Occupy Wall Street Occupies Student's Minds

By Ziggy Chesley

Lately, the Occupy Wall Street movement has been everywhere. It’s on the news, splashed across the internet and other social media sites, and everyone has an opinion about it. But the real question is: what is it really about?

It’s a good question, because this grassroots organization has numerous goals that can easily be confused. “I don’t really know what its about” says Emma Geiger, a junior, “I mean, I know the basics, but it seems more complicated.” When you just look at the facts, it becomes is rather simple. Occupy Wall Street is protesting that all of the wealth of America belongs to only one percent of America's population. They are protesting large businesses that don’t spread the wealth, and that the majority of the population of America is getting worked over by these large groups.

What is getting more attention is the way that they’re protesting. Occupy Wall Street members protest by camping out in public areas. This technique, though rather effective to gain attention, has caused some issues with the locals in the area. There have been many accusations of police brutality, even to the point where New York officials are looking into one of the raids on the Occupy Wall Street protesters. There have been accusations of spraying pepper spray into a crowd, or beating peaceful protesters simply to get out the way. “The amount of force that these police officers are using is crazy! It’s just not needed,” says Erin McAuliffe, a senior.

Some believe that how the protesters are handling themselves is out of line. The protests and sit-ins are clogging up the streets, and in a busy city such as New York, the birthplace of this movement, it can be quite an issue. Some protesters' reactions to the police have been rather violent. There are accounts of protesters fighting back rather violently. One officer in New York had to be hospitalized. “Though I agree with what they’re standing up for, I don’t think they are doing it in the right way,” says Shannon Nadeau, a junior.

What can’t be debated is how widespread the movement is. It has spread across the globe, to Paris and Africa. It has moved through all the states, including Occupy Boston, Occupy Oakland, and a number of others. The movement sparks something in people, positive or negative. The Occupy Wall Street movement has had a huge impact on our society today, and one can only wonder where it will go next.

There is always Something Bigger and Better

By. Sgt. Dunn

The U.S army has just released the new AH-64 Apache Attack Helicopter one month early with their partnership with Boeing. When asked in an interview with 60 Minuets, Lt. Col. Dan Bailey said “This aircraft is so much faster and stronger than anything we’ve ever had in the past.”

The AH-64 sports Twin Turbine Engines with split torque force transmission, giving the chopper twenty percent more power than the last model. Officials state, “The chopper has improved avionics, better computing networking, increased maneuverability, composite rotor blades, and stronger engines.”

The AH-64 has a wide variety of weapons it can choose from. It carries a 30mm M230 chain gun mounted under its nose as well as the ability to carry 16 hellfire anti-tank missiles. If the situation demands it, the Apache can also carry up to seventy-six 70mm unguided rockets under its wings. When interviewers at Military.com asked what he thought Mjr. Gen. Tim Crosby answered, “It’s an amazing game changer.”

These Attack aircrafts were tested at Redstone Test Center in Alabama. The next five of these Aircraft will be going to the 1^st Aviation Brigade also called the “Golden Hawks”, stationed in Ft. Huachuca Arizona. The 1^st Aviation Brigade consists of the 1st Battalion, 13th Aviation Regiment; the 1st Battalion, 145th Aviation Regiment; and the 2d Battalion, 13th Aviation Regiment at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Next to receive the aircraft will be the 22^nd Aviation Regiment in Ft. Hood Texas. Sources state that the military is going to have 690 Apache aircraft by the end of 2026.

Batman Sets Flight in New W.B. Video Game.

By Zach C.

Batman Arkham City is a third person video game. This is more open to the players because they are seeing everything in the city and the gamer is trying to thwart the Jokers and a scientist Hugo Strange. The game debuted on October 18^th 2011. It has gotten 10 out of 10 star review. There are a lot of plots and subplots in this game.

Batman Arkham City video game is rated T for teens. This game isn’t violent at all it just has a lot of fighting and it has a little bit of swearing. The Warner Bros. partnered with several retailers and companies globally and the companies were Best Buy, Amazon.com, GameStop, Game, Gamestation, Tesco, and Asda.

When I had rented it at Blockbuster the guy that worked the front desk said he already beat the game I had asked how was it and he said it was easy and difficult at the same time. image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/popculturegeek/5822689440/

Westborough Baptist Church

By Adam

Since March second, the Westborough Baptist Church has been attending military funerals chanting phrases such as, “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “Thank God for IEDs.” One of the representatives from the church stated that, “God is punishing us for being to accepting of homosexuals in our country, by killing off our soldiers.”

A group of motorcyclists came to one of the church's protests and revved up their engines so that the people at the funeral wouldn’t have to hear what the protestors were saying. These actions have left many people angered. A teacher at Hopkinton high school says that it is very inappropriate and that they look foolish. Just think about how the families of the deceased veterans feel about these protests. Many people feel that these people are so strong in how they feel, that they will never stop doing things like this.

Long Awaited Return

By Sgt.Dunn

With the end of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are still 50,000 troops in Afghanistan. In a news conference, President Obama stated that he would like to have all the troops back home by the end of 2011. The reason for this is because the United States has an agreement with the Afghans that states that they will be able to support themselves by the end of 2011.

There is an issue that President Obama has to deal with in Washington between Senator Scott Brown, and Congress man John Boehner. Senator Brown says, “we should accelerate the extraction of the troops.” When asked what his views were his response was, “ now that the world's most wanted terrorist no longer threatens our nation's democracy and freedom, it’s time to accelerate our reduction of Military operations."

Congress man Boehner states in a press conference, “We must retain flexibility necessary to reconsider troop levels and respond to changes in security.” According to authorities, there are still minor insurgent attacks against United States soldiers to counter these attacks. In the last 18 months the Afghanistan forces have raised over 100,000 security soldiers.

Instead of engaging in a full-scale war against the insurgents, again the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are going to start to initiate small-scale counter terrorist operations while extracting the United States soldiers out of harms way. When done with returning the soldiers home the United States will be leaving contacts with the country Security Forces.

In an interview with Mr. Tim Carson, a war veteran, his response was “The military shouldn’t be run by politics. We should trust in the officials overseas to deal with the problems over there.” Mr. Carson is in agreement with Congress man Boehner who also thinks that the United States should maintain a presence overseas.

Political Parties: Who needs them? We do.

By Daniel Fletcher

Both liberals and conservatives are coming to the conclusion that a dual party system may not be the fairest way to elect politicians in the United States. What makes most people realize it is not the most effective method is when the party of their choice begins to fall behind in the polls due to an uncontrollable circumstance. In many situations, when something negative occurs, people tend to blame the party that has a person in office during that time. This occurs whether it is this person’s fault or not.

If there were no parties and people ran only as individuals, then this would not happen. Voters would not be able to blame a party as a whole because there would be no party to blame. Bryce Fletcher was asked, “Do you believe parties are necessary?”

“Yes, without parties only the rich would become elected because you need large quantities of money to become known. When a person runs for president they rely on the parties wealth to create advertisements and publicize the persons views and ideas,” replied Mr. Fletcher. His view of the importance of parties is a widespread view amongst liberals and conservatives.

Mary Beth Fletcher was asked, “Do you think more parties would make the voting system more fair?”

“Yes, with only two parties then when something goes wrong everybody turns from one party to the other. However, if there were several parties with politicians in office then people might be more likely to make a decision for who to favor based truly off of their beliefs and views,” said Mary Beth Fletcher. Although there are only two major parties, there are actually many parties active in the United States. With the upcoming election in 2012, it will be interesting to see with the Tea Party emerging.

Our Neighboring State Flooded Out

By Kendra A

In Hopkinton, New Hampshire, many people lost power when Hurricane Irene hit the New England region of the nation in late August 2011. Hurricane Irene, however, hit our neighboring state Vermont hard. Residents of the Green Mountain State had houses destroyed and had loved ones lost in the rapid water in bridges. Many of residents were without power for days.

In Vermont, the population is 625,000 according to U.S census data. Out of those residents 47,000 including businesses and homes were without power for days. This caused trouble for residents who ran babysitting services. Nancy Reed one of the residents of Wethersfield VT said, “My state has handled this situation very well with getting the power back on quickly to my town. We are all still recovering from the floods though. Still trying to build back up businesses and mourning the loss of two of our beloved covered bridges.” Two of the oldest covered bridges were taken down and torn to shreds from the floods.

Burlington VT the largest city in Vermont has had a history of big amounts of rain coming down, but Hurricane Irene set a new record of how much water there was. It was higher than the record floods in 1971. The amount of rain that fell in Vermont was 3.38inches. The reasons for the flooding was because of how high Irene raised the White River in West Hartford VT 20.67feet high. Breaking the record previous to a flood in 1927 and a hurricane in 1938. Floods and losing power was hard for Vermont residents. They lost a lot of bridges, homes, and businesses from this flood.