Wednesday, October 10, 2012

ASF: A Place we can call School


Following is the extended article written about school spirit for the 'Americano' school paper. While the article does pass a lot of blame on to the school administration, take a moment to ponder the question "what can STUDENTS do to make ASF feel more like a community?" Please share your thoughts in the comments!
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There will always be a distance between a school’s administration and students, as there should be between any citizens and their governing powers. At ASF however, the distance between students and decision-makers rather than being ‘reach across the aisle’ is more like a no-man’s-land reminiscent of the First World War. This creates some pretty obvious issues when it comes to creating mutual trust between students and administrators. More specifically, it drastically harms ASF’s ability to foment a sense of community. If anything, the school’s sense of community has been described by students as ‘non-existent,’ and ‘riddled with apathy.’ The question then arises; how do we change this?

While generating a sense of community is no easy feat, school administration should strive to take the first steps. The first way it can do so is by generating legitimacy with the student body (students have described the administration as “willfully ignorant of student wants and needs.”) While the claim may be overly critical of the administration, it makes a good point; there is a clear disconnect between student needs and administrative action. One only needs to go so far as to look at student government at ASF to understand why students feel they don’t have a say in what decisions are being made. Many ex-officials (who will remain anonymous) have described their jobs on the Student council as “the student activity planning committee.” It should be a lot more than that. Student leaders should be the ones expressing the interests of the student body to administration, not simply planning events with abysmal attendance records like El Grito and the Lock-in. The main problem as one senior puts it is that “the administration holds very little legitimacy with the student body because the opportunities to express opinions that will be taken seriously are few and far between, instead of listening to students and responding to the points and criticisms made, the school relies on passive-aggressive political correctness. [And] unfortunately, students see through that empty rhetoric.” So, the legitimacy of the administration is lost because they are not giving students reasons to care. What is worse is that the reasons given seem hollow and disconnected from the reality of student sentiment. The student went on to talk about the “community building sessions” in advisory which are perhaps the “epitome of empty political correctness.”This is because although they may help build community, people don’t care when there is no incentive to be united.

One of the more controversial decisions made by the school was in 2009 when the school decided to stop allowing students to leave campus after school to buy from vendors outside and then come back to campus for their after-school activities. This action was warranted by alleged security concerns for students who leave campus. It may seem like negligible issue, but it showcases the type of hollow excuses that students see through. If safety were really the issue at hand here, then the administration just wouldn’t let people out of the gates, period. Furthermore, if they are really worried about the safety of students, they would open at least some parking to students instead of forcing kids to park their cars in the back streets behind the school where --on more than one occasion-- kids have been robbed. If safety were really the issue when considering if high schoolers can leave and return to campus, then the administration should be limiting a lot of other things that they do not. The more worrisome idea is what we can logically conclude when we consider that safety is not the issue at hand here. This is where our pocket-books get involved.

The school picks its food provider for the cafeteria by having companies place bids and presenting a plan to show how their company will be more competitive than the others. The problem arises after the contract is given. After signing a contract with the school, whatever service provider that proposed the most competitive plan is given an exclusivity contract. They are to be the only official food vendors on campus. This contract opens the ASF campus-goers (especially those who cannot leave campus) to a number of abuses from the cafeteria. Namely, the cafeteria can name their price, and as long as it is not so ridiculous that people stop buying food, they can get away with it. They are guaranteed a monopoly on food available on campus by contract. This exclusivity contract also means that the company awarded the bid gets exclusive access to ASF campus clientele, meaning that when students used to leave campus to buy food and come back, they escape the agreement between the company and the school. This limitation on leaving campus to buy food and returning for an afterschool activity goes far beyond the superficial whining that most students do. It completely assures that ASF students cannot go anywhere but the cafeteria that appears to be steadily raising the costs of food over time. As long as the doors to the outside are closed, students are vulnerable to price abuse from the cafeteria. The reason for this is because as long as the vendors outside the school are taken out of the equation, the cafeteria is invulnerable to any price competition they create.

The current state of affairs is as follows: students feel abused by the administration, but find futility in attempting to fight the decisions because they feel like they are getting nowhere. In return the administration makes decisions that often marginalize the student body and receive little to no feedback from the people these decisions affect. The way to change this is pretty obvious; school administrators have to give students more power and promote school traditions, not strike them down. Other than striking down the tradition of buying food from outside vendors, there is the prohibition of Senior Prank Day. This particular issue is where the student body gets involved. The reason Senior Prank Day was banned was because senior pranks began going further than just being a fun prank on the student body. The pranks became disgusting, hurtful, and strayed far from the harmless fun a prank strives to achieve. Pranks like throwing animal intestines, blood, and feces are the kind of pranks that lead to the ban of Senior Prank Day. The student body should be planning thoughtful, light hearted and amusing pranks. This goes to prove that the burden is not completely on the administration to create community and generate legitimacy in the student body. Students have the responsibility to make themselves heard and to act in a way that --while it may not be completely approved by the administration-- respectfully proves a point. The student body polarizing itself against the administration achieves nothing, and neither does the administration gain anything by ignoring pleas from the students.

ASF wants to generate conscientious, risk-taking, and globally-aware citizens, and yet they refuse to empower their student body. If ASF administrators truly want to live up to the mission statement of their institution, they should be demanding that students take things into their own hands. The “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality that governs the student body should be what the administration should be fighting. Not using it to take advantage of students who are complacent with things that are just good enough to be okay. Give students reasons to care, and the rest will come naturally. If anything, ASF would at least increase attendance to events like football games and student run music/open mic festivals. However, so long as the administration continues to marginalise student opinion, students will remain apathetic. Students on the other hand, should accept nothing less than an administration that vehemently supports and protects student interests, activities and traditions (within reason, of course). Removing polarizations between school administration and the student body is the best way for the ASF community to come about. With any luck, it could make school a nice place to be.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Nouveau-Indie Film Failure

Hello viewers, reader, friends and all of the above. This is the Article I wrote for the International section of the school newspaper "Americano." Unfortunately I was limited to 250 words which did not allow for very much expansion beyond general information. However, as "The Innocence of the Muslims" is a prominent issue, I will be posting a fully developed opinion and analysis at a later date. Stay tuned for that as well as my upcoming Opinion article being published in Americano next week.
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Nouveau-Indie Film Failure


It is not often that the world sees such a massive united movement like the one protesting “The Innocence of the Muslims.” The volatile low budget movie made and promoted by fanatic Christian groups portrays the prophet Muhammed as a childish, sex crazed, child molesting murderer has lead to massive outbreaks of anger all across the eastern hemisphere of the globe. Since its release on Youtube, anger has flooded over 20 muslim nations outraged by the film. Protests have materialized in Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Tunis, Lebanon, Yemen, and Kuala Lumpur (to name a few). The Associated Press stated that the protests had spread through approximately 20 nations in the Middle east, Europe, and western-central Asia.

The movie has received much support from many fundamentalist groups in the US. Further investigation into the making of the video describes the budget outlined for production as “comically low.” Some sources estimate 40,000-100,000 dollars! Such claims are confirmed by the cartoonish green-screened desert background, to the poorly attached fake beards, and the catatonic and wooden acting talent rumored to have been hired through Craigslist. The man behind what has been described as “indie film gone wrong” is none other than director Robert Brownell, who is known for his other experiments in hyper-cheap film such as “The Happy Hooker goes to Hollywood.” Due to the reaction the video received, it is easy to say that Brownell’s latest film has set an entirely new precedent for what a “bad movie” really is.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Politeness and the Taboo of Desiase

"Elbows off the table" was a common phrase around my household. As my brother and I got older, we almost robotically reminded ourselves for the sake of avoiding irksome mother. Another common one was "no singing at the table," but the social contract that is politeness goes far beyond how comfortable you are in your seat or how much you need to repress your need to sing while at the table. A particularly uncomfortable area of politeness is when it comes illness. You don't stare at people in wheel chairs, you don't publicly ask someone with cancer about their illness, and you sure as hell try not to stare at a bigass mole on someone's face (it's happened to all of us.) All of these "rules" were taught to me as a child and none of them made any sense to me, or to any other child with an overbearing sense of curiosity for that matter. Why are we averse to talking about people's desieases? Is it maybe because we see a reflection of our own mortality in others? I believe that talking about desiease publicly is something that should happen more often.

Not ony does it seem counter-intuitive not pretend someone is not sick for the sake of politeness, but also because of the following: ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv_0jGg0kdE ).

 Why wouldn't we talk about something like EDS? There are hidden illnesses everywhere, and the only danger of talking about them is that sheltering suburban moms might take their kids to get more medical tests than before. Especially when it comes to illness, knowing is much better than not knowing. However, we don't talk about these things. We assume that anyone without any major physical deformities must be perfectly okay. We have been conditioned to believe the worst for anybody in a wheelchair or crutches, or even someone connected to an oxygen tank. We assume they are paralyzed, we assume they have broken their leg in four places, we assume that they may have been chronic smokers who are missing a lung. Whats worse is that we don't like to talk about it. "Kitten," makes a very good point that the reason is a large media stigma. I think it goes even further than that. Politeness is often what has lead me to remain in awkward silence around someone in a wheel chair, or someone hooked up to an oxygen tank. It's not because I don't like these people, or that I'm not curious. I was just raised that way, and I imagine that I am unfortunately not alone.

 To conclude politeness is a double edged sword. It seems like all of the rules that are put forward by finishing schools everywhere could really be summed up into two categories for the average person. Firstly, don't be an ass. Secondly, try as hard as you can to not look like a  pig. Simply acting like someone doesn't have a disability or pretending to ignore a visible deformity doesn't sound like "politeness" it sounds more like lying and ignoring the truth for the sake of manners. What is even worse, is assuming that someone who looks fine is entirely healthy. To conclude, the world remains to be a backwards place, but people like Kitten are a constant reminder to call 'em as I see 'em. Thanks Kitten.

Visit Kitten on her Youtube page where she talks a lot more about EDS and her daily life!
http://www.youtube.com/user/FragileWithSpunk?feature=watch

Monday, June 11, 2012

Failure to Launch


“Generation Y, has become generation ‘why bother?”’ - T. Bucholz and V. Bucholz

Recently I read two very juxtapositioned pieces of writing. The first was “The Go-Nowhere Generation” by Todd and Victoria Bucholz published in the Sunday section of the New York Times on March 10th. Their point was relatively clear: Generation Y is simply not very proactive, unwilling to leave home to seek better economic prospects, or in other cases, seek entertainment. The other piece of literature I indulged in was The Upgrade: A Cautionary Tale of a Life Without Reservations by British author Paul Carr. Carr decides to sell everything he owns except for a suitcase full of clothes, not renew his lease, and live only in hotels. He coins the term “High Class Nomad.” The book focuses on his (mostly) drunken adventures as he discovers an entire world of living in upper class hotels, luxury rental cars, and what it is like to live in a constant  state of vacation. The best part, according to Carr, is that all it took was one life changing decision.

We start to see how the two pieces are polar opposites, on one hand, we have a generation that can’t seem to decide on anything and on the other we have a young man who made one decision that really paid off. So what is it about the rest of the generation that makes it so difficult for them to make a decision? According to Bucholz, Americans (and particularly young Americans) have become risk averse, and sedentary beings. According to the Census Bureau and the Pew Research Center, the proportion of young Americans living at home nearly doubled between 1980 and 2009. In many cases, even bicycle sales have noticeably dropped. The article clearly points out; “children raised in economic depressions are more averse to risking investment, and money...they assume that luck plays largely into success.”

Possibly the most influential agent for the sedentarainism of not only young Americans, but Europeans, and even among the upper class of developing nations of Latin America is the Internet. Strangely enough, having the world available at your fingertips is not always a good thing. Obviously the teens and young adults of today still make distinctions between virtual and reality, however the availability of so many different things on the Internet limits the “real-life” exposure for many young people who spend much of their time surfing the web or checking Facebook. It turns into a balancing act between the world on the web, and the world right outside. What incentive is there to leave the house if one can discover and explore some of the most interesting things known to man form the comfort of their sofa, bed or desk?

Generation Y, however, did not let itself go undefended. One response made the point of Generation Y not being sedentary, but rather realistic and disillusioned. With the distribution of money resembling that of the Guilded Age where few profited from the masses toil, Generation Y is perfectly justified in thinking that luck is a large factor in success, hard work alone is not enough. What is really a more compelling argument was that Generation Y was looking to change the status quo of how success is measured, the point being “why should success be measured through material goods instead of contentedness?” Because of the intricacies of the human psyche, there is no single answer.

Looking at Mexican society where a parallel can be drawn (small percent of population holding a majority of the wealth) it can be seen that a whole subculture has evolved around being rich. Generally speaking what this means is that many children who are sons/daughters of rich executives cruise through life expecting to inherit their parent’s companies or simply can’t be bothered to take on their own incentives because they assume they can pay someone to do that for them. Ironically, the more this “momma’s boy/girl” of the upper echelon of mexican economic society is examined the more parallels can be drawn to Generation Y. In many ways, it seems as if America’s youth has become the Spoiled Brat of the global stage.

However, let us contrast the go nowhere generation with the story of Paul Carr. As living in London (the 8th most expensive city in the world according to a cost of living survey by the Economic Intelligence Unit) became prohibitively expensive, Carr made the life changing decision to sell everything he owned except for a duffel bag and his computer to live in hotels for under 100 US dollars a night for a year. Even after his excessive partying, drunkeness, and plane tickets across the globe, he ended up saving about $1600 USD by the end of the year. Obviously, not everyone can live like Carr. Whether it be because of work, school, or family, in many cases, living from hotel to hotel is not entirely realistic. However, we can see that Carr, facing difficult economic times, decided to take action in hopes of changing that. The most interesting part is that after reading the book you discover that yes, Carr doesn’t have many material possessions by which to measure his success, but by making the decision to leave his relatively sedentary London life, he not only saves money, his contentedness increased almost immeasurably (living in a Spanish Villa in the mountains for about $35 a night has that effect on people.)

So where is the middle ground in the conversation? While Todd and Victoria Bucholz may have overestimated the sedentarism and somewhat misunderstood its causes, they still make the clear point. Generation Y is generally a sedentary one, even by modern-day realistic standards. On the other hand, Carr’s lifestyle is less than sustainable for most people. He only managed it because he was a free-lance writer and could work from anywhere with a decent Internet connection. The middle ground comes down to creating incentives for young people to leave the house. Even youth and young adults living in the more family oriented Latin American and Asian cultures can benefit from spending more time away from home. Not necessarily for long periods of time, but even just for the afternoon. One baby step at a time, Generation Y can nourish itself to a point where it can take the best of both worlds. In the words of British street artist Banksy; “Leave the house before you find a reason to stay in.”

Sources:

Bucholz, Todd G., and Victoria Bucholz. "The Go-Nowhere Generaion." Editorial. The New York Times, 10 Mar. 2011. Web. 19 Mar. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/the-go-nowhere-generation.html?scp=2&sq=generation%20why%20bother&st=cse >.

"Generation Y Stands Up for Itself." New York Times. 16 Mar. 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/opinion/generation-y-stands-up-for-itself.html>

Thompson, Derek. "The 10 Most Expensive Cities in the World (and How They Got That Way)." The Atlantic, 15 Mar. 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2012. <http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/the-10-most-expensive-cities-in-the-world-and-how-they-got-that-way/253149/>.

Carr, Paul. The Upgrade A Cautionary Tale of a Life Without Reservations. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2012. Print.