Memorial Day in L.A.

Posted on May 29, 2018 by Tais Borges do Carmo in Announcements

Reported by Tais Borges

Another Memorial Day weekend has arrived. This means the beginning of summer, hot weather, spending time with family, and dedicating this specific day to those brave soldiers who died in military service. The first celebration in 1868 was known as Decoration Day, because the graves of the lost soldiers would be decorated with flowers. As of 1967, the date has become known as Memorial Day. The importance remains of this date’s celebration, especially in such a large city. Los Angeles’ citizens can find several events to attend, including parades and ceremonies on this Monday.

In Hollywood, a retired U.S. Army Captain will speak at an event at Forest Lawn in Hollywood Hills starting at 10 a.m.

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was built in 1923 to honor the 23,000 soldiers who served in World War I. They will hold a ceremony as they do almost every year, at noon. This will consist of patriotic music, an honor guard presentation, and the lighting of the stadium torch.

In Inglewood, the population will gather for speeches, a colors presentation, and a flag ceremony. It will be held at Memorial Obelisk Monument starting at 11 a.m.

Long Beach has the name of roughly 7,000 members of armed services who have died since Sept. 11, 2001 inscribed on Honoring Our Fallen Memorial Wall at Rosie the Riveter Park. Starting at 5:45 a.m., people will gather to read the names of those brave lives that have been sacrificed.

What you can do to help the L.A. homelessness crisis

Posted on April 9, 2018 by Tais Borges do Carmo in Features

Tais Borges

Chronicle Reporter

Source: http://highschool.latimes.com

The reality is that the number of homeless people in our city affects all of Los Angeles’ citizens. As Hollywood students/residents – which has one of the biggest homeless populations in L.A. – we should be concerned.

Since 2010, the homelessness index has increased more than 75%, meaning that there are roughly 22,000 more people in the streets now. According to the L.A. Times, this number jumps to 25,000 if we include Glendale, Pasadena, and Long Beach.

It has become common to see unsheltered people looking for a place to sleep in the bus or metro, often being removed by the police. Citizens who otherwise live in respectable residential areas may find themselves running into homeless communities (sidewalks or streets lined with tents, mattresses, and cardboard) that smell like human feces and rotting food. Downtown is an excellent example of these unhygienic communities. This experience is never pleasant and one may come to the realization that humans should never be living in these conditions, even if they cannot afford to obtain a home.

The current growing homeless population can be very difficult to combat because of the limited number of government-provided support, which includes shelters, food-providing programs, and housing support. Sadly, charity-run organizations, although helpful, cannot solve this issue alone.

As concerned members of the community, our students should be willing to show their support of crowds escaping homelessness. A great opportunity to help is by donating clothes directly to homeless institutions or donating your time. At Blessed Sacrament Church (6615 W Sunset Blvd), located three blocks from Hollywood High School, they offer this donation service. Every Saturday morning the church’s staff and volunteers make food baskets and donate whatever they can to homeless crowds. It is rewarding to be able to help those in need, especially when their faces light up, realizing they are going to have a full meal that night. Students can even complete their volunteer hours, which are part of the graduation requirements. Help yourself by helping your community.

A Solution to Water Pollution

Posted on March 2, 2018 by Tais Borges do Carmo in Features

Tais Borges

Chronicle Reporter

“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.” That is a quote by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, a French naval officer and ecologist, who closely studied the sea. Sadly, this is the human population’s fault, but may be also be answered by one of the human race’s creations: technology.

Santa Monica beach pollution is shown.

For millions of years, planet Earth’s water has been going through constant transformations, it is renewed and reutilized. One of the main transformations water has gone through the past few centuries is the growing problem of contamination, which is something that especially affects coastal areas and large cities, which we can call urban environments. Among the main factors that contribute to this problem, a few are: the launching of domestic sewage and industrial effluents into bodies of water, uncontrolled urbanization, agricultural and mining activities, pollutants present in the atmosphere carried by rain, climate change, among other factors that put the existence of water for consumption on Earth in a dangerous zone.

According to the United Nations (UN) report released on March 12, during the 6th World Water Forum, 80% of the wastewater is not collected or treated and is deposited with other bodies of water or infiltrated underground, resulting in in health problems to the population, as well as damage to the environment.Therefore, one assumes water must be manipulated with rationality and precaution, but the preservation of water resources on the planet is still compromised.

The main source of pollution of surface water bodies is untreated domestic sewage.As for aquifers, besides the waste applied to the soil, we have domestic sewage that is infiltrated and agricultural activity that can also contaminate groundwater by applying organic and inorganic products directly to the soil. Human actions generate several pollutants, which can be divided into large groups according to their composition and their impacts on water bodies. These large groups are:

– Biodegradable organic material: (domestic sewage) in its decomposition process leads to the fusion of dissolved oxygen from the water, which can cause fish mortalities;

– Nutrients: (phosphorus and nitrogen present in sewage and fertilizer), when in high concentrations can cause excessive proliferation of algae;

– Pathogenic organisms: (viruses and bacteria present in domestic sewage) cause waterborne diseases;

– Organic and inorganic chemicals: (pesticides and metals) cause a toxic effect on aquatic organisms and can accumulate in their tissues;

– Solids in suspension: (sediments generated by erosion) increase the turbidity of water affecting aquatic organisms and causing clogging of the body of water;

– Thermal pollution: (release of water used in cooling systems) causes the temperature of the river water to rise, which affects the solubility of oxygen, decreases its concentration and impacts aquatic organisms.

The changes in water quality have economic repercussions that translate into increased hospital costs with hospitalizations related to waterborne diseases, increased costs of treatment of water for domestic supply and industrial use, loss of water productivity in agriculture and livestock, reduction of fishing and biodiversity and loss of tourism, cultural and landscape values ​​related to water.

The solution to such a big dilemma may be technology. Currently the monitoring of water quality can be performed through high-tech equipment, capable of measuring the most diverse parameters of surface and groundwater. For this function, the company Aquaread offers multiphase probes, capable of identifying temperature, turbidity, atmospheric pressure, dissolved oxygen in mg/l, total dissolved solids, salinity, pH, latitude, longitude, altitude and depth, among others. Aquaread probes have the function of measuring water quality in real time, and the Ag Solve logger

allows data storage and pre-treatment, validation and transmission by cellular, radio or satellite to a database for real-time or future analysis. This may be the answer to our worries about future generations and the water they need to survive.

Hollywood’s Students Are Excited For The 2018 Winter Olympics

Posted on February 9, 2018 by Tais Borges do Carmo in News

Tais Borges do Carmo

Chronicle Reporter

Today, Feb. 9, marks the beginning of the Winter Olympics, which are taking place in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Although this is on the other side of the world, our students have several opinions on what will happen. The opening ceremony is today, and you can watch it from the comfort of your home on NBC at 8pm ET.

Our students have a lot to say about the Winter Olympics. While some students are enthusiastic about specific sports, they may also look forward to seeing their favorite athletes in action, and others may be more excited for the artistic aspects of the ceremony.

“I’m excited for the figure skating segment because it’s very beautiful and intricate,” quotes Angela Friedman.

A snowboarding enthusiast, Edin Mollaquke, states: “I want to see if Shaun White will get another gold medal in snowboarding.”

This may also be considered a political topic, because North Korea and South Korea, two countries which have been known to have a lot of political tension and clash of ideals, will walk in together, which may even signify beginning of a peaceful relationship between those countries. It will be an event to remember.

(Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)