by Saber Slate | Sep 17, 2019 | Community, News, Opinion & Reviews
For the whole summer, the major Franklin intersection of Drexel Avenue and 51st Street has been under construction due to the creation of a new roundabout. I’m sure many were annoyed of the long detours they had to take, and the delays caused. But on August 30, the new roundabout officially opened, in time for the home football game against Appleton North.
I went in the roundabout for the first time that night while I was heading home after the marching band’s halftime show. For me, personally, it was really nice because I didn’t have to be stressed out about waiting until it’s whoever’s turn at a stop sign. They even had helpful little street signs pointing in the direction of whichever road you want to go to.
This isn’t Franklin’s first roundabout. The first one was built about 10 years ago during the construction of the Shoppes at Wyndham Village (think where Target is). That one only has 3 ways, primarily to get into the parking lot of the shopping center. It isn’t a major intersection either. There’s a larger roundabout a bit further away in Hales Corners, at the busy intersection of Forest Home and Janesville Road. It has two lanes and was completed last summer.
The city of Franklin decided to change the four-way stop into a one lane roundabout because of large backups each morning and evening, and a roundabout was thought of as the best solution to that problem. However, some controversy was created because many adults and new drivers are not familiar with the concept of a four-way roundabout and how it works. Whether you like it or not, the roundabout is here to stay, and it’s important to know the long-term benefits of one and how it works, instead of being frustrated every time you need to pass through it.
According to the Washington State Department of Transportation, roundabouts help to reduce the likelihood and severity of collisions. This is because of the low travel speeds required, where drivers must slow down and yield to traffic before entering a roundabout. This creates a continuous and circular flow of traffic where neither side is required to stop completely, as opposed to traffic lights where backups will still be created. Since there is less stop and go, traffic will move more quickly overall, and reduce delays. Also, the one-way travel required in a roundabout helps eliminate the possibility for t-bone and head-on collisions.
Roundabouts being “safer” does not mean accident-free and there are many ways accidents can occur within roundabouts. Additionally, there will always be “that guy” on the road who doesn’t know or refuses to learn the proper way around roundabouts. As long as you’re focused while driving, which you always should be, roundabouts should be a piece of cake, and it is much better than sitting and waiting at the backed up stop sign for what feels like an eternity. Regardless if you hate it or love it, roundabouts are a big part of modern driving and we might as well learn the right way to use them.
Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout
https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Safety/roundabouts/benefits.htm
http://blog.aisinsurance.com/2015/02/02/benefits-of-roundabouts/
by Saber Slate | Feb 25, 2019 | Opinion & Reviews
Today, I’m going to be talking about why ranch is the best condiment.
It’s not.
Now, you might be thinking, “Hey Aaron, why would you make the title and picture what they are if you’re just going to say the opposite in your article?” To answer that, I’m going to just use one word: subjectivity.
A lot of people seem to forget what that word means. People commonly take whatever they think and state that as a matter of fact. This is seen a lot in fan reviews of movies, where people think that a movie franchise is better than others, and then pulling out the word “objectively” to make their opinion seem like a fact while having no basis in statistics or evidence. In Benjamin Kerstein’s review of the movie “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” he opens with, “‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ is a bad movie. It is not a bad Star Wars movie, but objectively speaking, as a film, it’s a bad movie.”
A lot of the time in real life, something that is the “best” or “worst” option can vary completely from person to person. To show this in action, I will state my opinion on a very pressing issue: I love Hawaiian pizza with ranch. Some readers are now most likely cringing at me for breaking not one but two pizza norms, but I have achieved my point: What I find good and what others find good is different.
Life is not a list of numbers. It’s not fair to look at ketchup and say it is objectively the best condiment because it is the most versatile, when there may be condiments that others like to put on more foods than ketchup. (Don’t ask me what I’ve put ranch on.)
Now, I have not been using any hard evidence in this article. That means, like most reviews, this is a subjective opinion piece. Feel free to disagree with me. If you think there is an objectively best condiment, tell me, and I’ll allow you to have your opinion up until the point you call it objective. Because as long as it is an opinion, everyone can disagree.
by Saber Slate | Jan 8, 2019 | Opinion & Reviews
First Reason: Updates!
Compared to the middle school, the high school has been modernized. Now, with the new construction, and the fact that it is a whole new school. I can say, however, because I am a freshie freshman that the old middle school sucked. A lot. All the walls were either white or red brick, the windows were very limited for whatever reason, and the layout was about as good as 90% of the newer horror movies. I remember almost being late every day because the hallways were pretty slim, and everyone walked slowly as if they didn’t care about anything. Sidenote: the hallways were just super small and congested with traffic. The lockers were also bad. There was an extremely long hallway lined with blue paint-peeling lockers that you could barely get your backpack into. They were also about a foot shorter, so you had less space to put your stuff in.
Second Reason: Teachers
The teachers here at the high School are more lenient in the classroom than the ones in the middle school. Here, at the high School, they are much more interactive with the students, as far as I am aware, and allow for more jokes and laughter in class, where someone could make an appropriate joke, relatively speaking, and the teacher wouldn’t yell at the student (but there are some exceptions) and they generally interact more with the student. However, the other teachers were fine. A couple of them were probably the closest that came to a high School teacher in the entirety of the school, because they were nice and got along well with their classes, for the most part. However, the rest of them were still pretty “meh.” Not that they were bad, but, for me, the high School teachers are more open and accepting than the middle school ones.
Third Reason: Policies
High school is much more relaxed on policies than the middle school because you had to bring in a clear bottle filled ONLY with water and nothing else. Another one was that if you swore, you would probably be reported. And the lunch room was weird. You had to be sitting down to leave, you couldn’t hang out by the door, no getting seconds. However, the lunch room at the high School is much better, because you can do all of the things mentioned above.
Fourth Reason: Classrooms (teachers continued, I guess)
So, as far as how the teachers acted overall, they were… okay. For the middle school. However, here, I know that they let you listen to music more than at the middle school. Or it changed. I don’t know. But the teachers here at the high School are more lenient when it comes to music, when you can listen to, where, et cetera. They also typically don’t threaten with being sent down to the office as often. Or maybe it’s the fact that middle school was just worse in behavior. I don’t know.
Overall, high school is better than middle school. Not just because there are more freedoms, but because the layout and flow was so much better. Middle school was still pretty nice, but high school is way better.
