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Opinion
December 21, 2011
Blown Back to the Dark Ages
The windstorm wasn’t that bad ... By Mark Kilaghbian Spartan Staff In the small community of La Cañada, something as simple as the closing of a store is front page news and coffee-hour gossip. I’m willing to say that La Cañada residents reacted more severely to the winds than most mid-west cities react to life-threatening tornadoes. It’s undeniable that the winds caused property damage and endangered civilian lives. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured and the most widespread loss was that of electricity. I lived without the blessed electrical current for 4 days. I did homework by candlelight and found eccentric ways to charge my phone and keep in touch with people around me. In all the chaos I realized the simplicity of life before electricity. No Facebook. No Twitter. No Yahoo. No Distractions. On the first day without electricity, I was helpless. I spent the majority of my day staring at a wall and cursing the Dark Ages. As day two crawled past I was so bored that I started doing homework. After that, I started reading for fun and sitting outside. No Call of Duty. No Battlefield. No Family Guy. Without electricity, I can say with confidence, I would have straight A’s. I had never realized the amount of time I dedicated to the internet and the Xbox. It was a strange predicamentone that the privileged children of La Cañada are hardly ever forced
Yes it was
to experience. I felt the irony of the situation as I realized schools like CVHS were in session and doing work by candle light. Although happy I wasn’t at school, I was somewhat ashamed of being such a slave to electricity. Even our school had decided we couldn’t learn without it. I decided to make the most of the power outage and began to enjoy the freedom from energy dependence. I broke out the Risk board and went on daily runs. Without technology separating us, my family actually grew closer. We played Christmas music on battery -powered radios and sat together in the only well-lit room. Without the hum of the T.V. and the mind controlling hold of the computer I was motivated to pull my bike out of the shed and experience Mother Nature. I realized how much I missed out on while I was sitting in my room staring at a screen. The people of La Cañada came together as well. People were helping each other in any way they could; whether that be pulling tree limbs from back yards, or providing hot water for those living in the dark. While many would argue that the power outage and wind storm was a bleak and miserable time, it was a new experience for me and something people wouldn’t allow themselves to appreciate. It was a momentary break in the busy, electricity fueled life we normally live. Many people lost sight of both the big picture and the message in the caption.
By Campbell Taylor Spartan Staff During the first week of December, a windstorm hit Los Angeles that downed power lines and damaged homes in La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena. Police and officials claim that this is the worst storm in La Cañada since 1997. Some argue that the winds that swept through La Cañada were insignificant, and merely exaggerated by many citizens of the small town. This assumption is a false one. The powerful 80 mile-per-hour winds that uprooted trees and downed power lines caused an incredible level of property damage in both La Cañada and Pasadena. In Pasadena alone 45 houses were destroyed and many more were damaged.
Photo by Michael Belcher Trees and debris deny passage by people and cars on Hillcrest Ave.
Photo by Michael Belcher
Photo by Michael Belcher A trash can suffers a blow from a fallen tree on Georgian Rd.
A tree falls on a property along Oakwood Ave.
Visit LCSPARTAN.COM
Getting Around the System
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By Will Swanson Spartan Staff
ack in the good old days, if a student wanted to plagiarize a paper, all it took was a little cut and paste and “voila.” There is a report on To Kill a Mockingbird. Many a late Sunday night fellow students and I would spend pounding control-c and then clicking paste. This, however, was before this new-fangled technology got in the way. Teachers these days use this new contraption called turnitin.com, which foils any hard working student’s attempt to collaborate with online sources. So, with little else to report about, I set out to see how good turnitin.com really is. I cut and paste from three online sources to create a three-page report on the characterization of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. I submitted it to turnitin.com and it got a 75% plagiarism rate, essentially an all expense paid pass to Honor Court. I then changed the paper for ten minutes and re-submitted it and received an insulting 88% plagiarism rate, worse than the first attempt. I had brilliantly forgot that once a paper is submitted it is logged into the conniving turnitin.com database, so the same paper submitted again no matter how original gets a high plagiarism rate. Recognizing the error of my ways, running low on research grant money, and having exhausted my daily work ethic, I was about to quit when an angelic voice called across the classroom. “Put quotes around the paper and make them white.” Sure enough the paper got a plagiarism rating of 0% and by mixing up the quotes all sorts of believable rates were achieved, 15%, 11%, and 9%. Feeling like Thomas Edison after mastering the light bulb, I ran out to share the news only to find I was late to the plagiarizing party. Many people already knew the quote trick. Nevertheless, I still publish my findings to tell those who may still be in the dark, and to more importantly alert teachers that the foolproof turnitin.com is not foolproof and it might in fact be worth grading all papers equally, even the ones that aren’t submitted to turnitin.com.
Why Are We Still Watching?
Humor from page 1 After I saw a sharp-dressed business man curse at an old woman for stepping in front of him in line, I decided I was not going to partake in this cutthroat madness. For the remainder of our four day weekend, I participated in some Stone Age activities such as, chess, checkers and pool. But I could not take this barbaric form of entertainment any longer, so I ventured out into the dark abyss. As I drove around this wonderful town, I noticed that some citizens not only had power, but were flaunting it with their god awful Christmas lights. These people were the 1%, and they wanted everyone else to know it. I debated standing outside these aristocrats’ houses, but I realized that I would get too cold. Instead, I bottled up my hatred for those who were more privileged than me and talked poorly of them behind their backs. During my daily prayer, I asked why people were more fortunate than I was, why did they deserve power? I pleaded for power to be restored to my household, but it never came… … Until three days later. That very night I went to plug in my Christmas lights to show the world that Fate favored me. I was the 1% and it felt good.
The storm was severe enough that La Cañada High School was shut down for two days due to a broken power line that cut off all electricity on the campus. Massive pine trees that flou rish in Pasadena were uprooted and crushed cars, houses, and power structures leaving some homeless and many without means of transport to their jobs with roads being blocked by the fallen pines. What will the city do in the case of a more serious disaster? With the inability and low priority of protecting itself from such events, cities may in fact be blown away by the repercussions of a major fire, an earthquake, or even another windstorm. While La Cañada and Pasadena were not prepared for the catastrophe, we hope that in the future we may better prepare ourselves for disasters.
Plagiarizing turnitin.com
By Sam Frederich Copy Editor
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n November 18th, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 opened to universal loathing and hatred. Critics excoriated the film, audiences walked out, and theaters regretted their decision to not pass out barf bags to viewers. Even box office analysts seemed to hate the film (you don’t get headlines like “Twilight sucks more money from audiences” from unbiased sources.) Basically, the movie inspired more collective disgust and hatred than Hitler, Judas, and Rebecca Black combined. It made 138 million dollars on its opening weekend. Let me put that in perspective. That’s more money than The Princess Bride, Shaun of the Dead, Blade Runner, and The Shawshank Redemption made in their entire combined runs. That’s about 500 times more money than you’ll ever make in your life. Heck, that’s enough money to hatch a Bond villain scheme to take over the world with cyborg suicide squirrels. So basically, everyone in the world hated this movie, but we still got herded into theaters in droves to watch it. And everyone knows that this isn’t an isolated occurrence. The same thing happened with Transformers 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and Alvin and the Chipmunks 2.
Why? Well, ordinarily I’d blame it on a form of mass-insanity, but an interesting event a few days ago made me think differently. My sophomore sister and I were watching TV when a trailer for Twilight came on. We both laughed at the dead-eyed acting and cracked a few sparkly vampire
After the initial shock wore off, I deduced that something far more sinister was at work here. I interviewed several other teens, and got similar answers. Nobody wants to see the movie. Everyone hates it. And everyone is going to see it. I think it was the glazed
Photo by baselineintel.com jokes, and then my sister said, “Wow that looks really bad. I don’t want to see it, but I’ll probably end up seeing it anyway.”
expressions in their eyes that tipped me off. As soon as the question of seeing the movie came up, it was like all of their free will was stripped
away, and they became mindless zombies for a brief instant. Most of my interviewees couldn’t even remember the conversation afterwards, and seemed confused when I told them what had happened. Clearly, something unnatural was at work here, and I was determined to find out what it was. I went to the trouble of re-watching that Twilight trailer, and at a glance, nothing seemed amiss. It was only when I reversed the clip at double speed that the true nature of the conspiracy was revealed. Flashing across the screen in dull red was the Illuminati symbol. And the reversed voices of the deadeyed actors told me to watch the movie twice, and to tell my friends to watch it if possible. Examination of the trailers for countless other movies – Transformers 2, 2012, Sex and the City, The Smurfs - yielded the exact same message. It became clear to me that the ancient organization had penetrated every level of the movie industry, forcing us through mind-control to watch abominable movies to bolster their insidious plans. Suddenly, the reasoning behind the Magic 8 Ball and Battleship movies became chillingly clear. I cannot say that I, or anyone else for that matter, understand the full nature of this devilish conspiracy. I only know this. The Illuminati have returned, and they want you to watch Twilight.