November 2003

I'm a terribly insensitive person so I laughed a lot when I read "Death shadows football game." The accidental murder of a little girl in heavenly Sugar Land is admittedly no laughing matter, but citing BestPlaces.net to describe the dull suburb amuses your standard issue disaffected suburban teenager. I'm sure that Fort Bend police do their best to keep us safe, but I'm less sure when I learn that they have names like "Officer Buddy Boone." And read the last column. You'll find the last sentence sadly abrupt and disturbing.

And what's this? A homecoming article that I liked? This was infamous at our school a few months ago. The author found herself accosted by angry cheerleaders waving infurity-poms. While it's unlikely that the general student body wants to be more involved in the theme selection process (wasn't the prom theme suggestion box empty?), no one can dispute the indisputable hilarity of cheerleaders' lack of creativity. Apparently, the last few themes were "Home in the Dome," "United in the Dome," and "United at Home." (Pause for uproarious laughter.)

The pregnancy article - Everything intended to keep teenagers from the pleasures of life seems to use fuzzy math. According to the article, 75% of all teenagers fuck and 60% of them have STDs and 10% get preggies, so 70% of all high schoolers are fucked. Wait, what?

In an article about capital punishment, the author asks, "Do we force truants to build schools and enroll us, and then do we skip their classes?" Let's see. The answer is no, but maybe we should, but only if we make them have really cool mascots, like marmosets. What a distressing article, without a whisper about the possibility that man might have any redeeming qualities. I question the value of using Gary Ridgway as an introduction. Useless in the thesis of the article, Ridgway provided the usual lame life experience excuse to write about a topic (the lame experience being: "some kid in my physics class thought Ridgway should've been sentenced to death and I disagreed, so now I'm going to write an article"). I wonder that the article was placed under "News" when it was clearly editorial, but I suppose the editorial spaces are reserved for poetic pieces about the meaning of the month November.

Also, arguments that rely on logic expressed through ruminations on the possibility of developing a new, "less painful method" of rape to punish rapists should probably be avoided. I think the National Association of Gay Men Who Buy Dildos would be offended. Highly!

A better title for this article might be "Warning: Article on Red Zone creates rash." I don't know of anyone who elevates the Red Zone to the level that the author proclaims, and it's most certainly not "elusive." Not being a member of the band or dance team, I'm not really authorized to say whether or not it is sacred, but I did know of one kid who desecrated it with his fluids.

Things in "Dallas trip," an article about one student's alienation from the newspaper staff, that the other kids should have found offensive:

1. "I had nothing in common with any of them... I knew that I would not have a problem making new friends out of these people (Whoa, girl, egotistical enough?), but would they want to be friends with me?" (No. Because they're mean and antisocial, unlike Social Butterfly You.)
2. "We were left in that classroom, a bunch of 16 & 17 year old children, to make rules for ourselves... It was at that moment that I knew this was not going to be a fun experience." (Yes, because everyone on the staff is incompetent and has the brain of a toaster made in Guatemala. Unlike you.)
3. "I'm not sure if it was the coffee we drank before leaving, or my lack of sleep the night before, but those of us in that van began to open up to each other like we never had before." (So you can only talk to them if you're in a sleep-deprived stupor or a caffeine high or both at once? Not a very good social butterfly...)
4. Why does she keep calling the staff "those people"? It makes my stomach hurt in sympathy.
5. "The point to all my babbling..." NO, your babble has no point. Stop writing. This article sucks.
6. "If you quit just because you don't like the situation, you will get nowhere in life." Tru dat. Eye roll.

Big Momma's name is Fanfiel? Just Fanfiel? She's always traumatized me. I'm afraid of her, and she hates making change, so sometimes I go without lunch rather than buy from her using a five or ten dollar bill.

Quotable High School Quotes:

• Ivy I. - "I love Mr. G's class. He's one of the coolest teachers."
• Michael F. - "You get free nachos in the cafeteria if your parents are a nacho person." (Are a nacho person? Wowzers, reverse multiple personality disorder?)
• Heather M. - "My grandpa got a Purple Heart from fighting in WWI. He jumped out of airplanes." (He jumped, just that one time.)

I hear that the staff felt guilty about being so incredibly unprofessional and now runs their articles through spell/grammar check in MS Word. The next best thing to actually knowing how to spell and to write! Good job, guys. (I didn't bother counting typos because there aren't over one or two per article, usually. This is exponentially better than what it used to be. In all honesty, good on the staff. I didn't read the sports section though...)

Back to top.