Issue 2 (2014-2015)

SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL

UNLASA BUT NOT UNEVENTFUL

The LBJ DJ Club plays at the McCallum pep rally. The club got their start DJ-ing in the cafeteria during lunch at the end of last year “We were out there just to like, entertain the school,” LBJ senior Bryson Williams said.

“We did it just so people could enjoy music.”

LASA Model UN hosted its first conference on Nov. 1.“Doing a Model UN conference is not a novel thing but we had been interested in hosting one for two years,” LASA senior Megha Arora said. “But because we really wanted to further the Model UN program here we decided to take on the challenge.”

see page 7

see page 14

GUNS, FLAGS AND THE RETURN OF PAPER JAG The Liberator Commentary Editor Basab Ghatak-Roy joined the LBJ Colorguard for a morning practice to get an insude look at what it takes to be a member of the LBJ Colorguard crew.

see page 10

L I B E R A L A R T S A N D S C I E N C E A C A D E M Y, LY N D O N B A I N E S J O H N S O N H I G H S C H O O L S

Nov. 7, 2014

Volume 41

Issue 2

7309 Lazy Creek Drive, Austin, Texas 78724

Infectious hysteria

Recent Ebola outbreaks in West Africa and subsequent mistakes made in attempts to control the disease lead to unwaranted local, international panic Eliza Cain & Sesha McMinn

graphic by Abby Kappelman

News Editors

We “r-nought” in trouble

The basic reproductive number, or r-nought value (R0), is a measure used in epidemieolgy to show the number of subsequent cases one infection will generate during its infectious period. In the case of Ebola, one infection could result in two following infections.

R0 information courtesy CDC, WHO and studies by Nishiura, Wallinga and Mills

The recent Ebola virus epidemic has caused concern and at times panic in the public sphere.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website, there are currently about 13,703 reported cases of Ebola throughout Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria, as well as 4,922 reported deaths. Three confirmed cases in Dallas first caught the media’s attention in September and caused many to fear a potential outbreak across the United States.

However, press officer for the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) Chris Van Deusen said the public has no reason to worry.

“It’s important that people realize that...if you have not come in direct contact with someone with Ebola, which is three specific people right now, then you are at no risk,” Van Deusen said. “So, while people should be aware, and that’s what we do, we inform about the risks that are out there and [if people] should be concerned, there is not a reason to panic.”

Mistakes on the part of the CDC and medical facilities have led to increased anxiety about the disease. For example, the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas released Thomas Duncan, the first Ebola case in the United States, from the hospital despite the fact he was showing symptoms of the disease.

But according to Van Deusen, medical centers have improved the way they handle Ebola cases.

“There are a lot of factors that determine mortality, whether someone will recover, but one of the most important is catching the disease early and starting treatment as early as possible,” Van Deusen said.

“We have been able to do that with the two subsequent cases [in Dallas], and we believe through our health monitoring and contact tracing, we may have identified other people who may have been exposed and they are

being watched in case they do show signs of the disease.”

LASA science teacher David Journeay said that the CDC has been checking people leaving West Africa for a fever. However, fevers will only be present if the person is already showing symptoms of Ebola. “[If] you have someone who is already infected with the virus and they are in day 14 since they were infected, they probably are not going to have symptoms,” Journeay said. “So they are going to be out there doing their regular thing and it would be very very difficult to [isolate everybody] who went into any of those African countries or who have had contact with anybody with this particular disease.”

Contrary to some of the hype the media has created, Van Deusen said there is a very low potential of the virus becoming widespread in the US. He said TDSHS quickly identified the people who came into contact with Duncan, and they have since passed the 21 day mark of the maximum incubation period for Ebola.

“We continue to monitor health care workers who cared for that first patient in the hospital,” Van Deusen said. “Of course, as you know, two of those health care workers became infected themselves and CDC released new guidelines for health care workers on Ebola: how to handle the situation and what kind of protective gear to wear... so at this point there is not a general concern for the community.”

LBJ nurse Jan Sokol shared this opinion. She said she feels there is a very low risk for anyone living in Austin to get Ebola, especially considering that the virus is not airborne but is only spread through bodily fluids.

“I’m not scared,” Sokol said. “We haven’t had any cases in Austin. Probably, if we lived up in the Dallas area when they were having [Ebola], I might have been a little concerned if I was a school nurse in Dallas. But right now, here in Austin, we haven’t had any word of anyone here having it, so I feel pretty good. We are all very aware of it.

So that’s the big thing.”

Sokol, like all nurses working at schools in the Austin Independent School District (AISD), was hired by Seton Hospital. She said the hospital provided AISD nurses with an instructional video on how to handle Ebola as well as basic gown and mask gear, but she doesn’t think she’ll need more than that.

“The thing that people don’t seem to be getting is that unless I had a student come in that threw up on me, and I got that [vomit] on me, then students won’t be exposed [to the virus],” Sokol said. “I mean, they can even be running some kind of fever, but as long as I’m not exposed to their body fluids, that’s the big thing, the body fluids are very important.”

Laura Cotton, the Clinical Manager for AISD Student Health Services, said if a student simply has a fever and does not show other Ebola symptoms, they can return to school after a 24 hour period of being fever free. But, she said nurses do have a plan in place in the event that there see Hysteria on page 6

Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers establishes LBJ chapter Sammy Jarrar

Editor-in-Chief In order to increase interest among youth in STEM fields, specifically engineering, the University of Texas Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) has begun implementing high school outreach programs across the city. The program gives students opportunities for activities dealing with community service, professional development and social and technical competitions. LBJ parent support specialist Jose Carrasco has been working with SHPE Junior Director Hugo Landaverde in order to kickstart the club at LBJ. “The SHPE Jr. Program was started at LBJ because of the connection between Mr. Villavicencio, an LBJ engineering teacher, and the Austin Society of Hispanic Professional Engineer chapter,” Landaverde said. “From this, we noticed there was a big opportunity to assist an

underserved community, especially in education. This was the reason why we have continually been part of the Noche De Ciencias and Family Science Night outreach event at LBJ. In addition, we noticed we could have even more of an impact by establishing a SHPE Jr. chapter and connect with students on a year-round basis.”

The SHPE Jr. Chapter Program works to support middle and high school students who face educational obstacles.

According to Landaverde, the program is looking to expand more into the community.

“So of course the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers starts from the professional level down to the college level,” Landaverde said. “This year what we’re trying to do is to go down to the high school levels and promote with bigger efforts. Not only are we involved with the chapter on an individual basis we’ve also hosted lots of community service events.”

The first community service event held by the club was

an cleanup jointly organized by Carrasco and Landaverde at the Dias De Los Muertos tailgate at the LBJ vs. Lanier football game on Oct. 30. At the tailgate, SHPE Jr. members promoted the club, raffled off Circuit of the Americas tickets and cleaned up the surrounding area.

“Mainly we do volunteer work, so we like to help around the community and build on the community around us. We also help the school with volunteer events,” said LBJ senior and president of the LBJ’s SHPE Jr. chapter Pedro Ramos.

“Another goal is [to] let people know that engineering is a big thing and get people involved in engineering.”

LBJ Engineering Instructor and SHPE Jr. chapter mentor Victor Villavicencio is in charge of recruiting students to join the club as well as with providing members with materials and equipment. Using the equipment to build and fix things in the community, Villavicencio said he hopes to gather interest among LBJ students.

“The role [of SHPE] is to try to get interest in building see SHPE on page 6

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

STAFF STANCE

EXECUTIVE BOARD Adviser Editors-in-Chief

Kim Katopodis Sammy Jarrar Sam Zern

EDITORIAL BOARD Business Editor

Chris Jones

Commentary Editors News Editors

Basab Ghatak-Roy Audrey Halbrook Eliza Cain Sesha McMinn

Life and Feature Editors Sports Editors

Chloe Edmiston Logan Kramer Meagen Allgood Robin Daemmrich

Entertainment Editors

Zia Lyle Surya Milner

Graphics Editor

Abby Kappelman

Web Editors

Caitlin Anderson Willow Higgins Frankie Marchan

STAFFERS Chelsea Banawis, Roxy Bonafont, Mason Crowell, Nurit Elber, Alex Friedman, Grace Fullerton, Mary Louise Gilburg, Gil Johnson, Aryaman Lamsal, Olivia Lee, Ana Lopez, Hannah Marks, Meris McHaney, Victoria Mycue, Carter Pace, Alex Pasch, Oliver Powers, Isabel Saralegui

Editorial Policy Responsibilities of a Free Student Press: Serving the primary communication link within the Liberal Arts and Science Academy and Lyndon Baines Johnson High Schools and between the school and the local community, this newspaper accepts the responsibilities inherent in being a free press. The Liberator staff strives to produce a professional-quality publication that follows the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists. The objective is to print the news in a fair and objective way with the utmost regard for integrity.

Editorial Content: 1. The students on The Liberator staff will print articles which have been researched to the best of their ability to obtain most complete information.

2. The information will be presented in an objective, truthful and fair manner.

3. When personal commentary is given it will be in good taste on issues that have been researched, analyzed and where expert opinion has been sought, and then presented with the best ability of the writer. In addition, all opinion or commentary will be clearly labeled as so.

4. No material which is obscene, libelous or that will cause an immaterial and substantial disruption of the school day, according to accepted legal definitions, will be printed.

The Editorial Boards and its Functions: The Liberator staff will be governed by an editorial board comprised of the following individuals: editors-in-chief, section editors and the business manager.

The Editorial board will: 1. Determine the content of the publication (with input from other staff members).

2. Stress the editorial policy.

3. Ensure the accuracy of the publication.

4. Address disciplinary or other inappropriate behavior of staff.

5. Vote on removal of staff members.

6. Change or add policy as necessary with three of four board members voting favorably.

Viewpoints: Printed material which is a view of a staff member or a contributing writer will be labeled as such. These views are not intended to reflect the view of the administration of Liberal Arts and Science Academy and Lyndon Baines Johnson High Schools nor the School Board of the Austin Independent School District. Viewpoints will be given in two areas in the newspaper.

Editorials: These will be determined by the staff consensus. The editorial will be unsigned and will represent the viewpoint of the publication.

Letters to the Editor: Letters to the Editor are accepted for topics of general interest to the readership of the newspaper.

Letters must be submitted typed or neatly printed in ink and must have the signature of the writer and the writer’s grade level. Editors reserve the right to determine which issue the letter goes in, with every effort made to print the letter as soon as possible. The editors also reserve the right to edit the letter for grammar, length and repetition.

Non-Staff Contributors: Bylined contributions are welcome.

Correction of Errors: The staff makes every effort to print accurate information. In the case of errors, a written correction will be made in the following issue of the newspaper.

Sources: In general, no anonymous sources will be used in reporting. Sources from within the school, as well as those not connected with the school, will be used. Under no circumstances will gifts, including coupons, etc., be accepted by the staff members from sources or advertisers.

Note: The Liberator is an open forum.

The staff thanks: Chris Buffum-Robbins, Parul Desai

Media sensationalism on Ebola dominates headlines, retracts from journalistic integrity and society Remember the West Nile Virus? Swine Flu? Quick, look behind you, it’s Kony 2012! The pattern made clear by so many of the headlines is the same as in the past Ebola outbreaks, another highly contagious symptom of the disease itself: media-induced hysteria.

A trending news topic on Yahoo early in October was “Ebola in Boston.” The natural first reaction was that Ebola had spread to a new area of the United States and the outbreak was strengthening in severity. Upon further investigation- i.e. clicking on the hyperlink one would find the headline: “Ebola in Boston? No, man doesn’t appear to have deadly disease.” Such headlines only further perpetuate the fear of this disease and make it out to be much more contagious and serious than it truly is, at the cost of journalistic integrity and the mental health of society as a whole.

In the past, message boards filled up with news of the disease and, as Ebola spread throughoutthe Congo, hysteria plagued the United States and Europe.

Journalists, eager to profit off of this new obsession, laid by the graves of the dead and barged into the hospitals where people were being treated, infringing on privacy whilst endangering the public as a whole. They inhibited the work of the officials and sent their readers more images of the new threat to civilization. Journalists and civilians alike were calling the disease “nature’s revenge”: the earth’s attempt to wipe out the human race.

The once esteemed Texas Presbyterian Hospital is now being called the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak by the media. People who once flocked to the hospital for its treatments fear that its practices are not safe and that nurses dealing with them may be carrying the virus. When trying to pinpoint what went wrong at the hospital, officials found that the nurses who contracted the disease had broken basic protocol. In order to ensure they didn’t catch the disease, they put on not only one pair of gloves, but three or four. This malpractice, rather than protect them to a greater extent as they thought it would, made it more difficult for the gloves to be removed and they, like the doctors whose scalpels had slipped, found themselves similarly riddled with the deadly disease.

We, The Liberator, believe that the disgusting emphasis on yellow journalism and eye catching tabloids has proved

to be a detriment to the media, and society as a whole. We have been trained to click on eye catching news, and keep up to date on the latest celebrity news. Part of this stems from our own insecurities as a people, and part of it stems through the media’s grasp for profit and their pursuit of influence; the business behind the media, not the pursuit of spreading helpful information. Through our own lack of attention and need for quick entertainment over substantial news, we have driven today’s journalism to digress into a petty shouting match for attention at the cost of the true purpose of the media: to facilitate education, enlightenment, and the spread of knowledge to society as a whole. As a result, despite more connectedness around the world through the media, the information spread between the people has become harkened back to the inaccuracies of olden times. In fact, it’s become worse.

The harsh reality of the situation is that the flu kills more than five times the number of people that Ebola does each year. The disease is also one that isn’t highly contagious: it isn’t airborne and one must come into contact with the bodily fluids of another person in order to contract the disease. In addition to being difficult to transmit and contract, the problem is more relevant in countries where the health infrastructure is almost non-existent such as in Africa, where we have seen such severe epidemics. This is because their an hospitals lack the means to properly pelm p a

by K care for and sanitize items used regularly, y Ab art b such as needles. But in a country like the United States, where we have governmental agencies, such as the CDC, and highly advanced hospitals and technologies, the matter of containment and the likelihood of contracting Ebola are not anywhere as serious as they are in less developed countries. The simple fact of the matter is that you are more likely to die from a shark gnawing at you leg while a bee stings you to death.

We aren’t saying to stop reporting on Ebola, West Nile Virus, or even the lives of celebrities and political figures entirely. These are all important aspects of today’s society, but they must allotted the attention that they deserve. We are merely meaning to stress the importance of accurate journalism, and how it has become skewed today, at the cost of good business for big papers. Be aware of current issues, just in the scope that they are relevant in, this will make you a better rounded person, and a beneficial member of society.

liberated minds speak

Does the media cause more fear of Ebola and other diseases than is necessary?

Jackson Roberts

Heissem Dickson

i think that the media thrives off a fear factor in the nation and they are using that to their advantage and it’s a disease that is very frightening but can be handled with the right precautions that the media isn’t portraying that as well as they should.

it’s the news job to overhype and get people thinking about it more.

So they are just doing their job, it’s nothing we should be scared about, it’s just their job to make us vulnerable in certain ways.

LASA sophomore

LBJ junior

Amanda Curry

Nikki Krebs

I feel like they are kind of making it into an “it’s gonna kill us all” situation when really the doctors have it under control. Kind of as if the media is trying to scare everyone.

I do think it is at a level being over hyped, because I do think it is a big deal but in America, it is a lot less concerning than in Africa, because we have all the health care.

LBJ freshman

LASA senior

End of six weeks overload

A-B schedule causes confusion

Dear Editor,

Dear Editor,

Teachers who teach different subjects to the same grade level should communicate more so students don’t get bogged down with a lot of projects at the end of the six weeks.

I don’t like the A-B block schedule. I’d prefer to have all of my classes everyday, becuase it’s confusing how the classes are split up and the weeks aren’t always even.

- LBJ freshman Tasia Morris

- LASA sophomore Cameron Wynn

Policy challenges responsibility Dear Editor, Have an opinion about a new school policy? Have a bone to pick with something the Liberator has published? Anything else on your mind? Write us a letter and drop it off in room 265 or in the boxes in the school offices.

I don’t like the disciplinary policy at LBJ. My parents are called every time I am late to class, and I think that I am responsible enough to handle the issues on my own.

- LBJ junior Bre Pickens

Trashcans limit mobility Dear Editor, The trashcans need to be more strategically placed. I am either walking around like a garbage man with all my trash from lunch or I’m pressed up against the wall trying not to get run over by the traffic that is forced to move around them in the hallways.

- LASA senior Anna Blankenship

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

Running [for the] water Gazelle Foundation negates true purpose of race

Cold water sloshed onto my Chaco’d feet and I instinctively stepped back, my arms snapping to my sides and away from the snatching hand.

Over Abby Kappelman the cheers and Graphics Editor shouts of the people around me, I heard a gasping voice say, “Thank you,” before the person disappeared from sight.

It was just past 8a.m., I was wearing a bright orange t-shirt over my jacket and I was volunteering at the Run for the Water hosted by the Gazelle Foundation. I had woken up that morning excited to volunteer for the race. Races are my favorite events to volunteer at, not only because I love running myself, but because I think they form the volunteering trifecta: challenging, charitable and memorable. But it wasn’t the challenging or memorable act of running the 10-mile course that was the most significant element of the Run for the Water. Instead, it was the fact that every registered runner signified the gift of a life of clean drinking water for one Burundian.

I consider myself a world citizen and an individual committed to making a positive difference around me, on both a local and international scale. Even playing a little part in such an endeavor means a lot to me.

Though it was just handing out water, I loved knowing that I was improving runners’ mornings. My station six group was told so, and often. Our cheers, chants and large smiles (even so early in the morning) kept many a runner motivated and on their feet after passing us at mile 7.3. “If this were a test, you’d have passed,” we jokingly yelled, referring to the 10-mile total course. “You look great! I love it!”

Despite the serious work at hand – I figured

out how to hold eight cups in my hands at a time while darting between runners to cross the road – my fellow volunteers and I had a lot of fun. However, our primary task was of course to hand out water, and we devoted ourselves to this task. We experimented with various ways of holding the small paper cups to optimize the water that was actually transferred to runners as they would run by, arms flailing for a cup. Well-aware of the goal of the run, which was to raise awareness for water scarcity and provide water for those in need, we tried to minimize the water that was wasted at our station. I jokingly referred to our commitment to the perfect pass-off as my “No-Spill Initiative.”

Once the race ended, a truck pulled up to help us break down the station, and we loaded tables and trash cans into the bed of the vehicle. But the shock came when the water cooler, a large blue tank on a stand, wasn’t carted away half-full. Instead, one of the adult volunteers simply opened the spout and let the water rush out, draining it onto the road and down the street. I was appalled.

This was the Run for the Water, and yet there we were, wasting gallons and gallons of what thousands of people just half an hour ago had put their feet to pavement for. I had joked about my “No-Spill Initiative,” but in reality I couldn’t believe that the Gazelle Foundation had hypocritically overlooked this essential aspect of their cause. I’m sure that every runner actually equaled one lifetime of water in Africa. But does that make up for the water wasted here in Austin?

The purpose of the Gazelle Foundation is to “fund and build clean water projects in Burundi, Africa.” Since many Burundians have to walk over two miles every day to have access to water, the 5k or 10 mile race

by Austinites raises awareness for their struggle. The water that the Burundians have access to, even after that walk, is still often not clean; water is shared with livestock, and waterborne illnesses are common. While I greatly admire the goals of the Gazelle Foundation, and especially the founder, Gilbert Tuhabonye, himself, I

really hope that the organization can fine-tune their process. The “vicious cycle of poverty in Burundi” that the organization hopes to break simply continues as water is wasted at the Run for the Water.

Organizations that have specific goals need to look at them from all aspects. Too often, non-profit or charity organizations are so focused on preserving their images that they neglect the process that goes into achieving their reputations. Saving the extra water from the race would have been incredibly symbolic and, most of all, simple to execute. I’m disappointed with the lack of true regard for water scarcity to which the race was supposed to bring awareness.

I’d be happy to volunteer at the Run for the Water again. But first, I hope that the Gazelle Foundation, and most of all its sponsors, realize that until their race is truly charitable, they don’t come near to achieving the race trifecta.

Let’s build a system for preserving water in Austin before we even begin to move on to Burundi.

art by Lina FIsher

Ignoring Hong Kong’s conflict

Hong Kong experiencing issues over one country, two-party system Today, we’re traveling to Hong Kong and Nigeria. These two regions are the canaries in a coal mine, warning us about what will happen if we continue to ignore issues that matter for trite pieces of clickbait. First, an update: If you were able to get past all the ISIS beheadings and American Ebola headlines lately, you might have noticed that there are protests in Alex Friedman “China.” The reason I put quotes around China is because Staff Writer the area of China we’re talking about today is Hong Kong, and Hong Kong is about as odd as they come. If you were to move to Hong Kong from mainland China, you would have your passport stamped, go through customs, speak to people who have a different accent and speak a different language, exchange your currency, vote for different political parties and be protected by a different police system. However, you would never leave “China.” How this came about is crucial to understanding how we got into the present predicament of Hong Kongers protesting in the streets.

During the time of the Opium Wars, the major players, China and Britain, reached an agreement. This agreement was that Britain would get to have Hong Kong as a port through which the drugs could go. China agreed, but the British and Chinese didn’t make this agreement permanent. Instead, it would only last for 99 years. This agreement was made in 1898 and if you do the math, you’ll realize it has already been 99 years. In 1997, the lease was up and Hong Kong had to be returned to China. However, in that time, China was, and is, in a rather communist mood. Hong Kong, which had grown up as a British colony was capitalist and an absolute economic powerhouse, and the world was a little worried about losing that. So, China and Britain signed another agreement in which China said that it would basically leave Hong Kong alone so long as the rest of the world finally recognized it as part of China. Hong Kong has it’s own embassies (called consulates) and even competed as a separate team from China in the Beijing Olympics, but China still call Hong Kong “China.”

Hong Kong is set to hold elections in 2017 to elect it’s head, called the Chief Executive, in 2017. This is under a complicated system called “One China, Two Systems” which allows Hong Kong substantial autonomy and open elections.

However, what’s happened is China has said that “Yes, Hong Kong, of course you can have free and open elections, but you can only choose between the candidates we give you.”

This obvious farce sparked major protests from students, demanding that they be allowed to select their leaders. Much like the Occupy movement here in the States, the students have blocked major roads leading into the central business district of Hong Kong. This is where a big problem plaguing the protests has come from.

Strangely, the biggest resistance to the protests has not come directly from the Chinese government, but from Hong Kongers who just want to get to work. Unlike the situation in, say, Egypt during its revolution, there isn’t high unemployment in Hong Kong. You have students clogging up a system that is actually running rather well. In that small of an area with that much work going on, clogging just a few major roads put a damper on one of the biggest claims to fame that Hong Kong has: its financial district.

There’s a bigger problem at play here that, unless solved, will lead to the demise of a democracy-seeking people: Silence. Decisive silence. The world has decided to no longer pay attention to tiny Hong Kong. In mainland China, the media has been controlled very tightly so that most Chinese citizens don’t know about the massive protests going on in their sister city. Within the city, the greatest resistance to the protestors are their fellow citizens. That leaves the role of paying attention to the rest of us, the people with free and open media. Attention is the greatest resource that any organization can hope for to achieve its goals. This is what allows support to be given and governments to change.

Now, on to Nigeria. You do know that the #bringbackourgirls mission is still going on, right? The two hundred schoolgirls that were kidnapped are still missing. The organization that snatched them from their school, the Islamist group Boko Haram, whose name roughly translates to “Western Education is a sin,” has been busy, kidnapping scores more people in the last 24 hours alone. The people of Nigeria are furious with their government and the world for not

doing enough to bring their children home. Boko Haram simply hasn’t had the same media coverage as, say, ISIS or Al Qaeda, despite being just as crazy and bloodthirsty.

Beheadings via chainsaw, burning people alive, selling people into slavery, these are all the staples of any Islamic terrorist group. They believe that their mission in life is to establish an “Islamic State” in the region, sound familiar?

They are taking advantage of the poverty in northern Nigeria and the general dissatisfaction with the Nigerian government to spread their violent campaign. This is an organization that has the frightening potential to join up with Al Qaeda, and would then become much more than the already strained Nigerian army could handle.

There is a belief in the collective conscious that is the internet, that Boko Haram, and the girls they kidnapped, was a problem solved by a quick hashtag. This is an organization that has been responsible for the deaths of 5,000 people and has hopes of overthrowing the Nigerian government. This is an organization of the same cloth as our worst enemies and the scourge of the earth. They are rising in power and must be stopped immediately, but if we keep doing what we’re doing (nothing) they will continue to grow and perhaps cause regional instability on a continent that, like the Middle East, is suffering from the scars of colonialism. This is a problem that does not get solved with apathy.

There is a lot going on in the world, and it takes a lot of effort to keep up with it all, let alone give it the attention and response it deserves. However, we should not be daunted by this responsibility. Our generation has been pegged as a self-centered one with tiny attention spans, and so far we are living up to that standard. We cannot allow ourselves to continue to be sidetracked from problem solving by apathy and lethargy. The work required to contextualize a problem and create a solution may be large, but the alleviation of other people’s suffering?

That’s crucial work. These girls have been missing from their families for months, held hostage and perhaps sold into slavery. The Hong Kong protests are trying the already strained relationship China has with its own people and with appropriate responses to popular dissent. This is big. We can’t be satisfied knowing that something is happening somewhere, we need to know why it is happening and what we can do about it.

You are about to be or are already a voting citizen in the most powerful nation on earth. The power you hold requires that you pay attention to issues and give them the respect they deserve. Ignoring problems only allows them to spread and grow.

Other people’s lives depend on our attention and if we fail, ours will too. art by Enzo Brown

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

Hour of silent reflection Two years ago my sister (LASA graduating class of 2012) went through the painful and tedious process of deciding where she was going to study for the next four years of her young adult life. She settled, after several pro-con lists and late night conversations, on Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina. Guilford is one of eighteen colleges in the Grace Fullerton US associated with the Quaker Staff Writer religion, or the Religious Society of Friends. Since her first year at Guilford our family summers together have changed quite a bit. While we don’t attend Quaker services on a regular basis and my parents still hold strong to their Christian beliefs, my sister has taken me to a Quaker meetinghouse in Austin a couple times throughout the summers since 2012. There was a dramatically stark contrast between the way I grew up and the values I saw demonstrated at the meetinghouse.

Our society’s obsession with busyness became apparent from the moment we entered the simple Quaker meetinghouse.

The second we entered the meetinghouse we heard singing ringing clearly from the room directly off the entry hall. “They came off by three-sies, three-sies, grizzlybears and chimpanzee-sies, zee-sies.” Each lyric belted out by a man of at least 70 years of age caused the seemingly endless silver beard attached at his chin to shimmer as it swayed. My sister and I attempted to swallow the laughter residing in our throats, but between every couple of lines, one of us would glance up and couldn’t help but let out a little giggle. The room was filled with grown adults fully immersed in the “The Arky Arky Song,” not one of them concerned with the childish lyrics. As the singing came to an end, several more people trickled in, the majority of their gleaming eyes on us: the two over-dressed Christian girls in a Quaker meetinghouse. A

man stood up and the 25 or so people filling less than half of the musty building quieted down as he passed out small slips of paper with a quote on them smiling emphatically at each person. After he was finished, we all sat in silence for an hour.

The idea behind this hour of “silent stillness”, as the Quaker community calls it, is to be able to reach the center of your being, where God resides in each person, and feels his spirit. This concept is one of the fundamental beliefs of the Quaker religion. Of course, I learned all of that after experiencing the most confusingly awkward hour of my life staring at 25 “seasoned friends.” While they were having some kind of spiritually deepening experience, I was trying to fold my paper into a crane.

In our current world, and specifically in this country and this generation, there aren’t very many opportunities for silence. And even when the opportunities are presented, we hastily shrug them off. After the pledge, when either the scared freshman or the overzealous upperclassman says “and now for a moment of silence”, we roll our eyes wanting to get on with class already or ignore the comment all together and continue talking. When we’re inside, we listen to music or turn on a TV, and we take it with us on our phones or iPods when we go outside. Even when the music is off it’s impossible to escape the ever-present sounds of construction and people talking. Sometimes I even fall asleep with music playing or a TV blaring.

Distractions are everywhere, and we welcome and encourage them in our lives. Even during this time at the Quaker meeting, I was distracting myself with anything and everything.

I think we should spend the small amount of time we can finding the beauty in the silence. Whether it has a religious significance for you or it’s just a time to think, there is definitely something special about no distractions. art by Abby Kappelman

Online video game forums discuss big political issues I spend a lot of time on GameFAQs, a gaming message board. GameFAQs is a great place to get game recommendations and learn tips for that one enemy that’s giving you lots of trouble. However, you don’t have to stay long to find out that many topics aren’t about games. Topics can be about sales, hype, Chris Buffum-Robbins racism, how superior or Guest Writer inferior Japanese games are to Western games or incest (I wish I was kidding).

Spend a little more time, and you’ll find that most GameFAQs users share common beliefs about social justice. Some of it is reasonable, like how a character shouldn’t be gay/black/ whatever just for the sake for being gay/black/whatever.

However, some positions are less defensible, such as how white men have it just as hard as any minority. One particular position that keeps surfacing is that the gender pay gap is highly exaggerated; some have gone as far as to say that its completely fictional and that those silly, man hating feminists just have their panties in a knot.

Yes, you read that right. GameFAQs users, and no doubt many other people, are trying to argue that the gender pay gap is nonexistent. In their mind, it’s a phony issue pushed by fake feminists and white knights (read: men who defend women in hopes that they will sleep with them). They have many supposed facts that apparently prove their point: that women intentionally choose jobs that pay less, that women get benefits such as maternity leave so its justifiable to pay them less, or that the pay gap is just pennies and is not a big deal, to name a few of the most prevalent. All of these arguments are cobbled together with cherry picked data and ignorant preconceptions.

One thing that will often pop up is that the deniers are more concerned with quantifying it than dealing with it. The official White House statistic is that women earn only 75 percent of their male counterparts, but many economists suggest that women earn as much as 93 percent. To some pay gap deniers, the 7 percent gap is negligible and shouldn’t be an issue. The problem is that is that, even if economists are right and women do earn as much as 93 percent, this isn’t a matter of seven pennies less; this is a matter of seven percent less.

The average salary in Texas is $56,000. With the pay gap in account, a women can expect to earn only $52,080.

That’s a lot more severe than just seven cents less.

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Above are the opinions of The Liberator staff and not the individual featured.

Sometimes pay gap deniers will point out that there are more men in more hazardous jobs or in higher paying positions, and conclude that women are just choosing jobs that pay less. This ignores the central point of the pay gap: it is about gaps in the same job, rather than gaps between two unrelated jobs (like a waiter and an NFL player) Even when they have the same amount of experience, women are earning less than their male counterparts in the same job.

Female dentists are earning less than their male counterparts (74 cents to the dollar), female lawyers are earning less (82 cents), female veterinarians are earning less (81 cents).

Women are not intentionally choosing jobs that pay them less, they are being paid less regardless of what jobs they do.

Really, the people trying to deny the pay gap are ignoring the fact that the pay gap is detrimental to our economy. The United States is a consumer driven economy, and in order to perform well, people need enough income to buy goods.

To pay someone less than what their co-workers earn would hamper their ability to buy consumer goods. This means that less money flows in the economy and it performs less optimally.

Undeniably, the pay gap exists and it is hurting the economy. This, of course, raises the question of why anyone would defend it. It doesn’t make sense to pay one group less because they are different than another. It would make no sense to paya black worker less a white worker, nor does it make sense to pay a Jewish worker less than a Christian worker. With this in mind, it is hard to justify paying someone less because they have different plumbing.

The answer isn’t a pretty one. See, many people like to think of life as a sum zero game; if one person or group gains something, another person or group has to lose something. This is true in some cases, but it is certainly not true in economics. Economies are incredibly dynamic and plastic; they can grow and expand. Men don’t lose anything when women’s wages increase. In fact, they stand to gain something, since equal wages would help drive the economy and their dates could pay for their own dinner (okay, that was a joke.

Well, sort of). art by Lina Fisher There is no justifiable reason to ignore the pay gap or insist that it doesn’t exist.

Just because something is inconvenient for you doesn’t mean you have the right to ignore it.

Something doesn’t just go away if you ignore it. And whether you like it or not, the pay gap is preventing our economy from performing at its fullest. The pay gap should not be dismissed but discussed.

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Talk New iPhone causes student to realize consumerist ways The first time I got my hands on my very own smartphone was the during the fall of my freshman year.

It was a both a birthday present, as well as a test delivered by my parents to see how well I could handle the distracting powers of the smart phone.

After a year and a half of dropping and sitting on it, Carter Pace my not-so-unique iPhone finally broke down, and I Staff Writer was forced to find a new phone. Even though I had plenty of options when it came to what type of phone I could buy and how much money I was willing to spend for it, I really didn’t. I had to have the smart phone. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that within those two years, I had become a victim of the vicious consumerism cycle.

To put it one way, I could purchase a relatively simple phone for $20. This phone would be able to do the basics, like make calls and send texts and maybe even browse the internet. Four years ago, that would have been the optimal phone for someone of my age. Four years ago, anybody with a smartphone would have technological superiority over the rest of the people. But today, the tables have turned. A smartphone is no longer technologically superior, but rather the acceptable norm. And those simple flip phones that existed only 5 years ago are now inferior.

As I looked out across the faces of the others who stood beside me, I couldn’t help but wonder if these people were feeling as torn as I was. I asked the Russian family in front of me, who had been inside the mall waiting for nearly 2 hours already, if they understood how much they were being manipulated by the tech giants. All five family members already had functional Apple technology, including iPhones, iPads and iPad minis.The father, in a thick accent, responded to me, “because we have to have the newest technology to keep [in society]”.

It was almost terrifying to see how these tech companies had reduced this father, his family, and me to nothing more than victims of largescale consumerism. I hated it, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I felt almost guilty walking out of the Apple Store carrying my brand new iPhone, knowing that I was giving in to the manipulative power of these giant tech corporations.

I felt almost guilty walking out of the Apple Store carrying my brand new iPhone, but on the other hand I felt as I was doing my part to keep up this standard of new technology. In fact that was exactly what I was doing.

So were 39.2 million other people across the world, all purchasing new phones and giving in to the manipulative power of these giant tech corporations.

Different expectations for girls at cross country shows sexism in sport Walking the course, sweatpants dragging in wet grass the cross country team goes over the loops and straights of the trail in preparation for our races. As we come up on a fork in the trail, the captains announce “varsity and boys’ junior varsity keep going. Girls’ junior Audrey Halbrook varsity turn here.” All of Commentary Editor the boys and a few girls continue straight along the course. The rest of the girls veer right, heading back towards the finish line.

At each cross country meet, a team fields four subteams: varsity girls, varsity boys, junior varsity girls, and junior varsity boys. Both varsity teams run a 5k, or 3.1 miles. junior varsity boys race this distance as well.

However, junior varsity girls only run for 2 miles. It might make sense if both junior varsity teams ran 2 miles, but it’s only the girls who do so. In fact, only recently was the girls’ varsity race changed from 2 miles to a 5k, as well.

When I realized this at my first meet, I was appalled.

All of the girls that I knew trained just as much as the boys did. We showed up at 5:45 a.m. to practice each morning.

We sprinted during track workouts. We ran long runs with diligence. We participated in core workouts and push-ups. Sure, in general, girls’ 5k times are slower, but that didn’t mean that we couldn’t do it. We were prepared.

There was one meet that I attended where the JV girls ran a 5k. The same number of girls who completed the 2 mile race at other meets completed the 3.1 miles. Girls have no problem running a 5k. We do it at almost every practice.

The issue of “dumbing down” girls’ races doesn’t stop after high school. In fact, it’s accentuated at the collegiate level. NCAA cross country races generally consist of a 10k (6.2 miles) or an 8k (5.0 miles) for males, but only a 6k (3.7) or a 5k (3.1) for females. These collegiate runners are women who are committed to training and running.

They are at the peak of fitness and compete at a high level.

Yet, they are expected -- and only allowed -- to run less than their male counterparts.

To assume that female athletes do not want to or are not capable of running for as long a distance as male athletes is simply degrading. It’s an insult to the girls who run, sweat and train every morning. If a girl is willing to put in just as much time as her male counterpart, there is no reason that she shouldn’t be allowed to race the same distance. It’s not a matter of speed or genetics, it’s a matter of who shows up and works and who is prepared. And this is not based on gender.

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

AISD receives $350,000 grant

Fire academy students participate in a drill to put out a fire at one of their practice sessions over the weekend. photo courtesy of Jim Richardson.

LBJ Fire Academy students competed in the annual Firefighter Combat Challenge (FFCC) in Tyler, Texas on Oct. 24. The students participated in the relay event in which they completed a series of challenges resembling obstacles firefighters must deal with when on the job.

“We arrived there on Friday to do our qualification run to see where it would put us in the bracket for Saturday,” Guzman said. “We were competing against fire fighters from all over the United States. It’s really simulating what fire fighters do on the job.”

The team, made up of LBJ senior Tommy Gonzalez and LASA seniors David Hamilton, Kevin Guzman and Daniel Reyes, placed 14th and qualified for the FFCC World Championships in Phoenix, Arizona.

“It was one of the best things I’ve ever done,” Guzman said. “The fact that we were the youngest ones there and qualified for Worlds in Arizona. To qualify, we needed to get under two minutes on Saturday during the real tournament. Watching the other competitors who have been doing this competition for years [helped us because] we got to see the techniques they used to benefit the team for next year.”

The relay involved a series of strenuous tasks meant to test how prepared the competitors would be in real life firefighting situations. Challenges included taking a 42 pound bundle of hose up five flights of stairs, hoisting up a 42 pound donut roll, moving a 165 pound steel beam five feet with a sledgehammer, maneuvering around delineator cones, carrying a fire hose 75 feet and using it to spray a target and then finally dragging a 175 pound dummy over 106 feet. The LBJ Fire Academy practiced for all events at school during the weekdays and at the Austin Fire Department over the weekend.

According to Guzman, the training allowed them to finish the relay with a time of 1:58, just making it under the two minute qualifying time to move on in the competition.

“We’ve been training after school. We would simulate the course outside by the stairs by the tennis court,” Guzman said. “The Austin Fire Department team made a huge impact in our performance. They would come out and give us techniques to work on and allowed us to go over and use their facilities to train with them.

We went on the weekends to train with them. And our instructors for staying after school with us Monday through Thursday and giving us tips and how to get better.”

Over 90 candidates seek job of AISD superintendent Vincent Torres, President of the Austin Independent School District (AISD) board of trustees, announced on Oct. 27 that over 90 candidates have submitted applications to be considered for the job of AISD superintendent. The board expects to have a finalist

by Dec. 15 and hire a new superintendent in January.

Robert Schneider, who currently represents District 7 on the board and is running for reelection this year, said the board has developed a profile for the superintendent. “[We want] somebody that’s willing to get out and talk and work with the community,” Schneider said.

“A very media savvy person, someone that can work with the legislature... Someone that’s open to innovative ideas and education, someone that values both high quality academics like LASA as well as just fundamental programs like full day Pre-K.” Torres said the board plans to review the applications on Nov. 8 and begin interviewing candidates in late November. After elections for the school board take place on Nov. 4, trustees will discuss what qualities they are looking for in a superintendent. Karen Flannagan, one of the District 4 candidates in the upcoming trustees election, said she had a couple ideas regarding the qualities in a new superintendent.

“I want [the superintendent] to understand that the goal of any kind of school is that you’re producing students who can read and write and comprehend what they read and all that stuff,” Flannagan said. “So I want them to be able to evaluate their campuses that way.

And if they can’t get the results, they need to be able to replace people on the campuses.”

Once the process of hiring a permanent superintendent begins, the public will be able to ask questions of the 90 plus candidates. Flannagan said the hire needs to be involved in the community and understand what’s going on in the classroom.

“I want them to be very focused in the classroom, and I want them to make sure that we’ve got teachers that are effective with [students],” Flannagan said. “[Students] spend a lot of hours in the classroom, and to have a teacher that’s not effective [is] not fair to [them].

It’s a waste of [their] time. So I want them to be very focused that the spending is more so in the classroom.” stories by Sammy Jarrar and Eliza Cain

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will allow elementary school music teachers to be trained in the Kodály Concept.

“The CLI is a three year process that begins after a school has applied for the program,” Garcia said, “A vertical team will step in and start the process within the schools during the first year. Each year of the program is focused on a different fine arts aspect; the first year is focused primarily on drama, the second year on visual arts, and the third year focused on music and dance.”

The grant will be used over the next three school years and will allow for classroom teachers to participate in professional development, where they can learn to employ drama, dance, visual arts and music-based instructional strategies to increase student engagement in core content areas.

“The goal is that by the fourth year, the program will become self sustaining in that school,” Garcia said, “with teachers stepping up and becoming leaders and continuing the program based solely on [the teacher’s] own interest.

Goodman said director of fine arts Greg Goodman that the district’s main goal is to address equity and us to really enhance the strategies and access in Title I schools through the tools that teachers use when they are implementation of this grant. delivering instruction. And in addition “When [we] look at equity and to that the grant allows us to hire an access, we try to hone in on those additional instructional coach and two schools that have the most needs and instructional specialists. [They] will be that is why we started with the Title I direct sources given to students in Title schools,” Goodman said. “[However the I schools.” grant] will benefit all schools.”

Additionally, the Kodály Concept, a According to Goodman, LBJ is Hungarian-based collection of practices eligible to receive benefits from this designed for teaching music in school grant and plans to apply for the CLI. settings, will be implemented through “I do know the LBJ/LASA vertical this grant. According to Garcia, the team is going to apply for the initiative concept puts heavy emphasis on creative and they do qualify because of the Title learning for students as well as boosts I schools that feed into LBJ,” Goodman academic success when paired with the said. “If they win... then yes [this grant] Creative Learning Initiative. The grant will have a direct impact on [them].”

[The grant] enables us to really enhance the strategies and tools that teachers use when they are delivering instruction.

Wellness survey brings helpful results

LASA counselors use survey responses to address student concerns

by class basis,” Butler said. “For the juniors we want them to have a more positive mindset and you want them to feel more confident going into the senior year college process so [the Staff Writer programs are] going to develop ways to measure their goals The LASA counseling team, led by wellness counselors and see if those goals have been achieved and my goal is to Meagan Butler and Stacey Hopper, sent out a school-wide help support them in that effort.”

These programs, which will be led by student council wellness survey to students last month. The survey’s purpose was to determine the state or condition of the physical and representatives, are targeted towards solving these issues mental health of students at LASA. The last wellness survey by grade level. Butler said the student leaders have worked alongside her to implicate several plans like creating study was sent out five years ago by Hopper.

“We decided as a counseling team, we need to get an rooms for students and having college resource meetings, in update on what’s happening at LASA,” Hopper said. “That’s an effort to improve the issues students said they deal with.

“By grade level, we’re going to need [to work with]... why we we created the new wellness survey to see what the pulse was. The one we did five years ago was really long and student council [for] 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade,” Hopper people didn’t really enjoy it. We condensed this one, and it’s a said. “The 9th grade issues might be way different from the 12th grade issues. We’re going to work with the 9th grade lot shorter, and hopefully it was a little more concise.”

Along with collaborating to get feedback from students, officers, and let’s say the top three issues might be lack of sleep, Hopper and Butler also work with parents of the students. anxiety and depression. We’ll work with those student leaders to address those three This year, they sent out a issues for 9th grade. We separate survey to parents want it to be student-run We really want to get a pulse about the wellness of their so that it really is effective, child. In addition, Hopper with what the whole school is and [students] are going to said the counseling team listen and it has an impact.” also gives presentations to dealing with so we can get a According to LASA parents about LASA student picture of... the issues [students] head counselor Shannon wellness.

Bergeron, each grade will “We do what’s called a are struggling with. have their own wellness goal parent wellness speaker and with the help of student series and once a month leaders, the counseling -LASA counselor Stacey Hopper we bring in an expert in team hopes to accomplish different mental health these goals before the end fields, so drug and alcohol experts or neuroscience experts or eating disorder experts,” of the school year. For example, the sophomore team aims to Hopper said. “Based on the data from the parents, because improve students’ time management while the junior team there’s a parent survey as well, we’re going to tweak our plans to work on getting students college-ready.

“I feel like it’s going to be an approach that’s got to be wellness speaker series according to what parents think they multilayered,” Bergeron said. “It can’t just be one piece of need.”

Each of the counselors have a specific set of students in information, and ‘here’s a program, and we’re done’. I think it every grade, assigned to them by last name. Butler and Hopper can’t be static. It’s got to be dynamic. We have to evolve and said they regularly work with students who are looking for change based on [student] interests. The other thing is that help with a variety of problems. According to Hopper, the goal we’re going to put some programs in place and we already of the survey was to gather a general sense about the student have started that in small ways through groups and some body in order to approach their most pressing problems as an counseling efforts.”

Butler said she hopes that further down the road, more entire grade.

“I see the highest risk kids, and now Ms. Butler sees them and more people can be involved in the programs, including too,” Hopper said. “We really want to get a pulse with what the teachers and parents. Bergeron said much of what has been whole school is dealing with so we can get a picture of... the accomplished this year regarding problems students are issues [students] are struggling with and how can we address having is due to the wellness survey. “[The survey] was something that’s been on going for a those issues.”

According to Butler, when students were asked what while,” Bergeron said. “We’ve been in development for over issues they had regarding school and health, the majority said a year of trying to get a needs survey out. It’s something that [has] been a department goal.” sleep deprivation was their biggest problem. Other issues students said they have to deal with are time management, organization, anxiety and stress.

“I think we knew that students had issues with sleep deprivation, but I was still surprised by the number of hours students are sleeping and the frequency in which students are sleeping less than five hours,” Butler said. “On a positive side, I was really surprised at the question when we asked students ‘do you trust the counselors at your school?’...

There’s a lot of cynicism against counseling and counselors, Gluten Free... but our students gave us really positive feedback.”

Butler said the counseling team is going to use the results Pizza Crusts of the survey to start programs which will help students deal Bread with stress and other issues.

“My goal is to have an increase in wellness and to create Hamburger Buns some programs to meet the needs of the students on a class

Chelsea Banawis

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LBJ Fire Academy students compete in Combat Challenge

Austin Independent School District (AISD) was awarded the 2014 Professional Development for Arts Educators grant from the United States Department of Education on September 26th. The $350,000 grant is intended to fund the specialized training of music teachers as well as improve the teaching of fine arts for general classroom teachers within AISD Title I schools.

The grant is being used to fund a project called Project Creative Learning, a joint effort of the Kodály Concept for Music Education and the Creative Learning Initiative (CLI). The CLI is a partnership among Austin ISD, MINDPOP, the City of Austin and over 40 arts and cultural organizations dedicated to student success through an arts-rich education.

The program has done research showing that students who attend arts-rich schools are more likely to be successful, both academically and socially. Grant writer Yesenia Garcia said the project’s purpose is to increase, -AISD develop and deepen the cognitive skills of students.

“The Creative Learning Initiative is currently being implemented in AISD,” Garcia said. “It is a partnership between the city of Austin, AISD and an organization called MINDPOP, which works with a lot of Community Arts Partners like Zach Theatre. Project Creative Learning is combining CLI with the Kodály Concept for Music Education to provide teachers with new tools and ways to teach their students so that they may have a higher success rate.”

According to AISD director of fine arts Greg Goodman, the US Department of Education awards grants annually through an online application open to

any district across the nation.

“If the district... is compelled, they can read the expectation for [a particular] grant and they fill out the application and then there are certain deadlines and if you miss the deadline it’s now... void,” Goodman said. “We looked at the grant and thought it was perfect for our district and sent in the application and were awarded the grant.”

According to Goodman, the grant is directly associated with students and will have a lasting impact on them.

He said that the grant will allow for a multitude of developments that will benefit a majority of schools throughout AISD. “[The grant] focuses in on perpetual development for teachers and for committee artists who are in Austin,” Goodman said. “[The grant] enables

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Carter Pace & Sesha McMinn

Staff Writer & News Editor

Ancient Grains for a Modern World

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

School board candidates discuss magnets Victoria Mycue

is: they have other obligations, they Staff Writer aren’t able to complete the homework Twelve Austin Independent School requirements,” Cowan District (AISD) School Board candidates, said. “If you have a along with a crowd of AISD parents, teachers child that loves some and students, gathered on Oct. 19 in the sort of science, it LBJ library to discuss the district’s academic would be excellent to magnet programs. Each stated their views open that up for that of magnet programs in the district and one child, and then how, if elected, they would work with these he or she can explore programs. Most candidates discussed the what it is they love, three academic magnet schools in the district: and it’s just a great Kealing Middle School, Fulmore Middle hook for keeping their School and the Liberal Arts and Science interest in school.”

Academy (LASA).

According to Dr. Hillary Procknow, a curriculum Procknow, the District 4 candidate Julie Cowan speaks during District 9 At-Large candidate Dr. Kazique District 9 At-Large candidate Dr. Hillary Procknow responds to questions at the forum.

Prince discusses topics like diversity at magnets. specialist at UT is running for the District students who attend the forum. all images courtesy of Geeta Suggs.

9 At-Large position in the AISD trustee magnet schools are election. At the forum, she expressed her there because they’re district, but should exist around every student “Students need to be prepared for a world opinion on specialized schools, describing interested in what they’re learning. She said in the district where every school should be a that’s very diverse,” Prince said. “One way of them as too few and far between in the she will advocate for interest-based learning magnet school. doing that is increasing the level of diversity district and altogether too exclusive. She to be implemented in every school in the “It’s a different vision of education,” that you have in the school. Because it’s hard argued that every school should have a district.

Procknow said. “So you’re not creating a to learn from other cultures if you don’t have magnet component and that every student “You want to do things that are cool, that special school in the south and a different those people, [it]’s a hard struggle. But even if should learn at magnet levels. kids are interested in and [that] will help special school in the north, one over here and you don’t [have them in the school], we can “Magnet schools are doing a great job, them learn at the same time,” Procknow one over here. What you’re doing is investing still go out into the community and do these but there’s no reason that there cannot be said. “There are lots of models of this kind in schools across the board, and when you kinds of activities, or a class, or a way that interesting classes at every school that make of school, even if you just look at Montessori take away things like standardized testing you’re collaborating with other communities kids want to learn,” Procknow said. schools, ...where the education program is and you take away things like excessive if you don’t have that kind of diversity in the Similar to Procknow, many of the built on the interests of the students. It’s not a homework, which also has no academic school. You’re going out into the community candidates are in favor of expanding the new, radical idea, we just haven’t done it in all benefits, you can allow teachers to create to have those kinds of relationships.” magnet system throughout the district. Julie our public schools.” interesting and challenging classes like you Prince discussed integrating diversity Cowan, District According to would find at a magnet school.” into education both within the confines 4 candidate, is in Procknow the Cowan said that allowing comprehensive of the school building and working in the I think magnet schools serve favor of magnet reason magnet students to take a few magnet classes not communities. His ideas involve both learning expansion as students are offered to them in their home school would about the different communities each student a great purpose for our most well. interested in and increase the interest of a student in the area comes from and about the community that high achieving students who “I think able to perform they wish to learn more about. The number surrounds the magnet school. He said that magnet schools at high levels one concern for AISD and the original diversity programs in schools would help want to have an education serve a great essentially comes purpose of magnet schools in the district better the students’ educations. that magnet can provide. purpose for down to a few isn’t diversity based, but rather to provide “That’s a way that students are all involved our most high basic factors. additional educational opportunities to with some type of educational program -Julie Cowan achieving These include students. However, Cowan said diversity is a but then [also] involved in some sort of students who foundational topic to be addressed in the future. community aspects of the area,” Prince said. want to have an education that magnet can learning, socioeconomic status and the “If we want to have the diversity, we need “It’s a way of getting people together and provide,” Cowan said. “We [should] open up resulting varying educational opportunities to have the conversation and make it stated,” collaborating so there’s that kind of overall a second magnet program down south for each student experiences.

Cowan said. “[The original purpose of LASA] overlap between the communities, the convenience’s sake and for more seats.”

“Students from lower income households was always really that we would encourage schools and the academics.”

In addition to broadening the haven’t had the opportunity to be involved in science and technology, so I think that our Although Prince said his main focus opportunities for students in need of the full extracurricular activities [and] haven’t had district has evolved so now perhaps we might is increasing diversity, he said he wants to magnet experience, Cowan said more space the opportunity to have these interesting want to address [diversity].” enforce the idea that magnet schools should in magnet classes could allow comprehensive experiences that get students motivated and Dr. Kazique Prince, who is running for the be available to all students in the district. students who share the school campus to wanting to learn,” Procknow said. “You just District 9 At-Large position, said his focus “The [magnet] program is not for anyone take a few magnet classes that they are highly start by having an education system where is increasing diversity in magnet schools. in particular,” Prince said. “It’s for everyone. interested in. those kids get early and frequent interesting He said it’s important for students to have So you want everyone to be prepared for the “The commitment for some children to classes like magnet classes.” experience with diversity as a part of their world that’s out there. It’s very diverse, and take the magnet course load [is, for] some Procknow said magnet education systems education to get them ready for post-high knowing people and how to work with them people, not doable, for whatever reason that shouldn’t just exist at a few schools in the school. [is important].”

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things around science projects,” Villavicencio said. “One thing that we’re looking at doing is creating a rainwater system at Means Young Women’s Academy, there the kids will be able to cut wood and monitor sensors for temperature and pH of the rainwater system. So they will be implementing how to use measurements... to make this system functional. The other way we’re looking at doing this is fixing things around the classroom, whether is chairs, rolling chairs that may be broke.

Other activities we’re doing are community sponsored robotics events to get middle school kids interested in robotics.”

Ramos said that while the club will participate in community volunteering events, many of the events they plan on doing will focus on activities revolving around engineering, a field he said he was personally interested in.

“Other than volunteer work we are going to do a lot of projects next semester when we get funding from the Austin SHPE chapter,” Ramos said. “We’re going to be working on Programming with Vex programming as well as underwater kind of like robot engineering. We’re also going to get into advanced programming which is pretty cool for me because that is my strong suit.”

Another goal of the SHPE chapter at LBJ is to start a new FIRST Robotics

Competition (FRC) team specific to the school, separate from the Liberal Arts and Science Academy’s (LASA) existing team.

“We’ve been meeting at LBJ during lunch time but we’re going to have robotic hands on sessions after school, I know [LASA has their] FRC team so that’s actually what we’re going to be doing possibly FRC and other small projects,” Landaverde said.

According to Landaverde and Villavicencio, starting a junior chapter of SHPE at LBJ specifically is meant to bring interest to higher learning and engineering in an area where the students may have not been as exposed to it as others.

“The club is supposed to bring positive role models that have the same background as them: first generation Americans, bilingual students who have made it through the struggles of becoming an engineer,” Villavicencio said. “The second thing is for them to actually to know that there are people out there with the same interests that they have. Right now there’s no program after school here that brings students with the same kind of nerdy, geeky interests, so that’s the second thing, just making sure they know there is a group of them that are interested and we’re trying to support that kind of creative passion they have to become someone with a STEM-focused career.”

If you would like to be part of the LBJ SHPE Jr. chapter, you can obtain your membership forms from Mr. Villavicencio (Room 17) or email Hugo Landaverde at h.landaverde@utexas.edu

Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) junior members use poster boards to explain the main purpose and different aspects of the SHPE program to LBJ students and parents at a tailgate. photo by Sesha Mcminn.

Hysteria

“It’s still a dangerous disease,” Journeay said. “It’s controllable if you do everything right. Mankind sometimes doesn’t do everything right. That makes it scary. The most horrible thing you could dream up continued from page 1 [would be]... if this particular disease ever went airborne, so now it’s no longer a matter is the possibility of a student with Ebola. of you making contact with body fluids but “Student Health Services staff would it’s being carried in the water vapor that you use the screening tool for any student that exhale. That would be a nightmare.” presents to the health room that has a series The CDC is currently predicting that 30 of specific symptoms and has a possible travel to 70 thousand people will die from Ebola exposure,” Cotton said. “If the student meets before it is controlled and eradicated. all of the criteria then the student and health “The only way that you eliminate those care provider are masked and isolated in the kinds of numbers is [if] you isolate individuals health room. The health room staff would so that they can’t spread it to someone else,” then contact their Seton manager which Journeay said. would contact the Seton Ebola Response According to Van Deusen, since Team for transfer of the student to University preventative actions have been taken against Brackenridge hospital.” the spread of Ebola, it is not likely for the Medical Director for the Austin Health disease to become widespread throughout and Human Services Department (HHSD) the U.S. Philip Huang said that his department has “The contact tracing we’ve done for Ebola taken action by getting into the community is something we do in public health everyday: and ensuring hospital staff and other medical tracing contacts personnel have the for someone who proper training has tuberculosis or [Ebola is] controllable if to protect from measles or sexually Ebola. you do everything right. transmitted “We work with diseases...,” Van Mankind sometimes a lot of our health Deusen said. “It doesn’t do everything care providers in has worked well the community right. That makes it scary. in these cases positions, just because we -LASA teacher David Journeay hospitals, have identified we provide people who have information come into contact and have instituted this to them regarding...the guidelines and monitoring and to make sure we catch recommendations for infection control diseases early so they don’t spread. Of course, practices, [like] what...physicians need to do we are still in the monitoring period, but we if they identify someone with symptoms.” believe [Ebola] will be contained and will not Though Huang said that it is not likely for spread to the community.”

Ebola to spread throughout the United States, Journeay said that extreme precautions preventative measures are being put into were taken when the first two infected doctors place for added security. were brought back to the U.S. Conversely, he “All of this planning [is to make] sure that said that the case in Dallas was not handled [everything is] ready if the need arose,” Huang with as much care as was necessary. said. “It’s very [unlikely] that we would see “When the guy showed up in Dallas, anything here but that’s part of what we need they had talked earlier in the summer to do just in case we do see something. about Ebola and concerns,” Journeay said.

According to Huang, the general public “These were memos...came out from the is more concerned and afraid about Ebola CDC where hospitals were supposed to compared to past outbreaks because it seems train their individuals so that they at least like a disease straight out of a horror movies were somewhat ready. The hospital in Dallas due to its high fatality rate of around 70 didn’t do that. Their workers were really not percent according to recent research by the prepared whatsoever.”

World Health Organization.

Huang said that the next step is to control “It’s definitely something that people do not the Ebola situation in West Africa. Unless want to get,” Huang said. “A high percentage that situation can be controlled, there is no of people who get it die. The conditions in guarantee that the U.S. is completely safe West Africa [have] higher mortality rates. from an outbreak.

Right now in the United States we are having, “Until that situation is controlled...the risk except for the one index case, all of the people is not zero for us to get additional cases of who have come to the United States and people that come over here with infection,” received treatment... [survive]. It’s definitely Huang said. “We are not West Africa over serious for everyone and understandably so.” here. If we were to get cases we can control According to Journeay, Ebola can be that situation. [However] we can’t bring the controlled if the correct actions are taken. risk down to zero until the situation in West However, if the disease was to go airborne, Africa is addressed.” the results would be catastrophic.

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SHPE

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the liberator nov. 7, 2014

LASA Model UN club hosts its first conference Olivia Lee

Staff Writer The Liberal Arts and Science Academy (LASA) Model United Nations club hosted their inaugural Model UN conference for high school students on Nov. 1. The event, UNLASA, invited students from various high schools in the Central Texas area to participate. The conference was a new experience for LASA students from previous years, as club members have only hosted middle school students at the Model United Nations conference for Juniors in Austin (MUNJA).

Model UN is a club where high schools or colleges host conferences in which students represent countries in the United Nations. The LASA Model UN club had over 40 students preparing for UNLASA. Kimberley Pettigrew, LASA Model UN club sponsor, said that the idea to host a conference originally surfaced last year.

“It came about because two, then juniors, wanted to do this and they came up with the idea,” Pettigrew said. “They got everybody involved in it and picked the date and worked all summer on it.

Two students who were crucial to the execution of this event were Megha Arora, the Model UN Secretary General, and Sahithi Tupuri, Model UN Chief of Staff. Both were instrumental in the planning and organization of the conference.

“The conference went really well,” Arora said. “It was really stressful trying to get all of the last minute details in place between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. on the day of, but we miraculously managed to start on time and everything came together beautifully. All the delegates were really enjoying themselves by the end, as was the staff.”

Pettigrew said hosting this conference helped LASA Model UN as a whole. She said chairing at the conference allowed the students to be on the other side of the discussion, and the experience will help them continue to be successful in the future.

“Our Model UN students gained more experience as delegates but also as chairs which will make our middle school conference better, and we got to train some of the new members of Model UN before we go to bigger conferences,” Pettigrew said. “The LASA Model UN program is generally recognized in the Central Texas area as a fairly advanced program of kids. Right now we have about 130 students, and we generally win awards when we go places, and our kids are really prepared. So us being able to have our own conference is sort of taking it to the next level.”

Tupuri was one student who was involved in the planning process of the conference. Tupuri said that this year Model UN at LASA has grown significantly, and this extra participation and interest is what encouraged students to host their own conference. She said another factor in the decision was the club rivalry with Reagan High School in San Antonio.

“Our rival school, very friendly rival school, is Reagan High School in San Antonio,” Tupuri said. “At any of the conferences we always rival with them for awards, both delegation awards and individual awards. And they do host a conference, Runway, and so we were like, ‘we’re the only ones that don’t host a conference that [is] very prominent in the Model UN circle.’ So we decided that we would host a conference.”

To prepare for UNLASA, Arora made plans with schools to arrange the layout of the conference so that it would be ready for the students that came. Tupuri was in charge of the logistics portion of the conference while Arora and Pettigrew worked on the overall organization.

“There was a lot of work involved for the staff,” Pettigrew said. “They had to design logos, design and come up with emblems and placards and then on the actual day of the conference, our students ran it, so they were the ones chairing the committee rooms and in charge of awards.”

An additional piece of necessary groundwork for the

LASA junior Daniel Pyrek speaks with fellow UN delegates during the first LASA Model United Nations (UN) conference which took place on Nov. 1. In this simulation, delegates like Pyrek represented different countries who had to make decisions that mimicked real life UN deliberations. photo courtesy of Mazie Hyams.

conference was communication between the LASA Model UN club and teachers from other schools in order to stay organized. Arora invited and registered schools and helped committee members write their background papers.

“We had to do a lot of outreach to schools so we spent a lot of time calling and emailing and double checking the date,” Pettigrew said. “We had to notify teachers and the administration about what rooms we were going to use. The days leading up to it we had to arrange outfits and move them around so we had a committee room and things like that.”

Tupuri organized the event so that the conference met a high standard. She said the students planning UNLASA drew inspiration from a conference they had previously attended.

“MUNSA, which is the big famous Model UN conference that half of the school attends, is a very professional Model UN conference that ISA (International School of Americas) hosts,” Tupuri said. “We try to copy them in that way to try to get that professionalism.”

According to Tupuri hosting their own conference made them more competitive, but it also gave LASA Model UN members additional experience. Tupuri said there were additional benefits to hosting their own conference.

“This expanded our horizons,” Tupuri said. “Chairing is a very different experience than attending a conference. You’re on the opposite side of the debate. You’re the one hearing all these discussions and you want to put your input in but you have to restrain yourself because you’re supposed to be delegating the discussion, kind of moderating it.”

Arora said that seeing the event come together and the overall success of the conference felt wonderful. She said the conference made the club more competitive than it already is, and gave the LASA Model UN program increased recognition.

“It definitely created more of a prestige for us in the Model UN circuit that we have and it raised more awareness about

LASA senior Megha Arora, who helped plan and organize the LASA conference, presents in front of the Model UN delegates. photo courtesy of Mazie Hyams.

our team because people know that we hosted a conference and they attended it,” Arora said. “Hopefully this will become an annual event so we will host other students at LASA each year and that will raise awareness of our program as well.”

After all of their hard work, Arora and Tupuri said they are excited to lead the conference again next year.

“I think the best part for me was seeing all of us, the Secretariat, sitting on stage at 9 a.m., starting the opening ceremonies,” Arora said. “We looked really professional and it was so great to see that transformation from the panicked wrecks we had been an hour earlier. It hit me then, we had somehow managed to pull this crazy idea off.”

Program teaches philanthropy to LASA girls Staff Writer

graphic by Abby Kappelman

Girls Giving Grants (g3) is a program for high school age girls who want to help their community while learning about philanthropy. The girls each contribute $100 when they join the program. The money is then pooled together and given as a grant to a non-profit organization in Austin that g3 selects after months of research and discussion. Dina Mavridis, the g3 program’s adult sponsor said the program sets up goals and activities for the girls.

“There’s about 30 hours in a school year that’s devoted to the program, so girls are eligible for community service hours,” Mavridis said. “We meet every other Sunday throughout the school year to review grants.

They get trained on how to do it, then we review

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the grants, narrow them down, present, go do site visits and then vote and award the grant to the chosen non-profit.”

Mavridis is part of the adult philanthropic group Impact Austin that gave rise to the g3 program. Because g3 has its roots in this parent program, a lot of the adult involvement in g3 comes from Impact Austin. LASA senior Melissa Porter, g3’s president, described the relationship between the programs through her responsibilities as president.

“I get asked to speak a lot... especially [at] Impact Austin meetings,” Porter said. “So to recruit Impact Austin members they ask us to speak about Girls Giving Grants. Over the summer when Impact Austin gave their big grant, they had over $500,000 to give, I spoke to 500 women and non-profits about g3.”

This relationship also helps encourage the philanthropic aspect of g3. The program is the only all girls philanthropic program in the area, and Porter said she believes that it is the all girls aspect that makes the program unique.

“We are a non-profit organization, and we’re not only giving our time, but we’re also giving our money,” Porter said. “Each member donates $100 that goes to the grant that we give, and that’s really unique because while a lot of youth will donate their time to organizations, it’s really important that philanthropic giving begins when we’re young.”

LASA junior Anna Savelyeva joined g3 this year. She said that the philanthropic

aspect of the program has been her favorite part so far.

“At our first meeting we discussed the importance of philanthropy which I really liked because a lot of the time volunteering can be reduced to a resume builder,” Savelyeva said. “To directly address the importance of volunteering and philanthropy for the community and for oneself is really uplifting.”

According to Mavridis, the skills the girls gain from the program will have a lasting effect. She believes that girls like Porter and Savelyeva are gaining valuable first hand experience from their leadership positions within the program.

“Melissa gets to be the president, I mean she gets to go speak, I don’t go speak,” Mavridis said. “She goes and speaks on Girls Giving Grants’ behalf. Getting those leadership opportunities to where they come in in the 8th grade or 9th grade or 10th grade or whatever and then you turn around and they run this program. And then they go on to college or go on to non-profits and run non-profits and run programs, take this program to colleges and join other public service organizations with the knowledge that they’ve gotten from Girls Giving Grants.”

However, Mavridis said she believes that the largest effect philanthropic work has on the 60 girls is through power in numbers.

This organization provides the girls with a special opportunity to make a larger effect than if they were working alone, she said.

“I think the biggest impact [philanthropic work] has on the girls and the community is the power of collective giving,” Mavridis said.

“So if you go and you give $50, that can change one thing, but when you pool it together with 60 other girls and give away $6,000 you’re changing the lives of many. That’s a huge impact, and that’s just something you can’t do everyday.”

Savelyeva The program has given to many different

To directly address the importance of volunteering and philanthropy for the community and for oneself is really uplifting -LASA junior Anna

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Grace Fullerton

organizations in the past, including the Helping Hands Home for Children, Easter Seals of Central Texas, The Christi Center, People’s Community Clinic, Austin Sunshine Camp and more. Porter said it was especially exciting choosing last year’s grant recipient-the Helping Hand Home for Children. The money went more specifically to the kids closet program within the Helping Hands Home for Children.

“So the kid’s closet is a program that the Helping Hands for Children developed where the new children and current children, if they outgrow their clothes or if they come, and they don’t have any clothes, they let them go into this closet and it’s brand new clothing and they let them pick out as much clothing as they need to have,” Porter said. “It’s really nice. That’s something a lot of us take for granted, well fitted, new clothes.”

According to Porter, her favorite part of the g3 program was discovering the vast amount of need in Austin. She said she knows that the program is an opportunity that many high schoolers are not able to experience.

“I think [learning about the different needs in Austin] is something that a lot of youth are not involved in,” she said. “We’re very privileged, we don’t see a lot of need in our neighborhood beyond maybe people asking for money on the side of the street. But really, there’s so much need in the youth in Austin, so like the Helping Hands Home for Children, beds for kids in the foster system, arts program need money--there’s a lot of funding that’s been cut from that.”

Porter and Savelyeva said they have had only positive experiences thus far and are grateful that the program’s leaders are continuing to encourage more girls to join.

The group is the largest they’ve ever had, and the program is already distributing applications for next year’s group.

“Join,” Porter said. “Sometimes people are intimidated because they think ‘oh, it’s a lot of girls who have been in the program for a while,’ or especially me, I was afraid because I didn’t think I’d make many friends. But there are a lot of LASA girls who have joined, and I think that anybody in the future that wants to join...would be really pleased that they did.”

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

From the annual Celtic Festival to Formula 1, there’s no shortage of things to do in Austin this time of year. As they volunteer and enjoy concerts, LASA/LBJ students take advantage of all that Austin has to offer.

Hundreds of bands, one for your wrist Staff Writer

Hands wave recklessly in the air while sweaty bodies rub up against each other. Music waves blast through eardrums as flash tattoos glimmer with every contact of a strobe light. A sea of students, parents, teachers, babysitters and more sing along to the words of an Outkast song at this year’s Austin City Limits (ACL) festival.

“I think it’s important for teens to go to music festivals to be exposed to all the music around them,” LASA junior Katherine “Ziggy” Cooper said. “I also think it’s important to feel the sense of unity being at a concert brings.

Everyone is there for the same reason and it’s a powerful thing.”

With ACL behind them, many LASA students are looking ahead to Fun Fun Fun Fest (FFF). LASA senior Emma Hunt will be attending FFF Fest for the second time and said she is even more excited for the event than last year.

“The lineup is so good this year that it’s really hard to choose who I’m most excited for, but I’d have to say Girl Talk,” Hunt said. “Not because they’re

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graphics by Abby Kappelman

German club lends a hand

my favorite but because I know it’s going to be an amazing concert.”

Many students have drifted from choosing the concerts they attend based on the pure music and sound of the artist to the overall composition and performance of the act. As electronic music becomes more and more popular the attraction for experiencing it live increases as well. Hunt has dedicated her energy and wallet to FFF Fest. “[The festival] is really laid back which makes it really easy to get to the front row without having to wait around very long,” Hunt said. “Everyone is ultimately there for

Some students, like Cooper, go to music festivals to get inspiration for their own music and performances. Cooper is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist in the band The Red Tent, which perform around Austin.

“Concerts and festivals are so inspiring to me as a musician,” Cooper said. “I’m always looking for new ways to perform and ways to perform better. Seeing all different genres perform is a great way to find your own specific style of performing.”

Hunt and Cooper, along with LASA junior Isaac Ramirez, said that they believe it is extremely important for LASA students to get out and experience the live music Austin has to offer.

Ramirez participates for the great memories while Cooper goes for the inspiration and Hunt goes for the incredible concert experience. “[Music festivals] allow teens to get a feel and join the culture of Austin’s title of Live Music City Capital of the World,” Ramirez said. “[The events] let them go blow off stress and have a good time with their friends.”

-LASA senior Emma Hunt Cooper is a strong believer that teens, especially LASA the music.” students, should attend live music events.

Attendance at FFF Fest 2013 went up 18 Cooper said that because LASA students tend percent from 2012, with more than 65,000 to be very stressed about school work and festival-goers present at Auditorium Shores. studying, it’s important for them to have a In 2012 ACL attendees numbered over 75,000, break from school life and participate in some a number that has grown since then. FFF Fest live music experiences. As a senior swamped wristband-holders are very dedicated to the with college applications, Hunt agrees. music and the experience. Hunt says that the “I love being surrounded by fellow sweaty FFF Fest crowds tends to be smaller and not festival attendees who are all really into the quite as wild as at ACL. music and having the time of their lives “I think music festivals are an awesome together,” said Hunt. “It’s great to get to be a way to see your favorite bands as well as get part of such an enthusiastic community of introduced to tons of new ones,” Hunt said. music-lovers. At the end of the weekend I “You’ll meet a lot of really cool people and always leave feeling like a part of something hear some great tunes. It’s a great way to spend really cool.” a weekend and relieve some school-induced stress.”

It’s great to get to be a part of such an enthusiastic community of music-lovers.

At the end of the weekend I always leave feeling like a part of something really cool.

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Meris McHaney

Lanes reign at Texas Book Fest

Olivia Lee

Zia Lyle

People dance as the Czech Melody Masters blast a polka out from their horns. Forks and knives clink together at dinner. The room is filled with roaring conversation as people fill themselves with bratwurst, wiener schnitzel, sweet bavarian style sauerkraut and a mushroom sauce. AustOberfest has begun.

AustOberfest celebrates the German holiday called Oktoberfest annually at the Scholz Garten restaurant and biergarten. The event is put on by the Austin Saengerrunde, the oldest ethnic organization in Austin that strives to continue the German word through song.

The Austin Saengerrunde works closely with the German Texan Heritage Society (GTHS), a non profit organization that educates people on German Texas culture by hosting cultural events and promoting the German language in schools. All of these German festivals aim to continue German culture through food, music, and various activities. Sylvia Cook, president of the Saengerrunde Damenchor, or women’s choir, which performs are these various festivals, said Oktoberfest is one event in which the Saengerrunde shares German culture.

“It continues the tradition of the language but also the culture,” Cook said.

“There are some events that we host every year that build on and continue German tradition and Oktoberfest is one of those events. We try to continue the German language because all of our singing is in German. We continue that and the tradition of Gemuchlichkeit, fellowship and good times in the events that we have during the year.”

The Liberal Arts and Science Academy (LASA) German Club volunteered at GTHS on Oct. 18 to celebrate Oktoberfest.

Bridget Carolan, a LASA German Club officer, said that she enjoyed the event. “[We] mostly helped set up, clean up, assist with kid’s activities and food sales.

The organization is based on introducing people to German culture,” Carolan said.

“Everyone came together from all over the city to have a good time outside in the beautiful weather.”

The GTHS is always looking for volunteers because it is a non profit

Swarms of people pour into rooms in the Texas State Capitol, ignoring the “Capacity: 135” sign that hangs on the door. These eager teens, adults, and families are not here for a politician or celebrity but rather for a panel of authors at the Texas Book Festival.

The Texas Book Festival was held Oct. 25th to 26th, with events geared toward children and families. The festival includes book signings, live music, cooking demonstrations and around 250 authors from around the world. LASA senior Gabi Lane has been attending the book festival for years.

“I like getting to put a face to a book,” Lane said. “So often the people who write the books you read are completely anonymous. I always knew there was a person behind the book and a reason for the story, they were inspired by something and there was that backstory to it. But you never get to see what the book does for other people until you meet the author.

The Texas Book Festival gives you that opportunity.”

Lane is the daughter of Lindsey Lane, a debut young adult novelist who participated in the festival on a panel with two other female writers. Lane has written plays, articles for the Austin newspapers, and a picture book entitled Snuggle Mountain. This panel, titled “Unfinished Business” featured New York Times Bestselling author Meg Wolitzer and National Book Award Finalist Adele Griffin.

“The panel topic is about why we write stories that are inconclusive,” Lindsey said.

“We do this because it’s what life is all about. You don’t always have conclusions.

Things can wrap up just as a book can be finished, but life doesn’t always have a neat ending.”

The consensus of the three authors is that writing unfinished stories ties in very well with writing young adult novels.

Wolitzer and Griffin both write for adults, but took a break from that area of fiction to write for teenagers.

“When you pick up an adult novel, you know exactly what you are going to read about,” Wolitzer said during the panel.

“But young adult novels are all about possibilities.”

All three authors referenced the

Entertainment Editor

Staff Writer

organization. Many students in the LASA German Club already have worked with the GTHS at various events that the organization has hosted. Carolan said she had a good time volunteering there during a Martinstag celebration.

“We mostly helped out with kid’s crafts,” Carolan said. “[The kids] made paper lanterns as their main activity to honor the holiday as they do in Germany.”

Along with Carolan, Madison Ebest, LASA sophomore and German III student, has experience volunteering with the GTHS. She said volunteering was an overall good experience because she was able to help out and learn more about German culture.

“In 7th grade I volunteered at the GTHS with the rest of my German class,” Ebest said. “I helped decorate a Christmas tree and put up wreaths around the balcony.

This was all in preparation for the GTHS Christmas market.”

Events such as these serve to expose the student community to aspects of German culture while still benefitting a good cause.

“There are younger members who have joined partly because they have learned about the Saengerrunde for the first time because of these events,” Cook said. “So this has exposed people to a whole new group and potential members.”

The LASA German Club, including Carolan and Ebest, is guided by Keri Jaworski, the LASA German teacher.

Jaworski said she thinks that it is a great idea to volunteer at events like the GTHS Oktoberfest.

“This is a non-profit organization that relies on the help of the community to keep such events going and available to the public,” Jaworski said. “ It is also a great chance for our students to experience German culture while helping the organization.”

nostalgia they felt for their teenage lives, where they could read all day, seemingly separated from the world of adults. The young adult genre continues to grow and expand, leading many authors to begin writing in this format. Lane said she was attracted to the exploration of possibilities that comes with writing for teens.

“What I love about the young adult genre is that for that age group, the world has just cracked open and is full of uncertainties and question marks,” Lindsey said. “They’re not going to be living with their parents’ rules and they’re really starting to try out their own ideas and their own thoughts. Young adults are in a middle of a personal exploration and I think that’s a really exciting time to write about.”

Lindsey’s newest novel, Evidence of Things Not Seen, is about a high school boy who goes missing. The story is told through multiple perspectives as a town tries to figure out what happened to the boy while still living individual lives. Lane says she hopes her book will teach high school students that anything is possible.

“The book ends with questions about the missing character and anything could have happened to him,” Lindsey said.

“He could be dead or even in another dimension. I think that ‘anything is possible’ is an important message. You wake up in the morning with a schedule but I think that everyone should be open to what life may bring.”

This message is reverberated throughout the entire Texas Book Festival, with each author bringing a unique openness and personality to the event. Both of the Lanes said they feel that the beauty of this festival comes from the different ideas put forth by each individual author.

“My favorite part about the book festival is hearing writers talk about their books and how the inspiration came to them,” Gabi said. “The little funny backstories of their writing. I love that. It’s kind of like getting the inside scoop of books.”

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

Getting into the ‘swing’ of things Jaguar dance department receives new coach for First Ladies team Robin Daemmrich & Isabel Saralegui

Sports Editor & Staff Writer

Rocking on their white-booted heels, the First Ladies have their heads hung low, officers turning to the stands with a salute and grin as their names are called. Red lipstick makes their smiles visible from the back of the stands. Smiling back at them from the bleachers, standing among the dancer’s bags and water bottles is the new dance director, Rae Collins.

Collins was raised in Illinois, and moved from Houston at the beginning of last summer. Despite the different football cultures between Illinois and Texas, Collins has been able to adapt to the lifestyle that the First Ladies dance team fits in to.

For the returning girls on the team, or Vets, part of the First Ladies tradition was coach Tina Hughes, who was the LBJ dance director for eight years. Hughes recently received a counseling certification and decided to become a counselor at Reagan High School. Collins was hired after working at Chavez High School in Houston and said that she was excited to come to the LBJ program, which she has renamed the “Jaguar Dance Department”. “[LBJ] feels really familiar to me, because I went to a school that was about this size for high school,” Collins said. “It was a smaller town, but very similar ideas.”

Coming into the 50-girl team was a change for Collins, who was not used to such a large team. According to Collins, adapting to the new environment of LBJ and LASA caused her to learn a lot about herself and being a teacher.

“I’ve learned a lot about being flexible and transition in general,” Collins said. “It was definitely tricky coming in and feeling like I wanted to please everybody who was involved, because I’m just a people pleaser. So it was challenging, because it really made me question whether or not I was going to be able to have that same support.”

Collins founded the Sapphire Stars dance team during her four years

teaching at Chavez High School. Coming to LBJ, where the First Ladies have existed for decades was a change for Collins, who had to balance old traditions with her new ideas.

“It was definitely tricky coming in and feeling like I wanted to please everybody who was involved,” Collins said.

“I’m just a people pleaser, so it was challenging.”

Performances at football games are only part of the large time commitment that First Ladies make. In addition to a month of summer camp where they learn dances, the team practices three days a week during the school year, and every B-day during last period. LASA junior and First Lady Hannah Read said that the team has taken up a more serious work ethic this year.

“We’re a lot more motivated [this year],” Read said. “The seniors last year definitely brought a goofier and more relaxed atmosphere to the team. This year that’s kind of missing. It’s more driven towards work and the rules are stricter.”

This year Collins is requiring the First Ladies to turn in signed grade sheets every week that prove dancers are passing their classes.

If they do not pass any of their classes, they are not allowed to perform at football games.

According to Read, this measure, based off of UIL protocol, was meant to make the team more organized. “[Grade sheets] are to make sure everybody is staying on top of their grades,” Read said. “It’s really important that you are passing so you can perform.”

This year the First Ladies received the new uniforms that they ordered last year. However, new uniforms don’t just mean a new look at performances, but instead a new level of uniformity.

“We have more checks on uniforms, and we go over specific parts of the dances more often just to make sure that everybody looks more unified,” Read said. “We are just practicing harder to be all together.”

This year’s First Ladies are a “dance/ drill team,” a new clarification by Collins.

In the past, the First Ladies just referred

New golf coach way above par

Robin Daemmrich

Sports Editor

aem mri ch

Rob in D pho to b y

MEN’S

200 Medley Relay 33rd - 2:18.16 Marissa Graf, Finlay Scanlon, Mica Mangibin, Jasmine Stone

200 Medley Relay 27th - 2:01.75 Aiden Dulaney, Alex Crumb, Luke Ayers, Nathan Le,

200 IM 15th - 2:26 Madeleine Havranek

200 Freestyle Relay 29th - 1:46.31 Connor Jacoby, Derian Golden, Alexander Mancevski, John Chan’

100 Freestyle 25th - 59.48 Emma Steyaert 57th - 1:05 Elena Cole

100 Butterfly 6th - 55.83 Alexander Mancevski

New coach steps up to the plate

McPherson, he has been around golf all of Meagen Allgood his life.

Sports Editor “The [old] golf coach, Coach Green, actually used to coach football with me at The softball season starts second semester, Pierce for 15 years,” McPherson said. “He and with it LBJ/LASA journalism teacher was the golf coach for the last two years, Kimberly Katopodis’s new role as JV softball then he transferred to Manor. Then they coach.

Katopodis played softball throughout DISTRICT MEET 26-5A needed a golf coach, so they asked me if I childhood and said that she wants to bring her would be interested.”

OCT. experience 18, 2014and love of the game to the Jaguars So far the LBJ golf team has had two this coming season. tournaments, their first was an BOYS all boys VARSITY VARSITY “I grew up playing littleGIRLS league, school and tournament at Terra Vista3rd Golf Club in tournament ball—I I was playing on Place 3rdthink Overall Round Rock, where the Jaguars competed three teams simultaneously my freshman year Average Time: 18:35, 5k Average Time: 22:31, 5kprimarily against 19 other teams. According to LASA of high school,” Katopodis said. “I’ve sophomoreDylan Alec Gorsse, second base, with a few in center Cox the team 3rdplayed - 16:35 playedSusanna Metcalf 4thstints - 20:17 pretty well at their first tournament. field along the way. [When batting,] I always Isaac Metcalf 9thso- 17:23 7thfor- 21:05 “We finished about mid table, we loved Emily when Dwyer my coach called me to bunt finished ahead a few teams,” Gorsse BenofRieden 16thsaid.

- 17:54 because Dayln Gillentine 8th - 21:05 it was this dual challenge of placing “There were some Wolfson teams that did better in justHalbrook the right spot in the field and Sammy 18th - 18:06 the ball Audrey 20th 22:06 than us too, but we have already seen some outrunning the throw.”

Ben Girardeau 30th - 19:08 Though Anna Girardeau - 23:10 improvement over last year” Katopodis has21st had years of Gorsse, Daniel who was the LBJ golf team’s Weinberg 43rd - 20:24 experience Madeline Jones positions 30th - 24:39 in multiple such as lowest scorer at theDuck Terra Vista tournament, secondKrista base,Bangs she said that 32nd she has not had Travis 45th 20:35 25:21 has been playing golf for about ten years. as much time playing outfield, the position Gorsse says that Coach McPherson knows she will be coaching this coming season. She JV GIRLS what he is talking about JV andBOYS he teaches said that she has already begun preparing her well.

2nd Place, 5k mile to make coaching strategy3rd andPlace, doing 2research “His style is basically to get you started, sure she is up to speed when practice begins.

Alex out Urtado - 20:18 Sora Sunby 11th - 15:59 and then figure how good you11th are. You “I’ll be coaching outfield alongside Coach Jonathan Sadun* - 20:24 Moreno, just show him what you got, and 12th then he’s Alexis 13th - 16:13 so Whellan I am looking at drills for those pretty punctual about his coaching since I primarily28th played infield,” Sam Lynaugh 13th just - 20:29 positions Audrey Davis - 16:59 like, “do this,” “do that,” and he does it for Katopodis said. “The team captains will start you,” Gorsse said. “He has this philosophy optional pre-season practices soon, so I’ll be like, “just do it, just hit the ball.” And after out there watching.” that, he’ll probably just give you some tips Last year, LASA junior Ella Pettichord spent and let you go on your own. He’s not too her second year on the softball team and said insistent on giving you details and lectures that it was a really repetitive year. She said that or anything. He just wants to see you do it, she is ready for a change and hopes Katopodis and he’s pretty cool. I like him.” will be that change.

The top LBJ sports statistics from the past six weeks graphic by Abby Kappelman

Reagan 0, LBJ 62 McCallum 42, LBJ 23 Cedar Creek 17, LBJ 55 Crockett 22, LBJ 59 Total Yards: 3326 Rushing yds: 2246 Passing yds: 1080 Crockett Game Stats Deandre Wytaske, 4 TDs Robert Satterwhite, 2 INTs, 1 TD

“My second year I feel like I didn’t learn a lot since they have a system and every year teach the same thing at the same time,” Pettichord said. “I feel like I couldn’t advance as much as I’d like. Katopodis may be able to change it up a little, which would be awesome.”

LBJ sophomore Anabel Lara was on the LBJ Lady Jags JV softball team for the 201314 season when Marcella Brown was the coach. Brown left LBJ at the end of last season, leaving the assistant softball coach position up for grabs. Lara said that she has the same expectations for the team as she did her freshman year.

“My expectations for this year are the same as last year,” Lara said. “We might have a new coach but I still hope for this year to go great, just like it did whenever Coach Brown was here. The team is awesome and I know we’ll have a really great season.” cue My

WOMEN’S

First Ladies from left to right: LASA junior Lisbet Rodriguez, LBJ dance coach and dance teacher Rae Collins and LBJ Senior Thalia Morales. all photos by Robin Daemmrich

ria icto yV to b pho

Coach Johnny McPherson, or ‘Coach Mac’ as some call him, watches his players practice their swings during their weekly meetings at Morris Williams golf course. This year, McPherson came out of retirement to coach the LBJ golf team. According to McPherson, whose wife is a counselor at LASA, this is hardly his first time working with kids.

“I taught PE and history,” McPherson said. “and I coached [football and basketball] for 34 years at Pierce middle school, which feeds into LBJ” When he was ten years old, McPherson was given his first set of golf clubs. These days, he plays as often as he can, usually three times a week.

According to

to themselves as a “dance team.” The difference is in style of dance as well as overall expectations for precision. Read says that historically the First Ladies had been more of a relaxed team. “[First Ladies] is about having a bond with all the other girls on the team and having fun and being different from the drill teams that drive themselves crazy for competitions,” Read said.

However Collins has implemented directives on the team that push the First Ladies towards being a more “elite” team, as Collins refered to them. Practices start every day at a specifically stated time, and the girls receive low grades whenever they wear the wrong practice top for a specific day of the week. The room has also been renovated, and the dancers are responsible for keeping the room clean by sweeping and cleaning mirrors.

Despite many changes, Collins knew that she could at least prove herself to others through her dance.

“I knew that coming in here I had a really good foundation.

I had been dancing my whole life and I know the self discipline that comes along with dance.”

The First Ladies last regular season halftime performance on Nov. 6th.

After football season, the First Ladies will jump into preparations for their competition season, which lasts through February.

According to Collins, she was ready for the transition to LBJ before it happened.

“It was a really great experience and I feel like I’m really starting to get into my groove. The team is really starting to form and really support what it is that I’m trying to do here,” Collins said.

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

Road bikers reminisce on dangers of cycling inside large metro areas Roxy Bonafont

Staff Writer

ar t

by Vi cto ria

M yc ue

LASA junior Bertram Jernejcic scans the road, keeping focused on the traffic around him. He pedals about 25 mph in the bike lane when a city bus passes him and makes an unexpected right turn across the bus lane in front of him.

“I ran into the curb, so I fell

about 20 feet and I landed on my back,” Jernejcic said. “I ended up breaking my back in two places and a good deal of road rash, so [that was] pretty unpleasant.”

Jernejcic is an avid cyclist, participating in races on a weekly basis and devoting all his time to training. The crash was more serious than anything he’d experienced while road biking which has made him more critical of Austin’s hazardous cycling scene.

After two and a half weeks of recovery, Jernejcic was back on the roads—only to get in another accident just a week later.

“I got hit by a car again from behind,” Jernejcic said. “This time it was absolutely ridiculous; I couldn’t tell you what happened because I was knocked unconscious.”

Jernejcic said that poor infrastructure and inattentive drivers make Austin an unsafe place for cycling. Additionally, his busy school schedule forces him to train in late afternoon rush hour traffic, increasing the risk of a crash. Prior to the accidents he wasn’t particularly concerned about these conditions, but he said that his attitude has changed.

“Every time I cut past a little too close I get a little bit of shakes,” Jernejcic said.

“Sometimes it’s scary, and some people are purposely hostile.”

LASA math teacher and frequent road biker Charlie Barnes said that, in many cases, the danger is due to drivers being unused to seeing cyclists. He believes that drivers who are accustomed to driving around cyclists make the roads much safer because they are generally more cautious. [Add another sentence here] “I’ve collided with a car once, downtown on 6th Street, and I’ve also come really close to a bad wreck on 51st, sort of in the north campus part of 51st,” Barnes said. “Both times that I’ve either hit the car or almost hit the car, the car’s gotten impatient behind me and decided to pass me and then immediately make a right-hand turn right after they’ve passed me.”

LASA junior Evan Williams had his own close call while biking in Colorado.

Williams is a mountain biker and recalled an incident while exiting the trails with his group.

“I was kind of tucked in [and] going 30, trying to catch up to the rest of the group that was maybe 20 feet ahead of me,” Williams said. “This old dude in this huge truck just looked at the group, didn’t look left, turned right. I came a couple of inches away from, after looking up, slamming on my breaks. I almost went into the bed of his truck.”

Unlike drivers, cyclists are extremely exposed at all times on the road. Barnes and Jernejcic said that while some of the danger inherent in road biking is unavoidable, even if the drivers look out for bikers.

“When you look at Guadalupe especially, they [the city] tried so hard,” Jernejcic said. “They spent a lot of money to make that a bike route, but it’s uneven, the cars, the visibility is low. It’s just unsafe.”

Barnes criticized drivers for their impatience, pointing out that the delay caused by cyclists is minimal and becoming aggressive is unwarranted.

He also advises drivers to give cyclists plenty of space and to treat them like another vehicle on the road. His guiding philosophy, however, is a general distrust of drivers.

“That’s about the best you can do,” Barnes said. “As a cyclist you should signal all the time, you should try to be courteous, you should take space when you need it; you should be a little bit aggressive about taking space when you need it rather than let yourself get run off the road. But honestly all of those things make kind of a small difference.

I think the biggest thing you can do is distrust everybody.”

Both Barnes and Jernejcic said they are highly passionate about the sport of biking and the conditions in Austin.

Jernejcic started out as a mountain biker as early as six, but disliked the terrain and developed a preference for road biking. He said that during the school year he typically clocks in somewhere between 15 and 18 hours of riding every week. He’s not sure how much can really be done to completely avoid danger.

“It’s just hard because you know Austin is so busy, and if you go to school all day long the only time you have to ride is five o’clock, the busiest time of day,” Jernejcic said. “So when you spend seven days a week on the roads, [accidents are] kind of inevitable.”

Freshmen swimmers contribute speed during competitions, bond with team Alex Pasch

the Jaguar’s objective was more clear cut for their second meet.

“Our goal is to win first place, so we will,” Cardinale said.

In addition to placing first in their meets, the Jaguar swim It is 6 a.m. at the YMCA of East Austin Communities team has other goals in mind. According to Cardinale, the Branch. The sun has not yet risen, but the LBJ Pool Jags dive team is also focusing on creating a bond throughout the team into the outdoor pool, training for their next meet. Through and working on team building skills. Though swim team is a their daily practices, the LBJ swim team is striving to hold very solitary sport, Cardinale said that she wants the members an even better record than that of last year. On Oct. 23, the to still work as a team.

“We hope to learn learn fellowship, friendship and Jaguars competed in their first meet of the year, the Round Rock Invitational. LASA senior and swim team member brotherhood through the sport,” Cardinale said. “[One of] Vignesh Vasu said the team’s newcomers were game-changers our goals for the year [is to create a] learning community through team sports.” for LBJ in the meet.

Swimmers, though part of a team, still compete by “Our freshmen outshone our high hopes for them,” Vasu said. “We knew they would do great, and they were able to do themselves and many of them have personal goals as well.

Vasu, said that his short term goal is to continue to work hard even better.” and stay as dedicated The LBJ swim to practicing as he has team finished 12th his last three years. His place out of 24 teams. long-term goal is to lose Most of the schools as much time as possible the Jaguars competed to make state. against were 6A teams.

“It’s great to be back LASA freshman Alex in the water again; it’s Mancevski swam a definitely worth the 5 50.84 second 100 yard a.m. wake up time,” Vasu freestyle, placing ninth said. “I want to see if I in the meet. Mancevski -LASA senior John Chan can put in all the effort also placed 6th among and make state.” boys in the 100 yard Chan said that, after butterfly, with a time of 55.83 seconds. Maddy Havranek swam a 1:06.44 100 yard spending so much time with the Pool Jags, the team created the community that Cardinale wants to pull through each butterfly, According to LASA freshman and swimmer Maddy year. Chan said the he also can’t wait for the freshmen to feel the sense of family the returning members do.

Havranek, the Jaguars did fairly well in their first meet.

“Overall as a team we grew together, learned a lot about “In terms of our district we got pretty high rankings, so each other and we built a strong community,” Chan said. “We that’s good,” Havranek said.

Havranek, who swam in the women’s 100 yard butterfly, have some rocking new freshmen who are the fastest people 200 yard IM, and 400 yard freestyle relay, said although she ever, so I don’t think we’ll have trouble [this season].” hasn’t yet gotten used to waking up early, the people she spends her morning with makes it worth it. She said that the team is already very closely knit.

“We had a party the first week which was cool because the freshman got to meet all the upperclassmen and all the captains and everyone got to kind of hang out together,” said Havranek. “In the pool we also play a lot of games and talk and we’re just one big happy family.”

This year is LASA senior and swimmer John Chan’s fourth year as a Pool Jag and he said he has found the LBJ swim team to be a very unique sport. He said that people who compete by themselves but are still willing to be part of a team are unusual, as well as high schoolers who are willing to wake up any earlier than they have to.

“I think it’s a very unique trait in people to be willing to throw themselves in the water daily at 6 a.m. in the morning,” Chan said. “I feel like through that shared suffering the swim team grows closer together. We just spend so much time together it’s kind of inevitable.”

On Oct. 31 the Jags swam in another meet that was “I need to focus up, swim my hardest on every race and leave everything in considerably less competitive than the Round Rock meet, the pool,” LASA senior Alex Crumb said. Crumb swimming backstroke at the according to LBJ swim coach Chloe Cardinale. She said that Jaguars’ second meet, the Round Rock Invitational. photo courtesy of Elena Cole

Staff Writer

“

“

I think it’s a very unique trait in people to be willing to throw themselves in the water daily at 6 a.m.

The Paper Jaguar

with Basab Ghatak-Roy

The Paper Jaguar is an experiment in “participatory journalism” which was pioneered by George Plimpton in the mid-60s. Plimpton wrote a book called The Paper Lion detailing his tryout with the Detroit Lions professional football team.

Inspired by the idea, intrepid former sports editor Jake Stewart practiced with a different LBJ athletic team each issue and catalogued his experience here. In this issue of the Liberator, Commentary Editor Basab Ghatak-Roy practices with the LBJ Color Guard.

Allow me to preface this scarring experience by saying: I am articulating this story through a voiceto-text program, as I have managed to break all of my fingers. When I first came to practice with the LBJ Color Guard, I had a series of mixed expectations, which later I found to be horribly, painfully wrong.

The first misconception I had about the LBJ Color Guard was that they used real guns. I was disappointed at first, but learned to be grateful that it wasn’t 10 pounds of metal I was hurtling into the air. Regardless, the fake gun turned out to be the hardest, most painful amalgamation of spinning wood I have ever encountered. Secondly, I figured I would be walking away suavely after showing off my skills. Instead, I found myself limping away, my fingers as splintered as my ego.

I confidently strode into the practice hall prepared to stun the flag twirling wizards with my quick fingers and coordination, but soon learned that these fingers were to be crushed without mercy. After fifteen painful seconds of stretching, I opted out of warming up. In retrospect this was a poor decision. As my legs gave out through a combination of fear and lack of dexterity, I soon found that their only uses were to effectively propel me as far away from the flying projectile as possible. Following my grave, self-diagnosed phobia for white guns, I determined that these are not glorified cheerleaders, but instead athletes who should probably be on the football field themselves. This was one of the most painful, demanding experiences of my life.

I should have just stayed in the newspaper room and done 400 push-ups while having the staff take turns stomping on my fingers and toes, because I would have come out of that experience better off physically.

I expected to be marching around moving a flag sideto-side, but quickly found myself gasping for air while I tried to catch a wooden gun that was inevitably going to break my nose, all whilst keeping in time with my team mates. This was a precise art, a true sport that I certainly did not have a knack for.

In addition to being left with bruises, I have also been left with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Just this morning on my drive to school, I moved my visor down to block out the sun and I could’ve sworn I could see a white gun flying down at my face. I can no longer stand for pledges, not out of disrespect for my country, but for the sheer pain I now associate with flags.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of athleticism I failed to acknowledge was the catching ability of the Color Guard team. Throwing a gun in the sky at the correct height with the right number of turns is less than half of the challenge. When the gun is hurtling back down at you, turning so fast you don’t know which end is going to end up smashing into you, sticking your arm out is the last thing you want to do. Next was the uniformity. Being in sync is necessary for being part of a team, and I soon learned that in addition to turning the flag the same direction of those around me, I was expected to move in sync with the unit, not flail my arms aimlessly while running away from the projectiles I had just released into the stratosphere. I can no longer poke fun at the flag spinning skills, and to be honest, I can no longer look directly at a flag.

I’ve worked out before, I swear. I’ve touched a soccer ball in my time and caught a football more than once, but this was the most athletically demanding task I’ve engaged in, in quite a while. The sheer danger of being a Color Guard should come with life insurance, or finger coverage at the least. The combination of teamwork, coordination and spirit found in the LBJ Color Guard team inspired me to go home and throw things around. My parent’s didn’t like this much, but I’m determined to improve my skills for the next time I encounter the right pack of weapon yielding flag lovers (hint: not Mr. Risinger). All in all, I believe that people should just start showing up at games to watch the Color Guards, because, in my opinion, that’s the real show of athleticism and teamwork.

LASA senior Basab Ghatak-Roy drops a rifle while in formation with the rest of the colorguard team as they practice for competitons. photo by Meagen Allgood

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

Winning,

yard by yard

“We could’ve won if we practiced harder during the off week [and] been more focused, more game ready,” LBJ senior Avery Jackson said. “We should’ve won, definitely.” The LBJ quaterback, Jackson, prepares to hike the ball at the 10 yard line of the LBJ vs. McCallum game on Oct. 10. The Jaguars lost to the Mac Knights 42-43 at Nelson Field after Jackson and Wytaske were injured during play. Jackson said LBJ needed to spend more time in the Knights’ endzone. photo taken by Oliver Powers

Jaguars find success against new teams in district, fight for district title Staff Writer

‘Nascar three, Nascar three,’ LBJ senior and quarterback Avery Jackson shouts over the roar of the crowd. The Jaguars line up into their designated positions and await Jackson’s snap.

On Sept. 26, the Jaguars beat Reagan 62-0 in a blowout victory, with seven different players contributing touchdowns. That night, Jackson completed 8 out of 10 passes for 156 yards, and as a team, the Jaguars put up 513 yards of offense, while only allowing 160. This was the Jaguars second district game, giving them a record of 2-0 in district.

On Oct. 10 the Jaguars played McCallum at Nelson Field, losing 42-23 after three quarters of close play. According to Jackson the Jaguars didn’t come out to play that night.

“Offensively we should’ve put it in the endzone more,” Jackson said. “Defensively we should’ve held them to less yards.”

During the third quarter, Jackson was injured but returned to the game shortly. Jackson said he struggled because of the injury.

“I couldn’t run as fast as I could in the first half,” Jackson said. “I couldn’t throw as well either.”

LBJ had a 56-yard touchdown run by Wytaske on a triple-reverse, but it was recalled due to a block in the back penalty. According to Jackson, this changed the momentum of the game, which they could have won.

“Probably if we practiced harder during the off week,” Jackson said. “We could have probably won if we had been more focused been more game ready.”

Wytaske, who has scored 11 touchdowns this season, was prevented from scoring during the McCallum game. LBJ sophomore Kahlil Thomas picked up the slack, contributing 135 yards and a touchdown. However this was not enough.

Wytaske said the Jaguars could’ve won the game if they had started playing better and making less mistakes.

“We played alright, we didn’t play our best though,” Wytaske

said. “Our first possession we had two false starts and then we started going backwards” On Oct. 19, the Jaguars beat Cedar Creek 55-17 at Bastrop ISD’s Memorial Stadium. Jackson carried the team with 190 rushing yards, 127 yards in the air and three rushing touchdowns as well as two passing touchdowns.

“We just came out ready to play and we had something to prove again because people started doubting us again,” LBJ junior and linebacker Ashton Williams said.

The Jaguar’s defense held Cedar Creek to 23 yards on 11

“

We could have probably won if we had been more focused, been more game-ready.

-LASA senior Avery Jackson

LBJ slowed down in the second half, scoring only two more touchdowns in the third quarter, both coming from Jackson.

Cedar Creek had one more touchdown in the fourth quarter to finish out the game.

The Jaguars had another big win on Oct. 24 over Crockett at Nelson Field. Crockett, who beat McCallum 43-42 on Sept. 19, only scored 22 points, most of them coming late in the game.

LBJ won 59-22, scoring ten points or more in every quarter.

Giles said that he thought LBJ would shut Crockett out, since they scored 45 points before Crockett got on the board.

“I think defensively the team came out really fast, and hit our keys,” Giles said. “I mean we did what we’re supposed to do on the field. We did perfectly on the defensive side until the third quarter.”

Wytaske scored four of the Jaguar’s seven touchdowns, and Wytaske recorded three scored on the ground and one receiving touchdown. LBJ junior Robert Satterwhite returned his second interception of the night 40 yards for a touchdown. Crockett had their first touchdown at the end of the third quarter, bringing the core to 45-6. Crockett had two more touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

On Oct. 30 the Jaguars beat Lanier 63-0, putting up 388 yards, and scoring touchdowns on both defense and special teams. LBJ lineman Chris Jones said that they Jaguars performed well on both offense and defense.

“It was just another game [for us],” Jones said. “Lanier just didn’t play like they wanted to and we did.”

LBJ held Lanier to just 51 yards of offense and two first downs. According to Jones the Jaguars were able to post a shutout victory by using blitzes because to stop Lanier’s outside runs.

Currently the Jaguars are tied with McCallum for the district title. According to Giles, the Jaguars are not yet satisfied with this season’s performance, looking for a state title.

“It feels good but I’m not to the point where I’m satisfied yet,” Giles said. “I mean it’s an accomplishment, but I’m not finished yet.”

“

Oliver Powers

rush attempts. Williams recorded two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries. According to him, the defense played a good game, but not perfect.

“We had a couple slip ups here and there, but we got right back on track,” Williams said. “We just have to bring this intensity to the next game.”

In the first quarter LBJ had four touchdowns, two coming from Jackson and the other two coming from LBJ sophomore Khalil Thomas. Cedar Creek was only able to put three points on the scoreboard with a 22-yard field goal from their kicker Marco Olivera. The Jags finished out the half with an 80yard kickoff return for a touchdown by LBJ senior De’Andre Wytaske, and a 43-yard touchdown run by Jackson.

Cross country team doubles numbers, new New leadership leads to freshman places well in AISD district meet ultimate frisbee changes

Gil Johnson

Staff Writer

an elm pp Ka by Ab by oto ph

Sprinting across the finish line of the AISD district cross country meet, LASA freshman Suzanna Metcalf is told that she beat her previous record with a 5 kilometer run in 20:17.

This time ranks her in fourth place in the varsity race,and also makes her the 28th fastest freshman girl in Texas. Metcalf said that her competitive nature made it easier for her to push herself to beat her time.

“I am pretty competitive,” Metcalf said. “It is during a race that I am most competitive. I think this is true for most runners, but having people running in front of me makes me simply really not want them in front of me. Running with faster people allows me to become a faster runner.”

Metcalf said that she specifically doesn’t want her brother, LASA junior and cross country runner Isaac Metcalf in front of her. The two train together every day, with Isaac waking her up every morning for practice. The siblings consistently push each other to run faster, which has led to improvement over the summer.

“My older brother is a great example for me,” Metcalf said.

“He trains his absolute hardest at all times. He has helped me to raise my own standards and challenge myself even more.”

Metcalf was not a runner in middle school, but Isaac has been on the LBJ cross country team since freshman year. Metcalf came to some meets last year and realized that it might be fun. After watching her brother run, she decided to join the summer before the 2014-15 school year.

“Last year, as an 8th grader, I came to a number of meets to cheer on my older brother,” Metcalf said.

“Even then I was waking up early, putting on a purple t-shirt, and coming out to meets rooting for the LBJ team.

Coming to watch all of these meets as an 8th grader made me super excited to join the team as soon as I was able to.

When he went on to do cross country in high school, I just made sense for me to do the same.”

Metcalf has only been training specifically with the team since the summer before this school year.

However, she has run in the past and on occasion raced, but she never treated it like she does now.

“I have been running small mile road races outside of school since kindergarten, but I think I should

point out that up until this year I had never seriously trained,” Metcalf said. “In fact, it was very rare that I would voluntarily go out for a run.”

Metcalf said she still feels somewhat apprehensive before races, but that the feeling she gets after running a race is worth the anxiety.

“I want to wake up and race each meet simply for the satisfaction of finishing a race knowing I have done my best,” Metcalf said. “Before a race you are super anxious and the last thing you want to do is run three miles, and during the race you would give almost anything to not have to be running three miles, but after the race you are nothing but satisfied and proud of what you’ve accomplished. You are left with no regrets. I think that’s what it is about running that pulls me out of bed each morning.”

The girls cross country team has doubled since last year, with the addition of over 20 new athletes. LASA senior and captain, Ben Rieden, said that Metcalf ’s enthusiasm has spread to the rest of the team.

“I think the girls on the team are motivated by Metcalf and how fast she is as a freshman.” Reiden said. “Overall, we have had a large improvement this year in the girls team, which has been a lot smaller previously.”

Metcalf is one of the few freshmen consistently running varsity races. Rieden said that he hopes she will continue to race throughout high school and into college, and that she has the potential to be one of the fastest girls on the team.

“I think Metcalf will improve a lot over the next few years, and she has a good chance of qualifying for state junior or senior year if she keeps up the good work,” Reiden said. “She’s going to do great things.”

graphic by Abby Kappelman

Meagen allgood & Nurit Elber

Sports Editor & Staff Writer

The LASA ultimate frisbee team, the Vertikills, have spent the beginning of the school year rebuilding their team after the loss of their seniors—some of whom were nationally-ranked. LASA juniors Gabriel Salgado and Sam Pastor took over leadership this season and decided to start retraining the team from the bottom up.

“Since we lost a lot of our good people, we had to take a couple steps back and not [start] as complicated,” LASA junior and ultimate frisbee player James Du Bose said. “So we are just trying to focus on fundamentals right now.”

LASA junior and returning ultimate player Will Goodwin said that he believes that starting slow is working well with the team they have. He said that they gained a large number of new players this year who already have playing experience. The new players need to spend time working on meshing with the team rather than learning skills, Goodwin said.

“I say the team is pretty well balanced,” Goodwin said.

“We just got a large amount of freshmen this year, and we have a huge amount of juniors this year as well. I’m excited because the freshmen class has a lot of people that have played before, making it easier to start this season on a fresh foot. I’m excited for state this year despite losing very, very talented seniors this past year.”

Both Salgado and Pastor have been playing Ultimate since middle school. Due to their experience and the techniques they picked up from last years seniors, LASA junior Travis Kennedy said that they have already proved to be good leaders.

“I think our captains are going to do a great job leading the LASA Vertikills,” Kennedy said. “Both love the sport, have a sense of leadership, and want to see their teammates succeed. They both have amazing skills and want to lead the team to state tournament wins.”

With the combined drive of Salgado and Pastor, Kennedy said that they should be able to make their goal.

In order to get the team to tournament level, the Vertikills are going to slowly build on the skills they already have, according to Kennedy.

“We plan to practice harder, try our best to win more games and succeed in tournaments,” Kennedy said. “Other than that, the plan is to stick to our fundamentals and our steady advancement of the disc without getting too eager.”

The first tournament of the season for the Vertikills is November and will be the first match they have played since a scrimmage over the summer with multiple high schools. The team played well, but lost to McCallum.

“We were all impressed with how well we played after being away from the game all summer,” Kennedy said.

“The team looks great so far and we like having the team improve with each practice. It looks great, but we always welcome new faces at practices.”

If

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

you look into a classrom on campus, finding at least one student asleep with their head on the desk or softly snoring up against the wall is almost a guarantee. Typically by no fault of the teachers or the school itself, sleeping in class, lack of attention and inability to focus are common in high schools, where students have to put up with the demands of homework, extracurriculars and outside employment. LASA senior Baylee Gowin knows this firsthand, often returning home from her job at HEB at 1 a.m. without having had time to start her homework. STORY BY LOGAN KRAMER AND CHLOE EDMISTON.

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circadian rhythms undergo a shift during adolescence (ages 13 to 19), which is referred to as a phase-change. The reason that many teens feel more awake at 10 p.m. than at other times during the day is because this phase-change makes their internal biological clocks resist sleep until late at night when grown adults and young children are already feeling sleepy.

The phase-change also affects teens in the morning, when their bodies might feel as if they should still be sleeping during their first and second-period classes. LASA sophomore Daniel De Grasse said that he regularly has trouble focusing during classes in the morning because of a lack of sleep.

“I can’t really pay attention that well in first period,” De Grasse said. “If I’m really really tired, and I’m taking a test, I’ll just stop thinking.”

LBJ and LASA begin their days at 8:15 a.m., earlier than any other high school in the Austin Independent School District, and at a time when teens should still be asleep according to their circadian rhythms. A study by the University of Minnesota analyzed the difference between students whose schools began between 7:15 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. and students whose schools began after 8:30 a.m. Generally, they found that students who began school later reported being less depressed, getting more sleep on a nightly basis and being more focused in their first classes each morning. One of the main findings of this study was that students went to sleep at an average of 10:45 p.m. no matter what time their school started, so students at schools

phenomenon of consistently racking up hours of lost sleep is known as “sleep debt.” Butler said that many students don’t realize sleep debt pertains to the amount of sleep received regularly instead of just last night’s sleep, as students assume.

“Think about your last two weeks of sleep and how you sleep every single night,” Butler said. “If you didn’t reach the amount of sleep your body needed, even if it’s an hour, or a half hour, of what your body needed over the past two weeks, it adds up. So instead of just ‘I had an hour or less sleep,’ it’s really fourteen hours of sleep if you’re doing that habitually.

Some people think, ‘It’s okay, I’ll just sleep on the weekends,’ and what I say to them is, ‘Just sleeping on the weekends with healthy sleep is just like eating healthy on the weekends. It doesn’t work.’”

Some students feel like they have no choice but to get caught up in sleep debt because of their work schedules or extracurricular commitments that force them to start their homework at later and later times. LBJ junior Brianna Morales stays after school every day for volleyball practice and works weekends at Old Navy. Between volleyball games and practices Monday through Friday, homework and her 10 to 12 hours of work on Saturdays and Sundays, Morales said that she has trouble trying to get enough sleep even on the weekends.

“I try [to sleep more on the weekends], but it doesn’t work,” Morales said. “My sleep schedule some nights [is] crazy.”

In addition to sleeping in on the weekends, teens try to make up for sleep loss with coffee, energy drinks and energy supplements.

Although these possibly provide a student with a few hours of alertness that mimic a full night’s sleep, according to a study done by the CDC of long-term effects of caffeine on young adults, caffeine dependence can actually inhibit a teen’s ability to sleep and may leave them sleepier. In addition, longterm caffeine use can cause teens to lose their ability to focus or concentrate on tasks -LASA wellness counselor Meagan Butler for long periods on time and increase blood pressure and heart rates, impairing a student’s ability to function at a normal level. Butler that started later were often getting over an hour more of sleep said that it’s common for her to see students consuming every school night than their peers at other schools. Because caffeine after a particularly bad night’s sleep. of the phase-change in teenage circadian rhythms and the early “[I see] caffeine intake, so I have several students who drink start time at LBJ and LASA, this is a particular problem on coffee throughout the day or Red Bull,” Butler said. “Caffeine campus. pills… a lot of caffeine, 5 Hour Energy, that kind of thing.”

“In the morning I have to wake up super early to catch my Regardless of the methods that teens have to make up bus,” LASA junior Elizabeth Frey said. “Also, we don’t know for a lack of sleep, the impact that sleep deprivation has on when it’s going to arrive so sometimes it’ll be super early and the abilities of high school students to concentrate or even sometimes not. In the afternoons I usually sleep on the bus stay healthy continues to be detrimental to their mental and because it’s so long. But still I have to do homework a lot later physical well beings. For full-time students who participate because I get home so much later.” in extracurriculars like sports and hold part-time or fullIn addition, after-school extracurriculars, like football in De time jobs, getting enough sleep isn’t always an option. Even Grasse’s case, keep students at school until 6 or 7 p.m., forcing students without heavy extracurricular loads feel a biological them to stay up later doing the same amount of homework. need to stay up later and sleep in through the morning, which Many students like De Grasse attempt to make up for the sleep is disrupted by the early start times of high schools that begin they lose during the week by sleeping in later on non-school when teens should still be asleep. De Grasse says that while he days. would like to get more sleep, it isn’t entirely realistic because “I try to make up [sleep] on the weekends, but really I just of all these factors. don’t get enough sleep,” De Grasse said. “Then, when I really “I would do a little better on tests [with more sleep], I need sleep, I just stay home for first period.” would have a lot better focus, and I would be able to think a De Grasse’s method of ‘making up’ sleep on the weekends little quicker,” De Grasse said. “But I’m not sure I would be is something that plenty of students do, according to Butler. able to get enough sleep even if there wasn’t football.”

However, Butler said that it’s ineffective to get a few hours of sleep on weekdays and then sleep more on the weekends. The

Some people think, ‘It’s okay, I’ll just sleep on the weekends,’ and what I say to them is, ‘Just sleeping on the weekends with healthy sleep is just like eating healthy on the weekends. It doesn’t work.

“

“I was falling asleep, usually in my last period classes, and I’d sleep before my first period class every day...” Gowin said.

“It’s not that bad except I wouldn’t have my homework done most of the time.”

In 2013, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that over 68 percent of teens did not get sufficient sleep (by the CDC’s guidelines, eight hours) on an average week night. Homework and projects that take precedence because of strict deadlines take hours from students that they could have spent sleeping. Not only does sleep loss affect teens physically, but sleep deprivation can be detrimental to a student’s mental and emotional well-being. LASA wellness counselor Meagan Butler said that students are more likely to be irritable, angry or sad if they don’t receive a proper amount of sleep. “[Teenagers are] going to feel their emotions more intensely, so the thing that the student is already feeling is [going to] be amplified,” Butler said. “It’s harder for students to emotionally regulate when they’re sleep-deprived. It may be that they would feel anxiety and their heart rate might increase, but if they didn’t sleep, they might have a panic attack.”

Gowin said that after nights that she receives a particularly short amount of sleep, she notices being unable to control her emotions during the following days. She recently began taking on less hours at HEB, allowing her to get more sleep during the week. Gowin says she noticed a bigger difference in her overall mood after dropping some of her shifts.

“I realized that it was really getting to me and I was getting really emotional all the time,” Gowin said. “So whenever I don’t get enough sleep now that I’ve kind of gotten back on track, I get really moody and emotional and just want to cry at everything.”

In addition to the emotional effects of sleep deprivation, the most apparent physical symptoms that students associate with sleep deprivation are dark circles under the eyes and yawning. However, there are more severe physical effects that stem from a lack of sleep, which appear especially in teens. Washington State University graduate researcher Kimberly Honn from the Sleep and Performance Research Center said that many other bodily functions are affected by lack of sleep, including fine motor skills.

“Physical signs of sleep deprivation include yawning and slowed blinking,” Honn said. “The speed of eyelids closing is slower and the eyes stay shut longer when sleepy. Sleep deprivation also causes increased resting blood pressure.

Sleep is beneficial to motor-sequence learning.”

Although sleep deprivation symptoms are the same regardless of age, teenagers are special cases when it comes to the amount of sleep they need and when their bodies feel like sleeping. University of Texas at Austin professor David Schnyer said that since the teenage brain is rapidly developing, the sleep patterns of teens are different than those of any other age group.

“As we age, we need less sleep and our circadian rhythms shift,” Schnyer said. “Teenagers generally need more sleep than adults to function effectively and their circadian clocks are shifted so that they stay up later and rise later in the morning.”

Circadian rhythms are 24-hour cycles that control various mental, physical and behavioral changes that happen throughout the day, including when a body feels tired. These

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To find out how sleep deprivation affects sutdents on campus, The Liberator took to the streets to ask students:

How many hours of sleep do you get per night? How does this affect you at school?

Jordan Jones, LBJ ‘17

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“It really makes me tired and kind of kills my focus but it’s okay.”

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Madeline Jones, LASA ‘17

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“I feel really sluggish[after a bad night’s sleep], and it’s hard to find motivation to work and difficult to focus”

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the liberator nov. 7 2014

p deprivation has been suggested to be d to long-term health disorders such as disease and mental illness.

rding to the National Sleep Foundation, agers should sleep between 8 ½ and hours per night.

ercent of the 769 respondents to this s Wellness Survey responded that they less than five hours a night at least a week.

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Claire Morrison, LASA ‘16

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ally tired… I would be o focus more in class t more sleep].”

“I’m less attentive in class whenever I get less sleep. It makes it harder to actually learn things in class.”

“I’m ready to learn when I get [to school], I’m ready to work.”

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Sharlynn Perry, LBJ ‘15

Jackie Singer, LASA ‘15

k it’s hard to get through y if you are even a little but I eventually do wake one point during school, t hard to get started.”

“When the boys have a football game, I’ll usually go watch, and I’m really tired the days after that because I chose to go out and watch it.”

“I make a good nights sleep just as much of a priority as my schoolwork, only staying up late when it’s absolutely necessary.”

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

LASA student travels to Italy to work on biology research Mary-Louise Gilburg

Staff Writer

Tensely leaning over a set of 96 test tubes, LASA senior Pia Sen and her labmate concentrate on accurately transferring bacteria samples. After failing at this tedious task countless times, the transfer goes perfectly.

The two rejoice, and momentarily acknowledge their victory. Seconds later, they move on to the next set of test tubes in an attempt to recreate their success.

“I really like research, it makes me happy,” Sen said.

“It makes me feel as though my brain is doing something that actually has a purpose. When you do research you are constantly curious and questioning how something can be created or how you can explore something and its just really exciting.”

Over the summer, Sen worked in a lab in Italy on an all-expenses-paid trip devoted to studying the interplay between computer programming and biological research. She was invited to work in this lab through an award for her Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) project, which used machine learning and programming to electronically diagnose patients with inflammatory bowel disorders, and she said that she was excited to have the chance to research something new at the lab in Italy. “[The lab in Italy] taught me how to better address my problems when things don’t work out,” Sen said.

“And how to keep a logical approach without getting too emotional about it.”

LASA chemistry teacher Amy Moore traveled with Sen and other LASA students to the Intel ISEF in the spring. She said that Sen’s research opportunities have been an important introduction to the scientific world outside of high school.

“I think it just opens your eyes up to a whole other part of the world that you don’t get in high school because… in a high school class it’s very structured,” Moore said.

“But when you go out to do research on your own, you expect that [your lab is] not going to work but then you have the opportunity to go tweak it and make it better and the application can go somewhere.”

Sen said she loved working in the lab abroad because she was able to explore Italy. While in Italy, she was able to collaborate with students from other countries who were as interested in research as she was.

“I was working with people all over the world,” Sen said. “There was a kid from Tunisia and one from Puerto Rico. It was really exciting to work with these people and collaborate with them despite them speaking different languages.”

After working for three weeks in Italy, Sen worked full time in Austin, 11 hours a day, five days a week, at the University of Texas (UT) synthetic biology lab, attempting to find a cure for cystic fibrosis. She has been working at labs around UT for two years.

“I got into my first lab in tenth grade,” Sen said. “I had ideas and emailed my proposals around to different professors and eventually I got invited to work in FRI which is a college undergraduate research lab.”

As Sen continues to work in her lab, she hopes to grow as a scientist in order to keep learning.

“When I was in ninth grade, before I actually knew what research was, I thought that maybe I could cure cancer in a month, “ Sen said. “Obviously that is not going to happen, now I know that. So just on the microlevel I was focused on getting those general coordination skills down. Now it is also to keep those general coordination skills while being able to design my experiments and figure out where to go intelligently.

I am basically trying to be more aware and continue to develop.”

During the pep rally before the LBJ v. McCallum football game, LBJ seniors Malik Allen-Spears and Alex Walker mix music for the student body. “I’ve always had a passion for music, and I figured I’d might as well join [DJ Club] to see what was up with it,” Walker said. photo by Oliver Powers

Mixing beats, taking names

New DJ club looks forward to DJing homecoming, releasing album Victoria Mycue

Staff Writer

LBJ senior Malik Allen-Spears leans over the sound board in the LBJ radio room, toying with buttons and adjusting beats. Finally, the effect is perfect.

“I started DJ club for my love of music,” Allen-Spears said. “I’ve been around it my whole life because my dad is a producer.”

Allen-Spears founded LBJ DJ Club in the second semester of his junior year. He said that instead of advertising his club through school announcements or posters, talk of the club spread across the school via word of mouth.

“If you build it, they will come,” Allen-Spears said. “So I kind of started it, then everyone kind of trickled in, just all through the love of music.”

After deciding to start the club, Allen-Spears had to find it a home at LBJ. He thought of the under-utilized LBJ radio room, which provided space for the necessary equipment, like computers, speakers and amps.

“I emailed [Principal] Henry asking her if I could have [the room across from] Mr. Brancaccio’s class so that I might actually get some use out of the radio station, [and] she said ‘fine,’” Allen-Spears said. “And thus, the DJ club was born.”

Before the room was transformed into the LBJ radio room and later the space for DJ Club, it was used as a storage closet for the Boys & Girls’ Club. LBJ senior Bryson Williams, one of the first members of DJ Club, helped the other members convert the room.

“It was the Boys & Girls Club thing at first,” Williams said.

“It was trashy and everything. You could barely sit down.

There were lunch chairs in there. It wasn’t comfortable. It was all crowded.”

While Williams said he joined out of curiosity, AllenSpears started the club after DJing for years.

“I learned [to DJ] when I was in 7th grade,” Allen-Spears said. “I learned by trial and error.”

When Allen-Spears started DJing, he also expanded his venture into the world of music by experimenting with rapping. With the creation of DJ club, he was able to merge his two interests. “[I started rapping] when I was 12 years old,” Allen-Spears said. “[Now,] I make instrumentals then I put my rhymes over them.”

Another club member who has been exploring DJing in a more advanced way through the club is LBJ senior Alex Walker. Walker now alters the basic DJ technique, like using volume sliders, equalizers and fade-outs, for a more professional sound, but he said that at first he thought DJing was simply playing music from his laptop.

“You can kind of get away with doing that, but that’s not

what makes it fun,” Walker said. “What we do is we’re trying to figure out how to do all these cool things and how to manipulate the sound of the music we’re playing to make it [different] than just playing someone else’s music. We want to play their music but with our spin on it.”

LBJ’s Career and Technology Education (CTE) teacher and wrestling coach Randy Bryant, who provides some of the funding for the club through his class, said he’s helping the students create a collective album of the club’s products.

The album will be titled The Purple Tape, and will showcase the talent of LBJ and LASA students over all genres of music, recorded and mixed by DJ Club.

“The Purple Tape that DJ club is going to do and put out: it’s not just gonna be rapping and what we consider hip-hop,” Bryant said. “Also another portion of it [is] called lyrical revolution, where students come do spoken word and all that other good stuff.”

In addition to rap, hip-hop and spoken word poetry,The Purple Tape will feature students’ various forms of musical talent. DJ Club invites anyone interested to contribute to the album and expects it to drop later in the school year to both LASA and LBJ. “As music evolves, it’s not just going to be snare drums and kicks,” Bryant said. “If you have a love for music, and you want to contribute outside of school, [join].”

Besides producing The Purple Tape, another exhibition the club looks forward to is DJing at this year’s LBJ/LASA homecoming. Walker said the team has gathered a list of over 400 songs to play.

“I know a lot of songs that are pretty popular on the radio now [that] we’re going to be playing and we also have some personal favorites we’re throwing in,” Walker said. “We’re [also] going to try to do this elaborate set-up with different lights and machines and really we’re just trying to get how we transition from one song to the next down right so there’s no awkward pause. We just want to keep the music going.”

The club’s involvement with homecoming is a precedent this year. Club sponsor Peter Brancaccio said this year’s homecoming is the first completely student-run that LBJ and LASA have ever had, with the help of the DJ Club covering music for the night.

“The homecoming is a milestone for us,” Brancaccio said.

“It will be the largest event that we have ever DJed.” Beginning the production of The Purple Tape and working homecoming are both significant developments for the club according to Walker, but Brancaccio said the best club events so far have been times they’ve DJed in the cafeteria.

“Some of our best experiences have been when we’ve played during lunch,” Brancaccio said. “It is amazing to see the teachers and hundreds of students enjoying themselves, dancing and going crazy.”

Presenting her summer research to an auditorium full of University of Texas professors, LASA senior Pia Sen talks about the practices she used to study bacteria. “I have a product to show from [my research], other than just a worksheet you turn in,” Sen said. photo courtesy of Pia Sen

Climbing the ladder from “Volunteen” to paid staff Staff Writer

LASA junior Odalis Cartagena stands beaming behind a long desk, sporting a red Thinkery staff t-shirt and a name tag. As parents dragging excited children stream in through the doors, Cartagena greets them and checks them in. Later, she might help a kid build a toy car, assist in a scientific demonstration or play a memory game with a family.

“At the Thinkery I’m interacting with families, I’m interacting with kids, I’m helping them learn things that they would have to learn later in life, like physics,” Cartagena said. “[I explain things like] ‘the ball is here, it has potential energy. Once it moves down it has kinetic.’

And it’s like okay, explain that to a 3-year-old. That’s a life skill you can get: making explanations fit for different age ranges, and it really helps to have that experience beforehand instead of when you’re older.”

In December, the Austin Children’s Museum (ACM) moved to a new location at Mueller and rebranded as the Thinkery, a center for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) learning and educational play.

The new museum continues to offer the teen volunteer and employment program started at ACM. Cartagena was a part of this program until this June, when she became a paid staff member at the Thinkery.

“My mom, she’s single, and I wanted to help her out with getting money and all,” Cartagena said. “My mom… was an influence on me, so it was like, ‘Okay, I want to get a job so I can help her out with the things she needs and all that.’”

Cartagena joined the program last summer as a “Volunteen” because she was interested in volunteering and remembered visiting the museum as a kid. She said she loves working with

children but that it isn’t always easy. The museum requires staff and Volunteens to undergo a thorough training and orientation process. Jennifer Himstedt, the Teen Programs Coordinator at the Thinkery, said that the process not only educates teens about the importance of STEAM subjects but also helps prepare them for work experiences in the future.

“The Volunteen program provides training in meaningful volunteer and employment opportunities that empower

“

I’m in band, marching band, plus I have a job, as well as [a] homework load. It’s like a juggling act.

-LASA junior Odalis Cartagena

hours. Cartagena went through this entire process within a year. LASA sophomore Raavi Asdar, a Volunteen who joined at the same time as Cartagena, said she has an impressive work ethic.

“She put in a lot of time,” Asdar said. “She would work full day camps, so 40 hour weeks in the summer volunteering. So she was really dedicated and it was cool.”

Cartagena works every weekend, arriving around 8:30 a.m. and sometimes not getting home until 7 p.m. if she’s given two shifts. Her responsibilities include checking visitors in at the admissions desk and facilitating the museum experience in the gallery by interacting with kids and leading activities. She says it can be challenging to balance her job with a regular LASA workload.

“I’m in band, marching band, plus I have a job, as well as [a] homework load,” Cartagena said. “It’s like a juggling act.”

Cartagena said she especially enjoys working in the summer camps the museum offers because of the relationships she is able to form with the campers.

Throughout the week during a summer camp, Cartagena said she slowly gets attached to the campers she works with.

“At day one you’re like: ‘Okay, I don’t know you, you don’t know me,’” Cartagena said. “And then Friday it’s like: ‘Okay, you’re leaving; I can’t let go of you.’”

Cartagena encourages other students to get involved with the program. She said that the experience is genuinely unique among volunteer opportunities because it allows direct interaction with kids and families. She enjoys the chance to build meaningful relationships with children and introduce a variety of age groups to new information and ideas.

“It’s a different experience than you get at other volunteer areas,” Cartagena said. “It’s so much fun. It’s worth it.”

“

Roxy Bonafont

participants with responsibility and accountability,” Himstedt said. “100 hours of volunteer service along with organizational certifications allows a participant, if interested, to apply for a paid position. The skills and relevant experience gained during volunteering can be applied in the settings of a resume and interview to be a Direct Service Staff.”

According to Cartagena, before they’re eligible to apply for a paid position Volunteens must go through training to become certified in seven different skills such as “Guided Play” and “Story Time,” in addition to their required volunteer

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

Falling for food: an ode to pumpkin

Student reflects on fall life in Austin, finds solace in autumn menus Surya Milner

Entertainment Editor

TOP

5

Ways to get to the front of a concert

By Meris McHaney

“I have Ebola”

Screaming “I have Ebola!!!!!” at the top of your lungs will send you right where you want to go in a crowd of sweaty people. If the news doesn’t quite get you to the front, it sure will get people to back away from you, fearing your soon to be external bleeding. No one wants those fluids to ruin their fun and trendy low top white converse.

“I’m deaf,” she motions Don’t be ashamed, we all do it. How many deaf people even go to a concert anyway? If you want automatic access to a front row spot at any concert, brush up on your ASL. You don’t need to become an expert signer but a simple “I’m deaf ” motion should get you to the front. Tape a look of slight worry to your face and continue to repeat the signing until you’re in the perfect spot.

PTFO An ACL classic. Commit all the way, letting your body slowly fall to the ground as you “pass out.” Once you’re on the ground, several hands will begin picking you up and crowd surfing you towards the front to get security and medics to help you. Once you approach that front row metal gate barrier, still on the side of the crowd, wake up and be the healthy person that you are. Enjoy.

Use your friends “Hey man, I’m gonna be late to the concert. Is there anyway you could save my spot when you all go early?” We all know that “late” means you’re going to other music acts or buying overpriced food and t-shirts, but the bottom line is that you don’t want to stand at the front of an empty stage for hours just to spend ninety minutes in the front. Just have your friends hold your spot and show up right when the crowd begins to grow.

“My contacts! I can’t see!”

When struggling to make your way up to the front, drop it like it’s hot and get down on your hands and knees. Begin a frantic “searching” movement that includes waving your hands, caressing the dirty grass ground and whimpering, “I lost my contact! Help!” Now, slowly begin crawling forward, inching your way through the crowd. When you get to the front, jump up and enjoy the music and the act.

the goodness that is migas smothered in queso alongside the seasonal cake-like pumpkin french toast—at two in the morning, no less? The french toast pieces doused in strawberries and syrup may induce a coma-like state but it’s well worth it. Oh, and don’t think to disinvite your token celiac friends for fear of being dragged to another more gluten-friendly venue. Kerbey Lane boasts tons of options for those affected by the plight of the grains, such as the gluten free version of the traditional pumpkin short stack or even the apple cinnamon pancake.

If you’re feeling daring, replace the pumpkin french toast with some specialty pumpkin cinnamon roll pancakes. My personal favorite off of the Great Pumpkin Menu: the Pumpkin Mousse pie. A light pumpkin mousse nestled in a perfect chocolate crumb crust. Sounds like heaven?

It is. The portions are quite large, so make sure that you go on an empty stomach or run a marathon beforehand. But the best way to enjoy the magic of Kerbey Lane Cafe during the fall months is with friends. There’s no way you’ll be able to devour your order all by yourself— unless your name is Kevin Chau. On the off-chance that it is, you’ll still be wishing that you could at least sample all the other options on the menu. So go with friends. It’s the closest to Luke’s coffeeshop you’ll ever get.

As Austinites who are faced with sun instead of snow, it’s hard to find that satisfaction in the realization that seasons do change and that we’re not still living in August year round. But with the best food that our city has to offer, we can live vicariously through the subtle spices of the harvest that we have never known.

graphics by Abby Kappelman

Let’s be honest. Nothing gets me going like a good fall treat. With the official commencement of fall far behind us and the culmination of football season fast approaching, one might imagine life in Austin to be one of thick knit sweaters, leaves that actually change colors and brisk weather. But alas, we have had no such luck. Instead I have taken to watching Gilmore Girls in closed quarters, pretending that I live in the idyllic autumn wonderland that is Stars Hollow— where the leaves are perpetually orange and bountiful cornucopias dot the town.

But that is not the world we live in.

October in Austin has been characterized by 90 degree temperatures, iced pumpkin spice lattes and wishing we could don our closeted flannels and scarves. On the bright side, there is one department in which Austin fall is not lacking: food. With the return of Kerbey Lane’s Great Pumpkin menu, the recent arrival of Trader Joe’s pumpkin mania and Hey Cupcake’s introduction of the Pumpkinator, Austinites have no shortage of fallinspired delicacies. Here, I will take you through the best part of Austin in the fall— from the endless options at the grocery store to late night pumpkin pancakes at Kerbey Lane.

Since the California grocery chain’s arrival in Austin, Trader Joe’s has become less of a grocery store and more of a lifestyle for me.

Every morning I fumble down the stairs to the kitchen, where I am greeted by one of my greatest autumnal friends: the pumpkin pancake. This pancake is from a boxed mix, sure, but its processed nature in no way affects its taste.

Hailing from the confines of a Trader Joe’s shelf, this mix is undeniably spiced in a subtly sensual way. Needless to say, this pancake makes me feel some type of way. After gobbling as

many as I can, grabbing my lunchbox and heading out the door, I stop only when the craving strikes again— which is to say, at stoplights, stop signs, and, well, even during good old-fashioned vehicle maneuvering.

Luckily for me (and the rest of Austin community), Trader Joe’s makes it easy. With their bite-sized pumpkin pies and portable pumpkin macarons, I’m able to successfully maneuver 183 on a fair day, even in the midst of the display of gluttony that occurs in the car every morning.

For those on the lesser wild side, don’t be discouraged. Although these miniature pumpkin pies and macarons are great for those on the go, they are easily adaptable to your sedentary needs.

The perfect candidates for an after school snack or binge watching of Gilmore Girls, these treats (especially the macarons) will have you feeling very la vie en rose. And if you’re not feeling so French, don’t fear. Trader Joe’s totally authentic Danish kringle imported straight from the upper regions of Wisconsin will have you swimming in visions of the Rosenburg castle and possibly the Copenhagen zoo.

We all have those friends or family members who claim to be the ever-popular ‘gluten free’ and ‘lactose intolerant’, and as hard as it to watch them resist your plea to hit up Whataburger for a honey butter chicken biscuit as they yell “I have celiac disease!”, sometimes you just have to let it slide. This is where Trader Joe’s pumpkin Greek yogurt and pumpkin spice granola enter the scene. Appease your sense of overwhelming selfloathing due to an increased intake of fat content and go for what all the fit soccer moms are eating: good hip Greek yogurt with granola. But this time you’ll be both trendy and fall-friendly.

There are so many delectables stocked inside of Trader Joe’s during this time of the year. One could draw some sort of metaphysical parallel between the amount of harvest-themed items in a given Trader Joe’s and the plentiful cornucopia that was present at Squanto’s first meal with the white man, but we’re not in Ms. Swan’s English class right now. We wish we could cover them all for you, but there are only so many columns in a page. So we must depart from the Trader Joe’s coverage with the one category of Trader Joe’s goodness that has been neglected thus far: options for the most health conscious folks.

If you’re less of a single 30 something and like to venture outside of your home to eat, few delectables entice me more than the Paris Texas Platter at Kerbey Lane. Where else can I enjoy

JAGUAR JAMS SONGS THAT SHOULD BE PLAYED AT HOMECOMING BUT WON’T BE “Breakfast Can Wait” Prince “Wrecking Ball” Neil Young “Monster Mash” Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt Kickers “Toxic” Britney Spears “Funnel of Love” Wanda Jackson “What is Love?”

Haddaway “Where Does This Disco?”

YACHT “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”

Carole King “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend“ Discovery “Respect” Aretha Franklin “Crying” Roy Orbison “The Worst” Jhene Aiko Jaguar Jams is a new addition to the Entertainment section of The Liberator.

With each issue, a curated themed playlist will be provided for your listening enjoyment. You can listen to the playlist online via Spotify at lbjliberator.com.

the liberator nov. 7, 2014

DíA de los Muertos In celebration of culture, LBJ High School’s Lanier tailgate was themed in honor of Dia De Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. The event featured face painting and decorations made by LBJ students, food and a live performance from an authentic Aztec dance crew called Danza Azteca Guadalupana.

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LBJ junior Philip Jones paints a child’s face in traditional Day of the Dead style.

Jones also designed the event poster “My favorite part was when I actually saw people lining up for the face painting thing,” Jones said.

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LBJ Principal Sheila Henry poses with one of the members of the Danza Azteca Guadalupana dance crew. The idea to bring a dance crew came from LBJ sophomore Mayely Jaimes, who also led most of the event planning.

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LBJ parent support specialist Jose Carrasco, who helped students plan the event, poses with the Danza Azteca Guadalupana dance crew. “Mr. Carrasco just helped us out in putting it all together,” Jones said.

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LASA senior Vignesh Vasu attended the tailgate and said he enjoyed the performance. “The dance was really culturally enlightening,” Vasu said. “I learned a lot about the Aztec culture, and the dance was very intense. The costumes were very ornate and the choreography was solid.”

Food for the event was provided and served by members of the LBJ faculty. “The food was very, very good,” Vasu said. “There were fajitas, and multiple kinds of rice and beans. The salad was also stellar.”

photos by Sesha McMinn, Isabel Saralegui