I’ve been a long-time enjoyer of history, and working in the archives lets me see anew the storied halls of IHS straight from the students who have come before us. They allow us to experience the world as they did, through their minds and ideas that survive long after they have graduated. Please, above all else, enjoy!
Note: Opinions expressed in the following excerpts do not necessarily reflect the current views of The Tattler or its Editorial Board.
April 2004
Another Dead Guy on a Cross: Review of The Passion of the Christ
By ABE HALPERT ’05
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ hit the box office with roaring success after it opened on Wednesday, February 25. It grossed 212 million dollars by its 12th day of release, due to the huge controversy (and thereby huge free publicity) generated by the movie. The film attempts to accurately and realistically portray the last hours of Jesus Christ (that is, the moments leading up to his crucifixion), as told in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Because it covers such a “hot topic,” and because it has been alleged to be anti-Semitic, it has created something of a media uproar.
So naturally I, being the controversy-seeking, young upstart that I am, couldn’t wait to see this movie. And I was supremely disappointed. I gathered from the Hebrew and Latin I heard in the movie (Gibson wanted the characters to speak the languages they would have historically spoken, so the movie is subtitled and mainly in Aramaic), the language was done quite well. But however that facet may have spoken for the film’s historical accuracy, I couldn’t help but notice a glaring and omnipresent inconsistency: the complexion of the actors. Although Jesus and his cronies lived in the Fertile Crescent and most likely were black, all of the actors in the movie are as pale as the moon, lending the film that Caucasian- and Western-oriented tilt that strips all the realism away for the viewer.
And I was expecting some anti-Semitism to be enraged at, but I was disappointed in that area as well. Although it was the Jewish rabbis and leaders that ruthlessly and unrelentingly cried for the crucifixion of Christ, and it was a horde of young Jewish boys that served the devil by stalking the traitorous Judas and driving him to suicide, there were one of two Jewish rabbis who denounced the actions of their comrades and there was a Jew who helped Jesus carry the burden of his cross and then proclaimed him innocent, which I think partially atones for the “evil” actions of the rest of the Jewish population, and should discredit and allegations concerning the film’s anti-Semitism.
What I was upset by was the violence. While, in general, I enjoy a good cinematic bloodshed as much as the next man, this movie just went too far. It was absurdly disgusting. A film about a man who should be filling me with love and goodwill only made me want to vomit. Among its gory highlights are when a crow pecks a crucified criminal’s eye out, when blood spurts up like a geyser from the palm of Jesus as they nail his hand to the cross, and especially when Christ is whipped with a cat-o-nine tails which has sharp rocks on the ends, and the tips get embedded in his back, at which point his punisher jerks the whip out, spraying a small crowd of jeering Roman soldiers with flecks of blood and flesh. This is not a family movie.
From a religious point of view, this movie was stale. It contributed nothing new to the discussion and didn’t even spread the message of Christ in the slightest. I didn’t leave the theater wanting to hug my companion, or even reflecting on Jesus’s message. Instead, all I could think about was how much it would hurt to see a crown of thorns pressed into my forehead.
From an artistic point of view, this film is a flop. The acting was on the fair to pretty good side, but the movie was entirely centered on visual effects. It is closest akin to a stained glass in a church, designed to impress the viewer with its majesty. The overuse of drawn out, slow-motion sequences and the excessive use of violence only served to bore and disgust me. And in regards to the subject matter, anyone who has ever been through a Renaissance art museum will know how it feels to be about ready to scream when they see another rendering of a dead guy on a cross. Of course there’s nothing new, and absolutely no suspense in the story. (Unless of course you’re my little brother, who, when he was eight, remarked at the end of Jesus Christ Superstar, “Jesus dies? That sucks!”)
So if you’re looking for anti-Semitism, take a look at Gibson’s life and not his work. If you’re looking for the story of Christ or religious inspiration, read the Bible. If you’re looking for beautiful art featuring the Son of God, go to Rome. If you’re looking for blood, guts, and gore, see Braveheart. If you’re looking for an enjoyable piece of cinema, rent Lost in Translation. But believe me, you don’t need to go to this movie.
March 1940 Literary Supplement
Understanding
By MARY ROTUNNO
If I knew the heart of you,
And you the soul of me,
We’d laugh and cry together
As friendly as could be;
And never would we lose our faith,
Though near or far apart,
If I only knew the soul of you
And you could read my heart.
April 2018
Colonizing Candidates: Titan
Could Titan be our next home?
By AIDAN FOLEY
With all of the recent excitement surrounding SpaceX and its proposition to colonize Mars, it’s a good time to take a step back and consider the circumstances. Although Mars has the potential for colonization and human habitation, there are several other available alternatives.
One astronomical body that may not immediately come to mind is Titan, the sixth moon of Saturn. The surface temperatures of Titan can reach -300 degrees Fahrenheit, and the surface gravity is around 0.14g (0.14 times the gravity of Earth). At first glance, Titian probably does not seem ideal for long or even short-term human habitation. However, one of its key advantages is its thick atmosphere, which is around 1.45 times thicker than that of Earth’s 1 atmosphere (1 atm). Coparted to options like Mars (0.006 atm), the Moon (no atmosphere), and Europa (9.87 x 10-14 atm), this is extraordinarily similar to that of Earth.
Having a thicker atmosphere than other alternatives provides numerous advantages to colonizing Titan, an important one being increased protection from radiation. Around gas giants such as Saturn, radiation is more intense due to the planet’s massive gravitational field. Such high levels of radiation can disrupt communications and electronics, as well as potentially leading to negative short- and long-term effects on the human body, including radiation sickness and cancer. Earth’s thick atmosphere blocks most dangerous radiation from the sun, allowing us to live relatively protected. Titan has the same advantage with an even thicker atmosphere, which would allow us to live with extreme radiation protection.
The other main advantage of such a thick atmosphere is that EVA (Extravehicular Activity) suits wouldn’t have to be pressurized, and would only have to include insulation and an oxygen supply. Overall, Titan’s environment would facilitate an easy process of preparing to send bodies into space. Habitation structures could also be relatively unpressurized, allowing them to be lighter and easier to construct.
Titan also has lakes and seas, which are comprised of methane and ethane. Both of these chemicals can be used in rocket fuel, which, combined with the low gravity, would allow for easy launches of ships for transport or other purposes. The fuel produced can also be used in fuel cells, which would be a continent source of energy for the inhabitants of the moon, as the thick atmosphere and distance from the sun would make solar panels an impractical energy option on Titan’s surface. Methane could also help produce plastic, which would be used for unpressured living environments on the surface.
However, there are some downsides to colonizing Titan. The trip to Titan is extremely long, as Saturn is the third farthest planet from the Sun. With today’s technology, it is estimated that it would take at least six years for humans to reach. This prolonged journey would cause the astronauts to be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, as well as prolonged subjection to microgravity, which causes long-term bone degeneration. That being said, the medical effects of life outside of Earth are still largely unresearched, and before colonizing space, intensive medical studies must be conducted to determine causes and cures to ailments caused by different atmospheric conditions. There is also a much longer communication delay due to the speed of light and the immense distance between Earth and Saturn. This could potentially be dangerous for those making the journey, as their contact with those back on Earth could be lost.
Overall, there are benefits and disadvantages, as with every planet, to traveling to and colonizing Titan. In the past, several of NASA’s missions have passed by Titan, including the Cassini-Huygens probe, but missions must be designated with the specific intent of researching Titan. A proposed mission to the surface is being considered for 2025, to be launched on the in-development Space Launch System. Hopefully, researchers will learn more about this moon, because it remains a prime option as we extend our reach across the solar system.
April 1996
Book Reviews
By LINNEA HARTSUYKER ’96
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
This is a twisted psychological mystery/thriller which begins with the murder and leaves the reader to discover why it was committed in the first place. The Secret History is set at Hampden College and told through the eyes of a lower middle-class student from California. He wants to be a Classics scholar, but in order to do so he must enter into an elite group of only five Classics students on campus. As part of their tight knit clique he becomes aware of tensions that revolve around the bloody outcome of a brutal revival of a Dionysian ritual. This is a creepy and well-written book and may make you scared to go to college anywhere in New England.
On A Pale Horse by Piers Anthony
Imagine a world where Death personified rides through the streets on his pale horse, Mortis (or pale sedan with vanity plate Mortis) and collects the souls of the dying who are in balance between good and evil. In Piers Anthony’s odd world, both science and magic are used for personal convenience; there are both cars and flying carpets. In this world the destitute young man named Zane has a rendezvous with death; as he is about to commit suicide death appears and, instead of killing himself, Zane kills Death. He is then forced to assume Death’s position, taking souls all around the world. He soon begins to realize the circumstances are not mere chance but caused by the machinations of Fate, Time, War, Nature and a Magician whose daughter is destined to save the world from Satan. On A Pale Horse is the first in a seven book series by Piers Anthony called The Incarnations of Immortality. Though the whole series tends to bog one down, this book is quite good.
Sati by Christopher Pike
This is not the average Christopher Pike. There are no teenage vampires, aliens, nor time travelers. There are no vengeful ghosts of murdered Prom Queens. This book is absolutely different from everything else that Christopher Pike has written. It is about a girl named Sati who enters the life of a truck driver in his thirties and changes his life and the lives of all who meet her. Sati says she is God. She has a pleasant philosophy and a peaceful nature that makes everyone who meets her want to rethink his life and redesign it to become Happy. Although this book is cheesy in some ways, it is well worth reading for a new vision of the purpose of life.
April 2001
The Story Behind Lorem Ipsum
By EVAN WILLIAMS ’04
Lorem ipsum, or lorem ipsum dolor, is the first part of a nonsense paragraph generally used to demonstrate a font or as a placeholder in layout. Example: You’re about to write an essay on the habits of the pygmy marmoset, and you want to see how it would look if it were in columns, but you don’t have anything written yet. So, you just type a paragraph of lorem ipsum and experiment with that text first, until you have something more germane written. It is roughly analogous to, “blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.” I’m sure you have used that before. Lorem ipsum, however, is a much classier way to type a lot of nonsense.
Lorem ipsum is Latin, and it comes from Cicero’s book de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, which beings “Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sitamet, consectetur, adipisci velit…” meaning “There is no on who lives pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain.” This book, written in 45 BC, was an early treatise on the theory of ethics that became very popular during the Renaissance. This snippet of Cicero has been used as dummy text in the printing industry since the 1500’s, when someone used this passage in a typeset booklet. The more it was used, however, the more jumbled it became. “Dolorem ipsum” (Pain itself) became “lorem ipsum”, and the rest of the Latin text became less and less Latin and more and more gobbledygook through the ages. By the way, know someone named Dolly or Dolores? Their name came from “dolorem.” Now a complete paragraph of lorem ipsum looks something like this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ulliam corper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem veleum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel willum lunombro dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
All of you Latin speakers out there can see that it is vernacularly far from perfect, as many of these words don’t exist in Latin at all (nonummy, zzril, nibh, etc.). There exist, of course, infinite versions of lorem ipsum, and the example above is much closer to the original Latin than many you will see. Some other versions I have seen include the following non-Latin words and phrases: “scannow,” “lookum like Greek to me,” “IdfoBraid,” “makes one wonder who wouldever read this stuff?,” “Piy opher hawers,” “[censored by the administration],” “eit yaggles orn ti sumbloat alohe plok.” “Su havo loasor cakso tgu pwuructs tyu,” “swipontgwook,” “Spraadshaag,” and “UCU-TGU.” As you can see, many people have taken grave liberties with the original Latin passage. Some people, in fact, have abandoned Latin altogether and just sat on their keyboard.
Lorem ipsum is one of society’s greatest inventions. It is a creative way to type a load of baloney that has fascinating historical connections. From the layout perspective, it is better to use lorem ipsum instead of “a, b, c, 1, 2, 3, a, b, c, 1, 2, 3” or “blah blah blah blah”, because it has a more distribution of ascenders, descenders, and word lengths. So—where can you find lorem ipsum? Type in “lorem ipsum” in a search engine and you’re bound to find scores pf websites without any content yet, including a website titled “This is the life of an albino giraffe.” PagerMaker™ and Microsoft PowerPoint™, as well as several other computer programs, demonstrate different layout styles with lorem ipsum. It’s the hippest, hottest way to take up space. It has the appearance of an intelligent Latin idiom but requires the brainpower of a sea monkey. Give it a try!
April 1898
Note: While this article addresses the notion of “the Cuban question,” the Platt Amendment, which guaranteed that Cuba could not be colonized by the U.S., was passed later, in May of 1903.
Our Foreign Relations
On the morning of April 12th, President Robert Ellis Jones of Hobart College addressed the students of the High School on the subject of Our Foreign Relations. Prof. Jones is a pleasant and interesting speaker and began by saying the above subject does not mean the Cuban question. He discussed the question from a general standpoint showing very plainly the need of, and what constitutes, a nation’s foreign policy.
There is no time when intelligence and self control are so much needed as in time of war. It is wonderful how the American leaders have manifested the quality of self control in the late trouble and now would be the worst time to abandon it.
Washington in his farewell address warned us to avoid entanglements with Europe. He saw that siding with France would ruin us by bringing us again under the subjection of England. There is one warning which Washington gave us which has been disregarded; that was to always be prepared for war as the best means of preserving peace. If that warning had been regarded, we would not have the present European difficulty. There is one way in which the Cuban trouble has done good and that is by showing the United States the necessity of always being prepared for war.
Then comes the question, Is Washington’s advice suited to our present condition? At the time of Washington’s farewell address the country was politically and commercially weak; we were a month away from Europe; our commerce was self included and we were an underdeveloped, emotional, and sentimental people. Washington intended to give this nation time to develop her individuality, hence his advice, not to join hands with France. At the beginning of this century Europe was engaged in internal warfare and was not colonizing to any extent, because her entire force was needed at home.
Now the situation has changed; war has ceased; there is a vast output of manufactures and South Africa has been colonized within the last twenty years, and foreign powers are coming near to us, casting longing eyes on South America.
We are at the beginning of a new era in history. If Washington were here now, he would advise us to maintain our place among the nations of the world. We are no longer able to consume all of our productions as we were in Washington’s time, but are compelled to seek a market outside of our own borders.
The foreign policy of any country is determined by the economic needs of that country. The nature of such a policy depends upon its position, nature of frontier, its power and means of defense and its commercial interests. We have the greatest seaboard of any country in the world and our need is a great outside market. Washington said, “Cultivate commercial relations but avoid those political.” This is not possible now. The connecting link between our need of a market and our naval position is a strong merchant marine to carry on foreign commerce, which calls for navies and coaling stations for the maintenance and protection of our ships.
We have always had trouble with Spain because we have never had sufficient navy to protect our vessels.
The time was when war was political but it is now commercial. A nation establishes a trading post and then raises her flag and other nations think the matter over before they interfere.
Another feature, which figures largely in our foreign policy, is Protection plus the Monroe Doctrine. Europe is overcrowded and needs outside territory, but she should not establish political governments of the old world in countries like South Africa which have a right to self development. Mexico thirty years ago was as barbarous as any South American country to-day.
We are in a complicated position in regard to Cuba, but since we have given the warning, we must take our position and not shrink from moral responsibility.
It was a great privilege to listen to Professor Jones and he will always be a welcome visitor at the I.H.S.
C.E.S