SPORTS PULLOUT: BASKETBALL PREVIEW
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The Independent Student Newspaper Volume LXXI, Number 11
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B r a n d e is U n i v e r sit y S i n c e 1 9 4 9
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Waltham, Mass.
‘HEALTHY AND HUNGER-FREE’
BRIEF Brandeis alumnus donates $10 million for Japanese students Toshizo “Tom” Watanabe ’73 has donated $10 million in scholarship funds to be allocated to undergraduate and graduate students from Japan. This is the single largest donation the University has received from an international graduate, according to the University’s Nov. 14 press release. The Toshizo Watanabe International Scholarship Program will be available to students who are currently studying or who have studied at “top-tier” Japanese universities with whom Brandeis has a partnership, according to the press release. Brandeis’ International Business School has already established relationships with the Keio and Waseda Universities, both based in Tokyo, per the IBS website. Watanabe Scholars will be eligible to attend Brandeis as undergraduates or graduate students in three of its schools: IBS, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Through the scholarship, they will receive full tuition and a partial stipend for living expenses, according to the TWISP website. Watanabe, who grew up in Kamakura, Japan, was admitted to the University as part of the Wien International Scholarship Program, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, per the TWISP press release. That program covers the full demonstrated need of its recipients, who are chosen based on academic success and extracurricular or community involvement, per the Scholarships and Admissions page. Since the program’s inception, there have been 894 Wien Scholars from 115 countries, according to its website.
YVETTE SEI/the Justice
HELPING THE HUNGRY: The Brandeis Food Pantry is located in Kutz Hall and is open to all members of the University community.
Brandeis Food Pantry opens to counter student food insecurity ■ The initiative, created
this summer to benefit international students, officially launched this week. By LIAT SHAPIRO JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
After months of work behind the scenes, the Brandeis Food Pantry celebrated its official opening on Friday. Located in Kutz Hall across from the Registrar’s Office, the BFP is open to all members of the Brandeis community and provides non-perishable canned items and personal care prod-
ucts. In an interview with the Justice, Senior Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences for Undergraduate Education Elaine Wong explained that addressing food insecurity among Brandeis students Brandeis has been “a matter under discussion for many years now.” According to Wong, the current Brandeis Food Pantry initiative started in July 2018 when a committee focused on international student concerns raised the issue of food insecurity for Brandeis’ international students. Wong shared that Kim Godsoe, the associate provost for Academic Affairs, spoke to University Provost
Lisa Lynch, who donated funds allowing the committee to purchase food for international students this summer. The temporary food pantry was set up in the Shapiro Campus Center’s TV lounge. Later in the summer, the pantry was moved to its current location in Kutz Hall, which is a “more secure location,” according to Wong. In an email to the Justice, Lynch cited 2017 research from the Urban Institute that showed that anywhere between 11 and 20 percent of students who attend four-year institutions suffer from food insecurity. Leah Berkenwald ’07, the Univer-
According to the press release, Watanabe was inspired to donate to the University while attending a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Wien program, during which Lawrence Wien, co-founder of the Wien program, gave a speech. “That is when a seed was planted for me,” Watanabe said. “Since then, I have always wanted to repay the Wien family’s generosity by helping other students.” Watanabe credits the Wien scholarship with making his career possible, according to the University’s statement. He graduated from Brandeis with a bachelor's degree in Politics, and went on to achieve a Masters of Business Administration from Pepperdine University, according to a Bloomberg profile of Watanabe. Watanabe served as CEO and president of Nikken, a health and wellness company, and is now chairman emeritus. In the press release, University President Ron Liebowitz called Watanabe’s donation “emblematic of the university’s mission,” and said he was “deeply grateful” for it. “This scholarship program will not only enable us to welcome deserving students, it will also further diversify our campus, add new perspectives to our classroom discussions and emphasize our university as a global institution,” he wrote. Watanabe has also established the Toshizo Watanabe Fellows Program at Stanford University, the Toshizo Watanabe Endowed Scholarship Fund for the U.S.-Japan Council and the Toshizo Watanabe Scholarship at Nikken. —Natalia Wiater
See PANTRY 7 ☛
COMMUNITY
Open letter prompts administration to hold accessibility forum ■ The letter, sent via email,
was coupled with student accounts of living with a disability on campus. By SAM STOCKBRIDGE JUSTICE EDITOR
In response to an open letter sent to University President Ron Liebowitz two weeks ago, Brandeis will hold an open forum to discuss accessibility on campus. The announcement, made by Liebowitz at Sunday’s Union Senate meeting, marks a success for the group that wrote the letter, Addressing Accessibility at Brandeis. Jack Rubinstein ’20, representing AAB, sent the open letter to Liebow-
itz in a Nov. 8 email, along with a document of personal accounts from Brandeis students with disabilities sharing their experiences on campus. More than 250 students and alumni signed the letter. The email was also sent to the Justice and The Brandeis Hoot “for the purpose of transparency.” In the open letter, students expressed their concern at the “growing unrest” in the Brandeis community around “the big question: is Brandeis truly accessible? Or is it just accessible to some, and, if so, which communities of students are left out?” The letter added: “We as a Brandeis community are hurt, harmed, and demoralized when not everyone has ac-
cess on this campus. … This is a letter asking for our voices to be heard, seen, or signed.” To address this, the letter implored the Brandeis administration to “hold an open forum to discuss accessibility on this campus.” In an email to the Justice, Liebowitz wrote that he has “been in touch personally” with Rubenstein and that the pair “have a meeting set up to discuss the issues [identified in the email].” Asked if the administration plans to make any changes in response to the email, Liebowitz reiterated that his administration is “committed to improving student life … and to … being open and inclusive.” Liebowitz also expressed his desire to make campus more accessible,
Pond Inspiration Walden Pond is still an escape for students. By VICTOR FELDMAN
noting that he personally intervened during the planning of Skyline Residence Hall to make it more accessible to students with mobility disabilities. “Though the plans [for Skyline] met all [Americans with Disabilities Act] requirements, … it would have been impossible for students who couldn’t navigate stairs to go to the upper floors of the building. … I requested that we change our plans [to make Skyline wheelchair accessible], even if it meant… additional costs,” he explained. Having some students be unable to visit their friends on upper floors would not have aligned "with our philosophy and values,” he said. The authors of the letter wrote that they understand the great financial costs of making a college campus
accessible for students with disabilities, emphasizing that they were “asking what [the University] can do now to pave a path for a later generation of students.” There is little question that parts of the Brandeis campus are inaccessible to many students with mobility impairments: For example, none of the buildings in East Quad, Massell Quad, Rosenthal Quad or North Quad contain elevators. The attached five-page document, titled “Personal Accounts,” contained a number of anecdotes from students who wrote about difficulties they encountered with transportation across campus, learning disabilities, academic accommodations and housing.
See ACCESSIBILITY, 7 ☛
Circle Mirror Transformation
Union working to provide free menstrual products
The Theater Arts dept. produced a stirring show.
Uyghurs remain oppressed in China
By GILDA GEIST
By LEAH SAMANTHA CHANEN
By HARRISON PAEK
NEWS 5 FORUM 11
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FEATURES 9 For tips or info email editor@thejustice.org
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ARTS 18
By BRIAN INKER
COPYRIGHT 2018 FREE AT BRANDEIS.
SPORTS 15
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018
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NEWS
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THE JUSTICE
NEWS GERMAN DIPLOMACY IN PLAY
POLICE LOG MEDICAL EMERGENCY November 12—BEMCo staff treated a party with a twisted ankle at Shapiro Residence Hall. University Police transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. November 12—A party reported an injury to their mouth at Usdan Student Center. University Police transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care after BEMCo staff treated the party on campus. November 13—A party at the Goldman-Schwartz Art Studios reported that they had cut their finger. After being treated by BEMCo staff, the party signed a refusal for further care. November 13—BEMCo staff treated a party who slipped and fell in Goldfarb Library. The party signed a refusal for further care. November 13—A party burned their fingers in the Foster Residence Quad. BEMCo staff treated the party with a signed refusal for further care. November 14—BEMCo staff responded to a report of a party not feeling well at the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. November 14—BEMCo staff treated a party who had bitten their lip at the Usdan Student Center. The party signed a refusal for further care. November 14—A party at Village Residence Hall reported suffering from chest pain and was treated by BEMCo staff. Cataldo Ambulance transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care after BEMCo staff treated the party on campus, and the area coordinator on call was notified. November 15—A party in Skyline Residence Hall notified BEMCo that they were having a panic attack. BEMCo staff treated the party and requested that Cataldo Ambulance transport the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. The area coordinator on call was notified. November 15—A North Quad community advisor called BEMCo to treat a party who had fallen and possibly injured their ribs in Scheffres Hall. BEMCo staff treated the party, who was then transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care by University Police. November 17—BEMCo staff treated a party at Reitman Hall who was suffering from pain connected to a previous injury. BEMCo staff requested that Cataldo Ambulance transport the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. The area coordinator on call was notified. November 17—BEMCo staff and University Police responded to a report at 110 Angleside Road that a party had injured their ankle. BEMCo staff treated the party, who signed a refusal for further care. November 17—An anonymous call reported that there was a severely intoxicated party in the basketball court near Sherman Dining Hall. BEMCo staff treated the party, who was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care by Cataldo Ambulance. University Police, BEMCo staff, Waltham Fire Department and Cataldo Ambulance all responded, and the area coordinator on call was notified. November 18—BEMCo staff treated an intoxicated party at Ridgewood Residence Hall. The party signed a refusal for further care. November 18—University Police and BEMCo staff responded to a report of an intoxicated and unconscious party in a North Residence Quad bathroom. BEMCo staff treated the party, who signed a refusal for further care. November 18—BEMCo staff treated an intoxicated party in a Massell Residence Quad bathroom. University Police also responded, the area coordinator on call was notified, and Cataldo Ambulance transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. LARCENY November 17—A temporary Sodexo employee reported that their wallet stolen was from an unlocked office about a month prior. University Police compiled a report on the incident. DISTURBANCE November 15—University Police received a noise complaint of people yelling in the middle of North Residence Quad. Upon arrival, University Police determined the parties were having a snowball fight and advised them to quiet down without incident. MISCELLANEOUS SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES November 13—A party reported a suspicious incident from Nov. 5 in the Shapiro Campus Center. University Police compiled a report and will investigate the incident. November 16—A party at Kutz Hall reported a past suspicious incident in which someone tried to enter an area that is restricted by card swipe. University Police compiled a report on the incident and filed it as a burglary with unlawful entry and no force in the police log. —Compiled by Jocelyn Gould
CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS n An Arts interview did not include an editor’s note that Rachel Moore ’19 is a Copy staff member (Nov. 13, Page 20). The Justice welcomes submissions for errors that warrant correction or clarification. Send an email to editor@thejustice.org.
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As part of I Am Global Week, the Center for German and European Studies partnered with Deutschlandjahr USA: “Wunderbar Together” to host a Catan competition, which allowed members of the Brandeis community to play the popular German board game.
BRIEF
Boston Children’s Hospital receives $14.6 million grant for concussion research As part of its commitment to funding medical research, the National Football League awarded Boston Children’s Hospital more than $14.6 million for concussion research, according to a Nov. 15 NFL News story. To date, the NFL has donated more than $35 million to fund brain health and injury research, per the same article. The announcement, described in further detail on the NFL Scientific Advisory Board’s fact sheet, reported that $14,698,132 has been given to a “Prospective, LONGitudinal, and Translational Study for Former National Football League Players” led by William P. Meehan II, who works at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The Boston-based NFL study will be a continuation of Boston Children’s previous research on sport-related concussions, according to a Nov. 16 Metro article. Per this article, Meehan said, “this new study is part of a continued effort to improve player safety and quality of life for athletes of all ages.” The SAB, composed of leading independent doctors, experts, scientists and researchers, approved and distributed the grants, according to the fact sheet. The SAB based their decisions on the National Institute of Health’s scoring guidance, a well-known system for scoring research proposals. A Nov. 15 USA Today article quoted Col. Sidney Hinds, a SAB member and the brain health research program coordinator at the Department of Defense, who said, “through this SAB process, the future steps will offer another opportunity to collaborate and share information.” Hinds continued, “The results [researchers] will get not only impact professional sports but the broader general public to understand and take care of and treat concussions in the future.” A Nov. 15 Boston Magazine article quoted Meehan’s press release, in which he explained that “there is a pressing need for data-driven approaches to better understand the risk, incidence, characteristics, progression and treatment of neurologic health problems faced by former NFL players.” —Liat Shapiro
SENATE LOG
VP to resign, Finkel modifies amendment ■ The Senate approved funding
for the Midnight Buffet and supported divestment. Ron Liebowitz joined the meeting. By SAM STOCKBRIDGE JUSTICE EDITOR
Senators met with University President Ron Liebowitz during Sunday’s Senate meeting to ask questions and voice concerns about his administration. Student Union President Hannah Brown ’19, who also attended the meeting, noted that this was Liebowitz’s first time attending a Senate Meeting during her tenure at Brandeis. Liebowitz mostly reiterated the points made in his Oct. 29 address on his plans for the University’s future, explaining that the greatest challenge Brandeis faces at the moment is “financial.” At one point, Liebowitz said he was frustrated that meal plans are mandatory for students living on-campus, earning audible agreement from many senators. Village and 567 Quad Senator Jake Rong ’21 said he wanted more channels of communication between the student body and the Board of Trustees. “It doesn’t seem like there are many opportunities for students to interact with the Board of Trustees [right now],” Rong said. Liebowitz explained that the Board of Trustees is composed of people from around the world, which makes it exceedingly difficult to plan times for them to meet with students. In response to editorials published in the Justice and the Hoot last week, Brown announced that the University will dedicate a discussion in its “Campus Conversation” series to a forum on accessibility. The open forum will tentatively be held in the week of Dec. 3. It is unclear whether an existing “Campus Conversation” was already planned to discuss accessibility on campus, or if the open forum was created because of the circulation of a petition organized by Addressing Accessibility at Brandeis. After Liebowitz left, Student Union Vice President Benedikt Reynolds ’19 announced at Sunday’s meeting that he will be stepping down as Vice President for personal health reasons at the end of the semester. This will prompt a special election for his position, and the Student Union secretary will send an announcement regarding winter elections and open positions on Nov. 26. Winter elections will be held on Dec. 10, Class of 2019 Senator Kent Dinlenc said after the meeting. On Thursday, Executive Senator Aaron Finkel ’20 debuted two amendments to the Student Union Constitution designed to check the power of the Allocations Board. The amendments were the result of Finkel’s stated intention at last week’s meeting to address the “checks and balances” between the branches of the Student Union.
The Student Union Constitution currently allows the SU president to veto “any Allocations Board policy, rule of order, or specific allocation made by the Allocations Board prior to the beginning of the semester in which the allocation is designated for.” It also states that “the members of the Allocations Board shall also establish rules of order and policies in accordance with this Constitution and the Bylaws.” Finkel’s first proposed amendment would expand the president’s powers and allow the president to veto decisions “at any time.” This proposed amendment would also allow the president to veto “any Marathon, Emergency Funding, or Appeals decision.” Per Finkel’s draft amendment, the only way for such a veto to be overturned would be by a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate. The amendment would likewise grant the Senate a “Senatorial veto” with the same rules and restrictions as the President’s proposed veto power described above. The Senate would need a two-thirds majority vote to use a “Senatorial veto” on an A-Board decision. The Union president would have the power to overturn any Senatorial vetoes. The second of Finkel’s proposed amendments would further check the power of the A-Board. This would require that the Senate approve all rules of order and policies established by A-Board prior to the implementation of those rules and policies. This amendment remained unchanged after Sunday’s Senate meeting. At the meeting, Finkel announced that he was revising the first of his two proposed amendments to the Union Constitution after discussing the matter with a constituent earlier on Sunday. “Someone suggested today that we take out that second part of [the first proposed amendment],” Finkel said, explaining that he would reflect this change by removing the Senatorial veto, keeping the rest of the amendment intact. Finkel then transitioned to his weekly report on the state of the Senate Services and Outreach Committee, where he announced that he had gotten approval from the Union’s Executive Board to run shuttles from Boston Logan International Airport to Brandeis campus for students returning to campus after the winter break. Finkel assured senators that “we won’t have to use Senate money for this.” Finkel said that Public Safety agreed to contribute $150 to the project, which is expected to cost $1,200. Senator Joshua Hoffman ’20 asked the Senate to vote on a Senate Money Resolution that would allocate $80 to buy and distribute 800 condoms throughout the first-year quads. Another senator asked Hoffman to increase funding for the SMR in order to distribute condoms in the Foster Mods. Hoffman modified the SMR to request an additional $5 for condoms for the area and made a motion to vote on the SMR. International Student Senator Lin-
fei Yang ’20 objected to Hoffman’s resolution, asking him to “explain the urgency” of the resolution. This was the second motion in the past three weeks that Yang has objected to for that same reason. Hoffman’s SMR was passed in a vote of acclamation. Finkel then walked senators through the Senate Money Resolution to allocate funds for the fall semester Midnight Buffet. The resolution, which totals roughly $8000, included $3500 to be spent on food and beverages, $300 to be spent hiring a DJ, $478.78 to be spent on decorations and $2,212 to be spent on t-shirts. Yang objected to the motion to vote on the Midnight Buffet SMR but declined to explain why. The resolution was passed in a vote by roll call; all senators present for the meeting supported the resolution except Yang, who abstained. Next, the Senate voted unanimously to remove Allocations Board chair Aseem Kumar ’20 from the E-Board after five unexcused absences from meetings. Members are only allowed three. Class of 2019 Senator and Representative to A-Board Vidit Dhawan said Kumar told him that he was not interested in being on E-Board in the first place. Brown nominated Executive Senator Andrea Deng ’21 to become a Senate liaison to the E-Board. Dinlenc said the addition of another senator to E-Board meetings was unnecessary. Reynolds said Deng would be a different representative to the E-Board than either of the senators who currently attend E-Board meetings — Chief of Staff Finkel and Vice President Reynolds. Senators voted to appoint Deng by roll call. Senators Dinlenc, Dhawan and Richard Kisack Jr. ’19 voted against the appointment. By a majority, Deng was appointed to the E-Board for the purpose of communicating the content of E-Board meetings back to the Senate. Finally, two representatives from Brandeis Climate Justice, Maya KattlerGold ’21 and Claudia Davis ’19, presented to the Senate to gain support of a measure to encourage the University to divest from fossil fuels. Hoffman asked the duo if divestment would hurt the University financially in the short term. The representatives replied that “you can’t be sure of the math,” and argued that fossil fuel stocks are volatile, and that any money the University might lose through divestment would also likely be lost due to the volatility of its investment. After discussing whether the motion of support would be approved by the Senate only or the Student Union as a whole, those present agreed that the endorsement would come from the Senate only. The motion was passed with total support save for an abstention from Rong. —Kent Dinlenc is a staff writer for the Justice.
THE JUSTICE
Scholar examines relationship between German, U.S. historians insights from his new book, “History After Hitler: a TransAtlantic Enterprise.” By MAURICE WINDLEY JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
In a lecture on Thursday night, Dr. Philipp Stelzel discussed how post-World War II history has been understood in Germany and the United States. He also talked about how he analyzed these interpretations in his new book, “History After Hitler: a Trans-Atlantic Enterprise.” Stelzel is a core member of the German-American Dialogue for the Next Generation at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington D.C. and an assistant professor at Duquesne University. After WWII, German historians were forced to decide how to rationalize the outcome of the war to German citizens, and American historians were required to do the same for their citizens. According to Stelzel, this difference led to drastically conflicting historical perspectives in the middle of the 20th century. However, as German and American historians continued to communicate, a generally accepted account of the war developed. To demonstrate this, Stelzel split his discussion into five parts: an overview of the German Federal Republic, German historians’ accounts of German history, accounts of German history written in the U.S. after WWII, the ways that German historians who immigrated to the U.S. reacted to American accounts and finally how the trans-Atlantic intellectual agreement developed. He highlighted this difference by introducing quotes by German historians Gerhard Ritter and Hansulrich Wehler. Ritter’s quote from 1949 explained that for American historians, “long term alienation from Germany easily leads to a distorted view of reality” in which they see a primarily “defensive German attitude” that makes differences in reflecting on World War II “difficult to overcome.” Stelzel introduced Wehler’s ideas to disagree with Ritter’s ideals. He explained that in Wehler’s view, “trans-Atlantic dialogue between American and German historians since the 1940s are based on the fundamental experiences of the political generation” who lived through the postwar years. Stelzel explained that, as opposed to the distance in the 1940s, the “common experiences” of the historians in the early 2000s led to effective communication and “close contacts.” Stelzel suggests that these quotes demonstrate the “fundamental transformation” in how German and American historians related
to each other, which he focuses on in his book. The decades following World War II “witnessed the establishment of a diverse community of modern German historians,” he explained. Moreover, the economic effects that came with the historical disagreement led to an increased American interest in learning more about Germany in order to depict them in historical documents. Stelzel attributes this to the growth of national socialism in Germany at the time, which made the country a key interest for historical interpretation. Stelzel also examined how WWII soldiers were depicted in both German and American history. He argues in his book that, in terms of historical interpretations, “American accounts of historical German struggle have generally been pictured to embody the [American] progressive tradition,” which illustrates a westernized version of German soldiers. Emphasizing this, he explained, “Just as in our translation of Germany was a process of selective appropriation,” academics depicted American soldiers with German patriotism, ideals and values. Stelzel explained that, at least two decades after the war, “Traditional political history in West Germany still dominated,” which kept Germans from examining their “methodological assumptions” about these soldiers. He attributes this historical understanding to the “discipline of the 1950s,” which focused on the “human impulses” of soldiers, characterizing them as dedicated and patriotic, to explain how the war should be preserved in history. Stelzel also examined a religious shift over the second half of the 20th century. Catholic scholars, as opposed to traditional Protestant observers, “attempted to promote a counter narrative” that focused on the German Empire “at the expense of southern and southwestern states” in Europe, which further convoluted the various different narratives regarding WWII. Regarding America’s approach to detailing the history of WWII, he explained that “immigrant historians” who studied this history during the aftermath of the war “helped to internationalize the field” of World War II contemporary history. He noted that this helped to alleviate anti-Semitic views within the American discipline and historical education. Stelzel concluded by examining the relationship between historians that developed in recent decades. Although German attitudes towards the United States fluctuate “depending on the respective occupant of the White House,” the German-American scholar community is characterized by “much grater re-stability, much to the credit of the historians,” Stelzel said.
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THE ROAD TO REFORM: Yonah Jeremy Bob discussed potential reforms for military courts, highlighting the fact that some advocates believe court proceedings should take place in Arabic, the language most Palestinian suspects speak.
Analyst discusses critiques, reforms of Israeli military courts ■ Yonah Jeremy Bob looked
at the way international law affects Israeli courts that try Palestinian suspects. By NAKUL SRINIVAS JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
Yonah Jeremy Bob, a legal analyst who covers intelligence and terrorism for the Jerusalem Post, spoke to the Brandeis community on Thursday about how reforming Israel’s military courts in the West Bank can help make trials fairer for accused Palestinians. In his lecture, Bob also explained why Israel has military courts in the West Bank and described criticism those military courts face. The event was cosponsored by Hillel at Brandeis and the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies. Israeli military courts in the West Bank try Palestinians who have been accused of crimes by Israel. Bob explained that these courts usually don’t get involved in crimes that Palestinians commit against each other. Rather, they most often try Palestinians for crimes they are accused of committing against Israelis. Bob began by explaining that according to “international law, there is nothing wrong with Israel managing the West Bank. … Article 66 [of the Fourth Geneva Convention] says that you have the right to establish military courts to deal with criminal issues that come out from occupied persons and can bring them to trial if necessary.” Bob explained that Article 64 of the Geneva Convention dictates that in areas of occupation, “You have to continue to apply prior laws that existed, which Israel did.” Certain aspects of Jordanian law also apply in West Bank courts, because Jordan “was running the area beforehand,” Bob explained. He added that Israeli law has sometimes replaced Jordanian law to “take into account the best interest of the occupied people,” which is significant because sometimes Israeli criminal law is “more liberal” than Jordanian law. For example, Jordanian law allows the state to sentence people to “[manual] labor as part of their prison sentence,” but Israel “got rid of that piece of Jordanian law,” Bob said. Criminal sentences also depend
on the severity of the crime. The three main cases that these military courts encounter involve terrorism, illegal border crossings and rock throwing. Israel faces “more security threats [and] more terror threats than pretty much any other country in the world,” Bob said. He said that according to the head of the Shin Bet, the Israel Security Agency, there have been 480 thwarted terrorist attacks and 26 successful terrorist attacks that resulted in Israelis being “killed or injured violently” in 2018. These numbers do not include rockets shot from Gaza into Israel, according to Bob. He told the story of Ezra Schwartz, a Jewish American teenager from the Boston area who was killed while studying in Israel for a year. “He wasn’t involved in the Israeli Army. He was just a bystander. Somebody shot him because they figured out he was Jewish, and they wanted to kill someone Jewish,” Bob said, adding that Ari Fuld is another example of an American Jew killed in Israel by a Palestinian. “Most people would understand [that] if somebody commits murder, or attempted murder, [then] somebody should bring them to trial,” he said. Another situation that military courts often deal with involves illegal border crossings, where Palestinians without Israeli citizenshipcross the West Bank border. Bob noted that “most of the time” Palestinians do not cross the border “to do anything bad.” He explained that the immigrants are usually making less money in the Palestinian areas than if they worked illegally in Israel. Most of these people don’t get caught, according to Bob, but those who do are tried in these military courts. The final category of crimes that these courts often prosecute is rock throwing, which Bob described as “the category [of crime] where there is a lot of political controversy.” Such crimes are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. “If a 10 year old throws a rock at an Israeli soldier standing two hundred feet away, no one’s going to arrest them,” Bob said. However, he pointed to situations in which rock throwing can be “violent,” “dangerous” and even fatal. He referenced “an 18 year old standing on top of a roof with a rock slab” that he threw down onto an Israeli special forces unit, killing a member of the unit. This has led to
controversy over whether the act of rock-throwing should be viewed as political protest or as violence. There is also controversy around administrative detention, a nonstandard method in which prosecutors do not follow “regular criminal law.” In some cases, people are kept in detention for extended periods of time without a “regular” trial, according to Bob. While Bob said that critics of Israel call this a “kangaroo court” system, he also explained that Israel is allowed to institute administrative detention in “very specific instances” under Article 78 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Such instances include “imperative reasons of security,” but he said that there is much debate about what should be included in this definition. Bob explained that “an arch-terrorist … can obviously [be put] in administrative detention” to “keep them off the streets and prevent them from doing terror.” Such criminals “do go before a judge … every six months,” he said, adding that “concrete” evidence has to show that the accused is a terrorist. Bob did not say whether the Israeli military court steps outside the limits of who can be placed under administrative detention. In light of these controversies, Israel has begun to discuss methods of reforming the West Bank’s military court system. One of the main advocates of administrative detention reform is Liron Libman, the former chief prosecutor of the Israel Defense System, according to Bob. Libman is working with the current chief justice of the West Bank courts to implement reforms. Specifically, they are trying to ensure that accused Palestinians are able to “see the charges [made] against them” during their trial, said Bob. Currently, accused members often see a “paraphrased” version of the charges made against them, which “doesn’t give [the defendant] the same fair chance [and] full due process,” he explained. Another area of reform involves the language spoken in these courts. The defendants in the system are Palestinians who speak Arabic. “The most fair way to have a system for them would be if all of the proceedings took place in Arabic,” Bob said. Training more lawyers and judges to speak Arabic would be one way to make the court system more fair to the defendants, he argued.
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THE JUSTICE
INNOVATION SHOWCASE
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NEWS
By GILDA GEIST JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
ZACH KATZ/the Justice
Entrepreneurial students shared their startups and inventions with members of the Brandeis community in the Carl J. Shapiro Science Center on Thursday night.
COMMUNITY
University implementing new HR, finance software
the process of switching from PeopleSoft to Workday for over a year now. By JOCELYN GOULD JUSTICE EDITOR
Brandeis’ Information and Technology Services is in the middle of a multiyear transitional project that will change the University’s administrative software from PeopleSoft to Workday. Currently, ITS is in the process of implementing Workday for the University’s human resources, payroll and finance operations. This first phase, named Phase One, of the implementation is scheduled to launch on April 1, 2019. In preparation, ITS is actively working with representatives from different departments to ensure the software will suit the University’s needs. The lessons that ITS learns during Phase One will be applied to Phase Two, which deals with student programs like SAGE and which is currently in the early planning stages. PeopleSoft and Workday are Enterprise Resource Planning softwares. ERP software takes “all of the various processes that are essential to running a business” and “integrates these various functions into one complete system to streamline processes and information,” per the Oracle Netsuite website. Phase One of the Workday implementation focuses on processes involved in human resources and finance operations, while Phase Two will deal with student processes, such as registering for classes, Jim La Creta, the University’s chief information officer, explained in an interview with the Justice. La Creta cited the payment of employees, hiring of new staff and running financial reports for different departments as examples of the University’s HR and financial processes. Peter Nash, the associate vice president of ITS, added in the same interview that other University systems like LATTE, which are not directly part of the ERP software, “feed off of it and send information back and forth to this central hub of information.” PeopleSoft became the University’s ERP software in 2002, and since then, different departments on campus have customized the software so that it suits their needs. La Creta explained that these departments each need to run specific reports to get different sets of information, such as their department’s budgets, hiring processes and tax forms. However, repeated and continuous customization cluttered up PeopleSoft. Today, there are “over 3000 customized reports or requests” that have been created by different campus departments, which “gets to be unmanageable.” PeopleSoft now runs like an old laptop, he elaborated, and the system “just gets bogged down.” The University first identified its need for a new ERP software back in 2011 and 2012, but little progress was made, La Creta explained. When he
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Senators work to provide free menstrual products
with Jim Gray to figure out the initiative’s funding and logistics.
joined the project in 2016, it was clear that “[the University] needed to address this immediately,” he said, and the University started looking at its options for a new software. In spring 2017, ITS looked at different vendors, and it eventually selected Workday as the ideal software for the University. At the time, “about 200 institutions,” including other colleges in the Boston area, were using Workday for HR and Finance, according to La Creta. “[Workday] will be light-years better than what we currently have,” La Creta said. Workday will eliminate the paper time sheets currently used by employees to log the hours they work. Employees will now be able to log hours online and through the Workday mobile app. This will save “approximately 160,000 sheets of paper per year,” according to the Workday website. The University’s procrastination ended up being beneficial, La Creta said. “There were a lot of really great cloud solutions in 2016 that weren’t necessarily available in 2012, so Brandeis’ deferment of that decision actually was to our benefit.” However, implementing Workday is not a simple process. La Creta compared this project to the construction of Skyline Residence Hall. He highlighted the fact that only a portion of campus goes into that building regularly, and there will be people on campus who never enter the building. In contrast, La Creta envisions Workday as a house ITS is building that “everyone is going to go in.” He stressed the universal impact that the two phases of this transition will have on campus: “You will be affected by Workday: staff, faculty, students. The way that we do business, the way people get paid, the way you put time in, the way we run reports, the way that you register for classes, eventually. It’s going to change.” The University began the implementation process in September 2017 and has since been conducting various rounds of testing in order to ensure that departments’ needs are addressed, according to La Creta. A group of over 60 people from ITS, Financial Affairs & Treasury Services, the Office of Planning and Institutional Research, the Office of Human Resources, the Division of Students and Enrollment and other departments are working on this transition. “It’s a large effort on campus where people have to attend meetings on a constant basis,” La Creta said, adding that these staff members “have had to put large efforts forward to work on this, and work on their day jobs as well.” Right now, ITS is testing the HR and finance functions of Workday, Nash explained. To do this, representatives from Finance, HR, ITS and external implementation partners gather in a conference room and go through “the whole process around hiring someone, or doing a payroll, or reevaluating benefits — all the different functions that HR and Finance has to do all the time,” Nash said. Another important aspect of the
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018
STUDENT UNION
■ The Union is working
■ The University has been in
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work ITS is doing right now to smooth the transition is trying to identify “nooks on campus” where departments are using PeopleSoft for processes that ITS is not aware of — and thus, cannot plan for in the transition, La Creta explained. To this end, ITS has had liaison groups conduct “road shows” to talk with different parts of campus about Workday and to gather their questions and concerns. They are also “talking to different parts of the University and understanding how they do their pieces of business and what they need to be able to do in a new system,” he said. The University has also hired “change managers,” according to La Creta. These managers help think ahead to anticipate problems, develop training materials and get people on campus “comfortable with something new.” In implementing Workday, ITS is gathering a lot of information on how different departments use the software, which La Creta hopes will help streamline some processes. If ITS knows that different departments run similar reports, they can build a report that satisfies the needs of multiple groups at once. This will help to make the system “more lean” — and avoid the customization problem the PeopleSoft currently labors under. Looking toward Phase Two, which will deal with student operations, La Creta said, “One of the lessons learned from HR and Finance is that we need to have a very long planning period.” ITS is still in the initial planning process of the student implementation, which will affect programs like SAGE and processes like registering for classes. It is too early in the process to predict whether other studentrelated systems, like LATTE, which gets data from PeopleSoft currently, will also experience changes, La Creta explained. ITS has formed a subcommittee to start to plan the implementation, including representatives from the Registrar’s Office, the Office of the Provost, Admissions and other student-related groups, according to Nash and La Creta. Student operations on campus are “double the size of HR and finance,” La Creta explained, making the second part of this implementation more complicated than the first. For this reason, it is normal for a university to do HR and finance operations first. Additionally, Workday Student is “very much in flux,” he said, adding, “Workday is actually building the product as we speak.” The April 1 Phase One Workday transition will only impact student employees. Brandeis University SelfService, the website where students can view their paychecks and tax documents, will change as Workday systems take over those processes. Additionally, all staff, faculty and student employees will have to use Duo twofactor identification login by April 1, as it is required by Workday. Members of the Brandeis community can email workday@brandeis.edu with questions about the implementation. There will be a Workday User Forum on Dec. 3 for the community.
The Student Union is in the final steps of its initiative to provide free menstrual products in select bathrooms across campus, and the initiative is expected to begin next semester. The Union is working on implementing the initiative with Vice President for Campus Operations Jim Gray. According to Senator-at-large Richard Kisack Jr. ’19 in an interview with the Justice, menstrual products will be placed in bathrooms in the Goldfarb and Farber Libraries, the Shapiro Campus Center, the Usdan Student Center, Mandel Humanities Quad and the Carl J. Shapiro Science Center. One of the bathrooms with menstrual products will be designated gender-neutral. Kisack said that this initiative was first brought to the Student Union by a member of the student body, Lexi Ouellette ’18, in 2016. Representative to the Alumni Board Samantha Barrett ’20 explained that the student’s idea was written into a Senate Money Resolution, which passed. However, there was not enough time before the end of the year to take further action, Barrett said. In fall 2017, the Student Union conducted a trial run, purchasing $8,000 worth of menstrual products to place in bathrooms around campus. Skyline and Rosenthal Quad Senator Joshua Hoffman ’21 said that the Student Union conducted a survey as a part of that trial run and received over 100 responses. According to Kisack, the survey feedback showed that students would prefer tampons with plastic applicators to those that were available during the trial run,
which had cardboard applicators. Barrett said that during the trial run, the Union collected data about the number of tampons used and sent that data to Gray. According to Barrett, the Union had been trying since last semester to get a meeting with Gray, and this semester they were finally successful and met with him on Nov. 5. Kisack emphasized that the data from the trial run that they sent to Gray demonstrated a demand for free menstrual products on campus. The Union also sent Gray their ideal budget for the program, Kisack said, which is higher than the budget the Union used in the trial run. With additional funding, they intend to purchase higher quality products. Kisack explained that the Union wants to pass the financial and managerial responsibilities of the initiative off to the administration by making it a part of the Facilities Services budget. This would mean that Facilities would pay for the program and Facilities employees would monitor the number of menstrual products in each bathroom and restock them as needed. Kisack said that the Union hopes that Facilities will pay for the program to be able to run for at least two semesters. “We continue to study this [initiative] with the Union representatives, and we are having a very productive dialogue,” Gray wrote in an email to the Justice. “I hope we have a university funded and operated trial program to roll out starting next semester.” According to Barrett and Hoffman, the Union struggled with getting an appointment with Gray. After such a long wait to meet with Gray, Hoffman expressed skepticism that the program, now in its third year, would actually be implemented in the spring. “In a perfect world … we should have [menstrual products in] the bathrooms by next spring, but we don’t live in a perfect world,” he said.
BRIEF University of Chicago press becomes Brandeis’ new partner Brandeis University Press announced its partnership with the University of Chicago Press on Nov. 12, following the dissolution of the New England Press Consortium, of which Brandeis was a founding member. All marketing and sales of existing and future titles under the Brandeis University imprint, or published under the University’s name, transferred to the University of Chicago Press on Nov. 12, according to a Nov. 12 BrandeisNOW article. Printing is now directed to its “state of the art” distribution and fullfilment operation, the Chicago Distribution Center. The University is currently searching for a new director to lead the Brandeis University Press. University Provost Lisa Lynch said the University of Chicago Press is “known for its excellent services to its client publishers and their customers” and that “it will provide visibility to our university’s outstanding publishing program and authors worldwide,” per the press release. The creation of the Brandeis University Press was part of a larger movement in the late 1960s to create University presses, per a June 26, 1968 New York Times article. Funding of the BUP was established in 1968, according to the University Archives. The Brandeis University Press publishes scholarly articles and books on politics, culture, history, gender, religion, philosophy, language and literature on
its website. BUP is “committed to publishing compelling and innovative approaches to the study of the Jewish experience worldwide,” as well as to “illuminate subjects of all stripes with intelligence, curiosity, and care.” The BUP, which has published over 300 titles, has produced a number of books which received a variety of awards including the Polonsky Prize of the Hebrew University, National Jewish Book Awards, Baron Prize of the Academy for Jewish Research and Azrieli Institute Prizes for Best Book in Israel Studies, per the press release. The University was one of the founding members of the New England Press Consortium, which was created in 1970. Though the organization’s membership has fluctuated between 6 and 10 colleges and universities, over the past few years all but Dartmouth College and Brandeis University left the consortium, according to a April 20 article by Inside Higher Ed. Dartmouth College staffed the the organization, that published about 60 books each year, per the same article. However, due to financial difficulties and a membership of only two schools, the NEPC became “unsustainable,” Dartmouth College President Phil Hanlon said, leading to its dissolution late this year. —Natalia Wiater —Sam Stockbridge contributed reporting.
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ACCESSIBILITY: Univ. officials discuss student experiences CONTINUED FROM 1 Student Accessibility Support Director Beth Rodgers-Kay explained in an interview with the Justice that to her knowledge, none of the concerns described “Personal Accounts” had been communicated to her or her office. One student wrote that Rodgers-Kay “told [the student] to give up on a college [sic]” because the student “was clearly incapable of finishing [the student’s] college degree.” Rodgers-Kay denied having said this to a student or words to a similar effect to a student, saying, “Why would I come to work every day if I thought students should give up on college?” In the same account, the student accused the Golding Health Center of lacking transparency. “I requested a wheelchair when I hurt my ankle but was denied for an unknown reason by the Health Center,” the student wrote. RodgersKay explained that the University provides crutches, not wheelchairs, to students with relatively shortterm mobility impairments, such as ankle injuries. The Health Center has one wheelchair available for its own use, Rodgers-Kay explained. “An example would be if a student fainted in an appointment [at the Health Center]: They would put [the student] in a wheelchair and wheel them out to the ambulance or car that was going to go to a hospital. But they don’t provide wheelchairs to people.” Health Center Administrative Director Diana Denning confirmed this in an email to the Justice: “A student would need to obtain a wheelchair designed for outdoor conditions from a medical supplier.” Another student’s account expressed frustration that there is no list of classes that students with learning disabilities can choose from to fulfill the University’s language requirement. Rodgers-Kay explained that this list has not been created because the number of classes that can count toward the language requirement is huge and the classes that can count may change depending on what a student chooses to focus on. For example, she said, a student might choose to take three classes in Asian culture if they’re having difficulties in a language class. If the student has already taken two of the classes in that cluster, a class about French history would not fulfill the
requirement, since the three classes need a common cultural focus. But if that student were taking three classes about French culture for the language requirement, that class would fulfill the requirement. She clarified that students can simply email her about a class and she can check whether it will count for that student, without having to set up an in-person meeting. Rodgers-Kay said the class will be approved “99 times out of 100.” In response to another account, which implied that the University can take steps to improve professors’ availability to help students, Rodgers-Kay acknowledged that professors are ultimately responsible for making their classrooms accessible. She said the University holds trainings about accessibility that professors can elect to take but that aren’t mandatory. She added that she believes the training is effective for faculty who attend and would benefit the community if it were required of all faculty. But, she admitted, “I can’t make [training] mandatory.” Another student wrote that the Department of Community Living didn’t take students’ requests for housing accommodation seriously, asserting that “Skyline has available, empty singles on floors with single-use bathrooms.” In an email to the Justice, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Tim Touchette, who works for DCL, said in an email to the Justice that the student’s assertion about Skyline housing was simply false. “Although rooms are held for medical reasons all over campus, there are no empty singles, or any other vacant rooms, specifically in Skyline. Availability on campus is constantly changing, and we always keep a small number of rooms open for emergencies, temporary accommodation, and other reasons,” Touchette explained. Several students complained that the Health Center is inaccessible for students with physical impairments, especially in the winter, when hills and roads can become icy. Denning responded in an email to the Justice, “The Health Center has a handicapped accessible entrance, bathroom and exam rooms.” — Editor’s note: Justice editors Morgan Mayback, Maya ZangerNadis and Lily Swartz signed the open letter. Sam Stockbridge is a DCL employee.
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NEWS
captured the lives of African refugees staying in a hotelturned-shelter. By ECE ESIKARA JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
“Hotel Splendid,” a documentary about African asylum seekers in Italy, was screened in a Wednesday event sponsored by the Italian Studies program, the Mandel Center for the Humanities and I Am Global Week. Directed by Mauro Bucci, an Italian director, writer and cinematographer, the film shed a light on the “profound story of an African community that lives in an Italian tourist hotel turned into an emergency camp for refugees,” accord-
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ANDREW BAXTER/the Justice
MyWRA Watershed Scientist Andy Hrycyna lectured on Mystic River's ecology and showed members of the community how they can help count its herring population.
PANTRY: Departments unite behind food pantry opening CONTINUED FROM 1 sity’s Wellness Promotion Program manager, explained in an email to the Justice the role of the National College Health Assessment survey administered earlier this semester in clarifying the impact food insecurity has on Brandeis students. This year, Berkenwald said, she included questions about food security in the NCHA survey. The University plans to administer the survey every two years and to include these questions on future surveys as part of the long-term plan to combat food insecurity. According to Berkenwald, this will help the University “track the need for resources and our success with the food pantry as well as other initiatives.” In her email, Lynch explained, “From our own work with students, we know that undergraduate and graduate students who live off campus are most at risk for food [in]security.” She continued, “I do not want to have any student going to class on an empty stomach because they don’t have enough to food to eat.” For the University, the creation of the food pantry is a step toward actively dealing with a problem that, according to Lynch, “is something [also] experienced by our surrounding community.” Over the summer, the Brandeis Food Pantry Working Group consisted of 16 members. Together, these individuals worked on developing a comprehensive plan for the BFP that took into account perspectives from offices across campus. Numerous departments on campus have representatives on the Brandeis Food Pantry Working Group, includ-
ing Academic Services, Health Services, International Students and Scholars Office, the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Waltham Group, among others. Wong, Assistant Director of Graduate Student Affairs Steven Weglinski and Food Pantry Graduate Assistant Priscilla Rwandrugali, who now manages the Food Pantry, also played instrumental roles in organizing the project. According to Weglinski, the Food Pantry has three main sources for food: its official partnership with the Greater Boston Food Bank, the Food for Fines Program with the Brandeis Library and continuing donations from members of the Brandeis community. Julie Donoghue from GBFB wrote to the Justice and explained that the the organization partners with 500 member agencies in eastern Massachusetts. Agencies wishing to partner with GBFB must be evaluated to determine whether they fit with GBFB’s mission to create a “healthy and hunger-free Eastern Massachusetts.” Donoghue explained that Weglinski and Rwandrugali filled out the necessary form and spoke with her regarding the creation of the Brandeis Food Pantry. Donoghue wrote, “I came out [to Brandeis] and met with Steven and Priscilla — they showed me their unique iPad sign in system and explained how the volunteer hours will work.” Once gaining GBFB’s approval, the only thing that remained was actually launching the food bank. With its partnership with GBFB, BFP has access to an online system that works similar to ordering food online. The GBFB will be the primary sustained food source for the pantry.
Film documents refugees’ journeys to Italy, struggles with asylum applications in shelter ing to the event description. The documentary is described as “an intimate and collective portrayal of life in a community of migrants from the African coasts who are living in a reception center for asylum seekers” on its website. “It is an unprecedented glimpse into the daily experiences and operation of an Italian hotel turned into an emergency camp for refugees,” the website says. The film portrays the different segments of the young asylum seekers’ journey to Italy. Throughout the film, young men from different African countries tell their individual stories. The stories focus on three different parts of their travels: the journey to Libya, through Libya and across the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Italy. The men’s sto-
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018
’DEIS DOES CITIZEN SCIENCE
CAMPUS SPEAKER
■ Filmmaker Mauro Bucci
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ries involve violence and abuse, being robbed, kidnapped, and tortured in Libyan prisons and trying several times to cross the Mediterranean. While the asylum seekers tell their stories of coming to Italy, the film simultaneously illustrates their present lives in a hotel that had been turned into a refugee camp. The hotel includes a kitchen in which the administration and refugees cooked together from time to time, bedrooms that refugees share, a garden-like courtyard and big rooms used as classrooms for refugees. In these classes, the refugees learn Italian and practice answering interview questions for their asylum applications. While doing this, the refugees express that they sometimes feel hopeless. All of them want to work
and make money to save for the future or to send their families back at home, and they feel trapped and helpless in the hotel. The documentary captures moments when some refugees complain to the hotel’s administration about being unable to work. As refugees tell their story of arrival to Italy, time is passing in the documentary, and at the end of the film, the director finally reveals the results of the applications. Most of the refugees who shared their stories do not get a positive result: their applications are denied. In a Q&A session after the film, Bucci told the audience that he avoided capturing the refugees’ emotional reactions to having their applications denied, out of respect for them.
Referencing the partnership with GBFB, Donoghue wrote, “I know that Brandeis University has a big focus on social justice so it’s great to now have them as a members agency … as we all work together to end hunger in our state.” The Brandeis Library worked with the BFP to create a Food for Fines Program, which began in late October. Students can now pay their overdue library fines by donating hygiene or non-perishable food items to the pantry. In an Oct. 23 Justice article, Brenda Cummings, director of Public Services at the Brandeis Library, was quoted as saying, “we really want Food for Fines to be a year-long thing. With Brandeis being a school of social justice this is important.” In the words of Berkenwald, “The food pantry and efforts like it are crucial to upholding Brandeis’ commitment to supporting student success, equity and wellness.” Brandeis faculty, staff and students interested in contributing to the BFP can drop off non-perishable goods or personal care items at three locations: Brandeis Food Pantry (Kutz 102), Office of the Provost (Irving 102) or the Department of Community Service and Student Activities (Shapiro Campus Center 203). In an email to the Brandeis community, the Brandeis Food Pantry Working Group listed the pantry’s operating hours: Monday to Thursday noon to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., Friday noon to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. The email notes that if someone is unable to access the Food Pantry during operation hours, emailing foodpantry@ brandeis.edu to schedule another time to visit is also an option.
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features
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018 ● FEATURES ● THE JUSTICE
just
VERBATIM | MARILYN MONROE We are all sexual creatures, thank God, but it’s a pity so many people despise and crush this natural gift.
ON THIS DAY…
FUN FACT
In 1789, New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
The word ‘uncopyrightable’ is the longest English word without a repeated letter.
ANDREW BAXTER /the Justice
STUDENT AMBASSADORS: SSIS is a completely student-run, volunteerbased organzation dedicated to serving the Brandeis community.
Chains and Whips: Exciting? SSIS hosts “Cuffing Season, a BDSM workshop” By SAMMY PARK JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
You might be bad, but there’s a way to be perfectly good at it. Last Wednesday, students flocked to the Student Sexuality Information Services office in the Shapiro Campus Center to learn about safe ways to practice bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism. Before the eager attendants entered the office, an SSIS member informed them of the event’s guidelines. Students were required to ask for consent before photographing participants and every attendant was entitled to confidentiality. Ending their introduction of the event, the SSIS member said, “What’s said here stays here and what is learned here leaves here.” The event, called “Cuffing Season: A BDSM Workshop,” was inspired by the six-month period between September and February when the majority of committed romantic relationships are said
to begin, presumably due to the colder weather. In the SSIS office, there were six stations — representing each month in cuffing season — that educated attendants on the different aspects of BDSM. Condoms, dildos and handcuffs decorated the tables and walls of room 328 while the sounds of laughter filled SSIS’ crowded office. Throughout the event, attendants moved through the months of cuffing season, starting with September. September was called “BDSM 101” where students played ‘BDSM Jeopardy,’ testing their existing knowledge of the practice. At the next station, featuring a makeshift photo booth (complete with costumes), SSIS members discussed safe ways to implement roleplay into students’ sex lives. “[The] event was SSIS’ continued goal to create safe spaces for all kinds of people to learn, ask questions, get resources and above all, to be able to unapologetically and wholeheartedly be themselves. Our main hope for the event was to make BDSM more ac-
ANDREW BAXTER/the Justice
TOYS AND RESOURCES: SSIS volunteers informed the attendants of the technical and psychological aspects of BDSM.
cessible and understandable,” SSIS told the Justice in a group statement. After the roleplay station, students at the November and December tables learned about consent and dynamics in BDSM practices. At the consent table, students were tasked with demonstrating consent by shaking each other’s hands. Additionally, SSIS volunteers at the November table distributed pamphlets on the differences between sadomasochism, “S/M,” and abuse. The BDSM community has had to differentiate between BDSM and abuse throughout its lifetime, but the increased visibility of the community and its practices due to the popularity of the book and movie franchise “50 Shades of Grey” has increased both BDSM participants and critics. Ry Patetski ’22, a student who attended the workshop told the Justice, “The way I found out about it [BDSM] was when I read ‘50 Shades of Grey’ in middle school.” While “50 Shades of Grey” is a popular depiction of a dominance/submission,
or “dom/sub,” relationship, it has also been heavily criticized by people both inside and outside of the BDSM community for its conflation of BDSM practices and abuse. During the workshop, SSIS dispelled common myths and misunderstandings about the movement, saying that “the main pillar of BDSM is consent. This is non-negotiable. Those who engage in BDSM do so at the pleasure of all those involved, in keeping with the understanding that pleasure is achieved differently for different people.” After consent and dynamics, students learned about sensation play at the January table. Students volunteered to be blindfolded while tasting different flavors of lube with the goal of guessing the correct flavor. SSIS members provided craft supplies that the attendees used to decorate blindfolds, also supplied by SSIS. On top of the table, there were copies of a BDSM playlist and the book “Sex Tips From a Dominatrix” by Patricia Payne on display. Pain play was the topic for the sixth station. At the February table, students examined nipple clamps and whips. SSIS, which is a completely studentrun organization, started in 1972 with the mission “to cultivate a safe, sexpositive community while satisfying all Brandeis students’ sexual health needs.” Besides hosting workshops, the organization offers peer support and provides barrier methods, pregnancy tests, lubrication and other sexual health products at an affordable price. “As young adults, we are in exciting stages of self-exploration and discovery. For some, BDSM might be the thing that unlocks a key component of their sexuality and identity,” the group statement said. “For others, BDSM might not be what lights their fire. SSIS feels it is our duty to help Brandeis students wherever they are on their journey to self-discovery; and whether or not BDSM plays a role in that journey, we are here to support.”
THE JUSTICE ● FEATURES ● TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018 VICTOR FELDMAN/the Justice
THE GREAT ESCAPE: A 20-minute drive from Brandeis, Walden Pond is a popular off-campus adventure for students.
Walden’s Still Got It Walden Pond continues to be a destination for people looking to escape civilization
EITAN MAGER-GARFIELD/the Justice
GET LOST: Andrew Yan ’20 says he comes to Walden Pond to lose himself in the natural landscape. “I just keep asking myself, ‘Where am I’?”
By VICTOR FELDMAN JUSTICE EDITOR
EITAN MAGER-GARFIELDthe Justice
WINTER WONDERLAND: Mary Casterlan explained that she likes to bring her children to Walden Pond because it forces them to explore nature instead of playing iPad games.
It’s been over 150 years since Henry David Thoreau walked the shores of Walden Pond. Today, Thoreau’s old stomping ground is largely as it was back then, but with more visitors and a parking lot a few hundred yards from the shore. The natural beauty of the space and its seclusion from civilization attracted the young transcendentalist whose two-year experiment living in a cabin on the grounds led to the creation of his best-known book, “Walden; or Life in the Wood.” Today, it’s unclear if the visitors at Walden Pond pull off the road in Concord searching for similar revelations about the capacity for inner growth in solitude. Either way, Walden Pond continues to offer its visitors an escape. Walden Pond is just a 20-minute drive from Brandeis, and it’s a frequent excursion for students looking for an off-campus adventure. Last Sunday, as cars began to fill the parking lot and parents bundled up children in puffy jackets, Terri Dannis, an accountant who works at Northwestern Mutual in Boston, made his way along the shores of Walden Pond, stopping every few hundred feet to look out at the frozen expanse of water. “I try to come here once a month,” he said, brushing snow off his
VICTOR FELDMAN/the Justice
WALK IN THE WOODS: Over 150 years ago, Henry David Thoreau lived in a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond. He spent two years there writing in solitude.
boots. “I never really got into Thoreau and all of that, but this place is special all on its own,” he said. “You can’t hear the traffic from the road and sometimes there aren’t even any people and you’re all alone. It’s one of the few places of its kind.” Dannis grew up in rural Vermont, and says that while he loves living in Boston, he craves the natural landscapes from his childhood. While Danis had hoped the snow would discourage visitors, he thinks last weekend was the most crowded Walden has been in months. “I guess all these parents thought it would be fun to take their kids out in the snow,” he grumbled, half-jokingly. But kids were not the only ones coming to play in the snow that day. Andrew Yan ’20, a computer science and math double-major at Brandeis, came to the pond to “get lost.” Sitting on the train tracks which run along the pond and near Thoreau’s cabin, Yan rested awkwardly on the icy rails. “You got the water, the sands, the trees, and even the train tracks that represent a quintessential New England scene,” he said. He lamented that he has only made the 20-minute drive off campus twice. While he’s always visited Walden with friends, it’s solitude that Yan seeks here. “From watching the golden leaves falling down the trail, to stepping on the soft snow on the beach … I just keep asking myself, ‘Where am I’?”
Soon, the sounds of a horn and a train rattling on the tracks rippled across the pond. Yan got up from his perch on the tracks and ran toward a trail that snakes along the perimeter of the pond. A child in a red jacket shouted “look!” and pointed his small hand in the direction of the train. For a brief moment, the stillness of the landscape was interrupted. Back at the visitor’s center, Mary Casterlan, a mother of two and a social worker in Newton had just led her children through an exhibit on Thoreau’s life at Walden. “The kids just love it here, and it gets them off their iPads,” she explained. Casterlan said she was concerned about the amount of homework her children have and how little time they spend playing outdoors. “When I was a kid we either read books, played with dolls, or went outside,” she said. But it’s not all about the children: Caserlan loves walking around the pond with her husband, Jack. “He’s a big nature guy. It’s nice to see him in his element,” she said. By 4 p.m., the sun had almost set and most of the visitors had left. Dannis was among the last to get to his car, which he inspected for a parking ticet. Before driving away, he rolled down his window and said, “Today was kinda perfect. I get why all these people come here, just don’t interview people when it gets dark,” he chuckled, and rolled away.
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10 TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018 ● FORUM ● THE JUSTICE
Justice
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Avraham Penso, Editor in Chief Natalia Wiater, Managing Editor Amber Miles, Senior Editor Jen Geller, Deputy Editor Nia Lyn and Morgan Mayback, Associate Editors Jocelyn Gould and Sam Stockbridge, News Editors Victor Feldman, Features Editor Judah Weinerman, Forum Editor, Zach Kaufman, Sports Editor Maya Zanger-Nadis, Arts Editor Yvette Sei and Andrew Baxter, Photography Editors Shinji Rho, Layout Editor Liat Fischer and Devo Meyers, Ads Editors Eliana Padwa and Lily Swartz, Copy Editors
EDITORIALS
Senate should rethink draconian amendments Class of 2020 Senator Aaron Finkel has drafted two amendments to the Student Union Constitution that would strip the Allocations Board of final authority over all allocation decisions and policies and distribute it between the Senate and Union president. The justification for the amendments states that they would “ensure maximum accountability and fairness,” but this board believes the actual amendments do not effectively address either issue. To properly institute oversight of A-Board without adversely disrupting the balance of power in the Union, both amendments will need to be significantly altered. Union President Hannah Brown ’19 has the right to veto any A-Board “policy, rule of order, or specific allocation decision” prior to the semester for which the allocation is made, according to Article V, Section 4 of the Union Constitution. This veto can be overturned by a two-thirds vote by A-Board. Finkel’s first amendment — which is cosponsored by 12 members of the Union, including Brown and Vice President Benedikt Reynolds ’19, but only one member of A-Board — would allow the president to veto these decisions at any time. More concerning is that the amendment also proposes eliminating A-Board’s power to override this veto by a two-thirds majority — transferring that power to the Senate instead. While the justification for these amendments promises that the president and the Senate would intervene “only if absolutely necessary,” the amendments themselves do not actually restrict when or for what reasons they could exercise this veto power. Finkel told the Justice that the presidential veto is “completely ineffective right now,” because A-Board members “vote unanimously on everything.” But the clear implication of the Union’s constitution is that A-Board, not the president, is designed to have the final say on funding decisions. If the Senate and president dispute the outcome of an allocation decision, they should appeal to the Union Judiciary — not rewrite the Constitution to put A-Board under their jurisdiction. An earlier draft of this amendment even granted the Senate the power to overturn any A-Board policy or allocation at any time by a two-thirds majority, subject only to the president’s veto. This, of course, would have included allocation decisions involving money requested by the Senate and president. Finkel says that amendments to ensure oversight of A-Board have been considered over the past few years and that these changes were not drafted with recent Union drama in mind. Nonetheless, it’s difficult to imagine that E-Board and the Senate would be so intent on upending allocations policy had A-Board not rejected their $12,000 request for emergency funding several weeks ago. Allowing the Senate and president to have control over the amount of funding they receive would have presented a glaring conflict of interest; under this new clause, they could easily have vetoed any decision that did not provide them with $50,000 — the Union’s current funding benchmark. While we appreciate that the Senate scrapped this provision, it is difficult to understand how proposing to effectively relegate A-Board to an arm of the Senate and E-Board was ever squared with the stated goal of “fairness.” Finkel told the Justice that the goal of the amendments was to impose “checks and balances” on A-Board, but the appropriate way to do this is to call on a neutral third party such as the Judiciary, not to hamstring A-Board. Much of the current tension between A-Board, E-Board and the Senate is the result of misunderstandings and miscommunications regarding the way funding is allocated. The Student Union was allocated $45,000 for fiscal year 2018, according to an A-Board email obtained by the Justice. Of that $45,000, over $15,000 remained at the end of the fiscal year. Based on those Union expenditures, or lack thereof, A-Board set the
Changes would aggravate tensions Union’s fiscal year 2019 budget at $38,000. Finkel explained that E-board and the Senate requested the emergency funding to “assure everyone in the Union that [they] have enough money,” because Senate projects were stalling due to a perceived lack of funds to implement them. But their emergency request did not mention that — nor did it specify how much money these projects would require, or clarify that the remaining money in the Senate’s discretionary fund had largely been set aside for the fall and spring Midnight Buffets. Instead of providing these details, they asked A-Board to reach out if they needed additional information — which A-Board would have been wise to do, though they were not strictly obligated to. A-Board denied the emergency request and later overturned Brown’s veto of that denial, arguing the Union hadn’t demonstrated an urgent need for funding or specified what it would be used for. Brown wrote that the denial of funding “limits the ability of the Student Union to provide meaningful and frequently difficult to anticipate services to the student body, ... interact with students through co-sponsorships and innovative projects, …. [and] serve as efficient representatives for students.” In their email to overturn Brown’s veto, A-Board wrote that they will provide funds on a “project by project basis once the Union’s finances actually represent the need for additional funds.” A-Board and E-Board are both correct. A-Board cannot allocate money without receiving specific details about what it will be used for — this is true even of the Union and other secured clubs. And the Union cannot function effectively without a way to swiftly access funds for previously unanticipated projects. The solution here is better communication; introducing polarizing constitutional amendments will only make matters worse. The second amendment, the A-Board Operations Reformation Act, is sponsored by the same Union members and two other senators. Article V, Section 2 of the Union Constitution establishes that A-Board can pass “policies and rules of order” by a majority vote. Finkel’s amendment would have the Senate, not A-Board, approve any policies by a majority vote. The amendment’s justification does not name any current A-Board policies or rules that Finkel or the co-signers believe are problematic, nor does it explain why the Senate specifically is better qualified to have the final say on the workings of A-Board. Finkel expressed his frustration that A-Board could change funding policies without the input of the Senate, which he says frequently receives complaints from students about the allocations process. A better solution would simply be to require A-Board to provide more detailed explanations for any changes they make, and to direct the Judiciary to examine these policies if any issues arise. In the current climate of distrust between branches of the Union, granting the Senate power to veto A-Board policies, without clearly expressing what immediate problems this would solve, only invites further tension and potential gridlock. Finally, there is already a significant checksand-balances mechanism in place: voting. Students have the power to vote any Union member out of office. If they are dissatisfied with A-Board’s conduct, they can appeal allocations decisions, vote for new A-Board representatives or run themselves. This board hopes that E-Board and the Senate will rethink their approach to modifying the allocations process. Any changes they implement should advance their intention of ensuring fair oversight, not simply fracture already-strained relationships by overturning the Union’s distribution of power. As major bodies of student government, A-Board, E-Board and the Senate should focus more on cooperating to improve student life.
MEGAN GELLER/the Justice
on
Views the News
After considering more than 200 different cities for the location of its second headquarters, Amazon has decided on splitting its East Coast center of operations between Long Island City, New York, and Crystal City, Virginia. According to a Nov. 3 Wall Street Journal article, these new work spaces will create over 25,000 jobs for each city, in addition to marking a shift in large corporations having their main offices within urban areas. How will the arrival of Amazon affect the economies of both cities in the long term, and what are the costs and benefits of this monumental move?
Prof. Ben Gomes-Casseres (IBS) With its split-decision on HQ2, Amazon is admitting that it may be hitting some diseconomies of scale. It chose to put half of HQ2 near the American center of political power and the other half near the world’s center of financial and media power. The DC location will help Amazon sell its profitable web-services to the government, and may help protect the tech conglomerate against antitrust stirrings. The NYC location will help Amazon sell these services to the financial and media industry. Both locations will see old industrial areas refurbished and filled with young workers. Both areas will also see added pressure on traffic and housing, but big cities are used to that. Boston and Brandeis will be fine without Amazon. The entrepreneurial ecosystem in our city may well have been squashed by Amazon, so we will continue to see new ideas flourish here. And Brandeis students can get still get jobs at Amazon, just in a different city. Prof. Ben Gomes-Casseres (IBS) is a Professor of International Business and the author of “Remix Strategy.”
Prof. Daniel Bergstresser (IBS)
New York and Washington “won” Amazon’s second headquarters in what has been a lamentable and embarrassing spectacle. I applaud cities like San Antonio, Texas that declined to play into Amazon’s destructive exercise. I suspect that the entire exercise was largely bogus – one of Amazon’s key goals, as others have pointed out, may have been to get cities and metro areas to share with Amazon useful data, for example data on the bidders’ economic conditions and development plans. Over 200 cities and areas shared these types of data with Amazon during this silly bidding process. Amazon will now move forward, and will take advantage of the valuable data they have gathered from the bidders. Taking a step back from this scam, I think it is time for us to reinvigorate antitrust policy. Our largest corporations have too much power over their employees, customers, suppliers and the communities that host them. Prof. Daniel Bergstresser (IBS) is an associate professor of finance at the International Business School, specializing in municipal finance and household financial behavior.
Prof. Stephen G. Cecchetti (IBS)
Firms with assets that can move easily frequently obtain subsidies from communities or countries that wish to attract and keep them. Auctions like the one run by Amazon intensify the competition for these mobile assets, allowing the firm to extract a large share of the value from the place where they locate, boosting the likelihood of winner’s remorse. Even when the subsidies are tied to job creation, the communities bear much of the business risk. The most prominent recent example is Wisconsin’s payment of $4.2 billion to Foxconn in exchange for the creation of maybe 13,000 jobs – state taxpayers are unlikely to see a positive return. In the case of Amazon, the only sure winners are the firm and the politicians in the headlines. Corporate subsidy auctions are contests that I am always happy to lose. Prof. Stephen G Cecchetti is the Rosen Family Chair in International Finance in the International Business School.
Prof. George Hall (ECON)
I agree with the many others who characterize Amazon’s search for a second headquarters as an exercise to collect confidential data on two hundred cities and tax breaks from the almost certainly predetermined “winners,” New York City and suburban Washington DC. Amazon’s presence will add little to these already thriving cities. In fact, given the backlash from locals who would have preferred that their taxes be used to address other issues than subsidizing Amazon, the winning cities may regret their decision to be so generous. Amazon stated that it was looking for a site with a stable and business-friendly environment, sound infrastructure, a diverse population, excellent institutions of higher education, strong local schools and plenty of recreational opportunities. Going forward, state and local leaders should invest in building communities with these characteristics so that they will attract businesses without taxpayer giveaways. Prof. George Hall (ECON) is a professor at the International Business School and the Department of Economics, specializing in fiscal policy and industrial organization. Photos: Ben Gomes-Casseres; Daniel Bergstresser; Stephen G. Cecchetti; George Hall
THE JUSTICE ● FORUM ● TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20 , 2018
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China’s oppression of Uyghurs remains hidden from view By HARRISON PAEK JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
Many people in the West are comfortable with the thought that the People’s Republic of China is a benign communist state. Especially within its close geographical proximity to the tyrannical North Korea, as well as its history under Mao Zedong, the iron grip of Bejing has with time loosened to a bearable squeeze. One might be taken aback to hear China is still putting people into “reeducation camps” based upon their religion. In the case of Muslim Uyghurs, this is a harsh reality the public seems to turn a blind eye to. Recent unrest across the world has sown seeds of systematic Islamophobia, and China’s government is using this to their advantage. Uyghurs are an ethnic minority of Turkicspeaking Muslims that have lived in Central Asia for centuries. The Uyghurs have suffered continuously throughout their existence, being conquered countless times by other peoples. A large majority of the Uyghur population now inhabit an area in modern day China and Kazakhstan. There is a large Uyghur presence in China, which has proven to be endlessly problematic for both sides. According to the 2000 Chinese census, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is inhabited mainly by 45% Uyghurs and 40% Han Chinese. Historically, this has led to various disagreements and conflicts over the land. However, a recent positive feedback loop of crackdowns and subsequent protest has set an even worse precedent for the future concerning China’s religious minorities. Though there appears to be freedom of religion in China as stipulated by its constitution, the Council on Foreign Relations asserts that, “China is home to one of the largest populations of religious prisoners, likely numbering in the tens of thousands.” Religious tolerance in the Chinese constitution is purposefully vague, and the highly organized and efficient roundup of more than 120,000 Uyghurs in Xinjiang over the last several years has begun to make China’s intentions clear. In 2009, this intention turned into bloody mayhem during protests over the deaths of two Uyghurs in a previous ethnic conflict. According to a July 2009 Guardian article, over 140 protesters were killed by local police. Since then, the Chinese government has constricted around its prey. “From the start of November, public security bodies in Xinjiang will ... start a thorough ‘strike hard and punish’ campaign to further consolidate the fruits of
maintaining stability and eliminate security dangers,” says the Chinese Communist Party newspaper, People’s Daily. This piece of legislation is aimed at extinguishing Uyghur resistance, and as exhibited by the unencumbered imprisonment of thousands of innocent Uyghurs, the aim seems chillingly reminiscent of Maoist religious persecution. The situation inside these re-education camps is frightening, to say the very least. According to NPR’s Nov. 3 interview with exdetainee Kayrat Samarkand, “Inmates had to sing songs praising Chinese leader Xi Jinping before being allowed to eat.” Constant exams on communist ideals accompany poor conditions within the camps.
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The situation inside these re-education camps is frightening, to say the very least. Though torture is not widespread according to Samarkand’s account, he had drawn the ire of the guards on multiple occasions. “They made me wear what they called ‘iron clothes,’ a suit made of metal that weighed over 50 pounds,” he said, and after three days he had such ferocious pain he complied without question with the further ridiculous demands and interrogations. Samarkand was only released from the camps after he tried to commit suicide by slamming his head against a wall. In The Guardian’s July 2009 interview with Human Rights Watch campaigner Maya Wang, she claims that “while authorities claimed the centres were about combating terrorism and separatism, they were in fact designed to brainwash and assimilate Uyghurs.” This is a call for the international community to be more diligent in resisting China’s abuses of its own population. This, however, is an extremely difficult task. The efficiency and organization with which re-education camps have been set up shows that the Chinese government is a welloiled machine when it comes to squashing resistance. In order to uphold the almighty image of the Communist Party, Uyghurs
Photos Courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS; Photo Illustration by JUDAH WEINERMAN/the Justice
have been used as a scapegoat for the recent response to ethnic and religious injustice. In completing the trifecta, China’s large hand in the global market makes sanctions extremely difficult. Thousands of Uyghurs in Kazakhstan still have relatives in China that have gone missing, and this number will only increase as the global ignorance regarding this issue persists. In today’s political climate, minorities have all too often been used as scapegoats to quench the public’s thirst for moral retribution when it comes to unrest. Islamophobia is spreading like a disease, and it is important to remember that not 75 years ago Japanese
internment camps existed in America. All this aside, a piece of bipartisan legislation , spearheaded by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Thomas Suozzi (D-NY), is making its way through Congress. In introducing the legislation, Smith said, “The Chinese government’s creation of a vast system of what can only be called concentration camps cannot be tolerated in the 21st century,” As lawmakers pass legislation to combat this injustice on the political stage, it is important to talk about the issue at hand, which often takes second place in the news. It is imperative that this violation of human rights gets the attention it deserves.
What price do you pay to pursue what you are passionate about? By RENEE NAKKAB JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
How much is your life worth? It is an abstract concept to wrap your head around, because the gut reaction is to value your life above anything else. Currently, we are young students still deciding how to personalize a version of life that satisfies our ambitions and desires. Unlike older generations, we do not have children to worry about or the societal norms of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s breathing down our necks, feeding us the expected “right and wrong” way to go about life. We are Millennials and Generation Z: Young, passionate innovators who have brought about some of the most progressive strides in activism, technology, entertainment and sports through figures such as Malala Yousafzai, Evan Spiegel, Justin Bieber, Simone Biles and countless others. As we contemplate what we want to be after the label of student wears away, we have endless possible titles ready to be substituted. Although the older generation’s definition of life differs from ours, their readiness to die for their passion is inspiring. There are inherent dangers ingrained in any occupation, some more immediate than others. Police, firefighters and soldiers willingingly put their lives on the line to ensure the safety of others. Recently, the Thousand Oaks shooting exhibited the bravery and heroism of a veteran who worked in the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office for 29 years. As a first responder on the scene, Sgt. Ron Helus rushed into the bar filled with terrified college kids and an active shooter. He was
blasted with multiple bullets and died hours later according to a Nov. 8 CNN story. This reality of putting your job before your life is daunting. How much dedication to your profession warrants accepting the fact that you might die right after you clock in? Helus had planned to retire the following year, completing 30 years of faithful service to his job. He did not flinch when thinking about the danger that proceeded beyond that door. He was doing his job, a job he loved, which grew to be a part of his heart over the past 30 years. A journalist’s job is to keep the public informed by sharing and revealing information that the world should be aware of to be better informed and take more strategic action. Journalism does not usually get perceived as a dangerous craft. Only when the pen gets replaced by a gun do people realize the dangers behind releasing words that stain another’s reputation and that cause a different train of thought from those in those in power. A tragic example of this came in the form of Jamal Khashoggi a veteran journalist who criticized the Saudi government. For reporting the truth, he was murdered by a team of Saudi agents. The Turkish investigation sorted through all the lies the Saudi government was trying to spew and confirmed that Khashoggi was murdered by agents in the Saudi embassy. Khashoggi knew the risks of revealing the truth, yet he remained loyal to his profession because he believed in its core values. He believed in the importance of journalism and although he was probably killed inhumanely, he upheld his values until the
very end of his life. Now, I am not saying you have to die in order to prove that you love your job. The message is that your passion should motivate you to live. This entails getting up every morning excited to start a new day of work, not being consumed by boredom or dread and straying from the rat race in order to find your own path. When people do things they enjoy, creativity and efficiency soar, fostering some of the most progressive and positive working environments. It is through this that the world advances because people tend to thrive and contribute most significantly to society when they are happy and believe in what they are doing.
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Yet it is through the trial and error of many different jobs that you can develop a passion for something. During Thanksgiving break, I encourage you to take some time to be your own head hunter. Try to find an internship in your desired field, but extensively research the company to see if you believe in their mission. Look for a summer job that does not
encompass your direct interest, but rather a field or topic you have always wondered about and are looking to further explore. Select a job or internship that satisfies your interests and upholds your beliefs, but do not be so quick to turn down a job that may challenge how you maintain your beliefs, and it is in these moments in which your faith and passion are tested. Tests of devotion are good from time to time. They make you question whether you truly believe something or are trying to satisfy someone else’s notions of what you should believe. Nevertheless, I am not so naive as to think the job market is swimming in an abundance of openings or that it is easy to get your dream job on the first attempt. Yet it is through the trial and error of many different jobs that you can develop a passion for something. After all, does anyone really know what they absolutely love until they have had a thorough look at all of the alternatives? The key to happiness is feeling complete, which is accomplished by feeling like you are contributing to society. By being a valuable part of a given community, you will want to live and continue to share your passions with the people of the present, in addition to the next generation. If the older generation taught us anything, it is to live as though nothing is holding us back. Find an occupation that you are passionate about, and, if you can get to the point where your passion becomes the joints supporting your life, then you might have achieved a special euphoria few people have the pleasure of experiencing.
The opinions expressed on this page are those of each article’s respective author and do not reflect the viewpoint of the Justice.
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018 ● FORUM ● THE JUSTICE
FORUM
In the wake of tragic wildfire, how will Malibu rebuild itself? Maddox
KAY
GLOBAL WARNING
When the mythical phoenix first ventures its head above the smolder and ash, it is a little more than an ugly, soot-covered duckling. It waddles two steps forward, falls over, and gets back up. Such is life in the community of Malibu this week as spot fires float over blackened hills, looking for untarnished brush left to consume. The worst is over, and residents trickle back in over singed asphalt to check on homes and belongings, but they are hardly in the clear. By now, the national media has covered in detail the blaze that decimated 713 structures in total, including Miley Cyrus’ mansion and “Westworld” shooting location Paramount Ranch, according to a Nov. 16 CBS report. The story they will not tell is of the gritty rebuilding of a town that, for thousands of Angelenos, represented a reprieve from the stresses of the everyday. On Tuesday, Nov. 13, Tramonto Bistro opened its doors to serve free food to residents and emergency workers who had no power or clean water. Pop-up events around LA on the 13th and 14th offered moral and material support. During mid-afternoon on the 13th, 21-yearold Tim Morris dangled under the pier of his family’s beachfront restaurant, Paradise Cove, delivering food, diesel generator fuel and other supplies brought in by boat. “They brought half of Costco with them,” he laughed in his Instagram story. Tim and his crew built a crane at the end of the pier to maximize leverage and pull heavy items to shore. Days before, at nightfall, Tim had fought off flames at the edge of the property with two coworkers and residents of the nearby Paradise Cove mobile home park. There was not much help from the fire crews who were on guard nearby at Pepperdine University, where 800 students remained under a shelter-in-place policy adopted after a 1985 fire, according to a Nov. 13 LA Times article. Lives at stake come first, so the firemen stayed in place while the rest of Malibu burned. “There wasn’t a single fire brigade in West Malibu until maybe 10:30,” Tim explained. “The whole field across the [Pacific Coast Highway] was on fire.
Photo Courtesy of MASON BROMBERG
Police and firefighters were stopping and saying, ‘You have to leave, this is dangerous. You can’t be doing this.’ But if they weren’t gonna do anything, we had to stay.” Staying behind was not a choice for Tim, but a duty to a community and way of life that he loves.
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Rebuilding Malibu will not be easy, but its residents have already taken up the challenge. At the same time that the community banded together, there was a sense of anarchy. Cut off from the rest of Los Angeles, and with police energy focused on controlling major roads, rumors that looters were pillaging evacuated homes spread like wildfire. Guntoting residents including Carey Hart, spouse of pop singer P!nk, formed posses and
blockaded roads in the wealthy Point Dume neighborhood, posting warnings to Instagram that “looters will be shot on sight.” Actual looting has not been confirmed. Even though robbing evacuees is a despicable crime, the idea of ashen hillside estates patrolled by disorganized posses of gunmen is somehow more post-apocalyptic. Malibu is prime real estate for many of the rich and famous, and is also home to hippie trailer parks, artists, Pepperdine and several clean living and rehabilitation facilities. At a connected time where the pace of life is everaccelerating, Malibu was a bastion for the leisure and pleasure of savoring a moment. The coastline of Malibu and the Santa Monica mountains that jut up against it are a haven for surfers, swimmers and cyclists, in addition to motorcycle and car enthusiasts. The latter two groups congregated each day and night at a lookout point known as “The Snake,” with shady trees and miles of visibility. Justin Liew, a senior at NYU who is originally from the area, said that “it wasn’t about the cars or the road, but about the friendships [we] made up there.” With little cell reception, people bumped into each other by chance and everyone’s focus was on those around them.
Today, the Snake lookout appears as if it could be a part of the moon’s surface. Liew’s family home survived the fire, but approximately 40 homes in his neighborhood did not. Rebuilding Malibu will not be easy, but its residents have already taken up the challenge. In Paradise, a town with far fewer resources and no name-brand prestige, the future is a federal matter. Over 7,600 homes have been destroyed in a town that, according to a Nov. 15 BBC article, “will need a total rebuild.” For working-class residents, fire insurance was not a given, even in a log-cabin mountain town, which a Nov. 15 Time article called a “tinderbox.” Residents want to move back home, but 75% of the recovery costs will depend on federal funding, according to the same article. President Trump’s opinions on the California wildfires waver day by day, and his record of natural disaster response is far from pretty. While the hands of residents are shaping a new Malibu, Paradise will need help from a pair of small hands in Washington. While the aftermath of disaster is hardly a time for cheer, the resilient residents and economic autonomy of Malibu will prove to be its greatest assets.
YouTube’s biggest stars keep turning out to be massive racists Judah
WEINERMAN CHATTERBOX
In the swirling vortex of unhinged toxicity and rampant moronic behavior that was 2014era YouTube, one content team stood out as being somewhat watchable and personable. That braintrust was h3h3 productions, comprised of husband and wife team Ethan and Hila Klein. In the channel’s halcyon days, Ethan specialized in goofy reviews of bizzare internet videos, which he reacted to with a mix of disgust and outsized enthusiasm. If you desperately needed someone to make fun of DJ Khaled hitting on women in an abandoned pier on a jetski at 3 a.m., or laugh at a fake prank video involving a group of grown men calling themselves “The Salad Boys,” h3h3 was just the ticket. The combination of the overenthusiastic, loudmouthed Ethan and the shy, sardonic Hila was a winning one. If a loyal h3h3 fan were cryogenically frozen four years ago and woke up now, they would find a shockingly different set of content and priorities. Gone are the comedic sketches and laser-focused reaction videos. Instead, most of Ethan’s content — and it is indeed Ethan’s channel these days, as Hila has receded farther and farther into the background — consists of longform podcasts and rant videos. Once committed only to “punching up” at celebrities and pre-established YouTube stars, h3h3 now largely centers around “cringing” at “SJWs” and “crazy feminists.” That’s right, your friendly neighborhood goofball is now a hardcore reactionary. As for Ethan himself, his priorities are
certainly different. Once quick to point out the toxicity and unpleasantness of the internet, he now dishes it out on a daily basis. With such sterling observations as “Women are, in a nature setting, designed to be conquered,” “Indians are all just the goofiest people. Don’t all Indians look like janitors?” and, in reference to Roseanne Barr’s racist ambien tirade, “I know that it was extremely bigoted what she done, BUT THAT DOESN’T CHANGE HOW OFFENDED THE SJWS ARE! IT’S JUST WHAT SHE DOES!” Inviting the likes of full-time Canadian misogynist Dr. Jordan Peterson, UKIP “classical race realist” Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Swindon on his podcast would have been bad enough, but Ethan manages to keep pace with them in the racism and misogyny department. That’s really frightening stuff for any former viewer, especially considering how young the average h3h3 audience member is. The one saving grace is that many of h3h3’s newer videos have been demonetized by YouTube, preventing them from earning money from hateful content. Ethan is convinced that the Wall Street Journal orchestrated the demonetization because they’re deathly afraid of online content, but that’s a rather unlikely theory. Maybe we should have seen this one coming, given that Ethan attached himself to another fallen star of the nascent internet landscape, Jon Jafari. Better known as JonTron, Jafari originally specialized in video game and film reviews and became beloved for his warmth and energetic sense of humor. In 2013, Jafari teamed up with animator Arin Hanson and created the comedy series “Game Grumps,” to widespread acclaim. By that point, Jafari was something of an icon for his young audience. Other content creators, like Ethan Klein and Jared “ProJared” Knabenbauer, looked up to him as an inspiration. After a successful year with Hanson as the Game Grumps, Jafari left abruptly in 2014, with no communication or indication why. Neither
Hanson nor Jafari’s replacement, musician Dan Avidan, would as much as acknowledge Jafari. Aside from a brief and unsatisfying cameo by Hanson in a Jafari parody of Star Wars, fans were left completely stumped as to why former best friends seemed to avoid each other’s names like the plague. As time went on, the near-total radio silence from Game Grumps on the “Jon Issue,” as their fans came to term it, made much more sense. Jafari’s release schedule trickled to a halt, and he began expressing his opinions in new and more worrying ways. Apropos of nothing, Jafari tweeted in March 2017, “Wow, how scandalous, Steve King doesn’t want his country invaded by people who have contempt for his culture and people! NAZI!!!” For those of you not familiar, Steve King (R-Ia.) is the United States’ most prominent white nationalist Congressman. King had tweeted in March 2017 that Dutch Islamophobe and quasi-fascist Geert Wilders “understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” The connection there isn’t a fun one. If that wasn’t enough to ruin any JonTron fan’s day, his attempt at damage control was even worse. Jafari sat down with streamer Steven “Destiny” Bonnell for a debate that same April, in which Jafari outed himself as a massive white nationalist in his attempts to clear his name. Lowlights included his claim that “We’ve gotten rid of discrimination in our Western countries. If you don’t think we’ve gotten rid of discrimination, you’re living in a fantasy land,” another claim that “Wealthy blacks also commit more crime than poor whites. That’s a fact. Look it up,” and responded to Bonnell’s criticism by saying, “These are just slurs; white supremacist, racist.” In response, Jafari was fired from his role as a voice actor for the then-upcoming game “YookaLaylee” and was dismissed from NormalBoots, the production company he had founded in 2009. NormalBoots’ decision was made public by
The opinions expressed on this page are those of each article’s respective author and do not reflect the viewpoint of the Justice.
none other than Jared Knabenbauer, who had jumped at the opportunity to collaborate with his inspiration back in 2011. If there’s one lesson to be learned from this story besides “don’t be a white nationalist if you like having friends or respect,” it might very well be “never meet your idols.” For the record, Jafari received no punishment from YouTube, his primary source of income. While Ethan and Jon are just the most tragic examples of YouTube’s descent into racist garbage, they’re hardly the only ones. Felix “Pewdiepie” Kjellberg, the single most subscribed YouTuber in the history of the website, has openly dropped the n-word on air in what he called a “heated gaming moment.” Philip DeFranco, the self-appointed “King of YouTube News,” spent most of the 2016 campaign cycle attempting to assuage his audience’s fears that Donald Trump was unqualified to be president. Steven “Boogie2988” Williams claimed that gay rights activists were “bloodthirsty, heartless monsters who want [me] dead for thought crime,” and stated that they should have given homophobes 20 years after Obergefell v. Hodges to “prepare” before legalizing gay marriage. The entire platform is full of these people, and they’re influencing a whole generation of impressionable teenagers and young adults. Is YouTube terrible at times? Actually, it’s terrible most of the time. But there are a few glimmers of hope out there. For every 1000 Minecraft gamers who think the Nazis should have won, there’s a Lindsay Ellis, or a Natalie “Contrapoints” Wynn, or a Binging With Babish making quality content. To get a bit eschatological for a moment, a mystical tradition in Judaism holds that the world is only not destroyed for the sake of 36 worthy men. Maybe this is a stretch, but perhaps YouTube is only kept alive for the sake of those scant few worthy content creators. Otherwise, the likes of Ethan and Jon would have been cast into fire and brimstone a long time ago.
THE JUSTICE ● SPORTS ● TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018
CROSS COUNTRY: NCAA Division III Cross Country Championship meet CONTINUED FROM 16 University Athletic Association Schools. WashU took down twotime defending champion Johns Hopkins University. As stated by the Brandeis Athletics Website, head coach Sinead Evans had this to say when asked about the 2018 cross country season as a whole: "This year was a testament to the team's hard work. I told them at the end of last year that we had a chance to have a special year this year. Everyone trained hard over the summer and
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FOILED
came back in great shape, and I knew it was going to be a terrific season." The team was led by coach Sinead Delahunty Ecans and by assistant coach Steve Flanagan. The seniors on the team, Meaghan Barry, Maya Bliss, Emily Bryson, Julia Bryson, Christine Minor, Rose Monahan, and Doy Ogundiran for the women, led the the rest of the team to much sucesses and will be missed. In total, the team had much sucess this season.
MFENCING: Judges open their dual match season WFENCING: Team looks to
ANDREW BAXTER/Justice File Photo
BALLIN: Brandeis Joanne Carminucci '19 foils her opponent in their match in the NCAA Championship meet on March 11.
CONTINUED FROM 16
was Lin with 6–0. Both Leon Rothstein ’19 and Catino went 7–1 in the meet. Men's Foil The foil was led by Quin who went 6 – 3, followed by Filseth and Sugarman each posting five total wins. The squad went 4–1 in the foil division of the meet. In an interview with Quin, he explained that the team’s “top goals are to win conference for a third year in a row and to qualify some individuals for the NCAA Championship in March.” Quinn explained, that the team is most excited for their “two conference meets. We’re currently back to back champions and I’m ready to see if we can claim our third in a row. We’re also going to Colorado Springs in January for the Western Invitational so that’s definitely something I’m also looking forward to.” In addition to
this, Quin elaborated, “Brandeis University will be hosting the annual Brandeis Invitational where the fencing team will showcase its skills against various other teams from across the country. These include: Yale, UNC, Cornell, NYU, and Brown. Please come out and support us as we’ll be there throughout the day!” Looking forward, the Judges have many more meets in their 201819 season. Some of these include the Brandeis Invitational on Dec. 2 hosted by Brandeis University, the Western Invitational on Jan. 13 hosted by the United States Air Force Academy, and the Northeast Conference Meet on Jan. 26 hosted by Brown University. The season will conclude in March at the NCAA Championships. The championship will take place in Cleveland, Ohio. The team has a total of eight meets between December and March, including the NCAA Championships.
stay strong this season CONTINUED FROM 16 17 points higher than competitor Smith College. Brandeis earned nine points from the foil division, four points from epee and nine points from sabre. In the second round, Brandeis defeated their opponent, Boston University, with a score of 18 – 9. This round also resulted in a victory for the Judges over Sacred Heart University, with a score of 17–10. The rest of the meet continued with the Judges competing in a total of seven rounds against various other teams from a number of universities. In an interview with Carminucci,
she explained that the team has “a lot of new fencers this year from all different backgrounds, and I'm very excited to see how their hard work pays off.” She elaborated that she has “been really impressed with the dedication and work everyone has put in so far, and it definitely showed at Smith College last month. Just being completely present and enthusiastic at practices breeds a strong work ethic and helps everyone grow as fencers, and that really comes through in competition.” Carminucci explained that the whole team is "all here to push ourselves as athletes and to work hard, and we're hoping
that shows throughout the season. We'd love to see good results in our conference, where we've historically done very well." The Judges have more meets this season through March when they will attend the NCAA Championships in Cleveland, Ohio, including their next meet at home. Before that, the Judges will be hosting the Brandeis Invtational on Dec. 2. The Judges will also be traveling to Colorado Springs to attend the Western invitational, followed by the Northeast Conference in Providence. With eight meets left in their season, the Judges have a long season ahead of them.
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THE JUSTICE
JUDGES BY THE NUMBERS
● SPORTS ●
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20 , 2018
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SWIM AND DIVE
MEN’S BASKETBALL UAA STANDINGS
TEAM STATS
Points Per Game
Chandler Jones ’21 and Latye Workman ’18 lead the team. UAA Conf. Overall W L D W L D Pct. Player PPG Case 0 0 0 3 0 0 1.000 Chandler Jones 12.3 Emory 0 0 0 3 0 0 1.000 Latye Workman 12.3 Rochester 0 0 0 3 0 0 1.000 Collin Sawyer 10.7 JUDGES 0 0 0 2 1 0 .667 Eric D’Aguanno 9.7 NYU 0 0 0 2 1 0 .667 Chicago 0 0 0 1 1 0 .500 Rebounds Per Game Latye Workman ’18 leads the team WashU 0 0 0 1 1 0 .500 with 7.7 rebounds per game. Carnegie 0 0 0 0 2 0 .000 Player REB/G EDITOR’S NOTE: Latye Workman 7.7 Chandler Jones 7.3 Dec. 1 vs. Salem State University. Corey Sherman 6.0 Dec. 2. vs. Tufts University or Eric D’Aguanno 3.3 Babson College.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL UAA STANDINGS UAA Conf. W L D Carnegie 0 0 0 Chicago 0 0 0 Case 0 0 0 Emory 0 0 0 JUDGES 0 0 0 NYU 0 0 0 WashU 0 0 0 Rochester 0 0 0
TEAM STATS
Points Per Game
Overall W L D 4 0 0 4 0 0 2 0 0 2 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 3 0
Pct. 1.000 1.000 1.000 .667 .500 .500 .500 .000
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dec. 1 vs. Johnson and Wales Dec. 3 at Babson College
Sarah Jaromin ’19 leads the team with 16.5 points per game. Player Sarah Jaromin Camila Casaneuva Sasha Smally Jillian Petrie
PPG 16.5 16.0 15.5 9.0
Rebounds Per Game Sarah Jaromin ’19 leads the team with 10.0 rebounds per game. Player REB/G Sarah Jaromin 10.0 Camila Casaneuva 7.5 Kathrine Puda 7.5 Amber Graves 6.5
YVETTE SEI/TheJustice
DIVE INTO SUCCESS: Swimmers dive into a race and an intense season against Bentley University on Nov. 16.
SWIMMING AND DIVING Results from at Bentley on Nov. 16.
TOP FINISHERS (Men’s) 400-yard Medley
SWIMMER TIME Tamir Zitelny 2:20.13 Brendon Lu 2:49.38 Matthew Acremont 3:11.12
TOP FINISHERS (Women’s) 200-yard Freestyle
SWIMMER TIME Kylie Herman 1:02.60 Lauren Howard 1:06.09 Natalie Westrick 1:10.35
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Judges sink in their match against Bentley ■ The Judges dive head first into an amazing season so far this season.
Nov. 30 at Gompei Invitational Dec. 1 at Gompei Invitational Dec. 8 at Colby College
By ZACH KAUFMAN
CROSS COUNTRY
JUSTICE EDITOR
Results from the New England Division III Championships on Nov. 10
TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)
TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)
8-Kilometer Run
6-Kilometer Run
RUNNER TIME Josh Lombardo 27:03.4 Dan Curley 27:05.2 Mathew Driben 27:30.3
RUNNER TIME Emily Bryson 21:03.8 Julia Bryson 22:09.2 Niamh Kenny 22:29.3
The Brandeis men’s and women’s swim and dive teams dropped a head-to-head match against crosstown rival Bentley University. The Falcon men edged the Judges by a score of 172–122, while the Brandeis women won 208–80. The Brandeis men now stand at 2–4 on the season, while the women are 2–6. Bentley remains undefeated, improving to 4–0 for the men and 5–0 for the women. Men’s Team For the men, Richard Selznick ’21 remained unbeaten in the distance freestyle events of the season. He won the 1000-yard with
EDITOR’S NOTE: Season has concluded.
a time of 10:06.29, 20 seconds faster than his closest competitor and a season-best. He also claimed the 500-yard in 4:53.11, winning by just over two seconds. He placed third in the 200 IM with a time of 2:06.17. Tamir Zitelny ’20 had two wins of his own in two different strokes. He took the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 55.34 seconds and the 100-yard butterfly in 51.59 seconds. His butterfly win was by more than a second. He also finished fourth place in the 200-yard fly with a time of 2:07.06. Brendon Lu ’22 was also a double winner, taking the 200yard medley with a time of 2:02.28 and the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:14.59. The margin of victory for his first win was just 0.28 seconds while in his second race, he won by more than two seconds. He was also the runner-up in 100 breaststroke. Daniel Wohl ’21 won the 100-yard freestyle in 47.95 seconds, just 0.34 seconds faster than the runnerup. The men’s team opened the
meet with a medley win in the 400 medley relay. The team of Zitelny, Lu, Matthew Acemont ’20 and Wohl finished in 3:35.57, winning by 0.24 seconds. Women’s Team For the women, Lauren Howard ’22 picked up a nail biting win in the 50-yard freestyle. Her 26.10 second finish was just six-hundredths of a second ahead of her competitor from Bentley. The women also won a relay. The team of Audrey Kim ’21, Howard, Uajda Musaka ’21 and Kylie Herman ’19 beat Bentley in the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:44.05, just five-hundredths of a second faster than the Bentley team. The teams will next meet on Dec.1 when they head to Worcester Polytechnic Institute for the Gompei Invitational. Following that, they will play in another school vs school matchup against Colby College on Dec. 8.
PRO SPORTS BRIEF Major League Baseball Postseason ends and the Boston Red Sox take home a championship win The Boston Red Sox took home their ninth championship as the Major League Baseball postseason comes to a close. The baseball community is left with a parting gift in the form of the annual award announcements, recognizing the top rookie, pitcher and overall player in the American and National Leagues. Every winner, by season’s end, had cemented his case as the favorite to take home the hardware. So, without further ado, here are this year’s award winners: In the American League, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels earned the rookie of the year honors. The field came down to Ohtani, the Japanese pitching and hitting phenom, and Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres, two slugging infielders who will be fixtures in the Bronx for years to come. Although the Yankees made it to the second round of the playoffs and the
Angels faltered, the team performance was not enough to quell Ohtani’s credentials. He flashed skills not seen since Babe Ruth a century ago, blowing batters away with a 100-mile-perhour fastball while hitting tape measure home runs from the batter’s box. The 24-year-old finished the year with a 3.31 ERA and 63 strikeouts over 51 2/3 innings as a pitcher and a 0.285 average, 0.925 OPS, 22 home runs, 61 RBIs and 10 stolen bases in 367 plate appearances as a batter — a rare statline that could not possibly be ignored. In the National League, Ronald Acuna of the Atlanta Braves beat out Juan Soto of the Washington Nationals as top rookie. Acuna received the bulk of the hype coming into the season, with some analysts already dubbing him a future hall-of-famer. Acuna finished the season with a 0.293 average, a 0.917 OPS, 26 home runs, 64 RBIs and 16 sto-
len bases in 433 plate appearances, a 0.923 OPS, 22 home runs, 70 RBIs and 5 stolen bases in 414 plate appearances. Although these seasons are fairly comparable, the two factors that set Soto apart are his team’s success and his huge second half. The American League Cy Young race featured a tough fight between Blake Snell of the Tampa Bay Rays, Corey Kluber of the Cleveland Indians, and Justin Verlander of the Houston Astros. Snell would end up edging out the competition on the merit of his microscopic, 1.89 ERA, as well only allowing 5.6 hits per nine innings and striking out 221 batters, across 180 2/3 innings. His 21 wins were the cherry on top of an outstanding season, making him MLB’s first 20-game winner since 2016. The National League, had a clearcut winner in Jacob DeGrom, of the
New York Mets. Although the Phillies’ Aaron Nola and the Nationals’ Max Scherzer are deserving of praise, DeGrom’s excellence was simply historic. His 1.70 ERA was by far the best in the NL and was the sixth lowest since the league lowered the mound in 1969. In addition, he set MLB records for consecutive quality starts and consecutive starts of three or fewer runs. Last, but not least, the MVP. In the American League, Mookie Betts won the award over Jose Ramirez of the Cleveland Indians and Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels. Betts led the Boston Red Sox on their amazing run to 106 wins and a World Series championship. A year after coming in second to Trout for the award, Betts further improved at 26 years old, winning the batting title with a 0.346 average as well as accumulating 47 doubles, 5 triples, 32 home runs, 129 runs, 80 RBIs
and 30 stolen bases. He also earned his third straight Gold Glove Award. Betts is the definition of 5-tool talent and will rival Trout for years to come for this award. After a strong end to the season, Christian Yelich, of the Milwaukee Brewers, overtook Nolan Arenado, of the Colorado Rockies, and Javier Baez, of the Chicago Cubs, for the National League MVP. Yelich was a force, helping the Brewers surge in September with a 0.770 slugging percentage after the All-Star break. He became the first batting champion in team history with a league best of 0.326 average and led the NL in slugging with 0.526 and OPS with 1.000. Similar to Betts and Trout, Yelich signifies the new wave of dynamic outfielders who make an impact on all facets of the game. – Brian Inker
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MLB POST SEASON AWARDS Awards for top rookie, pitcher, and overall player were given out, now that the season has ended, p. 15. Waltham, Mass.
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
WOMEN’S FENCING
ON POINT
Judges look to foil their opponents ■ The women’s fencing team has had two strong meets thus far, and looks forward to many more. By MEGAN GELLER JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
The Brandeis women’s fencing team has participated in two meets so far in their 2018-19 season. Their first meet took place in Northampton, Massachusetts and occurred on Oct. 25. The Judges’ second meet was this past Saturday at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The next stop for the women is the Brandeis Invitational on Dec.2. Fall Collegiate Invitational In the first match of the season, Joanne Carminucci ’19 defended her title at this season’s opening meet. In this meet, Carminucci earned her second straight championship and was awarded with UAA Fencer of the week award, in her career. Women’s Foil Carminucci acquired the fourth seed in the direct elimination tournament after being 5–0 with only four touches in the preliminary rounds. The Judges
had one more foil medalist, Jessica Gets ’20, at third. The rest of the Judges followed with Renee Pite ’19 in seventh place, Hannah Mui ’22 in 11th place and Wendy Mao ’21 in 31st place. Women’s Saber Saber fencer Jada Harrison ’22 placed third for the women. Devon Brown ’21 had a sixth-place finish, and Sara Gilbert ’21 followed with a 49th place finish. Northeast Fencing Conference This past Saturday, the Judges competed at the Northeastern Fencing Conference, where the women went 5–1. Women’s Foil In this match, Carminucci was 13–0 in foil. Gets went 13–1 in foil, giving the two a combined score of 26–1. Mao also competed in this meet and went 8–0 for the team. Women’s Saber In addition, in the saber division, Harrison as well as Brown each had individual winning records of four of six matches, with Harrison going 14–6 and Brown 13–7 in this meet. In the epee division, Dakota Levy ’20 went 11–10 in the meet. In the first round of the meet, Brandeis earned a total score of 22,
See WFENCING, 13
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CROSS COUNTRY
Season comes to a close for the Judges
■ Following Monday’s game,
the National Football League is now through its first 10 weeks of play. By ZACH KAUFMAN JUSTICE EDITOR
The Brandeis women’s cross country team had a historic performance at the NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships at Lake Breeze Golf Course in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. With a total of 277 points, the team finished an astounding sixth place overall, led, as usual, by senior Emily Bryson ’19 with a fifth-place finish in the race. Bryson was in fifth place throughout the entire race, running the six-kilometer course with a time of 21:08.3. This time was two seconds faster than her personal record at the NCAA nationals meet and the second fastest of her decorated NCAA career. Her finish was also a fifteen-place improvement from her previous best nationals finish, which came just last year. Additionally, it was also the second highest finish at a nationals meet in the history of the Brandeis cross country program, behind only Mariko Tansey Holbrook Neveu ’03 in the 2002 meet. Bryson received an All-American honor for her finish, making her Brandeis’ first four-time AllAmerican in cross country. She is also only the 14th women in Division III history to earn that honor during all four academic years. Overall, this is Bryson’s sixth career All-American honor. Julia Bryson ’19 came in second place for the Judges with a time of 22:17.2. This was the fourth fastest time of Bryson’s career — just 17 seconds slower than the
qualifying time for All-American honors. Between the third and fifth kilometers of the race, Bryson improved by 50 spots. Danielle Bertaux ’20 followed closely in her tracks, placing 67th overall with a time of 22:19.3. In the final kilometer of the race, Bertaux was able to improve by 23 spots. For Bertaux, this time was a personal best by 28 seconds. He was the team's third finisher for the third time this season. Niamh Kenney ’21 finished in 81st place overall with a time of 22:25.2, good enough to be the Judge's fourth finisher. She improved 12 places in the last kilometer of the race. This was also a personal best for Kenney. Jac Guerra ’22 was the final scorer for the Judges, placing 164th overall and 17th among first-year runners with a time of 23:00.2. This was Guerra’s secondfastest time of the season. The final two runners for the Judges were Meaghan Barry ’19, who was placed 214th with a time of 23:24.5 ,and Doyin Ogundiran ’20, who was finished 258th place with a time of 24:06.3. The 277 points for the Judges mark the third lowest team score at the NCAA championships in program history and ties the best team placement. The SUNYGeneseo Knights had an identical score but were granted fifth place due to better placement in races that featured runners from the two schools. Brandeis finished five places better than the pre-meet poll ranking of 11th, and the Judges trailed only Massachusetts Institute of Technology in scoring by New England area schools. They also trailed only Washington University in St. Louis, the winner of the meet, for scoring among
See XC, 13 ☛
Heather Schiller/Justice File Photo
KICKIN IT: Brandeis Ian Quin ’20 gets his opponent in foil division in the Eric Sollee Invitational that occured Feb. 3.
Next stop for men’s team, Brandeis Invitational ■ The Judges had two
meets so far this season, and 11 more to come later this year. By MEGAN GELLER JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
So far this season, Brandeis men’s fencing team has had two meets. The first meet occurred on Oct. 28 in Northampton, Massachusetts. The second meet was this past Saturday at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Next up, the Judges will compete in the Brandeis Invitational on Dec. 2 and in the Western Invitational on Jan. 13 in Colordo Springs. Fall Collegiate Invitational Back on Oct. 28, Ian Quin ’20 was successful in defending his foil title at the New England Intercollegiate Fencing Conference Fall Invitational also known as "The Big One." Quin was one of 10 undefeated fencers in the preliminary competition. Quin won the gold medal and earned UAA athlete of the week. This honor is his fourth weekly honor from the
UAA. This meet debuted the Judges head coach, Jennie Salmon. Men's Foil In the men’s foil, Tristan BarcaHall ’21 placed sixth overall, and David Hui ’22 ranked ninth in the meet. The next Brandeis competitor, Jared Sugarman ’21, placed 13th in the meet, followed by Sam Chestna ’20 at 19th, Ryan Tsai ’22 at 22nd and Trevor Filseth ’20 at 29th out of a total of 79 competitors. Men's Saber In men’s saber, Alex Holtman ’21 tied both a Vassar College and a Boston College competitor, and Lucas Lin ’22 placed 10th. The next competitor for the Judges was Shawn Pyatetsky ’20 placing 15th, Charles Catino ’20 placing 18th, Slavin Mu ’20 placing 19th and Paul Sablone ’22 placing 46th out of a total of 83 competitors. Men's Epee In men’s epee, the highest placing competitor for the Judges was Garrett Tordo ’21 at 14th place, followed by Nick Clancy ’19 at 15th place. The rest of the Judges followed after that with Chris Armstrong ’20 at 19th place, Harrison Kaish ’22 at 40th, Elliot Morgenstern ’22 at 45th, Leon
Grinis ’22 at 53rd and Zachary Zhang ’22 at 67th, out of a total 79 competitors. Northeast Fencing Conference In the more recent match on Saturday, the men foiled their opponents in the Northeast Fencing Conference. During this meet, the team had three matches that were decided by one point. This match resulted in the men going 5–0. This was the opening of the teams 2018 to 2019 dual match season. Overall, Brandeis defeated Boston University 18–9, Sacred Heart University 17–10, University of Massachusetts Amherst 20–7, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 13–14 and University of New Hampshire 22– 5. Men's Epee In the epee division, Armstrong led the team to victory with a total of 10–3, as well as obtaining a winning record in four out of five of his matches. The squad was 4–1 in the epee division. Men's Saber In addition, Holtman won all eight of his matches of the day, giving him the top winning percentage. Just behind Holtman
See MFENCING, 13
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BASKETBALL PREVIEW SPECIAL Vol. LXX #2
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018 September 12, 2017
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Waltham, Mass.
ts st o r
ju p S
Court is in Session
Images: Yuran Shi/Justice File Photo, Abby Grinberg/Justice File Photo, Andrew Baxter/Justice File Photo. Design: Andrew Baxter/the Justice.
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NOVEMBER 20, 2018 ● SPORTS ● THE JUSTICE Image Courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS
CONTINUING TH ’DEIS LEGACY Men looking to rebuild
■ The men are ready to make the push for a .500
regular season record and a playoff. By JEN GELLER JUSTICE EDITOR
As of Sunday evening, the men’s basketball team had won two out of the first three games of the 2018-19 season. The game on the evening of Monday, Nov. 19 will be reported on in the next issue of the Justice, but the final score and a summary of the game’s action are available on the University’s Athletics website as well. Judges 54, Bates 48 The Judges won their game against the Bates College Bobcats. The first half of the game left the Judges three points behind the Bobcats. Collin Sawyer ’20 started the game, quickly scoring the first points with a three-point shot, and Nick Gilpin of Bates responded with a jump shot that put the Bobcats on the scoreboard. The first half continued with back and forth action and several changes in the lead. The teams both struggled to maintain any sort of lead, and there were tied scores at several points. However, at the conclusion of the first half, the Judges were behind, and the score was 24–27 in favor of Bates College. Once the game returned for the second half, the Judges came back and fought hard, despite the challenge that the Bobcats presented the team. Chandler Jones ’21 scored the first points of the half with a layup that was shortly followed by a free throw. These shots by Jones were enough to tie the score at 27. Once again, following the Judges’ initial shots, the teams exchanged leads for much of the half. However, once Sam Nassar ’22 made a layup that put the Judges ahead 39–37 with 9:47 left, the Judges never trailed again and pulled ahead to take the victory 54–48. Judges 69, Suffolk 71 The Judges suffered their first loss of the season against the Suffolk University Rams. The game was an intense matchup with six ties and a total of 13 lead changes over the course of the game. The victory came down to the last second, literally, as the Rams scored their winning shot with five-tenths of a second left on the clock to take the 71–69 win. The first half of play began in a very backand-forth nature, with two ties and 10 lead changes within the first 15 minutes. In the last six minutes of the half, though, the Judges pulled ahead after a 16–4 run that left the score 35–24 in the half of the game. However, in the second half, the Rams pulled out all the stops,
MEN
scoring an impressive 12 of their first 15 shots in the half. The score was tied at 50 points when there was 11:19 left of play. However, Suffolk led the game with 5:47 left of play with a score of 61–55. Brandeis got within one point of the Rams as sophomore Chandler Jones scored a foul shot and left the score 65–64. With 1:34 left of the game, the score was tied again at 66. A free throw by Eric D’aguanno ’21 set the Judges ahead at 67–66. Suffolk answered, and with 41 seconds left, they scored a layup that put them back in the lead. After the Judges called a full time out, the game resumed, and after Suffolk’s Thomas Duffy made a free throw, a layup with seven seconds left by graduate student Latye Workman tied the score at 69. However, within the last second of play, a layup by Suffolk’s Brendan Mulson led to the victory for the Rams. Lawrence Sabir ’21 told the Justice about the team’s work ethic and preparation for the season. He said, “The team has been working really hard every day — we focus on taking advantage of the opportunity we have to be the best team in the UAA this season.” Additionally, he feels that the team has made a great deal of progress already and said “It’s a different team with Coach Bain — he has changed the culture of the team in the matter of one month. I feel [that] in this last month, we’ve accomplished more than [we did] last season.” The Judges will take on many teams in the months ahead, both members and non-members of the University Athletic Association. In December, the Judges will take on The Salem State University Vikings on Dec. 1 at 5 p.m. The very next day, the men will turn around and play either Tufts University or Babson College — the school was undecided as of press time — according to the Brandeis Athletics website. On Thursday, Dec. 6, the Judges will then face Becker College at Becker College at the Red Auerbach Arena. On Saturday, Dec. 8 the team will take on Wesleyan University and will play the following Tuesday against the Emerson College Lions. The final game of December is on Dec. 31, against Bowdoin College. In January, the Judges will play New York University, Amherst College, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Chicago, Washington University in Saint Louis, Emory University and the University of Rochester on Jan. 5, Jan. 7, Jan. 11, Jan. 13, Jan. 18, Jan. 20, Jan. 25 and Jan. 27, respectively. In the month of February, the team will face UAA rivals, many of which the Judges will be playing for the second time this season. They will play against Emory University, the University of Rochester, Case Western Reserve, the University of Chicago, Washington University in Saint Louis and NYU on Feb. 1, Feb. 3, Feb. 8, Feb. 10, Feb. 15, Feb. 17 and Feb. 23, respectively.
ANDREW BAXTER/Justice File Photo
TAKE IT TO THE HOOP: Guard Collin Sawyer ’20 takes the ball up to the net in a tough battle against University of Massachusetts Dartmouth on Nov. 10.
YOUR GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSITY ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION:
MEN’S BASKETBALL Brandeis University
University of Chicago
season ended with a commanding 97-59 win against New York University. They missed the NCAA tournament.
roons ended their season with a win against Washington University in St. Louis. They narrowly missed the NCAA tournamnet.
2017-18 record: 7-18 (3-11 vs. UAA) UAA Final Standing: 7 How their season ended: The Judges’
Key Seniors:
Latye Workman Corey Sherman
Carnegie Mellon University
2017-18 record: 7-18 (3-11 vs. UAA) UAA Final Standing: 8 How their season ended: The Tartans ended their season with a 72-63 win against Case Western Reserve University. They missed the NCAA tournament.
Key Seniors:
Seth Henry Patrick Ehland
Case Western Reserve University 2017-18 record: 12-13 (6-8 vs. UAA) UAA Final Standing: 5 How their season ended: The Spartans’ season ended with a 72-63 loss against Carnegie Mellon University. They missed the NCAA tournament.
Key Seniors: None
2017-18 record: 13-12 (9-5 vs. UAA) UAA Final Standing: 3 How their season ended: The Ma-
Key Seniors:
Justin Jackson Max Jacobs Ryan Jacobsen Noah Karras
Emory University
2017-18 record: 23-5 (12-2 vs UAA) UAA Final Standing: 2 How their season ended: The Eagles ended their season with a loss against the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in the third round of the 2018 NCAA Division III men’s basketball tournament. They dispensed Berry College and LeTourneau University in the first and second rounds of the tournament, respectively.
Key Seniors:
Gebereal Baitey Beau Bommarito Joseph Katz Spencer Osborne
New York University
2017-18 record: 10-14 (3-11 vs. UAA) UAA Final Standing: 6
How their season ended: The Violets ended their season with a loss against Brandeis University. They missed the NCAA tournamnet. Key Seniors:
Ethan Feldman Jule Brown
University of Rochester
2017-18 record: 16-9 (7-7 vs. UAA) UAA Final Standing: 4 How their season ended: The Uni-
versity of Rochester ended their season with a loss against the Eagles of Emory University in their final regular season game. They narrowly mised the NCAA tournament.
Key Seniors:
Michael Mangan Jacob Wittig Brendan O’shea Alexander Gamble Andrew Lundstrom Ryan Clamage
Washington Univeristy in St. Louis
2017-18 record: 22-4 (13-1 vs. UAA) UAA Final Standing: 1 How their season ended: The Bears ended their season on a loss to Aurora University in the first round of the NCAA tournanet.
Key Seniors:
Marcus Meyer
THE JUSTICE
● SPORTS ●
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018
19
HE
YOUR GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSITY ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION:
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL Brandeis University
Key Seniors:
University in the final round of the Eastern College Athletic Conference tournament.
Kara Hagerman (Grad) Mercedes Jones (Grad) Hillary Hellmann
2017-18 record: 12-13 (4-10 vs.
UAA)
UAA Final Standing: 6 How their season ended:
The Judges’ season ended with a 58-46 loss against Springfield College. They missed the NCAA tournament.
Key Seniors:
Key Seniors:
University of Chicago
2017-18 record: 24-3 (14-0 vs.
UAA)
UAA Final Standing: 1 How their season ended:
The Maroons ended their season with a loss against the University of St. Thomas (Minn.) in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Sarah Jaromin Joelle MarkAnthony Gillian O’Malley Ellery Riccio
Carnegie Mellon University 2017-18 record: 10-15 (2-12 vs.
UAA)
Key Seniors:
Jamie Kockenmeister Olariche Obi
2017-18 record:
The Tartans ended their season with a 71-55 win against Case Western Reserve University. They missed the NCAA tournament.
UAA)
13-12 (7-7 vs
The Eagles ended their season with a loss against the University of Rochester. The team missed the NCAA tournament.
Jenn Mayberger Gabby Yanai
Key Seniors:
Courtney Henrich Azzairia Jackson-Sherrod Ashley Oldshue
Case Western Reserve University 2017-18 record: UAA)
4-20 (1-13 vs.
UAA Final Standing: 8 How their season ended:
The Spartans’ season ended with a 71-55 loss against Carnegie Mellon University. They missed the NCAA tournament.
UAA)
UAA Final Standing: 2 How their season ended:
The University of Rochester ended their season with a loss against Amherst College in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Division III tournament.
Washington Univeristy in St. Louis 2017-18 record: UAA)
19-8 (9-5 vs.
UAA Final Standing: 3 How their season ended:
The Bears ended their season on a loss to Hope University in the second round of the NCAA Division III tournament.
Key Seniors:
New York University 2017-18 record:
2017-18 record: 24-5 (11-3 vs.
UAA)
Emma Michaels Lena Ethington
UAA Final Standing: 5 How their season ended:
Key Seniors:
University of Rochester
Key Seniors:
Emory University
UAA Final Standing: 7 How their season ended:
Olivia Linebarger
18-11 (8-6 vs.
UAA Final Standing: 4 How their season ended:
The Violets ended their season with a loss against William Paterson
Katie Claussner Becca Clark-Callender Rachael Sondag Caroline Ballard Stephanie Botkin Madeline Homoly
WOMEN
Judges fight hard this season ■ After one win and one loss, the women look forward to the rest
of a strong season.
By JEN GELLER JUSTICE EDITOR
The women’s basketball team has started off their season with one win and one loss, creating an overall record of 1–1 with no games yet in the University Athletic Association. Between the rookies and the returning players, the team brings a large amount of talent to the court, making the prospects of this season strong. Judges 95, Western Connecticut State 104 The Judges fell in their second game of the season to the Western Connecticut State University Colonials with a score of 95–104. Both teams struggled in the first 40 seconds of play to make their way to the scoreboard. Katherine Puda ’21 was the first to score for the game with a layup. However, this was quickly followed by a threepoint shot by the Colonials’ Frances Snyder. It would take almost a minute before another point was scored for either team, when Shannon Smally ’22 made a layup, bringing the score to 3–4. Both teams would continue to battle hard in the rest of the first quarter, but ultimately the Colonials would end up 22–18 at the end of the quarter. At the half, the Judges actually pulled ahead, and led with a score of 45–41. However, this lead was short-lived. With 2:16 left in the third quarter, the Colonials tied the score at 60 points, and although the Judges took the lead again at 62–60, Western Connecticut State came back hard and led at the end of the third 68–64. The fourth quarter solidified the victory for the Colonials, as they would break 100 points to end the game with a final score of 104–95.
YVETTE SEI/Justice File Photo
BATTLE FACE: Guard Katie Goncalo ’20 looks to pass off the ball to one of her teammates in the game against Carnegie Mellon University on Jan. 28.
Judges 81, Raiders 66 The Judges were victorious in their season-opening game against the Rivier University Raiders with a score of 81–66. Brandeis started off strong in the first 30 seconds of play, as Puda made a three-point jump shot. The team would lead after the first quarter with a score of 25–14. By the end of the first half, the win would further increase, and the Judges would be ahead of the Raiders by 46–30. Although Rivier outscored the Judges by six points in the second half, it did not matter. The Raiders were unable to overcome the gaping 27-point lead that the Judges had built early on in the third quarter. The Judges would hold onto their lead throughout the rest of the game and overtake the Raiders 81–66. In fact, the Judges outrebounded Rivier
as well, by 61–33 and while 25 of those rebounds were offensive for the Judges, only eight were for the Raiders. After Puda began the game so strong for the Judges, there would be 10 additional three-point shots made this game. In points contributed, Sarah Jaromin ’19 led for the Judges, scoring 19 of the game’s points. The Judges have built up to the start of their season with a long preseason, according to junior Katie Goncalo ’20. She said to the Justice, “We have struggled with a couple injuries in our preparation for the season, but it has not stopped us from getting in the gym and putting in the time and hard work. Regardless of some minor setbacks, everyone, injured teammates or ones ready to play, have worked hard to contribute to the team and kick the season off on a high note.” Goncalo also highlighted that the first-years who are new to the team are confident and could make their mark on the program from early on in the season. “Along with winning, I really do think this is a chance for new players, or players who maybe didn’t see as much time last year to step up and find a new sense of confidence in their self and on the court. The work ethic of this team will take us far in the season but along with some new confidence the team finds, I really think once both of these factors really fall into place, the wins will come hand-in-hand,” she said. The Judges have a long season ahead and will tackle some very talented competition. Their next opponent is the Emmanuel College Saints on Tuesday, Nov. 20 at 5 p.m. at home. The following game will then be against the Jumbos of Tufts University on Sunday Nov. 25, also at home in the Red Auerbach Arena. There will be a military appreciation game against Salem State University on Tuesday, Nov. 27 to round out a busy November. Come December, the Judges will begin with a matchup against Johnson & Wales University on the first of the month at the University. Just two days later, Brandeis will play Babson college that Monday, Dec. 3. Games against Gordon College on Saturday Dec. 8 and Roger Williams University on Tuesday Dec. 11 will round out the action in December. In January, after a New Year’s Day game against Regis College, the Judges will begin to play their University Athletic Association Rivals. They will take on New York University, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Chicago, Washington University in Saint Louis, Emory University and the University of Rochester on Jan. 5, Jan. 11, Jan. 13, Jan. 18, Jan. 20, Jan. 25 and Jan. 27, respectively. Come February, the Judges will continue to play their UAA rivals, many for a second time. They will take on Emory University, the University of Rochester, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Chicago, Washington University in Saint Louis and New York University on Feb. 1, Feb. 3, Feb. 8, Feb. 10, Feb. 15, Feb. 17 and Feb. 23, respectively.
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018 ● SPORTS
● THE
JUSTICE
By MEGAN GELLER JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
GAME SCHEDULE
Judges before Celtics MEN
Over the years, Brandeis players and coaches have gone on to, or come from, the world of professional sports. Many of those players and coaches were involved in basketball specifically. The Judges have had many great coaches over the years that have helped the team reach success in both the University Athletic Association and beyond, including three former Boston Celtics players who came to campus afterward to become coaches for the Judges. K.C. Jones was the Brandeis head basketball coach from 1967-70, according to the NBA’s website. According to the website, this was just after he ended his career at the Boston Celtics. Jones was a player on the Celtics for nine season, from 1958-67, before coming to coach at the University. In fact, Jones was a key member of many winning teams. In 1967, Jones traded his status as player to be a coach for the Judges. Jones coached the Judges for three seasons. After his time at Brandeis, Jones became the assistant coach for the Harvard University basketball team and then returned to the world of professional basketball as assistant coach to the Los Angeles Lakers under coach Bill Sharman, also a retired Celtics player. Following Jones, another former Celtics player, Bob Brannum, took over as the Judges’ basketball coach. Brannum was a Boston Celtics player from 1951-55, according to the Brandeis Athletics website. He also played for the Sheboygan Redskins, and he remained in this position from 1970 to 1986. Brannun retired from basketball in 1955, at which point he began his coaching career. As a college basketball coach, Brannum coached Norwich University, Kenyon College and then Brandeis last, according
WOMEN
to his Wikipedia page. Impressively, Barnum led the Judges to the most total victories under one single coach in the University’s history. Per the Brandeis Athletics site, under Branum’s coaching, the Judges won the NCAA Division III Regional Championships in 1978. This is the only time in Brandeis History in which this has occurred. Brannum was inducted into the Brandeis Hall of Fame on Oct. 20, 2001. Unfortunately, Brannum died of pancreatic cancer in 2005. Many years later, yet another Celtics player became the Judges’ head coach. This player was Chris Ford. Ford coached the Judges for two years spanning 2001-03. According to the NBA’s website, prior to coaching for the Judges, Ford played as a member of the Detroit Pistons and the Boston Celtics for a total of 10 years. He later served as the head coach for the Celtics from 1990 to 1995. In his first season as their coach, Ford led the Celtics to a 55–26 (.638) record and became the fourth first-year head coach to lead a team to the NBA All-Star game. In addition to coaching at the professional level, in 2001, Ford started his career as head coach of the Brandeis Judges for two seasons. After his career as the coach for the Judges, Ford returned to professional basketball and became the assistant coach for the Philadelphia 76ers. With three professional retired basketball players as coaches for the Judges, the team has had much success over the years. Despite all of the coaches from professional teams that coached for the Judges, it is also important to recognize the coaches that were not a part of the NBA who have coached the team. The Judges have had an impressive history because of all of their coaching staff, both those who played professionally and those who did not.
Nov. 16 Rivier 5 p.m. Nov. 10 UMass-Dartmouth 1 p.m. Nov. 17 Western Conn. St. 2 p.m. Nov. 14 Suffolk 7 p.m Nov. 20 Emmanuel 5 p.m. Nov. 17 at Bates 1 p.m. Nov. 25 at Tufts 2 p.m. Nov. 19 Lassel 7 p.m. Nov. 27 at Salem St. 7 p.m. Dec. 1 Salem St. 5 p.m. Dec. 1 Johnson and Wales 1 p.m. Dec. 2 Babson or Tufts TBD Dec. 3 at Babson 5 p.m. Dec. 6 at Becker 7 p.m. Dec. 8 at Gordon 1 p.m. Dec. 8 at Wesleyan 1 p.m. Dec. 11 Roger Williams 6 p.m. Dec. 11 Emerson 6:30 p.m. Jan. 1 Regis (Mass.) 1 p.m. Dec. 30 at Emerson 2 p.m. Jan. 5 NYU 1 p.m. Jan. 5 NYU 3 p.m. Jan. 11 at Carnegie Mellon 6 p.m. Jan. 7 at Amherst 7 p.m. Jan. 13 at Case 2 p.m. Jan. 11 at Carnegie Mellon 8 p.m. Jan. 18 Chicago 6 p.m. Jan. 13 at Case 12 p.m. Jan. 20 at Washington U. 1 p.m. Jan. 18 Chicago 8 p.m. Jan. 25 at Emory 6 p.m. Jan. 20 Washington U. 11 p.m. Jan. 27 at Rochester 2 p.m. Jan. 25 Emory 8 p.m. Feb. 1 Emory 6 p.m. Jan. 37 Rochester 12 p.m. Feb. 3 Rochester 2 p.m. Feb. 1 Emory 8 p.m. Feb. 8 at Carnegie Mellon 6 p.m. Feb. 3 Rochester 12 p.m. Feb. 10 at Case 2 p.m. Feb. 8 Carnegie Mellon 8 p.m. Feb. 15 Chicago 7 p.m. Feb. 10 Case 12 p.m. Feb. 17 Washington U. 3 p.m. Feb. 15 Chicago 9 p.m. Feb. 13 NYU 1 p.m. Feb. 17 Washington U. 1 p.m. Feb. 23 at NYU 3 p.m.
Vol. LXXI #11
November 20, 2018
Circle Mirror Transformation >>pg. 22
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just
Waltham, Mass.
Images: Creative Commons, Andrew Baxter/the Justice. Design: Yvette Sei/the Justice.
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TUESDAY, THE JUSTICE NOVEMBER | ARTS 20,| 2018 TUESDAY, I ARTS JANUARY I THE JUSTICE 31, 2017
FILM REVIEW
‘Queen’ biopic exceeds expectations By JOSH RUBENSTEIN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
“Bohemian Rhapsody” is a film that celebrates Queen’s lead singer, Freddie Mercury, and his personal evolution through the music and the cultural impact he made with Queen. It is easy to depict Mercury’s larger-than-life stage persona, but director Bryan Singer went for more of a personal-tribute approach. At the film’s heart is the relationship between Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) and his longtime best friend Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton), a relationship which encompasses Mercury’s love of music and his search for his own identity. It was Austin who gave Mercury the first opportunity to explore feminine clothing, supporting his genderbent stage persona. Austin and Mercury were engaged until Mercury accepted that although she was the “love of his life,” Freddie yearned for more. Freddie Mercury, much like Oscar Wilde, was a proto-pansexual. He never came out publicly as “queer” but lived a lifestyle unencumbered by heterosexual norms. As the film charts Mercury’s life, it makes a point of showing the adversity Freddie had to go through to become one of the most powerful and prolific musical artists of all time. Freddie Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar, was of Parsi descent and consequently had complicated feelings about how he would be perceived when he moved with his family to London at the age of 17. In one scene, a record producer makes fun of the “nonsense words” in the song “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Freddie repeats one of these words to himself, “Bismillah,” an Arabic word meaning “in the name of God.” In this touching moment we see that even though Freddie has separated himself from his Arabic birth name, he still carries his culture with him in his music. Singer takes liberties with chronological accuracy for the sake of the narrative structure and
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons
FOREVER IS OUR TODAY: A vintage photo of Freddie Mercury performing live in San Diego in 1980, provocatively dressed in nothing but bellbottoms and a neck tie. dramatic tension. This liberty is evident in Mercury’s iconic shift from his feminine glam-rock long hair to his short hair and mustache, which denote his acceptance of his pansexuality — “I’m doing everything with everybody, darling.” As a result
of these liberties, certain songs that were released before this shift are depicted in the film as having been released after. Still, the tool is used effectively and ultimately strengthens the film’s narrative. The style of the band’s studio recording ses-
sions and live performance scenes capture all the flair and Herculean power of the real Queen. Much of the singing in the movie is actually from archival recordings of Freddie’s real voice from Queen’s studio and live performances with supplements from Rami Malek and Marc Martel, a singer whose vocal footprint is almost indistinguishable from Mercury’s. The road to getting “Bohemian Rhapsody” to the big screen has been a long and difficult one. Sacha Baron Cohen, who was originally cast as Mercury, wanted an “R-rated dive into Freddie’s personal life” but was ultimately removed from the project because of these creative differences. However, Malek is fittingly mercurial. His layered performance balances Freddie’s onstage rocker with his sweet, gentle offstage demeanor. Gwilym Lee (Brian May), Ben Hardy (Roger Taylor) and Joseph Mazzello (John Deacon) play the rest of Queen as a delightful band of misfits and jokers who, along with Mercury, go on to conquer the “world of music.” Boynton as Mary Austin gives a genuine performance which elicits heartbreaking pathos. “Bohemian Rhapsody” pays tribute to the man and musician that Freddie Mercury was, rather than focusing on the tragedy that befell him during his struggle with AIDS. The film ends after Queen’s famous performance at Live Aid, the 1985 benefit concert for starving children in Africa. In the movie, Mercury reveals to the band that he has AIDS in a rehearsal for the concert. In reality, Freddie didn’t die until 1991 and he did not reveal he had AIDS until the day before he died. In the film, Freddie says: “I will not be their AIDS poster child. Don’t you waste a second of unnecessary tears on me when you could be using it to make music.” “Bohemian Rhapsody” carries on this spirit. It forgoes the moments when tears could be shed, so that the music and joy of Freddie Mercury and Queen can take center stage.
THEATER REVIEW
Small cast, gigantic emotional impact Photos by
By LEAH SAMANTHA CHANEN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
Pitch darkness is suddenly interrupted by fluorescent lights, illuminating five people lying on the floor. This is the opening of the Theatre Arts department’s “Circle Mirror Transformation,” a play outlining the relationships of five people as they take an adult drama class together at the Shirley, Vermont, Community Center. The set felt very natural in its asymmetry and the costumes were incredibly detailed — every shoe and t-shirt was reflective of the character wearing it. While captioning live theater is difficult, this production seemingly did it with ease. The dimly projected captions on either side of the stage never distract from the show for those who don’t need it, and are incredibly accurate and well-timed for those who do. The production quality overall is incredible, as expected from a department show. This piece attempts to slowly unfold characters and their forming relationships with one other instead of following an intricate plot. The drama class has a clear structure: Each character plays another character at some point, telling a brief overview of their life story. James, played by Zack Garrity ’20, is the first to take on this task. Dressed in denim from head to toe, he introduces himself as his wife, Marty (Emily Pollack ’21), the teacher of the drama class. From this, we learn a lot about Marty’s background and the context of this acting class, but we also learn so much about James. Garrity convincingly plays this Canadian Tuxedo-wearing dad type, rambling for just a bit too long. He carefully looks for his wife’s approval as she instructs him to skip certain aspects of her story. One by one, each character eventually tells another character’s story. The beginning of the play balances the right amount of awkwardness and tension, making the characters feel real as we’re slowly introduced to these five unlikely friends. Haia Bchiri ’20 is perfectly cast as Theresa, an overeager actress who recently left the cold, uncaring acting scene of New York City and her emotionally manipulative boyfriend. She confidently comes into class and quickly flirts with divorcée Schultz (Peirce Robinson ’22), who has yet to take off his wedding ring. She cuts off their short-lived romance, still traumatized from her ex-boyfriend’s abusive behavior. This trauma and anger eventually plays out in one of the class’s exercises. As the students direct the story of a relationship from their own life using the other class members, Theresa starts off by casting James as her exlover and Lauren (Noa Laden ’20) as herself. However, she cannot watch it, and pushes
Lauren out of the scene. The powerful performance by Bchiri cuts deep and gives a victim of emotional abuse an opportunity to speak for herself, handling this difficult material in an empowering manner. Bchiri gives this fairly unlikable character such vulnerability, depth and power that Theresa becomes lovable. The relationship between James and Marty slowly crumbles throughout the show, as James falls in love with Theresa. Garrity is stoic until a scene with Marty shows his character’s anger and the anger in their relationship. Marty is the most typical drama teacher, down to the Birkenstocks and shawl. She coaxes each student out of their shell, coaching them to do something that challenges them. Pollack has such a consistent and clear vision for Marty that she feels incredibly real to the audience, like seeing a close friend. The relationship between these two actors was layered and expressive, allowing them to play off of each other beautifully. Robinson is the ideal fit for the role of Schultz. He makes the immensely awkward, 38-yearold carpenter quite relatable and charming. Schultz clearly yearns for affection and love after his divorce and has the best intentions, but is unsure how to communicate them. When he learns that the teacher, Marty, fell out of bed one night, he immediately tries to help because his ex-wife had had night terrors. He tells her about the condition and that there is treatment. On the last day of class, he even brings Marty a dreamcatcher to help possibly get rid of her night terrors. While he is caring and kind, he accidentally says all the wrong things and asks difficult questions, such as callously asking if she was abused as a child. Robinson skillfully executed this role, balancing creepy and caring to make Schultz such a well-rounded character. The timid 16-year-old Lauren is the most transformative character, thanks to Laden’s stunning performance. Lauren is by far the youngest participant in the class and struggles to speak up for most of the course. Laden is able to make every moment of her character’s silence so meaningful that Lauren’s personality is clear from the beginning. The audience gets the opportunity to see Lauren blossom as a person through the acting exercises, and Laden makes the audience care about her character’s growth. Like her castmates, Laden could not have been better suited for the role she is in and brought a profound gravity to her scenes. Something about the power in her nervous stammerings, shoulder shrugs and silences makes her a favorite. Her transformation from a painfully timid young student to an interesting young woman is powerful not just for herself or her classmates, but also for the audience lucky enough to witness it.
stice
XTER/the Ju
ANDREW BA
d Marty, ES: Lauren an Zack Gard ANXIOUS EY an Laden ’20 played by Noa nervous glance as they ea . rity ’20, shar of the studio on the floor sit in a circle
BRIEFLY IN LOVE: Theresa and Schultz (Peirce Robinson ’22) share an intimate moment during their fleeting romance.
HULA SKILLS: Theres a (Haia Bchiri ’20) effortlessly displays her hula hooping prowess.
ck Marty (Emily Polla LEARN IN MOTION: er, ch tea drama ’21), the eccentric stic and hands-on proves an enthusia instructor.
THE JUSTICE I ARTS I TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018
THEATER REVIEW
23
Fall musical: ‘Godspell’
By KENT DINLENC JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
To rubberneck is to get a better view of an accident out of morbid curiosity as you pass it by. Last week in the Shapiro Campus Center Theater, you might say I was rubbernecking. From Nov. 15th18th, the Undergraduate Theater Collective produced “Godspell,” directed by Nate Rtishchev ’21. The 1971 musical was written by John Michael Tebelak, with music by Stephen Schwartz. It is structured as a series of parables based on the Gospel of Matthew, with lyrics borrowed from traditional hymns. Before I continue, I must mention that “Godspell” is not my favorite musical, to say the least. I listened to the soundtrack to check if the music actually sounded the way it did during the production — this somewhat alleviated my criticism of the UTC production, but it’s still
on them for choosing to produce it. The production tripped over its own feet with a five-minute introductory song by Schwartz. The performance was messy and sounded as if singers barely made their cues on time, but is apparently true to the original song. I was baffled to learn that this was professionally produced on Broadway. Once it ended, a girl a few seats down whispered to her friend, “What is this?” That quote encapsulates my attitude toward this entire musical. But let’s begin with the good that came from this production. By far the best thing about it was the pit band. Live music was a smart touch that energized the room. This is to say, all of the performers in the band behind the curtain were great. You could make out some guitar, piano and drum work underneath the mediocre singing onstage. The band put an admirable effort into making the musical as
good as it could be instrumentally. The visuals during the production were dynamic. The lighting, while occasionally blinding, matched the costumes’ pastel color scheme. Lighting designer Jacob Bers ’20 did the important job of keeping me awake in the second act with fun patterns. The actors’ stomping on top of the tables onstage made for some interesting blocking during songs. There were, however, some intermittent points where students were just walking in circles. Moving on to the performances, there were two diamonds in the rough. The best, by far, was Elizabeth Hillard ’22. Her solo in “Bless the Lord” was powerful. It’s too bad she was only featured once, but she has a great future in Brandeis’ Theater Arts department. The other diamond was BT Montrym ’19, whose performance demonstrated their excellent musical talent. The best number of the show,
“Beautiful City,” was charmingly sung by Maia Cataldo ’20. It nearly eclipses her forgettable performance as Jesus in the musical’s first act. “Beautiful City” is an easy song to mess up, but Cataldo managed to get out of it unscathed. The final good singer of the evening was David Giardin ’22. Guitar in hand, he was a delightful presence on stage and reminded me of Guy from “Once.” The two acts vary wildly in quality. The first act is entertaining because of how much it confuses the audience. It was as though Rtishchev’s vision was lost somewhere, muddled within the musical’s poor writing. I had no idea what was going on throughout the first hour of this show. All I could make out was that Jesus was teaching his disciples about the aforementioned parables in a Brandeis classroom setting, which is not part of the original script. This did not
work — putting Judas in fishnet stockings and black ripped jeans was a laughable decision. After a much-needed recovery during the intermission, the performance quality spiked while my interest plummeted. There seemed to be a trade-off between the ensemble’s singing and Tebelak’s writing. The last 45 minutes featured some of my favorite performances, but were drowned out by a deteriorating story. The plot grew thin and character development remained sparse. The UTC’s production of “Godspell” was tainted by poor original material and an inconsistent execution of its few redemptive aspects. The script is the source of most of my problems with the production, but it is Rtishchev who needs to mitigate it with a clearcut vision rather than enhance it. The good performances both on and off stage should be recognized, as they salvaged my opinion.
Photos by YURAN SHI/the Justice
HOLY SPIRIT MOVES: Godspell characters brought sharp choreographed movements and large amounts of energy.
DANCING TO HEAVEN: The dance moves of these Godspell cast members perfectly matched the music’s tempo.
WATCHING GOD: Standing on a classroom desk, Alina Sipp-Alpers ’21 gazes wistfully out into the audience.
FILM REVIEW
Mackenzie disappoints fans in new film By LUKE LIU
JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
Photo Courtesy of Creative Commons
FESTIVAL VIBES: A glamor shot of Chris Pine, who plays Robert the Bruce in “Outlaw King,” taken at the 2018 Toronto Film Festival.
“Outlaw King” is a historical drama about the journey of the legendary king of Scotland, Robert the Bruce. Robert, facing the British, one of the strongest armies in Europe, who had already defeated the Scots before, needs not only to find a way to victory but also to be a leader for a discouraged and restless nation. The film is directed by David Mackenzie, who was praised for his 2016 Western crime drama “Hell Or High Water,” my favorite film of that year. For that reason, I was looking forward to “Outlaw King,” Mackenzie and Pine’s second collaboration. As a historical drama, the film did a solid job of putting the audience in the context of medieval England. From depictions of daily life to an elaborate wedding ceremony, the film more than meets Hollywood’s standards. The whole film was shot in England and Scotland, which lent even more authenticity to the battle scenes. Unfortunately, the film is disappointing on almost every other level. The pacing is inconsistent, to say the least. The story starts with Robert the Bruce and his family submitting to King Edward I of England after a failed first Scottish
revolution. Instead of taking its time to build up the characters, the film’s first 25 minutes rush the process through which Robert is crowned by the Roman Catholic Church as the new King of Scotland. Any part of that time could have been expanded to show his struggle leading the revolution when his allies failed him and his family left him. Instead, I found myself half an hour into the movie with nothing but a dozen characters, who had neither background nor personality to care about. The film drags through a series of defeats, which force Robert into guerrilla-style warfare and scorched-earth policy. Once again, those are moments that could have been used to show Robert’s military genius or determination to destroy everything in order to restore his nation. Instead, it is briefly explained in a rushed precursor to the last battle. While the Battle of Bannockburn is the most enjoyable moment of the movie, I cannot help but remember the famous battle scene in “Braveheart” and notice how similar those two are. Even if that is exactly what happened in history, it is astonishingly uncreative for the director to film a battle scene in the same way it was done 20 years ago. Not coming up with a different way to
present the battle shows the lack of creativity in this film. While the minor characters are hustled over with no significance, the main characters are also poorly established. Elizabeth de Burgh, the female lead played by Florence Pugh, is introduced as a stranger who is not particularly comfortable with her identity as Robert’s second wife and as an outsider. However, with almost no transition, the struggle is over. Romance emerges between the two characters and Robert somehow gains her absolute loyalty despite her background as a member of a noble family that allied with Edward I. For the rest of the movie, her character does practically nothing other than escape and be imprisoned. Once again, one can argue that it is what happened in history, but that does not justify the blandness of the character. Speaking of the performances: The acting in this film does nothing to redeem the troublesome story. In the past, I enjoyed the director’s skill at building up characters through actions instead of dialogues. Chris Pine also has shown that he can deliver a variety of different characters when given good material to work with. Unfortunately, at least in this movie, he is not able to elevate his character
from the generic script. Except when the script demands shouting, Chris Pine has the exact same tone and facial expression throughout the whole movie. Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s performance as James Douglas, Robert’s second hand, is somewhat more interesting. His furious fighting style and wild facial expressions make him a demon on the battlefield. However, that is also his character’s only memorable trait. Prince Edward, played by Billy Howle, is just another plain sadistic villain who acts like an over-the-top lunatic whenever he’s onscreen. Robert the Bruce is still an interesting character for his lifelong struggle between being a successful ruler and a faithful Christian, despite the fact that there is already a successful film about the Wars of Scottish Independence made twenty years ago, However, “Outlaw King” skims over the struggles that Robert encountered and barely touches on his motivation to pursue his mission. At the end, the cavalry is destroyed by the Scottish and the grand battle against the English is won, but I find myself sitting in my seat, unmoved and unable to find a character I can empathize with, wondering if it’s a bad idea to walk back to campus when it’s 30 degrees outside.
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018 | ARTS | THE JUSTICE
INTERVIEW
Brandeis TALKS What is your least favorite Thanksgiving food?
Nate Rtishchev ’21 YVETTE SEI/the Justice
Scott Halper ’20 “I’m not a fan of cranberry sauce. If I want cranberries, I’ll drink it in the juice. I don’t like that we ... try to make cranberries sweet, but ... we should embrace them for their bitterness.”
This week, justArts spoke with Nate Rtishchev ’21, who directed the Undergraduate Theater Collective’s recent production of “Godspell.”
JustArts: What was your previous directing experience before Godspell?
MORGAN MAYBACK/the Justice
Maryam Chishti ’20 “I don’t like turkey, it’s just so bland! That’s why I appreciate the side dishes, because they give it some type of flavor.”
Hannah Cook ’20 “I would say it changes year to year but I think currently it’s stuffing because ... my dad always makes way too much of it so we just have to eat it for days and days. I’m just tired of it at this point.”
Emily Eidler ’20 “I don’t like any Thanksgiving foods.” —Compiled by Yvette Sei/the Justice and photographed by Thu Le/the Justice.
STAFF’S Top Ten
ANDREW BAXTER/ the Justice
Top 10 Bubble Tea Flavors By Thu Le
JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSITANT
I’m just passionate about bubble tea.
1. Milk Foam Tea & White Pearls
CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Cleveland player, for short 4 Features Darwin studied 9 Hindu deity known as “the destroyer and the transformer” 14 Japanese Prime Minister 15 Character who is not gay, according to Sesame Workshop 16 Loathes 17 Portrayer of the Penguin in the 1960s Batman TV show 20 “A _____ is Born” (2018 film) 21 “_____-haw!” 22 Kind of sauce or milk 23 Yellow bars foreshadow them on YouTube 26 Boston _____ Orchestra 27 God’s plant? 31 Many a teenager’s room 34 Region also known as Asia Minor 35 Capital of Qatar 36 Colin Kaepernick, until 2016 37 Taipei-to-Seoul dir. 39 Legitimate 40 Somewhat 41 Went 54-Down 43 Allow 44 World’s tallest building 47 _____ Spunkmeyer 48 Biblical prophet 49 Unlock, to a poet 52 Touch lightly 53 Zip 57 Irritates ... or a hint to the starts of 17-, 27- and 44-Across 63 Memo medium, typically 64 Poor 65 “Settlers of Catan” resource 66 Fence-sitter’s response 67 Be able to tell with no evidence 68 ____ Paul guitars DOWN 1 Uber alternatives 2 Touch, as two landmasses 3 Lynn who sang “We’ll Meet Again” 4 “_____ Movie” (Jerry Seinfeld film) 5 Ambulances’ destinations 6 Years in France 7 Novak of “Vertigo” 8 “So long!” 9 Expression of exasperation 10 Fooled 11 “For real?” 12 Not sign, in a way 13 Wan in complexion 18 Genie’s reply 19 Agents, for short 24 Gucci rival 25 Show on which Matt Damon played Brett Kavanaugh 26 School lunch sandwiches, informally 27 Like minutiae
Nate Rtishchev: The first thing I directed, I was a drama camp counselor and I had to write, direct and produce an-end of-camp play, which was an experience. And then after that, last semester, I directed a Quickie. And just being in theater classes helps a lot. JA: What are the most salient differences between directing a musical and directing a play? NR: First of all, with a musical you have to deal with so many more people; musicals are just inherently bigger. And then there is the whole music side of things — the music directors and the whole pit — and I am lucky I have an amazing team on that side of things. And then choreography is another big thing and you have to kind of balance what purpose does the music serve, because every musical is kind of different. JA: What was a typical rehearsal like?
Crossword Courtesy of EVAN MAHNKEN
28 Come together 29 Charged 30 Tonic go-with 31 Sir Georg of the Chicago Symphony 32 One who takes things the wrong way? 33 When repeated twice, “et cetera” 35 Sweetheart 38 “A mouse!” 39 Tender meat 42 That woman 44 Means of transport for a castaway’s message 45 Home of Provo 46 Gets better with age? 49 City near Provo 50 Big cat 51 Silent auction site 54 Off base 55 Alternative to truth 56 Votes for 58 Bro or sis 59 Tiny 60 Kylo _____, “Star Wars” character 61 Has too much, for short 62 Pro-science Bill?
NR: Most rehearsals, we like to start off singing and dancing at the same time. It’s a big concept in musicals. Our music director used to do show choir, and she had an old show choir exercise where we would all do jumping jacks in time to songs, so she had a whole playlist of songs at the right BPM. So we started off with that, and depending on the day we would either get into blocking, working through the parable stuff in between the songs, working on choreography, ... working with the music and then if we were working on choreography, just figuring it out. And as the rehearsal process went on it became … more fine tuning and finding little moments [in which] people could express character or … add a little joke or where we can make something more fun or more poignant or whatever the moment needs. JA: Do you feel you had adequate support from the Undergraduate Theater Collective?
Solution Courtesy of EVAN MAHNKEN
SUDOKU INSTRUCTIONS: Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each small 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.
2. Black Milk Tea & Black Pearls
NR: It was interesting, because this was the first semester that they did this new system, of two of the three main [production staff ] hav[ing] to be at UTC forum. And we got a bunch of e-board members assigned to us [who] had to go to one hour of rehearsal a month, and they did show up. Ironically enough, they would all end up coming at the same time, which was interesting, and in the future the UTC board needs to figure out different times to all come. Certain members of the UTC e-board were very helpful. … I think that was a very long way to the answer. I definitely felt there was support, but some things I felt I was getting unnecessary support when I didn’t need it and not enough support when I did. JA: Is there anything else that you would like to add? NR: Everyone ... has been so supportive. Theater is about collaboration, and as a director you just get to make sure the collaboration works. Collaborating with all these people has been wonderful!
3. Cocoa Cream Wow 4. Oolong Milk Tea & White Pearls 5. Matcha Macchiato 6. Ice Cream Tea
7. Jasmine Milk Tea & White Pearls 8. Black Bea & White Pearls 9. Earl Grey Milk Foam Tea 10. Black Tea Macchiato
Solution to last issue’s sudoku
Puzzle courtesy of www.sudokuoftheday.com
—Maya Zanger-Nadis