A fight set to music between an American gang, the Jets, and a rival gang, the Sharks, who have moved into the Jets’ territory from Puerto Rico.  Riff declares that they will end the conflict on their terms by challenging the Sharks to one last all out fight, or “rumble”. They deliver the challenge to the Sharks at the dance being held that night at the local gym, which is considered neutral territory.  In the midst of all the excitement, Tony, the co-founder of the Jets, and Maria, Bernardo’s sister, see each other, and immediately fall in love. They begin to dance, but are interrupted by Bernardo, who angrily orders Maria home, and tells Tony to stay away from his sister.  Tony visits Maria at her tenement block, mirroring the balcony scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and they confirm their love.  The same night, after the dance, the Jets and Sharks meet to decide where their planned rumble will take place. Tony bursts in while the Jets and Sharks are in conference, and demands that they have a fair fist fight instead of a rumble. Maria demands that Tony stop the fight altogether, but before Tony leaves, they pretend that the bridal clothes in the shop are for them, and imagine their engagement and wedding.  The Jets and Sharks are ready in case the fight becomes a rumble after all, Tony and Maria are looking forward to seeing each other that night, and Anita is getting ready for her date with Bernardo. The fight, which is between Bernardo and Ice, Riff’s second in command, is about to begin when Tony appears. When Tony tries to stop the fight, Bernardo attacks him.  In the midst of the fight, Bernardo kills Riff. Before the stunned members of both gangs can react, Tony, enraged at the murder of his best friend, picks up Riff’s blade and stabs Bernardo, killing him instantly. This sets off a free-for-all amidst the gang members.Blissfully unaware of what has happened, Maria is waiting for Tony on the tenement roof when the Shark Chino, who loves her, appears and tells her Tony killed her brother.  Tony arrives as Maria prays that Bernardo is not dead; realizing that it’s true, Maria lashes out at Tony, who can only tell her what happened, and asks her to forgive him before he goes to the police. Maria finds that in spite of everything, she still loves Tony and begs him to stay with her. Ice has taken over as leader of the Jets. Back at the flat when Anita arrives, Maria and Tony make whispered arrangements to meet at Doc’s and run away together. Anita comes in, sees Tony running away and chides Maria for loving him.  She sends Anita to Doc’s on the pretense that she is sending her to fetch a medicine for her headache, but her real purpose is to tell Tony, who is hiding at Doc’s, that Maria is detained from meeting him.  But when Anita enters Doc’s, the Jets maul her, simulating a gang rape. In black anger, Anita delivers the wrong message — she says Maria is dead, shot by Chino for loving Tony. Wandering onto the playground, he sees Maria, at first thinking that it is only in his mind, then realizing it really is her, but as they run towards each other, Chino appears out of nowhere and shoots Tony. Tony dies in her arms. Maria takes the gun from Chino and accuses everybody in sight of the deaths of Tony, Bernardo, and Riff.When the gang members arrive to see Tony dead, some of the Jets lift him, and the Sharks join them, while Chino is taken away by the police. As in Romeo and Juliet, tragedy has brought the feuding between the two gangs to an end.

Part Two- He backs into a parking space at church knocking another car out of the space and out into the road.  During the service, Mr. Bean twiddles his thumbs and stares and the ceiling.  He sneezes uncontrollably and pats himself down trying to find a hanky but ends up using his jacket pocket and wipes  his hand off disgusted on his pants.  He starts to fall asleep, head drooping but starts awake.  He falls asleep again, leaning over on the man next to him, who tries to lean away.  mr. Bean starts to fall over in the  floor, teetering over onto his head, and again jerks awake and sits back down. He holds his eyes open to stay awake and scares the man next to him.  He tries to open a piece of candy, bu tthe wrapper crinkling annoyed the man next to him.  He gets his hand stuck in his booger pocket and when he tries to pull it out he punches the man next to him.  He doesn’t know the words because the man next to him won’t share his book so he loudly sings his own words.

The Return of Mr. Bean- While walking along the sidewalk, he sees a man playing the saxophone.  He didn’t want to give the man his bill, so he began to dance next to him and gave the saxophone player the quarter he received from an old lady.  He goes in a department store and begins to choke when he goes through the perfume department.  He crawls on his stomach to get away, plugging his nose and coughing.  He opens a toothbrush and tries it out to make sure its good.  He puts it back and grabs another one like it.  While looking at towels, he wraps a yellow one around him and models it in the mirror.  He gets his feet stuck at the top of the escalator.  While looking at kitchen utensils, he pulls out a potato and swtarts using different knives to peel it until he picks one.  When picking a skillet, he pulls out a raw fish to see which one fit.  While looking at telophones, he beats the display one on the shelf and takes the real one.  An older man pushes him out of the way in line and accidentally grabbed Mr. Bean’s card instead of his own.  mr. Bean tries to switch the cards and gets his hand stuck in the man’s pocket.  He finally gets his hand out in the bathroom stall and scares the man by offering him toilet paper.  He goes to eat at a nice restaurant.  He writes himself a card and acts surprised to hae been given one.  When reading the menu he pulls out all his money and tries to find something that fits his budget.  He finds a hanger in the back of his coat jacket.  After he tries a little wine, he acts for no more because he’s driving, which he acts out with wheel motions.  He begins to bang his knife on all the glass at his table.  While playing with and whipping his napkin onto his lap, he throws it onto a neighboring table.  When his food comes, he gags as it goes down and listens to it to see if it’s still alive.  He hides his meat under the flowers, inside the bread and under his plate.  He dumps out the sugar into a glass, pours in some meat, and puts the sugar back in on top of it.  A violin player comes and plays him happy birthday and will not leave until Mr. Bean takes a bite, so he does and spits it down the back of the man’s pants.  He also dumped it in the lady at the next table’s purse.  When a waitor spills a plate on his table, he acted like the waitor knocked all that meat everywhere.  He was with a group waiting to meet the royal family.  He tries to shine his shoes by spitting on them and wiping them on the back of his pants.  He smells his breath by eating the air around him, then sprayed an entire container of breath spray in his mouth.  He took a string off the maid’s outfit to floss, breaking her apron, and hurt his tooth.  He needed a handkerchief for his suit pocket so he ripped up a postcard to look like one.  He wanted to trim his nails, so he tried to trim them on his pants zipper, gathering some strange looks from the people around him.  He couldn’t get his pants zipped up because his hand was stuck in them.  He went to bow and head-butted the queen, knocking her to the ground.

The Curse of Mr. Bean- When going to park in a parking garage, he couldn’t reach the ticket so he used an extended metal hand.  He goes to pool and slides down the elephant trunk, but when the lifeguard yells at him he walks back up the slide and runs to the adult pool.  He runs around the pool to the high dive.  He starts shaking and grabs onto the railing when he sees how far down the water was.  His legs buckled and he laid down on the board.  He inched his way to the edge and got tohis feet.  He tried to act cool when some kids showed up.  He hunched down to dive and rocked back and forth at th edge then fell backwards.  He decided to ease his legs off first and was hanging by his hands.  The kid stomped on his hand so he fell down into the water.  He lost his trunks when he fell and a little girl pulled them out.  When the lifeguard called for everyone to get out of the pool, he went under water and held his breath til everyone left.  A girls swim team saw him hiding naked and screamed and ran away.  He tried to outsmart the gate blocking the exit to the parking garage but using a trash can, but went out the “no exit” way and came head-to-head with another car, so he was forced back into the garage.  He backed up and when the gate for another car to enter was lifted he came at them and backed them out of the garage, flipping the car onto its side.  He goes to the park and sits down by a man on a bench.  The man pulls out his mini sandwiches, and Mr. Bean pulls out a huge loaf of bread which he proceeds to cut apart with scissors.  He then pulled out a container of butter from his jacked and used his credit card to spread it.  Next he pulled out a bag of lettuce which he washed off in the water fountain then whipped around in his sock.  Then he pulled out a jar of live fish which he knocked against the bench to make sure they were dead.  He laid out a napkin stuck whole black pepper in it and crushed it to sprinkle over his sandwich. The man next to him blew on his coffee.  Mr. Bean stuck a tea bag down a huge canteen, then sucked some milk out of a baby bottle and spit it inside also, which he mixed around.  Then he sneezed, dropping his sandwich and spilling his drink, so the man gave him his other sandwich.  Mr. Bean got out and pushed his car when he got stuck at a red light and went to the movies.  He bought his date a tiny popcorn and himself a huge one.  He stuck the popcorn in his nose and his mouth to act out differnt scary movies.  He tapped on the girl’s opposite shoulder to make her think it was someone else and screamed as soon as the movie started.  He sank down into his chair and covered his face, one eye popping out occasionally.  He wanted to leave, so he put his sweater over his face.  he stuffed his face with popcorn and threw it everywhere.  Then he put the bag over his face to hide the screen.  When he was leaving he went to grab his date’s hand, but just grabbed her jacket and screamed.

Harris Cooper, a professor at Duke University and one of the best known researchers on homework, brings up the important barrier that teachers are given little or no direction in creating homework assignments that advance learning.  Thus, many teachers do not have the proper fields of experience to designate assignments.  Veteran teacher Dorothy Rich said that homework ought to help kids make better sense of the world, but so often it doesn’t.  Although teachers blame the confusion on conforming to school board policies, they still disagree on the basic purpose of homework (reviewing or learning new concepts), not to mention the design, the amount, and the question of whether it should be graded or not.  Yet, Cooper said that eliminating homework makes no more sense than piling it on, so a happy medium needs to be achieved.  (Link to Article)

Managing stress should not be a priority of teenagers experiencing their last years in high school.  Although stress can lead to expressions of talent and energy, negative side effects like exhaustion and illness still prevail.  Stess happens when there is a severe imbalance between capability and demand, and when a person fails to meet the expected demand, consequences are to come.  Managing stress is very important to teenagers because stress is directlly related to health.  Students especially struggle with study-burden, homework stress, and periodical examinations.  Some organizations provide stress management training to toughen up students.  But should students already be trying to battle stress at such a young age?  (Link to Article) 

It is expected with so much work to be done at home that a student’s social life and interpersonal communication would suffer, but relations within the family are also suffering.  Increased tension over homework has come about through negative feedback from parents especially when they take too much control over how to approach homework or when they are most keen for their children to succeed in school.  Report author Susan Hallam says, “Parents have the most positive influence when they offer moral support, make appropriate resources available and discuss general issues. They should only actually help with homework when their children specifically ask them to.”  Many schools have created homework clubs, where students have access to teachers after school, without the risk of disagreements at home.  (Link to Article)

Thus, it seems unreasonable that high school students should suffer with teachers who don’t know how to create assignments, high levels of stress, and a faulty communication process within the home all because of school work done at home.  A middle ground between homework overload and banning it all together needs to be found and quickly.

Link To Earthquake

With the recent massive snow storms in the eastern United States, many have lost their belief in global warming.  According to poll by Yale and George Mason University, since 2008, the number of people who don’t believe in global warming has doubled.   Also, the number of those alarmed by the prospect of climate change and the number of those concerned about climate change have both dropped.  In light of recent events, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, past winner of the Nobel Prize, is under attack and its procedures are being reviewed.  Al Gore acknowledges that mistakes have been made, but science can be never be completely free of mistakes.  He has also pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere – thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions.

Link to Global Warming

Early Sunday February 28th, the storm Xynthia crashed through concrete sea walls, flooding ports and destroying homes.  Sixty-two people across Western Europe were killed and 1 million left without electricity.  The storm ravaged France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain and parts of Germany.  About half of the French death toll was due to the crumbling of the sea walls.  France’s railways faced long delays, and one of Europe’s most important airports at Frankfurt faced continual cancellations.  The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, promised $4 million in emergency aid, asked the interior and ecology ministries to draw up a report of what happened, and tried to staunch the criticism of the state of the sea walls.  Yet, the sea wall that broke dated back to the reign of Napolean.  Also, in Portugal, a massive mudslide in the Azores swept a school bus into a ravine, killing several.

Link to European Storm

Three Similarites:

1) All three were natural occurrences.

2) In each occurrence, there were actions that could have been taken to prevent them from happening, but they were left undone.

3) All three have an essence of the Apocalypse to come.

From the article on the European storm: “We have to ask how in France, in the 21st century, families can be surprised in their sleep and drown in their homes,” he said.

Even great people have the “it won’t happen to me” attitude and are shocked when tragedy befalls them.  In the case of President Sarkozy, he could have taken steps to secure the sea walls long ago, but he never thought a disaster like this would wash up on his shore.  Just like in the case of 9/11, the United States didn’t think it could happen to her.  The French can be wiped out from the comfort of their own beds, and the Americans can be murdered from their cushy office chairs.  It could happen to anyone, yet administrations today still remain unprepared for the downfalls to come.

What: With current technology, students can use their digital media player to hold the answers to a test, crib notes, definition lists, helpful jingles, and formulas.

When: This occurrence was documented in April of 2007.

Where: This phenomena of cheating has occurred at Mountain View High School, San Gabriel High School in San Gabriel, California, Seattle, Washington, St. Mary’s College, a high school in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and the University of Tasmania in Australia.

Why It Matters: Seeing as the National Association of Secondary School Principals has already been alerted, this ban could soon hit our school.  iPods, Zunes, mp3 players, and other digital  media players would just be added to the long list of personal belongings not allowed in school.

I disagree with the article, yet I do agree with seventeen-year-old Kelsey Nelson, when she said “people who are going to cheat are still going to cheat, with or without them.”  Darren Murph pointed out that soon another piece of technology like “Bluetooth earphones” will “become all the rage” and teachers will have to fight the same battle for their students full attention.  Banning iPods is not going to “beat” cheaters, just give them a chance to be more creative about their cheating.

Link to Article That Supports My Claim

The validity of abstince-only programs has proven to be an issue.  Advocates for Youth states that in a House Government Reform Committee, they reviewed thirteen of the commonly used abstinence-only curricula taught across the United States (Advocates for Youth).  Eleven of the thirteen programs “blurred religion and science” and “contained unproven claims and subjective conclusions.”  These included: A 43-day-old fetus is a “thinking person.”  Pregnancy can result from touching another person’s genitals.  HIV can be spread via sweat and tears.   Half of gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for HIV.  How can abstinence-only programs help teens learn if they aren’t even based on truth?

Teens may be at an even higher risk for STD’s and pregnancy if they do take these abstinence-only programs.  NARAL states that these programs “fail to provide information about contraception beyond failure rates” (NARAL). Without accurate information on protection, teens may go without contraception all together.  Without censoring teachers, these programs could “endanger the reproductive health” of teens.  Why increase the risk of STD’s already high enough?

To me, it seems clear that these programs should be stopped, for the betterment of teens today.

Robert E. Rector from the Heritage Foundation states that “conventional” or “abstinence-plus” programs put little to no emphasis on staying pure (Rector).  These programs promote condom use and practically condone sexual activity.  If the parents saw the material their children were learning, they would most likely be offended.

Teens Health states thats abstinence is “100% effective in preventing pregnancy” (Teen Health).  Birth control methods, even when used correctly, still leave some room for failure.  With abstinence, there is no oppurtunity for “sperm to fertilize an egg.”  Promoting these positive ideas, instead of condoms, patches, and pills, will save more teens from the heartache of sexual activity.

Teens today are way too young to have to deal with the stresses of sexual activity.  They have enough on their minds with academics, sports, extracurriculars, and friends.  The best way to help them out is to save them one more stress and tell them it’s okay to wait.

In a school in Illinois, critics of  a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) program accused it of being inconsistent with their “abstinence-only message” (Planned Parenthood).  How can a school help its kids, if it’s preventing them from learning about the dangers out there?  No one can protect themselves from unknown obstacles.  Schools may think they are saving their teens from one problem, but in reality, they are setting them up for another.  You can’t sacrifice educating a child just to save them from reality.

In an ABC News survey, over 2,000 kids were divided into groups of kids who received abstinence-only counseling and those who did not.  They were watched for about four to six years.  You know how the kids turned out?  There was no evidence supporting the claim that abstinence-only counseling increased the rates of abstinence (ABC News).  This goes to show that teenagers will do what they want to do when they want to do it.  No program will change their minds.  Why waste the money on a foolish hope?

But schools will continue to teach abstinence-only sex education for as long as there are parents to fight for it.  Parents will continue to be naive to think that a school program will change their children.  One day they might find out that it actually deprived their children from learning what they needed to hear.

Evidence: To date, AOUM, or abstinence-only until marriage,  programs that conform to the eight point criteria established by the federal government and focus exclusively on promoting abstinence until marriage have not shown credible evidence of significantly delaying sexual initiation or reducing the frequency of sexual intercourse.In a nationally representative study of adolescents aged 12-17 years, 88 percent of adolescents who took virginity pledges within AOUM programs reported engaging in sexual intercourse before marriage.  

Warrant: Just saying a few words or hearing a teacher preach to you all day is not going to change teenagers minds about premarital sex.

Backing: The lack of evidence supporting the effectiveness of AOUM programs, as well as evidence demonstrating the potential harm such programs have on adolescents’ sexual health, have led 17 states to withdraw from Title V AOUM funding.Additionally, the study reported that adolescents who took virginity pledges were less likely to use condoms when they became sexually active, more likely to engage in oral-genital and anogenital sexual behaviors, and less likely to seek and obtain care for STIs than non-pledgers.

Rebuttal: Although abstinence may save teenagers from hurt and diseases now, abstinence won’t solve the sex problem.  Teenagers will continue to live their lives how they please now matter how much federal backing is provided for abstinence-only sex-ed.

Qualifier: Of course, it is possible that a class like this could leave a lasting impact on one or two kids, but everything spoken by adults “goes in one ear and out the other” with teens today.