features • page 13
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things you didn’t know about... Language Arts Teacher
Ms. Pamela Hausfather
1. 2. 3.
She was almost shot by Russian guards in Berlin before the Berlin wall was torn down.
She is a breast cancer survivor.
She worked in upstate New York as a social worker with migrant farm workers helping them access medical services and educational training.
4. 5.
She converted from Christianity to Judaism after she married her husband, who is Jewish. She sat next to John Lennon and Yoko Ono in a restaurant in Bolinas, CA, in the early 1970s.
Compiled by Ryan Maddox
Political activism ignites students
Several teens find power in voicing their opinion, campaigning Nancy Stiles • Reporter At the Academy Awards this year, following much praise from his Hollywood following, Al Gore won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature with An Inconvenient Truth. Concerns like global warming and HIV/AIDS are getting a great deal of publicity lately thanks to issue-conscious celebrities. However, activism isn’t only for the rich and famous. Senior Liz Conte participates in peaceful pro-life protests around the country. “Every year I go to the pro-life march in Washington, D.C. to raise awareness and to try to overturn Roe v. Wade. Sometimes I go to abortion clinics and pray outside, hoping that women changed their decisions on having abortions,” Conte said. Roe v. Wade was a controversial 1973 Supreme Court case that cited the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause as grounds for the implied “right to privacy” that protects a woman’s right to an abortion. “I think [protests] can be very powerful. Roe v. Wade got started because of protesting, and we believe that it can be overturned because of protesting to show that people do care about life,” Conte said, “and really we believe that if we continue in a nonviolent way it’ll one day be turned.” Senior Hilary Kirwan takes a more liberal stance. “I’m pro-choice and I would like it to be an option still available for women,” Kirwan said. Both girls are proponents of free speech and getting involved. “I think that kids at Lafayette should care about foreign policy because if we’re making enemies around the world that is going to affect them in the future,” Kir-
wan said. “Our relationship with the Middle East affects gas prices and that’s a direct issue that teens are affected by. I think things like global warming we should care about as well. Even though [those effects] are farther in the future, it still will affect students,” she said. “I think things like global warming we should care about as well. Even though [those effects] are farther in the future, it still will affect students,” Kirwan said. Conte said that students should make sure they know their opinions on important subjects “instead of sitting in the crowd and letting something they think is right or wrong just pass.” Civil liberties were tested in 2005 at the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC) when student Austin Case created a fake anti-conservative, anti-military group to test free speech at the university. The student Senate delayed any decision on the club while the school administration failed to act. Student representative Marcus Leach maintained that “rights delayed are rights denied.” Conte is concerned about “social issues and about people and abusing our rights and they’re [the opponents] thinking that we’re abusing their rights,” much like Case did. A similar controversy occurred at LHS during the 2005-2006 school year when students created a group that prayed visibly in the Commons before school. “I’m concerned about [the administration] letting us keep religion in schools. I’m a part of the prayer circle in the mornings. It was rough at the beginning because they didn’t want it,” Conte said. Students can also get involved in more
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•Standing Tall. Juniors Sarah Calhoun and Charlotte Gaw stand beside Ms. Calhoun and proudly supporting senatorial candidate Claire McCaskill. McCaskill defeated Republican candidate Jim Talent by a margin of 50 percent to 47 percent in the 2006 election.
national issues. “I volunteered for Claire McCaskill’s campaign because she supported the things that I believe in. I canvassed; that means I went door to door and made sure people were going to go to the polls and vote for Claire McCaskill,” Kirwan said. Junior Charlotte Gaw also campaigned for Senator Claire McCaskill. “My friend Sarah Calhoun and I were involved in calling all of these people,” she said. “My friend’s mom got us tickets to the rallies.”
At these rallies, presidential candidate Barack Obama and former president Bill Clinton spoke. Gaw said they were very inspirational and that “everyone was really fired up.” Kirwan suggested that students wanting to become active should find a web site for an issue they are passionate about and “you can find volunteer opportunities through those.” Conte maintained that “if anyone has an opinion, they should definitely voice it.”
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