By Claire Jenkins

Everyone loves a good sitcom, right? Recently a survey was sent out to the Palm Valley Upper School students regarding their sitcom preferences, and we received a total of 46 responses. Below are the top three favorite old and new sitcom choices of the Palm Valley students.

TOP 3 OLD SITCOMS (no longer on air):

1. Friends – 46.7%*
2. The Office – 46.7%
3. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – 37.8%

TOP 3 NEW SITCOMS (currently on air):

1. The Big Bang Theory – 57.8%
2. Parks and Recreation – 51.1%
3. Modern Family – 48.9%

*The percentages represent the amount of people out of 46 polled who included a given show in their top three out of field of ten of eleven.

Editor: Leo Milmet

By AJ Patencio

In honor of the many school shootings in the past years, a National School Walkout is being organized on April 20, which is the 19th anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. The walkout will begin at 10:00 am when students will walk out of their schools, take thirteen seconds of silence for the thirteen killed in the Columbine shooting, then use the rest of the day for organized protests. Participants are encouraged to wear orange, the color of the anti-gun violence movement. Over 2,000 walkouts are registered* in the U.S. with at least one per state and several registered outside the U.S. The Walkout was organized by 16-year-old Lane Murdock, who grew up three miles from Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School where 20 students were killed in 2012.** Murdock and three of her fellow classmates at Ridgefield High School were dissatisfied with the seventeen minutes of silence for the Florida Massacre that killed seventeen people. They hope to bring a stronger message that students will not be silenced or forgotten.

Editor: Bella Bier

*https://www.actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/enough-national-school-walkout

**http://time.com/5238216/national-school-walkout-april-20/

By Brennan Nick

All The Way, written by Robert Schenkkan, is the historical drama of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s turbulent and fierce first year in office as President of the United States. It was first written as a stage play; then it was performed on Broadway in 2014 and finally was adapted to the screen as an HBO television drama film in 2016. In all adaptations, the story begins after John F. Kennedy’s assassination at the beginning of Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency. Faced with rhetoric of being an “accidental president,” he has to prove his legitimacy as a president in his own right, and he sees his way of doing so through passing the first major civil rights bill–something he’s wanted for years when working in the Senate.

After landing in DC, he was sworn in and made his very first speech about this goal. As expected he immediately encounters resistance from Democrats and Republicans alike. His main opponents are the Southern Democrats who are staunch segregationists and would do anything to maintain their Southern way of life–this was a time when Conservative Democrats had a lock on The South which lasted from the Civil War until only 40 years ago. What LBJ had to do first was gain the trust and support of the Northern Democrats for his Civil Rights Bill, and after that he had to convince and coerce Republicans into supporting him by telling them “You can vote with the segregationists and the country goes up in flames.”

Surprise, surprise, the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 gets passed, and after this it goes into Johnson’s presidential campaign against fellow Democrats in the primaries and against Barry Goldwater in the election of 1964. It is here that Schenkkan goes deep into analyzing LBJ’s personality, inner conflict, and even his paranoia that no one around him really supports him and as soon as he loses power no one would be there for him. This escalates to a moment where he’s lying in his bed considering dropping out of the election from the pressure.

Once again, surprise, surprise, Johnson wins the election of 1964 in a landslide, but he loses the South to Goldwater. The play and movie end on an ominous note at Johnson’s election celebration party where Johnson has an internal monologue where he explains how he dragged this election “kicking and screaming into the light” and claims to know that although these people are all laughing and smiling now, afterwards the knives will come out and he will have to defend his place on top.

Although I couldn’t watch the play on broadway myself, I have read the play and watched the movie on HBO. The acting, especially on behalf of Bryan Cranston, LBJ, was outstanding and made Cranston very different from his character on Breaking Bad (Walter White) or his previous goofy dad role in Malcolm in the Middle (Hal). LBG was a great change in character from what Cranston usually plays and really displays his versatility.

Editor: Peter Kadel

Blogger Shelby Armor comments–alliteratively–on storytelling reveals.

Sometimes, stories solve stress. Stories show surplus strength. Stories, so shocking, so sad, show sacrifice, satisfaction. Stories show secrets. Stories, so sympathetic, show self.

Can you be as alliterative?

Editor: Bella Bier