Last Blueprint critique of my high school career
Okay, the post that you’ve all been waiting for… sorry it took so long; I’ve been beseiged with AP exams.
The Blueprint ended the year today with, unsurprisingly, an excessive amount of humor, not only from the controversial Backside, which I covered recently, but also from the typically serious news section.
It may seem like an eternity ago, but the Schneider ticket for Student Council leadership got elected not too long ago, not in time to make the printing deadlines for the previous issue of the Blueprint. Given that Weber/CareFace ’04 created a de facto standard of corny humor, it should come as no surprise that each ticket tried to capitalize on the Weber precedent, by flooding the school halls with bad jokes and other nonsense. The Blueprint just couldn’t resist including the now-famous “Maximus Schneider” flyer. About that flyer, I’m sorry but… no comment.
Since I’m sure absolutely no one wants to read through Blueprint critiques as lengthy as March’s, I’ll give only some of what I think here, refraining from mentioning the typical array of embarrassing typos and grammatical errors:
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Please, please, get pagination right. When you say that the feature article (“Schneider Ticket Takes the Reins”) is going to be “Continued as Student Council on p.3,” the article had better be continued as “Student Council” on page 3. Not as (no title) on page 4. That’s embarrassing.
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And… uh… I suppose when you promise us that “CRYSM Meeting Raises Questions” will be “Continued as CRYSM on p.4,” you actually mean page 5?
Then again, since Mr. Brower has proven that 1=2, I suppose you could make a corollary to justify the mixups.
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John Bell is right in taking a look at the social motivations for cheating. But I think it isn’t enough to simply say, “at least we’re making progress,” when in fact all we’ve done is acknowledge that there is a problem. This is the Viewpoints section, after all. You don’t simply report the news, you try to make some sense of it. Expect more from me on this topic later on.
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We cannot rest on our laurels. While it is true that we’ve made quite a bit of progress regarding homophobia, having actually gotten students to discuss the issues surrounding it, simply to say “we have a long way to go” is the same as saying “Keep up the good work, HAC! I’ll just sit back and watch.” Yes, we have a long way to go. And anyone who mentions that fact ought to say something else about it, too.
This is a challenge to all the students who will survive long enough to return to St. X next year: do something to change attitudes at school.
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Like so many other people, I get turned off by televangelists. The cross display is indeed the wrong approach. It is ineffective. Sure, it may be a powerful symbol, but it does nothing to convince those who don’t agree with you. They’re your target audience, no?
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In “Fast food Finger Folly,” among a multitude of errors, I found this abomination:
Therscaresparks all kinds of wonderment about the nature of fast-food chains and questions as to their actual quality…
(Emphasis mine.) Whazzat?
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It’s nice to see that the Unofficial Swordfighting Club now gets some official recognition. The irony is stunning. Recently, I’ve been asked by many juniors and underclassmen how exactly you become a member of the club. Really, the best and only way is to actually get in touch with a current member, so you can find out when they meet. Then you just show up. There’s no application or membership process or anything.
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I’ve known Jaime for four years now, and he’s yet to threaten to “break” me. Odd.
Papa still plays Sega. And I still play SuperNES. Your point is?
:^)
And this brings us to the ridiculous three pages of Backside. Pitiful, especially given that they didn’t include my article.
Actually, I realize that my article had little chance of making it into the Blueprint from the time I started writing it. I typed it up during 5th period on the day it was due, then quickly dropped it off at the Blueprint office. By then, they already had their three pages.
But seriously, my article would’ve been at least a bit better than the one that Shane has on the back of the back of the Backside.
Of worth this issue were “Joe Besl’s Bio” by Tom Silver, “Homeless Man Goes Home” by Andy Brownfield, “Virgin Mary Livens Up School Day” by Joe again (featuring DJ Miller), and “Things I Won’t Miss” by Tom again.
Having read the article and seen the original image that clearly offended so many last week, I deem that the image was so inappropriate that I will issue a recommendation to the school administration first thing tomorrow morning: Mr. Odioso et al. will henceforth conduct random, schoolwide Photoshop raids, in order to purge the school of all technologies which may be used to commit such heinous acts, persuant to the DMCA.
Also: join the fight against Comic Sans MS.
Even if this issue contained more than its fair share of mistakes and errors, I still think the Blueprint ended this year on a high note. I’ll blog about this more later on, in an upcoming series “Going Out: Reflections of an almost-ex-senior.” (If I ever get around to it, that is.)