Thanksgiving

We are taking the week off for break. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!!

The Week of 11/16 in a Glance - Post 5

Hi everybody! This week, we focused on Paris and the National Book Award. There are only two entries this post, but check out our post from earlier this week with details about the attacks. Enjoy and remember to comment with your ideas and insight! (Especially eighth graders - remember there's extra credit!)

Also remember to follow us on instagram @thegreylockglance and send us emails regarding article topics: thegreylockglance@gmail.com.

National Book Awards

By Maddy Art

On Wednesday night, the National Book Awards were presented. While Ali Benjamin (see our second post) unfortunately did not win her category, other wonderful literature was honored. In the nonfiction category, Ta-Nehisi Coates won with his novel Between the World and Me. Between the World and Me takes the form of a letter written to his son about life as a black man in America. It reflects on historical and modern racial inequality. In the fiction category, Adam Johnson took the prize for his collection of short stories, Fortune Smiles. “Nirvana,” the first story, follows the husband of a woman suffering a rare disease. To cope, he creates a hologram of the United States President, who was recently assassinated. The next piece, “Interesting Facts,” focuses on the mental struggles of a woman living with cancer. Then there’s "George Orwell Was a Friend of Mine," “Hurricanes Anonymous,” and the title story, “Fortune Smiles.” Neal Shusterman was the winner for Young People’s Literature with his YA novel Challenger Deep. Inspired by his son’s struggles, Challenger Deep realistically portrays the awfulness of mental illnesses while still captivating readers with its plot. Following the role of black women in society throughout history, Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis took the poetry title. Despite Benjamin not winning the overall title, the fact that she reached the shortlist is an incredible achievement. Congratulations, Ali Benjamin!!

The Paris Attacks

by Rose Gotlieb

You’ve probably heard about the tragedy in Paris, either from our update or other sources. If you haven’t, here’s a glance:

Last Friday, at least 128 people were killed in Paris, France, after numerous terrorist attacks. These attacks included suicide bombings, gunmen openly shooting, hostage situations, and an attempted assassination of the French president… along with the 80,000 people watching a soccer match with him. Luckily, the last catastrophe was stopped - but France and the rest of the world still mourns 128 deaths.

What happened to the hostages? The French President declared a state of emergency and closed the borders. President Obama said he would support “our oldest ally” (France). The french police attacked the concert hall in which the hostages were being kept. Later, a french police official reported that there were at least 100 deaths. The terrorists were finally overpowered and the hostages released. ISIS, an islamic terrorist group, then claimed responsibility.

What’s happened since then? Well, simply put… a lot. Obama offered to take in Syrian refugees, though many governors don’t agree. Europe’s divide over the migrant crisis is becoming deeper after passport discovered next to a terrorist’s body suggested that the terrorist had come in with one of the waves of migrants. It is, however, unclear if it was dropped there, or if ISIS deliberately placed it there to create suspicions against the refugees. The French launched multiple airstrikes against ISIS following the attacks.

Who do they think did it? Well, ISIS. Abdelhamid Abaaoud is believed to have been the ringleader of the Paris attacks. He was killed on Wednesday in a hail of bullets. But nobody is quite sure if he was the only chief operative. A few of the terrorists were French citizens, even born and raised there.

It has been said that this is the most serious terrorist attack in Paris since World War II. The president has declared France in a state of war. Keep Paris and all of Europe in your thoughts.

To read more about the attacks themselves, read our mid-week post titled “Paris.”

Paris

We don't usually post in the middle of the week, but we thought we should give you guys a little info on what happened in Paris a couple nights ago. These incidents were absolutely horrible, with many people dying and more being injured. We didn't write the whole story, just some of the main events that occurred. We will give you more details on Friday for our weekly glance. If you want to know more now, simply google "Paris" and there will be many articles that go more in depth. Thanks for reading.

-The Greylock Glance Editors

A Tragedy in Paris

By Owen Tucker-Smith

At Least 128 people have been killed in Paris, France, after numerous terrorist attacks. These attacks have been said to be the worst ever to take place in Europe since the bombings of 2004 in Madrid, Spain.

The worst of these attacks took place in the Bataclan concert hall, which was reported as resulting in eighty fatalities and many were taken hostage. The attack began when a group of gunmen came into the concert hall and rapidly started shooting at the audience. By the time the cops arrived, three gunmen had killed themselves and the fourth was shot by a police officer

But that wasn’t the only site of fatalities on Friday night. More were killed and injured at restaurants and bars, including La Casa Nostra Restaurant, La Carillon Bar, La Belle Equipe, and Le Petit Cambodge restauraunt. In total around forty were killed at these sites. Also, in Stade de France 80,000 people were watching France play Germany in a game of soccer. The president was at this game when at least two explosions were heard. Three attackers were killed, and the president was evacuated to safety.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks, and President Hollande has blamed the Islamic State also, describing the assaults as "an act of war." France is in a state of mourning, with at least 128 dead and 300 in the hospital. We will get more details to you in this week's glance.

The Week of 11/6 in a Glance: Post Four

Hi everybody! We hope despite it being Friday the 13th you have all been lucky today!
Two important announcements:
 1) The Greylock Glance is now on Instagram! If you have an instagram follow us @thegreylockglance. We will post alerts concerning new blog posts and interesting photos connecting with our stories.
2) We would love to write about things that interest our readers, not just us! So we have started an email account, with the address thegreylockglance@gmail.com. If you have suggestions for topics regarding what to post, or if you have questions or concerns that you would not like to publish in the comments, give us an email! If you give us a suggestion for an article and you want us to give you credit, we will!

Below is this week's news. Enjoy, and as always, feel free to comment!

From “Let’s Press Pause” to “Let’s Press Stop!”

By Owen Tucker-Smith

Sorry, oil. You will have to find someplace else to live. The Keystone XL pipeline that would have gone from Canada to Texas is not going to be built. The Canadian company TransCanada, who are the people behind the project, had initially proposed everything in 2008. For seven years, it has been just floating around Obama’s desk. Before we talk about this, let’s think about just the concept of a pipeline being built.

Who would support it? The republicans. They would argue about all of the jobs that could be made possible with the pipeline. On the other side of things, the democrats would not want it to be built. This is because it is not a great decision in terms of climate change, and it could cause an oil spill. Obama is a democrat, so recently TransCanada had the same thought, thinking that “a republican will be more likely to accept it.” Perfect timing with an election coming up, right? So TransCanada essentially asked to press “pause,” stalling for the possible arrival of a republican president.

Seems logical, right? But the pause was rejected by the state house, immediately followed by Obama throwing the whole project in the trash can. This was his way of saying to Transcanada, “Your plan is crystal clear to me!”

What happened next? What you could expect. Most democrats respected the decision and most republicans didn’t. Here are some tweets to see a glimpse of the reaction in the world of the candidates.

“The right call. Now it's time to make America a clean energy superpower.”

-Hillary Clinton

"So sad that Obama rejected Keystone Pipeline. Thousands of jobs, good for the environment, no downside!"

-Donald Trump

"Obama's rejection of #KeystoneXL will flush American jobs down the drain... all to appease the agenda of science denying radicals."

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal

Mizzou

By Maddy Art

In a Glance: Recently, a variety of racist acts have occurred on the campus of University of Missouri. These began in September, when a Student Association President reported being called racial slurs from a pickup truck. This was followed by other horrible acts, and students and faculty were very unpleased with how the administrators were (or weren't) responding. Flash forward to early November, and groups have been persistently insisting that the president of the school, Tim Wolfe, resign. Well, on November 9th, they got their wish. Wolfe stepped down, and the chancellor, in return, backed down to taking care of research facilities.

Wait, so what was happening? Well, along with the pickup truck incident mentioned above, it became clear that University of Missouri was not an inclusive space. Racial slurs were yelled at members of the Legion of Black Collegiates practicing a performance for homecoming. Offensive pictures were drawn on dorm walls and bathroom floors. Online threats were made to black students. And Wolfe was consistently denying the racism and refusing to act.

What changed? Students made it their mission to be heard. Protesting included rallies, sit-in, and walk-outs. One graduate student, who had experienced the racism firsthand, began a hunger strike, pledging not to eat until Wolfe resigned. A group called Concerned Student 1950 was leading these riots. The group was named after the year that black students were first able to attend school at University of Missouri. Concerned Student 1950 created a list of demands and presented it to administration. High up on that list? Wolfe’s resignation. The black football players boycotted, followed by the rest of the football team and the coaches. No football was to be played until Wolfe backed down. On November 8th, Wolfe made a statement regarding his intent to stay. But the next day, he resigned! Students are extremely pleased, and many celebrations are being held.

That Plane Crash You've Been Hearing About

by Rose Gotlieb

On October 31, a Russian plane with 224 people, (217 passengers and seven crew members) on board went down in the Sinai Peninsula. It was coming from an Egyptian resort city and heading to St. Petersburg, Russia, but it never made it there.

Why’d the plane crash?  Well, if you figure it out, please tell us. Nobody's quite sure - at first, it was thought to be a technical error. But then the airline went, “Nope.” They said that the cause couldn’t have been a technical or human error. Once they learned that the plane broke up into pieces in midair, they narrowed their options down a bit. Next, they considered the idea that an “external force” could have caused the crash - but they weren’t really sure what that “external force” could be. We then thought it might be a bomb.  As soon as we said that, ISIS basically told us, “Yeah, it was us.” Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t explain how they did it. There’s still some controversy on the subject, but most think that a bomb brought the plane down.

Who is “They” anyways?  For one, you’ve got the airline officials, who are the ones telling us that it couldn’t have been a tech problem. Then you have your “U.S. Intelligence” (I’m guessing they’re in the new James Bond movie), who say, “Yup, definitely a bomb.” Egyptian authorities aren’t very confident about the whole bomb idea. Each group seems to think something different.

The glance? Nobody agrees with anyone else, nobody knows what caused the plane to break apart in midair, and everybody is afraid that we won’t be able to stop this from happening again.

The Week of 11/1 in a Glance

Hello everyone! Hope you had a great Halloween and end to Quarter 1.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to comment!

Turkish Elections

By Maddy Art

While we just had election day here in the United States on Tuesday, Turkey also had a big day in the voting booths. So there’s a political group in Turkey called AKP (a democratic party) that has been in control for 13 years. But Turkey had another election earlier this year, which resulted in less power for AKP (led by President Erdogan). So what’s the big deal? Well, after being in control for so long, a vote like that hurts. Especially because Erdogan was trying to get himself more power, not less! But on Sunday more elections were held, and Erdogan and the AKP is once again in control. About 50% of votes went to them - an astoundingly high number. Many are saying that this is because Erdogan is confident in his ability to protect Turkey against groups like ISIS, and protection could be just what the Turkish citizens want and need.

China’s One Child Policy Removed

By Owen Tucker-Smith

Once Deng Xiaoping said that China needed to make sure that “the fruits of economic growth are not devoured by population growth.” On Thursday, October 29th, The Chinese Communist Party took a turn in the opposite direction, removing China’s One-Child Policy. Families in China can now have two children.

What is the “One-Child Policy?”

Pretty much what it sounds like. In the 1970s, a Chinese leader named Deng Xiaoping implanted a policy that families in China couldn’t have more that one child. This was so that China’s population could be controlled. The One-Child Policy was not removed, but thinned, in 2013. The 2013 policy added the exception that two kids were allowed if at least one parent was an only child. And now the policy has been demolished. So now is every family taking advantage of this removal by having kids? Not really...

Why?    

Its expensive! Having one child in China can be hard enough, but a second... many families couldn’t support it. This is the reasoning behind many couples’ inactivity after the removal of the policy. The same thing happened in 2013 when the policy was lowered. Many people were eligible for a second child, but only about 1.45 million applications were received by May. That’s a lot, isn’t it? No. A lot of people live in China. 1.45 million was twelve percent of the amount of people eligible. So now they have made the policy non existent. The birth rates will certainly go up, but we do not know how much they will go up.

Good or Bad?   

Even if many citizens are not taking advantage of the policy removal, many agree that the One-Child policy was a violation of “reproductive rights.” Also when the policy was active there were harsh penalties, such as forced abortions, for violators of the rule, which was a source of problem. It was thought that if the policy was removed China’s economy would improve because there would be a lot of youth that would be able to work later on. Many people think that a burst of children is exactly what China needs. This plan would take a while to start working, but it could improve the economy later in time.

Reference 1: Buckley, Chris. "China Ends One-Child Policy, Allowing Families Two Children." The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Oct. 2015. Web. 04 Nov. 2015.

You Might Not Be Able to Buy That Tent You Want

By Rose Gotlieb

Black Friday - the favorite holiday of the clothes-addicts and shop-o-holics. No doubt you're already gathering your extra change so you can hit the stores - maybe you've started camping out at the mall entrance already. I mean, it's less than a month away.

But one store is preparing for the day a little bit differently. REI, an outdoor-action-sports retailer, is telling its staff to 'take a hike' on Black Friday and spend some time with their families. Smart move? Who knows. But the workers are certainly pleased.

An Update on the Polls

We also thought that this week we would share the current election polls... (source: Huffington Post Pollster)

Republican (top 10)

• 1.  Donald Trump 28.0%
• 2. Ben Carson 22.3%
• 3. Marco Rubio 10.2%
• 4. Ted Cruz 8.5%
• 5. Jeb Bush 7.1%
• 6. Carly Fiorina 3.3%
• 7. John Kasich 2.8%
• 8. Chris Christie 2.6%
• 9. Rand Paul 2.6%
• 10. Mike Huckabee 2.5

Democratic

• 1. Hillary Clinton 56.4%
• 2. Bernie Sanders 31.1%
• 3. Martin O'Malley 2.0%