Fight Against Internet Censorship!

Phillip Nguyen

Warning! The Internet as you know it may be at risk due to the United States Government’s interference of the Internet! Even if you don’t regularly use the Internet, this change may affect you in ways you couldn’t imagine! US Congress is threatening to pass a bill infamously known as SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) that could permanently damage the future of our lives. The US government has no right to affect our freedom of speech or take away our free knowledge, creativity, and our entertainment.

Protect IP will not stop illegal downloads. You can enter a blocked site by entering it’s IP address instead of it’s name. Therefore, the bill could just turn everyone into creepy hackers. In China they use Tor (The Onion Router) to bypass “The Great Firewall of China”. It’s actually very simple: in onion routing, data is repeatedly encrypted and sent to other onion routers. Each router removes a layer of encryption to uncover routing directions to be sent to another router for the process to be repeated. These processes make your web activity completely anonymous and impossible to intercept. That shows that censorship in other countries cannot hold a tight grip on the Internet, so why should America? If downloaders cannot be fully stopped by the government, why ruin the Internet?

What if other countries follow in our path and make their own laws? Everyone in the world will have different Internets. Protect IP will probably mess with the inner workings of the Internet, making it less secure and less reliable. Experts believe that if we mess with the registry of domain names, the result would be less security and less stability. “It contains provisions that will chill innovation. It contains provisions that will tinker with the fundamental fabric of the internet. It gives private corporations the power to censor. And best of all, it bypasses due legal process to do much of it,” says James Allworth from Harvard Business School. In short, Protect IP won’t stop piracy but will hinder the Internet and our creative ideas.

Online piracy is bad, but SOPA and PIPA are not needed. The government wants to stop piracy by killing the Internet, but honestly it’s just several steps too far. Online sites such as YouTube already have the power to take down pirated content and gain the same power to users to report illegitimate content. Private corporations already  have the power to sue software companies out of existence. Under current DCMA laws, users that post copyrighted content are responsible, so in this case the user and content are mainly focused on. As opposed to SOPA and PIPA, they focus on links to violating sites. Sites such as YouTube that contain lots of movie clips, copyrighted music, and stolen content also include lots of protests, art, creative content, and free expression are at risk of being shut down. Some may argue current laws aren’t good enough, but what about what’s too much?

SOPA and PIPA also affect the lives of Americans. The Internet is a vibrant medium that many people use to express themselves, post ideas, art, protests, as well as run businesses. According to US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton: “When ideas are blocked, information deleted, conversations stifled and people constrained in their choices, the Internet is diminished for all of us.. There isn’t an economic Internet and a social Internet and a political Internet. There’s just the Internet.” I believe that this is a violation of freedom of speech. What’s even more is that The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that PIPA alone would cost $47 Million in tax money over five years! I believe that money can go to much better causes. There has been history of corporations stretching and abusing their power. They tried to take a video of a baby off YouTube just for the music playing in the background. This “solution” to commercial piracy will target families and children. Ordinary people can be sued and/or sent to jail for up to five years for posting copyrighted work, even singing to a pop song. So how far could the government really take this?

The government is trying to pass an ineffective bill that would ruin the Internet for US citizens.* Protect IP will not stop illegal downloaders and it would only make it slightly harder for them to access their content. The world may follow our example and we will all have very different Internets. SOPA and PIPA will affect the lives of US citizens. We can stop this, we can fight this! The government will only go as far as we’ll let them.
* Currently, the bill has been withdrawn in response to popular demand.

Kaleidoscope’s Immigration Open House

By Jami, Kayleigh, Kimberely, Max, Connor , Amelia and Jackson  

  Max found out that he had an ancestor from Germany! Do you know where your ancestors are from?

 In Kaleidoscope House, third and fourth graders studied immigration. We learned from books, videos, speakers, google earth, grandparents and researching. In Mr. Willis’s class, Kayleigh studied Ireland. She learned that between 1820 and 1860, the Irish were never less than one third of all immigrants to America. Kimberely learned that in 1608, Polish people came to Virginia twelve years before the pilgrims. In Mr. Kellogg’s class we learned about our ancestors and the country they came from. We wrote a story about life before they left, the journey to America, arriving in America and what life was like. We researched to find the information.

In Ms. Marybeth’s class we also learned where our ancestors were from. Everone made flags of the country. Connor’s ancestors were from Germany. He found out by asking his Dad. He learned that it was the second largest group to go through Ellis Island.

In Ms. Haas’s class, Jackson chose to write about an immigrant  from China because his Mom goes there and he knew a little bit about the country. Jami’s story was also about an immigrant from China because it is his favorite country. They learned that Chinese immigrants coming to America on the west coast, went through  Angel Island. The class also learned about the symbols of America including, the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, the American flag, the bald eagle, the Great Seal and Uncle Sam. They also wrote a family tree with grandparents on both sides of the family, with where they were from. You added your own name and birthplace, too.

     There was an Open House to show the parents all of the work that we did. Many of the students dressed up as the immigrant in their story. They displayed portraits, paintings, stories, flags, spreadsheets, Statue of Liberty pictures, trioramas with a clothespin doll as the ancestor and a few students made food from the country.

     Parents and other relatives came to the Open House. It felt exciting to tell about your journey to America.

Equinox Studies Peacemakers by Julia and Cameron

 Julia and Cameron pose with material they are reading in class.

    Peacemakers change the world. Equinox House is studying peace makers such as Jane Goodall, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and others.
    Our teachers are reading us books and we are reading, too. Our reading groups are reading books about Jane Goodall and Martin Luther King. Jr. In kiva, we are also learning songs about the peace makers. We are writing facts, details and what we think about their activities. We used Google Docs with a partner. Partner 1 named the document and sent it to Partner 2. We had questions we had to answer. We also had to list the five best words to describe our peace- maker. You could show it to your parents by going to your email and clicking on ‘Documents.’ It’s better than Word because you couldn’t get that from home. And, more than one person can work on the Google doc at one time. A piece of paper might get lost.
    Cameron is studying Jane Goodall. Jane Goodall was born in London, England in 1934. Jane’s mom gave her a stuffed chimp and she named it Jubilee. When she was little she wondered where eggs came from so one day she went into a chicken coop and just stared at the chickens until one laid an egg. Her mother and father were so worried because she was gone for four hours. They called the police. Her parents were stunned to see a girl with lots of straw in her hair sprinting to them.
Here is a quote from Jane Goodall. “Teaching children to care for the earth and for each other is our hope for the future.”
    Julia is studying Martin Luther King Jr. He is famous for making peace for black people. The white people wouldn’t allow blacks to use the same water fountain or to go to the same restaurant. He thought the laws were unfair and he wanted to change them without violence.
He had a dream that black people and white people could be friends. He was assassinated in April, 1968. He was standing on a balcony when he was shot.
    All of the Equinox students are having a performance for parents about the peacemakers. They will sing historic songs, carry signs about famous peace makers, and read poems they have written. There will be instruments, signing and rapping.
   The show will be on Wednesday, Dec. 21st at 6:30 PM. They will sing, “Peace is the World Smiling, Turn the World Around and an Irish Blessing and more.

Mosaic visits the State House

The Mosaic Team on the steps of the State House

Mosaic Visits the State House
Leah Lambrecht, Maggie Gannon, Kelani Rotax, Madison Reagan, and Camille Menard

Did you know that there are fossils on the floor in the State House? This shows that there was once an ancient ocean in Vermont. There are lots of rooms and there were huge paintings of past Governors. One of the best paintings was of a battle. It was ten feet high and twenty feet long. There was a statue of Abraham Lincoln’s head.Outside of the State House there is a real cannon. The state motto is, “Freedom and Unity.”
The first State House was rebuilt because it was too small. The second one was made of wood  and it burned down. The third state house or the one you see now was the first to have a gilded dome. If you  look at the top of the dome you will see a statue of Agriculture.
We also went to the Vermont History Museum and saw really fascinating things like  a long house. A long house is a building that Native Americans lived in which could hold up to 4 families. They  had one storage pit for each family. We also saw animal hides which we could touch. We were allowed to do a scavenger hunt in the museum and write our names in a code. We ate lunch in the cafeteria along with people who worked for the state.
And that was our trip to the State House!

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Our Community Song

Kevin and Lily show two books from the Kindergarten Community study.

Our Community Song
by Kevin and Lily

Our Community Song is about our school community. We talked about community in our classrooms. The song is about things that happen in our school like being safe, being kind and being responsible. Kevin says that community can be about people in a town. Lily says that it can mean people in the state and the earth. Lily and Kevin think that community means working together.
We interviewed Mrs. T-H, our music teacher. We asked her who wrote Our Community Song. She said that Mrs. Tatlock, the person who helps us be safe, kind and responsible, wrote the words and that she wrote the music. Mrs. T-H thinks a community is people working together.
We interviewed Mrs. Tatlock. We asked her what the song is about. She said it is about school rules. Next we asked, “How did you and your friends come up with the song?” She told us who wrote the words. It was Mrs. Tatlock, Mr. Terko, Ms. Kozlik, Ms. Pouliot, and Ms. Casey. They got together and thought of rhyming words. It was fun. Mrs. T-H wanted to help so she wrote the music.
The last question was, “Why so you like the song so much?” She said it was because she helped write it, she loves music and music brings everybody together.

Occupy Vermont

Occupy Vermont

Jacob Parker

We Are The 99%

On September 17th, the Occupation began. A group of angry Americans set up camp in Zucotti Park, on Wall Street, and haven’t left since. This is a protest of multiple things-but they all center around the same subject- America’s economy, and what we’re doing to destroy it. “We are the 99%” is their motto, and  they represent the other people in the country not benefiting from the bureaucrats in the government and in all the large businesses. They believe that all human beings deserve the same basic rights- #clean living necessities, food, and protection and help from their government.

Occupy Vermont

Their idea has attracted  many followers worldwide- over 600 – including one right here in Vermont. Occupy Vermont met at the beginning of this week and decided to Occupy City Hall Park in Burlington. This will be a very peaceful protest; they have already planned to officially register their organization as to avoid police contact-  they will leave room for the farmers market on Saturday- and anyone found to have any sort of weapon or drugs and alcohol will be thrown out. As unorganized as a group of people camping in a park may seem, they are not leaving anything unplanned. They have a “General Assembly” which takes suggestions from anyone who asks; and they supply food, water, and other supplies for members.

Problems

Even to people who oppose this protest, they bring up a great point. The way our country works is, frankly, stupid. The lower and middle class struggle throughout their whole lives while the rich keep getting richer. We give healthcare and welfare to illegal immigrants, while our own people are sick and poor. Tax cuts and bailouts for companies “too big to die”. Trickle-down economics? It may look nice on paper, but it definitely doesn’t work out to well for the people on the lower end of the spectrum. It sometimes seems that the Corporations run the government.

There is no denying it: We are a flawed democracy. And for some, it’s taken long enough for someone to stand up against it. 43% of Americans in a recent CBS News poll agreed with their means, while only 27% disagree (the other 30% are undecided).

Do you agree? Do you think a change in our economics would end this recession? These people seem to think that they can change things for the better. It goes to show that one small group of people can start a world wide movement- Can change the world.

Synergy – Amazing Things About the Fifty States

 

    What’s going on? Synergy is learning about mapping  the USA and about the five regions. The regions are large groups of states and they are the Northeast, the Midwest, the Southwest, the Southeast and the West.
    We rotate to different workshops twice each week. In Ms. Stein’s Midwest workshop, we learned a song. Did you know  that four presidents are carved into stone on Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota? Chicago is the biggest city in the Midwest.
   Ms. Kate’s taught us that Florida is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.There are the Smokey Mountains in the Southeast. It is very hot in the Southeast.
   In Mrs. Roger’s class  we learned that in New Mexico there are adobe houses that are made of special clay that hardens in the sun.  In the Southwest they used to have dust storms, so now they call it the dust bowl.
   In California, one person found gold. That started the gold rush. People rushed to California to get rich. We watched a movie about the gold rush and it showed a picture of actual gold!
    In Ms. Eaton’s class we studied the Northeast. Vermont is famous for maple syrup and it doesn’t have many tornadoes because the mountains stop them. The state tree is the sugar maple. The Appalachian Trail is more than 2,0000 miles long and it goes from Maine to Georgia!
    In all the workshops we get a section of a map for the region. We color it in to match the color of the big map of the Unites States of America. You glue on labels that tell the name of the state.
We also make postcards and we write our favorite fact of the region we learned about. Nick wrote about the gold rush in the West.  Alexa wrote about the Smokey Mountains in the Southeast. She said that they got their name because the fog on the top looks like smoke. Myleigh wrote about Mt. Rushmore and Chicago. Mary wrote that in the Midwest, there are a lot of tornadoes. Bridget said that in the Southwest there is spicy food. Gannon said that there are lots of tornadoes in the Midwest  and a tornado is when wind is going in every direction.
    Learning about the United States of America is our favorite unit so far.