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Some simple math shows that the school district will be dishing out
$50,000 for the high school band program, not to mention possibly
raising taxes, according to audit predictions.
I say this because, although the purchase of band uniforms alone will
not cause taxes to go up, such spending practices might.
However, quite the advocate for any band program, I think getting new
uniforms for band students is great.
Band students have been wearing the band uniforms we wore when I was in
high school. And let me tell you, those suckers were hard to keep clean.
As drum major for two years I remember giving a good number of band
members after-show detention for having a dirty uniform. Band students
that wore dirty uniforms to football game shows were asked to join me,
the other drum major and the directors in the band hall after the game
and stand at attention for 20 minutes. If looks could kill, I wouldn't
be here writing this column.
The pants were white in the front and purple in the back. They created
some really neat visual effects on the field, but up close, the visual
effect was marred.
The white of the uniforms by now is probably a nice eggshell or cream
color.
Anyhow during Thursday's meeting, Head Band Director Steven Clary was
asked if he had in place a policy for the return and care of the
uniforms. He assured the board that he did.
That's good and all, but I don't think that it's the school's
responsibility to see to it that the uniforms get back to them. It is
their property loaned out to students who voluntarily participate in the
band program.
I remember as a freshman I had to walk to the cleaners from my house
and back before a football game if I wanted to have a nice clean
uniform. I did it because I didn't want after-show detention.
At an early age I realized if I wanted to be in band the uniform was my
responsibility.
Once in high school, I think students are old enough to be held
accountable for damage or the loss of school property. Of course this
will more often than not fall back on parents.
Anyhow, the new uniforms have purple slacks and should prove easier to
keep clean, or at least give that impression. They have fewer pieces
than the former uniforms and should be easier to keep track of.
I hope the students realize that these purchases are made to help them
better represent the school and wear them proudly.
Clary noted that band directors took into consideration the drop-out
rate of band students from 8th grade into high school and chose to order
only 200 uniforms.
I have to say that band is an excellent program to build the self
esteem, sense of responsibility and congeniality of any student and, and
I wish that more students would take advantage of it.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Mari Maldonado is an Enterprise reporter and La Voz de la
Gente editor whose column appears each Monday.
This may of course be so, and, whether it is or not, a certain amount
of awe is in order at the breaking of so long-standing and symbolic a
scientific barrier as the replication of genetic identity. But it's far
from obvious that the loss of that barrier must inevitably take us to a
place where the issues are unreachable by the tools of morality and
common sense.
... The most common fears ... are that people would clone themselves or
others in multiple for ghastly purposes such as organ replenishment and
that people would clone themselves directly rather than have children
out of a desire for immortality or a pure excess of ego. ...
The process involved in the sheep cloning by definition involved no new
embryos ... but ``only'' doctored elements from the cell material of two
different female sheep and the surrogate womb of a third. Technically,
scientifically, this feat is amazing enough. It's important that we not
allow the amazement and the novelty to obscure those ethical landmarks
that we already have.
-- The Washington Post
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Materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for
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_
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