Volume 5 Issue 16

Volume V, Issue 16 April 26, 2006 Free

INSIDE THIS ISSUE --------------

News...........................2-7 Puzzles..............................12 Business......................9-10 Science……………….......13-15 Opinions.....................9-11 Arts & Entertainment........15-18 Literary.......................11-12 Sports................................18-20

Dear Spectator and the entire Stuyvesant Community: Re: The need for school wide harmony

In recent weeks, there have been aggressive acts committed by The

Spectator and directed towards The Stuyvesant Standard. At the Open House for incoming students, The Spectator took copies of our news-paper and put cross-outs all over the front cover and hung them up. Then, they had people stand in front of The Standard’s table to shout for their own paper. A few weeks later, we decided to hold recruit-ments. We hung posters and signs around the school. However, these posters were torn down and written on. For example, one large poster placed near the two to four escalator had the word, “Standard,” crossed out and the word, “joke,” was written underneath. Also, between 5th and 9th period five signs within two floors of each other disappeared. Next, when The Spectator held recruitments, they mocked The Stan-dard on their recruitment posters, with slogans such as, “Standard get-ting you down / Tired of the Standard? Join a Real Newspaper,” and “Stuyvesant’s only official newspaper.”

Throughout all these attacks on us, we have acted with the utmost politeness and have not retaliated. However, these attacks have reached a point where we feel an end must be reached. The Standard understands that it and The Spectator sometimes cover the same news. Nevertheless, this does not mean there should be conflict. Each paper has its own individual aim. The Spectator concentrates on Stuyvesant High School, while The Standard covers school events, but also fo-cuses on out of school events and servicing the local community.

Moreover, Stuyvesant High School is a large and diverse school that can and does support many sports and academic teams, as well as many clubs. Why, then, can it not support two newspapers? Stuyvesant High School needs harmony, and with two rival newspapers, this will never be accomplished.

To solve this issue, The Standard asks that The Spectator stops its attacks against us. We also believe its staff members, and especially its editors should concentrate on their own newspaper instead of mocking others. Most importantly, we ask to be treated with politeness. In the future, The Standard and The Spectator should be able to work on joint articles or projects. As for the school body, we ask that there be stricter rules regarding posters, so that no posters are negative towards other student groups. We also believe that there should be guidelines set so that students cannot remove other students’ posters and signs. Only healthy competition can lead to a better situation in the end. This will lead to a harmonious setting at Stuyvesant High School, which will better the community as a whole.

- The Stuyvesant Standard Executive Leadership Team

Immigration Causes A Stir

Democratic Representative Hilda Solis of California claims that “the Republican Party has steadily built up its assault on

Arista Elections: Results of Hard Campaigning

BY ANNA GINZBURG STAFF WRITER

BY SYLVIA ABDULLAH STAFF WRITER

immigrants.” This statement re-flects a bill that the House of Representatives passed in Decem-ber 2005 called HR 4437 that gave criminal status to illegal immigrants. Sponsored by Repre-

Dedications for Ms. Beiring are on page 8

Continued on Page 5

On Wednesday, April 12, the annual Arista elections were held for positions on the Arista Execu-tive Committee. It was the first full meeting for the inductee members.

All week, students noticed the neon green, pink, orange and yellow signs adorned with things such as “vote Kat and Fish,” “vote Anna and Maria,” “vote John and Sonny,” or even the gi-ant “i” which reminded Arista members to vote for Iris Wong. These posters were hung up by the candidates who had been cho-

sen by the executive council be-fore the elections. These nineteen hopeful students had three days to campaign for the six available positions.

The elections were a much-awaited day for those running. Some members chose to sleep through the elections while others listened attentively to what the candidates had to say.

Each candidate for Vice President of Administration, Vice President of Tutoring, Vice Presi-dent of Service Events, and Junior Representative had three minutes to make a speech. Each position

Continued on Page 5

Protestors march through New York City as they rally in opposition to a proposed immigration bill.

New

sday Photo/ Moises Sam

an

“Your School, Your World—Your News”

TO THE COMMUNITIES OF STUYVESANT HIGH SCHOOL, TRIBECA, AND BATTERY PARK CITY

The Stuyvesant Standard The Stuyvesant Standard The Stuyvesant Standard “Your School, Your World—Your News”

If you would like to advertise in THE STUYVESANT STANDARD, please e-mail [email protected] to request an advertisement form. We offer a broad range of options including full color capability for your advertis-ing needs.

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THE STUYVESANT STANDARD distributes 2,000 free copies on a bi-weekly basis to the students and faculty of Stuyvesant High School and through-

out the adjoining neighborhoods of TriBeCa and Battery Park City. THE STUYVESANT STANDARD welcomes letters from its readers.

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD reserves the right to edit any published mate-rial. The viewpoints of contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of

the Standard staff.

Copyright ©2006 THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

Executive Leadership Team

Publication

Page 2 April 26, 2006 NEWS THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

Please direct all correspondence to: THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

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THE STUYVESANT STANDARD Founded 2001

“Your School, Your World—Your News”

DR. JOHN NIKOL FACULTY ADVISER JENNIFER SCHLESINGER EDITOR IN CHIEF DEREK WENG MANAGING EDITOR KHOI NGUYEN CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER FANNY TANG LAYOUT EDITOR DANNY ZHU COPY CHIEF JIMMY ZHANG NEWS EDITOR

PRISCILLA MELO OPINIONS EDITOR DEREK WENG ACTING OPINIONS EDITOR EMMA RABINOVICH ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR ERIC MAYO SPORTS EDITOR JOSEPH KRUTOV SCIENCE EDITOR HANFORD CHIU BUSINESS EDITOR LADA KUKUY LITERARY EDITOR HENRY ZHANG WEBMASTER DANNY ZHU ACTING WEBMASTER HENRY ZHANG DIRECTOR OF PHOTOJOURNALISM

BENNETT HONG ACTING DIRECTOR OF PHOTOJOURNALISM DANIEL EGERS (‘03) FOUNDER ERNEST BASKIN (‘04) EDITOR EMERITUS

Last Issue’s Corrections

• Lawrence Huang’s name was misspelled. • In Issue 12, “The World Celebrates the 2006 Torino Olympics”

actress Sophia Loren’s name was misspelled. It was also implied that Loren and Sarandon were the only two flag bearers, when in actuality, there were eight.

French Withdraws Disputed Labor Laws

BY SANGHEE CHUNG STAFF WRITER

French police form a line opposite youths during a demonstration in Paris.

Continued on Page 4

AP/Peter D

ejong

The Bar: The New Fad BY ARTHUR WEI, JESSE ZHANG, MOHAMMED CHOWDHURY GUEST WRITERS

On April 10, the French gov-ernment withdrew the disputed youth labor law due to public op-position and demonstrations.

The job contract “is dead and buried,” said Jean-Claude Mailly of the Workers Force union.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin stated that the law was a means of liberating and moderniz-ing France’s slow labor market. It was proposed to help employers hire young workers on a trial ba-sis. He sought a “better balance between more flexibility for the employer and more security for workers.” However, companies

were allowed to fire young work-ers without reason within two years of employment.

The law was cancelled by President Jacques Chirac to end weeks of major protests and strikes. The protests shut down schools, hurt the economy, and caused violence among citizens. “Under the proposal of the prime minister and after having heard the presidents of the parliamen-tary groups and the officials of the parliamentary majority, the president of the Republic has de-cided to replace Article 8 of the law on equality of opportunities by a mechanism in favor of the professional integration of young

There was Xanga, MySpace, and Sconex, but here comes something much more: The Bar. The Bar is a place for high school students to hang out, right from home. The Bar is not just fun, it is functional. The main site has many features, with more coming every day. What makes The Bar different from Xanga, MySpace, and Sconex is that The Bar is there for students, changed for students, and made by students.

The Bar started out as a dream of Baccalaureate School for Global Education (BSGE) student Mike Ursu. The idea was introduced to Jesse Zhang by Ar-thur Wei, two Stuyvesant fresh-men. Zhang made the dream a reality about a month and a half ago. Since then, The Bar has grown to over 80 users and over 5000 forum posts.

The Bar’s main site was de-signed by Zhang. It contains a calendar, an article section, a pic-ture book, a phonebook, and even

Continued on Page 5

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 26, 2006 NEWS Page 3

New Yorkers Are Forced to Be Polite BY STEPHANIE SHEN STAFF WRITER

Club Spotlight: Stuycourt

BY YANA GONTCHAROVA STAFF WRITER

Big Sibs BY LAWRENCE HUANG STAFF WRITER

Ask an outsider to describe New Yorkers and it’s very likely that the first words would be “rude,” “rude,” and “rude.” New Yorkers have been known to throw things onto Yankee Stadium’s fields when the Red Sox play. They are known to boo their own mayor at public functions. They are known to push, shove, and curse in subway cars, and would sooner push you out of the car than look at you. So what? This is New York; what can be done?

Ma yor Michae l R . Bloomberg placed fines to force people to be polite, or at least somewhat civil. New York City is currently being praised for its new rules, laws and most importantly, fines on personal conduct. These new regulations span from restrictions on sports fans to restrictions on car alarms to subway etiquette.

Now other states are looking

toward New York as an example. When Wrigley Field was full of rowdy fans, Chicago followed Yankee and Shea Stadiums in arresting fans that interfered ille-gally with professional sports events. When Boston and San

Francisco lawmakers faced cell phones in theaters, they followed New York’s $50 fine on calls during movies, concerts and shows. When cities nationwide are covered in graffiti, they look toward New York’s law making

building owners responsible for cleanup.

This onslaught of politeness regulations has come from the drops in crime, allowing New York to focus on the normal pub-lic’s behavior. Now, innocent

blunders can risk a fine. In a city where “most people just seem to ignore common sense and com-mon courtesy” according to Leti-tia Baldrige, the former White House social secretary, “it does have to be legislated.”

However, not all people are applauding these changes, espe-cially when a $50 fine appears for putting up one’s feet in a completely empty subway car. Regardless, Mayor Bloomberg continues to push forward with

smoking bans, noise codes for nightclubs, dogs and ice cream trucks, and various attempts at coaxing out that nice, polite, civil part hopefully present in all New Yorkers.

Bloomberg’s politeness spree has spread to include the banning of young children from theaters after 10 p.m. and the mandating of anger man-agement classes for the omni-present overenthusiastic and overcompetitive sports par-ents. Varying opinions are given on Bloomberg’s deci-sions, as Peter Post, director of the Emily Post Institute, put it,

“Instead of people quietly put-ting up with rude behavior, they’re finally saying, ‘I don’t have to put up with that any-more.’” ◙

In late August or early Sep-tember, new students arrive at Stuyvesant for their orientation. There, they meet the seniors and juniors who will guide them for a year. These upperclassmen are known as Big Sibs, Stuyvesant’s unique peer mentors. At the ori-entation, the Big Sibs invite the new students to participate in fun events and activities designed especially for their arrival.

Stuyvesant’s Big Sibling pro-gram, whose members are simply known as “Big Sibs,” is a chance for jun-iors and seniors to i n t e r a c t with new students. It is an organization of about 150 upperclassmen who serve as sur-rogate siblings to incoming stu-dents. Each freshman is assigned a Big Sib who will be available as a buddy and advisor. They are present at all orientations and just about every other school event. It is encouraged to go to a Big Sib for help about student life or any-thing about Stuyvesant in general as they should be ready to answer any questions and help incoming students in any way possible. Their purpose is to make them-selves available to incoming stu-dents and encourage them to ex-

cel. This large, independent or-ganization is sponsored by the Student Union. Each year, a Big Sib Handbook is compiled and sold. Freshmen who receive this handbook will come to know very useful information, such as good places to eat and which teachers are nice.

There is quite some competi-tion involved with being chosen to be a Big Sib. Last year, almost 500 students applied for only 150 spots. Although it is tough to be selected as a Big Sib, most Big Sibs enjoy their role in the Stuy-vesant community. “It was really nice meeting them [Little Sibs],”

said Na-than, a junior Big S i b . “The y’re

really full of energy. They remind me of me when I was at their grade.” However, not everybody thinks being a Big Sib would be fun at all. According to an anony-mous freshman, “My Big Sib wasn’t really doing much. All he did in homeroom was sit around.” Junior Jessie Li said, “I’m not very interested in being a Big Sib. I wasn’t that fond of them during freshman year.”

Despite what they said, one should not be discouraged from applying to be a Big Sib. After all, to be a Big Sib is a privilege. ◙

One of the less-known clubs of Stuyvesant High School is Ce-lebrity Court, better known as Stuycourt by its members. Headed by co-presidents Yana Gontcharova and Emma Rabino-vich, sophomores, the club was originally supposed to hold mock trials for celebrities who may or may not have broken the law; M a r t h a Stewart and M i c h a e l J a c k s o n were the insp i ra t ion for this idea. H o w e v e r , the trials held by the club soon covered a variety of other topics, such as the Salem Witch trials, the Monkey Trials, and the McDonald’s hot coffee trial; the name “Celebrity Court” no longer seemed appro-priate, so the club was unoffi-cially dubbed “Stuycourt”.

This club is great for anyone who is considering a career in law, who wants to get practice in debate skills, or who wants to know more about law in general. During a trial, the club has a judge, witnesses, a defendant,

lawyers, evidence, and sometimes jurors (depending on whether a judge trial or a jury trial is being held). Standard rules of law are followed; lawyers examine and cross-examine witnesses, object, and make opening and closing speeches. Members take turns holding various positions in the trials. The only position which may not be held by an average member, and which must be held

b y someone f r o m S t u y -c o u r t ’ s s e c r e -tariat, is the posi-tion of

judge. This gives the secretariat some control over the proceedings of the meeting, and it helps Stuy-court recreate a real courtroom experience.

Still in its first year of opera-tion, Stuycourt holds meetings once a month. The meetings are sparse, which keeps the club from becoming a strain on anyone’s time, and it gives the presidents time to prepare spectacular meet-ings. Anyone who wishes to know more about the club may s e n d a n e - m a i l t o [email protected]. ◙

A new $50 fine is being imposed for resting your feet on subway seats.

Source Unknown

"Last year, almost 500 students applied for only one 150 spots."

This club is great for anyone who is considering a career in law,

who wants to get practice in de-bate skills, or who wants to know

more about law in general.


Meet Ms. Pascu! BY TIM CHANG COLUMNIST

Continued on Page 7

Running back and forth be-tween room 435 and the math research room with her over-stuffed Delaney book, Oana Pascu is usually all but incon-spicuous in going about her day. Born in Bucharest, Romania, she came to the United States when she was 13. Ever since Pascu was a child, she knew she wanted to be a teacher. Her mother was a teacher, and whenever her school was cancelled, she went to her mother’s school.

Pascu spent her high school years in the city, and went to Brooklyn Technical High School. There, the connection between the “math” and “teacher” aspects of her career clicked. Her favorite math teacher, Mr. Zimmerman, sparked her interest in math. She has a hard time describing just how cool math is, but “literally amazing” seemed to sum it up.

Ever since graduating from Princeton, she has been working as a student teacher and substitute teacher around the city. This year is her first year of full-time teach-ing. How does she like it here?

“I didn’t think a Techie could be this happy at Stuy,” she admits. Even though she comes from a

rival school, she still thinks that Stuyvesant is fantastic. She says the people around her have been welcoming, helpful and suppor-tive, and the kids are fantastic.

Pascu teaches five classes of sophomore math: three regular classes and two honors classes. She emulates the styles of previ-ous teachers in her life for teach-ing math, including Mr. Zimmer-

man. Ac-cording to her, teach-ing math is m o s t l y a b o u t p o i n t i n g people in the right direction. P a s c u ’ s s t u d e n t s seem to have only good things t o s a y about her. She is ex-t r e m e l y f r i e n d l y , open and c a r i n g a b o u t t e a c h i n g math. “It’s pleasant to

see how much she enjoys what she does,” says Mariya Morgaylo, one of her sophomore students. “Some people say her tests are h a r d , b u t s h e ’ s l e n i e n t

[concerning] extra credit.” Pascu’s cheerful personality has left an impression on other stu-dents as well. Allison Tran, one of her sophomore honors stu-dents, said, “Well, it is ninth pe-riod and most of us don't really sleep for more than five hours [,so] if she notices that our class is rather tired she will buy us all candy.”

Being a hard-working and dedicated math teacher must take up a lot of time, yet Pascu still has plenty of time for leisure. One of her favorite pastimes is skiing. Her favorite food is pizza. She doesn’t like toppings, and the plain triangle cut is her favorite. To her, shopping is more than a pastime; it is a necessity. How often does she go? “As often as I can,” she giggles. “Shopping is something a girl just has to do.” Almost a high school girl herself in spirit, Pascu is definitely a teacher to whom students can relate. ◙

If you know a teacher you would like to see profiled and read about, please contact us at [email protected] with the subject line “Teacher.” Thank you!

Quick Profile

Name: Oana Pascu Subjects taught: Sopho-more Math (MQ6, MQ6H)

Favorite Food: Pizza (No Toppings)

French Withdraws Disputed Labor Laws

people in difficulty,” the commu-niqué said. Students and unions decided to take to the streets to celebrate the repeal.

“We are very satisfied,” said trade-union leader Jacques Voisin. He be-lieved the deci-sion “is a very good thing that points in the right direction.” Medef, France’s largest business a s s o c i a t i o n , hoped the with-drawal “marks the end of a cri-sis that dented the credibility of our country.”

“The debate is now open and we must not close it,” said Prime Minister De Villepin. “I propose a dia-logue without preconditions.” A much weaker replacement law was proposed to the Parliament. It called for the encouraging the hiring of young workers and the guiding of job seekers to areas

Continued from Page 2 with plentiful careers. Companies employing permanent young workers would receive tax breaks, which would be financed by an increase in the tobacco tax. How-ever, many vowed to continue protesting until the law was com-

pletely abol-ished. “This is an un-q u e s t i o n a b l e retreat,” said Socialist Party leader François Hollande. “It is a grand success for the young and an impres-sive victory for the unity of the unions.” How-ever, the Social-ists have no plan to restore the labor market or to reduce youth unem-ployment. Business lead-

ers have also raised concerns about France’s damaged econ-omy; the damage from the crisis is estimated at $180 million. They also scorned the government’s handling of the conflict. ◙

A demonstrator shows a poster of a gagged Mona Lisa.

AP Photo/Francois Mori

The Club/Pub Fair Spring 2006

BY DAVID YIN STAFF WRITER

The spring Club Pub Fair took place after school on April 10 in the dining hall. Students attended the fair, looking for new clubs to join. The Club Pub Fair gave students a chance to be a part of the Stuyvesant commu-nity, and to learn about the di-verse clubs of Stuyvesant.

Many different clubs were present, trying to recruit new

members. The DDR Club had two televisions, both of which had the popular game Dance Dance Revo-lution running. The Chinese Pop Culture Club members were watching Chinese music videos. The Robotics Club displayed a robot that they had built. The Badminton Club had its members play badminton. Sophomore Sam-uel Crisanto said, “It was cool. I got to play badminton and DDR.”

TSS/Bennett Hong

The Chinese Pop Culture Club enjoying a movie at the Club Pub Fair.


Immigration Causes A Stir Continued from Page 1

sentative James Sensenbrenner, this bill makes it a felony to be in the United States illegally or to assist an illegal immigrant in any way. Employers would be forced to verify that all their employees were living in the United States legally. In addition, the bill sup-ports government funding for a wall to be built along the Mexi-can-American border.

President Bush recently called for reforms to this bill. These suggested reforms included a guest worker program, and ar-rangements that would allow 12,000 illegal immigrants oppor-tunities to gain citizenship. This legislation had the support of vast numbers of immigrant groups around the country. However,

Arista Elections: Results of Hard Campaigning

Continued from Page 1

had three candidates except Vice President of Service Events, which had four. The candidates for the positions of President and Executive Vice President had five minutes for the speech since both members had to participate.

On the whole, candidates found creative ways to attract voters, from asking a teacher to say a few words to making a few lame jokes. Candidates worked hard for their votes. Unfortu-nately, not everybody can win, and when the results were sent via email on Thursday, April 13, the losers were disappointed. How-

ever, the victors were joyous. The new Arista Executive

Council for 2006-2007 consists of Johnathan Khusid as President, Sonny Kung as Executive Vice President, Cindy Huang as Vice President of Administration, Vic-tor Wong as Vice President of Tutoring, Megan Nesbeth as Vice President of Service Events, and Hua Szu Yang as Junior Repre-sentative. Most Arista members believe this year’s Executive Council will accomplish great deeds. ◙

The Bar: The New Fad Continued from Page 2

a games section. The games sec-tion is like the FlashPlayer web-site. Most of the games were taken from FlashPlayer, but two were made by Zhang himself. However, members hope it will expand with the help of a few knowledgeable Stuyvesant stu-dents who know how to use Flash and other programming lan-guages. The picture book is basically a photo album, which every-one can view and upload to. These pictures must first be ap-proved by an administrator or a modera-tor to make sure there isn’t anything wrong with them. The phonebook is a way for mem-bers to keep in touch with each other on the Internet.

Apart from the main site, The Bar has something much greater for members’ pleasure: the fo-rums. The forums are a means of communication for the members. They are organized into different forums, i n c l u d i n g “ I n t r o d u c t i o n s /F a r e w e l l s , ” “ G e n e r a l , ” “ C o m e d y , ” a n d “Videogames.” There i s a l s o a “Suggestions” forum, where members can suggest how to im-prove the site, or

ma k e a c o mp l a i n t . T h e “Problems” section is a place where members can seek the help of their peers in coping with real-life problems. Many students will find the “Problems” section very helpful. There is also a “School” section where members help each other with homework, or to pre-pare for a test. There are many other fun and helpful sections. The current members of The Bar

love it. In addi-tion to the site i t s e l f , The Bar h o l d s t o u r n a -m e n t s for its members to par-t i c i pa te in. A

recent Marvel vs. Capcom tour-nament ended with the winner being Simon Hu, a Stuyvesant sophomore. In addition to that, a Rap-Off and a Counter-Strike: Source tournament were held. There are also many mini-events and chances to win awards,

these ideas failed to be passed through t h e S e n -ate , f a c i n g f i e r c e opposi-t i o n f r o m conser-v a t i v e m e m -b e r s l obb y-ing for stricter i m m i -gration regula-tions.

As of now, HR 4437 is still

being considered by the Senate, but has already caused immense commotion across the country, especially during the last month.

Thousands of people have walked in pro-tests in cities around the country, in-cluding Wash-ington, D.C. and Los Ange-les. On March 30 a 14-year-old Ontario student named A n t h o n y Soltero shot himself with his father’s rifle after his Assistant Prin-

cipal told him that participation in further protests against the new

immigration policies could send him to jail. This incident caused even more anguish among the immigrant community.

Many immigrants currently living in this country say that they and others like them came to this country in search of the “American Dream.” They came here for the opportunities the United States has to offer, sacri-ficing their families and homes in the process. Still others feel out-raged that immigrants are treated like criminals in a country to which they have contributed so much. Senators Gloria Romero and Gil Cedillo of Los Angeles propose participation in a national boycott on May 1, suggesting that a “day without immigrants” will impress upon the nation just how important immigrants are in our economy and in our everyday lives. ◙

though the Awards amount to nothing but bragging rights.

“The Bar’s pretty sweet be-cause of their cool and friendly people here. I have a great time here. I’ve been on every day since I joined, with 1000 posts, it’s a great place to meet new people and expand our social horizons,” said Danny Alvarez, freshman from BSGE.

“The Bar has one thing over all forums, a value for sugges-

tions. When you don’t like some-thing or think there should be one more thing to make The Bar per-fect, suggest it. We have a whole section dedicated to this. Once I see your post, I’ll work on it. It could be as easy as a typo to as difficult as a notebook for mem-bers, I’ll make it, we’ll all enjoy it,” says Zhang.

The Bar can be found at http://www.thehsbar.com. ◙

A banner of The Bar.

www.thehsbar.com


Pie-A-Teacher! On April 11, students gathered after 10th period in the cafeteria for

the Pie-A-Teacher event, hosted by Building With Books. The event cost fifty cents to watch. However, students were able to purchase raffle tickets for one dollar for the chance to pie Ms. Alcott, Mr. Dreyfus, Mr. Novikoff, Mr. Rubinstein, Mr. Sunkara, Mr. Stern, and Mr. Weil.

TSS/Bennett Hong

TSS/Bennett H

ong

TSS/

Ada

Zha

ng


The Club/Pub Fair Spring 2006 Still, there were many clubs that were trying the traditional way of attracting attention, shouting. There was a huge racket in the cafeteria as club members were shouting out and telling people to join their club. The many stu-dents, both club members and students who were there to look around, enjoyed the fair. Kenneth Lam, a sophomore who was help-ing recruit people for the Stock Market Game club, said, “It was an incredible experience. I usu-ally never get the chance to shout out for [the Stock Market Game Club] like I did at the Club Pub Fair.”

Although there were many students and clubs participating in this club/pub fair, it seemed rela-tively tame compared to the fair at the beginning of the year. There were fewer students at this fair than the vast numbers that showed up for the fall Club Pub Fair. Fewer clubs appeared as

well. Some found it useless for people to join so late in the year. Simon Hu, the president of the Stock Market Game club, said, “The Club Pub Fair wasn’t that successful. There weren’t a lot of people there and the stock market game is going to end soon. There’s no reason to recruit stu-dents now. The year’s almost over.”

Whether or not the club members enjoyed staying at the fair, the clubs were able to sign up many people; Hu was able to sign up 7 people. However, he does not plan on signing them up unless they are going to be active in the club. This is true for other clubs too. Many people sign up in the Club Pub Fair, and yet they never attend a meeting. Still, the Club Pub Fair is a great way for students to join clubs that they are interested in. ◙



I thought that I could write something touching, something that would be meaning-ful, that would tell people something about Ms. Biering and who she was and what she was, but I’m coming up blank. All I can think of are stories, short anecdotes, and so I’m hoping that they’ll be enough.

Ms. Biering was the sort of teacher who, if you came into her class crying, or even just looking upset or down, would immediately come over to you and try to find out what was wrong, just to try to make you feel better. Once, I nearly fainted in class on the day of a test because I hadn’t eaten and was feeling really stressed. She put the whole class on the honor system while she went to the staff room to get me something to eat, and she let me put off taking the test until the next day. That’s what Ms. Biering was: a teacher who really cared about her students as people, not just as numbers.

Another time, she wanted to show us what dry ice was, so she picked up the fire extinguisher and sprayed it all over the room, not realizing that the fire extinguisher con-tained not dry ice, but chalk dust. We had to have the rest of our class in the hallway that day.

Ms. Biering always used to talk to us about things like sex, cheese, and manners in Denmark. She taught me almost everything I know about those three things. She taught me that in Denmark, you always tip the soup bowl towards you because that way, if you spill the soup, it goes on you and not on the tablecloth. She taught me that it’s impolite to bring food to a party in Denmark, because that’s like saying that the host is too rude to supply enough food. People used to complain that she went off on tangents, that she didn’t teach, but when she set her mind to it, she really was a great teacher, and defi-nitely one of the more interesting people at Stuyvesant. That’s what Ms. Biering was: someone who genuinely enjoyed learning and wanted to share what she knew with eve-ryone, whether it was pertinent to the curriculum or not, someone who wanted her stu-dents to succeed in life, not just in school, and tried to prepare them accordingly.

Once, my friends and I were sitting on the seventh floor, just talking, and Ms. Bier-ing walked over and plopped herself cross-legged on the floor beside us, joining in the conversation just as if she were one of us. That’s what Ms. Biering was: a teacher who wasn’t afraid to be close to her students, to pat them on the arm or even hug them, if she felt like they needed it.

Even after I wasn’t in Ms. Biering’s class anymore, she would always come up to me in the hallway and talk, asking me how my classes were going with genuine interest. She always remembered my name, even two years after I was in her class. She was al-ways sick, and so thin that everyone used to make fun of her, but she would often join in the laughter. That’s what Ms.

Biering was: not at all self-conscious, willing to laugh at herself. I could continue telling these stories for a long time. Ms. Biering was one of those

rare people, a teacher who genuinely cared for her students, who genuinely wanted to be teaching, who enjoyed her job, who never quit even when she was ill. Her loss is a great loss to all of Stuyvesant, a loss not lessened by the fact that this has been a year full of loss, and full of mourning. Wherever she is now, I hope she knows that we will miss her.

- Francesca Schiavone, junior

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I only had Ms. Biering for a couple of weeks of second term this year, but there are just some things I can’t forget. I remember how everyone told me that taking Genetics was a bad idea because Ms. Biering taught it she would constantly talk about sex. I didn’t really care, so I just took the class. Those few weeks of class, she had broken her wrist or something, so she had a brace on her forearm. She was still all bouncy and hyper, though. And everyone was right. She did talk about sex a lot, but that made the class interesting. Before mid-winter break, she told us that she wanted to go to Florida and visit her daughter, but break was too short to go all the way there, spend some time with her family, and come back. We told her to go, and that she didn’t have to come back so soon. When we came back from break, she wasn’t there. When we found out that she was in the hospital, two people in the class made cards for her. One of them had a few humorous cartoons on it, while the other was the real “Get Well” card. I don’t know if they ever got to her, but I think we all expected her to come back and laugh about it. On the day of her departure, we saw two unfamiliar faces in our room, and we wondered what was happen-ing. We thought we were getting a new teacher, but then Ms. Ashkin came in, so we were confused. Then the announcement came on and none of us really knew what had happened. The PA speakers in our room did-n’t work, but we heard something about someone pass-ing away and a moment of silence. It turned out that the two ladies in our room were guidance counselors, here to talk to us about Ms. Biering. It was so quiet in our room, but we ended up working to get our minds off of it. Even though I only had her for a short time, I still have these clear memories of her. It’s a shame that she didn’t finish teaching us what she started. I guess it was a lot easier to accept her death because she hadn’t been here for so long, so it doesn’t seem like she’s gone. Even so, I know she’s going to be missed and remembered as the small lady who talked about sex all the time.

- Anonymous

Ms. Biering was definitely not your normal teacher. I had her for Genetics Research last term and she brought a new way of learning into my time at Stuyvesant. Many stu-dents who had her for Freshman Biology may have said she was an incompetent teacher, but from my experience in her Genetics class, I thought she was unique. Ms. Biering was one of the most knowledgeable people I ever met. She rarely used the textbook be-cause she had everything in her head, and could recite the smallest detail about a RNA polymerase without hesitation. She expected a lot from of us; some nights she would demand that we do twenty pages of difficult textbook reading write an outline on it. Then, the next day we would be expected to be able to discuss it in class. So in fact, she was a rigorous teacher. I remember lengthy discussions on DNA and mutations, but they rarely got boring because of the side conversations they led to. They would go from bi-ology to politics to philosophy. I always loved these conversations the best, because besides learning genetics and how biology fit into the world, I learned about things I never thought of before, or supported opinions I never would have otherwise. Ms. Bier-ing wasn't just a smart teacher; she was a smart person. She shared her knowledge about almost everything in the world with us, and her opinion along with it. Being so intelli-gent, opinionated, and experienced, it was not a surprise that she earned respect from a lot of us. Despite her lateness or wild tangents, the seniors in the class who knew her well knew what a great teacher she was, and I eventually found out too. She pushed us to learn not just for facts and grades, but to understand and incorporate knowledge into our lives. I know Ms. Biering was pretty happy with her life — she traveled the world , had a wonderful daughter and grandchild, and had an accomplished teaching career, in-cluding Stuyvesant. I hope she left this world contently. Rest in peace.

- Richard Mai, sophomore

Stuyvesant High School has its share of interesting and memorable teachers. Ms. Biering was definitely one of them. As a stereotypical scared freshman com-ing into Stuyvesant two years ago, I had this notion that I would flunk every subject I took. Even though I still kind of failed biology, the course which Ms. Bier-ing taught, it was one of the classes I reminiscence about to this day.

When she taught, we would always have some funny days, some boring days, and some hard days, like when we had exams. There was one particular day when I actually taught the class for one day. For those of you who were in my class, you may remember that day when I had to teach the class on cell structure for the whole period as a punishment for not doing home-work. I still remember Ms. Biering chuckling and ap-parently very amused, watching this clueless kid trying to explain how the mitochondria of an animal cell work.

Ms. Biering, although your special biology class ended two years ago, I still remember smiling at you whenever we sew each other in the hallway. I can’t believe it’s time for us to say goodbye already. Thank you Ms. Biering for being my teacher, our teacher.

- Derek Weng, Managing Editor, Junior

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 26, 2006 BUSINESS/OPINIONS Page 9

BY STEPHANIE SHEN STAFF WRITER

Lately, American culture has-n’t been giving girls positive role models. Instead, girls are faced with stories glamorizing Celebrity #1’s new Jimmy Choo Shoes or Celebrity #2’s new breast im-plant. Additionally, corporate America has broadcasted the “dumb blonde” image as cute and lucrative. Pink’s newest single, “Stupid Girls,” lays out these less-than-admirable trends in American culture by criticizing celebrities such as Lindsay Lo-han, Jessica Simpson, and Paris Hilton in her music video. How-ever, Pink states, “I don’t think these girls are really stupid, it’s just what works.” Basically, being a fool has become profitable for the young and hip “it-girls” in Hollywood.

Gone are the days of the stars standing up for civil rights and real issues. Now, the public sees

Jessica Simpson confusing tuna and chicken, and hears Paris’ mantra of “That’s hot.” As Pink asks, “Where, oh where, have the smart people gone?” Well, being smart no longer brings in the big bucks. C e l e b r i t i e s such as Lind-say Lohan have made t h e m s e l v e s into public fools to be laughed at because that is what pays.

How can s e e m i n g l y moronic celebrities simply go about like idiots and make mil-lions more than an average col-lege-educated person? The an-

swer is that they are not idiots. They act that way for the public, which prefers seeing the antics of

the “dumb b l o n d e s ” of Holly-wood over an intelli-gent con-ve r s a t i o n with these w o m e n . When it c o m e s down to it, Paris Hil-ton orating on the topic of equal gen-der rights is not as enter ta in -ing as see-

ing her in lingerie attempt to sing “Happy Birthday” to Hugh Hefner. It is all a business front; the stars do what they have to do

to keep the public’s attention and make a living. For example, after Simpson’s Chicken of the Sea blunder, in which she accidentally thought she was advertising chicken, rather than tuna, sales of the tuna brand went up 10 per-cent. Now, she and the company are discussing the possibility of her becoming their new spokes-woman. Who laughs last?

Among celebrities, being known for being dumb is better than not being known at all. Act foolish for a moment, be a mil-lionaire for a lifetime. “The ditzy blonde thing is endearing to peo-ple,” says Simpson. Think Cam-eron Diaz in “Charlie’s Angels”. Celebrities live off the public’s interest, so they play off this ob-session with the stereotyped “dumb blonde”. Next time you’re laughing at Hilton’s limited vo-cabulary, think who the stupid one really is. It is just business as usual in Hollywood. ◙

Pink’s Single, “Stupid Girl’s” from the album I’m Not Dead.

www.wikipedia.com

MySpace, A Very Popular Place

BY HANFORD CHIU BUSINESS EDITOR

Nielsen/Net Ratings, a mar-ket research firm, released its fig-ures for web traffic on April 12, for the “Top 8 Web Sites by Brand”. Among them include the usual big companies, such as Ya-hoo, MSN and AOL. However, new on the list at number eight is MySpace, a large social network of user-created “blogs” that has soared in the past two years from a small upstart to a $580 million

entity. Purchased by News Corpora-

tion last year from founder Tom Anderson for that price, MySpace provides millions of users with the ability to create and maintain blogs, with pictures, music and a list of all the people who drop by t h e b l o g a n d b e c o m e “cyberfriends”. As of March 2006, MySpace is the eighth most popular site in the world, accord-ing to Alexa Internet, a subsidiary


MySpace is the 8th most popular site in the world.

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Hollywood’s “Stupid Girl” Façade: Fools For Cash

Lunchroom Changes: Not So Tasty

BY GUERGANA BORISSOVA STAFF WRITER

Spring is a time of blooming flowers, allergies, scanners, sunny afternoons… and new lunch trays? For those of us too lazy to go out for lunch or simply wish to sacrifice the time to catch up on homework, the lunch-room pro-vides an oasis full of noise, to go with soggy fries, and polka dot h a m b u r g -ers. Many of us may have no-ticed some changes in the menu that should not go by u n n o t i c e d as well as new plastic trays.

As of last month, the Board of Education decided to com-pletely remove whole milk from public school lunch menus, in an attempt to halt the growing epi-demic of obesity in the city. Sur-

prisingly enough, however, chocolate milk will remain an option in cafeterias across the city. This is a complete outrage, considering that the number of calories in difference between whole milk and skim milk is merely 54, an amount so small

that it will hardly make a difference in today's society full of Hershey bars (with 230 calo-ries). It is up to parents and schools to educate chil-dren about the impor-tance of good nutri-tion and the dangers of o b e s i t y . Also, stu-

dents must make the choice for themselves, between skim and whole milk. Learning to make educated choices from an early age will ensure a healthier popu-

Cartons of whole milk, considered a junk food, will be removed from public school lunch menus.

AP


Page 10 April 26, 2006 BUSINESS/OPINIONS THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

MySpace, A Very Popular Place

No Test Scores Left Behind BY ALVIS YUEN COLUMNIST

Little more than four years ago in 2002, President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Law, promising to close the edu-cational achievement gap be-tween “Anglo and minority”. The law called for more accountabil-ity and greater opportunity for disadvantaged students. Under the new program, schools would earn bonus funding if the school achieved higher test scores. On the other hand, schools would get reduced funding if it does not fulfill its objectives.

This program is a wonderful attempt at education reform. However, its validity is being undermined. According to a re-port released by the Associated Press, schools have received fed-eral permission to ignore test

results of students, when report-ing academic progress under categories such as race. The test results of these minority students

are deemed statistically insignifi-cant because there are so few of them in the school. The Associ-ated Press also found that 1.9 mil-


of Amazon.com. How does a small collection

of blogs grow into a social net-work of more than 50 million people and a multimillion dollar entity? One feature that draws many users is the self-expression and freedom the site gives via

coding. Even unskilled program-mers can easily create a back-ground and special effects for their personal blog. Songs and videos can also be coded into the page. Users have areas to put blurbs about themselves, as well as one for visitor comments and friends.

However, those features have also led to hostility towards MySpace. The amateur code is often clumsy and inefficient, re-sulting in long load times and even browser crashes from having

too many features put into one page. Certain code effects are also described as clichéd and unpro-fessional. Worstofmyspace.com often nominates haphazard and g r a p h i c a l l y o v e r i n d u l g e d MySpace pages. One such page featured a frenzy of animated Christian graphics, a repeating

background of a single scripture, and the music of the Christian rock band Petra. The word “Jesus” trickles down throughout the page, in an effect that is out-dated and clichéd. Even so, the essence of MySpace is that it is unprofessional, and thus it draws many teenagers who feed upon self-expression, whether or not they have any skill in coding. ◙

Lunchroom Changes: Not So Tasty


lation, who will be choosing the right food even after they gradu-ate from high school. Schools have done their job in teaching us about the side effects of poor nu-t r i t i o n , with abun-dance of posters of the food pyramid in the cafete-ria and in c l a s s -r o o m s . Now it is up to us to take that i n f o r m a -tion and apply it to our meals inside and outside of s c h o o l , since most s t u d e n t s eat one to two lunches at school.

Another new “modification” taking place in the lunchroom is the new plastic trays that are actu-ally less efficient and harder to carry. They look like a plain plate, with very small divisors that do not actually separate the food.

"I like the old ones better because they have compartments and you don't need a separate bowl for fruit," said Lena Chen, a frequent consumer of school lunches.

Looking around for a table

and chairs while carrying a plastic plate, a fruit bowl, and a carton of milk, can be very tricky and un-pleasant, seeing as a few fries can fall here and there. Worsening the matter is if the lunch lady was

h u r r yi n g , the cheese from the taco will find its way to the floor, leav-ing a yel-low trail behind for the rodents that may wish to follow. As students hype over the scan-ners, many fail to see the rapid c h a n g e s occu r r i ng

in our cafeteria, a place responsi-ble for providing much of the student population with food daily. In the end, our health and nutrition is the most important thing, where today's choices will greatly influence tomorrow's re-sults. We need to learn to pick our fights: the scanners do not affect our well-being and are there to in fact protect us, while the changes in the lunch menu will certainly impact our health, sooner or later. ◙

This page, among other pages, have been rated the worst of MySpace.

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lion students had their test results excluded. Minority students, such as Asian, Native American, His-panic, and African American kids, were seven times more likely than Caucasian students to have their scores excluded.

This loophole must be ad-dressed. If the schools are al-lowed to cover up their failures, then how are they held account-able? If the schools aren’t doing enough to help disadvantaged students, they would be leaving the kids behind; the schools are cheating these children of an op-portunity. Just because there are too few students to be deemed statistically significant does not mean they should be ignored and tossed aside. They’re called a minority for a reason. Every test score in every school should be reported to the federal govern-ment. Whether or not these statis-tically insignificant test scores should factor in calculating ad-

Approximately 1.9 million children's test scores aren't being counted under the law's required racial categories. Continued on Page 11

AP

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Styrofoam lunch trays have been replaced by more inconvenient plastic plates in the cafeteria, such as the one shown above.

www.gp.com

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 26, 2006 Opinions/Literary Page 11

When Daffodils Grow

In the garden where daffodils grow, Life is reborn

from winter’s final snow. The white winter ash is replaced,

By sweet pear blossoms Bound by time’s lace.

For her beloved daughter’s return, Ceres holds out

Her golden lantern. Light rainfalls harbor mid-day,

Pearl drops of water from where flowers cascade.

And in the spring when daffodils grow, Life is reborn

from winter’s afterglow.

BY EILEEN CHANG STAFF WRITER

Untitled

I sense tension in the air. A firefly captured waiting patiently to be released… And then fly out, glowing. I am looking out at the window again. It’s not so cold today. Just Breathe. Just take it out. Just breathe… and exhale. Breathe…feel the rhythm of your Heart. Let the fresh wind cleanse you Away into the zephyr. Just breathe. …You’ll like what you’ll find.

BY JENNIFER LEE STAFF WRITER

Right now, it is 11:15 in the morning. The sky, so bright and mesmerizing. Oh, the clouds are suddenly winning.

It begins the process of raining. Oh, but the rain had stopped.

The sun had appeared. The rainbow is slightly colored. What in the nature is going on?

Tell me, oh dear creature. Tell me why the sun starts to glow.

Oh why is it that the day suddenly turned so bright? Oh, how I love and hate these days.

Spring is so confusing...

Springtime BY TINA YUE STAFF WRITER

No Test Scores Left Behind Continued from Page 10

ministrative funding is another topic for discussion.

This failure highlights a re-c u r r i n g theme in the U.S. g o v e r n -m e n t . From 9/11 to the K a t r i n a d i s a s t e r , there has been a lack of respons i -bility and c o m m i t -m e n t . G o v e r n -ment offi-c i a l s s h o u l d r e a l i z e that their actions affect thousands, if not millions of Americans. When federal funding to a school is re-duced, it would be considerably harder to run the school effec-

tively. However, this is not an excuse to not count minority test scores. Our education system will not improve if school officials are

allowed to take the easy way out. With the future o f s o many peo-ple in t h e i r h a n d s , education o f f i c i a l s have to do the right thing, no m a t t e r how diffi-cult it is. It is their o b l i g a -tion. ◙

Alvis Yuen would like reader re-sponse. Please send it to [email protected]

A poll on the No Child Left Behind Act by the AP shows mixed results.

AP Graphic

Page 12 April 26, 2006 LITERARY/PUZZLES THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

Crossword Puzzle BY ERIC MAYO SPORTS EDITOR

Last Issue’s Solution

Sudokus BY TIM CHANG STAFF WRITER

ACROSS

1 They do your taxes 2 It's where we live 7 Carbon using writing utensil 9 Precedes duper 11 Arm in Peru 12 Water creature 14 Atomic number 33 15 Luxury car 17 Roll of the dice 19 Not early 21 Fall 23 Winter olympic sport 24 The $100,000 _____ 27 Cubist 30 Math machine 31 Composer George 33 General in Chinese menus 35 Popular search engine 37 Jeopardy! host 40 Nobel ____ prize 41 Norweigan capital 43 Achievement

DOWN

1 Part of the face 3 Popular search engine 4 Bottom of the pack 5 City in Texas 6 Yankee shortstop 7 Call people with it 8 Fresh squeezed 10 The ____ is Right 13 Country led by Chavez 16 Windy city 18 Three of a kind and 2 of a kind 20 Real estate mogul Donald 22 Cheese state 25 Senior senator from New York 26 Home of 2006 Winter Olym-pics 28 “Moo" sayer 29 Actor Adam 32 Sport on ice 34 Leap 36 Finding ____ (movie title) 37 Golf's Woods 38 American ____ (tv show) 39 Edison's middle name 42 ___ Lanka

Blissful Flyers

Soaring through the heavenly sky Till darkness comes birds will fly Animals that take wing so fast but Many cannot dream to surpass and

Poignantly reaching out to humanity

BY STEPHANIE TAM STAFF WRITER

1 7 6

8 7 6 9 1

1 2 8

7 3 4 9

3 2

2 9 4 1

9 4 7

7 1 8 2

5 8 4

BY ANONYMOUS STAFF WRITER

1 2

4 6

5 9 3

4 3

7 6 3 9 4

8 5

8 4 1

2 5

6 3

Riddle: “E” is the most commonly used letter of the alphabet, the paragraph doesn't use a single one.

Interested in becoming a photographer for The Standard?

Contact

[email protected]

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 26, 2006 SCIENCE Page 13

Of Carrots and Sticks BY KENNETH LAM STAFF WRITER

Digital Immortality BY TAMIR YEWDAEV STAFF WRITER

More Than Just a Fish BY JONATHAN XIKIS STAFF WRITER

A donkey is sitting in the middle of a road, refusing to move in any direction. The don-key’s owner, however, needs to deliver the load the donkey is carrying to another town. He is having trouble figuring out a method to make the donkey move in the direction he needs it to. The owner decides to use the car-rot and the stick.

The carrot and the stick is

metaphorical for the psychologi-cal approach of motivating people into doing what one desires. The carrot is the reward the person being motivated will receive upon finishing the job. The stick is the punishment the worker will re-ceive if the job is not done. The term takes its roots from the times when farmers needed to move their stubborn donkeys. The car-rot would lure the donkey into moving in the direction desired,

Continued on Page 15

375 million years ago, on the ancient continent of Laurentia, an extraordinary creature swam in the warm Devonian seas. Typi-cally measuring 4 to 9 feet long, this “fish” was not all fish, nor was it a four-legged animal — it was both. Named Tiktaalik ro-seae, based on a suggestion by

Inuit elders of Canada's Nunavut Territory, where the fossil was discovered, this lobe-finned fish is what is known as a transitional fossil — it was a type of “fish missing link,” giving life to the cliché about how fish crawled out of the seas and onto the land. One of its discoverers, paleontologist Neil Shubin of the University of


This fish pod fossil, ranging in length from 4 ft. to 9 ft, may be the remains of one of the rare “missing links.”

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As technology continues to advance at an ever-increasing pace, many have begun to ask, “Where are we headed?” In a recent interview, Eli Harari, CEO and founder of popular memory chip manufacturer SanDisk, ex-plained,

We believe that in 20 years time, we will be able to fit 10 terabytes of information into a card that’s as small as a quar-ter. Ten tera-bytes is the a m o u n t o f memory we have in the hu-man brain. Ten terabytes could fit 5,000 mov-ies. When you have that kind of memory, you could store a human l i fe-time’s worth of memory into one of these cards. You could implant a device like this in your head to restore memory.

Currently, SanDisk’s highest capacity card stores 8 gigabytes

and while this is 400 times as much as the twenty-megabyte chips of fifteen years ago, to think that Harari predicts a 1,250-fold increase in only twenty years is mesmerizing. However, things don’t stop there. Growth on simi-lar levels is occurring in almost every facet of information tech-nology. The upcoming Play-Station 3, for example, is esti-mated to be thirty-five times as

powerful as the P l a y -Station 2. If growth continues at this p a c e , s o m e es t imate that Play-Station 5 or 6 will a l r e a d y match the process -

ing power of the human brain. In May 2005, Ian Pearson,

head of the futurology unit and British Telecom, estimated that


Booting up Boot Camp: A Program That Allows

Mac Users to Run Windows Programs

BY MOTTAQUI AL-KARIM STAFF WRITER

Apple has, in the opinion of some of its fans, crossed over to the dark side by doing the un-thinkable: running Windows on their so called superior Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger systems.

Currently, a beta version, which is basi-cally an ex-p e r i m e n t a l version, is available for download on the Apple’s official site. Boot Camp became avail-a b l e o n W e d n e s d a y April 6, after the shipment of the first I n t e l - b a s e d Macs. Ac-cording to

Apple, the purpose of Boot Camp is to allow those that defected to the Mac computers to run Win-dows programs.

To install Boot Camp, a Mac owner would have to do is pur-chase Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2. Then they


Sandisk's current highest capacity memory card.

bhphotovideo.com

The Boot Camp Assistant Beta allows you to run Windows on your Mac.

apple.com

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The Stuyvesant Standard needs you!

Contact [email protected]

Page 14 April 2, 2006 A&E THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

Booting up Boot Camp: A Program That Allows Mac Users to Run Windows Programs


would have to go on to the Apple official site and make the neces-sary updates by running the Soft-ware Update to their machine. They also has to make sure their Mac has the latest firmware run-ning. Firmware is permanent soft-ware programmed into ROM.

Once the user has installed the program, they will have to run the Boot Camp app and burn a CD that contains XP drivers. A driver is a program that controls the operation of devices such as printers of scanners, or as in this case, Intel chips and graphic cards. Basically, these are the objects that will let XP run on a Mac. This process takes several minutes .

After burning the CD, the Boot Camp app presents the user with a slider which allows them to choose the amount of disk space they will allow for each operating system. Boot Camp also asks the user to choose a file system to format their Windows partition with. There are many file systems to choose from, the NTFS being one of the most

prominent. Since the user will be at-

tempting to install Windows XP,

the most obvious choice is NTFS. NTFS, which stands for New Tech File System, is the standard

file-system of XP and its prede-cessors. However, Mac OS X cannot copy files to partitions

which are f o r m a t t e d with NTFS. It can only read and r e c o g n i z e fi les in N T F S . Thus, the u se r i s much better off format-t ing i n FAT32, an older ver-sion of NTFS, but OS X can read to it, w h i c h makes dual-b o o t i n g much more rewarding. Once the user gets all

of this technical deatails done, they click the Partition button. This creates a new partition for

Windows in the hard drive and prompts the user to insert their Windows installer CD. Their Mac then boots into the setup screen for XP. After installation, the Mac reboots into the XP system. The user must put in their burned CD that contains all the drivers in order for Windows to run prop-erly. The drivers install them-selves through an automated rou-tine. Some devices, however, remain unrecognized, for example Apple’s wireless keyboard and mouse.

To switch between settings, one simply reboots and holds down the OPTIONS key while the system is rebooting. Two icons appear on the screen, one repre-senting the OS X hard drive and the other representing the XP hard drive. Use the arrow keys to choose between the two operating systems. Press the ENTER key to make a selection. If the OP-TIONS key is not pressed at start-up, the computer will boot in the operating system that it ran last time.

Boot Camp is a useful feature which will make the lives of lots of Mac users easier. However, it has some problems and will by no means make Macs better than PC’s. ◙

At startup, hold down the option key (alt) to choose between Mac OS X and Windows.

appl

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More Than Just a Fish Continued from Page 13

Chicago, said, “It sort of blurs the distinction between fish and land-living animals.”

T i k t a a l i k ( p r o n o u n c e d “ T IC K - t a - l i c k ” ) , m e a n i n g “shallow-water fish,” was discov-ered after five years of intensive searching in 2004, inside frozen river sediments on Ellesmere Is-land, Nunavut, in northern Can-ada, where the once-warm conti-nent of Laurentia eventually drifted. This cold climate turned out to be the perfect means for preservation of the fossils, which were in very good condition. However, the discovery was not announced until it was pub-lished in the April 6 issue of Nature, when it was instantly acknowledged as a groundbreaking find. Tiktaalik gives a stronger backbone to the theory of evolu-tion, and is proof that fish with fins eventually evolved into

tetrapods. Tiktaalik evolved dur-ing the 25 m i l l i o n years be-tween the appearance of Pan-derichthys, a fish with early attrib-utes of land d w e l l e r s , and Acan-t h o s t e g a , one of the first amphibians and

one of the earliest known tetrapods. It includes properties of fish, such as gills and scales; properties of tetrapods, including

ribs, a free-r o t a t i n g neck, and lungs; and properties of both, i nc lud in g “fishapod” l i m b s , joints, and ear re-gions. Its front fins

...this lobe-finned fish is what is known as a transi-tional fossil – it was a type of “fish missing link,” giv-ing life to the cliché about how fish crawled out of the

seas and onto the land.

look more like those of a croco-dile, and include structures like a shoulder, elbow and wrist, which are not found in fish. Its head also resembles a crocodile’s, with eyes on top and sharp teeth. Tiktaalik did not like staying on land, how-ever; it lived mostly underwater in streams, and only shuffled onto land for short periods of time.

Of Tiktaalik, one thing can be certain. Fossils will continue to be discovered in the future, and as long as there are scientists willing to put in the dedication and hard work to search for them, our un-derstanding of nature and evolu-

tion will become more and more de-veloped. Although not everyone may appreciate a fish that is hundreds of millions of years old, this discovery was not only ex-tremely lucky and time-consuming for the scientists in-volved, but also representative of an important insight into the ancestors of the wide variety of life making up our everyday world. ◙

A sketch of the Tiktaalik.

http://scienceblogs.com

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 26, 2006 A&E Page 15

Sweet and Twisted BY TINA LIU STAFF WRITER

Digital Immortality by 2050, the potential will exist for people to achieve cyber-immortality. According to Pear-son, even poorer individuals will be able to download their brains onto computers by around 2080. Pearson also predicted that in the next 20 years we will be able to create a three-dimensional digi-tally generated virtual world in which people could interact and spend time, essentially a Matrix. In this world, direct links to our nerv-ous system would pro-vide us with the look, feel, taste and even smell of the real world. One could interact with s o m e o n e from the other side of the world as if they were in the same room.

M a n y people have read science fiction that centers on the develop-ment of ro-bots and conscious machines, but realizing that all that is very pos-sible is different, especially since according to many this world will come within our lifetimes. Con-sider that the potential to live for-ever might come for the young of today to in some form or another live forever.

Based on current develop-ment, the hardware will be there, but a different question is whether or not we will by that time be able to gain a s t r o n g e n o u g h u n d e r -s t a n d i n g of the brain for the hard-ware to be able to connect. Many believe this is also achievable in the next century. In July 2005, The Reha-bilitation Institute of Chicago successfully developed a neurally controlled arm for a victim of an electric accident. The arm is con-nected to electrodes that connect to the brain via nerves in the chest. This was the first success-ful implantation of a neurally con-

Continued from Page 13 trolled limb. Its operation is based fully on thought, rather than the subtle movements that previous limbs used. Through the neural connection, the user can even feel pressure when the hand opens and closes.

While many are optimistic as to the development of such future technologies, some believe it will take much longer than estimated. Recently, for example, the CPU industry has had much

t r o u b l e keeping up w i t h M o o r e ’ s law, which states that processing p o w e r s h o u l d effectively d o u b l e e v e r y e i g h t e e n m o n t h s . While this law has been fol-lowed by the indus-try since its formu-lation in 1965, re-cently de-velopment has been s l o w i n g , to an ex-tent. This

is partially due to the fact that we are nearing the limit of the size at which transistors can be made. In April 2005 Gordon Moore, who coined the “law,” explained, “We’re approaching the size of atoms, which is a fundamental barrier… We have another ten to twenty years before we reach the fundamental limit.”

Nonetheless, one can’t but help contemplate the possibilities of a world in which calculators

a n d c o m -puters w i l l b e e m -

bedded in our heads, allowing us to have perfect memory and per-form mental calculations almost instantaneously; a world in which we can connect into a virtual one and do almost anything; a world in which we will be able to achieve, at the very least, digital immortality. Is anyone interested or scared? I am. ◙

If growth continues at this pace, some estimate that PlayStation 5 or 6 will already match the processing

power of the human brain.

Of Carrots and Sticks Continued from Page 13

while the stick would keep the donkey moving.

The carrot-and-stick ap-proach has many parameters, and these parameters change depend-ing on the situation. For example, a worker is asked to do a job. However, the worker is not very well-motivated, and thus does not want to do the job well. Using the carrot side of the carrot-and-stick approach, a larger paycheck can be used to motivate the worker into performing the job well.

In some cases, the stick is required over the carrot. The stick, or punishment, is often used to produce results that are immedi-ate and do not require much sacri-fice on be-half of the motivator. Most often, the stick comes in the form of threats. For example, the same worker now must do another job. However, the rewards are not a strong enough motivation and are work-ing too slowly. In this case, the best course of action would be to threaten the worker, possibly with layoffs or a cut in the paycheck. This would, in effect, produce immediate results. However, in the long run, this could backfire, as the worker would no longer put up with these threats, and only a large reward would be able to motivate the worker into working.

A recent German study showed that the carrot-and-stick approach to motivation does in-deed work. The study revolved

around moneymaking tactics. The subjects of the study would pool together money. Then, the money would be split equally among the subjects. Eighty-four students were given a choice be-tween two groups to join. One such group was a group in which no punishment was allowed or used. The second group allowed punishment — the equivalent of the stick.

The first group, the one with-out punishment, received the ma-jority of students at first. How-ever, with a lack of motivation, these students did not participate much and the pool consisted of barely any amount of money. In

the second group, mem-bers who did not participate and give in money were fined large amounts of

money, and thus, the pool rose and more money was handed out to each member. Each day, stu-dents were allowed to choose which group to enter for the day. Eventually, the percentage of par-ticipation in the second group nearly hit a hundred percent while the amount of participation in the first group dropped to nearly zero.

With the dual motivators of punishment and reward, the stu-dents were able to produce larger amounts of money, allowing each student to receive a larger amount of money. It is this carrot-and-stick approach that provides suc-cessful motivation. The reward draws people in, while the pun-ishment prevents them from turn-ing back. ◙

The carrot and the stick is metaphorical for the psy-

chological approach of mo-tivating people into doing

what one desires.

A man demonstrates his neural-controlled bionic arm, designed by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chi-cago.

www.ncsu.edu

Directed by the prominent Ko-rean director Park C h a n - W o o k , “OldBoy” is a great mixture of bizarre love and bloody gore. The film focuses on three characters, O h ( M i n - s i k Choi), Lee (Ji-Tae Yu) and Mido (Hye-Jeong Kang), revolving around themes of love and vengeance. The intensity of this film gives a multi-tude of unexpected

events and keeps you guessing until the end.

Forget about the old stereo-typical mafia style of killing e v e r y o n e ; “Oldboy” takes vengeance to a whole new di-mension. Physi-cal torture pales in comparison with what Oh has to undergo. Over a period of fifteen years of imprison-ment in a dimly lit room with an ersatz window, Oh is dehuman-


The poster of the movie “Oldboy.”

www.opendiary.com

ter, the ancestors of most of the British royalty.

“Dragonwyck” opens with 18-year-

o l d M i r a n d a Wells, a farm girl living in u p s t a t e N e w Y o r k , sneaking a w a y from her chores to

read a novel. Later that evening, a letter arrives from a dis-

Page 16 April 26, 2006 A&E THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

BY JENNIFER SCHLESINGER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Classical Gothic Romances Revisited: Dragonwyck by Anya Seton

Online Rental Showdown

BY SARA MILLER STAFF WRITER

Nearly every service is acces-sible on the Internet nowadays. This includes online renting, the increasingly popular websites that allow you to rent movies without ever stepping outside your house. Here’s a look at two of these sites.

Netflix

Since its launch in 1999, Net-flix has grown into the largest online DVD rental service. Its simple system allows for the maximum number of rentals in a month without any extra fees. Simply create a list online of DVDs you would like to see, and you will receive up to three in the

mail in one business day. You can keep them for as long as you want without having to suffer from any late fees, and then re-turn them in prepaid envelopes.

The site boasts more than 60,000 movies in its library, con-veniently sorting them into twelve genres, and over one hun-dred genres. You can also receive

recommendations and reviews based on your picks. There are four plans to pick from, accord-ing to your watching capacity: one DVD at-a-time for a monthly $9.99, two DVDs at-a-time (limit four per month) for $11.99, two DVDs at-a-time (unlimited) for $14.99, and the most popular three DVDs at-a-time for $17.99.

A n y a S e t o n ’ s n o v e l “Dragonwyck” is written in the style of classical gothic romances, suc h a s “ R e b e c c a ” by Daphne Du Maurier and “Jane Eyre” by C h a r l o t t e B r ö n t e . Seton is known for her histori-cal novels, such as “Katherine”, which is the story of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancas-

Sweet and Twisted Continued from Page 15

ized into a human lab experi-ment, with only the television as company. Life is a constant cycle of being gassed, fed, cleaned and watched. This inhumane treat-

ment brainwashes Oh into a hu-man vegetable. But what is bril-liant about the style of vengeance here is that “OldBoy” plants the seed of torture deep into Oh’s mind by causing him to con-stantly agonize about the hideous crime he committed, the act of incest.

“Oldboy” is controversial and bold in playing around with the cursed concept of incest. While Oh is being tormented by his sin, “OldBoy” is sympathetic towards Lee, Oh’s kidnapper, by changing the taboo of incest into a warmer and less critical issue. From Lee’s tears and his aching love for his sister, a less cruel view of incest emerges. Lee is

just another luckless fortune’s fool, who just happens to fall in love with the wrong person in life.

The great performances of Choi (Oh) and Yu (Lee) save the

far less talented Kang, playing Mido, the daughter of Oh. While Kang mars the scenes, Choi and Yu make the film a must-see. Throughout the film, Choi’s viv-idly portrayed personality begins to metamorphoses almost un-naturally, from once a constantly drunken fool to a hard and hatred filled man. Yet Yu’s perform-ance outshines them all. As the mystery of the film unravels it-self, the personality of Lee un-masks as well. First comes down the mask of the empty friendly smile, then the mask of the cruel conspirator and lastly the real Lee appears, a wretched creature that is distraught over the lost of his love. ◙

A scene from “Oldboy”

films.tartanfilm

susa.com

Netflix is the largest online DVD rental service.

ww

w.netflix.com



Dragonwyck is a must read for all

gothic romance fans and a good choice

for fans of historical fiction.

tant wealthy c o u s i n , Nicholas Van Ryn, inviting one of the Wells daugh-ters to come live with him. When M i r a n d a hears of the letter, she begs to go, as she has fa-n a t i c i z e d about the lives of the rich and fa-mous. After much discus-The cover of “Dragonwyck” by Anya

Seton.

sion, Miranda’s parents allow her to go. Her position at Dragon-wyck is unsure, as she is not a full member of the family, yet not a servant. She quickly becomes enamored with her cousin, Nicho-las. After the death of Nicholas’s wife, he proposes to Miranda and is easily accepted. After a year-long mourning period, Miranda and Nicholas are married. How-ever, the marriage gets off to a rocky start and Miranda begins to have doubts about her love as she learns more about Nicholas’s character.

Overall, “Dragonwyck” is a well-written book and an enjoy-able read. Although some parts of

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 26, 2006 A&E Page 17

BY JENNY HUANG STAFF WRITER

Although American in-dependent cinema has plenty of coming-of age stories, Noah B a u m b a c h ’ s “The Squid a n d t h e Whale” is one of the better films falling unde r t h i s broad cate-gory. This critically ac-claimed and well-received film, originally in theaters last y e a r , w a s nominated for an Academy Award for Best O r i g i n a l Screenplay. It was released on DVD on March

21. “The Squid and the Whale”

is a semi-autobiographical film about the discomforts and gritti-

ness of growing up in a broken family. It features the emotional journey of the Berkman family, particularly the children. After the parents announce their imminent divorce, the two sons are quick to take sides: Walt (Jesse Eisenberg), sixteen, adopts the judgmental opin-ion of his father Bernard (Jeff D a n i e l s ) a n d blames the di-vorce on the m o t h e r J o a n

(Laura Linney), while Frank (Owen Kline), twelve, accepts

his mother’s new boyfriend Ivan (William Baldwin). At the same time, the sons also begin to ex-plore their adolescent sexuality. Frank becomes a serial mastur-bator while Walt deliberates hav-ing sex with his girlfriend, Sophie (Halley Feiffer). While the plot is reminiscent of those of other films about dysfunc-tional families, the rawness and honesty of the characters save this film from being another mundane movie about growing up.

The father is a particularly memorable character. Bernard, a publisher-less novelist, is an arrogant narcissist whose frugal-

ity provides comic relief in this mainly melancholic movie. In one scene, he allows Sophie to pay part of the bill when the family goes out for dinner. Ber-nard radiates jealousy when he finds out that Joan, who recently became a writer, gets published in The New Yorker. Despite Bernard’s appalling tempera-ment, the Berkman family does have familial characteristics. For example, Bernard’s knack for cursing like a Tourette’s Syn-drome patient obviously rubbs off on Frank. The underlying domestic details definitely add to the sincerity and down-to-earth

Online Rental Showdown


Included in each plan is a free two-week trial.

Blockbuster

Online T h e we l l -

kn o wn mo v ie rental store has taken its services online. It uses the same procedure and the same plans as Netflix, and has a library of 50,000 titles. However, the website offers several features that Netflix does-n’t have. Not only does Blockbuster Online offer movie rentals; it also offers game rentals for Play Station, Play Sta-tion 2, Xbox, Game Boy Ad-vance, and Nintendo Gamecube.

Blockbuster will send you the first movies on your list that are available. The site also has links for movies releasing this week, and a link showing what is in theaters. An extra added bonus included in each plan are the free In-Store Movie Rental coupons. Each month, Blockbuster Online

Announcing the Sixth Annual

Eiger Family Scholarships

in the amount of $25,000 over

four years Presented by

The Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association

Applications are available in the

Alumni and College Offices

Completed applications due by Thursday, April 27th

No exceptions

Please Note: All students who apply will also be considered for one-time $5,000, $2,500, $1,500, $1,050, and $1,000 scholarships.

gives its users printable coupons to enjoy free rentals from its stores.

Out of the two online rental services, Blockbuster Online is the better deal. Even though its library of movie titles lacks a lit-tle behind that of Netflix, it is continuously growing. Its user-friendly website offers many more helpful features, and gives you more control of the order of which you receive your DVDs. For those who play video games, there is an extensive library of over 1000 games, sorted into categories including racing, sports, and action and adventure.

Now Blockbuster offers online DVD rental.

A New DVD Release to Catch: The Squid and the Whale

blockbuster.com

“The Squid and the Whale” DVD.

www.empiremovies.com


Page 18 April 26, 2006 A&E/SPORTS THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN COM-MUNITY COLLEGE

Start right here with...

College Now

Contact [email protected]

The Maximum Talent Theory of Sports Continued from Page 20

picked him up, along with his remaining $112 million contract over 7 years. All this money for the sake of winning. Even more, they already had a superstar short-stop in Derek Jeter, so they moved A-Rod to third base, wast-ing his talents for an entire year while he adjusted to his new posi-tion. Since then, A-Rod has im-proved, but the Yankees still lack a World Series championship. However, A-Rod is not alone. Along with Randy Johnson, Gary Sheffield, and Jason Giambi, these big-name players who were supposed to instantly bring rings are not doing as well as people expected, and may even harm the team. The Yankees pretty much have an all-star team: A-Rod, Jeter, Giambi, Posada, Sheffield, Matsui, Damon, and Mussina. They even have a budding rookie, Robinson Cano. Why is it that an all-star team unto itself like the New York Yankees cannot win a championship? In an effort to explain this, the Maximum Talent Theory was formed.

The Maximum Talent The-ory, like the name suggests, con-tends that sports teams have a set limit on the amount of talent that

they can hold, before any extra talent added becomes worthless, or even detracts from the team’s performance. Adding too much talent to a team d e f e a t s the pur-pose of creating a well-balanced t e a m t h a t w o r k s together. H a v i n g t o o m a n y s u p e r -s t a r s w i t h s e l f i s h motives or over-s i z e d egos can d e f i -n i t e l y harm a t e a m . Stars who were once modest, am-bitious rookies were eager to prove themselves end up falling for the multimillion dollar deal.

Once there, they are so wel-comed, worshipped, and infatu-ated with money that they lose sight of what they were there for.

Then the team begins to lose and both the player and team are un-happy. The star complains about not hav-ing enough help. Then, the team signs more super-stars with even bigger contracts to try to supple-ment itself. Then there are several super-stars on the team, and with such a combinat ion of statistics and records, it's impossible to lose, right?

But one must not forget that these stats were from previous seasons. The stars play together, they feel they’re unstoppable, and they

begin to slack off. Each player thinks the others will do the job, and they become lazy. This is when the team has reached the maximum talent level and it all begins to go downhill.

Another good example of this theory is the New York Knicks. Most are probably fa-miliar with the Knicks’ horrible performance this year, and their even worse trades. Ever since 1998 and head coach Jeff Van Gundy’s resignation, the Knicks have been in decline. They con-tinue to add selfish, cocky play-ers to the team and to make bad trades, adding more selfish, cocky players. Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis are prime ex-amples. Adding veterans Malik and Jalen Rose didn’t help, and rookies Channing Frye, David Lee and Nate Robisnon are hav-ing their growth stunted even before they become stars. The more the Knicks spend, it seems, the more they lose. Sports were never this much about money. They’re about fun and the ad-vancement of sports and its val-ues. Maybe next time, sports teams will be able to actually think about their situations, and realize it’s possible to win with-out spending a fortune. ◙

Getty Image

Steve Francis of the New York Knicks.

A New DVD Release to Catch: The Squid and the Whale

roughness of this film. For New Yorkers, there is an

added bonus to this film. “The Squid and the Whale” was filmed in New York City’s own borough of Brooklyn. Scenes of Q train stations can be seen, along with brownstones in Park Slope. In

addition, the school that

Bernard works in was filmed in Midwood High School and Brooklyn College.

Special features of the DVD include an audio-only commen-

tary, an interview with Baum-bach at the New York Film Festi-val, a thoughtful behind-the-scenes featurette, two reviews (from the Los Angeles Times and the New Yorker), and original trailers.

“The Squid and the Whale” is a somewhat conventional, yet enjoyable, film that possesses all

the wit and smarts a coming-of-age story should. This film will surely be a hit for all fans of this genre. Be prepared to laugh and empathize at the same time. ◙

A scene from “The Squid and the Whale.”

cinematical.com

Classical Gothic Romances Revisited: Dragonwyck by

Anya Seton Continued from Page 17


the book are slow-moving, the reader eventually gets swept up in the story. The plot is rather com-plex, although the ending is fairly predictable. However, Seton ex-pertly mixes in historical events of the time, the mid 1800s’, with the plot, which makes the story more realistic. One of the high-lights of the novel, is its charac-ters. They have complex motives a n d s e e m n e a r l y t h r e e -

dimensional. In contrast to many other

gothic romances, much less is left up to the reader at the ending. Other than this, Seton does a very good job of recreating a classical gothic romance. Like the classics, a sense of mystery surrounds the entire story. “Dragonwyck” by Anya Seton is a must-read for all gothic romance fans and a good choice for fans of historical fic-tion. ◙

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 26, 2006 SPORTS Page 19

Fencing Fever strange having practice in spring,” stated Berland. The hard work and practice seem to be paying off.

S c o r i n g in fencing matches is a little tricky but easy once you get the hang of it. Each team has six fencers, two “A”, two “B”, and two “C”. The “A” fencers’ bouts are worth 1 point each, those of the “B” play-ers are worth .75 points, and those of the “C” players are worth .5 points. Each fencer gets two bouts, and the first fencer to five touches wins.

The Untouchables were in-deed untouchable in their first two matches, both 7.5 to 1.5 wins over Beacon School and Frederick Douglass Academy respectively. “A” fencers Jenny Hsiao and Vivian Truong got the team off to an early start, giving Stuyvesant commanding 4-0 leads. “B” fenc-

Continued from Page 20 ers Berland, freshman Megan Ng, a n d s o p h o m o r e M a l i k a Rakhmankulov are also impor-tant reasons for the team’s suc-

cess, averag-ing 2.25 of the three pos-sible “B” points. This was not the case, how-ever, in the team’s lone

defeat, a 5.25 to 3.75 loss to Hunter. The Untouchables started down 4-0 and were never able to recover. They did recover, though, in their next match, a 7.25- 1.75 win over LaGuardia.

Even though this team is win-ning now, they should be winning for years to come. The team will not graduate any seniors this year. Out of the twenty fencers, there are only two juniors and six sophomores. The amount of ex-perience this team will gain in coming years will make it a force to be reckoned with real soon. ◙

Tennis and the Struggle to Get Courts


Drive and Houston Street, a forty-minute bus ride from school. This means players getting out of school at 3:30 usually do not ar-rive until 4:10 at best. According

to PSAL regulations, these play-ers must forfeit their matches.

So far, the only solution is for the members of the tennis teams is to take taxis, which they do everyday. However, taxi fares and the complications make it diffi-cult for players to make it to prac-tices and games, if not impossi-ble.

Not only is the commute frus-trating, it is a disadvantage to the teams. By the time the teams step onto the courts at FDR, most are already taken. Stuyvesant shares

the FDR courts with other schools, group lessons, and indi-viduals that regularly get to the courts earlier. This leaves Stuy-vesant players courtless or, on a lucky day, with one or two courts

to split be-tween about fifteen players on a single team. Thus, practices be-come ineffi-c ien t ands wastes of time and money. The girls’ ten-n i s t e a m coach, Mark Harman, has inquired about a move of S tu yvesa nt ’s home courts to

the courts down by the piers. This change of location would make it possible for players sim-ply to walk a short distance for practices and matches. As of now, the girls’ tennis team has had one practice at the pier’s courts, but official matches re-main at FDR. Hopefully, in time, Stuyvesant’s tennis teams will have a new home, closer to the school. Until then, players will have to put up with shelling out their own money for taxi fares or risk forfeiting their matches. ◙

A map of the route from Stuyvesant High School to the tennis courts.

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Draft Busts Continued from Page 20

considered the greatest quarter-back in the history of football.

In the NHL draft of 1993, everybody was high on Alexander Daigle. The six–foot, 200-pound right wing was called the next Wayne Gretzky. Daigle broke most of Gretzky’s records in Ca-nadian junior hockey. The Ottawa Senators even lost purposely just to draft this “superstar.” Oops. After five seasons in Ottawa, where he never lived up to poten-tial, Daigle played for Philadel-phia, Tampa Bay, and the Rang-ers before retiring. He came back two years later to play for Minne-sota. He was waived last month by Minnesota, and is currently in the minor leagues. Drafted fourth overall that same year, Paul Kariya is a superstar. In 657 ca-reer NHL games, Kariya has 339 goals and 347 assists. Paul also helped Canada win the gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olym-pics in Salt Lake City.

The Knicks have had their

fair share of draft mistakes. In 1999, the Knicks held the fif-teenth pick in the NBA Draft. At this point, the Knicks had just lost to the Spurs in the finals. T h e y w e r e growing old, and needed help at multiple posi-tions. Their selection was a French center named Freder-ick Weis, the apparent heir to Patrick Ewing at the position. Weiss , now k n o w n a s “French Toast”, never played a game for the Knicks due to a back injury. The next selection belonged to the Chicago Bulls. They took Ron Artest, a small forward from St. Johns. While Artest has had many problems

due to his temper, no one can deny that he is one of the better defenders in the NBA today. No one can also deny that he would have been a better pick for the Knicks.

In 2002, the K n i c k s owned the seventh se-lection in the NBA draft. Their selec-tion was Nene, power forward from Brazil. Like Weiss be-fore, Nene never played a game for the Knicks, but this time it was be-cause he was traded, along with Marcus

Camby, to the Nuggets for Anto-nio McDyess. McDyess played only eighteen games for the Knicks due to injury and was later traded to the Phoenix Suns in the

Stephon Marbury deal. Only two picks later, the Suns selected Amare Stoudemire. Though in-jured this year, Stoudemire is one of the best young players in the NBA, and averages twenty points and nine rebounds a game.

The worst draft bust of all time occurred in 1984. The Port-land Trailblazers owned the sec-ond pick. They selected Sam Bowie, a center out of Kentucky. He played four average seasons there, and four more for the Los Angeles Lakers upon retiring in 1995. The next pick in the draft, however, was someone much more familiar. The Chicago Bulls selected Michael Jordan, a shoot-ing guard from North Carolina. It’s fairly safe to say that Jordan was the best basketball player of his generation. Along with Scot-tie Pippen and Dennis Rodman, Jordan led the Bulls to six NBA championships.

So this Saturday when your favorite football team doesn’t draft who you want them to, just remember the fateful stories of these five individuals. ◙

Dan Morino, the ex-quarterback of the Miami Dolphins.

www.danmorino.com

The Untouchables were indeed untouchable in their first two matches.

Love sports? Love to write?

Join the team.

[email protected]

Page 20 April 26, 2006 SPORTS THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

Tennis and the Struggle to Get Courts

BY STEPHANIE SHEN STAFF WRITER

Fencing Fever BY ERIC MAYO SPORTS EDITOR

Draft Busts BY ERIC MAYO SPORTS EDITOR

The Maximum Talent Theory of Sports

BY RICHARD MAI STAFF WRITER

Stuyvesant’s Girls’ and Boys’ Tennis Teams have long been known for their com-petitive try-outs and, c o n s e -quently, the

high level of ability among their players. As the spring sports get

into full swing, the tennis teams have begun yet another round of successful matches. While there’s plenty of skill, dedication, and victories, the problem that re-mains is actually getting courts to practice on.

The lack of courts around Stuyvesant causes a problem in getting regular practices in be-tween games and actually getting to games on time. Currently, the home courts for the tennis teams are at Franklin D. Roosevelt



A draft in any professional sports league is an exciting day for a bad team and its fans: there are plenty of future stars just waiting to be drafted. H o w -e v e r , f o r e v e r y s u p e r -s t a r t h e r e ’ s a super-b u s t . Here’s a look at five of the big-g e s t d r a f t busts in profes -s i o n a l sports.

The y e a r was 1983, and the NFL draft was

approaching. The Jets were look-ing for a quarterback. Their selec-tion was Ken O’Brien, a quarter-back out of the University of California-Davis. O’Brien went on to have a decent career with

the Jets, retir-ing in 1993, tied for fiftieth place in pass attempts and 42nd in com-pletions. Three s e l e c t i o n s later, the Mi-ami Dolphins also took a qua r t e rback . His name was Dan Marino. While Marino o n l y led the Dol-phins to a Su-per Bowl, he is the all-time leader in pass attempts, com-pletions, pass-ing yards, and

passing touchdowns, and could be

F e n c -i n g f e v e r h a s carried over to t h e spring-t i m e . For the f i r s t time in P S A L

history, the girls have a separate fencing league from the regular one in the fall. This new system might eliminate the coed season in the fall, but whether that will happen remains to be seen.

The team was informed of this change sometime during the fall co-ed season, according to sophomore and co-captain Anais Berland.

The team started practicing for the upcoming season at the end of February. “It's kind of

These days, we regard profes-sional athletes like gods, and it is no wonder that people follow their sports teams so fervently, especially involving big names and winning. And with big names come big bucks. Every year, it seems, there is a newer, bigger, juicier player contract for a sports superstar. The player is

young and shows great potential, so why not make him sign for as long as we can? On this topic, one of the most debated people is a New York Yankee, Alex Rodri-guez. In 2000, he signed a stag-gering $252 million deal with the Texas Rangers as a free agent for ten years. It is the most lucrative contracts in sports history, and is still the most expensive in Ameri-can sports. The Yankees later


Even the great Yankees falls prey to the Maximum Talent Theory.

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Volume 5 Issue 16