Overrated or a necessity? Are brand names really all that they are cracked up to be? Your style of clothing is said to be a way of expressing yourself, but when your clothes are filled with giant company lettering, is it really your style or there’s? Teenage clothing stores have been around since before anyone can remember. Abercrombie and Fitch, Holister, Victoria’s Secret, and American Eagle are just a few examples of the high icon clothing companies. Whether

it is the moose logo, eagle logo, Siegel logo, etc why are we so drawn into buying the expensive outfits? Some people think clothing is a way of showing social class; the person with the better wardrobe supposedly has more money and class than the person who buys the standard Wal-Mart or Target jeans. Other reasons may include wanting to fit in or maybe they just think the clothes fit their style better. What ever the reason may be it is a known fact that us teenagers feel compelled to buy the expensive brand name clothes.

Some people have a saying for people who buy brand names, they call them label hogs. But deep down do labels really make people happier? In today’s society I would have to say absolutely yes. As sad as it may seem, everything designer in society is considered better. People will go out of their way to get their pricey ugg boots or their new Coach purses. Clothing is one of the many ways that people can connect with one another. I have seen it a million times, people constantly compliment each other’s on their new designer shoes and handbags. It gives people a sense of pride to walk do the street in new high heeled stilettos rather than a ratty old pair of jogging shoes. I have recently interviewed a couple of so called “label hogs” and found a common theme. Everyone agreed that brand named clothes are considered safe. Why venture out of the comfort zone and buy something risky? What does this have to say about our society? Are we afraid to venture out and try new things? Some people say that we dress to please others. We should dress to please ourselves, at the end of the day do what makes you happy. If buying that new funky sweater will make you smile, then so be it!

Another term that people use commonly is mainstream. Mainstream is a term that refers to people who keep up with the new styles and trends. They look for a way to fit in with the rest of the crowd. Label and brand names are a way for people to feel more mainstream, like they belong with a certain crowd. Popular companies and brands will always be around whether you personally will buy them or not. They are a way of society and togetherness. They pull in a certain crowd of people and amerce them in a world of fashion. Take your pick, will you stay with the crowd or branch away to create your own?

The New Orleans Saints have recently been uncovered for having a system in which their players, under former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, pooled money for bounties. The bounties came as a reward for hard hits, cart-off injuries, and knockouts. There were notable examples from the Saints’ 2009 Super Bowl winning season. These are hits during the playoffs on Vikings quarterback Brett Favre and Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner. One especially controversial hits was when former Saints defensive linemen Anthony Hargrove and Remi Ayodele hit Favre high and low. According to the NFL, that is considered a “dirty hit” and is illegal.

The NFL has punished the Saints administration heavily. Punishments were a season long suspension for Super Bowl winning Head Coach Sean Payton, former DC Gregg Williams, who was suspended indefinitely, General Manager Mickey Loomis, who was suspended for eight games, and Assistant Coach Joe Vitt, who was suspended for six games. These punishments have received a lot of criticism from people on both sides of the situation. Some fans think that football is a violent game and there should be lesser penalties. Others, including the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, think that harsher punishments should be given, as well as suspensions to the 22 players convicted of being part of the scandal.

As the days go by in March “spring fever” starts to set in and everyone wants to see nature come back to life in New England. The roads start to thaw from everyone coming out of hibernation, and the chilly weather doesn’t bite so hard each morning. For practicing Irish Roman Catholics, the season of lent has started, and Saint Patrick becomes a highlighted figure.

Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17.The cultural and religious holiday was made an official feast day in the early seventeenth century. It is assumed he was an Irishman, but actually was born in England, where he was captured and sold to work in Ireland. It is said one day he heard the voice of god telling him to go back to England. When he escaped and went home, he dreamt of angels who told him to return as a missionary. Thereafter, he successfully converted many Irish to Christianity. There are two letters still on earth written by him: the Confessio, and Epistola. Although his life is a bit of a mystery, legends say he drove all the snakes of Ireland into the sea and used the three leaved shamrock to represent the holy trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The world’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade happened March 17, 1762, in New York City, celebrating Irish soldiers serving in the English military. The parade became an annual event, with President Truman attending it in 1948. Congress proclaimed March as Irish-American Heritage Month in

1995. Since then, 34.7 million U.S. residents claimed Irish ancestry in 2010. This number is more than seven times the population of Ireland itself (4.58 million). In my opinion it should be a fun day to celebrate your heritage, go to a parade, listen to the bagpipes and say a prayer. If you’re not Irish, don’t pretend to be. Just have fun and learn the history, eat some corned beef and try soda bread. My family is from Boston which has the biggest Irish American population.

They also hold the biggest annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. The second biggest parade in Massachusetts is in Holyoke where I live. As a kid I remember going to the parade and sitting on the sidewalk with a blanket, waiting to see cars and bands, or the Shriners. People would yell and blow annoying green horns, or chase carriages full of toys and carnations. As a cop, my dad new many police who attended the parade. His friend who went every year had permission to park close to the road and cook hotdogs with a grill on his tailgate; he sold some but we got them free. People think it’s a day to get drunk and act foolish, put on face paint and scream at parades after drinking “car bombs” and Jameson on a tail gate. It should remain a well-known fun holiday, but people should remember that the day is celebrating a saint who deserves respect.

It has been a tradition here at Frontier Regional High School that when “senioritis” seems to be subsiding and the hard work and patience has paid off, there is one final gathering of students as a celebration for the accomplishment of leaving the hawks nest. The senior girl’s tea party and senior boys baseball game have at times been considered controversial, and when I began writing this article I had the idea that I was going to touch base on that subject of split gender roles. Should we have a gender neutral activity for all students, a new tradition? An activity that would be something that both male and female students can enjoy together outside of the school building for one final gathering before graduation. The concept that girls go to tea and boys play ball is a very “old school” for our new generation.
After having the pleasure of speaking with Mrs. Barret though, our conversation led me to some changed viewpoints. To say the least; I was enlightened.  There have been come years where boys go to tea and girls will play ball just for the sake of their own interest!

Mrs. Barret says that at the end of the high school student’s career she feels that there is a certain feeling that the last four years have been spent very socially. I agree. We all exist with one another, whether or not we make something out of it is up to the individual. She said she sees more and more seniors making something out of their existence and experience in high school towards the very end, and that she observes many people coming out of their “social shells.”

The senior girl’s tea party started as a small gathering in Mrs. Barrets home. It is a different environment all together from the high school setting.  It is of course, very welcoming. She said that it has really evolved since the beginning and it is a purely social event. She enjoys having [typically] 50 girls over, the super attendant Regina Nash, and along with other faculty members.

She says that “it is not meant to be controversial or to focus on splitting of genders at all. There is a certain feel when you are around people that you would not normally interact with and you allow yourself to enjoy one another company. It’s something that just is and you can enjoy! One of the activities at the Tea party is discussing female etiquette (for a social gathering) and that is also why there is a separation of boys and girls. It is not mandatory that students dress up, either. But I would encourage students who want a final experience that will expose them to their peers outside

of their classes and a fun, inviting afternoon to attend. “

Boys who will play baseball with Mr. Modesto also have the same opportunity that the girls do, and that is to see one another out side of a classroom setting and experience a game and a different activity for the last time in high school. They are both a strong opportunities for connections with classmates before saying goodbye.

After looking at the subject on a broader scale, the point is to co-exist with other students no matter what. This is meant to be fun, warming and a good way to say goodbye.

The “gender neutral” party will be after the graduation ceremony at the YMCA!

Over the years there has been a significant increase in the number of children and adults that are wearing braces. We can credit Pierre Fauchard for being the modern father of dentistry with his creation of braces in the early 1700s. Today braces are more technologically advanced, and are almost impossible to remove by will and give a flawless smile.

Orthodontic problems are built into our genes. We may question, why natural selection didn’t eliminate the need for braces? Well, 10,000 years ago where cavemen roamed the earth, it is believed that they had nearly perfect teeth. Why is it that we don’t all have the ideal smile? The reason for this is that with time we have evolved and become bigger. Cavemen were at the tallest, 4 feet. The average human today is 5’. Over time our mouths did get bigger but so did our teeth, meaning that sometimes our teeth don’t fit correctly in our mouths. This is why people need braces; because their teeth grow faster than their mouths.

Another question is raised when thinking about braces. Why is it that braces are more commonly seen in first world countries? It makes you question the need for braces: Are they a health necessity? Or are they just a superficial want? In most cases I believe braces are very important because children or adults with crooked, overlapped, or rotated teeth have what is called malocclusion. This is just a fancy way of saying a bad bite.  With a bad bite chewing food isn’t as easy as it would be if you had straight teeth. Chewing is an important part of eating and digesting and should not be interfered with. Of course people can live with malocclusion but most people today value their smile enough to afford it. Braces make your smile beautiful and it’s just what the doctor orders.

Stop SOPA?

By Jamie Blinder

Do you feel safe on the Internet? Do like current freedoms on the Internet and how you can say whatever you want? What if that was suddenly removed? There’s a new dog in town. This thing called SOPA. SOPA if passed will affect our lives and how we use the Internet.

SOPA stands for Stop Internet Piracy Act. The whole point of SOPA is for the U.S. attorney general to find a court order against certain websites or even search engines from having any contact with allegedly inferring websites. It’s pretty much an Internet Death Penalty. If SOPA passed it wouldn’t be good. It would mean that the government would be able to censor and control any website. They would essentially be able to block any website they want. Jan 18, 2012 was the biggest day for all the supporters for Internet Freedom because a blackout occurred. America and the world was wakened to the idea that we, the people, still have control.

This act poses an seemingly unfair approach. It directly effects the first amendment “Freedom of Speech.” Internet is the biggest outlet for free speech because you can blog, post, write anything you want and anything you believe in. The music industries like and agree with the SOPA act because if it passes, it would mean that no one would be able to illegally download free music. Everyone would have to pay for every song, album, and music video they want to download. This would be good for the music and movie industries because they would make more money, it wouldn’t be so could to the buyers because they like free stuff and not paying for it.  The music industry is making less money then they should, but not enough to enact a blanket policy as proposed. Peoples lives would dramatically change if SOPA passed. The government might want to block Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, any social media website and everyone who uses those websites would be be affected. Imagine a life without YouTube. This creative outlet has changed the face of communication. Those people who are YouTube stars wouldn’t be famous, because they got money for singing or playing other people’s songs. In a survey conducted at my school, 5% didn’t know what SOPA was, but all of them who took this survey said that they didn’t want SOPA to pass. If SOPA does pass the people who use the internet, or the websites that SOPA affects what can we do? We could vote (if we’re old enough), we could make meetings with the government, or big protests, and or meeting with townspeople to start trying to band this law.

       SOPA isn’t beneficial to civilians who use You Tube, Facebook, any social media websites. The first amendment may be threatened right now and we need to look at this act carefully. People use the Internet almost everyday, imagine if websites you used were blocked because of a few individuals. Perhaps there is a better way to stop piracy.

Condon, Sephanie  “SOPA, PIPA: What you need to know” cbs news Jan 18. 2012 found at ________(Put address here)____ on 19 Mar. 2012

McGullagh, Declan“How SOPA would effect you”  cnet  found on 19 Mar. 2012

Barrett, Brian “What is SOPA”  Gizmodo.com found on 19 Mar.

Schatz, Douglas, Guest Lecture. Information Literacy Class(Info lit), Frontier Regional School, South Deerfield MA, 29, March 2012.

2012

by Brian Krutzler

According to Dictionary.com, a pirate is a person who robs or commits illegal violence at sea or on the shores of the sea. A pirate is commonly associated with stealing gold.  Piracy is the practice of stealing. Piracy is also defined as the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book,recording, television program, patented invention,trademarked product, etc. (Dictionary.com)

We think of pirates as bad. Pirates steal gold and sliver. Internet Pirates steal and share information. Should we think of Internet Pirates as bad? How many family and friends around us are Pirates? In a survey conducted at our school 83% say they download illegal music and 83% think the government should not try to control the Internet.

The SOPA and PIPA acts intended to strengthen protections against copyright infringement and intellectual property theft, but Internet advocates say they would stifle expression on the World Wide Web. – stop pirates. (CBS) According to the CBS News report, the bills would give the Justice Department the power to go after foreign websites willfully committing or facilitating intellectual property theft — “rogue” sites like The Pirate Bay. The government would be able to force U.S.-based companies, like Internet service providers, credit card companies and online advertisers, to cut off ties with those sites.

I think it is good to stop Pirates. People should not take from one another. But if there are one or two pirates on a ship of Pilgrims, care should be taken in whether or not to sink the ship.

SOPA, PIPA; What you need to know , Political Hot Seat, CBS News.
Found at http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57360665-503544/sopa-pipa-what-you-need-to-know/ on March 15th 2012

There have been many concerns lately about Internet piracy. There was so much  concern actually there was an act created to stop it. This act is called SOPA. This act has the potential to stop copyrighting once and for all but many people disagreed with SOPA. They claimed it was stealing their prosperity, online security, and freedom of expression. I mean the first amendment is freedom of speech.

      A lot of you may ask what is SOPA? Well SOPA is an Internet piracy act. This means that the government can delete any website that is suspected of breaking copyright. Many of our favorite websites could be gone in a blink of an eye for example YouTube would not exist anymore.  Not many people are aware of what this could do. There’s a group trying to stop SOPA. They are called fight for the future. On January 18th they had a protest against SOPA, they influenced the Internet community which resulted in a black out of millions of popular sites. This represented what SOPA could do. Wikipedia, Google, Tumblr, Flickr and many more participated in this protest. Hundreds of Americans called congress telling them to vote no, luckily for now SOPA hasn’t passed but there is a huge chance it could come back again.

       Many High School students feel that SOPA is an unfair law for many reasons. In a survey taken at my school, 84 percent of people did not support sopa, and 21 percent of people signed a petition against SOPA. SOPA would make it hard for people to have freedoms over the Internet. One of the main reasons why many think that SOPA is not a good thing is because of how easily it could be abused. SOPA even states that a website with authority like Google could block viral video websites just because they had a reason to suspect copyright without even taking it to court. SOPA  would allow sites like NBC to make a list of sites that they thought had copyright content on it just to get rid of rival competition.

    Many think that SOPA would affect every one’s life who had a facebook or social networking site because SOPA would make it so that any mention or status or tweet with a link to something that is thought as pirated would be deleted. This goes against the freedom of speech and the freedom of expression. Even the president and other presidential candidates have spoken out against the bill saying that they would not support something that was against freedom of speech.

    Also, sites like YouTube that have millions of uploads a week would have to very carefully police their sites to make sure that there was no copyright material. YouTube would essentially shut down due to copyright issues, and it is one of the biggest sites that people upload videos to. Overall SOPA is not a positive thing, and people need to make sure that it doesn’t return.

    SOPA is an Internet piracy act that was created to prevent copyrighted material from being on the Internet. SOPA has received a lot of negative attention and has been accused of violating our freedom of speech. Even though SOPA has been sent back to the drawing board for now, it could easily come back and disrupt every-one’s activity on the Internet. Find out what people are doing about it at http://fightforthefuture.org/.

Be sure to click and listen to our second podcast in this series! we are very excited about it.  It is included below this article.

References:

Schatz, Douglas. Guest Lecture. Information Literacy Class(info lit). Frontier Regional School, South Deerfield MA. 29, March 2012.  (Podcast included in this article)

“Internet goes on strike” Fight for the Future. SopaStrike.com found at http://fightforthefuture.org on 15 Mar. 2012.Brian Barrett “What is SOPA”.  http://gizmodo.com/5877000/what-is-sopa on 19 Mar. 2012Declan McGullagh “How SOPA  would affect you”found at http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57329001-281/how-sopa-would-affect-you-faq/   on  19 Mar. 2012

According to news article from WBZ-TV, there where 17 girls in Massachusetts that had there pictures from facebook put on a child porn site. The article also states that the government already had trouble with the site and the site had already been shut down once. Now they’re trying to shut it down again. Because of events like this SOPA act is going to have a better chance of getting passed. If a porn site can go on facebook and take a child pictures or any pictures of someone and  post it on their own site with out knowledge or permission,  lawmakers are going to want to act quicker in putting legislation on the World Wide Web. Lawmakers would have to weigh in with an equal approach. Facebook itself contains copyrighted content and its users are offenders as well. Hopefully the SOPA act can find a happy common ground where the restrictions and penalties won’t take down popular sites like facebook, but instead can look at it with an angle of malintent.

Awareness came from the blackout on January 18 2012. We all turned on the computer one day and saw that Google had put a black bar on the top. In a survey that I conducted, 100% side that they never download anything online illegally. 67% said that they heard of SOPA.

The benefits of Facebook are you can interact with your Friends when there not with you and share pictures and videos of things that are interesting. This is a way to start conversations and build stronger communities. Legislators plan in act a law which can effect a site such as facebook and millions of users who do not have intent on doing any harm at all. I think that the SOPA act is not going to change anything that happens with the offending site. If the site got shut down one time already and now they have to try again, then even if the SOPA act is passed, they will most likely restart the site again anyway.

Hager, Christina Local Teens Photos Lifted Off Facebook, Put On Porn Website, WBZ-TV Found at http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/02/14/local-teens-photos-lifted-off-facebook-put-on-porn-website/ on Februrary 27th, 2012

By: Madison Bowen

Many people have never thought about what their life would be like if they were limited to the things they can do online. Think about what it would be like if the government had control over what you do on the Internet. You wouldn’t be able to have any control over it and many people consider this to be going against the United States freedom of speech; this is SOPA. SOPA will cause many changes to our everyday life. SOPA will start shutting down websites that you use, overnight. If there are any websites that don’t agree with what the government says then they will be allowed to shut the website down. Most of our everyday websites that we use could be shut down and we will not be able to see certain information. Also it will be harder for new ideas to grow if the government is shutting down many social media websites. Overall, SOPA will result in changes to people’s everyday lives.

SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. At first you might think that this would be a good bill to be passed. But after looking further into it you may realize that many of the websites you use everyday could be shut down. On January 18, 2012 SOPA protesters went on strike by creating a “blackout.” This blackout prevented people from going on any websites and they were all shut down. Some websites that participated in the blackout were, Google, Flickr, Wired, Vimeo, Wikia, Mozilla, Craigslist, and many more. The movie and music industry tried to stop people from illegally downloading their content. So they were hoping that the SOPA bill would be passed. SOPA would be allow the government to shut down whatever websites they want. Many people believe it is going against our “Freedom of Speech.” SOPA is a way the movie and music industries fail to make changes in our social media for them to gain more profit. Large corporations want to try to block you from getting to any website that they don’t want you to see. They want to try to shut down any websites that could potentially hurt them from making a profit. The government seems to want to pass the bill because they want to earn political victories. They aren’t actually thinking about if it’s the right thing to do for the American people. The government would be taking away Internet freedoms. The government would be denying Americans rights to access some sites because of the illegal content they might have on it. Many companies will not allow their content to be viewed without being paid for. Some however will allow you to view things without paying for it. The government wants to get along with the large corporations what wants to do things in their favor.Through a survey we took through our community it showed that 71.43% people didn’t support SOPA. Another 50.00% of people said that they would sign a petition supporting SOPA. Finally, the poll showed that only 21.43% of people download free music that is illegal.  

Some of my personal feelings on this topic are that SOPA isn’t something that should be passed. It is violating people’s personal, and social media lives. It prevents new ideas from spreading and growing. Most average American citizens don’t support the SOPA act. It’s mostly large corporations and businesses that want to control what we do on the Internet. Many of the everyday citizens are upset with this act because they believe it is going against our freedom of speech and will stifle creativity. Many who support SOPA are doing so because it will help with copyright protection. These companies believe that passing SOPA will allow them to get rid of any illegal downloads of their content.  

President Obama vetoed SOPA and PIPA but many believe it was because he didn’t want to make the American citizens upset before the re-election. If Obama is re-elected many fear that he might pass the bill in order to keep the larger corporations happy. Many people also believe that if this bill is passed it will be going against our freedom of speech. In a Frontier podcast, our guest speaker Douglas Schatz, said that it isn’t the question of ‘will’ SOPA be passed, but the question of ‘when’ it will be passed. He believes that SOPA will have to undergo extreme supervision if it is going to be passed.The chances of SOPA being passed is unknown, but there are things people can do to try to stop SOPA and PIPA from being passed.

Citations

Madison Bowen

Adhikari, Richard. “SOPA Support Goes Sour.” Tech Law. N.p., Jan. 19, 2012. Web. http://www.technewsworld.com/story/74221.html15 Mar. 2010.

Blank, Steve. “SOPA Is a Symbol of the Movie Industry’s Failure to Innovate.” The Atlantic. N.p., Jan. 6, 2012. Web.http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/sopa-is-a-symbol-of-the-movie-industrys-failure-to-innovate/250967/ 15 Mar. 2010.

Carter, Jeff. “Stop SOPA Now; Why It’s Important To The Average Joe.” Townhall finance. N.p., Jan. 20, 2012. Web. http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/jeffcarter/2012/01/19/stop_sopa_now_why_its_important_to_the_average_joe/page/full/ March 13, 2012.

DiFede, Rebecca. “NDAA, EEA, SOPA, PIPA…when will the government STOP trying to control us?” Get Liberty. N.p., Jan. 23, 2012. Web. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=4028 March 9, 2012.

David. “SOPA- Internet Interference by the Government.” Franklin Files. N.p., Jan. 15, 2012. Web. http://www.franklinfiles.net/t47315890/sopa-internet-interference-by-the-government/ March 9, 2012.

Schatz, Douglas. Class Lecture. Information Literacy Class(Info Lit). Frontier Regional High School, S. Deerfield, MA. 27 March 2012.

Shawn. “What are the chances of SOPA passing if?” SOPA and PIPA affect. N.p., Jan. 26, 2012. Web. http://www.sopapipaaffect.com/sopa/what-are-the-chances-of-sopa-passing-if.html15 Mar. 2010.