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The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 130, No. 71

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014

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News

Arts

Sports

Weather

New Kid on the Block

A Five-Star Hotel?

Reaching for the Bars

Snow Showers HIGH: 7 LOW: -4

The College of Human Ecology welcomes a new faculty member, Prof.

Robert Sternberg. | Page 3

Arts columnists review a Neutral Milk Hotel concert at the State Theatre. | Page 12

Gymnastics placed second at a George Washington University meet on Jan. 12. | Page 20

Univ. Restricts East Ave.Traffic Until April ’15

By ANNIE BUI Sun Senior Writer

RYAN LANDVATER / SUN SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Road runner | With East Avenue closed to all vehicular traffic except for buses, bicycles and emergency vehicles until 2015,

The closure of East Avenue due to the construction of Klarman Hall has brought about an assortment of traffic and transportation adjustments that will affect members of the Cornell and Ithaca communities alike for the next-year-and-a-half.

Until April 19, 2015, the southbound lane of East Avenue will be closed to all traffic while the northbound lane will only remain open to alternating bus, bicycle and emergency vehicle traffic. General traffic will be redirected with West Avenue serving as a detour, according to a University press release.

The lane closure has also led to increased cooperation between the Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit, the University’s Transportation Services and the See CONSTRUCTION page 4

students say the road closure is an inconvenience.

Johnson School Receives $10M to Support Family-Owned Businesses

By TYLER ALICEA Sun Senior Writer

After receiving a $10 million gift, the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management will establish an initiative to help promote family-owned busi-

nesses, the University announced Monday.

The donation, made by John Smith MBA ’74, will also establish two professorships that will help run the John and Dyan Smith Family Business Initiative within the Johnson’s Entrepreneurship

and Innovation Institute, according to a University press release. In addition, the gift will support course offerings within the program, as well as marketing, programing and faculty recruitment.

Smith — who is chairman of the board of the family-owned transporta-

tion company CRST International — said it is within the best interests of the country for families to run businesses for “many generations.” He added that he was moved to make a donation to the See JOHNSON page 5

Divestment Resolution Awaits Skorton’s Reply

By NOAH RANKIN

and the University Trustees in the coming weeks.

“We will have the biggest Professors and student impact if administration, faculleaders are waiting for ty and students can work President David Skorton’s together on a plan that comresponse to the Faculty bines these activities to demonSenate’s call for strate our comthe University to “We are hoping mitment and leaddivest from fossil ership in this that the adminis- area,” Chabot fuels.

Skorton is tration will join said. “We are hopscheduled to ing that the adrespond to the res- with the students ministration will olution on Feb. and [the faculty] join with the stu12. He will also in these actions.” dents and [the facattend the followulty] in these acing Faculty Senate Prof. Brian Chabot tions as we settle meeting in March. the details over the According to Prof. coming months.”

Brian Chabot, ecology and The resolution — titled evolutionary biology, the “Cornell Investment and Senate plans to discuss the Divestment Strategies for a logistics behind the proposed See RESOLUTION page 5 divestment plan with Skorton Sun Senior Writer

RYAN LANDVATER / SUN SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Brrrr it’s cold in here | Students stand outside sorority houses in below freezing temperatures for Rush Week Monday.

‘Arctic Outbreak’to Sweep Into Ithaca

By MANU RATHORE Sun Senior Editor

As students gear up for first day of classes, they will be facing an “Arctic outbreak” that will bring snow showers and wind

chill values of -16 degrees, the National Weather Service announced Monday.

“Cold air impacts such as freezing of poorly insulated pipes, ice jams developing on streams and exposure threats like frostbite

and hypothermia will be possible,” the NWS said in its forecast.

Tuesday will be the coldest day of the week, with a high of around 11 degrees, according to See WEATHER page 4

2 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Today

DAYBOOK

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Daybook Today Introduction to Multilevel Modeling 9 a.m. - Noon, 100 Savage Hall January Stem Cell Club 12 - 1 p.m., Lecture Hall III, Vet Research Tower Strengthen Your Interviewing Skills 4:45 p.m., Kaufmann Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall Student Union Board Meeting 5:30 - 7 p.m., 402 Willard Straight Hall Science Cabaret — sCI(TIZ)ENce 7 p.m., 106 S. Cayuga St.

Tomorrow

“Winter Again” Snow slowly drifting to the ground. Students walking up the slope, cheeks red. ~ Snow White ’15

Chongli Yuan: Seeking the Critical Traits of Epigenetic Modifications for Early Diagnosis 9 - 10 a.m., 165 Olin Hall “Water Resources and Unconventional Oil and Gas Production” 3:30 - 4:30 p.m., 2146 Snee Hall “Live Your Dream” Artivism 7 p.m., Big Red Barn Graduate and Professional Student Center

PUPIL POETRY cornellians write verse

Bethe Ansatz 7:15 - 8:15 p.m., 125 Hans Bethe House

Students may send poetry submissions to news@cornellsun.com.

The Corne¬ Daily Sun INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880 Editor in Chief

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THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014 3

NEWS

Faculty‘Delighted’toWelcome New Professor to HumEc

By SOFIA HU Sun Staff Writer

A psychologist who served as the University of Wyoming’s president for just 137 days will join the College of Human Ecology’s faculty on Feb. 1.

Robert J. Sternberg will teach in the Department of Hu“When I went to man Development, the UniU.W., I did not know versity announced last week.

"Bob is one of the top psypeople there. I have chologists in the nation, and I no doubt about my am delighted he is joining the fit at Cornell.” faculty,” said Alan Mathios, Prof. Robert Sternberg dean of the College of Human Ecology. "He fits human development like a glove.”

Sternberg said he is “especially excited” to come to Cornell because his research parallels much of the work conducted by Urie Bronfenbrenner ’38, a former Cornell professor and globally renowned developmental psychologist.

“Cornell has a long tradition of excellence in general and of excellence in human development in particular,” Sternberg added.

After earning his bachelors degree from Yale University and his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University, Sternberg was a professor of psychology and education at Yale for 30 years. He also served as the dean of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University, provost at Oklahoma State University, and most recently, the president of the University of Wyoming.

Strenberg attributed the brevity of his stint as the University of Wyoming’s president to his realizing that his goals did not match up with those of his fellow administrators.

"U.W. deserves a president that shares its goals, and I needed to be an educational leader in a university that shared my goals. It is simply a matter of fit –– I did not fit there.

When I went to U.W., I did not know people there. I have no doubt about my fit at Cornell, where I know many people," Sternberg said.

In addition to teaching psychology for several decades, Sternberg is an author or co-author of more than 1,500 publications and the principal investigator of grants totaling more than $20 million, according to a University press release. Throughout it all, Sternberg says he remained devoted to teaching students.

"I never left teaching. I have taught every year I was an administrator –– either an undergraduate course on the nature of leadership or a graduate course on the nature of intelligence," Sternberg said.

Sternberg said his work is closely aligned with that of

KYLE KULAS / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Send him in | Robert J. Sternberg will join the faculty of the College of Human Ecology on Feb. 1 after years as a university adminstrator and psychology professor at other institutions of higher learning.

other professors in the department he is joining, including Prof. Steve Ceci, human development, and Prof. Wendy Williams, human development.

“He will also expand the strength in psychology at Cornell,” Mathios said.

Sofia Hu can be reached at shu@cornellsun.com.

Right on key

City News Tompkins County Residents Affected

By Suspension of Unemployment Benefits

RYAN LANDVATER / SUN SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Marlissa Hudson sings “Twelve Gates to the City” at Ithaca College’s ninth annual Dr. Martin Luther King Day celebratory concert.

Despite living in a county with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state — 4.4 percent in November 2013 — around 200 Tompkins County residents faced the suspension of their extended federal unemployment benefits, according to the Ithaca Times.

The downward pattern in Tompkins County’s unemployment rate will slow due to this suspension, as the county will experience a 13 percent increase in the number of applicants for public assistance. For those who need assistance getting back on their feet, Tompkins County Workforce New York will assist with job searches, workshops focusing on job readiness skills and interviewing, and employer reimbursement for on the job training.

–– Compiled by Annie Bui

86 Yale University Fraternity Members Sued After Fatal Accident at 2011 Harvard-Yale Tailgate THE HARVARD CRIMSON

This story was originally published in The Harvard Crimson on Jan. 15.

Two years after a fatal collision at the Harvard-Yale Game tailgate left one woman dead and two injured, 86 former and current members of Yale’s Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity face two new lawsuits.

At the November 2011 tailgate, a UHaul truck driven by then-Yale junior Brendan D. Ross struck and killed Nancy Barry, 30, a resident of Salem, Mass. At the time, Ross was delivering alcohol and other materials to his fraternity’s tailgate.

Harvard employee Elizabeth Dernbach and Yale student Sarah Short were injured in the collision. Following his arrest and subsequent legal proceedings, Ross was granted a form of probation in February 2013 that allows him to avoid a criminal record.

In late December, Short and Barry's estate filed separate but identical claims against the Yale fraternity.

According to Ralph F. Sbrogna, one of Barry’s estate attorneys from Worcester, Mass., the estate’s original complaint

named the national Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity as a defendant in the case.

However, according to Sbrogna, the national fraternity claimed that Yale’s local chapter violated some provisions of its insurance contract.

Furthermore, The Yale Daily News reported that Sigma Phi Epsilon Director of Risk Management Kathy Johnston said that the national organization is not liable for the actions of the local chapter.

“If their position was correct, it leaves us with a claim only against the local chapter,” Sbrogna said. “It appears that the national chapter is not standing behind their local affiliate.”

Short also originally named the national fraternity, in addition to UHaul and Ross, as a defendant in her original lawsuit, Joel T. Faxon, Short’s attorney, said.

Left only with a claim against the local chapter, both Short and Barry's estate must comply with Connecticut law, which defines Yale’s fraternity as a volun-

tary association. According to Faxon, all individual members of a voluntary association must be sued in order to file a lawsuit against the whole chapter.

The 86 members named in the lawsuit as defendants were part of the fraternity at the time of the collision.

Although he has worked on numerous fraternity-related cases in the past, Faxon said he has never seen a national fraternity take this position.

“Before, we had not sued anybody in the local fraternity, we had no interest in that,” Faxon said. “That’s a waste of time and money.”

In response to the two new lawsuits filing claims against the fraternity members, Sigma Phi Epsilon’s insurance company, Liberty Surplus Lines, hired attorney Jeremy Platek to represent the defendants, according to Faxon.

“They have basically come full circle to the point that the insurance company realizes it has responsibility for these people,” Faxon said.

Faxon said he believes that, in the coming months, all cases pertaining to the tailgate incident will be consolidated and transferred to a complex litigation court, a branch of Connecticut’s superior court that handles multi-party cases.

Sborgna said it is too early to determine the degree of compensation Barry’s estate will receive, but Faxon said that it could be in the range of seven figures. He added that Short’s case is likely worth over a million dollars, due to the $300,000 of medical expenses she has paid so far, future medical bills, and “non-economic losses” such as physical disability.

“She was badly injured, and it’s something she’s going to have to deal with the rest of her life,” Faxon said.

A couple months after the collision, Yale introduced a scricter set of tailgating guidelines, which took effect in the latest Harvard-Yale football game. The university now prohibits oversized vehicles from university lots at athletic events unless they are driven by an approved vendor and now bans kegs from athletic events and other social functions.

4 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014

NEWS

Road Closure an‘Inconvenience’ CONSTRUCTION Continued from page 1

University in order to alleviate the effect of construction on bus operations, according to Nancy Oltz, TCAT’s operations manager.

“We have been working closely with the University from the very start of the project to make this a win-win for everyone involved,” Oltz said. “Good planning on the part of the project manager, Transportation Services and TCAT staff is enabling us to keep our buses flowing through central campus.”

TCAT’s operations team is working with Cornell daily to “look at any improvements to mitigate traffic issues and to avoid disruption in service,” according to Oltz.

“We are in regular meetings with the project manager, who has been very responsive and proactive as Central Campus is a key part of our system,” Oltz said. “We’ll be putting a lot of effort and attention to get this running as smoothly as possible when campus is fully staffed and everybody is back.”

Kathy Zoner, chief of the

Cornell University Police Department, warned motorists of the potential consequences of driving an unauthorized vehicle through the construction area.

“If you are not piloting [a bus, bicycle or emergency vehicle] and you drive through anyway, you are breaking the law and creating a dangerous situation,” Zoner said in an email to the Cornell community. “Over the past week, we have educated hundreds of motorists and tick-

“We have been working closely with the University ... to make this a win-win for everyone.”

Nancy Oltz eted numerous others for disobeying the road closure.”

According to Ben Kuo, interim director for Cornell Transportation Services, it is “critical” that people do not try to break the restrictions in place.

“If [people] follow the lane restrictions, the buses can run on time, and it’s really when cars

break the lane restrictions that it causes delays,” Kuo said. “I know it’s going to be kind of new as people are coming back to campus, so we’re trying to educate as many people as possible [about the restrictions].”

According to some students returning from Winter Break, the closure of East Avenue has made it difficult for them to navigate campus efficiently.

“It’s been a real inconvenience trying to maneuver around campus these past couple of days, especially when traveling from my residence in Collegetown,” Antron Spooner ’16 said. “I understand that the road closure is necessary because of construction, but I’m sure it’s caused a bit of frustration among students.”

Margo Motulsky ’16 echoed Spooner’s sentiments.

“I might bring my car to campus within the semester, and it’s probably going to be a hassle to have to take the detour when trying to get around,” Motulsky said. “But hopefully it won’t be too bad, since [driving will take] only a couple of minutes longer.”

Annie Bui can be reached at abui@cornellsun.com.

Rush Unaffected by the Cold, Greek Representatives Say WEATHER

Continued from page 1

the NWS, which added that north winds with speeds of up to 13 mph will drag the wind chill value down to a low of -16 degrees.

Still, despite the harsh weather, fraternities and sororities held rush, the official recruitment

process for Greek life at Cornell, this past week. The process –– which will end Tuesday for sororities and Wednesday for fraternities –– was not affected much by the cold temperatures, according to students. “[Rush] was painful, but at least it wasn’t a blizzard like in previous years,” Kim Lin ’16 said.

Despite the cold weather conditions, students going through the rush process were still eager, according to Vikram Kejariwal ’16, a member of the Delta Phi fraternity. “[Rush] was just the usual and wasn’t affected by the cold weather.

Though it was unusually cold, it didn’t affect anyone,” he said. “In fact, everyone was really enthusiastic about recruitment.”

High chances of snow showers could also potentially affect travel to Ithaca due to snow accumulation of up to half an inch, according to NWS.

“[Rush] was just the usual and wasn’t affected by the cold weather.”

Vikram Kejariwal ’16 Laura Harter ’15, who is from California, said she is “glad that Cornell is staying open, as it would be annoying if it stayed closed” after students travelled back to Ithaca from distant places.

Tanya Moe ’16, who is traveling back from Hong Kong, said she is not looking forward to the cold weather, which will be a big change from the weather in Hong Kong.

“I am really not excited at all about the cold. In fact, I am sort of scared,” she said. “In Hong Kong, the temperature was around 55 degrees, and people were already wearing down jackets that one would wear in nine degrees in Ithaca.”

Manu Rathore can be reached at mrathore@cornellsun.com.

NEWS

Faculty, Students Urge Cornell to Divest by 2035 RESOLUTION

Continued from page 1

Sustainable Future” — passed by a 46-13-2 vote and was built on a previous resolution passed by the Student Assembly in Spring 2013.

The resolution reached the Senate largely due to outreach from student environmental organization KyotoNOW, according to Chabot.

“The resolution calls for divestment from the top 200 fossil fuelholding companies, a group that controls the vast majority of global reserves of coal, oil and gas,” said KyotoNOW organizer David Beavers ’14. “The resolution writers paired this with a quickened timetable for carbon neutrality on the Ithaca campus, pushing the original date of 2050, as established in the 2009 Climate Action Plan, to 2035.”

Though the goals of carbon neutrality and divestment are separate, the Senate believes the initiatives go hand in hand, according to Beavers. “[The Senate’s] reasoning was that achieving one without the other would be hypocritical,” Beavers said.

Although the resolution is non-binding and the administration has no official responsibility to follow it or apply it to the University’s $5.7 billion endowment, clear support for divestment from both student and faculty legislative bodies is “not something the administration can simply brush off,” according to Beavers.

“We have already engaged in several conversations with the Office of University Investment, and we expect those conversations to continue and to increase in fruitfulness, now that we have a muchstrengthened negotiating position,” he said.

According to Prof. David Shalloway, molecular biology and genetics, broad faculty support for the resolution represents a “tipping point” in the Cornell community’s attitude toward climate change and divestment from fossil fuels, one that may differ greatly from peer institutions.

“This is a real opportunity for Cornell,” Shalloway said. “Amongst the Ivy League Universities, we’re the only land-grant institution, and we have a chartered responsibility for reaching out to the public at large. ... Ezra Cornell never intended for the University to be an ivory tower. Cornell was built to be involved with the world.”

Beavers said Cornell’s stance may influence change in other institutions, drawing comparisons to an earlier movement on campus that advocated divestment from companies conducting business in apartheid-ruled South Africa in the 1980s.

“I think one of our biggest roles moving forward will be to help similar movements gain strength at other universities,” Beavers said. “We are already in communication with schools across the country that are at varying stages of seeking to pass faculty resolutions. Our concerted voices could have a major impact on the political conversation.”

According to Beavers and Shalloway, this spring will feature a series of activities for fostering discussions on the topic and providing forums so the broader Cornell community can be involved. “[Cornell] has had, for a long time, faculty who are on the cuttingedge of research on this topic, and a lot of important documents have come out of our research,” Shalloway said. “But what’s new is getting the word out in methods that go beyond scientific research journals.”

One such initiative is “Unplugged,” an upcoming competition to see which buildings are most energy-efficient on campus, according to Chabot.

“For most of us, financial divestment is not an end in itself,” Chabot said. “It is a prudent investment move recognizing that companies with large carbon reserves may not be able to extract these assets in the future once individuals and organizations become more serious about reducing use of fossil carbon. I and others remain open to more productive and positive ways to effect reductions in human production of climate active gases.”

Shalloway said he hopes the resolution will serve as the beginning for increased action across campus in response to climate change.

“It seems like everyone’s in a sleepwalk, with the idea that we can just piddle along when scientists and reports are telling us that it’s almost too late,” Shalloway said. “It’s hard to believe how sluggish we as a country are responding to what is really a predictable catastrophe right in front of us. The relevant time-scale here is just decades, not a hundred years, and we just aren’t moving fast enough. We have to wake up.”

Noah Rankin can be reached at nrankin@cornellsun.com.

Gift to Bolster Research JOHNSON

Continued from page 1

University in pursuit of this ideal.

“With a focus on family businesses at Johnson, good research will be conducted, educational seminars will address the unique needs of family businesses and prospective students will be drawn to Johnson because of the family business expertise on campus,” Smith said in the press release.

Prof. Soumitra Dutta, dean of

the Johnson School, said the gift will have a “profound and lasting impact” on both family businesses and the Johnson’s business programs.

“With the Smith’s generous gift, we can now put in place a systematic program to help prepare students for starting, scaling and managing a family business,” Dutta said in the press release.

Tyler Alicea can be reached at talicea@cornellsun.com.

THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014 5

6 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014

NEWS BRIEFS

Speeches, Marches Honor Martin Luther King Jr.

ATLANTA (AP) — As the nation remembered and reflected Monday on the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., leaders and everyday Americans talked about how far the country has come in the past 50 years and how much more is to be done.

At Ebenezer Baptist Church in King’s hometown of Atlanta, civil rights leaders and members of King’s own family spoke about poverty, violence, health care and voting rights, all themes from the civil rights struggle that still resonate to this day.

“There is much work that we must do,” King’s daughter Bernice King said. “Are we afraid, or are we truly committed to the work that must be done?”

The event in Atlanta featured music, songs and choirs and was one of many celebrations, marches, parades and community service projects held Monday across the nation to honor the slain civil rights leader. It was about 50 years ago today that King had just appeared on the cover of Time magazine as its Man of the Year, and the nation was on the cusp of passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

King would win the Nobel Peace Prize later that year.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal said not many states

THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014 7

could boast a native son that merited a national holiday. “But we Georgians can,” he told the audience.

Deal said this year he would work with state legislators to find a way to honor King at the Georgia Capitol, which drew a standing ovation. He did not give any specifics, but civil rights leaders have suggested a statue. The only current tribute to King at the state Capitol is a portrait inside the Statehouse.

“I think that more than just saying kind thoughts about him we ought to take action ourselves,” said Deal, a Republican. “That’s how we embed truth into our words. I think it’s time for Georgia’s leaders to follow in Dr. King’s footsteps and take action, too.”

In the fall, a statue of 19th century white supremacist politician and newspaperman Tom Watson was removed from the Capitol.

Deal also touched on criminal justice reforms his administration has tried to make, including drug and mental health courts, saying too many people are not being rehabilitated in prisons.

“Let’s build a monument, but the monument should inspire us to build a better world,” said the Atlanta event’s keynote speaker, the Rev. Raphael Warnock.

Iran, United States, Europe Implement Nuclear Deal TEHRAN (AP) — Iran on Monday unplugged banks of centrifuges involved in its most sensitive uranium enrichment work, prompting the United States and European Union to partially lift economic sanctions, putting into effect a landmark deal aimed at easing concerns over Iran’s nuclear program.

The steps start a six-month clock for Tehran and the world powers to negotiate a final accord that the Obama administration and its European allies say will be intended to ensure Iran cannot build a nuclear weapon.

Virginia Quickly Emerging as Key in Gay Marriage Fight RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Almost overnight, Virginia has emerged as a critical state in the nationwide fight to grant gay men and women the right to wed.

This purple state was once perceived as unfriendly and even bordering on hostile to gay rights.

That’s changed after a seismic political shift in the top three elected offices, from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats who support gay marriage.

Two federal lawsuits challenging the state’s constitutional ban on gay marriage are moving forward, and a hearing on one of the cases is scheduled for Jan. 30.

Along with the recent court rulings in which federal judges struck down gay marriage bans in Utah and Oklahoma, gay rights advocates are heartened by the new mood in Virginia.

Symbolically as well, they say, the challenges of Virginia’s gay marriage ban resonate because of the founding state’s history of erecting a wall between church and state and a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision involving a Virginia couple and a past taboo: interracial marriage.

Cornell Equitation COME RIDE WITH US! Call:

272-0150 / 272-0152

OPINION

Tom Moore |

The Corne¬ Daily Sun

Losing Faith in Vegan Pot Pie

Independent Since 1880 131ST EDITORIAL BOARD REBECCA HARRIS ’14 Editor in Chief

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Write GUEST COLUMNS for The Sun. Submit ideas, proposals or polished pieces to OPINION@CORNELLSUN.COM to be considered for publication on this page. ...

What Even is All This?

A

s I open my computer to write, my partner is opening hers to search for gluten-free chicken pot pie recipes. She’s spent a couple of years vegan and more vegetarian, and I’ve been mostly vegetarian for the last four years or so. Over the last few months, though, we’ve both been easing back into omnivorism. This is our first time cooking chicken.

I became a vegetarian for fairly abstract ecological reasons, subscribing at the age of 18 to the general idea that eating lower on the food chain is better for the planet. I saw Western levels of meat consumption as a violent extravagance which, unlike most of the violence built into Western consumption, I was capable of choosing to do without. I’d never had a chance to opt out of the fossil-fuel economy, or to stop my country’s illegal wars in the Middle East, or to demand a living wage for the sweatshop laborers making my consumer goods.

But I could choose not to eat meat, and in doing so, make myself a tiny bit less of a parasite on this beautiful Earth.

Food became, at least in my own mind, a site of dissent, some tiny pressure point at which I could twist the corporate beast, exert some tiny measure of control over a civilization I considered oversized and monstrous. I’ve since met many other vegetarians and vegans who explain their choice in similar terms: As one of the few individual steps that seem possible to take toward systemic change in the food system. A small step, that’s effect on the status quo is largely theoretical, but still a step ... right? Some unannounced boycott, some unofficial campaign, each uncooked chicken pot pie amounting to one less tortured chicken on the other end of the line?

Those equations have gotten a lot fuzzier over the years, as my understandings of ecology and social change have evolved. It no longer seems obvious that a block of tempeh is a “more ecological” or “more sustainable” or “less violent” choice than a chicken breast when the same plastic packaging carries them from America’s monocultural heartland.

More importantly, the choice between chicken or tempeh on the supermarket shelf no longer seems like a very relevant question to be spending my energy on.

I’ve lost my belief that boycotts, in

the untargeted, unpublicized, unstrategic way most vegetarians and vegans boycott meat, are a meaningful route to change. Choosing not to eat meat registers dissent largely within the person making the choice. Cargill has plenty of other mouths to feed, and doesn’t have the same guilt complexes I do. When the tempeh tastes of righteousness, it’s not the tempeh: It’s me. Because I’m an active participant in a society hurtling toward ecological collapse, and tempeh feels like less of a violent extravagance than chicken (if I don’t think too hard about it).

There’s an understandable appeal to this sort of ethics. It felt quite comforting to explain, “I don’t eat meat, mostly for ecological reasons.” I felt I was doing something righteous with my agency as a consumer. It’s the same little boost you might get from choosing the slightly more expensive and, naturally, more environmentally friendly laundry detergent. We’re so used to feeling disempowered and helpless when we hear the news (if we still have the heart to listen to the news) that when a man in a suit offers us a product that’s “better for the planet” (he says), our bleeding hearts jump into our mouths.

These purchases of conscience are expressions of a devotion to sustainability, visible only to the shopper and the cashier. They have more to do with me and my guilt than the chickens and the land.

Most importantly, rituals of sustainable consumption keep us believing that consumerism can be sustainable, that we are agents of change primarily as consumers. It keeps us in the supermarket, shopping for a sustainable world and a clean conscience.

Obviously the ethical quandaries of shopping in America are not easy to walk away from. I have a stomach to fill and choices to make, and spotting the ideological trap of green capitalism brings me no vindication in the checkout aisle. Chicken or tempeh in my pot pie, I just can’t seem to build up my hopes around the question anymore.

Tom Moore is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences.

He may be reached at tmoore@cornellsun.com. His column appears alternate Tuesdays this semester.

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THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014 9

OPINION

Darrick Nighthawk Evensen | Trustee Viewpoint

Five Years With My Friend, David B

efore leaving Cornell, many students seek the opportunity to introduce themselves to our President and shake his hand at least once. I have been sitting in President David Skorton’s office for regular meetings since 2009. This is not meant as self-congratulatory in the least; I simply wish to convey that I have more familiarity with the administration and its inner-workings than most students on campus.

After one year as GPSA President and four years as a student-elected trustee, I want to take this opportunity, in my final semester, to look inside the opaque apparatus that is Cornell’s administration. I’ll explain why it works like a well-oiled machine (most of the time), and identify what monkey wrenches occasionally make it stall.

1. Does the administration genuinely care about student needs and interests? This must be the starting question for all discussion of Cornell’s administration in relation to students. And the answer is a resounding “Yes!” No matter what shortcomings I have witnessed, the President, Provost, Deans and other staff members have always sought to not only keep students in mind, but also to understand and respond to their concerns.

2. David Skorton and his staff are here to improve the experience

While Cornell is generally transparent and consultative, it needs to structurally engrain these practices into its approach to policy making. of all Cornellians. When I entered David’s office once, wearing an ostentatious beret and pretentiously-wrapped scarf, he joked that he was much more of a populist than I am. While intended as humor, his comment has stuck with me when I witness Cornell’s progressive policies on undergraduate financial aid, its commitment to supporting staff well-being, its engagement in community outreach and the awards it constantly receives for being a great place to work and study.

3. Cornell is willing to change. In my field of natural resources, we call this “adaptive management.” David Skorton and Provost Kent Fuchs are two of the most resolute administrators I have met or heard of when it comes to making difficult changes that will move a university forward. Society’s general reticence toward change can get such audacious actors into trouble. Niccolò Machiavelli warned us of the attacks that inevitably befall the innovator. Yet, in terms of everything from “Reimagining Cornell” during the financial crisis, to Cornell’s first Strategic Plan, to a bold new commitment to “internationalization,” our chief administrators have decisively moved the University forward while honoring its past.

4. So everything is sunshine, roses and fluffy pink unicorns, right?

Of course, not. Students regularly critique me for supporting the administration so strongly. I support the administration because I see how much work they put in, behind the scenes, to achieve laudable outcomes. I see how much nuance is needed to interpret the complexity of major policy decisions. Nonetheless, when I have seen the President, Provost and Deans fail or come short, it has been primarily in the areas of transparency and consultation.

5. Transparency: It helps for constituencies to know of impending changes before they occur. Such practice not only conveys respect and decency, but it allows for better outcomes when it includes opportunities for comment. Our administrators are transparent far more often than not, but I have seen them deal with some bad headaches from making decisions first and alerting affected parties later.

6. Consultation: Academic research across disciplines has repeatedly shown the value of “local knowledge” for informing policy decisions. Great consultation has occurred on many issues during my tenure at Cornell; it has always improved the outcome. Yet, some decisions surprisingly do not solicit feedback from those that they affect most.

In summary: Cornell is an amazing place to be a student in large part because the administration is so dedicated, caring, foresighted and courageous. Yet, while Cornell is generally transparent and consultative, it needs to structurally engrain these practices into its approach to policy making. When a major policy change occurs, and the affected parties did not hear about it or provide input in advance of the decision, then the administration becomes one of two things: deceitful or hopelessly naïve. I am not sure which is worse, but it is certainly better to be neither. I also staunchly believe that our administration is neither. Let us ensure we communicate this in our actions.

Darrick Nighthawk Evensen is a graduate student in the Department of Natural Resources and the graduate student-elected trustee. He may be reached at dte6@cornell.edu. Trustee Viewpoint appears alternate Tuesdays this semester.

Comment of the day Web

“Divestment is purely symbolic. If Cornell’s investment manager purchases stock in Chevron, [he or she] is purchasing it from another investor, not from Chevron. Chevron receives no direct benefit of such purchase. Selling of all Chevron stock by Cornell will not impact Chevron’s behavior in the least. But who cares about meaningful action anyway? Doing something that matters is so not chic.”

Bud Re: “LETTER: Faculty-led divestment from fossil fuels,” Opinion published Jan. 16, 2014

Jacob Glick |

Glickin’ It

Building on Dr. King’s Dream Through Rush Week 2014

A

year ago this week, I made my debut as a columnist for the Sun by drawing an extended allegory between the University’s embattled Greek system and the fractious state of the nation of Greece, which was (and is) strained under the twin weights of heavy-handed austerity measures and a cancerous neo-fascist movement. In that column, I sketched out a comparison that, in the course of a few paragraphs, matured into an indictment of the imposition of structural changes upon a culture that was not prepared for them. I alluded to the rise of neo-fascist groups in Greece to warn that the University’s hardline could empower destructive elements among its own “Greeks.”

This (admittedly melodramatic) allegory pleased moderate members of the Greek community because it elevated those reasonable Greeks to a moral highground that was denied to the hardliners in both Day Hall and in the frat houses of West Campus.

Within this pleasure, however, was a troublesome hint of self-congratulatory logic that was founded upon a campus dynamic of conflict and competing agendas. Such a dichotomous worldview, in this situation as in most throughout history, is not sufficient enough to secure cooperation between essentially well-meaning moderates of either side. There was a catchy title, yes, but the underlying allegory was not as nuanced as I had hoped it would be.

As I have advanced through yet another chaotically uplifting Rush Week, the merits and demerits of my

Greek allegory lingered, dreamlike, at the edge of my highly caffeinated consciousness. Yet, I realized, as I spoke with prospective new members about the interconnectedness of the Greek community and the broader swath of the Cornell experience, that there is so much more to any analysis of Cornell Greek life than a chasmic divide between the campus and its fratcastles. I could not think of another creative way to look at this unique element of campus life, and thus, I once again fell back on the paradigm of my inaugural column.

Then, I remembered, yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.

history, the University has been on the forefront of social change. As one of the first public, nonreligious educational institutions in the nation, we have run ahead of the pack on issues of gender equality in the 19th century and Civil Rights in the 20th.

The University’s shameful non-observance of MLK Day has been a stain on its trailblazing reputation. By removing this stain at the climax of Rush Week 2014, the Cornell community can — and must — seize upon a different narrative to understand the dynamics of our fraternity and sorority system.

Instead of orienting a discussion of

The fraternity experience institutionalizes camaraderie and devotion in such a way that can easily build on Dr. King’s dream.

For the first time in the history of the University, there were no classes on MLK Day — a change that was perhaps hidden in the barrage of changes to the campus calendar that are being phased in this semester.

Most of us, not unreasonably, have been preoccupied with the long weekend on Presidents’ Day and the travesty that is the abbreviated Senior Week. But this two-day delay to the start of classes — aside from making it even more impossible for an exhausted fraternity brother to remember what day of the week his column is due — remembers a more fundamental, albeit symbolic, shift in the Cornell mindset.

Throughout Cornell’s

the Greek system toward an allegory of conflict and intransigence, it is far more constructive to view it in the context of Cornell’s long tradition of social progress.

Instead of automatically reaching toward a contrast between Neanderthal frat bros and out-of-touch administrators, it is far better to emphasize the potential for fraternities to expose students to leadership opportunities, nuanced social structures and the chance to foment meaningful changes within organizations that are entirely theirs to shape.

Any link between Rush Week and MLK Day seems at first entirely coincidental; a system that revolves around exclusivity and an often-

times painful selective process would not be easily placed in the same thought as a holiday honoring the martyr of the American Civil Rights movement. But the overlap of these two moments in the life of the University provides an opportunity to view fraternity life not as an obstacle to Cornell’s progressive legacy, but as a means of expanding it.

There are outliers, yes — and gross ones at that — but three years’ experience on either end of Rush Week has taught me that the fraternity experience institutionalizes camaraderie and devotion in such a way that can easily build upon Dr. King’s dream.

The University should have cancelled classes on MLK Day far before the year 2014, just as the University’s Greek system should have been able to mirror, rather than detract from, the legacy of this campus. But to see the world as it should have been oftentimes makes it difficult to appreciate the world as it is. A year ago, the Greek system was reeling from scandal, and Rush Week was marred with much-publicized violations and widespread IFC disciplinary actions. Today, I hope, that same Greek system has proven itself worthy of sharing this long weekend with a longdelayed recognition of the man who taught us that while the arc of history is long, it bends toward justice.

Jacob Glick is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences.

He may be reached at jglick@cornellsun.com.

Glickin’ It appears alternate Tuesdays this semester.

10 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014

THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014 11

12 | The Corne¬ Daily Sun | Tuesday, January 21, 2014

A&E

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ELEPHANT 6 RECORDING COMPANY

Neutral Milk Hotel Enchants State Theatre

BY JAMES RAINIS Sun Senior Editor

The unfettered and eclectic brilliance of Neutral Milk Hotel is, at this point, one of those truths Internet indie rock nerds hold self-evident. Few groups from this side of the Atlantic have inspired such a devoted cult following with so little music released (the U.K.’s penchant for the sudden coronation of guitar groups as “the best thing ever” has been well noted). Sprung from the head of Jeff Mangum, originally of Olivia Tremor Control, the group released two albums and a handful of tape-based singles.

Neutral Milk Hotel’s body of work is impressive not for its sonic progression, but for its homespun inventiveness and heartfelt scope. Their debut album, On Avery Island, provided the blueprint for the band’s psychedelia-tinged fuzz folk, burying Mangum’s earnest songwriting in feedback, toy organs and brass. Their sophomore effort, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, however, is the albatross: supposedly a concept album about a series of dreams Mangum had about a Jewish family during the Second World War. Many of its songs are said to be about Anne Frank and Mangum’s desire to rescue her in “some sort of time machine.” On Aeroplane, Mangum sings in an almost preposterously full-bodied roar while mixing nostalgic recollections of childhood abuse with obtuse sexual imagery (“Semen stains the mountaintops,” anybody?) and thinlyveiled Holocaust references. It’s starkly emotional music that does an incredible job of inviting listeners to dive into its insu-

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

lar world. In my experience, you’re either turned off by Mangum’s bare-hearted excavations of his jumbled consciousness or you fall hopelessly in love with it, your eyes welling with tears as Mangum assures us that “God is a place where some holy spectacle lies.”

The story goes that the underground success of Aeroplane drove the band into hiatus and Mangum into seclusion. As Neutral Milk Hotel remained silent, the legend of Aeroplane grew. It has had an undeniable influence on the early music of Grammy-winners Arcade Fire and experimental bedroom folk-pop acts as disparate as Jens Lekman and Bomb the Music Industry!, while rock publications like Rolling Stone wrote revisionary reviews that changed lukewarm sentiment into universal praise.

At this point, you know the narrative: the reclusive genius took some steps out into the public eye in the form of a solo tour in 2013 and got the band back together, The Magnificent Seven-style, to claim the glory that was rightfully theirs. This move was followed by some serious accomplishments: Neutral Milk Hotel scored a big-text booking at this year’s Coachella music festival, a world tour and a Jan. 13 headlining spot at our own Ithaca State Theatre.

During opener Elf Power’s tight set of ’60s-inspired pop, the excitement for Neutral Milk Hotel’s imminent arrival was high. Nerdy men in flannels primed themselves for a nostalgia-trip with the record that sound-tracked their first kiss while couples prepared themselves for the insane sway-fest.

And of course, the indie try-hards of the world discussed their favorite song, many of them mentioning what was likely a one-off pressing of an improvised ditty about farts that Jeff Mangum sang for his middle school talent show. Being the sort of obnoxious fan who doesn’t really have the patience for “assigned seating,” I crowded to the front in order to witness rock and roll greatness at arm’s length, only to be rebuked by a security guard. Luckily, as Neutral Milk Hotel took to the stage and the Ithaca State Theatre lost its collective shit, a bearded Jeff Mangum asked why nobody was standing near the stage. Soon enough, a small mob assembled in front of the orchestra seats.

Take that, security guard.

As the band launched into all three parts of “The King of Carrot Flowers,” the audience sang along reverently. Neutral Milk Hotel’s onstage presence isn’t much to talk about — save multi-instrumentalist Julian Koster’s goofy gait and some impressive facial hair — but the band plays like it’s exorcising some serious personal demons. Mangum’s voice is a instrument of power and beauty. During his solo performance of “Two-Headed Boy,” his voice hit the back of the theatre and resonated in a way that Elf Power’s Andrew Rieger’s couldn’t.

Then, when the band returned to play the elegiac “The Fool,” I realized how integral the band’s brass was to conveying Neutral Milk Hotel’s underlying contradictions. Horns are typically punched into a song to add a sense of jubilation. It’s why, at their worst, the stale major-key horn arrangements of the ’90s ska revival felt overly saccharine and cloying. But I forgot how death-related horns are: from brassy Nawlins style funerals to military trumpeters playing “Taps” on Veteran’s Day, there’s something distinctly sad about a brass melody, regardless of key.

Neutral Milk Hotel mines this masterfully. The descending horn melody in the chorus of “Holland, 1945” is eerily funereal and the player’s wavering tremolo could stand as evidence for the unfiltered inventiveness and character of the self-taught musician. Even on songs from On Avery Island, often merely considered Aeroplane in chrysalis, the band had me reconsidering whether the wanderlust of “Song Against Sex” made a stronger album opener than “King of Carrot Flowers,” something I would have deemed sacrilege mere hours earlier.

The encore was a thing of beauty. Starting with the last three songs from In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, the band ran through all its iterations, from the chaotic folk-punk of “Ghost” to the somberly ornate arrangement of “[untitled]” and the melancholy epilogue “Two-Headed Boy, Pt. 2.” The set-closer was “Engine,” a song significantly less canonized but made buoyant by Julian Koster’s harrowing singing saw and Mangum’s own resigned vocal.

If an indie rock band on a reunion tour is expected to force audiences to reconsider their legacy, Neutral Milk Hotel is absolutely nailing it. Not only is it reminding people of its masterpiece’s immense influence, it is affirming its discography as a worthwhile document from back to front and reestablishing itself as a devastatingly powerful live act. As fans stuck around, hoping to get a glimpse of Jeff Mangum as the band packed up, I felt that, far from some crass cash-in, the Neutral Milk Hotel reunion was a band reclaiming its rightful reputation as one of music’s most independently-minded and idiosyncratic entities.

James Rainis is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at jrainis@cornellsun.com.

A&E

Tuesday, January 21, 2014 | The Corne¬ Daily Sun | 13

Looking : A New Series on HBO

BY KAITLYN TIFFANY Sun Staff Writer

Looking, HBO’s newest slice-of-life dramedy chronicling the lives of three gay male best friends in San Francisco, airs at 10:30 p.m. on Sundays — directly after its female, heterosexual, East Coast counterpart Girls.

After premiering last weekend, the show has already garnered critical approval from writers of the LA Times and TIME. It was praised by the latter for avoiding the “relentless whiteness” that Girls is guilty of and for documenting the gay experience organically without “contort[ing] itself to create a character to represent every different aspect of it.”

The similarities between the back-to-back shows come mostly from the fact that both are portrayals of a subset of people who are the first of their kind — the twenty-something New York women who have had the

spoils of feminism thrust at them and the adult gay men living in California during a post-DOMA shift of public perception — a status that comes with mind-blowing freedom and paralysis to match.

The trio of leads ranges in age from 29 year-old Patrick (Glee’s Jonathan Groff ) to 39 year-old Dom (Murray Bartlett) and the show drops in on them in media res, with Patrick dared into receiving a hand job

M

from a stranger in a public park “just as a joke ... to see if people are really still doing that.” Show-creator Michael Lannan’s choice of opening scene is a deliberate confrontation of gay stereotype, as well as an overt part of his declaration that this is a show from the vantage point of gay men, not a crash course in gayness for the elucidatory purposes of a largely heterosexual public. In an interview with The Sacramento Bee, Lannan states his intention to show gay male friendship and romantic relationships “without having it be about being in the closet or coming out” — the moments of early homosexual identification and confusion that have become the standard focal points for shows like Glee, Queer as Folk, and The L Word.

The third member of the trio, Agustin (Frankie J. Alvarez), is a struggling artist waffling over moving to Oakland with his boyfriend (O.T. Fagbenle). After an impromptu three-way between the couple and a young art apprentice, the question is whether or not they’re “that type of couple.”

While it’s cliché to say, these are universal questions about relationships, not simply heterovoyeurism of homosexuality, a difference that sets Looking apart, even after just one episode.

Further, Lannan and director Andrew Heigh have dedicated themselves to creating a more realistic portrayal of San Francisco and the Bay Area than has come to be expected on television. As a San Francisco resident in the late ’90s COURTESY OF HBO and early aughts, Lannan expresses disdain for portrayals of his city that feature “the establishing shots for Full House” and extensive use of L.A. sound stages. Early scenes in the Looking premiere expose us to San Francisco’s poorly-lit trains, crappy apartments and the joint-smoking denizens of its rooftops (shot mostly in the Castro District), alongside its brighter, more familiar streets (primarily in Lower Haight).

In regards to Lannan’s tackling of the trials of a new generation — “those tech assholes” (Lannan was one himself for a brief period in the ’90s) have already introduced themselves in a supporting role, as has the ubiquitous social media that Girls has been lauded for integrating so deftly into its characters’ relationships (e.g.

Facebook, Grindr, OKCupid). Other than Dom’s hometown best friend (Lauren Weedman), the show is noticeably devoid of female characters, a smart choice which cirumvents the American craving for the nauseating tropes surrounding friendships between straight women and gay men.

The dialogue of Looking is spot-on — witty without being as overtly ridiculous as Girls, naturalistic without the boredom of Mumblecore. Moreover, it serves as the force of the plot in a way that few besides the Gilmore girls can claim. The only place the production can be said to falter is in the redundancy of its not-too-well-lit single-camera, a choice which makes it the visual twin of Girls, and cousin of a half-dozen city-shot indie flicks in the last year.

Intimate scenes in the premiere, including the threeway, were shot far less explicitly than the Girls standard (or even the HBO standard), but it’s not necessarily a sign that the creators are shying away from a still-hesitant American public. Girls is largely a response to the way that women are shown (or not shown) engaging in sex and it reveals every gory detail of its characters’ sexual practices because that is a primary piece of the puzzle to their psychology — but we’re walking in on these characters in a distinctly different moment. Patrick is at the point in his life where he’s not sure if he’s just looking for hook-ups or if he’s looking to top his six-month record for a relationship, but he’s actively thinking about it. Viewers are shown a glimpse of his psyche in the dialogue of his horrible first date with a wine-swilling M.D. and in his elitism-fueled hesitation to call a doorman who hits on him. He is not self-conscious about sex in practice the way he is about sex in the context of a means to connection. A show about the 21st century woman is inherently a show partly about bodies; a show about the 21st century gay man is something much different because Americans don’t have a problem understanding that gay men have sex — they have a problem understanding that they have anything else.

Kaitlyn Tiffany is a junior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She can be reached at ktiffany@cornellsun.com.

Thou Shalt Not Movie-Hop

y plan today was to go moviehopping with a friend. Take a bus over to Regal Cinema, buy a matinee ticket for the first show of the day, subtly carry in a couple of Subway sandwiches, a bottle of whiskey and some Target-priced movie candy and let the day unfold. It didn’t end up happening today. It turns out I had some other things I had to do. The intense snowfall wasn’t inspiring me to leave my apartment either. But the thing is, I would’ve done it. I had every intention of doing it, and beyond that, I don’t feel any guilt about it.

This is mostly because the movie industry is not going to suffer from movie-hopping. It hasn’t so far, and, according to a number of accounts on the Internet, it is even a family tradition in some households. Even if you haven’t done it, you’ve probably thought about it and even talked over plans with some friends after realizing that your bank account is losing funds faster than you can say “Martin Scorsese.”

There are even websites that can plan out your movie-hopping for you.

One such site is TheaterTag, tagline: [movie hopping for geeks]. It’s the movie-hopping equivalent of Chequerd, complete with colored

blocks for each movie which you can move back and forth to create your perfect schedule. If I had followed through with today’s plans, I could have seen five movies comfortably, give or take 10 minutes hiding from an attendant in a bathroom stall playing Candy Crush. The site, conveniently, contains schedules both from Ithaca’s Regal Cinema and Cinemapolis.

Movie-hopping has become a socially acceptable form of theft, similar to streaming movies online and swiping a

Guest Room Arielle Cruz few (i.e. 20) extra sugar packets at Starbucks. We love movies. At least, if you’ve taken the time to read this far, I hope you do, and neither the popularity of film nor the revenue of big-budget movies is going to suffer if people try to see three movies for 15 dollars.

In 1995, the price of a movie ticket was $4.35 on average. Today, according to The Wall Street Journal, the price on average is $8.13. In Ithaca, the average is undoubtedly higher. Regal Cinema

in Ithaca’s matinee price is $8.75. Do cinemas really need to charge as much as they do to make a profit? The answer seems to depend on a lot of factors like production size and buzz factor, but judging by the vast difference in movie prices across the U.S., the formula for cost seems to be whatever the market can take.

According to a Creative Skill Set article by Malcolm Ritchie, a co-managing director at Qwerty Films (I Heart Huckabees), about 45 to 55 percent of box office revenue is paid back to the distributors. What’s more, that revenue only accounts for about 25 percent of a film’s total revenue.

Once again that is 10.36 billion dollars in ticket revenue, which is only a quarter of the film industry’s profit. Give or take.

One Moviefone writer argues that movie-goers should be able to buy a ticket and try out movies when going to the theater, choosing whether he or she wants to see a given movie or not after watching the first 20 minutes. In this scenario, movie-hopping wouldn’t be encouraged, but also wouldn’t be penalized.

While this idea may not be the most effective solution to the problem, it may have some merit. Maybe, similar to the press craziness that surrounded Beyonce’s new album, viewers who do have time in their days to see many

movies at once will spread the love of their favorite films on Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr, and fan promotions will urge others to see movies they wouldn’t have before.

As an outgoing arts and entertainment editor at The Sun, I’m a lover and supporter of movies. I want to see 80 percent of movies that come out in theaters (you can keep the Saw movies to yourself, thank you), and I have none of the monetary capability to do so.

Ticket prices around my hometown are $14 a show. Minimum wage (which is close to what I earn) is somewhere in the $8 an hour range. My wage to viewing time dollar amount is around one to one. Will the movie industry really suffer if I, or even a few hundred, or even thousand, college students, sit for a double or quadruple feature? Or will they have a little extra cash to buy the poster for the movie and a witty Tshirt referencing the film?

Wherever the heart of the problem or solution of movie-hopping lies, I refuse to be judged for doing it. When I movie-hop, money still gets paid to distributors and movie-makers. Calling it stealing wouldn’t be wrong, but wouldn’t be quite right.

Arielle Cruz is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at acruz@cornellsun.com. Guest Room runs Tuesdays this semester.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

14 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Speeder’s undoing 6 TiVo ancestor 9 Wherewithal 14 Erie Canal city 15 Letters for debtors 16 Big name in computer chips 17 Sighting in the Scottish Highlands 20 Accident scene fig.

21 Gallop or canter 22 “By Jove!”

23 Cream of the crop 24 Like plugs vis-àvis outlets 25 Using only ones and zeros 28 __-cheap: for a song 29 Recipe amt.

32 Air freshener targets 33 Sighting in Douglas, Wyoming 35 Belgrade citizen 36 Singer Horne and actress Olin 37 Continental coin 38 Sighting in the Pacific Northwest 40 Grammy winner Carpenter 41 Pub brew 42 Christie’s “Death on the __” 43 Large crowds 44 Mani’s salon gowith 45 Uncovered 46 Find a new table for 49 Gaucho’s weapon 50 “__ the season ...”

53 One studying this puzzle’s sightings 56 “Je __, donc je suis”: Descartes 57 Corn unit 58 Shade of green from Ireland 59 Promotional ploy 60 Skid row affliction 61 Lauder of cosmetics DOWN 1 Run the kingdom 2 Electron home

3 Webster’s, e.g.: Abbr.

4 Essen exclamation 5 Madison Square Garden hockey team 6 Drop in on 7 What you pay 8 Piña colada liquor 9 Konica __: Japanese conglomerate 10 Happen next 11 Business letter abbr.

12 On a __-to-know basis 13 Camera types, for short 18 “A snap!”

19 Missouri range 23 Potato chip flavor, briefly 24 Prophet whose name sounds like a mineral 25 __ nova: Brazilian music genre 26 Exemplary 27 Viking language 28 Hula or hora 29 Travels with the band

30 Binge 31 Lowly laborers 33 Beijing-born martial arts actor 34 Apartment contract 36 Stopped the ship, in nautical lingo 39 Still on the plate 40 Bar sing-along 43 Expanse near the Capitol, with “the”

44 Coke competitor 45 Churlish types 46 Sales slip: Abbr.

47 “... __ saw Elba” 48 “Auld Lang __” 49 Tub toy 50 Pinball foul 51 __ of Wight 52 Eye sore 54 Last letter, in Leeds 55 Some refrigerators

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

COMICS AND PUZZLES

Sun Sudoku

Puzzle #brrrr2

Fill in the empty cells, one number in each, so that each column, row, and region contains the numbers 1-9 exactly once.

Each number in the solution therefore occurs only once in each of the three “directions,” hence the “single numbers” implied by the puzzle’s name.

(Rules from wikipedia.org/wiki /Sudoku)

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Standard Rate: $3.40 per day for first 15 words, 32 cents per day per word thereafter. 5 or more consecutive insertions, $3.15 per day for first 15 words, 30 cents per day per word thereafter.

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THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014 15

26 A PARTMENT FOR R ENT

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The Corne¬ Daily Sun

16 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014

THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014 17

18 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014

SPORTS

Jeter Makes Return, Nets Pound Knicks in NYC Showdown Finally Injury Free TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter has resumed on-field work for the first time since his 2013 season was cut short.

The Yankees captain hit off a tee in a batting cage and fielded 108 grounders on the grass in front of the infield dirt Monday at the Yankees minor league complex.

Jeter, who turns 40 in June, was limited to 17 games last year after breaking an ankle during the 2012 playoffs.

“I don't think about it, and that’s a good thing,” Jeter said.

Jeter broke his left ankle Oct. 13, 2012 during the AL championship series opener against Detroit. He was limited to five games and 11 at-bats during spring training last year, stayed behind in Florida when the team broke camp for rehabilitation and broke the ankle again in April during rehabilitation.

“It’s good to have a normal offseason and get some work in,” Jeter said. “Everything is normal now.”

Jeter missed the first 91 games of the 2013 season, then felt pain his right quadriceps when he returned July 11. He went back on the DL, returned July 28 for three games, then strained his right calf.

Back in the lineup on Aug. 26, he played through Sept. 7, when he left

for a pinch runner after singling against Boston. While scans of the left ankle were negative, the Yankees said four days later his season was over. Jeter wound up hitting .190 (12 for 63) with one homer and seven RBIs, playing 13 games at shortstop and four at designated hitter.

Jeter normally begins baseball activities in mid-Janaury in preparation for spring training.

Yankees pitchers, catcher and injured players start workouts Feb. 15, with the rest of the team beginning five days later.

Oh captain, my captain | Yankees’ shortstop Derek Jeter returned to the diamond on Monday for the first time since his 2013 season was cut short due to a broken ankle.

NEW YORK (AP) — Deron Williams and the Nets’ reserves were toying with the Knicks when their fans joined in the fun, belting out a "Brook-lyn!" chant that seemed as loud as when they're home.

“That was nice,” center Andray Blatche said with a grin.

For the Nets, Monday’s game at Madison Square Garden looked good and sounded even better.

Joe Johnson scored 25 points and the Nets sent the Knicks to a fourth straight loss with a 103-80 victory, evening this season's New York rivalry at a game apiece.

“It’s tough.

It’s a tough situation.”

Carmelo Anthony

“Obviously when we first played them, they embarrassed us,” center Kevin Garnett said. “So obviously we needed to come back and get a payback, and kind of redeem ourselves because lately we’ve been playing better basketball and today was a great job of what we've been doing lately.”

Making a triumphant return from London and completing a three-game, three-country road trip, the Nets improved to 7-1 in 2014 and avenged last month’s blowout loss with a romp of their own.

Blatche had 19 points and 12 rebounds, and Alan Anderson scored 15 points for the Nets.

Williams finished with 13 points in his return from a five-game absence, coach Jason Kidd bringing him off the bench rather than break up a starting lineup of Johnson, Paul Pierce, Garnett, Shaun Livingston and Anderson that is 5-0.

Williams said the reserve role was his

idea.

“Just because we’ve been playing so well with that lineup. Why shake things up?”

Williams said. “It doesn’t matter if I come off or start.”

The starters weren't needed for the fourth quarter after the Nets built a 16point lead through three, then blew it open behind Williams, Blatche and Mirza Teletovic early in the fourth.

Carmelo Anthony had 26 points and 12 rebounds for the Knicks, who beat the Nets 113-83 in Brooklyn but were hardly ever in this one. They lost on Martin Luther King Jr. Day for the fourth straight time, the last two both at home to the Nets.

“It’s tough. It’s a tough situation,” Anthony said. “Like I’ve said, I never dealt with something like this before.”

The Nets had the look of a flop in the Dec. 5 game, but they have been a different team since the new year. Johnson has been the biggest reason for their turnaround, averaging 24.5 points in the last six games.

Back in New York but not quite home, Brooklyn completed their recent journey with a 2-1 record. It started with a loss in Toronto, their only one of 2014, before a rout of Atlanta on Thursday in London.

“It’s been fun. We want it to keep going, so we’re going to keep working hard,” Johnson said. “We know why we’ve won seven of the last eight, so we’re just going to keep working hard, keep playing together.”

The Knicks also appeared to be turning it around earlier this month, winning five in a row before their current skid. But they simply lack the talent to overcome the injuries they are facing now to Amare Stoudemire and Kenyon Martin, both out with sprained left ankles.

“It’s multiple things that have gone wrong,” center Tyson Chandler said. "We’ve got to find better continuity on both ends of the floor, offensive and defensively.”

THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Tuesday, January 21, 2014 19

SPORTS

Sherman Exemplifies Toughness,Passion Crucial to NFL Players’ Personas SHATZMAN

Continued from page 20

Bowl XLIII. Steelers vs. Cardinals. Trailing by 3 with under a minute to play, Ben Roethlisberger can win his second title with a touchdown. He drops back and fires the ball to the corner of the end-zone. The ball sails mere inches over the fingertips of Cardinals safety Ralph Brown and lands in the bread-basket of Steelers’ receiver Santonio Holmes. The Steelers are champions; the Cardinals are heartbroken. Had Ralph Brown tipped the pass, who knows what would have happened? Maybe an incomplete pass. Maybe a win-securing interception employed by the ‘ole tip drill.

Back to yesterday. Kaepernick, playing the role of Roethlisberger, fires the ball into the corner of the end-zone. It looks like Crabtree might be able to come down with the ball. This is what the season comes down to. The offseason, pre-season, constant grind, lack of family time, is all made or broken by this play. Big time players are expected to make big time plays. Richard Sherman is a big time player. He tips the ball with an outstretched arm, keeping Crabtree from making the catch. Linebacker Malcolm Smith catches the Sherman tip with ease, and the Seahawks are headed to the Meadowlands in two weeks.

Let us keep you informed every day in

The CorneDaily Sun

After the game, Richard Sherman stands beside Erin Andrews. He is clearly fired up.

More than usual. I mean, he should be, right? He has worked all season, all of his life, even, to reach the Super Bowl, and he, just minutes ago, put the city of Seattle on his back. Trash talk makes sense if you can back the talk up with your play. If not, if you fail to perform, you are a fool. Sherman has been talking trash since he entered the league three years ago, and yesterday was the culmination of an unbelievable three-year career for the Stanford product who was selected in the fifth round, 154th overall, in the 2011 draft.

So when Andrews asks Sherman to describe the game-winning play, I am not surprised by the corner’s response.

“I’m the best corner in the game. When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that’s the result you are going to get,” Sherman shouts with a fiery tone.

Immediately, people on social media start bashing the star corner, calling him a bum, insane and so on.

Why? Sure, maybe calling out Crabtree is a bit much, but football is a sport characterized by toughness. I can assure you that calling Crabtree a “sorry receiver” is light conversation compared to what is being said on the field. Sometimes emotions get the best of people, but when you work as hard as

Sherman does, and have been doubted like Sherman has been doubted, how can one be appalled that the outspoken Richard Sherman called out a receiver who had been talking trash all game, and all season, for that matter. Michael Crabtree is far from a reserved player either, ladies and gentleman.

He’s a trash talker, too. When two trash talkers go at it, and one makes the game-winning play to send a team to the Super Bowl, emotions will inevitably be flaring. We are all people. Put yourself in Sherman’s shoes.

Maybe he should not have called out Crabtree to Erin Andrews, but the fact is, it does not matter. It is irrelevant. To judge Sherman based off of his post-game interview is ignorant.

Sherman offers his opinion this morning in a column for Sports Illustrated’s Monday Morning Quarterback in which he tells his side of the story. Sherman writes that after the game concluded, “I ran over to Crabtree to shake his hand, but he ignored me. I patted him, stuck out my hand and said, ‘Good game, good game.’ That’s when he shoved my face, and that’s when I went off.” Only a minute later, Sherman meets Erin Andrews on the field for an interview, and he lets loose. Sherman can say whatever he wants in the postgame interviews. It’s his free will. He offers his hand to Crabtree and gets shoved in the face for it? My gosh. Put yourselves in

his shoes. And do not judge him, or anyone, after listening to him speak for twenty seconds. I mean, the guy just won the NFC Championship, and instead of going to celebrate like many of us would, Sherman wrote a column for Sports Illustrated, in an attempt to clear up any misjudgments people may have made in regards to his postgame interview, and him as a person.

Richard Sherman is exactly what is great about the NFL. He is passionate, fearless and starving for victory. I encourage everyone to read columnist Lee Jenkins’ 2013 Sports Illustrated feature on Sherman titled ‘Warning: Don’t Take The Bait’. You will find out that Sherman was a Stanford University honors student who grew up in one of the most notorious towns in America: Compton, California. You will find out just how hardworking he is, and how he is active in the community, dedicated to helping others less fortunate than he. Instead of making cocksure judgments, read about Richard Sherman. Watch his highlight tape. Analyze where he came from, and where he is today.

You will surely have a different opinion of the man than the one you made last night, because, frankly, the NFL needs more Richard Shermans.

Ben Shatzman can be reached at bshatzman@cornellsun.com.

The Corne¬ Daily Sun

Sports

MONDAY JANUIARY 20, 2014

20

GYMNASTICS

Schupp,Bair Shine in Penn State Competition

By TUCKER MAGGIO-HUCEK Sun Staff Writer

OLIVER KLIEWE / SUN SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Staying balanced | Senior captain Lexi Schupp tallied the fourth highest score for all-around in school history and the highest since 2009.

Cornell Gymnastics has started off the new season with promising performances in its first two meets. The Red began the year with a trip to Washington D.C. to take part in a quad meet at George Washington. After a second place finish there, the Red took third at a quad meet at Penn State, but improved its overall team score from the first week.

In the nation's capitol, the Red had an excellent day on the beam, finishing first among the four teams, which would help them to a second place finish behind host George Washington.

Although the Red’s total score was far behind the victors’, it was a full five points above league opponent Penn’s score. Getting an early win over a conference foe in the first meet was a confidence booster for the Red. “Between our first two meets the team is definitely headed in the right direction,” said senior captain Lexi Schupp. “Placing second at George Washington and ahead of Penn was a great start to our season.”

The Red had its best performance of the day on the beam, taking first in the event. Leading the squad was junior Maia Vernacchia; her 9.600 score was good for third place in the event.

Sophomore Hannah Clark finished fifth in the event with a 9.550. The Red also placed second on the vault and on the floor. The notable individual performance from those two events was sophomore Madeline Martinez, who finished sixth on vault with a 9.675.

This past weekend, the Red made

“We’ll be looking at improving consistency.”

Lexi Schupp the trip to Penn State and improved its overall score by over two points from the previous week’s meet.

“The team showed that we are serious about making this our best season yet when we improved by over two points at our second meet,” Schupp said.

Although Cornell finished third out of the four teams, the Red was happy with the improvements made in the second competition of the season, according to senior captain Elsie Kerner.

The biggest difference from the first meet was on the bar routines. A rough start to the season on the bars was cause for worry, but the Red scored over two points higher as a team in that event at Penn State, a marked improvement.

Tucker Maggio-Hucek can be reached at thucek@cornellsun.com.

Lessons From Richard Sherman W

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Red Can’t Fend Off Lions

By JOEL COOPER

Christmas break,” Moran said. “But we worked really hard to dig ourselves out of that hole and earned a After a strong winter training huge victory over Vermont.” camp, the women’s basketball team Cornell was 8-6 going into the fell just short to Columbia in the match against the Lions and was first Ivy League match of the season. hoping to build off its impressive Despite a brave comeback, the Red winter break with a win, which was unable to recover from a slow would have helped the squad to a start, falling to the Lions, 71-64. season-best four-game winning The team returned to campus streak. Columbia came into the shortly after Christmas day for an game after a tough first half to the intense period of training and season with a 3-11 record. matches. Being able to focus solely Ultimately, though, the Red could on basketball helped the team make not recover from a slow start to the large strides in its technical abilities. game.

According to freshman guard Kerri “We felt prepared going into the Moran, the trainColumbia game ing period was and we were all very successful very excited to CORNELL @ COLUMBIA and will hopefully start Ivy play, but pay off this spring 64 71 unfortunately we season. did not end up Game: 2ND FINAL 1ST “The past few Cornell with a win,” 45 64 19 weeks we have Columbia 26 Moran said. “We 45 71 been focusing on knew going in that executing the litColumbia is a very tle things,” Moran said. “So far we scrappy team and they were going to have done a great job of doing so in work very hard. We came out slow in practice.” the first half and ultimately that hurt The Red was able to translate its us at the end of the game.” practices into strong match perforThe Red did mount a strong mances and, although it suffered a comeback from a seven-point deficit hard defeat to Drexel University, 69- at halftime. After an 8-2 run in 44 in the first game of the break, it Cornell’s favor midway through the went on to secure wins over second half, the Red found itself Vermont, 81-46, Morgan State, 59- with a one-point lead. For the next 42 and Howard, 70-58. Moran couple of minutes, the lead was cited the victory over Vermont as traded back-and-forth with the Red integral in the Red’s stretch of wins extending its lead to 47-44 with over break.

8:02 still to play. However, a stretch “We had a shaky start over of seven free throws from the Lions

“The bar line up was looking for redemption and it was achieved, with senior Melanie Jorgensen posting the high score on bars with a 9.775,” Kerner said.

The Red improved its score in three of the four events, but the two-point improvement on bars was the biggest boost to the team’s overall score.

Individually, the Red had two standout performers on the day. Sophomore Alicia Bair scored a 9.825 on vault, which was the second highest score in the event. Schupp also had an impressive day. Posting an overall score of 38.425, she tallied the fourth highest score for all-around in school history, and the highest all-around score earned for the Red since 2009.

According to Kerner, after posting two strong results, the Red is hoping that more and more practice will lead to greater consistency and better results every week.

“Going into our dual against Cortland, we'll be looking at improving consistency as we get more and more routines under our belt in practice and in meets,” Kerner said.

This weekend the Red will travel to Cortland to battle in a dual meet with the host team.

Sun Staff Writer

e have been hearing about the 49ers and the Seahawks all season long. The NFC West is a powerhouse. The teams embody the hardnosed spirit of the NFL: tough, defensive-minded and passionate. So when the Seahawks walked off of the CenturyLink Field turf feeling accomplished, having just defeated the arch-rival 49ers to win the NFC title,

MICHELLE FRALING / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Post presence | Senior forward Allyson DiMagno had a team high 21 points against Columbia, and she was rewarded for her efforts with Ivy League Player of the Week honors.

sealed the victory.

According to Moran, the Red understands where it needs to improve. If the squad can attack the first half with the same intensity and high skill level it showed in both practice and the second half, it can be a force to be reckoned with.

“We just have to bring that energy and focus [from training] into games,” Moran said. “Ultimately we can surprise a lot of people.”

Cornell is back in action on January 25th, where it hopes to even the series with Columbia at Newman Arena.

Joel Cooper can be reached at jcooper@cornellsun.com.

Ben Shatzman Guest Column it was no surprise that the players were more fired up than ever.

Especially Richard Sherman. The trash-talking cornerback is among the most passionate professional athletes. Despite only having two years of NFL experience under his belt, Sherman has proven himself to be a top defensive-back, alongside the likes of Darrelle Revis and Patrick Peterson. He has been known to talk trash to his opponents. He is confident, and his outspoken personality makes for a long day for opposing wide-receivers. He’s good. He knows he’s good. And he is not too shy to let you know it.

Exhibit A: Michael Crabtree. With under a minute to play in yesterday’s conference championship, 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick throws a pass to the corner of the end-zone looking for Michael Crabtree. Trailing by 6 points, a touchdown means an almost certain return to the Super Bowl for the Niners.

Pause. Let’s flashback to February 2009. Super See SHATZMAN page 19