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OSSM Underground
February 24, 2000
Volume II, Issue 6
92 days until Graduation

One-year Anniversary Issue

Inside this Issue

It's been one year, what has really gone on?
Networking issues of pressing concern.

Upcoming Headlines (maybe)

This year's OSSM Prom colors borrowed from the movie Hackers.
Lynn Morgan jumps for joy as dorm power usage dips; students trade their computers for valuable desk space.

The Burning Question

"I don't think that there is one good reason for denying children the information for which their taste for knowledge demands. To be sure, if it is the purpose of educators to stifle the child's power of independent thought as early as possible in order to produce that 'good behavior' that is so highly prized, they cannot do better than deceive children in certain matter and intimidate them by religious means. The stronger characters, it is true, will withstand these influences." -- Sigmund Freud

How about that?

One Year

By Mr. X, Editor-in-Chief

Wow. One year ago today, a group of six disgruntled OSSM students successfully published the first issue of the OSSM Underground, the unauthorized student newspaper of the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. At 1:00 on the fine Wednesday morning of February 24, 1999 I sent 75 copies of our first issue, a document named "Western Civilization Outline 1" to a floor printer. At three-thirty in the afternoon on the same day various members of the OSSMUP staff spread copies throughout the dorm. The first OSSM Underground became a part of OSSM history.

OSSM Underground has been more successful than any of us could have imagined. We have published twelve issues to date, more than 17,000 words, and the work of 19 different students, alumni, non-students, teachers, administrators and parents. Our readership is huge; our website gets over 500 hits a month. We've even had a couple imitators. People say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and maybe they're right.

So I've been doing this for a year now. Soon I will graduate, and one of you juniors will take my place. You know, I love my job here at the paper. There are just so many perks. Let's assume that every time an OSSM student goes to the webpage, they spend one minute there, and that every time a new issue come out each OSSM student spends three minutes reading it (Let's be honest, you'd have to live in a cave to not read the OSSM Underground). Then the OSSM Underground has taken over 100 hours of student attention to improve student morale. We'll get letters from students, parents and alumni asking for the next issue. One of the most rewarding parts of editing the paper is overhearing people talking about it. I'll be sitting in a room, and hear someone in the lounge pick up a copy of the paper still warm from the printer: "All right, a new OSSM Underground!" Walking through the Great Hall: "The person who writes this stuff should get a Pulitzer." It's great to walk into the lounge and see students standing around, looking at the paper, pointing at articles and discussing the content with each other. It's the beginning of change, and that's what the OSSM Underground is all about.

Yes, we're all about change. We've been around for a year, and during that time we've talked about balconies, food delivery, campus safety, youth minister visits or lack thereof, religious freedom, in-line skating, what's good about OSSM, petty theft, pants vs. shorts, the dreaded Three Story Man, the blinds rule, the closing of the dormitory basement, the blocking of television stations, pets (fish) in dorm rooms, cooking appliances in rooms, cheese that just won't melt, Internet telephones, and dorm time. And, admittedly, we still can't go on the balconies, pizza deliverypersons and youth ministers alike are scared of the Little Dorm, the front gate still doesn't lock, and many students still don't know the wonders of the Rival Hot Pot Express. An OSSM Parent once told us that, "You must view yourselves as the founders of a just cause and think beyond the moment. You may very well have to think in terms of decades in order to achieve Pizza consumption. Is it worth it? Absolutely!" And indeed it is. Sightings of the Three Story Man are down 95%, the Basement is open for business, you can watch Nickelodeon and the Learning Channel without fear, and the cheese melts! And that's what it's all about.

OSSM Underground: Changing the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics one silly, stupid, pointless, frivolous, irritating, insulting, antagonizing rule at a time. Here's to another year of the same. One day, students will eat their piping hot freshly delivered Papa John's pizza on the balcony of the dormitory. And OSSM students everywhere will sleep a little easier.

A Brief History of Ground

By Mr. Z, who's seen it all from the beginning

Hindsight is always 20/20. It's amazing how much a year can do for a newspaper. Starting in February of 1999, the Underground was published with the idea of making a difference. Well, actually, it was started over a cheap bag of tortilla chips and molten queso with the explicit intent to piss people off. What has it done? If nothing else, it has annoyed people. With the ability to remain anonymous, people have been able to freely express their opinions without fear of reprimand from the administration. This is the true value of the paper. Yeah, we hear a lot of bitching and moaning, and we've had some rocky articles, but the students' voice is put across for all to read. Different views are represented without (I hope) much censoring or bias. Looking back, maybe we should have changed some things, but the Underground was created under the pretense that it would be something close to home, fairly harmless, and true to the students. The paper has been accepted as all of these and more! The articles can annoy, anger, or even hurt sometimes, but this is all part of the process of discussion. We (the writers) are too weak (or afraid) to speak for ourselves. The Underground is the first pathway of unadulterated communication that anyone can command. This is not to say that this paper is something epic or massively great! Maybe it will give you a laugh; maybe it will give you some restroom-literature. Either way, as long as your eyes are open, the paper has done more than given us heartburn from too much nacho cheese, at way too early hours of the morning. I hope the paper continues with this duty on to future classes. Keep writing articles, and keep speaking your mind.

Computer? What's a computer?

OSSM Network Crackdown Takes Its Toll on the Student Body, Administration

Staff Report

Lock your workstations! Disconnect your network cards! OSSM students have been on full alert recently due to the dramatic increase of students finding themselves in hot water over computer-related AUP violations. Students have been caught hacking into computer systems and making money off the Internet. TCP/IP is now turned off in the dormitory until further notice. No Internet. No IM. No ICQ. No FTP. No ossmunderground.freeservers.com. Who do we have to blame? The hackers, of course! Prof. Dillard is working his tockus off to try and get things so he can turn the dorm network back on, where it belongs. The people responsible for me not being able to check my email or chat on IM are the students who got sent home for hacking. It's a very rare occasion to read this in the OSSM Underground, but this isn't the administration's fault. We have no one else but a select few of our peers to blame.

Advice to Edna's Troops

By Mr. Psi, Some guy off the street

I was asked by the editors of the OSSM Underground to write an article for their special anniversary issue. On the surface, this may seem an easy task, but it is difficult to write these articles, particularly under pressure. First and foremost, I would like to remind the juniors that even though their grades might not have been all they had hoped for last semester, this is normal, and they should simply find better ways to study if they want better grades this semester. It is possible to do this; all it takes is a little willpower. Secondly, I would like to remind the seniors not to slack off. I know you've heard it a million times from the administration and don't want to hear it from me, but I feel like it has to be said. Many of your teachers will go easy on you this semester, but remember, you aren't here to get grades, you are here to learn, so try your best, even with all the stuff you have going on.

Many of you are getting fed up with OSSM, wondering why you even considered attending and kicking yourselves for making that decision. This is a condition known as acute senioritis, and it may or may not pass with graduation. The only known "cure" for acute senioritis is a weeklong killing rampage (preferably on Quake or Diablo, not on the OSSM campus). There is the possibility that this rampage will not cure the senioritis, and it might not even help at all. If this is the case, think about all the opportunities you have now that you did not have before. Think of all the people you have met and the lifelong friends you have made. If this doesn't help you out, then perhaps you should go visit Dr. Speed and see if you can get some Prozac.

I know that your next argument will be all the restrictions that they put on you. Yes, they try to keep you under control, but it is for your own good. Sometimes they get out of hand (witness parental control issue), but most of the time, the restrictions are not out of line. When you get to college and get past all of the classes you had at OSSM, you will really be wishing you had that two hour mandatory study time back, and lights out at eleven will only exist in your dreams. For the most part, the school networks will be more open, but when was the last time that OSSM banned an entire domain? At least one college has done that (but not without good reason (Of course, OSSM is about ready to ban ossmunderground.freeservers.com)). Most of OSSM's computer restrictions are actually to protect you (and them...) from legal action. Universities will warn you about this, if you are lucky, but they don't restrict you like OSSM to save you from trouble.

I know it probably sounds like Edna is paying me to write this (she isn't), but I too have had my moments of sheer hatred towards OSSM. Like all others before me, I had dreams of assassinating administrators, torturing teachers, and pulverizing professors. In fact, I still have these moments. But then I think about all the good things that have come from my OSSM career, and I can't help but support their purpose, if not their methodology. The competitions I have been in, the scholarships I have received, and even the school I now attend all directly result from my attending OSSM. If it weren't for those two years of never ending Hell, I would be working my way through OSU, still wondering just exactly what calculus is. I have to laugh at all the poor should who enter OSSM, but I also want them to learn as much as they can in their time there.

You have to wonder just why all of the OSSM teachers are there; many of them quit jobs at prestigious universities or otherwise sacrificed their careers to teach you. Manning will tell you that it is because they love to teach, but they can do that elsewhere. I am convinced that there is something more, and I may have finally discovered what it is. Teaching at a typical public high school or university is really more trouble than it's worth. The students are so intent upon not learning that they will do anything to prevent it. I recently had opportunity to substitute at a public high school, and it was not a particularly gratifying experience. About twelve times an hour I would hear "We don't care!" from the entire class, in unison.

However, I was also able to tutor some OSSM students once upon a time, and this experience was much more rewarding. Rather than telling me that they were stupid and didn't care, the OSSM students tried their hardest to learn what they could and asked me to explain over and over, without interrupting. It is a good feeling to know that you have helped someone learn something important, and much more rewarding than simply knowing you had the self control to keep from telling some kid to f*&# off. This is why the teachers are at OSSM. They know that you are there to learn, and they want to help you to the best of YOUR abilities. College teachers tend to be big shots that simply give long speeches without a care whether you were even awake, and high school teachers have too many headaches to worry a whole lot about what students are learning, but OSSM teachers care, and will do anything they can to help.

This rant has become much too long and incoherent, so I must bring it to a close, but not without one last statement. Students, of the O...S...S...M.... persuasion, please, try to learn as much as you can, and thank a teacher for all of their hard work, it will make their day. So just, I cannot help you improve your grades, or have a good time while you are there, or anything else, but I can ask that you try, and assure you that your life will be better in the end. Now, get back to studying, stop reading this crap, and enjoy the rest of your stay.

On the Completion of a Semester

By Mr. delta, OSSM Alumnus

Greetings to my friends at the Lincoln School and Dan Little Dorms.

Now that you've all completed at minimum your first semester at the best school in the nation, you all understand more deeply the quality and quantity of work that is required of you as the most intelligent students this nation has to offer. As a student of the same caliber, I have the most sincere respect for your accomplishments. As a product of the same system, I have both a deep understanding of and empathy for your tenacity and endurance.

I write to tell you to question this system. If there were one particular trait that defined intelligence more than any other, it would be the ability to think critically. Newton would never have developed gravity and calculus if he hadn't questioned the authority of the time. Modern civil rights would never have been established if Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., hadn't questioned the authority of the time. Women's rights and equality would never have been brought this far if the feminists of generations past hadn't questioned the authorities of their times, and will never be fully realized unless feminists of this generation question our authorities.

It is, more so than anything else, this ability to question authority and make critical decisions based on one's own enlightened judgment, ethics, and morals that makes a person worthy of the title gifted. I write to beg you to make yourselves worthy of this title. I praise everyone involved with the Underground, both in current and previous incarnations, for taking the first steps. But furthermore, I burden all of you, down to the very last reader, to endeavor toward this title. You have been given a quest, not only by every taxpayer in the state of Oklahoma, but also by every single person in this world who could ever possibly be influenced by your gifts.

My friends, my classmates, my administrators, and my professors, it is your duty, privilege, and responsibility to foster this transition. It is up to you, however, to choose whether you will work with these gifts or against them. You choose whether you will be the wind beneath our wings or the barriers and taboos we break along the way. The need is utterly apparent, and the choice is yours.

The "Best and the Brightest" Deserve Their Freedom

By Ms. G, OSSM Alumna

When I was asked to write this piece for the anniversary of the most celebrated journalistic endeavor in OSSM history, I felt very honored to be able to share my experiences and reflections on my education at the Oklahoma School of Science and Math, which became history on May 29, 1999, the day I found my freedom.

The Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics is a great educational institution. It gives students advanced instruction in the sciences and can give students the opportunities to do things such as internships that they would not normally do at their home high schools. College entrances can sometimes even be attributed to the student being at OSSM. I am very grateful to be able to have gotten the opportunity to study at the level I did while at OSSM. All that being said, there are many problems with the system that those in charge would have us believe are not only necessary evils, but also evils we should kiss and thank them for in exchange for being educated.

Every day, the students at OSSM have their freedom as human beings encroached upon by the administration. You all, who are currently caught in the system, are denied basic rights because those rights don't fit into the current regime of control exerted over you. You have been denied the right of choice about how to conduct the most personal parts of your lives. Some of these are minor, such as being told when to go to bed every night, when to study, and when to eat. A few of these are monstrous. When a person is denied the right to express physical love in a private setting, he is being denied the right to choose how to morally conduct his personal life.

Why has my alma mater not followed the pattern of other science and math high schools in the nation and not allowed students to choose how to function, trusting that since they are "the best and the brightest" they can make moral, ethical, and even basic functional choices about how to live? The root of the problem lies in the view of the administration in regards to the students. They are not looked upon as young, intelligent adults. Instead they are seen as chattel, property to be used in political gaming and ambition. Students are kept under control so that legislators, who is this state tend to be of the conservative mindset, will not be upset by any seemingly liberal activity being observed in the students. I will recall to the minds of the reader the origin of the "hill trespassing" law that was laid down last year because a few legislators saw two students having personal relationship time from the road. Students were subjected to yet another controlling rule because legislators didn't agree personally with what the students were doing and since the legislators give the school money, the administration would rather bow to them and take away more freedoms from the students then stand up for the very people that make up the school and they are supposed to care about and grant them the right to decide how to act in a relationship. If OSSM was a like any other school in the state in which students did not live at the school I would not advocate students being able to conduct themselves as they see fit in personal relationships when they are on school grounds. This case warrants an exception. The campus of OSSM is not just a school; it is also a place were the students conduct the daily living they would otherwise go about in a home setting, and that daily living requires choices that the students as free moral agents should be able to make without interference from an administration that seeks to impose moral standards out of fear for loss of funding.

What can the students do about it? First of all, they have to think that they really are able to be responsible for their lives and actions. We were fed the statement that parents would not allow their children to be students at OSSM if the rules did not show a certain code of morality and that the students would run rampant and anarchy would ensue if they were allowed more freedom. This has to become a falsehood if it is not already. Students who are not ready to make decisions for themselves on moral issues and not able to control themselves and discipline themselves should not be allowed a place at OSSM because they simply are not mature enough to be out from under their parents control. Parents who do not want their children to have freedom should not allow their children out of the house. Students have to be ready to be in control of themselves if they want to be students at OSSM. Second of all, you that are living under tyranny now have to take back your personal freedom little by little. That means that you have to do what you rationally think is best. Tell the administration that you don't agree with them. Break rules that you don't find reasonable. Rebel in a civilly disobedient way and be ready to suffer consequences for your fight for freedom. There is no reason that students should be treated in a subhuman, undignified way in exchange for a good education. Show the administrators that you have no need for such strict discipline by shaking off the reigns of control and still making good grades. Fight for your freedoms in any way you can. As the great musician Bob Marley said, "Get up. Stand up. Stand up for your rights."

Here for the Hunting?

The Gleason Rod

The Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. Just typing that specific string of words brings any number of things to mind. To say it was a love-hate relationship could not be more appropriate. It was a difficult path, though one I learned a lot from. So without further delay, 'the rant of the Gleason Rod' will now begin: I started out as a happy fish in a good size Oklahoma pond. I had family, friends, and a girlfriend. Plus, I had just turned 16 and gotten a car. Spending a wonderful summer at home, I enjoyed the last true moments of childhood before beginning my "time in prison" as many of my friends later referred to it. Once at OSSM, I was soon singled out of the herd and became a sort of a personal project of the dean of students.

Though my early behavior was childish, I later behaved as a responsible adult with very few exceptions. However, my senior year, I spent most of my time confined to my room and without human contact. There, I developed the love-hate feelings towards the school and had a lot of time to question why I was there. People stay at OSSM for many of the same reasons they live their lives. We all have our passions - a love for something that inspires us to ride it out, or perhaps a mutual hatred shared with some of our classmates.

Sure, some people really do attend OSSM solely for the education and opportunity. I don't doubt that Matt Myers will be chasing interns as President of the United States someday, and that it will last until Pod Pham or Eric Schwerdtfeger achieve Global Domination. The rest of us don't plan to take over the world, and the academic reasons alone are rarely enough to keep us going.

The first of the two groups - the group who love some part of OSSM - is a fairly happy bunch, but they see school as pretty stressful. The social structure of OSSM is like nothing else that can be found anywhere. It is the people that primarily motivate this group. They do not become close friends because they are forced to spend so much time together. They become good friends because they are granted the opportunity to hang out with people who are a lot more like them than Bubba - the beer drinking redneck - from back home.

The other group - those who unite under the flag of anger, strife, or irritation - are also a surprisingly happy group. Theirs is the warrior code, to face each day as a challenge or a battle. They band together, share stories, and take on the 'enemy' together. For those unfortunate souls who barely make it to graduation - each day is a fight to stay in school and to prove your ability. For those that get room restriction for nearly 40 straight weeks, life is often an internal battle. You've got 13 hours a day all to yourself and more than enough on your mind to fight through and keep yourself occupied.

I fall somewhere in the union of those two sets, my passions lie in both loving and fighting. We all need to figure out what we're passionate about. Regardless of whether you're more of a lover, a fighter, or something else entirely - that is a big part of who you are. I'm sure you're all getting a lot out of OSSM academically, how could you not? So think about the story of the Bear Hunter and remember how he never prioritized his goals. (If you don't know the story of the Bear Hunter, email iohsastme@hotmail.com for a copy.) Having a goal or a mission is great, but we shouldn't lose sight of what is most important to us. Periodically stop to look around and ask yourself: Why do I keep coming back out here?

Gettin' Some at OSSM

By Se�or Fugg

Okay. I would like to start this tirade by stating that I don't actually attend the Oklahoma Mathematical Penitentiary, but I know a lot of people to do and a lot of people who have in the past, and I know pretty well the sort of stuff that goes on at this fine establishment for the enslavement and methodical brainwashing of Oklahoma's best, brightest, and most gullible. Okay, I hear you, I hear you. You're saying, "But Se�or Fugg! Not all of us are so gullible as to be brainwashed by the administration!" Yes, it is true. There have been those in the past who have resisted the otherwise inevitable with all their strengths. The term bequeathed onto these brave souls is "Gleason Rod," and we all know what that means.

But I digress.

One thing that has been called to my attention on numerous occasions by my "informants" at OSSM is the stringent rules regarding PDA that the administration brings to bear on a daily basis. In fact, I think that this has been the most common source of bitchings about the school that I have been privy to, outweighing courseload, Gestapo-like all-seeing administration watchdogs, and even lack of mobility outside the designated campus areas. This makes one thing very clear: nobody likes the PDA rules except for the administration.

There are likely several reasons for this dissention amongst the ranks, the nature of said reasons being the brunt of the purpose for this article.

The first and most obvious reason is the overt strictness of the rules themselves. Everything over holding hands is considered to be a breach of the rules! I have never seen a young couple who could content themselves with handholding for more than a few minutes, and then only when they are ambulatory. When you're sitting around somewhere with your boyfriend and/or girlfriend (I bet you're wondering why I left the "and" in there, aren't you?), you can't just sit and hold hands. You've got to sort of lay across their lap, reach up and grab a kiss or two, fidget about coquettishly, etc. There are two distinct solutions for this problem:

Develop a new surgical procedure that will transplant our mouths onto our hands and keep the whole thing a secret from the administration, or
Beat the system with an aluminum baseball bat. Hard. Right between the metaphorical eyes.

Which one are you going to choose?

The next reason is one that is closely related to the last paragraph. People, particularly high-school students, like to mess around. It's just a lot of fun. Messing around is like the national high-school pastime. Here is a scene from a typical high school in Hometown, USA:

Guy: I'm bored.
Girl: Me too.
Guy: Let's go mess around.
Girl: Okay.
They do. Much FUN is had.

This sort of thing happens more often than you might think. But how often does it happen at the Oklahoma State Penn for Overachievers? Once in a blue moon, if the planets are aligned correctly.

The next reason is directly related to the runner-up for OSSM Complaint of the Year: Coursework. Life at OSSM is a very stressful routine. People go in there laid-back and carefree about life, and come back out with gray hair and ulcers, and all that after only two years. People need a way to release stress and calm their lives back down, to get everything back into the proper perspective. Again, I propose 2 solutions:

Create a gym-like room containing life-size models of the teachers and administrators for the students to beat the stuffing out of with an aluminum baseball bat when they get stressed out.
LET MY PEOPLE MESS AROUND!!

Messing around is a good way to relieve stress and mellow out in times of crisis, such as when the server crashes the night before your big Civ project is due. Why spend time worrying about how you're going to get it all done when you could just grab the nearest member of the opposite sex and go mess around? It's all about perspective.

So what do I propose to do about it? Well, let's think about it for a second. I think that the administration is missing out on the potential of the Great Hall. I mean, it's a really big room. It's got a lot of couches. Hell, there are even some fireplaces for the more romantic types. And a TV for the ones who like to watch the movies. I think you can see what I'm getting at. OSSM needs to have school-sponsored orgies in the Great Hall. Just like once a week or so. Bear with me here - this is a good idea.

It would be the perfect way to keep people in line, discipline-wise-speaking. I mean, instead of making them check in early for academic probation (Ooh...scary), punish them by not letting them come to the orgy that week. How's that for motivation? If you don't do well on the test, you don't get laid. Boo-yeah.

And of course, there is the stress factor. As I have stated before, messing around is a great way to relieve that built-up stress that seems to come with the territory at OSSM. And it has the added bonus of not breeding a generation of violent geniuses that take over the world, as the teacher-dummy-beating room would.

Okay. Now let's talk gene pool. This is perhaps the strongest argument for the sanctioned orgy idea. Everyone knows that if two brilliant people have a child, the chances are pretty good that the kid is going to be brilliant as well. It's called GENETICS. And OSSM is always in the business of increasing its potential applicant pool, to the end that it might recruit the bestest and the brightest. The cr�me de la cr�me, as it were. The orgy would facilitate this. If one of the females became pregnant, that would be yet one more person to apply to OSSM in 16 years or so. I mean, when you've got such a concentrated colony of intelligence, it's just common sense to get them messing around. Then you get MORE smart people, etc. The administration needs to turn OSSM into a pedagogical stud farm.

So there it is. My argument against the strict PDA rules at OSSM. If there's anyone out there who's not offended yet, send an email to the editor and I'll take care of the situation.

Network heartbreak

The sound that a category 5 cable makes as it is ripped out of the wall

By Mr. Z

I tip my hat to the administration that has finally put some sort of soft resistance to the unraveling dilemma of the network. The problem that the administration has is that the students do not know what can and cannot be allowed. What do you think you will get when you put 130 brain-donors into a small box with an Internet connection to die for? You tell the students they can only hold hands (don't ascend the hill!), pound them into the ground with stress, give them a connection to the internet to salivate over, stick nothing but a paper agreement over the top of that connection to the Internet, and then allow students to run rampant for a year and a half. Of course there is going to be misuses of all kinds! We are not at this school because we won the beauty contest and we never claimed we could pass the SAT II: Behavioral Sciences. This should have been proven last year with the problems with the junior males. Any kind of institution with a network, such as ours, must dedicate resources, if nothing else, to deter what the administration likes to call 'Hacking'. What OSSM has isn't even hacking! It's playing around, being stupid, and getting caught because we really don't know any better. Yea, sure, we're smart and all, but when the administration allows massive online downloads and severely punishes students for needless pranks, what are we to think? So I decide to mess with someone else's computer: I am not knocking EBay offline for 35 minutes. So I decide to tingle my curiosity trying out some software that screams that it is a fake: I am not trying to force my way into the system to change my grade. The administration has finally said "Enough!" and has begun to install certain blocks. Lately, even whispering the word "Firewall" can cause cold sweats or threats of rioting. What I hope the administration will finally see is that they need learn how to tells us what is bad and what is REALLY bad. Your scare tactics of completely cutting off our connection or sending us home obviously do not work! We know we are not supposed to post nude pictures of roommate on our homepage, but we had no idea that the administration would react so explosively to what we see as lesser evils like MP3s and Internet phones. Let us know what we are doing wrong. Do not immediately jump to your paper computer policy. It is only that, a piece of paper. At times the AUP seems perfectly clear, while being completely obscure to someone else. Give us students a chance to change our 'Evil' ways without immediate interrogations. I guarantee you that a simple email stating, "We see that you have done this, we would appreciate you not doing this again" would show students that we cannot use the network for all our personal wishes. It would register in our brains that we have crossed the line and that we need to back up a bit. Everyone would much happier knowing where the boundaries are set and where the boundaries are enforced.

Help Wanted, Inquire Within

By Mr. X, Editor-in-Chief

A Concerned Junior writes:

I was just wondering, whom will you leave the Underground to once you graduate and move on to a better place?

The time has come. The torch of the OSSM Underground has burned brightly over the course of the last year. Seniors count down the days to graduation; soon they will be gone.

But the juniors will return.

With a new senior class will come a new leadership, a new way of doing things, and a new OSSM Underground. OSSM Underground is now looking to fill positions on the OSSMU Staff of Volume III. The following jobs are open for application:

Editor-in-Chief

The OSSM Underground Editor-in-Chief is the head of the OSSMU staff. He or she is the final say in what goes into the paper and what does not. A good sense of responsibility and a healthy balance of irreverence and respect are necessary for this job.

Copy Editor

OSSM Underground Copy Editors get first crack at the newest content of the issues. They edit the ready-to-print papers for embarrassing grammar and spelling mistakes.

Staff Writer

Staff Writers should be ready to prepare an article on a given topic with about a week's notice, and should be prepared to write a "scoop" (article on a brand-new, hot, controversial topic) at a moment's notice.

Distributor

Our Distributors, who work stealthy and serve to put the publishers of the paper at a distance from the administration, spread around paper copies of the OSSM Underground.

Webmaster

The OSSM Underground Webmaster is responsible for updating the webpage when new issues come out and keeping the page looking all-around spiffy.

Faculty Advisor

OSSM Underground is looking for a trustworthy member of the OSSM faculty that can advise the members of next year's staff in ways to keep themselves out of trouble, and keep them posted about goings on in the OSSM Administration. The OSSMU Staff of next year will find that not all faculty are enemies in the fight for sanity and coherence in OSSM administration; in fact, many (not just one or two) members of the faculty are just as disgusted with the policies as we are.

If you are a member of the junior class interested in applying to any of these positions, please send an email to the editor of the OSSM Underground at OSSMUnderground@hotmail.com. Include reasons why you are interested in taking on this responsibility, why you would be best for the job, and your credentials to take on the position. Also include a writing sample about a topic of significance to the OSSM Underground. Applicants will be ranked and new staff selected by the current staff and the directors of Volume One's staff, and will be notified before the end of the year.

An OSSM Parent writes:

"Dr. Manning, although talking a good line, has shown through her actions that she has no intention of listening to you, other teachers or parents regarding student life issues. Zeus wouldn't, why should she? Although the OSSMU will probably never change the mind of Dr. "There is no opinion that is correct other than mine, smiling and nodding all the time" Manning or Commandant Gleason, it is a wonderful outlet for students to comment on their collective condition. It can provide a creative canvas that is not controlled or manipulated and thus free to point out some of the absurdities of student life at OSSM. In order to be effective, it must continue to respectful dissent or lampoon humor.

I have enjoyed seeing a spark of the fire that defines us from other societies in your paper. And, I may be wrong. If you keep exposing regulations and rules that are on their face ridiculous, maybe someone will be embarrassed into taking action."

Remember these wise words of encouragement when you set out next year to ridicule the absurdities of the OSSM administration all the way to the point of change.

Send all submissions to submit@ossmup.org or check our submisssions page for a more spesific address.

Visit us online at http://www.ossmup.org.

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