Currently displayed in the SHS library, the windows originally graced the sides of the administration building entrance facing Capitol Drive.

The windows, as well as the murals in the front hall, were installed in the 1930s as a project of the Works Progress Administration, part of the New Deal. Carl van Treek, who also painted the murals, designed the windows.

Karen de Hartog, President of the Shorewood Historical Society, said that the windows were likely removed in the 1940s or early 1950s.

“People who were in school in the 40s remember seeing them,” de Hartog said. “But they don’t remember why they were taken down.”

In the 1980s, SHS PE teacher Jane Doherty discovered 20 of the original 100 windows in an estate sale of a former SHS maintenance worker. The district bought the windows and donated them to the Historical Society.

“We thought that [the library] would be a good place to display them,” de Hartog said. “The decoration in the new library very much speaks to the tradition and founders of SHS.”

The men depicted in the windows are Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, John Dewey, and Charles Eliot, prominent figures in American education.

Not all of the windows were in perfect condition.

“One of them was missing a head, so the head was replaced,” de Hartog said. “Now you can’t even tell.”

In addition to the windows depicting the men, there are also several smaller colored leaded glass windows, which feature academic items like a test tube and an abacus.

“I hope they will add a little color to the room, and I think they should be very pretty in the winter,” de Hartog said. “I hope they will at least occasionally make [students] smile.”

“That’s a big loss,” said head coach Dominic Newman.

However, there is an upside to the change in leadership this year.

“[This will] allow other people to… step out from their shadows,” Newman said.

The new senior captains this year will be Aidan Mazur, Joe Pendleton, Oliver Heywood, and Gavin Schroeder.

Sophomore Tom Treacy, returning to cross country this year, is not anxious at all about the new leadership.

“We just have to step up… I know we will,” Treacy said.

To be a captain for the cross country team, you need a strong work ethic, not necessarily just being a senior, said Newman.

“[You] just have to be a leader,” Treacy said.

Treacy also said that captains are not treated in any special manner by the rest of the team or the coach, except that most of the questions from the new athletes are directed at them.

“We lost a lot of talent,” said Pendleton, who has been running cross country for Shorewood since he was in seventh grade. “[But] the team’s just great… everyone’s always trying hard.”

Not much is changing for the team this year, in terms of scheduling and the way things are organized, except that the boys’ team won’t be attending the Roy Griak Invitational meet in Minnesota as they have in the past. According to Newman, the boys have underperformed at this meet in the past. Furthermore, the replacement meet in Madison might be the future state meet course, and Newman would like to see it.

The incoming freshmen have shown a lot of potential in these first few summer practices.

“I’m excited about this incoming freshman class,” Newman said.

There is lots of talent lying dormant that Newman and the captains are going to try to nurture and awaken this season.

“It looks promising,” Pendleton said.

The senior captain also said that most of the new athletes understand how the boys function and work as a team.

Before the oil spill, I for one actually thought BP was one of the better oil companies. Their commercials highlighted what BP was doing for communities and for the environment. I recently took a trip down to Texas City, Texas, where BP funded virtually every public place in the town. The company gave over $2 million of funding for the school, community pool and gym, and parks. For me, BP was also once synonymous with renewable energy sources; many of their offices are solar powered.

All of this made BP seem like a very responsible company, both to individual communities and to the environment. But the oil spill shed light on BP’s truly irresponsible practices.

First and foremost, BP was terribly lax with its safety standards. In fact, extreme budget cuts in the area of safety led to the explosion that triggered the leak. BP was fined over five years ago for an explosion at an oil refinery that killed 15 people. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) ordered BP to put in place several corrective safety measures, all of which BP failed to comply with.

This tenacity and complete disregard for safety proves that BP cannot be trusted in making sure accidents such as the Gulf oil spill never happen again.  In fact, if BP continues this negligence, another catastrophe of this nature is sure to happen.

Although no more oil is spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, the oil that remains in the water still poses a threat to the environment as it continues to spread throughout the Gulf. Unfortunately, BP seems unable to handle cleaning up a spill of this magnitude. The Deepwater Horizon spill is unlike any spill BP planned for. The tactics they have used so far, mainly skimmers and containment booms, have stopped some of the oil from reaching shore, but are better suited for use in smaller bodies of waters, like a lake or a stream.

BP needed to be open to different ideas for stopping the oil, seeing as their conventional methods failed, but despite getting thousands upon thousands of ideas from the public, BP ignored virtually all of them. As a result, there is now oil on shore in every Gulf state. Instead of swallowing their pride and accepting advice from people outside the company, BP disregarded valuable ideas and now has to spend years cleaning up oily beaches, to the tune of millions of dollars.

What does this say about one of the largest oil companies in the world, in a time when our oil supply is shrinking rapidly and we need to start looking at other energy sources, if BP cannot try new methods of working? If BP is not able to change in these changing times, they will not be able to survive as a company, let alone clean up our beaches after their deadly spill.

As with any problem, to fix it you must start at the top. It seems as if BP is trying to fix the problems with their top administrators. CEO Tony Hayward will step down from his position as head of BP on October 1, and is to be replaced by Robert Dudley. Although this may appear to be a welcome change, all is not as it seems. Hayward and Dudley are effectively switching jobs. Hayward will take over BP’s productions in Russia, the same job Dudley had until he was removed by BP. So although Hayward, whom some people consider the main culprit in this disaster, may be leaving the top spot of the company, Dudley, a man who was fired from his last position, is gaining it. How can BP expect to move forward from this disaster if they keep bringing on more of the same people? If they don’t learn to stop making the same mistakes, BP can never win.

It may take years for BP to fully clean up all the spilt oil from the US coast, but the stain of BP’s irresponsibility will be evident for much longer if BP does not right their wrongs while they can. They may not be able to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of aquatic flora and fauna, but they can save their company yet, if they stop their reckless, negligent, irresponsible business actions.

The administration views these cameras as a much needed addition to the school. They will replace the old cameras, increasing safety of the students, and will be very helpful in case of crimes or other emergencies.

Many students, however, believe that the cameras will be used to monitor their every move, adding a “Big Brother” feel to the school day. Some think that the cameras are an invasion of privacy, thinking that whatever they do in school should be kept secret from prying eyes. In other words, students want to continue skipping class in peace. Others think that if they aren’t doing anything wrong to begin with, the administration has no need to be watching them.

These sentiments are complete and utter overreactions. The cameras are put in place for the sole purpose of student protection. The administration will not be watching the screens 24/7. They will only be used for reviewing if someone reports a crime or an incident occurs in the school. And frankly, administrators have better things to do than sit around in front of a screen all day, scrutinizing the every move of a student on his way to the bathroom.

The cameras aren’t even going to be located in bathrooms, locker rooms, classrooms, or the guidance office, the only places where your actions should be private. The cameras will only be located in hallways and entrances to the buildings. These are locations where a break-in might occur.

Besides, the hallways of our school are public anyways. You shouldn’t be doing anything wrong in a place where someone could easily walk around a corner or out of a classroom and see you. How can video cameras in a public place be an invasion of privacy, when there will already be other people there that can see what you do?

As for skipping class, it’s the same concept. Teachers can catch you skipping class even without the camera. It’s not an extremely covert operation.

The thing is, teachers and administrators have much more important things to do than sit around waiting for someone to skip class, and then chase you across the front lawn in order to drag you back. It’s your own education that you are neglecting, and therefore it should be your responsibility to get to class, not the staff of SHS.

So have no fear, truants, you will still be able to continue your life of delinquency. But there is no need to loudly complain about an invasion into your private lives. The cameras are for your own good, and are simply there to protect you, not to get you into trouble. (For the record, Ripples does not condone the skipping of classes.)

However, the series has recently begun to go downhill. Instead of creating new, twisted villains, Eoin Colfer brings back old ones in plots that continuously become more ridiculous.  For example, Colfer resurects Opal Koboi, an annoying pixie villain, no less then three times throughout the series. While the plots become more ridiculous, the only thing that has saved the books was the continued strength of Cofer’s characters.

Unfortunately, in the seventh book, Colfer throws all previous assumptions about his characters into the trash, and creates watered down, pitiful imitations of the previous books. With a confusing and horrible plot, a stupid villain, and pitiful characters, Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex, is one of the worst books I’ve ever read.

First, the intensely stupid plot. The deranged brother of Commander Root, named Turnball (this villain Colfer had to dig for, reaching back into his “prequel special edition” book, The Artemis Fowl Files, where Turnball had a twenty-page cameo before he was captured), is trying to crack the dome of the underwater city of Atlantis, causing the city to be evacuated, and allowing him to escape from prison.

Along the way, he manages to alert all of our heroes that something is going on by pointlessly attacking all of them. However, it turns out that Turnball only wants to kidnap a demon warlock to heal his human wife. Confusing?

Also, the plot is really really stupid. First of all, Turnball was in prison, but it was in no way necessary to cause the entire city to be evacuated purely to kidnap one small faerie.

Second, even if this were necessary, there would be no reason to involve Artemis Fowl or any of the humans in the book at all. In a completely impractical plot, Turnball decides to attack Artemis and Co., apparently just for his personal amusement. Conveniently, all of the minor characters are killed, without a scratch on the three main ones. Strangely enough, this allert our protagonists that something fishy is going on.

I was pretty upset that the main characters survived, to be honest. Instead of being dynamic and spontanious, every person in the book was flat, boring, and had no personality. Without exception, every single character was a pale imitation of what they had been in the previous books.

For example, Artemis Fowl, usually the teenage mastermind of the group, and the crux of the plot, develops a condition called “The Atlantis Complex”. This basically makes him afraid of the number four, he becomes incredibly paranoid, and he develops an alter ego named Orion, a romantic who is obsessed with Holly and has none of Artemis’ former brilliance.

Without Artemis and his brilliant plots, the point of the books is lost. The Artemis Fowl Series isn’t supposed to be about a bunch of people trying to save the faerie world, it’s supposed to be about a teenage mastermind saving them all with is ludicrous and highly entertaining plots. Without Artemis, the center of the book collapsed right off the bat.

Another example of a watered down character is Foaly the centaur, who used to be the technological force behind the missions. However, in The Atlantis Complex, Colfer sticks him in a shuttle with Artemis and Holly, right in the middle of the action, where he is no help to anyone. Since Colfer can’t have Foaly make his usual technological quips, as per usual, he instead has him mumble vaguely about his kids. Apparently, the centaur got married.

It’s like this with all of Colfer’s characters: mind numbing, pointless, people that I wouldn’t mind pushing off a cliff.

Basically, this book is horrible. There was no character that wasn’t incredibly boring, no plot “twist” that wasn’t astoundingly predictable, and no page that didn’t make me yawn. Overall, this book was one of the worst books I have ever read in my entire life. I wouldn’t recommend it to my worst enemy. If this was the only book in the world, I wouldn’t read it. I would burn it and use the fire for warmth.

Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist down on his luck, just found guilty of libel and owing 150,000 kroner. The reputation he has worked years for is shattered and he can no longer be associated with the magazine he created. It was in this state that Henrik Vanger hired Blomkvist to “write an autobiography for Vanger,” a cover for Blomkvist to research the long-closed case of the missing Harriet.

Lisbeth Salander is a young woman with a troubling past who stays away from both the general crowd of Sweden and the police. Salander is a professional researcher, hired by Vanger to do a background check on Blomkvist. Before long, she has become involved in the case and Blomkvist is using her impressive research skills to his advantage.

Vanger expects to find nothing new, as the case closed decades ago. But Blomkvist surprises everyone when he comes across new leads and finds  evidence in pictures that was never noticed before. Someone knows of Blomkvist’s discoveries and he begins to be threatened by dead cats and bullets. Refusing to give up on the search even with the possibility of death, Blomkvist persists on the crazy rat chase that leads to a discovery no one expected, while also solving a series of rapes that had never been connected.

Meanwhile, Blomkvist is desperate to expose the successful but corrupted businessman Hans-Erik Wennerstrom. The story also follows his attempts to uncover the illegal acts that have continued for years.

Although this book started out slow, the plot line became interesting after a while and before long, I was unable to put it down, the ending of every chapter making me want to read more. Larsson’s language is at first hard to follow, but as the book progresses it becomes easier to follow.

Larsson’s style is detailed and descriptive and I found myself looking for clues to solve the mystery myself even though such a task would be nearly impossible. His writing painted a picture in my mind and I could feel the characters’ emotions as well as clearly understand the situations they were in. Some things he left unresolved for a few chapters, giving the reader even more anticipation.

Although I found the Vanger case immensely thrilling as well as the action surrounding it, Larsson both started and ended the book by talking about the conflict between Wennerstrom and Blomkvist. This was important to Blomkvist’s character and the situation he was in, in this novel; however, this part of the story dragged on and I often found my mind drifting.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is an exhilarating read that leaves the reader asking questions and wanting more. Some parts were revolting and impossible to imagine, but the characters make the story even more gripping. Although some parts were harder to get through, this novel is one that everyone can read and enjoy.

Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi, has returned with another thought-provoking and engaging novel. Beatrice and Virgil, which came out earlier this year, is not a perfect book in any sense of the word, but, like Martel’s first work, it is very unique and, in my opinion, worth reading.

The main character of Beatrice and Virgil is an author named Henry. After his experimental novel is rejected by his publisher, Henry leaves for “one of those great cities of the world that is a world unto itself.” He volunteers in a chocolate shop, learns Spanish, plays the clarinet, joins an amateur theater troupe, and enjoys his life without seeming to have to get a paycheck.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to care that much about Henry. He seems like a cardboard cutout, and his life seems largely like pretentious filler. Martel’s light, occasionally poetic prose is fantastic, but that doesn’t make poor Henry any more appealing.

Before long, Henry gets an odd letter from an amateur playwright asking for help on a play, and this is when things become more interesting. The reader never gets to see the play (titled “A 20^th Century Shirt”) from start to finish in its entirety. Instead, along with Henry, the reader gets one scene at a time.

The play features two animals, a donkey named Beatrice and a howler monkey named Virgil, discussing their lives alongside an empty road in the vein of “Waiting for Godot” . The play is at times delightful, at times disturbing, but always thought-provoking.

Once Henry starts to read “A 20^th Century Shirt,” Beatrice and Virgil develops two parallel narratives: that of the two titular characters and that of Henry and the odd playwright. I won’t spoil the surprise of who this playwright is, but suffice it to say that he is a far more interesting character than Henry.

The problem with this play-inside-a-novel format is that the play outshines the novel, which largely seems like filler. If Martel had had a more aggressive editor, I think the book could have been improved.

One of the themes of Beatrice and Virgil is the relationship between nonfiction and fiction – the interaction between history and story. Specifically, Martel uses this story as a retelling of a certain historical event.

“No,” you say to yourself. “He’s not going there.” But he does. In a subtle and roundabout way, Martel puts forth his unique metaphor. Its brilliance is in the way Henry and the reader gradually see it in tandem. How successful the metaphor is is up for debate, but I can say that I have never read another book that treats this topic like Martel has.

For all of the novel’s subtlety, unfortunately, its ending is shockingly abrupt. The last scene seems completely out of place.

But perhaps Martel planned it that way. Because despite its animal characters, Beatrice and Virgil is not a happy-go-lucky book that is meant for light reading. I think it’s meant to disturb you a little.  I think it’s meant to put you off your guard. I think it’s meant to make you think.

Beatrice and Virgil is not a perfect book at all. But despite its flaws, it’s not the kind of book that you’ll forget about anytime soon.

I do not think I have laughed out loud more during any movie that I’ve seen as I did during The Other Guys. Starring Will Ferrel and Mark Wahlberg, the movie is about Allen Gamble and Terry Hoitz, two cops working in the NYPD who are less than glorified, but when they get tangled up in shady economic business, hilarity ensues.

Now, that may sound like a cheesy tagline to an even cheesier movie, but The Other Guys is far above that. The comedic geniuses of Ferrel and Wahlberg together rival that of Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis in The Hangover. Ferrel and Wahlberg continuously play off of each other during the movie, cracking jokes about one another that had me rolling around in my seat.

The outrageous plot turns will have you constantly guessing where the story will go. And, though at times the movie may seem like a giant commercial, the less than conspicuous ad placements add to the hilarity of the film.

The Other Guys is actually a very smart film. The entire plot revolves around shady business deals between huge corporations, which is a very complex subject that often confuses me when I hear about similar incidents in the news. In a time of economic turmoil, many Americans will be able to relate to this movie, and the comedy throughout will crack up people of all ages. The Other Guys is as must see movie for the summer of 2010.

Dinner for Schmucks

A comedy of errors with the ambience of nails on a chalkboard is how I would describe director Jay Roach’s most recent comedy. Dinner for Schmucks, starring Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, follows the story of a man who starts out searching for an “idiot” in order to secure his promotion only to realize that by doing so, he turns himself into one instead.

The movie opens with shots of an adorable mouse couple. This is possibly my favorite part of the film, only second to the many entertaining characters the audience is later introduced to. These characters include an artist, a mind control expert, a wealthy Swiss man with a very special finger and ring, a medium who communicates with deceased animals, and a blind German fencer.

The plot is structured around using the numerous twists and lurches in improvisational comedy with the purpose of utterly ruining the main character’s life, and is therefore absolutely ridiculous.  In this way, the movie very nearly pushes “awkward” over the edge.

At times, at least for this overly-sympathetic audience member, the movie has the uncomfortable quality of a bad dream: the man loses his girlfriend in a terrible misunderstanding, his car gets wrecked, he is involuntarily reconnected with his stalker and sadistic ex-girlfriend, and he is troubled by his boss’s lack of ethics.

For all its abundance of tension, the movie provoked a lot of laughter from the audience. This was in part due to the well-known fact that Steve Carell is hilarious. As an exceptionally talented comedian, he is able to make his audience detest his character, a taxidermist who is hopelessly good at completely messing everything up.

Although the only thing that prevented this reviewer from walking out of the movie theater was the need to write this review, for a movie with no depth but a few gags, Dinner with Schmucks is relatively entertaining.

Inception

Inception, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page, is like no other movie you will ever see, literally. With an out-of-this-world plot line, jaw dropping special effects, and talented actors to boot, Inception will definitely entertain you. However entertained you might be, it probably won’t make up for how confused you might be either.

I left the theater having no clue what had just happened. DiCaprio and Page play two members of a team of spies who venture into other people’s dreams to gather information. It sounds interesting, and was, but as the group gets more and more layered in dreams within dreams, I got lost.

I very much enjoyed watching the intricate effects necessary to make each scene seem like a dream, such as one where Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays Arthur, one of the dream engineers, is fighting enemy spies in a dream with no gravity.

It was very clear that the people behind Inception worked very hard, and their hard work definitely paid off. The actors as well were very believable, truly committing to their characters and relating well with one another to tell the story.

The only problem was I couldn’t quite grasp what the story was, and at the end of the movie, I was as clueless as when I first walked in the theater. So, by all means, go see Inception. I’m sure you will at least have fun watching it, but whether or not you actually grasp the concept of the film itself, I’m not so certain.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Do not expect more from The Twilight Saga: Eclipse than from the other installments in the Twilight films. Starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, Eclipse failed to impress me or to improve my opinion on the entire series as a whole.

Now, the opinions of fanatic Twilight fans may be different, since most of them are too busy fighting over “Team Edward” or “Team Jacob” to notice the poor quality of this film.

I am not sure which genre to place this movie in. I do not think it can be classified as a romance, since the awkward relationship between Pattinson and Stewart is often just unbearable, not to mention the ever shirtless presence of Taylor Lautner, which complicates the relationship of Bella and Edward even more. And yet, I do not think it can be classified as an action movie. The effects in this film are good, but the fight scenes themselves leave much to be desired. The blurred motions of the vampires, intended to make them seem to be moving at warp speed, muddy the already awkward fights.

My advice to the people who aren’t fanatic Twilight Fans, unless you want to leave the theater asking yourself “Exactly what did I just pay $10 to go see?,” stay at home instead of seeing The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. As for you “Twi-hards,” I doubt anything I say will keep you from running to the movie theater to see this movie, so knock yourselves out.

Toy Story 3

I went into the theater feeling very anxious about Toy Story 3. I have grown up watching the Toy Story series, and loved the first two, but so often directors ruin an entire film franchise with a sequel. If you have your doubts to this, go and rewatch Legally Blonde 2, Shrek 2 & 3, or The Mummy 3. Having seen these, I had every right to be scared that the genius behind Toy Story would be forever ruined. But I was dead wrong.

Starring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, Toy Story 3 was just as great as the first one. It brought the Toy Story series to an end with a bang, chock full of new characters and a creative story line. The forever faithful Woody and crew are trapped in a daycare that might as well be a toy prison, and they will do whatever it takes to get back to Andy before he goes to college. Seeing as many kids who first fell in love with Toy Story are now leaving for college, I saw this plot point as a very clever idea.

The animation was, as always, put together recklessly, with the added plus of being in 3D. Many recent movies have been trying to hide the poor quality of their film by forcing it into 3D, but the 3D in Toy Story 3 was an accent to the movie, and wasn’t obnoxiously in your face like some other films.

I thoroughly enjoyed the last piece of the Toy Story journey, and urge you to go see Toy Story 3, so you can at least look back on your childhood days and smile.

Despicable Me

Despicable Me, starring Steve Carell and Jason Segel, is one of the best movies I have seen this summer. It is more original and well-made than many other movies, is made complete with a star-studded cast, and will make people of all ages laugh. All these components are hard to find in movies these days, especially one made for kids.

The concept of Despicable Me is genius and creative. A super villain adopts children. This may seem simple by itself, but the plot thickens throughout the movie, and is complex enough for older audiences while still giving its target age of little kids enough to enjoy.

The animation rivals that of many Pixar greats, and, even though it was made to be in 3D, still looked incredible in regular 2D format.

I left the theater feeling good, with a smile on my face, and I’m sure everyone else in the theater left with the same happy emotions. If you need a pick-me-up, a fun movie to watch with friends, or need something to entertain the kids you babysit, definitely go see Despicable Me.

“I came to America because American people seem interesting. I wanted to experience the life of American teenagers in high school,” said Kwanchanok “Jom” Sooksanit, senior.

Though she arrived from Thailand one week ago, Sooksanit has already adjusted to life in Shorewood. She has visited the state fair, and during the day, she watches English movies to perfect her English.

“I love Shorewood already. I like the peaceful, clean, small town feel that it has. There are no traffic jams,” Sooksanit said.

Sooksanit will be in the U.S. for one year, and will go back to Thailand at the end of the year. She is considering going to college in America, but still has to decide with her family. Sooksanit has three siblings who are  close in age and go to a secondary school in Thailand.

Sooksanit is staying with the Semones family. The Semones moved to Shorewood last year, after a long stay in Singapore. All of the Semones’ children are out of high school, and their youngest son, Evan is still living with the family. Before their time in Singapore, the Semones lived in Whitefish Bay, where they hosted their first AFS student.

“We had a wonderful experience, so we wanted another student,” said Deb Semones, Sooksanit’s host mother.

The two things that Sooksanit is still not used to in America are the food and the weather. Used to the tropical weather of Thailand, the Wisconsin summer feels cold to Sooksanit.

“In Thailand, I don’t want to go out because it’s so hot, but in Shorewood, when I see the sun, I think, ‘Oh, I love that,’” Sooksanit said.

Kim von der Heide, Germany

Kim von der Heide, an AFS student from Hamburg, Germany, will be attending Shorewood High School as a sophomore for the 2010-2011 school year. She is staying with sophomore Lydia Fojtik’s family for the year.

“I wanted to get to know another culture and get to know new people, and I wanted to go to an English speaking country because I really like English,” von der Heide said.

Even though it’s her first time in the United States, there have been few adjustments for von der Heide.  She also hasn’t really begun to miss much in Germany in her first two weeks here.

Back in Germany, von der Heide has divorced parents and a younger brother. She plays handball, played violin for three and a half years, and likes hanging out with her friends.

Von der Heide has already begun the cross country season and has been making friends. She also might run track in the spring. She’s not sure if she’ll be in any other clubs other than AFS.

Von der Heide is most looking forward to “getting to know all the people, making friends in another country, and getting to know the culture.” The only thing she’s nervous for is the first day of school.

School in Germany is structured in a similar way to the United States with the same length of day, as well as the whole school system being 12 years. However, you can choose if you want to go on with school for nine years, ten years, or twelve years. Sports are through clubs instead of school.

Some of the classes von der Heide is taking are about the same as she would take in Germany, “Some are really new like graphic arts and design, drama, and performance speech,” said von der Heide.

Von der Heide is excited for the upcoming year and already likes her host family. “It’s really good to live with them. I really like them,” von der Heide said.

Fatima Mohammed, Ghana

Fatima Mohammed, an AFS student from Ghana, will be entering the 12^th grade at Shorewood High School this fall.

In Ghana, she took the Youth Exchange and Study scholastic exams, and when she passed the exams they sent her to the United States to study.

“I’m looking forward to developing myself mentally and academically,” Mohammed said.

There are 46 languages that are spoken in Ghana, though everyone must learn the English language at school. Along with English, Mohammed speaks five languages, including Chi, Labani, and a little bit of French.

One thing that she’s not looking forward to during her stay in Shorewood is the extreme weather.

“This weather [here] is cold,” said Mohammed. “We don’t have winter in Ghana.”

Hopefully she will be able to prepare herself for Wisconsin winters!

Maren Banda, back from China

Maren Banda, senior, has never taken Asian Studies but just finished spending ten months in China through AFS. She studied the language two years before, and enjoyed the experience.

“I love the characters, there’s so much history behind them,” Banda said. “I love the dimensions to the language.”

Banda’s time in China was eventful, staying with no less than five host families over the course of her visit.

“I had a teacher who felt it was important to circulate between families,” Banda said.

The length of time spent with each family varied from a week to four months, and Banda lived with just about every social class in China.

“I’ve lived with the poorest of the poor, and the richest of the rich,” Banda said.

However, Banda lived in the same town for her entire visit, Jiujiang, a small city near the foot of Mt. Liu. She was also enrolled in the fourth oldest academy in China, the Baileudong Academy, through the Jiujiang education system. During her time in China, Banda learned two and a half languages: Chinese, Jiupuhua, the traditional language of the area, and basic German through her school.

Getting to school, unfortunately, wasn’t always a picnic, as Jiujiang had some of the worst flooding they had had in the past hundred years.

“The main problem was getting to and from school; you get soaked,” Banda said. The whole experience was “Scary. It didn’t stop raining for seven months,” Banda said.

One thing Banda did a lot of was traveling.

“You get a month off of school for the Chinese New Year, which is when I did most of my traveling.” And travel she did. Banda visited at least 20 cities, including Beijing, Harbin, Nanjin, Jiujiang, and Shanghai.

“I didn’t stop traveling,” Banda said.

Even with floods, changing locations frequently, and the problems of learning two languages, Banda still had a great year in China. “Overall, I had an amazing experience.”

“I was too scared,” he said.

But during his time at Shorewood, Zucker developed a sense of humor that well served him – not to mention the course of American comedy – for the rest of his career 

“People don’t take themselves that seriously here,” Zucker said. “There aren’t any swelled heads.” 

He said the humor he grew up with was self-deprecating.

“That got ingrained in me,” he said.

Although Zucker said SHS wasn’t a “rough school” during his time, “You could get beat up verbally pretty easy. You always needed a verbal comeback ready.” 

Zucker was kicked out of his share of classes, and was once told by a teacher, “Zucker, someday I’ll be paying to see you, but for today, shut up and listen.”

Another teacher “had enough of me one day,” Zucker said. The teacher made Zucker write 500 sentences. Hidden in the middle of the third page, Zucker wrote, “I bet [you don’t] read these.” The next day, the teacher showed the class. “I bet I do, Dave,” he said.

“I probably had to write 1000 more sentences,” Zucker laughed.

Zucker was a member of band and the drama club at SHS. For a while, he was also in Ripples, but was kicked out after he and some friends were caught smoking in the Ripples room.

One thing that Zucker liked a lot about SHS and still does today is its tight-knit community.

“It’s amazing how many people from SHS I still know,” Zucker said.

After graduating in 1966, Zucker attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

In 1971 Zucker, along with his brother Jerry and their friend from SHS, Jim Abrahams, who were both also attending Madison, formed a comedy troupe called Kentucky Fried Theater (KFT). The troupe put on sketch comedy shows in a tiny, 70-seat theater, using both live action and pre-recorded video.

“We weren’t theater geeks,” Zucker said. “We had half time, not intermission.”

Zucker really enjoyed KFT.

“I found something I really wanted to do,” he said.

Eventually the KFT crew moved to Los Angeles. There, the two Zuckers and Abrahams created The Kentucky Fried Movie, a film of 26 sketches based on the troupe’s act, which was released in 1977. 

Many of the sketches, both in the theater and in the movie, satirized real TV commercials.

“That was the kind of humor we grew up with,” Zucker said. “We didn’t laugh at comedians, we laughed at things that were serious, unintentionally funny.” 

He recalled one commercial, for a shaving product, that the team spoofed. The shot started with a man talking about shaving, and then pulled out to show that he was, in fact, shaving his armpits.

After the success of The Kentucky Fried Movie, the trio went on to write and direct Airplane!, perhaps their most popular film. Airplane!, which chronicles one eventful flight from LA to Chicago, satirized disaster films. The movie, one of the highest-grossing comedies in box office history upon its 1980 release, was a huge success. 

“It was a hole in one,” Zucker said.

Part of the movie’s appeal was its use of numerous big-name actors known for their more serious work, including Peter Graves and Leslie Nielsen. Zucker recalled that after Graves first read the script, he thought it was “a piece of trash and he’d never do it.” But his wife and daughter liked it, so Graves was convinced to take a role.

According to Zucker, Airplane! has only gotten more popular since it was released in 1980. This year is its 30^th anniversary.

“They’re still showing it at film festivals and screenings,” Zucker said. 

With his brother Jerry and Abrahams, Zucker also co-wrote and co-directed movies like The Naked Gun series and Top Secret! (which uses the SHS school song as the East German national anthem).

Even now, the three directors “share a bond,” Zucker said. “Jim is like another brother.” 

Zucker has also directed a number of movies on his own, including Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4, which parody the horror genre.

Occasionally, Zucker has run into people he’s satirized in his movies, like director M. Night Shyamalan. Shyamalan, who recognized Zucker, told him, “While we’re shooting movies, we say, ‘What will Zucker do with this?’”

Right now, Zucker is working on a number of projects. His favorite is a PG slapstick comedy that is based on comedy figures Laurel and Hardy.

“I want it to be something my daughter can see,” he said.

Zucker has seen the film industry change a lot since he made his first movies.

“You couldn’t get an Airplane! made today,” he said. “The studios today are all about remakes and sequels… and [making] a movie is a huge investment.”

Although he grew up in Shorewood and currently lives in LA, two liberal strongholds, Zucker describes his politics as “slightly right of center.” 

He said he stayed a Democrat a long time because of the environment. He has solar panels on his roof and owns two Prius cars. 

“Republicans are philistines when it comes to the environment,” Zucker said.

When it comes to other issues, however, Zucker is more conservative. He compared the Obama administration to Karl Marx and said he favors smaller government and stronger national defense. According to Zucker, who voted for Bill Clinton and Al Gore, the Democratic party has moved far to the left of presidents like Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson.

“The left is a coalition of the very, very smart and the very, very dumb,” Zucker said. “There are a lot of things on the left that aren’t made fun of that [should be].”

Zucker’s politics have occasionally come through in his films. His latest film, An American Carol, satirizes liberal filmmaker Michael Moore. He has also produced political ads attacking Democrats. 

But whether Zucker is making films for laughs or for politics, his Shorewood humor comes through.