About that Vaccination...

Kirby School
Vol. XI, Issue 2
February 25, 2015
About that
Vaccination...

From the Desk
One year ago, Kirby unprecedentedly cancelled finals week as winter flu and colds befell nearly a quarter
of the community. And as the current school year began, whooping cough made its way through
the school population. But even those skirmishes with illness pale compared to the rise of measles,
an illness once deemed eliminated.
Because of the more serious consequences for those lacking bodily protection against measles, the
reemergence of the disease has raised the issue of immunizations to a state and national level. Anti-vaccination
politicians such as Governor Chris Christie and Senator Rand Paul have bowed to public pressure and
amended previous statements. Thus, the medical issue has become political, pitting the arguments of libertarians
and religious leaders against communitarians and supporters of government as they address a debate
as old as the Constitution: When, if ever, can the government compel citizens to engage in actions against
their private beliefs? In their Point/Counterpoint discussion that begins on page 2, Managing Editor Alice
Koltchev and Staff Reporter James Deutsch wade into the fray.
Meanwhile, Sonia Salkind poses a question for all Millenials:
Have the times made humor so feckless that it has become little more
than a pose? Is the modern hipster--in his reflecting the disquietude of
a generation raised in the shadow of 9/11, the economic recession, and
the failings of political action--incapable of effective action? Salkind
surveys the uses of irony from the turn of the last century to the present,
arguing that the term has lost its meaning in the present world.
Finally, if the image to the right looks familiar, there’s a reason.
Proud as we were that last year’s study of aging, “Life in the Last Lane,”
was recognized as the Best Feature Story of the Year by the National
Scholastic Press Association as well as the Columbia Scholastic Press
Association, we were overwhelmed to additionally receive the Brasler
Prize for Best Story of the Year. The Brasler Prize surveys the top category
winners announced by the American Society of Newspaper Editors
and selects the best of the best. This also marks the second time in
just three years an INK publication has received the award, an achievment
matched only once before in the two decade history of the Brasler
Prize.
So, please peruse our second issue of INK Magazine. Inside you can read about Brittany Broadwood’s
skills in facial makeup, the visit of Nobel Prize winner Arno Penzias to our campus, and the musical travels
of alum Moreah Walker. Enjoy.
Jeff House
INK Adviser

OPINIONS
2 Point/Counterpoint: Shots Fired
Should Kirby require vaccinations?
6 The Age of Irony
If you’re a Millenial, what’s so funny?
FEATURES
15 Danish Delight
Twenty exchange students, fourteen days,
Six Flags, and a lot of food
16 Drug Debate
Will California legalize marijuana,
following Colorado and Washington?
20 The Masks of the Red Head
Brittany Broadwood keeps playing with
her face.
NEWS
22 Block Schedule
Block schedule implementation deemed
an overwhelming success.
25 Soul Vocalist
Moreah Walker takes her musical
talents back in time.
26 Put Your Answer in the
Form of a Question
Nobel Prize winner Arno Penzias
believes questions are the answer.
Page 2
Shots Fired
Page 24
The Masks of
the Red Head
Page 6
The Age of Irony

Shots
Fired
O
n March 4, 1789, the United
States Congress met and
agreed upon ten amendments
to the Constitution.
Known as the Bill of
Rights, they clarified the guaranteed, irrefutable
rights of a citizen of the United
States of America, most importantly
their rights as individuals and sovereign
human beings.
How could someone possibly think to
infringe on these rights in the United
States of America? To force something
that goes against their core beliefs and
right to ownership over their own bodies?
Impossible. Not in America.
Should vaccinations
be mandated? It’s
a debate as old as
the Constitution:
When do the
rights of the many
supersede the rights
of the individual?
Uriah Kreuger, three years of age,
and his family were unusually
cranky one night in early January.
He’d been diagnosed with the
flu upon returning from a New Years Eve
party in Disneyland, and was showing no
improvement. The next morning, the boy’s
face was flushed with fever and a rash.
“You’ve got to get out of here,” Uriah’s
family was told when they took him to their
primary physician. “You’ve got to go to a
hospital.”
While Uriah was up to date on all his vaccines,
he was too young for second doses,
and became the ninety-second measles patient
in 2015.
4

However, that is what mandatory
vaccination is: unconstitutional, unethical,
and un-American. Only the
citizen has the right to decide what to
put in his body. Not the government.
Not private organizations. The citizen.
If the citizen is to relinquish his
right of choice for vaccination, then
he has relinquished the right to ownership
of his body to the State, and
we all cease to be legal individuals.
It doesn’t matter how effective vaccinations
are in protecting people
from disease. It is an individual’s
choice to vaccinate himself, and a
parent’s choice for their children before
they reach age of consent. It is
never the choice of the government.
That’s the beauty of a democracy: the
individual is recognized as a sovereign
entity responsible and in control
of his own body, not the State.
There is, of course, an argument
for the necessity of herd immunity:
some people are physically incapable
of being effectively vaccinated and
need everyone around them to be
vaccinated so they do not contract
preventable diseases. This is great.
It sounds incredibly logical at first
glance. Then again, so did the rise
of dictatorships throughout history.
Since when do we make demands
of people based on the needs of the
few? Vaccination doesn’t work for
them. Fine. Instead of forcing everybody
around them to sacrifice
their Constitutional and human
rights, why can’t those with medical
deficiencies or ineligibilities
that prevent them from vaccination
take steps to protect themselves?
Staying out of public places, taking
care to disinfect themselves
often, and wearing filter masks are
ways to protect individuals or their
handicapped children from disease
without infringing on anybody’s
rights. Why should the rights of
the frail dominate the rights of the
healthy?
(continued on page 6)
Rebuttal
While everyone has the right
to bear arms, they don’t
have the right to shoot and kill
others. Similarly, while each human
has the constitutional right
to her own body, she does not
have the right to inflict harm unto
the bodies of other citizens. The
rights of the frail do not outweigh
the rights of the healthy--everybody’s
rights are equal. Everybody
has the right to a healthy
body. Mandated vaccination
will guarantee such an outcome,
while creating a quarantine for
immuno-deficient children will
create unequal opportunity. This
is more anti-American than requiring
vaccination.
There are medications
for ADHD, and many public
(continued on page 6)
P o i n t / C o u n t e r p o i n t
By the end of this January, there were 113 confirmed
cases of measles, or rubeola, in 14 states. However,
a vaccine for the disease, combined with strains of
mumps and rubella, has been widely available and
proven effective for almost half a century. Measles
was declared “eradicated” in United States in 2000.
Eighty-five percent of countries around the world
have easy access to this vaccine. The current resurgence
of the nearly eradicated disease has come from
Disneyland in southern California.
Not uncoincidentally, California is one of 17 states
in the US that allow children to attend school without
any vaccinations for religious or philosophical reasons.
These 17 also include Colorado, Washington,
Maine, Texas and Vermont. A majority of US states
allowing exemption are affiliated with the Democratic
Party, and have lower rates of vaccinations per capita
than the rest, according to the Center for Disease
Control (CDC). California, among the most populous
states in the country, delivers fewer vaccines than 34
other US states and territories.
Only Mississippi and West Virginia require vaccinations
for private school and homeschooled children.
The two states also have not had a single measles patient
in twenty years. Elsewhere, parents wishing to
obtain looser regulations on vaccination requirements
are told to look into private schools. The Shots for
Schools organization, sponsored by the California Department
of Public Health (CDPH), reports that 26.5%
of Kirby School’s 2013-2014 seventh grade class has
a Personal Belief Exemption (PBE), earning a rating
of “Most Vulnerable.” This is is almost 15 percentage
points higher than the average within the Santa
Cruz County, and 25 percentage points higher than
the average in Santa Clara County.
The school’s rating of “Most Vulnerable” is
based on the assumption that herd immunity
(the concept that, if a group has been vaccinated
against a certain disease, those who can not have
injections for medical reasons, and those with an
outdated strain of the vaccine, will be protected by
the immunization of the larger group) is only valid
if eight percent or fewer have not been vaccinated.
There are a range of reasons to not vaccinate
your children, but the primary legitimate concern
is medical. Many epilepsy patients react poorly to
vaccination, and are therefore exempt. The same is
true for children and adults with compromised immune
systems, as well as former and current cancer
patients. These people rely on herd immunity.
Unvaccinated children and adults directly endanger
the lives of such people, by exposing them to
a disease their body is not equipped to deal with.
The concept of inoculation has been around
since 1017 AD, suggested by a Taoist monk. Scabs
from a deceased man infected by smallpox were to
be placed inside an cut in the upper arm of a patient,
resulting in two days of illness and life-long
immunity. At the beginning of the 18th century,
Lady Mary of London observed
(continued on page 7)
Rebuttal
Uriah’s experience is unfortunate.
There is no denying that. However,
mandatory vaccination would not have
helped him; Uriah was too young to receive
the necessary second dosage of the
measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine.
This has nothing to do with the legality
of state intervention in the administration
of vaccines to children.
Neither do the statistics on the 113
cases of measles nationwide. In terms of
the American population, that is tiny. To
call it an “outbreak” is nothing short of
psychological terrorism, similar to Fox
News telling Americans nationwide that
the unstoppable Ebola virus was coming
overseas and would destroy America.
Yes, Americans did get diagnosed with
and treated for Ebola in America. Ten,
to be precise, and of those ten, eight
survived. Quite the deadly outbreak.
According to the 2014 American census,
there are 318.9 million documented
citizens, which means that the 113 cases
of measles make up about 0.0001% of
the US population. A
(continued on page 7)

If we are to impose vaccinations without parental
approval, why not mandatory medications as well?
Untreated Attention Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder
in children often results in classroom disruption,
failure to focus on schoolwork as well as classmates,
and uncontrollable energy levels. To ensure the affected
keep up with curriculum and get good grades,
we should force mandatory medication. Thirty-five
percent of youth diagnosed with ADHD drop out of
school because of their inability to manage and organize
time as efficiently as their schools require.
Medication is what’s best for them. Moreover, their
hyperactivity is a distraction in an academic setting,
so forcing medication is positive for everyone around
them too! Take the right of choice from those that
are legally responsible for the child, and everybody
benefits! No matter the fact that the Journal of Child
and Adolescent Psychopharmacology published a
study conducted from 1990 to 1999 that found that
1% people taking Ritalin or Concerta, two common
drugs used to suppress symptoms of ADHD, begin
to suffer from cardiovascular defects, such as high
blood pressure, cardiac arrest, and irregular heartbeat,
which can lead to death.
Vaccines, too, have been known to trigger seizures
and severe allergic reactions, both of which have the
potential to result in trauma or death. These things
have a mortality rate. Why should we push vaccination
or medication on people who simply don’t want
their child to die?
The First Amendment of the Constitution prohibits
any law from passage that would impede on the exercise
of religion by American citizens. If vaccination
goes against one’s faith, a fundamental part of one’s
life, the government cannot force them or their children
to receive vaccinations. To do so is to violate
our Constitution. The day an American government
does so is the day the government ceases to be truly
American.
Wait. It already has.
Cleave Rengo, 23, and Erica May Carter, 29, two
young Christian newlyweds, watched in horror as
Child Protective Services deemed their choice to
birth twins at home without midwife assistance, decline
taking their child to a hospital for medical examination,
and use natural remedies instead of steroid-based
medicine to treat their son with eczema as
neglect and took their children.
“There was no abuse, no neglect,” stated Rengo in
an interview with the Bellingham Herald. “This is a
misunderstanding. We just miss them dearly and want
them back.”
The family made their choices based on their Christian
beliefs. This choice should have been protected
by the First Amendment. Instead, it was violated by
the very government supposed to uphold it.
Tanya Brown, a Phoenix mother, was heartbroken
when she discovered her adopted son Christopher,
8, had leukemia. He was given chemotherapy and
scheduled for a bone marrow transplant in twelve
6
weeks.
“I just didn’t want him to have a bone marrow
transplant because it is very invasive,” said Brown.
“It’s very invasive, oftentimes fatal. I’ll say ‘invasive,
oftentimes fatal.’ They will say ‘life-saving
cure.’”
Brown elected to withdraw her child from the
twelve-week chemotherapy program after ten
weeks. Child Protective Services called for a few
weeks, then turned silent.
After Brown kept Christopher on a rigorous diet
of juices and nutritional treatments for eighteen
months, the Arizona CPS resurfaced and visited the
Brown household, expecting a sickly or dead child.
Christopher was, instead, completely healthy.
Nine days after the visit, symptoms of Christopher’s
leukemia began to return and Brown returned
to Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Twenty days
after the return of Christopher, CPS ordered Brown
to leave the hospital and took custody of Christopher,
accusing her of medical abuse and using her
belief in healing through prayer as evidence for her
psychological inability to make good medical decisions.
These are just two out of hundreds of cases of
American parents losing custody over their children
to the State based on their decisions about
their child’s health. It is not the government’s place
to decide the fate of a child; it is the parents. That
the State would trespass upon the First Amendment
rights of families with both legal and social American
approval is horrifying. True liberty is very
quickly being lost in this once-great nation.
Freedom of the individual trumps the zealotry of
the State and the comfort of the few. Always.
-James Deutsch
(continued from page 5)
schools require children to take them. This
is problematic not because of the medication
itself, but the reason for which it’s needed.
ADHD is not contagious, nor preventable,
as opposed to polio, measles, and smallpox.
Neuroscientists debate the existence of ADHD
altogether. ADHD-diagnosed children are not
required to medicate and move to a specialeducation
classroom to benefit their peers, but
themselves. Requiring vaccination is about
protecting peers.
Ultimately, withholding vaccination is irresponsible.
Vaccinating children should be
required to ensure a maximum number of
healthy American citizens.
-Alice Kotchev

Turkish families performing a practice they called “engrafting,” derived
from the Chinese practice from centuries before. Lady Mary performed
the procedure on her children and took detailed notes of its effects before
presenting it to the public.
Following Edward Jenner’s first true smallpox vaccine using a cowpox
virus in 1796, scientists around the world have been developing safer
techniques to create and deliver immunizations. In the 21st century, the
University of Michigan states that a person with a regular immune system
is more likely to be struck by lightning than contract any illness or medical
condition caused by a vaccine. That is one person in approximately
100,000.
There are numerous studies, yet no evidence supporting claims that vaccination
is dangerous to anybody but medically exempt patients. Questionable
safety of a vaccine is not a valid reason to withhold or significantly
delay an immunization; this will only compromise the safety of your family
and community.
Because of a CDPH mandate, all Kirby students must have the Tdap
Booster. However, unlike California public schools, Kirby does not require
(continued from page 5 )
ten-thousandth of a percent of Americans have measles, and
you’re calling it an outbreak? Really?
Although unfortunate that some people have measles,
some people have always had measles in America. When it
was declared “eradicated” in 2000 by federal health officials,
of course they didn’t mean completely gone. As you acknowledge,
the CDC reports that there are 94 measles cases
annually in America.
However, the issue isn’t the effectiveness of vaccines.
That is unquestionable, and it did decimate the measles
population. The issue is people losing their Constitutional
rights to their own body to the state.
“Calling for vaccination” will not keep the majority of the
population alive without infringing upon anybody’s personal
rights. The majority of the population is very much alive and
nowhere near the measles virus. Making the MMR vaccine
legally mandatory without personal or parental consent is
what infringes on everybody’s personal rights. It’s fine to
advocate for universal vaccination, but you cannot take away
a citizen’s right to consent.
There are barely any differences between personal beliefs
and religion. Those with personal beliefs against vaccines
have as much right to choice as those with religious reasons
against vaccines. The only difference is that a religion has
been legally recognized by the US, whereas a personal
belief has not. Why should the government, the very thing
that would be administering the mandatory vaccines, decide
whether or not an individual’s excuse is valid? They have a
word for when the entity that wants you to do something is
also capable of forcing you to do it: corruption.
Infection is not like drunk driving. That’s a dramatic way
to look at it. In 2013, 10,076 people died in drunk driving
accidents, while only 450 people on average die annually
while measles was at its peak in the early 60’s. One cannot
compare the two. Measles does have casualties, but they are
dramatically mitigated by the access to medicine and reliable
treatments we have in a first-world country. People will get
sick, but casualties are miniscule in comparison to that of
drunk driving. Besides, just because we have such high rates
of casualties resulting from drunk driving, does that mean
the government should take away licenses and automobile
access from citizens? No? Then why should the government
be allowed to force you and your children to receive vaccines
in the name of the Greater Good?
-James Deutsch
polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis
B, or varicella vaccinations. There is a recommended schedule for all of
these vaccines, but many parents chose to either delay or opt out of the
treatment altogether.
This fall, there was a pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough,
outbreak within the Santa Cruz county, which spread quickly through
Kirby. Last fall, final exams were cancelled because over a third of the
student body had contracted the flu.
Both pertussis and the flu are almost entirely preventable. Only a small
fraction of individuals have medical exemptions. Ability to withhold
vaccination allows sensitive and concerned parents to cause harm to the
community. While dog parks require people to have their pets fully vaccinated
to prevent disease, Kirby does not require its students keep up
to date on immunizations. Is our pets’ health more important than ours?
Lately, due to countless scientific innovations, the debate over vaccinating
children has become emotionally and politically charged.
In 1998, a weak study based on 12 autistic children was conducted and
published in a British medical journal, The Lancet. The article brought to
light a positive relationship between vaccines and autism. Many magazines,
including Slate and Rolling Stone, republished the controversial
data. This exponentially increased public skepticism of the recommended
vaccination schedule. Worried parents looked into opting out of any shots.
Three years later, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported that there
is insufficient evidence to draw conclusions. IOM suggested that a preservative
containing trace amounts of mercury, called thimerosal, be removed
from vaccines.
The preservative has been removed in all but the annual flu shot. IOM
has once more declared that there is no provable causal relationship between
vaccines and autism. The Lancet discovered that the conductor of
their 1998 study, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, had been paid $665,000 to prove
that the measles vaccine is linked to autism. The article was taken down,
and Slate and Rolling Stone followed suit.
Regardless, concerned parents continue to be active on online blogs
and forums, advocating for widespread vaccine exemption. The concern
for overall public health is secondary. There are four main camps of the
anti-vaccination crowd: conservatives, who are concerned about the government’s
healthcare recommendations; libertarians, who would rather
make their own decisions; environmentalists, who are against foreign
chemicals in and outside the body; and members of certain churches,
who believe that if one contracts a fatal illness, it is for a reason.
Rhetoric by the opposition claims that while diseases like polio are
quite severe, measles is not. The CATO Institute, publisher of primarily
libertarian commentaries, says that a “one size fits all policy” would be
unnecessary. “Before a panicked rush down the slippery slope of government
mandates, it is better calmly to...explore the scope for compromise.”
Ultimately, the concern is allowing the government to “own our bodies.”
While the United States may not own the bodies of its citizens, it holds
the responsibility of keeping the majority alive and well without infringing
on any fundamental rights. Calling for vaccination will help achieve
this goal.
Requiring religious families to vaccinate their children would violate
an American’s right to freedom of religion, and 48 states allow religious
exemption. The 17 that allow a Personal Belief Exemption, however,
have no prior legal obligation to do so. Preventable diseases like measles
and smallpox were declared eradicated 15 or more years ago, but this
does not mean that there is a zero percent chance of contracting the disease.
The CDC reports that there is an annual average of 94 cases of
measles. In only the first month of 2015, failure to vaccinate properly has
led to over 100 cases.
It is only to be expected that this trend will continue, if no changes are
made to require vaccines. Vaccination is harmful only to a select few, but
not to the general public.
There should not be an option to skip vaccinations. Around the world,
it is highly illegal to drive when drunk or otherwise intoxicated. This is
to protect not only the driver, but those around him. Similarly, criminals,
considered a threat to society, are often forced to serve time in jail. Why,
then, should a healthy individual be able to decide against vaccinations,
thus harming the greater community?
-Alice Koltchev

The Age
of
Irony
War, Poverty, Racial
Injustice, Recession,
Depression: Millenials
Find it Hard to Face the
Future. No Joke.
by Sonia
Salkind
6

“Like a straggling army, it has no clear beginning or end. And yet each generation
has some features that are more significant than others; each has a quality as distinctive
as a man’s accent, each makes a statement to the future, each leaves behind
a picture of itself.”
-TIME Magazine, 1951
I
think men are better than women,” deadpans Parks and Recreation
star Aubrey Plaza in her role as the ironic April Ludgate.
A coworker gapes across the table. “She’s kidding,” she nervously
assures the room.
“No, I’m not,” Plaza continues, eyes emotionless. “They provide
for us, and we must obey them because they are our masters.”
Making light of sexism, the character trivializes gender inequity. With biting
sarcasm, a cool, apathetic exterior, and a general disliking of anything
that isn’t herself, Plaza represents the Millennial generation of privileged
youth born between 1980 and 2000.
Millennials, which media caters to, came of age with the entitlement of a
financially comfortable culture, and within their ranks exists a preference
for making a joke to making a statement. Variously designated as “assassins
of cool,” “ungrateful hipsters,” and an “empty consumer group,” these
disaffected types use irony as a defense mechanism in a escalating process
of denial and evasion.
Irony contradicts the normal interpretation of a concept, comically imparting
the opposite meaning. Commonly used in wry humor, cynicism,

Flappers rejected the hard
won gains of their suffragette
mothers, preferring gin, jazz
and the Charleston over
fighting for social justice.
sarcasm, or satire, irony is valued as subtle and skillful by some, and the “vain stupidity”
of a “slobbering bumpkin” by others, such as TIME columnist Roger Rosenblatt.
Its tone is a reflection of changing historical events. Following 9/11, Vanity Fair editor
Graydon Carter proclaimed, “I think it’s the end of the age of irony. Things that are
considered fringe and frivolous are going to disappear.”
For several weeks, Carter was right. When the Twin Towers crashed, the nation
turned somber. Americans banded together with “unashamed flag-waving patriotism; a
feeling that we, as Americans, under attack, were one again,” sociologist Neil Smelser
wrote, “and a feeling of pride in the American way of life, its values, its culture, and its
democracy.” Aided by this nationalistic fervor, President George Bush launched a nearly
decade-long war against Iraq.
Measuring the public trust of the government from 1953 to 2013, the Pew Center
for the People and Press reported that in June of 2000, 42 percent of the public trusted
their government “just about always” or “most of the time.” However, in October of
2001, just after 9/11, that rate of trust increased to 60 percent. Two years later, trust in
the government had dropped to 36 percent, the lowest rate since President Bill Clinton’s
impeachment trial.
As the cumulative death toll of the Iraq War passed 200,000, according to the Iraq
Death Toll database, Americans became further disillusioned with government and media.
America wasn’t losing the fight, but it wasn’t winning.
Simultaneously, the rise of the Internet created a more informed public, one which
could access seemingly infinite sources and educate itself, further eroding confidence in
mainstream institutions.
News channels like CNN, MSNBC, or Fox increasingly appeals to an older demographic.
Newspaper readership is declining, reaching its lowest circulation in seven
decades, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. In the first decade of the twentyfirst
century, Millennials between 18 and 29 increased their viewership of Jon Stewart
from 9% to 21%, while viewing network news less, dropping from 34% to 23%. Millennials
were more drawn to the satire of The Onion or The Daily Show than mainstream
news.
But for this generation, irony itself changed. Somewhere in the last half of the twentieth
century, irony mutated. Instead of employing satire to enlighten, irony merely criticized
and belittled. Millennials kept the sarcastic tone, but sheared it from its educational
purpose. Instead of fighting for change through satire--as authors like Voltaire, George
Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, or Mark Twain had--Millennials turned instead to disengaged
irony. Engaged irony advances a cause and provides an alternate perspective. Disengaged
irony does not care. Rather than make a point, it makes fun.
The age of Generation X, parents of the Millennials, may have died on September
11th, but the age of irony prospered.
Flappers, Gin, and All That Jazz
Irony appealed
to the Lost
Generation.
As did the
Charleston.
8
“If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori. [It is sweet and right to die for your country]”
-Wilfred Owen, 1918
The majority of Americans of 1914 had yet to lose their romantic vision of war.
To fight for one’s country showed bravery, valor, and honor. A man defended
his woman, children, and liberty.
Although Americans initially wanted nothing to do with WWI, they were
capable of being persuaded. In 1917 America entered the war in France. President
Woodrow Wilson addressed the people: “The day has come when America is
privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth

and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.”
The time had come to defend democracy in a necessary war, the Great War, the war
to end all wars. But when Wilson belatedly sent troops to the Western Front in France,
he knew the public would need convincing.
Wilson formed the Committee for Public Information, which mass-produced propaganda
in support of the war, hiring artists to create posters and Hollywood for films.
Posters plastered on city buildings showed Columbia with arms outstretched, calling to
men for defense, or gruesome apes terrorizing the homeland. Uncle Sam pointed at eligible
men, declaring, “I want you!” Glamorized and romanticized, the war eventually
drew in three million Americans, according to U.S. government archives. Back home,
good citizens bought war bonds, planted victory gardens, joined the four-minute men-
-writing four-minute promotional speeches--or enlisted in the army, navy, or air force.
Meanwhile, unemployment fell from 7.9 to 1.4 percent, according to the National
Bureau of Economic Research. Weapon and equipment production created factories
and jobs. Industrialism expanded, technology creating weapons, flamethrowers,
submarines, and poison gas, introducing modern warfare wherein victory
trumped glory.
World War I irreversibly changed American culture,
despite three years of neutrality. With some 37 million
casualties worldwide, according to the U.S. Department
of Justice, a significant fraction of the world’s younger
generation died. Those who survived--the Lost Generation--lived
to see a societal revolution.
Overwhelmed by memories of noxious gas and
comrades dying before their eyes, American soldiers
returned home a year later. Veterans received an
economic recession for their efforts, grappling with
unemployment while the country celebrated their
contribution. Cordial diplomacy in Versailles, not
their “valiant” deaths in the trenches, had seemed
to end the war.
British soldier Siegfried Sassoon wrote about
the trauma of returning home: “You smug-faced
crowds with kindling eye / Who cheer when soldier
lads march by, / Sneak home and pray you’ll
never know / The hell where youth and laughter go.”
Owen and Sassoon wryly depicted the horrors of modern warfare
while poets like T.S. Eliot punctured the pretensions of the era with ironic understatement
in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a poem about a man with crippling
anxiety and loneliness.
The use of irony to comment on the times reflected a larger change in society. Industrialization
and urbanization advanced society faster than ever before, and art and
culture documented the change. Modernism, a style of thought which values flawed
originality above practiced perfection, shaped art, philosophy, literature, and media.
The birth of celebrities, sports stars, designer cars, and consumer credit distracted
the horrors of trench warfare along the Western Front.
Electricity combined with mass production to popularize radio, increasing communication.
With more leisure time, a steady income from new factory jobs, and increasingly
available credit, America defined its values in terms of consumerism.
The United States of the 21st century has its roots in the Modern Era. Eschewing the
naivety of a more romantic time, those who witnessed WWI began to prioritize their
individual desires above the status quo. Enlisting didn’t mean heroics and world travel,
it meant choking to death on mustard gas while slogging through trenches of mud,
rats, and feces. No longer trusting social and political hierarchies, the Lost Generation
stressed instead the primacy of self.
Life was short; the draft made it shorter. The industrial abandoned the sloth of tradition.
Modernism and rebellion combined to create an all-accepting, pleasure-driven
era.
Wilson’s successor, Warren G. Harding, led the country into the Roaring Twenties.
Prohibition, speakeasies, mobsters, jazz, swing, flappers, and revelry replaced conservative
family values and the working mentality of pre-industrialized society. Problems
were easy to ignore while dancing the Charleston.
Facing life-altering devastation, humans seek to minimize pain. The Lost Generation
of WWI forgot their troubles in art, literature, and debauchery.
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love
Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock” explicated the
despair and futility of
Modern man.

Eve of Destruction
“Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I’ve grown older and wiser
And that’s why I’m turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal.”
-Phil Ochs, 1966
From Beats to
Baby Boomers:
When it was
cool to be
countercultural
The violence
of the
Vietnam
War was
emblematized
in this Pulitzer
Prize-winning
photo of a Viet
Cong prisoner being shot by
General Nguyen Ngoc Loan.
10
Sixties counterculture left its stamp on America. Baby Boomers dominated the era,
spurring civil, feminist, environmental, and gay rights activism. A privileged white
majority worked with minorities to end discrimination. But despite the far reach of
the counterculture, these problems persisted.
After the destruction occasioned by World War II, Americans wanted a rebirth, a
return to normalcy, a revival of what made them human: life. Birth rates “boomed,” and
76.4 million babies were born from 1946 to 1964, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
As the biggest generation in American history to that point, Baby Boomers dictated
culture, media, and politics. Doug Owram, history professor and author of Born at the
Right Time, explained, “The baby boomers came to overshadow the smaller generations
that preceded and succeeded them…[Their] sense of self was due, in no small part, to
the fact that they had the luxury of being free to think about such things.”
Instead of returning from the war to poverty, WWII veterans came home to the nation
in the best economic condition. Barring disenfranchised minorities, largely white
America celebrated a new age of affluence and luxury.
Beat poet Allen Ginsberg mixed offbeat humor with social commentary in his poetry.
Two years later in 1948 the Cold War ramped up, and the Red Scare
returned with heightened severity. Meanwhile, the rise of commercialism
coincided with the rise of television. Ninety percent of Americans
owned TV sets by 1960, according to history professor Jordan
Winthrop, becoming increasingly exposed to mass advertising. In
response, marketers widened their appeal to multiple audiences
simultaneously, homogenizing American culture.
The American Yawp surmises, “Perhaps yearning for something
beyond the ‘massification’ of American culture but having few
other options beyond popular culture, American youth turned to
rock ‘n’ roll.”
Artists like Elvis Presley represented rebellion, injecting
the sexualized lyrics and dancing reminiscent of ‘20s
speakeasies into the heavier beat of rock ‘n’ roll, disturbing
Depression-era parents taught to pull their weight without
complaint. Combining nostalgia for a liberated time with
the revolutionary beats of a modern generation, Baby
Boomers soaked up rebellion and radicalism.
In 1955, just as the first Baby Boomers came of age,
the U.S. entered a fourteen-year “military action.” Pew
Center for People and Press reported a 73 percent trust
rating in the government in 1958. President Richard Nixon
attempted “Vietnamization” in 1969--a plan to withdraw American
troops and turn fighting over to South Vietnam--with little success. By 1976
North Vietnam seized control, reforming the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The
Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation just two years earlier reinforced the perception
of corruption and inefficiency in politics. Public trust in U.S. government fell to 36
percent.
Baby Boomers consistently staged protests on college campuses and city streets
against Vietnam, and addressed sociopolitical issues including civil inequities and the
suppression of women’s rights. Owram explains, “Conformity was assaulted by deliberately
outrageous clothes, behaviour, and language. An age of timidity was supplanted by
civil disobedience. Patriotism was smashed by cynicism.”
Political power waned, and the power of counterculture increased. Kevin Campbell,

Kirby history teacher, explains, “That’s when it became cool to be counterculture, and
we’re still living in the vestiges of that here in Santa Cruz.”
Distrust of governmental institutions bred cynicism. But in contrast to the pessimism of
the disengaged ironist, Baby Boomers possessed a cynicism about the status quo that they
nevertheless believed they could change. That mix of belief and cynicism found its way
into the humor of the popular media. Influenced by the confrontational humor in the fifties
of Lenny Bruce, comedians like George Carlin, Lily Tomlin, and Mort Sahl altered their
material from the one-liner Vaudeville jokes of their parents’ generation to more cerebral
skits and social commentary. Black artists, led by civil rights speakers like Dick Gregory
and Melvin Van Peebles, gave birth to such daring voices as Richard Pryor, who made
topical and racial commentary the base of his humor.
In television, producer Norman Lear redefined the sitcom. From his first hit, “All in
the Family,” which skewered the bigotry of Archie Bunker, to the integrated casts of “The
Jeffersons” and “Maude” and the examinations of the lower Black class in “Good Times,”
Lear spun gold from the threads of racial tension and gender politics. Lear saw humor
as the a way to unmask hypocrisy and challenge the beliefs of the mainstream. This was
humor with a purpose, humor in the service of social change.
Social revolution mixed with an ironic pessimism in the folk music of Phil Ochs, Pete
Seeger, and Bob Dylan. In 1963 Dylan released “With God on Our Side,” a wry, sardonic
comment on the culture of war: “But now we got weapons / Of the chemical dust / If fire
them we’re forced to / Then fire them we must / One push of the button / And a shot the
world wide / And you never ask questions / When God’s on your side.”
But two decades of activism wore down even the Boomers, and by the end of the 70s,
disco outsold Dylan, and audiences preferred being in a Star Wars galaxy far, far away
from the economic malaise of rising oil prices and soaring mortgages. Much as the flappers
danced away the gains of their suffragette mothers, women of the 80s--having benefitted
from the previous generation’s labors--wanted to know what all the fuss was about.
Denying the earnestness of activism, the culture of the sixties and seventies faded into
the Year of the Yuppie, and the repetitious pessimism of Generation X.
“Anyone with the heretical gall to ask an ironist what he actually stands for ends up
looking like an hysteric or a prig. And herein lies the oppressiveness of institutionalized
irony, the too-successful rebel: the ability to interdict the question without attending to its
subject is, when exercised, tyranny.”
-David Foster Wallace, 1998
X-Men and Women
Author Douglas Coupland coined the term Generation X, those born between 1965
and 1975, in a novel about three young adults coming of age in the 80s and battling
“divorce, Watergate and Three Mile Island...the 80s fall-out of yuppies, recession,
crack and Ronald Reagan.”
His writing captured the “prolonged sense of ennui,” as Sam Jordison of The Guardian
explained, that defined the generation and was mirrored by directors like Richard Linklater
of Slacker, Kevin Smith of Clerks, and John Hughes of The Breakfast Club.
“Do you think we enjoy hearing about your brand-new million-dollar home when we
can barely afford to eat Kraft Dinner sandwiches in our own grimy little shoe boxes and
we’re pushing thirty?” wrote Coupland in Generation X. “You’d last about ten minutes if
you were my age these days....Negative? Moi? I think realistic might be a better word.”
While never plagued by issues of human rights or safety--starvation, homelessness,
discrimination--the white youth Coupland described in his book as Generation X exemplified
a similar kind of irony.
Often overlooked due to the “revolutionary” Baby Boomers preceding and the “attention-hungry”
Millennials succeeding, GenX grumpily represents the ignored middle child
of U.S. generations.
Living at the height of “massification” and a materialistic “hyperspecialized commodity
culture” while struggling to pay off unprecedented debts and recover from a 46 percent
loss of the average person’s net worth due to the 1987 recession, according to a 2013 Pew
study, Generation X diligently muddled through a post-Boomer world where none of the
Welcome to the
Eighties:
When
commodities
replaced comedy

Many Millenials
see the destruction
of the Twin
Towers as the end
of Generation X
and the defining
moment of their
generation.
issues had actually been fixed.
From this, a pattern of distrust, independence, and general angst was born.
Samuel Smith, blogger and self-proclaimed “Xer,” sums up his own generation: “We’re
suspi-
cious of institutions and large groups. We’re more lone wolf than herd
animal. We Xers were the unwanted generation. Children of the Me
Generation. The Whatever Generation, although that was purely selfdefense.”
Jedediah Purdy, a New York Times reporter and frequent critic
of the popular use of irony, wrote in 1999, “[Irony] is a fear of betrayal,
disappointment, and humiliation, and a suspicion of believing,
hoping, or caring too much will open us to these.”
As a self-defense mechanism, irony protects one from criticism,
but also from praise. Removing sincerity serves to isolate
the user from genuine interaction, creating the illusion
of being alone and misunderstood while millions of others
suffer the same fate.
For Generation X, irony became a cultural fad.
The Xers heady mix of anger and cynicism was manifest
in the rise of another problem: depression. U.S. antidepressant
use increased by 400 percent between 1988 and
2008, just as the youngest of GenX reached maturity,
according to a 2011 Center for Disease Control and Prevention
study. While greater awareness of mental illness
plays a role in this increase, psychologists suspect an
independent spike in depression for GenX.
New York Times reporter and Xer Lori Gottlieb attempted
to explain this spike: “The American Dream and the
pursuit of happiness have morphed from a quest for general contentment
to the idea that you must be happy at all times and in every way.” By undervaluing
contentment, GenX culture denied happiness.
Ironically, as Xer comedian Louis C. K. said, everything is amazing and nobody is
happy.
Nostalgia and cynicism combined to form a “knee-jerk irony” which became commonly
used in both conversation and mass media.
Xer Darragh McManus, writer for The Guardian, sums up the culture of irony in Generation
X: “We’ll mock someone for trying to save the world, but we truly want them to
save the world.”
Mockery has its purpose. Using humor to acknowledge a problem puts an audience at
ease, enabling them to confront a problem they would otherwise ignore--something the
creators of Seinfeld, South Park, The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and The Onion know,
using offensive and ironic humor to create loyal followings and massive success. The
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air challenged issues of race and class while achieving an Emmy
nominations and two Golden Globes.
Then, just after the turn of the twenty-first century, things got darker.
2996 people died in the September 11th attacks. A culture died with them. Generation
X was put to rest. The Millennials, born between 1980 and 2000, came to the forefront.
When the
hipster
becomes
that which it
scorns
12
All Kidding Aside
“The ironists, seeing through everything, made it difficult for anyone to see anything.”
-Roger Rosenblatt, 2001
Chatting pleasantly with a turquoise-haired girl wearing Birkenstocks and glittering
facial jewels, Santa Cruz High senior Sam Turner puffs on his Marlboro
Red. He recently switched from American Spirits, the cigarette brand designed
for the eco-conscious smoker. They didn’t give him enough of a buzz. As his friend
walks away, Turner exhales smoke through a grimace and explains, “I don’t like being
bothered by people.” Smoke wraps around his asymmetrical haircut and duct-tape-lined
orange construction jacket, which he bought at a thrift store.

Turner and millions of youth across the nation are “hipsters.” Despite their fervent
hatred of their own title, hearkening back to Generation X’s denial of their own existence,
the fad of hipsterdom characterizes Millennials.
Like the irony that pervades their speech, hipsters are hard to define. Older generations
refer to them as “pop culture hoarders,” calling them “the archetype of ironic living,”
and “a pageant of the bohemian undead.” Their culture rejects normality, instead
turning to a commercialized style of vintage-chic. Politely referred to as “alternative,”
they emphasize creativity over traditional accomplishments. Denying politics, government,
school, and conformity, they value self-expression instead. On paper, they look
unmotivated, uneducated, and disrespectful. Their transcripts do them an injustice. To
older generations, their rebellion seems unwarranted. To them, it is a fight for individuality.
In 2007 Senator Barack Obama began his campaign for the
presidency. On a web video he explained that the battles
of the ‘60s--sexism, racism, war, and poverty-
-continued to plague America.
“I sometimes felt as if I were watching
the psychodrama of the baby boom
generation,” he confided to the Internet,
“—a tale rooted in old grudges and
revenge plots hatched on a handful of
college campuses long ago.”
Promising the “Change We Need,”
Obama was elected President in 2008. Of
eligible voters aged 18 to 29, 54 percent
turned out to vote--3.4 million more than the
previous election, according to the Center for
Information and Research on Civic Learning
and Engagement (CIRCLE).
But in the wake of failed dreams and promises,
youth voting rates have steadily decreased,
and Millennials often feel disheartened by
politics. Pew reports 38 percent of those aged 18
to 24 voted in 2012, compared to 50.9 percent in
1964.
“I don’t f**k with the government, and the
government doesn’t f**k with me,” Turner declares
in a flat tone. Crushing the filter on the bottom of
an ashtray until smoke stops rising, he removes a
fresh cigarette from a pack. Along with 50% of those
aged 18-33 in 2014, according to Pew study, Turner
identifies as politically independent: “I’m sort of a
libertarian.”
Kirby senior Connel Wilson ponders the issue: “Even
politically knowledgeable and active people may choose
not to vote. Better political education won’t even fix
this, because it is education that has led these citizens to
choose not to vote.”
In the digital age, information is abundant and accessible.
With increased exposure to the failings of cultures
and
ideologies, Millennials easily become disillusioned with
their own
institutions.
Author and sociologist Zachary Caceres explains the increased distrust: “Millennials
have been reared in a time where physical technology is moving very rapidly...and
we can see that social technologies like law, governance, education are not keeping
pace. They are stagnant, impersonal, big, and stand in the way of connecting with other
people.”
A 2013 Harvard IOP study revealed that one third of young Americans agree “political
involvement rarely has any tangible results,” and three in five believe elected
officials are “motivated by selfish reasons.”
A lack of participation comes from a lack of trust. Wilson explains: “The average
American citizen has lost his or her voice in politics, through either complacency or
cynicism regarding the current government.”
Repeating the anti-establishment sentiments of the generations before, many Millennials
nevertheless choose to disengage from politics instead of fighting to improve
Spurred by the promise
of hope and change
embodied by Barack
Obama in 2008, over
half of 18 to 24-year-olds
turned out to vote. But
four years later, that figure
dropped nearly thirteen
percentage points.

14
them.
Six years ago, Obama insisted that the issues “solved” in the ‘60s persist. He proposed
change. Millennials trusted him but later turned away when they perceived the
President as failing to carry out his agenda. While 73 percent of Millennials favored
Obama in 2008, only 41 percent did so by November 2013, halfway through his second
term, according to Pew Research Center surveys.
Simultaneously, youth increasingly turned to irony to communicate and relate to one
another.
In popular culture, Millennials hear tales of a “post-racial society” while African-
Americans are disproportionately shot by police. Politicians argue over same-sex marriage.
First Lady Michelle Obama tells Millennials, “Getting a college degree is one
of the most important things you’ll need to succeed in the years ahead,” while college
graduates fall into the highest levels of student loan debt, poverty, and unemployment
in two generations, according to Pew.
Howard Ross, author of Everyday Bias, told USA Today, “This is a generation of
people who are now saying, ‘Wait a second, we thought this was over. We were told
this was over. We thought we were moving forward and now we see the same old stuff
happening.’”
A society riddled with hypocrisy disheartens Millennials, increasing their amotivation.
Again, Caceres explains: “Embedded in irony is a rejection of the way things are.
It is a criticism.” What better way to dismiss rampant hypocrisy than with a joke?
But, in a twist that is ironic in itself, Millennials, hoping to distance
themselves from the influence of media and consumer culture, became
the culture.
Hemp clothing, bedding, and paper roll off assembly lines.
Mason jars originally used as an alternative to travel mugs due to
convenience and frugality can now be bought at Starbucks for
a discount on a Frappuccino. Round glasses with thick frames
balance above overgrown mustaches and beards, and pants
are creased, cuffed, and ripped by designers to achieve the
perfect ratio of casual to stylish.
In September of 2014 Gap released a line of black
jeans, displayed in Santa Cruz windows on matching
black nooses behind words reading, “Don’t be afraid of
the dark.” The edgy marketing ploy mirrored a love
for the wry, dark, and twisted that hipsters are drawn
to.
Jedediah Purdy observes the pervasiveness of
irony throughout contemporary culture: “Around us,
commercials mock the very idea of commercials, situation
comedies make being a sitcom their running joke, and image consultants
detail the techniques of designing and marketing a personality
as a product.”
Thus, Millennials develop self-awareness in a world of commercialism which
removes innocence, scoffs at real passion, and encourages an “aesthetic” of self-hate,
apathy, and misanthropy.
While commercialized hipsters deny the “normality” of their institutions and disengage
with their country, myths of a post-racial society free from gender and and sexual
discrimination continue to attract younger generations. Ironically, the most common
self-defense mechanism of irony hurts Millennials the most.
Purdy once described his own book as “one young man’s letter of love for the
world’s possibilities, written in the hope that others will recognize their own desire in
it and will respond.” Even before the turn of the century, he believed irony damaged
society. He pled for a change.
As the largest living generation with the most financial, political, cultural, and social
influence, Millennials have the power to enact change on a level previously unknown.
As the children of the Internet, coming of age with the rise of technology, they have the
power and ability to use worldwide communication and limitless information to their
advantage. Whether they will do so is the question of their generation.
Ironic humor eases the harshness of reality, but it often mires its user in apathy. Empty
criticism does not inspire advancement. In a world that values apathy above sincerity
and indifference above ambition, society will stagnate. In order to introduce change,
the world needs people who care.
April Ludgate may be funny, but she will never change the world.

Danish
Delight
by Geneva
Burkhardt
Our favorite ride at Six Flags was the Medusa, which at first we were Junior Emily Chaffin hosted Josefine Damsgaard Lorentzen, a Danish student new to
really nervous about going on, but in the end we really liked it.” the U.S. “We toured the area—we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and we went on
Robin Lambidakis, a tall, blonde freshman, spent the first two the wharf and the beach and Henry Cowell for hiking,” said Chaffin. “It was a lot of just
weeks of January touring California with Maria Aggerholm from enjoying the beautiful area that we live in—being out in the sun.” Josefine interacted with
Denmark to U.S. amusement parks, San Francisco, Santa Cruz’s wharf and Chaffin’s parents just like Chaffin did, playing the role of sister and daughter. By the end
beaches, and In-N-Out Burger.
of the trip, Chaffin said Damsgaard Lorentzen became part of the family.
“She did say that everyone dresses in more colors, which I thought was interesting,
there were larger food sizes, [and] there were a lot of tightly packed and faculty. The responses indicated a successful venture, noting that exchange students
After the visit, Hemmert surveyed exchange students, Kirby students, host families,
houses,” Lambidakis noted.
were generally paired well with host families. Indeed, many families felt the Danish student
had become part of their households. Furthermore, Hemmert believes Kirby students
Maria was one of twenty Danish exchange students that shadowed and
lived with Kirby students for two weeks. Another six were paired with Pacific who did not host a Dane benefited from the program: Students gained exposure to foreign
Collegiate School (PCS) families. Amy Hemmert, Kirby’s Associate Dean for culture, and the timing worked well. “We had just come back from vacation and there was
International Students, hoped “this exchange program
this buzz of activity with a lot of people around,” she said.
will serve as a gateway to more interaction, which will
benefit all members of the community.” The program
aims to fulfill the School’s emphasis on global awareness,
a mission mirrored in the philosophy of Ranum
Efterskole College, Kirby’s Danish counterpart.
Ranum Efterskole is a non-sectarian boarding
school which teaches students ages 14 through
18. The College stresses “inclusive community and
learning” and “participatory democracy.” Students
collaborate with teachers in the development of curriculum
and activities, building students’ responsibility, sense of community,
and social skills. The school also emphasizes global learning and welcomes
students from Thailand, Brazil, Bosnia, Spain, England, Germany, and Norway.
Ranum Efterskole believes cultural understanding and open-mindedness
are key components to living in a global society. After the exchange program
in January, one Danish student, Emma Blæsbjerg, commented, “It was an awesome
experience that really showed me the ‘real’ culture and not just what you
see as a tourist.”
The trip to Santa Cruz benefited Danish and U.S. students alike. Senior
Milena Carothers hosted Kathrine Sørensen, a Danish 11th-grader. The two
visited San Francisco’s Pier 39 and Legion of Honor, as well as Westcliff and
Natural Bridges. “It was nice getting to learn about her culture in Denmark,”
said Carothers, who was surprised by how Danish students imagined America
before visiting. “She thought that high schools were going to be a lot more
like High School Musical.... And she also thought that every family would
own several guns.”
Twenty exchange
students, fourteen
days, Six Flags,
and a lot of food
tss
Scan the code
to the right
to view the
accompanying
video.
Hemmert plans to change some aspects of the program based
on the survey responses. In some cases, a host family and exchange
student’s personalities paired well, but their interests did
not. Some Danish students found themselves in advanced science
and math classes when they were interested in art. On the other
hand, some Danes helped Kirby students academically: “Many
[exchange students] rose to the occasion and really inspired the
Kirby student, who maybe wasn’t quite as involved in what was
going on in class,” said Hemmert.
Additionally, Hemmert foresees shortening the length of the
shadowing experiences. Some students became bored with classes. This, Hemmert explained,
is understandable: “I would be really frustrated to be sitting in a school building
when there’s California out there that I haven’t seen.” Most likely, activities would be
arranged for some of the days Kirby is in session so exchange students could enjoy a
combination of schooling and sightseeing.
Kirby students who hosted Danes have been invited to spend the first two weeks of
June at Ranum Efterskole, which, as a boarding school, offers housing for all its students.
The Kirby students would spend the weekdays in the international student housing at
Ranum Efterskole. On the weekends, students would visit Copenhagen and live with their
Danish host family. Final plans for the trip are still being made.
Meanwhile, Hemmert is preparing for next year’s foreign adventures. The School
plans to maintain a relationship with Ranum Efterskole, but no more concrete plans have
been established. But, due to the number of students taking Spanish classes, Hemmert
hopes to arrange an exchange program with a Spanish-speaking country. “I think that
would be a great opportunity for students to learn a bit more Spanish,” she said. “That
would be my first choice.”

Five years ago, California voters said no to
legalized marijuana. But after Colorado and
Washington passed pot laws, will the state
reconsider?
Drug
“I do feel threatened by the election, because
we’re not ready,” says the owner of
MINT Alternative Healing, John
Paul, or JP. He’s voicing his
opinion on future elections
and future propositions
regarding marijuana.
“We don’t know enough
about marijuana
yet to fully make
it recreational
or to fully
legalize it.”
16

Debate
by
Alice
Koltchev
JP is developing a new “concept” in his store, reaching out
to veterans, athletes, business people, and seniors. He’s cultivated
a clean and professional environment for patients to
get clean, pesticide-free, and lab-tested medicine by working
closely with SC Labs. MINT provides free delivery of high
quality marijuana to a huge following of customers.
In 1996 California approved the the legal use of marijuana
as medicine. In 2010, a law allowing for recreational use
was defeated, but after Colorado and Washington successfully
passed laws sustaining the recreational use of marijuana, the
Marijuana Policy Project, or MPP, drafted legislation to force
a vote in California in 2016. Founded in 1995, the MPP is the
largest national organization focused solely on “ending marijuana
prohibition.”
In the November midterm elections, Washington, DC and
Oregon legalized the recreational use of marijuana, while the
majority of voters in Florida approved a similar measure, which
nevertheless fell short of the necessary two-thirds majority.
The Drug Policy Alliance, or DPA, a national organization
focused on promoting scientific and healthy drug policies,
intends to play a large role in the California campaign.
The DPA expects to spend between eight and twelve million
dollars. The MPP believes the law will pass.
“Once state legislatures were written, once states started
sticking their necks out on this issue,” explains Morgan Fox,
representative of the MPP, “there have been probably over a
dozen states looking to do something similar to what Colorado
and Washington did, so I really think it’s a matter of exponential
growth at this point.”
¨I believe [recreational legalization] can be successful, considering
such a high demand for the drug. But I think success is
a relative term,” says Avi Sinai, a senior. As a holder of a green
card with unrestricted access to medical Cannabis, he doesn’t
believe the law will affect him. ¨What follows Cannabis's legalization
is going to be more issues depending on what kind
of legalization we are talking about, and whether it is simply
decriminalizing the drug, or whether restrictions will be placed
in favor of pharmaceutical and industrial businesses.¨
The primary mission of the MPP is to ¨end marijuana arrests
for responsible marijuana users,¨ or decriminalization.
¨When it comes to drug treatment, you start to see people
who are caught with small amounts of marijuana that are given
the choice between jail and treatment,” Fox says. ¨The state
pays for treatment, so a lot of people who are running these
clinics spend most of their time with people who are responsible
marijuana users for the most part and are just caught and
would rather go to these classes than go to jail, and this limits
the potential to help people with serious drug issues.¨
Allison Holcomb was the campaign director of Initiative
502 in Washington state two years ago. “I-502 is at the right
time, and it’s backed by the right people,” she explained to
the New York Times. “The war on drugs has contorted us as a
nation. It has taken what it means to be an American--to live
in hope, to live in dignity, to live in freedom--and has turned it
on its head.”
Holcomb has never used marijuana, yet became interested
in changing drug law through her first job as a criminal defense
attorney. She argues that the increase in arrests has not
driven marijuana use down, and therefore only strengthens the
black market and undermines society. Holcomb often reminds
the press that ten percent more people in the USA have tried
marijuana than in any other country.
Fox predicts that law enforcement offices will see a decrease
in grants for marijuana law enforcement.
In the eyes of JP, marijuana has already been mostly decriminalized,
referring to the classification of marijuana by the
federal government as a Schedule III drug as of 1999: drugs
with a moderate to low level of potential for physical and psychological
dependence. Potential penalties include a prison
sentence for no longer than five years, and a fine no larger than
$500,000.
“The only reason I want it to be legalized is [that] we have
all these people that are in jail,” explains JP. “Gotta get them
out.”
Out of 1,552,432 arrests for violations of drug laws in 2012,
almost nine percent involve the possession of marijuana, and
half of all drug arrests were marijuana-related. Middle and upper
class users arrested can usually afford private drug treatment
and in exchange receive more lenient punishment--typically a
fine of one dollar and a sentence of one day. Approximately
$2.5 billion are spent each year processing marijuana arrests.
“I'm thoroughly opposed to drug dealers.” Judge Thelton
Henderson told NPR in the winter of 1998. “But again, I think
they're entitled to an individual look…. I have sent many away
for as long as I can send them away, and I think they deserve it.
Other [people], I think, are redeemable--can be rehabilitated.”
Henderson lists a number of cases where the minimum 20-year
sentence seemed extreme; most arrested marijuana users that
are caught are otherwise responsible and educated could be
taught the same lesson with two or three years, he says.
Sinai claims that ¨our society basically is built so that pharmaceuticals
and big businesses will take over the industry and
tarnish the pure benefits of Cannabis to accommodate such a
money making machine.¨ In his view, legalization of marijuana

18
“And I think once you get
that accepted, it seems to me
the logical next step is that
marijuana itself for nonmedicinal
purposes, what’s
wrong with it, seems to be the
next question that’ll be raised.”
will most likely lean benefit pharmaceutical companies, for which reason he
is afraid to support legalization.
JP is similarly wary: “The pharmaceutical company is going to make it
hard for me when I start to show how great marijuana is for day-to-day use,
how great it is for athletes.”
While in Seattle, Washington, there are 15 more medical marijuana dispensaries
than Starbucks Coffee shops, there is still significant opposition
to legalization. A majority of the opposing
group are medical marijuana patients, believing
that legalization is the most “heinous”
way to deal with the issue.
“If I can’t drive, or use the only
medication that works,” Darianne Clary
says at a press conference in Seattle. She is
concerned about being given a DUI. “I will
no longer be able to hold a stable job. I will
no longer be able to live a productive life,
or be a productive citizen of society.”
“What's the future? I don't know,” Henderson
asks. “And I think once you get that
accepted, it seems to me the logical next
step is that marijuana itself for non-medicinal
purposes, what's wrong with it,
seems to be the next question that'll be
raised.”
Marijuana contains the active ingredient
cannabis, which is composed of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol
(CBD), cannabinol (CBN), tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV), and
acidic cannabinoids. SC Labs has shown marijuana works as an immunosuppressive
drug, anti-insomniac, antiepileptic, and a pain reliever.
As of 2012, there are ten cannabis-based pharmaceutical drugs produced
by companies like GW Pharmaceuticals and Valeant Pharmaceuticals
Inc. In the meanwhile, according to Forbes magazine, companies that
produce drugs like Vicodin and Oxycontin have united with police unions
to further enforce marijuana-related laws. While large pharmaceutical
companies worry about their income, their publicized argument is what’s
called the “gateway theory”: use of marijuana leads to more dangerous
drugs.
“That’s been roundabout disproved by every medical study that’s ever
been done,” says Fox. He believes the gateway theory lacks credibility:
the damage that could be done has already been done. “Marijuana is
frequently fully available right now, so if people are going to abuse it,
they’re going to do it one way or the other.”
Alternatively, a study by Brown University claims that in 11-14%
of cases, marijuana has the potential to be highly addictive. Withdrawal
symptoms can include insomnia, anxiety, intense dreams, and long-term
erectile dysfunction. Concern for public health, related to both the inhalation
of the smoke and possible addiction to more serious drugs, was the
reason behind the majority of opposing votes in California in 2010.
Dr. Mark Kleinman, a professor at University of California Los Angeles
(UCLA), told NPR “the drug problem we really have isn't much about
marijuana.” Kleinman says that 75% of the “drug using population” is using
marijuana, most of which are occasional marijuana smokers. He also
explains that the drug is being used as something of a battle ground over
the “drug problem,” as it is the most commonly used illicit drug.
Ultimately, Kleinman says marijuana is so prevalent because it’s virtually
harmless. Of course, he acknowledges that “the adolescent use issue
is a serious one. I think it's probably bad for 14-year-olds to get stoned.
I'm sure it's bad for them to get stoned in school; they're not going to
learn anything.” Kleinman, and the School of Public Policy and Social
Research at UCLA, are working to put together a plan for marijuana that
will anger the fewest people.
¨A major concern of legalization or even decriminalization is how people
respond,¨ explains Sinai. One possible response is that of Portugal,
where offenses were changed in 2001 from criminal to administrative,

meaning punishment is decided on a case-by-case basis; the decision is usually
no punishment. This led to a dramatic decrease in drug usage and diseases
such as HIV.
¨I think people could also potentially overuse the drug with such easy access,¨
Sinai asserted. ¨I think that people have to be on the same page of how
to use pot and how it can be both recreational, medicinal, and destructive.
There can be a fine line between these.¨
“Putting a title of recreational, or even medicinal,...you’re forgetting what
marijuana is, and we don’t know enough about it yet to fully make it recreational
or to fully legalize it,” explains JP, who is dedicated to creating a more
professional culture in the industry. “[You would] lose a certain level of value
that is hidden in the marijuana that we haven’t figured out how to use yet. So
it’s like if a caveman invented a wheel, that was a great invention, but what
good is that wheel if it never got a motor?”
Holcomb plans to use the taxes on medical and recreational marijuana
to create a new source of revenue for Washington, intended to take back the
money spent on marijuana arrests since 1991, and possibly to be donated
to some “underfunded state programs.” Similarly, Holcomb worked closely
with Black Collective Tacoma (BCT) in 2012. The BCT argues that the US
needs a law that will change the current jail demographics: while almost
twice as many caucasians are using marijuana illegally, there are three times
as many black people than white arrested.
There is no stereotypical “marijuana person,” he explains, but he believes
that as a relatively new marijuana user, his opinions are not inspired by others.
JP is a veteran who was diagnosed with PTSD. Coming back from military
service, “It took good loving friends and a puppy to teach me to love
other people, and it took marijuana to get me to love myself.” Choosing marijuana
was making “an irresponsible decision responsibly.”
“You don’t need to use sex to sell marijuana; it sells itself,” he explains.
“And you can abuse it and misuse it, and in the end all you’re doing is burning
your money because in the end it’s such a healthy thing, it does so many
good things for people and their body.” Ideally, the drug will be legalized,
and people like himself will ¨push new concepts¨ about its benefits.
In terms of his shop, MINT, JP is “clearing up a lot of the rumors and
myths about marijuana that aren’t there. With all humility, I think that [patients]
feel safe and protected here, and I think people really find this a place
of knowledge and education, and they really do see that we’re quality people.”
About 80% of MINT’s clientele is over 28 years of age, and 60% of
those are over 40. This includes lawyers,
teachers, and two NFL players.
According to Gallup, in the United
States in 2013, 36% of users were between
the ages of 18 and 28 and 40%
between 29 and 38. Nationally, seven
percent of people over 18 years of age
report smoking marijuana. More men
than women smoke, while the usage
across socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds
is relatively evenly distributed.
JP’s ultimate dream is to open a gym
that will work on dethroning CrossFit
alpha-male culture and pharmaceutical
supplements. He wants people to realize
that, as a human, they can take advantage
of marijuana and his gym and love
themselves. “I cannot make you good
looking,” he says, “but I can make you
attractive, and not everybody is attractive.”
While the public and many doctors debate the potential harm of marijuana,
JP explains that “cannabis is an amazing tool, but it’s useless without
good people.” The drug is easy to obtain and abuse, yet the popular belief is
that legalization will make matters easier for the “good people” using it. Ultimately,
research proving harmful attributes of marijuana is minimal, and it
is unclear whether or not California will follow the footsteps of Washington
and Colorado.
“You don’t need to use sex to sell
marijuana; it sells itself,” he explains.
“And you can abuse it and misuse
it, and in the end all you’re doing is
burning your money because in the
end it’s such a healthy thing, it does so
many good things for people and their
body.”

HOUR
OF
There’s an argument in Ms. Olsen’s sixth period AP U.S. History
class. What caused the American Revolutionary War?
Some students say colonial identification—others bring up
consumerism and Marxism. Olsen holds 45-minute Harkness
seminars like this about every other week. It “develops responsibility
for engaging with text and material so that students are better
prepared for a college environment,” she says, and “gives more
people a chance to be heard.”
Which was more difficult last year.
Kirby debuted its block schedule in August. Classes meet
three times a week—a 50 minute period on Monday and then
two 90-minute “block” periods on Tuesday and Thursday or
Wednesday and Friday. Before the new schedule, Olsen says, if
she wanted a seminar, it would “take so much of a class period that
it was sort of awkwardly placed. I could only do it occasionally.”
The block schedule aims to change the way teachers teach
and students learn. In 50-minute classes, time is siphoned off from
coursework “to make room for a host of non- academic activities,”
according to the the National Education Commission on Time
and Learning’s Milton Goldberg. It also provides “inadequate
time for probing ideas in depth, and tends to discourage using a
variety of learning activities,” says Karen Irmsher of the Education
Resources Information Center (ERIC).
Longer periods fix that, says Jeffrey Sturgis of the Maine
Principal’s Association, and give students more time to reflect on
learning and individual attention from the teacher. There’s no set
definition of what a block schedule is, though. Class times can
range from 65 to 90 minutes, and block schedules are sometimes
accompanied by a change in year length, day length, or the
number of classes students take.
Kirby, for example, incorporated a “tutorial” period on
Tuesdays and Thursdays. The suggestion came from the Pacific
Collegiate School (PCS), which adopted the block schedule
last year--there, it’s one of the most appreciated pieces of the
new schedule. “Getting help is important,” says John Binnert, Math
Department Chair. “Tutorial is supposed to be a place where you
can explore that a little bit more authentically and formally than
anything we’ve done before.”
The move’s a long time coming—the Administration first
discussed the block schedule when the School moved ten years
ago. “It was pretty intensely divisive among the faculty,” says Christy
Hutton, Academic Dean, who was in charge of block schedule
implementation.
But when the schedule was proposed last year, there was near
unanimous support. “We have a lot of different people teaching
here than we did then,” says Olsen. In 2006, teachers thought
the block schedule would put more strain on students. “There was
a great deal of concern about student welfare, and a lot of
faculty members were at a point where they were willing to give up
substantive things in order to make the student experience here
better.”
“What we ended up with was a hybrid,” Hutton says, “which
was meant to give everybody a little bit.” That hybrid—three
normal days, two block days—lasted five years.
Then Hutton began to hear about Kirby’s “homework problem.”
“What we were saying we were doing in homework wasn’t playing
out in reality at home,” she says. For the last two years, students and
parents had been complaining that weekends were too heavily
loaded with work. “Everything that required more than a half hour
of sitting down and thinking, most students would wait until the
weekend because you can’t make progress on a big project like
that if you’re confined to 30 minutes. We were actually facilitating
poor time management.”
Hutton—along with several others, like College Counselor Lis
Bensley, Health and Wellness instructor Beth Riley, and Binnert—
decided a fundamental change was in order. Their first proposal
was a homework block in which students would turn in homework
only for certain classes each day. But they met resistance from
faculty.
“There were so many possibilities for disasters within the
implementation that the teachers actually said [they would] prefer
a full block schedule,’” Hutton says. The change in thinking came
in part from the influx of new teachers predisposed to support a
block schedule. “There was this organic build-up of interest in the
block schedule,” says Binnert. “It just made sense.”
The core group then had to consider implementation. In
one study, the ACT found that schools with block schedules
often scored lower on its standardized testing—and that makes
sense, says the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory,
who recommends a minimum of two year’s planning time before
implementation. “Teachers who have taught in thirty-five to fiftyminute
time blocks for years need help in gaining the necessary

strategies and
skills to teach
successfully in
large blocks of
time,” says Irmsher.
Kirby’s decision
to transition
came only halfway
through the 2013-
14 academic year.
The School had to move
fast. Over the summer, four
teachers traveled to Vermont
for a conference on the block
schedule: Jason Brooks, Jessa Kirk,
Monica Hernandez, and Emily Hose.
“We wanted some building level expertise,” says
Binnert, “strategies that teachers could use to engage and
assess different ways that would be more effective over a
long period.” In June the faculty met for a presentation on
the block schedule, and individual “learning communities”
have been meeting since.
Even successfully implemented, block schedules have
their downsides. If students are sick one day, for example,
they are effectively missing multiple days of instruction.
“In the past,” explains Hutton, “most students had been
able to figure it out independently because the classwork
was pretty easy to mimic from home. Now, they might miss
a socratic seminar, or a Harkness discussion, or now the
sciences are doing a lot more labs—and those have to
be recreated.” On the other hand, junior Isabel Whittaker-
Walker says, “It’s actually much easier because you don’t
have to go to every single teacher.”
There’s also less total class time, making it hard to cover
the required content in AP courses, and forcing normal
classes to restructure their curriculum.
“I had to constrict breadth of material a little bit in
favor of depth on certain items,” Olsen says, “but that’s not
necessarily a terrible thing.”
For Binnert, it’s a matter of quality over quantity. “When
you look at the sum total, we don’t have more instructional
time,” Binnert says, “but if you look at it in terms of an isolated
class period, it feels like way more time to explore and for
students to fail, which is huge because that’s how we learn
best. There’s no time for failure in a 50-minute period where
you’re just trying to get information across.”
Still, longer classes challenge students to stay focused
on the same subject. Seventh-grader Will Stevens says the
longer classes can drag on, potentially boring students.
Kirby teachers were advised to give five-minute breaks in
the middle of classes, but few do.
Math and language departments were the least
enthusiastic. In those subjects, says Binnert, “small bursts of
really focused time every day are better for retention than
longer periods.” Still, he says he likes the change. “Last year,
in fifty-minute periods, I found myself going through some
sort of lecture material, answering some questions on the
homework, and maybe starting to engage students
Keeping
COUNT
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Classes meet three times a week—a fiftyminute
period on Monday and then two
85-minute “block” periods
The schedule gives students more time to
reflect on learning and get more
individual attention from the teacher.
Administration incorporated a “tutorial”
period on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Administration first discussed the block
schedule when the School moved ten
years ago.
When the schedule was proposed last
year, there was near unanimous support.
Students and parents had been
complaining that weekends were too
heavily loaded with work.
Covering material in all classes was a
challenge for some AP teachers
Longer classes challenge students to
stay focused on the same subject.
Math and language departments were
the least enthusiastic about the schedule
change.
88% of students responded
positively to the new schedule.
On a scale from one to five
regarding the change, the
seniors’ average response was
4.68.
Summer starts and ends sooner,
which means first semester finals
take place before winter break

“
There was a great
deal of concern about
student welfare, and a lot of
faculty members were
at a point where they
were willing to give
up substantive things
in order to make the
student experience here
better.
”
in a couple of interesting problems. There’s a pace that you have to
keep, and it’s something I felt resigned to.This year, with an 85-minute
period, I can take care of all of the lecture for a section in half of
one block period. I now have a block period and a half that I
can focus on asking questions, giving little assessments and most
importantly engaging students in thoughtful, substantive activities.”
Students seem to agree. In a recent survey, 88% of students
responded positively to the new schedule. High schoolers
responded more positively than middle schoolers—on a scale
from one to five, the seniors’ average response was 4.68. Half of
students reported using the time for independent study “always”
or “frequently.” A majority reported using tutorial to get help from
teachers, although juniors and seniors reported below-average use.
Hutton expected that. “There are definitely a lot of students that
should be using [tutorials] and aren’t. The teachers are worried it’s
because students also need sleep, and we have these two needs
that are at odds with one another.” Some propose moving the
tutorial after first period so students are sure to be at school, she
says. “They would love to be able to grab a kid who would be here
anywhere and say, ‘I need to talk to you. We need to talk.’”
For most students, the biggest change is in homework. Middle
schoolers “have more time to do homework,” Stevens says--he hasn’t
heard any complaints.
“It’s much easier to plan my homework in chunks,” Whittaker-Walker
says, “as opposed to having to do six classes a night and figuring
out when I’m doing it.” Block schedules mean less turnover between
subjects--students can “get in the zone.”
The block schedule coincides with larger changes in Kirby’s
year. Summer starts and ends sooner, which means first semester finals
take place before winter break. That has its downsides, Hutton says.
“The teachers are fatigued, the students are fatigued. It’s tough
because with the weather getting more extreme, the days getting
shorter, in general we’re all adjusting on multiple levels, and adding
culminating, high-stakes projects and tests to that list of adjustments
is a lot.”
By starting the semester earlier, however, students are saved
from studying over the holidays. “When we get back from winter
break everyone’s gonna be super relaxed,” says Olsen, because
“except for a very few things like AP classes, people aren’t gonna
be coming back to exams, people aren’t gonna have over-thebreak
assignments.”
The winter break itself is longer and includes an “intersessional”
half week, which includes enrichment classes and drug education.
By giving drug ed its own time slot, students will no longer have to
miss class.
The School only had about nine months to prepare for a
radical change, but the survey suggests the changes have been
appreciated. There are still things to refine, Hutton says, including
tutorial, final schedules, and how much teachers try to cover in a year.
Those issues will be the topics of future inservice and professional
learning communities.
By Jonathan Kay.
24

Former Kirby Student
SOUL
Moreah
VOCALIST
Walker
Moreah Walker’s wide smile is infectious as she
pulls her legs onto the seat of the school desk.
She gestures as she recalls being auctioned
during Senior Servant Week some six years ago,
Her best friend, Gwen Hubner, and she and a friend were
purchased by MarNae Taylor and Emily Hose. The memory
sends her into a rap about Hose: “All right, stop what you’re
doin’ / ‘cause Hose is ‘bout to ruin /the image at Kirby that
she used to.”
Her dark brown is hair pulled into a messy ponytail.
Her visitors’ name tag reads “Name: Moreah, Destination:
Everywhere.”
Walker has graduated from singing her Hose-rap at All
School Meetings to performing with the Inciters, an elevenmember
band that includes four singers, including Walker, a
full horn section, drums, a bass, and a guitar.
“There’s a lot of us and it smells really bad in the
van,” Walker says. The Inciters perform Northern Soulundiscovered
American R&B and Motown gems
popularized by Northern English DJs in the 1960s--as well
as original songs in Northern Soul style. First formed in 1995,
the Inciters broke up in 2005, then reassembled with new
members in 2009. Rick Kendrick, the founder and trumpet
player, is the only remaining original member.
The Inciters perform in 60’s, R ‘n’ B style dress, as serious
about having fun as making music. Walker feels at home in
the group, an extension of her time at Kirby.
“My best friend when I was here, Gwen Hubner, we were
really silly a lot of the time,” Walker notes. “Whenever there
was something we had to do, we always tried our best
to make it something that would be fun for us.” For Casino
Night, the pair got ordained and built a Chapel of Love
for faux weddings. At the Halloween dance they played
fortune tellers: “We were making up this really weird stuff. It
was really inappropriate.” She grins. “The school is really
kind of a magical place.”
Aimee Gruber, a friend of Walker’s and member
of The Inciters, introduced her to the group when she
requested ukulele lessons. Walker picked up ukulele after
a bad breakup and found she liked it better than guitar.
Walker looked up the group and auditioned. She also
writes songs for the Inciters, something she pursued in high
school, composing pieces both humorous and sometimes
scatological.
“Puberty, oh puberty, are you friend or foe? / I just
can’t seem to make sense of it all, my body starts to grow,”
Walker sings, waving her hands in the air to keep time.
“Puberty” is the first song she wrote, first performing it as
a Kirby student. “People still like it, when I bust it out at
parties,” she says with a shake of her head.
“For some people the music and the actual style of
what we’re doing, that’s what’s really, really important to
them,” she explains, “and for some people it’s just being
able to go play for an audience and just be part of
this experience. The more I’ve been involved with this
band, the more I’m getting to this first category too. I
really care about this specific type of music, but mostly
I just really like being able to go and play for a lot of
people, and be able to be a person I like to be.”
The confidence Walker conveys is something she
attributes to moving to Santa Cruz as a teen.
“The kind of weirdness of Santa Cruz, the
acceptance of being a little bit bizarre, allowed me to
be [myself] maybe more easily than it would have on the
East Coast.” She credits Kirby with keeping
her out of trouble. “ I was
a little bit
crazy for a while before
I came to
Kirby,” she says with a
smile.
She also explored her
musical
talents by performing in
school plays, including
Working.
The Inciters have
released four albums, the
latest being Soul Clap.
Outside their local fans,
they have a large following
in Europe: They produced three
albums in Germany and feature
a Slovenian singer, Sabi Kendrick.
On the band’s sixties aesthetic, Walker
commented, “[The girls] spend a lot of time
coordinating dresses. We dress up sixties and
our hair is huge. I look like a clown always, and
the guys worry more about their fashion. They spend
so much money on buying particular clothes.”
In her mid-twenties, Walker isn’t driven, but she keeps
busy, pursuing what interests her. Leaning against the
classroom wall, she gives parting advice on life and on
music: “Don’t be afraid to choose the less traveled path.
And if you’re going to study music, be prepared for so
much homework, and to be scared all the time.”
By Katie Merikallio.

Please
Put Your
Answer in
the Form of
a Question
Nobel Prize winner
Arno Penzias
believes questions
are the answer
by Nick Pleatsikas
An older man adjusts the microphone in front of him while the Great
Hall, packed with students, teachers, and parents, waits. “I would like to
answer some questions,” he says. “Talks are only as good as the questions.”
Arno Allan Penzias, age 81, refers to a PowerPoint presentation
featuring questions laid over images of the cosmos. His daughter stands adjacent to
the podium, directing her father toward questions on the PowerPoint. When asked
what it was like to arrive in the U.S. after leaving Nazi Germany in 1940, Penzias
responds, “I got out with my life, and the moment I got here, they stopped telling you
how to think.” Penzias then dedicated his life to asking questions about the origin of
the universe, a quest he continues today.
In 1964 Penzias worked with a colleague, Robert Woodrow Wilson, on a project
to use microwave receivers for radio-astronomy. They were measuring radiation
coming from the background of the universe.
Penzias and Wilson tried to understand why the background radiation existed. A
colleague suggested the anomalous readings might come from background radiation
created at the beginning of the universe, as proposed by some theories. If the universe
had background temperature and radiation, it would have to have been caused
by a massive release of energy as opposed to the universe being infinite, as it had
been assumed by scientists before. This would later become known as the Big Bang.
This was a massive discovery. Science could finally explain where the universe
came from, that it was not “always infinite,” as many in the scientific community believed.
By simply asking “why?,” Penzias and his collaborators had solved one of the
biggest mysteries of the universe.
In 1978 after publishing several papers on their discoveries, Penzias and Wilson
were awarded the Nobel Physics Prize: “I found out like anyone else does. Someone
calls you early in the morning.”
Penzias’s questions about the origin of life in the universe led him and colleagues
to additional discoveries. Water: a basic component for life on earth--previously assumed
to be rare in the universe--was in fact quite abundant. As Penzias remarked,
“the Universe is exquisitely tuned for the creation of life.”
Penzias admits there are many things he still doesn’t understand, but he hopes
people will keep asking questions. “Is it worth spending time thinking about questions
science can’t answer?” asked science teacher Josh Tropp. Penzias’s response was
direct: “How do you know you can’t answer them?”
26

INK Staff 2014-2015
Managing Editor: Alice Koltchev
Features Editor: Emma Pinsky
Opinions Editor: Gillian Weatherford
News Editor: Geneva Burkhardt
Sports Editor: Ewan Whittaker-Walker
Staff:
Morgan Carothers
James Deutsch
Emma Gellman
Sonia Harris
Jonathan Kay
Katie Merikallio
Nick Pleatsikas
Sonia Salkind
Ewan Whittaker-Walker
Keane Yahn-Krafft
Adviser: Jeff House
INK is a publication of the Journalism
class of Kirby School:
425 Encinal Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Phone: 831-423-0658, ext. 308
Website: www.inkirby.com
Photo Credits:
Page 1: Mickey Mouse: http://www.
logoeps.com/
Page 6 : Hipster: http://wundergroundmusic.
Louis C.K.: http://coolmaterial.com
Steven Colbert: http://blog.mysanantonio.com
Page 7: Bob Dylan: http://www.raindance.org/
Jon Stewart: globalsolutions.org
Aubrey Plaza: Rollling Stone
Page 8: Flapper: fmag.com
Page 9: T.S. Eliot: fnd.com
Page 10: Saigon shot: Eddie Adams
Page 11: Breakfast Club: not-critical.
com
Page 12: Twin Towers: ranabaker.com
Page 13: Obama poster: Shepard Fairey
Page 14: TIME covers: TIME magazine
Page 15: Danish students: Geneva Burkhardt
Page 16: Image created by Geneva
Burkhardt
Page 25: Moreah Walker: Chris Thomas
Page 26: Arno Penzias: Laura Lucas

INK Magazine is produced by students
in the Journalism course at Kirby School
425 Encinal Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
831-423-0658
www.inkirby.org