The Trojan Times Review #1
October 19, 2004

Here is the article you've all been waiting for: My review of our very own school paper, The Trojan Times, or as I have affectionately coined it, The Trojan Trash. I shall analyze it page-by-page for your entertainment.

Page One

"Spirit sweeps Post Falls High School"
Okay, so how exactly is this news? We were all there; we don't need someone to tell us that people dressed up during Homecoming. Overall, it wasn't too bad, other than it was stating the painfully obvious.

"Seniors give back to the community"
Now here was something of which I was not aware. I did not know that the Expressions of Liberty class has to perform five hours of community service for a grade. Although the writing was a bit forced-sounding, "The task was..." "The reason was...", overall it was informative and easy to read. One complaint I have is the reporter did not do a good enough job of specifying where exactly it was they performed the community service of laying down a cement pathway. He writes that they did it at "Corbin Park by the Factory Outlets," but this is extremely vague. For those of you who don't already know where Corbin Park is, it really is not that close to the Outlets. People going by these instructions alone will not be able to find the park (hint: Take Riverbend Ave. to Corbin Road). Oh, wait, there's an error. The caption on the picture reads, "Ben Holland smoothes out the concrete at the sight." I own a websight!!11 omgwtfbbq

Page Two

"Respected teacher leaves PFHS"
It wasn't bad; some parts could have been written better, for example: "...and now after 32 years of teaching he has decided that it is time to retire and do something else. He plans to now spend his leisure time traveling." These two sentences could have been combined; "something else" sounds too informal. Oh, the the reporter spelled Mr. Corbeill's name wrong.

"News Briefs"
Ahh, yes, this wonderful column, that lists upcoming events that will take place within the school. All of these events are also announced on the daily announcements, meaning we are hearing about them even more than usual. Making this even more unnecessary and wasteful, the very first announcement is about an ACT workshop scheduled for October 11. Now, if you haven't been paying attention so far, this paper came out on October 19. The front page even says that. Adding to even more unprofessionalism, several names were left uncapitalized. "red ribbon week," "senate," "World gym." Hello, my name is Sparky, and I'm a proper noun!

"School with an interesting history"
Filler! Yay! This article included a, despite what the headline says, not-so-interesting look back at the forming of the Post Falls School District. The article ends rather abruptly with the reporter stating, "Great athletes, academic leaders and musical students and many others have been nurtured in the arms of the school district." Besides the glaring grammatical error, who exactly are these prodigies? I would have been slightly more interested if only I could have seen some names, other than "Carl who works at Wal-Mart" and "Bertha from McDonalds."

Page Three

"Diversity Club is back"
This one starts out with a touch of irony. "Not many people have heard about the new clubs and organizations that our high school has to offer." How could we not, with all the flyers being posted around the school, not to mention the daily intercom announcements? What new clubs? Diversity Club was around last year, only under a different name... Oh, I see. They meant the Straight Club. That's right. I'm sure by now everyone knows about that because of the lovely t-shirts and flyers it has made which demand equality for heterosexuals. Right. Thanks for plagiarizing my artwork, guys; it's real classy. *cough* Anyway, back to the article. Oh look, it's a misspelled word! He spelled "clique" as "click." I shall say no more, because Diversity Club is a good thing.

"New Classes"
How can this article be of any help at all? We're already almost done with the first quarter; it's a little to late to decide to change classes. Perhaps this would have been of more relevance near the end of the year when underclassmen register for next year's classes. The reporter spelled "folk" "fold," and I cannot see how this could have been a typo, as "k" and "d" are on opposite sides of the keyboard. "The classes will be taught as long as there is interest." Well, isn't that encouraging?

"District hires several new teachers"
I do not have many problems with this article, other than the wording of the headline. It should have said that the high school hired new teachers, not the district, because one of the "new" teachers profiled is Mr. Trefry, who previously taught at Post Falls Middle School. This has nothing to do with the article itself, but we have an "ISAT reading teacher"? It's sad that we need a special teacher just to teach reading skills needed for passing standardized tests. I think we should be teaching study skills that are less like "memorize this" and more like "think about this." No Child Left Behind: ensuring that the future workers of America have only enough skills to remember in what order to put the pickles and onions on the hamburger.

"School hires new Dean of Student Prevention"
What on Earth is a "Dean of Student Prevention"? They should just call him the "Hall Nazi" like everyone else does. Does the school really need to hire an extra staff member whose sole job is to make sure students aren't skipping class? Maybe if the classes were more interesting (i.e. less busy work), we wouldn't have this problem in the first place. That's what gets me, when people try to solve problems by instituting a temporary solution instead of getting to the root of the problem. I found it ironic that Mr. Hunter (Hall Nazi extraordinaire) said that he took the job at PFHS to "see all the students absorb all the knowledge the teachers present to them." Obviously they aren't absorbing much if they're wandering around the halls...

Pages Four, Five, and Six

SPORTS! MORE SPORTS!

I don't even want to read this. However, one article on Page Four caught my attention. It had to do with the Homecoming football game and the vandalism that fired up the team. This is supposed to be a newspaper, yet it doesn't bother to report that the vandalism was committed by five of our own seniors. The article also says that 1700 people attended the game. That's impressive, given our school has an enrollment of only 1400. If only that many people could show up in support of the Debate team or Quiz Bowl team...

Page Seven

"Lone liberal in a Republican"
I shit you not, that is the entire headline. Republican what? Someone I talked to about it thought it might be some kind of Freudian reference, but I think it's a lack of proofreading and foresight. While I am a Democrat, as the article's author is, she gets quite a bit messed up. First of all, she never does capitalize "Democrat" or "Republican." She also refers to the president as "Mr. G. W. Bush" and "G. W." (excessive spacing hers) throughout the article, which I find very unprofessional, even for an opinion article. Now for the factual errors- she says "Kerry is not against tax cuts, but he is against only cutting taxes for the people who make lots of money." Besides being a difficult sentence to decipher, it's incorrect. While Bush certainly did cut taxes for the richest of our citizens, he also cut taxes for the middle class. While she does not implicity state this, one can infer that this was what she was implying. Ah, here comes my absolute favorite line in the entire newspaper...

"I'm sure by now we've all heard of Enron, the reason Martha Stewart is now the world's prettiest jail bird."

Enron? World's prettiest jailbird? Oh man, two fallacies in one sentence! Have these people heard of "research"? "Fact-checking"? "Proofreading"? The author then goes on to talk about Harken, an energy company with which Bush was formerly associated, without explaining what it was or how it had anything to do with Bush. I know for a fact that 98% of the PFHS student population has never heard the name "Harken," let alone know that Bush ran some energy companies years ago. Here's something funny, "G. W. does not want to look for an alternative to Middle Eastern oil. He has much invested in the Texas oil business to risk something else to take over the market..." While I understand what she was trying to say and agree with her, it could have been worded much better.

*sigh*

"Dress code serves purpose"
...but this article doesn't! I am half-convinced that someone "in charge" told the reporter to write this in response to PFU's forum members complaining about the dress code. This tiny article spouted off the same dull restrictions read to us over and over and over and over and over (get my point?) again the first two weeks of school. The reporter says that our dress code is for "health and safety reasons." Health? What, do they expect us to come to school with unmentionable bodily fluids smeared all over our faces? Safety reasons? Oh yeah, that cleavage is killer (not that I want to see it).

"Support Local Businesses"
This one's even shorter than the last one, weighing in with a whopping six sentences. The reporter claims that many local restaurants and businesses have closed down. Really? I've seen a few close, but for every business that closes, two more pop up (keep in mind that a lot of these new businesses are dollar stores and loan shops, but that's besides the point!). She also states that Post Falls is between "two prominently large cities." Since when were Spokane, and especially Coeur d'Alene, "prominently large"? My big gripe with this article is its extremely abrupt ending and lack of a clear point. The last two sentences state, "A sign at a local business stated, 'Wal-Mart won, we are now out of business.' So is Wal-Mart to blame?" That's it; the article ends there. This is supposedly the opinion page, yet she gave none. Instead of pasting the grainy picture of Wal-Mart below her article, she could have explored her rhetorical question further by providing statistics and opinions. She did none of this, and thus, the article is absolutely pointless. Bravo.

"See you at the pole!"
Here's a summary of the Christian event which the SCHOOL DID NOT ENDORSE, I SWEAR! where students gathered around the flag pole at the front of the school and prayed. The reporter said the event was "out of the ordinary," when I recall witnessing it several times during the past three years. I shall write more on this later...

Page Eight

"The conservative's point of view"
This article serves as the counter-point to "Lone liberal in a Republican." This one does better from the start, providing a coherent and to-the-point headline. The author also managed to successfully capitalize both "Democrat" and "Republican." However, it goes downhill from here, when the author gets her facts distorted. She criticizes those who chide Bush about the 1000+ American soldiers killed in Iraq, then says "What about the thousands that died in the terrorist attacks? Are we supposed to forget about them?" Apparently we have by taking our focus off of Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan and putting it on Iraq, a nation which had no affiliation with Al Qaida or the 9/11 attacks. She goes on: "More than 1,000 lives would be lost if we hadn't gone to war. All the other countries would see the U.S. as a wimp and try more terrorist attacks." How would those lives have been lost? Would Iraq have attacked us with its non-existant WMD? And yes, she is RIGHT, ALL THE OTHER COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD WOULD ATTACK US if we hadn't gone to Iraq! Sacre bleu, it's the French with their flaming merde! Oh no, here come the Japanese with their Chopsticks of Mass Destruction! *ahem* She goes on to imply that Kerry's plan for Iraq would be to "just sit there and let the country crash." You're mistaken honey; that's what Mr. Bush has done. She then says that after 9/11, America needed "a boost." Oh right, so war is just the thing to cheer us up. I can see it now- "It's the feel-good war of the year!" Continuing, she states, "(Bush) gave (Americans) their pride and confidence back by insuring them that he wouldn't let the terrorists get away with it. If we hadn't gone to war, we'd still be suffering from terrorist attacks." I don't know about you, but I certainly am not proud of the Iraq war, and I feel less confident than ever when it comes to the security and integrity of our country. About her claim that if we hadn't gone to Iraq, we'd be suffering more terrorist attacks- How does she know? Does she have a magic crystal ball that gives her a view of an alternative universe? Where is her reasoning for this statement? She then says that if Kerry were president, he would have sent troops to war in Iraq and then two weeks later pulled them out. How this makes sense, I have no idea, but then again, I don't have the mindset of a Republican. Oh, and this one gets me- "What about all those tax increases Kerry voted for? And now he is for tax reductions?" Let me set this straight. During the debates, Bush said that Kerry voted to increase taxes, what, 98 times? However, most of these votes were not for the tax increases themselves, but for formalities needed to even talk about tax increases. What is more infuriating is that Kerry voted to CUT taxes 600 times. It seems Bush and his cronies have selective memories, or rather selective mouths. Finally, the author says that Bush is a good choice because he has "experience." Since when does three and a half years in Washington overshadow twenty? Again, the selective mouth theory.

"Short lunches waste money"
The author wants lunch to be extended to an hour so that all students can get their lunches and have time to eat them. While I agree that the food lines are annoyingly long, I don't see too many people having trouble getting and eating food. One hour for lunch, especially when it's not an open campus, is a very long time. In addition, it wouldn't work because of how the lunches are coordinated with fourth period. The entire class schedule would have to be reworked to accomodate this change. About his writing... since when is "idea" capitalized? It's so random! Also of note, it's funny that he says that an hour lunch would "keep students from wasting so much money by throwing away perfectly good food." "Perfectly good food"? Ha. Haha! I'll get to that one later.

"Punk versus rap"
In this article, the author complains that rap music is filled with too much swearing and too few political statements. She says, "When listening to a rap CD you hear a screening that makes the music get covered by the profane word." Can someone PLEASE explain to me what that means? Me no understandy! She says rap songs are always about "drugs, violence, and sex right?" and it "influences that illegal things are now okay." While I am not a fan of rap music, I respect its artistic merit. It's a form of expression; while quite a few rap songs do include those elements, there are many which have a greater message, something she says only punk music contains. She says that "Reports show (rap) creates abuse and hostile acts." What reports? She could have elaborated or given a source to sound credible and get her point across. She then says that rappers have no talent. I don't know about you, but I sure couldn't rap if I tried. Then she goes on to say how talented punk artists are and how they make music to which teens can relate. I don't listen to punk, either, but the validity of her statement depends on which band to which she is referring. Many of the popular punk bands of today are pre-packaged, processed, and ready to sell to cash-holding teenagers. There's more of a story here, and she failed to provide it. Punk and rap shouldn't even be compared in the same category because they're so fundamentally different.

"Choose or lose: PFHS attendees share opinions - Who should be our next president and why?"
"Attendees"? What an... um... interesting choice of words. Three of the people interviewed were for Bush, and two were for Kerry. While most of the opinions were good, one sounded very odd. The freshman girl interviewed said, "Bush because with all the war going on now and with a new president maybe result in messing up the way Bush had it." Huzzah what? I get what she is saying, but... oye.

"What do you find most difficult being at a new school?"
More bad grammar. Gee whiz. One girl said, "I'm happy to be in school because of the new hot guys!" OMG GIRL NO WAY!

Page Nine

"From Around the World..."
This was an interview with a Japanese exchange student. It wasn't too bad, but then again, there really wasn't much writing to be done in the first place.

"Star Student of the Month"
Another student interview, but this one had extremely redundant and useless questions. After answering that she was born in Coeur d'Alene and had always lived in Post Falls, the student was asked what middle school and high schools she had attended. I mean, duh, come on. After answering that she did want to go to college, the next question was "If so, which one?" Later, she is asked "What happens after high school?" *smacks head on keyboard*

"The Detour"
Here's a small blurb about The Detour, a club in "Spokane, WA." Gee, thanks for telling me in what state Spokane is, because I wasn't really sure.

Page Ten

"Car Toys look prettier in pink"
Um, is this some kind of subliminal advertisement? The article, about a student's pink car, has nothing to do with Car Toys. At the end of the article, the car's owner says "Seniors, please vote for it for year book!" Too bad us seniors voted for "Best Car" a few weeks before the paper came out. Useless filler.

"Clubs at Post Falls High School"
Oh lookie, the very first club listed is Alive, which, as the article describes "is about christen fellowship and letting people know about Jesus Christ." What is a "christen"? Who is this "Jesus Christ" character? I've never heard of him! Please let me know about him! I will touch on this in a later article, but the article also says that the club has a teacher advisor.... If you're familiar with the rules of religion in public schools, this should set off alarms... Like I said, I will save my ranting for a later date. After some other club listings, we get to Fly Fishing Club, which is supposedly for students to "learn how to fly fish and make lures in a drug free environment." Since when were fly fishers in the drug-using category of idiots? I love how these clubs can't just let students with a shared interest come together; they use the clubs to preach an idealistic message to us.

Page Eleven