Talk of Town

talk of town

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OCTOBER

2019

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ISSUE

10

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VOLUME

12

contents & editorial

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A

review: Pulitzer music winners

EDITORIAL

FROM

THE

EDITOR

THEMSELVES

BY CINDT TOLENTINO ANTUN

A magazine is a publication, usually a

sports section

periodical publication, which is printed or electronically published (sometimes referred to as an online magazine). At its root, the word "magazine" refers to a collection or storage

opinion: media discrimination

location. Magazines are generally published on a regular schedule and contain a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by prepaid subscriptions, or a combination of the three. At its root, the word "magazine" refers to a

news: strike on syria

collection or storage location. In the case of written publication, it is a collection of written articles. This explains why magazine publications share the word root with gunpowder magazines, artillery magazines,

profile: quinn brewer

firearms magazines. At its root, the word "magazine" refers to a collection or storage location.

april summary

A magazine is a publication, usually a periodical publication, which is printed or electronically published (sometimes referred to as an online magazine). At its root, the word

nature gallery

"magazine" refers to a collection or storage location. Magazines are generally published on a regular schedule and contain a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by prepaid subscriptions, or a combination of the three. At its root, the word "magazine" refers to a collection or storage location.

03

F E AT U R E

MAY 25, 2018

Pulitzer prize music review Here is a review for three Pultizer Prize music award winners.

BY ANN GAO

The album was released by rapper Kendrick Lamar in 2017 and earned him a Pulitzer in 2018, making him the first rapper to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music. “DAMN.” is full of powerful storytelling, amazing lyrics, stellar production. While “To Pimp A Butterfly” was jazzy, sophisticated, and dense; “DAMN.” is lean and straightforward. “DNA” is one of the best tracks on the album, with aggressive delivery, amazing beat, and so much more.

An engaging listen, “DAMN.” fully deserves its Pulitzer.

Iowan Michael Gilbertson composed this in 2017 in response to the 2016 presidential election, and it’s amazing. The first movement starts with swelling chords that sound almost electric, and that leads into comforting, soft music. There are a variety of different emotions in the movements, from comforting to delicate.

SOUND FROM THE BENCH

QUARTET

While most songs on this five-movement cantanta aren’t songs you would sing in the shower, they’re still amazing songs.

They’re filled with emotion and anguish, and use real recordings from various real life situations (one recording came from the Steubenville High School rape court case) along with electric guitar. The songs are electic and the textures are beautiful.

DESIGN BY ALICE MENG

04

SPORTS

MAY 25, 2018

HEADLINE ON

S O CCE R

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PHOTO HERE

05

SPORTS

MAY 25, 2018

BY CINDY TOLENTINOANTUN

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SIDEBAR

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DESIGN BY ALICE MENG

06

SPORTS MAY 25,

Future college athletes 27 student athletes signed National Letters of Intent, committing to participate in NCAA colleges and universities. We can’t put all of them here, but here are a few.

BY ANN GAO

Nelson Brands

Megan Herring

Brad Dileo

Keimoney Lang

U of I wrestling

Central College tennis

Iowa Central CC cheerleading DMACC volleyball

Dillon Doyle

Ruby Martin

Chandler Haight

Bailey Nock

Kylie Heisdorffer

Rachael Saunders

UI football

Arizona State swimming and diving

Drake University track and Colorado University cross country field Kirkwood CC softball

Creighton University basketball

DESIGN BY ALICE MENG

07

OPINION

WHITE

L P

I offer some thought on the most marginalized racial group in America.

T

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MAY 25,

08

OPINION MAY 25, 2018

BY ANN GAO

W

hen I think of the most oppressed race in America today, the race I think of is white Americans. They face discrimination in media, oppression in college campuses and rapidly decreasing representation in pop culture, along with other areas. White Americans face the most discrimination but their struggles are often ignored or silenced, with many saying that 400+ years of systemic, institutionalized racism in their favor means that they have many privileges. I disagree. I understand that as someone who isn’t white, I’ve never experienced what it’s like to be white, but I have white friends and have learned much from them.

In the news, more and more headlines are written in a rude, insulting fashion about seemingly only white-passing subjects. Just look at all the articles written about President Donald Trump. Sure, he’s said and done all sorts of offensive things towards women, transgender people, various racial and ethnic minorities; but as a white man, the media criticizes him too harshly. Why should

journalists hold the leader of the free world accountable for actions for which he was completely responsible? Let’s not forget the white people writing the articles. Take Kevin Williamson, who just repeatedly stated that women who have abortions should be killed, and was fired from The Atlantic after general outrage regarding those comments.

Sure, he said that women should be killed on a genocidal scale for a medical decision, but that’s just an anti-white dog whistle for “we don’t like white people having terrible opinions.” Now, he’s limited to writing for unknown publications like the Street Journal and the National Review.

White men can never seem to catch a break in the media, whether they be the journalists or the subjects of the articles.

Ever since President John Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, white people have faced discrimination in colleges. Being white works against many in the college application process, wheremany schools award people of color for something they don’t control. Affirmative action

09

OPINION

MAY 25, 2018

limits white teenagers’ ability to enter college so much white people only make up the large majority of college students. Even if people aren’t college students, they still get discriminated against. White speakers are treated differently from speakers of color and their opinions are often treated as less valid. Yes, they haven’t experienced what it’s like to be a POC, but many of them read articles by journalists of color and thus are qualified to speak on race issues.

In pop culture, white people face/see fewer and fewer actors who look like them.

In 2007, white characters made up 77.6% of characters in 900 popular films. In 2016, they only made up 70.8% of characters in 900 popular films, a decrease of 6.8%. This has huge effects on white children.

How will they have characters that accurately represent them only a ridiculously overwhelming majority of characters in popular films look like them? Furthermore, white people are stereotyped in books too often. Take “Game of Thrones”: the large majority of stupid decisions, violence

and crimes are committed by white characters. While some might say that’s because practically all the characters are white, it is clearly anti-white racism and stereotyping. This sends a dangerous message to white viewers that they are thugs, brutes and idiots. Furthermore, only a few of the main characters are people of color, so people of color don’t have enough representation to be stereotyped. People of color in pop culture have it better than white characters in almost all situations.

While the situation seems bleak right now for white people, I am confident that it will get better. It is my serious hope that one day we can have 43 consecutive presidents who are white and a legislative branch that is 78% white, as that will mean that we have moved past this era of anti-white racism.

Note: What shocks me more than racism is the fact that some people think white people are somehow oppressed by systemic racism. Please get educated on this matter and lis-

DESIGN BY ALICE MENG

10

N EWS

ARTICLE

MAY 25, 2018

ON SYRIA

Following an alleged chemical attack on Syrian citizens, the US, UK and France retaliated and bombed chemical weapon manufacturers and army bases. There were varied responses around West High and Iowa City.

11

N EWS

MAY 25, 2018

BY ANN GAO

W

orld Languages Teacher Sydney McDermott considers Trump to be narcissistic. “It’s a super huge problem,” she said, “because you cannot act on behalf of a county when you are trying to serve yourself.” McDermott also stated that Trump “has disgraced the practice of diplomacy by not appointing a [diplomat] for a variety of countries, including Syria.” (The US lacks appointed ambassadors to over 50 countries, including but not limited to Syria.)

McDermott disapproves of the US strike, saying it was ineffective and self-serving.

“It had almost no effect on Assad’s regime or anything,” she said. “It was problematic how [Trump] framed it … he made it sound more like we were intervening in a heroic way when really, what prompted the decision was the fact that ISIS forces were becoming more present in Syria,” she said. She believes that Trump was using the US strike as a way to attract attention to himself before the 2018 US midterm elections (where all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats will be contested).

Regarding Trump’s decision to tweet twice about the US strike on Syria, she said, “I think it’s a huge problem when that is communicated on a social platform … It can cause a very volatile state when the world and other leaders are reacting to a very, very sensitive issue that could lead to international conflict.” President Trump is famous, or infamous, for using Twitter often.

Aaron Perdue ‘21 is a self-de-

as humorous. Perdue also disapproved of the US attack, saying that the strike was ill-planned and ineffective. “As soon as he seen or heard about it he sent missile at the air field base and could of [sic] killed people especially if there was Russian that died [sic] a Russia might go to war,” Perdue said. He said the strike was not effective because the US, UK and France might have targeted the wrong country. “We don[‘]t [k] now if it was [Syria] that [attacked its citizens].”

Perdue believes the US should further investigate the chemical attack and confirm that the Syrian government was responsible before we take further action. Perdue believes that the Syrian government may not have been responsible for the chemical attacks.

Perdue did not think Trump’s tweets prior to the strike negatively affected the strike, saying that they weren’t important and did nothing to escalate the situation.

While Trump has not taken further action on Syria yet, it is still possible for him to take further military action without Congress’s approval if he finds weapons of mass destruction in Syria. We’ll have to see what Trump will or won’t do.

"You cannot act on behalf of a country when you are trying to serve yourself."

supporter. Perdue said that he supports Trump because “we got all these problems in the country that needs fixing” and he believes Trump is addressing those issues. He cited the conflict in the Korean peninsula as proof that Trump is also effective in dealing with complicated topics outside the US. He has a positive opinion of Trump’s tweets,

DESIGN BY ALICE MENG

12

PROFILE

FEB. 17, 2017

1 in 2000: Quinn Brewer Art is a large part of Quinn Brewer ‘21’s life, and video games are a large part of that.

BY ANN GAO

Quinn Brewer ‘21 writes for up to three hours every day. “I’ve been writing for a really long time,” Brewer said. Her journal has almost ⅓ of its pages filled now. She mainly writes fiction, particularly fantasy.

She says that she prefers writing to playing video games. She even has a DeviantArt account dedicated to seeing other users’ art and sharing her writing.

Many of her fictional characters are inspired by video game characters. While Brewer doesn’t write about video game characters, she does borrow traits from them and use those traits in her own characters.

One of her fictional characters is a cyborg named Hans, who

is a cyborg named Hans, who resembles Hanzo from Overwatch. The characters have different personalities but similar origin stories, with the developers initially envisioning Hanzo as a cyborg ninja. Her stories usually don’t have large, complex plots but small ones.

Most of her stories are short, only consisting of a few chapters. She often uses the same characters across different storylines so she doesn’t have to create new characters for every new short story.

She plays video games for at

least one hour every day, devoting much of her time to them.

She said that video games make her feel less stressed and provide writing inspiration for her.

“Overwatch [...] helped me with [the] character development of one of the characters I [created],” said Brewer. “I know she really likes to play Overwatch,” said Dorsa Behnami ‘21, “[Video games] are definitely a big part of her life. She has a lot of stuffed animals, collections of different video games.” She even has a phone case with Genji, an Overwatch character, on it.

13

PROFILE

FEB. 17, 2017

Her favorite video game is “Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild,” an action-adventure game where the main character, Link, explores the fictional kingdom of Hyrule. The game is her favorite because of the fact that it’s an open world game; meaning, it’s a game that lets the player roam around freely. “The game itself is just beautiful,” Brewer said. Brewer and her friend Loie Casko ‘21 both like to create art in-

“IT’S A REALLY GOOD WAY TO PASS TIME.”

The video game she plays the most is Fallout, a post-apocalyptic role-playing video game series. “It’s honestly a super long game and I try to get a lot of the side quest[s] done.” Brewer does not play Fallout with others, since is not a game where players play on teams. “It’s a really good way to pass time,” said Brewer, “I just play it so I’m not bored. It’s not that deep for me.”

DESIGN BY ALICE MENG

14

F E AT U R E MAY 25,

A P R I L I N R EV I EW

An overview of news events that occured during April.

BY ANN GAO

APRIL 1

Mudslides in Colombia leave over 200 dead and over 200 injured.

APRIL 3

Shooting at YouTube headquarters in California leaves several injured and one (the shooter) dead.

APRIL 6

42 Syrian citizens die after an alleged chemical attack by the Syrian government. The Syrian government denied involvement, but many countries (including the US) believe that the Syrian government was responsible.

APRIL 8

U of I issues Hawk alert after sexual assault reported at Slater Hall dorm.

APRIL 14 APRIL 10

Facebook begins notifying people if their data was accessed during the Cambridge Analytica data breach that affected 87 million users.

The US, UK and France bomb Syria in response to the alleged chemical attacks on Syrian citizens.

15

F E AT U R E

MAY 25,

APRIL 20

APRIL 16

Iowa City resident Rickey L. Jones is arrested for cocaine possession on Herbert Hoover Highway.

APRIL 25

A federal judge orders the Trump administration to new DACA applicants and gives them a 90-day deadline to explain why Trump did not continue DACA.

APRIL 28

Iowa high school Drake Relays end. Five West athletes placed in the top three, including Austin West ‘18 (who placed first in the boys 400 m hurdle).

School walkouts and various other protests take place on the anniversary of the Columbine shooting all over the country, including Iowa City. The protests pushed for increased gun control.

APRIL 26

French President Emmanuel Macron ends 3-day US visit with address to joint session of Congress.

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