Stand or Kneel: It’s Your Choice

By: Alexa Tironi

I have never cared much about football. To be honest I’d rather watch paint dry than sit through an entire game of 200-pound men running into each other, over and over again. But when Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, took a knee during the National Anthem and the twitterverse exploded, my interest was piqued. Kaepernick first knelt for the anthem back in August during a preseason game; however the effect of his actions didn’t reach full scale until the President decided to weigh in. On September 24th, 2017, Donald Trump tweeted, “If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!”

It seems the President is also unfamiliar with the NFL handbook, because nowhere in those pages does it say anything about the conduct required during the playing of the Anthem; so to fire or suspend these players for kneeling would be without cause. Later that day, Trump also tweeted, “NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back U.S.”...Looks like CNN isn’t the only one with plummeting ratings, apparently the most watched sport in America is also suffering. This was not the end of the President’s rant. At a rally in Alabama, Trump continued his comments saying  “wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, get that son of a b---- off the field right now. He’s fired. He’s fired!” That’s right. The President had to be bleeped. After this statement, the situation was really set ablaze.

In response to Trump’s comments, many more NFL players began to kneel during the anthem. The public turned to Kaepernick looking for an explanation for his actions. This is what he said: "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder." This statement led to extreme backlash from some Americans. Many claim that as a man of wealth and high social standing, he has no right to speak of oppression. To these people: you have missed the whole point. Kaepernick does not kneel for a personal oppression or the racism he faces. He kneels to represent those who have no voice. He kneels for the people who society ignores. Colin Kaepernick has been gifted with a platform to which he can use to raise awareness. That is what he is doing, and guess what? It’s his constitutional right.

Because we live in a country where we have the freedom to speak our minds and believe what we want, this means that nobody must stand for the pledge. It is our first amendment right to assemble freely- which leads to the right to peaceful protest. Kaepernick and any of his fellow kneelers are not breaking any laws, just merely exercising their rights as Americans. To address those who feel that refusing to stand for the flag means disrespecting the country and our troops: those brave men and women who fight for America are fighting for our rights. In summation, they are fighting for the Constitution and the principles it enforces. These people are fighting for the American people’s right to choose whether they stand or sit.

A majority of America (it seems) think that to kneel before the flag is disrespectful. That may be so, but do you know what else is disrespectful? The fact that 210 black people have been killed by police in 2017. The fact that black women and women of color make 59 cents to the white male dollar. And the fact that people in KKK uniforms stormed the streets of Charlottesville, barely three months ago, and were called “very fine people” by the President. These people have been told not to march, told not to yell, told not to fight back, and now, told not to kneel.

To stand or kneel, it is your choice. And that’s the thing about America and this country. We claim to be the country with all of these unalienable rights. And if that’s true, then these players who kneel, and any American who chooses to do so, have broken no law, and should not receive any punishment. It’s time we start proving the last line of the anthem that we hold so dearly. We are the land of the free. So let’s act like it.

Sources:

http://www.epi.org/publication/black-and-hispanic-women-are-hit-particularly-hard-by-the-gender-wage-gap/

https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump  

The Cookies and Milk Column

Egg-less Cookie Dough

By: Sam Liegner

Summer has come and gone but the temperature is still raging on. If you have a sweet tooth but don’t want to use the hot oven, then this recipe is for you! It’s a small, simple recipe to share with a friend or to keep a generous helping for yourself. Everyone loves cookie dough, but it’s unsafe to consume raw egg. So here’s a crowd favorite EDIBLE cookie dough, free of egg products! Just pour yourself a glass of cold milk and treat yourself to an awesome after-school snack or dessert treat!

Ingredients:

• ¼ c brown sugar (firmly packed)
• 2 T. butter (softened)
• ⅛ t. of salt
• ⅛ t. vanilla
• 1 T. milk (substitute with almond or soy if needed)
• 5 T. all purpose flour
• 2 T. Chocolate chips

Supplies:

• Medium-sized bowl
• Measuring spoons (tablespoons and teaspoons)
• Spoon
• Reusable tupperware container

Instructions:

1. Cream brown sugar and butter together in bowl until soft.
2. Add vanilla and salt to the mixture and combine well. Then add milk or milk substitute.
3. Slowly combine flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, and mix well. Repeat until all flour is thoroughly incorporated.
4. Finally, add the chocolate chips and you have an easy made snack!

* Friendly tip: Put the dough in the tupperware to save the sweet snack for a later day. Dough should be consumed within 3 days. *

The Exchange Column: Who is Fred?

By: Fred Amorim

Frederico Amorim is a 17-year-old guy who loves soccer and DJ-ing. He is also an exchange student sponsored by Rotary International, and is originally from Sorocaba, a big city right next to Sao Paulo in Brazil.

I’m Fred. Nice to meet you!

From this moment on, I would like to share with you a little bit about myself, how life is in my home country, and tell you about my experiences in the US during this year while I spend time among all of you here at North Warren.

To have the opportunity to come to this country for a year, I had to fight very hard. It all began when a 4-year-old boy discovered that he had cousins that lived here in the US. This boy was blown away when he realized that the world was not just the city that he was born in. That boy was me. From that moment on, I knew that I wanted to live in the United States. This became not just my biggest objective, but my deepest dream.

Growing up, I was never rich. My family couldn’t really afford a regular exchange program, but in 2015, a very special organization came into my life. Rotary was the only way that my family and I could afford to keep on dreaming. But to be accepted by Rotary in my city is a very tough process. Around 90 high school students go through many interviews and tests that the elder Rotarians review to determine the 25 best students who deserve to be sponsored.

I originally began this process in 2015, and passed the tests, coming in 9th place. The chance to come here became a very big possibility. But in March of 2016, I experienced one of the saddest moments of my entire life. The day to choose a country for my exchange year had come, and I found out, specifically in that year, the US didn’t have a spot for anyone from my Rotary district. I could have gone to any other country, but my heart had already chosen the US, and I felt like this country had also chosen me.

I still had one more year to try and go through the Rotary process again, and so I did. Last November, I found out that I had passed the Rotary test again, this time in 8th place, and in late February of this year, my dream finally became a reality. I was chosen to pick the first of four spots for the United States. I spent 13 years of my life dreaming, and that was the best thing that I could have ever done.

To all of you at North Warren, I would like to thank you for accepting me in your country, especially the ones who have been extremely supportive of me so far and I could not be more thankful. You are the ones responsible for my adaptation process to a new school and a new life in a different country. You are really making a huge difference in my life and helping the dream of a 4-year-old Brazilian boy become a very happy reality. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

I will see you next time for more facts about my exchange life!

Editor's Note:

As Fred embarks on a new journey in his life, as a student in America, he will be sharing with you his cultural background, stories, and experiences. Fred's enthusiasm to be here in America is a reminder to us all, the opportunities we have here in the U.S. As much as Fred is grateful to have the American experience, we are just as lucky to have the opportunity to learn about Fred and his culture. His next article will feature the geography of Brazil. I know I am looking forward to seeing the world through Fred's eyes, and I hope you too will enjoy learning about him through his column.

Unnatural Disasters

By: Sydney Janeiro

Good human nature seems to come out best during natural disasters. This hurricane season has been a true testament to this. When people are in need, people step up, and it is inspirational.  A local store owner nicknamed “Mattress Mack” invited 400 evacuees into his furniture store after Hurricane Harvey caused catastrophic flooding in eastern Texas. People turned to Facebook to plead for help, and complete strangers replied and came to the rescue; not to mention the selfless response of our National Guard, saving countless humans and their beloved pets. Helping others in times of crisis is the American way, it is what we do.

I do wonder though, what would happen if we also put this desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves into the prevention of disaster. Although it has not yet been proven that global warming caused this series of hurricanes, the evidence shows that it added to their enormity. The fact that Hurricane Irma, born from warm ocean temperatures, became record-breaking in magnitude, has to make you wonder… is it us? Everything that we do on land has an effect on our oceans. You don’t have to be a NASA scientist (I never will be) to realize that the ocean absorbs heat from the atmosphere. If the atmosphere’s temperature rises, so does the ocean’s. So have we caused this clearly detectable increase in Atlantic hurricanes that wreaked havoc this season? Scientists predict that global warming will cause future hurricanes to grow even more in intensity. So now what?

We all know by now that burning fossil fuels for the last century has not been good for our environment. We also know that our oceans clean up our air by removing this extra Co2 emitted from the fuels we constantly burn. In return, the oceans grow warmer (Again, no rocket science here). So how do we slow this process? Maybe we need to think about what we already know and begin to collect our own data.

I never really thought about our part in the severity of these storms; not until these recent storms erupted, making September of 2017, the record-breaking month for most hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. We were still talking about Harvey when the news broke about Irma. Then Jose was born from a tropical storm, followed by Katia, and soon after, Maria broke the headlines. It will take countless humanitarians and many years to clean up the aftermath. We all should take a closer look at what scientists, not politicians, are saying about the natural disasters occurring in the United States and throughout the world. The argument that “we always had hurricanes” holds true, but never before like the month we just lived through. The data is changing, and so must we.

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/climate/100000005446132/hurricanes-earthquakes-wildfires-normal.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate&action=click&contentCollection=climate&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront

Crossed Lines

By: Sydney Janeiro

Just a few short weeks ago I was watching CNN in the comfort of my living room, when the report of the gas attack in Syria aired. Images of children, including babies, were writhing in pain on my television screen. I clicked through the channels to find out more and discovered footage of people struggling to take a single breath and babies with oxygen masks instead of pacifiers. The journalist said it was a suspected chemical attack. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad blamed rebels for the catastrophe, but many felt immediately that he was responsible. The screen flashed to Senator John McCain who was clearly sending a message that America would not stand for such brutality. In an interview with CNN, he stated, “The United States of America is going to be on the side of people who fight for freedom, and we will not sit by and watch chemical weapons being used to slaughter innocent women and children.” President Trump ordered a military strike on the airfield where the chemical attack took place. We saw a different side of Trump, when he was moved by the the pictures he saw of suffering children and decided to shift his past position on refraining from striking Syria.

Fast forward to April 13. In a call for action against ISIS presence, the United States dropped the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in U.S. military’s arsenal, the Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, on a remote village in eastern Afghanistan. With the acronym, MOAB, the weapon has come to be known as The Mother of All Bombs. The bomb weighs in at 21,600 pounds and was built to pulverize bunkers and underground systems and subsequently vaporize anyone at the blast site. It was dropped from a plane and guided by GPS, so it is also being referred to as a smart bomb. The target was an old tunnel system being occupied by Islamic state fighters. It is still unclear if any civilians were killed.

War is not a new concept to the people of Syria or Afghanistan. There has been fighting for decades. It has become a way of life, and it is far from over. The children of these regions know nothing else. What must life be like for the children of Syria? For the children of Afghanistan?  

The children in the war-torn societies of Syria and Afghanistan have almost become numb to the living hell around them. In a New York Times article, Ali M. Latifi writes about a conversation he had with two children, 11-year-old Safiullah and 13-year-old Wajed, in Afghanistan. “They described the explosion as ‘very loud’ but insisted that it did not scare them. Safiullah held on to his unruly goat that he was walking home. ‘I am used to it,’ he said. ‘I have heard so many bombings.’” In Syria, children were stripped of their clothes and hosed down to wash away the nerve agent, Sarin, that was permeating into their bodies. These desperate prevention methods were unable to reach many children, and those children died a cruel and painfully slow death. According to a NBC article, “100 people, including 25 children, were killed and another 400 were injured.” These innocent children’s lives and childhoods were so cruelly ripped away on this day of war. American news reports suggest that the United States intervention in Syria and targeted bombing of an ISIS camp, are a message that brutally murdering the innocent will not be tolerated.

They say children are resilient, but there are some things that can’t be overcome. Grown men and women return from war emotionally scarred. Imagine being a young child in the midst of constant chaos and destruction. Not knowing whether you or your family would have enough to eat or even live through the day. Journalist, Lyse Doucet, says she spent many years reporting on the war in Syria and heard the most captivating stories from children. She explains, “One girl, freshly escaped from the besieged city of Homs, told how she ate rats and cats because residents couldn't find food.” This is their reality.

President Trump surprised many of us with his changed attitude toward Syria. "When you kill innocent children -- innocent babies -- babies -- little babies with a chemical gas that is so lethal, people were shocked to hear what gas it was, that crosses many, many lines. Beyond a red line, many, many lines," Trump said. When it comes to the lives of innocent children, we need to be united in the cause. Sometimes you have to put politics aside, and do the right thing.

http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/syria-chemical-attack-massacre-hundreds-killed-and-injured-914032707555

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/syrias-suffering-families/nikki-haley-after-syrian-gas-attack-how-many-children-have-n742996

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/opinion/mother-of-all-bombs.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/04/middleeast/bana-alabed-syria-chemical-attack-trnd/index.html

https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-07-28/children-tell-their-own-grim-stories-war-zones

The Syrian Update

By: Tommy Baran

         For the past few years, chemical weapons have been used in Syria’s Civil War. In 2013 there was a massive sarin gas attack on the outskirts of Damascus, the capital of Syria. Barack Obama talked about how this is “an issue that doesn’t just concern Syria. It concerns our close allies in the region, including Israel.” This explains why Obama threatened to use force on Syria if they still had chemical weapons.

The United Nations then required Syria to assume responsibility for and follow a timeline for the destruction of its chemical weapons and its chemical weapon production facilities. The key destruction operations were performed by a team of US Army civilians and contractors, that destroyed 600 metric tonnes of chemical agents in just 42 days. However, this is a minor setback for Syria, and they are using their chemical weapons again.

The matter is now in President Trump’s hands. He recently launched an attack of 59 tomahawk missiles at the Shayrat Airfield; hitting aircrafts, reinforced shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, defense systems, and radars. Trump is trying to send a message, that we support our allies, and that we aren’t afraid to fight for what we believe in.

The Syrians who have been affected by these chemical attacks have little aid or ability to defend themselves. Sarin, a deadly gas, is colorless and odorless, a nerve agent that is classified as a weapon of mass destruction. In America, we have the resources to ensure a large-scale deployment of aid and continued care for those who are affected by a nerve agent like this.

In Syria, doctors are in underfunded and hospitals undersupplied and can do little for many of their patients. While many arguments can be made about whether Trump bombing Syria is a good thing or not, the real importance is that now the Syrian people can finally feel safer, even if just by a bit; that there is someone finally looking out for them.

The Recent Rise of In-Flight Confrontations

By: Arianna Grewal

     In recent weeks, most have heard about the incident which occurred on a United flight making its way from Chicago O’Hare International Airport to Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. David Dao, 69, was one of the four passengers picked to exit the flight to allow room for airplane employees. Dao claimed he had patients to tend to that weekend, and refused to leave the plane.

     Chicago Aviation officers were then called to remove him and were taped dragging him off the plane. Passengers watched in shock and the video shows one woman disgusted, exclaiming, “This is wrong, look at what you did to him!” The doctor ended up with a bloody nose, a concussion, and two missing teeth.

     United was later condemned for their statement which they released following the incident, for many people felt it not only sided with their employees, but also blamed the passenger. Dao and United Airlines did reach a settlement of an undisclosed amount. In addition, the airline said it would “create a new check-in process that would allow passengers to volunteer to give up their seats for compensation, and increased the limit of that compensation to $10,000 from $1,350.” Many were outraged by what happened to Dao and set out to expose all unacceptable behavior demonstrated by airline staff. Hence, there have been other reports and recordings of similar incidents in recent news.
         
     A confrontation between an American airlines flight attendant and a mother with a baby was taped by another passenger two weeks following the United incident. Although the video does not show what happened beforehand, Surain Adyanthaya (the woman who recorded and posted the video) mentioned that moments before she began recording, the flight attendant “violently” took away the mother’s stroller before hitting her, and barely missing her baby.

      Another woman, Olivia Morgan, was waiting to board the flight when this event occurred. She said, “The flight attendant wrestled the stroller away from the woman, who was sobbing, holding one baby with the second baby in a car seat on the ground next to her.” The video starts when the mother is seen crying and says, “Just give me back the stroller, please.” Morgan spoke with the mother following the incident, and the mother explained how a female flight attendant said she could look for space to keep the stroller, but she would need to check it in at the gate if there was no space. According to the American Airlines website, “Only small, collapsible and light strollers (up to 20lbs/9kgs) can be checked at the gate. Fully collapsible strollers may be carried on board with the passenger as long as they fit in an overhead bin,” and this mother’s stroller was collapsible, according to Morgan.

     Another passenger, Tony Fierro, can be heard saying he is “not going to sit here and watch this.” Fierro, clearly upset because of how this situation was handled, stands up and says to the flight attendant, “Hey bud, hey bud. You do that to me, and I'll knock you flat.” The flight attendant tells him to stay out of it, before repeatedly saying to the passenger, “Hit me. Hit me.” The mother was escorted off the plane and the flight attendant was let back on the plane shortly after this incident. Fierro spoke about the event later, and explained his actions: “A baby almost got hurt," he said. "That's what just fired me up, so that was it. I don't want to make a big deal about it.”

     Following the episode, the woman opted for another flight, and was upgraded to first class for the rest of her trip. The flight attendant was immediately suspended as the airline “investigated.” American Airlines released a statement which says, “We have seen the video and have already started an investigation to obtain the facts. What we see on this video does not reflect our values or how we care for our customers...We are deeply sorry for the pain we have caused this passenger and her family and to any other customers affected by the incident."

     Lastly, the most recent incident involves a Delta pilot and two women who were seen brawling on the floor of a jet bridge. In the recorded video, the pilot is seen grabbing one of the woman’s hands, and smacking her in the face before stepping back. Upon the video’s release, the pilot was immediately suspended but returned back to work shortly after the airline said, “his actions de-escalated an altercation between passengers.”

     Any act of violence or striking at a customer/passenger should be considered unacceptable except in a life threatening situation. However, circumstances similar to Dr. Dao’s and the mother’s with the stroller, were completely unnecessary, cruel, and unprofessional. Although the Delta pilot’s actions may have “de-escalated the altercation,” it does not make it okay to hit a passenger. With all the recent news of events like this taking place, it's hard not to wonder if these episodes are newly occurring, or if episodes like this always happened on airlines and because of Dr. Dao’s incident, we’re becoming more aware of it now.