The week that the Seniors turned in our iPads was strife with technical difficulty. We were all short one more device, and on top of that, the Internet was acting all goofy. Sometimes it didn’t work, sometimes it did. Having no internet for even just an hour really set us back. All of this happening made me realize how dependant we are on technology.

I have always been extremely grateful for my iPad. I have terrible handwriting, and having the tablet really helped me take notes and write things. Having no smart phone until September last year, this also was just really great to have on hand. To look something up, I didn’t need to go on a computer, and for the longest time, it was against the rules in my house to use more than one electronic device at once.

And now, having it removed, it made me realize how much I relied on it. Every morning I would sit down and read about world news and other things. I also used it to write not just for school work, but on my novel. I’ve probably written well over 20,000 words of the book on the iPad alone. In a way, the device was an extension of my brain.

And that worries me.

200 years ago, local journalists just wrote things down. I at first thought I wouldn’t survive in that field with my bad handwriting, but I write far faster than I think. With all this information from the Internet, maybe that’s why I think so fast? I am writing this down on a piece of technology, and you will read it on that. Even if I printed this out, the text would have been made by computers, which is still technology. But then again, isn’t pen and paper technically a technology?

Are we already cyborgs?

Badminton, Sports

Badminton season

May 25, 2017 MiaDoa Leave a comment

This year’s Highland badminton team had a great season. It was a very fun and wonderful season. My friend and I were able to join the badminton team this year. The coaches for this year’s season were: Mrs. Kramer and Mr. Chapman. We decided to interview one of our coaches, Mrs. Kramer, about how she thought season went.

Mrs. Kramer thought this year’s badminton season was a great season. We had a great and awesome team that showed a lot of commitment and potential. The varsity team were very competitive this year, having 3 seniors with a lot of varsity experience, and who also brought a lot of leadership. The varsity doubles team was very young, and worked very hard to get better and where they wanted to be at.

Coach Karmer continued to talk about the junior varsity team, which had their struggles with the conference tournament at Como High School, but played very well. We had a good team with the junior varsity; it was very fun to coach them. Even though they had struggled in the conference, they continued to come to practice and practiced very well. We had lost to many schools, but also won against many schools with close scores.

We then asked Mrs. Kramer what she thinks we did well and was proud of this year, and also what she hopes to see for next year. Mrs. Kramer said the best part of this year was that we all got along very well. The girls showed a lot of commitment even with busy schedules, and they made badminton their first priority.

Mrs. Kramer said she was most proud of how well the team got along with each other and had fun while learning a lot and teaching each other different skills and strategies. This was very special to them as coaches, and they were proud of what the girls brought to the team this year.

Something Mrs. Kramer hopes for the next year is that the girls will continue to play badminton even when the season is over. She would like to see them get better and improve more. Mrs. Kramer said she sees a bright future for the girls and what they’ll bring to the team the next year.

Entertainment, School Life

Highland Park band: Recent events

May 25, 2017 elliotwallarticles Leave a comment

The Highland Park Senior High band has had many exciting, recent events. One was the trip over spring break to San Francisco. The band traveled to California to participate in an event called “Music in the Parks,” which is a competition hosted at a school right outside of Santa Cruz. This trip was not only a band trip, but an opportunity to visit many different tourist destinations including: the Twin Peaks, Fisherman’s Wharf (Pier 39), Chinatown, California’s “Great America” Amusement Park, and even the Cable Car museum. The trip was definitely worth the money, and the Highland Park band also won 2nd place in the competition.

Another recent event of Highland’s band, was the experience of marching from Rice Park, down to the Saints stadium. Many different schools went back to back marching down the streets of downtown St. Paul including: Central, Humboldt, Washington, Murray, Randolph Heights, and many more. After the event, the students got to enjoy the Saints game at CHS field.

photo taken from: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1DG2-jnyeOc/maxresdefault.jpg

The last event that the band will take part of, is on May 25th, when the spring concert will take place. The Scot’s band, Honors Band, Symphonic band, and Jazz band will all play. All these bands, and their teacher, Mr. Matuzak, have been working hard all year to have the best performance!

News, World

California family kicked off Delta flight

May 25, 2017 gabbyanders Leave a comment

On April 23, 2017, a California family of 4 were kicked off a Delta flight en route from Maui to Los Angeles. Brittany and Brian Schear from Huntington Beach, CA boarded a Delta flight with their two small children. Issues began when the family was asked to give up their two-year-old son’s, Grayson, seat. The family refused, seeing as they had payed for the seat they didn’t see a reason to give it up.

The Schears originally purchased the ticket for their 18-year-old son Mason, but then decided to send him home early so their 2-year-old could have a seat. The family had explain the situation to the ticket agent and the ticket agent accommodated the families needs and arranged for the four of them to sit together.

A flight attend had ask the Schears to give up their 2-year-old’s seat, and when they refused the Delta flight attendant demanded they give up the seat. Again refusing, the family was then threatened with jail time and having their child put in foster care.

Brittany Schear began filming the encounter on her cellphone. You can hear the flight attention repeatedly asking them to move their child, and Brian clearly distraught and trying to stay calm and reason with the Delta staff. You can hear a female employee say as the Schears refused to exit the plane, “You have to give up the seat or you’re going to jail, your wife is going to jail and they’ll take your kids from you.” While Brian told a Delta staff member, “You’re saying you’re gonna give that away to someone else when I paid for that seat? That’s not right. You need to do what’s right. I bought the seat and you need to just leave us alone.”

After The video was released Delta responded saying, “We are sorry for the unfortunate experience our customers had with Delta, and we’ve reached out to them to refund their travel and provide additional compensation. Delta’s goal is to always work with customers in an attempt to find solutions to their travel issues. That did not happen in this case and we apologize.”

News, School Life, World

New school lunches requirements

May 25, 2017 masoneischens Leave a comment

Many children complain about the healthy school lunches and how to change them, but a lot of parents with children in schools are very happy with the healthy school lunches. Michelle Obama’s campaign “Let’s Move” was an attempt to lower the child obesity rates by putting nutritional standards in school lunches, and encouraging kids to be active. She set many bars in food safety as well for kids, making sure that all food packaging was properly labelled so it was safe for kids with allergies or other medical conditions. According to the American Medical Association, this campaign actually worked. The child obesity rate in kids ages 2-5 has decreased by 5.4%. It may not seem like a big change, but it definitely helped the child obesity problem. Now with a new president, and new ideas, the standards for school lunches have changed once again.

Some specific changes that are going to happen are to whole grains, salt and milk. As far as whole grains go, states with trouble meeting the 100% whole grain rule (100% of grains served must be whole grains or grains that contain an endosperm, bran, and germ) can get an exemption to only serve 50% whole grains. Salt requirements are being lessened so schools don’t have to meet sodium requirements, and live up to what some believed to be unrealistic standards. In regards to milk, the only changes that are occurring are to the type of milk that can be served. The standard previously was that if the milk was flavored (chocolate, strawberry, etc.) it had to be fat-free, but now it can be 1% instead.

President Donald Trump has changed the standards for school lunches under a new slogan labelled “make school meals great again.” According to PBS’s Newshour his argument for this change is that it will lower the cost of school lunches. The USDA reports that school lunches in 2012 (after the increased health requirements were enacted) cost a total of $11.6 billion dollars, but before healthier school lunches were put into schools, the cost was $6.1 billion in total.

Making the school lunches less healthy would decrease the cost of school lunches, but it could also increase the child obesity rates. The USDA also said that the amount of waste from raw, and cooked, vegetables has risen in the years since the new restrictions have been implemented, so the standards are perhaps defeating themselves because kids aren’t even getting the full nutritional value of the lunch.

Another argument made by the president, in favor of changing the school lunch restrictions, was that by having only healthy options it put the agriculture industry in a bad place. This was created by forcing them to conform to unrealistic standards and constant quality checks. In an official statement, on the now president’s campaign website, it even went as far as to call the FDA the “food police” and regulation of school food “overkill.” The FDA didn’t fire back at the comments on the website, only saying that the repeals of health regulations for school foods would be unpopular because people are now much more concerned about healthy food.