the

Muckraker

7 june, 2015volume xviv issue vi

Anesthesia

he american judge Learned Hand successfully summarized much of enlightened

thought when he memorably remarked that “thespirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it isright.” Socrates, Copernicus, and Zola would havethanked him, not only for such a prompt advocacy ofskepticism, but also for his legitimization of the in-dependent thinker, the doubter, the iconoclast, thecontrarian. Yet the council of five hundred, the crazed Catholicinquisition, and rabid anti-Semites (the respectiveopponents of these grand men) have become largelyextinctin thewest-ernworld,andone isleft towon-derhowger-maneHand’squoteistoday.Lawspro-tectsthe in-dividual’s right of free expression, and at the sametime, doubt is widely promoted. What could be bet-ter?Nearly everything, actually. The concepts of skepti-cism and inquiry are, lamentably, being turnedagainst themselves, and have given rise to far moresinister forms of repression and indoctrination. Ac-tual doubt is replaced by surrogate notions thereofwhich place the subject under the illusion of exercis-ing free thought, precisely the faculty of which theyare being deprived.

Those who doubt such an assertion (well done, ifyou are one of them) need only look around. Whatare the ingredients of so-called independent thought?Let one of these be examined as a demonstration.Frequently listed examples of personages to bedoubted ironically tend to be quite feeble andclichéd: the corrupt businessman, the dishonestpolitician, the friendly Nigerian businessman in direneed of your bank account number, etc., etc. But arewe not all perfectly aware of how dubious these peo-ple are, and who hasn’t seen through them and dis-covered their obvious questionability? ‘Rednecks’?‘Old Ladies’? The so-called ‘fools’ and ‘simpletons’appear sparse. Global warming deniers, creationists– all of these are essentially the ‘unenlightened oth-ers’ which, though menacing, rarely actually impact

our life.‘Free’thoughtis nowtruth, atleast inour mi-lieu. Theprinciplesformerlychampi-oned bydoubtershave be-come ac-ceptedandwide-spread,and sobeing

aware of them doesn’t make anybody an independ-ent thinker. The trick here is essentially to ‘doubt one’s doubt’,to question the norm, even if it is already being pre-sented as an alternative way of thought. Is Putin thebad man in the Ukraine? Is the US a democracy?Has science killed God? Whatever the answers,questions such as these all deserve intense, unbiasedcontemplation. Only then can we ever hope to es-cape the illusion of free thought.- Frederick Leo

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1theMuckraker

volume xvi issue vi june 2015 circulation: 250

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Who stole our Moon 2 Juliane GleitzeThe Perks of Helmet Hair 3 Celestine LandtJurassic World 4 ‘Jam’Got Milk? 5 L. Malin Anesthesia 7 Frederick Leo

Thankfully, German law does not allow for injec-tions and treatments such as bovine growth hormone(BGH), but that does not necessarily protect us asconsumers. We must protect ourselves. As of thismoment, you are cordially encouraged to do yourown research and draw your own conclusions. Em-power yourself with information. Learn somethingnew about the industry, the product, and yourself.On another note, consuming milk products not onlyhurts you, it hurts our world. Animal agriculture ac-counts for more greenhouse gas emissions than allthose transportation combined. A whopping 1 000gallons of water are needed to produce only one gal-lon of milk. Live-stock coversabout 45% ofEarth’s total land.The leading causeof species extinc-tion and rainforestdestruction is ani-mal agriculture.This info onlymakes up the tipof the tip of theiceberg.In light of theseregrettably over-looked facts, we,as the rational cit-izens of the worldwe are, need to beheld accountableand act accord-ingly. The waythat the worldcurrently workswill not last infi-nitely. We inhabita finite planet andneed to work together with it and each other if wewant to continue to inhabit live on it. The way welead our lives is our choice. Who we hurt is ourchoice. We must make these choices consciously.When choosing to buy dairy products, you are alsochoosing to support cruelty, destruction, and suffer-ing.

Even if you do not personally inflict harm, the pur-chase of a liter of milk directly allows for a cow’slifelong imprisonment, anguish, and murder. Mothers have their newborn calves torn away fromthem. Male calves are slaughtered for veal or raisedfor beef. Female calves face the same fate as theirmothers: a life lasting 4 to 5 of the natural 25-yearlifespan of a cow, only serving to produce milk,being artificially inseminated by a brutal vet, givingbirth, and experiencing the ultimate pain of a motherlosing her child.A cow’s milk is designed for a cow’s baby. Not ahuman. End of story. A cow’s milk is designed to

allow a calf to double itssize in one year. Not pro-vide nonexistent nutritiousbenefits to people. A cow’smilk is designed to build aconnection betweenmother and baby. Not torip them apart and sponsormisery or murder. If it’snot your mother, it isn’tyour milk.The good news is thatnone of us have to livewithout milk. An abun-dance of appetizing alter-natives exist: almondmilk, oat milk, soy milk,rice milk, hazelnut milk,hemp milk, coconut milk,cashew milk, and more.Obviously, the reasons toget cow milk seem lessand less sustainable.Could a diet in which hu-mans practice kindness,coexistence, and compas-sion, in which all beings

get a chance to live freely, in which the exploitationof the planet is kept to a minimum, be the best wayto go? You decide. - L. Malin

Hello Dear Reader!How are you doing today? Is there anything onyour mind? Most likely, there is. And if it’sschool related, all the better, because The Muck-raker is here to help. As your potential therapistfor anything associated with JFK, this newspa-per embraces your thoughts and opinions and ishere to listen and broadcast your voice. Evenbetter than a therapist, however, The Muckrakerwill not pressure you to divulge discomfortingissues and intimate thoughts or make inept re-marks, but rather welcome that which you arewilling to share. The only way to receive helpfrom this gratuitous shrink, however, is for youto write an article. As you can see while leafing through this issue,which, on a side note, we are content to releasejust one month after the April edition, we havean overwhelming majority of attractive 11thgrade females who wrote articles for this re-lease. Where are those pristine boys and girlsfrom the lower grades??? Write us, young ones,old ones, same aged ones, all the like. We wantto hear from you! Don’t miss your chance forfree therapy.

With love,The Editors

Speaks

Founding Fathers: Mikolaj Bekasiak, Seth Hepner,

Adam Nagorski

Editors: Cosima Justus, Avelina de Ment, Frederick Leo

Layout Editor: Max Hentges

Journalists: Aqueena Crisp, Celestine Landt, JulianaGaraycochea, Juliane Gleitze, L. Malin, Avelina deMent, Cosima Justus, Corrie Mathiak, Frederick Leo,Elsa Kienberger

Join Us! Send us an email to be notified about meet-ings and deadlines

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We are an independent student newspaper. The opinionsexpressed here in no way reflect those of the John F.Kennedy School.

Staff

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ith the S-Bahn striking more frequently the past few months, I considered taking my bike toget to school, in order to avoid the overcrowdedtrains, stressful departure times, and late arrivals.However, I quickly discarded my plans after gettinginto a huge discussion with my mother, who wasstrongly convinced I was to wear a helmet and a re-flective west while in traffic.Seemingly, nobody else had to take such preventivemeasures, so why did I? I had no interest in being thatone person looking ridiculous while nobody else hadto worry about having messed up helmet-hair. I feltlike the risk of traffic accidents was far too low to ac-tually worry about them and I was not going to lookidiotic for nothing. But looking at the latest statistics, Berlin had 3800bike accidents in 2011 (source: http://michael-hoerz.de/maps/berlin-bike/), ten of which occuredaround Zehlendorf and the JFK-school area. Cyclistsare involved in a lot morecrashes than one may expect,and usually carry awaygreater harm than other traf-fic participants. As one ofthe weakest road users, a cy-clist is exposed to more dan-gers than others: Whilepedestrians have their ownpaths and car drivers the pro-tection of their vehiclearound them, bikers are inrecurring interaction withboth of the two. Even thoughthe number of bike paths inBerlin has increased in thelast years, there are stillplenty of areas where cy-clists are forced to use theroad, driving between busesand cars. Generally, one is in greater danger than othertraffic participants as a biker, so shouldn’t a cyclistprotect himself the most?

It was not until contemplating the statistics I realizedlooking good and meeting social beauty expectationshave become such influential factors in our everydaylife that, at times, far more essential things such assafety and security are neglected. Is it really more im-portant to look one’s best than arriving at schoolsafely? Nowadays, vanity directs so many areas of ourlife and while it limits the individual freedom in manyaspects, it should definitely not control our wellbeingand physical health. Admittedly, a bright yellow vest certainly does nothighlight one’s most attractive features, but neither doscars of former accidents. The individual has to askhimself if he really is willing to risk his comfortableand healthy later life in his youth and act accordingly.But after having listened to my mom repeatedly curs-ing at bikers entirely in dark colors and praising thosethat wear light reflecting vests, I may rethink my aver-sion towards certain preventive methods.- Celestine Landt

WThe Perks of Helmet Hair

irected by Colin Trevorrow, Jurassic World is the fourth movie installment of the JurassicPark series, distributed by Universal Pictures and in-tended to premier in North America by June 12th thisyear. The story revolves around Owen Grady, por-trayed by Chris Pratt, who works on Isla Nublar (theisland already featured in parts one and three) as amember of the dinosaur theme park’s on-site staff,conducting behavioral research on velociraptors.When the park’s attendance drops, the corporation incharge of it requests the creation of a new hybrid di-nosaur, which subsequently escapes and wreaks havocand death in the park. Two brothers, nephews of the

park’s operations manager Claire Dearing, who is por-trayed by Bryce Dallas Howard, get caught up in therampage and it is up to Owen, his team of velocirap-tors, and the security team to save them and stop thehybrid dinosaur.Initially, as a fan of the previous Jurassic Park trilogy,my excitement was great and I was anxious to get tosee the movie, yet after watching the trailer, I felt amajor disappointment. Yes, this movie features di-nosaurs, however they are completely CG, are not re-lated to paleontologists’ new findings in the dinosaurworld, and there is no animatronics whatsoever.

DWhat this does is make Jurassic World a basic mon-ster movie, showing off over-realistic CG of the ani-mals and ruining any sort of suspense and scientificaccuracy the previous films were hailed for. Yes, thismovie does have one character featured in the previ-ous films. However, it is only one person, whoplayed a minor role in the first installment. This isHenry Wu, portrayed by BD Wong, who should have[spoiler alert] actually been eaten alive by velocirap-tors according to the first of Michael Crichton’s orig-inal novels. Yes, this movie has scores by JohnWilliams, however, they are adapted by Michael Gi-acchino, who produced music for Lost, Star Trek aswell as other movies. Granted, this could turn themusic of the upcoming movie into a simultaneouslynostalgic and deeply enthralling experience, how-

ever, theoverallsentimentthatcomes offfrom thetrailers isthat itwill benothinglike theinitial se-ries.Theonly wayto leavetheaterswithoutdissatis-faction isto think

of the new installment as a completely different se-ries and non-related to the trilogy. - Jam

Jurassic World

movies

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his famous ad campaign for milk was launchedin 1993, and people still recognize and identify

with it twenty years later. The “got milk?” advertise-ment was extremely successful across the UnitedStates and promoted innumerable sales. In our dayand age, milk is an everyday product that many peoplecould not imagine living without. But how did thiscome to be? Have humans been drinking the milkfrom a cow’s udder since the beginning?

No, they have not. Sorry to disappoint. Anagricultural form of life only came around about 10000 years ago. That’s also when lactose tolerancestarted to increase, since it became an advantageoustrait. In various less “developed” countries, where themajority of the population relies on a plant-based dietto survive, milk consumption is and has been at a min-imum, meaning that more people remain lactose intol-erant, the original state humans were in way thathumans devel-oped. Seemslogical, though,doesn’t it?Human babiesneed humanbreast milk forthe first year oftheir lives togrow; physio-logically theydo not requirethe ability todigest lactosethereafter. Nomammal con-sumes milkafter ceasing tofeed off of theirmother’s pro-duced nutrition, let alone from another species. Excepthumans.

Humans started to ingest the milk of other ani-mals many, many years ago (I do not want to dwell onwhatever strange reason for which this may be).Today, the Western way of eating incorporates cowmilk as a substantial element of our diet.

TGot Milk? Who stole our Moon?

e’ve all started off watching one harmless YouTube video and ended up watching random funny trickshots or cute cats an hour later. Another destination you could arrive at in the endless universe of

videos on the world wide web is the road to conspiracy theories. This, I had to learn the hard way. Dave Johnson has a talent in uncovering countless conspiracies on his YouTube channel. According toJohnson, the picture below shows the so-called-earth and the so-called-atmosphere in the area where NASAclaims that the International Space Station is located. There, 250 miles from Earth, is the source of the pro-jection of the moon. This source of the projection is a cube, filled with neon and powered by solar panels.Johnson goes on to provide his proof by describing the moon in the picture as “fuzzy” which clearly shouldconvince everyone that the moon is not real. Any other pictures of the moon have been photoshopped, saysJohnson. Apparently, all you need to prove the moon is, in fact, a hologram, is this picture, a wikipedia article, and avideo camera with a zoom button.Now only one question remains: Why would NASA lie about the existence or non-existence of the moon?To this question, Johnson doesn’t really have an answer.Instead, he wonders, and for quite some portion of his video, why he gets called a liar, a “bible thumpinghypocrite”, and a moron.- Juliane

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Mothers feed it to us, advertisements thrust it upon us,supermarkets offer it to us. So why should we thinkthere’s anything wrong with milk? There isn’t. It’s acompletely natural combination of carbohydrates, fats,vitamins, and proteins, right? Wrong. The milk that hu-mans ingest truly could not be worse for us health-wise, environmentally, and ethically.

Unfortunately, the countries that consume themost dairy per capita also experience the highest ratesof osteoporosis, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and heart dis-ease. All of these afflictions may be influenced by ge-netics but primarily result from unhealthy living.Humans consume cow milk all the time, for numerousreasons: calcium, vitamins, protein. But what many donot understand is that milk can do more harm thangood, to you and to the cows. It can be difficult to see beyond the ad campaigns,physicians, and dairy industries that promote milk as anessential part of the human diet. However, it is invari-ably important to understand fully and completely whatthese people strive for: profit. Corporations could care

lesswhetheryou eatwell, exer-cise, or livehealthily.All theywant is foryou to buytheir prod-ucts andbelieve youare doingyourself afavor by it.Don’t befooled bythe claimthat thesecompanies

care about you as an individual. They don’t. Whywould they insist milk serves as the best source of cal-cium when the human body actually needs to leech cal-cium phosphate out of its bones to compensate for theacidic environment that milk creates? When it actuallystimulates cancerous growths? When it contains cowpus due to infections like mastitis? When it causes im-balances in the body’s hormones?

Picture of the projection of the Moon with the source of the projection released by NASA