19 September 2016

a student newspaper of the university of tulsa

september 19, 2016 issue 4 ~ volume 102

On Tulsa on!

TU excels on and off the field

Golden Hurricane shut down the Aggies, p 2

Women’s soccer secures victory over ORU, p 3 Law School lowers tuition, p 4 Professors discuss their independent research, p 4 Photo by Dalton Stewart

The Collegian: 2

Sports

19 September 2016

Football dominates Aggies 58–21

photos by Dalton Stewart

Photos clockwise from top left: senior Josh Atkinson (88) points down the field after catching the ball for a first down on Saturday’s win. Atkinson had 5 receptions and 52 yards in the win. Senior Matt Lincsott (38) hits North Carolina A&T quarterback Oluwafemi Bamiro (15). While it wasn’t a sack, the hits that Bamiro took contributed to him being pulled from the game in the second quarter. Linscott finished with eight total tackles, two of which were for losses. Sophomore Justin Hobbs (29) is tackled by Marquis Willis (32) inside of Aggies territory. Hobbs had seven receptions and 114 yards in the game. Tulsa defensive line — Frankie Davis (90), Jeremy Smith (98) and Hayden Carmen (95) whose numbers are shown — line up fourth quarter. The defense only gave up 123 yards in the first half.

The Golden Hurricane outplayed North Carolina A&T in all three phases of the game on Saturday.

Up by 48 at the half, Tulsa got the chance to see some of their younger players in action as they sat a large number of their starters in the second half of the 58–21 win.

Matt Rechtien Sports Editor After being shut down by Ohio State last weekend, it was Tulsa’s turn to shut someone down as they scored 58 unanswered points before beating North Carolina A&T 58–21 on Saturday. A&T (Aggies) came in as the 19th best team in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), but couldn’t make anything work against Tulsa’s smothering defense. The Golden Hurricane shut them out until late in the third quarter when most of the starters had already been taken out of the game.

The decision to defer the coin toss to the second half paid off for the Golden Hurricane as the defense came out as strong as they started the game last week, giving up nothing on the first drive of the game. After opening up the game with a sack the defense held the Aggies back forcing them to a three-and-out.

After struggling to move the ball last week (they were held to only 3 points) the Golden Hurricane drove all the way down to the North Carolina A&T three-yard line.

They couldn’t punch it in unfortunately and had to settle for a Redford Jones field go to take a 3–0 lead.

It wasn’t too long after that they scored their first touchdown of the day. After forcing the Aggies to punt again, the special teams made a spectacular play. Sophomore safety McKinley Whitfield blocked the punt and Tulsa recovered the ball inside the oneyard line. One play and three seconds later and Tulsa was up 10–0 on a William Flanders one-yard run.

After trading punts for the next couple of minutes, the Aggies finally looked to be threatening the Golden Hurricane as they drove to the 25-yard line.

A tackle in the backfield pushed them back to the 28, and when Aggie quarterback Oluwafemi Bamiro tried to force a throw, Kolton Shindelar returned it all the way downfield for a touchdown and the 17-point lead.

This was Schindelar’s second career interception returned for a touchdown, the first came in the win over Tulane last season that gave the Golden Hurricane bowl eligibility.

On the very next Aggie drive Bamiro threw another interception, this time picked off by Whitfield at the Golden Hurricane’s 49-yard line. Tulsa quarterback Dane Evans found an open Keevan Lucas on the next play who took the ball in for the 51-yard touchdown and a 24-point lead.

The two teams moved the ball around for the next couple minutes of game-time but didn’t do anything with it until 13 minutes remained in the half. At that point, Whitfield blocked another Aggie punt and the Evans hit Lucas in the ensuing possession to take a 31-point lead with 12 minutes still left in the first half. And the scoring did not stop.

On their next possession Evans was picked off, but the Aggies were called for being offsides.

After the penalty Flanders ran the ball in

for the 21-yard score and the 38–0 lead. And on their next offensive possession, Evans found Lucas for the third time, this time a 52-yard touchdown, and a 45–0 lead. They capped off the first half with a field goal to go into the break with a 48 point lead.

The first half was extremely lopsided.

The Golden Hurricane had 257 passing yards and 343 total yards to the Aggies 76 and 123 respectively.

Tulsa gave their starters one more possession to start off the second half and they scored another field goal to go up 51–0.

Since backup quarterback Chad President was sidelined due to injury, Tulsa called upon Ryan Rubley, a redshirt junior who was seeing playing time for the first time in his career at Tulsa.

Rubley had a nice game going 6-10, with a touchdown to tight end Rob Riederer, the first touchdown for both of them.

Up 58–0 after that touchdown, the Golden Hurricane were just concerned about running out the clock and making sure no one got injured.

In the final 16 minutes of the game the Aggies scored three touchdowns making the final score 58–21, though it was not nearly as close as the scoreboard would show.

Evans bounced back from the rough outing last week when Ohio State picked him off repeatedly, finishing with 282 yards and three touchdowns. Lucas finished with 119 yards — all of which were off of four receptions in the first half — his eighth game of over 100 yards.

This was a game of firsts for a lot of Golden Hurricane players. Rubley, redshirt freshman Avery Gragg, junior deep snapper Ty Lott and redshirt freshman running back Javon Thomas all saw their first action in the college level on Saturday.

Riederer had his first touchdown and red-

shirt freshman Travis Gipson had his first career sack for a 10-yard loss.

In his post-game press conference Head Coach Philip Montgomery talked about winning from every side of the ball.

“I thought it was really another good overall team win. I thought we made plays obviously on special teams there early in the game, which really kicked the momentum to our side. Defensively we played lights out,” Montgomery said.

“Offensively, the possessions that we got, I thought we took advantage of those, executed what we wanted to do offensively. I thought we moved the ball up and down the field at times. You know, there in the latter part of the game, we got some young guys in. It’s a good chance for them to get some experience, get some work in live competition. Obviously they are going to get better and better as we go along but it was a good chance to get those guys in and get them some experience.”

Tulsa used this game to help them get back into focus for the rest of the season after the disappointing show in Columbus.

Evans talked about what the team was feeling up after that loss.

“After a week like last week, nothing seems right. The days don’t seem right, food doesn’t taste the same, music doesn’t sound good, and you just don’t want to talk about it anymore. You just want to go out and play on Saturday, and you want to get that taste out of your mouth, and that’s exactly what we did today. And now that we got that taste out of our mouth, we’re ready to go for next week and to keep this thing rolling.”

The Golden Hurricane travel to Fresno state next week to finish up their non-conference schedule and will return to take on Southern Methodist University at home on Oct 7.

19 September 2016

Justin Guglielmetti is…

the

bleacher creature

Twerk of the Year There was a time when touchdown celebrations were the most fun thing about the NFL, the only time when the players could just release all that pent-up testosterone in the form of daintily flapping arm-wings, planet-smashing spikes or a tasteful chacha. In recent years, ever since the league instituted harsher penalties for “excessive celebration,” we’ve seen things toned down a bit, but last Monday in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ season-opener, star wide receiver Antonio Brown delivered a post-TD performance that is going straight into the Hall of Fame. It was simple, bold, elegant and above all bootilicious. You see, Brown twerked on live TV, pumping his butt up and down five times in an absolutely brilliant display of hip control and spunk. How has nobody done this before now? Is there a dance move that has been such a ubiquitous presence in our lives over the past couple years? You’d have thought that after Miley Cyrus delivered her “how-not-to-twerk” PSA at the 2013 VMAs, NFL players would be lining up to show America the proper way to make that booty pop. Instead, we had to wait three whole years for Minitron to make the leap.

Here’s to hoping we’ll see some more of this, preferably from a 350 pound defensive lineman returning a fumble. Seeing Antonio Brown twerk is one thing, but Vince Wilfork? Now that would be game-changing.

Neymar of this Nonsense If this twerking thing catches on in the NFL, maybe they can perform the move to the sweet melody of “Yo Necesito,” the new song released by Brazilian soccer star Neymar. Just kidding, I’m not sure I would ask my worst enemy to listen to this song, which ranks somewhere between a hungry cat and those old compost-able Sun Chips bags on the sliding scale of terrible sounds. Neymar might be one of the most talented footballers in the world but the dude needs to take some lessons if he ever wants to have a musical career. As things stand right now, he’s poised to follow in the footsteps of Shaq and Manny Pacquiao, legends in their respective sports who would probably rather you just forgot that they ever stepped foot behind a mic, thank you very much. Look guys, you’re good at what you do, so just stick to your lane. There’s no shame in admitting you’re not much of a musician. Even Good Will Hunting couldn’t play piano!

Jimmy G Tom Brady is without a doubt the greatest quarterback of all time, but he also plays for Bill Belichick, who might be the least loyal coach in history. The man simply has no time for sentimentality; either you’re a contributor or you’re given the axe. Now with Tom Terrific serving his four-game suspension for Deflategate, young protege Jimmy “Christopher Reeve” Garoppolo has a chance to prove his worth by starting the first quarter of the season. And suffice it to say that he got off to a fantastic start, throwing for 264 yards and displaying poise beyond his years in leading the Pats to a win on the road over favored Arizona. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for the guy, but there’s a fear that says maybe this crap suspension is Brady’s version of Drew Bledsoe’s famous hit from Mo Lewis. The turning point that ends the career of the franchise quarterback and ushers in the era of the square-jawed, better-looking young star. I’m on board with a Patriots future that includes Jimmy G, but count me on the side that wants to see Brady go out on top. I’ve only got so many childhood sports idols left, you know.

Monday

Men’s Soccer vs. Santa Clara 7:00 p.m.

Sports

The Collegian: 3

Volleyball goes 11–1 in non-conference

photos by Dalton Stewart

Left to right: senior libero Brooke Berryhill celebrates after the win over Oral Roberts on Friday. Rachel Moore and Erica Bohannon jump to block a spike.

The women’s volleyball team beat Oral Roberts, Northwestern State and LA Tech en route to their best start to a season in over 10 years.

Matt Rechtien Sports Editor

For the the third week in a row, the Tulsa volleyball team swept the field at the tournament they played in, this time the Tulsa Invitational. This gives them a record of 11–1 going into conference play next week.

First up for the Golden Hurricane was crosstown rival Oral Roberts University.

Tulsa continued their hot play from last week’s tournament and scored 9 straight points to start off the first set before ORU got a single point. The closest the Golden Eagles got to Tulsa was 14–6, as Tulsa took the first set by an astonishing 13-point advantage.

The second set started similarly, but ORU found their rhythm and tied the game at 15 points apiece. They kept it close throughout the rest of the set. Tied 23–23, Rebecca Reeve and Jaime Rahilly scored back-toback kills for the 25–23 win and a 2–0 set lead.

The third set featured lead changes throughout and Tulsa had an 18–15 advan-

tage, but the Golden Eagles rallied back four straight points and went on to take the third set 23–25. After the break the fourth set saw ORU lead for almost the entirety, but the Golden Hurricane took the lead back 23–22 late. ORU scored two straight and were playing for the set point, when Tulsa rattled off three points to take the set 26–24, and the match 3–1.

Seniors Erica Bohannon and Brooke Berryhill has 22 kills and 30 digs respectively.

“Their numbers were pretty ridiculous,” said Head Coach Ryan Wills. “That’s what you expect of your seniors. It’s a grind, you’re playing against your cross-town rival, you need them to step up and make big plays and they did. Their numbers were great, but on top of that they made some plays and critical times and found a way.”

The second match of the tournament was against Northwestern State and Tulsa again won three sets to one. Once again the Golden Hurricane dominated the early set on the strength of four service aces from freshman setter Mariah Pardo. Tulsa took the first set by 10 points, 25–15.

Tulsa was trailing for the majority of the second set before rallying back to take a 23– 22 lead and sophomore outside hitter Rachel Moore finished the set off to give the Hurricane the 2–0 set advantage for the second straight day.

The Demons took the third set 22–25 after a 7–0 run midway through the set which Tulsa could not respond to. But the Golden Hurricane bounced back in the fourth and final set with another 25–15 dominating win.

In the finale of the tournament Tulsa took on old Conference-USA foe Louisiana Tech. The pattern held for the third straight set as Tulsa won the first two sets, dropped the third and dominated the fourth set for a 3–1 win and another perfect sweep of the tournament.

Three Golden Hurricane made the AllTournament Team: Bohannon (MVP), Berryhill and Trinity Aluala. This was the third tournament title for the Golden Hurricane who also won the Creeds and Crests Classic and the A-State Invitational.

Wills talked about the first part of the team season after the win on Saturday night. “If you look at the whole non-conference picture, I’m just really proud of how we played. We played some really good teams. We were challenged, and every time this team was presented a challenge, they stepped up. We weren’t perfect, but we found a way to be successful most of the time, and more than anything, I’m just really proud of how hard they’re playing and how they fight right now.”

They begin conference play against Cincinnati on Thursday.

Men’s soccer falls to Akron, women’s team dominates ORU The Golden Hurricane men’s soccer team fell to No. 16 ranked Akron, 2-1, while the women’s team dominated against local rival ORU. Joseph Edmunds Sports Writer In the first half of the men’s game, the two teams each tried to control the tempo of the game, resulting in a lot of back-and-forth play. Each team created some chances, but couldn’t push through. The half ended with the game knotted in a scoreless draw.

In the second half, the Zips got on the scoreboard first, as an attacker found some open space to head in a goal off of a free kick. Tulsa was still having trouble converting on their offensive opportunities. Late in the game, Matt Puig subbed in. With five minutes left in the game, he beat a defender and drew a foul in the goal-box to earn a penalty kick. Ray Saari took the shot, and scored to tie the game at 1–1.

Then, the referee decided to take the game

Tuesday

Wednesday

No Events No Events

into his own hands. Each team continued to try and create chances to take the lead. During one Akron push, the Zips played the ball through to a man in front of the goal, and he slotted the ball home. What was missing from this play, though, was the whistle from the ref, as the Akron player was clearly a few yards offside on the play. However, the call wasn’t made, and the goal counted.

Only two minutes remained in the game after the Akron goal, Tulsa was trying to push forwards to get an equalizer. Additionally, the game had gotten chippy throughout the second half, as each team fouled the other on some risky challenges. The referee has set the standard for these offences with yellow cards shown to four players. Each of those yellow cards was shown to an Akron player. Then, on a risky Tulsa challenge, the official decided to go directly to a red card, skipping the yellow card. Playing the remainder of the game a man down, the Golden Hurricane couldn’t find an equalizing goal, and fell 2–1.

The Golden Hurricane now sit at a 2–2–2 record this season. Their next match is

Thursday

Volleyball vs.

Cincinnati 7:00 p.m.

against Santa Clara on Sept 19 at 7 p.m.

On the women’s side After a tough set of games in the Tulsa Classic, the Golden Hurricane women’s soccer team bounced back against Oral Roberts.

In the first half, each team struggled to find a rhythm, which resulted in a scoreless first half.

In the second half, Tulsa started to take over. Shortly after play resumed, Tana Dake took a free kick, sending the ball into the middle. Annabeth Fouts got free to head the ball in, opening the scoring in favor of the Golden Hurricane.

From there, Tulsa didn’t let up, as Rachel Thun and Alzbeta Chlumova added goals, solidifying the win at 3–0.

The victory game the Golden Hurricane the Spectrum Cup, the trophy awarded to the winner of this crosstown derby each year.

Tulsa now has a 4–4–1 record on the year.

Their next game is against Ole Miss, a home game on Sept 18 at 7 p.m.

Sept. 19 - 25 Friday

Softball vs. Cowder College 5:00 p.m.

Women’s Golf @ Furman University Golf Course (Through Sunday)

Saturday

Sunday

Softball vs. Northern Oklahoma College Tonkawa 11:00 a.m.

Football @ Fresno State 3:30 p.m.

Women’s Tennis vs. ITF25K

Volleyball vs. East Carolina 12:00 p.m.

Men’s Soccer @ SMU 7:00 p.m.

Cross Country @ Cowboy Jamboree

Women’s Golf @ Furman University Golf Course

News

The Collegian: 4

19 September 2016

TU professor attends archaeology conference to present research Thomas Foster’s research links anthropology and the environment in order to impact the future.

Kayleigh Thesenvitz Managing Editor

Associate professor of Anthropology Thomas Foster recently attended the World Archaeology Congress at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan. The conference, which ran from August 28 to September 8, was an opportunity for scientists from around the world to share their work, and make an impact on the future.

The conference’s website states, “In recent years global crises have compelled communities all over the world to reconsider the sustainability of human societies. Environmental, economic and social issues, against a background of rapid modernization and globalization, are growing and market fundamentalism and neo-liberalism are widening economic disparities in many countries and regions.”

There is a role for archaeologists and anthropologists to play in solving this problem, the site suggests. “Busier modern people can’t

wait, and tend to see their society with a short-term vision, while celebrating scientific development.

Seemingly, archaeologists and heritage managers with respect to the past with their long-term perspective, are expected to engage themselves more in this difficult and challenging time.”

The project is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Foster attended as part of a climate group called LandCover6k which is working to improve global climate change models. The group is part of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP).

“We have been meeting in Paris and the Netherlands and have been working on the project for about two years. This conference session was organized by myself and colleagues from the University of Barcelona to advertise our results and to recruit more collaborators,” Foster explained.

According to the IGBP, “LandCover6k addresses land-cover change across the globe that is climate-induced, natural and humaninduced due to anthropogenic land

Foster in front of Nijo-jo Castle, which he visited during his conference trip.

use from ca. 1-2 millennia before the start of agriculture. The start of agriculture is dated to ca. 6000 calendar years BP in Europe, but is significantly older in East Asia, e.g. in China at ca. 8000 cal. years BP.” Foster’s research involves measuring the effects of humans on their environment during the past.

“As an archaeologist I use the time

depth of ancient archaeological and botanical remains to measure the effects of humans on localized environments. I have published on this for years and became involved with this climate project about three years ago.”

Foster’s research and trip were partially paid for by TU with a grant from the Global Studies program.

courtesy Thomas Foster

“I had never been to Japan so the language difference was a little scary. But it was exciting, fun, enriching, educational, a cultural experience. I have many things to bring back to the classroom which will inform my teaching and research,” Foster said.

Phase one of the research is set to conclude in 2017.

TU professor takes unique research perspective on Bitcoins Dr. Tyler Moore, former TU student, analyzes why certain Bitcoin systems are hacked.

Dalton Stewart Student Writer

Dr. Tyler Moore began participating in cyber security research when he was an undergraduate here at the University of Tulsa.

Now, after obtaining a graduate degree from the the University of Cambridge and doing research both at Harvard University and Southern Methodist University, Dr. Moore has returned to his alma mater to continue his research in the economics of cybercrime, primarily that of the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

Dr. Moore’s research approach is unique and unlike most cybersecurity research. Traditionally speaking, cybersecurity research deals with two sides: attacking a system and defending a system.

Dr. Moore’s approach is one of a very economic view, studying the reasons why attackers do what they do and what motivates them to carry out certain attacks. “It’s a true mix of social and computer sciences,” says Moore, as he continues to research the strategies of attackers and how they are exploit-

ing loopholes in common defensive strategies.

Moore has now turned the majority of his research towards Bitcoin. His first project dealt with the exchanges of Bitcoin, or as he describes it, the ‘banks of the Bitcoin world.” Bitcoin exchanges can be compared to those of actual banks before the times of the FDIC, as they don’t have any type of insurance or governing laws dictating how they should operate. Along with that, a person never personally holds a Bitcoin; instead, a Bitcoin is simply put into their personal account which is held by the Exchange. This makes a Bitcoin Exchange a very valuable target, because if you can break into an Exchange, you can seize control of the Bitcoin within that exchange, effectively making it your own.

However, unlike most cybersecurity research, Dr. Moore was not interested in the attacks used or the defenses implemented, but more in why the criminals did what they did, and why they took certain actions to reach their goal. Dr. Moore comments on this approach, saying it is a “macro view on a problem that is generally looked at in a very micro scale.” With various partners, Dr. Moore gathered a large amount of data from many attacks, mapping out why certain exchanges were attacked. Dr.

TU football player kneels during anthem While both the university and player have not commented, this gesture mimicks recent NFL players’ actions protesting police brutality.

Justin Guglielmetti Student Writer Last weekend, the University of Tulsa found itself the latest entity in the midst of the controversy that has been sweeping the nation since San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the song in a preseason NFL game three weeks ago.

Prior to TU’s game at Ohio State University, as the football team concluded its group prayer and turned to honor America with the playing of the national anthem, junior cornerback Keanu Hill remained on one knee.

Though Hill did not deliver a statement to the media, the gesture mimicked Kaepernick’s, which was intended to bring attention to social injustice, particularly that which is directed at the African-

American community in the form of apparent systemic racial bias in the police force.

In the weeks since Kaepernick took a knee, several other highprofile NFL players have knelt in solidarity with him, as well as U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe and a host of high school and college athletes around the country.

While many have accused these athletes of showing disrespect to America and its military troops and veterans, their supporters insist that the move is only an attempt to shine a light on major social issues and bring about change.

As of publication, neither the University of Tulsa nor Mr. Hill were available to deliver any remarks to The Collegian, but the school’s senior associate athletic director for communications did release a statement clarifying that although TU believes in “free expression and open discussion of differing perspectives and opinions,” Hill’s actions were in no way representative of the athletic department or school as a whole.

Moore has also participated in research looking at the more popular topic of Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS attacks) against exchanges, which essentially render that exchange useless and unable to operate, denying a person’s ability to interact with the market via that exchange.

He is currently working with with an economist on correlating attacks against exchanges with transactions. Through the analytics of big data from all these attacks and transactions and taking an economy outlook, Moore hopes to be able to analyze the current security of the Bitcoin ecosystem from a macro perspective.

In the future, Dr. Moore says that cryptocurrency has a great potential, but faces many challenges in its infancy. Moore hopes to use his research to develop an economist view of the current cryptocurrency to help create new possibilities and policies in the future, as he says “crypto-currency will never be secure”. Instead of trying to create the next perfect cryptocurrency, Dr. Moore works to determine why certain attacks happen, and creating policies to help deter the want to attack exchanges.

Dr. Moore is always looking for new researchers, both at the graduate and undergraduate level and not only within computer science,

courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Bitcoins cannot be physically accessed, but instead are stored in a Bitcoin exchange, which can be broken into by hackers.

but also within the social sciences.

“I’m very excited about getting undergraduates into research, as I can relate to how exciting it was when I started my research as an undergrad here at TU,” Moore

commented. He can be found on the 2nd Floor of Rayzor Hall, or you can contact him at tylermoore@utulsa.edu.

years, Dean Entzeroth said that as part of TU law’s commitment to expanding students’ opportunities, the school operates “in direct response to evolving legal trends and the practical training interests of today’s law applicant.” These efforts include, among others, three clinics, two student journals, mock court programs and a number of externship opportunities.

Foundation. TIRN, or Tulsa Immigrant Resource Network, is meant to ease access to legal justice resources for locals lacking citizenship. The incubator program is different from the clinics, primarily in its assistance to help develop new and startup companies.

Before these improvements even go into effect, TU law’s placement of students in JD and

TU Law school expands program, lowers tuition

TU Law School hopes the changes will make the school more attractive to prospective students.

Trenton Gibbons Variety Editor The University of Tulsa’s Law School has announced a new tuition program to take effect in 2017. The Access to Legal Education Tuition will be $24,600 per year for full-time juris doctor students, significantly cheaper than the $37,960 tuition of our current academic term. Lyn Entzeroth, the dean of TU’s College of Law, said the tuition reduction reflects the College of Law’s mission to “provide students with an outstanding legal education at a private Top 100 law school at an affordable price.”

Besides making TU one of the most affordable prestigious law institutions in the country, the tuition also allows TU to compete with many of America’s top-tier public law schools.

When asked what might differentiate the program, in addition to the lower tuition, from previous

“The tuition also allows TU to compete with many of America’s top-tier public law schools.”

The law school managed to open a third clinic this year. The clinics are meant to appeal to students interested in solo practice, allowing applicants to represent real clients — under the guidance of faculty members, of course. The clinics serve underserved communities, simultaneously helping students develop attorney-client relationships while familiarizing themselves with real world issues.

TU also recently launched the TU Law Co-op, a legal incubator program funded by the TIRN grant from the George Kaiser Family

JD preferred jobs is currently ranked at 26th in the nation. These jobs, Dean Entzeroth elaborated, include prestigious judicial clerkships with federal appellate and trial courts; associate positions with noteworthy law firms across the country, placements with federal governmental agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice; jobs in Attorney General’s offices; positions with public interest organizations; and jobs in corporations such as Chevron or the Bank of Oklahoma.

News

19 September 2016

The Collegian: 5

Grandson of Oral Roberts begins publishing memoir Randy Potts’ unorthodox memoir addresses controversial figures from his past in an intimate, revealing manner.

Trenton Gibbons Variety Editor

Randy Potts’ memoir, The Bible Went Down With The Birdie Jean, is every bit as interesting and complex as his family’s legacy, but perhaps less scandalous. Potts is the grandson of Oral Roberts, often dubbed the first televangelist and of course the namesake of the rather infamous university.

Robert’s preachings and promotional faith healings reached millions of Americans, establishing for him a rather grand reputation in both the minds of his critics and supporters. It’s safe to count Potts among his critics.

Randy Potts is gay. For this and a number of other reasons he lived in terror of his grandfather. Nevermind the reaction that might have garnered from any other family at the time, Oral Roberts fervently preached against the ‘sin’ of homosexuality. Potts has spent much of the time since his own com-

ing out and his grandfather’s death reflecting on their relationship.

The memoir itself, however, features Oral Roberts as only one in a number of reflective points from Randy’s life. The memoir is far from traditional, to be released via Instagram in ‘books’ consisting of 33 pictures accompanied by lengthy text. Releasing every other Sunday, the installments are meant to allow, in Pott’s own words, him to “say goodbye to someone.” Legally disinherited by his family, Potts “wanted to make a formal goodbye,” adding that he’s trying “not to do it in anger.”

In the first installment, The Book of Mother, this sentiment rings true enough.

Pott’s descriptions of people (the first book addresses many more than his mother) are affectionate and sentimental. Even in his worst memories of others, his grandfather included, there is often more compassion than bitterness in his tone.

In one such memory, he recalls a squabble between his mother and grandfather regarding his middle name. The televangelist wanted Pott’s middle name to be Roberts, an elder grandson having already been ‘sad-

Nathan Gibbons Distribution Manager German company Bayer absorbs Monsanto A record breaking 66 billion dollar takeover has taken place as German chemicals company Bayer absorbed Monsanto last week. The now confirmed deal means Bayer has become the biggest seeds and pesticide company in the world. This was the third offer made by Bayer after months of negotiating.

Bayer, known mostly for its pharmaceuticals in America, will now focus more on its seeds and plants business. Monsanto’s chief technology officer said, “This allows [Monsanto] to make more investments, have more capabilities and build better products for farmers, that they can use to grow crops with higher yields … and farm better, farm smarter.”

Regulators will put the deal under scrutiny as the merger could lead to higher seed prices for farmers. Monsanto and Bayer have been under fire for their genetically modified “frankenseeds” which some believe could have detrimental health effects for consumers. However, a National Academies of Sciences expert panel said there was no substantiated evidence of detrimental effects towards the environment or consumers.

US House advises against pardoning Snowden The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has said Edward Snowden was “not a whistleblower” and did “tremendous damage to national security” in leaking intel. Their recently released report suggests a real whistleblower would have stayed in the United States, whereas Snowden now resides in Russia.

The documents he stole, the panel argues, had nothing to do with programs that would infringe on individuals’ privacy rights. The documents were instead “military, defense, and intelligence programs of great interest to America’s adversaries” and the United States has had to pay millions of dollars to mitigate the damage done.

David Nunes, head of the panel, said, “The report is based on facts, so it’s just all the facts that we gathered over a two-year process, and the report ... I think, speaks for itself.” The two year investigative report comes as “Snowden”, a film dramatizing Snowden’s life and the leak, opens in theaters around America.

Syrian ceasefire continues despite rebel harassment Rebel groups in Syria are using the current ceasefire to regroup, argued Vladimir Putin last Saturday. One of the aims of the truce was to separate moderate and militant groups, something which Putin says is being ignored as America focuses on retaining their military capacity.”What we’re seeing now is not the separation of the terrorists from the healthy part of the opposition but an attempt by these terrorists to regroup,” he said.

Footage released last week of United States special forces leaving a Syrian town as an American-backed rebel group hurled insults at them, some calling them infidels or dogs. Breaches of the truce by Syrian troops and rebel groups have occurred, but the White House and Moscow have voiced their hopes to extend the ceasefire. If the truce holds for seven days, the US and Russia have agreed to plan joint attacks against ISIS and the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

First minor euthansized in Belgium A terminally ill seventeen-year-old became the first minor to be euthanized last week, as doctors say he was suffering “unbearable physical pain.” Since the country removed euthanasia age restrictions two years ago, minors now have the right to be helped to die if they meet certain requirements. The child has to be in unbearable pain, terminally ill and must have voiced the want to die repeatedly. The parents must also voice their consent.

Church leaders and paediatricians are among those that question whether children would be able to understand such a choice, but Senator Jean-Jacques De Gucht said minors’ right to assisted suicide “makes a big difference to many people”. The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg are among nations that allow euthanasia. In the United States, assisted dying is permitted in Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana and California.

Suicide bombing at Sunni mosque in Pakistan A suicide bombing last Friday at a Sunni mosque in Pakistan has left 24 dead and 28 wounded. The bomber reportedly yelled “God is Great” as he entered the mosque with about 200 worshippers inside. Wounded worshippers, many in critical condition, were ferried to local hospitals by local residents, tribal police, and an army helicopter.

A breakaway Taliban group has claimed responsibility for the attack which killed and injured many children.

The White House has condemned the attack, calling it an “appalling reminder that terrorism threatens all countries in the region” and have promised to continue to work with Pakistan officials to conduct counterterrorism activities. Since Islamabad pledged to help fight the war on terror in 2001, some 18,000 civilians and 5,000 soldiers have been killed in Pakistan by militant attacks.

dled’ with the name of Oral. When Randy’s mother refused, the preacher promised her $1000, and so the matter was settled. From this instance, Potts writes of being “exhausted already of those large televangelist hands reaching into the womb and putting their mark on me, their touch promising healing but delivering something else instead.”

His next book, The Book of Oral, is already highly anticipated by publications and Oral Roberts critics alike. However, The Book Of Uncle Ronnie might be the most integral to understanding Pott’s life. Ronnie, like Potts, was gay and yet entrenched in a family that so embraced old-time religion he was terrified to admit it at a young age.

When he did, in his maturity, come out to his loved ones, they estranged him. Ronnie took his own life with a bullet to the heart.

Pott’s memoir, besides mourning the man’s loss and drawing parallels between their struggles, is also said to question the investigation that ruled his death as a suicide.

Pott’s memoirs won’t be covering the last six years of his life, as this would contain details about himself, including his current marriage, that he doesn’t want to reveal to

courtesy Daily Beast

Potts’ memoir will be released every other Sunday via Instagram.

the public. Instead he’s made them a reflection on his struggles as a child in an oppressively strict and faithful household, his growing up in the shadow of a nearly divine icon, and finally his coming to terms with and embracing his sexuality at a time when he was already married with children. It’s a unique life and he’s found a fittingly unique format to document it in.

Tuesday, September 20 at 5:30pm to 7:30pm Gilcrease Museum, Vista Room Jazz Night, featuring Mike Cameron and the Western Swingabilly Jazz Tribe Visit Gilcrease Museum and hear local legends perform America’s Music. Featuring Western Swingabilly Jazz Tribe, with Mike Cameron on clarinet and tenor sax, Shelby Eicher on violin, Scott McQuade on accordion, Sean Al-Jibouri on guitar and Dean Demerritt on upright bass.

Live Jazz in the Vista Room from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., with museum galleries remaining open until 8:00 p.m.

Free for Gilcrease Museum members; free with admission for non-members. A buffet dinner is available from The Restaurant at Gilcrease for an additional $8.00 per person.

Wednesday, September 21 at 12:00pm to 1:30pm Collins Hall, Holmes Board Room A Place at the Table: Food Insecurity An estimated fifty million people in the U.S. — many of whom produce our nation’s food — regularly experience hunger. Eileen Bradshaw of the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma will discuss the causes of hunger in our community, how food insecurity disproportionately affects women and children, and how the Community Food Bank attempts to promote food security by working with a network of partner programs and individuals in Tulsa and surrounding areas. A lunch built from sustainable food sources will be served.

Sponsored by the University of Tulsa Women’s and Gender Studies Department and co-sponsored by United Campus Ministry.

Thursday, September 22 and 29 at 6:00pm to 9:00pm Mabee Gym, Campus Security RAD Self-Defense Class for Women The RAD for Women Self-Defense is an easy to learn way for women to defend against unwanted attention or and attack.

The class consists of two 3-hour sessions. Wear comfortable clothes, class includes physical activity.

Call or email the security department for details. Download the latest R.A.D. Brochure or visit RAD-systems.com for more information on about the program.

Thursday, September 22 at 7:00pm to 8:00pm Tyrrell Hall, Ellen G. Adelson Auditorium Food and Power: How Big Corporations Shape What We Eat and Drink Philip Howard, Associate Professor in Community Sustainability at Michigan State University, presents a lecture examining efforts to increase profits and power among top packaged food and beverage makers as they constantly run into the limited size of our stomachs. The lecture examines three key product strategies: beer, soymilk, and bagged salads. It also examines how we as consumers might challenge this power.

Friday, September 23 at 2:30pm to 5:00pm Lorton Performance Center, Meinig Recital Hall Vocal Master Class with Sarah Coburn TU School of Music proudly presents internationally renowned soprano, Sarah Coburn in a Vocal Master Class. A featured artist with the Metropolitan Opera, Ms. Coburn will share her insights and expertise with current vocal students and speak about her experiences as a rising star with roots in Oklahoma. The Master Class is free and the public is invited to attend.

Tibetian Festival

Sunday, September 25 at 11:00am Unity Center of Tulsa

Unity Center of Tulsa will host a Tibetan Festival to raise money for the exiled Tibetan Buddhist monks of the Drepung Gomang Monastery in India. Unity Center will be celebrating the monks with the Tibetan Festival, and with a Sunday message, entitled “The New Monasticism.” Given by Rev. Dr. Rick Belous, UCOT’s senior minister, the talk will focus on the new monastic movement in the US, which is influenced

by Tibetan Buddhist practices in prayer and meditation.

The service will be followed by a Tibetan-inspired lunch in the Unity Fellowship Room. A sand mandala will also be constructed in the foyer at the Center, and all are welcome to participate. The ceremony of dissolution of the mandala will be at Unity October 2, 2016, 11 a.m.

The Unity Movement honors all spiritual practices and the diversity of paths leading to enlightenment. All are welcome for this event. There is no charge, a donation to the monastery is planned and contributions are most welcome. Childrens’ church is also available at Unity.

Monday, September 26 at 7:00pm to 8:00pm Harwell Field Outdoor Fall Film Festival 2016 Bring blankets, chairs, and smiles to this outdoor film festival!

Features an exclusive lineup of student films presented by the Department of Film Studies. Raffle prizes and refreshments.

Free and open to the public.

The Collegian does not produce all event descriptions in the Community Calendar.

Contact us at news@tucollegian.org with events.

The Collegian: 6

News

19 September 2016

Sahar Aziz spoke at annual Civil Rights Lecture

The recent lecture criticized America’s treatment of minority groups at home and its behavior when conducting foreign interventions.

Nathan Gibbons Distribution Manager

Law Professor Sahar Aziz spoke last Thursday about what she believes to be the maltreatment of minority groups in America.

The 17th annual Buck Colbert Franklin Memorial Civil Rights Lecture hosted the professor from Texas A&M University, who is a Sunni muslim born in Egypt. Aziz works with muslim communities and is an expert on law in the Middle East.

In her discussion, she tried to bring light to African Americans’ plight in America and the movement’s similarities to revolutions around the world. When the Arab Spring occurred, many Americans cheered the revolution against the government by an oppressed people. Aziz argued that citizens

ignore or oppress “their counterparts in America”. When many American citizens see protestors or members of the Black Lives Matter movement, they call them “thugs and hooligans”, said Aziz.

Professor Aziz pulled up evidence of systemic racism in the United States.

African American citizens are incarcerated at almost 6 times the rate of whites and education rates, whether that be attendance, acceptance or graduation, are much lower for black citizens.

Even when only accounting for those without a high school diploma, black citizens are 16.6 percent unemployed while whites are only 6.9 percent. Aziz asked “Why are we so quick to dismiss grievances in America?”

When it’s abroad, she said, Americans are happy to get involved in the revolution.

Americans challenge authoritarian regimes and push for democracies. Aziz argued that “oppression is much more pernicious when clothed in democracy.”

Aziz also discussed Americans’ marginalization of foreign countries when conducting interventions. “When

our government overlooks human rights violations or gives more money to brutal dictators”, the United States contradicts its own ideals, said Aziz.

The Iraq War, though against the ‘truly brutal’ Saddam Hussein, consisted of too many “fatal mistakes.” The torture in Abu Ghraib, one example, consisted of human rights violations and shamed many of the officials involved. The ‘political vacuum’ the American military left in Iraq allowed ISIS to form, which Aziz pointed out is far more violent than Al Qaeda. America “gave them generals”, she explained, by marginalizing authority figures in the country.

In some cases, she added, officials allowed prisoners to gather and discuss the founding of ISIS. America’s military interventions in the Middle East directly affect the world in multiple ways, such as inciting attacks in Germany.

It also indirectly affects the United States, as it ‘inflates fears’ for national security and leads to officials “eroding (U.S. citizens’) rights”.

As an example of America ‘contradicting

itself’, she discussed many states’ motions to bar Syrian refugees from entering. Statistics show that America has accepted far fewer refugees for resettlement than many countries, and said that America forgets it thrives because of immigrants. The Statue of Liberty’s acceptance of the downtrodden and poor has fallen on “deaf ears” and does not represent America’s qualities, she said.

Professor Aziz honored the historical figure Buck Colbert Franklin and said she is happy to work with others on the “trail he blazed.” Buck Franklin is famous for his work during the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.

Franklin, an African American attorney who practiced law primarily within black communities, was living with his family in Tulsa at the time.

The Greenwood District, otherwise known as Black Wall Street, was destroyed by race riots. Buck Franklin, working from a tent, defended the people against the city of Tulsa’s plan to rebuild the residential district as a commercial one instead. He led and won the case in the Oklahoma supreme court.

Tulsans create new rideshare app, TRIDE Former Uber drivers have created a new app aiming to improve the experience for drivers and passengers.

James Whisenhunt Commentary Editor Uber and Lyft have risen to prominence as the go-to apps for users to get a ride somewhere. A group of Tulsa natives is looking to change that.

Blake Litton is a co-owner of the rideshare app TRIDE, originally named as a portmanteau of “Tulsa” and “ride” although the word also means fleet or nimble. TRIDE is locally based in Tulsa and aiming to improve on apps like Uber and Lyft. Litton and fellow co-owner Mack Parks started as Uber drivers, eventually realizing that they weren’t happy with the system and wanting to do something about it.

This is part of why Litton says TRIDE is adding features “that we know passengers and drivers will love” in the new version of the app, currently in beta. These features include saving favorite drivers to use later,

courtesy TRIDE

The co-owners hope lack of surge pricing and better treatment of drivers and passengers will make their app the go-to solution for Tulsans.

sharing current location via SMS and a built-in passenger-driver messaging system.

Litton also notes that current rideshare companies treat drivers “more like an employee versus the independent contractor status they are.” Litton aims to improve on this by offering “more extensive insurance coverage than Uber/Lyft,” and having team leaders acting as a mentor and point of contact for drivers. TRIDE also takes a service 8:00 a.m.

University of Tulsa campus Security Officers were dispatched to investigate a student’s food possibly being eaten on several occasions by their roommate. The student had made a previous report against the other student for taking items other items not belonging to them. The student’s attempt to discuss the matter have been met with denial from the other student.

Sep. 4 4:20 a.m.

While on routine patrol University of Tulsa campus Security Officers observed a student driving erratically. A traffic stop was initiated and the student was found to be extremely intoxicated by alcoholic beverages.

The Tulsa Police Department (TPD) was dispatched to the scene and the student was given a field sobriety test and was found to be too impaired to operate a motor vehicle.

The student was arrested and booked in to the David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center for Actual Physical Control. The vehicle was impounded by TPD. 6:00 a.m.

University of Tulsa campus Security Officers were dispatched to investigate a possible sexual assault. Upon arrival officers determined the incident occurred off TU campus. The Tulsa Police Department and Emergency Medical Service Authority responded to the incident. The investigation in ongoing.

Sep. 5 6:45 p.m.

While on routine patrol University of Tulsa campus Security Officers observed Tulsa Fire Department engine pulling into Mayo Village apartments. Upon farther investigation it was determined that a TU student had accidently left their keys in the vehicle and locked her 6 month old child in it. TFD was able to unlock the vehicle and get the child out. TFD examined the child and found no health problems present.

Sep. 7 10:00 a.m.

While on routine patrol University of Tulsa campus Security Officers were flagged down by a concerned member of the University School staff. The staff member explained that someone left a note on their vehicle and it made them concerned. Officers informed the staff member that they can be escorted by security to and from work if they feels unsafe.

6:25 p.m.

University of Tulsa campus Security Officers were dispatched to investigate an unauthorized person coming into their apartment. Upon arrival officers made contact with 2 students who reported an individual had entered their unlocked apartment, then turned around and left. The suspect was not immediately located. The investigation is ongoing.

Sep. 9 8:30 p.m.

While on routine patrol University of Tulsa campus Security Officers conducted a pedestrian check on an individual walking through campus near the ACSU. The individual had no affiliation with the University of Tulsa. A warrant check revealed no current holds, but an extensive criminal history, having been released from jail earlier this week. Officers completed a contact card and trespass banned them from University of Tulsa property.

2:25 a.m.

While on routine patrol University of Tulsa campus Security Officers found an underage intoxicated student laying in the courtyard area at Lafortune Hall. The student was checked out by Emergency Medical Services Authority paramedics. The paramedics called the Tulsa Police Department due to the student being underage. The student was not arrested, but police officers confiscated a fake driver license. The paramedics cleared the student to return to their fraternity house in the care of the fraternity chapter president.

The Collegian does not produce or edit the Campus Crime Watch except for content and brevity.

fee from fare 8 percent lower than Uber’s (20 percent vs 28 percent).

Litton also takes measures to make sure the experience is as pleasant as possible for passengers as well. He notes that “Uber does not inspect the vehicles passengers ride in [or] do integrity interviews on the drivers,” two measures TRIDE takes before putting a driver on the road.

Perhaps the most important incentive for

passengers to use TRIDE over Uber or Lyft is the absence of “Surge pricing” or “prime time Pricing.” TRIDE notes that “Uber raised their rates to 5.6x last Saturday night alone,” meaning that a $10 ride with TRIDE would have cost $56 with Uber. Litton feels that this practice is immoral and notes that “we do not want to see people have to make the choice of saving money and driving drunk versus taking a ride with a sober driver.”

Litton mentions that all of the money made from TRIDE “stays local” in Tulsa, and they “want to give back to the community that supports us.”

Litton notes that TRIDE has expanded past the Tulsa metro area into Owasso, Collinsville, Jenks, Bixby, Broken Arrow, Sand Springs, Claremore and Catoosa, as well as Austin and Corpus Christi, TX. They plan to begin working in Oklahoma City, Lawton and Stillwater by October 1st.

TRIDE is available for download on iOS and Android platforms, and users can get a $5 discount on their first ride with the code RideTRIDE.

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Commentary

19 September 2016

The Collegian: 7

#TUhonors911 misuses victims to advertise

SA’s attempt to honor 9/11 was not only a tasteless marketing move, but also disrespected the memories of individual victims.

Sam Chott Satire Editor The terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 were a turning point for the United States and the world. Every year, it’s become a tradition for institutions, both public and private, to recognize the shifts in our lives that the attacks, and the response to them, caused and attempt to honor the lives of almost 3,000 victims.

Of course, not all of these attempts are successful. Every year, there are some 9/11 tributes that go viral because of their tastelessness, whether they’re well-intentioned or seem like more of a cash grab.

This year, the most notable “tributes” were a Texas mattress store’s ad featuring two men falling into towers of mattresses and a Florida Walmart that made a World Trade Center out of cases of Coke Zero.

These displays, as poorly thought-out as they were, at least left individual victims out of their cash grabs. The same cannot be said of the crass attempt by SA to honor the victims of 9/11, not only by using the names, faces and lives of victims without their or their family’s consent, but also by ad-

vertising the university by encouraging the use of #TUHonors911.

When a killing occurs, information about the victims is only sometimes relevant to the public interest. In some circumstances, the family of the victim voluntarily tells the public about their lives to help us understand what a loss their death was. In other situations, such as when trans women are killed, information about their lives and their deaths is relevant to show the public that they were victims of hate crimes and did nothing to “deserve” their deaths, which would ideally spur action to prevent more killings.

The alleged purpose for spreading stories about 9/11 victims is to “humanize” them. The problem is that that implies that there’s some benefit to humanizing them. When

Black Lives Matter movements insist that we remember the names and faces of victims, it’s because we would otherwise forget. No one is in danger of forgetting about 9/11. Even if you can’t remember watching where you were when you heard about it, or watching it

been put in place, and had enough support that spreading the stories of victims was unnecessary. The victims of 9/11 can’t tell us how they would like their stories to be told. They lost control of the narratives of their lives on September 11th, and taking their stories and

out having to make any real statement or do anything to substantially honor victims. Public grief has its place, but it should be reserved for those who knew the deceased, not strangers.

I don’t believe that anyone on SA, or anyone that posted about

“Public grief has its place, but it should be reserved for those who knew the deceased, not strangers.” on TV, you can’t forget it, because current US foreign policy, and world events, are still largely a response to it.

With victims of 9/11, knowing the circumstances of their lives and deaths isn’t relevant to the public interest. Legislation to prevent more terrorist attacks has already

Student Association gave out bracelets to students and faculty, intending to help them remember the lives and stories of 9/11 victims.

using them for our purposes is taking even more control from them.

The university community was also encouraged to spread the stories of the victims on social media with #TUHonors911. Bringing the university into the story makes a kind of sense, if the idea was to pull the university community together around a common cause, but what cause was that supposed to be? If this hashtag was supposed to start a conversation, what were we supposed to talk about?

There’s criticism to be made of the response to 9/11, but any criticism is clearly inappropriate in a conversation about victims. Seeing members of the university remembering 9/11 isn’t more meaningful in any real way than seeing people from around the country remembering 9/11, and might overshadow the voices of those who might have some actual perspective on the tragedy, such as those who witnessed or survived it.

The only reasonable purpose of the hashtag, then, is to advertise TU as a place where 9/11 is remembered, which is absolutely disgusting. We shouldn’t be trying to profit off of death, but that’s the only clear purpose that this hashtag has. Posting with it could also be a way for some social media users to advertise their own empathy with-

a victim on social media, actually intended to disrespect anyone, but this was still an ill-conceived and irreverent marketing campaign.

In addition to the inherent problems with attaching the university’s name to an alleged tribute to victims, and using those victim’s names, faces and stories without permission or introspection, there were small mistakes in the campaign; in the email that was sent out, the victim count of 2,996 included the 19 hijackers who perpetrated and died during the attacks.

There are ways to respectfully honor the victims of 9/11. SA could have left the university’s name out of their hashtag and left individual victims out of it, or simply encouraged students to honor victims in their own way.

Even better, we could have made an effort to honor the victims with more than words, and emulate the more than 400 firefighters and law enforcement officials who died in New York City while trying to rescue survivors, by engaging in community service as a university.

It would be more work than making wristbands, and we wouldn’t be able to show others how sad we are on social media, but we could actually make the world a better place while respecting the memories of those who died.

TU OrgSpace an inefficient use of SA’s money

Recent budget reveals that the website costs SA much more than it benefits the student body.

Michaela Flonard News Editor

The tentative 2016 SA budget released last week showed how the organization spends its chunk of cash. And they spend a lot of it on TU OrgSpace.

For the upcoming year, SA has budgeted $5,250 towards the site. This amount, the same as the previous year, is larger than the homecoming bonfire ($5,000), the orientation camp ($3,000) and sexual assault and prevention efforts, which goes to the organization Advocacy Alliance ($5,000).

But unlike those other expenses, TU OrgSpace seems, at best, an inefficient and unused way to interact with students.

TU OrgSpace originates from Symplicity Corp, a company that creates a variety of online systems for educational institutions, businesses and federal agencies to use.

fair share of problems. In 2014, Symplicity made national headlines as its CEO plead guilty to conspiring to hack into two competitors’ computer systems in order to improve their own software development and sales strategy.

TU has been using the site since at least 2013. Why is student money going towards a company with such clear ethical issues?

According to SA’s Executive Director of Technological Development Tali Harris, the website is “fairly cheap compared to other similar services,” and serves a multitude of purposes. Organizations can use it to store data, but also documents and account numbers for reimbursement. SA can use it as an email system to contact clubs. It also host co-curricular transcript, events and polls. Mainly, however, students can use it to get in touch with clubs.

But the main issue with TU OrgSpace is its lack of users in general. Most organizations don’t post much to the site, either because of or causing the lack of student use of the site. It’s a chicken and egg situation.

Looking over organizations on the website, it seems that very few people actually use the site. No upcoming events were listed, and as for past events, only one was in 2016. It was in April. The rest were in 2015 or previous, several of which were sporting events and weekly church lunches. If you had to judge TU based on it, you’d be

graphic by Elias Brinkman

The $5,250 SA gives to Symplicity Corp for TU OrgSpace could be better used to directly connect to TU students and clubs.

students? By browsing the site, students can get a glimpse of the clubs available to them, yes, but the official TU website also offers this. Students couldn’t know what was going on by just using TU OrgSpace.

The other options the site offers are a blog, group details, and photo gallery. Looking over a few of the organizations listed — including The Collegian itself, among others like Earth Matters — it is obvious they have not updated the informa-

“Some students — juniors, in fact — didn’t even know the site existed.”

Community, the specific system TU OrgSpace is built on, is described by the company as a way to “bring your campus community together with an integrated solution that facilitates and encourages student alumni networking.”

The company itself has had its

likely to say none of the clubs on campus did anything; instead students just hung out and maybe got free lunch once a week. Some students — juniors, in fact — didn’t even know the site existed.

If no clubs are listing their events, how is this site useful for

tion on who runs the organization.

Given that, it would seem difficult for SA to use the site as an email list, if some of the contacts have already graduated.

Given the lack of updated information available on the site, SA could demand that organizations

do checkups to ensure all is up-todate. But seeing as how these organizations are still getting members and holding events, is that really necessary? The information gap on TU OrgSpace doesn’t seem to be preventing what campus participation TU has. Not updating the site seems to reflect individual organizations’ realization that the site is not essential.

SA should move away from the use of TU OrgSpace, and instead support what students already use: social media sites, flyers and word-of-mouth.

Instead of linking students to TU OrgSpace to get information on clubs, they should simply link students from the TU website, or their own, to the Facebook, website or other page of the organization.

These are the sites regularly updated with information, that can be easily and quickly checked no matter where you are.

And if SA, or the university, is set on creating another website for

the clubs as a whole, they should run their own. The school is full of computer science and engineering majors, as well as graphic designers.

Students could be employed to create and design the website, using the money designated for paying Symplicity.

Getting student input, instead of a corporation’s idea of what students want, might actually make such a website popular. Surely students could, at the very least, make it more aesthetically pleasing than the current option. If keeping account numbers and documents on a website is essential, this could work as a cheaper, more efficient option.

That would just require initial start-up costs, to pay the students to design it, and upkeep. But the money saved from not annually paying Symplicity could go towards more advertisements, events or anything else that the student body actually needs.

The Collegian: 8

Commentary

19 September 2016

STATE QUESTIONS

776 - death penalty method expansion

Voting no on State Question 776 keeps the death penalty from becoming more powerful and more difficult to abolish.

Raven Fawcett Student Writer After failing to cleanly execute Clayton Lockett in 2014 (whose death took 45 minutes of seizures and a fatal heart attack) and using the wrong drugs to execute Charles Warner, the state of Oklahoma has begun to rethink its stance on the death penalty. State Question 776 is up for a vote in November. The Question proposes an amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution in Section 9A of Article 2. A “yes” vote allows Oklahoma to use any death penalty method that is not banned in the United States Constitution to execute prisoners, should the current method become untenable or illegal. Death penalties will not be pardoned if a method is deemed unacceptable. Instead, death row inmates will continue to be held until a new method of execution is approved. Most notably, the death penalty cannot be considered “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Oklahoma Constitution should the measure pass.

To those who are pro-death penalty, State Question 776 makes sense. A “yes” vote supports Oklahoma’s bid to be the first state to sanction the death penalty within their constitution. The process for executions is given clarity and directives should problems like those suffered by Lockett and Warner arise. Moreover, it is unlikely that the death penalty will be abolished in the

near future. Voting to update death penalty laws can only help the limit the amount of bureaucratic headaches that executioners, the courts and the inmates themselves have to deal with.

Anti-death penalty groups, however, have responded with a resounding “no” vote. The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (OK-CADP) argues that to constitutionalize the death penalty in the form that Question 776 proposes would allow the government too much power. The “no” argument believes that by exempting the death penalty from being considered cruel and unusual punishment, Question 776 will allow the death penalty to be used with little oversight and without the caution that it is used with now.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that, if you need to split hairs in order to figure out whether or not you should kill someone, the answer is probably “No, do not do that.” Morally, execution might be right or wrong, but I don’t necessarily trust every jury to make that decision. I cannot, in good faith, support every decision made in the name of the death penalty. I cannot be sure that the people condemned to death deserve to die, were guilty of their crimes or that each crime given the death penalty deserves the death penalty by any common standard. Amnesty International reports that 151 inmates, just under 2% of those sentenced to death, have been exonerated or their crimes while on death row. The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences claims the number of innocent death row inmates may be closer to 4.1% Financially, the elimination of the death penalty could, if not save our public schools, at least help them out (if the government ever wanted to make public school funding a priority). Death penalty cases cost more money than the cases of those sentenced to life without parole. The problem is that the state must pay for lawyers and judges for each appeal given to death row inmates, as well as their room and board. Death row inmates drain the state of valuable resources.

According to research done by non-profit

organization Death Penalty Information Center, it costs several times more to execute an inmate than to keep the inmate in prison for life. Millions of dollars are allotted each year to keeping prisoners alive and legally equipped in the hopes that they’ll be killed in the near future.

Pragmatically, the death penalty does not appear to benefit anything other than people looking for closure. The Bureau of Justice Statistics, as of 2014, found that the average wait time from sentencing to execution has risen to 16.5 years. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a 2009 study found that the majority of leading criminologists find the death penalty does not act as a deterrent for murders. Another 2009 study reported that “police chiefs ranked the death penalty last among ways to reduce violent

the fight to end the death penalty easier beyond November’s ballot. The results of an execution happen regardless of the method.

Should you feel in your heart that the death penalty truly benefits society more than sentencing prisoners to life without parole, I encourage you to vote yes on Question 776.

If, however, you’re wavering about whether or not you support the death penalty, or you agree that the money spent on prisoners waiting to die is ridiculous, a “no” vote serves your interests perfectly.

Should State Question 776 be struck down at the polls, voters can look to their local officials, largely House Representatives and Senators, to begin work on striking down the death penalty in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma would join 19 other states in disavowing the death penalty, a nationwide

courtesy Wikimedia Commons

If State Question 776 passes, other methods of execution will be used if the current method, lethal injection, is ever deemed unacceptable.

crime.” A 2015 Pew Research study found that a majority of Americans also doubt that the death penalty “deters serious crime.”

By voting “no” on State Question 776, voters would prevent the long-term acceptance of the death penalty in Oklahoma.

Voting against this message would not stop the death penalty’s use, but it would make

trend that mirrors declining support for lethal punishment in polls. State Question 776 is a place to start, and you can begin that journey this November 8th at the polls.

As ever, your local political science writer hopes you’ll vote regardless of which side of the issue you believe in.

Rebuttal: 790 - state money for religious use

If Oklahoma adopts State Question 790, there won’t be any real harm, and there will even be some benefit.

Brennen VanderVeen Student Writer Last week, the Collegian ran articles on several of the upcoming state questions, including one on State Question 790. If adopted, the question would repeal a portion of the state constitution that has been used to keep a monument of the Ten Commandments off of the state capitol grounds. That article argued that Oklahomans should not vote to repeal the amendment because a) Oklahoma has many more pressing issues and b) doing so would allegedly repeal the principle of the separation of church and state. Several of the points in the article need addressing.

To be clear, the Oklahoma Supreme Court did not base its decision on the First Amendment. In fact, the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that an identical monument at the Texas State Capitol did not violate the Establishment Clause. Rather, the Oklahoma Supreme Court based its ruling on Article II, Section 5 of the Oklahoma constitution.

That provision reads “No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary, or sectarian

institution as such.”

The case in which the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled on the Ten Commandments was Prescott v. Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission and decided in 2015. The court decided, I think reasonably, that the Ten Commandments have a major religious component and therefore violate Article II, Section 5.

However, that decision appears to go against prior precedent, or, at the very least, significantly complicates existing precedent. In 1972, the court ruled in Meyer v.

Oklahoma City that a 50 foot tall cross on Oklahoma City fair grounds that was to be maintained with government funds did not violate the amendment. It ruled that the cross did not obviously display any sectarian purposes. Some people have speculated that the reason for the difference is that the Ten Commandments explicitly references religious ideas, while a cross doesn’t, since it has no text. Perhaps this distinction should be made, but I think for most people, the cross generally is just as much of a religious symbol as the Ten Commandments.

Still, even assuming that Prescott did violate prior precedent, that in and of itself is not an argument for the Ten Commandments being on the state capitol grounds.

Actually, I don’t believe the Ten Commandments should be there (it doesn’t bother me that much, though). Also, I do concede that repealing Article II, Section 5 would probably result in the Ten Commandments being returned to the state capitol. However, I still believe that it should be repealed.

Firstly, there is no concern that repealing it would result in the end of the “separation of church and state.” Last week’s article states that if a repeal takes place, “the opportunity opens up for threats to individual liberty to emerge, as well as for the preference to go to various religions.” It also asks “what’s to stop public resources from being used to enforce religious creeds in public schools?” None of these things would happen with repeal.

For one thing, Article I, Section 2 of the Oklahoma constitution states in part that

“Perfect toleration of religious sentiment shall be secured, and no inhabitant of the State shall ever be molested in person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship; and no religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil or political rights.” That should cover individual liberty generally, even though the provision does not necessarily prohibit state involvement in religion entirely.

Article I, Section 5 does prevent religious creeds from being enforced in schools, though. It reads in part, “Provisions shall be made for the establishment and maintenance of a system of public schools, which shall be open to all the children of the state and free from sectarian control.”

Still, both of those provisions, without Article II, Section 5, could leave room in the state constitution for non-school related involvement in religion. However, because of the doctrine of incorporation, Oklahoma has to follow the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. It does prevent the state from promoting religion.

Furthermore, Oklahoma could repeal both of the previous provisions and be left with no fewer protections. Lawsuits would just have to be brought in federal court under the First (and Fourteenth) Amendments rather

timately won the legal dispute, a school voucher program for disabled children was alleged to be unconstitutional by its opponents because of Article II, Section 5.

That voucher program allows students to use state money to go to a different school of their parents’ choosing. Since religious schools were included, some people thought it violated the state constitution. Perhaps both of these things are bad policies. If so, they should be defeated on the merits rather than through lawsuits.

As stated earlier, without Article II, Section 5, non school-related state involvement in religion would be permitted by the state constitution (though not by the federal constitution). I would support a measure to fill that hole with something more in line with the First Amendment. For instance, the state constitution could be amended just to ban “the establishment” of religion. That language would mirror the language of the First Amendment. Such a provision would still keep the government from recognizing an official religion, but it wouldn’t ban viewpoint-neutral laws that happen to support religion indirectly.

However, as it stands, Article II, Section 5 can at times be overly broad. Its language is absolutist and bans both direct and in-

“Repealing Article II, Section 5 would not produce any infringements of Oklahomans’ civil liberties.” than in state courts under the Oklahoma Constitution.

Thus far I’ve attempted to show is that repealing Article II, Section 5 would not produce any infringements of Oklahomans’ civil liberties. That alone would not be enough to repeal the provision. However, as it stands, Article II, Section 5 does have negative effects. It reads rather broadly and bans state involvement in tangentially religious matters that still exhibit a mainly secular purpose.

For instance, Oklahoma has been banned from providing transportation to religious schools. Also, even though the state ul-

direct support. It has no formal exception for laws with a secular purpose or that are viewpoint neutral. Of course, courts have sometimes allowed these sorts of legislation anyway, but the broad language allows for a greater chance of such laws being struck down. Even if the laws survive, the broad language invites more lawsuits. In short, repealing Article II, Section 5 would not decrease religious liberty in Oklahoma and would allow the state more flexibility with laws that might have religious involvement but still have a secular purpose.

19 September 2016

Commentary

The Collegian: 9

STATE QUESTIONS 777 - the right to farm 792 - updating alcohol laws

Voting no on State Question 777 prevents overly broad legislation which would allow corporate farmers to abuse the lack of farmning restrictions.

Nathan Hinkle Student Writer

State Question 777, more commonly known as the Right to Farm, is a proposition that will give extra freedom to farmers and ranchers. This freedom will allow farmers and ranchers to continue in their practices against laws that will infringe on the farmers’ “right to make use of agricultural technology, the right to make use of livestock procedures and the right to make use of ranching practices.”

There are two differing sides on this issue. The group in favor of the bill is composed mostly of farmers and ranchers who hope to continue doing their job without the ever-present threat of the government making new laws against their way of life. While this State Question will make it harder for lawmakers to create new laws concerning farming, it does not stop them. Instead, new laws must be justified by a state interest that needs to be solved through a law on agriculture and pushed through that way. This law will promote small and large farmers to continue what they have been doing without fear of sudden change. Oklahoma resident and small farmer Stacy Lee stated “we truly don’t need any more obstacles by legislation to perform our tasks.”

The other side of this issue is the people against the bill. This group is composed of

two years working at Reasor’s, a local grocery store chain, I’ve had many a frustrated customer complain to me about the lack of strong alcohol available. There’s a liquor store across the street from us, but it’s closed on Sundays, so anyone who wants a bottle of wine for their fancy dinner party is out of luck. In the majority of other states, though, any kind of alcohol is available to people any time they may need it. People should be able to get turnt when they want to.

The bill also includes measures to increase regulation on the sale of alcohol because more alcohol will be sold. Local law enforcement would be given more control over liquor licenses and who receives them.

The whole point of SQ 792 is less about getting people drunk and more about the free market. Its main opposers are the liquor stores who fear that their monopoly on alcohol will be compromised. “All this is about customer choice,” argues Jeff Reasor, CEO of Reasor’s. “This isn’t about trying to go after anybody or hurt anybody else. It’s just about competition.” Local grocery stores and breweries, like Marshall’s, support it because it broadens their business horizons and individuals support it because they like to have options in their shopping. Voting yes on 792 means supporting freedom and choice for everyone.

No matter what, make sure to vote this November.

animal rights activists, environmentalists and farmers who view the bill as help for large corporations and not smaller groups like themselves. According to these people, the State Question will allow large scale farming operations to go about completing actions that could potentially be harmful to animals and also Oklahoma water and plants. In a letter to the Editor of the Tulsa World, Barry Switzer, former head football coach of University of Oklahoma and large dog owner, stated that “if State Question 777 passes, it will make it easier for puppy mills to exist.” This is because puppy mill operators will be able to classify themselves as farmers and the puppies as livestock.

Through this, they will be under protection of State Question 777 and have a stronger defense against the law. Like the puppy mill operators, cockfighting will also be in the same boat.

This State Question is too broad to be effective in what it is trying to accomplish. Instead of protecting and helping small farmers go about their jobs without the fear of losing their livelihood, it will instead help larger corporate farmers to go about doing things that are not safe.

According to the Kirkpatrick Foundation a private Oklahoma based philanthropic organization focused on animal welfare stated these two things that could happen with this State Question.. Large farming corporations could potentially use a drug called Ractopamine which causes neurological tremors or death in animals which in return creates leaner meat. It also has potential human health concerns. This drug is currently legal but if this state question passes, it would be harder for the law to outlaw this drug in the future. This state question would also make it harder to produce labor laws on people who work on farms which has the second highest rate of death in the country.

I don’t think it is ever a good idea to give any sort of group a shield against potential problems. Instead, there should be multiple laws and state questions that allow the common populace to vote on such issues.

Allowing alcohol to be sold in grocery stores will benefit Oklahoman citizens and workers.

tiny as heavy as that which is applied to the candidates for the position is such not because voters like to tear people down, but because it must be ascertained whether the candidates can effectively handle the duties required. Presidents must be prepared to deliver a diplomatic address in a foreign country one day before turning around on the red-eye and authorizing a military assault the next, and if an illness is causing a candidate to lose consciousness from the rigors of their everyday life, then perhaps they are not well suited for the highest office in the land.

What Hillary Clinton showed us last week was not a trivial illness; it was a disqualifying display of infirmity.

Naturally there are plenty in Hillary’s camp who will push back against this criticism using one of two arguments: either that we have had successful presidents in poor health before now, or more insidiously, that Clinton remains in suitable physical condition. Those in the former camp like to trot out Franklin Delano Roosevelt, widely considered one of the finest men to ever hold the office despite being afflicted with polio, as the prime example of a person in less than stellar health effectively performing the duties of president. Of course this is somewhat of a false equivalence, as the polio only ever affected Roosevelt’s ability to walk, never limiting his mental capacity or physical stamina in the ways that we have already seen exhibited by Secretary Clinton.

Even before this latest incident of her fainting, Hillary has been displaying elements

extent of her health problems are all ultimately left up to conjecture and I must admit that being an accounting student and not a medical doctor, I am in no way qualified to diagnose her with anything. Still, this begs a different question: if she truly has nothing to hide, why has Hillary Clinton been so damn secretive about everything?

I’m not talking about her record as a whole here, which is filled with nearly as many retracted statements, contradictory opinions and outright lies as the Donald himself, but instead on the grating lack of transparency surrounding issues of her health. You can start with the fact that for months she has denied being in any condition of poor health whatsoever, despite all the evidence to the contrary detailed above.

Or for a more real-time insight into her deception, just take a look at how Mrs. Clinton’s campaign disseminated the news about her latest collapse, initially claiming that it was a heat stroke (the weather in New York City that day was in the low 70s and cloudy, and her advisors were never seen administering her any fluids) before revealing that she had been diagnosed the previous Friday with pneumonia and was taking antibiotics.

Seeing as this would mean that the pneumonia is caused by contagious bacteria, one should then question what she was doing out in public at all or why she felt the need to hug and reassure a young girl who just happened to run through security in order to make sure Clinton was all right after her fainting spell (an obviously staged display

Voting yes on State Question 792 allows Oklahomans to have more choice over alcohol consumption.

Amber Bunnag-Stoner Student Writer You all have a very important decision to make this November. No, no, not that one! When you cast your vote for president, you’ll also have the opportunity to give your support to State Question 792, which seeks to modernize Oklahoma’s alcohol laws.

The bill would allow the sale of strong beer and wine at grocery stores and convenience stores, which currently only sell 3.2 percent beer. It would also permit liquor stores to sell cold beer and wine (right now it’s sold at room temperature).

Even though I’m still under 21, the issue of State Question 792 has had a pretty significant effect on me personally. In my

courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Candidates’ health is a legitimate concern

Hillary Clinton’s incident at the 9/11 memorial is a reminder that health is essential to a politician’s ability to succeed in office.

Justin Guglielmetti Student Writer

In what has surely been one of the most bizarre presidential election cycles in the history of the United States, there have probably been several instances that you thought would be the height of absurdity we would witness. Whether it was Donald Trump’s bragging about the size of his penis during a debate, Bill Clinton’s meeting in private with attorney general Loretta Lynch just days before the conclusion of the FBI’s investigation into his wife’s email scandal, or Ted Cruz standing on the stage at the RNC and refusing to endorse his party’s candidate, you’ve had plenty of good choices so far. And yet the Notorious HRC managed to find a way to top them all on the anniversary of 9/11, as Hillary Clinton was hurriedly ushered away from a public appearance, filmed being dragged into her van by security while totally unconscious, and revealed to have been diagnosed with pneumonia less than a week earlier.

Predictably, in this left-leaning news climate that will do everything in its power to keep Donald Trump out of the White House, the media’s most common reaction to the revelations on Clinton’s health has been a disturbingly careless one: “does it really matter what kind of health our candidates are in?” Let me save you the suspense and a couple hundred words here: yes, yes it does.

There is no more important or stressful a job on the planet than the president of the United States, who just so happens to be the head of state, head of government and commander-in-chief of the world’s foremost military and economic power. Scru-

ordinary citizen, she is a public figure who willingly volunteered to run for president.

That means that we the people deserve to know what we are getting from her. Regardless of how much any prospective Hillary supporter likes Tim Kaine, they should be entitled in a fair and honest election to know the likelihood that their vote is essentially being cast for him instead of their actual candidate. Nothing in that assertion should be controversial, especially since the left itself used it (rightly!) to poke holes in John McCain’s presidential campaign back in 2008, when he selected the infamously ignorant and unqualified Sarah Palin to be his running mate. It was fair then to ask whether McCain was in good enough health to make it through his term, just as it is fair now to ask the same of Clinton. Kaine certainly is much better suited for the office of president than Palin ever was, but the principle of the matter, knowing what you are getting from your elected official, remains the same.

And for the record, lest this piece appear biased, I expect the same level of transparency regarding physical and mental health from all candidates, including Donald Trump, who produced a letter (supposedly) from his physician which described his “astonishingly excellent lab results” and labeled him “unequivocally...the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”

Now if that doesn’t scream phoniness, I’m not sure what does, but at least Trump has displayed no outward indications of poor health. Quite to the contrary, he never seems

“What Hillary Clinton showed us last week was not a trivial illness; it was a disqualifying display of infirmity.” of poor health for several months, wracked by severe coughs inhibiting her ability to speak, disappearing from the public eye and refusing to make statements for days on end, and even appearing to suffer from small seizures on at least two separate occasions caught on video (one during an interview from July 22, the other during a rally on August 4). From appearances alone, it seems as though Clinton’s health problems run a bit deeper than pneumonia and are having a great deal more of an impact than merely affecting her ability to walk. Naturally, the

meant to engender sympathy). Can anyone honestly look at this situation with impartial eyes and say that things seem to add up? We absolutely need to hold our political candidates to a higher standard than this.

Ay, there’s the rub, an obvious point that must be reiterated because so many people seem to miss its implications: those of us who demand transparency and a truthful account of Hillary’s health are not doing so because we believe that citizens should have no right to privacy over their personal health matters; we do it because she is not just an

to stop moving, traveling constantly and keeping himself perpetually in the spotlight in stark contrast to his reclusive opponent.

And until he shows any sign that his health might be failing, I see no reason to make it an issue with his campaign the same way it has been made for Clinton. The American people seem to agree with me, as recent polls have shown Trump up to a virtual deadlock following Clinton’s disastrous week. In this wacky, gaffe-filled election cycle, maybe this will be the one thing that actually manages to stick and bring a candidate down.

The Collegian: 10

Commentary

19 September 2016

It’s okay that the Paralympics aren’t popular

As long as the Paralympics are available to those invested, it shouldn’t matter that they’re less popular than the Olympics.

Justin Guglielmetti Student Writer

Can you believe that it’s already been three weeks since the Olympics ended?

That we have to wait two more years before the next one, and four before the next one of the summer variety? For those of us who have grown up loving to cheer for and invest our emotions into our country’s finest athletic representatives, the wait time feels more like a family member going away on an extended business trip rather than just an absence of prime-time NBC sports programming, and I’m sure many fans have pondered if there is any way to milk more out of the Olympic experience than the two weeks we are given. As it happens, there is a built-in drug for Olympics junkies tacked onto the end of every games. I speak, of course, of the Paralympic Games.

Most who follow the sports world even passively have at least a fleeting idea of what the Paralympic Games are (in case you are not one of those fans, they are an international competition designed to mimic the Olympics, only for those who are affected by physical disabilities that would otherwise prevent them from competing in their sports at the highest level). The Paralympics are typically organized in the weeks directly following the conclusion of the Olympics, basing itself in the same host city and making use of much of the same infrastructure.

The 2016 games have just recently come to a close, having run from September 7-18.

Every two years, fans have the opportunity to stay for two more weeks and witness

even more inspirational stories and remarkable feats of athletic achievement, and yet most pay the games no mind. You can count me as one of them; despite considering myself a huge sports junkie and Olympics fan, I have never watched a Paralympics event.

One might wonder how such a seeming lack of collective interest could possibly result in a sustainable business model, and this question reached a head in August when the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee, responsible for planning both the Olympics and Paralympics, announced that it had run out of funding for the latter due to tepid sponsorship interest and slow ticket sales. A social media campaign launched in Brazil in support of the games eventually boosted tickets sold up to 1.9 million, making them the second largest in history and allowing for the continuation of the events, which some had feared would have to be canceled following the exhausting of the planning committee’s initial budget. Still, there is something that feels fundamentally unfair about such a prestigious international competition as this facing the threat of being canceled due to a financial concern. In terms of compensation and money poured into training and development, there is a lot more than just “feeling” unfair, there is actually a huge economic disparity: just 17% of the United States Olympic Committee’s four year expense budget of approximately $800 million went to development and support for the Paralympics.

This kind of preferential treatment towards those athletes that society calls “normal,” those without disabilities, does not sit well with me, as it runs counter to the lessons of inclusiveness that I have been taught at home and in school my entire life. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that the USOC seeks some kind of return on investment from its contributions to national athletes and that which is offered by Paralympians is simply not as high as their Olympian counterparts. Names of some of the greatest Olympians in history are among the most recognizable in all of sports: Michael Phelps, Jesse Owens, Jim Thorpe, Usain Bolt. Phelps and Bolt are true global celebrities, brand names who draw huge TV ratings and sell millions of dollars of merchandise for their sponsors. Now stop me if you have

ever heard the name Trischa Zorn. No? Well she just happens to be the most decorated Paralympian ever, a blind swimmer whose 24 year career resulted in an incredible 55 medals, nearly double Phelps’ record Olympic count. By rights Zorn should have been as big a celebrity as any yet swam out her career in almost total anonymity. Some might say that it is the media’s fault for offering so much less coverage of the Paralympics and hindering its athletes chances at stardom, but the reason companies don’t market the Paralympics is because they don’t sell. The minute NBC believed it would be worth its time to throw wheelchair basketball on the prime-time roster, it would be up there.

Is this cruel of us to so easily dismiss this entire subset of disabled athletes, to hold them in lesser regard by default? For my own moral integrity and that of the country, I really hope that this is not the case. Instead of being based on bigotry, I think this sort of preferential treatment is just the result of we as humans always wanting to witness the very best of something, whatever is the most impressive display. Nobody could ever deny the hard work, natural talent, and athletic achievement of Paralympians and there is certainly an added element of inspiration in their stories, having overcome physical challenges that most of us could only dream of. Still, no group will ever have a monopoly on that pathos, since inspirational narratives based on background, upbringing, and personal struggle are fed to the public for a dime a dozen in the sports world. Meanwhile, competitors in the Olympics have one distinct advantage over their Paralympics counterparts: the things they are able to do have an objectively more spectacular potential (purely in terms of athleticism). No Paralympic swimmer or sprinter could ever hope to best Phelps or Bolt and so we gravitate towards those people that we recognize as truly the best, without caveats. This same

phenomenon explains why men’s sports are so much more popular than women’s at the professional level, both in the United States and around the world. For example, as terrific as Maya Bird and Elena Delle Donne are at basketball relative to their peers, throw them on the court next to LeBron James and Kevin Durant and it wouldn’t be a competition. Ultimately, most people want to witness that highest level of talent at work and thus men’s league remain on the whole far more popular and profitable than women’s.

So if you want to improve equity for Paralympics and get them the recognition that they would receive in a perfect world, I guess your best option is to...change human nature? That’s a bleak and functionally impossible goal, one which you’re not going to get far trying to achieve, but I’m not sure what other realistic options exist out there.

If you want the Paralympics to get greater exposure, then you either need to make their broadcasting mandatory (a huge overstepping of the free market which I’m sure most Americans wouldn’t appreciate) or fundamentally change people’s demand for the event, which isn’t going to happen until you can start dictating what people like to watch in their athletic competitions. For the individual looking to support them, the games are out there to consume, but I find it unlikely that they will ever achieve a mainstream status comparable to that of the Olympics.

And in the end maybe that’s not such a bad thing, just the inevitable result of our collective tastes and preferences. Nobody feels bad about the fact that our Olympic handball team is lesser known than our basketball team because we all understand on a certain level that perfect egalitarianism is impossible in reality, and the same is true of our Paralympians. As long as you respect them and what they do, it’s of no use bemoaning their cultural relevance or lack thereof.

Segregated racial housing sets dangerous precedent

Allowing black students to establish designated ethnic housing is unnecessary and may legitimate segregation.

Nick Rethford Student Writer

California State University, Los Angeles, is facing controversy after the unveiling of its new housing for African American students. Called the Halisi Scholars Black Living-Learning Community, it serves as a cheaper housing alternative for African Americans to safely gather, connect, and really just experience each other. Cal. State L.A. isn’t the only college that is offering special housing for African American students, either. Many other universities, such as the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Connecticut, have also created ethnic themed living communities. Unfortunately, though, these types of communities are nothing but misguided attempts at satisfying the attention-seeking groups of students who advocate for them.

They are unnecessary, and tend to highlight segregation among students.

The Halisi Community currently houses 24 students, all of whom are African American. That means 24 African American students are getting the chance live and learn from each other, but what about the rest of the campus’s African American population?

The University’s demographics show that of the 23,439 undergraduate students admitted in the 2015-2016 school year, around 4% were black. That means roughly 990 African American students were admitted. If there are that many African American students left out of the community, what’s the point of having one? Now, having a place for African American students to congregate and connect is a reasonable and understandable request, but that can easily be accomplished by creating a club. In fact, the University’s website describes it as an enhanced community for students “interested in Pan-African history, culture and current affairs,” something that doesn’t require a

living community at all. There is absolutely no reason for there to be a living community specially designated to Black students.

To further add fuel to the fire, the University has seen nothing but criticism since the unveil. The community is being called racist and the new wave of segregation. It is important to note that the Halisi Community is not solely reserved for African American students, but it is marketed toward them, which in itself just further underlines the irrelevancy of it. Why have a living community for African Americans if anyone can live there? Cal. State L.A. spokesman Robert Lopez came to the university’s defense, saying that it is just one of many “themed living communities” on campus. While this may be true, it is the only racially themed living community. That means, to avoid racial discrimination, the University would have to give separate housing to any racial group that requests it, which makes about five decades worth of equality progression worthless. It also goes without saying that if there was a community created for white people, there would be a national outrage.

The University’s Black Student Union assures us, though, that it isn’t segregation, black students just want to live together.

So, why the need for a living community then? The unveil comes in response to a list of demands sent in last fall by the Black Student Union, urging the University to take action against an overwhelming slew of “micro-aggressions” and “racially insensitive remarks.” Other demands included “cultural competency training” for all staff and a requirement of at least two ethnic studies courses that students must complete to graduate. While many of these demands do entail actual progress towards social awareness and acceptance of African Americans, a lot of them also conveniently involve money. If the goal of this movement is bring about equality for all African Americans, doesn’t demanding “free tuition for Black and indigenous students” and “the creation and financial support of a CSLA housing space delegated for Black students” kind of defeat the purpose?

What it all boils down to is this: these ethnically themed living communities aren’t necessary. Ethnically themed clubs or unions can work just fine. And if an African American student wants to live with other American Americans, it’s easy to find roommates to live with without having to put a label on it. By voluntarily drawing lines between the color of our skin now, we’re paving the way for a future where that line is permanent.

courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Paralympic athletes may be formidable competitors, but they will never be as revered as some able-bodied Olympians.

tucollegian@tucollegian.org editor-in-chief

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business & advertising manager

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Variety

19 September 2016

the Collegian: 11

“Eight Days A Week” brings context to Beatlemania

The band’s quick rise to popularity can be credited in part to their likable personalities.

Ron Howard’s documentary on The Beatles’ tours brings cultural awareness and human description to the international phenomenon.

James Whisenhunt Commentary Editor Despite only recording music for eight years, The Beatles still live on in popular culture and on countless “Best of All Time” lists 46 years after their break-up. This relevance is due in large part to “Beatlemania,” a period of international infatuation with the band covering the first four years of their tenure.

Ron Howard, director of Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind, also directed Eight Days A Week - The Touring Years, a documentary that looks at these four years and gives a timeline of the rise of Beatlemania. Circle

courtesy IMDB

Cinema had a special showing of the film last Thursday night.

The event began with Beatles trivia hosted by Circle Cinema board member Steve Higgins. Willing participants were given tickets while entering the theater, and called at random to stand and attempt to answer the questions.

The questions were surprisingly difficult, although there were a couple people who managed to get the question right by guessing. Those dedicated enough to know things like the first Beatles LP to have identical tracklists in the UK and US and the day/city/venue of the last tour show the band ever played were rewarded with a mono vinyl of a Beatles LP. Trivia was followed by an opening address by Tulsa-born rock artist Dwight Twilley. Twilley described seeing The Beatles when they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, and how different they were com-

pared to other “combos” that were playing at the time. He remembers being refreshed by their presentation and professionalism, and described them as “four Elvises on the stage together.”

The last thing before the film began was a special message from Ron Howard recorded at Abbey Road Studios, specifically for the showing at Circle Cinema. The Edmondborn director reflected on his childhood in Oklahoma, how The Beatles left a lasting effect on him and thanked viewers for coming to see the film.

After about 30 minutes of trivia and intros, the movie began. From the group’s early appearances at Liverpool’s Cavern Club to their final tour show in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, the film gives a thorough and detailed account of the band’s opinions, actions and popularity.

The documentary does a good job of presenting the band as real people, though the film is an almost exclusively positive depiction of the band. When answering questions, performing and even waving to the crowds outside their hotels, it’s easy to tell that The Beatles loved being The Beatles.

Interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as archived interviews with the late John Lennon and George Harrison, show that all four members remember the days fondly, although they all eventually felt burnt out on the road.

The documentary does an excellent job showing the development of this apathy by placing The Beatles in the larger cultural context of the 1960s. The film looks at events like the band refusing to allow segregation at their concerts and John Lennon’s controversial “we’re more popular than Jesus” comment and shows how they affected the group and the popular culture built around them. Lennon’s comment, in particular, lead to protests and record burnings

across the US. This was a significant factor in the band’s dissatisfaction with touring that led them to quit playing live in 1966.

The documentary essentially ends after their last show, though there is some text at the end to wrap up the band’s tenure and footage of their 1969 show on a rooftop in London during the credits. Ending at this point leaves out the most experimental and critically acclaimed section of the band’s discography, such as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road, but Howard’s decision to focus on their tours meant that 1966 was the best place to stop.

After the documentary was 30 minutes of The Beatles’ 1965 concert at Shea Stadium, in which the band played to over 55,000 people. The video and audio from the show were remastered for the documentary, sounding excellent and looking great with the exception of some close-up shots.

Between the trivia, introductions, documentary and concert, the whole event took almost three hours. It never felt like it was dragging on, surprisingly. Of course, as a longtime fan of the band, I was very happy to watch footage of their performances and learn a bit more about an aspect of the band I’d never taken the time to look into.

The event felt very much like it was coordinated by fans, for fans. For people with a passing interest in The Beatles, three hours may have felt a bit much. Perhaps just the ~100 minute documentary and 30 minute concert segment would suffice. The concert is after the credits of the documentary, as well, so there’s an opportunity to leave between the two if one feels inclined to.

Although it may seem a bit intimidating to people not as invested in the band, the event and the film were entertaining and gave perspective on one of the most important figures in rock history.

“Lo and Behold” shows promise, falls short Despite beautiful visuals and a solemn tone, “Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World” stretches itself thin trying to cover too many topics.

Sam Chott Satire Editor One common criticism of the internet is that it’s destroying the minds of young people. With so many different forms of entertainment always available, the argument goes, youth will constantly multitask and never develop the ability to focus on a specific topic. Whether or not attention spans are decreasing, that meandering lack of focus is what prevents Werner Herzog’s documentary, Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World, from reaching its full potential.

The film begins in a featureless building on the campus of UCLA. “This is a holy place,” says Leonard Kleinrock, one of the pioneers of the internet, as he leads the camera into a room where the first internet messages were sent. It’s a sentiment that Herzog clearly agrees with. Server rooms are filmed in long, smooth takes, with uniform rows of servers bringing to mind the pews of a church, and robots are given enough time on screen to allow the audience to discover subtle beauty in their motions.

While Herzog’s sense of awe towards the internet makes for elegant visuals, it also causes the film to never linger too long on one subject. Lo and Behold is split into parts, with little apparent ordering. For example, a segment about the potential for and consequences of a global shutdown of the internet is part five out of ten. Some of these segments are de rigeur for discussions of the internet, such as the obligatory segment about internet security and identity theft, while others are pleasantly surprising, such

as a segment where Herzog asks many of the people he interviews whether the internet can dream.

It’s also a nice surprise when Herzog doesn’t discard his interview subjects when they’ve given him a sound bite on packet switches, robots, or self-driving cars. He’s seemingly as interested in who they are as what they have to say, as when the camera lingers on the face of a scientist who admits that he loves his robot, or when it shows us Elon Musk talking about his dreams. This approach, however, is often frustrating, since so much is covered over the course of the film that we only see glimpses of the different subjects.

Even though Herzog paints with a wide brush, there’s also much that’s left out. It’s baffling that he spends so much time with self-driving cars and soccer-playing robots, which have little connectivity, in a film about the internet. He and his subjects spend so much time talking about whether the internet connects us or divides us that they don’t have any time to talk about the ways in which it does that. When the mother of a girl whose dead body was photographed and passed around on the internet says, “I have always believed that the internet is a manifestation of the Antichrist,” Herzog lingers on her face, as if to ask us to consider her words. Unfortunately, he has so many topics to cover that the film never delves deeper.

Ultimately, Lo and Behold is beautifully shot, but covers too many topics to really address any of them. Much of what it actually digs into, the audience likely already knows. The film would have been better as a series of trailers for distinct documentaries, since there’s the sense that Herzog has so much more to show us. While it can be irritating for a film to overstay its welcome by padding its runtime or throwing too much information at the audience, Lo and Behold ultimately leaves the viewer feeling unfulfilled and a bit disappointed.

Children in traditional garb performed a variety of dances at the Greek festival.

photo by Michaela Flonard

photo by Michaela Flonard

Tulsa’s cultural festivals

Food at the Scotsfest, like the haggis and scotch eggs pictured above, was served mostly from food trucks.

Tulsa Greek Festival and Tulsa’s Scotfest brought diverse culture to light this weekend.

Michaela Flonard News Editor

Last weekend, two festivals celebrated the ethnic diversity of Tulsa: Tulsa Greek Festival and Tulsa’s Scotfest. The festivals allowed community members and visitors to get an experience of the culture, food and shopping.

The Holy Trinity Orthodox Church hosted the Tulsa Greek fest, which boasts itself as Tulsa’s longest running ethnic festival.

With this backing, the festival seemed like a church get-together that had opened itself up to outsiders. People did wander around in traditional Greek clothing, mostly the dancers in-between their sets. For this festival, the majority of the draw was the food and the dancing.

There were three different regions of food sold – bakery goods, entrees, street food, and of course, a beer tent. Several dancing groups performed in the entree tent. While the majority of these dancing groups were full of children, there were three groups with either teenagers, college students or adults. While the style of dancing – circle dances with occasional springing – was foreign, watching the child dancers was reminiscent of a church recital.

Because we weren’t hungry during our time at the festival, we tried only a pita bread and spanakopita at the entree tent, while watching one of the youth groups dance. Although we didn’t buy anything to coat the pita, it was a soft, warm slice that was quickly consumed. The spanakopita, a “spinach pie,” by contrast, was flaky and its pieces were fought over.

The shopping at the festival was mostly limited to either “Greek pride” items – things like bumper stickers proclaiming ethnicity or signs – or religious trinkets sold at the church adjacent, as well as some jewelry. For reasons that were not immediately clear, several goats, a miniature pony and a chicken stayed, rather harmoniously, in a cage next to the kids’ zone.

Scotfest was a much bigger endeavor, held at Tulsa River West Festival Park.

This festival offered sports, shopping, food, live music and even a car show. Unlike its

compatriot, this festival seemed more like a competition of local clans. Around the ring of the Highland Games and rugby area were booths of the different clans, decorated both traditionally and more modern. Almost everyone, it seemed, was wearing a kilt of some kind, although some strayed from their roots – there were military-style camo kilts.

The Highland games mimicked those held in Scotland to celebrate Celtic culture.

Several “heavy weight” competitions occurred for males and females, where competitors tossed heavy weights over a bar either by hand or with a pitchfork, much like a pole vault. Piping and dancing competitions were also held.

Shopping at Scotfest provided a dizzying amount of variety. Of course, several vendors offered traditional clothing and jewelry, but cigars, Scentsy products, jerky and metal work were also on display.

Food vendors clustered near the rock music tent, from an espresso bar food truck to hand-pies to two trucks with more traditional food. The food focused on taste, rather than presentation or health; fried food and potatoes abounded. Almost every dish in one truck was served with mash (mashed potatoes) and a cabbage side dish.

We sampled the haggis and scotch eggs.

Haggis – a savoury pudding containing sheep’s heart, liver and lungs, minced with onion and spices – were a soft, umami slider with a texture similar to ground beef. While one in our group found the meat combination gross, as someone who doesn’t particularly like red meat, the dish was something worth coming back for. Scotch eggs – hardboiled eggs wrapped in sausage meat and fried with a coating of breadcrumbs – made hard-boiled eggs more palatable. While the coating was greasy, it cut through the chalky, enormous yolk.

Eating in the rock tent exposed us to “Cleghorn,” a Texas Celtic rock band. One member cycled through a fiddle and bagpipes, while others were on guitars and drums. They engaged with the audience, even causing some to dance up in front.

While loud, this music made me wish for a comfortable pub to sit and chat with friends.

The festivals this weekend demonstrated the diversity of Tulsans, and gave people in those communities a chance to get together and show off what distinguishes their culture.

the Collegian: 12

Variety

19 September 2016

Wilco’s “Schmilco” Creative writing major is worth crying over nears eventful launch

The follow up to 2015’s “Star Wars,” “Schmilco”, heads in a drastically different direction.

Ethan Veenker Student Writer

The anticipation for the needle to hit the wax was almost too much. Wilco has been one of the most impressively prolific bands around in the past decade-or-so.

There’s the landmark Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the sweet-as-heroine Summerteeth and 2015 left us with fuzzy guitar riffs in Wilco’s very own Star Wars.

Since 2012, Wilco has also been recording their concerts into what they call the “Wilco Road Case,” with the most recent entry being number 55. That’s 55 full concerts recorded in high-quality.

Now, with Schmilco, Wilco has reached their tenth studio release. That’s not even including an EP and the three albums with Billy Bragg to form the three parts of Mermaid Avenue.

Wilco has always made emotional music, and the erratic album art straight from the twisted mind of Joan Cornellà indicates that this record will be no different. Schmilco, however — in its half-hour run time with twelve new songs — is a different beast altogether. Here we see Wilco’s frontman, Jeff Tweedy, returning to his alternative country roots and really taking hold of the reins. The very first song, “Normal American Kids,” a biting criticism of standards for American youth, is a simple composition of two guitars and Jeff’s voice.

It sets the tone for the album exceptionally: as an alt-country album — notably different, in some regards, to Wilco’s past records.

The aforementioned Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is Wilco’s largest cult hit. It featured heartfelt vocals, spacey guitar effects, almost drone-like synth qualities and even a glockenspiel. Many of Wilco’s later albums evoked at least a vague feeling of that record.

This isn’t to imply that Tweedy spent the last few years trying to recapture that sound — he’s very capable of writing things like that again if he wanted to. He obviously didn’t want to, though.

Jeff Tweedy is a man who doesn’t stay in one place too long. So, after 2015’s rock record, Tweedy said “screw it” and made something completely different. I feel that this is the furthest Tweedy has ventured from the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot sound and it’s an extremely fresh, new spin.

Schmilco is soft. It’s like my ears are being bombarded by cushy, feathery pillows.

The only catch is that these pillows are covered in tear-stains.

Schmilco is hopelessly depressing, featuring pessimistic song titles such as “Cry All Day” and “We Aren’t the World (Safety Girl).” Each song is headlined by Tweedy’s guitar and his voice, though the rest of the band must be given credit. The second guitar is absolutely wonderful, providing soaring notes that interject between Tweedy’s depression, hinting at maybe just a little glimmer of hope.

Then there’s the drummer who, given the circumstances, does an amazing job. It’s hard to keep inventive drumming when you can’t let loose like in a rock song.

Yet, there’s some amazing snare patterns going on and his abstinence from the crash cymbal keeps these tracks from snapping too hard at your heart. They instead sink their fangs in and chomp down very slowly.

Some of the songs, such as “Common Sense” and “We Aren’t the World (Safety Girl)” are written in — or at least have parts written in — a minor key.

This is typically the best way to snag at someone’s feelings, but Tweedy takes them down a different emotional route.

He has strange pedal effects and consistently wailing guitars take a bit away from the depressing tone and instead just provide an uncomfortable one.

The strings make the hairs on your neck stand and then begin to slowly crawl through them.

It’s these dull hints at an almost harsh noise that I think give this record’s aesthetic a bit more than a simple down-in-the-dumps country album. It’s inventive and Tweedy takes risks.

Jeff Tweedy, whose son is now old enough to play drums with him on his side project “Tweedy,” has never strayed from the music scene for too long at a time. He’s always been there. Touring, writing, recording, releasing.

There’s short hiatuses, yes, but Tweedy is a true musician. He’s a man who can’t be kept from his craft and that’s a sort of dedication that I can’t help but envy.

We need more Jeff Tweedys in the world.

Inventive, always changing, and consistently putting out records that can make me cry; Tweedy shows no sign of stopping.

Schmilco is a Jeff Tweedy record as much as it is a Wilco record. Listening to it feels like a short hiatus from the real world, something that Tweedy’s music has never failed to provide. Schmilco is another great record from Wilco and here’s hoping we get many, many more.

With the University of Tulsa’s upcoming launch of its creative writing major comes a number of informative lectures and activities in which students can engage.

Amy Bailey Student Writer

The University of Tulsa now offers a creative writing major housed in the Department of English. The conception of the program came in response to high demand for creative writing courses. Department chairman of English Randall Fuller, Professor Keija Parssinen, Professor Grant Jenkins and Professor Michael Wright collaborated on a program to study fiction writing, poetry, screenwriting and playwriting.

To kick off this exciting addition there will be a Creative Writing Celebration September 23-24. The launch will include panel discussions, workshops, readings from TU alumni and other guest writers and a keynote address by Phil Klay. Phil Klay was the winner of the National Book Award in 2014 for his collection of short stories, “Redeployment.” Klay, an Iraq Marine Corps veteran, has received positive reviews on his realistic and harrowing stories.

Other notable authors to be in attendance include: Rilla Askew, author of award-winning novel Fire in Beluah, Vu Tran, author of New York Times notable book Dragonfish, Benjamin Lytal, Tulsa native and author of A Map of Tulsa, Trudy Lewis, author of The Empire Rolls and Private Correspondences, Lindsay Smith, author of the young adult novels Sekret and Skandal, Katie Rain

Right: Wilco’s “Schmilco” might make for easy listening, but its lyrics are often solemn and reflective.

Hill, a transgender advocate who wrote the autobiographical novel Rethinking Normal, and Ellis O’Neal, Nimrod International Journal Editor in Chief.

Many of these critically acclaimed authors are TU alumni and demonstrate the rich writing talents that TU has launched.

The event is free and open to all TU students. If you are interested in attending one of the workshops please register at the literary arts page on Tulsa’s website.

Friday, September 23rd: Student and Alumni Reading Mainline Gallery 111 N. Main 6-8:30 PM Saturday, September 24th: Tulsa in the Literary Imagination Panel Discussion- Rita Askew, Benjamin Lytal, Katie Rain Hill, and Ellis O’Neal Tyrell Hall 9:30-10:45 AM Keynote – The Personal & Political Stakes of Storytelling After War with Phil Klay Tyrell Hall 11:00 AM-12:15 PM Workshops (requires registration) Tyrell Hall 2-3:30 PM Reading like a Writer- Benjamin Lytal Out of Character- Trudy Lewis Why We Tell Stories- Vu Tran Writing Compelling YA- Lindsey Smith Doing Stuff with Words (poetry)- Grant Jenkins Reading: Rilla Askew, Benjamin Lytal, Vu Tran, Trudy Lewis Tyrell Hall 8-9:30 PM

graphic by Joan Cornella, courtesy Wilco

Star Citizen delivers where No Man’s Sky disappointed

Thanks to a transparent approach to the game’s marketing and development, Star Citizen, while unfinished, already shows more promise than No Man’s Sky. Jacob Eddy Student Writer

On August 9th, 2016, Hello Games released its much awaited procedural universe exploration game, No Man’s Sky. Since its announcement, players had been promised large faction battles with meaningful impacts, the ability to play a number of different career roles, real-time planetary physics, multiplayer, complete control of landing, alien languages and a virtually infinite amount possibilities. The release was met an incredible level of enthusiasm, with hard copies selling out completely at many stores. With just over two hundred thousand players online in the first day on PC alone, No Man’s Sky firmly planted itself as one of the larger releases of the year. Unfortunately, this didn’t last.

Immediately, players began discovering not only new lifeforms and planets, but glitches and missing features as well. Hello Games ended up delivering a gutted version of what was originally teased, providing only very basic flight mechanics, an incredibly repetitive resource gathering function, and reducing its interactions with characters to just shops. In the first 24 hours, two streamers even found themselves on the same planet, something Hello Game said would be nearly impossible. However, these players couldn’t see each other. This led to a lot of confusion and unrest in the people who had purchased No Man’s Sky expecting the giant multiplayer experience promised

by Hello Games. As players dug through old interviews and trailers, people began to realize that No Man’s Sky was more empty

After high anticipation and a few blatant lies from the developers, many gamers were left bored and underwhelmed by No Man’s Sky.

promises than gameplay.

Fortunately, all is not lost for those still searching for a game featuring an expansive universe, gameplay that doesn’t get old after a few hours and working multiplayer. Roberts Space Industries has been working on a game featuring all of No Man’s Sky’s missing features and more. That game is Star Citizen. Star Citizen, which began crowdfunding in October 2012, has reached a total of $123 million as of September 2016. With this money, RSI plans on creating an expansive MMO space simulator experience with painstaking attention to detail.

Star Citizen is currently in its pre-alpha stage of development, far from official release. However, backers can still play all of the completed content. Despite rumors that RSI would simply take their backers’ money and run, they have delivered consistent updates in the form of in-game additions, as well as behind the scenes videos on You-

Tube. Their policy of transparency in game development lets their backers breathe easy knowing that just because something isn’t playable right now doesn’t mean it’s not being worked on.

Star Citizen’s development is planned in 6 modules, all with different subsections.

These include the Hangar system, Arena Commander, the Planetside module, the First-Person Shooter module, Squadron 42 which is Star Citizen’s story mode and the Persistent Universe. Of these, the first 2 are completed, with the third currently underway. As of right now, players have rudimentary interaction and combat capabilities. It also features basic job offerings and exploration as well as several space stations and player hubs.

The next large update, Star Citizen 3.0, is going to add a planetary landing feature, several new moons and planets, more indepth missions and many more career op-

graphic by Elias Brinkman

tions, including exploration, trade, industry and military. So for those still looking for a universe to explore and interact with after No Man’s Sky, Star Citizen has you covered.

As opposed to No Man’s Sky, Star Citizen goes for a complete freedom approach in their universe, allowing players to land, crash or leave their ship when and where they please. While No Man’s Sky may be virtually infinite, the novelty of this wears off rather quickly. Star Citizen takes a different approach, rather than a billion solar systems with a handful of interactions, they are going for roughly 100 solar systems with a billion ways to interact. While Star Citizen is still a long way from full release, it is slowly but surely growing into a full fledged universe with content and updates being released regularly. For those feeling skeptical after No Man’s Sky’s release, Star Citizen’s policy of transparency in game design may prove to be a breath of fresh air.

19 September 2016

Variety

the Collegian: 13

TU student’s photography exhibited at local coffee house Graphic design student Emily Steward is presenting her concert photography at Fair Fellow Coffee, showcasing her passion and talent.

James Whisenhunt Commentary Editor Emily Steward is a junior graphic design student at TU. Outside of class, she runs the music blog OK Hustle and is a frequent photographer at concerts for local and national artists.

Last Thursday, Steward held an open house event for an exhibit of her concert photography at Fair Fellow Coffee at the corner of Admiral and Lewis. Across the coffee shop are 25 photos of local Tulsa artists like The Lonely’s, The Young Vines and The NeoRomantics on display and available for purchase.

Steward notes that the experience of working with local artists is often more intimate than with larger artists, saying that she is able to “[sit] down and [talk] about what the local bands’ dreams are and how I can help them reach them.” She also notes that it’s very helpful for a local band to have show photos for social media, saying that “they are so thankful that someone is out there to help them accomplish this, as they are busy playing the actual music.”

Concert photography, however, comes with unique challenges. Steward notes that a lack of control over the photo subjects, stage obstructions and lighting make concert photography more difficult than other styles. However, she finds that she “love[s] working around the challenge” and that the difficulty makes it “so rewarding when you get the right photo.”

photo by James Whisenhunt

Besides blending her passion for music and photography, Steward hopes that her concert photography will help support independent musicians.

The aspects of her photography that Steward values the most are capturing the lighting of the stage and the emotion of the artist. As she puts it, “my favorite photos always have a sort of dramatic light and a very real insight to what the musician is feeling.”

These two characteristics are clearly exemplified in the photos Steward has put on display. Her photos capture vibrant hues of blues, oranges and pinks. Even the black and white photos use light effectively, either

to add emphasis to the artist or their instrument.

In terms of emotion, photos seem to capture anything from focus to anger to passion as artists sing and play. Almost all of the photos have only one artist in frame, placing all the attention on that one person and what they’re feeling as they perform.

As much as the photography is evidence of the musicians’ passion, it is also evidence of Steward’s. She found her way to concert

Fair Fellow Coffee’s comfortable atmosphere provided a nice contrast to Steward’s passionate, exciting photography.

photography by going to concerts and realizing that “I wanted to help put the show on, I wanted to be more [than an audience member].” Her passion for music preceded her introduction to the craft, and it shines through in her work.

Steward’s photography will be on display until September 30th, and she is currently working on another exhibit of film photography in November.

photos by James Whisenhunt

Tulsa Ballet balances tradition, fresh spirit

“Creations in Studio K,” the most recent performance of the decadesold Tulsa Ballet is elegant and engaging .

Amber Bunnag-Stoner Student Writer

The Tulsa Ballet, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, began its season on September 16th with a production entitled Creations in Studio K. The show featured three exciting performances that were written especially for the Tulsa Ballet and which premiered for the first time in the world right here in town. This show was presented at Brookside’s Studio K, a small theater where audiences can feel intimately connected to the dancers and music. Later performances will be held at the Tulsa PAC and the final show happens right here on campus at the Lorton Performance Center from May 11th to the 14th.

The show opens with the bright, energetic, and colorful Flight of Fancy. “Think of hummingbirds,” its choreographer, Ma Cong, suggests. “Freshly cut grass. Butterflies. Snowball fights. Summertime splash pads. First kisses. Trust falls. A wink from across the room. First day of school. Something new. That feeling is the flight of fancy.”

This easy intro leads into something much gloomier. Second to Last features ghostly figures dancing in the dark, sending chills up viewers’ spines, while Love Notes explores ideas of passion and “raw emotion”.

I personally thought the show was amazing and poignant. I was entranced not only by the elegance and incredible strength of the dancers, but also by the masterful use of light and shadow. It played almost like a movie across the stage, invoking feelings of both wonder and unease. I’d recommend

it to anybody who wants to marvel at what people can do and create. Tickets for these performances will be available for this weekend, September 22nd through the 25th, for anybody who missed the first round and wants to be one of the first people in the world to see these shows.

The Tulsa Ballet was founded in 1956

by Roman Jasinski and Moscelyne Larkin with the mission of conserving the art and appreciation of ballet through performance and education. Since then, it has grown to become a nationally ranked studio, giving performers the opportunity to travel all over the world.

I had the privilege of talking to one of them, Regina Montgomery, before the show to discuss the vitality of art in relating to people and creating a balanced life.

“Art inspires us,” the dancer told me, “and it brings us together. No matter your race, religion, or class… you understand.” Regina also expressed the challenges of dancing for a living while also taking business classes at TCC. As many of us here at TU know, it can be difficult to survive when you’ve got that much on your plate. She says that she wouldn’t change anything, though — “It made me who I am today.”

Tulsa Ballet offers college students with valid ID massive discounts on tickets: 60% off for single performances and 75% for season passes. The company is eager to spread its appreciation for the arts, especially in times like these when fine arts in public schools are taking the biggest hits in budget crises. Students who attend shows will have the opportunity to see performances ranging from classic to contemporary, joyful to melancholy, funny to eerie. There will be several shows this season, including, of course, The Nutcracker in December and Swan Lake in March. There really is something for everybody.

courtesy Tulsa Ballet

The performers had to possess an impressive level of strength in order to execute their elegant dances.

19 September 2016

The State-Run Media

the

State-Run media Now with 50% fewer headphone jacks

BREAKING: Student votes in SA Senate election

Surprising the student body, one student took time out of their day to go to a voting booth and decide who would represent them in SA. Sam Beckmann Wrote-in Michael Mancini

Clinton recently announced her plan to be dead by her inauguration.

graphic by Elias Brinkman

Hillary Clinton reveals secret plan to get elected, then die

Proving conspiracy theorists correct, Hillary Clinton admitted that her plan all along was to die immediately after being elected.

Dalton Noland Tim Kaine supporter

Americans were shocked at Hillary Clinton’s recent speech last Saturday in regard to her health.

After announcing her plan to die al-m o s t immediately after taking office as The President of the United States of America, the Democratic presidential nominee admitted, “I have always considered William Henry Harrison to be America’s greatest president.

His glorious precedent of winning the presidency and then passing away without any of the stress and demands of the office has always inspired me. It’s the perfect way to leave a legacy without the rapid aging the office inflicts on the president.”

Dylan Hill, Clinton’s medical advisor, told stunned reporters when asked about Clinton’s premature health concerns, “It had to be planned out, she had to have pneumonia before the election ended because we couldn’t ensure she would get pneumonia during her Inaugural Address.”

The entire campaign, Clinton and Hill confessed, was to utilize over 350 million

dollars and hundreds of interns’ and campaign staff’s hours for the single goal of allowing candidate for Vice President Tim Kaine to be the next president.

“Why Tim Kaine?” one bewildered reporter asked. Jonathan Handcock, Chief Early Exit Advisor to the Democratic nominee, disclosed that the original plan had been to bring Bernie Sanders as her running mate, as it would have been the only viable way for him to become president. However, the Democratic National Committee’s raised concerns that the senator from Vermont might die of old age before she had the privilege of passing away of illness. So, they implemented their backup plan, saying that, “Tim Kaine is pretty okay.”

“There is no other way I would want to spend my last days on earth: spending lots of money that isn’t mine, traveling and constantly being invited to high-end parties, but I’m ready to join the ranks of the greats like Zachary Taylor and James Garfield,” Hillary proclaimed in her closing lines.

Some Americans are wondering how her idea makes any sense, others are wondering why no one thought of such a brilliant plan before her, but most Americans are wondering if William Harrison is that actor from that one crime drama their grandmother loves.

In an as-of-yet unconfirmed report, sources say that Jennifer Valdez, a fresh-m a n accounting major, cast a vote in the most recent SA Senate election. The election, which determines who represents the student body and decides on important decisions such as funding for organizations across campus, is largely ignored by students.

“I’m honestly shocked,” an anonymous source within SA told The Collegian. “As far as I can tell, [Valdez] isn’t a senator herself, didn’t vote as a joke, and had read the

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The class sat in awkward silence while waiting for IT to arrive.

courtesty Wikimedia Commons

Heartwarming! Students suggest different ways for professor to fix DVD player When a professor had trouble playing a DVD, her students banded together to shout conflicting suggestions at her, which definitely helped.

Sarah Odom Just blow on the disk Last week, a group of students banded together in a show of group problem-solving.

As their professor struggled to make a video show in the class, the entire student body leapt up to provide suggestions on how to fix it.

One of the students spoke up about his experience. “We were all really excited to watch a video instead of writing, so when the DVD player broke I was like ‘oh no, now what?’ but then everyone started saying stuff like, ‘turn it off and back on’, ‘no, we should go into settings and check if

it’s hooked up’ and ‘those are both terrible ideas, we should take it apart and check all the parts. Trust me, my uncle taught me how to fix basically everything and so I’m way more experienced. Shut up, Trent, you’re not even an engineering student.’ It was really inspiring.”

The professor said she was “overwhelmed” by all of the student’s wonderful suggestions. After trying out everything the students were clamoring to suggest, the professor wound up just taking the DVD and playing it through her computer.

Most students were happy with this, but one went out of his way to make a comment. “Look,” he said “I know how to handle DVD players, just because Trent said we should put the DVD in the professor’s computer doesn’t mean that my suggestions were wrong. I know what I’m talking about.” What a reminder that there’s more than one way to break an egg.

bios of candidates before showing up at the polling booth. It’s something we’ve never seen before.”

Experts are speculating if Valdez’s unprecedented move represents the action of a single maverick, or if it foretells of a new trend of students beginning to care about their student government. Either way, the events that played out today cannot be overlooked, and will likely be remembered for decades to come.

Of the three senate seats Valdez could vote for, one was uncontested. She was reportedly “displeased” with the lack of choice, according to a bystander. No one dared to inform her that last year, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer positions were all uncontested. Even this significant improvement is apparently not enough to satisfy her.

In an equally shocking event, Valdez could not be reached for comment, as she was actually attending her 8:00 AM class.

It’s Pumpkin Spice Latte season again, and you know what that means! It’s that special time of the year where we get together, head to the local coffee shop and drown ourselves in gallons of pumpkin spice. But unfortunately some of us like to be seen as cool, avant garde or even post-modern. Do you need to consume pumpkin spice in the fall to function? Do you fear the ridicule of others who will judge you for your drink choices? Is your ego really that fragile? Just follow these steps to hide how basic you are, and you too can impress even the sassiest of coffee snobs!

Pretend like you didn’t even want a PSL in the first place The first step is to never make direct eye contact. Whether your hipster barista looks like young Obi-Wan Kenobi or old Obi-Wan Kenobi, you should know that they can see the fear in your eyes. Everyone knows that baristas go through special training that teaches them to sense the weak and bully them into getting Starbucks gift cards. The second key to success is to order something fake but so obscure and cool sounding that they know that you have the current knowledge to rival all the cool kids. But here’s the trick: you can’t order something that they can feasibly understand. Some pretend drink names that I have used include the “Triple Double Reverse Caffeine Vacuum Reduction”, the “Jimmy Carter” or simply the “Reasonably Priced Beverage”. When the barista tells you that you’re speaking nonsense, that’s your cue to sneer and sarcastically say “I guess I’ll take the pump-

graphic by Elias Brinkman

kin spice latte.” Then when people ask what coffee you got, tell them that you bought the farm-grown, organic, non-GMO, vegan black coffee.

Work out until everyone around you is too afraid to think you’re basic Baristas are territorial creatures — usually nocturnal, and often transmit rabies through their bite. In order to impress the barista you need to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger if Arnold Schwarzenegger had all of his skin replaced with six packs.

It’s a small price to pay for peace of mind while you drink pumpkin spice. No one will think twice about judging someone for being basic when they look like they eat trucks for breakfast. I’ve been taking steroids and going to the gym for 6 straight years and people have stopped talking to me entirely.

It’s amazingly effective!

Impress strangers with other skills to distract them from how shallow you actually are If you can juggle or sing or something useless like that, use it to seem less basic, but if you want to impress people you don’t know you need something harder. Let them know you aren’t the average Starbucks goer by learning advanced calligraphy techniques. Nothing says “totally not basic” like being able to handwrite very pretty letters.

Pen sets usually go for around $20 at the local Hot Topic. I’ve written several letters in intricate calligraphy to Starbucks encouraging them to start selling calligraphy pens of their own. There is much to learn if you want to let everyone know that you are the most unique snowflake, you must never slack on your training. The people who will judge you the hardest for ordering a PSL think they know everything, so you have to impress them. Always make everything overly complicated in your calligraphy so they know how inferior they are with their basic typefaces.