Debate Yearbook Article (Censored)

Yearbook Debate Article
By (mostly) Brad Bolman and Isaac Alpert and Peter Vale

Spotted: Debate Team

We will start by acknowledging that to properly explain how fantastic this year has been, we would need reams and reams of paper and the intelligence of someone like Dr. Carl Graves. However, because those aren’t accessible to us, we’ll give you, a top 9 list.

1. We talked about a lot of stuff, and also argued about a lot of stuff. Like, “Should the US federal government increase social services?” “Should America increase the surge in Afghanistan?” or “Should Wanda ask Thomas to WPA?” Throughout these hard times in the American recession, many have lost their imagination. But fear not fearful reader, just like Mary J. Blige, WE’VE STILL GOT IT!

2. This is the first year that Pembroke has qualified multiple teams to the Tournament of Champions. It’s also the first time anyone in Missouri has ever competed at the TOC. So, the debate team just broke a 50 year historical record in Missouri in the period of about 4 years.

3. I heard some of ya’ll don’t think we can public speak: well we can, through written words.

4. Mr Miller exaggerated a LOT! He threatened to kill me if this article wasn’t turned in on time. Secret: I turned it in late, still alive!

5. Our I.E. team (Katie et al.) won a ton of stuff. She’s a one-woman wrecking machine of humorous and oratorical power.

6. A lot of freshman joined the team. This year has been an amazing year for recruitment. There’s so many of them, Lewis is actually having a hard time deciding which one of them he wants to date.

7. Matt Frankland’s sister is a shockingly interesting person.

8. We brought home a ton of sweet trophies: 1) “In case you couldn’t tell, this is a cannon” 2) Trophies in the state of Texas and 3) Plates. This year has taught everyone vital life skills: Thomas has learned to swallow pills without peanut-butter (jk, he’s still trying), Peter has learned how to read faster using the force, and Isaac has met expectations, repeatedly.

9. Grant Barnow (R.I.P.) has been a vital source of exterior motivation for the team that he is no longer a member of. (He quit). Walter has filled his position with charm and grace, and he has done incredibly in student congress. Every tournament, I wake up a little happier knowing that Walter is bringing the hammer to the Student Congress.

All in all, we never would’ve spent our time in any other room in the school than the debate room. You probably don’t even know who any of us are.

XOXO, DB8 Team

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Poem #12 for the 9th Grade Ladies

by Brad Bolman

Call me Marlow.

You saw him out of the corner of your eye. Fashion label jeans, shirt just tight enough to suggest…
(“It’s not what’s revealed but what’s concealed,” said Ms. Conrads about art, and you would heartily agree if you knew art. Splatter-splotch guy?)
SENIOR ALERT!
It was love (omg!):
Maybe it was the sports player charm (qt)
Thrill of an older fellow (roflcopter)
Mysterious knowledge of anime and science (plz)
Gun rack (srsly?)
But you up-down him and want to effing shout “Right on!” up to the mother-effing trees!
Pulcinella ring through the breeze.
Experience like a sage, amateur Brad Pitt in training –
Casanova, baby.
Little nymphet running to your Humbert Humbert.
There are snakes in the motha-effing school!

Have to stay silent, keep it inside, untranslatable like morse:
. . . . – . . . – - . – . – . – . . – . – - . . – . . – - – . . . – . . . . . . . – - . – . – . -

“The junk merchant … does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client.”
Peer pressure, competition blow off course like Aeolian winds.
They’ll be back.
Corruption is the name of the game for the Mad Men –
Morals deep like shallow pools, won’t think twice.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Great expectations descended and break pay tribute money like Massacio handing Perugino’s key to the treasure.

Just like Iraq Taylor Swift PT Cruiser: sounded good at the time.
Love is not Seth/Summer L.B Jeffries/Lisa Fremont
You don’t know love…
so, like Heidegger, let it be.
Famous disavowal: “I know very well, but all the same…”
Careful Rumsfeld, always sounded good at the time.
“Stick to your own kind, one of your own kind.”

Next day plays a game of disappear like the Major.
Jumps out the window as you pop in.

Don’t leave 9th grade guys fighting over remnants like famished Irish farmers foraging for a tater.
Satisfactory reason exists to avoid Olympians.
You will see the best minds of your generation destroyed by madness.
Like McD’s, expand, monopolize relations.
“If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others?”
Open up hearts of darkness like Suger.
“The horror!”

All work and no play makes (insert nice fellow’s name here) a dull boy.
All work and no play makes (insert nice fellow’s name here) a dull boy.
All work and no play makes (insert nice fellow’s name here) a dull boy.

My suggestion for the 9th Grade Ladies starts
wait…
Fix hair, straighten shirt
wait…
Ok: GOL (giggle out loud) with your little girl-power teen posse gather tightest together Sancho Panza on left, Watson on right (in girl form), and then TBH just say L8R, LSR.
“I am on your side. But you have no way of knowing it, because our heart is blind.”

Depart as air, shake your splendid locks at the runaway sun.
How old are you now?
“I’m seventeen and I’m crazy. My uncle says the two always go together. When people ask your age, he said, always say seventeen and insane.”
You’re 15,14,13 — 17. And crazy.
After all, Cabot was an explorer and disappeared forever.
“I decline to accept the end of man.”
So sit back and enjoy the strawberries and the Queen’s gambit.
We all grow up too fast so let’s walk backwards.

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Avatar Review (A little late, a little sorry)

Avatar was a great movie. It was visually thrilling. 3D was the bomb-est stuff I’ve ever seen. But those are not the kind of comments that make for an interesting movie review. So instead, I thought I’d examine the eccentricities of Avatar and the world of Pandora, its citizens, and its human invaders. This does indeed have spoilers, perhaps in more than one sense of the word.

Where Are the Others?

When Jake makes his first appearance outside of the avatar combination room, there are a bunch of avatars playing basketball, running around, and generally, “chillin’.” Except, none of those people ever show up again. Are they merely part of the NBA-Avatar cooperative efforts, spreading the multicultural love for basketball to aliens and humans alike? The scientists on Pandora get one new parapalegic guy and suddenly every other avatar is layed off? Venturing into Na’vi territory is also apparently quite dangerous, so larger contingents of avatars seems to make quite a large amount of sense. Is the recession really taking such a strong hold even on Pandora? I knew it was a trend.

Interesting R&D Choices

The humans working on Pandora have some very exciting technology. They’ve developed the ability to link a human mind to that of a walking blue copy of the Na’avi people. They’ve created their own Matrix pods without the pain of the neck injection or Keanu Reeve’s voice. But what’s most intriguing about the human science and business interests on Pandora is where they didn’t spend their money. Sure, they’ve got avatars, that’s really awesome, but nobody decided that it was important to spend research and development money on upgrading weaponry. You’d think that in a world with technology as advanced as dropships and avatars, somebody would’ve worked on laser weapons, or fusion weapons, or something along those lines. Even the current US military has, or is working on, those capabilities. While the slightly futurized conventional weapons that the military forces on Pandora use easily overpower the “spears and arrows” strategy that the “uncivilized” savages are implementing, laser weapons would’ve cleaned house like Ms. Doubtfire and avoided the obvious Cowboys vs. Indians parallel (made all the more clear with the loincloths and earth spirits the natives pray to).

So no, they didn’t spend it on weapons, they spent it on avatars. But they also didn’t spend it on upgrading their ships. A few thoughts: the native people ONLY have spears and arrows, so a first priority from a military-industrial standpoint might have been to engineer ships that wouldn’t be susceptible to attacks from those types of weapons. Example 1: Plexiglass. Yes, I have it on my front door, so I feel like the human future military forces on Pandora can throw it on the windows of the ships. Or even just reinforce the current glass. It’s quite hard for a wooden arrow to pierce much of anything if that anything is reinforced by multiple layers. That’s what physics taught me last year! A quick Google search helped me to discover that while Medieval arrows could easily penetrate 1mm of soft iron, even 4mm of the same material would’ve been very challenging to penetrate. So yeah. Earth folks didn’t really think about this one.

Second peculiarity: hovercrafts. Hovercrafts may very well be the vehicle of the future, but why would you craft a … craft that is so easily destroyed by the only flying monsters around? If you were considering that you’d likely be fighting people wielding bows and spears, you wouldn’t leave the spinning blades of the craft open to the attack of said spears and arrows. You also would’ve used something like a fuel-propelled reverse burners, instead of what amounts to multiple helicopter blades put together. You would also probably create some sort of defense on the surface of the plane against said flying monsters. Jet planes would’ve rocked the hell out of the Na’vi.

Where Did They Pick Up English?

All in-going Avatar scientist people must learn the native language. But Jake doesn’t speak it at all. Yet he visits the main native village and low and behold every single person has a tremendous grasp on the English language. This is both surprising and perplexing, because the type of conversational English that is required for Jake to have his chummy run-ins with the evil brother doesn’t seem to have any precedent in the native lands, since they refuse to ever allow any of the avatars to come near. It’s the same reason non-native speakers have difficulty conversing even when they become close to fluency, because they don’t understand all of the slang. Yet the Na’vi seem to have a 100% grasp on all of this, all the while refusing to even talk to the mining company head honchos to say something like “Hey, don’t attack us.”

Where Is the Industrial Machinery?

Pandora only has humans on it so that the unnamed mining company can mine some material that I forgot the name of. Except, no mining buildings or machines that I caught sight of ever appeared in Avatar. It’s like the company which seems to have been operating for years never actually established any construction, mining, or exploratory equipment. All that was ever done was the creation of a large compound and ridiculous military forces. That doesn’t really make much sense. It’s a movie set in a large mining operation where no mining appears to be happening. That would be like setting a movie in China that had no Chinese people. Or setting a movie in the future that didn’t have any Chinese people… Speaking of which:

Racism

Now look, when a movie is trying to avoid overtly racist connotations, it probably isn’t the best idea to have all of the “non-earthly” beings be played by racial minorities. Sure, there are minorities on the side of “evil” too, but those minorities end up siding with Jake and his “native” pals at the end anyways. So in the final confrontation we’ve got ourselves a good old racial throwdown, with the forces of good being made up almost entirely of minorities being “led” by their more cunning and more powerful white leader against the “evil, militaristic” white general, the white business leader, and the throngs of white soldiers. Racist? Yeah, that’s what I thought, it’s really not up for debate with Avatar. As the blog Lawyers, Guns, and Money points out: “[Avatar] transposes the cultural politics of Westerns (in which the Native Americans are animists who belong to a more primitive race) onto an interplanetary conflict and then assuages the white guilt that accompanies acts of racial and cultural genocide by having a white man save the noble savages (who are also racists).” The film culminates with the “savages” getting their shot at the racism fun too by kicking the humans back off the planet. I believe this quote best sums it up:

This is not a vision of a racially harmonious social politic: it is an inversion of the logic of passing that seems acceptable only because it imagines the experience of becoming a person of color as necessarily ennobling. The film argues that once a white person truly and deeply understands the non-white experience, he becomes an unstoppable combination of non-white primitivism and white rationalism which is exactly what happens. In order for the audience to support the transformation of Jake Sully into Braveheart Smurf, it must accept the essentialist assumptions that make such a combination possible … and those assumptions are racist.

But really, at the end of the day, Avatar was an incredible experience, and you should see it. You should just think about all of these things while you do and point them out to your less-thoughtful colleagues. They’ll either be impressed or angry, depending largely on your luck and choice of colleagues.

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Link o’ the Day

North Korea’s Most Controversial Comic Performs at the People’s Shack of Laffs

I laughed for quite a bit.

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Notre-DAMN!!!

Inspired by a discussion of flying buttresses. Just like every idea I have. Got flipped in the scan.

Notre-Damn!!!

Notre-Damn!!!

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Trendspotting: The Recession

Trends are sometimes hard to spot: the color purple (not a trend… yet!), docksiders (that some people are just now buying these proves they’re a trend for sure), lo-fi music (it shouldn’t be a trend). Trends are especially hard to spot if you aren’t trendy, but starting today, I’m going to do my best for all you lame-bos (trademark!) out there.

One trend that’s pretty obvious these days? Read More »

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Reflections on the Healthcare Debate

I read the Voice, occasionally. I read the healthcare debate. I’ll be honest, I was a bit taken aback with the lack of statistical or evidential backing in the argumentation. So, I figured I’d throw in my two cents. Without further ado, here’s what I think about healthcare reform:

A first question everyone brings up is that healthcare reform might have variable effects upon the economy. Heritage Foundation Scholar Robert Book describes it with the “No Free Lunch” principle: “Any money the federal government spends on health care reform, health IT, Medicaid, roads and bridges, or anything else has to come from somewhere. And that ‘somewhere’ is either increased taxes, more borrowing, or inflation of the currency, any combination of which would cancel out any ‘stimulus’ effect of the new spending…. There is no such thing as a free lunch.” James Kvaal, an expert at the Center for American Progess, however, views the situation differently. For Kvaal, the current healthcare system is broken and it’s having a tremendously negative effect on the economy: “Health care costs grow faster than the rest of the economy, straining families, businesses, and government budgets…. high health care costs put many American businesses at a disadvantage to their foreign competitors…. Second, ever-rising health care costs are threatening to drive an unsustainable explosion in the national debt. …. If health reform slows growth in health care costs, it could be the most fiscally responsible course, even at the cost of higher deficits in the short term.” Indeed, as the healthcare system puts America at a competitive disadvantage in the international business world, these effects will be felt globally as American companies fail to cope with high healthcare costs and a whacky system. There’s certainly validity to the arguments on both sides, but one thing is certain: healthcare is broken, and it’s having a profoundly negative impact on the American economy. If this is the case, then reform is certainly the best choice. So how?

Canada is often presented as an example of why socialized medicine might fail in the United States. However, the distinction often missed here is that Canadian healthcare is a single-payer system, where all citizens are insured by the government. Obama has ruled out this type of system in favor of competition between private insurance companies and a government option, what we hear called the “Public Option.” We don’t have to look much further than the UPS vs. USPS vs. Fedex to understand that the government does not always out-compete private corporations. The government option would help lower healthcare costs for everyone as private companies would have to match prices to those similar to the government. Cuba demonstrates that socialized medicine is not, in fact, doomed to fail. Cuba is a nation whose economy has been nearly strangled by the American trade embargo, but their healthcare system ranks FAR above ours. And concerns about innovation in healthcare ceasing? Unfounded. In fact, “Dr. Gerardo Guillen, the research director of the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, … described pioneering pharmaceutical research. The center is experimenting with drugs [for] … prostate cancer and hepatitis C…. Guillen estimates that tens of thousands of people in the United States could be saved from amputations if they had access to this particular drug. It’s not licensed in the United States.” This is, of course, an isolated example, but we see something shocking: a country with nearly 1/10th of our GDP has a much more effective healthcare system, and one that is free for every citizen.

To comment briefly on Gautam’s article, I don’t believe Obama was intentionally trying to slight the medical community. Obama, like most Americans, respects the critical work that doctors do, but realizes that the way it gets carried out could use some changing. In fact, a large portion of doctors support healthcare to prioritize cheaper care. Christopher Hughes, a practicing doctor, writes that, “You cannot frighten physicians with tales of ‘government bureaucrats;’ we deal with insurance bureaucrats day in and day out. The disturbing incentive in the private health insurance market is to reduce the medical loss ratio,” which is an Orwellian way of saying that money actually spent on medical care is a “loss.” Executives, employees and stockholders benefit when less is spent, and it shines through in our interactions with health insurers. I have yet to have Medicare do a “rescission” on a patient, nor refuse to pay for a hospital stay because of a “pre-existing condition.” Hughes’ point is directly from a doctor’s perspective: these are the issues they face every day, denying patients due to pre-existing conditions, being forced into comprising their values to provide the care expected of them, but this can be changed, as the American Medical Association and many other organizations have agreed on a charter: “Most of the large physician organizations have declared their support for broad principles of health care reform that are largely based on equitable distribution of health care resources, or at least a floor for health care access.” But this is a position article, right, so what’s my position? I believe that beyond economic concerns, healthcare reform should be implemented because it is the right thing to do.

Setting aside Nietzsche for the moment, helping those too poor to afford it have access to proper medical care seems to be the single most moral action anyone could commit. I’m all for socialized medicine, but I’m also realistic: we won’t get there in one day. But one thing we can do today is support healthcare reforms which will cut strains on the economy and also, and most importantly, provide the level of medical care that every citizen in the United States of America deserves. I think it’s very easy for those of us with professors or doctors or large-earning parents to overlook the difficulty of acquiring and receiving adequate health coverage. Yet if we imagine a family of three right at the poverty line, making $18,000 per year, only a little more than it costs to send me to Pembroke to write this article, we get a clearer picture of the difficulty. Maybe a little bit of harsh rhetoric is necessary to create the necessary momentum to get these people the adequate healthcare they need.

Maybe we all need to take responsibility for the situation in America; so another one of our family, friends, or neighbors isn’t refused care due to a pre- existing condition. This is the legacy of Ted Kennedy, and one I will proudly take up.

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Anne Hertzl Can’t Go to the Christmas Dance

“Anne Hertzl you can’t go to the Christmas dance.”
Mishegas!
She’d heard it all before
But

Read More »

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I Love Pembroke

I’m nice right now
I, I feel good
If you have a ring
Would you please put it in the air?

That soiree last night was awfully crazy
I wish we escaped it
I played some mad golf and had this one girl home by 8 an’
Close my day and know I succeed
Friends go to rehab with crazy speed
Pass out at 2, at school by 8,
Go fail my tests and my papers are late

I wanna go to Pembroke for the rest of my life
Join investment club, avoid social strife
On Chipotle thursday and Fine Arts night
I get my kicks for the private school price.
So math’s kinda tough
Practice APs are rough
English class doubles
Films border on smut
Medlock’s champion of Asian gong
Tullis loves the bon-bons
Families don’t even bounce, teach with your spouse
Better hope you make it
Otherwise you get replaced

Time isn’t wasted ‘less you’re Hallensleben
Woke up today and all I could say is

Spanish oral last week was awfully crazy,
I thought I raped it.
I lied my ass off and had the answers completely mistaken.
Receive my grades and peep the Cs
But weekend events are all I need.
Pass out at 2, at school by 8,
Go fail my tests and my papers are late.

Man I love Pembroke,
And I love thinkin’,
And I love meetin’s,
I love Pembroke.

Now, I can tell you what I learned from school
Cuz’ Griffiths gave a board lesson or two
and yeah of course I learned some rules,
Like, don’t go to the Commons as a freshman,
And don’t pass out on the Loose lawn,
And don’t hope for internet if you’re on swan,
When it comes to 8th grade, man, they’re too young,
Every mom in the world loves Niermann,
Sometimes Raider pride is too strong.
Nothing wrong with some fun
Even if Skdoops totally epically flunked

Time isn’t wasted, unless new kids displaced you
Woke up today and all I could say is

That arty last year was awfully crazy,
I worry ‘bout safety.
I laughed my ass off and had found his hitlist with my name in,
Piss in my pants and tell McGee,
Now that kid is never mean.
Pass out at 2, at school by 8,
Go fail my tests and my papers are late.

Man I love Pembroke,
And I love thinkin’,
And I love meetin’s,
I love Pembroke.

Now if everybody would please
Put their café drink as high as they can,
As high as they can
And repeat after me

CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!

FRESHMAN! FRESHMAN! FRESHMAN! FRESHMAN!

WATCH NICK TINOCO! WATCH NICK TINOCO! WATCH NICK TINOCO! WATCH NICK TINOCO!

HI HAT! HI HAT! HI HAT! HI HAT!

Yeah
That soiree last night,
Man, I love Pembroke.
I love it.
That party last night,
Alright, everybody I gotta go back to class for a little bit…

But after that,
You know whats goin’ down,
My parents are in Japan,
See you at my house,
You’re all invited.
Bring your friends,
Bring your mom.

Do I really have to graduate,
Or can I just stay here for the rest of my life ?

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This is my favorite school lunch.

The larger hand on the clock strikes 12:09 (p.m.) and it’s time for me to embark upon a dangerous odyssey, one that will bring me within a few feet of multiple Sirens and Circes and other mythological creatures (the High Schoolers) and beasts (the Middle Schoolers). The odyssey which culminates in my standing in line for (too long) a few seconds, to receive food that is often (too mediocre) not exciting. I consider myself an adventurous eater, one who doesn’t shy away from the infinitesimal options and fathomless lunch time combinations. I only eat Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches on fish day, and not because I’m afraid of fish (I’ve eaten most types available and some of the classier establishments in the States), but because I know better than risk my life on a serving of the fish. And thus, as someone with considerable experience with the entirety of gourmet menu, I can say without any doubt in my mind that my favorite school lunch is one from before we made the transition to the new food system. Personally, I don’t think I need to utter but one more word before everyone who reads this understands where I’m coming from: burritos. If you’ve had those enchiladas masquerading as Mexican fare with what seems like a cheese stick melted inside, you know the Mexican has taken a drop for the worse.

Now, it’s not by any means that I don’t like the new food. It’s just that I like the old stuff better. Maybe this is a theme in my life. I like Nabakov more than Grisham, I prefer Run DMC and A Tribe Called Quest to Lil Weezy, and I preferred Sophomore year to this one. Nope, I don’t think that has any relevance: bring back the burritos. THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!

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