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Halloween: from scary to skimpy

By Jackson Mosher

Most people know about the basic story of Halloween, and how people used to wear costumes around the end of October to ward off ghosts. It actually originated with the Celts, an ancient society who lived in Western Europe and celebrated their new year on November 1^st.  Since their new year was in the middle of the fall, it signified the transition from the bright and hot season of summer to the cold and dark season of winter. This was mainly related to the idea of death, so the night before the new year, on October 31^st, the Celts believed that ghosts of the dead would return to the earth. They celebrated this occasion by wearing costumes and building a bonfire, but in order to properly commemorate this day, they had to make sure that their costumes fit the “day of the dead.”  They had to be scary. And some would say that that’s not how it is anymore.

            Many costumes nowadays, or at least costumes that I’ve seen, just don’t fit the spirit of Halloween. Most high school and college girls will wear things that make them look “good,” (as I’m going to put it) like wearing a costume that’s basically one black corset, one tiny skirt, and a little extra decoration to make them look remotely like a “cat.” Maybe another girl will wear a nurse’s cap with a white shirt and skirt to match, but that they look like they can’t even properly breathe in. 

            Halloween is supposed to be scary, not sexy. It’s a day of the dead, not a day of “I’m going to see how little of this costume I can legally wear in public.”

            It’s not an issue with absolutely everyone, but these kinds of people who wear these kinds of costumes disappoint me. Halloween seems to have changed over the years, from frightening outfits to short skimpy skirts. It’s not entirely the fault of those who wear those costumes, it’s what society’s been demanding; everyone has had a part in this change.

New Aquatic Center unveiled

By Dave Montmarquet

       As you are all well aware, last year the school began renovating parts of the Junior High as well as constructing an additional section of the school which is now the home of Victor High School’s new Olympic-sized pool. The construction has unintentionally turned the school into a maze, especially for students that need to make the journey to and from music and technology classes. 

      The impressive new addition to the school is a twenty-five meter swimming pool with eight lanes which is able to accommodate up to 325 spectators. 

      The pool, along with the other renovations, will be costing the school approximately 28.7 million dollars, part of which is expected to be paid for by the State New York. A very steep price, though many are enthusiastic about the new pool and believe that it is well worth the money.

       I recently spoke with Varsity swimmer Shane Schopinsky, who gladly explained to me how he and the rest of the swim team feels about the construction of a new larger pool. Shane, as well as many members of the swim team, is excited to be able to use this pool for the swimming season. Shane expressed to me that he believes the pool will be extremely beneficial to the swimming team in future seasons.

      “It gives us something to look forward too for the next season," he said. 

       Shane also thinks the pool will boost the morale of the swim team and hopefully propel them into a season full of victories and personal records.

The new aquatic center still a little dusty, as construction was finishing up in September.
(photo by Dave Montmarquet)

Austin Reifsnyder’s HUMBUG

By Austin Reifsnyder

I’m sure many of you reading this are wondering about the title of this column.  Back in the age of Harry Houdini, language was very different than it is today, especially profanities.  Many words that people would consider non-offensive or even comical in today’s society, used to be horribly profane barely 100 years ago! One of those words was “humbug.”  In the late 1800s and early 1900s, “humbug” was a phrase used to point out falsehoods, similar to the word bull…. well you get the idea.  So since I can’t use modern profanity, I’m going to use funny 1800s profanity to get my points across.

In the maiden voyage of this column, I’m calling humbug on alternative medicine.  Before we begin, you should know what alternative medicine is.  Alternative medicine is any practice that is not standard in the medical community, such as acupuncture, aromatherapy, magnetic field therapy, some forms of chiropractic and thousands more.  Of the 50 people I surveyed, only 17 even knew what alternative medicine was.  These alternative practices are not recognized by professional doctors, and are not proven to be effective by the medical community.    

There are many on both sides of the debate.  Those in favor of alternative techniques argue that the standard medical community is hiding the effectiveness of alternative practices from the public in order to make more money for themselves.  Although this is a fairly logical argument, it is not to be believed.  

According to a recent poll conducted by the finance site NerdWallet.com, of over 21,000 physicians in the country, over half of them said that if they were to go back in time and choose a career, they would not have chosen to be a doctor.  The reason many of them gave was that the amount of money they made did not outweigh the debt that had piled up from their medical school student loans.  This leaves the other half who would choose to be doctors again.  These people are still plagued by debt and quite possibly a declining salary, yet they would still choose to be doctors again.  What this tells us is that they really want to help people, and that making money was not why they became doctors, and those selfish doctors who thought they would be making money off sick people were sorely mistaken.

         Now I know there are some of you out there screaming, “Well medical science doesn’t know everything!”  That’s true, science doesn’t know everything; but science is not exclusive.  If someone has an alternative medical practice that they believe works, all they need do is bring it to a lab to be tested.  If it works, the medical community will certainly accept another method to help those in need.  But until the alternative medicine practitioners can prove their products work, they could claim that cat food heals people, and there will be those that believe it and willingly pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for the magical cat food treatment.    Comedian, musician and poet Tim Minchin once said, “By definition, alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved to not work.  You know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proved to work? Medicine.” 

I could continue ranting, but instead I’ll turn to a scary fact I collected in my surveying.  There were 33 people that said they didn’t know what alternative medicine is.  Of those 33 people, 16 said that they were in favor of the use of alternative medicine.  Let’s stop and think about that for a second.  People, who do not know what something is, still somehow manage to support it.  If you go to an acupuncturist who doesn’t know what they’re doing, the best-case scenario is you’ve wasted your money, with the worst case being you getting seriously hurt.  If you take away one thing from reading this, NEVER support or refute something you do not know anything about. 

Well that’s it for my very first humbug.  If you stuck around this long, I congratulate you and will reward you handsomely with a more exciting topic next time.  This has been your friendly neighborhood skeptic Austin, signing off...

            

PEDs in College Sports

By Ryan Bavineau         

The NCAA is the largest sanctioning body representing college athletes in America. Many people outside the NCAA believe some college athletes are taking Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) or anabolic steroids; but why would outside sources claim that college athletes take PEDs or steroids when thousands pass these tests every year? Some believe that athletes take these drugs during their offseason so that when they are tested during the season, the remnants of the drugs will have passed through the body of the athlete.

So the question arises: should the NCAA drug-test student athletes even during the offseason to crack down on PED and steroid use in collegiate sports? 

Here is what students here at our school had to say: 

(Based on a survey of 50 students)

Surprisingly, the data was split evenly.  

Some agree with what Victor student and varsity football player Brandon Farrelly said: “There is nothing like seeing a guy juiced up on steroids wreck another guy.”

The NCAA is supposed to protect the student athlete and yet at the same time maintain a level playing field for all to compete at.

Opinions differ among many. Not an easy decision for the NCAA, but it should become a big priority to their organization.

Youtube Takeover

By Jessica Pavia

A change in the world of media has occurred. Now more than ever, people all over the world turn to their computers for entertainment instead of television. The most popular site? YouTube.

According to the Washington Post’s website, YouTube’s official launch was in February 2005; now it has more than 38 million viewers per year.

Not only has the site brought entertainment to its viewers, it also brings fame to many of the YouTubers who upload videos of their own, some even with over one million subscribers. The more subscribers a YouTuber has, the more well known they are in the world of online entertainment.

Some of the most well known “vloggers” are the Vlog Brothers themselves, John and Hank Green. This dynamic brother-duo has helped changed the face of YouTube. Each Tuesday (John’s day) and Friday (Hank’s day) they address each other and go off on a topic that is, more often than not, an informational one. Indeed, this sounds like something that would make no one want to tune in, but they teach in such a unique and amusing way, that you just get sucked in; more than one million have.

There are a few who pride themselves in putting up videos everyday. One of the most watched, who just recently flew past the two million subscribers mark, is DailyGrace. Each day of the week has a theme, going from teaching you something to commenting on comments. Do not be fooled by this rather vague explanation, this woman thrives on sarcasm and is one of the funniest vloggers on the web.

Just as the music world had a British invasion, YouTube did as well. Jacksgap is a channel started by Jack Harries during his gap year before university. Without meaning to, his channel, meant only to document his experiences during this time, grew to have more than two million viewers from all over the world. Now, partnered up with his twin brother, Jack continues to be an entertainment source for so many people.

All these YouTubers and more combine to create, according to Time Magazine’s website, the third most visited site; with Google at the lead, which has since then purchased YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars. A newly-developed website does not normally survive as long as YouTube has. Whether the creators, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, expected this site to become as large as it has or not, the site continues to grow in popularity each day.