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Winter Issue 2013

IT’S a girl! On No-vember 18th, GRHS biology teacher, Mrs. Binder gave birth to Megan Rose. Her baby girl was born at 9:27am at 7 pounds, 4 ounces and 19 inches long. The new addition to the Binder Fam-ily brings them lots of joy, especially dur-ing the holiday season.

Beloved teacher welcomes child

P.E. teacher joins Ridgewood Police

Former teacher on archaeological dig

Home for the holidaysKelly Streaser

AT the end of each school year, onlookers watch as the graduating seniors prepare to go on to ‘bigger and better’ things, a phrase which often equates to going to college in the fall. But a traditional college was not the case for Dan Vest, class of 2013.

FOR the past two and a half months, former GRHS physical education teacher, Mr. Karcher, has been training to become a policeman at the Essex County Police Academy in Cedar Grove. In April 2014, Mr. Karcher will officially be a policeman of Ridgewood. Ref lec-ting back on his teaching years, Mr. Karcher misses his classes, coaching his teams, and the consis-tency of our high school schedule.

It’s great to be home and to see my friends and family again.

ON September 9th, 2013, Dan Vest left his home for Parris Island, SC and reported for boot camp. Dan made the decision to become a United States Marine during his senior year at Glen Rock High School.

“I joined the Marine Corps because of the lifestyle and the men-tality,” he explained. “The Corps’ values of

Crucible,’ a final test of teamwork, physical strength, and mental endurance that lasts for 54 hours at the end of boot camp. A ‘crucible,’ perhaps fa-miliar from the 1953 play by Arthur Miller, is “a place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause or influence change or development,” accord-ing to Merriam-Web-ster. The name de-rives from a heated pot in which metals are raised to incredi-bly high temperatures.

For Dan, ‘the Crucible’ contained the best and worst parts of boot camp. The test was gru-eling. “I spent the first day out in below freez-ing temps with noth-ing but cargo pants, a cami-blouse, boots, a hat and gloves,” Dan

recalled. “The sec-ond day, when we all thought it couldn’t get worse, it started to rain. The rain didn’t let up until the next morning when we were halfway through our 12k hike back to the squad bay.”

But, according to Dan, it was all worth it in the end. “When we got back to the squad bay was the best mo-ment of my life, and a feeling I’ll never forget so long as I live. That’s

A spruce tree and a holiday lampKaitlin Stansel

IT has long been a tradition in Glen Rock for families of the small suburban town to gather around the flagpole outside of Boiling Springs Saving’s bank, with hot chocolate grasped between their hands, as they watch the lights on the Christmas

tree illuminate the town and spread the familiar warmth of holiday spirit.

This year, though, this cele-bration has been altered in order to be inclusive of the customs of those from vary-ing backgrounds. A ‘Winter Wonderland’ was created on Saturday, December 7th

outside of Borough Hall; numerous spruce trees were lit-up and decorated as ‘holiday ornaments’ in front of the building. Re-placing the traditional Santa Claus, a snowman greeted the spectators of the Win-ter Wonderland lighting.

Continued on page 6

About The Glen EchoThe Glen Echo is the school newspaper of Glen Rock High School. Originally published in 1956, The Glen Echo now celebrates over 55 years of excellence.

Advised by high school English and Journalism teac-her, Mr. Toncic, The Glen Echo is now published both

online (www.theglenecho.com) and in print -- which you are, of course, reading now.

Written exclusively by stu-dents, The Glen Echo is proud to bring in the 13-14 school year as another year of jour-nalistic distinction. We hope you enjoy the Winter Issue.

Señor Fuentes, a former GRHS Spanish teach-er, has been missed by his past students this year. Señor Fuentes did not return for the 13-14 school year. Ac-cording to Señora Gue-varez, Señor Fuentes moved to Ecuador and is working on his family farm while participat-ing in an archaeologi-cal dig. We at The Glen Echo wish him the best.

Dan was put through rigorous training at boot camp. This regime included waking up at 4 a.m. every morning, learning the history of the Marine Corps and their values, phys-ical training, studying weapons and devel-oping rifle skills, and hours of drill practice – all under the watch of the Drill Instructors.

It all leads up to ‘the

honor, courage, and commitment stress selflessness, integri-ty, and dedication to the greater good. The marines are… the best the country has to of-fer, and I wanted to be part of that culture and that way of life.”

And so for approxi-mately three months,

At attention, GRHS alumni, Dan Vest, lines up with the United States Marine Corps.

Embracing his father after returning from his three months of training, Dan Vest is thrilled to be home.

the moment you know that you’ve completed the first step of a long, difficult experience, and you’ve earned the right to call yourself a United States Marine.”

On December 6th, Dan graduated from boot camp, complet-ing the first phase of his training. Then, on the 8th, he returned home for the first time in three months.

Continued on page 6.

Need to Know

2 The Glen Echo

GRHS Theater Company’s November performance hits stage

A Verdi Blu Christmas Kaitlin Stansel

WITH the holiday sea-son quickly approach-ing, Verdi Blu is sure to satisfy your wish list.

Verdi Blu is a boutique, newly opened on Rock Road, aimed to please al-most every audience; the proprietor of Verdi Blu guarantees it to have some-thing for almost everyone.

“Classic style for everyday living,” Lori Craft, co-own-er of Verdi Blu (with Jessica Miele), said, describing the style of the boutique. “We consider ourselves more of a lifestyle brand as opposed to just a gift shop or a woman’s shop… I feel as though the way I curated and collect-ed different products sort of makes it its own brand.”

The store carries everything

from traditional, conser-vative, and classic brands (e.g. Ralph Lauren), but also more modern brands like David Hicks. The shop mainly carries accessories and clothing for women and home, however, they do have some items for men – such as belts, ties, and cuff links.

“I love it there, they have the cutest décor and it’s so homey,” said sopho-more Fiona Higgins, re-flecting on her experience in the charming store.

Lori Craft was motivated by her previous experience in retail as the opening manager for the very first Ralph Lauren store on Mad-ison Avenue. “It was in my blood,” Lori said. “I’ve al-ways really loved to do retail and that kind of retail, and that kind of product, great quality yet not crazy price

December 2013

Yeheun Son

“REHEARSING for two months has been kind of secret and now we finally get to show everyone else. I am really excited about it,” said Miss McKinley, GRHS Theatre Company director and GRHS teacher.

The GRHS Theatre Com-pany, with about 40 mem-bers of cast and a doz-en members of crew, is ready to ‘Get Smart.’

The show is based on the first two episodes of the well-known TV series of the same name. The story is of a secret agent, Maxwell Smart, who makes a lot of mistakes. In this produc-tion, he is off on a bizarre new case with beautiful Agent 99 – yet things always work out for him in the end.

“The whole show is so silly,” Miss McKinley said, laughing. She guar-anteed that this come-dy show would be both hysterical and enjoyable.

As this show is about spies, there will be some parody of James Bond and other spy thrillers.

This show was not planned in one day; it was created by an adviser, cast, and crew who put forth much effort.

Miss McKinley first re-searches for a script and

buys the rights to it for the performance. In the first week of school, she casts actors from an audition.

From here, the actors are given roles and read the scripts many times. They talk about characters and their relationships. Then, they start to learn their lines, culminating in rehearsals.

Aside from the cast, the crews’ devotion should not be forgotten. Stu-dents worked on sound, costumes, and props behind the scenes. 

Every step is taken thor-oughly. The students get to be specific and creative about what they are per-forming. For example, there is some dancing in the show, and it was all planned out by two students.

“At first, it was a mental breakdown [to dance],” Jay Farrell, GRHS sopho-more, said. “But we prac-ticed them [the steps] for a while. Now, I feel incred-

ibly comfortable to dance.”

Rehearsing for three days a week for two months has been exhausting for some, yet the show’s ded-icated cast feels rewarded.  

“I was [a] little tired. We have to do a lot of prac-tice of the dance, which is a lot more tiring than just running scenes with lines. But we had a lot of fun,” Mike Zilvetti (’16) said.

After translating the show from scripts to the stage, the cast also added their own impromptu lines. “In rehearsal process, if someone does something funny, we will be like, ‘Oh! Let’s put that it, let’s keep it,’ adding our own stuff,” said Miss McKinley.

Summarizing his time in GRHS Theatre Compa-ny, Jay Farrell was pleased. “It is [a] very fun experi-ence getting to meet the cast members and estab-lishing the show,” he said. “This is my first year in the Theatre Company. It is incredible and I can-not ask for anything else.”

He also gave the audience a message: “Get there. Be ready. And get smart.”

Mike Zilvetti added, “They are going to love it.”

The Glen Rock High School Theatre Company performed the comedy, Get Smart, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 21, Friday, November 22, and Saturday, November 23.

Bow Tie Tuesday

Get there. Be ready. And get smart.

points, items that you could still afford and things you as-pire to keep for a long time.”

Although the favored prod-ucts in Verdi Blu have fluc-tuated over the weeks that it has been open, scarves, jewelry, phone cases, wom-en’s tunics, frames, candles, and pillows seem to be most desired by the bou-tique’s range of customers.

As for the holiday season, Verdi Blu is making sure to be prepared for the wave of customers demanding gifts for upcoming holiday par-ties. “Every week you will notice something different even if it’s not new,” Lori said. The boutique is delib-erately stocked with items under fifty dollars that can be given to family, friends, and party entertainers.

The sophisticated boutique is the perfect place to pur-chase gifts for loved ones at low costs for not only par-ents, but also for students on a budget. “We have lots of amazing bracelets and lots of great statement neck-laces that are all under fifty dollars,” said Lori. “We have great bowties, for the guys, we have fun belts with beach badges on them and a sort of preppy kind of feel. We have customized phone and lap-

Lauren Jones

LOOKING through a magazine or even around the school hallways, it is clear to see that bow ties have come back on the men’s fashion radar -- es-pecially on Tuesdays.

Last year, Mr. Toncic did not only come in as an English teach-er, but he also became a new trendsetter. Mr. Toncic introduced the school to  Bow Tie Tuesday  -- the  name is self-explanatory. Every Tuesday, Mr. Toncic wears a bow tie. “I like doing something different to break the routine of traditional ties,” he said.

When asked why he likes the idea of bow ties so much, Mr. Toncic re-plied, “I like a classy and respectful style of dress.”

Mr. Toncic isn’t the only one who enjoys wear-ing bow ties, though. It isn’t uncommon to see classmates sport-

ing the trendy look at school on the day of a sports game or during other social events, like sweet sixteens.

“I get to show my true self through my bow ties,” explained junior student Noah Wein-stock.  Noah, a member of a growing number of supporters in GRHS, has gone so far as to claim that self-tie bow ties are superior to clip-ons.

Not only do guys like bow ties and Bow Tie Tuesday, but also girls like it, too. Most will tell you that it makes guys look very put together and that the style looks nice. “I think bow ties are very profession-al, and they look great on mostly anyone,” said sophomore Nicole Jones. “They make you look nerdy yet awe-some at the same time.”

“I think they look real-ly good on people,” said freshman Alyssa Lorenz.

Mr. Toncic joked that Bow Tie Tuesday has also felt like a pub-lic service. “I feel as if I’m a walking calendar on Tuesday,” he said.

top cases, and customized pieces like that, that I can still get in time for Christmas.”

Conveniently and acces-sibly placed, Verdi Blu is exciting many residents of Glen Rock. Senior Eri-ca Melz shared her excite-ment on the opening of the store. “I haven’t been inside yet, but I’m definite-ly going to look for some presents there!” she said.

“It’s wonderful to be able to shop locally for unique gifts for family and friends,” Glen Rock resident Kara Stansel commented on the store’s opening – just in time for the holiday season.

As for Lori’s aspirations for Verdi Blu, she hopes for the store to bring a new positive ambiance to the town. “My goals are to bring a lot more vitality to downtown Glen

Rock, to really help revital-ize, so to speak, and bright-en it up,” said Lori. “I think people feel good when they come in… I think it just kind of makes you smile.”

It seems as though, in the three weeks that the store has been open, she has al-ready begun to accomplish that. “Verdi Blu is a great addition to Glen Rock be-cause we haven’t had a styl-ish boutique for women in a long time; it’s exactly what the town needs,” Junior stu-dent Caroline Moscatello said after visiting the store.

It goes without saying that in the next few weeks, Verdi Blu products will be under plen-ty of menorahs and Christ-mas trees as gifts for loved ones this holiday season.

Journalism students during the November 5th lockdown at GRHS.

3

Incidences rock students’ nervesThe Glen Echo

Seniors slide into the holidays

Lilia Wood

GLEN Rock has a reputation as one of the safest towns in New Jersey. But, lately, it has not felt that protected. Starting in early November, numerous worrisome events have occurred in Glen Rock and local towns in the area.

“I feel safe in my home-town, Glen Rock, and I al-ways will,” GRHS student, Jordan McMahon said. “But I just hope that these in-cidents stop occurring, so that students can feel safe in a town like Glen Rock.”

Glen Rock students are aware of these occurrences and some are starting to be-come concerned over what the future entails. Students are hesitant to do simple, everyday tasks like walk-ing home alone, babysit-ting, or even hanging out with friends at the mall.

The first instance happened on November 1st, when a sus-picious man grabbed a Ridge-wood middle school student.

was not intending on hurting anyone other than himself.

“I still plan on going to Gar-den State Plaza because it is so convenient,” Sarah Craw-ford (’17) said. “They better have really good security.”

The following day, one of Glen Rock’s elementary schools, Alexander Hamil-ton, got a threatening call around 1 p.m. and all Glen Rock public and private schools were put on “shelter-in-place” alert. All schools (other than Alexander Ham-ilton) had students stay in their classrooms with the doors and windows locked, but could still continue to run a normal class. Students in the high school’s Journal-ism department reported on the events in real time.

The students who attended Alexander Hamilton were immediately evacuated and escorted to the nearest school, Academy of Our Lady.

“I think living in Glen Rock is safe. Despite this, it does scare me how inci-

dents, like what happened at Sandy Hook elementary school, could happen in any ordinary school, includ-ing ours,” Haley Rosenwald (’16) said. “With this, I think school security is important, and I’m happy there’s been progress with Glen Rock schools’ security system.”

Alexander Hamilton was put through an in-depth search, with police investigating on the roof while K9 units were sniffing the school. A few hours later, the school was given the all-clear.

“Seeing Glen Rock on Eyewitness News was so weird,” said GRHS soph-omore Victoria Messiki-an. “The fact that it hap-pened at my sisters’ school made it ten times scarier.”

The next week, a Glen Rock homeowner discov-ered a burglar hiding in his basement on November 14th. Once the burglar was found, he ran out of the back door. The alleged ban-dit has still not been found.

December 2013

Alyssa Lorenz and Rebecca Jacobs

A Very Miley Christmas? Santas running through the hallways? A Very Spanish Christmas? There is only one thing that can make sense of all this: the holiday slideshow!

As the sophomores, ju-niors, seniors, and teach-ers all know the day be-fore winter break is the holiday assembly. Mrs. Cella’s and Mr. Kupka’s Media Arts classes reveal the ‘holiday slideshow’ during the assembly.

“I am really excited for the slideshow, and I have never seen it be-fore!” said freshman student Hannah Mayer.

The first step in mak-ing a slideshow video is by making a story

“This story makes me afraid to stay home alone,” Vic-toria added. “I will always keep my doors and win-dows closed and locked.”

A few days later, on Wednes-day, November 20th, a man hit a Ridgewood student re-peatedly with a knife while he was walking back to the school after his lunch break. The man who assaulted him was trying to steal his back-pack and pulled the student down while trying to do so.

The student was brought to Valley hospital and only had minor injuries.

“I do feel safe, but I feel less safe,” sophomore Jack Jen-sen said. “I walk home ev-ery day, and I can honestly say that I’m more cautious and aware of my surround-ings after there was the string of car burglaries.”

All these incidences are re-minders that in this day and age we need to be mindful to take safety measures even in a presumably safe town such as Glen Rock.

board with group mates, during this step the stu-dents plan out each frame of their story and how it will all work out.

The next step in making a slideshow is picking out props and costumes. Af-ter students plan it all out, they must ask the teach-ers and administrators for permission to use facul-ty members (as actors), their classrooms, or any-thing miscellaneous that they need approval for.

“It’s a fun way for stu-dents to showcase their sense of humor and personality,” said se-nior student Anna Lis.

The next part is the se-niors’ self-nominated fa-vorite: the filming. This is when the rest of the students can play parts in the filming. The se-niors adventure through-out the school in their costumes with props and film their videos.

If a student is lucky enough to be hang-ing around the right places, s/he may just be featured in a video with Santa, aliens, or a costumed Miley Cyrus.

“A group of seniors came into my class and took our picture and had us run through the hallway,” junior stu-dent Jessica Koo said.

After the seniors film their videos, they return to the media arts room and edit the videos on a computer program called Adobe Premiere Elements. This is one of the most difficult steps

“Certain things are not as safe as they used to be,” Glen Rock High School soph-omore, Julia Gaffey said. “Walking home alone was what everyone used to do, but now parents are being a lot more cautious. School security systems are be-coming a lot more essential, which is good. Students just need to be more careful and aware of what’s going on.”

Thankfully, the Ridgewood middle school student was able to get away safely. Oth-er incidents like this have been reported to the local police in the past few weeks.

“I live so far away from school, so now I have to be extra cautious when I’m walking home,” GRHS stu-dent Christina Howie said. “However, I think it’s sad that Glen Rock students have to be so cautious.”

Another incident happened on November 4th when a suspicious gunman walked into Garden State Plaza. The mall was put on lock-down immediately. Later in the evening, police discov-ered that the man had killed himself in a supply closet at the mall. Police officers later announced that the suspect

for seniors. The students learn to use Premiere El-ements as they go, and the program is quite difficult to work with.

From here, the students add music, effects, and fine-tune their videos. The edited videos are then given to Mr. Kupka and Mrs. Cella for review (who will look them over), and then to Mr. Purciello and the administration

for the final approval.

“It is a Glen Rock tradi-tion and has been here since before I worked here. It gives the stu-dents a way to express themselves,” said the high school assistant principal, Mr. Purciello.

Tim Hahn, a student from Mrs. Cella’s period eight Media Arts class, said, “The Holiday Slideshow is a group of Media Arts students coming togeth-er to make videos, slide-shows, skits, and music to go with a holiday theme.” He added that the goal is “to make a two-hour long slideshow that is played during the Holiday As-sembly the day before the December Break.”

During the few weeks between Thanksgiving break and winter break, the students learn to use Adobe Premiere El-ements, film, edit, and produce their videos created throughout the hallways and classrooms.

To be filmed for the hol-iday slideshow, the best places to be during free periods are common areas: the lunchroom,

junior hallway, senior lounge, and the gym. Otherwise, senior stu-dents occasionally seek permission to enter a classroom, resulting in Santa, for example, ask-ing Mr. Badr to dance along with students.

“My favorite part of making the holiday slide-show is working with my crewmates to make the video,” said senior student, Dan Dooner.

The holiday slideshow influences many stu-dents to take Media Arts once they are in their senior year. Media Arts gives students who do not think of themselves as ‘artistic’ a chance to practice the arts without having to draw and paint.

The holiday season takes over Glen Rock High School

4

Teachers write curriculum while you sleep in

Powder-puff game indefinitely postponedCourtney Schmitt

ON Tuesday, November 26, 2013 a great battle was set to occur on the lower fields at Glen Rock High School as the junior class girls would take on the Senior girls in the first annual Powder-puff game. However, many students were disap-pointed that day as the game did not take place.

For weeks leading up to the big day, the Student Council and the Varsity Cheerleaders had worked together to make the game happen. It was de-cided upon that the mon-ey raised through partic-ipation fees and tickets to the game would be donated toward alleviat-ing the tragedy of the re-cent disastrous typhoon that hit the Philippines.

Many of the students in-volved were excited for the game even though, for some, Powder-puff was an entirely new concept.

“At first, I thought it had to do with a TV show on Car-toon Network and I got really excited,” said senior student Jesse Forstot.

Powder-puff is a flag-foot-ball game played be-tween upperclassman girls. Boys cheer, teachers ref, and the football play-ers coach the girls in this role-reversing tradition.

Melissa Rosen, a senior who signed up to par-ticipate said, “I think it’ll be good grade-bond-ing for the girls and up-perclassmen. I hope that the seniors will win and everyone comes out to support.”

The day of the event, however, things did not seem to go as planned. As students were walk-ing to school, the air was frigid, the sky cloudy, and the weather forecast for the day was not promis-ing. The Student Council became worried that the game would be cancelled due to the weather, and they began working to find alternative solutions.

Among these options were moving the game to the high school gym,

since the game is not ‘tackle’ and could be played inside. However, this brought up other is-sues – such as whether or not the gym was even available. In addition, if the game were not played on Tuesday, then it would be hard to reschedule due to winter sports start-ing within the next week.

At the start of 8th peri-od it began to hail, and it was clear that playing the game outside was no longer an option. Mr. Arlotta officially cleared up the uncertainty re-volving around the fate of the game, announc-ing that it was cancelled.

Some students were re-lieved that they would not have to play outside, such as Janice Leibman (’14). She said, “I didn’t want to play in hail.”

Yet other students, such as Meghan Donohue (’15), were upset about how things ended up. “It was a shame we couldn’t have our first Powder-puff game. I thought that ev-eryone was really excit-ed for it,” said Donohue.

The future of Pow-der-puff at Glen Rock High School still remains unknown. Many peo-ple were disappointed, especially after paying money for shirts to wear the day of the big event.

“I was really looking for-ward to experience Pow-der Puff for myself after hearing about it done at so many other schools. It seems like it would have been such a cool bond-ing experience for the seniors; guys and girls, as well as the juniors. It’s just upsetting that I’ll graduate not having experienced this, especially after buy-ing the shirt and getting my hopes up for it,” said Mikaela Waller (’14).

There is a chance that the game could take place in the spring after the win-ter sports finish and ath-letes have time to partic-ipate. But, for now, many feel that the weather has rained on their parade.

I think it was pretty pro-ductive to turn our ideas into a digital d o c u m e n t .

The Glen Echo December 2013

Yeheun Son

HOW was your long weekend?

Glen Rock High School students enjoyed three days off the weekend of the 9th as they had no school on Monday.

But the same could not be said for teach-ers. Instead of a break, they had a workshop on Monday, Decem-ber 9th, as it was a Staff Development Day.

Staff Development Days are planned for teachers to get to-gether, share what they have accom-plished, and talk about what they still need to do. Teachers also

familiarized them-selves with a (recent-ly updated) program called Rubicon Atlas.

“Most of the morning, we worked on some-thing called ‘curricu-lum mapping,’” said high school English teacher, Mr. Milsovic. “We thought about our goals for each

class which required quite a bit of thinking.”

Then, in the afternoon, the teachers learned to use Rubicon Atlas, a program to aid in curriculum mapping.

According to the Ru-bicon Atlas website, “Atlas is designed to electronically encom-pass the entire pro-cess of curriculum enhancement in sup-port of faculty, admin-istrators and greater school community and is always customized to reflect a school’s pedagogy, academic standards and unique curricular needs. “

The program person-alizes the mapping

journey by allowing each educator to eas-ily pin meaningful reports to their own dashboard for at-a-glance access to in-formation they need.

GRHS teachers put down their plans not only on paper but also in the program. Teach-ers can also make data reports about their ap-plication of the com-mon core standards.

“I think it was pret-ty productive to turn our ideas into a digital document,” Mr. Milsovic said.

There will be anoth-er staff workshop on January 27th, 2013.

5

Whoop, there it is

Is Brian Griffin gone forever?

Boardwalk Empire Noah Weinstock

A case of the whooping cough has been report-ed in the high school, prompting students and faculty members to be diligent in their hygiene.

Pertussis, or the “whoop-ing cough,” is a serious illness that has taken the lives of many worldwide and can last up to ten weeks or more, leading to the notorious nickname of the “100-day cough.”

On November 19th, a statement was released to all faculty members in the Glen Rock High School and Middle School by Mr. John Arlotta, high school principal. It read: “We have received in-formation from the Ber-gen County Community Health Department that an eleventh grade stu-dent in Glen Rock High School was diagnosed with a probable case of pertussis (whooping cough). The student has been treated and is no longer contagious. … It is advisable that those at high risk or some-one with a persistent cough should contact their medical provider.”

The statement also pro-vided a link to a fact sheet discussing pertus-sis, borrowed from the New Jersey Department

of Health and Senior Ser-vices. The sheet answers important questions, such as: what is pertussis, what are the symptoms of pertussis, and what can be done to prevent the spread of pertussis?

Pertussis is a disease con-cerning the respiratory tract and is highly conta-gious. It is triggered by a bacterium located in the throat, mouth, and nose. According to the fact sheet, pertussis is “pri-marily spread through the air” by close encounters with infected individuals.

Initially, the first symp-toms of the disease re-semble those of a com-mon cold. However, within two weeks, the cough develops to be more severe and the in-dividual has “episodes of numerous rapid coughs followed by a crowing or high-pitched whoop.”

The afflicted student de-scribed the systems as “hell,” missing a total of five days of school. As the student laid bed ridden for days, s/he drank tea and slept to lessen the discomfort.

While there have been no additional cases of Pertus-sis reported thus far, the school nurse still urges everyone “to be aware.”

The Glen EchoDecember 2013

Richard Gueren

THE fourth season of Boardwalk Empire has ended. Just like any se-ries on HBO, people are sad to see it end. Hope-fully, the show will come back for a fifth season next fall. In case you missed the show, here’s a recap.

Boardwalk Empire, which is directed by the famous Martin Scorsese, takes place in Atlantic City, New Jersey during the prohibi-tion era. The story centers on the intersection of pol-itics and corruption in the 1920s. In particular, the show focuses on one man who has an opulent life-style, but has found himself engrained in the wrong cir-cle of cohorts, people who have the potential to bring down his entire empire.

The show, which aired Sunday nights at 10 p.m., has many differ-ent characters with pro-foundly different roles.

The show’s protagonist, “Nucky Thompson” (Steve Buschemi), plays the role of a famous criminal linch-pin of the time. Based in Atlantic City, “Nucky” is the city’s most powerful in-dividual who runs a boot-legging empire. Essential-ly, he is breaking the law by

shipping large amounts of alcohol in a secretive man-ner. With a mild manner and a businesslike de-meanor, Nucky is one of the best actors in the series.

Nucky has a chain of command that reports di-rectly to him. Elias “Eli” Thompson (Franklin Shea Whigham Jr.), Nucky’s brother and former po-litical boss, is the closest confidante Nucky has in the business. The two have very close familial rela-tions which only helps to further their relationship.

Albert “Chalky” White (Michael Kenneth Wil-liam) is another one of Nucky’s closest friends. White has developed a close relationship with Nucky in Atlantic City and runs his own boot-legging operation in Har-lem, New York, a center for African American people during this time period. White’s presence allows Nucky to influ-ence the African Ameri-can community in many different ways. White is a “rough around the edges” individual whose slickness allows him to do an outstanding job.

Another actor who plays an outstanding role is that of Richard Harrow (Jack Huston). Richard is a distinguished World War I soldier whose face was blown off during the war. Richard wears a mask on half of his face in order to cover up his scars. After the war, Richard returned home to Wisconsin with his sister, Emma, in or-der to recover from the trauma he had experi-enced. After a few years in isolation, he moved to Chicago where he met a man who runs a boot-legging operation. Thus, this iconic character is created. His life essen-

tially consists of working for his friend Jimmy and ‘knocking off ’ anybody when the time arises. Channeling Harrow’s shy personality and violent soul are the key ingredi-ents to this actor’s success.

On the other hand, there is a set of charac-ters that runs a different bootlegging operation and generally does not engage with the other group. Al Capone (Ste-phen Graham) leads this Chicago crime scene with Johnny Torio (Greg

Antonacci) at the top of the food chain. Capone, who plays his historical-ly-based role during this time, was born in Italy in 1899. The family moved to Brooklyn, New York where Capone had a diffi-cult time adjusting to life. He dropped out of school and met Johnny, who then became his mentor.

Another man in the Chi-cago chain of command is Nelson Van Alden (Mi-chael Shannon). Nelson was a former prohibi-tion agent who attempt-ed to bring down Nucky Thompson. However, during his stint at the Bu-reau of Prohibition, he was engrossed by the criminal machinations of his gang. Thus, he became a criminal outlaw with Al Capone. Skillful, modest, violent, and clever, Van Alden is the best charac-ter for this complex role.

The show’s season end-ed with many interesting plot lines still developing.  One involves Richard Harrow, who was shot for botching an assassination attempt.  Richard was supposed to kill Dr. Nar-cisse (Jeffrey Wright), an-other gangster in Harlem who is competitive with Chalky White.  Nucky is distressed by the simmer-ing rivalry between White and Narcisse.  However, he seems to view Narcisse as inflexible to his de-mands and thus he orders Richard to kill Narcisse. 

Richard, however, botch-es the simple instruc-tions he received from Nucky and instead killed White’s daughter, Mabel. This is a classic example of how the show brings together many plots into one storyline and leaves viewers shocked and sur-prised. Richard was one of the best characters the show created, and they killed him in a way that left viewers blindsid-ed. However, his death may signal a brand new chapter in the series. The show may leave us guess-ing until another climax is reached,  but the view-ers are  more  interested in preparing themselves for future events. Nev-ertheless, this event does have the potential to be a real turning point.  

Another interesting question the series left unanswered is the fate of Nucky Thompson. He had been examined very carefully, and was near-ly on his way to leaving the country, when he was stopped by FBI agents. Nucky tried to escape to Cuba with his girlfriend, but then made plans to cancel the trip. Nucky will have to also deal with the fact that Eli, his broth-er, may not have his back anymore. There is clearly a lot of money on the line, not to mention the life-style that Nucky has en-joyed for most of his life.

The show also left open the fate of Al Capone and his empire. With the pending exit of his boss, Johnny Torio, Capone must run this empire from the bottom to the top. Will Nelson Van Al-den continue to associate with Capone in the next season or ditch his part-ner-in-crime? Will law enforcement catch onto the evil plans of Capone? These and many other questions will hopefully be explored next season.

Not only is the show ed-ucational, in that it takes you back to the Prohibi-tion Era, but it’s also finely narrated. The character’s personalities and life-styles correspond directly to that time period. The sets add to the fascination with that time period. The background and mo-tivations of the characters is vivid and captivating.

The show has one other important quality. The show has mastered the art of keeping the view-er interested. A typical viewer could witness the violence and swearing (that is common for this type of screening) and decide to watch some-thing else. However, with the introduction of patriotic World War I veterans like Richard and mobsters with crazy mo-tivations, the show has hit a new ceiling of interest.

During the interim, Boardwalk Empire will be missed but will hope-fully come back for an-other season next fall.

Jade Quigley

FAMILY Guy’s Brian Griffin, also known as “America’s dog” was killed on No-vember 24th, leaving fans of the animated show, Family Guy, in shock.

Brian, who has been on the show for 11 seasons, was hit by a car on Sun-day’s episode, resulting in his demise. “For most peo-ple, Brian Griffin was one of the major reasons they turned on Family Guy,” Junior Dan Evans said.

Brian was replaced by a new dog, Vinnie, who is voiced by the Sopranos star Tony Sirico. After Sunday’s episode, several fans signed a petition on www.change.org, pleading with creator Seth Macfarlane and Fox Broadcasting to bring Bri-an back – somehow. “The writers of Family Guy didn’t just kill off one of their creations, they killed off the dog who has lived in our homes for the last 15 years,” reads the online pe-

tition. “They killed the dog we all have come to love. They killed America’s dog!”

Sunday’s episode was enti-tled the “Life of Brian,” lead-ing fans to believe that his death was permanent. Af-ter Brian had died, baby Stewie tried to bring him back using his time machine but was unable to solve the heartbreaking problem.

Junior Emily Kuiken com-mented, “I thought that he was a great part of the show and he showed a certain type of comic re-lief that none of the other characters could have.” If they were to revive Brian, Fox Broadcasting has al-ready allegedly said that it wouldn’t be the first time a TV show has brought a character back to life.

“If they don’t bring him back on the show, the ratings are definitely going to decrease,” Ju-nior Sean Lynch added.

6

Home for the holidays

Please wait: your education is still booting up

A spruce tree and a holiday lamp(continued from page 1)

Lenora Benjamin, the borough administrator, said that this change was implemented for a number of reasons.

“The creation of the Winter Wonderland was brought to the Mayor and Council from the Cham-ber of Commerce as a new idea to first have a community event and, secondly, create stimu-lation in the downtown area and for all Glen Rock businesses. It is just a new idea that we hoped would provide a winter event along with helping out the local merchants,” said Benjamin. “The orig-inal Christmas tree light-ing was sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, and this year’s Winter Wonderland event is sponsored by the Cham-ber of Commerce, The Central Business District, and the Borough of Glen Rock. It is an event that is not associated with a specific holiday but celebrates the season.”

The revision of the former holiday tradition has start-ed buzz amongst many Glen Rock High School students. Many were ve-hement about upholding the years-old tradition.

“I don’t get why people get upset about a Christmas tree being called a ‘Christ-mas tree,’ it’s not like they call a menorah a ‘holiday lamp,’” freshman Jew-el Quigley commented.

“Although I do see the complainer’s point of view, I don’t think it was necessary to alter the name of the tradition-al Christmas tree light-ing,” sophomore John Scandale added. “It’s called a Christmas tree lighting because Christ-mas is celebrated by decorating trees. Rather than eliminate a genu-ine tradition, maybe we should add symbols to the lighting – such as a menorah for Hanukkah”

Members of the Jewish Community have also opined that the traditions do not have to be altered.

Lauren Jones

THIS past Septem-ber, people stood in long lines for hours to exchange their iP-hone 4s for the new and improved iPhone 5s – released a year later, many custom-ers were already pre-pared to trade-in their now-dated technology for a brand new phone.

Teacher laptops, on the other hand, are entering the seventh year of use.

Resembling blackened bricks, the laptops seem to be old, antiquated technology. For in-stance, the 15 inch note-book has one gigabyte of ram (the hardware that determines how much data a laptop can pro-cess at once) while the Samsung Galaxy S3, a recent smartphone, has two gigabytes of ram – that’s right, a phone in one’s pocket has more ram than those laptops.

Teachers at Glen Rock

High School are pro-vided with the 2007 HP Compaq 6710b note-books PC World, at the time of its release seven years ago, stated that these laptops are “one of the slower performers.”

The school provides these for its teachers so they can type les-son plans, worksheets, various tests and quiz-zes, etc. while at school or home. Although the idea of these lap-tops resonates posi-tively with the faculty, many teachers have bemoaned the difficul-ties they have had with using this hardware.

One major issue with the laptops is that they often take too long to turn on and lag when they finally power up.

English teacher Mrs. McNicholas and sci-ence teacher Ms. Ber-goffen are two teachers who have had trouble with their school-is-

fen said such a setback has made her “late tak-ing attendance.” With the increased focus on raising instructional time, particularly with

the possible schedule change next year, up-to-date technology could help to increase the amount of instruction

within the classroom.

Yet despite the fact that the teacher’s laptops can be slow, they do have a few good qualities. PC World noted that their

“rigid and sturdy de-sign feels like it’s up to a bit of traveling and can take a few knocks.” That is a great quality for teachers who are con-stantly moving around to different classrooms.

Some have said that since the school-issued laptops lack in per-formance, it could be more effective for the staff to bring their own device (also known as BYOD) to school. “I would love to bring my Apple laptop to school,” said Mrs. McNicholas.

Ms. Bergoffen said, “I use my own lap-top at home and will use it in school if BYOD is adopted.” 

For an alternative to laptops, Mrs. McNich-olas suggested that the administration could consider tablets. “I would love a tablet – they’re easy to car-ry around and more effective,” she said.

“The decision to not have a [Christmas] tree this year is surprising to me. It’s understandable that people feel offended, but the tree has been a Glen Rock tradition for years,” said sophomore Matt Isaac, member of Temple Emeth in Teaneck.

Member of the Glen Rock Jewish Center, Ravi Rosen, said, “Having a Christmas tree in town personally does not bother me, but I do recognize how it could offend some people who think that their beliefs are not being represented.”

Nonetheless, many re-main indifferent about the modification. “I don’t particularly care about the change because typ-ically I don’t acknowl-edge the holiday decora-tions,” said Juliana Roddy.

Several rumors have been spread that the moti-vation for the change of celebration resulted from complaints filed in previous years about a lack of a menorah. The rumors entailed claims

that, when the town had tried to ask for a per-mit for a menorah, they were denied; therefore, they created the Winter Wonderland to better suit all customs and tra-ditions of varying natures.

However, in response, Lenora Benjamin said that she had not heard of the rumor and that no one had filed a com-plaint of that nature with her. Additionally the decision to create the Winter Wonderland had only been decided in the past eight weeks or so.

Glen Rock is not the only town that is expe-riencing this ‘customs conflict.’ Many other towns and schools in the United States bat-tle with this complica-tion yearly as the holi-day season approaches.

According to The Times, in Robbinsville, New Jersey, Mayor David Fried stood his ground as he proudly conducted a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

Continued on page 9.

The Glen Echo December 2013

sued laptops, which have made it more dif-ficult to perform edu-cational tasks in an in-creasingly digital world.

The teachers said that it takes anywhere from “two to five minutes” just to get the computer on. This makes everyday tasks like taking atten-

dance, putting up web-pages, and loading Pow-er Points take longer than necessary, wasting class time. Ms. Bergof-

Continued from page 1

Yet Dan must prepare to depart again shortly, as he will leave on De-cember 16th for Marine Combat Training. For-tunately, he will have four days of leave so he can spend Christ-mas with his family.

Looking towards the fu-

ture, Dan plans to finish his five year enlistment and then go to college for health and physical education to eventu-ally become a Physi-cal Education teacher.

But, for now, Dan is just happy to be home. “It’s great to be home and to see my friends and family again,” he said.

Pictured here in the military barracks, Dan Vest returned to Glen Rock High School on December 11th, visiting many old teachers and classmates.

Bomb sniffing K9 units were on the scene at the NYC Marathon.

7

Ariel Shilitz

ON the crisp fall morning of November 3rd, 50,740 people lined up at the start-ing line for the ING New York City Marathon. As one of the major five marathons on Earth, this event attract-ed runners from 85 different countries around the world.

Both two-time consec-utive winners, Geoffrey Mutai and Priscah Jeptoo of Kenya, repeated their victories from 2011. Amer-ican, Tatyana McFadden, accomplished the historic sweep of winning the Bos-ton, London, Chicago, and New York marathons in the wheelchair division all in the same year. McFad-den was the first person ever to win four mara-thons in one calendar year.

After the catastrophe at the Boston Marathon earlier this year, and the New York marathon being a highly populated event, previous security protocol had been scrutinized, improved, and newly implemented. There were the obvious prohibited articles: weap-ons, flammable liquids, any dangerous or “dual use” items that could be used as weapons, large pack-ages, coolers, tents, and other objects that could be perilous to someone’s life.

Additionally, as the mara-thon is always secured by New York Police Depart-ment, there was an increase in the amount of police presence on and around the course this year, par-ticularly compared to oth-er earlier NYC, domestic, and international mara-thons that have taken place.

Multiple-time NYC mar-athon runner Stu Shilitz said, “You felt the addi-tional security around you, without a doubt. I felt reassured that there wouldn’t be any issues.”

According to the ING NYC Marathon 2013 Official Program, a new system was implemented this year along the course of the race. The Event Alert System was created to “communicate the status of course con-ditions on race day.” The

Security was the priority at the New York City Marathon

lowest level was green and then the others ranged from moderate, to high, and, ul-timately, extreme. The ex-treme level would discontin-ue the race and all runners would have to stop running.

Family members, friends, and bomb sniffing dogs were also walking along the course, inspecting many pop-ular areas such as the start-ing line, the 13-mile mark, and all around the Central Park and finish line area.

Above were a handful of helicopters, patrolling the skies. Likewise, as runners made their way to Staten Island for the start, Coast Guard boats were patrolling along the New York Harbor.

“If you didn’t feel the se-curity in the different vil-lages, you could definitely feel the police presence as you ran across the Ver-razano Bridge with a NYC police helicopter hovering at eye level,” Shilitz said.

As the runners entered the starting village, each runner was obligated to take off all metal objects and proceed through a metal detector just as if they were at an airport.

If someone chose to arrange a bag at the finish line, the only bag that a runner could use was a clear drawstring bag that was given to each runner at the official NYC Marathon Expo that week-end. These bags were also put through security and then taken on trucks to the finish line, which runners could then pick-up once they had completed the race.

To secure the finish line, spectators who purchased grandstand seats had an ID access badge, and they too were obligated to go through security detectors.

Despite the increased secu-rity protocol, ultimately the day was about running, and completing, a race that stems from the accomplishment of an ancient Greek courier and hero, Pheidippides, who de-livered the news of the Greek victory over Persia in the Battle of Marathon before perishing from exhaustion.

Professional marathoner Dick Beardsley said, in the film Spirit of the Marathon, “When you cross that finish line -- no matter how slow, no matter how fast -- it will change your life forever.”

The Glen EchoDecember 2013

Do school uniforms stifle students’ individuality? Some students choose to show their college pride.

8

You can’t really get made fun of for your clothes.

Dressed to impressAnna Barton

SCHOOL uniforms—standardized cloth-ing required in private schools across the U.S.— are slowly making their way into public school districts. As a heated top-ic of debate throughout the country, uniforms are a hot-button issue.

In most public school districts, dress codes are implemented for prac-tical and social reasons. According to French Toast Official School Wear, a company which specializes in selling school uniforms, “Some of our public school sys-tems are in a dispirited and discouraged state. Violence, poor atten-dance, disruptive behav-ior and disheartening at-titudes stand in the way of today’s education.”

However, it could also be said that children wearing uniforms find it difficult to concentrate in class since they are too focused on their discom-fort in their uniforms. The out-of-date-fashions, the itchy material—it’s just not the best learning-enhancer. Not to mention these uniforms ar-en’t the most flattering of clothing.

“You don’t get a chance to wear what you want to wear and be com-fortable going to school,” former Academy of Our Lady student, Michael Szawaluk, commented.

Most argue that school uniforms are uncomfortable to wear, expensive, and, needless to say, ugly. Neverthe-less, while some may argue that they cause difficulty learning, others may argue that they help center students’ focus on school rather than what they’re wearing and how they look.

“It’s not a fashion show, it’s school—we’re not here to compare shoes,” sophomore Caitlin Pfeiffer said.

In recent years, there has been heavy competition amongst teens to keep

up with the current style of clothes. Nevertheless, while clothes may be a main concern to most teens, there are often those who choose not to pay attention to the current style, and who may become the victims of bullying because of it.

“Everyone’s wearing the same [uni-form], so you can’t really get made fun of for your clothes,” Nickie Jones, an Academy of Our Lady alumnus, said.

It is estimated that 160,000 children miss school every day due to the fear of intimidation by other students. Therefore, as schools turn to man-dated uniforms, the hypothetical student who was previously uneasy about coming to school because he had been made fun of for the way he dressed, could now feel more relaxed about going to school. The student could focus less on the opinions of his peers and more on his schoolwork.

Brendan Cummins, a sophomore at Don Bosco High School, agreed that wear-ing uniforms seemed to simplify things.

“I honestly don’t mind them at all. If

they were more com-fortable, I would actu-ally prefer them. But they’re really no big deal at all when you walk around school where it’s normal,” he said. “And it’s also eas-ier to get ready in the morning, not having to pick out what to wear.”

The World and Journal

Trevor LaVine

KEEP an eye out for The Glen Echo’s new tabloid publications, The Glen Echo: World and The Glen Echo: Journal. The World is made by period five, and the Journal is made by period eight. They will be coming out monthly and will contain a few articles each. The articles may be on similar topics, to determine which period can come up with a better paper. The first editions have already been published! Check them out for articles about fashion, cul-ture, and the holiday season. Once you’ve read them, visit www.theglenecho.com to vote for your favorite!

Hailey Nirenberg

IMAGINE walking down the hall, seeing plaid skirt after plaid skirt, kha-ki pant after khaki pant, sweater vest after sweat-er vest, not being able to tell student from student.

This frightening scenario is what many students across the country experience dai-ly. Thankfully, here at Glen Rock High School, students are free to wear whatever they want (while following the dress code, of course).

Are you a conformist?

The Glen Echo December 2013

If a school has set uni-forms in place, students aren’t allowed to ex-press their individuality.

“I think that what clothes you wear show a lot about your person1ality and they are a way to express your-self, and wearing uniforms takes that away from you,” said current Glen Rock High School sophomore and former Academy of Our Lady student Erin Jones. “Regular clothes say a lot about who you are and they make you your own person.”

Not only do school uni-forms limit the way stu-dents can express them-selves in school but, with everyone wearing the same exact outfit, “boring” is quite the understatement.

“I didn’t like having to wear uniforms because we weren’t allowed to express ourselves and wearing the same thing was kind of boring,” said former Acad-emy of Our Lady student and current GRHS sopho-more John Cunningham.

Some have said that what students wear to school can be distracting to oth-

ers, but does what stu-dents wear really hinder the education of others?

According to a survey done by the US Depart-ment of Education in Oc-tober of 2013, only 35% of parents surveyed said that school uniforms have improved the learning en-vironment of where their children attend school.

“I really don’t think my mom would want to spend extra money for a school uniform, she would rather just see me wear what makes me happy,” expressed GRHS sophomore Sydney Struble.

Wearing school uniforms can be quite expensive, which is an extra and un-wanted burden placed on parents. As revealed by the US Board of Educa-tion, the annual cost for school uniforms is $249.

This $249 comprises the re-quired pants, shirts, skirts, shoes, socks, sweaters, jack-ets, etc. required by schools with uniforms. Especially now with the struggling economy, saving money is a must, and finding an ex-tra $249 to spare is not easy.

Freedom of reli-gion should mean we are free to cele-brate whatever re-ligion each citizen wishes to celebrate.

9

GRHS student signs with Bryant University for Division I lacrosse

A spruce tree and a holiday lampThe Glen EchoDecember 2013

Pat Lawless

THE National Sign-ing Day for Athletes all across the coun-try recently occured, and Glen Rock High School lacrosse play-er, Jake Pellegrino, is making headlines as he signs with Bry-ant University – a Division I program.

Pellegrino caught up with The Glen Echo and talked about not only his life-changing

decision, but also the team’s previous and upcoming seasons.

Jake discussed with The Glen Echo ex-actly why he decided to sign with Bryant.

“I decided on Bry-ant because the head coach is amazing,” he said. “They have good academics and a great up-and-coming la-crosse program, which the president of Bry-ant supports 100%.”

Jake then added that he was recruited to be a two-way midfield player, which means that he will play of-fense and defense. Pellegrino added that this also heavily in-fluenced his decision. Pellegrino is excited to have the chance to play Division I lacrosse.

“It’s an amazing feel-ing to have the oppor-tunity to play Divi-sion I lacrosse against some of the best talent

in the country and hopefully compete for a national champion-ship,” he continued to tell The Glen Echo.

During the high school season, Jake would like to improve on his speed, strength, and stick skills. De-spite signing with Bryant, Jake continues to think about playing for the high school team this year; he be-lieves that they have a lot of potential in

the upcoming season.

“This year, the high school team has a challenging sched-ule, but I think we will have a good sea-son and make a run in the state tourna-ment,” said Pellegrino.

Jake’s Bryant com-mitment has laid some of his goals out for both him and his team this year.

“This season, the goal for the team is to have

a winning record and make a deep run in States,” Jake said. “As for me, I want to have more assists than goals and more points than I had last year.”

If you haven’t seen Jake play yet, you should take the time to watch. He is a spe-cial player, and it’s not every year that you get so see a Division I athlete play at Glen Rock High School.

Continued from page 6.

“This is just not right,” Mayor Fried said. “We can say we have a Me-norah, a Jewish religious symbol, but for some rea-son we can’t call our tree what it is - a Christmas tree, which is not even a religious symbol. The tree is a symbol of the Christmas celebration.”

Fried went on to cite the Constitution, say-ing, “Freedom of religion should mean we are free to celebrate whatever re-ligion each citizen wish-es to celebrate, It should mean we embrace all re-ligions and ‘the free exer-cise thereof’ in all parts of

our lives, just as we em-brace all cultures in other aspects of our society.”

Fried said that he wished to return to a time where people could say “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Hanukkah” without being forced to ignore that peo-ple are celebrating those religious events through-out this wintry season.

Yet although in Glen Rock Santa had been replaced at the traditional lighting ceremony, he has been summoned back to Glen Rock on his sleigh! A spe-cial Santa Clause event is being held in town on Rock Road on December 21st between 2:30 and 4:30 PM. Numerous business-es (including Image Art Studio, Burke Video Pro-ductions, Dunkin’ Donuts and The Glen Rock Inn) have organized the event.

“We encourage parents to bring their own cameras to take pictures with San-ta. We will have coffee, hot chocolate and some donuts for all to enjoy. There will be Christmas

music and it should be a lot of fun,” said Ted Burke, GRTV’s Station Manager and Programming Direc-tor. “We’re hoping that residents will come out to see Santa and take the opportunity to support our local businesses. Af-ter the Santa Claus event, we are inviting folks to

join us at the Glen Rock Inn to thank them for their support and share in some Christmas cheer.”

Although new amend-ments have been made to previous holiday customs, Glen Rock is still creating many new traditions this season. The trees in front

of Borough hall twin-kle beautifully as they illuminate the wintery suburban wonderland. Throughout all the chang-es, the festive decorations still reflect the warm, cel-ebratory feeling that Glen Rock traditionally gives off during the season.

Courtney Schmitt

THE holiday season is upon us here at Glen Rock High School. Ev-eryone seems to be in the spirit. The halls are decked, the students merry, and the finish-ing touches are added to the annual Winter Slide Show. Yet while students anxiously await winter break, the much-needed week and a half off of school is not the only thing on their minds.

Those who are a part of National Honor So-ciety see that the end of the semester is soon approaching, and with it the deadline to complete 40 hours of volunteer work.

Many students find that helping out during the holidays is easy since clubs like Interact organize a lot of drives during this time which need the

help of many volun-teers. Other popular places to volunteer are at Oasis in Pater-son, the dog shelter, or even the Arboretum.

For some, this re-quirement may be a burden and will try to quickly squeeze in the required amount of hours, and, for oth-ers, they are submit-ting volunteer hours for side work that is genuine and not re-quired of them. Either way, it raises a good question... should there even be a volun-teering requirement?

Some students take pride in the work they do outside of the classroom and feel that helping others is something important to them and not just hours to hand in at the end of a semes-ter. “I volunteer, and I don’t always use those

hours as part of the requirement,” said senior Ethan Klein.

The advantages to vol-unteering are clear. Those who are for-tunate and have the means of helping out others will be able to do so and make an impact, big or small, in their community or even, with enough ef-fort, on a larger scale. However, the inten-tions for dedicating their time differ for everyone. Some see that a requirement is a great way to get as many people involved and giving back.

Senior, Lauren Good-year explained, “I think its good because people should get a chance to be exposed to different types of community service, but we are so busy we don’t prioritize it, so re-quiring hours gives us

the chance to do so.”

Yet others disagree. “I think you should do it [volunteer] because you want to make a difference not because you have to,” said senior, Julia Wood.

Kelly Streaser, also a senior, said, “It gets people involved, but not really for the right reasons. It shouldn’t be a thing people are forced to do. The good cause should be reason enough.”

The holidays are a time to reflect upon what we are grateful for and are known for foster-ing a sense of charity in people. Whether you are volunteering because it is required of you, or because are interested in helping others, spending your time benefitting oth-ers is probably the best gift to give someone this holiday season.

The holiday spirit?10

Teachers replaced by students for a day

What your phone case says about you

Sondra Nieradka

WHILE strolling through the halls of GRHS on Wednes-day, November 27th, it was not difficult to spot teachers sporting jeans and sweatshirts or students wearing blazers and cardigans.

The half-day before the extended weekend in November is always highly anticipated by many at Glen Rock High School. Not sim-ply because they are looking forward to en-joying Thanksgiving, but also because it is Student-Teacher Day.

This tradition at Glen Rock High School gives seniors the opportu-nity to dress up like a teacher of their choos-ing and instruct their classes. The majority of lesson plans consist of trivia quizzes and an abundance of candy.

Participating teach-

ers and seniors also attended a breakfast at 7:30 before school.

Mary McDonough said, “Being Dowell was the highlight of my high school career.” An ex-aggeration, perhaps, but this tradition is certainly one that the graduating class remi-nisces about come June.

“It was really cool to see how teaching works and how tiring it could be,” said Anna Lis who was Mr. Toncic for the day. She instructed his three tenth grade English classes and two Jour-nalism classes alongside

Jillian Rotondaro and Kelly Streaser. Half of a day was enough to give the student-teachers in-sight as to what the typ-ical teacher’s day is like.

The experience proved to be an enlighten-ing and entertaining experience for stu-dents and faculty alike.

It was cool see-ing how teach-ing works and how tiring it could be.

Anna Lis

THERE is no better way to show-case your indi-viduality than an over-priced piece of plastic. It almost seems point-less to fret over what color phone you should buy because it will just end up being covered by polyurethane. In an age where it is weird to not have your phone on-hand, uniqueness is hard to establish in the sea of iPhones and Android smartphones. But with the help of your phone case, you are sure to make people think twice about who you really are.

An Otterbox: This spe-cific case speaks more about you than probably anything you have ever owned. It says, “I am a mess and can’t man-age to keep my phone in my hands.” Not to fret, though – this case may show that you drop your phone a lot, but it also shows that you are able to be respon-

sible and think ahead.

J. Crew phone case: Nothing is classier than J.Crew and to exemplify your elegance you can now dress your phone in it. These cases offer bare-ly any protection and, if you drop your phone, it will crack. But that crack will be one classy crack.

Kate Spade: Please see J. Crew.

A Galaxy Phone Case: You are probably really different in the best way. You spend your free time in coffee shops or record stores. Also your clothes are probably thrifted.

A Verizon Phone Case: A new phone and a new start. Maybe this time you will not drop your phone in the toilet and crack it – the key word being maybe. You have not had time yet to re-ally customize it but for now that color (that you spent too long decid-ing on) is all you need.

Being Dowell was the high-light of my high school career.

The Glen Echo December 2013

Anna Lis, Jillian Rotondaro, and Kelly Streaser (left-to-right) dressed as Mr. Toncic for 2013’s Student-Teacher Day.

11

New seasonable fashions

Support pours in for typhoon Haiyan’s victims

F. Timothy Mountain & Frank Connor

AS the barren trees fall sparse of leaves, the once-verdant lawns meta-morphose into pallid, malnourished clusters of grass. This upheaval in seasonal pattern can only indicate the newfound presence of one well-an-ticipated phenomenon: Winter is just around the corner— and, mounted on winter’s back, the most awaited transmutation of all: a fresh new batch of cute, zany, quirky win-ter fashions, which will have folks subserviently scouring their wallets for more capital with which to mindlessly squan-der on opulent attire.

This first fashion, ele-gantly titled “The trash can,”(right) really speaks volumes about its wearer’s deep and latent inner-trou-bles. Modeling this trend, the ever-beautiful Frank

Connor strikes a provoc-ative pose, enticing even the most modest women.

When not participating in the current fashion, Frank is hunting his wardrobe for the upcoming season.

“Coats are tough old bug-gers so I generally go with a 50cal rifle. However, if they seem particular-ly cross, it can be better to just use a bazooka.”

Coats are not Frank’s big-gest issue however. “Kha-kis are generally very clever,” he said. “They

coming winter is called “Printer Boy.” Tyler Joa-chim mimics the pose of a pouncing leopard in this picture, emphasizing the ‘natural wilderness’ look which it represents.

While not strictly an “ar-ticle of clothing,” this printer brilliantly exempli-fies the emotions which

Tyler strives to express with this particular fash-ion. Considered an acces-sory, one may consider bringing a printer every-where he/she travels.

“What I was attempting to do is create an ethe-real sense of oneness between man and ma-chine,” said Tyler, the fashionista. “It is hope.”

Joachim states that he dis-covered the printer lurk-ing in the shadows of the woods behind his house, and he just had to have it. “He was just standing

there, grazing on some grass, clearly terrified of me. One bolt of my cross-bow and he was mine.”

Joachim can now be seen with the taxidermic beast at important so-cial events, particularly near his spiritual home of Paris, France. “It’s my pride and joy,” he said.

The next big fashion, which will be ‘hot off the press-es’ this winter is referred to by many as “The Big Heavy Steel Thing,” is so bulky that few are able to pull it off correctly. Though a rather bland style on its own, Will Connor, a freshman, skillfully uti-lizes the simple elegance of the rusted steel to ap-pear modest (yet dash-ing) around the ladies.

Will is a fan of looking both chic and discreet. “I don’t particularly enjoy drawing attention, which is why this inconspicuous steel collar is the perfect

The Glen EchoDecember 2013

fashion for me,” he said.

Will does, interestingly, fancy the idea of having steel exist as a major com-ponent in his clothing, mainly because of the en-hanced strength and dura-bility that it offers. Despite the durability however, he doesn’t recommend it to those who intend to grow in the near future.

“I am going to stay this size for my entire life,” he com-mented dolefully, “So I will only need one pair of ‘The Big Heavy Steel Thing’.”

The above story is a work of satire.

tend to hide in shrubbery and behind trees, and god help the poor devil that goes in after them.”

Frank, one time, wit-nessed a man suffer the consequences of diving in after a pair of nice-ly-pleated khakis. Frank described a macabre mu-tilation, one too ghastly to print, but concluded, “His new pants, however, looked very smart, and complemented his Polo shirt very dashingly.”

The fashion business, however, is not all fun and games. This next fash-ion to look out for in the

Lilia Wood

IN Glen Rock, stu-dents grow up helping their neighbors. This time, their neighbors are 8,575 miles away.

Typhoon Haiyan (also referred to as Typhoon Yolanda) was a catego-ry five storm that hit the Philippines on No-vember 9th. The storm was devastating and many Filipino people lost their lives or live-lihood. Many families were torn apart; chil-dren were orphaned and parents were left childless. The ty-phoon killed more than 5,200 people in the Philippines Islands.

Immediately after viewing this catastro-phe on the news, Glen Rock High School’s class officers and advisors knew that they had to help. Together, they brainstormed ideas to help the victims.

“When I heard about

the typhoon, my first thought was ‘oh my God those poor peo-ple,’” Kieran Rooney, vice president of the sophomore class, said. “Things like this hap-pen way too often.”

The class officers and advisors of all grades decided to run a supply drive for the Philippines, so everyone could get involved and because the Filipinos are lacking a lot of life essentials.

“I expected our school to produce a large amount of donations, mostly because it is

for a good cause,” Ju-liana Roddy, a class of-ficer, said. “Also, GRHS held a supply drive for Haiti in 2010, and it was very successful.”

The class officers re-searched what the Filipinos needed the most, where the stu-dents should drop off the donations, and how the supplies would get half-way across the world most efficiently.

“The Philippines were not taking donations for the first few weeks after the typhoon had hit,” Kaitlin Stansel,

treasurer of the Class of 2016, said. “Due to the severe water dam-age, there was little to no places for sup-plies that were flown over to be placed.”

The advisors searched for non-profit orga-nizations that would take the supplies with no traveling cost to the Philippines.

They decided to work with the American Red Cross, a profit free or-ganization that works closely with the Philip-pines. As of November 27th, the American Red Cross has donated ap-proximately sixteen mil-lion dollars to restore the lives of the Filipinos.

On Thursday, Novem-ber 21st, the supply drive was announced to the school. All stu-dents were encouraged to bring an item from the category corre-sponding to their grade.

The freshmen were

assigned baby and child supplies, the sophomores were to bring in clothing for all ages, the juniors were asked to bring in toi-letries, and the seniors were asked to bring in non-perishable food. Monetary donations were also accepted.

The supply drive end-ed on Friday, De-cember 13th, allot-ting just enough time for the Filipinos to get their supplies for the holiday season.

The school collect-ed piles and piles of supplies ranging from

children’s medicine to canned food to blan-kets to keep the Filipi-nos warm. The class ad-visors and officers were very grateful for all of the supplies collected and were very impa-tient waiting for the day the supplies would ar-rive in the Philippines.

“I think that our school’s donation to the Phil-ippines will help ease the evident struggles of celebrating the hol-idays during this tragic time,” president of the sophomore class, John Scandale, said. “In the sense that we are giving them some hope and

Rebecca Jacobs

ARE you stuck when your family asks what you want for the holidays? Do you have no idea what you want? Here are the top ten things kids our age are asking for this year!

Portable Bluetooth Speak-ers: With all this new tech-nology coming out, one of the cool new things is the portable Bluetooth speaker. They’re easy to use and work with your phone’s Bluetooth option. The Jawbone Jambox is about $130.00 and is one of the pricier Bluetooth speaker devices. You can easily find them online from $15-30 bucks, as well.

Call of Duty: Ghosts: A great gift for guys, the newest Call of Duty game of the se-ries. This game is produced by Infinity Ward and can be played on the XBOX game consoles, Playstation con-soles, Nintendo consoles, and on PCs. The price of Call of Duty: Ghosts ranges from about $30.00 to $60.00.

Naked 3 Palette: A great gift for a teenage girl, the Urban Decay Naked 3 Pal-ette is an eye shadow pal-ette. The Naked 3 Palette is the third of Urban Decay’s Naked series. The Naked 3 Palette is $50.00 and can be found at Sephora.

Cards Against Humanity: A new card game that is fun for guys and girls. Albeit quirky and frequently in-appropriate, this game will have friends and family roaring in laughter face-to-face. The game is sold for $28.00 on Amazon.com; there are four available expansion packs, as well.

Touch Screen Gloves: A useful gift for the hol-idays would be touch screen gloves. With these gloves, you can text your friends and not worry about your fingers becom-ing numb. You can find these gloves on Amazon.com for a cheap $8.00.

Monogram Necklace: The Verdi Blu Monogram Necklace is a cute and fabulous necklace re-quest for the holidays.

The necklace is $125.00, and you can find the store in the middle of town.

Ugg Australia ‘Ascot’ Slipper for Men: The new and com-fy slipper/shoe is a great item to ask for if you’re a guy. The shoe is $99.95 and can be found in Nordstrom at Garden State Plaza.

Men’s Nixon Watch: ‘The Private’ Camo Bezel Bracelet Watch, 42 mm is $200.00. This watch can be found at Nord-strom in Garden State Pla-za and is a great gift for guys this holiday season.

Women’s Marc Jacobs Watch: The Marc Jacobs 40 MM black watch is a great, cute accessory to throw on your Holiday Wish list as well. It is priced at $250.00 and can be found at Marc Jacobs distributers.

Numark iDJ Live DJ soft-ware controller for iPad, iP-hone, or iPod: A great, cool gift for all genders. This de-vice can lead you to making some great music. The de-vice sells for $39.99 and can be found on Amazon.com.

12

‘1D Day’ live stream draws record crowd

Christmas Time Top ten items for your holiday list

an early bird is on Christ-mas and for the live stream.”

Desha is one of the many fans called ‘Directioners’ who prepared for “1D Day.” Desha said, “Before the live stream, I went to the store with my friend and we bought a bunch of snacks.” Many fans prepared for this event by stocking up on food and beverages, perhaps even amassing all the food they could find in their house, and then

Jewel Quigley

ON Saturday, November 23rd, a highly anticipated event, named 1D Day, oc-curred globally, spanning 61 countries, all from a stu-dio in Los Angeles – a sev-en and a half hour internet live stream starring, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, and Zayn Malik. Hosting live performances, celebri-ty guests, tons of fan inter-actions, song teases from their new album Midnight Memories, magic tricks performed by Dynamo that baffled the boys, and attempts to break Guinness world records being broad-casted off of YouTube: this evening was a non-stop homage to one of the most popular boy bands of the 21st century, One Direction.

How can devoted fans sit at their computers for sev-en and half hours straight with no breaks whatsoever? Glen Rock student, Desha McCarthy, was one of those diehard fans, stocking up on supplies and plugging in her laptop waiting for the online marathon to begin. “I was so excited to watch the broad-cast. When it came to wak-ing up early in the morning, I was an early bird,” she said. “The only times I’m

locking themselves into a room with a computer. To some, this process could be called hibernation.

More than 777,000 fans tuned into the live stream, as well as some lucky ‘Di-rectioners’ who got to at-tend the event. Celebrities such as Simon Cowell, Kh-loe Kardashian, Michael Buble, Jerry Springer, Piers Morgan, Kelly Rowland, Robbie Williams, Celine Dion, dynamo, Sarah Craw-

ford, and many more used Google+ to video chat the five young lads, asking questions. A few celebrities appeared live on the show, providing fun-filled games and asking the boys ques-tions that were submitted by fans through the so-cial media website Twitter.

There were many direct fan interactions, such as being able to ask the One Direc-tion group members ques-tions via Google+’s video

hangout and being picked to be followed on Twitter -- by using randomized games involving rubber ducks or a spinning wheel.

“Having a sibling that is in love with One Direction, I know that getting a follow on Twitter from one of the One Direction boys would mean a lot to her,” junior student Jade Quigley said.

One game involved the guys one-by-one answer-ing true or false questions about a statement made about a country: if the mu-sician in question got it wrong, it would result in him eating a truly disgust-ing food: brain, chocolate covered bugs, grasshop-pers, or a tuna shake. But if the performer got the question right, he would be lucky enough to eat a delicacy from the country the question referred too.

All throughout the video live stream, the boys per-formed new songs from their album Midnight Memories, which made its debut on November 25th, 2013. Also, while the five guys continued on with the live stream, a few fans got to be among the first of the Directioners to hear the full album, reporting

back to the boys on what they thought of the album.

As the world’s biggest boy band, the group thought it may be enjoyable to at-tempt to break a few world records. They attempted to break the world record for most toilet paper rolls stacked within 30 seconds, the record held at 28 rolls. The boys attempted the challenge but sadly failed to beat the record. Another re-cord they tried to break was the most balloons popped with their bum within the time of 30 seconds – the record was 27. The last re-cord they tried to beat was putting on the most t-shirts in 1 minute – the most was 30. But they failed that challenge attempt, too, al-though they were close to breaking the record. These funny moments and the determination the boys had to try to break the re-cord made it fun to watch.

And although the live stream had some techni-cal difficulties, it went on. It was a fun-filled time for all One Direction lovers to see the five guys goof-off and have a great time.

Many fans requested for 1D day to be an annual event.

Brendan Geen                                                

SINCE Christmas falls at the same time every year, some families have traditions of doing the same thing ev-ery year for the holiday.

Some families go on va-cation every year to the same place, some go to see the same family members every year, some go out to the same restaurant for Christmas dinner every year, and some Glen Rock families do something dif-ferent every Christmas.

Frank Connor and Rich-ard Gueren are two mem-bers of The Glen Echo staff who anticipate their families’ yearly traditions. Business Manager, Frank Connor, goes and sees his cousins every year for

Christmas. He has been doing this for many years and looks forward to it annually. Even though it is the same thing every year, he enjoys it just as much as he had the first time.

“I have dinner with my cous-ins every year,” said Frank. “They live in Glen Rock so it isn’t very far. It’s always really nice to see my fam-ily. Even though we both live in town, we don’t see a lot of each other because we are both very busy.”

Richard Gueren, the Manag-ing Editor, is another student who has a tradition that he does every Christmas. Every year for Christmas break, Richard and his family go to Key West in Florida to spend the holiday in the warmth.

He has been going down there for the last two years,

and he is going there again this year. He en-joys spending time with his family and getting a break from the same rou-tine that he goes through every day in Glen Rock.

“My family and I go down to Florida every year for Christmas,” said Richard Gueren (’15). “We usu-ally leave the day after Christmas and get back in time for school to start again. We go to Key West and it’s always really fun. It’s really nice down there and it’s always warm.”

Perhaps sharing stories such as these is one way of spreading holiday cheer.

“I love hearing about oth-er peoples holiday tradi-tions,” Lilia Wood said.

The Glen Echo December 2013

13

How could this political maneuver be legal?

Flying like an Eagle

Richard Gueren

IF you’ve ever wondered why nothing seems to get done in the nation’s capital, you’re not alone. However, I bet you’ve never wondered if politicians in Washington are engaged in activities that any other modern institu-tion would deem ‘illegal.’

There are three big ways in which a typical Washington politician survives in the modern day. Each of these activities is completely legal, but would be deemed ‘ille-gal’ by most of the Amer-ican populace. Therefore, the depressing fact of the matter is that they become wealthier and prestigious simply by holding elected office. If you know how to penetrate the system, which most members can figure out, then you have bought your ticket to a carefree exis-tence in the nation’s capital.

The first questionable activ-ity is the practice of trading stocks in the open market. There have been many cas-es of this mechanism, which usually occurs when par-ticular politicians sit on an oversight committee. For example, a politician can sit on the financial commit-tee, and be made aware of pending legislation in the committee. Hypothetically, the legislation in the com-

mittee could regulate the size of banks and require the banks to shrink in size. The politician would then sell his bank stocks in anticipa-tion of those stocks selling off with the introduction of that bill. This practice takes place under a range of cir-cumstances, but the most common practice is trading stocks based on insider (or non-public) information.

A classic example of this be-havior is demonstrated by the actions of Representa-tive Spencer Bachus in 2008. Senator Bachus, a Repub-lican from Alabama, was a ranking Republican mem-ber on the House Financial Services Committee in 2008. According to CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Bachus was publi-cally attempting to save the economy despite the fact that he was betting against the stock market. According to a 2011 report by the news show, he was privately plac-ing trades that would go up in value if the markets cra-tered. He thought the mar-kets would crater because of the briefings he was receiv-ing that were awful in tenor.

More troubling, Senator Ba-chus received briefings from insiders who were privy to the latest machinations in the financial system. This action could be called im-moral when one considers

that average citizens were losing their life savings in the stock markets during that time. 60 Minutes could not, at the time, interview the congressman, so they con-tacted his press secretary’s office. His press secretary, Tim Johnson, claimed in a statement that the congress-man had never traded stock based on non-public infor-mation. Let the readers be the judge of that statement.

In addition to Bachus, many other politicians have been investigated based upon their questionable finan-cial trades. According to Fox News, democrats such as Sen. Claire McCaskill, Sen. Tom Carper, and Rep. Gary Ackerman have en-gaged in similar kinds of activity, just to name a few.

In addition to trading on non-public information, members of congress can treat their families and friends to the luxuries of public office. There are some very clear lines of abuse.

According to the report by 60 Minutes, many cur-rent and former members of congress are big offend-ers. They included former representative Ron Paul of Texas, who until a year ago used his campaign payroll to pay six of his family mem-bers. He paid his daughter,

three grandchildren, grand-child in-law, and daugh-ter’s mother in law a total of $304,000 over the 2008 and 2012 election cycles. In addition to this, mem-bers can treat their friends and contributors to expen-sive trips on the taxpayer dime. 60 Minutes also used Republican representative Ander Crenshaw of Florida who spent $32,000 to host a tour of California winer-ies for a group of defense contractors. This and other examples of using an elect-ed office to benefit yourself or friends that is perfect-ly legal in Washington.

Another way to have a suc-cessful life in Washington is to become a politician for a few years and then land a job in the lobbying industry. If you are a former member of congress, lobbying firms have an added incentive to hire you because of your experience with legislation. And it’s becoming a lucra-tive job, with a total of 16 lawmakers since 2011 join-ing the lobbying industry, according to a tally from the USA Today. That total compares with the 98 law-makers who either have re-tired or were ousted in the last two years. “The con-gress to K-street connection has been institutionalized,” says Sheila Krumholz of the non-partisan Center

Max Felsenstein

TWO years as starting goal keeper for varsi-ty boys’ soccer, Honor Roll student, and now recently approved as an Eagle Scout, Glen Rock High School se-nior, Tim Hahn has ac-complished many feats, not only in the class-room and on the field, but also in his pack.

The Eagle Scout Award is the highest feasible achievement in the Boy Scouts of Ameri-ca Program. Before re-ceiving the award, the recipient must traverse the ranks from Ten-derfoot to Life Scout, earn 21 merit badg-es, and must complete several tasks along the way – while advancing through five additional ranks as a Life Scout.

Tim Hahn is a mem-ber of Troop 15 at Good Shepherd Lu-theran Church in Glen Rock, New Jersey. He started as a cub scout in Pack 1 at Central

School and has contin-ued his hard work and dedication ever since.

Hahn said, “It’s been my childhood dream to become an Eagle

Scout, and now that I’m a recipient of the award, I feel elated.”

Before receiving the award, Hahn had one final task to complete before becoming an Eagle Scout. He built seven benches and a fire-pit at Westside Presbyterian Church in Ridgewood as his com-munity service project (pictured bottom right).

In a recent inter-view with The Glen Echo,  Tim spoke to us briefly about what earning the award meant to him.

“This is a huge accom-plishment for not only me, but also for my fam-ily. This will be some-thing I will talk about for the rest of my life,” Hahn said. “My dad

The Glen EchoDecember 2013

for Responsive Politics, an organization that tracks lobbying and political mon-ey. “It’s Plan A for former members of congress.”

Former Ohio congressman Steve LaTourette is a prime example of this change. A member of congress for 18 years, he left in Janu-ary to head the Washing-ton lobbying branch of a Cleveland based law firm, according to USA Today. The paper identifies For-mer Democratic Senator Denny Rehberg and former Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson as heading into the lobbying industry as well.

However, interestingly, lob-bying firms have suffered recently due in large part to congressional inaction. “This is a really difficult time,” said Ivan Adler, a principal at the McCormick Group. “It’s been the most challenging time for former lawmakers who don’t have the seniority and haven’t been on money committees.”

Since congress is not pass-ing a lot of bills, lobbying firms have had a more dif-ficult time delivering for their clients. Their clients usually want specific leg-islation passed on Capitol Hill and if congress does not pass it, then clients find somewhere else to push

their special interest agen-da. This is a stunning seat-change for the influence peddlers of Washington.

What one must consider is that this behavior is perfect-ly legal. Yes, politicians in Washington seem to operate under a completely different set of rules than the Ameri-can people do. This double standard is created because politicians write the laws for themselves. Since congress is the legislative branch, they create the rules and influ-ence the process of lawmak-ing to a large extent. Thus, if they find loopholes or want to create loopholes, their job allows them to do that.

Therefore, the most effec-tive form of accountabili-ty is not investigations so much as it is embarrass-ment. The non-partisan organizations that track this kind of behavior must continue to effectively carry out their work. At the end of the day, politicians will be exposed by those orga-nizations and forced to an-swer questions from their constituents. This is the only way to change the sys-tem – force the politicians to change the laws or vote them out in the next elec-tion. They will feel the pres-sure from their constituents.

was a boy scout when he was a child, but nev-er accomplished such a feat. I was motivated to surpass my dad and accomplish something that not even he has.”

Glen Rock High School senior, Matt Neumann, said of Hahn, “He has an unbelievable work ethic and drive for what he does. I couldn’t be more proud of my best friend, and there’s no one more deserving.”

Hahn often has trou-ble balancing his

school-work with ath-letics and boy scouts; nevertheless, over the summer, Hahn con-tinues his community involvement by read-ing to children in Pa-terson, New Jersey.

“Tim has accomplished so much and has done a lot as a volunteer for the greater good of the community. He’s just 18 years old but has an even brighter future,” Glen Rock High Scho-ol sophomore, Ryan Stolz, said of Hahn.

14 December 2013The Glen Echo

Advice For Young WritersAriel Shilitz

HAVE you ever won-dered what it takes to be a published author?

Meet Jennifer Donnelly, author of five novels and one children’s picture book. Donnelly attended Rye High School in Rye, NY and has always loved to write.

During her four years at secondary school her fa-vorite classes to attend were History and English. Al-though she loved these sub-jects, it wasn’t her History or English teacher that in-fluenced her to be a writer; it was her Home Econom-ics teacher, Mrs. Norwood.

Donnelly said Mrs. Nor-wood “recognized my writing talent and praised it highly.” She continued, “I had to do a project on small children in a preschool classroom and wrote up my findings in what must’ve been an engag-ing way, as Mrs. Norwood wrote: ‘Jennifer, you’re go-ing to be a writer!’ on my paper and gave me an A.”It was during her mid-twenties when Jen-nifer Donnelly decided to write her first novel.

One of the most difficult tasks for a writer is com-ing up with what they are going to write about. An author has to come up with a story that is interesting and can be written in the span of 200 plus pages.

Jennifer Donnelly said, “Inspiration usually gets me.” It is emotion that sparks her motivation. “I’ll read something and it gets inside me and stirs up very strong emotion, and I have to get that emotion out the only way I know how – by telling a story.”

Many times when an au-thor writes a novel, part of the characters is either based off of the author or someone that is an import-ant figure in the author’s life. In Donnelly’s books, the characters aren’t based off of her. “They probably have tiny bits, but I hope they are themselves – ful-ly formed independent people,” Donnelly said.

When writing in either her home or her office

during the week, Donnel-ly only occasionally revis-its and rereads the books that she wrote. Donnelly feels that, “It’s like visiting with a long lost friend.”

When she isn’t writing or reading one of her own novels, Donnelly could be found looking back at Ulysses written by James Joyce or The Passion writ-ten by Jeanette Winterson, both of which are two of

Donnelly’s favorite novels.As for advice Jennifer would give to young writ-ers, she feels that there are four important as-pects: writing, reading, finishing what you start, and listening to your own thoughts and feelings.

Writing. Any type of writ-ing will “hone your ability with words” even if it’s let-ters to your grandmother, term papers, or journals.

“As you keep writing, you’ll learn how to do more with less,” Donnelly said. “You’ll get a feel for simplicity and elegance, when to let rip and when to hold back, and how the subtle art of sug-gestion can lend incredible power to a paragraph or scene.” Even as an author, Donnelly had to overcome her issues with overwriting, “I have a tendency to over-write, but when I do nail a scene, I can sense it, and it’s a tremendous feeling.”

Reading. Although writers are the people who write the story, reading plays an extremely vast role to show “how other writ-ers do it, how they suc-ceed, and where they fail.”

As a reader, it is the read-er’s job to decide how well the author did. By reading, a writer can take away new techniques to put into their own writing. “You may not be aware of it, but every time you get lost in a story, or intrigued by a magazine article, you’re also picking up pointers on structure, plot, and style,” Donnelly said. Donnelly used books to teach herself because, after college, she could not afford to go to graduate school or take a workshop.

Donnelly suggests that any young writer should always finish what s/he starts writing. “Finishing is what makes the differ-ence between ideas and books,” Donnelly said. She also feels that it is im-portant to listen to what the writer’s feelings are.

Rejection is dealt with differently by everyone but most authors deal with rejection poorly, in-cluding Donnelly. When it was time for Donnelly to get her first book pub-lished, The Tea Rose, it was thrown away by every single publishing house.

Six months later, however, some editors became in-trigued by the book. The lesson Donnelly learned was “that no one could guarantee my work would get published, but only one person in the entire world could guarantee it wouldn’t, and that was me.” Donnelly continued, “If I’d lost heart and quit, I never would have become an author.”

“Don’t let other people tell you no and more im-portantly, don’t tell your-self no,” Donnelly said.

Just like an artist needs to draw, Donnelly needs to writes. “It’s more than ‘like,’” Donnelly said, “It’s love. A compul-sion. A passion. A need.”

Check out Jennifer Don-nelly’s adult and young adult novels: The Tea Rose, A Northern Light, The Winter Rose, Rev-olution, and The Wild Rose (pictured center).

I n s p i -r a t i o n u s u a l l y gets me.

GRHS boys basketball is ready to improve this season with a strong returning core.

15December 2013 The Glen Echo

Max Felsenstein and Ryan Stolz

WITH a flurry of breaks ap-proaching, many students have one thing on their minds: basketball season.

The start of the high school basketball season is fast approaching and the players and coach-es have high expectations for this year’s boys team.

Glen Rock’s varsity basket-ball coach, Jason Mittel-man, says the team’s motto this season is “Whatever it takes.” He added, “The thrust of this is self-sac-rifice... passing on one’s own personal self-inter-ests for the interests of the team.” The Panther’s core values are the same as al-ways: Commitment, Re-sponsibility, Hard Work, Respect, and Integrity. Many players believe that those values will trans-

Opinion: When girls become menTyler Joachim

GLEN Rock High School intended to start the age old tradition known as the powder-puff foot-ball game on November 26th. This event, which had its beginnings in 1945, involves the fe-male students of the se-nior and junior classes playing each other in flag or touch football while the boys cheer them on in a strange instance of gender role-reversal.

However, as of the writ-ing of this article, the

game has been post-poned due to inclement weather. Thanksgiving break and winter weath-er make rescheduling the game difficult. Yet, the idea of such an event is still polarizing regard-less of whether or not Glen Rock will ultimate-ly host one this year.

The idea of men and women exchanging tra-ditional roles in the pursuance of diver-sion through a pow-der-puff football game is a strange irregularity that was likely conceived

as a means of fundrais-ing for dances, charity, and the senior class.

Yet despite the fact that it is only a first year tra-dition in Glen Rock, the powder-puff game is a well-known and not-at-all questioned phenom-enon that has occurred many times in high schools throughout the second half of the twen-tieth century in the Unit-ed States. This is due, in part, to the lack of a male presence in high school in the years of World War II.

What is so disturbing about this event, though, is the idea of women becoming men for the sake of feeling empow-ered. Why must women inhabit male roles in or-der to feel empowered?

This type of gender-role reversal is not entire-ly uncommon, and it has been evidenced throughout history in both fiction and non-fic-tion. One example that students may recognize is of Lady Brett Ashley from Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Brett is a

man in every sense ex-cept for the physiologi-cal. She drinks, smokes, and has sexual tenden-cies indicative of men. She has a man’s name and short hair (as was a contemporary style). This was, in fact, intend-ed by Hemingway to em-body the identity of the “new woman” of the era.

In Hemingway’s time, and indeed before and after it, it would be un-acceptable for a woman to act in such a way, and the fact that Brett’s mas-culine behavior and ap-

pearance are evident in the book certainly mean something. In fact, lit-erature is riddled with examples of powerful women like Lady Brett.

Yet, all of this begs the question of why it is necessary for women to embody masculine roles whatsoever. Wom-en should be able to feel bold in their roles. And if they would like to pursue something non-tradition-al, then it should be gen-uine and not something as caricaturized as a pow-der-puff football game.

Boys Basketball: Season Previewlate into improved play on the court this season.

This looks to be a state-ment year for Glen Rock, which hopes to prove they have reached elite status. Coach Mittelman aspires to reach the playoffs this year, “hoping the program takes a significant step for-ward with a state playoff appearance and hopefully a county tournament invite.” Coach Mittelman started building the foundation for the resurgence of the pro-gram three years ago and circled this season as the one in which the program takes a big step forward.

Aspiring junior player, Dan Frissora, shares the same feelings. “We are defi-nitely looking to turn the corner this year,” he said. “The previous seniors have helped lay the foundation for us to have a success-

ful season, and we’re defi-nitely looking to do that.”

Last season, the team went 8-16 overall and went 4-12 in league play. Mittelman said he expects this sea-son to be a “breakthrough year for the program.”

After continuous strength training workouts every other day this offseason, the Panthers have contin-ued to work hard and have kept up the intensity, even after graduating seven se-niors. One player in the organization said, “We’ve been working hard and we’re looking to do some damage in the league this season and further on.”

Glen Rock has several re-turning seniors including Christian Vila, Jeff Ross, Zach Lucca, Anthony D’Onofrio, Justin Powell, AJ Rinbrand, Patrick Law-

less, and Michael Berna-chea, all of whom could play key roles this season. “We’re looking for big men such as Jeff Ross and Zach Lucca to step up and play tough down low,” said an-other player in the organi-zation after Lucca and Ross finished with a combined 7.4 PPG and 5.7 RPG.

With a strong sopho-more campaign last sea-son from Guard/Forward Khalil Williams, who av-eraged 7.4 PPG and 3.2 RPG, the now-junior could step up and bring a veteran presence to the team on and off the court.

Coach Mittleman’s ex-citement for the season is contagious, and he be-lieves that this season’s returning group under-stands the importance of self-sacrifice and “will be successful as a result of it.”

SENIORLOUNGE2013 Having transformed their lounge into a winter wonderland,

students from the 2014 graduating class enjoy the season.

Interview with the artistAriel Shilitz

MOYU Konishi (’15), artist of the political car-toon (left) attempted to delineate the qualms she has with the advent of the new block schedul-ing proposal, which may be introduced next year.

According to the new proposal, the junior class students, during the school year of 2014-2015, will be able to leave campus for lunch – a privilege that previously only senior students could enjoy.

Underclassmen had looked forward to attaining this privi-lege while in high school as a

ple that this year’s juniors are really upset with this, and that they feel that only seniors should have the privilege,” Moyu said. “I felt it’s a very current is-sue going on in the school, so I just decided to draw my political cartoon on it.”

capstone of their fourth year, but now, because of the new scheduling, that special priv-ilege may be undermined.

Moyu sketched this controversy in a political cartoon for Mrs. Walters’ 11th grade history class.

“I’ve heard from a lot of peo-

Mr. Toncic, Faculty Adviser Dr. Valenti, District Superintendent Mr. Arlotta, Principal Mr. Purciello, Vice Principal Mrs. O’Hearn, Business Manager Kelly Streaser, Editor-in-Chief Trevor LaVine, Print Editor-in-Chief Lilia Wood, News Editor Richard Gueren, Managing Editor Frank Connor, Business Manager Dan Frissora, Food Critic Anna Lis, Chief Photographer Sondra Nieradka, Chief Photographer Jonathan Spielman, Copy Editor Max Marcilla, Sports Editor Raquel Lesser, Political Issues Editor Rebecca Jacobs, Fashion Editor Victoria Messikian, Alumni Editor Nadia Fazal, Advertising Manager Yeheun Son, Advertising Manager Courtney Schmitt, Periodical Editor Max Felsenstein, Coach Beat Writer Ryan Stolz, Athlete Beat Writer Josh Stein, Graphic Designer F. Timothy Mountain, Lead Satirist Kaitlin Stansel, Foreign Affairs Liaison

Pat Lawless, Staff WriterRachel O’Connor, Staff WriterHailey Nirenberg, Staff WriterJuliana Brancato, Staff WriterAndrew Nappi, Staff WriterMatt Zakowski, Staff WriterJulian Bennett, Staff WriterMeaghan Murray, Staff WriterRicardo Pereira, Staff WriterAnna Barton, Staff WriterBeth Keefe, Staff WriterErica Melz, Staff WriterLee Maitner, Staff WriterAlyssa Lorenz, Staff WriterTori Rusko, Staff WriterJewel Quigley, Staff WriterLauren Jones, Staff WriterBrendan Green, Staff WriterTyler Joachim, Staff WriterAriel Shilitz, Staff WriterCaroline Moscatello, Staff WriterJade Quigley, Staff WriterMarisa Kobylowski, Staff WriterJuliana Roddy, Staff WriterCristal Santos, Staff WriterSam Halpert Rodis, St. Writer

Thanks to:Messikian FamilyRusko Family Berke Family Linda Brennan Blomstrom Family Pat Carlin Dowling Family Darrell and Lori Felsenstein Stacie Gallo Barbra Gomes Richard and Sally-Ann Gueren Frank & Sharon La Roux Lesser Family Debbie Maitner Amy & Jose Martin Martino Family Miller Family Scott McCoy Milsovic Family Gail Neumann Seniora Plescia Schwartz Family Maureen Huntley Sheahen Lawrence

Stein Family Streaser Family Treacy Family Vila Family Warner Family

Patrons of The Glen Echo

The first snowfall of the season blankets the school in white. The courtyard seems tranquil with the snow lightly falling on the campus.