The Panther Prints

“We the people.” That was part of the first line of the Constitution. But it’s not really what the writers meant. Because at that time, “We the people,” probably meant, “We the men”. All the writers were men and many of the important people in history were men. Because women weren’t the generals or the politicians they were often ignored by the people of the time and the people of today. When Cokie Roberts wrote Founding Mothers the Women Who Raised Our Nation and then turned it into a picture book for younger people, she attempted to change that.     When I got the chance to interview her, she said that one of the hardest parts of writing Founding Mothers was finding what the important ladies of the time actually said. Lots of them wrote journals and letters, but often times these were burned, sometimes by the women themselves. As President Truman said to his wife when he saw her burning their letters to each other, “Bess, what are you doing; think of h...

This school is full of very talented musicians, many of whom belong to the MVMS band, chorus, or orchestra. These are classes that have grades like English and math, for example , but some people like to play music and not have to worry about having a good report card at the same time. There is a group for those people, the ones who want to play outside of school, and grow their musical skill. This group is called the jazz band, and it is awesome. The jazz band is entirely extracurricular, and it plays--you guessed it-- jazz music. Jazz music is a genre that originated back when slavery was legal. Many slaves would sing songs from their homeland. Over the years, the music morphed into something new, mixing with American styles. This eventually turned into jazz music, becoming very popular. Playing jazz involves lots of improvisation. A jazz song usually begins with a written tune, but then turns to a solo section where one person plays an improvised tune. Leading t...