Do you need an iPh-one dock? Maybe a cut-ting board, or new shelf for your room? You could learn to make all of these things and a ton more by taking some of Mr. Letko’s classes. Technology Education is very useful, as well as a lot of fun; it’s a class comprised of working with wood and metals. Our school has been very privileged to re-ceive donated tools from WITC, including a CNC (Computer Numerical Controlled) design soft-ware. “Having this kind of technology in our labs allows our students to make high quality pro-jects,” Mr. Letko said. For example, some
stu-dents this semester have used the CNC to create plaques with different words and designs such as the Harley Davidson logo or their name. Mr. Letko also makes sure that he gives our students who want to be in this line of work after high school the oppor-tunity to talk to repre-sentatives from different companies or colleges via field trips.
Carpenter’s appren-ticeship representatives visit our school to talk with kids who would like to go into the build-ing/technology field; after high school, one may be accepted into one of these programs, or hired by an employer (possibly starting at $18.00/hr!). Senior
Lance Kimmes says that the knowledge from this class has given him a headstart as he starts work within his family business when he gradu-ates.
Many of the other stu-dents from Building and Construction also say that being in this class and learning from Mr. Letko has significantly helped them to better understand and prepare for the line of work they have chosen. I suggest taking this class even if construction isn’t your desired career path, be-cause you get experience learning new things, working with your hands, and building something of which you can be proud.
Online@ www.nw-tigers.org/the-octagon
Volume 66, Issue 31 May 15, 2015
Today:
Golf: Boys’
Varsity Match @ Chetek
Band Pops
Concert
NHS Art
Auc-tion
Tomorrow:
Baseball: JV&V Double Header @ Bloomer
Softball: JV&V
Double Header @ Brule vs. Bloomer
Monday:
Softball: JV&V @ Brule vs. Duluth East
Tuesday:
Track: Varsity Conference Meet @ NHS
Baseball:
JV&V @ Iron River vs. La-dysmith
Softball: JV&V @ Ladysmith
Thursday:
Track: Varsity
Conference Meet @ NHS
Baseball:
JV&V @ Iron River vs. Chetek
Softball: JV&V
@ Cheq. HS
Friday:
Graduation
@ 8 PM (Senior class pic. at 6:30)
Pg. 2 Writing
Pg. 3 Dumbledore
Pg. 5 Butterflies
By Chaede Vig
Have you ever been so held down by a mil-lion thoughts that it starts to cause major stress? A good way to de-stress is through writing. Here are ten good reason why writing would be worth-while in the process of relieving stress:
6. Writing clarifies your thoughts- Writing helps you to reflect back on your day. If there were any situations that brought on negative feel-ings, you are no longer
part of it. When you are looking back, you can clarify what exactly hap-pened. This helps you to move on and avoid those situations in the future. 5. Writing is medita-tive- While you are writ-ing, you tend to focus more on what you are doing at that moment rather than what has hap-pened or will happen. As you concentrate on what you are doing, your breathing slows, which tends to help you relax. 4. Writing makes you smarter- As an active process, writing helps you become smarter. If you are writing some-thing based on real-life events, people, or places, you need to research it. An emotional writer may search for new words as they write in their diary or journal. As a result, writing helps improve knowledge and vocabu-lary, as well as helps you to better handle stressful situations.
3. Writing helps you sleep- While writing,
you break the stress-causing cycles going on in your head. The broken cycle causes you to relax, and the more relaxed you are, the better you will sleep. After a good night’s rest, you will wake up fully rested, which reduces stress later in the day.
2. Writing removes anger- If you are feeling angry, take the time to write down your angry thoughts. No one needs to know what these par-ticular thoughts are if you don’t want them to, but focus all of your an-ger through words. You may even write your re-venge tactics down (as long as you don’t take action on them). This helps you release your anger in a harmless way while pulling your emo-tions back together. 1. Writing solves problems- When you write about your prob-lems, you are more likely to write about possible solutions that may help you as well. After
writ-ing about your problems, brainstorm possible an-swers to your quandary. Any one solution, or any combination of solutions may solve the problem. The point where reduc-ing stress comes in is where you take actions and focus on the solu-tion.
If you didn't already know, there is a gigantic island of garbage in the Pacific Ocean, and if you think I'm exaggerating with the word “gigantic,” I’m not; it’s about the size of Texas, and grow-ing!
While researching the island, I began to wonder what happens to the gar-bage around here, since all of that can't just be from the west coast of the U.S. and East Asia. The first step to finding the answer was calling Waste Management; I gave a representative our location, and she
pro-ceeded to tell me that once the garbage is taken from your home, they dump it at the nearest landfill (which, in our case, is in Duluth). It takes decades for the landfill to fill up, and once it reaches that point, the company representa-tive said that Waste Management puts a three layers of glass and soil over the garbage, and turns it into a “park.” In-teresting? Next time you are at a “park,” you may want to ask yourself what is underneath the grass on which you am standing -- there could, in fact, be thousands of
tons of garbage under you.
Does covering up the garbage make it go away? Is the garbage problem solved?
This garbage has the potential to contaminate underground water re-serves, and in time, could damage the ecosystem. Eventually, all of those things could rise to the surface -- perhaps within the next 10-20 years, and having trash that takes hundreds of years to break down could pose a real problem.
Recycling, on the oth-er hand, is something everyone can do to help
that is quick, easy, and could potentially save thousands of animals’ and even your families’ lives.
It seems as though the garbage in the Midwest probably isn’t making its way to the ocean, but piling it up underground is just as harmful. We need to become more educated on the real ef-fects of our garbage and landfills.
If you would like to learn more about how recycling can help your environment and the
world, visit
www.cleanriver.com, or
www.greeneducationfoundati on.org.
By Chaede Vig
Today Molly Niven Tanya Plachta
5/19
Cody Chruscielski Carmen Ormston
5/20
Kelcie Lanning
5/21
Karaline Green
Happy
Birthday!
Senior Editor/ For-matter:
Nik Sauer
Text Editor
Brooklyn Smith
Staff Members: Katie Johnson
Jay Gaare Richard Schiff
Luke Rutten Evan Simmons Mikayla Maijala
Cassie Harvey Alissa Ormond Chaede Vig
Advisor:
While there’s a lot about which to rant, in-cluding but not limited to my hatred for James Pot-ter (I’d really appreciate it if no Marauders group-ies hauled off and hit me in the hall upon reading this, but it’s true), the rampant lack of logic (“Here’s the rub: how do you sort out the
liars?” How about that truth
-telling potion? You have one, why don’t you use it?), and the absurd and cruel treatment of Slytherin House (despite a prevalent theme of the books being prejudice). But today, I’d like to dis-cuss the matter of Dumbledore.
I Hate the Man: Time
of death: whenever the Dumble-doers read this. But seriously, Dumble-dore’s the worst. In Brooklyn World, there are three basic tiers to Dumbledore’s villainy. Tier One (Prime)- He endangers Harry. All the time. I mean, the first few times Harry was in mortal danger were unin-tentional on
Dumble-dore’s part (aside from Harry being left on a doorstep in the middle of the night as an infant): Dumbledore didn’t send Harry and Co.™ after the Sorcerer’s Stone, the Chamber of Secrets, or Sirius Black; Harry de-cided to perform those tasks for himself, and
just happened to simulta-neously make it known that he was useful in the process. Thus, we should consider Goblet of Fire, the book/film wherein Dumbledore would have been an active antagonist in any other franchise. Not only is Harry not eligible to participate in the Death Tournament, as it shall henceforth be named, but he doesn’t even want to be in it. Yet Old Dumbles doesn’t let Harry withdraw for no reason, and it was just a stupid and ridiculous thing for a headmaster of a school to do.
Now that the Hate Train’s a-cruising, let’s move on to the install-ment of the series where Dumbledore isolates
Harry from his friends for an entire summer, and himself, until the book’s denouement, be-cause reasons?
I’m not really sure why he would have done that. He said it was be-cause he didn’t want Voldemort to read Har-ry’s mind when he was in Dumbledore’s pres-ence, but what a stupid reason? Come on, Dumblemeister. Another lethal oversight in the fifth book is when he forces Snape to handle the single biggest issue of Order of the Phoenix, which was that Volde-mort resided in Harry’s mind for half of it, while
‘Dumbledore’
Con-tinued Pg. 4
Have you ever fallen in love...with a pug? Gertie is my three year old, fat black pug that I (and my boyfriend) adopted Sat-urday, April 25.
The two of us have been dying to get a pug for years, and obtaining one was in the two-year plan for us. That Satur-day we got a phone call concerning a free, potty trained, fixed, female, black pug who needed a home. After I talked Beau into it, she was dropped off.
Let me tell you, it was love at first sight. The family who had her be-fore was looking to get rid of her because of the snorting and breathing noises she makes, which is very common for her
breed. We happen to love the noises she makes, and think it’s hi-larious. When you put her on the bed
with you, she falls asleep al-most instantly, and when she sleeps, she snores like a buzz saw. She weighs 31 pounds, which is twice the healthy and normal weight for a pug. In her previous home, she lived in a city and didn’t get to go for walks, and stayed mostly indoors. We have been diet-ing and exercis-ing her since
she became ours; she even walked down the lake walk in Canal Park, then all around Amnicon
Falls State Park, as well as down two beaches: at the mouth of the Middle River and mouth of the Amnicon. Her meals have been cut down from two cups of dog food per day to one.
Because of her weight, I decided to use her for my 25 hour project for Mr. Nyhus’s class. She has slimmed down a bit, but still has a ways to go. She will be at the school Monday, May 18 during first block in Room 1059; come see her if you want to fall in love as well. By Cassie Harvey
By Brooklyn Smith
“Come on, Dumblemeister.”
Scientists at MIT have developed a fermion microscope that uses laser cooling to allow them to view
indi-vidual atoms in a cloud of gas.
By Nik Sauer
The House of Representatives has cleared the USA Freedom Act, an
exten-sion of the Patriot Act that will vastly reduce the NSA’s surveillance rights. 10 people have died on a migrant
boat from Myanmar after they were refused entry into Thailand partly
due to their religious affiliation. 7 were killed and over two
hun-dred injured when a Philadelph-ia Amtrak train derailed
travel-ing 106 mph in a 50 mph zone.
Burundi’s capital city is in tur-moil after a coup attempt left it
divided between factions. Google Maps will no longer be allowing users
to edit maps after the above was drawn over a field in Pakistan.
aware of the fact that Snape still very much hated James Potter, which resulted in that problem not be-ing solved and Sirius dying.
The last two books are where we realize that Dumbledore decided to take this gen-ocidal-dark-wizard prob-lem and throw an adoles-cent at it. By the end of OOTP, we knew from Prof. Trelawney’s proph-ecy what Dumbledore has known all along: on-ly Harry Potter can kill Voldemort. This, when coupled with the revela-tion in Deathly Hallows that Harry has a piece of Voldilocks living inside him that must be killed by Voldemort himself should raise a giant red flag: Dumbledore knew that Harry had to fight, and then ultimately die. This means that every-thing he ever did throughout the series was to condition and
manipu-martyr himself for the cause. One could argue that Harry was always
courageous and selfless enough to do this, but we’ll never know, be-cause Dumbledore said, “Go find horcruxes, Har-ry; it is all up to you, got-ta catch ‘em all!”
Tier the Second- Dumbledore was a men-ace to pretty much every-one with whom he came into contact: his sister (whom he may have killed), Harry (see: the first tier), Snape (whom he tortures by constantly playing the Lily card), and Sirius Black (whom he holes up in his child-hood home, which had been a prison for Sirius when he was growing up, immediately after escap-ing from an actual pris-on, where he had spent
other one of his close friends [Harry screamed at Dumbledon’t for
ex-actly this reason on page 834 of OOTP]).
Thrice Tiered- And while I’m at it, let’s cite page 835. Dumbledore admits that he was well aware that Harry would “suffer” while growing up in his aunt and uncle’s house, but decided to go ahead with that plan any-way because he thought Harry would be in more danger of being Death Eaten if taken in by a wizard family than if he’d lived inconspicu-ously with muggles. But Harry’s misery on Privet Drive is proven to have been all for naught in the very beginning of the second book; because who finds Harry in his home but Dobby, the
ously, Harry was just as easy to find in the mug-gle world as in the wiz-ard world. The easy solution would be to bring up Harry with a competent wizard or wizarding family (say, Minerva McGonagall), but Dumbledore decided to leave the child with a death wish emblazoned upon his forehead in the care of the species of hu-man least equipped to deal with malevolent wizards (read: people that not only despise him but who have no magical capabilities). There was no logic in his plans, but people loved him and followed him anyway, and even the rational readers of the series love him, because we’re viewing them through Harry’s Butter-beer goggles. I’m not saying that Dumbledore is a force for evil, but I am saying that we shouldn’t put him on a pedestal like we do.
“...and even the rational readers of the series
When you go out to eat, do you go to a popu-lar fast food restaurant, like McDonalds, or a small family restaurant? Although it’s more con-venient to hit up bigger corporations, wouldn’t it be better to benefit your local economy? Instead of going to the big-chain companies like Walmart and Starbucks, support your local businesses. Local business owners work hard to make an honest living, but, due to competition from big-chain companies, many struggle to make ends
meet. Consequently, few small businesses survive. This tragedy is seen far too often. A prime exam-ple is the Mariner Mall in Superior, WI. Businesses come in and, before you know it, they’re out of business. Remember CardSmart, Falk's, or even the pet shop? They all came and went. There are many more reasons to support local businesses: by support-ing our local companies, you can help keep jobs and money in the com-munity. As said by sus-tainableconnections.org, small companies tend to buy from “local
busi-nesses, service providers, and farms.” For example, the Pizza Parlor in Iron River buys its meat lo-cally. Moreover, small coffee shops tend to buy milk from a local dairy farm or milk man. So, small businesses help each other out.
Not only that, but small businesses support nonprofit organizations more (by about 250%) than large companies. In addition, the more small businesses there are, the more jobs there will be for your community. De-pending on the business, workers such as cashiers, accountants, or
waitress-es are needed, and thwaitress-ese positions are filled by local residents. Let’s not forget that local busi-nesses don’t outsource jobs like some large companies do.
Furthermore, local businesses make a town unique. As such, they’re good for tourism (which brings money to the community). When peo-ple go on vacations (or even just a Sunday drive to distant lands, such as, say, Poplar), they favor towns with local shops and businesses. One can
‘Businesses’
Continued Pg. 6
By Mikayla Maijala
Have you ever held a butterfly in your fingers, watched it expand its new wings, still fresh from emerging out of its chrysalis? Ever open up a beehive box, and watch the excess honey drip down?
Even if you haven’t, I’m sure you’ve heard of honey; probably you’ve enjoyed it. And you have no doubt heard of flow-ers: you’ve most likely stopped to sniff them, admire them, and pick some. In the lunch line, I’m certain that you’ve seen the apples, oranges and bananas available. All of this and so, so much more is at stake -- the populations of bees, butterflies, and even bats and other pollinators are declining, and some spe-cies are starting to disap-pear.
Why are these crea-tures so important? They pollinate 30% of our world’s crops, and about
90% of wild plants. If you don’t remember pol-lination from elementary science class, it’s the process of fertilizing the plant, thus making it able to reproduce, resulting in the “fruit” of the plant -- which we eat.
We’ve lost more than 25% of our honey bee population since 1990, and a whopping 90% of monarch butterflies. The 90% loss of population would be, put into hu-man-population terms, as though everyone in the United States, except for those in Ohio and Florida, died.
Monarchs are disap-pearing at this alarming rate due to habitat loss. People are over-logging, often illegally; they have built damag-ing canals and are us-ing pesticides that kill milkweed, the mon-archs’ only source of food.
The loss of these beauties and their
habi-tat would contribute to the poverty experienced in some communities. We need these butter-flies!
So, what can you do to help the monarchs? Monarch caterpillars on-ly feed on milkweed, a leafy plant that produces a milky-white substance that is harmful to the monarch’s predators, which deters them from eating the insect. To combat their falling numbers, plant milkweed
in your backyard.
To help the bees, plants such as oregano, sunflowers, bee balms, lavender, gloriosa dai-sies, pincushion flowers, yarrow, daffodils, forget-me-nots (the lists are abundant. Simply Google “best plants for bees,” and I’m sure you’ll find something you’d like to have in your own garden) all do wonders for these vital insects.
By Jay Gaare
Due to the fact that many students have been focusing their efforts on scheduling and planning out their educational ca-reers, I have been receiv-ing some questions per-taining to what I do to make the most out of my education. I thought that this would make an inter-esting article, and maybe help some people who are trying to get the most of their four high school years. The answers be-low are usually the ad-vice that I give.
Get involved: I have many friends who often complain to me about not having anything to do after school other than going home and doing homework. While that is important to do, I have
often recommended that they get involved in some clubs or communi-ty groups. Our school has a surprising number of clubs options, and most people could find some-thing that they fancy. Many of these groups, such as Quiz Bowl, real-ly can build your knowledge of either practical or archaic things. And all clubs are great settings to learn new things, not just quiz bowl. That was primarily used as an example of actual academic knowledge.
Actually challenge yourself: Sounds scary, right? This is way too common of a problem, in my opinion, based on my observations. If you can excel at certain topics or classes, then actually
consider taking a more challenging version of that class. Not only can this make you learn even more about it, but it shows on your transcripts of your grades that you are advanced in this area. Just because you feel like you already know the subject at hand is not a valid excuse to not take the class and instead be an office services work-er.
Youth Options: This is a great option (pun not intended) for people who want to get a jumpstart on college or technical training. Basically, Youth Options is taking college classes or tech-nical training while still in high school. While this takes quite a bit more dedication to your studies than most of the other suggestions on this list, the rewards are quite promising. You can gain college-level knowledge of subjects or get a tech certification with no cost to you, the student. The school district foots the cost of the class, and of books. However, remember that in-class costs, such as medical gloves in a nurs-ing class, are not covered by the school. If you are planning to do this, know that there are several ap-proaches to this. If you want to go to a tech school for a certification, or to a college such as
UWS, you will have to physically attend the class at the campus. However, I have or will soon have attended both UWS and (next year) WITC, but without physically traveling to the colleges, via the
program and the WITC online learning program. I highly recommend this if you do want to do this, but don’t have either a) a car or b) the money nec-essary to pay for the gas to commute to the col-lege and back. So, if you want to really build your education, consider the Youth Options program.
Don’t give yourself an ulcer: Finally, I come to the most important tidbit of advice: don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you know that you struggle with organizing yourself to do more than one difficult class, do not overwork yourself. You will come to hate that decision, and consequently will not sleep, being constantly tired, have a weird ten-dency to fall asleep in more than one class, have way too much of an addiction to caffeine, and become, in all intents, descriptions, and purpos-es, a zombie. Instead of doing homework until 3:30 a.m., actually sleep. You’ll thank me later.
By Evan Simmons
go to a Walmart almost anywhere, but local shops are unique to the location and the people. This is one of the reasons why Hayward, WI is such a big tourist town; it has many interesting local shops (ranging from shirt shacks to the popular can-dy store) that are worth exploring.
Small businesses tend offer more variety in spe-cific areas such as cloth-ing, fishcloth-ing, or pets. You can find much more at a local pet store than the pet department in Walmart. An example is A Place for Fido in the Fitger's Mall. This locally owned business carries a wide arrange of products from winter dog boots to hand-made dog leashes and collars.
Local business only
have a handful of work-ers, so you get to know them personally. This is seen when farmers and ranchers chat with the workers at Dan’s Feed Bin; they get to know each other by name. Moreover, small busi-nesses more often appre-ciate your business. Your support helps them stay open, and they usually don’t get as many cus-tomers as do big-chain corporations. To show their appreciation of re-peat customers, Widdes gives out punch cards. At a big company like Walmart, you may be seen as just another cus-tomer.
So, next time you go into town, think about who you’re supporting. Shopping at small stores and eating at local restau-rants supports the busi-ness owners, the commu-nity, and even you.
‘Businesses’
From Pg. 5
By Evan Simmons
Why, yes. Yes it is.
