BVN News

Making stories come alive: Forensics duo wins state for two consecutive years

blovelace — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:45:24 +0000

It was a crowd favorite. Seniors Max Agadoni and Anne Elise Dimas received first place in the State Forensics competition, for the second year in a row, at Olathe Northwest on May 5. Their gold performance was a duo interpretation of the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

“It felt pretty damn great [to win],” Agadoni said. “There was actually a Shawnee Mission East duo that we’d been competing with all season who had beaten us at a tournament and we beat them at state.”
Their decision to use a well known script came from the confidence that they could put an artistic spin on it.
“It was the witching hour. We had exhausted all of our ideas, and so we kind of went with a crowd favorite,” Agadoni said. “We knew a lot about [Charlie and the Chocolate Factory] and we knew we would have fun with it.”
Condensing the book into a few short segments wasn’t an easy feat, however. The competition is broken up into three rounds. Dimas said it took a considerable amount of effort and vision.
“When deciding what [Max and I] would do this year we had a large number of suggestions. It took about a month just to cut the script and get everything ready,” Dimas said. “You can’t have costumes but a lot of duo partners will try to match. So before the season started Max got an orange tie and I got an orange shirt.”
Duo interpretation also requires its team participants to not look at each other nor touch. Though that rule may be tough, both agree the challenge makes it engaging.
“I played Willy Wonka, Violet Beauregard, Agustus Gloop, Mike Teevee’s dad and Veruka’s dad,” Agadoni said. “It was actually a lot of fun. I made this Willy Wonka very different from the TV versions, like the Johnny Depp one or the Gene Wilder version. We made him more of a very creepy dark character. We based him off of the Joker character from the Dark Knight movie.”
Dimas played the characters Charlie, Grandpa Joe, Mike Teevee, Veruka Salt, Violet Beauregard’s mom and Agustus Gloop’s mom.
Both did not see their success in Forensics coming just four years ago. In fact, before high school began neither of them thought of even taking such a class.

“Laura Hoefer told me in the 8th grade [Forensics] was a lot of fun and then I decided to do it.” Agandoni said. “It ended up being great.”

“Originally I wasn’t planning on taking [Forensics],” Dimas said. “But freshman year Mr. Brown showed [our class] a video of a national Forensics competition and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

Thereafter Dimas and Agadoni decided to do independent study for Repertory Theater, but ended up meeting each other and became a duo. They’ve been a duo ever since.

A year previous to their win Max and Agadoni won state with a performance of Peter Pan. Winning state and experiencing nationals first hand gave them an upper hand on what to expect. But winning comes with an immense pressure.

“I was really nervous,” Dimas said. “BVN is the only school to ever win duo at state. Every year they’ve gotten third…in previous years.”
Forensics has played a major role in the duo’s lives. Though each will not pursue careers fully related to acting or theater, both believe Forensics will help them in any endeavour.
“I plan on majoring in Broadcast Journalism,” Dimas said. “I think Forensics will help me with that.”
“I want to go to college for Enviornmental Engineering,” Agadoni said.
Their success hasn’t just given them confidence, but more appreciation for things in life.

“For me it wasn’t about getting first, it was about getting a sense of accomplishment. Now I get to end my senior year with a bang with one of my best friends.”

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Best sushi

alifallucca — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:48:36 +0000

Daunting yet delicious, there’s nothing quite like a well-cut slice of raw fish. One of my personal favorites, this fresh and wonderous cuisine gives us Kansans a glimpse of seaside life despite being landlocked in Leahood. Luckily for us, we’ve got a plethora of quality sushi houses and Japanese restaurants to satisfy any and all of our cravings. To help you with the quest of finding the most delectable sushi around, I took it upon myself as a food connoisseur to find the tastiest sushi for your hard-earned dollar.

Ra Sushi

For a kid on a budget, RA is the place to go. From 3 to 7 p.m. all week (Monday through Saturday) you can get delicious sushi like a fresh spicy yellowtail roll for as little as $4. And these rolls definitely give you a bang for your buck; they don’t skimp on quality. They usually have 8 pieces, depending on which you get, but considering that these rolls average anywhere from $7 to $10 at other restaurants, it’s probably the best sushi bargain you’ll find around these parts. Even the restaurant’s specialty roll, the Viva Las Vegas, is on the discounted menu for a few hours every day, and trust me, this one’s definitely worth the $7 price tag–keep in mind, it’s just a little too messy to be attractive date food. There are, however, two downsides. First, if you’re looking for a quieter, intimate atmosphere, RA is a no-go. The restaurant blares music all night long, making it difficult to have any sort of easy and substantial conversation. Also, if you get stuck on a waitlist until happy hour is over, you don’t get the discounted prices. So, if you’re feeling like an early dinner grab a few friends and head over to the Park Place Shopping Center.

Kyoto Sushi & Steak

A BVN favorite for dances and birthday dinners, this well known teppanyaki restaurant also makes some yummy sushi. A lovely quality of this particular restaurant is the friendliness of the sushi bar staff. If you’re feeling a bit bold, strike a conversation up with one of the guys making your sushi–they’re super helpful if you have any questions about rolls or want a recommendation for something a little different. Though I’m definitely more of a raw sushi type of girl, one of the best rolls that Kyoto offers is their Crazy Monkey Roll. This roll with salmon, cream cheese and avocado is fried, tempura style, and then drizzled with a sweet eel sauce and a spicy mayo, making it a delicious combination of sweet, salty, savory and crunchy. As far as prices go, it’s not quite as cheap as RA, but they do have happy hour prices every weekday from 2:30 to 6:00 p.m. Even if you miss happy hour, prices are relatively reasonable if you only get a roll or two. And, if you live anywhere out south it’s at a pretty convenient location, so at least you’ll save some gas driving there.

Kaiyo Japanese Restaurant

If you’re a dedicated sushi fan, a trip to Kaiyo is worth taking. Often overlooked because of its “off to the side” location in the little Camelot Court shopping center, this sushi gem is pretty authentic. The quiet husband and wife who own the place are the main sushi makers, and they do a good job. One of my personal favorites, the 007, combines raw salmon, a teensy bit of lemon, jalapeno and cucumber for a superbly refreshing roll with a bit of a kick. Honestly, in all of my sushi eating over the years, I’ve never had a roll like it. Not only does Kaiyo make this specialty roll along with a few others, but they also make classic rolls like spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, California, etc. While this restaurant does take the cake for having non-sushi dishes at reasonable prices (miso soup is $2), the rolls here costs a chunk of change. At least, the rolls that you can’t get at your average sushi house do. And, unfortunately, they don’t have happy hour. My advice? Save part of your paycheck and try it out, you won’t regret it.

Quick Fix

If you’re feeling like a sushi snack and simply don’t have the time or patience to sit at a restaurant, you’ve got a few options. All over Kansas City, select supermarkets like Whole Foods, Trader Joes and Dean and Deluca are known for having superbly yummy, pre-packaged sushi, carrying everything from the classic California roll to a crunchy shrimp tempura or spicy tuna. For an on-the-go meal, these three places are your best bets.

A different kind of love story

alifallucca — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:44:20 +0000

As Valentine’s Day approaches, most North students are worrying about sweetheart dates, not spouses. Not so for seniors CJ Griffin and Rymington Fulks. Griffin proposed to Fulks, his girlfriend of six months, on Christmas morning of this year.
“He had a letter that he read to me. Then he got on one knee in front of my dad and asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes,” Fulks said. “The ring was on the Christmas tree [disguised as an ornament] for a week, and I didn’t even notice it.”
Fulks and Griffin plan to be married after high school, but haven’t set a date. She’s from a small town in Western Kansas; he’s Wyandotte. The unlikely couple’s story makes a refreshing alternative to the traditional Valentine’s Day tale.

WHERE THEY’RE FROM

Fulks moved to Leawood last year from Parker, Kansas, where she attended a high school that served three towns combined: Parker, Lakin and Fontana. Even so, the school was tiny.
“I tried making friends with people [when I came to North], but when I talked to them they would look at me weird; they wouldn’t talk back to me or they’d completely ignore me. So I finally just gave up trying to talk to people. I definitely think it’s easier to make friends in smaller schools,” Fulks said.
Fulks said the practice of getting engaged in high school isn’t unusual in her hometown.
“There were a couple of my senior friends that had gotten engaged,” Fulks said. “But that was mostly because they were pregnant and they felt like it was the right idea.”
Griffin came to Leawood in his sixth grade year from a radically different environment: Wyandotte County, Kan., an area known for its high crime rates and low incomes. He said that moving to Leawood was an enormous cultural change.
“When you’re coming from Wyandotte, you’re coming from drugs, sex everywhere, drinking, killings,” Griffin said. “Up here I’ve never had to look over my shoulder. When you’re down there you don’t want to step out at night. You hear gunshots or people talking—there’s always something going on at night outside in Wyandotte.”
Griffin said his friends from Wyandotte haven’t been told about his engagement.
“I don’t really talk to any of my friends in Wyandotte any more,” Griffin said. “Most of my friends are locked up.”
Problems followed Griffin in his move to Leawood in the form of family trouble. In sixth grade, his father moved out of the house.
“[One] night my dad came home, and my mom had all his stuff packed up ready for him to take it outside and go. She didn’t want him in the house, so she had me take his stuff outside to his truck. I didn’t see him again until freshman year,” Griffin said.
He said the experience had a profound impact on him, but hasn’t cast doubt on his desire to start a family someday.
“It’s hard when you don’t have a father figure there to guide you when you have girl problems and you have problems at school. It was hard for me not to have a father figure there to say ‘son, I’m proud of you,’” Griffin said. “[But] my mom ended up remarrying and it was like a new start for me. [In the future] I’m going to give my kid everything that I never had. I’m gonna try to be the best dad that I can ever be, better than what my dad did for me.”

FALLING IN LOVE

Griffin and Fulks met in an Algebra II class when she first came to North.
“We didn’t start talking till the third day of school, and then we [went] to the mixer together and…found we had a lot in common. There wasn’t really any set point when we started liking each other, it was just there,” Fulks said. For Griffin, though, it was love at first sight.
“The first day I saw her, after class I walked up to all my friends and was like, ‘have you seen this girl?’” Griffin said. “I don’t know what it was, but I really wanted to be with her. Like, she was so shy. And she was, you know, amazing. She had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen in my entire life.”
Fulks said the engagement was a surprise, but that it didn’t seem sudden because she and Griffin feel they’ve been together forever.
“We had feelings like this for each other, and we’ve talked about getting married, but I didn’t know it was gonna be so soon,” Fulks said. “If you ask either one of us how long we’ve been together, we’ll have to think about it because it feels like we’ve been together so much longer. And it kind of helps that we’ve been living together for at least half of the time we’ve been together.” Griffin moved in with Fulks’s family when he turned 18, wanting to get out of the house.
Griffin said his desire to propose came about as a result of being hospitalized for an evaluation requested by his mother, who was worried about his mental health.
“It was weird, because I never had a girl on my mind this much. The whole time [I was hospitalized], I was like, I gotta get out, because I gotta see Rymington,” Griffin said. “The day I got out, she ran up to me and gave me the biggest hug. It was the greatest feeling in the world. I knew that I’d give anything to have that every day. And I knew that when I turned 18 I was going to buy that ring and ask her to marry me.”
Even at the age of 18, neither Griffin nor Fulks feels constrained by the prospect of being with one person for the rest of their lives.
“I haven’t really thought about dating anybody else. The feeling of liking somebody…other than CJ hasn’t come up,” Fulks said. “I look at other guys, and I don’t feel any attraction to them. Now as for CJ, I don’t know,” she laughed.
Griffin said his devotion to Fulks keeps thoughts of other girls far from his mind as well.
“Rymington and I went to [the] mall and she had gone into a changing room, and this group of girls came up to me and they were like… do you have a girlfriend?” Griffin said. “And I was like, actually, I’m engaged. And they walked off. I was like, see you later. I don’t really want to talk to any other girl.”
The couple has encountered some opposition to their engagement, but they face it optimistically.
“Maybe we are young, and if we make a mistake we make a mistake. We’re not worried about it, it’s just everybody else is worried about it,” Fulks said.
Griffin said his family is supportive.
“My mom loves Rymington. She said that as long as [Rymington] makes me happy, she is all for the idea,” Griffin said. “And I told my dad, because no matter what, I want my family to know that I’m getting engaged. That’s important to me. I told all my friends at this school, because it’s something I can brag about, that I have this amazing woman in my life and she’s gonna be there for the rest of my life.”

Where they’re going

Though their early engagement is unusual, the couple’s long-term goals are like most other students’: college or a job, a house and kids. Fulks wants to attend Emporia State for nursing, and Griffin may choose to attend Pittsburgh State for a mechanics or get a job at a local Pepsi plant.
“I wanted to go to Emporia State, but CJ’s looking at Pitt State, and they have a good nursing program there too,” Fulks said.
“I can easily just promote myself at Pepsi and be making more money than most people who get a college degree anyway. That’ll provide for my family better,” Griffin said.
Fulks and Griffin agreed that kids are in their future.
“I know he wants kids, and I want kids, so if you go five or six years out…that’ll definitely come into play.,” Fulks said
“I want a boy. Not gonna lie,” Griffin said. “I’d preferably have a son because I could teach him so many things. I could teach him how to box, how to play football. I [wouldn’t] want to deal with boys…around a daughter.”
The two hope that, far from confining them, their engagement will enrich their lives.
“We can still live life and be engaged. It’s not like it’s holding us back from living life,” Fulks said.
“We both have dreams together. We both want to buy a house, we want a family,” Griffin said. “But we gotta take small steps. We’re both working together to get our dreams set and ready for the future.”

Consequences of carelessness

alifallucca — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:37:26 +0000

It’s become a habit of mine to, once I feel as though I’ve exhausted a magazine’s content, turn it over and try to read it back to front. This is how I stumbled across Rob Hoerburger’s “Lives” segment in the New York Times Magazine on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
What caught my eye about this particular piece, the last page of the magazine, was that Hoerburger wrote about three of his friends, middle-aged men, who had all recently been diagnosed with HIV. He touched on how they all got HIV through carelessness. It only takes one mistake. He wrote about how, after hearing about his friends’ diagnoses, next time he got a fever and chills, he was terrified that it was a sign proving that he was next.
Is this example a bit drastic? Yes. But is it applicable? Absolutely. From MIPs to car crashes to injuries to STDs to rescinded scholarships, every slip-up could lead to consequences that we don’t even want to consider. Every night we deem memorable, every “kids just being kids”, every “blowing off steam,” could affect us for life. Some of our peers have already learned this the hard way; some seem to have it ingrained in them and don’t go around doing things that will end up being the mistake we remember; and some will keep bouncing recklessly off walls, waiting for one to leave the metaphoric scar that lasts.
The bottom line, however, is that the careless risks taken, whether we take them now or when we’re 24, or when we’re 45, could have grave effects on us. We’d better learn to get smart now. It only takes a moment to ruin a lifetime.

Taking a look at a long-lasting rivalry: SME

alifallucca — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:36:29 +0000

Ask a Shawnee Mission East student what they think of BVN, and the answer is likely to be negative, as reflected by a SME classroom discussion about their least favorite aspects of Blue Valley North. “They want to be like us,” I was told. “They’re sluts.” “They’re ‘new money.’” Or, the attitude of many, “I don’t know, I just don’t like them.” It’s clear that the BVN/SME rivalry is alive and well. Insults, tweets and even fistfights have characterized the intra-school conflict over the past few years, and to put a stop to the negativity, I decided to go straight to the source.
I pulled up to Shawnee Mission East at 9:40 a.m. on a Thursday late arrival. Surveying the parking lot, I found it was just as littered with Ford Escapes and new Jeeps as ours. Walking up three flights of stairs to my first class where I was going to shadow a SME student, I saw a diverse population of students with every social group represented. For a school we’re such big rivals with, it seemed pretty similar to our own.
Senior Jake Belzer, who transferred to North after three years at East, knows the dynamics of both schools well. His decision to transfer was based on an educational and social environment at East that he felt was negative.
When Belzer’s friends at East discovered he was transferring to a rival school, he was shunned.
“I lost all my friends–everyone I talked to at East,” he said. “But I didn’t care because I knew I was coming to a better school. It was something I wanted to do and needed to do.”
The most dramatic effect of the rivalry in the past year was a fistfight between students that broke out at Briarwood Elementary last spring.
“I guess BVN and SME guys were fighting over a girl,” Shawnee Mission East junior Eden McKissick said. “There was a rumor that got really out of hand. There was a fight, and then it became more about schools being against each other than the people being against each other.”
“East and North will never get along because of the whole fight at Briarwood,” Belzer said. “Ever since then, East hates North, North hates East, and that’s how it has to be.”
“With the history of the schools, the economic movement and statistics of the county, it seems like the central point has moved south,” Shawnee Mission East Principal Karl Krawitz said.
This social shift, in addition to Shawnee Mission East being an older school, has created a dynamic in which BVN is criticized for being “new money.”
“When we say ‘new money,’ people aren’t actually thinking about what your parents do and what our parents do,” McKissick said. “It’s that you’re the new suburbia. For most kids that don’t like BVN and call it new money, it’s probably just an insecurity thing, just because they have nothing else to make fun of. It’s kind of human nature to try to downplay people that threaten you.”
Krawitz remains convinced that hostile feelings toward Blue Valley North are the exception, not the rule.
“What appears to be controversy may be limited to a very small percentage that take on the appearance of a larger group,” he said. “It’s a shame that we have a few people creating a firestorm which, for the most part, may not really exist.”
McKissick hopes that an increased awareness about the true nature of the schools’ rivalry will help to ease tensions.
“[We need to] understand that we don’t dislike each other because there’s something wrong with the other person, we’re just threatened by each other and a school that is able to replicate us,” she said.
Shawnee Mission East is a slightly larger school than ours. Their passing period bell is a few tones lower. They cater pizza from Little Caesar’s instead of Pizza Hut. But apart from insignificant differences, both schools have a very committed student body brimming with potential. Blue Valley North and Shawnee Mission East are much more alike than we are different, and once we realize that, both schools can breathe a little easier.

Snow day snatched from students

alifallucca — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:26:09 +0000

It’s 7:22 a.m. on Feb. 13. Just one hour earlier I was impatiently waiting for Blue Valley USD 229 to appear scrolling across the screen of the Fox 4 news channel in vain. Now, the hood of my car is heading into the traffic light at 127th and Nall. I take a slow left-hand turn and lose control on 127th and Nall when my tire catches some snow or black ice. My fate is sealed. I mutter curses and pump the brakes as I calmly handle the steering wheel as I was taught, but to no avail. In an instant, my body whips and the hood of my beloved ’98 Toyota Tacoma crunches up, sending the contents of my truck flying in all directions.
In a surreal ‘I-just-wrecked-my-car-like-an-idiot’ daze, I look up to see another North student spinning out 100 yards ahead of me. Then another driver in a silver sports car is distracted by my accident and rams the side of his car across the grate of the sewage drain.
Why all this chaos? The district refused to allow students one snow day. Those who did not drive themselves had to make arrangements with their parents. That’s a red flag; when students can’t drive themselves because of conditions, leaving school parking lots half filled, it is an obvious sign that it’s safer to just stay home. After all, how many snow days have there been when roads were clear, skies were clear and the snow had turned to slush and melted by noon or earlier? Several.
Aside from high school students, younger kids who have to wait for the bus or walk to school were stuck in freezing conditions with wind whipped snow and icy sidewalks all around them.
Yes, we had a three day weekend. Sure, most people never want to go to school. The bottom line is that had there not been school, I would have a car, several other students would not have dents on their own automobiles, and others would not have been a part of other mishaps on the road. The damage could easily have been a lot worse; people could have gotten hurt. It was a poor decision to keep school in session with such conditions. Maybe the next time this happens, the district will think it over a bit longer.

Accepting the realities of anti-bullying instruction

alifallucca — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:25:15 +0000

“All right, guys, this is going to be serious.”
Thus began lukewarm discussions on diversity, bullying and prejudice in many advisory classes this year. As a mentor who works with a ninth grade advisory, I understand that these subjects are important. And yet —what do we really expect to get out of sitting kids down and teaching them about diversity? Will a bullying lesson stop a kid from heading out when the bell rings and yelling a racial slur?
Here’s the problem with
pre-packaged social lessons: they can become counterproductive. One thing high school kids love to do is make fun of their school, the mammoth, impersonal institution that keeps them scurrying around on bell schedules and filling out bubble sheets. Students take every opportunity to challenge that authority, in the grand tradition of sticking it to the man. What happens in the advisory curriculum is that anti-bullying, anti-drinking,
pro-diversity rhetoric becomes part of that authority — and therefore the object of students’ derision. It’s hard to take these issues seriously when they become tired buzz words. Despite all the years of anti-bullying lessons, we see casual instances of cruelty every day. But to tell someone to “stop bullying” would be to mouth the words of authority figures. So no one does it.
Is it all or nothing then? Do we either cheapen the meaning of such crucial concepts or not talk about them at all? I don’t think so. I still hope that advisory can provide a means of connecting with students. The North Report is one such tool. By celebrating students who are different because of unusual passions or experiences, as Broadcast II often does, we can show the importance of tolerance and empathy without having to lecture. The diversity assembly and cultural fair perform similar services, bringing that much-overused term, “diversity,” alive with genuine celebrations of our varied ethnic roots.
On the whole, talking about issues such as bullying and diversity is better than pretending they don’t exist. But we must be careful not to make acceptance uncool.

Not everyone needs college

alifallucca — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:24:14 +0000

When I asked a group sophomores what their plans were after high school, they paused for a moment, confused, and proceeded to answer in a way that implied that I should already know the answer – going to college. When they asked me what college I planned on attending, I decided to see how they would react to a student who was not going to college.
“Who says I’m going to college?” I said.
The students were shocked. Instead of asking me a different question, they replaced it with an awkward silence.
I felt as though I had been shunned because I hadn’t decided if I even wanted to attend college, let alone where I would go. In fact, it seemed as if my response had insulted them.
Think about it: students are expected to work hard, be challenged, act older than their age and learn life skills; all leading up to college. Why should students be expected to accomplish all these things?
College is not for everyone. School, in general, can be physically, mentally and emotionally draining, especially for certain students who feel pressured to please their parents, teachers and elite colleges.
While trying to meet the expectations of everyone around them, people can sometimes overlook the commitment aspect of college. Nobody takes the time to think twice about committing a minimum of two years.
Being committed to two or four years of college is not as easy as it sounds. Think about it: students have to transition from being in a high school class of 20-30 students to attending classes in an auditorium with over 100 students. That often means less personal attention, less interaction with other classmates and a substantial long-term workload. Even though these college conditions may not be an issue for some students, they shouldn’t be thought of as one-size-fits-all. This is your future, and you have every right to live your life on your own terms.
When I tried to interview students who were not attending college, I was disappointed at how no one of the wanted to admitt that college wasn’t in their future plans. It wasn’t really the students I was disappointed in, but our school district.
In our little Blue Valley ‘bubble,’ not going to college is unheard of. There is often a preconceived notion that comes with attending a school in the Blue Valley area; every student
over-achieves, has a great college and future laid out for them. It’s time to realize that college is not the only path for fulfillment and happiness.

Rich politician proves wrong man for presidency

alifallucca — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:23:17 +0000

Something completely shocking, new and revolutionary has happened as the race to the Republican nomination narrows: a new breed of candidate, a wealthy, successful man, is arguably leading the race toward his party’s support.
Now for full disclosure: I’m not being completely serious. Our nation, built on principles of the common man having the opportunity of power, has for a long time been run by the richer men of society. Mitt Romney isn’t a novelty in this regard.
  The former Massachusetts Governor started out on a path to filthy riches working for Bain & Company, a global management consulting firm. He moved up to vice president status in the company and gained financial success as well as smarts. Now, he makes around $20 million or more a year and paid 13.9 percent taxes in 2010, 15.4 percent in 2011, as his recently released tax returns illustrated. A large amount of his money is made by investing. When money is earned from investments, it’s taxed at a much lower rate. Therefore, Romney’s (and other wealthy Americans’) tax percentages are extremely low compared to the amount of money they bring in, or compared to other Americans.
  The problem many have with Romney, however, isn’t just how rich he is. It’s how he sees his own wealth, others’ financial situations, and how the economy should be run. He pays a very low percentage of taxes compared to working class Americans, and is in the top .006% of Americans wealth-wise. Yet in America’s current economy, where “crisis” is the word most commonly used to describe our nation’s debt, unemployment, and downward spiral, Romney favors taxation plans that would ultimately help people like him. Not the middle class, where an average tax payer’s rate is about 15% higher than Romney’s, but the richest, who could afford much higher percentages of taxes than they are asked to pay.
  Furthermore, Romney seems completely out of touch with what the average American is experiencing. In 2010, he made $374,327.62 giving speeches after publishing a book. When asked for a breakdown of his income, he referred to this amount, which alone would put him in the coveted “1 percent” as “not very much.”
  Romney is admittedly good at making money; his millions annually have proven that. But what America needs now is not someone who is simply good at making money, simply a “good and successful businessman”. America needs someone who can relate to the masses to help our nation grow, and Mitt Romney has proven that, with his riches and excess, he’s not the man for the job.

Senior is driven by passion for literature

alifallucca — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:46:49 +0000

Senior Mackenzie Selzer inhabits two worlds. One minute, she’s concentrating on finishing a project for National Art Honor Society. The next, she’s cracking a murder-mystery for the FBI. One moment, she’s throwing shot-put for the BVN track team. The next, she’s atop Mount Olympus, following the stories of her favorite Greek gods and goddesses.
Selzer has dual citizenship in two different dimensions: reality and fantasy. A literary fanatic, she claims she has read over 1,000 books in her 17 years and doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon.
“[Reading] offers something more interesting than real life because in books anything can happen, whereas in life we’re kind of stuck with the same thing every day,” Selzer said.
As early as sixth grade, Selzer’s passion for reading began.
“The series that really got me interested in reading was the ‘Clique’ series,” she said in reference to Lisi Harrison’s novel series about the wealthy in-crowd at a private middle school. “A lot of my friends were reading it, and we could all relate to it because it had to do with the age we were at the time,” she said.
Since then, Selzer has read books of every shape and size from every genre and appreciates both realistic and fantasy books.
“On one hand, it’s nice to have an original book that you can relate to like the ‘Clique’ series or the ‘Gossip Girl’ series. On the other hand, if you have supernatural books or other things that don’t happen in real life, it’s interesting to see what authors come up with,” she said. “I really like mysteries. I like trying to figure out who did it or what’s gonna happen before the end of the book when they actually tell you.”
In fact, Selzer’s love of mystery novels even helped her to choose a future career path.
“Strong female characters influence me to want to be a part of the FBI,” she said. “My dream job would be working for the FBI, so I like reading about that.”
As a more short-term effect, her passion for literature has even pushed Selzer to apply for a job at local bookstore Barnes and Noble.
“I practically live at Barnes and Noble,” she said. “I like to go there and look through all the books that are out. You can see them better there than you can on the computer.”
Books have had a large impact on Selzer’s life, and such interest in reading sometimes means a sacrifice of time.
“One time I read 10 books in four days,” she said. “I just kept reading…I couldn’t stop. Series after series after series.”
Of the thousand she has read, Selzer claims her favorite book is Anne Curtis Klause’s fantasy thriller “Blood and Chocolate”, which follows the story of a reluctant teenage werewolf named Vivian who finds herself and her place in life.
“How the author wrote it is really interesting because of the issues it touches on of finding yourself,” Selzer said.
Though many high school students see recreational reading as a waste of time, Selzer encourages them to find a book with a topic they are passionate about.
“Even if [the book is] not true, there’s always something new to learn from a book,” she said. “You have to find a book that you’re interested in. As long as it draws the person in, it’s a good thing to do.”