(no subject)
For some strange reason, LiveJournal hasn't been letting me post. Hmm... The picture storage services I've used keep disappearing, which is very annoying. So, I've dediced to use AOL Hometown to store my pics. All I've got on that website is an angry rant I wrote the day after the December '03 CSz match and a few shout outs to people. For the shout outs, well, you know our inside jokes already, so I don't have to repeat them. But I can't get rid of my masterpiece rant! 2500 words! Can't delete that... so, here it goes:
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
For anyone who hasn't seen "Dr. Strangelove," it's one of the greatest comedy noirs of all time. It's a Stanley Kubrick film, which should be enough to make you get off your tuchas right now and head on down to Blockbuster to rent it. It's part anti-war movie, part rodeo show, part repentant Nazi genius physicist biography. Anyway, I doubt very much you want to hear about Dr. S for the next 2 years, so I'll move on.
While I'm on the topic of leftist stuff (and Dr. S is for liberals and repentant conservatives only), I should talk about censorship. I hope you've all read Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," one of the best books against censorship. If you haven't, here's the gist: Books teach us to think different. We're unhappy because we think different. So, let's burn all the books and watch TV all day and not care about anything that is important such as love and benevolence, and then we'll be happy. Except, as soon as Guy Montag (the main character) realizes he isn't happy, he wants to read, and that's illegal, plus he's a fireman, which means his job is to burn books. So, he leaves society which is beginning WWIII, and he starts the long process of rebuilding. The End. Except it's not the end, because censorship is everywhere. Let's kill anything that isn't completely politically correct and then no one will be offended and everyone'll be happy. However, when we ignore the issues that make us different and unique, we ignore our humanity. We then notice the difference of others, and since the explanation behind those differences has been censored, we become nervous. "That's different, and I don't understand! And I'm scared of what I don't understand!" We can't bear not understanding, so we try to provide our own flawed reasonings. By human nature, our reasonings make us superior over the ones who are different. We then begin to hate. And then, we have the Inquisition, the Holocaust, the Crusades. Hitler was one of the most prominent burners of books before he began to burn the corpses of the victims of his death camps. When we refuse to listen, we are deaf. When we refuse to look, we are blind. When we refuse to touch, we are cold. Now, I'm about to seem like I'm contradicting myself, but if you read carefully, you'll see that I'm not. OK, here it goes. If we do not censor at all, then we must listen to those who preach genocide and hate. The Nazis burned books, but if we burn their books, are we any better than they are? So, censorship isn't completely evil, as it is often portrayed. It has its place, just not as a government mandated policy. We must be our own censors. We need to decide for ourselves what we choose to acknowledge and what we choose to disregard. YOU must search, and ultimately, you must choose your own viewpoint! "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -Voltaire
On that note, at my school, Agoura High, there's been a lot of problems recently with censorship. Interestingly enough, before all the problems began, the question was asked in the Written Word, the creative writing club, where should censorship end? How much should we censor and how much is too much? My ultimate conclusion was this: Nothing that has a purpose should be censored. So many movies, TV shows, and even novels these days are plagued with profanity, violence, and sex. Often, those elements are unnecessary. In the Matrix Reloaded, why was there that sex scene? No reason. What about the nudity in The Pawnbroker (an excellent Rod Steiger film about a Holocaust survivor)? There was nudity in that. But it had a function- to show the cruelty of the Holocaust. No, the nudity was necessary. Another example, Saving Private Ryan needed the violence, and Schindler's List also needed what it had. Yup, Spielberg is a great director who knows when to use drugs, violence, and sex, and when it's not needed. Censor the gratuitous, but not the purposeful. Do I seem to contradict what I said earlier about everyone being their own censor? Because I'm not. The whole necessary vs. unnecessary thing is where I draw the line as my own censor.
My first run-in with censorship actually took place last year. I was doing a monologue for theater class, and basically, the mother of the boy saying the monologue wanted to believe her son was a girl. One of the lines went something like this: "Sometimes I would lash out and say that I was a boy. My mother would respond that we shouldn't be hasty, and so we'd wait to see if I menstruated or not." It was one of the funniest lines in the monologue, but Mr. K took out the word "menstruate" and made me say "see if my voice got deeper or not." Fine, I understand someone in that class might have been offended (yeah right, you should have seen my theater class last year). You don't enroll in a theater class with the expectation that someone is going to say "menstruated." Fine, I wasn't going to fight it. Then, this year, the murder mystery was student-written, as it always is, by Nicci and Kaley, both of whom are extremely intelligent, kind, good writers (sorry about my terrible parallelism), and opinionated (and I'm not???). Anyway, one of the lines was "How dare you metaphorically urinate all over this poem which was created solely out of love for you!" Evidently, when the assistant principal Ms. Jellander (oh boy, I've got a lot to say about her) was censoring the script, she stumbled across the word "urinate" and found it offensive. Hello?!? This is the same school where at pep rallies boys run around wearing skirts or nothing but Speedo's, and the word "urinate" is offensive?!? Well, the authors decided not to fight it, so that issue is dead in the water. Next topic, Comedy Sportz. CSz first of all, is about one of the most diverse group of kids doing improv. We've got everyone from people like myself, who represent the honors students, to Brian of the basketball team. No group lacks representation on the team. And, everyone likes each other. Well...no. There are some individuals who really dislike some particular individuals, and that's why there are politics on the team. I'm proud to say that there's not a single person on the team that I personally dislike. In the word's of G. W. Bush's speechwriters, "I'm a uniter, not a divider." (Sorry W, but it just doesn't work for you.) There's no racial, ethnic, religious, whatever animosity on the team. I like the Jews as well as the Christians (though the Jews as a whole make decidedly better latkes), the people of Asian descent as well of those of European descent as well as those of any continent I didn't mention descent, the blondes as well as the burnettes as well as the red heads as well as the people who dye their hair. And that's the general view of the entire team. So, we decided to do something a little special for our last game of the 2003 calendar year- a Holiday theme. We, unfortunately, made a small mistake. Instead of calling the theme "Christmas and Hanukkah," we called it "Christmas vs. Hanukkah." The Jews were going to be playing against the Christians and others. You have to realize, we like to feign competition, but really, there is no competition. Thus, it's impossible even to have Christmas vs. Hanukkah or Jews vs. Gentiles, or whatever, because THERE IS NO "VERSUS!" EVER! I do understand the principal's reaction when he heard of this, but Mr. Miesel (he and Jellander go well together-no brains and no tolerance) went way overboard. He said no Christmas vs. Hanukkah, no holiday theme whatsoever, and that he would cut the program if it happened again (or maybe if didn't happen again and he just felt like cutting it). I can only hope that Dr. Zimring, the district ass't. superintendent and parent of one of the CSz kids, would stop Miesel if he ever did try to cut CSz. As a side note, a little name for Miesel was going around backstage- Miesellini. Well, I hope he retires or moves to Siberia or something. In any case, he said we couldn't even wear yamulkes (those are the cool Jewish hats)! That is first of all not cool. Second, why didn't he say no Santa hats (which, incidentally, were worn)? Third, that's illegal! You can't prevent someone from wearing ethnic wear, even if you don't want anything to look holidayish! Then, what do we do with audience suggestions that have a holiday orientation? For example, during Four Rooms, the suggestions "Hebrew school" and "Santa's workshop" were offered. We can't ignore the holiday just because Miesellini wants it like the that. The team doesn't want it, and the audience sure as heck doesn't want it. The censorship at Agoura has gotten ridiculous!
So, what am I gonna do about it? Well, Mr. Busby, my history teacher, said that the district's censorship policy was "lowest common denominator," meaning that if ONE person is offended, it's censored out. How dumb! Of course, I need to research that myself, as I have to take Busby with a grain (or shaker) of salt. He's cool, but too arrogant to trust 100%. Anyway, I plan on arranging a meeting with Mrs. Finders, a LVUSD board member whom I think very highly of, to discuss the issue of censorship and the district's antiquated and ridiculous policy. I want to make reforms to the district and as I am one of the people primarily affected by the policy, there's no reason I shouldn't have my voice heard. In fact, I may make a little campaign out of this. I would have to try to get student council on my side. They have a powerful enough voice and I think they would be willing to help. Maybe, I could form a "Censorship Review" club whose sole purpose would be to review the district's censorship policy and attempt to make the board reform it. Call in the lawyers! Call in ACLU! Well, maybe no attorneys or ACLU; that's a bit too far. My dad, who I greatly admire and respect, says that what is said in a public high school should be appropriate for the public. Well, on one hand I agree. We shouldn't promote racial intolerance in a public setting, but we should have the brains to discriminate between bigotry and a little holiday fun... Enough ranting on the subject of censorship at AHS. Now it's time to rant about Agoura's lousy administration.
I want Capritto and Benioff back! They were the 2 ass't. principals replaced by Jackson and Jellander this year. Capritto I didn't know very well, but he was fair at least from what I heard. Benioff was extremely well liked around Agoura. He was easy-going and an excellent listener. AHS misses these two great AP's. Now, here's the current administration (no, I mean school administration, not Bush's admin. But that one's just as bad):
Jackson- haven't had the "pleasure" of meeting him (thank goodness!). He's old, which doesn't matter, but he seems to not have realized his advanced age. OK, so the guy's a kid at heart, but c'mon, he doesn't have to try to play basketball at pep rallies...
Ober- don't have much to say about her. She's in charge of the counseling department. The only problem I have with her is that she wouldn't let me get Algebra II out of the way at community college so I could take M.A. Honors, but that's the math department's policy, which is the district's policy, which is antiquated and also ridiculous. However, Ober is austere and taciturn. I don't feel comfortable in her office. It kind of feels like The Pit of Doom.
Jellander- stupid. What more can I say? She came to talk to my physiology class about sexual harassment and after talking for 5 minutes about how she wanted to meet all of us and be everyone's friend, she couldn't get past the first 3 letters of "sexual harassment" without laughing. Then, at every item that could be counted as harassment, she'd say in her annoyingly peppy, stereotypical cheerleader voice, "Well, I know you guys are such a good class [giggles], and you'd never do such a thing [of course not!, more giggles], but I have to tell you anyway. So, you can't call someone [pre-giggles] 'gay.' [at this point, she turns away to stop from laughing at the word]" How exhilarating.
Miesellini- short, Italian guy with a penchant for annoying the student body and getting teachers fired. Except Busby. He likes Busby because Busby is arrogant and smart, whereas he is just arrogant. Last year, he told Mr. Young, the new, young [pun not intended] band teacher to make a marching band. Mr. Young said no for several reasons. First, it's expensive and a waste of money for the students. Second, that would mean that Mr. Young would have to spend about 10 additional hours a week doing unpaid labor at practices, and he'd have to attend every single football game, which he would not be paid for. Third, the educational value of a marching band is almost nil, while a jazz band or a classical orchestra performs pieces with far greater musical value. Miesel doesn't listen- he just wants his fancy marching band. So, the principal takes it to the school board and somehow (maybe he paid off Busby to make his argument for him) he managed to hoodwink them into unanimously voting to fire Mr. Young (or rather, not rehire him for the next year). Miesel works for the improvement of one thing- the school's image. He doesn't care how much the students learn, and it doesn't matter to him if he's supporting the student body. All he wants to do is feed his incredibly large ego by improving the school's image. If the school looks good, he looks good. Sheesh! For more on Miesel, read the earlier paragraph about him and the holiday CSz game.
Basically, this is my declaration of... hostilities with the administration and the obsolete district policy. So, feel free to email me with your thoughts.
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
For anyone who hasn't seen "Dr. Strangelove," it's one of the greatest comedy noirs of all time. It's a Stanley Kubrick film, which should be enough to make you get off your tuchas right now and head on down to Blockbuster to rent it. It's part anti-war movie, part rodeo show, part repentant Nazi genius physicist biography. Anyway, I doubt very much you want to hear about Dr. S for the next 2 years, so I'll move on.
While I'm on the topic of leftist stuff (and Dr. S is for liberals and repentant conservatives only), I should talk about censorship. I hope you've all read Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," one of the best books against censorship. If you haven't, here's the gist: Books teach us to think different. We're unhappy because we think different. So, let's burn all the books and watch TV all day and not care about anything that is important such as love and benevolence, and then we'll be happy. Except, as soon as Guy Montag (the main character) realizes he isn't happy, he wants to read, and that's illegal, plus he's a fireman, which means his job is to burn books. So, he leaves society which is beginning WWIII, and he starts the long process of rebuilding. The End. Except it's not the end, because censorship is everywhere. Let's kill anything that isn't completely politically correct and then no one will be offended and everyone'll be happy. However, when we ignore the issues that make us different and unique, we ignore our humanity. We then notice the difference of others, and since the explanation behind those differences has been censored, we become nervous. "That's different, and I don't understand! And I'm scared of what I don't understand!" We can't bear not understanding, so we try to provide our own flawed reasonings. By human nature, our reasonings make us superior over the ones who are different. We then begin to hate. And then, we have the Inquisition, the Holocaust, the Crusades. Hitler was one of the most prominent burners of books before he began to burn the corpses of the victims of his death camps. When we refuse to listen, we are deaf. When we refuse to look, we are blind. When we refuse to touch, we are cold. Now, I'm about to seem like I'm contradicting myself, but if you read carefully, you'll see that I'm not. OK, here it goes. If we do not censor at all, then we must listen to those who preach genocide and hate. The Nazis burned books, but if we burn their books, are we any better than they are? So, censorship isn't completely evil, as it is often portrayed. It has its place, just not as a government mandated policy. We must be our own censors. We need to decide for ourselves what we choose to acknowledge and what we choose to disregard. YOU must search, and ultimately, you must choose your own viewpoint! "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -Voltaire
On that note, at my school, Agoura High, there's been a lot of problems recently with censorship. Interestingly enough, before all the problems began, the question was asked in the Written Word, the creative writing club, where should censorship end? How much should we censor and how much is too much? My ultimate conclusion was this: Nothing that has a purpose should be censored. So many movies, TV shows, and even novels these days are plagued with profanity, violence, and sex. Often, those elements are unnecessary. In the Matrix Reloaded, why was there that sex scene? No reason. What about the nudity in The Pawnbroker (an excellent Rod Steiger film about a Holocaust survivor)? There was nudity in that. But it had a function- to show the cruelty of the Holocaust. No, the nudity was necessary. Another example, Saving Private Ryan needed the violence, and Schindler's List also needed what it had. Yup, Spielberg is a great director who knows when to use drugs, violence, and sex, and when it's not needed. Censor the gratuitous, but not the purposeful. Do I seem to contradict what I said earlier about everyone being their own censor? Because I'm not. The whole necessary vs. unnecessary thing is where I draw the line as my own censor.
My first run-in with censorship actually took place last year. I was doing a monologue for theater class, and basically, the mother of the boy saying the monologue wanted to believe her son was a girl. One of the lines went something like this: "Sometimes I would lash out and say that I was a boy. My mother would respond that we shouldn't be hasty, and so we'd wait to see if I menstruated or not." It was one of the funniest lines in the monologue, but Mr. K took out the word "menstruate" and made me say "see if my voice got deeper or not." Fine, I understand someone in that class might have been offended (yeah right, you should have seen my theater class last year). You don't enroll in a theater class with the expectation that someone is going to say "menstruated." Fine, I wasn't going to fight it. Then, this year, the murder mystery was student-written, as it always is, by Nicci and Kaley, both of whom are extremely intelligent, kind, good writers (sorry about my terrible parallelism), and opinionated (and I'm not???). Anyway, one of the lines was "How dare you metaphorically urinate all over this poem which was created solely out of love for you!" Evidently, when the assistant principal Ms. Jellander (oh boy, I've got a lot to say about her) was censoring the script, she stumbled across the word "urinate" and found it offensive. Hello?!? This is the same school where at pep rallies boys run around wearing skirts or nothing but Speedo's, and the word "urinate" is offensive?!? Well, the authors decided not to fight it, so that issue is dead in the water. Next topic, Comedy Sportz. CSz first of all, is about one of the most diverse group of kids doing improv. We've got everyone from people like myself, who represent the honors students, to Brian of the basketball team. No group lacks representation on the team. And, everyone likes each other. Well...no. There are some individuals who really dislike some particular individuals, and that's why there are politics on the team. I'm proud to say that there's not a single person on the team that I personally dislike. In the word's of G. W. Bush's speechwriters, "I'm a uniter, not a divider." (Sorry W, but it just doesn't work for you.) There's no racial, ethnic, religious, whatever animosity on the team. I like the Jews as well as the Christians (though the Jews as a whole make decidedly better latkes), the people of Asian descent as well of those of European descent as well as those of any continent I didn't mention descent, the blondes as well as the burnettes as well as the red heads as well as the people who dye their hair. And that's the general view of the entire team. So, we decided to do something a little special for our last game of the 2003 calendar year- a Holiday theme. We, unfortunately, made a small mistake. Instead of calling the theme "Christmas and Hanukkah," we called it "Christmas vs. Hanukkah." The Jews were going to be playing against the Christians and others. You have to realize, we like to feign competition, but really, there is no competition. Thus, it's impossible even to have Christmas vs. Hanukkah or Jews vs. Gentiles, or whatever, because THERE IS NO "VERSUS!" EVER! I do understand the principal's reaction when he heard of this, but Mr. Miesel (he and Jellander go well together-no brains and no tolerance) went way overboard. He said no Christmas vs. Hanukkah, no holiday theme whatsoever, and that he would cut the program if it happened again (or maybe if didn't happen again and he just felt like cutting it). I can only hope that Dr. Zimring, the district ass't. superintendent and parent of one of the CSz kids, would stop Miesel if he ever did try to cut CSz. As a side note, a little name for Miesel was going around backstage- Miesellini. Well, I hope he retires or moves to Siberia or something. In any case, he said we couldn't even wear yamulkes (those are the cool Jewish hats)! That is first of all not cool. Second, why didn't he say no Santa hats (which, incidentally, were worn)? Third, that's illegal! You can't prevent someone from wearing ethnic wear, even if you don't want anything to look holidayish! Then, what do we do with audience suggestions that have a holiday orientation? For example, during Four Rooms, the suggestions "Hebrew school" and "Santa's workshop" were offered. We can't ignore the holiday just because Miesellini wants it like the that. The team doesn't want it, and the audience sure as heck doesn't want it. The censorship at Agoura has gotten ridiculous!
So, what am I gonna do about it? Well, Mr. Busby, my history teacher, said that the district's censorship policy was "lowest common denominator," meaning that if ONE person is offended, it's censored out. How dumb! Of course, I need to research that myself, as I have to take Busby with a grain (or shaker) of salt. He's cool, but too arrogant to trust 100%. Anyway, I plan on arranging a meeting with Mrs. Finders, a LVUSD board member whom I think very highly of, to discuss the issue of censorship and the district's antiquated and ridiculous policy. I want to make reforms to the district and as I am one of the people primarily affected by the policy, there's no reason I shouldn't have my voice heard. In fact, I may make a little campaign out of this. I would have to try to get student council on my side. They have a powerful enough voice and I think they would be willing to help. Maybe, I could form a "Censorship Review" club whose sole purpose would be to review the district's censorship policy and attempt to make the board reform it. Call in the lawyers! Call in ACLU! Well, maybe no attorneys or ACLU; that's a bit too far. My dad, who I greatly admire and respect, says that what is said in a public high school should be appropriate for the public. Well, on one hand I agree. We shouldn't promote racial intolerance in a public setting, but we should have the brains to discriminate between bigotry and a little holiday fun... Enough ranting on the subject of censorship at AHS. Now it's time to rant about Agoura's lousy administration.
I want Capritto and Benioff back! They were the 2 ass't. principals replaced by Jackson and Jellander this year. Capritto I didn't know very well, but he was fair at least from what I heard. Benioff was extremely well liked around Agoura. He was easy-going and an excellent listener. AHS misses these two great AP's. Now, here's the current administration (no, I mean school administration, not Bush's admin. But that one's just as bad):
Jackson- haven't had the "pleasure" of meeting him (thank goodness!). He's old, which doesn't matter, but he seems to not have realized his advanced age. OK, so the guy's a kid at heart, but c'mon, he doesn't have to try to play basketball at pep rallies...
Ober- don't have much to say about her. She's in charge of the counseling department. The only problem I have with her is that she wouldn't let me get Algebra II out of the way at community college so I could take M.A. Honors, but that's the math department's policy, which is the district's policy, which is antiquated and also ridiculous. However, Ober is austere and taciturn. I don't feel comfortable in her office. It kind of feels like The Pit of Doom.
Jellander- stupid. What more can I say? She came to talk to my physiology class about sexual harassment and after talking for 5 minutes about how she wanted to meet all of us and be everyone's friend, she couldn't get past the first 3 letters of "sexual harassment" without laughing. Then, at every item that could be counted as harassment, she'd say in her annoyingly peppy, stereotypical cheerleader voice, "Well, I know you guys are such a good class [giggles], and you'd never do such a thing [of course not!, more giggles], but I have to tell you anyway. So, you can't call someone [pre-giggles] 'gay.' [at this point, she turns away to stop from laughing at the word]" How exhilarating.
Miesellini- short, Italian guy with a penchant for annoying the student body and getting teachers fired. Except Busby. He likes Busby because Busby is arrogant and smart, whereas he is just arrogant. Last year, he told Mr. Young, the new, young [pun not intended] band teacher to make a marching band. Mr. Young said no for several reasons. First, it's expensive and a waste of money for the students. Second, that would mean that Mr. Young would have to spend about 10 additional hours a week doing unpaid labor at practices, and he'd have to attend every single football game, which he would not be paid for. Third, the educational value of a marching band is almost nil, while a jazz band or a classical orchestra performs pieces with far greater musical value. Miesel doesn't listen- he just wants his fancy marching band. So, the principal takes it to the school board and somehow (maybe he paid off Busby to make his argument for him) he managed to hoodwink them into unanimously voting to fire Mr. Young (or rather, not rehire him for the next year). Miesel works for the improvement of one thing- the school's image. He doesn't care how much the students learn, and it doesn't matter to him if he's supporting the student body. All he wants to do is feed his incredibly large ego by improving the school's image. If the school looks good, he looks good. Sheesh! For more on Miesel, read the earlier paragraph about him and the holiday CSz game.
Basically, this is my declaration of... hostilities with the administration and the obsolete district policy. So, feel free to email me with your thoughts.