December 4, 2015 by The Oberlin Review

The Oberlin Review

DECEMBER 4, 2015 VOLUME 144, NUMBER 11

Nancy Dye Memorial Service Today A memorial service for Nancy Dye, Oberlin College’s first and only female president, will take place at 5 p.m. today in Finney Chapel. Dye passed away at 68 years old on Wednesday, Oct. 28 after suffering from a rare neurological condition. She served as president for 13 years from 1994 to 2007, raising $175 million in a capital campaign that funded new construction, financial aid and faculty salaries.

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0 DEATHS

AVON LAKE 0 DEATHS

SHEFFIELD 0 DEATHS

AVON

LORAIN

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55 DEATHS

AMHERST VERMILION 3 DEATHS 1 DEATH

NORTH RIDGEVILLE 1 DEATH

ELYRIA 12 DEATHS

SOUTH AMHERST

JURISDICTION OF THE LORAIN COUNTY SHERRIF

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10 DEATHS

OBERLIN 0 DEATHS

GRAFTON

KIPTON

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WELLINGTON

MURDERS PER 10,000 PEOPLE

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(TOTAL 2000–2013)

ROCHESTER 0 DEATHS

TOTAL MURDERS IN LORAIN COUNTY 2000-2013

14 12 10 8 6 4 2

Data courtesy of the Ohio Oﬃce of Criminal Justice Services Data not available for 2014 or 2015.

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Infographic by Hazel Galloway

Moody’s Downgrades College’s Credit Rating Oliver Bok News Editor The College has too much debt and depends too heavily on students for revenue, analysts from Moody’s Investors Service say.

Moody’s, one of the two most important credit-rating agencies along with Standard & Poor’s, downgraded Oberlin’s credit rating from Aa2 to Aa3 on Nov. 24. Moody’s based its downgrade on the College’s relatively low endowment growth, dependence on

Construction workers assess the situation within the new Lewis Gateway Center, which the College borrowed $18 million to build. The rating agency Moody’s Investors Services recently downgraded the College’s credit rating partially because of the College’s debt level. Clover Lihn Tran

tuition and high debt levels. The credit-rating agency anticipates that net tuition growth, which averaged 6 percent from 2011 to 2015, will fall in the near future and that the College will have to make adjustments as a result. “Given management’s indication of more moderate net tuition revenue growth increasing revenue from other sources or more aggressively containing expenses will be critical to carry out its plan to reduce reliance on supplemental endowment draws in [ fiscal year] 2017 which have been used to support capital projects and the fundraising campaign expenses,” according to the report. Moody’s also noted that the College’s ratio of total debt to operating revenue, 1.1, is higher than the median Aa-rated private university, which has a ratio of 0.8. The College gets 68 percent of operating revenue from student charges, higher than other Aa-rated institutions.

Meantime Manager City Council selected Finance Director Sal Talarico as the new interim city manager.

LORA IN COUNT Y MURDER RATES 2000–2013 SHEFFIELD LAKE

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Machmud Makhmudov Named Rhodes Scholar Machmud Makhmudov, College senior and class copresident, was selected as one of 32 students in the United States to receive a Rhodes Scholarship. Makhmudov will pursue a Masters in Public Policy at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom next October with full financial support from the Rhodes Scholar program. He also earned a scholarship from the Truman Foundation last year and has served as an intern for the White House Domestic Policy Council, the City of Atlanta Office of Sustainability, the Environment Defense Fund and the office of Congressman John Lewis.

Twenty-four-year-old Steven L. Davis was found shot to death in his apartment last Tuesday, Nov. 24 — the first murder in Oberlin since a 1999 stabbing. Oberlin Police Department officers received a 911 call at 12:12 p.m. by a man who claimed to be Davis’ cousin. He reported that Davis was bleeding and requested an ambulance to 40 Locust Street, Davis’ home address. Police confirmed Davis as the victim on Friday. The initial responding police officers observed a single gunshot wound to Davis’ chest. Dr. Stephen Evans, Lorain County coroner, told the The Chronicle-Telegram on Wednesday that Davis died of multiple gunshots to both the chest and the head. Craig Robinson, one of Davis’ neighbors, said he didn’t hear any shooting during the time the murder took place. But he said that the woman who lives in the front apartment with her boyfriend did. “She said she heard three loud noises that night,” Robinson said. “But she just thought it was her uncle who fell out of bed or something.” The investigation by the Oberlin Police Department is in its preliminary stages. Police Chief Juan Torres confirmed that they believe the case was a homicide but stated that the officers do not currently have any suspects or persons of interest. “We are trying to determine the victim’s movements prior to the incident,” Torres said. “We go talking to neighbors and different people, and we send some evidence to be processed, and that’s where we are right now.”

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification, which runs the state crime lab and provides crime scene units to local law enforcements across the state, is assisting the local authorities in Oberlin with the Davis case. According to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, unlike many large cities like Columbus or Cleveland which have their own crime scene units, smaller communities like Oberlin often do not have the resources. “The other issue is one of volume,” said Dan Tierney, an officer from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. “[Larger cities] have unfortunately larger crime rates that would result in there being experienced officers in the situation. But in small towns, there might not be a shooting for five or ten years at a time, so as a result you want somebody who has experience to assist the crime scene or the investigation. … Quite frankly, when the law enforcement agency doesn’t have the experience, they go to the [Bureau of Criminal Identification] for assistance.” A total of three murders, two of which happened in 1998, occurred in Oberlin in the years between 1995 and 2000, according to Office of Criminal Justice Services Crime Statistics and Crime Reports in the Ohio Department of Public Safety. During the first five years for which records are publicly available, 1995–1999, 16 murders occured in Lorain County. The number stayed nearly constant at 15 for the next five years, before tripling to 43 in 2005–2009. Murders peaked at 13 in 2009 and have declined since then, although figures have not been released for 2014 or 2015.

2002

City Enters Transit Deal with Lorain County Oberlin city officials and Lorain County commissioners reached an agreement Wednesday to provide residents with public transportation services next year, beginning on Jan. 4, as part of an ongoing effort to increase transportation accessibility for residents of Oberlin and surrounding towns. The city will provide $22.26 per hour and $50 a month in administrative costs to help fund the project.

Xiaoqian Zhu

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News briefs from the past week

Oberlin Man Murdered in Apartment

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However, the agency also described the College’s financial outlook as “stable” and noted Oberlin’s “robust philanthropic support” and “consistently strong net tuition revenue growth” as two of the institution’s primary financial strengths. Vice President of Finance Mike Frandsen said he did not anticipate the College’s borrowing costs would increase as result of the downgrade and noted that the College’s credit rating remains strong. “First, even with the downgrade, Oberlin is still rated as ‘investment grade’ debt of ‘high quality and very low credit risk,’” Frandsen wrote in an email to the Review. “We are in good company with peers like Colgate, Macalester, Mount Holyoke and Wesleyan, among others, holding the same rating. Moody’s is just one rating agency. The other major agency, See Building, page 2

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The Oberlin Review, December 4, 2015

City Council Appoints Interim City Manager Jack Rockwell As City Manager Eric Norenberg prepares to move to a new job in Delaware, Ohio, City Council has decided to promote from within. City Council met on Nov. 30 to pass an ordinance appointing Sal Talarico, the current director of finance for the city of Oberlin, as the new interim city manager. Talarico will remain finance director while assuming the responsibilities of city manager starting Jan. 1, until the City Council finds a permanent replacement. The length of Talarico’s term as interim manager will depend on the length of the search process for a new permanent manager, which several Council members estimated could take anywhere from four to seven months. The search will be underway by the time the new City Council begins in January, and it will be conducted on a national level from a pool of city management professionals. In the meantime, several City Council members agreed that Talarico is the man to step in. “He’s been with the city for 16 years,” said Kristen Peterson, City Council mem-

ber. “He’s been recognized by the state several times for outstanding work in terms of all the detail related to financial matters, and he’s well-versed in the law.” City Council President Scott Broadwell described it as a relatively easy decision. “There were some other candidates for the job, but when we met in the executive session it became apparent that we thought that he was the person we wanted,” Broadwell said. “He knows the way things work around the community, and his office is run incredibly well.” For many Council members, Talarico’s prior experience and knowledge regarding Oberlin’s city government were major pluses. “He’s part of the administrative team, he’s well familiar with the operations of the city and we all know and trust him,” added Bryan Burgess, Council member. Talarico’s new responsibilities will include managing all city departments and overseeing ongoing projects. Some of these include renewing the property tax code, work related to the College’s Lewis Gateway Center project, disposition of revenue for green energy projects and hiring a new full-time city manager.

Talarico will continue in his post of finance director while serving as manager, but his new responsibilities will take precedence over those in the finance department. His colleagues at the finance office will help him manage the new workload. While he was not part of the selection process, outgoing City Manager Eric Norenberg expressed belief that Talarico will transition well into the role of interim manager. “Talarico already participates in my weekly staff meeting, so he’s aware of ongoing projects and issues,” Norenberg said. “He should be brought up to speed pretty easily.” He added that Talarico has the qualities that he thinks are necessary to perform well in the position. “I think that being a good listener and a good communicator are important for any city manager,” Norenberg said. “Sal does a great job of being able to picture both parties involved in a complex issue or discussion and making sure that everybody understands both sides of an issue that are being discussed.” There is no possibility for a direct promotion of Talarico from interim manager

Sal Talarico will serve as the new interim city manager. Courtesy of Sal Talarico

and finance director to full-time manager, although as Burgess put it, “He’s welcome to apply just like anyone else.” “As of now, I really can’t say,” Talarico said in regards to applying for the position full-time. “I only just realized I would become interim manager recently.”

Building Projects Add to College’s Debt

Feature Photo: Black Lives Matter

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College sophomore Gloria Lewis dances in front of Wilder Hall, where students gathered for a Black Lives Matter protest on Friday, Nov. 20. Dozens of people marched through the hallways of the Science Center and King Hall and throughout campus chanting “Say her name” and “Black Lives Matter.” The protest culminated in a gathering in front of Wilder Hall, where attendees engaged in conversations and other forms of creative expression about racism on campus. The protest follows numerous campus events that have focused on the systemic oppression of people of color in higher education institutions. Black faculty and staff held a teach-in at Dye Lecture Hall on Wednesday, Nov. 18, and many also contributed to an open letter of support for campus protestors at Oberlin College, University of Missouri, Yale University, Ithaca College, Claremont McKenna College and elsewhere (“Staff, Faculty of Color Stand with Campus Protestors,” Nov. 20, 2015). Text by Tyler Sloan, News editor Photo by Aaron Cohen, staff photographer

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Standard & Poor’s, reaffirmed their AA rating of and stable outlook for Oberlin in August.” When asked if he agreed with Moody’s decision, Frandsen was noncommittal. “Similar to the U.S. News rankings of colleges, their methodology does not capture all the nuances of an institution’s finances. However, I think the rating generally reflects what I have been sharing in the presentations I’ve made to various campus groups over the last year.” The report partially blames the College’s relatively elevated level of debt on “high capital investment,” including the Lewis Gateway Center currently under construction. The College borrowed $18 million of the $32 million overall construction costs. According to Frandsen, the College’s current overall debt level, excluding the Gateway project, is $165.8 million, down from $170.4 million the year before. Two students with financial expertise who read Moody’s report concluded independently that the College is overspending on major capital projects. “It seems like Oberlin needs to focus a little more on investing in less capital-heavy ventures,” wrote Student Treasurer and College senior Miliaku Nwabueze in an email to the Review. Benjamin Libbey, Student Finance Committee outreach coordinator and College senior, agreed. “I think that the College needs to spend in proportion to its resources,” Libbey wrote in an email to the Review. “At the moment we are attempting to spend at a competitive rate but not saving and investing at a similar rate to our peers. Frankly, we have fewer financial resources than many of our peer institutions, and until this has been remedied we should not attempt to match their spending practices.”

Corrections

Corrections: The Review is not aware of The article Enforcement any“Tobacco corrections this week. Remains Unclear,” (Nov. 20, 2015) reported that the tobacco will include e-cigarettes. Theban Review strives to print all It will not. information as accurately as possible. If you feel the Review has made an error, please send an e-mail to managingeditor@oberlinreview.org.

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The Oberlin Review, December 4, 2015

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Off the Cuff: Kate Doyle, Analyst at the National Security Archive Kate Doyle is a senior analyst of U.S. policy in Latin America at the National Security Archive, an organization that uses declassified U.S. government documents to shed light on American foreign policy. Doyle is featured in the documentary Granito: How to Nail a Dictator, directed by Pamela Yates. Granito depicts activists trying to bring justice to crimes against humanity committed during the Guatemalan Civil War. The documentary was screened in the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies on Monday, and Doyle spoke briefly and answered questions from the audience afterwards. Doyle talked to the Review on Thursday. For people who haven’t seen the documentary, can you give an overview of what happened in Guatemala in terms of the genocide and the conflict in general? Guatemala experienced an armed conflict between small guerrilla forces and the Guatemalan government for more than 35 years, a conflict that was set off by a U.S.-engineered coup against Guatemala’s president in 1954 and was fueled in large part by U.S. military and financial support to the government army — a conflict that was fought on the military side by a savage counterinsurgency campaign that targeted armed guerrillas and anyone and everyone who appeared politically suspect in the government’s eyes. So many hundreds and thousands of people — civilians — died in this conflict. There were some 40,000 disappeared people — people kidnapped and secretly killed by the military over the course of the war. And I think over a million people, mostly from the Mayan Indian communities, were displaced by the war and fled into Mexico or deep into the jungle or the mountains of Guatemala for years, decades. So Guatemala suffered this tremendously violent period of repression and political violence which ended in 1996 with the peace accord. And Granito is really a documentary that looks at the post-conflict measures taken by Guatemalans — by society — to confront the legacy of that violence and of the tremendous number of human rights abuses that were committed during the war.

How specifically did they confront that “legacy of violence”? Among the different ways that Guatemalan society tried to deal with the damage that the war wrought were, first of all, establishing a truth commission to try to clarify how this happened, to explain to society how this happened. Investigators sought to analyze the causes behind the war. And there have been reparations to the mostly Mayan communities that were hardest hit during the conflict, where the massacres took place. And ultimately there have been prosecutions in the last five or six years, attempts to go after, through criminal human rights cases, some of the perpetrators. And in 2013, the former president — really dictator — of Guatemala, Efraín Ríos Montt, was indicted on charges of genocide against the Mayan people and crimes against humanity. And his trial took place in the spring of 2013 and on May 10, 2013, he was convicted of those crimes and sentenced to 80 years in prison. And that was very much a watershed moment for Guatemala. What was the American role in this violence? The first American role was the decision under President Dwight Eisenhower to topple the president of Guatemala — who had been elected in a democratic election — President Jacobo Arbenz. That coup was engineered by the CIA and ended successfully, in the CIA’s view, with the installation of a military dictator named Castillo Armas; that coup ended a 10-year experiment in democracy and reformist policy in Guatemala. Guatemala was accustomed to military dictatorship, Guatemala was accustomed to authoritarian government, and this kind of new twist in the 1940s and ’50s — there was this popular demand for change and for reform — ended up with carrying out democratic elections, an exciting development for the country. So the coup really not only took out a president that the Guatemalan people had fairly elected, but it also completely destroyed the trajectory of this experiment of social reform. Before ’54, when the coup happened, the country was essentially a neofeudal state, with a tiny landed elite holding the vast majority of the country’s resources and land and a large majority-poor population — most of them Mayan indigenous — who had nothing.

Saturday, Nov. 28 SECURITY ADVISORY Abusua, Oberlin’s Black student union, sent an email to Afrikan Heritage House residents Tuesday regarding a verbal assault that allegedly took place in the Saunders Lounge around 1 p.m. on Monday. Students reported a middle-aged man with a southern accent shouting racial epithets and death threats. The witnesses called Safety and Security, but no perpetrator was identified and a security log showed only students swiping into the building.

8:34 a.m. Safety and Security was notified of a break in the city water main on West College Street. A drinking water boil advisory was posted for affected areas. 6:59 p.m. Safety and Security officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at Union Street Housing Complex. The officers silenced and reset the alarm, which had been activated by cooking.

Sunday, Nov. 29 12:36 p.m. Safety and Security officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm on the third floor of Dascomb

and students and writers and lawyers were being kidnapped and tortured and then secretly executed in Guatemala City as a way of kind of cutting off the head of all dissent and political opposition. And yet U.S. strategic interests in Central America at the time — the 1970s and ’80s — were dominated by our anticommunist ideology. And so we didn’t try to stop them.

Kate Doyle, analyst of U.S. policy in Latin America.

So the coup represented in a very deep way the destruction of hope in Guatemala. That began the spiral of violence that blossomed into this terrible civil conflict. It was a tiny guerrilla group that began in 1960 to challenge the authoritarian regime that turned into four different armed insurgency groups that grew in strength. The response of the government — again with full U.S. support and aid in the form of weapons and money and training and intelligence — the response was to launch these counterinsurgency operations that involved scorched-earth assaults on Mayan communities, massacring people who lived there, razing the villages, burning their houses, burning their crops, slaughtering their animals. The ultimate punishment of elimination, essentially. Those massacres took place in the 1970s and ’80s. And although the U.S. by 1978 was not formally providing open or overt military aid to Guatemala because of Jimmy Carter’s new human rights commission on aiding foreign governments, the U.S. did continue to pour millions of dollars into Guatemala covertly through the CIA. So we never stopped funding the Guatemalan military despite signs that they were slaughtering civilians; it was very clear. And when I go through declassified U.S. documents that I work with at the National Security Archive, there’s no doubt that U.S. officials operating out of the embassy and the CIA station knew perfectly well that Indian communities were being razed and Mayans were being massacred, men, women and children; knew perfectly well that labor organizers and teachers

As Americans, how do you think we should grapple with this violence that American foreign policy caused during this period in Guatemala and throughout Latin America? I feel like we have to comprehend the lessons that come out of this. We have to analyze this history. We have to incorporate it into our history and conversations because when we talk about Iraq, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, torture, the use of drones, assassination programs — we have to look back at other historical periods and other places where we tried those things. And it ended in disaster, if you look at Chile, if you look at Argentina, if you look at Guatemala and you look at El Salvador. These were countries that we fully, wholeheartedly supported in their military authoritarian projects. And it ended in the disaster of hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths throughout Latin America. And the essential structural economic and political reasons for the conflict — the inequality, the poverty, the racism, the lack of access to political power for most of the population of these societies — really didn’t change that much. Guatemala remains a terribly poor and afflicted state. A corrupt state, a violent state. So what did we get for our policy in the region? One thing that I found interesting from the documentary was the huge cellar full of documentation that human rights groups found. How did that happen? It seems incredible that they’d just leave all the evidence there. That was the entire historical archive for one of the country’s main security institutions, the National Police. It’s like we stumbled upon the entire archive of the FBI once the FBI had been abolished. The National Police had been abolished by the peace accords because of their intimate connection and role in carrying out acts of terror against civilians.

Hall. A plastic rice cooker placed on a stove burned and melted, activating the fire alarm. The officers cleared the area and reset the alarm. 3:09 p.m. An anonymous caller reported that an exit sign on the first floor of Noah Hall had been torn down. A Safety and Security officer responded and confirmed the damage. A work order was filed for repair. 7:39 p.m. Safety and Security officers responded to a report of sewage backup in a room at Firelands Apartments. A plumber was called for repairs.

the first floor hallway of South Hall. Upon arrival, they found a broken ceiling tile and a bulletin board also torn down. A work order for repair was filed. 1:30 a.m. Safety and Security officers responded to a request for assistance with an intoxicated student on West College Street. Upon arrival, the student was semi-conscious. The officers requested an ambulance that transported the student to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Monday, Nov. 30

11:15 a.m. Safety and Security officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at Peters Hall. A strong rubber odor from belts replaced on the

12:51 a.m. Safety and Security officers responded to a report of loud noise and a broken exit sign in

Tuesday, Dec. 1

Interview by Oliver Bok, News editor Photo courtesy of Kate Doyle

blowers in the mechanical room activated the alarm. The alarms were reset. 2:14 p.m. A resident of Afrikan Heritage House reported suspicious people in the courtyard taking pictures. Safety and Security officers responded and made contact with the individuals, who were found to be contractors taking measurements for a job. 5:15 p.m. A student reported the theft of a gym bag, which contained a wallet and miscellaneous items, from an unlocked locker in the hallway near the squash courts at Philips gym. 7:17 p.m. A student reported the theft of their Nexus5 cell phone and $60 from an unlocked locker near the squash courts at Philips gym.

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The Oberlin Review, December 4, 2015

Students to Trustees: We’re Not Being Heard Tyler Sloan News Editor With final exams looming and fall semester coming to a close, the Board of Trustees-Student forum in King Hall on Thursday night was sparsely attended. Still, students and trustees engaged in discourse about increasing support for international students and students of color, the status of fossil fuel divestment proposals, improving campus services and several other prominent issues. The Steering Committee released a new draft of the Strategic Plan in late October, a document intended to guide the Board of Trustees’ decision-making for the next 10 years. The report included plans to cut the endowment payout, as well as other major fiscal decisions. Many students are concerned that this cut will result in on-campus programs suffering. “I’m always kind of apprehensive of when institutions say they

don’t have resources to do things,” said Elijah Aladin, College firstyear and student senator. “They find resources to do the things they want to do.” Across the board, students voiced concerns about the trustees’ alleged lack of transparency when it comes to their decisionmaking processes, especially regarding divestment proposals. The Board recently rejected Students for a Free Palestine’s proposal to divest from companies that are said to benefit from Israeli occupation in the region. Oberlin Fossil Fuel Divestment recently submitted a revised proposal of its divestment proposal to the Board. The revisions included an expansion of the companies in question to 200 — as opposed to the original 12 company names submitted last year — asking that the Board commit to not investing in these companies in the future and that it issue a public response to the proposal. “Students are not represented

in major administrative decisions, and not only are our opinions not taken into consideration, but they’re not even heard because we’re not at the table most of the time,” said Aladin in one of several Trustee-Student meetings on Thursday night. “We have four nights of [the] year when we talk, and it supposedly goes in the agenda, but it’s not reflected in the actions by the administration in the projects we see around school.” Several trustees at the same meeting responded with probing questions about how they could improve this process. Some students suggested more explicit communication from the Board, while others called for evidence of support through direct action. College first-year Kameron Dunbar said that the responsibility to find solutions should not necessarily be delegated to students. “As students, I don’t think it’s our job to come up with personal solutions to institutional prob-

lems,” Dunbar said. “I don’t have time or resources to draw up institutional solutions. That responsibility lies on administration.” Dunbar also shared pieces of a working proposal to have Afrikan Heritage House residents only be of African descent in the future. The proposal is currently incomplete and has not been published, but is allegedly in the works. “It’s so valuable to hear this and it’s completely authentic,” said Philip Vasan, trustee and OC ’80. “Nobody can dispute this because that’s how people are honestly experiencing being here. A lot of people have thought about this. I would just say you have to take these kinds of decisions in the current context, and it starts with being open about this. You have to have your eyes open about what it means to go 100 percent African American in the house.” Vasan added a personal anecdote about his experiences with encountering racism at Oberlin

as a student, stating that these issues have existed on campus for decades. Students attempted to tackle larger institutional problems but also emphasized that small improvements might enhance the overall quality of life on campus. College senior and Student Senate Liaison Megs Bautista suggested that a monthly stipend or package be awarded to lowincome students with quarters for laundry, detergent, menstrual products and other items that might ease day-to-day life. “One way to get close to remedying these problems is to get a better sense of what concrete progress looks like,” said Trustee Christopher Canavan, OC ’84. “If it’s simply that we need to do a better job, then I think that we will think we’re trying to do a better job. But if we don’t have a really practical, concrete idea of what constitutes a better job on any one of these issues, then it’s hard for us to deliberate.”

CDS and Students Discuss Cultural Appropriation Sydney Allen

College sophomore and Student Senator Jesse Docter listens at the trustee forum on Thursday night. The forum included discussion of divestment and student input in decision making. Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

Following claims of Campus Dining Services appropriating traditional Asian dishes, representatives from the South Asian, Vietnamese and Chinese student associations met with CDS to discuss students’ concerns on Wednesday, Nov. 18. The meeting came on the heels of a recent article published by the Review, which critiqued Dascomb Dining Hall’s sushi bar and other interpretations of Asian dishes that many called disrespectful (“CDS Appropriates Asian Dishes, Students Say,” Nov. 6, 2015). “They took us very seriously and were taking notes the whole time,” said Clover Linh Tran, College sophomore and Vietnamese Student Association co-chair, who wrote the original article. “They seemed very willing to learn and fix what was offending people.” Tran organized the meeting after coordinating with CDS representatives and inviting fellow students through a Facebook event. Michele Gross, director of CDS; Eric Pecherkiewicz, campus registered dietitian; and John Klancar, Bon Appétit director of operations, were all in attendance. At the meeting, CDS representatives shared that most of the recipes that students had cited as problematic — such as an interpretation of a Vietnamese Banh Mi sandwich that involved pulled pork and coleslaw instead of the traditional grilled pork, pâté and pickled vegetables — came from online recipes. Gross said that this was the primary reason for the mislabeling of traditional Asian dishes. The meeting began with students detailing complaints, with examples of what they perceived as inappropriately labeled dishes. The student association advocates compiled comments from other students before the meeting, presenting them to administrators in list form. “I don’t think CDS really knew what to expect from us,” said Yasmine Ramachandra, College first-year and South Asian Student Association treasurer. “But we were very ready, and had notes and examples.” Aside from citing examples of allegedly appropriated dishes, students shared what the ramifications of serving these foods were for them. Ramachandra said that she was compelled to attend the meeting after arriving at Stevenson Dining Hall with other South Asian students on Diwali, a Hindu holiday, and finding the traditional Indian tandoori made with beef, which many Hindi people do not eat for religious reasons. “It’s really not okay to do that to a religious dish,” Ramachandra said. Representatives from both sides reached a middle ground when CDS delegates agreed to try improving the naming process of meals by not associating excessively modified dishes with specific cultures. CDS delegates added that they will focus on correcting dishes to make them more culturally accurate, specifically Dascomb Dining Hall’s sushi bar. Students also suggested that student associations and CDS collaborate on creating a list of menu items. Moving forward, CDS representatives said they welcome continued feedback about dishes served in the dining halls. Still, Bon Appétit has come under heavy criticism this year for issues that extend far past the alleged cultural appropriation. Employees have cited severe understaffing issues and a lack of mutual respect between the management company and themselves. The College has not announced any plans to terminate its contract with Bon Appétit.

December 4, 2015

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Letters to the Editors

Despite Gofman’s Beliefs, Nuclear Power a Better Source for Energy To the Editors:

Page 8 of the Nov. 20 edition of the Review had a story listing four famous Oberlin scientists. I’m compelled to write and offer a little bit more information on one of the selected scientists. John W. Gofman graduated Oberlin College in 1939, where he studied chemistry. He decided to make a career of medical research. He moved to Berkeley in early 1941, where he was sent to go “shopping” for a professor to do further research. John Gofman found Dr. Glenn Seaborg, who was exploring the new worlds of radioactive fission. Seaborg set up Gofman with a project to breed radioactive thorium 232 into uranium 233 (at the time a theoretical isotope). The two collaborators decided “It’s not a bad problem for a thesis.” Could nonfissile common Th232 be transmuted into the theoretical fissile isotope U233? I won’t go into the workings of the 60-inch cyclotron slamming neutrons into samples of thorium in the hopes of neutron capture, or the chemical processes involved in isolating the uranium 233 or the ultimate first fissioning of the uranium 233 sample. I will say that on Feb. 2, 1942, John Gofman and Glenn Seaborg were able to say that they had created the second human synthesized fuel source for nuclear energy after earlier work creating Plutonium 239 from U238. Seaborg noted at the time that, using fossil oil as an equivalent comparison, John Gofman had made a $50-quadrillion discovery. The Manhattan Project work during World War II took both men away from further research into the thorium to uranium fuel cycle. Years later, in October 1968, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, under the direction of Dr. Alvin Weinberg, fueled an experimental Molten Salt Reactor with uranium 233. The machine ran

successfully. It was determined that a liquid-fueled reactor could run very efficiently and very safely and produce great amounts of heat. It was extrapolated that commercial MSRs could be used to produce vast quantities of electricity, desalinate seawater, and synthesize fertilizers, liquid transportation fuels and other useful materials. It would be possible to reduce and eventually eliminate fossil fuels from the electrical generation portfolio of United States. However, this clean energy path was not taken. In fact, John W. Gofman did indeed have a role in killing the development of advanced reactors with the publication of his 1971 book Poisoned Power. Gofman justifiably feared radiation from nuclear weapons detonation. He also raised many questions about the development of nuclear electric power generation during the late 1960s (as the first reactor stations were starting operation). After reading extensively on the subject, I feel his anti-nuclear-power efforts were a heartfelt but misguided attempt to put the genie back into the bottle. As I write this, world leaders are in Paris discussing climate change and how humans will reduce fossil-carbon burning. They don’t have far to look for answers, as France generates 90 percent of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources. Seventy percent of French electricity comes from nuclear power. They have done this for 30 years. Ontario, Canada, generates similar clean energy percentages. Ten percent of the planet’s electricity is generated from nuclear power, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on a schedule. We need to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy as soon as possible. The generation of students reading this letter (and their kids) are going to bear the brunt of most of this work to transition. Despite John Gofman’s 1971 fears about nuclear power, fission of radioactive fuels has been proven to be a very safe and effective method of generating heat and electricity. China, Canada, Norway, India, the EU, Brazil and Argentina are developing molten salt reactors.

The Chinese are also actively developing a Thorium MSR breeder program. Thank you for your time in reading this letter. Nuclear power is not a popular subject at Oberlin College; however, it has a proven history that most people know nothing about. Let’s all work for abundant clean, costeffective energy for the kids and grandkids. We owe them a clean world with abundant energy. – Scott Medwid Oberlin resident and environmental activist

Underage Drinking Should Raise Concern on Campus To the Editors: I was in Oberlin this last weekend and picked up a copy of the Nov. 20 edition of The Oberlin Review. What caught my interest was the article, “Students Ticketed by State Police at ’Sco,” by staff writer Louis Krauss. It appears that this was not a planned State Police operation. The officers noticed youthful people carrying alcohol on the sidewalk and responded accordingly. They were rightfully charged for underage drinking, an offense punishable with penalties as severe as six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. They could have also been possibly charged with public intoxication and, if they were going to attempt to operate a motor vehicle, a DUI charge. What is troubling to me, and I hope to other responsible Oberlin administrators, faculty, students and local residents is what appears to be the “Oh well” attitude by the offenders and individuals mentioned in the article. What the three students did was illegal — they were caught and will have to answer for their behavior. This is what happens in a society governed by laws. Likewise, we should expect college students, who will hopefully graduate, to See Letters, 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. The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to the author of a letter to the editors. 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

City Council Should Focus on Abolishing, Not Rerouting, NEXUS Pipeline In a special meeting on Monday, Nov. 30, City Council decided to hire the law offices of D.C.-based Carolyn Elefant to represent the city of Oberlin in a lawsuit aimed at rerouting the NEXUS pipeline. The proposed 250-mile pipeline, to be constructed and operated by Houston-based Spectra Energy, is slated to run from Ontario, Canada to Kensington, Ohio — a town just 76 miles southeast of Oberlin. Based on the intended route, the pipeline will run as close as 95 feet from residences on Reserve Avenue as well as near the Welcome Nursing Home and the fire station, among other city buildings. The Medina County-based Coalition to Reroute Nexus, along with the city officials of Green, Ohio, devised a rerouting plan that would add 9.9 miles to Spectra’s route and move the three-foot-wide pipeline farther from Oberlin and closer to the village of Wellington, which lies about 9 miles directly south on Main Street. This relocation would avoid the pipeline’s proximity with residences and city buildings, which concerned citizens in case of a spill on their property or the wetlands nearby. While efforts by CORN and communities from Medina, Fulton, Erie and Summit Counties to reroute the NEXUS project are commendable, protests against Spectra have evolved from committed community discussions about abolishing the pipeline to “not in my backyard” opposition from landowners. Students for Energy Justice, previously Oberlin Anti-Frack, and Communities for Safe and Sustainable Energy — Oberlin’s community environmental group — opposed the reroute plan for precisely this reason. What is the point of rerouting the pipeline where it would cause the same disturbances in someone else’s backyard? These environmental organizations should take advantage of their large membership bases and community following to back the pipeline’s abolition. Indifference toward the abolition or reroute debate will only allow for a diversion plan that, if implemented, would burden another community with the environmental and public health dangers of the fracking industry — not to mention perpetuate the cycle of environmental injustice. Oberlin’s Community Bill of Rights, passed in 2013, offers a possible solution to the NEXUS debate. Described as “an emergency measure necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety of the City of Oberlin,” the Bill of Rights banned the construction of new natural gas or oil pipeline infrastructure within city limits. If enough cities in the counties surrounding Oberlin were to adopt their own Bill of Rights, they could circumvent Spectra’s urgent construction deadlines imposed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The construction of NEXUS would be stalled until Spectra could form its own reroute plan, which would require more time and funding and hopefully create enough opposition that would result in a financial disincentive that the company could no longer ignore. A Bill of Rights network in northeast Ohio that would obstruct fracking infrastructure construction would be a huge victory for environmental justice and grassroots community groups. For a city like Oberlin — that is supposedly devoted to energy and climate justice — adopting a reroute plan is neither an ethical nor a sustainable choice. There is power in numbers, and Oberlin City Council should practice the values it preaches by throwing its weight behind the pipeline abolishment initiative and community solidarity with other townships.

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, December 4, 2015

Peace for Syria Feasible with Rebel, State Solution Sean Para Columnist The maelstrom that has engulfed Syria continues to reach new heights of violence. Recent attacks by the Islamic State in Paris, Beirut and the Sinai Peninsula have added a sense of urgency in bringing a resolution to the conflict. The refugee crisis also stems partly from the Syrian Civil War — yet another global problem born out of what originated as an internal conflict. Syria is so fractured that many doubt whether it will survive as a unified state. The only way to break this cycle of violence and preserve some semblance of Syrian territorial integrity is a negotiated solution that allows for both rebel groups and the Assad regime to exist within a common federal political space. Such an agreement would need the support of all the foreign powers that have entered the war. Only if there is a peace settlement in

Syria that brings an end to the civil war will the Islamic State be destroyed. Russian military intervention has changed the calculations of all involved, effectively assuring that the Assad regime will stay in power. The U.S. has in turn expanded its support for its allies in northern Syria to form a new alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces, composed of a coalition of Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians and other groups operating against ISIS in northern Syria. The twin wars against Assad and ISIS have further contributed to the chaos as the U.S. backs rebels who wish to fight Assad despite the American commitment to destroying ISIS. As strange as it is to imagine the opposition and the government coming to an agreement given the scale of the atrocities that have been committed by both the government and some rebel groups, a peace treaty is possible. The 1995 Dayton Accords that es-

tablished Bosnia and Herzegovina are a relatively recent example of such an accord that established a durable peace. The accords called for the establishment of a federal republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, out of the two warring sides of the Bosnian War. The Bosnian and Serbian republics function as autonomous entities within a weak federal state. The situation continues to this day, and although there are tensions and it is not a perfect system, it is far better than war. A peace plan for the Syrian civil war would require all the major foreign actors of the war to pressure their respective proxies to come to the negotiation table. Therefore, this involves Russia and Iran on the regime side and the U.S., Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the gulf monarchies on the opposition side. The fractured nature of the non-ISIS opposition makes negotiating a binding settlement that would be difficult to achieve. However, if that opposition’s benefactors

can bring enough major groups to the negotiating table, a critical mass for a rebel negotiating team could come into being. Once a rebel negotiating team is assembled, the next phase would be hammering out which provinces would remain in rebel hands under a federal system. Three major groupings of nongovernment territory are clearly visible. One block of territory in the Idlib and Aleppo provinces, another block in southern Syria and a third along the northern border. These three regions could be viable autonomous states within a federal Syria. The islands of rebel control that dot other parts of Syria could also be granted autonomy in this war. The Assad regime would then hold on to power during a transitional period while a new constitution was created. One could imagine a federal government that retained control of foreign and economic policy while granting autonomy in most mat-

Non-Black Allies Must Engage With Protest Critics Jasper Clarkberg Contributing Writer On Nov. 6, Aaron Pressman wrote a column accusing “students who make up the majority opinion” of stifling dissent on campus (“Discouraging Dissent Stifles Intellectual Growth,” The Oberlin Review). I have heard this “millennial college students don’t want to debate” criticism from many places recently, including friends and family. While I understand the reasoning behind this claim, I believe that it is misguided and worth responding to. Pressman claims that Oberlin culture precludes the possibility of debate on social justice topics, particularly about Black Lives Matter, and that this culture hampers our Oberlin education. Purportedly, because Oberlin culture is not open to debate on certain topics, the intellectual growth of Oberlin students is stunted. However, Pressman’s piece does not outline a tangible way in which the Oberlin campus discourages dissent. Nobody is putting their hand over the mouth of dissenters. Nobody is punishing dissenters legally, financially or academically. Instead, Pressman accuses Obies of “dismissing” dissenting viewpoints, refusing to acknowledge the existence of differing opinions and socially ostracizing dissenters. What does it mean to “dismiss” a certain viewpoint? That sounds a lot like “disagreeing” with a certain viewpoint. I agree that those voicing minority opinions should not be punished, but Obies are not responsible for actively engaging with minority opinions, especially when they are ill-informed or bigoted. What about the social ostracization of dissenters? Pressman even disagrees with himself, arguing that Obies should be allowed to “take measures to avoid interacting with [those with problematic opinions].“ It comes down to this: You are responsible for your own problematic beliefs, you are responsible for any emotional costs incurred while holding these beliefs and you are responsible for any social costs incurred while holding these beliefs. If Oberlin’s campus seems unwelcoming to racist opinions, that’s good for a campus that claims to be inclusive for

minority racial and ethnic groups. If you are thinking of saying something that might be racist and you feel uncomfortable about saying it, you are simply feeling the positive effects of decades of progressive action at Oberlin. It’s worth noting that Oberlin’s majority opinion is a minority in the larger U.S. political sphere. This Thanksgiving, many Obies had the experience of being a dissenter at the dinner table. While it may seem like the radical left is the norm at Oberlin, many leftist students have had –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

It comes down to this: You are responsible for your own problematic beliefs, you are responsible for any emotional costs incurred while holding these beliefs and you are responsible for any social costs incurred while holding these beliefs. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– the experience of being shut down and disrespected for their beliefs outside of Oberlin. Even on Oberlin’s campus, radical leftist students have been discouraged from speaking out. This isn’t simply a partisan issue. Oberlin students who are involved in social justice are extremely aware that their political views are a minority. Nobody is “pretend[ing] that mainstream political opinions we deem hateful do not exist,” as Pressman wrote. Social justice activists are then faced with the enormous task of swaying this problematic mainstream opinion. Understanding who is with the movement and who disagrees is an important first step, which is why I think Black Lives Matter has been such an important movement. Instead of allowing silent complicity, Black Lives Matter has brought racial justice to the forefront of the national dialogue. Those white moderates who claim to be anti-racist but disagree with BLM and their actions have come out of the shadows. As Pressman says about dissenting opinions, “it is best for everyone to know what they are and who holds them.”

One should also be careful of holding marginalized communities to higher standards than the privileged majority. Civility and mutual respect are great to have, but they are often used as weapons against those who protest for their rights. Along these lines, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote eloquently about “the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” It would be exhausting if marginalized people were required to jump into a civil political debate every time someone challenged them. Instead, we should give marginalized people space to express themselves on their own terms. While I’ve established that marginalized people are not accountable for engaging with dissenters, this does not apply to allies. It is the job of allies to pull people into the movement, to educate them, to care for them. It is the job of allies to be there when someone voices a problematic opinion and to respectfully discuss it. While Pressman’s piece was a somewhat misguided and blunt critique of the entire social justice establishment, I think his complaint could be specifically applied to allies. In terms of racial justice, it is the job of white and non-Black allies to educate and win over their white peers. I believe we haven’t seen this necessary level of engagement at Oberlin. There have been multiple efforts to make a space for white people to ask questions about racial justice, but it has been difficult to reach all corners of campus. I recommend the “For White Obies to Educate Ourselves” Facebook group. In the future, I hope to help create more campus institutions that are a resource for people who are struggling with Oberlin’s dominant politics. I want people who feel threatened because of their (potentially problematic) beliefs to feel comfortable talking to white allies and to resolve any issues in productive and respectful conversation. In this way, white and non-Black allies can bring new people into the movement and help further the fight for racial justice.

ters to the above-mentioned regions. Once peace returns to the rest of Syria, it will be possible to destroy the Islamic State. A multi-factional force would be necessary to drive ISIS from its current areas of control – these regions would then be turned into federal entities on the model of the other rebel regions. This proposed plan is certainly dependent on a lot of things going right in a conflict where so many things have gone wrong. Syria is certainly a long way from peace and I am not pretending that this is a likely scenario for peace. A peace accord will need the full support of the international community and the world powers — but I argue that peace is possible — that the violence can end. Similarly bloody conflicts, like the Russian and Spanish civil wars, did ultimately end with largely unified countries. Let us hope that fragmented Syria will also be able to survive its civil war.

Dismissing Belief in Afterlife Makes Life More Meaningful CJ Blair Columnist I’m afraid of death, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. This fear, coupled with a little nudge from living in Kentucky, was enough to convince me to believe in God when I was a child. But as I continued going to church, I started to look critically at Christianity and question why I believed in God. I appreciated a system that encouraged good behavior, but I was bothered by the notion of heaven. Even if I wasn’t consciously aware of it, the idea that going to heaven was the main reason for living clouded my appreciation of the world. It wasn’t until I embraced Humanism, with its suggestion of the spiritual power of life itself, that I found a way to appreciate life more than ever before. Turning away from religion isn’t rare, especially for teenagers. I could write a novel about my frustrations with the hypocrisy and bigotry I’ve found in Christianity, but the truth is that these flaws aren’t seen in all Christians and that they weren’t major parts of my experience. Believing in God and an afterlife, though, were aspects I had to consider if I was going to call myself a Christian. No matter how many friends I had at the church I attended, I couldn’t fight the growing sensation, as I sat through services, that I wasn’t convinced by what I heard. I realized that the promise of heaven kept me from seeing the beauty in the life I already had, and my decision to leave was aided by a lack of familial attachment telling me to stay. If this sounds like a parable about a white person’s religious awakening à la Eat Pray Love, I assure you it’s not. I have no interest in finding the perfect belief system or properly following whichever one I choose. Like many other teens and young adults, I’m just trying to make sense of life during this transition from childhood to whatever comes next. I don’t claim to have figured it out, but Humanism has gotten me a lot closer than anything else I’ve tried. Humanism is a belief system that rejects all supernaturalism and says that human See Practicing, page 7

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, December 4, 2015

Page 7

Kylie Jenner’s Photoshoot Undermines Practicing Humanism Experiences of Disabled People Enhances Life Without El Wilson Contributing Writer Dear Kylie Jenner, I don’t care if you’re a trendy fashion model. I don’t care if you’re rich and famous. I don’t care that the photo shot by Steven Klein was well-composed. I don’t care that it symbolized how your fame limits you. Posing in a golden wheelchair in a photoshoot for Interview magazine was wrong. It was far more than politically incorrect. It was more than insulting. It was unethical. As someone without a visually apparent disability, you have no right to appropriate my identity for your photo spread. You didn’t grow up being constantly told that the way your body was created is inherently inferior to everyone else’s. If you go out alone in public, you don’t have to worry about someone calling the cops because they think that you shouldn’t be unsupervised. Employees of your local gym don’t use the fact that you work out there to convince others that the gym isn’t intimidating. You’re not disabled. In fact, you have so much able-bodied privilege that when you pose in a wheelchair, it’s seen as sexy and glamorous. Yet when a professor I had never met decided to put his arm around me, it didn’t dawn on him that this might creep me out because somehow my wheelchair canceled out my breasts. My disability results in people desexualizing me, yet I worry about the threat of sexual violence just as much as an able-bodied person assigned female at birth. My wheelchair isn’t an accessory. It is part of me. Although I’m constantly having to emphasize that I am not my wheelchair, and that referring to me as “the wheelchair” isn’t acceptable, people fail to recognize that I am, metaphorically, connected to my wheelchair. If someone behind me in class kicks the back wheel, I can feel it. When I’m in it, my wheelchair is as much a part of me as my feet are. So when you use a wheelchair in a fashion shoot, you are demoting my body to a fad. It’s appropriation taken to a whole new level. You have blatantly ignored the fact that, until recently, people with disabilities have been institutionalized, hidden

away from public view. Even now, it’s rare to see anyone with a disability on TV or in the movies. Often times, when we finally get screen time, we are portrayed as religious, inspiring, asexual angels. Despite this stereotype’s positive connotations, it’s extremely damaging. Like all stereotypes, it promotes the idea that disabled people aren’t people. We’re ideas put on this Earth to remind non-disabled people that their lives aren’t so bad. When your fans tweet that the wheelchair is a metaphor for how your fame “limits” you, they’re saying my identity is a metaphor. I’m sorry to inform you that you can’t use people’s identities as metaphors, especially the identities of people who are constantly turned into symbols by the media. This is in addition to your assumption that people with disabilities feel limited by their wheelchairs. I don’t feel limited by my disability, ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Like all stereotypes, it promotes the idea that disabled people aren’t people. We’re ideas put on this Earth to remind nondisabled people that their lives aren’t so bad. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

much less my wheelchair. I feel limited by the fact that society views my disability as a tragedy that needs to be fixed. Being disabled isn’t any more of a bad thing than being queer. That’s why I often don’t use person-first language — e.g. “person with a disability” rather than “disabled person.” I refuse to shove my disability aside, and I won’t tolerate other people doing it for me. I know that you probably didn’t intend to insult an entire minority group. In fact, you probably didn’t think of actual wheelchair users when the camera clicked. But now you know better. Disability is as much of a social justice issue as race and gender are. We all need to remember that. Sincerely,

Promise of Reward Continued from page 6

matters should be given primary importance. This manifests in dozens of Humanist schools, all loosely related by the notion that people are good and that they should help each other without expecting a reward after death. This is distinctly different from atheism because it affords conceptions of spiritual fulfillment to life itself instead of dismissing these ideas altogether. I understand why it might be hard to accept Humanism, especially as hectic schedules and daily minutiae can make heaven seem very enticing. I’ll admit it was hard to accept that checking e-mails and brushing my teeth were part of the life that was supposed to be fulfilling. Despite the initial uncertainty, I started to feel a profound change in the way I saw the world, like a veil had been lifted from in front of my eyes. Everything I felt was suddenly twice as vivid. I remember going for a run after I decided on Humanism and feeling the wind on my face and the burning of my calves like never before. When I accepted death as the definite end, I was far more excited to embrace things that had previously scared me before, and much less eager to do things that I knew I’d regret. I would never have to repent, but I would never see a life outside of the decisions I make. Either way, I took comfort in knowing that I didn’t have to elevate my own interests over those of others to guarantee my spot in heaven. It wasn’t an easy transition, but making it infused my life with an excitement that had previously been absent. Now I feel an urgency to magnify the things I enjoy and diminish the ones I don’t. Still, it’s a model, and I’m trying to adjust it so that I can make myself and others happy at the same time; a balancing act I’ve yet to get right. Humanism won’t work for everyone, but it helped me improve my daily interactions and remember the parts of life that make it worth living. Any belief that does this for a person should be treasured. Hopefully, if enough people find what they’re looking for, they will redirect their focus from the life they don’t have to the one that they do.

El Wilson, i.e. the kid in a wheelchair

Letters to the Editors Continued from page 5 conduct themselves in a manner that will be expected of them once they leave school and move on with their lives. The real world does not tolerate child-like behavior. Rather than appearing to be disinterested, Dean of Students Eric Estes should have forcefully condemned the students’ actions. Clif Barnes, Safety and Security Assistant Director, should use this as a teachable moment; maybe we have a problem on campus. To further emphasize the naiveté of Estes and Barnes, I encourage everyone to read the Review Security Notebook on page 3 of the Nov. 20 issue: “Saturday, Nov. 14, 12:56 a.m., Safety and Security officers respond to help a student ill from alcohol consumption.” Likewise, “Nov. 15, 12:20 a.m., officers respond to assist an intoxicated student in the basement restroom of Wilder Hall. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment at their request.” – Gary S. Izo Avon Lake resident

Fluoride Poisons Children, Does Not Prevent Tooth Decay To the Editors: For decades, Americans have been told a lie — one which has decreased the IQ

scores of children and increased reproductive infertility of parents. This lie is called fluoridation. The public was led to believe that adding fluoride to water was a secure and successful method of protecting teeth from decay. This is not true. It has been shown that water fluoridation is neither crucial for good health nor protective to teeth. What fluoride does is poison the body. We should be asking how and why the government, corporations and advertisers continue to live with and perpetuate this scientific sham. The American Dental Association states, “Fluoride in water is safe and it works.” The ADA also states that “more than 70 years of scientific research has consistently shown that an optimal level of fluoride in community water is safe and effective in preventing tooth decay,” but even though this method is known to treat tooth decay, fluoridation has never been approved by the FDA (“Fluoride in Water is Safe and It Works”). A scientist from Fluoride Action Network testifies that the effectivity of fluoridation to reduce tooth decay has never been verified by a randomized control trial. A systematic review and meta-analysis by researchers at Harvard University describes how there is a connection between fluoride exposure and a decline in neurological and cognitive functioning among children. Other scientific data also suggest that the damaging effects of fluoride extend to reproductive health as well. Adding more information to the fluoride debate is a current investigative re-

port by Natural News exposing how our fluoridated water systems today are commonly purchased from Chinese chemical plants. This fluoridate can be used as a toxic insecticide as well as a flux for soldering and welding. Shanghai Polymet Commodities Ltd, which produces fluoride destined for public water reserves in the U.S., notes on their official website that their fluoride is highly corrosive to human skin and harmful to people’s respiratory organs. In fact, according to World Health Organization data, the U.S., which fluoridates about two-thirds of public water supplies, actually has higher rates of tooth decay than many countries in Europe that do not fluoridate their water. Japan stopped fluoridation in the 1970s, yet rates of tooth decay have declined since that time. Water fluoridation, which is the most utilized method to treat tooth decay, generates a side effect called fluorosis enamel. Fluorosis enamel is a condition resulting from ingestion of excessive amounts of fluoride, which can cause a change in tooth structure and strength of the enamel, which becomes detached and more brittle. This is one of the reasons why most dental authorities now agree that the predominant benefits from fluoride are from topical application, not through systemic fluoridation as is implemented in the U.S. currently. Moreover, according to the EPA, fluoride concentration based on the maximum and secondary contaminant level is either 2.0 or 4.0 parts per million in

drinking water. Previous studies also discovered that volcanoes are the main source of fluoride. The United States has a varied topography with 169 active volcanoes. In fact, according to U.S. Geologic Survey data, two-thirds of American communities live in areas ranging between 448 and 6120 meters above sea level and up to hundreds of kilometers from volcanic area. Ash emitted during volcanic activity increases the presence of fluor (a chemical element and primary source of fluoride) in the vicinity of the volcano up to a distance of several hundred kilometers. In the event of water flow in the volcanic soils that contain fluor, the result is dissolution of fluor that can be found as fluoride in ground water. Soil water absorption by plants will cause some types of food to contain high fluoride levels. Water that passes through a variety of fluor-rich minerals will dissolve the fluor so that fluor can be found in water, soil and almost all plants. Thus, it can be said that without water fluoridation, fluoride is the element that is naturally present in the food and drinking water of American communities. These are some of the reasons why the government should stop placing this poison into the U.S. water supply. – Abdillah Imron Nasution Faculty of Dentistry Syiah Kuala University Oberlin Shansi Visiting Research Scholar

SES MO

Hogan attended the Conservatory as well as The Juilliard School, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and Louisiana State University. Aside from his famous AfricanAmerican spirituals, one of his greatest accomplishments was winning first place in the 28th annual Kosciusiszko Foundation Chopin Competition in New York.

KAREN O + BRIAN CHASE

Karen Orzolek, otherwise known as Karen O, is originally from South Korea, but moved to New Jersey when she was a child. She initially attended Oberlin, where she met Brian Chase, but transferred to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. In the 2000s, she became the vocalist in the band The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The group has released four critically-acclaimed albums.

GEO

RGE

H OG

Giddens graduated from the Conservatory in 2000 and is now the lead singer, violinist, banjo player and a founding member of the band Carolina Chocolate Drops. The group won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album in 2011.

NNO

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JONATHAN SACKS JASON MOLINA

Born in 1950, Sacks attended the Conservatory and continued on to compose for musical theater. He scored and conducted almost 40 movies, including A Bug’s Life and Meet the Parents.

USICIANS

Best known as the principal songwriter for the bands Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co., Molina was born in nearby Lorain, Ohio. He became known for his powerful lyrics and unorthodox guitar tunings. Though he passed away at 39, his work continues to receive critical acclaim.

JON THEODORE

YOU DIDN’T KNOW WENT TO OBERLIN

Yule Ball

Calendar

Friday, Dec. 4 from 8 to 11 p.m. Kahn Hall, Linda Gates Lounge

Missing the days when you would dress up as a Harry Potter character in anticipation for the release of one of the movies? Now you have another opportunity to show your love for Harry Potter at the Oberlin Harry Potter Alliance’s Yule Ball. Be there and be ready to have a magical time.

Men’s Basketball vs. Wabash Computer Science Art Show Asian Night Market 2015 College SaturdaY., December 5 from 8 to 11 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5 from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5 at 6 p.m. Philips gym

Rising to fame as the original drummer in The Mars Volta, Theodore played on some of the progressive rock band’s best-known records. including De-Loused in the Comatorium and Frances the Mute. In 2008, he collaborated with rapper Zach de la Rocha on the album One Day as a Lion. He now keeps time for Queens of the Stone Age.

OCTaiko + Community Taiko Perfect Pussy at the ’Sco Class Fall Showcase Monday, Dec. 7 from 10 p.m. to 1

Sunday, Dec. 6 from 3 to 4 p.m. harkness basement Science Center Atrium Visual arts, digital and otherwise, will be joined Need something to do on your Saturday afternoon? Wilder Main

Support the men’s basketball team in the begin- by diverse musical acts for an evening of culture ning of their season. It might be cold this weekend, incongruously located in the Harkness basement. Events past have featured paintings, drawings, oribut it will be nice and warm in Philips gym! gami, fiber optics, animations, 3-D printings and songs!

Visit the night market to get a little taste of some of the cultures of the continent. With food and presentations from organizations representing the Asian diaspora communites on campus, it would be a shame to miss it.

The ’Sco

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Did that title get your attention? The music will, Falling asleep on this Sunday afternoon? This too. Make your Monday a good one by rocking with Japanese form of drumming will wake you up. this bold band from Syracuse, NY. Oberlin’s Taiko drumming group was formed in 2008. The students in this showcase have been practicing hard, so make sure to stop by to support.

SES MO

KAREN O + BRIAN CHASE

GEO

RGE

H OG

NNO

N GI

N E DD

JONATHAN SACKS JASON MOLINA

Born in 1950, Sacks attended the Conservatory and continued on to compose for musical theater. He scored and conducted almost 40 movies, including A Bug’s Life and Meet the Parents.

USICIANS

JON THEODORE

YOU DIDN’T KNOW WENT TO OBERLIN

Yule Ball

Calendar

Friday, Dec. 4 from 8 to 11 p.m. Kahn Hall, Linda Gates Lounge

OCTaiko + Community Taiko Perfect Pussy at the ’Sco Class Fall Showcase Monday, Dec. 7 from 10 p.m. to 1

Sunday, Dec. 6 from 3 to 4 p.m. harkness basement Science Center Atrium Visual arts, digital and otherwise, will be joined Need something to do on your Saturday afternoon? Wilder Main

The ’Sco

a.m.

Arts The Oberlin Review

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Acoustics Meet Art in the Allen Jake Frankenfield Wandering among fine art and listening to Oberlin’s classical guitarists, visitors at the Allen Memorial Art Museum enjoyed a space where visual and sonic art converged Thursday evening. The museum was transformed from gallery to concert hall as two of its more expansive spaces — dedicated to mid 20th-century American Art and European Art from before 1825 — had rows of seats placed in the middle of them. The guitarists were seated in between two sculptures in either room; they were clearly the focal point of the event. The guitarists — double-degree junior Rebecca Klein, Conservatory first-year Collin Sterne, Conservatory senior Stephen Fazio, doubledegree sophomore Mohit Dubey, Conservatory sophomore Brian King and Conservatory senior Lenny Ranallo — each played a 20-minute set. Their rigorous practice and tireless work showed in their impressive performance. The setting was serene, and with art surrounding the audience and fine music playing, the Allen transformed into a space to wander and ruminate. Or at least that was the expectation — that the guitarists would be there skillfully playing to an appreciative audience to set the mood and provide a backdrop against which one could contemplate art. The event was by no means overly rigid or formal. Attendees freely moved around, but the event was primarily a concert, and the musicians were given the most attention that evening. It was less of a fusion of music and art and more of a concert in a museum. While the guitarists’ ability to perform works over a vast span of time in different styles and with different –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The setting was serene, and with art surrounding the audience and fine music playing, the Allen transformed into a space to wander and ruminate. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– sensibilities was certainly a feat, they ignored any kind of artistic consistency with regard to context. Pieces played by the guitarists were not specific to the time or the place reflected by the venue’s artistic selections, which was rather incompatible. However, the effect was negligible. Walking through the museum, classical guitar provided an excellent backdrop against which to more fully appreciate the art in Allen. Sitting on the gallery benches within beautiful and expansive spaces also provided a backdrop against which to more fully appreciate the incredible musicians at the Conservatory, something we too often forget.

December 4, 2015

WITS Poetry Residencies Expand Louise Edwards Arts Editor Seventh-grader Leo Carter read his poem “Sequoia Trees” at the Langston Middle School poetry reading and book launch at the Cat in the Cream Monday. “So tall, it looks like they could / shishkabob the sky. So wide, / the shadow is like an eclipse / over the ground,” Carter read. His poem, part of Barbara Stadler’s class anthology, “As Deep as a Submarine Can Go,” was created in one of several 10-day residencies in sixth, seventh and eighth grade classes led by Director of Oberlin’s Writersin-the-Schools Program Lynn Powell and Oberlin College students in Powell’s 400-level Teaching Imaginative Writing course. While the Teaching Imaginative Writing class has been offered since 2010, this year the class has become the foundation of the Writers-in-theSchools Program, which was approved by the College in June. Powell said the new program, which was piloted last semester, will allow students who took the course in the fall to continue to teach writing in the schools during spring semesters for practicum credit. While piloting the program, Miryam Coppersmith, OC ’15, taught a 7th grade fiction residency, while Elena Jackendoff, OC ’15, and College senior Sarah Goldstone taught an 8th

Sixth-grader Tnadja Williams reads her poem “Grandmother” from Eileen Hickerson’s and Nicholas Sakola’s class anthology, “Put Your Attitude into Space,” at the Cat in the Cream. The event featured Langston Middle School students reading poems written in classes led by Writers-in-the-Schools Director Lynn Powell and College students in the Teaching Imaginative Writing workshop. Aaron Cohen, staff photographer

grade collaborative jazz and poetry residency, among other projects. Powell said this gave the College students an opportunity to further explore teaching topics they were passionate about. “I did a little of the teaching, but not as much, so it really gave a chance for those students to take a step forward into leadership and in imagining the way,” she said. “We’re doing things such as exploring: Could we perhaps have a spoken word club? Could we do a comics residency?”

In the class itself, College students learn how to create well-constructed lesson plans with the intention of stimulating middle school students’ creative imaginations. Powell also said that while the class focuses on pedagogy, it is not a theory course and instead focuses on a learning-by-doing approach. “I come to this as a practicing artist in the school who has taught a lot in the schools, so it’s kind of an apprenticeship in that trade,” Powell said. After College students read

about 100 pages of successful lesson plans and 50 successfully taught poems over the summer, they were ready to start workshopping their own lesson plans early in the fall semester. Powell said that coming to a classroom well-prepared is essential for making sure the middle school students gain insight into their own creative abilities. “We critique and give feedback and talk about the issues that that lesson raised, and it’s pretty See Langston, page 13

Jurassic Junk: Newest Pixar Film Falls Flat Christian Bolles Columnist In an era where remarkable animation can be summoned with the flick of a well-funded wrist, animated films can’t get by on pure spectacle. Before cutting-edge visuals were even possible, Pixar was making movies that cut to the heart of basic human truths; as technology caught up to their ambition, they used beauty to enhance these stories, not to replace them. Perhaps if masterpieces such as the Toy Story trilogy, Up and Ratatouille didn’t exist, The Good Dinosaur would be a very good movie. But they do, and it isn’t. With the release of Inside Out earlier this year, the famed studio proved that their magic touch is still intact, which is why it’s initially puzzling that Dinosaur fails on so many fronts. However, it’s important to note that The Good Dinosaur was helmed by a first-time director, Peter Sohn, who has little to no experience, and that the screenplay is credited to seven different writers. After an appropriately adorable opening short, The Good Dinosaur delivers its simple premise. On the eve of the impact of the meteor that would destroy the dinosaurs and send the world into millions of years of hell, the rock’s trajectory is tweaked and it whizzes past the planet with nary a feather ruffled. It’s an amusing visual gag to kick things off,

and the movie quickly zooms forward millions of years, presenting us with an alternate history of what would have happened if the dinosaurs had been able to continue evolving for ages. However, the film fails in this endeavor. It refuses to take the premise in any kind of interesting direction whatsoever, choosing to set its gaze on a family of Sauropods living in the American South, much like it is today. But with dinosaurs. How cute. The scene-setting unfolds, revealing our walking ‘unlikely hero,’ a crudely drawn Apatosaurus named Arlo, who is the ugly-duckling son of a no-nonsense, hardworking, kind couple on a ranch. I couldn’t help but picture how unacceptably cliché and contrived the dialogue, setup and pretty much everything about the film would have been if it had used people instead of dinosaurs. For example, after finishing a grain silo to store food for winter, Henry and Ida, Arlo’s parents, use mud to put their footprints on the structure. When Arlo, his mean brother Buck, and his obedient sister Libby, want to put their prints on it too, their father tells them something along the lines of “Not yet, children. Once you do something greater than yourself, you’ll be able to make your mark.” Of course, Arlo’s siblings both “make their mark” before him and darn it, he just can’t seem to do anything right because he’s timid. Sound familiar? It is. When Arlo and his father chase after

the creature that’s been stealing their crops and get caught in a flood that sweeps his father away in front of the protagonist’s eyes, the movie delivers its single truly bold narrative stroke. But in fact, plot points like this are the hallmark of films that are trying to be sad and edgy. His father’s death barely figures in the actual story arc, serving only to give the main character a reason to be sad. When Arlo gets hopelessly lost after chasing the creature into the wilderness, I couldn’t help but think the film would have been more powerful if he had his whole family waiting back home; as it is, he’s fighting to get back to a place that’s already broken. The meat of the film comes once Arlo and Spot, the “creature” that turns out to be this alternate world’s imagining of a human, band together for the journey home. Spot is a wonderfully designed character, providing charm and entertainment without ever speaking a single word. The extended sequences of the pair traveling through the untouched American landscape are truly joys to behold, too, as these vistas are impeccably rendered to the point of near-photorealism. Thinking back to the real-life backdrops of the animated film Dinosaur back in 2000, it’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. However, these breathtaking backdrops are marred consistently See Despite, page 13

The Oberlin Review, December 4, 2015

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The Oberlin Review’s Top 25 Albums of 2015 Danny Evans Arts Editor December and January are Arts editor Danny Evans’ favorite months of the year, but not because of the holidays — he just loves year-end album lists. Here’s Evans’ contribution to the already overwhelming field of Top Albums of 2015 lists. Check it out for some popular picks and lots of records found in the recesses of Bandcamp. 1. Deafheaven – New Bermuda Ever since Deafheaven broke out with 2013’s excellent Sunbather, music fans and critics have devoted an enormous amount of time to arguing about whether the San Francisco five-piece qualifies as a metal band or not. Deafheaven’s newest offering New Bermuda will only add fuel to the fire. The album contains some of Deafheaven’s most traditionally metal riffs (such as the Slayer-esque opening riff to “Brought to the Water”) but also some uncharacteristically soft material (like the calming, acoustic guitar-laden outro of “Gifts for the Earth”). But who really cares if Deafheaven is a metal outfit? Any band this kick-ass deserves attention, no matter what genre it plays. 2. Palm – Trading Basics One dominant trend in rock music in 2015 has been the reemergence of off-kilter, rhythmically complex indie rock that bands like Slint and Polvo pioneered 20 years ago. Philadelphia’s Palm stands out from the ’90s-worshipping pack — many of whom are labelmates with Palm on Exploding In Sound Records — with impressive dual-guitar interplay, baffling song structures and a surprisingly serene melodic sensibility.

Tracks from Trading Basics, like “Ankles” and “Doggy Doctor,” find Palm showing off all of these traits at once while still constructing great songs. 3. Earl Sweatshirt – I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside Earl Sweatshirt has always come off as a sort of baby MF Doom who could never live up to his forefather’s name. As entertaining as the bleak humor and deftly composed lyrics of 2010’s Earl and 2013’s Doris were, neither record riveted from front to back. However, I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside squashes every criticism that’s been thrown at the formerly OFWGKTA-affiliated rapper. The LP features Earl at his haziest and most depressing, and it’s absolutely mind-blowing.

4. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly Kendrick Lamar’s genre-defying To Pimp A Butterfly seems to have taken on a powerful symbolic significance for many in a year of racialized violence, and for good reason. On this introspective yet party-worthy album, Lamar simultaneously sounds more triumphant (“Stuck a flag in my city, everybody’s screamin’ ‘Compton!’ / I should probably run for mayor when I’m done, to be honest”) and more political (“And we hate po-po / Wanna kill us dead in the street fo sho”) than ever. 5. Oneohtrix Point Never – Garden of Delete Daniel Lopatin has never been one to stay stuck on one style or idea

for a particularly long time. 2010’s Chuck Person’s Eccojams Vol.1 arguably invented the vaporwave genre, while 2011’s Replica drew its repetitive sounds from television advertisements and 2013’s R Plus Seven offered anxiety-ridden ambient soundscapes. Garden of Delete represents yet another stylistic change, wearing a surprising EDM influence on its digitally rendered sleeve. 6. The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die – Harmlessness Some might find it easy to dismiss The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die as a gimmick. From its irritatingly long name to its nine-piece live lineup, many of the band’s qualities seem worthy

of fun-poking at first. However, on Harmlessness, the Connecticut emo revivalists prove themselves worthy of the hype with epic post-rock textures (“I Can Be Afraid Of Anything”), mathy riffs (“Ra Patera Dance”) and plain old catchy songwriting (“January 10th, 2014”). 7. mewithoutYou – Pale Horses Fan excitement surrounding mewithoutYou seemed to fade after 2006’s Brother, Sister. Perhaps the Philadelphia art-rockers were victims of an industry-wide movement away from loud indie rock bands. But 15 years into their career, mewithoutYou have jumped right back into the emo spotlight with Pale Horses, See The Review’s, page 12

Deafheaven, a band that draws from metal, shoegaze and post-rock to craft their unique sound, stares into the camera. The San Francisco band’s third album, New Bermuda, stands out as one of the best of 2015. Courtesy of Deafhaven

Crossword: The Arts in Review 2015 Across 4. Creed spiritual predecessor, or rapper who gave us his second album at long last 6. Moviegoers went mad for this one 8. Despicably cute creatures who painted 2015 yellow 9. Museum that opened its new facility in the Meatpacking District 11. He swept up four awards at the 57th Grammys 12. Beatles song, or what we said to Adele and John 13. That can only mean one thing 16. A painting by him sold for $300 million, the highest price ever paid for a piece of art 17. Fox musical drama that broke out in its first season 18. Lost whiz takes a long-awaited Trek to the Dark Side Down 1. Met art exhibit that attracted flack 2. Comics icon who went hipster 3. Big sequel used this word; big prequel dropped it 5. Horror fans mourned the loss of this Scream director 7. DramaDesk-winning musical about a U.S. President 10. Banksy’s twisted take on theme parks that hosted Run the Jewels, Pussy Riot 14. Museum that hosted Björk and Yoko 15. Fans were grateful for this band’s 50th anniversary, for short By Danny Evans and Louise Edwards, Arts editors Answers will appear in next week’s issue.

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The Oberlin Review, December 4, 2015

Feature Photo: PI Series Guest Recital with Ingrid Jensen

Jazz trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, left, performs alongside College sophomores Amal Ghulam and Daniel Gonzales, Conservatory junior Jared Hochberg and Artist Diploma student Theodosia Roussos. The Cat in the Cream hosted Jensen, who collaborated with these students and others, at a PI Series guest recital Tuesday. A North Vancouver, BC native and Juno Award winner, Jensen is a graduate of Berklee College of Music and has worked with artists such as Professor of Jazz Percussion Billy Hart, Bob Berg, Frank Wess and Billy Taylor. Her guest recital featured chamber music-influenced jazz tunes with a wide variety of instrumentation. Jensen, who took solos on each song that she and the ensemble played, also taught several master classes and coached the students who performed alongside her. Text by Danny Evans, Arts editor Photo by Briana Santiago

The Review’s Top 25 Albums of 2015 Continued from page 11 which might just be their strongest offering yet. Fans of La Dispute, Defeater and the leagues of other popular bands who might not have existed without mewithoutYou have to check out this album, which offers relevant lyrics (“I was born of a thought of mine / I was the ISIS flag design”) and some of the five-piece’s heaviest, most memorable choruses ever (“Red Cow” and “Rainbow Signs”). 8. Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell Carrie & Lowell represents a return to his roots for Detroit multi-instrumentalist Sufjan Stevens. Unlike his last album, 2010’s ambitious The Age of Adz, the record consists of mostly acoustic folk cuts. It’s also a highly personal LP, featuring downbeat songs about the tumultuous lives of Stevens’ mother and father. But fret not, Sufjan fans — despite its dark subject matter and diminished scope, Carrie & Lowell is probably Stevens’ greatest achievement yet. 9. Sumac – The Deal Aaron Turner has taken part in some of the most innovative heavy metal projects of the last 20 years, including Isis, Old Man Gloom and Twilight. His new band, Sumac, features contributions from two other metal luminaries — Brian Cook (Russian Circles, Botch) and Nick Yacyshyn (Baptists) — and fits into an experimental metal idiom these musicians often work in. But Sumac

doesn’t fall victim to “supergroup syndrome”; in fact, The Deal finds the band sounding like a more cohesive unit than just about any other metal band out there. 10. Kurt Vile – b’lieve i’m goin down Kurt Vile’s last album, 2013’s anthemic Wakin on a Pretty Daze, was one of that year’s top records, so folk rock fans waited for b’lieve i’m goin down with bated breath. At first, the LP underwhelms — it feels less massive than Wakin on a Pretty Daze, with its plucked banjo parts and hilarious lyrics. However, b’lieve i’m goin down is a real grower; repeated listens reveal its witty songwriting and crisp production. 11. Drake – If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late 12. Wrekmeister Harmonies –Night of Your Ascension 13. PWR BTTM – Ugly Cherries 14. Wilco – Star Wars 15. Liturgy – The Ark Work 16. Kamasi Washington – The Epic 17. Beach House – Thank Your Lucky Stars 18. Odwalla88 – Earth Flirt 19. Mount Eerie – Sauna 20. Prurient – Frozen Niagara Falls 21. Titus Andronicus – The Most Lamentable Tragedy 22. Mastery – Valis 23. Young Thug – Barter 6 24. KEN mode – Success 25. Death Grips – Jenny Death

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The Oberlin Review, December 4, 2015

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Despite Picturesque Landscapes, Good Dinosaur Disappoints Continued from page 10 Most of them look like three-dimensional renderings of disproportionate and simplistic crayon art sketched on a lunchbox by a third grader. The worst offenders, other than the title character, are the raptors, which look like warped visions of cartoon dinosaur drug addicts. I wish I were exaggerating — these design decisions significantly break immersion and make it difficult to take the world itself seriously. And what an underrealized world it is. From a studio known for flying conventional concepts to the moon, the lack of innovation here is staggering. They’ve essentially taken the South, simplified it to a lawless land of nothing but ranches, and replaced people with dinosaurs. I can’t stress enough how the movie literally does not take that concept any further. There’s no implication of any larger society, no dinosaur-specific ways of life and essentially no reason why any of this should be about dinosaurs at all. The only semblance of originality we get is a gloriously half-baked cult of Pterodactyls who worship “the storm,” but the dialogue for

this segment is so dull and cliché that when these airborne cultists become the villains, it leaves one asking, “Wait, that’s all?” None of this is to say that the film doesn’t have memorable moments. There are some genuinely touching scenes between Arlo and Spot, and some of the funnier bits are quite clever. The best parts of The Good Dinosaur have one thing in common, save a brilliant scene involving a deranged Triceratops: They’re wordless. Halfway through the film, after one such scene, I had a revelation I couldn’t shake. If the film simply tweaked its creature design a bit, set itself in a more original location and deprived its characters of the ability to speak, it would be far, far better. Even the most cliché moments would have benefited from a lack of dialogue. In fact, as I watched, I imagined this alternate version playing out in front of me and saw a unique, touching film with picturesque landscapes and sympathetic characters. Most of the times that a character opens its mouth, the script fails to match the underlying novelty this kind of a movie is capable of and only undermines its goals. Had the decision to go silent been made early in the production process, we would have been given a much better movie, as the designers would have been forced to use more creative alternatives to speaking. In some parts of the film, they actually do just that to illustrate the interaction between Spot and Arlo, proving

The Apollo Theatre advertises Pixar’s newest film, The Good Dinosaur. Despite excellent visuals and an appealing central concept, the film fails to live up to the high expectations Pixar has set for itself. Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

that the studio would be up to the task. Ultimately, I left the theater feeling frustrated, and not just because of the unintelligible shrieks coming from the row in front of me for the whole film. I could so vividly picture a better film that Pixar’s inability to pull off the concept irritated me to the core. The Good Dinosaur, while beautiful, is an overly clichéd departure of form

for an otherwise sterling studio. Though the film has its moments, it fails overall to achieve anything new, which — for a movie premiering mere months after the near-perfect Inside Out — is more than slightly disappointing. Though kids under the age of 12 may enjoy the movie’s vibrant colors and overstated dramatic beats, anyone else could find much better ways to spend their money.

Langston Middle School Poetry Reading Brings Together College, Community Continued from page 10 hard-hitting because the stakes are high,” she said. “The stakes are a lot higher than workshopping a poem. [If a] poem didn’t work successfully for everybody, it’s not going to be the end of the world, but you’re about to go in there and teach to 20 middle school kids, and my feeling is that we’re on a mission to give those kids something… we actually believe in, [and that] is valuable at this soul-deep level, and we don’t

want to blow that. … We want them to come out feeling empowered by their imaginations and by their voices.” College senior Becca Orleans who took the class with Powell this semester, said that she taught two Jacqueline Woodson poems to her students because she thought that Woodson was an excellent role model. “The first poem we read by her was called ‘Reading,’ and it was about how she had trouble with reading growing up,” she said. “She

had her own way of doing it, where she would read the same stories over and over again until they made sense to her. I thought that was a really good role model… because here’s this really famous poet who’s won all these awards, and when she was growing up, reading was really hard for her. The poem starts with ‘I am not my sister,’ so we wrote about things we do our own way or things that make us different and being proud of those differences, so they all started with, ‘I am not.’”

However, while Orleans was the teacher, she said she also learned a lot from her middle school students. “[The middle school classroom] is different to me in atmosphere [since] all [the students] want to do is encourage each other’s poems,” she said. “Just the way that they think is really cool — unafraid to make these crazy comparisons. This one [sixth-grade] student, Roman [Bynum-Robinson], wrote, ‘If there is no more joy, / put your attitude in space.’ Some of those lines like that, I just kind of stop and think, ‘Wow, how are you seeing the world right now? I wish I could.’” The middle school students themselves said they also enjoyed learning from Powell and College students. Sixth-grader Katherine Doane said she liked how the College students created an open atmosphere for the middle school students to be creative. “One of the things that I enjoyed about the poetry classes is that they gave enough freedom,” she said. “It wasn’t like freedom so that it was disorganized or anything — it was actually freedom to let us write and actively express some of our own ideas.” Sixthgrader Cody Slimak agreed. “I liked how they were so open, and they would give us a topic and we could freely write whatever we want off the topic,” he said. Seventh-grader Tessa Newson said the prompts College students provided helped spark her imagination. “I got inspiration from one of the poems they read to us,” she said. “One of the lines is ‘sweet brownsugar love,’ and I love that, and I just kept on adding on to that idea.” Sixth-grader Lily Peterson said she also enjoyed hearing what her classmates created. “My favorite part was probably everyone reading their poems at the end of class,”

she said. The reading at the Cat in the Cream acts as a celebratory culmination of the residencies taught by the College students, and it continues to be a space where the College and community gather to enjoy a ––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“We critique and give feedback and talk about the issues that the lesson raised, and it’s pretty hard-hitting because the stakes are high.” Lynn Powell Director, Writers-in-the-Schools Program –––––––––––––––––––––––––– night of poetry. The middle school students were proud to perform their poems in front of their families and friends. “I liked the poem I chose because of the wordplay that I did. It sounded really good,” Newson said. Slimak was also proud of his poem. “I chose to read my poem because I loved the last line. It was such a truthful line, like a ‘bam!’ moment,” he said. Orleans said she will continue teaching the middle school students in the spring through the new WITS Program. “It’s almost like once I got that experience of being in the middle school and getting to know those kids, I can’t really imagine a college experience without them,” she said. “I do learn so much from them and feel so good every time I go in. … I just want to keep working with them and keep spending time with them and see what other amazing things they can do.”

Sports

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The Oberlin Review, December 4, 2015

IN THE LOCKER ROOM

Women’s Basketball

This week, the Review sat down with first-year women’s basketball players Sabrina DeLeonibus, Olivia Canning and Sarah Feinberg to discuss their high school careers, first impressions of Oberlin and their preparation for the season. How have you enjoyed your time at Oberlin thus far? Sabrina DeLeonibus: I love it. I think it gives me a perfect opportunity to express the different interests I have on and off the court. It’s academically challenging, it provides an outlet for me to express myself in music and at the same time it gives me a family to turn to during basketball season. Olivia Canning: It’s good. I like it so far. From the basketball team to the people to the academics, everything has been great. Sarah Feinberg: I love being here. The team and the coaching staff have been super supportive on and off the court, and so far we’ve all really bonded. How’s the season going so far? SD: The season is going well so far. We’re going to have a good season. The energy is up, so no matter what happens, we’re going to be a solid squad. OC: It’s been good. The team has definitely bonded, and I think we’re coming together more and more every practice. SF: So far it has been pretty good. We definitely have all the pieces that we need to be successful; now it’s just a matter of

What are some of your thoughts about Coach Kerry Jenkins? SD: I think he’s a very caring individual, and he’s a winner; that man just never wants to lose. OC: He is really encouraging. He has a lot of motivation. He knows his basketball. SF: I like how he holds us accountable on the court. He definitely stresses the importance of our academics, but I like how he makes basketball our number one priority.

Sarah Feinberg (left), Olivia Canning and Sabrina DeLeonibus putting everything together and playing at the high level that we know we can achieve. What made you decide to go to Oberlin? SD: My interests were split in three ways: music, academics and basketball. This particular school happens to offer all three, so it seems to be a perfect fit for me. OC: A lot of things appealed to me about Oberlin. But I think, though, that the basketball team definitely convinced me to come here. SF: The team was definitely

the biggest thing that stood out for me. They’re such a great and supportive group of people. When I came on my official visit and stayed with them, I called my dad that night and told him that this was the place that I wanted to go. What’s your most memorable high school basketball moment? SD: I had a 30-point game once. OC: I once lost the ball while at the foul line. Everyone was staring at me and the ref had to go get me the ball. SF: Definitely a tie between

playing against my younger brother’s high school team and winning and finishing the season 24–10 — one of the best seasons in recent program history. What’s your pregame song? SD: [“Omen” by Disclosure ft. Sam Smith]. OC: [“Runaway” by Kanye West ft. Pusha T]. SF: I would say “679” by Fetty Wap, but my team would probably say “Big Rings” by Drake and Future.

What did you do to prepare for the season? SD: I played pick-up three times a week and I would also do a lift three times a week. OC: I worked out a lot over the summer, including cardio and lifting. Also, the first couple weeks of practice we would run all the time to improve conditioning. SF: I worked out three times a week with a personal coach and played with my brother, and I made sure to lift on the side as well. Who’s your favorite basketball player? SD: Kristi Toliver. OC: Kevin Garnett. SF: Breanna Stewart. But I’m a Warriors fan, so I’ll definitely say Stephen Curry too. Interview by Scott Rivlin Photo by Benjamin Shepherd, Photo editor

Finals Success Hinges on Healthy Lifestyle Rested OCSD to Isabel Hulkower Columnist News flash, Oberlin! Finals are coming faster than you can say “December breakdown.” No matter how prepared you think you are for the impending storm of academia, this time of year is still extremely stressful, so now is a great time to engage in some necessary self-care to help ease your perilous journey toward winter break. Here are some chill practices, both basic and more obscure, for increasing focus, calming the mind and maybe even improving academic performance. The most tried-and-true way to do your best work is to get enough sleep. Though this seems obvious, it still bears mentioning because sleep deprivation has a Pandora’s box of negative side effects. Loss of sleep impairs attention, concentration, alertness, reasoning and problem solving, plus you miss out on the memory consolidation that occurs while you doze. If you need more convincing than that to get your eight hours, I’m sure any parent would be happy to scold you about your abhorrent sleeping habits. A second basic consideration is eating healthy. Finals season goes hand in hand with eating lots of junk food for quick energy boosts, but it’s extremely beneficial to stay on the wagon with food intake as much as possible. Start by eating a real breakfast that contains protein and fiber, and continue to eat every few hours to keep a steady flame

of energy burning inside of you. Avoid sugar, which will send you on a short peak followed by a steep crash, as well as other processed foods high in sodium — they increase cortisol levels, putting further stress on your body. When you can, opt for foods full of healthy fats like avocados, walnuts and coconut oil, along with leafy greens and berries and even some dark chocolate if you’re feeling wild. Despite the inevitable fatigue of the season, getting a little exercise can actually help your mood and energy levels if you are in a pit of academic misery. Hitting the gym helps clear your mind while simultaneously acting as a stellar form of procrastination, giving you a great excuse to take a break from the glow of your computer screen. If the treadmill doesn’t speak to you, there are lots of additional options: Robert Carr Pool in Philips gym is a great choice for a little workout, and a trip to Solaluna Yoga is a special treat that feels almost like a vacation. If those are too intense, the Naked Run around Mudd might be enough to keep the blood pumping and your work output strong. A classic last-ditch attempt to improve cognitive performance is gum chewing. There has been a great deal of conflicting research on the usefulness of gum while studying and test taking. It has been shown that gum improves performance with cognitive tasks for the first 20 minutes of chewing. However, the rhythmic action of chomping hinders the memorization of serial-

ized lists, so the clutch time to reach for gum is while taking a test or working on a paper, not while cramming beforehand. Another trick that might improve your experience is incorporating some ginseng into your routine. Ginseng comes in lots of varieties and forms, but for these purposes, Panax ginseng or Asian ginseng will serve you best. It’s been used medically for over 5,000 years to treat everything from immune function to high cholesterol. It has also been widely used to decrease stress and improve mental clarity, so drinking ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

When you can, opt for foods full of healthy fats like avocados, walnuts and coconut oil, along with leafy greens and berries and even some dark chocolate if you’re feeling wild. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– some ginseng tea is an easy and cheap way to support your cognitive performance. Ginseng is also widely known for increasing sexual arousal and treating erectile dysfunction, which might assist with yet another extremely beneficial way to de-stress for finals week. Keeping it together at the end of the semester can feel like a chore, but the end is near and you can totally handle it!

Face Big Weekend Continued from page 16 the team improve, in addition to exercising more responsibly. “[We’ve been] pushing towards faster intervals and less active recovery,” she said. “[Coach Brabson] has been great about identifying areas for improvement. For example, if he notices our flip turn mechanics are off during a meet, we’ll work on them the following week.” Both Regan and Cooper are looking forward to swimming after ample rest, which has been in short supply this season. They hope to beat their personal records and watch their teammates do the same. “Our team has shrunk since last year by a lot, specifically the women’s team, so we have very little depth,” said Regan. “We’ve been having trouble with bigger teams because multiple people can swim [ for them], whereas we have to swim three events in two hours, which is really tiring.” For this reason, Cooper believes that the length of the Fredonia Invitational — which spans over three days instead of one or two — will test the team’s positivity and resilience. “This weekend presents unique challenges, given the fact that it is a three-day meet that simulates our conference meet schedule,” she said. “Because it’s such a long meet, one of our team’s goals will be to maintain good energy levels and a positive mindset on deck. It’s especially important to support each other when everyone might be tired or sore on the last day of competition.” The Yeomen and Yeowomen will begin day one of the Fredonia Invitational Friday at 4 p.m. in Fredonia, NY.

Sports

The Oberlin Review, December 4, 2015

Page 15

Vegan Athletes Bust Protein Myths Alexa Corey “Isn’t it hard to be a vegan athlete?” “Where do you get your protein?” These are the sorts of incredulous questions Sustainable Technology Coordinator Samuel Hartman and Sustainability Coordinator Bridget Flynn set out to answer once and for all in their second talk of the year on vegan athleticism last Tuesday. The pair mainly emphasized the ease with which they gain the necessary nutrients, even protein, on a plant-based diet. Flynn was quick to debunk the common misconception that veganism was an irresponsible choice for serious athletes due to the lack of protein through meat and animal products. Hartman and Flynn ensured that their presentation was accessible to the entirety of their eclectic audience of vegans, athletes and people unfamiliar with either topic, making sure to explain all technical terms involved in both concepts. “It’s probably easier than you think,” Flynn insisted, rattling off the amount of protein in a half cup of black beans, a half cup of tempeh and a half cup of seitan, which contain 7.6 grams, 15 grams and 31 grams, respectively. Hartman, a veteran vegan of 10 years, and Flynn, who has been a hardcore herbivore for nine years, have both engaged in heavy athleticism throughout the past decade. Together they have accrued an eclectic list of athletic experiences. Hartman has some amateur road bike races under his belt, while Flynn has dabbled in Tough Mudder races and taekwondo. Currently, Hartman is focusing on Olympic weightlifting and Flynn is a figure bodybuilder looking to compete again in 2016. The presentation and discussion, sponsored by both the Office of Environmental Sustainability and Oberlin Animal Rights, was a derivative of the talk the two Oberlin employees gave to Harkness Co-op athletes last year. The talk served as a response to doubts that the co-op members could make veganism work with their athletic goals. The discussion was a hit with Harkness athletes, and the success inspired the duo to open up the discussion to the rest of Oberlin’s campus. In a brief aside, Hartman explained that there are nine essential amino acids — the compounds that form proteins — and countered the myth that these essential

Yeomen Beat Out Lords Continued from page 16 letic Conference matchup of the season. Junior guard Nate Cohen’s performance highlighted the victory, scoring 16 points along with six rebounds and six assists. Poyle added 15 points and a game-high eight rebounds of his own, which was complimented by a 12-point, six-rebound effort from Ollie. After a back and forth first half, the Yeomen stepped up their defensive intensity and were able to maintain a lead throughout the rest of the contest, holding Kenyon to just 34.3 percent shooting from the floor. Head Coach Isaiah Cavaco explained that the Yeomen’s defensive tenacity allowed them to secure a victory, despite committing 24 turnovers in the contest. “We need to clean up that

compounds are only found in meat. He explained that anyone could cobble together a full set of nine with a varied diet of plant proteins. “Eat your greens!” Hartman said in conclusion. Another myth busted by the talk was that meat and animal products are the sole available sources of important vitamins and minerals. They cited soybeans, spinach, molasses, quinoa and even dark chocolate as having significant iron content, and soymilk, tofu and cereal as some B12-fortified foods. Chia seeds, flax seeds and seaweed all provide Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. Along with these natural foods, Hartman and Flynn stressed that there are many easily accessible non-meat, non-dairy supplements that might help not only with nutrition but also with diversifying the taste of one’s dishes. Tofurky, Teese, Rice Dream, Vegenaise, Amy’s Kitchen and Daiya are all brands that made the list, although Flynn was quick to admit that she mainly prefers natural foods instead of substitutes and has done just fine without them. Discussion turned towards lifestyle questions when the vegan duo opened up the floor to the audience. They addressed topics such as traveling as a vegan, how to start bodybuilding and superfoods. On so-called superfoods, like

quinoa and açaí, Hartman said that they are simply foreign foods that have been marketed well, and while he conceded that they taste good and have nutritional value, they aren’t worth their hype. “They’re not worth paying a premium for,” he concluded. On being vegan while traveling, Flynn stressed being polite and respectful but also assertive about dietary restrictions. “Do your research,” she said. The pair advised learning a few key phrases in the language of wherever you are traveling to make communication easier and mistakes less frequent. On this point, the presenters were met with widespread agreement from the audience. “It’s very possible to just be vegan,” one audience member called out. Both Hartman and Flynn enthusiastically encouraged their audience to go to the gym and to get involved in athleticism. Flynn shot out several helpful websites and insisted that no one should be too intimidated to go to the weight room. “Probably half the people in the gym don’t know what they’re doing either,” she said. On the way out of the presentation, students could grab a coupon for a free Tofurkey product at the Oberlin IGA, as if Harman and Flynn were telling the audience, “If you don’t believe us, see for yourselves.”

Sustainable Technology Coordinator Samuel Hartman (left) and Sustainability Coordinator Bridget Flynn dispel myths about vegan nutrition. Hartman and Flynn discussed the accessibility of protein and necessary vitamins in vegan diets for athletes in Wilder 101 on Tuesday. Benjamin Shepherd, Photo editor

part of our game,” Cavaco said. “We stopped those turnovers from becoming points by doing a pretty good job defensively of keeping them away from middle drives.” Coming off the two games which featured strong defensive efforts from the Yeomen, senior forward Matt Walker praised his squad for their improvements but was quick to point out that there is still much progress to be made. “Our defensive discipline has gotten a lot better over these past few games, however it is still not where we would like it to be,” Walker said. “Communication and attention to detail has to be better.” On the offensive side of the ball, the Yeomen have established themselves as one of the premier three-point shooting teams in the NCAC. Over the course of the season, the Yeomen have made 40 percent of their three-point shots in comparison to the

29.1 average percentage that their opponents have shot. This comes in large part from the efforts of Poyle and Cohen, who have combined to make 33 three-pointers thus far. When asked how much the team’s strategy revolves around the three-point shot, Cavaco explained that the Yeomen will continue to shoot ––––––––––––––––––––––––

“We stopped those turnovers from becoming points by doing a pretty good job defensively of keeping them away from middle drives.” Isaiah Cavaco Head Coach ––––––––––––––––––––––– from behind the arc but will not give up a balanced attack in order to do so. “I think three-point shoot-

ing will continue to be a big part of our game,” Cavaco said. “We just have to remember that getting the ball in the paint first will make clean threes possible by either driving or throwing it in the post. Our balance is very important on that end of the floor.” As the Yeomen head further into conference play, Walker acknowledged that they cannot afford to get caught up in recent success and must continue to improve. “We all just have to get better each day and be prepared to make a play at both sides of the floor,” Walker said. “Defensively, taking more pride in playing tough defense while remaining disciplined. Offensively, being prepared to make the right read and being prepared to shoot your individual shot.” The Yeomen prepare for Saturday’s home contest against Wabash College’s Little Giants on Dec. 5. Tip off is scheduled for 3 p.m.

Editorial: Curry to Make History Continued from page 16 consider it blasphemy or premature to compare the Warriors to the legendary Bulls of the ’90s, there are some notable similarities between the two squads. For example, in the Bulls’ record-breaking season, NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan led the league in scoring, something that Curry is on track to do this season. Jordan’s supporting cast also featured fellow Hall of Famers Scottie Pippen, who served as Jordan’s partner in crime and second go-to scoring option on the squad, and prolific rebounder Dennis Rodman. Similarly, Curry is accompanied by his fellow “splash brother” Klay Thompson, widely know as one of the best two-way shooting guards in the league; Draymond Green, a jack-of-all-trades who currently ranks seventh in the NBA in assists per game; and the talented young Harrison Barnes, who would star on any other roster if he were not in the shadow of the former three. The 1995–1996 Bulls’ average margin of victory was 12.3 points per game, but this season the Warriors have beaten their opponents by an average margin of 15.3 points per game. To keep the parallels coming, during the Bulls’ historic season, their head coach Phil Jackson received the NBA Coach of The Year award, which is something that Steve Kerr already nearly accomplished in the Warriors’ championship campaign last season, finishing close in second place. Similarly, interim coach Luke Walton, who has been filling in for Kerr during Kerr’s recovery from back surgery, was recently named NBA Coach of the Month for October and November — something that no interim coach has ever done before. So while the NBA season is barely a quarter of the way through, all the signs point to the Warriors giving Jordan and company a run for the most wins in an NBA regular season. Of the 17 teams in NBA history to end the regular season with more than 65 wins, only three have failed to claim a championship, so if the Warriors continue this level of play it would not be surprising if they end this season hoisting a championship trophy above their heads. Curry, Thompson and Green are all locked into contracts that will have them playing with the Warriors for at least the next two years, and Barnes is poised to resign with the team when his contract expires at the end of this season. The Warriors look to be unstoppable in the foreseeable future. With the recent announcement of Kobe Bryant’s retirement, and LeBron James turning 30 this past year, it has become increasingly apparent that the NBA is transitioning into a new era of players and potential dynasties. Considering the youth and talent of the Warriors as a team, Stephen Curry and his crew look like not just a team to beat this season, but like future legends primed to give the rest of the NBA a run for their money for years to come.

Sports The Oberlin Review

Page 16

December 4, 2015

— Swimming/Diving —

Yeowomen Win Big at Allegheny Sarena Malsin Sports Editor After recovering from a strenuous double-dual meet at Allegheny College against the Allegheny College Gators and the Malone University Pioneers on Nov. 21, the swimming and diving team is ready for its three-day invitational in Fredonia this weekend. The Yeowomen returned home from Meadville, PA, with wins against both of their competitors, topping Allegheny 160–34 and earning a commanding win of 178–109 against the Division-II Malone. The Yeomen didn’t see the same success, suffering brutal losses of 185–87 to Allegheny and 165–97 to Malone. Head Swimming and Diving Coach Andrew Brabson attributed this discrepancy in results to the Yeomen’s low numbers this season, but felt that the Yeomen performed to the best of their ability. “Even though the men don’t really have the depth to compete with those two teams, I thought their performances were solid,” Brabson said. Brabson added that the away meet wore on

the team as a whole, making the women’s team’s performance all the more impressive. “It’s always difficult when you’ve got a twoand-a-half-hour bus ride anywhere, so I think they responded really well to that,” he said. “With a pool and travel conditions that aren’t necessarily the best, I think they all performed really well, especially given the tough training we’d been doing at that point in time. So for the women to come away with two wins on that, especially with a [Division-II team] like Malone, I was really happy with that.” The Yeowomen started the day out strong with a victory in the 200-yard medley relay, the first race of the meet. Seniors Lauren Wong, Dierdre Haren and Jill Sarazen and firstyear Elsa Mark-Ng finished in 1 minute, 56.47 seconds. Senior Samma Regan and juniors Maddie Prangley and Nora Cooper dominated the 200yard freestyle, touching the wall at 1:58.05, 2:01.09 and 2:01.16, respectively. Cooper also won the 500-yard freestyle with 5:24.44, with Prangley securing the second-place

— Men’s Basketball —

Back-to-Back Victories Propel Yeomen to 5–2 Harrison Wollman Staff Writer The Yeomen picked up two big victories this week, dominating the Earlham College Quakers 86– 55 and defeating the Kenyon College Lords 72–64 to improve to 5–2 on the season. On Sunday, the Yeomen were led by junior guard Jack Poyle’s 24-point effort and senior center and Review Sports editor Randy Ollie’s first double-double of the season, in which he racked up 16 points and 11 rebounds. After going into the locker room with a six-point lead at the half, the Yeomen exploded offensively in the second period, outscoring the Quakers 46–21. Poyle explained that defense played a key role in helping the Yeomen find their offensive rhythm in the second half. “In the second half against Earlham, we really buckled down on defense and were able to string together a series of stops, and that allowed us to get out in transition and get the shots we wanted to open the game up,” he said. First-year guard Eli Silverman-Lloyd also came up big for the Yeomen, setting his career high on Sunday with 14 points while shooting an effective 6–8 from the court. On Wednesday, the Yeomen defeated the visiting Kenyon Lords in their first home North Coast AthSee Yeomen’s, page 15

Dawn of a Dynasty Randy Ollie Sports Editor

Two Yeomen catapult off the starting blocks in Oberlin’s dual meet against the Wittenberg University Tigers Saturday, Nov. 14. The swimming and diving team anticipates competitive races across the board at the Fredonia Invitational this weekend. Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

spot at 5:24.62. been trying more qual- tough training,” he said. First-year David Bright ity work and not so much “These last couple dual and senior Benjamin Mi- quantity work, so not long meets, we’ve been using yamoto brought in first- yards, but working more those types of swims as place titles for the Yeo- towards your races.” learning experience to men, with Bright in the Brabson agreed, add- get ready for this weekpool and Miyamoto on the ing that he’s been coach- end, where they’re going boards. Bright beat out –––––––––––––––––––––– to have more rest and be the Gators and Pioneers prepared to swim pretty in the 100-yard breast “We’ve been trainfast.” stroke in 1:01.29, while The team’s practice foing really hard, I Miyamoto claimed viccus, according to Brabson, tory on both the 1-meter think more so than has also been much more and 3-meter dives with last year.” technical this year. Brab212.40 and 221.10 points, son cited pacing, turns Samma Reagan respectively. and techniques for differRegan cited Coach Senior Swimmer ent strokes as some areas Brabson’s different train- –––––––––––––––––––––– he has been emphasizing. ing style this year as a reaCooper said she felt son for the team’s success. ing his team to see dual that dialogue with Brab“We’ve been training meets more as train- son on these technical really hard, I think more ing opportunities than aspects has really helped so than last year,” she said. competitions. “[Coach Brabson] has “We’ve done a lot of See Rested, page 14

P L AY E R OF TH E W EEK Caroline Hamilton Senior combo guard Caroline Hamilton was integral in the Yeowomen’s three-game win streak that began last Tuesday. A product of North Yarmouth, ME, Hamilton averaged 14 points per game during the three-game stretch, shooting 46.5 percent from beyond the arc. The senior co-captain’s impressive week was highlighted by her careerhigh 23 point performance in a 74–60 victory over Gallaudet University Saturday and matching a career-best seven assists in a 59–46 win at Hood College on Sunday. Hamilton also chipped in eight points when Oberlin visited Denison University on Wednesday for its first North Coast Athletic Conference matchup of the season. However, Denison University’s Big Red used a strong start to defeat the Yeowomen 64–46, ending their three-game win streak. The Yeowomen are currently 0–1 in the NCAC and 5–3 overall. Oberlin will travel to Pittsburgh, PA, Saturday afternoon to take on the Carnegie Mellon University Tartans. Photo by Brianna Santiago

The Golden State Warriors are legit. Starting the 2015–2016 NBA season on a record-breaking 20–0 run has not only validated their rank as former NBA champions but has also revealed the possibility of many more potential championships in future seasons. The Warriors currently rank first in the NBA in points per game and assists, as well as seventh in rebounding. Anyone with even the slightest basketball experience recognizes that this is quite the collection of accolades for any one team to have. The Warriors also have Stephen Curry’s sharp shooting skills in their arsenal. Curry, named the NBA’s 2014 and 2015 Most Valuable Player, is currently the league’s scoring leader, racking up nearly 32 points per game and shooting at an impressive 63 percent from the field. The Warriors finished the 2014–2015 regular season with a commanding 67–15 record; however, last season Curry was averaging only 24 points per contest, and the Warriors as a team were averaging 110 points per game. This season, the Warriors are averaging 115 points per game, largely courtesy of Curry’s improvement and the team’s already impressive play. I’m certainly not one to hop on the bandwagon, but numbers do not lie. Not only are the Warriors continuing their league dominance from last season, but they even found room for improvement. At the rate that they are going, the Warriors are on track to tie or even break the 1995–1996 Chicago Bulls’ NBA record of completing a regular season 72–10. While one might See Editorial, page 15