The Panther Prints

50-50 Day is an international day discussing what it’s going to take to get to 50/50 between men and women in all aspects of society. 50-50 Day was started by my mom, Tiffany Shlain. 50-50 Day was at first just a twenty minute film, 50/50, on the past, present and future of women in power. It was released just weeks before the election, meant to welcome in the 1st female president of the US. However, after unexpected results in the 2016 presidential telection Shlain realized that this conversation was more important than ever… it made the film even more potent. Shlain decided to create 50-50 Day. Shlain had worked with this model previously with Character Day, which was shown at schools across the world including Mill Valley Middle School. 50-50 Day, which was on May 10th, had worldwide screenings of the film all over the world along with global discussion on gender equality as well as interviews with Rosie Rios, former Treasurer of the United States, Dolores Huerta, activist, Eva Lon...

On April 19th, Wednesday, Mill Valley Middle School welcomed a special guest: Chelsea Clinton. She was here to speak about her new book: It’s Your World. A 8th grader, Zara, introduced Ms. Clinton. Following, twenty students, a combination of 6th, 7th and 8th graders asked Ms. Clinton questions. These questions ranged from what it was like growing up in the White House, to advice, to homophobia in the current administration, to how we can create social change. Ms. Clinton answered honestly and warmly. She discussed her proudest achievements, being a mother, running the Clinton foundation, why she wrote her book and criticism she faces in the public eye. She told us about her role model, her grandmother, who surpassed the odds against her. “If you are blessed, it is your duty to extend the circle of blessings.” “Take serious advice from serious people seriously and unserious advice from unserious people unseriously” “Life is not about what happens to you, but about what you do wit...

Dear Students of MVMS, In light of the recent events at Mill Valley Middle School involving the writing of defamatory symbols there have been many discussions condemning this incident. Although, I do not believe these students acted with the malicious intentions that the symbols represent, but it is essential to realize there are many people out in the world that do. This incident forces us to recognize that morality on a whole, is relative. Our society, our culture constructs the basis of our morality and our family and history fill in the blanks. In our society, we are given many liberties in what we choose to believe as guaranteed  in our Constitution: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion. With these freedoms, we must tolerate many opposing points of view and many different views on what is right and what is wrong. We learn from our schools, parents, and friends what is good and bad, and it is usually not a conscious decision. For example, imagine a ki...

I’m Sorry Words fall from my mouth in jest Like daggers with no purpose Points sharp, intentions dull Yet they find your heart Dead on I laugh, not seeing, not looking At the blood drowning your chest At your glassy eyes You choke, tugging at the dagger Wedged deep And I notice I blubber on my apologies pushing My heel into the wound Did I see you as they dropped from my red hands? Did I see you when I let them fall? I did not mean it My conscience is made of angel feathers I never meant to harm you, precious you My actions are blistering Pressed into coals to feed the fire My apologies do not heal your punctured heart or revive your glassy eyes Mountainous fields of misunderstanding Echo between us as I cradle Your heart And grasp your silent, cold hands for forgiveness.

What do you think flash fiction means? Lightning fiction maybe, short, over in a flash… Flash fiction is another form of storytelling, an intense burst of story over in 150 words. This form of story unlike any other, because the story starts in the middle, the end occurs in the middle and then there is the afterwards to help the reader process. This process is challenging, but fun and wildly creative. They are usually inspired by curious photos. Flash fiction pieces are meant to be so intense that you can only read a couple at a time. Here is an example of one of my own flash fiction pieces: [The photo: two kids jumping off a rock; you can’t see the ground beneath them; they swathed in their silhouettes. ] The Flight She was flying. Frozen screams languished, but she only heard freedom. The concern of death was inconsequential. The boy had jumped too, he was going to die, but it was his fault for not understanding her longing for flight, the yearning for wind in her ears. Th...

Show me what democracy looks like!     This: millions of men and women of all ages across the world peacefully protesting for what they believe in, is what democracy looks like. This past weekend I along with many others took the streets. On Thursday afternoon I boarded a plane with my dad, mom and sister to the capital of our country: Washington DC. I wore a shirt with suffragette emblazoned on it. On the plane, many people wore pink pointed hats in defiance.     It was my first time in the capital. Wide eyed, I gaped at the Washington Monument swathed in night. We pulled up at the Watergate Hotel, the infamous hotel where the Nixon scandal occurred. But this hotel has embraced the scandal, making Nixon’s resignation speech what it plays when you’re on hold. The next morning I awoke at noon, thoroughly jet lagged. We turned on the TV in time for Trump’s inauguration speech. It felt surreal to be in the same city as him and I watched bewildered as he proceeded to i...

The day after the day for giving thanks and appreciation we have the retail phenomenon known as “Black Friday”. Black Friday is notorious and I wanted to take a closer look on how it make a national day in America. The term “Black Friday” was first used in a financial crisis 1869 with the unraveling of gold conspiracy. People have also said that Black Friday is called what it is and when it is, because retail companies used to record their profit in red and black. The whole year would be in a loss, until the day after thanksgiving where it would go black, because of the splurges on discounted items, but this is proved to be untrue. Another untrue story is that in the 1800s, the plantation owners could buy discounted slaves the day after Thanksgiving. This makes the holiday rather messy and repelling, however this was not proved either. It began in Philadelphia in the 50’s, the police described the hordes of people that flowed in the city for the big football game, because...

The first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump . Monday, September 26, 2016. The topics discussed were America’s direction, achieving prosperity and securing America. The moderator for the evening was Lester Holt. Lester Holt is an American journalist anchors the weekday edition of NBC Nightly News. He was actually born in Marin County California.     There didn’t seem to be a clear winner of the debate, but as many people noted this debate was mainly about strengthening the connection between the candidate and the voter who was already going to vote for the candidate, because there are few undecided voters.     The debate was beyond anything that you’d suspect, but this election has been anything, but generic. Between the sniffing, interrupting and boos from the audience it was a lively event that was definitely entertaining or worrying.     There are two more presidential debates following this first debate: October 9th and Octo...

I tried to imagine human extinction: Tonight I weep for the world, not the Earth, but the world, a planet teeming with cultured civilizations, people who talk in elegant tongues and issue bright forms of self expression, the world: torn and run over by our greed for paper rectangles and electronic numbers. I weep for the world: with our civilizations now paved with cement and skyscrapers, for our libraries containing the berth of human intelligence, how we strived to understand our world, categorize it, normalize it, and how it would all be weathered by storm and sea when we’re gone, the Earth re shining its surface of humans, that moment when the last book gets teared in half by the wind and the last building smashed by nature’s fist, animals growing over urban landscapes as avenues turn into savannas with caged animals now freed. That when the last human took the last breath in the last human body and there would no one would be left to record it.  A Earth without humans, no lon...

I was perusing a peopleless pier when I saw the old man. He had grizzly hair, sunken eyes and a crooked nose, his grace humbled by his age. My feet chose on their own accord as I wandered over there. Silence gripped our shoulders like an overbearing parent. My breaths were as loud as the waves caressing the shore. “Hello,” I said and then words poured out of the crevices of our souls in a sweeping waterfall. Pleasantries were deleted like the dinosaurs and our words embraced like long lost friends. Our ages blown away with the fleeting tide. And our minds danced beneath the stars. He gifted me a necklace of pearls: wisdom, kindness and offered to wrap it around my heart. I traded him a cufflink of endless imagination to wear with his heart on his sleeve. We were trading our words in between the spaces of the world and we traded the world in between the spaces of our words. He told me that a single person could be wrapped up in a few words, that 10 or 11 letters could categorize someo...

What do you think of when you hear the word April? Do you think of spring and newly blooming flowers or do you think about April Fool's Day and the pranks? April originally used to be the second month of the year, still following March, of the Roman calendar year. But it became the fourth month around 450 BCE with only 29 days. But when Pope Gregory created the Gregorian calendar in 1582, he changed it to 30 days of April. There are several theories about the etymology of April, the first is that April, came from aperire which means ‘to open’ in Latin. A second theory is that April was named after the Greek goddess of love and beauty, “Aphrodite”. Or another theory that Jacob Grimm, a famous linguist, though was that there was a god or hero named Aper or Aprus April is actually National Humor Month as well as Mathematics Awareness Month and National Poetry Month. April is a wonderful month, we get the chance to fully appreciate spring.

Designer babies, perfect genetics, no genetic diseases, doesn’t this sound like some utopian turned dystopian novel. Can you imagine being designed by scientists? But CRISPR could transform the way we face genetic diseases. This lifesaving technique was developed at UC Berkeley in 2012 just 45 minutes from Mill Valley by Jennifer Doudna. Doudna is a professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology at Berkeley “CRISPER?” you’re probably thinking. Well, I’ll break it down for you. CRISPR which is Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats is a technique that edits DNA inexpensively, efficiently and accurately. DNA or Deoxyribonucleic is a nucleic acid that carries your genetic information. It is found in the nucleus of nearly all cells. CRISPR uses an enzyme called Cas9, the bacteria edits the main genes of viruses and then stores them. The immune system then sees the virus and battles it off. CRISPR does this and can also reinstate another gene and then stitc...

Valentine’s day is a bit of mystery you could say. A holiday with hints of ancient Christian and Roman tradition mixed with the commercial cards, chocolate and flowers. Why do we celebrate this holiday of love in the middle of February? Well, there are a two stories about different saints named Valentine, they both became martyrs according to the Catholic Church. The first story is about a priest during Claudius II’s rule of Rome in the 3rd century. Claudius decreed that single men made better soldiers, so no soldier was allowed to marry. Priest Valentine thought this law unjust and went against Claudius and married young couples in secret. Valentine was put to death when Claudius found out. The second story is that Valentine was killed for attempting to help Christians break out of the cruel Roman prisons. There is a legend that when Valentine was imprisoned, he fell in love with the jailer's daughter. On death row he sent her a letter signed, “From your Valentine.” Doesn’t t...

Hey 6th graders who turned or are turning 12 past February 8th, this is your year. The last time it was the Year of the Monkey was in 2004. People born in this year are represented as clever, intelligent, quick witted and versatile. They are enthusiastic, confident and honest. It is the ninth year in the twelve year cycle of Chinese zodiacs. The Chinese New Year occurred on February 8th. The Year of the Monkey will end on January 27, 2017. The date of the Chinese New Year changes because it is based off of the Chinese lunar calendar. There are several legends involving why the Chinese New Year or Guo Nian (过年) is celebrated. The one I heard in my Chinese class begins with monster called Nian or 年. This was a vicious monster that showed up every year on New Year’s Eve to eat the people and the livestock in the villages. All the people would flee and hide in the mountains, but one year an old woman, who had lost her son to the monster the year before, decided to stay in village. An e...

Plop, plop, plop, Students eat lunch with umbrellas over their heads but it is not raining. Plop, plop, plop people duck under awnings, weary of airborne assailants. Plop, plop, plop You know when you’ve been hit, a thud, then the walk, everyone evades your step, Plop, plop, plop Settled by the white sink with a damp paper towel Cursing those smug, soaring birds, overhead.

At MVMS I know we have people who love seafood and people who absolutely hate it. I know that I love crab with melted butter on a brisk day. It's delicate yumminess is so worth prying through the tough shell, it makes it even more enticing. I was disappointed when I heard rumors of bad crab this season. So I decided to do some more research and break it down in friendlier terms. The El Niño has plagued our minds for a while, our savior for this thirsty drought. Unfortunately a mammoth algae bloom is a consequence. And for the people like me who don’t exactly know what an ‘algae bloom or algal bloom’ is, I’ll explain. It is a rapid increase of a population of algae which are usually microscopic in water. They grow out of control, while producing toxic and destructive effects on us and shellfish etc. The one of the toxins in the crabs is called domoic acid and this bloom is of unheard of size. The Public Health Department is already declaring certain kinds of seafood unsafe. D...

Can you imagine Mill Valley without the memorable Throckmorton Theatre? What if it wasn’t bought by Lucy Mercer in the early 2000s? Would is still remain in disrepair? What would happen to the Mill Valley Film Festival and all the art and acting programs? This life sounds quite dreary in our opinion. Whoever has done something or participated in something within the Throckmorton Theatre knows how instantaneously you become enamored with the intricately painted walls, the nostalgic wood furnishing and the welcoming foyer, but it’s not just that, there is this magical feeling in the air that seems almost tangible around you. The laughter, joy and tears that sprinkle out on warm summer nights, or windy fall evenings. The Throckmorton Theater The Throckmorton Theatre as we know it now used to be The Hub, which was famed for hosting Charlie Chaplin and regular vaudeville programming in 1914. Which was when the also darling Sequoia Theater opened in the 1920s, the Hub faded away and c...

On a blazing October Mill Valley Saturday, two inquisitive girls ambled into a wondrous library, surrounded by the statuesque, long standing redwoods. Sun filtered through leaves, creating a lacy pattern on the ground. The two girls were us: Athena and Odessa. We were influenced with a bout of nervousness and excitement, because we were suddenly unsure of whether we got the date correctly and wandered around for a few minutes, gazing at the beautiful, hand drawn bookmarks made by young children. The stairs crepitated as we slinked down and down, into the belly of the whale… as if we were entering another dimension. The arrival at the bottom of the stairs is anticlimactic. We stared at the fiction section, discombobulated, until we worked up the nerve to ask for assistance. A nice lady shows us the way down another stairway, and we nodded our heads as if we had known the whole time. Still unsure of ourselves, we were finally satisfied when we saw the violet poster outside the doo...