Students voice their opinions about the birth of the royal baby, the KTVU-Asiana Airlines incident and the Texas abortion bill filibuster.

School may have been closed for summer, but that doesn’t mean high schoolers were not educating themselves about current events—for the most part, that is. MVHS students react to three of the most covered news headlines of the summer including Duchess of Cambridge Catherine Middleton giving birth to the royal baby, KTVU broadcasting incorrect and racially offensive names of the Asiana Airlines’ pilots and Texas senator Wendy Davis filibustering the abortion bill.

Senior Ashutosh Jindal: Yes, oh my gosh!
Sophomore Joseph Hsiung: Yeah.
Sophomore Sneha Srinivasan: Yeah.
Junior Michelle Lentfer: Yeah.
Junior Rachel Plouse: Yeah.
Freshman Catherine Hsu: No.
Sophomore Pradeep Chakravarti: Uh, yeah.
Sophomore Natalie Thé: Yeah!
Sophomore Nina Rice: Yeah!

EE: How do you feel about all the hype surrounding it?

Jindal: There’s obviously way too much hype. The news was like shut down for a week to cover the royal baby.
Thé: Good, good.
Rice: I think it’s kind of dumb, because like, there’s a lot babies born every day.
Thé: But there’s only one royal baby, so it’s special.
Hsu: Well, I don’t really think it’s a big deal.
Chakravarti: Uh, yeah. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.
Lentfer: I saw the pictures, in People. But, like, yeah, it’s not our country, but it’s still cute.
Hsiung: Dude, it’s just a baby.
Sophomore Malini Ramaiyer: I think they should give them more privacy.
Jindal: In the end, like, everyone — it was born, yay!

EE: Do you know the baby’s gender?

Lentfer: Baby boy.
Hsiung: It’s a boy.
Chakravarti: Male.
Thé: Male.
Rice: Male. It’s name’s William, right? Or George? No, George! Yeah.

EE: Are you familiar with KTVU’s coverage of the Asiana Airlines plane crash? Were you offended?

Thé: Yes. Yes.
Chakravarti: No. Oh, yeah yeah. “Sum Ting Wong.”
Jindal: I wasn’t offended, I thought it was hilarious.
Hsiung: No, I thought it was pretty funny.
Lentfer: I watched it like three times on YouTube.
Jindal: Racist names are always really funny.
Thé: I just feel like that’s so rude, they went through something so tragic, and their names are like — it’s just like a joke, you know. It should be taken seriously.
Rice: People like should be respected for what their names are.
Srinivasan: Especially if it’s some sort of tragedy, they should spell it right. I guess people can make mistakes once in awhile, but most of the time I think they should just try their best
Hsiung: No, I thought it was really funny, because it’s like they said that it was confirmed by officials or something, but then they got it wrong anyway.
Jindal: It shouldn’t have happened, right, it was a summer intern’s fault or something.

EE: Are you familiar with state senator Wendy Davis’ filibuster of the Texas abortion bill?

Thé: No.
Ramaiyer: No.
Hsu: No.
Lentfer: No.
Jindal: Oh, yes. I felt it was a good filibuster to have, because otherwise Texas wouldn’t have those abortion clinics. And I think it’s really bad that like afterwards, the Republican party, after 12 o’clock they fibbed the date to pretend like it got passed, but it actually like, was after 12 o’clock. [/toggle_code]