George Mason High School - Mustang Yearbook (Falls Church, VA)

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IN REFLECTION As the Viet Nam war hopefully draws to an end the morbid task of assesing the cost remains to be done. The casualties of Viet Nam will be measured in terms of lives lost, limbs severed and persons missing. The finan- cial costs will be measured in dollars and cents. But in terms of America, the people and America, the idea, this country has lost much more. For the American people, this has been a very personal yet very distant war. It has been brought to them every evening on the televi- sion news in their living room. Americans have seen their cities burn, their dollar shrink and their taxes rise because of the drain of government funds and attention to Viet Nam. The American people have borne the sacri- fices necessary to support the war, without fully understanding it. This war, which has been fought in far-off places with strange names, for a purpose or goal which the gov- ernment has never made clear, and has dragged on and on. In 1965, at a time when what was needed was a government which could lead the country out of the confusion of Viet Nam, all that was offered was a govern- ment which could only watch in dismay as this country was led further into the war. But dismay is a political weakness, so to cloak this weakness from the people, tactics bordering on deception and deceit were employed to guide the people into the war. Frustration after frustration has occured in this tragedy and gradually the American people have grown to doubt the words of their politicians, the word of their government, the values of their youth. The American people have become defensive about their own values and accomplishments. Americans have embarked on a new wave of reactionary patriotism in an attempt to submerge deep-felt insecurity. In short, Americans have lost a sense of self- respect. To much of the world, America is more than a nation, it is a whole concept or idea. The America envisioned by Jefferson, Madison and Mason has been this nation’s greatest export. Without tanks, or bombs, or bullets, this nation has sold the “product” through advertisements like the “Declaration of Independence” to peoples after peoples. Now, rightly or wrongly, The American idea will also bear the connotation of Viet Nam. The image of America represented by a flight of B-52’s or a burning child has, to say the least, tarnished the world’s concept of America and American values. For just about every student in this school has grown up along with the war. The war was the concern during the sixties. Now, hopefully, with the war ending Americans will turn inward and rediscover those ideals which have made America, and have been temporarily detoured by the tragedy of Viet Nam. - by Steve Kaplow Reprinted from the LASSO 16

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WHAT? by Dan J ones Having spent a number of months working in contention with the natural human preference to be unfettered, unenclosed, and catching kisses from the wind, attempting in my rather surreptitious manner to entertain and educate the little people assigned to me, (while at the same time being cautious not to crush them as I lumber through the hallways), I now feel properly predisposed to make a few passing comments on the metaphysics of George Mason Junior and Senior High Schools. There can be little doubt that I am at the necessary altitude to effectively handle the situation. My position above the undulating sea of multicolored heads affords me a good opportunity to observe the total picture. Of course, it also provides a threat of danger from both low-hanging doorways and cliche-wielding “mouthketeers”. The weather is fine up here, thank you. And so is the air. How did I get to be so tall? One cell at a time, just like everyone else. Actually, I don’t really mind being taller than average (make that a tall average), and, after all is said and done, I suppose that there are certainly worse ways to relate to people than as a unique experience. Also, I can always console myself with the fact that if I ever meet Wilt Chamberlin, I will have to UP seven inches or so to see the top of his head. It is additionally reassuring to think that I might be a forerunner of the superior, vertically-evolved species of Man. (Then again, I may be a throwback to Goliath and the Philistines.) to have more than two terminating points in the lines creating its form, (unless you were one of those barbarians who sundered off the tops ot their Fours or drove slashes through your Sevens). FOUR (presented properly) had a sharp intellect and was notoriously top-heavy. FIVE had turned to face the other direction not because it was unfriendly, but because it was simply more interested in checking out what was happening between SIX and SEVEN, who were always having private conversations. EIGHT had a hollow personality and stood around a lot looking sur- prised. NINE was not a happy sort because it knew that given the slightest excuse someone would come along and round it off, or tax would be added and it would be caught in the middle of the ensuring revolution and eliminated. You could hardly blame Nine for its pessimistic nature. Finally there came ZERO, who was a real hanger-on and always open to question. So, you can see that I was very familiar with the first ten digits. But then things started getting illogical. Suddenly there were fractions; wierd little fractions all over the place; small, smaller, and infinitesimal. Then there came counting numbers, rational numbers, real numbers, irrational num- bers, and even (far out) imaginary numbers! And they begat algebra, and calculus, and trigonometry, and all the other higher mathematics. And I became baffled. Where there had been ten simplistic personalities, I now find that 1 must deal with characters and plots that resemble a Russian novel typed by two hundred tireless, unrelenting monkeys. The illogical has still not been illustrated. At any rate, I do have a few observations I would like to make. Someone once said that “education is simply the process of illustrating the illogical”. (The truth is, the person who said it was me and I rather like it; especially the part with the alliteration.) There’s a fair amount of truth in that statement, for whatever is not understood is also illogical. It is only when a reality becomes understood that it also takes on a logical placement in the scheme of a person’s thoughts and actions. Unfortunately, there are some things for some people that never become logical. For me, mathematics claims that honor. When 1 was a youngster (axle high to a coal-hopper), I could relate on an intelligent plane to numbers. 1,2, 3,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. Stretched carefully across my paper, they had individual personalities and character. 1 knew them (juite well, and, better yet, they knew I knew them. There was no fooling around. ONE was a solitary sort ol fellow and leaned toward the contemplative, always starting off into space, engrossed in the responsibilities of leadership. TWO, on the other hand, was very outgoing, constantly making himself part of every alternating number’s affairs, as well as being overly sensitive and living life with his neck out of joint. THREE was the oddest of the bunch, as f ar as I am concerned. It not only had a hard time finding other numbers it could be divisible into, hut it also resembled a bisected Eight and was the only number that could he said The other day, however, I did come up with a solution to all the problems plaguing the American educational system. The answer came to me as I stood in the mimeograph room, watching the ditto machine perform its graphic imitation of the human condition. Poised there, breathing in the fumes from the ditto fluid (tor which I may someday either he arrested or become the first medically recorded case of W ' ashableBlue Lung Disease), the answer came to me as in a vision. It was so simple and yet so obviously correct. All we need to solve the problems ol the American education system is (continued on page 34) 18