The Miscellany News October 22, 2020
miscellanynews.org
Vassar College’s student newspaper of record since 1866 Volume 154 | Issue 8
Vassar cancels study abroad for spring semester Olivia Watson News Editor
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Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.
Inside this issue
Poet muses on life and YA novelist speaks on presence in quarantine representation, empathy Nina Ajemian
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Guest columnist Ben Fikhman documents the FEATURES mid-pandemic life of New York City over a summer of biking and selfdiscovery.
n the morning of Oct. 19, Dean of Faculty William Hoynes emailed the student body to inform them of Vassar’s decision to cancel study abroad for the coming Spring 2021 semester. Hoynes cited many reasons, including differing quarantine requirements in various countries, unpredictable resources for evacuation should there be an emergency, diminished quality of education and cultural experiences, and concerns over future outbreaks. Additionally, according to the Vassar College Policy on Student Travel, students cannot participate in study abroad programs if the country is designated with a level 3 or above travel advisory by the U.S. State Department or the United States Center for Disease Control. According to Hoynes, nearly all of the countries in which students had planned to study are classi-
fied with a level 3 or above travel advisory. He acknowledged the inevitable letdown this decision brings. “I understand that this continued disruption to study abroad will be disappointing, especially for the many juniors who have long planned to integrate study abroad into their time at Vassar. I regret how the pandemic has impacted these plans that many students have worked very hard to pursue, but I am encouraged in knowing that there are many potential routes towards achieving your global learning goals.” Director of International Programs Kerry Stamp followed up with an email in which she shared that students, particularly juniors, will have the option to study abroad in the fall semester of their senior year. Alternative opportunities include fellowships and summer study abroad programs. This decision comes on the See Abroad on page 3
Assistant Arts Editor
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uried somewhere in the eaves of my house back in New Jersey is a poster board that I made in fifth grade. It’s a collage of scrapbook paper, glossy magazine cutouts, sticker letters and dust in response to Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, “How Do I Know When a Poem Is Finished?” I first read the poem in 2012, just before Nye came to speak at my school as part of our visiting author program. Though eight years
have passed since then, this poem is always somewhere in the back of my mind, glued to my brain like I glued images onto that poster board. Nye is a Palestinian-American poet, author, songwriter, and educator. She is a self-described “wandering poet,” and her poetry reflects the breadth and depth of her life experiences. When I learned that Nye would be speaking virtually at Vassar for this year’s Elizabeth Bishop Poetry Lecture, I was thrilled; in fact, I audibly squealed See poet on page 6
Leila Raines
Assistant Arts Editor
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he young adult literary genre has blossomed into a rich assortment of stories that capture the complexity of adolescence. These stories have explored teenage identity and relationships while covering contemporary issues, like mental health, racial inequality and immigration. This form of literature is crucial in that it not only allows teenagers to discover who they are, but also provides them with the opportunity to critically
engage with bigger problems in the world around them. Last Wednesday, Oct. 14, Vassar community members were able to take part in a discussion with young adult author Erika Sánchez through a webinar sponsored by the Education Department. The event focused on Sánchez’s journey as a writer and woman of color, especially in relation to her 2017 debut novel, “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.” The novel explores the family See Novelist on page 7
Student-organized coalition clashes with local nonprofit
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The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court OPINIONS comes with tons of implications— namely, will our court remain a court of nine?
Tiana Headley News Editor
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onprofit Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson (NLMH) is a well-known grassroots presence in the Poughkeepsie activism ecosystem. The Mid-Hudson region has witnessed the organization mobilize and win key victories for immigrant rights, housing and utility access and racial justice. During the nonprofit’s 2020 remote summer internship program, interns and staff disagreed on which issues campaigns to focus on and workplace transparency. Amid uprisings for racial justice, students wanted to see NLMH take a stronger stance Ever wondered in support of Black Lives Matter. That whether your discord crescendoed into the terminacheering or booing tion of the internship program for all works? Sports 60 volunteers. Students and a former SPORTS Editor Alex Eisert employee are now publicly critiquexamines the ing NLMH’s integrity and reigniting effect of fans upon performance past controversies. Their coalition is in this week’s Stat Chat. named “Contra La Máquina,” Span-
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See Nonprofit on pages 4
Above, the symbol adopted by student coalition Contra La Máquina. Courtesy of Luna Aros/Contra La Máquina.
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October 22, 2020
THE MISCELLANY NEWS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MANAGING EDITOR SENIOR EDITORS
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Lucy Leonard
Aena Khan Ted Chmyz Taylor Stewart Abby Tarwater Duncan Aronson Jessica Moss Holly Schulman
Tiana Headley Olivia Watson Lucille Brewster ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR Janet Song FEATURES EDITOR Jonas Trostle OPINIONS EDITOR Sawyer Bush ASSISTANT OPINIONS EDITOR Meghan Hayfield ARTS EDITOR Nina Ajemian ASSISTANT ARTS EDITORs Leila Raines Isabella Migani HUMOR EDITOR Madi Donat ASSISTANT HUMOR EDITOR Alex Eisert SPORTS EDITORS Dean Kopitsky Natalie Bober SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Alison Carranza ASSISTANT SOCIAL MEDIA Sherry Liao ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITORS Grace Rousell Jacqueline Gill COPY EDITORS Phoebe Jacoby Caitlin Patterson Juliette Pope GRAPHICS EDITOR VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGER Alexis Cerritos Alex Barnard AUDIO EDITOR Mrin Somani ASSISTANT AUDIO EDITOR Ben Scharf LIVE EVENTS CHAIRPERSON Emma Tanner BUSINESS MANAGER Logan Hyde ASSISANT BUSINESS MANAGER NEWS EDITORS
REPORTERS
COLUMNISTS
COPY STAFF
CROSSWORD
Sara Lawler Monika Sweeney Annabelle Wang Francisco Andrade Madison Caress Doug Cobb Rohan Dutta Helen Johnson Xin Rui Ong Taylor Gee Jason Han Jake Johnson Emma Kahn Tiffany Trumble Frank
CORRECTION POLICY The Miscellany News will only accept corrections for any misquotes, misrepresentations or factual errors for an article within the semester it is printed.
The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. Staff editorials are the only articles that reflect the opinion of a two-thirds majority of the Editorial Board.
Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
NEWS
October 22, 2020
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Students take cancellation of spring programs in stride Continued from Abroad on page 1 heels of other colleges—including Wesleyan, Colgate, Harvard and Duke—canceling their abroad programs for the coming semester. For Camilla Meeker ’22, who was planning to study abroad at Queen Mary University of London, this decision was expected. “I wasn’t surprised at all at study abroad being cancelled, but I was disappointed,” she shared. She continued, “I had just gotten confirmation of my acceptance into Queen Mary University, so I went from an emotional
high point to a low point. Part of me was relieved, however, because I just wanted to know what the plan was so I could plan for the spring semester.” Prior to Hoynes’ announcement, Jojo Summersett ’22 was remaining hopeful that her plans to study abroad at AIT-Budapest in Hungary would come to fruition. A major factor in her decision to come to Vassar was its study abroad opportunities and financial support in pursuing abroad programs. “I’ve always wanted to experience society and culture outside of the U.S., and
study abroad was a perfect opportunity to immerse myself in it,” shared Summersett, “I was trying to remain optimistic about going abroad, but I’m not very surprised about the recent verdict.” Both students agreed that the College made the right choice, given the challenges of the ongoing pandemic. “I definitely think it’s a reasonable decision. While it’s definitely a letdown, it wouldn’t make any sense to let us go abroad…Considering how cautious [Vassar has] been with plans for returning students on campus, I can’t blame them for being cautious at all,” said
Meeker. While many juniors are experiencing disappointment about the loss of a semester abroad, some are looking to alternative options. Meeker expressed plans to study globally in the future. “I might do grad school abroad, likely in the UK, or maybe even somewhere else in Europe. I might also try to do a free summer program in Armenia with Birthright Armenia so I can have some more experience traveling.” She continued, “Either way, I’m hoping I can find some way to travel for my studies in the near future.”
News roundup from Dutchess County Sara Lawler Reporter
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n the upcoming Nov. 3 election, Dutchess County residents will be given the opportunity to vote on a proposition that would create an independent commission to redraw legislative district lines within the county. Previously, legislative district lines have been drawn by members of the County Legislature every 10 years. If the provision passes and the Independent Reapportionment Commission is formed, its seven members will spend six months determining how to divide the district to accurately reflect the diverse communities within Dutchess County. They will be assisted by map and census data, as well as an outside consultant. The only requirements to serving on the commission are that members are residents of Dutchess county and have not held elected office, worked for the state or county or been a member of any political committee in the last three years. If the proposition passes, County Executive Marc Molinaro will present a pool of applicants to the Legislature’s clerk. The minority and majority leaders of the County Legislature will each pick two members, and the remaining three members will be selected by those already nominated for the commission. The hope is that the independent commission will mitigate partisanship from the districting process and allow for a more accurate represen-
tation of Dutchess County in the County Legislature. (The Poughkeepsie Journal, “Dutchess’ proposition: Voters to decide on independent commission to redraw district lines,” 10.02.2020). Poughkeepsie Mayor Rob Rolison released his intended 2021 budget for the city on Oct. 15. The proposed budget includes a homestead tax decrease of 5.44 percent and a non-homestead tax decrease of 4.2 percent. Mayor Rolison’s hope is that this tax decrease will alleviate some of the economic burden placed on Poughkeepsie residents by the recent economic downturn resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these cuts, along with a decrease in sales tax revenue and an increase in the cost of employee health and retirement benefits, place the city’s budget in a perilous position. In an attempt to close the budget deficit, Mayor Rolison is negotiating with two of the city’s labor unions. If approved by members and common council of both unions, members of both groups would forgo raises in 2021, as would management employees. This would save more than $750,000 over the course of the year. Rolison is also counting on $1 million in aid from the federal government. (The Mid Hudson News, “Rolison proposes 2021 city budget with property tax decreases,” 10.15.2020). Republican Mayor Rob Rolison endorsed Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (DNY) in the upcoming election. Despite their political differences, Rolison noted that “He
is involved in so many things in the city from helping with funding for the police through the Department of Justice, five officers that we have the ability to hire and we have hired one on the federal grant, also he has been very, very focused on helping us with our YMCA initiatives.” Congressman Maloney’s Republican opponent, Chele Farley, points to her endorsements from law enforcement groups as evidence that she is the best candidate for the seat. (The Mid Hudson News, “Rolison crosses party lines and backs Maloney for re-election,” 10.15.2020). On Oct. 20, residents of the Poughkeepsie school district will vote on two propositions to improve school facilities in the district. Proposition 1 dedicates $48.25 million of funds to provide more secure entrances, repair roofs, renovate bathrooms, upgrade the HVAC system and install marquees. The tax increase to fund Proposition 1 will vary from household to household. Seniors with a STAR exemption will see a $4 per year increase on a home valued at $100,000. Homes with just a STAR exemption will see a $15 increase per year, and homes with neither exemption will experience a $24 increase per year. Proposition 2 aims to improve the overall quality of education provided in the district by creating advanced instructional programs, as well as renovating cafeteria facilities. The combined cost of the two propositions is $98.9 million. (The Mid Hudson News, “Poughkeepsie
COVID19 AT VASSAR 10,945 Total Tests Administered
34
Total Student Cases to Date
City School District residents to vote on $99 million improvements, ” 10.15.2020) Almost a year ago, Poughkeepsie City Councilman Chris Petas had the idea of creating mini-libraries for people to borrow and donate books for free. Recently, the first mini-library—a small stand containing books—was installed at City Hall. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted some key reasons why such mini-libraries are so important. Councilman Petas stated, “With so many Poughkeepsie students now not attending school physically, it is all the more reason to install these reading stations throughout the city to help inspire our students to continue to read and to stay engaged.” (The Mid Hudson News, “Councilman unveils Little Free Library program in Poughkeepsie,” 10.14.2020). On Oct. 8, Marist College announced a “pause” in in-person classes and activities following the discovery of 30 new COVID-19 cases resulting from an off-campus party on Oct. 3. Marist is pursuing disciplinary action against students who violated the code of conduct by attending the party. On Oct. 17, Marist re-opened campus and resumed in-person classes and activities. Despite this, social gatherings and parties will still be prohibited. The 30-person outbreak was the largest Dutchess County has seen since cases declined over the summer. (The Poughkeepsie Journal, “Marist lifts ‘pause’ after COVID outbreak of at least 30 cases,” 10.16.2020).
OCTOBER 15TH DATA VIA VASSAR TOGETHER
03
Total Employee Cases to Date
02
Total Active Cases
For daily updates on Vassar's testing and cases, visit https://www.vassar.ed u/together/dashboard
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
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NEWS
October 22, 2020
Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson terminates interns, causes controversy
Continued from Nonprofit on page 1 ish for “Against the Machine.” NLMH Executive Director Jonathan Bix and other staff stand behind their decisions. They claim to have attempted to work with interns to address their concerns, but that the students were more interested in power grabbing. “Once we saw [their] demands, we saw that they were ultimatums that were generally not about BLM, but about transferring power over our campaigns, programming, and endorsements from the Hudson Valley communities we work with...to temporary interns, and of course we can’t do that,” Bix said in an email correspondence. The Internship Launch, George Floyd and #BLM The internship program began on June 3—toward the beginning of the George Floyd protests. The shockwaves of the police killing and the revolution it ignited were deeply felt by both NLMH interns and staff. Bix said the organization’s leadership infused discussion on the organization’s response to Black Lives Matter into the program’s launch. “It was a very difficult and emotional time. And we made space with our interns to talk about the moment and how we were responding to it,” said Bix. In addition to conducting a moment of silence during their intern orientation, Bix said it included discussion on the importance of their organizing efforts and created a document about their support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Students also had a conversation block to talk with their supervisors about the movement. An email sent by Managing Director Caitlin Munchick on the program’s first day encouraged interns to take pride in the upcoming summer’s work: fundraising, fighting for health care access and housing justice, and phone banking for political candidates whose platforms aligned with racial and social justice. These efforts would create a world where Black lives matter. “We are committed to the long struggle ahead, to make the impossible possible, to end oppression and realize a new world where we are all free and where Black Lives Matter,” the email reads. Past advocacy under co-founder Margaret Kwateng ’14 to “develop the Black Lives Matter movement locally” was admirable, but occurred years ago. Kwateng now serves as the nonprofit’s advisory board chair. According to Bix, the board “helps guide the mission and programmatic direction of the organization and provides strategic thinking and planning.” Some interns believed that these gestures were superficial and ineffective, which they expressed to the NLMH staff in a later statement. It wasn’t enough to contextualize the movement within existing or past organizing efforts. Some interns wanted to see NLMH pledge new energy and resources toward the movement. Their frustrations were bolstered by what they saw as an unwillingness to take their concerns seriously and a racialized topdown organization hierarchy. Bix shared that staff provided feedback avenues, including daily check-ins, anonymous forms and staff emails and phone numbers. “Unfortunately those feedback structures weren’t used to communicate what was raised in the demands,” he said. Vassar student Luna Aros ’22 and Brown University grad student David (who preferred that only his first name be used) said between June 3 and 8 interns asked questions through their supervisors and the anonymous forms. Aros shared that their supervisors liked their ideas, such as centering the emotions of Black interns—those they felt were most impacted by the political climate and police
brutality. “[My supervisor] would say yeah, that’s a great idea. I just have to talk to Caitlin or Jonathan. I have to talk to someone else about it,” she said. Aros and David say their supervisors were mostly Latinx compared to Bix and Munchick, who are both white, non-Latinx, speaking to a disconnect in communication with the organization’s top leadership. Similarly, with their questions about their political education exercises and other program logistics, Aros and David said they received few to no answers. “Every two or three days we would speak to [our supervisor] and ask questions and be concerned and confused about things,” said Aros. “We felt that we were exhausting most of the feedback forms and places that they gave us and we weren’t being listened to.” By June 9, a group of interns announced to staff plans to produce a list of demands about their concerns and how the organization should move forward. Two weeks later on June 23, students released the 8-page document “Intern Statement on Black Lives Matter” signed by 52 interns and four former interns. “It is not enough to say that Black people are included amongst those who will be helped by our fight,” their statement reads. “The fact that Black individuals are disproportionately impacted by these issues means that they should be centered–that Black liberation means all peoples’ liberation.” The Demands: #BlackLivesMatter Among their demands were: a “firm, undeniable, explicit” statement in support of Black Lives Matter; directing some intern work hours toward Black-led organizations’ work; and an organization-wide town hall on how to move forward with regard to supporting BLM. Bix reiterated that the organization’s leadership would have responded to the demands had interns asked them through the official avenues. “Many of the demands were things we were already doing, questions that we could have answered if they were asked, or lacked context we could have given,” he said. Bix mentioned interns’ criticism about the speed with which they responded to the New Jersey State Trooper killing of Maurice Gordon, a Black Poughkeepsie resident.“We actually were working alongside his family and lawyer and many local organizations to coordinate all our actions and we were moving at their pace,” said Bix. This summer, the nonprofit organized or mobilized participation in police accountability protests in Middletown, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Kingston and Beacon. Bix and other NLMH staff spoke at city hall meetings and rallied support for the Right to Know Act and establishment of Civilian Review Boards in Poughkeepsie, Newburgh and Kingston. NLMH Newburgh Organizer Rene Mejia also serves on the Newburgh Police Advisory Committee as the city develops police reforms according to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Executive Order 203. The organization also opposed construction of a new Dutchess jail. “We believe our role is to be in support of, and not take the lead in, local BLM work. Locally, we will continue to work and partner with Black-led organizations as we have for many years,” said Bix. With regard to the interns’ 14th demand for “clear and thorough” research into political candidates, Bix pointed to their endorsements of candidates who’ve met with local and statewide racial justice and Black-led organizations. The organization has endorsed Karen Smythe for the 41st State Senate District, Michelle Hinchey for the 46th State Senate District and State Senator Jen Metzger’s reelection for the 42nd District. The demand stems from some interns’ experiences phone banking for these can-
didates. Aros said they sat through rushed briefings by officials from the Working Families Party on candidates’ platforms. Student-interns would then have to call constituents and inform them on the candidates. “[The Working Families Party] is going to explain to you who this [candidate] is in 20 minutes, and then you’re gonna have five minutes to look over a script, and you’re gonna call a bajillion people. And that was like, every day,” said Aros. “When we asked if we could have more time, they said they couldn’t give us more time.” Bard student Skye Carter ’22 was shocked to learn about Metzger’s stance on the state’s cash bail reforms effective earlier this year. Advocates for the reforms believe cash bail creates a two-tiered system of justice that disadvantages the poor and people of color. Metzger co-sponsored legislation in January to allow judges discretion to set bail for more cases than the original reform law allows. This is in the interest of public safety, according to Metzger.“We were Black interns at a nonprofit campaigning for somebody that actively hurt us in our community or was advocating for things that would hurt us in our community,” said Carter. According to Bix, the non-profit’s candidate endorsements have been on their website since March, well before interns joined the organization. He also shared that they provided interns with seven-page guides on each candidate, which they reviewed with students on multiple occasions. The Demands: Tides Advocacy, Financial Transparency and Who Are the Advisory Board? Some of the interns’ other demands developed over the two-weeks they spent writing their statement. These include stipends for interns of color, creating or supporting mutual aid/bail fund projects and transparency with the interns about the nonprofit’s finances. They wanted to know how the money they were fundraising would be used, and how they could direct some of it to the most financially stressed members of their program. As the students looked into the logistics of these demands, they also researched the nonprofit’s finances. They were left with questions about the nonprofit’s tax statuses, its relationship with the mega corporation group Tides Foundation and how Tides influences the organizations’ finances and campaign priorities. Since 2019, NLMH has been fiscally sponsored by Tides, a collection of public benefit corporations that channels money and other support to progressive, social justice-oriented nonprofits. Fiscal sponsorship describes the provision of legal and other support services by an existing nonprofit to another emerging non-tax-exempt organization. This support includes financial management, fiduciary oversight and other administrative services to help the new nonprofit as it grows. Such entities would otherwise incur financial and other logistical roadblocks in their growth. “Basically, Tides provides the back-end infrastructure and labor that lets us focus on our work: organizing people,” said Bix. Ultimately, Tides Advocacy is responsible for NLMH’s funds and activities. Other groups which also work with Tides Advocacy are the Dream Defenders, the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and the Electoral Justice Project of the Movement for Black Lives. Fiscal sponsorship also involves a fee for services provided. Tides charges 10 percent of the nonprofit’s earnings, which is the average fee among fiscal sponsorships. Some interns expressed suspicion about sending funds to a distant, San-Francisco based organization rather than the communities
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
NLMH serves. “This was a scam, but to the capitalist degree,” said Carter. Bix shared that without Tides, the organization would have to hire its own accountant, lawyer, Human Resources manager and operations specialist. The partnership has saved them “hundreds of thousands” annually, according to Bix. As for how funds are used, Bix disclosed that they spend 80 percent on the category “Programs.” “We’re not a service provider like most nonprofits, we’re organizing. Organizing is our program, so organizing staff time is booked under programs,” said Bix. This also includes costs for events, action campaigns, salaries and benefits, leadership development for community members and food for community meetings. They also spend 19 percent of funds on administrative costs, which includes their fiscal sponsor fee, insurance, rent, utilities, technology and office supplies. Only 1 percent is spent on fundraising. While their tax filings would be public knowledge, there are no recent tax records for NLMH as an independent entity due its fiscal sponsorship. “Tides’ filing includes all of their fiscally sponsored projects, including us,” said Bix. Tides Advocacy’s most recent available financial statement is for 2018, which does not include NLMH. Adding to students’ list of suspicions was the existence of an oft-mentioned advisory board they knew little about. Interns were only familiar with the board chair, Kwateng. According to Bix, the Vassar grad worked full-time for NLMH between 2014 and 2017. She went on to work with a nurses’ union and is now the National Green New Deal Organizer at Grassroots Global Justice. Bix said that the board is composed primarily of women of color who are veteran community and labor organizers. But when asked to disclose the members’ identities, he stated that he did not yet have their permission to share that information. The organization hopes to list their names on their website within the next month. Rising Action: The Proposed Town Hall As these questions lingered, the organization went forward with attempts to discuss the demands and the disharmony between the nonprofit’s leadership and the interns. On the afternoon of June 23, NLMH announced their decision to pause the internship and plan an organization-wide meeting. Students could share their concerns with Bix or Munchick in the meantime. Some students of color were intimidated by the perceived power dynamic between themselves and Bix and Munchick, who are white. The day after, NLMH Organizer Molly Dolman sent an email sharing that the mandatory meeting would take place on June 30. The staff and advisory board would plan and facilitate the hour and 30 minute agenda. Some of the original statement writers requested through email involvement in planning, so Black interns’ voices be prioritized and that the meeting period be extended. This would fulfill their original demand for a town hall. “Your decision to plan and facilitate the “meeting” on Tuesday without intern involvement denies us our agency in a meeting space that we specifically requested in our demands as an opportunity to voice our concerns,” the email reads. According to Bix, the staff and advisory board saw this follow-up as an attempt to further escalate the conflict. “We proposed meeting with all the interns to discuss all of this, but a couple emailed back to refuse our plan forward and increase the number of demands,” said Bix. Click here to read the rest of this article.
ARTS
October 22, 2020
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Maya Page '24 She/Her/Hers Something Sweet How long will you remain? One more moment and I will sink into your arms, Build a home around you brick by brick Where you will paint the walls with watercolors, Steal photos of my true smile on film Left to bleach in the sun. The sapling of a cherry tree will reach Her roots into the soil, until she grows Tall and abundant, fruit dark and sweet. I cannot leave her or you behind Until I have tasted the fruits of our labor, Let the juice trickle down my chin, Awaiting the deft brush of your fingertip, What should be the final touch, Though I cannot resist running my hands Down your sides, allowing my palms To linger just a moment longer, Just another moment, one final touch Until I can pry myself away. Though I forget the cherry pit Tucked into my pocket, bits of the sweet flesh Clung to its ridges, unreachable. If it tumbles into the grass, Showers in the rainwater and basks in the sun, Will a sapling take root once again Or will even our first cherry tree Wither and collapse with the next gust of wind?
The Bittersweet Taste of Night
What Has Become of Today It’s scary to think the moment has come That we’ve begun to get older And leave behind these effortless days. We’re Rue and Jules, gazing at each other In the deep plum light while the camera Circles over our heads, under the bed We have stars plastered under our eyes When we lie next to each other in The middle of the night and somehow The air is pearlescent even after All the light has drained from the sky. Some nights we lie back to back With inches of space between us That we want to close, scrub with Sandpaper until we forget it was ever there. The essence of our youth lies in The simple feeling of your skin on mine When it’s cold even in the summertime And we have nowhere to go but Into each other’s grasp; The ocean’s bathwater on bare skin, The gleaming of your eyes under the moon, Waxing and waning as we drain The long, amber days of their honey Until the air is as cold as your palms. The sound of waves crashing into the shore At sunrise swells into a crescendo. The divine melodies play as I Race the sun to sleep that evening. I’ve since forgotten those sounds.
They drink red wine from goblets Sculpted from translucent glass Wrapped in delicate chains of gold. Her teeth are sticky, blood-red As she licks her lips, Tastes the bitter dew at the Very tip of her tongue. They stand at the edge of the balcony, The moon spilling pale gold Into their arms. She blinks as It floods her eyes, studying the Silhouettes in the dark beside her. The misty air shocks her every pore, Awakens her lungs. They ask, “Where do we go after death?” And she tilts back her head and Waits for the last drop to trickle Down her throat, opens her eyes And says “right here.” She can see Little more than the gleaming Of their eyes, though she smiles Through her shivers, waits for the Cold in her limbs to permeate The glowing warmth in her chest.
I’d drink your perfume to remember The last summer before we grew up; The memory of your silhouette tangled In the sheets beside me, your soft breaths Into my ear, the slanted beams of sunlight Turning your skin to shimmering gold. There’s nothing left of you in these Brick buildings, these ghastly monuments, Wrought iron gates and stone walkways. New England’s full of ghosts, but Yours is nowhere to be found. I’ve begun to wash my home away in Plastic cups of white wine, Downed in two sips under the streetlights, But nothing from a bottle gives me The euphoria of lying next to you.
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
ARTS
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October 22, 2020
Dorian Electra explores digital chauvinism, fragile masculinity Massimo Tarridas Guest Columnist
D
orian Electra’s first album, “Flamboyant,” was a spectacular pop deconstruction of toxic masculinity and a simultaneous exploration of Electra’s own gender identity. Their second album, “My Agenda,” released Oct. 16, is a perfect continuation of these themes with an even tighter focus on mocking internet-specific stereotypes and the eponymous “gay agenda.” With each song, Electra writes from the point of view of, or reacts to, a caricature. In the complementary “M’Lady” and “Gentleman,” they’re the neckbeard with a Madonna-Whore complex and a love for fedoras and faux gentility; in the titular “My Agenda,” they become one of the many homosexuals scheming to turn everyone else gay. The non-stop wit, humor and impossibly sharp attention to detail that makes all of Electra’s music special is on fantastic display in “My Agenda,” not just lyrically, but sonically and meta-musically as well. To accompany the release of the record, Electra sold black fedoras emblazoned with “Gentleman” and “M’Lady,” both of these songs were pressed as a 7” single on “piss bottle yellow” vinyl, and, for the crowning achievement in music merchandising, Electra sold “Gentleman Gamer Guy Bath Water.” It’s this interpolation of online humor into every facet of the album’s existence that makes it so impressive, like some kind of document compiling the microgenres of digital chauvinism. These references are often subtle. The
Courtesy of Daniel X. O’Neil via Wikimedia Commons. opening track, “F The World,” best described as a violent mix of gabber and screamo, has the couplet “So my skull’s not to measure/So there’s no one to pleasure.” It’s an allusion to the idea that all that separates incels (involuntary celibates) from alpha male “Chads” (macho men who have sex with a different woman every night) is just a few millimeters of bone, either as part of a sharper jawline, better cheekbones or some other justification that borders on phrenology. In another brilliant move, the next song “My Agenda” features the Village People, a group that was probably part of what scared anti-gay Christian groups into inventing the term “gay agenda” in the first place. The interlude “Monk Mode” is another reference to yet another insane theory made by angry anti-feminist men that states that if someone abstains from things like masturbation,
alcohol and sex, then his life and dating abilities will magically improve. It would take a very long time to go over every nuance that’s packed into the lyrical content of “My Agenda”, but other highlights include the double entendre of “Hey, man, love who you want/But just don’t ram it down my throat” on “Ram It Down” and the Joker innuendos of “We live in a society / That’s always lashing out at guys like me” and “One question, why so serious?” on “Edgelord.” The production itself often serves to reinforce themes of contemporary machismo. Musical embellishments call back to 4chan incels who idolize the severity of religion, like the flute dirges that open “Gentleman” and “M’Lady,” the organ playing in “Ram It Down” or the imitation Gregorian chants in “Monk Mode.” Cock rock guitar chords play next to brostep breakdowns,
singer-songwriter piano chords disappear into DJ airhorn sound effects. Genre-bending for the purposes of gender-bending has always been one of Electra’s trademarks, but the sheer amount of influences on “My Agenda” is innumerable. Songs flow from arena rock choruses into harsh walls of noise into happy hardcore EDM into bubblegum pop into vaporwave into death metal… As such, the lean 25-minute runtime feels much longer, in the best way possible. Part of this is also due to the excellent album sequencing—every single song is completely essential and there’s not a single truly bad one on here; if I had to pick the worst one, it would be “Monk Mode.”. But if the worst song on your record is a minute-long segue between contenders for song of the year “Sorry Bro (I Love You)” and “Edgelord” featuring Rebecca Black… then you know it’s still good. There’s a burgeoning subgenre called hyperpop, defined by earworm songwriting played over every single electronic music genre imaginable with an emphasis on extreme voice manipulation and intoxication. Songs are often short, sped up, ironic, somehow chemical and futuristic, pop music on amphetamines. At the forefront of this movement is Dorian Electra with “My Agenda”, an album that turns the creative cultural critiques of their “Flamboyant” to the online epidemic of misogynists masquerading as misunderstood people. No one else is making music right now this intricate while still being so unbelievably catchy. No one else is making music like this.
Naomi Shihab Nye believes in the found poem Continued from Poet on page 1 when she responded to my email request for an interview following the reading. Nye’s talk on Oct. 14 was my first time attending a poetry reading on Zoom. While the other audience members were invisible to me, there’s something about the intimacy of a poetry reading that is unaffected by solitariness. Nye read a selection of her own poems, as well as poems by authors who have inspired her; she emphasized the importance of finding a mentor and letting their work guide you. The next day, sitting under a tree on a beautiful, blustery fall afternoon, I waited a few seconds after the clock on my phone showed 3 p.m., to avoid seeming too eager, before calling Nye. While we were separated by many miles (from Poughkeepsie, NY to San Antonio, TX), when she answered the phone I instantly felt as if I was there with her in her studio, perhaps drinking tea and soaking up as much of her energy and wisdom as possible. Nye commented on the feeling of presence she felt during her reading, saying, “It was really nice to have you all in this little studio for an hour. It felt happy… I just felt like the people at Vassar were warm and embracing and welcoming and people I would really want to be with.” Nye’s studio, visible in the background on the Zoom webinar, was colorful, filled with art and books, and bright, with light pouring in from the skylights above. “It’s my little tiny studio,” Nye explained. “It’s right off the kitchen—we have an old 116-year-old house. But this studio is probably only like 25 years old, and we built it onto our kitchen many years ago… [I]t has the washing machine and the dryer in it, which I really, really like because I like their humming. I like the sounds they make—to me, they’re very conducive to typing. ”This is where Nye writes in the early mornings with her cup of coffee. She said, “If I’m working on a partic-
ular project, then I often go to that project, but if I’m just writing, you know, I could go anywhere. And I still really like to write on paper with a pencil or write in many notebooks.” Ritual is important to Nye and she emphasized the simplicity of adding writing to your routine—the amount of time is far less important than the regularity of your practice. The value Nye places in the writing process was also evident in a motto she shared with me: “Each thing gives us something else.” These words are simple but powerful: “Each thing that you try to write, even if it doesn’t turn out great or you never share it or publish it or anything, I promise—it’s giving you something else. It’s giving you a stepping stone to get to another thought. And that’s like to me the most creative realization there is,” Nye explained. While I was hesitant to bring up COVID-19 and isolation, not wanting to crack the bubble of warmth and coziness I was living in during our phone call,it’s impossible these days not to bring up the subject, as it is often at the forefront of our lives and minds. Nye shared that quarantine has given her much more time to write, as she
can no longer travel. She noted, “My suitcase hasn’t come out of the closet for six months, so it’s been in some ways a more focused time.” This lack of novel stimuli could prove frustrating for many writers, but Nye instead expressed gratitude for the forced permanence: “It’s like we know our intimate space in a different way.” Quarantine has also allowed Nye to spend more time with her four-year-old grandson. Nye gushed, “He’s the most amazing, wondrous little boy who loves details, loves gardening, loves everything, loves everything around him, really pays attention to the tangible world and says magical things all the time.” Many of his words have, in fact, wound up in Nye’s poems. This is a practice she began with her own son when he was a child. She kept notebooks filled with lines he said, many of which found their way into her writing. This act of listening and recording is at the soul of Nye’s work. She commented, “I’ve always been a believer in the found poem, you know like headlines or signs or voices around us— you’re standing in a public space and you hear someone say something. I think all
Via Wikimedia Commons.
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
those little bits and tidbits of possible found poem material are rich around us, and as a writer I just get into the…habit of copying things down.” During her reading, Nye shared a story about a boy who asked her if it were possible to fall in love with a word. While his word was “lyrical,” I wanted to know what word Nye had fallen in love with recently. She responded, “I think right now it might be the word ‘shined’ because I think when you’re in the same space, a lot of time you start noticing how different things shine, different corners of the room shine, the light falls through and shines through something else you hadn’t even noticed that for a while.” I also learned about another one of Nye’s rituals: each New Year’s Day she chooses a word and hangs it up on her wall, keeping it in her mind and letting it guide her. Nye’s word for 2020 was “elusive.” She added, “I didn’t quite start realizing what it meant till the end of March, or mid-March, that, you know, our regular lives would start feeling elusive to us.” As I reach the end of this article, I (ironically?) find myself struggling to close the piece. The question has now become: How do I know when this article is finished? There is so much more to say about Nye. There is her boundless generosity— when I mention that I had met her eight years back, she eloquates: “Then we have a history together, you and I.” There is the way her words, even in normal conversation, flow like a carefully crafted poem. There is her thoughtfulness, as she compliments my name in her email response back to me. I do have a word count limit though, one that I have likely exceeded, so I’ll end with the last stanza of the poem I began with: “I think you could keep doing this/forever. But the blue chair looks best/with the red pillow. So you might as well/leave it that way.”
ARTS
October 22, 2020
Page 7
Sánchez reflects on journey as YA novelist, art of storytelling Continued from Novelist on page 1 struggles of a young Latina woman, Julia Reyes, in the wake of her older sister’s death. The book, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist, garnered critical praise for its powerful portrayals of grief, depression and immigration in teenage life. The event was originally supposed to take place in April, allowing for an on-campus, in-person reading and discussion among Sánchez, students and community members. However, due to the pandemic, the Education Department postponed the event. At the start of the semester, Education interns Natalie Bober ’21 [Editor’s note: Bober serves as Social Media Editor for the Miscellany News] and Molly Manafo ’21 picked up the project and moved it to an online setting.“I am just really happy that we were able to make it happen, and that the technology was very smooth for us and so many people were able to come,” Bober shared in a Zoom interview. Indeed, close to 70 people attended the webinar, including numerous members of the Vassar community. The Department also opened the event up to local students from grades K-12, many of whom were learning about Sánchez’s book in school. “It’s really awesome that some high schoolers were able to attend, because I know that online classes, especially for high schoolers, can get pretty bor-
ing,” Bober commented. “Hopefully, that was...a different setting for them.” Chair of the Education Department and Associate Professor Maria Hantzopoulos kicked off the webinar with a short overview of Sánchez’s experience as the daughter of working-class Mexican immigrants and how it informs her writing. She explained, “[Sánchez] seeks to amplify the stories and voices of marginalized people everywhere through the art of storytelling.” Sánchez then read an excerpt from her novel. Her narration breathed life into her characters—especially her snarky, witty protagonist, since she wrote the book in first person. At one point, when Julia clashes with her mother, Amá, Sánchez read aloud, “If I tell Amá that I’m bored, she tells me to pick up a mop and start cleaning. She doesn’t believe in boredom when there’s so much to do around the house, as if cleaning the apartment were as entertaining as a day at the beach. When she says stuff like this, I feel the anger bubble in my guts. Sometimes I love her and sometimes I hate her.” Sánchez then shifted to discussing her experiences with reading and writing. The author opened up to the audience about her struggles with mental health and depression as a teenager and young adult; she often turned to books to escape from reality. However, she often noticed the lack of representation for people of color in literature. “I loved reading, but I grew up with
white stories,” Sánchez stated. “I wanted to see myself in literature.” She emphasized her desire to use her writing not only to speak against injustice, but also to create complex characters to whom young people of color could relate. She does so through her novel’s protagonist, a strong Mexican-American teenager grappling with anger and loss. “I felt that she needed to feel authentic, and I didn’t want to create a character who was easy. I wanted her to challenge people,” Sánchez said. The webinar ended with a question-and-answer segment, where viewers could type questions in the virtual chat. Discussion topics ranged from the Latinx community to writing advice, allowing the audience to continue exploring the overarching themes and elements of Sánchez’s novel. The author ended with an inspirational note about the significance of reading literature in fostering empathy and strengthening human connection: “We can better understand different communities and be more empathetic... People are learning a lot from each other through novels because you are forced to sit and imagine what it is like to be someone else.” Sánchez’s book resonated with students and faculty alike. In a Zoom interview, Manafo commented, “I feel like her portrayal of mental health felt very realistic compared to anything else that I’ve read in YA books—maybe coming from her per-
Via Wikimedia Commons. sonal experience, which is very accurate to what the character actually would’ve been going through and feeling, and not brushed over, [but] handled with the weight that it should have been.” Although the Vassar community missed Sánchez’s physical presence on campus, students, faculty and local high school students and teachers still relished in being able to connect and engage with the author. The event unfortunately had to come to a close, but attendees can always turn to their dark turquoise copies of “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter” and find a new appreciation of the novel through their enriching experience with Sánchez.
Sex jokes and rock ‘n’ roll: looking back at Govan’s ‘Erotic Cakes’ Alex Barnard Audio Editor
I
f I were to tell you to listen to the album Erotic Cakes by guitar virtuoso Guthrie Govan, you might reply, “What the hell is that?” or “I don’t know who that is.” At that point, I would do my best impression of Jerry Seinfeld in The Bee Movie: “You like jazz?” Whether or not you do is irrelevant; I’ll still tell you to listen to the album. Now I should preface this by saying that you have not been living under a rock if you’ve never heard of Govan. His name is obscure and his music ostensibly niche. On top of that, the album isn’t even new—it was released in 2006. So why bother? Considered by many to be the “scariest guitarist alive” due to his jaw-dropping talent, Guthrie Govan’s ascension to the rank of guitar god was initially a Sisyphean task for him. Born in England in 1971, he first gained the guitar world’s attention in 1993, when the U.K. publication Guitarist named him “Guitarist of the Year” for his original composition, “Wonderful Slippery Thing.” From there, after turning down a record deal from Shrapnel Records due to his weariness of the uber-technical guitar style the label helped pioneer, Govan began working for numerous guitar magazines, transcribing popular songs and writing articles about developing technique. He recorded video lessons for then-burgeoning guitar websites like LickLibrary, taught at various music schools both in Britain and around the globe and worked as a session musician before a stint as the lead guitarist for the progressive rock band Asia. He has since gone on to
work and record with big name composers and producers like Hans Zimmer and Steven Wilson, as well as forming the critically-acclaimed, genre-defying power trio, the Aristocrats. But it was during his time with Asia that Govan recorded and released Erotic Cakes, his only solo album to date. To pigeonhole the music on Erotic Cakes into one genre like “instrumental rock” or “jazz fusion” would be a disservice to Govan’s talents. Although jazz serves as the framework for Govan’s explorations, throughout the album he cherrypicks the best elements of a dazzling array of genres, from progressive rock and metal to blues, funk, soul and even country. The album begins with the song “Waves,” a mid-paced hard-rocking jam that serves as the perfect introduction to Govan’s outrageous style. With its undulating melody, catchy chord progressions and multiple dynamic shifts, the song is not only a work of art, but it also gives us a heaping spoonful of Govan’s dizzying technique. The title track follows, beginning with arguably the heaviest riff on the record. Here we see Govan’s metal influences blend seamlessly with jazz; the speed and the dissonant note choices scream Slayer, but the intricate rhythms suggest the fusion-vibes of Miles Davis during the Bitches Brew era. The album then transitions smoothly into the official recording of Govan’s award-winning composition, “Wonderful Slippery Thing.” Combining a funky groove and bubbly chords with heavy riffs and a guitar melody that I’m sure will go down as one of the greatest of all time, “Wonderful Slippery Thing” is indubitably the quintessential Guthrie Govan song. One of the defining features of Erotic Cakes is Govan’s ability to capture his sense of humor in music. Many of the titles on this record are ridiculous enough to elicit a chuckle upon first glance; “Ner Ner,” which Govan wrote with Richie Kotzen of Poison and Mr. Big fame, comes to mind. However, it’s the little pieces of ear candy that Govan
laces so expertly in the middle of a melodic phrase or a solo, like making his guitar squeal like a pig on the track “Eric” or using pitch-shifting effects on “Uncle Skunk,” that draw out a laugh—not only because of how weird they sound, but also out of sheer amazement. One of the sillier songs on this album is a speedy flatpicking romp called “Rhode Island Shred,” which Govan wrote
Considered by many to be the “scariest guitarist alive” due to his jawdropping talent, Guthrie Govan’s ascension to the rank of guitar god was initially a Sisyphean task for him. with former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal. The shortest song on the album at just over two minutes, the frenetic playing on “Rhode Island Shred” gives the listener the feeling of being at a hoedown while on amphetamines. Adding yet another layer of complexity to his music, the tracks “Fives” and “Sevens” highlight Govan’s flawless command of non-standard time signatures. “Fives” is an exploration of the nearly ubiquitous use of 5/4 time in jazz. In contrast, “Sevens” is a moody and brooding track, with shifts from incendiary shred licks to calm, ambient passages that demonstrate another one of Govan’s signature techniques: using both hands to tap notes on the fretboard, creating a beautifully cascading arpeggiated melody that makes his guitar sound like a piano.
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
Perhaps my personal favorite song on the record is “Slidey Boy,” a fun jazz tune that shows Govan’s ability to masterfully solo on an acoustic guitar. Mixing in elements of funk and world music, while combining the percussive picking style of jazz legend Al Di Meola, Govan creates a melody that dances around the fretboard with incredible fluidity and occasionally places emphasis on certain notes that might sound wrong at first but are so obviously the right choice. The album concludes with its slowest jam, “Hangover,” the complete antithesis of the preceding track, “Rhode Island Shred.” The deliberate sluggishness in Govan’s playing on “Hangover” not only serves as the perfect counterpart to “Rhode Island Shred,” but also is a unique way to close out an album brimming with as much energy as this one. The hazy, languishing chord progressions, the lackadaisical drumming and even the melody truly capture the essence of waking up to a splitting headache and scrambling to find two Advil and a glass of water. And, just like a hangover, the song doesn’t really end, but lingers without any real resolution until the drums just stop. Great guitarists are able to depict abstract emotions like happiness and sadness in their songs, but it takes a special talent to convey a feeling through instrumental guitar that no other guitarist has done before. This is exactly what Govan has accomplished on Erotic Cakes. Whether you’re a guitar nerd like me or just a casual listener, Guthrie Govan’s music will captivate you. His level of skill on guitar is so incomprehensibly advanced that few guitarists, if any, can truly match his abilities. And still, the soulfulness in Govan’s playing has remained untainted by a desire to simply be the fastest or most technical player. To put it bluntly, if 1960’s blues-rock legend Eric Clapton was good enough to earn the nickname “God” during his time in Cream, then Guthrie Govan’s arrival to the guitar scene was like the coming of Christ.
FEATURES
Page 8
October 22, 2020
Biking during a pandemic: documenting a city’s new normal Ben Fikhman
Guest Columnist
I
n April, after a month of living a strictly sedentary lifestyle under a statewide quarantine, I began to challenge myself to bike distances of which I never thought myself capable. This became the unparalleled highlight of my time at home in New York City this past spring and summer. There was no better way for me to decompress after an abnormal semester marked by persistent uncertainty and the forced adaptation of my social relationships. As soon as I would take my bicycle out of the garage and take off from the driveway in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the dilemmas, concerns and stressors that tormented my headspace began to temporarily evanesce. Every day, I biked further and further, until one day I finally reached a different borough, Manhattan. It felt surreal to swerve down a desolated Broadway road and see the parks of East River emptier than ever. It was one thing to have been watching the beauty and physical emptiness of my home city in April. But then came an opportunity to see what felt like a gradual restart in May and June. We all craved a return to normalcy in the first moments of uncertainty and crisis, but what we didn’t realize is that the life of this city would inevitably continue with a revised normalcy, rather than total restoration. And I watched it happen during my biking trips. What a mind-boggling month of March that preceded my biking adventures! I remember the stun when Tom Hanks’ infection was publicized, the entire NBA season got postponed and the president announced travel bans without congressional approval, all in one hour. So little felt clear, including the science behind the coronavirus, so sheltering home began to feel like not just an obligation, but the only option. New York City would continue being an epicenter of the global pandemic into April. But by May, New Yorkers all around me began to tend to themselves and their loved ones through outdoor activities. There were the families that I passed at Flushing Corona Meadows Park in Queens. The elderly couples walking arm-in-arm, making their way towards a once-deserted Coney Island boardwalk. The speed-walking workers in the Lower East Side, fumbling through their pockets or ringing a friend or family member. The barbeques held on Manhattan’s western waterfront, near the George Washington Bridge. The acrobatic performance groups at Washington Square Park that would amuse the crowd for minutes on end. Masks covered their faces, but the occasional lift of the eyebrows and stretching of the cheeks reflected the happiness and livelihood that the empty city lacked for a while. I witnessed every social unit’s willingness to protect the safety of community at large, but also to not lose sight of the closeness within their own group. No longer did I need to sit at home and cringe when my parents would attend Social Disdance fundraisers in the living room. I realized what I could do now, and I began to explore the sandbox that is New York City in a way that I would never have predicted: with a bike and a camera, amidst a pandemic. For too long, I refused to really explore New York. Every time I thought about going on a long walk or bike ride was similar to how I would get an epiphany from a movie and swear to change the course of my life, but then just forget about it shortly afterwards. In April, however, I was determined to document a city with a vast majority of people who have not surrendered their individualism, but at the same time, are acting in solidarity with one another.
Uncertainty reigned, but scientific clarity has grown. A wave of N-95s and disposable surgical masks proliferated throughout the city in the first moments of pandemic-era outdoor exploration. And then I watched the protection equipment become more fashionable and commercialized, whether they contained flowers, political slogans or anything that restored color and life to a historic, tragic moment. Biking every week through the neighborhood suffused with high school memories, I watched as the Pier 2 basketball courts at Brooklyn Bridge Park began to slowly reopen, and New Yorkers filed in gradually. There were some players who took precautions, keeping their masks on and social distancing, despite the heat and sweat, and there were others who blatantly ignored the necessary precautions. Despite these differences, I filmed the scenes in front of me. As I sat down on the soccer field at Brooklyn Bridge Park, I watched the videos that I took, remembering the enormous crowds that the piers once hosted. I remember when, a year before the pandemic, I went with a friend of mine to play four hours of basketball, and then we reeled in frustration a day later upon discovering on social media that Kyrie Irving visited shortly after we left. At every familiar place I passed by bike and filmed on my trips, I reimagined the scenes that I shared with people whom I love and cherish, or merely am acquainted with. And within the places that I have never visited, especially in Queens, I imagined what could someday be new memories. My bike rides had revealed to me just how pensive the urban environment makes me, in the midst of ongoing global changes in every sense—political, digital, spiritual, social, you name it. I would get lost in my paths, entering random alleys and stopping at different buildings or parks. Oftentimes, when recording city life, I didn’t care if people were bunched together or staying far apart, and I didn’t care if it was a homely bodega or a majestic skyscraper in front of me. I took the camera out of my string bag and filmed for about 15 seconds. Then, I stood and thought about it. I watched how people interacted with their environment, seeing how normally they walked, jogged, or biked, and how easygoing their conversations were despite the seemingly apocalyptic atmosphere that blanketed the city just a month ago. May saw a beautiful renewal of life and solidarity. Voices of all backgrounds filled the air. The bikers who waved and smiled at me were still there. The bikers who yelled at me to watch where I was going were still there. This was my city, and I cherished the prevalence of every emotion that came with it. All of these different things were what made me so pensive during my bike rides, but what would come at the close of May.
On May 25, an innocent Black man in Minnesota named George Floyd suffered a grisly fate paralyzed under the knee of a police officer for eight minutes and 46 seconds. Floyd was murdered, and the killing only added to the long list of names that have become hashtags and calls for change. The city in front of me transformed with lightning speed. Strangers from all over the city would meet at disparate landmarks or historical checkpoints, mingle and then unify their voices so that they could be heard blocks and blocks away as called for an end to police brutality. Bridges, roads and parks flooded with people who sought to effect change in a fight for in necessary social disturbances to force change in a fight for police accountability, racial justice and equal opportunity. It was a citywide reckoning that was long overdue, centuries overdue. And amid this new form of solidarity was the maintenance of the normalcy that New York had to accept back in April and May. They marched, they chanted, they sang, but their faces were covered. Change was on the horizon, and I was amazed by how us ordinary New Yorkers were able to bring it about. In under three weeks following the murder of George Floyd, Governer Andrew Cuomo signed the repeal of 50-A into law, ending the dangerous shielding of policing misconduct records, as well as the prohibition of chokeholds and false race-based 911 calls. It felt amazing to realize that I watched the people’s groundwork be laid for historic legislation just by riding a bike through the city, oftentimes with no established agenda or destination. I’ve grown enamored of seeing what was on the ground using my new favorite mode of transportation. Signs were to be seen anywhere, including hanging off of balconies in neighborhoods from Park Slope to East Harlem, and there was also an explosion of popular slogans being written in arbitrary locations or even inscribed into buildings. I remember gaining speed on the Williamsburg Bridge at night and then just charging downhill, seeing all of the slogans whiz past. “BLM,” “No Justice, No Peace,” “I Can’t Breathe,” “Defund the Police,” “Love Trumps Hate,” “Stop Killing Us.” I tended to think about each one that I passed. One would encourage me, another would concern me. There is much more progress to be made in light of a deeper and more accurate understanding of systemic racism’s prevalence in our country, but I was proud of my city, and my camera and I were ready to document as much as could be captured. I filmed while entering the Brooklyn Bridge during a large demonstration and walked my bike as I was surrounded by emboldened protestors bumping Prices by Lil Uzi Vert. While getting off the bridge,
I observed uneasily a line of police officers on one side of the street and another group of police officers on the other side handcuffing and walking away with protestors one by one. Weeks later, I was captivated by the sight of the deeply conservative Brighton Beach filled with the noise and songs of Black bikers, and signs that have spread hope for real change and justice. However, another day, as I biked north from home until dusk, I watched as countless businesses in Eastern Manhattan, small and large, were boarded up simultaneously, in preparation for a potential night of looting. History took place in front of my eyes and through the lens of my camera every single day I left my house to bike during the quarantine. I thought about the Civil Rights Movement and the time of the Spanish flu, as well as what the future holds for both progress in public health and addressing systemic racism in every facet of our society. But sometimes, for the sake of finding mental relaxation, I tried to live in the present serenity of New York and find its quiet places. After dozens of miles of biking throughout Brooklyn, I sat down on a field of grass at Red Hook and just watched the water. Other days, I searched for murals and memorials in empty streets. One of the greatest stop-and-stare moments of my summer followed an urgency at 4:30 a.m. to quickly eat breakfast and bike to the middle of the Manhattan Bridge to catch the sunrise beaming onto the skyline. I fixed the lens of my camera through the fence on the side of the bridge’s walkway and recorded with awe the changing colors of the sky and the water that sandwiches the skyline. Cyclist-flaneurs like myself, gorgeous sunsets reflected onto buildings and parks, the passionate social disturbances led by protestors in the streets and bridges, empty roads and parks, families of all backgrounds renewing engagement in outdoor activities safely and unsafely, are all featured in the video that I eventually produced in August. Personally, I feel that the hundreds of miles I have traveled and experienced from April to August have strengthened me in physicality and maturity. I checked the weight scale one day before going back to Vassar in August. All 15 pounds I gained during my first year on campus were lost. My legs felt powerful. I haven’t taken a bus or train since March. I became capable of reaching any point in the entire city by bike. My trips have helped me to either abandon or mend unsettling drama in my social life, and I longed for a new semester of higher education more than ever before. Nothing brought more joy and eye-opening resolve to me in this turbulent time than biking and experiencing firsthand the changing world in an urban setting.
Courtesy of Ben Fikhman. MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
October 22, 2020
FEATURES
Page 9
Running a pro-war, grass- themed Instagram Janet Song
I
Features Editor
t happens. You assign someone to cover Vassar’s three main animal Instagram accounts. The article comes in, and your heart suddenly freezes as you read the line, “@skunksofvassar hopes to continue inspiring intrepid nature photographers to document their work (the newest iteration of the trend is @grassofvassar).” There is a problem, you realize. You’ve forgotten something terribly important. And so at the next Miscellany News meeting, you confess that you have been running that very grassthemed Instagram account that was mentioned in last week’s issue. @grassofvassar, with only 21 posts and 90 followers, is the budding child of yours truly. It’s much like your popular skunks, squirrels or deer account, except that it’s pictures of grass. (Sometimes with my shadow.) These posts are often captionless, with a few exceptions, such as the witty, “dirt (good for grass)” or “salad,” the latter of which features yellow leaves mingled with green—much like those awful yellow peppers in your standard Deece salad. The origin of the Instagram account is mere pettiness. Long after I assigned the article about Vassar’s woodland-themed social media, I received a follow request on my personal account from @mushroomsatvc, which seemed to be the newest of the trend at the time. I had already indulged myself with letting the three main animal accounts follow me, so much like the relative at Thanksgiving who says no to the fifth slice of pie, I declined. I figured too many Vassar accounts were already following me. Within minutes after declining, however, a new request showed up. I declined. They sent another follow request. I denied. They sent it again. And it kept going and going and going— And on one fateful day, @mushroomsatvc interrupted a lunch I was having with friends in Noyes Circle. We were sitting out in the sun, on the grass, when I saw that cursed notification: “@mushroomsatvc has requested to follow you.” Irritated, I complained about this to my friends. One
of them suggested that I could just ignore them, but unfortunately my quest for vengeance had already taken root. With just an email at my disposal, I created @grassofvassar. I took a picture of the grass we were sitting on—no caption—and sent a bunch of follow requests to Vassar students. Including @ mushroomsatvc. After a few days, you would think that running an account dedicated to grass would be easy—just take a picture of the ground, post it, and wait for a few likes. But I underestimated one critical flaw in maintaining my public presence: I am incredibly lazy. Sometimes I would have three posts in a day. Sometimes I went a week without posts, while my fellow Vassar nature accounts continued to post on a consistent schedule.
irony: which accounts were genuine, and which accounts were like mine? Soon, however, I grew to realize that these accounts— ironic or not—represent how specialized Vassar humor is, and how it’s ingrained in the particularities of our campus culture. Not too long after @grassofvassar celebrated its first week, I realized that I had grown incredibly bored of the account. My vendetta towards @mushroomsatvc had died rather quickly, and not many Vassar students knew of my presence. But one evening as I walked home from the Deece, I took a photo of grass and noticed that a squirrel had butted in. I thought of @squirrelsofvassar, watched the squirrel hop in its jittery, squirrel-like manner, and decided: I’m going to cause havoc. I’m going to send @
Janet Song/The Miscellany News In my most recent post, I was so lazy that instead of making the effort to go outside, I covered my camera lens and took a photo, then captioned the dark image as “grass at night.” I also started to question if people knew my account was parody. There were some people who must’ve caught on, such as the two people who caused a fake political debate on my post, “grass! (moves fast.).” But then there were the people who sent me direct messages commemorating me for my contributions to Vassar. And one person who submitted a photo to be posted on the account. And when accounts such as @accountsofvassar and @mulletsofvassar started following me, often I found myself caught in a liminal space between truth and
grassofvassar off on a high note. I’m going to harass the squirrel account. And so the war began. I captioned the photo, “Ew” (stylized as “ew,” though, for the aesthetic). The squirrels called me out for my disrespect. I moved our fight to Instagram stories where I established the strange narrative that squirrels are murderous grass eaters, and that grass is superior—which I also knew would be a futile fight because there’s not much to defend to argue about something green and unmoving. As @squirrelsofvassar put it, I was literally “grass-ping at straws.” You can still see some parts of the Instagram stories saved on the @ grassofvassar account, in which I make cruel statements such as, “BEEP BEEP CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF CARS
COMING YOUR WAY” as I use emojis to depict a squirrel about to be run over by a car, or @squirrelsofvassar’s exasperated words, “PEOPLE LITERALLY STEP ON YOU ALL DAY” as they proceeded to continue their Instagram story with lawn mower stickers. The problem with our feud, however, is that the other woodland accounts are lovers, not fighters. I thought I could take the momentum of the war between squirrels and grass and declare war on mushrooms, only for @squirrelsofvassar to shoot that idea down as they declared their love for those pesky fungi. When @skunksofvassar forced squirrels and grass to make peace with each other, I tried to declare war on @ forksofvassar. I had sent them a direct message prior stating, “I would like to start a war with you the next time I see a fork [on] the ground,” but instead of following our agreement to start war, @forksofvassar supported my condemnation of littering. I soon realized a terrible reality: I am the only prowar Vassar account. I think that when the article about my fellow animal accounts came out, I greatly underestimated the recognition @grassofvassar received, to the point that I didn’t think it would be even mentioned when it was written. I also had forgotten I was the one running it, until I got thrown the awkward question, “Should we interview @grassofvassar?” At times it feels that “grassar” is an alternate persona of mine, something that takes over me the minute I log onto the account. I forget that I am Janet, a student, a Misc editor. Instead I am “grassar:” the anonymous, dry-humored aficionado of grass, who takes pictures of the ground for a natural aesthetic. I had a short, good run with the account, but now that my identity is out, I think it’s time to “retire.” What I’ve learned to appreciate from my experience is the uniqueness of Vassar humor, even if I still don’t know exactly how to define it. Annoying as they may seem at times, these Instagram accounts at least are giving life to those of us with online classes and distanced learning, connecting us to a digital form of the Vassar bubble.
The perfect Halloween confection: Monster’s Eyeballs! Olivia Gross
Guest Columnist
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andy is the lifeblood of every Halloween event. Dozens of varieties of chocolate morsels and sour strips blend into a nauseatingly delicious night, but there is always something missing: salt. Introducing some salt into your festivities, whether at a socially-distanced outdoor gathering or while recovering from a sugar overload in your bed, surrounded by wrappers, can improve your Halloween candy experience exponentially. However, if you are concerned about cheating on the typical sweetness with a savory snack, look no further. This blend of salt, chocolate and scariness will be a perfect addition to your pillowcase of treats. My family and I used to make Monster’s Eyeballs every year for Halloween parties and potlucks. When placed on tables brimming with skeleton cookies, witches’ fingers and piles of candy corn, our platter would always be the first to empty. This was the perfect easy dessert for a five-year-old to concoct almost completely on her own. And a typical college student is just as capable. Try this recipe with
your podmates for a fun time and a horrifyingly delicious reward. Skylar Huebner ’24 said, “They were super fun to make and came out really cute! The squish when you press the M&M in is super satisfying, and they were really yummy after they cooled.” These snacks were a huge hit for Huebner’s group of friends, and they are the best first step to Halloweek. Ingredients: • 1 bag of mini square pretzels • 1 bag of Hershey’s Kisses • 1 bag of M&M’s Instructions: 1. Preheat the oven to 250° F. 2. Spread the pretzels on a baking sheet in a single layer. Unwrap enough Hershey’s kisses for one kiss per pretzel. Place a Hershey’s kiss on each pretzel. 3. Heat for 1-2 minutes, and then try to press an M&M into each Hershey’s kiss. The M&M should easily spread the kiss into a circle without melting all over the pretzel. 4. Refrigerate for a few hours—or as long as you can wait—and store in an airtight container. Enjoy!
Nima Heffelfinger ’24 holding Monster’s Eyeballs. Courtesy of Caleb Leeming ’24.
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
HUMOR
Page 10
October 22, 2020
Breaking News
From the desk of Izzy Migani, Humor Editor
This just in: Trees reported to be not social distancing, students begin to worry. The tale of a vending machine vendetta Vivian Phillips
Wanted-At-Large
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he last thing I expected to do my first year of college was start a life of crime, yet here I am. I am a criminal—a fugitive—and this is my confession in an attempt to get the weight of guilt off my chest. Two nights ago, I was sitting in the Jewett common room, trying desperately to finish editing an essay. I was unable to focus naturally, so I changed out of my sweatpants and into a button-down. Actually, as I reread that sentence, I realize it sounds like I went pant-less into the common room with only a button-down on. I assure you that this was not the case. I believe it is imperative for a writer to dress the part while
working at their craft. Not having pants on would have majorly thrown me off of my rhythm. In fact, I’m wearing a light blue buttondown and pants right now. Therefore, you can infer that I am a qualified writer to whom you should continue giving your attention. The button-down gave me about 30 minutes of material until my inspiration ran dry. I needed fuel, but not just any kind of fuel. I needed simple carbohydrates—and I knew exactly where to get them. I left my laptop at the table to descend four flights of stairs for a strawberry Pop-Tart. Just so we’re on the same page, I want to make it clear that while going down the stairs, I was still wearing pants. I want it established that there has not been a point in this article when I was not wearing pants.
OK? OK. In hindsight, I probably should have put my laptop away prior to this journey. Compromising the safety of my laptop for the acquisition of a toaster pastry wasn’t exactly an even trade- off. Alas, I was already halfway down the second flight by the time this occurred to me. I had been blinded by the quest for sucrose and arrived in the basement only a fragment of the person I had been before the trek. The glowing vending machine stood before me, powerful and mighty. The lit-up buttons beckoned me to press them. Sixty-six, Sixty-six, Sixty-six. I eyed the strawberry Pop-Tart in the lower left-hand corner and thought about the many ways I could eat it. With a few sips of water. Dry. Half now and half once I got
HOROSCOPES
back upstairs. I tapped my card. The next thing I knew, a vaguely incriminating alarm was going off, and a message was flashing at me: “Transaction Invalidated; Reuse Violation.” I don’t know what I did to lose the respect of this machine, but I would like to point out that I am not the one taking the money of adolescents and handing them back products that will lead to health issues down the line in return. I had been blacklisted by an inanimate object: the Jewett Vending Machine. Dejected, I retreated back up the stairs quickly (but not so quickly as to cause suspicion) and unlocked the door to my room, Pop-Tart-less. I realized, then, that I had become the pastry I once sought to eat—toasted in the scorching flames of the Jewett Vending Machine’s criminal justice system.
Madi Donat
ARIES
Mar 21 | Apr 19
Cook. Make something just for you. Share it with friends if it makes you happy, or just eat it all yourself. Get creative with ingredients––scour the Deece for hidden gems! TAURUS
Apr 20 | May 20
Clean. Did you shove all your clothes on one chair again? Start small by picking just one corner of your room and working from there. A clothes-free chair means more room to sit! GEMINI
May 21 | Jun 20
Write. There’s too much going on in your head for it to just sit up there. Take up journaling! It will de-stress you while working out your brain’s creative muscles.
Astral Projector
CANCER
Jun 21 | Jul 22
Feel. There’s nothing wrong with intense emotion; in fact, it’s quite human. Whether you’re in love or blind with rage, sit with your feelings and acknowledge them before deciding how to copedeal. LEO
Jul 23 | Aug 22
Jam. Put on your favorite tunes—or allnew tunes—and just party until you can’t take it anymore. Dance so hard that your downstairs neighbors bang on their ceiling with a broom. VIRGO
Aug 23 | Sep 22
Breathe. Even for ten seconds. Take the time to stop what you’re doing and focus on the way your body feels and moves. You can’t take care of others without first taking care of yourself.
LIBRA
Sep 23 | Oct 22
Assess. If there’s a situation you feel funky about, trust your intuition. Your brain can prepare for almost anything without even telling you about it first. Get it out… or charge forward. SCORPIO
Oct 23 | Nov 21
Relax. These past few weeks have been super stressful, so allow yourself some time to just do absolutely nothing. Take a nap, or stare off into space, or watch reality TV compilations on YouTube. SAGITTARIUS
Nov 22 | Dec 21
Ground. Take deep breaths and feel yourself as one with the world around you. It’s fun to be up in the air, but it’s also nice to take a second and allow yourself to simply be.
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
CAPRICORN
Dec 22 | Jan 19
Cry. It’s okay to let your feelings out. Put on a sad movie, like “Titanic” or “Eternal Sunshine” or “Dead Poets Society”— or maybe just watch the first scene from “Up” over and over again. AQUARIUS
Jan 20 | Feb 18
Read. A book, a webcomic, a very long text sent from somebody you may not want to talk to right now. Absorb every word, whether it’s enjoyable or not.
PISCES
Feb 19 | Mar 20
Think. We’re all guilty of making rash decisions, but don’t let themit get the best of you. Next time you want to do something risky, take three deep breaths before going through with it—or not.
HUMOR
October 22, 2020
Page 11
FROG AND TOAD ARE FRENEMIES by Julianna + Olivia
If you ever have kids, what would you warn them about Vassar? “Make sure you’ve got the right clothes. You gotta come prepared with the clothing options.” Claire Stutzman ’21
Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club Glenna Gomez
Founder of the Anti-Raisin Bran Coalition
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ew Pre-Org Alert! Calling all Cereal Lovers! Do you have a hoard of cereal in your dorm? Do you eat Lucky Charms religiously each midnight? Do you go absolutely ape shit when the Deece restocks Cocoa Puffs? If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, congratulations—you no longer have to feel underrepresented on campus! We, the founding members of The Breakfast Club, have long been healthily debating how we could improve the lives of Vassarians, and we realized the rabbit hole of breakfast cereal discourse is where we want to plant our flag! Here are the issues on our agenda for this academic year:Lobby the Deece to buy those new bags of Lucky Charms with only the marshmallows (well before midterms). •
•
Talk to President Bradley about honoring Cap’n Crunch in the campus-wide recognition of Veteran’s Day. Meet with the Dining Committee to discuss the cereal inventory for next
year; possible topics include, “Oatmeal Squares Are People, Too,” and “Special K: There’s More Than One Flavor (And We Have None).” • Upgrading to Alpha-Bits with sans serif fonts. Don’t worry, we’re not just about campus politics! We also host events year-round for you to connect with fellow cereal enthusiasts! Here is a list of our upcoming events: •
Open Forum to discuss the new Lucky Charms marshmallows, including holiday editions (use your imagination with this one). • Zoom Luncheon discussing: Which Cheerios are the Best? (haha jk, Honey Nut Cheerios is the obvious answer, this isn’t up for debate). • Halloween Costume Party! Dress up as a cereal killer, take home boxes of Count Chocula, Boo Berry and Franken Berry, and sleep the night away! • Alumni Reunion: Trix are for kids— but is there an age limit? • Classics Readings in the Quad: “Et tu, Oatmeal?” and other tragedies. We also have general-body cereal-themed weekly meetings, where we hold open con-
versations about the cereal on campus and sometimes host guest speakers. We have an exciting line-up of upcoming panelists, including two out of three of the famed Rice Krispies trio (Pop can’t make it), so make sure to tune in! Our first meeting is Oct. 23: Froot Loops Friday! Check out our table in front of the Deece to learn more, or just to restock your dwindling stack of breakfast treats. Sponsor coupons are available while they last! Some final notes: A friendly reminder that the Anti-Raisin Bran Coalition meets every Tuesday at 3 p.m. in Noyes Circle. Email abolishraisinbran@vassar.edu to be added to their mailing list. The Vassar Incognito Cereal Network (VICCEN) notifies interested parties when your favorite cereal might be restocked! Email honeycomb2024@vassar.edu to be added to the GroupMe. Finally, thank you to everyone who participated in the live debate, “Which Came First: Milk or Cereal.” If you missed it, the recording can be found here. Our next debate on Nov. 6 will be a little more provocative: “Granola Thinks It’s Better Than You.” RSVP ASAP! Cheerio!
“The ghost of Matthew Vassar would have to be number one, and then all the critters in Main Building.” - Adie Amore ’23
“I would warn them that the friends they make during orientation are gonna change a lot later on.” - Liam Condon ’22
“Do not anger the yellow jackets. They usually win.” - Samantha Chin ’24
“That they will inevitably cut their hair and their jeans will get baggier and baggier.” - Lucy Gammon ’22
Madi Donat, ASSISTANT Humor Editor Grace Rousell, Photographer
Banner design by Frankie Knuckles/The Miscellany News.
The Deece’s disappointing selection of cereal on a normal weekday afternoon. Courtesy of Glenna Gomez.
OPINIONS
Page 12
October 22, 2020
In Phase 3, Vassar has to make decisions on priorities, freedoms Karina Burnett Columnist
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s the restriction on leaving campus stays rigid for on-campus students at Vassar, the sense of closed borders has exacerbated the ubiquitous mid-October ennui. While restlessness and exhaustion around this time at college isn’t necessarily a quarantine-related phenomenon, not being allowed to leave campus provides a clear metaphor for this sense of limitation. I’ve started to wonder about the rationale behind this regulation, and if it still needs to be implemented as strictly at this juncture. Considering that Vassar just entered Phase 3 with only two active cases on campus, the risk of contracting the virus on campus is low, and has remained relatively stable for a while. The surrounding Dutchess County also has a positive coronavirus testing rate of 1 percent, which is lower than many other New York counties. Vassar’s COVID-19 situation seems to be under control, and while it’s hard to anticipate the spread of the virus with any certainty, the risk seems to be less alarming than in many other places in the country. Besides, the “closed campus” that the administration defends isn’t quite legitimate—faculty and staff continue to come and go from the campus. If anything, this message erases the realities of much
of the workforce at the college, and minimizes the importance of the wider Vassar community’s well-being. At this point in Vassar’s reopening plan, it seems that there are two choices: Either decisively tighten the campus borders and subsequently loosen restrictions within the Vassar bubble, or allow students the freedom to leave campus and continue to enforce the set campus rules. While I am not a pandemic response expert in any way, and usually try to avoid STEM classes whenever possible, I feel like it’s important to continue questioning the rules that our administration implements in order to at least open a constructive dialogue in the community. The confinement that on-campus students are experiencing right now may not be explicitly destructive, but it’s certainly not without consequences. Personally, I can walk or bike to Sunset Lake or the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve only so many times until I feel like I’ve been travelling endlessly in the same loop. The way we move and interact with our surroundings affects us more than we realize, and with the lack of October break, I don’t feel like the administration has truly addressed this detrimental factor. While I understand the difficulties of trying to regulate a college population and minimizing the spread of disease—as well
So far this semester, Vassar’s gates have held students on campus Tiana Headley/The Miscellany News.
as the ethical question of the effects on the surrounding area—I think it’s important to act in accordance with the current situation and adjust rules as necessary. Most everyone within the Vassar bubble follows the rules the college has enforced, and that’s why our reopening has gone so smoothly. However, there should be a happy medium—or at least some conversation concerning one—between being completely cut off from Dutchess County and having total freedom of movement. Being careful to keep the low-risk status of the surrounding area stable should remain at the forefront of our minds, but if the administration trusts students enough to bring them back and believes they will follow the rules on campus, they should trust that students can move beyond the confines of Vassar in a cautious and thoughtful way at this point in the semester. On the other hand, a more resolute enclosing of the campus—for example, further limiting the amount of people coming and going by shifting away from in-person classes—could allow for more freedom within Vassar. To protect the workers who continue to keep the college running even in these uncertain times, mask-wearing and social-distancing in proper contexts should of course continue to be followed. However, loosening the restrictions on unofficial indoor gatherings would seem reasonable given the amount of time we have essentially been quarantining together. And if the borders of campus were truly closed, the surrounding area of Poughkeepsie and Dutchess County could remain protected. The precariousness of Vassar’s reopening plan isn’t lost on me. Marist College, just a little ways away from Vassar, recently shut down their campus after an outbreak that resulted from a single off-campus gathering. Certainly, any loosening of measures should be cautious and intentional, not simply with the purpose of returning to more of a normal college life. However, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re following rules made months ago that no longer reflect the situation. I still believe that there’s a thoughtful way to create a less provisional environment on campus, aim-
ing to consider all the existing experiences in the community, even in this undefined period of the pandemic. Even if we direct that thought process to the plan for next semester, it would be a worthwhile endeavor to rethink our approach to reopening at this point. Of course, the top priority for Vassar’s
“There should be a happy medium—or at least some conversation concerning one—between being completely cut off from Dutchess County and having total freedom of movement.” plan moving forward must be operating in a way that’s open and empathetic to different needs in and outside the community. We’ve been successful so far and the phases should represent that, instead of simply allowing for campus visitors and loosening rules for athletics—factors that don’t affect or benefit most students. Vassar students on campus now find themselves caught in a liminal stage, one that doesn’t seem to reflect the current risk of contracting the virus in our specific setting and circumstances. We should be proud of how well the reopening went, but since it’s been over a month from the initial campus quarantine and the environment continues to be low-risk, we’re past that stage. Living in an in-between space—without the freedom to leave a purely rhetorical “bubble” while also not being able to take advantage of the benefits of the early heavy regulations—doesn’t seem fair or logical considering Vassar’s current situation.
How does it feel to no longer be the activist but the enemy? Brittany Andrade Guest Columnist
E
very generation has its defining characteristics. They manifest into the stereotypes we all know and hate. Most infamously, Baby Boomers were idealistic activists who protested the Vietnam war and the Draft and marched for Civil Rights. Now they’re a meme. Boomers are defined as the generation born from 1946 to 1964. That currently places them between the ages of 56-74; they aren’t exactly spring chickens. So what have they been doing since the good ole days of racism and bigotry and warmongering? They were the generation that demanded change, right? Well, they’ve been steadily taking over the American Empire. The average age in Congress right now is 57.8 in The House and 61.8 in the Senate. The average ages of CEOs and circuit court Judges are 54.1 and 64.7, respectively. Even the average age of a full professor with tenure is 55. They are our teachers, our lawmakers, our generals and world leaders. They’ve had 60plus years to change the world. So where did their fire for justice go? When did they become the same enemy
they once fought? The United States has been in 16 armed conflicts since the Vietnam War. Let that sink in. Sixteen armed conflicts over the course of 60 years. America’s human rights problems haven’t shown many signs of improving, either. Black Lives Matter is still fighting the same fight that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. began in the 1960s. People of Color are still disproportionately killed, jailed and discriminated against. I.C.E. is still following the blueprints of containment and abuse laid in American history with Native American exile and Japanese American internment. In my opinion, Boomers failed to change the world the way they once wanted to because they lived largely successful lives. They grew up in the post-WWII economic boom that allowed them to have access to well-paying jobs and attend colleges that didn’t place them in deep debt. Boomers were the last generation to be financially stable enough to raise a family of five on one paycheck. More importantly, they are the generation that saw conflicts as wars to win, and the enemy as a concrete entity to subdue and defeat. Boomers didn’t continue pushing for change in the Defense budget after the United States pulled out of Viet-
nam; they had won their fight and thus the war. Boomers didn’t continue to push for civil rights after the assasination of John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr, either. Instead, they made the two men martyrs and allowed statues and renamed schools to become the proof of their participation. The parallels between young Boomers and both Gen Y (Millennials) and Gen Z are easy to see. Vietnam has been traded for the War on Terror. The Civil Rights Movement has become the Black Lives Matter Movement. Arguments against the draft have shifted to the over-bloated budget of the Defense Department. We’re running in the same place we were 60 years ago. So why do I believe that we can do what Boomers could not? First, we aren’t blindly idealistic in the same ways. I saw the World Trade Center fall when I was nine years old. I’ve lived through the housing market crash and two recessions. I was part of a generation of students who were told that all they needed to do to have the same life as their parents and grandparents was go to college and work hard—yet my friends are still struggling to balance student loan debt and bills with living their lives. Most of them are still living
The opinions expressed above do not represent those of The Miscellany News as a whole.
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
paycheck to paycheck. We’ve become the Kings and Queens of the side hustle. My generation has been called lazy, accused of killing the diamond industry (among others) and told that the reason we aren’t rich is because we drink too many $4 coffees and indulge in avocado toast. And Gen Z has a pretty raw deal, too. The technology generation is still defining themselves, but they know that they don’t want to be tied down by materialistic endeavors. They’ve seen what that’s done to their families trying to keep up with the Joneses. More importantly, both generations know something that Boomers never fully grasped: Change doesn’t happen overnight. The “instant gratification” generations are the ones actually seeing the big picture this time. We aren’t saying that Boomers and Gen X won’t be a part of the solutions we create, but we are also saying that we don’t mind breaking a few eggs to make this omelet. 2020 has been hell—a year of death and anger and epic dark humor coping skills— but it has made me proud of the newest generations. Proud to see them standing up to be heard, to protest, to vote. We may be young, but we are mighty, and we are looking forward to changing the world.
October 22, 2020
OPINIONS
Page 13
Implications of Trump’s new Supreme Court appointment Danielle Recco
Guest Columnist
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mid a contentious election season, a Court of Appeals judge has been nominated to the Supreme Court in the wake of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death on Sept. 18. The decision of whether to nominate a new Justice in such close proximity to an election is split starkly across party lines. Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s third and current nomination for the Court, has been undergoing hearings for her appointment this past week, and so far she has provided limited information regarding her stances on critical issues. In a speech on Sept. 26, Trump officially nominated Barrett and discussed her accomplishments, of which there are many. She received a full academic scholarship from Notre Dame Law School, where she graduated first in her class. Afterward, she received a position as a clerk on the Supreme Court for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. In addition, she is the mother of seven children including, as Trump mentioned in his nomination speech, two adopted Haitian children and one son with Down Syndrome. Trump has said she has received support across party lines, and that “Amy Coney Barrett will decide cases based on the text of the Constitution as written.” As Barrett herself has said, “Being a judge takes courage. You are not there to decide cases as you may prefer. You are there to do your duty and to follow the law wherever it may take you.” Nevertheless, her appointment has stirred up controversy. After the death of Antonin Scalia in 2016, President Barack Obama was barred from appointing a new Justice seven months before the Presidential election. Republicans stated that this appointment would be unfair to voters during an election year. Now, the view of Republicans has shifted. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has
pushed forward the voting date for Barrett’s nomination to Oct. 22, which is only two weeks before the election. Democrats worry that Barrett, a devout Catholic with ties to anti-abortion groups and a past member of the Christian group “People of Praise,” will radically shift the balance of the Court. According to a poll by Washington Post-ABC News, “38 percent of Americans think Trump and the current Senate should confirm a new Supreme Court justice, while 57 percent say the decision should be left to the winner of the presidential election and the incoming Senate.” Currently, there are five Republican-appointed and three Democrat-appointed justices; Barrett would change that alignment to 6-3 by replacing progressive Justice Ginsburg. Some of Democrats’ primary concerns with Barrett’s potential confirmation are rulings against abortion, government health care and insurance, election integrity and protection of the environment. During the hearings this week, there has been little to no clarification on Barrett’s stance on these issues. Her approach has been one of caution thus far, which is not without precedent (Justice Ginsburg herself advocated for this approach). Barrett responded, “I would need to hear arguments from the litigants and read briefs and consult with my law clerks and talk to my colleagues and go through the opinion-writing process.” She continued, “If I give off-the-cuff answers, then I would be basically a legal pundit, and I don’t think we want judges to be legal pundits. I think we want judges to approach cases thoughtfully and with an open mind.” Based on the hearings, here is what we do know. Barrett expressed sympathy for George Floyd, as she recounted crying with one of her daughters over his death. This could be an indication of possible sympathies for the Black Lives Matter Movement, which opposed her nomination on their website, but Barrett has neither publicly supported nor condemned the movement. On climate change, she replied that it is a matter up for debate and one that remains
contentious. This comment sparked backlash from activist Greta Thunberg, who responded, “To be fair, I don’t have any ‘views on climate change’ either. Just like I don’t have any ‘views’ on gravity, the fact that the earth is round, photosynthesis nor evolution.” In regard to health care, Barrett suggested that she will allow certain policies to remain, contradicting the wishes of Trump. Barrett refused to comment on cases such as Roe v. Wade (which legalized abortion), Obergefell v. Hodges (which recognized gay marriage) and Griswold v. Connecticut (which legalized contraceptives). Furthermore, according to the New York Times, Barrett refused to comment on whether separation of immigrant children was morally wrong and if Trump could delay the election. A concern created by this appointment is whether Trump will declare the election rigged if he loses and whether the Supreme Court would support this argument. However, it is worth noting that justices have not always voted according to party lines, and it is unclear whether this will hold true for Barrett. In order to balance the Supreme Court, some Democrats have looked toward packing the Court, which entails appointing more than nine justices. Although there have been nine justices since 1869, this is not necessarily an unprecedented idea, as presidents throughout history have altered the number of justices: John Adams reduced the number of justices from six to five to prevent Thomas Jefferson from receiving a majority vote in the Court, and Abraham Lincoln temporarily expanded the court to 10 justices. The most famous attempt at court-packing is Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, which he proposed amid the Great Depression. The bill stated that the President could appoint up to six additional justices to the Supreme Court for every justice older than 70 years and six months who had served 10 years or more. Roosevelt suggested this after receiving numerous vetoes on his New Deal plans, hoping the bill would shift the balance of power
to favor his policies. However, this received backlash from his own party, including his Vice President John Nance Garner. Today, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have refrained from answering as to whether they will attempt a similar feat. In the past, Biden staunchly opposed packing the court, but he has refused to share his opinions in the wake of the appointment of Barrett. When asked about his position, he replied, “You will know my opinion on court-packing when the election is over...This election has begun. There’s never been a court appointment once the election has begun.” Harris stated, “We have to take this challenge head on, and everything is on the table to do that.” Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, has added that this is “not just about expansion, it’s about depoliticizing the Supreme Court.” It seems that voters will not gain clarity any time soon.
Courtesy of Rachel Malehorn via Wikimedia Commons.
Dear Vassar professors, please let us submit PDFs Jonas Trostle
Opinions Editor
W
e are under two weeks away from a presidential election and already eight months into a deadly pandemic, but we still have time for the little things. No, I don’t mean smelling flowers and sipping pumpkin spice lattes, though you are welcome to do so—I mean the types of file formats that professors request students use to submit papers. In my experience, most professors ask for files with a DOCX extension, a format which was developed by Microsoft in 2007 to help standardize its file extensions across its various applications. Officially known as Office Open XML, the DOCX format broke backwards compatibility with the old .doc format. This meant that all previous versions of Microsoft Word prior to the new standard would be unable to open files with this particular extension. Consternation followed that development in 2007 (or 2008 for Mac users), but in the year 2020 we have mostly solved that issue, as most computers these days do not run any pre-2006 versions of Microsoft Office. The modern problems with DOCX are really not problems with DOCX itself, but rather with its place in the
pantheon of file extensions that are now available. Most students in our current age produce their work in a Google Doc (in point of fact, this very article was produced in a Google Doc). It’s a simple workflow that has all the functionality of a full-blown application without having to leave a web browser or fight with a sign-in form (beyond the one that we’re always signed into as a part of daily campus life). I don’t support submitting an essay or exam as a raw Google Doc, however, and my reasons for not doing so are partially shared with my aversion to submitting in DOCX: all the writing tools are immediately available upon opening the document. In traditional essay editing, pre-pandemic, a professor would sit down with a red pen and a student’s paper and provide marks, comments and notes in the margins. This is how I imagine professors read students’ papers, and I imagine they read the work of their colleagues and peers in the same way. There is an air of seriousness and gravitas that is lost when the professor reads sources and contemporaries’ papers as PDF files, but all student papers as a DOCX file or a Google Doc. Because of all the exposed writing apparatuses that Microsoft Word and Google Docs present, student papers look incomplete, as though they’re not finished being produced.But the main reason that asking
for DOCX is detrimental is not because of psychological reasons, but practical ones. I do not have Microsoft Office on my computer, and I am not alone in this. My reasons are my own for leaving the Microsoft ecosystem, but regardless of the particular reason, I’m certain I’m not the only student to do so. As such, when I finish writing on a Google Doc and hit “export as DOCX,” I have no idea what the finished product looks like. I don’t know if the numbers in my graph are all now overlapping, whether my footnotes and page numbers remain formatted correctly or if the equations I entered look anything like the last thing I saw before I exported. I have no way to view or proofread the assignment that I took care crafting until it was just right. The obvious solution is for professors to request papers in Portable Document Format, PDF. Originally developed in 1993, the PDF file format has not outlived its usefulness. Anything, from Windows 10 to Windows 95, MacOS to OS X or Unix to Ubuntu, anything can open a PDF. And since anything can open it, when students finish writing and export to PDF, we can see exactly what it is we’re submitting with our names attached. And it’s not like professors should hate it; it’s the default format for any downloaded academic document, and
The opinions expressed above do not represent those of The Miscellany News as a whole.
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providing comments is much closer to how comments are written on physical paper. Students shouldn’t be the only ones submitting files in PDF format either. For every file in DOCX a professor puts on Moodle, there are probably three copies on every student’s hard drive. Every weekday we face the choice of digging through our downloaded files for the syllabus we downloaded a week ago or downloading yet another copy of that same syllabus. Uploading PDF files instead of DOCX to Moodle lets students open it in a web browser, a faster and less cluttered operation that lets our focus stay on class instead of going through old files. This is not to shame anyone who prefers to have assignments turned in as DOCX files. The pandemic is hard enough as is, and if you’re comfortable with DOCX files and they’re what you prefer, then I don’t believe it’s too much to ask that students extend some grace and conform to your preferred format; we’re all young and generally tech savvy, and we’ll be fine. But, I think I speak for every student when I say we want to do good work, and that when we go to great lengths to impress—sometimes with graphs and charts, sometimes with copious footnotes—we want to know that our time was worth it and didn’t just end up a mangled mess on the page.
SPORTS
Page 14
P
icture this. You’re an NBA player, exhausted in the fourth quarter of a long game at the end of a long road trip. The hotels were mediocre, your team’s performance has been mediocre and at this point, you just want to go home. But imagine the game goes down to the wire, and you end up at the free throw line in the last minutes of play. How demoralizing would it be, after all you’ve slogged through, to see out of the corner of your eyes fans wielding signs urging you to miss? Fans screaming at you? Even insulting your style of play? At least for the portion of the season in the bubble, NBA players didn’t have to worry about this hypothetical. But how much did it improve their performance at the charity stripe? Using official stats from NBA.com, I sought to answer this question. I examined the free throw percentages of the 22 teams who participated in the bubble before and after they arrived at Orlando. Because I had a before and after for each team, and the teams remained relatively the same across both conditions, I could perform a paired samples t-test. These are usually conducted in a laboratory setting where the same subjects are measured on some variable before and after a treatment is introduced. This way, any difference across measurements can be attributed to the effects of the treatment and not to differences across subjects. Considering the newfound absence of fans as the “treatment” in this scenario, I can assume that any difference in free throw percentage is due to emptied arenas. And there was, in fact, a significant (p < 0.01, df = 21) difference: on average, teams
shot 1.4 percent better in Orlando than they did pre-bubble. And this wasn’t because they took fewer foul shots either, which might have meant better foul shooters were getting proportionally more looks. In fact, upon running another paired samples t-test, I found that teams actually attempted significantly (p < 0.001, df = 21) more free throws per game, by 2.13 on average. Even though our sample size from the bubble was bolstered by teams shooting more free throws per game, we still have to take those results with a grain of salt because the bubble sample only included the eight regular season games that each of the 22 teams played. Meanwhile, the pre-bubble sample saw some teams with up to 70 games played. And the downside of using a paired samples test is that it weights each sample equally. So, to strengthen my case, I looked for more evidence from another high-pressure situation that has similarly been altered by the changed in-person fanscape in sports: field goals and extra points in the NFL.Using data from Pro Football Reference, I examined the differences in field goal and extra point success rates between this season and last. I again used paired samples t-tests; while the samples were still different sizes (teams have played five or six games so far this season, and played 16 last), the differences in the sizes were not as stark. I started by looking at field goals attempted 20 to 29 yards out from the goalposts—I skipped those taken from less than 19 yards because there have only been two such attempts this year, while all other categories have seen at least 65 attempts. Only two teams this year and
Throwback Crossword “Seven Years Ago Today”
ACROSS
1. Recess or Equus 5. Brokerage giant with the tagline “Talk to Chuck” 11. It’s all the rage 14. Prefix with plane 15. Beethoven’s third 16 Wolfed down 17. Kelly Clarkson, for one 18. College student’s mid−day antidote 19 *”Friends” star, ’85 21. *New York Congressman, ’80 24. Tobias Funke’s daughter on “Arrested Development” 25. Japanese software brand 26. Adherent: Suffix 27. E.P.A. targets 29. ___−Caps (movie snacks) 30 .Cool shade 31. Biblical pronoun 34. Biblical subj. 36. Cream pastry 41. SEGA’s Hedgehog
Answers to previous
43. TV input option: Abbr. 45. Stockpile 46. Queen of Soul 48. Out of sight, for short 50 Curiosity Rover org. 51. B&B’s 53. Groceries holder 55. Stretch across 56. Take a stab at 57. Average guy 60. Champing at the bit 63. *Survivor winner and Grassroot Soccer founder, ’96 66. *Oscar−adorned demi−goddess, ’71 68. Lamenting expression: Var. 69.“Back hour” 70. Start to fix? 71. Bologna’s home 73. Land with chinchillas 74. Possible vote by a 5−down 75. Chinatown offering 76. Old Pontiac mode
one team last year did not take an attempt from 20 to 29 yards, allowing me to include 29 of the NFL’s 32 teams in the paired samples test. Teams have actually fared worse from this range this year by 3.36 percent on average. But, this was not a significant difference (p > 0.1, df = 28). Only three teams this year haven’t taken any attempts from 30 to 39 yards while all teams last year took at least one, so for this range I was again able to include 29 teams. From this range, teams have fared significantly (p < 0.1, df = 28) better this year to the tune of a 6.12 percent average improvement. The same was true from the 40 to 49 yard range, from which all teams this year and last have taken at least one attempt, faring significantly (p < 0.1, df =31) better by 11.03 percent on average. From 50 yards or more (p = 0.92, df = 28) and for extra points (p = 0.834, df = 31), the results were very insignificant. What does this all mean? Interestingly, the two ranges (30 to 39 and 40 to 49) from which teams have fared better this year are the two from which the most field goal attempts have been taken. This suggests that with more data, the other two ranges might yield the same result. But, some in the NFL would disagree. Take Vikings’ kicker Dan Bailey, for instance, who thinks that silence can be just as distracting as crowd noise because, for one, crowd noise enables you to tune out your opponents’ trash talking. It’s worth noting that in the NBA, while the tradition is to make noise when opponents are at the stripe, it is customary for fans to remain silent when their own team is shooting free throws. Thus, the transition from
50 percent of free throws being taken in silence to 100 percent is a lot less jarring than the one NFL kickers have had to make: going from taking none of their field goal attempts in silence to nearly all. Although some teams in the NFL have allowed fans at limited capacity, the majority have not—even for those who have, the crowd noise has reached nothing near the routinely earth-shattering sounds of Seahawks fans. Home court/field/arena advantage has effects on competitors as diverse across sports as the names for their respective venues. This is due in no small part to the expectations each sport has for fans’ behavior. Some, like tennis, require complete silence when the ball is in play. The NFL and MLB don’t have any such rules, and the NBA falls somewhere in the middle. In an attempt to isolate the effects of fans on pressure, I examined two high-pressure situations in the NFL and NBA. However, pressure seemed to improve performance in tennis, giving me data from sports with all three types of fan behavior. But there aren’t any discrete high-pressure situations in tennis matches that I could test for, and tennis is self-selecting in a way that requires players to perform well under pressure in order for them to play more matches, so naturally any dataset with a minimum match requirement will contain players who do well under pressure. While it remains to be seen whether pressure is truly beneficial for most tennis players, given the significance of the results for the NFL and NBA, I’d put my money on pressure being detrimental to athlete performance overall.
29. Clubs or hearts 30. The connection that all of the starred− clues have to Vassar 31. Org. doing pat−downs 32. Vert.’s opposite 33. Cyclops eye count 35. Video game sports co. 37. Like a Hail Mary pass 38. Battery option 39. 1040 collectors: Abbr. 40. 500 mg., say 42. *CBS National News correspondent, ’1977 44. 11 on a clock 47. Santa ___
49. Presidential first name 52. Philadelphia−to− Poughkeepsie dir. 54. Objectivist heroine to Paul Ryan 55. Witness 56. Vietnam War name 57. Tommy Lee or James Earl 58. Midwest flight destination 59. Boredom 60. “Around the Horn” network 61. Gilette razor 62. “50 Shades of ___” 64. Contact info: Abbr. 65. Closes one’s fly 67. It follows “Around the Horn” 72. Talk radio home
DOWN
1. Duos 2. Shown to one’s seat 3. Solid as ___ 4. The sun, in sunnyside up 5. One of 100 in Congress 6. 11−across 7. Neighbors of the Navajo 8. Cheesehead’s state: Abbr. 9. Comic strip cry 10. *Writer−Director of “The Squid and the Whale” fame, ’91 11. Toll cost 12. Small step 13. Like morning grass 20. Alternative hip hop group ___ Racist 22. Bygone Knick sensation Jeremy 23. Alphabetic trio 28. Pool tool
October 22, 2020
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