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May 25, 2012 Founded in 1933 inklingsnews.com

Girls’ Lacrosse Team Lingo of the Season

Q&A: Red Hot Chili Pepper Drummer Chad Smith14 20 Inside the Issue

RydeR Chasin ’14, danny CoopeR ’13 &

Reni FoReR ’15Web News Editor,

News Editor & Staff Writer

It’s a stunt straight out of “Fear Factor”: drinking a bottle of Windex.

That’s Windex, a cleaner fea-turing “ammonium hydroxide,” or the chemical ammonia, mixed in water.

That’s ammonia, an ingre-dient used in the Staples cafete-ria ground beef through the end of this year, according to a PTA newsletter statement from Su-perintendent Elliott Landon, an-nouncing a “new option for school lunch programs.”

The meat additive Lean Fine-ly Textured Beef—or, more com-monly, “Pink Slime”—has been featured sensationally in the na-tional media for the past several months.

British celebrity chef and health campaigner Jamie Oliver brought it to the country’s atten-tion, describing it as the leftover trimmings from butchered meat, “all the bits that no one wants.” Oliver continued, on his ABC food show, “This meat is not fit for hu-man consumption, but in America, they’ve found a piece of technology that can turn this into something that turns up in your school food.”

For AP Environmental Sci-ence teacher Michael Aitkenhead,

the product is disgusting: “Yuck. It’s so highly processed you really don’t know what you’re putting in your mouth,” he said.

Brianne Birch ’12 added, “I lit-erally think I’m going to throw up.”

When approached with ques-tions regarding the additive, the staff of the Staples cafeteria de-clined to comment. Landon’s newsletter said only that West-port has directed Chartwell’s, the school food services contractor, to “ONLY purchase ground ham-burger meat” without the additive in the 2012-13 school year.

Why will the additive con-tinue to be used in food currently served? Landon’s letter did not answer the question. And Frank Rupp, director of dining services for the town of Westport, deferred

to Landon’s letter when asked for comment.

It’s also unclear what foods in the cafeteria include the additive; current federal laws do not require labeling on beef that includes the treated beef scraps.

“As someone who is naturally adept at culinary, I’m very used to knowing the entire process behind my food, and one important part of that is where your food comes from,” Rusty Schindler ’13 said. “Not knowing what’s in the Staples cafeteria food is disgusting.”

Some say that the additive is not harmful. Yes, ammonia is used to coat the additive; however, this is only to aid in killing any poten-tial bacteria that may be living on the meat scraps. The bacteria could lead to serious illnesses, like

salmonella or E. coli, that can be life-threatening.

According to government researchers, the company that makes the meat additive uses only government-regulated beef. The beef is centrifuged, which separates the fat from the meat; the product is relatively cheap as lunch officials claim it saves school budgets upwards of $1 million per year.

The additive is by no means a new addition to meat products; it originated in the early 1990s in fast food chains such as Burger King, McDonald’s, and Taco Bell. Only recently has it garnered con-sumer attention.

“The first thing I thought was: I’ve been eating this stuff for much of my life? That’s disgusting,”

Where’s the Beef?

Inklings

Principal John Dodig said.Megan McArdle of The At-

lantic cites this visceral reaction from consumers as a response to the fact that the ammonia-treated scraps were used in several brands of pet food.

McArdle argues that consum-ers are appalled by what they see as a low-class eating style rather than food “not fit for consump-tion.”

According to Rupp, Chart-wells will make these changes to the meat selection for Westport schools starting next school year.

“Chartwells has a good long-standing relationship with the town of Westport. We will comply with any and all requests,” he said.

Dodig is in agreement with Rupp, endorsing the Chartwells program.

“I’ve been in schools for 43 years and I’m telling you, Chart-wells is the best of the bunch,” Dodig said.

Landon shares the same per-spective as the other two, saying in an e-mail interview, “Chartwells observes the highest standards in bringing food services to our

students and has been respon-sive to students and parents for

more exciting food choices for our students.”

Some students, though, re-main wary and say they’ll choose their lunches carefully.

“Pink slime sounds disgust-ing,” Birch said. “I think I’ll just stick to the salad bar.”

‘Pink slime’ is found in up to 70% of all beef sold in supermar-kets in the United States.

THE TRUTH ABOUT ‘PINK SLIME’

The USDA plans to purchase a further 7,000,000 pounds of ‘pink slime’ for school lunches.

STATISTICS FROM JAMIEOLIVER.COM | PHOTOS BY JAMIE WHEELER-ROBERTS ’13

Westport Public Schools to Remove ‘Pink Slime’ by Fall

2 NewsMay 25, 2012

Students will do whatever it takes to get an edge, which could potentially mean boosting a grade, and thus boosting the fre-quently discussed GPA.

Whether it’s the quick glance over to another person’s an-swers during the actual test, or the discussion of test material with someone who had already taken the same or a similar test, academic integrity is often dis-charged.

In other words, they cheat. Right behind their teachers’ backs.

However, many teachers at Staples have methods they think can either eliminate, or at the very least, reduce the amount of cheating going on in their respec-tive classes.

Some common ways of keep-ing test takers honest include changing their tests within a class or give different sections of

AAron Hendel ’14Sports Editor

the same topic different forms of tests.

However, the challenge that results from these test alterations is always the same: to avoid giv-ing some students advantages or disadvantages based on the test they receive. A main way of pre-venting this is to keep the test questions exactly the same, but just to rearrange the order of the questions, which is what chemis-try teacher Trema Voytek does.

The test variations have “ab-solutely the same content,” Voytek assured, although she doesn’t re-ally believe there is all that much discussion of test material with kids from different classes. “I’m pleasantly surprised,” she said.

Another way of trying to lim-it violations of academic integrity while still giving each student the same chance at success (or failure) is by keeping each exam within a class the same, but adjusting

the exams for different sections. Such is the method of English teacher Christine Radler.

“I don’t see any way I can [completely] prevent discussion of test material,” Radler said, explaining the reasoning for her test-giving approach.

But what she does do is move kids around and constantly “monitor” her students during a testing period.

Yet another technique is that of social studies teacher Eric Mongirdas. Mongirdas creates what he calls a “big bank of ques-tions” that he creates, then has his computer randomly pick out questions for two test forms that he will hand out, while also occa-sionally manually selecting ques-tions himself. Not only do the different forms get distributed to different classes, but they also,

they both get distributed within the same class. At times, the two forms can be similar; on other occasions they can be completely different.

“I don’t think one form is more difficult,” Mongirdas said, although he also acknowledged that sometimes, one period’s test could be different than another of the same class based on in-class discussions.

Some students, however, are skeptical that all test forms are of equal difficulty.

“I think it’s fair to have dif-ferent tests for different classes, but not within a class,” Justin Gallanty ’14 said. “Otherwise, there’s no way to ensure the same difficulty [for the different tests].”

On the contrary, others, somewhat surprisingly, want as

many mea-sures as pos-sible to be

taken against copying answers. “Every student should have

their own [different] test,” Jack Dulsky ’15 said. “That way, it would be impossible to cheat.”

Realistically though, for teachers to take the time to create a different test for each and every student, would in all likelihood reduce cheating, would take a sig-nificant amount of time.

“To give [many] different tests would be quite labor inten-sive,” Radler said, with a sigh.

“Any more than two differ-ent tests would make it crazy for teachers while they’re grading and going over tests,” agreed Nick Ward ’14.

And regardless of what methods teachers use, the only thing students really seem to care about is fairness.

“I think that as long as the tests are equally difficult, it’s definitely fair,” Hannah Lewis ’15 said.

Staples Responds to President’s Support of Same-Sex MarriageBAiley etHier ’15Web Opinions Editor

Why Some Teachers Create Different Versions of the Same Test

“I've just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go

ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” said President Barack Obama in a White House interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts on May 9.

With these remarks, Obama has become the first President of the United States to openly en-dorse same-sex marriage.

Alye Pollack ’15, president of the Gay-Straight Alliance, could not believe the news that Obama supported same-sex marriage.

“When I first heard about it, I thought it wasn't true,” Pollack said. “I saw it go all through my newsfeed and I was like, ‘Finally, pride in my country.’”

Principal John Dodig was also excited upon hearing of Obama’s endorsement.

“I never thought I’d live long enough to hear an United States president say those words,” Dodig said. “I think it’s another indication that the country is evolving.”

President Obama himself has said his views of same-sex marriage continue to “evolve.” In 1998, while running for re-elec-tion to the Illinois state senate, Obama said he was, “undecided”

on legalizing same-sex marriage.However, in 2004, Obama

said, “I am a fierce supporter of domestic partnership and civil-union laws. I am not a supporter of gay marriage as it has been thrown about, primarily just as a strategic issue. I think that mar-riage, in the minds of a lot of vot-ers, has a religious connotation.”

Kenzie Furman ’12, a mem-ber of the GSA, understands why same-sex marriage troubles some people: “I think the term ‘marriage’ bothers some people because they want it to be con-sidered a religious sacrament, and the Bible doesn't endorse same-sex relationships,” Fur-man said. “I don't really think it matters if it's called marriage or not, as long as everyone has the same rights, and I think in the past Obama has felt the same way.”

Hours after Obama declared his support for same-sex mar-riage, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Rom-ney reiterated his opposition to same-sex marriage while cam-paigning in Oklahoma City.

“I have the same view on marriage that I had when I was governor. I believe marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman," Romney said. "I have the same view I've had since, well, running for office.”

The timing of the announce-

ment has some Staples students and teachers questiong the im-pending political ramifications

Nick Esposito ’15 believes that Romney was more sincere in his remarks regarding same-sex marriage.

“He [Romney] has always had conservative views, so he

doesn't come across as trying to play the political game,” he said.

What remains to be seen, however, is how Obama’s en-dorsement of same-sex marriage will impact the upcoming presi-dential election.

For Chris Fray, advisor of GSA, the endorsement is risky.

“I think that people going to the polls are not going to say, ‘I support Barack Obama on so many things, but because he said that about gay marriage, I’m not going to vote for him,’” Fray said.

Three days prior to Obama’s endorsement of same-sex mar-riage, Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with David Gregory, “I am absolutely com-fortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.”

Along with Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Washington, and Maryland, Connecticut is one of eight states that has legalized same-sex marriage. However, in comparison, 31 states have con-stitutional amendments that ban same-sex marriage.

“Unfortunately, it’s tied up in a religious issue. From my point of view, it has nothing to do with religion. It’s a civil rights issue,” Dodig said. “If a church doesn’t believe in it and doesn’t want to marry a same-sex couple, that’s their right.”

Pollack uttered a similar message: “Some dudes mar-ry dudes, some chicks marry chicks.”

PHOTO GRAPHIC BY ALEX GREENE ’13

ADDRESSING THE CROWD: President Barack Obama speaks to the press at a White House press conference.

GRAPHIC BY RUSTY SCHINDLER ’13

The War Against Cheating

3NewsInklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

Molly BArrecA ’13Sports Editor

The Science Symposium

For a group of Staples science students, May 22 marked the end of a unique experi-

ence. The annual Science Sym-

posium took place in the Staples library, and seniors gave their final presentations regarding the projects they have been working on for three years.

The library was transformed into a room of colorful posters, each with a unique and specific subject, giving a chance for all students in the Authentic Scien-tific Research program to show-case their work, although they are at different stages in their research.

“One of the things that’s spe-cial about ASR is the relationship you build with your teacher. You meet with your advisor every week and the class fosters a love of science” said Jason Lustbader ’12, who is conducting research on X-ray timing data compared with neutron stars and black holes.

The Symposium began with awards from the science depart-ment for prominent students in various science classes, such as chemistry, biology, and physics; as well as science electives and AP classes.

After the awards, sopho-

mores, juniors and seniors work-ing on their projects were able to display posters with the data they have been collecting. Students spoke in detail about the com-plexity of their projects.

The draw of this year’s sym-posium was the keynote speaker, Yale professor Udo Schwarz, who talked to attendees about nano-technology.

Schwarz described his work in mechanical engineering and visualizing the nano-world, which includes taking pictures beyond those visible through powerful microscopes. Students were able to get a glimpse of the world of a professional scientist. Additionally, Schwarz viewed all of the posters and offered guid-ance to the students as some continue to further develop their projects.

The students who participate in ASR all feel similarly about their experiences in the program as well as their teachers, Michelle Morse and Nick Morgan.

“Dr. Morgan has made this whole process a lot of fun. ASR is a class I look forward to each day because it’s all about understand-ing the concepts, not just being lectured at,” Joseph Yang ’12 said.

Students, faculty, and par-ents alike came to support the program while also to hear about the high level of research that each participant does.

The progression of each proj-

ect varied depending on the year of the student. Sophomores dis-played the preliminary data they have collected as well as their ex-perimental design, while seniors displayed their final conclusions. For Morgan, the symposium is a chance for students to display their expertise.

“After a few months, the students really become experts. The information is always flow-ing from them to me; we’re really just here to guide them,” Morgan said.

President Obama Lends Hand to Students in Debt eric essAgof ’12

Staff Writer

FAC

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BOUT

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The younger generation voted dramatically in favor of President Barack Obama in the 2008 election, and now he ap-pears to be paying them back.

From the Oval Office and the campaign trail, Obama has been announcing plans to for-give student loan debt, and has argued for interest rates, the amount a student has to pay back per month on loans, to stay low.

According to the New York Times, the average col-lege student pays back $23,300 in student loan debt, and this debt is widespread. There are $1 trillion in outstand-ing loans in this country.

Obama has already low-ered the percentage of income that students are required to pay on their loans from 15 per-cent to 10 percent, and has an-nounced that any remaining debt will be forgiven entirely in 20 years. This means that

students will be paying less over a shorter period of time.

These announcements are motivated not just in politics, but also based on troubling statistics that have come out about student debt in recent years. Accord-ing to the New York Daily News, student loan debt in America has reached $1 trillion. To make matters worse, unless Congress acts as the president has ad-vised them to, the interest rates on current loans could rise from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent this summer, meaning that gradu-ates may start paying a lot more.

According to AP Govern-ment and Politics teacher Su-zanne Klein, a teacher at Staples High School and a former po-litical reporter for Congressional Quarterly, this move shows that Obama is keeping an eye on the upcoming November election.

“The fact that [young voters] turned up in 2008 larger than usual for Obama was important for his victory,” Kammerman said.

Young people certainly pre-ferred Obama in the past election. According to MSNBC, among those between the ages of 18-29, 68 percent of them chose Obama over Senator John McCain.

But, according to Kammer-man, Obama is going to have to work to get them to come out in such strong numbers again.

“Over the past few years some people have been disap-pointed,” Kammerman said.

While both political par-ties want to keep the rates low, they both disagree on how to pay for the plan, set-ting Washington up for yet an-other messy legislative fight. Democrats want to raise taxes on the wealthy, while Republi-cans want to take money out of Obama’s health care reform law.

Senate Republicans recently blocked a vote on the Demo-cratic plan to keep interest rates low. Democrats argued that Republicans wanted to protect the taxes of the wealthy at the

expense of the students, while Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R) argued that the plan unfair-ly raised taxes on "the kinds of small businesses that give jobs to graduates who not only need low interest rates but need jobs in order to pay their student loans."

According to Lenny Klein, teacher and creator of the Per-sonal Finance course at Sta-ples High School, the recent fear of student loans should not be a disincentive from getting a college education.

“There are many ways to get money for college and [the cost of loans] should never be a deterrent,” Klein said.

Instead, Klein recommends that students looking at colleges start doing research into alterna-tives, including scholarships and grants, which are two forms of payment that do not require the recipient to pay anything back.

The college and career cen-ter and the guidance office are two sources in the school that

offer such funding options. But, without either of those

options, student loans may have to play a role in deciding which college a student should choose.

“If all else fails and you have to go the student loan route, I wouldn’t necessarily let having to pay for your own education de-ter you from going to college, but that should be a factor in which college you choose,” Klein said.

For those who cannot af-ford college without student loans, Klein recommends look-ing at state schools, which of-fer cheaper in-state tuition. Klein himself is a graduate of University of Connecticut.

Klein also believes that students should not be afraid of student loans, and that they are a manageable form of debt.

“Student loan organiza-tions will work with you and structure the loans in such a way that it works within the constraints of whatever your in-dividual budget is,” Klein said.

PHOTOS BY MOLLY BARRECA ’13

○ 2/3 of college graduates have student loans.

○ College students graduate with an average of $23,000 in debt.

○ The total outstanding student loan debt is expected to exceed

$1,000,000,000,000 by the end of this year.

○ If the new bill fails, student loan interest rates will rise to

6.8%, double the current rate. STATISTICS FROM WHITEHOUSE.GOV

WORKING HARD (TOP): Amelia Brackett ’14 presents her research project to a parent at the symposium. TAKING IN THE SIGHTS (BELOW): Guests walk around the library to observe science research projects.

A Culmination of a Year of Research

NewsInklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com4

It’s a busy Saturday night in December. There are two dis-patchers and four navigators

ready for duty at the Christ and Holy Trinity Church, the SafeR-ides base. However, there are only two drivers. The SafeRides phone is ringing non-stop, but the waits may be longer due to the lack of drivers.

While Julie Mombello, the director of Westport’s SafeRides organization, is grateful to all who volunteered and feels that SafeRides has had a good year so far, she also says there have been a couple nights with only two working cars. This results in longer waits and “frustrated stu-dents.” Frustrated students may be tempted into finding an alter-nate and potentially dangerous

ride home, she said. Mombello believes that the

best way to improve this situation is to make sure that all of the vol-unteers know that once they have had their driver’s license for four months, they are eligible to drive for SafeRides.

While she does not want to discourage volunteers from work-ing because she realizes that they will be eligible to drive one day, in order to make sure that ev-ery non-driver has the chance to work, a limit has been set on the number of times a non-driver can sign up to work at a time. This number is two.

There will be another train-ing session in June in which new volunteers can sign up to work in Sept. and Mombello encourages students to sign up.

Mombello also encourages people that the process for be-

coming a driver is easy. A student simply needs parent consent and then must fill out the basic Saf-eRides application. If a student is already a member of SafeRides, no extra fee is due.

Danielle Honigstein ’13, a member of the SafeRides Board, believes that part of the reason why it is difficult to find driv-ers is that as students get older, they are busier with activities on Saturday nights that they do not want to miss out on.

Upperclassmen are more likely to be doing something from 9:30-1:30 at night than freshmen and sophomores are,” Honigstein said. “They don’t want to miss their social events to volunteer for SafeRides.”

Will Haskell ’14, another member of the SafeRides board, agrees with Honigstein. “Most juniors and seniors are not will-

ing to give up time during their weekend to volunteer for a great cause.”

Board member, Julia Tzio-lis ’13, encourages more licensed drivers to sign up with friends. “There have been times where it has been hard to fill up spots. But, because we do allow people to sign up in pairs, now people do not have to work with someone that they do not know. There is really no excuse not to drive.”

The SafeRides Board plans on addressing this issues for next year and Haskell feels that in or-der to do this, SafeRides should be publicized to generate more interest in volunteering.

“I don’t think that people re-alize how fun and easy SafeRides really is,” Haskell said. “By next year, I want to dispel the rumors that ‘people throw up in cars’ be-cause that is com-

ellie MAnn ’13Business Manager

pletely ridiculous and distracts people from comprehending our goal.”

While SafeRides relies on drivers and non-drivers equally, and it has been difficult at times to get drivers to work, the orga-nization is running smoothly and is looking forward to a successful end of the school year.

SafeRides in Short Supply of Licensed Drivers for 2012-13 Year PHOTO BY ERIC ESSAGOF ’12

Out with the Old, In with the New?

GRAPHIC CONTRIBUTED BY SAFERIDESUS.COM

OpiniOns 5

“Silver Crown Award” for Inklingsnews.com from

Columbia Scholastic PressAssociation 2011

“Crown Newspaper Finalist”Columbia Scholastic Press Associa-

tion 2011

First Place “All-American” from National Scholastic Press Association

2010-2011

All the opinions, news, and features in this paper are those of Staples High School students. Inklings has a circulation of 1,800. The paper is a member of the Columbia Scholas-tic Press Association, the Natioanal Schoalstic Press Association and supports the Student Press Law Cen-ter. All letters to the editor must be signed before they will be published. The editorial board reserves the right not to publish letters and to edit all submissions as it sees fit.

Editors-in-ChiefRachel Guetta

Ned Hardy

Managing EditorsChloe BakerBen Reiser

Web Managing EditorsCheyenne HaslettJordan Shenhar

News EditorsDanny CooperHannah Foley

Will McDonald Jamie Wheeler-Roberts

Opinions EditorsCallie Ahlgrim

Kate BeispelKatie Cion

Erik Sommer

Features EditorsRachel Labarre

Deanna SchreiberJulia SharkeyHaley Zeldes

Arts & Entertainment EditorsGreta Bjornson

Sophia HamptonClaudia Landowne

Sara Luttinger

Sports EditorsMolly BareccaAaron Hendel

Simon StracherBailey Valente

Web News Editors Ryder Chasin

Eliza Llewellyn

Web Opinions Editors Bailey Ethier

Eliza Yass

Web Features EditorsSophie de Bruijn

Chris Ramey

Web Arts & Entertainment EditorsClaire O’Halloran

Caroline Rossi

Web Sports Editors Sami Bautista

Joe Greenwald

Photography EditorsAlex GreeneRose Propp

Business ManagersEllie Mann

Alex Spector

AdvisersElizabeth Humphrey

Julia McNameeStephen Rexford

Correspondence and Subscriptions:

Inklings

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Phone: (203) 341–1994Inklingsnews@gmail.com

Printed on recycled paper

It’s a cold and windy Sat-urday morn-

ing. While most Staples students doze in bed, people armed with signs, shouts, and spirit head downtown to exer-cise their First Amendment rights.

For decades, they’ve worn down their voices, f lagging down pedestrians while ral-lying against wars from Vietnam to Iraq.

These protestors are 80-years-old.

What happens when they die? Who will take their place on the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Memo-rial Bridge?

The ’60s had the Civil Rights Movement. The ’70s had Viet-nam. The ’80s had No Nukes.

What’s our thing? What are we, as students,

passionate about? Westport is a liberal, aff luent community. Yet we seem to be intrinsically un-motivated to do anything that requires any significant effort.

It’s hard for us to relate to na-

Inklings EDITORIAL

What’s Our Thing?

tional issues. We don’t see child hunger on a daily basis. We don’t see gang violence as we walk down Main Street. We don’t see poor public schooling in the halls of Staples.

We live the American Dream. But most of America doesn’t.

While we’re sheltered behind our white picket fences and per-fectly manicured lawns, we sit and stare at our iPhone texts, Facebook notifications, and Twitter feeds. We are cocooned in a virtual world of ease.

We do try.

We change our profile pic-tures to cartoon characters to stop child abuse. We retweet 140-character blurbs urging peo-ple to donate $10 to cancer re-search. We “like” pages to bring down warlords like Joseph Kony.

But did anyone actu-ally “Cover the Night?” No.

These f leet-ing five seconds

of altruism make us feel better about ourselves, but they’re not actually constructive.

We aren’t actually stopping Joseph Kony or eliminating child abuse or curing cancer simply

by tapping on a touch-screen.

As Staples stu-dents, it seems that we only physically step

in to help others when our own interests are in

jeopardy. Even this occurs rarely, if ever. Sure, we successfully picket-

ed the cut of Staples Players and Collab in 2009, but we failed to voice our opinions when Arena was cut a year later.

Of course, students were out-raged after the fact, but no one did anything to remedy the situ-ation.

It’s pathetic that the most re-cent display of Staples students standing up for what they believe in was nearly three years ago.

Sometimes, the obstacle is that we are reluctant to share how we truly feel. We’ve become so politically correct, so afraid of breaking social norms, that we’ve forgotten how to be political.

It’s trendy to post a link. But there’s a big difference between 100 “likes” on a Facebook page and 100 people protesting on a bridge.

Many Words,Not Much Action

May 25, 2012

PHOTO BY BEN REISER ’13

Opinions6 Inklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

Don’t Leave Your Past Behind

Note to self: things I’m not going to miss about Westport...

Chartwells cafeteria food. Eight classes a day. Taking those oh-so-boring required courses. Waking up at 6:30 so I can skip the traff ic. Having a midnight curfew, and that anxiety I get on my way to school over f inding a parking space (thanks, juniors).

So I’ve finished my list with a sense of satisfac-tion. In just a few months, I’m going to put on my “big girl pants” and go off to col-lege. If you’re like me, and I know you are, you’re totally ready to blow this popsicle stand and march off to higher education. That’s right, move forward, and don’t look back. Cut all ties and embrace the future that lies ahead.

Sigh. If only it were that simple. No matter how much you and I deny it, you know it’s true. You’re going to miss this place.

This is how I see it. As mom sheds a tear waving me off to my ungodly-expensive education. (Is she crying be-cause she’ll miss me, or be-cause of the check she’ll have to write?), I fake an eye roll and pretend that I’ll be okay.

But when mom’s not look-ing, I choke back a sob.

Prediction: you’ll be on the phone with your mom 12 times a day those first two months.

You’ll be asking her what she made for dinner last night, what trouble your little brother has gotten in to, and

Something’s Gotta GiveWake Up Without Needing to Smell Coffee

I dance five days a week, on av-erage three hours a night, take two AP classes, attend weekly

meetings for the several clubs and organizations I am a part of, and babysit after school. Cramming all of this into just seven days ev-ery week does not always seem possible, but this is the schedule I built for myself, so somehow I have to make it work.

Now for some people this is a lot to handle. For others, my schedule does not even come close to the amount of after-school activities they commit themselves to.

Some days, like a lot of stu-dents, I feel as though teachers are simply assigning a two-hour assignment believing that I have nothing to do after school other than work; however, between dance and my other commit-ments, there is no way I will be able to complete that assignment

sible. The fact is you want to do

what you love, but something’s gotta give.

I spend the majority of my free time dancing. In order to ad-just for this, I take fewer APs, and pick classes where I know I can get the work done. While I still have the occasional nights where I am up until one in the morning, I know that it’s a result of my own choices.

Regardless of what classes your parents or your college counselor are dictating that you take, you need to think in terms of what you can actually handle without getting overwhelmed.

without staying up until one.I can be either frustrated

with my teachers and blame them for thoughtlessly assigning a pa-per the night of my three-hour dance rehearsal, or I can blame myself for essentially putting my-self in this situation.

We, as students, are always quick to blame the teacher for “carelessly” giving out big work loads, but we forget that it is our busy schedules that got us there in the first place.

A student can join as many after-school sports teams or clubs as they would like, but then they have to think about taking that extra AP. You can’t load up on four APs, not get home until eight and expect to get everything done for the next day; it’s just not pos-

asking her for news of the most arcane variety.

You’re going to miss that bedroom that you grew up in. Where your Spice Girls post-er morphed into the Jonas Brothers, which turned into Justin Bieber, which finally morphed into Dave Matthews.

Think of your former sleeping quarters as a time capsule that you’ll occasion-ally return back to on breaks and holidays. It’s a place where you’ll reacquaint your-self with the stuffed animals that were tucked underneath your bed.

While we’re at it, let’s give a shout out to the high school friends that stuck by our sides

You’re the only one who knows what your schedule will be the following year, so plan for it. Don’t go into your guid-ance counselor and sign up for five APs because you “think” you can handle it on top of everything else that you do. At this point, you should know

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through thick and thin.Understandably, we

promise each other on gradu-ation that we’ll promise to our high school friends that we will remain B.F.F.’s for life (that may be redundant, but it’s true).

Forget all the future friends you’ll make in college, graduate school or the real world; the friends you grew up with in high school are the ones who will stay with you for a life time. After all, those were your first official Facebook friends, remem-ber. (Hint: Cut this column out and put it in a safe place, pull it out 20 years from now, and you’ll see that I was right

about this. Guaranteed). The thing I think I’ll miss

the most? My good old alma mater. Nationally recog-nized as one of the most ac-complished and competitive schools in the country, I’ll ad-mit, there were times (such as finals week), when I wished I were anything but a Wrecker.

But just the other day, as I drove up to school, I stared in awe at the sheer architectural beauty of the place I’ve spent the last four years. The clock is every bit as grand as the one in the middle of Grand Cen-tral Station. That day, I saw my school with a newfound appreciation. It hit me like a big yellow school bus.

All the sporting events that thrilled us, the state championships (the ones we won, and the ones we nearly won) will always be with us.

The faculty has been world-class, and has given us knowledge that not only pre-pared us for our college ca-reer, but also shaped us and our intellectual thought for years to come.

As you read this, I’m sure certain teachers come to mind, that you know had an amazing impact on you, and helped make who you are to-day and who you may be in the future.

After all that I’ve seen making my way through Sta-ples, there is one enigmatic, indelible image that will stay with me for the years to come, an image that has resonated in you as well. Can you guess what it is…?

It’s Principal Dodig. Pic-ture him as we know him best: standing at the entrance of the school every morning, greeting each one of us warm-ly as we file in for a new day of education.

More than anything else, this image symbolizes the to-tality of our common experi-ence as students—and soon to be graduates—of Staples High School in Westport, Conn.

We will miss all of these things, but we can take com-fort in knowing that not only will we have these collective memories that link us togeth-er as classmates, but we can stand back and appreciate the essence of all of these things being a part of who we are. And what we will become.

By the way, to all of my classmates whom I’ve grown up with, I’ll never forget all the times we’ve had together. Thanks for the memories.

what you are getting yourself into when you sign off on your final

schedule for the following year.So, you can sit back and

pretend that it’s all your teachers’ fault for doing their job or you can give some-

thing up and adjust your schedule to accommodate your schoolwork and eight hours of sleep each night.

The choice is yours.

GRAPHIC BY MEGAN FOREMAN ’14

7OpinionsInklings / May 25, 2012 / Inklingsnews.com

Trendy Now, Embarrassing LaterLong-Run Lessons About Some 2012 Trends

If there was any word I would use to describe 2012, that word would definitely not be

“chic.” It seems as though style

and class have been completely obliterated, to the point where I just went through a miniature panic attack merely to type out the word “class” because people overuse it so much.

I’m all for the concept of trends. Where would Marc Ja-cobs be without them? But when people begin to let the trends take over, that’s when I start hy-perventilating.

I almost feel as if I’m in an amusement park at school these days. A very scary, very un-chic amusement park, that is a com-bination of Middle Earth and the Death Star, where people wear poorly made elf shoes (Tom’s) and shirts with built in ventilation (basically anything from LF).

Maybe it’s because I’m a second semester senior and I’m ready to go to college. But even

The Bro

CodeIt’s a

Guy Thing

my college friends are latching on to these depressing trends. The sheer number of Frozen Yogurt (Froyo) stores per cap-ita there are is astonishing and frightening.

Do people not realize that Froyo is basically glorified ice cream?

You are not being more healthy by having over-sweet-ened sour milk with 0.25 serv-ings worth of strawberries and the 500 calories worth of cookie bites and mochi.

Meanwhile, while half of us are gorging ourselves on that il-lusion of health, the other half are adorning themselves in the style monstrosity that is cur-rently known as “neon.” Maybe in the 80s, neon was cool. It was new. It was a thing.

Neon is an eyesore, and you aren’t original for wearing it. Let’s just say once Disney Chan-nel catches onto the trend, it’s dead.

The female American youth needs to get their act together. Seriously,

I’m embarrassed for us, and wouldn’t be surprised if our de-plorable actions lead to an even-tual warrant by the Internation-al Criminal Court—or worse, the fashion police.

But actually, take a look in the mirror.

There is one thing that sepa-rates men from animals. There is one thing that

unites them in the world. There is one thing that defines the rules of brotherhood.

The Bro Code. To guys, the Bro Code is an

internal code of conduct, similar to the way people let their sense of morality determine their ac-tions. Or how people look to reli-gion to decide what is right.

The Bro Code is our Bible. The Ten Commandments

in the Bible let religious people know what sins are. The rules in the Bro Code let guys know what offenses against your fellow bros are.

However, a difference be-tween the Bro Code and the Bible is that the Bro Code doesn’t need to be written in black and white.

There is no published book. There is no pamphlet that is

handed out. The Bro Code is encod-ed in all guys DNA.

“It is important because it sets out all the rules for bro cul-ture,” Jack Dobrich ’13 said. “It will guide a bro through every situ-ation.” It’s a crazy world we live in. But, through all of it the brotherhood sur-vives.

How? The Bro Code.The Bro Code preserves the

ties between guys. That is how the brotherhood is so strong. We respect each other because that is what the Bro Code teaches us to do.

We don’t hook up with our friend’s ex-girlfriends. We don’t talk trash another man’s mom. We don’t snitch on other guys. We don’t ditch a friend when he needs a wingman. And we always have a bro’s back.

But, that is just the begin-ning of the list.

Those guys who go rogue and fail to abide by these require-ments should be ashamed. By my standards they are not men. And

by definition they are not bros.

Don’t be dis-couraged though, real bros. One day guys who went rogue will be in need of a bro. And on that day they will realize that

you need to be a bro to be protected by the Bro

Code.And all rules of the Bro Code

are to be revered and respected. However, one stands above the rest.

Guys before Girls.To answer the question your

thinking; no, I am not trying to be a sexist jerk. Face it though, girls do have a way of getting be-

tween bros. Girls will come and go. Bros are all you have at the end of the day.

And I’m not saying girls don’t have a reason to dislike this rule. They are most definitely entitled to their opinion. Grace McDavid-Seidner ’13 said, “I mean some-times I wish those kinds of rules could exist with girls too. But, it’s annoying when guys use it as an excuse to be rude to a girl.”

She has a point too. I wouldn’t like it if girls had rules that put their girl friends above guy friends.

Luckily though, I don’t have to worry about that.

That is exactly why the brotherhood is stronger than the sisterhood. Girls, think about how often you catch your “friene-mies” spreading rumors about you. Or how about hitting on a guy you like.

I bet it rings a bell.Guys don’t have that prob-

lem though. Because whether you like it or not, the Bro Code is alive and well.

To anybody who doubts it, to anybody who thinks it’s ridicu-lous, I have one thing to say:

Bite me.

Junior Blues

There is something inher-ently frustrating about being in school when the sun starts shin-ing and temperatures climb into the 70s.

This is compounded, fur-thermore, when AP tests end and seemingly simultaneously classes empty out. I got a preview of it the day of the senior class trip, and as a junior it’s killing me.

It’s not really reasonable to be resentful. Everyone goes through the same thing and the Senior Internship Program is a great opportunity I hope to take advantage of next year.

But there’s something in-furiating about being stuck in a classroom for most of the month of June, when many classes (AP’s in particular) are over and stu-dents you’ve come to see as peers throughout the course of the year are gone already.

I’m a little tempered by the fact that most of my teach-ers haven’t told me what’s going to happen after the tests, after internships. I guess it could be fun...maybe. Or educational. Something like that, I think.

The vagueness is unusual. AP tests are ending, the school popu-lation is shrinking, and it’s just not clear what’s going on. We’ve been adhering to a strict schedule for the whole year, but all the sud-den there’s plenty of time and we have no idea what’s being done with it. The sudden lack of struc-ture is cool, but at the same time rather unsettling.

From what I’ve gathered, most AP’s will be doing some form of project for the end of the year, while non-AP classes will soldier on with material even when their numbers dwindle.

The change is noticeable. My physics and calculus classes will race through the rest of their cur-riculum with fewer kids, while AP classes are suddenly slowing down, switching from rigid struc-ture to independent projects. It’s something of a role reversal, ac-tually.

I never noticed the tremen-dous stress everyone freaked out about with junior year until now, but I think it’s very real during this time.

Kids around you are in col-lege and done, and everything is just getting started for the class of ’13.

The kid sitting next to you in physics is off working in an el-ementary school and you’re still trying to decipher harmonics.

Yeah, that’s stressful.

“I never noticed the tremendous stress everyone freaked out about with junior year until now.”

GRAPHIC BY ELIZABETH CAMCHE ’14

GRAPHIC BY OLIVIA CROSBY ‘15

Opinions8 Inklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

It’s Time to Clean Up The Cafeteria

Today, I had first lunch, and the tables were—very sur-prisingly—clean. Spotless,

no, but there wasn’t any trash on them.

Of course, this was only a deviation and one that was quickly corrected. By the end of first lunch, there were plenty of tables with trash that someone had neglected—or perhaps lazily refused—to throw away.

You know who they are. You know what it’s like.

The plastic cookie bags.Half-drunk chocolate milks,

the other half is spilled on the table.

White boats filled with fries, cheese, or some other remnant of the meal they once held.

Now, I understand. It’s per-fectly fine for people to be lazy and force others to pick up after them.

It’s so much work to get up and take an extra five steps to the garbage can. And you’d have to be Hercules to be able to carry such enormous weight! Those lunches can weigh as much as a

whopping twenty grams. For these reasons, I under-

stand why some people are sim-ply unable to throw away their trash. After all, it’s not as though leaving trash around is disgust-ing.

Except, oh wait, it is.They’re leaving their food for

others to pick up after them. And very few people pick up trash that they did not leave. But why shouldn’t they? I always throw away trash that’s been left on my

table, whether or not it is mine.And I am getting pretty an-

noyed at having to do it so often. Or every single day.

Last year, I was not as good about this. I always threw away my own trash, but I rarely, if ever, threw away anyone else’s. What changed this? Last year, second semester, I took Child De-velopment 1, taught by the lovely Mrs. McClary. One day, when we had an irregular schedule, we got to see the kids who were eating

their snack. Mrs. McClary pointed out

that every single one of the kids cleaned their place and threw away their napkins after munching on their goldfish.

They then put their place-mats—a laminated paper that had outlines of a plate, a fork, and a spoon on it—back in the proper place. None of them needed prompting to act so...maturely.

And this was in glaring

contrast to the supposedly ma-ture high school students.

Now, if four-year-olds can walk an extra ten steps (similar distance, but they have shorter strides) while carrying a one-gram napkin, I think it’s fair to say that high schoolers can walk an extra five steps carrying twen-ty grams of trash, whether or not they left that trash there.

I don’t like cleaning up after others. I’m not anyone’s maid--and, guess what, neither are the custodians!

That’s another reason I pick up trash. I don’t know many of the custodians, but I know all of them are nice, and I do know Mr. Watts is one of the friendliest guys at Staples. Every time I see him, he gives me a smile and a fist bump. I met him at GFS, and, back then, he was just as great a guy as he is now.

I could never leave trash for Mr. Watts to clean up, to act like my maid. And I don’t like it when others turn Mr. Watts or any of the other custodians into their maids.

So, just clean up after your-self. Nobody likes trash at their lunch table; it’s disgusting. Ask yourself, do you like sitting in a trash heap? Actually, I’ll change that. Instead, ask yourself, do you like eating in a trash heap?

GRAPHIC BY AMY PERELBERG ‘15

Bash the Trash

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9FeaturesMay 25, 2012

Fire Lane Renegade

“I aim to be the Gandhi of student parking.”

This is how Perry Lorber-baum ’13 describes his ability, desire, and successes against what he perceives to be “a broken Staples parking system.”

Take, for instance, the num-ber of tickets that he has re-ceived, which exceeds 20.

Lorberbaum readily re-counts one specific incident in which he parked not illegally in the Wakeman parking lot but rather on Wakeman field itself. This resulted in a $25 charge from the Town of Westport. However, Lorberbaum believed he had a case.

“I was late for an important test in Economics. There were no spaces left. The concept of pay-ing $25 because I was late for a test was just ridiculous. And I knew I could take a calculated risk because I knew I could win,” Lorberbaum said.

And win he did, as the ticket was completely thrown out of parking court.

The secret? According to Lorberbaum, wearing the right clothes—a suit— made a big im-pression even before he actually argued the ticket.

“People respect you more when you dress up,” Lorberbaum

said. If a highly-respected man like Mr. Dodig were to one day show up to school in a t-shirt and flip flops, I guarantee that students would respect him less. So do I think that clothes make a difference when I show up to ne-gotiate? One hundred percent.”

Lorberbaum, who has worked as an intern at North-western Mutual Financial Net-work, a financial services firm, for over four years, believes that he has benefited tremendously by learning to work and dress in a corporate environment. How-ever, he also thinks that another main contributor to his refined negotiation skills is a firm belief that he is in the right.

“Various people involved with [Staples] and local parking enforcement tried to charge me for consistently parking in the fire lane at Wakeman Field. Yes, I’m aware that it’s completely il-legal. But I had to do what I had to do. And there’s a reason I do it: corruption in the parking lot,” Lorberbaum said.

Lorberbaum believes that the semester parking lottery for juniors is flawed: students who don’t have their licenses or ac-cess to vehicles at the time of the drawing may siphon away spaces from students who can and would make better use of them. His solution is a lottery for every academic quarter, which

he thinks would be fairer to all students involved.

“I will never illegally park in an area that blocks or im-pedes other vehicles. But when I proposed my ‘quarterly lot-tery’ system to a member of the Staples administration and was simply told that it’s just ‘not gon-na happen,’ I was pretty pissed off, because I felt as though my concerns were ignored,” Lorber-baum said. “Therefore, when I fight these tickets, I see it as a

just cause.” Additionally, Lorberbaum’s

will to argue for what he thinks is fair transcends the parking lot and enters the classroom set-ting.

“There was one time when I was assigned a PowerPoint proj-ect. I put in a slide that I recog-nize was slightly gory, but my teacher took off seven of eight possible points because she claimed I had used “inappropri-ate images.” Lorberbaum then

Lorberbaum ’13 Takes Corporate-Style Negotiation to the Streets

Claire O’HallOran ’13Web A&E Editor

Hero (noun):“An illustrious war-

rior; one who shows great courage; a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities.”

According to Merriam-Web-ster’s Online Dictionary, that is the definition of a hero.

There are few people who can truly be considered heroes; how-ever, soldiers are among those few.

It’s a national holiday in which the population commemorates the loss of soldiers fighting for the United States.

Yet, sometimes Memorial Day is seen as a day off of school to en-joy the early signs of summer.

“I think it’s an important holi-day, but in the modern day, people are often too busy to stop and to celebrate,” said Jessica Ellison ’13.

Ellison, along with Griffin Thrush ’15, sometimes find other instances to remember the sol-diers.

“I think about soldiers during Veteran’s Day because the school often recognizes it in some way, and while at war memorials like the Tomb of the Unknown Solider,” Ellison said.

Although Memorial Day may be a holiday that sometimes slips the minds of students, it is still considered important. Thrush be-lieves that even though the holiday is very overlooked, it is still very significant.

Tom Armas, a lieutenant colo-nel in the Marine Corps Reserve, and a friend of Assistant Principal

isaaC stein ’12Staff Writer

Richard Franzis, has been deployed to Iraq three times and is one exam-ple of why Memorial Day should be celebrated. Armas was interviewed on Good Morning Staples on May 24.

Armas risked his life and saved multiple lives , on 9/11 just before the north tower collapsed. Accord-ing to an account documented on Youtube, he was awarded a Navy Marine Corps Medal for these he-roic actions. Armas, along with the multitude of other soldiers and veterans who put their own safety at risk in order to ensure the safety of the people, are heros.

Staples Assistant Principal Richard Franzis, a colonel in the Army Reserve, believes that Me-morial Day is an important day for

people to recognize. In past years, it has received more publicity due to United States involvement in war, he said.

Franzis has been in the Army Reserve for 30 years and in 2007, was sent to Iraq for one year. While it is good for all people to acknowl-edge the importance of Memorial Day, Franzis believes that seeing soldiers fight and die around you shows the real significance of the holiday.

“When you’re up close and per-sonal, when you see young men and women die in combat, and when you see young promising lives cut off way too soon,” Franzis said, “it makes you reflect on how you owe it to the [soldiers] to live your life well.”

Franzis believes it is important

that Memorial Day not be a day of sadness but instead a time to reflect and live life to the fullest.

There are many different opinions on whether or not US in-volvement in wars is just; however, students and administrators alike agree that the question should not take away from the purpose of Me-morial Day.

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t make [the soldier’s] sacrifice any less honorable,” Franzis said.

Thrush agrees that, “it’s impor-tant to recognize soldiers and veter-ans who defend us.”

Memorial Day is meant to hon-or those who sacrifice their lives for the safety of Americans.

On Memorial Day, Franzis takes time to “think about all of

How the Staples Community Personalizes Memorial Day

the young lives cut short and the dreams never realized.”

He remembers for all of the lives that were cut short while de-fending America.

“To many of us, they were just a statistic, but every one of them left a family landscape tragically altered forever,” Franzis said. “I re-ally think about how unbearable the conditions were under which these American died and how small most of our daily troubles truly are when you give a moment to reflect on all that these folks gave.”

Bill Wilkes, a math teacher at Staples, also served for the US and has thoughts similar to Franzis re-garding Memorial Day.

“I think of the brave men and women who have fought to preserve our way of life,” Wilkes said. “I had many friends in the service who did not make it back from the first or second Gulf Wars and think of them often. Some that did make it back will never be the same, and the results have had detrimental effects on them and their families. I think good wishes for all of them.”

Memorial Day is meant to be an important holiday recognizing the valiant soldiers who risk their lives for their country, all agreed. It is an important day for students, among their teachers, to simply re-member.

“It’s really a great day to do some reflection,” Franzis said, “to slow down, and stop thinking about things that aren’t really important. It puts things in perspective.”

SERVING HIS COUNTRY: Principal Richard Franzis poses in uniform in front of a piece of artillery.

went on to explain how he used negotiation tactics to regain all but one of the lost points.

It was all about recognizing that we all have different senses of humor—and that “inappropri-ate images” were not banned on the rubric,” Lorberbaum said.

In general, Lorberbaum is confident that the determination of an individual determines suc-cess.

“It’s not a skill set,” Lorber-baum said. “It’s a mindset.”

MODERN DAY GANDHI: Perry Lorberbaum ’13 proudly poses in front of his Audi after accumulating over 20 parking tickets this year.

PHOTO BY ROSE PROPP ‘13

PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY RICHARD FRANZIS

10 FeaturesInklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

The Working World of Westport

Finding StrengthGSA President Stresses Alliance

Part of what makes West-port so special is the in-teresting individuals who

live here. Bob Bowman, a father of two Staples children, a former Little League coach, and an ac-tive Westporter, is also the CEO and President of MLB.com.

According to Bowman, “MLB.com is the one stop place for everything baseball, regard-less of device, location or time. Our job is to provide the best, live content to all fans and their favorite teams.”

At his offices in Chelsea Market in New York City, Bow-man does “a little bit of every-thing. Mainly I focus on strategy and less on tactics, day-to-day.” This means figuring out what the company should be focusing on next, “wireless, social, the death of websites-whatever.”

One exciting project that MLB.com is currently working on is “At Bat,” which is the top grossing app of all time on iOS devises. “Like all good apps, its goal is to surgically combine great content with cool user in-

GSA stands for Gay Straight Alliance, not “the gay club.” This is the mes-sage that president Alye Pollack ‘15 wants to make known throughout school. Pollack wants to build on the alliance, a word recent-ly used in Obama’s speech endorsing gay marriage.

Building this alliance is no small task. Yet Pollack is committed to taking it on as a freshman president, something very unusual at Staples. Despite only being in her first year of high school, Pollack has received national attention from her video on bullying, “Words DO Hurt,” posted on YouTube.

“I was bullied throughout middle school for being gay, and there weren’t any support groups, so I was happy when I asked who the GSA adviser was and found that it was Mr. Fray” Pollack said.

In March, members of the club attend-ed the True Colors Conference, in Storrs, CT., an event that emphasizes the important of alliance. There, LGBT kids attend work-shops on different aspects of social justice and to meet students from other chapters of GSA. The Staples chapter shared a bus to the conference with Bassick’s chapter.

“It was the best day of my life. It was nice to feel like I could just be myself and not be judged,” Pollack said. “I just felt re-ally safe.”

Many misconceptions exist about the club. As Pollack said, some think that it’s only for gay kids. Principal John Dodig said that he has heard some people say that it is a club that is used to recruit kids to become gay. Chris Fray, club advisor, said that some people believe GSA to be a dating service

rOse PrOPP ’13Photo Editor

terface. Streaming live content was a first for the world, which we did in 2002, but making it cool for kids—that’s the needed element for today.”

Before his days at MLB, Bowman gathered a long list of accomplishments. He holds an M.B.A. from the Whar-ton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard Uni-versity.

His first job out of college was in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Bowman later served as Treasurer for the State of Michigan from 1983 to 1991, as President of the Michigan Ed-ucation Trust and as a Director of Blockbuster Ink.

In the midst of all of his hard work, Bowman still has time to focus on his family: his wife Lisa, his daughter Emily ’12 and his son Jack ’15, and as most

CHlOe Baker ’13Managing Editor

A GLANCE INTO THE WORKING WORLD: Bob Bowman poses with his two children, Emily ’12 and Jack ’15.

parents do, he wants them to ap-prove of his job. “I think they think it is a job that I love, and they think that is cool,” Bowman said.

Their enthusiasm seems to spread farther than that though.

“I think my dad’s job is cool because he is always around such a popular sport and gets chances to do things that many other people can’t do, like meet-ing players,” Emily ’12 said.

PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY BOB BOWMAN

The Extracurricular Scene

Many parents in Westport sit behind desks or in little cubi-cles, for law firms or investment banks, but Jack and Emily get to say that their dad is in charge of the media for America’s favorite sport. While some parents are meeting consultants and busi-ness partners, Bob Bowman is shaking the hands of some of today’s most famous baseball players.

While some kids whose par-ents have cool jobs may strive to follow in their footsteps, both Emily and Jack plan on follow-ing their own path. “I don’t re-ally have an interest in pursuing a career like my dad’s. Don’t get me wrong, his job is awesome, but I’m not really a big sports fan,” said Jack ’15.

Emily has a similar opinion as Jack, but neither belittles the work of their dad. In fact they do the opposite. “He is in charge of a lot, and his job is a big time commitment. It amazes me how he can do it all,” Jack ’15 said.

WESTPORT AT WORK

SHOWING THEIR ALLIANCE: GSA president Alye Pollack ’15 and GSA members Arianne Goodell ’15, Caroline Ritter ’14, and Kenzie Furman ’12 pose for a photo during a meeting.

MLB.coM cEo BoB BowMan

where sex is discussed the entire time. “Kids I know have said that GSA is like

the Yu-Gi-Oh! Club and only for freaks and weird people. It’s my way of bringing a part of my life into school, so it’s very important to me,” said Arianne Goodell ’15.

Since some believe that the club is sole-ly for gay students, many would be surprised to hear that the majority of the club mem-bers are heterosexual and join to show their alliance. A week in October is set aside for this- Ally Week- where non-LGBT students sign up to be allies and show their support.

“I’m very proud of the heterosexual kids in GSA because it really takes courage to do that. Most assume that they must be gay to join, and for some people that is truly devastating,” Dodig said. “Staples hasn’t evolved to the point where same sex couples can walk each other to class and kiss good-bye, but I’m satisfied that we don’t have ha-rassment against gay kids.”

Staples was the first public school in Connecticut to allow a chapter of GSA to be established. Created in 1993 by Dan Woog, varsity soccer coach, the club continues to grow and network in order to strengthen the fight for their cause.

11FeaturesInklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

One Important Decision

A Trip Away From the ClassroomMissing just one day of

school can be tough – making up work, tests, and learning the new material is never an easy task. It’s necessary to miss school if one is truly sick, but are field trips re-ally worth the repercussions of being absent?

“Sometimes field trips are an essential part of a curricu-lum and should be attended even when it means the students will need to make arrangements to make-up work in other classes,” said art teacher Angela Simpson.

Simpson has attended a va-riety of field trips, such as chap-eroning a trip to the Museum of Modern Art. A range of classes at Staples High School takes field trips, like Spanish 5H, Culinary, Environmental Science, Marine Biology, and multiple music and theater classes.

Enviornmental teacher Heather Morley thinks that the field trips are necessary as they are truly the only way to effec-tively teach her class.

“If we were forced to teach it with out field trips, we would still have to go outside. Why would you learn about Maple trees out of a book when you can go and see them?” Morley said. She feels that allowing students to observe what they are learning helps them better digest the material, to the point where testing stu-dents on the material afterwards is not as important.

“Overall, I think field trips provide an authentic, enriching way to learn, and as long as at-tending the trip doesn’t pose too

Ask seniors what they want to be when they grow up. Their an-swer? A mere shrug and a grunt for a response. However, there are some seniors who have a definite reply. These seniors know

exactly what job they want to acquire after they graduate college and as a result enter into their freshmen year with a decided major.sami Bautista ’13

Web Sports Editor

raCHel laBarre ’14Features Editor

much difficulty in missing other commitments, they are very valu-able,” Simpson said.

But it’s not only teachers who value field trips. Although some students don’t see the need for them, many understand their im-portance.

“They’re helpful because they provide a way of mixing up the way students learn,” said Alec Solder ’14. Agreeing with Solder, Victoria Mechanic ’12 said, “I’ve actually learned a lot on some of the field trips I’ve gone on, got hands-on experience on the sub-ject while having fun.”

The Environmental Science class goes on two and a half hour

Kenzie Roof ’12 has known that she wanted to be a doctor since seventh grade. “It was when I really started to like science, especially learning about the heart and do-ing dissections,” Roof said. Since then, she has oriented her life toward medicine.

Sophomore year, Roof started volun-teering at the Westport Emergency Medical Service as a Medical Response Technician. In her junior year, she was certified as an Emergency Medical Technician. Roof said that her experience with EMS made her re-alize that she enjoyed the emergency aspect of medicine.

She continued to gain practice in the medical field by volunteering at the New York Pres-byterian Hospital in both the emergency room and cardiology unit.

Knowing she was interested in medicine helped Roof pick classes, she said; she took Medi-cal Terminology, Anatomy, AP Biology and AP Chemistry. Roof has decided to attend the Univer-sity of Southern California due to its neuroscience program, which she has also chosen as her major.

For Chelsea Steinberg ’12, there simply isn’t any other question in her mind: music is her ultimate pas-sion.

Steinberg, who has played the cello for both the symphonic orches-tra, as well as the pit orchestra for Players shows over the course of her high school career, plans to pursue a career as a music teacher.

“I didn’t want to end up in a cu-bicle,” she said. “I know people who have ended up like that, and they’re so unhappy.”

Steinberg finds that the most practical way to exercise her musical passion and skill would be to teach. She will be attending the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she will double major in cello per-

formance and music education. “I love music,” Steinberg said, “and I

don’t see how I couldn’t be doing it for the rest of my life.”

long field trips twice a week that provide them with a tangible learning experience that doesn’t require them to miss their other classes. But other courses take day-long field trips, which in turn leave students a day behind their peers. “It can affect hundreds of people when students miss a day of school, but you can’t fight it – field trips are too important,” Morley said.

Morley said, “In a perfect world, we’d be able to take field trips every Friday and decide which subject got it that week.” And in that perfect world that Morley describes, each student would take the textbook learning

they receive in class and would be able to apply it to the real world.

However, many students feel the opposite of their teachers. Amanda Keiser ’12, who took En-vironmental first semester, said that she was grateful to have the wonderful Morley as her teacher, but “all field trips in general don’t do much for kids except excited them because it’s something dif-ferent.”

This excitement starts to dwindle by the second half of the Environmental course after spending two hours twice a week out of school, Keiser said. Luckily for students in Environmental, they never miss school due to the

trips, but field trips in other class-es sometimes do require students to be absent for an entire day.

Dan Haroun ’12 went on a day-long Spanish field trip to New York to watch a play based on a story that he had read in class. He noted the difficulty that came with missing an entire day of school. “I think that sometimes field trips are important and a great experience, but depend-ing on the class they can make it difficult for students to catch up with school work they missed,” Haroun said.

Kumi Goto ’12 can attest to the difficulty of making up work. “When I was on the AP Environ-mental Science field trip, my AP Calculus started a new unit that was basically the basis for the rest of the year. So, I had to teach my-self that, which was difficult,” she said.

Simpson felt that making field trips optional would be the best way to deal with the difficulty of being absent from school for a day, while still providing students with an opportunity for hands on learn-ing. If students feel that the field trip would be enriching to their personal interests, they will still have the option of going on the trip, she said.

However, if a student knows that they will be missing a lot of work and doesn’t feel that they will profit from the experience, they will not be forced to go. “When it is optional, I would hope that the student weighs the educational benefits of attending against the hardship of making up work and doesn’t attend simply to have a day off of school,” Simpson concluded.

TRANSFORMING THE LEARNING PROCESS: Taking knowledge from textbooks out into the real world on field trips proves to be an effective way of teaching.

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2Charlotte Feinstein ’12 has taken al-most every art class that Staples has to offer and possesses more than enough art credits to graduate. However, one form of art has made a significant impact on her life: photography.

Feinstein picked up this hobby about two years ago and claims she hasn’t been able to put down her camera since.

“I became intrigued with composi-tion, colors, models, atmosphere, and the aesthetics of photography,” Feinstein said. “Everything inspires me: stories, art, clothing, environments, and emotions.”

Feinstein has chosen to go to an art school and major in photography, greatly affecting her college process because it meant focusing on creating her portfolio along with grades.

Feinstein admits that at first she was hesitant about going to an art school; how-

ever, she didn’t let that stop her. “It is really out of my comfort zone,” Feinstein said. “But that’s how much I want to pursue photography in my life.”

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12 FeaturesInklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

1stAmendment

1n History

Adopted in 1791, this all-important section of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution

is the very source of our freedoms of religion, speech,press, assembly, and petition.

It began at a story generation meeting with co-editors, in early 1983.One Andrea Callow, then

16 and a junior at Hazelwood East High School in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, was the idealistic high school reporter. Encouraged by her progressive journalism adviser to write so-cially-controversial stories and to uncover stories that had been pushed aside by her school’s community, she and the mem-bers of her student newspaper, The Spectrum, wanted to do something big.

“We were kind of done with covering the football game and talking about the next dance. We thought there were some real is-sues that our peers were dealing with,” Callow said. “We noticed that there were girls around campus that weren’t just getting fat—they were getting pregnant. People’s parents were divorcing, some had siblings that were get-ting into drugs, and we thought these were issues that needed to be reported.”

Callow volunteered to write the story about teen pregnancy. What ensued was a series of ar-ticles about socially-relevant topics, including runaway stu-dents, teen marriage and di-vorcing families. Callow and her staff were proud of their work, and when publication day came, they couldn’t wait to see the sto-ries that were truly reflective of the environment they were liv-

ing in.However, when they opened

the paper up that day, the spread was missing. The immediate re-action was to run to Principal Reynolds.

“We all went down there, and he, in a very paternalistic way, told us, ‘I don’t think they were appropriate, and it’s my decision, and you kids don’t re-ally know what you’re doing,’” Callow said.

Essentially, for Principal Reynolds, the reality of their re-porting was frightening. Their newspaper had never been cen-sored in recent memory.

They got together as a group to discuss what to do next, and someone suggested they go to the American Civil Liberties Union, a national organization that advocates for individual rights.

“That afternoon, we all went down there, and I remem-ber us piling into the office; of one of the volunteer attorneys, that’s where it all began,” Cal-low said.

The lawyer informed them of their rights as journalist, and said they felt that their case had a strong basis. The staff chose the editor at that time, Cathy Kuhlmeier, to be the lead plain-tiff.

Callow stayed involved in the case until she graduated from Hazelwood East, and dur-ing her time at University of Missouri, she was always in-formed of the case’s progres-sion, which had made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court by the time she was a senior.

The Spectrum’s center spread on teen pregnancy, divorce, and drug use

was censored by the school administration, which led to the famous court

case that governs curriculur student speech to this day.

Julian Clarke ’12 & stevie klein ’12

Staff Writers

A Hazel-Lined Decision

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. | Congress shall make the government for a redress of grievances. | Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition theg

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The Supreme Court, however, ruled in favor of the school district, despite the implications that it limited free speech and press in schools. They concluded that the First Amendment does

not prevent school of-ficials from having au-thority over what is in school-sponsored pub-lications.

To this day, offi-cials have control over the publications and can keep out material deemed to be inappro-priate for the student body. The decision in Hazelwood vs. Kuhl-meier sets the prec-edent for high school press and plays a sig-nificant role in the lives of high school journalists.

“If I had the op-tion to go back and do it all over again, I wouldn’t change anything. It was an overwhelming experience, but I think it was important, and I hope it made a dif-ference,” Callow said.

Even though the court sided with the school district, the attention drawn from the case has provided a good deal to high school press. “If it wasn’t Hazel-wood East, it would have been another

school. I’m glad it happened because it raised awareness and got people to start talking about challenging the norms of high school journalism,” Callow said.

Now, as a parent, Cal-low does see a line to be drawn where things be-come too inappropriate.

“I think a little dif-ferently about the top-ics I’d like to see in the school newspaper. I think socially-relevant topics like sexuality, drug use, abstinence and others are things that need to be talked about because high school is when a lot of these things come up,” Callow said. “It’s diffi-cult to remember how I thought about things as a 16-year-old reporter now being a 45-year-old mom.”

The most important thing to do to protect free-dom of speech and press, according to Callow, is to

maintain an open and consistent dialogue with the school’s administration.

“I never had another conversation about what occurred with Principal Reynolds after what hap-pened at Hazelwood East,” Callow said. “I think it’s important to have discussions with the ad-ministration of your school and allow for that dia-logue to take place.”

GRAPHIC FROM ARCHIVES.GOV

13FeaturesInklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

With a bold sign in hand, Callie Loparo ’12 has spent over ten Saturday

afternoons standing on a picket line, protesting against puppy mills outside of Puppies of Westport. Lo-paro sees her role in the protests as a way of standing up for her beliefs. However, she only has this ability because of rights granted to her by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

“I feel thankful that we live in a country where we can express our opinions through protesting,” Loparo said. “It’s a satisfying feel-ing that you are publicly trying to right a wrong and raise awareness about a problem in your own back-yard.”

Throughout its history, West-port has been an environment that encourages freedom of expression within Staples, as well as around town.

Speaking Freely in SchoolAccording to Principal John

Dodig, the Staples administration encourages an open environment tolerant of a range of books, cloth-ing, and conversations. This has allowed students to express them-selves freely and rarely have con-cerns about being restricted.

“I don’t worry about what I say,” said Ashley Rey ’14. “It’s not what I think about when I walk into school.”

Dodig emphasizes the impor-tance of limited restrictions on stu-dent speech.

“It’s important for kids to come to school and feel safe,” Dodig said. “They must have a broad latitude in what they can say and do for that to happen.”

At Staples, First Amendment rights are evident in the library’s wide array of books, mature con-tent in a student’s short story, or even in the length of shorts sported by girls in the summer.

Other districts can be differ-ent, according to Adam Goldstein, a lawyer at the Student Press Law Center in Alexandra, Virginia.

“The average high school is run like a little Cuba.”

Students’ free speech is a privilege in a school environment; the Supreme Court has ruled that free speech is not protected if it disrupts the school. According to Goldstein, in addition, vulgar com-ments are not protected, nor are pro-drug statements. And what’s called school-sponsored speech, including newspapers, are on shaky ground.

“There are only two groups of people with diminished First Amendment rights,” Goldstein said. “Students and prisoners.”

Dodig feels that Staples is rel-atively open to student free speech “There are lots of places even in this state that are a lot more con-servative than Westport.”

Some students agree. “It’s a lot more lenient than the school I went to before,” said Michelle Gurevich ‘14, who previously attended a pri-vate school.

However, speech promot-ing sex, drugs, and alcohol is still not protected even at Staples. In the Inklings Senior Supplement two years ago, anonymous seniors shared their “Senior Confessions.” Dodig had not reviewed this article before it was published and after publication asked Inklings to re-move this page from the issue be-fore it was sent to subscribers.

“It was totally inappropriate,” Dodig said of the article, which included content about sex and drinking. “I was embarrassed.”

1stAmendment

joined 31 people in an act of civil disobedience, linking arms and sitting in the middle of traffic on the Saugatuck Bridge in order to protest the war in Vietnam.

Despite having being arrest-ed for standing up for her beliefs, Margolis remains a fervent believ-

Dodig said that in the future, he would not let a similar article be published. Dodig reviews all issues of Inklings before they are sent to print, a right of prior review guar-anteed to administrators under another Supreme Court ruling. However, he is liberal in terms of

“I feel as if Obama is doing a pretty good job. Ever since he took oath, he has combatted is-sues such as Osama bin Laden and gay marriage.”

— Luke Crowley ’13

INKLINATIONS: Students’ Free Speech 1n Action

“I think that the death penalty is controversial because two wrongs don’t make a right, but it depends what role you play in the situation.”

— Catherine Lane ’13

Town Has History of

Speaking Its Mind

emily GOldBerG ’12 &eliza llewellyn ’14

Staff Writer & Web News Editor

DEATH PENALTY“I think gay marriage should be

legal. If a man and woman can freely express love for each other, then two men or two women should be able to experience love in the same way, be-cause we are all human. Love is love.”

— Maddie Kimball ’12

GaY MarrIaGe“I think it should be the woman’s

choice because it is a decision that will affect her for the rest of her life.”

— Henry Dumke ’13

aBOrtION POLItICs

MAKING PEACE A PRIORITY: Protestors stand on the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Bridge with signs in hand, raising awareness for their cause.

PHOTO BY EMILY GOLDBERG ’12

This type of open dialogue is not only helpful for Westport resi-dents trying to express their beliefs but for the Board as well, he said.

“This year a man came to talk about continuing the A Bet-ter Chance (ABC) program, which was temporarily suspended last year,” O’Day said. “He highlighted the fact that it is a good program, and this fast forwarded the discus-sion to continuing the program.”

Students have also taken a stand. In 2009, then-freshman JJ Mathewson ’12 stood on the steps of Town Hall, armed with a mega-phone, to implore the BOE to not cut classes like computer science and Collab due to budget reduc-tions.

“I am absolutely thankful that I had the ability to speak out against what I thought was wrong,” Mathewson said.

While Mathewson recognizes student discussion of problems, many of which are brought to his attention as President of Student Assembly, he encourages students to express their opinions more of-ten.

He referenced the issue of Arena, a 38-year-old program cut in 2011, where students were able to try to select which teachers they wanted. “While a lot of students were upset [about Arena being cut], there weren’t enough people who followed through and actually made an effort to try and stop it.”

Along with Mathewson, Mar-golis has seen the widespread ef-fects of using our Constitution-granted right to express our beliefs.

“The First Amendment im-pacts every important issue in our lives, in the government, in the courts,” Margolis said. “We have been extraordinarily blessed to have great thinkers at the Philadel-phia convention who created what proves to be a great Constitution.”

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. | Congress shall make no law respecting an establishm

ent of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assem

ble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. | Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the

1n Westport

allowing controversial content in-cluding student cigarette use, un-derage drinking, and sex.

“A wide range of speech is supported due to the community,” Dodig said.

A History of Free Speech in Westport

A Westport resident of 47 years, Estelle Margolis recalls times when Westport was more of an activists’ town. During the Vietnam War, she and many oth-ers would protests against the war on the steps of Westport Town Hall. These were family events that Margolis would bring her three children to.

On May 9, 1972, Margolis

er in the right to free speech, and shows her support with a handful of Westporters that stand on the Saugatuck Bridge each Saturday, protesting against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I’ve been protesting here for seven years, and I’m going to be here until everyone is out of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Margolis said.

Aside from war, other issues Westporters have been vocal about are those addressed by the Board of Education (BOE) and Board of Finance (BOF).

According to BOE Chairman Donald O’Day the Board welcomes comments from the public before meetings and at specified times during meetings.

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14

A few weeks ago, Inklings landed a phone interview with Chad Smith, the long-

time drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Smith, who called us an hour late in typical rock star fashion, spoke candidly about his childhood, his various side proj-ects, and his band’s recent induc-tion into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

Inklings: What was your childhood like?

Smith: I started playing the drums when I was seven. As I got older, and I have to be honest with you, I went to three different high schools, not because I was some academic genius, but be-cause I was more focused on mu-sic. I went to a Catholic boarding school for a bit, you can imagine how that went.

Inklings: That could not have gone well.

Smith: (laughs) Yeah, it didn’t. But what did help me graduate and get decent enough grades was that I took every mu-sic class available. I took music theory, I was in a marching band. What’s unfortunate is that nowa-days many public schools are getting rid of music programs. They’ll buy shoulder pads for the football team, but they’ll cut out the music programs. It’s really sad. But back in 1979-1980, they had all these music classes, and any kind of music classes I could take, I would get good grades be-cause I was into it. It was my pas-sion. It balanced out all the Ds in biology. (laughs)

Inklings: Let’s talk briefly about the Red Hot Chili Peppers audition. You weren’t always into the style that the Peppers wanted to go for. You were more of a hard rock guy.

Smith: I had heard of them but I didn’t have any of their re-cords. My friend that told me

about the audition told me I was going to love it, so I was like, “cool, this sounds awesome.” I wasn’t really nervous but more curious. I literally bought, at that time, a casette of one of their records and listened to it in the car on the way to the audition. I sat in the park-ing lot to finish up the last couple songs, and I was like, “Oh, I could do this.” And even though I came from the Midwest and had a hard rock background, the chemistry just worked. Musically, we hit it off right away.

Inklings: That’s a great sto-ry for a lot of musicians here who don’t know what genre of music they want to go into. You can start off liking a particular style of mu-sic and falling into another.

Smith: Yeah. You just have to be open-minded. To be well-rounded as a musician, you need to be open to all different styles of music.

Inklings: It’s definitely in-teresting that you talk about being open-minded, because looking as your repertoire, you’ve played with everyone from George Clin-

ton, to the Dixie Chicks, to the straight-up hard rock of Chicken-foot.

Smith: I’ve been really fortunate to play with Sammy [Hagar] and Michael [Anthony]. I mean Van Halen, I grew up lis-tening to that stuff. That’s right in my wheelhouse. I can do the Chili Peppers, and that’s great, but if going to play other types of music, I really enjoy playing other stuff that’s not like the Chili Peppers. That’s just more fun. But I’ve been fortunate enough to be in a good situation—certainly with the Chili Peppers for the last 20 whatever years—and we’re still trying to challenge ourselves to come up with new stuff. We still enjoy it, you know. We do it be-cause we love it. And that comes through.

Inklings: Yeah and speak-ing of new stuff, on Tuesday, you guys just came out with a covers EP in light of your induction into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. You guys did David Bowie, Beach Boys, etc. How did you decide what songs you wanted to do?

Smith: Well, the EP is some-thing we put out to commemorate us being inducted. We’ve always covered songs of bands and art-ists that we admire and love. The groups that are on that record, we just thought that it was a nice rep-resentation of some of the groups that we love. And we wanted to put it out to honor them.

Inklings: Let’s talk a little bit about your latest record, “I’m With You.” Losing John Frus-ciante was obviously a big change for the band, but then you picked up Josh Klinghoffer to fill in. Do you guys find yourselves meshing with him as well as you meshed with John, or was it tough to adapt to that new direction?

Smith: You know, I can’t compare, and you’re not trying to replace. John was a very impor-tant person in our lives, and we still love him, and he made the choice to leave because he wanted to do other things. And we re-spected that. We had some of our greatest times and successes with him and wrote some of our best songs with him. He’s an incred-

ible musician, probably the best I’ve ever played with as far as gui-tar players go.

Inklings: Wow, that’s say-ing a lot.

Smith: That being said, we wanted to continue with the band, and Josh is certainly a great player. He’s not only a great guitar player—he’s great on the keyboards, bass, drums, and he’s a great singer too. We’ve known him for 12 years as a friend. Af-ter John’s departure, we thought, “Here’s a guy who we already know and he knows us, so let’s see if we can write songs together.” Some of the stuff we wrote that first time we jammed ended up on the record. Chemistry is so im-portant with any band or team. I know that when we make our next record with Josh, it will be even better because we’ve spent all of this time getting to know each other better as musicians and people. Things can only grow and get better. It feels very new and exciting.

Inklings: Yeah that’s awe-some that after that many years you can add another guy and still make a great record like “I’m With You.” I was wondering—do you have a favorite from that album? I know you guys are touring right now and I’m sure you’re playing some stuff off the new record.

Smith: Yeah, we played “Goodbye Hooray” last night, and that was really fun. “The Adven-tures of Rain Dance Maggie” is a great jam. There’s a little bit of everything. It’s like choosing your favorite child. It’s kind of hard to say. But I’m proud of it and glad that people want to come out and see us play it.

Inklings: You’ve played the World’s Largest Drum kit at 308 pieces. How is that physically possible? Neil Peart must be in-credibly jealous right now.

Smith: It wasn’t like a drum kit, it was like a drum room. It was like a giant music store. It was not the most musical thing in the world, but it was fun.

Talking with a Pepper:Charlie Greenwald ’12 &

ryan Panny ’12Staff Writers

Q&A with Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers

FIVE Fast Facts about Chad Smith1. He likes watching “Saturday Night Live.”2. He helps with many charities, such as the Teenage Cancer Trust.3. He has six children.4. His full name is Chad Gaylord Smith.5. And yes, indeed, he looks like celeb Will Ferrell.

RED ROCKIN’: Chad Smith makes music with his bandmate, Flea, during a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert.PHOTOS CONTRIBUTED BY NANCY MACK

15A&EInklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

Bringing Back the Classics

Behind the Notes

Samantha rutter ’ 12Staff Writer

amanda PiCColino ’12Staff Writer

Staples students have a limit-ed view of the Symphonic Orches-tra, and it’s not because of their seat locations. According to Chel-sea Steinberg ’12, polished on-stage attire and demeanor conceal the constant rigor and teamwork ethic that being in Symphonic re-quires.

“The saying ‘you’re only as strong as your weakest link’ defi-nitely applies to ensemble play-ing,” Steinberg said, “It is very difficult to get everyone to master their individual parts and simul-taneously blend with other mem-bers of the group.”

Gabrielle Wimer ’12 agrees that the most difficult part of be-ing in an ensemble, or any orches-tral group, is that each musician is an integral part of a harmoni-

ous whole. She emphasizes the importance of sectionals, where each instrumental section prac-tices apart from the others for both individual and collaborative mastery.

“In order for a piece to sound good, everybody needs to know their parts well individually, and then come back together to per-fect it and really make it musi-cal,” Wimer said. “Group success can only happen with individual progress.”

The Music Department helps ensure such progress with its compulsory attendance policy and individual instrumental les-sons, which can be taken before or after school, during a free period or lunch wave. Staples attendance policy states that absences from practices and performances count towards students’ total number of allowable absences (five maxi-

mum each year). Flutist Katie Hickson ’13 says

that the best way to master a piece is to focus during orchestra re-hearsals and pay attention to the nuances of the other instruments’ parts.

“That allows you to under-stand how your own part fits into the whole piece. If everyone is attentive during rehearsal, then we are more likely to have a suc-cessful concert,” Hickson said. “In that way, everyone depends on each other, but an individual has to take responsibility for learning his or her part and practicing it in-dependently.”

Hickson experiences her greatest difficulties learning long pieces with fasttempos, such as the fourth movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, which Steinberg recounts as “incredibly hard, but very satisfying to pull off.” Alternatively, Hickson, Stein-berg and Wimer all describe slow pieces to be challenging due to the intense focus they require on mu-sical dynamics and contrast.

“For me, this usually means practicing at home slowly, so I can learn all the rhythms and notes. That way when I get to rehearsal, I can focus on making it more musical by adding more dynam-

Those who work in the mu-sic industry know that they need to be on the lookout-

for the “Next Big Thing”.From YouTube sensations

such as Justin Bieber and Grey-son Chance, and hidden talent-being discovered on popular TV shows “American Idol” and “The Voice”, it’s all about finding the next big star who can top the charts and have the most down-loads on iTunes.

But what if now the next big stars are coming from the past?

With the release of new al-bums and concert tours from classic artists, it seems that now what was once was old is new.

Just take a look at the suc-cess of the Dave Matthews Band. One of the world’s most revered rock bands since the 1990s, the band is back with the announce-ment of a 2012 summer tour and the release of a new album later this year.

Fans of all ages are lining up to see the band in concert, and are eagerly waiting for thealbum to drop in the fall.

Some, like Juan Castro ’12, have been fans since they were little.

Castro first became inter-ested in the band when, “I saw a recording of one of their concerts on the TV when I was 8, and I’ve

liked their stuff since,” said Cas-tro, “I would love to get tickets to see one of their shows, and I’ll de-fiantly download the album once it comes out.”

Other artists such as Tony Bennett, Foreigner, and Journey are also making their way back into the music scene; but for one artist, his comeback is happening posthumously.

After the Beatles broke up in 1970, the members of the “Fab-

and other artists, and his hidden life out of the spotlight.

For fans, the movie has re-affirmed their love for Harrison and his work.

As Brad Payne ’13 explained, “George Harrison was one of the guys who changed music forever, so I’m really glad they’re making a documentary about him.”

Michael Jonas ’15 echoed Payne’s thoughts.

“It was cool to see the story of his life from the Beatles to his solo career to his tragic death of lung cancer in 2001,” Jonas said. “He has a lot of great music, and the film really showcases his tal-ent as a songwriter and a guitar-ist. He’s just one artist whose mu-sic will never go out of style.”

Which leaves the remaining question; with the triumphant return of older artists, why is the music industry still searching for new talent?

Castro has one idea why the industry is so keen on finding new talent.

“It’s simple really,” laughs Castro, “It’s not that the music in-dustry isn’t going to stop search-ing for the ‘Next Big Thing,’ but what they aren’t noticing that the artists that influence the new stars are the same ‘oldie’ artists that they know and love. The mu-sic industry may be always look-ing at the future, but the musi-cal inspiration will always come from the past.”

George Harrison’s September 2011 cover of Rolling Stone

commemorating the release of a new biography about his life.

Covering the Best

Four” decided to each pursue other projects.

For guitarist George Har-rison, he recently stole the show and captivated fans instead on the silver screen with the 2011 documentary “George Harrison: Living in the Material World.”

The film includes unseen clips of his life with The Beatles

“The artists that influence the new stars are the same ‘oldie’ artists theat they know and love.”— Juan Castro ’12

The cover of Martin Scorcese’s 2011 documentary on George Harrison

entitled “George Harrison: Living in the Material World.”

The Dave Matthews Band will be stopping in Hartford, Conn.

during Memorial Day weekend for a concert.

The Dave Matthews Band has been together since 1991 and has gathered a strong fanbase since

then.

ics and bringing it up to tempo,” Wimer said.

Steinberg uses a similar strategy: spending extensive time learning notes and rhythm, fol-lowed by the rehearsal of really small sections “over and over and over again.”

Evidently, Symphonic Or-chestra requires the same sports-manship and group work ethic as any athletic team.

“Every player has to be very accurate as well as confident in order to bring their best to the whole group,” Steinberg said. “Work ethic always starts with the individual.”

PHOTOS BY SOPHIA HAMPTON ’15 & GRETA BJORNSON ’15HELLO CELLO: Symphonic orchestra members Chelsea Steinberg ’12 and Margi Goelz ’12 rehearse their parts.

TAKE NOTE: Sam Weiser ’12 concentrates as he plays the first violin part during a rehearsal.

The Technical Aspect Behind Student Orchestral Music

A&EInklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com16

Cracking the Code

Spring Television Preview: HBO’s “Girls”KelSey landauer ’12

Staff Writer

Company logos inevitably surround us 24/7, and the average American sees thousands of company advertisements daily. It’s no sur-prise that app developer Javier Perez Estarria-ga decided to make a game out of it. With app fads like Temple Run, Scramble with Friends, and Face Juggler, it is hard to tell what the next it thing is going to be. But Logos Quiz has cer-tainly gained popularity.

Logos Quiz is a free app that challenges the mind to recall and fill in the company name that matches the logo. The game pulls logos from over 500 hundred companies and builds in difficulty by each level. Points are received based on your ability to fill in the name without spelling errors. As points are received, levels are unlocked, and hints are offered. If the series of three hints doesn’t help, you can always ask a friend.

Nicole McNees ’13 discovered the fun of playing this game. She saw all her friends play-ing it and thought it would be fun.

“Why wouldn’t I get it? It’s free!” Her eyes were glued to her phone as she told me about the fun of the game with exclamations like “I

can’t figure this one out!” and “I just unlocked level three!”

But Logos Quiz is more then just fun and games. Annie Kessler ’13 describes how ben-eficial it is in the hallways. “You know when you are walking in the hallways alone ,and you don’t want to look like a loser? Well you can just open up Logos Quiz, start playing, and it looks as if you are texting,” said Kessler.

It is no surprise that this game has soared to number one on the app charts for iPads

and number three for iPhones. Ju-lia Kaner ’13 ex-plains, “It is fun to try to guess what the logo is.”

L o g o s Quiz is more then a per-sonal chal-

lenge of your knowledge of corpo-rate logos. This game often becomes a collaborative effort. The game is structured so that asking friends is easy and common. The game links in through your Facebook and Twitter so the user can ask friends for help.

As Kaner said, “I could not get through the game without help.”

deanna SChreiber ’13 Features Editor

The title of the show “Girls” pretty much embodies the premise of the show. The

viewer follows the lives of four twenty-something-aged girls liv-ing in New York City. Sounds familiar, sure, but Girls is the antithesis of the former hit se-ries “Sex and the City” created by Darren Star.

Girls creator Lena Dunham produced a group of girls, not women, who have been brought together by circumstance rather than unbreakable friendship. Aside from creating the series, Dunham also produces, writes, and stars in the show.

H e r character, H a n n a h H o r v a t h , lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn with her best friend Marnie Mi-chaels, played by Allison Wil-liams. The duo makes up half of the motley crew, representing the single functional friendship thus far in the series. Hannah, a witty aspiring writer who has been cut off financially by her parents, cre-ates the perfect foil for Marnie, a responsible art gallery assistant who is still dating her college boy-friend. Such an unlikely friend-ship is barely acknowledged by the other characters in the show, suggesting that they were brought together by some event in the past.

The other half of the crew is just as unlikely, but also overtly incompatible. Jessa Johans-son, played by Jemima Kirke, is

a caricature of the free-spirited world-traveler. With a consistent-ly bohemian wardrobe and Brit-ish accent, she assumes the role of the cool one in the group. Her nonchalant attitude and superior aura make it hard to believe that she could possibly be related to her American cousin, Shoshanna Shapiro, played by Zosia Mamet. The alliteration in her name is just a sample of her uniform, put-together persona. She answers the door to her apartment in a pink velour Juicy tracksuit and reveals to Hannah that her big-gest baggage is that she is still a virgin. Her innocence, however, gives her an adorable quality, which balances out her hyper en-

ergy. T h e

show’s sell-ing point is its raw qual-ity. There is nothing

about the girls’ lives that is left to the imagination. Within just the first four episodes of the show, the girls have dealt with an opi-um overdose, abortion, and HPV. The characters take you with them on all of these experiences; whether it’s an intimate moment, an uncomfortable sex scene, or a heated argument, the viewer gets a taste of both the highlights and the not-so-glamorous moments of all their lives. Whether or not this contributes to the notable success of the series is debatable. At times, the rawness is taken to the point of discomfort.

GRAPHIC BY OLIVIA CROSBY ’15

Watch “Girls” on Sundays at

10:30 p.m. on HBO.

“Nothing left to the imagination.”

Answers read from left to right starting in the top right corner:Staples, Inklings, Microsoft Word, Apple, Chartwells, Roundcube, Smart Board, North Face, Staples Players, PowerPoint, Wreckers, Excel, Smart Water, “Good Morning

All About the Logos Quiz App

“Why wouldn’t I get it? It’s free!”

— Nicole McNees ’13

#GIRLS: Even celebrities and popular Twitter accounts have been

tweeting about “Girls.”

17A&EInklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

Summer Reading Suggestions from a Librarian

Sick and tired of staring blankly at textboks and required outside reading? Give your brain a break this summer with these exciting new titles

recomended by our very own librarian, Julia Roberts.

Diviners by Libba Bray

Evie, new to the New York of the Roaring Twen-ties, lives with her uncle who owns what is com-monly known as “The Mu-seum of Creepy Crawlies.” There is a series of occult-based, gross-out murders, and Evie is caught in the middle. Plenty of laughs, and plenty of thrill, espe-cially when we discover that Evie has a mysterious super power. - $10.98M

YSTE

RY

The Fault in Our Starsby John Green

Green’s latest book is about

Augustus and Hazel, both deal-ing with terminal cancer. Nei-ther one knows how much time they have. Sounds depressing? Green turns it into a romance with humor and honesty. As Ha-zel says, “It’s not a cancer book, because cancer books suck.” Other Green novels are Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Papertowns, and Will Grayson. - $12.47FI

CTI

ON

FIC

TIO

NGame of Thrones

by George R. R. Martin

Have you been watch-ing the HBO series? Winter is approaching and may last years. Royalty and renegades fight for control of a throne. This is the first volume in a series considered a master-piece of fantasy. Magic, mys-tery, intrigue, romance, and adventure spill off the pages. - $19.51

BIO

GR

APH

Y

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Isaacson conducted over 40 interviews with Jobs be-fore his death, as well as with family, colleagues, and com-petitors. This is a riveting tale of a troubled genius who changed industries and the world. - $16.98

MYS

TERY

Gentlemenby Michael Northrop

Only one person calls this group of rough friends gentlemen: their teacher, Mr. Haberman.When one of the group goes missing, the clues all point to the teacher. This is a gritty,brutal novel which asks what holds friends to-gether and what tears them apart. - $9.99

From the

kitchen of:

Chef Gans

2 cups quinoa – this can also be made

with wheatberries, amaranth, barley, and

or many other whole grains, but quinoa is

the highest in protein.

4 cups water or vegetable stock

4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

2 onions, ½” dice

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 cups peeled, cored and ½” diced but-

ternut squash

2 cups roughly chopped ‘Dinosaur’ kale

1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped

2 tablespoons fresh chopped flat-leaf

parsley

2 cups crumbled feta cheese

1 cup toasted almonds or pine nuts (op-

tional)

Ingredients

1. In a large pot, bring the quinoa and water or

stock to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, cov-

ered until all the water has been absorbed (about 20

minutes). Remove from the heat, fluff with a fork

and place in a large bowl to cool.

2. Heat about 2 teaspoons of the olive oil in a large

sauté pan, add the onion and cook until it is lightly

caramelized (golden brown), stirring as needed.

3. Add the garlic, butternut squash and kale. Cover

with a lid and cook for about 10 minutes over low

heat. Remove the lid and check that the butternut

squash is al dente. Add the thyme, and continue

cooking until the all the liquid has evaporated.

4. Let cool to room temperature. Gently fold the

quinoa and the cooked vegetables together along

with the feta, almonds, herbs and vinaigrette.

5. Season with kosher salt and freshly cracked black

pepper. Refrigerate until ready to serve to let the

flavors blend.

Serve room temperature or cold.

Kale and Quinoa

A&EInklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com18

Smart Food CadenCe neenan ’15

Staff Writer

When it comes to finals, I need all the help I can get. Some-times, this is season one of “Gos-sip Girl” playing in the back-ground of my study room.

Other times, it’s a friend holding up notecard after note-card until I have simply memo-rized the way she writes her al-phabet.

And sometimes, the only thing that will help is the perfect snack.

There are certain things that are definitely going to help you study for finals. Maybe you think that one of these things would be a couple cans of Monster or Red Bull, but, and I’m sorry to be the one to finally break it to you, no

energy drink is really going to help you.

To get the best brain you pos-sibly can, you’re going to have to try something with a less inter-esting label, and a lot fewer ingre-dients.

For help with the never-ending mystery that is the food frontier, I went to the master of Staples. I asked the famous Chef Gans what the helpless students of Staples (aka me) should eat while studying for impending fi-nals. So here is the 411 on food you should eat to help your brain don its superhero cloak and pre-pare for battle.

If you are aiming to increase memory function and brain power, Chef Gans recommends a

meal chock full of fresh avocado and roasted or poached salmon. These are both excellent if you want to remember your Spanish vocabulary or ace that chem final.

Both avocado and salmon are rich in Omega-3, a fatty acid that is good for you in all the best ways. This acid will help your brain function at its very best. So if you’re anything like me, and usually the thought of anything that once had scales makes you wrinkle your nose and run, try to smile when your mother offers you some peachy-pink salmon and envision a beautiful 100 per-cent on the top of your Scantron sheet.

Another food Chef Gans gives the thumbs-up to is Chia seeds. Chef says, “Chia seeds are a super-food, extremely high in protein, ALA’s, omega-3 fatty ac-ids and fiber!”

Chia seeds are an increas-ingly popular addition to many foods, such as salads and breads, and are even eaten plain. Try add-ing Chia seeds to the Kale and Quinoa salad for added texture, and of course, to boost your brain as you study for finals!

Nothing says “stellar stu-dent” like Chia Seeds!

(Except for maybe actually saying “stellar student,” of course. But that is beside the point.)

In a world full of supermar-kets the size of football fields and bags of chips bigger than your head, it seems nearly impossible to find something that will help you study for finals. Or something that will actually help you study, and not just make you sick to your stomach.

So remember, as per Chef Gans’ guidance, try out some salmon, avocado or Chia seeds while you study for finals.

As you eat your “brain foods,” try to think of ways you can some-how work your new-found knowl-edge of healthy foods into your science open-ended questions.

Or your Social Studies. Maybe even English? With your brain powered

up by the best foods, anything is possible.

1 teaspoon fresh lemon or orange zest

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

3 tablespoons orange juice

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon honey, plus more to taste

½ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, chopped

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon finely ground black pepper

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

• Whisk the lemon zest, lemon juice, orange juice, Dijon, honey,

thyme, and salt in a medium bowl until well-combined.

• Gradually whisk in the oil, starting with a few drops, and then

adding the rest in a steady stream, to make a smooth, slightly

thick dressing. Can be made ahead and refrigerated.

Ingredients

Directions

GRAPHIC BY OLIVIA CROSBY ’15

A Look at the Snacks That’ll Make Finals Week Speedier

19A&EInklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

SportS20May 25, 2012

Girls Linked And Xtreme

Everyone knows who the girls’ lacrosse players are at Staples High School.

It is undeniable that they are a close team. They travel through the hallways in giant packs, sometimes matching their outfits, and on the day of a game are seen carrying their la-crosse sticks from class to class, a tradition that has been around for years.

“The ‘Don’t-touch-the-stick’ rule has been around for a long time, since before we were fresh-men,” said captain Kenzie Roof ’12, who plays low-defense.

Roof explains the idea is that the stick is basically an ex-tension of their bodies, and they decide who can touch it.

“It’s about demanding re-spect for what is rightfully ours and protecting those things,” Roof said.

Besides keeping this, the team bonds in other ways to stay close.

Katie Kleinberg ’12, who plays defense, says that the team hangs out before and after games to watch a movie, or eat pasta dinners together.

“We like doing things that can bring the whole team, from freshman to seniors, together,” Kleinberg said.

The team also bonds by matching their hair in fun and different ways. Ryan Kirshner ’13, who plays attacking midfield, said that all team members got blue feather extensions in their hair, and last year they all dyed a streak of their hair blue. She also said that they may dye their hair blue again to show their spirit.

“It just shows our pride and how much we love our team,” Kirshner said.

Though these traditions are out there for all of Staples to see,

some traditions are kept solely within the girls’ lacrosse circle.

Kirshner said, “I can’t say too much because a few things are only between the team, and I am superstitious.”

The team seems to agree that team bonding sets the foun-dation for a successful season.

PHOTOS BY ROSE PROPP ’13

When Stealing’s Not A CrimeWill McDonalD ’14 &

isaac stein ’12News Editor &

Staff Writer

Jessie Ambrose ’12, who plays attack wing, says that after play-ing on multiple teams, she be-lieves that whatever team is the closest and has the best chemis-try off the field seems to be most successful on the field.

“It’s the little things that contribute to this bond like put-

ting feathers in your hair, go-ing to scout games together, cleaning up after practice with teammates—regardless of your age—getting to know each oth-er’s lives out of lacrosse, and communicating more in practice and games that helps contribute to the special relationship,” Am-

brose said.“Our team chemistry con-

tinues to grow, and so does our potential of excelling this season in States and FCIACS.”

With a record of 11-3 this season, the team shows that bonding can definitely have a positive effect on success.

The Cohesive Culture Behind a Winning Team

leah Bitsky ’12Staff Writer

BRING IT IN: The team holds their sticks high in the air, a tradi-tion before games.

UNITY: The team demonstrates their great sportsmanship by shaking hands with the other team after a game.

TEAM COUTURE: Two players model the various logowear the team orders to show their pride.

LAX PRIDE : Ryan Kirshner ’13 flaunts the blue feather hairpieces each player wears.

On April 13, a post-victory bus ride back to school for the Staples boys’ volleyball team was interrupted by Ridgefield Police sirens.

The police had been called by Ridgefield volleyball coaches, who wanted to retrieve several Ridgefield High School volleyball warm-up jerseys that had disap-peared during the game. The cul-prits, the coaches suspected, were the Wreckers.

After a search of the play-ers’ bags on the bus, police found three jerseys. Soon after, the player who stole the jerseys was suspended from the team for 20 days by head coach Jon Shepro. Since then, the school adminis-tration has described the incident as a single individual’s isolated act.

However, numerous inter-views with athletes representing a variety of girls and boys teams alike reveals that stealing op-ponents’ gear after a victory is a more common practice that not only includes the volleyball team,

and not only other Staples teams, but many throughout the region. Athletes characterized the ac-tions as a mischievous tradition, not a felony.

“If I were to liken this kind of stealing to anything, it’s like the concept of souvenirs. Win or lose, some people want memorabilia from the game. There’s no mal-ice in it,” said Emily Garber ’13, a girls’ water polo captain.

In boys’ volleyball’s case, the practice of swiping something from a rival is nothing new.

“In all the years I’ve played volleyball for Staples, not last year’s class, but every class before that – ’10, ’09, ’08, ’06 – stealing jerseys has been a part of a tra-dition,” said a varsity boys’ team member.

According to former volley-ball player Danny Hlawitschka ’10, the tradition dates back even further than that.

“It started way before I was a freshman,” he said. “Every team and coach knows about it and, including us, everyone knows to keep an eye on their stuff.”

Both the anonymous player and Hlawitschka individually PHOTO BY LUCAS HAMMERMAN ’10

LEGENDARY: Mike McGowan ’11 demonstrates Wrecker pride as he waves the stolen Cardinals flag with a block S taped over it at the 2009 Thanksgiving Day football game against Greenwich. Continued on page 22

Sports 21Inklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

Girls’ Water Polo Hits the Water Swimmingalicia lourekas ’12

Staff Writer

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO FROM MARK WIMERX CHROMOSOME TAKEOVER: Sara Banbury ’14 takes charge on defense in a match against Choate on April 7.

A Tale of Two Seasonscharlotte Breig ’12 &

Jake chernok ’13Staff Writers

After a tough season, the boys’ lacrosse team enjoyed a bright first quarter in last Satur-day afternoon’s FCIAC quarter-finals against Ridgefield at Tiger Hollow, only to fall in the end 15-4.

For Staples, the game looked good early on. After Ridgefield junior midfielder Cal Dearth gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead just 1:31 into the game, the Wreckers fought back, as Peter Paul ’12 answered back just 19 seconds later to tie up the game at one. Minutes later after Paul knotted up the score, it was Kyle Murray ’12 beating Ridgefield goalie Adam Winne to give the Wreckers a 2-1 lead - a lead they would hold for the rest of the first quarter.

However, from that point on the Tigers dominated, outscoring the Wreckers 4-1 in the second quarter. Ridgefield senior attack-er Sean Riley gave the Wreckers fits all afternoon as he scored eight goals, including four in the third. The Wreckers were held to only one shot on goal in the peri-od, coming from Jake Frimet ’12.

The Wreckers finally got on the board again in the fourth quarter, snapping Ridgefield’s 12 goals unanswered streak as Joey

Zelkowitz ’13 scored with 1:53 left in the game.

Through a challenging spring, the Wreckers persevered, finishing the regular season with a winning 9-7 record.

“The season has been a little tough,” said quad-captain attack player Jake Frimet. “We have a good team, though, and we’re hoping to finish out the season strong.”

The team enters the state

championship series next week.Staples lacrosse faced a dif-

ficult schedule because of its success in recent years, going up against challenging teams from Greenwich, Ridgefield, New Ca-naan, Joel Barlow and Darien, the eighth ranked team in the nation.

At the start of the season, things were looking good for the Wreckers, who had a 6-2 victory over Greenwich for the first time

in several years. Shortly after, however, they suffered a five-game losing streak, which finally came to an end with a 5-3 win over St. Joseph on April 28.

Losing five games in a row might tear some teams apart, but the streak had the opposite effect on the Wreckers.

“With most teams, you’d get down on yourselves,” said quad-captain defenseman Adam Levinson ’12. “Our practices just

An increased interest and more players have lead to the creation of girls’ team

that has been two years in the making.

“It feels good to have an all girls team, because we’re not be-ing overshadowed by the boys,” Alex Greene ’13 said.“Now it’s our time to shine as a new team,” Greene said

The girls’ water polo team has been slowly phasing out the boys as teammates for the past couple years and 2012 marks the first time they have played a full season without boys.

“This season there are more girls than ever who tried out, so in order to make sure that the pool isn’t too crowded we’ve made it an all girls team,” cap-tain Gabby Wimer ’12 said.

Coach Michael Laux started the co-ed team for girls swim team members to get in shape for swim season. There was a lack of interest from girls and therefore they decided to let boys join so they could field a team.

Now with more girls, the team is officially an all-girls team that competes and prac-tices without any boys. Last year about 80 percent of the games were without any boys.

“It is a significant change, boys wouldn’t pass to girls so there was no improvement,” Laux said. “By becoming an all- girls team the girls have become better players.”

This improvement was prov-en last year with the team’s first win over Hopkins. They have in-creased their technical skills in shooting and throwing and were

able to beat a highly competitive team.

The transition to an all-girls team has been significant. Boys and girls water polo teams, according to coaches, have two different styles of play.

“Girls don’t throw as hard, and boys are more aggressive when it comes to passing and shooting,” Laux said.

Although the guys played a large role during practices, playing with only girls has been beneficial for both improve-ments in teamwork and techni-cal aspects.

“I think a lack of guys has helped the girls mesh together

in the pool a bit better in terms of working as a team and com-municating,” captain Sarah Cooperman ’13 said.

The progression away from a co-ed team has been slow, but has been a much needed change. It was a rough transition as first, but the team has adapted and to the physical and coaching changes.

“There is a difference in coaching styles for boys. It’s more of a focus on strength and for girls you need a softer touch,” alumni Stephanie Nuss-baum ‘11 said.

In the same respect a lot of the girls would rely on the boys’

strength during games and practices. This resulted in little improvement from the girls, as well as a lack of cohesion within the team.

“We relied on the guys to do better and it was tough to get away from that,” alumni Eliza-beth Rubel ‘10 said.

Girls’ water polo has beaten one team, Greenwich Aquatics, this season. The players are still optimistic because they have seen vast improvements from every player. This was shown in the last match against Cho-ate, the closest Staples has ever come to beating them, with a fi-nal score of 6-10. “I think that

we’re really starting to gel as a team and finding that cohe-sion that’s so important in team sports,” Wimer said.

This years’ team is a young team of freshmen and sopho-mores that make up a team of 30, where only 14 are needed during a game. The coaches feel that the team has enough inter-est for them to improve at a level to be competitive for the next couple of years.

“Not having a co-ed team is good for the future of girls’ wa-ter polo, because we are able to train the girls better” Laux said.

got more intense. We got through the rough patch well as a team.”

Close relationships between every member of the team and a general sense of cooperation are perhaps the team’s great-est strength this season. In past years, there has been more focus on individual talents. This sea-son, their success has been the result of efforts from the entire team.

Quad-captain attack player Peter Paul ’12 is the team’s lead-ing scorer, but the attack has been “pretty balanced” accord-ing to head coach Paul McNulty.

“In some ways, that’s better than having one big figure,” he said.

The team is also fortunate to have strong players and leaders across the grade levels, includ-ing four freshmen who practice with the varsity team and have seen the field in many of their games.

“The younger kids lead by playing well and making every-one around them work hard,” said McNulty.

One young player whose performance has been a wel-come surprise this season is Cole Gendels ’14, the team’s starting goalie. “He was the best at stop-ping the ball,” said McNulty. “That’s why he got the job.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO BY STAPLES LACROSSEON THEIR A-GAME: The Wreckers work hard on defense to ensure a 5-3 win over St. Joseph’s on April 28.

Early Success Leads to Late Season Losses

went on to say that the typical targets are a warm-up jersey or a volleyball bearing the other team’s name. As former captain Tom Prenderville ’10 put it, “In the volleyball community, jer-seys are the equivalent of trading cards.”

In perhaps the most high-profile case of stealing prior than the Ridgefield incident, the flag of the Greenwich Marching Band was stolen prior to the 2009 Thanksgiving football game.

It’s not uncommon – and is actually expected – that the oth-er team will try and reciprocate the gesture by taking something for themselves. The Ridgefield incident on April 13 was not the first time this had occurred be-tween the two rivals.

“At one practice at my club team two years ago, a Ridgefield player strolled in to practice in a Staples warm-up,” the current player said. “Everyone laughed, maybe a little anger behind that laugh, but it’s been a thing that goes on. People look the other way.”

Hlawitschka also was fa-miliar with instances of theft on Ridgefield’s part.

“They actually stole some of our jerseys back when I was a senior,” he said. “However, we didn’t make a big deal about it be-cause we probably had a couple of their warmups as we were leav-ing the gym.”

The long history of back-and-forth thefts between the two programs made both Prender-ville and Hlawitschka question why the police were involved on the night of April 13.

“This type of stuff goes on year in and year out, not just at the high school level but at the

regional and national level as well, and should hardly ever re-sult in police involvement,” Pren-derville said.

Calls to the office of Ridge-field Athletic Director Carl Charles on the subject were not returned.

Staples Athletic Director Marty Lisevick describes the concept of rival teams defacing each other’s property or stealing equipment as a “ridiculous ‘tra-dition’” between sports teams of high schools in towns of similar socioeconomic standing to West-port. However, he holds that the larger issue with theft is, and was in the past, students from less ad-vantaged schools attempting to seize equipment from the locker

Sports22 Inklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

Continued from pg. 20

rooms in wealthier districts. “For two or three years run-

ning, there was a school that com-peted with Staples that, whenever they showed up, I would tell our coaches to tell their players to lock all of their possessions in the locker room. It’s just that it can be very tempting for some kids to take something that they could really use when it’s out in the open and not even locked. Crime like that has been reduced as of present, but it was extremely serious,” Lisevick said.

Hlawitschka clarified that the tradition was never for eco-nomic gain, but rather for the sentimental value that the other team’s equipment provided and the increased camaraderie that it

creates.“It’s a team-building activity

because of the high risk. How-ever, everyone knew to never get caught, and there were unwrit-ten rules - such as not stealing from inner city schools.”

The custom exists in a num-ber of other sports. A varsity girls’ swimmer reported that in that sport, like boys’ volleyball, the stealing of other teams’ para-phernalia occurs throughout the FCIAC. Given the nature of the sport, there isn’t as much equip-ment for the taking in swimming. Thus, the stealing is generally limited to one item: swim caps.

“I think people take caps because they always have the team logo on them, so they’re

kind of like mementos of all the meets you’ve been too,” she said. “They’re also not as expensive, compared to suits and goggles, and most swimmers have more than one, so I think people don’t feel as bad taking them.”

According to team captain Garber, captured swim caps and various apparel decorate an en-tire wall at Staples.

One boys’ water polo player related the story of when he and a fellow teammate stole jerseys after an away game. On the way into the pool, the player had spot-ted a box of uniforms. The two teammates decided that if they were to win the game, they would take a few.

“There was a box of pinnies and a box of t-shirts,” he said. “My fellow teammate went in and grabbed two of each, one for me and one for him, and quickly stuffed them into his bag.”

He went on to echo the girls’ swimmer’s notion that the stolen items act as a keepsake of sorts.

“It serves the same purpose as a trophy, except instead of an organization or independent group giving you the trophy, you take it from the other team your-self,” he said. “I wouldn’t liken it to kicking someone when they’re down, but the idea is kind of close. You just beat a team, and you want something to show for it.”

The practice isn’t observed in all sports. Darryle Wiggins ’14, a starting varsity basketball player, said that he has never seen any theft occur between teams in his time playing the sport. And boys’ soccer Head Coach Dan Woog said stealing does not happen in Staples soccer.

Other Staples coaches ap-proached for comment declined interviews.

PHOTO BY ROSE PROPP ’13THE PRIZED POSSESSION: It is often the equipment and jerseys that teams are after.

Traditions or Crimes?

Sports 23Inklings / May 25, 2012 / inklingsnews.com

JorDan shenhar ’13Web Managing Editor

“It’s an opportunity to play in a relaxed, non-competitive situation.”

— Phys. Ed. teacher Marce Petroccio

chute.“I haven’t experimented

with the parachute because I have plenty of new games that work extremely effectively,” said C.J. Shamas. “I’m confident that students enjoy the unit.”

Zamary.Petroccio noticed a similar

split when using the parachute in his classes.

“The parachute is not for ev-eryone,” said Petroccio. “Mostly girls enjoy it—I’m not sure why.”

“We all wanted to do some-thing less competitive and ag-gressive than the guys,” said Sych. “I like some gym activities more than the parachute, but it can be a fun break to do some-thing less physical for a change of pace.”

Although Ross Dener ’13 hasn’t used the parachute since

freshman year, he agreed with Sych’s assessment.

“It gives the kids who might not be good at regular gym sports a chance to shine,” he said.

But even if it’s only unfurled every now and again, the para-chute leaves its mark on the Sta-ples fieldhouse, radiating color in an otherwise dreary room.

PHOTOS BY ROSE PROPP ’13HEADS UP: Blaney Rotanz ’12, Carlie Schwaeber ’12, and Emerson Lovell ’12 enjoy the inside view of the much-loved parachute.

But while they may en-joy the unit as a whole, students tend to split up when given a choice between the parachute and another activity.

“Kids that like cooperative games seem to prefer the parachute more,” said

Color is scarce in the Staples fieldhouse. Its dull crim-son floor and faded cinder

walls are illuminated by little more than flickering fluorescent lights strung onto high girders. But all that changes once the parachute comes out.

A billowing mass of color that is frequently regarded as the domain of elementary schools, the parachute has found its niche as an activity in Staples P.E. classes.

“It’s an opportunity to play in a relaxed, non-competitive sit-uation, which kids really enjoy,” said physical education teacher Marce Petroccio, who uses the parachute in his junior gym class “every once in a while.”

P.E. teacher Janet Zamary has been using the parachute for eight years in both her sopho-more classes and the adapted P.E. program, which is part of the special education curricu-lum. Zamary praised the para-chute’s versatility, which allows it to be used for different pur-poses in each of her classes.

“The parachute is usually used in high school to teach teamwork, cooperation, and communication,” Zamary said, “but my adapted classes can use it to improve fitness and direc-tional skills.”

The difference in activities is easy to spot in the eight-page manual on parachute games. For instance, regular gym classes may play “rollerball,” in which students try to move a large ball around the edge of the parachute without it flying off.

But students in the adapted courses might simply wave the parachute up and down, exercis-ing their arms while launching a rippling breeze through the thick fieldhouse air.

But according to Zamary, the vast majority of students share the same favorite activity: “The Mushroom,” an elementary school classic in which students fan out the parachute and sit down on the edges to form a tent.

Zamary and Petroccio both use the parachute as part of the New Games unit, which empha-sizes strategy-based and coop-erative activities over traditional sports. However, not every New Games teacher uses the para-

BLOBS AWAY: The students above huddle underneath the para-chute, forming it into a mushroom-like shape.

Felicia Sych ’13 was in a class that was given a choice between basketball and parachute games. According to Sych, only girls chose to use the parachute.

The Fun Never StopsA Childhood Favorite Makes an Appearance in Phys Ed

The Wreckersports

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Bringin’ The Heat PHOTO BY ROSE PROPP ’13

GAME FACES: Star pitchers Matt Reynolds ’12, Jimmy Kopack ’12, Greg Salamone ’13, Chris Speer ’13, and Julian Clarke ’12 constantly pitch for their team.

After eight starters on last year’s baseball team gradu-ated, the team wasn’t sure

what to expect for this year. They soon realized, though, that their uncertainty was unnecessary.

“This year’s team is quite a surprise; they are quite talented,” said pitching coach P.J. Washen-ko. The team is off to a strong start with a record of 14-6 at the end of the regular season, and much of this success is a result of the very strong pitching staff.

The pitching staff has an overall earned run average (ERA) of 1.74. ERA is the average number of runs that a pitcher gives up in a game; therefore, the lower the av-erage, the better.

The pitchers are so important to the team because they “set the tempo for a game. They keep the team in the game by keeping the

score low,” Washenko said. While the batters get hits and score runs, it is the pitchers who help keep the other team from doing the same.

According to pitcher and cap-tain Jimmy Kopack ’12, the pitch-ers “keep their team in the game” by keeping the score low. Then, “we have the offense win it,” he said.

The pitchers are different from the rest of the team, accord-ing to Greg Salamone ’13, a relief pitcher. “Pitchers are unique play-ers,” he said. “They tend to carry a different sense of humor and a different level of maturity.”

Late in the game, pitchers be-come even more important. The pace of each pitcher is different, and when the pitchers change in the middle of a game, “it keeps the other team’s players on their toes,” Washenko said.

To develop their unique skills, the pitchers practice on their own as well as with the rest of the team.

WRECKERS ERA TO DATE

When they practice on their own, the pitchers throw in the bullpen, run, and stretch their arms.

AlexAndrA O’KAne ’13Social Media Specialist

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Wreckers See Success with Five Great Armshelps us pitchers keep our me-chanics in tune, so when game time comes, we can be as effective as possible.”

According to Salamone, all of the preparation that is done in practice is vitally important when it comes time for a game. “Pitch-ing is all about preparing,” he said. “Every practice, I am doing my necessary throwing routines, stretching exercises, and even mental preparations to get ready for the next game.”

When it comes time for the whole team to come together, they all get along and support one an-other, Washenko said. “During games, pitchers are always try-ing to help with the team with the mental aspect of the game. We have perfected the art of pumping players up to help excel offensively or cooling players down if they are dealing with their mistakes,” Sal-amone said.

“In games there really isn’t a

difference between our pitchers and the rest of the players. We’re all just supporting each other during the games,” Kopack said. When the team gets along so well, it becomes easy to do well; there is friendly competition during practice, and everyone pushes the others to do their best. “The team always has talent. It is the chemistry of this team that brings their success to a whole new level,” Washenko said.

The respect that exists be-tween all of the players also car-ries through to the coaches and their advice. Washenko said that the players are very receptive and try to do exactly what the coaches tell them.

In turn, the coaches give the players a lot of freedom and re-spect. “The coaches understand that we want the best for our-selves and will do what we need to be ready for ‘the nod’ or the ‘call to the pen,’” Salamone said.

“We have to do special arm workouts to keep them in good condition,” Salamone said. The pitchers also practice with the rest of the team, taking their place on the mound to have real game sim-ulations.

Kopack described the ben-efits of the bullpen. “We pitch off the mound full strength for about 20 to 30 pitches, either throwing to batters or just a catcher. This

MATT REYNOLDS ’121-0, 2.76 ERA

JIMMY KOPACK ’123-3, 1.75 ERA

GREG SALAMONE ’132-2, 5 saves, 1.47 ERA

CHRIS SPEER ’134-0, 1.81 ERA

JULIAN CLARKE ’123-1, 2.02 ERA

Meet the Pitchers

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