Photo by Kay Meysenburg

NewsJanuary 25, 2012Page 2

words of a feather

Rosaries Cause Ruckus

Many trends have been rocked down these hallways, but something unordinary has been popping up here and there and it is starting to turn heads. The new fad happens to pertain to the long neck-laces that embrace the Catho-lic religion: Rosaries.

According to Catholic.com, rosaries are used in multiple religions like Bud-dhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Islam, and in the Catholic faith. Their exact meaning relates back to the practice of prayer.

“A rosary is basically a string with beads with a cross on it. It’s a prayer form, and one is supposed to make a prayer on each bead,” Rever-end Julius Tvrdy said. Tvrdy is a priest that practices at the Sacred Heart church located in the center of Crete.

Along with being used with prayer, rosaries have a great meaning in the Catho-lic faith. It is known to be the most emblematic object used with Catholics. However, ro-saries aren’t usually meant to be worn around one’s neck.

“Some Catholics keep them in their pockets or safe places to use when they need to pray. Very few Catho-lics wear them around their necks,” Tvrdy said.

For this reason, this so called ‘necklace’ isn’t even meant to be a necklace. Knowing this fact, what hap-pens when kids start wearing them around their necks to school?

This new trend has struck up sudden questions con-cerning whether students are wearing them for the right reason and if they even know what rosaries symbolize.

When asked, Junior Vic-tor Arvizo correctly stated that rosaries are a symbol of the Virgin Mary and are very highly respected in the Cath-olic faith. Conversely, he also went on to say, “I see some people wearing rosaries as a necklace just to complete the outfit,” pointing to the con-cern of rosaries used as fash-ion statements.

Arvizo isn’t the only stu-dent voicing his or her con-cern about the wearing of ro-saries in school.

“I feel that people don’t wear them for the right rea-son,” Junior Abbey Reetz said.

“I think they tend to be worn as a fashion accessory,” Junior Taylar Pathammavong said.

Yet, there are a few stu-dents that stick up for their choice of wearing the prayer beads around their neck.

“I’m Catholic, so I wear it to express my religion,” Ju-nior Elizabeth Santoyo said.

Lunch Time Leaves Students Late

Karlee ReistrofferGeneral Staff

From wearing it as a fash-ion accessory to making it a religious statement, a ques-tion still stands as to if they should be worn in school.

A recent incident involv-ing a Fremont Middle School sixth-grader not being able to wear a rosary jumped into headlines. Information pro-vided by a KETV.com article shows that a twelve-year old girl was told she couldn’t wear her rosary, because it went against the school’s dress code. Ironically, the school banned the prayer beads after law enforcement notified the school that ro-saries were beginning to be used as symbols for gangs.

Although there hasn’t been any hint that rosaries are be-ing used in an irresponsible manor, many wonder if ro-saries or any other religious symbols could be banned from Crete High some day.

“As long as they aren’t dis-tractions, they’re not treated any differently than any other piece of jewelry,” Principal Tim Conway said.

Thus, rosaries aren’t go-ing to disappear from the classrooms anytime soon. Nevertheless, the varying reason behind each student’s story for wearing the reli-gious symbol might always be questioned.

“I say that if they’re used for the right reasons, go ahead and wear them,” Arvizo said.

Students in B lunch stand in the Ala Carte line and wait for the line to move forward. Many stu-dents complain about the length of the line and how long it takes to get their lunch.

use the 30 minutes we have,” Principle Tim Conway said.

“I wish lunch was longer because we have only 30 minutes to eat and we need to go to lockers before lunch, get in line and wait for almost 10 minutes, and if we have time use the restroom,” Ar-vizo said.

“I don’t like how long our lunches are because I get sick when I eat too fast,” sopho-more Kaitlin O’Brien said. Many students rush to lunch because they know by the time they sit down with their food they will barley have any time to eat.

“I think people pick most-ly unhealthy foods because it’s easier to eat,” Freshman Meagan Keola said.

“I don’t think it’s healthy for students how fast our lunches are because accord-ing to Mr.Hatch’s health class it takes 15 minutes for the stomach to notify the brain that we are full so it might cause us to overeat,” Arvizo said. With lunch pe-riods being limited to 30 minutes, students are eat-ing more and spending more

Many students don’t think that our lunch periods are long enough others think it’s just fine. There are only 30 minutes allowed for lunch. Do you think that’s enough time?

“I think lunch should be longer because the lines are really long and just waiting takes away half of our time. Plus, I’m a slow eater,” fresh-man Meagan Keola said.

Once the very last student in the hot lunch line sits down there is only 20 minutes left to eat. The last person from A lunch on average gets back to his or her table at 11:57 with A lunch ending at 12:17. The pace at which students are eating is unhealthy. Eating too fast can make people feel sick and eat more.

“I think the reason why we have such short lunches is because they don’t want to take away from learn-ing time.” Irvin Arvizo said. “There doesn’t need to be longer lunch periods we don’t

Emily Behrends General Staff

Pop, soda, soda pop or a soft drink what ever teens like to call the caffeinated drink has been proven to in-crease violent behavior such as carrying a gun or knife to school or violence towards a peer according to My Health News Daily Staff.

“It was shocking to us when we saw how clear the relationship was,” Profes-sor David Hemenway at the Harvard School of Public Health said.

That’s not say that if teens drink pop they’re going to all of sudden have a new urge to punch someone or show other aggressive acts, but it has been proven to increase violent behavior.

“A significant and strong association between soft drinks and violence; there may be a direct cause-and-effect relationship, perhaps due to the sugar or caffeine content of soft drinks,” re-searchers at Harvard School of Public Health and the De-partment of Economics at the University of Vermont said.

A connection between

junk food and aggression has been proposed before in 1979, when Dan White was accused of murder and U.S lawyers argued the reason for this act was because White had switched to an unhealthy diet, according to msn.com

The University of Vermont surveyed responses from 22 different public schools in Boston; they got 1,878 sur-veys back from teens, accord-ing to deseretnews.com.

Two groups were made, one group with low (or four cans of non-diet in a week) and one with high (or five or more in a week) consumption of caffeinated pop.

Of those who are drink-ing around 14 cans of non-diet pop a week, 43 percent had carried a gun or knife to school according to nydail-news.com, compared to the 23 percent in the group of teens whom drank little to no soda.

“I tend to agree with the research, with all the caf-feine and the sugar in pop it does tend to change people’s behavior,” school nurse Ab-bie Page said, “I don’t think those who are mild mannered

will become a hulk,” Another survey said “24.3

percent of teens have a pop a day” and the same survey on go.com says, “72.4 percent teens have a glass of water a week.”

However, freshmen Ame-lia Roth said she drinks three or four glasses of water a day.

Another site claims the 59 percent of high consump-tion drinkers of non-diet soda were violent against peers, when low consumption in-cluded only 35 percent ad-mitting to being violent to-wards a peer. Our school only allows healthy foods to be served on hot lunch at during the breakfast and lunch.

The government is a sponsor for school lunch pro-grams, including rules that go along with giving our school money, like no pop can be served at the breakfast or lunch time hours of the day.

“My advice would be if kids are noticing changes in sleep, or more aggression, try to cut out or decrease all the pop and see if they notice a difference,” Page said

Photo by Emily Behrends

Photo by Kay Meysenburg

Photo by Kay Meysenburg

A Crete High students shows his/her Rosarie, which they wear to school every day. Rosaries in schools are causing comotion because students might not be wearing them for the right reasons.

A Lunch students chow down on cafeteria food. The majority of students want a longer lunch period.

Pop Proves Punches

Jackie OuradaStaff Reporter

money on food because they feel like they are still hungry. Not all people agree with that thought, however.

“Students aren’t rushed to eat but teachers might be,” Conway said.

At home students are most likely spending less than 30 minutes eating meals with their family.

“If we wanted to lengthen the lunch period we would be lengthening your whole day,” Conway said.

“In a way I think lunch is rushed because that is really only the time during school we can use the restroom, eat, and take a break.” Arvizo said.

Are students picking healthy foods because of the time crunch?

“I don’t think that time af-fects the decisions we make as healthy wise.” Arvizo said. “Everyone has personal pref-erence on foods,” Conway said.

I definitely think they should change the lunch schedules to longer so it’s healthier for us,” Keola said.

According to GeekoSystem, students who tend to drink more pop than oth-ers become violent easier than those who do not drink pop. This is a problem because many students drink pop.

Study on Soda Proves Violence