October 2012

October 2012

magazine

Volume IV, Issue 6

Dear Reader,

I invite you to take a look at the latest edition of The Gavel. As always, we are constantly updating online at bcgavel.com If you are interested in joining the Gavel Media Team, please email me at mslende@gmail.com, and I would love to meet with you.

We are always looking for creative new ideas to move Gavel Media in the next, best direction. Any comments that you have are appreciated, and should be directed to bcgavel@gmail.com.

I hope you enjoy this latest installment, and we look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Happy reading,

Mason S. Lende Editor-in-Chief

Editoral Board MASON LENDE OLIVIA SIMONE ROBERT ROSSI JASMINE UDUMA MEGHAN SMITH MEIDEMA SANCHEZ GEENA DEROSE JILLIAN TIMKO ALLISON RICCATO JENNA LACONTE EMILY AKIN LAUREN LECKENBY KENNETH ST. JOHN SARAH GARCIA MICHAEL NATALIE ANDREW SCHOFIELD MARION HALFTERMEYER SHANNON COGAN KELLY SLATER GILLIAN FREEDMAN LOUISE SHEEHAN KARA WEEKS LISA MELLA

Editor-in-Chief Print Manager Managing Editor News Editor News Editor Assoc. News Editor Assoc. News Editor Features Editor Assoc. Features Editor Culture Editor Assoc. Culture Editor Assoc. Culture Editor Opinions Editor Assoc. Opinions Editor Assoc. Opinions Editor Sports Editor Copy Editor Assoc. Copy Editor Assoc. Copy Editor Photo Editor Photo Editor Assoc. Photo Editor Design Editor

Video Department

MEGHANA KUTHYAR Video Manager

Business and Operations RYAN LEAHY ANGELA SONG ARUEM SHIN DAPHNE WANG

Executive Director Finance Director Marketing Director Advertising Director

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www.bcgavel.com Cover art by Louise Sheehan/ Gavel Media 2

the GAVEL / October 2012

October

The Gavel / October 2012 / Volume IV, Issue 5

Table of Contents News 04 04 Election 2012:

Tight Congressional races leave Senate up for grabs

2012: Presidential Guide 06 Election Where the candidates stand

08

Food Safety

Concerns over food safety reignite with reports of arsenic in rice

in Silence 10 Playing Homofobia in the athletic domain

12 Opinions 12

Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems

14

The Quest For Fitness on the BC Campus

16 20

Having a higher income can hurt when it comes to Financial Aid Join one junior as he embarks on a journey

Love vs Geography

The quest to define the long distance relationship

Irsael, Iran and the Bom

How America can prevent a tinder box from going up in flames

20 Features 22

International Exchanges

BC’s International Assistant Program

Update: Climate Change 24 International Is Global Warming still a hot topic? of the College Beers 26 Battle Which cheap beer should be in your mini-fridge 29 Overheard at BC

Culture 30 30

No Oven? No Stove? No problem!

Halloween Rice Crispy Treats Recipe

31 Netflix: What’s in your Cue? Revenge Happenings: 32 Haunted Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts out of J. Crew 34 Stepping Guide to the Garment District Revolution 36 Rusted Redefining fashion at Boston College

Sports 38 38 NBA Season Preview

Separating the contenders from the pretenders

Winter Sports Preview 42 BC Hockey, basketball gear up for new season League Round-up 44 Premier EPL contenders begin to separate from pack Rancor 46 Realignment Conference instability plagues college football 3

INSIDE: Food Safety Concerns/ Homosexuality in Sports / Presidential Election Guide

October 2012

Election 2012: Tight Congressional races leave Senate up for grabs HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Republicans Seats in 112th

Congress: 242 “Safe” seats in

2012 election: 194 Seats leaning Republican: 31

Democrats Seats in 112th

Congress: 53 Seats up for election in 2012: 23 Safe or likely seats: 17 4

Tossup Seats: 29

Given these numbers provided by Roll Call, most pundits conclude that the 2012 election will not prove a grand enough victory to return majority control to the Democrats. “The most likely outcome appears to be Democrats picking up a singledigit net gain of seats, far from the 25 they need to retrieve the Speaker’s gavel,” Joshua Miller of Roll Call, a Washington-based newspaper which reports on Congress, said in August. Still, many of the House races find themselves in a dead tie into October.

SENATE Tossup Seats: 7

Democrats

Seats in 112th

Congress: 193 “Safe” seats in

2012 election: 160 Seats leaning Democratic: 21

Republicans

With the Democrats holding onto a slight majorSeats in 112th ity entering the race, the Senate holds more opportunity for a shift in power this election season. Congress: 47 Although only a third of the body is up for election Seats up for elecin 2012, the seven competitive races prove a critical opportunity for either party to seize control. tion in 2012: 10

Safe or likely seats: 7

the GAVEL / October 2012

By Geena De Rose Assoc. News Editor Every four years the race to the White House commands national attention, pushing congressional races to the far periphery of the American attention span. Despite the inclination to shun the second branch of government, slight majorities in both houses of Congress prove that 2012 is a critical year for politics in all sectors. Gavel Media presents a quick rundown of the closest and most critical races of the 2012 campaign that do not involve men named Mitt or Barack.

Montana Rep. Danny Rehberg (R) has only three percentage points over Sen. Jon Tester (D) in a state where Romney leads Obama by 9 percentage points.

Massachusetts The race between former professor Elizabeth Warren (D) and Sen. Scott Brown (R) may be the most unique and salient to BC students. As of early October, Warren leads Brown 43-38.

North Dakota Heidi Heitcamp (D) leads Rep. Rick Berg by a slight margin of 48-44 in a state where Obama leads Romney by 12 percentage points.

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5

Wisconsin Despite his early lead in the race former governor Tommy Thompson (R) finds himself in an electoral battle as Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D) closes the gap and fires up her base heading into October.

7 4

Nevada Larry Lehrner (D) looks to oust incumbent Sen. Dean Heller (R) with a special focus on strengthening healthcare in a state where 12 percent of the population is over the age of 65.

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6 Virginia Former governors George Allen (R) and Timothy Kaine (D) continue to duke it out as their senatorial debate proved advantageous for both men.

Indiana Rep. Joe Donnelly (D) is virtually tied with state Treasurer Richard Mourdock 40-38. Mourdock’s slim lead has slipped away as late September polls demonstrate a deadlock race.

5

Presidential Election Guide:

Barack Obama

By Meghan Smith News Editor Taxes In order to help the deficit, Obama wants to increase taxes on the very wealthy and make sure millionaires do not pay a lower rate than middle-class families. He proposes making the wealthy pay at least 30 percent in taxes.

He wants to extend Bush tax cuts to everyone making under $200,000. He also has a plan to reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade.

Foreign Affairs Obama plans to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan by 2014, and will surely use his mission of killing Osama bin Laden in weakening alQaeda. In 2010, Obama joined an international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear weapons in four years, and is working to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons in North Korea and Iran.

He wants to “restore America’s standing in the world.”

Education Student loan debt is shaping up to be a major problem in years to come, but the candidates differ on how to handle the crisis. Obama’s student loans reform helps students paying back loans by capping their loan repayment at 10 percent of their income. He increased funding for Pell Grants and invested money in community colleges.

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Economy and Job Creation As a president who inherited an economic recession, Obama has tried to help the economy by pushing policies that improve manufacturing jobs, keeping jobs in the U.S. by preventing job outsourcing and using free trade agreements to promote exports. His stimulus package shows that he believes in government spending on infrastructure and hiring more local workers will create jobs. Creating jobs in the U.S. has been a focus, and he pushed for the Bring Jobs Back Home Act, which would have given a 20 percent tax break to companies who move back to the U.S. and eliminate expense deductions for companies overseas. This act did not pass in Congress.

Health Care Obama’s health care law, the Affordable Care Act is viewed as his biggest accomplishment, and it was upheld by the Supreme Court. As the biggest overhaul of the health care system since 1965, it aims to reduce the overall cost of health care and provide a public option for people who are uninsured, an estimated 30 million people in the U.S. The most controversial provision is the individual mandate, which charges people who do not buy insurance.

Women’s Issues Obama is pro-abortion rights and believes choice is “fundamental constitutional right.” Obama also includes equal pay for women in his official platform and signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in to law.

Gay Marriage Although he did not originally run in support of gaymarriage, Obama became the first sitting president to publicly announce his support for marriage for same-sex couples.

the GAVEL / October 2012

Where the candidates stand

Mitt Romney Economy and Job Creation

Still undecided about who to vote for in this presidential election? Gavel Media brings you our election guide, with key issues explained and where the candidates stand.

Romney said his experience in the private sector makes him the best candidate to create jobs and help the economy.

Romney wants less regulation and would repeal the 2008 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law that gave power to the federal government to regulate Wall Street. Cutting taxes is important, and he has proposed cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent. His 5-point plan for a stronger middle class would work towards energy independence, make education more effective and affordable, use trade deals to promote growth, work to cut the deficit, help small businesses by reducing taxes and decrease regulation.

Health Care Even though he passed a similar law when he was governor of Massachusetts, Romney said that he will make repealing Obamacare a priority starting on the first day of his presidency because the federal government is overreaching and reducing consumer choice. Romney would give states the policies to enact their own health care policies for its citizens. The federal government would encourage market forces and ensure fair competition.

Taxes Similar to Obama’s plan, he would also cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent to help corporations invest in jobs in the U.S. He would also eliminate taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains for families earning less than $200,000. As for individual tax rates, he believes ”lower marginal tax rates secure for all Americans the economic gains from tax reform.”

Foreign Affairs Romney would initiate plans to remove troops from Afghanistan, with the decision “based on conditions on the ground as assessed by our military commanders.” He also wants to prevent the development of nuclear weapons, but said there is a need for “action, as opposed to just words.” Paul Ryan said, “the world needs American leadership. And the best guarantee of peace is American strength.”

Women’s Issues Although his official position on abortion has shifted since he was running for governor in Massachusetts, Romney is now running as an anti-abortion rights candidate. He believes Roe v. Wade should be overturned and said he would stop federal aid to Planned Parenthood.

Gay Marriage Romney supports traditional marriage and would push for a Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

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Education For making college more affordable, Romney would strengthen the financial aid system and support community colleges and local universities. Romney would repeal Obama’s loan reform. The RomneyRyan budget plans included cuts to Pell Grants and federal student loan funding in order to help reduce the deficit.

7

Concerns over food safety reignite with reports of arsenic in rice

By Geena De Rose Assoc. News Editor

Concerns over high levels of arsenic in U.S. rice crops are the latest reminder of the potential dangers that modern food production presents to Americans. With concerns over arsenic in rice, salmonella in peanut butter, and possible carcinogens in almost everything that can be bought at the grocery store, it is no wonder that choosing what to eat has become an increasingly complex and onerous process.

In 2012, Consumer Reports called attention to elevated levels of inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products throughout the U.S. Using 223 samples, Consumer Reports found arsenic levels to be up to 8.7 micrograms per serving which is equivalent to 8 millionth of a gram — the measurement is so small that it can only be measured in a lab. While organic arsenic is found naturally in the soil, air and the human body, inorganic arsenic is considered a carcinogen — a substance directly involved in causing cancer — when eaten in large quantities or over a long period of time.

In response, the FDA has undertaken its own research, examining approximately 1,200 rice samples. On Sept. 19, it released the results of the 8

first 200 samples, finding an average of 3.5 to 6.7 micrograms per serving. The study in its entirety won’t be completed until the end of the year.

Critically, the level at which inorganic arsenic can become dangerous remains unclear. While the government does not have set limitations on inorganic arsenic in food, one possible benchmark, established in New Jersey, is a maximum of 5 micrograms per liter of water.

While this latest concern has prompted legislation in favor of creating a legal limit on inorganic arsenic in rice, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg used the opportunity to stress the value of a varied diet. “Our advice right now is that consumers should continue to eat a balanced diet that includes a wide variety of grains — not only for good nutrition but also to minimize any potential consequences from consuming any one particular food,” she said.

Still, rice is not the only product consumers have to question. With outbreaks of salmonella in everything from tomatoes, spinach and peanut butter to constant claims of newlydiscovered carcinogens to the debate over organic produce and genetically

modified foods, the consumer has much to consider when choosing what to put into his or her mouth.

Research investigating food safety is not always a cut and dry process, however. Consumers are simultaneously faced with compelling news of contradicting reports. “The dangers of genetically modified crops and food are imaginary and after 25 years of study the European Union stated the risk from GM crops and food are in no way greater than from conventionally bred plants,” the Vancouver Sun said, on the subject of GMO’s.

In addition, many experts urge the public not to rush to conclusions based on incomplete evidence. “We don’t think, based on the preliminary information that we have, that we can recommend that consumers change their eating practices… We would want to be sure we have much more information before we make decisions about recommending changes in eating patterns,” Michael Taylor, Deputy Commissioner for Foods at the FDA, said to Voices of America .

This bombardment of contradicting reports and advice presents a perennial concern for the conscious eater.

While some make it a priority to read

the GAVEL / October 2012

up on the latest research and discern the risks for themselves, others take the news with a grain of salt and try to not worry themselves deeply.

David L. Katz, a physician and writer for the health blog on US News & World Report, said that the delivery of food safety information often “invites the hyperbole of concentrated media attention…and at least some temptation to panic.” Katz added, “When we do give in to panic, we tend to jettison the baby along with the bath water, resulting in net harm.”

For Christina Reiman, CSOM ’15, the information must come from a reliable source to have an impact. “If it’s some vague report, then it’s easy to ignore,” she said. “But if the study is coming from the FDA, then I’ll be more likely to pay attention. Especially if it is something that I eat a lot of, I will definitely consider limiting my www.bcgavel.com

intake.”

Although it can be easy to get caught up in the panic, Petteus Read, editor of the Tennessee Farm Bureau News, calls on the consumre to make him or herself knowledgeable. “It is important that we all become educated consumers and dismiss the ‘car-

cinogen of the week’ scare,” he said to the Daily News Journal.

“Above all, do what our teachers and mothers have told us for years. Work on our dietary patterns, eat more fruits and vegetables along with the rest of the other food groups, and don’t panic,” he said.

9

Playing in Silence

Homophobia in the athletic domain

By Meidema Sanchez Assoc. News Editor 10

the GAVEL / October 2012

The decision of former Pittsburgh Pirates owner, Kevin McClatchy, to say that he is gay in an interview with The New York Times has contributed to a relatively nonexistent dialogue about homosexuality in sports.

“You’re not going to solve any problem until you start a dialogue, and there’s no dialogue right now,” McClatchy said on Sept.22. He pointed to the fact that although there have been tens of thousands of men in major and minor league baseball, not one has been openly gay while playing.

In 2011, Rick Welts, then president and CEO of the Phoenix Suns, similarly drew attention by announcing he was gay. “This is one of the last industries where the subject is off limits,” Welts said to The New York Times. “Nobody’s comfortable engaging in a conversation.”

Despite the efforts of both McClatchy and Welts, it is likely that initiating a dialogue about homosexuality in sports will continue to be difficult in an environment that is ridden with homophobia.

Homophobia has such a forceful presence in sports because of its long history within the industry. The more recent part of this history can be marked by the experience of former outfielder for the Dodgers, Glenn Burke, during the mid-’70s. Openly gay, after refusing to allow the Dodger general manager to pay for his honeymoon, and after being linked to the son of the Dodger manager, he was traded to the Oakland A’s where manager Billy Martin called him a “faggot.”

His discriminatory treatment contributed to his early retirement from baseball at 27.

The concept of homophobia and its discriminatory effects on players who are openly gay extends far beyond the parameters of the all-American favorite of sport of baseball.

Female athletes and college athletics are also included in the expansive narrative about homophobia in sports. www.bcgavel.com

Their deserving place within the chronology of homophobia in sports is evidenced by the homophobic intimidation used by former Penn State women’s basketball coach, Rene Portland. Not only was Portland accused of threatening to expose a player’s homosexuality to the media and to her family, but she was accused in 2005 of kicking a player off of the team for being a homosexual. The latter of these accusations against Portland resulted in a lawsuit that led to her resignation.

Despite the attempts by both McClatchy and Welts to initiate dialogue as well as the legal action taken against homophobic discrimination in sports, homophobia and a lack of dialogue persists in the sports industry as it remains a hostile environment.

Only a day after Welts went public with his homosexuality, Kobe Bryant responded to a technical foul by calling a referee a “faggot” in a game against San Antonio. Though he was fined $100,000, and offered many apologies, his response demonstrated the taboo nature of homosexuality in sports.

Clearing the hurdle

When Sean Avery, an outspoken New York Ranger, endorsed same-sex marriage in 2011 in a video for the New Yorkers for Marriage Equality campaign, he suffered a backlash from the athletic community. Todd Reynolds, a hockey agent, went to Twitter to verbalize his disappointment in Avery.

“Very sad to read about Sean Avery’s misguided support of same-gender ‘marriage.’ Legal or not, it will always be wrong,” he said. Damian Goddard, a former host on Rogers Sportsnet in Canada, tweeted his support for Reynolds and was consequently fired.

On Sept. 15, only a week before McClatchy’s public statement, Yunel Escobar, Blue Jays shortstop, showed up to a game against the Boston Red Sox with the words “you are a faggot” written on his eye-black in Spanish.

Though Escobar said he meant it as a joke, the phrase was nevertheless offensive and reflective of a negative attitude toward homosexuality in sports. “The Blue Jays want to reaffirm that discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated,” the Blue Jays spokesperson said in response to the event. Escobar was sanctioned a brief suspension from the team.

Considering there continues to not be one active player in the principle leagues of baseball, football, basketball, or hockey, that is publicly homosexual, it seems as though attacks against homosexuality are outweighing attacks against intolerance in sports. The silence of the players is a sobering reminder of the reality that the stigma attached to homosexuality in sports lives on.

However, there are now more organizations than ever before that operate to transform the image of professional 11

sports from a world that is homophobic to one that is a beacon of acceptance for homosexuals. You Can Play, It Gets Better, GLAAD, Athlete Ally, and Outsports are just a few. “You Can Play works to guarantee that athletes are given a fair opportunity to compete, judged by athletes and fans alike, only by what they contribute to the sport or their team’s success,” the You Can Play said in its mission statement.

Fan-based discrimination is an issue that has not yet been addressed, but that should be taken into account in order to fully paint the picture as to why homosexual athletes continue to play in silence.

A majority of fans claim that they could accept a publicly gay or lesbian 12

athlete, according to a Sports Illustrated survey. The survey includes more than 979 interviews conducted in March. The survey also found that the gay or lesbian athlete’s participation on a team would not ruin the sport for the fan. While encouraging, these statistics are undermined by the fact that a majority of fans also believe that an athlete would be harming both his or her career as well as popularity by making his or her homosexuality public.

It will continue to be difficult for athletes to publicly acknowledge their homosexuality in an environment where they feels as though it will cause them to suffer professionally, regardless of the acceptance experienced in some

athletic atmospheres or other parts of their lives. “No one has tried it, and it will take an act of heroism for somebody in the midst of their career to do that. And I get it. It will be harder for a player than it was for me,” Welts said to ESPN in 2011.

It is clear that despite all of the progress that has been made toward the legalization and the acceptance of same-sex marriage, there remains a powerful stigma attached to homosexuality in some quarters of contemporary American culture. With the emergence of the first openly gay professional athlete, perhaps the efforts of modern organizations to make sports a more comfortable arena for homosexuals will be recognized.

the GAVEL / October 2012

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INSIDE: The Quest for Fitness / Long Distance Love/ Israel, Iran, and the bomb

Opinions

October 2012

Mo’Money, Mo’ Problems Having a higher income is not always a good thing

By Olivia Simone Print Manager Boston College is ranked the 18th most expensive college in America for the 2011-2012 academic year according to Business Insider. There are more than 4000 colleges in the United States — making our beloved college one very expensive educational investment. But unless you live under a fiscal rock — and I mean a hefty, fiscal rock — this isn’t news for any of us.

In fact, considering BC’s increase in annual tuition of approximately 12 percent from the 2009-2010 academic year to the current 2012-2013 academic year, this is still a pressing issue for many students and their families.

Consider this: when talking about the Bush tax cuts, Obama defined the middle-income U.S. citizens as those making $200,000 or less per 12

household. If those middle-income households decide to have children and then send them off to a four-year college, the odds are high that their annual disposable income just got a whole lot smaller.

When higher property taxes, costs of living, lower home equity and static salaries in a tough economic climate are factored in, financing college becomes a big burden for almost any family to bear.

As of fall 2012, the annual tuition at BC is $43,140. Room and board ranges from $7,790 a year to $10,470 a year, depending on which dorm you live in. And, sadly, this does not include meal plan expenses. The mandatory meal plan for students living in dorms without a full kitchen is $4,468 per

year. When all books and fees are accounted for, the average on-campus student winds up with a $59,050 bill for the 2012-2013 academic year. Sorry Mom and Dad! Okay, now I understand Business Insider’s ranking of Boston College as 18th most expense. While BC reports that 70 percent of students receive financial aid and claims that 100 percent of students’ financial aid needs are fully met, there are 30 percent of students who do not receive financial aid.

While those students who do receive financial aid end up paying an average of $25,050 a year — a bulky price that is more expensive than most in-state students would pay at state universities — there are still 2,726 undergrads who are paying $59,050 out of pocket

the GAVEL / October 2012

per year.

The majority of those students who pay in full for BC’s expenses are not millionaires and while their financial aid application materials are not greater than their household income (the biggest factor determining financial aid) they are expected to fork over the money every year for four years.

One BC senior, who wished to remain anonymous, estimated that his annual household income was roughly $300,000. When he received his acceptance letter four years ago, he and his family did the run-around, getting all their financial information ready only to be denied by Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the organization that determines whether or not a student is eligible for aid. He says his parents consider BC’s expenses to be worth it in the long run.

“You know what you’re getting into, but when you increase the tuition even nominally, it still seems significant on top of high costs,” says the mother of the senior CSOM student.

My parents were slightly less understanding. After our rejection from the despised FAFSA form in 2009, my mother launched into a sarcastic rant about how she should have known that this would have been the outcome. After dishing out 1/5 of their income, they still had to pay another $20,000 for my younger brother’s college education. For Obama’s average middle- income family with two kids in college, that would mean spending more than a third of their annual income on their children’s tuition alone.

It wasn’t unreasonable for my parents to expect me to provide my own spending money for school. Okay, I said, that’s not too much to ask. So I worked from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. all summer and entered BC with a reasonable number in my savings account — or so I thought.

Wrong. Okay, I said at the end of my freshman year, I’ll apply for a job on-campus and work a little all year www.bcgavel.com

long. Wrong again. Rarely are nonspecialized on-campus jobs given to

Many middle-class families with several children attending college feel spread thin, much like lower-income families that have financial aid do.

students without work-study, even if you have a recommendation from a professor or another working student.

Every vacation at home was thus spent working yet again from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

“I think you should be allowed to work a campus job if available,” said a parent of an A&S senior about workstudy programs. “Not only that, but

I’m frustrated that my daughter was excluded from some scholarships because she is Caucasian, let alone the various low interest loans she didn’t qualify for.”

Paying for BC out-of-pocket may be deemed doable according to FAFSA, but a look between the assets, mortgage rates and salaries, may find that parents are struggling more than they appear to be, numerically speaking.

When parents struggle, their kids often feel that burden. Soon those children who do not receive financial aid are struck with intense student-loan debt — one survey reports that 25 percent of the upper middle-income households had student-loan debt in 2010.

It is a painful financial purgatory not receiving financial aid. But many families find that if their child is truly enjoying the college he or she is attending, the advantages outweigh the costs almost 100 percent of the time.

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Join one junior as he embarks on a journey...

By Michael Natalie Assoc. Opinions Editor I can still see it when I close my eyes. It’s dark. An overweight freshman boy stands outside the gate to the Mods. Federal law isn’t the only thing keeping him from entering: He lacks the self-confidence to socialize properly. He sees all his slim, pretty, well-dressed peers floating about, and for a split-second feels like he’s inside the gate, then remembers he’s not. He feels unwelcome, regardless of whether or not he really is. He hears laughter and thinks it’s directed at him. Quietly he turns around and walks back to the bus stop, back to Newton, thinking “maybe next year” and contemplating his options for the rest of the evening, dreading the night alone that’s all too common for some of us.

For some reason, it’s always raining when I imagine it.

Boston College culture values fitness and attractiveness, and while it’s not the nightmare that an insecure freshman thinks it is, it certainly has its ups and downs.

This value is even displayed in our architecture. It is impossible to miss the massive fitness fortress that is the Plex. The slew of fitness related options it offers us makes it a perennial favorite of BC-goers. Even for those of us unfortunate enough to 14

The Quest for

Fitness

on the BC Campus live on Newton, the Quonset Hut offers a smaller yet still impressive array of weights, treadmills and other activities. There are definitely people at these gyms on Friday and Saturday evenings while other students are trying to crash the party scene.

It’s here, and it’s very hard to ignore.

I personally feel I’ve benefited a lot from BC’s sports and fitness culture, having lost some weight, gained some muscle and made some friends over fitness-related topics and concerns. My freshman year RA came up with a plan to help me achieve fitness safely and scientifically. I don’t

see that happening at many places besides BC. Frankly, it’s a wonderful thing.

However, there are good and bad reasons for any act, and I’m afraid “I don’t like myself” unfortunately was a large factor into my motivation to get in shape. This has less to do with BC and more to do with my own individual response to the college environment, but I know I’m not alone.

“I would say that there is definitely pressure [to be fit] but not directly.

It is simply that a lot of people value looking good. I would say that instead of promoting health, it promotes the illusion of health, because many peo-

the GAVEL / October 2012

ple who are completely healthy still feel the pressure to conform,” Matt Rossi, A&S’14, said. Needless to say, the consequences of such an attitude can be severe.

“I’ve lost about 20 pounds since coming here. It’s been mostly a good thing for me. But I can understand why someone who is not fit or a part of the fitness culture here might feel isolated, even though I’m mostly happy with my experience here,” David Lei, A&S’14, said pointing out the pros. He tells a story similar to my own.

Lei attaches another caveat to his praise, pointing out the unfortunate contrast between BC’s fitness culture and BC Dining, which “doesn’t have very many healthy options.” Diet is one half of the magic fitness equation, the other half being exercise, whether or not BC Dining cares to admit it. When image-consciousness goes awry it often involves eating disorders. This problem affects teenaged and college-aged men and women everywhere. The dining halls give BC a golden opportunity to fight it. Making healthy options more prevalent could deter students from pursuing dangerous and drastic approaches to weight loss.

Looking good and feeling good do not always coincide. A responsible administration should promote an environment in which students value the latter more.

I’ll end on a positive note by pointing out that steps are, in fact, being taken, and that these steps are very visible to anyone paying attention.

The Office of Health Promotion offers personalized health coaches who serve in a similar capacity to my first-year RA. Furthermore, they offer general health and fitness guidelines that go beyond the scope of diet and exercise and into the realms of safe www.bcgavel.com

alcohol consumption as well as safe sexual conduct.

Having been to two of their programs within the span of a few weeks, I can safely conclude they’re becoming more of a presence on campus. I can

only hope more students start paying attention to them. At the end of the day, though, it’s up to students to create an environment that makes everyone feel included — no office or administration can handle that for us.

15

Love

vs.

Geography Why can some people make long-distance relationships work and some people can’t? *All names have been changed to keep anonymity.

Why is it that for some BC students who go abroad, staying together with their significant others is such a no-brainer, an easy choice? When I was young in heart and soul, my jaw dropped hearing my friend Andrea and my friend Seb were both planning on staying with their respective partners while they went abroad. I couldn’t understand.

Andrea simply said, “When you love someone, its easy. There is no question.” She shrugs, looks at Seb, and he nods in affirmation, “No hesitation.”

Many other students break up with their partners when they go abroad, while they are abroad, or break up when they come back because too much has changed. But what does this mean about love?

Everyone knows that couple who “just couldn’t make it work” but claim they still love each other. But if it is true love, how can the heart move on?

That must mean there is more than one love for everyone. Is love a madeup concept because it seems to only work out when people are geographically close to each other? If two people weren’t willing to stay together while abroad, does that mean they loved 16

less? Is it even about will, making a choice, or is it fate that decides who will end up together?

I have felt and lost the crazy, joyful, out-of-control feeling, when I couldn’t imagine finding someone else who I connected with deeper…so how could I let that go? Does that mean it wasn’t real? If love is dependent on proximity and physical contact, does that trivialize it? Is there a “lesser” love?

How do the ways distance influence the course of relationships reflect on what “love” means? In my quest to answer this question and form an opinion on it, I learned a few things.

The following may seem like circular arguments, but that’s because they are all circular. They are all interconnected. There is no natural progression, just as there is no one without the other; they all build off each other.

Students from all over our campus helped me discover and define all of these; you may recognize your own words.

Love is different for each person.

This is the single most important thing to understand when examining relationships that do or don’t survive

By Sarah Garcia Assoc. Opinions Editor

long distances. People have different definitions of love. There is no one formula, no one relationship that will fit everyone, in the same way that some people just won’t be compatible with you. It is not a reflection on yourself.

Jill has been in a relationship with the same person for five years. For three of those years, she’s been in a different state than him. “Society creates love as an ideal; it’s not real. Its very individual so for everybody to have the same concept of love is impossible.

We have this image of it because of the movies we see,” she says. For some people, love is emotional, lustful and requires proximity by nature. Some people need a physical closeness, to reassure themselves of that love. And that, for them, is what solidifies the love. When lovers are apart, the relationship may not be able to continue.

Everyone you ask will have a different idea about what love is, and why some relationships work longdistance and why some don’t. “I would say a large majority of people who say they’re in love, it’s not really mature love. Also, it takes two not just one. A love that is a lot of feeling can work when you’re with someone, but

the GAVEL / October 2012

it takes a whole other level of love to operate with the distance. There are many levels of love. It can depend on age, where you are, and if you are in it for the right reasons. If it can’t work long distance it doesn’t mean it wasn’t real; it’s different, but not less,” David said.

This makes it difficult after a longdistance relationship ends. How do you respond to the question: Well did you love the person? To answer, you go through a sort of checklist. A sort of, did I feel this way, did I feel that way.

This method is flawed — what are you measuring it against? What criteria are you using to determine whether your feelings for that person were of true love? The movies? Other people’s relationships?

It is easy to be critical of someone who can’t make it work when they have to be separated for a long time.

It is easy to say that this failure reflects on the couple’s bond. It is easy to sneer that they were only together when it was easy, when they were geographically near one another. But this isn’t fair. If I have discovered one thing about love it is this: there are different types, and it looks different and fulfills different needs for each individual.

It may be an invented concept that there is only one love — one soulmate — for everyone.

Kyle erased any doubt I had about this. He tells the story of a woman from Mexico he met when she was studying in his town for eight months. “I had never thought, when I went to dinner eight months before, that I would fall in love with a foreign-exchange student,” he said. Saying goodbye to her at the airport, he said, “was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. You can’t imagine how much it hurts. When every cell of your body loves this person, and you know you won’t see them for a very long time, it’s terrible.” His voice cracks; he rubs and rubs his eyes. “It hurts just www.bcgavel.com

thinking about it,” he said as tears well in his eyes. “Look what you’re doing to me!”

Before she left, they had decided with no hesitation to be together despite the 2,000 mile difference. He visited five months later, then she came to Mexico three months after that.

They broke up four months after their last reunion. “Nothing is worse than missing someone. Once you decide to be together, you realize you won’t hold them in your arms for a long time, and that’s the hardest thing to reconcile with,” Kyle said.

If love is dependent on proximity and physical contact, does that trivialize it? Is there a “lesser” love?

After an hour’s worth of conversation, I could not deny that he had truly loved this woman. Just this year, the woman let Kyle know that she was coming back to study in his town again. “I was not about it. I didn’t feel anything. I told her, it’s great if you come back because you love the town, the school, but don’t come back for me,” he said.

What is true love? Some once-ina-lifetime connection that can withstand any separation no matter how great? This can hardly be accepted.

First of all, in this day and age, our generation is told to get married later and later. The idea of getting married at the age of 21, 22, or even 24, sounds preposterous and ridiculously young, though 20 years ago it was the norm.

It is as if at our age, we are supposed to be searching for relationships that kill time; first loves, second loves.

Secondly, this doesn’t really explain how someone could find their husband in the town they grew up in; I mean really what are the odds? More

likely, those people just fell in love, marriage made sense, and they made it work.

This is very important in understanding how to reconcile a failed long-distance relationship to yourself.

Believing there can be more than one love for everyone means that love can run it’s course; it can have an end, without being a failure. A love can become a chapter in your life. Love doesn’t necessarily have to last a lifetime to be real.

Making long-distance love work — or maybe love in general — involves making choices, compromises, and sacrifices.

It is not this easy thing you fall into and stay in, like the movies. Love is making a choice each day, maybe even a sacrifice each day to be together.

And if geography separates you this is only amplified; each day, even though it could be easier to date someone else who is closer, you must choose to be with that one person. You have to decide if this is what you truly want.

We might think that if it is true love we should be able to move to a different state, change jobs, friends, do anything to make a relationship work.

Here we get contradictory messages.

“You change your plan for your love.

You move, you change careers. And now here I am, the relationship is over, and I am feeling like I am starting out behind the gate,” Riley, a recent grad, said of noble sacrifices for love. Liza echoes, “at the end of the day you have to put your happiness first.”

This is in direct conflict with ideas of compromise, ideas of owing someone commitment over your own happiness, which Jill feels is “a beautiful thing, putting someone’s needs equal to your own.”

Timing But “making it work” depends on if you are of an age where you need to 17

Photo by Louise Sheehan/Gavel Media

work on your own life before you can start making decisions that factor someone else in. “ This is something I struggled with because we did meet when we were so young, when I was making important life decisions. It is a hard balance: there is great importance in thinking about yourself, but something wonderful about thinking about someone else you care about. So much of it depends on timing: when you meet that person. If I met him at the age of 30 instead of 20 maybe I woul have felt differently, and would have started considering his needs in conjunction with mine, but it seems inherent when you’re younger that you need more space to figure out yourself,” Jill said.

Love that can sustain extended separation, for some people can only come with age. We may simply be too young to form a love bond that can weather the distance. We don’t have the perspective, for one thing. How can we know at 19, 20, 21 that this compatibility we feel is really rare and we should maintain it and cherish it, even over distances?

We also need more constant attention and constant validation in our teens and 20s than we ever will. This makes a long-distance relationship 18

harder. Finally, there could be the argument that our libidos are craziest when we’re young, and only with the maturity and calmness of age is it easier to wait a long time.

Many people I talked to felt you can’t be in love until you are of a certain age. And I agree with this; how can you be in love with someone else before you even know who you are? Before you are fully aware emotionally, how can you know you were in love, or even feel an informed love? How can you feel compatible with someone, if you don’t even know what you love or hate? How can you make sacrifices if you are given no responsibility?

So yes, I think it is possible you cannot fully love when you are 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.

Love Hurts If you choose not to be with someone long-distance, that doesn’t diminish the love you had with that person. Do not be critical of yourself. Separation causes painful longing. Nothing is worse than missing someone, than craving the same person, the same touch, smile, feeling, every day. It is painful, no matter what type of love you subscribe to. Separation can cause the heart to change. If one day you wake up and realize that you no longer find it better to be with them than without them, if you no longer feel it is worth how hard it is, this does not diminish the love you have. When it does not work because geography gets in the way or the heart changes — this does not then negate the love.

There is no lesser love.

Perhaps, there are levels of love as David said. But more likely, there are just multiple types of love, all equal, based on the fact that different people express love in different ways and look for different fulfillment

from love. Again, no one can define this for you; it is an individual thing.

We cannot as a society pretend that there is a measuring stick to hold up against a relationship. We can’t say that if you didn’t make the choice to stay together it wasn’t real love. We just can’t say that.

“We had to work for it, but I feel that way about relationships in general…when we all leave BC and live in different places, it’s going to be hard to stay in touch. But even if you fall out of touch it doesn’t diminish the love you had for that person,” Jill said. The comparison to friend relationships is illuminating; on the one hand, I think if you really felt like best friends with that person, you would make the friendship work and keep in touch. But at the same time, I know from experience that even if you meet someone, for example while abroad or on a service trip, even if you know you are deeply compatible, it doesn’t always work out once you get back home.

It doesn’t mean you didn’t love each other and have a true friendship; it just means that you have different friend groups, busy lives, etc. It is sad, but it doesn’t have to be depressing.

And it doesn’t have to be considered a personal failure.

Roberta Goizueta, a BC professor of liberation theology believes Americans place too much value on the individual and believe something is better if we chose it. He said this is false. Our best friends are meant to be the ones who we grew up with, or we were in closest proximity with; just because we didn’t “choose” for them to be our best friends does not mean they are “lesser” friends. Love can be viewed this way, too.

Believe in Fate; Have Faith You will only be able to let go of a long-distance love without passing judgment on that love if you believe

the GAVEL / October 2012

LDRs by the number:

this kind of “love” is what

• An estimated 4 to 4.5 million college couples are in an LDR. • The average distance LDR couples live from each other is 125 miles. we subconsciously accuse • When changes aren’t planned out, 70 percent of LDR couples part people of feeling when they ways. can’t make a relationship • The average LDR break up takes 4.5 months. work long-distance, this • 10 percent of U.S. marriages start out as LDRs. • LDR couples visit each other 1.5 times per month. lesser, love of convenience.

• LDR couples send each an average of three letters per month.

• An average of 14 months passes before LDR couples decide to Love makes you move closer together.

contradict yourself But…I said there was Definition: a long-distance relationship (LDR) is an intimate reno lesser love?

As Jill said, lationship that takes place when the partners are separated by significant distance. laughing, “I guess love makes you contradictory.”

I also said that loves that in fate. You have to have faith that if can’t work over long-distance are it is meant to happen, it will. Because not lesser.

But, I can’t help but feel a for all the choices you make, there is deep pang when Liza said, “If I loved still the reality that relationships end someone enough, then I would wait and that loves die. You can’t wake at the ends of the earth for them. I up each morning thinking you lost would be right there, waiting.” someone or didn’t go after that “soulThis is how I tend to think, too. I mate” when you could have. Otherwant to believe there is true love wise, you will always wonder if the that would easily survive any peperson you end up with is just someriod of separation. A love of time one who you really liked, someone and knowing and choosing. A love you met when you both were in the of hard work, sacrifice, compromise, right place, or were at the right time pain. I need to believe that if I meet in your lives where you could move someone, fall in love, am separated, to be together. That would, to me, be and can’t make it work, that it was a lesser love. This kind of relationship not meant to be; I must find another. is a clear foil to love. The relationship Because it only needs to work once. of convenience, of shared interests, I want to believe that one day it will fun times together but not much be I, or fate, that will move time, conmore. It works because it hinges on trol lust, survive loneliness, conquer proximity and because it is easy. This geography. kind of love cannot go the distance, pardon the pun.

After Kyle’s devastating breakup with his love from Mexico, he was involved with a girl for a long time, exclusively. In his words, it was great, they chilled all the time, he liked her, she lived across town, they’d watch movies, go to dinners — the normal stuff. Then she moved an hour away and they broke up. This is the kind of story we have in mind when we criticize ourselves for failing to make a long-distance relationship work; www.bcgavel.com

The biggest lesson Once you look around for it, everyone is talking about it, everyone is wondering about it, and everyone has an opinion about it. We cannot say they are wrong; we cannot place our idea of love above someone else’s; we cannot be sure which love is in store for us. It can’t be compared to what your friend has or feels. It is only with hindsight we can truly say whether we felt love. And it is only

once we have felt love that we realize that this categorization or ranking is unnecessary.

We want to label it so we can have more control over what we are in and what is coming. But love will avoid this; love cannot be defined nor predicted. We will never know whether it will run its course, be a chapter in our lives or be the rest of our lives. We can never say whether we did the right thing if we stay together, nor if we break up. We must have faith that we will see love when it is in front of us, that we will know it, and we will pursue it.

This means only one thing for love vs. geography: geography need only conquer love if you let it. Though love can’t be controlled, it does not have a mind of its own.

It can be doggedly maintained, because it does not exist without the two people who are in it. If you want, you can make that choice. But don’t be afraid to let it go. Don’t be afraid it will mean less if you do. Don’t be afraid you made the wrong choice.

Have faith in your decisions and have faith in the universe.

Photo by Gillian Freedman/Gavel Media

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Israel, Iran, and the Bomb

By Kenny St. John Opinions Editor

How America can prevent a tinder box from going up in flames We are now down to the final month before Election Day. These next few weeks will be the ultimate decider in who wins the presidency. The issues at stake are clear: the economy, jobs, the deficit, gay marriage, taxes, outsourcing, Iran‌ Ah yes, Iran. We hit that little snag.

For all we know, a major war in the Middle East can erupt between now and Nov. 5. Israel could launch a preemptive attack on Iran’s suspected nuclear facilities, or Iran could cut off the Strait of Hormuz, crippling world oil trade.

So far, President Obama has taken a pragmatic approach to the situation.

He has never ruled out war, but sees it as a last resort if Iran is able to develop a nuclear weapon. Economic sanctions and diplomacy have been hallmarks of his foreign policy towards Iran.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, has been advocating a more aggressive strategy in dealing with Iran. An American pre-emptive strike on Iran is much more plausible under a Romney presidency. It is also worth mentioning that Romney and noted war-hawk Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan-

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yahu are old friends. In Florida, an ad

by Secure America, a SuperPac, called for American action that features Netanyahu warning about Iran, with ominous music playing in the background.

Before I get into the specifics of what the U.S. should do, I find it despicable that this SuperPac would even use a foreign leader in a political ad. Foreign influence in the American electoral process, whether it be a friend or foe, is simply inexcusable. The American people are not electing Netanyahu, and Netanyahu is not electing the next American president. Especially consid-

ering the fact that the relationship between Obama and Netanyahu can be considered strained, any hint of Netanyahu openly supporting Romney would undermine the integrity of the American electoral system, unnecessarily complicate our foreign relations even further, and threaten hopes of securing a peaceful solution.

The U.S. needs to deliver a strong message to Netanyahu: if he orders a pre-emptive strike without a definite surefire confirmation that Iran has a nuclear bomb, then he is on his own in the war that will ensue as a result.

the GAVEL / October 2012

That alone should convince Netanyahu to back down from his hawkish rhetoric.

That is not to say that Iran is entirely blameless, either. Iran has repeatedly stirred the pot, with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denying Israel’s right to exist and calling for it to be wiped off the face of the Earth. Although Iran keeps insisting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, a nuclear bomb in their hands would certainly disrupt the balance of power.

In addition, Israel’s closest ally is the U.S., and the U.S. is obligated to defend Israel against an unprovoked Iranian attack.

However, under no circumstances should the U.S. by itself launch a preemptive attack on Iran. I fear that under a Romney administration, Netanyahu would influence his old friend to attack Iran, while Israel would be spared the brunt of the human and material cost of the war. Given America’s ballooning deficit and massive debt, it would be unwise to commit to what would be a third war in the Middle East in the past 11 years.

But if war is ultimately unavoidable, there are numerous consequences to consider. Say, if Iran, hypothetically, hit Jerusalem or Tel Aviv with a nuclear warhead, would America nuke Tehran

www.bcgavel.com

in response? Would the world economy crash as a result of the oil trade essentially grinding to a halt? Would there be a military draft? After the war, which would most likely result in a costly American victory, would we rebuild Iran in the same way we rebuilt Germany, Japan, and Iraq? Perhaps the worst consequence of all, would we succumb to the weight of our debt and default?

Ron Paul is right in saying that we need to stay out of the affairs of the Middle East. History demonstrates this all too well. In 1953, the U.S. and the

British overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran and installed the Shah into power. Although the Shah was friendly to American oil interests, he was a brutal oppressor of the people and provided no way for upward economic mobility.

Twenty-five years later, the Shah was overthrown and what followed was an anti-American, radical Islamist theocracy. What occurred here is known as “blowback”: a CIA term that refers to the unintended consequences of foreign operations.

Unfortunately, history cannot be changed and we have to live with the consequences of our interventionist foreign policy. It is important to understand that Iran does not hate the U.S. because of its emphasis on freedom, but because of its backing of the Shah. However, this does not excuse the saber-rattling and warmongering of both Iran and Israel. This also does not excuse Romney for playing on the fears of the American people and creating a climate of paranoia akin to the height of the Red Scare. A peaceful solution is indeed possible, but in order for that to happen, cooler heads must prevail, and take charge.

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INSIDE: Climate Change / Brew Review/ Overheard at BC Features

Features

October 2012

International Exchanges BC’s International Assistant Program

By Alison Ricciato Assoc. Features editor “Boston College has, in every sense of the word, been overwhelming,” Hans Henriksen says.

The Denmark native, enrolled in CSOM, is at a loss of words. “Attempting to encapsulate my BC experiences so far in anything less than a short book would do the school and its students a disservice,” he says. Henriksen owes his successful immersion into BC culture and American life to the unique International Assistant Program that the school offers to incoming international students,

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who are here for the four years, and exchange students, who are here for a semester or two.

BC hosts approximately 200 exchange students per year.

Each spring, the program selects assistants to pair with a group of three or four international and exchange students.

These assistants, upper class BC students, go through a rigorous training process in early August before the fall semester begins, in preparation for the International Student Orientation which occurs two weeks before school starts.

During the orientation and throughout the year, the program organizes activities, such as a boat cruise, so that the foreign

students have the opportunity to meet each other and be in regular touch with their assistants.

The role of an assistant is to help the foreign students in their navigation of academic and social life at BC. But more importantly, the assistants become the first American or local friend the new students make.

“I think most students will agree with the fact that exchange students receive a very warm welcome from BC. I really enjoyed the orientation days and the relevance of the information that they gave to us,” Helene Misonne, a CSOM exchange student from France, says.

The International Assistant

the GAVEL / October 2012

Features Program is hosted under the Office of International Students and Scholars and aims “to facilitate the adjustment of new international students to Boston College, Boston, and American life in general, especially during the crucial first month”, according to the office’s webpage.

The program is the perfect way for foreign students to establish a support system during their time abroad in the U.S. and helps them deal with culture shock in addition to all the issues new students deal with. This system also allows the foreign students feel more comfortable at an American university.

“Luckily BC takes good care of us foreigners. OIP, OISS and ResLife have been very helpful,” Henriksen says. “The volunteer international assistants have shown us that the United States is more than Jersey Shore.”

This is a unique experience.

Many foreign universities do not offer such programs. Approximately 50 percent of BC students go abroad—more than 1,200 students travel to programs in more than 30 countries per year. Although experience varies by student, many describe difficulties in meeting local students.

“I can only hope that students going to Denmark experience the same openness I have felt here,” Henriksen says. Back home, Henriksen has met American students

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studying abroad and his experience with them has always been a favorable one. “They seem to enjoy it,” he says.

BC students studying abroad have limited opportunities that facilitate interaction with local and other international students through classes or university housing.

There are schools that pair BC students with a native to guide them through the university. But Henriksen says that Danish colleges do not have as much money to use on programs to welcome foreign students in the way BC is able to—which means there is a disparity in the level of service.

There is simply no platform to facilitate meeting new people.

“There are fewer on-campus activities, but this may open up time to go see the rest of Europe,” Henriksen says, pointing out an important component of BC students’ study abroad experiences.

In a world with increasing globalization where more and more students crisscross the globe to complete their studies, programs such as BC’s may very well represent the future of interaction between students from universities across the globe.

“I can only hope that Boston students enjoy our company as much as we enjoy theirs and share in a mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge,” Henriksen says.

Photos by Gillian Freedman and Louise Sheehan / Gavel Media

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Features

International Update Climate Change Photo courtesy of Sabbir / Wikimedia Commons

By Jillian Timko Features Editor Environmental issues have been left more or less untouched by this year’s election, due to preoccupation with the economy, healthcare and same-sex marriage. But climate change is not going away, and it is important to stay up to date on the most recent developments in climate change and environmental issues throughout the world.

International political developments on climate change center on the Durban climate change talks that took place in South Africa in December. The talks seemed like they would end in failure until a deal was struck at the very end of the conference to move toward a “protocol, another legal instrument, or an agreed outcome with legal force” by 2015 to cut carbon emissions, which would 24

go into effect in 2020.

The source of the disagreement stemmed from whether or not the treaty would be legally binding; developing countries such as China and India were unwilling to agree to unwritten treaties that might hurt their economic development. Other measures that resulted from the talks included agreements to protect forests, broaden global markets and create a $100 billion fund by 2020 to help developing countries establish green economies and deal with the effects of climate change.

The Durban agreement is widely criticized. Environmentalists complain that the agreement is not forceful enough to cut carbon emissions so that the global temperature does not rise more than two degrees

Celsius, meaning that in some parts of the world temperatures will rise enough to create “dangerous” climate change. Others saw it as merely putting off negotiations to create a concrete agreement that would bind countries to cut emissions.

Climate change has evolved from a scientific debate to a security issue. In May, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta discussed his concerns about climate change in terms of national security. “Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” Panetta said. He also discussed the importance of clean energy for the military, saying that the Pentagon faces a $3

the GAVEL / October 2012

Features billion budget loss due to increasing energy costs. The European Union also considers climate change to be a top energy concern, and has called climate change a “threat multiplier.”

These security concerns partially stem from the fact that climate change most dramatically affects developing countries where poverty, population growth and economic development are already issues. Scientists and political scholars alike have predicted that the growing scarcity of renewable resources such as water, forests and fertile land combined with high population growth

Rising temperatures could decrease global GDP by 3.2 percent by the year 2030 has already caused and will continue to cause violent conflict in the countries hit hardest by climate change.

In Bangladesh, a lack of fertile land has caused thousands of people to emigrate to India, causing violent conflicts over land distribution and the balance of power between different social and economic groups.

In Senegal and Mauritania, the creation of dams — that would render certain river floodplains unusable by local farmers but increase the overall food production of the area during food shortages — ignited previously existing racism and led to a wave of ethnic violence that nearly caused a full-out war between the two countries in 1989.

The entire Middle East experiences water scarcity, and many scholars think this will undercut the political stability of the already volatile region in the future. This has already happened during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. www.bcgavel.com

The people on the slowly “sinking” Pacific Islands will eventually be displaced and need to find new homes. If they want to maintain their own state, territorial disputes could occur.

This September, a DARA report made headlines saying that rising temperatures could decrease global GDP by 3.2 percent by the year 2030 if carbon emissions continue at current rates. The DARA report also predicts that 100 million people will die due to climate change by 2030 if carbon emissions are not reduced.

These people could die from a variety of hunger, disease and air pollution related health issues.

The U.S. got a dramatic taste of what climate change can do this summer with record-high temperatures and a large number of forest fires and strong storms. “This is certainly what I and many other climate scientists have been warning about,” Jonathan Overpeck, a geoscience and atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Arizona, said to The New Yorker. If your summer plans got canceled by a big storm or you got really bad sunburn from high temperatures, realize that these are considered the mild effects of climate change, and we will only face hotter temperatures, more dangerous storms and more tornadoes in the future.

While there has been little about a concrete climate change agenda from either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney in the press, the successful candidate will likely have to deal with the environmental and political effects of climate change while in office. The sooner the candidates come up with a plan, the better.

Photos by Gillian Freedman and Louise Sheehan / Gavel Media

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Features

Battle of the College Beers

By Robert Rossi/Managing Editor & Christian Fiedler /Gavel Media Contributor

All students who participated in this review were 21+. Please drink responsibly.

Typical college beer has not gotten much attention in this column, and it is not difficult to imagine why most American lagers are designed to be light-flavored, watery, refreshing, and easy to down.

This makes them difficult to review, and tough to compare to one another. Regardless, it had to happen sooner or later.

We took eight college party staples — cheap beers conveniently available at your local liquor store — and pitted them against each other in a blind taste test. Our goal: definitively put to rest the age-old debate over which brand of 30 racks should fill the mini fridges in our Mods.

Photos By Christian Fiedler and Louise Sheehan / Gavel Media 26

The Contenders: 1. Natural Light: AKA Natty. One of two reigning incumbents, along with…

2. Keystone Light: The second half of the cheapest-beers-in-thestore tag team that dominates campus.

3. Rolling Rock: An extra dollar for a 30 buys you a step up in quality. Or does it?

4. Busch: The term “bush league” originally came from the offensive taste of this beer. Just kidding.

5. Narragansett: AKA ’Gansett. Certain local bars sell it for $1 a pop.

6. Pabst Blue Ribbon: AKA PBR. Stereotypically the drink of choice for rednecks and hipsters.

7. Miller High Life: The self-proclaimed champagne of beers.

8. Bud Light: The most popular beer in America, and much more expensive than any of the competition. Does price indicate quality?

the GAVEL / October 2012

Features

8.

Not surprisingly, the last place position is held by an old standby: Natural Light. “Tastes like bad water,” we say. Unless you are upholding tradition, there are much better options for the price range.

7.

This one is more surprising. For the price premium, we all expected Rolling Rock to perform a bit better than second-to-last. We described it as “too corny,” which makes sense given that RR is made with corn as well as the more common rice adjunct.

6.

Busch Beer clocks in at sixth place. Reviewers described it as “meh;” its taste is not offensive, but that is mainly because it does not taste like much at all. Drink it cold and out of the can.

5.

Keystone just edged out Busch, for reasons that would make its marketing team happy. Our reviewers described it as equally tasteless, but smoother and having a more balanced carbonation level.

www.bcgavel.com

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Features

4.

Break out the glassware. As we enter the top half, Miller High Life was acknowledged by our reviewers as worthy of drinking from a glass. High Life finishes drier than a lot of the other beers on the list and has a decent bouquet of bread and grassy aromas. For the price, High Life is a good deal.

3.

PBR gets a bad rep. We have never been in its presence without hearing the word hipster come up, but in reality it is a pretty good choice for an American lager. Grainy, smooth, and with a bit more bitterness than the others (I hear they added more hops), PBR is a worthy lager at a decent price.

2.

Remarks for Bud Light included raves about how “clean” and “smooth” it was. Bud Light takes the number two spot on our list.

1.

Everybody likes an underdog story, so we were pretty happy when a regional brew took the number one spot over its nationally-distributed competition. Narragansett Lager, brewed right in Providence, RI, manages to pull off the corn flavor that Rolling Rock fumbles with, backed up by more malt flavor than any of the other beers we tried. On the back end, Narragansett finishes with a mild but noticeable hop bite, and has a richer, fuller body than the others.

At $6 per six-pack of pint cans, ‘Gansett is a no-brainer.

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the GAVEL / October 2012

Features

Overheard at BC Compiled by Gavel Media Staff Overheard at BC is a cherished Gavel Media tradition. Read on to get some laughs at the expense of your fellow BC students, and be careful what you say, or it might show up here! All statements are 100 percent “overheard” and not fabricated by Gavel Media.

“I wouldn’t even trust health services with a pap smear.”

–Outside Cushing Hall “Junior year is where relationships go to die.”

–Lower Dining Hall “Do you still need those condoms for tonight?”

–In a Campion hallway “This girl is not bada$$. You could beat her up. Babies beat her up!”

–Saturday night in Stayer Hall “OMG I’m so a libertarian too!”

–Flirting in the Mods

“Um, is this yogurt vegetarian?”

–Hillside Cafe

[In response to seeing a girl with her skirt tucked into her underwear] “That is why I always make sure I’m wearing cute underwear with skirts! Mishaps happen. Boys don’t happen, but I am prepared for them anyway.”

–Mod Lot “Did you feel so ugly and unattractive all night long?”

–CoRo Girl #1: “Maybe I should date a lacrosse player.”

Girl #2: “Lacrosse is NOT a varsity sport.”

–Lower Campus “I just want to drink and go out all the time.”

–O’Neill Library “You know you’re in a girl’s room when there are wine glasses in the sink and the only things in the freezer are clear liquor and ice cream.”

–Lower Campus “Sh*t, I think I threw out my ID.” –The CTRC Photos by Gillian Freedman / Gavel Media www.bcgavel.com

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Culture

INSIDE: Salem, MA during Halloween / The Garment District / Rusted Revolution

Culture

October 2012

No oven? No stove? No problem!

Halloween Rice Krispies Treat Recipe

By Jenna LaConte / Culture Editor

Halloween is on a Wednesday this year, which means that Halloweekend begins early. That’s four potential nights of BC trick-or-treating.

First, you get dressed up in the most creative costume you can think of (extra creativity points if it is homemade, minus creativity points if it is a slutty nurse costume that you bought online).

Next, you go door-to-door around the neighborhood and instead of saying “trick-or-treat,” you frantically tell the people at the door who you know at the party, praying they don’t slam the door in your face.

Once you have made it in the door, you assess the value of the loot and continue about your night accordingly. If there are beers in the fridge that are open to partygoers, you’ve found the house that gives out the king-size candy bars. They’ve run out of alcohol?

They may as well be handing out toothbrushes and dental floss. If there is a keg, they’re basically the family that leaves a bowl of candy outside the door with a sign that says: “Please take one.” Time to wreak havoc.

Look no further than these Halloween Rice Krispies Treats for a post-Halloweekend hangover cure like no other, courtesy of my mother who put the other parents to shame at every Halloween party I ever attended by bringing these delicious treats.

Ingredients: 5 tablespoons butter 1 bag regular marshmallows 6 cups Kellogg’s Rice Krispies cereal Nonstick cooking spray 1 bag semisweet chocolate chips 1 bag candy corn Photo courtesty of Evan-Amos / Wikimedia Commons

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Photo by Jenna LaConte / Gavel Media

Preparation:

1. Melt the butter in a microwave-safe bowl.

2. Add marshmallows and heat 1 to 2 minutes. Stir melted marshmallows with butter.

3. Add cereal and stir quickly to mix in with butter and marshmallow.

4. Spray a rectangular pan with the nonstick cooking spray, and dump the mixture into the pan.

Press down on mixture to evenly distribute throughout the pan.

Hint: Spray nonstick cooking spray onto wax paper and use this to press down the mixture, it will spread smoother.

5. Melt chocolate chips in a glass container in the microwave for about 30 seconds on high. Stir, and microwave for another 30 seconds.

6. Spread the melted chocolate over the mixture.

7. Press pieces of candy corn into the chocolate in even pattern, leaving room to cut treats into individual pieces.

8. Refridgerate for one hour to set. the GAVEL / October 2012

Culture Netflix: What’s in your queue?

Revenge

By Mason Lende / Editor-in-Chief With Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters both off the air, ABC had to find a new soap operastyle drama to fill the timeslot.

Sunday viewers of traditional ABC shows seem to prefer a casual mix of deceit and humor when choosing what to watch.

For about a year now, people have been telling me to watch the new thriller, Revenge. Of course, I was drawn to the show simply by the title; however, I continuously put it off. When it hit Netflix, I gave in at last.

I wasn’t particularly surprised by what I saw — I had seen commercials, after all. I knew the premise of the show, and after watching all of Desperate Housewives and most of Brothers & Sisters, I knew the formula for the ABC Sunday “dramedy.”

Revenge hits off with just the right amount of…everything. It combines the spy elements and disguise of Alias with the mystery and vindictiveness of Desperate Housewives.

The series begins with chronological chaos. After the initial confusion, clarity slowly sets in.

You come to understand that the main character’s father, David Clarke, was framed for crimes he did not commit and the purpose of her being in the Hamptons is to destroy the people responsible for this. One by one, she begins to exact her revenge.

The one exacting this vengeance is Amanda, or rather, Emily — a slick name change and a hot makeover leave her unrecognizable

Screenshots courtesty of Mason Lende / Gavel Media

www.bcgavel.com

to the natives of the Island. She has given up everything to avenge the wasted life of her father.

The whole show runs off of a motto that Emily states in the pilot episode: “When everything you love has been stolen from you, sometimes all you have left is revenge.”

The show gives an elaborate back-story via flashbacks about her father’s trial. Emily is up against some incredibly difficult competition. After all, the people who she is fighting set her father up for fraud and connected him with a terrorist attack that he had nothing to do with.

Emily is not blind and she is much more clever than the people she is working against. In addition, she’s not working alone, even though she woulf like to be.

As soon as I started watching Revenge, I had a hard time closing the Netflix app on my iPad. Fortunately, even after the available episodes on Netflix run out, there are always plenty more in the works; Revenge recently premiered its second season on ABC. 31

Culture

Haunted Happenings: Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts

By Emily Akin / Assoc. Culture Editor It’s finally October, which just happens to be the best month ever. And who doesn’t love Halloween? Cold, heartless people, that’s who.

Gavel Media thinks that Massachusetts is one of the coolest places to spend Halloween — as long as you know where to go! And sure, most BC students spend Halloween drunkenly stumbling from one mod party to another, but there’s more to Halloween than that. This year, we encourage you to try something new, something that is completely unique to Massachusetts.

Presumably, everyone has passed fifth grade American History, so the Salem Witch Trials should sound mildly familiar.

What you may not know is that Salem happens to be 32

the coolest place to visit in October.

It takes about an hour and 15 minutes to get there via the T to North Station and then the Newburyport/Rockport Commuter Rail line four stops to Salem. Once you have arrived, there is a red line painted on the sidewalk, reminiscent of the Freedom Trail, that leads from the Commuter Rail station right into the heart of historic Salem.

Picture your Disney fantasies of Hocus Pocus and Halloweentown manifested in an actual city, where Halloween is celebrated 365 days a year, but especially in October.

Halloween is a daily fixation for local businesses and customers.

Because of the legacy of the witch trials, a thriv-

ing Wiccan population has sprung up in Salem. These Wiccan practitioners, who consider themselves practicing witches and warlocks, run tarot reading salons, psychic parlors, magic parlors, potion shops, and — wait for it — a School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The New England School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, to be exact.

I kid you not. Before you drop out of BC to enroll in this real life Hogwarts, I should mention that it was mainly a shop that sold magic wands, spell books, potion ingredients, cauldrons, and how-to books on wizardry.

Basically all of Diagon Alley condensed into one shop.

As if this is not incentive enough to take a trip out to Salem, there is an-

the GAVEL / October 2012

Culture other store called “Wynotts Maker of Fine Wands since 1692.” Clearly this is a horrible riff on Ollivander’s, the wand maker’s shop in the world of Harry Potter. To make matters even more hysterical, when I asked the Albus Dumbledore looka-like at the counter if I could take pictures of his handmade wands, he replied, “You’re not from Universal, are you?”

After assuring him that I was not going to rat him out as a copyright infringer, the man explained how he sneakily set up the shop and carves the wands. Then, he handed me a sheet on proper wand usage and maintenance. Under the section Wand Empowerment: “Hold the wand in both hands and repeat the following: ‘This is a magic wand…No harm may ever come from this wand. This wand and I are one, one mind, one being, one energy.’” Wand lore! See, we knew it existed.

He also sold “generic” butterbeer and chocolate frogs. Clearly, this is worth visiting.

Besides the Harry Potter knockoffs, there are countless Magic Parlors where you can buy everything from funky astral lamps to clever “I Got Stoned in Salem” T shirts.

One eccentric bookstore was piled

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floor to ceiling with old paperback books marked half price; there were no shelves — it was a complete fire hazard.

Further attractions include haunted houses, museums on the history of witches and the witch trials, a dungeon witch museum, tours of witch houses, midnight graveyard tours, a creepy wax museum and an inexplicable museum on the history of pirates.

All of these places are open year round, but Salem sets up extra events for the millions of tourists who make the pilgrimage to the Wiccan hub every October.

The town holds “Haunted Happenings,” a celebration of every aspect of Halloween imaginable, which is ongoing throughout the month of October. Events range from face painting at the Witches Cottage to a free mead tasting to something called “Henna/Fangs.”

Proceed with caution at “Henna/ Fangs”; it sounds foreboding.

Another cool event is the Vintage Baseball Game where teams are required to play by the rules of the 1860s-1870s, which sums up the quirkiness of Salem perfectly.

The town also holds costume balls and parties nearly every Friday and Saturday leading up to Hal-

loween in different restaurants and hotels around town, incuding “The Vampires’ Masquerade Apocalypse Ball” and the “Official Salem Witches’ Halloween Ball”.

All of the “Haunted Happenings” events lead up to the main event on Halloween night: the free radio 92.9 concert on the Salem Commons, followed by fireworks and shenanigans. The entire downtown area is shut down to car traffic on Halloween and people wander around dancing in the streets all day.

There is no denying it; people in Salem are strange — the strange that we are generally lacking here at BC. So, take the trip up to Salem some weekend when you have a few hours to kill. Not only will it be a ton of fun, but it will also leave you with stories from Halloween that you won’t be embarrassed to tell your parents about about!

Photos by Emily Akin / Gavel Media

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Culture

Stepping out of J. Crew: Guide to the Garment District

By Jenna LaConte / Culture Editor

Photos by Jenna LaConte / Gavel Media

The worst thing about the stereotype of the Boston College student body looking like a J. Crew catalogue with a hangover is the sad fact that it is usually true. Sure, paying $80 for a solid colored sweater may work for some people, but for those on a budget, this kind of frivolous spending is simply absurd.

Some may turn up their noses at the idea of a thrift store, but the Garment District on Broadway Street in Camrbidge is so much more than that — they do, after all, call themselves an alternative department store. The “recycled” clothes are carefully sorted through for quality and while everything needs to go through the laundry before being worn, it is a great place to pick up vintage-style clothing, comfy sweaters and unrivaled Halloween costumes.

By The Pound When you enter the store, the first thing in sight is a gigantic pile of clothes on the floor. Bear in mind, this area is not for the weak — you will see some nasty things, ranging from pitstained t-shirts to ripped, old bras.

The By The Pound section is essentially the island of misfit clothes, where the items that are too worn for retail in the regular thift store land. Still, it is unwise to totally overlook this section where clothing is $1.50 per pound. That’s right — you fill a bag with clothes and put the bag on a scale, penny-candy style.

Along with the aforementioned thrift-store rejects, there are articles of clothing that are in perfectly decent shape, but did not sell in the regular store in a timely manner. The Garment District is massive, and full of hidden gems that can easily go unnoticed. Some of my most prized possessions were found in the By The Pound pile, including an “I Hate BC” shirt that I just couldn’t pass up. Don’t worry — I love BC as much as anySuperfan. But still, it’s funny and if I ever need to blend in at BU for some underground reporting, I have just the outfit.

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the GAVEL / October 2012

Culture Boston Costume Boston Costume is actually their sister store, located on the first floor with the By The Pound pile. This has some of the most genuinely absurd costumes you could possibly find, including every type of animal head. Not masks: these are full on furry mascot-esque heads. Since Boston Costume is not a thrift store, the prices are high. If anything, it is a place to take a breather and try on some silly hats in between sorting through the rest of the loot.

Top Floor Thrift Store The top floor of the Garment District is where the magic really happens. It is significantly more organized than the By The Pound section and will convert any thrift store nonbeliever.

The clothes are sectioned by decade and type of clothing, which makes it incredibly simple to leaf through the racks based exactly on your personal style preferences. There are also designer racks, and while the term “designer” is used quite loosely, a vigilant eye will catch some serious steals. I once found a pair of True Religions — which usually cost around $200 — for $13 that I seriously considered sleeping in out of pure joy. I settled on wearing them just about every day, until eventually I gave into the fact that they were verging too small when I bought them and barely zip-able after a semester of college.

The immensity of the upstairs supply is not limited to clothing, either. They sell everything from clothes to shoes to greenman suits à la It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, one of which I vow to own one day. Don’t get me wrong, it takes some dedicated scouting to sift through the masses for the must haves — but the reward of coming home with a selection of recycled, vintage items to add to your wardrobe without breaking your bank beats the remorse of spending a small fortune on the same shirt that everyone else on campus is wearing.

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Culture Rusted Revolution: Redefining fashion at Boston College

By Alexis Tedesco / Gavel Media Lucy McBride and Lesley Burr were just two Boston College seniors hanging out on Boston College campus the weekend before classes started. As BC students, we can all understand this glorious time in limbo, when we can enjoy our campus without the stress of classes. If life could always be that way here, maybe we could be half as productive as these two ambitious women were during this free time.

As roommates, McBride and Burr were sitting around talking about their favorite fashion blogs. they both agreed that “the BC fashion scene was lacking -- student style in general was unadventurous, and though BC had arts programs and clubs, fashion was the missing element.”

This is when they decided to create their own activity to fill the void, and they started their own fashion blog named Rusted Revo-

36

Staff lution, with the Chanel gun shoe as part of their logo.

This blog started as an outlet for talking about their own styles and favorite brands, but Burr reveals, “when we realized we actually had readers, it transformed into something more. We wanted to expose our readers to something new with each blog post, bit a never before heard of brand, or just different way of looking at something.”

As a freshman, I could certainly relate to their new way of looking at things. I devoured their articles, learning about new brands and trends, even though I already considered myself somewhat of a fashionista. They also wanted to feature new bloggers, designers and artists, considering they were “budding enterpeneurs” themselves.

Their blog is not singularly dedicated to fashion, but rather

culture in general. Articles feature everything from fashion trends to recipes to music to D.I.Y. projects.

This variety helped them to keep this blog intertwined with the BC community during their time as students.

McBride and Burr would post articles about what they wore to BC events such as UGBC’s Fall Concert or the 100 Days dance, with the end goal of being able to “tie those fashion elements into our experience at [those] events as a whole.”

They also shot look books around campus using BC students as their models and hosted their own fashion show at Cityside with student models. Other BC artists such as the musician Eric Lopez and the graphic t-shirt designer Connor Corrigan from Soon is Noon have also been featured on the blog.

Aside from blogging, McBride and Burr also turned Rusted Revolution into their own jewelry brand.

They described their jewelry line as “medieval inspired”, which is

the GAVEL / October 2012

Culture certainly present if you look at a lot of their chain mail pieces.

They saw the trend of body chains rising on fashion runways and realized how easily they could make these kinds of pieces themselves and sell them for a fraction of the cost.

Once again, they managed to tie this business into their life at BC by selling their original jewelry line from their booth at the Boston College Arts’ Fest. They eventually transitioned to selling this jewelry line on the popular craft website, Etsy.

Graduating from BC made staying connected with the campus hard for McBride and Burr.

After Burr moved back home to Chicago and McBride moved to New York, and later L.A., they both still wanted “to appeal to [their] BC readers, but it is difficult to relate to something once removed from it,” especially while transitioning into the professional world.

For a year, they still had 10 eager interns writing for an extension of their blog called Boston College for Rusted Revolution, or BCxRR. After last year, they ended this new branch of their blog but they still participate in college events such as the Her Campus Fashion Show.

They both agreed that future projects with Boston College are always a possibility.

Their jewelry line and original blog are undergoing new innovations. They have created a line of jewelry which focuses on making “women who wear them feel powerful without losing their femininity.” What more could an intelligent www.bcgavel.com

B.C. girl want, right?

The duo is also planning a special limited edition collection in the future that contains freshwater pearls brought back from the Philippines by McBride’s mother.

Their jewelry line was recently picked up by a new website called Barb and Bear, which Burr describes as “an artist incubator” that “facilitates the growth and exposure of new brands.”

As for the blog, the two are considering a new format allowing sponsorships and advertising, “along with some nifty features we think will enhance our readers’ experience and bring a large audience in.”

As for what McBride and Burr think of the fashion scene at Boston College, they talked about something that all BC students can attest to: the army of North Faces and Tory Burch flats.

While the fashion scene is not necessarily bad, they both felt that “student style in general was unadventurous,” and “there was a lack of individuality.”

Burr did admit, however, that “based on Facebook photos of people still in school, it seems that gradually a lot more of the BC fashionistas have slowly started to come out of their shells.”

I hope that they give a bit of credit for this cultural transformation and emergence of individuality at BC to themselves and the inspiration of Rusted Revolution.

McBride and Burr are prime examples of the kind of young visionaries that we aspire to be as BC students.

Photos by Elaina Donofrio for Rusted Revolution

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INSIDE: BC Winter Sports / EPL Update/Conference Realignment SPORTS

SPORTS

October 2012

NBA season preview Separating the contenders from the pretenders

By Bill Stoll gavel media staff

Lottery-Bound Lottery-Bound Charlotte Bobcats In 2011 Charlotte had the unfortunate honor of achieving the worst single-season winning percentage ever in the history of the NBA. This year does not look much more promising, as they will look to a young trio of Michael-Kidd Gilchrist, Bismack Biyombo, and Kemba Walker to carry the load.

Washington Wizards

They have their point guard in John Wall and they hope first round pick Bradley Beal can become the perfect outlet for Wall’s distribution. This team is likely to experience some growing pains, and it may well be another long season in the nation’s capital.

Toronto Raptors

There is no doubting Andrea Bargnani is one of the more underrated scoring big men in the game, but he does not have much help around him. The Raptors are very weak in the paint, without one player averaging 7 or more rebounds a game.

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Sacramento Kings

The Kings are like that guy in high school who just could not get his act together, who ended up living in his parents’ basement rather than going to college. Demarcus Cousins is great down low, averaging a double-double last year, but Tyreke Evans’ inexplicable drop in production the last two years continues to force this team down.

Orlando Magic

No Howard, no chance. Hey, at least they have Hedo Turkoglu and all $12 of his contract.

Cleveland Cavaliers Kyrie Irving can only elevate his game so much. On the plus side, maybe the Cavs can recruit Irving’s Uncle Drew — he’s got some nice moves on YouTube.

Detroit Pistons

Already booked my ticket to the induction of Ben Wallace’s afro into the Pistons’ Hall of Fame. Other than that, there is not much to be happy

about for Pistons fans. At least the Red Wings are always contenders right?

Oh wait, there is no hockey. Screw you, Bettman.

Irrelevant This grouping of teams has the distinction of not being threats to challenge for the NBA Title this year. Some may be teams on the rise, some may be teams in decline, but it is doubtful any will threaten a deep post-season run.

Golden State Warriors The Warriors’ two best players, Andrew Bogut and Stephen Curry, missed a combined 94 out of 132 possible games last year. On paper, this is a decent squad, but it remains to be seen if they can get a full season out of their most talented players.

Milwaukee Bucks Best case scenario, Monta Ellis and Brandon Jennings can create enough offense to overcome the team’s weak interior, and the Bucks threaten for a mid- to low-playoff seed. Worst case

the GAVEL / October 2012

SPORTS scenario, either player misses serious time with injury, the team focuses all its energy on stopping the other, and struggles to put up 90 points a game.

and Austin Rivers, 20, could lead New Orleans back into the fight for a postseason spot.

Phoenix Suns

Houston Rockets Linsanity in Houston? If Jeremy Lin can prove last year was not flash in a pan, this very young team could surprise a few. However, with only one player out of 30 on their roster and a potential starting five whose average age would be under 25, this team will experience some growing pains.

New Orleans Hornets

At least we do not have to watch Steve Nash play out the last few years of his great career on the listless Suns.

On a more positive note, it should be fun to watch foreign imports Goran Dragic, Marcin Gortat, and Luis Scola all bombard the referees with expletives in Slovene, Polish, and Spanish, respectively.

Utah Jazz

Another young team, look for last year’s top overall draft pick Anthony Davis to lead a surprising Hornets squad. Eric Gordon is one of the better 2-guards in the league, and his return from a season-ending knee injury could make all the difference. The young trio of Davis, 19, Gordon, 23,

There is a joke to be made about the irony of their team name, but I will not be the one to make it. But much like this team description, do not expect much from Utah this year.

Portland Trailblazers LaMarcus Aldridge is very good,

but that is about it. Losing Gerald Wallace and Raymond Felton significantly downgrades their backcourt, but hopefully new draft pick and Weber State alumus Damien Lillard can make more of an impact than Greg Oden ever did.

Atlanta Hawks They lost last year’s leading scorer Joe Johnson in a trade with the Nets and have not done much to replace him. For a team who was just below average last year in scoring, this year could be much tougher.

Pretenders Don’t get me wrong, the following are good teams, but they all have serious flaws, which will prevent them from truly chasing an NBA title.

Brooklyn Nets The amount of hype surrounding New Jersey is absurd. Yes, they got Wallace and Johnson, but they did not get Howard. Wallace is a decent player, but he did not carry Portland to any glory and his stats with Charlotte are inflated as he was forced to be the number one option. Johnson is a great 2-guard but he is getting older, and his skills have been declining the past few years. Until they can rope in a decent big man, they will not make it through the East, much less one of the Western Conference powerhouses.

New York Knicks

Photo Courtesy of Keith Allison of Wikimedia Commons

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It’s a point guard driven league, so why the Knicks would choose not to sign prospect Lin and instead decide to go with the Felton-Jason Kidd platoon I will never know. Amare Stoudemire will need to have a rebound 39

SPORTS season after last year’s disappointment, but unless Carmelo Anthony can learn to share the ball it may not matter in the first place.

Los Angeles Clippers If everything falls together, the Clippers could pose a serious threat in the West. Unfortunately, that would mean Chauncey Billups would make a 100 percent recovery from his knee surgery, Blake Griffin could take the next step forward and start to dominate games, and Lamar Odom could recover from last season’s debacle.

This team runs through CP3, but they need Blake Griffin to worry less about making crappy Kia commercials and more about developing a low post move.

Dallas Mavericks

Two big swings and misses from the Mavs and owner Mark Cuban this summer, as they first missed

out on luring Deron Williams over from New Jersey and then failed to trade for Howard. They’ll fight for a mid-level playoff spot, but they can’t match up with LA or OKC.

Sleepers Denver Nuggets Despite lacking a true go-to guy and getting embarrassed by the Lakers in the playoffs last year, Denver returns many key pieces, a potent offense and arguably the best coach in the league in George Karl.

They also addressed their biggest concern, their atrocious defense, by receiving one of the league’s best defensive players, Andre Iguodala in the Howard trade. The Nuggets’ depth and balance will give opposing defenses fits, and they will look to cause a serious stir come playoff time.

Minnesota Timberwolves Don’t laugh, Minnesota was threatening for a playoff stop be-

fore PG Ricky Rubio went down with a knee injury halfway through the year. He’s back and the additions of Andrei Kirilenko and Brandon Roy should provide good secondary options to stalwart Kevin Love.

Challengers Memphis Grizzlies As we’ve learned the past two years, Memphis is a scary matchup in the playoffs, especially with Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol dominating down low. The biggest concern is how well Rudy Gay can gel with Z-Bo, and if Gay can rise up and become the dominant, go-to scorer the Grizzlies are desperate for.

Philadelphia 76ers Their year will ride on which Andrew Bynum was traded to Philly: the one who dominated last year or the one who has struggled mightily to stay healthy in years past. If it’s the former, look for increased production from Jrue Holliday and Evan Turner and a team that can finally stand up to the powers in the East, but if it’s the latter, those crazy Philly fans may be in for a frustrating season.

Indiana Pacers

One of the more balanced teams in the league, the Pacers are a year older and more mature after nearly knocking Miami out of the playoffs last year. In order to make the leap to a true contender, they will need Danny Granger to step up and become a true go-to scorer.

Photo courtesy of Keith Allison of Wikimedia Commons

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the GAVEL / October 2012

SPORTS Boston Celtics The original Big 3 is done for, but the Celtics look retooled and ready for another serious run at a title. Jet should adequately replace Ray Allen as a perimeter threat, and Avery Bradley demonstrated his worth as a lock-down defender in the playoffs last year before his injury. Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett will come ready to play, but their success may come down to rookies Jared Sullinger and Fab Melo to provide a presence in the paint. Look for them to give the Heat all they can handle this year.

Contenders Chicago Bulls They are hobbled, as former MVP Derrick Rose will not return until February at the earliest. However, the Bulls are talented enough to stay in the running for a playoff spot without him, and when Rose is good to go come playoff time, all bets are off.

Even without Rose, they still were the best defensive team in the league, and Coach Tom Thibodeau will be sure to keep their defense just as stingy this year.

San Antonio Spurs Some teams may have balance and scoring depth, but the Spurs have it down to a t. Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and coach Greg Popovich are back fielding almost the same roster as last year for another run at the title.

They hold a very good team, but may lack the firepower to compete with the other juggernauts in the West. Father Time is heading for this team; this

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year should be championship or bust.

Oklahoma City Thunder

Last year’s runners-up look poised for another deep playoff run, but do they have the heart and personnel to even get back to the finals? They ran out of gas against the Heat last year, but just like Lebron & co, now that they have taken their lumps, they are set out to finish the job. Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden will look to provide the scoring touch, and one thing to look for is the play of Kendrick Perkins, who will be expected to match up against Howard should the two teams meet up in the playoffs. Durant is without a doubt the most talented player on the roster, but this team will only go as far as Westbrook and his decision making.

As much as Westbrook would like to be the man in OKC, he has to learn to defer to Durant and create, rather than forcing well-defended midrange jumpers.

Miami Heat Lebron James: enough said. Last year came a title for King James, and with that a dramatic end to all of the conversation surrounding his disgraceful exit from Cleveland and his failures in the post-season the year before. James, Chris Bosh, and Dwayne Wade are bolstered by the arrival of former Celtic Ray Allen, whose shooting from beyond the arch should give Miami a lethal tandem of inside and outside play, all of which is expected to run though James. If James could create opportunities for Mike Miller and Shane Battier last season, imagine what he can do with the leading 3-point shooter in NBA history on his team. Championship hangovers

have affected even the best teams, and without the extra fire of previous failures to drive James and his teammates, how they will be able to handle success remains to be seen.

LA Lakers The biggest move in the NBA this offseason brought the league’s premier center Howard to the Lakers, solidifying their frontcourt and ensuring they will be able to dominate nearly any team in the paint with Dwight, Pau Gasol, and Metta World Peace or Ron Artest — whatever he is going by now. Another huge move was the trade that brought point guard Steve Nash to LA as well, giving the Lakers possibly the best pure passer in the game. Similar to OKC, the only thing that could derail this team is resident superstar Bryant attempting to force the offense through himself rather than letting Nash create, and not allowing Howard and Pau to dominate teams down low. With these new acquisitions, LA is an extremely balanced team with a potentially explosive offense to couple a stifling defense. They should be more than a handful, even for the NBA’s elite.

Final predictions: Eastern Conference Finals: Miami Heat v. Boston Celtics

Western Conference Finals: Oklahoma City Thunder v. LA Lakers

NBA Finals: Miami Heat v. LA Lakers NBA Champion: LA Lakers 41

SPORTS

BC winter sports preview Hockey, basketball gear up for new season

By Andrew Schofield Sports Editor BC Hockey USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine released their first poll of the year this September — putting the defending champion Boston College Eagles right where they ended last season. With 2012 NCAA Hockey Tournament MVP sophomore forward Johnny Gaudreau and All-Hockey East senior goalie Parker Milner returning, the Eagles look poised to claim yet another Hockey East title en route to what could be yet another Frozen Four appearance for

famed BC Head Coach, Jerry York.

With the hockey team leading both the USA Today poll and the USCHO.com poll, it certainly appears that the Eagles are the presumptive favorite to repeat as a champions – adding to an already impressive resume, which includes four titles and seven Frozen Four appearances in the past 11 years. However, preseason rankings historically give preference to the results of the previous season, and while the Eagles certainly have the talent to put themselves in the position to win another title, the road certainly will not be easy. Fellow Hockey

East members, Boston University and University of MassachusettsLowell, both feature solid squads.

On a national level, Minnesota, Michigan and North Dakota all have dangerous good teams that could challenge the Eagles in their attempt to repeat.

BC Basketball After graduating just one starter in Oregon transfer, Matt Humphrey, Boston College Head Coach Steve Donahue will look to improve on the past season during which the Eagles only managed

Photo courtesy of Cipriansjr Wikimedia Commons

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the GAVEL / October 2012

SPORTS

Photo by Gillian Freedman/Gavel Media

with nine victories. Returning the seven recruits he brought in last year, Donahue hopes that his youngsters improved leaps and bounds in the off-season after struggling to perform as a unit last season.

The Eagle’s biggest strengths down low on the block. Sophomore power forward Ryan Anderson led the young Eagles in scoring and rebounding last year with 11.2 points and 7.4 rebounds.

Anderson will be paired with fellow sophomore center Dennis Clifford, who averaged nearly nine points and five rebounds a game last year. On the wings, Donahue will likely turn to another two sophomores German-born Patrick Heckmann and California-native — Lonnie Jackson. Both Heckmann and Jackson showed considerable promise in their first full seasons

on the Heights, but they’ll have to improve technically on both sides of the ball if the Eagles are to enjoy any sort of success this season.

But arguably the biggest question entering the new season is who will start at point guard.

Sophomore Jordan Daniels filled the role last season and not without some promise. He kept turnovers to a minimum and demonstrated an ability to manage the offense.

With such a young roster, Donahue would likely prefer a veteran ballhandler at the position in an ideal situation — with wing option Danny Rubin as his only upperclassman.

And while BC is welcoming two new young guards to the team this season, Olivier Hanlan and Joe Rahon, the odds are that Donahue will stick with Daniels at the point.

While the mass exodus that followed the firing of Al Skinner certainly left him with a weak and unbalanced roster, Donahue should begin to see some positive development within his team this season as last year’s huge incoming

Photo by Gillian Freedman/Gavel Media

class grows and evolves together.

Unquestionably, there is some talent there, as we saw in last year’s upset of Florida State. The task now for Donahue and is developing his squad into a consistent threat each and every night, even against the BU’s and Harvard’s of the world.

Photo courtesy of Cipriansjr Wikimedia Commons

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SPORTS

Premier League round-up

EPL contenders begin to separate from pack Arsenal vs. Chelsea

The Barclay’s Premier League sixth week came to a close with a number of high profile matches.

Arsenal was defeated 2-1 at Emirates Stadium in North London as Chelsea solidified their lead at the top of the table. Poor defending by Arsenal’s back four led to the goals by Spanish international Fernando Torres, who scored on a perfect finish in the 20th minute. Gervinho tied the game in the 42nd, only to have Chelsea’s Juan Mata score 11 minutes later on a free

kick.

This match was in the spotlight for a number of reasons. Aside from pitting two of England’s top clubs—also two of London’s rival clubs—against one another, the match was also the first played by Chelsea captain John Terry, just days after the English Footbal Association (FA) handed out its ruling on a racial abuse scandal involving Terry from last season.

The former England captain Terry was found guilty of using racially abusive language towards Anton Ferdinand and was handed a four-match ban on top of a fine of $355,000 Terry is awaiting the fullwritten judgment before deciding whether or not to appeal the decision.

The win at the Emirates brought Chelsea to 16 points, a three-point cushion over second place Everton, who trails the European champions with 13 points.

Manchester United vs.

Tottenham

Photo courtesy of Brian Minkoff / Wikimedia Commons

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The second high-profile matchup of the week was between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. The match was played at Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, where the Spurs had not won a match since 1989. Tottenham dominated the first half of the

By Ricardo A. Sánchez gavel media staff

match as newly signed defender Jan Vertonghen and midfielder Gareth Bale gave the visitors what seemed like a comfortable two-goal lead at halftime.

The second half was an entirely different story, as United mounted a serious comeback. Three goals were scored in a span of three minutes, as Nani scored in the 51st minute for United, which was immediately followed by a goal from the Spur’s Clint Dempsey in the 52nd, which kept them up 3-1. Newly signed Shinji Kagawa kept the pressure on the Spurs after a goal in the 53rd minute, made it 3-2. Tottenham would survive the rest of the match, as Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick each hit the Tottenham goalpost once before the final whistle blew.

The away-win by Tottenham snapped one of the longest winless streaks in English soccer and also widened the gap between Manchester United and leagueleader Chelsea, to four points.

Manchester City vs. Fulham The defending Premier League champions, Manchester City, survived a scare from Fulham FC this week after City manager Roberto Mancini proclaimed his squad would retain the Premier League title. Prior to the match, Mancini was under

the GAVEL / October 2012

SPORTS considerable pressure after a string of underwhelming performances by his team brought their ability to retain the league title into question.

Things did not look good for City after Fulham went up 1-0 on a Mladen Petric penalty kick in the 10th minute. City would then equalize right before halftime on a goal by Sergio “Kun” Aguero; the goal came right after a wonderful save by Fulham goalkeeper, Mark Schwarzer.

The match would remain deadlocked at 1-1 right until the closing minutes, when Bosnian international Edin Dzeko scored for City in the 87th minute after a weak clearing header

by Fulham defender, Arne Riise.

The win, which brought City to 12 points and kept them at 4th place in the table, was badly needed after they were eliminated from the Capital One Cup at home to Aston Villa earlier in the week.

Liverpool vs. Norwich City Liverpool FC earned their first win of the season last week against Norwich City, propelled by a hat trick by striker Luis Suarez. Suarez wasted no time in opening the scoring, netting his first goal from the edge of the box a mere 67 seconds into the match. Suarez made it 2-0 after a bad mistake by Norwich defender Michael Turner in the 38th minute.

Just after the start of the second half, Suarez assisted in the box to Nuri Sahin, the Turkish midfielder who is on season-long loan from Real Madrid. Suarez finished his hat trick in the 57th minute when he curled the ball around the Norwich goalkeeper from outside the box again. Norwich would score a consolation goal before Liverpool and England captain Steven Gerrard netted home the fifth www.bcgavel.com

in the 68th minute.

The match ended 5-2 with Norwich getting a second consolation goal in the 87th minute.

The win at Norwich was Liverpool’s first Premier League win under new manager Brendan Rodgers, and lifted them out of the relegation zone with 5 points.

Best of the Rest

Photo Courtesy of Ruaraidah Gillies of Wikimedia Commons

Everton continued their strong start to the season with a 3-1 win at home against Southampton, keeping them at second place in the table with 13 points. Newcastle United were frustrated away at Reading with a 2-2 draw, while Stoke City comfortably defeated Swansea City 2-0 at home. Sunderland

Team Chelsea Everton Man U Man City Tottenham West Brom West Ham Arsenal Fulham Newcastle

W 5 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 3 2

defeated Wigan Athletic 1-0 at the Stadium of Light, while Aston Villa drew against West Bromwich Albion last week.

Week six concluded last week morning when West Ham United defeated Queens Park Rangers 2-1 in another heated matchup between two London rivals.

D 1 1 0 3 2 2 2 3 0 3

L 0 1 2 0 1 1 1 1 3 1

GD 8 6 5 4 3 3 2 6 4 0

Points 16 14 12 12 11 11 11 9 9 9 45

SPORTS

Realignment Rancor Conference instability plagues college football

By Andrew Schofield Sports Editor In December 2009, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney wittingly or unwittingly, set off a collegiate arms race when he formally announced that he would consider adding an additional one or two teams to his then 11-member conference.

The announcement was the product of two developments within the collegiate football landscape.

Contrary to several other conferences in collegiate athletics’ highest division, the Big Ten lacked a conference championship game, leaving millions of dollars of additional revenue on the table.

In adding a team, the conference would have 12 members – fulfilling the NCAA requirement for a conference championship game. But more importantly for the brain trust of the Big Ten was the potential of its newly-created Big Ten Network, which reportedly doled out as much as 88 cents per subscriber to the network in Big Ten states. By simply expanding the conference to an entirely new state, the profits to be reaped would number in the millions.

The Big Ten’s decision set off a chain reaction across the league.

Missouri and Nebraska made nothing secretive of their desire

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to move to the Big Ten, as the TV revenue in the Big Twelve paled in comparison to that of the Big Ten at the time. And with the (then) PacTen planning a similar expansion in hopes of more TV revenue, all of college football was thrown into mayhem.

Following Nebraska’s departure for the Big Ten and Colorado’s departure for the Pac-Ten, even major conferences which were not considering expansion beforehand, such as the SEC and the ACC, were becoming restless. It is even rumored that some conferences were seeking to bring their total number of teams to 16 in what some are calling “superconferences.”

On one hand, the dust stirred up by the last few years of conference realignment seems to be settling. After adding Nebraska, the Big Ten announced it would stand pat. The Pac-Ten seems content at 12 members — having added the University of Colorado and the University of Utah. The ACC seems comfortable having adding Pittsburgh and Syracuse as full members with Notre Dame added in every sport besides football.

Aside from the Big Twelve’s pursuit of Louisville in hopes of returning to a twelve-member conference, most conferences, at least publicly, have

Are Chief Osceola and FSU’s days in the ACC numbered?

Photo courtesy of cholder68 /Wikimedia Commons

shown no interest in continued expansion.

However, to talk of conference realignment in the past tense would do a gross injustice to the instability that persists throughout the entire system. If the past few years have taught the collegiate football world anything, it is that where one finds financial inequality,

the GAVEL / October 2012

SPORTS instability is soon to follow. After all, it was the Big Twelve’s retrograde television contract that cost them their original members in the first place.

Although the Big Twelve has just signed a lucrative television contract that pulls in more money per team than any other conference. Louisville has long been rumored to be added as the eleventh team of the conference.

And with the Big East falling further and further into disrepair, it seems likely that the university will make the move soon, leaving the conference just one team away from the magic number of 12. No conference is in danger of losing a team to the Big Twelve more than the ACC, whose television revenue only bests that of the flailing Big East.

The speculation is not without some merit. On May 12, FSU’s Chairman of the Board Andy Haggard bemoaned the ACC’s

new television deal; even going so far as to claim that the school “unanimously” favored “seeing what the Big Twelve might have to offer.” Derrick Brooks, former AllAmerican linebacker at FSU and current board member, claimed on The Tim Brando Show that the Big Twelve was actively pursuing FSU. Clemson has even been rumored to be on the move, with the Big Twelve and SEC listed as possible destinations.

Even the addition of Notre Dame to the conference adds little to its stability without the inclusion of its football program. Anyone hoping that the Fighting Irish might direct its attention to the Big East, whose members had once upon a time expected something quite similar to occur. If the ACC is to survive, it must learn from the mistakes of the Big Twelve when the conference found itself in a similar position.

Rather than wait to be picked apart, it must take the position of the

Photo courtesy of Jim Ferguson/Wikimedia Commons

aggressor and expand vigorously — whether through television sets or additional universities.

Photo Courtesy of Damon J. Moritz of Wikimedia Commons

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