S456 ARCHIVES: Latest Pokemon Video Game is a Success

~~ the following is a piece I did for the 2013-14 school year of "The Ram Pride," Ringgold High School's school newspaper ~~

Nearly every American has heard of the Japan-originated franchise Pokemon, centered around young adventurers and sportsmen collecting, training, and living amongst creatures known as Pokemon. The franchise encompasses cartoons and comics, but it got its start with video games on the Gameboy back in the 90s. There is a myriad of spin-off video games, but it is the main series that fans latch onto the most. Each entry in the main series of video games releases in twos, each version only slightly different than the other, and then usually not too long after this simultaneous release there is yet another slightly different version of the game put out. Different releases are organized by “generations;” the latest to start is “Gen VI,” with Pokemon X and Pokemon Y for the Nintendo 3DS. The game has done well financially and it has also pleased both fans and critics.

The first three generations of Pokemon have entirely what is referred to as sprite or pixel-based graphics. This retro style is essentially a collection of two-dimensional, small dots, put together and animated to create visuals. Throughout these generations, these pixel-based graphics have gotten more intricate. Starting with the fourth generation back in 2007, polygon-based graphics were implemented alongside the sprites. Polygonal graphics is a three-dimensional form of visuals. The most easily recognizable difference with the newest generation is its complete usage of polygonal graphics, which forgoes old-school style pixel graphics.

Over four million copies of Pokemon X and Y (combined) worldwide in the first two days of release, according to Nintendo. Metacritic, a website that indexes professional video game reviews, has averaged out Pokemon X and Y’s critic score to an 87%, with 61 “positive” reviews and 4 “mixed” reviews. RHS Senior Aaron Turkovich has been a player of Pokemon video games since he “was… 8, maybe 9.” He bought the latest game, choosing the Y version, and says the series “just keeps getting better.”

S456 ARCHIVES: RHS Paints the Walls

~~ the following is a piece I did for the 2013-14 school year of "The Ram Pride," Ringgold High School's school newspaper ~~

A walk through the halls of Ringgold High School reveals walls covered with fun and interesting paintings. These paintings are called murals, and they are craftily splattered on the walls by Ringgold's twelfth grade class of art students every year. A new feature added last year means that, in addition to new murals done directly on the walls, some students' work will be on large boards that are temporarily hung on the walls, and then given to the respective artists to keep. I decided to talk to some of the artists as well as their teacher, Mr. Lewis, to check up on their progress this year.

Meagan Hyslop and Jessie Martin are both doing murals on walls: the former by Ms. Hess's room on the first floor, and the latter by the staircase next to the elevator on the second floor. Meagan describes her mural-in-process as "a big flower," that is "separated into fourths." She joked that dividing it into the four parts was done to "put some symbolism" into her work, and described her lost week of progress due to accidents in her technique. Jessie is doing a horse that, and she wants to be very clear, is "not a unicorn," and "not My Little Pony [related]." She comically described her horse as more of a piece of LGBT propaganda, in reference to its rainbow-coloring. Both expect that their mural will take them quite a long time to complete, with the eight week deadline looming over them.

Two students working on the boards are The Ram Pride's very own comedy-guru Nicholas Greco and Nick Trocano. Their boards can be seen in the last hallway of the fourth floor where the art rooms are located. Greco is doing "two flamingoes flying over a sunset into a portal." According to Greco, "it sounds good but doesn't look good." He does say, however, that "it's been pretty easy so far." Trocano told me his mural is of the professional football player JJ Watt, but with the colors stylistically altered. He says he "like[s] the effect." Trocano also said, additionally, "Hi Mom!".

Ringgold's beloved art teacher is always lively and excited to do his job. He says that the murals are "going great" so far, this year. He also claims that "they get better every year." Thankfully, he assured me that there haven't been any horror stories like paint spills and ladder falls, besides the facetious claim that the Trocano boy had been eating some paint. Lewis also says that there has been "a lot of good cooperation from the other students" in the halls. Mr. Lewis asserts that the "murals are a lot of work," but that he doesn't let that get him down.

The obvious question to ask is which of the murals in progress is his favorite.

His obvious answer is "they're all my favorites."

S456 ARCHIVES: Voodoo Heart - Book Review

~~ the following is a piece I did for the 2013-14 school year of "The Ram Pride," Ringgold High School's school newspaper ~~

Scott Snyder is best known today as one of the biggest names in contemporary comic books, but there was a time when this wasn’t the case. His first published work was a short story collection entitled Voodoo Heart, which gained quite a bit of traction when it released back in 2006, including ringing endorsement from Stephen King.  As a fan of Snyder’s comic book work –work that includes American Vampire, a series that was originally co-written along with King – I noticed that Snyder’s style of story-telling didn’t change much once artwork was thrown into the mix. Something else I noticed is that this is a brilliant, quirky bit of fiction, which nails the crisis of having a strongly feeling and conflicted heart.

Voodoo Heart is a collection of seven short stories, altogether two-hundred seventy-eight pages in length. Each short story is memorable and smartly put-together due to Snyder’s keen ability to characterize, and to showcase drama associated with love. The characters he creates are thought-provoking in their intimate relatability, forcing me to self-analyze as I read. In the first story, called “Blue Yodel,” we read about Pres and Claire, two lovers with a fondness for airships. Claire runs away from him and flies off on one of the very things they bonded talking about. That is great situational drama, but the way he writes it is even better. The main thrust of the story takes place in the present, following Pres madly driving around looking for the airship, but flashbacks are sprinkled throughout. These flashbacks deliver beautiful accounts of their relationship when things were good, which actually hurt because of the context.

Snyder also likes to do something with these stories that he also likes to do in essentially all of his comic book work, which is tell a small story that is seemingly unrelated to the main plot, all for the purpose of thematic connection. An example of this is when he writes of a former racehorse who seems to wish he wasn’t so physically shackled by his enclosed home, which is thematically similar to the main character’s feeling of being emotionally shackled in his life due to a feeling of not fitting in. 

What’s truly neat is that he manages to do this on a much larger scale, with the entire book. My favorite short story is definitely the one with the same name as the collection, “Voodoo Heart,” which is – most likely intentionally - right in the middle of the book. This is the story that strongly reveals a thematic connection that all of these stories share, with a powerful, clever ending that takes a bit of thinking to decipher. Besides the thematic angles, there are also other, more subtle similarities to them all. These stories generally all have something a bit weird about them, whether it be a lead character who defends a garbage can with a harpoon, or a couple that bought a huge mansion for cheap because it’s next to a white-collar women’s jail.

I have a few quibbles. One story, “Happy Fish, Plus Coin,” which is very interesting (and probably the most beloved from this collection, actually), is about a loving friendship rather than a romantic relationship like all of the other stories. This is fine in a vacuum but fits in this collection a bit jarringly. Also, most of the endings to these stories are pretty vague, which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it allows the reader to enjoy feverishly thinking to fill in the gaps, but on the other hand, it can be a bit dissatisfying to have build-up to something that isn’t conclusive. These, again, are quibbles.

Voodoo Heart is brilliant. Snyder manages to actually hurt with beauty. He is able to make readers think about themselves and ponder whether or not they too have voodoo hearts, but plants novelties throughout to add some fun. Scott Snyder is able to write about more than Batman, folks; Voodoo Heart is a thoroughly worthwhile collection of short stories. 

S456 ARCHIVES: The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Review

~~ the following is a piece I did for the 2012-13 school year of "The Ram Pride," Ringgold High School's school newspaper ~~

When trailers for The Perks of Being a Wallflower were playing on television and before movies at the theater, I had a very distinct impression: This movie is either going to be a whiney, pretentious pile of crap, or entirely moving and  inspirational. Nothing in between, folks. And now that I've seen the film twice, I can safely say that through the tears I was looking at one of my absolute favorite movies of all-time. Strikingly realistic and strongly emotional, The Perks of Being a Wallflower knocks it out of the park, and is entirely moving and inspirational.

My chief worry based off of the trailers pertained to what's probably the most important part of a drama - the characters. The easiest way to make a teen drama fail is to present characters with problems that all feels exaggerated and artificial, but that is not apparent at all in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. These problems are actually interesting and things that would cause a great deal of stress and conflict in real life. Some of these problems are things that some of us don't contemplate nearly enough.

This film follows a freshmen in high school named Charlie, played by Logan Lerman, who is challenged to move on from traumatic events in his childhood. In the process he interacts with family and new friends and discovers that they also have problems, and these break him down more and more throughout the film. One of the two most prominent of these new friends is Sam, played by Emma Watson, which plays as the love interest of Charlie but in her own right is challenged by men constantly treating her poorly. The other is Patrick, which the audience quickly learns is gay, with the main conflict of being in a relationship with a closeted son to a strictly homophobic father. There are some other characters with their own struggles and they're just as realized and interesting, but they're not focused on as much.

The movie displays these issues - childhood trauma, homophobia, violence, bad ethics in relationships - in a very direct and powerful way. The movie sent me on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, at points bringing me to a point of blissful happiness when things are working out for these kids, and other points bringing me down to absolute sadness. The most prominent display of this is at the climax and afterwards, when a big twist is revealed. This twist makes a movie with already quite depressing moments seem even more depressing, and it's hard not to tear up. But, rest assured, dear viewer, because in the time after that reveal to the end it progressively works it way up to what I can certainly say is the most uplifting sequence I've ever witnessed in a movie.

There are nitpicks I can throw at the movie. Every now and then there is a line or even a small character that really doesn't work, either because it's just lame and unrealistic or something that should be challenged but isn't. The first character that Charlie interacts with in the movie is a stock bully that appears a few times throughout the movie, and she's very lame. (She does serve as effective symbolism by the end, however). The age difference between these kids in regard to romance is another specific example of something I think should have been challenged in the movie. But again, these are just little annoyances that don't drastically affect the oomph of the film as a whole.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is the best movie that came out last year, and it's one of my absolute favorites of all-time. It's just so strikingly real, and powerful. 

S456 ARCHIVES: Debate - Personal Review and Kainz Interview

~~ the following is a piece I did for the 2013-14 school year of "The Ram Pride," Ringgold High School's school newspaper ~~

Back on April 29th, I participated in Ringgold’s Fall Debate on the topic of Marijuana Legalization. The proposition was “Marijuana should be legalized in Pennsylvania,” and I was on the affirmative side of that proposition alongside team-members Adam Martin (11), Marissa Miller (11), and Sam Allman (11). In the preliminary rounds (which we didn’t end up getting past), we faced a negative team of Sam Kainz (12), Cassie Lignelli (11), Conner Dudas (11), and Nathaniel Patton (11). I did… um… I did well. I honestly don’t feel comfortable labeling my performance any more specifically than that. After the debate, I not only received the award for the most worthy adversary from the team we faced, but I received myriad compliments from my peers. But personally, that whole day, I felt rather badly about my performance.

I was what’s called a “constructive speaker” for my team, which entails giving a three-minute, pre-written speech building up the position of your team, a two-minute cross-examination of one of your opposing constructive speakers, and handling a two-minute cross-examination from one of your opponents. My speech was well-written, working up a logical and emotionally-invigorating case for getting the Man off of citizens’ pot. When I sparred against one of my opponents in my cross-examination, I think I did a pretty good job of pointing out a bit of a fallacy in a statistic the other team brought up. But when I was cross-examined by an opponent, which was the first cross-examination of the debate, I fumbled over my words, didn’t have much to add on some talking points, and overall allowed the opposition to poke holes in our team’s argument.

Now, that’s two out of three successes, and if I look at the situation more objectively than I’ve been willing to allow myself, it’s easy to see that I didn’t exactly tank when I was cross-examined. But, well, you see, I have pretty specific skills, I think, so I take pride in them and hold myself to a high standard for those skills. I’m inclined to do well with English-type things: I think I write well, speak well, think analytically well, understand grammar well, etc. My weakness, while not crippling, was glaring, so I felt a bit, well, awful, afterwards.

I do admire the team that I faced, which went on from their victory against my team (from both the judges and audience) to an overall victory in the championship. One of the reasons I admire them is that – if I understand correctly, which I’m nearly certain I do – everybody on that team is actually in favor of legalizing marijuana. In a broad sense, they don’t really support the case that they were making, but they still defeated all opposition. I hunted down Sam Kainz, the oldest and perhaps best of the team, for an interview.

“So how does it feel to be on the winning debate team?” I asked. “Good I suppose,” he replied. “Are you proud of your team?” I asked. “Yeah,” he replied.

Before this debate, Sam said that he participated in “every single debate,” besides “only miss[ing] one or two.” He’s also been involved in things like Youth and Government: The take-away is that he has involved himself in quite a bit of public speaking. According to Sam, his team’s biggest weaknesses were clinging too hard to certain points and an “extreme apathy” from their team as a whole, which is amusing coming from the championship-winning team.

In RHS, the general consensus seems to be overwhelmingly that marijuana should indeed be legalized and regulated like alcohol, which is why I thought it would have been smarter to do a topic like, say, the assault rifle ban, which seems more split. I asked Sam about this and he said that he feels the topic of marijuana legalization was “long overdue,” and he seemed positive about the decision to choose that topic. Sam “absolutely” supports the legalization of marijuana outside of the debate, but said he found debating a position he disagrees with to be “enlightening” and “easier.” In defiance of his team’s arguments, he believes that legalizing marijuana would indeed bring money in rather than lose it, and that “marijuana being addictive is a bit of a reach.” He does say, however, that marijuana “would be made less safe if legalized,” citing the increased unhealthiness of legal cigarettes over the years.

The most important thing to take away from my interview with Sam is that Matt Petras was “absolutely” the most valuable opponent he faced in all of the marijuana debating he participated in.

See, Matt, you didn’t do so poorly…  

Next year Sam will be out of high school pursuing education at the “only school he wanted to go to”: The prestigious and “extremely difficult to get into” West Point. Next year I’ll be preparing for the next debate, and probably also reading comic books and writing for this paper as per usual.

Oh, and also, Sam found it important to note that “The goal is always to crush your opponent.” And that his friend Jessie Pry was a “great scorekeeper.” 

S456 ARCHIVES: Troubles with Wages in America

~~ the following is a piece I did for the 2013-14 school year of "The Ram Pride," Ringgold High School's school newspaper ~~

Since 2009, the federal minimum wage has remained at $7.25 an hour, despite increasing once both years before. Many believe that minimum wage should increase, while others think that it would be bad for the economy. Some states, like California, have already raised their minimum wage, but the state of Pennsylvania has kept it at $7.25. Exactly how much to raise the federal minimum wage, and by when, is a point of contention amongst supporters. Remarks from the president during the last state of the union address prompted discussion on raising minimum wage nationwide, even though little progress is being made for supporters. 

Back in February of this year, Barack Obama said in the State of the Union Address that he would like to see federal minimum wage increase to $9 an hour, and then automatically increase after that with inflation. According to “Inequality.org,” the minimum wage “[a]djusted for inflation using the BLS online inflation calculator… would come to $10.55 per hour in 2012 dollars.” Obama is either compromising, or attempting to avoid bad economic implications for such a large increase. In his speech, President Obama points out that “a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line.” What’s frustrating for proponents of this increase is that, as Annie Lowry from The New York Times writes, “the proposal would see the federal floor on hourly wages reach $9 in stages by the end of 2015.” That is a long time from now.

Recently, though, strikes that originated in New York from November have flooded the entire country. The Thursday before Labor Day, “workers at McDonald's and other fast-food chains conducted strikes and walkouts in nearly 60 cities,” according to USA Today. These protests aren’t specifically asking for a minimum wage increase, just a standard wage increase, but to $15. Still, these strikes express a large disappointment over wages for workers towards the bottom. Additionally, America as a whole supports a minimum wage increase to $9.00, with, according to a February poll from Pew, 71% in favor and 26% opposed.

I talked to Mr. Manko, Ringgold’s Advanced Economics Teacher, to get a grounded perspective on the matter. When I asked him whether or not there would be an extreme reaction from businesses to a minimum wage increase, he said changes would “happen gradually.” At the end of the day, he says businesses won’t let wage increases eat away profits, although “some may” just eat the costs. He did cite some chains like Sheetz that pay their workers above the minimum wage, and explained that offering good wages is an effective way of enticing people to work for you. When I asked whether or not Pennsylvania raising minimum wage independent of the rest of the country would have differing results from a federal increase, he said “you’d see an increase in cost of living,” citing other states that saw increased costs of living with a minimum wage increase. I challenged him by saying that it may have been the cost of living that prompted a minimum wage increase instead, and he conceded that it is a tough “chicken before the egg” problem. He did note that there are more to the equation than wages for workers, saying that benefits like healthcare and vacations are important.

Perhaps most importantly, I asked why the heck we haven’t seen an increase in minimum wage in around three years. His response: “Politicians are scared” of upsetting corporations. 

S456 ARCHIVES: Obama's Tyrannical Gun Control

~~ the following is a piece I did for the 2012-13 school year of "The Ram Pride," Ringgold High School's school newspaper ~~

Barrack Obama is rolling out new gun legislation. What's odd is that the new legislation does not seem to be a reaction to the disaster at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in which a madman wielding an assault rifle gunned down twenty children and six adults. No, this new wave of gun law proposals focuses on a five-year-old girl in Pennsylvania, who said, according to CNN, "I'll shoot you, you shoot me, and we'll all play together." It is reported that she was referring to a Hello Kitty bubble gun.

Barrack Obama is pushing a ban on military-style bubble guns, assuring Americans that concealed bubble guns for home defense and bubble guns intended for hunting will remain perfectly legal. Barrack Obama is also pushing for a maximum of four fluid ounces for containers of bubble soap.

There is outrage from both the left and the right. Piers Morgan is outraged at this new legislation, claiming that what the president should be focusing on is restrictions on what Morgan calls "actual guns." The National Rifle Association is outraged, but from a different perspective. The NRA believes that the president is infringing upon American children's second amendment rights to defend against robbers on the playground.

Barrack Obama has said that he understands many American's desire for a ban on assault rifles and large clips, but has said that the country needs to focus on the "true issue" first. The President has said that he has spoken with eye doctor Richard Starr about the negative effects of bubble soap in children's eyes. Starr says that bubble soap coming in direct contact with children's eyes halts the development of their vision. Barrack Obama says that taking away the bubble guns will force bullies on the playground to use finger guns instead, which the President claims are "much less damaging." When asked about a ban on finger guns, the President fears that removing children's fingers will decrease overall proficiency in handwriting.

Americans are overwhelmingly against the President on this issue. In response, the President said "My propositions have a higher approval rating than congress, which is probably pretty good, right?"

-only the first quote from CNN is real; the contents of this article are fictional and satirical-