March 10, 2016

The Oberlin Review

MARCH 4, 2016 VOLUME 145, NUMBER 17

Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week Annual Campaign to Fight Hunger Kicks Off On Feb. 29, the Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio launched its annual Harvest for Hunger Campaign.

The food bank’s goal is to raise enough money and collect enough food to fund one million meals across Lorain, Erie, Crawford and Huron counties

by April 9. The first event was held in Lorain and was set up by Tony Gallo, honorary chairman of the food bank and president of the Lorain County Chamber of Commerce. Contributions from local organizations and food drives run by schools, businesses and individual families are the main source of food for the bank. There are over 100 parties involved in the push for one million meals.

Trump Campaign Goes Local Donald Trump supporters have rented a storefront in the Meridian Plaza in Lorain to serve as Trump’s Lorain County headquarters. The space has been rented for six months and has windows plastered with campaign materials. The space was previously a wig and hair shop and was set up in preparation for Trump’s recent visit to Columbus on March 1. Four thousand people attended his rally at the Port of Columbus International Airport amidst a sea of “Make America Great Again” signs.

Funding to Demolish Blighted Areas Lorain County recently received more than $3.3 million from the $96.6 million awarded for Foreclosure Prevention and Blight Removal in Ohio. The county has increased efforts to collect delinquent property taxes from owners of rundown houses. This money is being used for the demolition of homes that bring down property values across the county.

The county currently has over 100 pending foreclosures.

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‘Guns Everywhere’ Bill to Allow Arms on Campuses Kerensa Loadholt News Editor The national debate over gun control has grown increasingly local since House Bill 48 passed through the Ohio House of Representatives last November. The city of Oberlin will demonstrate its opposition to the bill by presenting a resolution to City Council on Monday.

“The city of Oberlin believes that the laws expanding the possession of guns in areas within our community undermine public confidence in the assumption of safety and security in the community and impede law enforcement agencies and their ability to maintain safety and security,” the resolution states.

Many Oberlin community members and other Ohioans have voiced concerns about the bill, which would allow licensed owners to carry concealed weapons in daycare centers, school safety zones, certain government buildings and the non-secure areas of police stations and airports.

The bill is being sponsored by

Representative Ron Maag and passed the House last November. It was assigned to the Senate’s State Government Oversight and Reform Committee, where it has only received one hearing to date.

“The bulk of Substitute House Bill 48 addresses forbidden carry zones, or as some would call them ‘victim zones,’ in Ohio — places where concealed carry is not permitted and citizens are vulnerable to crime,” Rep. Maag said in his sponsor testimony.

The bill would eliminate forbidden carry zones in daycare centers, private aircrafts and certain government buildings, but daycare centers would be treated like private businesses. They would be able to opt out by posting “No Gun” signs. “[It] limits victim zones to secure areas in airports and police stations and clarifies the existing provision regarding schools. [It also] allows college campuses to permit concealed carry if they so choose,” Maag said.

“House Bill 48 applies only to individuals who have undergone firearm safety training and have obtained the

An armed Oberlin resident shops at Wal-Mart. House Bill 48 would increase the amount of public places where licensed owners can carry concealed weapons.

Benjamin Shepherd, Photo editor

appropriate concealed carry permit under Ohio law,” Senator Gayle Manning wrote in an email to the Review.

“Personally, I have taken a concealed carry course in order to be a more responsible gun owner, although I would not be affected by this legislation because I have not obtained the state permit. Like me, the vast majority of Ohio gun owners choose not to carry their firearms.”

Approximately 7 percent of Ohio’s

See House, page 4

Oberlin Youth Council Tackles Accessibility, Transportation Adam Gittin News Editor After 15 years of inactivity, the Oberlin Youth Council, a group working to bring civic-minded students of diverse backgrounds together to consider issues faced by the community, has reformed. These middle school, high school and college students take time out of the school week to meet at the public library and discuss what they can do to make Oberlin a better place to live.

Accessibility was a recurring topic at this Wednesday’s meeting. The council’s first two goals are to make Philips gym more open to nonCollege students and to increase Oberlin’s public transportation resources.

“I grew up here, and also my parents work at the College, so I got to see what it was like when somebody didn’t know that I was the child of somebody who worked at the College versus when they knew my parents were professors,” said Oberlin High School junior Nyima Coleman.

There is a clear disparity, Coleman said, between how campus security and town police treat people affiliated with the College and how they deal with community members.

One of the Youth Council’s objectives is to better unite the College and the town.

“I would also have to echo Nyima’s point about College-community member relations,” said College junior Tony Moaton. “As someone not from here who has become an Ohio citizen and who has stayed here throughout the year, I’ve noticed how different it is here in the summer.”

Moaton said that when he talks with local

business owners during the summer months, they tend to lament how slow and quiet things get. As a member of the Bonner Scholar Program, Moaton spends his community service time with the Youth Council to help bridge the gap between College and community spaces. “[College students] are so lucky to have Oberlin as a place to be, and we have so many resources for teaching each other about really important things … through workshops and clubs and activities,” said College junior Maya Gillett, adding that many opportunities are less available to town residents and public school students.

“We could be sharing this knowledge so much more widely,” she said. “There’s no reason that it needs to be limited to College students.”

Tessa Newson, a seventh grader at Langston Middle School, agreed that the College often eclipses the town. Tessa participates in the Bonner Center’s Ninde Scholars Program, which offers tutoring and college preparatory services to a small group of seventh to twelfth graders.

“There’s a lot of places in Oberlin that the College owns,” Tessa said, adding that she thinks public school students would appreciate better access to the College’s resources, like Philips gym.

The council members discussed how it could be tricky to connect all the different parts of a college town, but that doing so was essential for the city of Oberlin to exist on an equal footing with the College.

“I’m from where the University of Kansas is, in Lawrence, and I remember growing up in that dynamic; there are all these students coming in, they don’t really know Lawrence, they don’t really

Flower Power Carlyle Flower Shop celebrates its 80th anniversary.

adult population has applied for a Concealed Carry of Weapons permit, Ohioans for Safe Communities said in an email to the Review. There hasn’t been any evidence that the places House Bill 48 would affect have expressed interest in allowing CCW into their spaces.

“HB 48 invents a non-existent problem,” OSC said. “Despite claims

Roadblock Women’s lacrosse defeats Baldwin Wallace University Wednesday in their home opener.

Fresh Beats First-year band brings a dancey sound to Storage.

See page 4

See page 16

See page 10

INDEX:

Opinions 5

This Week in Oberlin 8

Arts 10

Sports 16

know Kansas, and it was a weird place to grow up,” said College first-year Sadie Keller. “So when I got to Oberlin, I wanted to make sure I was a conscious student and [that] I knew the area around Oberlin College before considering myself part of the community.”

Sadie said that she wants to work with local youth and help move toward a future where the town and College are more interconnected.

High school sophomore Koki Takada expressed a similar desire to give back to the community.

“I’m helped by many people, so I want to do something for people,” said Takada, a Japanese exchange student sponsored by the Rotary Club of Oberlin. In addition to the Youth Council, Takada works for the Oberlin Interact Club’s Backpack Program and the Oberlin Weekday Community Meals (known as “Hot Meals”) to help provide food to community members in need.

To work toward increasing access to the College Facilities, the Youth Council is conducting surveys in the middle school and high school to determine how many of the students would use Philips gym if given the opportunity, or whether those students would prefer their own schools’ gyms to be open longer instead.

The Youth Council got a jumpstart last September after nearly 15 years of inactivity, and the group has been growing ever since. Tania Boster, director of student leadership programs at the Bonner Center, facilitates the council’s meetings, but the students are the ones who ultimately drive the weekly gatherings focused on community service, connections and inclusion.

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The Oberlin Review, March 4, 2016

Feature Photo: City, Library, Renewal Levies on March 15 Ballot With Super Tuesday come and gone, it’s time for Ohioans to turn toward their own state’s primary on March 15. In addition to the presidential candidates, several levies will be on the ballot for renewal. The League of Women Voters of the Oberlin Area, a non-partisan voter mobilization organization, held a meeting Thursday at the Oberlin Public Library to discuss Issues 10, 11, 12, 25 and 26. If passed, these issues would all renew existing taxes for five years, though they would not add any new ones.

The slogan “No New Money” was blazoned across many of the PowerPoint slides used in the meeting to emphasize that taxpayers would not shoulder an additional burden.

Interim City Manager Sal Talarico spoke about Issues 10 and 11, which would renew the city’s general fund operating levy and the refuse and recycling levy, respectively. The general fund provides revenues for the police and fire departments, parks and recreation, public works and many more basic city functions. The refuse and recycling levy supports Oberlin’s garbage, lawn waste and recycling services. The passage of Issues 10 and

11 is key to maintaining the quality of life Oberlin residents currently enjoy, Talarico said.

Oberlin Public Library Board of Trustees President Mary Picken advocated for the approval of Issue 12, which would renew the library’s operating levy. The library’s annual budget is more than $1.2 million.

“Forty-eight percent of our budget comes from this levy,” Picken said.

Without it, the library would have to cut funding to many of its essential services, such as The Bridge, the library’s popular community technology center.

Superintendent for Oberlin City Schools David Hall urged voters to support Issue 25, the operating renewal levy, and 26, the permanent improvement renewal levy. The Oberlin community first approved the school’s operating levy in 2012.

Also known as the “emergency levy,” it accounts for 7 percent of the Oberlin School District’s operating budget, roughly $940,000 per year, and funds educational and athletic programs, school supplies, textbooks, districtwide busing and more, Hall said.

The permanent improvement

levy generates just over $370,000 per year to finance building maintenance, repairs and any educational support materials with a five-year lifespan. It was originally passed in

1976 and helps the district pay for the schools’ roof repairs and electrical system updates.

“These levies have nothing to do with building a new school,” Hall

said, reiterating that all of the issues discussed will renew and not create taxes.

Text by Adam Gittin, News editor Photo by Rick Yu

OSCA, College Negotiate Future of Old Barrows Eliza Guinn OSCA employees returned from strike amid negotiations between the College and the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association that will likely decide the future of the Old Barrows Co-op.

“OSCA employees were on strike until we had a chance to meet with the Board of Directors. We met with the Board of Directors on February 21 to express our concerns and ended our strike,” OSCA Business Coordinator Kevin G. Gilfether said.

OSCA rents all of its buildings from the College, and moving or shutting down the Old Barrows Co-op has been a topic of discussion since 2011. The building is currently fit for living but will most likely be con–––––––––––––––––––––––––––——————

It is unclear whether or not the building will be demolished, but it would be highly unlikely.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––—————— demned within the next 20 years.

Representatives from the College have been holding meetings with Old Barrows’ members to determine the future of the co-op. OSCA held a caucus last week to create a forum-like environment in an attempt to eradicate confusion about the fate of Old Barrows.

Old Barrows houses 15 students and has 80 dining members; it is one of OSCA’s largest dining co-ops.

Apprehension about closing Old Barrows stems from the potential decrease in OSCA’s membership. A major concern for the College and OSCA alike is the un-

even distribution of Old Barrows’ 80 dining members between other co-ops that would increase space constraints and impose a strain on resources.

The College is also unsure of where the 15 students who live in Old Barrows would go, according to Rosenberg. Old Barrows’ housing currently serves as a safe space for women and transgender students.

If the co-op were to be completely dissolved or reduced only to dining services, the Edmonia Lewis Center for Women and Transgender People and Baldwin Cottage would be the only housing spaces specifically designated for women and transgender students.

Efforts are currently being made to ensure that students aren’t living and eating in an unsafe space, according to Steven Levin, an OSCA board representative. Members and College representatives are pushing for a decision to be made during this year’s rent contract negotiations between OSCA and the College.

According to Rosenberg, negotiations are still underway. It is unclear whether or not the building will be demolished, but it would be highly unlikely.

The College wasn’t available for comment. However, from her meetings with representatives from the College, Rosenberg was able to give information concerning what steps the school will take moving forward. The College’s current focus is removing students from the space.

“Unfortunately, things are really in flux right now,” Rosenberg said in an email to the Review. “It’s very unclear what’s going to happen, as negotiations are still actively underway. We certainly don’t have all the information, and I cannot pretend to be privy to all of Oberlin College’s motivations.”

The College’s final plans regarding the Old Barrows Co-op remain unclear.

The Oberlin Review — Established 1874 —

Volume 145, 140, Number 17 2

(ISSN 297–256)

March 4, 2016

Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods.

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The Oberlin Review, March 4, 2016

Page 3

Off the Cuff: Jim Collins, Professor of English, Film, TV, Theatre Jim Collins is acting dean for the arts, a professor of film, television and theatre and concurrent professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, where he teaches courses on postmodernism, media theory and digital culture. He is the author of Uncommon Cultures: Popular Culture and Postmodernism, Architecture of Excess: Cultural Life in the Information Age and most recently Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture. His next book in progress is called Playlist Culture.

On Thursday, he came to campus and gave a talk titled “How Reading Matters in a Digital Age: BuzzFeed Books, David Bowie’s Library, and the Pleasures of eLiterary Culture.”

Today it seems that many people engage with media primarily for entertainment purposes.

How can we move beyond what we like or dislike in a particular piece of media and get at what we can learn from it instead?

It used to be that when we were talking about popular culture in an intellectual context, there was a lot of resistance. There was the sense that, first of all, popular text or entertainment wasn’t worthy of that kind of scrutiny, that that should be reserved for top-shelf literature.

As time wore on, I’ve found that you can talk about film classics or literary masterpieces in the classroom, and as soon as you started talking to students about what they were really watching or reading, they had very smart observations. They weren’t just saying, “I like it,” or “I didn’t like it.” I just had this great conversation over lunch about graphic novels, about television serials, about the relationship between different types of narrative. What would it have been like if Dune was a television show instead of a failed motion two-hour film?

What I was struck by in this informal conversation was the really fascinating insights about narrativity that the students had. Do certain kinds of stories work better as twohour film or as a 60-hour television series? If that was the case, how do we make those kinds of judgments?

What are some of the strategies we use while reading “hightier” literature that we can apply to other types of media we consume?

For something like The Great Gatsby, it’s probably read by a greater percentage of the American public than many other books. It’s really due to the fact that people are expected to read that in high school. They’re supposed to engage in close analysis, which is still the most favored method of analysis when we’re talking about literary masterpieces within a high school and greater academic context. You appreciate the style, you appreciate the point-of-view structure, and there are many things to be learned from that close analysis. And you can apply close analysis to popular text. But then you have to talk about how, since the borders of the text aren’t set … you have these endlessly fluid narrative borders. Then you have to start asking different kinds of questions. You have to go beyond close analysis and ask: what drives or animates this particular retelling of the story? For which audience is that being conceived? How is it changing the narrative in terms of making it meet the needs of a particular audience?

A lot of print media is dying out and being transferred online. How do you feel that readers have affected print culture and the culture of reading more generally?

If we’re talking about eliterary culture, which is literary experiences online, then we really have to

Thursday, Feb. 25 12:31 a.m. Safety and Security officers were requested to assist an intoxicated student outside of Wilder Hall. After officers spoke to the student, and the student was escorted to Barrows Hall for the night.

1:43 p.m. An officer on patrol observed an ambulance at Dascomb Hall. Officers met with paramedics who were called to assist an ill staff member. The individual was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital by ambulance.

4:40 p.m. Staff reported a vehicle accident in the west Service Building parking lot. The driver of a College vehicle was backing out and turned too short, accidentally hitting a dumpster. There were no injuries.

Jim Collins, professor of film, television and theatre and concurrent professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, spoke Thursday at Oberlin.

think outside the box of the either/ or. And unfortunately, a lot of the debate about e-readers is always set in terms of either you read the wood-pulp version of the book or you read the ebook, and which one is better. I think that’s really shortsighted, because it ends up being so much of an either/or. The argument that ebooks, because they’re on a digital device, automatically lead to a reading within a state of distractibility — where you can always get distracted and go and check your email or something like that — is really oversimplified. What we find is that with John Green fans, for instance, they might be reading The Fault in Our Stars in a traditional book format or they might be reading it as an ebook, but they’ll probably be going to YouTube to watch the Vlogbrothers videos and they’ll probably be going to Tumblr to look at John Green’s page.

In principle, it’s easier than ever before for people to get their work into the world — click a button and it’s up on the internet. But does that ease of distribution and

9:37 p.m. Safety and Security officers were requested to assist a student at DeCafé who slipped on ice and hit their head on the sidewalk. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Friday, Feb. 26 1:48 a.m. Safety and Security officers were requested to assist a student who injured their finger while playing rugby at Williams Field House. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Saturday, Feb. 27 12:19 p.m. A resident of a Village Housing unit on Woodland Street reported unknown persons spray painting the exterior of the house. A work order was filed for removal of the graffiti.

access come with its own set of problems?

People are always going to worry that the ease is going to lead to a diminishing of standards. The common complaint you hear is that sure, there’s a lot of fanfiction out there and fanfiction sites, and it’s very easy for practically anyone to write a fanfiction; all you need to do is grab characters from a favorite book or film and go to town with creating your own further adventures. That qualitative argument in itself involves some problems. For example, if you’ve got a hundred different novels about Darcy, are any of them going to be as good as Jane Austen’s? It depends on what you mean by good.

There’s certainly the appeal of trying to update Jane Austen; there’s The Jane Austen Book Club, for instance, which had a great deal of appeal, because the whole point of that book is how Jane Austen speaks to us within a contemporary context. Is it as well written as the original novels?

Probably not. But does that mean it doesn’t continue to enrich those books, and continue to demonstrate the relevance of those books?

Sunday , Feb. 28 1:19 a.m. Safety and Security officers were requested to assist a student, ill from alcohol consumption, in the first floor lounge of Talcott Hall. The student responded to their name and was able to answer all questions asked. The student was transported to their dorm room for the night.

2:08 a.m. The Oberlin Police Department reported six individuals pulling on the door handles of a security vehicle parked on the west side of Langston Hall.

When officers approached, the individuals ran south through the north quad area. The vehicle was not damaged.

1:47 a.m. Safety and Security officers were requested to assist a student, ill from alcohol consumption, on the second floor of Langston Hall. The student was able to answer all questions asked and was escorted to their room for the night.

Switching gears here — how do you take an idea and then transform that into a research topic or a book?

Usually it starts with something I’m really intrigued by. Like with the topic of BuzzFeed Books.

I was really intrigued by BuzzFeed Books as so deep in the heart of digital culture; they make no claims about literary pedigree; they are certainly something that is otherwise in the realm of the poppiest of pop culture, and yet [they are] deeply committed to the value of literary reading. BuzzFeed Books are saying, “These are the books you should read. These are the books your boyfriend should read. These are the books that if you read Harry Potter you should read. Or if you liked these books in high school or didn’t like these books in high school, this is what you should read instead.” I was so intrigued by that idea that is so far away from the classroom and academy. It’s smack-dab in the heart of digital popular culture where you would least expect to find a deep commitment to literary reading — there it was.

One of the best features they did recently was on David Bowie’s library, Why David Bowie’s library itself became such a topic of discussion. David Bowie is not someone who I would think of as a great literary figure. On the other hand, he was a voracious reader, and what do we do with that?

I start with something that I’m intrigued by, and say, “OK, well, what does that suggest about literary value or about the conversation about why literary reading remains so important, even within the range of all different sorts of digital entertainment?”

Interview by Adam Gittin, News editor Photo Courtesy of Stacey Stewart

10 a.m. A Safety and Security officer on patrol observed a light pole on the south side of Philips gym lying on the ground. A maintenance technician responded and capped the wires at the base of the pole.

Monday, Feb. 29 11:30 a.m. Philips gym staff reported a broken window at Williams Field House.

The window, located on the west side of the building, was completely shattered. The damage appeared to have occurred from inside the field house. A work order was filed for repair.

Tuesday, March. 2 6:57 p.m. A fire alarm was activated in a Woodland Street Village Housing unit. An officer responded and located the detector, which was deemed to be dirty. The necessary repairs were made.

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The Oberlin Review, March 4, 2016

Carlyle Flower Shop Flourishes Under Morrison, Toss Vida Weisblum Managing Editor Lorraine Morrison loves kites. “They’re wonderful,” she says, a glimpse of amazement in her eye as she paints the air with her palms. The owner of Carlyle Flower Shop at 17 West College Street knew just what would add character to her store, even if former owner Grace Harlow disapproved of her kites.

Morrison is reserved and deliberate in her speech, but her memory is vivid. She knows Oberlin better than most. Her flower shop, nestled between other historic shops like Gibson’s Bakery and Ben Franklin’s Five and Dime, has been a staple in the city for 81 years and has flourished through many iterations and evolutions. According to Morrison’s sister Francine Toss, the store will retroactively honor its 80-year milestone sometime in 2016.

From the look of Carlyle’s big pink awning and inviting window displays, it’s clear that what lies within is warm and welcoming. The store’s resident shelties Misty and Molly greet customers, shepherd them to the florists at the back of the store and receive treats in return. Toss and Morrison credit many of their friendships to their pets.

Carlyle’s cozy walls are lined with greeting cards, gifts of all sorts and festive decorations. A human-sized chocolate Easter bunny sits atop a table next to a bin of chocolate eggs. The women who work there are equally warm and inviting; they thrive by fostering a sense of community.

Carlyle has been owned and operated by women ever since it opened in 1935. Its original owner, Rachel Rowdan, ran the business from an upstairs room at the Oberlin Inn until 1950, when it was purchased by Peggy Glass and moved to the Martin Inn on East College Street. After Pauline Habecker bought the store in the late ’50s, the business traveled around, making its home at 21 East College Street next to the Apollo Theater, then at 42 South Main Street, where The Oberlin News-Tribune offices are currently located.

The store then migrated to 27 West College, which is currently home to the restaurant Tooo Chinoise after Harlow and her sister Elizabeth Martin bought the business.

In 1986, the Gibson family, which has operated Gibson’s Bakery since 1905, purchased

that building, giving Morrison and her sister leave to purchase the shop. Morrison, who had just retired from her job with the Lorain school system, moved the store to its current location at 17 West College Street. With that, her new career began to flower.

Before putting roots down in Oberlin, Morrison attended Muskingum University and the graduate program at Kent State University. Her sister began graduate studies in teaching at Oberlin College in 1969, establishing herself within the small college town.

A teacher and later principal in Eastwood Local School District, where she is now a librarian, Toss knew the store well and often stopped by with her sister, becoming rather close with former owner Harlow.

“We loved it,” Morrison said. “We’ve always liked their gift items. We got along very well with Grace Harlow, the owner at the time.”

The women were also fond of the store’s holiday open house — a tradition they have continued throughout the years.

“In going to [the open house] we got to know her, got to know everything about [the store], and we thought it was a wonderful experience,” Morrison said. “It became available and we just sort of decided it would be a fun thing to do.”

Since their purchase, the women have seen visitors from all parts of town. Students, Oberlin residents and tourists all frequent the shop, bringing with them a variety of requests.

“It almost has a Cracker Barrel effect,” Toss told me, jokingly. “They talk, and they talk, and they talk. They share ideas, they share their plans and their wishes. We help them fulfill those wishes.”

According to Morrison, the store boasts an impressive variety of flowers in comparison to other stores in the area, with lilies and roses being the most popular. Gerber daisy sales have also spiked in recent years. “[The flowers] are from all over the world,” Morrison said. “[We have] just about everything that grows. Always a very, very nice selection.”

Not only does the store cater to weddings, baby showers and funerals, but it also routinely works with Oberlin College’s arts departments, providing flower designs for recitals, the Allen Memorial art museum and various events.

Gifts and cards line the shelves of Carlyle Flower Shop. The store’s longtime owners plan to celebrate Carlyle’s 80th anniversary this year.

Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

Karen Buckingham, a designer at the store, emphasized the diversity of design opportunity as a virtue of being located on a small campus. “[Carlyle Shop] is very versatile because of the College,” she said. “You have large orders, you have small orders, you have presentation bouquets, you have the artists’ recitals, and there’s always something going on. I’ve worked in other flower shops, but you seem to have more opportunity even with the students, who are from all over, with the large body of different kinds of flowers we carry.”

Carlyle Shop is used to adapting to its customers needs. Toss said the store tends to watch for trends within the town and provides gifts and items other stores might not carry.

Since people now entertain less formally, they’ve adopted a more casual aesthetic, she added.

“We’re doing more boutique things,” Toss said. “When we bought the shop, they weren’t doing any of that.”

Toss herself designs handmade albino squirrel cards and appeared enthusiastic about an exclusive T-shirt that she had designed. Her sister emphasized Toss’s zeal for

Charley Harper designs. “She goes nuts over Charley Harper,” Morrison said. Morrison’s son, a photographer, has designed photo cards that are handmade in the store.

Morrison added that the store has changed a great deal since it first placed kites in its windows.

“What we’re finding right now is that people aren’t so much into gift-giving,” she said.

“But they’re more into gift cards. And we’re sort of hoping that maybe it’ll turn a little bit, because we believe in the gift-giving.”

The women remain close friends with neighboring business owners who have also enjoyed many years in downtown Oberlin.

“We all know each other and get along and help each other out,” Morrison said.

Both women emphasized that community is the reason the store keeps thriving.

“We have a longstanding policy of non-profit provision for churches,” Morrison wrote in a letter. “We have cared for and mentored not only youth but the elderly. We are there for the important moments in our customers’ lives. … We even provided a full Thanksgiving dinner for athletes who couldn’t get home for Thanksgiving. We are there even if you just want to come in and talk. The important part is that we listen.”

Gun Control Legislation Seeks to Erradicate ‘Victim Zones’ Continued from page 1 that gun-free zones are somehow ‘victim zones,’ there is no evidence that the places identified in the bill are particularly dangerous (or more dangerous) compared to places where Concealed Carry of Weapons (CCW) is permitted,” OSC said in an email to the Review.

The group said they believed that the previous CCW legislation, passed in 2004, recognized that certain establishments were inappropriate for CCW. “Victim zones,” as gun advocates often call gun-free zones, are less likely to be targeted by criminals, and CCW laws have been shown to increase violent crime and numbers of shootings, OSC said.

Rev. Dr. John Elder, OC ’53, Honorary Trustee of Oberlin College, has been actively fighting the bill. In his testimony against House Bill 48, Elder discussed the “No Guns” signs on the doors of First Church and the Kendal Early Learning Center, saying that while signs like these would serve to protect establishments, there is no guarantee that citizens would abide by them.

He also expressed worry about

backlash from gun-advocacy groups for spaces to openly accept concealed carry weapons.

“Under present law a person carrying a gun illegally into restricted places is subject to arrest on the charge of misdemeanor of the first degree and, if there are aggravating circumstances, of felony,” Elder said in his testimony. “The proposed legislation would not only drastically reduce the number of prohibited places but also reduce any violation to a minor misdemeanor.”

Some gun carriers have argued that current laws overly restrict their right to bear arms.

“If a gun carrier is not able to understand and abide by the present restrictions, does it really make sense to remove the restrictions? Doesn’t that increase the risk of carelessness turning into a tragedy?” Elder said.

Elder holds that the bill is unsound in its reasoning and will not benefit citizens of Ohio. In a letter addressed to Sen. Manning, Elder said that in the long run, it will only serve to further endanger people because of an increase in legal firearms on the street. The bill also has no way of regulating the usage of firearms under

the influence of drugs, alcohol or any temporary distress that could cause an overreaction, Elder said.

In December 2014, House Bill 234 was signed into law, cutting the training hours required for a CCW permit from 12 to 8. Amid further attempts to reduce training hours, OSC has been working with other gun violence prevention groups in an attempt to prove the potential dangers of House Bill 48.

“HB 48 seeks to clean up issues with the original concealed carry legislation by facilitating lawful gun ownership and making it possible for a licensed concealed carry permit holder to carry without undue hardship, preventing law-abiding citizens from unintended violations,” Sen. Manning said.

Linda Slocum, Oberlin’s City Council Vice President, cited the city of Oberlin’s Bill of Rights when she expressed her disagreement with the bill.

“It affirms local control in protection of our health, safety and welfare.

Although this ordinance was passed specifically with fracking and the natural gas industry in mind, the principles of home rule as set forth in the Ohio Constitution certainly resound

with Oberlin residents in regard to gun issues,” said Slocum.

On Feb. 19, Sen. Manning held a meeting at the Oberlin Public Library.

John Elder, Linda Slocum and representatives from Ohioans for Safe Communities were among those in attendance. During the meeting, Sen. Manning said that she had been in–––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“If a gun carrier is not able to understand and abide by the present restrictions, does it really make sense to remove the restrictions? Doesn’t that increase the risk of carelessness turning into a tragedy?”

Rev. Dr. John Elder OC ’53, Honorary Trustee of Oberlin College ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– formed in a conceal carry weapons class that no crimes in Ohio had been committed by a CCW license holder.

Elder and Slocum pointed out that the sheriff who instructed the class was misinformed, citing statistics from the Violence Policy Center’s website. According to OCS, over the past couple of years, 22 fatal incidents that occurred in Ohio and were committed by CCW license holders were not in self-defense but the result of an accident, suicide or a homicide.

Elder, along with his wife Anne Elder, OC ’53, have been gathering signatures on petitions to amend the Ohio Constitution to allow municipalities to adopt their own gun regulations.

“Notwithstanding the provisions of Section 3 of this Article, the powers of local self-government and the police powers of every municipality shall include the power to adopt and enforce within their limits local regulations restricting the possession, sale, transfer, transport, use or storage of any firearm, so long as such local regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the proposed amendment states. “No general law adopted by the General Assembly shall supersede, preempt or override such municipal firearms regulations.”

Opinions The Oberlin Review

March 4, 2016

Letter to the Editors Oberlin Must Embrace New Era of Divestment To the Editors: It is remarkable to be on a college campus that has three simultaneous divestment campaigns.

Students at Oberlin are encouraging the administration to sell its stock holdings in three harmful, unjust industries: fossil fuel extraction and combustion, private prisons and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Divestment is a tactic designed to publicly stigmatize profiting corporations; it has limited economic impact on the targets, but its power comes from the statement made by severing ties with condemnable business.

At the Board of Trustees’ March 4 meeting, trustees can discuss once again whether the College is willing to make those statements.

Divestment is not new to Oberlin’s campus. A generation ago, students urged the administration to sell the College’s stock in companies with business invested in the apartheid system of South Africa. Dismantling the apartheid

regime and promoting peace ultimately came from within, but the outside support that flooded in when institutions worldwide divested was critical to the success.

It took Oberlin nearly 10 years, three generations of students and many prolonged and coordinated actions to divest its endowment from the targeted companies, making Oberlin one of the last institutions to divest from South African businesses.

In this new era of divestment, we do not expect victory to take so long. The group of students working towards fossil fuel divestment submitted a proposal in March of 2015, and in November of the same year we received word that Oberlin College was not holding stock of the type we specified in the top 12 carbon-emitting companies. Thus, the Board couldn’t divest as per our proposal, but affirmed its commitment to honoring its objectives.

In response, the fossil fuel divestment team revised our proposal to be more rigorous and in line with the national fossil fuel divestment movement that other colleges are pursuing; we intensified the number of targeted corporations from the “dirty dozen” to the top 200 carbon-emitting corporations. The

Board of Trustees has the power to accept or reject this proposal and will hopefully be addressing it at this week’s meeting.

Around the world, divestment is gaining traction once again; in the last month alone, the Black Student Union at California State University, Los Angeles announced its private prison divestment victory, and the mayor of Copenhagen launched plans to divest the city’s $950 million investment fund from all coal, oil and gas corporations. We hope Oberlin will be next in the growing list of momentous divestors, but regardless of the decisions made this week, we ask the College and community to stand with us to either celebrate or redouble efforts to pass this important divestment motion.

– Cecilia Wallace College first-year – Naomi Roswell College sophmore – Hayden Arp Double-degree junior – Jasper Clarkberg College junior – Ellie Lezak College junior

Karega-Mason’s Facebook Posts Anti-Semitic Abraham Socher Associate Professor of Religion Director of Jewish Studies As a Jew, a historian of Judaism and a faculty member, I was outraged when I read David Gertsman’s story in The Tower, “Oberlin Professor Claims Israel Was Behind 9/11, ISIS, Charlie Hebdo Attack” (Feb. 25), which provided screenshots of several of Professor of Rhetoric and Composition Joy Karega-Mason’s Facebook posts.

In those posts, Professor Karega-Mason claims, among other things, that Israel and super rich “Rothschild-led banksters” were behind 9/11, the Malaysian Airlines flight shot down over Ukraine, the Charlie Hebdo attacks and, in fact, all of ISIS. The first thing to say is that these were posts for her friends, not lectures to her students, and, no doubt, she intended for them to stay that way.

But that isn’t the only thing to say. The College immediately noted that, while it respects the right of faculty members to express their personal views, these posts “do not represent the views of Oberlin College.” Since no one thought otherwise, that can’t be all there is to say. President Marvin Krislov’s recent column From the President’s Desk, “The Mission of Liberal Arts Education,” comes

closer when he writes: “The screenshots affected me on a very personal level. … Members of our family were murdered in the Holocaust. As someone who has studied history, I cannot comprehend how any person could or would question its existence, its horrors, and the evil which caused it. I feel the same way about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Regardless of the reason for spreading these materials, they cause pain for many people — members of our community and beyond.”

The point about Holocaust denial may lead us slightly astray. As far as I can tell, none of the published screenshots of Professor Karega-Mason’s posts deny the Holocaust, though at least one seems to express contempt for its survivors. But anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are what is at issue. I want to focus not on how such paranoid fantasies make anyone — including me — feel, but on what they are and where they come from.

The most infamous of these conspiracy theories was The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a bizarre, incoherent transcript of supposed secret meetings by powerful, shadowy Jews plotting to take over the world by manipulating the world economy and fomenting war. It drew on 19thSee Professor’s, page 7

SUBMISSIONS POLICY The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and column submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board.

All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at opinions@oberlinreview.org or Wilder Box 90 for inclusion in the following Friday’s Review. Letters may not exceed 600 words and columns may not exceed 800 words, except with the consent of the Editorial Board. All submissions must include contact information, with full names, for all signers. All electronic submissions from multiple writers should be carbon-copied to all signers to confirm authorship.

The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for content, space, spelling, grammar and libel. Editors will work with columnists and contributors to edit pieces and will clear major edits with the authors prior to publication. Editors will contact authors of letters to the editors in the event of edits for anything other than style and grammar. In no case will editors change the opinions expressed in any submission.

The Opinions section strives to serve as a forum for debate. Review staff will occasionally engage in this debate within the pages of the Review. In these cases, the Review will either seek to create dialogue between the columnist and staff member prior to publication or will wait until the next issue to publish the staff member’s response.

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Opinions expressed in letters, columns, essays, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of the Review.

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The Oberlin Review Publication of Record for Oberlin College — Established 1874 —

Editors-in-Chief Julian Ring Madeline Stocker Managing Editor Vida Weisblum Opinions Editor Kiley Petersen

HB 48 Would Threaten Safety, Wellbeing on Campus “Guns Everywhere” is the apt nickname for the Ohio House Bill 48, which passed the House of Representatives on Nov. 17 and was introduced to the State Senate a day later. If passed, HB 48 would allow concealed-carry guns on college campuses and daycares, among other places like school safety zones and police stations.

After a public meeting on Friday, Feb. 19 with Ohio Senator Gayle Manning, Oberlin City Council is in the process of drafting a resolution opposing the relaxed gun restrictions. At the meeting, which occurred in the Oberlin Public Library, City Council Vice President Linda Slocum responded to Sen. Manning: “We believe we have a right to define the tenor of our community.”

Amid national debate about gun rights, mass school shootings, mental health issues and militarized police violence, the bill may come as a surprise to advocates of gun control. Just five days ago there was a school shooting that injured four at Madison Junior/ Senior High School in Middletown, outside of Cincinnati. And we’re not even a year and a half past 12-year-old Tamir Rice’s murder in Cleveland at the hands of Officer Timothy Loehmann. More guns on the sidewalks of college campuses and in daycare centers might seem like a protective measure for our vulnerable youth population, but more often than not, an increase in firearms will lead to an increase in violence.

Recently there has been debate as to whether colleges should act as intellectual safe spaces, but there has always been consensus about the physical safety of campuses. The mere existence of Safety and Security as a campus-specific police backs this up. Despite this ideal vision, campuses can be unsafe for many students.

Sexual assault and violence are common across all institutions of higher learning in the U.S., and administrations often fail to remove rapists and assaulters from campus. For many students of –––––––––––––––––––––––––––————————————––––

More guns on the sidewalks of college campuses and in daycare centers might seem like a protective measure for our vulnerable youth population, but more often than not, an increase in firearms will lead to an increase in violence.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––—————————————— color at Oberlin, specifically Black students, the targeted discrimination of Safety and Security officers is reminiscent of a history of regulation and criminalization by the police. It is unreasonable to assume that violence doesn’t occur on college campuses, just as it is unreasonable to expect that Safety and Security can protect everyone.

Allowing concealed carry on campus would ultimately be detrimental to the purpose of academia. Students should be concerned about exams, not in fear that someone on campus is carrying a concealed weapon. Campus security cannot be everywhere at once in case of a violent altercation. Oberlin is already a stressful and oftentimes triggering environment — and if HB 48 passed, it could be even more stressful, especially for those who have a history of trauma surrounding gun violence.

Mental health is a popular topic on campus, with everything from the Student Health Working Group to The Grape’s series on student mental health commenting on issues of access to mental health treatment and appropriate classroom accommodations.

With Student Health and the Counseling Center already straining to provide adequate and supportive care to the existing issues on campus, how would the community respond to the additional stress that stems from potential gun violence? The Editorial Board strongly supports Oberlin City Council’s opposition to HB 48.

Editorials are the responsibility of the Review Editorial Board — the Editors-in-Chief, managing editor and Opinions editor — and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

Opinions

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The Oberlin Review, March 4, 2016

Community Service Should Be Required for All Students Anjali Kolachalam Contributing Writer For a while now, I’ve been wondering what happened to “labor.” It’s part of our motto, “Learning and Labor,” but not really part of our day-to-day lives as students. Yes, labor in the time of the College’s founding meant working at the College in lieu of tuition, which isn’t really feasible today. However, we need to start modernizing the principle to push ourselves and the College in a new direction. In other words, I strongly believe that there should be a community service requirement.

We are encouraged to study fields all over the academic spectrum, from natural science to Comparative American Studies. Yet, with the exception of Day of Service, Interfaith Day of Service, and the Bonner Center of Service and Learning, there is no institutional push for most students to be involved in the community. I don’t mean to say that there aren’t amazing students activists and student organizations making the community better. But all Oberlin students, we’re told, are passionate about making the world a better place.

We should put our money where our mouths are by improving the Oberlin community around us.

One of the most compelling reasons that service should be considered an essential part of undergraduate education is the benefit it has for personal well-

being. According to Alexander Astin and Linda Sax’s research done at 42 undergraduate institutions, published in The Lancet, community service improved academic standing, life skills and sense of civic engagement. In other words, working with the community can make nearly every aspect of life at Oberlin better.

These programs can help students with leadership skills and can help make this campus feel less lonely and isolating.

I understand the risks of having an uninterested party working for something just to get the requirement out of the way, yet there are few Oberlin students who don’t care about improving the world around them. I’m not saying apathetic people don’t exist, but I am saying that maybe those are the people who would benefit most from the requirement. Maybe they would learn to love giving back.

A large part of making this work will be a shift in campus culture, a shift where we as a group spend less time thinking about our problems within the Oberlin bubble and think more about the issues outside of it.

We need to make this not just a personal commitment, but an institutional commitment. It is not enough to say that these are important issues that need to be solved; the College and the students need to start finding the common ground to do it.

In the Strategic Plan, there is a call to “further develop opportunities for students to be involved in

Tinder’s Appeal Lies in Ambiguous Use CJ Blair Columnist Nothing captures the vexing emotional landscape of college better than Tinder. It’s an app that’s elegant in its simplicity, but its effects are totally scattershot. It is awkwardly situated between the realms of online dating and hookup culture and it never settles on either side. Maybe this ambiguity is what draws over 50 million people to swipe left and right incessantly, looking for anything from gratification to a long-term relationship. Tinder’s wide range of purposes and the disparate goals of those who swipe ensure it stays an emblem of the millennial college experience. This, I believe, is what makes it so popular.

Tinder is an app where you make a profile with several pictures of yourself and a short bio saying whatever you like. Once you’ve made your profile, you enter a pool of other users and can view their profiles one by one. If you like what you see, you swipe right; otherwise, you go left.

“Swipe left” and “swipe right” have practically become idioms in this generation, and the ubiquity of these phrases hints at how much can happen as a result of a swipe.

It takes no mental exertion to swipe on Tinder. I doubt many Obies could really put into words why they swipe the way they do, beyond saying, “They were cute.” What happens next is harder. Should two people swipe right on each other and match, the passive act of swiping creates the potential for interaction. This can range from starting a boring conversation to asking for a date to flat-out soliciting sex. Whatever the pair decides to do, the fact that they’ve matched reveals the turning point where Tinder sheds its passivity and attempts to force its algorithms on the nuance of romance.

This is what I realized when I started using Tinder myself. I was newly single in my first year at Oberlin, and it sounded like Tinder was the new way to express your romantic interests. After I made an account and began swiping, I started to get matches.

Then I froze — I had no idea what to do next. Now I could start conversations, but what could I say when our only commonality was swiping right to pictures of each other?

This led me to my first impression of Tinder: It’s a shortcut to awkward eye contact with strangers. When I saw a match in public, I was less inclined to talk to them than I might have been otherwise. With only a few exceptions, this has been my experience with Tinder. Above all else, I became uncertain of my footing in the real world as I continued to meddle in a virtual one. A couple of friends told me it has led to hookups, and some even have had successful relationships, but most of the people I’ve spoken to saw results like mine.

If many people on Tinder are stockpiling matches with no clear purpose, then why bother joining? I would say it’s due to Tinder’s ability to create a false sense of connection between its users. In the most literal sense, Tinder puts a face to a person’s desire. You can get lost in a slew of headshots and feel like seeking romance isn’t such a lonely endeavor. The variety of effects that Tinder can have also lets you keep your intention unclear, though this illusion is shattered, of course, when you get a match and realize that talking to someone you find attractive is a solo effort.

Tinder is nothing if not ambiguous, and this ambiguity can be quite appealing to college students. I was certainly enticed by a potential avenue for romance that could be both cryptic and effective. If the goal of users is to explore the possibilities of romance by accruing matches, perhaps Tinder fits the bill. Yet for all the unique desires it can fulfill, Tinder will never replace old-fashioned fumbling interactions with your crush.

Maybe it represents new expectations for social interaction, and perhaps it’s important for my generation to explore the boundaries of a brand-name romance fixated on ambiguity. As for me, I think I’ll return to something more vintage.

civic engagement in Oberlin, Lorain County and greater northeast Ohio.” If the institution is serious about developing more civic engagement, then having a re–––––––––––––––––––––––––––—————————–

A large part of making this work will be a shift in campus culture, a shift where we as a group spend less time thinking about our problems within the Oberlin bubble and think more about the issues outside of it.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––—————————– quirement would be in line with these priorities. I realize not many of our “peer institutions” have these types of requirements, but Oberlin often brags about breaking new ground.

There is so much good work that needs to be done and we have so many students with the skill sets to do it. I know that students are busy enough already and I know that classes can be hard and time-consuming.

But adding an hour a week to your schedule to do something that helps other people is completely attainable, especially when it can do so much good for students overall. Having a service requirement would be good for students, fulfill an institutional priority and create a positive shift in campus culture.

GOP’s Failure in 2016 Would Create Seismic Shift in American Politics Sean Para Columnist The 2016 election is increasingly revealing the seismic shifts that have taken place in American politics over the past decades, as well as the possibility of a new political order. Donald Trump’s surge to the front of the race for the Republican nomination may fracture the GOP for generations to come. An unexpected groundswell of support for Trump’s campaign also displays the strong undercurrents of racism and other forms of prejudice found in the contemporary U.S. A year ago, I never would have believed that a man who openly and regularly makes racist and sexist remarks, has no government experience, speaks only in vague generalities with no concrete policy details and was hesitant to reject the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke would be the leading nominee for president. That Trump could win seven states in one day shows much deeper support for backward-facing and hateful policies among lower-middle-class white voters than most people were aware of.

Trump has also fractured the Republican party into two opposing wings: moderates who look to the party’s past — Dwight D. Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt — and radical populists like Sarah Palin and Trump. Trump threatens to tear the Republican party apart and drastically alter the future of American politics.

The origin of our modern political alignment is the result of major shifts in the Republican Party during the 1960s.

Before that period, the South had largely been the domain of the Democratic Party, which, until the Civil Rights era, contained both white segregationist and progressive factions. However, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s embrace of the Civil Rights movement in 1964 shattered the party, driving Southern white voters to the Republican Party. Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” won him the presidency in 1968 — with the help of a rebel segregationist party splitting off from the Democrats — and the South remains staunchly Republican to this day, except for a few liberal pockets around Dallas, TX; Austin, TX; Charlotte, NC; and Atlanta, GA. The Democratic Party, in turn,

realigned itself with minorities and labor unions, among other groups, to remain one of the two hegemonic political parties.

The 1960s split within the Democrats is mirrored by today’s schism in the Republican Party. Trump encapsulates all of the racist, populist and radically conservative elements of the party that have emerged from the party’s realignment.

Opposing the radicals like Trump is a traditional Republican establishment, rooted in historical values and conservatism — which has firmly intellectual roots — and a pragmatic and moderate vision for the U.S. The establishment can clearly see that Trump’s rampant alienation of minorities — particularly Hispanic and Muslim voters — as well as women is not a winning strategy for the –––––––––––––––––––––––––––———–

That Trump could win seven states in one day shows much deeper support for backwardfacing and hateful policies among lower-middle-class white voters than most people were aware of.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––———– Republican party. That so many would support Trump exposes an identity crisis for the party that may well result in its complete fracture.

Make no mistake: We are currently witnessing a series of events that could mark a new phase of American politics.

While the Republicans are mired in civil war, the Democrats are rallying around Hillary Clinton, whose strong showing on Super Tuesday solidified her lead.

While Bernie Sanders is still in the running, the Democrats are not facing the same polarization as their rivals. Clinton and Sanders have very different policies, but they are along the same spectrum in many respects. The Democrats and American progressives are in a position to win big in November due to the acrimonious state of the Republican Party.

The Republicans, in turn, may be staring into the void.

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, March 4, 2016

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Krislov’s Response to ABUSUA Demands Weak Taylor Slay Contributing Writer In early 2016, Oberlin President Marvin Krislov decided to respond to a list of demands from ABUSUA, Oberlin’s Black student union, not with action but with words. His Jan. 20 email and From the President’s Desk column both have the same content, which was presented with the inapt title: “Response to Student Demands.”

I initially interpreted this title as attributed to student demands in general, but Krislov’s opening description of the “14 pages of demands for institutional action” hints at the particular demands he is talking about. Given that these are not the first demands presented to Oberlin College and Conservatory since Krislov has been president, let alone the first in the school’s history, it is an interesting omission of specificity that leads us to assume that this particular document presented by ABUSUA and the Africana community is to be made into an example.

Krislov writes that the document “was written against a backdrop of events,” a lackluster depiction of the pertinent issues and realities found at the forefront of the minds of students, alumni, faculty, staff and Oberlin community members who are conscious of anti-Blackness in our everyday lives. We are not divorced from the rest of the world in the so-called “Oberlin bubble,” and we see and are affected by the police brutality and excessive force not only outside of campus but on campus as carried out by the Oberlin

Police Department and Safety and Security — currently lacking a code of conduct — on students and town residents alike. We deal with indiscretions made by our professors, some of whom think it’s humorous to call their students “slaves” or dismiss their students asking for help or reconsideration on the premise of “there’s nothing I can do” or “we’ve always done it this way.”

These are examples of my personal experiences and shared experiences with other Black students on this campus.

The statement Krislov makes about the supposed context of the document is followed by an attempt to condescend; he refers to the necessary and longstanding discussion of systemic racism and injustices frequently held by rightfully concerned community members, faculty, Oberlin citizens, staff and students as “passionate” and “prompted” by the so-called “recent events.” Marvin Krislov referred to the racism and violence plaguing our society the same way only a few semesters ago in his last inadequate address to the dissenting community. Remember, this is not our first time as students, as an Oberlin community, that we are bringing collaborative concerns to Krislov’s administration and getting no love back.

Then, on behalf of the institution, Krislov makes claims to be “deeply committed to addressing these concerns.” If that were the apparent or real case for Oberlin’s constituents, then why does Krislov’s rhetoric suggest that there is indeed tension at work? Anyone with reading glasses and a pulse can see that

Krislov’s use of “frustration” and “desire for change” complicate that “deep commitment.”

Next, he states, “We have already taken important steps on many fronts,” but does not go on to inform us of these attempts, nor does he disclose who makes up the “we” involved in these efforts. He simply says “but we are not where we want to be,” as though the people who compiled and signed the list of demands should be silent in waiting for a transformation rather than actively creating and enforcing the change we seek.

He says that “we commit ourselves to deep study of how systemic barriers persist at Oberlin,” but when the very “faculty, staff, students, trustees, alumni, parents, and fellow citizens of our town” have the audacity to slap answers across his desk to the feigned institutional ignorance, he disrespects us with this. He says that “some of the challenges outlined in the document resonate with [him],” but what does that say about the merit he gives to the challenges that he cannot resonate with?

Krislov shares that the nonnegotiable solutions are so “deeply troubling” to him to the point that he “will not respond directly to any document that explicitly rejects the notion of collaborative engagement.” This is a list of demands that we, as members of the Black Oberlin community, have collaborated on, and we definitely view this as not only a direct response, but as a decidedly uncooperative one. In the past, there have been numerous attempts to collaborate with Krislov’s

administration, but there was often a sentiment of second-class consideration toward our grievances and solutions. Even then, the terms upon which we were allowed to approach these opportunities for change were set by the comfortability of the administration. Understand, this document inclusively reflects the challenges and solutions from many communal and individual realities, representative of a great stretch of Oberlin’s existence as a town, as an institution and as a place of liberal arts and musical education.

He suggests that the demands “contravene principles of shared governance,” but in what ways is the current method of governance held responsible for being reflective and protective of the “dissenting” Africana community now? Even in addressing this letter to students, we are left to wonder how he interpreted the synergetic effort made across all levels of the Africana community as it exists in relation to Oberlin.

The reports referred to by Marvin Krislov as “personal attacks” on faculty and staff that are “dedicated and valued members of the community” should not be dismissed as such because that would be gross neglect of the community members who are bringing these indiscretions to your attention. We take that personally. Jerry Sandusky was an asset to the corporate Pennsylvania State University too, at some point.

But when do the consumers, the students who pay to receive quality education, get to voice complaints about their customer service experiences with faculty, staff and administration and be heard? And is it

already too late for some of us?

President Krislov claims that the mission of the Oberlin community is to provide students with the preparation we need to “flourish in [our] chosen fields of endeavor, to be engaged citizens,” but is he committed to preparing students for those fields that analyze, deconstruct and re-envision the very institution of which he is a figurehead? What about providing faculty to guide us and supplying staff to aid us along the way? Will he have a hand in fostering student engagement among those who seek to reorder the world in which he prospers?

He mentions that Oberlin has evolved “through a consensusdriven process that includes dialogue in which dissenting voices are heard,” which he then says is “central to our educational mission,” but he has already stated that he will not respond directly to this particular document of dissent.

Which one is it, Krislov? Where is the consensus in participating in private meetings with token students while the rest of the community, trying to achieve safety and survival alongside our “academic, artistic, and musical excellence,” is left out of the conversation without a seat at the table?

Marvin Krislov ends with “I look forward to the work and to making progress together,” and we are going to have to hold him to that. My first demand to him is a rearticulation of his flippant email response.

He can do better. We deserve better.

So now that we can call bullshit, are we ready to respond to these fighting words with action?

Professor’s Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories Not Based in Fact Continued from page 5 century French royalist documents and was published by ultra-nationalist Russian anti-Semites in 1903. Henry Ford — and, later, Hitler — promoted it, and it’s still a favorite of cranks worried that a nefarious New World Order is about to take over. As a key anti-Semitic document in the 20th century, The Protocols were instrumental in persecutions, riots and, eventually, genocide. The Protocols conspiracy theory was parallel to — and sometimes combined with — the claim that the Rothschilds, a famous Jewish banking family, were also guilty of planning world domination. A Google search will quickly lead you to claims by neo-Nazis that The Protocols are a “Rothschild handbook,” often focusing on the 87-year-old English philanthropist Jacob Rothschild.

Which brings us back to Professor Karega-Mason’s Facebook posts. In a screenshot of a December 2014 post, she posted a meme of a reptilian-looking Jacob Rothschild — he looks a little like Mr. Burns on The Simpsons — with the text, “Hello there, my name is Jacob Rothschild. My family is worth 500 trillion dollars. We own nearly every central bank in the world. We financed both sides of every war since Napoleon. We own your news, the media, your oil, and your government.” In her post, Professor Karega-Mason comments, “Yep. This family and several others. Which is why I’m not concerned with or interested in any discussions or plans of action that don’t get at things from the top-down.” One can only hope that Professor Karega-Mason is unaware of the actual history of “plans of action” against the nefarious Jews who control the world.

On Oct. 4, in commenting on a news story about the Obama administration’s allocation of funds to Holocaust survivors, Professor Karega-Mason wrote, “One of these days some of My Peoples gonna learn who ALL American presidents work for and why they are chosen and placed in office,” above a picture of Jewish women Holocaust survivors. It turns out that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has determined that one-quarter of

Holocaust survivors residing in the U.S. are living below the poverty line. Apparently, poor 80-something-yearold Jewish women who survived the hell of Nazi death camps are part of the Jewish cabal that controls President Obama.

Last January, Professor Karega-Mason posted a meme of a black-masked fighter, with JSIL (rather than ISIL) tattooed on his forearm beneath a Jewish Star, pulling off a fleshy Netanyahu mask (the image may be indebted to neo-Aryan occult theories of Jews as nonhuman “shapeshifters”). The legend reads “France wants to free Palestine? Time for a false flag.” In the course of her comment endorsing this calumny — which would require, among other things, that Amed Coulibaly murdered four Parisian Jews as they shopped for the Sabbath on Israeli orders — Professor Karega-Mason ridicules free speech as an “ideological construct,” and says: “Try generating a similar kind of satire attacking Zionism. I dare you. And I didn’t say attacking Jews. I said attacking Zionism. But let some tell it, an attack on Zionism is an attack on Jews.

It’s anti-semitic, so they say. Total nonsense.”

Since, in this very post, Professor Karega-Mason had no trouble at all finding an anti-Zionist “satire” more demonizing, vicious and humorless than anything ever published in Charlie Hebdo, this is not a very good argument. This is not to speak of the fact that she posted an image of a duplicitous, shape-shifting Jew with a Magen David tattoo who is apparently the unique embodiment of evil in the world.

Professor Karega-Mason is certainly right that there is both a historical and a conceptual distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, though it is also true that the two are not mutually exclusive. As with other hatreds, sometimes defensible political opposition becomes indistinguishable from indefensible group hatred, and sometimes politics is simply an excuse for hatred.

Does Jacob Rothschild, whose family has been in England for generations, run the Mossad? And just where do the poor, aged Holocaust survivors to whom the Obama administration must apparently pay obeisance fit in?

To be clear, I do not contest Professor Karega-Mason’s right to say whatever she wants on Facebook or anywhere else, her own skepticism about freedom of speech notwithstanding. But anyone who is tempted to think that what she has said was not anti-Semitic or can be creatively contextualized away ought to think about what would constitute anti-Semitic speech, and whether they would apply such alibis or restrictive, ahistorical definitions to any other form of hate speech. Perhaps a simpler way to put it is this: the Rothschild meme seems to have –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––—–

As with other hatreds, sometimes defensible political opposition becomes indistinguishable from indefensible group hatred, and sometimes politics is simply an excuse for hatred.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––— originated on neo-Nazi websites. Did it somehow become less repellant when Professor Karega-Mason posted it on her Facebook page? And, if so, why?

As it happens, the State Department has defined antiSemitism. Its second example is: “Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as a collective — especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

But perhaps I’m forgetting for whom all American presidents, and presumably all State Departments, work.

In my 16 years at Oberlin College, I have never publicly criticized a colleague. But it seems to me that to look quickly away from Professor Karega-Mason’s posts without explaining exactly what is wrong with them would be to confirm that Oberlin College is indifferent to — or at least very squeamish about — anti-Semitism. I would prefer to think otherwise.

COWHAUS FROM THE INSIDE LOCALLY

MADE

Images courtesy of Creative

MAKING THE ICE CREAM Cowhaus Creamery is located on East College Street, but the ice cream it serves begins its journey a little farther away. Cowhaus ice cream is made from locally sourced ingredients just 10 miles from Oberlin. The owners of Cowhaus, Debby Krejsa and Josef Bomback, were able to find an old dairy mart in Elyria and convert it into an ice cream factory.

To make its ice cream delicious, Cowhaus tries to use only seasonal ingredients. These ingredients can be anything from apples to a wide range of berries. The spices change from season to season, though maple is one of the more common ingredients.

CREATING COWHAUS Krejsa and Bomback always wanted to start a business together. The couple talked about opening a restaurant or a bed and breakfast, but after they took an ice cream-making class in Wisconsin, Cowhaus was born. After doing much research and flavor-testing, Krejsa and Bomback opened Cowhaus Creamery in September 2011.

CHANGES OVER TIME Krejsa says it’s sometimes challenging to run a small business in Oberlin. Everyone knows about The Feve and the shops on Main Street, but it’s harder to operate around the corner.

With the Lewis Gateway Center construction across the street as part of the Green Arts District, Cowhaus has been affected by a lack of parking space. But Krejsa is hopeful that the new development will be a huge benefit in the long run.

Text by Zane Markosian

Commons

CALENDAR Guest Recital: Gábor Farkas, Piano Friday, March 4, 8–10 p.m.

Warner Concert Hall A graduate of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Budapest, Gábor Farkas is an award-winning concert pianist. He will perform at Carnegie Hall on March 10. If you are at all interested in piano, stop by. His brilliance might inspire you.

New Works Festival: I Do It So It

Feels Like Hell

Friday, March 4–5, 8 p.m., March 6, 2 p.m.

Little Theatre Come see this play to explore the many dimensions of mental illness, womanhood and artistic expression. I Do It will dive into Sylvia Plath’s life, celebrating her literary contribution and revealing a side of her you may have never seen before.

Danez Smith Poetry Workshop Saturday, March 5, 2–3:15 p.m.

Cat in the Cream Attend this writing workshop and explore those weird little things that make you tick. The workshop is designed to alleviate writers block by providing new direction and guidance.

Info Session: Oberlin Law Scholars Program Tuesday, March 8, 4:30–5:30 p.m.

K ing 121 If you are thinking of applying to law school, come to this info session. The Oberlin Law Scholars program offers scholarships to students interested in law and is open to all rising sophomores and juniors.

Oberlin Shansi Fellowships Info Session Wednesday, March 9, 12–1 p.m.

K ing 101 If you are interested in living China, India, Indonesia or Japan, come to this informational meeting to learn how you can get a fellowship through Oberlin Shansi.

Fellowships are offered to seniors and grads, and most have no language requirement. Who would turn that down?

Movie: La Yuma Wednesday, March 9, 7:30 p.m.

Spanish House This film captures the life of a Nicaraguan woman named Yuma, who grows up in poverty and dreams of following her passion of boxing.

COWHAUS FROM THE INSIDE LOCALLY

MADE

Images courtesy of Creative

MAKING THE ICE CREAM Cowhaus Creamery is located on East College Street, but the ice cream it serves begins its journey a little farther away. Cowhaus ice cream is made from locally sourced ingredients just 10 miles from Oberlin. The owners of Cowhaus, Debby Krejsa and Josef Bomback, were able to find an old dairy mart in Elyria and convert it into an ice cream factory.

To make its ice cream delicious, Cowhaus tries to use only seasonal ingredients. These ingredients can be anything from apples to a wide range of berries. The spices change from season to season, though maple is one of the more common ingredients.

CREATING COWHAUS Krejsa and Bomback always wanted to start a business together. The couple talked about opening a restaurant or a bed and breakfast, but after they took an ice cream-making class in Wisconsin, Cowhaus was born. After doing much research and flavor-testing, Krejsa and Bomback opened Cowhaus Creamery in September 2011.

CHANGES OVER TIME Krejsa says it’s sometimes challenging to run a small business in Oberlin. Everyone knows about The Feve and the shops on Main Street, but it’s harder to operate around the corner.

With the Lewis Gateway Center construction across the street as part of the Green Arts District, Cowhaus has been affected by a lack of parking space. But Krejsa is hopeful that the new development will be a huge benefit in the long run.

Text by Zane Markosian

Commons

CALENDAR Guest Recital: Gábor Farkas, Piano Friday, March 4, 8–10 p.m.

Warner Concert Hall A graduate of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Budapest, Gábor Farkas is an award-winning concert pianist. He will perform at Carnegie Hall on March 10. If you are at all interested in piano, stop by. His brilliance might inspire you.

New Works Festival: I Do It So It

Feels Like Hell

Friday, March 4–5, 8 p.m., March 6, 2 p.m.

Little Theatre Come see this play to explore the many dimensions of mental illness, womanhood and artistic expression. I Do It will dive into Sylvia Plath’s life, celebrating her literary contribution and revealing a side of her you may have never seen before.

Danez Smith Poetry Workshop Saturday, March 5, 2–3:15 p.m.

Cat in the Cream Attend this writing workshop and explore those weird little things that make you tick. The workshop is designed to alleviate writers block by providing new direction and guidance.

Info Session: Oberlin Law Scholars Program Tuesday, March 8, 4:30–5:30 p.m.

K ing 121 If you are thinking of applying to law school, come to this info session. The Oberlin Law Scholars program offers scholarships to students interested in law and is open to all rising sophomores and juniors.

Oberlin Shansi Fellowships Info Session Wednesday, March 9, 12–1 p.m.

K ing 101 If you are interested in living China, India, Indonesia or Japan, come to this informational meeting to learn how you can get a fellowship through Oberlin Shansi.

Fellowships are offered to seniors and grads, and most have no language requirement. Who would turn that down?

Movie: La Yuma Wednesday, March 9, 7:30 p.m.

Spanish House This film captures the life of a Nicaraguan woman named Yuma, who grows up in poverty and dreams of following her passion of boxing.

Arts The Oberlin Review

Page 10

March 4, 2016

Storage Showspace Hosts Student Rockers Danny Evans Arts Editor The last few years have seen a resurgence of a style of rock music characterized by unorthodox musical elements seldom found in the highly danceable, melody-oriented indie rock of the ’00s and early ’10s. Critics and fans have hailed this resurgence as an opportunity for rock music to reclaim its former position in mainstream music charts.

Three rock outfits comprised entirely of Oberlin students — Julia Julian, Woof and Shya — played music of this sort at the Storage showspace Friday.

These bands demonstrated that in 2016, rock groups can feature unconventional songwriting sensibilities while still entertaining audiences seeped in a poppier era of indie rock.

Julia Julian, composed entirely of College first-years, played the first set of the night. When the band took the stage, Storage — an art gallery that moonlights as a performance space for student musicians and visiting artists — was just begin-

ning to fill up, but was packed by the end of the performance.

Evocative projections on the walls, provided by College firstyear Caspian Alavi-Flint, added to the show’s atmosphere. The –––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Drummer Joanna Quinn and bassist Cena Loffredo held the music together remarkably well, never skipping a step despite irregular song structures and off-kilter rhythms.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––– band kept attendees dancing with its unique mixture of alternate time signatures and strong chord progressions.

Max Ripps, the band’s singer and guitarist, impressed with jangling guitar lines and vocals reminiscent of ’80s newwave. Reuben Gifford spiced the songs up with smart synth lines that often took a background role but intermittently gained prominence, such as in the final

Julia Julian singer and guitarist Max Ripps (left) and bassist Cena Loffredo, both College first-years, interact with the audience between songs. Two other bands, Shya and Woof, joined Julia Julian for a night full of unorthodox indie rock by Oberlin student musicians at Storage Saturday.

Photo by Juliette Greene, Staff photographer

section of the excellent “Skurf.”

Meanwhile, drummer Joanna Quinn and bassist Cena Loffredo held the music together remarkably well, never skip-

ping a step, despite irregular song structures and off-kilter rhythms. Overall, Julia Julian served as an example of how successful clever songwriting

paired with a tight rhythmic section can be.

After Julia Julian’s set came a See Storage, page 13

Duphil, Oberlin Orchestra Pack Finney Chapel Julia Peterson Production Editor It is unquestionable that Oberlin’s conservatory of music is exceptional.

However, it is still thrilling to be able to experience it in person. On Saturday night, the Finney Chapel stage was packed with the Conservatory students of the Oberlin Orchestra ready to play in their first spring concert of the semester. This performance was conducted by Director of Conducting and Ensembles Raphael Jiménez and featured Rachmaninoff ’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor as well as Oberlin Professor of Composition Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 4.

Professor of Piano Monique Duphil joined the orchestra for its performance of the Rachmaninoff. Duphil has been performing since she was 15 years old, has played in more than 50 countries across five continents and has been

teaching at Oberlin since 1992. From the beginning of the piece, it was abundantly clear that conductor, soloist and orchestra were working in perfect synchronicity. The main motif of the piece was built on the interplay of piano and orchestra. Melodies were clean and haunting throughout, but much of the piece’s richness came out when the orchestra fell silent, giving the piano the room to shine clearly. As the piece progressed, clever moments of call and response between the piano melody and the orchestra added dimension to the piece.

The program promised that Rachmaninoff ’s concerto would feature “dazzling musical acrobatics with fiendish arpeggios” and “pianistic fireworks.”

Duphil delivered on all counts. The orchestra, too, delivered on the program’s promises. Every musician shone both individually and as part of the collective.

Playing in perfect harmony with one another, it was hard to believe that there

were so many musicians on the stage.

After the intermission, the orchestra moved on to Hartke’s Symphony No. 4 for Organ, Orchestra and Soprano. The organ part was performed by Jonathan William Moyer, who has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Japan and received an Artist Diploma from Oberlin’s Conservatory graduate program in 2012. He also oversees the music program of the Church of the Covenant in Cleveland. The soprano soloist was Conservatory junior Amber Monroe, fresh off her performance as Harriet Tubman in the opera Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom.

Hartke’s symphony immediately differentiated itself from the concerto with its use of loud, visceral sounds that could be physically felt as well as heard.

Hartke’s symphony celebrated individual instruments and displayed a wide variety of textures.

The organ melodies thrilled. Moyer

Raphael Jiménez conducts the Oberlin Orchestra in Finney Chapel Saturday. The Orchestra’s program featured Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor and Professor of Composition Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 4.

Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

played complex passages with ease, introducing melodies that the rest of the orchestra soon picked up and built upon.

The composer also took advantage of the full range of the organ, leading to great elasticity in the solo part. The one disappointing note of the evening was that the music seemed somewhat discordant at points in the first and second move––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Hartke’s symphony immediately differentiated itself from the concerto with its use of loud, visceral sounds that could be physically felt as well as heard.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ments. However, these moments were few and far between, and by the third movement, the orchestra returned to the triumphant heights it reached in the concert’s first half.

The symphony’s third movement was characterized by a stunningly technical performance from Amber Monroe, who sang an English translation of Federico García Lorca’s poem The Sleepwalking Ballad. The words of the poem are filled with gripping surrealist imagery, and the music added depth to this dreamlike narrative. The addition of purely musical stanzas built up by the orchestra while the soprano was silent added nuanced interpretation to the poem.

At the end of the piece, Hartke, the soloists and the orchestra received a standing ovation.

Jiménez conducted the Oberlin Orchestra in a brilliant performance spanning techniques and time periods. It was a true privilege to experience the impressive range of sounds produced by students, graduates and faculty members.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, March 4, 2016

Page 11

Plath Resurrected in Feels Like Hell Louise Edwards Arts Editor College senior Anna Gelman first got the idea to write the play I Do it So it Feels Like Hell when she studied Sylvia Plath in the class Six Poets: 1945– Present, taught by her advisor and Associate Professor of English DeSales Harrison. She took the class during her sophomore year, and now the play, which tells the story of Plath’s life in just over an hour, will finally be performed in Little Theatre Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Gelman did not devise the performance alone, however. About a year ago, she asked two of her close friends if they would join in the creative process with her. College senior Ariana Silvan-Grau, who plays the role of Plath, and College junior Zoë DePreta, who is the assistant director and stage manager of the play, readily agreed.

The play aims to tell the story of Plath’s life beyond her suicide and her darker works, such as the novel The Bell Jar and poems like “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus.” “I think there are ways that parts of her work are always incredibly difficult and become more difficult at different parts of your life,” Gelman said. “But she was a funny, goofy, strange human. And she wasn’t her death.”

Silvan-Grau agreed. “We wanted to show all of Sylvia. We wanted to show the female artist, not just the woman who stuck herself in the oven.”

While the title of the play comes from a line in “Lady Lazarus,” the story is also told from Plath’s per-

spective, reflecting the team’s vision to infuse the play with Plath’s own voice and emotions. “I titled it that because I wanted to play with some of her most famous texts,” Gelman said.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“We wanted to show the female artist, not just the woman who stuck herself in the oven.”

Ariana Silvan-Grau “Sylvia Plath” –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– “I think it is the most Sylvia Plath line in the world, so there’s that, but it also gives a lot of agency within the show. This isn’t the Gwyneth Paltrow movie of Sylvia where it’s just [titled] Sylvia. This is ‘I,’ which is trying to let Sylvia tell her own story instead of a filmmaker who casts Daniel Craig as [Plath’s husband] Ted Hughes.”

DePreta said some of Plath’s more lighthearted work made the poet’s story especially suited to a performance that combined text and theater. “Her work is really theatrical — really stories meant to be told,” DePreta said.

“People often think of Sylvia Plath as being really deep, intense and emotional, and a lot of [her work is], but a lot of it is not. A lot of it is really whimsical and fun and that is another element that makes it super theatrical and good to perform — not only just read or spoken but performed and physicalized.”

To get a fuller picture of Plath, the

trio also read through thousands of pages from Plath’s journals and many of her letters. “Some of [the journal entries] are really mundane, and some of them are really intense, and getting that sort of spectrum was really important for this process,” Silvan-Grau said. “Just having this sort of art with the two extremes of her life [illustrates that] she was not just this character. She’s a person.”

One of the reasons Gelman asked her friends to write the play with her was so that they could construct a broader interpretation of Plath through their combined perspectives.

“They get what I want to create, and they clued into that idea really fast, and it became less about me and more about the three of us very quickly, which is the best because my version of Sylvia Plath isn’t the version of Sylvia Plath,” Gelman said. “But with the three of us combined, our version of ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“Her work is really theatrical — really stories meant to be told.”

Zoë DePreta Assistant director, stage manager –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Sylvia Plath isn’t all of Sylvia Plath, but it’s our version of what we love about her.”

While Gelman, Silvan-Grau and DePreta each personally connected to different moments in Plath’s life in See Trio page 12

Feature Photo: Ray of Sunshine

Witch Taps into Paranoia, American Nationalism Christian Bolles Columnist While The Conjuring flaunted its beat-bybeat horror and It Follows divided many fans of the genre, something was watching from the dark, forgotten woods of this country’s cultural memory. It’s a subgenre sometimes overlooked in cinema, containing innate nuance. That gold mine of cinematic potential is the American gothic tale, and The Witch taps into it.

With The Witch, first-time writer-director Robert Eggers set out to craft a meticulously detailed period film predicated upon believability, accuracy and respect for the source material: hundreds of historical documents, both fictional and not, which he pored over for years leading up to filming. His work paid off: The Witch is a tense, suffocating account of isolation and fear in 17th-century New England that uses gothic tropes while subverting expectations for spectacular effect.

After being expelled from his plantation, devout Puritan father William (Ralph Ineson) ventures into the wilderness with his family to carve out a living among the foreboding trees that block further passage into the American continent. His purpose is simple: to live a humble life in awe of God. But The Witch is as much about doubt as it is about belief, and when the need to feed his children overcomes his desire to stay true to the Lord, his meager homestead becomes the site of mounting fear and corruption.

The disappearance of William’s youngest child adds fuel to the flames of his family’s downfall, and the family soon finds themselves teetering on the brink of a darkness as black as their prize goat. We see most of the story through the eyes of Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), Willam’s eldest daughter, who is established early on as the most malleable in her faith, yet, ironically, the most steadfast in her morals. Her relationship with her brother Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) is an appropriately touching centerpiece for ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The Witch is a tense, suffocating account of isolation and fear in the 17th-century New England that uses gothic tropes while subverting expectations for spectacular effect.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Sunshine Scouts members and College juniors Jesse Arnholz, left, Jesi Gaston and Harley Foos strike a comedic pose. Audience members received the Sunshine Scouts, Oberlin’s only musical long-form Improv troupe, enthusiastically last night during its show at Warner Center. College sophomores Zoe Kushlefsky and Daniel Cramer and College first-years Imke Hart and Brian Weaver also performed with Arnholz, Gaston and Foos.

Sunshine Scouts staged a monoscene, or an approximately 30-minute long, realtime scene set in a single location. For this monoscene, Scouts chose an underwater cave as the central location. The Scouts’ particular take on the monoscene form is uniquely experimental, characterized by the utilization of audience suggestions, improvised narration and the “scene painting” technique, which allows performers to “freeze” the scene, step out of character and describe a change in the scene.

Sunshine Scouts, which was founded in 1999 by current BuzzFeed contributor Kevin McShane, OC ’00, is currently preparing for the the Oberlin College Improv Conference. The conference will feature sets by McShane and guest performers from the Improv collective Upright Citizens Brigade, among others.

Text by Danny Evans, Arts editor Photo by Benjamin Shepherd, Photo editor

the film’s first two acts, ensuring that there’s an emotional core beyond the flowery — but suitable — period dialogue and drab, unfeeling landscape. The broken love between William and Katherine (Katie Dickie), his devoted but quick-to-accuse wife, is similarly textured, giving the audience sympathy for the kinds of characters usually ignored in these narratives.

Perhaps the most surprising part of The Witch is the way its story unfolds. For a film set in 1630 that prioritizes accuracy above flourish, it has a surprisingly fast-paced, accessible body with little to no padding over its 92-minute runtime. Every scene has meaning. The camera moves from character to character in a sensible fashion, setting up the cracks in their faith that will later lead to their undoing.

The acting in The Witch is superb across the board. Eggers’ directing experience prior to this film consisted, for the most part, of Shakespeare on stage, so it’s no wonder that See Historical, page 12

Arts

Page 12

The Oberlin Review, March 4, 2016

Folk Musician Sings of Childhood, Self-Love Historical Research

Brings Witch to Life

Daniella Brito

The lulling drone of pre-show chatter immediately ceased as Nakaya, cast in blue light, took the stage at the Cat in the Cream on Saturday night. She began her set with “Dear Skin,” a hauntingly mesmerizing track from her newest EP, Out of Breath. Airy acoustic guitar riffs paired with Nakaya’s echoing vocals, sending a message of self-love as she addressed her skin in a rhyming, ode-like form. “Dear skin, you are so lived in / Dear skin, forgive my flaws / I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused,” she sang.

Fusing ambient alternative folk, R&B and electronic music, Nakaya’s sound is a dynamic medley of ethereal vocals and soft guitar paired with sporadic bass drops. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Nakaya currently attends the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University.

She said that moments of silence and reflection experienced in both cities inspire her captivating lyrics.

Her songs speak to how, as a queer woman of color, she works to combat systems of oppression by finding self-love. “I didn’t want to feel different, I wanted to feel like I mattered, like I belonged somewhere,” she said in an Instagram post. “I think being a Black woman in America just sets you up to feel continually inferior, and I’m learning and trying every day to feel a bit stronger and more beautiful, for myself.” Nakaya’s feelings of disconnection between how she is perceived by American society and how she perceives herself are certainly felt in her lyrics.

In a billowing denim skirt and chunky Dr. Martens, Nakaya exuded warmth and delight as she discussed her arrival to Oberlin, which she said was unsullied despite difficulty fitting her guitar into overhead storage on her flight. Laughter filled the Cat in the Cream as Nakaya affably engaged with the audience before her cover of “Love Song” by The Cure, which she lauded as one of her personal favorites. Her dreamy cover captivated the audience into a stillness that was only disrupted by bursts of applause at her final guitar stroke.

Nakaya sang about the simple, blissful comforts of childhood in the performance of her song “Mother.”

Imagery of playground swings, a mother’s caresses and imaginary trips to the moon recalled the eu-

Continued from page 11

Singer-songwriter Nakaya strums her guitar as she serenades an audience at the Cat in the Cream. Her music flaunts a mixture of folk, R&B and electronic influences, and explores themes of girlhood and self-love.

Photo by Sarah Herdrich

phoric ease of childhood through her lyrics and light-hearted acoustic guitar strumming. “I was wondering if the swings will let me back to play, and I was wondering if I’ll be okay,” she sang. Her hushed vocals and playful rhymes were reminiscent of those on Karen O’s solo debut album Crush Songs. Both singers play with the simplicity of the folk genre to articulate powerful messages about their multifaceted identities. “Mother” and Crush Songs both speak to an unabashed embracing of girlhood and femininity that remains underrepresented in folk music.

Despite folk’s basic form, Nakaya’s presence as a Black woman within the genre’s industry is far from simple. Nakaya cited Bon Iver as one of her main sources of inspiration prior to covering their song “Re: Stacks.”

Nakaya’s praise of the group speaks to the current racial and gendered standard accepted in folk. Justin Vernon, the primary songwriter and frontman, is seen as a figurehead of modern-day folk, and white men like him dominate the genre. Folk has been systemically whitewashed throughout history despite its origins in Black, bluegrass and blues music. As a Black woman, Nakaya plays a critical role in the reclaiming of folk music, reflected in lyrics like “When the clock ticks I’m reborn,” in “Dear Skin.” Nakaya’s lyrical content stands at odds with the hyper-masculine, “lone man against the world” rhetoric present in much of today’s folk music. Her music reclaims folk as a genre where the experiences of Black queer women can be expressed and celebrated.

he’s able to draw entrancing performances out of his ensemble. Game of Thrones alums Dickie and Ineson perform admirably, but it’s the brother and sister at the center of the story who really shine.

Taylor-Joy — you’ll know her name soon enough, as she’s already been lined up for three films in the next year thanks to her work here — plays Thomasin with wide-eyed intelligence and a relatable, humble independence that immediately separate her from the rest. Scrimshaw does a great job making her brother a stoic Puritan boy, but it’s later on that he really brings it home in some fantastically unsettling scenes.

From the first close-up shot of Thomasin’s face to the wretched final frame, The Witch exists to embody the unique set of variables that American gothic stories bring to the table. Eggers is fully aware of the psychological state of the frontier.

Without even the flag of an independent nation to wave for comfort, settlers found themselves at the edge of a vast forest in a land filled with uncertainty.

The perceived threat of native peoples by the white settlers notwithstanding — though it’s addressed subtly in the film — the real star of the show in Eggers’ burgeoning society is the crisis of masculinity exacerbated by witch-based paranoia.

William is continually forced to question his ability to care for his family independent of the plantation’s comforts, and when he’s finally confronted about his ineptitude, he is unable to place the blame on himself. It’s no wonder that fear of the titular witch heightens. It is partly fear of the power of free-thinking women that drove the pilgrims to cry “witch,” but The Witch makes it clear that this paranoia wasn’t only a stifling of female power. For some, it was an opportunity to shatter the chains of Puritanism and claim a new sense of identity.

That act of breaking free is Thomasin’s struggle, and where it ends is nothing short of bewitching.

With well-researched details and a strong cast, The Witch acts as proof that the folktales of old still have the power to scare us. In fact, the film’s weight speaks directly to the paranoia and prejudice still raging within our comparatively pubescent country, drawing sobering but important comparisons –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Thomasin’s struggle ... is nothing short of bewitching.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– between the woods of a barely-settled New England and othering processes today. While Eggers doesn’t stress such points with undue commentary, The Witch speaks for itself as an artifact of the boundaries of faith, the repression of curiosity and the damning truths hidden in the dark. If that’s not true horror, nothing is.

Trio to Portray Tribulations of Female Artists in Plath Play Continued from page 11 different ways, the poet’s experience as a student at Smith College in Northampton, MA, struck all of them as very relatable. “She was a person really familiar to us because, even though she went to college in the 1950s, … she went to Smith, which is not that different from Oberlin,” Silvan-Grau said. “She was a liberal arts girl. … She wasn’t that much older than us when she died, and we have a lot of shared experiences with her just by the virtue of being Oberlin students.”

Another way the creators of I Do it So it Feels Like Hell all felt linked to Plath was through their shared identity as female artists. It became one of the play’s main themes. “[We show] what is it like to be a woman and to be competing with

men — not only just men, but men you love,” Silvan-Grau said. “Her husband was a poet, and he was her biggest rival.

Whether she ever articulated it explicitly that way or not, that was something she had to live with every day.”

Gelman agreed. “He succeeded in her failures. She was [his] secretary and typed all of his work; she was his agent.

So all the time she spent working on his stuff instead of hers was time that he succeeded and she wasn’t working.”

While there were many parts of Plath’s life that the three related to, there were also aspects that none of them associated with their own experiences. “It was also really fun to explore the parts of her none of us really identified with,” DePreta said. “We went to England this Winter Term to under-

stand her life from that perspective.”

After Plath’s time at Smith and her recovery from her first documented suicide attempt, she earned a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Newnham College, a women’s college that is part of the University of Cambridge. She also met Hughes at a party in Cambridge.

During Winter Term, Gelman, DePreta and Silvan-Grau toured Newnham, reenacted activities that Plath wrote about in her journals like biking and visited Plath’s grave. “We went to her grave, and there was a silence that inhabited the entire town in which she is buried that I would have never in a million years understood,” Silvan-Grau said. “Nor would I have been able to understand why she hated that place so much had we not gone.”

Through the process of creating the play, DePreta, Silvan-Grau and Gelman said they all feel like they know Plath personally. They are on a first-name basis with her, as they always refer to the poet as “Sylvia” rather than “Plath” in conversation and throughout the play. Silvan-Grau said Plath traveled with them on their trip to England and throughout the creative process. “When we were applying for the grant we got to travel abroad, I was like, ‘We have to [say], “These four women.” We asked one of our advisors to proof our application, and she was like, ‘There are three of you.

Who’s the fourth?’ And we were like, ‘Sylvia, duh, come on.’ We feel it’s as much a collaboration between the three of us as it is the four of us. We could not have done it without her.”

The Oberlin Review, March 4, 2016

Arts

Triple Bill Features Cohesive Rhythm Sections Continued from page 10 performance by the always-enthralling Woof, a band that features College juniors Siobhan Furnary on vocals, Isaac Pearl on bass, Jamie ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Reuben Gifford spiced the songs up with smart synth lines that often took a background role but intermittently gained prominence, such as in the final section of the excellent “Skurf.”

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Finucane on keyboards and Dan Howard on drums. Furnary’s vocals fluctuated between subtle melodies and louder, more cathartic sections on standout tracks like “I don’t party anymore because men scare me.” Her lyrics were consistently powerful, too; at one point in the same song, she nearly whispered, “The games you claimed you never play / At night, I never felt the same.”

Woof ’s instrumentalists did an excellent job of backing Furnary with repeated melodies as well as patient builds in volume and intensity. Pearl, Finucane and Howard, the latter two of whom perform together in a number of other bands, demonstrated a great deal of musical chemistry. During moments like the set’s closing improvised groove, their tightness as a unit took center stage. Woof ’s performance had audience members dancing and singing along throughout — perhaps even

more so than either of the other sets.

The last set of the night belonged to Shya, the solo recording project of College junior Nate Sher that has recently doubled as a fully functional live band. Like Julia Julian and Woof, Shya showed just how enjoyable indie rock can be. Sher complimented his and College sophomore Ben Guterl’s intricate guitar passages on vocals, offering catchy melody after catchy melody. Bassist Adira Baum, another College junior, also provided harmonies on several songs.

College junior Dan Lynch managed to mimic the drum parts from Shya’s recorded output, all of which are programmed electronically, quite well. His drumming aided the band’s onstage vitality, which was palpable throughout the show. In particular parts of the set, Shya’s energy was especially noteworthy. “Kind of Blue,” from Shya’s self-titled October 2015 EP, ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

[Furnary’s] lyrics were consistently powerful, too; at one point in that song, she nearly whispered, “The games you claimed you never play / At night, I never felt the same.”

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– was one of the most memorable tracks of the performance. “I can’t even feel good when I try to / I always just feel kind of blue,” Sher repeats above the song’s poignant chord progression. With songs as solid as “Kind of Blue,” those lyrics are bound to be stuck in audience members’ heads for weeks to come.

Page 13

Sports

Page 14

The Oberlin Review, March 4, 2016

IN THE LOCKER ROOM

Kazim Ali

This week, the Review sat down with yoga instructor and Creative Writing Professor Kazim Ali to discuss the mental and physical benefits of yoga, the yoga scene at Oberlin and why yoga is important for athletes to practice.

For people who are unfamiliar with yoga, can you summarize what it is?

It’s a whole set of practices that draw from ancient Indian philosophy, [which] is almost 2,000 years old now. It is a set of practices, whether they be meditative, devotion[al] or karma yoga; for example, the act of doing something like feeding the poor. What most people in America think of as yoga is the physical stuff. All of those physical postures are designed to channel energy through the body; they’re designed to train the mind.

They’re designed to train the body for meditation and designed to train the mind toward focus on the true nature of reality. Most people think of it as a set of physical practices. I think most people recognize that yoga is not merely gymnastics, that it is a meditative practice. Now you see this total explosion of the popularity of yoga — I personally believe that is due to people [ from] the west who are hungry for that spiritual component.

Who is yoga most beneficial for?

Everyone uses it for different things, and it is personal to each body. In India, when the teachers would meet with you, they would

What would you say to someone who is interested in trying yoga for the first time?

It’s a very welcoming culture.

Every yoga teacher I know is really happy to have a new person in the room. You don’t have to be shy or self-conscious about it. Yoga is different every day for every person. Try a few classes and see who you connect with as a teacher. All teachers have different approaches, so check out different classes.

Some people like doing it six days a week, and other people like doing it once in a while.

Kazim Ali meet with you individually and figure out what you need from yoga.

If you were a 13-year-old boy, the teacher might develop a program that’s very athletic and strong.

If you were an older person, or someone who was stiff in certain ways, then they would design a different yoga practice for you to engage in. That’s why there are so many different kinds of yoga and so many classes. The idea is that each person will find what they really need out of yoga. Overall, it can be a benefit to anybody.

What is your favorite part about teaching yoga at Oberlin?

It’s pretty wonderful. The com-

PL AYE R O F T H E W E E K Alex Wagmen

Senior attacker Alex Wagman takes aim Feb. 20 against the visiting Olivet College Comets. Wagman had three goals on Sunday as the Yeomen lost an overtime thriller to the visiting St. Mary’s College Seahawks 11–10. Wagman’s last goal came with four seconds left in regulation to keep Oberlin’s chances alive and force an extra period of play. However, just over a minute into overtime, the Yeomen’s costly 29th turnover led to a transition fast-break, which the Seahawks’ Matt Carey converted into the game-winning goal. Wagman is currently the second leading goal scorer for the Yeomen, already tallying 10 goals in Oberlin’s two games. The Yeomen are back on their home field Saturday, when they host Capital University at 1 p.m.

Photo Courtesy of OC Athletics

munity of students, faculty and staff that come to the classes [is] very devoted. They all come for different reasons. They allow me to be a part of their growth, and that is very special for me. That is the greatest reward from it.

Many people associate yoga with stretching. Can you talk about how yoga is different than stretching?

It’s about learning your own limitations. It’s about strength and breath. It’s about deepening the breath and focusing the mind.

It about doing things you did not think you would have [previously] been able to do.

Why do you think so many professional athletes have started to do yoga in the summer to help them recover from their past season and help them get ready for their upcoming season?

It does make you more limber.

Injuries come from tightness. If you’re really pliant and you don’t have strength, you can injure yourself quite easily. I think once athletes who depend primarily on strength are introduced to yoga, they will be much more successful at whatever they are doing. I could see this when I watched the Seattle Seahawks play in the Super Bowl.

They just looked so loose when they were moving around.

What is your favorite yoga position?

I like to challenge myself. I really like the arm balances the most, like the crow poses or handstands. They are challenging in balance and strength, and they require complete concentration to do them.

What is the most difficult yoga position you can perform?

I can do a pose called Mayurasana. It is a peacock pose.

The arms are under the body, the palms are on the ground and the body is planked out. The reason I enjoy it is because you cannot balance unless the full body is open.

You have to activate your strength while at the same time releasing and keeping the heart open.

Interview by Scott Rivlin Photo by Randy Ollie, Sports editor

Sugar’s Sweet Consequences Isabel Hulkower Columnist Nearly everyone you know is likely a caffeine addict, craving it as soon as they wake up in the morning and rarely letting a day go by without a cup of coffee or tea to satisfy their addiction. Disturbingly enough, they are largely unapologetic, blissfully enjoying a substance that in reality is their captor. However, most adults have another dietary monkey on their backs: sugar.

Sugar addiction has recently come squarely into the public eye.

Americans were once led to believe that fat was the most abominable nutrient enemy, but the hegemonic health powers have since wised up and begun to seriously scrutinize sugar’s severe side-effects. The American Heart Association recommends eating no more than six teaspoons a day for women and nine for men, despite the fact that most of our fellow citizens are eating 22.

However, how serious of an issue is that? Ingesting more than the recommended dose of the most delicious additive in the world should be expected of us mere mortals. As it turns out, our collective and twisted relationship with sugar often goes beyond healthy reverence and falls squarely into dangerous territory.

The first order of business is whether sugar is really that bad for you. Added sugar (e.g. high-fructose corn syrup) is prevalent in the sweet, delicious processed foods and drinks

that we have become accustomed to over the years. This kind of sugar should be avoided at all costs. Sugar intake of any kind is directly related to obesity, heart disease, decreased immune function and diabetes, and fructose provides absolutely no nutritional content and is best known for giving us a rapid surge in energy that concludes in an immobile state of drowsiness. On a daily level, it causes crazy spikes in blood sugar, which leads to more intense cravings later.

Sugar is a mood-altering drug and stresses your adrenal glands, which can lead to anxiety and fatigue. If you need any more reasons, it will also rot your teeth and contribute to dull, sagging skin.

If this ingredient is so toxic, why do most consumers eat three times as much as they should? That extremely rhetorical question brings us back to the idea of addiction. The scientific community is more than familiar with sugar’s addictive qualities. When lab rats are given a choice between sugar water and intravenous cocaine, 94 percent of them opt for sugar. That same study showed that rats that were already addicted to coke happily switched their vice to sugar when given the choice. This behavior stems from how the brain handles pleasurable food; while most ingredients stimulate the eating parts of brain, sugar uniquely goes straight to the pleasure and reward pathways, just like other addictive substances.

Sugar occupies a special place in our culture. It has been presented as

a treat for a job well done since childhood, and it easily becomes synonymous with love and comfort in times of stress. And it’s all but unavoidable. Seventy-five percent of packaged foods marketed in the U.S. have some form of added sugar, meaning our addictions are fed with almost every food we purchase, revving up the cycle of craving and making us buy more and more sweets at every opportunity. The big food corporations are banking on it because your unquenchable thirst for sugar earns them the sweetest treat of all: money.

Eating added sugar is a delightful part of being alive and abstaining from it totally is both unnecessary and impossible. If lots of sweetened snacks and drinks are a big part of your daily routine, a short detox might serve as an interesting experiment. Taking a week off of added sugar will reset your palate so you are more satisfied with less, and it might also help you look more critically at some of your more superfluous habits like soda drinking or candy eating.

However, like any addiction, quitting leads to the possibility of withdrawal symptoms like headaches and irritability. If you have a strong addiction and you know it, then this should be approached more carefully by slowly weaning your intake before pulling out the big guns and going cold turkey. Sugar is in our lives whether we like it or not, so taking a step back to consider why it is so central can help you get out from under its thumb and actually enjoy it.

Sports

The Oberlin Review, March 4, 2016

Feature Photo: Broom, Broom!

Oberlin’s first home tournament — aptly titled Ch. 33: Fight and Flight — included games against Ashland University, West Virginia University, Case Western Reserve University and Carnegie Mellon University this past weekend. Oberlin finished the tournament 0–4, while Carnegie Mellon University posted a perfect 4–0, making them the undisputed champions. While Carnegie Mellon was the overall tournament winner, Oberlin finished the competition with the highest number of snitch catches. Oberlin’s 2015–2016 roster consists of a steady lineup of 25 players, with an additional 35 who rotate between practices and tournaments. The team played ’90s and early 2000s throwback music between and after matches; reportedly, West Virginia University had prepared a mean dance number to a Backstreet Boys song. Oberlin will play its next tournament April 15, when they travel to West Virginia University to shoot qauaffles, dodge bludgers and catch the golden snitch in the Back Broom Brawl Tournament.

Photo Courtesy of Taylorlyn Stephan

— Track & Field —

Yeowomen, Yeomen Up for Homestretch Darren Zaslau Staff Writer Oberlin’s track and field teams traveled to Granville, Ohio, Friday to compete in the Denison University Last Chance Meet. Sophomore Annie Goodridge, junior Ave Spencer and firstyear Imani Cook-Gist led the way for Oberlin, posting record marks in their respective events.

Oberlin Head Coach Ray Appenheimer said he was pleased with the team’s effort.

“It was a great last tune-up meet for us heading into the conference meet,” Appenheimer said.

Goodridge tied her own school record in the women’s long jump by recording a mark of 5.48 meters, which ranks the sophomore 26th in the nation.

The Boston native said she was satisfied with her effort at the Denison meet,but looks forward to improving.

“I just always want to do more,” Goodridge said. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m not proud of how strong I’ve gotten and how hard I’ve worked to get better.”

Ave Spencer had an incedible performance as well. The junior from Goodyear, AZ, set a new Oberlin College mark on the pole vault, recording a score of 3.51 meters, which ranks her 37th in the country. The measure erases Lauren Vernon’s, OC ’11, previous record of 3.39 meters.

Along with Goodridge and Spencer, Cook-Gist also had a memorable day.

The first-year from Santa Monica, CA, broke the Oberlin College record in the 60-meter dash with a time of 8 minutes, 0.026 seconds. The score positioned her in fifth place, as she topped Margaret Miller’s record time of 8.07 that Miller recorded at the NCAC Championship Meet just a year ago.

Cook-Gist said she was proud of her performance and of the collective effort

from the team.

“I’m really happy with what happened,” Cook-Gist said. “Overall, I feel like everyone performed amazingly.”

First-year Megan Robinson finished first in the high jump, leaping an impressive 1.53 meters.

On the men’s side of the meet, Nathan Danko finished as a runner-up in the pole vault. The senior from Vermilion, Ohio, posted an impressive height of 4.27 meters.

Joshua Urso placed third in the men’s 400-meter dash, finishing with a time of 52.34. Along with Urso and Danko, sophomore thrower Avery Mc–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“I just always want to do more.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m not proud of how strong I’ve gotten and how hard I’ve worked to get better.”

Annie Goodridge Sophomore long jumper ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Thompson had an excellent showing in the men’s weight throw. The Dripping Springs, TX, native posted a third-place finish with a throw of 13.47 meters.

Given the success of the countless athletes on the team, Appenheimer said he is optimistic as the Yeomen and Yeowomen enter one of the most competitive stretches in the season.

“For the women’s team, we really want to finish second,” Appenheimer said.

According to Appenheimer, Ohio Wesleyan University will prove to be stiff competition on the women’s side.

He added that the competition in the men’s division will be a “dogfight,” as Wabash College and Ohio Wesleyan have extremely talented teams.

For Oberlin’s track and field teams, the competition will only get tougher.

On Friday and Saturday, both squads will travel to Gambier, Ohio, for the 2015–2016 North Coast Athletic Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships. The meet will take place at Kenyon College.

Page 15

Intramural Season Incoming Continued from page 16 that’s out-of-season jocks compared to newcomers,” Bruce said.

But after their year of athletic time-out, intramural is beneficial to the ex-jocks as well.

“The intramural program has allowed me to continue playing the sport I love without the added time commitments and pressure that comes with playing for the varsity team,” said senior Owen Diana, a former varsity soccer player and fall intramural soccer captain. “Intramural soccer allows one to express themselves more on the field than in a varsity environment.”

Stefan Lund, a senior intramural softball player planning on starting a team for the spring, said he appreciates the fact that the intramural softball league creates a less competitive level where one didn’t exist before.

“I mean I think softball in particular is an important program because we don’t have a club team, and baseball and softball require a relatively large number of people as far as pick up sports go, which means it’s more difficult to organize games on your own,” he said. “You get a good mix of people, and it provides a league in an area of sports that otherwise doesn’t have a lot of options below the varsity level.”

Varying levels of ability aren’t the worst thing in the world for intramurals, as they contribute to the diversity of an informal atmosphere.

“Everyone’s busy, but IM offers a low-commitment, high-reward environment,” said senior Claire Ciraolo, a former intramural soccer captain. “Different people bring different styles of play, and this challenges you to get creative.”

But with great expression comes great responsibility, and the onus of responsibility for intramural leagues falls on the student captains entirely.

Captains have to galvanize people to participate, try to keep track of ever-fluctuating numbers between competitions and schedule games with other Oberlin teams. It’s not an easy job, especially blocking out convenient times to play outside in the busy lives Oberlin students lead.

Diana acknowledged that, with all the benefits of an informal and welcoming atmosphere, it creates a number of issues with scheduling

Editorial: Watch Out, Wrigleyville Continued from page 16 front-runner.

The Cubs’ pitching was a lethal force last season, ranking first in the MLB in WHIP (a sabermetric measurement of the number of base runners a pitcher has allowed per inning pitched) and batting average against and third in earned run average. Their hitting definitely showed room for improvement, but the young Cubs still rocketed more than a few balls out of Wrigley Field last season.

Excitement for the Cubs’ prospects extends beyond the North Side of Chicago. The Vegas superbook has the Cubs’ odds of winning the World Series at 4–1 — the only team that has championship odds in the single digits. Any sports fan should recognize the implications of the Cubs now being a contender in the MLB. The last time the Cubs won the World Series was over a century ago in 1908. The team’s failure to win a World Series in 107 years represents the longest drought of any sports team in North America.

Blame for this disparity and the general lack of any championship hardware has always been like a game of hot potato in Wrigleyville. Whether it is an in-

and numbers.

“As members of the team are not required to attend any practices or games, it’s much harder for the organizers to gauge how many people will attend any specific event,” Diana said. “Also, the informality often means that there are many more players attending games than can play at any one time. The organizers of the intramural teams have to preoccupy themselves with trying to get everyone equal playing time.”

Based on his prior experience on a team his first year at Oberlin, Lund also anticipates struggles managing the commitment levels of his team members.

“Definitely getting people to show up [will be a challenge],” Lund said. “The casualness of it is great because it means people who don’t have a background in the sport, or who just aren’t the best at it feel a lot more comfortable, but it also means it’s harder to make sure everyone comes.”

Bruce believes the lack of official organization is fodder for important interpersonal lessons for students. In particular, she said she thinks that the absence of any officials to monitor games provides opportunities to practice conflict resolution.

“People have had [officials] since they started playing [American Youth Soccer Organization] soccer,” she said. “I think college students really need to learn how to mediate. There won’t be someone out there in zebra stripes all the time.”

She said that this lesson even extends to Oberlin staff, who are also welcome to join intramural leagues. She described an instance when someone on a staff team had to ask one of their teammates to leave the game because of their negative attitude, much to the surprise of their student opponents on the field.

“If someone’s belligerent, arrogant, got out of the [wrong side of] the bed — send [them] away,” she said.

In a few weeks, when the weather warms up, you can find the softball and soccer intramural leagues battling it out (but not too hard) on the practice fields beyond the Knowlton Athletic Complex. Or maybe you’ll be that person in the first meeting to jump up and say “Who’s with me?” effectual front office or underperforming players, no one has ever been able to put their finger on why the Cubs are the least decorated team in professional sports. Some diehard fans even proclaim that the Curse of the Billy Goat is the real culprit — as if kicking a man out of Wrigley Field in 1945 because his goat was too smelly somehow affected the Cubs’ prospects for years to come.

While I certainly don’t want to jinx what could potentially be a championship season, if the Cubs do win the World Series there will inevitably be serious consequences. For example, on the Boston Red Soxs’ way to their first championship in over 86 years, fans were arrested by the dozens and caused thousands of dollars in property damage. A young fan actually died after an unfortunate run-in with Boston riot police. Chicago is no novice when it comes to sports riots; the 1992 riot after the Chicago Bulls won their first NBA title resulted in over $10 million in property damage, numerous arrests and two casualties, representing one of the most infamous sports riots in history.

That being said, the Cubs have a long road ahead of them and a season ripe with opportunity to disappoint one of the most dedicated fanbases in American sports. For most Cubs fans, the Cubs winning a World Series would rectify a lifetime of disappointment and frustration. But undeniably for all, the Cubs winning their third World Series would be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Sports The Oberlin Review

Page 16

March 4, 2016

— Women’s Lacrosse —

Yeowomen Buzz Past Yellow Jackets Matt Walker On Wednesday’s chilly night, the women’s lacrosse team took the field for their home opener against the Baldwin Wallace University Yellowjackwra at the Knowlton Athletics Complex. With the temperature at an icy 21 degrees, home fans’ resilience to the cold was ultimately rewarded when the final whistle blew and Oberlin emerged victorious with a score of 15–10.

The Yeowomen’s highly touted offense was flawless in the first half,

shooting 15 shots on goal and earning themselves 11 goals before intermission. Oberlin would finish the contest shooting 26 total shots, 24 of which were on goal.

Despite Oberlin’s dominant attack, Baldwin Wallace drew first blood, finding the back of the net only 51 seconds into the game. Senior midfielder Grace Barlow would answer less than 20 seconds later with her lone goal in the contest and her fifth goal in the season. For the next 10 minutes the game was a back-and-forth affair, with goals from senior midfielder Su-

Senior Taylor Swift and Junior Hannah Heinke-Green stop an attacker in her tracks in the Wednesday game against the visiting Baldwin Wallace University Yellow Jackets. The Yeowomen are back in action Saturday against Sewanee: The University of the South at 12 p.m. in Wooster, Ohio. Courtesy of Jeong Hyun Hwang

zanna Doak and junior attacker Maggie Mullard, bringing the game to a 3–3 deadlock. With slightly less than 20 minutes left in the half, Mullard would net the first of six unanswered Oberlin goals. After that run, the Yeowomen would not trail for the rest of the contest.

Sophomore midfielder Natalie Rauchle spearheaded the Yeowomen’s attack, finishing the game with six goals and one assist. Rauchle was also a perfect 2–2 on free-position shots and contributed four of Oberlin’s 19 total draw controls.

Rauchle was pleased with the Yeowomen’s efforts but stressed that there is still a long road ahead for her team. “I think that we can only get stronger moving forward,” Rauchle said. “We’re already able to read each other’s next moves, and it’s only the second game of the season.”

The Yeowomen’s offensive dominance was the highlight of the contest, but their defense also earned well-deserved praise. Their newly practiced zone was efficiently executed, barring the Yellow Jackets from good shooting positions and limiting penetration.

“Our main focus defensively for last night was to execute our zone that we’ve been working on, which I think we did a pretty good job of,” said junior defensive midfielder Michaela

Puterbaugh.

Junior goalkeeper Alexa L’Insalata was the anchor of Oberlin’s defense.

Tested with 25 shots on goal, the New Jersey native impressively deterred all but 10, finishing the game with 15 saves.

L’Insalata said that team play was the key to Oberlin’s success Wednesday.

“What I think was successful for us last night was that we played as a cohesive team,” L’Insalata said. ”Baldwin Wallace is super aggressive, but we did not play to their level. We still played smart and aggressive without playing dirty.”

Despite the Yeowomen’s dominant 2–0 start this season, Assistant Women’s Lacrosse Coach Pamella Jenkins recognizes that there is still much room for improvement for her talented squad.

“I think that we are in a very fortunate place to have so many people that can score and that our future looks bright,” Jenkins said. “It’s about developing, continuing to get better and not getting complacent — realizing that there is always another level that we can get to.”

The Yeowomen are back in action Saturday against Sewanee: The University of the South at 12 p.m. in Wooster, Ohio.

— Intramural Softball —

Intramurals Require Ambition, Accessibility Sarena Malsin Sports Editor Organized sports definitely have their allure.

Beside the stress release of physical activity, you get the community of a team, the drive and motivation of a coach and the adrenaline from an organized competition. However, this all comes at the cost of pressure, extensive time commitment and often physical strain, all of which can sour the pure joy of running around outside and playing sports for some who prefer a more relaxed environment.

For those people, there are intramural sports. Intramural leagues whittle away the obligation and stress that comes from committing to a sports team leaving only the time spent outdoors and the camaraderie of a group activity. At the cost of some organization, that is. At Oberlin, as the varsity teams are beginning their regular match schedules following intensive preseasons, intramural soccer and softball captains are gathering motley crews together to start their own seasons.

While there used to be more official intramural options available to Oberlin students, such as squash, racquetball and table tennis, the program has narrowed its focus to cover sports that garner enough interest to sustain sufficient numbers for leagues to form, leaving soccer and softball as the two heavy hitters to carry the program in the spring.

Betsy Bruce, director of recreation and club sports, has been trying to get a volleyball league going for years, but no dice.

“Over the years, this school has definitely tended to be a soccer school,” she said.

Bruce acts as the faculty liaison for the intramural program, though she stresses it is entirely student-run and organized. One of her main goals for the program is that its low stakes help

it to serve as a launch pad for first-year involvement in athletics.

“It’s a great way, particularly in the fall, for first-years to meet each other in the dorms,” she said. “We’re really trying to encourage people to be the ones to stand up in that first meeting and go, ‘Hey, I want to play soccer! Who’s in with me?’”

One of the core aims of the intramural program is to be as accessible in terms of physicality, ability and athletic identity as possible. The leagues are open to all genders, and varsity players are allowed to participate as well, though they must wait one year before participating in club and intramural leagues if they plan to play the sport that they once played at the var-

sity level at Oberlin. This is intended to prevent more experienced players from dominating the casual environment. However, balance is also required within the leagues themselves to account for different levels of intensity.

“Some teams are really gung ho and some are really just out there to have fun,” Bruce said.

In softball, this is mediated by some inleague rules, which require that teams pitch to themselves instead of their opponents. That way, each squad has to account for its own stacking of talent while still enjoying external competition.

“It really equalizes teams, especially a team See Intramural, page 15

A Once-ina-Century Season Randy Ollie Sports Editor With the Major League Baseball preseason in full swing, baseball fans across the country are gearing up for what looks to be another competitive and exciting year for America’s favorite pastime. Along with the excitement and jubilation that precede the start of the regular season this summer, another feeling has been permeating throughout Chicago’s north side: hope.

Chicago Cubs fans have plenty of reasons to be hopeful after a 2015 season that was chock-full of accolades and accomplishments. In his MLB debut, third baseman Kris Bryant was named MLB Rookie of the Year, while manger Joe Maddon was named MLB Manager of the Year after only one season with the Cubs. Ace pitcher Jake Arrieta was also honored with the Cy Young Award, making him the most awarded player to step onto the mound in 2015. The last MLB team to win three of the four Baseball Writers Association of America awards in the same season was the Seattle Mariners in 2001, making the Cubs the 13th team to accomplish the feat.

While Bryant, Maddon and Arrieta represented integral parts in the Cubs’ National League Championship berth — a rare feat for a franchise that has historically struggled — the Cubs’ roster is much deeper than two future all-stars and a potential Hall of Fame manager. Jon Lester and John Lackey provide the Cubs with a solid rotation of reliable pitchers, and first baseman Anthony Rizzo’s performance this past season already has him as an MVP See Editorial, page 15

Fifth-year Olivia Salas lobs a pitch to her teammate last spring. Weather permitting, intramural spring sports are scheduled to start in fewer than two weeks.

Photo Courtesy of Isabel Hulkower