Hong Kong Democracy ProtestsHong Kong’s tradition of self-gover-nance clashes with Chinese rule.PAGE 12 | WORLD NEWS

OCTOBER 2014

Reserve Marches for Green WorldSeven WRA students join protesters in largest climate march in history.PAGE 3| COMMUNITY

Academy’s Goulish Past WRA Archivist Tom Vince reveals eerie details about older buildings on campus.PAGE 6-7 | CENTERFOLD

WESTERN RESERVE ACADEMY, HUDSON, OHIO.

The Reserve RecordCaptain Breaks School RecordHassell ’15 surpasses Boys Soccer school record for career goals scored.PAGE 8 | SPORTS

The longest-running newspaper in historic

Hudson, Ohio

VOL. CI....No. 3

As the leaves and temperatures started to fall, Western Reserve Academy began its first break of the year. Unlike in previous years, the dormitories remained open. While students living rela-tively close to WRA can easily go home even for short breaks, international students must of-ten find other accommodations. In past years, the Dean’s Office has required students to either go home or find housing with host families, but last year, many international students stayed at a local hotel—not the most welcoming of places to spend a school break. “Keeping the dorms open is a good and appropriate option for those who live several time zones away,” said English Department Chair Matt Peterson, who serves as the House Master of Long House. “[The House Masters] had input on what would be reasonable expectations for adult supervision,” he said. According to Peterson, the policy did not demand much from house mas-ters: “My charge was to be in the dorm and be available at night,” he explained. Although the dining hall provided a hearty continental breakfast, lunch and dinner for the students on campus, those who decided to stay had few re-sponsibilities. Director of Week-end Activities Tim McQuait scheduled a ghost walk at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, a shopping trip at the Aurora Farms Premium Outlets and a movie run to the Macedonia Cinemark Theaters. Check-in was at 10:30 p.m. from Saturday through Monday for the boarders. The policies on transportation remained the same: the students had to notify the administrator on duty if they wished to venture off campus in a car. “It’ll be the norm,” reported Dean of Student Life Annie Neill. “Dorms will remain open during mid-term breaks.” This way, students will be able to relax in a familiar, comfortable envi-ronment: their own dorm room. Neill confirmed that dorms will still close for Thanksgiving, Hol-iday, and Spring Breaks.

Ah, France. With its bread-baskets teeming with baguettes and its cathedrals brimming with vibrant history, this land of high culture fascinates many Americans. Rachel Morris ’16 traveled to France over the sum-mer in the ELISA program, one of Western Reserve Academy’s study-abroad opportunities. She spent much of the trip in the south of France, but also en-joyed touring Paris. During her visit, the World Cup was in full swing. She re-members that Algeria won its first-ever world cup game, caus-ing Parisians to celebrate in the streets where they shouted joy-ously and honked their cars’ horns. At La Louvre, she caught a glimpse of Mona Lisa’s myste-rious grin and witnessed many aspiring artists concentrating as they sketched and even spray-painted their own renditions of famous paintings. While abroad, Morris even won a game of Scrabble, despite the fact that she played mostly in French! Down south, Morris experi-enced her favorite memory of the trip: hiking in the Pyrenees mountains. Her taste buds em-

By MICHAEL PAMER ‘17

By ANNA McMURCHY ’15

barked on an adventure of their own as she sampled the local cuisine, some things of which did not taste quite as delicious as she had hoped. Tartare, a lump of raw meat, didn’t tickle her fancy. Max Borrmann ’16 reports that while he was not exactly thrilled about his experience with head cheese—all the vari-ous bits of ground up meat from the crevices of a pig’s head—it did make everything he ate after that taste like a sensational trip

through Wonka’s factory. From Oct. 18 to Oct. 25, these students’ French hosts embarked on a journey to the most incred-ible place imaginable: America, the land of cowboys, apple pie and deep fryers. During their short time here, the French stu-dents took part in all kinds of excursions, such as trips to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, apple orchards, local festivities and so much more. Morris, who kept in touch with her French host sister via

On Oct. 18, a dozen students sacrificed their school-free Sat-urday to venture out to Cleve-land in a quest for knowledge, justice and equality. Their des-tination: the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) Eighth Annual Youth Conference at the LGBT Com-munity Center of Greater Cleve-land. History teacher Dr. Lisa-beth Robinson chaperoned the group. From the outside, the Center, a small brick storefront, would

not warrant a second look from passerby. Its sole distinguish-ing feature was a collection of scarves—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet—in the window. The students were led down a staircase in the store to dis-cover the lively atmosphere of the event. Friendly greetings and warm cinnamon rolls soon dem-onstrated the Center’s efferves-cent hospitality. To begin the conference, at-tendees met Gary DiBianca, the Co-Chair of GLSEN of North-east Ohio (GLSEN NEO). Next

to speak was the inspiring and witty Paige Joy, a college junior with many heartwarming sto-ries to tell about her experiences growing up as a lesbian. Jeff Bixby, co-chair of GLSEN NEO, followed with an interac-tive lesson in LGBTQ history, the all-too-often glossed over chapter in world history text-books. Attendees created their own LGBTQ timeline, and-dating all the way back to the time of Alexander the Great and including dates as recent as President Barack Obama’s repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. At the very end of this wall-sized timeline, the at-tendees signed their names to commemorate their places in LGBTQ history. Nancy Boutilier, professor at Oberlin College and celebrated lesbian poet, was another big hit. According to attendee San-dra Spurlock ’17, Boutilier “was an incredibly passionate speaker who knew what she was talking about.” Her enthusiasm encour-aged attendees to use their sto-ries to change the world. After a quick pizza break, the conference was visited by several members of The North Coast

Dorms Stay

First BreakOpen Over

New Policy Lets Students Relax on Campus

French Students Visit Campus for ELISA Exchange

email and Snapchat, enjoyed taking her friend shopping at authentic American retail stores. These exchange students ac-companied their hosts to classes; Morris was excited to see what her student thought of her AP United States History class, fa-mously taught by History De-partment Chair Diccon Ong ’82. Reportedly, all Borrmann’s guest student really wanted was to taste some good old American fried chicken.

Men’s Chorus. Their main goal that day was to deliver power-ful and touching stories about their lives as gay men. These stories ranged from lighthearted recollections that had their audi-ence bursting out into laughter to emotional sagas that moved some attendees to tears. “The conference allowed me to see the way that real people have been impacted by social injus-tices and how America is com-ing around to equal rights,” said Duncan Ostrom ’17. By imple-menting this equality at Western Reserve Academy, we can allow for a safe space for students and teachers to be who they are no matter what.” GSA co-president Taryn Wash-burn ’16, who attended the conference, recommended that everyone try to go to at least one event like this, simply “for the sheer exposure to the informa-tion and culture.” After hearing the stories of so many inspiring people, the at-tendees of the GLSEN NEO Eighth Annual Youth Confer-ence would like to challenge Re-serve Record readers to use their own stories to make a positive difference in the world.

JENNY XU

French students on their way to the Szalay’s Farm and Market, one of many destinations on their itinerary.

By MAKENA HAYES ’17

COURTESY OF LISABETH ROBINSON

Students visited a Cleveland conference about LGBT issues on Oct. 18.

GSA Goes to GLSEN

Editors-in-Chief: Max Forsyth, Trevor LevinAssociate Editor: Kevin YangManaging Editor: Hannah McKenzieNews: Makena Hayes, Niraj NaikCommunity: Harrison AhnArts: Timmy LundEntertainment: Morissa ClaymanCenterfold: Max BorrmannSports: Trevor LinOpinion: Jaret SkoniecznyThe Coin: Max ForsythWorld News: Timmy Lund, Niraj NaikPhotography Coordinator: Jenny XuPhotographers: Max Borrmann, Josh Estrada, Maya Greenwald, Jenny Xu

Faculty Advisor: Russell Morrison

Writers: Helena Ahn, Anna Anderson, Arthur Aubergine, Adam Birch, Max Borrmann, Eric Buehler, Ajay Dakap-pagari, Tia Forsyth, Makena Hayes, Leo Holland, Colin Horgan, Yara Hus-sein, Amy Kerr, Ying Ka Leung, Trevor Levin, Trevor Lin, Anna McMurchy, Gracie Morgan, Niraj Naik, Ketty Nolan, Simon Ong, Michael Pamer, Charles Prendergast, Joey Randaz-zo, Adam Redlich, Ainsley Rhodes, Connor Semple, Gabe Skora, David Smith, Amanda Sudilovsky, Nina Tekelenburg, Peter Thewissen, Yuki Yamasaki, Mike Zeleznik

The Reserve Record is the stu-dent-run, monthly newspaper of Western Reserve Academy and the voice of and for the student body. It aims to educate its staff, writers and photographers on journalistic style, format, ethics and excellence, while entertaining and informing the student body and providing its readership a forum for com-munity expression and discussion. The editors and staff have worked on every facet of this publication. The opinions expressed in the Reserve Record do not necessarily represent those of the administra-tion, trustees or student body. The editors assume full responsibility for the contents of the publication and invite community responses.

CorrectionsAugust Issue

The Sports Page picture of Boys Cross Country coach Nicky Schnupp was taken by Jenny Xu ’15, not Maya Greenwald ’15, as originally printed.

The crossword clues contained two errors: the clue for 7 Down, which was missing, should have been “Lord of the Rings novels,” and the clue for 59 Across, which was incorrectly “Central American capital,” should have been “Middle Eastern capital.”

September Issue

Makena Hayes ’17 was listed in a Community Page caption as a mem-ber of the class of 2018.

The article “Girls Soccer, Football

Teams’ Historic Wins” claimed that the WRA football team has not de-feated Linsly in 16 years, but the team actually defeated Linsly nine years ago in its undefeated 2005 sea-son.

The crossword clues contained three errors: 10 Down, which was incor-rectly “Will Ferrell movie,” should have been “Cy Young statistic,” 53 Down, which was missing, should have been “Cheer” and 55 Down, which was missing, should have been “Metal-shaping tool.”

If you notice an error in an issue of the Reserve Record, please e-mail us at wrarecord@gmail.com. We will correct it in the following issue and tweet the correction with the user-name @wrarecord.

2

The Reserve Record

RESERVE RECORD NEWS OCTOBER 2014

At the beginning of the school year, while Western Reserve Academy students focused on the kickoff of fall sports, the ath-letic department made it their mission to replace last year’s Boys Lacrosse coach, Tim Ran-dall. After a long and arduous search, they finally found the perfect fit, alum Audi Glass ’04. Glass will take over the posi-tion with plenty of experience, including playing at Bishop’s University in Canada, work-ing with many club teams and coaching at the the College of Wooster. He will be the pro-gram’s third head coach in the past three years. Glass is excited to carry on

the rich, respected tradition of WRA lacrosse and prove that WRA still has one of the best programs in the Midwest. “Even while I was coaching college la-crosse, I aspired to be a part of

a community that you can only find at a boarding school,” he said. “I am honored to return to WRA and to lead my alma ma-ter, a program that I respect and love so much.”

Ping Pong Club Sparks Interest

To paraphrase Fight Club, the two rules of Ping Pong Club are: do talk (to everyone) about Ping Pong Club and have fun! While these may not be exactly quite up to Brad Pitt’s standards, these rules have found success for the club in the Western Reserve Academy community. Ahmad Baasiri and Jonathan Butensky-Bartlett, teachers of history and chemistry, respec-tively, first started playing with students in the Green Key and joking about helping to start the club. With some demonstrated interest from the aspiring table tennis players of the WRA stu-dent body, the two were happy to help make the dream a reality. Baasiri and Butensky-Bartlett’s new club revived the ping pong enthusiasm previously witnessed on campus when former Chinese teacher Andy Shu, the “King Kong of Ping Pong,” played at WRA. There is rarely a mo-ment during a TGIF when the Green Key’s ping pong table isn’t crowded with eager spectators of intense one-on-one matches, so they decided to set up several tables in the Murdough Athletic Center fieldhouse to encourage shyer players to participate. According to inside sources,

around 30 students showed up to the meeting on the first Fri-day, after dinner, ready to “get the ball rolling.” With the first objective of Ping Pong Club—to spread the word—complete, the only goal left was to have fun. “Moving forward, we defi-nitely want to have a couple of tournaments and award the win-ner with some sort of prize (like-ly a Chipotle gift card). Then, we will have the student win-ner play the faculty winner for bragging rights,” said Butensky-Bartlett; his fanaticism for table tennis was born just like that of

Jewish Students, Teachers

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kip-pur, also known as the High Holidays, are the two most im-portant holidays of the year for the Jewish people. The holidays occur on different dates each year on the Gregorian calendar, but they always fall on the same date on the Hebrew Calendar. This year, Rosh Hashanah oc-curs on Sept. 25 and Yom Kip-pur on Oct. 4. Rosh Hashanah translates to “head of the year” in English and marks the first day of the New Year, the first of Tishrei, on the Hebrew Calendar. The calendar is much older than the Gregorian calendar and it just entered the year 5775. Jews ob-serve Rosh Hashanah by praying at temple and celebrating with family. Apples with honey is a popular Rosh Hashanah snack: their sweetness is meant to sym-bolize the sweet new year. Yom Kippur, on the other hand, is more somber. Yom Kip-pur, the Day of Repentance, is meant to be the most religious day of the year, and Jews are sup-posed to repent for all of their sins that they have committed the past year. They traditionally

atone by fasting from sundown to sunrise. The High Holidays impact the lives of the Jewish members of the Western Reserve Academy community. “Family means ev-erything to me,” remarked Dan Dorman ’16, “and celebrating the High Holidays with them is a blessing.” Jewish students and teachers often find it difficult to celebrate the High Holidays with family members at synagogue, especially if they reside on cam-pus, but many had meaningful experiences nonetheless. “The High Holidays are a time for me to reflect and think about how I can become a better person,” stated chemistry teacher Jona-than Butensky-Bartlett. “I also think a lot about family. At this time of the year, I always think back to all the times as a child that I would attend synagogue with them.” Student Body President Trevor Levin ’15 echoed Butensky-Bartlett’s sentiments on the value of the holidays: “At WRA, you don’t get a lot of time to zoom out and look at the person you are and the person you are becoming. The High Holidays are an opportunity for that kind of reflection.”

many students: from playing on a table in his basement or at a friend’s house. The club welcomes anyone who wants to play and is cer-tainly not only for those who wish to play competitively. In case this all isn’t motivation enough for you to join, Baasiri and Butensky-Bartlett will also wear warm-up jackets to all ping pong-related events. The club leaders invite all inter-ested individuals to contact ei-ther of the two faculty leaders or any of the student leaders: Ajay Dakappagari ’16, Timmy Lund ’16 and Adam Birch ’16.

A Familiar Face Returns to WRA Campus to Coach

Celebrate High Holidays

JENNY XU

Ahmad Baasiri offers his knowledge of ping pong to help aspiring players like George Wiggam ’18.

Glass will also work in the Ad-missions Office and coach Ice Hockey in the winter. Despite planning on such a busy winter, he reassured the Record that the team will be ready come spring, thanks to scrimmages and Sun-day practices. Glass carries the unique per-spective of a WRA alumnus. “ Some of my most cherished memories are the fun times that I had living on campus with my friends, and the unique relation-ships that I built living in the dorms,” he recalled. Glass also reflected on what it’s like to be back on campus, this time as a faculty member. “It is certainly different, but it is exciting to see that WRA is still a place where bright, talented students come

By TIA FORSYTH ’18

By ADAM REDLICH ’16

By COLIN HORGAN ’15

JENNY XU

to learn.” Boys Lacrosse goalkeeper Otto Bohan ’16, who has been a mem-ber of the WRA lacrosse team for the past two years, first met Glass a couple of summers ago at the All-Star Lacrosse Clinic held at WRA and immediately felt comfortable around him. Ever since then, he has consid-ered Glass a good friend and is excited about all the experience he brings to the table. “I have no doubt that Coach Glass is prepared to help the whole team learn and ultimately lead us to success in all aspects of lacrosse,” he said. Bohan, like Glass, looks forward to the program’s growth in the offseason and to jumping back into WRA’s winning ways this Spring.

3 RESERVE RECORD COMMUNITY OCTOBER 2014

On Sunday, Sept. 21, a group of seven Western Reserve Acad-emy students took part in the largest climate change-related march in history. Music teacher Margaret Karam ’79 led the in-trepid group of students, which included Max Borrmann ’16, Lexie Dungan ’15, Max Forsyth ’15, Leo Holland ’17, Gracie Morgan ’16, Sesugh Tarhule ’15 and Nina Tekelenburg ’15. Af-ter a long and tiring journey, all members of the party said they were glad they went. The group departed campus late at night on Sept. 21 and headed west to Oberlin College. They boarded a coach bus at Oberlin’s Wilder Hall and then set off for New York City. By the time the students arrived, it was nine o’clock in the morning. Everyone was already exhausted, since the bus regulations re-quired stretching breaks at travel stations. The bus drove into the city

On Saturday, Oct. 18th, West-ern Reserve Academy put a new spin on a favorite weekend ac-tivity: the school-wide coed vol-leyball tournament. WRA’s Key Club, which aims to give WRA students the opportunity to vol-unteer in community service projects while at school, orga-nized the event. The WRA Key Club, launched over the summer, has been working to coordinate fundrais-ing opportunities throughout the year, such as the charity vol-leyball tournament. This year, the tournament has a twist: players must donate two dollars

Western Reserve Academy student Maria Paparella ’16 es-tablished a non-profit organiza-tion titled “CHAIR-ity.” Papa-rella is the sole creator of this organization and she manages all the executive duties and lo-gistics. CHAIR-ity aims to pro-vide various furniture items to emancipated kids once they are no longer under the guidance of Children Services. Currently, it restricts its servic-es to the kids of Summit County Children Services, whose policy mandates that they release kids at the age of 18. Paparella’s foun-dation ensures that these adoles-cents have essential furnishings such as beds and dinner tables. Thus, they have one less ex-penditure and can allocate that money towards something else. Paparella initiated CHAIR-ity at the beginning of this year. She states her experiences with a childhood friend as the impetus

and deposited the Ohio activists on the corner of 86th Street and Central Park West, the edge of the designated marching area. The group of WRA students walked from 86th Street down to the allocated student section that lay between 47th Street and 46th Street. They encountered marchers handing out flyers, distributing socialist indepen-dent newspapers and trading signs with slogans like Pokemon cards. At every juncture, there was a different attraction, such as live environmentally-themed music, speakers and vendors. The city reverberated with sounds of peaceful protest. With the help of Karam, the students found their way to the Green Schools Alliance repre-sentatives. WRA is a charter member of the Green Schools Alliance, a coalition of schools that agree to operate by certain environmental standards. The students waited what felt like hours on their already-aching feet, and then, without

warning, the crowd slowly began to crawl forward. People started cheering and chanting. Each member of the WRA group acquired various items along their walk, with which they proudly adorned them-selves. The march proceeded in this fashion for the rest of the day, with the exception of the two minutes of reverent silence at 12:58 p.m. A wave of noise then broke the silence, rippling through the crowd from front to back. The march ended at the intersection of 34th Street and 11th Avenue. Afterwards, the students en-joyed a few precious hours ex-ploring NYC and then departed for Oberlin. They returned to campus just in time for their sec-ond-period classes after the tax-ing bus ride. While reminiscing, it seemed as though an overall feeling of activism still lingered in their hearts. They claimed that the march filled them with a sense of accomplishment and historical significance.

for her creation of this nonprof-it. “When I was younger, I had a friend named Heaven who was under the protection of Child Services and realized that once she was discharged at 18, life would be tough,” recalls Paparel-la. She envisioned “CHAIR-ity” as a means of helping kids like Heaven who would need to sup-port themselves, and Paparella thought that providing them with basic furniture was the least she could do. Although “CHAIR-ity” is currently limited to only Sum-mit County, Paparella aspires to broaden this foundation into other Children Services pro-grams around the state of Ohio. “There are not many groups like ‘CHAIR-ity,’ and since we are so unique, it would be great to expand into other cities and states.” Paparella’s great passion and ambition for “CHAIR-ity” is evident and she seems optimistic about its future.

to play in the grueling, intense match. Proceeds from this year’s tournament will be going to the Hudson Food Pantry, an organi-zation that collects and distrib-utes donated food to families in need. This is not the first time WRA planned an event like this for its students, though. “We thought that this tournament would be a good idea because of the WRA community’s enthusiasm for similar events in the past,” explained Connor Semple ’15, president of WRA’s Key Club, referring to the previous years of glow-in-the-dark volleyball tournaments and the Business Club’s “Dave’s Cosmic Dodge-ball.” These community gather-ing events showed WRA’s pas-sion for throwing things at each other in a little friendly compe-tition. The team of Peter Barba ’15, Vince Brookins ’16, Katherine Boniface ’15, Ryan Hassell ’15, Sydney King ’15 and John Rob-erts ’15 won the tournament, and, with it, a Chipotle gift card. Despite healthy doses of t-shirt decorating, serious practices and competitive team spirit, the important aspect of the tourna-ment was to support the Hud-son Food Pantry through team donations. Before the event, Casey Semple ’18 remarked, “We hope that the event will be a lot of fun for students of all grades and skill levels, while benefitting an important cause.” After the charity volleyball tour-nament, Key Club turns its fo-cus to their next project: selling Christmas Poinsettias.

One Bead Project Expands with Help from WRAteachers at the school. Currently, One Bead is a reg-istered non-profit organization that has raised over $60,000 and is partnered with four elemen-tary schools, with 60 represen-tatives across the world. Of the 60, three currently attend WRA: Paige Warner ’15, Cecily White ’16 and Casey Semple ’18. Warner, who has been a repre-sentative for four years, pointed out that “seeing the difference the money we raise makes is an incredible thing.” At the college, high school and elementary lev-el, One Bead is proving that one student, just like one bead, can be a catalyst for change. Over the past couple of weeks, Warner has been selling One Bead bracelets with Semple and White. Setting up One Bead merchandise on dining hall ta-

bles, they sold many bracelets and t-shirts with One Bead lo-gos. During Spirit Day in Sep-tember, the WRA One Bead team promoted their cause and sold merchandise as students participated in class events.

were all very expensive. Wroblewski thought making bracelet beads would be perfect for a fundraiser, and she was right. Now she sells beads. Half of the bead is thick and the other thin to symbolize the contrast between having a lot and hav-ing a little. In the center con-necting the two halves is an “O” for the name of the school. The “O” also symbolizes the circle of unity and reflects the idea that, regardless of the different back-grounds, we are globally bound together. The bead hangs on a piece of leather like a small glass charm. With the money raised by selling the beads, One Bead has built a 923-meter long fence, which protects 350 students, and has donated 400 pounds of school supplies to students and

The One Bead Project, started by alumna Sara Wroblewski ’09, is near and dear to the hearts of Western Reserve Academy. In June 2011, Sara had the op-portunity to travel to Africa and work at a recycled-glass-blowing studio, Kitengela Hot Glass, owned by Anselm Croze in Nai-robi, Kenya. She was assigned to cre-ate a fundraiser to support the Oloosirkon Government Prima-ry School in Nairobi. Previously, Anselm had bought books for the students, but, due to the lack of security, most were stolen. As a result, he decided, with the principal, that the school needed a fence, along with other things like a restroom, electricity and a permanent water supply, which

MAYA GALLEGOSOne Bead offers exclusive green beads to WRA students.

Volleyball TournamentSupports Food Pantry

By AJAY DAKAPPAGARI ’16

By LEO HOLLAND ’17

By HELENA AHN ’15

Paparella’s CharityGives Furniture to Needy

Seven Young Activists Walk Beside400,000 Others at Climate March

MAX BORRMANN

WRA students traveled to Manhattan with Oberlin students to participate in largest climate march ever.

By KETTY NOLAN ’15

On Sunday, Oct. 5, students, parents and faculty members gathered at the Knight Fine Arts Center to listen to the Reserve Symphonic Winds, the Acade-my Orchestra and the Academy Choir. The Reserve Symphonic Winds, directed by Will Talaba, kicked off the concert, followed by the orchestra and choir, both directed by music teacher Mar-garet Karam ’79. Each of the groups played or sang a version of “The Star Spangled Banner” to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the song. To compliment the theme, Karam handed out small Ameri-can flags to faculty children in attendance. After performing the national anthem, the musi-cians performed some slightly less famous pieces. After last year’s departure of four-year concertmaster Ann Yu ’14, this concert gave the oppor-tunity to sit in the coveted po-sition of concertmaster to three violinists: Harrison Ahn ’17, Audrey Hu ’17 and Jiji Kang ’17. Between pieces, they rotat-

On Saturday, October 4, Brent & Co.—a band com-prised of Brent Peterson ’03, Dominic Fragman, Joe Martone and Frank Mitchell—returned to Western Reserve Academy’s Green Key to play a free show for all students. Peterson grew up in Washington, D.C. and at-tended WRA. He said his time here was a “fundamental part of [his] development musically and personally.” He first discovered music as a freshman at WRA, when he learned guitar. After graduating from WRA, Peterson continued to play gui-tar at Kenyon college. His senior year, he started a Motown cover band, which was “what really kind of gave [him] the bug to play music full time.” After col-lege, he played professionally in Chicago for a year and then started work for the U.S. gov-ernment in Washington, D.C. Through Craigslist, Peterson joined a band that included Joe Martone, the bassist in Brent & Co. Once that band broke up, Martone introduced him to Dominic Fragman, a drum-mer. Frank Mitchell played saxophone for the successful

RESERVE RECORD ARTS OCTOBER 20144

MAYA GREENWALD

Scary Things By Timmy Lund ’16

band Thievery Corporation, which Peterson had seen live. He saw Mitchell on the sidewalk and told him, “Sir, my name is Brent, you don’t know me, but I’d love to work with you some-day.” Peterson quit his job and started playing full time with his new band. Their music is stunningly diverse: they juxtapose Justin Bieber’s “Beauty and a Beat” with a number of classics. Brent & Co. fit “Beauty and a Beat” into their sound so masterfully that a listener who hadn’t heard the original could mistake it for a song Peterson wrote. It’s hard to properly describe Brent and Co.’s saxophone-infused sound, but they come close with “Funky Folk,” their stated genre on their Facebook page and an old name of the band. Peterson has a unique taste for music. He explains, “I’m mostly drawn to things that have really strong fundamentals. Any good pop song, or soul song, or reg-gae song, it connects to you in a way that is kind of hard to elu-cidate…but it moves you. Even if it’s Justin Bieber! Indie musi-cians sometimes really spurn pop music, but, hey, that stuff is very successful for a reason.”

ed into and out of the position. Karam wanted faculty mem-bers and their families to feel welcome, so she hatched the idea to give the faculty’s children a craft table where they could make their own instruments. The kids then played their in-struments while the choir sang. Two of the choir pieces were traditional, including longtime favorites “Siyahamba” and “We Shall Walk Through The Valley In Peace.” Karam, who was on sabbatical last year, says her first year back is “great” and she “loves it.” “The

choir is really fun,” she enthused. “It is full of really energetic kids who are really smart and witty and challenging—and they’re really funny!” Karam finds the orchestra “really interesting.” Although she “didn’t know over half the group,” she does know “they’re working really hard.” The concert was comprised mostly of music that Karam loves, and she thinks the concert showcased her students’ talent well. Overall, the musical triad provided the Western Reserve Academy community with great music and a fun experience.

By YARA HUSSEIN ’18

JENNY XU

Musicians Host Fall Family Concert

By AINSLEY RHODES ’15

By CHARLES PRENDERGAST ’15

Brent Peterson andBand Perform for

“Thing,” a bodiless hand who befriended Gomez during child-hood. This comical creature completes routine tasks such as getting the mail and commu-nicates through morse-code-like taps. The Addamses own a ghastly array of pets, including a lion named Kitty Cat, an octo-pus referred to as “Aristotle” and Cleopatra, a man-eating plant. In 2010, composer Andrew Lippa brought the family to Broadway in the musical The Addams Family. While influ-enced by Charles Addams’s original cartoons, Lippa’s show reveals a new side of the fam-ily. The musical centers around a dilemma caused by 18-year-old Wednesday’s newfound ro-mance. Wednesday, played by Jiji Kang ’17, falls in love with a “normal” boy, appalling news for her parents. Chaos ensues when Wednesday’s boyfriend is invited over for dinner. The contemporary musical has an energetic feel. Trevor Levin ’15, who will play Gomez, de-scribed the musical’s style as “varied; some of it is pretty tra-ditional musical-theatre fare, some of it is more modern and a lot of it has a flamenco touch.” The production also includes

dancing choreographed by WRA dance teacher Emily Barth and English Sasha Maseelall ’96. “There’s a lot more dancing in this musical than in the past musicals,” said Mika Takahashi ’15, a longtime star of the WRA dance program who will play Morticia. “The Addams ances-tors open the show with thriller-esque dance while Trevor and I have been working on master-ing the tango. The dancing adds a fun and upbeat element that contributes to the light humor of the show.” “Often, when one thinks of the Addams Family, the first thing that comes to mind is death: a humorous take on death, but still death,” said Simon Ong ’15, who portrays Uncle Fester in the musical, “but really this musical is all about love and how people who are very different can over-come obstacles all in the name of love.” With a blend of lively perfor-mance and playful humor, The Addams Family is a perfect way to jump into the Halloween spirit. WRA’s musical adapta-tion of the creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky, alto-gether ooky Addams Family will open October 31.

The Addams Family first ap-peared in a 1938 issue of the New Yorker. Created by cartoon-ist Charles Addams, the close-knit family is an eccentric bunch that is the mocking antithesis of the traditional American family. In 1964, Addams’ comics were brought to life when ABC re-leased The Addams Family televi-sion series. The black-and-white television program followed the daily lives of the Addams Fam-ily. A wealthy and bizarre fam-ily, they unintentionally frighten outsiders with their eccentric lifestyle. Filmed in the epitome of a “haunted mansion” across from a cemetery, The Addams Family paired light humor with ghoul-ish props. As the TV show script was drafted, Charles Addams as-signed names to the cast; among the main characters are parents Gomez and Morticia, and their young children Wednesday, Pugsley and Pubert, along with their extended family Uncle Fes-

Singers, Actors, Dancers Ready to Stage The Addams Family Musical

ter, Grandma-ma, Lurch and Cousin Itt. The show i n t r o d u c e d

Alma Mater Again

CARTOON BY CHARLES ADDAMS

The Eggplant: New

ACROSS1 ’50s dance6 Excuse me!10 Reasons14 Disney-animat ed wrecker15 Meager16 Ky. senator17 Mix of metals18 Abandon a commitment19 Star in musical20 Mexican cash21 Cleveland land mark church23 Heavy load24 Student Haller26 Prying28 Catalyst in bio31 Inning number32 Romance33 Fabric36 Pick40 Italian moun- tain42 Billion years43 Alter44 Irish dance45 Francis’s office48 Spotify’s worst feature49 Influenced by Bentham51 Folded over and sewn53 Recount56 USSR oppo-

5 RESERVE RECORD ENTERTAINMENT OCTOBER 2014

Nintendo fans, rejoice! The long-awaited fourth installment in the Super Smash Bros. series is here for the 3DS—and it does not disappoint. Immediately, it’s worth noting that this is the best roster Super Smash Bros. has assembled to date. It takes char-acters from across Nintendo’s various franchises. Boasting 51 characters both new and old, the new characters feel absolutely incredible, with a huge variety in play-style. Shulk, for example, of Xenoblade Chronicles uses his Monado arts to switch his play-style mid-match.

Crossword by Trevor Levin ’15

nent57 Alcoholic bev- erage58 Subordinate ruler61 Poles65 Plunge into water67 Thailand68 Agricultural student69 East70 Border71 Soothe72 Fulminate73 Accomplish- ment74 Fold bread

DOWN1 Snare2 Rapper from D.C.3 Evils4 Halloween- themed5 Archaic “your”6 Scope7 Cure8 Buehler9 Skin pigment10 Typing speed11 Dominican Re- public neigh- bor12 Jack London’s river

13 Jargon21 Popular cookie brand22 Sine qua ___25 Baseball of- ficial27 Dry, to Ancient Mariner28 Large jug with wide mouth29 Short letter30 Area31 XC captain34 Bell’s ringing

35 Cut off37 Dutch cheese38 Assistant39 Veterans’ ill- ness41 ___ Mater45 Content46 Fellow47 Still50 September is- sue fixed head- line52 Evan, Gracie53 Detection

Even old characters like Bows-er, Mario’s archrival, have been reinvented in a way that makes them feel new. There are some exceptions, of course, but clones are nothing new for the fran-chise, and, as developer Sakurai states, they’re nice bonus mate-rial that the player would not have otherwise. The stages in Super Smash Bros. 3DS are, on average, of the highest quality they’ve ever been. Stages like Spirit Train from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Magicant from Mother and Arena Ferox from Fire Em-blem: Awakening are all some of the best that Smash Bros. has to offer. While the stages are of the highest caliber, there are un-fortunately not many of them. Compared to the previous in-stallment’s 41 stages, Smash Bros. for 3DS only has 34, with nine of them coming from pre-vious games in the franchise. However, it’s important to note that Smash Bros. 3DS pushes its hardware to the limit, and with such a large roster and smooth

gameplay, sacrifices needed to be made somewhere. Smash 3DS’s new exclusive mode, Smash Run, is also less than perfect. Inspired by City Trial from Kirby Air Ride, Smash Run sees players running around a large arena, taking out classic Nintendo enemies in an effort to boost their individual stats, all culminating in a battle-royale where players benefit from the stats they collected. While it’s an interesting concept and is argu-ably the best part about Kirby Air Ride, it falls short here. It of-ten leaves the player wondering what the point is, as the stats can be difficult to collect and in the end don’t seem to make much of a difference. Overall, however, Smash for 3DS is a fantastic game. It has its problems, but most of these stem from hardware limitations on the 3DS (including the lack of the Ice Climbers in the ros-ter!). This means that one can only expect the best from the Wii U version, which will arrive on November 21.

The Eggplant, above, is a satirical sub-publication, not a real news article.

MAX BORRMANN

By SIMON ONG ’15

Ong battles it out with favorite Super Smash Bros. characters on “custom built” stage, Brick Row.

system54 Study abroad program55 Botches cross- word twice56 Called59 Moon effect60 Wrath62 Lecherous stare63 Opera singer64 Origin66 Devour68 Inquire

High school sporting events, especially those between rivals, can fuel an undefinable energy among the student body. How-ever, sometimes the cheers and conduct of the students can get out of hand: students might boo at calls made by referees or laugh when an opposing player makes a mistake. Because this type of behavior does a poor job of pro-jecting the image that our school desires, the Western Reserve Academy administration has de-termined that certain measures need to be put into place to keep the sporting environment posi-tive and respectful. Some of the new measures in-clude the following:1. Rosters handed out at games will include pre-approved posi-tive nicknames for all the players on both teams. 2. Fans from the home and visit-ing team must shake hands be-fore and after the game, just like the players.3. All cheers must be submitted to the deans office for approval no later than one week before the game.4. If signs are going to be made, then a sign must be made for every player on the field: home and visiting. As with cheers,

The Ong Review: Super Smash Bros. for 3DS Console Impresses Players

You know if Miley Cyrus is featured on an album, it won’t be a masterpiece. Alt-J’s new-est album release is certainly no masterpiece. I had high expecta-tions, but alt-J, an experimental rock band from England also known as ∆, let me down. There was so much hype for a great alt-J release: a follow-through to their first studio al-bum An Awesome Wave. But This Is All Yours, their sophomore al-bum, only has a of couple tracks worth listening to. “Warm Foot-hills,” featuring Conor Oberst, is choppy yet graceful with strange but beautiful lyrics: “Blue drag-onflies dart to and fro / I tie my life to your balloon and let it go” highlights the album’s roman-

tics. On the other hand, “Every Other Freckle” has some creepy pick up lines and remarks wor-thy of calling the police. Quite frankly, some songs seem carelessly thrown together. “Hunger of the Pine” mysteri-ously opens with dark lyrics about yearning for a loved one before breaking to Cyrus’s line “I’m a female rebel.” It then closes with two statements in French. The styles of music shoot out in a dozen different directions, and it’s not pleasant. Alt-J is trying too hard to be edgy, indie and hipster all at once. While I applaud Alt-J’s quest for “fun” through diverse musical expression, This Is All Yours is flat and boring. I hope their third album is a bit more organized.

they must be submitted to the deans office for approval.5. All fans must cheer when the opposing team scores a point.6. All members of the team are allowed to ring the victory bell, regardless of the final score. Ev-eryone is a winner if they try their hardest. The opposing team is also allowed to ring the victory bell. Hopefully, with these new practices in place, more students will attend sporting events and those in attendance will have a great time. “If everyone is posi-tive and supportive, the stands will be full at every event,” states one administrator. The students sound excited as well. One sophomore exclaimed, “I can’t wait to get my cheers approved. I’ve been thinking of a lot of really nice things to yell dur-ing the game against our rivals next week!” Clearly, students just wanted permission from the administration before they sup-ported opposing sports teams. As the fall season draws to a close and the games move inside, the WRA community hopes the constructive and enthusiastic spirit of the student body will make the Murdough Athletic Center a welcoming place to cheer on our—and, of course, visiting—student-athletes.

By ARTHUR AUBERGINE

Expectations Puton Sportsmanship

alt-J DisappointsBy GRACIE MORGAN ’16

7RESERVE RECORD CENTERFOLD OCTOBER 2014 RESERVE RECORD CENTERFOLD OCTOBER 20146

FALL FUN

Founded nearly 200 years ago, Western Reserve Academy holds many tales that relate to the spooky attitude associated with Halloween. Hayden Hall, the Loomis Observatory and the cemetery on Chapel Street are all suitable places for rumors of hauntings. While Hayden and the Loomis Observatory offer few concrete facts upon which ghost tales could be based, many people have experienced odd oc-currences while in the cemetery. “Most [tomb]stones face west,” said WRA archivist Tom Vince, “but there is one that faces east.” The east-facing tombstone is that of a man by the last name Loomis—the same Loomis that the observatory was named in honor of. The adjacent house, where music teacher Marga-ret Karam ’78 currently lives, dubbed “Tombstone Cottage,” refers to the Loomis stone. Along with the mysterious

If, by chance, you have seen a pumpkin in the past month, odds are it is October. Peculiar, considering that said fruit (Yes, fruit. A pumpkin spice latte, sadly, does not come from a veg-etable.) hibernates for about 11 months before they appear all over the community. And wow, do people jump on the band-wagon! This time of year, any-thing and everything originate from pumpkins; there are the traditional appearances in the form of pumpkin pies and jack o’ lanterns, as well as limited editions of foods, which include but are not limited to: pump-kin spice Oreos, pumpkin spice marshmallows, pumpkin spice gum, pumpkin potato chips, pumpkin Pop Tarts, pumpkin ice cream and let’s not forget the infamous, aforementioned pumpkin spice latte. At this rate, it is only a matter of time before someone creates a pump-kin spice toothpaste or pumpkin lip gloss. As the world continues to buy

Haunted Happeningsin Academy’s History

How Pumpkins Procured their Place in our Palattes

Returns After One-Year Hiatus

Find the Fun Fall Phrases...acornbutternutpumpkin spicegourdscrimsonleavesciderrain

McintoshFujiRed deliciousgranny smithchillhot cocoafootballcornucopia

ghosthauntedskeletonmummycinnamonscarecrowflannelautumn

maplebootssquirrelcandy corncrisphayridehaunted housejack-o’-lantern

By MIKE ZELEZNIK ’16into the pumpkin hype, let us take a minute to ask, “How ex-actly did the pumpkin become such a Halloween staple in the first place?” To find out the answer to that question, we must dig into the archives of history and find the origin of the most prominent use of pumpkins around Hal-loween: the Jack O’ Lantern. According to an Irish folk-tale, a man by the name of “stingy Jack” once met the devil in a lo-cal pub, where Jack convinced him to turn into a coin, so they could both get free drinks. Jack then placed a cross on the table, while the devil could not escape it. Jack held him hostage until the devil agreed not to disturb him for a whole year. After that time passed, the unsatisfied Devil sought to meet Jack again. They met in a field, where Jack told the devil to climb a tree and pick fruit. While he did so, Jack carved a cross into the tree and the devil could not go down. They then made a deal, in which the devil could not claim Jack’s soul. However, when Jack died,

God did not want his impure soul in heaven and placed it in a burning coal, which He then placed into a turnip. Yes, you read that right. The first Jack O’ Lantern was carved in a turnip. Not to worry, how-ever, for over time, the rest of Europe began to embrace the Jack O’ Lantern. People in Scot-land made them out of pota-toes. Then, Britain joined in on

the action, using beets! To cut to the chase, it was not until the discovery of the new world and westward expansion that the pumpkin, a fruit native to the Americas, was introduced. The colonists soon found that the pumpkin, with its large size and removable seeds, made great Jack O’ Lanterns, thus becom-ing the main means of carving. With the popularity of the Jack

By ADAM BIRCH ’16tombstone of Mr. Loomis, there is an area of the cemetery that is coined “Old College Area.” In the 1830s, when WRA (then Western Reserve College) had just been founded, the quality of health care and knowledge about disease was far more primitive than the technology we have to-day. For this reason, the school allocated a portion of the cem-etery to the purpose of burying students who died of illness. The WRA class of 1901 was 30 students large. Eleven young men and two ambitious young women earned diplomas that year– the other 17 students at-tended the school, but did not earn a diploma. Among these 17 students was Otto Neubauer, a popular young man who often volunteered at the Cleveland hospital. Otto contracted the smallpox disease in April of 1901 and died in North Hall shortly thereafter. The senior’s death forced officials to quarantine the school for over a week to prevent

tale of a ghost comes from the David Hudson house. It served many purposes over the years. Built from 1805-1806 by Da-vid Hudson for his family of eight children, the David Hud-son house, located on North Main St., is currently the oldest standing structure in Summit County. After David Hudson, the house served as a post office, a tavern and a stop on the un-derground railroad; the Burner family lived in the house from 1994 until 2009. During their stay they encountered a num-ber of “strange happenings” ac-cording to an article from the Akron Beacon Journal in 2006. They reported creepy sounds and lights powering on after they had been turned off. An-other goulish instance, Matthew Burner, then 2 or 3 years old, yelled “Mommy, there’s a man in the dining room.” There was no one there, but Matthew was convinced. “He’s in the corner,” he told her, “He’s wearing really weird clothes.” Whether true or not, the sto-ries of ghosts at WRA speak to the rich history associated with the school.

the spread of the deadly disease. Otto was temporarily buried in the cemetery on Chapel street. Later, his classmate Lucien Price wrote about the macabre story in his account of his experiences at WRA called Hardscrabble Hel-

las. Originally published in the Atlantic magazine, Hardscrabble Hellas inspired the name of the WRA yearbook, Hardscrabble. The first edition was published in 1942. Perhaps the most convincing

By YUKI YAMASAKI ’16

O’ Lantern came the popularity (albeit for one month every year) of the pumpkin. This means pumpkin harvests, pumpkin pie and pumpkin spiced everything. In hindsight, it is quite bizarre to think that the pumpkin might not have been the celebrated fruit of Halloween, but the colo-nists’ choice was probably best. After all, a potato spice Oreo does not sound very appetizing.

JENNY XU

TIMMY LUND

After a one-year hiatus, the Wood House Haunted House is back! Under the masterful guidance of Latin teacher Jeff Namiotka, the freshmen boys will attempt to put on a show to scare the “P” out of any Pioneer who dares to enter. “Namiotka has been doing this for years,” said English teacher Jeff Warner, “He’s got this thing down to a science.” A tour guide will take each group on a winding tour of Wood’s first floor, second floor, some of its common rooms and even its basement. Each room will have a different surprise,

with a different horror around every turn. In the spirit of Hal-loween, candy will be awarded to anyone who makes it through the whole course. “It’s pretty scary,” Namiotka boasted. “One year, a girl came out the other side and just burst out into tears.” Grinning with pride, he recalled: “I just thought, ‘Yes!’” Namiotka has even involved his family in the spook fest in past years, with his daughters singing and scaring right alongside the boys. Numerous upperclassmen boys remember the event fond-ly. Simon Ong recounted, “My freshman year, I wrapped myself in tin foil and hid in a tin foil

wrapped room. The costume trapped all of my body heat and was uncomfortable to wear, but the thrill of scaring people was definitely worth it.” Ong ex-pressed high hopes. “Some of this year’s freshmen seem espe-cially creative, and I can’t wait to see what they will come up with.” The event will take place on Saturday, Oct. 25. It will start at 7:30 and continue until 9:30 or until every guest has gone through the course. Students are allowed, and encouraged, to go through multiple times. The Wood House residents are excited, since this is a great way to show off the and demonstrate

The freshman will try to scare everyone, just like they did two years ago. Visitors can expect to run into just about everything. You never know what is around the corner.

ALAN DOE

Wood House Haunted House

what its occupants are capable of doing. Wood House, as a fresh-man dorm, has developed a rep-utation for uncleanliness, which has in turn inspired a determina-

tion to impress. With a group as goofy, organized and enthusias-tic as this year’s freshman boys, it is hard to imagine this haunted house as anything but a success.

COURTESY OF THOMAS VINCE

Otto Neubauer, class of 1901, died of smallpox while at WRA.

TIMMY LUND

8 RESERVE RECORD SPORTS OCTOBER 2014

This year’s fall sports teams achieved great success, from the all-star soccer squads to the tri-umphant football team. Boys Cross Country was led by first-year head coach Nikki Schnupp and captain Colin Horgan ’15. The team contin-ued its tradition of success, plac-ing in the upper half in all of its meets. The boys placed second four times and took home the first-place trophy twice. Horgan and Danny Mylott ’17 consis-tently took home top finishes for the group. Captained by seniors Molly Hulver ’15 and Nina Tekelen-burg ’15, Girls Cross Country achieved similar success. The girls consistently outran op-ponents, enjoying themselves along the way. In all but one of the team’s 10 meets, the girls placed among the top 10 teams. Tekelenburg and Elizabeth Downing ’17 often crossed the finish line first for the Pioneers. The Golf team posted a strong 2014 campaign as well. Captain Barnabas Wang ’15 was a big factor in the team’s 12-2 record. The team ended the season with a five game winning streak that culminated in their winning the IPSL League Championship for the first time since 2010. Their record was a team effort; ev-eryone on the squad averaged

By AMY KERR ’18a score in the 40’s, with some members even scoring in the 30’s on occasion. The Girls Tennis team con-quered under the leadership of captain Sydney King ’15, finish-ing the season 10-4. King, along with McKenzie Deeter ’17 and Alicia Ma ’18, often came out on top in singles. The duo of Elizabeth Wood ’15 and Sophie Shen ’15 powered through their match-ups, contributing to a great season. This success carried over to the back fields for the Girls Soccer team. The team had an enor-mous year under captains Zoe McCormick ’15 and Sam Hasel-tine ’15, finishing with a 12-4-1 record. The seniors provided great leadership while young-sters Abby King ’18 and Alex Randazzo ’18 showed promise to carry on a winning tradition. The Field Hockey team per-formed well in the face of ad-versity, finishing with a 6-8-2 record. Captains Abby Wyman ’15, Darby Johnson ’15 and Sar-ah Forhan ’15 led a very close-knit team. Lexi Hubbel ’15, the team’s goalie, provided a steady presence the whole season while Cristen Barnett ’16 was consis-tently spectacular. The team per-formed well despite the absence of Forhan, who missed the sea-son after sustaining a back in-jury last spring. The Volleyball team finished

As the 2014-15 NBA season draws nearer, fans continue to speculate as to what the new sea-son will bring. The Association was shaken up over the offseason as many notable players moved to new teams. There were sev-eral offseason transactions, none more substantial than LeBron James leaving the Miami Heat and returning to Cleveland to play for the Cavaliers. New teams will likely emerge as the top Eastern Conference powers. The Chicago Bulls and the Cleveland Cavaliers are now the favorites to advance to the Finals. While the Cavs are sure to finish the season with a win-ning record, the squad may not be poised to bring home the title just yet. Most of the players on their roster lack any true experi-ence in the postseason, and the players have not had the time to form chemistry. This team will likely need a season to gel. In the same division, the Chi-cago Bulls are coming off a play-off season and now have all-star point guard Derrick Rose back from injury. Pau Gasol’s move to the Bulls from the Lakers should also help them secure a high seed in the East. Although both the Wizards and the Raptors should do well this year, the Bulls seem

By DAVID SMITH ’18

likely to win the conference. On the other side of the coun-try, The Western Conference is loaded with quality teams, but the true contenders should be the Spurs, Clippers and Thun-der. The 2013-14 Most Valuable Player, Kevin Durant, is cur-rently out with a foot injury that will certainly hurt the Thunder’s chances of competing for a title. If Durant returns to the court in full health, however, he and Russell Westbrook should lead the Thunder into the playoffs. With the Donald Sterling con-troversy in the past, the Clippers should be able to focus strictly on basketball. This team has true talent, and are likely to to make

What to Expect for 2015 NBA Season

Pioneers Post Prosperous Fall Seasonthe season with an impressive 19-6 record. Two-year captain Katie Chlysta ’15 led the team to a winning streak of eight games to end the season. The team will lose over half of its roster next year, but under the leadership of juniors Maya Gallegos ’16 and Rachel Morris ’16, the team hopes to be ready for 2015. The Boys Soccer team found their rhythm again this season, following the lead of senior cap-tains Kurt Haller ’15, Ryan Sti-fler ’15 and Ryan Hassell ’15. At press time, the boys had a record of 15-1-5 with one game remaining. Their season was highlighted by Hassell’s record-breaking performance in which he increased his career goal total to 105. The team finished the season second in the Ohio Divi-sion III State Rankings. Finally, the Football team had an encouraging season that bodes well for the future of the program. In recent years, the team has struggled to post a winning record, but this year, quarterback Colt Roe ’16, along with Zak Burgan ’15, Alex Cec-chini ’15 and Mat Haemer ’15, led the team to a record of 5-2 at press time with two games remaining on its schedule. The football program’s upswing, along with the success of all oth-er varsity teams, meant a very prosperous fall sports season for Western Reserve Academy.

the Western Conference Finals this year, provided the Thunder struggle to compensate for the absence of Durant. Meanwhile, the reigning champions, the San Antonio Spurs, may be as good as ever. The experienced squad has the skill and the confidence to bring them to their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. Despite their old age, this team shows no signs of slowing down and should not be ignored. The NBA landscape has under-gone dramatic changes, but only time will tell if these changes will have enough influence to change the balance of power that has ex-isted for years in the Association.

In the last four years, the West-ern Reserve Academy Boys Soc-cer team has achieved some of its greatest success in the history of the program. With Ryan Hassell ’15 in the center of the attack, the past four teams have conced-ed only eight losses on their way to 64 victories and 10 draws. Hassell arrived on WRA’s cam-pus in 2011 with the goal of excelling in the classroom and on the soccer field. The team quickly felt his presence. By the end of his freshman campaign, the center-striker had already compiled 23 goals while helping the team to an impressive record of 16 wins, two losses and one draw. Sporting a new number, 10 instead of 17, Hassell reached new heights during his sopho-more season. He contributed an astonishing 33 goals to a team that finished with a record of 19 wins, zero losses and two draws. This team finished the season atop the state rankings as the #1 Division III team in Ohio and second-ranked prep school team in the country. Facing high expectations, Has-sell entered his junior campaign demanding more of himself than ever. The 2013 season was, comparatively, a down year, but the team still managed a respect-able 14-5-2 record. This was due in large part to 18 goals from Number 10. Hassell’s senior season was an emotional one that he described as “filled with many victories and many tears.” At press time, the striker had an unprecedented 105 career goals at WRA, thanks in part to a 33-goal senior season. These goals helped the Pioneers achieve an exciting 15-2-5 record. One of these draws came against state-ranked CVCA. In the match, Hassell sealed his name in the WRA record books by scor-ing his 102nd career goal. This goal tied

By TREVOR LIN ’15the all-time record held by head coach and Director of Athletics and Afternoon Programs Herb Haller ’85, but more was still to come from the striker. On October 17, in a match against the Linsly School, Has-sell broke a 0-0 deadlock early in the second half by finding the back of the net off an assist from Tim Lund ’16. This goal brought his career total to 103, the highest mark in the history of the program. Hassell recalled the excitement both he and the team felt in this moment: “I threw up 103 with my fingers and hugged my teammates who also knew the record was now mine.” Hassell finished his ca-reer with 105 goals, the most of any Boys Soccer player and second all-school only to Nicky Waldeck ’13. In the final Division III rank-ings of the 2014 season, WRA ranked second in the state of Ohio. This success was the result of a team effort, though Hassell certainly contributed greatly. Hassell gave credit to Haller, calling him “the rock that was like a father to [him] and the best coach [he has] ever played under.” The co-captain will not soon forget his days donning the green and white, and it remains to be seen how next year’s squad will compensate for his absence. It is clear, however, that Hassell will find success at whichever college can lure him.

Hassell Concludes Record-Setting Career

ALAN DOE

JENNY XU Lebron James (left) and Blake Griffin (right) hope to go far in 2015 season.

9 RESERVE RECORD OPINION OCTOBER 2014

Keep Out of OHSAA for a More Inclusive Athletic ProgramBy JOEY RANDAZZO ’17

As our fall athletic season comes to a close, we are all faced with an anti-climactic final game. Depending on what sport you are partici-pating in, or how long you have been around West-ern Reserve Academy, you may be wondering “Why don’t we have playoffs?” For a time, I wondered the same thing. Several WRA fall sports teams had great seasons and, if given the op-portunity, could potentially perform well in the state tournament. I discovered that WRA does not participate in the state tournament be-cause the school is not a member of the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA). So why don’t we just join the Association? Therein lies the problem: OHSAA allows any school to join their association, but it prohibits international students from participating in interscholastic sports. As

part of the eligibility check, students must have at least one parent living in Ohio in order to be eligible. This would violate one of WRA’s key principles: inclusion. Because of these rules, many of our sports teams would be signifi-

Yik-Yak: Drawing the Line Between Humor and Hazing

Yik Yak is an app that al-lows anyone to write and read anonymous posts called “yaks.” Once a yak is posted, it can be read by the nearest 500 users, un-less it has received enough “downvotes” that it disap-pears. The anonymity of the posts gives their authors an immense power: the abil-ity to say anything without having to take responsibility for it. Does it really matter who sees the post or what it is about? Even though there are no direct consequences for the author, there are many reasons to think be-fore typing. In the app, gossip and rumors run rampant. Of-ten, the yaks insinuate specific people by giving away details about them. Some yaks even mention people’s names. The writer

of a yak does not usually prioritize writing in a con-siderate manner. The aim is usually humor; however, a moment’s amusement should never risk humili-ation. Someone’s reputa-tion can be tarnished with a few clicks and swipes. The words of the yak’s 500 po-tential viewers can spread to thousands, orally and through today’s technol-ogy. It is unjust for people to write things about others that they would not want written about themselves. If a thought is too contro-versial to voice without ano-nymity, it probably should not be voiced where hun-dreds of people can see it on Yik Yak. The invisibility the app gives is hazardous. It creates an undefined line between reality and fantasy, between truth and lies. The small blurbs of up to 200 characters can have a mas-

sive influence on readers. A person’s initial instinct is to believe what is told. If someone is angry with a peer, they can spread slan-der and falsehoods while remaining perfectly name-less. Even worse, secrets of the most private form can be made public, and the re-vealer maintains the secu-rity of being unknown. This method of communication

In addition to academ-ics and athletics, one of the highlights of Western Re-serve Academy life is the myriad of clubs and or-ganizations available for students to join. Although WRA students hold high expectations for themselves and their clubs, they do not have much free time to ac-complish their goals. Ac-cordingly, students require

By MAX BORRMANN ’16

Randazzo (middle) with international students David Rabus ’17 (left) and Max Shin ’18 (right) after practice.

cantly downsized if we joined OHSAA. Many of our friends and teammates would not be able to play on these teams. It is unreason-able for OHSAA to prohibit members of a school com-munity from participation in a sport. If a student is liv-

more allotted time during the week to gather with club members and discuss future activities and projects. My freshman year, when the schedule was a bit dif-ferent, two time slots each week were designated for club activities. This worked well because it split up the meetings so that they were not all at the same time. Now, with our new sched-ule, there is only one activi-ties period per week. With

A Call for More Time Towards Club Activities

Josh Estrada

By ANNA ANDERSON ’17

produces a haziness that has the power to destroy people’s self-esteem. The yaks can be true or false. The writer can be anyone. Philippians 4:8 instructs: “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.” This is an applicable way to think about the posts of Yik Yak. The community should post

thoughts that are honest and respectable. Yik Yak is an interesting way to express thoughts or jokes because there is an ab-sence of inhibition caused by known identity in other social media. Many users do not abuse the app and inspire laughter in many people. However, humor and injustice are not insepa-rable.

ing on campus at a school that is, in a way, accepting parenthood and responsi-bility for the student, then he or she should be allowed to participate in interscho-lastic sports. Because of this, I support WRA’s position not to join OHSAA.

WRA offers opportunities in lieu of the state tourna-ment so that students still experience traveling with a team and participating at a high competition level. Fall and winter teams often par-ticipate in tournaments or travel out of state to play games, and spring teams head south for spring break to take part in tournaments or to play “preseason” games. Some teams travel by plane and some by bus. Most students love the trips. Many times, these trips make the best memories for a team. I participated in the baseball spring break trip this past school year to Vero Beach, Florida and had a great time. As much as I would love to win a state championship, it would never be the same if my international teammates couldn’t do it with me. I am glad that we have not joined OHSAA. It would be against the principles of our school to discriminate against the international students.

this arrangement it is nearly impossible for anyone who is a member of multiple clubs to attend the meetings of more than one club. On top of having limited time for group meetings during the week, there are often class meetings or other mandatory meetings sched-uled during this time, mak-ing it even harder to gather as a group. We must carve more time out of the schedule for stu-

dents to develop their in-terests outside of required academics. Other time gaps during the week, such as Friday afternoons, Thurs-day mornings, or even Sat-urdays after lunch, could easily be devoted specially to the meeting of clubs and organizations. Of all the clubs students can join at Club Expo, very few become regularly-meet-ing clubs due to the diffi-culty of finding a time that

accommodates the varying schedules of all involved. While there will never be a perfect solution, carving time into the existing sched-ule will make it significant-ly easier to plan meetings. This will lead to more active clubs and allow students to explore a greater spectrum of interests without hav-ing to sacrifice other areas of concern. One activities period per week just is not cutting it.

Max Borrmann

OCTOBER 2014 The Cointhetical people named Jim and Allen respectively. Jim eats lots of unhealthy foods, smokes co-pious amounts of unfiltered cig-arettes and practices Motocross tricks without wearing a helmet. He also pays $30,000 in taxes annually. Allen, on the other hand, eats only healthy food, ex-ercises daily and makes a point of avoiding anything potentially harmful to his health. Allen pays $60,000 in taxes annually. If Jim and Allen live in a country where universal health care is in effect, such as the U.K., both men will pay a certain percentage of their taxes, say one third, to the Na-tional Health Service (NHS). This means that the NHS will receive $10,000 from Jim and $20,000 from Allen. Now let’s pretend that Jim, as a result of his unhealthy lifestyle, suffers a heart attack from his terrible eating habits, followed by the development of lung can-cer from his smoking and then a horrific Motocross accident resulting in a traumatic brain in-jury (TBI). Using conservative estimates, the cost to the NHS of performing Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting for the heart attack, chemotherapy for the tumor and brain surgery for the

TBI amounts to about $80,000. That’s eight times more than what Jim paid the NHS! So where does the rest of the mon-ey come from? Allen and people like him, of course. Allen almost never requires medical care, and when he does, it is very inexpen-sive. As a result, the vast majority of the money Allen pays to the NHS will not be used to care for him. Instead, most of it is used to pay for treatments for Jim and others like him. To further exacerbate this injustice, if Allen suffers an injury that does not

require immediate treatment, (maybe he breaks his arm res-cuing someone from a bear at-tack), he is forced to wait while the hospital treats Jim for all of the severe injuries he brought

upon himself as a result of his own idiotic behavior. Welcome to the world of universal health care, where the healthy people pay for the unhealthy people’s bad decisions. In addition, one must con-sider that universal health care does not equate with universal access to medical care. A 2006 report by the U.K.’s Depart-ment of Health stated that at any given time, there exist close to 900,000 patients waiting to be admitted to NHS hospi-tals. On top of this, each year, 50,000 operations are cancelled in the U.K. because of shortages resulting from inefficiency in the healthcare system. In Sweden, another country with universal health care, the waiting time for heart surgery can last over six months, even though 75% of cases are “urgent.” Furthermore, the average waiting time for a

hip replacement in Swe-den is over a year. Can you imagine waiting for over a year for a crucial pain-relieving surgery such as hip replacement? I certainly cannot. When Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin of the Ca-nadian Supreme Court wrote, “access to a wait-

ing list is not access to health care,” she was entirely correct. To contrast the depressing waiting times suffered by pa-tients within universal health-care systems, data from the U.S., a country that thankfully does not have universal health care, suggests a much better land-scape for prompt patient care. Zero percent of U.S. heart-sur-gery patients had to wait longer than three months for surgery, and nearly 90% of U.S. patients requiring hip replacement un-derwent their surgery in under three weeks, with no patients waiting six months or more. Moreover, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported that in the U.S., “waiting time is not a policy concern.” It is clear that the U.S. is better off with a free-market health care system.

healthcare system. It’s time we do the same. I’m puzzled by the account-ability argument made by my friend on the other side of the Coin. He assumes, most troublingly, that people need health care primarily for mala-dies that result from their own decisions. People go to the hos-pital for viruses that they did not choose to contract. They go for car accidents that they did not decide to enter. They go for cancers and diseases and disasters of all kinds, some of which result from their choic-es, but most of which don’t. Additionally, Peter argues that a universal healthcare system incentivizes people to make less healthy decisions. Firstly, if that were true, where does the longer life expectancy in coun-tries with universal health care come from? Secondly, that’s just not how people make health decisions. I may have to check this with the Caterham exchange students currently visiting campus, but I would guess that few people in sin-gle-payer healthcare countries decide that heart disease is no trouble as long as someone else pays for the double bypass.

I’m pretty confident in the moral strength of my argu-ment, because I haven’t read a convincing case why some children don’t deserve to go to the doctor when they’re sick because their parents don’t make enough money. Instead, let’s discuss the practical effects of a single-payer system. I need not turn to hypotheti-cals. Here’s the data: even with longer waiting lists, people in advanced industrialized coun-tries with universal health care live longer than Ameri-cans at a lower cost. In fact, even Cuba, a country with a per-capita GDP at just over a tenth of America’s, has a higher life expectancy and a lower in-fant mortality rate. Somehow, when more people have greater access to medical care, more

people live longer. It is impossible to make a convincing moral case for a free-market healthcare system. In such a system, the qual-ity and amount of care you receive directly depends on how much money you have. A private health system attaches your right to life (or, at least,

to treatment) to your ability to pay. A person’s economic suc-cess, contrary to popular belief, does not reflect that person’s value. Even if it were, it would be a terrible metric: the U.S. offers lower economic mobility than our European counter-parts. Peter gave me the (probably sound) advice to avoid using Breaking Bad in my argument. It’s worth noting, however, that when people face serious medi-cal conditions like cancer, they often also face financial disas-

ter. Our collective decision to allow such a situation wreaks havoc on the patient’s health. (You know what this cancer patient needs? Stress, guilt and poverty!) It’s also morally bankrupt. We look the sick in the eye and tell them exactly how much they need to pay for us to save their life. If they can’t afford it, tough luck. More fundamentally, our healthcare system shapes our understanding of society. With universal health care, we (lit-erally) take care of each other. When you’re down, we’ll help you back up. We take respon-sibility for the general well-being. We strengthen our na-tional community and respect each other’s value as human beings. Without it, you’re on your own, kid.

Universal Care Improves Health and Society

Comics by Timmy Lund ’16, Portraits by Max Borrmann ’16

Universal health care does not equate with universal access to medical care. At any given time, there ex-ist close to 900,000 patients waiting to be admitted to NHS hospitals.

Even before the passage of the highly-controversial Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010, debate about nationalized ver-sus free-market versus hybrid healthcare systems was quite common, and remains that way today. Though I concede that universal healthcare systems lead to longer average life spans where they are implemented, I firmly believe that such systems remain inferior to free market models, principally because of the inequitable distribution of costs of treatment and long waiting times for care. Unlike free market systems, universal healthcare systems re-move any sort of financial ac-countability from the process of treatment. Consider two hypo-

Four years ago, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Af-fordable Care Act, affection-ately dubbed “Obamacare” by House Republicans. The law has surpassed even the admin-istration’s optimistic expec-tations and has tangibly im-proved healthcare access in the U.S. (a topic for another Coin, maybe). It stopped short, how-ever, of creating a publicly-funded “universal” healthcare system and left the healthcare market intact. This decision, though politically necessary, left much to be desired from the healthcare overhaul. Every other developed country—this is no exaggeration—has recog-nized the moral, economic and health benefits of a universal

10

Free-Market Health Care: Accountability and Access

By TREVOR LEVIN ’15

By PETER THEWISSEN ’15

In a free-market sys-tem, the quality and amount of care you receive directly de-pends on how much money you have.

RESERVE RECORD THE COIN OCTOBER 2014 11

torious walk on the moon in July of 1969, inspired unparalleled national pride and patriotism in the U.S. However, despite these historic successes, recent budget cuts have forced the National Aero-nautic and Space Administration (NASA) to cancel their modern shuttle program altogether, leav-ing the U.S. with no way to trans-port humans into outer space. As a result, NASA has been forced to rent spots aboard Russian space expeditions: the agency shells out $63 million per seat to the program that our nation once fought so hard to outdo. What happened to the spirit of innovation that once drove America to achieve the impos-

sible? The moon has provided scientists a natural laboratory to study mineral resources and the atmosphere. As a result, NASA is responsible for more than 6,300 patents on inventions that aver-age Americans come into contact with daily, from the smoke detec-tor to the cell phone. Why have we rewarded the successes of this ground-breaking organization by slashing its funding and reduc-ing NASA’s scientific prowess to a shell of its former self? Why are we now content with taking a back seat to foreign nations in the field of exploration? It’s time for a change. The U.S.

their principal purpose perfectly. Before my sophomore year, few labs or other short projects could be finished in just one period, which often had a domino ef-fect that could disrupt the whole week for that class. Now, there’s more time for these projects. Taking out that disruption can also make classes more efficient. Have you ever finished a period and realized that the class got absolutely nothing done? Block periods have saved many classes from that fate. Block periods can actually make the schedule kinder. They mean one less period on both Tuesday and Wednesday. That means only four classes of homework if you have one free track, as many do. Fifty-minute periods are much easier to deal with after seventy-five minute ones the day before. By the end of my freshman year, fifty-minute classes still seemed pretty long, but now they seem downright speedy. Longer classes have further aca-demic upside. They allow teach-ers to take their students out of the classroom, for example, to a coffeeshop for a morning class or

“To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.” These words, famously spoken during the introductory sequence of the classic ’60s television series Star Trek, inspired a generation of Americans to reach for the stars. The United States, a nation once infatuated with space travel, put 12 Americans on the moon be-tween 1969 and 1972. Yet, in re-cent years, the once-popular idea of space exploration has been put on the backburner by the United States’ government. During the late ’60s, a his-toric “space race” with the Soviet Union put lunar exploration at the forefront of American for-eign policy. As the two powerful nations grappled for global su-periority, the sprint to the lunar surface represented a contest to determine which country was technologically dominant. The contentious divide between the East and the West, as well as be-tween communism and capital-ism, was displayed for the world on the stage of space exploration. The climax of this competition, American Neil Armstrong’s vic-

While the schedule modifica-tion a few years ago instituted a number of significant changes, none of them seemed to affect the average student more than block periods. Extending seven class periods a week by 25 min-utes completely changed the na-ture of the two days that were affected. Block periods mean sitting in a classroom for much longer stretches, so they have their share of detractors. While I certainly cannot say that I always enjoy classes of that length, I be-lieve that block periods are, all in all, beneficial. Block periods have fulfilled

By CONNOR SEMPLE ’15

the hockey pond for a biology in-vestigation. Block periods actu-ally allow the class to take their time and enjoy themselves. Block periods offer academic advan-tages and make the week easier to get through, a noble endeavor when one considers the average WRA schedule.

and very efficient in teaching a concept. Having a similarly ef-fective class in history or math is much harder to accomplish, because the subject matter is more difficult to manipulate in a hands-on way for the students. Group projects and discussions are a great help in these subjects,

however it can be dif-ficult to tell if a stu-dent is pulling their own weight within their group. It could be argued that the extended class periods are bet-ter preparation for the longer classes that we will experience in college. However, while college classes are longer, there is

much more free time available, which enables students to par-ticipate more fully in a class, as classes will not make up a huge portion of their day. All told, having similar extended block periods in high school does not provide enough realistic college preparation to justify the wasted efficiency that they incur.

is not a nation that depends on the advancement of others. America is a nation of leaders, dreamers, and doers. It is our government’s responsibility to put this country’s vast resources to use in a way that will forever benefit our global community. It is time for the U.S. to revitalize its space program, and to once again lead the world in discov-ery and innovation. It is time to once again excite today’s students about science, and to go where no man has gone before.

On the night of October 7, hundreds of Americans broke out their telescopes to get a look at a rare celestial event known as a Blood Moon. A Blood Moon occurs when the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun align and is characterized by a brilliant red lunar surface that lights up the night sky. Recent media fixation on this event has left some people wondering, why has the United States ceased to send Americans to the moon? The last mission that the Unit-ed States launched to the moon, called the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer

By AMANDA SUDILOVSKY ’15

(LADEE), took place in Sep-tember of 2013. The unmanned expedition, which was intended to test the dust composition of the lunar surface, is estimated to have cost the United States’ gov-ernment over $260 million in its entirety. And what do we gain as a nation from these imprudent expenditures? What is the true value of modern lunar experi-mentation? It’s hard to say for certain. The U.S. has not landed a man on the moon in more than 40 years and the the argument that moon mis-sions are justified by a national “love of exploration” is simply becoming irrelevant. In a world of constantly improving science and technology, space explora-tion is old news. The money spent on the National Aeronautic and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) lunar expeditions can and should be spent on the science that will better benefit the average Ameri-can. We need innovations in en-ergy and communication more than we need another astronaut bouncing around on the moon’s surface. In this sense, the United States has been smart about their decision to cut funding dedicat-ed to manned aerospace expedi-tions, and should continue to do so. Furthermore, technology is becoming so accurate that there is not any more value in putting a man on the moon as opposed to a rover, and even those are ex-tremely costly. Besides, what is being done with the scientific data collected on these trips that makes lunar missions valuable to our society? The answer is this: very little! Information about the moon’s

composition is not helping us on Earth to do anything other than to understand the geology of the moon itself. Why should our indebted government spend its limited resources on this type of space travel? The only other countries with plans for future lunar missions are China, Russia and North Korea. But these countries only desire outdated bragging rights rather than actual scientific re-search and discovery. In the end, the only reason people urge NASA to continue its lunar missions is because the moon is cool. Let go of that nostalgia, people: America and the moon had a good run, but it’s time to move on! It’s okay to hold on to those good memories of the times we had. You might still shed a tear when you hear Elton John’s song “Rocket Man.” But at the end of the day, the cost of a lunar mission is simply not worth the minimal results. There are new, more relevant sciences to explore!

By GABE SKORA ’15

Space: Final Frontier or Misuse of Money?

time missed from the cancella-tion of Saturday classes, which had been replaced with the cur-rent ECHO schedule, and would allow teachers (of science in par-ticular) time for more involved projects. While, theoretically, this indicated that students were fully compensated for the missed class time, in reality, there was a tradeoff involv-ing the students’ at-tention spans, which of course were more likely to give way as the class dragged on. The 50-minute class-es make more sense, because students re-quire less stamina to remain attentive dur-ing the shorter class. In addition to the additional strain piled onto stu-dents, the block schedule assigns more of a burden to teachers as well. Teachers are now asked to plan extended class periods, and the effectiveness of such planning is heavily affected by the subject matter. If a science class teacher wants to plan a block period, a hands-on lab is often effective,

By CHARLES PRENDERGAST ’15

Charles, Gabe Debate Block Period Controversy

At the beginning of my sopho-more year at Western Reserve Academy, the schedule was changed to incorporate “block periods.” These extended periods would last an hour and 20 min-utes (now reduced to an hour and 15 minutes). The logic be-hind the block periods was that they would make up for the class

12 RESERVE RECORD WORLD NEWS OCTOBER 2014

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, commonly known as ISIS, is an unrecognized Sunni jihadist group in Iraq, Syria, and other areas of the Middle East. The group originated in 1999 as part of al-Qaeda of Iraq (AQI). However, in 2008, al-Qaeda cut all ties with ISIS due to ISIS’s brutality and complex structure. The group has grown signifi-cantly ever since current leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi came to power in 2013. ISIS originally aimed to establish an Islamic state in only the Sunni-majority regions of Iraq, but after the Syr-ian Civil War, the group strove to gain control of the Sunni-majority regions of Syria as well. Currently, the group claims authority over all Muslims worldwide and aims for control

over all Muslim regions. Accord-ing to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as of September 2014, ISIS has 20,000 to 31,500 soldiers. The Syrian government claims the number could be as high as 90,000. The United Na-tions, European Union and the United States have all declared ISIS a terrorist organization. On Oct. 14, the New York Times released a report stating that ISIS had gained control of a former chemical weapons fa-cility in Muthanna, Iraq. The facility operated under Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and at one point contained sarin, mustard gas, and VX, a nerve agent. After Hussein’s regime was dismantled in 2003, the Iraqi government planned to dispose of the chem-ical weapons, but their plans were never carried through. The weapons remained in Muthan-

na. In 2008, U.S. soldiers were exposed to mustard, one of the chemical weapons; however, the incident was kept secret during the Iraq war. In 2013, three journalists from the New York Times confirmed that they had seen old chemi-cal stocks. In June of 2014 ISIS gained control of the area, and gained access to the harmful weapons. The Iraqi government remains unsure of how many chemical munitions ISIS cur-rently possesses. The United States and some of its allies have begun to bomb key ISIS targets, but it is unclear how involved America is willing to become in the conflict. So far, ISIS has not used any chemical weapons on the ground in Syria or Iraq. If it does so, it risks pro-voking further military inter-vention from external powers.

An ongoing protest campaign in Hong Kong, dubbed the “Umbrella Revolution,” is a civil disobedience movement where thousands are currently occupy-ing the streets. The current protest move-ment can be traced back to Brit-ish colonization in the 1800s. After China lost both Opium Wars, Hong Kong, as an impor-tant trading port, was leased to Britain for 150 years. In 1997, when Hong Kong was returned to Chinese control, the Chinese government promised Hong Kong free and fair elections writ-ten under the Basic Law (Hong Kong’s mini-constitution) and a high-degree of autonomy for the next 50 years. Since 1997, the Chief Executive, leader of Hong Kong, has been selected by an election committee of 1,200 pro-Beijing loyalists. On Aug. 31, the Chinese leg-islature declared that elections would be held but that can-didates must be selected by a

nomination committee similar to the current committee. This outraged pro-democracy activ-ists, who took to the streets in protest. By Sept. 22, the Hong Kong Federation of Students, comprised of high school and college students, announced that they would boycott classes and refuse to attend school. They protested the declaration held by the Chinese legislature and demanded the resignation of current Chief Executive C.Y. Leung. As protesters began demon-strating outside the government

headquarters on Sept. 28, po-lice utilized tear gas and batons in order to clear out protest sites. Protesters resorted to um-brellas in order to dodge tear gas, hence the term “Umbrella Revolution.” The police action backfired, and this police brutal-ity caused a surge in attendance numbers. Clashes broke out again a few days later by “Anti-Occupy activists” against the “Umbrella Revolution.” Several human rights groups, includ-ing Amnesty International, have criticized the police for failure to separate the groups.

On Tuesday, Nov. 4, people will flood voting booths for the United States’s midterm elec-tion. “Midterms,” during which candidates compete for seats in Congress, are held two years into the President’s four-year term. In every midterm, all the seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, while only one-third of the Senate’s seats are up for grabs; Senators serve six year terms that are staggered so only one-third of the seats open every Congressional election. As it stands right now, the Re-publicans have control of the House, holding 233 out of the

435 seats, while the Democrats control the Senate, holding 53 out of the 100 seats. While the Republicans are expected to keep their House majority, the Senate is heavily contested be-tween the parties. Both parties have raised millions of dollars in attempts to out campaign the other over control of the house; National Republican Senatorial Committee raised 98 million dollars, while Democratic Sena-torial Campaign Committee raised 127 million dollars. Republicans are hoping to gain the majority in the Senate by winning the States of Iowa, Arkansas, New Hampshire, Louisiana, North Carolina and

After recent outbreaks across the globe, the deathly disease Ebola has been the talk of ev-ery town. Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is an illness that spreads by contact from animals to hu-mans and humans to humans. According to the World Health Organization, outbreaks of the fatal disease have occurred since 1976 in various parts of Africa but never reached the enormity of the epidemic in the year 2014. One of the first outbreaks oc-curred in the Democratic Re-public of the Congo, near the Ebola River, from which the dis-ease obtained its name. Of the five different species of Ebola identified—Zaire, Bundibugyo, Sudan, Reston and Taii—four of them have been found in specific fruit bats, leading to the conclusion that members of the Pteropdidae bat family are the inborn Ebola virus hosts. Hu-mans contract the disease from bats and other infected animals through contact with their blood, organs and other bodily fluids. Humans then pass the ill-ness to each other in the same forms of contact. The vast majority of Ebola outbreaks has sprouted in parts of Africa, but small eruptions have also occurred in England and Russia. Ebola first appeared at the end of the ’70s, took a 13-year break from 1980-1993,

then began to show appearances again up until its biggest out-break which has now reached North America. Returning from Liberia to visit relatives, Thomas Eric Duncan arrived in Dallas with common symptoms of the disease. How-ever, his travels to the conta-gious country of Liberia was not recorded, so he was not taken to intensive care immediately. Duncan died Oct. 8, the first person in the U.S. to be diag-nosed and die from Ebola. Nina Pham, the hospital nurse who treated Duncan, contracted the disease and was under intensive care until “cured” on Oct. 24. More diagnoses have arisen in other countries where the disease has traveled, such as Germany and Spain. In a short period of time, the outburst jumped from Africa to various pockets of the world, producing anxiety and concern around the globe.

Reach of ISIS Grows in Middle East

Democrats, GOP Battle for Senate

Hong Kong Protests for Democracy

By NIRAJ NAIK ’16

Ebola Ravages W. AfricaBy NINA TEKELENBURG ’15

By YING KA LEUNG ’18

Protest numbers surged again on Oct. 10, when Carrie Lam, a senior government official, can-celled talks with student leaders, announcing that “illegal acts will not persuade the government to talk.” Delivery of several local and international newspapers, including the New York Times, was blocked by Anti-Occupy activists accusing them of biased reporting. On the Oct. 14, footage sur-faced of policemen beating a pro-democracy politician and other handcuffed protesters in a back alley, leading to thousands

of police brutality complaints. Clashes have broken out in most protest locations as of Oct. 17, as the government plans to evict protesters. Meanwhile, Anti-Oc-cupy activists call for the deploy-ment of the Chinese military to restore order. A poll of Chinese Western Re-serve Academy students shows that they appear to be equally split in opinion. One Hong Kong student says he agrees with the protesters’ aims, but adds that the occupation of main roads is irresponsible, as it grinds the economy to a halt.

By ERIC BUEHLER ’15Colorado. Out of these, Loui-siana appears most likely to flip Republican due to the fact that Democratic senator Mary Landrieu has only won her last three Senate races by narrow margins. Colorado is the most heavily contested out of these States, pitting current Democrat Sen. Mark Udall against Republican nominee Cory Gardner. Demo-crats hit Gardner over the head for his stance on abortion, while Republicans hammer Udall for his unwavering support of the Affordable Care Act. Democrats are hoping to de-fend their majority by winning the States of Alaska, Colorado,

Kansas, North Carolina, Ken-tucky and Georgia. In Kansas, the Democratic Party is hoping the independent candidate Greg Orman beats out the Republi-can incumbent, Sen. Pat Rob-erts. Although the Democrats wouldn’t technically gain a seat, most pundits believe Orman

would caucus with the Demo-crats once in the Senate. In Kentucky, if Democrat candi-date Alison Lundergan Grimes were to beat out incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell, it would be a huge embarrassment for the Re-publican party, as McConnell is the Senate Minority leader. At press time, predictors and pollsters give the Republicans a modest but persistent advan-tage, but there is no guarantee whether Senate will flip Repub-lican red or stay Democrat blue. Regardless of polling and specu-lation, only the people can de-cide the results of this midterm. So, if you can vote, go out and vote. If you cannot, have fun keeping track of this exciting election.