The Bull’s EyeT h e O f f i c i a l N e w s p a p e r o f S m i t h t o w n H i g h S c h o o l W e s t

Volume 28, Issue 2 March 2008

W h a t ’ sInside?-Latest on the

2008 election

-What we think are the top movies in

theatres

-Review of West’s winter sports teams

Watch Your Website The legality of many situations has been questioned as our privacy seems to be raided by a soci-ety that is fueled by the internet. Now, future employ-ers, teachers, and possible colleges can judge an indi-vidual according to his/her Facebook. It is as if paid informants are trailing you on a night out with your closest friends and companions. It seems improbable to expect all teenagers to be mature model citizens at all times. Our school community is no exception. Yet, if it is on the internet, it is important for teenagers to know that this means anyone can ac-cess it. Danielle Ferrara, a senior here at West, says “Once you put it on the internet, it’s public proper-ty.” Students may think that their profile is private, but if they are in any networks, the people in that network can access their page. And many employ-ers even say that they have found a way to get to seemingly private profiles. According to CBS News, about 20% of employers are looking at Facebooks to help determine whether they should interview an in-dividual or not. This means that you can be judged before a prospective employer even meets you. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has subpoenaed Facebook as part of a multi-state inves-tigation into the company’s ability to protect their users. When Cuomo’s detectives set-up fake pro-files as 12-14 year olds they were immediately con-tacted by adult Facebook users who solicited sex. Shockingly enough, it is legal for the Facebook site to sell information about its users to marketers. The privacy policy does not apply to court orders or sub-poenas. But people do not need government requests to cheat the privacy. On Grownupgeek.com there is de-tailed listings on “How to Hack Facebook.” It shows you how to get other people’s passwords and use trackers. College administrators are getting involved in monitoring sites also. Over 7.5 million college stu-dents use Facebook, as quoted by CBS. Anyone with an e-mail address from a university can access the students at that school. The college admission officers are using Facebooks as an additional way to evaluate high school seniors who are applying to their college. They are often disappointed to find illegal activity and drug use on the profiles. Facebook is not taking a stand for their teenage users; according to reporter Kristy Totten, a facebook rep said the administrators have the right to use facebooks to evaluate students. In addition, colleges are using facebooks to find proof of illegal activities in their students on campus. Securi-ty at Penn State University charged students with crimi-nal trespassing last year, because they found their face-book group: “I Rushed the Field After the OSU Game (And Lived!)”. According to the Standford Daily, Emory

University gave conduct code violations to the kids in the groups “Woodruff=Wasted” and “Dobbs 2nd Alco-holics.” Though less severe, the student council candi-dates at the University of Pennsylvania were punished for using illegal online campaigning through Facebook. This month, a group of seniors at our school received probation for pictures posted on Facebook. The administration discovered an album containing pictures from a party from the previous weekend. It has been said that a few students were holding beers. Yet, every student pictured, even if they were not hold-ing alcohol, was called down to the office. They were questioned by a police officer and their parents were called. About this, Nick Roertgen said “I think it was right for the school to inform the parents, but after that it’s up to the parents, not the school, to discipline the kids.” All of the students involved were warned that their behavior was inappropriate and that they had to ask permission to go on field trips, even maybe prom, until further notice. This caused many students to be angry or question our administration’s decisions. “Although I respect most of Mr. Dolan’s decisions, I believe that this may have been a step too far. I think that it was entirely the students and their parents’ re-sponsibility to deal with the consequences, and not the school’s,” Brett Groneman told The Bull’s Eye. An anonymous Smithtown student commented on the sit-uation: “Outside activities should have nothing to do with school and the principal should not be involved.” But it is apparent that SHSW students do have more freedom when it comes to this new form of internet censorship. The Washington Post reports that high schools in their area have banned the use of this web site to all its students, because they are aware that colleges are viewing the Facebooks. Despite all of this, Facebook has had some positive effects on students today. It is believed to slowly be decreasing apathy in teenage voters, since they can see candidates profiles on Facebook to learn more about them. Also, students value it because it helps to keep in touch with friends when they go away to college. “I do not know what I would do if I was not able to talk to my friends, who are miles away at college, through Facebook. It is an important connection,” a Smithtown High School Junior states. It is inevitable that parents, school offi-cials, and potential employers will continue to ac-cess our online profiles. They are using it to discov-er people’s true personalities, not how they look on paper or the face they put on at an interview. Per-haps we should view it as a resume or background check, yet one we have control over. So why not make it creative and a true measure of our character?

Because Big Brother Is WatchingBy Tara Grieco

Page 2 News March 2008

The recent assassination of for-mer Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto came as a shock to all. Bhutto was shot in the neck and the chest after a campaign rally in Rawalpindi. After the attacker shot Bhutto, he killed himself and at least 20 others in a suicide bombing. Bhutto was taken to the hospital without delay, but she died about an hour later. Her death has led to chaos and turmoil in Pakistan. Riots broke out from her supporters against the disliked Pakistani President Pervez Mush-arraf, and he will most likely not continue his position as president for much lon-ger. Bhutto’s party has suffered greatly, but their new leader is Bhutto’s widower. “She was inside the vehicle and was coming out from the gate after addressing the rally when some of the youths started chant-ing slogans in her favor. Then I saw a smiling Bhutto emerging from the vehicle’s roof and responding to their slogans,” Sardar Qamar Hayyat, a leader of Bhutto’s political party, stated, according to Newsday. After she came out of the sun roof, the attacker shot her twice, and her SUV drove away quickly. Soon after learning about Bhutto’s death, many Pakistanis were injured in rallies

following her assassination. Many of Bhut-to’s supporters protested against President Pervez Musharraf, who, some believe, had

played a part in the attack; some supporters even burned a gas station and attacked police. Bhutto was extremely well liked by the Pakistani people, and a large amount of the supporters were in utter rage about her as-sassination. “You could really feel the tragedy of this loss because Bhutto really represent-

ed hope here for so many people,” Represen-tative Patrick Kennedy, a U.S. Democrat from Rhode Island, stated in sorrow to Newsday. Bhutto’s son has also spoken to the media about her death. He remained unshaken when asked if he was afraid of getting attacked himself and answered to Newsday, “I fear more for my privacy.” According the Newsday, Presi-dent George W. Bush stated, “The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are try-ing to undermine Pakistan’s democracy.”Her death not only affected the people of Pakistan, but because she had close rela-tions with the U.S., Americans were affected too. In the U.S., her death has been linked to the drop in stock price and the increase in oil prices on the day of Bhutto’s death.“We repeatedly informed the government to provide her proper security and ap-propriate equipment including jammers, but they paid no heed to our requests,” said Rehman Malik, the security adviser, to Newsday. Threats of suicide bombings were being made, but no action was taken.

By Tiffany Lai

www.jwcampbe.com

Assassination of Pakistan Prime MinisterDeath of Bhutto, 54, Leaves Country In Distress

Never Mind the Bo l locks ,

By Ralph Moffettone The turnout was considerable in the lukewarm, sensually lit library where students of all sorts gathered to strum their acoustic guitars and chant their pseudo-poetry amongst the company of their mu-sical peers. It was the acoustic café, where the soft side of our school’s rockers peeked through in the form of gentle riffs and softly sung lyrics of denial and despair. It was a buffet of reheated musical leftovers from decades past with students attempting to imitate that freethinking, unruly peace-vibe first born in the sixties. The gig itself was no Monterey Pop Festival, but it was a goodtime. The Hurdy Gurdy men and women came singing songs of love and appeased their cooperative audience throughout the night. They covered songs from acts such as Neil Young, Guns ‘N’ Roses, and even The Flight of the Concords –displaying our schools variety of tuneful tastes. Senior Brett Groneman served up some R&B into the mix by taking on a Bill Withers song and some-how managed to scratch the surface of some of the more towering notes. Mr. Sill jumped in by jiving to some late 90’s pop tunes, but

among the more controlled and confident performances was that of the band “Phoe-nix” led by Juniors Tom Killory and Matt De-niero. It was a night of harmonious diversity. The singing was consistently de-cent, although sometimes our ears would have to endure some untrained voices, to be put kindly (to be put unkindly would be to say that they sounded like mice be-ing slowly crushed beneath the tire of a Hummer). There were few instrumental slip-ups worth taking notice of and the guitarmanship was surprising at its peaks. Of course the originals were a bit lyrically overbearing; each drenched in that clas-sic pubescent pretense –but what could one expect from a gang of growing artists? It was a night of seemingly inno-cent fun. A grand jam of the amateur and practiced alike. The guitars wept and the students moaned, forming some kind of congested, teenage, musical-hodgepodge –and that’s mostly a good thing. It was cer-tainly refreshing to see some inspirado tak-ing place as well as some creativity being burned. “Rock on,” as the kids would say.

West’s Annual Show Is Once Again A Hiti t ’ s T h e A c o u s t i c C a f é !

Smithtown West’s Acoustic CafePhoto by: Valerie Mercutio

Page 3 News March 2008

T h e B u l l ’ s E y e S t a f f :Editors in Chief: Sam Spiegelman

Janet Rogers

News Editor: Tara Grieco

Viewpoints Editors: Erin Gillin

Diana Dwyer

A&E Editors: Amanda Booth

Josh Batchelder

Sports Editor: Sam Spiegelman

Features Editor: Alexis Buckheit

Joseph Accardi

Alyssa Andersen

Emma Antolos

Stephanie Ciotta

Janine Conway

Cecilia Emmino

Danielle Ferrante

Christina Galler

Alyssa Gallicchio

Lauren Komyathy

Tiffany Lai

Saif Laljee

Gabriella Lutjen

Krista Mercaldi

Ralph Moffetone

Jessica Noviello

Blake Toben

Ben Weinberg

Staff:

Smithtown Idol came to Smithtown HS West on Jan 18th. It mimicked the tele-vision show American Idol and included 25 performances by talented West students. Auditions were held in December-when over 45 students attempted to show-case their singing talent, but only about half of them made the final cut. The ones that survived the initial cut performed a song of their choice at January’s live show. The show went on for about three hours on a stage lit up and decorated similarly to the American Idol stage. There were even three huge screens at the back of the stage where cameras displayed close-ups of the singers, and sometimes even the crowds as they danced along to the music. Performers in the show sang a variety of songs, from popu-lar hits to old favorites. Reena Gla-ser and Brittany Wolf performed well-known songs by Christina Aguilera which had supporters in the crowd cheering them on. Even Brittany’s grandmother was pulled out of the crowd by energetic host Gene, to wish her good luck and support her on stage. Brittany herself said, “It was so much fun, a little nerve-wracking, but definitely a great experience for all of us.” Others such as Brett Groneman challenged the arm-waving hit “Sweet Car-

oline” and Ronny O’Leary performed the up-beat “Dirty Pop” by N*Sync. Deanna Goldstein wowed the crowd with Jennifer Hudson’s “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Go-ing” from the film Dreamgirls. Also, a teach-er group attempted Idol by mimicking The Partridge Family from the 70’s. Front man Mr. Como, who worked in setting up Smith-

town Idol along with Ms. Wood and Mr. Smith, sang live along to “Come-on, Get Happy”. The judges then had to decide who made the final cut and would come back to perform again in April. All three judg-es, Regina, Tommy, and McGarry, have had

previous music experience with songwrit-ing and recording, one of them even worked with well-known band Nickelback. Their rockstar-like hairstyles and clothing made them seem even more into it. At the end of the show they determined whose talent was too good to pass up, and whose was not so hot. The result was 15 finalists who

will all enter into the next round of Idol. (12 are pictured here) Before the show started there was even more excite-ment. Erin Gillin had the honor of shaving Mr. Dolan’s head on the Smithtown Idol stage for the audience’s enjoyment. Mr. Dolan had made a pledge to shave his head if the school raised a cer-tain amount of money towards the Marty Lyons Foundation. The school must have done well “buy-ing the book”. Of course, Lauren Richmond was standing by to wit-ness Dolan’s crazed pledge and with what better song but “Soulja Boy” blasting in the background. After the audience laughed and cameras flashed, a video of Mr.

Dolan then somehow ended up on Youtube. The proceeds West received from the show will go to the Marty Lyons Founda-tion, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Smith-town DECA West students “Road to States” fundraising and the school’s theater group.

Students Rock Smithtown Idol

The 12 Finalists From Smithtown West IdolPhoto by: http://smithtown.k12.ny.us

By Krista MercaldiFinalists Chosen For Next Round

Page 4 News March 2008

“Buy the book” has been said over and over by Smithtown High School prin-ciple, Mr. Dolan, for the past month and a half. He has stressed the idea of importance and commitment into buying the book. Black & Brown Markers is written by a young girl named, Lauren Rich-mond. Lauren is part of the Marty Lyons Founda-tion that was established in 1982, to carry out the special wishes of chil-dren ranging from the ages three to seventeen-years-old who have been diagnosed as having fatal or life threatening illnesses and diseases. The foundation grants one of these helpless children any wish they want. Most children wish to go to Disney, to meet a celebrity, to go on a shopping spree or have a special transformation ways where the child may live at home with his or her family, and much more. But Lauren Rich-mond was different; she wanted people to feel her pain and to feel her emotions and share it with the world. Her wish was to have her poetry writing be published into a book which is now called black & brown markers. Lauren Richmond is a very optimis-tic fourteen-year-old eighth grader who lives in Bridgewater, New Jersey. L a u -ren is battling cancer and lives her life not knowing what will happen to her the next day. For a girl who is struggling every day to stay alive, she is a very giving and cheerful person. She believes that life goes on and you shouldn’t live hiding in a corner until the day comes to die. By publishing this book she says, “I hope that by reading my poetry everyone can allow their emotions to

rise to the surface and allow themselves to recognize these emotions as the one com-mon bond between us all. I hope that you will stop to think past the words and con-nect your own thoughts and passions to them. The poems may have been created by

me, but in truth, they are about each and every person in the world. Af-ter all, it is our feelings that we all have in com-mon.” Lauren’s state-ment makes everyone feel like one person. No matter how sick or how one person may be strug-gling through their life, everyone has experienced or will experience the same emotions and feel-ings at least once in their

life. Even with Lauren being terribly sick, she still thinks about others before herself. When talking to our principal, Mr. Dolan, he says, “This whole project had nothing to do with the money. I wanted to share Laurens story with the kids to teach them a life lesson that no matter how dread-ful things become in life, you have to keep moving on. I want the kids to look back and remember her story when things get hard, and remember her by sharing the book with the school.” “I would have liked to see more people participate by buying the book for the student’s advantage to learn from her poem writings.” For future Eng-lish classes, Mr. Dolan wants a class set of black & brown markers. Every month he wants the class to read a poem from this book and spend the rest of the period ana-lyzing her words and thoughts to others. The Marty Lyons Foundation has created extraordinary memories for these ail-

Book of Poetry To Support Marty Lyons Foundation

By Blake Toben

Photo: peopleseducation.com

Even though the number of autistic children has been growing on Long Island, many families with autistic children have been slighted of the special education and parental training necessary to give these chil-dren the most independent lives they can get. Special education for autism has improved and has been made more avail-able to families with autistic children, but the communities affected by poverty have not been able to receive special education. Autism can usually be detected before the age of three, but in these poor com-munities, parents find it difficult to take their children on regular check-ups, so autism can’t be appropriately diagnosed. Poorer communities that tend to be mainly black or Hispanic show lower num-bers of autistic children while other commu-nities that are more well-to-do and mostly

white show higher numbers. Even though there are no studies to show that autism is affected by race, ethnicity, or income, avail-ability of resources has been shown to have an effect on the future of autistic children. Many of these needy towns and cities are highly populated with minor-ity groups and immigrants who have little money and can’t afford to go to a proper doctor regularly. Since they can’t speak Englishvery well, it is very difficult for them to learn about the latest studies. If a doctor happens to realize there is something mentally wrong with the child, a misdiagnosis may occur which is why these impoverished cities have a lower num-ber of autistic children. When some children should have been identified as autistic, many of them have been documented as mentally retarded or as affected by some other men-

tal illness. If identified early and appropri-ately, the child can be given the help he or she needs and that can determine wheth-er the child can live an independent life. A recent study has shown that one specific gene that has mutated may be connected to autism. Research continues in the search of why Long Island has an increasing population of autistic children. In affluent communities with the highest numbers of autism, the rates are up to 10 to 14 per thousand, while the poorer communities show only 1 to 3 per thousand. Copiague has one of the high-est populations of autism, and it has risen from 12 to 15 in a thousand in the last year. Even without including the autistic children who have not been classified or those who haven’t been accurately diagnosed, the num-bers of autistic children are still mounting.

New Success In Autism ResearchBy Tiffany Lai

New Species:

By Tara Grieco An odd new creature was dis-covered this month scampering across the ground in a Tanzanian forest. Surpris-ingly, it was not a new species of insect or a new form of algae. It was a small mam-mal with reddish fur, a black bottom and a long snout. It is a type of elephant-shrew, named for the distinct snout characteristic. It weighs less than two pounds and feeds on insects in the mountains of Tanzania. As they learn more about this little mammal, it seems apparent that it is more related to the elephant than any type of rodent. It was first seen by Francesco Rov-ero three years ago, and even though it was caught on tape, it could not be identified as a new species right away. Yet, they knew it must be a new species of giant elephant-shrew because “it was so heavy.” It was also picked out because of its distinct coloring that differed from other elephant-shrews, also known as Sengi. Galen Rathburn, who was on the expedition with Rovero, said it was the first new species of Giant Sengi to be found in 126 years. They named this one the Grey-faced Sengi. Only two populations of this animal have been found in Africa so far. Though the elephant-shrew was named for its resemblance to the shrew, molecular studies have shown that its closest relatives include mana-tees, aardvarks, and elephants. They all belong to the order of Afrotheria. What makes us think that we should be exploring the universe for other life forms when we do not even know all of our mamma-lian neighbors? According to Rathburn, a few species of this animal are yet to be revealed.

E l e p h a n tS h r e w ?

Page 5 News March 2008

Is our school really clean? Most high school students know that our school is full of germs and bacteria; how-ever, they do not seem to be both-ered by it. The fact is that bacte-ria and other germs are a part of life and present in almost every place, including Smithtown High School West. Last month the AP Biology classes taught by Ms. Schachter and Ms. Donnelly con-ducted an experiment to find out exactly how germs and bacteria are present everywhere in the school. The students’ task was to find a place in the school and collect some bacteria and germs from it. Students worked in teams and collected bacteria from places such as the commons, the vend-ing machines, the pay phones, the lockers, and many other locations. To grow the bacteria the students placed the germs that they gathered on special disposable dishes containing agar, which fed the bacteria so that it could grow. For safety reasons, after the dish was opened and the germs had been add-ed, it was tightly closed with masking tape so that it would not harm anyone near it. What most students expected to find after only five days was just a few colonies of bacteria growing on the Petri dish. However, the results were very differ-

ent from what was expected. After only five days of being in an incubator (to speed up

the growth,) large masses of bacteria, called lawns, were present on the Petri dishes. Even though some dishes had more bacteria present than others, all of the ex-periments showed results. To make sure that the results of the experiment were kept accurate, a control dish was kept to make sure that the dishes had not been contami-nated when the students received them. At the end of the five-day period, the con-trol dish had no bacteria. According to the results of the experiment, the boys’ wres-

tling room had the most bacterial growth. The results of this experiment

show that bacteria can be found everywhere in the school. Even though bacteria are common in ev-eryday life, they both help us and burden us. The Staph Infection is a germ epidemic currently spread-ing through high schools in the area. The results obtained from this experiment may lead some to question if our entire school should be cleaned. Continuing to use anti-bacterial cleaners to kill the germs will be helpful, but in the long run it may have more negative ef-fects than positive ones. Killing all of the susceptible bacteria strains would lead to the growth of resis-tant bacteria which can not be killed and therefore are more dangerous. “Even though the custodial staff

does a great job keeping our school clean, the main message is that bacteria can be found al-most anywhere. It’s important to be mindful of this and to practice good hygiene in your day-to-day tasks,” commented Ms. Schachter. Smithtown High School West should be kept clean, but to an extent. Be-ing overcautious and over clean can give rise to more resistant bacteria and germs which could pose more of a threat over time.

G e r m I n v a s i o nBy Saif Laljee

In the petri dishes, the bacteria from our school is shown Photo By: Ms. Schachter.

Smithtown : Not As Clean As We May Have Thought?

Super Tuesday: We’ve Only Just BegunBy Ben Weinberg

“Tonight I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican Party front-runner for the nomination of presi-dent of the United States. And I don’t really mind it one bit.” stated by John McCain as he became the leader in overall delegates gained after winning states Tuesday night from coast to coast. McCain’s biggest victory lies in his taking of winner-take-all Califor-nia with its 170 delegates all going to this bid for the Republican nomination. Senator McCain also won Connecticut, Illinois, Mis-souri, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Delaware and his home state of Arizona. While most of the Republican contests on Super Tuesday were winner-take-all, most Democratic contests were awarded propor-tionally based on the number of congressio-nal districts won by the candidate. John Mc-Cain has gathered a total of 514 delegates in his presidential campaign followed by Mitt Romney with 177 delegates and Mike Hucka-bee with 122 delegates. Mitt Romney won on Tuesday in Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana and Utah. In addition to

a close victory in Georgia, Mike Huckabee picked up wins in Alabama, Arkansas, Ten-nessee and West Virginia. There is still no clear front runner in the race between Sena-tors Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for

the Democratic Nomination. “Our time has come, our movement is real and change is coming to America,” said Barack Obama during his speech on Tuesday Night, “We are more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and always will be the United States of America.” The biggest states for Obama that he won handily were his home state of Illinois and Georgia because of a

larger share of the 288 delegates in those states given to Obama because of his getting over 60% of the popular vote in both states. Barack Obama also won Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota and Utah. It was a good night for the Obama campaign as he won a majority of delegates and a majority of the states with thirteen state victories to Clinton’s eight state victo-ries. Hillary Clinton won her home state of New York, California, New Jersey and Mas-sachusetts along with the larger share of the 329 delegates at stake in those three states. Hillary Clinton also went on to win Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee and the majority of the 235 delegates in those states. Both Democratic and Republican pri-mary races will go on beyond Super Tuesday with John McCain having a considerable del-egate advantage over Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who are very close to each other in the amount of delegates gained so far during these past primaries and caucuses.

Photo Credit: salon.com

Page 6 News March 2008

America is addicted to oil, and it’s a reliance that is causing the deterioration of the Earth. According to two new studies, ethanol, the only realistic substitute seem-ingly capable of kicking our habit, has been proven far worse for the environment than that of the traditional burning of fossil fuels. Greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels far exceed that of gasoline, because biofuel pro-duction is increasing food prices and result-ing in deforestation and the removal of grass-l a n d s . “ E m i s -s i o n s f r o m e th a n o l are 93 pe rcen t h i g h e r than gas-o l i n e , ” says Da-vid Til-man, an ecologist from the U n i v e r -sity of Minneso-ta. “The b o t t o m line is that us-ing good farmland for bio-fuels in-c r e a s e s g r e e n -h o u s e e m i s -s i o n s . ” The plan was that corn-based e t h a n o l was supposed to shrink greenhouse emis-sions by 10 to 20 percent in comparison to the burning of oil. Unfortunately, those premature studies did not consider the fact that the more agricultural land that is eaten up and cranked into fuel, the less of it we get to grow food in. We live in a world that is swarmed with hungry masses of people who really enjoy corn and the innumer-able amount of products that use it; we

also live in a world full of people who need fuel; and we also live in a world that’s dy-ing. This conflicting cycle is causing wors-ening conditions in all three of its corners. Every 100 acres converted sends an average of about 351 tons of greenhouse gases spiraling into the atmosphere. Consid-ering nature has been producing carbon for centuries, it would take 167 years of steady ethanol production on that level to even things out –and that’s assuming that the

biofuel itself tru-ly does reduce emissions by 20 percent, reports Timothy Search-inger and his col-leagues of Sci-ence Magazine. T h e s e terrestrial set-backs go for all biofuels from nations around the world –but the numbers vary. Rainfor-ests are chewed up into fuel in Indonesia and Malaysia; and it would take 423 years of consis-tent biodiesel use to compen-sate for the car-bon liability that would undoubt-edly ensue. A c r e s upon countless acres of these lands have al-ready been cleared. Susan

Page, a leading expert on these lands from the

University of Leicester in England, reports that 7.9 million acres have already been con-sumed, and will expel an incomprehensible 3.22 billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over the next quarter-century. Page states that “Current land use and land practice developments in Southeast Asia give grave cause for concern.” A gargantuan chunk of land gobbled up, only to poison the very Earth from which it resides, it seems.

I Still Drink Your MilkshakeT h e P o l l u t i o n B i o -f u e l s P r o m i s e P r o v e s O i l S t i l l T o B e K i n g

In the next few weeks, Smithtown West will be busy with many activities. A few of the major events include the Smith-town High School PTSA Fashion Show, the Gala concert, and the Smithtown Idol Finals. The first event is the Smithtown High School PTSA Fashion Show which will be held on March 26th. The guests will get to eat dinner and watch SHS West and East seniors model for only $50 per ticket. The proceeds will be donated to cultural arts programs and student schol-arships. Also during this night, baskets full of donated items will be raffled off. The Gala concert, which will take place of March 29th, is a gathering of dif-ferent groups of musicians, the chorus, the orchestra, and the symphonic band, for one memorable concert. Each group will perform songs that will demonstrate the unique skills required to properly pres-ent the music in a powerful way. Some of songs that will be performed include The Moorside Suite and Valse Triste by the orchestra; Mata Del Aima Sola, Amor de Alma, and We Shall Walk Through the Val-ley by the chorus; and Concertino and Wil-liam Tell Overture by the symphonic band. The third major event is the Smith-town Idol Finals that will be held on April 4th. Singers from SHS West and East will compete for the title as the Smithtown Idol winner. This event helped raise over $2,500 for Cystic Fibrosis, The Marty Ly-ons Foundations. Also, SHS West Thespian Theater Group made a donation to help maintain the theatrical arts of SHS West.

Upcoming Events

By Ralph Moffetone

By Tiffany Lai

Even Brazil’s boasted sugarcane-based ethanol success is not excused from the deepening carbon debt. Their total comes to at least 17 years of dependable sugarcane production to reimburse the carbon bill; and far worse is the convert-ing of the Amazon forest, which will make the damage linger for another 319 years. All of these gaping criticisms aside, biofuels should not be given up on immediately and may still hold a future. The ideal balance yet to be reached can be achieved if the biofuels are raised on sul-lied lands, along with the use of recurrent non-food plants. However, using these “wasted” materials would deprive the soil of essential organic substance necessary for productivity. Tilman believes that more studies must be done concerning these new technologies. “In this context, it is a pret-ty silly idea to use food as fuel,” he adds.

Photo Credit: www.highwaygirl.com

I Still Drink Your Milkshake

continued here. . .

Page 7 News March 2008

From The Editor’s Desk When I was in fourth grade I thought my teacher, Mr. Saidens, was nuts for making my whole class memorize and write out the multiplication table over and over in class and for homework for three weeks straight. I thought to myself, “Self, why don’t we just use calculators?” Now in high school, when we’re using calculators in math class, I depend so much on punching numbers into my calculator that I forgot everything Mr. Saidens tried to implant into our young brains. Well my math skills were tested this past summer by the most unlikely assessor - Chili’s Bar and Grille. In an effort to attain a summer job, I had to take a multiple choice test all employees must pass before being of-fered a job. The test consisted of numerous sections including Math, English, and self evaluation. Had I only known that passing a smaller version of the SATs was required to get a job seating customers at a table, I might have looked elsewhere for work I was flabbergasted when the 40ish

year-old, balding manager told me that not only was I to complete the test in an hour, but I was also not allowed to use any kind of electronic device to assist me on the math section. Now, I don’t know about other high school kids, but I haven’t done multiplication

or long division by hand since fifth grade, and in the middle of the summer, I wasn’t about to remember the steps of how to di-vide $14.99 by 16 without my handy dandy hundred dollar graphing calculator. I know Mrs. Weinfeld would be completely disap-pointed, but I failed the Chili’s test after getting so frustrated at the math that I just started choosing any letter that looked good. When the manager came back

out to tell me that he couldn’t offer me a job for another 90 days until I retook the test, I was so embarrassed with my math skills, I almost thought that I would give up school altogether and become a bum.That solemn yet humbling day helped me re-alized that when Ms. Weinfeld gives us tests where we are not allowed to use our calcula-tors, and when Mr. Saidens wanted us to mem-orize the multiplication tables, it was all in ef-forts to prepare us young kids for our future in a world of chain restaurants and silly tests.

E r i n G i l l i n Josh Batchhelder “He thinks everything is amazing.” That is probably the phrase most used by

various people to describe my taste in mov-ies. Those who know me, how-ever, know that in reality, I don’t think everything is amazing, but I am relatively easy to please. I

feel when I like something, I am very vocal about it. I write rave reviews for movies that I like (or love), but rarely touch on those I hate of, which I promise you, there are many. For instance, take 2004’s abomina-tion Napoleon Dynamite, the worst movie of all time. For some bizarre reason unknown to us mortals, almost the entire teeny-bop-per population is completely bonkers over this unfunny bore. It wasn’t good writing, it certainly wasn’t good acting, and the laughs were nonexistent. On the other hand, my favorite genre of movies by a longshot is horror. From the characters and the suspense to the gore and constant mood of dark and terrifying reality, there’s just something about horror films that really grabs me. Horror is best when it uses a subject that could easily happen in real life, when it is genuinely just scary. Some of the best horror films (The Descent, Final Destination 3, Halloween, Scream, Saw II and others) are all about very realistic situations shrouded in mystery and terror and made all the better by characters and a small ele-ment of fantasy. Pan’s Labyrinth is perhaps the best example of a fantasy-horror film that is rich and original, and The Orphan-age looks promising. But enough discussion about the very best of the genre; the horror genre is most notorious for providing some of the sleaziest, cheesiest, corniest, crap known to man. The first really terrible mov-ies that come to mind? Cheerleader Massa-cre, Dark Harvest, and The Gingerdead Man, intensely terrible, straight-to-video horror. Every movie should get an equal chance. Just because something looks ter-rible doesn’t mean that it will be (Atone-ment, anyone?) So keep an open mind when you go to see a movie, and try not to have big expectations because sometimes they’re hard to live up to. So, the next time I say something is amazing, just remember there is probably still another batch of films that I dislike or hate. I appreciate movies, and all of the time and effort that goes into them. Movies are just magical. They unite people of all sorts of different tastes and are huge topics of discussion. That is the reason that I love film so much: it’s thought-pro-voking, and its loads of fun to talk about.

D i a n a D w y e r “Did you hear?” my friend report-ed. “Britney lost custody of her kids!” I paused for a moment before asking, “Britney who?” She meant Britney Spears, but I didn’t immediately make the connection because celebrities aren’t as much of a concern to me as they seem to be to the rest of America.. Trashy tabloids like OK! and US Weekly fan across just about every wait-ing room and salon, and celebrity news stories make the covers in major newspa-pers. America is obsessed with the celeb-rity culture. Teens and adults alike seem to know better which star is going out with whom than what important events are happening that really affect their lives. We see an A-Lister in a couture gown and we “ooh” and “ahh,” but when the paparazzi catch them in an off moment with frizzy hair or a wardrobe malfunction, we’re ecstatic at the sight. Self-proclaimed “Queen of All Media,” Perez Hilton hosts a website full of celebrity pictures and witty captions crudely drawn on with what looks like Microsoft Paint. While some fans proud-ly display his site as their homepage, some consider this site a guilty pleasure. Either way, three million unique visitors daily is no joke; it’s a phenomenon. Perez’s popu-larity confirms we like to see stars dressed up, but we love to see them not look up to the demanding standards we hold them to. Celebrities create a fantasy; unless they were born into a famous family, they

were usually once ordinary people catapulted into stardom with sometimes little or no tal-ent. Appearing to live a glamorous lifestyle, they are often the object of obsession and jealousy. Why has picking on picture-per-fect people become so enormously popular?

Maybe it is the same reason why people slander other “real” people; they’re bored with their own lives. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about for, so I did some investigating. Upon opening up an issue of Us Weekly

magazine, there was a section that immedi-ately caught my eye called “Stars -- They’re Just Like Us!” The captions beneath pictures of celebrities going to Starbucks or picking up a newspaper were so ridiculous that I didn’t even believe it at first. Yes, they really are just like us: they’re human, nothing more. The title seems to imply that we are lower than the celebrities, and it should come as a surprise that they do the same things we do.Sure, you can blame the media all you want but only to an extent – we’re still buying it! Why we buy all this still remains a mystery to me. Americans addicted to such “enter-tainment” should question what else they could be doing with their time and maybe pay more attention to their own lives.

V i e w p o i n t sPage 8 Viewpoints March 2008

We Care , Bu t Not That Much, P lus There ’ s A Hi l l s Marathon

That ’ s On !By Emma Antolos

What’s that in the sky? It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Al Gore! He swoops down to the ground, red cape trailing him, and comforts the people with his southern drawl and kind eyes. He proceeds to save a pan-ther from extinction and punches greedy oil executives into oblivion. A crowd explodes in applause, women sigh in awe, and men wipe tears from the cheeks. Just as quickly as he came, Al Gore flies into a picturesque sunset, off to save the rest of the world. Welcome back to reality ladies and gentlemen. Unfortunately, Al Gore does not have the ability to fly nor does he don a cape (only on the weekends). Gore is a mere pub-lic figure, a former vice president, who en-lightens the public with his vast knowledge of the environment. The public tentatively listens to him, feels bad for approximately the time it takes to rattle off the ABCs, but is quick to jump into their SUVs, turn on every light in their household, and take a thirty-two minute shower. Perhaps the vast majority of the public has yet to be diag-nosed with ADD, or we’re just plainly naïve. Most of us meet the two deathly words “global warming” with a frown, sigh, and a quick change of subject. Excluding some, we seem to be in a strange haze of denial. The media has made a few attempts of capturing some interest with specials on CNN and other major news networks. Universal, who owns NBC, created “Green Week” where all channels under Univer-sal’s wing promoted being “green” (not like Kermit, but acting globally conscious). Al Gore is getting tired, his hair is growing gray, and his midsection is growing larger. We need a young, fresh faced, strong willed celebrity or spokesper-son that is relatable and appealing to all sorts of demographics. Al Gore is a cool guy and all, but a fifteen year-old girl would rather listen to Avril Lavigne whine than watch an old man talk about science. Global warming is not something we can watch slowly happen be-fore our eyes. It takes a voice to start some action. Let’s get up off our lazy butts, turn off The Real World, and make something happen.

Paying Attention to Global Warming

If you have watched television late-ly you might have seen commercials for the new Monopoly or Life board games. Hasbro has revamped their classic board games with the ability to use debit cards. They claim it makes the game faster and more exciting, but if you look deeper into this “revolution” it looks more like a large corporation pro-moting a bad habit at a young age. Hasbro is officially the first game brand to replace paper money with credit cards. “When we started to design a completely new edition of the popular game, we knew it was also time to reflect the way people choose to pay and be paid - and replacing cash with Visa was an obvious choice” says Matt Collins, the Vice President of Marketing at Hasbro. But has credit card usage become too much of an obvious choice? Has it be-come more of an impulse or even a reflex? Most high school students have had jobs where they would have some ex-perience at a cash register. From my per-sonal experience working at A.C. Moore, I am shocked as to how many people do pay with credit or debit. Even if the total is as little as $2.50 customers are quick to say debit and swipe their cards. Major credit card compa-nies like MasterCard have even made it easier to pay with the new PayPass, where custom-ers don’t even need to have human contact anymore! Perfect for compulsive buyers! I think that introducing credit cards to kids at such a young age is a destructive

idea. Why is it necessary for children to be credit card literate? Hasbro claims that “Visa will also provide financial literacy enhance-ments within the game to teach children and consumers of all ages the benefits of proper money management.” I’m pretty sure that children don’t care about “financial literacy” and will just associate credit card usage

as a game. But will the game also teach kids that credit card money isn’t money you actually have, or include the 15% interest rate? And

the fact that Hasbro is pumping in a sponsor like Visa seems like they are trying to brainwash chil-

dren. In addition to taking away the best part of the game, kids won’t know how to use money. Board games with money are a good way to practice giving out change as well as addition and subtraction. Now kids will just know how to swipe a credit card. That just screams “I’m going to be a compulsive credit card buyer, Mommy!” But I still can’t understand why they need to ruin a classic; half of the fun of games like Life or Monopoly is being able to have a lot of money in your hands, and rub-bing it in your friend’s face. Now you’ll just have a Visa Credit card. Wow, sounds like fun. Are we depending too much on credit cards? Is the transition from pa-per money to credit cards in board games a scary look into the future? Will paper money become completely obsolete and eventually vanish from the face of the earth?

P a p e r o r P l a s t i c ?By Janine Conway

One could make the argument that only in 2007 would Vladimir Putin be named Person of the Year in lieu of Man of the Year. One could also make the argument that only in 2007 would an elementary school Hallow-een party be declared a “Harvest Celebration. However, my gripe is not so much about cul-ture in 2007 as it is about these phrases that have started to come about within the last few years that are deemed “politically correct.” Political correctness is a term used to describe language, ideas, policies, or be-havior seen as seeking to minimize offence to racial, cultural, or other identity groups. The movement for political correctness is one that began in the late 1990’s, but really took off at the start of this century. While the modification of the term ‘Indians’ to ‘Native Americans’ is a modification that is under-standable, I do not believe that our language should be modified so that people may not be offended. The truth of the matter is that people will get offended by words every day. Does one really need to include a Hanukkah Harry along with a Santa Claus on an elemen-

tary school newsletter? Does saying Merry Christmas really offend someone? It’s obvi-ous that the message of wishing one a happy holiday gets across either way. If someone comes up to me and wishes me a Happy Ha-nukkah, I don’t think I would get offended. These statements are absolutely unneces-sary, and the real question should not be, am I offending someone? It should be, when will these statements stop? It is a possibil-ity that the food in the cafeteria may switch from being awful to “digestively challenged.” It is also a possibility that when I fail a class, I can just deem myself ‘passing impaired’. On this crusade to offend as little people as possible, one must stop to think, how far will this go? I don’t know about the majority of America, but I don’t believe that I will ever take the time to add these ‘politi-cally correct’ statements to my vocabulary. To me they are unnecessary, and barely of-fend anyone. Maybe it is just laziness on my part, or a lack of motivation to learn these statements, but I don’t consider myself lazy, I consider myself ‘energetically declined’.

Photo Credit:nlrlamp.com

P o l i t i c a l l y C o r r e c tBy Janet Rogers

Page 9 Viewpoints March 2008

There I sat; my bloodshot eyes half-heartedly fixated upon the blinking, square screen. Normally I just let the redundant, ex-

pletive non-sense flow t h r o u g h one ear and out the other, but there was one thing that disrupted my normal, copasetic, vegetative, p s e u d o -state. CNN

introduced a portion of their program-ming called, “Left vs. Right.” In it they had two women in opposing panels share their opinions on various topics. One was a “liberal,” the other, a “conservative.” As I reluctantly watched through my angry winces. I realized that I wasn’t watching people, but merely ideas of people. These weren’t individuals; these were broadly il-lustrated ideological stereotypes. These were products, robots, cartoon characters –these couldn’t be actual human beings. The liberal had no name listed, just the word “left” printed in the corner, as was the word “right” for the conservative. This duo of brainwashed, close-minded an-droids serve as a prime example as to how

the individuality of our nation’s people has been oversimplified and nearly denied by the media’s increasing emphasis on the use of the unnecessary labels that we will-ingly bare. We as a nation have drawn a big line down the middle, and you can either pick a side, or be deemed unimportant. The liberal was a Jew, and had her long, strawberry-blonde hair in a free-spir-ited ponytail. She wore loose, floral clothing and wasn’t afraid to drop any of the latest slang into her monologues. The conservative was a Christian, and had her dark-brown hair in a tight, very much business-appropri-ate bun. She wore a woman’s suit, and was what one would call a real Stiffly Stifferson. Their opinions were strictly by-the-book and each made sure they didn’t stray away from their political-clique’s blueprinted cri-teria. Their narrow-mindedness and lack of individuality was dizzying. Perhaps the general audience would find the coolness and down-to-Earth qualities of the “liberal” appealing; maybe they would side more with the professionalism and seriousness of the “conservative.” The fact that CNN would reduce itself to such an embarrass-ingly cartoonish charade is pitiful –but this presents a far grander dilemma. This illus-trates how we as a nation have traded in our personalized beliefs in exchange for be-ing partisan “Democrats” or “Republicans.” The system of political parties is a dated one, and we as a nation should mature past such. We’re far too diverse, and the is-

sues far too layered. Parties are pointless, and they never really made sense: How can you say that you’ll be liberal or conservative on an issue, any issue, before you even hear it? Having “loyalty” to a specific political party is the equivalent of surrendering your mind to society in exchange for a pre-prepared one –one with all the beliefs already built in so you won’t have to think. All this system does is divide us; s e p a r a t i n g us into “red” and “blue” states, and this has be-come more and more apparent with each passing election. People, even imbeciles, have more complex opinions than just “liberal” and “conservative.” It would be for the best if we got rid of the titles, at least amongst the me-dia, and made an effort to withhold our per-sonalized perspectives. Of course it’s easier to make generalization about people rather than look at each and every citizen as an individual, but since when has maintaining a democratic country been easy? Isn’t that what America’s supposed to be about? The white –along with the “red” and the “blue?”

Left, Right, You Just Can’t WinBy Ralph Moffettone

For some reason it seems that kids are brought up to fear the SATs. From the time you are in elementary school, you are given state test after test that try to measure your intelligence before you know how to tie your shoes. Logically, can one test be able to determine the rest of your life? What’s the point of trying your best all throughout high school if only one test will decide your future? Well, a lot of colleges are asking the same questions about the SATs. More and more private colleges and universities are switching to SAT Optional, where stu-dents get to choose if they want their SAT scores to count towards admissions deci-sions. There are over 760 colleges that have jumped on the SAT Optional bandwagon. Why not switch? SAT Optional seems to benefit everyone. If test scores are optional, students who feel that their strengths are reflected by their SAT scores can submit them, while those whose abilities are better demonstrated by grades or rec-ommendations can be confident that these will be taken into full account during the

admissions process. Sometimes admissions officers use low test scores to automatically reject qualified candidates without even con-sidering their high school grades. The Uni-versity of Chicago conducted a study about the relevance of SAT scores to students. Their results showed that the SAT scores are completely irrelevant in respect to how suc-cessful a student is, or could be. Senior Tom Brosnan says, “It’s not even fair, I don’t think it measures how well a student will do.” Mrs. Vachris, an English teacher at Smithtown High School West, also agreed that the SAT can be unfair, “A wealthy stu-dent has the benefit of getting a SAT tutor and therefore has the advantage of doing bet-ter.” She also pointed to information about how boys outperform girls on the SAT, but girls outperform boys in college. It doesn’t seem like the SATs are a very reliable source for something as important as college. Even though SAT Optional sounds great, there are concerns among some Eng-lish teachers and some students in Smith-town High School West. Mrs. Kelley, and

English teacher and veteran SAT expressed her concerns with colleges switching to SAT Optional, “Some kids like to play the GPA game, where they are okay students but get straight A’s for being a good kid, or per-suade teachers to give them a higher grade.” She also raised a concern about how you would compare a 4.0 in different schools or states with grade inflation if you were to not use an SAT score as a basis of comparison. Mrs. Kelley also questioned if schools have seen a decline in their quality of their stu-dents since they have switched to SAT op-tional. Sophomores Ethan and Dan Cohen think the SATs should be required because they give students an even playing field. So what is the deal with SAT Op-tional? Will it help or hurt future students? Will a college or university’s quality of stu-dent decline because of SAT Optional? The SATs just don’t seem like they are for ev-eryone, and a change might be helpful to future students. Only time will tell if the SAT Optional switch is the right change.

Are We Saying So Long to the SAT?

By Janine Conway

Some Colleges Are Switching To The SAT Optional

Photo Credit: fohn.net

Photo Credit: flickr.com

Page 10 Viewpoints March 2008

Can I go to the bathroom?” It’s a simple question that occurs at least once or twice in every class daily. More often than not, teachers are giving an irritated re-sponse: “Hurry up!” or “Can it wait until af-ter class?” But why don’t kids have the right to go to the bathroom anymore? What have we done so wrong to lose this privilege? On an exclusive journey to Math-land, I was determined to find what Mrs. Weinfeld, a math teacher whose classroom is located on the third floor in the G Tow-er, felt about issues on bathroom breaks. And to my satisfaction, she possessed the exact perspective that most teachers might have. Mrs. Weinfeld felt students often mis-use their bathroom privileges by not going during their lunch periods because they’re too busy talking with friends and “forget.” I’ll give you one thing: it is true that kids may take advantage of the bath-room pass by not going while at lunch, or even perhaps by taking their precious time taking a leisurely stroll through the hall-ways, and maybe even have a social jambo-ree or two on their way back. In the mean-time, they are missing valuable class time – a clear reason why teachers would and should grow angry. However, there are more students who do not misuse their right to the bathroom who are suffering. The reason for long trips to the bathroom these days is due to the amount of open bathrooms, or lack thereof, among the towers. Aside from the ones located in A, there are none avail-able on the top floor, and only one open to boys on the second floor. When asked if, in their view, there were enough bathrooms available to students, Mrs. Weinfeld stated, “Perhaps we could reevaluate the situation and utilize a bathroom on the third floor.” Let me demonstrate this point to you. Let’s say, for instance, I’m taking my

math class in G306 and I have to go to the bathroom. I have to journey down the steps, and across the towers until I finally reach E, and then I have to find my way all the way back. Even in a complete rush, it will take at least five to six minutes. When I come back to class, not only do I receive an intuitive glare from my teacher and feel completely lost in a lesson, I have to feel guilty about going to

the bathroom! It’s as if the people in charge think we all have an obesity problem or some-thing, because of all of this walking is really turning into a calorie-burning experience. Of course the case has been made that students are to use the bathroom dur-ing the period of time in-between running from different towers and making locker visits. Then again, this vast amount of time we are anointed is all of four minutes. I find that this is a completely insufficient time frame to include a trip to the bathroom.On the contrary, Mrs. Weinfeld thought there was an adequate amount of time between pe-riods for students to take advantage of the bathrooms. “We have a smaller school and

halls are less crowded. If a student budgets their time properly, they would find time.”So here’s the situation: If you break into a sprint from your class at the sound of the bell (which will of course anger that period’s teacher and also may cause you to forget to write down homework or get a ditto), you can reach your locker within the minute (you throw in your books and grab the first bind-er you see, which might be the right one for your next class or not, but you don’t know because you rushed!). Then, you’re off to the closest bathroom (if you’re a boy, its second floor in E Tower) and you’re doing your thing. Now, how long that takes is specific to the person, but I’ll round it to about two minutes to be safe. At this point, you’re over three minutes into the break, and you still need to reach your next class on time, and depend-ing on where that class is, it can become a goal that seems just about impossible now. It’s clear that there are too many feuds going on concerning the bathrooms at Smithtown West. Whether it’s the mini-mal time between classes to reach the bath-room, or too few available bathrooms to get to, it has become a burden on both stu-dents and teachers. When asked about her thoughts of any possible resolutions, Mrs. Weinfeld felt there were none. “Students should be accountable for their actions.” She then used the following metaphor to describe how she depicted the situation. “If they were standing in line at Disney World, they’d wait until they got off of the ride before they used the facilities.” Until this school can find an answer, the chaos will continue. Students will be late to classes and miss lessons because of this, in addition to missing out socially by the deprivation of hallway conversations. To me, it just looks like a lose/lose situation from any angle.

Mrs. Weinfeld, Princess of MathlandP h o t o B y : S a m S p i e g e l m a n

T h e R e s t r o o m C h r o n i c l e sBy Sam Spiegelman

Producers think famous celebrities who come out of bad relationships or had their heart broken once or twice automati-cally deserve their own television show on hopes of “finding true love”. It’s so pathetic that these people stoop down so low that they feel the need to show their love search on a television series for millions of viewers to watch, trying to find that special someone from a group of twenty people so disgusting I wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole. Yet everyone seems to love these shows and can’t miss one episode, otherwise their life is over. I Love New York is the perfect example. This weight fluctuating woman has been on so many shows, including Fla-vor of Love (which she had participated on twice) and I Love New York (her own reality love show of which she has also appeared on two seasons). The Queen of reality love T.V. claims she has finally found “true love” in the second season of I Love New

York. Personally, I think she picked Taylor Made for his money, but to Ms. New York nothing says true love like Gucci purses and expensive two inch long dresses that can’t even cover her newest assets which Taylor Made can clearly provide for. He knows how to satisfy her expensive taste. Then there is reality love T.V. Prin-cess Tila Tequila, the famous model who everyone calls a friend on myspace. This bi-sexual lady is tired of not finding that right guy or gal for her, and obviously she needs a television show to find true love. She put the mixed group of twenty males and fe-males through ridiculous and somewhat degrading challenges which everyone loved to watch. But on the final episode, Bobby was the lucky guy to take a shot at love with this sexually confused televisions heiress. Bret Michaels, lead vocalist of rock n’ roll and poison, is another who can’t seem to find that special someone on a television

show. What a shock. In the end of season one he picked Jess to rock his world over Heather, although I think heather was the better choice. But the hot old rocker obvi-ously wanted the hot, young, and ready to go hairstylist over the old, 80’s stripper. At the reunion Jess told Brett he should have picked Heather instead of her because after watching the season she realized she didn’t have real feelings for him, another shocker. Everyone now is tuning into his latest season and can’t wait to see what these girls seeking attention and their 15 minutes of fame will do next. I don’t know what goes through these celebrities’ heads when they think they will find “true love” on a television show. Most of the people there are there for fame or just to say to their friends “Hey, I was on a reality show!” and everyone loves watching it. But hey if these “celebrities” don’t mind millions of people watching them have there heart broken on live television, then I say go for it.

What is Our World Coming To?By Alyssa Andersen

Arts &EntertainmentPage 11 Arts & Entertainment March 2008

10. Ratatouille: Pixar knows how to do something that’s very hard to do: Make “family” movies, that truly do appeal to every member of the family, and this beautifully animated tale about an ambitious young rat in Paris (who’s an aspiring chef) does that better than any other film they made before. Brought to life with an insane attention to detail, the story is funny, inspiring, and legitimately touching.

9. Sweeney Todd: Johnny Depp is glorious in a bleak, depressing sort of way, as the title role in Tim Burton’s best, bloodiest, and most Burtonesque film to date. Based on the celebrated musical, the movie basks in that classic combination of excessive gore and showtunes. The vibrancy of the blood is overshadowed only by the power of the music. Also, Helena Bonham Carter is wonderful as Sweeney’s dark beauty.

8. I’m Not There: An anti-biopic that throws accuracy and nostal-gia to the wind and focuses on telling an assortment of colorful stories, all somehow stemming from the trials, tribulations, and works of Bob Dylan. Each semi-sixties-based narrative can stand on its own as an enjoyable short film, but as the grand montage the movie is, it’s captivating. A worthy portrait of the quirkiest, most enigmatic genius of popular music.

7. Zodiac: David Fincher practices detective-story expertise in this tale of San Francisco’s most notorious serial killer. The film follows a cartoon-ist (Jake Gllyenhaal) who dedicates his life to and obsesses over the dy-ing “Zodiac Killer” case through the course of many years. Fincher cre-

ates a definitive study of the crime-drama and builds a wickedly stylized world around a plot that keeps us guessing, and terrified until the end.

6. American Gangster: Deliciously rich and endlessly entertaining, this gangster film made in that old school, gorgeous moviemak-ing-style will have some crime-drama buffs thinking Scorsese. It tells the parallel stories of New York City drug lord Frank Lucas and the unrelenting detective in search of him, Ritchie Roberts. The film may seem like pure bravado from a distance, but there’s a very clever mind behind all of the glamour.

5. Michael Clayton: George Clooney moves through a swift screen-play as Michael Clayton, the title character of this film which is everything every political-thriller should be. Shot in that fast-paced, understated 70’s style, it’s a film that gets your mind involved and tickles your intellect with glaring, yet somehow subtle metaphor (or does it?). The last shot of the film is nothing short of mesmerizing. [On DVD Feb. 19]

4. There Will Be Blood: Paul Thomas Anderson unleashes a vicious beast of film centering around a snarling, amazing performance by Daniel Day-Lewis that relentlessly invades the beautifully captured scenery surrounding it. Day-Lewis compliments and controls each scene, stomping through Anderson’s world brought to life with one inventive shot after another. It follows a seemingly insane oilman on his lifelong journey to somewhere, slowly drowning in his greed and indistinguishable desires.

3. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead: Veteran film-maker Sidney Lumet guides an actor’s film led by the riveting Philip Seymour Hoffman, along with strong supporting roles by Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, and Marissa Tomei. Two brothers plan to hold up a jewelry store, and that is all I will reveal about the plot out of fear of giving away one or more of its many plot twists. The emotional impact is devastating and the hurt shared by the film’s subjects and its audience is nearly unbearable. Yet another master-piece from Sidney Lumet, who at the age of 83, an age when most directors are…dead, is at the top of his game. [On DVD April 15]

2. Juno: It’s surprising that a little film like “Juno” made by a little director like Jason Reitman, managed to outshine most of its competition this year in the eyes of its modest yet passionately appreciative audience. It is the ultimate antidote to all the other grimly depressing dramas on this list, as well as the ones that didn’t quite make it on. It’s a delightful story filled with characters you immediately like and care for. It’s hard enough to make a good comedy, and even harder to make one that is as intelligent, insight-ful, levelheaded, touching, and yes, hilarious as this. It’s the kind of movie that you feel affection towards and want to stay around with. I must admit, it captured my heart.

1. No Country For Old Men: A film that left me chilled, shaken, and my mind gaping open. It’s a film that is so very confident, and is so very aware of what it’s trying to do, that each scene unfolds with such ease and nature that you’d think that the story was a century-old classic; a narrative born before we were and obviously flawless. Javier Bardem creates the most unnerving villain since Hannibal the Cannibal, and is the center of crisis for two faultless supporting acts by Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin. Not a single scene, or moment, seems out of place or forced. The conviction of the actors, proficiency of the direction, and the originality of the writing, allows us to vanish alongside the characters into the spell-binding story. It is one of the most unique and thought-provoking contemplations on the violent, greedy, and enigmatically cruel nature of man that you’ll ever see on film.

Top 10 Movies of 2007by Ralph Moffettone

Photo: soundtrackcollector.com

Photo: movie.moldova.org

Photo: abcnews.go.com

Photo: gossipsoup.com

Page 12 Arts & Entertainment March 2008

Friday Night Blues? A Heaping Bowl of Soup is the Best Remedy By Emma Antolos

Project Runway’s Jillian LewisBy Alexis Buckheit

The new season of Project Runway began at the end of November at 10 pm. The new contes-

tants all seem very talented and creative. One of the new designers on the show is from Long Island. Her name is Jillian Lewis and she has a lot of promising talent for this season.

Lewis, who is now 26, grew up in Selden. She was selected from thousands of applicants to be on Project Runway, which already is a great accomplishment in itself. Her main goal in this competition is to make it to at least the top three so her work can be shown in New York

fashion week. Lewis went to school at Parsons School of Design and was very successful there. Her first real designing job was as an as-

sistant designer at Searle. This is where she got the foundation for her sewing skills. After this, she applied for Project Runway. While waiting for a return she made connections with Ralph Lauren. She worked on the Rugby line, which is where she learned more about forming a full collection. Lewis stated, “I became an expert at con-ceptualizing a full and balanced collection.” Lewis was always into fashion. She became more into fashion in the late nineties when new styles were coming in. When

she couldn’t find wide leg jeans on Long Island, she decided to make them herself. She noticed that people enjoyed what she made, so she decided to pursue design. Lewis’s favorite designers are Nicolas Ghesquiere for Balanciaga and Azzedine Alaia. Her must-have item for this season is a sweater dress that can be paired with different color tights. Lewis gets her inspiration from many dif-ferent places, but her main inspiration is from art and architecture. Her favorites include Ruben Toledo, Anto-ni Gaudi, and Egon Schiele. A few other things that inspire her work are ballet, armor, and army uniforms. Overall, Lewis’s work portrays every-thing that she loves. Lewis is not satis-fied with just contributing to someone else’s ideas. She wants to take her work to the next level and show at New York Fashion week. The other designers should look out for her because she may be the winner of Project Runway and the next big fash-ion designer.

“When she couldn’t find wide leg jeans on Long Island, she decided to make

them herself.”

E! Network is MTV’s tanorexic cousin who applies too much hair product. Not particularly known for its outstanding television pro-gramming, E! explores the many aspects of the Hollywood enter-tainment industry. E! harbors such classics as The Girls Next Door, Sunset Tan, and Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Somewhere among the rubbish came The Soup, origi-nally titled The What The? Awards. The Soup is a revamped version of E!s 90’s show Talk Soup whose hosts included Greg Kinnear (Little Miss Sunshine) and Hal Sparks (Queer as Folk). The show basically makes fun of everything the E! Network represents. The sheep-ish one-man-in-front-of-a-green-screen host, Joel McHale, rips into overpaid celebrities relentlessly all while donning a hip ensemble. Hailing comparisons to VH1’s overly energetic Best Week Ever, The Soup is clearly the wiser choice of the two. The Soup is a perfect balance of edge, sarcasm, corniness and tastes Mmm Mmm Good! No celebrity is safe from The Soup’s target. They’ve already wounded the likes of Tyra Banks, Whitney Houston, and Britney Spears among countless others. Each week the show has

recurring features such as Chat Stew, where McHale dishes on the past week’s talk shows, Reality Show Clip Time!, and the Clip of the Week. With a relatively small fan base, The Soup often uses clips from past episodes with which avid fans can identify. For example,

a girl happily licking a pickle, origi-nally seen on Supernanny, is often adlibbed into the show. Pickle girl’s cohort is none other than The Today Show’s Ann Curry ram-bling “Good morning, good morn-ing everybody, in the news this morning, good morning”. Mankini, a man literally dressed in a bikini, the “Indestructible” Cheerleader, an actual cheerleader who is in fact destructible, and Jewbacca, a Jewish Chewbacca, are regular characters and randomly appear in sketches. The Soup could be aptly described in one word; quirky.

It’s the brainchild of an awkward thirteen-year-old boy and a sarcastic balding thirty something. If E! spent more of its time promoting The Soup instead of its mindless reality programs, it’d have a plethora of new viewers. No doubt, every episode guarantees a laugh. Forget a spoonful of sugar! Try a

whole ladle of Soup.

Photo: bravotv.comThe first dress Lewis created reflects who she is as a designer.

Photo: bravotv.com

Photo: eonline.com

It seems as though everything this man touches turns to gold, or platinum for that matter. Responsible for producing some of the catchiest, most talked about hits top-ping our nation’s billboard charts, Timbaland is a current force to be reckoned with regard-ing our nation’s mainstream music scene. Born Timothy Z. Mosley in Norfolk, Virginia 1971, Timbaland originated as a disc jockey under the alias, “DJ Timmy Tim.” He began creating hip-hop backing tracks for his local club scene. Timbaland was, however, then taken notice by his well-known childhood friend Missy Elliot upon hearing a select amount of his

material. Together with El-liot and songwriter, Steve Garett, Timbaland was able to get his foot in the door with the music industry as

he soon began working with acts like Aaliyah, Ginuwine, Destiny’s Child, JZ and Nas. Only more recently has Timbaland be-come recognized by the general public, gaining frenzied and idolized respect for his work with Justin Timberlake’s single, “Cry Me a River,” and “Sexy Back” off his sophomore album, and Nelly Furtado’s single “Promiscuous.” Timba-land has become the “go-to” producer for up-and-coming artists, helping to create a name for them, but more importantly for himself. His latest work with urban-pop band, NLT, hailing from California is no exception to the preexistent reputation this man has gained for himself. Reminiscent to 90’s boy bands, NLT’s infectious R&B pop ballads raise an eyebrow to previously devout *NSYNC and Backstreet Boy fans. With their endear-ing looks appealing to young, raging preteen girls and the help of production with Timba-land, NLT is following in the right footsteps to further their career and ultimate success. It’s not only new artists who are call-ing upon Timbaland for inspiring innovative, urban beats. Legendary group, Duran Duran, is seeking work with not only Timbaland, but Justin Timberlake as well. On their upcom-ing album to be released May 2008, there are three tracks produced by Timbaland, one of which is a duet with Mr. Timberlake himself. As an effort to engineer a new, fresh, main-stream sound for the band, their highly an-ticipated release is expected not to disappoint.

Page 13 Arts & Entertainment March 2008

By Stephanie CiottaHe’sGot the Midas Touch

On November 16, 2007, the so called next generation game Assassin’s Creed was finally released in the mar-ket. This game, now available for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, has been nominated for Best Action Game of 2007 by Spike TV, GameStooge, and X-Play. Assassin’s Creed takes place in the year 2012, where barkeeper Desmond Miles, the protagonist, has been kidnapped by unknown people. He is forced to be the test subject for the Animus Project, which allows him to relive his ancestors past. The barkeeper is then sent to explore the life of a past ancestor who happens to be the assassin Altair liv-ing in 1191 A.D. dur-ing the Third Crusade. The objective of the game is to assassi-nate nine main characters without getting caught or killed. What makes this game different from most other games is that Assas-sin’s Creed has no levels or missions. The player is in total control of the character and is able to do events in random order. In the game, the player is able to do virtually anything. “A person can kill a peasant, climb build-ings, rob people, push people around, and many other things,” said freshman Mat-thew Stein. The non-playing characters

(NPCs) in the game are interactive with the player. Their movements are not planned. “Once when I was playing, I climbed a wall and saw a group of NPCs on the ground looking up at me,” Stein added. This next generation game is rated mature for violence; however, it at-tracts many teenagers in high school. As-sassin’s Creed has received nearly perfect reviews from sites such as neoseeker.com, gamepro.com, and gamespot.com. “The best part about this game is the graphics…the controls make me feel like I am actually in the game,” said freshman Bryan Sieber. When playing Assassin’s Creed,

the player may experience a few technical glitches. Sometimes the screen freezes up, requiring the player to reset the sys-tem. There have also been some problems in which the player may fall off the map. Luckily, most of these glitches are very minor. Assassin’s Creed is one of the best-reviewed games of the year. Many people agree that it is better than Halo 3. Its amazing graphics and interesting plot are sure to make it even more of a

popular game. “Playing Assassins Creed has been one of the greatest gaming experienc-es of my life,” stated senior Josh Batchelder.

Assassin’s Creed: By Saif Laljee

Beginning November 1, 2007, Cirque du Soleil hosted its first show geared towards families, entitled Win-tuk in Madison Square Garden. Though many of Cirque du Soleil’s shows leave much to be desired normally, especially in terms of plot, Wintuk was an exception to this. With its heartwarming story of a boy’s quest for snow, as well as the acro-batic aspect that separates Cirque du Soleil from all other shows, Wintuk was the per-fect example of what a show in New York should be, filled with energy and diversity. The story of Wintuk revolves around a young boy named Jamie, who lives in a city that is cold and icy but has no snow. As a result, he begins to interact with a number of high-energy urban street characters, including acrobats, dancers, and talking marionettes. As he discusses his desire to see snow with a couple of the dog marionettes, they inform him of a fe-male shaman who has the ability to take him to a place that has snow. When the fe-male shaman arrives, the dogs, the shaman and Jamie embark on a quest to go to an area that has snow. The journey takes them

to an imaginary Arctic, a world that does not have sunlight, where they encounter the People of the North and giant charac-ters made of ice. When at last the sun re-turns, they fly home on the wings of a giant crane and generate a swirling snowstorm. The story was not all that was impressive about it however, the fact that Cirque du Soleil could manage to work with marionettes of such a large size from underneath the stage, as well as the over-all impressive acrobatics were some parts of the show that should not be forgotten. Wintuk, aside from being an incredible performance, allowed Cirque du Soleil to experience many firsts. For example, Win-tuk is the first show that is dedicated to only one season, winter. It is also the first show that Cirque du Soleil has done that is geared towards families. It is also exclusive-ly produced for Madison Square Garden. With its incredible performers and strong storyline, Wintuk is a Cirque du So-leil show that should not be missed. This is a show that all people can identify with, regardless of age. It is also one of the best presentations given by Cirque du Soleil yet.

Wintuk at MSGBy Janet Rogers

Photo: gymnasticscoaching.com

Photo: russianyulia17.spaces.

people.com

Is It Better Than Halo 3?

Page 14 Arts & Entertainment March 2008

With Semi-Pro in theatres now, I felt it was necessary to unveil the truths of the American Basketball Association, the ABA, that you may not have realized when you saw it. It in fact has a fascinat-ing history that has contributed to the growth and development of the National Basketball Association we watch today, as well as maintaining its own prominent position in Long Island sports history.Jackie Moon, the main character of the movie played by none other than Will Fer-rell, flaunts his enormous Afro hairstyle, which he grew out for months for the role. In the ABA, this attention-grabbing hair-style gained its fame, along with Fu Manchu mustaches and sideburns. In addition, this league was the source of compelling entertainment ideas that came hand in hand with ABA games. (However, they may not have been as amusing as Jackie Moon wrestling a bear or dressed as if he were a dancing sun.) Not only did the ABA lay the foundation for these ideas, but also for the actual basketball play. In Semi-Pro, Moon discovers in a dream the concept of the alley-oop with a no-look pass to co-star Coffee Black, as played by Andre 3000. Other contributions in-clude the popular three-point short, which was widely used in ABA games and is extremely common in today’s game. It pro-vided the notorious un-derhand free throw shot, which was made legend-ary by Rick Barry, and in-troduced the slam-dunk contest. The NBA adopt-ed the contest in 1977, after the leagues merged. The merger took place after the 1976 season, the ninth year of existence for the ABA. The NBA inherited the Nuggets, Nets, Pacers, and Spurs franchises, and was responsible for the emergence of basketball in Miami, Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Utah, Indiana, New Jersey, San Antonio, and Charlotte. It included a draft featuring star players that immediately impacted their

new league. Such high profile names consist of Julius Erving (Doctor J), David Thomp-son, Dan Issel, and Bobby Jones. It ignited the coaching career of Larry Brown, Mike D’Antoni (Phoenix Suns), and George Karl (Denver Nuggets), refereeing career of Earl Strom, and journalism career of Bob Costas. From the movie, though, you may have gotten the impression that the ABA and its players were a parody of the NBA, but rest assured, it certainly was not. The league provided more of a challenge to the NBA. Rob Boone, a former player in both leagues (8 years in the ABA, 5 years in the NBA) and current Utah Jazz broadcaster stated, “You start checking into the ABA players who en-tered the NBA with the merger, you’ll notice

the number of players who held their own as all-league and on the All-Star teams. We had some great players in the ABA.” Long Island also played a considerable role for the ABA. Many of the games were hosted as the Nas-sau Coliseum, Long Island Arena, Hofstra University, The Island Garden, and the Felt Forum. The New York Nets exhibited star player Erving, who led the team to their first title during the 1973-74 season. In doing so, he became the face of the ABA as the most prominent player by winning two championships, three MVP awards, and three scoring titles. He went on to play for the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA, on his way to becom-ing the fifth-high-

est scorer in basketball history. So while your sitting back at the theatres this weekend trying to catch Ferrell’s new comedy Semi-Pro, remember that the although you may laugh at Jackie Moon’s attempt to bring his Flint Tropics towards the future of basketball, the ABA that his team resided in was the inspiration.

The Truth Behind The ABAN o t A l l A b o u t t h e

By Sam Spiegelman

Fights, Fros, Facial Hair a n d S h o r t S h o r t s

The ABA featured New York Nets star Julius Erving before the league fell in 1976

Photo Credit: www.si.com

S e m i - B a d ?By Josh Batchelder

Will Ferrell has a very in-teresting career with all sorts of ups and downs and twists and turns. Some of his movies scream co-medic brilliance while others make you shake

your head in shame. Ferrell’s last film,

Blades of Glory, was ‘kind of’ funny, but definitely didn’t stand up to repeated view-ings. Semi-Pro was all sorts of promising. With a sensational cast and plenty of mate-rial to build off of, it was almost guaranteed that this movie would be the next Anchor-man or Talladega Nights. Semi-Pro stars Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson, Will Arnett, and Andy Richter. The film is directed by Kent Alterman and written by Scot Armstrong. Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell) is the semi-pathetic singer/owner/player/coach of the Flint Michigan Tropics, a basket-ball team known for its absolutely hor-rible games. When the ABA merges with the NBA, Jackie Moon decides that he’ll do anything it takes to get his team on the fast-track to becoming NBA all-stars. The movie was promising, no doubt about it, but the fact of the matter is that all of these jokes feel like recycled material from a trashy ‘70s picture. Will Ferrell, for once, isn’t absolutely hysterical in his role as Jackie Moon. His other roles were at least semi-believable, especially his best one in Anchorman as Ron Bur-gundy. Woody Harrelson actually comes off as kind of annoying, and the whole film felt way too long. The only role that actu-ally made me laugh occasionally was Will Arnett’s Lou Redwood. Then again, he can take any hideous role and transform it into something magical; we all saw The Broth-ers Solomon. Or wait, actually no one did. There are several laugh-out-loud sequences in Semi-Pro, but for some rea-son, none of these have anything to do with basketball. It’s all like one big skit, throw-ing gag after gag toward the audience and hoping that something sticks. “Love Me Sexy”, Jackie Moon’s hit song, is probably the single funniest thing in the entire film, followed closely by a bear-wrestling scene and a ‘jive turkey’ argument while play-ing cards. The movie isn’t all terrible; it just wasn’t as great as anticipated. It was repetitive, stale, and kind of boring, but it definitely had some shining moments. Semi-Pro is the perfect title for a semi-likeable movie. It was semi-funny, semi-stupid, and semi-entertaining. Will Fer-rell has finally made a bad movie, one which he definitely won’t be remembered for. You would think that the R-rating could finally give Ferrell the chance he needed to have complete and total freedom over the con-tent and jokes. For some strange reason, it has the opposite effect; it brings the movie down into a pit from which it is never able to rise. This one is worth skipping, unless you prefer your movies to be semi-enjoyable.

rotentomatoes.com.

Page 15 Features March 2008

F e a t u r e s Private First Class (PFC) Kurt Kusterbeck is an enlisted member of the United States Marine Corps, but that is not all he is. The Honor Roll Senior is a Tu-tor at the Smithtown Marine Recruitment Center and helps anyone who needs to boost their Military Entrance Test scores. “You need at least a 31 to pass, and I’ve had people come to me with 12s. It feels good to help others,” says Kusterbeck.Kusterbeck’s family has a long military history. “My family is my inspiration,” he says. “My cousin and grandpa served, and my cousin is still in Iraq. They nev-er told me I had to do it, but the Mili-tary is such a great opportunity and it puts a lot of people on the right track.” Kusterbeck will be stationed in a Virginia base starting next summer. “I’m not going to have a next summer because I’ll be at the recruiting office a lot, and then I’ll be at my base,” he says. While at the base, Kuster-beck will have his choice of colleges to con-tinue with his education. “After the military, I’d love to be a schoolteacher, most likely an American history teacher. History is so important to know because we really do see it repeat itself, and we can learn from it.” When asked about politics, he is adamant in his view. “The best defense is a good offense. We need to stay in Iraq. Prior to 9/11, we had attacks often, like in Okla-

homa City and the First Twin Tower attack. But since we’ve been in Iraq, there hasn’t been any attack. We’re safer now than ever before. What we should really focus on is ourselves, not other countries. Immigration should be fixed up, the national debt is in-creasing, and we’re outsourcing our compa-nies. So many [companies] have moved to China looking for cheap labor. I hear things in the office about China and Russia build-ing up, and I’m worried about it. We should really be worried about a war with China.”

Last Halloween, Kusterbeck was personally affected. “Gonzo was one of the first friends I made when I came to High School, and Dan was my neighbor,” he re-flects. “It’s sad when you see your grand-

ma or grandpa lying in a casket, and that’s something no one should go through. But it’s different with your friends. Gonzo was always joking, and Dan had the most memo-rable laugh. I can still hear him laughing. I miss playing Halo with them; I miss them [in general]. Once Dan and I missed the bus, and we live 8 miles from the school, so we decided to walk all the way. It took the whole day, and we got here 7th period, but it was an experience I’ll never forget. I was there as they were going into the car that day. I know I can’t live life asking ‘Why not me?’, and you can’t go through life feeling guilty.” Aside from serving his country, Kusterbeck serves his community too. “I plan on joining the Fire Department some-day,” he says. “I like being a leader.” He also is a High School Hero, one of the volunteers that goes to Elementary Schools and talks about the importance of doing well aca-demically while also displaying good moral qualities such as honesty and perseverance. Kusterbeck is highly involved in his school and community and has a firm grip on the future. “It’s hard to know what’s go-ing to be in 20 years, but you can get a good idea from high school. The important thing is to have fun, but balance it with school,” he advises, showing insight beyond his 17 years. As a student, he is determined, as a soldier, he is brave, but as a leader he is great.

More Than a UniformKurt Kusterbeck:Plans for the Future

By: Jessica Noviello

Spotlight on Mock TrialJoin the Fun and Challenging Club There are so many opportunities given to us at High School West, such as the dozens of different clubs that focus on differ-ent areas. For actors, lawyers, debaters, or just someone looking to be on a team, you can find a club that interests you. The Mock Trial team here at High School West is one of the newest and least known clubs. The club is run by advisor Mr. Gatto, President Billy Weinstein, Vice-President Danielle Ferrante, and Secretary Meagan Sobel. The club focus-es around mock court cases. The students prepare for months learning their character or preparing to try the case as a lawyer. The students travel to other schools and try the

case from opposing sides. The winners con-tinue to and eventually try the case in the Suffolk County Court House.

This club focuses a lot around working at home,thinking creatively, and being ready and willing to say how you feel. Although the club may be hard work, the task itself is enjoyable and it’s fun to argue with the fellow club mates. “The club is so hands-on;

we get to defend and prosecute defendants in mock cases that could actually happen,” says Jessica Noviello, a sophomore. “It’s

also good to learn how to object cor-rectly and strategies to win a case.” Students learn courtroom procedure, discipline, and grace under pressure. Many members come out of their shell when they are assigned a lawyer role and it’s a great confidence booster.

It takes work, but in the end it all pays off. For a fun, mind stimulating, and in-teractive club come check out Mock Trial. If it’s not for you - fine, but you never know if there is a lawyer waiting to break free inside you.

“The club is so hands-on; we get to defend and prosecute defendants in mock cases that could actually happen”-Jessica Noviello

Photo: Kusterbeck with Marine Corp

By Danielle Ferrante

Page 16 Features March 2008

Knott Your Average RunnerBy:Amanda Booth

She was one of the top run-ners for the girl’s cross country team. She earned the title All-County. She’s freshman Alyssa Knott. Knott’s success-ful cross country season has everyone excited about her winter track season. Knott first became interested in run-ning during her first year in middle school. “I started running at the end of 6th grade. I wanted to copy what my brother was doing.” Her brother, Matt Knott, is a junior and also part of the cross country and track teams. Knott was surprised by her success during the cross country season. “I thought I would only drop 30 seconds, not more than that.” Knott worked up to becoming one of the top runners during her first year in high school. Her goal was to become All League by the end of the season. “My coach though it was too high of a goal, but that made me

want to try harder.” At the state qualifier meet, Knott came in 20th place with a time of 20:58; she made All Leagues by two seconds. Although she gets nervous when the officials are counting down the minutes until the race, Knott tries hard to relax. “I just think of positive thoughts and I see myself running right up the hills. When I’m running though, all I do is concentrate on the race.” Knott loves being on a high school team even though it is a lot different from middle school. “You do a lot more miles in high school. This year we do a lot more work-outs, not just games.” She added, “I like that the team isn’t cliquey. Everyone is friends. Also, the coaches seem more knowledgeable.” When asked if she would run a marathon she said, “Actually yes. I was just discussing that with my dad the other day. I would want to do it after high school, after

my seasons were over and before college.” Although she likes cross country better because she prefers the distances, hills and scenery, she has been enjoy-ing her winter track season so far. Knott has run the 3000, 1500, and was part of the 4x8 team. Her goal is to break 11 min-utes in the 3000. Based on her first few races, this time is not too far out of reach. Not only is she a great runner, but an excellent student as well. Knott earned a 3.75 for the first quarter. She is taking sev-eral challenging courses such as AP Global History and Honors English. When she is not running and doing schoolwork, Knott enjoys drawing, reading, and writing stories. Knott is predicted to have a very suc-cessful winter track season. We all can’t wait to see how she will perform later this season.

Alyssa Cartwright: Inspirational ArtworkBy: Alexis Buckheit

New Art Talent Found in Smithtown

Looking through her sketch book, I am stunned at how real her drawings look. Sophomore Alyssa Cartwright is truly an amazing artist. She carries around her sketch book, which it’s full of drawings of famous people and friends. There are pictures rang-

ing from Bob Marley to Olive from Little Miss Sunshine. She has a total of 32 really fantas-tic portraits and she keeps working on more. Each picture looks identical to the one it was drawn from. The faces have so much depth in them that they look more like a photograph than a drawing. It is re-ally amazing. Alyssa says about her art, “I really enjoy turning a blank piece of paper into a work of art.” She doesn’t only draw pictures of famous people; she also enjoys

painting pictures of her family, album cov-ers, and movie clips. “My favorite painting is of the Sublime logo, it was the first paint-ing that I really felt proud of, and actually thought it came out good.” said Cartwright. When asked about her inspiration

for art she said, “I like to draw people who inspire me, and people I look up to.” She loves everything about art, one of her favor-ite things is that after you finish one art piece you can go into another and make it that much better. “Each picture, I think, comes out a little better than the one before and I learn something every time I start something new,” she said on the improvement in her artwork. Improvements she is working on in-

clude adding color to her drawing and on her paintings. Alyssa also doesn’t limit herself to just drawing, she has taken a few other class-es at school such as Drawing 1, Ceramics 1, Studio in Art, and has just started Drawing 2. “The greatest feeling is trying something

you’ve never done before and realizing you have a great talent for it. It’s like you think you know everything about yourself, but you really don’t until you try everything,” Alyssa said about trying new things in life. Alyssa is also hoping to be in-ducted into the Art Honor Society and take AP Art, “I love art; it does so much for me and makes me feel great. I’m definitely go-ing to continue it for the rest of my life.”

Mika drawn by Alyssa Cartwright Flea drawn by Alyssa Cartwright Tom Petty drawn by Alyssa Cartwright

Alyssa Knott: A New Runner At West

Page 17 Features March 2008

Are you a sophomore or junior in-terested in art and want to meet some other people who share your interest? Well then join the National Art Honor Society! Super-vised by the prestigious art teacher Mrs. Bre-slin-Moran, this club is the perfect way to get involved in the Smithtown High School West art program. You will get to meet other students that have an interest in art while also being involved in school activities. Safe Halloween tends to be the most fun and rewarding event the National Art

Honor Society participates in. Planning for Safe Halloween starts in the middle of Sep-tember and goes all the way up until the night of Safe Halloween. Each member of the club puts in a huge amount of effort to transform the art room into an elaborate haunted house. Some other events the National Art Honor Society participates in are the holiday door decorating contest and pic-tures with Santa. The club usually ends the year with painting murals around the school and working with SADD to paint the mural under the bridge by the bull. To join the Art Honor Society, applicants have to submit a portfolio of three dif-ferent pieces of artwork that could have been done in school or on your free time. Also, another requirement is that you have to be in 10th, 11th, or 12th grade and have one full credit in any high school art class with a B average or higher. But, what if you don’t have the re-quirements to be accepted into the National Art Honor Society? That’s not a problem! Even if you aren’t eligible for the Honor Society you can still be in the Art Club. Members of the Art Club get to be involved in all of the activ-ities that the Honor Society participates in.

Art Honor

Participate In Their Fun Activit ies

By: Lauren Komyathy

Society

National

this club is the perfect way to get involved in the Smithtown High School West art program.

Barack Obama has acquired yet an-other flashy endorsement, and he happens to be a Smithtown local. No, it’s not Smith-town Mayor Mike Maloney; it’s Junior Ben Weinberg. Ben’s been riding the honor roll throughout his high school career, and is among the few politically-conscious individ-uals making their way through the halls of our campus. I sat down with Ben to discuss his travels in support of the Illinois Senator, as well as the presidential hopeful’s politics. Ben, in hopes of contributing his ef-forts to the candidate’s cause, contacted his campaign website; from there he ventured off to Laconia, New Hampshire. It was in The Granite State where Ben telemarketed, and even went door-to-door in order to spread awareness of Obama’s policies to those who remain uninformed and uninspired. When asked what about Obama appeals to him so, Ben stated that he admires how the can-didate, “doesn’t treat politics as a game.” He claims that Obama casts naysayers aside and has the drive to get his vows fulfilled; like that of affordable healthcare, getting troops out of Iraq, and lowering college tuition –something that applies to him directly as a student. The argu-ment that has been most commonly thrown at Obama is his alleged lack of experience. But Ben will tell you that what Obama lacks in traditional political experience, he makes up for in a refreshing, more valuable form of practice. Having been exposed to Indo-nesian culture at a young age, it is evident that the man is worldly (unlike our current leader who never left the country prior to his presidency). In fact, Ben sees Obama’s lack of legislative exposure as a qualifying asset. He believes that we need someone who’s been out of Washington; someone who has yet to be tainted and taught the rules, like the countless other rats currently screwing us over in The Whitehouse. After all, aren’t all of those faulty, lie-ridden poli-ticians presently polluting are government, if nothing else, saturated with experience?

Ben will agree, that perhaps the one thing our nation needs, is a little inexperience. Politicians have been giving us the whole united-we-can-change dance since the dawn of politics; so why should our American people, whose cynicism has long since been hardened by our current team of Whitehouse-dwellers, find Obama’s to be reliable? Ben told me of how Obama, after having graduated Harvard Law School, could have went into private practice and gone for the money; but instead dedicated his time to bettering those around him. Obama worked as a community organizer, univer-sity lecturer, and civil rights lawyer before serving in the Illinois Senate. Having written two books whose titles alone inspire faith (Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope) it’s hard to argue the sincerity of the

man’s message, and that he himself believes in it. Finally, I asked Ben why these United States need Barrack Obama; because truth-fully, how is he that much different from his opposing democrat, Hill-ary Clinton, whose views seem to mirror his own? The only apparent dif-ferences between these two candidates are their skin color, anatomy, and how they word slogans –why pick Obama? Ben says that Obama has the power to get things done.

Obama has a history of ful-filling promises and making

the right choices (opposing the war from the very start); whereas Hillary does not (back-ing out on her 1993 Clinton Healthcare Plan; weakly justifying her vote for the war by claiming she didn’t anticipate the actual oc-currence of combat). And Ben doesn’t mean to attack Hillary, but with the recent she-nanigans performed by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, it appears that Obama is running against a two-headed donkey. Ben Weinberg is among the vast majority of young people motivated by Obama’s promises of change. He’s gone out there and gotten involved with this legend-ary race and wishes you would to. If you don’t know what’s going on, you’re dead, and Ben Weinberg is very much alive. Ask him, and he’ll tell you, that Obama’s the

B a r a c k

By: Ralph Moffettone

BenWeinberg: Supports the CauseO b a m a

jefflocke.wordpress.com

Page 18 Sports March 2008

Recap: University of Phoenix Stadium, Glen-dale, AZ – In a match up of the undefeated New England Patriots against the red hot New York Giants, the underdogs prevailed in a 17-14 shocking upset. The game was supposed to entail the prolific Pats offense dominat-

ing the field, but behind the cool, calm demeanor of MVP Quarter-back Eli Man-ning, the G-Men were able to surmount the odds and entitle them-selves Super Bowl XLII Champions in what perhaps

could be granted the label of best Super Bowl in history. The Giants kept Mercury Morris and Don Schula’s perfect ’72 Dolphins in route of their upset, as well as Manning disproves all of his critics (that includes you Tiki). In do-ing so, they overcame the four division win-ners and the top seed in both conferences, all on the road. Each victory demonstrated a major facet of the team: the composure of Eli, the big play-ability by the defensive, and someone new stepping up in a pressure situation. On the eve of Super Bowl XLII, all of these pieces were essential to puzzle.The Game Plan: In order to beat the elec-tric Patriots, there were certain measures the Giants would have to take and execute pre-cisely. Here were my five keys: 1. Eat up the clock. It’s necessary to keep Tom Brady and the high scoring potential of that offense off the field for as long as possible. The Giants would have to use their solid rushing attack with Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw. 2. Execute in the red zone. The Pats feature a “bend but not break” defense where, often, good teams can move the ball successfully up the field. However, the defense often steps up in the red zone and goal line situa-tions and teams finish drives on field goals. It was important to score all seven points, and not settle for three. 3. Pressure Brady. If you leave Brady with time in the pocket, he’ll rip you apart; that’s simple. The Gi-ants have the ability to rush their four line-men and still get pressure, forcing Brady to make quick decisions and hopefully force a mistake. 4. Control Moss & Welker. This is the hardest task because if you double those two receivers, their other weapons of-ten shine (Faulk and Watson in the passing game, Maroney in the running game). 5. 3rd Down Success. It’s probably the most obvi-ous, but the Giants need to convert third down situations and stop the Pats in theirs.First Half: After electing to receive the ball

first, the Giants set the tone for the game. Throughout most of the initial quarter, they ate up clock with their running game and key conversions on third down to Plaxico Burress and often rookie Steve Smith. How-ever, the Pats defense woke up when they needed to, in the red zone, and was able to hold them to just a field goal (Maybe it was the new Diet Pepsi with ginseng and more caffeine) When the Patriot offense took the field, their first drive was convincing, uti-lizing Maroney to gain yards. However, on a 3rd & 10, linebacker Antonio Pierce com-mitted a foul that allowed the Pats to score a touchdown and put them ahead. In re-sponse, Manning threw his first pick of the post-season, but the Pats were unable to capitalize, as Brady’s offense looked ane-mic with multiple three and outs, and the offensive line allowed back-to-back sacks. Breakdown (First Half): In contrast to their

previous match up, the halftime scoring total was just ten points (7-3) as opposed to thir-ty-seven (21-16). Although being down, the Giants limited Moss to one catch, and kept the dynamic offense out of sync – sack-ing Brady three times and holding their total number of yards to 81. The offense maintained good ball control, but looked to the second half to overcome the deficit.Third Quarter: After winning a challenge over whether or not the Giants had twelve men on the field, the Pats kept the first drive of the second half going but were unable to covert a 4th & 13. Yeah, a 4th & long and the Pats are opting to go for it instead of kicking a 49-yard field goal in perfect condi-tions. Whether it was Bill Belichick’s cocky attitude, or his lack of confidence in his kicker, the failure on their part to score on that drive was costly. The rest of their offen-sive series were pathetic; the Pats didn’t look like themselves. They committed false start penalties frequently, and Brady looked frus-trated. Whether it was the pressure getting to him, or the fact he was over and under throwing balls, the offense looked foreign.Turning Point: On the first play of the fourth and most action-filled quarter, Man-

ning threw a 45-yard pass to his tight end Kevin Boss on a slant pattern. This pro-pelled the Giants to take the lead for the first time in the game at 10-7 after a touch-down pass from Manning to David Tyree.Fourth Quarter: The Patriots were not ready to give up though. With seven minutes re-maining, Brady used his array of weapons in Welker, who was extremely effective with eleven total receptions on the game, as well as Moss and Faulk. The offensive capitalized on the Giants poor tackling and coverage that drive, and allowing Brady to regain the lead with a touchdown pass to Moss (14-10).The Drive: With two minutes and thirty-nine seconds on the clock, Manning earned his MVP title by leading the game-winning drive. After Jacobs rushed up the middle on a fourth and one to keep the Giants hope alive, Manning did the same. On what might be perceived as one of the greatest plays in Super Bowl history, the Giants quarterback evaded multiple sacks to complete a pass to Tyree in a jump ball situation. This mi-raculous catch was just barely held onto as the receiver had to secure the ball with his helmet! Furthermore, Manning completed a long third down conversion to Smith, and finally the go-ahead touchdown pass to Burress with thirty-five seconds remaining.Analysis: With adversity in their faces, the Giants led by Manning were able to look past whatever obstacles lied in their paths and defeat the Patriots. It was a greater underdog story than when Average Joe’s Gym was able to overcome The Globo Gym Purple Cobras in a sudden death overtime match in dodge ball. Even my mom was hysterically routing for the Giants because she felt, “That Tom Brady and those Patriots think they deserve to win after going 18-0.” The team wouldn’t have been able to do it without the lesser knowns stepping up: Smith on third downs, Tyree in the red zone, and Justin Tuck when the Pats attempted to pass. Also, props go out to my man, Jeff Feagles. Yes – he’s the punter, but he’s been in the league for twenty years and in his first Super Bowl appearance, he put the Pats offense in horrible field po-sition time and time again. With all of their contributions, the Giants were able to really able to execute their game plan and domi-nate this game. So, Eli, you can continue to act cool and col-lected, and Mi-chael Strahan, keep on flexing after a sack, be-cause now you are champions.

G-Men Reside As Super Bowl ChampsTotal Team Effort Results In GIANT Win Over Pats

By Sam Spiegelman

Photo Credit: nfl.com

Photo Credit: nfl.com

Photo Credit: nfl.com

This year’s Smithtown West High School Boys basketball is having somewhat of a bad year with record of 2-10. Although Coach Pettis said, “We have a great group of kids who play hard day in and out. It be-comes frustrating for the team when that doesn’t turn into wins”. The team consists of all west side boys; with the team captains being seniors Joe Cipollone, Lance Pauker, and Nick Frank. They are joined on the team by fellow seniors Kyle Mcturk and Brendan Mahoney. Frank, one of the captains, said “The season started out excellent, but then the team suffered a major loss from a few stupid mistakes. We have been coming up short several times, but we will continue to work hard. We have eight games left in the league play and we have the poten-tial and desire to win every single one!”

Joining Frank in his desire to win are An-thony Gatto a freshman, Willie Rueda a sophomore, and juniors Matt Stillitano, Matt

Duffy, Mike McKenna, Chris Amman, Cole Sweetster and last, but not least, Ken Gerien. The toughest loss for the team was their second game of the season against John Glen. The toughest win was against our High School East; the reason being that there was so much energy at the game. There are no up-

coming tournaments, but there were two on their non-league schedule: one being at our rival’s house

at Smithtown East and the other at Walt Whitman. The team expectations are to be a hardworking, competitive team. Their goal is to develop the team and progress for the fu-ture. The last words Coach Pettis had to say was, “The team was young with little varsity game experience coming into this season”.

Page 19 Sports March 2008

By Cecilia EmminoRecord Doesn’t Reflect DedicationWorking Hard Is Key

West faces off at home against Kings Park HS

Photo By: Taylor Hall

Alright Mets fans, it looks as if Christmas came about ten months early this year as it delivered you not only a probable division title, but it puts you as the team to beat in the National League. Johan Santana, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, has a career E.R.A. of 3.22 and a knack for show-ing up in big games. Now, he’ll be in a league that isn’t dominated by hitting and can put together an even more impressive 2008 cam-paign. Remember that collapse that took place down the stretch of last season? Of course you do, how could you forget it; it was historically painful to watch (unless you’re a Philly fan). Well say goodbye to those days because with Santana at the head of your rotation, you just found your stopper…and for what price? Jose Reyes? Mike Pelfrey? No, but for an unproven everyday outfielder

and a handful of pitching prospects. If Minnesota wanted an outfielder and young pitching, why were they so quick to reject the Yankees Phil Hughes or Ian Kennedy with Melky Cabrera, or even Jacoby Ells-bury with Jon Les-

ter? Both of these trade proposals seem like a better option for the Twins, but isn’t going with the worst offer more of the trend they’ve been following the past couple of years? In 2005, the Vikings sent a wide receiver named Randy Moss packing to Raider Land in exchange for a first-round draft pick and linebacker Napoleon Harris. This draft pick turned into another wide receiver, Troy Williamson. Well, this trade seems pretty even. Harris doesn’t even play for the team anymore, and William-son has accumulated just over 1,000 yards and a total of three touchdowns in his ca-reer. Meanwhile, Moss, this past season, had 1,500 yards in overcoming Jerry Rice’s record for touchdown catches in a season, and oh yeah, a Super Bowl appearance. At the beginning of this NBA sea-son, the Timberwolves sent their star player in Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics in what looks likes a steal. Since then, the C’s have shocked the world in putting together the best record in the entire league and putting themselves in viable contention to be cham-pions, while the Wolves remain competi-tive. Competitive? Yes, for the worst record! It is clear that Minnesota has made a habit of trading big time players and getting nothing back in return. This time, the benefi-ciary was the New York Mets. All of a sudden, a starting rotation with multiple questions surrounding it has become the strength of the team. As of now, it looks to be Santana, Pedro Martinez, John Maine, Oliver Perez, and either Pelfrey or El Duke. But Mets fans: don’t forget that this was all made possible by the desire to lose in the North Star state.

Spiegs’ Spot

Photo Credit: johansantana.net

Girls Track: Up To The ChallengeBy Cecilia Emmino

Girls’ Winter Track has had a somewhat good year. While there are no established captains, the seniors are in charge for supporting and helping out the team. Five seniors on the team are Amanda Booth, Jeannette Heimerle, Alexandra Van-tuyl and Elaine Vavoules. Track is not a team that has a win-loss record; they get in-vitations from other teams to attend races. Amanda Booth, one of the team’s seniors, stated in the interview that “There were a lot of changes this year, but over-all it was a good season. Many girls got their personal best. Hopefully we will im-prove even more during spring track. Each person is for themselves. They have to run better at each meeting. The sport is to challenge yourself and get better each time.

The team consists of just West teens. Although they were once one team, East and West are two teams that compete against one another. They had a change in coaches this year that made this a more enjoyable season. Coach Margrave and Coach Flynn both helped en-courage the team and make them want to do their best. Their goals and expectations are to make it to state qualifying meet. They have had one tournament already that was held as Suffolk Community College. They came in fifth place out of nine schools. They have two more meets left, both happen to be in February. One is called the Small School Championships and the other the State Quali-fier. They hope to go in and win both of them despite their first tournament performance.

Bowling: Looking For A StrikeBy Cecilia Emmino

The boys bowling team has had somewhat of a good year so far. They are in fourth place out of seven. There are no team captains and are coached under Mr. Van-nex. The seniors this year are Shaun Hoff-man, Nick Divisconte, Frank Attila, Chris Moudulidug and Frank lokera. The team is a mix of both Smithtown West and East. The team’s goals and expectations are to go to County’s and win it all. They have a lot of rivals. Their biggest rival is

Commack. They provide for the toughest match, which they usually lose, but hope to one day be successful and beat them. However, basically everyone they meet and go against becomes a rival for them. They have tournament this year, which was held on January 16. One player said “In the very begin-ning we were confident, but now that time has progressed we are not as sure.”

TheBull PenVolume 28, Issue 2 March 2008

A Season To RememberLady Bulls Fuel On Teamwork And Respect

By Jessica Noviello

Smithtown West Girls Basketball Team has stayed strong through tough com-petition in the 2007-08 season. “We want to be successful, make Playoffs, and become League Champions this year,” says Coach Sol-omon of West. Coaches for the team are Sol-omon, Marc Riley, Katie Schroeder, and the head coach is Nick Schroeder. “We plan on going far and go-ing to the finals.” On this team, respect and t eamwork are require-m e n t s . “Each game we try to pick a dif-f e r e n t person to r e p r e s e n t the team as Captain,” ex-plains Solo-mon. The team has started strong and has been able to keep that momentum throughout the season. “Our average is about 50 points a game,” say Solomon. Top players on this team are three year starter Nicole Redding, a senior, three year starter Shneeka Cen-ter, and two year starter Sara English, both sophomores. Seniors on this team are Red-ding, Chrissy Galler, and Brittany Robles. The team’s record is 8-3 with losses against Copiague, Hills West, and Riverhead. When the Lady Bulls versed Half Hollow Hills

West they came out on the bottom with a 73-60 loss. “We put ourselves in a hole in the first half, and we got caught. Hills West played and shot well, and they retained a big lead in the beginning,” states Coach Solomon. “The second half we had better defense and

limited their scoring abil-ity, and so we made a comeback. It wasn’t a win, but we showed great team spirit by not letting them easily take it. Next time it will be a differ-ent game, and we’ll be ready. I’m sure it will come out differently.” T o p Rivals in League IV are Kings Park, Half

Hollow Hills West, Hauppauge, and Riv-erhead. These teams and Smithtown will be battling for League Title and one of two spots in the playoffs. “We are defi-nitely one of the top teams in the county, and we plan on going far. We hope that we can accomplish our goals so that the seniors can look back and have pride for the team,” says Solomon. No doubt about it, this will be a memorable season for all.

The Smithtown Boys Varsity Swim Team has had a rough season so far, but it’s not over yet. Out of 11 meets, they have won two. “There have been close meets against good teams, but it’s unfortunate we lost,” says Coach Martin of the Varsity team. “We did beat Lindenhurst. We have three more meets, and Deer Park and Ward Melville are strong teams.” The other beaten team is Huntington. Strong odds or not, Smithtown

Swim will give it everything they have. “We’d like a couple of people to make State Cuts and Counties,” says senior captain Ryan Ter-bush. “Keeping up the morale and making personal bests are our goals for this year.” Senior co-captain Joseph Clifford of Smith-town East added, “We’ve been getting all county every year, and we’ll try to do it again.” Seniors on this year’s team are Clif-ford and Terbush, Glenn Calufield and Robert Coombs, all of West, and Marco Bottoni and Diver Christopher Scherer of East. “We are looking to add more athletes to the team,” says Coach Martin. “We’re building the team, working with the underclassmen, and we look to the kids to build up [the team]. “We’re fairly new to the sport; we’re a young team. But we have come a long way to be so good.” This season may not be the best one, but Smithtown Varsity Swim has defi-nitely proved it place in the lanes. Ter-bush and Clifford have made States mul-tiple times, and have set great examples for their teammates. Good luck swimmers for the rest of the season and beyond.

Different StrokesBoys Swim & Dive Look To Youth For Future

By Jessica Noviello

“Keeping up the morale and making personal bests are our goals for this year.”

-Senior captain Ryan Terbush

Smithtown West’s Girls Varsity Basketball TeamPhoto Credit: Jessica Noviello