Wise Crack

WISE CRACK IOWA CITY WEST HIGH SCHOOL | 2901 MELROSE AVE | IOWA CITY, IA | ISSUE 1 | JUNE 8 2021

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Andy Ham, editor-in-chief, is a fresh-

Athena Wu, artist and designer, is a

man at West High School. They hope

freshman at West High School. She

to help people as a career, either

enjoys drawing, reading, and listen-

small-scale like a teacher, or large-

ing to bizarre podcasts.

scale as perhaps even a lawyer.

Rawan Ibrahim, photographer, is a

Abby Kacmarynski, photographer

freshman at West High School. She

and designer, is a freshman at West

likes to take pictures, travel, and go

High School. She enjoys reading,

on long bike rides during summer.

taking pictures, and traveling.

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WISE CRACK REVIEWS

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PHOTO ESSAY

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COVER STORY

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COMICS

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LETTER FROM THE Andy Ham, Editor in Chief Thank you for picking up this edition of Wise Crack Magazine.

Although it covers all sorts of topics, this issue is a perfect encapsulation of life during May and June 2021: appreciation of what we have, social justice, and education. And, although this entire issue could have been about the pandemic we’ve all been struggling with, the magazine team and I made a conscious effort to put the obvious aside and focus on newer things. Everything about the world we live in can be a story, especially the newer

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EDITOR

things, and we wanted to tell stories not everyone has told yet.

Thank you to the team, who has worked weekends, after hours, and discussed and worked over many hours of the day and night.

If it weren’t for the photographers, artists, editors, and designers, none of this message would have been received by you. I hope you enjoy this new magazine, Wise Crack.

-Andy

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Rawan Ibrahim Old Capitol Museum, located in the heart of downtown Iowa City, is a museum with great exhibits surrounded by a great piece of land that can be good for a good sunny day out on a picnic.

Rawan Ibrahim The Iowa Avenue Bridge, located near the Riverfront Crossing Park, is a river that is great for fishing.

Abby Kacmarynski Linder Point, near Sugarbottom, is a great place to go hiking. The trails wind around a large lake in which you can fish or go boating. The main trail is quite long, but you can turn back at any point to make a shorter hike.

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Abby Kacmarynski Ryerson’s Woods, located next to the Iowa City Fairgrounds, is a nice place to go for a short hike in the woods.

Abby Kacmarynski Terry Trueblood Recreation Area, on the outskirts of Iowa City, is a lake with a nice beach and a small island.

Andy Ham Kent Park near Tiffin, Iowa is a stunning place to visit. In this lovely area, you can learn about the indigenous wildlife of the region by reading from their educational signs, looking at the drawings of these creatures, or even seeing them with your own eyes via the binoculars provided at the park.

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Abby Kacmarynski The trail at Ryerson’s Woods is only about a mile long, with lots of vegetation and wildlife.

Abby Kacmarynski At Terry Trueblood Recreation Area, there are pedal boats, kayaks, and stand-up paddleboarding, as well as other activities.

Andy Ham Even the roads in Kent Park are beautiful. On a warm Sunday afternoon, a deer was spotted crossing the winding road of the park. Although the encounter was only a few seconds long, it was a highlight of the visit.

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Diverse Media

By: Andy Ham, Athena Wu, Rawan Ibrahim

There has been an obvious push for diversity and representation in all forms of media. And that’s certaintly a good thing: we are seeing more people of all races, sexualities, gender identities, etc. In books. These are all valueable things for people: you can see yourself in these stories after years of only seeing white men in anything other than a kitchen, and you can learn from others. However, all too often we forgot that America is the only human expierience. There’s an entire world out there, all with their own languages, cultures, and media. We’ve reviewed a few diverse and international things here to widen all of our perspectives.

Brown Girl Dreaming By Jacqueline Woodson One book that is a must-read for all students is Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. This topical memoir not only is a beautiful story, but also addresses how racism in America affected Woodson’s childhood. Woodson describes her life growing up with her grandparents in the 1960’s south, from learning to read to her grandfather’s smoking to maintaining her hair. This verse-structured book contains themes of family, love, and growing up, some themes that we all relate to at one point in our lives. Although the book may seem big, it’s a fast read that pulls you right into the story. The book truly is for all audiences and can be found at your local or school library.

Just Mercy By Bryan Stevenson Out of all the books that may seem too gut-wrenching, this book stands as one of the best, most important books to read at this time. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson delves into the cases of convicts on death row, and the challenges those people had. Having personal experience as an attorney in these cases Stevenson tells the cases as they were, providing both sides of the story and context into these convicts’ personalities. And one thing you may quickly realize is that these convicts deserve to live, deserve humanity. And although you may not expect it, you’ll feel for them or even know people similar to them. This book gives a fascinating insight into one of the country’s worst legal act, capital punishment, and asks you one question: are you only worth your worst mistake?

“File:2018-us-nationalbookfestival-jacqueline-woodson.jpg” by Fuzheado is licensed with CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 “Bryan Stevenson” by pennstatenews is licensed with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

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Blue Creek Town (Lanxizhen) By MTJJ This is an ongoing chinese webcomic that is the prequel to the flash animation series Legend of Luo Xiao Hei. Lanxi Zhen tells the story of a young girl's story of growing up in a war-torn ancient China. As a reimagining of Chinese mythology, it uses the existence of various monsters, demons, gods alongside warring humans, to masterfully ask questions about morality and prejudice. The protagonist is just as new to this strange magical world as we are. Despite our naivete, neither of us are ever told what is right, and instead are allowed to stew with both sides of complex issues presented. The artstyle is simplified, but not overly so, letting serious moments impact and still allowing for comedy. Although elements of the setting may be unfamiliar at first, the magic system is still explained quite well. This comic stands alone and can be enjoyed by anyone.

Miracle In Cell No.7 Directed By Mehmet Ada Öztekin A great emotional turkish film that is filled with tragedies, sadness, and success is the movie Miracle In Cell No.7. This movie was released on October 9, 2019 and the main actors are Aras İynemli who plays the role of Memo and Nisa Aksongur who plays the daughter role of Ova. Miracle In Cell No.7 is a movie that was inspired by the South Korean movie which also has the same name. To sum it up, the movie is about a father Memo and his daughter Ova. Memo has an intellectual disability which is said to make him act the same age as Ova. Memo is basically jailed for the murder of a commander’s child’s death.

He has to prove his innocence before they declare him as guilty. The acting in this movie is unbelievably good. The way everything was executed was perfect. There’s lots of tears in this movie which makes it so believable and emotional.

During watching this movie I felt as if I was living that experience whether I was living as the main character or the audience. After watching the movie I felt relieved of how the situation ended. Overall, I loved this film because of the story that was told in it. I would like however if they explained things in some scenes more. If you’re someone who loves emotional movies and likes to get a good cry in the movie you’re watching then I would definitely recommend this movie to you. In conclusion, this movie is good for people that would like more of an emotional movie rather than entertaining.

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Clashing Sides By: Andy Ham

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If you’ve been following some of the news in social media recently, you may have heard about current tensions among Israelis and Palestinians. You may have been wondering what led to this level of violence, or why you haven’t seen anything leading up to this. This can be the case for many global issues, but why? In the United States, we tend to only learn about our own problems, rather than being wellrounded in the world’s issues. How can we change this? By learning about important issues ourselves.

So, what is happening among Israel and Palestine?

It’s complicated, so the situation will be divided into two parts, the history and the current situation. This

friction started in the late 19th century, when Jewish people began to flee from the anti-semetic Russian Empire and Romania. For a while, Jews and Palestinians seemed to get along, but soon after, Jewish nationalism in Palestine, called Zionism, began.

Jews wanted a safe haven, and Palestine seemed to be a great place. However, it was around the 1910s when Britain had promised the land not only to the Zionists, but to Mecca and to themselves.

Shortly after the first world war, Britain had taken over ruling Palestine until the state seemed able to rule itself, and sequentially separated Palestinians, Jews, and Christians in the area, creating a more tense situation through evicting Palestinians from their homes and increasing the divide between the nations. Consequently, in 1936, some Arab fighters acted against British rule, wanting to be their own state. This act had caused the British to respond with restricted Jewish access to Palestine, and calling for a joint area for both nations.

After the second world war and the Holocaust, however, the situation became even more complex as the newly instituted United Nations declared the Jewish state of Israel as part of Palestine. The UN had made a map for the borders of Israel to be.

Israeli Jews accepted these borders, but Palestinian Arabs rejected it, since such borders did not divide the land equally. Soon after, Israel declared its independence, and the first Arab-Israeli war began, causing over a half million Palestinians to flee. Tensions rose for twenty years until the Six-Day War in 1967 began. Israel won the short battle and took over the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem. After this point, the situation becomes much more complicated. Soon, Israel and Palestine were after each other’s throats, with attacks at the Olympics, during the other’s important holidays, and more. It was at this point in 1978 that the two nations met at Camp David in Maryland and came to an agreement. However, such agreements didn’t last too long, as in the same year an Israeli bus was attacked and the Israelis responded with more military action. Luckily, Israel backed Job No.: 005712

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down due to severe international pressure. But, this didn’t stop the intense feud. The United Nations continued to attempt at resolving this issue for years, by declaring Israel-occupied territories illegal and calling on other countries not to provide aid to Israeli settlements in Arab territories. But even still, push came to shove, and the issue remained.

The first Intifada, meaning uprising, began in December 1987, and ended in September 1993. This was caused by a settlement construction in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, two Israeli settlements deemed illegal by the UN. This rose the tensions until December when a Palestinian van was struck by Israelis, causing Palestinians to finally revolt. Within the first year, most of the violence of this era had occurred, and by 1993, nearly 2,000 deaths were caused by the Intifada, with Palestinians being killed more than Israelis by 3:1. Peace was eventually sought out with the help of nations such as the US, but for years after violence struck the two communities with each nation trying to assert dominance over the other and Israel taking over more and more land. In October of 2000, another Intifada began with over 4,000 casualties. The Intifada ended in 2005 with Israel continuing its settlement construction and taking over Gaza in 2007. Peace talks over the years have continued to occur, but tension between the two nations is still strong.

So, what’s going on now? After over a century of difficulty, violence began due to the increased attempt of Israelis evicting Palestinians from their homes. In 2020 alone, according to Amnesty International, over a thousand Palestinians were displaced by Israeli forces demolishing Palestinian buildings and homes. What’s more, although making up about 20% of the state’s population, Palestinian-ruled parts of city governments received less than 2% of city government budgeting.

One of the last straws was Israeli police attacking Palestinians during their worshipping at al-Aqsa Mosque.

This quickly escalated as both parties responded with violence greater than the other’s.

One thing to keep in mind is that Israel has much more support from other countries, including support from

the US, and much more weapons than Palestine does. However, Palestine has begun to be able to fight back more, with protest group Hamas being able to have access to weapons they may need.

But, Israel has another advantage: the Iron Dome.

In service since 2011, Israel’s Iron Dome intercepts air missiles and destroys them. Therefore, Israel still has most of an upper hand.

President Biden spoke with the president of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for the end of attacks, and soon, Biden announced that both parties have agreed to a cease-fire. However, cease-fires can be very delicate and temporary, so this isn’t quite the end. Many, many people have suffered greatly by this battle, but how have we not known about this as students and citizens of the world?

One of our staffers, Rawan Ibrahim, provided some insight to a perspective the world must hear. One of Ibrahim’s first objections to this struggle is the use of the term “conflict” that much of the media uses for

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this issue. “I personally wouldn’t call it a conflict, because one side is causing a lot more problems to the other side.” Ibrahim explained, “I would most definetely call it a genocide, since Palestenians are being forced out of their own homes and getting killed… Palestenians are being forced out of their own homes and [are being] killed for just being Palestinian.” When asked about if this issue is well-known, Ibrahim replied, “About a month ago is when I saw the social media start to talk about it more and that is when I found out about the situation. But now if you look on social media you can see that barely anybody is spreading awareness about it.” Ibrahim continued, “I think most people took the situation as a “trend” and that’s why they were spreading awareness. But this is most definitely not a trend and should not be treated as one because people are losing their lives to this.”

One way we can all help the people of Palestine and Israel is to contact our congress representatives to ask

“ ‘I would most definetely call it a genocide, since Palestenians are being forced out of their own homes and getting killed.’ ” - Rawan Ibrahim ‘24

for their assistance in helping the cause, and write letters to newspapers, corporations, and others, calling for peace. But, one of the best ways to help is to learn more about this complex issue. “The only people who I’ve seen spread awareness about the situation are muslims mostly.

You don’t need to be muslim to stand out and spread awarness about the situation, you just need to be human... take the time to educate yourself... then spread awareness,” Ibrahim added. The more we know, the better we can help.

“You don’t need to be muslim to stand out and spread awarness about the situation, you just need to be human.”

-Rawan Ibrahim ‘24 Job No.: 005712

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