February 14, 2018
Eva Kor
Emma Gomes, Staff Writer On Wednesday Feb. 21, Meredith’s Communication Club will host a live video chat with Eva Mozes Kor, who will share her story and view of the power of forgiveness. This tool has helped Eva Kor heal and live a purposeful life where she educates others on “the importance of never giving up, the dangers of prejudice, and the need for genocide prevention today” (candlesholocaustmuseum. org). The live video chat will take place in the Jones Chapel at 10 am. This live-stream presentation
and discussion qualifies as an Academic/Cultural Event in General Education. Eva Mozes Kor was born on January 31, 1934 in Portz, Romania. A decade later, Eva Kor and her family arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they faced the devastating aftermath of being separated from one another. Eva Kor and her twin sister, Miriam Mozes Zeiger, were noticed by a Nazi soldier who allowed them to remain together. They and others were referred
to as “Mengele twins” and were subject to Dr. Mengele’s genetic experiments. Although Eva did become severely sick, they both survived the heinous genetic experiments they were forced to be a part of. On Jan. 27, 1945, the Soviet Union liberated Auschwitz. Although Eva Mozes Kor lost her childhood and faced many tragedies due to the Nazi regime and the terrifying events that took place in Auschwitz, when Eva came face to face with a Nazi
doctor, Dr. Munch, in 1993, she found the power within herself to forgive him. She views forgiveness as a form of self-healing. In 1984, Eva Mozes Kor, alongside Miriam Mozes Zieger, founded the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, Indiana, in search of other surviving Mengele twins. To learn more about her advocacy work and ways to help, check out the official website of CANDLES at candlesholocaustmuseum.org.
discarded without further thought, becoming a part of the plastic pollution problem. The Last Plastic Straw movement seeks to activate citizens through a grassroots campaign to encourage individuals to push for change in restaurant protocol and practices in their local communities around the world. This movement begins with the consumer, and as a consumer, take a stand and say no to plastic straws! Request no plastic straw at restaurants, and try to convince others to do so as well. If this seems hard, let’s maybe do it on #SkiptheStraw Day this Friday, Feb. 23. With approaches from
students, local coffee shop, Lucky Tree is currently participating in this challenge. If this doesn’t seem like enough in the face of the gargantuan plastic monster, there are even more things that we can do. Make a personal commitment to say “no” to plastic straws. Whenever ordering a drink, politely request “no straw, please.” Encourage your friends and family to take the pledge, too! If you want to take your impact even further, use your own paper, glass, bamboo, or stainless steel straw instead, and start a conversation. Try to reach out to some local eateries in your neighborhood or
town and ask them to change their protocol to only serve straws upon request. Encourage those same eateries to make a change to nonplastic straw options – like paper, glass, or stainless steel – if diners do request a straw. A good option would be advocating for Aardvark straws, FDA food grade paper straws, to restaurants. Another suggestion is to host a screening of STRAWS the film in your community, which Meredith has already done at the documentary film festival in January. Consider how you can help reduce plastic waste from straws today!
Does the flu shot cause the flu? No. Unfortunately, people assume that because they got sick after getting the vaccine, the shot caused their illness. The vaccine is made from inactivated virus and it cannot transmit infection. People that develop an illness after receiving a flu vaccination were likely going to get sick anyway. It can take up to two weeks to get protection from the vaccine. The purpose of a flu shot is to expose your body to a non-infectious version of the virus so your body can develop protective antibodies without you having to battle the actual flu.
then contract the another strain as there are many influenza virus strains active each season.
The Last Plastic Straw Huma Hashmi, Staff Writer
The Last Plastic Straw is a project of Plastic Pollution Coalition. By some estimates, Americans throw away 500 million plastic straws a day. In only the past twenty years, people have come to expect plastic straws in every drink, in an example of extreme waste being generated for minimal convenience. Straws and other plastics cause harm to marine life in many ways. Birds, fish and other sea life consume plastics accidentally or when they mistake it for food. Plastics don’t biodegrade. They break down into finer microscopic pieces. After the first use, these tools are usually
What You Need to Know About the Flu Tishya Robertson, Staff Writer
Flu season is upon us, and there are a few types of people: those who are flu survivors making up for the work they missed, people who aren’t thinking about the flu at all, and those who are frantically washing their hands and taking vitamin C more often than necessary. Unfortunately, Meredith College is not immune to the flu. Here are some common questions about the flu, answered by Dr. Mary Johnson, Director of Health Services. Is it too late to get the flu shot? No, it’s never too late! You may have some trouble finding the vaccine right now because it is late in the season, but call a few local pharmacies to get one. What strains are covered by the flu shot and who even decides that? Twice a year, the World Health Organization meets with representatives of key national laboratories and academies. They review the results of flu studies and the availability of vaccine viruses, then make recommendations on
the composition of the influenza vaccine. Meetings take place in February for the selection of the upcoming Northern Hemisphere’s seasonal influenza vaccine and in September for the Southern Hemisphere’s vaccine. WHO recommends specific vaccine viruses for inclusion in influenza vaccines, but then each country makes their own decision about which viruses should be included for their country. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration makes the final decision about flu vaccines in the U.S. every February. There are even two kinds of flu vaccines: trivalent and quadrivalent. The trivalent one protects against three strains of the virus: H1N1, H3N2, and the Victoria lineage of the B virus. The quadrivalent one (that Meredith offered) contains the same strains as the trivalent shot plus the Yamagata lineage of the B virus. Although the trivalent one is cheaper, the vaccine offered varies depending on where you get it.
How can you stay well during flu season? Wash your hands. Stay away from people who are sick. Take Vitamin C and Zinc. Get a good night’s sleep. Decrease your stress levels. Exercise. Eat healthy. Wash your hands! Can you get the flu more than once a year? While rare, it is possible to get one of the strains of the flu and
For more information about the flu and other wellness topics, check our Student Health 101 at meredith.edu/sh101 and follow @ SH101atMeredith on Instagram. If you are experiencing flu-like symptoms, visit the Health Center in the first floor of Carroll Hall. *These questions were submitted by students and faculty on January 31, 2018.
Arts & Entertainment
News ENCCA Career Fair
A Place at the Table
Ashley Ricks, Staff Writer
Are you a graduating senior in the market for a job? Are you an underclassman looking for an internship to pertain to your major? Are you a college student in need of connections? If you are included in any of the groups listed above, then you are in luck because on Feb. 21, more than 90 employers will attend the Eastern North Carolina Career Alliance (ENCCA) Career Fair in order to recruit employees and interns for their company. The career fair will take place in the McKimmon Center, 1101 Gorman St, and Meredith will be offering shuttles to students throughout the day. Shuttle pickup will begin at 9 a.m. at Jones Chapel and be running approximately every 15 minutes. The career fair starts at
9 am and lasts until 2 pm, giving students plenty of time during the morning and early afternoon to take a break from campus and network. Examples of employers attending this year’s career fair include SAS, Merrill Lynch, LORD Corporation, NC Justice Center, school systems, and the Autism Society of NC. Currently, the majority of jobs are filled through referrals and networking, which proves the importance of attending networking events while in college. The ENCCA Career Fair is the perfect event to start making connections and meeting possible, future employers. Katie Peterssen, a career counselor in the Office of Career Planning (OCP) recommends “arriving no later than
1:30 pm to make the best use of the fair.” Students should stay for at least 30 minutes in order to take full advantage of the fair by talking to a wide variety of employers. Even though the career fair tends to appeal to upperclassmen, underclassmen can also benefit from attending the event as well. Peterssen suggest underclassmen visit the career fair to “explore career paths, ask the experts questions about their industries, and potential career pathways within their organization.” The prospect of attending a career fair might seem a little daunting, but there are many tips student can follow to make attending these types of events painless. Peterssen strongly recommends students to prepare
before going to any networking event. Preparing includes having your resume looked over the OCP, researching employers who will be at the fair, and practicing your personal introduction. Another tip for students is to look professional. Students have actcess to free professional attire through the Bargain Box. A student can stop by the OCP and pick up a voucher for the Bargain Box in order for the student to look and feel the part. The OCP will be helping students prepare for the career fair and students can stop by its office the day before the fair, Feb. 20, from 9 am–4 pm. Attending the career fair may not only land you a job, but it can also increase your network that may lead to better opportunities in the future.
Federal Government Shutdown Looms in 72 Hours next month. Republicans in both the House and the Senate created spending bills in the week preceding the shutdown, but the Senate version was ultimately successful. Senate Republicans introduced a version of the bill that included increases in military and domestic spending as well as addressing the looming debt ceiling. The bill is the result of a bipartisan collaboration between Arizona Senator John McCain (R) and Delaware Senator Chris Coons (D). It is the Senate response to a piece of legislation introduced in the House just before the shutdown in January, the Uniting and Securing America (USA) Act. The bill introduced by House Republicans was much narrower: it would have kept the
government open until March 23 and the Pentagon open for a full year. The House bill, however, did not have the bipartisan support needed to pass both chambers of the legislature. More than 40 Senate Democrats condemned it in the days leading up to the shutdown, indicating that, even if it did manage to pass the House, it would not pass the Senate. While the budget is a major bipartisan success, Democrats worry that they have lost their leverage in pushing for an extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In a statement published after her historic, more-than-eighthours-long speech on the House floor, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called out Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) and the Republican Party
more generally for leaving a DACA solution out of the budget bill: “When we protect the Dreamers, we honor the highest ideals of America. Their patriotism, their perseverance, their optimism are an inspiration that stirs the conscience of our entire nation.” While House Republicans have not announced an intention to address a DACA solution, Senate Republicans have promised to allow for uninterrupted debate on the issue beginning Monday, Feb. 12. The debate will allow the Senate to build a bipartisan bill from scratch on the Senate floor. Speaking last week to reporters outside the legislature about the uninterrupted DACA debate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) described the process as, “Whoever gets to 60 [votes] wins.”
Honor Society Celebrates Inductees, Scholarship Winners Maggie Cobb, Contributing Writer
On the evening of Jan. 25, Kappa Nu Sigma Honor Society held their annual induction ceremony in Jones Chapel. The event was attended by new members, scholarship recipients, and their families to celebrate their outstanding academic achievements. Kappa Nu Sigma is an Honor Society that was founded in 1923 by Dr. Helen Hull Law, a Meredith College professor. The organization was established to recognize the academic merit of Meredith College women. Kappa Nu Sigma gets its name from the Greek words for beauty, sound mindedness, and intelligence. This year, there were 57 students eligible for induction into Kappa Nu Sigma, and 47 were officially inducted during the ceremony. In order to be eligible,
students must have a GPA of 3.9 after completing 75 credit hours, or a GPA of 3.8 with 90 hours or more completed. Along with the inductees, 20 scholarship recipients were recognized during the ceremony. The Helen Price Scholarship, named for a former Meredith professor of Greek and Latin, recognizes the sophomore and junior students with the highest GPAs in their classes. The guest speaker for the induction was Mr. Jason Newport, a professor of writing, editing, and publishing in the Meredith Department of English. Professor Newport is a recipient of the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award. During his time in the Fulbright program, Professor Newport served as an English professor at a Hungarian university. His
induction speech for Kappa Nu Sigma, “Finding Family,” centered around his experiences conducting research on his own Hungarian ancestry while abroad. Following the ceremony, honorees and their guests enjoyed refreshments in the Chapel Common Room. Molly Davis, ’18, was inducted into Kappa Nu Sigma this year. When asked about what being
Raleigh’s first pay-whatyou-can restaurant opened last January on 300 W. Hargett Street. The restaurant is unique to the area due to its mission: “provide community and healthy food for all regardless of means.” Anna Haddock, ’18, has been involved with the communications aspect of the restaurant before it even had its own location. Haddock explains the pay-what-you-can process: “If you do not have money to pay for your meal you are welcome to take a meal token from the jar next to the register! If you want to pay a portion, the cashier will gladly set you up to pay literally ‘what you can.’ You also have the option to pay the suggested price or [help with] someone else’s meal.”
Inside, the two-story restaurant is lively and inviting. It is often filled with a diverse selection of people enjoying meals and engaging in conversations. Many volunteers work every day to support the restaurant’s mission, and you can even volunteer in exchange for a meal. The menu has something for everyone: fresh waffles with warm maple syrup, Instagramworthy sandwiches, and many more breakfast and lunch staples. Haddock’s favorite thing on the menu is the avocado toast, saying, “Being a nutrition major, I love that A Place at the Table has healthy options! The avo toast is the perfect balance of carbs and healthy fats. Though it automatically comes with a side of
fruit, I like to also add the cheese grits as a side sometimes!” There is much in store for the future of the restaurant. Fundraising events around Raleigh like pay-what-you-can yoga classes are in the future to raise more money for the organization. More information can be found on A Place at the Table’s Instagram or Facebook page. A Place at the Table is open at 300 W. Hargett Street from 7 am to 2 pm Tuesday to Friday and 8 am to 3 pm Saturday and Sunday.
it also makes fun of it.” Roten said, of why he chose this show: “I love the music, I love the attitude of the show...and it’s got really great female roles. They’re all Greek muses right out of...mythology, and they each inspire a different area of art. They’re embodied in these muse characters that step out of a painting.” Their personalities, he said, range from “super dramatic to clumsy to slapstick-kind-of funny to Mariah Carey-like.” Waddelow said that “you’ll watch the show and go ‘those people look like they’re having such a great time.’ It’s 90 minutes. It has all the energy of a bottle of champagne being opened up at the beginning of the show…and it never really slows down.” The style of the musical is a fusion, stage manager Leslie Castro, ’19, explained. “It pulls costume inspiration from three different time periods because you have the muses, goddesses, and gods from ancient Greece; there’s a fun, colorful take on Grecian attire. Then, in the present day, the musical is set in 1980…[and] there is a 1940s flashback.” Waddelow said that “from song to song, [it] channel[s] back and forth between present day and Greece.” Castro explained that the story centers around seven of the
nine “Greek muses who come to life” out of a mural done by “struggling artist,” Sonny. Castro continued: “Specifically Kira, the lead, inspires him and helps him realize his dream which is to open a roller disco at this theatre called the Xanadu….Over two different lifetimes, it’s a quest to get the theatre open.” Throughout the plot, the characters seek out the answer to ‘what is Xanadu?’ Xanadu is written to be a light, entertaining story, but it also carries a message about the value of “lov[ing] someone else and creat[ing] art” according to Castro. Roten said that “it’s just a celebration of art itself, how art makes us human.” He continued “it’s not afraid to make fun of itself, and it’s wildly entertaining.” His “approach has been to underpin it with enough truth and depth of characterization so that we really do care about these 2-dimensional characters.” “A majority of the show takes place on Venice Beach in California and on the Santa Monica pier,” Castro said. So, they built a pier. It extends 15 feet beyond the stage in a wide U-shape around the organ. She also hinted that “muses are forbidden to announce that they are a muse to a mortal, which creates some problems in
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the exact amount that you will need to purchase that ticket. I don’t know about you guys, but this seems to work with my college budget way better!
Photo courtesy of Anna Haddock
Xanadu Rolls on Stage
Sidney Shank, Staff Writer
The U.S. federal government shut down on Thursday, Feb. 8, for the second time this year -- but it happened so fast, you probably missed it. From midnight until the early hours of Friday morning, the government briefly shut down over the federal budget after the continuing resolution passed on Jan. 23 ran out. However, legislators managed to pass the bill quickly through both chambers on Friday morning; the House voted before dawn, and the Senate shortly afterwards, so the bill was signed into law by the president before work began for most government employees Friday morning. The bipartisan budget deal includes increases to both military funding, domestic social programs, and disaster relief aid as well as raises the debt ceiling, which was set to run out
Tishya Robertson, Staff Writer
inducted meant to her, Davis replied, “Being inducted into Kappa Nu Sigma is a major accomplishment for me. This honor reminds me that all of my hard work and dedication to my academics did not go unnoticed. I am very grateful that I was a part of the Kappa Nu Sigma induction ceremony and hope to continue a legacy of academic excellence in my future classroom.”
Sarah Kiser, Co-Editor-in-Chief
This week, Feb. 13-18 at 7:30 pm, Meredith College Theatre will be performing Xanadu, a poprock musical based off the 1980 movie of the same name, in Jones Auditorium. The score features a range of songs from Jeff Lynne, the main composer of the Electric Light Orchestra in the 70s and 80s, and John Farrar, who composed for Olivia Newton John. All of which will be played backstage by a five-person band that the cast and crew affectionately call ‘The Skids 2.0.’ Director Steven Roten said, “many of the audience will have heard these tunes before. If you’re an Olivia Newton-John fan you may know it. If you’ve seen the cheesy 80s movie, you will know it; this just takes all that information and twists it.” Music Director Dr. Jim Waddelow explained that the film Xanadu “was universally panned… but everybody really liked the music.” Waddelow, who will lead the band and play bass during the show, said that “instead of being exactly what the movie is on stage, they kind of make fun of the movie. There’s an awful lot of jokes that are catered toward people [who grew up in the 80s]. In many ways it’s a big Valentine to the 80s, but
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the play... It is forbidden for a muse to love a mortal, or to announce that she is a muse, or to create art. Kira does all of those things.” Cast members playing multiple characters, which requires so many quick changes, was done on purpose. Part of the tradition surrounding Xanadu is that it is often performed with doubling, actors playing more than one part. Roten said “I wanted the actors to get a chance to do that. It’s a real skill in to build in in your training ability to put on a new jacket and become somebody else… and it’s fun for the audience too, I think to see Calliope be this wild, over-the-top epic, and then she becomes Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and becomes completely different and has these great lines. And then the play itself makes fun of the fact that she’s double cast and cannot be here to be outraged with Melpomene.” Roten said finally, “this is my little gift to the community to say ‘come on and laugh with us and forget your troubles for a little while, and you’ll step lighter as you go out the door.” All performances begin at 7:30, and admission is free of charge for the Meredith community. Non-Meredith students/seniors tickets are $5. Adult tickets are $10.
Editorials London’s Top-Ranked Restaurant (of 2017) Never Existed Abigail Ojeda, Staff Writer
Foodies in London and abroad were vying for reservationonly seats at the wildly popular, top-ranked restaurant, “The Shed at Dulwich” until they realized why it was so difficult to get seats— the restaurant did not exist. Eli Rosenberg from The Washington Post states that Oobah Butler, a freelance writer, created a fictional restaurant based on his backyard shed in South London’s Dulwich area, and by the end of 2017 his “restaurant” ranked number one on TripAdvisor. According to Butler’s article from Vice, where he detailed his experience, Butler was inspired by the abundance of believable disinformation online to troll the gastronomic community.
tracks how his restaurant rose from the initial ranking as “the worst restaurant in London.” An experienced fake review writer himself, Butler used family and friends to write made-up TripAdvisor reviews, and he even managed to get a lucky celebrity endorsement. Everyone who called, emailed, or attempted to stalk the location on foot received the same message: “We’re booked.” Six months after creating The Shed at Dulwich, Butler’s hoax was the number one listing on TripAdvisor in November 2017, according to Vice and The Washington Post. After achieving this goal, Butler decided to open
the restaurant for one night. In the backyard of his shed, Butler created an earthy, hipster vibe and managed to fake the mood culture of his restaurant until a local chicken chased a customer. This finale brought an end to the false fame of The Shed at Dulwich, and Butler disclosed his story on Vice in December of 2017. Rosenberg says Butler’s work was “not an insignificant achievement,” since TripAdvisor’s sites in the United States and Britain have 200 million visitors monthly. The duration of the hoax reveals TripAdvisor’s lack of reliability and invites a reconsideration of websites that rely on review-based rankings.
expected. Each year, the group determines how close we are to nuclear holocaust by setting the time on the Doomsday Clock, normally measured in minutes until midnight, or the end of life as we know it. This year, the Bulletin chose to move the clock thirty seconds forward. They cited the heightened tension between North Korea and its various enemies, a lack of reaction to the changing climate and a disregard for scientific expertise by political leaders -- even calling out Donald Trump by name -- as some of the reasons for the 30 ticks forward from the previous year, putting the clock back to the closest it has
been to midnight since 1953. It can be disheartening to consider that even after 64 years of the Doomsday Clock moving back and forth, between two minutes till midnight in 1953 and a whopping seventeen minutes in 1991, it has been moved back to two minutes until midnight. However, despite this seemingly grim conclusion, the human race has made indeed progress. We have seen an significant decrease in global poverty, with 3.6% of world population rising above the global extreme line. Diseases such as polio and the measles are nearing complete eradication. Infant
mortality is down internationally, and life expectancies are longer. Increasingly, people across the planet have more access to healthcare and education resources than ever before. In 2017, the general quality of living for humanity as a whole was higher than ever before. It can be easy to see what is going on in the world and feel the groups like the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists must be right. We must be pushing ourselves the brink.. Yet by choosing to look at the sparks of light around us, we may be able to see through the darkness of midnight to a brighter future.
shortages in the next couple of decades, for many reasons. According to The Guardian, cocoa farmers in some areas of Africa are having trouble making a living and are switching to other plants. In Indonesia, crops have been attacked by disease and pests, decreasing output. Worldwide, more products contain chocolate, and more people are buying them. As consumption increases, production cannot keep up, resulting in
rising prices. In 2010, the classic Hershey milk chocolate bar cost just $0.70; today, the cost is $1.29. Experts from the Cocoa Research Association estimate that the price of chocolate will increase seven times by 2030. What to do about the terrifying possibility of having to spend a fortune on Valentine’s Day chocolate? We can begin to address the cocoa crisis through environmentally friendly behaviors and fair working conditions for farmers. In the meantime, we can
be conscientious consumers of chocolate this Valentine’s Daywhatever you do, don’t let it go to waste, and hit those postValentine’s Day candy sales!
In April of 2017, Butler states, he began to evolve the online presence of his shed into an upscale, appointment-only restaurant with the help of a cheap phone (to validate his TripAdvisor account), a website, and a few convincingly staged gourmet food pictures using shaving cream, bleach tablets, and, at one point, the heel of his foot next to an egg, cropped to model a piece of ham. His restaurant’s angle, according to his website theshedatdulwich. com, was a menu “comprised of moods,” so that customers would order by expressing their current mood, and the chef “would interpret that.” Butler’s detailed article
Two Minutes to Midnight Teressa Berton, Staff Writer
Many people speculate that the world is coming at any moment, or that the end is nigh, and we are all going to destroy ourselves. According the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists end may truly be closer than we may have
The Chocolate Crisis Caroline Garrett, A&E Editor
Valentine’s Day is here, and we are once again surrounded by flowers, cards, and, of course, chocolate. Personally, I love chocolate, both on Valentine’s Day and year-round, and always have some on hand. Unfortunately, access to the sweet treat in the future may be threatened due to what is known as “the cocoa crisis.” Manufacturers say the supply of cocoa beans is declining and we may experience extreme
Meredith Hues Iris Alumnae Art Exhibition The exhibition is running in the Weems Gallery now unitl March 11th.
STAFF
Emily Chilton and Sarah Kiser, Co-Editors-in-Chief. Caroline Garrett, A&E Editor. Teressa Berton, Social Media Manager. Olivia McElvaney, Online Editor. Kayla Burton, Layout Editor. Micah Clark, Cartoonist. Staff Writers: Abby Ojeda, Tishya Robertson, Emma Gomes, Cro Owens, Mimi Mays, Hannah Flood, Caroline Crofton, Jaisa Loch, Huma Hashmi, Sidney Shank. .