The College Board has con-firmed that approximately 1,600 answer sheets have not been re-scanned because of a special ex-ceptions process.

Spokeswoman Chiara Coletti stated that the sheets will be re-scanned and students and colleges will be notified of the changes, and expected a small amount of scores to be changed. “To the best of my knowledge, there are no more surprises,” she said.

Give Health to the Freshmen

BY LAWRENCE HUANG STAFF WRITER

College Board Misses Mark Again

BY SANGHEE CHUNG STAFF WRITER

Starting next year, freshmen, and probably sophomores, will take a term of Health Education. On March 7, a Student Leader-ship Team meeting was held to discuss the possibility of moving Health Education from junior

year to a lower grade. At the meeting, almost everyone was in favor of the suggestion; Principal Teitel had even agreed to draft a proposal for the move. As of March 21, the plan seems set to go. Martha Singer, head of the Physical Education Depart-

Continued on Page 4

Initially, 4,000 out of the 495,000 students who took the SAT in October 2005 did not re-ceive credit for correct answers. While the majority of scoring errors ranged from 10 to 80 points, several scores differed by up to 400 points out of a total score of 2400. Once the results were determined, the scores were reported to all students, schools, and colleges. However, many institutions have looked down

SING! Hits the Spot BY AMY QIU STAFF WRITER

The most awaited production of the year finally arrived on March 24, Friday night, packing the theatre with students and par-ents alike. Senior SING started the night off with story of a Stuy-vesant student and her father, who fall into the Hudson River and find themselves in an under-water utopia. All the underwater creatures live under a mean queen and her sweet son, the prince. As they look for a way out of this utopia, they come across several of the creatures who want to leave as well, so they tag along. Meanwhile the prince falls in love with the girl and agrees to help them.

The characters were all very likable and well portrayed. One of the most noticeable things

about the performance was the gorgeous 3-D scenery. The vi-brant colors really helped make the story seem more realistic.

Stuyvesant topics were cleverly weaved into the storyline so they didn’t seem out of place “underwater.” For example, to-

wards the end, there was a part where the girl and everyone with her are unable to get away from the queen because they were held back by ID scanners.

Next up was Soph-Fresh SING. Here, we traveled to the underworld and to meet Pandora, Medusa, Napoleon, Michael Jack-son, and John Lennon, each with his/her own interesting quirks. The increase in life-expectancy and decrease in people coming into the underworld had them all talking. With the ruler Hades gone, Pandora comes up with a plan to open up her storage closet and unleash so much misery on the world that people will want death. The choreography of the dances during this performance was fresh and stood out among the others. Lighting effects were used very well during them. The

Continued on Page 14

ID Scanners: Compromise Reached On Monday April 3, the

Stuyvesant Student Union met

with school principal, Mr. Teitel, about the ID scanners that had

been recently installed. The meeting came about after stu-

dents expressed major concerns with the scanners and wanted them removed. A march on City Hall was threatened. At the end of the meeting, a compromise was met. The scanners will now only be used for atten-dance purposes. They will be removed after third period. There will be no more penal-ties for a student not having their id and lateness will not go on

the student’s official record. ◙

Continued on Page 3

The Stuyvesant Standard’s dedication to April Lao and Kevin Kwan is on pages 8 and 9.

Scanners, such as the one shown above, will be used to scan student IDs.

Senior Sing! performs.

TO THE COMMUNITIES OF STUYVESANT HIGH SCHOOL, TRIBECA, AND BATTERY PARK CITY

The Stuyvesant Standard The Stuyvesant Standard The Stuyvesant Standard “Your School, Your World—Your News” 

Volume V, Issue 15 APRIL 10, 2006 Free

News...........................2-5 Puzzles..............................11 Business......................4-5/7 Science……………….......12-13 Opinions.....................6-7 Arts & Entertainment........14-17 Literary.......................8-10 Sports................................17-20

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

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out the adjoining neighborhoods of TriBeCa and Battery Park City. THE STUYVESANT STANDARD welcomes letters from its readers.

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD reserves the right to edit any published mate-rial. The viewpoints of contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of

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Executive Leadership Team

Publication

Page 2 April 10, 2006 NEWS THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

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THE STUYVESANT STANDARD  Founded 2001

   “Your School, Your World—Your News” 

DR. JOHN NIKOL FACULTY ADVISER JENNIFER SCHLESINGER EDITOR IN CHIEF DEREK WENG MANAGING EDITOR KHOI NGUYEN CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER FANNY TANG LAYOUT EDITOR DANNY ZHU COPY CHIEF JIMMY ZHANG NEWS EDITOR PRISCILLA MELO OPINIONS EDITOR EMMA RABINOVICH ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR ERIC MAYO SPORTS EDITOR JOSEPH KRUTOV SCIENCE EDITOR HANFORD CHIU BUSINESS EDITOR LADA KUKUY LITERARY EDITOR HENRY ZHANG WEBMASTER HENRY ZHANG DIRECTOR OF PHOTOJOURNALISM DANIEL EGERS (‘03) FOUNDER ERNEST BASKIN (‘04) EDITOR EMERITUS

• Sayeed Manick is a staff writer. • Jeffrey Liaw’s name was misspelled. • Issue 13 was mislabeled Issue 12.

The PS3 Might Be Delayed

BY RICHARD SHYONG STAFF WRITER

For all those avid gamers out there, the rumors are true. The PS3, which was supposedly due

to be released this spring, has a good chance of being pushed back a few months. However, to take an optimistic point of view, this is all for the gamer’s sake.

The PS3 will feature cutting-edge technology in DVD playing,

processing, and graphics. The delay, however, lies with the DVD player. The production sys-tem used by Blu-Ray, the DVD player within the PS3, has yet to be finalized. This could cause a delay of some six months before the much-awaited PS3 finally comes out. However, the bright side of it all is that buyers of the PS3 will not only have an incredi-ble gaming system, but the most up-to-date DVD player. The only downside that would discourage most buyers would be its price, ranging around $900. Consider-ing that its rival, the Xbox 360, only costs $600, the PS3 has a lot to prove before it can be sold.

When asked about the delay of the PS3, several people were astonished. “There’s a delay?” said sophomore Nicholas Koo. “Well, I wasn’t waiting for it, so whatever.” “ Another sophomore, Johnny Lao, gave a more intellec-tual response. “The outrageous prices set by the corporations make it difficult for the average gamers to afford, [and] the delay will gain some protest from [its] dedicated gamers.” The PS3 had better prove itself worthy after all this waiting, or it would lose what little support it has left. ◙

An image of what the PS3 will look

www.pspworld.com

Solar Eclipse BY NEETA MALVIYA STAFF WRITER

On March 29, a solar eclipse covered areas from Brazil to Mongolia with complete dark-ness.

This was the first total solar eclipse since 2003. The eclipse of 2003 was best viewed in Ant-arctica. The next eclipse is to occur on September 22, 2006, but it will only be a partial eclipse. The next total eclipse will occur in 2008. To occur, total solar eclipses need the per-fect alignment of the sun, moon, and earth, so that the moon will block out the sun completely.

The time the eclipse lasted

varied depended on its location along the path of the eclipse. The longest view lasted for four min-utes and seven seconds, in a set-tlement of Libya. The three best viewing spots were all in Libya. It took 90 minutes for the moon to completely cover the sun.

When the moon and the sun were perfectly aligned all that was visible was the corona of the sun, which is usually invisible. Crowds gathered on roof tops and in streets to get a glimpse of this astonishing event. Many had to put on more clothing because the temperature dropped rapidly. Thousands gathered at an ancient

Continued on Page 5

Last Issue’s Corrections

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 10, 2006 NEWS Page 3

Club Spotlight:

SPAT BY IVAN TSE STAFF WRITER

SPAT is the perfect club for anyone who needs help in Span-ish. SPAT is the only Spanish tutoring club in the school. Kevin Zheng and Kat Chau founded the club with the mission of helping students fully understand the gen-eral concepts of the Spanish lan-guage. In addition, the club helps students prepare and study for Spanish exams.

Meetings are held once two weeks on either Mondays or Tuesdays. Although the club is mainly aimed at FS6 students, students at different levels are welcomed to join the club as well. Most of the tutoring lessons and aids, such as review sheets,

translations of passages from the textbook, vocabulary translations, and tenses conjugations are avail-able online at the Yahoo Group so the meetings are usually a quick recap of the Spanish topics learned recently. There are also many officers who help Kevin and Kat put up their lessons dur-ing the meetings and who help students. Since there so many officers, no one is left out and everyone benefits.

Sophomore Susan Kim, an officer, says of the club, “SPAT's an awesome club and it really helps with my Spanish.” Another member of the club, Benjamin Kwok, says, “Everyone has fun and learns at the same time at SPAT.”

There are no requirements to gain membership to the club. Anyone who’s interested can talk to Kevin or Kat, or e-mail stuySPAT@yahoo.com for more information. ◙

Give Health to the Freshmen Continued from Page 1

ment, supported the notion for the following reason: “Learning such topics in Health is better for younger people. To learn skills in d e c i s i o n -making … to no t take drugs — it will benefit the younger g r a d e s . ” When asked why seniors were ex-cluded from the plan, Ms. Singer re-s p o n d e d , “The seniors are already on their own. They know what to do and not to, they have already experimented. It is better for them to take col-lege transition classes than taking health class.”

However, the grade switch has not been entirely planned out yet. “We are thinking of having a pilot,” said Ms. Singer. “We would have two freshman classes and two sophomore classes. We’ll see which works better.” At-tempts to reach Mr. Teitel for his opinion have been made, but he has not replied.

This year, juniors have the option to take the Health class in their senior year in order to have some room on their schedule, for one reason or another. Unfortu-

nately, once freshmen and sopho-mores take the course, they can no longer delay taking health un-til twelfth grade. It is also uncer-tain whether or not a class would be dropped (Art or Music for freshmen; Technical Drawing or Introduction to Computer Science for sophomores) in order for a student to have six instructional periods a day.

The health course curricu-lum will remain the same for freshmen and sophomores. For

SPAT is an easier than using a review book to study Spanish.

ww

w.dcu.ie

Building Stuy Community: A New Website Dedicated to

Helping Students

On Monday, April 3, a Building Stuy Community (BSC) meeting was held. It was attended by a handful of stu-dents, mainly sopho-mores and seniors. Mr. Weil was also in a t tendance. BSC started with a letter by Mr. Weil, of the English department, to The Spectator about problems exist-ing in Stuy. The group was cre-ated by parents to improve the school and was then handed over to the students to continue this mantra. So far, the group has been working on school tone type projects, such as improving freshman orientation and moving

BY JENNIFER SCHLESINGER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

health class to freshman year. The group’s current project

is to create a sub-website on the r e gu la r S t u yve s a n t s i t e , www.stuy.edu. The website will be accessed through a link on the left side. The actual wording of

the link has not yet been deter-mined, but it will probably say something to the effect of “Support for Students.” Tenta-tive plans for eight pages were presented to the group for dis-cussion. The plans came from ideas generated at the last BSC

meeting in March. The website layout will be similar to the gen-eral school website with links on the left side for guidance, aca-demic help, contact information, student resources, and maybe a clubs, publications, and sports

announcement bul-letin. The tentative plan calls for the open-ing page to have a message about the purpose of the site. The message will be surrounded by

photos and quotes from Stuy students. During the discussion, concerns were brought up about waiver forms which would allow the photos to be displayed.

The next page discussed was the Guidance Suite’s page. A

example, they will still learn morals and values, the impor-tance of being physically and mentally fit, and the dangers of taking drugs. They will also have to sit through lessons on the human reproductive system and STD’s. Sophomore Jimmy Zhang thinks that freshmen tak-ing the health class would be great. “I think that moving the health class to freshman year would be an excellent addition to the curriculum. Freshmen can now enjoy health and biology in the same year.” Junior Jessie Li also agrees that moving health education to a lower grade would be better for students in the long run. “I remember the irony of having to stay up until 2 a.m. studying about the benefits of a good night's sleep to the body. Health really shouldn't be a junior-year class, when every-one’s too busy with their AP’s and their SAT’s.” However, an anonymous freshman wasn’t too happy. “If it means having more classes a day, then this really isn’t good news. It kind of sucks for the incoming freshmen, too. They have to sit through Bio and health lessons each day — probably both of them on the human reproductive system and STD’s.”

Overall, students seem satis-fied with the decision to move health from junior year to a lower class. ◙

Fda.gov

In Health Class, students learn the importance of good nutrition.

Continued on Page 5

So far, the group has been working on school tone type projects, such as im-

proving freshman orientation and mov-ing health class to freshman year.

Page 4 April 10, 2006 NEWS/BUSINESS THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

BY TIM CHANG STAFF WRITER

While most teachers in school are funny by accident, few teachers actually bring a good sense of humor to their classes. Carl Tan is one of those teachers. Tan was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. He came to America in 1974, in his late 20’s. He graduated from Seton Hall’s bilingual program in New Jersey in 1979 and soon became a New York City public school teacher. Tan taught at Seward Park High School in lower Manhattan before coming to Stuyvesant.

Tan came to Stuyvesant in 2004, and he loves teaching here: “One of a teacher’s greatest joys is to teach extraordinary stu-dents,” he said in an interview. Apparently, some of his students are so extraordinary that a whole new class, FM2N, was created for native Mandarin speakers. This class is for students who already know some Mandarin, so the cur-riculum is supplemented with extra lessons. Whenever possi-ble, lessons are taught in Chinese as well.

Tan has two rules in his classes, known to all his students. The first rule forbids chewing gum — it interferes with the oral component of each lesson. The

second rule seems odd to outsid-ers; it forbids shaking one’s legs. While sparsely enforced, it is part of Chinese etiquette. Some of his

students agree: “I guess that he should employ the rule since he's trying to teach us Chinese cul-ture,” says Albert Du, one of his

FM6 students. Others would dis-agree. “To be honest, I think it's a stupid policy; I mean, it’s not like

it’s going to disrupt the class or anything …,” says an anonymous student.

This year the Chinese lan-

guage program is at its largest yet, with close to 400 students. Next year, Tan hopes to open an A.P. Chinese course, for those students who want to go beyond Regents-level Chinese. However, he stresses that students should learn and master the Regents course first.

Tan emphasizes two aspects of Chinese learning, especially in his FM2N class. First of all, tones are essential. “Chinese without tones is not Chinese,” he says. He has good reason: char-acters pronounced with different tones represent different words. The second important aspect of Chinese is handwriting. Tan has beautiful handwriting, and he makes sure that all of his students learn good handwriting. “Sloppy handwriting reveals a sloppy per-sonality,” he says, and while this attitude may be somewhat harsh, Chinese handwriting is almost an art, since the words are more like pictures than combinations of letters.

Tan used to coach girls’ bowling at Seward Park High School. However, the recreation that Tan is most passionate about is table tennis. He loves to play and extends an invitation to any-one in the Stuyvesant community to challenge him. ◙

QUICK PROFILE

NAME: Carl Tan ( 谭老师 ) SUBJECTS TAUGHT: Mandarin FM2, FM2N, FM4, FM4N, FM6 FAVORITE FOOD: Szechuan Chicken with Peanuts

In an industry where health care providers wait up to 100 days for payments to be collected, if they are collected at all, Unit-edHealth Group Inc., a medical insurance group, is pioneering a new payment system to ensure that the providers are paid. Pa-tients who are exceptionally late will have the cost deducted from their paychecks, with interest.

The pilot program, soon to be launched in Texas, is one of the new solutions insurers are provid-ing to give greater convenience to all those involved in the payment process. In UnitedHealth’s pro-gram, called “OnePay,” United-Health will first pay all of the costs incurred by the patient, and then subsequently bill the patient. If the patient cannot pay the cost in full, UnitedHealth will act as a creditor. If the patient’s payments are late, UnitedHealth will deduct payments from the patient’s pay-checks, with interest, until the bill

is paid off. Although this forced collection seems painful, there are a lot of benefits for patients and providers who sign up for this voluntary program. A patient who is short on cash, but not completely broke, can receive very low interest rates. Because of the low risk involved with the program, since the patient can always be tracked down and forced to pay, UnitedHealth is able to offer interest rates that are easily half of what regular credi-tors offer. The plan is also con-venient, as the payments are auto-matically deducted from an ac-count of the patient’s choice, without requiring any paperwork. For the providers, this plan would guarantee a nearly 100 percent collection rate, as opposed to about 70 percent for uninsured patients.

A downside to this automated bill processing is that patients rarely see the true costs they in-cur and cannot easily challenge false billings before they are paid.

College Board Misses Mark Again

Continued from Page 1

upon the impact. "It's more of a nuisance at a time when we're trying to wend our way through 20,000-plus applications," said Lee Stetson, dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania. “Even in the case of one student who had been denied in the school's early admission cycle, a 50-point boost didn't tip the scales,” Stetson stated.

The College Board first be-came aware of the problem in late January when two requests to hand rescore October tests yielded positive score changes. An investigation was launched to determine the cause in the score change and the possibility of a problem in the answer sheets and scanning. Pearson Educational Measurement, which scanned the answer sheets, then launched its investigation and determined that the scores reported for approxi-mately 4,000 students were lower than they should have been. Ac-cording to Pearson, the main problem ar ised from the

“abnormally high moisture con-tent” in some answer sheets.

Pearson is continuing to in-vestigate the cause of the situa-tion.

In addition to lowered test scores, 600 test takers would have been negatively affected by the rescore, but the College Board has decided not to disclose their actual scores to colleges. Some counselors and professionals have criticized this decision even though the College Board charac-terized the errors as being “minute”.

Although none of the new group of 1,600 may be affected by the rescore, it is likely to raise criticism and concern over the College Board’s handling of the error. “It raises further questions about whether we yet know the full scope of the problem,” said Robert Schaeffer of FairTest, “It’s not a large percentage, but if those scores were your kid’s scores, it could mean something very significant.” ◙

New Health Plan to Deduct Cost Directly From Payroll

BY HANFORD CHIU BUSINESS EDITOR

Meet This Teacher Continued on Page 7

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 10, 2006 NEWS/BUSINESS Page 5

Marketers Try Newer Styles of Advertising

BY OLIVIA HU STAFF WRITER

Advertisers try to sell you their products through any method that has the slightest po-tential of attracting your business. Using everything from sentimen-tal slogans, such as “Have it your way” for Burger King and “I’m lovin’ it” for McDonalds, to mini movies and ludicrous jingles, companies attempt to appeal to every type of person out there, from drug dealers to sci-fi fa-natics and c o u n t r y girls, bill-boards and commercials brain-wash you into believing in the beauty of their products.

Ford Motors currently has a new 90-minute film in the works to promote the Lincoln Zephyr and the Mercury Milan. While the details on the movie are not com-pletely clear, Ford has created two separate websites to show trailers about these films. View-ers with a high-speed connection can easily download these clips. With an increase in broadband usage and online car sales, Ford advertises itself not by product

placement, but by sponsoring the direction of the movie and web-sites. Clips of this movie can be viewed on lovelybysurprise.com and theneverything.com.

Another rather odd form of appealing to the public persona is Proctor & Gamble’s new sitcom “The Poocharellis.” The eight episodes of the show will abide by the same rules that most sit-coms follow. It will be as long as a normal episode and there will be commercial breaks just long enough to squeeze in the slogan “Febreze, it’s fresh”. The product placement of Febreze will also

appear and usage of it will be interwoven into the plot. This sitcom is scheduled to appear on the web on March 20 and March 30 at the Nick at Nite website. this sitcom will be running throughout the week of April 11 on national television.

Saving the best for last, the Volkswagen’s campaigns have been very upbeat and ridiculous through their infusion of pop cul-

ture with o l d -fashioned G e r m a n c u l t u r e . This is p r o b a b l y their plan to increase

their annual sales. Some Volks-wagens slogans have been “German engineering in ‘da haus’,” “Straight outta de Auto-bahn,” and “Fast as schnell.” The most recent theme, “Unpimp Mein Auto,” was hilarious in that it played upon the very American notion of “pimped out” cars. It was even funnier through the use of an old-fashioned German sci-entist, trying to speak in slang and using hip gestures.

These new forms of market-ing express how desperately ad-vertisers are trying to attract their audience. The use of product

placements and “branded enter-tainment” is the marketer’s new way of breaking free of the tradi-tional advertising model. With the decline of the interest of con-ventional advertising, these mar-keters are breaking out of the ordinary to try to create truly en-joyable advertising. Since desper-ate times call for desperate meas-ures, as clearly portrayed by Proctor & Gamble, Ford Motors, and Volkswagen, just how far the marketers will go to sell that product of theirs, the world may never know. ◙

Products of the Proctor & Gamble marketing company.

pg.com

Solar Eclipse Continued from Page 2

temple of Apollo in the Mediter-ranean to gaze upon the eclipse. "It's one of those experiences that makes you feel like you're part of the larger uni-verse," said NASA astronomer Janet Luhmann who had viewed the eclipse from the ruins of an ancient Roman theater near the temple of Apollo. People had been warned by the government not to view the eclipse with the naked eye because of the damage it can cause. Protective glasses were distributed as a pre-caution.

Sunni and Shiite Muslims went to mosques during the eclipse to take part in a special prayer that is held in times of fear and natural disaster. An eclipse is considered a symbol of

the power of the Muslim god Allah.

The eclipse helped the tour-ism of many countries including Turkey. Tourists from all parts

of the world flocked to the coun-tries where the eclipse could be seen. "After two or three months of suffering, I hope this is a turn-ing point for us," said the Tour-ism Minister of Turkey Atilla Koc. ◙

Only the corona of the sun is visible.

abcnews.go.com

Building Stuy Community: A New Website Dedicated to

Helping Students Continued from Page 3

blurb will be displayed at the top of the page about the purpose of the office. The group would like the guidance counselors to write their own message. Below the blurb will be pictures of each guidance counselor, their office hours, room, and possibly some information about them. This is especially important because many underclassmen do not know who their guidance coun-selors are or when to meet them. The guidance office’s page will also include information about what one can do in the Guidance Suite besides talk to a counselor, such as look for employment in the job binder, get working pa-pers, and give in SSR forms.

The academic help page was discussed subsequently. This part of the site is dedicated to easing stress caused by academic pressure it Stuy, It will have AIS tutoring schedules, information on Arista tutoring, and pictures and information on the Assistant Principals.

Then, the contact info page was talked about. It will contain school related links to help the students, faculty, and parents. The links will include The Stuy-vesant Parents’ Association, The Student Union, The Department

of Education, and The Standard. Suggestions arose for some use-ful outside links, but their were concerns since the BSC website is part of the official school web-site.

Following this, the Student Resources page was discussed. This will have an inspirational message at the top with possibly a few quotes. The resources ex-plained will include Big Sibs, SPARK, YCL (Youth Counsel-ing League), and Stuy Diversity. The College Office and Mr. Blumm, the parent coordinator were also discussed as possible resources.

Finally, the announcement page was discussed. This was to replace the community messages at the bottom of the Stuy home-page. However, there were con-cerns about students not realiz-ing where the announcements were and who would approve them. A separate link on the Stuy homepage was suggested.

Overall, the meeting was very useful. All who came were invited to voice their opinions and get involved. ◙

These new forms of market-ing express how desperately advertisers are trying to at-

tract their audience.

Anyone who is interested in get-ting involved in Building Stuy Community should contact build-ingstuycommunity@yahoo.com.

Page 6 April 10, 2006 OPINIONS THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

Troubles Abound BY PRISCILLA MELO OPINIONS EDITOR

It is a horrible situation, an almost unthinkable fate, but it is unsurprising: 50 percent of young black men are jobless, a Princeton University study found. The rate is even higher among high school dropouts, at 72 percent. Why, I am impelled to ask, is there such a high rate of failure for this cer-tain group? Certainly one would expect other groups to have the same or similar results. But they don’t — the job-less rates for Cau-c a s i a n and His-p a n i c males who did not attend college are less than 22 percent. This news is startling, but there are many reasons why this is so.

I have always known that education is pivotal to getting a career; how else would one get a secure occupation? Therefore, bad schools, lacking proper re-sources and motivation for their students, as well as an over-whelming drop-out rate among African-Americans, should be the reason for these rates — and they

partly are. Yet Hispanics have an even higher drop-out rate than blacks. Thus there are other fac-tors, besides terrible schools, that push these men deeper into this dismal fate.

The environment that many of these poor young men are brought up in is another cause. Street life is an alternative to the fruitless hours spent in school. Many don’t even know their fa-thers and do not have proper role models — hustlers and thugs are the ones they look up to. Also,

there is a high rate of incar-ceration among these men — on average, 34 pe rc en t o f

young black men are in jail, while only 30 percent are working.

When these men do work, it is not a permanent source of in-come; their jobs don’t have pen-sions or health care benefits. The money they do earn is spent pay-ing child support — half of young black men who do not have col-lege degrees are non-custodial fathers.

What we must do as a nation is help. Yes, we have spent bil-

Continued on Page 7

Counterpoint: Should Iran Be Allowed to Have

Nuclear Weapons? BY JACOB CHEN OPINIONS EDITOR ‘04

While President Bush has a predisposition for bungling when it comes to domestic and interna-tional affairs, “even a broken clock is right twice a day.” Iran, regardless of intent, should under no condition be permitted to ac-quire nuclear weapons.

One of the three pillars of Yuen's argument is that Iran would not use or provide nuclear weapons for fear of an “international backlash.” But if we look at an all too pertinent example, can we truly expect the fear of a backlash to deter Iran? The Taliban of Afghanistan gave support to a terrorist organization that then launched the largest

attack on American soil since probably the attack of the Pearl Harbor. Well, some may contend that Afghanistan did not expect a reprisal, but did anyone truly ex-pect less considering the extent of the damage? Remember that Af-ghanistan, unlike China or India, was a theocracy. The rulers meant not to act in the interests of the state, or of the populace, but in the interests of their religious tenets.

Secondly, Yuen blithely dis-cusses how Iran might be “nuked” in return, and how if they threaten other nations, the United States would check their aggression. If given more thought, a weakness in this re-taliation becomes evident. While undoubtedly we would retaliate, how would we do so? If a nuclear explosion occurred in Israel, would we nuke Iran in response? Would we put to death millions

of Iranian civilians simply to strike back at the government? Such an action would be morally reprehensible in the highest de-gree. The international and do-mestic outcry would be unbeliev-able, not to mention the plethora of animosity such an action would give birth to. In this sce-nario we would have to invade, but that too would almost cer-tainly be. Considering the diffi-culty we are currently facing in Iraq, keeping an army in Iran, even presuming we are victori-ous, would be an exorbitant ex-pense in terms of lives and capi-tal. If Iran had nuclear weapons, there would be no effective check to keep them from being deto-nated.

Lastly, let us not forget that

Iran constantly uses the United States as a rallying point for its citizens. To the Iranian people, we are not just a run-of-the-mill-demonic entity, we are supreme — we are the Great Satan. Every administration since Reagan has felt threatened by Iran because it constantly identifies itself as an enemy of America and incites violence against America inter-nally and internationally. We did not alienate Iran — Iran stormed into our embassy, kidnapped our ambassadors, and cut off all rela-tions with the Great Satan.

The US must take every measure, perhaps even the use of military force, to ensure that Iran never develops nuclear weapons technology. If the US does not, the day after Iran builds its first nuclear weapons, we will witness the third nuclear massacre. ◙

Iran believes it has the right to pursue civilian nuclear technology, just like any country in the West.

ID Scanners Are Not So Bad

BY ALVIS YUEN STAFF WRITER

Beep… beep. The new sound Stuyvesant students love to hate. The school announced their plan to set up ID scanners for months already. We waited for that dread-ful day when we would have to scan in every morning, but that day never came; it always got delayed. Soon, we forgot about the ID scanners. Then, like an unsuspecting gale, under the backdrop of tragedy and SING, the school finally installed the scanners. As we began to realize what had happened, dissent flooded every available informa-tion outlet.

Most people don’t like the scanners. It seems perfectly rea-sonable to hate them, but we should stop and think why we do. Sophomore Maggie Lee offers this reason in her email: “It’s not a matter of five bucks, but the principle’s behind it. You know what also gets scanned? Books and tagged animals.” It seems to me that most students don’t hate the ID scanners, but rather their

implications. To some students, if not most, the installation of the ID scanners was a betrayal- a sign of the dwindling trust the admini-stration has of us. Meanwhile, some students feel degraded be-cause they believe that this policy reduces them to factory workers.

We don’t seem to have a good reason to hate the ID scan-ners. We sound like bickering children whose parents are hiring a babysitter instead of letting them stay home alone. The so-called principles that are being taken away are the loopholes that allow us to break rules. We say that the school doesn’t trust us, but seriously, we shouldn’t be trusted. Under the old system, we would walk by, just flashing our ID cards. However, there was a huge margin for human error. We would exploit this by entering school without our ID cards and violating school policy. In addi-tion, the ID scanners supposedly make it harder to cut class be-cause the school knows exactly what time you enter the building. Before, attendance for the entire

Continued on Page 7

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50 percent of young black men are jobless, a Princeton

University study found.

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 10, 2006 OPINIONS/BUSINESS Page 7

ID Scanners Are Not So Bad

Much Ado Over Nothing BY MOTTAQUI AL-KARIM STAFF WRITER

The long awaited and anx-iously anticipated ID scanners have finally arrived. So, we go back to the great question, if it deserves to be dubbed as one of the greatest dilemmas to ever confront student-kind, and that has been debated by most stu-dents: what exactly is the point of having these scanners?

There are a variety of an-swers to this question. The ad-ministration, if asked, would state that the purpose of the scanners is to quickly and easily retrieve the whereabouts of a particular student at any given moment in the day. Dissimi-larly, the typical student would respond by becoming extremely passionate and would begin to give the questioner a great vari-ety of reasons why the scanners actually imply the distrust of the administration towards him/her. The more patient student, how-ever, would ponder the question for a moment and come to the conclusion that there is no point in having these scanners.

It seems as if the latter re-sponse is the most reasonable, for the scanners really do not

have any semblance of practical-ity or usefulness. They, however, do not interfere with any other aspect of the school in any way,

which make them pointless. They are simply there because the “sensible” Board of Education has mandated them to be shipped to our school.

The scanners, however, are

Continued from Page 6

day would be taken during 3rd period, making it easy to cut 1st and 2nd period. This loophole is gone now.

The truth of the matter is that this system has been imple-mented in other schools. We feel degraded because we think we are special and deserve special privileges. No one likes to get monitored and high school kids are no exception. It is too bad that other people are responsible for us and have to watch us. Those that are saying “They can’t do this to us” should get rid of their superiority complex and learn to adapt. I hope all of us remember that teachers, when they come in every morning,

must turn their cards. They are being monitored too. Teachers do not complain because they under-stand it is part of their job. We should be more mature and com-ply because going to school and learning is our job.

Another reason people dislike the ID scanners is that we have to pay $1 to manually enter our-selves into the system if we don’t have our ID. However, Mr. Wong had been nice and printed out new IDs for free. So, that problem is gone as well. Sometimes, we fail to realize that Mr. Teitel, Ms. Damesek, and the rest of the ad-ministration are just trying to do their job. So, before we give them a hard time, we should do our part and follow the rules. ◙

not really hurting us, nor are they affecting us in any way. They are just there. So there is no point behind all the protests

made by the student body against the scanners, although they have made no difference- school is structured in a com-plete totalitarian sense. Quite frankly, the scanners are really

not that bad. Sure, swiping our cards when we enter school is more annoying then flashing them at the security guards, but it’s relatively simple and quite painless. They also make that cool beeping sound when we swipe in and the administration will have no excuse in giving us those cheesy “fuchsia” colored cards anymore; we all know they’re pink!

As stated in the second para-graph, some of us have argued that the distrust of the student body by the administration is implied by the installation of the scanners. This is completely true, and it makes the argument for installing the scanners even greater, since distrusting the stu-dent body is one of the main jobs of the administration. It is this distrust of the student body which protects us and keeps us safe.

So, the scanner problem isn’t actually as great as it made to be and opposing the scanners was a fruitless waste of time. They are not affecting us in any way. The scanners just help the attendance office with their jobs and makes it harder for us to cut class or use someone else’s ID to go out during a free period. But I’m sure we’ll figure out some way to beat the system, after all we are Stuyvesant students. ◙

Assistant Principal of Technology, Edward Wong, overlooks the scanners as students enter the school.

Troubles Abound Continued from Page 6

lions of dollars on welfare and other government programs, but they don’t stop the problem. Someone on welfare can not possibly overcome their difficul-ties if he or she can not get proper training or good jobs. The creation of organizations like the Job Corps that actually train and

give jobs while providing subsis-tence is a great way to start. Yet these programs are not as acces-sible and publicized in these communities as they should be. If we give these men a second chance to prosper, they will defi-nitely become productive citi-zens, something the nation will definitely benefit from. ◙

TSS/Bennett Hong

BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Start right here with...

College Now

Contact dganderson@bmcc.cuny.edu

However, UnitedHealth has said it will halt or return payments that patients challenge. Another downside is that poorer patients would be trapped in inescapable debt. With payments taken di-rectly from paychecks, patients would not have much time to recover and pay future payments without going broke. Even though the program would ini-tially be completely voluntary, similar programs may replace

traditional programs in the future should providers decide that the high collection rate is so desir-able that lower-quality health plans would be abandoned. Thus, although this type of health plan is desirable to pro-viders and highly-paid patients, poorer patients would be sub-jected to what is effectively loan sharking and would have to pay a lot in interest to work off large debts. ◙

New Health Plan to Deduct Cost Directly From Payroll

Continued from Page 4

Dedication to April and Kevin

BY JENNIFER LEE STAFF WRITER

Sitting there in the classroom, I could feel the tension in the atmos-

phere rise and fall. Then rise again. I could hear the faint sounds of cov-ered sobs. From every direction, I could hear their anguish and sadness. I could feel their emotions, an ocean tide sweeping over hollow shelled bodies. We were knocked senseless off our feet, but the tides that crashed upon us receded backwards and came forth again. I could imag-ine them and know what they could’ve felt. There is nothing worse than missing the ones that we’ve loved and lost. Smiles that had graced upon them. Why hadn’t I smiled more? Quarrels that ended just as quickly as they started. Why hadn’t I just let it go? The love they shared and bonds strengthening. Why hadn’t I given them more love?

But there, in the midst of it all, we are granted the answer that will forever be cloaked in horrifying and desperate darkness. The darkness that creeps and haunts the edges of the heart until it finally reaches the core of the beating heart. Enigmas and mysteries are meant to stay clan-destine in the partway of death. That is how life goes on. It begins on the easy scale; we are crawling towards salvation and trying to save salva-tion by running later. As old as this is, we should enjoy life to the fullest. Do not let darkness seep through, for there is always light upon shadows. It’s okay to let your tears out. It’s okay. We will have shown an oceanful of love.

"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal."

…We will never forget them.

Page 8 April 10, 2006 LITERARY THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

“Kevin” by Benson

TSS/Bennett H

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My Memories Dedicated to April Lao

BY TINA YUE STAFF WRITER

Though I never met you, I heard so many things.

None of 'em bad. All of 'em good.

You smilin' Is one of them. I'm not buyin'

Any of the frowns, 'cuz I've already seen That brilliant smile. We've all been hurt

And miserable... When it happened

But, if you're happy We are too,

And that's all that counts... So, answer our prayers.

And, let's hope. That you're doing just fine.

I die of carelessness, I die of caution

I die of fear, I die too brave for my own good I die from too much sweet devotion

I die for lack of drink, for want of food

I die silently, or I die screaming I die in tears, in pain, or from disease

I die awake, I die when I am dreaming I die upon my feet, my hands, my knees

I die in happiness, I die in blank despair

I die with love, or with my frail heart torn asunder I die with ugly wounds, or I die fair

I die in fire, in water, night, and thunder

I die not knowing life or death I die confused, with clarity of mind

I die struggling for every single breath I die for fighting forward, and for all I left behind

I die too old, I die too young for dying

I die too sure, uncertain of my soul I die with tears, with eyes too dry for crying

I die too much, too often, on the whole.

BY PENNY MALAMUD STAFF WRITER

Ode To Death In All Its Forms

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 10, 2006 LITERARY Page 9

Bringing you closer to your school. Keeping up with your world.

We have all your news covered.

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

Page 10 April 10, 2006 LITERARY THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

Watercolored BY JENNIFER LEE STAFF WRITER

Spring overwhelmed her. The rain. The grass. The rough bark

protruding those slender branches. The smell of the rusty Ford Mustang she was lying in now. The smell of leather and gray smoke intertwined with each other, creating a nostalgic sense: one where he and she would ride out all day and night on those lonely western roads, with nothing behind theme except sun, stars, and trailing dust. Always that sort of dust. She missed her hometown and the persistent scent it consisted of piney fern moss and crushed lavender petals, dotted with the clingy-ness of transparent rain. And…oh…she missed most of all the homegrown smell of cotton shirts. Head resting on the seat in the back, she could just close her eyes and see those warm brown eyes. Amber like a melted butter gold sun. She had only the memory of eyes replaying in her head to keep her solace at days like this. But here, safe and warm for the meanwhile, under the car’s hood, she fell asleep to the sound of the rain. One hand draped around her stomach’s middle and tangled, soaked hair from the rain, still drying, she dreamt dreams that brought a crescent uplift to her lips. Only in her dreams do her misses return back to her, dew dropped water and mist.

THE LAMPPOST

The twelfth hour dawns, and I peer through the glass,

Seeing nothing But tiny neon orange balls, stitching the land,

Each a sun to its own world one the scent of a rose

Another the lap of sea against mist, Friendship,

Sting of a slap, Glance of a love,

All silent Individually

They burn against the darkness Artificially illuminating a sole path

While they singe the day Each an idea,

A song, A poem,

A raindrop Each depleting the earth of one more

Beauty That is, until

Our sun Rises, and shoos out the

Impostors And they lope off, reluctantly

They die Until tomorrow

BY HANNAH WU STAFF WRITER

Crossword Puzzle BY STUY PUZZLE HUNT

The paragraph below is most unusual. How quickly can you find out what is so unusual about it? "Gatsby was walking back from a visit down in Branton Hill's manufactur-ing district on a Saturday night. A busy day's traffic had had its noisy run; and with not many folks in sight, His Honor got along without having to stop to grasp a hand, or talk; for a mayor out of City Hall is a shining mark for any politician. And so, coming to Broadway, a booming bass drum and sounds of singing, told of a small Salvation Army unit carrying on amidst Broadway's night shopping crowds. Gatsby, walking towards that group, saw a young girl, back toward him, just finishing a long, soulful oration ... " The above passage is taken from the book "Gatsby" written by Ernest Vin-cent Wright in the late 1930's

BY LAURENCE HUANG STAFF WRITER

Riddle

Last Issue’s Solution

Sudoku BY JOHN REUEL STAFF WRITER

4 9 7

6

1 2 5

5 4

4 6 9

3 6

7 3 2

5

1 4 3

1 2 4 5 8 3 7 6 9

3 7 6 2 9 4 5 8 1

9 8 5 7 1 6 2 3 4

8 5 3 4 7 2 9 1 6

4 9 2 6 3 1 8 7 5

7 6 1 9 5 8 3 4 2

2 1 8 3 6 5 4 9 7

5 3 7 1 4 9 6 2 8

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1. E 2. G 3. G 4. S 5. A 6.V 7.A 8. S 9. T 10 H 11 I 12.

P 13.

R O U T 14.

N I C E R 15 S I R E 15.

R O S E 17 E L I T E 18 U S E R 19.

E S T E 20. E M E D 21 A 22 W L

23.D E S P A I R 24 T A P 25 E 26 R 27 S

28 E R A 29 H 30 E I G H T E N

31 S 32 P 33 I N 34 B A T S 35 A U R A

36 P A T 37 D E U C E 38 D U G

39 E Y E 40 S 41 O A T H 42 D E N S

43 N E M A 44 T O D E 45 S 46 P A

47 T E S T E R 48 S T A N 49 D 50 E 51 E

52 Y A M 53 S T E N C I L S

54 O 55 V 56 E R 57 A 58 D O R E 59 E X I T

60 A I L S 61 T I D A L 62 R I D E

63 R A M 64 S N A P S 65 S E E R

Cryptogram Answer: Headline writer must have had fun composing this actual one: “Escaped leopard believed spotted.”

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THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 10, 2006 PUZZLES Page 11

Page 12 April 10, 2006 SCIENCE THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

Cows Gone Mad BY KENNETH LAM STAFF WRITER

It is a warm summer day, and you are at a barbeque with a group of friends. One of your buddies is grilling hamburgers at the moment. He hands you one straight off the grill with a toasted bun, lettuce and tomatoes. Be-fore you wolf down the burger, you suddenly recall hearing about mad cow disease and its return to society. It’s all over the papers, and you are anxious to find out if it could strike you next. The next day, you go to the school library to do some research, and you find many results.

Mad Cow Disease, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), is a neurological disease that affects cattle. However, this disease is not like other diseases. For starters, BSE is transmitted by a particle called a prion. Pri-ons are quite different from other disease-causing particles, such as viruses and bacteria. Bacteria and most viruses have DNA, the genetic code used by all life on Earth. Unlike viruses and bacte-ria, prions consist of only pro-teins, making them much harder to kill. In addition, the immune system does not even detect pri-ons, only adding to their danger. The prions that spread BSE are commonly found inside nerve

tissue, such as brains and spinal cords, as well as bone marrow. Normal prion protein, or PrP, is produced by the cell. Mutated

PrP will cause the disease and stimulate other PrP to become mutated as well, causing a chain reaction that spreads the mutated prions throughout the affected areas.

BSE is mainly transmitted through ingestion of prions. Cat-tle feed that included parts of sheep, which had their own ver-sion of BSE, or neural tissue from

other cows with BSE were one of the main transmission methods. BSE is also transmittable to hu-mans, but transmission is very rare. BSE in humans is called Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease, and affects humans in a way that is

similar to BSE in cows. Fortu-nately, the United States food supply has not yet been infiltrated by BSE. In addition, one must eat parts of the cow that carry the prions to contract the disease.

To date, there have only been 3 recorded cases of BSE in the United States. The first case was discovered in December of 2003. The most recent case was con-

firmed on March 13, 2006. Un-fortunately, BSE has not only affected the cows in United States ranches, but also the US econ-omy. Ever since the first case discovered in the United States, United States beef exports have dropped by 64%. Much of this drop is attributed to other coun-tries fearing that BSE may be transmitted to their cattle. One such case was the Japanese ban on United States beef due to a shipment of veal that had material from the spinal cord, which was a violation of export laws. South Korea had already had its doors closed to United States beef since the first case, and was just about ready to reopen its doors when the latest case was confirmed. The United States testing policy is also a target for criticism from other countries. Although the United States tests its cattle, it does not test it in as great num-bers as other countries, such as Japan, which tests every cow it has. Rather, only 20,000 cows have been tested each year for the past two years. However, these numbers promise to rise as people become more informed about BSE.

BSE is a dangerous disease. Nevertheless, with the right pre-cautions on behalf of the people, it can be prevented, or at least its spread slowed. ◙

Water on Enceladus

BY MEE YOUNG YEONG STAFF WRITER

The idea of extraterrestrial life has been around for decades.

As a result, dozens of movies about aliens and other-worldly life have been created. However, actual evidence of potential extra-terrestrial life is fairly recent.

On March 15, an article was

released on the evidence of water on Mars. Special devices that map and analyze the planet’s sur-face have found that less than 1 percent of the surface harbors

hydrated minerals. For the past two years, a team of scientists and researchers has been analyz-ing these minerals for signs of water. Upon the discovery of

X-Racing

You turn on the televi-sion, and the view zooms in on a runway in the middle of the desert. Two small vehicles, both seeming to be aircraft, wait on the runway as a count-down starts. S u d d e n l y , both gun their rocket en-gines, and belching or-ange flames, roar down the runway, lift off, and disap-pear at a steep angle into the clear blue sky. The camera switches to a

dashboard view, where a dizzying array of virtual guidelines is pro-jected onto the rockets’ head-up

BY JONATHAN XIKIS STAFF WRITER

Continued on Page 13 Continued on Page 13

Xracing.net

A rally is held in South Korea against the import of American Beef.

Associated Press

An artist’s rendering of Enceladus’ icy surface.

solarsystem.nasa.gov

Motor X-Racing in an Iowa ski resort.

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 10, 2006 SCIENCE Page 13

Water on Enceladus Continued from Page 12

X-Racing Continued from Page 12

phyllosilicates and sulfates, 2 hydrated minerals that contain water in their crystalline struc-ture, the possibility of extraterres-trial life has arisen.

The research did not stop there. Saturn, the second largest planet in the solar system, has about 47 moons. One of the in-nermost moons is Enceladus, dis-covered in 1789 by William Herschel. NASA’s Cassini spa ce -c r a f t , w h i c h h a s b e e n o r b i t -i n g Sa turn s i n c e J u l y 2004, has found icy geysers shooting ice from this moon’s surface at high speeds. They are essentially colder versions of the geysers in Yellowstone National Park. Sci-entists came up with several mod-els to explain the reason for the existence of these particle jets. Despite doubts that liquid water could exist on such a small and cold body, their most exciting theory is that there are liquid wa-ter reservoirs near the surface

from which the icy jets spring. Imagery of Enceladus pro-

duced by the NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute show blue-green vein-like stripes, sparsely situated on the pale surface of the moon. The Cassini spacecraft’s infrared spectrometer took the temperature

of one of these blue-green fis-sures and found it to be at least 15ºK warmer than its surround-ings. When temperatures are taken in the narrower zones of the fissure, the temperatures are ob-served to be at least 145ºK. This is a sign of geothermal activity, as the fissures are probably heated from beneath the moon’s surface.

Various spectrometers and spectrographs also found

t h a t a b o u t 65% of E n c e l a -d u s ’ s a t m o s -p h e r e c o n s i s t s of water

vapor. The den- sity of the water vapor varies with altitude, suggesting that there is a localized source of water vapor. The vapor is suspected to be the evaporated water molecules that Enceladus spews from its interior. Evidence suggests that other moons in the solar system have liquid water oceans frozen over by kilometers of ice. How-ever, what makes Enceladus un-usual is that the model as pro-posed by the scientists would have liquid water reservoirs no

more than a few tens of meters be-low the sur-face. Dr. A n d r e w Ingersoll of the Califor-nia Institute of Technol-ogy in Pasa-dena, Cali-fornia spoke of this inter-esting infor-mation in the NASA/JPL news article re-leased on March 9. The strange aspects of this moon have pro-voked nu-m e r o u s q u e s t i o n s . Researchers look for-ward to ex-

ploring Enceladus further through the Cassini Spacecraft when it flies about 350,000 kilometers from the moon in the spring of 2008. ◙

displays to show the drivers where to fly in an otherwise clear sky. As the racing rockets spar, blasting through the two-mile-long virtual track, two more are preparing to lift off. Only one craft will achieve victory and win the X Prize Cup. Is this a scene from a video game, a movie, or perhaps a science-fiction book? The answer may surprise you: it is very, very real. The year is 2007, and the program is X-Racing.

The idea of X-Racing was created by Peter Diamandis, the same entrepreneur who sponsored the $10 million Ansari X Prize, a competition that led to the build-ing of SpaceShipOne, the first private spaceship. After Space-ShipOne was successfully flown in 2004, he and former Indy Rac-ing League team co-owner Granger Whitelaw co-founded the Rocket Racing League. Like NASCAR on steroids, the RRL’s sole purpose is to race rocket

planes — up to 10 at a time — through a mid-air, virtual track. Although Diamandis and White-law had the idea of rocket racing even earlier than 2004, it wasn’t until the X Prize was won that the idea actually took off. At the beginning of the X-Racing ven-ture, no one knew whether X - R a c i n g was even p o s s i b l e . There were many obsta-cles: creat-ing the craft and a reli-able rocket engine, mak-ing the races fair, and publicizing the idea, among others. The idea for the craft was found at XCOR Aerospace, in Mojave, California. XCOR wanted to build its own private spaceship. Iin doing so, it had fitted a rocket to a plane built by Burt Rutan, the Long-EZ, cre-ating the EZ-Rocket, a perfect rocket racer. The two entrepre-neurs ordered a similar aircraft

from another manufacturer and prepared to outfit it with a rocket engine, with the help of XCOR. Next, the problem of having to make competitive pit stops during the race was solved. Although the EZ-Rocket would normally need hours to get ready for a flight, a new refueling system developed by XCOR reduced the refueling time to just minutes.

During the race, the rocket racers will take off in pairs, min-utes apart, to give the audience constant action, as well as to avoid crashes when 10 rockets try to pass each other at the same time. The rockets will be compet-ing for the best time, instead of directly against each other. Four pit stops will be made during each hour-long race. Rocket boosts will be reserved for pass-ing other racers and getting extra speed when necessary. The pilots volunteering for this harrowing and physically grueling task are great in number, and include a large variety of people, from fighter pilots to race-car drivers,

who all want to get a taste of the action. The average citizen can even participate in rocket races — an X-Racing video game is currently in development, and the lucky winner of a video game competition will get to compete against the real racers in real time, through the game, and see

how they compare to the p r o fe s -sionals. O n c e only in t h e realm of

f i c t i o n , the advance of technology has realized things never thought pos-sible before. The next time you turn on that rocket-racing video game, or read about regular flights to space, keep in mind that they may be coming to the real world sooner than you think. ◙

skifunvalley.com

A view of Enceladus from outer space.

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Is this a scene from a video game, a movie, or

perhaps a science-fiction book? The answer may sur-

prise you: it is very, very real.

The idea of extraterrestrial life has been around for dec-

ades...however, actual evidence of potential extraterrestrial life

is fairly recent.

A vehicle used for X-Racing.

Continued from Page 1

SING! Hits the Spot intermission leaned toward po-litical humor by having a re-porter from the white house re-vealing that Pandora was going to use “weapons of mass de-struction”. Also, the chorus played a larger role in this per-formance with the group songs. The soloists were very good as well, especially Pandora and the boy in the playground.

Last but not least was Junior SING. The script for it was very well written and exceptionally witty. The plot combined drama with comedy in a way that kept the audience on the tip of their seats the entire time. The story revolved around Captain Long John Silver and him owing a lot of money. He had a treasure map that could lead him to riches but he couldn’t figure out how to get

to it until they rescued someone from the sea who did. Thinking that the map will help him find his way home, he leads them to the treasure.

The laughs were won by “RESPECT” demanding Cap-tains and the tax collectors who knew how to laugh at their own corny jokes. The dancers were all very in sync and fit into the plot. Junior Sing ended on a high note, with a created pirate pro-Juniors song to conclude the show.

Everyone’s hard work paid off. While some shows would tire their audience after 3 hours, SING was so well done that it felt exciting throughout and good to the last drop. ◙

Interested in taking photos for the Standard?

E-mail Photo@stuystandard.org

Photos by Stuy07.org

Page 14 April 10, 2006 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 6, 2006 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Page 15

BY EMMA RABINOVICH ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

“V for Vendetta” attempts to capture your imagination and defy your expectations but ends up failing miserably. Extremely predictable in every way, its only redeeming feature is the talented cast that carries the movie from scene to scene.

Natalie Portman stars as Evey, an orphan whose parents were killed by the totalitarian government that has taken over England. Set in 2020, “V for Vendetta” revolves around the masked terrorist/hero V, played by Hugo Weaving. Unfortunately, despite several desperate attempts to add some depth, V remains a mistreated hero, only acting for

Page 16 April 10, 2006 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

BY DEREK WENG MANAGING EDITOR

The wooden floor stage is cleared, huge, and inviting; the lightings are bright and warm; there are only three other cou-ples on the center stage of Stuy-vesant High School; the crowds are cheering and anxious of what’s to come; all the dancers awaits for the musical cue to start…

When most of us think of swing dancing, we picture a classy ballroom scene, a lively band playing at the background, with guys and gals dressed to impress, showing off their fancy footwork, gliding through the smooth floor while girls defying gravity flying in the air with lifts and throws. While all that is true about swing dancing, the dance itself proved to be so much more.

When I look back at how this all started, I find it crazy how I ended up on SING Night 2006 performing swing dance when I barely mastered the ba-sics a little over a month ago. Being an absolute beginner in swing, I knew just a little bit more about swing dance than I know about the mating habits of gefilte fishes. And I know abso-lutely nothing about gefilte fishes. So you can imagine me at the ballroom dance tryout, with all the eight count pattern, step-steps, triple-steps, and rock steps, nothing registered with my

mind and my feet. I was nervous and sweating all over, wet palms and backs, a big no-no for danc-ers. I’m sure everyone in the room was looking at this incredi-bly awkward moving kid trying to dance and questioning why he

is here in the first place. Yet here I am now working

out a wild set of twists and turns with the SING Ballroom Dance crew. Isn’t life crazy? So out of curiosity, I asked my dance di-rector at a very long practice one day, about why on earth she had picked me. Camille offered me the sweetest answer one can ask for. She answered me with an ever so charming voice, “Well, I saw that day when you were the

brainwashed. While the constant propaganda and conversation monitoring is supposed to infuri-ate the viewer, it seems hardly worse than McDonald’s market-ing of obesity-causing food to kids or Bush’s new anti-terrorist policies. Other than the horrible image of the chancellor giving orders to his cabinet over a giant TV screen, for those who obey the rules, life doesn’t seem so bad. The Nazi-like arrest of ho-mosexuals seems horrific until it is compared to the reaction of the parents who shun their daughter after she tells them the truth. So while the moral “V for Vendetta” is trying to send is “Governments should be afraid of their people,” the message

hardest working person at the try out, and so I thought you have great potential in you.” And so, everything went on perfectly like a dream from there.

After a few practices or so with the rest of the awesome

swing crew, which included Camille, Arthur, Janie, Neiloy, Raisa, and Jonathan, it was fun perfecting the basics by learning the turns and moves over and over. When it was time for me to bring the steps together with my dance partner Katie, the party really got started. A form of swing dance Camille picked for us to do was the Charleston, which is a great looking dance that is performed by two people

either side by side or in tandem (one in front of the other). It consists of a set of forward and backward kicks and steps done in synchronization by both part-ners. While the footwork wasn’t too complicated, it was a night-mare when there are two people having no clue what to do, kick-ing at each other while moving intimately together within few inches apart all at the same time.

As a performer in a coupled dance like swing, I couldn’t have imagined anyone else being with me on my first dance perform-ance on stage than Katie. From the very beginning, we hit it off very well, just like any couples should. Getting past the initial fear of stepping on her feet or her falling in the middle of the Pancake (an aerial where the guy lifts the girl up while she does a handstand), swing dancing turned out incredibly enjoyable for two people. I’m so grateful that Katie has been patient enough through all the hard times when she has to put up with my indolence, inattention to the details, and just bad dancing in general. And I also apologize for that time when I dropped you on the floor when we were doing the aerials. Well, a couple of times. Oops, sorry!

The days of practices passed by particularly fast. Even though the rehearsals took up most of my time, it was worth it every moment. While everyone else

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All for Swinging You Around

V for Vendetta: A Horrifying Concept Made Into a Horrible Movie

the good of his country. This lack of ambiguity is exactly why the movie remains flat and conven-tional, without ever exploring new grounds.

Believability, which nor-m a l l y w o u l d n ’ t be problem in futuris-tic films, also be-comes a f a c t o r . A l t h o u gh the viewer r e a d i l y a c c e p t s that the demise of the United States and

a totalitarian takeover of Britain occurred in 14 years, V’s com-plaints and long speeches seem ineffective because the country lives a comfortable life, and doesn’t seem to mind being

Hugo Weaving plays V in “V for Vendetta.”

Weng and his swing partner performing the "Lock-Up".

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was busy preparing for the SATs, I was getting ready for the music and the stage. I also had to excuse myself away many of my staff meetings for the Stuyvesant Stan-dard to practice the extremely difficult aerials of lifts and throws. Yet, the skills I have learned and the friends I have gained from this experience are all the more precious to me.

Through all the laughers and pains, I have arrived at my very first SING performance. Although I wouldn’t be so nervous on stage in front of an audience in any other day, the first night was the exception. My mind was wander-ing to places, and then I started to panic as I couldn’t remember all the steps of the choreography. What if my legs shake so much

that I won’t be able to dance? What if Katie lands on her rear

end in the middle of the floor with everyone watching? That

would be so embarrassing. And then I realized that real dancing

have nothing to do with your level of exper-tise or the num-bers of tricks you can exe-cute. We should have fun and get out there and savor every mo-ment of the dance with the crew. This is finally the mo-ment to show off our pre-cious product coming from months of la-

bor, sweat, tears, love and pride. ◙

THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 10, 2006 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Page 17

Derek and Katie right before their first Sing! Performance.

V for Vendetta: A Horrifying

Concept Made Into a Horrible

Movie Continued from Page 16

coming through is more like “You’re better off obeying the law.”

Despite the negatives, how-ever, Portman and Weaving manage to create memorable performances and save the film. Portman shines as she flirts with a man in a Guy Fawkes mask, whose face and age are un-known, while Weaving manages to deliver line after line of drivel as if he’s reading Shakespeare poorly. ◙

All for Swinging You Around

ANNOUNCING THE SIXTH ANNUAL

Eiger Family Scholarships

in the amount of $25,000 over

four years Presented by

The Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association

Applications are available in the

Alumni and College Offices

Completed applications due by Thursday, April 27th

No exceptions

Please Note: All students who apply will also be considered for one-time $5,000, $2,500, $1,500, $1,050, and $1,000 scholarships.

eighth place right now are the Philadelphia 76ers (34-38), led by Allen Iverson. Unless they put together a massive winning streak, it seems as if that’s where they will stay.

Over in the Western Confer-ence, it seems as if the reigning world champion San Antonio Spurs (57-16) will be taking the number one seed in the playoffs, although there is a chance that they will be overtaken by the Dallas Mavericks (55-19), led by Dirk Nowitzki. The Mavs are only two and a half games be-hind in the Southwest Con-frence. The Spurs are arguably the most fundamentally sound team in the league. They won’t amaze you with their skills, but they know how to execute on the big plays, and that’s what it comes down to in the playoffs.

The number two seed is the Phoenix Suns (49-24). They are playing surprisingly well despite the absence of All-Star center/forward Amare Stoudemire, who has been injured for the majority of the season. In lieu of Stoudemire’s absence, the Sun’s role players, such as Boris Diaw, Raja Bell, and Leandro Barbosa have all stepped up. They are all averaging double-digit points per game. Reigning MVP Steve Nash has also continued his ex-cellent play, averaging roughly 20 points and 11 assists a game. This team could be a major con-tender in the playoffs.

Next are the undeservedly third seed Denver Nuggets (41-33). The Nuggets are part of the

weak Northwest division, which doesn’t have any other team with a winning percentage over .500. It would be a major surprise if the Nuggets get past the second round of the playoffs.

In fifth place are the L.A. Clippers (42-29), led by forward Elton Brand. They won’t be catching up to the fourth place Mavericks, but they have to make sure the sixth place Mem-phis Grizzlies (42-32) don’t catch them. Behind the Grizzlies are the L.A. Lakers (40-35), led by current scoring leader Kobe Bryant. The last slot in the play-offs will go to the Sacramento Kings (37-36), who had a mid-season turnaround after acquir-ing forward Ron Artest in a trade with the Pacers. Don’t expect any of these teams to make it out of the first round, as the top teams are way too strong for them.

As for the teams just trying to keep themselves from getting embarrassed, sitting atop the throne are none other than the New York Knicks. With a miser-able record of 19-53 and in a current eight game losing streak , it seems as if the Knicks can only go up, right? Wrong. With injuries to Jalen Rose, Stephon Marbury, and Channing Frye, the Knicks are in even worse shape for the last ten games. Not that it matters, though.

With the playoffs looming, fans can only wait. Expect some intense, hard-fought games. To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. ◙

Fighting Till The End… For The Most Part

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Strike Three for Bonds? Continued from Page 20

ing about Bonds and steroids. We already knew that Bonds’ per-sonal trainer had a calendar to keep track of Bonds’ steroid cy-cles. We knew that Bonds had a relationship with Victor Conte, head of the steroid supplier Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO). The difference now is

that the facts are researched.

Williams and Fainaru-Wada spent countless hours going over affida-vits and grand jury testimony from the infamous BALCO case. They interviewed many people to substantiate these rumors, includ-ing Bonds’ former mistress, Kim-berly Bell.

Faniaru-Wada and Williams suggest that Bonds started taking steroids during the 1998 season. Bonds had seen the frenzy sur-rounding Mark McGwire that year, and decided that he wanted the same sort of attention. They go on to say at one point, when Bonds was talking with Ken Grif-fey Jr. about McGwire, Bonds said, “I’m just gonna start using some hard-core stuff, and hope-fully it won’t hurt my body.” The book continues to detail Bonds’ steroid use until the 2003 season, when he reportedly stopped.

Did Bonds take steroids? He would have a hard time convinc-ing some that he didn’t. He does-n’t hit more than 40 home runs a year and then, magically, one season, when he’s way past his prime, he hits 73? That simply isn’t possible. In addition, his refusal to talk to the media cer-

tainly doesn’t help the way the public views him.

This brings into light the big-ger question: Should reported steroid abusers like Bonds and McGwire be allowed into the Hall of Fame? Bonds is an interesting case. He was one of the better all-around players during the early 90’s, having a great mix of power and speed. In fact, he was the first

player ever to have 500 ca-reer home runs and 500 career steals. How-ever, he needs to be more f o r t h c o m i n g about his re-ported steroid use, intentional or uninten-tional. He will get into the Hall of Fame, although it could take a few years. McGwire is a different story. He was a scrawny first baseman com-ing out of col-lege. By the time he retired, he had gained a c o n s i d e r a b l e a mo u n t o f muscle. He ru ined h i s

chance of being in the Hall of Fame by refusing to answer ques-tions about his past before Con-gress last year. There’s a good chance no one will be talking about his past when his name comes up before the Hall of Fame in a year.

Finally, should Bonds’ and McGwire’s seasons be erased from the record books? Abso-lutely not. You can not go back in time and test these guys for whether or not they were taking drugs. Our country believes that we are innocent until proven guilty, and although they both might look guilty, there is no de-finitive proof that either took steroids. ◙

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JV Baseball Ready to Go Continued from Page 20

a record of 4-6 in its PSAL games last year, had a strong roster com-promised of many talented fresh-men. There were 15 freshmen on of the team of 20 last year, at least five of which have moved on to Varsity as sophomores this year. This year, the numbers are a reversed, with 13 members of the team being returning or incoming sophomores, compared to seven freshmen. A reason for this is the high number of last year's tal-ented freshmen. Only so many can move on to an already skilled varsity team, so many whom would be considered varsity-level players are still on the junior var-

Bonds’ Rookie Card.

sity team. Returning sophomores like Matt Buch, Sam Cytryn, and Roan LaPlante, to name just a few, are some of the players that will help guide the team to win-ning this season. However, some freshmen still showed their stuff, and made up for it by being some of the first freshmen to directly play Varsity in more than 10 years, according to Var-sity Coach Hahn. With their first non-PSAL game scheduled for March 31, the junior varsity team is practicing hard to get into shape. This season, the team will raise the bar high, and try its best to reach it. ◙

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Fighting Till The End… For The Most Part

BY JASON SU STAFF WRITER

As the NBA season is draw-ing to a close, the action is far from over, at least for some teams. With teams still in con-tention for a spot in the playoffs, and some fighting to hold their spots, pride, you can be assured these teams won’t be handed over easily.

Let’s start in the Eastern Conference, where the Detroit Pistons (59-14) have locked up home court advantage through-out the playoffs, but the other slots are up in the air. Although the Miami Heat (48-25) are three games ahead of the New Jersey Nets (44-28), the way the Nets are playing right now, they may as well steal the number two seed. The Nets have won an incredible twelve games in a row, in-cluding wins over top teams like the Phoe-nix Suns and Miami Heat. If the Nets, who are led by their dy-namic trio of Jason Kidd, Richard Jeffer-son, and Vince Carter, continue to play at a high level, you can expect them to make it to the conference finals and give the Pistons a run for their money.

In the fourth slot are the Cleveland Cavaliers (44-29), led by third year phenom LeBron James, who are on a winning

streak of eight games. The Cavs have no chance of moving up, as they cannot overtake the Detroit Pistons, who have clinched their division, and the fifth seed Wiz-ards (37-35) are well behind them. Don’t expect the Cavaliers to get far in the playoffs because King James won’t be able to carry the Cavs against the Pis-tons or Heat.

In the sixth spot are the Mil-waukee Bucks (37-36), led by team captain Michael Redd. Since they have no chance of catching up to the Wizards, their only worry is to make sure they don’t get overtaken by the Indi-ana Pacers (35-37). Sitting in

Lebron James looks to lead the Cavaliers far into the playoffs.

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THE STUYVESANT STANDARD April 10, 2006 SPORTS Page 19

The Other Side of Figure Skating: The Princeton Open

Continued from Page 20

by tests taken before the competi-tion. In most skating competi-tions, the number of female skat-

ers far exceeds the number of male skaters. In an average com-

Jets Look Towards the Future Continued from Page 20

wanted the security of a long-term deal, and demanded a trade. His wish was granted. In a three-way trade, the Jets will receive a first-round pick, #29 overall, in the 2006 NFL Draft from the At-lanta Falcons through the Denver Broncos in exchange for John Abraham. This gives the Jets two first-round picks to work with in the upcoming draft.

The crucial decision facing new Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum is how to use the Jets’ first pick in the draft, the #4 overall. There are several options which they can choose. One option that will not be available, however, is Reggie Bush. The Heisman Tro-phy winner and star USC running back will almost certainly go first overall to the Houston Texans. While they have entertained of-fers to trade the pick, it would be hard for the Texans to pass on what is one of their biggest needs.

This is when it starts to get interesting. The New Orleans Saints, who have the second over-all pick in the draft, were ru-mored to be interested in Matt Leinart, Bush’s teammate and

2004 Heisman Trophy winner. However, the Saints signed for-mer Chargers quarterback Drew Brees to a six-year, $60 million contract. There would be no point

in drafting another quarterback who would probably be asking for a similar, but slightly cheaper deal. The Jets might look to trade up for this pick and jump over the

Tennessee Titans, who would immediately pick Leinart due to his relationship with former USC offensive coordinator and current Titan offensive coordinator Norm Chow.

The simple option would be to stay with the #4 pick. The Jets

have a few players in mind whom they would draft at this point. D’Brickshaw Ferguson is an out-standing offensive lineman who would go a long way in providing a strong blocking unit to help the

Jets’ poor running game. As a quarterback, Texas star Vince Young will be available. His in-credible speed and strong arm remind many scouts of Michael Vick. However, many see Young as needing a lot of work. The third choice would be Vanderbilt quarterback Jay Cutler. While not a big star in college like Young or Leinart, his strong arm and stellar Senior Bowl (a college all-star game) has made him worthy of the #4 pick.

The final option would be to trade down. By moving down from 5 to 15 spots, the Jets can acquire more draft picks, which they can use to fill even more holes. Teams that are looking to trade up include the Vikings, with the #17 pick, and the Cardinals, with the #10 pick. Both would be looking for quarterbacks, and the big three, Young, Cutler, and Leinart, could be gone after the first five picks.

With three or more draft picks in the first two rounds, Jets fans should be excited about the future of this Jets squad. It might not be long before the Jets win their second Super Bowl ever. ◙

petition, there will be one hun-dred female skaters to every male skater. Skaters represent their respective figure skating clubs.

For some, it is the ultimate place-ment that matters. Medals were given out for first, second, third,

and fourth places. However, oth-ers simply enjoy the excitement of a competition. For me, there is something thrilling about compet-

ing and as long as I k n o w I skated to the best of my ability, the p l a c e m e n t does not matter. I competed on Sunday. Wearing a blue and white dress e n c r u s t e d with hun-dreds of s p a r k l i n g crystals, I stepped on the ice for my perform-ance with a large smile. The opening beats of my music from

Cirque du Soleil began to play and adrenaline kicked in. I got through my minute-and-a-half

The New York Jets Logo.

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program with only one minor mistake, a shaky landing on a jump, and I was pleased. I landed two axels, the hardest jump allowed at my level, and performed two beautiful combi-nation spins. A combination spin is when a skater’s spinning foot or position is changed while spinning.

In the end, I failed to get a medal. However, I knew my competition skating had to do with more than just that day. Like many other competitors, I learned my program months ahead of time and had spent hours on the ice perfecting it. Everything, down to my hand positions, had to be practiced over and over. Then, the day of the competition, I did an exten-sive off-ice warm up. I then laced up my skates and joined my fellow competitors for a three minute on-ice warm up.

The Princeton Open may not be a major competition. How-ever, for those who compete at it, it is important. Hours of train-ing go into each performance. Though most of these skaters will not become world famous, they skate because they love to and they compete because they enjoy it. ◙ Schlesinger during her 2005 Princeton Open Skate Program.

Page 20 April 10, 2006 SPORTS THE STUYVESANT STANDARD

JV Baseball Ready to Go

The Other Side of Figure Skating:

The Princeton Open BY JENNIFER SCHLESINGER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

On Friday, March 17, the Princeton Open commenced at the Princeton Day School Ice Skating Rink. On Saturday, the

competition moved to the Baker Skating Rink in Princeton Uni-versity, and the events continued until Sunday afternoon.

The Princeton Open is not a high-level publicly broadcast fig-ure skating competition. Instead, it is an annual opportunity for amateur figure skaters of all ages to show off their skills.

Skaters are grouped by level, gender, and in the lower levels, by age. The levels are determined

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Jets Look Towards the Future

BY ERIC MAYO SPORTS EDITOR

The Jets are coming off their worst season since their 1-15

campaign in 1996. However, there is a reason for Jets fans to be optimistic: the Jets are posi-tioning themselves well for a bright future.

After the new collective bar-gaining agreement was ratified on March 9, the Jets immediately began revamping their team. Ag-ing offensive linemen Jason Fab-ini and Kevin Mawae were re-leased for salary cap purposes. Ty Law, the team’s leader in inter-ceptions, was also released to avoid paying the large bonus he was due.

The biggest move so far in the off-season was the trade of John Abraham. Abraham, the Jets Pro Bowl defensive end, was again designated the franchise player of the Jets for the second straight off-season. This means that the Jets were able to keep him by giving him a one-year deal at the average salary of the top five defensive linemen, about $8 million. Abraham, however,

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Strike Three for Bonds? BY ERIC MAYO SPORTS EDITOR

The summer of 1998 was one of the greatest summers in the history of baseball. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were slugging home run after home run in attempt to break Roger Maris’ record of 61 home runs in a sin-gle season. The record fell to Mark McGwire that summer with 70 home runs. Just three years later, Barry Bonds broke the re-

cord again, hitting 73 home runs in a season. However, a recently published book looks to substan-tiate claims that Barry Bonds was on a variety of performance-enhancing drugs during that 2003 season.

“Game of Shadows”, by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, was released last Thursday. The facts that the book provides aren’t much different than the rumors already circulat-

BY RICHARD MAI STAFF WRITER

One often hears about Stuy-vesant's varsity baseball team and how it is a strong team that con-sistently makes the playoffs. How they improved is sometimes unclear, and this is where the jun-ior varsity team comes in.

The JV baseball team re-cently finished tryouts, a process that started as early as October. The tryouts, which started with over 50 boys, eventually got whittled down to 20 people. Most

players got cut, but some lost interest or couldn't handle the workouts. The team, which is coached by Carl Cambria, is o f t e n c o n s i d e r e d t h e “developmental league” for players moving on to the varsity team, where the real action oc-curs. But this group, often eclipsed by the varsity team, is determined to play its best this season and should not be forgot-ten.

The junior varsity team, which finished fourth place with

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The inside of Baker Rink, where the Princeton Open was held on Saturday and Sunday.

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John Abraham while playing on the Jet’s team.

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