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Malala is not your hero. Over the course of a year, Malala Yousafzai has become an internationally recognized symbol for courage. By now it seems that her story has been near-memorized by anyone with access to a reliable news source. For those who are still unaware, according to BBC News profiles Malala Yousafzai, “has been shot in the head by the militants and has become the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize.” She first came to public attention through a diary, published on BBC Urdu, which chronicled her desire to remain in school and for girls to have the chance to be educated. Since then, we have assigned Malala as a symbol of global girls' education. What she really is is a symbol of discourse we are unwilling to have. The talk about women’s education on a global level would dig up our own faults, which have added to the struggle faced by millions of children around the world yearning for an education. Instead, we orchestrate the privilege granted by a special honor such as the Nobel Peace Prize so that we can be heroes and create heroes during a time of moral inconvenience. Malala has been morphed into an American hero and thrown into the American hall of fame. As The Washington Post's Max Fisher argued, following the announcement that the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize had gone to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Malala's loss was actually a good thing,“It can sometimes feel as if the entire West is trying to co-opt Malala, as if to tell ourselves: ‘Look, we're with the good guys, we're on the right side. The problem is over there.’ Sometimes the heroes we appoint to solve our problems can say as much about us as about them. Malala's answer is courage. Our answer is celebrity.” Stories about girls' education in Central Asia and Africa have long been exploited by Western governments, politicians, public figures and media in order to create feel-good headlines underscoring who the the force of moral good in the world was, is and and always can be. This isn't about any sort of white savior complex, but a feeling of entitlement towards dictating how certain countries, especially those we like to bomb, are represented and understood in relation to our status, goals and views of our exceptionalism. We're not trying to really “save” anyone. Instead, we're just trying to plaster a facade of “hope” that covers our own involvement economically, politically and militarily in undermining children's education around the world. The truth is that we are not ready to talk at a substantial level about girls' education because that conversation would require a good look in the mirror. That conversation would elicit actual action that may not be entirely in 'our' interest. That conversation might also murk the waters between the good and evil lines we tread. At the end of the day who really talks about the effects of the invasion of Afghanistan on girls' education (in addition to pre-existing Taliban prohibition)? Or the effects of the invasion of Iraq, which, according to BBC news, has left a minimum of a half million dead, on girls' education? According to a study done by reliefweb international on girls’ education, figures for 2007 and 2008 show 5,065,276 children enrolled in primary education, with 44.8 percent being girls. This means that for every 100 boys enrolled in primary schools in Iraq, there are just under 89 girls. What about US drone strikes in Pakistan and in Yemen? According to NBC, the UN recently stated that the strikes have killed more civilians than the US admits. This must have an effect on the lives of children there and their education. What about Israeli targeting of Gazan schools? According to the Human Rights Watch on 29 Dec. 2008, Israel bombed the Islamic University of Gaza, destroying the science laboratory block and destroying or damaging other blocks of buildings, including the library. When was the last time we had a conversation about the effects of PTSD, resulting from our actions and our allies' actions, on young children and their education? What effect does our international economic system have on education funding in developing countries? What are the consequences of our arms deals with military allies on access to education? Although the ways to fix these things aren’t simple, there are ways such as ensuring that general economic sanctions against a country are never used again, as they were used in Iraq as a substitute for war. Children and poor adults are those who suffer most from economic sanctions. The use of economic sanctions during a war should be considered a crime, just as is forming a military strategy to starve a cities population. Over the years it has become quite obvious that war testifies more to the insecurity of our culture than a commitment to moral righteousness. We pick and choose the heroes we use and misuse so that we can have some ambiguous sort of 'hope' for something we can't easily define, while ignoring core issues that undermine the very efforts by young girls we throw onto the center international stage. We ignore our own complicity because we'd rather keep eating up the celebrity, heroism and 'hope' than do anything that may remind us that maybe we're not all that exceptional, that we are, either in a big or small way, a part of the problem. Malala is out there, talking about her story, talking about the importance of education, and we are eagerly listening. Again. And, as per usual, we have celebrated her as a symbol of our own heroism and the exceptionalism of our moral conscience while willfully ignoring the accusatory stares of our reflections.

“If you’re not careful the newspaper will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppression,” said Malcom X. The Palestinian narrative faces the challenge of invisibility in the US. Whether it's in the American media, education, or government, the Palestinian cause is continuously excluded. Living in America and being surrounded by American news sources it begins to seem as if sympathy for Palestine is even an option. People question why American media would have this opinion and depiction of current events if they’re not truthful to what’s going on on the ground. The answer is simple, it’s always a matter of politics. America has strong ties to Israel and Zionism, as do major companies in America like Starbucks, where according to Oxfam and Jerusalem news CEO Howard Schultz has been praised by the Israeli government for sponsoring pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian seminars on college campuses. Zionism is the belief that Jewish people should be able to return to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel as defined by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Edward Said wrote about this bias in his article “Double Standards” posted on the Guardian website, “Worst of all is the US media, completely cowed by the fearsome Israeli lobby, with commentators and anchors spinning distorted reports about “cross fire” and “Palestinian violence” that eliminate the fact that Israel is in military occupation and that Palestinians are fighting it, not ‘laying siege to Israel.’” There is continuous censorship of any Palestinian voice or story that humanizes Palestine. They are often described as "terrorists," bearing its own set of racist stereotypes. A perfect example of this political bias being reflected into media  is Newt Gingrich while debating on ABC during a Republican debate he said, “These people (Palestinians) are terrorists, they teach terrorism in their schools.” In the most recent Israeli offensive on Gaza, Hamas was portrayed by American media as the archenemy in an ideal image of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Then the entirety of conflict the Palestinian population was reduced to Hamas, as if no Palestinian exists beyond this political entity. U.S. headlines from news entities like CNN, Fox, and MSNBC blared, “Hamas launches rockets at Israeli civilians.” These primary news sources for the average American focused only on Hamas rockets attacking Israeli people, but never humanized Palestinians, thus making it seem as though Israel was actually fighting against a viable military power. The media has begun to render Palestinians invisible to the public. Palestinians are muted out of the media, and the monstrous pro-Israel PR campaign guarantees that this status quo is preserved by news organizations such as MSNBC who highlight titles such as “66 Israelis have been killed since July 7th,” claiming that this is what “war looks like,” without giving any statistics as to the Palestinians deaths. This storyline assumes a false symmetry in power structure: Hamas is a political party that has been under military operation, along with the entirety of the Gaza Strip, for the last seven years and under Israeli military occupation since 1967.

News outlets such as CNN continuously puts Israeli concerns at the forefront and completely ignoring the mounting Palestinian death toll. In 2014 alone the violence left 2,218 Palestinians dead, the majority of whom were civilians, and 75 Israelis, 64 of whom were soldiers these statistics were retrieved from the Israeli Center of Human Rights in occupied territories.  Every Palestinian who was killed has a story, yet that seems to be something the US media chooses to ignore and in turn opts to sympathise with Israel’s claim to being victims. Claims such as “Israelis are living every day in fear”- CNN news correspondent. This narrative distorts the facts on the ground and clears the Israeli state of any responsibility for its own war crimes. It’s also time to clear up any misconceptions induced by the media about Palestinians using children as human shields.  There is no evidence of that as concluded by Amnesty International. They also investigated the matter of rocket launches by Israeli forces and the claim that Israeli military fore warns the Palestinians of an attack they found that, “in the cases of (Israeli) precision missiles or tank shells which killed (Palestinian) civilians in their homes, no fighters were present in the houses that were struck and Amnesty International delegates found no indication that there had been any armed confrontations or other military activity in the immediate vicinity at the time of the attack.”  The evidence suggests the fact that Israel, supported with American aid, attacked civilians not Hamas fighters.  Many news organizations and even politicians take it even further by justifying the Israeli cause with nostalgic flashbacks to the Holocaust. Since Israel was established for Jews because of the Holocaust, why no other groups destroyed by genocide were given the same. The Holocaust was absolutely one of the worst crimes in history, but it’s victims weren’t just Jews. There were 5 million victims including Jehovah’s witnesses, gypsies, homosexuals, priests, disabled, and blacks. Where is their land?  According to the organization Project Aladin, “The Holocaust hastened the legitimacy of a Jewish homeland in the eyes of the world.” The question is why must the land be taken from Palestine’s and why the need for more than what the United Nations sanctioned back  in 1947. It seems as if defendants of Israel justify its existence with the Holocaust because apparently justice can only be served by even more genocide committed. The Serbians committed genocide against the Bosnians in 1992 in the aftermath of World War Two, they called it the worst in European history since the Holocaust according to the History Channel and yet the Serbs who committed genocide against Bosnians were given land and territory in Bosnia, in the place where they committed the genocide.  Native Americans, African-Americans, so many other groups in this world that had genocide committed against them. Where is their land?  Try as you might, there really isn’t a way to justify Israel’s occupation of Palestine nor the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by mentioning reparations that need to be paid for the occurrence of the holocaust. With all of this in mind as a nation, we need to broaden our mindsets and seek unbiased news sources. If American media can’t do that for us, we need to take the educated steps in doing that for ourselves. Political biases as a country skew a multitude of things but it’s our job not to let it skew our intelligence we must be able to understand the truth from the lies. 

If you are ever in need of fresh food delivered from restaurants around the Bay Area without even having to leave the house, the answer has become simple; just Fluc it. “Honestly I love the idea of having someone bring Chipotle or Starbucks to my house. The best part is that I can track them on their way to the restaurant and see when they reach the location,” said junior Neeshae Wain.  

Fluc is short for Food Lovers United Company. This new and upcoming app’s services have just recently become available to Redwood City. The company originally started out delivering in Menlo Park and Palo Alto, allowing people to pick out foods from their favorite local restaurants and have them delivered to their homes for a small fee.

Fluc was  founded by Tim Davis, Adam Ahmad and Pako Magdaleno, who all lived under the same roof and as the story goes none of them wanted to use the kitchen.

“Never again should we have to cook in a poisoned kitchen. Why can’t we just get food delivered to us from any restaurant?” said Davis.

One thing led to the next and they began to create the idea of Fluc, something fast with popular items from restaurants nearby. Some basic necessities that they sought out for the app to include had to do with specifics such as being able to request extra guacamole with a burrito or no dressing on a salad.

So far Fluc is delivering to multiple locations in the Bay Area from Mountain View to Palo Alto, and can deliver in any area requested if a petition is started and gets the required amount of signatures.   “One of our friends, Bryce Nelson, started a petition for Redwood City for us since he works closely with Fluc and they actually started delivering here. I just hope we can do the same for Belmont,” said junior Isabel Zwass.

Unlike similar services in the Bay Area such as Grubhub, Fluc doesn’t work for the restaurants themselves, so the team inputs menu options on the website and app. The idea is basically a delivery guy that the restaurant doesn’t have to pay for but resteraunts still benefit and make a profit from the orders.

Not only is this startup different in the way it works with restaurants, but it also offers the ability to customize the order into extreme specifics even setting dates for when things should be delivered.

“Fluc is a food logistics company, so handling hundreds of scheduled orders gets quite complex,” Ahmad said in an interview with venturebeat. “However, we’ve built algorithms using geo-spatial tracking to see where all the food lovers are and intelligently suggest them on which orders to deliver next. There are also lots of moving parts with restaurants including changing store times, new menu items and new pricing, which we handle.”

People can use multiple cards and access their entire order history and receipts from their account. Fluc charges a $5.95 flat rate for each delivery, and has inflated prices of menu items slightly within the app — about 5-10 percent to make a small margin on those sales.

“The best part of it all is the food is never served cold and my Starbucks is never split. That’s why I always give an extra tip and always will,” said Wain.

Rumors on a high school campus spread like wildfire, so it was no surprise when rumors of classes being cut started to be the topic of conversation in the halls. “The one rumor I can immediately dispel is about a limit on AP classes. The only limit is, are you ready for these AP classes, and do you really have the time?” said principal Lisa Gleaton when asked to address any rumors she has been approached about. In many cases, there are different sources giving out opinions as opposed to having the real story. Junior Alan Yan said, “It’s frustrating when teachers tell you one thing and the principal tells you another, and then changes the previous statement and so on. We need transparency, but that doesn’t mean confusion.” The real issue is the insecurity that arises from heavily different rumors. Students are overly curious as to what everything means, and turn to teachers for information that even teachers may not necessarily have.

“My history teacher got an email, but he wasn’t even really sure what was going on. He told us that AP’s were going to be restricted next year. It just confused everyone,” said junior Mitchell Wright. Rumors spread viciously, and the only way to address them is head-on. “Learning the staff and the Carlmont culture is one of the main things I’m trying to do. After all the rumors had gotten out, I made sure to address the staff and write a lengthy email explaining any confusion they might have,” said Gleaton.

Another issue that students tend to want to hear about is how all these rumors began. “Honestly, rumors like this don’t just pop out of mid-air. Someone in the administration had to have said something that caused the teachers to become frantic enough to tell the students,” said sophomore Kamrin Choye. What students don’t realize is that a lot of the time even the teachers don’t have the complete information on the situations at hand, and to resolve these issues parent’s turn directly to administration.

“I’ve gotten many emails from parents about the confusions, and I’m happy to clear up any questions they might have up. But I also need staff to be careful about what might be said in the classroom so that rumors don’t start up,” said Gleaton For many high schoolers who fear for the future, these rumors are threatening. “It’s not only frustrating but scary thinking about not being able to reach my full capacity at my high school because of some ridiculous limit on how much of an education I can get,” said Choye.

Brash reactions to the spread of rumors is healthy, and shows the dedication students and parents have to getting their ideal education. “Things are tough now a days with college and all, putting limits or even hearing rumors about a possible limit ticks a lot of kids off, these kinds of things shouldn’t get out in the first place,” said senior Marisa Pereira.

“Honestly, at the end of the day the truth sets you free and that’s all any student at this school wants, is the truth,” said Wright.

College flyers filled with people of all skin tones coming together in one institution, creating a hypothetical situation that seems to be embodying a sense of diversity.

“If you’re not able to, and again this is what we’re doing now, to reach out to the most outstanding Latino students in the country...you won’t be educating the future leaders of America,” said Fitzsimmons Dean of Admissions and Financial aid at Harvard to the Harvard Crimson, explaining the importance of reaching out to high-ability students within all minority groups.

But there's a myth to how diversity is really defined. The term, “diversity” is extremely broad and can refer to many things. A diverse candidate can be any student (including white students) who brings diversity to a college campus. A student’s “diversity” may include anything from age, sexual orientation, race & ethnicity, and gender to socioeconomic status and geographic background.

The University of Maryland defines diversity as an “otherness, or those human qualities that are different from our own and outside the groups to which we belong, yet are present in other individuals and groups.”

Is Syria a country? Yes, Syria is and has been a country since it was established under a French Mandate on Dec. 21, 1924. Syria is a Middle Eastern country located on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, by Iraq to the east, by Jordan to the south, and by Lebanon and Israel to the southwest. Syria has an area of 71,500 square miles. The area occupied is slightly larger than the state of North Dakota. The capital city, Damascus, is located in southwest Syria. Despite the steady decline in its growth rate, the population is expected to reach 20.9 million by the year 2010.

What’s going on with the Assad regime and who in Syria supports it?

It all began  when Hafez al-Assad was elected as president of Syria in 1971 and reelected in 1978 and ruled until 1999, which eventually became a dictatorship. In 1982 things took a turn when Hafez al-Assad responded to a Muslim Brotherhood-led uprising in the city of Hama by killing entire cities. He massacred thousands of civilians, many of whom had nothing to do with the uprising. His tactics worked, and it seems as if the younger Assad tried to reproduce it. His failure made the descent into chaos much worse.

Bashar al-Assad, son of Hafez al-Assad, came to power in 2000 after the deaths of his older brother and father, and has been in power since then. To sum up Bashar al-Assad in a few words; he is the laser sights of U.S. guided missiles. People supporting the Assad Regime are people who were themselves supported by the regime earlier on; the Alawites. Alawites are a sect of Islam who include Bashar Al-Assad in many of their inner circles. They are a minority in Syria and are favored over other Islamic sects. causing unfair treatment and rebellion from other sects to rebalance the powers. Although with Assad backing the Alawite sect. causes problems for the majorities who are treated unfairly.

How did the uprising start? Why are there people dying?

The Syrian uprising which started in March 2011 began as a secular and nonviolent youth-led movement. The simple reason for this situation and the cause of uncountable deaths is the protesting. Protests over racial and religious differences evoking emotion in most of the Syrian population.

What started off as seemingly non-violent protests began to take a turn for the worse in April of 2011 when the government of Syria (also know as the Assad regime) began to take down any protesters in extremely malicious ways. Women and children were raped and mutilated. Bodies were thrown to sides of roads. One shot from the army led to a repercussion of shots from protesters until it escalated into a full fledged civil war.

Most of these armed civilians organized themselves into rebel groups. On the other side of the rebel groups is the government who is accused of trying to terrorize people into submission. The Syrian government has been proven by multiple sources, including the united nations,  of using chemical weapons to control these rebel groups. The report concludes undoubtedly that chemical weapons were used on a relatively large scale in the Ghouta area of Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013, causing numerous casualties, particularly among civilians. The use of these weapons has upset many countries, one of which happens to be America. Who exactly is the rebel group being talked about? The Muslim brotherhood continuously referred to as the rebel group or the opposing forces are Sunni- Muslim protesters, mostly Syrians in their twenties and thirties, came together on a local basis and had few affiliations to older political ideas and instead call for the release of prisoners of conscience,  they want guarantees of democratic freedoms, and support the fall of the Assad regime.

In August, 2011, the “rebel group” formed the Syrian National Council to seek international support for the uprising. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood officially held five seats in the Syrian National Council, the main opposition umbrella outside Syria, but created a network of alliances with other Council members, and created a controlling influence on the Council's relief committee. The National Coalition for Syria, is seen as the external political body of rebels "leading" the revolution out in the streets of Syria.  Brotherhood leaders have been reaching out to reassure leaders in neighboring Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon - as well as the West - that they "have no intention of dominating a future Syrian political system." How is the United States getting involved in Syria? As of Sept. 10 Obama has informed the general public that he will have a “no boots on ground’ response to the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons. This implies that they won’t be sending american troops into Syria but there is a possible plan of retaliation against the Assad regime. The U.S. is also having open discussions with countries such as Russia, in order to get different world views from countries who have stronger alliances with Syria. Russia seems to be getting involved but why do they care? It all boils down to the alliances and economy. In 2008 Syria purchased multiple types of weapons from Russia. Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said his country's sale of weapons to Syria would not upset the balance of power in the Middle East. The sales he stated are "in line with the international law" and "in the interests of strengthening stability and maintaining security" in regions close to Russian borders. Carnegie Moscow center’s director reports in the New York Times that from 2000 to 2010 Russia sold around $1.5 billion worth of arms to Syria, making Damascus Moscow’s seventh-largest client. Why would Russia ever let go of such an economy boosting country. Trade boosts economies and boosts in economy form friendships or alliances.

What are the American people’s views on Syria? After nearly a dozen years of war many Americans are opposed to a military strike on Syria, even though most say they think Syrian forces used chemical weapons against civilians, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The New York Times/CBS News poll shows six in 10 Americans are against airstrikes. Even more (74 percent) are opposed to the U.S. providing arms to anti-government forces in Syria, and 86 percent are opposed to sending U.S. ground troops into Syria. What do the people of Syria really want? This isn’t an easy question to answer because really who represents the Syrian people? It’s been established that the Assad regime is currently willing to give up the chemical weapons to be deteriorated by international forces. Another representation of the Syrian people is the Muslim Brotherhood. So far the Muslim Brotherhood wants down with the Assad Regime, they don’t necessarily want the Muslim Brotherhood to come into political control, but they surely no longer want there to be the Assad regime. Then there are the people who are caught in between the crossfire of these two groups. These people are the one’s who have been dying innocently throughout this civil war. There’s one thing that almost all Syrian people want; an end to the violence.

Being able to see life through multiple lenses is something not many are capable of doing. Carlmont students Noor and Hiba Dahbour are fortunate enough to have and use these lenses of life.

“I’m a lot more open minded about things after growing up in two completely different cultures, ” said sophomore Noor Dahbour

Originally the Dahbours are from Palestine but due to problems in the country both mother and father relocated. With a father from Kuwait and a mother from Jordan, the Dahbour sisters have quite a bit of culture mixed into their lives.

“It’s always fun to hear about their lives growing up in Jordan, because it’s so different from here and it makes us more grateful for what we have,” said junior Hiba Dahbour

The main reason for the Dahbours original move to America was to be able to create a better life for their family. These same values of hard work motivation have been instilled in the Dahbour children as well. "Knowing that my dad moved here to make a better life all for us motivates me to want to do better too," said Noor Dahbour This kind of attitude is deemed true with many children who have first generation immigrant parents. A study published in September/October issue of Child Development journal showed that when second generation students, which are children who are born in the U.S. to either one or both foreign-born parents, were compared to “third generation” children, who are native-born children to native-born parents, did significantly better in STEM fields such as math and science.

The difference between the two cultures never comes as a disadvantage, “We get the best of both worlds with American Jordan culture,” said Hiba Dahbour Having a physically prominent cultural tie to their Jordanian side is what really pinpoints the sisters in a crowd, “Our headscarves are a tie to not only our culture but more importantly our religion and we take wear it with pride every step of the way,” said Hiba Dahbour.

Another benefit for these sisters is being aware of surroundings and different types of people. They know how to deal with all types of cultural and religious discrepancies. “I’m a lot more open minded about things after growing up in two completely different cultures,” said Hiba Dahbour

At the end of the day the Dahbour sisters don’t see a foreign parents as something to be ashamed of as Hiba Dahbour says, “The best part of having foreign parents is that you’re different, you’re unique, you’re tied to your culture”.

All Americans are protected against "unreasonable" searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment. But what is and isn't classified as "reasonable" varies depending on the context. “The moment a student walks onto campus with a cellphone, car, or backpack we have the right to search and confiscate it,” said Carlmont’s Assistant Vice Principal Ralph Crame.

Preventing harm from occurring is a critical job for administrators, and to ensure safety, certain measures must be taken.

Searching students lockers, phones, and backpacks can be a useful tool, not only in preventing harmful attacks, but also in keeping schools alcohol and drug-free. “Students need to realize that bringing bad things onto campus is not only going to hurt them but hurt others too. You’re supposed to learn here not throw a party,” said junior Luca Cargonja.

It's very rare that searching a student's locker or backpack is not a justifiable act. However it may be inappropriate for a school to conduct an extensive search on a student's personal property.

“I think it’s really understandable that administration is allowed to do things of that sort, but it would be weird if they searched your house,” said sophomore Ravina Gujral.

When administration searches a student’s personal property on the basis of a supposed attack with the use of weapons and the come across drugs it can’t always be used against the student in a court of law. “It depends on what it is, but the parents will be informed if I have concerns of any sort,” said Crame. During the 1985 case of New Jersey vs. T.L.O ,the United States Supreme Court explained that “Under ordinary circumstances, a search of a student by a teacher or other school official will be justified at its inception when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating the law or the rules of the school.” “My phone was recently searched because someone had dropped my name during the cheating scandal and I honestly had nothing to hide. I wasn’t a part of it so I just handed it over and let them look through whatever they needed too so that my name was cleared. If you’re not doing anything wrong why would you try to ‘defend your rights’?,”said junior Hayden Seto. Knowing rights and laws is a prominent aspect of being an American citizen, but giving up rights on school property is an ordeal students everywhere are faced with everyday.