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Finals, empty notebooks, stubby pencils, warm weather.
Once again, the school year is coming to a close. For underclassmen, it’s another year complete. For seniors, it means a new phase of life.
Think back to your first day of sophomore year, whether it was a year ago, or three. We on the Eyrie staff are probably like you— we are different people now than we were then.
Our hair is longer, our backpacks heavier, our minds maybe even wiser. We’re more easy-going, more social.
We’ve grown up and made friends. We’ve learned a lot, both in our educational and personal lives.
As one of our writers put it, “high school is a crash course for adulthood.”
For our underclassmen, adulthood still seems far away. But for our seniors, it seems strangely close. Suddenly, the seven-hour schedules are melting away and they will soon pursue their future careers, leaving childhood behind.
Our seniors hope to share some of the knowledge they learned throughout these years with you.
Lean on people when you need it. Swallow your pride, and ask for help. Realizing you can’t do everything by yourself is key to success.
Stop obsessing about how you look. After you realize it, it’s freeing—nobody really cares.
And most of all, be yourself. Then when you leave this school for the last time, you may actually be able to answer when someone asks, “Who are you?”
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by Ethan Beals
Every time I have written a column this year, it has in some way been related to the Internet. This may be a coincidence, or it may be on purpose, but nonetheless I continue to probe and explore the topic.
Access to the Internet is not physically limited in America, but there is the possibility that the content you see could eventually be censored.
The Internet is a regular part of most Americans’ lives. It is something that many of us feel entitled to have access to; however, this feeling of entitlement raises a few questions about the rights of Americans in regards to the Internet.
If the Internet is a tool that citizens can use to express opinions, does this mean that access is guaranteed by the First Amendment? I am doubtful that this argument would hold up in court. This, however, brings me to my next point.
Why is anyone concerned about having his or her Internet access limited? In America, most anyone can get access to the Internet, excluding extremely rural areas. Private corporations provide access to the Internet and this generally means that anyone can get the Internet if he pays the right price.
For those who can’t afford a computer, Internet services or even a cell phone, the only option is the library, and it is a good thing most city libraries provide free computer and Internet access.
Until the government seizes control of Internet providers, I have no fear that my “right” to the Internet is in danger. If you consider it, most everyone has access to the Internet. Students have access to the Internet in school, and the same for many employees at their jobs.
Even prisoners in America have access to the Internet. I want to meet the person in this nation who is worried about having anyone take away his or her Internet if prisoners are allowed to use it.
However, while I make the point that no one is taking away the Internet physically, there is censorship of the Internet, and this is more of a threat to one’s Internet use than anything else. Although prisoners can have e-mails and Facebooks, they cannot do much else.
In the U.K. and in Australia, there have been pushes recently for Internet censorship bills that essentially give the governments a complete filter over all content that gets fed into the nation. So essentially all that citizens would see online is what the government wants them to see.
This is similar to communist China’s policies when it comes to the Internet: very little access to content outside of China is given to its people and “big brother” monitors what goes out of the country, too. Is Internet censorship, or should I say content control, not a step towards a bigger government? The larger the government, the more control over its people. Censorship is essentially a step towards totalitarianism.
But right now we are in the clear. America has yet to pass, or seriously propose, an Internet censorship bill. I just feel bad for those blokes across the pond.
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by Trevor James
A short time ago, I logged on to my computer, went to Yahoo news (my home page) and saw what was to become
one of the few things in my life that actually made my jaw drop. But not in a good way.
The date was April 10, and Lech Kaczynski, the president of Poland, died tragically along with nearly 100 others in a plane crash.
On the day of such a terrible event involving someone of such importance, one would think that it is sure to make the top story on any given news site. But was it? Well, we live in 21st century America, so, of course not.
The top story read, and I kid you not, “Bieber unhappy with magazine cover.”
This story, involving the no-talent, annoying, teenage sensation Justin Bieber, was alongside the aforementioned story on a major news site, as if they were even close to the same level of importance.
Regardless of what you think about this “artist,” it is simply absurd that a teenage pop star would feel the need to complain about what he looked like on a major magazine cover, much less anyone’s compulsion to write about it.
Unfortunately, this occurrence isn’t just some lone needle lost in the haystack of American media. Every day, we see mundane actions and words spoken by celebrities blown up in the media being just as important as major events.
Additionally, it doesn’t help that we have such narrow attention spans. When the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti happened, everyone rushed down aid and relief to them as a gesture of goodwill. Obviously, they are still far away from full recovery, but I haven’t heard anything about them in weeks.
But don’t worry, the media outlets still have more than enough time to fill you in with up-to-date news on Lady Gaga’s “daring new outfit” or what the Kardashians and Hiltons have been up to lately.
Why do we obsess so much about the lives of celebrities? Are our own lives that unfulfilling? Do we need to watch it in order to distract ourselves from the real problems in the world, only because it’s so much more convenient to stay in the bliss of ignorance and apathy?
More to the point, are there some people who just plain refuse to care about others unless it involves their favorite actor? Chris Brown hitting Rihanna was probably the only attention that many people paid to domestic violence all year.
Remember all the hype that resulted after rapper Kanye West interrupted singer Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards? Amusing, yes, but for about a week solid, you couldn’t escape hearing about it. Even Barack Obama went so far as to publicly refer to West as a “jackass.”
I realize that the media does not ignore important events completely, thank goodness, but to treat them on the same level as we treat frivolous, tiny things about celebrities is a complete disgrace.
If we as a people ignore real news and issues in favor of irrelevant ones, we could very well become consumed by the gossip magazines and lose sight of things that need attention paid to them: war, poverty, disease, corruption, politics, destroyed homes and cities, etc.
So, the next time you’re on a news site and see the latest “OMG” moments involving Britney Spears or the guys from Twilight, scroll down the page a bit. You might see something that actually matters.
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by Colin Karr
Recently, Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Jackson, Miss., made the unfair, unjustified statement that it would forbid letting 18-year-old, homosexual student Constance McMillen attend her senior prom.
This is just because she would be attending with her female, sophomore date while McMillen wore a tuxedo because the school requires that dates to prom be of the opposite sex.
McMillen took the school to court because of this, and Glen H. Davidson, the judge who heard the case, ruled that the school could not ban McMillen from attending. Instead of complying with this, the school decided to simply cancel the entire event.
According to an article in the Huffington Post, the school stated that it was cancelling prom “due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events.”
The school did, however, encourage parents of students to host a different prom for the students while school officials would chaperone the new prom.
In a recent article in USA Today, McMillen stated, “that’s really messed up because the message they are sending is that if they have to let gay people go to prom that they are not going to have one. A bunch of kids at school are really going to hate me for this.”
Unfortunately, she did end up getting a very negative response.
McMillen was led, along with six other students, including two with learning disabilities, to a “decoy prom” while the rest of the school went to a separate prom organized by parents.
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard of something as disrespectful, cowardly and prejudiced as this.
Has society really sunk back to the low level it was at during and before the Civil Rights Movement?
Now, I’m not necessarily “pro-gay” or “anti-gay,” but if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s when people with power discriminate against those who probably already face a lot of bigotry and don’t have the power to fight back.
McMillen was probably already feeling miserable due to all the other students being angry with her for being the reason that prom was cancelled, and the fact that McMillen was led to a “fake prom” probably didn’t make her feel much better.
The school claimed that it was cancelling prom because of distractions to the educational process, and this is one of the most absurd statements I’ve ever heard.
Dances aren’t supposed to be educational; they’re supposed to be fun, and the fact that this school has to lie, using pathetic excuses in an effort to keep McMillen and her date away from their prom, reminds me of those who were racist in the time of the Civil Rights Movement.
Those who gave ridiculous excuses to keep African-Americans from having the full rights of white people are extremely similar to those in charge of this high school.
Stereotyping is not dead yet. There are still civil rights issues that have yet to be resolved.
Maybe the bigotry against homosexuals is not as apparent as the racism issue back then, but it is just as serious.
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