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The Miscellany News

Volume CXLVIII | Issue 8

November 12, 2015

Since 1866 | miscellanynews.org

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Video attacks VC student services Dialogue delves into interreligious conflict V Rhys Johnson News Editor

assar maintains a special spot on the ever-growing list of American colleges and universities with reputations for being hotbeds of liberal idealism, a description that many on campus wear proudly. Outside of campus, however, not everyone feels similarly.

On Tuesday, Nov. 3, right-wing nonprofit organization Project Veritas, headed by conservative journalist James O’Keefe, released a video to the internet attacking liberal arts college administrators for their stance on political correctness on college campuses. The video, posted originally on the fringe investigator group’s YouTube channel, featured footage tak-

en in September of Interim Title IX Coordinator and Assistant Director of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Kelly Grab, Faculty Director of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Colleen Cohen and other liberal arts college administrators speaking with a troubled student. The mysterious student claimed that she See GRAB on page 4

Sarah Sandler Columnist

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t is important for Vassar students to be aware of the events happening in the world around us. To promote this belief, Vassar hosted a conversation called Dialogue Across Difference: A Conversation on Israel/Palestine with Duke University’s Imam Abdullah Antepli and Professor Yehezkel Landau from Hartford Seminary. Issues surrounding Israel and Palestine are important to many Vassar students, and this discussion lent new perspectives to a complicated topic. The event was sponsored by the Office of Religious & Spiritual

Life (RSL), a Campus Life and Diversity Office at Vassar College, the RSL Forum for Inter-Religious Dialogue, Africana Studies, Jewish Studies, the Department of Religion and the Office of the President.

“On questions of peace and justice there are often diverging opinions and often tensions and while Vassar can’t solve those particular issues, it’s possible to create spaces for understanding and awareness,” Associate Dean of the College, Edward Pittman explained. By hosting these two speakers, that is exactly what RSL hopes to do.

See PANEL on page 7

ASU speaker critically reflects on Blackness Alan Hagins Reporter

courtesy of YouTube

On Nov. 3, conservative non-profit Project Veritas released a video attacking support administrators at Vassar and Oberlin for what Project Veritas leader James O’Keefe called “political correctness and cultural sensitivity run amok.”

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ast week, accomplished author and Vassar graduate, Nana Brew-Hammond ’98, delivered a lecture on the intricacies of Blackness. In a style of rhetoric which entwined the intimate and academic, Brew-Hammond explained the monolithic narrative of Blackness and attempted to uncover some of its hidden complexities.

“I was born in America but raised

as a Ghanaian,” she began. The personal narrative Brew-Hammond provided framed her discussion of the Black narrative, and her own identity would remain close at hand throughout the lecture.

“It was this narrative that made me want to walk far away from my parents when they spoke our language, Fanti, outside the privacy of our apartment; this narrative that mortified me of the smell of the See LECTURE on page 6

Fencing team’s first Silent poetry adopts visual rhyme contest a ‘Big One’ K Sieu Nguyen Reporter

Ashley Hoyle Reporter

I

Inside this issue

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Lecture contextualizes FEATURES Deccan art

14 ARTS

Photographer features displaced persons in exhibit

courtesy of Vassar College

t seems a bit ironic that the Vassar College men’s and women’s fencing teams would begin, rather than end, their seasons at The Big One, but nonetheless, the tournament proved beneficial for the squads in several ways.

The Big One was hosted this past Saturday at Smith College by the New England Intercollegiate Fencing Conference. Sophomore Annie Innes-Gold explained a bit about the tournament’s structure: “The Big One is an individual competition, unlike most of our meets which are team events. It’s a good opportunity to get a lot of fencing in and get a sense of who the competition is going to be for the rest of the season.”

Many teams from the area who are part of the NEIFC Championship Tournament later in the season use this as an opportunity to get a first look at one another. The Brewers liked what they saw–placing five men in the top ten of their respective weapons.

Junior Olivia Weiss said, “The Big One was the season opener. Although this event is not part of our NCAA meets, it gives the team a chance to fence most of the opponents that we will face throughout the season.”

Still the format of The Big One is

unusual for VC Fencing. Innes-Gold explained, “To prep for The Big One, we practiced 15 touch bouts. Most collegiate meets are 5 touch bouts, however the format of The Big One uses direct elimination bouts, which go to 15, so we had to work on keeping energy up for the longer bouts.”

Sophomore Eli Polston added, “In addition to being 15 point bouts[,] the tournament takes a lot longer than other meets so as a team we were focusing on conditioning and being able to stay in the zone even after you are exhausted from fencing for 4 hours straight. All in all it worked out very well as we were all able to keep our energy up all throughout the day.”

The men’s epee squad was the strongest for the Brewers, who are packed with outstanding personnel.

Sophomores Jonathan Alperstein and George Whiteside both went undefeated in pool competition with a 6-0, 5-0 record respectively.

Last year’s competition saw Alperstein as the victor, and this year five Vassar fencers were in line to take a shot at the title. Alperstein, Whiteside and sophomore Daniel Swerzenski all advanced to the round of 32. Whiteside cruised through a bout against Brandies and fenced another Judge in the round of eights and then another Brandeis See FENCING on page 18

enny Lerner stole a wallet from an inadvertent man at a gas station, handing it to Peter Cook, who then gave out the money to the audience in the fully-packed Sanders Auditorium. Row by row, the audience threw the money around, creating a chain of hand waves from the stage to the technical booth.

No money was actually present.

No voices spoken. No inadvertent man indeed. Only movement and imagination dominated the room.

It was an American Sign Language (ASL) poetry performance lamenting fossil fuel investment by Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner, spotlight artists of the Creative Arts Across Disciplines Initiative (CAAD) last week at Vassar.

Chair of the ASL-English Interpretation Department at Columbia College Chicago Peter Cook is a renowned deaf artist who has performed ASL poetry for 30 years, along with his co-author and interpreter Kenny Lerner, Professor of History at the Rochester Institute of Technology. During their visit to Vassar College from Nov. 5 to Nov. 7, Cook and Lerner delivered the lecture “Painting in the Air: Creativity and American Sign Language” and held an acting workshop for students. Forming a poetry troupe called Flying Words Project, the duo also gave their See POETRY on page 17

Comprised of Peter Cook and Kenney Lerner, the poetry troupe Flying Words uses sign language in their performance. The group performed on campus.

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Intramurals find renewed SPORTS enthusiasm at VC

The Miscellany News

Page 2

The Miscellany News is electing its new Editorial Board for Spring 2016! Apply online at miscellanynews.org

by November 15 at midnight.

Positions available for News, Features, Opinions, Humor & Satire, Arts, Sports, Design, Online, Social Media, Copy, and Photo Editors.

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November

Thursday

MakerSpace Talk

12:00pm | Old Laundry 104 | DiSSCo

Conversation soliciting community input about campus needs for a makerspace / digital studio.

Late Night at the Lehman Loeb

5:00pm| Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Atrium | Art

Communitarian Feminism and the Decolonization of Feminism 5:30pm | CCMPR | LALS

Lecutre on the birth of communitarian feminism.

Jewish/Muslim Dialogue 7:30pm | Rocky 300 | RSL

A conversation on Israel/Palestinewith Imam Abdullah Antepli (Duke University) and Professor Yehezkel Landau (Hartford Seminary)

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November

Friday

14

November

Saturday

15

November

Sunday

Julieta Paredes and Adriana Guzman Workshop

Huck for Red October

Vassar Fencing Invite

No Foreign Oil by 2020 with Bill James

Anti-Racism Workshop

Anti-Racism Workshop

CHOEPHORI

Gail Archer, organ

9:00am | Aula | LALS

1:30pm | OLB 204 | Lecutre on the concpet of Illicit Energy.

CHOEPHORI

9:00am | Taylor&Prentiss| Ultimate Frisbee 9:30am | Kenyon 205 | MBSA 8:00pm | Powerhouse Theater | Drama Dept

8:00pm | Powerhouse Theater | Drama Dept

Richard II

Vassar First Year Class of 2019 Bonfire

Rocky Horror Picture Show

8:00pm | Ballentine Field | Vassar First-Year

Richard II

8:00pm | Shiva | Merely Players 12:00am | Sanders Auditorium| NSO

8:00am | Walker Field House| VC Athletics

9:30am | Kenyon 205 | MBSA

3:00pm | Chapel | Music

Artist for Soup

4:00pm | Aula | Music

VSA Council

7:00pm | Main MPR | VSA

Paper Critique

9:00pm | Rose Parlor | The Misc

Come tell us all about our typos!

8:00pm | Shiva | Merely Players

The Limit Comedy Show

8:00pm | Rocky 200 | The Limit

Rocky Horror Picture Show 12:00am | Sanders Auditorium| NSO

November 12, 2015

Editor-in-Chief Palak Patel

Senior Editor Noble Ingram

News Features Opinions Humor & Satire Arts Sports Photography Design Online Copy

Rhys Johnson Julia Cunningham Emily Sayer Zander Bashaw Connor McIlwain Yifan Wang Zach Rippe Sam Pianello Sarah Dolan Elizabeth Dean Anika Lanser

Crossword Editors Alycia Beattie York Chen Collin KnoppSchwyn Assistant News Jeremy Middleman Assistant Social Media Hannah Nice Reporters Amreen Bhasin Eilis Donohue Ashley Hoyle Sieu Nguyen Sabrina Oh Matt Stein Winnie Yeates Columnists Nick Barone Penina Remler Sarah Sandler Josh Sherman Patrick Tanella Design Christa Haryanto Klara Kaufman Scarlett Neuberger Talya Phelps Samana Shrestha Charlotte VarcoeWolfson Copy Laura Wigginton Noah Purdy Claire Baker Jackson Ingram Steven Park Rebecca Weir Sophie Slater Sophie Deixel Jessica Roden

CHOEPHORI

8:00pm | Powerhouse Theater | Drama Dept.

CORRECTION POLICY The Miscellany News will only corrections for any misquotes, resentations or factual errors for ticle within the semester it is

Give Me Life

8:00pm | Mug | VCPunx

Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies Screening 8:00pm | Rocky 200 | Health Education

Rocky Horror Picture Show 10:00pm | Sanders Auditorium| NSO

Richard II

8:30pm | Shiva | Merely Players

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

accept misrepan arprinted.

November 12, 2015

NEWS

Page 3

Love Heals advocates HIV awareness on college campuses Ethan Baratz

Guest Reporter

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remarked. “But I didn’t show it. I acted tough on the outside and got into a lot of fights with kids at school. I was angry, because it was something that I couldn’t control.” She also discussed how the disease affected her personal and romantic relationships. “The first person I dated, I didn’t have sex with…and when I told him a year and a half later that I was HIV-positive, he ran.”

Canady-Griffith asserted that the most difficult part of having the disease wasn’t the physical symptoms themselves, but rather the emotional burden associated with the disease and the loss of the close friends she had made that also had the illness. “All the friends that I’ve made that had the same thing that I had are gone. That’s more depressing than having the virus itself, because you don’t have the close people that you once had to share the burden with.”

In spite of needing to recount many of the hardships of her life, Canady-Griffith remained positive throughout the event. “I try to be funny because HIV as a whole can be very sad, and that doesn’t help anyone…the truth is, HIV didn’t stop me. It made me angry and made me reevaluate my life, but in the end, it didn’t stop me.”

Canady-Griffith’s story resonated with many who attended. Baum and Pedulla mused, “We found Kim’s assertion that the most difficult part about having HIV wasn’t so much the disease, but the friends she’d lost incredibly powerful.” Many more stayed after the event to continue the dialogue with the speakers. Josephs commented, “A lot of students...engaged with the speakers during the Q&A. I think we all walked away with a new perspective on the disease and people affected by them.”

courtesy of YWCHAC

n Nov. 4, two speakers from the HIV advocacy organization Love Heals came to campus to deliver a presentation on HIV prevention and treatment. Among several topics that were discussed, speakers Moya Brown and Kimberly Canady-Griffith addressed many common misconceptions about transmission, medications and contraction, as well as their personal experiences combating the diseases.

The event was hosted by CHOICE in association with ProHealth and Future Waitstaff of America (FWA) as the third Love Heals talk to be held on campus since 2013. ProHealth President Lena Josephs ’16 said, “In planning the event with CHOICE, we were trying to destigmatize HIV/ AIDS in the Vassar community and also educate students about the dangers of the virus. Kim and Moya are two individuals that know a lot about AIDS, either through first-hand experience with the disease or through their academic pursuits.”

CHOICE members Tessa Baum ’16 and Domenic Pedulla ’16 remarked that Brown and Canady-Griffith brought something new to the Love Heals tradition at Vassar. “In the past, we’ve hosted two male-identified speakers from Love Heals, so this year we wanted to provide a new perspective to represent the full diversity of experiences with HIV.” Brown is a Program Coordinator at the Mt. Sinai Adolescent Health Center who has worked in HIV prevention and education for over 10 years, and Canady-Griffith is a trained health educator who has been HIV positive since birth. In their talk, the two discussed many lesser-known facts about HIV medications and transmission.

“Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PREP) are two relatively new preventative treatments for HIV available to the public now,” said Brown during last week’s event.

“For a long time, PEP treatments were given in 30-day regimens to nurses whenever there was serious concern of exposure to a HIV-positive patient. If taken one to three days following positive

exposure, it decreases the chance of transmission to almost zero percent.”

She continued, “Before, these treatments were only available to medical professionals. But now, they are available to anybody, at least if you are in New York City. Though it’s important to keep in mind that there are some bad side effects to the drugs, and that the treatment is a commitment over 30 days...”

Brown and Canady-Griffith later discussed the ways that HIV can be transmitted from one person to another. “You can be exposed to HIV by coming into contact with four fluids,” she said.

“Blood, semen, breast milk and vaginal fluids.

Those are the only four fluids that transmit HIV.” Brown and Canady-Griffith also stressed the importance of learning about emerging HIV medications and methods of prevention, especially for those who are planning a career in medicine.

“For those that are pre-med or pre-nursing, you will probably provide care for many HIV-positive patients in the future,” Brown said. “HIV is a chronic disease now, so patients don’t have to go to an infectious disease specialist anymore to get treatment. As a physician or nurse, you won’t just be taking blood tests and assigning treatments to your patients—you’ll also be helping them figure out how to take their meds everyday.”

In addition to discussing the facts about HIV transmission and treatment, Brown and Canady-Griffith also spoke about their personal experiences combating the disease. Canady-Griffith, in particular, shared the struggles she endured throughout her lifetime. “I found out that I was HIV-positive at the age of nine, right after I found out that I had lost both my parents,” she said. “My mom became HIV-positive when she was a teenager and passed it onto my father, most likely through drug use. They both died within a few months of each other, when I was in fourth grade, so I moved in with my grandmother.”

Canady-Griffith spoke about how HIV affected her school life when she was growing up. “I cried a lot, because at points the pain coming from my disease and family was too much,” she

On Nov. 4, CHOICE and ProHealth hosted an event featuring speakers from NYC-based HIV/AIDS awareness group Love Heals to foster a dialogue concerning STI prevention on college campuses.

Mayor-elect Rolison rolls out Poughkeepsie policing plan Jeremy Middleman

Assistant News Editor

“A

sources. Our work at HVRC can direct EDA and other job-creation funding here in order to make Poughkeepsie more competitive and improve the quality of life of its residents” (Rob Rolison for Mayor, “Rolison Highlights Federal Distressed Cities Grant Opportunities Available to Poughkeepsie”).

The incoming Republican mayor will likely have to make large-scale institutional changes to multiple systems to bring down crime rates.

Poughkeepsie’s poverty is split clearly along geographical boundaries and racial boundaries. The Town of Poughkeepsie, where Vassar is located, is different from the City of Poughkeepsie. According to data from the United States Census Bureau, 24.9 percent of the City of Poughkeepsie’s population is under the poverty line compared with 10.8 percent for the Town of Poughkeepsie and 15.3 percent for the state of New York.

The City of Poughkeepsie has a significantly larger concentration of minority groups, specif-

courtesy of Spencer Ainsley/The Poughkeepsie Journal

message was sent to everyone in this city, our city, one city working together moving forward that’s what we’re gonna do together,” said newly elected Mayor of Poughkeepsie, Republican Rob Rolison in a statement after the election. Rolison won 60 percent of the general vote against Democrat Randy Johnson with 36 percent of the vote. Rolison will be sworn in as mayor in early 2016 (Time Warner Cable News, “Rolison Elected Poughkeepsie Mayor,” 11.4.15).

Rolison, a retired detective in the Town of Poughkeepsie Police Department, has targeted high crime rates as a central issue of his mayoral tenure with emphasis also on the economy. As Chairman of the Dutchess County Legislature, he established a plan to reduce crime by increasing police presence in “hot spot” areas, increasing police training to include mental health-related training and enforce city ordinances such as littering and driving laws (Rob Rolison for Mayor, “Fighting Crime on Day One”).

Vassar students expressed similar standpoints as Rolison in terms of need for reducing Poughkeepsie’s crime rate. Third year Vassar student and Poughkeepsie resident Muhannad Nesheiwat ’17 reflected on his own exposure to crime and its severity in Poughkeepsie, “[I went to school with a kid] who two months ago was shot in the head at point blank in plain sight over a drug-related issue.” He continued, “I know a lot of kids from my high school that tend to avoid [the metro-Poughkeepsie area]. It is not the cleanest area to go to, especially near the train station. You have a lot of homeless people that badger you whenever you walk past them, they harass you.”

Nesheiwat also thought that increasing the resources and numbers of the police force was important. He said, “Poughkeepsie needs more police enforcement, more police on patrol in the areas where crime rates are highest, maybe even some more undercover work to get more drugs off the streets, that will help with the crime rate...

We need better programs in schools, more extra-curricular activities [and] other teacher programs that will help students stay interested in school and not get sidetracked by any of these

drugs or gangs.”

Treasurer of the Vassar Conservative Libertarian Union Pieter Block ’18 also agreed with Rolison’s immediate approach to dealing with crime.

In an interview, he considered the logic behind Rolison’s increased policing plan, “If you stop someone from breaking a window, they won’t eventually commit a murder or a rape ten years down the line. The hope is that if you give someone a shock to the system very early [and establish] a negative association with committing a crime that people don’t get into serious incarceration which is where serious criminals emerge.

It’s where juveniles become hardcore thugs.”

As the Hudson Valley Regional Council (HVRC) Chairman, Rolison identified resources that could be used during his mayoral tenure to reform the economy of the city. He said, “These problems will not be solved overnight, but we can begin to make the smart investments we need by exploring state and federal funding

Newly elected Mayor of the City of Poughkeepsie Rob Rolison plans to reduce crime rates by increasing the number and training of police officers as well as their presence in the community.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ically Black and Latino communities than does the Town of Poughkeepsie with a large white population. These statistics show that Rolison will have to tread cautiously when issuing new policemen to these areas such that they have the training necessary to bridge racial and cultural differences (U.S. Census Bureau, Poughkeepsie City Census data, 10.14.15).

Not all members of Vassar College feel the same about Rolison’s policies regarding increased policing. Professor of History Rebecca Edwards feels that there are different issues that are more critical than high crime levels. She said in an emailed statement, “Crime is not, for me, anywhere near the top of the list of issues that need to be addressed in the area.” She continued, “Poughkeepsie has some of the same issues that many other urban locations deal with: inequality in housing and schools, lack of social services such as good-quality affordable daycare, an ‘underground’ economy that leaves undocumented workers marginalized and potentially exploited.”

Edwards specifically expressed her disappointment with the direction that Poughkeepsie is headed in dealing with criminals. “One of the issues there is the construction of a very large new jail. Other jurisdictions are turning away from the ‘prison-industrial complex’ as much as possible and seeking alternative treatment methods for drug addiction, for example. But Dutchess apparently hasn’t gotten there yet.”

Few Vassar students recognize the potential impacts of their opinions and votes. President for Off-Campus Activities of Democracy Matters Sam Beckenhauer ’18 attempted to raise awareness of votes in an emailed statement, “Students should care about local politics because they have the ability to affect election and consequently affect public policy. It is not uncommon for elections to come down to a single vote.”

Beckenhauer continued, “Affecting the County races would have had ramifications on the building [of this jail].”

Rolison will enter the office amid high social tensions and with high expectations. Rolison will get the opportunity to respond to concerns about his stances on issues in an interview that will be released in the next issue.

NEWS

Page 4 Outside the Bubble

—Shelia Hu, Guest Reporter America Suffers From Fish Fraud Epidemic In restaurants and supermarkets throughout the country, some of the most common fish people order– salmon and tuna being only a few examples–may not be the fish the people are served. Oceana, a non-profit ocean conservation group, conducted a two-year investigation on seafood purchased in 674 supermarkets, restaurants and sushi bars across 21 states. In 2013, they found that one-third of all fish bought in these locations were mislabeled. For example, across all categories, 87 percent of all snapper samples did not contain snapper, and 59 percent of white tuna was not white tuna. Sushi restaurants were particularly erroneous; 74 percent of the fish they served were mislabeled (USA Today, “Fishy fakes common in restaurants,” 02.21.13).

Fraudulence of red snapper is the most concerning. Among 120 samples of red snapper, only seven were purely snapper. Oceana senior scientist Kimberly Warner said, “The majority of fraud is various fish standing in for snapper – it’s used as catch-all name for all kinds of white fleshed-fish” (Northeast Public Radio, “One In Three Fish Sold At Restaurants And Grocery Stores Is Mislabeled,” 02.21.13). More recently, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated species mislabeling to have risen to 40 percent nationwide (HuffPost Green, “The New ‘Bait and Switch’ on Seafood,” 06.01.15).

Interspecies mislabeling is not the only issue in restaurants. Oftentimes, food providers blatantly lie about where the fish is from to drive the prices higher. A 2011 study from Food Research International states that one-third of the wild-caught salmon sold in Washington state is farm-grown salmon, artificially doubling prices (HuffPost Green).

One reason this problem is so widespread in the United States is the severe lack of regulation of imports. America now imports roughly 90 percent of fish and FDA regulation inspects less than two percent of these imports (Northeast Public Radio).

Some argue that the FDA must enforce more regulations, but for now, consumers can do a few things to ensure what they are eating is what they bought. Ask questions about where the fish came from. If possible, buy a whole fish to be sure it is truly the desired food.

Lastly, look for logos, such as the Marine Stewardship Council, for verification that the seafood is correctly labeled (USA Today, “Fishy fakes common in restaurants,” 02.21.13).

—Derek Sonntag, Guest Reporter

Community rallies around Title IX Office GRAB continued from page 1

was triggered by the United States Constitution, copies of which members of the CATO Institute had been passing out the week before.

The anonymous student, however, was not really a member of the Vassar community. She was one of O’Keefe’s reporters for Project Veritas, sent out to Vassar and Oberlin College to surreptitiously capture administrators’ responses to the invented situation. Having made her way into Grab’s office for a private meeting, the undercover reporter explained her situation. “Last week something kinda happened on campus that kind of really upset me and I ended up having a panic attack,” she confided in Grab.

“It’s just I’ve been kind of hiding out in my room ever since kind of scared, so, finally somebody told me I should maybe come talk to you about it and see if there’s anything that can happen or anything… They were handing the Constitution out on campus.”

Grab acknowledged the proposed concern, asking if there was anything the student impersonator felt could be done to help alleviate the troubling circumstances. “I’m sure there are also some people who, who maybe don’t understand the impact that this might have on folks, right?” she asked. “I think what you’re sharing with me is that your interaction in receiving this was harming, right? And that’s what we certainly want to avoid. We don’t want to limit people in exchanging ideas or having opposing viewpoints, but when it’s disruptive or causing harm...” The reporter then told Grab that she had the copy of the U.S. Constitution she was given with her, and asked if Grab would be willing to destroy it as a means of catharsis. Grab agreed, and shredded the copy.

Having caught Grab in the act, O’Keefe, dressed in a Constitution mascot costume, argues throughout the video that the surreptitious footage is evidence of a culture of political correctness that has taken precedence over respect for one of the nation’s founding documents.

“When this idea came up in our newsroom about campus administrators shredding the Constitution because it’s a trigger against students, we didn’t think people would actually fall for it. But we underestimated just how stupid and politically correct these people are,” he says.

“We were amazed and disappointed. Political correctness and cultural sensitivity run amok.”

The video, which received thousands of views almost immediately after it was picked up from YouTube by websites Campus Reform and The Federalist, was met with outrage from internet conservatives with similar views. One YouTube commenter wrote, “It’s funny how these college officials find the Constitution so offensive, but seem to have no problem with the part of it that gives them the right to shred it because they don’t like what it says.” A person commenting on The Federalist’s coverage of the story remarked, “You want to help a student who is ‘traumatized’ by the site of the constitution? Give them a semester abroad in country with no constitution.”

On campus, however, the video has been received differently. Most have agreed that Project Veritas’ actions were unethical, and many more have called the video a clear instance of entrapment rather than investigative journalism. On the night of the video’s public release, President Catharine Bond Hill wrote in an emailed statement, “It is clear that the impersonator was attempting to entrap members of our staff whose responsibilities include providing an unbiased, empathetic response to students who express being in distress and a referral to other appropriate resources on campus...It is unacceptable that someone would take advantage of our administrators’ openness in such a dishonest and fraudulent way.”

Similarly, Acting Dean of the College Benjamin Lotto addressed the video as malicious. He wrote in an emailed statement, “Project Veritas’ ‘reporting’ is widely known to be and has been repeatedly demonstrated as fraudulent, unethical, and illegitimate. Like many students, I feel outraged over their violation of a confidential space for the Vassar community.”

This was not the only issue community members took with the video, however. VSA VP for Student Life Christopher Brown ’16 asserted that even more troubling than O’Keefe and Project Veritas’ attempts to purposely smear the names of Vassar and other liberal arts colleges was their willingness to do so at the expense of the time and effort of student-support administra-

courtesy of Vassar College

President Obama Vetoes Keystone Pipeline On Nov. 6, President Obama announced his rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline request made by TransCanada, a Canadian energy infrastructure company. The pipeline was supposed to be 1,179 miles long and would transfer petroleum from Canada to the Gulf Coast. This announcement ends the proposal’s seven-year review. (New York Times, “Citing Climate Change, Obama Rejects Construction of Keystone XL Oil Pipeline,” 11.06.15).

The Keystone XL Pipeline was the fourth and final phase of project. Although much of the pipeline is already built and operational, the last phase created controversies. Environmentalists strongly opposed the pipeline, claiming that building the pipeline would significantly contribute to climate change. The crude oil extracted from Canada would be from oil sands which creates 17 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than the average barrel of U.S. crude oil. In addition, the proposed pipeline would run through the Ogallala aquifer, which holds 978 trillion gallons of fresh water and supplies 30 percent of the nation’s irrigational water (NPR, “What you need to know about the Keystone Oil Pipeline,” 11.17.14).

In his address, Obama stated, “America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change, and frankly, approving this project would have undercut that leadership” (CNN, “Obama rejects Keystone XL Pipeline,” 11.06.15). Advocates of the project claimed that it would move in the direction of American energy independence as well as create jobs. There was a strong reaction to Obama’s announcement from Republicans, including from Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. “This decision isn’t surprising, but it is sickening,” he said. “Obama is rejecting our largest trading partner and energy supplier. He is rejecting the will of the American people and a bipartisan majority of the Congress” (CNN).

TransCanada President Russ Girling remarked that the company is still committed to the project. “We will review our options to potentially file a new application for border-crossing authority to ship…crude oil,” he said (TransCanada, “President permit denial: a disappointing choice,” 11.07.15).

November 12, 2015

In response to conservative investigative group Project Veritas’ recent smear video against Title IX Officer Kelly Grab, the Vassar community united in solidarity around its student support services. tors like Grab and Cohen. “I find that the fact that Project Veritas used false pretenses in order to bait these women absolutely disgusting.

Surprising, no, but disgusting, yes,” Brown commented. “These women are important resources on this campus, and the only thing that makes me angry about this whole process is that their time was wasted by someone who was posing as a distraught student.”

Criticism of the video and its creators came strongly from the Vassar community. Stronger, however, has been the community’s overwhelming support of Grab and Cohen in light of the video, as students and administrators alike asserted that the two acted entirely appropriately in the situation they were presented with.

Brown went on to posit, “I think that the video portrayed both Kelly and Colleen as well as the other women from Oberlin in very positive ways, frankly. Kelly and Colleen, in their capacity as resources for students, were attempting to help someone who came into their offices seeming extremely distraught. They handled themselves with professionalism and I would expect nothing less from two well-respected faculty members from this campus.”

Lotto agreed, “What I see in the video is Kelly responding to a ‘student’ who came to her confidentially and was in crisis. Her reaction was unbiased, empathetic, validating, and supportive.

In other words, she was doing exactly what she should have been doing, and doing it superbly.

The same is true for Colleen Cohen. I’m proud that we have such excellent, committed, caring professionals working on campus to support our students.”

In a show of community-wide solidarity, dozens of students have written to Grab and stopped

by Metcalf House to succor Vassar’s Title IX Office after the slanderous video went viral. Days after the story, a Google document spread across social media outlets, where students could put their name and class year to show their support.

Several hundred students wrote their names down in just a few days, as did some alumnae/i.

In spite of the outpouring of community support, many have remained worried that O’Keefe’s manipulation of the College’s open campus policy may necessitate a reconsideration of that openness. Lotto mused, “Having an open campus provides tremendous value in connecting Vassar to the greater Poughkeepsie and mid-Hudson Valley communities. However, an open campus policy comes with some challenges as well. The Vassar community needs to have a broad conversation about what it means to have an open campus, and specifically [the] who, when, and how of access to different parts of the campus. It’s not clear whether a more restrictive access policy to campus would prevent a college-aged individual posing as a student from walking into an office whose fundamental purpose is to be welcoming and supportive.”

Others have wondered what the campus community’s response should be, whether to pursue legal action against O’Keefe and Project Veritas or to simply let the matter fade into oblivion on its own. Lotto asserted that Project Veritas’ actions, however objectionable, are best left ignored. “In my opinion, any response implicitly recognizes this video as worthy of consideration

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

— which it is not,” he wrote.

Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs Jeff Kosmacher proposed that the best solution to public outcry from these conservatives is simply for the community to remain steadfast in their belief in what Grab and Cohen do for Vassar, and be vocal about it. “Maybe one of the most important things students can do as a result is to share with others their pride in the Vassar people so dedicated to their wellbeing and education,” he wrote in an emailed statement.

Brown expressed similar sentiments, suggesting that support for Grab and Cohen is already building within the community. “I honestly think the best thing to do is what already has happened. The buzz behind the video itself seems to have gone away and been forgotten, and there was a lot of love thrown out into the world by students and faculty alike, especially about Colleen and Kelly,” he explained. “I think the community just needs to focus on how these women handled themselves during this moment, and enjoy the fact that we live in a community with such inspiring mentors and professors.”

Neither O’Keefe nor Project Veritas have remained silent since the video’s posting, however. A second video was released two days after the first, on Nov. 5, featuring the same methods used to entrap Grab applied to administrators in similar positions at Yale University, Syracuse University and Cornell University. In all three instances, given the same pretenses, the administrators chose to destroy the pocket-sized copy of the Constitution, once again raising a furor among right-wing viewers.

Just as was the case for Vassar, however, those communities responded with continued support of their Title IX officers, refusing to accept that their reactions were inappropriate or disrespectful. In a press release, Vice President for University Relations at Cornell University Joel Malina expressed similar criticism of the methods used in the production of the video and the slanderous intentions of those responsible for it.

“The Project Veritas video released today would have you believe an employee was helping a student make a political statement by denigrating the U.S. Constitution. In fact, the video shows a ‘reporter’ misrepresent herself as a student with a mental health crisis,” Malina wrote. “Whatever personal views she may have shared in order to connect with a ‘student’ who appeared to be in crisis, as an employee of Cornell University she was appropriately focused on addressing the apparently urgent need of the person before her and not on any larger political context” (Cornell University Media Relations Office, “Vice President Joel Malina on today’s Project Veritas video,” 11.05.15).

Whether Project Veritas will continue its attack on Vassar’s peer institutions appears unclear. For now, however, the community remains hopeful that it will survive the attempted character assassination, and that Vassar’s reputation will not be tarnished by the incident. “The sad facts are well known,” Kosmacher remarked.

“Project Veritas manufactured a result that serves its purposes. Hopefully their deceitful practices will be seen for what they are, by anyone who might otherwise gain a misimpression of Vassar through this charade.”

November 12, 2015

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Doniger illustrates significance of jewelry within society Aditi Chandna Reporter

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ow and why does jewelry function to transact or circumscribe the ethics of sex within religious narratives?

Professor at University of Chicago, a world renowned scholar on Hinduism as well as the history of religions, Wendy Doniger has made it her profession to answer this question.

Rocky was full of students and faculty alike who were looking forward to Doniger’s lecture.

While informative, at the same time Doniger was surprisingly humorous.

Chair of the Religion Department Jonathan Kahn, said, “Her work is always extremely innovative and creative, pushing and challenging boundaries and norms.” He went on, “Doniger is world-famous and her work sits at the inter-

section of multiple disciplines,” On Monday, Doniger visited Vassar College to give a talk entitled The Mythology of Women and their Jewelry. She covered various women throughout history and mythology and the feeling of validation that wearing jewelry has had on their identity and moral character.

Associate Professor of Religion E.H Rick Jarow said, “What’s really interesting to me is that she single handedly revolutionized the way a lot of people look at Indian texts. She was the first major figure who dared to look at the underbelly of traditions.”

Doniger wasn’t satisfied with the idea of the “ideal” woman. Rather, she worked to bring to light the everyday issues that men and women alike face. “She wasn’t satisfied by just idealizing or narrating but really applied methodolo-

courtesy of The University of Chicago

Professor from University of Chicago Wendy Doniger came to Vassar to share her insight on the role of jewelry and other trinkets in mythology in describing womens’ status in society.

gies in such a way that forced us to face issues that we deal with in our lives such as violence, sexuality, power and domination,” Jarow said.

While Doniger’s main field is religion, and her lecture was hosted by the Religion Department, her knowledge intersects many fields of study.

Jarow went on, “She has been able to give comparative studies a validation, an academic respect. She has studied with some major Indologists from Harvard and Oxford. She has reminded us of how important it is to study religion in both domains and it’s application in the world we’re living in as well as scrutinizing texts and cultures” Doniger, who is well-versed in Sanskrit and Indian traditions, history and mythology, is not afraid to dig deep into the root of different cultures. Her recent book “The Hindus,” an alternative history of Hinduism, was removed from Indian shelves due to controversy.

The book has become a cause for free speech activists from around the world. “We at Vassar stand up for freedom of thought and are against ideological bullying. This is so that everyone’s voice can be heard,” Jarow said.

Doniger’s lecture on Monday took a stance for the trinkets that sometimes spoke volumes about the wearer before she could say anything herself. Rings and other trinkets often symbolize either legitimate married women, or illegitimate unmarried women with lovers.

Doniger went on to read examples from her unpublished book about the same topic, from Indian and Hebrew mythology to a host of modern culture such as sitcoms and jewelry advertisements.

She went on to provide specific examples from mythology where women used their jewelry as validation by retelling the tales of Judah and Tamar, Shakuntala and Dushyant, and a few others.

“Why do rings keep getting into stories about marriage and adultery, love and betrayal, loss and recovery, identity and masquerade?

What is the mythology that makes rings the

symbol of true as well as untrue love?” Doniger asked. She answered herself, explaining, “Rings are an authentication. To a married woman, a ring shows the rest of the world that she is married to her husband. The other sort of woman gets other sorts of jewelry as validation from men in payment for sleeping with them.”

This event, sponsored by the Religion Department, was the Frederic C Wood Lecture of 2015. Wood was an Associate Professor of Religion and the college’s chaplain in the late 1960s.

Kahn said, “His interests were in left-wing politics, in particular questions of gender and sexuality. He died tragically of leukemia in 1970. He was a charismatic presence, an engaging teacher and consistently expressed concerns for social ethics and the relevance of religion and guided thinking.”

Kahn went on, “Despite the debilitating effects of leukemia Frederic C Wood lived life to its limits. He showed those around him a robust affirmative attitude toward life. In his memory, his parents generously endowed this lecture series to explore ‘innovative and vital religious thought.’” Doniger represents these traits through her leading-edge take on the role of jewelry in society.

Doniger ended with a Q and A session that was interactive and informative. Doniger gave clear and detailed answers to audience members’ queries. She answered questions about anything from television shows to Aristotle.

Through her answers she provided a glimpse of her immense knowledge about her field of study.

Piper Yang’19, a student in the audience said that Doniger’s delivery of the topic was engaging despite its serious roots. Yang said, “I thought it was really good. I think her humor really brought out the idea that it’s almost ridiculous how the subjugation and objectification of women is brought about through jewelry and how it has lasted for so long, and still subtly continues to do so,”

Community works to equip migrant women with job skills Matt Stein Reporter

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conference from all across New York State.

We provide childcare by a professional childcare provider. We also provide translation and interpretation [resources] so that anyone can participate fully.”

The Rural & Migrant Ministry offers education for both men and women of all walks of life, language and culture to further develop healthy business and living skills, domestically and spiritually To reinforce the Conference’s intentions, Lecour, who has been involved with the Conference’s growth since inception, replied, “Our goals : 1. We would love to be able to increase the number of participants by being able to afford to provide scholarships, transportation and childcare to every woman who desired to be a participant. 2. Spread the word far and wide that there is a network of rural women and their allies so that we can attract more speakers and educators on a wider variety of

topics. 3. Continue to be a catalyst for grassroots organizations, universities, congregations and other allies to build upon the network we have created of individuals who are seeking women’s empowerment, leadership development and justice.”

Coria explained the importance of the empowerment this conference can provide best, responding, “It’s a good way to come together.

We all have issues. I believe that women are seen as the weak role in the picture but we are more than that. We have so much more to offer.

It can empower and allow women to be aware of the power they already possess. We take our turns. Nobody knows anybody. You can take your turn to say what is bothering you or at the back of your head that you can’t really say to anybody else. The conference brings a circle of trust and that’s one reason a lot of women go back. They know that it’s their weekend for them to say what they want to say.”

courtesy of Rural and Migrant Ministry, Inc. via Facebook

ast Friday from 6 to 9 p.m. at the ALANA Center, Rural & Migrant Ministry, Daughters of Sarah and Poder Latin@ hosted a fundraiser for rural women. Selling Jamaican, Mexican and Southern food for $10, they raised money to provide scholarships to allow rural women in New York an opportunity to attend the Annual Rural Women’s Conference. Members of the Rural & Migrant Ministry, including Conference founder Ruth Faircloth, her daughter Mona and Board Member Iris Coria ran the fundraiser.

Arisa Gereda ’16, who served as their intern and the organizer of this fundraiser as well as high school students from the Ministry’s Youth Arts Group (YAG) also helped out.

Scheduled for the first weekend of December at the Holiday Inn in Binghamton, the 10th Annual Rural Women’s Conference will give an opportunity for rural women who might be isolated by location, language, culture or resources to have an opportunity to connect with others in similar situations and attend workshops and presentations that offer support and lessons of empowerment. There will also be a Resource Fair at the convention to provide future opportunities. Women will be able to share their stories in a safe environment that allows them the comfort and aide they might need. The workshops will cover such important topics as domestic violence and immigration.

Conference Founder and Director, Ruth Fairchild, explained the importance of the fundraiser and the conference, saying, “We originally started this to help migrant families, specifically rural women, because no one cared. But they ought to be listened to. At least half of our women are coming right off from where they are, from their homes, from their streets, and we pick them up. This fundraiser and others are being used to provide free scholarships to help make more able to go. At the conference, we’ll be able to educate them and empower them so that they can be independent and learn to start their own businesses.”

Fairchild also founded the Daughters of Sar-

ah, an ecumenical women’s leadership and support group, and has helped rural communities in empowerment for years.

“The annual conference is a way for rural and migrant women across New York to gather and meet each other and work towards issues they feel most strongly about, whether education, workers’ rights, health issues, domestic issues, youth empowerment, justice system issues and more,” Gereda said. “The women in charge are the ones doing the amazing work for this program.”

To raise money to allow for more women to attend the conference, the Rural & Migrant Ministry, a not-for-profit organization, will hold additional fundraisers in the weeks leading up to the conference and will hold a silent auction with gifts donated by several organizations.

Besides the conference, the Rural & Migrant Ministry provides several youth programs. In addition to summer camps and internship opportunities, there is also YAG, which is for high school-aged students who educate and empower their communities through creative actions in a strive towards improving the world politically, economically and socially.

Coordinator of YAG, Andrés Chamarro, has helped organize events. He explained, “Last year, for instance, we did a presentation on youth empowerment and about the DREAM Act. They were mostly geared to youth but anybody was welcome. This year we’d like to do something similar. We are excited to support the Rural and Migrant Ministry again and Ruth Faircloth.”

Regarding the opportunity that many of these women face, Managing & Development Director, Laura Lecour, said that rural women face many barriers including economic, language, time and distance. She said, “The nature of the work they do, farmworking, provides no time, resources, childcare nor the transportation to seek out methods of bettering their lives, nor the lives of their children. This conference addresses the issues and hopes of rural women’s lives in a practical and holistic manner. We provide the transportation to the

Rural & Migrant Ministry held a fundraiser to raise money for rural women in New York who hope to attend the annual Rural Women’s Conference in Binghamton, which provides a safe discussion space.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

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November 12, 2015

Rediscovered ancient culture sparks further discussion Amanda Su

Guest Reporter

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canese history and reveal much about Indo-Islamic culture. Sardar encountered numerous issues in researching these artifacts, however.

Sardar stated, “While the Sultans were Muslim, there was much more diversity there. It was a bit hard to represent in an exhibition.” Sardar added, “Most of the paintings shown provides a relaxed and intimate view into courtly life.”

It is rare to find images of commoners or peasants. The majority of the available artwork are depictions of the region’s court life. Sardar said, “You don’t really see people outside of the court appear in paintings unless it’s part of an illustration in a book.” She continued, “The art we are talking about does not deal with the common people at all. We are only seeing a small percentage of the population presented.

This is only a small body of evidence.”

For some, the lecture provided the perfect

opportunity for class credit. Sharika Hasan ‘19 is currently in a class covering Indo-Islamic history from the 700s to the 1700s. The topic of the lecture not only coincided with the topic of her current class, but also piqued her interest.

Hasan stated, “I thought the topic of the lecture was very interesting, and I would have still been interested in the lecture even if the extra credit was not there. The class only brought my attention to the lecture.”

Many misconceptions exist between African and Indian history. Sardar’s lecture illuminated the cloud of ambiguity that surrounds this topic. Hasan said, “You don’t really relate African history and Indian history that much, so it was really interesting to see how they connected. It was interesting to see how those connections are happening even if it’s something we didn’t really talk about in class.”

courtesy of James Gregg/The San Diego Tribune

he Deccan region and the rule of its sultans was characterised by its rich culture and opulent artwork. However, despite the rich region which attracted many great artists from across Europe and Asia: from Iran, Turkey and Africa, the history and art of this region remains ambiguously hidden behind a shroud of mystery and misconceptions.

Associate curator of Southern Asian and Islamic Arts at The San Diego Museum of Art, Marika Sardar, brings her specialized knowledge and expertise to campus in a talk titled, “The Indo-Islamic World: Prominent Africans in the Deccan Kingdoms of India, 1500-1700.”

The event, which was held in Rockefeller Hall 300 on November 10th, exposed students to the connections and interactions between Asia and Africa and the distinctive art that spawned as a result of it.

Professor of Political Science Himadeep Muppidi was the main coordinator of the event.

He explained, “The reason the talk is important is that people tend of have stereotypical views of Africa, Islam and Asia. What Dr. Sardar’s work and lecture will help us see are the ways in which these categories are complex and flow into each other.”

Little is known about the Deccan region and culture. Sardar’s book and lecture on campus saught to remedy this. Sardar’s lecture focused on the distinct artwork that surfaced in the Deccan region and the rise of prominence of sultanates from slaves to sultans.

Sardar spent six years in the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she reinstalled numerous galleries and exhibitions featuring Islamic art. This year, Sardar co-curated one of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibitions, titled “Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy.”

This exhibition was the first to concentrate on the Deccan region and the five great sultanates that ruled there in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries. Sardar’s Metropolitan Museum exhibition took 10 years to make and featured works from collections all over the world.

In addition to being the co-curator of this exhibition, Sardar also co-authored a book of the same title, which focuses on Deccani works in the 16th and 17th century. The book discusses 200 of the finest Deccani works and examines the various forms of art that surfaced from this culture.

Muppidi said, “Historically there have been significant connections between Asia and Africa. Categories of the way we think of the world now are all problematic. There are all sorts of interconnections. Art history can throw light on some of the historical debates.”

Sardar described the Deccan area as a location with a very unique landscape. The region sourced many different minerals, including cotton and large diamonds. Sardar said, “The area is connected well-beyond its borders, both through trade and politics.”

Sardar explained, “The art and paintings presented in the lecture have a sense of self-presentation that distinguishes Deccanese rulers from the Mughal in the North.”

Though the artwork and objects spawned from the same Deccan region, today they remain sprawled across the globe in the hands of several collectors. Sardar states, “It was fun to bring together objects from so many different collections around the world.” In regards to the artifacts in her co-curated exhibition, Sardar said, “Objects were gathered to show the variety of shapes. Each object has a different pattern to it.”

Despite the distinctions of each artifact, Sardar stated, “The objects illustrate that these are all highly connected areas that each developed their own unique style of architecture and paintings.” She added, “You can’t really see the divisions within the culture of this time. It certainly wasn’t evident.”

The artwork depicted in the lecture and displayed in exhibitions illustrate a rich Dec-

Marika Sardar discussed the complexities of bringing together art from different cultures from the ancient world. She was hosted by the Political Science Department at Vassar to presemt her findings .

Brew-Hammond recalls racial exclusion in return to US LECTURE continued from page 1 salt fish that seeped out into the hallway from under our door when my mother prepared it; this narrative that made me ashamed of the stubborn dots of palm oil that stuck to the wall above the stove; this narrative that prompted my classmates to kindly call me ‘African booty-scratcher’; it was a narrative I wanted nothing to do with.” Brew-Hammond said of the African stereotype that is so fixed in the American imagination.

These events pushed Brew-Hammond to seek a new, African-American identity. Yet African-American membership was not easily gained, and by the time Brew-Hammond returned to Ghana she found herself caught between communities reluctant to acknowledge her.

“There seemed to be an unspoken understanding that the community I had come from

in America had irrevocably altered my belonging to the Ghanaian community, but in the U.S. I did not belong as myself either,” she said.

These more intimate details of Brew-Hammond’s life and identity helped to concretize the idea of intersectionality for her audience, which would become a central theme of her lecture.

The twitter hashtag, #AskRachel, which arose in response to reports of Former NAACP Chapter President and passing black activist, Rachel Dolezal’s illegitimate claim to African ancestry, provided a distinct example for Brew-Hammond’s study of the way monolithic conceptions of identity are perpetuated.

As African Students Union (ASU) member who attended the lecture, Ehimwenma Osagie ’17, described, “During the #AskRachel period, a lot of Africans and non-American Blacks felt excluded from Blackness because of their

courtesy of AlexeiAfonin.com

Nana Brew-Hammond ‘98 came back to campus to discuss her identity growing up as an Africam-American and what that made her realize about the meaning of being black in America.

inability to answer questions on Twitter.” A prominent survey during this period asked participants to prove their identity by answering questions about Black cultural tropes.

Osagie went on to describe the alienation these surveys implied, “This monolithic view of Blackness excluded several people who identify as Black, including but not limited to: Black immigrants, First generation Americans, and biracial people.” Dolezal proved to be a thorny topic for Brew-Hammond who was caught offguard by her empathy for the activist.

“One of the things that transfixed me about her was that I could relate to her masquerade on some level,” said Brew-Hammond of Dolezal. The surveys and hashtags generated after Dolezal’s unmasking with the aim of uniting a community held alienating consequences for those outside of the Black majority.

The response to information about Dolezal’s ancestry pushed a monolithic narrative forward. Brew-Hammond believes the problem is our eagerness to find a simple solution to a complex issue. “We know that intersectionality is real, that as human beings, no one is one thing. And yet we find that reality inconvenient,” she said.

“Rachel Dolezal saw the advantage of our expansiveness, and she leveraged it to her advantage,” Brew-Hammond explained in frank terms. She continued, “So why don’t we, as black people, why aren’t we embracing our expansiveness? When we question the authenticity of a biracial person, we undermine ourselves.” Osagie agreed that the black narrative was an important one. She said, “Our hope was to complicate the Black narrative. The notion of Blackness, as it is now, excludes the narrative and experiences of non American Blacks, thus creating Anti-Blackness in the homes of those who are not Black Americans.”

Brew-Hammond did not deny the strong incentives to keep this monolithic narrative alive, especially from the white-power structure. Late in her speech she said, “the dominant culture benefits from maintaining a negative and stereotypical definition of Blackness because do-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ing so upholds the status-quo.” Truthful rhetoric not uncommon at Vassar College.

Perhaps her most personally honest turn of phrase came right after, “Us in the ‘pick-yourpants-up camp’ legitimize the idea that all young black people need to do to succeed in the world is to dress in a certain way. That if they just take off their hoodie, and take the earrings out of their ears they would be respected.”

But Brew-Hammond was not content to let that convenient notion rest. With a nod to history she continued, “Martin Luther King Jr., as we know, was assassinated wearing a suit, as was Malcolm X. Four little girls wearing church clothes were killed in 1973. And I know the nine men and women killed at bible study in South Carolina were wearing black skin.”

Her historical argument gave way to a personal one with reference to questions about her own identity in the workplace. Harkening back to her time at Vassar, she said, “My education at Vassar gave me context for why this thinking was naïve and dangerous to us all, but as I peeled off and entered the work-force, that context became very real to me.”

She continued, “I learned at one of my jobs after college that even with my Vassar degree and my talent, some people at work in a position to nurture me didn’t see themselves in me in the same way they saw themselves in my white counterparts. And that ended up handicapping my progress. I learned that in many peoples eyes I was just like those other African-Americans.”

Brew-Hammond’s visit was a much needed departure for some of the members of the ASU who believed there has not been enough African speakers on campus.

While ASU leader and long-time member, Kenechukwu Nwosu ’16, was pleased with Brew-Hammond’s insight, he believes there are still many more questions to be asked. He said, “She had no sweeping solutions, which was fine; uniting groups without stamping out difference is an unending difficulty in all areas of human identity. I didn’t expect her to solve that in 20 minutes.”

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Landau, Abdulah exchange Israel-Palestine perspectives PANEL continued from page 1

zenship and has worked for over thirty years in Israel and the U.S. with interfaith education and Jewish-Arab peacemaking.

“Both Imam Antepli and Doctor Landau have extensive experience in dialogue across difference,” said Speers. “Each has a profound personal story that has led them to believe that such dialogue is important for communities, especially communities on college campuses, where each of them has made their careers,” he continued.

Pittman agreed that having access to dialogue, rather than just lectures, is important.

He is hopeful that the dialogue between Antepli and Landau will open the door to wider discussions around campus. “I believe that our focus is on creating opportunities for learning and dialogue around the various perspectives regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict and especially differing perspectives on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS),” he said. “At the same time, it takes more than dialogue to address long-standing conflicts—especially when there are fundamental questions equity, peace and justice. Dialogue is a beginning, however.”

Students for Justice in Palestine, however, disagreed. “We don’t oppose dialogue; we oppose dialogue-centric organizations, like the ones that the speakers at this lecture are members of.,” they said. “Palestinians and Israeli do not need to sit-down and talk to achieve mutual understanding. In the context of ending the conflict, Palestinians only need to know that they are occupied and that Israel occupies them—and every Palestinian knows this already. So it is Israel that must understand that it is the occupier.”

With Vassar organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine and Vassar Jewish Union, this conversation is not one that students are easily able to talk about on campus. for Vassar students.

Students for Justice in Palestine said, however, that they do not feel the College does justice to the issue. “The College as an institution has failed to not only acknowledge the human rights violations of Israel, but also to provide

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courtesy of Samuel Speers

The Dean’s Office’s role in bringing these speakers to campus, Pittman went on, is to keep the campus aware of the present international issues. “Beyond the particular dialogue event on Thursday, our goal is to be proactive in creating opportunities for discourse and not wait until a crisis moment,” he explained. He continued, “I believe that President Hill and others are committed to this path of action as it benefits students, faculty, staff and the large Vassar alumni community.”

Imam Abdulah Antepli is the Chief Representative of Muslim Affairs and an Adjunct Faculty member of Islamic Studies at Duke University. He is also the founder and executive board member of the Association of College Muslim Chaplains. He is a native of Turkey and also has experience working on faith-based relief efforts in Myanmar and Malaysia. In addition to his current role at Duke University, Antepli was the first Muslim Chaplain there and at Wesleyan University.

Assistant Dean of the College for Campus Life and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life Samuel Speers explained that his relationship with Antepli is through ministry work that they do together. He said, “I know Imam Antepli from some national chaplaincy work we do together. He is one of the pioneers of Muslim chaplaincy in the U.S. and a long-time conversation partner of Professor Landau’s.”

As for Landau, Speers explained that they knew each other from past collaborations.

Speers said, “I first met Professor Landau when Muslim students and Jewish students at the college collaborated to bring him to campus five or six years ago for a program on Muslim-Jewish dialogue. We started talking over a year ago about trying to host a program that would model engaged interreligious dialogue as another way to talk about Israel/Palestine.”

Professor Landau is Associate Professor of Interfaith Relations, holder of the Abrahamic Partnerships Chair, and Director of the Building Abrahamic Partnerships Program at Hartford Seminary. He has dual Israeli and U.S. citi-

Hartford Seminary’s Yehezkel Landau alongside Duke University’s Imam Abdulah offered a safe space for a dialogue regarding the tensions between Israel and Palesting last week. the necessary resources to combat these abuses, such as more information on its investments,” the organization said. They went on, “Moreover, we do believe that this is a role of an educational institution. After all, Vassar certainly touts the notion that an education should foster a belief in our common humanity. How can Vassar speak of the dignity of all human life, yet stand silent and promote ignorance around blatant human rights abuses?”

Speers said, “Often individual speakers come to campus, share their thoughts, and we receive them or we don’t. In Imam Antepli’s and Professor Landau’s visit, we have the opportunity to observe and learn from an actual conversation between two speakers about a topic so many of us care about.” The issues in Israel and Palestine are ongoing and with an event like this, the conversation on campus can be ongoing as well.

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Pittman said, “As an educational institution it is reasonable to think that we can foster learning environments where information can be shared and discussed, where various claims can be presented and questioned.”

Speers added, “In past campus efforts around this conversation, my colleagues and I have not wanted to impose a religious frame on discussions that were largely political. But we’re also aware that interreligious dialogue has a contribution to make to our larger efforts to have public conversations across our differences and disagreements.”

Even if students or professors were not able to attend the event, Speers said, “The most important way to learn is to listen, really to cultivate listening to one another. We are in a small, often intense campus environment. We are in a community with one another and we are incredible resources to one another, so listen.”

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November 12, 2015

WSP generates classroom opportunities for veterans Maria Bell

Guest Reporter

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courtesy of the Warrior-Scholar Project

hether still a freshman or already a senior, all students can remember that feeling of fear arriving at Vassar for the first time. No matter how well we did in high school, were we actually prepared for what this school was going to throw at us?

Veterans entering college have those worries and more. Most of them have not been in an academic setting for several years, and some for over a decade. This is where the Warrior-Scholar Project (WSP) comes in. The program holds immersive one to two week academic workshops for enlisted veterans free of charge at top colleges and universities, in order to prepare veterans for the transition into college. Among the institutions these academic boot camps are held at are Yale, Harvard, Cornell, and the University of Chicago. Now Vassar is joining their ranks. The campus held a pilot program last January, and this coming June the Warrior-Scholar project will take place on Vassar’s campus again, run in large part by our own faculty and students.

The WSP is a series of seminars and writing classes, reading and writing workshops, and individual work. It covers a range of topics, including academic-based skills like reading at an academic level and pulling out information, social skills like interacting in classes and seminars, as well as just how to overcome some of the obstacles veterans face in transitioning out of the military into college .

Josh Maxwell ’19 is a 26-year-old veteran and the new program director for WSP at Vassar.

He attended the Harvard course this past summer, just four months after leaving the military.

Maxwell participated in the program because he knew he was enrolling in a school where the level of academic intensity was higher than at the community college he had been taking classes at while still in the army.

Maxwell said, “If I hadn’t been a part of this program it would have taken me two or three

reads to get to the level of comprehension I can get to, a bit slower perhaps, but in one read. They weren’t just like, ‘here’s a method good luck when you get to school and apply it.’ They’d give us classes, they’d give us reading and then they’d have us apply it to the real word texts, real world scenarios.”

Maxwell learned about the program from two Vassar students and veterans, Cody Harmon ’19 and David Carrell ’16. Carrell was the one who brought the idea of holding WSP at Vassar to the administration two years ago.

The pilot program took place last January as a test to ensure that Vassar could get the numbers, recourses and faculty willing to participate. Professor of History and Faculty Leader of WSP Rebecca Edwards, , and Director of the Writing Center Matt Schultz, were instrumental in making the WSP at Vassar a reality.

Schultz described his role in building the intense writing aspect of the program.

Schultz said, “My goal is to underscore the social processes of writing that will help my students form the habits of mind of more experienced writers: active reading, sound research, economy of language and a robust feedback/revision loop.”

There were 13 veterans who attended the program, ranging from one still finishing up their time in the military to a 50-year-old veteran who had been out for 15 years. Carrell saw the value these veterans got out of attending WSP at Vassar.

Carrell said, “You can contrast Vassar to a state school. Whenever you come to a setting like Vassar where its more intimate is a big difference. It’s a smaller school, so you get to see a bit more of it and actually interact with the school rather than be just a number in a crowd.”

Maxwell agreed that holding the WSP at Vassar can teach veterans more than just analytical reading. “I think every campus has its own inherent uniqueness, and I think Vassar’s is a campus that is unique in its liberalness,

The Warrior Scholar Program (WSP) is a national program that helps veterans prepare to go into higher education after their service. Often veterans have gaps in their knowledge WSP helps fill. its openness, its acceptance,” Maxwell said. “I think most veterans are, if not conservative, more conservative than Vassar students so I think its going to be a good integration, good to facilitate constructive debate. It will give them a taste of something else.”

Preparations are in full swing now for the program in June. Maxwell is busy communicating with professors, lining up room and board, and working with Carrell and Edwards to create the schedule and course objectives. They also hope to have a few Vassar students who are not veterans work as tutors and provide their view of the social scene of college. Carrell is training Maxwell to fully take over his role in coordinating the WSP after he graduates this spring. He’s not sure what his future in the project might be, but he’s glad to have played a

part in bringing the program to Vassar.

“It just allows them to be able to experience a great college that they might not be able to and then motivate them to be able to come to a place like this,” Carrell explained. “That’s the ultimate goal, to motivate them and show them that they can succeed at a top tier institution.”

Above all, the value of the Warrior-Scholar project is that it makes veterans transitioning into college, including the many veterans entering Vassar each year, feel they can tackle dense readings and long papers just as well as any other student. Maxwell summed up the feeling, saying, “By the time you’re done with Warrior-Scholar, you want the next day to be your first day of college, you just want to like hit the books and rip through them and read as much as you can.”

Unusual autumn pumpkin flavors to spice up your life Penina Remler Columnist

I

f each month of the year had its own complimentary flavor, November’s would most certainly be pumpkin. As we adjust our calendar and approach the upcoming holiday season, let pumpkin play its role in keeping the festivities alive. Whether you’ve already devoured your stash of last month’s candy, or don’t know what to do with it, make sure to work up your appetite for the annual and irresistible pumpkin spice sensation before it is too late. Below, find some of this year’s most popular pumpkin recipes, and let your taste buds pump(kin)-up your appetite from there.

Pumpkin Pancakes & Sticky Maple Pecans

Pumpkin-Sage Pasta

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

courtesy of The New York Times

courtesy of The New York Times

For first-timers, the thought of combining pumpkin flavor into pasta might sound scary.

However, it certainly becomes a risk worth taking no matter how picky of an eater you may be–vegans this includes you, too! Plus, with a delicious dish like this, you will impress guests with your assembly of not only unique flavors, but also your perfect execution, as the cooking process is seriously painless. Then, if the pasta isn’t fancy enough for you, you can douse it with some more pumpkin-flavor. Eat well and stay well with pasta sauce that combines pumpkin whip, sage, salt and pepper and optional grated (vegan) Parmesan cheese if desired. Simple, seasonal, satisfying and seriously worth trying.

Ingredients: •4 ounces of whole-wheat (or gluten free) pasta •1/2 cup vegetable broth •1/2 cup canned pumpkin •1-2 tablespoons of minced fresh sage •1/8 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice •A pinch of dried oregano and (optional) red pepper flakes •(Optional) Vegan Parmesan •Salt and Pepper

While crepes offer some minor competition, pancakes are timeless and almost impossible to turn down. For many people it is all about the topping; some–bananas, others–strawberries, many–chocolate and the most bold–a mix of all the above. But what about pumpkin– have you ever considered adding November’s favorite flavor into your stack? If yes, then you already know what is in store, but for new comers–prepare to take the classic breakfast to a completely new level. Prepare your batter per usual, but, add in a bit of pumpkin puree and mix until smooth. Next, take a minute to embellish this dish with warm, crunchy and syrupy pecans before cooking until golden brown.

Ingredients: •2 cups pecan halves •2 tablespoons of pure maple syrup •3 tablespoons of superfine sugar •1 teaspoon of baking powder •1/2 teaspoon salt •1/2 teaspoon baking soda •1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour •2 large eggs •1 1/2 cups buttermilk •1 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree •1 teaspoon of vegetable oil

courtesy of The New York Times

courtesy of The New York Times

Pumpkin Tiramisu If you’re not sold at the sound of tiramisu, try adding pumpkin into the mix. It is impossible to resist. It starts with pumpkin crème for the base. While the crème refrigerates you’ll have time to bake the vanilla cake base. Finally top everything off with an espresso soak drizzle, strategic layers of chocolate and cake.

Pumpkin Crème: •1/3 cup cornstarch •1/3 cup water mixed with •¾ cup canned coconut milk •1 15 ounce pumpkin puree •¾ cup maple syrup •2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice •½ teaspoon salt Vanilla Cake: •3 cups all purpose flour •2 cups sugar •2 teaspoons baking soda •1 teaspoon salt •1 ¾ cup of almond milk •1 cup canola oil •¼ cup apple cider vinegar •1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract Espresso Soak: •½ cup amaretto •¼ cup water •3 tablespoons instant espresso

Pumpkin and Saffron Jasmine Rice Pilaf

One frequently neglects the fact that pumpkin isn’t limited to sweet treats. However, when mixed into the classic recipe, rice pilaf with saffron–this decadent duo is quite difficult to resist. Imagine paella meets fall as each spoonful of this dish consists of rich flavors accompanied by simple, but significant staples. Begin this recipe as you would with any rice (preferably jasmine) dish. When ready, puree the pumpkin with 1 1/2 cups of water.

Lastly, heat oven to 350 degrees, drain the soaked rice and prepare to cook it above heated olive oil, garlic, saffron and minced onions.

Watch as your rice stirs to avoid over cooking the grains and finally, top it off with preferred pinches of spices before leaving it to cook in the oven for approximately 25 minutes.

Ingredients: 2 cups jasmine rice 6 cups of pumpkin squash (peeled, seeded and chopped) 2 tablespoons of olive oil 3 cloves of garlic 1/2 teaspoon of saffron threads 1/2 teaspoon of ground allspice 1 cup grated onion 1 tablespoon of kosher salt

November 12, 2015

OPINIONS

Page 9

The Miscellany News Staff Editorial

Reaffirming community support crucial in wake of video I

n September, a reporter from the online journal service Project Veritas posed as a student and surreptitiously took a video of interim Title IX coordinator and Assistant Director of of Equal Opporunity and Affirmative Action, Kelly Grab, within her office.

In this video, the reporter pretended to be a student on campus who had been triggered by the distribution of copies of the Constitution, which was facilitated by another member of Project Veritas.

Grab responded to the alleged student in an open and helpful manner, an attitude that is central to her position. Eventually the reporter asked Grab to shred the document, claiming that it would be therapeutic for her.

The group then uploaded the video to their website, where it went viral last week, gaining attention not only from students on campus, but also from various news sources all over the country.

We at The Miscellany News believe that the behavior of the reporter and Project Veritas are offensive and despicable, and we stand by Kelly Grab for doing her job despite the attempts to vilify and entrap her.

Starting with the logistics, it is not legal to pose as a student and request services that are unavailable to the public. While recording the video of Kelly in her office is legal, but taking and posting a video of someone without their consent, specifically in a space meant to be confidential, is highly inappropriate and disrespectful.

The situation Grab encountered was a manipulative and deliberate attempt to sabotage her and the College. Project Veritas meant to discredit this institution and create a mockery of the American collegiate system.

The Constitutions in question were passed out Halloween night by another representative of Project Veritas.

In the video posted online, a man dressed up as the Constitution hands out pocket Constitutions, often making uncomfortable or misogynistic comments to passers by.

This was obviously an important aspect of the construction of this ruse. The fact that the project was simulated from start to finish makes the results of the report even less convincing.

Project Veritas is an online news project that claims to “investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions in order to achieve a more ethical and transparent society.”

(Project Veritas).

Illegally posing as a student to surreptitiously film an interaction is neither ethical nor transparent. In addition to the manipulative set-up of the video, the language of the article and headlines is equally misleading.

The headline on the Project Veritas website is “Hidden Camera Captures College Officials Disparaging and Shredding Constitution.” This type of rhetoric makes it sound like a security camera captured Vassar administrators destroying the original Constitution on their own time.

In reality, the situation was entirely artificial, within a private office, and based on the requests of the reporter. Grab has been publicly humiliated for catering to the needs of a person she presumed was a student.

The motives behind this type of video can be difficult to make out. However, Vassar has not been the only college targeted by the group.

The Project Veritas website has published articles in the past week about administrators at Cornell University, Syracuse University, Yale University, Oberlin College and the University of North Carolina. The group has reported on similar results involving administrators shredding or tearing copies of the Constitution.

It seems that Project Veritas Founder and President James O’Keefe and his staff are, through their manipulative processes and misleading headlines, attempting to show that colleges are willing and prepared to do anything to provide support for students.

“Political correctness has clearly run amok on college campuses across the nation,” said O’Keefe in a response to the video.

O’Keefe is using the image of destroying the U.S. constitution as a platform for his ideas about how modern collegiate responses to (triggers and oppression) are absurd and un-American.

Regardless of motive, O’Keefe and his team proved little in their covert operation.

Their efforts to defend the Constitution involved mocking it.

Parading around campus in a costume that degrades the document far more than shredding it at the request of a distressed student clearly shows mixed views on the document itself. Even then, O’Keefe didn’t prove anything new.

The role of trigger warnings, the increasing importance of being politically correct and colleges’ role in making campuses safe places for students have been hot topics of discussion in publications like the Times, the Atlantic and more.

The choice to target the Title IX office also poses many problems. The nature of the office is to be a safe, nonjudgmental

space. Misusing this service degrades the very nature of the resource it offers students on campus in vulnerable times. This is a resource that many students on campus find necessary. Through taking advantage of the openness of Vassar’s administration, Project Veritas and their reporters have added another layer of insult to their attack on Grab and our campus.

Using this office bypasses the legitimate, academic conversations taking place about these topics; it undermines an office that serves an important, necessary purpose on a college campus. And worst of all, it mocks students who take advantage of these resources, which can be a particularly taxing experience.

We at The Miscellany News believe the school and student body responded appropriately to the incident. Project Veritas chose Vassar for a reason and this reason is what has united the campus around Grab in the wake of the scandal.

Hours after the video was posted online, President Catharine Bond Hill sent the student body a message condemning the group and offering full support to Grab, commending her work as an administrator at Vassar.

By the next morning, a petition was circulating on Facebook requesting students sign their names and show their support as well.

This petition received many signatures within hours, including the names of various alumnae/i.

We believe that these events expose not only the audacity of far-right groups like Project Veritas, but also the united front we can form in the face of hatred and bigotry.

—The Staff Editorial represents the opinions of at least 2/3 of our Editorial Board.

Inaccuracies in Carson’s stories leave glaring questions Nick Barone Columnist

F

ollowing the revelation of a series of misstatements and inaccuracies uttered by presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson, media outlets have erupted over the merits of such intense scrutiny over the former neurosurgeon’s presidential campaign.

The impetus of this national discussion over whether Carson is being treated unfairly by mainstream media outlets was the publication of an article by Politico, “Exclusive: Carson claimed West Point ‘scholarship’ but never applied,” by Kyle Cheney (11.06.15).

Carson has remained a popular candidate despite new media investigations adding a layer of complexity to a man who has already caused controversy over his comments about homosexuality, evolution denialism and Black Lives Matter.

The article, since edited for accuracy, details how no record exists of Carson applying to West Point and how the veracity of Carson’s supposed meeting with General William Westmoreland over his excellence in his high school’s ROTC program is shaky at best.

West Point, whose tuition is free, does not offer scholarships. According to the Politico report, Westmoreland was not in Detroit around Memorial Day of 1969 and no records detail a meeting with Carson.

The only event similar to the one Carson described was in February of 1969, a banquet to celebrate a Medal of Honor recipient. Carson’s account of this meeting was detailed in his autobiography, “Gifted Hands.”

The supposed meeting with General Westmoreland and the subsequent offer from West Point provided a crucial development for Carson’s remarkable personal story, in which he decided to pursue a career in medicine rather than in the military.

Other stories have also thrown Carson’s claims into question. The Wall Street Journal published “Ben Carson’s Past Faces Deeper Questions,” which details additional claims beyond the West Point misstatement. In “Gifted Hands,” Dr. Carson describes a Yale psycholo-

gy professor who told him and his fellow classmates (Perceptions 301) that their final exam papers were accidentally destroyed, thus requiring every student to take it over again.

As “Gifted Hands” describes, every student except Carson walked out of the new exam, which was supposedly more difficult. “The professor came toward me. With her was a photographer for the Yale Daily News who paused and snapped my picture,” the autobiography continues. “‘A hoax,’ the teacher said.

‘We wanted to see who was the most honest student in the class,’” (The Wall Street Journal, “Ben Carson’s Past Faces Deeper Questions,” 11.09.2015).

However, as WSJ investigated, there was no evidence of Carson’s photograph ever running in the Yale Daily News or of a psychology course being offered during Carson’s year that went by that title.

“Such a blatantly fabricated rejection of his association certainly calls Carson’s integrity into question.”

(Carson’s campaign eventually fired back with a link to the syllabus of a class called Perceptions, though it was from a 2002 semester.)

At the GOP presidential debate, Dr. Carson was questioned over his involvement with Mannatech Inc. Mannatech is a nutritional supplements company that has come into the national spotlight for false advertising charges.

Carson assured that he had no involvement with the company whatsoever.

However, he “appeared in videos that could until recently be found on Mannatech’s website, including two filmed in 2013 and styled like commercials” and “has given four paid speeches at Mannatech gatherings; the proceeds from three went to a Carson-affiliated charity” (The

Wall Street Journal). Such a blatantly fabricated rejection of his association certainly calls Carson’s integrity into question.

Other investigations also called into question claims about Carson’s violent past, his saving of white students from a riot by hiding them in a biology lab and his experience with a robbery in Baltimore.

Carson’s campaign eventually conceded that he misspoke and misremembered his apparent admission and “full scholarship” to West Point.

However, Ben Carson’s energy has not been channeled into disproving the investigations into his personal life, but into deriding the media for prying too much.

On Saturday, Carson told CNN, “‘It’s not particularly getting under my skin, obviously it’s helping me. But I simply cannot sit still and watch unfairness. I am always going to call that out when I see it,’” (CNN, “Ben Carson renews attacks on media scrutiny,” 11.08.2015).

Carson’s campaign managers have also spoken out against this “vetting” and believe that such scrutiny will only further establish and solidify Carson’s trustworthiness and character.

This response highlights the out-of-touch aspects of Carson’s campaign, which has chosen to focus on the unfairness of scrutiny rather than holding the candidate culpable for incongruities of personal narrative.

Carson’s reactions to the scrutiny underscore a clear lack of preparation for the amount of attention his words would get if he were elected president.

Though Carson claimed that Barack Obama never received this much attention when he was running for president, NBC News “found a combined 165 New York Times and Washington Post articles that were all (or partially) about Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright between the time Obama first launched his presidential bid (Feb. 2007) and his 2008 victory (Nov. 2008)” (NBC News, “First Read: Welcome to the Big Leagues, Ben Carson,” 11.09.2015).

The attempted deflection of scrutiny as liberal bias in mainstream media does not resonate whatsoever with journalistic trends of

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

election cycles in the past.

Dr. Ben Carson’s misstatements and issues with the truth are not new to the political arena. Most of them were probably well-intentioned, though maybe not deliberately meant to deceive.

“Carson’s reactions to the scrutiny underscore a clear lack of preparation for the amount of attention his words would get if he were elected president.”

Carson’s lies are not what’s overtly significant in this instance. While Politico and The Wall Street Journal’s investigations may indeed end up hurting Carson’s implicit charm as a supposedly soft-spoken, honest professional, the underlying issue with the “controversy” lies in his unpolished, uncharacteristically angry response to such scrutiny.

Not only does this disrupt the prevailing charm of Carson in conservative minds, but unveils a continuing, complicated relationship between conservative presidential candidates and the truth.

As president (Carson continues to be the GOP frontrunner), he would face even more appraisal of his backstory than ever. Acknowledging such misstatements and inaccuracies instead of angrily waving his fist at the media would have spared him from further probing by news outlets.

Going forward, Dr. Carson must learn to rectify and pointedly recognize his mistakes and move past them, instead of going after the structures that so control the direction of his popularity.

—Nick Barone.’19 is a student at Vassar College.

OPINIONS

Page 10

November 12, 2015

Social media use requires thoughtful consumption Emily Sayer

Opinions Editor

U

tter the words “social media” and immediately you’ll be bombarded with a flurry criticisms and complaints about the nature of today’s obsession with screens and devices.

The platform has become universally synonymous with ideas of vanity, superficiality and self-promotion, and despite the truth that social media is surely the most influential and widely used ‘commodity’ across all socioeconomic and generational classes, it seems as though the mere thought of various apps and websites now inspires disgust in almost every consumerist demographic.

Even millennials, once condemned as the sole purveyors of social media’s many evils, are beginning to reject the virtual world in an attempt to reclaim their perceptions of reality.

“Even millennials, once condemned as the sole purveyors of social media’s many evils, are beginning to reject the virtual world...

Earlier this week, Instagram celebrity and Australian blogger Essena O’Neill uprooted the online realm by shutting down her account on the photo-sharing app, declaring a clean break from social media and re-captioning her most popular pictures to read “[this] is not real life.”

O’Neill has denounced social media as an “illusion,” attributing years of insecurities and mental turmoil to her gripping preoccupation with ‘likes,’ followers and paid promotions.

Her virtual fame was highly profitable, but

she professes that the approximate $2,000 that she received for each post touting a clothing brand or lifestyle product made her feel as if she was deluding young girls into thinking that contrived images were realistic.

Before O’Neill purged her account of thousands of pictures, her Instagram page featured a spread of polished and perfectly posed snapshots of herself doing yoga at the beach, hiking scenic forestscapes and lounging in designer clothing.

“Everything I did was for likes and for followers. I did shoots for hours just to get photos for Instagram,” she said of the pictures, revealing that she spent countless hours a day setting up and taking photos just to post one “candid” image.

Now, O’Neill will completely disconnect from Instagram, YouTube and Tumblr, and continue to advocate for veganism and creative self-expression through her website, which will include, she notes, “no likes or views or followers… just my content as raw as I want.”

Essena O’Neill received instant praise for her revelation. Followers, fellow bloggers and models alike lauded her bravery in admitting the burden that comes with maintaining internet celebrity; like O’Neill, many agreed that amassing millions of followers and racking up ‘likes’ failed to deliver any sense of validation, and instead left them with feelings of intense loneliness and poor self-worth. They all share similar stories of battles with depression and low esteem, problems which were exacerbated by the ‘comparison trap’ that social media platforms facilitate.

Considering that these women have experienced considerable popularity via Instagram, Tumblr, etc., one must wonder how younger or less noteworthy media consumers–those who are not exalted or celebrated by millions of strangers on a daily basis–feel in regards to their own status and personal value.

I myself am a media junkie. Instagram, I sup-

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pose, is my drug of choice. I can fall victim to hours of mindlessly scrolling through pages of photos of what I presume to be snippets of other people’s lives, and although I consider myself to be an adequate critic of the images that I’m absorbing, there’s no way of truly knowing which situations are constructed, which captured moments have been re-created and posed just to elicit a certain response.

“In essence, social media is a status symbol.”

I want to believe that I’m a responsible viewer, but how can I ensure that the endless onslaught of ‘fitspos,’ ‘inspos,’ ‘thinspos’ won’t permeate my better judgement? And even when I do make the conscious effort to censor the content of feed and limit my exposure to the photoshopped or promotional pictures that ‘insta-phenoms’ disseminate, there’s always the lingering comparison that exists between myself and my peers. Am I having that much fun at college? Is my family as impossibly photogenic as theirs? Can I bust out an impeccably-formed handstand on a beach? (The answer to that one is no, no I can’t).

In essence, social media is a status symbol.

It’s manipulated to portray a hierarchy of social importance, and the supposed success or admiration that it provides is no different than the prestige conveyed by any other commodity item.

However, as with most market items, I believe that the media isn’t inherently good or evil; the way in which we allow it to influence our lives and our ideas dictates its degree of negativity.

It’s the responsibility of each consumer to

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

select subject matter that will enhance their quality of life, whether that’s content that connects people, stimulates the senses, spreads ideas, provides humor, educates, promotes movements, advertises high-end clothing or cultivates beauty norms.

We have our own preferences, so we should claim agency over the differing impact of virtual messages.

I commend Essena O’Neill for rejecting Instagram and being honest about its detrimental effect on her life. But with that being said, O’Neill is indirectly relaying the notion that all people who participate in social media are brainwashed, deluded and contributing to the demise of youth culture. She refers to apps and websites as a united, cult-like entity, a group that one can either exist in or renounce entirely.

Perhaps we can’t ignore the impact of these false realities that O’Neill is fighting against, and maybe, in spite of our attempts to become intelligent consumers, there is an irrevocable psychological toll that comes with the uninterrupted stream of images and advertizing.

I don’t believe this to be true, but more importantly, social media is a well-established facet of 21st century culture, and as such its presence is unlikely to wane in the near future; so, it’s far more productive to create a conversation about adaptation to media than it is to attempt a technological overthrow.

O’Neill has played an important role in informing millions of media consumers, but it’s unrealistic to expect the rest of her generation to follow suit and remove themselves from popular culture.

In the meantime, it’s imperative that we remain mindful of the influence of online content and accept singular responsibility for the messages that interfere with our own lives.

—Emily Sayer ’18 is a student at Vassar College.

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November 12, 2015

OPINIONS

Autism lacks critical representation in news Jesse Horowitz Guest Columnist

L

ast weekend I saw a news piece about a 13-year-old autistic boy who saved a choking girl’s life using a move he learned from the popular animated television series “Spongebob Squarepants.” The girl he saved was also autistic. It was the type of unimportant, feel-good story that is often stuffed between pieces on what household appliance or seemingly harmless activity or food product is coming to kill us next.

But what caught my attention is the unnecessary inclusion of the subject’s diagnosis.

Both the individuals involved were identified by most news outlets specifically by their autism. Both individuals are verbal and seemingly articulate. They’re both established as being fairly intelligent. Their diagnoses had little to nothing to do with what occurred. In fact, I’d call it the very definition of superfluous. The only purpose that the diagnosis served was to demean the accomplishment of the subject.

Please note that I do not believe that the news stations that covered this piece are ableist or bigoted. I do not wish for anyone to take this to be an attack on these specific news organizations. Rather, I want to use a news piece, which I acknowledge is not a very big deal, to engage in a meaningful critique on how the news portrays individuals on the spectrum.

My goal here is not to point fingers, but to ask questions.I also acknowledge how hypocritical it might seem for me to engage in this form of political correctness, which I have established opposition to in my previous articles. But I’d like to clarify that I stand in favor of an intellectual critique of language and how it can disenfranchise people. I merely oppose attempts to suppress dissent under the ironic guise of being inclusive.To begin with, many of the news stations that covered this story referred to the subject as a “boy with autism.” I have encountered person-first language a great deal both

online and in the course of daily living, and I don’t believe that neurotypical people quite understand the implications of this term.

Suppose the subject was not autistic, but homosexual. They’d call him a gay teenager not a “boy with homosexuality” or “boy with the gay.” Those terms are objectively quite silly, but what is the actual difference between saying “he’s a homosexual” and “he’s a person with homosexuality”? The difference is that the former feels like a way a person identifies themselves, while the latter feels like a disease.And it is not uncommon for disease-like language to be used in order to describe autistic individuals. Many frequently refer to autism as an “epidemic.” Autism Speaks claims that it affects more people than “diabetes, AIDS, cancer, cerebral palsy, cystic palsy, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, or Down syndrome - combined.”

But unlike most people suffering from these sicknesses, the large majority of autistics don’t want to be cured. Autism isn’t a disease or disability but a measure of one’s identity. Person-first language, in its effort to be inclusive, characterizes autism as something undesirable, which is not the reality of the situation.

I’d now like to turn your attention to the obligation of the news sites to go into the boy’s diagnosis. While promoting children like this may be well-intentioned, it also affects the public’s perception of autistics.News pieces are often celebratory of the minor things autistics do, and then they deny autistic individuals’ capacity for greater accomplishments. By associating autism with stories like this rather than stories about Albert Einstein or Thomas Jefferson, the media creates a perception that the former’s achievements are the most that they can aspire to.

Compare that news story with a more fictional account of autism, The Big Bang Theory.

The series stars Jim Parsons as the obviously autistic Sheldon Cooper. But Dr. Cooper has remained in the closet about his diagnosis, with

the show’s writers denying it at every turn.

This is perhaps because they wish to avoid the ire of offended parents. It is easy to see how some parents could view Sheldon Cooper negatively, but I personally find Dr. Cooper inspiring. Here’s an autistic individual who has a good job, plenty of friends and a girlfriend who adores him. This is a person who rose out of a family that didn’t understand him and a community that hated him to become a success. Yes, he’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but his charm and success overrides his numerous idiosyncracies. I can’t think of a more positive portrayal of autistic individuals.But positive portrayals of big successes remain closeted, their diagnosis only alluded to, while positive portrayals of small successes can stay open.

Why do we see so many articles on autistic individuals doing unremarkable things while the extraordinary autistics are forced into the closet?It is time for a larger critique of the way autistic individuals are represented in the media. We must engage in a thorough examination of how the language we use affects the public’s perception of autistic individuals.

Does that mean pieces like this one of the choking incident can’t exist? Of course not.

Does that mean they can exist but they can never mention that the subject is autistic? That’d be silly. What it does mean is that stories like this should be careful with the language they use and that they should not be the only positive exposure that the public has to autistics.

There should be an acknowledgment that many great intellectuals, like Albert Einstein and Thomas Jefferson, are on the spectrum.

We should be celebrating autistic people who changed the world. We should be promoting people to be openly autistic, like Dan Aykroyd, and to publicly identify with elements of the spectrum, like Jerry Seinfeld.

Chris Brown

T

he VSA Student Life committee works on a number of projects and initiatives that strive to better the quality of life for all students on this campus.

This year, with the VSA accepting a set of guidelines that declares our body a political intersectional feminist organization that works to represent underrepresented voices, the student life committee is working on a number of major projects to help move along the process of achieving equal voice for all students at Vassar.

One of the major initiatives that was just completed by the student life committee was the transportation letter initiative that will be sent to various senior level administrators.

This letter focuses on providing transportation for students who seek off campus counseling, off campus prescription medications and transportation to and from the hospital. Currently in the status quo, there is no system set in place

by Vassar College that provides transportation to these resources.

Vassar has allocated a certain amount of funds for transportation to be used by Pell Grant students for this purpose. While this push is a huge step in the right direction, as Pell Grant students tend to be the most financially burdened at this college, the VSA and student life specifically believe that much more needs to be done in order to meet what we consider a basic necessity of students.

This letter was drafted by all members of student life committee, with special recognition given to Ashley Hoyle, Rebecca Pober, Sophie Firedfeld-Gebaide and Derek Sontag. In the letter, we call for the administration to provide this service.

We acknowledge some of the work that the college has done in the past regarding mental health services, including the recent hiring of a number of more counselors. We use this to say why these three services must be provided by the college.

So many students cannot afford to pay for weekly transportation to and from a local therapist or counselor. Furthermore, public trans-

portation and taxi transportation in the town of Poughkeepsie is not the most reliable, and these sessions with counselors are things that these students need to attend in order to be healthy and functional students.

In terms of receiving prescription medications, some of the cheapest medications can only be obtained at bigger pharmacies that are not within walking distance of the college, and some students who need these medications cannot afford to get a premium product from a specialized pharmacy.

Also, most people who need emergency prescription medication are too sick to walk anywhere or to hail a cab and ride it to and from the pharmacy safely.

“Safety and Security has been brainstorming...on how to be a more effective body and how to help students feel safe at this institution.”

The college should be more concerned with these students and provide the transportation necessary.

Student life committee has also been working closely with Safety and Security and the new Director of Safety and Security, Arlene Sabo. With the recent rise in the number of on-campus burglaries, Safety and Security has been brainstorming with the VSA on how to be a more effective body and how to help students feel safe at this institution. Arlene has been a very fresh and needed addition to the Safety and Security team. Arlene puts a lot of emphasis on the voices and needs of students.

Although Arlene herself admits that she does not know all the answer and does not know what will please the most students, she is dedicated to making sure she and her team find that answer and implement the necessary steps

Word on the street How are you preparing to take over as the EIC of the Misc next semester?

“I went to Germany and formed my own set of letters for a printing press.”

— Ellis Igneri ’19

“Maybe I’ll take some English classes.”

— Hannah Cho ’18

—Jesse Horowitz ’19 is a student at Vassar College.

Student Life Committee values accessibility Guest Columnist

Page 11

to reach that point.

Arlene, through suggestion from the VSA and Student Life Committee, has helped push for more lights on certain paths on the campus that are especially dark and unsafe for walkers in the late hours of the evening.

The paths that Arlene and security have been focusing on are the paths along sunset lake and adjacent to the baseball field near the Town Houses. Arlene went on a light walk to identify these spots, and we are currently working together to figure out how to make these light installations possible. I am very excited about the future working relationship between myself and Safety and Security.

For a longer term project, the Student Life Committee is working towards the creation of affinity spaces on this campus for students of color, particularly first year students of color, to learn about race and their place in the race discussion on campus.

This concept came out of the fact that there seemed to be a large amount of support by many members of administration and various offices here at Vassar that supported the idea of creating a space for white people to learn about race.

While we acknowledge that this is a very important concept, there seemed to be no importance on creating a space for students of color to talk about race and their journey while discovering their identities.

Fortunately, many different identity based organizations on Vassar’s campus already have a lot of programming set aside as affinity spaces for various students of color.

Whether we create these affinity spaces or not, Student Life will be working towards supporting the various forms of existing programming already set in place.

Student Life Committee has just begun to get into the gritty details of a lot of important work that needs to be done on this campus. Although there is still so much to be done, we are committed to getting as much of that list completed as possible before our time in these positions has elapsed. ­­—Chris Brown ’16 is VP for Student Life.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“I’m going to start reading the Misc.”

— Fiona Brodie ’18

“I’m practicing getting very little sleep.”

— Clara Arndtsen ’18

“Asking strangers random questions.”

— Ashley Carey ’18

“Who is the first person I can fire?” ­­— Noah Webster ’18

Zander Bashaw, Humor & Satire Editor Sam Pianello, Photo Editor Palak Patel, Editor-In-Chief

OPINIONS

Page 12

November 12, 2015

Carson’s rise in GOP pollings sparks alarm, not relief Steven Park

Guest Columnist

S

o far, Donald Trump has pretty much dominated all talks about the 2016 presidential campaign. Spewing incredibly brazen rhetoric from building a wall to keep out Mexican immigrants to claiming that global warming was created by the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive, Trump became such a hurricane of vulgar noise that even Fox News host Bill O’Reilly asked him to “turn it down.”

However, tens of thousands of his supporters saw his unfiltered words as a breath of fresh air and applauded his brash attitude and vehement opposition to political correctness.

As unimaginable as it was, Trump led the polls for months as he defiantly marched towards the presidency. But suddenly, his momentum just...stopped. Now, GOP candidate and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson is the new frontrunner, and that’s not a good thing.

Think back to the first Republican Debate in August. Donald Trump was still making headlines with his extreme opinions, and countless people were tuning in just to see him wreak havoc against the other candidates. During the chaotic squabble that occurred, Ben Carson stood patiently, largely ignored during the debate.

When he did finally get a chance to speak, he joked, “I wasn’t sure I was going to get to talk again,” (The Hill, “Carson at debate: ‘I wasn’t sure I was going to get to talk again,’” 08.06.15).

Always chuckling, always soft-spoken, Carson seemed like the only friendly, reasonable candidate among an angry, ravenous mob.

Fast-forward to today, and we have Trump mourning the loss of his lead. “Carson is lower energy than Bush! I don’t get it!” exclaimed Trump at a recent rally (CNN, “Donald Trump on poll slump: ‘I don’t get it,’” 10.28.15).

Some may say that this shift is obviously for the better, as there are more than a handful of reasons to dislike the billionaire businessman.

“Ball So Hard”

Others believe Carson should be in the lead since he is the best candidate in the election and can resonate with both Democrats and Republicans. However, as warm and charming as Ben Carson may be, he is no different than the garish, ignorant Donald Trump.

The question to address is exactly why Carson took the lead. It could be just because Trump’s outright brazenness has gotten old, but according to The Washington Post, Carson pulled through thanks to his enormous following of evangelical voters.

As a deeply religious man, Carson made it clear that America needs to return to its Christian roots, stating in a recent forum, “It is time to bring God back into our country.”

In regards to social matters, Carson is more than just simply opposed to issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion.

In fact, he has made many alarming, callous statements on these topics. In 2013, he compared homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia on national television, causing Johns Hopkins to withdraw him as a commencement speaker (ABC News, “Ben Carson Apologizes For Comment on Homosexuality,” 04.05.13). He once compared abortion to human sacrifice and found it “interesting” that Americans call other ancient civilizations “heathen.”

In his latest 2015 book, “A More Perfect Union,” Carson compares same-sex marriage to the “abnormal situation” of requiring cars to accommodate for conjoined twins.

Earlier this year, Carson stated that straight people coming out of prison gay proved that homosexuality is “absolutely” a choice and chuckled about how Christian bakers might poison a cake for homosexual couples to an audience who wasn’t laughing (Huffington Post, “Ben Carson Apologizes For Saying Prisons Prove Being Gay Is A Choice,” 03.04.15).

Based on his past, Ben Carson would probably appeal to a certain demographic of voters, the same who supported Senator Rick Santo-

rum.

Yet Dr. Carson’s rather extreme remarks are not limited to these issues either. After the recent mass shooting in Roseburg, Ore., Carson commented, “I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away,” (Rolling Stone, “Ben Carson: ‘Body With Bullet Holes’ Preferable to Gun Control,” 10.06.15).

In 2014, he called President Obama a psychopath and compared his supporters to Nazi sympathizers (GQ , “What If Sarah Palin Were a Brain Surgeon?” 03.23.15). Less than a month ago during NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Carson stated, “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” and later stated that he could never support a Muslim president.

At the Values Voter Summit, Carson stated that Obamacare is “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery” and then later added that Obamacare is even worse than the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

Aren’t these the extreme statements that one would expect someone like Donald Trump to blurt out in a fervent frenzy? What’s going on?

Additionally, the most unsettling information is that for almost every criticism against these extreme remarks, Carson blamed the situation on political correctness. For attacks against his comparison between same-sex marriage and bestiality, he blamed political correctness.

For attacks against his comment about not advocating for a president purely because he or she is Muslim, he blamed political correctness.

He criticized the “PC police” for pouncing on his every remark.

At a March 2014 event in New York, he compared modern times with a Gestapo Age, where he stated, “[America is] very much like Nazi Germany–and I know you’re not supposed to talk about Nazi Germany but I don’t care about political correctness. You know, you had a government using its tools to intimidate a popula-

tion. We now live in a society where people are afraid to say what they actually believe, and it’s because of the PC police.” He despises political correctness, and he’s not afraid to remind people. Just like Trump.

So what, some may ask. Those are just his personal preferences. Who cares whether he hates political correctness? His policies are what matters. Granted, policies are important, and Carson’s focus on education is not a bad one. However, here’s my biggest problem with Carson: he’s committing the same enormous mistake as not only Donald Trump but also Mitt Romney.

In other words, he is going out of his way to alienate a significant population of people in the country.

Just like Mitt Romney with his 47 percent speech and Donald Trump with his speech about Mexico, Ben Carson is purposefully casting out a large number of the people he’s supposed to represent without a single thought or care.

He makes off-the-cuff remarks that promote hostility, he chuckles off serious issues in a frivolous manner, he shuts his eyes and puts both hands over his ears when someone disagrees with what he says and when he’s faced with criticism, he uses the great bogeyman of political correctness as a scapegoat to dodge responsibility for his actions.

Yes, people should have the freedom to think and do what they want. However, being a leader is an entirely different story. A leader has the terribly difficult job of looking after everyone in the country and caring about them equally.

A leader is someone who can unite, someone who refuses to throw people aside or give up on them. If Ben Carson divides people with his words, then how can he ever hope to unite a nation with his actions?

—Steven Park ’19 is a student at Vassar College.

The Miscellany Crossword

by Alycia Beattie, York Chen, and Collin Knopp-Schwyn Email coknoppschwyn@vassar.edu to contribute!

ACROSS

1 “CSI” station 4 They’re open during homework 8 “Come on, kid! Give it ___” (2 words) 11 Sex moans 13 Role play 15 Half a vid 16 Be aware of 17 Thing left unsaid 18 What a filler fills (fillee?)

19 Milky-white heron 21 “Boy, he really came out of nowhere!” (2 words) 23 Tasty Pop 25 Till the land 26 Gears by Cream 30 “The truth ___ the middle” (2 words) 34 Go bad 35 Tine 37 Kind of wrestling, with “Roman” 38 Upon (2 words) 40 Raised pubic area, or the middle of a dia- mond in view of 21-Across, 55-Across, 3-Down and 31-Down 42 Base pair 43 Canadian leaf 45 Characteristic 47 Apparently the loneliest number

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48 Declare 50 Carvings onto metal 52 Widest continent 54 Former triple-double machine Jason 55 A good time in high school? (2 words) 60 Rich white man from India 63 Great New York Lake 64 Wear away slowly 66 “___ Satan!”

67 Twitches 68 The day you are doing this crossword 69 Norwegian city formerly Christiania 70 Query 71 Finger, as a culprit 72 Restaurant abbreviation, with a year

32 “___ on the cake!”

33 Pit stops for lymph in the body 36 Bothersome fly 39 Satisfies ;) 41 8===D 44 Formerly, poetically 46 Narrow 49 Its capital is Lhasa 51 Its capital is Boise

DOWN

1 Tasty pop 2 Smoking paraphernalia 3 Brief pauses, perhaps during coitus (2 words) 4 American Offensive during the Vietnam War 5 A dirty good time?

6 Pig in the city 7 Ridicule 8 “vera” plant 9 It filters oxygen from water 10 Newspaper feature 12 Curse 14 All 15 Three animal mishmash 20 Migos genre 22 Dorky alternative to “FUCK” 24 High school paper 26 Major with a lot of drama, maybe 27 Little bits (from the Greek letter) 28 Pillage 29 Acclimatize 31 A really good time in high school? (2 words)

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

53 Moses’s older brother 55 Greek cheese 56 Colorful 57 Great friend to Birdperson (RIP) 58 1-Down, for example 59 Dutch cheese 61 Palm and canola 62 Ink stain 65 Ogle

HUMOR & SATIRE

November 12, 2015

Page 13

Breaking News From the desk of Zander Bashaw, Humor & Satire Editor Knowledgeable commentator enlightens viewers that NFL linebacker is not only physical, but also athletic Aging teenager contests that 6 sustainable food solutions YouTube was better in his day for a Dining Bucks shortage Zander Bashaw

Like and Subscribe

C

Lily Horner High Fiber

1. Retreat Napkins

I don’t have dining bucks left, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hang around the Retreat and watch people eat. While sitting alone diligently staring at people, I like to snack on a nice Retreat napkin.

I take bites of my napkin as the person I’m watching takes a bite of their food and I pretend that my napkin is that burger/omelette.

2. Retreat Silverware

This needs to be separated from the Retreat napkins because I don’t think anyone understands the physical and emotional toll it takes on a person to swallow these. I always forget how painful it is and just grab some forks when I’m feeling like I want something a bit more crunchy.

Plus, it’s compostable.

3. The Misc

I should have mentioned this earlier, but my new diet is high fiber. The difficulty in eating the Misc is its length, and I can’t save it for later because people will see that it’s the Misc and automatically throw it away.

4. My Homework

Although the old “my dog ate my homework” excuse worked flawlessly in high school, amateur

hour is OVER. This only gets complicated if you have to email in your papers or submit them on Moodle. For now, I’m just eating all of my assignments after I complete them, which may seem like a waste of time but I have gotten exponentially better at public speaking. I can regurgitate my paper word-for-word in front of the whole class.

5. My Tears

Tears are more of a seasoning than anything else. Their saltiness reminds one of Retreat french fries and it also makes the paper easier to swallow. Once I become part-robot, however, I will not be able to rely on my emotions to give me these tears. Goodbye to tears and hello to the lack of emotions I’ve wanted since I learned what Lifetime movies were.

6. Animals Around Campus

Don’t get the wrong impression, I’m not eating womp womps. I’m just eating the food they’re storing away for the winter! I’ve found almost all the womp womp holes and squirrel stashes and I’m stocking up on nuts and whatever it is that womp womps eat (it seems like the stuff that is in the Noyes trash cans?). I’m also trying to get mother birds to recognize me as one of their own offspring. If I can get a mama bird to bring me some worms whenever I call, I would finally be the Ultimate Vassar Survivor.

Cartoon by Samana Shrestha

ollege admissions pages have been laced with the go-to accepted post: “I like to watch Netflix and stay in, but also am always down to go out and party!” This type of sentence is as dry and overdone as Deece chicken.

The phrase “Netflix and chill” has also been overused, both as a Halloween costume and a pickup line. Regardless of how you use the phrase, it lacks creativity. Netflix as an “activity” lacks creativity as well, people with varying amounts of incomplete homework open up the site to escape their responsibilities.

Netflix is the means to the kind of vegetative state that Wall-E warns about. Unless you are one of those people using it as a means to the “chill” side, it has no purpose other than being an opiate. Leaving Marx out of this, opiates are addictive and damaging. Why hasn’t D.A.R.E. been working on this problem? After all, D.A.R.E. is an extremely effective way to prevent kids from using substances. My best friend from elementary school and I were chosen to read our articles about resisting drugs out loud in front of our 5th grade class. To this day, we have stuck to our maxim: “I’ll never do an alcohol ever.”

I have not opened Netflix this entire semester. This could be seen as an amazing statement to many readers (even though that’s probably just my parents), but it’s true. I have never even wanted to open Netflix this year. We’re going to ignore how this might mean that I have nobody to Netflix and chill with, and focus on the main point. I’m in college and don’t watch Netflix or eat ramen noodles.

If you’re still reading at this point, you probably want to know my secret. By the law of conservation of pointless time-wasting, I have to be flushing my youth away doing something else.

I am not on Yik Yak, nor do I vent Dantian, unrequited affections upon Vassar Missed connections. I have no Pokemon games to play, and I’m already one of the best in the nation at “Rat on a Jet Ski,” so instead, I sold my soul to YouTube.

Since people tell me I dress and act like a dad, I figured I might as well take some fellow millennials on a trip down memory lane. Remember when YouTube didn’t have ads? Or any HD videos? Remember when YouTube was a sea of unprocessed content? I do, and my recent foray

into the depths of the internet has made me look critically at the history of YouTube.

Naturally, I started my research by watching a video about the history of YouTube’s layout, on YouTube. What I found was quite surprising.

Looking way back, YouTube was more of a place to put video files with a search function. The styling and organization was as unprocessed as the video content. I didn’t really start using the site, however, until it had gotten its shit together.

I remember it being very clear how to make your own account; I guess YouTube figured that the bigger the “create account” button was, the more videos of cats falling off of stuff it would get.

The video content has changed remarkably from those days, too. YouTube was all about remarkable things and viral videos. The most editing that occurred was to make a video like “100 funny summer falls” or “Surfer dude autotune remix.” YouTube thrived on unoriginality.

It wasn’t so much about the uploaders and who they were, but the content. A 12-year-old me could stay up scary late (like, 11:45) watching dubbed versions of “Yu-Gi-Oh!” Maybe the saying that your life flashes before your eyes when you die really refers to all the YouTube videos you have watched. Regardless of what I see in my final moments, be it snapchats, YouTube or real life, I bet my primary reaction would be embarrassment. And maybe hunger/revulsion when I revisit all those “Epic Meal Time” videos.

YouTube has become just as much of a social network as some of the big-name ones; and I’m not just talking about the dregs of humanity that make an appearance in the comment section, but the overall layout of the page and the development of YouTuber as an occupation. Of course, I can’t bash the people who make six figures off of fools like me who watch them play video games. Congrats.

YouTube has started to be less about the videos, and more about the people putting them out. With likes and subscriptions becoming literal currency, you can imagine that content can take a bit of a turn towards the basic. Still, if you can avoid the people in copious hair gel and makeup ranting about their meaningless lives, there is still some really amazing content to be found. “Seinfeld” bloopers and the “My Neck, My Mii” remix of the Khia song over the Nintendo Wii theme music are my primary examples.

Ask Banner actually assists students with preregistration

by Banner, On paper

D

ear Banner, I know that I am supposed to a mature college kid capable of choosing my classes, but sometimes it is hard for me to get past my inner twelve-year-old. What should I do if my draw number is 69 or 420?

Sincerely, Middle Schooled Dear Fart History, It’s brave of you to admit what makes you silently giggle in class when you turn to a specific page, or when you look at the number on your retreat order slip. Have you ever thought about how eight people per semester have those numbers? You should get them all together for a group photo or something not related to the connotation of those numbers.

To answer your question, it depends on the number. If you got 69, reverse your thinking and take a class you would never expect to be in. As for 420, that means to study very hard so you can blaze through all your homework.

Dearest Banner A professor can make or break a class, but somehow I don’t trust Rate My Professor.

Maybe it’s the layout of the website, or the fact that “Hotness” is considered an important category. How should I go about choosing my professors?

Thanks, Google for days

Banner, So I’m looking to major in urban studies, but I also really like math. However, I’m fascinated by puddles, and wouldn’t want a double major to take away my time from studying them. Is a drama correlate doable? Can I have a “Take Art 105” button ironically?

Please help, Spread Thin

Dear Mr. Internet, The internet does not hold all of the answers, and you can definitely do better than a color coded smiley face to get a grasp on how your educators work. A good way to figure out if a professor is right for you is to give them all a lenghty application. After all, you had to do it to get here. Only a few essays, a creative haiku and mime routine can really decide who should be able to have the privilege of determining your GPA. Make sure that professors know that the “optional” talent portion is mandatory.

Dear Thin Ice, The first step I would suggest is to take a deep breath and just lie down in one of those puddles you are so fascinated by. Let the dirty water wash over you. Maybe feel a floating worm touch your face. The calm unhappiness you feel in the puddle is what you should feel when you choose your path of study. Just remember, there is virtually no chance that you are talented in all of these fields, even if you are a modern day “Renaissance man.”

To learn more about the Renaissance, you should definitely take Art 105.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Dear Dr. Ask Banner, I played sports early in high school, but I don’t do them anymore. I’m thinking about registering for the waiting by the deece grill for chicken seminar for credit, but I’m not sure I like the class. What I mean to ask is can I be an Econ major even if I come in at only a 2 on the bro scale?

Regards, Mold Breaker Dear Deece Chicken, Not all Econ majors are bros, bro. Just because you see it on Yik Yak doesn’t mean it’s true. Remember that time you yakked about a fire alarm that wasn’t actually happening?

Banner does, because Banner is all knowing.

Maybe sit in on a few of the Econ department’s deece grill seminars to see how you feel about them before making the decision to register. Sometimes, the conversations in that class can be a bit dry, but overall, it is great food for thought.

ARTS

Page 14

November 12, 2015

Synchronized performance continues cult classic tradition Yifan Wang Arts Editor

I

or ‘How do we make this part more fun for the audience/actors?’” she explained.

However, the production inevitably acquires freshness each year. Maria commented, “We all throw in our own creative, strange elements to the production. Last year we used a giant blowup penis as a murder weapon, and this year we are using a hobbyhorse…the personal energy that each new cast/set of directors puts in makes it a new experience each time.”

The crew also tried to deal with the problems of the original film. Heydt said, “There’s also always the consideration of trying to slowly bring the show and especially the callbacks up to date. The show does portray a lot of harmful stereotypes and attitudes, and even though we can’t change the film we can try to guide the audience’s perception of it. We try not to compro-

courtesy of Marielle Heydt

t is midnight. A movie is playing. Instead of sitting in the auditorium, the viewers are dressed as the characters on the silver screen. The “shadow cast” is miming the actions taking place above and behind them, and lip-syncing their characters’ lines. Many also talk and call back to the screen, yelling comments in response to the plots. This is the tradition of “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” a 1975 musical-comedy-horror film.

The cult classic’s large following and ritual-like viewing practices started a year later. Vassar is part of the tradition, putting up its 20th annual shadow performance this November.

Most of the cast and crew members started their involvement with the show in their freshman year. Director Marielle Heydt ’17 has been part of it for all three of her years at Vassar. She recounted, “I had seen the show in high school and loved it. I ended up cast as Magenta, and the next year I signed on to be the assistant director. The assistant director role is training to become the director, so it was a clear step up from there. As for why I wanted to participate, like any other freshman I was looking to be involved in something, and Rocky Horror seemed like a fun choice. I ended up wanting to continue the tradition on.”

Assistant Director Gabriela Maria ’18 started her Rocky Horror journey by playing Eddie. “I had heard of midnight showings of Rocky Horror but had never actually seen one live. When I saw that Vassar was doing it, I knew I wanted to be a part of it somehow. It is not like doing any other show; the experience is far beyond anything else. I was able to be silly and not feel too pressured, while staying passionate and continuing to strive for a entertaining performance,” Maria said.

Playing Janet Weiss, the heroine of the showcase, Sophie Cash ’19 is a new member of the group. She explained, “It’s a hilarious tradition, one that many generations have enjoyed riotously, and I thought it would be awesome to be one

of the ranks of people who have made this crazy cult classic come to life.”

Cash continued, “Janet is a really fun role. She begins the movie a docile classic-50s girl, dependent on her fiance, the competent, masculine and straight-laced Brad. I’ll try not to give any spoilers, but she has a very interesting character arc that takes her through a wild journey of discovering her sexuality. It’s such an entertaining part to explore because I get to play with the doe-eyed, lady-like stereotype, but also delve into some exciting, revealing, sexy craziness.”

As a shadow performance, the show is quite different from an ordinary creative experience.

Heydt wanted to maintain the ritual for the film’s devoted fan base. “Most of our thought process is, ‘How do we mimic the show as well as possible within the constraints of student theater?’

Presented by No Such Organization, the shadow performance of the classic film “Rocky Horror Picture Show” will take place this week. Vassar students join the 40-year-long tradition of the midnight film.

mise the show in a way that would ostracize its fan base while still being respectful and having those difficult conversations.”

For the performers, the sexual element of the show meant enriching performing experiences.

Playing Brad Majors, the leading male character, Buster Coen ’18 found the process worthwhile.

He said, “It’s funny: work on a show for a couple months to go on stage and have everyone call you an asshole throughout the show (Brad’s being an asshole is constantly incorporated into the callbacks). It’s worth it, though, because the show’s a ton of fun and celebrates sexual freedom and singing show tunes. Brad’s the straight man, but he evolves throughout the show so that his traditional values are at war.”

Cash found the synchronization challenging.

She elaborated, “Unlike other plays in which I’ve participated, Rocky Horror has demanded a very different and more challenging kind of memorization, one that is extremely precise to the timing of the lines and accuracy of the smallest of movements of the characters on screen. But it’s also fun, and playing with my own comfort with my sexuality on stage is probably the most rewarding part so far.”

As the rehearsals draw to an end, Heydt commented, “I guess personally, I hope that our cast can make friends out of this. We end up getting so intimate through this show that it builds a lot of great relationships. I mostly hope that the cast comes out of this having gained something, even if it’s just a little more confidence in their own bodies,” she said. The Transie Director, David Marquez ’17 added, “I hope that overall people will just enjoy being part of something they’ve never seen before or watching something they have seen done in a new way.”

Maria concluded, “Vassar’s campus can sometimes get a bit tense. Rocky Horror is something that allows students who attend to let loose and forget about restraints. It is pure (frankly, obnoxious) amusement without caring about what your fellow intellectual peers will think, because they are all doing it too.”

Displaced Persons photographs, reflects oblivious worlds Sabrina Oh

A

Reporter

In 1985, Astor incepted his career in a studio above Carnegie Hall in New York City. Astor’s subjects primarily include art, architecture, music, theater and dance. His works have made appearances in “Vanity Fair,” “The New York Times,” “The New Yorker,” “Newsweek” and “The Rolling Stones.”

In 1989, his first exhibition received striking attention. Works from the show were included in both the Vanity Fair Portraits exhibition, the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Digital Darkroom at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles.

Astor is not only a photographer but also a filmmaker. His first documentary, “Lost Bohemia,” premiered in 2010 and subsequently won a Special Jury Prize at the DOC-NYC Festival.

Astor was also awarded the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography.

Astor’s clients include AT&T, IBM, Hitachi, Phillip Morris, Geoffrey Beene, Bergdorf Good-

man, Absolut Vodka and Ralph Pucci.

The Claflin lecture will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015 at 6 p.m. at Taylor Hall, Room 203.

As the arts community at the college continues to grow, students are captivated by Astor’s photographic collection. Lucy Li ’19 wrote, “I feel like it is interesting that the photographer uses photography to subvert the stereotype of the icons, as photographs might be the cause of those stereotypes. Photography is highly subjective; it’s like subverting a stereotype with another stereotype.”

Linn wrote, “The premise of the lecture is [h]ow and why Josef Astor has been making photographs for over 40 years. Josef was chosen by the Studio Art faculty because of the excellence of his work. I hope the audience will be inspired to love art making and to have a new perspective on all the possibilities in their own lives.”

courtesy of Participant Inc.

woman with short, rigid, platinum hair boldly sports her cat-eye sunglasses, ruby lipstick, retro triangular earrings and a pair of white latex gloves. She cups the chin of an elderly woman wearing pink oversized eyeglasses and a homely purple blouse. The juxtaposition entrenches a space, a time—a moment.

In another shot, two men sit on the curb of a street. In the background, the lights of Broadway beam off the glossy surface of poster encasements. The man in a tan leather jacket offers a cigarette with his right hand and places his left hand on the shoulder of the other man in a blue pullover. Their demeanors are blatantly tepid. But there exists a brotherly relationship. The photograph proves that strangers and camaraderie are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the photograph shows that strangers are the seed of camaraderie.

In another shot, a woman sits on the edge of her chair, spreads her legs out just enough to stretch her indigo dress taut, and facially expresses great apprehension. The shot is symmetrical, a bit too symmetrical–a bit too perfect. The edgy pose and the taut dress culminates into an apprehensive force of power.

The photographic stasis carries tension.

Acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Josef Astor captures just that–a moment of innocence and self-possession. Currently part of the School of Visual Arts’ faculty in New York City, Astor will be giving the Claflin Lecture on his photographic project, “Displaced Persons”, at Vassar College next week. “Displaced Persons” is a solo exhibition of photographs by Astor.

Longtime friend of Astor and curator of “Displaced Persons” Antony wrote, “The portraits selected for ‘Displaced Persons’ are multifaceted, unnerving, and surreal. Staging and photographing his peers and muses, Astor intuitively documented key players from intersecting pre-millennial and pre-Internet dance and late-night performance subcultures, assembling a constellation of artists and hybrids who took it upon themselves to reflect a largely

oblivious world back onto itself with venomous innocence and shocking self-possession. Astor, in all his subtlety, is one of those hybrids.”

Though the event revolves around Astor’s “Displaced Persons,” the lecture navigates the art of photography as a whole. When asked about her thoughts on Astor, Grace Sparapani ’16 wrote, “A lot of photography focuses on a hierarchical relationship between the photographer and the subject -- either the model is used as a site for the photographer’s work or the photographer is used merely as a vehicle for bringing the subject to the viewer. Josef Astor’s work challenges this. There’s a relationship between him and his models in ‘displaced persons’ -- mostly performers and artists themselves, friends of Astor’s. This relationship mirrors his subject matter, with Astor relating to the model as they relate to their body and the viewer.”

The exhibition features 24 works of unpublished photographs of subversively unique artists of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The displacement is attributed to the deviant products of these very artists. In his photographs, Astor puts together seemingly dichotomous subjects to convey the capture and illustrate the construct of dual existence. In other words, Astor escapes the bounds of categorization and conventions. Astor breaks these boundaries, technically, aesthetically and conceptually.

The exhibition reflects Astor’s numerous influences. Irving Penn influenced Astor to deviate from classicism. Angus McBean mused the tableaux style. Octavia Pemberton St. Laurent and Pearl standardized studio portraiture.

Color shift, a technical photographic element in relation to color, is attributed to Paul Outerbridge. The exhibition also features collaborations with Charles Atlas and Johanna Constantine for the magazine “Dance Ink.” Just as the muses of Astor have influenced him and culminated in a captivating photographic exhibition, the Claflin lecture will seek to inspire the Vassar community. Professor of Art Judy Linn wrote, “The significance of the lecture is to see how someone manifests the creative desire we all have.”

Josef Astor is set to deliver the Claflin Lecture. He is a renowned photographer who recently debuted a series of portraits for “Displaced Persons,” a representation of seemingly dichotomous photos.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

November 12, 2015

ARTS

Page 15

Richard II exhibits, interrogates radically changing world Matt Stein Reporter

S

courtesy of Max Fine

atie’s ‘Gymnopédie No. 3’ plays to intermittent static in a world void of time and place while Rob Leinheiser ’16 as Richard shrieks with fully gripping emotion for the music to stop, filling all in the room with a catharsis rare to spawn and a sympathy delicate to possess.

This is not “Richard II” directed by Max Fine ’17, but rather Max Fine’s “Richard II.” Produced by Merely Players, Vassar’s student theater organization that mainly focuses on classic plays, “Richard II” is going up in the Susan Stein Shiva Theater on Thursday, Nov. 12th at 8:30 p.m. and Friday, Nov. 13 and 14 at 8:00 p.m.

“Richard II” follows the eponymous character in the process of losing everything after being deposed as king, as a result of the horrible acts he committed in power. Living in his world of pomp and circumstance, Richard watches himself get left behind in a kingdom overtaken by Henry Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV, who reclaims the inheritance stolen by Richard when his father, John of Gaunt, died.

Fine described what drew him to this production, commenting, “In high school as a senior, I took a class on Shakespearian literature and in that we read one history play and that was actually the first part of ‘Henry IV.’ Richard was referenced a lot throughout that play.

I had the play already but didn’t get around to reading it until last summer when I decided to read all eight of the histories, starting with ‘Richard II,’ over the course of seven weeks back to back. And I found that I really fell in love with ‘Richard II.’ It moved very quickly.

If not cut properly, it can feel like a long play, but on the page it feels almost as if no time has passed. And so I fell in love with it. It’s a very beautiful show.”

“Richard II” is the first play in Shakespeare’s tetralogy of histories referred to as “the Henriad,” which also includes “Henry IV” Parts 1 & 2 and “Henry V.” Despite this association, it is not one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, especially now. There have been only a few notable performances in the last century. Richard himself has been portrayed by Kevin Spacey, Eddie Redmayne

and David Tennant.

Set designer and the actor playing Bagot and the Keeper, Jarek Lenda ’18, agreed on the rarity of a “Richard II” production, commenting, “It’s not a show that I think gets seen often, or at least it’s not that well-known amongst the college crowd. We don’t study ‘Richard II’ in high school so it’s not something you go to college knowing unless you took a Shakespeare class. There have been a lot of bigger performances on stages but those have been in England or Broadway and have been expensive to go to and something you might not choose to see. This is an opportunity to see a Shakespeare play that you might never see again.”

With few actually knowing what this play is about, this obscurity allowed for Fine to alter the play in a cohesive manner, cutting back and rearranging to allow this showcase to remain just as powerful while running around two hours instead of almost three. A few characters have been removed and several scenes have been combined, but in no way did Fine change the plot for time’s sake. Since Shakespeare’s lexicon might be difficult for a modern audience, it is beneficial for this focus to become narrower.

“The Wes Anderson movie ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ actually served as a lot of inspiration for this concept. The idea has been playing around with a world of color fading to this desolate almost colorless world. There was this great line in the movie about how the character Gustav lives in an illusion of a world that has long since vanished. And I think Richard sort of occupies a similar position.” Fine said about his design, “It’s going to start off very colorful. The factions are going to have different colors. It’s more of an early 20th century thing because you witness similarly the breakdown of a world between the two world wars.”

Despite the difficulty in performing Shakespeare, a good cast can make his words comprehensible to even a child. And Fine believes he’s found the perfect cast, explaining, “I’d like to take the audience on an emotional journey with Richard and with Bolingbroke.

And I think this cast is certainly doing that to the utmost. They are extremely talented.

The rarely performed Shakespearean play “Richard II” displays an environment of color slowly fading away. The show will be performed in the Susan Stein Shiva Theater on Nov. 12, 13 and 14.

They have been a dream to work with. The amount of times I have taken notes in rehearsal saying ‘I could feel my heart break’ or ‘I couldn’t stop laughing’ has been quite often.”

As any actor will tell you, there are added difficulties in performing a Shakespearean play than a contemporary one. Clarifying some of these challenges, Dorian Oberstein ’16, who plays John of Gaunt and Young Hotspur, said, “It’s very difficult to memorize, which was strange because I’m usually very good at memorizing and the language comes naturally. But it’s been very difficult to get into the right rhythm of the lines without compromising my acting. And doing both things at once is like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. Eventually, it became natural but it became a much longer process to really access the language while retaining intention and motivation.”

Even though there might be trouble in speaking the language, the cast is certain that the message of the show is ambiguous, especially in where one’s sympathy should lie, es-

pecially in how they feel about Richard.

“I think what’s really important about this show is the characters are just incredibly complex in that there’s really no one you should be rooting for in the beginning. It kind of seems like you could be rooting for Bolingbroke but after seeing Richard’s eventual collapse, there’s so much sympathy there and seeing when Bolingbroke eventually rises to power, he’s not as sympathetic,” Oberstein responded. “You think that they have it all and everything’s made for them but there’s a lot of danger, hardship, and difficulty with having so much power.”

Overall commenting on the uniqueness of this production of “Richard II,” Lenda said, “The great thing about Shakespeare is that you can really interpret it a bunch of different ways that isn’t just defined by one production.

So this is very much Max Fine’s interpretation of ‘Richard II.’” “I hope they enjoy it. I hope they are emotionally invested.” Fine summarized. “It’s a very beautiful show.”

Rivera directs attention to issues of transgender sexuality Connor McIlwain Arts Editor

“N

courtesy of Ignacio Rivera

egotiating consent is a phrase often left out of our conversations about sex,” says Ignacio Rivera in a description of a workshop they will host on campus next week. “When we think of love, romance, relationships, sex and fucking, other thoughts and frameworks come to mind.” How to Speak Your Language of Sex, Love and Play, Rivera’s workshop, will seek to uproot these frameworks and associations. Rivera will also give a lecture called All of Me, a compilation of poetry, performance and storytelling, The events are sponsored by the Campus Life LGBTQ Center, with co-sponsorship from the Drama Department, the Campus Life ALANA Center, Native American Studies, TransMission and unFramed. Director of the LGBTQ Center and Women’s Center Judy Jarvis ’07 said, “The Campus Life LGBTQ Center puts on a performance every semester as part of our Queer and Trans Performance Series, and this fall we are lucky enough to bring Ignacio Rivera to campus.

Ignacio came highly recommended by Professor Elias Krell, who helped co-found the series, as well as from my colleagues at NYU, who have brought them to perform and do workshops in the past. “ Jarvis noted that the timing of Rivera’s visit is crucial. She continued, “I’m glad we could have Ignacio come in November in particular, because it’s often a month where students are very stressed about work and really need the breathing space and reflection space that experiencing a performance and/or workshop can provide.”

Rivera’s workshop will provide strategies to navigate consent, sex and identity. “We have to talk, discuss, negotiate and be held accountable for all of our desires–those spoken and unspoken,” says Rivera, on the workshop. “This of course is easier said than done in a world where love has many languages; where race, gender and

Ignacio Rivera will conduct a lecture and performance on campus next week. Rivera is a renowned filmmaker, activist and performer who will shed light on many issues facing the trans community. class oppression abound and where many of us are recovering from trauma.”

While the workshop itself covers important content, Rivera’s presence on campus alone is equally significant. TransMission President Spencer Garcia ’18 explained, “Ignacio’s visit is essential to continuing the recognition of issues that trans people of color face. I also believe that it’s important to value and celebrate the trans people of color we bring to campus, and the work that they do.”

TransMission meets weekly and provides a space for trans and non-binary individuals to meet and support each other. The group supports many trans causes both on and off-campus.

“As President, my main goal is to focus on supporting trans people of color, especially through our programming,” explained Garcia.

They continued, “Last semester, TransMission collaborated with unFramed to bring Zanele Muholi to campus to discuss her photography, which centers queer and trans South Africans.”

In October, the group partnered with unFramed again to bring spoken word artist Kay Barrett to campus. “Kay’s visit to campus was part of an effort to bring issues faced by trans people of color, especially those who are disabled, to the forefront of campus consciousness,” said Garcia.

Rivera’s visit continues this effort. Their workshop and lecture will help increase aware-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ness of trans issues and causes on campus in a more personal way. This kind of voice and presence isn’t regularly seen on campus. Garcia explained the significance, “Oftentimes we discuss issues of race, gender, sexuality and class at Vassar, but the institution fails to bring in speakers or performers who have lived through these marginalized experiences. Even when we do, we forget to think beyond the entertainment value that these artists and speakers bring to campus.

We have to learn to value them as people, and to translate this appreciation to trans people of color at Vassar.”

As an accomplished artist, activist, filmmaker, lecturer and sex educator, Rivera brings a diverse resume to the cause. Their written work and short films have been featured in various magazines and film festivals. They have lectured all over the world. Moreover, they have consulted for multiple organizations and companies on racism, sexism, homo/transphobia and more.

“When TransMission was emailed about the LGBTQ+ Center about wanting to collaborate to bring Ignacio Rivera to campus, I know we were very excited to be able to have a part in this,” explained TransMission Vice President Gates ’18.

They echoed the importance of Rivera’s visit to campus. “Rivera has done talks all over the world, and we are extremely grateful for the opportunity to experience firsthand one of Rivera’s workshops for ourselves as a trans affinity space, but also to allow others to learn about what they have to say! This is going to be an incredible experience, and I hope that anyone and everyone who can is able to come to the workshop!”

Rivera’s visit contributes not only to the Queer and Trans Performance Series, but also to a campus climate yearning for greater minority representation. Their workshop and performance seek to both engage and instruct on Vassar-relevant topics while also bringing an underrepresented presence to campus.

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November 12, 2015

Drama series “Wiped Out!” loses experimental mentality incorporates horror, humor Jimmy Christon Guest Columnist

Wiped Out! The Neighbourhood Columbia Records

Jillian Elkin Columnist

Scream Queens Ryan Murphy 20th Century Fox

“G

ood evening, idiot hookers.” That’s just one line spouted cruelly from the lips of Chanel Oberlin, portrayed by Emma Roberts, in the TV show “Scream Queens” created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan.

Even though “Scream Queens” is only in its first season, it’s already a phenomenon. In case you didn’t see one of the many people dressed up as characters on Halloween, there’s evidence of the fandom all over online. Nearly every moment of “Scream Queens” is gif-ready. Snappy one-liners, a gorgeous wardrobe and celebs naturally turn this show into a social media obsession.

The campy horror of “Scream Queens” offers Mean Girls-esque humor, some suspense and a whole lot of blood. Serial killers wearing Red Devil costumes are targeting members of Kappa Kappa Tau sorority. The sorority has a history of murderous secrets. Plus, its leader is the sociopathic Chanel Oberlin. The killers could be anyone, and people die each episode in cruel and unusual circumstances.

Despite the amount of blood spilled, “Scream Queens” is primarily a comedy. There are a few minutes that might induce heart palpitations, but those scenes usually involve humor as well. In episode five (“Pumpkin Patch”), the Red Devil chases one of the sorority sisters, Chanel #5 (because Chanel doesn’t care about her minions’ names) and her boyfriends through a maze. In this homage to “The Shining,” funny moments cut up the suspense. Halfway through the scene, the boyfriends, who are also twin brothers, force Chanel #5 to choose who she likes more.

Unfortunately, not all of the characters are so well-crafted. Kappa pledge Zayday Williams, played

by Keke Palmer, is a major character, yet her personality is little more than a compilation of stereotypes about young black women. The unoriginality of this character is hardly the most offensive part of “Scream Queens.” Unfortunately, “Scream Queens” frequently makes jokes at the expenses of people of color, disabled people and gay people. These jokes come off as archaic and unnecessary. The viewer is supposed to enjoy hearing characters make appalling comments.

But the comments are funnier when they’re random, not bigoted. The show and its actors are funny enough without tasteless humor. I could endlessly listen to Chad Radwell, the dim-witted president of the Dickie Dollar Scholars fraternity, played by Glen Powell, earnestly explain the indisputable rules of Truth of Dare.

The show also disappoints for anyone expecting campy horror in the tradition of “Tales from the Crypt” or the “Scream” franchise. Despite being created by two of the minds behind “American Horror Story,” “Scream Queens” offers no scream-inducing frights. As a TV show chock full of celebrities, those at risk for murder are secondary characters. The secondary characters don’t have story arcs or full personalities that would make the viewer emotionally invested in their survival or surprised at their deaths.

With many overcomplicated or illogical plot points, the show doesn’t offer the viewer enough to care about who the killer is, which is supposed to be the show’s major cliffhanger and eventual reveal. None of the characters show enough humanity to earn an emotional response from the viewer. The characters are more like composites of jokes (ranging from witty and bitchy to juvenile and bitchy) in furry sweaters or pastel polos than actual people. The unrealistic characters make “Scream Queens” funny and addicting, but they also demonstrate the show’s flaws.

Despite its shortcomings, “Scream Queens” is enjoyable. It won’t provoke conversation or further contemplation, but it’s fun. The witty, dirty jokes, the references to other horror films, and the on point outfits are pure entertainment. “Scream Queens” is definitely not for everyone. Then again, the blend of comedy and horror is an acquired taste. Sometimes the show’s humor is too mean, too cringe-worthy, too offensive, too immature. At times, I feel bad for watching “Scream Queens”–but that doesn’t stop me.

I

magine a day at the beach. Imagine that you’ve been out past the waves just floating on your back in the water, and now you want to go back to land. You start making your way back and it’s really easy; you just drift along with the waves as you are pushed back to shore. At some point, you’re gonna have to get up off your ass and onto your feet, however, and once you’re on your feet, it suddenly becomes much harder. Your feet start to sink into the wet sand; it’s a great effort just to get one above the water. The waves receding pull your legs behind you, making each step a chore. That’s what listening to “Wiped Out!” the latest album by The Neighborhood is analogous to.

The Neighbourhood is a California-based alternative rock band. Their last full-length, 2013’s “I Love You,” was met with lessthan-lukewarm reception from critics. But the album has aged better than what was expected. On “I Love You,” The Neighbourhood showed that they can craft some pretty decent alt-rock songs like “Afraid,” “W.D.Y.W.F.M?” and “Sweater Weather”–the band’s biggest hit. Special attention should be given to the use of vocals with distortion that harmonize with the lead voice. It gave the album a much needed flare of personality.

Then came the rogue wave that was “#000000 & #ffffff,” a mixtape released by The Neighbourhood. This is a full blown hip-hop mixtape by an alt-rock band featuring everything from a Danny Brown feature to a Lil Wayne sample. Surprisingly, the mix-

tape wasn’t half bad. The Neighbourhood was pretty serious about experimenting with their style on this project and the result is a fusion of genres and styles to create something original.

Unfortunately, The Neighbourhood did not carry this experimental mentality onto “Wiped Out!” The biggest problem with this album is that it is boring. The band goes for a “chill” feeling for the album, but they miss the mark.

Right out of the gate, the album frustrates with the opener “Moment of Silence.” This track isn’t a song. It is literally 30 seconds of silence (which is way longer than a “moment”). It’s not deplorable that the album starts with a track of just silence. What is deplorable is that it lasts for half a minute with absolutely no context.

At least when other artists try to get away with passing silence for actual song-writing, they normally have some bullshit excuse to justify it (looking at Chance, the Rapper’s “Pusha Man”). There is no reason to have this track take up this much space on the album. You stand to lose absolutely nothing by skipping past this track each time the album starts.

Besides wasting the listener’s time, The Neighbourhood also commits the cardinal sin of making a boring album. Besides the first three tracks after the opener, the album is a complete chore to get through. Each song is the same mix of groaned/whispered vocals over ambient synths, guitar and some slow percussion; there is very, very little to differentiate each song from one another.

This wouldn’t be a problem if each song was interesting, but the lyrics are so dull that you can’t help but let them go in one ear and then out the other.

The one thing a listener might do more than yawn while listening to this album is cringe. The song “Daddy Issues” for example, attempts to be a sweet song about front-

man Jesse Rutherford relating with a girl about lost parents, but the lyrics come off so creepily when they are quietly whispered into your ear.

Case in point: “If you were mine, little girl / I’d do whatever I could do”–did these lines not ring any alarm bells in the head of anyone in the band? Then again this is the same band that purposely put 30 seconds of silence as the opener to their album, but I digress.

Granted, “Wiped Out!” does have some rare good moments. The track “Cry Baby” is a fairly enjoyable pop track with some pretty clever use of the phrase “Cry Baby.” The first actual song of the album “Prey” is also a pretty energetic song where the percussion and vocals blend nicely. The album’s closer “R.I.P. 2 My Youth” is an enjoyable track if you don’t listen too closely to the lyrics.

But these tracks are the few exception to the 11-song tracklist. The rest of the tracks on this album are dull, uninteresting and too slow for their own good. Even when the band does break out of this dull reverie, such as the hard-hitting synth on “Baby Came Home 2 / Valentines,” it lasts two minutes too long.

“Greetings from Califournia” has some cowbell on it, but it is way too sparse to bring this song out of the mediocrity in which it is entrenched.

Overall, it is very hard to recommend this album. It’s obvious to see that The Neighbourhood was trying to go for a “chill” schtick on this album, but they miss the mark by a great margin.

If, for some ungodly reason, you run out of Nyquil while nursing this season’s cold and want to give alternative sleep-aids a shot, by all means try this album out. But if you like listening to music to elicit a positive, or any kind of meaningful response, then you might be better off jumping back to The Neighbourhood’s mixtape, “#000000 & #ffffff.”

The Martian’s sales success raises concern Reid Antin

Guest Columnist

The Martian Ridley Scott 20th Century Fox

W

hen Ridley Scott directs a space movie and it’s so terrible that it makes you wish you were watching “Prometheus” (perhaps the ultimate exercise in promising so much and delivering so little), you know you’re in trouble. So “The Martian” sucks, big deal, don’t see it.

Why write a review about it a few weeks after it’s already opened? Because unfortunately, for better or for worse, it has had a scarily successful impact on our pop culture. As of this writing, the film has made over $150 million domestically and holds an absurd 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. America likes this. America likes this exercise in Hollywood patting itself on the back that takes two and a half hours (and feels like one of Scott’s infamous bloated director’s cuts in theatrical form) to reach an obvious, inevitable conclusion that all but the most simpleton of audiences will guess within the first 30 seconds–and even they can’t possibly go beyond five minutes without doing so. This is almost worse than global audiences flocking to “Jurassic World” in raptor packs big enough to make it the No. 3 most successful film of all time. Because at least everyone who goes to see that movie (I hope) knows full well that it’s crap, but have paid their ticket price (myself included) out of an obligation to childhood nostalgia for a masterpiece (“Jurassic Park”).

The outrageous success of “The Martian,” the second biggest October opening of all time (just a million shy of “Gravity”’s opening weekend, which, no pun intended, is galaxies beyond this in terms of quality), is so damn depressing because it actually has a shot at winning some Oscars, or at least be-

ing nominated. People are seeing this movie because they actually think it’s good. They actually praise this “crowd-pleaser,” this barf-bucket that makes me realize I liked it better the first time when anonymous NASA control employees mindlessly throw their papers up in the air in celebration when the hero comes home safe at the end when it was called “Armageddon.”

I’m not even going to call that crucial reveal of a plot point a spoiler alert–did anybody even think for one second that Matt Damon was not going to make it home? After all, he’s going to “science the shit” out of his situation and find a solution! Ridley Scott somehow thinks we will feel some semblance of suspense, or at least he hopes so, otherwise, why else are we watching two and a half slow-as-molasses hours of Matt Damon play botanist as he creates agricultural development to survive on a greenscreen Mars.

Of course, that one-man show of a movie would, believe it or not, be too interesting for this mess. Oh no. We have to intercut this with an endless slew of celebrities playing NASA officials looking bored to be there. Hey Look! It’s Jessica Chastain phoning it in as the astronaut who accidentally leaves Damon behind and now feels guilty about it and decides on a whim to waste another 19 months of her life taking her crew to go save him (all while disobeying orders!

Uh oh, she’s going to be in trouble. Or is she?). Hey Look! It’s Jeff Daniels playing the same role he always does–the killjoy guy in charge (except this time he doesn’t have catchy Aaron Sorkin dialogue to help him out). Hey Look! It’s Kirsten Wiig looking just as confused as to why she’s there as we are. This sounds like a recipe for success.

It’s as if the filmmakers heeded the advice of the film’s dumbest scene, where an upstart young computer hacker tries to figure out how to save Matt Damon, and he literally reads off his computer screen, “Calculations Correct,” because that’s totally how we come up with solutions that NASA can’t.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Especially when said young hacker just walks into NASA (that I guess has the most lax security of any government organization in the post-Sept. 11 world) while being met with no more than an unworried “who are you?” before he just nonchalantly pitches his brilliant idea to the head of NASA. And it is a brilliant solution–after all, the computer itself told him, “Calculations Correct.”

It’s often said that the most brilliant title card in the history of cinema is the sound effect jump scare that accompanies the “Tuesday” card in “The Shining.” Well, I suppose “The Martian” is equally successful in getting inside the head of a murderer every time it presents a title card showing the passage of time on Mars (e.g. Sol 200, Sol 561, etc.), and accompanies it with the most insufferable “bing.” By the 15th or so of these, it made me feel as if I were Jack Torrance in “The Shining” himself, as I felt an incredible urge to strangle the screen.

The feeling was only encouraged by the fact that I was watching it in 3D and, like a child, found myself reaching out at the characters with my squeezing palms.

The only reason why I’m giving even a half a star to this disgrace to cinema and insult to the intelligence of audience members supposedly going to this film looking for a little more than a Transformers-esque Blockbuster (though maybe they really are that dumb if they lap it up so) is because, well, it’s a movie. It’s not poorly shot. It’s not well shot, but at least I suppose it’s technically accomplished in a polished sort of way. There are coherent sentences in the dialogue. Attempts are made in the acting (sometimes) to do more than a line reading.

Yep, it’s a movie. And it’s a terrible movie whose success provides a window into what’s wrong with audiences and critics today.

But most of all, it’s yet another painful reminder that the man who made “Alien,” “Blade Runner” and even the underappreciated “Legend” is, for all intensive purposes, dead.

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November 12, 2015

Page 17

Sign language performers let words fly Excuse me, POETRY continued from page 1

well-praised poetry performance on campus.

Professor of English Leslie Dunn, who invited the poets to Vassar, talked about her encounter with ASL poetry and Peter Cook’s work, “In 2013, I was developing a new course, ‘Gender, Sexuality, and Disability.’ I was planning a section called ‘Disability Poetics’ and wanted to include ASL poetry, about which I knew nothing at the time. So I went online and found Larry Polansky’s essay ‘The Best American Poetry You’ll Never Read.’ The first sentence refers to the Flying Words Projects’ poem ‘Made in the USA,’ which Peter and Kenny filmed in a motel room while they were touring. I found that video on YouTube and watched it more than once, going back and forth between the performance and Polansky’s description of it, trying to recognize the handshape rhymes that are a signature element of Flying Words poetry. It was a revelatory experience for me. I’ve been studying, teaching, and occasionally writing poetry for over 30 years now, but this was something completely new. Watching Peter made me feel as if I was present at poetry’s creation.”

Different from English poems, which embrace aural rhymes and rhythms, ASL poetry replies on the visual rhyme of handshapes, hand movements and body languages. Due to this distinctive form, the presentation of this art genre poses different challenges. “ASL is simply another language,” said Cook (interpreted by Lerner), “The more you do it, the better you learn. Poems that involve big body movements are easy to remember, while ones with smaller signs are hard. To switch between fast signs, I have to practice–it’s like dancing. It creates muscle memories, so that if I perform a piece after five years, it still comes back to me.”

Cook and Lerner’s works include political poems, natural poems and surrealist poems.

“We love to play with language and stretch it out as far as we can,” said Cook, “We like to put the real and the unreal together to find new meanings. In ‘One Hundred Years of

Campus Canvas

Solitude,’ a character is killed but refused to die. We do that in our poetry, too. We show the birth of a baby, but at the same time it’s a firework display and a rainstorm. They are parts of the birth as well–that’s what birth is like. With surrealism, you come up with it without knowing why. But after a while, you will understand.”

On Nov. 6, Cook and Lerner led an ASL workshop with students from MEDS 382 “The Arts of Silence” and DRAM 306 “Art of Acting: Comedy” in the Streep Studio. Without vocal expressions, Cook stressed the importance of facial expressions and body movements in performing. He turned the classroom into a “sculpture garden,” letting students shape and construct each another’s postures to express different emotions and attitudes, as if they were clays to be made into statues. Drama student Dan Thompson ’17 liked the experience very much. He elaborated, “I thoroughly enjoyed the ASL Workshop. Peter Cook is an extremely inspirational person and I learned a lot from him.

He communicates his energy in such a powerfully palpable way, making his workshop that much more engaging. I hope to work with him again someday.”

The workshop was followed by the Flying Words performance on Nov. 7, which opened with a poem about Israel. Cook explained the creative ideas of this poem. “We were in Israel and we saw everything. Kenny and I wrote ideas together, connected images to make rhythm and rhymes. Finding the words was the last thing,” said he. In the middle of the show, Cook and Lerner involved the audience in a group poem about fossil fuel.

Dividing the audience into three groups, they taught them to use sign language. One group imitated a person using golden toilet paper. Another were corpses being paid to play violins. The last group cut down trees to manufacture toothpicks. Commentary on capitalism lurked under the unspoken signs.

Sophie Cash ’19, a member of the Vassar College Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign, noted, “I absolutely loved Peter’s poem, and felt very honored that he endorsed Divest-

ment at the beginning of it. I thought that his and Kenny’s social commentary was very powerful in a witty, jarring way, but more importantly, the poem itself struck me deeply, given my connection and passion about the environment. I loved the way he brought it full-circle, showing the progression of oil to ship to truck to airmail plane to soldier, and then the soldier being killed by capitalist warfare and his dead body being turned into the very oil that sent him to his grave.

It was just an arresting, stunningly visual commentary.”

The last piece of the show, “Charlie,” was about the Vietnam War. Lerner talked about the inspiration for the work. He recounted, “Peter read about training dogs in the war, and I researched on the tunnels in the Vietnam War. We then decided to merge these ideas together to create ‘Charlie,’ which is about a dog trained in this war.” President of ACCESS Charles Callejo ’17 commented on the performance. “Watching the last performance, ’Charlie,’ felt like a movie.

I was impressed by how Peter utilized his ASL poetry to embody both the dog and the soldiers, switching between the characters without losing the audience’s attention,” Callejo said.

Not only attracting Vassar faculty and students, these events were open for the local public, especially the deaf community in the region. The Interdisciplinary Arts Coordinator for the Creative Arts Across Disciplines Initiative Tom Pacio helped reach out to the local deaf community. He was glad that the performance was able to draw a large, diverse audience. “When my interns reached out to different organizations of the local deaf community, the excitement and the star power of Peter Cook made the audience of the lecture so diverse,” Pacio recounted.

As an artist himself, Pacio spoke highly of Cook’s Flying Words showcase. “Personally, my mind was blown completely. The joy of watching and getting to know Peter and Kenny was electric, and I now want to learn ASL. As an artist, it’s been a long time since I felt inspired.”

A weekly space highlighting the creative pursuits of student-artists

What should the “Hooray, I’m declared” button really say?

“The beginning of the end.”

— Nicholas Lee ’19

“Yay, I’m limiting my possibilities.”

— Austin Gibbs ’19

“Look, Ma, I made it!”

— Olivia O’Loughlin ’18

submit to misc@vassar.edu

mine/yours

I wonder if when you pulled my hair back And breathed “mine” in my ear, Pinning me pliable Vulnerable You knew the amount of trust it required in me To part my lips in the form of “yours” I wonder if you realized The gravity of that moment for me Or did that not matter?

Because to you, it was a production Or better yet, a projection Knowing you were about to walk away That the hold was one sided Knowing if I ever said the same, The words would be false.

Even as your fingers left bruises And your teeth dragged red down my neck Your body and heart Were never marked

And you were powerful On top in all ways Inside in all ways Make me scream while you remain silent Except for that whispered word in my ear And I still hear it now Because that naked act brutalized The scar tissue on my soul And while my skin may be healed It’s not the physical that remembers The real moment I gave myself away And I hope you remember that the next time You place your weight on somebody For “mine” should be a promise And “yours” is an outstretched hand That if dropped Closes tight Until the knuckles snap

In my last relationship, we played a lot with power dynamics. What I didn’t realize was the amount of pain that would result from that level of trust being broken.

-Ally Fernandez ’18

“Hooray, I can go abroad.”

— Cole Fisher ’18

“This paperwork meant nothing.”

— Joanna Plotkin ’17

“Yay, I’m bound for life.”

— Tom Li ’17

Zander Bashaw, Humor & Satire Editor Sam Pianello, Photo Editor

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

SPORTS

Page 18

November 12, 2015

IM programs continue growth, success under Callahan Amreen Bhasin Reporter

D

courtesy of Vassar Athletics

espite its popularity today, Vassar College’s Intramural program has grown tremendously from its presence on campus just a few years ago. Looking at the department, there are two huge reasons for its growth. The first is the arrival of current Assistant Athletics Director for Sports and Recreation Mike Callahan. Callahan has been an integral part of the program’s continued growth as he continues to oversee and add to the various offerings Vassar has under its Intramural program. The second has been student involvement and interest.

Without student participation and voices, the IM program would have a hard time continuing to progress. With their help, Callahan has been able to help the college provide an active outlet that is incredibly important for students with immense course loads and out of class commitments. For many athletes, their sports provide not only a sense of camaraderie with teammates working towards the same goal but also a much needed physical stress release. In extending the IM program, Callahan is opening that same possibility to a greater number of students in a way that allows their competitiveness to shine.

Callahan outlined a few of his original goals when he was hired last year. “My main objective for the Vassar IM program was to increase our offerings and participation rates. All of our programs have grown in the short time I have been here and our participation rates have increased significantly. We have also offered new IM sports in my time here such as Kickball and Floor Hockey. We have reached our initial goals but we still have a lot more we want to accomplish for the future,” he stated.

Senior Elijah Mondesir, who works with Callahan in IMs, has been a familiar face in Vassar’s pickup basketball community for many years.

He’s been a constant competitor and is part of the current reigning Vassar IM champion team.

Mondesir explained why he is so supportive of Vassar’s IM program and what it provides students. “Since I played high school basketball

The Vassar Intramural program has grown under recently hired Mike Callahan. The upcoming 3-on-3 tournament and game against Iona are just some of the improvements Callahan has implemented. and enjoyed it very much, I like that IM provides competitive and organized play without the full commitment of a varsity sport. Some people like to be a little more competitive than what general pickup basketball offers but not as serious as a Varsity game. IMs provide that middle ground for serious play as well as individuals who would just like to have fun with their friends as well.”

Callahan gave some background into what’s made basketball as well as all the IM programs so successful recently. “Just like all of our other programs, the reason that basketball is successful is because we have organized, structured leagues and tournaments that are fun. Plus the winner receives a championship T-shirt which is always a great perk,” he explained.

Sophomore David Won, another familiar face in the pickup and IM basketball community, is

certainly a fan of the championship shirts and cited it as his favorite part of participating. “I like getting t-shirts when I win,” he added.

This Saturday, the IM program will offer another 3-on-3 tournament in which student teams can participate in order to try and win another one of those t-shirts Callahan mentioned. But beyond student participation, IMs are also open to Vassar College staff and faculty as well. With dwindling numbers at last year’s Student-Faculty basketball game, perhaps this is another way for more and more of the Vassar College community to engage with one another on the court.

Callahan looked back on how the IM Basketball program has emerged during his time here, explaining, “We have had two 3 on 3 tournaments in my time here and one 5 on 5 basketball league. We will be having another 5 on 5-basketball league after Spring Break. In my time here

we have had about 70-80 students and staff participate in IM Basketball. I expect that number to grow.”

Mondesir has seen how Callahan’s work and enthusiasm has positively impacted the program. “Before Mr. Callahan, there was no IM Basketball, honestly there were no IMs period.

He’s turned Vassar from zero percent participation to I think about 500-600 students or more that take part in the various sports he offers.”

Currently, the largest IM on campus is the Soccer program. Along with basketball, it is be two of the IM sports that Callahan is currently looking to engage with other schools in competition. Callahan outlined the current state of competition between Vassar and others schools: “At this moment there has not been competition against other schools but we are looking into it in the future for Basketball and Soccer at the moment. Nothing is set in stone yet but I am exploring that option.”

Mondesir couldn’t be happier about this development as he outlined it as his main hope for IMs future at Vassar. “I hope IMs grows to the point where we are taking on other schools in the New York area. If I’m correct I believe he’s supposed to be bringing DI IONA to play against us in the spring if everything works out perfectly.” Won mainly hopes for increased participation. “[IM Basketball] was pretty well organized when I was playing last year, but it would be pretty fun if there were more people playing!” he urged.

With more offerings and increased participation, IMs at Vassar look to keep progressing.

With the dynamic state of the program and the structure and guidance Callahan and student leaders like Mondesir provide, it looks to continue becoming a more important and utilized resource on campus. Callahan offered a final statement: “What I want the students to know about the IM program is that we offer many different programs and we are open to new ideas for offerings. My door is always open. This is a growing program and we are here to serve the students and the whole Vassar Community.”

Tournament previews season’s competition for Brewers FENCING continued from page 1

to see and makes me really excited for the rest of the season.”

Whiteside seemed to be in agreement, saying, “The best part of the season so far was our team trip to Chipotle after the Big One. Our finalists were all sporting their medals and even though not everyone was happy with their performance, we were all proud of how the team did. Fencing is an individual sport, so what makes competing with a team special is the support you get on and off of the strip.”

Sophomore Tom Racek added, “[I’m so fortunate] to have the opportunity to support teammates in their successes and motivate them through their defeats. The growth process is amazing to watch, I see teammates put together their talents and become the person that they are destined to be. As fencers, as teammates, but also as leaders.”

The foil squad enjoyed the tournament as well, where Racek finished the day in seventh place after having gone undefeated in pool play and coming into direct elimination seeded ninth. Racek was the only Brewer to see the top 16 on the foil side, and lost to Sacred Heart in the next round.

On the women’s side, the epee squad shined bright last weekend. Junior Olivia Weiss made her way all the way to the semifinals and eventually finished third place for the event. She went undefeated in pool play along with freshman Rose Hulsey-Vincent.

The rookie breezed through the first round, but was then stopped by MIT. Senior Maggie Shepherd also made it through one direction elimination round before losing in the round of 32. Weiss’s performance stood out, as she had a bye through the first elimination round, and trumped fencers from Amherst, UMass and Wellesley to clinch her spot in the semifinals where she was eventually knocked out by Sacred Heart.

The foil squad saw four finishers in the top 24 including sophomore Kirsten Denman who finished ninth on the day and went undefeated in pool play, as well as freshman Sophie Blumenstock who was tied for the tenth place po-

sition. Freshman Mirit Rutishauser placed 12th with a perfect record through pools and junior Elsa Stoff finished 24th.

Rutishauser shut out a Boston University competitor 15-0 in the first round and made it through one more before falling to Darmouth.

Blumenstock made it all the way to the round of 16 where she lost to Sacred Heart.

Vassar women’s sabre saw only Annie InnesGold in the top 16. She ended the day after posting five wins in pool play which seeded her No. 12 entering eliminations. She was eventually taken out by Boston College.

The team’s performance at The Big One certainly has set a great tone for the season.

Polston said, “The season has been going very great this year, on the men’s saber team we did not graduate anyone while lots of other teams graduated most of their top fencers. This really helps as when we started practice back up we

all knew each other’s fencing style and are immediately able to push each other further and further. The Big One was our first test as a team and it went really great.”

Next up for Vassar Fencing is the Vassar Invitational, which will be held on Nov. 15 in Walker Field House beginning at 10 a.m.

On their next phase of competition, Racek said, “We expect that the competition will be tough and that every team we face will bring their “A” game. Despite this, we plan to utilize the depth we have in our saber and epee squads on the men’s squads and ultimately emerge victorious in the meets. For the women’s side it will be a similar game plan except the squad depth will come from the foil and epee squads.

The biggest challenge for us after these meets is that we remain hungry and driven to better ourselves. Success is a terrible teacher, and we always have to keep that in mind.”

courtesy of Vassar Athletics

fencer when he advanced to the semifinals.

Alperstein bested a Boston College fencer in his round of 16 and after Swerzenski got knocked off in the round of 32, was the only Brewer in the bottom of the Direct Elimination draw. Squeaking out a win over a MIT fencer, Alperstein also clinched a spot in the semifinal round.

A tough fight against a Sacred Heart member knocked Whiteside out while Alperstein fell to a Boston College fencer. The two split the third place medal for the afternoon in epee. Whiteside said, “Our men’s epee squad has been practicing very well together and we were ready for the day. Jon and I started out strong; both of us went undefeated in pools. I had an interesting bracket with three Brandeis fencers in a row. I felt like a lot of things we’ve been working on in practice came together and I was able to fence at a higher level than I was last year. I ended up losing in the semi-finals, but I was proud of my performance.”

The sabre squad also saw a successful day, placing Polston in the top three for the second year in a row. Senior captain Elam Coalson clinched an eighth place spot and Campbell Woods finished the day ninth.

Polston was undefeated in pool play and seeded No. 1 entering the direct elimination rounds. Coalson, Woods, junior Clayton Marr and junior Eric Lee all won their first round bout to advance them to the round of 32, where Woods beat his fellow Brewer Lee to gain a spot in the top 16. Marr was bumped off to end the afternoon while Polston swept into the semifinal round, including a shutout against Boston College, posting a 15-0 bout. Coalson ended up falling to Boston College and Polston finished in the semifinal round–earning him a third place finish.

But it’s not just the physical success that has made this start to the season so great for Polston. He explained, “My favorite part has been the great team unity we have had this year.

We really bonded as a team last year and the freshmen are fitting in so well, it is really great

Both the men’s and women’s fencing team got off to a strong start at The Big One tournament this past weekend. The tournament’s unusual 15 point bout format proved a test for the Brewers’ stamina.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

November 12, 2015

SPORTS

Daily fantasy sports a hazy world of online gambling Zach Rippe

Sports Editor

I

f you follow sports to any degree, or even if you’ve just so happened to be flipping through the channels on your television, you’ve probably seen advertisements for DraftKings and FanDuel.

These companies are part of a new craze called “daily fantasy sports” or “DFS” for short. Unlike traditional fantasy leagues, DFS take place over a week or day, rather than an entire season. Users must not only pay an entry fee, but also adhere to a specific salary cap when constructing their team. Part of everyone’s entry fee is placed into a pot that will be gifted to the winner. The rest is given to the host company as a rake-off fee.

FanDuel was only established in 2009 and DraftKings formed only a short while later, making this a very recent phenomenon that has gone on to make billions of dollars. Still, the potential to win up to $1 million in prizes in one night, along with the mobile accessibility and flexibility in the fact that contestants can change their teams every night rather than hold the same squad for an entire season, help keep the experience fresh and full of monetary potential. In essence, entering one of these DFS leagues feels a lot like online gambling.

Of course, I’m not the only one to point this out. This past Tuesday, New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman declared that daily fantasy sports companies like FanDuel and DraftKings constitute gambling, an act illegal in New York State. Schneiderman sent cease-and-desist letters to the companies and demanded that they stop accepting “wagers” from New Yorkers.

The companies responded by stating that their games were that of skill rather than chance.

They have been getting quite defensive, claiming that New Yorkers have been playing harmlessly for years, engaging in a process that is not much different from regular fantasy sports. I can attest to the fact that I have never really thought of DraftKings or FanDuel as gambling. I’ve mostly just thought of them as annoying, yet I never really dug deeper. But at the moment, the scrutiny

is building.

Schneiderman had opened an investigation back in October as well, claiming that employees from these sites used inside information from each other’s sites to win large sums of money.

The FBI opened a similar investigation a week later based on that very premise. Since then numerous lawsuits have been filed with charges ranging from fraud, to racketeering, to negligence and false advertising.

Gambling is clearly illegal in New York, and that poses an issue itself. This past October, the state of Nevada declared in a court of law that sites like DraftKings and FanDuel do in fact constitute gambling, meaning that in order to continue running in their state, the sites would need to obtain a sports pool gambling licence. Thus, DFS should in theory be illegal in the majority of states in the US. However, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act has often overlooked other fantasy type games in the past.

The large issue here lies in the practices and ethics of these two monetary superpowers. The Nevada Gaming Control Board regulates all gambling activity in the state, making the sites’ activity there closely monitored. Still, in other states, the behavior of the companies goes unchecked as their status as gambling sites is now in a grey area. This along with behavior that includes employees playing on competing sites and thus the looming threat of insider trading are the real cause for concern.

Naturally DraftKings urged New Yorkers to fight Schneiderman’s potential ban on their site.

The message was positive, calling to a love for football, camaraderie and the culture of fantasy sports. They also attempted to deflect the issue by claiming the state in essence has bigger fish to fry. They even created their own hashtag!

This playful tone and avoidance of denial simply adds to the uneasiness of the situation created by countless accusations, investigations and lawsuits. Despite never having engaged with either service, I have to say, something just doesn’t add up.

Page 19

To Blackhawk fans: Don’t cheer for Patrick Kane Madeleine Schafer Guest Columnist

T

his week the Erie County District Attorney announced that no rape charges would be filed against NHL star Patrick Kane after the complainant, 21 years-old, said she was under such tremendous stress that she could no longer cooperate with police. Thus ended a three-month long investigation, launched when the woman reported to police that Kane raped her in his home in Hamburg, N.Y. This outcome was utterly predictable to anyone following the case, as the Erie County DA, the former Erie County DA, the former State Attorney General for New York, Chicago Tribune columnists, Deadspin, The Buffalo News and innumerable other sources have all insisted since September that the case has “too many questions” to move forward.

But I’m not interested in how many questions arose during the case. I’m honestly, truly, not interested in the DA citing Kane’s lack of “conduct consistent with a consciousness of guilt” as a reason to withhold charges, something he’d have to be eagle-eyed to notice given that Kane’s been playing in Chicago for most of the investigation.

The details of the investigation don’t matter.

His innocence or guilt is not the point. The point is this: Patrick Kane was under investigation for rape and we, the fans, decided it was okay for him to play.

Let’s be clear: Patrick Kane is an important cog in a Stanley Cup winning machine. The Chicago Blackhawks have won three of the last six NHL championships with Kane, where he’s won a Conn Smythe trophy and consistently logged over 20 points a postseason. It’s no stretch to say that there would be a few less banners hanging from the rafters of the United Center if Kane weren’t around, and not so many goose bumps from watching a new one hoisted up.

Winning is fun, right? It’s the goal, it’s why we pay to watch. So the more Kane and the Blackhawks win, the more valuable they become.

Forbes reports that the team’s value has increased almost 650 million dollars since signing Kane in

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2007. He’s never played for another NHL team.

He’s got a No-Movement clause and a 13 million dollar salary, plus all those trophies–Patrick Kane IS Chicago’s boy. Fans and management know he’ll take us where we want to be: the top.

That’s what makes us fans so powerful. Following the allegations we could have taken that support away. But on the first day of training camp people flocked to the rink at 5 a.m. wearing No. 88 jerseys, cheering defiantly each time he touched the puck. In an article for the Chicago Tribune, one fan said he chose a Kane jersey over one of Blackhawks Captain Jonathan Toews’ because, while “I have a daughter, so I get the other side of the whole rape thing,” he wanted to show that he’s a “big believer in the Blackhawks organization.”

What the hell, man?

Look, fans of any sports franchise need to make a decision about how they want to win. We can’t control the media perpetuating rape culture by hawking the case’s details as excuses for Kane’s playing. We can’t control the police’s relationship with Kane. We can’t make a DA file charges. We certainly can’t pressure victims to act.

What we can do is tell the Blackhawks that this isn’t the culture we “believe” in. I’m not asking anyone to stop being a fan. But rooting for the Blackhawks isn’t the same as rooting for Patrick Kane, and it doesn’t mean excusing shit behavior.

Wouldn’t it be better to beat the Flyers knowing we were the good guys? Wouldn’t you rather wear the sweater of a player who’s known for being a joker or a baker or, I dunno, just good at hockey?

Wouldn’t you rather imagine the cup in hands that definitely haven’t sexually assaulted someone?

C’mon, all sports fans are competitive assholes.

When stuff like this happens, stop wearing your No. 88 jerseys. Don’t cheer for Kane. Skip the games he’s scheduled to play. Don’t watch his videos, don’t listen to his interviews. Write to the Trib and tell them to stuff it. Demand an NHL–demand a team–that values the experiences of women. We don’t need a suspected rapist to play good hockey. There’s a better win to be had, 75004 here, and we should relish the challenge. And, go Hawks.

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SPORTS

Page 20

November 12, 2015

Lady ruggers obliterate Rutgers B-side en route to Nationals Zach Rippe

Sports Editor

W

courtesy of Vassar Athletics

ith scores the like of 55-5, 63-0 and 81-0, it is safe to say that the Vassar women’s rugby team dominated their regular season play this fall. The Brewers finished the regular season with a record of 8-1, their only loss coming in a close bout to the New York Women’s Developmental XV, an experienced adult side.

After easily handling their first two playoff opponents, Molloy College and Marist College, by scores of 88-0 and 55-10 respectively, the women looked to a more challenging Tri-State Conference Final against Rutgers University.

Last season, the women lost to Rutgers 38-15 in a tough contest. Going into this year’s rematch, the Brewers were eager and ready to face an opponent who was not only a “rival” of sorts, but who also would pose a challenge.

Shortly before the game, it became clear that Rutgers was starting a lineup consisting entirely of B-side, or second string, players. Head coach Tony Brown commented on the seemingly strange decision on the part of Rutgers: “It was a huge surprise and disappointment. We were expecting a really tough game. Neither the team, coaches or spectators realized until about 20 minutes into the game that Rutgers was not playing their starters! The women stayed focused and treated the game as a practice session.” The team certainly was focused, scoring 20 tries in a rout that saw them defeat Rutgers 118-0.

By nature of how the Tri-State Conference and its playoff bracket are set up, both Vassar and Rutgers had already guaranteed a spot in the Round of 32 in the Division II National Tournament. The New Jersey school is now placed in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Bracket rather than the Northeast. Regardless, it was never made explicitly clear to the coaches or players just exactly why Rutgers chose to play their B-side.

Junior forward Mariah Ghant added her insight, “I was sure that Rutgers, who has been our rivals for many years, would bring their allstars out for this game. Regardless of if both our

teams were advancing to the Round of 32 game this weekend, it was a pretty (for lack of a better word) weird choice by their coach to play an entire team of B-side players... Of course, I went on the field with the intention of playing at my best, and I know the rest of my teammates did as well; however, I think we put a little extra “oomph” in our game to make Rutgers think about their choice.”

Still, the lack of competition was disappointing as the team has been yearning for some stiffer competition this whole year. Rutgers only held the ball for a few minutes throughout the entire game. There were only four lineouts and even fewer scrums.

Senior captain Cierra Thomas commented on the team’s play throughout: “We were consistent with our pattern of play, we made very few errors and whenever we did have to make a tackle, it was no problem. We had the ball pretty much the entire game, so we used the opportunity to implement everything we’d been practicing this entire season into the game.”

Senior Anne Fritzson commented, “I didn’t understand the logic behind putting out a B-side and not telling us before-hand. Like Tony said, if he wanted to see which B-side players are good, we could have planned a B-side game too.” Fritzson added that while she was proud of her team’s efforts, she wished that they had been able to play some more defense as they had been working on it quite a bit over the course of last week’s practices. Thomas noted that Rutgers’ back line had been quick and dangerous in the past, making the need to come up quick as a defensive line and make strategic tackles extremely important.

Vassar now looks towards their match against the University of Delaware next weekend. Delaware finished third in their conference, yet their strength as a third place team is deceptive given the strength of the two teams that finished ahead of them. Coach Brown commented, “It’s hard to know the strength of other conferences but it’s single elimination now so mistakes have to be cut out. I would expect a team with a win-

The women’s rugby team has had a dominant season so far. After defeating Rutgers’ B-side in the Tri-State Conference Final, the women look to their match against Delaware in the Round of 32. ning record that finished third in their conference which includes Kutztown and Bloomsburg to be a tough nut to crack.”

Just as they did for Rutgers, the women will look to a tough week of practice to prepare for next week’s match. Coach Brown noted that the team prepares the same way for all games, putting an emphasis on of ball placement, tackling and rucking. Still, players know that as the season gets later, the intensity will continue to rise.

Junior forward Lauren Workman added that much of the preparation is also mental. “After a while, physical practice can only take you so far.

Getting in the right mindset before and during a game is more important than one might think.

With the physicality of rugby, you have to constantly push yourself to make every tackle, almost continuously run, and to catch every ball thrown your way and these things must be done

Moraru’s skill on display against Skidmore Shira Idris

Guest Reporter Women’s Swim and Dive

The women had a great victory at Skidmore this past weekend, largely outscoring them 17198 and gaining nine event wins. Freshman diver Mia Moraru had an incredible record-setting performance, breaking the school record in the 3-meter, six dive event with a combined score of 251.25. And this was after she just broke the same record with a score of 245.24, seven days ago. Junior swimmer Julia Cunningham won the 200-meter butterfly with a season-best time of 2:07.91. Overall, the Brewers had many strong performances, contributing to their 3-0 record for dual meets this season. Freshman Sammy Stone also had a strong meet, taking first in the 200 free with a time of 1:58.35. Next week the Brewers are swimming against RPI in Troy, NY.

Men’s Swim and Dive The men also travelled to Skidmore on Sunday, and also earned a victory with an overall score of 155-131. The Brewers record stands at now 2-1, while Skidmore’s becomes 1-2. Freshman Alex May won both the 1000 and 500-yard free for the Brewers, with times of 10:35.18 and 5:15.76 respectively. Junior Anthony Walker had a season-best of 2:01.11 in the 200 fly. The Brewers had a great performance individually and as a team. Chris Cerutti, Jonah Strand, Greg Cristina and Anthony Walker won the 200 yard medley together with a combined time of 1:41.65. Next week, the men will accompany the women to RPI. Women’s Cross Country

The Vassar XC teams travelled to Williams College for the ECAC Championships, their last race before the NCAA Atlantic Regionals

this weekend. Because of the upcoming race, Vassar rested many of the top runners for the ECACs, but still managed to place 14th out of 46 as a team. Freshman Acadia DiNardo led the Brewers, finishing 48th overall with a 6k time of 24:41.6. DiNardo will be the seventh runner at Regionals this weekend, along with Vassar’s top six runners. The Brewers will head to Letchworth State Park next weekend for the upcoming NCAA Atlantic Regionals.

Men’s Cross Country

The men also competed in the ECACs and placed 15th out of 40 teams with 426 points. Finishing first for Vassar and 48th overall was Ry Blume with a time of 27:52.9 for the 8k. Blume joined sophomore Michael Scarlett as the only other Vassar runner to finish first for Vassar in a race this season. The men too rested many of their runners in light of the upcoming NCAA Atlantic Regionals. Out of the Brewers, he was followed by Sophomore Jared Freedman who finished 58th place. Both Blume and Freedman will be reserves for the upcoming Regionals, which will be held in SUNY Geneseo, at Letchworth State Park.

Women’s Squash

courtesy of Vassar Athletics

The women’s swim and dive team had a convincing victory against Skidmore. Junior Julia Cunningham took home the 200-meter butterfly and freshman Mia Moraru continued her record-setting ways.

The women rolled past NYU with a 9-0 victory, bumping up the Brewers’ record to 2-0. All seven Vassar players earned wins this Saturday.

Both No. 2 freshman Fiona Agger and sophomore Emma Glickman had a three-set win. No. 1 Sophomore Hannah Nice continues her undefeated streak and senior captain Stephanie Zhu also breezed through her wins 11-2, 11-5 and 11-3.

Men’s Squash

Vassar Squash hosted NYU this weekend.

The men fell to NYU 9-0. No. 1 Vincent Mencotti had his first loss of the season, losing in four sets against Max McCafferty of NYU. Senior Ben Kurchin also had a four-set loss, after winning the third set 14-12. The Brewers will have their first away meet next weekend in Haverford, Pa., where they will go up against Haverford and Dickinson.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

with the same intensity and energy as you started the game no matter how far into it you are....

[We’re] not only physically pushing ourselves in practice, but mentally pushing ourselves too.”

The Brewers seem ready as ever to take on tougher competition at the National level. They are eager to be tested and have been working hard all season to reach this stage. Ghant offered some final thoughts on what the team needs to do to be successful from here on out: “As we head towards the final rounds, I think our team just needs to focus on seizing every opportunity we get to have the ball. Playing rugby can be real easy when you have possession of the ball for the whole game. So keeping that in mind, we need all of our running, passing, and rucking to be seamless... I believe in our team so much, and I am really looking forward to more games in the season.”

Weekend Scoreboard WOMEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING VASSAR

VS

171

SKIDMORE

98

MEN’S SQUASH VASSAR

VS

0

NYU

9 WOMEN’S RUGBY

VASSAR

118

VS

RUTGERS

0