Swarthmore Phoenix, February 28, 2019

Today in OPINIONS: Billie Potts on open borders A5, Jacob Brady on BDS and Israel-Palestine A6, CAMPUS JOURNAL: Clio W. Hamilton on being sick at Swat A7

PHOENIX

THE

Men’s Basketball On winning

the Centennial Conference

Jeremy Chang’s photo essay

February 28, 2019

VOL. 147, NO. 5

A10

Scenes of New York

A4

The independent campus newspaper of Swarthmore College since 1881

SGO Hosts Discussion on BDS Resolution, Will Revote Naomi Park News Editor

T

his past Sunday, a regularly scheduled Student Government Organization meeting ran nearly half an hour over its allotted time with nearly 60 non-SGO members and 25 SGO members in attendance. After the downvote of a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions resolution last week, this meeting was organized to allow student groups to present to SGO members before the upcoming revote. Campus organi-

The week ahead Today The Sentence screening 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.

A screening of the documentary The Sentence, hosted by Swarthmore Petey Greene. In this movie, filmmaker Rudy Valdez shows the aftermath of his sister Cindy’s 15-year sentence for conspiracy charges related to crimes committed by her deceased ex-boyfriend.

Sci 101 Friday THE (24 HOUR) BALD SOPRANO 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

A performance marathon/experiment and an ecstatic and foolish attempt to make meaning in a meaningless world. Swarthmore’s Department of Theater Acting Capstone 2019 presents THE BALD SOPRANO (trans. Allen), the classic absurdist play performed in the most absurd way we could imagine -- 24 times in 24 hours.

Frear Black Box Saturday Team Trivia Extravaganza 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Join Swarthmore Alumni Council for fun and lively night of pub trivia. Enjoy delicious pub snacks, Insomnia Cookies, and the chance to win some fabulous prizes. Show up solo or arrive with a team of up to 12 friends.

Upper Tarble Sunday SBC Weekly Meeting 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m SBC Committee weekly meeting to discuss budget-related matters and consider supplemental funding requests for the week.

Sharples Room 209 Monday Tri-Co Philly Program Student Information Session 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

The Tri-Co Philly Program, an initiative to connect students to the city, will be offered in fall 2019. This semester-long, non-residential program will offer students both curricular and co-curricular activities in Philadelphia.

Sci 105 Tuesday Swarthmore College Blood Drive 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

After an especially harsh winter, the Red Cross is in urgent need of donors to help replenish their supply and ensure patients receive the care they need this season.

The Inn, Gathering Room A Wednesday From Ethnopoetics to Orature: The Aesthetics and Politics of Studying Other People’s Poetry 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.

Join Alex King, Franklin & Marshall College, for his talk. “Ethnopoetics” was coined to refer to the translation, study, and appreciation of traditional oral narratives by indigenous peoples. Alexander D. King is a linguistic anthropologist documenting Koryak, an endangered language of Kamchatka, Russia. He is a visiting scholar at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. WEATHER Mildly Disgusting

CONTENTS News A1-A2 Arts A3-A4 Opinions A5-A6 Campus Journal A7-A9 Sports A10-A11 Read more at swarthmorephoenix.com Copyright © 2019 The Phoenix

zations Students for Justice in Palestine, Swarthmore Students for Israel, and Jewish Voices for Peace were invited to the meeting to present and answer questions for twenty minutes each, after which the Senate opened the floor for discussion.

SJP had the largest presence with around 40 students in attendance. They centered their presentation on the BDS campaign and had several members share their personal experiences with the conflict. In the meeting, members gave background on the occupation of Palestine, the BDS movement, and the resolution SJP presented to SGO a few weeks ago. Additionally, Palestinian-American students gave personal examples of how the occupation affected their lives and their families.

“I felt really glad that students were watching the process … with SJP giving a factfilled, concise, and pointed argument and a clear set of

actionable steps to a position that is rooted in personal experience, history, and the current political context in Palestine,” said Taylor Morgan ’19, a core member of SJP. SSFI presented their viewpoint on the BDS resolution and argued that passing it would not only single out Jewish students, but also end dialogue on campus. Representatives of SSFI expressed wanting to go to the meeting to warn against the potential silencing of voices and end of dialogue if the BDS resolution passes in the revote.

“I wanted to be there for people who support the idea of the state of Israel,” said Tennyson Teece ’19, a member of SSFI who spoke at the meeting. “I think BDS is threatening to that.”

JVP presented themselves as supporters of SJP’s BDS campaign and as a Jewish perspective distinct from SSFI’s position. In the meeting, JVP highlighted that criticism of Is-

rael is not the same as criticism of Judaism and that Israel does not represent Judaism.

“I think the presence of JVP at that meeting was important in making sure people understand that the Jewish community, at large and at Swat, is not a monolith,” said Sydney Covitz ’20, co-leader of JVP. “Seeing a group of Jewish students here who openly support BDS proves to SGO that the campaign is not at all antithetical to the Jewish identity and that there are a lot of Jewish students at this school who support BDS because of our Jewish identity, not in spite of it.”

Abby Saul ’19, a member of both SJP and JVP, also thought JVP’s attendance at the meeting was important for presenting non-Zionist, Jewish perspectives that support BDS. “We thought it would be important to speak on our own as well as to fully support SJP’s BDS campaign using our posi-

tionality as Jews on campus,” said Saul.

Orbea was happy with attendance, as well as the back and forth discussion throughout the meeting. “It was one of the most successful moments of students hearing out other students (in all directions) I’ve ever seen in my time here.”

The discussion appeared to be going well enough for SGO members to decide against having a separate SGO discussion for the final part of the meeting, continuing an unplanned discussion that continued after the meeting officially ended.

For many SGO members, this meeting functioned not only as a means for dialogue on campus, but also as a way to educate SGO members on the Israel-Palestine conflict and about SJP’s BDS campaign.

Murtaza Ukani ’22, class senator, highlighted an insufficient continued on page A2

24 Hour Bald Soprano Performance to Begin Friday Night

Shelby Dolch / The Phoenix

From left to right: On Wed., Feb. 27 in the LPAC Frear Black Box, Arijit Nerurkar ’19, John Wojciehowski ’19, Max Marckel ’19, and Emily Uhlmann ’19 rehearse for their performance of the 24 Hour Bald Soprano, which runs from 8:00 P.M. on Fri., March 1 until 8:00 P.M. on Sat., March 2.

Why Eduroam Keeps Breaking Gidon Kaminer News Writer

On the evening of Friday, Feb. 15, students looking to get in a bit of work before the start of the weekend were met with a challenge when the network went down for several hours. The issues persisted from 9:20 to 11:20 p.m., during which time wired connections, wireless (eduroam) connections, and telephone service were all lost.

According to Chief Information Technology Officer Joel Cooper, ITS has been working on several persistent issues this semester that have been causing network instability.

“We identified a bug in the network operating system running on some of our core network switches,” said Cooper.

ITS ran emergency maintenance on the network, an “upgrade of the network operating system running on the core switches” in order to address the bug.

The prolonged outage however, was unexpected.

“We expected a 10 to 20 minute loss of Internet connectivity during the process, nothing more,” said Cooper.

Maintenance began at 7:30 p.m., and around two hours later the network went down. ITS fol-

lowed precautions to ensure the campus was aware of the issues, by emailing students and faculty about the outage and in coordination with PubSafe sending out a message via LiveSafe regarding the issue.

Stories about experiences during the outage have swirled throughout the student body in the last week. Paul Seth ’22 was in the SCCS computer lounge playing DotA 2, a multiplayer online battle arena game in which he is ranked 150th in the Americas competitively, when the network went down at a critical point. “The game started and it seemed like we were in a pretty good spot, but then I saw my hero [player character] stop moving and everything froze in place. I thought it was just one of those brief hiccups that the network experiences occasionally, but it wasn’t.” Seth slowly began to realize that this was a more serious matter than usual.

ITS resumed working with Juniper on the issues on Monday, February 18, and has requested from Juniper a network engineer to be on site at the next such maintenance. ITS has also announced changes to future scheduling of such maintenance. “We’ll make sure the schedule impacts services as little as possible (think: between midnight and 5:00 a.m.).

By planning outages in this timeframe, we hope to avoid interrupting significant campus events,” concluded Cooper in the ITS blog post.

“Ten seconds later I alt-tabbed into Google Chrome and attempted to load up xkcd [an online webcomic], my go-to test for network connectivity, and when that didn’t work I became slightly more concerned, so I opened my eduroamconnected phone to load up a YouTube video and when that didn’t work I knew it wasn’t just an isolated issue, that everything was down.”

This was clearly an issue for Seth.

“You can be disconnected from a DotA match for five minutes before you are assessed as ‘abandoned’ and you lose. Your teammates can pause the game, but your opponents can unpause.”

Seth said. “Eventually after realizing the cause was lost and eduroam would stay down, I left.”

Bilal Soukouna ’22 was also negatively affected by the outage, in a way that might be more familiar to most students.

“I was working on my semantics homework, I had already finished and all I needed to do was to submit it to Moodle,” Soukouna explained. “Moodle wouldn’t load, and the project was due in two

hours, so I began freaking out. I tried using my phone’s hotspot to connect to Moodle but that still didn’t work because the whole server was down. There was no way I could put it onto Moodle.”

Realizing he would not be able to submit the assignment, Bilal emailed his professor.

“It was rough, and it was stressful for no reason. I think that was the second outage that week, it was terrible. I understand an outage every once in a while but for it to happen multiple times a week is kind of insane.”

Chief Information Technology Officer Joel Cooper said that the instability has been caused by new network switches that were added in anticipation of the opening of the BEP. “The devices aren’t getting along perfectly with everything else, and infrequent, random instability, particularly noticeable to wifi users, is the result,” said Cooper.

ITS staff will continue working hard to resolve the issues. Cooper has assured that further work on the network will be conducted during spring break in order to minimize the effect of any possible disturbances.

Underfunded and Underattended: Why Pub Nite is Still Struggling Madeleine Palden News Writer After years of predictions about Pub Nite’s imminent decay, it seems that the long-standing Thursday night tradition is now officially seeing its last days. Donations to the entirely studentfunded event have declined due to reinforcement of the ban on drinking games, new party options, and decreased contact with the space itself.

The most significant blow to Pub Nite’s attendance has been Public Safety’s crack-down on drinking games, beginning last spring. Before then, Pub Nite’s first two hours would be devoted to drinking games, and the final hour to dancing.

According to Swat Team Member Sam Sheppard ’21, the event was better attended before the drinking game crackdown.

“Pub Nite [last] year was almost always hitting capacity during the fall semester,” he said.

Reduced interest in Pub Nite as a result of reinforced drinking game restrictions has led to a decrease in donations for the event, according to Pub Nite officer Julia Barbano ’19.

“One person told me that they were withholding their donation to see if they could get drinking games back — which seems pretty counterintuitive. We’re not going to get drinking games back; it’s just too much accountability for the school,” said Barbano. “It’s frustrating that people have that mentality, though, because how can the event even survive if we don’t have the money to run it?”

Not only has funding decreased, but the cost of alcohol has increased.

“Our old vendor from Suds and Sodas on Baltimore Park recently sold the business to someone else.

He had been running it for about eight years — he knew Swarthmore students, he knew the people who ran it last year, he knows Andrew Barclay — and now he’s gone,” said Pub Nite officer Natalie FloresSemyonova ’19.

“He might have been undercharging us because he had been doing it for so long and just knew us so well,” said Barbano. “All we know is that we’re paying more now.”

The Pub Nite team is also half the size it used to be. According to Barbano, in prior years, there have been at least eight officers; this year, there are only four. This is an inconvenient time to have shortstaffing, given the school’s new party-hosting requirements. As of this year, parties with 75 people and up now officially need to have three hosts.

“Before our time, a party with any number of people only needed two hosts,” Flores-Semyonova said. “So now we have four people here to staff at least three for every Pub Nite, whereas before [the Pub Nite team] had eight and were only staffing two.”

Unforeseen marketing work also takes up much of the smaller Pub Nite team’s time because of new changes in ListServ policies.

“We used to be able to send out Pub Nite emails every Thursday,” said Flores-Semyonova. “When [the administration] was trying to streamline the email process … they sort of threw us out of that equation. Now we’re trying hard to try and circumvent that by making flyers and banners and things like that.”

These makeshift marketing techniques, ranging from flyers to Facebook pages and even a video asking people to donate, take away from the Pub Nite officers’ other organizational time.

New social spaces have also taken away from foot traffic in Paces: continued on page A2

PAGE A2

THE PHOENIX NEWS

February 28, 2019

JVP Centers Jewish Identity on Israel-Palestine Jino Chough News Writer On February 11, 2019, Swarthmore College’s own chapter of the national organization Jewish Voice for Peace held its first meeting in Kohlberg under the helm of members Abby Saul ’19 and Sydney Covitz ’20. JVP is a national group dedicated to supporting policies and campaigns, more specifically the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, and people who fight for peace, justice, and human rights, especially in a Palestinian-Israeli lens.

According to its website, JVP’s mission statement declares a stance against Israeli occupation of Palestine, and other forms of injustice and violence, in order to work for peace in the Middle East.

“JVP is committed to organizing as Jewish Americans to fight and dismantle all forms of oppression, whether it be anti-semitism or islamophobia in the U.S., or whether it be the occupation and apartheid in Israel Palestine,” said Saul.

Despite being a national organization, Swarthmore’s chapter will also focus heavily on working in the local community.

Rabbi Michael Ramberg, the Jewish student advisor, believes

that students should be open to all perspectives.

“My hope for students is that they will act on their deeply held convictions while also respecting the humanity of individuals who hold opposing views and beliefs. I hope that people with varying perspectives on challenging issues will be able to engage with and learn from each other and thereby increase their ability to do good,” said Ramberg.

JVP also has garnered support from SJP, as the two groups share many common goals.

“We are very excited about the formation of JVP on campus,” said SJP member Killian McGinnis ’19. “So far there has not been explicit collaboration between the groups, though some of SJP’s members are now in JVP. We share the goal of working in solidarity towards a just peace in Israel/Palestine, including by holding our own institution accountable for its complicity in Israel’s human rights violations, and we are looking forward to cultivating more opportunities for collaboration.”

Nationally, JVP has come together under a common issue and launched petitions to support political activist Angela Davis after the revocation of her Civil Rights Award, as well

as other outspoken individuals who support Palestinian rights.

Saul and Covitz plan to join the national movement’s fight against injustices and oppression.

According to the BDS website, the movement was put together by national and international Palestinian organizations to fight for the freedom, justice, and equality of citizens whose rights are being taken by Israeli government.

On campus, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) announced that it was launching a BDS campaign in October. Most recently, a resolution, brought to SGO from SJP, was voted down. In light of SGO’s recent rejection of the BDS movement on campus, JVP offers support to SJP and other BDS-supporting groups on campus.

“Our goal is to create a space for Jewish students on campus to fight against the human rights abuses Israel is currently perpetuating and support BDS as a viable means to do so,” said Covitz.

Saul reassures that JVP will also be a space for Jewish traditions, and even in some cases have them intertwine.

“JVP really digs into Jewish tradition in order to enact justice,” Saul said. “For Shabbat services across the country, lo-

Crystal ’19, the drinking games at Pub Nite “were really nice, because friend groups would collide.”

The only other regular and open party space is currently Phi Psi, which many students feel is a less inclusive and welcoming space than Pub Nite.

“I feel like the frat parties are less inviting. The crowds that go to Pub Nite versus the crowds that go to the Frats are definitely different,” said Kevin Stewart-Mercurio ’22. “From what I have observed, the Frat parties are mostly varsity athletes. Pub Nite is serving that role of being a non-frat party that people can rely on every week. I feel like without that space, it’s just not going to be as fun for a lot of people.”

For some Swatties, Pub Nite feels like a quintessentially Swarthmorean space because of the relative diversity of its attendees.

“Freshman and sophomore year, I felt like Pub Nite felt like a really democratic space. It felt like a true Swarthmore space in the same way that Sharples feels likes a Swarthmore space,” said FloresSemyonova.

Still, there are many Swatties who don’t feel as welcomed in the traditional Pub Nite setting.

“I have a complicated relationship with Pub Nite — I neither love nor hate it,” said Jonathan Galvan ’21. “It’s nice to have party spaces other than the frats and other than on the weekends. But the people who go to Pub Nite are not the people I would usually hang out with — the space isn’t necessarily welcoming to brown, black, POC, and queer students.”

For these students, themed Pub Nites organized by affinity groups provided an empowering and welcoming solution. In these, a group will donate money in exchange for the ability to DJ and create their own theme.

“Queer Pub is so popular because there are so few queer party spaces, so when there are, people are really excited and come out — you can never underestimate the power of a space you feel welcomed in,” Galvan said. “We were looking forward to trying to set up

Swarthmore merely adds yet another organization that will reinforce the preexisting antiIsrael echo chamber,” said SSFI co-president Matthew Stein.

“SSFI merely exists to provide a voice against the chorus of misinformation about Israel and the corresponding hateful and oftentimes antisemitic rhetoric. It represents students who hold a very broad range of views on Israel, from left-wing progressive to right-of-center.”

JVP is a national organization and is therefore not limited to the resources and funds of a student-run club.

“We have a lot of resources and explicit support,” Saul said.

“But even as a national organization, the distinct chapters provide a framework with a lot of flexibility. Many of the people we connect to through JVP have a lot of history in Jewish life and political activism. We definitely want to prioritize building relationships with people on and off campus.”

JVP’s status as a national organization provides an easy way to network with other students at different colleges.

“Some of our members have contacts at JVP chapters at other colleges and we plan on reaching out to them in the future,” said Covitz.

JVP meets every week and

will announce their future events and activities to become more well known to students on campus. Saul and Covitz hope to quickly gain traction in support of their goals.

“All meetings and events are open to anyone on campus who is interested in coming,” said Covitz. “We also hope to get a website up and running soon.”

“Something we’re excited about is to have a space that is explicitly Jewish and explicitly political,” said Saul. “We think that there are a lot of people who that really resonates with.

Part of organizing in our community also means creating a joyous, liberated community that everyone feels included in, and safe and happy.”

SGO, continued from A1

Pub Nite, continued from A1 the student-run cafe has been moved from Paces to Sharples, and fewer people are going to Essie’s because of its shorter hours and fewer meal swipe options. People are simply interacting with the Pub Nite space less.

“People have never seen Paces in the light where it looks nice and has tables [as in Paces cafe],” said Barbano. “Otherwise, Paces is just a random room — literally nothing happens there now.”

The opening of the new PPR Apartments in Fall of 2017 has also drawn former attendees of Pub away from the older Paces space and towards a newer and more glamorous house party culture.

“New PPR is now a space where a lot of the upperclassmen are and can host parties, because they have people who are 21,” said Barbano. “And it is to some degree more attractive, because NPPR is new, it’s a scene that didn’t exist before.”

At the end of the day, however, these alternative apartment parties are not open events. Their increased popularity reflects a larger shift towards private, residential parties.

“My residents seemed to be much more interested in attending Pub Nite last semester than this semester,” said Gillie Tillson ’20, a residential assistant at Mertz Hall.

Students agree that without drinking games, there’s not much else to do in the two hours before dancing starts.

“You can sit there, and you can play cards, but if you’re just gonna sit there and drink with your friends, you might as well do that somewhere else,” Sam Gardiner ’19 said. “Now it’s just about the dancing. I went about three weeks ago, walked in at 10:00 after it had been going on for an hour, and I was the only one there.”

Pub Nite’s death means the death of the school’s open, alternative, and regularly-occurring party space, where Swatties could meet each other in ways that wouldn’t necessarily be possible at residential parties.

According to Elizabeth Balch-

cal chapters hosted a Shabbat in support of Professor Davis, welcoming her and other radicals who support Palestinian rights into Jewish communal spaces. JVP really fuses Jewish ritual with political activism, and uses the organization’s unique positionality as a Jewish leftist organization to support the BDS and other movements.”

This political activism, along with JVP’s national scope, sets the organization apart from other groups on campus, most prominently SJP. “We decided to created JVP at Swarthmore because, as many of our members pointed out at our first meeting, we are filling a void that currently exists on campus,” Covitz said. “We also recognize our positionality in all of this as one of incredible privilege and power. The fact is that when Jews speak out against Israel, people tend to listen, and we plan on using our platform to promote justice and equality for all people living in Israel/Palestine, and to support SJP’s BDS campaign in any way that we can.”

JVP, however, is not fully supported by all students on campus, as a member of Swarthmore Students for Israel can attest.

“I don’t think JVP adds anything to Swarthmore. JVP at

another Queer Pub Nite this semester, but with the funding up in the air we’re not sure if it’s going to work out.”

“I don’t drink at all or go to parties. If I did drink I’d probably like [traditional Pub Nites] more,” said Ben Stern ’20. “But I’m more likely to go to group-hosted Pub Nites — Pub Nite was so boring, so any particular theme was fun. The only fun [Pub Nites] were Quizzo Nights. I wish they did those more because they were some of the best nights on campus for me.’”

A more institutionalized event like Pub Nite brings more people to parties hosted by affinity groups.

“There was definitely more of a turnout to Queer Pub Nite than there was to Frigay,” said Galvan.

For many upperclassmen, the more glorious days of Pub Nite are among their dearest Swarthmore memories.

“Some of my best memories of PubNite were just unassuming nights where you’d go and have weird interactions with people.

[They] used to always hang outside in the IC Courtyard. We always used to just go out there and have absurd conversations with people,” Barbano said.

“I was always looking forward to being an upperclassman at Pub,” said Gardner.

Through all of the changes that have contributed to Pub Nite’s demise, however, the beloved “American Pie” singalong tradition has held its ground.

“The ‘American Pie’ closing song tradition is a real community-building thing. I’ve gotten to know people from it. And you can feel a connection with other people,” said Stewart-Mercurio.

The future of Pub Nite has been uncertain for several years now, and Flores-Semyonova and Barbano have yet to find successors.

While the event has previously struggled with funding, the culmination of new administrative and cultural shifts has presented new challenges for the event.

Runa Chen / The Phoenix

level of knowledge about the issue on SGO’s part.

“At previous meetings, the educational disconnect between SGO and the understanding of movements on campus was quite apparent,” said Ukani.

Another SGO member Will Bein ’21, chair of visual and performing arts, felt the meeting itself helped SGO members learn more about the conflict and its importance.

“I think having the ability to really sit down and talk it out for as long as we needed to really debate and discuss this helped to get a good grasp of the gravity of these issues,” said Bein.

“I think it was extremely helpful for SGO members … to have the chance to hear from people who don’t just know about [the conflict], but who have lived it.”

Killian McGinnis ’19, a core member of SJP, also felt grateful for the students — especially Palestinian students — who shared personal experiences.

She also noted the efforts to keep the conversation centered around BDS and the occupation of Palestine in the meeting.

“I think, generally, SJP supporters did a really good job of recentering [on] the structural reality of the occupation, on the need for moral action on the part of SGO and the administration, and on responding to Palestinian civil society’s call for BDS,” said McGinnis.

Saul also noted that the focus of the conversation should have remained centered around BDS and solidarity with Palestinians. She expressed frustration at moments where the conversation shifted its focus to topics such as broader questions about SGO’s role.

“It was difficult to feel like there were moments, whether it was from student government or folks from SSFI where it felt like we were shifting conversation away from what it was meant to be about,” said Saul.

While the meeting served in part as an educational moment for SGO members, some students at the meeting expressed concern about the SGO members not present at the meeting — some of whom were believed to be the most vocal about voting against the resolution.

“Of course, there were members of SGO that were not present, some I understand that were critically vocal about the resolution when it was initially voted [on],” said Joy George ’20, a core member of SJP. “This of course means they need to do their due diligence and educate themselves on the issue.”

While students expressed concern that members who were not present would not have the education they needed for a revote, SGO members were already planning to accomodate that immediately following the meeting.

“Immediately after the meeting, several members of SGO stayed behind to chat and we agreed that it’s important that [the absent SGO members] get

the same education that we got,” said Bein.

While concern over the absent SGO members was vocalized at the meeting and afterwards, 25 out of 30 members of SGO were in attendance according to Orbea. Of those absences, Orbea said many of them were due to prior commitments. He also expressed that measures may be taken to account for any the senators who feel as though they don’t have the proper knowledge to vote again on the resolution.

“We have had people and groups reach out to discuss the meeting, answer questions, and any other sort of informational things those senators may need,” said Orbea. “I think there’ll be a discussion about whether senators, present or not, should abstain if they don’t have the proper knowledge and grasp of the last meeting and/or the issue at hand.”

While students appreciated the ability for discussion in this setting, critiques on the structure and content of the meeting still arose. One of those critiques centered around the allocation of equal time to SJP, SSFI, and JVP. “The room was filled with mostly black and brown students and supporters of BDS and SJP. We were given equal time to [three] white men who came and were given equal time by the institution and structure of SGO,” said McGinnis.

According to Orbea, SGO was unaware that there would only be three representatives from SSFI. He also noted that thinking about the division of the time allotted based on support for or against the BDS resolution changed how the conversation was skewed.

“If you were to condense [the time] down to pro and anti-BDS, then it was double the amount of time for pro-BDS viewpoints or opinions to be shared,” said Orbea. “I think it made sense for SGO to not deny [SSFI] that form and give them equal time to share their views. It’s wrong, in my opinion, for student government to shut out a sight from the process without giving them a voice, even if the voices aren’t equal.”

Noah Landay ’19 was one of the three people representing SSFI, not as a member but as a student who was concerned about SGO passing a BDS resolution that would discourage dialogue on campus surrounding the issue. This concern, according to him, was already highlighted by the nature of the discussion at the SGO meeting.

“I was unsurprised by the animosity and intolerance towards … any sort of non-uniformity of belief,” said Landay. “Which is not to say it’s deliberate … but I think that at this college and others like it, it’s almost a natural consequence of these student movements.”

Landay and Teece both expressed concern over the way the SGO meeting went in terms

of how the discussions went.

While they both acknowledged that there were students present who engaged in constructive conversation, they believed some of the discussion were intolerant of their positions.

“There were absolutely people who were extremely civil and were promoting and engaging in the exact sort of constructive conversation that I would hope that we would see,” said Landay. “There were also people doing the exact opposite and those who were complicit by not calling out their community members for doing problematic things.”

However, members of SJP and JVP took issue with the premise of the representatives of SSFI’s arguments. Namely, supporters of SJP and JVP disapproved of SSFI’s fear of voicing their opinions being equated with the fear that Palestinians under occupation face.

“Personally, I cannot support [SSFI] as an organization that affirms privilege as more threatened than marginality,” said George.

While SSFI focused part of their argument on the importance of dialogue, students at the meeting asked why the presenters were absent for SJP’s portion of the meeting. The presenters for SSFI expressed not only a sense of intimidation caused by meeting in front of a large group with beliefs opposed to their own, but also confusion about the nature of the meeting.

“I didn’t know I would be speaking to SJP and taking questions from SJP,” said Teece.

“I thought I would be speaking to SGO … that was an intimidating circumstance.”

While dialogue at the meeting was critiqued, students overall felt that the meeting was educational and productive.

“This was constructive dialogue,” said McGinnis. “[It] takes a number of forms and I think that’s what people said over and over again in the meeting — talking about discourse for the sake of it is not enough.”

In the meeting, Vice President of SGO, Kat Capossela ’21, expressed that the meeting’s discussion changed her mind on what was said by Matthew Stein ’20, President of SSFI, before the initial vote took place.

Addressing the SSFI representatives, Capossela recalled that Stein made the argument that passing the resolution would undermine his identity. However, Capossela felt that the information presented by SJP and JVP changed her viewpoint on that argument.

“After hearing so many voices today I don’t understand that argument anymore,” said Capossela. “Especially because a lot these folks here are saying that the BDS movement isn’t saying ‘we’re anti-Israel’ or that your identity is invalid.”

There will be a revote on the BDS resolution at this upcoming Sunday’s SGO meeting.

ARTS

February 28, 2019 PAGE A3

“No, And:” Senior Capstone Tackles “The Bald Soprano” in Twenty-Four Absurd Hours Rachel Lapides Arts Writer

Y

ou’re probably familiar with the number one rule of improvisation: “yes, and.” While scripted, the absurdist dialogue of The Bald Soprano indulges in no such formalities of agreement. The six characters of Eugene Ionesco’s play ignore the laws of language, contradicting both each other and themselves, occasionally pausing the narrative to recite bizarre poeticisms or truths. And, of course, hilarity ensues.

Not only does the content of the show defy the norms of theater, but so does the form. Uninformed

viewers who arrive at 8:00 p.m. on Friday March 1, the show’s starting time, will be surprised to find that the play ends an hour later only to begin again — a neverending encore of sorts. This cycle will repeat for an entire day, the curtain opening and closing twenty four separate times. According to the poster, “audiences are welcome to stop by any time and witness these six actors transform the performance of a play into an uncompromising experiment in human endurance and the (possibly futile) ways we try to make sense of our world.” As the typical form of an orderly narrative disintegrates in front of audiences, the script’s hourly reset is sure to

evoke both laughter and deeper philosophical questions.

But Ianesco is not the only one we have to thank for this novel piece of theater. This wild performance would not exist without the work of Swarthmore’s Theater Department. The department will be serving pancakes during the morning performances on March 2 to celebrate the piece directed by Visiting Assistant Theater Professor Alex Torra for the Senior Capstone. Not to mention the bravery of the six actors (Shelby Billups ’20 , Max Marckel ’19, Arijit Nerurkar ’19, Josie Ross ’21, Emily Uhlmann ’19, and John Wojciehowski ’19) must be acknowledged for putting their lives on hold for a day, fore-

going a night of sleep to take the absurdity of the play to its limits.

The six actors will all be onstage for each performance, their only breaks being their moments offstage. Still, the actors say the experience will be worth it. “‘The Bald Soprano’ is about the existence or non-existence of meaning in our lives,” leading man Max Marckel ’19 remarked. “The characters cling to a semblance of organization and meaning but end up staring into the abyss of meaninglessness nonetheless. By repeating it for 24 hours, we as actors experience this downfall again and again, and it intensifies the absurdity and the questions of meaning in the play.

The 2018 Anti-Oscars James Sutton Arts Writer

If you watched the snoozefest that was this year’s Oscars, you might believe that 2018 was a terrible year for movies. The Best Picture winner, Green Book, was a forgettable retread of Driving Ms. Daisy, and most of the other nominees will barely be remembered. Who will really care about Rami Malek’s toothy impression of Freddy Mercury (Bohemian Rhapsody) or a biopic about Dick Cheney (Vice) in two or three years? In actuality, 2018 had plenty of great film, but it was mostly left out of Oscar consideration.

Production outside of traditional Hollywood studios, young directing talents, and the ongoing documentary boom combined to create a rich and varied ecosystem of quality movies. In honor of that, here are 2018’s Anti-Oscars: great films that received no nominations from the Academy.

Won’t You be My Neighbor? (dir. Morgan Neville) — This film shouldn’t even be on this list, really, as it was one of the best movies of the year, period. If, unlike the Academy, you support love, joy, and helping children, then see this movie as soon as possible. Morgan Neville’s exploration of Fred Roger’s background and motivations, as well as testimonies from all the lives Mr. Roger’s touched, can only be described as life-affirming. Mr. Roger’s profound faith, compassion, and empathy shines throughout the film, from washing his feet with a black man during nationwide controversies over segregation to his acceptance of a gay employee during the height of the AIDS crisis. The final scene is

one of the most moving I’ve ever seen; the entire theater I watched it in was crying, including myself.

They Shall Not Grow Old (dir.

Peter Jackson) — The BBC and the Imperial War Museum came to Peter Jackson with 600 hours of audio and 200 hours of video from their World War One archives, with only one request: “do something interesting.” He delivered, using modern technology to colorize old film, speed up frame rates, and provide audio where there was only silence. With such potent material, Jackson made the wise decision to focus on only the Western Front and only have audio testimonies from veterans as narration. Rather than presenting a historical argument or narrative, the film foregrounds its most distinctive features: the sounds, colors, and most of all the faces of World War I, which we visualize in silent black-and-white. You cannot help but be jarred by blue skies above the Somme, green grass at Ypres, and the horrific absurdity of Highlanders in kilts, marching to the sound of bagpipes into clouds of mustard gas. It’s unsettling; as the soldiers’ faces glow with color and we hear them laugh and talk, we’re reminded that it was real people marching off to die in the trenches, not just statistics or names on a page. They Shall Not Grow Old is a first-rate work of history for the radical empathy that lies at its heart.

Ben Is Back (dir. Peter Hedges) — America’s opioid crisis is explored in heartbreaking, intimate, detail in this relatively unnoticed film. Taking place over 24 hours on Christmas Eve and Christmas, the film begins with Ben’s (Lu-

cas Hedges) surprise return home for the holidays from rehab. His mother’s (Julia Roberts) shock and joy contrasts with the wariness and fear on his sister’s face. The first two-thirds of the film masterfully portray the fear and tension that addiction brings into a family.

Ben’s presence has his entire family on a knife’s edge between relief and panic, as old temptations and sources of trauma threaten to trigger a relapse. It turns into a slightly contrived thriller in the third act, but the final scene is both devastatingly bleak and just hopeful enough to leave a strong impression. Roberts’ performance is the film’s highlight; she captures the rage, love, and grief you would expect the mother of a heroin addict to feel.

The Rider (dir. Chloe Zhao) — Chloe Zhao’s sophomore effort is based on the true story of Brody Jandreau, a young rodeo star from the Pine Ridge Reservation who fractured his skull after being thrown from his horse, forcing him to quit the sport that has defined him. The story follows the path you might expect, chronicling Brody’s denial, anger, shame, and confusion as he moves from riding broncos in front of cheering crowds to training horses and picking up shifts at Wal-Mart.

It’s beautifully shot and lyrically paced, but the casting choices are the film’s crowning achievement.

Zhao cast Jandreau, his entire family, and most of his friends to act in a scripted retelling of their own lives. Everyone, from Jandreau to his father to his younger sister, gives compelling, surprisingly frank, performances. The result is a film of both deep emotion and grounded realism.

Eighth Grade (dir. Bo Burnham) — Before this movie, musical comedian Bo Burnham had two Netflix specials and a reputation as an earnest, goofy performer who skewered entertainment culture and his own misanthropy.

But he showcases serious directorial promise as he follows thirteen-year-old Kayla (Elsie Fisher) through her last week of classes in middle school. Fisher’s performance is excellent, as Kayla navigates stifling shyness, her unrequited crush on a popular boy, embarrassment with her wellmeaning if bumbling dad, and the social apocalypse that is a middle-school pool party. Come for Fisher’s performance, stay for the best presentation of social media’s pervasiveness I’ve seen on-screen.

The kids in the film constantly perform their lives on social media; Kayla tries to hide her anxieties by projecting an image of herself as a confident advice-giver on a barely watched Youtube channel. She begins and ends every day with her face lit up by her phone screen, images that struck uncomfortably close to home with me, and will with most Swatties.

Annihilation (dir. Alex Garland) — I’m pretty sure this is the closest I’m ever going to get to tripping on acid. In this fever dream of a film, Natalie Portman stars as a Johns Hopkins biologist whose special forces husband mysteriously disappears. She is later abducted by government agents, who reveal that he vanished on a mission inside “the Shimmer,” a mysterious bubble slowly spreading outwards from the Louisiana bayou. Portman volunteers as a scientist with an all-

The audience can watch this unfold, and dip their toes into the abyss along with us.”

While audiences may feel compelled to follow the typical norms of leaving after (what I’m sure will be plentiful) applause at the end of the show, viewers are recommended to at least wait for the opening scene of the next round.

Not only does this participatory action conflict with typical theater-going expectations, but it makes the contrast between the ending of one show and the beginning of the next quite powerful.

There may even be some switching of actors in character roles — an addition which further reveals the idiosyncrasies of social roles.

As Marckel adds, “At the end, after a 24-hour free-fall into meaninglessness, we, wiser now, can all decide for ourselves whether we want meaning in our lives.”

female expedition trying to figure out what exactly happened to her husband in the Shimmer. Once inside the Shimmer, all hell breaks loose, as the very laws of nature seem radically out of balance: alligators grow shark teeth, bears scream like humans, and the trees look suspiciously like people (or is it the other way around?). Portman and her team’s grasp on reality slowly collapses, culminating in the most mind-bending ending of any movie this year. Annihilation is simultaneously an allegory for environmental destruction, a psychological thriller about shattered identity, and deeply creepy sci-fi horror.

The Death of Stalin (dir. Armando Iannucci) — In 1950’s Moscow, two bored workers observe an orchestra performance through a soundbooth. As the music is wrapping up, one receives a call and immediately panics, running outside and demanding every person stay in their seats. “Comrade Stalin” has just phoned in a request for a recording, but there isn’t one, and the performance must be repeated. The conductor faints, so a new one is hustled from his apartment in the middle of the night.

Scenes like this highlight the absurdities of life under totalitarian rule, director Armando Iannucci (of Veep fame) marshals a deep cast of comedy veterans headlined

by Steve Buscemi and Jeffrey Tambor to portray the Soviet Executive Council’s fevered scramble for power after Stalin’s death from a stroke. The humour is as dark as it comes; the mass murder and atrocities of the Soviet regime are most certainly not glossed over.

Expect a lot of laughing and wincing.

Aquaman (dir. James Wan) — 2019 wound up being a surprisingly strong year for superhero movies, with The Incredibles 2, Black Panther, and Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse all picking up Oscar nominations. Aquaman has no such highbrow pretensions.

It does, however, have sharks with lasers. Long one of DC’s goofiest superheroes (he talks to fish, for crying out loud), Aquaman does not exactly seem like source material for a blockbuster movie. But director James Wan wisely abandons the doom and gloom of Man of Steel and Justice League for gonzo camp. Jason Momoa’s Aquaman is just charismatic enough as a wisecracking surfer-bro who journeys to claim his rightful throne as king of Atlantis. The undersea world, full of Flash Gordon style submarines, strange sea monsters, and neon-tinted battles between armies of Atlanteans, is a fresh and creative use of CGI technology, so often lazily applied. And did I mention the sharks with lasers?

Details: The Bald Soprano will be performed from 8:00 p.m. on Friday March 1 until 8:00 p.m. on Saturday March 2 in the Lang Performing Art Center’s Frear Ensemble Theater, featuring Shelby Billups, Max Marckel, Arijit Nerurkar, Josie Ross, Emily Uhlmann, and John Wojciehowski.

Most of the these films received little attention outside critics’ circles, but they’re not inaccessible art-house movies. I barely watch those. They’re just indicative of the ways in which film is changing: there’s a greater variety of film being produced, but for smaller audiences and in more places. But you only need to look to find it.

To Prescribe or Not to Prescribe: My Unsolicited Writing Advice Ash Shukla Arts Writer

There is no one way to write.

End of sentence. Fullstop. The level of self-righteous prescriptivism within the realm of writing frustrates me to no end, and in my experience as a writer, absolutist advice is oftentimes the worst advice of all. In fact, absolutist advice isn’t advice at all, but rather, a command, as if to say, “You have to write in a certain way to let me justify my own beliefs about the proper way to write.” To express my frustration at literary prescriptivists, I compiled this list of the five best and worst tidbits of writing advice that I’ve ever received.

(A bit hypocritical? Maybe.) Of course, not every piece of advice will suit every person’s writing, but following the good tips and maintaining a level of skepticism for the bad ones has allowed me, personally, to develop my craft.

GOOD 1.

Alternate between the lengths of your sentences.

See this paragraph? The sentences alternate between long and short, and as a result, it flows like a smooth jungle river. Alternating between sentence lengths keeps writing readable and engaging. Too many overly-lengthy sentences in a row bog down the true potential

of a piece, and too many staccato sentences can become distracting. If used variably, lengthy and staccato sentences can emphasize and deliver a uniquely structural punch to ideas.

2.

In academic writing, avoid softening words like “seems” and “appears to be”.

A life-changing revelation for me was when I realized that in academic writing is one of the only times that you get to tell people what to think. Softening words, such as “seems” and “appears to be” weaken the force of arguments by adding an undertone of doubt.

Instead of softening your own words, just assert your claims!

You’ll sound more confident in your own ideas.

3.

Use “to be” sparingly.

“To be” is a verb of unquantifiable utility. Making use of action verbs in its place, however, sharpens up a piece of writing without having to exert an excessive amount of effort. Replacing “is” and “was” with action verbs adds a deeper level of description to a sentence without sacrificing any conciseness. This deeper level of description, of course, is attainable through greater attention to precision with regards to any part of speech. Replacing “to be” just provides a good jumping-off point.

4.

Zoom in and out.

Writer’s block. The two words, together like that, in rapid succession, make me grimace. It’s impossible to avoid hitting writer’s block at some point, but some of the best advice I’ve ever received is to think of creative writing in three “zooms.” The first zoom is an objective, broad view of a scene’s setting and features. The second zoom is a more intense, but more personal, view of a scene. The second zoom includes conversation between characters, smallerscale events, etc. The third zoom is an extremely subjective point of view, such as elaboration on an individual’s hidden thoughts and feelings. After having hit writer’s block and reached the end of a narrative path, finding a way to transition between zoom levels can bring a piece back into perspective. It’s not a catch-all fix to a ubiquitous struggle, but in my personal experience, keeping the zooms in mind has helped me to reestablish a course of action with my writing.

5.

Go ahead and write.

This advice is perhaps the most simple and obvious of all tips listed here, but maintaining a constant level of motivation when writing is a chore. But the only way to improve as a writer is, unfortunately, just to keep. On. Writing.

No writer starts out writing masterpieces. First drafts rarely, if ever,

live up to their potential. You can always rewrite a poorly-written paragraph or page, but you can never fix a piece that doesn’t exist to begin with. So go ahead and write! Learning to write well is a long-term investment, but you’ll be thankful that you did.

BAD 1.

Don’t use adverbs or the passive voice.

Some of the most common writing advice is to avoid adverbs and the passive voice at all costs. My personal theory is that instructors oftentimes give these bits of advice to budding writers so that they can avoid developing an overreliance on either tool. If adverbs and the passive voice were truly useless, however, they wouldn’t exist.

2.

Less is always more.

Despite the insistence of (usually) white men who drink whiskey, smoke cigars, and want to be reincarnated as Hemingway, minimalism doesn’t inherently trounce full-bodied expression, and vice versa. People often insist that minimalist writing is the best writing, and that everyone ought to emulate the Hemingway’s trademark brevity — but what if you don’t want to write like Hemingway? Not everyone is suited to every style of writing, and frankly, if everyone employed a minimalist

writing style, then reading would get pretty boring pretty fast. Don’t be afraid to explore!

3.

Don’t use sentence fragments.

As with adverbs and passive voice, I theorize that writing instructors steer away new writers from starting sentences with “and,” “but,” etc. to avoid them developing an overdependence on sentence fragments. But sentence fragments, like adverbs and passive voice, can be a wonderful way to emphasize thoughts and jazz up a piece of writing. Starting off a sentence with a coordinating conjunction requires moderation and thought as to placement, but when properly done, can add excitement and enthusiasm to any piece.

4.

Show, don’t tell — or any other advice about the correct manner in which to write.

There is no correct way to write, and the all-too-often-repeated adage of “Show, don’t tell!” makes me roll my eyes. Books are a unique medium in that the words and the personal connection with the reader allow for explicit explanations and observations. While the art of subtlety can prove a helpful tool, there is more to effective writing than tasteful imagery.

5.

Don’t write.

The antithesis of my favorite piece of writing advice is, of course, my least favorite piece of

writing advice. In Joseph Epstein’s now-famous 2002 New York Times Op-Ed “Think You Have a Book in You? Think Again” annoys to me to no end because of its central thesis: that people shouldn’t even try to write books because most books are bad, anyway. To suggest that most books (and, by association, writers) are intrinsically bad is nothing but dismissive for the sake of dismissiveness.

So go ahead! Write anything you want! Despite the insistence of the world’s Epsteins, there is nothing ignoble about writing for the want to have written something.

It’s a fact of life that not everyone possesses a natural aptitude or ability for everything. While writing personally brings me a deep sense of reconciliation with the world, I know that writing doesn’t bring the same peace to everyone else. Writing, as with any other skill, requires practice and patience. Even for seasoned writers, there always remains room for refinement and improvement.

In the same way that not everyone carries an innate passion for visual art or dance, not everyone will love writing. But I believe that everyone, and I mean everyone, regardless of passion, can learn to write well.

PAGE A4

THE PHOENIX ARTS

February 28, 2019

An Exquisite Corpse Is Brimming with Life Powell Sheagren Arts Writer “An Exquisite Corpse” as directed by Rohan Hejmadi ’21 and Amaechi Abuah ’21 brought the apocalypse to the audience. On February 22, 2019, at the main stage of the Lang Performing Arts Center, four actors played in one of the most varied and multifaceted shows ever seen at Swarthmore. With the stage strewn with boxes and bags filled with a scant amount of food, a desperate feeling already engulfed the audience upon entrance. The lights dimmed as an ominous whirring began to hum, heralding the opening of the show, with the four characters on stage and ready to go.

“An Exquisite Corpse” is about a group of four characters diverse in backgrounds, ages, and orientations who find themselves stuck together in

an old nuclear bunker as a potential World War Three develops around them. After hearing sirens and a warning, they all run to the bunker, and the show starts off as they begin to come to terms with their situation.

The black sheep of the crowd, Michael (Shail Modi ’21), tends to be the first to cause problems with his pessimistic views and he often gets in fights, especially with Reed (AV LeeA-Yong ‘21), a gender neutral teen. The other two characters try to keep these fights at bay — Sarah (Elizabeth Mickelson ’22) acts as a more mature presence while Philip (Skylar Thoma ’21) is a younger, more naive one. The characters bounce between comedic dialogue to dark thoughts in a jolty and endearing way as we see them come to terms with their situation and possible deaths due to lack of rations. During all of their interactions, they get to

know each other through icebreakers, stories, and a guided meditation session. It’s dark humor at its best with the characters alternating between being at each other’s throats and cracking jokes of with pitch perfect gallows humor. A week after their initial entrapment, the members decide to forage in the world above as they and the audience feel the booming of bombs — or something more sinister. The play ends with Reed being left to protect the bunker, finally readying themselves for the fallout, whenever it may be.

While the show lacks true emotional resolution between the characters, they seem to reach a grudging acceptance of each other despite earlier conflicts. Camaraderie is formed amongst the group as they come to accept their differences and individual strengths and plan on a new way to survive.

Instead of being pessimistic, the ending was a mark of the characters accepting their new reality instead of doubting or running from it.

On a more technical note, the play was a conglomeration of the work of many individuals on stage and off, with over eight writers and even more crew members. The cast themselves created their characters, which were then sent off to eight Swarthmore playwrights (Camryn Slosky ’22, Shali Modi ’21, Ellora Rich ’20, Emma Pernudi-Moon ’19, Faith Booker ’21, Alex Kingsley ’20, Clare Grundstein ’20, and Rebecca Regan ’19) who were given a character description and an opening and ending line. After an extensive writing process, they refined the play and gave it to the cast members to perform. The sound and lighting was also exceptional, with atmospheric effects in both that made the audience

feel encased in the same bunker the characters were on stage.

It was an innovative concept for a theatrical piece with its bouquet of writers, and had its ups and downs. Giving many different writers a chance to portray the characters led to different escapades and plot devices from scene to scene that kept the concept fresh even if the circumstances of the characters had not changed.

The changing of scenes, however, led to some character inconsistencies and tone shifts that took away from the overall meaning of the show. Even if it might not have been a smooth sail, it was definitely an riveting one, and the concept proved its worth in a laugh — and dread — inducing performance that brought something real to the LPAC main stage.

“An Exquisite Corpse” challenges the audience with its themes of the unknown and

desperation as we see the characters grieve and guffaw their way through such a devastating situation. The strength needed to survive in these scenarios is awe inspiring, and the play shows that with the characters bringing their best and bravest emotions to the table. Seeing them pull through gives the audience hope for the uniting ability of humanity, as well as our ability to survive.

Scenes of New York Jeremy Chang Arts Writer

A country of freedom, city of the Statue of Liberty — welcome to New York City. Old historic buildings, museums, the subway … New York City is a summary of American history on its own. However, it is not only historical monuments that attract people’s eyes.

It is the energy from the people who live in New York. The finance in Wall Street, broadway, broadcast stations, banks, firms — New York attracts the most powerful individuals in America and they make it a city full of energy.

Small apartments and the unexplainable price for rent reminds me of my home city, Seoul, which is also packed with people, bad traffic, small apartments but still is my home. Every time I walk down the small streets of New York, surrounded by apartment forest, it feels like I’m going back home: wandering a late night street in Seoul, a bit drunk, a bit nostalgic.

New York City is beautiful during the daylight, but the true beauty of the city comes out during the night time. Countless neon signs and lights cover the sky, never allowing a clear night, but they also create a perpetually bright citya. The night life is full of jazz bars, late night shows, theatres, and concerts.

However, when I think about New York, or reminiscence about my experiences there, it is neither the powerful people nor the monuments that first comes into my mind. I think about the old apartments with fire escapes where aspiring artists created art in the past, old and smelly subway stations that transported more than a billion of people, and the people who actually make up New York City. Its mundane life — that is what actually occupies NYC, runs NYC, and makes NYC. And that is what I picture about this Gotham city.

Of course there is no such thing as a perfect city. NYC, like any other major American cities, has problems of shooting, rush hour traffic, and other issues beneath the surface. However, NYC will still be the most representative city on the East Coast for me because it has both a beautiful side and dark side of America’s past, present, and future.

OPINIONS

February 28, 2019 PAGE A5

A Case for Open Borders Billie Potts Op-Ed Contributor

F

ollowing Congress’ failure to fund a continuous wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, President Trump declared a state of national emergency for what he claims is an immigration crisis. This follows the 35day government shutdown in December and January over the same border security proposal — a shutdown that jeopardized the livelihoods of Americans working for the government.

Instead of debating building a southern border wall, we should be discussing reforming our outdated immigration policies. The U.S. should open its borders to new immigrants and grant amnesty to the 10.7 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the country. According to Pew Research Center, 62 percent of Americans believe that immigration strengthens the U.S. Given the support for immigrants by the majority of Americans, I think it is time to discuss changing our immigration policies.

The U.S. has a long history of xenophobia-driven immigration policy. This xenophobia originates from the United States’ foundation as a settlercolonial state. We’ve seen xenophobia more blatantly in recent years through the rise of Islamophobia following 9/11, the resurgence of white nationalism, and the rise of Russophobia following the 2016 election.

Xenophobia has shown itself through the passage of racist immigration policies in the past. Before the enactment of laws such as the Page Act of 1875 and the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 that excluded Chinese immigrants, the borders were open and people were free to immigrate to the U.S., though access to citizenship was limited based on race. The next major change in U.S. immigration policy was in the 1920s with the Emergency Quota Act and the Johnson-Reed Act. The Emergency Quota Act capped the number of immigrants admitted from any country at just three percent of the number of residents from that same country living in the United States as of 1910. The Johnson-Reed Act restricted immigration to 150,000 people per year and established a national quota system based on two percent of the 1890 U.S. census. Then, in 1965, the Hart-Celler Act abolished national origins quotas in favor of hemisphere-based quotas. The main impact of the Hart-Celler Act was an increase in the number of Asian, African, and Middle Eastern immigrants. Over the last five decades, the general framework of these hemispheric quotas has remained in place. Despite the demographic shifts we have seen due to the Hart-Celler Act, the act itself was quite conservative in terms of configuring a system that was intended to preserve the general demo-

graphic makeup of the U.S. I argue that we can do better by opening our borders.

In her recent election campaign, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called for the abolishment of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security created after 9/11, which has become notorious for separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Indeed, we must abolish I.C.E., but we must also demilitarize the border, decriminalize unauthorized border crossings, and grant amnesty to those illegal immigrants already living here. By granting amnesty and decriminalizing the border, the phrase “undocumented immigrants” will be an artifact of the past. Opposition to these policies usually comes from a place of fear. I will attempt to address the most common fears.

Contrary to what some believe, the labor market is not a zero-sum game. In other words, immigrants are not going to take jobs away from people.

Instead, people become unemployed for other reasons such as the outsourcing of jobs to other countries driven by a neoliberal globalization agenda that empowers corporations over communities. The problem is not with immigration. The solution is to address these real concerns, not to fear monger about immigrants.

There is also the deep-seated

THE

w

fear that the cultural fabric of America is changing in part due to immigration — that fear has helped drive President Trump’s campaign slogan of “Make America Great Again.” His campaign began by declaring that immigrants are criminals.

Because undocumented immigrants are framed as a racialized other, it is easy for people to believe this false statement.

Statistically, this simply is not the case. People born in the U.S. are twice as likely as immigrants to be behind bars. While I believe cultural change is not to be feared, President Trump’s rhetoric neglects the fact that immigrants are choosing to come to the U.S. While they bring their own cultural baggage, they also adopt American values and customs. With legal status, immigrants would pay taxes and their children will, for better or worse, assimilate into the social fabric.

There is the worry that immigrants would overwhelm social services; however, immigrants are a small but real net positive for the economy and the government. Immigrants are primarily coming to work. Additionally, borders do not stop immigrants from coming here illegally. By refusing to decriminalize unauthorized border crossings, we make it easy for would-be undocumented immigrants to contribute to funding government goods and services.

Our current system forces some undocumented immigrants to

PHOENIX

Shreya Chattopadhyay, Editor-in-Chief Bayliss Wagner, Managing Editor Laura Wagner, Managing Editor

PHOTOGRAPHY Atziri Marquez, Editor LAYOUT Sarah Chang, Editor Catherine Zhao, Editor

NEWS Naomi Park, Editor Trina Paul, Editor

COPY Anatole Shukla, Chief Editor

ARTS Esther Couch, Editor Nicole Liu, Editor

BUSINESS Robert Conner, Manager

CAMPUS JOURNAL Dylan Clairmont, Editor

SOCIAL MEDIA Abby Diebold, Editor

OPINIONS Shelby Dolch, Editor Max Katz-Balmes, Editor

DIGITAL OPERATIONS Daniel Chaiken Navdeep Maini

SPORTS Jack Corkery, Editor Ping Promrat, Editor

work in the shadows, preventing them from contributing in the form of taxes.

Not only are there benefits for the government, but some economists claim dramatic boosts to GDP as a result of open borders. This is because productivity depends on location more than skill; the same job adds more value to the economy in a developed country than a developing one.

While economic growth is not everything, allowing greater immigration through opening the borders is an easy way to boost GDP. Through policy, we can make sure that these ben-

EMERITUS Keton Kakkar Ganesh Setty

efits are shared by the vast majority of Americans.

Ultimately, I am arguing for open borders because it is the best solution to the problem of illegal immigration. The benefits to GDP and government coffers are low-hanging fruit we must seize. Open borders reject the racism that has fueled our immigration and citizenship policies in the past. Instead of blaming immigrants for the economic troubles brought to us by neoliberalism, we ought to embrace opening our borders.

Swarthmore is Far from Neutral on Gender-Neutral Bathrooms Jaimie Lopez and Levi Hatten Op-Ed Contributors

You are a prospective Swarthmore student. You walk up McGill walk, and you admire the green expanse of Parrish Beach.

You walk through the doors of Parrish, and you are excited.

You are finally visiting your dream school. You see an admissions officer, and he smiles at you.

“How are you? How are you liking Swarthmore? Can I get you anything?” he asks.

“Hi! I’m great. Sorry, I’ve had a long trip to get here. Would you be able to point me towards your nearest gender-neutral bathroom?” you ask.

His face drops. He looks at you with concern. “Yes, but it’s in the basement. We’re going to have to take a hike. Is that OK?” Students who need genderneutral bathrooms run into this problem all the time on this campus. It is seemingly impossible to find genderneutral bathrooms in countless non-residential buildings here at Swarthmore. Kohlberg, for example, only has two gender-neutral bathrooms on the ground floor. If you have an event in the Scheuer Room, the nearest gender-neutral bathroom is on the other side of the building, and it can only be reached by physically leaving the building and entering the adjacent wing of Kohlberg.

And here’s the catch: almost all bathrooms on this campus that have been listed as genderneutral are single-occupancy restrooms.

What are the implications of making nearly all of the gen-

der-neutral bathrooms on this campus single-occupancy? This physical isolation fails to promote equality and more importantly, by relegating students that require gender-neutral bathrooms into single occupancy restrooms, is Swarthmore saying that to require a genderneutral space is to be “other”?

That students who require these spaces do not deserve something similar to a traditional gendered bathroom?

Here’s the thing: we have visited almost every bathroom on this campus located in a nonacademic building. Out of the nineteen buildings we visited, on the 43 floors with bathrooms we visited, out of about 70 bathrooms we had the chance to see, only four bathrooms on this campus are gender-neutral stalled bathrooms. The list includes: one on Beardsley 3rd, one on McCabe 2nd, and the last two are in the New IC. As we walked around campus cataloging every bathroom in the academic buildings on campus, it also became apparent that some of the gender-neutral bathrooms are completely inaccessible for people with disabilities. For example, on the 2nd floor of Sci, we scouted out one gender-neutral bathroom, but despite being single-occupancy, there was no sign that it was an accessible bathroom. If you are a student working on the 3rd floor of Sci who requires an accessible gender-neutral bathroom, you must take a trip down to the basement. Furthermore, we encountered three singleoccupancy bathrooms that were designated as either men’s or women’s restrooms, despite be-

ing listed as gender-neutral on Swarthmore’s website.

On this campus, genderneutral bathrooms are located in completely inconvenient places. Students who are trans, nonbinary, or gender-non-conforming are forced to repeatedly misgender themselves or subject themselves to the judgement of others just to go to the bathroom. In a way, the choice of what bathroom they use is already made for them, and yet there is no general discussion about this problem on campus.

This is not a new issue on Swarthmore campus. In 2016, “The Daily Gazette” published an article that interviewed several students who saw the lack of gender-neutral restrooms as a critical issue. What has changed since then? Pretty much nothing. Everything that these students pointed out in 2016 surrounding restrooms still exists.

By contrast, over the summer, Haverford began to change the designations of their school bathrooms, and converted former men’s and women’s restrooms into multiuser gender-neutral bathrooms.

Furthermore, these are only the first steps for Haverford’s gender-neutral bathroom initiative, as President Kim Benston outlined in a school-wide email sent last year: “We are currently exploring the logistics of increasing or adding all-gender bathrooms in other academic and administrative buildings, working with architects and building planners to design and construct new, single person all-gender bathrooms where

Karin Nakano / The Phoenix

conversions of existing bathrooms are not viable.” At Bryn Mawr, the bathrooms were intentionally built as genderneutral. Why is Swarthmore College so far behind the rest of Tri-Co? Students would not be opposed to these changes.

Through the “2018-2019 Residential Community Bathrooms” list posted on the Swarthmore website, we discovered that around 40 percent of bathrooms on residential floors have gender-neutral bathrooms. A large number of students are consistently exposed and consistently use of non-gendered bathrooms in resident halls, so why would

this experience not translate to bathrooms outside of residential buildings?

So what do we do to start this process and alleviate this issue?

Consider this: Sci Center has two gendered bathrooms extremely close to each other on the first floor. What is stopping us from simply changing the sign outside of the door? What is keeping us from simply removing a dressed or undressed iconography from the outside and simply pasting up a toilet?

We are calling this campus to change the harmful precedents that have been set by the administration. We have identified a problem. This institution

often prides itself in inclusion and diversity and these values do not seem to stretch to our bathrooms on campus.

For some, the simple luxury of a bathroom has become a long journey. This summer, we will see the new B.E.P. building reach its first stage of completion and in a few years, Sharples will be renovated. We do not want to wonder how many gender-neutral bathrooms these projects will deliver. We want to see change.

On Our Shared Responsibility to Treat People Better EDITORIAL

It’s hard to imagine Swarthmore without Environmental or Dining Services. EVS takes care of every space on campus and Dining Services provides food for over 1,000 people every day.

Neither of those jobs are easy.

They are physically challenging and require an immense amount of energy. Why then, are students so comfortable forgetting about the importance of these vital staff members?

It’s easy to get caught up in the everyday rush of being a Swarthmore student. In the daily process of running

around campus, we often forget those who run this campus from behind the scenes. Thinking about who cooked the food that we quickly throw into our takeout containers is the last of our priorities. Thinking about who cleans the bathrooms and vacuums the hallways every day slips away from our minds.

This behavior becomes problematic when students begin to blatantly disrespect EVS and dining workers. There’s no reason to let garbage pile up, forcing EVS to go out of their way to clean it, when it would take us a few seconds to properly dispose of it. Breaking down

your boxes saves EVS valuable time and only takes a small portion of yours. Cleaning up after yourself is basic decency. Yes, these people are here to help maintain spaces around campus, but there is no reason that the burden should be solely on workers to do this. The campus serves as our home for the short time we are here, and we owe it to everyone to treat it as such.

Doing small things like cleaning off your plates in Sharples, sorting your silverware, and putting the tray with spare dishes on the conveyor belt — even if you didn’t use it — can help workers during their

days and spare them unnecessary trouble. It also shows that you appreciate the work that is being done for you — work that certainly isn’t easy. Asking the cashiers at the coffee bar about their day shows that you value them as people, rather than just people who serve you coffee before class.

Doing the bare minimum to be kind and appreciative to those who work to help us succeed and function should not be a radical statement. It should not require debate or articles in The Phoenix. Yet, judging by the ridiculous state of disarray the hallways and dining hall

often end up in, it does. Greeting or thanking the people who ensure that your living space is sanitary shouldn’t be difficult.

As college students juggling a dozen things on our plate, it’s easy to become unaware of the people around us whose services we take for granted. But that is no excuse to mistreat EVS, Dining Services, or any of the other staff members who help keep our environment clean and school running smoothly.

As a campus, we need to do better. We are incredibly lucky to have people who take care of the place we, sometimes begrudgingly, call home. So put in

a little extra time to clean up after yourself in Sharples. Pick up your garbage in the lounge so EVS can get their work done more efficiently. Just as importantly, say hi. Smile. Ask the staff around you about how their day was and maybe introduce yourself. As members of a community, we have a mutual responsibility to care for each other. So in the midst of the hustle and bustle of college life, let’s not forget to appreciate them.

PAGE A6

THE PHOENIX OPINIONS

February 28, 2019

Israel Needs Change, But BDS is Not the Answer Jacob Brady Op-Ed Contributor

S

ince Israel’s 1967 capture of Gaza and the West Bank, seemingly little has changed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The territories remain under military rule and peace seems no closer. The Oslo Accords of 1993, where Israel and the Palestinian Authority recognized each other as legitimate entities and set out a roadmap to peace, gave some hope that soon peace would be on the way. But only seven years later, another cycle of violence began with the Second Intifada, during which thousands of Israelis and Palestinians died.

At the conclusion of that particular flare-up, Israel decided to unilaterally disengage from the Gaza Strip by removing all military resources and Jewish residents from the area. This was in part an attempt to grant the Palestinians autonomy within Gaza and also representative of an understanding that Israel could not maintain itself as a Jewish majority state with democratic rights for all its citizens while maintaining control of Gaza. This was a decision that was met with widespread protest in Israeli society as many felt that Jews should not be kicked out of their homes and that the disengagement would threaten Israeli security.

Eventually, the Israel Defense Forces had to go into Gaza and the northern West Bank and evict Israelis who refused to leave from their homes.

Within months, Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization, was elected to lead the Palestinian government. Fatah, the other dominant faction in Palestinian politics, refused to cede power, and Hamas eventually took over Gaza by force due to the postdisengagement power vacuum.

The Israeli government tried to make a change to the status quo, to increase the autonomy of the Palestinian authority.

They were met by rockets, rock-

ets that have been responded to with Israeli military campaigns, and these events have set back the Israeli public’s and government’s will to support further change.

But change is happening in the Israeli political system, albeit slowly. Benjamin Netanyahu has served as prime minister for the past ten years and has not shown much willingness to engage in the compromise that is necessary for peace. Former Israeli military and intelligence chiefs have been some of the biggest critics of the ongoing regime of martial law in the West Bank. A new centrist alliance, Blue and White, with three out of its four top candidates being former Chiefs of Staff of the IDF has been formed. It seems poised to take over from Netanyahu’s Likud as the largest party in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Already its leader, Benny Gantz, has stated that maintaining Israel’s rule over Palestinians is not in Israel’s interest, a statement that a Palestinian Authority spokesperson said was encouraging.

Netanyahu recently publicly called for Otzma Yehudit, an ultra-right wing party composed of followers of Meir Kahane, who advocated for the forcible deportation of Arabs from Israel, to ally with a national religious party in the upcoming election. This was seemingly an attempt by Netanyahu to maintain his hold on power in the short term, but it has shown many in Israeli society that he is out of touch. It was a move that was condemned by important American Jewish organizations such as AIPAC and the American Jewish Committee. It is a decision that is pulling voters away from Likud and Bayit Yehudi — the party with which Otzma Yehudit joined — and has drawn criticism from some of the most prominent Religious Zionist rabbis and leaders in Israeli and global Jewish society. Change can happen in Israeli society.

But the BDS movement does not help that process. The ultimate flaw of BDS is that its leaders work to delegitimize Israel as a whole as opposed to specifically targeting or condemning actions that are undertaken by the Israeli government. It attempts to target the Israeli economy, the Israeli entertainment sector, and even Israeli academic institutions.

One of its three principal demands, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, would result in the end of Israel as a Jewish state due to an influx of Palestinians into Israel that would eliminate the Jewish demographic majority. The words of its founders and activists like Omar Barghouti make this perfectly clear. Barghouti is one of the founders of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and one of the leading voices of the BDS movement, and he ironically also studied at Tel Aviv University. Multiple times he has reiterated his opposition to any two-state solution and has specifically spoken of BDS’s demand for a right of return for Palestinians to their lands as making the possibility of a Jewish state existing in the Land of Israel as being an impossibility.

He said, “You cannot reconcile the right of return for refugees with a two-state solution … a return for refugees would end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. A two-state solution was never moral and it’s no longer working.” I am quite willing to take him on his word in this regard. One of the characteristics inherent to the State of Israel is that it is a Jewish state — I will define that as a state with a Jewish majority. BDS’s demands would destroy the possibility of Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state.

Anti-Israel activist and academic Norman Finkelstein, who agrees with the principle of BDS and supports Palestinian rights, put it even more eloquently in an interview with human rights activist Frank Barat at Imperial College London. “I mean we

have to be honest, and I loathe the disingenuousness. They [BDS] don’t want Israel. They think they are being very clever; they call it their three tier.

We want the end of the occupation, the right of return, and we want equal rights for Arabs in Israel. And they think they are very clever because they know the result of implementing all three is what, what is the result? You know and I know what the result is. There’s no Israel!”

Leaders of the BDS movement call for a widespread boycotting of companies active in Israel, not just in the “occupied” West Bank, in an attempt to target the Israeli economy. The academic boycott of Israel calls for professors and other academics all around the globe to not engage with Israeli academic institutions, something that seems counterintuitive given the understood importance of free discourse and collaboration in academia. The cultural boycott of Israel, in the form of the boycotting of Israeli cultural institutions and the encouragement of foreign artists to not perform in Israel, does little to harm the Israeli government other than a minor economic hit. Instead, it gives the government further fuel with which to condemn the movement, as an attack on its society and country.

The BDS movement also refuses to acknowledge the very real security concerns that Israel faces. The Israel-West Bank barrier, through the government’s building of walls primarily in heavily inhabited areas and fences/passive security barriers in most other areas, was able to cut down on the number of suicide bombings and sniper attacks during the Second Intifada, a widespread militant uprising in the Palestinian territories from 2000 to 2005. After the completion of the first segment of the barrier in 2003, suicide bombing frequency fell from 73 in the previous three year period to twelve in the next three years. Indeed, Ramadan Shalah, the leader of

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, has stated that the barrier has made it more difficult for Palestinians to carry out suicide attacks inside Israeli territory. It is entirely reasonable to argue that perhaps Israel is excessive in its response to the threat it faces, and that its security measures put a disproportionate amount of hardship on the lives of Palestinians. But to completely reject these security measures offhand is to ignore the fact that attacks still happen, albeit much less frequently, and that active groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad continue to advocate for attacks against Israel.

One can take issue with specific government policies of Israel. But they can also still acknowledge the legitimacy of Israel as a stated Jewish and democratic nation and acknowledge the very real issues that it continues to face. By attacking Israel as an apartheid state, the BDS movement seeks to delegitimize Israel, by comparing it to the racist segregationist regime in South Africa. Israel is by no means an apartheid state. Its citizens, Jewish and Arab, enjoy equal protection under the law, even if this doesn’t always manifest as equal treatment in society.

As mentioned previously, I will admit that some of Israel’s security measures towards Palestinians in the territories, such as roadblocks and generally segregated roads, may be excessive. But ultimately I believe that they are rooted in a desire to maintain peace between two potentially hostile populations as opposed to enforcing a discriminatory regime on the basis of race. Referring to Israel as an apartheid state is an attempt to paint it as a force of evil while avoiding engagement with facts. How could anyone in the modern world think of an “apartheid state” as a legitimate one? This pandering in rhetorical attacks, attacks that feel quite personal to many Israelis and their supporters, only inhibits opportunities for

dialogue and understanding.

BDS is an attempt to speed up change. Many have become frustrated with the seeming impasse that currently exists between the Israelis and Palestinians, and neither side’s leaders willingness to compromise on their foundations. But if a change is to be affected through the Israeli political system, as I believe it must be, BDS cannot be the solution.

The Jewish-Israeli public is tiring of the status quo, of the impasse in negotiations, and of the current political climate.

However there is one issue that unites them, and that is an opposition to BDS. Just as physical attacks often push people to the right, as was the case in Israeli politics during the intifada, surely rhetorical ones do as well. At the end of the day, the BDS movement has had no meaningful effect on Israel, especially economically. Israel’s economy is flourishing, and foreign investment continues to soar. All BDS does is provide a boogeyman that unites the Jewish-Israeli public against a perceived external threat. And what incentive is there for Israeli politicians or civilians to engage in meaningful discussions of peace when there is a seemingly vast movement seeking to delegitimize the very existence of their country?

The reality is change is happening though at a more sedate process than some might hope.

Connections and dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, in addition to Israeli and Palestinian civil society as a whole, are certainly things that should be advocated for to speed up this process. But what BDS does is sow seeds of division.

world. These foreigners are not wrong — we in America live in a consumer society. We have come to expect everything to come into our pockets as long as we work hard enough. It has created a system in which we have too many things that we do not need, and the strain that cheap production has placed on our resources is high. So even though fast fashion may be a staple of American culture, we have to give up this along with other forms of intense consumerism.

Initially, such limitations and changes to our daily life may feel like harsh limitations of our culture; however, there’s another, less talked about side to American culture and that is a culture of progressiveness and forward thinking. America is the country that has had a multitude of ‘firsts’, leading the world into the twenty-first century with amazing innovations such as the iPhone and Google.

America has been regarded as a leader for so many years, and to see it regress in recent years has been a heartbreaking reality.

Consumerism will not be

done away with easily. It is an easy crutch to fall back on and has been facilitated in the U.S. by most major brands; however,the entire system relies on us, its consumers. In order to stop the cycle, we must be the ones who step up and say no more. We must actively choose to disengage from the culture and instead make smart decisions for planet Earth. We have to remember the decision we make not only affect us, but the rest of the world and future generations, as well.

If we really want to ‘Make America Great Again’, we should start by analyzing our flaws and the ways we have harmed this planet and its people. We must look at our mistakes and the way they have become ingrained in our culture and change it. Because, at the end of the day, we cannot put superficial cultural trends over the world.

Let’s Put Climate Over Culture Giorgia Piantanida Op-Ed Contributor Climate change is real and it is happening right now. Maybe the changes are not happening in an obviously wild or visual way, but it cannot be denied that climate change is occurring and we as a nation are doing little to stop it. For ‘greenies’ like myself and many other Swatties, it can be frustrating to watch our president, the leader of arguably the most powerful country in the world, spread lies about how the climate is stable. Hearing commentary from President Trump on climate change can make you feel powerless and perhaps even hopeless at times, but in my heart of hearts, I truly believe we as a nation can make a real change in the coming years. In order to make those changes, however, we will have to agree to give up some of our cultural attachments, however painful or unfair that may seem. Instead, we should be focusing on the ideals American culture is built on and find ourselves again as world leaders. We should remember our forward thinking

and innovative minds and take on this new challenge like we have taken on challenges before, rather than cowering in the face of change. We have to transform our American culture as we have done in the past, in order to save this planet.

In speaking to a friend of mine from Wyoming, I was introduced to the idea that there are many ‘culturally’ American things that people worldwide resist having in their lives in order to save the planet. One such action that is aggressively American is driving a truck.

People I have met in my studyabroad programs have lauded American cars, especially trucks, for their size and sheer power. This praise has always been quickly followed by a comment about the damage they cause to the environment and another comment about how Americans love wasting gas.

Although I was initially taken aback by this intense resistance to not using trucks, as my family only has two very small cars, when I really thought about it, I found myself agreeing. Americans do love their large cars and it does seem to have some back-

ing. As my friend explained, those same people who love Wyoming’s land, mountains, and lakes also refuse to give up their ga- guzzling trucks. They argue it is a freedom they have a right to and imposing fuel efficiency standards would be unconstitutional. Such people use the Constitution to argue that their rights as free citizens would be impinged upon if their car selection was reduced.

This is where we have to become harsh —we have to decide, once and for all, that our climate and this planet is more important than superficial cultural attachments. A truck emits a large amount of CO2, much more than a small fourdoor vehicle could. Making the transition from trucks to regular passenger cars may seem insignificant, but could have the potential of significantly decreasing our CO2 emissions.

Perhaps it may seem harsh to say that preserving certain aspects of our current American culture is not as important as our climate. It may seem harsh to argue that we need to cut off access to certain portions of American cultural staples in

order to stop climate change.

It may seem even more harsh when you factor in that a significant portion of our country does not even believe climate change is a real thing. Nevertheless, change has to come, either now with small sacrifices or down the road with massive ones.

I do not just want to target truck owners. Despite not owning a truck I am a huge benefactor of American culture and have used it to harm the planet as well. Fast fashion, a trend in which clothes are made with cheap fabrics and sold at very low prices, is not only affordable but also readily available and very enticing. As a college student, my pockets are not quite full, but I do love shopping, and these two opposing facts have always presented a challenge to me. Therefore, even though I know the dangers and harm fast fashion creates, I have often bought into it. People from abroad will often comment on consumerist American vices, citing the idea that Americans have to own everything or that they are some of the best consumers in the

Campus Journal

PAGE A7 February 28, 2019

ARTS FASHION FOOD LIVING PHILLY PROFILES ST YLES

Swatting While Suffering:

Some tips for surviving at Swarthmore when your body wants to collapse in on itself Clio W. Hamilton CJ Writer

W

hat may have first appeared to be a gardenvariety Swat Plague has, over the past few weeks, hit our campus with the force of a hurricane fueled by snot and despair. It seems like everyone either has a hacking cough, food poisoning via chipotle cream sauce, or the actual flu (get vaccinated, y’all).

And if you’re lucky enough to not be ill, you too can still be overcome by some vague sense of physical disgust because it’s not the start of the semester, and it’s not break, and it’s not midterms, and it’s not winter,

but it’s not spring either!

I myself had felt fine for the first two weeks back, and was going about my business, feeling tired and stuffed up and a little overwhelmed — but when am I not tired and stuffed up and, most importantly, overwhelmed? But then, on the one day temperatures got above 60 degrees and I went outside with bare legs, I started coughing and feeling chills. I went to Worth and was examined by a lovely nurse who seemed convinced I wasn’t anything more than sleep-deprived, only to learn that I looked otherwise fine but had a 103 degree fever.

Well, f*ck.

She told me I had to stay “re-

moved from the community” until the fever went away and so I stumbled back to Dana, carrying a paper bag full of little packets of pain meds and cough syrup and wondering what I was supposed to do.

Being a Swarthmore student means that I spend most of my days crisscrossing campus between classes and work and meetings and practices, bouncing from place to place like some sort of vaguely sweaty and knitwear-clad projectile trapped in a giant pinball machine. So how was I supposed to cope with being stuck in my room indefinitely? How would I be able to see my friends when I was clearly contagious and also

disgusting? How would I survive without my daily Sharples orange?

The only clear course of action remaining was to, like a good Swarthmore student, make a list of everything I could do (and then develop a moral objection to half the list’s items and forget about the other half ). That list is below, a mix of what I wanted to do, tried to do, dreamed of doing, and actually did over the two and a half days I was waiting for my fever to die down. If you find yourself in a similar situation, feel free to try and replicate them (at your own risk).

• Have a series of stress dreams in which you’re being chased in circles around the amphitheatre by the flying ants from Underhill.

• Drink a cup of water every half hour — now’s the time to hydrate as much as you’ve always said you would!

• Become so feverish that you think taking a cold shower is a good idea; realize how horribly you’ve fucked up approximately 0.2 seconds after you’ve turned the faucet all the way to the right.

• Under no circumstances come even close to touching your homework.

• Spend an hour talking with your roommate about what would happen if all the people you’ve both kissed were stuck in a room together.

• Take up all the washing machines in your dorm because you finally have time to do your laundry; sit atop a warm dryer and grin evilly at everyone who comes in wanting to wash their clothes.

A Libation to Loneliness

• Embrace your inner 80-year old man and yell at your neighbors for making noise at four in the afternoon.

• Knit half a hat and the sleeve of a sweater before unravelling both.

• Curl up inside the weird empty space under your bay window and close the door; it smells like an abandoned summer camp cabin in there and you’ll probably get a splinter in your foot.

Lijia Liu CJ Writer Past midnight on a Friday, I found myself in a kebab shop with two of my clearly intoxicated friends. The kebabs came in styrofoam boxes that would not close because of the sheer amount of meat stuffed into them.

One of my friends started yelling excitedly. “They have a full staff here just to make kebabs for us! And it’s only seven pounds!”

The other guy just stared at his kebab in utter amazement.

He gently lifted his kebab up as though he was the Virgin Mary beholding Baby Jesus for the first time. Chunks of juicy lamb rolled out of the naan and landed in the box below.

Kebabs, alcohol, and friends mix surprisingly well in Oxford, England. I went abroad expecting to learn all about game theory and integral transforms, but ended up learning much more about midnight snacks and different types of drinks. Who said that they were mutually exclusive?

When I first arrived, however, I thought I would never make new friends in the land of ale, crumpets, and unpredictable weather. On my flight to London, I collapsed into my seat and cried because I was so nervous about fitting in to the social scene. Leaving the familiar comfort of Swarthmore after two years was just as daunting as leaving home for college. In fact, it was much more difficult because of all the expectations surrounding what an ideal study abroad experience should look like.

Whenever I told someone I would be in Oxford, they would

Things to Do While Sick at Swat

• Go to sleep at 10 a.m. and wake up at 2 p.m. and feel like you’ve been transported into an alternate dimension.

• Try to talk to your plants.

• Watch the entire first season of “American Vandal” in one sitting and start to see drawings of dicks behind your eyelids every time you blink.

• Say you’re going to check your Instagram because you never do. Your roommate leaves for an afternoon seminar and comes back to find you in the same position, two hours deep into a compilation of those videos where people cut into oreos made out of frozen paint.

• Construct a model city in the middle of your room out of all the tissue boxes you’ve emptied.

• Lie naked on the floor listening to Gaelic music.

• Rejoice in the fact that being ill has earned you the ultimate misery poker trump card.

Photo courtesy of Lijia Liu

I wandered lonely as a duck. congratulate me and tell me how wonderful it would be.

Whenever I opened Facebook or Instagram, I saw pictures of my friends all around the scenic spots of Europe, basking in the classical beauty of Venice or cold majesty of Iceland.

I was afraid I would never live up to those perfect images, but instead would constantly mope about in my room while watching Netflix and eating Tesco sandwiches.

My greatest fear has always been loneliness and the social stigma that comes with it. In my first few weeks, I would often eat and study alone because I did not have my steady friend group at Swarthmore. Everyone here has their own schedules to follow, whether that involved attending lectures or showing up to sports practice. Initially, I hated being seen alone in public for fear of someone thinking

I was a perpetual loner. My anxiety took centre stage, telling me that I was not interesting enough, or not pretty enough, or not intelligent enough to form friendships with the people around me.

Despite that nagging voice in my head, I told myself that feeling out of my comfort zone was totally normal, even in an English-speaking country. I forced myself to attend special lectures, yoga classes, Lunar New Year celebrations, and other social events. I even went to a bar alone to watch a rugby game between Wales and France, sipping on cider while everyone around me was cheering whenever Wales scored.

Whoever said that Americans are crazy about the Super Bowl have clearly never seen Brits hollering over a rugby match.

What struck me was how normal it was to be seen alone

in a public place. Gradually, I discovered that my apprehension was unfounded. I noticed students sitting by themselves in cafes, libraries, and lounges, some engrossed in their homework and others simply enjoying a cup of coffee. In the parks were solitary runners and cyclists dutifully following the dirt path beside meandering streams full of ducks, geese, and gulls. Nobody gave me a second look, much less express their disdain, when I was by myself.

Being alone, or dare I say, being lonely, can be liberating because I can be totally anonymous. Any shenanigans would be forgotten in this mid-sized city with barely any memory of a random foreign student.

Here, I can get kebabs anytime I please without anyone knowing who I am, very different when compared to stumbling into

Renato’s late at night and seeing five people I know. I have utterly embarrassed myself when I first started cycling on the busy roads, but I realized that it would not matter in the long run because no passersby remember me. Humiliation somehow seems less significant when it is just me and Oxford.

I still grapple with loneliness occasionally. There are days when I would skip meals and stay huddled in my room, feeling more alone than ever.

Other days, I cycle aimlessly along side streets, looking at all the people around me who seem to have their friends or partners right beside them. But those days are getting fewer and fewer, and I believe that everyone experiences acute bouts of loneliness even if they are supposed to be living it up abroad. Behind all those perfect pictures and videos of exotic lo-

cations are plenty of pain that help us grow into better people.

My fear of loneliness still lives on, but it no longer defines my social interactions.

I have found amazing friends at Oxford in spite of my worst fears. I have done so much I never imagined myself doing, including drinking three glasses of wine at dinner, trying to punt a boat and scaring all my friends, or even going to a kebab shop at an ungodly hour.

Loneliness is an absolutely normal part of life and will always be here to stay, whether at Swarthmore or abroad. I have grown to accept it, instead of demonizing it as the antidote to all my happiness. Perhaps having a fulfilling social life is not mutually exclusive with feeling lonely at times.

For now, I propose a toast to loneliness.

I Tabled at Sharples So That You Never Have To Ash Shukla Chief Copy Editor

I sat there, in the front entrance Sharples, at the series of tables that everyone has no choice but to walk past as they enter. I held a crimson Center for Innovation and Leadership pen in my right hand, and before me lay a stack of crisp white petitions. I had been there for over an hour, and in that time, countless people had approached the glass front doors of the dining hall. Every time, ten feet before they could even touch the steely handles, I had no choice but to accidentally make eye contact with them. And every time, they gave me The Look.

You know The Look. If you don’t know The Look, you can imagine The Look. A petrified gaze ahead of them that tunneled through my corneas and into my brain. Deep discomfort all-around as they mentally screamed at me, “Please, for the love of god, do not try to speak to me. Do not try to look at me. Please, oh God, just let me eat my lasagna in peace. I would

rather be physically waterboarded right here, right now, than have to speak to you.”

But the joke was on them, because I was equally uncomfortable the entire time.

Tabling at Sharples in every sense of the words, is deeply uncomfortable. The mere existence of the activity thrusts everyone involved into a chasm of distress.

Both tablers and tablees each only want one thing — tablers want people’s attention, and tablees want nothing but to eat a quiet meal in peace. Before I first tabled, when I only had the perspective of a tablee, I oftentimes found myself annoyed when tablers gave me unwelcomed attention in the Sharples foyer. I smiled and thanked the tabler for the flyers and other pieces of paper, even though I knew that they would inevitably end up in the recycling.

As a tabler, however, it feels dehumanizing to greet people who won’t even offer a simple, “Hi” in return. When people looked away from me and ignored every word that came out of my mouth while

speed-walking away, I felt discouraged, but I couldn’t blame them.

After all, they didn’t ask for this, and regardless of the causes for which people table, it is undeniable that tabling is a form of unsolicited confrontation. This innate sense of rejection that I felt while tabling forced me to reevaluate the role of tablers at Sharples. I hate, hate, hate assuming the role of the tabler. I absolutely abhor assuming the role of the tablee. As I reflect on my experience tabling, however, I’ve come to understand the tradition as a physical manifestation of our collective aversion to confrontation.

In my experience, Swarthmore is a safer place than it is unsafe, and I regret that anyone should be able to take this profound luxury for granted. Not only does Swat’s environment provide necessary physical safety, but also a lack of confrontation altogether. I don’t mean fearful confrontation, but instead the commonplace confrontation that lets us learn how to say no every once in a while. At Swarthmore, not only do we end

up overcommitting ourselves as a result of this absence of confrontation, but we also end up lacking the ability to say no politely and gracefully. This aversion to confrontation isn’t unique to Swatties, but as a whole, we are remarkably unskilled at denying each other.

As individual human beings, there’s not a lot that we intrinsically owe each other as a consequence of our very existence.

Tablees certainly don’t owe it to tablers to sign their petitions and complete their surveys. We do owe it to each other, however, to be able to say no to potential obligations without denying anyone basic human decency and courtesy. The proper response to an unwanted tabler is to simply politely decline and to walk away. Affording our own peers and classmates a simple “Hello, no thanks!” when they ask us to complete a task should be a commonplace procedure. If we can’t treat members of our own community with that basic level of courtesy, then I don’t know how we can possible productively deal

Nara Enkhtaivan /The Phoenix

with innocuous confrontation outside of the Swat bubble.

Please be kind to the people who table at Sharples, even if you want no part of their undertaking. The confrontation of tabling is one of the few glimpses on Swarthmore’s campus that we have outside of the Swat bubble, and it’s not going away any time soon. As long as Sharples continues to provide

young, passionate students with such a platform to reach out to others, the tradition of tabling will live on. It is certainly a solution to ignore tablers altogether, to follow the principle of “out of sight, out of mind.” But as long as we as an institution continue to value each other as fellow human beings, the only good solution is to learn how to handle the word “no.”

PAGE A8

THE PHOENIX CAMPUS JOURNAL

February 28, 2019

Occupy the Truth: Feasting On A Smorgasbord of Not-Yet Truths R.L. B*rnard CJ Writer Here we are again. Before we dive into the grit of what I’ve found for you about this crime, let us first discuss truth. Truth is a funny thing. Philosophers have long questioned how we find truth, how we know things to be true. The truth can be ugly, it can be shocking, it can be difficult to hear. Is there objective truth? Is there only subjective interpretation? Are we committed enough to truth to allow these multitudes to exist simultaneously? Are we comfortable with chaos?

I ask you to contemplate these questions of truth because today’s column deals with the not-yet truth. Unlike a lie, these not-yet truths are plausible truths yet to be proven. In order to begin an investigation like this one, I first have to lay out all the possibilities before I can follow the traces of proof. The question of motivation comes into play: who had plausible motivation to do this act? What was the intention in the first place? After wading through the flood of information and commentary I’ve received, I’ve narrowed it down to the most plausible theories.

Theory #1: The All Too Obvious The first theory is that the people who led the act of sitting at A1 placed the bats on the field. Motive? Sure, easy.

Escalate the alleged movement, ride off in the glory of the tables, seize yet another opportunity to make mischief at the expense of male athletes. Rub it in. I get it. But, doesn’t it seem stupid to do this and assume people won’t think it’s you?

Still, this was the popular theory at the time. One look at the Facebook comments (Figure 1) can tell you that much.

A side theory: perhaps a lone follower? A rogue tabler seeking power and glory, willing to throw the others to the fraternal wolves?

But these are the people already associated with “Occupy A1.” This theory seems to be the obvious option, and given how obvious it is, it’s probably purely conjecture, especially since the people participating

Figure 1. Colors indicate different speakers. Identities have been concealed for journalistic integrity. By “Chris Kyle”, yes, that is American Sniper being invoked here.

in the table sit probably had no idea where the baseball equipment is kept. You can say a lot of things about the people who started the table act, but you can’t say they know where the field house is.

prank like this seem like a wonderful opportunity for building camaraderie among sports playing men? Some kind of pledge activity? I can hear them now: “Drink, pledge.” “Do the bats, pledge.”

Theory #2: The Rivalry Maybe the bats were done in a good-natured, camp-style prank war that went wrong. A supposed rival of the baseball team, such as the lacrosse team or another male sports team, decided to pull a prank on the baseball team and poke fun at the table situation. An escalation of a Saturday night pong tournament, maybe? Once the act was taken seriously, perhaps the guilty team realized the both the magnitude of their act and the inability of the baseball team to take a joke and decided to remain quiet.

Who else would have known the fieldhouse like the back of their very athletic hands? Who else would have had access to the male athletes’ lockers? It doesn’t seem far off. It could even be retaliatory, against The All Too Obvious, for the tables themselves. But that theory is its own kind of obvious, and its own kind of incomprehensibly extra.

Still, I’m puzzled. Doesn’t a

Theory #3: The Gen/Sex Performance Piece This act could’ve been an abstract performance piece to shed light on the divisions that exist within the student body. The artist might have got scared off taking responsibility for it once they realized the possible backlash. Or maybe the reaction was part of the piece as well, making us question how our emotions get tangled up in objects and phrases, how we breathe meaning into these arbitrary signifiers. The piece is nothing if not effective, and affective, too. It’s already making me rethink my geo-spatial and affective relationship with the bats. Why make the circle of baseballs look so good? Has the liberal arts gone too far?

Theory #4: The Parrish Conspiracy This theory may be marginal, but we can leave no stone unturned. Perhaps the administration became scared by the possibility of blame turning to

them for the obvious divides amongst students; the emergence of an anti-frat movement that could risk donors pulling out. Perhaps even a certain infamous ex-Dean of Students herself did the deed.

Think about it. How easily could an administrator access anything on this campus, even baseball equipment? What better way to direct attention away from the heavily critiqued, untrusted administration than to turn students against each other? Or perhaps to create an “activists gone too far” narrative that would weigh in favor of the victims — the baseball team? and serve the College, maybe even for the future? She could do pretty much anything to sell it. The supposed cameras erased, maybe even disappeared, with one vague email.

It may sound crazy, or that may be exactly what the administration wants you to think.

Theory #5: The Barn Edgelord Anti-Athlete Statement This theory opens up a whole other, largely unexplored side of the prank theory. Perhaps this was the quintessential battle of the masculinities, of alt-boy vs good old American, of soft boy vs hard bats. Who

could’ve done it? Who else but a Barn-living edgelord, fixated on counter-cultural mayhem?

They hate the athletes, right?

Right?

But if our archetypical Barn boy is responsible, wouldn’t said edgelord want credit for their work? Their position on campus removes them from athlete sight nearly completely — what would further ostracization really do? Do even the most edgy of us tremble under the shadow of possible backlash from the baseball team? I somehow can’t find faith that our edgelords are brave enough to take the heat.

Theory #6: The Deeper Conspiracy For this theory we return to the basic questions. Who knows where the baseball equipment is kept? Who knows when the baseball team would be away from the field? Who would not raise suspicion being on the baseball field in the middle of the day? The very people the act victimized. Yes, we are throwing it at the wall and seeing if it sticks. Yes, we mean the baseball team itself.

There’s a chance, we can’t know how significant, that this was an inside job. Conceivably, they have the means. Do they

have the motivation? Perhaps this act was designed to demonstrate the baseball team’s pacifist stance when they’re being constantly targeted, antagonized even, by other students, and gain some sympathy from the community. Perhaps it was a framing of one or more of the suspects listed above.

But would they go so far as to possibly damage the equipment they hold so dear? This reporter doesn’t think so.

We need you to weigh in, offer any information you have to our hotline at whodidthebats@ gmail.com. Where were you?

Who do you think did it? Did you do it?

At this point, we have received over 100 messages regarding our little column. Some of you are curious, some of you are excited, and some of you are really fucking mad. I get it. I am too. While we would appreciate it if the hate mail could ease up a bit — we know this issue is emotional. We appreciate your investment in the truth. It keeps us going.

On My Chair Photo courtesy of Gidon Kaminer

Gidon Kaminer CJ Writer I bought the chair on a sunny Saturday afternoon, October 6, 2018, at a thrift sale outside the Swarthmore Presbyterian Church. A kind old man sold it to me for exactly one dollar. I did not have cash on me, so I borrowed money from Youogo Kamgaing ’22, who hounded me relentlessly for the next month until I paid her back.

Having gotten the chair, I gleefully rolled back to campus, all the way to my humble Willets room.

I sat in this mahogany masterpiece, the height of luxury, for two months. Never had I felt more important, special, or satisfied in my entire life. I enjoyed every moment rocking back and forth on my throne, stroking its sweeping arms and caressing its tight leather.

But all good things must come to an end. One fateful day, my roommate brought up in conversation that in his opinion, there was an obnoxious odor emanating from something within our room. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, which immediately worsened when my roommate suggested that my dearest chair might be the culprit. Instead of becoming defensive, denying the allegation and blaming something else (like his running sneakers, or my perhaps-too-infrequent shower schedule), I went along with him and agreed to try leaving the chair in the Willets 1st lounge for a week. Because ultimately, while this chair was extremely dear to my heart, my relationship with my roommate would always take precedence.

My roommate concluded at

the end of the week that the my chair. I understand this, because it is the same desire that room did, in fact, smell better without the chair; rather led me to purchase my chair in than dispute this conclusion, I the first place. I’ll be honest, if I agreed to leave the chair in the saw such a glorious chair sitting Willets 1st lounge permanent- defenseless in the lounge for ly. This was not a completely months, I too would be tempted unideal scenario; in fact, I was to take it for my own. So I will actually almost pleased with not try to claim the moral high how it turned out. Sure, I would ground — that is not what I am rather have had the chair in the looking for.

I am only looking for my privacy of my room to sit in and do with as I pleased, but know- chair. I put it in the lounge for ing that other people would be the betterment of Willets and for the betterment of my relaable to enjoy it too, to revel in its beauty and bask in its glory, tionship with my roommate. gave me pleasure I could not But this world is a cruel one, and in spite of my good will, I have had if it were confined to was deprived of my chair that I the walls of Willets 113. love so much.

And of course, with it beThe responses I have goting so close, I too was still able ten to my plight to use my chair have, for the most whenever I need- “This chair kept part, been cynical. ed. I sat in this “It’s your fault,” chair to work on me company at they say. “If you math late at night, all times of the leave something to journal when I in the lounge for was moved to do day, on all days two months you so, or just to lean of the week.” should expect it back and relax. to be stolen,” they This chair kept me company at all times of the day, say. But I refuse to be a cynic.

I trusted the people of Wilon all days of the week.

It was not the best chair in lets when I put my chair in the lounge. Even now, I still have an the world (it did cost only one dollar for a reason). The springs ounce of trust, faith telling me were old, the wheels were stuck, that my chair will be returned to its rightful place in the Wilthe leather was dry and crumbling, and it probably had bed lets 1st lounge. bugs or something. But I loved Editor’s Note: Gidon has since it, and it really meant somebeen reunited with his chair, thing to me.

It still does, even now that it thanks to the kind and selfless is gone. On Wednesday, Febru- folks of Willets basement. With ary 20, around 6:00 p.m., my that being said, the editor still chair was spotted in the Wil- felt it fitting to include this piece lets basement lounge. Around in this issue because (1) it serves three hours later, it was gone. I as an example for any other lost chairs that might be out there do not think that this abduction was an act of malice. If any- and (2) it demonstrates the drathing, I think it was an act of matics that Swatties will go to to love, an expression of desire for be reunited with their loved ones.

February 28, 2019

THE PHOENIX CAMPUS JOURNAL

PAGE A9

Swat Ed: Plus One

BY P. AFDERSEX ’69

Swat Ed is The Phoenix’s biweekly sex education Q & A. We accept all questions and they are kept completely anonymous. If you’re looking for medical advice or a diagnosis for that weird thing on your genitals, get in touch with a medical professional! For everything else, email swatedquestions@gmail.com. Today’s subject matter is including an additional partner for sex.

My partner is interested in inviting other people to have sex with us. I’m not a hundred percent sure how I feel about it. It’s something that I really like in theory but I’m not sure how I would feel about it actually happening. It’s not like it’s a deal breaker or anything — my partner and I are talking about it at lot. I’m just pretty worried about having a really terrible experience and being super regretful.

- Threesomes are worrisome

W

e’ve all heard the tales of Mary Lyons circa 2012, and it’s a real honor to their memory that you and your partner are considering continuing in the tradition. I can definitely see where you’re coming from, and it sounds like you and your partner have a really healthy approach. It’s not for everybody, and it definitely invites another layer of complication, but a lot of people have really positive experiences. Some people have full polyamorous relationships that include romance as well as sex, others have open relationships that include sexual partners outside the romantic partnership, and others simply enjoy group sex. It sounds like you are considering an open relationship, so let’s first lay out the possibilities and then get around to how you should approach trying this out.

Some people in open relationships don’t feel comfortable at all with a more long term additional partner because they worry about romantic feelings and jealousy developing between them. Others don’t feel comfortable sleeping with people they don’t know very well. If this is something you decide to do, you’ll need to discuss your level of comfort with your partner and work off of that. Sometimes one partner really needs a level of anonymity with the additional partner, and the other really needs to know the additional partner.

In that instance, you just lack compatibility in this arena and you should move on to other things.

If you’re looking for a more

anonymous partner, it’s important to keep in mind all the risks that come along with anonymous hookups. Be very careful about how you look for them as well. There’s an unfortunate trend of heterosexual couples aggressively pursuing “unicorns,” or bisexual women who are down to hook up with couples. The reason it can be a bad thing is because often the experience is excessively focused around the male gaze and doesn’t really provide an egalitarian experience. Additionally, some people get the attention of a unicorn by posing as a gay woman when in reality the ultimate goal is to involve a boyfriend. It should go without saying, but be upfront about what you’re looking for and go about it extra respectfully. In every sexual encounter we should always think about the power dynamic that exists — in this instance, the couple has a lot of the power and it’s important to keep that in mind.

I’ll note that while this can be a good experience, it’s already a bit of a dice roll when hooking up anonymously as a single person. It’s really hard to judge whether a person you’ve just met is really committed to having a consensual, mutually positive experience. Whoever they are, make sure you don’t hook up at all the first time you meet them — go for drinks or a coffee. If they’re not willing to meet you once before, they aren’t worth your time.

In that vein, group sex is a possibility but pretty difficult to execute in real life. It has less chance of becoming a jealous scenario than a regular part-

ner, but it has all the difficulties of finding a safe, kind partner multiplied exponentially.

It also runs the risk of ending up as a voyeuristic experience unless everyone involved has compatible attractions. If it’s something you’re really into, it boils down to the same procedures I’m outlining for finding one additional partner but can also be vastly more complicated depending on the number of people you’re talking.

If you end up looking for a more regular partner, consider again the power dynamics inherent in that relationship. It’s a good idea to avoid someone who is closer to one partner than the other, since that can leave the other feeling like an odd man out. People who are already friends with you as a couple are a safer bet. Whatever your boundaries are, work them out beforehand and agree to them as a couple before you present them to the additional partner. A few examples of boundaries: we only hang out with the additional partner as a group, not one on one, we only have sex when we have talked about it beforehand, we only communicate in group chats, we don’t do it more than two times a month. Another really essential rule is that if anyone for any reason wants to end it, they can. They shouldn’t need to provide justification. These situations only work when everyone in them is super committed to making it work for everyone, and sometimes what works for everyone is letting it go. Communication is already really important in a two person partnership, and it increases

exponentially as you add more people. I dislike characterizing relationships as “work,” but there’s no getting around the truth that being involved with multiple people means being emotionally available and communicative times however many additional people are involved. It’s not a license to treat people poorly because they are “just” an additional partner or anything like that.

Having laid out these options, we still haven’t addressed your concern about possibly regret-

ting the experience. Try this: if you find a person that you think is promising, do the aforementioned coffee and discussion.

If you feel good about that, lay out a really strict idea of what you feel comfortable trying (like kissing, no clothes coming off, etc). Make sure that everyone feels good about it going in.

If you try it and decide it’s not for you, you didn’t go too far and it’s not a big deal. If you do really like it, give it a window of a week or two to make sure you really feel good. Then you

can keep going. I can’t reiterate enough how important it is that everyone involved should feel comfortable in their ability to shut everything down. When in doubt, slow down and give yourself more time to think about it. If one partner is pushing for this more than the other, the power balance we discussed earlier isn’t in a good place to add an additional partner. Be safe, be kind and understanding, and have fun!

Sharples-Related IBS: A Hidden Epidemic Amal Haddad CJ Writer We’ve all been there: rushing to a morning class, a pit stop at the bathroom becomes a ten minute ordeal as the contents of last night’s Sharples bar are forcibly expelled from your bowels. You don’t get used to it; it never gets easier. It’ll catch you at home, in class, at work, in Hobbs, or at McCabe.

You may not think you have it, but you do.

As Louisa Grenham ’19 eloquently puts it: “It’s a feeling … it’s a state of being … it’s the feeling that rocks have formed in the pit of your stomach and that the shit you’re about to take might rip your asshole in two.”

It’s Sharples Related Irritable Bowel Syndrome* and it has us by the balls. *Not to be confused with actual Irritable Bowel Syndrome which is in fact a medical condition, unlike Sharples Related Irritable Bowel Syndrome which is better described as a campus-wide pandemic.

“For me it’s always worse when I come back from break or something where I’m eating elsewhere,” Grenham says. “I don’t think that Sharples food is particularly bad, just that any mass produced food is its own beast. But that said ... I think that my body is just not as equipped for it as it used to be.”

Few students were brave enough to share their stories of poop gone wrong. When asked for a quote, one anonymous sophomore said, “On the record: nothing. Off the record: I shit weird.”

But despite the stigma and silence, no one I spoke to seemed surprised, or in doubt of the existence of such a problem. “It’s

a pervasive issue in our community,” Emma Dulski ’22 says.

“Oh, I believe it,” Morgin Goldberg ’19 confirmed. “I’m nauseous all the time. I feel like shit every day here.”

It’s near impossible to avoid the curse entirely, but pasta bar is a particularly bad offender.

Grenham says, “Caribbean bar is usually fine. Breakfast is fine; Sharples brunch is probably the best Sharples meal, because you have options. Countless options.”

Matt Koucky ’22 suggests that vegetarian and vegan options may limit the effects of Sharples IBS. Then there’s the pot roast conundrum — one of the best Sharples dinners, but one of the worst aggravators of Sharples IBS. As an outspoken fish taco bar fan, it’s been relatively safe, but never certain. Each return to Sharples for a good bar is a cruel reawakening that dooms me to start my morning stuck in the Willets second south bathroom, arguably the worst bathroom on campus. The combination of Sharples IBS and one-ply toilet paper is a dangerous one.

Grenham also urges students to “eat slowly. Whenever I go to Sharples I feel like I’m so overwhelmed with options that I want to eat all of it. Eat slowly, drink ginger ale — a glass with a fourth of ginger ale, soda water, squeeze lemon into it, and drink that between every bite.

It helps you digest. Know your limits — know your strengths, know your limits, and move off campus.”

This semester, between my Penn class twice a week, Kohlberg chicken tikka, and my unhealthy obsession with Bamboo Bistro’s pork soup dumplings, I’ve been eating at Sharples

much less than I did in the fall. My OneCard account tells me I’ve only used twenty meal swipes at Sharples since January 21. With that being said, Sharples IBS has still been in full force, making me wonder whether Sharples is to blame in the first place or if it’s simply a combination of not having home-cooked meals from dad, constantly being on the run, and eating way too much to overcompensate for everything else at Swarthmore.

Hence, this is not an antiSharples article. I love Oreo cheesecake. I’m so obsessed with fish taco bar that three separate people texted me today to inform me it was happening. On the rare occasion that butter brickle appears in the ice cream flavors, my day is made. Once, in a rush between rugby practice and class, I ate Sharples pho out of a to-go cup while showering, and I enjoyed it.

I have an on-and-off love for Sharples, but sometimes it doesn’t love me back. Still, I check the menu a few times a week and make sure I’m there for my favorite meals. A girl’s gotta eat — and nutty goat salad is worth the consequences.

There’s something humbling and unifying in the shared experience of Sharples IBS. In the journey I’ve been on between realizing the cause of my recent IBS and writing this article, I’ve found that I’m not alone. And neither are you. Reader, if this resonates with you, I hope you can break free of the shame and embarrassment and own your IBS. We all live through this, and you have nothing to hide.

A conversation between Grenham and the author

SPORTS

February 28, 2019 PAGE A10

Swarthmore Men’s Basketball Reigns Supreme, Wins Conference Joseph Barile Sports Writer

W

inning the Centennial Conference was once considered a laughable goal for the Swarthmore men’s basketball team. In the 2011-2012 season, the team went 3-22, posting a losing record for a fifteenth straight year. Now, the program is virtually unrecognizable since Coach Landry Kosmalski, a former Division I basketball star at Davidson College, took over back in 2012. This team is confident, poised, and, perhaps most importantly, holds a strong belief in the system they’ve been taught. It took a few years for Kosmalski to teach the system he learned at Davidson, but it certainly has been worth the wait. Just three years after Kosmalski took the helm, the Garnet made the Centennial Conference Championship game, and haven’t missed it since.

Now, winning the Centennial Conference isn’t a laughable goal. It’s the expectation.

This past weekend, Swarthmore hosted the conference championships for the third straight year. Tarble Pavilion held three games over the course of the two days— two semi-finals and the finals. Johns Hopkins defeated Ursinus College 91-80 in the first game on Saturday. Soon after, droves of Swarthmore students piled into the stands of gym, eager to support the team as they took on the Washington College Shoremen. In the front row of the stands, fans wearing everything from a banana costume to a vintage Swarthmore basketball jersey could be found.

A hot start gave the Garnet a 7-0 lead out the gate, a lead the team never relinquished. Behind the support of the Swarthmore faithful, the team played some of the best defense it had all year, holding the Shoremen to a 21.9 percent field goal percentage in the first half. Although the team did not have the strongest performance behind the arc in the first half, going just one for twelve from three, they found their shooting form in the second half, hitting six of eleven three-point attempts. The game ended 77-59 in favor of Swarthmore, who

then turned their attention to the upcoming Johns Hopkins game which would happen the following evening.

For the second straight year, it was Swarthmore-Hopkins in the Centennial Conference Championship, a common sight these days across all sports. Starting last fall, Swarthmore has played Hopkins in two men’s basketball championships, two women’s soccer championships, a volleyball championship, and a baseball championship. Although Haverford has typically been viewed as Swarthmore’s rival due to proximity and overall similarity, most athletes would agree that Hopkins is the biggest game of their respective seasons. Funnily enough, athletic excellence and academic rigour are seemingly all the two schools have in common. Hopkins has graduate schools, a much larger student body, and no Quaker roots unlike Swarthmore’s neighbor Haverford.

However, when many seasons converge to a Swarthmore-Hopkins matchup, it is no surprise to see this rivalry.

In basketball, the Swarthmore-Hopkins rivalry is a little more personal. Hopkins head coach Josh Loeffler is a Swarthmore graduate from 2003, who played four years of basketball at the school. He and his wife Helen Leitner ’04 are even a matchbox couple. There was no doubt Loeffler was ready to do anything to beat his alma mater as he did in last year’s Conference Championship, when Swarthmore lost 57-61 at home.

However, this loss was not on the minds of Swarthmore players come game time.

“Hopkins is a really strong conference opponent and we’ve had some really great battles with them,” said guard Abass Sallah ’21. “While we could have focused on this being a revenge game, I think we more focused on what we could to be our best selves knowing that the results would follow.”

At 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, spectators filed into the stands, two teams emerged from the locker rooms, and the game was underway.

From the beginning, it was to be Swarthmore’s night. Less than fifteen seconds into the game, guard Conor Harkins ’21

Atziri Marquez / The Phoenix

drilled a three and the stands erupted. As Hopkins collected the ball, hundreds students shouted and screamed, doing whatever they could to unhinge the Blue Jays’ offense. In the stands could be spotted a dozen or so obscure basketball jerseys, several unidentifiable costumes, a few massive headshots of Garnet basketball players and a certain Mike Hill, and one Phineas the Phoenix. It was a sight to behold.

Game photographer Alyssa Nathan ’21 described the view from courtside as a completely new experience: “From where I stand I get to see the energy on the court, the excitement on the bench, and the rowdiness in the stands,” said Nathan. “I don’t know if anyone has a better view than me. You could feel the desire and the determination coming off every player from the second they started warming up til the moment they were holding the trophy.”

Sallah said the chance to play at home over the weekend was special, but the team was going to win no matter where they played: “We got to share the experience with friends and family, but I think we were prepared to go anywhere and win.”

In front of the rowdy crowd, Hopkins missed a layup attempt, senior guard Cam Wiley

gathered the ball, and the Garnet went right back down the court. This time, it was freshman guard George Visconti who hit an open three, giving the Garnet a 6-0 lead. Hopkins responded with a three of their own, but a Nate Schafer ’20 layup and block got the crowd fired up once again. Junior Zac O’Dell made a three of his own and added a layup the next possession to secure a 13-3 lead for the Garnet. Just as in the semifinal, this lead was not given up once all game.

The Garnet went into halftime with a twenty point lead and the game was all but over.

However, despite Swarthmore’s best efforts, Hopkins clawed their way back within ten in the second half. Things looked like they were about to get interesting, but then Hopkins player Daniel Liva missed an open dunk. Swarthmore took advantage of the momentum swing and closed out the game on a 9-0 run. Maintaining focus with big leads is a difficult task for most teams, but the Garnet had been coached well.

“One of our main focuses is attacking for the full 40 minutes,” said Sallah. “This is something that we try to live by regardless of the score or situation and it has helped us maintain and extend leads all

season.”

The game ended in a 79-61 victory, and Swarthmore was crowned Centennial Conference Champions once again. Although athletic director Adam Hertz tried his best to thwart the fans’ attempts to storm the court, there was soon a massive clash of students and players, celebrating the victory. Players and coaches cut the nets, raised the trophy, and then went off to celebrate.

Senior guard Cam Wiley was named MVP of the tournament, which marked the second time he has won the award. Wiley is one of two players in the history of the conference to win the award twice. In the final, Wiley played one of his best games of the year, shooting 72.7 percent from the floor and scoring a game high 27 points.

Swarthmore, which is currently ranked No. 6 in country for Division III Men’s Basketball, will host the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament this upcoming weekend.

The team’s ranking is its highest ever. They will play Mitchell College, a member of the New England Collegiate Conference that recently claimed their respective conference title and boast a 19-9 record. No. 12 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (22-4) and Skidmore Col-

Club Squash Team Finishes Highest in Years Francis Eddy Harvey Sports Writer

Not many Swatties know that squash is one of the few co-ed club sports offered on campus.

This could be for a number of reasons; the squash courts were torn down to make way for the construction of the Matchbox in 2014, or because it is a team with just twelve players. These players spend more than fifteen hours a week preparing and traveling for competitions against colleges and universities throughout the Northeast.

Their season culminates in the national squash tournament, during which over 100 teams across the country gather to compete. This relatively unknown club team has consistently managed to put together a formidable squad and and most recently finished the season ranked 53 in the country –– their highest ranking since 2012. The club was originally formed in the 1970s at the school, but later ended, only to be revitalized in 2008.

Although the smallest club sport, the experience required to join and the level of commitment is akin to other club sports like frisbee. Most players join the team with little to no formal squash experience.

Many players have experience with racquetball sports such as tennis, making the transition to squash easier due to the similar techniques and rules of the two sports. Many of Swarthmore’s current top players however, started playing in high school or well before.

Squash is played in a boxed

room, surrounded by three walls, with one continuous line stretching across these walls.

Matches are between two players and as in most racket sports, a ball is served and a rally occurs between the players until one player cannot continue the volley. As one can imagine, it gets quite exhausting, and according to sophomore star James Sutton ’21, a previous high school football and tennis player, “It’s the best cardio workout there is.”

Sutton even plans on running a half marathon now the season is over, and claims it will require minimal training as squash has greatly improved his fitness.

Squash is a unique team sport, in that the best player is just as important as the worst. In a two team competition, there are a total of nine individual matches between the teams. Opposing players are matched up with each other based on previous rankings, meaning the best on each team play each other, while the second best players on each teams play and so on. This makes the competition as fair as possible. In each match, there are sets that are played to eleven points and whichever player manages to win three of these sets, is awarded the match. For a team to win the overall competition, they need to win at least five of these matches.

The season starts in late October and concludes in late February. While in season, the team practices three times a week at the Fairmount Athletic Club, located in King of Prussia, a 45 minute drive away. They are coached by Jason Hua ’13 who also coaches at Fairmount.

On weekends, the team travels to mid-atlantic and northeastern schools such as Vassar and Collegiate to compete. The team is fully funded by Swarthmore, which allows them to use school vans for their trips, stay in hotels, and book practice times. The team makes around nine of these trips a year with the final trip being to nationals.

The serious time commitment for a club sport may be part of the reason the team has so few members, but according to Sutton the time commitment is manageable and the experience is very rewarding. From meeting great people, to traveling to different schools and staying at hotels, Sutton said, “It is the ideal club, it’s a lot of time, but totally worth it.”

The squash season officially ended two weekends ago with the national tournament, which was located in Stamford, Connecticut. Going into the tournament, Swarthmore was seeded into the G bracket, which competes for Hawthorn Cup. There were eight brackets in total, A-H, A representing the colleges, mostly Ivys, that had the best overall records, while the lowest bracket, H was comprised of teams with the poorest records.

To understand how Swarthmore fared this season at nationals, it is important to understand the college squash league and the structure and nature of the competition.

There are around 115 colleges and universities, predominantly located in the mid atlantic and northeast that compete in what is known as the CSA, or

the College Squash Association.

Some teams, like Swarthmore’s, are clubs, while others, such as those in the Ivy League, are varsity sports with coaches and recruiting. However, Swarthmore is one of the few teams that is co-ed.

Swarthmore ended up placing fifth in the Hawthorn Cup, finishing ranked No. 53 in the country. Swarthmore likely could have finished higher had it not been for a heartbreaking loss against Lehigh. Swarthmore lost the match 6-3, but many of the matches went to five sets and were decided by only a few points. Lehigh ended up finishing second in the bracket, losing to Colgate in the final.

Swarthmore’s success this season can be attributed to the Photo courtesy of Swarthmore Squash

four seniors on the team, Amanda Izes, Matt Peterson, Davy Qi and Nathaniel Sandalow-Ash. Senior captains Qi and Sandalow-Ash have done a great job of building the program.

Additionally, a recent emphasis on recruiting first-years into the program has helped Swarthmore compete against varsity programs across the country.

Next season, however, the squash team is losing all four of their seniors and top players. The club will also likely be forced to practice at Haverford’s squash courts because their current practice courts are closing. This certainly presents a new challenge for the team, but Sutton has faith in the leadership to come to a solution. With rising junior Nathan Pitock and

lege (19-7) are the other two teams that will be coming to Swarthmore to play. The winners of Swarthmore vs. Mitchell and MIT vs. Skidmore will face off this weekend as well. Last year, the college made a memorable run into the Elite Eight of the tournament, defeating New England College, Wesleyan University, and Plattsburgh State before falling to Springfield College.

The rise of Swarthmore’s Men’s basketball team has news outlets calling the program the next Division III powerhouse.

In a “Main Line Today” article from a week ago, Adam Hertz gave Coach Kosmalski a lot of credit for his dedication to the system he brought to Swarthmore, especially in the early years of Swarthmore’s rise when the results were still not entirely positive.

“Watching a lot of Landry’s practices his first year, I sensed the kids couldn’t get it,” Hertz said. “I asked him, ‘Shouldn’t you adjust the practices?’ He said, ‘No. I’m teaching a system.’”

It has been that persistence on Kosmalski’s behalf that has instilled the “Next Play” mentality each team member plays with and ensured the team is ready for another deep run into the NCAA tournament.

rising senior Robert Gunn taking over the captaincy, Swarthmore’s young core will look to continue to improve the team.

As a tennis star in high school, Sutton found the transition to squash relatively fluid, but he encourages all students, experience or no experience, to come out for the team. The sport has grown since its revitalization in 2008 because of the group of students who run and manage the club. Swarthmore has managed to continually improve in part because of their consistency throughout the year, but also because of extremely high player retention rate. With the group of players that the team has now, club squash will look to build off of their continued commitment and success.

February 28, 2019

THE PHOENIX SPORTS

PAGE A11

Why Do Some Athletes Quit?

Ben Lau Sports Writer As conference play wrapped up last week, men’s and women’s basketball each celebrated their senior days. Men’s basketball celebrated the two seniors, while the women’s team celebrated only one. Like many other sports teams, the basketball teams are overwhelmingly filled with underclassmen.

For the class of 2019, men’s basketball started with three and two quit, while one joined later; women’s basketball started with two, added one, then had two players quit; men’s soccer dropped to five players from an initial freshman class of eight; women’s soccer saw four players quit from an initial group of nine; women’s lacrosse still has all three from their senior class; four softball players quit from an initial group of eight.

Over their time at Swarthmore, many athletes decide to quit despite their initial intentions to play all four years.

In the experience of Eric Wagner, head coach of the men’s soccer team, many players quit because of time constraints, a diminishing passion for the sport, and new, emerging interests.

“Most often I hear from players that they no longer have the passion to spend the time on the game in and out of season that is needed to keep up and be a contributor,” Wagner said. “But I’ve also had players whose injuries have shortened their careers and who want to pursue other extracurricular passions.”

For senior and former men’s lacrosse player Matt Lee ’19, who quit after two and a half years, time commitment was the biggest issue.

“Regardless of in season or out of season, playing a varsity sport is a huge time commitment,” he said. “I didn’t realize how much free time I would have to give up to keep playing.”

Because of the amount of time required to play a collegiate sport, student athletes make sacrifices to continue playing. They are limited in what other activities they

can pursue and aren’t always able to take certain classes because of scheduling conflicts.

“I found that I had to make a lot of sacrifices to keep playing during junior year,” Lee said. “There were some classes I couldn’t take and some weekends where I’d have to stay in to catch up on work.”

While academics are challenging, Wagner believes athletes successfully manage the rigors of both their sport and class workload. In his experience, it is typically not a reason why many athletes quit.

“I don’t see that academics are usually a reason players decide not to play,” Wagner said. “Our players usually do better in season and when they are in the team than they do out of season or after they leave the team. Balancing the academics is just what Swatties do, and they do it well.”

Former baseball player Tommy Bothwell ’20 quit the team after his freshman year because he was losing his love for the sport.

“In order to continue playing a varsity sport for all four years, sacrifices to personal interests are inevitably going to be made because of the time commitment that comes with playing a sport,” Bothwell said.

Bothwell identified interests other than athletics during his first year. Quitting the team allowed him more freedom to follow some of these interests.

“I’m very interested in educational policy, so quitting baseball afforded me needed time and opportunity to conduct fieldwork and so forth that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do as effectively,” he said. “I think once I isolated what I was academically interested in/wanted to further explore, the decision to stop playing was a rather easy one to make.”

Anna Suh ’22, a first year and former field hockey player, stopped playing after her first season partly because of the time commitment, but also because the sport become less enjoyable for her.

“I only played one season because I don’t think I was ready for the transition from high school to collegiate level of play,” Suh said.

“In effect I endured a lot of selfinflicted pressure which made the sport that I used to love less enjoyable. I loved the team aspect of the sport, but the field hockey part was not enjoyable. Since playing is such a big time commitment, I didn’t think playing was something I wanted to continue with.”

Although Suh isn’t completely set on what she will do in place of field hockey, she is interested in exploring the clubs the college has to offer.

Michael Thut ’19 played on the men’s soccer team through his junior year. He decided to quit because of numerous head traumas.

“I decided to stop playing due to a severe concussion sustained while playing soccer,” Thut said.

“The healing process, as well as the fear of getting another concussion, drastically outweighed the benefits of returning to soccer for one-to-two more years.”

For Thut, who mentioned that he would have otherwise played all four years, his personal health was more important than playing, and encouraged him to make the change.

Thut also mentioned why many other athletes end their athletics careers before their senior year.

“College sports are an intense commitment,” he said. “I believe balancing Swarthmore academics with this commitment is extremely hard and can become overwhelming as classes get more intense. On top of this, I believe the college system is set up in a way that does not emphasize growth.

It is hard to improve in a short and condensed season, particularly because most of your time is devoted to preparing/playing for games.”

Thut mentioned how off season restrictions also make it difficult to grow in a Division III sport.

“Unfortunately, it is hard to grow in the off-season as well because there is little to no oversight due to NCAA regulations,” he said.

“I believe people who are uncomfortable with their roles in the team lose their drive because they feel like their role will not change, especially when underclassmen come in and take their position.”

Karin Nakano / The Phoenix

NCAA off-season regulations restrict the number of hours teams can spend on organized trainings. Coaches cannot make contact with players about athletics out of season and can only observe team training during a short period of the off season. This makes it more difficult for athletes to develop, and when their playing time changes little between seasons, many athletes become discouraged and quit.

Quitting wasn’t a reality for Cameron Ricciardi ’19. Riccardi has been on the men’s soccer team for all four years despite sustaining a hip injury that kept him from playing for almost a year.

“Right before my junior year, I tore something in my hip and was out for the entire season,” Ricciardi said. “I had surgery to fix it and still dealt with residual pain until August, almost a full year later.”

Although Ricciardi was on the roster every year, he commented on why many athletes don’t play all four years.

“The most common reason I’ve heard from people who leave sports teams is that it’s no longer fun for them,” he said. “Some people grow frustrated with relationships with their teammates or coaches. Some people are unsatisfied with how much time they get

Swarthmore Women’s Lacrosse Preview Elizabeth Curcio Sports Writer

Karin Nakano / The Phoenix

Swarthmore women’s lacrosse is looking forward to another season with the hope of continuing to improve.

They look to build off of their last season’s success, where they finished with a 10-6 record, which was the team’s best overall record since 2013.

Although they graduated four seniors, they welcomed in seven first-years, including Helena Irvine ’22, and Ashley Pyon ’22, who both were able to score their first collegiate goal in the team’s season opener against Immaculata University. Swat was able to score a total of fifteen goals, winning their first game of the season 15-1. Along with the four

freshmen that scored, Kathryn Restrepo ’19 scored four goals and had two assists, Sophie Peipher ’20 scored three out of the seven shots she took, and Tess Wild ’19 also scored a goal.

“I feel so happy we finally got to play together after weeks of practice. Everyone did a lot of nice things in the Immaculata game, and it was so fun to see how much we’ve improved since the fall,” said Wild.

As a spring sport, women’s lacrosse has been able to practice for the past 24 days and as Wild mentioned, they were excited to have the chance to show their skills in a game setting. Wild, who led the team last year in both assists and points, as well as winning six

to spend on the field. Some people decide they would rather pursue other interests. There are also people who don’t really have a choice. Some people are cut from teams, and some people can’t play anymore due to injury.”

Ricciardi played all four years because of the enjoyment that came with being part of a team.

“I decided to play this year only because I thought it would be fun,” Ricciardi said. “I have always enjoyed playing soccer and being a part of a positive team culture.

I was aware that my skills had depreciated after sitting out for a year, but I wanted to be involved in the team.”

Many athletes share Ricciardi’s reasons for playing sports at Swarthmore. Although some don’t play all four years, most appreciate the role their team played in providing a social group for themselves.

“Soccer has also given me a strong social support system that reaches across seven class years,” Ricciardi said.

Lee also mentioned the social role his team played in his experience at Swat.

“Coming to school, I was a little nervous about making new friends, but being part of a team made that process a lot easier since you get to know 40 guys very

quickly,” Lee said.

Even after he left the team, the social group continued to play a role in his life.

“Leaving the team didn’t mean that I was leaving my group of friends,” Lee said. “When I did quit, I was definitely bummed out for a few weeks. But now I find myself much happier that I did as I have more free time, and I still see all my friends from the team.”

“Besides playing together, teammates would eat and have classes together, so social life, academic life and sports all revolved around the same people.”

Many Swarthmore students have quit sports teams because of the rigors of academics, the time commitment of athletics, the opportunity to explore other interests, or severe injuries. At the same time, many athletes play for all four years. But even for those who quit, the social side of athletic teams has been a meaningful presence in their experience at Swarthmore.

“I really enjoyed my time playing baseball here at school,” Bothwell said. “I truly appreciate the friendships I made from baseball and the shared camaraderie we all had when playing. It was truly a defining experience for my time here at school.”

draw controls this Saturday, shared her team’s goals for the remainder of their season.

“We are working to combine our strengths to play to our potential. We have a lot of promise and hope to have another winning record,” said Wild.

With one win already under their belt, women’s lacrosse looks to continue their winning streak going into their game this Thursday against Arcadia. The team is under the leadership of three seniors, Wild, Restrepo, and Elizabeth Wainwright, who will look to continue to improve their team’s record overall and within the conference.

Their first home game is not until March 16 against Eastern University, but they have plen-

ty of time to prepare with their spring break trip to Clearwater, Florida. During this trip, they will play two games and spend their remaining time practicing, improving their skills and bonding as a team before conference play starts.

The Centennial Conference released a preseason women’s lacrosse poll that put Swarthmore women’s lacrosse seventh in conference standings, but after a successful season opener, they are now ranked fifth in the current standings.

This improvement shows that Swarthmore women’s lacrosse has the potential to not just have an overall winning season but a winning conference season, which could lead to the team’s first ever Centennial Conference Championship.

Athlete of the Week: Zac O’Dell Jack Corkery Sports Editor

on the team, I knew that Swarthmore was a place I would enjoy being at.

which makes playing a lot of fun. Hopefully the gym will be packed again this weekend.

Swarthmore men’s basketball capped off a fantastic Centennial Conference season with their second conference title in the past three years. The Garnet easily took care of rival Johns Hopkins in a 79-61 blowout win in the conference championship game. Key to the win, and also to the Garnet’s success this season, was Zac O’Dell ’20. The big man from Schenectady, NY had twelve points and four blocks, and also flashed some little-seen range from deep, sinking two three-pointers. In the week following the game, O’Dell was awarded the Centennial Conference Defensive Player of the Year award and was also named First-Team All-Centennial Conference.

The Garnet begin their playoff push at home this weekend. They host Mitchell on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Tarble Pavilion.

JC: Have you started thinking about post-graduation plans?

ZO: I would eventually like to attend graduate school for chemistry, but whether that is right after graduation or not I’m not sure of yet.

JC: What has made Coach Landry Kosmalski’s teams so successful?

ZO: I think that Coach Landry recruits guys that will buy in to our system and our culture that Landry established when he first got here. When everyone’s on the same page and set on accomplishing the same goals, things just seem to click. I think that’s where a lot our success comes from: guys willing to sacrifice their own personal goals and desires for the greater team goals.

Jack Corkery: What is your major, and what led you to choose it?

Zac O’Dell: I’m currently a Biochemistry major and I just really enjoyed the the first couple chemistry classes which led me to choose it.

Photo Courtesy of Swarthmore Athletics

JC: What led you to choose to attend Swarthmore?

ZO: I was recruited by Coach Landry, and after visiting and spending a couple days with the guys

JC: You’ve now played on 3 teams that have made the NCAA playoffs. What is special about this one?

ZO: All the teams I have been on have been special and unique I would say. I would say this team is special in the sense that guys on the team really enjoy being around each other and love to play together, which makes the game really fun.

JC: What has been your main focus to improve your game over your time here?

ZO: I’ve really worked on my shot since coming to Swarthmore. I’ve been working on my free throws and 3 pointers pretty much since freshman year and am still working on them.

JC: How important was it to secure a host site for the NCAA tournament?

ZO: It’s awesome that we get to play at home for the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. Hosting the Centennial Conference tournament last weekend was a blast and there was a ton of energy in the gym

JC: Describe your feeling when you learned you were the Centennial Defensive Player of the Year.

ZO: It’s a nice award to be honored with and I think it has more to do with our defensive play as a team than as an individual, so I was excited to hear the news along with the other guys on the team who were honored. But really, we just have to keep your focus on the next game and enjoy awards and accolades after the season.

JC: What should we expect from the team during the NCAA playoffs?

ZO: Plan on seeing the same Swarthmore Men’s Basketball team you’ve seen all season. We’re not going to change anything up because of the NCAA tournament. We’re going to take things one game at a time and just enjoy this amazing opportunity.

February 28, 2019

Vagisil_F1_SCHOOL_print_11x17_color web site Rite Aid.indd 1

THE PHOENIX AD

PAGE A12

2/11/19 12:36 PM