetry is the pop on the radio, the lullaby a father sings to his child at night and even the anger projected in a conflict. Simply stated, slam poetry is the art of the spoken word.

Paly's Slam Poetry Club started late last year and kicked-off the new school year under the guidance of Paly English teacher Jeanne Loh. The club now boasts over 40 members.

Junior Dan Schwartz, the club’s president, expects to trigger interest in slam poetry in the Paly community.

“Slam poetry is not only a form of expression, but it is also a ways of connecting with the audience,” Schwartz said.

Paly's Slam Poetry Club aims to hold monthly slams for sharing poems and competing, but Schwartz hopes to first gain a few dedicated members to establish a team for local competitions and possibly state and national events.

The Palo Alto Slam Team already holds frequent slams that occur on the first Friday of every month at The Jungle Cafe near downtown Palo Alto. Those interested in poetry are encour-aged to sign-up. Cash prizes will be offered to participants who win first, second or third place.

Paly's Slam Poetry Club encour-ages members to take part in these slams so that they become more familiar with the style and flow of slam poetry.

“After I was exposed to this art form, I grew familiar with the many shapes it came in and I realized that

it's actually easier than normal poetry,” Schwartz said.

Schwartz first got into slam po-etry after attending a Henry M. Gunn High School poetry slam which was held at the Mitchell Park Library late last year.

At the slam, students from lo-cal middle schools and high schools competed in an "open slam,” the most common form of slam competition. During open slams, any attendee who wishes to compete is welcome with five members are randomly chosen to be judges for the event.

Slams usually last multiple rounds of elimi-nation based on point accumula-tion and the win-ner is chosen by the person who receives the most points from se-lected judges.

H o w e v e r , not all slam com-petitions elimi-nate poets. The Paly Slam Poetry Club seeks to promote an environment where all interested students can engage in the art form.

Along with the “open slam,” the Slam Poetry Club hopes to introduce club members to the full range of the world of slam poetry.

These include Invitational Slams, which are only open to invited guests, Dead Poet Slams where all pieces must be by deceased poets, and Theme Slams in which all recited performances must display a specified theme such as goth and love.

Open slam is only one of many types of poetry events Gunn High School held at their invitational

Hannah McGovern/The Campanile

Slam poetry enthusiasts start new club

Paly family adopts girl from GhanaBy Miki kenrick

Staff Writer

When Palo Alto High School parents John and Marci Stevens traveled to remote African villages with a charity organization that aims to improve child orphan care in Ghana and other parts of Africa, they never imagined they would be adopting a child of their own.

Yet when they met a six-year-old girl, Perpetua, for the first time in a small run- down orphanage in the village of Sominya, Ghana everything changed.

“We met Perpetua for the first time in January of 2007, and we fell in love with her,” John said. “There was something magical about her and how she was such a happy girl after everything she had been through.”

In March of 2007, the Stevens’ went back to the orphanage and spent more time with Perpetua and the other local children.

“We just knew she was the right one,” John said.

P e r p e t u a ’s adoption went rel-atively fast. John and Marci, along with their four bio-logical children El iza , Al i son , Michael-John and Matthew, adopted Perpetua in June of 2007.

It took one month to get a United States visa for Per-petua and by July she was on her way to the states.

While the process of attaining a legal visa can be disappointing and lengthy, Perpetua was able to obtain a visa relatively quickly after meeting some people who had compassion for her story, John said.

“When Perpetua first came here, we were at our beach house in San Diego, which was good because she wasn’t crowded by tons of people and it was just our family,” Michael-John said.

Perpetua was born in the remote village of Sominya, Ghana. After her mother passed away just two months following Perpetua’s birth from an infection, Perpetua was cared for by her grandmother and her aunt for three years.

Yet both of these guardians either became ill or were no longer able to care for her. At three-and-a-half years old, Perpetua roamed

the streets of Sominya on her own for six months before a local school teacher, Lamiti Salami, took her to a local orphanage. Perpetua lived at the orphanage for two-and-a-half years before the Stevens met and adopted her.

The transition to the American lifestyle has brought many changes to Perpetua.

“It is very different here,” Perpetua said. “I like swimming here, and playing hand games with my brothers and sisters.”

Perpetua also has a gift in art, but she did not have many opportunities to paint at her old school in Sominya. She is now a first grader at Addison Elementary School.

“School here is much better,” Perpetua said. “I get to paint and make new friends. Here, they don’t cane you.”

Students as young as six at Perpetua’s former school in Ghana would get caned for asking “bad” questions, or answering questions incorrectly. Once a student’s hands were too wounded to be caned any longer, the teach-

ers would beat the student’s legs and body.

“Perpetua was thrilled to come here,” Michael-John said. “She was really happy and excited the first few days, and always running around yelling.”

Other members of the family also

think that Perpetua is adjusting well. “She has gotten used to life here in the U.S. amazingly well,” Eliza said. “I would say her main feeling when she first came here was shock. She went from absolutely nothing, to everything. She had never had someone love her until now, and she has adjusted amazingly.”

In the beginning, the Stevens were worried that there might be tension in their household. However, Perpetua and the family have adapted to their new lives extremely well.

“It was amazing when she first came here. There was no conflict,” Eliza said. “She was so sweet and we loved her so much that it just felt right.

There was no barrier between the siblings. It feels as if she has been with us for my whole life. She’s my blood.”

In her former village in Ghana, Perpetua would eat two meals a day and had no running water in the orphanages. She would shower by pouring pumped water over her body.

During Perpetua’s first weeks with the Stevens, there were a few small problems within the family which mainly occurred because of her previous background.

John said that because Perpetua had never lived in a stable family environment, she sometimes felt as if she and her brothers were competing to get the most food or the most attention from John and Marci. Perpetua has since adapted to her new family and so have they.

“Matthew, Michael-John, Eliza and Aly all adore her,” John said. “She has come from the depths of poverty and abandonment, and brings a new perspective on life.”

In addition, Perpetua has settled into the Stevens’ lifestyle well. She plays soccer, paints and has friends over to her house frequently.

“She always draws pictures for everyone,” Eliza said. “And when she does, she’ll either draw us all white, or us all black. Either way, she always draws all seven of us the same color. It’s adorable.”

Michael-John is very excited to have a new sister and has only positive things to say about Perpetua.

“I love having her around. It’s more fun and exciting,” Michael-John said. “We used to be always bored, and now we’re never bored. It’s always a party and we love it.”

The Steven family believes Perpetua’s new life in Palo Alto has given her several great opportunities.

“There are millions of people who don’t have the chance to develop and change the world,” John said.

Eliza said that by having Perpetua in her life, she has realized and learned to accept how lucky she is to be living in an affluent community such as Palo Alto.

“I have an education, I have a house, I have clothes and most importantly, I have a family that loves me and I love them back and I am so lucky to have that,” Eliza said. “To hear about Ghana and their experiences, I’m amazed at how they are all still so happy. It makes me so appreciative and grateful to be where I am and to have the chance to meet Perpetua and have her in my life.”

John believes that the addition of Perpetua has positively impacted all of their lives.

“We realize that she has been blessed with this opportunity, but we feel just as blessed to have her in our lives,” John said.

slams last year. Gunn’s Slam Poetry Club President senior Hanson Zhao was introduced to slam poetry in his sophomore English class. However, Zhao did not join the school’s slam poetry team until his junior year.

Zhao attended the National Youth Poetry Slam during the summer of 2006 in San Jose, California. He was then appointed president of Gunn’s Slam Poetry Team.

“It was really fun being immersed in poetry for a week,” Zhao said. “I was dead tired at the end though.”

Both Gunn and Paly’s Slam Po-etry Clubs share the same motives.

Each of the clubs aim to provide a welcoming, relaxed environ-ment for poets.

In opening up the world of slam poetry to his peers, Schwartz hopes to promote lo-cal slams and encourage peers

to attend and participate in them.“Since this is only our first year,

our club mainly focuses on getting people interested and comfortable with slam poetry,” Schwartz said. “It's not easy getting up and reading some-thing meaningful and authentic.”

This year, Paly’s Slam Poetry Club hopes to collaborate with Gunn in holding and attending local slams.

Their agenda also consists of accumulating a portfolio of poems that any member can use in a slam or refine themselves.

“Slam is as much acquired as it is natural talent,” Schwartz said.

The Club aims to participate in competitive slams and eventually

Six-year-old Perpetua poses with her new brother, Michael-John Stevens. Perpetua was adopted by a Palo Alto family in June from Sominya, Ghana and currently attends Addison Elementary School where she enjoys soccer and painting.

“She was so sweet and we loved her so much that it just felt right. There was no barrier between the siblings. It feels like she has been with us my whole life, she’s my blood.”

Eliza Stevens junior

become a team, which will be able to partake in Nationals. Outside of Paly, the City of Palo Alto also has a team. The team which is mainly composed of young adults.

In their second year at Nationals, the Slam Team placed 12, which is considered to be impressive placing for a second-year competitors.

Slam poems are written for the purpose of being read out loud, whether or not they have rhythm, rhyme or any other sort of pattern.

Marc Smith started the first poetry slam in November 1984 at the Get Me High Lounge in Chicago. Today, slam poets share their slam poems and compete in competitions.

The National Slam Poetry com-petition usually takes place in the Bay Area and features around 75 certified teams each year who gather together for five days of competition.

Slam poetry allows people of all ages to vocalize their views and feel-ings in a creative and fun form.

“Slam poetry is a nice outlet,” Zhao said. “I can’t really picture my-self on a stage so it is a nice change to the norm. This may be self-centered but I guess I also like the feeling that what I say can affect people.”

Paly’s Slam Poetry Club meets on Mondays during lunch in room 218.

“The best thing about slam poetry is that it's so free,” Schwartz said. “There are no rules or limits and you can just be yourself. After I perform [my poems], or read them out loud to a friend, I feel like I've accomplished something.”

Schwartz is eager to lead the Slam Poetry Club into the school year and hopefully come out of it with a pack of poets behind him.

“Slam poetry is not only a form of expression, but it is also a way of connecting with the audience.”

Dan Schwartz Slam Poetry Club President

Additional reporting by Gloria Yu.

By Chris GhallaGher

Staff Writer

Lash three huge slabs of wood together to make a tripod, attach a pulley, hoist 55 gallons of water to the top without spilling any, lower it back down and disassemble everything in an orderly manner in 44 seconds.

These are the instructions for hoisting the scuttlebutt, one of many events included in a normal tourna-ment hosted by Sea Scouts Boys Scouts of America, also known as “scouting’s best-kept secret.”

“I was introduced to Sea Scouts in eighth grade by my good friend Peter Fraser and have been doing it ever since,” Palo Alto High School senior Andrew Hood said. “I love the regattas with the rope climbs, drills, sailing and navigating.”

As a nautical branch of the Ven-turing program of the Boy Scouts of America, this organization teaches young adults the skills of proper boat handling.

The organization also hosts huge tournaments in spring, called regat-tas, inviting crews from all around to test teenagers’ abilities on the open waters.

Some of the events in the tourna-ment include knot tying, a mariner’s quiz and the breeches buoy, an activity that simulates rescuing fellow sailors from a sinking vessel.

Features The Campanile October 22, 2007 •B3

Bias remains prevalent for Paly bisexuals

Allie Bollella/The Campanile(Photo staged) Bisexual students at Paly still feel uncomfortable telling peers about their sexual orientation. For many, the source of this discomfort is the misconceptions and stereotypes that bisexuals feel the community has against them.

Viking sea scouts set sail for open waters At the beginning and end of the

summer, the crew goes on a 10-day cruise upriver to relax, water ski, wa-ter tube and sail in the Stockton and Sacramento Delta on their ship.

The Cape Romain, the crew’s ship, is a 95-foot former U.S. Coast Guard Cape-Class Cutter that can sleep 20 people and muster 2,020 horsepower.

According to the crew’s Web page, www.sssintrepid.org, the vessel has had a long, adventure-filled career with the Coast Guard and Navy, where it performing search and rescue and law enforcement operations.

Most of the semi-weekly meet-ings and training activities are held aboard the Cape Romain.

Paly senior Max Nelson-Gal, also a Sea Scout, said that anyone from the ages 14 to 21 can become a member of the crew. Nelson-Gal heard about the program through his neighbors and has been attending ever since his first summer cruise last year.

Unlike traditional Boy Scouts, there are no merit badges that signify achievement in specific skills in Sea Scouts. However, projects need to be completed to advance ranks in the program.

These projects encourage the youth to develop leadership, safety and diagnostic skills that are not only vital on the ship, but are also useful in everyday life.

“The different ranks are Ap-prentice, Ordinary, Able and Quar-termaster,” Nelson-Gal said. “There are also crew rankings like boatswain, boatswain’s mate and the yeoman purser.”

Nelson-Gal, only two require-ments away from the Apprentice rank, said that most 18 to 21-year-old Sea Scouts are considered junior officers. He also said that there are two different crews on the ship: the deck crew and the engineering crew.

The engineering crew studies engines, motors, compressors, pumps and other inner workings of the ship. Each crew has its own leaders who are voted into their positions.

Paly senior Josh Marcum partici-pates in both the Sea Scouts and the regular Boy Scouts.

Although he has been able to manage both, he said it has been dif-ficult because they meet on the same night. Despite this, he is almost an Eagle Scout in Boy Scouts and hopes to obtain that rank sometime in the near future.

Marcum said that in order to go on the open sea cruises, or be a boatswain, it is necessary to obtain at least the rank of Ordinary.

Throughout a Sea Scouts career, one will also learn how to take advan-tage of the wind and tides, approach a dock and tell the meanings of certain buoys and lights.

The crew also has a skipper and an executive officer, who both organize and lead the crew.

The skipper is the head of the ship and is very active in crew activities, while the executive officer attends all the meetings and does most of the organizational work.

The program is geared towards the Navy and the Coast Guard. Those who have applied for jobs in the Coast Guard with a Sea Scout background

usually have the advantage of getting higher paying positions.

According to the Sea Scout web site, the crew has been working with the U.S. Navy since the Secretary of the Navy G. Mayor offered a helping hand in 1913, which happened only a year after Sea Scouts were founded in America.

Although run by Boy Scouts of America, the Sea Scouts is an organi-zation open to both boys and girls.

In fact, all girls , of the appropri-ate age, are encouraged to come and join the Sea Scouts.

Girls interested in joining should visit the separate female crew that docks in the same port as The Cape Romain.

The crew meets to discuss up-coming events every Tuesday and Saturday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. respectively at the Port of Redwood City.

The Sea Scouts are part of Boy Scouts of America and compete in obstacles courses in order to reach the next level of their training. Obstacles include rope climbing, sailing and navigating rough waters.

Photo Courtesy of Rye Druzin

By Kevin harvey

Staff Writer

Students’ bisexuality remains controversial at Paly despite growing trend of tolerance

Palo Alto High School has a relatively

diverse community, both racially and sexu-ally. Many openly homosexual students and heterosexual students interact every day. However, there is a part of Paly’s culture that is not typically addressed: the number of bisexual students.

“A bisexual person has the potential to be sexually and/or romantically attracted to more than one sex, but not necessarily at the same time or to the same extent,” editor of the Bisexual Resource Guide, Robyn Ochs said.

According to “Kyle,” a Paly student who wishes, like all sources in this article, to re-main anonymous, bisexuality has a very vague definition, which makes it difficult for many people to establish their orientation.

“Bisexuality is like a non-identity,” Kyle said. “It includes every sexual possibility between straight and gay.”

Kyle believes that it is difficult to have conversations about all sexual orientations because Americans are taught to keep sexuality private from a young age.

“Our culture isn’t honest about sexual-ity,” Kyle said. “We’re taught to be this way from a young age. If you’re a boy and have a thought about another boy, it’s bad.”

According to Ochs, many children in America are typically exposed to only hetero-sexuality or homosexuality, which makes it hard for many people to grasp bisexuality.

“Bisexuality stretches our imagination, just like multiracial people do,” Ochs said. “It forces us to acknowledge complexity, and many people are uncomfortable with that.”

Many bisexual students at Paly, such as “Michelle” refrain from exposing their sexual orientation because of how their peers might react.

“I feel comfortable telling my friends and people I know are okay with it,” Michelle said. “But I choose not to explain myself to certain people who seem too conservative or uptight. I am afraid people will think that just because I like men and women, I am promiscuous and untrustworthy.”

“Erika,” another bisexual student at Paly, said that the reason she chooses not to reveal her sexual orientation is to prevent other people from treating her differently.

“I completely understand that many girls could feel uncomfortable around me.” Erika said.

Kyle feels that stereotypes about bisexu-ality are what hold him back from revealing his sexual orientation. Some students feel un-comfortable revealing their identity to people who might misinterpret them.

“Stereotypes about bisexuals make me feel very uneasy about coming out,” Kyle said. “Some think that kids are saying they

are bisexual for attention, or that they are just gay and can’t admit it to themselves or the world.”

Paly student “Janet” agrees with Kyle and feels that many stereotypes against bisexuality are unfounded and unjust.

“I hate that there are these stereotypes that bisexual girls are all sluts, or that bisexual people will get with anyone,” Janet said.

Erika feels that many students think if somebody is gay or bisexual, they are auto-

matically attracted to people of the same sex and that such thinking needs to change.

“People need to know that gay and bi-sexual people are capable of having perfectly platonic relationships with other people of their gender,” Erika said.

She feels that many people believe that bisexual girls announce that they are bisexual to make men more attracted to them.

“I don’t feel like anyone is going to com-mit a hate crime against me or something,” said Erika. “When people feel uncomfortable they’ll make fun of gay people for no good reason.”

Some of the Paly bisexual students feel that being bisexual does not affect their daily lives. However, Janet feels that because most people assume she is straight, she gets into awkward conversations.

“It makes me feel kind of uncomfort-able sometimes because people assume I’m straight,” Janet said. “It’s strange when I’m with all girls, and we’re talking about boys, and I’m actually getting a crush on a girl at that moment.”

Most students who are bisexual discov-ered their sexual orientation at a young age.

“I remember being in Europe the summer after seventh grade and I kept checking out women on the street,” Erika said.

However, some students realized their sexual orientation later on.

“I first realized I was bisexual when I met this gorgeous girl in ninth grade and she asked me out on a date,” Michelle said. “It just felt so right.”

A number of sex studies theories believe that the majority of the population is somewhat bisexual or encounter bisexuality during their lifetime.

“A lot of people realize that it’s really something that everyone comes across at some point in their lives,” Erika said.

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Features B4 • October 1, 2007 The Campanile

By DJ HsueH

Staff Writer

About a dozen Palo Alto High School students meet during lunch every Wednesday to discuss how to tackle some of the challenges facing today’s world. This group of students, known as the New Global Citizens, created their club to address social issues and raise money for global issues.

“New Global Citizens encourage youth to take action,” NGC Publicity Officer Grace Morrison said. “It’s not just about bake sales or car washes. It’s about raising awareness, especially among youth, about global prob-lems.”

NGC’s mission is to help solve many of the world’s problems.

“We started the club because we thought it was important for kids our age to have the opportunity of helping those who are less fortunate,” Fundraising Officer Cat Chiang said. “Each year we tackle a different prob-lem around the world by raising money and educating the public.”

This year, Paly’s NGC plans to support women’s empowerment and education in Sierra Leone.

“There’s a lot of armed conflict in Sierra Leone right now between rebel groups and the government, which has torn the country apart and separated families,” Morrison said. “The basic idea is to rebuild these families by educating the women and helping them support their children.”

Besides sponsored dinners, bake sales and car washes, NGC plans to help raise money for their cause this year by helping to organize Paly’s Winter Formal with the Action in Africa club.

“We’re really excited about organizing the dance,” Communications Officer Ahna Rao said. “We haven’t decided on the theme of the dance yet, but we’ve got great ideas and will be discussing them with Action in Africa.”

Paly’s NGC was only founded during the second semester of last year, so the club is relatively new. Despite this, the club raised approximately $1,600 towards helping the Thai Youth AIDS Prevention Project.

To raise the money, NGC designed custom T-shirts that said “Eliminate AIDS in Thailand” on them and that were sold on the quad and at Speed Limit 25.

“We started the club two months before school ended, so we’re really proud of how much money we were able to raise,” Chiang said.

Besides helping to organize Winter For-mal with Action in Africa, NGC also plans to host dinners, bake sales and car washes in the future to raise money for their cause in Sierra Leone.

“We still have an entire year ahead of us, so we expect to raise a lot more money,” Chiang said.

Although the club is still relatively small, the founders are very optimistic about recruit-ing new members.

“We got a lot of new members on Club Day,” Rao said. “It’s great that so many stu-dents are interested in making a difference in the world,” Rao said.

The club’s sponsor, Paly English teacher Kindel Launer, is very proud of the club’s achievements.

“They’re a great hard-working group of girls that are making a difference in the world,” Launer said.

By Annie VougHt

Staff Writer

While the words “Friday night’s game” may bring to mind fresh-cut grass, a blaring pep band and scream-ing cheerleaders for most Palo Alto High School students, they hold a very different connotation for Paly junior Eric Jones and senior Zach Peters. Think rock-hard ice, violent hip-checks and lightning-fast slapshots.

To those unfamiliar with the sport, ice hockey seems a little more like an excuse for muscular Canadians to engage in fist fights while hoards of observers cheer them on.

Despite the popularity of the sport in Canada and Europe, hockey has a significantly smaller following in America.

Jones and Peters are two of a small group of Paly students who play competitive hockey.

“Hockey is like no other sport,” Peters said. “The coolest part about it is the feeling you get when you step onto the ice.”

Today, Jones and Peters, who both took up hockey as children, play in the Midget 18A league for the Cupertino Cougars and the San Jose Jr. Sharks, respectively. But what makes Jones and Peters truly unique as players is the lack of support for hockey.

Although there are several other Bay Area teams in the junior league and California is tied with New York for the most National Hockey League teams in one state, hockey fans are still particularly hard to come by on the west coast.

Nevertheless, Peters and Jones remain enthusiastic about their love for the sport.

“I can’t get enough ice time,” Jones said. “I breathe hockey. But whenever I bring up hockey here, nobody knows what I’m talking about. My friends think that all we do is hit people and get into fights.”

Peters experienced a huge culture shock with regard to hockey when he moved to the U.S. two years ago.

“Attitudes towards hockey be-tween my friends here at Paly and those back in Canada are very differ-ent,” Peters said. “In Ontario, hockey was an every day ritual. Families and friends would get together to watch their local team every week. Every-one always talked about hockey and it came second nature to most of my friends and family.”

Peter feels his passion for hockey would not have been as strong had

he grown up in the US and not in Canada.

“Most people here do not under-stand the game of hockey,” Peters said. “The atmospheres are very different, so I most likely wouldn’t have played hockey if I grew up here.”

These days Peters plays forward, while Jones plays defense.

“My favorite part about playing center forward is getting to take the face-offs,” Peters said. “I love scor-ing goals. I used to be a goaltender but it was far too boring. I need more action.”

But unfortunately for local hockey enthusiasts such as Jones and Peters, finding a hockey team to play for in the Bay Area can be quite chal-lenging. Hockey players require large ice facilities that can be quite hard to

come by in America, a nation where sports like basketball and football reign supreme.

Local hockey teams must also compete with figure skaters and other athletes for ice time.

“I played adult hockey a few years ago at the Ice Oasis, [a Redwood City

rink with a large number of figure skaters],” Jones said. “So we had really inconve-nient ice times — like at 6 a.m. every Sunday.”

There are ap-proximately 40 games a season for the 18A players, including two or three monthly games in locations like Lake Tahoe and Sacramento.

The Jr. Sharks also have an 18AA team for players who wish to participate in a more competitive and time-consuming league.

Peters used to play 18AA, but found the schedule tiresome.

“I decided to play 18A this year,” Peters said. “Last season, I had to leave the state once a month for three days at a time to compete with teams all over the U.S. I enjoyed traveling, but it was very time consuming.”

For players in every league, the season culminates with playoffs — an exciting but stressful event.

“The toughest part of my season is the state playoffs,” Peters said. “The games are very tense and I tend to get nervous.”

The time commitment is still huge for players in the 18A league, with about 15 scheduled away games, including holiday tournaments in Phoenix and Boston.

Both the Cougars and the Jr. Sharks have similarly intensive practice regimes and players are expected to condition on their own time as well.

“We practice every Tuesday evening between 4 and 5 p.m. on the ice, and do dry land between 5 and 6,” Jones said. “After that, I play pickup games at Valco from 9:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. On Thursdays we have dry land from 7:30 to 9:30 at night, and work on the ice from 9:45 to 11.”

On days with no scheduled prac-tices, Jones takes a run up to the Stan-ford dish or works out by himself.

For both players, getting to prac-tice means hopping on 101 at rush hour to reach their ice rinks in San Jose and San Mateo.

Peters practices at Logitech Ice, the official practice facility for the NHL San Jose Sharks, while Jones and the rest of the Cougars team meet at Bridgepoint Ice Center in San Mateo.

“My teammates have to travel from all over the Bay Area, from Morgan Hill, San Francisco and ev-erywhere in between.”

Though Paly doesn’t have its own team, Peters and Jones enjoy compet-ing with a wide variety of players.

“You meet a lot of new people from different places, which is inter-esting,” Peters said. “And most of the fans watching are family members and close friends, rather than students sup-porting one of the school teams.”

Sports are a good way to make friends and hockey is no exception.

“I get along with everyone on my team, including the coaches,” Peters said. “We all love and respect the game, so it’s easy to relate and form good friendships with your peers.”

Jones shares similar sentiments about his teammates, but rarely meets up with them outside of hockey.

“We see each other three to four times a week at hockey,” Jones said. “I think that’s enough time already.”

Hockey’s national audience hardly increased despite the NHL’s addition of nine new teams during the 1990s.

“It’s hard to follow hockey when they don’t show any of the games on ESPN,” said Jones.

However, NHL teams like the San Jose Sharks have been commended re-cently for amping up local interest.

“I think American support for hockey will keep growing here as long as the San Jose Sharks keep promoting it in the Bay Area,” Peters said.

As Americans begins to warm up to their hockey big leagues, more opportunities for amateur players like Peters and Jones will hopefully arise throughout the country. In the meantime, Peter and Jones look for-ward to playing hockey for the rest of high school and possibly into college as well. Peters, who is a year closer to graduation than Jones, is already working out the details.

“Next week, I have a meeting with the coach of the UCLA club,” Peters said. “I’m planning on playing club hockey in college. I used to want to play in the NCAA programs, but I decided that it was better to focus on school instead.”

As Peters finishes up his final season with the Jr. Sharks, he and Jones will have plenty of chances to compete against each other this year.

“The Cougars are a pretty decent hockey club,” Peters said. “Probably our toughest games of our season will be against them.”

Jones voices his predictions a bit more bluntly:

“They have no chance,” Jones said.

Students fight hard out on the ice

New Global Citizens call attention to global issues

Paly hockey players like Zach Peters (above) and Eric Jones have traveled throughout the Bay Area competing against other teams. Despite the large popularity of the sport in Canada and the eastern United States, hockey has not gained popularity on the west coast.

Julia Benton/The Campanile

Paly junior Cat Chiang brainstorms ideas with the rest of NGC for fundraising ideas and Winter Formal themes. NGC is a relatively new club that meets every Wednesday to tackle world problems and fundraise money to help global causes.

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanile

“I can’t get enough ice time — I breathe hockey.”

Eric Jonesjunior

Despite lack of support, Paly students compete in local ice hockey leagues

Features The Campanile October 22, 2007 • B5

The studio is silent. The lighting is perfectly set. The sound check is done. Three, two, one, action.

Palo Alto High School senior Adam Shore is ready to shoot a tele-vision show at Palo Alto’s Media Center’s television studio. Shore has been involved with activities at the Media Center for over two years.

The Media Center is a non-profit public access television station. The local cable provider, currently Comcast Corporation, is required by California state law to give back to the community and does so in the form of public access media centers, such as the one on San Antonio Blvd. in Palo Alto.

The Media Center offers many programs for people of all ages.

“It is a place for the public to come in and learn how to make their own media,” Media Center Youth Services Director Danielle Fairbairn said.

The Media Center serves the lo-cal cable service area which includes Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Stanford, Atherton and Menlo Park. Anyone who lives or attends school in any of the five areas has the opportunity to come in and use the readily available professional equipment.

Fairbairn oversees the numer-ous programs for the local youth, including the Youth Advisory Council, and the Media Center’s summer camps such as Digiquest and various in-ternships.

Paly students like Shore are in-volved in many of the Media Center’s programs.

“I did a summer camp in 2005 and it sparked my interest in video

production,” Shore said. “Then I started crewing for shows and now I am on the YAC program.”

The YAC aims to give opportu-nities to students in order to expand upon the knowledge gained in regular video production classes available at schools.

“The YAC is a way for high school students to meet students from other schools who are interested in media production and learn how to do it in a professional manner,” Fairbairn said. “Schools have a limited budget, so the equipment might be old or they might not have as much.”

The Media Center offers lights, a video studio, microphones and a whole range of equipment.

The YAC consists of 10 high school students from the service area who meet once a week for approxi-mately three hours. They are taught field and studio production, as well as media criticism.

The students generally create six to seven videos a year, with a focus on social activism. The videos are broad-cast on one of the five local television channels and are available online.

The YAC also serves as an advi-sor for the Media Center’s board of directors.

“We have a board of directors who are community members that give their thoughts on the direction

of the media cen-ter and what we should do,” Fair-bairn said. “The YAC is a way we can get youth involved with the board and get their voices heard on how

the media center can serve the youth in the area.”

The Media Center provides tools for teens considering a career in media to get a taste of the field.

Shore plans to pursue media as a future career and has used the center to learn more about what such a career might entail.

“At this point, I’m just trying to learn as much I can and prepare myself for whatever I continue to pursue in this field,” Shore said.

Paly sophomore Mikkel Nielsen took part in an internship at the Media Center this summer. He edited footage from different events such as the Not in Our School board meeting.

“It was really flexible,” Nielsen said. “I would just call and see if there was an edit suite available. I would come in up to four times a week for

about three hours and I got my project done in the end.”

Nielsen is currently editing a video about a visit he made to Gua-temala, where he helped tile the floor of a school. When Nielsen completes the video it will be aired on one of the station’s five local television channels.

The Media Center offers all of their equipment and space for the public to rent for a small fee. Available equipment ranges from simple cam-eras and microphones to editing suites equipped with necessary software.

Junior Mary Minno is also a new member of the YAC this year. Minno

Media Center helps student movies shine

“When I was in high school, there were many teen centers and different places I could hang out on weekends and bands would play,” Fairbairn said. “It is a safe community space kids can hang out drug-and-alcohol-free.”

While the Media Center contin-ues to grow and expand its programs and services for interested students, one of the YAC’s oldest members, Shore, desires to not only benefit from it but also to help the other members as well.

“The whole point of the Media Center is to get kids interested,” Shore said. “I would just like to have a posi-tive impact on the group.”

looked for an opportunity to volunteer and discovered the Media Center amidst her search.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Minno said. “It’s a really great opportunity to get involved in the community and start off in broadcast journalism. It targets an age group that needs to start figuring out what they want to do and decide where they want to go with their life.”

Programs are always going on at the Media Center. Fairbairn is cur-rently planning a new program, The Sound, that will be offered on Saturday nights. The television studio will also be available for local teen bands.

By yelly Bitton

Staff Writer

Hannah McGovern/The Campanile

High school students familiarize themselves with the Media Center’s equipment, which ranges from simple cameras and microphones to editing suites equipped with software. The students’ exposure to the equipment helps prepare them for careers in media and film.

Palo Alto teen center offers students tools for success for future careers in the media

“It is a place for the public to come in and learn how to make their own media.”

Danielle Fairbairn Youth Services Coordinator

By Crystal Wang

Staff Writer

Sliding across the ice, stick in hand, the player aims, shoots and scores a goal. Almost everything is the same as hockey except for one thing: shoes.

Though it originated in Canada in the early 1900s, broomball is now an internation-ally played sport.

Broomball is most commonly played as a recreational sport in a hockey rink indoors or outdoors, depending on climate and location. Because of the absence of skating, less skill is required to play broomball than ice hockey.

“At first, you’re scared that you’ll fall,” broomball player Palo Alto High School Junior Jean Kim said. “But after a while, you just run and if you fall, it’s funny.”

Men, women and children typically play together. Broomball facilities usually recommend 16 to 20 players at a time per each game.

The basic objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposing team.

Most of the rules and tactics of broom-ball are similar if not identical to the rules of ice hockey. Broomball players may not use their hands or feet to make a goal, and must hit the ball into the opponent’s net using the broom.

Originally, players used a normal household broom to play this game, hence the name.

Early players froze the broom’s bristles, dipped them in rubber, or wrapped them in tape. Now, however, “brooms” are specially made for the sport.

“You don’t actually play with brooms,” Kim said. “You use a stick with a rubber part at the end to push the ball.”

Manufacturers make the triangular heads of brooms out of rubber or corn-straw dipped in rubber. The heads are then attached to a wooden or alumi-num shaft. Brooms may vary in length. The minimum length of a broom is the distance from the ground to a player’s wrists when their arms are resting

at their sides, the maximum length being 54 inches.

Players use a rubber or leather ball in broomball instead of a puck in hockey. The small ball has a circumference be-tween 44 centimeters and 48 centimeters. The balls come in the colors of orange and blue.

Similar to ice hockey, broomball

has two netted goal cages always placed on opposite sides of the ice rink. These goals are typically six feet by eight feet in size, slightly

larger than the regular four feet by six feet hockey goal.

Players must wear helmets when playing broomball. Goaltenders usually wear a full-face caged helmet and thick padding for their legs, chest and shoulders. Padding is optional for the other players.

“Broomball’s kind of dangerous,” Kim said. “That’s why they make you sign waivers and wear helmets.”

Other than recreational play, broomball is also played competitively in many countries. In the U.S., there were no leagues established until 1960. Today, there is a circuit of highly competitive tournaments in North America. Many tournaments provide cash prizes to the winning teams.

Some organizations, such as USA Broom-ball, also include intermediate, co-ed and recreational tournaments.

There are several differences in broomball when played for recreational and competitive purposes.

One difference is the number of players on the ice at a time. In a real game, each team consists of only six players: one goaltender and five others. There is usually three offensive and two defensive players.

Games are broken up into two periods. If there is a tie at the end of the game, the game will continue onto an overtime period.

In the overtime period, the teams play without goalies. Three players from each team will play for five minutes to determine

the winner. If the score is tied at the end of the overtime period, the referee may allow another overtime period to follow.

For more serious players, there are now broomball shoes. The shoes have specially-designed soft rubber soles that help give more friction and grip on the slippery ice.

There are also broomball shoes that have other features such as improved toe, arch and ankle support and waterproofing. Ordinary tennis shoes do not have much traction on the slippery ice.

“It’s easy to slip since you’re running on ice with shoes,” Kim said.

Games are moderated by two on-ice referees. As in hockey, broomball can cause minor injuries to players.

“Broomball is actually a very violent sport,” junior Erik Klingbeil said. “I got lots of bruises the time I played it.”

However, Klingbeil said his overall expe-rience with broomball was fun and exciting.

Broomball is especially popular among high school and college students. It is seen as a great sport for clubs, schools, church groups, organizations and businesses.

Winter Lodge, an ice skating facility in Palo Alto, is popular for broomball. Booking for a broomball party is $325 per hour. Winter Lodge provides players with the brooms, balls, goals, helmets and elbow and knee pads.

“Broomball is not a huge thing at Winter Lodge, but it is popular,” Winter Lodge em-ployee Rebecca Cotton said. “There are groups that come year after year.”

Other local opportunities include Cuper-tino Ice Center near the Valco Shopping Center and the Ice Oasis Skating and Hockey Club in Redwood City. The Sharks Ice Rink in Fremont also allows for group rentals.

At the Sharks Ice Rink, a game of broom-ball costs $340 per hour for 25 participants and $10 extra for each additional person.

Since broomball is so attractive to stu-dents, rinks in shopping malls and near college campuses have been especially successful in setting up recreational programs.

Kim played recreational broomball at the Vallco Shopping Center with his friends and church group.

“Broomball’s fun when you’re playing with your friends,” Kim said. “You’re all on the ice, running around, scoring and just having fun.”

Broomball sweeps into local ice rinks

Julia Benton/The Campanile

Broomball is a sport very similar to hockey, except that players play in shoes instead of ice skates. The Winter Lodge in Palo Alto, the Cupertino Ice Center, Ice Oasis in Redwood City and the Sharks Ice Rink in Fremont all offer broomball.

“At first, you’re scared that you’ll fall. But after a while, you just run and if you fall, its funny.”

Jean Kimjunior

Features B6 • October 22, 2007 The Campanile

By Amy Stringer

Features Editor

Two to three coats of a solid paint called angelus begins the process of shoe-customiza-tion. After hours, and sometimes even days, of painting and airbrushing, a protective fin-ish is finally applied to the shoe, completing the artwork.

Whether living in Palo Alto or his native Italy, Palo Alto High School senior Marco Behtash finds art to be an integral part of his life.

Since childhood, Behtash has taken pri-vate art lessons and currently plays the double bass in the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, both of which have contributed to his artistic sense.

While art has become part of Behtash’s everyday existence, one of his most unique forms of expression is customizing shoes.

Behtash began his shoe-designing career when he tried it out for his Humanities class final last year.

Having shown an enthusiastic interest for art and shoes throughout his life, Behtash decided to take his two favorite pastimes to a new level and combine them to create his own hand-painted shoe designs.

“My brother gave me the idea for the Humanities final,” Behtash said. “He was interested in shoes and he told me about dif-

ferent types of shoes and what made them special, rare and expensive, so I decided I could do something related to that.”

The shoes made by Behtash for his final project, a pair of lime-green Nikes with in-tricate designs painted on each side, quickly became his favorite.

“I do it because I love art,” Behtash said. “It is really gratifying when it is finished.”

After experimenting with all types of art mediums, Behtash found that customizing shoes was an outlet through which he could let his creativity flow.

“I took private art classes when I was little, and art class was required in Italy,” Behtash said.

As a young boy, Behtash took classes at the University of California at Berkeley. These classes proved to be both helpful and influential in his shoe-customizing hobby.

“I remember I had this huge desk and I would go there and draw on white print paper,” Behtash said. “The classes got me started and now, even outside of art classes, I’m always drawing and sketching.”

Unfortunately, designing shoes can be a costly hobby, both in time and expenses. One pair of shoes can cost around $90, and can take several days to decorate. Painting materials and other art supplies can cost up to $50 per pair. Luckily for Behtash, both of his parents support him in his artistic endeavors.

“My parents always encourage me to draw and paint,” Behtash said. “They are supportive of art in general, but with shoes, the only thing they did was pay for the sup-plies.”

Behtash’s artistic hobby has even prompted him to start an informal business designing shoes for friends for a set price. While he paints shoes as an outlet for his own creativity, the designs for his customers are always up to their own discretion.

“I paid Marco $50 for his work, and it actually turned out a lot better than I expected,” senior Jordan Jefferson said. “What I like most about my customs is that I know no one else out there has a shoe that looks like mine.”

Although he does not see shoe-designing as a potential career, Behtash intends to have a career that involves design.

“Shoe-customizing could be a Plan B, and I know a bunch of people who start their own little companies, so it’s not something unreasonable,” Behtash said.

While his hobby of designing shoes may remain merely a hobby and a casual service for friends, Behtash will always remain a collector and a designer at heart.

“There are some people who dedicate their entire lives to collecting shoes,” Behtash said. “As a collector, I’ll always take really good care of my shoes and I will never throw them away.”

Senior gets his kicks from customizing shoes

Hannah McGovern/The Campanile

Paly senior Marco Behtash customizes a pair of Nike shoes. Behtash’s hobby began as a final project for his Humanities class and has become a business.

Features The Campanile October 22, 2007 • B7

The month of October marks a significant point in the year. As fall begins, the days get shorter, the nights get longer and with the end of the first quarter, there is no reason not to celebrate. As Halloween approaches, it is imperative to plan accordingly. For those who have outgrown traditional trick-or-treating, here are some events that will ensure a night of treats.

Stanford Shopping CenterOn Oct. 27, the Simon Kidgits Club will

hold its annual Halloween event. The club is a fun group for kids that provides games and special events at Stanford Shopping Center. Many types of candy, games and entertainment will be provided for kids and teens while par-ents can sit back and relax at a nearby café.

11th Annual“Halloween Heroes” Benefit

Trick-or-treaters of all ages will be able to enjoy a night of “thrilling sights, fun-loving frights and an array of delights,” when the Wender Weis Foundation for Children takes over San Francisco’s Exploratorium for its 11th annual “Halloween Heroes” benefit on Oct. 29. Proceeds from this special evening will benefit the Giants Community Fund’s Junior Giants Baseball Program and the Ex-ploratorium Children’s Educational Outreach Program. The Exploratorium is located at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.

Halloween HappeningsJoin friends and family on Oct. 31 at the

King Community Center in San Mateo for this traditional Halloween event. The night will be filled with games and entertainment. The festivities will begin at 6 p.m. with the King House Carnival, followed by a costume contest, games and a haunted castle.

Winchester Mystery HouseAt this classic haunted mansion built in

1884, learn a bit of history while enjoying the delights of the Halloween season. Special flashlight tours of the Winchester Mansion will make the experience even more exciting.

During this tour, guests will venture through the mysterious mansion at night with nothing but a flashlight. Special entertainment and trick-or-treating in the gardens will provide fun and amusement for the entire family on Halloween.

The Haunted LakeOn Oct. 26 and 27 from 6-9 p.m., join

friends and family at Foothills Park for a night of tricks and treats filled with ghost stories, crafts, refreshments and of course, the haunted lake. Admission is $8 for Palo Alto residents and $10 for non-residents.

Halloween Monster BashOn Oct. 31 from 5-6 p.m. Hillsdale

Mall invites children of all ages to a trick-or-treating event. At 6 and 6:45 p.m. there will then be two twenty-minute “Monster Bash” shows. There will also be many other games and entertainment going on at the same time, including a slime booth and pictures with the Great Pumpkin.

Trunk or TreatOn Oct. 31 from 6-9 p.m., join the Moun-

tain View community for the Trunk or Treat, hosted by the New Life Church. Cars will be decorated and dressed up in costumes, and the drivers will be giving away candy from the trunks of their cars. The event will also include puppet shows, skits, a bounce house, refreshments, games and all sorts of entertain-ment for the entire family.

Horror Movie ScreeningOn Halloween from 3:30-5:30 p.m., the

Santa Clara Teen Center will open its doors to middle and high school students who are interested in seeing a montage of some of the greatest horror movies throughout history. Admission is free.

Gyro’s Scream FestCheck out one of the nation’s premier

haunted houses in San Jose. Open from 7 p.m. until midnight on Halloween, the three large haunted attractions occupy 100,000 square feet of the Westfield Oakridge Shopping Center. Director Rob Zombie will feature his movie, The Devil’s Playground.

Japantown HalloweenFor those who are willing to commute to

San Jose, Japantown merchants will be giving away candy to everyone dressed in costume. San Jose Taiko begins the festivities with a performance at Wesley United Methodist Church. From 5-6:30 p.m., enjoy trick-or-

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanile

Numerous locations in the Bay Area offer fun, safe alternatives to trick-or-treating in the neighborhood and plenty of candy for anyone who comes in a costume.

treating in Japantown, or participate in the games and entertainment offered at the San Jose event.

So, instead of spending another night doing homework and handing out candy to costumed trick-or-treaters, take a night off from work and have fun.

Halloween filled with tricks and treatsHalloween Haunts

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanile

By Amy Stringer

Features Editor

Stanford Shopping CenterSimon Kidgits Club

Halloween Heroes Benefit3601 Lyon St.San Francisco

Halloween HappeningsKing Community Center725 Monte Diablo Ave.

San Mateo

Winchester Mystery House525 So. Winchester Blvd.

San Jose

The Haunted Lake Foothills Park

3300 Page Mill Rd.Los Altos Hills

Halloween Monster BashHillsdale Mall60 31st Ave.San Mateo

Trunk or Treat New Life Church

1912 San Luis Ave.Mountain View

Horror Movie ScreeningSanta Clara Teen Center

2446 Cabrillo Ave.Santa Clara

Gyro’s Scream FestWestfield Oakridge Shopping Center

San Jose

Japantown HalloweenWesley United Methodist Church

566 N. 5th St.San Jose

A & E The Campanile

B8 October 22, 2007

Halo 3 explodes onto small screen

By AlAn Chu

Senior Staff Writer

Courtesy of www.360.advancedmn.com

Halo 3 arrives with improved graphics, game play and artificial intelligence in comparison to Halo 2, making it a magnificent ending to the video game trilogy. The popular online multiplayer option includes free-for-all team battles, as pictured above. In free-for-all matches, gamers can ride new vehicles and wield new weapons.

Halo 3Price: $59.99Rated: M (Mature)Platform: XBox 360

Space monks vocalize in har-mony to create a haunting melody. Killer mutant parasites lurk around every corner. Green blood is splat-tered everywhere. Death screams echo throughout the area. Welcome to the world of Halo 3.

Halo 3 does not take place directly after Halo 2; instead, a comic mini-series links the two games. Regardless, Halo 3 starts with a bang.

The story offers closure, in all senses of the word. The protagonist single-handedly ends the war being fought in the Halo universe.

Since the story is not the cohesive bind that makes gamers devote their life to the game, it can be excused for being slightly thin. In the title screen, medleys of songs come and go. One

painfully noticeable noise is the sing-ing monks who do not harmonize with the theme song.

In the first Halo game, the monks would vocalize in an epic beginning and would trail off for the orchestra to play the rest of the theme song. It is a small difference, but the little things add up.

At the start of the game, the title screen’s music soon fades from memory. The music still retains the epic feeling from the first game but is slightly more melodious than the previous two.

Throughout the game, the music plays in pockets, meaning that the only “music” for some time in the game is the death screams of fallen enemies.

The other noises heard are curses screamed by various enemies or the gunshots ripping through the air. This gives the game a realistic feeling,

but it does get tiring just waiting for the music to start back up from its intermission.

The graphics of the game are not as smooth or defined as promised by the various trailers floating around the Internet.

The Xbox could probably handle Halo 3’s graphics, which look like an

upgraded version of Halo 2’s visuals. Although, with all the action going on at one time, using last genera-tion’s graphics is probably a shrewd choice.

Keeping the action as smooth and fluid as possible requires less power behind the visuals and more behind the controls and physics.

The game play is all about shooting. In Halo 3, there are new and improved elements added to the whole game, but the newest addition to Halo 3 is the equipment.

The equipment is new to the series, but is so seamlessly added to the fight that it feels like it was there all along.

Equipment can turn the tide in a gun fight. New equipment includes the bubble shield, which blocks bullets from going in and out and the trip mine, a huge explosive pack that is activated if anyone comes into its range.

There are a total of nine pieces of equipment that are available to the player. This can be a double-edged sword, as the enemies are smart enough to deploy their own equipment into the fight.

The multiplayer cooperation mode is unique because the second

player now controls a character from the story.

In previous Halo’s, the second player would just be a clone in the game play and completely disap-pear in the cinemas of the game. Not anymore.

This time both characters are featured in the cinema and game play. However, the size of the split screen is still quite small.

With the different format on the screen, information such as am-munition and enemy position merely becomes a dot on the screen, no matter how big the television.

Online, it is similar to Halo 2, but with more user-friendly features. For instance, there are now levels in the Forge, and one can save videos of game play in Theater. Both are new additions to the online options.

The first Halo game, released on November 15, 2001, became the only reason to get an Xbox. From epic scores to futuristic battles, it was a fan boy’s dream come true.

It was obvious that a sequel ought to be made and on Nov. 9, 2004, Halo 2 came in, riding on its predecessor’s coattails. It built upon the game play that Halo had already established, but with a spit-shine polish and online capabilities.

Much to the chagrin of gamers, the story ended with an abrupt cliff-hanger, leaving their flagship Xbox game dead in the water until another sequel came out. Halo 3, released for the Xbox 360 on Sept. 25, 2007 came with great fanfare and anticipation.

The hype swirling around Halo 3 made it seem like it was a gift from the heavens. The game did not disap-point, but it did not completely fulfill promises.

All in all, it is more of the same for the series. That is not necessarily a bad thing, as it includes polished game-play and online features. But it could be bad, as the same problems plaguing the other Halo titles, such as tiring death screams and small multiplayer split screen, are still present.

It takes a trained eye to spot all the imperfections in Halo 3. So despite all this, the whole game meshes beauti-fully into one next generation game.

Yesterday’s hot bands make new comebacksBy BeCky Byler

Staff Writer

It took 38 seconds for one million fans to buy all avail-able tickets to the Spice Girls Reunion concert in London, prompting the addition of three more concerts in the city alone. The Spice Girls are one of numerous groups from the 1990s that will reunite this year.

Spice Girls

The Spice Girls split in 1998, when Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) left the group due to a fallout with Melanie Brown (Sporty Spice). Since then, the five Spice Girls have gone in different directions, becoming mothers, solo singers, dancers and UN ambassadors.

“The Spice Girls Reunion Tour,” stopping in 14 cit-ies worldwide, is the most anticipated tour this year and will help to support the November release of A Spice Girls Greatest Hits album. The Spice Girls expect this comeback tour to be a “final good bye and thank you,” denying rumors that they plan on recording a new album. Tickets have already sold out on many online venues for the Dec. 4 concert at HP Pavilion in San Jose, where initial ticket prices were between $300 and $1,000.

Backstreet BoysThe reunion of the Backstreet Boys has sent preteen

girls everywhere running to the nearest music store. After a three-year hiatus and a lackluster album, the Backstreet Boys have reformed with only four of the five original members. Kevin Richardson did not return to the group, deciding to pursue a solo career he felt he could not have done while he was a member of the Backstreet Boys.

The group’s promising new album, Unbreakable, is set to release on Oct. 30. AJ McLean described the new album as a “blend of everything we’ve done in the past 15 years,” and said he is excited for the end result, which should have a more pop sound than the Backstreet Boys’ last album, Never Gone.

“Inconsolable,” one of the singles released this summer has already generated good reviews, mak-

ing the United States’ Billboard Hot 100 at #86. At the moment, the Backstreet Boys are not plan-ning to go on tour, but group members say that any-thing is possible when it comes to the band’s future.

Matchbox TwentyMatchbox Twenty’s reunion, while not given as much

press as that of the Spice Girls or the Backstreet Boys, has nevertheless generated a huge fan response. Adam Gaynor’s departure in 2005 triggered the band’s break-up.

Rob Thomas, the band’s lead singer and songwriter went on to begin his successful solo career.

Thomas hopes to continue his solo career despite the reunion of Matchbox Twenty, and plans to record his next album in 2008. Matchbox Twenty’s comeback album, Exile on Mainstream, features the Top 100 Billboard hit “How Far We’ve Come,” released on Oct. 2. The group simultaneously released video interviews and memorabilia to go with the CD. Plans for a new album, set to release in 2009, are underway.

The reunion of these groups has already sparked interest among other popular ‘90s groups, such as *NSYNC, who may also reunite in 2007. Despite rumors of a reunion, band members say that they are “just seeing how things go.” Nevertheless, Justin Timberlake’s successful solo career may be holding off an *NSYNC reunion, or at least for now.

Only time will tell if the bands’ reunions were worth the trouble, but they are definitely earning a fair profit from their colossal fan base.

Clockwise from left: Courtesy of http://www.dailymail.co.uk, http://www.play.rhapsody.com, http://wallpapers.dpics.org

Popular bands of the 1990s such as the Spice Girls (left), the Backstreet Boys and Matchbox Twenty are making comebacks this year by going on tour for their new albums. The Spice Girls will take the stage at HP Pavilion in San Jose on Dec. 4, in what is one of the most anticipated concerts of the year.

Halo 3•$170 million opening-day sales•1.7 million preorders•1 million players on first day

by the numbers

A & E The Campanile October 22, 2007 • B9

By AlAn Chu

Senior Staff Writer

Nestled on University Avenue is an Indian restaurant called Hyderabad House. This quaint little building has a unique color scheme that invades the senses.

The restaurant walls are painted with a salmon color reminiscent of an ancient monas-tery. Various pictures of bazaars and buildings hang on the walls, interrupting the salmon pink and give the building a homey feeling. The restaurant can only hold 30 people before it bursts at the seams; the small tables that seat only two people emphasize this even more.

In the background, music plays softly. If the sweet sound of traffic outside is not dominating, diners are able to listen to the music, which is a mix of incoherent singing, mandolins and drums.

Relative to the entrance, the cash register is all the way in the back of the restaurant, where the staff, the cashier and the waiter reside. The place is thoroughly understaffed so some responsibilities are handed to the custom-ers. From fetching the sharp laminated menus to refilling the beverages, the customer has to do it all like a lowly pack mule. This in itself is not unreasonable. If the two-man staff tried to fulfill these duties, service would lag behind. Once an order has been placed, the customer takes a numbered stand back to a table. The food arrives within several minutes.

The naan ($1.50) comes in four pieces cut from one whole bread. The bread is a hybrid of several different cultures’ taste. The naan has a floury texture, similar to that of a tortilla.

Even the aftertaste is reminiscent of an-other culture: its buttery smoothness is usually associated with its French counterpart, the croissant. This combination of textures and flavors is the perfect complement to all of the curries available at the Hyderabad House. The lentil soup ($3.95) is exactly like split pea soup, right down to the texture. However, the soup contains lumps, like mashed potatoes.

By Kelley Shin

Staff Writer

We Own the Night starts off with black and white snapshots of crime scenes, which outline the movie’s plot. Directed by James Gray, this crime drama captures the suspense and hor-ror of the drug war, but also contains logical flaws and slow moments that are boring and unnecessary.

Nevertheless, We Own the Night has creative plot twists make this movie riveting enough to be worth two hours and $10.

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Set in Brooklyn in 1988, We Own the Night tells the story of two brothers distanced by their choices regarding the drug war.

One brother, Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix), is the owner of a nightclub that is frequently visited by gangsters. Bobby’s life is full of parties and danger due to the fact that his nightclub is the haven of notorious drug dealer Vadim Nezhinski (Alex Veodov).

In contrast, his brother Joseph (Mark Wahlberg) is following in their father’s footsteps and upholding a

Hyderabad House offers unique menu of Indian cuisine of curries, kabobs and soups

Courtesy of http://www.canmag.com

The sickly yellowish-green color of the soup distinguishes itself from split pea soup and echoes of regurgitated peas.

Once diners see past the aesthetics of the soup, the dish’s taste is unique to say the least. The taste is similar to split pea soup with a tinge of sourness; lemon juice can be squeezed in for more zing.

The eggplant curry ($9.95) is served in a gravy boat-type of bowl. Along with the eggplants, various vegetables, including peas and tomatoes, are served. The only “flavor” in the curry is spice. While eating the dish, a pepper seed pops out every now and then to show off how spicy the curry really is.

However, like the lentil soup, the aesthet-ics are not pleasing. First off, the ingredients are mixed in a mysterious brown “sauce”, in what appears to be a transitory stage between liquid and solid. Secondly, the pieces of egg-plant are not solid; they are more along the lines of mush.

The Rogan Josh ($9.95), or lamb curry, conversely appears like it is in a thin stew instead of being blanketed by the brown sauce like the eggplant curry. In fact the curry’s only ingredient is lamb, with the brown sauce sur-rounding several pieces of meat.

The lamb comes off as salty, rather than spicy — so much so that if it was not soft to chew, it could be called lamb jerky. Fortunately, the salty taste eventually wears off and the flavor of the lamb appears in the aftertaste of the dish. Even though the lamb comes off as too salty, it is oddly addicting.

The chicken tikka kabob ($7.95) comes in six pieces. However, while it is not served upon a stick, there is a gaping hole in each of the pieces where the stick was originally.The color of the chicken is an off-beat yellow with black charred pieces around the edges.

The chicken first tastes peppery, but gradually shifts into the familiar chicken flavor with the occasional burnt crunchy part. The chicken has a sour aftertaste, reminiscent of the lentil soup.

The chicken kabob roll ($7.95) is made up of onions, tomatoes and chicken, all held together by naan, creating an Indian version of a burrito.Inside the naan, the contents are mixed within a spicy creamy sauce that tastes like spicy mayonnaise. The tomatoes, because of the sauce, look like drowned pieces of red pepper.

The naan is immediately overridden by all of the ingredients, and the meat tastes like bland chicken since no other spices or flavors are added. The onions only add a crunch to the roll, adding texture but no flavor. After all this, the tomatoes and the sauce leave a

nice little spicy kick to send the taste buds on their way. The only reason why the roll should be left half-eaten is that it is simply too big to finish.

Hyderabad House seems to be an authentic Indian hole in the wall. The place is packed with a crowd of 30 people and the service, or lack thereof, is nostalgic of a buffet style restaurant; the staff only handles the money and places orders. However, the dishes come out relatively fast, with only two people. The food itself is a wonderful sensation, if spici-ness is not an obstacle. Yet the aesthetics are not very pleasing to the eye.

But this is just another example of wrongly judging a book by its cover. Or in this case, wrongly judging curries by their mysterious brown sauce.

family tradition by joining the New York Police Department.

Bobby looks the other way when drug deals occur in his nightclub and tries to stay neutral in the drug war, but is ultimately forced to choose a side when his brother is shot.

Throughout the movie, the themes of family, loyalty and violence come up.

In the beginning, Green tries his hardest to stay separated from his family of cops and even changes his last name to Green to cut all family ties. However, as drug deals increase

and the casualties turn personal, Green realizes the importance of family.

Gray manages to develop the characters’ relationships and create perfect on-screen chemistry.

The theme of loyalty never leaves the plot as Green remains loyal to his family over the gangsters at his club.

When Green agrees to help Nezhinski in a major drug deal, he betrays Nezhinski by wearing a track-ing device.

Seemingly every scene in this crime drama seems to be a violent one.

Spicy Indian flavor delights diners

There are a number of shooting scenes in which the audience is exposed to gory wounds and excessive amounts of blood.

The many gory scenes may cause the movie goers to cringe and turn away.

However, although the images are unpleasant, they do help to portray the emotions and circumstances that are a part of the movie. Violence is, after all, a major factor in the drug war.

The cinematography is excellent, with a wide range of different shots and angles.

During suspenseful moments with more anticipation than action, the camera zooms into the actor’s face and the subject that the actor is looking at, allowing the audience to feel like they are right there with the characters in that moment.

Then, for more chaotic, active scenes, the camera is unfocused and shaky, which adds to the sense of chaos.

While We Own the Night has a strong theme and an impressive cast, there are still flaws to this movie. The acting is not always good, as Phoenix mumbles many of his lines making it difficult and frustrating to watch.

However, the actors manage to express the emotions of the characters they portray; allowing the audience to feel the emotions with them and to better understand the circumstances of the scene.

There are some logical flaws throughout the entire movie, making the plot confusing.

For example, Green initially leads a very different lifestyle from the rest of his family and tries to hide that all of his family are distinguished New York City cops.

No one other than his girlfriend Amanda (Eva Mendes) knows of his family connection — not even his boss or any of the other people he works with.

However, a big-time drug dealer like Nezhinski would certainly do a background check on Green before doing business.

Perhaps this clumsy error made it easier for Gray to advance the plot, but it was quite obvious.

At times the story progresses too slowly, bringing the audience from anxiety and suspense to boredom and impatience.

The movie runs for two hours, and there are a couple of scenes that are unworthy of screen time and un-important to the plot.

Overall, We Own the Night does a little better than a decent job in por-traying the time period of drug wars by adding in the emotional family ties and by implementing some creative twists to the plot.

We Own The Night is worth watching, but not for someone who has a weak stomach since there are a number of violent scenes.

Bobby Green (Joaqin Phoenix) talks with girlfriend Amanda (Eva Mendes) in his nightclub, located in Brooklyn. Green’s club attracts a variety of seedy characters which brings him into direct conflict with his brother Joseph (Mark Wahlberg), a New York policeman.

Hyderabad House

Location: 448 University Avenue, Palo Alto

We Own the Night shows human side of the drug war

The naan (center, $1.50), eggplant curry (top right, $9.95), Rogan Josh (bottom, $9.95), and chicken kabob roll (bottom left, $7.95) lie on the table ready to be eaten by hungry diners. Hyderabad House offers patrons authentic Indian food.

Alan Chu/The Campanile

Hours: Mon. 4:00 p.m.-10:00p.m. Tues-Fri. 11:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m. Sat.-Sun. 12:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. Prices: $2-$10

We Own the Night

Director: James GrayCast: Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Eva MendesRunning Time: 117 min.Rating: R

A & E The Campanile B10 • October 22, 2007

Soulja Boy cranks out disappointing debut

Tell ‘EmArtist: Soulja BoyLabel: Interscope RecordsRunning Time: 78 minutes

By Alex Greene

Staff Writer

Three months after Soulja Boy released his hit single “Crank That,” his debut album SouljaBoyTellEm.com has arrived.

Released Oct. 2, the album proves that for now, at least, Soulja Boy, born DeAndre Way, is just a one-hit wonder. Although the new album is riddled with mediocre songs, a few demon-strate Soulja Boy’s potential talent. After all, he is only seventeen.

“Crank That,” the album’s only gem, uses steel drums in the beat to produce a unique sound. Other rappers have also begun to add a wave of exotic sounds to their traditional beats.

The one decent song on the album other than “Crank That” is “Don’t Get Mad.”

The song discusses adults’ in-ability to understand Soulja Boy’s music as well as his rise into the music industry.

In the chorus Soulja Boy repeats “Don’t get mad cause the kids like me.” Most of his verses are about how amazing his story is: “It’s amazing what I did with a mic and the Internet/No deals, just a lot of fads and the fads stayed on my side.”

While Soulja Boy’s music is terrible, his story has proved him an excellent performer as well as businessman.

Soulja Boy uses the Internet as the primary means of promoting his songs and merchandise. His music videos on YouTube have attracted more than 30 million plays and they have become some of the most viewed videos on the internet.

The Soulja Boy dance is so popu-lar that hundreds of home videos with people and even cartoon characters doing his dance have been posted on YouTube, some of which are nearly as popular as the original.

A group of white guys even re-ceived almost three million hits for their version of the dance. As Soulja

Courtesy of www.souljaboytellem.comSoulja Boy’s popular dance song “Crank That” has given the 17-year-old singer instant fame and fortune. Through Web sites like YouTube and Google, Soulja Boy’s unique dance has made him a popular icon, but the initial media frenzy is also the only reason anyone would be tricked into buying one of the worst albums of 2007.

Boy says in “Don’t Get Mad,” “the biggest form of flattery is a lot of copycats.”

However, Soulja Boy was never a copycat himself. He began his career in high school by teaming up with a classmate named Arab to form the 30/30 Boys.

Eventually, the pair drew the at-tention of Mr. Collipark, a producer for Interscope Records.

None of the other songs on the album will ever be hits, but many have redeeming qualities. “Report Card” is a parody of “Throw Some D’s”

by Rich Boy, and talks about Soulja Boy’s school troubles.

The chorus is essentially Soulja Boy begging his teacher to give him Ds instead of Fs. It is a comic song, but it reflects Soulja Boy’s transforma-tion from a straight A to a straight F student as music started becoming a bigger part of his life.

Though the lyrics to “Pass It To Arab” are horrible, the beat makes it worth a listen. “Pass It To Arab” is a very upbeat song. If it had lyrics other than “Pass it to Arab,” which Soulja Boy repeats over and over again in

the chorus, it might have become an excellent track.

Unfortunately, while there are a few decent songs, the uninspired ones far outweigh them. “Soulja Girl” is probably the most bland song of the album. It is a horrid attempt to piece with “Crank That.”

“Yahhh!” is about the annoyance of fans asking for autographs when one is famous.

The chorus is comprised of Soulja Boy interrupting fans trying to talk to him by shouting out “Yahhh! Trick yahhh! Get out my face!” This song

is so bad it is almost worth a listen to get a good laugh. Even Soulja Boy starts laughing at one point during the song.

Adding to the list of mediocre songs is “Sidekick,” about Soulja Boy’s phone. The four-note, electron-ic-beat sounds like a broken tuba and is so repetitive and monotonous that is almost painful to listen to.

Just when one thinks the album can’t get any worse, along come the songs “Donk” and “Booty Meat.”

The titles speak for themselves, but both songs are also extremely

repetitive in their lyrics. It seems as if Soulja Boy is trying to come up with new original ways to say a**, but ends up coming off just as offensive.

While Soulja Boy might be a ter-rific businessman and performer, his album does not showcase his talents. Better luck next time, Soulja Boy.

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A & E The Campanile October 22, 2007 • B11

By Mira Parekh

Staff Writer

Nestled in the Charleston Shopping Center on Middle-field Road, Green Elephant’s location is not where one would expect to find an extensive Burmese and Chinese gourmet. This, however, is exactly what Green Elephant offers. Guests are welcomed into the surprisingly well-decorated restaurant, which offers a warm atmosphere and has an oriental door.

The well-lit and well-decorated space retains a ca-sual mood, giving the restaurant a very comfortable and home-like feeling. The dark carpet and mellow green walls compliment each other well, radiating a calm ambiance. The bamboo shoots that separate the entrance from the dining area and the golden slumbering Buddha statue add to the elegance of decor. The interior is reasonably spacious and seats groups of seven to eight without overcrowding the dining area.

While most of the restaurant is staffed by mostly Mandarin speaking waitresses, Green Elephant’s head chef is from Burma and Green Elephant, which he co-owns with his wife is his first restaurant.

Although identified as a Burmese restaurant, Green Elephant draws many influences from Burma’s neighbors, such as India and Thailand, and the majority of the menu boasts dishes from China.

The menu is divided into Chinese and Burmese cui-sines, with vegetable and meat dishes in each. Although the Chinese cuisine offers a variety of vegetarian dishes, the Burmese side of the menu has none. The menu also offers six dish family meals that range from $13.95 to $17.95 per person.

Appetizers are listed under both sections of the menu, and although the Chinese appetizers are the standard affair of spring rolls and wontons, the Burmese menu offers an interesting selection of appetizers that are worth taking a look at.

Samusas ($4.95), a Burmese twist of the classic potato dumpling, is served on a bed of lettuce with a side of dipping sauce. The samusas’ crispy exterior is stuffed with potatoes and a flavorful spice, reminiscent of a warm pastry. Although the samusas are slightly greasy, the bold spices give the potato filling much needed depth and the dipping sauce adds tang and spice to an already satisfy-ing experience.

The chabade ($5.95) proves to be an even more unique and tasty appetizer. Consisting simply of flour tortillas and a coconut sauce, the dish does not look very promising at first sight.

The sauce resembles a smooth, creamy gravy with blended curry spices and fresh coconut to produce a taste that lingers lightly and is not overpowering. The creamy coconut acts as a base that helps mellow the spices. The warm tortillas are the perfect combination for the smooth coconut sauce.

From the Burmese menu, one must have the tea leaf salad ($8.25). The salad consists of imported Burmese tea leaves, chopped tomatoes, iceberg lettuce, sesame seeds and peanuts. The salad is covered in a tea leaf salad dressing which provides the right amount of zest without overpowering the fresh vegetables.

The dish arrives with the ingredients separated from each other and the waitress tosses the salad at the table. A perfect balance between crisp, fresh greens and nutty

Hannah McGovern/The Campanile

The Green Elephant, a popular restaurant in Charleston Shopping Center, provides a comfortable atmosphere with attractive oriental decorations such as an elegant slumbering Buddha. The well-decorated restaurant has an extensive menu with dishes from Burmese and Chinese cultures.

The Green Elephant offers appealing cuisines

flavors brought out by the peanuts and sesame seeds makes this salad a healthy and tasty option.

Another Burmese dish that is worth trying is Poodi ($8.50), a dish of potatoes in a delicious sauce of tama-rind, tomato, mint and chili. The dish comes with warm flour tortillas that are to be eaten with the potatoes. The potatoes are delightful and have a unique contrast of mint and sweetness from the tomato based sauce.

On the Chinese side of the menu, the delectable orange chicken ($10.50) is a clear winner. The dish is served with chunks of chicken dressed with orange sauce and presented in a porcelain dish surrounded by fresh greens.

The chicken, which is deep fried for a crispy exterior and then stir fried with orange peel, is done to perfection. The outside is light and crispy with a perfectly tender, delectable inside. The orange peel is a primary component

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(650) 322-0288 (phone)(650) 322-0488 (fax)

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A paint-your-own pottery and mosaic studio. It’s fun, easy, and great for all ages!

299 S. California Ave.Palo Alto, CA 94306

(650) 323-1515http://www.CreateItCeramics.com

Bring this card for $5.00 off your next visit!

Geraldine AsmusRealtor, International President’s Circle

245 Lytton Avenue, Suite 100Palo Alto, CA 94301

(650) 306-0410g.asmus@att.net

•Beautifully Remodeled Town Home•Mountain View / $599,000•2 Bedrooms, 1 1/2 Baths•Very Private, Close to Schools•Questions? Call Geraldine: (650) 306-0410

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Check out our archives at:

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of flavor with a fruity, citric flavor that complements the spicy flavor of the sauce.

The Mongolian beef ($11.50), a dish of stir-fried beef with leeks and onions which is served with hot and spicy sauce, is a let down in comparison to other meat dishes. The beef is cooked well, but the hot and spicy sauce did not add any flavor to the beef. The leeks, although plentiful, do not seem to have any presence in the dish. Overall, the Mongolian beef completely lacks any of the strong flavor and satisfaction that is found in the other dishes.

Although the dinner menu is extensive, the desert menu consists of just one mediocre item. The fried banana ($3.50) is a dish that can be found at many Asian cuisine restaurants and is served in the traditional style with ice cream and crispy warm bananas that have been cooked to a golden brown color. It’s a great finish to a tasty meal.

The Green Elephant offers both delicious Burmese and Chinese cuisine at a convenient, neighborhood location. Although set an inconspicuous setting, its simple elegance and quality matches that of many great restaurants found in Palo Alto.

The Green Elephant’s varied menu houses something that everyone is bound to enjoy.

Green Elephant

Location: 3950 Middlefield Road, Palo AltoHours: Lunch 11 a.m-2:30 p.m. daily Dinner 4:30-9 p.m. dailyPrices: $5.00- $18.00

Restaurant offers friendly atmosphere and appealing blend of authentic Burmese and Chinese dishes

A & E B12 • October 22, 2007 The Campanile

Diners grab retro burgers at Jeffrey’s

New thriller a Rendition of generic melodrama

The peninsula’s new hamburger joint, Jeffrey’s Hamburgers, offers a wide variety of milkshakes and burgers in a 50s-style restaurant.

Elizabeth Petit/The Campanile

By Sara reihani

A&E Editor

Critically acclaimed director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, A Reasonable Man) leads an all-star cast in the new political drama Rendition.

The film’s title refers to the legal practice of “extraordinary rendition:” the government’s authority to move suspected terrorists to prisons outside their home country to undergo harsh interrogation.

It sounds like a formula for great success, but the dull writing and cardboard characters turn what could have been a potent political thriller into what is instead a stun-ningly generic treatment of a remarkably controversial current issue.

By anna Waldron

Staff Writer

Jeffrey’s Hamburgers epitomizes the diner experience. Even before stepping into the restaurant, customers are drawn in by the salty smells of french fries and fish and chips that guarantee a lip-smackingly delicious meal.

Inside, the restaurant is big and airy with high ceilings, reminiscent of diners from the 1950s. Coca-Cola paraphernalia, models of Thunderbirds and street signs line the white walls to capture the essence of a retro drive-thru.

Red leather booths add fun to the oth-erwise white and gray atmosphere.

Almost all of the seating is composed of wide booths, making it an enjoyable and comfortable place to share a scrumptious meal with family, friends or a large party.

Customers seated at the stainless steel counter get to watch the cooks grill and flip patties to fill the never-ending burger orders.

Although Jeffrey’s is usually crowded and a line is always present, waiting for a table or placing an order goes by fairly quickly.

Deciding what to order may take a while because Jeffrey’s offers a wide variety of low-priced classics including hot dogs, chili, fries, sandwiches and burgers.

The assorted options not only sound mouth-watering, but may be healthier than what other diners dish up.

Jeffrey’s advertises that the ham-burger meat used is “personally ground and hand-packed daily from the USDA Choice shoulder chuck.” Turkey burgers and gardenburgers are offered as healthy alternatives.

Even french fries and onion rings are given a healthy twist as they are fried in canola oil which, according to Jeffrey’s, lowers the saturated fat content and elimi-nates cholesterol.

Once the order has been placed, a ca-shier gives the customer a plastic number. A host guides diners to the next available table. Milkshakes and salads are served first and fairly promptly for a restaurant that is booming with business.

The milkshakes ($3.59) are available in vanilla, strawberry and chocolate. Served in a classic tall glass, the milkshake has a hefty swirl of whipped cream and is finished with a cherry on top.

Two people can easily share this treat because the portion in the accompanying steel cup completely refills the glass. The

Address: 888 El Camino Real, Menlo Park Hours: Mon-Sun 11 a.m.-9 p.m.Phone: (650) 322-1959Price Range: $4.00-$8.00

Jeffrey’s

http://www.allmoviephoto.com

Academy Award-winning actress Reese Witherspoon plays the wife of a terrorism suspect in Gavin Hood’s political thriller Rendition, also starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep.

with The Campanile’s own

Stacy Levichev

This edition featuring

Jake Briskin

1in1700

The Campanile: What do you think about the struggle of the youth?Jake Briskin: I think youth have always struggled and always will struggle for as long as there continue to be youth and non-youth.TC: Right. Do you believe in vibes?JB: Yeah. Very often, when I meet someone, and especially if I hug someone – I hug a lot, I’m a very huggy person – I can kind of tell, like, how they’re feeling. Especially if it’s someone I’ve just met, I can get a sense of who they are and how our relationship might be in the future. TC: Does Judaism conflict with your views on sex?JB: Hella. I just want to make clear that I’m not even that Jewish.TC: Your middle name is Israel.JB: I’m Jewish by upbringing. I have a very Jewish outlook on the world, but that doesn’t mean I agree with everything that traditional Judaism is. Here’s something I bet you didn’t know about Judaism, check it out: in a marriage contract between a man and a woman, the woman is guaranteed food, clothing and conjugal rights… in other words, nookie. TC: Favorite class?JB: Freshman history with Mr. McGovern was amazing. That year sucked so bad, I think that class was the only reason that I had to drag my carcass out of bed in the morning and come to school.TC: Do you consider yourself metro?JB: No. Very often I do things that are not remotely metro, like walk around the house in my underwear. Really, I have no compunctions about coming to class commando in baggy jeans and a baggy sweatshirt that’s not even mine and smells faintly of Giovanni musk eau de cologne. These jeans are pretty baggy. Actually, if I didn’t have such jacked quads, they’d probably slide right down my hips. TC: Tell us about your legs.JB: Tell you about my legs? Henry Becker: Jake, every year you try to talk to me about your legs. Now you can.JB: When do I try to talk to you about my legs?HB: Remember when we were driving back from Campamento de Español? JB: Yeah.HB: Remember how every five minutes you would ask me to feel your legs?JB: No.HB: You would lift your pants and go, “Hey, Henry, look how strong my legs are. Don’t you want to feel them?”JB: I – do – what – I never said that! HB: Yes, you did. JB: So, uh, my legs... are hairier than I would like them to be. I have a razor comb at home; it doesn’t cut the hairs all the way down. It like, lifts them away from the skin and cuts off, like, part of it.TC: You use a manscaper?JB: Yeah, whatever. I do crew, which requires a lot of explosive power… in the legs… so the interesting thing about my legs is, my upper body and lower body are kind of disproportionate because the training focuses a lot more on leg power. TC: What happened to your Jew-fro?JB: I was really into heavy metal music and I wanted to be able to head-bang, for which you really need a long, full head of hair. I thought that maybe if I kept growing it longer, it would eventually start growing down, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and birds started nesting on my head. TC: Do you think sexual energy can be sensed?JB: I don’t know if everyone can sense it, but often, I will meet a person and be like, ‘Oh, yeah. That person is… a sexual person.’TC: If you had to get a tattoo, what would you get and where would it be?JB: I would probably get the symbol for “Om” tattooed on my chest; my left… pectoral.TC: Favorite books?JB: I really like the Hyperion Cantos series. It’s very deep, very multifaceted. It deals with a wide array of aspects of the human experience. Also Shakespeare. Lolita and The Odyssey.TC: Last words for the Paly community?JB: Now the pressure’s on me to say something, like, deep and meaningful. “So long and thanks for all the fish.”

shakes are thick, almost to the point that it has to sit awhile before it can be slurped through a straw. Once the mixture is given time to melt, it is velvety smooth and pleas-ingly sweet.

Jeffrey’s has three types of salads: the baby greens salad, the Caesar salad and the side salad. The side salad ($2.99) is a big portion of finely chopped hunks of iceberg lettuce, flecks of romaine, shredded carrots and cabbage with slices of cucumber.

Customers can choose from a variety of dressings for their salad. The dressing is commercial and the salad is similar to a prepackaged bag of lettuce bought at a nearby grocery store that is neither fresh nor satisfying.

A couple nice aspects about the salads are that they are presented on white, oval plates and come with freshly cracked pep-per. These qualities are uncharacteristic for diners and are usually expected at more expensive restaurants.

Customers do not come to diners for the salads, but for the burgers and Jeffrey’s knows how to make them succulent and juicy while still serving them in a timely fashion.

There are ten burgers to choose from and customers can dress up their burger with all the toppings they desire at the condiment bar. Like all the burgers and sandwiches, the cheeseburger ($5.39) is served in a plastic basket lined with parchment paper. The fluffy white bun is lightly toasted and perfectly melted American cheese com-pletely covers a flat meat patty.

After a trip to the condiment bar, which neatly displays fresh hamburger toppings, the burger is ready to be enjoyed. Even though the patty is thin, it packs a lot of flavor and punch.

The turkey and meat patties are nicely grilled to the customer’s specification, and are not greasy.

Only the gardenburger ($4.99) comes served on a wheat bun, but customers can select it for other burgers.

The wheat bun is a nice and healthy change from the regular white bun and is just as airy and soft. There is a tad of sweetness in the bread and tiny oat bits are sprinkled and baked on top.

The patty melt ($6.19) is inspired by the classic Reuben sandwich. Served open face, the patty lies on thinly sliced and toasted rye bread and is smothered with caramelized grilled onions.

A layer of melted Swiss cheese cov-ers the accompanying slice of bread. The sandwich is savory and rich and does not

need any other toppings as it is delicious the way it is presented.

French fries and onion rings are mar-ried to hamburgers, but they have to be ordered on the side. The french fries ($1.39) arrive steaming hot. Cut to a perfect size, the fries are firm and crunchy on the outside and can hold a lot of ketchup without crumbling into a soggy mess. They have the classic salty crust and a moist center.

Another side order that comes piping hot to the table in a generous pile is the onion rings ($2.99).

They are initially difficult to eat be-cause though the crust is a lovely, golden brown, the onions are tough and slightly undercooked. After they sit on the table

and let off some steam, the rings are easier to bite into.

Jeffrey’s appeals to all ages. With its sizeable parking lot, it is easy to quickly grab a delicious, fresh and healthier burger at Jeffrey’s. The restaurant’s fun, 1950’s style vibe creates a pleasant and comfort-able atmosphere perfect for enjoying a good meal and gives customers the full diner experience.

When Egyptian-born American chemical engineer Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) is detained by the CIA on his way back from South Africa on suspicion of terrorist activity, his wife Isabella (Reese Witherspoon) embarks on a search for him, aided by senator’s aide Alan

Smith (Peter Sarsgaard). El-Ibrahimi is subjected to

torturous interrogation under the direction of Abasi Fawal (Igal Naor) and CIA agent Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal).

On the side is the story of Fawal’s teenage daughter Fatima (Zineb Oukach), whose boyfriend Khalid (Moa Khouas)

is part of a fundamentalist Islamic group. As the threads of each story intertwine, alternation

between them remains coherent, but none of the conflicts have real impact.

Director: Gavin HoodCast: Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Peter SarsgaardRunning Time: 120 minutesRating: R

Rendition

Dull writing and cardboard characters turn what could have been a potent political thriller into what was instead a stunningly generic treatment of a re-markably controversial current issue.

Insistence on giving every big name a main part means that each character is major but underdeveloped; only basic facts about each character are revealed.

The film vainly attempts to portray the ethics of extraordinary rendition as a profound and multifaceted subject but seems satisfied with the slightest suggestion of depth, as if vaguely hinting at another side to the issue turned the film into a complex exploration of the murky ethics of homeland security policy.

The pacing is sluggish and the tone is shallow; con-stant navigation through multiple storylines results in none being given serious treatment.

The graphic, disturbing scenes of El-Ibrahimi being interrogated speak loudly against torture tactics, but the characters that are supposed to point out the government’s justification for the practice fall short.

CIA Head of Terrorism Corinne Whitman (Meryl Streep) delivers one line in defense of rendition and ends up looking like a stock villain instead of a human being with noble intentions and substantial justification for her actions.

Although the writing is lacking, the cast is more than adequate. Naor is especially powerful as interroga-tor Fawal, whose family life influences his treatment of torture victims.

Newcomers Khouas and Oukach are outstandingly convincing as star-crossed lovers trying to keep their rela-tionship intact even as fundamentalism, political ties and socioeconomic class conflict threatens to tear it apart.

Numerous references to September 11 underscore the film’s relevance: characters mention the 9/11 Commission Report, Freeman is said to have signed up for the CIA “on September 12” and a silhouette shot of a plane flying past the Washington Monument is hauntingly reminiscent of the iconic photographs of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center.

Despite the various viewpoints depicted through the different stories, the film ends up making no point at all, except that torture is inhumane.

The issue Rendition addresses is pertinent and interest-ing, but ultimately, its relentlessly superficial perspective makes it forgettable.

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