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10.30.14 VOL. XLVI, NO. 6 CONTENTS FORUM 3 Voluntelling? 4 Head-Butting Harvard NEWS 5 How to Get into Office SPECIAL 6 Page of Fears! ARTS 7 Watching Terror 8 Movie Fever SPORTS 9 Marco? (Water) Polo! 10 Five-peat 11 Fantasy Flash Forward As Harvard College's weekly undergraduate newsmagazine, the Harvard Independent provides in-depth, critical coverage of issues and events of interest to the Harvard College community. The Independent has no political affiliation, instead offering diverse commentary on news, arts, sports, and student life. For publication information and general inquiries, contact President Albert Murzakhanov (president@harvardindependent.com). Letters to the Editor and comments regarding the content of the publication should be addressed to Editor-in-Chief Sean Frazzette (editorinchief@ harvardindependent.com). For email subscriptions please email president@harvardindependent.com. The Harvard Independent is published weekly during the academic year, except during vacations, by The Harvard Independent, Inc., Student Organization Center at Hilles, Box 201, 59 Shepard Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Copyright Š 2014 by The Harvard Independent. All rights reserved.
The Indy is in costume this week.
10.30.14
î “e Halloween Issue
Cover design by Anna Papp Inside: Tricks and Treats
President Albert Murzakhanov '16 Editor-in-Chief Sean Frazzette '16 Director of Production Anna Papp '16 News Editor Forum Editor Arts Editor Sports Editor Associate Sports Editor Associate Forum Editor Associate Arts Editor
Milly Wang '16 Caroline Gentile '17 Sarah Rosenthal '15 Shaquilla Harrigan '16 Peyton Fine '17 Aditya Agrawal '17 Michael Luo '16
Illustrator Yaara Yacoby '17 Designer Alice Linder '17 Business Managers Farhana Nabi '16 Manik Bhatia '16 Staff Writers Whitney Gao '16 Manik Bhatia '16 Terilyn Chen '16 Yuqi Hou '15 Chloe Li '16 Dominique Luongo '17 Orlea Miller '16 Albert Murzhakanov '16 Carlos Schmidt '15 Frank Tamberino '16 Jackie Leong '16 Andrew Lin '17 Madi Taylor '16 Shreya Vardhan '17 Peyton Fine '17 Michael Luo '16 Eloise Lynton '17 Caroline Cronin '18 Hannah Kates '18
Forum
Let’s Learn to Serve
indy
The case for making public service a mandatory requirement at Harvard. By ADITYA AGRAWAL
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ornell recently launched a $150 million initiative “Engaged Cornell” that will make it a mandatory graduation requirement for its undergraduates to take at least one course with a public service component. The announcement made waves on college campuses and administrative boardrooms across America; Harvard dearest wasn’t immune either to the implications wrought by this ambitious policy undertaken by our cousins in dreary Ithaca. While our own administration welcomed the idea of integrating academic coursework with public service, they came out vehemently against the idea of making it a compulsory requirement. As a liberal arts college in an increasingly utilitarian world, our administrators realize well the importance of a well-rounded education; of an education that forces us to confront problems that go well beyond the confines of a our areas of study. The General Education curriculum was formulated with the aim of endowing undergraduates with a set of general skills with which to approach the world and its problems in general; skills required to be truly human. The Report on the Task Force on General Education mentions as one of the reasons for the General Education: “It heightens students’ awareness of the human and natural worlds they inhabit.” We have sub-curriculum segments such as the Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding to deepen our appreciation of aesthetics and Ethical Reasoning to deepen our appreciation of the dialectical discourses that characterize the human condition. Why not, then, have a Public Service segment to deepen our appreciation of service to others? Is not service to fellow humans (besides the empathy and understanding that flow from such service) as much a marker of being human, as is appreciation of aesthetics or ethical dilemmas that shape our world; is not service in action as consequential towards understanding the “human word that [we] inhabit” as are Newtonian laws and foreign literatures? Is not the on ground exploration of this very world with its very problems as close as we can get to understanding the world that we inhabit? Insofar as we acknowledge this basic logic, it seems painfully hypocritical on part of The Harvard Independent • 10.30.14
the Faculty of the Arts and Sciences to exclude a mandated Public Service component from the curriculum at college. The appeal for this inclusion is warranted on other grounds too. Many of us have, at some point of time or the other, voiced the all too often and all too Harvard complaint: I came in with dreams of changing the world, and then Harvard happened. With good reason, too! When we arrive on campus, we are faced with a campus that reeks of affluence and lavishness to say the least; stealthily but surely, at differing levels of consciousness, we begin to aspire to the ideal of wealth so centrally ingrained and subtly espoused in all things Harvard — from libraries to houses to commencement day speakers. A breakfast conversation with upperclassman friend or a passing glance at the employment statistics of the graduating class is enough to convince an insecure freshman that the way (reasonable, if I may add) to achieve that foggy ideal of wealth is to pursue a range of options starting with consulting and ending at investment banking, and dropping anchors at medical or law school in between. Battling this troubling phenomenon requires Harvard to expose its students to atmospheres that run against than the oppressively affluent atmospheres with which the students are presented at the school. Avenues for such opportunities, most prominently the Phillips Brooks House Association, do exist, but they are essentially student-run and do not assume the role of an official administered avenue. They do not have the supervising eye of star mentors to guide the actions of fledgling change makers. People are expected to seek such avenues, and having already been inclined towards more materially inclined goals within two weeks of starting college, freshmen are more likely to seek opportunities and extracurriculars that feed precisely off these voraciously vocational ambitions. Having a college mandated public service course will force everyone, granted temporarily, out of this vicious cycle of vocational typesetting. They say you learn most by doing, and through these public service courses, people will learn not only about the variegated problems
that plague communities in a nuance that glossy textbooks and frigid slides will never be able to capture; they will also learn of potential career paths and payoffs, both material and non material, that such careers entail, by interacting with successful public service individuals. To an average student, taking up endemic community wide problems might initially seem like a gargantuan and an unfeasible task; however, doing so under the directed guidance of able professors and stalwarts in the service sector would work wonders in transforming the way an average student perceives and approaches these problems. This change in perception is important — even though most of students might still end up reverting to their vocational plans after the semester long interlude, they will now know that public service is a feasible option open to be explored were they to grow tired at some point of time in their chosen careers. More importantly, they will now be more likely to engage in side service projects, be it in leadership or participatory capacities, at the same time as pursuing their main careers paths. With nearly 14% of Class of 2017 coming from families with $500,000+ incomes and with nearly 40% of the class of 2018 comprising private schooled individuals, Harvard does not hold the composition of your average American college. It is reasonable to assume that a sizeable proportion of the students that swarm the yard every fall have never been exposed directly to such public service opportunities as might be provided by the Public Service component. Is it not the moral prerogative of the college to act as a leveler — not merely in terms of leveling people from different backgrounds, but also in terms of leveling the life-paths and aspirations that these people are exposed to? Such a prerogative can be fulfilled satisfiably only if we were, for once, to acknowledge our occasional fallibility and concede that it can sometimes take a trailblazing quasi-Ivy for us to identify our shortcomings. Aditya Agrawal ’17 (aagrawal@college) believes that service in action is learning in action.
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Forum
Concussed and Confused A Review of Harvard’s Concussion Policy.
By CAROLINE GENTILE
A
s I sit here, I can think of at least four severely concussed Harvard students off the top of my head (pun entirely intended). Sure, I know many people at Harvard, so the fact that four out of many have a concussion should not seem like a lot. But to me, it does, especially when two of them are close friends of mine and I have seen how having a concussion has drastically affected their day-to-day life. Since their head injuries, they have been unable to go to class, or look at their computer screen, or read, or even be in a room with too bright of lights. They’ve fallen behind in classes, and since both are athletes, are no longer able to participate in their respective sports. One has had to take the semester off. To me, there seems to be a spectrum of what it means to have a concussion. In my own experience, in high school, having a concussion did not disrupt my daily life at all. Although a doctor had diagnosed me with a mild concussion, my basketball coach still allowed me to play in a tournament and my teachers did not excuse me from any homework. But that was many years ago, and like I said, the concussion was mild. Still, one of my peers, a state-champion tennis player, got a severe concussion, but was still played in a tennis tournament the next weekend and remained responsible for all of his work. When I got to Harvard, I was surprised by how much more seriously concussions were taken. On one hand, I was impressed by how ahead of the curve Harvard seemed to be in terms of concussion policies. On the other hand, I was a bit disappointed by how black-and-white these policies were. The Harvard administration, unlike my high school, certainly recognized the severe health risks and limitations posed by having a concussion. For example, the Harvard Department of Athletics’ Concussion Management and Return to Play Policy states that “during their first semester at Harvard University student-athletes participating in the following sports; men’s and women’s ice hockey, men’s and women’s basketball, football, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s lacrosse, field hockey, wrestling, downhill skiing, baseball, softball, men's and women's swimming and diving, pole vaulting, and men's and women's water polo, men's and women's volleyball and women's rugby; will have a baseline test score in 4 harvardindependent.com
[3 comprehensive areas].” Once it is determined that a student-athlete has a concussion, they are barred from participation in their sport for at least a day or “until all symptoms have subsided at rest and with exertion”. According to the policy, “students will be advised to rest both cognitively and physically with a medical plan that should be managed in a step wise fashion that fits the needs of the individual, within the context of a multidisciplinary team which may include physicians, athletic trainers, counselors, physical therapists, coaches, administrators as well as academic (e.g. professors, deans, academic advisors) and the accessibility education office. Academic support will be offered in conjunction with the Deans of the College.” What this means is that concussed students may be given extensions on assignments and will be excused from class and athletic commitments so that they may heal. But how long is too long to be excused from class, especially here at Harvard? Of course, having a concussion requires that the victim exert little cognitive and physical effort so that they can properly heal. Not doing so has dangerous health risks. Yet just because a Harvard student has a concussion, doesn’t mean their classes stop. Although concussed students are excused from class, the pile of work that needs to be made up still grows. Ultimately, they are still held to the same standards as non-injured students, but are held to these standards on a different schedule. Depending on the severity of the concussion, the pile of make-up work can grow very large after several weeks of missed assignments and exams to the point where it would be impossible to make it up. In this case, the Harvard administration advises that the student takes a semester off. After receiving a concussion in the middle of the semester, one Harvard student could not attend class for three weeks. When her symptoms had not subsided after three weeks, she was told to take the rest of the semester off. Concerned, the student asked if her work up until that point would be able to count. She was told that it would, but only if she took two out of her three final exams. The other one could be made up. Otherwise, it would be as though that whole semester had never happened. Although the pain from her constant headache made it almost unbearable to study, the student managed to take these exams, but noted that her grades on
these exams certainly suffered. She was also surprised that her grades were affected by the fact that she was physically unable to attend class. In one of her seminars, she had asked her professor if she could do anything to make up for the 20% participation grade while she took the rest of the semester off. The teacher said no, but gave the student a B- for participation anyway, simply because she had not shown up to class. In this student’s case, either she took the semester off, or she had to suffer through her finals. Clearly, to any Harvard student, being forced to take a semester off seems like a punishment. It throws off our carefully-crafted plans that we’ve made for what we thought would be four years here. But staying here while concussed also does a student no favors. Pushing oneself too far cognitively or physically after suffering from a concussion can result in permanent brain damage. This is what I mean by saying that Harvard’s concussion policies are too black-andwhite. Either a student falls behind and is forced to take time off, or they risk pushing themselves too far. To avoid situations like this particular student’s, the university needs to address these cases with a more personal approach. In her case, perhaps they could have allowed her to take her exams after J-term. Perhaps her seminar professor could have given her a paper to give her a chance to make up for her participation grade. The current concussion policies, which take into account the seriousness of having a concussion and involve a multi-disciplinary team that includes academic deans, professors, and coaches, are certainly a step in the right direction. With a bit more personalization, though, they could be much better. Caroline Gentile ’17 (cgentile@college) is concerned.
10.30.14 • The Harvard Independent
News
indy
Serving the State
Figuring out when to run.
O
n Monday October 27th, 2014, the Institute of Politics hosted a conversation with IOP Fellow and former Governor of WA, Christine Gregoire, on When & How to Run for Office. More than thirty students were gathered at the Malkin Penthouse to hear her perspective on when best to run for office, what to think about before running for office, and how best to run an election campaign. In 1992, Christine Gregoire became the first female attorney general in Washington State. She was elected governor in 2004, and then reelected in 2008. Gregoire started off the conversation with the observation that the current generation of youth is disappointed with the government. However, she pointed out, that while it seems like nothing is happening in Washington D.C., there is a lot that local officials, such as governors, can and need to get done. “There is a whole lot going on around the country,” she remarked. And she encouraged everyone present to run for office, saying, “I hope that you are all thinking about it.” But of course, running for office is easier said than done. And the most important thing, Gregoire believes, is passion for the role: “I really think that if you are going to run for office, you really need to want that office.” Equally important is knowing the people that you will represent. Gregoire loved her time on the campaign trail and being able to meet people from all over Washington State. “You have to have a feel for what these people care about and what they are looking for in an elected official,” she said. And this will not only make you a good candidate, but also ensure that if you are elected, you will be able to serve them well. So what are some of the things to consider before running for office? Here is a list of eleven key things that Gregoire recommends you think about before running: 1) Know who you are You have to know your values and know them solid. That’s because when the time comes to make a difficulty decision when you are in office, you need to be able to make a decision that you feel good about. Once you make that decision, you are responsible for The Harvard Independent • 10. 30.14
By MILLY WANG it and you need to live with it. Knowing who you are and what you believe in will be crucial guides towards making that decision. 2) Know what party you want to belong to Actually take the time to really think about which party you want to belong to and why. Think about the values that you have and how they might or might not match the policies of current parties. 3) What have you done? What have you done in the past before running for office? What kind of groups have you been a part of? What kind of volunteering might you have done? What kind of jobs? This is an important part of helping to define who you are and what you are about. This is also important when you think whom you might be able to rely upon for help and support when you do run. 4) What are your problems? It is best to be honest with yourself when it comes to this because many, if not all, may end up coming to light during the campaign period. After all, your opponents will definitely be on the look out for these. What skeletons might you have hidden in your closet? Go through all of the past things that you’ve done and think about how you plan to respond to it once it is revealed. Or maybe consider revealing it first before your opponents have a chance to uncover it. 5) Do you have a base? This is an important aspect to consider. Who are the people that will work for you once you start campaigning? Do you have enough support? Do you have what it takes? What is your base? 6) Can you raise the money? This is absolutely crucial. The name EMILY’s List stands for Early Money Is Like Yeast. Money begets money. If you are able to raise money early, then others will view you as a credible candidate and will donate and support your campaign. Of course, money can’t buy an election. Having fundraised the most amount of money doesn’t guarantee that you will get elected. But there are two key points in any campaign: money and message. Without money, it is extremely difficult to get your message out there through television ads, radio ads, etc. You don’t need to be able to raise an extremely large amount, but you
do need the ability to get the fundamental nest egg. 7) Why are you running? This is a very important question to ask yourself. “You have to be willing to lose for something,” Gregoire said. You need to stand strong to your convictions instead of going by what the polls might say. Even if your policy ends up not being popular, Gregoire believes that you should still stand true to it and be willing to lose for it. “You have to feel, live, and understand why you are running,” She said. After all, Ted Kennedy, an extremely successful politician and the consummate senator, shot himself in the foot when Roger Mudd asked him why he was running to be President and he could not answer. You don’t want that to happen to you. So be prepared. 8) Talk with your family You need to consult with your spouse. While they may not need to play a role in the campaign, if they are against you running, then it probably isn’t a good idea to run. You also need to consult with your children. Everyone in the family may be subject to public scrutiny and media attention during the campaigning process. 9) Open seat vs. Incumbent There are different sets of dynamics in either situation. When there is an open seat, there will be many candidates and it may be hard for you to distinguish yourself. If there is an incumbent, then you definitely should have a good reason why people should vote for you and not the incumbent. 10) Do you have the time to campaign? Do you have a current job? Is your employer okay with you taking the time to campaign and run? The campaign process is extremely busy and a constant go and you need to be sure that you are able to make the time commitment to this. 11) Opposition research on yourself What the public thinks is a problem versus what you think is a problem may be very different. As a result, it is incredibly important to do some opposition research on yourself and see how you might appear in the eyes of the public. Milly Wang ’16 (keqimillywang@college) is from Canada.
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Halloween Treasures . 4 1 0 2 n e e w o l l a H o t Playlist Games e d i u Your G
By MICHAEL LUO
“Haunted House” by Bee Gees The Walking Dead: The Game “Hungry Like the Wolf” by Duran Duran Bioshock “Thriller” by Michael Jackson Left 4 Dead “Black Cat” by Janet Jackson Plants vs. Zombies “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker, Jr. Dead Island “Men in Black” by Will Smith “A Nightmare on My Street” By DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince The Last of Us “Monster” by Kanye West Resident Evil “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” by Jimi Hendrix “Bat Out of Hell” by Meat Loaf “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman “We Suck Young Blood” by Radiohead The Twits by Roald Dahl “This is Halloween” by Marilyn Manson Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark collected by Alvin Schwartz “The Number of the Beast” by Iron Maiden In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak “On a Wicked Night” by Danzig Animorphs by K. A. Applegate “Devil Woman” by Cliff Richard R.L. Stine’s Twitter story “Feed My Frankenstein” by Alice Cooper The Metamorphosis by Frank Kafka “The Horror” by RJD2 “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe “I Put a Spell on You” by Nina Simone Michael Luo ’16 (michaelluo@college) is looking forward to The Book of Life.
Stories
Ahh! Monsters!
Top Ten Scariest Mythological Creatures.
By MOIYA MCTIER Puka
10. – Shape-shifters from Celtic folklore who can either bring good or (more often) bad luck. Have you ever wondered where the name Puck or the word “nightmare” came from? Well, now you know.
Split-Mouth Woman
9. – Designed to teach children not to talk to strangers, this Japanese urban legend tells of a horribly disfigured woman who goes around asking people if she’s beautiful. Unless you want your head chopped of by a pair of giant scissors, you better not answer her, and should instead just run away. Lucky for us college students, she usually targets children.
Pesta
8. – Pesta’s a great Scandinavian example of people creating folklore to mirror their current strife. Scandinavian countries were hit pretty hard by the Plague, so they created this figure—an old woman who foretold death with a rake and a broom—to personify it. I don’t know about you, but I’d be pretty terrified if any old lady came at me with a broom, even if that didn’t mean my whole family was going to die soon. 6 harvardindependent.com
Blemmyes
7. - Sometimes used to describe a peaceful group of people who lived in what is now the Sudan and sometimes used to describe monstrous, headless cannibals with a mouth and eyes on their chest. This is a pretty common thing. Just google “things with mouths on their stomachs” and you’ll have no shortage of results.
Echidna
6. – No, I don’t mean the adorable (yet weird-looking) relative of the platypus, but the vicious Mother of All Monsters from Greek mythology. Half-woman and half-snake, the Echidna mothered terrifying creatures like Cerberus, the Chimera, and the Gorgons, just to name a few of the well-known ones.
Encantado
5. – Down in Brazil, some villagers are so afraid of coming across the Encantado that they refuse to go near the Amazon River at night. During the day, the Encantado can be seen in the form of a dolphin, but after the sun goes down, the creature reverts to its human form, and regains its abilities to control people’s will, induce illness or death, and control storms.
Wendigo
4. – Many folklorists believe that this Native American myth, which you should imagine as a cannibalistic combination of a werewolf and a yeti, was used to reinforce the rule that cannibalism was bad. 3.
of people already think worms are creepy—they’re slimy, they wiggle around, they have that sense of immortality about them because they grow back when you cut them in half. Imagine all of that creepiness blown up to about 5 feet, and add the fact that if you touch it or its spit, you die instantly. Now you’re picturing the Mongolian Death Worm, who is said to be found in the Gobi Desert.
Tikbalang
2. – If you ever find yourself alone at night, walking through a forest in the Phillipines, beware of this creature. With its human body and freakishly long horse limbs, it’s able to prey after women in the forest, impregnating them with their terrible little Tikbalang children. This really makes me look at centaurs in a whole new light.
Bubak
1. – What are some of the things you’ve always been afraid of? Scarecrows, murderers, babies crying, your soul being stolen, creepy guys riding around in a carriage pulled by cats. Add all of those together and you have the Bubak, the Czech bogeyman. Moiya McTier '16 (mmctier01@college) hopes these cr
Mongolian Death Worm – A lot 10.30.14 • The Harvard Independent
The Pleasure of Fear Why are we drawn to the things that scare us? By SARAH ROSENTHAL
T
he American Museum of Natural History’s iconic Hall of Ocean Life is full of horrors. The most obvious stems from the fear that the giant and spectacular whale suspended from the ceiling will fall at any moment and crush everyone in the room. But on the lower floor, off in the corner away from the whale’s prime squashing zone, is a more terrifying diorama. It stands out from afar as soon as you enter the hall, because unlike the other spaces carved into the walls and featuring creatures of the deep, it is entirely unlit. Standing in front of it, my eyes take a few seconds to adjust, and out of the darkness appears the face of a whale, five feet away. Gripping its jaws is a giant squid; these are the mysterious, enormous monsters of the deep. Because the only light illuminating the scene is the general lighting from the hall, it would likely be impossible to see the creatures were there a pane of glass separating them from the museum’s visitors. Standing in front of this open, dark space representing the ocean and its unfathomable, cavernous depths, seeing these monsters frozen in battle, I feel fear. It’s entirely visceral, and it’s a fascinating feeling to me, because it is so clearly felt rather than thought. But more than that, it interests me because in a strange way, it feels good. Maybe fear is just a brand of excitement. I’ve been slightly obsessed with the fight between the squid and the whale since I was very young. And it’s always scared me, but I’m always drawn back to it. Just like I fixated on the movies and computer games that terrified me as a child. I still think about the “rhino” that killed James’s parents in James and the Giant Peach, and the
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boat ride in Willy Wonka. Without the scary scene in the forest, I’m not sure that Snow White would ever have appealed to me. But I’ve always wondered why the fear these images and ideas incited in me had any appeal. It’s curious that my interest in scary things has stayed with me as a characteristic of who I was as a child, but the phenomenon of fear being appealing certainly goes beyond a childhood fascination. Watching horror movies, though an experience I (and I suspect many others) often regret, creates a certain type of excitement that is distinctly emotionally immersive compared to other entertainment experiences. It leaves you with the feeling you have when you suddenly look up from a great book and think about the fact that you were only reading, and not actually dunked into another world. The content of the feeling may be negative, but feeling it so viscerally and powerfully in the first place gives it a unique appeal. Regardless of how paradoxically fun it can be to experience designed to create fear, there is another characteristic of horror I have come to love: its ability to create humor. Survival horror video games are perhaps the best use of fear as entertainment because the immersion of fear itself is heightened by the already-immersive nature of the game. They are also capable of creating a social situation in which one person is more intensely immersed than those watching him or her play. And the reactions that come out of an extremely frightened person are always funny to someone not in the position of fear. A few summers ago, if I found myself with free time and was extremely bored, I made use of twitch.tv to watch live streams
of people playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent. In Amnesia, the main character finds himself going insane in a dark and scary mansion full of mutated people. My theory is that the people playing the game created live streams in the hope that playing with the company of others could alleviate the tension created by the game. And I found watching these streams to be consistently hilarious, because they fit into one of two categories. Either the person had played through the game before, knew what to expect, and responded to the gameplay with hilarious commentary rather than fear, or he was playing through for the first time and responded to the scary moments of the game by absolutely freaking out. If you want a taste of what this is like, do a YouTube search for “Amnesia the Dark Descent MilkyWays.” I’ve found few things as consistently funny as other peoples’ expressions of pure fear. Perhaps in these cases the humor doesn’t come directly from the intended horror. But it does point out how significantly the things that scare us can change when we step away from them. And it shows the convulsing of an experience based in fear into one of the purest pleasure. Out of horror comes happiness, and sometimes the happiness lies in the feeling of fear itself when directly processed by the body. But maybe that’s little comfort when it also keeps you up at night. Sarah Rosenthal ’15 (srosenthal@college) is ready for Halloween.
Photo-illustration by Anna Papp/The Harvard Independent
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Infectious Ideas
A look at the artistic portrayal of pandemics and their propagation through the ages. By ANDREW LIN
T
he screens tell the story, with red blips slowly morphing into huge red blobs into continent-spanning expanses of disease and decay, all demarcated by cable news and whatever governmental authorities might remain. The great cities of yore are themselves split up, carved into protectorates of immune zones pushing valiantly against the ever-growing borders of the infected, of the dead and the dying. The same story plays out over country after country, with once-impenetrable national borders dissolving into seas of refugees and quarantines and dead zones. Grief and sadness give way to disorder as public health and public order begin to disintegrate, their place taken first by panic and then by the simple priorities of survival, irrespective of medical science or governmental will. In the public imagination, these scenes are as familiar as they are now pervasive: with the latest Ebola scare, the threat of pandemic and the associated panic have now burst back into the public spotlight, infecting cable news networks and anxious minds alike. Nor is this obsession with pandemics limited to the news media either: modern pop culture is awash in disease stories of all kinds, fixating on everything from zombie swarms to the geopolitical struggles in the that erupt in their aftermath. This newest wave of fascination with the ethics, politics, and scenarios associated with world-ending plagues, however, is nothing more than the latest in a long line of artistic depictions of plague. With every civilization — every agglomeration of people living in cramped conditions — the spread of disease is almost as rapid as the spread of folklore and culture, a supposition borne out by the age-old march of plague through the artistic ages. Early depictions of disease in the ancient and classical world were often inextricably linked with religious iconography. Medicine in the ancient empires of Sumer and Egypt (and by extension early depictions of epidemics) was inextricably tied to a vast and wide-ranging pantheon of healing deities, sacred shrines, and the occasional empirical set of observations. A thousand years on, perspectives of disease had not evolved much: despite the best efforts of early medical pioneers such as Hippocrates and Galen, the Greco-Roman cultural tradition ascribed the effects of disease to its own gods, and indeed temples were replete with healing idols, ritual chants, and sacrifices. Even the traditional snake symbol adorning hospitals and doctors’ coats the world over is a holdover from the Greeks: the Rod of Asclepius (not to be confused with Hermes’ caduceus) for them was but another symbol for idolatrous worship.
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The seminal pre-industrial plague, however, was naturally the Black Plague, the flea and rat-borne disease that turned feudalism and the by-now-Christian religious order upside down in just eight short years. The rapid deaths of up to a full third of the population of Europe from 1346 to 1353 inspired much in the way of both literary and artistic works in the years that followed, each posing unique and critical perspectives on the nature of death and the permanence of temporal order. Some attempted to deal with the crippling losses with comedy: such was the approach of Giovanni Boccaccio, whose comedy play Decameron was authored immediately after the plague left the city of Florence in 1353. The comedy of the play, however, was as much satirical as it was escapist: in his detailing of the tales told by a group of young men and women hiding out in a remote villa during the plague years, Boccaccio savaged the old clerical and governmental orders that had failed to adequately respond to the plague crisis. The lithographs of the period were more direct still, depicting a gathered mélange of emperors and paupers, clerics and scientists, nobles and peasants, all united even in the face of social stratification by gaunt and pale death. The ravages of disease, however, did not stop with the end of the black plague. From yellow fever in the Americas to the endless scourges of cholera, leprosy, and tuberculosis throughout the world, rampant epidemics were a nasty scourge well into the 19th and 20th centuries, and poets and artists took notice accordingly. The same death-almighty aesthetic was still accordingly being peddled: an 1832 outbreak of cholera in Paris (during a masquerade ball, of all things) inspired both the German poet Heinrich Heine and the engraver Alfred Rethel to put out lurid and grim commemorations of the event in prose and picture displays. Things were much the same across the pond: Edgar Allen Poe’s 1842 short story The Masque of the Red Death, a chilling Gothic tale of a tuberculosis-like disease whose personification infiltrates a castle quarantined from the infected countryside. For Poe the story was as personally cathartic as it was terrifying, for his own wife Victoria was struggling with the same epidemic of tuberculosis that had struck down his mother and brother years earlier. As the 19th century wore on, however, the conduct of the emerging nation-states to disease was granted a radical and new perspective in the discovery of the very mechanism of disease: germ theory. French scientist Louis Pasteur’s astonishing revelations in the latter half of the 19th century on the nature of disease lent a new scientific
urgency to the combating of epidemics and their spread, and the sea change in public health that resulted seemed to portend a new era for many. But with everything from mass immigrations to world wars, however, this was not the case: truly rapid transcontinental transport caused cholera and typhoid fever to propagate faster than ever before. The arts reacted with consternation: cartoons in Puck magazine lampooned the lone carbonic-acid wielding doctor standing against the tide of endless diseased immigrants. World War I induced the Spanish flu epidemic, which struck down 3% of the world’s population in 1918 and spurred on afflicted painter Edvard Munch (of The Scream fame) to paint himself gaunt in a chair, his quivering lines and unsteady colors a testament to the ravages and despair of pandemic. Modern times yield modern problems, and the ease of propagation of disease across borders and continents is perhaps the greatest advantage to those inspired and fascinated by pandemics. Modern popular culture has seized on this in full force: themes of zombies and the spread of the diseases they carry populate all the major network channels and movie studio backlots. The literary world is similarly aflame with paperbacks (which in turn spawn movie adaptations) of all sorts of diseases and pandemics, each depicting a different race between human medical ingenuity and the ticking clocks of death. In that very race, however, lies a unique shift in the role of the disease in modern art, namely from that of inevitability to that of an opponent, intractable at times but at least vulnerable to the strength of modern medicine. And in that role the modern disaster disease flick becomes, like its predecessors, but an exponent of the fears of the time. Just as the ancient and medieval societies of yore bemoaned the random ravages of disease, so do we modern people — but we at least have the tools to fight back, to claim some of the territory as our own again, and to portray disease in art not just as an invulnerable foe, but as a competitor who can be ultimately bested. In that light, Ebola as a crisis is merely the latest in a long line of predecessor pandemics, from the SARS and bird flu of the 2000s to the measles and typhoid of yesteryear — and we as a society would do well to remember that fact, even while empathizing with those already affected by the disease. Andrew Lin ’17 (andrewlin@college) writes this returning from New York City, where he did not contract Ebola on the subway.
10.30.14 • The Harvard Independent
Sports
indy
Band of Brothers Men’s Water Polo clinches two in a row at Blodgett By CAROLINE C. CRONIN
O
n the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, immortalized by Shakespeare’s Henry V, the men of Harvard water polo waged their own battle on the home waters of Blodgett Pool. This past Saturday the men hosted two teams, MIT and Connecticut College, for a doubleheader in the CWPA Northern Division. The water polo team had just taken third place in the Ivy League Championships by beating out Dartmouth 15-11 on October 19. With that victory under their belts they have now taken third place three times in the last five years. The team’s hard work and consistency paid off, as the Crimson was able to control both home games this weekend and beat the MIT Engineers and the Connecticut College Camels. The MIT game began at 11:00am, and shortly after the first swim-off, Harvard took a number of shots on goal but with the MIT defense coming out strong only managed to score once. The Crimson trailed the Engineers 2-1 at the end of the first quarter. The next quarter began with MIT scoring first again but with one penalty shot and two last minute goals by Harvard’s Colin Chiapello ‘18, Harvard ended the first half ahead 4-3. The Harvard offense came into full swing in the third quarter and the team scored three goals total but let in 2 from the Engineers, leaving the score 7-5 before the final quarter. Joey Colton ‘17 opened the fourth quarter with a long-range shot and then assisted on junior Blake Lee’s. score Ben Zepfel ‘16 brought the team to the 10-goal mark for the 18th time this season. Harvard continued to dominate in offense even though MIT scored twice in the last 4 minutes. The men of Harvard water polo won 12-7. Inspired by victory, the team jumped back in the water again at 3:00 pm to play the Connecticut College Camels. They egg-beatered their way to a 6-3 lead in the first quarter with two of the goals scored by Viktor Wrobel ‘17 right away. Colin Woolway ‘16 led the defense, making great saves, and keeping the Crimson ahead 10-4 at the end of the second quarter. Third quarter’s offense thrived on motivation and communication and scored seven total goals while defense let in only one. Senior captain Max Murphy scored twice in the quarter of his last home game. The team had honored him for his four-year service and all that he accomplished with Harvard water polo. Comfortable with their lead, Harvard scored twice in the final quarter and finished 19-8 to complete their sweep of the CWPA doubleheader. The team was certainly a happy bunch as they climbed out of the water and congratulated each other. Next weekend the team heads to New York for three different matches. On Saturday Harvard will face St. Francis and follow on Sunday with one game against Fordham and another against Iona. And so the number 18 ranked water polo team impresses with its 17-6 record and heads off towards the end of their season, the fans and Harvard supporters fully behind them.
The Harvard Independent • 10.30.14
Caroline C. Cronin (ccronin01@college) shouted encouragement from the stands of Blodgett pool in the form of a Shakespearian monologue (you know the one).
Harvard men’s water polo won two CWPA Northern Division match ups this past weekend, defeating MIT 12-7 and Connecticut College 19-8.The team heads to New York this weekend for three different matches against St. Francis, Fordham, and Iona.
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Sports
In the Zone
Harvard Women’s Volleyball Wins Fifth Straight Behind Two Carolines. By PEYTON FINE
I
t’s said in sports that when a team is in the zone, the whole arena knows it. It is a tangible feeling that anyone can feel as soon as the team steps onto the court. Harvard women’s volleyball team is in that proverbial zone. On Friday night, the Crimson beat Dartmouth for its fifth straight victory. Harvard now stands at 13-4, which is its best record through 17 matches in school history, and is only a match behind Yale, who is the defending Ivy League champion. From the very first serve Friday night, Harvard was in control starting with an ace. Midway through the first set, Harvard’s hot serving
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continued with a run of nine straight points behind the serving of senior Caroline Walters. (In volleyball, a rotation occurs after a team loses a serve. If the team continues to win points on its serve, the same lineup remains until the opposing team can win a point.) After the run, Harvard cruised to a 25-13 first set victory. Head coach Jennifer Weiss characterized the serving as a strength and said the team continued to work to serve aggressively. For the Crimson, when it was not aces from Walters, it was serves that forced Dartmouth into bad passes. On multiple occasions, the passes from Dartmouth were so poor that the ball would find its way to Harvard’s side of the net for an easy kill. The second set was a much more even set. Harvard never led by more than two points early in the set and was tied with Dartmouth multiple times. Harvard continued to feed the middle of its offense with quick sets to Harvard’s two Carolines, Caroline Holte ‘16 and Walters. Together, the two contributed twenty-six points. The middle was opened by the dangerous outside hitting of sophomore Grace Weghorst, who also added twelve points. Head coach Jennifer Weiss said, “We wanted to push the ball out to the pins and then hit the transition game in the middle.” The impact of Weghorst throughout the game cannot be overstated. Weghorst did not step off the court once, which is rare in volleyball
when players consistently shuttle in and out, so much so that the referees must use a computer just to track substitutions. Weghorst’s presence as an outside hitter consistently kept the Dartmouth blockers honest and opened the middle for both Caroline’s. Being able to attack both outside and inside stretches defense (like in basketball) and opens up more and more uncontested spikes. Weghorst led the team in total attempts, and her presence was even more important in the third set after starting outside hitter Kathleen Wallace ‘16 went down with an injury. The third set started off much like the second set as Dartmouth kept it close. Dartmouth led 10-8 for its first lead of the entire match when Coach Weiss called a timeout. Weiss again went back to the bread and butter that had fed Harvard all game with a set to Walters in the center. Walters rotated to the center after the initial pass and went up for the spike nearly unmarked. Walters said that point was crucial, “We had let them go on a little run, and we called timeout and knew we needed to stop it.” Harvard won the point, which sparked a 6-1 run to put the Crimson up 14-11. Harvard ended the third set on another 5-1 run for a sweep of the match. For the Crimson, the win avenged an early away defeat to Dartmouth. Walters said, “This game was particularly special for us because they beat us earlier. Once we came out and started playing well, it just built our confidence.” The theme of starting well is one that will serve Harvard well moving forward. The Crimson’s two Ivy League losses both came after losing the opening set. Harvard is now halfway through its Ivy League slate and one game back at Yale, whom they beat earlier in the year. Harvard has never won the Ivy League outright, but so far the start has been the best in program history. To win the Ivy, it will take continued brilliance on services where Harvard currently leads the Ivy League, and the domination in the center where Caroline Holte and Caroline Walters are first and third in the Ivy in hitting percentage. As Walters said, the start of the game is critical for the Crimson. If the start of the season is as critical as the start of games, the Crimson have an opportunity to do something never done before. Peyton Fine ’17 (peytonfine@college) is excited for the opportunities before the Harvard women’s volleyball team after five straight victories and the best start in program history. 10.30.14 • The Harvard Independent
Sports
indy
NFL Breakdown Week 7 Roundup and Week 8 Fantasy Advice. By CHRISTOPHER J. RILEY Week 8 of the NFL season is underway, with the Thursday And, for the record, defenses that give up a lot of yards won’t night matchup between the Denver Broncos and the San Diego get you much either. By that metric, avoid: Giants, Texans, Chargers in the books (the Broncos won 35-21). In advance of Panthers, Jaguars, Browns, Falcons, Bengals, Bucs the Week 8 matchups, here is a recap of the Week 7 Matchups: Yeah, if you have one of those teams, drop them and pick a different D/ST up off the waiver wire. Week 8 Rundown Thursday Night Football: 3. Percy Harvin? The big name wide-receiver is the Jets latest 1. Denver Broncos (6-1) beat the San Diego Chargers (5-3), 35-21 shiny, pass-catching new toy with locker room issues and he’s extremely talented. He could end up hauling in not only a lot Sunday Football: of passes, but a lot of touchdowns. But have you seen the Jets 1. The Detroit Lions (6-2) beat the Atlanta Falcons (2-6), 22-21 QB situation? Geno Smith just threw more interceptions (3) 2. The Kansas City Chiefs (4-3) beat the St. Louis Rams (2-5), 34-7 than completions (2), which sounds more like how a high school 3. The Houston Texans (4-4) beat the Tennessee Titans (2-6), 30-16 student would insult an opposing quarterback than a legitimate 4. The Minnesota Vikings (3-5) beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-6), 19-13 stat. Then the Jets announced that 34-year-old Michael Vick, 5. The Seattle Seahawks (4-3) beat the Carolina Panthers (3-4-1), 13-9 who also committed 3 turnovers when replacing Smith, would 6. The Cincinnati Bengals (4-2-1) beat the Baltimore Ravens (4-3), 27-24 be starting this week. Hold the phone on Percy Harvin. 7. The Miami Dolphins (4-3) beat the Jacksonville Jaguars (1-7), 27-13 8. The New England Patriots (6-2) beat the Chicago Bears (3-5), 51-23 9. The Buffalo Bills (5-3) beat the New York Jets (1-7), 43-23 10. The Arizona Cardinals (6-1) beat the Philadelphia Eagles (5-2), 24-20 11. The Cleveland Browns (4-3) beat the Oakland Raiders (0-7), 23-13 12. The Pittsburgh Steelers (5-3) beat the Indianapolis Colts (5-3), 51-34 13. The New Orleans Saints (3-4) beat the Green Bay Packers (5-3), 44-23
4. What tight end do you play if you don’t have Rob Gronkowski or Jimmy Graham? Julius Thomas (Broncos) and Antonio Gates (Chargers) are tied for the league lead in TD receptions with 9 -- not just for tight ends, they beat out every wideout in the NFL. Greg Olson (Panthers) and Zach Ertz (Eagles) are good bets, too (receiving yards + red zone threat = high payoff).
Monday Night Football: Chris Riley ‘17 (criley01@college) will defend Boston sports in the face of 1. The Washington Redskins (3-5) beat the Dallas Cowboys (6-2), 20-17 (OT) any statistic or logical argument and hopefully didn’t sink your Fantasy team
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this week.
Week 9: No predictions, but some fantasy advice 1. Start Brandon Lafell at wide receiver. Let’s be serious, you’re already starting Rob Gronkowski at tight end if you have him. However, the Patriots lost their workhorse running back Stevan Ridley and probably won’t be giving Jonas Gray (despite his 230-lb, brutish running) many goal line touches against a stout Broncos line. Lafell is a good bet to catch any TD passes not thrown Gronk’s way. 2. For better or worse, a defense that allows teams to put points on the board (even if those points are fewer than their own team scores) won’t gain many fantasy points. Here are the worst teams by that metric: Raiders, Jets, Jaguars, Saints, Panthers, Falcons, Cardinals, Buccaneers.
The Harvard Independent • 10.30.14
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