DU Clarion Volume 124 Issue 27

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VOLUME 124, ISSUE 27

“PUSH PLAY”: AN EXHIBITION PENT ON CHANGING THE GAME

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ACTIVIST DISCUSSES FIRST METAL MINING BAN

WOMEN’S SOCCER WIN SUMMIT LEAGUE

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PROPOSED TAX PLAN 3 DOESN’T SPARE STUDENTS pa g e

“KID SIMPLE” IS HILARIOUSLY COMPLEX

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| NEWS

El Salvador activist Vidalina Morales inspires DU community

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n Wednesday, Nov. 1, environmental activist Vidalina Morales visited the DU community to speak about the work she and her team, La Mesa Nacional Frente a la Minería Metálica (National Table Against Metallic Mining), did in accomplishing the banning of metal mining in El Salvador.

The lecture took place at Craig Hall where students, professors and faculty came together to listen to Morales recollection of her over ten-year battle with a transnational mining company. Prior to hearing Morales speak, director of the Latin America Center and Korbel professor, Aaron Schneider, informed the audience about El Salvador and the organization’s legal battle.

El Salvador is a small Central American country with a dense, crowded population.

Schneider compared its size to that of Massachusetts with a population of 6.3 million people and a GDP of $4,200.

In 2006, recalls Schneider, Morales led a movement that pres-

sured the conservative president at the time to overturn a license for a gold mine that was polluting a valued river in El Salvador. They won that case and, subsequently, that same president put a hold on all future mining permissions until further environmental review.

“This provoked a lawsuit, in which the Canadian company, in order to make use of the privileged foray and rules that are available through the CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement), bought a U.S. company in Nevada in order to sue El Salvador from the U.S.,” said Schneider.

Morales speech was entirely in Spanish. Non-Spanish speakers could understand her with the help of a translator who spoke into a microphone which they could listen to through a provided MP3 player.

Morales told the audience about the risk El Salvador already has without metal mining, pointing out that it is the second most Latin American country, behind Haiti, that greatly suffers from defor-

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estation. The country’s unstable environmental state makes it most vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change, Morales claimed.

She emphasized in her lecture that the desire to prohibit mining was not just a community concern.

Though the civilians of the country are the most familiar with El Salvador’s fragile state, she said, she and her team made several investigations to prove how unsustainable metal mining would be.

The community’s opposition to metal mining is not an opposition to urbanization and industrialization, Morales clarified. To her, there’s nothing more important than finding the opportunity for the citizens of El Salvador to escape poverty and live harmoniously. The worry, she proclaimed, is that the implementation of environmentally harmful projects will destroy the country’s ecosystem and contaminate their already poor quality rivers.

“No to Mining! Yes to Life!” was the slogan for the anti-mining movement.

It is rare for a transnational company to lose a court case. And although El Salvador won this case in 2016 and later won a legislative battle to ban metals mining in perpetuity—lives were lost during the time of the case.

Morales reminisced over four activists and community leaders who were murdered between 2009 and 2011. One of the four, Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto, was eight months pregnant at the time of her murder and left her six other children orphaned.

“We live in a single world, not separate,” said Morales. “They separate us simply by borders, which in the end were created by humans.

We live in a single world and anything that affects other parts of the world is affecting us all.”

Morales concluded her speech by saying that her experience and the issues affecting other parts of the world, at its core, are human rights issues.

Daniela Santos | News Editor

DU Clarion EDITORIAL STAFF

JOHN POE, Editor-in-Chief RYAN NINESLING, Executive Editor DANIELA SANTOS, News Editor NIKKY JOHNSON, Sports Editor ELIZABETH LOCHHEAD, Opinions Editor The Clarion is the official student newspaper of the University of Denver, serving as the “Voice of the Pioneers.”

Founded in 1899, it covers campus and local stories with the highest level of journalistic integrity possible. 1000 copies are distributed each Wednesday afternoon (throughout the academic year) across the DU campus, and every article is also published at duclarion.com. The Clarion does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the faculty, staff and/or administration of DU, and the opinions expressed by columnists and contributing writers do not necessarily reflect those of the Clarion.

Reproduction of The Clarion in whole or part in any form written, broadcast or electronic without written permission of The Clarion is prohibited. The opinions expressed by columnists and contributing writers do not necessarily reflect those of The Clarion. Weather forecasts are of courtesy of the National Weather Service. The Clarion reserves the right to reject advertising, stories, columns or letters to the editor that it deems graphic, obscene or that discriminate on the basis of race, culture, gender or sexual orientation.

The Clarion welcomes letters to the editor. Those who submit letters must limit them to 500 words. Some letters may not be published because of space limitations, overly-libelous content or similarity to past submissions. Please submit letters to duclarioneditor@gmail.com.

HOW TO JOIN

The Clarion is open to contributors of all years and majors at DU, including both undergraduate and graduate students. There’s no application necessary; all you have to do is show up to one of our weekly meetings, which are held every Monday at 6 p.m. (during the academic year) in the Driscoll Underground. Can’t make it to a meeting? Send an email to duclarioneditor@gmail.com and we’ll do everything we can to get you published.

ANNMARIE MARLOW, Arts & Life Editor KENDALL MORRIS, Arts & Life Editor CAITLAN GANNAM, Photo/Video Editor GRACE HOUSER, Photo/Video Editor MONICA MCFADDEN, Podcast Editor JUSTIN CYGAN, Copy Editor MAYA PINON, Copy Editor ANDREW MATRANGA, Faculty Adviser

CONTRIBUTING STAFF HANNAH BRANIT CLAUDIA GLENN AUBREY POLLIARD

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SPORTS | 3

Women’s Soccer wins Summit League crown O n Saturday, Nov. 4, the Women’s Soccer Team won their first Summit League Tournament Title since 2013 with a 2-1 win over North Dakota State. Summit League Offensive Player of the Year, Jessie Dancy (Park City, Utah) scored in the first half, opening up the scoring. Following an equalizer off a penalty in the 82nd minute, Summit League Tournament MVP Angelica Pacheco (Taos, N.M.) scored in the 85th minute to secure the title for the Pioneers.

The Pioneers defeated thirdseeded Oral Roberts on Thursday afternoon 1-0. Dancy scored in the first minute, and keeper, Brittany Wilson (Littleton, Colo.) had her fifth shut-out of the season. This win advanced No. 2 seed Denver to the finals against North Dakota State.

During the final game against North Dakota State, Dancy opened up scoring when she scored her 14th goal of the season in the 32nd minute off an assist from Summit League Freshman of the year, Meg Halvorson (Englewood, Colo). Riley Welch (Littleton, Colo.) made a run inside to the top of the defense, passing it to Halverson, who played a sharp cross on the ground to Dancy to open up the scoring.

Head Coach Jeff Hooker said,

“The first goal we scored was really nice. A lot of little things went to putting everyone in the right position to execute that piece of play.

Riley [Welch] was the catalyst for that goal, getting the ball across the field into open space. All the touches after that were absolutely perfect, and it was a pretty goal, perfect for this occasion. It was almost like a pattern you would do in practice in the build-up.”

During the second half of the game, North Dakota State increased the pressure, and were rewarded when keeper, Wilson, tripped a striker in the box in the 83rd minute. In the resulting penalty, North Dakota scored.

“Mark [Cook] is a great coach, so we knew they would come up with something different in the second half,” Hooker said. “They put a little more pressure on us than we could handle, and we wilted a bit to be honest. We stopped doing the little things and they were able to break us down and get the penalty.”

Following the equalizer, the Pioneers put up greater pressure offensively and were rewarded when Pacheco won the ball in the 85th minute, brought it around the keeper and scored the game-winner in the center of the empty net.

Hooker said, “Angelica was aggressive, won the ball and did a nice job

of touching it around the keeper and calmly finishing it.”

“This one [league title] means a heck of a lot. After the last couple of years, we put a process in place in the spring and the summer called ‘The Page,’ and to see this team go through that process and achieve their goal, I’m just so proud of them. To go through a really tough non-conference schedule like we did, the team could have gotten away from that and not believed. To go through our entire league schedule and only be trailing in regulation one time all season, at Fort Wayne which is a match we won, is a testament to this team for their hard work. I think by them trusting in the process that process sometimes comes back and rewards you like it did today,” Hooker said following the match.

Not only were the Pioneers awarded with their hard work on the field with the championship, but their accomplishments on and off the field were honored during the 2017 Summit League Women’s Soccer Championship Banquet with seven players taking home awards and recognition. Senior co-captain Makenzie Bothner (Park City, Utah), sophomore Hannah Adler (Oak Park, Calif.) and Dancy were named to the Summit League first team.

Halvorson, Wilson and freshman centerback Taylor Parker (Aurora,

Colo.) were named to the Summit League Second Team. Additionally, Parker and Halvorson were joined by holding midfielder Brittney Lewis (Centennial, Colo) and striker Macee Barlow (Las Vegas, Nev.) on the 2017 Summit League All-Freshman Team.

Dancy won the Summit League Offensive Player of the Year after winning the league’s golden boot race by three goals. She has scored 12 goals in the 2017 regular season, and followed it up with a goal in the Nov. 2 semifinal win over Oral Roberts and a goal in the title game.

Along with her goals and two assists, Dancy has 26 points this season, the highest goal and point total since Kristen Hamilton in 2013. This season, she has had four game winning goals, one game-tying goals and opened up scoring six times.

Halvorson tallied 11 points on five goals and an assist in her first season of college soccer. Two of her goals have opened the scoring, and one was a game-winner. She is tied for seventh in the league in goals scored and points.

With their win, the Pioneers are headed to the NCAA Tournament where they will play University of Colorado-Boulder at Boulder, on Nov. 11 in the first round.

Hannah Branit | Contributing Writer

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COMN 2700, 4 credits online November 27 - December 18

CHECK OUT THE FULL LIST OF COURSES du.edu/interterm

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DU Women’s Basketball dominates UCCS 80-64

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U Women’s Basketball took on University of Colorado Colorado Springs Saturday night, Nov. 4, in Hamilton Gymnasium in the squad’s lone exhibition game. The Pioneers ran away from the Mountain Lions in the second half, to win 80-64.

The Pioneers had a dominant performance against UCCS in the exhibition contest. Leading the way for the Crimson and Gold was junior guard Samantha Romanowski (Mountlake Terrace, Wash.), who tallied 24 points shooting 50 percent from the field and 60 percent from behind the arc.

As a team, Denver shot 40.8 percent (29-71) from the field, including an impressive 43.2

percent in three-point range.

Good ball movement played a key factor in the stellar shooting from the three, resulting in game-high 20 assists for the team. Defense also played a big role in the Pioneers victory. In the game, the squad picked up 12 steals and held the Mountain Lions to 36.1 percent shooting.

Freshman guard Claire Gritt (Arlington Heights, Ill.) had a memorable first outing for Denver basketball, recording 15 points and five assists. Gritt showcased her all-around ability on the floor, setting up several teammates for good looks at the rim on numerous occasions.

Near the end of the first quarter, Romanowski broke a 12-12 tie to give Denver a two-point

lead which continued impressive play to the rest of the half.

The Mountain Lions opened the second quarter with back-to-back baskets to build a four-point advantage on the Pioneers before sophomore guard Lauren Loven (Scottsdale, Ariz.) added a three to make it a one-point contest at the seven-minute mark.

As the game continued in a fight for the upperhand, senior forward Jordyn Alt (North Oaks, Minn.) tied the game at 31 with a pair of free throws with 1:20 until halftime. Romanowski nailed another 3-pointer late but UCCS tied it up at the break with a triple of their own.

The Pioneers dominated in the second half, starting with a Romanowski 3-pointer that set the tone

for the rest of the evening. Romanowski’s second 3-pointer in the third, as part of a Denver 8-0 run, gave the Pioneers their first double-digit lead of the game at 45-34.

Sophomore forward Madison Nelson (Dover, Minn.) joined Gritt as the duo each connected from deep behind the threepoint line, helping extend the DU lead to 20.

UCCS cut the lead to 15 with just under four minutes to go in regulation but never saw more of a glimpse of victory, Pioneer basketball went on the grab the victory.

Denver will return to the court on Friday, Nov. 10 as the Pioneers battle Air Force in the season opener. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m.

Nikky Johnson | Sports Editor

Caitlin Gannam | Clarion

Caitlin Gannam | Clarion

Caitlin Gannam | Clarion

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SPORTS | 5

Club Spotlight: Men’s Volleyball offers community and fun

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U now offers a unique experience to college men looking to play competitive volleyball with the creation of the DU Men’s Club Volleyball team. DU men can join the team in the winter and have the opportunity to play competitively across the state and nation, while creating a community of athletic friends with similar passions.

The club participates in tournaments across the state, as well as attending regional and national tournaments, including Las Vegas, Nevada. Well known to DU volleyball and volleyball leadership in the area, Coach Kyle Rhatigan organizes drills and constructive, skill-building practices that will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30-11 p.m. for the DU winter quarter. Rhatigan is currently the head coach of both the DU Club Women’s Volleyball team and the Boulder High School team. Rhatigan was a part of the CU Boulder Club Men’s Volleyball team that finished third in the nation when he played collegiate volleyball.

To join the club, DU Men’s Club Volleyball President, Luke Beenken recommends that prospective members come to one of the first winter quarter practices “to see if they would be willing to commit.” If the player feels inclined to join, a club fee of $75 can be paid through the DU Club Sports website.

Players of all skill levels are welcomed as some of the current members have years of competitive volleyball experience under their belt, while others have little to no volleyball experience.

The Men’s Volleyball team plays a variety of local teams including Colorado State University, University of ColoradoBoulder, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, U.S. Air Force Academy and Regis University. Additionally, teams in this conference are required to go to the league’s two regional tournaments. Every year, one of the regional tournaments is hosted in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The other tournament rotates between member schools. Pre-

vious hosts have been: Grand Junction, Colo., Logan, Utah, Colorado Springs, Colo. and Tempe, Ariz.

This fall quarter, the team has competed in three tournaments hosted by UCCS, CSU and Regis University.

“We see great competition at these tournaments,” Beenken said. “The competitors that we see are the aforementioned local schools, non-school related Denver-area club teams and other schools from as far as Southern Illinois.”

“We anticipate winter quarter to be more of the same,” Beenken added. “We will continue to go to any local tournament that we can. We also plan on arranging scrimmages to give our guys as many competitive matches as we can.”

The goals of the Men’s club team are straightforward. The team aims to focus on meeting the administrative requirements that DU Club Sports require for all teams. “I believe that our officer team is doing a great job of ensuring that we are maintaining communication with our supervisors and meeting their expectations,” Beenken said. “We want to create an environment that will continue to attract players and give us a talented foundation to build upon in the coming Years.”

Additionally, the team aims to provide a social platform for members to interact with likeminded individuals that they normally wouldn’t have the chance to meet outside of our club. “We have a group of guys that have meshed well together and, as a result, are building off-the court friendships with each other,” Beenken said about building community within the players.

The ultimate goal for the team is to build a team that will be competitive at both the local and national levels. Beenken expects the team to compete at the national level by next year.

Photo courtesy of Luke Beenken

What are your plans after graduation?

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Nikky Johnson | Sports Editor

Men’s Soccer finishes regular season undefeated

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he Men’s Soccer team finished their regular season undefeated after a 1-0 win at Western Illinois on Nov. 4. With their win, they secured the No. 1 seed in next week’s Summit League Tournament, where they begin play on Thursday, Nov. 9.

Senior co-captain Alex Underwood (Winnetka, Ill.) scored in the ninth minute after a pass from redshirt-sophomore Ryan Barlow (Coppell, Texas).

Underwood buried his third goal of the season into the bottom left corner for the only goal of the game.

Throughout the first half,

Denver played a strong offensive game, outshooting Western Illinois 9-5, putting plenty of pressure on the Western Illinois defense. During the second half, the Pioneers’ defense kept the score at 1-0 despite the 13 shots Western Illinois attempted.

Redshirt-junior keeper, Nick Gardner only had to make five saves during the match, making this the Pioneers’ seventh cleansheet of the season, and Gardner’s sixth shutout.

“This is a great moment in our program. To win a league regular season title five years in a row is a testament to the older guys. I’m not sure how

many senior groups can say that they’ve won a conference title in all four seasons,” Head Coach Jamie Franks said following the game. “As we’ve gotten closer to knockout style soccer, my team has continued to improve in each game. Come Thursday, we’ll be fighting for our lives, and we have a lot of experience and victories in these type of games. I’m looking forward to watching this group compete with their Proactive Fighting Football.”

In the six seasons that Franks has been with the program, Denver has finished with double-digit wins. This season,

they ended Summit League regular play 5-0-0 and all play 10-6-1. Franks was named head coach in 2015. During these three years, Franks has led the Pioneers to rankings as high as third in the final NSCAA Poll and College Soccer News Poll, program highs.

The Pioneers will begin their quest for another successful postseason when they head to Omaha for the first game in the Summit League Semifinals.

They will play Eastern Illinois at 1 p.m. on Nov. 9. The game will be streamed live on Summit League’s website.

Hannah Branit | Contributing Writer

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| OPINIONS

Students aren’t spared in the proposed tax plan U

nderstanding the Republicans’ newly crafted tax plan is not a particularly enjoyable endeavor, nor is it something many college students feel inclined to do. A tax break for large corporations intended to stimulate business is not a surprise coming from this Congress, and rolling our eyes, muttering about how trickle-down economics hasn’t worked before and perhaps giving a Congressperson a call is all that we seem able to do. But college students may want to focus their attention on a more specific part of the plan, one that has to do quite a lot with us, and that is the planned cut of the student loan interest deduction and changes in tax credits.

Not fun, but keep reading.

“Money,” a website published by Time, outlined the changes that students could see with the new plan. On the deduction side, the plan would eliminate the student loan interest deduction which currently allows students to deduct some interest paid on student loans from their tax amount. The benefit from this deduction is on average only a few hundred dollars, but as every student

Photo courtesy of The Hill

knows, those dollars mean a lot.

The credit side of things is more valuable because it reduces the actual tax amount, but it would be less valuable under the plan.

The Lifetime Learning credit and the Hope Scholarship credit would be repealed—right now, the Lifetime Learning credit is an important one because it can be claimed for any number of years. The tax plan would instead extend the American Opportunity Tax Credit for another year (to five years).

Students need all the help they can get when it comes to student loan payment and the cost of higher education in general. Research from Pew has confirmed what we already

know—college is outlandishly expensive, students owe huge amounts in loans and having loans makes financial difficulty more likely. The policymakers who proposed the changes to credits and the elimination of the deductible don’t seem to grasp this. Five years of a tax credit can see a student through their undergraduate studies, but those wanting advanced degrees or more years of education would be out of luck. Pursuing a graduate or professional degree is already hard enough financially, and limiting years able to use the credit won’t help.

Getting rid of the deduction will also hurt—even though the dollar benefit is not huge, taking

away the deductible increases the amount of income that can be taxed which will make money even tighter.

A tax plan that takes already meager support away from students and gives huge breaks to corporations needs to get its priorities straight. Proponents argue that cutting credits is estimated to bring in 17.3 billion dollars in revenue, but that is small compared to what higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy could do. As the bill gets revised

by Congress before potentially going to the president, college students must make sure that our representatives speak up for those of us benefitting from tax credits and loan interest deductibles. It should be obvious that financing tax breaks for the wealthy by scraping in some more revenue from students is not at all a good idea. Instead, supporting students in paying for education and paying off loans more quickly should be a focus—less burden from these costs will lead to more financial success in the future, helping strengthen the economy in the way that members of Congress wanted in the first place.

Elizabeth Lochhead | Opinions Editor

Reconsidering how we label terrorism

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efining terrorism is often not an easy task.

For many of us it’s one of those things that you know it when you see it, but if someone asks you to put it into words, it becomes more difficult than it seems. By the State Department’s definition, terrorism is “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” In reality, there is no one definition of terrorism that the whole world uses.

What many Americans don’t realize is that our very definition of terrorism serves to increase the chances of a terrorist attack.

It all comes down to how we relate terrorism almost exclusively with Muslims. Many militant organizations such as ISIS prey on individuals who feel marginalized and alone due to an overarching stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists. Take Chapel Hill, where a newly wed Muslim couple was shot point blank by a middle-aged white man under the guise of a “parking dispute.” Though this attack had plenty of media attention, there are many more like it that go largely unnoticed.

ISIS uses very specific tactics to mobilize individuals who feel marginalized by their own society. Recruitment starts off slowly, with general information and discussion. Recruiters often encourage a feeling of margin-

alization. As Rukumini Callimachi writes in the New York Times of one such encounter, a young woman in conversation with ISIS was encouraged to keep her decision a secret as “Muslims are persecuted in the United States,” and she didn’t

cycle that the conflict continues.

So how does our definition of terrorism play a part in this?

Take, for example, the recent Las Vegas shootings. Almost all the criteria fit the State Department definition yet it was not labeled terrorism. This is because the

Photo courtesy of The New York Observer

want to be labeled a terrorist.

Discrimination towards Muslims purports this feeling of isolation and attack that ISIS relies on to mobilize individuals abroad. Therefore, when we are provoked to fear, discrimination against Muslims grows and these retaliatory attacks further ISIS’s claims. And it is in this endless

attacker was an old white man, with no clear ideological motive.

Had he been Muslim, it would immediately have been labeled terrorism, regardless of his declared religious or ideological motives. Now, the U.S. is reeling from the attack in New York. This time, the attacker was Muslim. Though ISIS

claimed the attacks, evidence shows that the attacker acted alone and without the influence of the militant organization.

But there was no question of this man as a terrorist.

By letting acts of terror control our actions in discriminating against Muslims, we continue to drive people into the arms of ISIS. This is where our definition of terrorism becomes important. Imagine that we broaden the definition of terrorism to encompass all acts of mass violence, regardless of political, religious or ideological affiliation. The point here is not to discourage politically motivated attacks, but violent attacks of all kinds. By labeling attackers like Stephen Paddock as terrorists, this would take the blame off innocent Muslims. It would begin to separate the stereotype of Muslims and terrorists and focus the blame on the real criminals.

The point is not the technical definition of terrorism, but rather the societal implications that it has and how it resonates in our society. In this case, it does much more harm than good. We need to talk about terrorism so that we can begin to break down these barriers and come to see the true terrorists for who they are and innocent Muslims as our brothers and sisters, in arms against the same enemy.

Aubrey Polliard | Contributing Writer

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OPINIONS | 7

PIONEER VOICES Question of the week:

What is one place where you would love to travel?

“I really want to travel to Japan because it is a really great place for business and it has a lot of really cool cultural aspects to it.”

“I would most like to travel to Iceland. I’ve seen really cool pictures of it, and it looks awesome.”

Addie Clay, First Year

Kate Rosner, Second Year

“I want to travel to London. I love Sherlock Holmes, and I just want to be there to experience the atmosphere.”

“I would most like to travel to Mars.”

Lucy Gu, Fourth Year

Julia Farrell, Fourth Year

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How decision-making can impact stress C

onsideration of an interesting trend arose from a study published this past September in the journal Child Development—the number of teenagers engaging in “adult” activities such as driving, drinking and dating has declined, and no clear link to amount of homework or Internet time has been determined. In fact, the study did not indicate whether this trend is necessarily good or bad, only demonstrated that teens have been increasingly putting off more adult-like activities since the study started in 1976. While many adolescents

Photo courtesy of Connor W. Davis

are still engaging in typical teenage behavior like dating and driving, it can be the more concrete elements of adulthood, like finding a job, that give pause. It is when these decisions are motivated by fear about the future that they become a problem.

In considering this new research, the connection to a recent New York Times report on high rates of teenage anxiety can’t help but come to mind. In this in-depth article, anxiety was shown to be a major and often debilitating problem in teens, with 62 percent saying they had felt overwhelming anxiety in the

past year. Overbooking oneself in too many activities as well as internalizing fears and doubts about future employment, education or well-being can be major sources of stress, but, much like delaying adulthood, teens have different reasons for their anxiety. But there is likely to be a connection between rising anxiety and slower acceptance of adult responsibilities.

The question, a difficult one, becomes one of how to help.

Students are often hyperaware of the number of choices they have available to them: lists of college majors at universities are long, class schedules are customizable and internship and volunteer opportunities span fields of all kinds. Exploring choices can give a sense of freedom and excitement, but decisions are also a common source of stress. It could be that today’s teens feel the weight of tons of decisions on them, and that making the wrong choice, be it college or major or career path, can lead to future demise. The New York Times report quoted teenage students saying that they were often overwhelmed by the long list of things they had to do,

PIONEER FUNNIES

and that list can feel even longer when options seem endless.

If the number of decisions is indeed part of the reason adolescents are feeling more anxious and putting off adulthood, perhaps a way to help anxiety is to narrow down some of these decisions. There is a balance here—the number of options when it comes to future goals is something to be appreciated, but choosing an option to pursue also has to be part of the equation.

Talking to adults or doing volunteer work can give an idea about a path to follow, and having a direction can alleviate some of that decision anxiety. In transitioning to college, choosing a major early on and having career goals of some kind can make registering for classes or finding internships more straightforward and will make the to-do list more practical and attainable.

At the same time, remembering that this direction can and will change should be reassuring as well. Sometimes the best way to confront anxiety about future decisions is to practice making manageable ones now.

Elizabeth Lochhead | Opinions Editor

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ARTS & LIFE | 9

“Push Play”: an exhibition pent on changing the game Kendall Morris | Clarion

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he interactive exhibition, “Push Play,” hosted by DU’s Vicki Myhren Gallery, showcases the works of artists who have effectively reimagined the culturally specific pastime of board games into stark and poignant, socially critical artistic think pieces. Visitors of “Push Play” immediately encounter Mary Flanagan’s deeply satirical “BOMBSCOTCH” after entering. A spin-off of hopscotch, numbered squares are replaced with circles bearing the names of historical atrocities: “Sand Creek,” “Wounded Knee,” “Dresden” and “Hiroshima.”

If “BOMBSCOTCH” feels like negligence on the part of Flanagan, the artist would more than likely see herself as successful. Flanagan, along with the seventeen other artists who contributed to the collection, is calling attention to the ways in which

we collectively avoid the atrocities of the modern world through games and entertainment.

Largely inspired by the avant-gardes of the early 20th century such as Duchamp (the man who placed the mustache on the Mona Lisa and signed his name on urinals now worth millions of dollars) and the Bay Area artist group Fluxus from the 1960s, the exhibition asks visitors to participate in non-competitive play that ultimately contributes to our individual awareness.

The artists “aim to inform or persuade you by playing (doing) rather than just looking (admiring). Push play, toss the dice, or draw a card and make the first move toward political awareness, a changed mindset, or new decision making strategies around contemporary issues” (Push Play placard).

Pedro Reyes’ “Feather Fun” is a Kendall Morris | Clarion

simple and absurd game that serves as example of a non-competitive game.

Players kneel in a circle, all holding a piece of paper with a feather on top of it by their fingertips. At once, everyone tries to blow the feather off of the paper and toward their opponents. Yet, when a player scores, they lose a point rather than gain one, and the game begins again with no foreseeable end.

Likewise, Reyes’s party game “Citileaks” is non-competitive, potentially a profound and intimate addition to the ubiquitous games like beer pong and flip-cup. “Citileaks” needs only paper, pens and glass bottles. Partygoers are each asked to write down one of their most well-kept secrets and place it inside the bottle. They’re then placed in a bucket, reselected and anonymously read.

Other pieces include a large,

technicolor seesaw, a videogame (whose looping soundtrack served as an eerie background noise to the space), a variety of table and board games and a twenty-square-foot dirtbox with two knives stabbed into the dirt, which asks visitors to contemplate the violent act of drawing borders.

These works at times are playful to the point of inappropriate, but they fringe borderlines with the purpose of making a visitor “play through” their discomfort. While the entertainment and cultural activities of today largely provides us with distractions from our larger historical and political issues, play may also serve as a method to become more aware, depending of course upon the games we choose to play.

Kendall Morris | Arts & Life Editor Kendall Morris | Clarion

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Goat Girl takes a drive in their haunting new video “Cracker Drool”

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n Oct. 30, the eve of Halloween, the South London Band Goat Girl released a chilling new video for their most recent single “Cracker Drool.”

Rolling down an empty country road, the four girls, dressed primly in their high-collared, Sunday best stare dazedly ahead. Guitarist L.E.D grins out the window, taking a drag on her cigarette. Naima, who plays bass, wipes a speck of dried blood from her cheek as singer Clottie’s stony voice drones: “grab your gun and turn it high / you’re walking across the promise land / settle down and drink your joe / enjoy the scene before it implodes.”

Despite their doing nothing but

Photo courtesy of i-D

gazing placidly out the windows of a vintage car, the black and white video rapidly builds suspense, instilling a wholly uneasy feeling. This could be due to the auspicious release date or the fact that anyone who follows the band knows that they’d never release a video in which they just wear pretty dresses and take an idyllic, backroads drive. That would be far too mild. It had to take a turn for the ugly.

As the last verse fades out and is replaced by eerie, sonic guitar, the car pulls off the road into an open field.

Rosy Bones, Clottie Cream, Naima Jelly and L.E.D each climb out of the car and pull out, what else, a body bag. Each holding a corner, they drag their victim into the middle of the field, give it a few kicks for good

measure, then set it on fire. In the final image, day turns to night, and the girls stand around their billowing bonfire, looking something like the closing scene of a 1950s adaptation of “The Virgin Suicides.”

While the aversive band has been known to raise the middle finger to anyone who tries to label them with a genre, videos such as this along with their increasingly Slits-esque sound places them rather firmly on the punk rock stage. Not to mention the rejection of labels itself is a notoriously punk attitude. But like the great punk rock bands that came before them, fitting into the genre does not in anyway make their music less unique or restrict them to a specific aesthetic. It serves more as a platform

to jump from.

“Cracker Drool’s” video was directed by CC WADE, a fellow South Londoner who has been the brains behind dark and disconcerting videos like King Krule’s “Octopus” and “Rock Bottom.” After seeing Goat Girl’s unapologetically vile video for “Scum,” it’s no surprise they were attracted to WADE’s noxious visuals.

Only emerging from the underground indie scene every few months to release a masterly new single, Goat Girl continues to leave their fans desperate for more. The band’s bad attitude and nostalgic, gritty sound is exactly what 2017 needed.

AnnMarie Marlow | Arts & Life Editor

American Indian poet Gordon Henry Jr. reads at DU

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ordon Henry Jr., a renowned poet and scholar and a member of the Anishinabe, read at DU on Nov. 6. The Anishabe are a nation of indigenous communities native to Canada and the Northern U.S. region, and an enrolled member of the White Earth Chippewa Tribe of Minnesota. His father was in the U.S. Navy, and Henry grew up living on military bases and reservations.

His first novel The Light People (1994) is a multi-genre novel that includes a series of stories focused on a native community living in Northern Minnesota that was largely influenced by traditional Anishinabe storytelling. In “The Light People,” the main character, Oskinaway, searches for his parents, and is engaged in a legal battle over a leg that had been taken from an elder. Each story is somehow linked to its predecessor, and the novel becomes a patchwork discourse on identity and cultural appropriation. “The Light People” is a quilt of interlocking narratives, all told with surprising humor and wisdom.

Henry began the talk with a chilling traditional Chippewa song played on a hide drum. The talk then centered on what Gordon called the three pillars of native literature: storytelling, song and personal narrative. He shared stories, and poems, and played a variety of dream songs, creating a collage of personal and communal aspects of the American Indian experience. Henry believes we all find ourselves at the intersections of our identities at any given point.

Henry was involved in political activ-

ism, an effort to regain tribal lands during his graduate education.

The most prevalent themes of Henry’s writing include conquest, imperialism, alcohol, healing, trauma, theory and our complex individual reality. When an audience member asked him what elements are essential to a good story, he replied, “a good story must always turn your consciousness.”

Henry also read a story by Ojibwe elder, Francis Cree, from Dunseith, North Dakota. He played a healing song afterward, meant to cleanse listeners from their ailments. A collection of poetry he read from often compared memory to an encyclopedia and the ways we write from both memory and imagination.

Henry shared personal anecdotes about his father’s lost battle with cancer, medicinal herbs, transcendence, the natural world, American Indian tradition and spirituality.

A particularly poignant line from a poem read “live in the nowhere you came from though you have an address here.”

His work provides insight into the modern lives of Native Americans, and the histories of their ancestors which have been largely rewritten to make the colonial era more fathomable. In light of the events and the footage captured during Dakota Access Pipeline protests, it’s become all the more apparent that the struggle for basic rights like land and, water has been fought for centuries and the same infuriating story lives on today.

Kendall Morris | Arts & Life Editor

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The Grind: Black Eye Coffee in LoHi

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espite the name and the drawing of a shirtless man bearing his fists on the front door, Black Eye Coffee is one of the more charming coffee shops you’ll find in Denver.

Tucked between a row of quaint, historic homes, the North-Side bistro boasts a wholesome menu of delicious brunch fare and, of course, great coffee.

After closing the doors of Black Eye’s two-year-old Capitol Hill location in October, many devotees were concerned for the original shop. The owners’soon reassured their customers that the LoHi location would not be affected by the decision. With

Photo courtesy of Black Eye

the neighborhood scene bringing in a consistent flow of regulars and now the Capitol Hill closing turning over their grieving patrons, this spot should be around for a while.

Established in what used to be a tenant house, the founders of Black Eye Coffee made it a priority to preserve the blue-collar spirit of the original abode.

With the exposed brick walls, antique china cabinets, potted ferns and eighteenth-century portraits of people you don’t know, the overall effect is similar to sipping coffee in the living room of an eccentric aunt who only ever listens to

Mac Demarco.

Black Eye’s daily menu offers a small but effecting variety of millennial crowd-pleasers such as an avocado toast sprinkled with crushed almonds and an acai bowl of bananas, berries, peanut butter and chocolate.

For those feeling bolder, the shakshuka is a wholesome dish of eggs, roasted eggplant, red peppers and tomato sauce with a side of toast. All dishes are made in-house daily.

When it comes to Black Eye’s drink menu, you really can’t go wrong. The house brew is rich and smooth and pairs perfectly with their homemade almond

croissants. Other fan favorites include the creamy cortada and the black iced tea.

Like all great neighborhood cafés, Black Eye Coffee is a comfortable space that welcomes both conversation and repose.

Before it gets too cold, stop by on a nice day when the garage doors at the storefront are rolled up, airing out the shop and creating the optimal environment for warm drinks and good friends.

Black Eye Coffee is open everyday from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. 3408 Navajo St. Denver, CO 80211.

AnnMarie Marlow | Arts & Life Editor

DU Theatre’s “Kid Simple” is hilariously complex Photo courtesy of DU Theatre

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n Nov. 2, the second show of the DU theater department’s 20172018 season premiered.

“Kid Simple: A Radio Play in the Flesh” is a wonderfully complicated tale of adventure and misfortune. With inventive sound design and captivating plot nuances, director Anne Penner invites the audience into an alternate reality that you need to see, or rather hear, to believe.

“Kid Simple” was originally written by Jordan Harrison in 2005. The imaginative play centers around Moll (Ray Reidenbaugh), a young genius who invents a machine that can pick up on even the most minute of sounds: the beating of a heart, the batting of an eyelash, even

the growing of a toenail on a field mouse. Although she is no stranger to invention, this particular one, named “The Third Ear,” has an unfathomable effect on her life and the potential to disrupt the order of the world at large.

After the prize-winning machine is stolen by a manipulative master of disguises (Mikah Conway), Moll embarks on a journey, along with her hilarious friend Oliver (Anthony Adu), to retrieve The Third Ear before it destroys sound altogether. They encounter a host of complications on the expedition, including a seductive fig tree and a silent cello.

The intricate plot would be near impossible to follow without the help of the narrator (Isabelle

Chern) to guide the audience quent costume changes. Conway through its twists and turns while is able to take on a variety of roles simultaneously serving as a sen- as the shapeshifting Mercenary, sible character who is just as frus- showcasing his diverse skillset, trated by the instances of absur- and Adu steals the show as Oliver dity as the audience. Intertwined by serving as a hysterical contrast in the action are deeper messages to Moll’s wit. of love and sacrifice shrouded “Kid Simple: A Radio Play by laugh out loud jokes and in the Flesh” captures the spirit raunchy innuendo. of invention, the sorrow of The show as a whole has heartbreak and the confusion of something for everyone. Whether hormones all while keeping the it be the nostalgic costuming, audience thoroughly amused and the darker themes of betrayal leaving them feeling contemplaor simply the moments of light- tive. The show is running through hearted romance and lust, even Nov. 12 in the Byron Theatre, those who reject theater will find and for first year DU students, themselves utterly entertained. the promo code “NEWKID” can “Kid Simple” is worth attend- get you free entry through the ing even if only to gape at the Newman Center website. adept DU actors as they keep up with a fast-paced script and fre- Claudia Glenn | Contributing Writer

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$1 5S

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Acclaimed worldwide for their virtuosity, life-affirming energy and charm, British-born a cappella group The King’s Singers return to the Newman Center after their sold-out performance in 2014. Instantly recognizable for their immaculate intonation, vocal blend, diction, and incisive timing, the Grammywinning vocalists are consummate entertainers.

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November 19 at 2:00 pm Newman Center for the Performing Arts 2344 East Iliff Avenue, Denver CO 80210

Limited tickets available $15 students •Newman Center box office •newmantix.com/ncp •303-871-7720 This program is made possible in part by: