Op/Ed

Editorial: Through the View of Baltimore, a Lense into Racism Dark Perpetuity with the Boys in Black and Blue

May 11, 2015 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Sean Morris
Staff writer

With 2,800+ innocent, unarmed people shot and killed by Police officers; most of which are African-American males, it’s impossible not to sympathize with this struggle,Through the lens of a mainstream, white-controlled media, it’s easy to villainize the protesters in Baltimore and other areas about this issue. as they will often label them as “rioters”, “thugs”, and so on. It only takes the the tiniest dosage of thought and research and we can see that this is not simply a “minority problem”. It is a human rights issue. And It’s impossible to say that the police force in the United States should not change.

In a report from USA Today last August, around 400 unarmed civilians were killed by the police per year in the past seven years, making the total number already up to 2,800 people-most of which were African Americans. In November, a mere 3 months after the report,Tamir Rice, a 12 year old, who was shot for having a toy gun outside a Walmart, which is even more infuriating when you consider how many actual white serial killers like James Eagan Homes are able to get away with simply being arrested by the police, yet the Police will shoot defenseless black children. You’ll hear and read about any number of news reports of cops being overly aggressive to what the situation requires. This is even more troubling when you compare it to several other countries,who have reports of much less civilian casualties.

While not all cops are killers, the problem has grown to the point where nothing short of an extensive change in the police force is needed. In our discussion on the topic, we agreed that the depth of the problem also called for some radical, systemic changes in how the police train and work.To this extent here are suggestions from SLA students for what could be some potential resolutions to this issue:

Police should be required to live in the community they are policing.
- How this would help: Rather than have the police officers as an alien outside force, this gives the people and officers a sense of familiarity to allow for better cooperation and collaboration between the people and the officers,
All police officers should wear body cameras that cannot be turned off.
- How this would help: Holds accountability to possible offending officers and allows for better transparency into situations. Below are some links to how it has already benefitted communities:
All police departments should have civilian review boards with subpoena power.
- How this would help: Keeps the close collaboration of officers away from situations where personal feelings could mix with professional.
All police should be required to attend regular training sessions to update their skills in handling mentally ill people.
- How this would help: Keeps potential innocents safe who can’t control all of their actions.
End civil forfeiture- which allows the government to take cash, cars, homes and other property of people suspected of being involved in criminal activity.
- How this would help: Prevents unjust seizing of property when someone can be innocent. To read more about this troubling law, which is alieve and well espcially in Philadelphia go here: http://endforfeiture.com/
Data on police misconduct should be public and easily accessible.
- How this would help: Prevents misformation from getting out.
More protection for whistleblower cops. There was a Baltimore police officer who reported a beating to the prosecutor and was shunned by his department for it.
- How this would help: Protects cops who are doing what they are meant to; protecting and serving the public.
Some form of a racial sensitivity class.
- How this would help: Attempts to diminish and eventually destroy racial profiling.
- How this could not help: cops could see it as an unnecessary and time consuming.
Perpetuate knowledge-make certain that African Americans (and just youth in general) know their rights and how they can make a difference.
- How this would help: A better understanding of one’s rights allows for a smoother operation in the event of a police questioning.
Impower a sense of self worth and pride within African Americans and for white allies to understand the anger in the situation because it is extremely justified.
- How this would help: In a white-powered media outlets African Americans crying for their human rights have become “thugs” and “rioters” and it’s important to shift the public misunderstanding to be in the advantage of those it has thus far disadvantaged.

While the situation in Baltimore is not ideal way to resolve, its utterly understandable how it’s come that, and it’s hard to see that without some kind of dramatic reform, the situation will not improve.

SLAMedia’s Guide to A Day in New York

April 17, 2015 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Ella Donesky
Staff Writer

New York City is known for being a popular tourism city, with more than 54 million tourists visiting the city each year. Covering more than 450 square miles, New York is the 8th largest city in the world and a huge culture hub. NYC offers activities for everyone whether they’re hipsters, athletes, families, activists, business people or students.

Over Spring Break, I took a train to New York City to visit my aunt, who lives in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

From a young age, my family and I took frequent visits to NYC, so I’ve grown familiar with the city. I don’t consider myself much of a tourist anymore. So this time, I decided to be a tourist by visiting some of the more popular locations in New York, and to also explore some of the lesser-known parts, because I had one of the best guides by my side, my aunt, a local herself.

If you’re a high school student with a project on the Renaissance due the day you return from break, the first place you’ll go is the Metropolitan Museum of Art, located on 82nd and 5th in the Upper East Side. Besides magnificent art, at any given time of the year, the Met has one of the most diverse clusters of tourists in the city, as far as I could tell.

By contrast, The Museum of Modern Art, or MoMA, located on 53rd Street, between 5th and 6th avenue in Midtown, offers a collection of art from the last two centuries and is currently showcasing an exhibit on Björk. The entire museum spans more than seven floors. I spent the morning on the sixth floor (which featured primarily art from the cubist art movement) and the fifth floor (featuring art from the last half of the 20th century). My personal favorites were Léger and Rousseau.

About an hour walk south from MoMA is the SoHo district, or South of Houston Street. The charming cobblestone neighborhood was once home to many famous artists, and now inhabited by high end shops, many of them from Europe and taking residence in the historic cast-iron buildings.

SoHo was one of the first neighborhoods I visited. As I wandered through the inner alleys and seemingly endless rows of boutiques, I noticed that the people there were far more trendy than those in the Upper East Side, often with what seemed to me like forced chic.

I stepped into a store just off the main street which was floor to ceiling white with maybe two clothing racks in the back, the clothes of which ranged from 1,000 to 10,000 dollars, though nothing appealed to me. The whole area was expensive. Even when I found something I wanted, the only thing I could afford while “shopping” in the area was a keychain from Kipling.

In addition to shops, there are plenty of restaurants, galleries and chair shops — which I only know because my aunt was in SoHo looking for a new desk chair.

Northwest of SoHo is the High Line (located in the West Village) a recent construction which turned an old, unused railway into a complete 1.45 mile long Park, stretching from Chelsea to the Meatpacking District. The project was funded by many artists and celebrities, among them Diane Von Furstenberg, who was essential in the fundraising for the project. Residents of Philadelphia may be interested to know that the High Line was designed by UPenn graduate and professor and head of the design studio Field Operations, James Corner.

Though the park offers many places to sit, almost everyone on the High Line was on the move, except to stop and take pictures. Its prime location along the edge of the Hudson River, and overlooking the streets of New York provides an opportunity to tour the city from a different perspective than at street-level.

The vibe of the High Line is very much in sync with the “hipsterization” of many run-down neighborhoods, where warehouses have been turned into restaurants, garages into lofts, etc. If you look down at your feet, you may notice rusted, metal railway tracks mixed in with grass, brick and cement.

Along the High Line are many sculptures, a massive window overlooking the street below and a further down a towering hotel, which was recently involved in a scandal due to the exposure of open windows and frisky individuals.

The Highline stops right in the heart of the meatpacking district, where as I stepped off the steps of the park I saw a scurrying gray-haired Matthew Broderick, bearing little resemblance to the Ferris Bueler of the 80s.

Further down from the Meatpacking district is Greenwich village, which many people mispronounce “Green-Witch.” It was the setting of the popular TV show, Friends, as well as the location of NYU.

From the Village,, we walked through Hudson Square and Canal Street down to Tribeca. I just happened to stumble upon Taylor Swift’s house, completely by accident. Surprisingly, I was one of only three girls loitering outside her home, which honestly made me feel like a bit of a weirdo. Unfortunately, she wasn’t there to welcome us into her home, as I’d anticipated she would, but I took enough pictures…

By then, I had gotten very hungry so I stopped into the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop one of two locations, on 7th and Grove Street. I ordered a “Monday Sundae” which was a chocolate and vanilla twist ice cream, soft served in a waffle cone lined with nutella and and topped with dulce de leche, sea salt and whipped cream. It was very heavy (I couldn’t finish it), but very, very good. The line was extremely long, but understandably so.

As the day came to a close, my aunt and I visited Battery Park (which had also underwent construction recently), where the Statue of Liberty could be seen from the small harbor.
We walked across another bridge to get to Wall Street, the last stop of the day. It was a specific request of mine, after having seen the Wall Street movie franchise as a child and deciding that I wanted to become a stockbroker.

Now that you’ve been introduced to the hippest places in New York, you’re probably wondering how in the heck you’ll get from MoMA to Taylor Swift’s house. The simple answer is, the subway. Though it may not be as glamorous as an cab or Uber, it gets you where you want to go, quickly and inexpensively. Of course, you’ll encounter your average crazy person, but hey, that’s New York!

Locations:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1000 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10028

The Museum of Modern Art: 11 W 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019

SoHo: West Broadway to Crosby Street, Houston to Canal Streets, Manhattan, New York City

The High Line: Gansevoort Street to 34th Street, New York, NY 10011

The Meatpacking District: W 14th Street to Gansevoort Street and Hudson River East to Hudson Street, New York, NY

Greenwich Village: W 14th Street to Houston Street and Hudson River to Broadway, New York, NY

New York University: Greenwich Village

Taylor Swift’s House: 155 Franklin Street, Tribeca, New York, NY

The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop: 61 Grove Street, New York, NY 10014

Battery Park: Southern Tip of New York, NY

Statue of Liberty: Liberty Island, New York, NY

Wall Street: Between Broadway and South Street, Lower Manhattan, Financial District, New York, NY

Editorial: Heroes or Traitors? The Whistleblower Debate

March 30, 2015 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Sean Morris

Staff Writer

President John F. Kennedy once said: “The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it.” These days, is it too high? In post 9/11 America there has been an increase in secrecy, or more specifically secrets revealed by whistle blowers. It has led to the age old debate upon what the government is entitled to let us know and what should be kept secret in the interest in national security.

One of the key figures in this debate is Edward Snowden, who made headlines in 2013 for releasing surveillance information from the National Security Agency and publishing that they were spying on US citizens. Is he a traitor or a hero? Depends who you ask. Some believe his actions were treasonous for revealing classified secrets of the United States government while others felt he was a hero for highlighting an injustice done by the government. People that cite him being a hero do mention that he leaked information to the american public of the “unnecessary” and “unconstitutional” spying the government does on its own people. People that call him a traitor bring up the fact that he has released documents about spying on other countries, most specifically China. While countries spying on each other is no secret, the unspoken rule is simply “don’t get caught doing it” and thus Snowden has not only troubled the foreign front but has also given other countries agencies information which can be better used to spy on us.

Another figurehead is Julian Assange, founder of the website Wikileaks which has had an outpour of government documents and footage found. An example of one of these footages being a video showing us soldiers shooting at foreign, Iraqi civilians and even a van full of children. Some have said that this is threatening as it dangers potential US identities and compromises missions overseas. But it’s also worth nothing that whatever was published had more with past missions then ongoing or even future ones.

A third figure is Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, who leaked over 700,000 files to the website Wikileaks. These files have included detainees at Guantanamo Bay; of which has been criticized for wrongfully holding prisoners, war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq; which likely highlighted combat material like the videos mentioned above and state department cable. Like others Manning has faced both criticism and praise for her actions- which have sentenced her to 35 years in prison.

As SLA students, many of you might be asking ‘how does this relate to me?

Here’s the truth- as of now,you are an American citizen. Do you trust your government to have your best issues at heart? And what as a citizen do you believe we as the public should know and what it shouldn’t? Should we become aware or past government missions, current ones or just none at all?

These are ultimately the decisions that will soon be in our hands as voters and taxpayers who have a say in our government. And our government doesn’t always act in the most popular way- take the recent letter to Iran as an example; many people were outraged by on how our elected officials would take a move that could derail sensitive peace talks, and shows examples of what would happen if our government goes unchecked.

Whether or not we agree with the decisions of these whistleblowers or not- our government needs to be check in some ways, otherwise we allow ourselves to controlled rather than guided by our government. Instead of looking to JFK in this situation, we suggest looking to the words of Ben Franklin: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

March Madness

March 26, 2015 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By: Alhaji Koita

March Madness is back again and better than ever! Students around SLA, are getting their couches ready & setting their brackets up to perfection. The reason behind this massive overload, he love for basketball, obviously. And also the chance to win major prizes and luxuries. The country is glued to their screens for 3 weeks, anxiously waiting for that national championship game.

Here are a few of my predictions…

Who I want to win

I have been a Wildcats fan since 06’, they are the best team in the country right now sitting at a perfect 31-0 demolishing teams left and right. Having the one of the country’s tallest teams. Kentucky is high flying- electrifying team. Every team needs to play their best basketball while attempting to take down that mammoth of a backcourt. They are chasing history right now attempting to become one of the few teams to have a perfect record.

Who WILL win the NCAA Championship

The experts say that its a 3-way race between Wisconsin, Kentucky & Arizona.

All three teams have depth, experience and a well oiled coaching staff. Even though its a race, Kentucky is voted highest among all 64 teams to reach the Final Four. While records and highlights do say a lot, this is March Madness after all; anything goes.

Possible Sleeper Team?

The Wichita State Shockers have a well balanced offense and defence, their record is undeniable 30-4. Teams in the midwest should look out for the Shockers backcourt as they have one best shooting teams in the country.

The Upsetter match for the National Match

The match would consist of Notre Dame and Michigan State. While both of these are both popular by name and sports in a whole. They are very two high proficient teams that are under the radar.The number 23 michigan state has been on roll these past couple of weeks, beating their opponents by a margin of over 10+ points. While the Notre Dame Irish are finally finding their stride, as the front court and back court have reached a perfect harmony.

SLA’s Social Media Diet

March 9, 2015 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Ella Donesky
Staff Writer

For those of us who’ve subscribed to social media sites like, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram—Wait. Hold on, I need to pause this. I just got a notification, lemme check it really quickly. Just a sec.

Sorry about that.

For those of us who’ve subscribed to social media sites like, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, we’ve inadvertently made ourselves slave to hourly alerts and notifications. Social Media has become a constant, almost invisible part of our lives. That Facebook alert reminding you that it’s Bob’s birthday today, pulls you right out of an activity, whether it be homework, chores or spending time with friends/family.

As reported on the Techcrunch Website, Ximena Vengoechea explains why phone users are so quick to click on notifications, also known as “triggers” and reveals tactics used to lure users into swiping right on the small icon on our lock screen.

He then goes on to define the two types of triggers as being, external and internal. External triggers, he says, prompts you to engage in the outside environment. While this may sound positive, like something our mothers would say about shutting off our devices and playing outside, it merely requires you to engage in your environment, through your app.

Internal triggers are more so related to our personal emotions and needs, carefully tailored to provide instant gratification to our most basic emotions and through continuous use of such apps and notifications, a habit is formed.

With regards to instant gratification, Techcrunch.com evaluates of the ability of a notification to provide this and the simple response is, “Good triggers prompt action, while vague or irrelevant messages annoy users.”

So what are the social media diets of the SLA community?

When asked how much he spends on social media, per day, Mr. Todd responded, “Does Netflix count?”

Ms. Pahomov shared, “I don’t watch television, but if I do, it’s streaming television. An hour every few days, every 2-3 days, not every day.”

Sophomore Indee Phillpotts, added “I think they’re distracting, I could totally get a lot of stuff done. I could create world peace, but you know, Instagram’s calling.”

Some of us have visited the “notifications” category under “settings” to eliminate unnecessary distractions.

Mr. Todd explained his reasoning, “I think a tendency is that people become so consumed with staring at their phone that they miss opportunities to interact on a personal level. Ms. Pahomov added, “I think the danger, and I even see this with myself, is the feeling that you have to respond immediately, and that constant ringing of your attention.”

When asked if she turned her notifications off, Pahomov responded, “I never even turned them on. I’ve only had a smartphone for about a year, and when I got it, I immediately resolved not to have push notifications on my phone.” Mr. Todd explained, “I don’t like to feel bothered, I don’t like to feel tethered to my phone.” And said that his notifications are, “probably half sports related, half Facebook.”

Many SLA students have expressed contempt for the notification icon. Kia Dasilva, sophomore, said, “If I’m with my family, I’ll ignore them, but if I’m on my own, I really don’t like the little red button that shows up, so I’ll click on it to get rid of it.”

Mark Gucciardi-Kriegh, sophomore, shared a similar concern, “I don’t know if I click the notification to see what it says, or because I don’t want that red bubble thingy.” Phillpotts agreed, “Oh I hate that, too!”

Myi Harte, sophomore, offered a slightly more optimistic approach to the mass of notifications the typical smartphone user receives. “I don’t find them annoying.” He said. Without notifications, he explained, “I wouldn’t be in the know.” But Harte admitted, “It’s taking over my life. Slowly.”

Dasilva agreed, “I like to be notified when something around me is happening,” but confessed, “I subscribe to a lot more than I use.”

In our own SLA, I noticed a trend that is mirrored in our community outside of SLA, and that is, generational differences.

Ms. Pahomov and Mr. Todd, were both involved in social media as teenagers, Ms. Pahomov used Friendster and for Mr. Todd, AOL and Instant Messenger. Though, Ms. Pahomov said that if she had been exposed to social media as a teen, the ways teens are today, “I might have been less likely to set up a barrier for myself.”

Though everyone has a different social media diet, the students and teachers I spoke with all agreed that social media notifications can be a positive thing. Pahomov said, “They’re a reinforcement of the fact that you’re connected.” She also suggested an interesting idea for an educational app: “I could see a neat one, where there’s a history or culture based app, and if you went somewhere around the city it would pop up and tell you some neat fact.”

Mr. Todd offered a more general idea: “I think they engender more engagement, whether it’s knowing what’s happening globally, or interests that you have.”

On the other hand, Gucciardi-Kriegh explained how the negative influence of social media can be positive thing. “I think it’s a good thing that kids grow up around social media, because they learn not to fully invest themselves in what they have. Kids that grow up around it know how to manage what they’re doing.”

But what about the useless notifications? The ones we never click on, the buzzes that send our hopes up, only to realize it’s another advertisement for a free month trial on Pandora. It may prove useful to ask yourself why you’ve even downloaded the app, especially because according to Pandodaily, “22% of downloaded apps are only used once.”

I encourage you to assess the importance of your notifications. If CNN alerts help you stay on top of the news, keep it, but if you’re tired of being notified of Katy Perry’s most recent tweets, or you feel that it’s too distracting, the simple solution, turn them off.

image courtesy of forbes.com