Op/Ed

Tragic Coverage of a Tragic Flight

March 30, 2014 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Will Amari

Staff Writer

On Monday 24, Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, declared ‘all lives to be lost’ from Airline Flight 370. Flight 370 departed from Kuala Lumpur to get to Beijing. Over 230 passengers and crew members boarded the flight. It wasn’t until recently however, that researchers have suspected the missing flight to have actually crashed in the Indian Ocean.

Besides from several reports of possible debris of the airplane, found near the Australian coast, researchers haven’t been able to actually prove on where and why the plane crashed.

Naturally, friends and relatives of the lost passengers were devastated when they heard the news. Most of them sobbed in disbelief, blaming the Malaysian government, claiming that they’re “covering up something.”

When tragedies happen, conspiracies are made. We’ve seen this before with 911, the Kennedy Assassination, and even the Holocaust. It seems to me that people, understandably, can’t take bad news. They’re unable to accept that bad things happen, and that bad things happen by accident. By making stuff up, like a coverup theory involving their infamous government, they feel more secure and knowledgeable. But really they don’t know for sure.

There have been many conspiracies on the missing Malaysian flight. One included alien involvement, while another claimed the passengers to still be alive.

CNN, which has been on this story like butter on toast, is at the point now where they’re just scaring people because they have nothing else to talk about. They have been filling up most of their airtime with pointless discussions of black holes and the bermuda triangle, along with overly descriptive details of what the plane looks like. I find this ironic considering the fact that the majority of CNN viewers are watching their network from an actual airport.

The world may never know the true story on what happened to Flight 370, and to me, that’s okay. However, out of respect for the fallen passengers and their loved ones, I believe we should keep searching.

Still, there is no point in discussing anything else about the flight, until we know the truth. There is a difference between creating news and actual news. Making up stories only takes us farther away from the truth. I would expect this type of behavior from Fox news, but CNN? Come on, you should know better than that!

Dealing with St. Patty’s Day Isabella Aznar

March 17, 2014 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

It’s that time of year again, where some Philadelphians take shelter in their homes, while others roam around pretending they are all Irish. It’s St. Pattys Day.

In a big city, you now that the most annoying holidays can be New Years, St. Pattys Day, and Independence Day. One each one of those days the same thing happens. A good portion of the city is drunk while the others have to deal with all of them.

It’s like a zombie apocalypse of all drunk people. You just can’t avoid them no matter where you do. If you are like SLA students and have to be outside of your home on this day here is a list of what not to do.

1. Don’t stay outside late– They will find you and try to talk with you.

2. Don’t go on major streets– Avoid Broad St. and South St. at all costs!

3. Don’t get distracted on septa- There are a lot of people roaming around with no inhibitions and they could always steal something.

Those are the top three things not to do but the one thing to remember to bring are a pair of headphones. Good luck out there.

Crazy Weather Causes Big Problems

March 13, 2014 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Crazy Weather Causes Big Problems

by Jesse Shuter

Staff Writer

Photo Courtesy of http://articles.philly.com/2014-02-15/entertainment/47339484_1_septa-broad-street-subway-bus-riders

The winter of 2014 has been one of the snowiest winters that I can remember. The interesting things is not just the frequency of the snow, but the pattern of the weather that we are receiving. Take this past week for example. On March twelfth the temperature had a high of around 68 degrees fahrenheit. The following day, March thirteenth, the high temperature was 32 degrees, but the temperature felt like 12 degrees.

This is just an example of the up and down temperatures that people living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and even the entire northern United States have been experiencing all through the 2014 winter.

The biggest toll that all of this snow is causing, is on students. There have been seven snow days this winter. SEVEN! That is outrageous, but perhaps what is more outrageous is the Philadelphia school districts lack of preparation for those snow days. The Philadelphia school district had allotted one extra school day, in case of a snow emergency. When the snow days started piling up they were faced with an issue. Where are these extra days of school going to fit in?

Instead of adding the snow days onto the end of the year, and keeping the students in school until July, they opted to take away days from spring break. These days include, April 15th, April 16th, and April 17th. Taking these days away has left many students feeling outraged, disappointed, and even cheated of their break from school. This leads me to wonder, what should the school district have done differently? It also caused me to wonder, assuming next year’s weather follows this year’s pattern, what should the school district do to better prepare for snow?

5 Steps to improve the Philly School District’s Snow Day Policy:

1. Start school earlier! The Philadelphia students started school later than most school this year which meant they’d be in school later than other students. This left little amount of time for the school district to operate with in case of lack of school days.

2. Operate under the assumption that there will be four snow days. Obviously four would not be enough for this year, but even if somehow there is seven or more snow days again next year (which hopefully there won’t be) it is easier to find three extra days than six.

3. Change the system from minimum days of school to minimum hours of school. If you operate using hours instead of days, it becomes easier to find ways to work the school day around so that no extra days need to be added, and the amount of school time is still met.

4. After changing the time system from days to hours (See Number 3),don’t take away spring break or add on school days, make the school day 15-20 minutes longer. Students would barely notice if they stay at stayed at school for an extra 15 minutes. Do you know what they do notice? When their spring break is taken away!

5. Do not announce a snow day the night before. This wasn’t just the school district, the Philadelphia courts also did this. The weather projected twelve inches of snow, and we ended up with barely one inch of snow. Schools that were smart waited until it actually started snowing (which was never) while the Philadelphia school district listened to the forecast and called for no school, despite having no proof. Instead, wait until the morning, yes maybe it will be inconvenient for some people that woke up expecting school and then realized they woke up for no reason, but do you know whats more inconvenient? When their spring break is taken away!

Great Escape

March 12, 2014 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Written By Nicholas Murray

The school library, despite its title, can become one of the most eventful places in the school. One of the reasons for this, is the weird placement of the music room, which is within the library itself.

Of course, I’ve never had an issue with the music room, it was actually really nice to have. As someone who hangs out in the library regularly, I would sometimes become restless and venture in.

The seniors are the main musicians that occupy the library. They often have jam sessions mixing the sounds of the drums, piano and guitars. I remember sit in there and listening to senior Owen Grzywinski play the song “Let it Go,” the hit song from Disney’s Frozen. SO, if you like that song, which I am sure you so, make sure to have him play it for you.

Outside the music room, you can find others gathered together to socialize. The library is an amazing place to meet up with friends to hang out because it is actually quite spacious with a small number of social circle. Hopefully this remains true after this article is published.

Recently, seniors have been joining forces in the library to overcome a huge obstacle. Calculus. If you enter the library you will most likely find a group of students completing a problem set together. If you ever need help, you can go bug one of them for help.

There are money things going on in the library, its just that reading isn’t one of the big ones apparently. Well, where you want to visit for business or pleasure, the library is a nice place to escape to.

Editorial: Black History Month at SLA

March 6, 2014 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

February is Black History Month, a month where many Philadelphia public schools spend time doing different activities that involve spreading awareness, and learning more about Black history. Growing up in a diverse city, most students seem to have memories doing a lot with black history month in their schools.

“In middle school black history month was a big thing” said Sophomore Soledad Alfaro. “We always did stuff related to malcolm x and martin luther king. I was always kind of like yeah ok we know this, there’s other stuff we could be talking about in the community of color, I think there’s more important things to think about and talk about, there is constantly new things that we should bring cultural awareness to.”

We found that our two biggest problems with BHM are that we already have MLK day which celebrates black history, and that if you give a month to one religion, culture, or ethnicity, the vast majority is going to feel left out.

This also brings up the question as to why public schools choose specific curriculum. Philadelphia schools offer African American history, while other schools favor Latin or Asian history, or no “minority” history at all.

We feel like Black History Month is almost an apologetic thing, and while we realize that it isn’t celebrated everywhere the way it is celebrated in diverse cities, it is a subject that may not need as much attention as other cultural/current events.

The way Black History Month could be improved would be by promoting it in places where there isn’t as much black culture. In places like Philadelphia where all students are required to take at least one full year African American History to graduate, it would be interesting to learn about new cultures, and also expand Black History beyond the same old lessons about MLK and the civil rights movement.

In places where there is no African American curriculum, there should be. America is a hugely diverse country, and in some places people act like it’s not. In order to spread more awareness, we need to focus on spreading information to places where there isn’t enough. There is no easy way to diversify a community and spreading awareness is hard.

Black History Month is well known because it has been around for a long time, and it does its job at honoring black history. We think the best way to spread awareness about other cultures and their history would be by asking schools to leverage social media such as twitter & facebook as a way of reaching out.

Unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the SLAMedia staff.