Volume 16, No. 1________________FIFTY CENTS________________January 1991
THE BUDGET CUTS
And How They Affect Stuy
Special Tink Slip Issue
First, he lost his students.
In 1981, The Princeton Review worked with 15 students. Within five years, we replaced him as the country's largest SAT course.
Now hefs lost his mind.
He thinks he can convince you that 30 students in a classroom is
better than 10. That audio tapes are better than one-on-one tutoring.
And that vague promises of higher scores are better than a
documented average score improvement of 150 points.
But we don't mind at all.
Our feelings are a little hurt by his new ad campaign. But we understand his frustration. In the past eight years, over 1600 Stuyvesant students have taken the best prep course-the course you '11 take. The Princeton Review.
THE
212/874-7800 ext 52
Neither the Educational Testing Service nor Princeton University is affiliated with The Princeton Review.
CONTENTS
P
VOLUME16.no. 1
JANUARY 1991
Editor-in-Chief Michael Stoll Assistant Editor Alex BokOV
Literary Editor Claudia Clemente
Copy Editor Kate Epstein
Layout Editor Joseph Liao
Business Editor Christine Patterson
Features Editor Aimee Pohl Production Editor Brendan Lyons
Art Editor Stella Bugbee
Contributing Editor Cathy Cheng
Publicity Editor Mark Abrams
Staff
Isabel Ashton
Bryan Becker
Monica Bhagwan
Jeremy Broomfield
Miranda Cleary
Debbie Colben
Kakuna Davis
Dora Farkas
Michael Grinshtein
Gil Jawetz
Allison Lim
Ann Matsuuchi
Chris Olsen
Alex Pearl
Eryka Peskin
Michael Ristorucci
Ada Schjeldahl
Anna Sperber
Corey Tax
Demian Trask-Annes
Amanda Weisser
Diane Zamjoski
|
FEATURES |
|
|
THE BUDGET CUTS by Miranda Cleary |
7 |
|
The Fight for Democracy in Guyana by Monica Bhagwan |
12 |
|
Who Wants War? by Cathy Cheng |
14 |
|
FORGET THE BUSES by Michael Grinshtein |
18 |
|
COLUMNS |
|
|
Point of View |
2 |
|
Letters |
3 |
|
Brief Briefs |
4 |
|
Feedback |
10 |
|
Editorial |
17 |
|
Fiction |
21 |
|
Poetry |
22 |
|
Boosters & Sponsors |
23 |
|
Newsflash |
24 |
'Manhattan is sinking like a rock into the filthy Hudson. "
Lou Reed
On The Cover
Teacher holds a fictitious, but highly probable letter of dismissal
January 1991
1
Point of View
The 80s at Stuyvesant were best known by political activists and apathetic introverts alike as the "Decade of Apathy," with more care being placed by students upon personal appearance and financial security than any issue not directly affecting them. This lack of interest in societal concerns and a movement towards individual self-fulfillment is exemplified by the nature of several new clubs in the school typifying the "Me Generation": FBLA (the Future Business Leaders of America), the Young Republicans' club, etc. The few attempts at community activism seen in the school, such as the elderly Thanksgiving dinner and the Recycling Club, fall short of taking an ideological stand. Perhaps this is because many students (with good reason) fear that true expression of their thoughts will offend college admissions officers. That, at present, is the status quo.
The budget cuts to be instated next term at Stuyvesant, although a symptom of greater societal wrongs, interest Stuyvesantians only because it affects them personally. But no matter. The budget cuts are still a fantastic opportunity to mobilize students for a direct and worthy cause, when the only "causes" the school has dealt with this year have been trivial matters, like relocating the Fifteenth
Street bus route and fighting for soda machines in the basement.
Few students know that Stuyvesant's rich history includes school-wide student strikes protesting past budget cuts, in February 1976 and October 1979. The issues we face today are at least as important as those faced by Stuyvesant students in the past. The question is, are we ready to accept the responsibility of at the very least protecting our own school system?
No doubt about it, Voice is on a comeback. On again, off again, above and below ground since 1974, Voice magazine has provided Stuyvesant students with an independent yet responsible alternative to school-sanctioned publications.
There is perhaps no greater rival for Voice than the Spectator, yet viewing the impending budget cuts facing the school, it seems unlikely that the Spec will continue to be published into the Spring term '91. But don't take our word for it, listen to Principal Abraham Baumel, who states, "According to the Board [of Education], school newspapers are a financial 'extra.' Our first priority is to pay the teachers a salary."
Possible saving graces for the Spec include Parents' Association funds (which look to become increasingly scant in the economic downturn), and the achievement of economic self-sufficiency at the Spectator itself.
Voice, on the other hand, it seems
will never die. Last year the staff pulled together a magazine even without evidence of Voice's existence prior to 1989, still managing tc capture Voice's spirit. This year we have tripled our staff and our circulation. We have spent hours pouring through the complete Voice library, compliments of Jeff Trachtman ('77) and David Wang ('89). We invite all students to come and read the students' history of the Stuyveant of the past.
Whether or not the Spectator should close is not at issue. But if it does, we will lose one more valuable voice of the student body.
True, the Spectator may not be around next term, but at least we'll always have Voice.
Voice always welcomes contributions—letters, articles, opinions and poems. Voice meets every Wednesday, outside school on the sixteenth street steps. To join, contact any staff member.
Voice is an independent student-sponsored, student-run publication and is not sanctioned by Stuyvesant High School.
Special thanks to Mr. Ritterman, Jeff Trachtman, David Wang, Linus Gelber, his mother, Laura Palmer, and Joseph's brother Albert for the claw.
January 1991
LETTERS
Senior Trip, or Class Struggle?
I am disgusted. I recently got one of these Senior Trip survey forms in homeroom and I am mad as hell. This isn't a senior trip, this is Club Med hedonism for kids with their own cars and summer houses in Southhampton. Only about 20% of the senior class will go on it, not because it won't be great, but because most of us can't afford it. Not all of us were born with silver spoons surgically attached to our palates. Some of us work and are saving hard just to meet the rising cost of tuition. The organizers of this trip must know this. They are flagrantly catering to a very specific part of the student body. With prices starting at over $500, what kind of message are Joanna Huszcza and Hui-Chun Lee sending out? Senior trip, i.e., poor and middle class kids need not apply. It's hypocritical, perverse, discriminatory and exclusionist. To top it off (as if it wasn't inflammatory enough) for the argument against going to Puerto Rico, the flyer states, "Why not just stay in New York?"
The obvious answer is, who cares, if you can afford it, have a great time. That's beside the point; these trip suggestions arc indicative of a social struggle being waged in the school. For all the articles in the Spectator pushing for racial unity, for all the promotion of the ethnic clubs in Mr. Donin's "Prejudice and Persecution" class—the school remains mosdy talk and no action.
Everyone wants unity in the school but this trip will just widen the social game some more. Money is die bottom line. By making the senior trip so elaborate the message is let the rich kids have fun, screw the rest.
Stuy—wake up!
I'm sure there will be a senior trip that will be accessible to everyone. We'll all go to a dude ranch or Great Adventure or something. That's like throwing a bone to the poor kids; the senior trip equivalent of affirmative action.
So here are some cheap suggestions for kids who don't want to waste $600 getting drunk and laid in the Bahamas:
1. Go on a spiritual journey always fascinating, enlightening, and free!
2. See a good movie, read a good book, watch an opera on Channel Thirteen.
3. Take a day off from school and walk through the park.
4. Talk, really talk, to your best friend and your girl. Because after the academic dust and hypocrisy settles, you won't need a $600 trip. All you'll need is friends.
Angry, Anonymous Seniors
Are We Forgetting the Other Colors in Our Fight Against Racism?
Racial tensions, one of the city's worst problems, seems to be growing at an alarming rate despite our efforts to demolish it. I think that in trying to defeat racism, we must tackle the root of the problem, prejudice, from all sides. Yet it seems to me as though the painted definition of racial tensions has become a flat sketch in black and white; all the other colors have been pushed off the edge of the page. I must agree that conflicts between blacks and whites have been and still are some of the most tremendous clashes of racial conflict, but I feel
that that is no excuse for temporarily forgetting about other disunities among people of different ethnic backgrounds.
For example, the United Colors of Bennetton has begun to spread their "blacks and whites in harmony" advertisements across New York. One ad shows a white sheep standing with a black goat. Another shows two white hands playing the piano beside two black hands. Now, doesn't that make one wonder, whatever happened to yellow, red and all the other colors?
The Koreans' and blacks' conflict over the grocery store incidents in Brooklyn became quite outrageous a while back. Many Koreans became angered at African-Americans protesting in front of their stores, while many blacks attacked Orientals on the streets of New York. A Chinese man was attacked and killed by a gang of black youngsters because he was mistaken for a Korean. Looking back, how did Mayor Dinkins react? It's hard to remember if he reacted at all. This slowness and ignorance towards conflicts of races other than black and white is completely unjust.
I believe that maybe if we could only see that prejudice is in all of us, we could work our way from there. Every person is prejudiced in some way. Perhaps it is a human property. It won't be easy destroying it, but maybe we can learn to suppress it. But that is only after we acknowledge the fact that it is a problem not only between blacks and whites, but between all people.
Racism is a common problem. If we could all be in the picture in our fight against it, we just may be able to solve it.
Kaori Ogino
January 1991
3
Brief Briefs
Mobilizing the Students
Some 250 students and teachers from around the city held a spirited rally on December 14 protesting the budget cuts in education and demanding that money be spent on education and not on a war in the Persian Gulf.
The rally, held at Lincoln Center on Sixty-Fourth Street and Broadway, was initiated by
the Student Organization for Social Justice (S.O.SJ.) of LaGuardia High School, and involved the participation of over 15 high schools, both public and private. After the rally, all demonstrators took to the street and marched around the Lincoln Center area down to the Army Recruiting Center on Sixty-Seventh Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
Speakers came from many organizations and high school groups, sending a message that
urged students to act against public education budget cuts and to speak out against the danger of war in the Middle East. Speakers criticized the Dinkins Administration for making the drastic cuts, and the Bush
Administration for the $70 million a day being spent on the escalation towards war with Iraq, and not on other social needs like education, thus breaking his promise to be the "Education President." One speaker from LaGuardia
also noted that the school's History and English curricula, which some consider to be racially biased, could not be improved upon if further cuts are enacted.
Speakers at the rally included a Conscientious Objector from R.O.T.C. (the Reserve Officers' Training Corps), a student government representative from Hunter College of C.U.N.Y., and representatives from 1199 Health Care Workers' Union, Children for
3=
2
CD
8
Students and others rallying in front of Lincoln Center, shouting slogans like "Money for education, not for war:
January 1991
Voice
Worldwide Peace, the United Federation of Teachers, Educators Against Racism and Aparthied, Unidad, Students for International Awareness of Bronx Science, Stop U.S. Intervention in Central America of Stuyvesant, Students Against War of St. Anne's, S.O.SJ. and the Black Alliance Club of LaGuardia H.S.
S.O.SJ. and other high school groups plan to organize more extensively with other political actions. If one organization from one high school can mobilize 250 students in 11 days, just think of what all the high schools can do together.
—Michael Ristorucci LaGuardia H.S.
Police Brutality in the Public Schools
On Friday, October 26, violence erupted between Transit Police and several African-American students from the Bronx High School of Science. Many students were beaten with night sticks and six were arrested on the charges of assault and inciting a riot.
The incident occurred at about 3:40 PM at the Bedford Park Boulevard station of the 4 train. A group of students, all of whom were black, were standing on the crowded elevated station waiting for some friends. W^hen the "safe" train arrived, a police
officer asked them to board it. The students refused.
One girl, Charlene Brown, protested, telling the officer that she had "just as much right to be there as anyone else," and asked him why he didn't bother the others. Ms. Brown was arrested then, without having her rights read or being informed of the nature of her offense. When they did finally tell her why she was being arrested, Ms. Brown states, it was for "resisting arrest."
When a friend of hers tried to intervene in the arrest, which he deemed unfair, he was pushed to the ground. The boy tried to resist, and the policeman called for assistance. In moments police officers arrived with nightsticks and guns, and some eyewitnesses estimate that they numbered at least forty. The police started beating the students, most of them bystanders, at random. Witnesses say that all of the student that got hit were African-American.
This was obviously a racially motivated incident. Police were reported using slurs like, "Niggers don't belong in that school," when they asked one student what school he was from. A friend of mine was hit over the head with what he thought to be a walkie-talkie as he was leaving. The police officer who hit him then said, "Get these niggers out of here, they just cause trouble."
My friend got off easy. Some students were badly hurt. One boy was knocked
unconscious and suffered hemorrhages. He was arrested, taken to the precinct and held there for two hours before being admitted to the hospital. Another student, Edward, was also hurt, but he was well enough to walk out of the station on his own. Edward states that before he could leave, two officers approached him and started dragging him through the station. Seven to ten officers were soon upon him, hitting Edward to calm him down. Edward was then arrested for robbery, although no robbery had been reported, and the charges were later changed to assault and inciting riot.
The trouble had just begun. The next Monday at school, two transit police officers entered the school building (an illegal action to begin with, schools being out of their jurisdiction). They went to the lunchroom and found a student who had been an eyewitness to Friday's incident. The two officers approached him and said that he "better not say anything, or else." For days afterwards, police officers entered the building and harassed students as they left the school at the end of the day. They threatened the students so that they would not spread the story or testify in court. Although many students said that they would have liked to testify, few actually did. Rumors also spread of plainclothes police harassing students.
An incident like this could create tension in such a racially diverse school, but the whole school has really pulled together to help the students involved. Students united with teachers and administrators to express their outrage. "It's terrible that this could happen at a school like Bronx Science," said one junior, implying that that one wouldn't expect such things at such a racially diverse school. The only teacher who witnessed the event was reported to have said "It's like the 60s all over again." Money was raised by the school and the students to pay bail and the lawyers' fees for the students who were arrested. Support rallies were organized and a solidarity dance was held.
The court hearing was held on November 26. Two of the cases were adjourned until a later date. The case against Edward the student arrested on charges of robbery when no robbery was reported, was dismissed. The other three students were under the age of 16, so the results of their hearings are unobtainable. All of the charges have been lowered from felonies to misdemeanors.
When a coalition fo concrened Bronx Science students called CBS and NBC to report the story, the two networks said that that type of incident was too common to be newsworthy. In fact this type of incident i5very common; similar incidents
January 1991
5
BRIEF BRIEFS
have occurred at many other high schools in the city, including most recently at
Telecommunications High School in Brooklyn and at Park West High School in Manhattan.
The recent increase in racially motivated violence may be a sign of the destruction of the moral fiber of the nation, but adding the 5,000 that the city is considering to the police force is certainly not a solution. If anything, it would aggravate the already tense racial atmosphere of the city.
—Christine Patterson
The Media-Worthy Victim
If you have recently been anywhere near a t.v., radio, newspaper, or someone else who has, chances are you've heard about the rape and beating of the "Central Park Jogger." This incident was on the cover of every newspaper for days, and the proceedings of the case were followed in detail.
However, how many, news-conscious or otherwise, have heard of the rape, beating, and murder of another woman only days before? The victim went on her roof to watch the sunrise. A group of teenagers arrived and after beating and raping her, threw her off the roof. Despite the brutality, the coverage by the media was limited to back pages of the newspaper because the victim was black, as were
her attackers.
There has been a consistent double standard in the media as they carry out their search for stories that are, to use one of the most abused words in our language, "special." Standards of uniqueness call for a white victim because, according to the media's seeming logic, black victims are all too common.
Not only that, but black leaders such as Al Sharpton are considered far more interesting than those of the NAACP, as was demonstrated on May 11, 1990, in the broadcasts following Mayor Dinkins' speech on racism. After the speech, the networks showed various reactions to it by city leaders. The leaders inevitably focused on were people (such as Al
Sharpton), who completely disputed the Mayor's suggestion that there is hope for the end of racism. The NAACP's supportive statements were often cutoff to get back to speakers preaching distrust, anger and hatred. At one point, a young NAACP leader became frustrated and he began to confront the reporter about the small amount of time allowed for hope and the large amount spent on hate. Then he was cutoff and we were returned to the Reverend Al Sharpton. Sure, the news is factual, but the light these facts are shown in is not always objective. There is a story that's not being told, often for its lack of entertainment value.
—Ada Schjeldahl
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6
January 1991
Budget Cuts
By Miranda Cleary
Fall term '90 found Stuyvesant without
nine members of its former faculty.
Teachers Jaffe (English), Kenny (History)
and Gilstone (Math) were let go. Retirees
included DePalma (Math), Johnson
(English), Rabinowitz (History), Sheinheit
(Drafting 8c Shop), and Yearwood (Math).
One department dean was also dropped.
Due to the pressures of our current fiscal
crisis, only four new teachers were hired to
fill the resulting gaps. Consequently,
approximately thirty classes were cut.
These cuts, however, were merely a hint of
the enormous cutbacks that are now being
instituted as the students shoulder
Chancellor: "I have Some good news ^he burden of our city's financial
and some bad news for you woes.
today."
Teacher: "Oh?"
Chancellor: "The good news is that you 're getting your 5.5% pay raise. The bad news is, you 're fired."
On December 19, a meeting of the STP Association was held in the office of Principal Abraham Baumel. Here student, teacher and parent representatives were informed of the probable impact of the current budget cuts on
______ Stuvesant. According to Mr.
Baumel, Stuyvesant faces an additional financial cutback equivalent to 90 full term class units. This number represents almost one-sixth of the total 575 class units at Stuyveant. A minimum of 16.55 full-time teacher's positions stand to be eliminated.
The day after the STP meeting, there was an all-faculty meeting at which teachers received their first notice of which teachers were most likely to lose their jobs, according to seniority and department needs. Come January 18, one sixth of all teachers in the school will probably receive their pink slips, notifying them that their service is no longer required for the Spring term '91. But the initial warning coming just one day before the start of Christmas
vacation cast a distinct pall over the traditionally festive mood of the school. Said one outraged junior, "They couldn't have timed it worse. It's as if these teachers were told, in effect, 'Merry Christmas; you're going to be fired!'" Students find many of the cuts deplorable, some bemoaning the firing of the newer teachers as "a loss of vital new blood and younger minds" on the faculty, while others lament the departure of many capable seasoned veterans to be retired. For every teacher retired at maximum salary, two new inexperienced teachers can be hired.
In order to retain our status as a "science high school," special priority was given to the preservation of the Math and Science departments. Industrial Arts, in order to meet the specifications of the original charter of the school, was also given special consideration and received greater priority than the other departments. It seems that due to typical bureaucratic irrationality, classes such as drafting and shop will ultimately suffer less from cuts than, for instance, AP Foreign Language courses and elective Social Studies offerings. This fact has caused outcry among the student body.
It is equally interesting and maddening to note that Stuyvesant's recent allocation for cosmetic repairs can't be drawn upon, according to Board of Education regulations, in order to meet more pressing needs such as salaries and supplies. Paper and other supply restrictions, according to plan, can be eased through the "trading-in" of the previously mentioned class unit funds in exchange for additional supplies. Ironically the construction of the new
January 1991
7
The Budget Cuts
Stuyvesant building will feel little to no effect from the crunch. This is because the new building is being constructed by Battery Park City with real estate tax money, because city zoning laws mandate the construction of a school there. These funds cannot be redirected to be put to more urgent use.
THE SCHOOL SYSTEM IS BEING CUT BECAUSE NEW York City has a budget gap. Expenditures have exceeded revenues by approximately $300 million this fiscal year. On top of that, the State of New York has its own considerable budget gap. Governor Mario Cuomo vowed in his reelection campaign to reduce this gap—and neither by raising taxes nor by borrowing against the state's recently lowered credit rating. That sounded great, and the voters
voted him in. But with the Governor's goal to cut over one $1 billion from what remains of this year's state budget, New York City in particular is feeling the crunch—to the tune of over $100 million. Three quarters of that will come from our city school system. Feeling the pressure from Albany, and keenly aware of the nearly drained back-revenue coffers of the city, Mayor David Dinkins asked the Board of Education to locate a spare $94 million and fork it over. Showing a measure of spunk that we should rather welcome, the Board of Education and Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez balked at a the Mayor's demands, stating that to cut any more than $57.5 million would be disastrous and have dire consequences for the public school system at all levels. Pressed into displaying some degree of administrative unity, the Board finally issued a statement to the public to the effect of "here's what they asked for, but don't blame us" and presented a list of conceivably "viable" options. Together with the disclaimer came a list of the
In Stuyvesant next term, due to overcrowded classes, there will be standing room only.
January 1991
Voice
possible ramifications of the additional $36.5 million in cuts. Therefore, as the Mayor and Board of Education play Hot Potato with the side issue of responsibility, we the students have begun to feel the heat.
$10 million has been specifically targeted as coming from the high schools, from a total of $50 million to come from schools' budgets directly. The high schools may lose, according to estimates by the Board, as many as 1730 regular teachers this term. Other "viable" options involve the cutting of classroom paraprofessionals, school aides, or safety officers. Other consequences foreseen are swollen class size (a phenomenon becoming increasingly familiar at Stuyvesant) cuts in class offerings, "extra" services cut or eliminated (clubs, sports teams [especially Junior Varsity], art and music courses, guidance and counseling programs among them) and the putting off of lower priority facility repairs.
SOME ARE POINTING AN ANGRY FINGER AT THE teacher's union's new 5.5% wage hike contract, which ironically coincides suggestively with the $75 million in cuts now demanded by the state legislature. With other city workers now clamoring for equivalent salary increases, many critics are now pushing for a contract renegotiation, seeing the hikes as both untimely and setting an unwelcome precedent. With thousands of experienced teachers retiring or fleeing the New York City Public School system for safer jobs with higher pay in the suburbs, the city can hardly afford to aggravate the situation much further.
The whole crisis may be solved by a unilateral contract renegotiation, called teacher furloughs. Furloughs are a tool used by employers to cut costs by laying off workers temporarily. The Board of Ed. says that by closing the school for three days, at $16 million a day, they can save $48 million, just about covering the $50 million gap. But the UFT (the United Federation of Teachers) contends that this essentially destroys the 5.5% pay increase.
The crisis the city is facing is only a reflection of the crisis of a nation. President George Bush got himself elected with "no new taxes," a promise that he must have known he wasn't going to be able to keep given the fiscal policies of his worthy predecessor. His opponent on the Democratic ticket actually believed that he could get elected by telling the voters the truth. Cuomo and Dinkins also promised no new taxes and are now attempting to demonstrate their integrity by keeping this promise. We the citizens should learn to change our voting habits.
What is most shameful in this whole scenario is that, in the school system, those who can least afford it will be losing the most. Two thirds of all students enrolled in public are from low income families. Most of the faculty cuts will be made from among those teachers with the least financial security. With colleges such as SUNY and CUNY
January 1991
looking at tuition hikes, a higher education becomes just as inaccessable to kids from working-class families.
With the fiscal crisis finally upon us, might it not be appropriate to take a hard look at the school system itself, notorious for bureaucracy? Elimination of a host of paper-shuffling jobs may well be in order. Efficiency and practicality are hardly the strong points of the current system.
No, there isn't any easy solution to our problems. One idea is to raise taxes on big business and high income individuals. After all, Cuomo and the State Legislature have passed measures in the past four years actually lessening their share of the tax burden. This would not cause a mass exodus by business from the New York area. If anything, the crime rate and a poorly educated workforce would make staying in New York unprofitable.
It seems that the questions that administators first ask themselves when asked to make cuts are: Who'll make the least fuss? Whose contribution to next year's campaign chest will be missed the least? Whose voice is most often lost among the crowds? The answer usually is the poor, minorities, and our children. Cutting so much from the public school budget will disproportionately affect those groups. Additional taxes, stopping the escalation of the New York City police force, and cutting many other programs would be fairer, but less palatable to politicians.
On December 6, 20,000 gathered at City Hall to protest the Mayor's proposed cuts. Although some have suggested that we "hold off screaming and yelling and put our efforts into letter-writing instead," concerned students such as Student Union President Tony Andriotis ask quite simply, "Why can't we do both?" The fact is, we must do both.
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9
FEEDBACK
Censored in the USA
The other day I decided to reorganize my CD collection. Curious to see how the recent developments involving censorship in music would affect my purchases, I made two piles: one consisting of music that extreme right wingers (like Tipper Gore, Jesse Helms and John Cardinal O'Connor) might find offensive, and the other consisting of everything else. Of the 55 CDs that I had, 49 ended up in the "unwholesome" pile. In a 1988 Reader's Digest article, "How Shock Rock Harms Our Kids," the author condemns rock music because it occasionally "extols homosexuality." The article goes on to say that "43 states have laws against...obscene material. If your state does not have such a law, ask your legislator to propose one." Yeah, thanks a lot. Close-minded homophobes like these should not be able to govern what we watch or listen to. Although the .two most attacked forms of music are (as usual) Rap and Heavy Metal, some off-beat accusations have been made against artists like Michael Jackson, Elton John, The Police, REO Speedwagon, and Madonna, who Tipper Gore claims has made young girls into "porn queens in heat."
Most of the recent controversy started around 1984, when 19-year-old John McCollum committed suicide after supposedly listening to Ozzy Osbourne record for five hours straight while locked in his room. According to the coroner's report it was "devil music" that killed him. I find it amazing that the accusations can already start with the coroner, an individual whose job it is to record the facts. His family filed suit against
By Gil Jawetz
Osbourne and CBS records. Since then many similar trials have ensued, right up until last year's Judas Priest trial. Judas Priest supposedly used a process called "backmasking" (phrases recorded backwards that supposedly act as subliminal stimulants) to put messages like "Let's get dead!" and "Do it!" on their album Stained Class, allegedly forcing two men to commit suicide. One survived in a hospital long enough to blame his action on the music. The band was charged with intentionally placing the messages there in order to kill someone. This question never occurred to the families and prosecutors: Why would musicians kill their fans? It simply makes no sense. The band was exonerated on August 24th. Vocalist Rob Halford called the trial "a very sobering experience."
Sometimes these trials end in the judge's dismissal of the case as "too ridiculous to continue." Mr. Osbourne has stated that such incidents have "insulted the intelligence of rock fans all over the world." Many other artists like Slayer, Black Sabbath, Metallica and Led Zeppelin have been repeatedly accused of including Satanic lyrics and destroying the lives of today's youth. Most of these claims are based on outsiders' misunderstandings of today's youth. Heavy Metal has often been mentioned together with Satanism. Cardinal O'Connor claims that several exorcisms have been performed in New York during the last year alone, to expel rock 'n' roll demons from poor misguided fans. Yeah, OK.
Musicians are occasionally hassled just for their album covers or titles. Stores displaying Jane's Addiction
posters featuring the anatomically correct cover for their recent Ritual de lo Habitual LP have been fined and closed in more than a few cases. Frank Zappa's classic, Grammy winning LP Jazz From Hell has been unavailable in a privately owned 100-record store chain in Portland, Oregon because of "Satanic contents." Jazz From Hell is an entirely instrumental album and contains no lyrics.
Rap is not under attack for Satanism, but for the more tangible charges of violence and obscenity. But there are more sides to Rap than there are to Metal, from murderous to pointless. While a great deal of Heavy Metal is imagery and fantasy, most of Rap is the cold hard (if not somewhat exaggerated) truth. Many Rap groups, like NWA and Public Enemy paint ugly scenarios of inner city racism and violence, while artists like Boogie Down Production's KRS-1 preach anti-violent messages and criticize school systems for not teaching black history. The most publicized incident is that of Miami's 2 Live Crew, who were banned from Florida for their obscene albums, including their 1989 album As Nasty As They Wanna Be. Charles Freeman, the manager of a small Broward County (2 Live Crew's hometown) record store, was arrested and found guilty in the court of law for selling As Nasty As They Wanna Be to an undercover police officer. With seemingly nothing better to do, Florida Governor Rep. Bob Martinez personally handled the arrest, smiling into the millions of television sets that night that showed the news. He also arrested the 2 Live Crew for performing their material. The white rock band Too Much Joy put on a show in
January 1991
FEEDBACK
the same club consisting of entirely 2 Live Crew covers a few months later and were tossed into jail by the publicity happy Martinez.
Consequently, the album which had been on its way down the sales chart after a considerably short run, got new life when Martinez created the controversy. Since then the album has sold upward of two million copies. Obviously, intruders like Martinez just add fuel to the fire that they think they are extinguishing.
Censorship can appear in forms other than flat out banning. Many albums and music video tapes have recently been released with labels informing the consumer that the product contains explicit lyrics and such. Some musicians gladly apply the labels to their product, hoping that it will help them stay out of trouble. 2 Live Crew, however, have been administering such labels to their albums since their debut album four years ago (long before the controversy became so widespread) and still became one of the most strongly attacked groups. The Geto Boy's July debut album, featuring the infamous
and notorious "Mind of A Lunatic," caused a lot of headaches at the Geffen Records offices and was dropped by the label. It was distributed by Def American, who put two stickers on the album: A standard label stating "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" and a special label stating that the distributors thought that the album was "violent, sexist, racist and indecent." The album immediately sold an impressive 150,000 copies within a week of its release, an impressive showing for a group so far from the main stream.
Faith No More vocalist Mike Patton, whose album The Real Thing and concert video "You Fat Bastards" were adorned with the "Parental Advisory" label claims that the stickers "just make the album nicer to look at." If that were true (and to a certain extent it is: they definitely attract attention) then there would be absolutely no problem. "Let the public buy whatever it wants, but first let it know what it's buying" is what the censors seem to be saying. Unfortunately many stores do not carry labeled material, either for fear of persecu-
tion (Charles Freeman) or for agreement with the censors (Frank Zappa).
Sadly enough, the labeling idea sound very good in theory, but because stores do sometimes choose not to carry the product, it is not the solution. You cannot tell privately owned businesses what to carry, since they cannot stock everything and they have to decide where to draw the line for themselves. Music lyrics rank very low in teenage influence polls. I don't see why musicians should not be able to record their music, as long as they are willing to stand behind it and as long as the public can make a conscious decision as to what to buy.
If everyone bands together and does whatever they can do, we can regain the artistic freedom that we once shared. There are various groups you can support, or you can write to the major record companies saying that you support. Or at least keep buying the albums.
Censorship can be stopped.
Feedback is a guest editorial column.
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January 1991
U
By
Monica Bhagwan
The Fight for Democracy in Guyana
Guyana—made rich by the sunshine and lush by the rains, as its National Anthem so extols. Its people were slaves brought over from China, India, and Madiera, Europeans of Dutch and British descent, as well as the Native Amerindians. Some of you may recall that this former West Indian British colony, on the north coast of South America, was the site of the Jonestown Cult Massacre in 1978. Today it is a nation held hostage by a military dictatorship disguised as a cooperative republic. In 1953, the British government granted the colony a self-governing constitution. The main political party was the People's Progressive Party (PPP), led by Cheddi Jagan of East Indian ancestry, and later joined by Forbes Burnham, a lawyer of African ancestry. As Guyana was located in a strategic position during the Cold War, the United States and other nations feared the PPP's communist stance and Russia's interest in the country. The British suspended the Constitution and removed Jagan's administration. In 1957 free elections were held. The PPP won the majority and returned to office. Burnham split with the PPP to form the People's National Congress (PNC) in the same year. Still, the majority, comprised of East Indians and some Afro-Guyanese, backed the PPP. The secretly U.S. backed PNC, initiated violent labor strikes starting in 1961. Hired thugs looted, burned businesses and homes, raped, and murdered. Communities became racially segregated. The East Indians in the PPP and the Afro-Guyanese that supported the PNC burned each other's homes down.
In the 1964 National Elections, the PPP won most of the seats in the government. However, the PNC and the United Force, allegedly supported by the United States, formed a coalition to oust the PPP from office. In 1966, Guyana became an independent nation. In the 1968 National Elections, the PNC, suspected of rigging the votes, won absolute control of the government. Guyana became a one party state which essentially meant the people lost their "franchise of rights." All Guyanese were "urged" to be official, card-carrying members of the PNC, or they risked losing their jobs.
All opposition in Guyana is firmly suppressed. The PPP and other dissenters are harassed, framed, and imprisoned. Dr. Walter Rodney, a renowned black historian and supporter of the PPP, was allegedly (it cannot be proven under the current government) killed by the Guyanese Army. A bomb was placed in his car to make it appear as if he intended to plant it in a government building. My uncle has been imprisoned in the past, for writing articles
" It is well known internationally that the PNC was pitchforked by an Anglo-American conspiracy to remove the democratically elected PPP from power by tormenting strikes, lockouts, racial violence, murder and arson of both public and private property. Those were the halycon days of the cold way."
—letter sent to the High Commissioner of Guyana in the U.K.
12
January 1991
Voice
and publishing newspapers against the government. The homes and families of the opposition to the PNC have been investigated and staked out by the government. The army has marched through the streets in order to intimidate the Guyanese people.
The government controls the media, forcing the PNC's socialist propaganda into the ears of the nation's citizens. Those striving for education past high school must do a period of national service in government institutions. School children and teachers are taken to work on state cooperative farms as part of an economic revital-ization program.
Paramilitary forces are used to maintain the power of the PNC. The PNC uses a bayonet wielding army to oversee all voting. The stuffing of ballot boxes and bribing of voters is no secret. The names of emigrants and even the dead are listed as voting for the PNC. Fraudulent elections are well documented.
An international team sponsored by the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group has acknowledged that
the elections were "neither free nor fair" (The Indi, A Rohit International Publication, August/September 1990). Human rights groups from the Caribbean and the U.S. also substantiate these findings. The Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD) consisting of five political parties, including the PPP and the Working People's Alliance (WPA), an interethnic organization, has sought and gained the support of numerous human rights groups, President Bush, former Prime Minister Thatcher, and Senator Edward Kennedy. The PCD has also invited former President Carter to monitor the elections.
Many Guyanese looked forward to a new government after Burnham's death in 1985. However, his successor was Desmond Hoyte, a member of the PNC cabinet. Hoyte repeatedly repudiates the charges made by the rest of the world. He has agreed to allow the London based Commonwealth Secretariat to send observers to the forthcoming election by March 31, 1991. However, "uninvited observers will be jailed." (The Indi.)
Guyana has the lowest economic rating in the world. Hoyte is allowing the rainforests to be destroyed and the Native Amerindians to be victimized. The bauxite and sugar industries, which Burnham nationalized and used to grant high positions to his party members, are now managed by international investors because the country can't maintain them. The cost of living has gone up between 1985 and 1989 by 391.7%.
There is a mass exodus of Guyanese from their homeland. They are leaving as soon as their papers are processed by the Guyanese Immigration Authorities. Since each individual is allowed to leave with a certain amount of money from the country, Guyanese arrive here with very little wealth.
All those working for free elections realize that international pressure on the government is needed. But right now, while the country is dying and the soldiers are intimidating and stealing from the people, the PNC refuses to grant the people their basic rights.
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January 1991
13
Life, Death,
and the American
Way
WhoWa
BY CATHY CHENG
Why, how, who, and what will we fight for? These are the questions raised by President Bush's global call to arms and the deployment of half a million American soldiers to the Middle East, largely to Saudi Arabia. Since Iraq's sudden invasion of Kuwait August 2nd and the U.S.'s subsequent troop buildup, these issues have been subject to constant debate: should the U.S. fight this war or should it withdraw? Is there anything at stake that is worth fighting for? Why are we suddenly in the Gulf anyway? According to President Bush, we originally went to the Gulf to stop Saddam Hussein because "the world must not reward aggression...national security is at stake...[Iraq] would dominate the Gulf and the bulk of the world's petroleum reserves...Innocent lives are at stake."
nts War?
This last refers to the hostages who have since been released. More recently, justification ranged from protecting the American "way of life" to the possibility of Hussein possessing a nuclear arsenal. So far we have gone into this venture almost unilaterally with little support from our "allies" and Saudi Arabia either monetarily or militarily. France, Germany and Japan have the most to gain from a war that liberates Kuwait. They used more Kuwaiti oil than anyone else before the invasion. Saudi Arabia should also take up a greater share in the expenses. After all, it is their country that we have been "defending" — at the steep cost of $10 billion. But there are other non-monetary issues that must be considered. Perhaps one of the most embarassing aspects of our presence in the Persian Gulf is that while we claim to be morally superior to Iraq (being a democracy) we are defending Saudi Arabia — "one of the most undemocratic regimes on Earth." The country is a monarchy. The Saudi state routinely practices
January 1991 ]5
Who Wants War?
public floggings, amputations and beheadings for offenses such as theft or drug possession.
Also contradictory to our reasoning is the fact that while we condemn Iraq for aggression, we ourselves have been responsible for numerous such aggressions in recent years. We invaded Grenada and Panama in contemptuous disregard for international law, killing 4,000 civilians in three days. Being the perpetual hypocrites we are, we overlook inhumanities as it suits us only to self-righteously take action when they threaten our "vital interests."
The Reagan Administration lobbied against and blocked Congressional efforts to impose sanctions on Iraq in 1988 because of use of poison gas to kill thousands of its Kurdish citizens. We continued to extend $500 million annually in credit to Iraq. We made no objection to the use of chemical weapons in the war with Iran and in fact strongly opposed efforts to name Iraq as a violator of human rights. Because we wanted to continue to sell goods to Iraq and they were the enemy of our enemy, we looked the other way.
Hussein must have been positively encouraged to invade Kuwait—after all, if the U.S. can disregard international law and invade a weaker country, why can't Iraq? Monkey see, monkey do.
What would the effects of a war in the Middle East be? Predictions as ominous as World War II or an all out Holy War between the Arabs and the Jews of Israel have been cited. No longer does anyone believe Bush's claim that war with Iraq would only last five days. What we can be sure of is that a war of any kind would be catastrophic and devastating for all involved. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would be killed, many of them civilians. "The entire gulf region would be blitzed, its cities ravaged and oil production shut down for years. In what would become an Arab holy war, Israel would be devastated by chemical weapons attacks. After the war, rev-olution would sweep the corrupt
monarchies aside and establish a new order, with extreme Arab nationalists...likely to be in charge," is the opinion of a Vietnam veteran. U.S. battlefield casualties would be severe as well.
And this is not even considering the possibility that we might not win this war. There is no guarantee that, for all our advanced, hi-tech weapons and political influence, we won't end up miserably crawling out of the desert, months or years later — in defeat. The desert is simply the wrong place for American ground forces to
■
we are defending Saudi Arabia—"one of
THE MOST
undemocratic regimes on Earth. "
fight. Our equipment, training, logistics and fighting style are not suited for desert warfare, where the batdefield candidates will be almost as hostile as Iraq's fanatical battle experienced army. Winter — the best time for us to fight — lasts from November to February. After that the desert sun will become unbearable to a generation of soldiers raised with air conditioning, VCRs, and climate control.
The similarities this war would have to the war with Vietnam are apparent. Unlike Panama and Grenada, which were fairly easy to overpower, being close to "home," Iraq, like Vietnam, is thousands of miles away on the opposite side of the world. And this war is on the verge of being fought without the full consent or support of the American people. We lost Vietnam. What makes us so sure we'll win this one?
If anyone is to solve the Iraq-Kuwait conflict it must be the Arab people, with the counsel and support of the U.N. The U.S. has no right to declare itself arbitrator of this delicate conflict and its massive number of troops are out of place. This is
an Arab conflict which should be solved with an Arab solution — not oil-thirsty imperialists who are only concerned with their share of the wealth.
We have no "vital interests" at stake, really. The other OPEC countries are already making up for the oil that is being embargoed from Iraq and Kuwait. And how dare the U.S. condemn Iraq for aggression when it has itself been contemptuous of international law? How can Bush stress that our interests are at stake when the money being spent in the Middle East is desperately needed at home?
According to David Hackworth, an army colonel in Vietnam and Korea, "Yes, we'll win...but at a huge price in blood, sweat and tears." Who knows — maybe we'll pay that price but lose the war.
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16
January 1991
__________________________EDITORIAL_____________________________________________
A Woman Against Women Against Pornography
By Kate Epstein
"So you're a female anti-feminist," said my editor — we were holding a Voice conference about this article in his office, a.k.a., the L train.
"No, I'm very much a feminist," I said. "I just disagree with the majority of feminists on the subject of pornography. "
Mike, the editor, insisted. "You disagree with feminists on a feminist issue. You're an anti-feminist."
Pornography doesn't make women into objects and allow men humanity. Much of pornography, hard core pornography, is apt to show both men and women engaged in sexual acts. Who is to say that men enjoy these acts more than women? That's sexism. All people are sexual—men and women. Pornography shows people as objects in that it divorces sex from emotion and makes the people involved into instruments. But if you believe that women who have emotionless sex are objects and men who have it aren't you are an anti-feminist.
But even when pornography is grossly sexist, it shouldn't be censored. Part of the reason I joined Voice is because of its anti-censorship stand. I believe that society is nothing, democracy is impossible and expression is nearly useless with censorship. Suppressing words or pictures or any other form of expression that present views that people find offensive is like spreading a tablecloth over a mess; the views and feelings are still there and they will probably be expressed in other ways. Spreading the tablecloth isn't only ineffective but wrong as well.
The right to expression isn't confined to art. Art is a murky term anyway; who is to say what is art and what isn't? Some people may believe that pornography is art, and who is the government to say it isn't? But even if no one in the world believes that Playboy is art, it should still be legal. "Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of the press."
The Spectator ran an article on November 1 that addressed the issue of pornography. The writer said that today's society dictates that parents must be on the job 24 hours a day to protect their children from discovering sex and violence. Each pair of parents must set up their own standard of what their child can be exposed to. Since they don't have the power to make such standards for all of society, they must spend 24 hours a day safe guarding these standards.
I probably would have been a bit scared if I ever saw some of the hard core pornography with people engaged in sado-masochism that is inside some magazines. But I was scared by supermarket "newspapers" running headlines about people buried alive and (don't laugh if you can help it) "E.T." But no one worries about the damaging affects that either had on me. And no one tries to censor them. Nor should they.
But I wouldn't impose my morals about sex on you or your children. And the government doesn't have the right to create "moral standards" for children or adults. The government has no divine power to decide what will damage someone's psyche even if
he/she is a child. The Declaration of Independence says: "All men are created equal, endowed with certain
unalienable Rights__To secure these
rights, Governments are instituted among Men [and Women] deriving their power from the just consent of the governed." Our consent to censorship is not found in the Constitution.
The fight against pornography may well be a blessing to male chauvinist pigs everywhere. The participants are involving themselves in the trivial treatment of the believed symptoms of sexism. Women as objects is a notion that must be destroyed from the bottom up. It is deep-rooted in our society. If we just try to pull out the plant from the top, i.e., censor pornography, the same energy may be redirected. Perhaps women against pornography would prefer that this violence be rechanneled to rape?
Some people believe that pornography causes rape. But in order to justify censoring something (or taking any other civil rights from an individual or group) you must prove beyond any reasonable doubt that there is a "clear and present danger" in allowing something to be published. In this case, an argument can be made just as persuasively that pornography prevents rape. It may well provide potential rapists with harmless outlets for their violent fantasies.
Clearly we must start from the roots deep down. Society must teach its daughters to respect themselves. And its sons to respect its daughters.
January 1991
17
By
Michael Grinshtein
Forget the Buses
Stuyvesant has become infected with a particularly ugly and inconsiderate strain of the not in-my-backyard syndrome.
Stuyvesantians worry a lot. When we're not worried about our GPAs and standardized test scores, we find other things to worry about. And every once in a blue moon, the powers that be at Stuyvesant introduce to the forefront of concern an issue of such inane importance as to defy serious consideration.
Such is the current situation of the "problem" of rerouted city buses going along East Fifteenth Street. As a member of the Executive Council, I have become aware, since about October, of the formation of an awesome coalition, including Parents' Association leaders, Student Union leaders, and even one of the administrators. This coalition of concerned citizens is hell-bent on one objective: to get the buses off Fifteenth Street. They are very serious about their cause, and if you listen to them long enough, you too may become a believer.
According to their perception of our little corner of the world, a great wrong has been inflicted upon Stuyvesant High School. Once upon a time, say June 1990, a little sliver of Fifteenth Street between First Avenue and the park belonged to Stuy. After about 2:10 every afternoon, it would fill up with Stuy students, eager, after a long day of physical and spiritual exertion, to enjoy the clean Manhattan air and to socialize with their friends. There wasn't much traffic back then. Whatever cars did drive along Fifteenth Street belonged to Stuy teachers, who usually would not try to hit the students. So safe did the students feel that Fifteenth Street would often be packed until well after the end of ninth period. Especially during the summer, we just didn't want to go home until we were good and ready. The relatively low volume of traffic made this possible.
All good things came to an end when the city decided to repair significant portions of East Fourteenth Street, notably the ones west of First Avenue used by city buses. Consequently, the Fourteenth Street (Ml4) bus route had to be rerouted.
This summer a terrible assembly of the
most evil and cunning minds in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority met in a secret conference room deep within the New York City sewer system. The planners at the MTA, mosdy disgrunded Bronx Science graduates who had waited decades for such an opportunity, gleefully took a big red magic marker in their hands and drew a line from Fourteenth Street up First Avenue. When they got to Fifteenth Street they drew the line west from First Avenue. That's where the new bus route would be, right under our very doorstep. To add insult to injury, the MTA decreed that there would be a bus stop on Fifteenth Street at First Avenue, a popular crossing point for Stuy students on their way to and from the First Avenue subway station. In so doing, a malicious city bureaucracy acted with only one intent* to willfully annoy and even endanger the lives of Stuyvesantians.
Sound improbable? You bet. But this isn't all. To support their allegations, the aforementioned coalition offers Proof. Like the story of an innocent Stuy student, crossing Fifteenth Street (at the corner on a green light, of course). All of a sudden a bus turns off of First Avenue at some ungodly speed, almost hitting the student. Though the student sustained no serious injuries, for a long time she just stood there, turning over in her mind's eye the image of the bus driver, peering at her through the windshield, bloodshot eyes, grim complexion, determined to kill and maim anything in his way.
Or another one that I've heard of at an Executive Council meeting: "I was just standing around with my friends, in the middle of Fifteenth Street, minding my business, when this bus starts coming down the street. So we're just standing there. And the bus keeps coming. And it doesn't slow down. It speeds up. We finally got out of the way, but I thought he meant to hit us." The girl who said this was probably right. If I was the bus driver, I would have wanted to hit her as well.
18
January 1991
Voice
Obviously, the case that the school is making, that buses turning onto Fifteenth Street from First Avenue are a hazard to students, is weak. Granted that Fifteenth Street has become a busy thoroughfare. But crossing Fifteenth Street is no more hazardous than hailing a cab. It merely requires that we look before we cross, something that urban dwellers have been conditioned to since tod-dlerhood. Fifteenth Street is not a two-way street, so we don't even have to worry about looking both ways.
What is at issue, then, is not safe-
ty, but aggravation. It aggravates us that wc can't cross Fifteenth Street because the bus is in the way. It aggravates us that we can't hang out and play football on Fifteenth Street like we used to. It aggravates us that teachers in classrooms on lower floors of the Fifteenth Street side often have to shout to make themselves heard above the noise the buses make.
But there isn't a single one of these aggravations that, in time, we won't either get used to or find a way to deal with. We can wait a few extra moments before crossing the street.
Stuyvesantians imperiled by the M14.
We can and have moved our football games to the park and found other places to hang. As for noise in classrooms, it being the beginning of winter, windows are liable to be closed anyway. Sure, the buses are annoying, but they're no big deal.
In light of all this, it is amazing what lengths people are willing to go to make their point. Assistant Principal Harold Lehrman has proposed a plan to the Transit Authority whereby buses would be rerouted south along East Thirteenth Street. They would then turn north at Third Avenue, go up a block or two, and resume their westward direction either along Fifteenth Street.
There are lots of things wrong with the Plan. In the first place, for the Ml4 buses to get onto Thirteenth Street, they could not go south on First Avenue, since First Avenue is a one way thoroughfare going north. The turn would have to be made at Avenue A, eliminating the very important bus stop at Fourteenth Street and First Avenue. At that point the M14 connects with the M15. Both of these are major Manhattan bus lines and many commuters transfer between them.
Also, buses turning from Third Avenue onto Fifteenth Street are bound to cause problems, as Third Avenue is a two-way thoroughfare. Since buses tend to be very long, they would block off the southbound west side of Third Avenue as they made the turn from the northbound east side. This would mean gridlock.
Most importantly, as
Congressman Mark Green has confirmed, Thirteenth Street is a commercial district, a term that implies regular truck routes and commercial deliveries. Due to the heavier traffic, a bus route on Thirteenth Street would be disadvantageous both to the bus schedule and to the orderly flow of commerce in the East Village, not to mention the regular Toyota motorist trying to fight his way through the colossal vehicles around him. Add to this the fact that there is a fire station on Thirteenth Street, and an element
January 1991
19
Forget the Buses
of danger and risk to life and property is introduced.
Acting with good common sense, the Transit Authority and the local Community Board have rejected Mr. Lehrman's plan. In the words of a spokeswoman for Community Board 6: "You are supposed to be the best and brightest high school students in the city. I don't understand how you could have that much trouble crossing the street." Outsiders always tend to think of us as being bright. But that's before they get a peek inside a certain Stuyvesant High School Newspaper featuring such cerebral matter as "Mono: Just a Kissing Disease?" (see page nine of the October 1 issue).
Stuyvesant has become infected with a particularly ugly and inconsiderate strain of the not-in-my-backyard syndrome. It is about time we as Stuyvesantians knew our place. We are
guests of this community, not residents. We have rights, but we don't have the right to make demands that are detrimental to the greater good. The Transit Authority has rerouted the M14 line along Fifteenth Street not because they hate us and want to maul us down with their vehicles. Fifteenth Street is simply the best and most efficient alternative route.
Not wishing to be confused with the facts, Mr. Lehrman, Parents' Association President Mary Ann Curly, our very own Student Union President and Vice President, and others, have to distributed petitions engaged in lobbying activities that are simply shameful for their lack of civic concern.
The Executive Council has already voted to consider a student protest as an option. This protest would take the form of a demonstra-
tion in which mobs of students would close down Fifteenth Street and not allow any traffic through. Certainly, this would cause some very noteworthy traffic jams on First Avenue, yet the Council doesn't seem to care. The purpose of such a demonstration would be to get attention from the media.
As of the time of this writing, the District Superintendent has submitted a reduced budget to Stuyvesant for the spring semester. Ninety classes per day are to be cancelled. Sixteen positions in the school are to be eliminated. It's as if just in the nick of time, we've gotten some real problems to worry about. So let's just stop this silliness and forget the buses.
Michael Grinshtein has served on the Executive Council since October 1988.
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20
January 1991
FICTION
The Jump
BY CHRIS OLSEN
You go through the plan one more time in your head—you will not get a second chance. Suddenly you are overcome by doubts; although you know that the wind rarely blows any softer than today, now that the time has come it seems a much more formidable opponent. The wind feels too unpredictable for you to make a controlled descent. Every two seconds, it seems, another gust hits you from another direction, like a padded freight train. Although you know that the wind's strength is inconsequential, its direction is critical. On top of your fears about getting blown off course, the cold has stiffened up your legs, making it impossible to get as good a running start as you'd hoped for.
As these thoughts run through your mind, you already know that it's too late to turn back. It was an outrageous stroke of luck that nobody stopped you one the way up. The likelihood of a man, in a tuxedo, carrying a six-by-two foot plank, making it to the roof of one of the Twin Towers without being seen, and then doing it again, is truly pathetic. You had wondered if having the ramp was worth the trouble it would cause, but hurdling the ledge would take too much away from your forward momentum.
You line yourself up, take a deep breath, cross your fingers, and run at the plank, and the ledge beyond, at top speed.
As soon as you leap off of the top of the railing, you throw all your weight to your right and, as you had hoped, your body slowly turns around and you are able to watch the building fall away behind you. As you had also hoped, the wind gives you a strong push away from the roof as you jump.
After a brief moment of climbing, you feel your body begin to fall, and when you pass die height of the ledge, you notice that with the wind's assistance, you more than doubled the distance of your best long jump at sea level.
At first you can make out the individual stories as they go by. The three-foot gaps in the Tower's tall, narrow windows that mark the placement of the floors and window sills. But after five seconds of free-fall, all the horizontal details become a blur. You wonder to yourself if anyone was looking back out at you, and are shocked to realize that you forgot to check.
Almost the instant you began to fall, you felt your limbs reach out, and your back begin to arch. Now, as you look away from he Tower, you begin to feel a helplessness to stop this arching. You realize that your body is donning a bad cat impression, trying to use its spine to bring it around to face the ground. You twist to your left and your torso slowly spins around to face West Broadway, beneath you. You had hoped to clear the street, lest you fall into a car and kill someone who wasn't as eager to explore their afterlife as you. You're a third of the way down, and halfway across the street, it looks like you're going to make it. Just to be sure, you pull your limbs in behind you and point yourself at the impending concrete courtyard on the other side. You clear your mind, and wait to see if you'll reach.
It's a Sunday afternoon and there aren't many people walking around in your target zone. You prepare to give a scream of warning to the people below you, so far none have noticed you.
You're about two hundred feet
away now, and well past the curb below. It's time to tell them what to expect. You pull your arms around in front of you and bring your legs together behind you, your body falls in between them, become a single, vertical line. You open your mouth.
"Incoming!!"
You close your mouth. In the instant before impact, you notice two passersby looking at you with their mouths agape and eyes bugging out You want to warn them to close their mouths, or else they'll almost surely catch some splatters, but the thought is eclipsed by a sudden explosion of pain in your hands as the sidewalk rushes up to meet them.
As Hamlet once said, "The rest is silence."
Editor's note: By publishing this story, the Voice does not avocate suicide, it merely wishes to entertain.
Rivington
Street
and
Union Square
BY
Meredith Tax Avon, $4.95
January 1991
POETRY
the good thing
By Mark Abrams
when the u. cord was cut,
links were made,
and born, there was a girl that was too happy.
She lived on the right side of the tracks.
Her parents were generous and fair.
She was as beautiful as the sun,
and as well-mannered as an ant.
She was as creative as my friend Vermo,
who writes seven books a day,
She was as warm-hearted as a governor's fireplace,
and she was always collecting charities
for that poor, death-dry and barren,
misery-stricken, shit-skied country, Bonslovia. She was as happy as she could be. Her heart pumped something liquid and golden, an antithesis of fear.
Her Barbie dolls adored her.
Her girlfriends whispered
she was the only woman in the world
not periodically bitten by the PMS bug. When she was fifteen: she fell in love.
Withjack-o.
Jack-o was perfect.
He was hunky, yet kind.
He was a brainiac, yet he loved to party
He was tall. And he was dark. And he was handsome.
And Jack-o loved her too. Everything went wonderfully. They played all the nose games:
snuggling in the parks,
same-time-laughing in dark places,
they hummed and groaned together, and they could do no wrong. They could do nothing but be happy. She was so happy
every day
every minute
every nanosecond she was so happy
she though she would explode with joy
and she did.
pop.
blood all over the room.
her heart stayed on her bed,
still pumping,
plain old air now. Her parents were extremely distraught. Jack-o was crushed. they wept and wept and wept.
and do you know what?
in Bonslovia
the sky turned blue again.
and the droughts and civil wars
in Bonslovia
stopped.
She had been, inadvertently, stealing our happiness. Draining our country of joy.
I, the funeral minister,
refugee of Bonslovia,
could not help but think:
it was a good thing.
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CHOICE
22
January 1991
BOOSTERS & SPONSORS
To first period Stuy — be cool guys, Ana
Hey babe...A pick me up from the witch. Dept
for the perfect guy I haven't met yet
F— censorship be peaceful get high on life!
Fed ley don't you know
Me but I know I want
You bad. I love sex too.
Love, your secret admirer
Ana-Thanks for buying so many boosters! !!-Ada
VOICE underground
Yo Sean—oof! Maris
Long live Festus!
Long live the Republicans! B— rules!
eat my B—
Die Republican scum
This booster is to give VOICE a boost!
Fifty cents down the drain — Dude.
Kai was here.
Always sniff the hand that feeds you. — Vin C.
Vincent will always love Sohpia!
Africa unite!
Hi! —S.O.
I'm a Lhermaniac!
We are George, George is all of us, worship George
Albert Liao for Junior Persident
Join VOICE, or face the KHANsequences
Sue likes long, hard, raw, ripe cucumbers.
Staten Island is a great place to live...
Uh huh
Whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever
Soph/Frosh Sing '91!
INCEsubordinate behavior
Senior Sing '91!
White Castle for you and me.
I Want Jared MK, TT
IwantMKandTT
Caesar the guard!
The guard called Caesar!
So, I think 8 times a day is way too much.
Support our advertisers, so they will
support us!
The mother of invention...
"What, me read VOICE?"
Where's my sandwich? I'm starving.
No, where's MY sandwich!?!
l-800-EAT-S**T
...story of my life.
You should wear skirts more often;
You look really good in skirts.
Eun lovesjoe Eun lovesjoe Eun lovesjoe Eun lovesjoe
Eun lovesjoe Eun lovesjoe Eun lovesjoe Eun lovesjoe
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Eun lovesjoe Eun lovesjoe Eun lovesjoe Eun lovesjoe
And Joe loves Eun, too.
But you're a cute dog!
Slooooowly, I roll up the...
I am STRESSED out by EARS.
Patron Saints
Anonymous
Eugene Epstein
Dr. Stanley Feuer
Stephen and Judith Stoll
Patrons
Linda Epstein
Tom Dickey
Paul Farrell
January 1991
23
Newsflash
LOLOTIQUE, El Salvador — Leftist rebels gave a new version today of the deaths of three American soldiers whose helicopter they shot down this week, saying that the deceased were not gung-ho Yanqui cowboys as originally supposed, but undercover New York City health education teachers on special assignment to the Board of Education.
A Defense Department spokesman said on Thursday that the. three men were shot after their helicopter was downed on Wednesday near this hamlet 75 miles from San Salvador.
A communique issued today by rebels of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front said guerillas shot at the helicopter because it was attempting to land in the midst of a banana plantation. After disabling the well-armed craft and interrogating the crew, the rebels determined that the three men were agents of the New York City Board of Ed. working undercover as CIA reconnaissance specialists.
According to Miguel Saenz, a spokesman for the rebel group, the helicopter crew was under orders from schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez to raid the village and loot its farms of as many bananas and plantains as the cargo compartment could hold. "The people of El Salvador refuse to have their country treated as a banana republic," Mr. Saenz declared.
After being smuggled back to New York through Mr. Fernandez's associates in Miami, the bananas would be provided to the public schools as part of the Chancellor's condom education program, under which health education teachers wofald demonstrate the proper use of contraceptives by placing them on the said fruits. Due to the recent cuts in the Board's budget, the school system was unable to purchase the phallic substitutes on its own.
According to the wife of one of the agents, Washington Irving High school gym teacher Ernest G. Dawson, her husband had accepted a "special assignment" from the Chancellor's office in November on the understanding that he would not be laid off in the coming semester. Mrs. Dawson strongly advises other public school teachers in her husband's predicament not to accept outside work from the Board unless they understand all that such assignments would entail.
The Chancellor's office was not available for comment
by Michael Grinshtein
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