Roots Issue

BUZZSAW March 2016

Enforcing Change in the West Village pg. 6

From the Ground Up

Faith-Filled Action pg. 26

Abuse in the Music Industry pg. 32

Buzzsaw presents...

EDITORS’ COMMENT

The Roots Issue

BUZZSAW News & Views Upfront

At the core.

Ministry of Cool Prose & Cons When you go to the very center, you’ll be surprised by what you find.

Sawdust Whether they’re cultural, political or musical, our origins shape who we are and how we view the world — for better or for worse. So come with Seesaw us while we take it back to the beginning.

There’s a reason people get pissed at strangers for being overtly kind to others, and it starts way back in childhood. The phenomenon is called “do-gooder derogation.” (“Why You Gotta Be So Nice?”, p. 8) From Karl Marx to Bernie Sanders, socialism has had various definitions, but since back in the day, it’s been misunderstood. (“Tracing the Evolution of Socialism,” p. 18) Lastly, we look back at David Bowie, someone who’s made indelible impacts in fashion, music and culture, and who left us a haunting final release. (“Fashion Oddity,” p. 31 & “Blackstar,” p. 35)

Layout Marissa Booker Art Lizzie Cox Website Christian Cassidy-Amstutz Social Media John Jacobson Production

Advisor Founders

Divider and Table of Contents Photography

By Claire McClusky Claire McClusky is a sophomore in the Film, Photography, and Visual Arts B.F.A. with a Minor in Counseling. She enjoys shooting performances, cultural and physical landscapes, and more planned photos with a provocative or fantastical twist.

Evan Popp Alexa Salvato Katelyn Harrop Michele Hau Sophie Israelsohn Lexie Farabaugh Grace Rychwalski Elena Piech Julia Tricolla

Sophia Hebert Celisa Calacal Miranda Ella Tyler Obropta Jeff Cohen Abby Bertumen Kelly Burdick Bryan Chambala Sam Costello Thom Denick Cole Louison James Sigman

Buzzsaw is published with support from Generation Progress / Center for American Progress (online at GenProgress.org).

Buzzsaw is also funded by the Ithaca College Student Government Association and the Park School of Communications.

Vanguard Printing is our press. (Ithaca, N.Y.) Buzzsaw uses student-generated art and photography and royalty-free images.

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

Views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editorial staff or of Ithaca College.

Feedback and contributions should be sent to buzzsawmag@gmail.com.

Front cover art by Lizzie Cox Back cover art by Claire McClusky Center art photos curtesy of Ellen Grady

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Write Us

Our magazine exists to inspire thoughtful debate and open up the channels through which information is shared. Your comments and feedback are all a part of this process. Reach the editors by email at: buzzsawmag@gmail.com.

Table of Contents Seesaw ..........................................................4 Print media is dead, check out multimedia on the web.

News & Views .................................................5 Current events, local news & quasi-educated opinions.

Upfront ........................................................17 Selected dis-education of the month.

Ministry of Cool ........................................30 Arts, entertainment and other things cooler than us.

Prose & Cons .............................................38 Short fiction, personal essay and other assorted lies.

Satire threatening the magazine’s credibility since 1856.

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BUZZSAW News & Views

Sawdust .......................................................45

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The End of an Era

Justice Scalia’s death and partisan obstructionism

By Taylor Ford, Staff Writer

J

ustice Antonin Scalia, the longest serving member of the Supreme Court in United States history, was a titan of the legal field. Either loved or despised depending on one’s political views, Scalia’s death on Feb. 13 brought about the end of an era for the Supreme Court.

As a legal scholar, Scalia advocated a type of constitutional interpretation called originalism, or textualism.

This means that the Constitution should be interpreted based upon what someone reading the document at the time of its creation would have believed it to be. This belief system led Scalia to take hardline conservative positions on a number of political and legal issues, including abortion, civil rights and immigration.

However, these beliefs did not keep him from crossing political lines in his personal life. Scalia maintained close personal friendships with those with whom he disagreed. Scalia was famously close with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an extremely liberal Supreme Court justice, and he advocated for President Barack Obama to appoint Elena Kagan to the court, though they disagreed on a number of issues. Scalia did not believe in partisan politics dictating control of the court.

Though Scalia’s legacy will be debated by historians for years, there is one matter that clearly needs to be resolved now: finding him a replacement on the court. The Constitution is extremely clear about what happens when there is a vacancy on the court. When one justice dies or steps down, the president appoint a new justice who is then confirmed by the Senate. However, although this prob-

lem has a clear resolution outlined by the Constitution, it has still been debated in the last few weeks. As of when Buzzsaw went to press, Obama had not nominated a new justice.

Many from the right have called on Obama not to nominate a new justice, but rather to leave this responsibility to the next president. Marco Rubio, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, said in a statement, “The next president must nominate a justice who will continue Justice Scalia’s unwavering belief in the founding principles that we hold dear.” Similar statements have been made by other leading Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Because Republicans currently control the Senate, the party could, in theory, block Obama’s ability to appoint anyone.

But leaving Scalia’s seat on the bench vacant presents a serious problem for the court. Currently, the court only has eight members instead of nine. This is an issue because of tie votes — with only eight justices, there is no tie breaker. Four of the justices tend to vote liberally, while the other four vote conservatively. Leaving Scalia’s seat unfilled leaves the court virtually deadlocked. It’s also almost unprecedented; if Obama doesn’t appoint a new justice, it would leave an empty seat on the Supreme Court for over a year, something that hasn’t happened since the Civil War. Many presidents have made appointments in their last year, including the conservative hero Ronald Reagan. Since 1900, there have been seven appointments to the Supreme Court in a president’s final year — all of them were successfully confirmed.

The threat by Republican lawmakers to block any appointment is a disgrace to our national political system.

There is no substantive argument as to why Obama should not nominate a new justice. It is clearly within his constitutional rights as President of this country — the Appointment Clause is extremely straightforward.

So, why then do Republicans demand this of him? The answer to this question may be ugly. Political leaders, notably Republican presidential candidates Rubio, Cruz and Trump, the same people who have called on Obama not to make an appointment, have been making bigoted statements about Muslims, such as Trump calling for a ban on any Muslim immigrants coming to this country. It is no coincidence that Obama has frequently been accused of being a Muslim, as if this is something that is wrong or shameful. Even now, Obama’s nationality and religion are still being debated in the public sphere after more than seven years in office. Though there is nothing explicitly racial about Republicans’ demand that Obama not appoint a new justice, we must read between the lines.

Obama has made it clear that he intends to fulfill his responsibility by appointing a justice, but the insistence that he not do this is still an affront to his authority and an act of disrespect to the office of the President. As an originalist, Scalia would have wanted the president to do his duty to this country by appointing a replacement, as the Constitution clearly lays out that he should. As demonstrated by his friendship with more liberal, younger justices, Scalia did not resent differing viewpoints on the court. We do a disservice to Scalia by turning his death into a political tool. _______________________________________ Taylor Ford is a junior politics and sociology major who re-reads the Constitution on weekends. You can email him at tford1@ithaca.edu.

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News & Views

Image by Lizzie Cox

Enforcing Change in the West Village Common Council of Ithaca passes “Officer Next Door” program

By Daniel Hart, Contributing Writer

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

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n Jan. 20, the Common Council of Ithaca passed an initiative called “Officer Next Door” for the West Village

area of Ithaca.

A similar initiative is “The Good Neighbor Next Door” program by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that houses law enforcement officers, pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade teachers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians in order to contribute to “community revitalization” with the requirement that the civil servant live there for a minimum of three years. The agenda of the City Administration committee meeting at which the initiative was passed said the program has “strong potential to benefit public safety in the city.”

Under the “Officer Next Door” program, which was voted on in January, officers will legally live rent-free in any of the West Village apartment units on Abbott Lane and West Village Place as well as in the Chestnut Hill apartments on Chestnut Street.

Many of these complexes are owned by third party real estate companies. West Village Apartments, off of Elm Street in Ithaca, was sold to Omni New York LLC — which is owned by former Major League Baseball star Maurice “Mo” Vaughn — by Abbott Associates in 2007. The complex, made up of 253 housing units, is one of the many subsidized apartment complexes in the country.

In August 2013, Omni New York LLC, in an effort to crack down on crime in the area, allocated $12,000 to the Ithaca Police Department to be used to increase police patrols in the West Hill area, which includes the West Village. And in February 2015, Omni New York LLC allocated an additional $12,000 toward extra patrols in West Hill.

In the summer of 2015, a police

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officer started living rent-free in the apartment complex under an offer

by Omni New York LLC, First Ward Alderperson George McGonigal said.

The first ward encompasses the West Village.

At the time, IPD Public Information Officer Jamie Williamson said in a media release: “These extra patrols will help the Ithaca Police Department address community concerns and to improve the overall quality of life in the area.” Williamson also quoted IPD Police Chief John Barber as saying: “This additional funding will put officers on the streets up there, and that will enable us to better improve the service that we provide to the Ithaca community as a whole.”

The West Village apartment complex near downtown Ithaca is isolated by trees from the surrounding suburbs. Two, two-story long buildings sit back-to-back with halfempty parking lots on either side. At one end there is a slide marked for children ages two to five. There is a green ramp leading from the upper parking lot, over the lower lot, and onto the outdoor corridors of the upper levels, which are identical to the ramp. There are two dumpsters, one for each building, both full and in separate corners of the parking lots by the woods.

“You’ve got an open wooded area that covers two sides. There’s many entrances into the various buildings,” First Ward Alderperson Cynthia Brock, the only member of Ithaca’s Common Council to vote against the Officer Next Door program, said.

Brock emphasized the importance of transparency to increase a feeling of safety for everyone living in the complex, including officers.

“You actually have to walk through a corridor to get to your apartment, which means it really creates environments where people can intimidate you as you walk by,” Brock said.

“As a police officer or even as a ten-

ant, you feel like you could be easily ambushed. If you were to design a housing complex that would be difficult to manage, this is pretty much a good design.”

There is a laundry room for the whole complex. A tenant originally from Long Island who has been living in a unit there since August, and who prefered not to give her name, waited for her clothes to finish being washed. There are signs labelling the “rules” for the laundry room as well as its hours: 8 a.m to 8:45 p.m., a time limitation she claims is a nuisance to tenants.

She liked the idea of police officers living in the area, as long as there is identification and a good relationship between tenants and officers.

Before the program was implemented there was already one police officer living in West Village. The tenant said she had heard about the officer’s presence, but did not know exactly who he is or which unit he lives in. She sometimes sees a man who she said “looks like a cop.”

“Visible police presence is better than invisible police presence,” she said.

This is the first time Ithaca has passed this program. The agenda from the City Administration committee meeting also stated: “In the future, the City may identify additional areas of the city experiencing higher crime rates in which such a program could also be useful.”

McGonigal supports the program.

However, he is skeptical it will actually be implemented in areas of the city outside of West Village.

“In theory it could be [implemented in other areas], but I think it’s very unusual for a landlord to offer free rent,” he said. “Another factor is, because of West Village’s lousy reputation, they have an unusually high vacancy rate currently.”

McGonigal said there is a lot of violent crime in West Village.

“There’s not many other places

higher concentration of people than other areas of the city, changing the energy of the area.

Airewele explains why he thinks the environment of a living place is so crucial.

“There is no family that does not want to raise children in a safe place,” he said. “I have always been under the impression that if you put people in a place that dignifies them, sometimes they live to that expectation. I have seen many housing units where the landlord wanted the people to feel dignified, and they lived up to it.”

Brock said she thinks the common assumption of violence in low income areas played a role in the implementation of the Officer Next Door program.

As a tenant, the woman in the laundry room said she feels this bias.

“It [West Village] is not as bad as everyone says it is,” she said. “People are ignorant.”

Airewele agreed.

“I know that in the minds of some people, low incomes suggest criminality,” Airewele said. “At the end of the day you have to say, ‘well what is it that they are pursuing?’ What are they zeroing in on? I have been to West Village many times and I didn’t see brawls, I didn’t see fights and all of that. It’s likely that when police are there, they are nervous, they are on high alert.”

Omni New York LLC’s mission is to provide “quality, well managed affordable housing in neighborhoods that have historically had a shortage of such affordable housing.” Brock said while the company did increase housing opportunities for low income residents, the complex is far from well managed.

Brock criticized the company’s relationship, or lack thereof, with tenants at West Village. She said the management of the complex is insufficient in establishing clear expectations of tenants.

“The city itself has very little jurisdiction in forcing a property owner to establish certain policies,” she said.

“That’s really one of the limitations that’s so frustrating. You see this in Ithaca, you see it in Dryden, you see it in all communities where you have a property owner who isn’t taking re-

sponsibility for either the property or its tenants, and communities struggle with that.”

McGonigal also said there is a weak relationship between the city government and Omni New York LCC. “It was bad, and it’s getting better,” he said. “I think they’re trying.”

The tenant said she has no problem with Omni New York LLC, but added she has never met anyone from the company. She wished they would reach out to tenants like she hears the Ithaca Housing Association does at Northside Developments, the city’s public housing.

Brock pointed to the low crime rate among Northside Developments as an example of why she thinks city government should manage low income housing units instead of third parties. According to a map of violent crimes in Ithaca in 2013-15 published by The Ithaca Voice, the Northside Developments has one of the lower crime rates in the city. According to the The Ithaca Voice, “Crime in West Village is more condensed than in other places in Ithaca, but it doesn’t have more crime than all the rest of Ithaca combined.”

Airewele sees both sides of the proposed program, and understands why there is disagreement.

“Behind all these things are citizens who are clamoring for one thing or another, who may not come out in the open,” he said. “Because if somebody has been victimized in a place, they won’t mind whatever you do to secure the place, and it may trample on other people’s sense of what’s fair and what’s right.” _______________________________________ Daniel Hart is a freshman journalism major who may or may not interview you if he finds you doing laundry. Email him at dhart1@ithaca.edu.

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News & Views

in the city where people are getting beaten half to death or stabbed,” he said. “I’ve lived here for 35 years, and that’s the most dangerous place in town to live. There’s a large number of families with young children there, and this is basically about protecting those families.”

Aigbokhan Aloja Airewele, Energy Warriors educator at Cornell University and volunteer at the Tompkins County Jail, knows many former inmates who live in West Village. He has noticed the changes in West Village over time.

“The crime rate in college town is higher than in West Village,” he said.

“There are kids from rich places and everything … but there’s all this stuff, rape and the rest going on … they’ve got Cornell students, they’ve got kids doing various things, and I’m wondering why the policing is not that strenuous, but that’s ceded to campus safety. The policing has always been difficult.”

Airewele said he has talked with white people in the prison who have told him they have been doing drugs in a group of both white and black people, and when the police come they have arrested the blacks and let the whites go.

“When somebody has just come from prison, they can’t work,” he said. “You cannot get [federally] subsidized housing, so what do you do?

It is a set-up for failure. Where will you rent if they are doing background checks? So they are going to end up in these lousy apartment complexes, where’s there’s very little, little inspiration to move forward.”

Still, there has been improvement.

“West Village is better than it used to be,” Airewele said.

The rental office of West Village Apartments is instructed not to talk to news organizations because journalists have given them a hard time in the past, most notably The Ithaca Voice, according to the office directors.

In fact, under The Voice’s “West Village Series” there are six articles

by Jolene Almendarez from January to February of 2016, which touch on crime in the area. Almendarez’s findings: The West Village Apartments have a high concentration of violent crime, but the complex also has a

Why You Gotta Be So Nice?

Do-gooder derogation and the competition to be moral

By Ana Borruto, Contributing Writer

A

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

s a society, we strive to make good choices and commit good deeds in order to prove that we are moral. However, sometimes our morally motivated acts are ridiculed by others who feel that their moral behavior is being threatened.

Do-gooder derogation is the idea of putting down morally motivated people because of their good actions.

According to a study conducted by Julia Minson, an assistant professor at Harvard University, and Benoît Monin, a professor at Stanford University, there is anecdotal evidence showing that overtly moral behavior can cause annoyance and ridicule rather than respect or admiration.

A vegetarian lifestyle is an example of this idea. Vegetarians often choose to abstain from eating meat so as to not participate in the further killing of animals for food. In this mindset, they are doing something they consider to be good moral behavior and they are giving up one thing to benefit something else.

However, according to Minson and Monin’s study, vegetarians are often put down for their decision to not eat meat. This reaction is because of the notion that vegetarians choose this dietary lifestyle to condemn others’ behavior, which meat-eaters see as threatening.

Emily Babin, a sophomore at Ithaca College, has been a vegetarian — specifically a pescatarian — for seven years. This means she doesn’t eat meat, but will eat fish. She said she has faced ridicule for this lifestyle choice.

“By my relatives the most,” Babin said. “My dad, he was so annoyed

with it at first, he was like ‘just eat the meat, Emily, stop it.’”

The vegetarian lifestyle is one that includes various different motives.

One major reason that one might choose to become vegetarian is the ethical reasoning behind it. A blog called The Vegetarian Voice wrote that many vegetarians disagree with the means by which society gets much of its food. Animals are put into stressful environments, so in order to protest against that, many vegetarians refuse to eat those animals.

This ethical choice is what causes meat eaters to put down the vegetarian lifestyle. ProCon.org shows both the pros and cons of becoming vegetarian and the reasonings behind both arguments. The arguments against vegetarianism include the reasoning that eating meat is not unethical, it’s a natural way of life, and that it is an essential part of human evolution. Another argument may be that vegetarian diets are not beneficial to the environment, as some vegetarians believe.

With these conflicting ideas, meateaters ridicule vegetarians because they feel their moral values are being threatened. If a person chooses to eat meat and a vegetarian doesn’t, it may make the meat-eating person feel as if they are less moral and are not as good a person as a vegetarian.

Monin said the idea of vegetarians being put down for their moral behavior is what provoked him to conduct a study on do-gooder derogation.

“I was increasingly intrigued by the fact that vegetarians, even when they mind their own business and do not proselytize, seem to annoy the omnivores around them,” Monin said. “A

friend of mine, who was vegetarian, would tell me how at every family reunion some old uncle would sit her down and try to explain why she should be eating meat.”

Monin believed there was more to the idea that not all people who make ethical choices are always respected and admired, so he decided to look into it further.

This idea pertains to other aspects of life along with vegetarianism. Monin suggested the concept of dogooder derogation can apply to any principled choice that is not widely shared by others. This choice can trigger a negative reaction toward those who present themselves as “holier” than another.

“Strict religious observance or something like virginity pledges can have that effect with people who sympathize with the cause,” Monin said. “Consumer choices like not owning a car, not owning a TV, can have that effect with people on the other end of the political spectrum.

Monin listed another example, saying parenting is full of principled choices that others may have different perspectives on. Breastfeeding, not using disposable diapers and not allowing children to eat sugar are just some of the personal choices a parent may make for their children. However, another parent may perceive these choices as a judgement of their own parenting.

Monin also discussed whistleblowing and reporting on problems in a group or organization. Monin said one reason whistleblowers are shunned and why people hesitate to expose wrongdoing is because of both resistance from those directly impacted by the revelations as well

According to Minson and Monin’s study, vegetarians are often put down for their decision to not eat meat. This reaction is because of the notion that vegetarians choose this dietary lifestyle to condemn others’ behavior, which meat-eaters see as threatening.

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Monin said one reason whistleblowers are shunned and why people hesitate to expose wrongdoing is because of both resistance from those directly impacted by the revelations as well as the rejection by bystanders who did not react to and expose the wrongdoing themselves.

Jeff. The experimenter said to the children that Jeff and Sam had six stickers each, and that Jeff wanted to give Gary five of his six stickers, while Sam only wanted to give one.

The results of the experiment were that the children gave away around three stickers each, dividing up their six equally. Tasimi said this was to be expected. The rest of the results said that a majority of the children “gave fewer stickers to Gary than the generous character and the same as or more than the ungenerous character.” This created a situation where a child’s own giving “compared unfavorably to that of the former and favorably to that of the latter.”

“When kids have the opportunity to give, there’s a big difference in terms of how they are interpreting the giving action of the others,” Tasimi said.

“Regardless, whether the children did or not, there is still a strong preference for a more generous character and that asks the question, ‘Who do you want to be friends with?’ This attraction is significantly reduced in what we call the comparison condition.”

Tasimi said he became interested in this study of do-gooder derogation after his own personal run-in with it at a coffee shop.

“I order my coffee, I paid for my drink, I received my change, and I put a dollar into the tip jar,” Tasimi said. “And as I was waiting for the barista to make my cup of coffee, I noticed that the person behind me in line, presumably another graduate student, ordered his drink, received his change and put two dollars into the tip jar. I remember standing there

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News & Views

as the rejection by bystanders who did not react to and expose the wrongdoing themselves.

“When you take a stand in a situation, when you speak up and say something, you are implicitly saying to others who did not speak up that they failed to do their moral duty and that they are somehow deficient,” Monin said. “So whistleblowers can suffer do-gooder derogation from other bystanders or group members who did not do or say anything.”

One of the bigger questions of this whole subject is when humans develop these feelings of wanting to be the most moral.

The foundation of one’s moral behavior begins during childhood, according to a paper entitled “Dogooder Derogation in Children: the Social Costs of Generosity.” Arber Tasimi, a graduate student in psychology at Yale University — along with other contributors — looked at how children, in the first stages of their lives, cling to those who are the most generous. However, as one gets older, a competition for who is the most generous develops, and those who do the most good are seen as an annoyance more than someone to befriend.

In Tasimi’s experiment, a group of children were each given six stickers. They were then shown a photo of child, Gary, and were told that Gary had no stickers. The experimenters then asked the children if they would give any of their stickers to Gary. Those who would placed their stickers in front of the photo.

The children were shown two more photos of other children, Sam and

thinking to myself, ‘I don’t know this guy but I really hate him.’”

He said after this interaction, he began to question his good behavior and morals. In that moment at the coffee shop, he began looking at ulterior motives instead of those that are altruistic for why the person tipped more than him. He said that certain conditions seem to elicit more ulterior performance reasoning than others. Cases like Tasimi’s that may elicit social comparison are likely candidates to elicit that type of reasoning which leads to dogooder derogation.

“We often experience this tension between wanting to do good, and that is wanting to applaud others for their positive behaviors, but on the other hand wanting to do well, and that is wanting to optimize our own self interest,” he said. “I think it says something about us as humans and that is that we are constantly comparing ourselves to others, even when it comes to dimensions such as moral behavior.” _______________________________________ Ana Borruto is a sophomore journalism major whose own morality could never be threatened. You can email her at aborruto@ithaca.edu.

It’s Gettin’ Hot in Here The underreported impacts of climate change

By Alexa Salvato, News and Views Editor

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

W

hen one thinks aboutclimate change, visuals of precious polar bears desperately clinging to ice caps often come to mind. But not all impacts of climate change receive equal attention in the public eye, despite the ever-increasing research in the scientific community.

Systematic changes are occurring in the climate. And climate change has unrecognized symptoms and very real effects — not just on animals and plants but on people as well.

Farmers are one of the groups who will always have their livelihood altered by a changing climate, as predictable weather and a stable climate are vital parts of farming, Allison Chatrchyan, the director of the Cornell Institute for Climate Change and Agriculture, said. She said farmers in the Northeastern United States have been struggling for years, and all have noticed changes in year-to-year weather, but many didn’t know climate change could be the cause until it was explained to them.

“Making the connection for people is really important,” Chatrchyan said. She added that local farmer’s challenges are multifaceted.

“There’s more increased variability, so it’s very very hard to plan,” she said. “For example, this winter has been very very warm, but last winter was one of the coldest winters in the Northeast. So, year to year, you couldn’t plan on how the winter’s going to be. You can’t look at the Farmer’s Almanac anymore.”

Chatrchyan also said climate change causes change in temperature and precipitation at the extremes. For example, rain has been coming in one burst instead of gradually in recent years. Bursts of rain can cause flooding that erodes topsoil and shallowly planted seeds, destroying the planting process for farmers.

Conversely, the recent intense droughts in California have brought

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up speculation that climate change is a cause. Jane Braxton Little, a West Coast-based environmental writer, said a recent focus for her has been the plight of the trees in California. Trees are a little slower to respond than other species, Little said, but they still feel the effects of the drought. According to a February article in The Huffington Post, the U.S. Forest Service found 21 million dead trees in the state as of September 2015. But certain scientists wanted to expand upon that count.

Scientists thought the government’s estimation was an understatement and went out to investigate for themselves.

“This guy out of the Carnegie Institute for Science — their speciality is using razor technology for doing aerial surveys — used laser and spectrometer technology to fly over all the forests in California and they came up with this shocking number of something like 58 million trees that had already suffered extreme canopy loss,” Little said.

Little explained that California’s unhealthy trees are considered one of the more indirect effects of climate change. Two aspects of climate change are temperature and precipitation variance, and they are the more direct influences.

And it is not just ecosystems, but even human-centric political systems that are expected to be impacted by climate change.

As The Hill reported, when Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was asked if he stood by his belief that addressing climate change is the most important threat to national security in a November 2015 debate, he responded: “Absolutely.

Climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism and if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you’re going to … see all kinds of conflict.”

Chatrchyan added that in the world of politics, although climate change is still debated as a partisan issue, central federal institu-

tions like the U.S. Department of Defense are recognizing the impacts of climate change. Little agreed, citing that climate change has been portrayed drastically different in the media over the course of her career and right now, the media’s portrayal is the best it has ever been.

“It used to be a kooky, weird-scientist kind of theory and it’s definitely been mainstream now over the last 10 to 15 years and especially the last five,” Little said.

But Erin Marteal, executive director of the Ithaca Children’s Garden, added there are both pros and cons to climate change awareness, especially for young people. The Ithaca Children’s Garden is a community resource with educational programs about nature for children and families.

“We can be overwhelmed by the state of the planet, immobilized as individuals,” Marteal said. “We forget we can arrest some degeneration and regenerate planetary health.”

Marteal added that she believes youth today feel a heavy sense of responsibility to address the health of the planet. The Ithaca Children’s Garden has approached planetary health through a lens of joy, play and sensory experience, Marteal said.

“That’s how children learn,” she said. As knowledge of climate change ekes into the mainstream, there are both pros and cons. The philosophy of the Ithaca Children’s Garden is that being aware of the power of collective impact on a tangible, touchable issue is the best way to make a difference. Chatrchyan agrees.

“If you know where your food is coming from, if you know how hard it is for local farmers, if you try and reconnect yourself with the roots of nature and the trees and the ground, that’s what makes people care about the environment,” she said. _______________________________________ Alexa Salvato is a junior journalism major who won’t be going tree climbing in California anytime soon. You can email her at asalvat1@ithaca.edu.

God Save the Queen Critics of Beyoncé’s “Formation” deserve the most criticism

By Elena Piech, Seesaw Editor

I

Moynihan) tells others, “Maybe this song isn’t for us.” Unfortunately, this satire is painfully accurate.

So what exactly were white people scared of? Some viewers claimed the video, which alludes to a post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans and has lyrics like “You mix that negro with that Creole make a Texas ‘bama,’ and features a young black child standing before riot police juxtaposed with a background proclaiming the words “stop shooting us,” somehow insinuated a call to violence.

New York Republican Rep. Peter King posted a lengthy rant on his Facebook immediately after her performance. King posted: “The mainstream media’s acceptance of her pro-Black Panther and anti-cop video ‘Formation’ and her Super Bowl appearance is just one more example of how acceptable it has become to be anti-police.”

However, those who criticize Beyoncé’s homage to the Black Panther Party have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the party was. In October of 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. It is imperative that people learn about the second half of this organization’s name, for it was formed in order to prevent further oppression of people of color. And, as can be noted in cases of police violence against people of color, this oppression continues today.

And this oppression will continue to go on if white Americans feel like they should not be analyzing and understanding why this oppression happens. In 1965, James Baldwin published “The White Man’s Guilt” in Ebony magazine’s special issue that focused on whiteness. Baldwin’s essay, still relevant 50 years later, presents the argument that white Americans claim to live in a colorblind society, but this idea of colorblindness ends up becoming an excuse to ignore, rather than solve, racism in the U.S. Baldwin suggests that in order to change

the present, people need to be willing to talk about and take responsibility for the past — even if they do not feel personally responsible for the past.

This lack of responsibility explains why some white listeners feel uncomfortable with the messages conveyed in Beyoncé’s latest song and performance. These white listeners want to ignore and disprove Beyoncé’s message, rather than listen to what she has to say.

This phenomena is shown in a 1999 study by Patricia Hults, manager of technical services at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, titled “Black Students/White Campus: The Pervasiveness of Racism.”

In this study, Hults points out how the passing of the Voting and Civil Rights acts did not magically lead to the equality of all races.

Hults demonstrates how racism subconsciously and consciously impacts Americans. She finds that if privileged individuals want to perceive themselves as not racist, they choose to ignore the clear patterns that demonstrate racism in modern U.S. society. This lack of discussion is what enables this racism to continue and what makes people feel uncomfortable to have these types of discussions about very real problems, such as the ones Beyoncé brings up about continued racism in the U.S. Listeners should have these discussions. White listeners should understand why Beyoncé wrote a track like this. Twitter user @ LookAtDustin says it best: “Beyoncé made a video that will be seen by millions and includes factual statements that people need to think about. And it’s the jam.” _______________________________________ Elena Piech is a freshman journalism major with a minor in criticizing conservative America. You can email her at epiech@ithaca.edu.

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News & Views

n a tight leather outfit and high heels, Beyoncé was the most talked about artist during her Super Bowl halftime cameo. Queen Bee performed her latest track “Formation,” which had dropped online — unannounced — earlier that weekend. For the performance, Beyoncé wore black, had black dancers and sang a track that presented social commentary on being black. This performance and music video worked to pay homage to movements of black pride and cover the issues associated with why these movements had to happen.

Unfortunately, this performance did not go over too well with conservative white audience members.

Ratings agency Nielsen reports that Super Bowl 50 reached an audience of 111.9 million and “72% of U.S. homes with televisions in use were tuned into the Super Bowl 50 telecast.” As soon as Beyoncé’s performance ended, many Americans turned to social media to address their complaints and grievances by using the soon-viral hashtag #BoycottBeyonce.

Twitter user @TNKingsKid1 tweeted, “NFL should be ashamed that it is going to let Beyoncé sing a song that smears police officers. #boycottbeyonce.”

The negative backlash of Beyoncé’s performance from uncomfortable white people even received its own Saturday Night Live sketch on Feb. 13. The short, titled “The Day Beyoncé Turned Black” is set a day before the Super Bowl. The video opens with clips of people performing their daily routines as a voiceover says: “For white people, it was just another great week. They never saw it coming. They had no warning. Then, the day before the Super Bowl, it happened.”

White Americans run around in shock as they watch the music video and learn that Beyoncé is, in fact, black. As havoc breaks loose, a confused white office worker (Bobby

The Other Candidate

Jill Stein discusses presidential politics, third parties

By Evan Popp, News and Views Editor

J

ill Stein is a candidate for the 2016 Green Party presidential nomination. Stein was also the Green Party’s 2012 presidential nominee, garnering 469,015 votes in that election. Stein spoke with Buzzsaw News and Views Editor Evan Popp about her campaign, the direction she believes the country needs to go and the present and future of third party politics. *This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Evan Popp: What is the platform that you’re running on? What are a few tenets of that?

Jill Stein: Well, basically it’s a platform to create an America and a world that works for all of us, instead of the 1 percent. It’s a platform that responds to this unprecedented crisis that we’re facing and provides transformative solutions.

First and foremost, we need to abolish student debt, to cancel it like we did to the banks, the crooks who got us into this mess. So it’s about time that we cancel it for the victims of that mess. That is young people who are locked in predatory debt and don’t really have a way out.

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

Number two is we create free public higher education because that goes along with liberating a generation of young people and equipping them to have a secure future. Throughout the twentieth century we provided free high school education. Well, in the twenty-first century, you need a college education to have security.

Number three is to address the twoheaded crisis of the economy and the climate. And we call for a Green New Deal, which is an emergency solution to both of those crisis. It provides 20 million living wage jobs that transform our economy with green energy, a green food system and green, sustainable, energy-efficient public transportation. And it also includes needed infrastructure. ... And this has the benefit of reviving the economy,

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turning the tide on climate change and making wars for oil obsolete. Because when we have 100 percent sustainable energy, we don’t need the friggin’ wars for oil anymore… This enables us to cut the military budget in a big way.

We also call for health care as a human right and Medicare for all and also for rescuing public education and ending the use of high stakes testing as a justification for closing schools and bashing teachers and unions and for privatizing education.

We call for a national action plan for racial justice now. This would assess police brutality and racism not only in policing, but also in our court system and in our economy. To start with, we would address police violence through community-police review boards that ensure communities control our police and not the other way around. We call for addressing the crisis of immigration by ending the U.S. policies that are causing it. And … ending NAFTA [The North American Free Trade Agreement] and the trade agreements that put farmers and workers basically out of jobs, particularly in Latin America, and force them to come here as economic refugees.

Finally, the last one is a foreign policy based on international law, human rights and diplomacy instead of the current policy based on economic and military domination, which has been an incredible disaster creating failed states, mass refugee migration and have actually made the terrorist threat far worse.

Popp: You have run for president before and you’ve run for other public offices as well. Given the fact that it’s very unlikely you would win this election, what is the goal of the campaign?

Stein: Let me address the philosophy that resistance is futile, because that is what the powers that be drum into our heads. I’m not holding my breath about winning this election, on the other hand I’m not ruling it out. Crazier things have happened. And I think it’s very important for us to define what to win is. To

win might be winning the White House, but a win is also laying the groundwork for eventually winning the White House.

And a win is also helping to lift up and strengthen and build a real infrastructure for … a political party that’s here for the long-haul that can challenge power and that can hold lower offices. Greens have held hundreds of lower offices.

But let me just say there is a path to victory. There are 43 million people who are locked in predatory debt. There is no other campaign that will be on the ballot that will abolish debt, and that goes for the [Bernie] Sanders campaign too. ...If word got out to 43 million young people that they could come out and cancel their debt, that would be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because 43 million is a winning plurality of the vote. So young people actually have the power to take over this election.

Popp: You mentioned the Green Party at the local level. Do you think the path forward for the Green Party is to continue to sow the seeds at a local level and build up?

Stein: I think it works both ways. You need from top down and from bottom up. If you look back over the history of social change in this country, it always has a political voice as well as a social movement. … So I think the name of the game here is not to be intimidated into accepting second-class citizenship. And not to be intimidated by this politics of fear that says you have to be quiet, you have to trust the big guys, especially when they’re running for higher office. ... People said vote for the lesser evil in the last several races because you didn’t want big bailouts for Wall Street, you didn’t want the offshoring of our jobs or the massive expanding wars, the attacks on our civil liberties. That’s exactly what we got by allowing ourselves to be silent.

So we think it’s really important to stand up and be loud and run as hard as we can.

“But let me just say there is a path to victory. There are 43 million people who are locked in predatory debt. There is no other campaign that will be on the ballot that will abolish debt, and that goes for the [Bernie] Sanders campaign too. ...If word got out to 43 million young people that they could come out and cancel their debt, that would be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because 43 million is a winning plurality of the vote. So young people actually have the power to take over this election.”

Popp: It seems with this presidential election there is a certain mood of antiestablishment sentiment. Do you think that’s the beginning of something that could propel a party like the Green Party forward?

Stein: Absolutely. … You’ve seen it really clearly in the [Democratic and Republican] primaries where, by the way, they prohibit third parties from running.

That’s the name of the game right now.

The system tries to silence third parties because that’s really where revolts happen. You have the Democratic and Republican Parties that are really resisting the outsider candidates that are prevailing right now. We have Bernie Sanders, who’s kind of a Democratic socialist running as a Democrat but way out in front in many ways and gaining. And then you have Donald Trump running as an outsider in the Republican race. And if you look at polls right now, the largest voting block has rejected both parties. That’s really where the power would be if we could breakthrough the blackout on independent, third parties that really speaks to the issues that people are clamoring for and then enables us to really build for that instead of having to cram a revolutionary campaign into a counter-revolutionary party.

Popp: I’m guessing that last part was a reference to Bernie Sanders. I’m curious what you think of him.

But he is doing a wonderful job stirring up the passion that’s out there and if the Democrats sideline him, which they have a long history of doing, sidelining their rebel candidates … people are going to be furious. ... I think you can’t dump a revolution into the Democratic party because it has all these rules. Even if he gets the nomination, he’s going to be forced to peel it way back, peel back the revolution to what the party will accept. But they are likely to try to deny it. … And that’s why we encourage people, if you’re supporting Bernie, go ahead and support him, but make sure that you help the alternatives get on the ballot, help spread the word.

Because when push comes to shove, before you vote for Hillary, you want to have an alternative.

Popp: So if Bernie were to get the Democratic nomination, you would not support him in the general election?

voting, which we’ve been advocating for forever. And that eliminates the whole question about a divided vote. But the Democrats don’t want that. They want to be able to blackmail people into voting Democratic, they don’t want people to be able to vote independently.

Popp: In 2012, while running for president, you were arrested trying to get into the Presidential debate. What efforts will you be making this time around to try to get into a debate?

Stein: We will start earlier, and we will have more action. We have two lawsuits right now that are suing the Commission of Presidential Debates, which is in the words of the League of Women Voters … a fraud perpetrated on the American public. We will be fighting to open up the debates through court, but we also hope to organize direct action campaigns. We encourage people to get involved and make sure we have power, as voters, to control our election. _____________________________________ Evan Popp is sophomore journalism major who is launching his own presidential bid with the not-about-to-have-Donald Trump-as-President Party. You can email him at epopp@ithaca.edu.

Stein: We’d be starting all over again. And we saw this with [Barack] Obama. There was a lot of passion and enthusiasm for Obama. ... And if you allow your whole infrastructure to be dismantled and then you start all over again, it’s just not going to work. If people are worried about vote splitting, make them pass ranked choice

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News & Views

Stein: I think his agenda very much overlaps with ours, almost completely domestically. Where we do differ on domestic policy is we support canceling debt for students, he does not, and we oppose school privatization and high stakes test-

ing and he … voted for that and voted against amendments that would have restricted privatization and high stakes testing. And we differ on foreign policy.

We believe we cannot achieve justice and prosperity at home while we have a military budget that’s devouring 50 percent of our discretionary dollars and while we have a ‘War on Terror’ that’s creating more terror. That’s, I think, where we differ.

Stop Slut-Shaming

How women are judged for being sexual

By Tatiana Jorio, Contributing Writer

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

I

live in the West Tower on the 11th floor, so waiting for and riding the elevator is a part of my daily routine. As I ride the elevator, I unplug my earbuds and sometimes will hear murmurs: “Did you see what she was wearing?” “Promiscuous.” “Trashy.”

I hear girls talk about other girls in hurtful ways that shame them for seeming sexual. In other words, I hear girls slut-shame.

These girls have somehow decided it is okay for them to collectively slutshame a girl. Slut-shaming, although it may seem innocent, can have extremely negative impacts and lead to suicide and depression. It’s also important to acknowledge that slutshaming is different when it comes to girls of different races and sizes, as it can often be mixed with racial slurs and made more offensive. Additionally, it’s essential to understand that men slut-shame women too, but I will mainly be focusing on women slutshaming other women.

This isn’t to say that slut-shaming is something I have never participated in. In fact, I think most girls have taken part in it at one point or another. In an effort to make a friend feel better or make oneself feel better, one might have slut-shamed someone accidentally or on purpose. Slut-shaming has negative impacts no matter what and it is likely something one will encounter during and after college. Many women recognize what they’re doing is wrong when they are slut-shaming, and they stop themselves. However, many do not.

As a high school student in New York City, my friends and I would often discuss slut-shaming; we were aware of its existence and how it happened. Because of this, I can usually identify what I’m doing and stop.

However, many women don’t even realize they are slut-shaming. Many people think slut-shaming only happens when the word “slut” is used.

This is the most obvious form of slutshaming, but it is by no means the only form, nor is it the most hurtful.

The most common phrase I’ve heard when it comes to slut-sham-

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ing is, “Oh, she’s that kind of girl,” or “I’m just not that kind of girl,” and of course, “Did they even know each other?” When someone uses the words, “That kind of girl,” they are trying to avoid saying the word slut.

These terms are substitutes for an insult. While the person using these terms may be oblivious to the fact that they are slut-shaming because they haven’t called anyone a slut, this is exactly what they are doing.

When I discussed writing this article, Molly McGill, an Ithaca College sophomore sociology major with a minor in gender studies, said she wanted to discuss a personal experience she’d had. McGill said she posted a status with an article on her Facebook about sex, addressing some of her partners who had fallen asleep after they were satisfied, without thinking about her.

McGill was praised by many, but confronted by her conservative female cousin from Ohio. Molly said her cousin judged her for what she posted on Facebook.

“She attempted to make me feel promiscuous, and because I was posting an article about sex she assumed that I must be having sex a lot, that I wasn’t being self-respecting and that I must not be having it with people that I love,” McGill said.

McGill also said her cousin was “trying to educate [her] on the right way to have sex.” McGill’s cousin assumed there is a right and wrong way to have sex. When McGill confronted her cousin about slut-shaming her, her cousin responded, “I never called you a slut.”

McGill’s cousin may never have called her a slut, but she might as well have. McGill’s cousin attempted to make her feel guilty for posting an article about sex and attempted to make her feel promiscuous, as if being honest about sex was unacceptable and acknowledging that she was having sex was a qualification to be considered a slut.

McGill was strong enough to know that her cousin was wrong. However, I know many girls who, if they were in McGill’s place, may have questioned themselves instead of the person slut-

shaming them. Many women have turned the lens on themselves and adopted this self-degradation.

When I asked McGill how she dealt with this clear difference of opinion with her cousin, she explained that it was a matter of locational difference. While her cousin’s opinions did not align with her’s, they might have something to do with her growing up in the suburbs while McGill grew up in New York City. McGill also said it might be a generational thing as even her mom, who is rather liberal, gets uncomfortable talking openly about sex.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling comfortable talking about sex or hooking up with someone, and a slut-shamer’s goal is to make one second guess themself. However, it’s important to remember that just like McGill’s cousin, the girls who use these phrases aren’t always “mean girls”; they are just girls who have internalized that there is a right and a wrong way to be a girl and that there is such a thing as “easy” and “hard to get.” These terms are created by slut-shaming. While slut-shaming is damaging for the person who is being shamed, it also contributes to rape culture and the “asking for it” mentality. When one states a woman is a slut or trashy because of what she is wearing, it takes blame away from rapists and places it on victims of rape.

A high profile example of someone else who was slut-shamed outside of a college campus is Monica Lewinsky.

Lewinsky, the woman who had an affair with former President Bill Clinton, was internationally slut-shamed because of it. Lewinsky spoke out about it in her TED Talk, “The Price of Shame.”

In this talk, Lewinsky stated, “I was branded as a tramp, tart, slut, whore, bimbo and, of course, ‘that woman.’ I was seen by many but actually known by few. And I get it: it was easy to forget that ‘that woman’ was dimensional, had a soul and was once unbroken.”

People forgot that Lewinsky was a living, breathing person with feelings.

Image by Lizzie Cox

knowledge that the song in a way shames Lewinsky. It’s important for girls not to be blinded and to avoid jumping on the bandwagon in slutshaming another woman. And just like the behavior of McGill’s cousin toward McGill, it doesn’t seem as if Beyonce was slut-shaming Lewinsky consciously. Beyoncé didn’t seem to be aware that writing this lyric might make Lewinsky’s life harder, and that’s the problem. Many people are oblivious to the fact that they are slutshaming, and as a result it happens so often without people facing repercussions for doing it.

Slut-shaming forces women to second-guess themselves. I often stop myself or one of my friends from doing something because I’m worried it will result in one of us being degraded, becoming a “slut” in someone’s eyes and ultimately shamed. This is what slutshaming does.

So if you or one of your friends slutshames someone, think about how it might impact you later and how it might make you feel uncomfortable acting on your own instincts. And the

only way to stop it from happening is to expose it whenever it happens.

Even if it seems like an innocent conversation with friends, call them out on it. Remember that no matter how many people have slut-shamed women, there is never a free pass.

Slut-shaming always impacts somebody. ________________________________________ Tatiana Jorio is a freshman Film, Photography and Visual Art major.

You can email her at tjorio@ithaca. edu.

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News & Views

The words used to describe Lewinsky caused her to become very depressed and contemplate taking her own life.

Because Lewinsky was a punching bag for a lot of jokes, people slutshamed her without even thinking it was bad. They thought Lewinsky was someone they could slut-shame without repercussions.

Even Beyoncé got away with contributing to slut-shaming Lewinsky in her song “Partition” with the lyric, “He popped all my buttons, and he ripped my blouse / He Monica Lewinskyed all on my gown.” Beyoncé did not face any real repercussions for this.

Why? Probably because of the power Beyoncé has, how widely loved she is and because in the eyes of so many, Beyoncé has written a multitude of songs that empower girls and don’t shame them. And lastly, because Beyoncé has performed underneath the word feminist. While Lewinsky became the butt of every joke, Beyoncé could get away with shaming her and simultaneously continue to be a feminist icon for young girls.

I love Queen B, but I can also ac-

The Porter Ranch Gas Leak

The danger of California’s four-month methane release

By Erica Noboa, Contributing Writer

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

W

ith a population of over 22 million and one of the most industrial cities in the country, it’s no surprise that southern California is ranked number one in the United States when it comes to air pollution. As Los Angeles is known for its warm temperatures and minimal precipitation, it adds to the formation of the ozone layer. With this pollution putting human health at risk, the Environmental Protection Agency has stepped up in order to warn the public about these potential hazards. Its most recent study concluded that ozone pollution causes respiratory endangerment, leads to premature heart problems and can affect reproductive and developmental systems.

With the recent event of the Porter Ranch gas leak, officials are taking more precautions with its emissions of harmful substances in the region.

Porter Ranch lies just outside of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles Times, the four-month leak was plugged in February.

Porter Ranch, home to over 30,000 people, is a smaller city outside of Los Angeles. It houses 115 defunct underground oil wells, owned by the Southern California Gas Company.

As Newsweek reported in January, “On Oct. 23, 2015, workers at a storage facility discovered that a 7-inch casing in one of the wells had ruptured, continuously pouring methane into the atmosphere.”

While it should be noted that methane is not a known killer, it can cause bloody noses, vomiting and even rashes. Many residents living close to the spill site were relocated to temporary housing, and have been away for more than four months.

Tori Zavala, a resident in its neighboring town Santa Clarita, said the gas leak even reached the atmo-

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sphere engulfing her area. Her community was simply given a warning about the harmful impacts the leak could cause, but no action was taken to evacuate homes.

On Feb. 18, state officials said that the damaged well was permanently sealed. Researchers estimate that over 97,000 tons of methane, as well as 7,300 tons of ethane, were released into the atmosphere during the four month-long leak, “effectively doubling the methane emissions rate of the entire Los Angeles Basin,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

This is likely to keep California from meeting its end-of the-year greenhouse gas emission target, and it’s only February.

Peter Hilkene, an environmental science and management major at the University of California Davis, explained the leading contributors to air pollution in southern California. He said the majority of air pollution comes from everyday use of vehicles such as cars, trucks, trains and boats. This is unlike most other regions, “where the majority of air pollution comes from coal-burning power plants,” he said.

Hilkene added that the most common gasses produced by these fuel sources are carbon dioxide, particulate matter, hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. These gases contribute to hazardous emissions in the tropospheric ozone, which make up the brown haze, or smog, that can be found in Los Angeles. With very little public transportation and a growing population, things aren’t looking so green for southern California.

However, it’s not all bad news for the environment in California.

The University of California Berkeley is considered to be one of the top 10 greenest colleges in the country, according to Popular Mechanics. Kristen Flores, a conservation and resource studies major at UC Berkeley, gave her insight on what her campus does to minimize air pollution.

Berkeley encourages its students to take public transportation instead of driving their own cars to campus.

As an added incentive, bus passes are included in their students’ tuition. The university also hosts several annual events on campus to raise awareness on environmental issues that are pertinent in today’s society. To earn their reputation as the greenest UC, they ask their students to compete in a Cool Campus Challenge. The event simply has participants log their carbon-reduction activities, spreading the word to be eco-friendly.

Flores encouraged everyone to participate in lessening our own carbon footprint through simple everyday actions. “Reducing meat in one’s diet is a great way to reduce the carbon footprint,” Flores said.

The Guardian concurred: “The [U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation] said emissions associated with livestock added up to… 14.5% of all human-caused greenhouse releases,” it reported in Sept. 2013.

Through individual actions, anyone can help contribute to decrease harmful carbon emissions into our atmosphere, and with the events at Porter Ranch likely to cause a huge change in the atmosphere, every attempt counts. ________________________________________ Erica Noboa is a sophomore cinema and photography major who is glad to be free of the scary SoCal air.

Email her at enoboa@ithaca.edu.

Upfront

UPFRONT. UPFRONT. UPFRON

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Tracing the Evolution of Socialism The past and present of a rising political ideology

By Sophie Johnson. Contributing Writer

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

T

hese days in the United States when someone thinks of socialism, they associate it with a number of things: Russia, communism, Denmark, The Cold War and Bernie Sanders. These different connotations associated with socialism in the United States derive from various identities that socialism has taken on throughout history. Thus it is challenging to apply one overarching definition to socialism, however, tracing its evolution in the United States can reveal an understanding what socialism means today in the United States.

The first formal definition of socialism was coined in London in 1848. The political theory of socialism was first written in the “Communist Manifesto” at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In this first interpretation, socialism was a stage in a political cycle, according to Allen Mills, professor of political science at the University of Winnipeg.

“Marx understood socialism as a very specific time when then capitalism fell, and the workers had taken over,” Mills said.

“And with socialism they would prepare the ground for the coming eventually of communism.”

To truly understand this form of socialism, capitalism and communism must also be explained in relation to it. According to The Independent in 2015, capitalism came about in the 17th century and is focused on the right to own private property. Socialism is the response which comes about from inequalities that arise from capitalism; the complete collapse of a state or regulation of goods and services. Following socialism comes communism, which was actually vaguely explained The Communist Manifesto, but later to be interpreted by most as the elimination of private property.

In other words, through a Marxist lens, socialism is ithe inbetween of capitalism and communism containing aspects of both. According to the text “A Dictionary of Marxist Principles” by Tom Bottomore, socialism was never explicitly defined by Marx and Engels.

Once transitioned from a socialist society to a communist society “the state will wither away, a totally different attitude to work will prevail, and society will be able to inscribe on its banner the motto ‘from each according to its ability, to each according to its need.”

In becoming a communist society, the

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state completely evolves, whereas in a socialist society, the state works with a capitalist system.

The ideas from the Communist Manifesto, were the groundwork for the socialist movement in the U.S, but slightly evolved.

Instead of socialism being just transitory stage, it is a permanent political system.

The first socialist party in the US formed in 1901, according to Peter Dreier, professor of politics and urban and environmental policy at Occidental College.

He describes support derived from three main groups. The first of these groups was influenced by a Protestant movement called the Social Gospel.

“Lots of people came to socialism through religion.” This group believed that “the true Christian was somebody who shared the wealth and believed in addressing poverty,” Dreier said.

The second group came from a portion what Dreier describes as the “working class people and labor battles and the struggle over the eight hour day and the 40 hour week, and exploitation at work.” Socialism would prove to be useful to this constituency for under this political system the worker would have a more equitable stance.

The final group came from the Populist movement. “A lot of farmers came to socialism by realizing that the banks and the railroads were ripping them off,” Dreier said.

“They developed an organization called the Farmers Alliance and began to demand that the government take control of the railroads and the government regulate the outbacks and the storage grains.”

The members of the social gospel movement, the labor unions and the populist farmers alliance came together to form the socialist party in the United States. They combined their principles to form an Americanized, less radical socialism, that generally did not believe in overthrowing the capitalist system, but rather an amplification of true democracy in government, according to Dreier.

“Generally socialism in American history was some kind of belief of injecting democracy into the economy,” said Drier. “As well as into the political system.”

This party found success at first. In 1912 the party received 6 percent of the nation’s vote in the presidential election with Eugene Debs as their candidate. Additionally, Dreier said, at this time there were around 1,000

elected socialist representatives across the U.S. in government positions like mayors, legislators and congressmen.

However, this high point for socialism in the United States did not last very long.

“The Russian Revolution in 1917 scared Americans,” Dreier said. “They thought they might try to bring communism to the United States, and there was a lot of repression against socialists and communists.”

There was a great fear among Americans of communism coming to the United States, in the hands of communists and socialists, commonly known as the Red Scare. With this paranoia came the Espionage Act of 1917 under Woodrow Wilson which, among many other aspects, tried anyone who publicly vocalized dissent against actions of the United States, which at the time was entering World War I. One of the many charged under the espionage act was leader of the socialist party at the height of its success. Eugene Debs was tried under the act and sentenced to 10 years in prison for publicly opposing U.S. involvement in World War I. Debs spoke of his socialist beliefs at his trial.

“While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

Another period of struggle for socialists was during the 1950s and continued throughout the Cold War Era. Grounded once again in impeding communism from Russia, this time the enemy was under a different name, The Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union and the U.S. had a tense relationship following World War II due to American concern of impeding communism, Russia’s anger of America’s late entry in World War II and Russia’s frustration that the United States refusing to recognize the USSR as a world power.

The United States had a policy of containment when it came to the Soviet Union, trying to stop its the expansion of communism in developing nations. Both sides participated in wars in the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam and Cuba in an attempt to spread their political ideology, causing great turmoil.

The U.S. was fighting a war against communism abroad, making it no better for communists, and socialists back at home due to the Mccarthyism and containment, Dreier said.

McCarthyism was named after Joseph A. McCarthy, a Republican senator from

toward the economic principle.

According to a poll conducted by CBS and The New York Times titled “Socialism” in November 2015 found on Polling the Nations, 32 percent of Americans view socialism positively, including 56 percent of the democrats polled. In the past with the great dissent that socialists faced, they would likely have not seen this amount of support.

Soltysik has noticed a shift towards more positivity for socialism where he lives in Southern California.

“At least here if I say that I’m a socialist the response is generally positive.” Soltysik said.

“I think for a long time the expectation would be that we’d be receiving hostility. Over the last few years I haven’t had that experience.”

Both Soltysik and Drier attribute this shift with a continuingly growing distance from the Cold War Era, and the years of socialist repression that came before it. This growing distance, causes younger people not to associate socialism with the Soviet Union and the Cold War propaganda as older generations would, but with things like universal health care.

Additionally, Soltysik also attributes the shift on the creation and popularity of social media.

“With the advent of social media people have the ability to sort of fact check in real time,” Soltysik says. “So that when these propaganda campaigns awaits, people can do their own fact checking and their research quickly so that they can debunk the sort of bullshit coming out of, you know, the 1 percent, the folks that would like to sort of crush any people’s movement”.

In relation to today’s election, Sanders’s support of social democracy has greatly evolved since the words of Marx and Engels.

Illustration by Lizzie Cox Whether or not socialism will ever come close to seeing the success it did in 1912 again, it stands a chance of arriving in the White House in again, a much evolved state.

Sanders, a self-identified socialist democrat, has a chance of winning the 2016 presidential election. In a speech Sanders gave on November 19th, 2015 he gives his own definition of a socialist democracy.

“It builds on what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said when he fought for guaranteed economic rights for all Americans,” Sanders said. “And it builds on what Martin Luther King, Jr. said in 1968 when he stated that, ‘This country has socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor.’” “[Sanders] more of a social democrat,” Mills said, “who believes in regulating capitalism and bringing about somewhat greater equality through welfare state programs.”

Tracing the past of socialism in the United States shows how the principle came to be interpreted the way it is today. Marx and Engels would not recognize many of the principles put forth by Sanders democratic socialism, and even some of Soltysik’s socialist USA ideas. Through the many characters and identities socialism has played, there were tragedies like wrongful imprisonment, and hope delivered through promises of democracy and change. ___________________________________________ Sophie Johnson is a freshman journalism major who knows better to move into the future without reflecting on the past. Email her at sjohnson3@ithaca.edu

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Wisconsin in the 1950s. McCarthy was extremely anti-communist and was known to accuse anyone with political ideas that slightly disagreed with his of being a communist. McCarthy aggressively sought out to rid the U.S. government of all communists, putting over 2,000 government employees out of their jobs following World War II. Unfortunately, McCarthy was not the only one participating in these wrongful, unfair punishments. In 1947, President Harry Truman passed loyalty order which required all government employees to be analyzed to determine their loyalty to the U.S., highlighting the persecution of all by anti-communists.

However for socialists, major times of struggle involved people often confusing their ideology with communism.

“People were afraid to say that they were socialists,” Drier said. “Because people thought they would be communists.”

While the ideologies of socialism and communism contain some similarities, they are different. In socialism the government operates within system, and there is still a chance for citizens to gain private property and wealth. In communism there is no private property. This is something that most failed to see in the past, and many still fail to see today.

Despite this historical stigma against socialism, many socialist beliefs that were written in the party platform of 1912 have come true today, according to Dreier. The women’s right to vote, minimum wage, social security and a progressive income tax were all pillars of the party’s platform and all exist today without question.

“The radical ideas of one generation are often the common sense ideas of the next generation,” Drier said.

Negative connotations towards socialism also derive from some of its principles that largely threaten the wealthy, like economic equality. Wells said socialists faced issues from the fact that their political beliefs threatened these certain groups of people.

Socialism identity today in the U.S. can readily identified in the Socialist USA Party.

The 2016 Presidential candidate for this party, Mimi Soltysik, provides a much evolved definition of socialism.

“I see socialism primarily as worker control over the means of production.” Soltysik also mentions “democratic process at the community level.”

The party’s platform calls for no overthrow of the capitalist system, but simply reforming it and the “abolition of every form of domination and exploitation.”

Despite all the fear generated from socialist principles and events in the past there are currently indications of more comfort

Identity Fusion

The plight of the second-generation Asian-American

By Celisa Calacal, Staff Writer

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

O

ut of all the crises one can go through in life, there is perhaps none more frustrating and agonizing than an identity crisis. But even more so, what ends up being worse than an identity crisis is one that splits the individual between two very different, very separate cultures.

This is the plight of the second-generation Asian-American.

These young adults, who were born in the United States to immigrant parents from Asia, grapple with their cultural identity of having roots from Asian descent yet growing up in the United States. Being raised by parents whose identities belong to their parent country on a continent thousands of miles away can serve as another split between Asia and America, as first-generation immigrant parents often raise their children based on their traditional cultural values.

“There are these two different dualities, these two different tensions that are always kind of warring in Asian-Americans,” said Nadia Kim, a second-generation Asian-American who wrote a paper titled “Critical Thoughts on Asian American Assimilation in the Whitening Literature” in which she discussed the multiple hierarchies in which racial groups like Asian Americans are assessed.

This identity conflict is one that Mylynh Nguyen, a second-generation Asian-American and program director the nonprofit organization, Asian American Youth Leadership Empowerment and Development (AALEAD), has dealt with throughout her young life. Growing up in a small, racially homogenous town in Maryland, Nguyen felt the divide between her traditional Vietnamese family and her majority white classmates at school.

“It felt like living two lives — one at home and one at school,” Nguyen said.

“And then I didn’t talk about my own tradition and culture very much with my friends, not that they wouldn’t understand or be open to that but because

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I wanted to fit in and not be different, and that was a struggle that I had.”

As a young Asian-American navigating between her two worlds, Nguyen said all she wanted to do was fit in at school. The absence of any mentors or role models, she said, also contributed to the difficulty in dealing with her confidence and identity in being both Vietnamese and American.

“I tried as much as I could unfortunately in my earlier years to assimilate with my community,” she said. “To really kind of fit in, I had to take on the characteristics of my environment the cultures of my environment.”

For many second generation AsianAmericans, having to sew together an identity that is representative of two entirely different places involves having to live up to two entirely different sets of expectations. Eastern values are not synonymous to Western values, and having both of these compete for a share in a person’s identity can be troublesome.

On the one hand, second-generation immigrants, having been born in the United States, are expected to readily assimilate into American culture and embrace the entirety of its traditions.

On the other hand, these Asian-Americans also must meet the expectations of their parents and family members to to continue to uphold their own ethnic customs.

It’s a type of internal culture war that almost always sees no end.

In looking at the perception of AsianAmericans, Kim said it is often the case that they are frequently foreignized and seen as “others.”

“I believe that Asian-Americans are often racialized as forever foreigners and lumped with Asian countries instead of being seen as quintessential Americans,” Kim said.

The causes of these identity crises faced by young, second-generation Asian-Americans is rooted in the impact of Orientalism on American society. Orientalism, which is best defined by Edward Said in his book “Orientalism” as

“the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, ‘mind,’ destiny and so on.”

In his book, Said went on to explain how this concept of Orientalism served as a justification for colonialism based on the idea created by the West that the East is inferior and “the other.”

The implications of Orientalism have continued to affect the ways in which Asians are perceived in the United States even today. Asian Immigrants, often referred to by the derogatory term “FOB” — fresh-off-the-boat — are teased and ridiculed for having an accent or for their weak English-speaking skills, a trait that is merely inevitable moving from one continent to another.

And for second-generation AsianAmericans, their identity crisis stems from not wanting to be othered by externally identifying with their Asian side and opting to be American for the sake of avoiding harassment or ridicule. Although these second-generation Asian Americans are mainstream American in terms of their identity, culture and patriotism, Kim said there’s also an acute awareness that a majority of the population would lump them in with enemies from Asia.

“I think that for second generation Asian-Americans, there’s never this sense of full inclusion, full membership in terms of the cultural social aspects of citizenship,” she said.

In aa 2013 Pew Research Study on second-generation immigrants, 39 percent of second generation AsianAmerican respondents say their group has achieved relatively more success in the United States than any other racial or ethnic group. And in a question of whether heritage impacts the chances of getting a job, 68 percent of secondgeneration Asian-Americans say it helps, and 56 percent say heritage helps when getting accepted into a college or university. Furthermore, 72 percent of second-

“I tried as much as I could unfortunately in my earlier years to assimilate with my community,” she said. “To really kind of fit in, I had to take on the characteristics of my environment the cultures of my environment.”

nority myth and Asian-American identity, Kim said this leads most second-generation Asian-Americans to ask: “Why are you foreignizing us when we believe in very similar things — in working hard, studying hard in school and moving up.”

Nguyen went on to explain how, despite the perception that the stereotypes associated with the model minority are seen as positive, in reality it can result in challenges with mental health in Asian and Asian-American youth.

“When individuals aren’t able to live up to that expectation of society, of their families, of their teachers because of these stereotypes, then it really makes them feel … like they’ve done something wrong,” she said.

Yet another struggle emblematic of this internal culture war is the tradition of inheritance, and the passing down of cultural values and customs from generation to generation. One such example custom is the permanence of language, in which immigrant parents teach their children the language of their home country.

However, in the Pew Research Study, this value is not reflected, as only 40 percent of second generation Asian-Americans report they can speak the language of their familial country. Furthermore, only 37 percent of this group believes it is very important to maintain the ancestral language. In contrast, nearly half of

first generation Asian-Americans agree with this statement.

In lieu of these statistics, Nguyen believes it is important for today’s secondgeneration Asian Americans to learn about their familial and cultural histories in order to maintain that part of their identity.

“Having that knowledge brings a sense of pride because you kind of have a history of where your family has been and what it has taken in order to be where they are today,” she said.

Working at AALEAD, Nguyen helps to offer support to low-income AsianPacific American youth through education, identity development, mentoring programs and leadership opportunities.

In order to quell the all-too-common identity conflict, Nguyen said these second-generation Asian-American youth should embrace their cultural heritage and share it with others, both to uplift themselves and also destroy stereotypes like the model minority myth.

“I think that it’s the work of all AsianAmericans to be able to share their own personal identities and their own personal stories with others so that they can learn from them and also break down these stereotypes,” she said. _______________________________________ Celisa Calacal is a sophomore journalism major who doesn’t stress over existential identity crises cause “yolo”. You

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Upfront

generation Asian-Americans agreed with the statement that people can succeed if they are willing to work hard.

But despite some of the cultural similarities between Asian and American values, such as the belief in working hard to achieve success, there is still a difficulty for second-generation Asian-Americans in reconciling their Asian and American identities. When the question pops of whether Asian-Americans would be seen as quintessentially American, Kim said most second-generations would say no.

“That’s what makes it so hard for second generation Asian-Americans to reconcile because I think in so many ways they see themselves as these living embodiments of the shared values between mainstream American culture and their ethnic culture,” Kim said. “And they feel like they should be fully accepted by both but a lot of times they’re not fully accepted by either.”

Kim said one difference between Asian and American values, one that further contributes to this internal conflict, is the emphasis in collectivism and doing for the family, a tenet of Asian culture that conflicts with the American value that emphasizes individuality. Kim said this tension of differences also puts Asian-Americans in a difficult position.

In addition, Nguyen said the perpetuating of the model minority myth, the idea that Asians excel academically and professionally and are generally law abiding and agreeable citizens, also contributes to the difficulty in reconciling the divide between being Asian and being American.

“Those types of stereotypes really detriment our identity or our population because it puts us in a box, and people feed into that it really encourages others to take that stereotype and run with it and not really allow for individual identity to emerge from that,” Nguyen said.

Kim said the existence of the model minority myth exemplifies both the shared American and ethnic values, as well as the stark contrasts between them. One shared value is the emphasis on success, while a difference is the idea that Asians are just gifted with confucian values that makes them educationally successful.

With the complexities of the model mi-

Eco Goals

Exploring Ithaca’s EcoVillage

By Katie Siple, Contributing Writer

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

I

walk across a small bridge and make my way along the main path of the village, winding through the middle of the houses in the community. The houses themselves look rather odd, brown and black wood paneled with large windows to let natural light in and industrial steel roofs. I hear the sound of children playing in the distance, ignoring the cold weather, and see people working on clearing snow from the pathways. Although it is mostly quiet, time seems stagnant as I make my way to the community house to help make dinner.

This is the EcoVillage at Ithaca, home to over 200 people who, since 1991, have chosen to alter their lifestyle to help try to conserve the Earth. Here, it is an expectation that residents compost food, share what they have and plant their own garden — as every home comes with its own plot of land specifically for gardening.

Here, it is important to give back to the community and make a change in the world.

Gabe Shapiro, a sophomore at Hampshire College, has lived practically his entire life in the EcoVillage.

His love for the EcoVillage has only expanded since he came to college, he said in an email. Gabe looks back fondly on his childhood memories of growing up next door to his best friends, playing games outside and sharing community meals, all the while feeling safe and protected surrounded by an extended family of community members. The childhood he experienced at the EcoVillage is one he’s glad he got the chance to have, Gabe said.

The EcoVillage also formed the way he views the world as Gabe said he studies global energy politics, climate change and community organizing at college. It has given him a sense of purpose and meaning in life. He said he seeks a world of justice and peace like he found in the EcoVillage. There, he interacted with people who love and care for their neighbor’s

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well-being and are constantly striving to be more sustainable.

“People in the EcoVillage encourage each other to live more wholesome lives,” Gabe said. “It is like a step forward in culture, in bringing our collective culture towards a more balanced way of life.”

Elan Shapiro, Gabe’s father, moved to the EcoVillage soon after it began. He owns the village’s bed and breakfast in addition to working with grassroots organizations aimed at improving Ithaca. When he moved to the village, Elan said he was absolutely floored by the quality of the people there and the impact of a strong intention.

“Even in the beginning, there was a sense of inspirational vision and idealism and comradery, with close proximity to town on this incredible piece of land that captured the creative energy of the people in town,” he said. “That, in a sense, has continued on.”

Elan said people in the EcoVillage are knitted together with a common goal to live a healthier, greener life.

Co-community sharing is a common practice in the EcoVillage. Residents organize community meals, have ping pong tournaments, share speciality skills and even have set up an entire thrift store in order to decrease their waste, Elan said. They have developed a whole set of recreational and spiritual things they do together, he said. Additionally, he said the EcoVillage has an email system where people can ask for anything they need help with.

A project the people in the EcoVillage work on to improve the environment and bond as a community is planting new trees for future generations to enjoy, Elan said. American chestnut trees were recently almost wiped out and now the people in the EcoVillage are breeding American and Chinese chestnut trees together to try to help address this problem.

The green living the people in the EcoVillage engage in seems to be

far easier when living with so many other people who share the same passion for sustainability and environmental activism. The EcoVillage is different than other places in the world because living there means making a commitment to helping the Earth, treating people more equally and being a part of something much bigger than yourself, Gabe said.

Living in a co-housing community such as the EcoVillage brings people together to make these goals achievable. Co-housing communities are private homes that are close together but have shared spaces, like a common house where people can go to socialize and be together. There seems to be a sense of camaraderie and harmony that exists from years of the people in the EcoVillage living together. In return, the EcoVillage demands a wholehearted commitment to bettering the world and sustaining the Earth for future generations.

“Let go of your ego!” Gabe said.

“Living in community means making sacrifices for the common good. The EcoVillage is a learning model. It was designed to showcase what co-housing can be and all the different amazing things that can come out of it.”

Faith Meckley, a junior at Ithaca College, recently moved into the EcoVillage. She said she loves living in the EcoVillage because of the difference in the culture. Meckley said she chose to move to the EcoVillage after experiencing a whole new outlook on life during The Great March for Climate Action, a cross-country march she participated in during 2014. The journey started in California and went all the way to the East Coast, with people walking and camping across the country in the name of protecting the environment.

Meckley said that she noticed a strong sense of community that totally reshaped the way she looks at people. She said she is extremely happy with her decision to live in the EcoVillage and finds it very peaceful

and old mix together to have engaging conversations with each other and share their wisdom. The community mindset seems to encourage creativity and new ideas, as well as preserve the ones that exist for future generations.

The older people of the EcoVillage were excited to share their stories and experiences with the younger generation as well as learn about new activities and ideas. The EcoVillage often hosts after-dinner lectures, discussing hot topics in the world and bridging the generation gap.

Additionally, a mix of youth and older generations work together to create the meal they ate for dinner the day I visit. They served homemade quinoa spoon bread, chilli and a fresh salad — all made with ingredients from local, organic sources.

Photot by Katie Siple

To the outside eye, the EcoVillage may just seem like a funny-looking neighborhood. However, it is filled with people who are full of life and ideas. They take pride in their community bond and support each other in their endeavors. Elan, Gabe, Meckley and Perreault agree that the EcoVillage has the drive, willpower and resources to make change happen in the world. Its residents strive to improve society for the better and be an ecological role model for the future of green housing and sustainability. ___________________________________ Katie Siple is a freshman integrated marketing communications major who will be taking frequent trips to the EcoVillage. You can email her at ksiple@ithaca.edu.

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Upfront

and relaxing to live in a community where people say “hi” to each other on the streets and share a common outlook on life.

“It’s nice to go home and not have to explain sustainability and environmentalism to each other,” Meckley said. “It is nice to have people who understand and are passionate about that. We don’t have a planet B, this is the only one we got.”

Meckley’s favorite parts of green living in the EcoVillage includes the use of solar panels, composting, recycling and a plentiful amount of organic foods.

“It’s like you go grocery shopping in your backyard,” she said.

Meckley said she has had a very positive experience living in co-housing and intends to live in co-housing communities just like the EcoVillage for the rest of her life.

Eric Perreault, another resident of the EcoVillage, said he enjoys living in the EcoVillage because of the peaceful atmosphere. Perrault said he loves the break from the hustle and bustle of life in the City of Ithaca and finding someplace quiet to relax and rest in the beauty of the EcoVillage. He has come to enjoy the simpler things in life, including appreciating nature and the community.

Perreault said it is like having his own extended family there with him and always supporting him.

“Houses used to be like islands to me, but here in the EcoVillage, you actually see all your neighbors a majority of the time and people always stop to say hi,” Perreault said.

Another aspect of the EcoVillage that fascinates Perreault is the social structure that exists between the youth of the EcoVillage and the elderly. He said the way society treats the aging population is unnatural and needs to be fixed. Perrault said he dislikes the idea of putting someone in a “home” whenever they become an inconvenience or too disabled to function on their own.

However, the housing arrangement at the EcoVillage is set up in a way that allows an active engagement between older and younger people, Perrault said. At the EcoVillage, the older generation seems very involved in the community and socializes with everyone around them.

While eating dinner, the young

Buzzing Out of Existence Bee populations on risky decline

By Emma Rizzo, Staff Writer

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

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group of students stands on a roof at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Clad in protective suits, they gather under the late summer sun surrounded by thousands of honey bees. This up-close interaction is a requirement for their Insects and Human Culture class. Trading in their notebooks for beehives, the students get up close and personal with the threatened pollinators they learned about in the classroom.

“I’m trying to get this population of college students to appreciate what honey bees are, what we have and the threat they are under,” said Dr. David Hogg, entomologist and professor of the class.

These honey bees, working in their rooftop hives and flying around Hogg and his students, are facing a danger shared by their comrades around the United States. Annual losses for managed honey bee colonies, meaning they are domesticated by beekeepers, were recorded at 42.1 percent in the 20142015 season, according to preliminary results of an annual study conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership, the Apiary Inspectors of America and the United States Department of Agriculture.

This is the second-highest annual loss recorded to date, showing an increase from the previous year, when about one-third of colonies were lost.

During the 2014-2015 winter, 23.1 percent of managed U.S. colonies did not make it through the season, showing a .6 percent decrease from last year, according to the report.

With one-third of all food consumed by humans in the United States directly or indirectly affected by honey bees, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, the trend of bee loss will be detrimental to the current human population, as well as the environment as a whole.

Bee losses are occurring for a variety of reasons. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, disease,

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pesticide poisoning, stress due to bee management and environmental changes are all factors that may be contributing to this concerning trend.

One of the biggest threats to honey bees are hive invasion from the Varroa Mite, according to Emma Mullen, Honey Bee Extension Associate for Cornell University’s Department of Entomology.

“There are lots of different parasites and diseases that affect honey bees,” Mullen said. “Probably the biggest issue right now is this mite. It’s called the varroa mite...it’s basically a nasty parasite and it’s very hard to control.”

The varroa mite sucks the blood of the bees, causing weakness and a shorter lifespan, according to a report by the University of Kentucky’s Department of Entomology. The mites develop on the bee larvae and spread to other colonies by traveling on workers and drones.

The mite’s presence in a colony causes the hive to suffer in the winter, said David Burns, Eastern Agricultural Society Certified Master Beekeeper and owner at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms in Fairmount, Illinois.

“We see our typical losses, but I don’t think winter itself plays as big a part as other factors…” he said. “That mite will spread 17 plus viruses through the hive, and as a result, in the winter...the viruses take their toll, because a healthy hive is able to survive the harshest winters.”

The use of pesticides may also be detrimental to bee health, according to the EPA. “It is a very complicated subject,” Mullen said. “One of the biggest ones in the media right now are neonicotinoids. There are some countries...that banned neonics. There is still a lot of controversy about the studies themselves.”

A 2012 review by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation concludes that overall evidence suggests that neonicotinoids are harmful to bees. It also states that there have not been properly-conducted field experi-

ments carried on over a sufficient period of time.

However, inconclusive research, Mullen said, leaves room for question when gauging the true effect of pesticides on bees.

“When we do studies in the lab, they show that neonics tend to be harmful to honeymbees, but when we do studies in the field, where it is actually representing more of an accurate situation where honey bees are foraging and feeding on the plants, we see that the colonies seem to be doing okay,” she said.

Bee management is also a factor when considering the cause of bee loss.

Many large-scale beekeepers move their colonies to warmer climates in the winter in order to pollinate crops.

This form of bee management could be causing additional stress on the colonies, leading to loss of the hives, Hogg said.

Bee loss, according to Hogg, could also be the result of the changing landscape of agribusiness.

“I think it’s happening as a result of the way people do agriculture,” he said. “There is no simple solution. I think there are a lot of things at play, but the big migratory beekeepers that move their colonies around to pollinate various crops around the country, because they get paid a fair amount of money to do that, I think it’s a major contributor because it’s putting a lot of stress on the bees.”

This practice of large-scale beekeeping also decreases the amount of attention given to each hive, while also homogenizing the treatment of the colonies, Hogg said.

“If you can pay attention to each hive, you obviously know the needs of that hive, whereas, if you have 2,000, you just have to apply the same thing to every hive,” he said. “You don’t have time to look into it and diagnose what’s going on. So, for treating for mite, for example, you just automatically treat every hive.”

Persistence and attention are key to

treating suffering hives, Burns said.

“Normally if I do nothing to a hive, it’s going to die within three years from the buildup of the [Varroa] mite,” he said. “If I stay very aggressive, and keep my mite levels really low, it is incredible how healthy that hive is and how long that hive will last.”

Many beekeepers, Mullen said, cannot afford the constant battle with unhealthy hives.

“We are seeing some beekeepers who are actually giving up their business because it’s too expensive to maintain it this way and they are not making a profit,” she said.

These beekeepers will feel the most significant effects if this trend of bee loss continues, Mullen said.

“What growers will do is rent honey bee colonies to come in and specifically pollinate those crops,” she said. “So, as we are losing colonies to different factors, things like the mite, or nutrition, or maybe pesticides, this will drive the price of colony rentals up significantly.

Now growers pay a lot more money because there is a lot more demand for these colonies and not as much supply for the colonies.”

One of the greatest concerns of the last decade was Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). CCD spiked it the winter of 2006-2007, when beekeepers were losing 30 to 90 percent of their hives, ac-

riculture,” she said.

This impact would land right into the plates — and wallets — of food consumers. If losses continue at current rates, and the cost of pollination services increase, food costs will increase, according to the USDA. The larger picture of agriculture, environmental health and human health is tied to the health of insects, which has been impacted by habitat loss, Hogg said.

“We are doing agriculture totally differently,” he said. “And every decade it seems like there is another shift in the way we do things, that’s maybe not friendly insects in general. A lot of it is habitat loss, by getting rid of the plants and having large monocultures where you are just growing one plant on large acreage.”

Movement toward a more natural ecological process, he said, could alleviate the impact of monoculture and other human activities.

“I’m a big believer in what is called agroecology, where you’re trying to use knowledge of the ecological relationships to try to make agriculture look as close to nature as possible,” he said.

For the students in Hogg’s Insects and Human Culture class standing on the roof surrounded by colonies of honey bees, they may, in this moment, be the closest they will ever be to the nature of bees. For timid students, Hogg emphasizes this point and encourages them to pull out the bee frames with their gloved hands.

“This is probably the only opportunity in your entire life you’ll have to pull out this frame,” he says to students.

This depth of understanding for the needs of bees brings the statistics of colony loss to life, making the reality honey bee loss impactfully clear. An increase in honey bee deaths, leading to a world with less pollinators, would completely change the environment as humans enjoy it today. By emphasizing the interconnectivity between human life and bee health, the reality of bee loss can create a buzz of urgency for human action. _____________________________________ Emma Rizzo is a senior journalism and Spanish major who cries over spilt honey. Email her at erizzo1@ithaca.edu

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Upfront

Illustration by Maya Sultar

cording to the EPA. CCD occurs when the majority of a colony’s worker bees disappear, leaving behind the queen bee, honey and pollen. Few bees are found dead near the hive and there are not high levels of the varroa mite or other diseases.

CCD was a problem nationwide until about 2010, when percentages of collapsing hives leveled out again. According to Mullen, CCD is not synonymous with colony loss.

“Colony Collapse Disorder is different from when we are just talking about colony losses,” Mullen said.

“Colony losses are a very big deal right now...a lot of people just hear Colony Collapse Disorder in the news and they assume that that’s still a huge issue but it’s a separate specific syndrome.”

Even with CCD under control, general colony losses remain as an alarming concern. In the short term, research is able to compensate for these losses through the use of wild bees, for example. Eventually, however, agriculture could see a larger impact, Mullen said.

“We are at the point where we are still able to have enough colonies to do these pollinating services for agriculture, but if things get worse than they are, or we can’t find a solution, or figure out how to mediate these colony losses, then there can be impact for ag-

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BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

Faith-Filled Action

Grady Family Tradition Stands Firm in Non-Violent Activism

By Alyvia Covert, Contributing Writer

Upfront

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Photos courtesy of Ellen Grady

T

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

he red of blood blends with the red of the stripes in the American flag.

The sound of the steel of a Trident submarine clashes with the sound of hammers as they smash into its indomitable shell.

Clare Grady looks back on the day she poured four ounces of her own blood in the entrance of Ithaca’s army recruitment center on St. Patrick’s Day, 2003, and she offers an explanation: with actions like these, she hopes to express something deeper, something to dwell in the hearts and minds of others.

Her younger sister, Ellen Grady, took a household hammer to the USS Georgia, a Trident submarine assembled in Groton, Connecticut. alongside her brother, John Grady, and husband, Peter DeMott, to carry out her form of truth-telling. This was in 1982.

“Symbolic action says, ‘here’s the truth and the love in this act, and you take it where you want,’” Clare said. “We are not trying to dominate or use force on anyone to do what we think they should do – we are doing what we think we should do.” __________________ Nonviolent activism stands at the core of the Grady family. John Peter Grady, a Catholic, first generation Irish-American, acted as the leader of what is now called the Camden 28. Grady, along with 27 other participants, attempted a raid of a draft board on August 22, 1971 in Camden, New Jersey.

By searching the office for important draft records and either removing or destroying them, the group symbolized their opposition to war.

The majority of the 28 participants, including Grady, were members of the Catholic Worker Movement — a nonviolent, faith-based organization founded in 1933 by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin.

John later met his wife, Teresa, and together they had five children; Mary Anne, Clare, John, Ellen and Teresa. The five were all raised in an environment which embraced the traditions of the Catholic Workers.

“Both of [my parents] came from a very strong Catholic background

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which said our faith was something that we live out on a daily basis; it’s about love and it’s about justice and it’s about taking care of your neighbor,” Ellen said. “My mother was always saying, ‘if people just knew, we could change the world.’”

The legacy of John and Teresa followed into the next generation through their peace work, and Ellen said the support of the family helped in each of their resistent endevors.

“At certain points in all of our lives, we’ve been active in resistance,” Ellen said. “If you haven’t been able to be that person on the line, we know there’s that line of support there behind us. It’s either support of or being the person who is the most active.” __________________ The family now focuses their support on the oldest sibling, Mary Anne, who is serving a six-month sentence for her involvement at the Hancock Field Air National Guard Base.

The Hancock Air Base is a U.S. Air Force base which functions as a New York location for remote controlled drones. It has been a significant location of protests against drone wars and drone terrorism as a use to secure U.S. foreign interests.

Her sentence began on Jan. 19, on grounds of breaking an order of protection she obtained in 2012.

The New York State court system classifies an order of protection as a precaution “issued by the court to limit the behavior of someone who harms or threatens to harm another person.” They are primarily seen in cases of domestic violence. Mary Anne recieved this OOP in 2012 as a result of civil disobedience performed during a drone action protest at Hancock Air Base.

While photographing another protest in 2013 from where she understood as beyond the boundary of the base, Mary Anne was arrested for violating her OOP. According to Ellen, Mary Anne is expected to be released on Mother’s Day, 2016.

Jim Murphy, a Vietnam War veteran and activist, recalls the unjust arrest of Mary Anne.

“She was sent to jail by a small

town judge, unfairly, from crossing an undefined line that she didn’t want to step over,” Murphy said.

“Nobody there thought she had violated this OOP except Afor this colonel who couldn’t pick her out in the courtroom.”

Mary Anne wrote in a public letter, released on Feb. 11, that the resistance “was to protest the ongoing 24-7 drone assassinations initiated by drone operators at Hancock as part of the Obama administration’s ‘kill chain.’” She added that since 2010, there have been 172 arrests and over 1,000 people have protested at the Hancock Air Base.

Fred Wilcox, a writer and peace activist who has known the Grady family for over 30 years, explains the power behind peaceful resistance demonstrations, such as Mary Anne’s.

“The fact that she’s in prison, simply because she stepped over a line in the road — that should frighten people,” he said. “She’s harmless to anybody; except those people who want to perpetuate war. In that way, Mary Anne is a very dangerous person because she’s a witness.” __________________ A silenced voice is not an option for the Grady family, who dedicate their lives to physically living out their beliefs in non-violence. This lifestyle lies within an ideology which operates outside of modern norms, where Clare admits actions like pouring blood on an American flag can easily be misconstrued as “creepy” or “wild”.

“It’s having a respect for the other human being; seeing the humanity with the other human being,” Ellen said. As she describes what it’s like to live out her ideologies, she quotes her late husband Peter, sharing his sentiment about living in a world dictated by violence: “As Peter used to say, ‘I’m striving to be non-violent; I’m not there yet — I have so much of this culture of violence inside me. I’m not going to ever pretend that it’s not there, but I’m striving to live with that consciousness.’” __________________

Clare’s action as part of the The St. Patrick’s Day 4 on March 17, 2003 happened after she travelled to Iraq in 2002 and talked to Iraqi civilians about what had been going on. She said her motivation was to voice her opposition against the looming potential of invasion, taking action after various attempts to lobby, organize and educate people on how to show their objection to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

“We were trying to resist what was happening — the genocide — in Iraq as a consequence of U.S. invasion, U.S. bombardment and the deconstruction of the civilian infrastructure,” she said. “All of that was targeted in Desert Storm, and all of those are war crimes of the highest degree. We (the U.S.) did that with full knowledge ahead of time — there are plenty of military documents which states reports to the CIA about waterboarding, diseases, the death of children, the elderly and the sick.”

After walking into the Ithaca recruitment center, Clare said she realized that nowhere in the shining, promising entrance of the center was the blood which had been spilled over the anticipated war.

She and three other members of the Catholic Worker Movement decided that this was an action which spoke to them, and would hopefully speak to others. They each went with four ounces of blood — 16 ounces altogether.

“It spoke to us as a way of truthtelling way,” she explained. “When you pour your blood — not in a creepy, wild way, and not in a hurtful way — but with a lot of reverence and a lot of respect and in a very prayerful way, that’s a symbol of the truth.” __________________

not the worst place either. I think you get to experience what a lot of the world is experiencing on a regular basis. It helps me as a white privileged human being to realize the privilege that I have and experience what a lot of people go through all the time.” __________________ The family now begins to help transition their mother, Teresa, into hospice care. However, the justice system continues to stand in the way as Mary Anne struggles to gain a compassionate release to visit her mother. The family remains hopeful that the system will allow her this time. Ellen remembers a similar situation when her husband was in prison in the ‘80s, following another Trident demonstration in Groton.

“When Peter was in prison, his brother died while he was there,” she said. “It was a really painful process to try and get him out, and they never let him out — that’s what people experience every day. We get a smattering of it, and we learn a little empathy, but also, as Mary Anne says, we are still alive.”

Prison, Ellen said, isn’t a marker for the end of a journey. Instead, it’s an experience which offers her something more — a form of reflection.

“Part of the violence of the system is thinking that you have to do everything,” Clare said. “Be everything. Or else it’ll all go to hell. It is a paradox that we are all required to do what we can, but ultimately it isn’t resting on each one of us. Each time I take a step, it’s not because I want to do everything — I don’t even understand everything. I’m slowly learning more and more as I go.”

Ellen echoed her sister’s sentiments. “There’s something about the joy that comes from being liberated from the fear of it all,” she said. “For us to be silent doesn’t have power anymore. And there’s something about that which counts for a lot — and then you go to jail with a little joy.” Ellen added jokingly, “And you learn some really good card games.” ___________________________________ Alyvia Covert is a senior Journalism major ready to give peace a chance.

Email her at acovert1@ithaca.edu

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Upfront

For the Gradys, arrest or prison often comes as a result of their conviction. For many, prison is a system which stands as a defeating consequence of unacceptable actions — a system which might deter many people from the kind of actions the Grady family has a part in. But prison is not a system which discourages the Grady family from living out their beliefs.

“It is really helpful in my Catholic tradition and my spiritual journey to understand that it’s not about flesh and blood, this is about systems and power,” Clare said. “At some point it is helpful to have the veil come down. And sometimes it’s painful and sad and tragic and brutal, but it’s not a bad thing. It’s better to get to that truthful state than to be in denial.”

Wilcox, an activist who has experienced the more violent side of protesting, recalls a demonstration he took part in 1971 in Washington D.C., where participants intended to close the city down to show opposition toward the Vietnam War. He recalls the violence promoted by the police such as ramming people with cars, and using tear gas against protesters. Wilcox was left on the street with a shattered kneecap.

“It’s quite rewarding,” he said. “It’s frightening — the police can be quite frightening. Once you do it enough, and go with people you trust, it’s not as frightening as people might think.

I think I’ve developed a certain calmness when I do this because I know it’s right.”

Murphy shared a similar sentiment in finding hope within the violence of systems, despite fighting against causes where results were not always seen immediately, if at all.

“Hope comes from knowing that even if you don’t have a lot of concrete success is that you know the world might be better if you do it,” he said. “The Gradys don’t compromise their values — if I were to describe the Gradys in one word, it would be integrity. I wish I was big enough to be them.”

Between overnight arrests and longer periods of incarceration from Connecticut to New York, Ellen has been in facilities ranging from those without heat or nutritious food to minimum security prisons which allow walks outside and glimpses of blue sky. Ellen said her longest prison sentence occurred over a six month stretch, following her arrest at the 1982 Trident demonstration.

“Human beings suffer, that’s one of the conditions we experience in this world,” Ellen said. “[Prison] is not comfortable, and it’s not a fun place to be — but it’s

L. MINISTRYofCOOL. MI BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

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Arts, entertainment and other things cooler than us.

Fashion Oddity Bowie leaves legacy

Laura Miller, Contributing Writer

F

reign.

After experimenting with his look throughout his teenage years, and playing with his first band, Davy Jones and the Lower Third, Bowie was finally ready to emerge. By 1971, Bowie was exploring fully in fashion, particularly what he is known the best for: androgyny. Seen in a photoshoot for one of his earliest (and best) albums, Hunky Dory, Bowie donned long hair and feminine-tailored clothing, sometimes even performing in a frock. Bowie was truly one of the most groundbreaking fashion icons of the 70s, and a true prophet of the glam rock movement. Inspiring youths to dress differently, and to stray from mod-culture and discover their own masculine and feminine sides, he and other artists (i.e.

Freddie Mercury, Brian Eno, David Johansen) won over a generation of people who may have never even fathomed such an idea.

Of course, Bowie’s most iconic and well-known persona is none other than Ziggy Stardust, an alien man thought to be inspired by both Iggy Pop’s raging stage presence and, of course, Bowie’s own obsession with the extraterrestrial.

The Space Race in particular made a

great impression on him as glam rock’s resident spaceman, inspiring songs like “Life on Mars,” “Space Oddity,” “Born In A UFO,” and “Hallo Spaceboy,” including iconic music videos as well, like “Ashes to Ashes.” As much as the Space Race rocked the US and Cold War, it also rocked Bowie’s youth in a way that brought him to base an entire personality off it. Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars toured from ’72 to ’73, certainly turning heads as the center of Ziggy’s presence was his outlandish clothing. And that’s just one of his many identities.

David Bowie was one of the best and weirdest beings to ever walk this planet Earth. He changed an entire industry, merging fashion with rock & roll in a way no one ever has, and likely no one ever will again. And we owe it all to that little boy in Brixton who felt like he just couldn’t fit in. _________________________________ Laura Miller is a freshman exploratory major whose motto is, “Why have a life crisis when you can just change your look?” You can email her at lmiller@ithaca.edu.

Image by Elizabeth Stillwaggon

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Ministry of Cool

rom the androgynous, folksylooking Hunky Dory-era to the ever-famous Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie never took a seat in the shadows. Few have changed the game the way Bowie did, and few have managed to create as many personas. It almost seems as though every album, every friend, and every trend introduced a new character, diving into a new fashion. Davy Jones, Bowie, Ziggy Stardust, the eye-patch donning Rebel, giant-tie-wearing Diamond Dog, the Thin White Duke, the Idiot-era friend and confidant of Iggy Pop, “Let’s Dance” era creamy suit guy, weird soul patch 90s Bowie and of course, the eerie Lazarus that he became near the end of his life, but really, the list could go on.

Perhaps the most important person in David Jones’ childhood was his older half-brother, Terry Burns. Burns was Jones’ role model as well as friend, and introduced him to many of the mediums and inspirations that helped in the creation of David Bowie, the extraterrestrial artist. This was when Jones got his first taste of the London music scene that he would later go on to dominate.

Another role model of Jones’ was Little Richard, a fashion icon of his own, who donned sequins, fringe, rhinestones, headbands and capes, — all things David Bowie would adopt in his own career.

Although some may consider Bowie to be the first modern artist to dress the way he did, he even said himself that he “wanted to be a white Little Richard at eight.” “I’m more like a tasteful thief. The only art I’ll ever study is stuff I can steal from.” Little Richard’s androgynous looks and lyrics inspired Jones to begin experimenting with his own look, and so began the art.

One pivotal moment in Jones’ life was when he got in a fight at school with his friend George Underwood over a girl.

Underwood punched Jones in the face, hitting his eye. After treatment, one pupil remained permanently dilated, giving the effect that Jones had heterochromia. Recovery kept him out of school for months. He also felt a disconnect due to a history of mental illness in his family, his mother and half-brother suffering from schizophrenia in a time when there was far less acceptance and far more shame associated with mental illness.

In an interview, Bowie said, “there’s an awful lot of emotional and spiritual mutilation that goes on in my family.” The man we now know as David Bowie had felt more like an outcast than ever. It was then that David Jones decided to cut his losses and throw away all notions of conformity, paving the way for Bowie’s

Abuse in the Music Industry

Kesha’s on-going battle with Dr. Luke Sara Belcher, Contributing Writer

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

O

ne Feb. 19, Kesha Rose Sebert lost her lawsuit against her producer Lukasz Gottwald — who produces under the name “Dr. Luke” — with the court stating that she must continue her contract under Sony, and produce six more albums, according to NY Daily News.

The artist found her fame with hits like “Tik Tok” in 2009, quickly becoming a name many were talking about. Since her fifteen minutes of fame, the singer seems to have disappeared, and her EP Deconstructed, released at the end of 2012, was the last bit of new music her fans were given. Her short-lived reality TV show My Crazy Beautiful Life, ended in 2013.

Since October of 2014, Kesha has been battling an intense lawsuit against Dr. Luke. According to the transcript from the suit, the producer convinced her to move from her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee to Los Angeles with sugar-coated promises of the better life she would lead. The past 10 years Kesha has served under Dr. Luke’s contract has led her to file a multitude of different claims against her producer, with the primary ones including sexual assault and battery, sexual harassment, gender violence and civil harassment. The case details accounts of Dr. Luke repeatedly drugging the singer, making numerous sexual advances — including raping her while she was unconscious — and relentless insults from the producer.

Words like: “You are not that pretty, you are not that talented, you are just lucky to have me,” “There are a million other girls out there like you” and even referring to her as a “fat fucking fridge,” are some of the verbal attacks listed on the transcript.

The abuse didn’t stop there. Dr. Luke reportedly threatened Kesha’s family and career if she spoke of the abuse or attempted to break

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her contract with him. Kesha’s case claims that he threatened the physical safety of her and her family, and fully believed that he was capable of carrying out those threats. According to the lawsuit, this abuse is what led to Kesha’s bout with bulimia, sending her to rehab in early 2014.

In retaliation to the claims made against him in Kesha’s suit, Dr. Luke filed his own lawsuit against the singer and her mother Pebe, charging defamation and breach of contract. He states that the accusations made against him, whether they involved the singer or not, are false, and that these false statements have been released by Kesha and Pebe to third parties; Dr. Luke claims that the only reason for Kesha’s lawsuit is to break the contract she has with him.

This is not the first lawsuit that seems to allow a male in the music industry to get away with sexual assault. On June 5, 2002, MTV reported that R. Kelly was arrested on 21 counts of child pornography, as a 27-minute tape surfaced in Chicago of him engaging in sexual acts with four different women — one of them allegedly a minor at the time. Seven of those charges were eventually dropped, and in his hearing in 2008, Time reports that Kelly was found not guilty of the other 14 counts. Interviews with the jurors revealed the likely reason that Kelly was not convicted was that neither the allegedly minor nor her parents were called to testify to determine if it was actually her in the tape; the reasoning being they didn’t want to subject her to “unnecessary stress,” and she’d denied the claims shortly after the charges were made.

Singer Cee Lo Green was another man in the music industry who had been accused of sexual assault.

KTLA reported that a woman came forward claiming that in 2012 Green slipped her some Ecstasy, and then raped her while she was uncon-

scious. The court ruled that there was not enough evidence to justify a rape case, so they only charged him with possession of Ecstasy. NY Daily News reported that he was sentenced to three years probation, along with either Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous sessions and 360 hours of community service.

According to Billboard, the problem is that past cases leading to break of contract haven’t stemmed from charges of physical abuse.

The reservation is that Kesha’s case could’ve been a series of false accusations — and it wouldn’t be the first of its kind.

According to Time, Bryan Singer, a producer in Hollywood known for movies like X-Men, was accused of forcing a 17-year-old boy to perform sexual acts with the promise of an acting career. The lawsuit was withdrawn a few years later, and the NY Daily News reported that Michael Egan III — the man who claimed to be the victim of the assault — was pleading guilty for investment fraud.

Egan used false claims to receive money from investors that he used for personal reasons, making his suit against Singer look like a cry for money.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich declared that allowing Kesha to break from her contract would harm Sony’s reputation, NY Daily News reports. The judge also said that the court didn’t have the ability to break such contracts, as it would damage the laws of the state. Sony offered to let her work with another one of their producers, but the artist’s fear is that her music will not be as well promoted, as Dr. Luke is their largest producer.

The response to Kesha’s case denial has been overwhelming. Many other celebrities, such as Lady Gaga, Tyler Oakley, and Kelly Clarkson — who has previously worked with Dr.

Luke — have tweeted out their support to Kesha; Buzzfeed also has shown tweets from numerous other celebrities who wish the best for her. Hashtags such as #FreeKesha have also been trending all over the internet, and a man named Brandon de la Cruz started a GoFundMe page to buy Kesha’s contract from Sony; over 11 thousand dollars has been raised in two days, with over

800 donors.

A Tumblr post published before the trial by user iiswhoiis shows the Kesha singing “Amazing Grace.”

The caption called for those in the New York City area to meet outside the New York Supreme Courthouse, supporting her freedom from her contract. The group of supporters was originally supposed to meet on Jan. 26, but the date was moved

due to the weather.

In response to the support from both fans, #FreeKesha and celebrities, Dr. Luke’s team released a press statement on Feb. 22. The statement declared that because the court ruled that Kesha was free to produce music with other producers that “any claim that she isn’t “free” is a myth.” They also deny that any abuse happened to the singer, stating “the Court also noted multiple times that her vague abuse allegations were devoid of factual detail, and that there was no evidence, whether from doctors or anyone else, to support them.”

They are still standing behind the idea that Kesha’s claims of rape are “outright lies.”

This long and lengthy battle between the two is likely nowhere near its end, as many seem to be displeased with the result of the trial. The fate of Kesha’s career is still unclear, and only time will tell where this ruling will take her. _________________________________ Sara Belcher is a freshman journalism major who thinks people should stop boycotting Beyoncé and start boycotting Sony. You can email her at sbelcher@ithaca.edu

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Ministry of Cool

Image by Claire McClusky

RAW SAW

Animal Collective

FROM THE

Painting With Album Review

Brody Armstrong

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

Villagers

Staff Writer

Where Have You Been All My Life?

Album Review Tyler Obropta Staff Writer

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On Animal Collective’s tenth studio album, Painting With, the band forgets the organic and the ambient and in turn overcompensate with a whole lot of electronic tension and loudness akin to two of its past studio releases, Centipede Hz (2012) and Strawberry Jam (2007). The band decides on a sound primarily driven by deepbuzzing synthesizers and superfluous amounts of asynchronously sung harmonies. It’s as if the three other members, Avey Tare, Deakin and Geologist, wholly decided to help Panda Bear make a part two of Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper and call it an Animal Collective record.

With past Animal Collective projects, particularly earlier ones — notably Sung Tongs — its music felt like more of a long and soothing exhale, and in its more exciting songs, it juxtaposed this lightness with brief moments of biting, overdriven screams or abrupt vocal fluctuation. Animal Collective owned a compelling alternative sound that was like a perfect bridge between melodic psych and ambient electronic music that conveyed slow and thrilling movements of emotion. On Painting With, the band’s sound has devolved into a busy theme park of “trippy” sounds and spacy vocals made incoherent by an overuse of effects.

However sparse, there are pleasant moments on Painting With, like the album’s first single and opening track, “FloriDada” — that during its time of release appeared to be an auspicious sign of what the band had forthcoming. The song is one of few on Painting With that doesn’t feel like it struggles to find cogency. It’s fun, and like past Animal Collective songs it takes listeners on a kind of ride where they don’t have to stress about flying off the rails and into a threeminute space of overexcited, seemingly neverending noodly experimentation.

“Golden Gal,” another single, pairs with “FloriDada” just as with most songs on the album. It’s airy and sweet, though armed with less energy.

By itself, it’s less of a great track and is instead more like a sensibly placed song near the end of the album that breaks up its incessantly annoying energy, finally slowing the pace and allowing for a segue into the relatively easing closing track, “Recycling.” Which, within its simple title, ironically reveals in essence what Animal Collective has done on Painting With: that is, quite blatantly recycle Panda Bear’s solo style and convert its former and more fascinating laid-back, astral sound into bouncy stoner-pop.

Somewhere between Sparklehorse and Of Monsters and Men on the indie-folk spectrum is Villagers, the Dublin-based band debuting Where Have You Been All My Life?, its fourth studio album.

Though the compilation entirely features re-recordings, each song retains everything that won the band its acclaim on its first album, Becoming a Jackal: an eerie, cool sound, heartfelt vocals and dark lyrics that hide beneath the blissful folk fittings. In contrast with the versions found on previous albums, the songs in Where Have You Been All My Life? take on a more ethereal quality.

Unearthly tones vibrate in the background of every track with a mysterious sound, like synthesizers crossed with Tibetan singing bowls.

The smooth, jazzy basslines, tormented vocals and acoustic guitarwork are the only earthly elements that prevent the music from lifting the listeners up by the seats of their pants and flinging them into the cosmos.

The most peaceful songs on the album, the ones with the least instrumental and vocal momentum, are “My Lighthouse” and “Darling Arithmetic.” In “My Lighthouse,” Villagers’ penchant for poetically transcendent lyrics stands out: “... We’ll drink to the gentle, the meek and

the kind/ And the funny little flaws in this earthly design,” Conor O’Brien sings, the mellowness in his voice echoing with those otherworldly tones.

Then, in “Darling Arithmetic,” a song with a tangibly softer mood than the rest of the album, the instruments take a back seat to O’Brien, who asks an invisible lover, “Are you hiding up here/ Did they force you to disappear?”

O’Brien’s restrained vocals float through the album. It’s a smooth listen; the songs are gentle, slow and deliberate. Villagers have captured the melancholia of Bright Eyes, yet none of the tedium.

Nowhere do the vocals work better with the soft-spoken synthesizers, plucky guitarwork and soaring folk melodies than in “The Waves,” a song whose commanding instrumental pulls all of the focus from the dark nature of O’Brien’s words.

When the song rises, its energy and raw momentum manage to overpower the persistent sadness of the album.

The songs have an unnaturally gloomy edge to them, but they’re all so damn smooth that you forget how decidedly morose the lyrics are. The infectious rhythms and peremptory soulfulness make Villagers’ latest album impossible to resist.

Where Have You Been All My Life? indeed.

David Bowie

Blackstar Album Review Laura Miller

Hail, Caesar!

Contributing Writer

Blackstar is David Bowie’s parting gift to the world; a cold and divinatory work of art that showcases just how versatile he was. Even up to the last days of his life, Bowie was breaking boundaries. It’s the type of album where songs need to be played over and over to be fully grasped — if you’d even call the absolutely vivid tracks in this album something so plain as “songs” — and have new details to pick up on with every listen. Like a carefully crafted film, Blackstar is multi-faceted miracle; certainly not an easy listen but a piece of art that’s more than music. It’s a mystical picture of life and death and everything in between.

“Blackstar” and “Lazarus,” the two pre-released singles of the album, were the right way to sell this record. Definitely two of its strongest tracks, both emit the darkness and discomfort that Bowie was certainly feeling, given his rapidly declining health and secretly impending transcendence to the great beyond. It’s really astounding how eloquently death is depicted in this record. Wildly unsettling imagery present in the music video for “Blackstar” emphasized by Bowie’s gentle delivery of the lyrics and droning saxophones in the background, all tells of the enigmatic “villa of Ormen,” which Bowie’s character seems to be confined to, blinded and restrained by a cloth over his

actors and this oozes from the screen. The film is fun and light, but the tonal shifts throughout are distracting and draw away from the serious moments in the film. We never get a chance to care about Mannix’s internal struggle for taking the other job because the film doesn’t focus on this. Instead, we get hilarious performances and scenes from a Hollywood that’s been long gone and forgotten. Tatum, doing a spectacular long take dancing number, and Johansson, struggling with her decision of which celebrity to marry, are fun and entertaining, but give no emotional substance to the film. The Coen brother’s try to pump the script with religious themes and question of ethics of the way films are made, but it still comes across as unbelievable and just stitched together.

As always, cinematographer Roger Deakins produces a visually stunning film, using sequences in the film to mimic the way films were created 60 years ago. Using wide shots with backdrops just like the movies being shot within the film itself, everything is reminiscent of the period. The writing is tight and consistent, but the film lacks a sense of purpose and direction, which is surprising from such acclaimed filmmakers. In a way Hail, Caesar! felt like a film that the Coen Brothers knew they had to make but they didn’t know how to piece together. So instead they tied a bunch of lovely scenes together, remembering the way films used to be and forcing religion into the mix. Without an emotional core from any of the characters, these scenes become meaningless, leaving Hail, Caesar! as a missed opportunity.

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Ministry of Cool

Out of any director working today, Ethan and Joel Coen stand on a podium strictly for their knowledge of the medium and their latest film, Hail, Ceasar!, is a prime example of this. This could be attributed to the fact that there’s two people directing, but, even so, is a vast knowledge of the medium enough criteria to praise their new feature? The duo are synonymous for making some of the best films of the past two decades such as No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski and Fargo, to name a few. Like most directors, the Coen Brothers haven’t had a perfect track record and some of their films missed the mark completely; we’re looking at you, The Ladykillers. Three years since their last release, Hail, Caesar! falls somewhere in the middle.

The films stars Josh Brolin, in his third collaboration with the directors, along with a star studded cast of George Film Review Clooney, Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. The film takes place in 50s HollyJon Roberts wood and is, in essence, a love letter to not only cinema Contributing Writer at the time but to the filmmaking process as well. While the trailers would tell you that the story is about George Clooney’s character, Baird Whitlock, being kidnapped by a secret organization, the film revolves around Brolin’s character, Eddie Mannix, the Hollywood fixer responsible for keeping the studio in line and the stars under control.

His conflict draws from a recent job offer anzd he must decide whether to leave the industry or not.

The entire cast gives great performances; playing larger than life characters in 50s Hollywood seems like fun to the

eyes and ties to what seems to be a hospital bed.

The music itself, too, conjures up some fascinatingly disquieting images in the listener’s mind.

Bowie becomes a spiritual guide through the distant, dark planet of death and claustrophobic mystery. The music and video for this song and “Lazarus,” the other single of the record, are certainly worth a look and listen as they transport listeners through worlds and emotions that only further enhance Bowie’s story.

“Girl Loves Me” and “Dollar Days” are other standout tracks from this record. “Girl Loves Me” gets a special shout-out for its surprising “Where the fuck did Monday go?” line and “Dollar Days” for its exciting similarity to some of Bowie’s earlier, poppier songs. It almost sounds like it could be off of Hunky Dory or Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) in the classic-Bowie sense.

Blackstar certainly does its job as Bowie’s profound farewell to Earth. It’s something brandnew and different from anything he’s ever done before, despite being an artist who’s already broken virtually every boundary in his lifetime. Saying goodbye to Bowie is certainly sad, but Blackstar can be a comfort in his death because he’s truly proved his ability to do it all.

Tyler Obropta Staff Writer

Youth

The Lady in the Van

Film Review

Film Review Tyler Obropta

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

Staff Writer

36

The Lady in the Van commences with a smashing opening, and I don’t use the term “smashing” simply because it’s a British film.

Dame Maggie Smith literally smashes her van into a person. And kills him. In the film’s first 30 seconds.

Instead of calling the police, Smith’s eponymous lady in the van takes it on the lam, living in the streets for quite some time. The broken windshield becomes a constant reminder, the damning black spot on the hand of Lady MacVan. The brilliant Alan Bennett adapted the script from his 1999 stage play, based on a (mostly) true story. In fact, the film was shot on location at Bennett’s old home in the London Borough of Camden. It was there that the real-life Miss Mary Shepherd, the thankless and eccentric homeless woman, put down her roots in the playwright’s driveway in the 1970s.

Bennett here is played by a delightfully timid Alex Jennings, who adeptly mixes the unrestricted, abrasive wit of the writer with the mild-mannered soul of the man. The playwright watches Miss Shepherd from afar as she molluscs her dingy, rusted van to numerous neighbors’ doorsteps over the course of several months.

It’s during this observational period that Bennett befriends her, more out of curiosity than anything, and it isn’t long until he’s begrudg-

ingly allowed her to move into his drive. For only a few months, of course.

And she stayed for 15 years.

As the van-dweller, Smith revels in Miss Shepherd’s bizarreness and the mysterious daftness of a woman who’s spending the autumn of her life squatting in a smelly, dilapidated van the color of a mimosa cocktail.

For such a simple premise, Bennett writes it so elegantly, with much self-awareness and the kind of beautiful intelligence that’s so rarely found in a comedy.

Unfortunately, it puts on the brakes as it nears the third act, and we begin to squeeze some emotional backstory from Miss Shepherd, the lady in the van. There’s a tonal shift that’s pretty much universal in most modern rom-coms. While most Judd Apatow films and Hugh Grant vehicles can get away with these drama-heavy third acts, it’s mostly because those films aren’t written by Alan Bennett. In The Lady in the Van, the retreat into convention is disappointing, a betrayal of the simplicities and subtleties that made the first hour so engaging.

Of course, the writing is still sharp and the performances genuine, but the movie suddenly seems a little less willing to have fun than it did when Dame Maggie Smith was still just a lady in a van, and nothing more.

Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth is bookended by music, opening with a knockout pop song from The Retrosettes and ending with an orchestral number elegantly vocalized by Sumi Jo. Appropriate, given that the film’s lead is retired orchestra conductor Fred Ballinger, played with class and command by Sir Michael Caine.

Though he’s far removed from the audiences and the concert halls, Fred continues to conduct. However, the instruments in Fred’s new orchestra are limited to the cowbells and moos of grazing bovine, the sounds of birds in the woods and a plastic wrapper Fred seems to carry with him everywhere.

The setting is the Swiss Alps at a luxurious hotel and spa that Fred has been going to for 20 years.

Also at the hotel is Fred’s daughter, Lena (Rachel Weisz), and his best friend, the Hollywood writer/director Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel). Lena is keeping her father company and Mick is working day and night with a crack team of young, ambitious writers to come up with a new script, his “film testament,” he likes to call it.

Adding heaps of personality to the film are Paul Dano as a world-famous actor known best for playing a robot, Roly Serrano as a former soccer player with a belly the size of a small elephant and the radiant Madalina Diana Ghenea as the sharper-than-she-seems Miss Universe.

At its best and most calming, Youth is quiet movie with restrained, subtle direction. Luca Bigazzi’s beautiful cinematography flows from one shot to another, and the poetic dialogue bounces from character to character with ease as men walk about the countryside discussing Novalis and the plague of old age.

But Youth also has an edge to it — a punch-out-awindow, throw-the-TV-off-the-balcony edge to it. Yes, there are times when Youth lets go of the reins to its own chariot and the horses enter mach five, careen into

walls and collapse into seizures.

The screams of old people shagging in the woods. Jane Fonda swearing like a sailor and punching a flight attendant. A ludicrous, over-the-top pop music video starring Paloma Faith stripping on the top of a speeding car. At times, it’s a bit difficult to imagine that this is the same movie in which Sir Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel walk through grassy fields chatting about philosophy.

But the polar oppositions are what make Youth so engaging. For every scene concentrating on Keitel’s vivacious group of writers, there’s a depressing long take of naked old people sitting in a sauna room, as if they’re just wasting away, evaporating into the steamy air.

To be clear, all of these points are positives. Sorrentino fills his film with realism as Caine and company show their age, reminding us of their mortality. Yet, Youth also features plenty of the surreal — there’s more than one dream sequence and, when the characters are in reality, the hotel takes on an otherworldly character all its own.

Sorrentino achieves the perfect balance, like having one’s cake and eating it too. (If your cake is made of naked old people, that is, of which the film has plenty.)

The only bump in the road can be credited to a questionable child performance, but one mediocre child actor does not a bad movie make — we can’t all be Jacob Tremblay, after all. In fact, this is a near-perfect film. Youth is beautifully photographed, brilliantly acted and dripping with humanity. I’ve seen it three times already and I can’t wait to see it a fourth — and hopefully chisel away more meaning from Sorrentino’s masterful work.

It is, of course, incredibly dense and also surprisingly fun, definitely worth three or four watches, unless naked old people creep you out or you’re frightened easily by Jane Fonda in heavy makeup. Don’t worry: she scares me too.

First Encounters Anonymous

I

biting his lip. I suppose he was attempting to turn me on, but it had the opposite effect.

I suddenly realized how repulsed I was and he had football sheets on his bed and so then I started panicking, realizing that I was about to have sex with my brother’s best friend in a room that is nearly 90 degrees.

I started to think about how disgusted my brother would be if he ever found out.

The worry was obviously evident on my face because then Will brought it up. I tried to shake it off and kiss him, but my hands were shaking and he was struggling to take off my complex top and it just wasn’t working. There was a ton of fidgeting.

Finally, I was lying shirtless on top of children’s football sheets, sweating excessively from nerves and the heat. I was watching him take off his cargo shorts and all I could think about was how I forgot to wear deodorant and the absolute disaster that was about to take place.

Soon after, I took my shorts off, only then realizing that I was wearing underwear that said “Rock on!!” with a frog playing guitar on the front.

He got on top of me, still wearing boxers, and started to kiss my neck and face and I could smell the sweat on his body.

I kissed him back, trying to forget about how terrible this already was, when he suddenly attempted to flip me on top of him; instead I hit my head against the window and shouted, “FUCK.” But the show goes on!

After an awkward acknowledgement of this unforeseen consequence, we continued kissing and it reached the point where he should have had a boner.

My naked body was resting atop of his scrawny one, and my boobs were basically in his face. He was drinking it all in, but still no boner.

He then said, “I don’t have a boner.”

What a great point! “Can you blow me?”

Unsure, I edged myself lower, but the smell of sweaty genitalia was really wretched so I decided to go with my gut and lie, “Well, actually, no, I don’t know how to give blowjobs.” He responded, “Didn’t you have a boyfriend for a year?”

“Uh, yeah, but that’s besides the point.

I’m not giving you a blowjob.”

Somewhere before giving up he decided he was hard enough and we tried to do the actual deed.

He got on top and there was a good amount of grunting and forceful shoves, but no sex. This went on for about five minutes before I decided I’d had enough.

Covered in his sweat and agitated, I said, “Okay, this isn’t working, it’s probably a sign. Let’s stop.”

He said, “Okay, but don’t you want something before you leave?” Ew. He started to edge down, kissing the area around my belly button. I cringed so hard I thought I’d pass out. Then I shouted, “NO NO, IT’S REALLY OKAY I’M GONNA GET DRESSED.” I got up, threw my clothes on, and raced out of the room and into my car where I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to laugh or cry or cringe until death. I vowed to myself that I would forget this memory, making sure it would never reach my brother or either of my parents.

The memory was semi-well forgotten until two months later when I received a text from Will saying, “Hey guess what I got for my birthday? Chlamydia!”

37

Ministry of Cool

wouldn’t even classify this as a sexual experience. To start, this happened with my brother’s best friend Will. Will and I had some serious sexual tension ever since my sophomore year in high school when he was a college junior. There was the abstract flirting like slightly too-tight hugs, the excessive eye contact and the reminders from my brother to “NEVER HOOK UP WITH WILL.” All of those flirtations and reminders led me to eventually kiss Will on my birthday, which led to an awkward sexual experience.

The initial kiss with Will was, itself, cringe-worthy. There was the suction grip, the too-aggressive biting on my lip and the horrible taste in his mouth. Still, a week later we decided to meet up at his house and “hang out.” I evidently had no idea what I was getting myself into, because as soon as I entered the house he took me on a tour of all the places we could have sex.

“This is the living room, where we can have sex. This is my brother’s room, where we could probably have sex. This is my parents’ room, where I don’t think we should have sex.”

In high school, hooking up usually meant just kissing and maybe some other sexual things, but it never meant having sex. Having sex was having sex.

But being in college, to Will, hooking up meant having sex. I stupidly hadn’t considered such a possibility yet, I consented to having sex with him, deciding that maybe it would result in some kind of good outcome. WRONG. I agreed to the highly recommended option to have sex in his room. We started kissing and he pulled his shirt off while

BUZZSAW: Obsessed Issue

OSE&CONS. PROSE&CONS. PR

Short fiction, personal essay and other assorted lies.

38

Rot

By Michael Petit my soul thrashes in this temple knocking down this ancient altar shitting on this sacrificial heart howling, squealing, cackling, sighing taking that gift and in plain sight shredding its fibers with venomous incisors and smiling at the wreckage ugly, horrid, foul, rank, sewage what once was cerulean fair became the devil’s black canvas semen, spit, shit, piss creating obscene images of hell mocking the holy mother and fucking the father till tears ran dry as arctic rock gaping at the atrocity, shaking with despair this heart rots rots rots

Prose & Cons

39

In Memory of Ben

by Samantha Brodsky

Before I heard the news I was sitting cross-legged on sapphire-blue sheets, summer’s heat caked against the windows like static hugging silk, all too enthralled by some trashy show with no way of knowing that you were stolen away with a single collision of hard, groaning metal.

And when your motorcycle demolished our family too, turned to scraps too aware of how fragile we stood against the brutality of the world.

We were buried with you.

BUZZSAW: Obsessed Issue

I knew then how it felt to have my insides yanked out of me and maybe that’s how you felt when it all happened to you, when your body no longer belonged to you, your gentle brown irises rid of their jovial gleam that always thawed through any negativity like morning’s gentle light through thickened frost.

I wonder where you are now wonder if you’re floating in an unspeakably enchanting oblivion, your laugh echoing wildly among the star-freckled sky.

40

Love Is Sick of Metaphors

By Erika Walsh

Love doesn’t know how to play the guitar. Love only knows how to whistle to itself, on a blue night, when the moon is low, and you’ve forgotten your jacket.

I wish I could look at love, in the face, and say, “What the fuck is wrong with you, Love — why don’t you ever ask me how my day is?”

I wish I could grab love by the lapels and say, “Kiss me already!”

I wish I could.

Love is Roll Over. Love is Here, Boy. Love is Come. Love is Stay. Love is Treat. Love is Play Dead. Love is Good, Boy. Good.

Love is a diagnosis. Love is riding a bicycle from your psychiatrist’s hotel room to the trampoline park.

Love is jumping up and down instead of taking your medicine. Love is grinding up pills and sprinkling them into your yogurt. Love is praying to the dead.

Love is going to sleep hungry. Love is waking up full.

Love is dressing in drag at two A.M. on a Wednesday and going grocery shopping.

Love is peeling an orange with gloves on. Love is “No, not yet, but someday. Someday.” Love is crying at the ice-skating rink because your ankles won’t stop wobbling.

Love is never learning how to wink. Love is never learning how to paint with acrylics. Love is insisting that you’re over it, and never getting over it.

Love is waking up in a strange-smelling bed when you’re happy. Love is falling asleep on a porch swing when you’re sad.

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Prose & Cons

Love holds my hand across the dinner table. Love touches the spots I’m too nervous to ask anyone else to touch.

Love thinks we should see other people. Love kisses me on the forehead.

Love says, “I really am proud of you,” and I shake my head like I don’t want to hear it.

­­­­

By Gavin DuBois

BUZZSAW: Obsessed Issue

Exhumed

On a breezy Sunday morning in April, after weeks of listlessly gathering in the heavens, the clouds burst. Rain fell in clustered torrents about the county; so much so that many began to fear for their ramshackle homes by the riverside. Mr. and Mrs. Darling, however, did not worry. They had their warm fire in their old stone house, built by Mr. Darling’s great-great grandfather, tucked in the arms of a hill far above the flood line. The children were saturated with momentum; the pitter-patter of rain on the cloistering roof and walls a reminder of their entrapment.

Little Rosey was the first to ask, yet unafraid, or perhaps unaware of the venom lurking behind an idle question. She wanted to dance, to parade about, to stretch her growing limbs further and test what she knew her body, unmarred by age, could do. She did not heed the hushed, frantic tones of her brother Peter, or the cool disaffected gaze of her sister Riley, urging refrain. She obeyed her body, which told her with the utmost urgency: escape, flee, and take the longest of leaps away, away, away.

Mr. and Mrs. Darling sat huddled near the mantle, the occasional snaps of the fire spitting hot flecks onto the aging carpet. Rosey, head cast downward, saw dozens of little black spots on the carpet, artifacts from years of wandering embers. Her father always called the blackened sections of the rug No-Man’s Land. When Rosey asked her older sister what that was, she just said that it was a bad place from the War. “Look at me when I speak, young lady,” Mrs. Darling commanded. Her mother’s smile was taught, eyes pools of brilliant green, like a pond strangled with algae. A face of living marble, she was Andromeda writhing just beneath airs of duty and tact.

“We want to play outside in the rain, Mother,” Rosey said. Mrs. Darling blinked several times, as if her daughter had uttered a blasphemous language.

“I think not. You wouldn’t want to spoil your good school clothes.”

“But it’s Sunday, Mother! We won’t ruin our clothes, I promise.” Peter and Riley recognized the fire building behind their mother’s eyes and had already begun to make their retreat up the stairs when Mr. Darling spoke, eyes still planted to a dusty old tome.

“Let the children go, dear,” he exhaled as he spoke, a minor sound like the creaking eaves of their old stone house. Mrs. Darling gave her husband not so much as a glance. She glared at each of her children in turn, mumbling with inaudible tones then finally said, “Not in your good clothes,” and settled back into her seat.

The rain greeted them with cool open arms and its song begat their dance. Rosey galloped out into the field adjacent to their home, the soaked grass squelching between her little toes. Peter followed close behind, cartwheeling jovially, smashing inadvertently into his little sister. The two fell laughing and were set upon by Riley, whose grim visage had been washed away.

There were explorers, marooned in an alien world of everlasting rain. They were pirates, pillaging a new world, ripe with exotic peoples and their priceless treasures. They were heroes, prying the land free from the grasp of a tyrannical matriarch. Their play drew them ever closer to the tree line, winding up an imposing hill at the edge of the field. The edge of the field was the edge of the children’s domain, an intractable border over which they were never to cross.

Read the rest of this excerpt online at buzzsawmag.org

42

The Rainbow Wig

By Grace Roberson

“Whatever life you wear; it will become you.” -e.e. cummings

In kindergarten, I was a rainbow clown for Halloween. My grandmother, who was known for being devoted to her sewing machine, made costumes for my brother and I that year. She made my little brother his own Harry Potter cape, and my mom drew a lightning bolt on his forehead with her eyeliner. When I saw my costume, however, I was horrified. It was a bright pink top with polka dot sleeves and a ruffled, rainbow collar and pants to match. There were three bunches of fabric designed to look like flowers running down the front of the shirt, in orange, green, and purple. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, my grandmother had bought a rainbow afro wig for me to wear and made a polka-dot print cone hat with a flower at the top. It might as well have been a dunce hat.

Halloween fell on a school night that year, and my elementary school was having a party for us kids in the gym. So of course, it was the perfect opportunity to make my debut as a catastrophic rainbow. But I threw tantrum after tantrum. I knew that all of the other girls in my class were being princesses, fairies, witches, or cats. I was only five years old at the time, but I knew what was in store for me if I wore the costume. Although I put up a fight, I was still defeated. My grandmother had spent weeks on my costume, not including all the trips to the Jo-Ann Fabrics down the street from her house.

I understood this, but I did not want to wear the wig. I still wanted to hold onto one part of the real me.

I was born with thick, white-blonde hair, and at the conclusion of every summer, my mother would make me cut it into a bob before school started. I thought that if people saw my hair, they would know that I wasn’t actually a clown. I wouldn’t be made fun of.

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Prose & Cons

Read the rest of this excerpt online at buzzsawmag.org

Thirteen Dead Ladybugs

by Joseph Heiland

BUZZSAW: Obsessed Issue

I’m wearing my good jeans. The window is open. All different kinds of people walk on the paths below. They’re heading to class, or maybe work, but I hope that they’re on their way to get coffee with a friend. There’s tension in the air.

No one knows how to feel yet. It’s too early in the semester. I have a slight headache, but I’m not sure that it’s real. It could just be my mind warning my body that things are about to happen.

Get ready, it’s saying.

I rub my temples and move on. I’m about to look away, but something catches my eye.

Thirteen dead ladybugs, entombed between the screen and the glass. Some with their winged shells upright. Others not. I don’t know how long they’ve been there. I look for signs. Their backs aren’t as red as I feel they should be. They’re more brown than red. Auburn, perhaps. I look closer. Their tiny legs are shriveled. Some, or so it would seem, have become hollow. That can’t be right, I tell myself. Well, it is right, I’m reminded.

Thirteen dead ladybugs strewn along the base of the screen. If only they’d crawled a few inches toward the center, they’d have found two ladybug-sized holes to squeeze through. (Freedom.)

Then again, that’s probably how they got there in the first place. They scuttled through and couldn’t find their way back. (Consequence.)

I think of something my father loves to say: Once the toothpaste’s out of the tube, have fun getting it back in. He’s a mechanical engineer. Has been since Reagan was president.

I think of another saying—this time by Napoleon(?): You can tell a lot about a man by what was happening in the world when he turned twenty-one. It’s certainly true for my father. And then I realize that I’ve been twenty-one for almost nine months. What’s happening now? I ask myself. I look at the hollowed, auburn shells.

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Satire threatening the magazine’s credibility since 1856.

Sawdust

WDUST. SAWDUST. SAWDUS

45

But Where Are You Really From?

White man goes on search to find true identity

By Rachel Mucha, Staff Writer

46

brooding face, but the French people looked very confused. One of the smokers asked why he looked so sad. “She told me I should be happy, because it was such a beautiful day! Can you believe that? I don’t want to be French if I can’t brood and question my existence!”

England was next. Smith was particularly optimistic about this country, since he is such a big Downton Abbey fan. And who doesn’t love Prince George?! Still starving at this point, Smith figured he’d try his luck at a pub. He ordered fish and chips, but was appalled when he was given fish and french fries.

“It was like the nightmare was never going to end,” Smith said sadly.

Not wanting to give up yet, he saw biscuits on the menu and ordered that. When Smith was brought cookies, he angrily flipped the table over and stormed out.

Discouraged, Smith knew in his heart where he had to go next — America.

Smith realized his one true home was the country had been there for him while all the others merely let him down.

“America is where I am meant to be and American is my only nationality,” Smith boldly declared.

He realized that in America, there are quality restaurants like Olive Garden. In America, you’re allowed to be miserable without anyone asking why. In America, when you ask for

chips, you get chips.

“I realize this idea is quite revolutionary, which only makes me more American — we always have the greatest, most original ideas, after all. I am leading the charge. When every other country has things that you hate, come to America where we can complain about it together!” __________________________________ Rachel Mucha is a junior journalism major who only considers one restaurant to be fancy — Denny’s. You can email her at rmucha1@ithaca.edu.

Image by Courtney Yule

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

J

ohn Smith had finally had enough. After almost 30 years of not knowing what background to identify with, Smith went on a journey to pick a nationality.

“I like so many parts of my ancestry. I’m Italian, which makes sense because I eat at Olive Garden a few times a week. I can’t get enough of those breadsticks!”

Smith is also part French.

This isn’t a surprise, says Smith: My friends are always saying I spend parties brooding near an open window, smoking a cigarette.

But what’s wrong with that?”

In addition, Smith is partially English, Spanish and Polish. But his clearly diverse heritage made Smith feel like he was being pulled in five different cultural directions.

He was jealous of his friends who are 100 percent something, or even 50 percent. “My one friend is half Italian and half German. I envy her. On Christmas Eve they have the seven fish dinner, and then on Christmas Day they have bratwurst for dinner. I just don’t have the freedom to do that.”

Smith decided to put his foot down and choose only one of his nationalities to identify with. In order to do so, he planned to travel to each country his ancestors were from and decide which he liked best.

The first stop on Smith’s trip was Italy. After the long plane ride, naturally, Smith was starving — so he searched for an Olive Garden. To his horror, he could not find one.

He settled for a random restaurant, but was appalled when there were no garlic breadsticks. Smith left in a huff, deciding Italy was not for him.

Next stop, France. When he arrived, Smith encountered a large group of smokers near the Eiffel Tower. “I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to interact with my people,” Smith explained. He joined the group and put on his best

#THRILLARY

Clinton campaign announces mixtape

By Will Uhl, Staff Writer

F

These excerpts were accidentally leaked from caucus fliers printed on reused paper: Bern’s a nominee fail, major spender.

Don’t tell me ’bout these emails, return to sender.

You’re gettin’ lost in details, don’t be a pretender.

My time ain’t free, hailin’ legal tender.

I love me some emojis, that’s a fact!

Just focus on my Snapchat, shit be wacked!

Don’t ask me where I been or what I backed, ‘Cause I voted “Yes” on DOMA and the Patriot Act. Feel this burn, it’s my turn!

Every penny I earn ain’t a concern.

Goldman Sachs, Wall Street, Makin’ fat stacks and tall tweets.

DMX Snapchatted the back of the mixtape, revealing the tracklist. He could also be faintly heard, saying “What the [expletive] is an emoji?”

1. C.R.E.A.M. (Coin-flips Rule Everything Around Me) 2. Bitch, Don’t Kill My Bribe 3. 99 Problems (But the Rich Ain’t One) 4. Banksta’s Paradise 5. Troublesome ‘06 (feat.

Super-PAC) 6. Sucker D.C.’s (feat. RunD.N.C.) 7. Welcome to the World of Plastic Speech ____________________________________ Will Uhl is a junior journalism major who would briefly consider buying Clinton’s mixtape (but would probably just download it for free later). You can email him at wuhl1@ithaca.edu.

Image by Claire Mcclusky

Sawdust

ollowing rapper/activist Killer Mike’s outstanding support of Vermont Sen.Bernie Sanders, Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Twitter recently announced a partnership with DMX to produce “ #THRILLARY ,” the former senator’s debut mixtape.

Early reviews have been glowing, with critics going so far as to call it “the boldest youth-outreach attempt since Mitt Romney quoted ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’” Taking mixtape website DatPiff by storm, it has maintained a solid fivestar rating. The popularity has confused the majority of users, who have submitted countless negative reviews. Upon further inspection, it appears a disproportionate amount of support comes from superdelegate reviewers.

DJ Khaled also offered his unsolicited opinion, calling it “major ” and simultaneously announced his intent to run with Former Secretary of State Clinton as her Vice President. Citing his passion for voter’s rights (“they don’t want you to vote”) and diplomatic experience, Khaled quickly turned to Instagram to celebrate his purported success: “I’m on the phone with the CEO of the DNC he’s telling me khaled #hillarykhaled2016 only been on Twitter for 1hour and u getting donations like crazy my staff is telling me the servers is about shut down I gave them the ok to add the most powerful servers to handle this #hillarykhaled2016 congrats looks like more votes for U khaled #sufferingfromsuccess #wtb” Clinton’s campaign has yet to comment on Khaled’s announcement.

When asked about the mixtape, Clinton hesitated, looking momentarily confused. She then grinned, asking “Is this one of those prank videos?” An intern was sighted behind her, putting a finger to his lips and shaking his head at the interviewer.

47

Chering is Caring

Pop legend decidedly Best Person EverTM

By John Jacobson, Social Media Editor

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

I

n the wake of the Flint water crisis, a new savior is positioning herself as a champion of the people: Cher.

Cher’s recent water donation to Flint, Michigan, has been the launching pad for the pop star’s rebranding as a major philanthropist.

The campaign, titled Cher the Love, aims to help those in lesser circumstances by showing them the power of Cher.

Campaign head Peter Rubbins believes it will have great success.

“Cher is a powerhouse. She’s won an Emmy, several Grammys and her Twitter account is legendary. What better way to build her brand than to show how philanthropic she is?”

Rubbins said.

“Right now, we want the world to know that Cher matters. We have to share the Cher, so to speak, until the younger generation sees her as the savior of their future.”

Members of the Society for the Imitation of Cher have been vocal advocates for the campaign as well. SIC has national chapters with membership counts ranging from 20 to 300 members, comprising a wide range of demographics.

“Our Queen Mother has spoken, and it’s our duty to help her conquer the world in whatever way we can,” said Delicka Tessen, drag queen extraordinaire and head of the Boise branch of SIC. “The girls and I live for this. It’s our chance to turn back time and bring the joy of Cher to a new generation. Cher has always stood for helping others — now, she just wants to make sure we know that!”

Cher the Love has expanded into the hashtag #ChertheLove, which people have been tagging on photos of their good deeds on social media with Cher spliced into the photograph via Photoshop. SIC divisions have taken to doing their good deeds in full Cher regalia.

One member, Janet Snakehole, served in 20 soup kitchens over the

48

course of a week in varying outfits from Cher’s iconic film Moonstruck.

Snakehole reportedly gave out business cards with each meal that read, “Bow to our philanthropic Queen Mother and #CherTheLove.”

“I gave away over 2000 cards, and that’s only the beginning,” said Snakehole. “Cher is the closest thing we have to a goddess in this world.

In order to convert people to her worship and praise, we have to hit them when they are most accepting of her message. Nothing says ‘savior of the modern world’ like a bodacious, Emmy-winning superstar.”

On Twitter, Cher is overwhelmed with fans participating in the hashtag. “My BBs R working it !!”

Cher tweeted. She followed the words with a knife emoji, a hatching chick emoji and two pink flower emojis.

“The enthusiastic response to Cher the Love is better than we could have expected,” Rubbins said.

“Young people are starting to recognize that she is an optimal human being, all because of a little philanthropy. We’ve had nonprofit organizations asking for her to act as a spokesperson because of her recent success, but we haven’t taken any offers yet. Cher doesn’t need to be a spokesperson. Cher is charity embodied.”

A recent backlash has occurred against Cher’s campaign, with critics saying Cher the Love makes philanthropy less about charity work and more about bolstering Cher’s image.

Cher immediately took to Twitter to react to the situation.

“I m not PLAYNG wit ur EMOTIONS!!” Cher said in a stream of tweets. “Simply want 2 hlp ppl wit my platform.” The latter tweet was followed by a combination of tearyeyed emojis, dancing women emojis and many heart emojis.

Though backlash is present, Cher the Love continues to grow as a hashtag and a larger campaign. TIME is in talks to make Cher its Person of

the Year and premature rumors are circulating about Cher’s potential nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize.

“Cher is a lifestyle,” Tessen said.

“Following her is like following a religious deity. We love that she’s helping other people. We love that other people are recognizing her greatness even more.”

There are even rumors that SIC and Cher’s team are working together to found a new church: The Church of Cher. Las Vegas recently announced a massive new architectural development headed by an unnamed celebrity source that may be connected. Recent tweets from Cher’s timeline indicated her presence in Las Vegas and several images of the pop star breaking ground at construction sites.

“HARD WOK is the [key emoji] to success !!! Build urself up and nO1 will tear U DOWN.” The tweet concluded with several praying hands emojis and an angelic emoji.

Rubbins neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the project.

“Cher is working on a variety of projects that involve the development of Cher the Love,” he said. “She’s not responsible for the actions of her fans. If and when a church in her name develops, we’ll make an official announcement.”

Some reports indicated that Cher tweeted several stack-of-money emojis and laughing-face emojis, but the statement has since been deleted. ____________________________________ John Jacobson is a junior integrated marketing communications major who knows donations are important because they make you look good on tax returns. You can email them at jjacobs1@ithaca.edu.

Monsanto’s Meltdown

Company discovers non-genetically modified crops

By Elly Veazey, Contributing Writer

W

Once Grant found out about the non-GMO plants, he sent out an email to the other higher-ups in the company, including Brett Begemann, president and chief operating officer.

“When I got the email from Hugh, I didn’t believe it. I thought it was just another classic Hugh Grant messaround,” stated Begemann. However, as Begemann did more research, he realized it was no joke. Begemann went on to inform other heads of the company, and immediately scheduled a mandatory president’s meeting to go over “damage control procedures.”

The company then sent an email out to all employees describing protocol: To: Monsanto Co. Employees Re: Non-GMO Protocol February 12, 2016 - BREAKING NEWS TO ALL EMPLOYEES, new information has been confirmed to prove the theory of non-GMO plants in existence. Experts ask that all those with these foreign plants throw them out immediately, or better yet, burn them.

Scientists are not sure yet of the consequences of eating these objects. Investigators are on the hunt to find out where these items are coming from, in order to shut it down. Group therapy sessions will occur starting Monday, February 15th, however, work will resume and all employees must show up on time or face consequences.

Sincerely, Brett Begemann President and Chief Operating Officer Though it seems as though the rest of America, and furthermore, the planet, were aware of this non-GMO plant “phenomenon,” many Monsanto workers were somehow out of the loop.

Sixty-year-old employee, Michael Cartley, who had been working at Monsanto since he was 24, was

shocked by the news: “Who on earth

Image by Courtney Yule

would grow plants like that? It’s ridiculous! And what’s even worse is that consumers are actually buying them!”

Cartley’s anger and disbelief is reciprocated by the majority of Monsanto workers, except for the few that were aware of natural, non-modified plants. April Carter, hippie-freak and 25-year-old Humboldt State University graduate, was surprised that the bulk of her co-workers were completely unaware of non-GMOs: “I really am at a loss for words,” Carter stated, shaking her head full of dreads. “I just don’t get how anyone DOESN’T know about un-modified plants.”

Grant has yet to return to work; however, all other Monsanto employees are required to show up on time as usual. Sources state that Grant is receiving help from a live-in therapist, however it is reported that no progress has been made. In a recent intimate interview, Grant stated, “I really don’t know if I can get back on my feet after this; it was a real blow.”

However, his anger toward the small family farmers who were aware of this phenomenon is still very much present: “I can’t believe those damn farmers knew this was going on.

How could they do this to me? I’ve been nothing but fair to all of them!” ____________________________________ Elly Veazey is a freshman journalism major who will only eat food directly injected with pesticides. You can

Sawdust

orkers of the Monsanto Company and citizens of the world alike have been in a state of shock after Monsanto employees discovered a mind-blowing fact — non-GMO plants actually do exist. The company, founded in 1901 and famous for its agricultural biotechnological advancements, has always been thought of at the top of agronomic scientific community. Though many had been under the impression that all plants had been genetically modified, CEO of Monsanto, Hugh Grant, was perhaps the most shocked out of all when he discovered that that theory had been proved wrong.

Non-GMO plants were discovered when Grant’s wife, Janice, brought some home for dinner one night.

Grant asked her what was wrong with the vegetables, and she reportedly responded, “Oh, they’re non-GMO!” It took a few hours of explanation and a lengthy hands-on presentation by Janice, but eventually, Grant understood and entered into the first of the seven stages of grief.

“It started with disbelief,” stated Janice. The next stage, anger, seemed to come quickly, as Grant stormed off to bed. However, this stage must have just started, as Grant woke up in the middle of the night, furious.

“He jolted out of bed and started angrily pacing and yelling ‘DID THOSE DAMN FARMERS KNOW ABOUT THIS?’” Janice admitted.

Afterward, Janice got him to go back to bed and he slept through the night.

Over the past few weeks, Grant has been slowly moving through the stages of grief, and according to Janice and several therapists, is in stage six — depression. Reportedly, Grant now is refusing to leave the house and has been in bed, quietly sobbing.

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Chivarlry’s Eulogy

BUZZSAW ASKS WHY…

Heartbroken (and brilliant) friend mourns loss Feminists are afraid to

By Narcissism, Contributing Writer

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

T

here are moments in our lives when we feel weak, helpless and afraid. When the last ship passes the horizon, when the cold of night envelops the warmth of day, or when the door is simply too large to open. Sometimes there’s just no one around to appreciate all the amazing things you do. These are the moments when I was happy to consider Chivalry (or, to me, Chiv) my best friend.

I met Chiv when we were young boys in elementary school. We were playing basketball and I had scored the winning basket. A jealous loser pushed me over, causing me to scrape my knee. Chiv came running with a Band-Aid and helped me to my feet. We were instant buddies. (I later wrote a letter to the loser’s parents, getting him grounded from Xbox Live for a week. What a lame-o.)

Chiv and I had the craziest adventures as kids, riding our bikes everywhere. We would go to the shopping mall so Chiv could help decide the clothes that looked best on me.

We would get ice cream and Chiv would eat as many scoops as me so I wouldn’t feel fat. Sometimes, we just stood outside of a library; Chiv would open the door for the stressed students, and they’d smile at me and say, “Thank you!”

Chiv was just an awesome friend.

We grew apart in high school though.

I hung out with the more popular crowd, and Chiv was always so focused on his studies. I remember talking to him at a party before we left for college. I was telling him how switching my major from history to finance was going to score me all the hot business school babes. He told me he wanted to study journalism so that he could help people tell their stories. I told him that if he re-

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ally wanted to help people, he should study politics. Chiv politely disagreed. He always stuck to his sterling moral code.

I guess that stubbornness led Chiv to share his jacket and umbrella with his girlfriend, Grace, on a fateful rainy night. Grace was always petite and gentle, but also fragile and shy.

She was Chiv’s perfect foil. When I heard that he had died from pneumonia, I felt like the world was trying to punish me. Why, I screamed into my mirror, why did he have to share his jacket with her? His umbrella surely would have sufficed.

Alas, today we mourn the death of my dear friend Chivalry, and no amount of tears will bring him back.

I love him eternally, and cherish the memories we had together. In his honor, I made sure to call Grace and ask her on a date. I hope she handles grieving better by being around an incredibly beautiful man such as myself. I’m sure Chiv would’ve wanted this.

Yes, I will bravely attempt to carry on his spirit in my cold, apathetic heart — even though it is indeed certain, tragically, that Chivalry is dead. ____________________________________ John Brunett is a senior journalism major with a minor in narcissistic chivalry. You can email him at jbrunet2@ithaca.edu.

go back to our roots?

Within the recent years, as feminism has become more mainstream and more widely accepted, it seems like it’s simultaneously lost something from its core. (No surprise — activism can’t be popular unless it’s watered down, right?)

At its heart, feminism is about challenging the social structures and your own learned socializations which seek to disadvantage women — yes, even if you, yourself, are a woman!

However, many celebrities (and, in turn, their fans) like to forget that.

It’s not just about commenting on the inequalities, it’s about going back to the roots. We need to understand what makes those inequalities happen in order to make actual change, not just try to spot-treat the problems as they exist now.

Take the issue of women having to wear makeup in order to be taken seriously at work, for example. Sure, it’s easy to just say, “Hey, that’s bad!

Don’t make them do that!“ But if we don’t address the reason why women are forced to wear makeup in the first place, can we really be expected to cause progressive change?

At the same time, though, that would imply that the person speaking would have to hold men (as a group) accountable for reducing women to their appearances instead of, you know, treating them like people. And that might be a step too far; after all, we certainly can’t hold men accountable for their actions!

In order to understand or progress in the name of feminism, we all need to go back to the beginning and figure out how we got to this point. In doing so, we can challenge the real issues of inequality and violence at their roots, not just try to slap a band-aid on an ever-widening canyon.

Your deeply rooted Sawdust Editor, Grace Rychwalski

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