Changing Times at The CBA Press

Attention Readers:

The CBA Press has officially changed its site, instead of posting on this blogger account we will be posting all new material to our wordpress. It can be accessed Here. Thank you for reading and supporting the CBA Press.

Best,
The CBA Press Staff

Spooky Stories By the Students

How to Dispose of an Old Rug

"I finally found what I was looking for, a patch of dirt about 36 inches wide and 8 feet long. I began digging there until I was, give or take 6 feet deep or at least till i hit something hard like I don't know a coffin shaped rock. I then went back to my car to fetch my… “Rug.” It was hard to lug that thing back to my hole, the rug weighed about the same as a piece of human garbage. I laid the rug down next to the gra- I mean... hole and kicked it in. I then pushed the dirt back in the hole and wandered through the graveyard back to my car. Oh man if Steve isn't at work tomorrow he won't get his promotion, to bad he's buried under the responsibility of having a family. He didn’t really have a chance at the promotion Because I... bludgeoned him with my hard work and... rolled him up in a carpet... knitted with my hard work. Man really sorry Steve, will you forgive me… HA JUST KIDDING ha ha you're dead and I'm not la la look whose better than you doot da doop. now I can drive into the sunset… or rise really. Ha ha..suck it Steve." Chase Pelletier 10th Grade

Comic of the Week

Credit: http://lefunny.net/smart-jokes/

Spirit Week: Fall 2017

BY: RAMSEY RICKETTS

CBA PRESS

The first quarter of the Clayton-Bradley 2017-18 school year is coming to a close, and with that comes CBA's Fall Spirit Week. For the last several years Spirit Week themes have been the same throughout upper and lower school. However, this year multiple students have voiced that they would like this to change.

An anonymous upper school student stated, "I think that the High School spirit days should be separate from the Lower School spirit days because typically the days are geared towards lower school students. For example, moustache day last year. None of the high school really participated in that because we're juniors and seniors in high school and we don't really want moustaches on us all day and still have to wear uniform. And then there's Western Wednesday. It goes along with the book fair, so that's a whole section that the high school isn't really a part of. So, I feel like it would be fun to let the high school be more individual from the lower school."

After listening to these concerns, the CBA Press conducted a poll to find out what the upper school thought about the issue. Of those polled, 75% believed that the upper school should have Spirit Week themes separate from the lower school.

While it is clearly too late to change the themes for this quarter, students can still make their opinions known in order to affect change for the future.

Below: Dates and Themes for this years Fall Spirit Week

Comic of The Week

Credit: https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/funny-clever-comics-illustrations-shanghai-tango/

Comic of the Week

                                                            Credit: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ff/40/49/ff40498ec3bd7ce2e5b3b6cbf2576fd8.jpg

Confederate Monuments: Where They Came From and Where They Should Go

BY: CAPTAIN BORING AKA AJ CAMACHO

CBA PRESS

DISCLAIMER: Opinions and statements made in student submitted editorials belong to the boring student who submitted them.

Knoxville Police were prepared for 3,000 protesters on Saturday.

WBIR

Last Saturday there was a gathering of protesters and counter-protesters at a Confederate Monument in Fort Sanders. The monument honoring fallen confederate soldiers was crowded with about three dozen white supremacist protesters and counter protesters. Police Chief David Rausch said Saturday that counter-protesters outnumbered the other side 70-to-1. The rally went peacefully with a large and prepared Knoxville Police keeping the peace at the rally and the white supremacist group that called for the protest completely disbanding. With this, President Trump's recent remarks, and the violence in Charlottesville, I thought it would be best to find the facts and hear the opinions of what should become of these Confederate monuments.

Why Were Confederate Monuments Built?

Let’s begin with an important fact noted by historians: The majority of the memorials seem to have been built with the intention not to honor fallen soldiers, but specifically to further ideals of white supremacy. "Most of the people who were involved in erecting the monuments were not necessarily erecting a monument to the past," said Jane Dailey, an associate professor of history at the University of Chicago. "But were rather, erecting them toward a white supremacist future." According to NPR, “The most recent comprehensive study of Confederate statues and monuments across the country was published by the Southern Poverty Law Center last year. A look at this chart shows huge spikes in construction twice during the 20th century: in the early 1900s, and then again in the 1950s and 60s. Both were times of extreme civil rights tension.”

A portion of the Southern Poverty Law Center's graph showing when Confederate monuments and statues were erected across the country.

Southern Poverty Law Center

W. Fitzhugh Brundage of the University of North Carolina elaborates,

“Some monuments were put up in the first decades after the civil war and I think we could understand those monuments as being simultaneously monuments to the white Confederates who died for the Confederate republic, as well as symbols of grieve and certainly defiance. Those monuments tend to be located in cemeteries and were often put up by small local groups honoring local Confederates who were buried there.

Then, between 1890 and roughly 1930, there was an explosion of Confederate commemoration. And those monuments … that we typically think of … are … monuments to Confederate soldiers [and they are] often depicted in military garb, on top of a pedestal or a column. … Those monuments often include inscriptions which honor not just the Confederate soldiers but the Confederate cause itself.”

James Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association, says that the increase in statues and monuments was clearly meant to send a message. "These statues were meant to create legitimate garb for white supremacy," Grossman said, "Why would you put a statue of Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson in 1948 in Baltimore?”

What Should Become of Confederate Monuments?

Understanding why the monuments were put up, we can now look at a few opinions as to what should become of them. One opinion was expressed by Peniel Joseph of the University of Texas. He says,

“Removing Confederate symbols is not the same as trying to remove the Washington Monument or symbols of Thomas Jefferson. Those founders owned slaves but their ideas about democracy and freedom, they were generative ideas that other groups, including people of color, women, LGBTQ have utilized to perfect the Union …

When we think about the Confederacy, that’s something different. There was a civil war between 1861 and 1865 where over 600,000 people were killed because there was a group that wanted to abandon our founding values of freedom and democracy, and didn’t want to be a part of the United States. So, getting rid of those symbols is really honoring the best of our history and not trying to somehow scrub or efface that history.”

If you’d like, you can go here to see a side-by-side comparison of the CSA and US Constitutions. Another opinion comes from Pierre McGraw of the Monumental Task Committee who says,

“I think anytime that you’re going to try to edit our history, you’re asking for trouble. And monuments do mean different things to different people. But it’s really unfair to judge historical figures by today’s standards.

I think this is all just easy political fodder to go after these monuments. We know now this argument is much larger than that, having seen monuments to Christopher Columbus smashed ... we’ve seen rallies in New Orleans that take down Andrew Jackson, an American president who saved New Orleans. So, this is a lot larger than just the easy targets of Confederate soldiers.”

I thought it would be best to see what some CBA students think, so I contacted two with different opinions. The first student believed that people should see the monuments as representing “Southern Values,” not slavery. He wrote,

“Many of the southern people who support maintaining Confederate Monuments don't wish to honor Confederates because they fought for slavery, they wish to honor people like General Robert E. Lee because of what they represent. In order to understand what they represent it is important to understand  Southern values. Southern people value respect above all else, they believe in holding open doors, saying "please" and "thank you," using coasters, saying "bless you" when someone sneezes, saying "excuse me" when passing by someone, and always using "yes ma'am" and "yes sir," often regardless of age. Many people would disagree with me because "the south showed no respect to slaves" and yes that is certainly true, but neither did the north. General Ulysses S Grant didn't release his slaves till long after General Lee did, the black soldiers fighting for the union were paid less than white soldiers, and often the black soldiers were sent into battle long before the white. We Southerners honor people like General Lee because he was a southern gentleman, a few lines from Ken Burns The Civil War sum up his character "[after the events at appomattox] A crowd of soldiers waited in front of Lee’s tent. "Boys," he told them, "I have done the best I could for you. Go home now, and if you make as good citizens as you have soldiers, you will do well, and I shall always be proud of you. Good-bye, and God bless you all." He turned and disappeared into his tent." There was little animosity between the men who fought each other, they respected each other "and we respected them, as every man must respect those who give all for their beliefs" Oliver Wendell holmes Jr”

Indeed, General Lee did much after the war to try and reunify the country under the Union. So much, in fact, that Lee opposed Confederate monuments. “I think it wiser,” the retired military leader wrote about a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869, “…not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.” Jonathan Horn, the author of the Lee biography The Man Who Would Not Be Washington, said, “It’s often forgotten that Lee himself, after the Civil War, opposed monuments, specifically Confederate war monuments.” However, Lee did not oppose statues of himself or other Confederate citizens, just statues that remembered, honored, or promoted their position in the failed, traitorous Confederacy. The student contributed, “I think it’s okay to build monuments to Southerners who were Confederates, but not to Southerners because they were Confederates.”

A Robert E. Lee statue in New Orleans that was taken down earlier in the year. The Mayor of New Orleans justified the removal in a speech to New Orleans, Louisiana, and the nation.                            CNN

The second student believed that the monuments erected shortly after the war were fine, but Jim Crow Era and later monuments represented something different, and ought to be moved to museums. “Confederate monuments to the soldiers who fought the Civil War (a rich man's war but a poor man's fight) should remain intact, as should those built shortly after the war,” he said, “Many monuments, however, were really built as Jim Crow or Civil Rights Era assaults on public discourse. These should go to museums.” This belief also happens to be my personal opinion.

This all being said, you can create your own opinion. If you would like to read further on Confederate Monuments, I would recommend these:

• Robert E. Lee opposed Confederate monuments -PBS NewsHour
• Why America is wrestling with Confederate monuments -PBS NewsHour
• Why Were Confederate Monuments Were Built? -NPR
• Why the fuss over Confederate statues? -BBC
• Baltimore Took Down Confederate Monuments. Now It Has To Decide What To Do With Them -NPR
  
  If you made it through this article CONGRATULATIONS you just a really long really boring article