The James Logan Courier

Guest Opinion by W. Dean Cozine

This morning, March 31, 2008, I watched on channel 7’s 11 o’clock news the New Haven Unified School District’s Public Relations person place the administration’s spin for the new security system by saying in so many words that the new “security system” was intended to make the James Logan “safer”. That unless students had a safe environment, they could not learn properly.

What he did not say was whether or not there were valid reasons for the new system. He did not say that it was a response to outsiders causing a concern about safety. He did not say that faculty and students felt outsiders were making Logan unsafe and interfering with learning.

Watch KGO-TV's coverage of the new security plan.

By Paula Moore
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (MCT)

When the annual seal slaughter gets underway in Canada — and by the time you read this, it's likely that the first seals are already being clubbed and shot — sealers will have to follow new guidelines aimed at making the hunt less cruel. For example, sealers will be required to make sure that seals are dead before skinning them.

Talk about setting the bar low.

Am I the only one who feels that if sealers have to be told to ensure that animals are actually dead before ripping the skins off their bodies, perhaps they're in the wrong business?

Guest Opinion by W. Dean Cozine

Because of a decision made by the NHUSD Superintendent, Pat Jaurequi, Logan principal, Don Montoya and the NHUSD School Board, access to James Logan will be reduced to four guarded entrances beginning March 31. Only those with proper identification will be permitted to enter the school grounds. According to Don Montoya, the purpose of this radical and draconic reconfiguration is to keep non students and unauthorized adults off of campus, thereby ensuring a safer campus. This decision was made without any consultation with the Logan faculty, Logan students, or Logan’s School Site Council. As presented at the Logan Faculty meeting and to the students over the intercom, it was an administrative fiat, an order from the authorities to be obeyed and not questioned.

By Emily Low, Courier Staff Writer

It’s been seven and a half years since I picked up my instrument for the first time. As a fourth grader, I had next to no concept of the benefits or consequences of playing music or the decisions revolving around membership in band. I did not know that honor bands, music camps, and private lessons with professional musicians would become opportunities awaiting me in the near future, or that a prime musical education would soon come along to propel me into a world where music mattered. Nevertheless, with my parents’ support and encouragement, I entered the band room one day with a six-hundred dollar clarinet in tow. At that moment, I think that the only reason I even went in the room was because it sounded “cool” to be able to play an instrument. Instruments just looked so…complicated.

By David Collins, Courier Opinion Editor

The fact is that I truly do not want to be here, and, year after year, seniors like me have been similarly plagued by a tragic and contagious disease: Senioritis. Symptoms include a nonchalant attitude, a lack of self-discipline, a larger percentage of procrastination and an alarming amount of incomplete work. Of these effects, the largest is cutting school.

The closer most seniors get to graduation, the less work gets done. Even the greatest of students lose determination. By this time in the year, most students have their college plans laid out or jobs waiting for them, so doing tedious work for the fourth year in a row under the control of an adult dictatorship does not appeal.

By Emily Low, Courier Staff Writer

Even now, as I type this article, I can hear the sounds of mallets colliding with drumheads in a frenetic craze as percussionists from all over the nations’ west coast prepare for competition at the James Logan parking lot. Just why, a skeptical person might ask, are you hearing these things, and why are they even there?

Saturday, March 15, 2008 is the day of the percussion WGI finals this year, and as in previous years, it has been held in the Logan campus. While some groups may be in the Pavilion performing, others are out in the parking lot and even in the basketball courts, warming up for their performances. It began bright and early in the morning before I woke up at 9:00, and it’s still going on, probably, until midnight. As I live none too far from the campus, even with all the doors and windows shut tight and a television droning in the room next door, I can hear the occasional boom-boom-boom, and if I listen carefully, even the repetitive clank of the metronome keeping time.

By Emily Low, Courier Staff Writer

The beginning of March brings many things, among them fateful cinch notices, the annual open house, and the inevitable busy work of pre-registration. Juniors, sophomores, and freshman file into the designated facility, chatting with one another as they casually pick up transcripts, course catalogs, ROP catalogs, and multicolored registration forms. Gradually, the hubbub is silenced and the slideshow begins.

Blah, blah, blah…I don’t think I’m the only one who tunes out. It’s nothing against the counselors who have put in so much hard effort into education us all, just that I know this already. Or, at least, I feel as if I do. I need this many credits, this many community service hours, and I need to plan. Got it, I nod absentmindedly. Then, my fingers become restless, flipping through the multitude of papers on my lap until I arrive at a page in the course catalog titled: Graduation Requirements Summary.

By Mary C. Curtis
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

That authoritative voice, that cool demeanor. It's everything you'd want in a president of the United States.

Yes, I'm talking about Morgan Freeman.

In one of his funnier Oscar-night lines, host Jon Stewart joked: "Normally, when you see a black man or a woman president an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty."

By Emily Low, Courier Staff Writer

A student rushes past in a whirlwind of bags and texts, attempting to make it to class before the tardy bell rings on the high school campus. He turns the corner and narrowly misses slamming into the wall in his attempt to find the path with the least arc length, but manages to hook his backpack on a door handle. The sound of tearing material seems to echo as a multitude of scholarly supplies rains on the floor.

What might be a part of the pile that has tumbled to the floor? Pencils, perhaps, with bite marks where the eraser once was. Loose papers, dog-eared at the corners, with dates recording homework assignments that should have been turned in last month. A binder. A water bottle, unopened. Maybe a gigantic text or two, pages splayed wide.