4 Opinion the
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The Smoke Signal
Friday, November 14, 2014
Smoke Signal
Mission San Jose High School Est. 1964 Vol. 50, No. 3 | November 14, 2014 www.thesmokesignal.org
41717 Palm Ave. Fremont, CA 94539 (510) 657-3600 Editors-in-Chief Tingting Bi, Laura Chen News Michael Hsiu, Tiffany Huang Opinion Alice Cheng, Catherine Wang Feature Megan Ren, Katie Sun Centerspread Katrina Cherk, Vivian Liu A&E Melissa Peng, Andrea Tam Sports Arti Patankar, Abigail Wong Graphics Kevin Chen, Lillian Zhao Web Jacinta Chang, Nithya Rajeev
AnAliceis
Catalyst By Catherine Wang Opinion Editor
If a high school were to receive a bomb threat, there would likely be a massive evacuation – the campus would grind to a halt for the day. But what happens when a school encounters a series of unresolved Tech Santhosh Paramasivan, Peter Qiu bomb threats that causes evacuations Business Anand Balaji Circulation Hairol Ma every day for nearly two weeks? In Ads Grace Dong, Madeline Zheng June 2007, Timberline High School Events Tanvi Raja, Apoorva Rajanala in Lacey, Washington was getting desperate. The threats came first Writers & Photographers as an anonymous note, then as Andrew Chen, Kylie Cheung, Sarina Chitre, disguised e-mails and comments on Andrew Choi, Sayan Ghosh, Purvi Goel, a local newspaper’s website. After Harshita Gupta, Pratham Gupta, Chakshu Hurria, Amrith Krishnan, Ansh Patel, Gelsey Lacey police sought federal help, the Plaza, Iyesha Puri, Deeksha Raina, Rishab FBI finally snagged the fifteen-yearRamapriyan, Shivane Sabharwal, Neha old perpetrator by using spyware Shah, Ruiwen Shen, Annie Tang, Monica Tang, Brian Tseng, Hanson Wang, Didi Wu, that identified his Internet address. Rebecca Wu This case would be closed if it weren’t for the way the suspect Advisor Sandra Cohen was caught – the FBI confirmed Send letters to the editors to opinion@the smokesignal.org. Letters under 300 words on October 28 that it used a fake may be considered for publication and Associated Press story as the spyware must include a full name and school affilialink. The news report was titled tion. The Smoke Signal reserves the right “Technology savvy student holds to edit for clarity and length. Timberline High School hostage.” The Smoke Signal’s right to freedom of This is hardly the first time that a speech and press is protected by the First federal investigation gets us thinking Amendment of the Constitution. about online privacy. What’s newly disturbing about the deception, though, is its threat to journalistic credibility. To advertise in the Smoke Signal, e-mail ads@thesmokesignal.org. Sending one fake story to one Advertising that is included on the suspect for the safety of a community, pages of, or carried within, the Smoke given such an extreme situation, Signal, is paid advertising, and as such is independent of the news and sounds reasonable. The FBI, after all, feature content. wasn’t crossing legal lines; they did have a warrant to send a “communication”
to the suspect’s social media account. But the operation begs the question, how do we know this won’t happen again on a larger scale? The FBI could have faked anything enticing to a high school student (from an advertisement to a blog) for the clickbait, but their choice to masquerade as a news source demonstrates a conscious disregard for journalism. What’s more, even if a false story was determined to be the best way to catch the suspect, the FBI could have shown somehow that this investigation was an isolated, extreme case, perhaps by informing and working with Associated Press editors. Instead, it took a Seattle Times journalist digging up the dirt on a seven-year-old case for the government to admit its methods. It’s not so much what the FBI agents did as how they did it. Here, the ends didn’t justify the means. In sacrificing its respect for candid journalism, the FBI crossed a line. We might grudgingly agree that law enforcement has a responsibility to withhold certain information in the name of protecting public safety, but botching that information does not protect us. Faking news from the Associated Press challenges the honesty of other news sources, too. In the big picture, journalism’s credibility matters to us not because newspapers seek respect and revenue; it matters because we need integrity in news stories in order to learn from them. And the government should support that. ▪
By Alice Cheng Opinion Editor In Gerald Seymour’s Harry’s Game, published in 1975, Seymour states, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Today, Seymour’s understanding of the different perspectives, though not entirely true, surrounding terrorism is largely ignored for we believe that there is a clear distinction between who’s a terrorist and who’s not. We associate terrorism with anger, hate, and, most of all, confusion. When faced with these emotions and violence at the same time, we often jump to the conclusion that the vehemence was caused by terrorism. However, because there is no clear definition of terrorism, we must attempt to understand the issue from multiple perspectives before we decide what to do. In the recent case of shootings at Parliament Hill, Ottawa, at least one gunman got inside of the Main Parliament Building. Shots were fired, and one Canadian soldier was killed. People were quick to assume that the shootings resulted from terrorism, judging from the religion of the suspects. Often used as a back-up reason when we lack information about motive, terrorism is emphasized because of the paranoia surrounding it. When we use the word “terrorism,” the implications remain ambiguous. According to Max Abrahms, assistant professor of public policy at Northeastern University, the overall consensus is that terrorists are defined as agents who take action on civilians to achieve a political goal through, for example, a concessions policy.
However, when we apply this definition to the Ottawa shooting, the pieces of the puzzle don’t fit together. What kind of political goal were the gunmen trying to achieve? How did people come up with the conclusion that they were terrorists? As inhabitants of the Western world, we see acts of terrorism as vendettas and deeds of revenge carried out on innocent citizens. By fighting terrorists, we believe that we’re fighting hate and crime, but what we as Americans fail to do is place ourselves in the shoes of our adversaries. In fact, according to a political scientist from Ohio State University named John Mueller, the main motive behind the actions of so-called terrorists is to “protect their co-religionists against what was commonly seen to be a concentrated war on them in the Middle East by the US government.”In no way am I condoning the heinous actions of terrorist groups – rather I’m simply stating that we need to face the root cause behind terrorist actions by understanding their perspectives instead of hiding under a veil of paranoia. Terrorism remains a controversial issue, and too often, we let our emotions, our anger, and our passion preclude rational thinking. Sometimes, we need to take a step back and ask ourselves what we’re doing wrong and how our adversaries view us because of those actions. To develop a better understanding, not only do we need to read the news, but also we must analyze the reasons behind such acts and our bias towards the issue. By shifting our paradigms and understanding the problem instead of simply fighting it, only then can we truly recognize all aspects of the issue at hand. ▪
The Opinion of the Smoke Signal Editorial Board
Editorial: Access Over Excess We’ve all heard the tale of the MSJ student. Sleepless nights. Countless projects. Test after test after test. As much as we like to make fun of it, this “way of life” that stresses hard work and determination has become a major part of MSJ’s identity. It pushes us to challenge ourselves academically and strive for success whenever possible, but often at the expense of our own physical wellbeing. Freshmen and sophomores quickly assimilate into this new mindset, while juniors and seniors experience the full force of it. It’s common knowledge that starting the second half of high school is often a struggle for many students. Those entering their junior year often find themselves unprepared for the workload they face when they sign up for several difficult classes. Balance becomes harder to achieve. Here at MSJ, an idea exists that AP courses are the shining example of academic achievement. By taking AP classes, we believe we are demonstrating our intellectual abilities in a way that colleges will surely see on our application. Our suggestion to MSJ? Spread AP courses out throughout high school, and put limits on how many can be taken per year. Give students the flexibility to spread out their course loads as they see fit, and let the administration offer them assistance in fulfilling this goal. This way, students can tailor their schedules without having to adhere to any more unspoken standards. Let us as students be measured not by how many classes we take, but by the select ones that define our interests and give us the balance we need to put an appropriate amount of time and effort in each class. With the chance to experience the rigor of select AP courses in their freshmen and sophomore years, students will also be more prepared for harder classes in their junior and senior years. By having to focus on only a few advanced courses per year rather than possibly facing a large number in one year, students will be able to acquire greater comprehension of the material and a greater appreciation of the applications that AP courses will play in their futures. Compared to other high-performing schools in the Bay Area, it’s clear that MSJ’s offerings are quite limited. Irvington High School allows students to take AP Biology starting from grade 10 and permits them to take AP English starting from grade 11. At Monta Vista High School in
Cupertino, CA, AP Calculus AB and BC and AP Computer Science A are all offered to students grades 10-12. Dougherty Valley High School in San Ramon, CA offers AP World History to sophomores and AP European History to grades 10-12. MSJ only offers a few AP courses to sophomores and freshmen: those for statistics and for several foreign languages. The rest are only offered to juniors and seniors. The result of this is that students attempt to cram as many AP classes as they can during their junior and senior years in time for their college applications. While this is an issue that is often joked about and sometimes even glorified as a standard at MSJ, the fight to balance one’s schedule is very much real. We as students respond to this by modifying our lives to adapt to classes that are harder, faster, and of a more advanced level than the ones that we have faced before. To a certain extent, we are at fault. As students, we have to make sure that we are signing up for classes that we can handle, and that we understand the limits of our own abilities. We decide our own workload, and the administration helps guide us along the path we have chosen. However, the administration can only do so much, and it is our responsibility to determine what we are truly capable of and what we are not. We know that it’s difficult to tell MSJ students to cut down on the number of AP courses they are taking. As students ourselves, we empathize. We laugh at the idea of backing down, even as we yawn and rub our eyes trying to stay awake. Because this culture is firmly cemented within many of us, it will be difficult to change our mindsets. But with the help of the administration, we can help students change their approach to their goals. By distributing AP course loads throughout the four years of high school, we as students will be less stressed, more engaged, and able to focus more on our classes without stretching ourselves too thin. Such is the way that we will experience more success while keeping our academics--and more importantly, our lives--in check. ▪
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