95.17 by The Clocktower

The Clocktower March 10, 2021 Issue 17, Volume 95

Oakwood University Church and Breath of Life Ministries provide aid to Texas

Texans receive supplies from Adventist organizations

he recent historic winter weather has continued to take a huge toll on the people and communities of Texas. Many have continued to struggle with the effects of the icy blast they experienced just a few weeks ago, including electricity loss, rolling blackouts, supply shortages, burst pipes and work disruptions. In response to this crisis, Oakwood University Church and Breath of Life Television Ministry in Huntsville, Alabama, joined forces to collect supplies for those in need. The two ministries worked together to host a “water drive” where they were able to collect over 30,000 bottles of water, an essential resource for an area where many are dealing with burst pipes and water shortages. Along with the water, they were also able to collect other supplies such as used clothing, socks, undergarments, feminine products, cleaning supplies and other essential

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items. On Feb. 22, 2021, the supplies were loaded into trucks and taken from Huntsville, Alabama to Houston, Texas. The collected items were delivered to the World Harvest Seventh-day Adventist Church, which has recently been acting as a supply distribution center. The next day, they were distributed to the grateful residents of the Houston area. As a former pastor in the Houston area, Carlton P. Byrd, the senior pastor at Oakwood University Church and the speaker/director of Breath of Life Ministries, was grateful for the opportunity to help serve the people of Texas. “This will be the first of several trips we will make with supplies to Houston,” said Byrd. “Our brothers and sisters in Texas have

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Editor–in–Chief Juliet Bromme Assistant Editor Hannah Drewieck Distributor Marvin Velasquez Media Manager Francisco Campos Photography Editor Joseph Lee Layout Editor Chrisheline Kalawo Assistant Layout Editor Justin Anderson

NEWS Editor Olivia Jacobs Photographer Nathan Sweet Adventist News Hannah Olin Union News Jade Covel Lincoln News TJ Pittenger

ENTERTAINMENT Editor Annika Cambigue Photographer Andrew Schwartz Sports Jacob Roney Pop Culture Sierra Lastine Comedy Sammy Ortiz

LIFESTYLE Editor Maria Kercher Photographer Robert Umali Outlook Lacey Stecker Politics Alex Nesmith Love Advice Kaitlynn Toay

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gone through so much with the cold weather and winter storms. We wanted to help, and clean water is an essential commodity that we must have, which many residents don’t have access to at present.” The Oakwood University Church and Breath of Life Ministries have no plans of stopping any time soon. They plan to continue to collect and deliver donations to the Houston area in the coming weeks for as long as they are needed. If you would like to learn more about their efforts or how you can help, please visit the Oakwood University Church website at www.oucsda.org or the Breath of Life website at www.breathoflife.tv. Source - https://www.nadadventist.org/news/oakwooduniversity-church-hosts-water-bottle-donation-drive-texasdelivers-truckful-supplies

Hannah Olin is a sophomore history education major from Princeton, Ill.

My podcast recommendations

If you’re not listening to these podcasts, you should be

f you’re stuck at a desk job, taking a boring class or cleaning your room, you might want to give podcasts a try. I don’t think a lot of people in my generation listen to podcasts, but they seriously make mundane tasks more fun and are a great way to learn on the go. Here are a few great recommendations to get you started. This American Life The storytelling in this podcast is excellent. Every week they choose a theme and put stories together that relate to it. It tells stories about the tragic, hilarious and happy moments in people’s lives. If you are having a rough day and have some time to listen to their episode entitled “Fiasco!”, I guarantee you will be laughing by the end of it. Revisionist History This is Malcolm Gladwell‘s podcast that covers misunderstood and overlooked things in history. It is one of those things that can make you look at the world from a different perspective, and that’s priceless. There are episodes about the dragon-hoarding psychology of art museums, the story of FBI agents going undercover in a biker gang and why McDonald’s had to change their french fry recipe. Fictional If you like books, this one is for you. This podcast takes classic stories and creates original creative adaptations of them for audio. They’ve done episodes on everything from Sherlock Holmes to Shakespeare. The episodes usually range from 30-45 minutes. Reply All This is a really fun show about the internet. They have covered everything from hackers to memes. Even though it is described as a show about the internet, it is really more about people and how the internet has impacted them. I would highly recommend their “Yes Yes No” segment which is pretty

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hilarious and also helpful at navigating the confusing world of Twitter. Crime Junkies I have to mention a true-crime podcast seeing as how it is one of the most popular genres. I personally don‘t have the stomach for them, but a friend recommended this one to me, and I gave it a listen, and it’s pretty good. They cover a wide variety of true crimes, mostly focusing on cold cases to bring more public awareness about them, increasing the likelihood they will be solved. Streetlights This isn’t technically a podcast; it’s an audio Bible. But wait, it’s not like other audio Bibles. They did something truly innovative in their recording: the narrator actually sounds human. Yes, that’s right, the Bible is read with emotion and emphasis. Plus, Streetlights adds music in the background fitting with the tone of the passages. They have recorded all of the New Testament and are working on releasing the Old Testament. The books are available in both Spanish and English. Whether you‘re getting ready in the morning or going on a run, Streetlights is a great way to spend some time in God’s word. I would recommend starting with Romans. You can find these recordings online or in the Streetlights app.

Sierra Lastine is a sophomore English literature major from Grand Junction, Colo.

There is no comedy article this week. Samuel Ortiz has gone on vacation to Cancún.

Sammy Ortiz is a junior nursing major from Orlando, Fla.

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Lincoln mask mandate is under attack Local restaurants and businesses hire law firms to end mandate

t has been over a year since the world “shut down” and Lincoln has been under a mask mandate since February 2020. At this point, masks are shown to help flatten the curve when people actually wear them. However, there is a group of people that are actually fighting the mandate for masks in Lincoln. Bowling alleys and certain restaurants have hired two law firms to bring an end to the mandate in the city. Their goal is to bring an end to what they feel is micromanaging on the city’s end. In a press release, the law firms representing the places challenging the mandates said that their goal is to ensure that those entrusted with exercising the power of government do so in a way that is consistent with their legal authority. According to the law firms, they are not questioning the mask usage, but the city-wide mandate. While they say that it is appropriate to wear masks, they recognize that their patrons may have different views. Before this went to court, there were few places that were part of the lawsuit. However, once a judge let the case move forward, more places such as bars and retail stores joined along with more restaurants. In total, there are about 20 businesses involved with the suit. When this happened, there was another press conference where the law firm also

said, “Instead of asking individuals to be responsible for their behavior, Lincoln is shouldering the burden on the back of businesses–you have to enforce against individuals.” This mandate is supposed to end sometime in March. The question is, will it?

TJ Pittenger is a junior theology major from Gilson, Ill.

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Relationships and responsibilities

Finding time in your schedule for your relationship

s the middle of the semester is rapidly approaching, many students find themselves overwhelmed with the amount of work to be done. Between school, homework and jobs, there’s a lot to juggle. Dating during a busy time in your life can be complicated. Too much space and your partner might feel left out or forgotten. But there are simple ways to help close the gap and bring you closer together, even during the busy times. 1. Send a sweet “I’m thinking of you” text. Chances are that your partner crosses your mind multiple times a day. You may think of them when you’re getting ready in the morning, or when you’re getting your favorite coffee drink. Sending them a quick text when they cross your mind lets them know you care and that you’re thinking about them, even if you’re bogged down with responsibilities. 2. Set aside some time to be together. Choose a date night once a week where you both put away your other responsibilities, turn off your phones and focus on each other. Try to keep your mind on your partner and not on the list of things you need to do. Being present with them will continue to create a strong bond, even if you’re spending less time together than normal.

3. Be open to making changes if your partner expresses concerns. Your partner may feel sad and frustrated with your busy schedule, regardless of your intentions to create time and space for them in your life. Having an open conversation about this can help. Ask them what they need and try to rework a plan going forward. Sometimes it’s as simple as showing love in a way that they readily receive. Dating is complicated. In our current society, we’re all so busy that making time for a relationship can be a struggle. Setting aside time for your partner and prioritizing them can help them know how much you care while you navigate this busy part of your life. Remaining open and honest with each other can help close the space created by busy schedules and bring you closer together. As always, open communication and honesty are what drive a relationship forward, especially in times like this!

Kaitlynn Toay is a senior English major from Edgeley, N.D.

Sea monsters, Lake Tahoe and a virus The NHL is back!

o be honest, I don’t really follow hockey. The only stint of time that I got into hockey was in 2019 when the Blues won the Stanley Cup. I do enjoy watching the games, but for me, there are just too many to keep up with, and unlike basketball, I did not grow up watching or playing it. But because I am The Clocktower’s sports writer, I do feel like it’s essential to talk about all the main sports, and so I decided to call up my hockey-obsessed friend and ask him what is going on in the NHL. Here are five things you can share with your friends so they will say, “Hey, you really know about hockey.” Division realignments Due to COVID-19, the NHL revamped their divisions so that teams will not have to travel so far and will have limited exposure to each other. This means that teams in some of the league rivalries, such as the Blues and the Blackhawks, will not play each other. Rivalries are a huge part of sports and this is a big blow for the NHL. Oh Canada Since the Canadian border is closed, the NHL had to get creative with their Canadian teams. They took the divisional alignments one step further and pushed all the Canadian teams into one division. This makes it so the Canadian teams will just play each other until the playoffs. This guarantees that Canada will have a team in the final four, which is great news for Canada. Outdoor Game On Feb. 20 and Feb. 21, the NHL held a COVID-19-inspired outdoors doubleheader event that took place in Lake Tahoe. In the first game, the Avalanche struck early and were able to hold on for a 3-1 win versus the Golden Knights. In the second game, the Boston Bruins crushed the Philadelphia Flyers 7-3. COVID-19 is stopping a lot of games COVID-19 has been a problem for many of the NHL teams. Like all the other professional sports, many games have been postponed. For

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some games, teams are left shorthanded as some players are not able to play due to being exposed. The Kraken are Koming Next fall, Seattle will officially get their new team: the Kraken! What a vivacious name and an upgrade from their previous team’s name: The Metropolitans (that name might sound bad, but their logo was even worse. Don’t believe me? Look it up. That thing is hideous). The Kraken will be the 32nd team in the NHL, finally making the divisions equal.

Jacob Roney is a junior business administration major from Sturgeon, Mo.

EDITORIAL

Election season (again) Some do’s and don’ts for our political candidates

s you may have noticed, there are some new posters hanging around campus, plastered with faces and names. They have one word in common: “Vote.” I love election season as much as our other political writer (we don’t have one). I’m happy to see that people are interested in our student government and trying to make an impact on campus. However, I noticed several things in their campaigns that I would do differently, and as a voter, there are some things that you should probably know too. For The Candidates Hey everyone running for office, Thank you for putting yourself in the position to make a change on campus. There are plenty of things that we’d like to see different, and with you running we hope to see that happen. Here’s some advice I’d give you for this election season: If you’re elected: Make sure that at least some of your promises come true. Don’t say that you’ll do something that can’t be done. Don’t overreach. Finish your term with a feeling of accomplishment by setting out and completing possible goals. As you’re running: Posters are good! But what do you want to do? As photogenic as you are, I would also love to know what your plans are if you’re elected. If I chose a candidate based on their poster, I would go for the person who promised free laundry on campus over the person who took a photoshoot and called it a day. For The Voters Hey fellow voters, this election is for you too! Nobody wins if they don’t get your vote! As much as we all want our friends to win, remember that the student government’s function is to serve you in the best way possible. If you don’t think a candidate cares

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about making Union a better place, then they don’t deserve your vote. If you think they won’t do what they promise to do, then they don’t deserve your vote. If they don’t have a plan for when they are in office then they just don’t deserve your vote! Voters run the election. So remember that your vote decides what will happen next school year. Finally My last word of advice is this: run for an office. In my time at Union, I have seen elections where no offices were contested. There was no campaigning because there was no competition. If you feel like running for an office, go for itt. Do it for fun, do it for the experience. Let’s make this election season an exciting one!

Alexander Nesmith is a junior communication major from Calhoun, Ga.

EDITORIAL

“The Office” versus “Parks and Recreation” A breakdown of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen

n many ways, “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation” are very similar, I assume in part due to their shared creators, Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. However, they ARE different. And one has to be better than the other and I’m here to tell you which is the winner – backed by a TON of evidence, of course. Anyways, this will be fun and completely factual, and not opinionated at all. Best Main Character The leads are Michael Scott from “The Office” and Leslie Knope from “Parks and Recreation.” Over in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the regional manager maintains the most successful Dunder Mifflin branch, despite his lack of management skills and inability to develop friendships with employees who don’t want to be friends. Michael also likes plastic surgery and isn’t competent with a GPS. In Pawnee, Indiana, the director of parks and recreation works on ambitiously exercising her commitment to government, despite pushback from a town brimming with below-average citizens. Leslie also likes waffles and Joe Biden. Michael and Leslie are both hilariously bizarre. Their personalities help make the shows work. But, when Michael says farewell to Dunder Mifflin in the seventh season, he took a lot of the personality with him. I’m sorry Michael, but Leslie didn’t say goodbye with two seasons left. A true winner doesn’t leave us hanging like that. Winner: “Parks and Recreation” Characters Overall Of course, main characters can’t carry the whole show. Where would “The Office” be without Jim and Pam, creepy Creed, any of the accountants and Toby the Scranton Strangler (debatable, I know)? “Parks and Recreation” also hosts a

bunch of quirky characters: Ron Swanson, the staunch libertarian, Ann Perkins, Leslie’s best friend, Tom Haverford, an underachieving entrepreneur, and Andy and April, the couple who I never would’ve predicted at the start. Yet, what crowns the champion in this category is a character that single-handedly drags its show to the podium: Where would “The Office” be without those mustardcolored shirts and metal-framed glasses? That’s right. “The Office” survived without Michael, but it would’ve died without Dwight Schrute. (Also, Jean-Ralphio Saperstein did not help “Parks and Recreation’s” case. I’m only willing to risk my IQ for so long.) Winner: “The Office” Locations This will be short and sweet. As much as I love trains, warehouses, dinner parties and Chile’s, “Parks and Recreation” takes the cake here. Sorry Dunder Mifflin, but your employees need to get out more. Winner: “Parks and Recreation” Finale Episodes “Parks and Recreation’s” entire last season fast-forwarded three years into the future and the finale followed suit. It started out in 2017 and then launched to 2022 and then all of a sudden, everyone is living in 2025 and I’m tired. It’s too much fast-forwarding for me, but at the end of the episode, it is HEAVILY implied that Leslie Knope is elected president, so that’s exciting. “The Office” ends the way it should: Dwight and Angela get married at his beet farm, followed by all the characters meeting up for one last hurrah at Dunder Mifflin. However, I feel like “The Office” fell a bit short. It seemed that the writers were trying to tie up loose ends too quickly – something about Andy’s disastrous current

state of existence and Kelly and Ryan’s baby abandonment moment felt foreign to this fandom. Thankfully for the folks at Dunder Mifflin, I’ll let it slide, because ultimately, “Parks and Recreation” gave me too much whiplash with all its teleportation. Winner: “The Office” Drum roll please … Overall, “The Office” reigns supreme. Don’t get me wrong, I love the people of Pawnee, but at the end of the day, it’s “The Office” theme song I can remember by heart, not “Parks and Recreation’s.” If you still

disagree, I bet you can’t remember it either. That’s what I thought. Ultimate Winner: “The Office”

Juliet Bromme is a junior communication major from Longwood, Fla.

I’m bad at sports Please be nice about it!

have never been particularly athletic. To quote every gym teacher I’ve ever had, I’m “gifted in other ways.” This lack of athletic ability causes a lot of frustration and embarrassment. Being the first to bow out of any physical event is awkward and doesn’t do good things for your self-esteem. It’s recently come to my attention that people who are good at sports don’t really know how to talk to those of us who struggle. It’s not that they’re trying to be mean, it’s just that what they say doesn’t always come across well. Thus, I give you a few things to keep in mind when talking to the less athletically-gifted during physical events. - Tone of voice: The tone in which you say anything matters, both on and off the field/court/track/etc. You can say the kindest thing, but if your tone isn’t just right, it tends to come across as condescending. Make sure you use the same tone with the less talented as you do with the talented. - “Thanks for making me look good!”: Please never say this. Listen, we know we make you look like an Olympian when we play against you. We might even make fun of ourselves while playing. But that doesn’t mean you get to make this kind of joke at our expense! All it does is solidify the idea that we’re doing a terrible job and make us feel

bad about ourselves. - Giving advice: Here’s the thing, most of us know what we’re doing wrong. So, advice like “keep your eye on the ball” or “hold the racket a little lower” isn’t super helpful. Most of the time, we have a solid intellectual understanding of what’s happening, we just don’t know how to get our bodies to do the right thing. Giving advice is good, but giving the same advice over and over is not helping anybody. We all have to go through PE just like we all have to survive math. For a lot of us, it’s really hard. Not everything comes naturally. Learning to speak kindly and in a helpful way to those that struggle with things that seem easy to you is important. Please heed my advice, and be as kind as possible.

Lacey Stecker is a sophomore communication major from Noblesville, Ind.

Responses to Union’s logo change – part 2 Reactions to update continue

n last week’s article, we saw a few of the responses to Union’s new logo. This week we will finish a review of the responses. The majority were critical, however a few were positive. “I don’t really like it that much. I do not like the color change whatsoever. I liked the darker shades much more.” “I am ok with the new logo. I preferred the old color of the logo. I was not a fan of the tagline. I feel it needed to be something better and more profound.” “Looks pretty good.” “I still don’t see the need to spend thousands of dollars on re-branding and getting a new logo and new tagline when that money could’ve been spent renovating dorms or improving student life. Only faculty care about the logo being changed. I thought Union was about the students? I do think the new motto is fitting since clearly we weren’t ‘experiencing the Spirit’ like we should have been. The Spirit is no longer here to experience.” “Not that it’s bad, but it’s an unneeded expense. Union can’t afford to keep the cafe open all day like before, but has money to change our logo and motto?....There was a lot of effort (& probably money) put into the new logo/tagline...why don’t we see that much effort in trying to make student life better? Like improving the dorms or cafe?” “...Our environment hasn’t seemed very spiritual or religious for the last several years, so I guess the modernization is following the culture of our school. That’s not the culture I wanted when I made the choice to go to

Union. This was a terrible misuse of money, in my opinion.” “My opinion on the logo and branding is that it was handled incorrectly. The students were asked to vote on what they liked better and then they didn’t follow what the popular vote was. Why do you ask if you don’t really care. I get that you paid an outside consulting firm to help out but don’t ask the student body and then not even follow what they say...Why not rebrand to come back to what Adventist education should be?” Overall, a lot of good points were brought up, there was lots of money spent, the tagline may fit Union’s current atmosphere, where our spiritual focus has gone and the appearance of the new logo doesn’t seem to fit our school. While it is likely too late to change anything at this point, hopefully during the next rebranding Union will take these things into consideration. As with any change, it takes time to adjust. Maybe time will improve the opinions.

Jade Covel is a senior religion major from Topeka, Kan.

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https://www.puzzles.ca/sudoku/ The Clocktower encourages reader feedback and strives to maintain accuracy. If you have comments, please email juliet.bromme@ucollege.edu or hannah.drewieck@ ucollege.edu. ucollege.edu The Clocktower, established in 1927 and sponsored by the Student Association of Union College, is published weekly during the fall and spring semesters. The opinions expressed are the opinions of the writers and are not to be construed as the opinion of the editors, Student Association, Union College, or the Seventh-day Adventist Church.