Dear Howard Middle School Students, 

I’m asking for your creative work, poems or stories to be submitted  for the Howard Hype online newspaper.Please make sure that your work is legible and that the material is appropriate for a school setting. If you would like any pictures to be attached to your work, please notify me and I will look for one that matches the theme of your work. Or if you choose, you can submit a picture to me that you have taken during your own free time. If you are interested in participating, please come to MS.Sfalanga’s room during 7th period during the entire month of January with your poems stories and a picture ideas.

 Thank you,

 - Fitzroya Nugent

If  you come to school out of dress code, do you try to call someone to bring  you clothes, or do you just hide out for the day?

Harrison says:“It depends on the violation of dress code, if it’s something that can be fixed by putting on a jacket or another shirt, I’d just bug my friends for some clothes. Otherwise, just continue on with your day as well as you can.”

Alexis says: “Well I’ve come to school not realizing that I have  flip flops on, until I get out of the car . I just go through the day as if I have on regular shoes.”

Your best friend is in a fight. Do you tell an administrator, jump in, or  just pull them out?

Harrison says:“Administrators can only do so much if they aren’t very close, people can hurt each other whether or not an admin breaks it apart after most of it is over. Jumping in could protect your friend, but hurt whoever is at the other end. The only reasonable action would be to pull them out and keep them away from the other person, protecting you, your friend, and whoever they’re fighting with.”

Alexis says: “Well if one of my friends is fighting what I would do all depends on who they fighting with.  If they’re fighting someone I don’t like I might get a little tempted but I’ll contain myself and pull her off.”

I’ve been an only child for 12 years and I just found out my mom is pregnant, how would you deal with this?

Harrison says:“It can be hard to take not being the only child in your parent’s life: less attention, less money to spend, the whole 9 yards. The best thing do to in my opinion would be to talk to someone and express yourself. You may find that it’s a lot easier to take when you have all your cards on the table.

Alexis says: “I wouldn’t really know how to answer that question because I’m the last child. But when my sister got pregnant, our relationship went south because I was upset that she would ever try to have another “me”. But I shouldn’t have thought like that, I should have cared more about her situation and that is what you should do.”

 As a fun fact: there is a type of duct tape used on planes. 

Now, when I say the word “plane”, the first thing that probably pops into your mind is, American Airlines and huge cargo planes.  However, the type of planes that I’m talking about, are very small planes such as 172’s and 206’s; planes with 1 or 2 engines.  To give you a better idea of what I’m talking about, cargo planes have about 6 engines.  So, the small planes are about 1/3 of the size of cargo planes.  Below are some (humorous and rather interestingly frightening) potential uses for the airplane duct tape:

 1. If there is a hole in one of the seats, repair it with some duct tape.

2. If the seatbelt breaks, fix it with some duct tape.

3. If your head set snaps in half put it back together with some duct tape.

4. If a wing breaks off, use some duct tape to re-attach it.

5. If a wheel falls off, put it back on using some duct tape.

6. If a propeller partially falls off and doesn’t break, fix it with some duct tape.

7. If your propeller completely falls of f but doesn’t break, put it back on using some duct tape.

8. If your propeller completely falls off and breaks, build a new one with some duct tape.

9. If your plane falls, breaks into two pieces, use a lot of duct tape to put it back together.

10. If you try to go flying and find that: there is a penny sized hole in the pilot’s seat, your head set snapped in half, and your seat belt is brokenand you try to go on flying… but when you start the engine, the propeller starts spinning crazily, flies off, slicing off one of the planes wings, taking out the wheels, cutting your plane in half, and chopping into a nearby propane tank and causing a large explosion… fix the penny sized hole in the pilots seat and go get a churro.

-Sam H.

On a Wednesday afternoon November 27, 2009, Tiger Woods slammed his SUV into a tree. Simple enough right?  Swerve, hit a fire hydrant, then crash into a tree?  Perhaps it was bad judgment, or maybe some sort of drug that made him pass out after the damage.  No major harm, no major foul, right? Wrong!

 Apparently all the media attention has shown light on some… ‘inappropriate actions’ of our Golfer’s past.  Nine current mistresses have been named by their own admissions, the media, or both.  From a Pancake House waitress to a club manager, Tiger has been put in an awkward situation, to say the least.

   On November 29, 2009, Maurice Clemmons walked into a coffee shop in Seattle, Washington and proceeded to shoot four police officers in the head.  Before we go any further, let’s go back about 24 hours.  

Maurice decided to call a friend of his.  In this phone call, he basically said, “Tomorrow, I’m going to shoot a cop.”  Sadly, this friend didn’t tell anyone about this phone call because he was afraid to snitch on his friend. 

   Now we are back to where we started.  After executing the four officers, Maurice Clemmons was shot in the abdomen.  Clemmons escaped and was being helped by his friends and family.  Finally the police got a lead as to where Clemmons was, leading to him being found, and eventually gunned down by a police officer. 

Four of Clemmon’s family members have been charged with first degree rendering criminal assistance,which is basically, helping out a criminal.

   There is a fine line for when it’s good or bad to snitch.  If you “tattle tale” on someone, well, ‘like bringing rainbow bread to school…you’re going to get beat up.  However, in this case, it’s not snitching.  If this friend of Clemmons would have told somebody else about the phone call, five people would be alive and there would be no charges against the family members.  There is a fine line between a rainbow bread beat down and four police officers dead in a coffee shop.

- Sam H.

          The Yearbook Staff needs your help!  We need to know your favorite things to put in the boys and girls page(s) in the yearbook.  If your favorite is picked then it will be added to the “favorites” column in the yearbook! The boy’s favorites categories will be your favorite musician, college, athlete and TV show.  The girl’s favorites categories will be your favorite musician, TV show, something you always have on you and what you do for fun.

          Click the link posted below and it will take you to the boys or girls survey:                                                      

Boys:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LSYMHTT

Girls:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TZFCWZ5

Voting ends this Sunday- 01/17, so vote now!!!!

   -Billy F.

During this Winter break I went to P.F. Changs….twice. But it was a great experience.  To start off, free appetizers and we only got these because of the thirty minute wait, but it was totally worth it. We got lettuce wraps which were good for a guy that likes chicken infused with vegetables.

But the main course was fantastic, Changs’ Spicy Chicken (above) was one of my most favorite dishes. Turns out though that it’s as spicy as ice.  Seriously its just plain sweet, nothing more, buts that’s why its good. Other favorites include the brown rice (excellent) and Doli Chicken (below).

Overall this place is freakin’ awsome. Seriously, I don’t even really like Chinese food, but I won’t lie about it.

You can find more at P.F. Changs.com

Five stars by Alex V.

   Fox and Brighthouse recently got into a dispute over money, basically Fox wanted more of it. Fox was threatening to remove their channels from all Brighthouse users.  Brighthouse didn’t want to give Fox the extra money because they didn’t see a reason why Fox needed it.  Eventually, Fox gave up because it was a lose-lose situation.  If Fox pulled their channels from Brighthouse cable, they would lose over 800,000 viewers in Orlando alone.  So, the only way to win would have been for Brighthouse to give Fox the money, which they obviously were’nt going to do. 

   Fox is very powerful in the cable industry.  They have many popular shows such as House, The Simpsons, American Idol, and Glee.  Those are probobly the most popular shows on T.V.  Not only that, Fox owns many other channels like FX, The Speed Network, Fox Sports Network, and Sun Sports Network. 

   Honestly, I think this was a publicity stunt.  It wasn’t  just publicity for Fox, but in a way, it was for Brighthouse too.  I was really not worried about it very much.  If memory serves me right, many channels such as Nickalodeon did this same thing in 2008.  I’ve really lost a lot of respect for Fox.  If your going to create a publicity stunt, at least do something original and that doesn’t make you look like greedy idiots.