The Heights 03/21/2013

CHASING TROPHIES

A SAD GOODBYE

DEAN’S LIST

SPORTS

METRO

SCENE

Men’s hockey duels BU on Friday in the Hockey East tournament semifinal, A12

A staple of modern media is lost as the Boston Phoenix’s 47 years come to an end, B10

With the release of Admission and Spring Breakers,, The Scene picks our favorite college-themed movies, B1

www.bcheights.com

HEIGHTS

THE

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

established

1919

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Vol. XCIV, No. 15

Three teams vie for next UGBC President and VP

TIM KOCH CHRIS TRUGLIO

&

MOLLY MCCARTHY RICKY KNAPP

&

MATT NACIER MATT ALONSOZANA

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DEBATE HIGHLIGHTS:

DEBATE HIGHLIGHTS:

DEBATE HIGHLIGHTS:

Formation, policy, advocacy and outreach, programming, and transparency

Maintain unity through UGBC changes

Community, clarity, and creativity

Re-evaluate disciplinary policies

Open door policy for Senate meetings

Invest in Undergraduate Leadership Academy

Emphasize diversity and inclusion on campus, especially for GLBTQ and AHANA students

Reduced ticket price packages for sporting events

Emphasis on quality of programming

Increase visibility and access within UGBC

Landlord and Realtor Evaluation Profile System similar to PEPs

Advocate for sustainibility on campus

Advancement of the academic advising system

Establish CSOM minors for A&S students

BY DEVON SANFORD Assoc. News Editor The 2013 Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC) Presidential and Vice Presidential Elections race has officially begun.

The Elections Committee hosted the Elections Kick Off event in Merkert on Monday, Mar. 18, in which candidates introduced themselves and their campaign platforms to the student body. Three teams

announced their official candidacy at the event. Teammates Tim Koch, A&S ’14, and Chris “Trugs” Truglio, CSOM ’14, are running for president and vice president respectively, under the slogan “In Tim and Trugs We Trust.” Molly McCathy and Ricky Knapp, both A&S ’14, are running for president and vice president respectively, under the slogan “Believe in BC.” Matt Nacier and Matt Alonsozana, both A&S ’14, are running for president and vicepresident respectively, under the slogan

“Forward With U.” Students packed the Merkert auditorium on Monday night in support of the UGBC teams. Members of Koch and Truglio’s campaign donned purple; McCarthy and Knapp’s, yellow; Nacier and Alonsozana, blue.

The Elections Committee conducted the first poll of the election season at the meeting, surveying the members of the audience. Nacier and Alonsozana won the Election Kick Off Event straw poll with 58.5

Change in the instituted alcohol policy

percent of the votes. McCarthy and Knapp placed second with 22 percent. Koch and Truglio finished last with 19.5 percent. At the event’s conclusion, the teams began official campaigning for the election. Banners were hung in the quad, flyers distributed, and social media newsfeeds filled with campaign endorsements.

Last night, the Elections Committee presented the first UGBC Presidential Debate of the season in Hillside Cafe.

Carter Bielen, Co-Chair of the Elections

Committee and A&S ’13, Devika Patel, ALC President and A&S ’13, and Joshua Tingley, GLC president and A&S ’13, presented questions to the teams.

McCarthy and Knapp opened the debate with an overview of their platform.

The team stressed the importance of unity within change. They hope that with their platform, which highlights convenience for students on campus, resolving Residential

See UGBC Debate, A5

Resolution calls for divestment

Gluck shares excerpts from WWII book

BC Fossil Free and Senate urge BC to divest from fossil fuels

BY PARISA OVIEDO Heights Editor

thought it would be nice, as just one element of trying to change the culture of BC … if people were more willing to embrace the concept of feminism.”

Oh said that while it was important for both men and women to value feminism, it was especially important for women to stop considering “feminism” a “dirty word.”

“Just as a starting point, I thought it would be great if we could just at least have

Most students don’t think twice about the validity of their history textbook. When reading about World War II, for example, many take the content of American textbooks as the truth, not considering that a Japanese textbook might, for example, view the war completely differently.

“There are lots of questions that we need to ask ourselves,” said Carol Gluck, George Samson Professor of History at Columbia University. “However, do these memories come from the history textbook or from public memory?” Most World War II stories, Gluck pointed out, are told from a biased, nationalistic point of view.

In a lecture last Wednesday to an audience in the Murray Function Room, Gluck talked about her newest book, Past Obsessions: WWII in History & Memory, and the discrepancy between public memory and factual history. A specialist in East Asian history, Gluck has been granted $2 million in a project aimed at expanding East-Asian studies at Columbia University.

In the Lowell Humanities Series’ second to last event, Gluck, who received much success after her 1985 book Japan’s Modern Myths, was introduced as “the most inspiring professor of undergraduates and graduates.” In her recent book, she most specifically addresses the public’s memory of key events, WWII in particular, and how it is continously shaped through heroic narratives.

Gluck made clear distinctions between

See Feminism, A4

See Gluck, A5

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOSTON COLLEGE HISTORY DEPARTMENT

BY ELEANOR HILDEBRANDT News Editor Boston College students have begun to push against the administration on University investment in fossil fuel companies. On Mar. 18, BC Fossil Free, a coalition of Boston College undergraduate and graduate students, sent out a press release asserting that the University is contradicting Boston College’s Jesuit, Catholic values by hosting Peter Voser, the CEO of the Royal Dutch Shell company, at today’s CEO Club of Boston luncheon.

“The Catholic Church has explicitly and repeatedly identified climate change as a moral issue due to the fact that the consequences of climate change … are compromising key commitments of the Christian, Catholic faith,” the press release read. “The Catholic Church has explicitly called on people of faith and goodwill to meaningfully address climate change through reduced fossil fuel consumption, increased energy efficiency, and the development and implementation of clean energy technologies.”

The BC Fossil Free coalition is a relatively new presence on campus. “BC Fossil Free comes out of years of underground activism at Boston College, in the sense that … there isn’t much in the way of activism

See Divestment, A5

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOSTON COLLEGE HISTORY DEPARTMENT

GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Boston College students (left) and professors Arissa Oh and Robin Fleming (top right) sport buttons proclaiming their feminism.

Feminism the focus of ‘Coming Out Day’

BY ELEANOR HILDEBRANDT News Editor Amidst the flurry of UGBC campaigning, students and faculty members across campus have been showing their support for a different cause this week.

While the maroon-and-gold pins sported on backpacks and lapels are themselves unassuming and understated, their message—“This is what a feminist looks like”—is anything but.

“I think a lot of faculty—certainly in

the history department, but faculty across the University—are just really concerned about these recent studies and revelations showing that women are graduating from BC with less self-esteem than they had when they started,” said Arissa Oh, an assistant professor in the history department who formulated the idea to produce the pins and distribute them during Monday’s Feminist Coming Out Day. “There’s been a lot of talk about it, a lot of focus groups—University-wide task forces and things that were convened, and I just

TopTHREE

THE HEIGHTS

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Thursday, March 21, 2013

A Guide to Your Newspaper

things to do on campus this week

1 2 3 Naturalization Ceremony

Feminism Then and Now

Today Time: 3:00 p.m.

Location: Robsham Theater

At 3:00 p.m. the Graduate School of Social Work is sponsoring a naturalization ceremony in Robsham. One hundred immirgrants from 42 different countries will take the Oath of Allegiance to become citizens of the U.S. A BC alumnus, Judge George A O’Toole, Jr., BC ’69, will preside over the ceremony.

Erin Brockovich

Today Time: 6:00 p.m.

Location: Stokes 195S

The Women’s Resource Center (WRC) is hosting a discussion of feminism and the changes that have occurred in the 40 years since the WRC was founded. This 40th anniversary celebration will look at the issue through the eyes of present and past contributors to the WRC.

Today Time: 6:00 p.m.

Location: The Heights Room

Erin Brockovich will be speaking in the Heights Room at 6:00 p.m. as a part of the first annual Boston College Women’s Collaboration. She will be speaking about perseverance and female empowerment, drawing on her experience as a legal clerk and enviromental activist.

FEATURED EVENT

Drezner highlights role of economic governance

BY GABBY TARINI Heights Staff On Mar. 19, Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, came to Boston College to present on global economic governance.

Drezner is a senior editor at The National Interest and a contributing editor at Foreign Policy. He has served as an international economist at the Treasury Department’s Office of International Bank and Securities Markets, has consulted for various for-profit, non-profit and public sector agencies and has provided expert testimony for both houses of Congress.

Drezner offered insight on how global economic institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the Group of Twenty, responded in a robust manner to the 2008 financial crisis, despite the widespread perception that these structures had largely failed.

“The 2008 financial crisis posed the biggest challenge to the global economy since the Great Depression and provided a severe ‘stress test’ for global economic governance,” Drezner said.

Drezner explained that since the Great Recession began in 2008, there has been no shortage of scorn for the state of global governance among scholars and pundits.

“When Lehman Brothers collapsed, people had a good reason to believe that global economic governance

ALEX GAYNOR / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Daniel Drezner discussed how global economic instutions responded to the financial crisis. would fall flat on its face,” Drezner said.

Critics of global economic governance tend to rely on a few facts that suggest systematic dysfunction. In recent years, the three events most commonly cited are the collapse of the Doha round, the breakdown of macroeconomic policy consensus at the 2010 Toronto G20 summit, and the escalation of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

“These facts are certainly true but they are not the whole truth,” Drezner said.

“To ascertain the effectiveness of global economic governance after the financial crisis, it is useful to look at three different levels of analysis.”

Drezner’s first level analysis is policy outcomes—what do the policy outcomes look like? How have global output, trade, and other capital flows responded since the start of the 2008 crisis?

“The global economy has rebounded much better during the 2008 financial crisis than during the Great Depression,” Drezner said. “The thing to notice is that in terms of output and trade, the growth is much higher after 2008 than 1929.”

Global development after the 2008 crisis also improved.

“After 2008, many expected a regression in terms of global poverty alleviation,” Drezner said. “But the World Bank and the UN Development Program came to the conclusion that poverty alleviation had actually accelerated after 2008.”

The second level of analysis is policy outputs—what do the policy outputs look like? Have important international institutions provided policies that are significant and useful in response to the global financial crisis?

POLICE BLOTTER

3/15/13-3/18/13

Friday, March 15 9:18 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a subject who was operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol on Campanella Way.

sistance provided to a BC student in Claver Hall who was transported by cruiser to a medical facility.

1:52 a.m. - A report was filed regarding an activated fire alarm in Rubenstein Hall.

11:52 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to BC student who was tranported by ambulance to a medical facilty from Rubenstein Hall.

6:45 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a hockey game patron in Conte Forum who was transported to a medical facility by ambulance.

Saturday, March 16

Sunday, March 17

12:32 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student in Fenwick Hall who was transported by cruiser to a medical facility.

1:30 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported to a medical facility by ambulance from Vanderslice Hall.

12:45 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical as-

2:30 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a student

College Corner NEWS FROM UNIVERSITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY

BY DEVON SANFORD Assoc. News Editor An anonymous blogger leaked emails from a Georgetown University secret society, the Second Stewards Society. The emails reveal discussions between members of the secret society, including a chain of emails in which students deliberated over which kind of cufflinks to purchase and whether to buy matching Brooks Brothers ties. The emails also prove that Jack Appelbaum, the top candidate for Georgetown’s student government president, was a secret society member. The expose was published days before the university’s student government election and Appelbaum was narrowly defeated.

The Second Stewards Society is an all-male group rumored to reside on Georgetown campus. According to the Huffington Post, the society is either a sequel or splinter group to the original group, the Society of Stewards. The Society of Stew-

“A melange of international coordination mechanisms facilitated the provision of policy outputs from 2008 onward,” Drezner said. “For example, major economies agreed on the need for aggressive and expansionary fiscal and monetary policy in the wake of the financial crisis.”

Thirdly, have these governance structures demonstrated international resiliency and flexibility?

“The degree of institutional resiliency and flexibility at the global level has been rather remarkable,” Drezner said. “Once the financial crisis began, the G20 quickly supplanted the G8 as the focal point for global economic governance.”

The G8 is composed of the world’s wealthiest countries: the U.S., the UK, Canada, Italy, Germany, Japan, France, and Russia. The move to include more countries in the G20 addressed the worsening problem of the G8’s waning power and relevancy.

“The G20 is not perfectly inclusive, and it has a somewhat idiosyncratic membership at the margins, but it is a far more legitimate and representative body than the G8,” Drezner said.

This evidence suggests that global governance structures adapted and responded to the 2008 financial crisis.

In short, international financial institutions passed the stress test.

“Even though some policy outcomes have been less than optimal, international institutions and frameworks performed contrary to expectations,” Drezner said. “Simply put, the system worked.” 

ards was an all-male organization exposed in 1988 by the Georgetown Voice, a student publication. At some point after the society’s expose, the Second Stewards Society was formed.

The anonymous blogger, dubbed “Steward Throat” according to the Huffington Post, released the emails late last month. After the release, the Hoya, the student newspaper, was overwhelmed with web traffic.

The site recieved a record 32,000 views the day the emails were leaked, compared to an avergae 2,500 daily page views.

Appelbaum has yet to comment on the expose. Maggie Clearly, Appelbaum’s running mate, was bitter the emails leaked because she believes they prevented her from taking office, the Huffington Post reports. Candidate Nate Tisa defeated Appelbaum in the election, becoming the first openly gay president of the Georgetown University Student Association. 

being placed in protective custody in Gabelli Hall.

8:16 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a breaking and entering incident in the Mods.

4:59 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to an underage intoxicated BC student in the Lower Lots.

Monday, March 18 3:20 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance being provided to an intoxicated student of age in the Mods who was transported by ambulance to a medical facility.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

The Heights Boston College – McElroy 113 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02467 Editor-in-Chief (617) 552-2223 Editorial General (617) 552-2221 Managing Editor (617) 552-4286 News Desk (617) 552-0172 Sports Desk (617) 552-0189 Metro Desk (617) 552-3548 Features Desk (617) 552-3548 Arts Desk (617) 552-0515 Photo (617) 552-1022 Fax (617) 552-4823 Business and Operations General Manager (617) 552-0169 Advertising (617) 552-2220 Business and Circulation (617) 552-0547 Classifieds and Collections (617) 552-0364 Fax (617) 552-1753 EDITORIAL RESOURCES News Tips Have a news tip or a good idea for a story?

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Clarifications / Corrections The Heights strives to provide its readers with complete, accurate, and balanced information. If you believe we have made a reporting error, have information that requires a clarification or correction, or questions about The Heights standards and practices, you may contact David Cote, Editor-in-Chief, at (617) 552-2223, or e-mail editor@bcheights.com.

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The Heights is produced by BC undergraduates and is published on Mondays and Thursdays during the academic year by The Heights, Inc. (c) 2013. All rights reserved.

CORRECTIONS The following correction is in reference to the issue dated Mar. 18, 2013, Vol. XCIV, No. 14.

Page A2 incorrectly reprinted page A2 from the issue dated Mar. 14, 2013, Vol. XCIV, No. 13. Correct content can be viewed online at http:// issuu.com/bcheights/docs/mar18.

VOICES FROM THE DUSTBOWL “If you could create a new national holiday, what would it be?”

“Portuguese pride day.”

—Tyler Wilkinson, A&S ’15

“National CoRo Day.” —Jon Boudreau, A&S ’16

“National opposite day.”

—Jovani Hernandez, A&S ’16

“National Twin Day.” —Brian Davenport, CSOM ’16

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, March 21, 2013

A3

The time for BC to Boston snags ‘Book of Mormon’ confessions The Results Are In…

MATT PALAZZOLO The Boston College Confessions Facebook page has exploded in popularity this week. BC students, through anonymous posts in an open group, can air grievances about their roommates, reveal a years-long unrequited crush, or wax poetic about how attractive girls look in yoga pants.

On a more serious note, students can discuss much more serious subject matters, such as depression, sexuality, or rape. I even joined in on the fun a few days ago on a more lighthearted note by confessing that I am proud to have never worked out at the Plex in my four years here.

I have no problem with the less serious confessions on this group.

Admitting you are attracted to someone via a public forum can be liberating: I even did it in a column last month. Anonymous groups are also ideal for lightheartedly trolling friends; someone I know repeatedly tagged her roommate in multiple embarrassing confessions that were clearly written by someone else. However, brutally honest, baring-your-soul type confessions are an entirely different story.

It saddens me that people feel so uncomfortable about their problems that they can only express their feelings in an anonymous Facebook group. These online confession groups could be symptomatic of modern society’s numerous flaws, such as impersonal electronic communications and shamefully pervasive bullying and discrimination, but I’d prefer to focus on what BC Confessions reveals about BC itself. For example, take the surprising number of people who have come out about their sexuality on the confessions page. BC has several GLBTQ support and alliance groups, as well as an official Coming Out Day. Clearly these outreach organizations aren’t adequately serving the BC student body if students come out not in a supportive group of peers, but in an anonymous Facebook group two months before graduation.

To be fair, I am sure that some students are so introverted that they would never discuss their personal feelings or sexual orientation with others, regardless of how effective student outreach groups become. However, I personally experienced a confession-type atmosphere when I attended a Kairos retreat back in September.

Emboldened by incredibly supportive small group sessions, students candidly discussed their deepest personal fears, regrets, and tragedies. Multiple people observed that they had never been so open about themselves during their BC experience. This, in my opinion, is a vastly superior alternative to BC Confessions. Kairos contained support, constructive feedback, and even love that an anonymous confession group could never offer. Unfortunately, since Kairos is an enormously popular retreat, many students remain on the waiting list unsuccessfully for all four years of college.

In a few weeks, the BC Confessions page will become a scarcely visited ghost town, much like the once popular BC Memes page. In the meantime though, I intend to troll several of my friends and roommates, as well as post more tongue-in-cheek confessions. However, it does not seem right that students continue to reveal their deepest secrets in barely noticed posts, while my snarky Plex confession got over one hundred likes. Ideally, the BC Confessions page would be entirely lighthearted, filled with subtle compliments and thinly veiled criticism of the BC housing lottery. Serious confessions about personal troubles would be completely absent.

BC certainly has made significant strides in student outreach over the last few decades. Diversity and GLBTQ pride groups, as well as the Center for Student Formation’s retreat system, are all recent additions.

Despite these successes though, there are still people who despite being surrounded by their peers feel completely alone. As long as students only feel comfortable revealing their feelings anonymously, BC will remain an academically prestigious, yet emotionally distant university.

Matt Palazzolo is a senior staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at news@bcheights.com.

COURTESY OF BROADWAY COMPANY

UGBC’s BC to Boston has booked 200 tickets to the Tony Award winning musical, ‘The Book of Mormon.’

BY ELEANOR HILDERBRANDT News Editor For its last “big event” of the spring semester, the BC to Boston department of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC) has secured 200 tickets to the April 12 and 13 performances of The Book of Mormon at the Boston Opera House. One hundred tickets will be available per night, and BC students can purchase two per BC ID at $35 each online through Robsham Theater starting April 4. Students will be seated in a blocked section in the theater, and will need to provide their own transportation to and from the theater.

“We’ve been planning this since September, and we’ve had our eye on the show since last spring when they first announced that Book of Mormon was coming to Boston,” said Sarah Slater, director of BC to Boston and A&S ’13. “That’s pretty much our biggest event this year, I would say, along with Ellie Goulding and Dropkick Murphys, so we’re really excited about that.”

“As soon as Book of Mormon

won all the Tony awards, and I was thinking about things for BC to Boston for this year, I was really hoping that we would have the opportunity to do Book of Mormon—because I thought it would be a fantastic opportunity for students, because it’s not very often that you get to see a musical that’s of this high caliber, especially when the tickets are that expensive and out of students’ price range,” Slater said.

Like most ticketed events that BC to Boston coordinates, Slater said, a representative from the department will not actually need to be present—BC to Boston coordinators simply subsidize the tickets and advertise the event.

Smaller events where the department also facilitates transportation requires more direct involvement. “If we’re doing Harpoon, or something smaller like that, then a BC to Boston person needs to be there to make sure everything runs smoothly,” Slater said. “If it’s something where we’re just passing along the tickets, then there’s really no need for one of us to be there.”

She also highlighted a few

other upcoming BC to Boston events, including the Gay Men’s Chorus, an opera version of Peter Pan, Boston Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty, a Red Sox game, and a charity golf tournament, which will include a raffle and a reception at CitySide.

Looking ahead to next year, when BC to Boston becomes part of the larger UGBC Programming department under the new constitution, Slater said that funding would be unknown until after the upcoming UGBC elections, when the new president and vice president settle into the new structure and pick senior Cabinet members. Budgets for BC to Boston are submitted over the summer, and she said that this year’s budget was not finalized until last August. “I would hope that the next administration continues to fund BC to Boston, and take into account the fact that we also had additional money from the VPSA [former Vice President for Student Affairs Patrick Rombalski]—we might not be able to have that next year, because that’s a special grant,” she said. 

Boston College celebrates APAHM

BY JENNIFER HEINE Heights Staff

Boston College will highlight its diversity next month as it commemorates Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) a celebration of Asian identity and culture on campus.

Sponsored by the Asian Caucus (AC), a confederation of Asian cultural clubs, as well as the AHANA center, APAHM will feature a variety of events that recognize the achievements of Asian Americans and celebrate the vitality of their culture.

“There have been many AsianAmericans who have made an impact in American life,” said APAHM chair Jenny Yuan, A&S ’13. “We want to bring that to the BC community. We want to instill that pride in students of that heritage.”

This year’s celebration takes on particular significance as the 10th year of APAHM at BC. “This is our 10th year anniversary, which is really exciting for us,” Yuan said. “It’s a way to see how far we’ve progressed throughout those 10 years.”

“We’re one of many ethnic heritage months here, but this is the longest running, and that’s something we take pride in,” said Princess Tavares, A&S ’13 and another APAHM chair.

They attribute this success at least in part to the unified nature of the event. According to APAHM Assistant Chair Caila Quinn, CSOM ’14, “Something that’s really unique about APAHM is it really brings together the whole AC community. We work with at least 15 student and

professional organizations. It’s a collaborative effort.”

The theme of this year’s event, “A Decade of Discovery,” celebrates the culture’s history as well as its future. The kickoff event on April 3, for instance, will feature television personality and chef Ming Tsai “This Asian-American figure made an impact in the culinary industry, which isn’t something we see a lot,” Yuan said. “It can inspire us to extend our view beyond what we normally view as Asian.”

Service also plays a role in the celebration. An Applebee’s fundraiser on April 4 and a student cooking competition on April 14 will raise money for Second Harvest Asia, an organization that establishes food pantries across Asia, particularly in areas affected by natural disasters.

According to Quinn, these service initiatives reflect this year’s theme: “In the past, it used to be very popular to travel to Asia, until the world wars, when much of Asia was basically destroyed.

By highlighting the ‘Decade of Discovery’ and traveling back into the past, we’re honoring the history of the Asian Pacific while also giving back to those whose lives would be very different if history didn’t play out as it did.”

The month also emphasizes multiculturalism. For Quinn, who identifies as HAPA, or halfAsian, half-American, “Being half American and half Asian, this is a great way to work on realizing your identity as an Asian, and celebrate that with people like you.”

“This is one of BC ’s only events that really celebrates this

sort of identity,” Tavares said.

“We’re seeing in student demographics that the number of people identifying as multiracial is growing.” Events such as “Who Am I?”, which will challenge the audience to identify the racial background of a multiethnic panel, with a date as a reward for the winner, celebrate this growing community.

They acknowledge the difficulties. “In the past, being multiracial was seen as a negative thing, but we want to highlight it as a positivething, especially for the younger generation,” explained Thai An Kim, a graduate student and APAHM Advisory Board member. Yuan expressed a similar sentiment: “It can be difficult growing up as an AsianAmerican-there’s a constant push and pull of identity. But this event shows that you can weld the two cultures together and celebrate both.”

The coordinators encourage even those who do not identify with any Asian culture to participate. “APAHM is a celebration of Asian Pacific heritage, but in that scope, we’re not just limiting it to those of that heritage,” Tavares added.

“We’re opening the Asian Pacific to everyone, to look and see the beauty that we see in our culture,” notes Quinn. “The food is free. The events are free.

We want everyone to feel welcome, just as we feel welcomed at BC.” “We look back at the last 10 years, and we’re looking forward to the next 10,” Kim said. Yuan added, “We want to celebrate, educate, and inspire.” 

After five weeks of competition, the 2013 NRG Games have come to a close. With a 30.31 percent decrease in overall energy use, The Mods and Stayer Hall finished in first place. The Ignacio and Rubenstein community finished in second place and the Cheverus/Medeiros/ Kostka community finished in third. Runners up contributed by reducing their consumption as well. The competition saved some 26,708 kWh. That is equivalent to 19 metric tons of CO2, which is enough electricity for almost three homes and about the same as the annual gas emissions of four cars. In terms of monetary savings, these savings amount to about $4,300. Congratulations to the winning community and thanks to all who participated in this year’s competition!

BUT REMEMBER – Just because the competition is over, doesn’t mean you should stop saving energy! When you save energy, everyone wins! Going green is a team effort so GO GREEN, GO EAGLES! Recycle Mania 2013 The results for week five of the

2013 Recycle Mania competition are in. Boston College ranks number one among the ACC schools competing in this year’s contest. Overall, BC is ranked 50th in the Grand Champion category, 5th in the Per Capita Classic category, 12th in the Gorilla category, 6th in the Corrugated Cardboard category, and 36th in the Food Service Organics category. Keep up the great work!

For more information on how you can save energy in your residence hall, visit the Boston College Office of Sustainability Facebook page @The Boston College Office of Sustainability.

Green Career Night Thank you to EcoPledge of Boston College for hosting “Green Career Night.” If you missed it or would just like some more information about the people/ companies represented that night, please visit EcoPledge of Boston College on Facebook.

Article prepared by: A.J. Hernandez, Communication and Outreach Intern at The Boston College Of fice of Sustainability

Next year’s Arrupe Leaders announced

BY SAM COSTANZO Special Projects Editor The Arrupe International Immersion Program has selected 18 students to lead service trips during the upcoming school year.

In addition to these 18 leaders, the program will send approximately 36 student participants on service, education, or community-based immersion trips to Belize, Mexico, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, or Nicaragua.

Kevin McGovern, an Arrupe Leader for next year and A&S ’14, went on his first Arrupe trip to Belize was during his sophomore year.

“We really got in touch with the culture itself and the community,” McGovern said. “At first when you’re going through the process, you recognize all the differences and dissimilari-

“People really cared for each other ... I felt like there was no better way to get back into that than to lead and facilitate that for younger students.”

- Kevin McGovern Arrupe Leader and A&S ’14 ties between your in-group and what you consider to be the outgroup, and between your culture and their culture. By the time we got down there … you realize the similarities between the two groups of people.”

McGovern and his group built a house for a woman named Miss Alice, who was traveling for over two hours per day into Belize City for cancer treatments.

She had 27 grandchildren and desperately needed better housing. McGovern’s group worked with a charity called Hand in Hand Ministries, which supports

low-income families in need of housing.

“We truly felt that we were really good friends by the time we had finished building her house ,” McGovern said. “Your relationship builds and flourishes really fast.”

After returning from his trip, McGovern felt that something was missing from his junior year experience at BC and realized that the Arrupe program had significantly impacted him the year before.

Now, as a leader, he and the 17 other students hope to facilitate a similarly meaningful experience.

“People really cared for each other and for how they could impact the rest of the world … I felt like there was no better way to get back into that than to lead and facilitate that for younger students,” he said.

Each service trip is led by two BC students, who plan extensively before the trip and meet with the adult mentors who will also be present during the trip.

“There’s this journey of figuring out how you believe or what you believe God is,” McGovern said. “There’s a really big push in the Arrupe program that God is love. There’s different ways to facilitate those things.”

Leaders are responsible for designing reflection and meditation activities around certain key points, periodically checking in with participants during the course of the trip, and helping them deal with the strong emotions that arise during the experience.

Participants are able to debrief after each day during their trip, allowing them to share their experiences and work through the complex emotions that many feel. These sessions are informal, which McGovern said allows for more much more meaningful conversations and reactions.

McGovern said that the program as a whole strives to build in students a belief in the world itself and the power that love can have in shaping it, as well as an awareness of how people in the rest of the world live and what each person’s role is in it.

“You lead a different role in the world than you might think, being in your BC bubble,” he said. 

The Heights

A4

Thursday, March 21, 2013

History department and other faculty seek to redefine feminism Feminism, from A1 people reclaim the word, and for students to see that it’s not a bad word, for students who do identify as feminists to have a day of empowerment,” Oh said.

Another important goal of the buttons was to show undergraduates that faculty, staff, and graduate students were supportive of feminism as well.

Oh explained that in conversations she had with female undergraduate students, many of them were surprised to learn that faculty members considered gender equality and women’s rights serious issues.

Currently in her third year at BC, Oh acknowledged that the University is different, culturally, than other places at which she has worked. “It’s a more conservative student body, less politically active, more homogeneous,” she said. “I think I was most struck by, at the beginning of this academic year, when I heard about this horrible result [of ] women graduating with

lower self-esteem, but also, we were having an enrollment drop in the history department—particularly among women.” She went on to say that the idea of a Feminist Coming Out Day was due in part to her concern about why women were not taking history classes. While she admitted that the connection between a lack of feminist dialogue on campus and dropping enrollment in the history department might not be direct, Oh said that she was curious as to how it affected the way in which female students approached their education.

“Feminist Coming Out Day—it was just this idea that I had,” Oh said. “I mentioned it in passing to my chair, Robin Fleming—on a Friday afternoon, at like 4:30—and by Wednesday we had the money we needed for the buttons, and by Friday we were all organized and ready to go.” Approximately 1,500 buttons were purchased for the event, according to Oh, and she estimated that at least 1,000 were distributed on or before Monday. Funding for the

buttons came from the English, sociology, and theology departments, as well as the Institute for Liberal Arts and the Women’s Resource Center (WRC). Informational sheets that were given to the faculty, staff, and students distributing the buttons emphasized the atmosphere that Feminist Coming Out Day was intended to encourage.

“We want this to be a fun, educational event, one that we hope will begin a much needed conversation on campus about student culture and about women’s lives at BC,” the sheet read. “What we do not want is for anyone to feel coerced or pressured into wearing one of these buttons.”

Many issues with the term “feminism,” especially the stigma that it often carries, are based on the varied ways in which people define it. “I hear a lot of, ‘I’m not a feminist, but…’ or, ‘Feminism—isn’t that like, you know, being militant, or angry?’” Oh said. “It’s extremely uncritical. I think that there’s a continuum, because I think there’s a lot of students who say, ‘I’m not a feminist, but—’ and they’re clearly feminist,

they just haven’t embraced the term.”

In other ways, however, the division within the student body is more clearcut. When gathering feedback from the undergraduates who distributed the buttons, Oh said, she heard a variety of experiences that students had while trying to give them out—some encountered no trouble at all, while others got unexpected pushback, from freshman women in particular. She said that in many cases, people are so defensive about the word “feminism” they may not even have a clear idea of what the word means.

While people are reluctant to call themselves feminist, Oh said, feminist critiques and analysis can offer students a valuable way to look at the world around them. “Being able to look at things and say, ‘This is about power, this is about recognizing that rape is rape, or recognizing that violence is violence,’” she said. “This Steubenville case, you have this guy testifying that he didn’t know it was rape, because it wasn’t violent and he thought rape

was violent … ideas about rape and consent and women’s autonomy, all of this stuff can be helped by the recognition that feminism has something to offer women in identifying and coping and fighting back against these kinds of things.”

As far as she could tell from talking with undergraduates, Oh said, it seemed as though discussions about feminism in general, and consent and rape in particular, are absent on campus. “There are ways in which none of it gets talked about—or, things like hooking up get talked about in ways that emphasize morality, as opposed to what it might do psychologically to women, or how a hookup culture might affect women’s self-esteem,” she said.

“I think that having this very narrow view of, ‘Our students are drinking and hooking up’—being limited to ‘this is good’ or ‘this is bad’—really does a disservice to men and women, because it ignores the entire question of, what happens to women and men as people, when this is the way they interact.” n

Russell reflects on leading under fire Former British Army officer speaks at Clough Colloquium

By Michelle Tomassi Heights Editor In the midst of violence and uncertainty, being a leader takes on a whole new meaning. Maj. Russell Lewis, a former officer in the British Army, explained how he acquired this meaning during his time in Afghanistan as part of the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics’ Clough Colloquium on Monday night.

Lewis was commissioned into the Parachute Regiment in 1994, and in 2008 he was appointed to command B Company, 2 PARA, a group of 200 soldiers from the regiment. His company was based near Sangin, Afghanistan, where they encountered temperatures of up to 115 degrees, brutal conditions, and transitions from desert to jungle warfare.

Samuel Graves, a professor in the Carroll School of Management, began by reading some quotes from Lewis’ b o ok , C omp any C ommander , and explained how Lewis’ advice can be applied to various types of leadership positions aside from the military, such as business and government. As Lewis began his presentation, he addressed some of the numerous challenges he faced, such as distinguishing between Taliban and ordinar y citizens, and keeping track of every member in his company, even though the majority of them were out of sight at any given moment.

Lewis then continued to describe two different days that he experienced—a “great day” and “a very bad day”—to illustrate the extremities he faced in warfare and the lessons that he

learned from them. During his “great day,” his company was given 18 hours to defeat a 40-strong enemy group, and after securing the high ground and enduring a two and a half-hour counter-attack, the enemy eventually disappeared. His “very bad day,” in contrast, did not end as well for his troops, yet the experience had lifelong effects.

“It taught me more about leadership in a time of a few hours than anything

“A leader has to have good judgment, because if you make good decisions, people will trust you. The popular decision is right for some of the time, but the right decision is right all of the time.”

- Maj. Russell Lewis Former officer in the British Army else in my entire life,” Lewis said. During this day, the goal was to gather intelligence and clear enemy routes, and after two and a half hours, the group began to run out of water and started to head back to base. At this time, an Afghan local stepped out of a doorway, and two of Lewis’ soldiers who spoke the native language approached to identify him. Unfortunately, the man was a suicide bomber and self-detonat-

ed onto these two soldiers, and Lewis soon received info that the enemy was ready to attack.

“I was confronted by this overwhelming vision of hell,” Lewis said, describing the ensuing events. Shouts for medics began filling the air, and he described how “time started to slow down,” and he experienced “sensory overload.” Despite the bloody scene and the panicking of soldiers around him, he had a “leadership epiphany,” and suddenly was able to compose himself in order to execute the necessary tasks.

“Security is priority—the medics will deal with the casualties,” Lewis explained. “ You’ve got to be calm.

People are looking to you.” Three soldiers were killed that day, which was devastating to the group, but Lewis learned that at times fear and sadness has to be masked for the sake of the other troops. “[A leader is] the person you need to be at the time you need to be it,” he said. “Understand what your people need of you at any given moment.”

After recounting one of the most difficult days of his life, Lewis concluded by explaining the responsibilities and qualities expected of a leader: decision-making, being in a position to influence, and good communication.

He noted that the lessons learned from Afghanistan may not coincide with typical leadership experiences, but the moral courage and unique perspective that he gained were indispensable moving forward in the military and in life.

“Chapter one of any leadership book says a leader must have trust, but I believe a leader has to have good judgment, because if you make good decisions, people will trust you,” Lewis said. “The popular decision is right for some of the time, but the right decision is right all of the time.” n

CEO outlines challenges of burrito business

By Gianni Matera Heights Staff John Pepper, the CEO of local burrito restaurant chain Boloco, came to Boston College on Wednesday for a lecture sponsored by the Boston College Entrepreneurs Society. He spoke about strategies to deal with business competition. Boloco prides itself on creating “inspired burritos,” while using quality ingredients and paying its employees some of the highest wage rates in the industry.

Pepper co-founded his company in 1996, eventually calling it “The Wrap.”

In 2005, after years of struggling, they decided to abandon their company name after realizing that the 1990s wrap craze had ended. They decided to refocus their company on burritos, a more popular variation of their favorite food. Pepper and his team decided on the name Boloco—from “Boston-Local-Company.”

Boloco has had to deal with intense competition since then from national rivals such as Chipotle and Qdoba, as well as other smaller “mom-and-pop” establishments in Massachusetts.

“From the national standpoint we’re dealing with all the marketing that’s already been done, the national brand recognition [of brands like Chipotle and Qdoba] … and we’ve had to play defense in New England for a long time,” Pepper said. “The good news is, despite that, we’ve done just enough, just in time to keep our

sales per-unit growing consistently the whole time.”

To help spur this growth, Pepper attributes much of Boloco’s relative success to its creative marketing strategies and ability to quickly adjust based on customer feedback. Social media, in particular, has played a crucial role for them.

“We love social media not because it’s hip or anything like that but just because it’s a great listening device,” he said. “We’ve built the business over the last five years really building a reputation online because we’ve been able to take reasonably negative or interesting situations and turn them into something more than that.”

Pepper told the audience that he once saw a tweet online from a customer complaining that the music in one of its restaurants was too high. He personally called the restaurant and had them turn it down. Pepper then tweeted back asking if it was better. He believes that these types of personal experiences help turn one-time customers into loyal repeat customers.

Boloco has employed some unorthodox marketing tactics as well that, Pepper thinks, helps them differentiate themselves from the competition.

“Three years ago we changed our name on April Fool’s to ‘Chipdoba,’” he said. “ We said, ‘ We’re tired of this! We’ve got 20 Qdoba’s that have entered our market over the last five years. We’ve got 53 Chipotle’s. You know we’re just a little local guy …

and we’re done!’”

Feedback from the community consisted of a mixture of outrage and amusement.

Boloco also has occasional “free burrito days” that help spark some additional buzz for their business.

“We always have this impression that ‘free’ is like magic,” Pepper said.

“When we opened in D.C. we had an entire city block of people who were willing to wait for up to an hour for one burrito worth five bucks! All sense of time was gone—these were professionals! If we said 50 percent off, it’s only a $2.50 difference in terms of your value. That line would have been non-existent. Free? It’s like people are just in.”

Boloco prides itself on their socially responsible company culture and their commitment to bettering the lives of their employees.

“What we do is we pull people in every quarter or so, our team members like 80 or 90 [of them]. And the whole purpose of the meeting is to ask, ‘What will make this place a better place for you to work? What will help you get to your goals?’”

Pepper gave many examples of things he does in order to stay personally competitive and focused.

“You have to constantly remind yourself that you know very little of what is available to be known,” he said.

“You have to seek out people aggressively who will help you … and really it’s a lot of reading.” n

lee pellegrini / office of news and public affairs

Catherine Cornille was appointed to the Newton College Alumnae Chair in Western Culture.

Cornille named Newton chair Andrew Skaras Asst. News Editor Before Catherine Cornille, professor of theology, became the first female chairperson of Boston College’s theology department, she was the first full-time female professor in the theology department of the University of Leuven, a 500-year-old university in Belgium. This month, Cornille was appointed to the Newton College Alumnae Chair in Western Culture, succeeding Judith Wilt, the inaugural holder of the chair, who retired in 2010.

In 1997, alumnae of Newton College, which was subsumed by BC in 1974, endowed the chair to acknowledge a class in western culture that they enjoyed and that played an important role in their educational experience.

Before coming to BC, Cornille was tenured at Leuven, itself a Catholic university, but not a Jesuit one. Cornille described the culture there as vastly different from BC. “In Belgium, it was a Catholic university in a Catholic culture, where the majority of the population was nominally Catholic, but the percentage of practicing Catholics is maybe four percent,” she said. “That gives the university more of a secular feel, paradoxically. It doesn’t affirm its identity as Catholic because that is taken for granted. As a result of this, it became emptied out—it didn’t necessarily mean a whole lot.”

Within that context, the theology department was still very clerical while Cornille studied there and began her teaching. As the only person teaching anything non-Christian and the only woman, she did not feel completely part of the culture. Part of this was due to the low number of women doing graduate work in theology.

“Here at Boston College, I feel like there is a lot more of a reflection on Catholic identity, a commitment to Catholic identity,” Cornille said. “There is a spirit of reflection on those issues that is part of the culture of Boston College. The Catholic identity is much more front and center than it is at Louven.”

Cornille became a full-time member of the theology faculty in 2005, after working part time in the department for several years. “[Rev. Frank Clooney, S.J.] was teaching at BC at the time and he invited me to teach here,” Cornille said. “From the moment I

started to teach here, it felt like the right fit.

I love the whole atmosphere of freedom of inquiry and openness towards questions of interreligious dialogue and other religions that was very congenial to my interests and research.”

Since she received her Ph.D. from Louven in December of 1989, Cornille has been interested in issues of interreligious dialogue.

Her work focuses on the encounters between religions and cultures and the questions that those encounters raise. One prominent part of this research has been focused on the attitude of Christianity towards other religions.

“For the past 10 years, my research has focused mostly on directly theological, theoretical, and methodological questions in interreligious dialogue,” Cornille said. “In 2008, I published a book—The Im-possibility of Interreligious Dialogue—in which I reflected on the conditions for the possibility of interreligious dialogue and tried to show how difficult it is for particular religions.”

After the publication of that book, Cornille organized conferences on different critical questions in interreligious dialogue every year. These conferences focused on the role for interreligious dialogue in issues such as discernment, hermeneutics, economic development, cultural change, and the role of women.

“I also just finished [another] major work—The Blackwell-Wiley Companion to Interreligious Dialogue¬,” Cornille said.

“It’s a 500-page book that brings together both theoretical pieces and a whole series of case studies. There is a description of the history of Muslim-Confucian dialogue, Christian-Buddhist dialogue, Hindu-Buddhist dialogue—so all kinds of dialogues that have been happening and are happening the world are mapped out.”

At the foundation of all her work, Cornille focused on the importance of reflection. She described this as a fundamental necessity for moving constructive dialogue forward between different religious groups.

This in turn informs her field of comparative theology. “[Comparative theology] is how religions, Christianity in this case, can learn from other religions in order to advance its own self-understanding,” Cornille said. “[Part of this is] reflecting on your own tradition in the light of another.” n

The Heights

Thursday, March 21, 2013

A5

Students ask University to rethink investments Divestment, from A1

emily fahey / heights staff

The prospective UGBC presidential and vice presidential teams confer amongst themselves during Wednesday’s debate in Hillside Cafe.

UGBC debates highlight teams’ platforms UGBC Debates, from A1 Life issues, improving academic resources, and diversity and inclusion at BC, UGBC will serve to enhance student experience.

“We believe that over our four years at BC we are given a unique opportunity to discover our passions and our potential,” McCarthy said. “It is through this development of our individual passions and experiences and the cultivation of new ones that we are able to form such a strong community on this campus … We believe that an issue for one student is an issue for all students.”

Koch and Truglio introduced their platform next. The team’s platform is based on and structured by five core pillars: formation, policy, advocacy and outreach, programming, and transparency. Koch and Truglio plan to invest in the freshmen of BC through the Undergraduate Leadership Academy (ULA), a UGBC leadership program composed of 35 freshmen. They spoke on their plan to establish more CSOM minors for A&S students, a reimbursement program for all Lynch and CSON students who travel to practicum placements, a Landlord and Realtor Evaluation Profile System similar to PEPs, and a Zipcar program on campus. They also plan to include the chairs of the ALC and GLC in all executive council meetings.

“In terms of programming, we want to keep hallmark traditional events such as the ALC boat cruise, ALC ball, and GLC ball,” Truglio said. “And we want to continue having two concerts throughout the year.”

Nacier and Alonsozana followed Koch and Truglio. The team’s platform is structured on three “C’s”: community, clarity, and creativity. Nacier stressed that the aspect of community is more important than ever with the new UGBC structure.

With the changes to governmental structure, the team plans to create change that will benefit the student body as a whole.

They discussed several platform points, including their goal to create an open-door policy for all senate meetings, a change in the instituted alcohol policy, 24/7 printing on campus, continued advancement of the academic advising system, reduced ticket price packages for sporting events, and 3 a.m. bus hours.

“We will be using a committee system to ensure involvement of all students in policy continuity,” Alonsozana said. “The new student assembly will work with RSO’s … In these ways UGBC will be smaller but remain creative, for you.”

Bielen presented the first question.

“2013 and 2014 will be transition into a new UGBC and a new structure,” he said.

“How do you plan to facilitate this transition and utilize the new structure to engage the student body?”

McCarthy told the audience that her team provides a unique perspective to the changes, as she was involved in conversations about the new UGBC structure for six months and she understands the purpose behind each position. She argued that her involvement with the process would ensure that she places the right people in positions of power to represent ALC and GLC effectively. Knapp added to this, saying that the team would streamline policy through the Senate and create concrete responsibilities for leaders. Their platform, which is available to the public, stresses 10 sections, including campus convenience, residential life, academics, athletics, diversity and inclusion, and outreach and accessibility.

Koch argued that one of the greatest benefits to the new UGBC structure is that is promotes inclusivity. Koch and Truglio plan to increase the target audience of large-scale heritage programs so to best promote inclusivity. They argued that including the chairs of ALC and GLC in the executive meetings would ensure that the committee’s needs are met.

Alonsozana said that the new structure will encourage leaders of UGBC to interact with students and student organizations that are not in the UGBC structure. The team plans to work with those students and organizations in committees to provide a better perspective of the student body. Nacier added that it is imperative for UGBC to go forward with ALC and GLC in order to be a cohesive and representative government.

The questions and debate that followed focused primarily on the new UGBC structure, RSOs, social issues on campus such as AHANA and GLBTQ concerns, and the main goals each team hopes to accomplish.

When asked if they could only achieve one thing and why, McCarthy and Knapp said that they hoped to push students to step out of their comfort zones and take advantage of the opportunities on campus.

Koch and Truglio want to increase transparency within UGBC so as to ensure that the student body knows and understands what the leaders of UGBC are doing. This transparency includes letters to editors of student newspapers and listening to feedback of the student body. Nacier and Alonsazana want to foster a sense of community and work with the Women’s Resource Center (WRC) to ensure that women are better off at BC and graduate with higher self-esteem.

Each team stressed the importance of

giving a voice to the student body. McCarthy and Knapp argued that the first way to ensure the voices of a student body are heard within policies and initiatives is by understanding the issues they stand for and standing by them.

“While there are a lot of Allies on this Boston College campus, to some degrees, we believe they are invisible to GLBTQ students because they are not active Allies,” McCarthy said. “And so we would like to encourage all students to actively be Allies on campus.” Knapp added to this, saying that a goal of their term would be creating an Allies coming-out video campaign and a safe spaces program for GLBTQ students. Pertaining to AHANA issues, McCarthy and Knapp hope to change the current core classes, which mainly focus on geographic diversity, to a core in which all BC students can be more informed of AHANA culture.

Koch and Truglio plan to address the voices of the student body by creating GLBTQ and AHANA full-time staff members. They also want to create an online queer-peer program for students seeking help and, like McCarthy and Koch, they want to create a safe space for GLBTQ students. As Orientation Leaders, both Koch and Truglio realized this past summer that there is no resource guide for GLBTQ issues within the freshmen welcome packet.

“That is something we would like to change so that students, from the outset, know that our community is one that is safe and one that is respectful,” Koch said. The team also plans to attract more students to hallmark events, such as the ALC and GLC balls, so that students are more aware of and informed about the diversity on campus.

Nacier and Alonsozana seek to institute a leadership training program with FACES and GLC so that students are more respectful of their peers. Like McCarthy and Knapp, and Koch and Truglio, Nacier and Alonsozana also stated that they hope to provide a safe space program for GLBTQ students. Nacier stressed the importance of race discussions on campus, arguing that the future of AHANA lies in the advocacy and policy for its members. Alonsozana added to this, saying the language used within discussions that surround gender and race need to change. “We need to use language that is more inclusive for students who are struggling with binary issues,” Alonsozana said.

The debate concluded with applause and cheers from the audience. Primary elections will be held on Mar. 25 and 26, narrowing the race from three teams to two. n

emily fahey / heights staff

Molly McCarthy, A&S ’14, listened to Tim Koch, also A&S ’14, during the UGBC presidential and vice-presidential debate on Wednesday.

at Boston College, there isn’t much mobilization about issues, period, let alone sustainability,” said Joseph Manning, a founding member of BC Fossil Free and A&S ’14.

Last November, a national movement was launched around divesting from fossil fuels companies, defined as the 200 publicly traded companies with the largest coal, oil, and gas reserves, as listed in the “Unburnable Carbon” report of the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a project funded by the non-profit company Investor Watch. Royal Dutch Shell ranks at No. 8 of the 100 oil and gas companies listed.

On over 250 campuses around the country, including Harvard, Tufts, Georgetown, and Fordham, students are asking their schools’ boards of trustees to cease investing in these large fossil fuel companies. BC Fossil Free currently has a core team of 23 members, and almost 100 students who have volunteered their time to support the cause. Manning himself has prior experience with the issues of energy and climate change—he has represented the Sierra Club’s student coalition at the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change four times, most recently last November in Doha, Qatar.

“Our goal is to promote climate action here at BC—it’s much broader than just divestment,” Manning said. “When we learned that the Boston College Executive Club would be hosting the CEO of Shell—we don’t believe that that’s in line with the mission of a Jesuit, Catholic University, we don’t believe that it’s in line with promoting sustainability, and … he has not shown the climate leadership that his company claims to show.” For this reason, as the press release stated, Voser’s talk is seen as contradictory to the University’s mission.

“The CEO Club of Boston is a speakers forum that allows the world’s business leaders to share their perspectives with Greater Boston’s CEOs,” said University Spokesman Jack Dunn in a statement. “The appearance at the CEO Club does not constitute an endorsement by the Carroll School of Management or Boston College, but rather reflects the University’s role in fostering the free expression of ideas on issues of societal importance.”

Manning concurred with Dunn about the expression of ideas, but argued that Voser’s work should not be celebrated. “A university requires great conversations,” Manning said. “Of course we need to have individuals that challenge our views come here, because that’s the only way we can grow. We want to foster a conversation that encourages a number of opinions and thoughts—but when it comes to issues of people’s livelihood and health, we do not believe that it’s within the best interests of Boston College to not just bring someone to campus to talk about this, but to honor that individual as the paragon of appropriate behavior as an executive.

Shell doesn’t have a good track record, in our view, of ethics around climate change.”

These ethical charges deal in large part with what Manning and the press release term “greenwashing,” asserting that Shell has actively

attempted to appear more environmentally friendly than it is. “Royal Dutch Shell remains unequivocally committed to facilitating—and profiting from—global climate change,” the BC Fossil Fuel release reads. “Royal Dutch Shell stopped investing in wind, solar, and hydro energy technologies in 2009 because they were not as profitable as fossil fuels, worked to undermine climate change legislation in both the E.U. and U.S., and has been named the world’s ‘most carbon-intensive oil company.’”

This indictment of Royal Dutch Shell comes on the heels of BC Fossil Fuel’s recent work with the Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC). After preliminary discussions last semester, students began to coalesce around the proposal of divestment as a tangible solution.

This past February BC Fossil Free sent a letter to University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., requesting a meeting in order to discuss climate change and what divestment at BC would look like. According to Manning, despite multiple attempts to contact Leahy in order to set up an informational meeting, the group’s requests were met with silence. After a month with no response, the group took the issue of divestment to the UGBC. Following discussions with BC Fossil Free, UGBC’s Senate recently passed a resolution calling for the University to divest all investments in fossil fuels from its endowment. The resolution, which was sponsored

by Matthew Hugo, A&S ’16, and co-sponsored

by Matthew Alonsozana, A&S ’14, passed at a vote of 17 to 1.

The first goal with respect to divestment, Manning said, is to have a conversation with the University administration and the Board of Trustees in order to figure how much of the University’s endowment—which is not available to the public—is invested in fossil fuels.

Should the University commit to divestment, Manning said, the goal of BC Fossil Free is to see BC immediately cease investing in fossil fuel companies, and then transition out over a fiveyear period. “We think that’s reasonable, and doable,” Manning said. “It gives plenty of time to judge how markets are changing, for the Board to move things around appropriately—we know that you can’t just shift things overnight, and we never would ask them to do that, and jeopardize perhaps the finances of the University. We think this is an acceptable timeline.”

Dunn stated that divestment in the near future was unlikely. “Boston College’s endowment exists to generate long-term investment returns to support the academic, research and student formation initiatives of the University,” he said. “Placing restrictions on investments is rare and requires a clear and compelling case that a company is engaged in practices opposed to the moral and ethical principles guiding Boston College. It is difficult to make this case against energy companies, which is why so many colleges and universities have rejected calls for divestment. As a University, our focus has been on finding ways to reduce our carbon footprint through extensive energy conservation programs and sustainability measures that have been embraced by students, faculty and administrators. That is how we can best make a difference.” n

Gluck considers narratives Gluck, from A1 what happened in the past versus the way the past actually is. Textbooks, meant to provide factual information about historical events, are often guilty of biasedly narrating stories which are “larger than life with very clearly marked victims and enemies.”

The four key aspects of heroic narratives that make them faulty are, put most simply, context of the war, the war story, folktales of total war, and what Gluck called the “Unspokens.”

Context to a story, Gluck stressed, is essential because the story is completely dependent on the context. For example, in the retelling of WWII, history textbooks often completely exclude the war between Japan and China that, Gluck pointed out, is actually a main cause of WWII. The “war story” is one which is told with an eye to the future. The story becomes a domestic one, told without any international aspect and tailored to the country producing the textbooks.

“Folktales of total war” group, blame, or give credit to whole populations at once. “WWII was the first war in which over half of the deaths were of innocent bystanders,” Gluck said. For example, instead of blaming one person or many people, Germans as a people were blamed.

Gluck’s fourth and last aspect of heroic narrative is perhaps the most important: “The Unspokens.” “The Unspokens” refers to a silence around what is talked about and what is not, whether in the media, in history textbooks, or among the public.

“There is an utterability factor of what you can or cannot say after the war based on social and psychological factors,” Gluck said. “Silence becomes a reconciliation, and is implemented through substition.” For example, the Japanese remember the atomic bombs in order to forget Manchuria. In eliminating “the

Unspokens,” Gluck noted, “the public’s memory becomes all stories and little to no histories.”

In addition to the four heroic aspects that affect public memory, there are three factors to track it: terrains, vectors, and a term Gluck coined as “chronopolitical context.” Terrains and vectors address public consumption and production of knowledge respectively. Neuroscience provides evidence that memory fades as time goes on, and so, Gluck said, the public tends to “stitch and restitch our memory.”

“Now that we know that memory changes happen, we need to know where they come from,” Gluck said.

Changes are not only external, but also internal, a concept summarized in Gluck’s own word, “chronopolitics.” Chronopolitics, Gluck defined, is “the importance of the political and geopolitical presence in war.” The professor explained how domestic, political power is at the core of and shapes “war memory.” War memory has different chronology in different countries, and was most flammable in East Asia after WWII. In the public’s mistake of narrating history through a domestic lense, society is not meeting social, moral, political, and epistological challenges in remembering history properly. “There is a problem in the link between memory and history when national history prevails over the future,” Gluck said.

Indeed, there is a need to shape our domestic lense into an international one, to include all facts, and to remember that history is not biased narratives but instead a series of events shaped by often warped facts. Gluck challenged her audience to struggle against narratives and the moralism of the public memory.“The goal,” Gluck reminded the audience, “is to reconnect public memory not for the source of our public pasts, but for the sake of our future.” n

The Heights

A6

Divesting is overly simple response to complex issue

Thursday, March 21, 2013

QUOTE OF THE DAY Good things happen when you meet strangers.

-Yo-Yo Ma, French-American cellist and virtuoso

Fossil Free’s denouncement of Voser event due to BC’s Catholic identity has dangerous implications Two documents have emerged related to the increasing call for the divestment of Boston College’s endowment from the fossil fuel industry in the past two weeks. The first, a press release by BC Fossil Free, a student organization dedicated to the divestment cause, condemns the decision by the University to host Peter Voser, Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell, as the keynote speaker at its monthly CEO Club of Boston event. The second, a resolution by the UGBC Senate, specifically “urges [the] President and Board of Trustees to ensure that none of its directly held or commingled assets include holdings in fossil fuel public equities and corporate bonds within 5 years as determined by the Carbon Tracker list.”

Let it first be said that the threat of global warming is very real, and the overwhelming majority of peerreviewed studies show that it is largely due to the actions of human beings.

Climate change has been shown to lead to rising acidity levels in the world’s oceans, harmful melting of Arctic ice, flooding, and droughts worldwide—phenomena that seriously affect the lives of thousands of people and drastically harm the American economy. These facts have been recognized across the United States, leading students from more than 250 colleges and universities to begin campaigns dedicated to ensuring that their respective universities divest from the fossil fuel industry.

It is encouraging to see BC students engage in conversation about a nationwide movement with global effects, but both of the documents put forth are, in many ways, black and white versions of what is really a color image—dangerous oversimplifications of complicated issues.

The authors of the BC Fossil Free document write, “It is fundamentally inconsistent with the Catholic, Jesuit identity of the University for the Boston College Chief Executives’ Club to invite Royal Dutch Shell CEO Peter Voser to its upcoming luncheon and celebrate him as an exemplary business leader.” This strong assertion, made throughout the document, is disconcerting. By making this argument, BC Fossil Free is stating that only those speakers who agree with “the Catholic, Jesuit identity of the University” should be permitted to speak at BC sponsored events. This logic implies that those people whose life choices disagree with those of the Jesuits should not be celebrated for their success. But what about marriage equality activists like Ellen DeGeneres, whose potential visit to BC is currently the subject of a GLC petition? What about medical experts who support the practice of euthanasia, or moral theologians who support the use of condoms?

Any of these speakers would clash with the Jesuit, Catholic identity of the University, yet it would be both ridiculous and detrimental to the student body to disallow them from coming to speak. The fact that a particular speaker’s views or actions disagree with the Jesuit, Catholic tradition should never be used as a reason for prohibiting them from coming to campus. True Jesuit, Catholic education is best accomplished when multiple sides of an issue are presented and the costs and benefits of each are taken under equal consideration. Ethical dilemmas like global warming and the effects of fossil fuels should not be dealt with by ignoring those who are involved in them, as BC Fossil Free seems to be suggesting by condemning Voser’s keynote address.

Rather, they should be addressed precisely by engaging in conversation with those who have differing viewpoints. Perhaps BC Fossil Free could work towards gaining support for its cause by presenting the other side of the argument, bringing to campus speakers who disagree with Voser’s business practices.

The UGBC Senate proposal, a two and a half page document, seems

to ignore too many variables in so strongly urging the University to divest from the fossil fuel industry, without considering any one of the numerous negative implications such a divestment could have.

Similar to the BC Fossil Free press release, the Senate proposal uses BC’s Jesuit, Catholic identity as justification for the University to divest from fossil fuels, citing statements from both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. However, thousands of companies worldwide—including several with ties to BC and its students—violate Jesuit, Catholic beliefs.

Apple and Adidas are reported to benefit from sweatshop labor, Nike is often accused of preying on impoverished, inner-city Americans, and Google supports progressive causes like marriage equality. In fact, just about any major corporation arguably conflicts with the Jesuit, Catholic identity of BC. Should the University divest from all these companies, as well?

Such questions are not intended to suggest the futility of ethically motivated social activism, nor to say that one should be resigned to any evil in the world because one does not have the ability to change it. On the contrary, in cases such as these, one should direct his or her time and resources toward an area in which change is not only feasible but entirely beneficial, rather than presenting an over-simplified solution—and one that could have detrimental side affects—to a large and complex issue.

What anyone who reflects on this topic of divestment must do is weigh the good versus the bad. BC produces more than 2,000 graduates annually, who go on to become investors, politicians, doctors, lawyers, nurses, lobbyists, and educators at all levels of learning, among many other professions—representing a vast potential for social good. At BC, students are introduced to sustainable practices, with a wide range of resources—from classes to student organizations— available to explore sustainability efforts and climate change further.

What BC can feasibly accomplish and should do is ensure that anyone who graduates from the University is fully aware of these initiatives, as well as the scientific realities of climate change, in order to produce members of society who will be well informed on the topic and able to effect change in their future careers.

The University likely does invest in companies that encourage or enable the use of fossil fuels. Divesting from those companies over the next five years may be possible for the University, but it probably is not. Unfortunately, the Senate proposal is put forth without much knowledge about the University’s current investments, which remain confidential. If it was possible for the University to divest from the fossil fuel industry, and if hundreds of other universities did the same, those companies might lose enough funding that they drastically reform their business practices. If they did, the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might stop rising so rapidly and climate change might be stalled. But any one of these might just as easily not occur.

At the same time, it is crucial to understand the importance of the University’s endowment—it is not merely a large number. Rather, it provides for future development of the University through investments in new academic buildings, residence halls, endowed faculty chairs, research and development, and, most importantly, financial aid for students. When it comes down to it, the University needs an endowment to educate the students who are here today, and the ones who will be here in 10, 20, or 100 years. Although the Senate and BC Fossil Free might like it to be, perhaps it isn’t possible for the University to divest so fully from fossil fuels and still support its vital educational functions.

Heights

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Suzanne Severance / Heights Illustration

Letters to the Editor The following letters are in response to “Point system could end ambiguity, unfairness” by The Heights Editorial Board, originally published on 3/18/13:

Point system proposal meant to be ‘conversation starter’ I would like to respond to some key points from Monday’s editorial entitled “Point System Could End Ambiguity, Unfairness.”

As the chairman of the alcohol committee, I have gotten the chance to hear firsthand the shortcomings of the current matrix system. With that said, I also abide by a common rule: don’t just go to the administration with complaints. Instead, go prepared with a proposal to fix what’s wrong.

Keeping this principle in mind, the current point system proposal is just that—a proposal. It’s not meant to be a take-it-or-leave-it document, but rather a conversation starter. It is probably true that the administration would not accept the current proposal. It is, as the editorial alludes to, imperfect.

On the other hand, however, the proposal’s incomplete nature allows for compromise and negotiation.

In fact, Dean Davis and I have a meeting scheduled every Thursday morning from now until May to figure out the details.

Secondly, the point system’s use of point forgiveness is a crucial aspect. Yes, it may lead some students to “game” the system—however, it more importantly allows BC students to remain competitive. Many of our peer institutions allow their

students to clear their records for graduate, law, and medical school. BC, as it currently stands, has no formal method in place.

Third, I would like to point out that alcohol education classes are shown to be very effective in helping students make safer decisions. While no two students respond the same way to these classes, the majority of students do leave with a better understanding of how to drink responsibly.

Nevertheless, I do agree with the suggestion of including the possibility of talking to University Counseling, too. I firmly believe that talking to any adult—not just alcohol counselors—is a good way to help students move forward.

Fourth, and most importantly, I have to agree with the editorial’s critique of the inclusion of sexual harassment and sexual assault. These problems are too serious to summarize in a sentence or two.

To borrow from my fellow senator and UGBC Vice President candidate, Matt Alonzosana: there is nothing wrong with BC that cannot be fixed by what is good with BC. Chris Marchese A&S ’15

Current alcohol matrix does nothing to change behavior I am a 22-year-old junior. I don’t drink, I have never been disciplined for misbehavior while at BC, and I completely support the current measure to change the alcohol matrix to a point system.

The current method for dealing with student misconduct does not serve as a corrective tool for modifying behavior. Its inflexibility makes the disciplinary process less nuanced than often needed and the lingering nature of its consequences far outlasts any utility served by them.

For example, a close friend of mine was found drunk in the bathroom by her RAs freshman year.

Because of this, she was taken to the hospital and put on disciplinary probation. She has not drank (at school) since.

This year, during a fire drill, her RAs did a random room sweep. In her room they found a homemade picture frame made of bottle caps; some of them from beer bottles. Her RD consid-

ered this “alcohol paraphernalia” and she is now on housing probation, forever. Examples such as these beg the question, “what is the purpose of the current alcohol matrix?”

If good behavior is not rewarded and prior decisions continue to exact consequences despite having made constructive changes, then the system fails at its goal of promoting healthy student formation. If having a decorative item suggestive of alcohol is dealt with on the same level as actually imbibing it, then the system is totally flawed.

A move to a points system—together with measures for students to gain back points upon demonstrated good behavior—provides an incentive for students to make new choices rather than simply not getting caught for making bad ones again.

The Heights welcomes Letters to the Editor not exceeding 400 words and column submissions that do not exceed 700 words for its op/ed pages.

The Heights reserves the right to edit for clarity, brevity, accuracy, and to prevent libel. The Heights also reserves the right to write headlines and choose illustrations to accompany pieces submitted

to the newspaper.

Submissions must be signed and should include the author’s connection to Boston College, address, and phone number. Letters and columns can be submitted online at www.bcheights.com, by email to editor@bcheights.com, in person, or by mail to Editor, The Heights, 113 McElroy Commons, Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02467.

Peter Kehr A&S ’14

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The Heights

Thursday, March 21, 2013

A7

Elmer Fudd was wrong!

The Holy Four - Along with spring, March Madness has arrived. Because our very own Eagles will sadly not be making an appearance, we’re suggesting a collective praying session for any school Jesuit. We’re calling it now: Creighton, Gonzaga, Marquette, and Georgetown in the Final Four. Or the Holy Four, as it were.

Jesuits, being the avid hoops fans they are, will flock to the games from all over. Pope Francis himself will make an appearance. The average age of the crowd will rise to 63, and the intensity of the trash talk will reach an unprecedented level. Get ready, all. The day of reckoning is coming.

Shackin’ Up - The Shake Shack has come to Chestnut Hill! This is almost entirely a good thing (hence its location under the Thumbs Up logo), except for the fact that it is located at the Chestnut Hill mall, which, as most of you have probably figured out by now—several of you the hard way, we assume—is the destination that brings “inaccessible” to a whole new level. No other place has a higher difficulty-to-get-to to actual-distanceaway ratio. So if you see hordes of BC students trekking through the forest that is strategically located between campus and route 9, darting across several lanes of traffic, or scaling the cliff up to the parking lot that is conveniently lacking a walking path, you know where they’re headed.

is able to expend resources, whether they are our tax dollars, or in this case, his own political capital, exhausted only two months after his inauguration. While the reference to the president’s fiscal “habits” (I hear the word addiction is the latest to be shunned by progressives as being too pejorative) is sarcastic, it is indicative of a serious shortcoming of the president. Precisely, Obama lacks the ability to use resources, of whatever kind they may be, economically, not realizing that they do not exist infinitely, but rather they exist quite scarcely.

Obama did not realize, until now surely, that political capital is a resource hard won and readily lost. Consider this hypothetical example, a president fresh out of electoral victory, and riding on the graces of public support, overwhelms a disorganized opposition party on a budget battle, but then delivers a highly polarizing and unrealistic inaugural address. In essence Obama vastly overreached, not recognizing that though he began his inauguration with strong political capital, this endowment was by no means endless and all-encompassing. He consequently arrived in the familiar situation of spending more than he actually had, incurring a deficit.

Rather than realize that his own grandiosity has limitations, Obama curiously presented a glaringly liberal inaugural address rather than taking a more measured approach within the means of his political capital.

Among other topics, he advanced climate change as a serious priority, which is almost comical because this agenda was unsuccessful in the first two years of his first term when he actually did have the infinite political capital he so craves. Such idealistic overtones erode one’s credibility, particularly when lacking the political muscle to support them. Indeed, he retreated from such a polarizing stance in his State of the Union address, but these changes in posture hardly convey authority and gravitas.

Even while Obama squanders his political capital on progressive pipedreams, his uncanny ability to alienate the opposition costs him further. Twice we have seen the Republican party vanquished, left openly questioning its identity, only to be spoon-fed a purpose

Ryan Giannotto It turns out Elmer Fudd was wrong, as it is not rabbit season, but indeed, it is lame duck season. It is a fine day for conservatives, as President Barack Obama, always so far ahead of the curve with respect to us mortals, has accomplished yet another of his astounding feats. He managed to enter lame duck status in only the first two months of his term, whereas every other president has taken up to the final two months of the term to do the same, quite a shakeup in business as usual. I am genuinely flabbergasted that the media has not extolled Obama for his latest, and perhaps most remarkable achievement, how he managed to squander his presidential authority in less than 60 days.

I distinctly remember the polls coming in that melancholy of Tuesdays, as crucial states one by one slipped below that 50 percent threshold and fell into the President’s column until victory was no longer a possibility. Part of me hoped that the precincts still to report would be from rural counties and therefore would contribute more Republican votes, but at last I resigned myself to the reality of another long and arduous four years. So much had been lost in a matter of moments, from the substantial, including the chance to repeal Obamacare and the prospect of a more limited government, all the way down to the more frivolous of political trappings, such as appointing Supreme Court justices.

Yet in hindsight, I can almost regard that night with a sense of nostalgia, now knowing how startling of a reversal was to occur, all the misfortune belonging to yesteryear, and of course now, to Obama himself.

Some might question, even vigorously, my contention that Obama has been relegated to lame duck status, but fortunately I am here to assuage your concerns, or outrage, should you be one of His followers. What distinguishes Obama as a politician is how brilliantly he

by the absolute radicalism of Obama. His difficulty is that no one believes in his “hope and change” as much as he does, and this megalomania has twice galvanized a previously dilapidated opposition into a cohesive party.

Even if history does not repeat itself, Obama sure does, the performance identical but this term lacking the political authority.

All of these occurrences are but trifles compared to his latest debacle, however, when Obama drastically exaggerated the negative impacts of the sequester in his everinspired quest to increase the size of government. It was patently absurd the manner he was behaving in, pontificating on all the calamities that were bound to occur should the GOP not bend to his will—it was as if someone loaded the Book of Revelations into his teleprompter. And then the unthinkable occurred. The Republicans defied him, and they have been breaking away ever since.

A mysterious thing happened the day after the sequester was implemented and cholera outbreaks were not reported in 37 states—people realized how foolish and not credible the President is. Indeed, he once more overplayed his political capital, spending more than he had, and none remains to advance the other items of his agenda. He has become a political irrelevancy, a figurehead, to be neither respected nor feared as he has stricken himself authority. Such a visionary he is, being the first president to resign in office. More and more, the crux of politics is occurring in Congress, isolated from the spokesman in chief, such as with immigration and gun control, as presently he is more of a liability than an asset.

Ultimately, the president’s flaw is that he does not feel constrained by reality, believing in his own demagoguery and scoffing at inherent limitations, as reality is something that does not apply to him. Trying to escape from reality is not only fallacious, but always bears sobering repercussions—in college the consequences to reality flights are called hangovers, and in politics, lame duck sessions. I must say, a fine day it is to be a conservative.

Ryan Giannotto is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

Conclave hill Confession Obsession - BC Confessions deserves a Thumbs Down in our opinion. Not because the roller coaster of emotions one experiences when reading through it leaves you feeling as if you just listened to a Blink-182 album start to finish, but because it has imbued in each of us an obsessive need to be mentioned in a BC Confession. Don’t deny it. Everytime you get a Facebook notification, you pray that it will inform you that someone has just tagged you in a BC Confessions post.

Forget good grades. Forget lucrative employment. Forget living in the Mods. There’s a new qualification for making the most of your time here: someone has to anonymously confess via an internet forum visible to the entire cyber-world that he/she is passionately in love with you/thinks you’re an inspiration to everyone you meet/wants to bang you. My, how far we’ve come.

That Awkward Moment... - This may seem aggressively specific, but it is something that has been irking us at TU/TD lately. Scene: the Comm Ave. bus. Time: late afternoon. You have just sat down next to someone you didn’t know because it’s been a long day and you just needed to take a load off and rest your weary soul. Then, the bus stops at South street and a large group of people disembark while a far smaller number board the bus. Suddenly, there are open seats galore. But your seatmate didn’t get off … So now it’s the two of you, cozied together in the corner surrounded by a sea of vacant seats. What do you do? If you stay, people may assume you know this person, which for some reason strikes you as horrifically awkward.

Or, your seatmate may think that you have, in the past couple minutes of sharing their oxygen, developed an intense desire to befriend them (it was probably the moment you accidentally kicked them and then muttered “sorry” out of the corner of your mouth without looking at them that did it). You don’t want this either. On the other hand, is moving to an empty seat a dick move? Will it prompt them to worry extensively about fictitious body odor they are emitting? In summation, there are two types of people at BC: the kind that move in this situation, and the kind that stay put. Which are you?

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Ryan Hooper English philosopher John Locke is often credited with creating the modern concept of separation of church and state. Although the phrase, “separation of church and state,” is not implicitly written anywhere in the constitution, it has had a prominent presence in government vernacular. Despite its significant presence, the separation of church and state has always been a blurred line for the U.S. government. Presidential candidates consistently have their religion called into question and politicians often cite religious beliefs as a reason for barring same-sex marriage. And although only one Roman Catholic has ever been elected president (John F. Kennedy), it may be important for the U.S. government to look upon the Vatican as a shining example of cooperation and compromise.

On Feb. 28, Pope Benedict XVI became the first pope to retire from the papacy in 600 years. On Mar. 12, the Vatican and its 115 participating cardinals began their conclave. The conclave process works as such: the participating cardinals all take an oath and process to the Sistine Chapel. The chapel is then sealed, and no cardinal may leave until a new pope has been elected. In order to elect a pope, the cardinals need to produce a resounding two-thirds vote, a similarly large number to the supermajority used in the U.S. Congress.

The conclave of cardinals has one of the most difficult jobs in the world. They must, as a group, unselfishly elect one of their peers to become the leader of the Roman Catholic world. An estimated 1.1 billion people in the world are Roman Catholic, making the conclave one of the most publicized and scrutinized events in the world. The most impressive thing about the 2013 Papal Conclave is that it was one of

Lecture Hall

the fastest ever. It took 117 Cardinals less than two full days to elect the leader of over a billion people. It barely edged out the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI in about two days’ time.

Nonetheless, the rate at which the conclave was able to elect the pope is nothing short of miraculous. The longest conclave in history lasted nearly three years, falling just short of 34 months. On the surface, this may appear to be a simply significant feat of the Vatican and of the Roman Catholic religion. Globally, however, rooted in this achievement is a great lesson to be learned, particularly for the U.S. government.

In recent years the Roman Catholic community, similarly to the U.S., has had its fair share of issues. The Roman Catholic community has dealt with adversity through scandal. More specifically, scandals involving clerical sexual abuse which some say are what in fact led to Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to step down from his post. The U.S. government has other hot button issues on its plate such as gun control in reaction to the Sandy Hook killings and fiscal issues pertaining to the budget.

The difference between the conclave and the U.S. government is how they have responded to adversity. The conclave recognized that despite the adversity it was important that they responded by coming together as a cohesive unit. They chose to unite under a supported leader rather than polarizing the Roman Catholic world with a controversial and drawn out conclave.

As we have seen since the reelection of President Barack Obama, Congress has chosen to respond contrary to that of the conclave. Rather than uniting under our elected leader, Congress has erupted into a unit even more polarized than ever before. Two weeks ago, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, one of the leaders of the Republican Party and a 2016 nomination hopeful, filibustered the confirmation of nominated FBI director John Brennan. The filibuster lasted 12 hours and 52 minutes, making it the 13th longest filibuster in history.

Congress has failed to realize that without a cohesive Congress it will be impossible

for progress to occur on policy of any kind.

Obviously there are many different points of view but they should all recognize that they are working toward a common cause, the betterment of the U.S. The conclave was able to recognize its needs and address them through a vote. It was a major talking point during the conclave that in the Southern hemisphere there has been a significant number of conversions from Roman Catholicism to Evangelicalism. Another goal of the conclave was to move away from the cloud of Benedict XVI, who left under some scrutiny as a result of the clerical abuse scandals. Clearly these were major discussion points of the conclave, as the first Latin America pope, Pope Francis, was chosen.

The conclave has laid out a very simple and specific example for our government.

You need to recognize the needs and goals of your constituency and find an effective way to meet in the middle while not sacrificing the needs of the people. This has often been a problem in congress. After considerable time debating and attempting to compromise on policy, the initial bill that enters congress often comes out torn apart and fails to accomplish the task at hand.

I understand that this is often difficult in our world of party politics. Every political move is debated and scrutinized. Any concession to one party could inhibit the other party from gaining political ground. As we have a Democratic president, the Republican party is in a tough situation. They have the difficult task of trying to balance making concessions to the president without it looking like a political victory for the Democrats.

If Obama has a successful second term, the American people may see it as a success of the Democrats rather than of Congress. But in the end, Congress is failing to realize one crucial point: that we are all Americans, just as the Cardinals are all Catholics. Take note Capitol Hill—it’s your move now.

Ryan Hooper is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@ bcheights.com.

BY PAT HUGHES

The opinions and commentaries of the staff columnists and cartoonists appearing on this page represent the views of the author or artist of that particular piece, and not the views of The Heights. Any of the columnists and artists for the Opinions section of The Heights can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

Profane in the membrane Ryan McGuill To those who have never sworn, cursed, or uttered a bad word in your lives, I have one question for you: How the f ... f…fudge…do you do it?

By now, most people have already abandoned their New Years’ Resolutions like a mother eagle would abandon her fledglings—with much love out of birthing them and watching them grow, disappointment when they fail to fly out of the nest, and hope that she will maybe encounter them soaring through the skies by the next New Year. However, I am better than the mother eagle. I have remained tenacious in my goal to refrain from swearing for the entirety of 2013. It’s been three months and 20 days, but I am proud to say that I now have the chaste mouth of a nun.

“Wait, Ryan,” you’re saying right now, “disregarding how uncomfortable that nun analogy made me feel, I’ve heard you swear a handful of times in the past three and a half months. You are a lying sack of …”

Keep the language PG-rated, voice of the ambiguous reader! I wouldn’t want you cursing and sounding like a drunken college student in front of all of these readers!

I’ll admit, there have been a few isolated incidents where I may have let a couple vulgarities slide. The first one happened when I threw out my back while emptying water out of my clogged shower. You really can’t blame me for swearing here because how the … heck does a 20-year-old suffer an injury more common for a shuffleboard court at a retirement home?

The second time occurred when I discovered that I will be living in the Mods next year. I’ll now welcome the onslaught of obscenities directed toward me.

Apart from the few bumps I’ve hit in the road, I’ve made significant improvements from my old ways. I used to fill rooms with f-bombs just to elicit a few laughs and swear out of frustration when I’d lose my car keys.

And now, lingering in the immediate future is a daunting challenge for my formerly foul mouth: March Madness. As my bracket turns to shambles and my hard-earned money lands in the hands of some jerk who flipped a coin for all of his picks, I’ll be struggling to maintain my current restraint. For that reason, I need to further examine our desire to swear besides the fact that we’ve been doing it since we saw Old School in second grade.

When looking at the inoffensive alternatives to profanity, I’m not surprised that my fellow students and I continue to swear. You would sound like a well-mannered car salesman who wears the same sweater and ironed khakis everyday if you walked around shouting “gee whiz, the inclement weather in this city really grinds my gears!” The last time I yelled “Holy Cow” was probably when I got the birds and the bees talk at age 10. These phrases don’t stick in our college environment because we have the choice to say what we want to our friends without being sent to the principal’s office.

We choose to swear because it’s the most extreme way we know of using our language to express our emotions. An aptly placed f-bomb when describing your least favorite player on the Yankees would really let someone know how much you dislike Robinson Cano. The vulgarities place a heavy emphasis on words that we want to stand out so we can show our sadness, our excitement, or our passion. But when we use these words too much, they lose their value and we begin to mindlessly rant instead of prove a point. Their uses become jumbled as our mouths become fouler and we forget why we choose to swear in the first place. For example, if you asked your friend, “Hey man, you’ve been to fudging Australia?” then he may think you’re impressed at his world travels. However, if you misplaced the f-bomb and asked, “Hey man, fudging you have been to Australia?” then he will think you doubt his dreams of saving the Great Coral Reef and his capability to independently travel the globe. He’ll give up all hope on his biology major, and because you’ve awoken some old self-determination demons, he’ll drop out and move in with his parents. You just ruined a friendship and killed one of the natural wonders of the world, thanks to your potty mouth.

A profanity is nothing more than an easy way out. Bunches of words exist out there that are stellar replacements. So when my iPhone screen inevitably cracks again, I’ll slow down and think of a better way to express my stupidity.

Yet at the end of the day, so many circumstances still exist that can’t be described by anything else but a profanity. Skydiving and being stalked by a shark are both adrenalinerush moments that created these vulgarities.

I’d even go so far as to say that March Madness is a similar thrill-junkie moment, which would basically give me a pardon for all swears uttered over the next three weeks.

Therefore, with all that being established, please join me in saying one last thing: FUDGING DUKE!

Ryan McGuill is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@ bcheights.com.

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Community Help wanted Cash for one time study participation. Participate in a Psychology research study for cash. Use the Sona Systems link (http:// bc.sona-systems.com) to access our studies. You will need to click “Request an account here” and then sign up using your BC email address.

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Thursday, March 21, 2013

The Heights

A9

BC faces BU in semifinal action Men’s Hockey, from A12 the season, and Lowell has taken two out of three matchups, but a 3-0 shutout win by Providence in their second to last matchup of the regular season shows that the Friars have a chance at handling the River Hawks.

Key for the Friars will be their freshman standout goalie Jon Gillies, whose 93-percent save percentage has earned Providence all of its 17 wins this season while their backup senior Russ Stein did not provide a single win.

On the other end of the ice, however, will be another outstanding freshman goalie, Connor Hellebuyck, whose save percentage tallies one more point than Gillies’s at 94 percent, but whose record is one game back from Gillies’s with 16 wins.

With two such strong performers in net and the heightened aggression of playoff hockey, each chance that either team gets will prove extremely important in what is bound to be a low scoring game.

L ater that e vening , the second semifinal matchup will take place, this time between BU and BC. This fourth meeting of the season between the rivals sees BC with a slight edge over BU, as they have taken two out of three games in the season’s series. Yet this advantage is lessened slightly by the all-time record that BC has against BC in in the Hockey East playoffs, which is a mere 3-8.

Both teams have seen ups and downs during the season. BU endured a big slump during January and February, with a 5-8-2 record during the two months that showed a promising BU team that started the season more strongly experiencing a late season lull.

BC did not fare much better during those months, as they had only a 6-6-2 record, but since then both teams have seen upturns that allowed

them to finish toward the top of the conference in one of the closest seasons that Hockey East has seen in quite some time.

BU especially has seen an increase in momentum heading into the postseason, but Cavanaugh does not see that as an added advantage for the Terriers.

They always seem to be playing well when they play us,” he said. “I know they’ve won four in a row and have been rolling well as a team, but when they play Boston College they could have lost four in a row and they’d still play their best game.”

With such an exciting end to the regular season, both teams will be hoping to make an impression in the tournament, but this weekend holds a specific set of challenges in the absence of York, who had his third surgery of the year on his right eye on Monday after missing the second game of the Vermont series.

Associate coach Greg Brown commented that everyone was hoping for a quick recovery and that as of Tuesday he wasn’t experiencing much pain, but York will not take place in tournament action this weekend. He hopes to be back in action sometime next week.

Because of complications with York’s eye earlier this season, Cavanaugh and Brown are not completely alien to running the team.

“When we get the news it was really surprising on Saturday because Greg, myself, and Jerry all had a team meeting and we all went and worked out afterwards. Jerry customarily goes home before the game and comes back at 5 o’clock, and when we got the call at three that he was in the hospital, it was a little surprising,” Cavanaugh said. “If we had not gone through it earlier in the year, it would have been a lot more to handle.”

The previous experience came in January, but did not have the same weight as these final few Hockey East games and as the team hopes to build

Graham Beck / heights Editor

The winner of BC and BU will see either Providence or UMass Lowell in the championship game on Saturday. momentum moving into the NCAA tournament, so this weekend will still be a test.

With a win on Friday night will come a trip to the final on Saturday, and all teams will be out and ready to compete. BC was 2-1 against UMass Lowell during the regular season, taking commanding victories in the first two meetings before dropping the third.

Against Providence, Eagles are 1-1-1, with their only win coming in overtime. BU was 2-0-1 against Providence and 0-3 against UMass Lowell.

After such a competitive regular season, all four of these teams will be eager to claim their share of a Hockey East title. With all previous records wiped away, two wins will crown a champion. n

Eagles take a third straight shot at achieving Frozen Four glory

By Chris Grimaldi Assoc. Sports Editor

Enterting the final phase of its playoff run, the Boston College women’s hockey team is ready to believe that “third time’s the charm.”

Head coach Katie King-Crowley’s Eagles are headed to Minneapolis, Minn. to make their third consecutive Frozen Four appearance. After defeating Harvard in an NCAA tournament quarterfinal matchup this past Saturday, BC is prepared to make a run at its first national title in program history.

“I think our kids are playing really well,” Crowley said, reflecting on a season in which she’s been named a finalist for Division I Coach of the Year.

“Coming off of last weekend’s game, I think we’re playing on the top of our game right now.”

The Promised Land of college hockey is no foreign place to the Eagles, as they have reached the Frozen Four semifinal a total four times in the last seven seasons in addition to their current three-peat. Senior defenseman and captain Blake Bolden has experienced BC’s rise to postseason prominence first-hand.

“The first time that I made it, my sophomore year,” Bolden said, “it was just an amazement in itself just to get to the Frozen Four because of the poor season my freshman year. That moment was amazing for us then, and then the next year it was like, ‘Okay, we’re actually building this program to be a top contender in the nation.’”

After the Eagles lost to Wisconsin in 2011’s semifinal round, they stumbled in a chance for redemption against the Badgers last year. The frustration of coming so close to the ultimate prize two season in a row, and being thwarted by the same enemy both times, has left a more seasoned BC squad with a renewed commitment to taking another step forward against a new opponent “I think above all, we’re not really focused on just getting to the Frozen Four and being content with that,” Bolden said. “We just want to win the national championship this third time around.”

Standing in the Eagles’ path toward a title, however, is college hockey Goliath and defending national champion Minnesota. Entering Friday’s matchup with an unparalleled record of 39-0, the Gophers will be coincidentally hosting the semifinal matchup on their own home ice.

The prospect of playing the nation’s top team in front of their own fans could be perceived as an intimidation factor, but the Eagles embrace it as a challenge to rally around.

“It’s all Minnesota when we get there,” Bolden said. “Me personally, I really like that aspect of it.

I think it’s going to motivate me and I hope it’ll do

the same to my team.”

With that outlook, Bolden and her teammates are eager to confront their enemy head-on, even though the undefeated Gophers boast standout forward Amanda Kessel and her 44 goals. Minnesota’s offensive arsenal and quest for perfection both provide BC with a sense of determination worthy of the Frozen Four’s magnitude.

“If anything, we’re more motivated and amped up because they haven’t lost,” Bolden said. “Who wouldn’t want to be the first team to make them lose or shutdown their offense or score goals against a great goalie. I think our team is very excited for this game, as a defenseman I’m excited to shutdown their offense and contribute as much as I can.”

Considering that the Gophers barely escaped from a triple-overtime thriller against North Da-

kota in the quarterfinal round, the Eagles might be catching Minnesota at just the right time.

“We’re excited to play them.” Crowley said.

“We’ve wanted to play them.”

Though Bolden and other team veterans are accustomed to dealing with the excitement and pressure of the sport’s biggest stage, participating in the Frozen Four will be an entirely new adventure for BC’s six freshmen. Prior postseason experience might not be unanimous on this year’s Eagle squad, but a shared sense of trust and confidence is.

“Coming in, we just have to be confident in ourselves and as a team,” BC’s captain said, “knowing that we can just trust each other. I think that’s been a really big part of our game this entire season is being able to trust each other, and certain people stepping up to the plate and everyone playing their

roles.”

Other than being a highly anticipated playoff matchup, Friday’s date with Minnesota will be a game of opportunities. It’s a chance for Bolden and her classmates to cap their BC careers with a redemptive fairytale ending, and the Eagle rookies to begin their journeys with a bang. For the team, Friday can bring an end to its championship drought and catapult BC toward a shot at becoming the first Hockey East squad ever to win a national title.

With so much on the line, Crowley reiterated that there is no excuse for complacency.

“We don’t want to just get the sweatshirt and come home,” she said. “We want to win and bring home some hardware, and I think that’s our kids’ focus.” n

Graham beck / Heights Editor

The BC women’s hockey team opens the Frozen Four with defending national champion and hometown favorite Minnesota. The Gophers are a perfect 39-0 this season.

Goalie brings a new perspective Column, from A12

Graham Beck / heights Editor

Suiting up as a backup goalie for the Eagles during a playoff run, Ryan Polischuk has fulfilled a life-long goal on the ice.

important people in the sophomore’s life.

“My parents were always like, ‘One, make sure you love this. You’re doing it because you love it. If you do, this is your decision, but keep up with it.’”

Despite his accomplishments on the Heights, however, the defending national champions’ newest face between the pipes exudes a sense of humility that makes him and his story all the more impressive.

“I’m not the only Presidential Scholar who’s playing a varsity sport right now,” Polischuk said.

“Kids are very involved, whether or not that talent is athletic or academic, but I think at BC you do find kids who have a lot of different talents.”

His own gift at hockey is a force to reckon with. Goaltending for both his high school team and club squad, the Philadelphia Junior Flyers, Polischuk seriously considered attending prep school or a Division III program to keep his passion for the game alive. Yet in the end, the allure of the opportunities he’d have at BC won out.

“Coming to BC with a scholarship wasn’t something I could turn down,” he said.

Even so, Polischuk realized the formidable

competition club hockey had to offer and seized it. Now he finds himself on the brink of dressing for the Hockey East semifinals against archrival Boston University as the Eagles push deeper into their playoff run. Nevertheless, the physics guru turned Division I hockey goalie maintains a characteristically levelheaded attitude.

“I just want to help the guys out,” he said of his role on York’s squad, “and [my teammates] were great at making me feel like I’m part of the team already … I’m kind of taking it one day at a time.”

Donning the maroon and gold for BC’s athletics program does not imply less physics problem sets or a reprieve from representing the best and brightest on campus. Division I hockey has added another commitment to Polischuk’s rigorous everyday schedule. Yet whether on the ice or in the midst of everyday life, Polischuk believes that the root to every triumph is a positive attitude.

“Here it’s a whole other step up,” he said, “but it’s the thing where if you want to do it, you’ll find a way.”

Chris Grimaldi is the Assoc. Sports Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at sports@ bcheights.com.

The Heights

A10

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Graham Beck / Heights Editor

Clancy and Momah look to make up for lost time after injuries Pro Day, from A12 While Momah is not eligible for this year’s draft, he is aiming to catch on with a team as an undrafted free agent. That would get him into a rookie training camp, and give him a legitimate shot at making an NFL roster by September.

“I’m hoping some teams give me an opportunity and I get to choose where the best fit for me is,” he said.

Having gone through a challenging journey to get to where he is today, Momah is just hoping for a team to give him a chance.

“I’m happy I made it here today and I still have that fire burning in me to keep going.

I plan on trying to play as long as possible,” Momah said.

While a career in the NFL is no guarantee, Momah’s injury and recovery has made him realize what playing at the next level would mean.

“It would mean everything,” he said. “If I can get a workout off just this one day, glory to God, I’ll be happy. I’ll be forever thankful and grateful.”

Despite having a breakout senior year in 2012 and leading the ACC in tackles with 145, Clancy’s stong season was not enough to earn him an invitation to the NFL Combine.

That disappoitment was more than enough to give him a chip on his shoulder entering Wednesday’s workouts.

“The fact that I didn’t get an invite definitely gave me an extra spark of motivation for today, just knowing I had that much more to prove to these guys,” Clancy said.

“They haven’t really seen me. I’ve kind of gone under the radar these last few months, and having this opportunity, I had to make

the best of it.”

For the last three months, Clancy has been training and working out mostly in Arizona to get in shape for this day.

“I think I did well,” he said. “At the end of the day, I’m happy with how I performed.

It’s something you train for for three months.

I’ve been doing nothing but working out and eating right and getting my body right for this day. Hopefully the scouts thought I did well too.”

There was, however, a bump in the road.

While practicing for an all-star game in Texas, where he would have had the opportunity to show off his talent before NFL scouts, Clancy broke his forearm. He underwent surgery in early February, and after a quick recovery was cleared to start working out again two weeks later.

Recovering from the injury in time to participate in Pro Day was just another factor in Clancy’s motivation to perform well on Wednesday.

“This is what I’ve been working out for,” he said. “Being in Arizona, coming back to Chicago, working out with a bunch of different guys, doing rehab—all of these different things were for this day. Now that it’s over, it’s a weight off my shoulders and now I can focus on getting in better shape and being ready for the draft.”

Clancy said that beyond the workout statistics, he was hoping to show the scouts his high energy and competitiveness.

“Everybody’s trying to do their best and trying to be technically sound, but at the end of the day, I think the scouts are just looking for competitors, guys that are going to give it their all,” Clancy said.

At this point, Clancy has done everything in his control to best prepare for an opportu-

unbelievable, and I thank God every day for this opportunity.

“Right now, it’s out of my hands. Up until this point, I’ve had my future in my control with how I’m going to work and how I’m going to train, but right now it’s out of my control. I’m just going to leave it up to God and see how it goes.”

Roundup

Graham Beck / Heights Editor

Linebacker Nick Clancy felt extra motivation after not being invited to the NFL Combine. nity in the NFL. The next month will bring rest, more time to get in shape, and possibly a few individual workouts with NFL teams.

Clancy already has one workout scheduled with the Chicago Bears for April 12, and he’s hoping to hear from scouts after Wednesday’s showing to set up more.

“I think after Pro Day is when teams start calling you to bring you in,” he said. “If I can keep my name out there a little more, I think I’ll have more invites to workouts.”

Right now, Clancy is unsure of where he might fall, if at all, in April’s NFL Draft.

He’s been hearing different things from different teams, but knows it’s ultimately not

up to him.

“I’m high up on certain guys’ draft boards, I’m a free agent on some other guys’ draft boards,” Clancy said. “Would I like to get drafted that high, fifth round or something?

Yeah, but that’s not up to me. It’s up to them.

It’s out of my hands.

“Just as long as I get my opportunity, I’ll be happy.”

Like Momah, Clancy knows he’s in a special position by just getting a chance to pursue his dream of playing in the NFL. “That’s the ultimate,” Clancy said. “It’s something I’ve been dreaming about since I was a little kid. To have this opportunity is

Eagles roll with early mistakes

Golf takes home first at C&F

Practice, from A12 before they began.

“It was a tough offseason,” Amidon said.

“The workouts and the runs with coach Piraino, the new strength coach, were real tough.

It’s good. It brought us together really well.”

“We’ve had a great winter session,” Addazio said. “I saw great growth in the winter session, and now you’re trying to apply it to football.

I don’t know how you could ever function without this, especially if you’re a new staff coming in.”

After spending the summer in the weight room and watching tape, Tuesday provided the first opportunity to run full drills. There will be 15 spring practices total, and Addazio plans on spreading them out over five weeks, practicing on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday until the spring game on April 20.

“We’re really on a really great, slow Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday practice schedule,” Addazio said. “The reason we did that is to maximize so that you can have a practice day and then you have a great film study instillation day. If you put too many practices in a

By Chris Stadtler Heights Editor

Graham beck / Heights Editor

Running back Deuce Finch returned to the field after a tumultuous 2012 season. Steve Addazio ran his first official practice on Tuesday. row then you don’t have a chance to really go through the film with the players and really study on this thing. So this schedule is really put together to take advantage of every second.

This is a pace for learning.”

The slow schedule also gives the team time to work out the kinks in the brand new system.

“It was definitely a little hectic,” PierreLouis said. “Everybody’s learning something new. It’s almost like we’re being retaught how to play football. It was a crazy practice, but the

defense started to pick it up at the end and the offense brought a lot of energy. I’m excited for how the spring game is going to look once we get everything nice and settled.”

Addazio will use the time between the start of spring practice and the spring game to take a full evaluation of the team’s personnel.

“I want to see the fundamentals at every position increase and get better,” Addazio said. “It’s really important in the spring that your fundamentals are better. Then I want to be able to evaluate who our personnel is and

make sure that we’re doing the right things to maximize who we have, and it’s really hard for me until I get into spring ball—we have a series of what we’re trying to do, but right around that mid-spring ball point you say to yourself okay, we’ve made some good decisions and maybe we’ve got to make some different decisions. We’ve got to do the best we can to maximize who we are and I don’t know that really yet. I won’t have an idea of that until we get into this thing probably about five or six practices.” n

Eagles get back on track with win over Terriers

By Chris Grimaldi Assoc. Sports Editor

After suffering an eight-goal loss to ACC powerhouse Maryland over the weekend, the Boston College women’s lacrosse team sought redemption in their matchup with rival Boston University yesterday afternoon.

Thanks to a five-goal performance by sophomore Mikaela Rix, the Eagles held on to snatch a 12-9 victory on their home turf and returned their overall record back to the .500 mark.

Head coach Acacia Walker’s squad was poised to leave its offensive woes behind and create more opportunities to score, as freshman Sarah Mannelly sparked the Eagles with a goal from inside the arc less than three

The New England Patriots sent two scouts to Pro Day, while 10 other teams were represented: Arizona, Denver, Green Bay, Kansas City, New Orleans, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Tampa Bay. Colin Larmond, Jr. performed in drills as a wide receiver, while Donte Elliot worked out as a wide receiver and a defensive back.

Tight end Lars Anderson, who tore his pectoral muscle at last year’s Pro Day, also worked out alongside his former teammates.

On the other side of the ball, defensive tackle Bryan Murray and defensive back Jim Noel worked out in front of the scouts as well.

The last positional workout of the day featured long snapper Sean Flaherty and punter Gerald Levano.

While agents, outside coaches, and family were not allowed into the bubble, BC administrators and current players were there to watch their teammates work out. Athletic director Brad Bates and head football coach Steve Addazio were in attendance, as was Luke Kuechly, last year’s No. 9 overall pick and the NFL defensive Rookie of the Year. It was just one year ago that he was on the field in front of the scouts, locking up his top-10 selection. n

minutes into regulation. Yet BC’s defense was quickly put to the test by an awakened Terrier offense. A game-tying score from Danielle Etrasco catalyzed a 4-0 Terrier run that lasted for nearly 16 minutes of the first frame. On the other side of the ball, goalie Christina Sheridan and BU’s defensive unit did an effective job of slowing the Eagle advance.

Just when it seemed as if BC was going to be mired in another low-scoring effort, Covie Stanwick led the charge toward an offensive resurgence. The sophomore tallied two freeposition scores to cut the visiting team’s lead to one. Before the half came to an end, the Eagles drew even with their crosstown rival thanks to Rix’s first of five goals. A closely contested half in which both squads nearly posted the same number of shots on goal

was about to give way to an Eagle-dominated offensive outburst.

After finishing the first frame on a 3-0 scoring run, BC picked up right where it left off. Junior Moira Barry fired a shot past Sheridan to regain an Eagle lead. Mannelly continued the home team’s momentum on offense with a score of her own less than a minute later.

From there, Rix broke out with one of the Eagles’ most dominant individual performances of the season. The sophomore tallied three consecutive goals for the team within a three-minute span, capping a relentless 8-0 Eagle run. After the dust cleared, BC found itself with a commanding 9-4 lead with 20 minutes to play.

Yet the Terriers refused to go down

without a fight. BU’s Elizabeth Morse went on a solo scoring rampage, tallying four of the game’s next six goals en route to a fivegoal effort of her own. The Eagles’ opponent had actually come as close as two goals to tying the contest at 11-9. Despite the Terrier offense’s attempts to wear BC’s defense out, sophomore goalie Emily Mata’s six saves along with insurance scores from Rix, Stanwick, and Mannelly enabled the Eagles to leave with a timely three-goal victory.

Notably, the Eagles posted 28 shots yesterday after mustering only eight attempts at the goal against Maryland on Saturday. If yesterday’s win against BU is any indication, BC’s renewed ability to attack the net is a recipe for success moving forward into the heart of the season. n

The Boston College women’s golf team ended its winless drought on Tuesday.

The squad, led by fifth year head coach Drew Kayser earned its first victory since 2011 in the C&F Bank Intercollegiate.

The event was hosted by the College of William & Mary. Twenty-six teams from the East Coast competed in the event.

BC led all other colleges with a score of 598 (+30). Richmond University came in second place behind the Eagles’ with a total score of 609 (+41).

The tournament took place at Kingsmill River Course in Williamsburg, Virginia. The Par 71 was a challenging length of 6,100 yards. Yet the course played well to the strengths of BC. The win becomes the highlight of an overall successful season. The Eagles’ previously found success at the Golfweek Program Challenge and the FIU Pat Bradley Invitational. In both cases BC finished fourth.

The Eagles’ had their last team win in 2011 at the Rutgers Invitational. Katia Joo led the way for that team in 2011 with a fourth place individual finish.

This time,freshman Vinh-Hoa Ngo set the tone for a group of players that went all of 2012 without a win. Over two rounds the first year golfer scored a 145, good for plus-three overall. The 145 aggregate score resulted in a first place individual finish. Underclassmen Katia Joo and Isabel Southard played well, finishing in a tie for fifth place overall.

The strength of this year’s team clearly lies in its younger players. Of the eight golfers on the varsity team there are only two seniors to lead three sophomores and three freshmen. While the team is young, the success of their less experienced members bodes well for the future.

For now though, the Eagles’ look forward to their last event of the year.

On April 19 they will take their talents to Charlotte, N.C. for the ACC championship. n

THE HEIGHTS

EDITORS’ EDITORS’PICKS PICKS

Thursday, March 21, 2013 The Week Ahead

Standings

Baseball faces top ranked UNC at home in three games this weekend.

Women’s hockey takes on Minnesota in the Frozen Four on Friday night.

Lacrosse hosts UNC for a top 20 matchup on Saturday. The Hockey East tournament final is on Saturday at TD Garden. The ACC has four teams in the NCAA Tournament.

Heights Staff

19-16

Chris Grimaldi

19-16

Marly Morgus

18-17

Austin Tedesco

17-18

A11

Recap from Last Week

Game of the Week

Men’s hockey swept Vermont.

Women’s hockey advanced to the Frozen Four with a win over Harvard.

Men’s basketball beat Georgia Tech in the ACC tournament then fell to Miami. Baseball lost three games to Georgia Tech. The Domincan Republic went undefreated in the World Baseball Classic.

Men’s Hockey

Guest Editor: Sean Keeley

Boston vs.

University

Arts & Review Editor

On Friday night, men’s hockey will meet BU for the fourth time this season, this time in the semifinal of the Hockey East tournament. BU finished the season just one spot behind BC in the Hockey East standings, taking the third spot. This season, the Eagles have bested the Terriers two out of three times.

However, BU is 8-3 all time against BC in the Hockey East tournament. With the stakes increased, as the teams play for a spot in the championship game against the winner of the UMass Lowell/Providence game taking place earlier in the evening, both teams can be expected to put their best effort forward.

“I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

Austin Tedesco Sports Editor

Chris Grimaldi Assoc. Sports Editor

Baseball: BC vs. No. 1 UNC

UNC

UNC

Women’s Hockey: No. 3 BC vs. No. 1 Minnesota

Minn

Women’s Lacrosse: No. 20 BC vs.No. 5 UNC

UNC

Who will win the Hockey East Tournament?

BU 7

This Week’s Games

How many wins for ACC teams in Tournament’s first weekend?

16 NC A&T 8 Colorado St. 9 Missouri 5 Oklahoma St. 12 Oregon 4 St. Louis 13 New Mex. St. 6 Memphis 11 St. Mary’s 3 Michigan St. 14 Valparaiso 7 Creighton 10 Cincinnati 2 Duke 15 Albany 1 Gonzaga 16 Southern 8 Pittsburgh 9 Wichita St. 5 Wisconsin 12 Ole Miss 4 Kansas St. 13 La Salle 6 Arizona 11 Belmont 3 New Mexico 14 Harvard 7 Notre Dame 10 Iowa St. 2 Ohio St. 15 Iona

Louisville

Sean Keeley Arts & Review Editor

UNC

UNC

BC

BC

Minn

UNC

UNC

UNC

BC

UMass Lowell

BC

6

5

5

Friday at 8:00 p.m., TD Garden.

Louisville Missouri

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Louisville O.K. State St. Louis St. Louis

BRACKET

1 Kansas

KU

2013

1 Louisville

Marly Morgus Asst. Sports Editor

16 Western Ky

UNC UNC Mich VCU

4 Michigan

Mich

13 S. Dak. St.

Minn.

Florida

MSU

Gonzaga

MSU

Florida Florida

MSU

SDSU

Cincy GTown

Cincy

GTown

Duke

Gonzaga

Indiana Indiana

Gonzaga Pitt

NCSU

Champion: Gonzaga

Gonzaga Ole Miss

Indiana

Syracuse

KSU Gonzaga

Miami Bucknell

Belmont MU

Harvard

OSU Iowa St. OSU OSU

PICKS FROM Miami THE HEIGHTS SPORTS EDITORS

3 Florida 14 Nwstrn St. 7 San Diego St. 10 Oklahoma 2 Georgetown 15 FGCU 1 Indiana 16 JMU 8 N.C. State 9 Temple

4 Syracuse 13 Montana 6 Butler 11 Bucknell 3 Marquette

MU

Harvard

11 Minnesota

12 California

Syracuse

Ole Miss

6 UCLA

5 UNLV

Cal

Miami

9 Villanova

12 Akron

Mich

Memphis

8 N. Carolina

5 VCU

Florida

MSU

Boston College

14 Davidson

Illinois Miami Miami

7 Illinois 10 Colorado 2 Miami (Fla.) 15 Pacific

MAGGIE BURDGE | HEIGHTS PHOTO ILLUSTRATION

m. hockey

scoreboard

BC UVM

Chestnut Hill, MA 3/16

4 1

BC GT

3 Milner 16 sv BC White 1 g HarvrD 1 Atlanta, GA 3/17

Baseball

1 9

W. hockey

Softball

Chestnut Hill, MA 3/16 M. Basketball

58 Boyles 30 SV BC Parker 1 G Miami 69 Clearwater, Fl 3/17 m. tennis

Chin 6.2 IP BC 6 Pandolfo 1-for-3, 2 RBI BC Pitts 6.2 Ip, 0 ER cornel 8 Weingberg 2-for-3 VT

Greensboro, NC 3/15

Heckmann 15 pts Larkin 20 pts Blacksburg, Va 3/17

Chestnut hill,Mama11/11 3/16 Boston,

w. Lacrosse

BC MD

Stanwick 3 G Cummings 4 G

5 13

Newton, MAMA 11/09 Dedham, 3/17

w. Tennis

0 Nelson 6-4, 6-4 loss bc 7 contini 6-0, 6-2 VT

3 4

kelleher 6-1, 5-1

SPORTS THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, March 21, 2013

A12

A9

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013

Hockey rivalry heats up at the Garden

BY MARLY MORGUS Asst. Sports Editor

ALEX TRAUTWIG / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF

The Eagles and the Terriers will battle for a spot in the Hockey East championship game.

Scholar lives his hockey dream at BC

As the regular season drew to a close, head coach Jerry York predicted that the regular season would come down to the last few games, and that it did. At the end of play, just two points separated the top four teams.

In the end, it was UMass Lowell that came away with the regular season title, leaving three other teams, Boston College, Boston University, and Providence College, all biting at the bit without a banner. This weekend gives all of those teams, a clean slate and another opportunity to claim a different type of Hockey East title: tournament champion.

Last weekend saw the beginning of tournament play, with each team matched up with another from the top eight conference finishers. UMass Lowell took down Maine in two games with 4-2 and 2-1 (OT) wins. BC rolled over Vermont with 4-2 and 4-1 wins. Associate head coach Mike Cavanaugh was very happy with his team’s performance last weekend.

“You’re always trying to end one team’s season,” he said. “One team is going to go home and not going to go the national tournament, so you have to take their sticks away. It’s always a hard fought series and we were happy to get by UVM and obviously excited to be playing in the Hockey East championships.”

See Column, A9

See Men’s Hockey, A9

LEARNING THE ROPES

BY AUSTIN TEDESCO Sports Editor

Al Louis-Jean was lined up five yards from where he needed to be, and as the ball snapped, so did Kevin Lempa. Boston College’s new defensive backs coach ran at Louis-Jean and ushered him to his appropriate position in the flat with an exuberant amount of screamed instructions.

BC kicked off its first spring practice on Tuesday afternoon under new head coach Steve Addazio and his staff, and there were some initial growing pains. “[There was] a lot of anxiety I would say, because everyone’s nervous,” said rising senior linebacker Kevin PierreLouis. “Making sure they get in the right spot.

I messed up a bunch of times at the beginning of practice which allowed me to correct them at the end of practice.

Everybody’s just getting their nerves out right now and is excited for next season.”

Addazio was ready for the mistakes and acknowledged that his team has a long spring ahead to make improvements.

“I thought [the players] really had great attitude, great effort, you can tell they’re straining to do the right thing,” Addazio said.

“We’ve got a long way to go, but if you have great effort and you’re willing to fight through it each day will get better. Like I said to them after practice, where we are now and where we’ll be at the end of the spring will be two different things.”

Players flew around the field to get in the right position and execute each drill properly, and even the veterans were a little out of sync at first.

“All the coaches are different coaches,” said rising senior wide receiver Alex Amidon. “With new coaches and a new practice system, it’s really high paced. Kind of a trial by fire with the new offense and everything.

I think the coaches are just seeing who wants to work hard. The first couple days it’ll be like this, but after that you’ll start seeing a lot less mistakes.”

The Eagles enter the spring after a winter session of workouts that Addazio said would be the toughest the players had ever had

CHRIS GRIMALDI It’s not everyday that a Boston College student receives a call to suit up for the men’s hockey team during a postseason run.

For sophomore physics major Ryan Polischuk, this dream became a reality one week ago.

“I’m lucky, and that’s the only way I can put it,” he said.

Polischuk, the starting goalie for BC’s club hockey team, had just finished taking an exam when he received word from his club coach that head coach Jerry York’s varsity squad had lost backup goalkeeper Brian Billett to the sidelines because of a concussion. Heading into the Hockey East quarterfinals, BC needed to add another goalie to the roster to take Billett’s place in practice.

The man York and his coaching staff pegged for the job was none other than Polischuk.

Minutes after initially hearing the news and heading out of Higgins Hall, the sophomore received a call from associate head coach Greg Brown extending an offer too good to refuse: to practice with the Eagles.

Polischuk had been in the middle of a midterm only a half-hour earlier.

Now, he was on his way to meet with college hockey’s most legendary coach and his new teammates.

“The first day, I went from not knowing if they wanted to bring me up, to then practicing,” he said.

Then York gave Polischuk the news of a lifetime—a sentence he had dreamt of hearing since he first suited up in goalie pads at age six—the sophomore physics major was going to dress for the Eagles home playoff series against Vermont “It was such a whirlwind,” Polischuk said.

Out on the ice in full uniform with York’s Eagles last Friday night, Polischuk had brought his life-long love for hockey full-circle and lived a story that could inspire even the most cynical Superfan.

Yet there’s more to Polischuk than his rise to overnight notoriety as the new goalie in town, and the fact that he’s a dedicated student taking four physics classes this semester. On top of it all, Ryan Polischuk is a Presidential Scholar.

As one of only 59 Presidential scholars at BC and 19 in the Class of 2015, Polischuk is the recipient of a full academic scholarship commemorating excellence both in and out of the classroom. To say his accomplishments embody the University motto, “Ever to Excel,” wouldn’t be an overstatement, but rather a testament to an exemplary work ethic.

Striking a balance between his passion for life on the ice and dedication to his studies has been a strength of Polischuk’s since starring as his high school team’s starting goalie and class valedictorian. The drive to honor his commitments and succeed in the process is derived from the advice of two

BU put up a similarly strong performance over Merrimack, winning 3-0 and 5-3.

Providence, the fourth seed heading into the weekend, was the only team that required a tie breaker game to send them to the semifinals, as UNH fought their way to a 4-1 win in the second game of the series, only to be beaten 3-2 the next day, earning Providence the final spot in this weekend’s play.

On Friday night, top seeded UMass Lowell will take on fourth seed Providence in pursuit of a coveted spot in the championship game. The teams have met three other times throughout

GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR

The BC football team kicked off its spring season under Steve Addazio. with the first of 15 practices on Tuesday in the bubble.

See Practice, A10

Momah, Clancy eye NFL dreams at Pro Day 12 former Boston College football players workout for pro teams leading up to draft

BY GREG JOYCE

Heights Senior Staff Mar. 20 has been circled on the calendars of Nick Clancy and Ifeanyi Momah for a long time.

For Clancy, it’s been a day he’s worked for since the final whistle blew at North Carolina State, signaling the end of Boston College’s 2012 season in November.

For Momah, this day has been an even longer time coming.

Yesterday was Pro Day at Alumni Stadium, the annual event that brought personnel from 11 NFL teams to look at 12 former BC football players aspiring for a shot at the next level.

While the top 333 college prospects got an invite to show off their skills at last month’s NFL Combine—including BC’s Emmett Cleary, Chris Pantale, and John Wetzel—there were others that never got that opportunity on the big stage.

I NSIDE SPORTS THIS ISSUE

Momah’s journey to Pro Day was filled with more roadblocks than not being invited to the Combine. The wide receiver hasn’t played in a game of football since Sept. 3, 2011, in the season-opener against Northwestern. He had a monster day, catching eight passes for 157 yards.

But one bad landing put him on the sideline for the rest of the season. While bringing down his seventh catch of the game, Momah tore his ACL, and was done for the year.

“I found out about it and it was heartbreaking,” Momah said. “I was planning on having a big senior year.”

Having sat out the entire 2009 season due to another knee injury and a position change to defensive end, Momah applied for a sixth year of eligibility, but was denied it by the NCAA. Still experiencing swelling in his left knee from the ACL tear last March, Momah was forced to sit out last year’s Pro Day on the sideline, watching his classmates audition for

Gearing up for the Gophers

The women’s hockey team tries to end Minnesota’s unbeaten streak in the Frozen Four....A8

a shot at the NFL. During the first two or three months of his recovery, Momah thought long and hard about giving up football and pursuing another career. But deep down, he knew he couldn’t give up the opportunity he had.

So he went down to Pensacola, Fla. soon after, and met with well-known surgeon James Andrews, who deals with athletes with ACL tears.

Andrews set up a program for Momah to take on in order to strengthen the muscles around his knee.

Ever since, Momah has been working out in order to get him back in shape for football. In January, he went to another training program in Miami to make sure he was fully ready to participate in workouts like Wednesday’s Pro Day. “It’s a blessing,” Momah said of the opportunity to participate in this year’s Pro

Game Of The Week: BC vs. BU

BU’s Jack Parker faces the Eagles for likely the last time on Friday night.......A9

Day. “Last year I was out here and couldn’t do anything with my knee. That hurt. It was tough for me. That whole year off, training and working out, I had a fire in my chest to keep working so I could come out here this year and give it my all. I’m happy with how it turned out today. I was happy to do what I had been doing before the injury. I feel like my old self again.”

Momah seemed to get the scouts’ attention during his workouts at Pro Day, as many of them left impressed with the 6-foot-7, athletic w ide out . He hopes his performance at Pro Day will lead to a few individual workouts with teams in the coming weeks.

See Pro Day, A10

Editors’Picks.......................A11 Scoreboard..........................A11

The Heights

A2Critical curmudgeon

lil’ wayne

reflecting on the rapper’s medical tribulations page B2 column

fashion forward singing the praises of nail polish, page B4

Thursday, January 17, 2013

album review

‘The 20/20 Experience’ After a seven-year hiatus, justin timberlake returns to pop music with a stylish, electronic R&B masterpiece, B5

e g e l l Co A M E CIN

see b3

By Sean Keeley,, Arts&& Review Editor | Ariana Igneri,, Assoc. Arts&& Review Editor | John Wiley,, Asst. Arts && Review Editor MAGGIE BURDGE / Heights PHoto illustration

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THE HEIGHTS

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WILEY’S FOLLIES

An uncommon winter eulogy

Thursday, March 21, 2013

SCENE AND HEARD

BY: BRENNAN CARLEY

JOHN WILEY In weeks, the unforgiving New England winter in will melt to spring, leaving only a mosaic of cracks in the pavement and a glaze of salt on the streets. In time, these subtle reminders of winter will be swept away too—the city will replace the pavement and the rain will wash the streets. The cold showers of spring will startle the drowsy trees, and the awakened world will return to work, leaving the dreams of winter in forgotten beds of snow.

In our strangeness, we warmly welcome each new season into our homes, only to become irritated with the length of its stay, growing colder towards it till the day it departs. And though the many may revel in the passing of winter, I mourn it as I would a loved one deceased. I write this column as a eulogy in fond memory of a friend, the artist who transformed the world with abstractions of snow and ice.

The graceful stone folds and stoic gothic archways of Boston College find sweet recompense with the sea of green-tile, discovering their own contrast along the gables, cascaded atop each other, layers of Collegiate Gothic fabric. The great drama of these structures was first orchestrated by Irish architect Charles Donagh Maginnis in 1908, adorned his “City upon a Hill.”

However, the Chestnut Hill campus’ architecture cannot be understood merely as a collection of buildings in a vacuum—architecture only finds its roots as an art within its interaction with the world. The city of stone lines is merely an abstraction, a skeleton of the real, living BC we interact with everyday.

And yet, when it snows, we are reminded of just that skeleton, all too often forgotten beneath a sea of feet and faces. There’s a great wonder in tracing the first footprints along disguised slabs of pavement, covered in fresh snow, as we for once can appreciate our environment as untouched. Upon snowfall, the history of the world is erased, and for a few fleeting hours, all architecture exists in near perfect solitude with the earth beneath, expressing in the purest fashion the sentiments of the artists who dreamt it real.

I am not suggesting that people corrupt architecture—even in settings of great urban decay or the vast destruction of war, the humans interacting with the building play an equal role to the architects. We are the builders and destroyers, mimicking in our artificial way the acts of creation and destruction performed by heavens on the Earth. Indeed, is not all art, in part, this act of playing God? However, in winter, the works of man and heaven blissfully are blurred, and often times impossible to distinguish. If architecture is a layer of humanity spread over the canvas of the earth, snow is a layer of the Divine spread over the canvas of man. Perhaps this is why people often perceive a spiritual connection with snow, why the birth of Christ is so often depicted in a snowy manger—even though we understand the presence of snow in Bethlehem as geographically impossible.

With the development of the car, heating, electricity, waterproof shelters and the like, it seems humanity has conquered near all elements of the heavens. Neither sweltering heat nor blistering cold can keep us from work. We’ve slain the harshness of night with cities of light, and have held captive the day for our reaping with technologies abound. And yet, the morning after a snowstorm, the world stops. Try as we might, we’ve yet to distinguish ourselves masters of the snow. Trapped in a white cocoon, some celebrate a day of rest, while others, mindless in their love of work, grow irritable with themselves. For once, we are reminded we are human.

We are reminded we are small. We are reminded each one of us is a mere pigment on the canvas of the earth.

And so the winter dies, and at the end of March, the many celebrate feeling large again. But I instead remember a friend, a great painter of the earth.

John Wiley is the Asst. Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

2. GOMEZ DISSES BIEBS

1. PSYCHO PREQUEL DEBUTS A&E’s answer to FX’s American Horror Story, the Carlton Cuse penned psychodrama Bates Motel explores the back story of infamous Psycho antagonist Norman Bates and his mother, Norma. The show premiered to robust numbers with its Monday debut—4.6 million pairs of eyes tuned in—and promises to haunt audiences with tales of familial infighting, teenage uncertainties, and, as the pilot so graphically depicted, some murders most foul. Starring Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga, the Motel is equal parts mystery and melodrama, but since it’s in Cuse’s able hands—he did run Lost, after all—the program seems like a surefire success.

On the press tour for her role in the already stunningly successful Spring Breakers, Selena Gomez dropped by The Late Show with David Letterman to talk about her upcoming album, the Harmony Korine directed movie, and her infamous ex-boyfriend. When Letterman insinuated he’d made the pint-sized pop star weep on his most recent visit to the talk show couch, Gomez cheekily replied, “that makes two of us.” It was a rare, unguarded moment for the former Disney princess, one that sparkled with charm.

4. TIMBERLAKE AT SXSW

If you follow even one music journalist on Twitter, you knew that last week all the singers and bands in the world invaded Austin, Tex. for the city’s annual South by Southwest Music and Film Festival. A weeklong showcase for the industry’s best and brightest, SXSW saw performances from both up-and-comers (Angel Haze, Chvrches, Rudimental) and established acts (A Tribe Called Quest, Prince, The Afghan Whigs). On the last night, MySpace’s closing bash featured a headlining spot by JT, who covered INXS’ “Need You Tonight.”

3. LIL’ WAYNE TAPPED OUT?

5. PINK TELLS THE TRUTH

Thanks to a somewhat faulty TMZ report late Friday evening, wildly popular New Orleans rapper Lil’ Wayne was speculated to be on the verge of death following a recent round of reported seizures that put the YMCMB leader in a Los Angeles ICU. Twitter exploded with the news, even going as far as to suggest that Tunechi had been granted his last rites by a priest and that family was by his bedside, before fellow rappers Mack Maine and Birdman jumped on the offensive against the gossip website. Long live Weezy.

In the midst of her “The Truth About Love” tour, Pink stopped a Philadelphia concert mid-song to confront two women fighting in the audience who were both upsetting a young girl nearby. Offering the young, jilted fan a rice krispie treat, Pink halted her hit “Who Knew” to address the situation, telling the women, “cut it out y’all, we’re grown-ass women.” Pink: kicking ass and serving up pop star realness for over 10 years, although it would’ve been more impressive if she’d stopped the fight in mid-air.

THE CRITICAL CURMUDGEON

@ALBERTBROOKS (ALBERT BROOKS, ACTOR/COMEDIAN)

“THE NEW POPE CAME OUT ON THE BALCONY, SAW HIS SHADOW, AND REALIZED THERE WAS SIX MORE CENTURIES OF SCANDALS.” PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES

Though some insist that Lil’ Wayne’s recent hospitalization isn’t drug-related, the rapper’s history of codeine addiction suggests otherwise.

The importance of not being Weezy MATT MAZZARI It’s been a hell of a week for rapper Lil’ Wayne, who was just released from a Los Angeles hospital last Tuesday after being admitted in critical condition on Friday.

Nearly a week ago marked Weezy’s second seizure-related hospitalization in just two years, the last time being in 2012 when his private jet had to do an emergency landing in Texas so he could be treated. Despite the reports of outstanding amounts of Codeine in his system, Weezy’s close friend and collaborator Bryan Williams (a.k.a. Birdman, co-founder of Cash Money Records) has insisted that his buddy’s health problems don’t stem from drug use. “It’s just his work ethic,” said Birdman of the complications that had his associate in an induced coma and breathing through tubes, “[and] how much dedication he gives to ... his fans.”

Now listen, Birdman. I know you like to think of Weezy as your son and all, but we’re talking about a guy who’s been addicted to codeine upwards of four years now. As much as we appreciate your loyal, paternal, sort-of-weird relationship with Lil’ Wayne, it’s time to face facts: 30-year-old hip-hop artists don’t have multiple seizures because of work-related stress, especially not after they’ve ingested enough sizzurp to gelatinate the regulatory system of a small horse. Barring that Lil’ Wayne has some undiagnosed form of epilepsy, it would seem the openly-hooked star is beginning to see some knock-back from the cocktail. But Lil’ Wayne’s predicament is hardly a unique case, as cough syrup has become a major

drug of choice in the hip-hop community, so much so that the patented Styrofoam cup and the slang term “Purple Drank” have become staples in the underground culture of rap music.

So let’s talk about this phenomenon, the case of the Texas Tea. The concoction Lil’ Wayne and his competitors have popularized is usually a combination of sugary soda, Jolly Ranchers, and, of course, good ol’ Robitussin PM. Ridiculous as it sounds, it’s not a laughing matter anymore, or else I’d be cooking up some crazy Common Cold puns right about now. DJ Screw and Big Moe, the two conspiring rappers largely responsible for the drug’s rise in popularity in the ’90s, both died at approximately Lil’ Wayne’s current age from probable codeine ODs. Several professional athletes, including Jamarcus Russell, formerly of the Oakland Raiders, have been busted for non-prescription codeine use within the last few years. Advertisers have capitalized by targeting “anti-energy” drinks to young rap aficionados, using conspicuous names like “Purple Stuff ”, “Drank”, “Sippin Syrup” and “Lean” to associate their product with what famous artists are now obsessed with.

In 2009, Macklemore sampled the Red Hot Chili Peppers to make “Otherside”, a track from his mixtape confronting the trend as a former codeine abuser himself.

Seriously, what the heck is up with this stuff? Are we really so easily manipulated that we will literally get high on cough syrup if Rick Ross and Three 6 Mafia are doing it? Well, yeah. I shouldn’t be surprised, considering my personal favorite musicians generated an entire drug culture with their work that still has burn-outs staggering

around in Allman Brothers paraphernalia and making great concerts suck. That being said, the prescription drug fascination feels like a different animal, a step beyond your average Joe Stoner and Susie Raging-Alcoholic. Promethazine-codeine and oxycontin are such powerfully addictive substances that there really isn’t much breathing room between one-time-user and full-on-addict: both drugs, on their own, are opiates just like heroin and morphine, the ultimate “we-ain’t-monkeying-around” drugs. When Wiz Kalifa sings about “rolling blunts of 50 / stuck in [his] mom’s basement”, that’s one thing, but when Weezy says he’s a “pro… methazine fiend,” well, now you’re literally encouraging opiate consumption. Before, esteemed medical professional Birdman was saying that Lil’ Wayne is suffering a bang-up case of caring too much for his fans … But can we honestly say a caring artist would talk about his “S-Y-R-UP” addiction as if it’s the secret to his success?

Is it a first for a musician to start preaching the merits of hardcore substance abuse?

Lord, no. There are still videos floating around of George Harrison relating LSD to a religious experience in his ’60s interviews, and God knows the Beatles still get flak for it. For the most part, though, enjoying the music and the scene never really relied on boring chemical holes in your brain matter.

Let’s hope Weezy sees this as a chance to make a turn-around before things get even more out of hand.

Matt Mazzari is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

@ROVE (ROVE MCMANUS, COMEDIAN)

“I LOVE WATCHING A KID AT THEIR 1ST BIRTHDAY PARTY. THEIR FACE SAYS: ‘I DON’T KNOW WHAT I DID TO DESERVE THIS BUT I HOPE I DO IT AGAIN.’” @MILEYCYRUS (MILEY RAY CYRUS, ENTERTAINER)

“THAT AWKWARD MOMENT WHEN SOMEONE IS TALKING AND IT TAKES EVERYTHING INSIDE OF YOU TO NOT SCREAM SHUT THE HELL UP (IN MADEA VOICE OF COURSE)” @ADAMLEVINE (ADAM LEVINE, SINGER)

“WHY DO WE IDOLIZE CELEBRITIES? IF YOU GUYS KNEW HOW LAME MOST OF THEM WERE YOU’D BE AMAZED. MYSELF INCLUDED. SO LAME.” SUBMIT YOUR FAVORITE TWEETS OF THE WEEK FOR CONSIDERATION AT ARTS@ BCHEIGHTS.COM.

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, March 21, 2013

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DEANS LIST College seems to be on movie studios’ collective minds lately, from the Hangover-style raunchfest 21 & Over to the Tina Fey comedy Admission to the controversial, dubstep-fueled Spring Breakers.

With such a proliferation of college movies at the multiplex—not to mention the spring fever of housing season here at Boston College—The Scene chooses our favorite college-themed movies.

SUPERBAD (CLASS OF 2007)

N AT I O N A L L A M P O O N ’ S A N I M A L H O U S E (CLASS OF 1978)

“Christ! Seven years of college down the drain.” National Lampoon’s Animal House captured, and perhaps forever perpetuated, the quintessential portrait of Greek life at America’s top liberal arts colleges. Loosely basing itself on the culture of Dartmouth College, the film tells story of the Delta house, an unruly—and often unbecoming—pack of fraternal brothers staked against the administration of fictional Faber College.

The film doesn’t exactly vindicate a culture of alcohol and hookups found at many colleges per se, but it certainly does present some rather enticing arguments for it. It also does a fair bit to demonize the Omega house, a group of disinteresting, colorless Anglo-Saxon sycophants, who win the favor of the dean seemingly at a cost of their souls. John Belushi’s performance as John Blutarsky has endured as one of the most treasured depictions of the American college student. Animal House’s party scenes have been equally immortalized in the pop culture conscience, particularly one involving a floor full of drunken, toga-clad college students dancing to a performance of “Shout” by Otis Day & The Knights. – J.W.

Choosing Superbad as a college movie may at first seem a cheat, because its setting is high school—but it is the looming specter of college that provides the movie its context. The movie concerns the travails of three nerdy high-school seniors—Seth (Jonah Hill), Evan (Michael Cera) and Fogell, aka McLovin’ (Christopher Mintz-Plasse)—to score a bunch of booze and get lucky at a crazy party. On one level, the kids are just trying to experience the kind of wild frat parties they hope to experience in college (one can imagine that the characters are more than familiar with Animal House). On another level, though, Superbad is charged with a surprising emotional core, with its depiction of Seth and Evan’s close friendship and the threat that college poses to it. The whole night is like one last roar before the separation of college, and there are plenty of ridiculous escapades to be had over the course of the movie’s two hours.

(My personal favorite bit is Seth’s explanation of his middle-school drawing habits.) But like any Judd Apatow production, the raunchy humor is balanced with an equally strong heart, represented in Seth and Evan’s tight-knit friendship and their anxiety about the unknown college life that awaits them. – S. K.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK (CLASS OF 2010)

When David Fincher wanted to make a movie about the creation of Facebook by Harvard drop-out Mark Zuckerberg, the university wouldn’t let the crew shoot on campus. But that didn’t phase him—shooting around Boston and using other college campuses as stand-ins, Fincher meticulously recreated the environment of the elite university circa 2003. More impressively, he turned the story of a website’s creation into a fascinating tale of power, ambition, betrayal, and the alienation of modern life. The Social Network provided Fincher with a slew of worthy collaborators. First among them was Aaron Sorkin, the West Wing scribe who brought his flair for smart, punchy dialogue to the project. The young cast, featuring impressive turns by Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg and Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker, was equally essential to turning the Facebook story into real human drama. Less frequently mentioned are the contributions of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the Nine Inch Nails members whose unconventional electronic soundtrack perfectly matched the story’s modern technological context. Combined with Fincher’s skillful, sleek digital camera work and the rapid-fire editing of Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, The Social Network was a perfect storm of the right talent matched with the right material to create a modern masterpiece. – S.K.

THE GRADUATE (CLASS OF 1967)

Mike Nichols’ The Graduate has a definite generational context, with its late ’60s Southern California milieu and the ubiquitous musical presence of Simon & Garfunkel.

But in the most important ways, The Graduate remains timeless. Dustin Hoffman delivered one of his first and best performances as Benjamin Braddock, a recent college grad who comes home post-graduation without a plan for his future. The opening grad party scene, where Benjamin’s parents and their friends fawn over his college successes while he merely wants to be left alone, surely still resonates for graduates entering an uncertain job market. Of course, the story soon takes off into kinkier territory, as Benjamin is seduced by his parents’ older friend Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft as the definitive cougar), and falls in love with her beautiful daughter Elaine (Katherine Ross). The Graduate manages to evoke a strange mix of humor and sadness in this story, which at its heart is about the fear that we will grow up to be just like our parents. The ending remains wonderfully ambiguous, as the young couple takes a wordless bus ride to an uncertain future, accompanied by the sad strains of “The Sound of Silence.” – S.K.

ACCEPTED (CLASS OF 2006) RUDY (CLASS OF 1993)

Rudy, released in 1993, is an inspiring sports film that chronicles the journey of small-town boy, Daniel Eugene “Rudy” Ruettiger, who wishes to, one day, attend Notre Dame to play on their football team.

Unfortunately, he has neither the money, nor the grades, nor the athletic skill required to gain admission to the prestigious university. Rudy eventually decides to leave his hometown to pursue his ambitions, and with the help and support of the Notre Dame stadium groundskeeper, Fortune, and D-Bob, a graduate student at Notre Dame, Rudy is able to save some money and improve his grades while going to the nearby College of Holy Cross. Relentlessly, Rudy applies and reapplies to earn acceptance to the school, and finally, in his last season of transfer eligibility, he gets the news he’s waited for. Even amidst obstacles, Rudy persists until he actualizes his goals of playing football for Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish.

With such a story, Rudy is definitely one of those truly special college films, reminding us that if you fight and persevere, fate might just smile on you and reward your hard work, helping you achieve your dreams. – A.I.

Although certainly far from a highbrow effort, Accepted appealed to many in its imaginative answer to a question most college students at one point had: what if no one accepts me? After being turned down from every college he applied to, Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) decides to invent his own college, renovating an abandoned psychiatric hospital and employing brainy friend Sherman Schrader (Jonah Hill) to create an illusive South Harmon Institute of Technology, to fool Gaines’ parents. Much to the surprise of Gaines and Schrader, hundreds of similarly rejected seniors enroll at their imaginary school.

The result is a hilarious, and often quite telling, depiction of the type of college that college students would create, offering no rules, fake administrators, and a completely arbitrary class schedule. This premise of Accepted poses a disturbing question: what are parents really paying for in a college education? – J.W.

THE HOUSE BUNNY (CLASS OF 2008)

LEGALLY BLONDE (CLASS OF 2001)

“You got into Harvard Law?” “What, like it’s hard?” Reese Witherspoon’s great break into mainstream acting came from an unlikely gem of a motion picture, Legally Blonde.

When sorority president Elle Woods is dumped by her snooty boyfriend, Warner Huntington III (Matthew Davis), she matriculates at Harvard Law to win him back, with the intention of earning her M.R.S. degree. Woods is found to be an excellent student of law, however, to the great dismay of her fellow law students, who are suspect of her excessively pink wardrobe and shallow appearance. Although it could stand as a great film on comedic merit alone, Legally Blonde has the brains to tackle some fairly difficult cases, addressing college stereotypes and sexual harassment in a quite sophisticated manner. Ultimately, Elle Woods grows an unlikely hero of all women, and Legally Blonde serves as a tale of female empowerment and the important role women serve in higher education. It has been adapted into a successful Broadway musical. –J.W.

A 2008 romantic comedy about the ups and downs of college, the trials and adventures of living in a sorority, and the difficulties of finding and being yourself, The House Bunny focuses on the character of Shelley Darlington (Anna Faris), a former Playboy Bunny who decides to be the “house mother” of the extremely unpopular sorority, the Zetas. And though the socially awkward group of girls wasn’t her first choice, Shelley quickly develops an intimate relationship with the Zetas, giving them makeovers and teaching them to be more confident in their appearance. Intertwined with the plot, the movie features the amusing development of several different romantic relationships, including one between Zeta sorority member Natalie (Emma Stone), and the popular and cool Colby, played by Tyson Ritter, the lead singer of the punk-rock band The All-American Rejects. With its funny, dramatic display of sorority life, The House Bunny ends by promoting the idea that being popular and superficial isn’t all there is to college—it’s also about embracing who you are and building relationships—and, of course, having a good time while you do so. –A.I.

21 (CLASS OF 2008)

Based on the true story and the best-selling book by Ben Mezrich, 21 tells the story of Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), an MIT math major who turns to card counting and gambling to save up money for Harvard Medical School. Despite Ben’s impressive GPA and high MCAT score, it proves difficult for him to find a way to afford the tuition. When one of his university professors (Kevin Spacey) approaches and invites him to join his underground student blackjack team, Ben, initially, is hesitant.

Lured in by the glamour and thrill of luxurious, Las Vegas weekends, however, he ultimately consents. The team’s well-planned, counting system, with both “spotters” and “big players,” enables Ben to earn stacks and stacks of cash—fast. And it’s only a matter of time, after that that he gets swept away by the exhilarating, but dangerous, lifestyle. 21 depicts the ultimate college adventure—and though not all of us will be pressured into a life of gambling to pay for graduate school, the movie is a reminder that if you’re dealt decent cards and you play them right, anything, really, could happen. – A.I.

THE HEIGHTS

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Thursday, March 21, 2013

KEELEY’S CORNER

NETFLIX NEXUS BY SEAN KEELEY

‘Bernie’ is an underrated comedy with regional charm Giving genre a good name once again TITLE: Bernie YEAR: 2011

DIRECTED BY: Richard Linklater

STARRING: Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine WHY: Part fiction and part documenterary, Bernie entertains with notable performances from Black and McConaughey.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES

There are few American directors as versatile and underrated as Richard Linklater, the man behind such disparate projects as Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, and Before Sunrise. Linklater’s most recent film, Bernie, is one of his very best, a black comedy with regional roots and a unique quasi-documentary structure. Though it got swept under the rug during awards season, Bernie awaits rediscovery through Netflix instant streaming.

Based on a real-life murder case in the tiny town of Carthage, Tex., Bernie features Jack Black in the titular role as a beloved funeral home director who one day snaps and murders Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine), a nasty old widow whom he had long taken care of. Matthew McConaughey delivers a hilarious turn as Sheriff Danny Buck, the tough-talking cop who is determined to bring Bernie in.

Bernie features career-best performances from Black and McConaughey, but its true stars are the real-life townspeople of Carthage, whom Linklater interviewed for the movie and who function as a sort of Greek chorus for the film. The movie’s intermingling of fiction and documentary elements is fascinating and seamless, and the movie has a lot more on its mind than the average comedy. Comically exploring the ties of small-town community life through a dark prism, Bernie is an underrated gem of black comedy. 

FASHION FORWARD

An easy, colorful, and fun accessory Build your nail polish collection in lieu of getting a manicure ways graced with a handful of nail polish colors, usually neutrals that are sure to be quality polishes and staple purchases. However, these brands (Chanel, Dior, NARS) aren’t dedicated to the art of the polish, and therefore, I will have no part of them. Entirely kidding—but it’s better to go for a brand who specializes in the product.

Don’t just go for the name and the $35 price tag.

TAYLOR CAVALLO One of my favorite things about crayons was the fun names they had. Yes, I was one of those kids that had the Crayola 64 pack and loved coloring to my heart’s content. But also reading the interesting titles each color was so honorably given. Wild Strawberry, Macaroni and Cheese, Robin’s Egg blue (a highly coveted color, I might add). If you had a childhood, you know that the list continues on and on. Perhaps this obsession with colors, hues, and shades is what draws me so strongly to every girl-child at heart’s favorite liquid accessory: nail polish.

While experimenting with makeup is fun, it is intrinsically a limited experience. The fact is that not everyone can pull off deep forest green eye shadow or pale pink lipstick. Makeup is entirely dependent on your coloring. Of course you can play around with it and experiment as you please, but don’t listen to people who say that make up shade and skin tone don’t matter at all.

They’re probably walking around with bad makeup. This is where the stereotypical, yet quintessential, ‘search for makeup’ comes in during a young adult female’s life. You need to hunt for colors of eye shadow, maybe blush, and lipstick that work with you. I’m going to move on to a topic I know better than makeup, because, I unfortunately fail to wear makeup most days as I roll out of bed.

That topic is nail polish—something I am very rarely caught without.

I’ll get it out of the way: the names of nail polish are just as fun as crayons (and a bit more scandalous).

Nail polish is an awesome way to brighten, or darken, an outfit. It is easy to change on a whim and, best of all, all products in all shades are available to buy at everyone’s favorite Mecca of pharmacies, CVS. Certain brands are better than others, but unless you’re looking for an extremely long lasting manicure, it really doesn’t matter what brand you steer toward. Let color decide! Crazy, off the wall colors that might make your mother cringe are definitely in style right now, so take advantage of it before we all go back to boring French manicures. Yikes.

However, being an avid nail polish enthusiast for quite some time, I have picked up a few personal favorite brands along the way. Of course your typical ‘designer’ makeup in the fancy section of Sephora is al-

3

OPI Personally, I go to OPI when I want dark or metallic colors. They’re a quality brand, and probably what you see in salons when you go in for you manicures. Great names.

Revlon Available at CVS (my Mecca), you cannot go wrong with anything Revlon nail polish makes. They have a great range of colors, are sure to last chip-free a good amount of time, and they have pretty bottles. Done deal.

Butter London This is certainly the more quality brand of the three.

If you’re willing to spend the money, they’re great polishes and always coming out with new colors I’m sorry to break it to everyone, but unless you have a formal event to attend or you’re going on vacation where you want your fingers to look extra nice (in that case, get a gel manicure), manicures are the biggest wastes of money. Spend half the price of a manicure on new nail polish colors. There’s nothing more fun than a big collection of nail polish bottles, take it from me. And, practice makes perfect—the more you practice at home manicures, the better you become at them, tricking everyone into thinking you have a constant manicure. (Notice how I am strategically leaving pedicures out of the ‘waste of money’ category. The foot massage and hot water makes it all worth it.)

You’re probably wondering how I just wrote 700 words on nail polish. Fair question, but for now, ignore it and go contemplate fun colors you could never wear on your face or would never have the nerve to add to your wardrobe. I guarantee you there’s a nail polish in that shade with your name on it. Probably not, but a cool name at least.

Also, the answer to the age-old question: no, bottles of nail polish never seem to run out.

One last thing: my BC Confession is that last week I bought the Sally Hansen nail ‘stickers’ in Cheetah print. I have no regrets.

Taylor Cavallo is a senior staff columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at arts@ bcheights.com.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES

Purchasing a range of nail polish shades can be a decent alternative to getting expensive, pricy manicures. In fact, most nail polish brands sold in local pharmacies will last just as long as those used in professional salons.

THIS WEEKEND in arts

BY: ARIANA IGNERI | ASSOCIATE ARTS & REVIEW EDITOR

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

1. TYRONE WELLS CONCERT (FRIDAY, 3/22 7:00 PM)

3. BC SESQUICENTENNIAL (SATURDAY, 3/23 2:00PM)

5. ON THE ROAD (OPENING)

Tyrone Wells, a singer-songwriter from Washington state, is best known for his pleasant acoustic melodies and smooth, sweet vocals. Wells will perform at an intimate show at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston this Friday, with Brendan James and Brett Young opening for him. Tickets are $16 at the box office.

As a part of BC’s 150th anniversary celebration, University students, faculty, and alumni will gather in Symphony Hall.

The afternoon will feature performances by the University Chorale of BC, the BC Symphony Orchestra, BC bOp! Jazz Ensemble, and the University Wind Ensemble of BC—as well as a special reading by actor Chris O’Donnell, BC ’92. Student tickets are $10 online with promotional code “bc150.”

Premiering at the Coolidge Corner Theater this weekend, On The Road, directed by Walter Salles, is a film adapted from the acclaimed novel by Jack Kerouac. It centers on the story of a writer (Sam Riley) whose life is quickly changed when he embarks on a cross-country journey with a bold, dynamic westerner (Garrett Hedlund) and his girl (Kristen Stewart).

2. ANDERS ZORN EXHIBIT (ONGOING) The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is exhibiting a new collection of paintings by the 19th-century European artist Anders Zorn in the Hostetter Gallery.

Though little is known of his pre-contemporary work in the U.S., Zorn is considered to be one of the most influential painters of the Belle Epoque. Museum entry to ISG is free with a BC ID.

4. SHARPS ALUMNAE SHOW (SATURDAY, 3/23 7:00PM) Boston College’s only all female a capella group, The Sharps, is presenting their Alumnae Show in Gasson 305 this Saturday evening. Not only will the event feature the vocal talents of the current Sharps, but it will also include performances by former members of the Sharps, as well. Admission is free.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES

SEAN KEELEY In the world of arts criticism, certain cliches become so widespread that they can take root despite your best efforts. One such cliche is to praise a movie, book, or album for “transcending genre.” It’s one of those convenient, nice-sounding phrases that supposedly elevates a work of art beyond the realm of simplistic categorization, classifying it as something deeper and more ambiguous.

I’ve certainly been guilty of this stereotype on occasion, most recently in my review of the excellent new horror film Stoker.

The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that the phrase is not problematic merely because it’s common—no, the problem is that it fundamentally disparages the notion of genre.

When evaluating art, we tend to privilege the idea of originality. We want everything to be somehow subversive, transgressive, or innovative. In the popularity of critical expressions like “transcending genre” and even the common putdown “generic” there is the implicit assumption that genre is a bad thing: derivative, simplistic, uninspired. When critics talk of “genre fiction” or “genre movies,” the note of condescension is unmistakable, as if such popular and formulaic entertainments can never aspire to the level of art.

On some level, I understand where this prejudice comes from. In a film industry dominated by carefully market-tested superhero movies, and in a publishing industry where the unholy spawn of the Twilight franchise are grouped together at Barnes & Noble in the “Teen Paranormal Romance” section, genre has been given a bad name.

Yet at its best, genre is not confining but rather a springboard for creativity. Watching Stoker this past weekend made me rethink the possibilities of one of the most reviled of all genres, the horror movie. After so many tired rehashes of the slasher movie and torture porn like Saw and Hostel, Stoker was a breath of fresh air reminding me of the genre’s true appeal. Instead of reveling in spurts of blood or sadism, the movie explores something far more terrifying—the demons that reside within human nature. The movie has all the requisite chills and scares one would expect, but director Chan-wook Park manages to use the genre’s rules for more interesting ends.

That is also what Mary Shelley does in her classic 1818 novel Frankenstein.

It’s a book I first read, and loved, this past semester for my Honors class, but I admit that I was at first skeptical when I saw it on the syllabus. With my mind clouded by the story’s ubiquitous presence in monster movies and pop culture, I doubted that it could be a serious literary work. But, of course, it is: Shelley uses the popular appeal of the horror genre to construct a frightening fable about the dangerous extremes of scientific experimentation, profoundly questioning the values of the Enlightenment.

That is what genre is all about: using a popular form to tap into fundamental motifs.

Many classic movies now celebrated as the greatest ever made were the stuff of popular genres, often sneered at by critics of the time.

Silent comedians like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin worked within the limits of broad slapstick comedy to craft some of the most poignant love stories (The General) and political commentaries (The Great Dictator) of their time. Alfred Hitchcock’s thrillers, like Rear Window and Vertigo, were unsettling and deeply personal explorations of voyeurism, obsession, and sex. John Ford’s classic Westerns are obviously entertaining cowboy movies, but they also encompass vast themes of American history. The Searchers offers a troubling and honest look at American racism toward Indians, while The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance uses its Western plot to explore themes of American mythmaking, and the troubling idea that violence and law are inseparable.

These movies don’t “transcend” genre—they fulfill its promise. Within the boundaries of genre filmmaking, these directors found a way to make genuine art while still reaching a wide audience. That is nothing to look down upon. It should be celebrated.

Looking back in retrospect at such canonized classics, it’s easy to sing the praises of popular genres. But the question then turns to today. What artists working in popular genres now—whether in movies, music, or literature—are overlooked? I’m not proposing an answer, and I’m certainly not suggesting that we should immediately canonize hack sci-fi authors or action movie directors as great artists. But I do think it’s important to consider that some great art may be hidden under the guise of simple genre work. The line separating popular entertainment and fine art is never distinct— and what may initially appear “generic” is often anything but.

Sean Keeley is the Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, March 21, 2013

B5

Phosphorescent mixes alternative and country sounds

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Jay-Z 6 I Knew You Were Trouble Taylor Swift 7 Started From The Bottom Drake

For The Heights The new independent alternative music craze has produced a wide variety of talented artists and bands with styles that range from the new and exotic to sounding like they are coming right out of the 1960s. On their new album Muchacho, the southern indie band Phosphorescent has found an interesting middle ground, employing their classic rock influences in a modern experimental fashion. The album seems to be divided into two genres, first a neofolk record featuring strong harmony infused with electro backing tracks, followed by a collection of remorseful alternative country ballads discussing the nature of love and the difficulties of life. Though there are undoubtedly moments of real power, the lead singer, Matthew Houck, has a voice that takes some getting used to.

The first section of the album is definitely more experimental, with intense harmonies that sound like something you would hear on a Fleet Foxes record. The album is bookended by these folky tunes. The first calls for the sun to rise, using strange vocal patterns and an almost out of place electronic background. As the album comes to a close we hear Houck’s response to his own opening track, using the same vocalizations, but this with actual guitars and drums. The intense chanting throughout the song

sounds like some Native American celebration of the coming day, as the title suggests the “Sun’s Arising.”

After a few tracks, Phosphorescent decides to take the listener down another musical path entirely.

All of the sudden, Houck’s Southern roots emerge in an authentic country tune with all the tortured lyrics one would come to expect from the genre. Houck even throws in a Johnny Cash reference in one of his songs, singing the old familiar “love is a burning thing” couplet from the famous “Ring of Fire.” The longing songwriting displayed on this album, however, brings up images of Lou Reed or Tom Waits. The remorseful, occasionally self-loathing lyricism brings a chill when the listener hears about a lost love or a life poorly lived.

Though these lyrics are not always the most pleasant to listen to, they do provoke thought, which only makes the audience more drawn into the music. This type of writing is really the work of a true songwriter and can only come from years of some sort of heartache.

Woven into the country ballads are more up-tempo pace changers, which lend a nice diversity to the record. Track five, “A Charm / A Blade,” features a nice horn section that could have been pulled right out of a Van Morrison song. Intermingled with the horns are the neo folk harmonies featured in the beginning of the record. It is an interesting

MUCHACHO PHOSPHORESCENT PRODUCED BY DEAD OCEANS RECORDS RELEASED MAR. 19, 2013 OUR RATING B

TOP SINGLES

PHOTO COURTESY OF DEAD OCEANS RECORDS

The new album ‘Muchacho’ demonstrates Phosphorescent’s various influences, from Johnny Cash to Lou Reed.

TOP ALBUMS

juxtaposition of the old and the new, providing the listener with a kind of musical mix and match that proves to be fairly successful. Later on the alt-country returns with another uptempo ballad, “The Quotidian Beasts” which seems to draw some influence from the new band Dawes. The most powerful song on the album is easily “A New Anhedonia.” It is almost sounds like a cry for help as the

1 Spring Break...Here to Party Luke Bryan 2 People, Hell & Angels Jimi Hendrix 3 Unorthodox Jukebox Bruno Mars 4 Babel Mumford & Sons

chorus erupts from the slow moving verse into an explosion of sound with yearning vocals that seem to know there is no help coming. The chorus will send shivers down anyone’s spine as they hear the faint instrumental screams mixed carefully into the background. If a person can feel music, this is certainly the song that that would hurt the most.

If alternative country and folk

is your genre, Muchacho comes highly recommended. It features a diverse array of songs with some really powerful emotional moments.

However, Houck’s voice is not always easy on the ears and some of the songs do tend to drag on.

Also, the random yelping that pops up around the album does get a bit annoying and eventually detracts from the songs. 

Source: Billboard.com

Timberlake’s vision is clear and masterful on ‘20/20 Experience’

BY JOHN WILEY

Asst. Arts & Review Editor Any attempt to understand Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience as a conventional pop album will likely end in great frustration. This is not the same Timberlake who seven years ago released FutureSex/LoveSounds,

an album often credited for revitalizing the pop genre. Perhaps producer Timbaland partially maintains this illusion, paying casual tribute to the 2006 album’s stylish, electronic sound with The 20/20 Experience. However, most comparisons are useless. FutureSex/LoveSounds was an album written to underpin Timberlake’s career. Years

later, it seems Timberlake’s career is underpinning the album, and this is not necessarily a bad thing.

As an artist, Timberlake has inflated far beyond the relatively limited purposes of FutureSex/LoveSounds.

The product of this inflation can hardly be regarded as a pop album. Instead, it is Timberlake’s pop manifesto of a

THE 20/20 EXPERIENCE JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE PRODUCED BY RCA RECORDS RELEASED MAR. 19, 2013 OUR RATING A

PHOTO COURTESY OF RCA RECORDS

Justin Timberlake’s return to recording after seven years is a wonderfully unconventional pop music masterpiece.

sort, a heroic restatement of pop music goals, indicative of an artist with little to prove and everything to gain. No, this is not the same Timberlake, and for that, I have nothing but respect.

The aims of 20/20 Experience seem closely related to Kanye West’s efforts with 808s and Heartbreaks. Both albums reimagine the unruly electronic production techniques, offering an enlightened context for processed beats and auto-tune. Additionally, the lyrics are often strikingly simplistic, echoing themes extremely common to pop music. Many listeners at some point will stop and think, “Wait! I’ve heard this idea before.” To which, I imagine, both West and Timberlake would declare, “Bingo!” These artists created the edifice of a pop album, only to offer an antithesis to the genre.

Of course, Timberlake is always looking to entertain, and true to his nature, he rightfully does this with The 20/20 Experience. His content is far more accessible than many of his contemporaries. The album nicely complements Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange, both works vying for longer songs with unconventional structures, elaborately building down and breaking down sounds. However, in comparison with Ocean’s elaborate

cryptic imagery, Timberlake’s lyricism in “Pusher Love Girl” and “Strawberry Bubblegum” seems relatively trite (“My lips are strawberry strawberry bubblegum / she’s my little strawberry strawberry bubblegum”)—but to his credit, Timberlake makes no pretensions of profundity on these tracks, and when he actually tries to paint a bigger picture, in songs like “Mirrors” and “Blue Ocean Floor,” it works.

The sophistication—and respective importance—of The 20/20 Experience is its genuine musicality. It’s a revival of the euphoric dance sound of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, with added hints of big band sound and orchestral overtones. The recognition of the past is the album’s vitality. At a time when the radio is dominated with singles like “Scream & Shout” and “Harlem Shake,” Timberlake has the good sense to make music not for 2013, but for all time, just as Jackson did with Thriller.

However, it’s no nostalgia act, and much of its technical prowess comes from producer Timbaland’s inspired use of hip-hop hooks and innovative distortions of Timberlake maple syrup vocals. Granted, when compared to the musical distortion presented in works like West’s My Beautiful Dark

Twisted Fantasy, Timberlake’s sound still is in a musical Disneyland of a sort, and at times, The 20/20 Experience betrays its aims with an overabundance of sweetness. That being said, the N’Sync era of overwrought harmonies and painful pleasantry has long been a closed chapter in Timberlake’s career.

The scope of production and its transcendental sound are certainly critical parts of The 20/20 Experience, but the album wears this decadence almost as a disguise, closing with “Blue Ocean Floor,” a heavily deconstructed, dissonant ballad, emulating the sound of Radiohead with lapsing waves of synthetic orchestration. Beneath this current, a distant-sounding Timberlake incants, “Under the water you scream so loud, but the silence surrounds you / But I hear it loud and you fall in the deep, and I’ll always find you.” This track suggests an industry growing deaf to itself, tossing the true voice of the artist in a sea of distortion, heavy-handed production, and commercial compromise. The 20/20 Experience is Timberlake’s dive into the depths of pop music, to retrieve the joyful humanity of music. In this murky water, The 20/20 Experience finds clarity. 

Brian McKnight falls flat on R&B rehash ‘More Than Words’

BY BERNADETTE DERON For The Heights As children of the ’90s we are at least somewhat familiar with the R&B styling’s of acts such as Boyz II Men, Ginuwine, R. Kelly, Mariah Carey, and TLC. Many of you may not know Brian McKnight, but he was just as big as these guys back in the good old days of ’90s music. McKnight has been in the game for a while—a little too long, perhaps.

More Than Words is McKnight’s 15th studio album, and the main message it sends is that it really won’t get any better than the infamous ’90s jam “Back At One” for this R&B singer.

McKnight is stuck in the ’90s, and Generation Y is not. Well, we might be, considering the massive presence of throwbacks heard at parties and on personal playlists. But the difference is that people listen to throwbacks because that’s what those songs do—throw us back to a different era and out of the present. We don’t want to hear new music

that sounds like a throwback.

Modern artists like Ne-Yo and Trey Songz are taking the same soulful vocal quality of ’90s R&B singers and combining it with different beats, samples, and sound effects that are new and fresh. McKnight is singing and using the same melodic themes that he pretty much has always been using. His record lacks musical innovation, which is a huge part of why it’s flat and boring. But it’s certainly not the only reason.

McKnight knew that if he was going to write a record to be released in 2013 he had to keep up with the times. The themes of love and heartbreak are timeless and always relevant, but if that’s all you have ever written about it becomes increasingly difficult to be both fresh and innovative while appealing to a modern audience. McKnight was either going to have to try really hard or get some input from other young artists—which is exactly what he did. Colbie Caillat chipped in her lyrical chops on the title

track, which was a surprisingly beautiful and enjoyable track.

That can’t be said for the rest of the record.

Just by looking at some of these song titles, it is hard to tell if McKnight is kidding or not.

Who in their right mind would even think of giving tracks titles like, “Letsomebodyluvu,” “Get U 2 Stay,” “Livewithoutyou”, or my personal favorite, “Ididntreallymeantoturnuout?” No, these are not typos. There is no appeal to listen to these songs by their titles alone, besides maybe to hear just how bad they are. All of these and most of the songs on the record have repetitive lyrics that don’t feed the emotional appetite of a listener. There is a lack of depth to the lyrics that is completely juxtaposed with Knight’s signature soulful and moving voice. However powerful Knight’s voice is, it can not make these lyrics sound good.

When McKnight really tries to have lyrics that resonate with today’s “iPhone generation,” on the track “The Front The Back

The Side,” it just flat out doesn’t work. First of all this song is an ode to “sexting,” and McKnight is 43 years old. That fact alone is enough for it to be disastrous.

And then there’s the lyrics: “Got your re-tweet, got on your timeline,” / “So I followed you, and you followed me / Did some

conversation with no punctuation / Saw your Instagram, you got that pic-stitch / Let me show you what I wanna see.”

Seriously, Brian McKnight? Are you for real?

While “More Than Words” has some strong points such as the aforementioned title track

and the song “Sweeter,” a lovely vocal medley and homage to traditional R&B without sounding too outdated, and while McKnight’s falsetto range is outstanding, those strengths can not out-shine the general flatness and outdated feel of the record. 

MORE THAN WORDS BRIAN MCKNIIGHT PRODUCED BY E1 MUSIC RELEASED MAR. 19, 2013 OUR RATING C-

PHOTO COURTESY OF E1 MUSIC

Brian McKnight’s new album is a lame attempt at relevance that fails to take off or go beyond R&B cliches.

SINGLE REVIEWS BY CONNOR FARLEY Kid Cudi “Immortal”

Vampire Weekend “Diane Young” A preview from their highly anticipated album Modern Vampires of the City, “Diane Young” dashingly blends upbeat EDM rock with sockhop flair, making for a refreshingly innovative deviation from the norm. The song retains much of VW’s distinct sound, but does so with a nod to ’50s-era rock and ’80s-generation vocals. It’s fun, in an avant-garde sort of way.

Rod Stewart “She Makes Me Happy” Hip-hop’s more emotionally reverent artist explores his sensitive side with “Immortal,” a soulful track delivered with finesse and deliberateness. Arguably Cudi’s most vocally-focused song to date, “Immortal” humbly offers a self-reflection through low, smooth vocals sung over a cyber-orchestral beat.

Stewart’s return to songwriting sounds more like the background noise to Dance Night at the local retirement home than the groovy bluesrock you might’ve hoped for—its boyish affection and fond acceptance of getting older is cute, but pushes corny. It’s not necessarily “bad,” but the song’s wishy-washy, worn-out soft-rock nothingness is disappointingly boring.

B6

The Heights

1. Realize that wildfires burn more than 4 million acres every year.

2. Cut along dotted line.

3. Repeat this phrase: “Only You Can Prevent Wildfires.”

1. Realize that wildfires burn more than 4 million acres every year.

2. Cut along dotted line.

3. Repeat this phrase: “Only You Can Prevent Wildfires.”

9 out of 10 wildfires are caused by humans. 9 out of 10 wildfires can be prevented.

SMOKEYBEAR.COM 9 out of 10 wildfires are caused by humans. 9 out of 10 wildfires can be prevented.

SMOKEYBEAR.COM

Thursday, March 21, 2013

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, March 21, 2013

B7

THIS WEEK IN...

BY TRICIA TIEDT | METRO EDITOR

HEISTS

POP CULTURE

Monday, Mar. 18 marked the 23 year anniversary of one of the greatest art heists in B oston. Paintings by Rembrandt, Degas, Manet, and Vermeer were among the 13 artifacts stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, by thieves disguised as policemen.

This theft, valued at over $500 million worth of stolen goods, is the largest property crime in U.S. history. As of Monday, the FBI is turning to the public for help, launching a public campaign in conjunction with the museum.

The FBI claims they have identified the thieves responsible for the missing art, yet they have no leads on the location of stolen goods.

The Gardner museum has issued a reward of $5 million for anyone with information as to the missing art’s whereabouts.

Star director David O. Russell (acclaimed for hits such as Silver Linings Playbook and The Fighter) has begun a new film in Boston—and brought a star studded cast with him. Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, and Jeremy Renner are all reported as featured in Russell’s currently untitled film. According to “On Location Vacations,” a blog dedicated to film productions, the movie began filming on set in multiple locations in Boston on Monday: an office building on Boylston St. and a residence in Brookline, near Beacon St. and Park Ave. The movie, which follows a 1970s FBI investigation known as ‘Abscam’ to uncover a dozen corrupt Congressman, is scheduled to shoot in Boston through late May, and appear in theatres by December 2013.

NATIONAL CUISINE The jury in the Steubenville, Ohio rape trials delivered their verdict on Sunday, a case that has divided the town and reached national news due to the hype around the accused—the town’s football stars. Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, two high school football players, ages 16 and 17, were found delinquent (the equivalent of guilty in juvenile court) of sexual assault against an intoxicated 16-year-old girl. The two were convicted primarily on evidence of text messages, Twitter accounts, photographs, and phone calls during a party last August at which the assault took place. The two face a year each in juvenile prison, and Mays will serve another year after his sentence for distributing nude photos of a minor. The aftermath of the case has brought threats against the victim’s family, and continues to create a rift in the community.

UNREAL candy, recently featured in the BC dining halls and sp onsore d by HerCampus BC, has begun its 2013 Easter Bunny Apology Tour to promote the up and coming brand.

UNREAL Candy launched last year with assistance from Nicky Bronner, a Brookline native. The label’s mission is to take the ‘junk’ out of junk food: they include no corn syrup or hydrogenated oils in any UNREAL products. The line has already gained support of noteworthy Boston celebrities, including New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and his wife, supermodel Giselle Bundchen. Brady is featured in the ‘Sorry Bunny’ candy ads, as well as musician John Legend and acclaimed personal trainer Jillian Michaels. The local candy company hopes to see success through this new springtime campaign.

YOGA PANTS It’s a B C girl’s worst nightmare: Lululemon Athletica, Inc. has placed a recall on black yoga pants. The everpopular “Luon” pants, which have become a staple in women’s workout wardrobes around the country, were recalled on Tuesday due to their sheerness: the company discovered the material was revealing too much of their customers. The recall will create a shortage of almost 20 percent of the company’s products, as it includes all black pants and leggings, both full length and cropped styles.

Due to this shortage of product, the company’s stock dropped a whopping eight percent at the New York Stock Exchange before the Tuesday morning opening bell, just before they are to post earnings for the full year today. Lululemon is offering full refunds or exchanges to all customers.

RESTAURANT REVIEW

A modern take on Italian

PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES

BY AMY HACHIGIAN Heights Editor

HOUSE AD

Sportello, a newer Italian restaurant in Boston, is one of the best eats in the city. From its honey-golden raisin butter to the coconut cream cheese layer cake, every spoonful is thoughtfully crafted to excite your taste buds. This Barbara Lynch creation resides in Fort Point, otherwise called the Waterfront, above a small lounge and bar, Drink. While Sportello might only feature wine and beer as its two main alcoholic drinks, you are free to head downstairs before or after dinner to relax and enjoy a fruity cocktail. So whether you’d like to treat your parents to a delicious bite of pasta or have some fun with your girlfriends out on the town, Sportello is an excellent option.

Walking into the casual dining room, you’ll notice two particular characteristics: both the kitchen and bakery are located right next to the tables. With only a mini-glass wall to contain the kitchen space, you are privy to watching the chefs cook, fry, boil, clean, chop, cut, baste, and flambe. If you’re worried it might be too loud, don’t fret—they are very quiet and considerate of those diners who prefer a more serious and romantic setting. On the other side of the dining space lies a bakery. Fresh with goodies, your eyes won’t resist a few peeks at what’s to come after the main course. Sportello does offer a dessert menu, but they are happy to sell you any dessert you spy in the bakery portion of their restaurant.

Whether you’ve decided to come for lunch or dinner, their food is well-cooked, perfectly seasoned, and full of surprise. Beginning with their bread and intricate butter creation, one will be pleased immediately. It would be a good choice to order the equinox farms mesclun salad as an appetizer. The dish was bright with apples, yet rich with cheese and hazelnuts at the same time. Other delightful options include the beet salad and spicy tomato soup. Sportello also offers an excellent range of main courses. While their protein-centered entrees are well executed and thoughtfully balanced, the cheaper pasta and polenta dishes may be preferable.

Sportello is known for their Bolognese sauce, which was fabulous, but one looking for a different taste should try their sweet potato agnolotti. The savory sweet potato with a sage and brown butter sauce was mouth watering and is highly recommended.

One may also venture to try the anson mills polenta with porcini, the Italian name for mushrooms. The bowl was rich, dense, creamy, and smooth—just how polenta should be. If you’re looking for something on the lighter side, however, you would do best to steer clear of the polenta and try the lobster spaghetti or orecchiette.

Off of Sportello’s dessert menu, the chocolate fudge torta was tasty, but not overly exciting. Instead of ordering the reverse ice cream sandwich that many diners seemed to try, one may want to try the coconut cream cheese layer cake and a slice of apple pie at their bakery.

For all this wonderful food, one would expect this eatery to be expensive, but it is fairly well-priced.

LOCATION: 348 CONGRESS ST. CUISINE: Italian SIGNATURE DISH: Pasta Bolognese ATMOSPHERE: 8/10 AVERAGE MEAL: $25-40

Appetizers range from $10-15, pastas from $20-25, and desserts from $4-8. If you decided to go for the whole three courses yourself in a group, you would be spending about $40 a person. Yes, that’s much more than a Boloco burrito or Eagle’s Deli burger, but for a sophisticated meal, it’s a fair price. If one is looking to stick to a budget, here are some recommendations: skip the appetizer and stick to the free bread and butter—it’s a meal of it’s own. Go for a heavier pasta dish and take the leftovers home for lunch the next day, and split a dessert with a friend.

You’d be spending about $25, and that’s pretty good for a Barbara Lynch dinner. Sportello is also unofficially participating in Restaurant Week, providing a great opportunity to save even more money.

Overall, great find, great people, great food. For a few last words of advice: don’t be afraid to ask your waiter for advice on the menu and wine selection, enjoy the free meter parking after 6 p.m., and look at the bakery selection before deciding on dessert! 

THE HEIGHTS

B8

BOOKISH BOSTONIAN

Regarding a state rock song

RYAN TOWEY The line in the sand has been drawn.

And the side on which one falls off this line will speak greatly to how one views our beloved Commonwealth.

As of February, two songs were put before the Massachusetts legislature to be considered for official recognition as the state rock song. Support for Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” recorded in 1972, came from state representatives James Cantwell and Josh Cutler to contend with “Roadrunner” by the Modern Lovers, recorded in 1972, as supported by state representative Marty Walsh.

After the angry 55-year-old conservative man that lives somewhere in my soul finally stopped yelling about the insignificance of this issue as a governmental endeavor, the nerdy recesses of my mind reminded me that this was a fight for the soul of Massachusetts.

The songs could not be more different. (Well, they could be, especially if one of them were from an Italian opera and the other were the product of scream band The Chiodos, but, for the purposes of this article, let’s assume that they simply could not be more different.)

“Dream On” is a timeless rock anthem by a band that happens to have originated in Boston, but even Aerosmith cannot capture the feeling of living in this state the way the Modern Lovers do through “Roadrunner.”

I assert this so firmly now as I believe that I gained a deeper understanding of life in Boston and Massachusetts this past Sunday, when I had the privilege of attending the St. Patrick’s Day Parade down in Southie with a group of my friends.

I was never much for parades, as I do not much enjoy standing too still for too long, but this parade, in all of its green glory, was no stationary affair. Certainly, there were crowds lining the street as various marching bands, bagpipers, and even the occasional colonial guys with muskets passed by, but one was more than able to walk up and down to enjoy the sights at one’s own pace. As a good friend of mine put it, the parade gave you the impression that you might just run into someone that you know.

We walked against the traffic of the parade until we finally sat down on a hill near the Dorchester Heights Monument, providing a perfect view of not only the parade, but of the people watching it—some from the sidewalks, others from atop their Southie townhouses.

As I watched this mass of people, as I watched old men ride around on bicycles, as I saw a seemingly drunk man dressed up as Captain Jack Sparrow abandon the standard path of the parade to join the crowds, as I heard a particularly crotchety Southie native tell me to get the hell out of her way, I was reminded of how Boston is a city so very unconcerned with being cool.

As such, I feel that Boston and Massachusetts deserve a song similarly unconcerned with its coolness, a song unconcerned with whether or not it becomes the next rock anthem, but is content with being the soundtrack of a day at a parade in Southie when, surrounded by friends and strangers, one is reminded of how it almost always feels good to be alive when you realize that you are.

And so Massachusetts deserves “Roadrunner,” a song that actually didn’t have much mainstream stay power beyond the 1970s, but still captures the magic of living in the simplicity of day-today life—whether it be on the streets of Southie or, as the Modern Lovers say, on “the highway when it’s late at night” and you “got the radio on.”

Because only a band that could produce such words as those could also sing the lyrics, “I’m in love with Massachusetts.”

Once the parade finally settled down, I decided that it was best that Massachusetts not be a place known only for its ability to dream—better to be a place that, when faced with choosing to dream and choosing to live, falls on the side of the latter.

Ryan Towey is the Asst. Metro Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

SXSW awards Boston app in innovative technology

BY MAGGIE MARETZ For The Heights

South by Southwest (SXSW)—a multimedia company that holds film, music, and interactive conferences annually—hosted the SXSW Interactive Accelerator in Austin, Tex. this past week, where innovators in social media, mobile applications, and web entertainment were given the opportunity to demonstrate their ideas before a panel of expert judges.

After three days and several rounds of elimination, Polina Raygorodskaya, Igor Bratnikov, and Eddy Wong, the cofounders and operators of Boston-based Wanderu, were named the winners.

Wanderu is a new, free app that provides its users with an easy way to book bus travel across the country without a hassle for cheap prices.

The two-part presentation at SXSW Interactive Accelerator consisted of one two-minute segment and one five-minute segment, in which Raygorodskaya, Bratnikov, and Wong chose to emphasize the lack of an existing app or website that allows travel-

ers not only to book bus travel, but also to do so with an app that saves its users’ money, ensures the safety of the route by consistently checking government ratings, gives the user directions to a bus station, and is enabled with an option for mobile booking.

Because there was precious little time to speak, the founders of Wanderu decided it would not hurt to bring a capuchin monkey to the convention, which attracted attention and spectators who jumped at the chance to take a picture with it.

The company, which turns profit by taking a percentage of each booking facilitated by Wanderu, is geared toward a consumer market primarily comprised of young adults, who conceivably need to travel a good amount yet generally do not have the disposable income to afford train tickets and airfare. In an interview with Boston Innovation, Raygorodskaya said, “They travel by bus because it is convenient, on demand and allows them to

book the trip last minute and stay plugged in and connected on their computers during their trip.”

The innovators responsible for Wanderu, who fall within this young-adult age bracket, even used their own app to book buses that took them from Boston to Austin for the competition and gave them a chance to get to know some of their users.

They were surprised to find that although almost all of them fell into the predicted age bracket, they were not exclusively from the Northeast, and, upon arriving in Austin, young adults there expressed their enthusiasm for the app to cover the South as well. Raygorodskaya said, however, that travel companies stand to benefit from being based in the Northeast because of the plethora of cities located in close proximity. Furthermore, she added that it is nice to be there—especially in Boston—for the purpose of recruiting the young and talented graduates of the many universities in the area.

The app, which has been featured in the Boston

Herald, Business Week, and USA Today, has entered into travel partnerships with wide-reaching bus companies such as Acela Express, Greyhound, Peter Pan, and many more. On their website and their app they also provide city travel guides, so that if a user arrives at a place with which they are not entirely familiar, the app guides them to where they need to go.

In the interview with Boston Innovation, Raygorodskaya addressed the problems that have surfaced recently with bus companies Fung Wah and YO!, assuring the consumers that Wanderu is extremely cautious about who they partner with, explaining, “By being very selective of the companies we partner with, we aim to paint the best positive light on the overall industry and encourage travelers to think twice when choosing a company and take their safety into account.”

She said that because the industry has grown in recent years, they run the risk of customer dissatisfaction if they do not filter out the problematic companies, and she has therefore made it a priority to be vigilant about which ones Wanderu chooses. 

JORDAN PENTALERI / HEIGHTS PHOTO ILLUSTRATION

Boston central location for Irish World Dance competition Irish World Dance, from B10 “the Worlds,” have ever been hosted in the United States, the event will be one that thousands attend and that thousands more tune in to watch on television.

Indeed, it is one that not only draws thousands of viewers and attendees, but also over 7,000 competitors from across the globe.

Although the Irish dancing community is not well-known to many, Teeking notes its growing presence on most continents, particularly in places such as Russia and Asia. “[The community] is small enough that I know of a lot of the top dancers and teachers, but big enough that there is always someone breaking through the top margin of dancers to keep the competition interesting.”

The Worlds is the largest event hosted and organized by a commision known as An Coimisiun le Rinci Gaelacha (CLRG) in an attempt to, as their mission states, “promote Irish dancing, including step dancing, ceili dancing, and other team dancing, and also to promote the use of the Irish language.”

The reason why the event draws in so many people, Teeking notes, is because of the talent it exhibits. “ The e vent showca ses the b est dancers in the world, and is the perfect exposure to someone who doesn’t know much about the sport. The combination of sparkly dresses and fast footwork is sure to entertain even an outside observer.”

While the event comes at a higher price for those that are not from New England, anyone with a Massachusetts

college ID or a New England license can get a ticket to watch what Teeking calls “the best [dancers] in the world” for a discounted price of $25.

“Boston is a very friendly city with a

huge Irish community,” Teeking said. “It shows how much of a world-wide sport that Irish dance has become. I couldn’t think of a more suitable—or convenient—host city for the Worlds.” 

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOSTON COLLEGE IRISH DANCE TEAM

The Irish Dance Team at BC prepares to represent themselves before the Worlds.

PERSON TO WATCH By: Danielle Dalton | For The Heights

Formerly found donning the costume of her high school’s mascot—Perry the Purple Panther—and current co-host of the WZBC radio show “Locally Grown Jorts,” Molly Boigon, LSOE ’16, is one girl you need to meet.

When asked, “If you could stand in the quad and announce something to BC, what would it be,” Boigon laughs and says, “I would say, ‘Hey everyone, I hope WHO: Molly Boigon, LSOE ‘16 WHAT: DJ Host of “Locally Grown Jorts,” a radio show on BC’s WZBC Radio WHERE: Boston College

you’re having a good day … Then, I would play a song for everyone to dance to. I would play ‘Yeah’ by Usher.”

Pausing, she continues, “Or ‘Beethoven’s 5th’ by Walter Murphy. It’s a remix of—wait, do you want to hear it?”

Within a moment, Boigon is pulling out a record player. Grabbing a vinyl record, she places it onto the player. “Fourth grade, PBteen—it’s pink,” she proudly and unapologetically comments of the record player.

Soon the remix fills the double she shares with Liz

Sanchez, A&S ’16—a legend in her own right. “Let’s just jam out for like a second,” she instructs, nodding her head along to the crisp beats.

A few riffs later, the tunes fade away as she places the record back into its cover and states simply, “So that’s Walter Murphy. That’s what I would play in the Quad.”

The record player, the song, the nonchalance—it’s all just so Molly.

While many freshmen recall her as the girl who confidently sported a Hawaiian print shirt and lei to the freshman boat cruise (her comment to that has always been, “It’s a cruise.”), she has rocked the Heights since long before freshman fall.

When visiting BC her senior year, her host for the evening took her to a Mod party. Noticing the unmanned DJ booth, Boigon took over playing classic tunes from her iPod. When revelers discovered she was a prospective student, “they could not have been more hospitable and nice,” Boigon said.

The next morning sealed Boigon’s fate to attend BC. While walking through Lower, a table of people recognized her and called out, “DJ Molly!” before inviting her to have breakfast. Boigon reflected, “I knew I had to come here. I saw that I could be who I was in high school here.”

When prompted for her favorite BC memory, Boigon admitted, “I’m going to go for the quintessential funny night memory. Liz and I went to a party off campus and

we were walking with a group of people that was so slow—we knew we were going to miss the [approaching] bus, if we kept with them. Liz was a track star in high school. Her instincts kicked in. We sprinted super far and we made the bus…Then we got Late Night.”

After proudly grinning, she comments, “Turns out there was another bus right behind it, which our group caught. Basically, though, it’s a metaphor for BC.” “You’re running … let me see if I can make this happen,” she says laughing at this spur-of-the-moment metaphor, “You’re working hard and you’re going for a finish line. There is no finish line, you’re just here to enjoy the ride…And then you get Late Night.”

The Heights

Thursday, March 21, 2013

B9

Phoenix ends 47-year publication history ‘Boston Phoenix,’ from B10 explained that keeping The Phoenix alive cost the company over $1 million each year, demonstrating Mindich’s passionate commitment to keep the paper running.

The Phoenix dates back to 1965, a year marked by social movements and protests in the U.S., and the year that Joe Hanlon founded the publication after serving as an editor for MIT’s student newspaper, The Tech. Before becoming Boston After Dark in March 1966, Hanlon began creating four-page single-sheet inserts including arts coverage and ads, making use of the printing firm where all Boston-area college newspapers were printed at the time. Harvard student James T. Lewis joined Hanlon by taking up a job as ad manager, after Hanlon’s inserts first made an appearance in the Harvard Business School’s newspaper, The Harbus News. Theater reviewer Larry Stark then joined the team when Boston After Dark replaced the original format of the inserts as a free weekly paper.

After a two-week writer’s strike in 1972, the once-rival Cambridge Phoenix was sold to Boston After Dark, in a merger directed by Mindich that resulted in the name The Boston Phoenix. Sister publications in Providence and Portland were born when Phoenix Media/Communications Group bought Rhode Island’s New Paper in 1988, and with the creation of The Portland Phoenix ten years later. To increase appeal for younger readers, The Phoenix opted to redesign by switching from its Berliner format to tabloid format, in addition to releasing a new logo. Once the paper acquired a younger audience, it even began to change its content contemporaneously with changing lifestyles of its

readers who moved from the city to the suburbs.

The Phoenix has been lauded for excellence in journalism on several fronts, receiving honors from the New England Press Association, the Penny-Missouri Newspaper Awards, the American Bar Association Gavel Awards, and the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards.

Many prominent journalists began their careers with The Boston Phoenix, including Susan Orlean, now a New Yorker staff-writer working from Los Angeles. Orlean lamented the loss of the place where she had received her education as a writer in the ’80s, telling Boston.com, “It’s like finding out your college has gone bankrupt and is gone.

I am a child of the alt-weekly world and I feel like it has played such an important role in journalism as we know it today.” Successful and famed journalists Joe Klein of Time; Sidney Blumenthal of The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker; Janet Maslin of The New York Times; and David Denby of The New Yorker also launched their careers working at The Phoenix. In 1994, Phoenix classical music writer Lloyd Schwartz won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism.

Tiffany Shackelford, executive director of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia in Washington, reported that alternative newspapers circulating in markets as large as Boston have not been flourishing in comparison to their counterparts in smaller, less competitive cities like Providence and Portland, so it is no surprise that those two Phoenix publications will remain open and will even add four full-time reporters.

Mindich himself gave a farewell to The Boston Phoenix to Boston.com after the paper’s 47-year run: “So, that’s it. We have had an extraordinary run.” n

MassEDchusetts

Considering charter schools

Jacqueline Parisi photo courtesy of sidecar

The SideCar app has recently launched in other major cites, such as LA and New York.

SideCar gives travel options SideCar App, from B10 one to five stars at the end of each trip by the passenger. If a driver is given a rating of four or less by the rider, the rider has an option to block requests from them in the future. Any driver that is rated with four and a half stars or below in their first few trips is deactivated. This rating system is meant to protect passengers and provide them with safe and reliable drivers.

In an effort to protect the driver as well as the passenger, community drivers also rate their passengers through the app based on their behavior and regarding whether or not they donate. Other drivers will see this information the next time the passenger requests a ride.

The interactive app allows the passenger to enter their pick up and drop off location. The app then shows the location of nearby drivers, and allows one to choose the one you want based on the room available in their car, their rating, and their type of car.

Sidecar launched in San Francisco in 2012. The app now operates in Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin, and Philadelphia.

The Mar. 15 launch in Boston coincided

with the launch of the app in Chicago and Brooklyn.

“People love the SideCar experience and have been quick to embrace it as a new way to get around. We’re excited to continue our rapid U.S. rollout by bringing SideCar to these great cities,” said SideCar’s CEO Sunil Paul in a Mar. 15 press release.

The SideCar community in Boston is in its early stages, and the app will begin running with limited hours of operation.

It will be available to drivers and riders on Friday and Saturday nights from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. They hope to expand the hours as the number of drivers and riders increase in the Boston community and as the app increases in popularity.

There is likely to be some competition between SideCar and other ride sharing apps in Boston such as Uber and Halo, as well as with the various taxi companies in Boston, most of which are the sole form of transportation for Bostonians who stay out past the time that the MBTA shuts down at 12:35 a.m. on the weekends. The SideCar app will provide a way to get from point A to point B that is social, sustainable, and safe. n

Organization gives grant to help fight urban domestic violence Violence Grant, from B10 Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and other city departments to reduce rates of domestic violence.”

The nationwide Domestic Violence Homicide Prevention Demonstration Initiative is based on best practices employed in Newburyport, Mass., and Maryland, where coordinated teams of law enforcement, prosecutors, health professionals, and victims’ ser vices have significantly reduced the domestic violence homicide rate. Research shows that women whose partner threatens them with a gun or other weapon are 20 times more likely to be murdered than other abused women. In addition, domestic violence often puts children,

coworkers, neighbors, and police officers at risk of becoming victims of domestic conflicts.

“Every single day in America, three women die at the hands of their boyfriend, or their husband, or their exhusband,” Biden said at the grant announcement. “Many of these women have been threatened or severely abused in the past. We know what risk factors put someone in greater danger of being killed by the person they love—and that also means we have the opportunity to step in and try to prevent these murders.

That’s why these grants are so important.

They’ll help stop violence before it turns deadly.”

The vice president noted that from 2009 to 2012, 40 percent of mass shoot-

ings started with the shooter targeting his girlfriend, wife, or ex-wife. Biden, drawing on research from the Mayors for Prevention of Illegal Guns—a coalition co-chaired by Menino—noted that in states that require a background check for private handgun sales, 38 percent fewer women are shot and killed by their intimate partners. “The issue of domestic violence and reducing gun violence are connected,” Biden said.

The initiative is based on an assessment tool that can be used to identify women who may be in fatally abusive relationships. “Attempted strangulation, threats with weapons, sexual assault and obsessively jealous and controlling behavior are among the markers of particularly lethal abusers,” the initiative states.

Once potential victims are identified, law enforcement can take action to protect them and their families.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston will play a key role in this grant, working closely with the Health Commission and other partners to screen domestic violence cases as they come into the hospital. “Domestic violence is a public health issue that has serious health care consequences,” said Annie Lewis O’Connor, the program director for nursing practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “We will embrace this opportunity with our partners in Boston to assure that all the residents of Boston who are experiencing domestic violence have every chance to be safe and healthy.” n

THE ISSUE:

Complex Media, a publishing company based in New York, released its list of the 10 most overrated cities on Mar. 15. Though Complex Media gave New York the top spot, it named Boston the No. 7 most overrated city, citing Boston’s perceived lack of friendliness as evidence of an inferiority complex. To defend itself, Boston appeals to its allegedly overrated claim to fame as the birthplace of democracy. Is Complex Media’s judgment entirely accurate?

Overrated if you let it be In defense of a great city Ryan Towey If Complex Media wants to call Boston overrated, they may be justified, but they are saying so for all of the wrong reasons.

To accuse Boston of being overrated for being the birthplace of American democracy, the only thing that one can say is—well, it is. Boston is indeed the place in which the American Revolution began, and, indeed, Bostonians often cite this as a reason that their city is great, but even if this fact does not make the city overly exciting, it at least makes the claim historically accurate.

To accuse Boston of being overrated for being having a poor public transportation system is, also, completely unnecessary, given that no reasonable Bostonian would every try to hide the inadequacy of the MBTA. Nor would they use the city’s historical significance as a defense mechanism to mask the city’s sometimes shoddy transportation—rather, they spend their time looking to reform it.

There are, however, some ways in which Boston is completely overrated, and Complex Media is invited to invest more time in examining those, because Boston is most overrated when it pretends to be something that it’s not.

Boston is not a big city. It is not New York. It is not Los Angeles. Its population does not even reach one million. Boston is a

city with a bustling downtown, certainly, but also one dominated by vibrant residential neighborhoods, acting as the anchor of Greater Boston. At times, Boston seems to deny this character, choosing to flaunt itself as a big city when it is actually a smaller city.

Thus, Boston attempts to overrate itself.

Why is the true character of Boston treated as something of which one should not be proud? Boston’s true character gives it an edge that its feigned identity cannot possibly give. The size of Boston allows one to feel at home pretty much wherever one goes, while still having the comforts and luxuries of a larger city.

Additionally, by overrating itself regarding the ability of its populace to guzzle down alcohol and maintain fierce loyalty to its sports teams, Boston underrates its centers of commerce and vibrant arts community all in order to feed into a stereotype that certainly has the ring of truth, but is not all that Boston is.

To Bostonians: consider the image you choose to put on display, whether or not it’s accurate, and whether or not you want to underrate the parts of your city that are actually great in favor of trying to be the things you are not.

Ryan Towey is an editor for The Heights. He can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

Maggie Powers One of my favorite things in the world is flying into Logan Airport at night.

Despite the fact that I am a Massachusetts native and chose to attend college in the very same city I grew up in, seeing the twinkling lights bordering the Atlantic always reminds me Boston is the best city in America.

In light of Complex Media’s recent ranking of Boston as the seventh most overrated city in America, I would like to defend Boston.

Why do they say Boston is so overrated? Apparently, it is too cliche to love sports, historical significance, and alcohol.

Sorry, last time I asked anyone, dedicated sports fans, history, and beer are pretty awesome.

In all seriousness, Boston is a city steeped in tradition. Everything we do seems to have a history. There is something magical about the fact that the little four year old at Fenway who already knows the words to “Sweet Caroline” has been preceded by generations of the faithful who believed in this team before they had multiple World Series titles. Even though it is a major metropolitan area, you cannot deny the moment of walking past Old North Church and thinking “Wow. Paul Revere was actually here.” And I mean,

Boston is the only place that you can drink a Sam Adams while looking at Sam Adam’s headstone. That’s tradition, if you ask me.

Is Boston overrated because it’s cliche?

I cannot even answer that question, because it is fundamentally flawed. The portrayals and perceptions of Boston maybe come across as cliche, but that comes from an attempt to capture something so authentic.

Yes, we drink too much, we are crass, we are cold when you crash into us on the street, we all have walked the Freedom Trail for a field trip, and even the most reserved girl will probably flip you the finger if you dare insult one of her teams.

This isn’t a cliche, it is an embodiment of a place. I am not some starry-eyed nineteen year old who has come to the big city for the very first time.

I grew up yelling at the top of my lungs at Bruins games, wandering the Boston Common, and eating Mike’s Pastries. And let me tell you, it never gets old. Accuse Bostonians of being cliche or even being defensive.

Any one of us would push back and tell you we are authentic and we are not defensive—we are just better than you.

Maggie Powers is an editor for The Heights. She can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

When people think of different types of primary or secondary schools, they typically think of either public or private schools.

However, charter schools are very prevalent on a national level as well, and have become increasingly popular in recent years.

Charter schools receive public funding but employ mostly non-union teachers. Thus, they have autonomy in school districts and are allowed to set their own conditions and regulations, such as the length of the school day. They are free from local district control and collective bargaining agreements.

Over two million students across the country are currently enrolled in charter schools, a growth of 275,000 students from last year according to the National Alliance for Charter Schools. This is the largest singleyear jump since charter schools entered the academic scene two decades ago. In Massachusetts alone, more than 31,000 students now attend charter schools, representing an increase of 20 percent over the past four years.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Massachusetts’s current limit on charter schools statewide is 120, with 76 currently in operation. Massachusetts Democrats, state Senator Barry Finegold, and Democrat Russell Holmes have recently put forth a controversial proposal to eliminate this cap on the number of charter schools allowed to operate in the lowest-performing school districts, and it is definitely being met with mixed reviews.

Finegold claims that his motivation to sponsor this bill derived from conversations with parents in Lawrence, an area northwest of Boston where the struggling school district was taken over by the state in 2011. Parents told him that, without the charter school, “we’d be out of here.”

“One thing I don’t think people realize,” Finegold said, is that “charter schools are keeping a lot of the middle class in cities.”

Proponents of lifting the cap also point to the outstanding results that charter schools have produced throughout the years.

According to research released by Stanford University in February, “charter students in Boston gain an additional 12 months in reading and 13 in math per school year compared to their TPS [traditional public school] counterparts.

“When you have something that is generating this much success, it borders on lunacy to continue to limit it,” said Paul Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation.

“The only reason it is being limited is for political considerations.”

Despite the ample amount of support for the bill, not everyone is happy about it.

While some say that capping the number of charter schools controls the quality of education in the Commonwealth, others claim that caps are arbitrary and limit opportunity for students.

The notoriously liberal Massachusetts blog Blue Mass Group recently wrote that Finegold is “throwing away his political future” because he has “taken the lead for school privatization.”

Perhaps the most evidence of resistance is coming from the Massachusetts Teacher Association. According to union president Paul Toner, schools’ funding is linked to the number of students that attend. So, in light of this state law, charter schools would be draining resources from traditional schools by preventing the traditional schools from receiving these much needed funds.

Statistics do not support this notion.

According to research presented in Commonwealth Magazine by Jim Peyser, Managing Partner for City Funds at New Schools Venture Fund, before the first charter school opened in 1995, Boston Public Schools (BPS) enrolled just under 60,000 students.

Currently, BPS enrolls about 55,000 students while around 6,300 attend charter schools. Yet, even as BPS enrollment has slipped, its budget has doubled from $405 million in 1995 to over $815 million just last year.

This represents an increase by more than 20 percent during this period, taking into account enrollment changes and inflation. So, it is actually the case that BPS now receives more in state aid per pupil than it did before charters came into existence.

What Massachusetts decides to do is especially influential because Massachusetts students overall routinely rank at the top of the national and international test scores.

As a result, other states commonly look to Massachusetts for lessons on innovation in academics.

The facts are clear. It is time for action.

Jacquline Parisi is a staff columnist for for The Heights. She can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

METRO THE HEIGHTS

B8

B10

Thursday, March 21, 2013

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013

BREAKING BOUNDARIES

Spare me the details TRICIA TIEDT

I’ve always been a big John Mayer fan—between the guitar skills, sultry voice, and don’t-care attitude, he’s just got it. It’s no wonder millions of girls (including me) find him irresistible. And while “Say,” a single from the 2008 Continuum album, is personally one of my least favorite Mayer songs, it’s been on my mind for the past week.

Because, Boston College, we have found yet another way to not “say what we need to say.”

Boston College Confessions, a new Facebook page mirroring the overwhelmingly popular Boston College Compliments, has suddenly taken over the BC world via our newsfeeds. The webpage explains its philosophy with an old Scottish proverb: “Open confession is good for the soul.” With over 2,500 likes and 2,800 anonymous posts in just one month (they joined Facebook exactly one month ago yesterday), it seems Eagles agree. Although the page explicitly states it is not affiliated with BC, the supreme majority of posts relate to students on campus. As of this past week, whoever runs the site announced they are receiving approximately 400 confessions a day.

In fact, the majority of posts relate to students in terms of unspoken declarations (hence the name BC Confessions). Namely, professions relating to fear of rejection from those they love, or praising those they admire. Many confessions speak of broken hearts searching for closure. Some are downright heartwarming, others downright ridiculous. “Confession #984: You may look like young Stalin but I’m totally into it.” Case in point.

Now, for those of you that know me at all, you know I’m not one to shy away from confrontation. I lead and participate in a public speaking club on campus multiple times a week. I have a big mouth and a southern accent that comes out when I’m angry. I’m not, nor have I ever been, afraid to speak my mind. Which is why I must confess that, frankly, BC Confessions makes my blood boil.

Typing a few lines of text in a box to be sent into cyberspace is not a confession.

Reading through the other anonymous (truly anonymous—confessors use surveymonkey. com to post secrets instead of their personal Facebook accounts) posts does not constitute a support group. Using social media as an outlet for your frustrations about BC does not mean a single thing. Prospective students, people outside our BC community, are reading this page. Confession #1383: “I got into BC Early Action but I’m completely innocent and I think I’d be a loser among the ‘hookup culture’ here.” Is this the image we, as current students, are willing to portray? Is that an accurate representation of what BC students embody?

While I fully support students rallying around their peers, a Facebook page cannot provide what many of the authors of these heart-wrenching posts are seeking. Likewise, viewers are not helping these peers by “liking” the post or sharing an anecdote in a comment. In this world of increasing technology, it’s no question our social lives have translated to the Internet. But who’s to say that’s for the better? More so, who’s to say we, the online generation, need to succumb to this impersonal substitute for tangible relationships with our peers?

If you need support, find it. There are innumerable groups on this campus dedicated to the betterment of others—in fact, that’s what most organizations strive to do. Have issues with your roommate? Talk it out. That unspoken feud with friends? Make amends.

To the girl you’re debating asking out—go for it. Have you found the one person on campus you can’t get enough of? By all means, tell them. Posting an overdramatic, anonymous “confession” to a social media site will not enact change in your life, or anyone else’s, for that matter. In the mean time, spare me the details.

You may not agree with my opinion—but it’s one I’m willing to place with my byline.

Can you say the same?

Tricia Tiedt is the Metro Editor for The Heights. She can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER - APRIL 2005 • THE STRANGE CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL SIN - MARCH 2001 • SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER - APRIL 2005 • THE STRANGE CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL SIN - MARCH 2001 • SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER - APRIL 2005 • THE STRANGE CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL SIN - MARCH 2001 • SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER - APRIL 2005 • THE STRANGE CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL SIN - MARCH 2001 • SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER - APRIL 2005 • THE STRANGE CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL SIN - MARCH 2001 • SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER - APRIL 2005 • THE STRANGE CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL SIN - MARCH 2001 • SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER - APRIL 2005 • THE STRANGE CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL SIN - MARCH 2001 • SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER - APRIL 2005 • THE STRANGE CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL SIN - MARCH 2001 • SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER - APRIL 2005 • THE STRANGE CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL SIN - MARCH 2001 • SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER - APRIL 2005 • THE STRANGE CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL SIN - MARCH 2001 SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER - APRIL 2005 • THE STRANGE CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL SIN MARCH 2001 SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER - APRIL 2005 • THE STRANGE CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL MARCH 2001Printing • SEATTLE WAS A publishingSIN unit-and MassWeb Weekly newspaper says “Good night and good luck” custom RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDER HIS MOTHER operation, the future looks good in that they remain open. The publication a weekly 1999 • A to•the city itCASE helped defiSANTO ne through word - APRIL 2005 THE STRANGE OF AUDREY - DECEMBER the 1997 •written CARDINAL SIN - MARCHwill 2001 • SEATTLE WAS A RIOT had - DECEMBER circulation 253,000 with -a APRIL website2005 featuring WEED GROWS IN BOSTON - DECEMBER 2009 • THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE - FEBRUARY 2013 • DID HE MURDERofHIS MOTHER • THE STRANGE ing newspaper, noted for “speaking truth to 90 percent of its printed content in addition to B Y LAUREN TOTINO CASE OF AUDREY SANTO - DECEMBER 1997 • CARDINAL SIN - MARCH 2001 • SEATTLE WAS A RIOT - DECEMBER 1999 • A WEED GROWS IN BOSTON power,” had just made the transition from tab- extra content not included in its newspapers.

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FAREWELL TO THE

SideCar carpool initiative launches in Boston

BY BRENNA CASS For The Heights SideCar, a ride sharing app that began in San Francisco, launched in Boston on Mar. 15. The ride sharing app, which is currently available for iPhone and Android users, allows passengers to receive rides from certified community drivers for a donation fee. It provides a safe al-

ternative to carpooling, cabs, and public transportation.

The SideCar app instantly matches riders with “community drivers,” local people with cars who have agreed to provide other Bostonians with rides around town.

A unique feature of the SideCar app is that it has no set fee—drivers are paid by donations. In order to sign up for the app, users must enter their credit card information.

After receiving a ride, a passenger can decide the amount of donation they wish to give their driver which is paid for via smartphone, not through cash.

The app includes a suggested donation, which names a fee for the passenger to pay based on what other riders have paid recently for rides of similar lengths. With the donation system, the trip typically ends up costing less than what a rider

would otherwise pay for a cab ride of the same length.

The community drivers must have car insurance, undergo a background check, and have a reliable car. Each ride is tracked via GPS. The app also ensures safety with a strict rating system. Each community driver is ranked on a scale ranging from

See SideCar App, B9

City slated to receive grant from DVHP

BY SHANNON INGLESBY Heights Staff

’16, Madeline Jacob, LSOE ’16, Taylor Laffey, A&S ’15, Kiera Keller, A&S ’15, and Stephanie Armstrong, CSOM ’14.

Teeking and Jacobs are competing for the seventh time in their experience, and joined the sport at ages five and four respectively.

“I try to practice and cross-train every day,” Teeking said in an email of her rigorous training schedule. “I also travel to the Woods School of Irish Dance in South Boston three times a week to practice with instructor, Peggy Woods. Preparing for something this big definitely takes a lot of commitment, but I believe you can only get out as much as you put in.”

Being the second time that the championships, most commonly known among competitors and attendees as

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced last Thursday that Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder allowed the City of Boston a grant to reduce domestic violence homicides.

The announcement is a part of the new Domestic Violence and Homicide Prevention Demonstration Initiative and Boston is one of 12 cities nationwide to receive a grant. The initiative is directed mainly at violence against women and is in coordination with the Office on Violence Against Women, part of the United States Department of Justice. The Boston Public Health Commission’s Family Justice Center will receive $200,000 for a one-year program that will address domestic violence homicides by assessing how systems identify and respond to potential victims and by making recommendations for improved practices.

With the grant, Menino hopes that domestic violence in Boston will decrease and the city can work together with families to end violence.

“We know there are Boston residents who face violent situations at home every day, and we are committed to continuing our work to offer them help, support, and a way out,” Menino said. “This grant will help ensure our systems that address domestic violence in Boston are as robust, coordinated, and effective as they can be. It will also strengthen our partnerships with law enforcement, advocates, emergency care providers like

See World Irish Dance, B8

See Violence Grant, B9

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOSTON COLLEGE IRISH DANCE TEAM

Five members of the Boston College Irish Dance Team will be competing in the Irish World Dancing Championships next week.

Irish World Dance comes to Boston Boston College Irish Dance Team to compete in the “Olympics of Irish Dancing” B Y P ARISA O VIEDO Heights Editor Giant wigs , bright rhinestones , shocking amounts of make-up, and fake tanners are just four requirements for stealing the spotlight on the world’s stage.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino and the city of Boston welcome the best Irish dancers from across the globe from Mar. 24 to 31 in one of the largest existing sporting events, the 2013 World Irish Dancing Championships.

With an elaborate grand opening ceremony, high class entertainment, and previous champions and title-winners in attendance, it is no wonder that

I NSIDE METRO THIS ISSUE

this event is known among many as the “Olympics of Irish Dancing.” The championships, hosted at the Hynes Convention Center, is so large-scale that it is expected to reel in a total of $13 million for the Boston region’s economy. Boston will also benefit from a cultural and artistic standpoint.

At the core of the competition are male and female competitors of a large range of ages, from 10-year-olds to seniors, who will represent all corners of the world including Japan, South Africa, Australia, and even five of Boston College’s very own students.

This year, the Boston College Irish Dance student organization will be represented by Bridget Teeking, A&S

On the Flip Side

Complex Media ranked Boston as the No. 7 most overrated city. Is Boston actually as overrated as they say?..................................................B9

Restaurant Review: Sportello...............................................................B7 Person to Watch: Molly Boigon.........................................................................B8