FOR THE WEEK OF TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
Highlander University
Volume 62
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C a l i f o r n i a , R ive r s i d e
Issue 10
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AFSCME strikes statewide, shuts down campus services Michael Rios SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Nathan Swift CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Thousands of UC service workers and patient care employees held a statewide strike on Nov. 20, protesting UC administrators for “unfair cuts” and creating “a campaign of illegal intimidation” against its workers. Called the Unfair Labor Practice Strike, the statewide event was held in nine UC campuses and in each of the UC hospitals. Vote to strike Employees of the UC’s largest labor union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299, have been in contract negotiations with the UC for the past 18 months. With no signs of negotiations being reached in the near future, however, the union decided to strike. The first wave of protests came in May 2013, when UC patient care and service workers from the union held a two-day strike, protesting “unsafe staffing levels at taxpayer supported UC hospitals.” Following that strike, UC administrators allegedly threatened their workers. As AFSCME member Leo Tolliver put it, officials told workers that “when they came back to work, they would be terminated.” According to a press release by AFSCME 3299, the alleged rampant illegal intimidation that followed the strike in May led the union to vote on a follow-up strike. With 96 percent of the members voting in favor of another strike, the union announced it would hold a second round of strikes on Nov. 20, 2013. University of California officials attempted to prevent the follow-up strikes, believing that the conflicts would only drive the two sides apart and hurt the UC’s hospital patients.
A UCR worker takes the microphone to support his fellow protestors in fighting to make their concerns heard.
The day before the Nov. 20 strikes, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge David I. Brown issued an injunction that limited the number of UC patient care workers that would be allowed to participate in the UC-wide event. Brown issued a temporary restraining order, limiting “certain employees who perform essential functions in patient health and safety” from participating. That same day, in an op-ed for UCLA’s Daily Bruin, AFSCME 3299 president Kathryn Lybarger spoke about the underlying issues regarding Wednesday’s strike. According to her, the UC had already forced AFSCME to concede on many issues that had
been previously lobbied. Such issues included wage and benefit increases, so AFSCME instead zoned in on an increasingly growing problem: safe staffing. The growing trend of cutting corners, to Lybarger, led to rising injury rates among service workers, as well as a swelling number of fines and deficiency reports against UC hospitals. The strikes At UCR, the strikes took place on the corner of University Avenue and Canyon Crest Drive, the intersection at Martin Luther King Boulevard and Canyon Crest Drive and at the Bell Tower. According to the union, the statewide strikes were scheduled to last
A a r o n L a i /HIGHLANDER
all day and featured a list of notable speakers including state senators, assembly members, a mayoral candidate and city supervisors. “Stop intimidation tactics!” roared the crowd of hundreds at the intersection of University Avenue and Canyon Crest Drive, as protesters held picket signs, blared music and cheered whenever passing cars honked in support. The bulk of the protesters were made up of AFSCME union members and UCR students who supported those directly affected by the UC’s policies. Some UCR faculty STRIKE CONT’D ON PAGE 3
INSIDE: The Riverside police’s decision to use tasers may lead to more unfortunate consequences. OPINIONS
PAGE 9
Spongebob, BMO and Ichigo were all in the same room last week at the Stay Tooned event.
Helping Hands for Haiyan
This quarter’s Comedy Apocalypse featured fewer laughs, and more philosophy.
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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
n Nov. 7, the Philippines were struck by Typhoon Haiyan, the fourth-strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded and the strongest storm to ever hit land. The storm has claimed over 5,000 lives and left four million people without a home. With such devastation, the impact of the storm is a global one, felt even here at UCR, with many friends and family of our students and community directly affected. As a result, UCR students and faculty members are engaging in efforts to show their support and even lend a helping hand in the wake of disaster. HAIYAN CONT’D ON PAGE 10
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FEATURES
PAGE 16
Men’s basketball continues Homecoming form against Southern Utah. PAGE 19
SPORTS
UPCOMING EVENTS
PAGE 2
STAFF
PAGE 7 PLEASE RECYCLE AFTER READING
Laura
n g u y e n /HIGHLANDER
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NEWS
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
HIGHLANDER
UC Riverside to offer more online courses in 2014 Joseph Avila
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
UC Riverside is offering four online courses, ranging from computer science to dance, through UC Online — a Web-based module that just unveiled 16 other online courses. Through cross-campus and simultaneous enrollment, UCR students may take online classes from another UC for credit, but UC Online is also available to the public. For the 2014 winter quarter, UCR is offering “Introduction to Computer Science for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering I and II” and “Dance: Cultures and Contexts.” An additional course entitled “Introduction to Latin America” will be offered in the spring quarter. The cost of each UC online course generally ranges from $1,050 to $2,100, which varies depending on the number of units and length of each course. Non-UC students, along with high school students, can also enroll in these courses to receive college units. All of the online courses offered through UC Riverside are $1,400 each and are four-unit courses. UC students may enroll in online classes for free, as they are paid through students’ current tuition. Individuals may
register for any online course until the course is full and the enrollment process includes a $300 application fee. In June, Gov. Jerry Brown allocated $10 million to fund the Innovative Learning Technology Initiative (ILTI) through the state budget. Established by former UC President Mark Yudof in Jan. 2013, the ILTI seeks to ease bottleneck class enrollment and expedite graduation rates by increasing the number of online and hybrid courses offered. Bernardette Reed, a thirdyear student at UCR, stated why she favored the idea of taking online classes. “I like that online classes have their own schedules (and) the immediate feedback you get on your class work is also very beneficial,” Reed explained. However, other students felt that the drawbacks of an online course outweighed its potential benefits. “When I took an online class I disliked the lack of help available by having the professor there with you,” stated fourth-year UCR student Michael Hallahan. “The instructor also neglected to provide proper instructions for us.” Open enrollment for 2014 H winter quarter began Nov. 18.■
G r a p h i c b y B r a n d y C o at s Dance is one of the many online classes the UC has offered and will be joined by others like computer science and mathematics.
Photo of the Week
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER Japanese Taiko Drumming Demo 12 p.m. - 12:30 p.m. ARTS Building Amphitheatre Steps
Tuseday Talk - Family Talk 5 p.m. - 6 p.m. Costo Hall 245
Vincent Ta PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Protestors rallied outside the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia to protest the recent mistreatment and expulsion of Ethiopian citizens working in Saudi Arabia.
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NEWS
HIGHLANDER
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
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STRIKE CONT’D FROM PAGE 1
members and a handful of graduate students and professors were also present, who, like the undergraduate students, wanted to support the strike. “I come from a working class background, so I understand why these people are angry,” said Norman Barrios, a fourthyear transfer student and AFSCME member who attended the strike. “Their labor is what makes the university run.” Jason Struna, a fifth-year sociology Ph.D. candidate and member of the UC Student-Workers Union (UAW 2865), discussed how the lives of many faculty members are connected to school. “When the working class at UCR suffer, we suffer too,” he said. “Everybody gets hurt.” Computer science lecturer Brian Linard echoed the sentiments of protesters: “The decency that the ordinary person can count on in life has been won through the blood, sweat and tears of unions,” he said. Union members from eight other UCs across the state also decided to go on strike. Up north, an estimated 200 patient care and service workers braved the morning drizzle at UC Davis, while about 400 others also protested through the pouring rain in Berkeley. At UCLA and UCI, the schools’ medical centers were opened, but the strikes forced the centers to cancel a number of surgeries. According to one report, hundreds of replacement workers replaced the employees on strike. Ripple effects An estimated 73 percent of dining service workers did not report to work at UCR on Wednesday. According to Director of Dining Services Cheryl Garner, the department was missing 68 of 95 scheduled workers — although those numbers were lower in the morning and higher in the afternoon. In all, the department lost $39,400 in revenue due to the strike that day. Todd Stenhouse, a spokesperson for the union, spoke with the Highlander about the workers’ compensations during the strike. According to him, although union members did not report to work, they were still compensated through a strike fund the union maintains for this purpose. The compensation amount has not been released as of press time, however. Because of the strike, many services on campus were closed for the day. According to UCR officials and the
C at h y H a /HIGHLANDER Former ASUCR Vice President of External Affairs Lazaro Cardenas speaks to fellow students and UC employees during Wednesday’s strike.
UCPD, some of the closed restaurants on campus were the Barn, Subway, the Grill inside Latitude 55, Ivan’s and all of the restaurants inside the first floor of the HUB. Graduate student Sean Liu acknowledged the importance of the strike, but he also voiced his frustration with the limited dining options. “Since today, I had to walk around the campus, trying to find a vending machine and I only had one buck in my pocket, because they didn’t take my credit card, which means that this is my lunch for today,” he said, holding up a bag of potato chips. UC officials also responded to the loss of production. “First, I want to say how grateful we are to the majority of our patient care technical and service employees, who put the needs of patients and students first and came to work during AFSCME’s strike,” read a press release by Dwaine B. Duckett, UC vice president of human resources. “AFSCME’s two-day strike in May and its follow-up strike on Wednesday were counterproductive and costly,”
he went on. “It also did nothing to bring us closer together. Our patients and students deserve better.” Members of AFSCME 3299 also responded to the loss of services and acknowledged the students’ concerns. “The students have to understand that they want to eat, yes, but we want to get paid, we want to live in dignity,” said AFSCME member Leo Tolliver. “We stand with our students. We fight, we protest, we lobby for tuition hikes, we lobby for our non-documented immigrant students, but yet and still, we should live in dignity, too.” In all, the labor union believes the strikes were necessary. “Yesterday was an historic moment of solidarity for all who share in the moral obligation to make UC facilities safer places to live, learn, heal and thrive,” said AFSCME ■H President Lybarger the day following the event. For additional coverage of the the event, check out our video report at youtube.com/UCRChannelH.
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NEWS
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
NEWS IN BRIEF
HIGHLANDER
COMPILED BY MICHAEL RIOS, senior staff writer
CONGRESS CALLED TO REFORM STUDENT LOAN SYSTEM
C o u rt e s y The United States Postal Service hopes the newly released Harry-Potter-themed stamps will boost its revenue.
of
USPS
HARRY POTTER STAMPS TO HIT MARKET
WEDNESDAYS @ 9 A.M.
who are sometimes considered to be a part of the “Harry Potter generation.” Only 23 percent of this age group uses the service four times a month, compared to older adults at 47 percent. Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe said that the choice to feature these characters was made in order to appeal to the younger generation. According to him, the service “needs to change its focus toward stamps that are more commercial.” ■H
KUCR RADIO 88.3
It was announced Tuesday, Nov. 19, that the U.S. Postal Service will release 20 postage stamps that feature characters from the Harry Potter franchise. According to the Washington Post, the postal service, which has recently struggled financially, is hoping that the move to include the fictional wizards will help the postal service increase sales among younger age groups. A recent study found that the use of “snail mail” has decreased over the years, especially among young adults,
HIGHLANDER NEWSROOM
Just four months after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that the federal student loan debt topped $1 trillion, Consumers Union, the policy division of Consumer Reports, called on Congress last week to create “urgentlyneeded” reforms to the current student loan system. The group submitted its agenda in a policy brief, outlining some of its concerns with the current system. According to the group, there are problems in the system with overborrowing, repayment options, extra charges and growing loan balances. “It’s time for Congress to adopt reforms that help students find the most affordable options for financing college and provide borrowers with reasonable safeguards and flexible repayment options to manage their obligations responsibly,” urged Suzanne Martindale, staff attorney for Consumers Union. In July 2013, it was reported that the federal student loan debt crossed the $1 trillion threshold — an amount exceeding all other consumer loans except mortgage. The debt is nearly 100 times larger than the total personal income generated by U.S. citizens, amounting to nearly $13 billion in 2012. It’s also larger than the nation’s total credit card debt and amount owed in car payments. Loan debt is an issue affecting nearly two-thirds of the population at UCR. According to Director of Financial Aid Jose A. Aguilar, about 65 percent of UCR’s 2012 graduates took out student loans. The repayment rate, however, hasn’t been a huge issue up to this point. According to UCR’s website, about 97 percent of students repay their federal loans on time.
NEWS
HIGHLANDER
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
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UCR’s waste-to-energy system reduces harmful pollutants
C o u rt e s y
of
UCR T o day
UCR’s new steam hydro-gasification system is more efficient and faster than standard gasification systems.
Devin Deshane CONTRIBUTING WRITER
UCR engineers showcased an energy conversion system at the UC’s Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT), which can turn agricultural or human waste into a form of clean energy. The system uses a process called “steam hydro-gasification,” which cleanly burns the waste in a pressurized reactor at nearly 1,400 degrees. Through the waste-to-energy system, carbonbased materials, such as garden clippings and animal manure are converted into methane, which can then be turned into liquid fuel or electricity. “This is California technology solving a California problem to eliminate California waste,” Joe Norbeck, a UCR emeritus professor and one of the inventors of the technology, said in a media release. The energy conversion system is part of an ongoing, decade-long initiative to save millions of dollars and reduce air and water pollution in the state, which annually generates about 83 million dry
tons of biomass waste. The waste is then burned or sent to a landfill, which can cause both air and water pollution. While the waste-to-fuel conversion process is still in its initial stages, 32.1 million tons of biomass is still available to be used as fuel. The objective of the project is to meet standards set by the State Alternative Fuels Plan by 2017, which requires California to produce 2.4 billion gallons of alternative transportation fuel equivalent to gasoline; the state currently imports 95 percent of its biofuels. The California Energy Commission has contributed $3.4 million to the overall development of the system. A representative from the commission, Kelly Kell, said the state does not intend to use the project itself, but to support research that is less harmful to the environment. “Our research results are shared publicly, so they inform other researchers, reduce risk in investing in emerging technologies, and help avoid ‘reinventing the wheel,’ so to speak. That’s why we have funded
advancements in steam hydro-gasification, and in many other areas,” Kell said. The advanced gasification system is 12 percent more efficient and 10 percent faster than conventional gasification systems. According to Kell, the average emissions rate of the fuel produced is 90 percent lower than diesel. “Steam hydro-gasification technology could result in a cost-effective and less environmentally impactful means of converting waste into useful fuel for electric generation or transportation fuel,” expressed Kell. CE-CERT officials say the project’s ultimate objective is to synthesize solid waste and agricultural feedstock into clean methane and to build a pilot plant in the city of Riverside to handle the sewage. California Energy Commission Chair Robert Weisenmiller, Assembly Member Jose Medina, Riverside Mayor Rusty Bailey, UCR Bourns College of Engineering Dean Reza Abbaschian and Chancellor Kim Wilcox appeared at the unveiling of H the hydro-gasification system on Tuesday, Nov. 19.■
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NEWS
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
HIGHLANDER
ASUCR SENATE UPDATE
ASUCR discusses possibility of rejoining USSA W i nn i e J e n g SENIOR STAFF WRITER
In last week’s ASUCR senate meeting, senators passed two bylaw changes, which aim to increase student participation in the community and outline the functions of the outreach committee. Members of ASUCR also discussed the possibility of rejoining the United States Student Association (USSA) — a national student-run organization that fights to increase accessibility for higher education — to take a more active role on studentrelated issues. Outreach Director Mina Kato requested to change the Outreach Director Bylaw by raising the number of outreach committee members from seven to nine. She stated that the committee’s previous structure offers very limited opening spots to the general student body, with the outreach director and three other ASUCR senators occupying four out of the seven spots. “The reason why I proposed this outreach bylaw … is specifically because I want to be more inclusive to the student body,” said Kato. “I want to provide more opportunities for students to get involved with outreach and ASUCR as a whole, specifically first-year and second-year students who are just out of high school and has a lot of background experiences within their high school.” As for her second proposal, Kato suggested an additional bylaw that specifically explains the functions and responsibilities of the Outreach Funds Committee,
entitled, “Marketing and Promotions Director Bylaw.” “Before, the Outreach Funds Committee section was found only under the Finance chapter of the Bylaws (sic),” explained Kato. “This bylaw change will provide more clarity on the entire position of the Outreach Director (outreach funding and outreach programming) within the ASUCR bylaws.” The senators unanimously passed the two bylaw proposals. During the Special Reports portion of the meeting, four members from the Highlander Action Committee — a subcommittee under the External Affairs office — informed the student body of the committee’s intention to have UCR rejoin the USSA. Committee member and USSA Minority Serving Institution Chair Nicole Rosales reported that UCR has created a huge national presence by mobilizing students through USSA campaigns across the country. “We, as student board members, have a lot of power. We not only represent California, we represent the entire nation,” said Rosales. “The fact that we have four (USSA) board members from Riverside speaks something special … This is the right time for (UCR) to get back to the federal scale and actually have some voice, some movement and be a support to all (the) different things that affect students.” Vice President of External Affairs Kareem Aref applauded the committee’s effort for organizing and bringing the three-day USSA
W i ll H u y n h /HIGHLANDER CHASS Senator Michael Ervin addresses points that were mentioned earlier during the meeting.
Board conference to Riverside. “(As the host), we have so much power to ask for what we want: to make a motion to officially rejoin USSA,” said Aref. “It’s just to make a statement that as an association, we support this organization (USSA) that does so much good for students across the nation.” UCR allegedly backed out of USSA due to a lack of funding and decided to solely fund SOCC in 2012. According to Aref, nearly half of the funds in the ASUCR’s External Affairs office disappeared due to an unknown fraud in that year. Aref is currently investigating where the missing funds went. The USSA conference was held at the Bear Cave on Nov. 22 to 24 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ■H
HIGHLIGHTS: CALPIRG Campus Organizer Mick Del Rosario announced the ongoing campus pledge drive and appealed to senators to support the organization. LGBT representative Kelly Lai asked the senators’ support for an ongoing system-wide petition put forth by the UC StudentWorkers Union Anti-Oppression Committee. The petition calls for the university to install restrooms accessible to all LGBT students and workers. President Pro Tempore Aaron Johnson along with all CHASS senators met with CHASS Dean Stephen Cullenberg on Nov. 8 to discuss the potential hiring of additional advisors to accommodate the increasing student enrollment. CNAS senators are pursuing joint funding between CNAS and the School of Medicine for the Health Professions Advising Center. They also discussed the integration of the English 1C requirement with a science course.
UC strikes deal with university nurses and librarians Michael Rios
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
After months of negotiations, two contract settlements were finally reached last week between the UC and its employees. The first: a five-year contract with 350 university librarians that includes a new salary structure and health benefits. The second: a tentative four-year deal with the 11,700 university nurses who are represented by the California Nurses Association (CNA). The agreement with the university’s librarians was reached on Nov. 15 after 18 months of negotiations between the UC and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — a union that represents about 1.5 million members nationwide. The deal includes a new salary scale for librarians as well as medical, dental and vision care that is equal to the general UC employee population. “We are pleased to have reached a fair and financially sustainable agreement with our librarians, who play an important role in our academic mission,” said UC Vice President of Human Resources
The UC has finalized two new five- and four-year contract deals with librarians and nurses.
Dwaine B. Duckett after the deal was announced. As for the university’s nurses, the UC also announced a four-year labor contract with the CNA that will cover more than 11,700 employees who work in UC medical and student health facilities. This deal includes a 4 percent “across-the-board”
salary increase to the nurses every January for the next four years. In addition to that, the contract will guarantee health and pension benefits to the UC’s nurses. The contract also prohibits workers from going on strike during the duration of the contract. One union still looking to
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strike a contract deal with the UC: the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME 3299). Like AFT and CNA, AFSCME 3299 has been negotiating with the university for months, but to no avail. When the deal with CNA was reached, AFSCME 3299 took
notice and congratulated the California Nurses Association for reaching a “fair” contract. “It is indeed heartening to see UC finally matching CNA’s good faith efforts to reach compromises that are both financially sustainable and honor the Nurses (sic) invaluable contributions to UC Hospitals and Health Clinics (sic),” stated AFSCME 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger. “We would hope that UC will afford other bargaining units — including the service workers and patient care technical workers represented by AFSCME 3299,” she concluded. Despite not being able to reach a contract deal with AFSCME 3299, the UC has been able to strike notable deals with other unions that represent UC employees. The contract agreements with CNA and AFT mark the second and third time the UC has finalized negotiations with its workers in the last six weeks. On Oct. 22, the UC also agreed on a contract with 250 UC officers represented by the Federated University Police Officers ■H Association.
. OPINIONS . OPINIONS
HIGHLANDER
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
7
HIGHLANDER EDITORIAL
STUDENTS SHOULD TAKE A MORE ACTIVE APPROACH TO PROTECT THEIR EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS
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P
assive-aggressive tweets, Facebook statuses and Tumblr posts seem to be the way students deal with issues these days — even ones that deal with the imperative issues like that of divestment from higher education. Students are beginning to define the role of passive activism by doing things such as tagging the stairs by the University Lecture Hall (UNLH) with chalk on important issues, or simply liking a “Take Back UC” Facebook page, but ultimately are not doing anything about the issue itself. The chalk on the stairs won’t be seen by Gov. Jerry Brown or move our university forward. The written chalk words ultimately go in vain when students walk past the message on their way to class, leaving it to be washed away by the rain with all other imperative issues that need to be tackled. Maybe it’s our generation who passes the blame on other people — this is by no means an excuse for our flimsy politicians — but it’s interesting to note that we are students who have power and are not utilizing it to its potential. As students, we need to recognize that we do have power to make change but that doesn’t mean we should make one improvement and wait around for the next change. During the voting year of 2012, Proposition 30 was publicized everywhere through the Rock the Vote campaign by student organizations such as ASUCR and CALPIRG. These kinds of campaigns explained to students why we would benefit from this proposition by lowering tuition. ASUCR and CALPIRG worked as a joint effort to inform students about the propositions and encouraging students to register to vote. ASUCR and CALPIRG even engaged campus clubs in a competition entitled Bounty Project that had students compete to register the most students to vote and inform students on Proposition 30 as well. By involving student clubs on campus, it gave students an incentive to educate themselves on the issues and to encourage other students to vote, creating a successful turnout of voters and a wellinformed campus. Even Occupy UC Riverside, which
C a m e r o n Y o n g /HIGHLANDER
resided on the Highlander Union Building (HUB) lawn, organized a protest when the regents arrived and demonstrated the power that we have as students. Protesting with more than 1,000 students — even after the students at UC Davis were pepper-sprayed — revealed the passion that students had toward their right to be educated. Unfortunately, this passion is lacking and students are at least partly to blame for the state’s divestment from higher education. The actual effort we as a student body have put into the issue at hand is disappointing and has led to issues that are important to students being placed on the back burner once again. For some motivation for another protest on campus — that doesn’t involve shutting down our sources for survival — or even constant communication to Gov. Jerry Brown on what we need as students, the reasons as to why we need to take action rather than passive aggression lie within our hands. At the end of the day, we as students need to utilize ourselves, and instead of looking at a poster, liking a page or sitting in a circle of enjoyable smack-talk, we need to confront the perpetrators ourselves with more numbers. Let’s move back to two weeks ago when UC President Janet Napolitano came to campus and there was a small protest of about 40 students marching by the Bell Tower. Although the intent of the protest was to voice students’ concerns, the protest was not as effective as it could have been. The protest did reveal that there is some spark in students when there is something disagreeable in our UC system, but the message is ignored when only a few are representing the masses. And to be frank, it is highly probable that Napolitano didn’t even bat an eye at the protest. Students also need to inform themselves of the issues that are taking place in the UC system instead of students just finding out about what is concerning to our education when a protest actually occurs. There needs to be more activism by engaging students constantly on current issues. This can take place during high traffic times
at the Bell Tower where students can continue to inform one another on the issues that are happening and may affect students and their education. But students themselves also need to take the initiative by reading up on what our government is attempting to do with education so that we can prevent the depletion of money from our universities and the increase of our tuition. This is college, the place where we now have the freedom to take action instead of waiting on our guardians to do it for us. It’s now time to step out of our comfort zone and enter the arena of action instead of just sitting in the stands and silently cheering on the few brave who volunteered to fight for the the rest of us. You might think that this article is a form of slacktivism itself, causing it to be a contradiction. And you might be right. But only if you do not take action. Instead of this just resembling yet another form of slacktivism, take the initiative to be a part of the campus community and learn about the issues at hand so together we can work in collaboration for an education that reflects what we need. So there is an issue on divestment from higher education, but there shouldn’t be. If we all take a stand together, if we encouraged everyone to communicate our issues to Gov. Brown, if we informed everyone throughout the university, in each class or of a protest happening during week, we just might move past this slacktivism and become well-informed individuals who know how to protect our education. In order to maintain our rights to an affordable education, we need to take care of ourselves by learning about what is happening to our university and forming a stance when it diverts from the actual mission of the University of California. We need to take the “if” out and expect ourselves to take charge when our rights H to affordable education are threatened. ■ Highlander editorials reflect the majority view of the Highlander Editorial Board. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Associated Students of UCR or the University of California system.
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
OPINIONS
HIGHLANDER
Riverside City Hall finally reaches out to the LGBT community Yasmin Kleinbart CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community has been facing a real struggle with discrimination, especially when it comes to health issues. According to LGBT Health Board, doctors have refused to treat LGBT patients and medical training may not usually cover LGBT health — such as STD and HIV testing and hormone therapy — so the doctors who do want to help need to be able to educate themselves in the LGBT community’s health issues and cultural competency so they can give the highest quality care. When doctors are incapable of treating said health issues, it leads the LGBT community to refrain from disclosing their sexual orientation or gender identity so they don’t generate negative responses from their providers. This means that a majority of the community is without the highest quality service that they could receive because of the fear of disclosing their identity. On Thursday, Nov. 21, Riverside City Hall held a meeting that pertained to the Riverside LGBT community. This event was one of the first of many to discuss health issues concerning LGBT individuals and how to reach out to them. This is a great event for the LGBT community because while there are places like churches or bars to interact, there doesn’t seem to be a specific place that addresses LGBT health needs such as STD testing. The event consisted of an hourlong talk about a single health issue and then two hours of conversing over refreshments. Gabriel Maldonado, one of the planners, thought this out well because it is an effective and intimate environment for LGBT individuals to talk to the health experts and concerned individuals. A presentation brings the point across but it’s
V i n c e n t T a /HIGHLANDER UC Riverside’s LGBT Resource Center has been part of a large support group for people who identify as LGBT.
better to talk to the presenter one-on-one. Talking to different doctors and people of the LGBT community face-to-face will help bring different issues to the table rather than just focus on the one
This event was one of the first of many to discuss health issues concerning LGBT individuals ... central idea that the presentation discusses. Fortunately, this won’t be the only session. There will be multiple quarterly sessions to
discuss different issues. Compared to other cities and counties, Riverside has a lot of work to do. With a simple Google search, I was easily able to find articles about health services in communities in Los Angeles, Orange County and more. In fact, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center had just been granted money for healthcare. According to the Washington Blade, Christopher Brown, the center’s Health and Mental Health Services Director, remarked, “This is a huge turning point … For far too long, LGBT people have suffered discrimination in health care.” Brown has a point by saying that healthcare should be a right for every human being. While Riverside may not have the largest LGBT community, the community still must not be ignored, and now that Los
C o u rt e s y More civic meetings and workshops need to be held to enable doctors to adequately treat LGBT patients.
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Angeles has had its time in the spotlight, it’s Riverside’s turn. Over these quarterly sessions, one thing that should be discussed is some sort of insurance change. With the Affordable Care Act in place, this could mean a new light at the end of the tunnel for equality that the LGBT community deserves. According to a recent study, when LGBT respondents were asked to describe their view of health insurance, nine in 10 participants “described health insurance coverage as either very important (18 percent) or as a necessity that they would not give up (73 percent).” And they shouldn’t give up either. It’s not supposed be a tedious battle just to go to a doctor. However, the survey showed other participants, especially transgender participants, were a little more discouraged. It said, “Transgender focusgroup participants reported overwhelmingly negative experiences with health insurance coverage, particularly denials of coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions and the prevalence of transgenderspecific insurance exclusions that refuse them the health care services they need.” Even with insurance and even for students who supposedly have some sort of coverage, getting help is no picnic. UCR LGBT Center Director Nancy Tubbs explains that it’s very difficult for transgender students to find doctors who will provide hormone therapy despite having trans-related health care covered in their insurance. The UCR LGBT Center also has some desires in mind for the community, especially a community-based LGBT center. Tubbs said, “The LGBT Resource Center gets many calls and emails from Riverside area residents seeking referrals for LGBT-friendly services.
We are called because currently Riverside does not have a community-based LGBT center … People ranging from teenagers to the elderly desperately need
While Riverside may not have the largest LGBT community, the community still must not be ignored ... LGBT culturally-competent assistance.” Tubbs makes a good point. A community LGBT center is a great start for change in Riverside. If anything gets accomplished, it should be the establishment of some sort of meeting ground so that the LGBT community can become aware of places that they can go to get help, whether it be something health related or maybe a support group of some sort. Many things can be accomplished through these meetings but most of all, the LGBT community needs to feel comfortable enough to actually want to go see a doctor. They should be able to proudly state their sexual orientation or gender identity without fear of being pushed away. According to the LGBT Health Board, the LGBT community exists in every state. So why should they be denied the same care as everyone else? Maldonado and the sponsors of this city hall event are determined to bring some sort of change to Riverside and make the LGBT community’s needs be known and helped with. ■H
OPINIONS
HIGHLANDER
9
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
Have police done enough to improve their services? D av i d W a n g
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The problem of law enforcement abusing its power is one that many American citizens have either read about or seen in the news lately. Many people, including myself, have even had personal run-ins with police officers who overstep their boundaries and infringe on our rights. However, some citizens may rightfully respect policemen for taking a role of sacrifice and danger. After all, the nature of their job constantly puts them in stressful situations, often with life-or-death consequences. But recent local events have
... local events have caused the Riverside Police Department to reconsider its strategies and tactics when responding to threatening situations. caused the Riverside Police Department to reconsider its strategies and tactics when responding to threatening situations. After the respective deaths of David Ledezma and Hector Jimenez at the hands of police officers in the past two years, members of the Community Police Review Commission took it upon themselves to examine these two shootings of men holding a knife and pipe, respectively. Assistant Chief Chris Vicino stated, “We self examine these events as we should, and if we need to add equipment, if we need to add training, if we need to change tactics, we should do that. It doesn’t cast doubt
(on the past). It means we can get better.” If the Riverside Police Department can follow through on Vicino’s promise to properly train the force in taser usage by Jan. 1, things can definitely get better. However, the current solution they are choosing comes with a whole new set of problems in itself. As a way to introduce lesslethal responses to oncoming attackers, all uniformed officers will now be required to carry tasers. But if the police force thinks this will be an absolute improvement over firearms, then they are sadly mistaken. In many cases around the country and the world, even tasers have either killed or rendered people incapacitated. One recent incident happened last September in Florida when 267-pound Trooper Daniel Cole tasered 20- year-old and 100-pound Danielle Maudsley in the back as she ran away in handcuffs. Maudsley clearly presented no threat to Cole as she was already handcuffed and arrested and he could have simply caught up to her without use of excessive force. Maudsley definitely escalated this situation by fleeing, but tasering her was a more than excessive response. As a result of being tasered from a close distance, Maudsley fell to the concrete and suffered crippling brain damage. Instead of rightfully going to jail and serving fair time for her crimes, Maudsley ended up dying from her injuries. Unfortunately, this situation is just one of hundreds that have occurred since the introduction of tasers to police forces in the 2000s. In a shocking study done by Amnesty International, it was reported that the number of deaths in America connected to tasers from 2001 until 2013 totaled 540. Although this number is about equal to the number of people killed by police shootings per year, it is still far too many. In the report,
Amnesty International stated, “Most of those who died after being struck by a taser were not armed and did not appear to pose a serious threat when the taser was deployed.” This is perhaps the most telling part of the study, as tasers present a very slippery slope in which officers may not realize how much damage these alternative weapons can actually deal. If all 540 of these deaths were unintentional but still happened, it’s difficult to imagine how tasers can continue to be seen as non-lethal or lesslethal than the standard-issue firearms that police already carry. The evidence shows that tasers can cause cardiac arrest and temporary paralysis, which in turn lead to additional health complications and
Riverside should make sure that officers fully understand tasers are not actually nonlethal weapons. consequences. Any honest effort to fix a problem should be acknowledged, but when the effort just adds to the problem or makes it worse, that effort becomes useless. Riverside should make sure that officers fully understand tasers are not actually nonlethal weapons. Vicino stated that the department is going to add training and it’s only natural for the public to remain skeptical on whether there is enough time to properly train officers by the Jan. 1 deadline. Furthermore, one has to wonder if there is even a proper way to train officers to use tasers as their powers can often
C a m e r o n Y o n g /HIGHLANDER Riverside police still need to be weary of the consequences of “less-lethal” weapons.
be underestimated. Around the country, there is no standard measurement of taser usage to disarm an attacker so it is often up to each officer’s discretion in each particular situation. Although a lot can go wrong with this newly equipped weapon, the public really has no choice but to hope for the best and trust officers to practice good judgment. A crucial way to train officers is to instruct them to only use the absolute minimal force on initial usage. If officers cannot render their target to be unthreatening, only then should they continue to direct more electric shocks at their threat. If any accidents or deaths occur from tasers, a police officer should definitely suffer serious consequences including, but not limited to, loss of their position. Because a taser is not intended to kill, a death resulting from a taser can be considered negligence
and like any occupation, be cause for termination. If all these steps can be taken to train the police department, arming officers with tasers can be seen as a step forward for Riverside. Sometimes, it doesn’t really matter what weapon or tools law enforcement has at its disposal. More often than not, what really matters is the character of each individual officer. If a corrupt policeman is going to abuse his power and bully citizens or college students, he can still do it with other weapons. However, it would be very unfortunate for the good and noble cops to accidentally kill somebody by using a taser. The police department and citizens both deserve a better solution than tasers. The accidents can be minimized by more thorough training and individuals using tasers in a savvy manner. ■H
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Police officers still need to be held accountable on the usage of tasers and bear in mind the responsibility of abusing a weapon.
The opinions expressed in the Opinions section belong solely to their authors and do not represent the Highlander Editorial Board or the University of California, Riverside.
. FEATURES . FEATURES
HELPING HANDS FOR HAIYAN 10
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
Lighting a candle for hope
11
A thousand dollars in one night By Alexander Suffolk, Senior Staff Writer
By Sandy Van, Senior Staff Writer
A cold frost blanketed Riverside’s Andulka Park on Friday, Nov. 15, where dozens of people from across the Inland Empire and Los Angeles County huddled together to honor victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. The event was organized by the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON) of Southern California and sponsored by eight community, faith and campus organizations, including UC Riverside’s very own Filipino student group, Katipunan. Speakers from each affiliated organization urged for continuing assistance, aid and support for the 13 million who were affected by the typhoon. UCR Katipunan President Yoshi Loyola experienced a sense of inspiration and empowerment from seeing the different communities gathered together. “It’s important that we create a safe space on campus where students have sympathy and sensitivity for others who have been affected by the typhoon disaster,” she said. Every participant at the vigil was handed petite or long candles, which were lighted near the end of the event. The lit candles left pigments of reds and yellows against the faces of the spectators, who laid down their heads and closed their eyes amid a solemn prayer, before scattering into the
HIGHLANDER HIGHLANDER
Life Sciences 1500 was buzzing with members of Katipunan and Filipinos in Health Sciences (FIHS) as well as other supportive students on the night of Nov. 20. All of them were dressed their very best and smiling their very brightest, because it was the “Katipunan FIHSes For a Cause” event, where the two groups hosted a variety of performances and auctioned off an array of different services in order to give the proceeds to NAFCON to help in the relief effort. The warmth and support was apparent from the moment you walked in, with a donation box full of water and clothing at the door and a table covered in a large banner that read, “Stay Strong.” Scattered among the letters were handwritten messages from many of those who attended, all of them sending their love from California and assuring the people of the Philippines that they remain in students’ hearts, thoughts and prayers. The event started with everyone rising from their seats as the Kati Choir took the stage and sang the national anthem of the Philippines. Once everyone was sitting again, a short video was shown detailing the effects of Typhoon Haiyan; the somber and serious emotions were truly palpable upon seeing pictures
night. Members of the Asian Pacific Student Programs, such as fourthyear biological science major Arleen Konian, also partook in the vigil. “We’re here … to pay respects to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan,” she said. “It’s important to give back to people who’ve suffered a natural disaster.” Secretary of Katipunan, Andrew Rubi, spent the vigil in deep reflection about the challenges experienced by the afflicted victims, some of whom included his own family members. “My grandma’s sister and her family were caught in the typhoon and went missing. It was a really hard time on all of us, not knowing where your loved ones are, not even knowing if they were alive.” He has since received word that his family in the Philippines were able to escape that typhoon and are currently taking shelter at an evacuation camp. “We are so fortunate to know that our family is safe. They told us that their house was completely destroyed and that they weren’t able to save much, but they were also very grateful to be living when so many didn’t make it,” said Rubi. “Katipunan and many other organizations and charities around the world are working tirelessly to help those in need. They still need our help. It’s our job to respond and to take action.”
and statistics of the catastrophe. When the film was over, the event coordinators brought Chancellor Kim Wilcox to the stage to give a short speech. “It’s truly a sad occasion,” said Wilcox, “but it’s a proud occasion for me to be here and see just how much you all care.” Wilcox went on to discuss the importance of people helping each other on a global scale. “You are reminding us that we’re one big group of people … This really is the best face of the university.” The service auction began as soon as Wilcox stepped down. Cabinet members of Katipunan and FIHS walked up and proposed the details of their services, and voices in the audience rapidly began to shout out increasingly high offers. The services ranged from a dinner for three at the Boiling Crab sold for $31 and an all-expenses-paid trip for three to Disneyland sold for $200, with some of the other services including homemade dinners, spa days and excursions throughout LA and the Inland Empire. A few times a service would be sold at an offer greater than $50, which the buyer would pay for, only ........
to then tell the event coordinators to put the offer back up for auction, hoping that as much money as possible would be poured into this great cause. Between the service auctions, several students and groups put on performances. Some students picked up microphones and sang their hearts out or engaged the audience in spoken word. Some students serenaded the audience by strumming the strings of a guitar. Arguably the most vibrant was by UCR’s Vietnamese Student Association, which performed the Lion Dance. Students at the
front of the stage filled the air with the steady beating of drums and gongs while two students controlled the giant red-andwhite lion, which stomped through the room to the beat, shaking and slinking through the aisles. At the end of the night, the total amount of money raised for charity came out to a whopping $1,044. “That means so much to us,” said Internal Vice President of Katipunan, Nick Carrillo. “It feels so good to do our little bit to help.” Carrillo felt proud at how much money would be going to NAFCON, who will send
.....the money where money is most needed in the Philippines. He was also proud to see the turnout to the event, and how UCR is uniting to help. “It just shows how much this campus cares and how much it wants to make the world a better place. It’s really heartwarming to know I go to a campus that is willing to care.” Carrillo promises. that more fundraisers are to come, and relief efforts will be
ongoing. “We can all come together and help this cause.”
Hawak Kamay By Alexander Suffolk, Senior Staff Writer
From left to right: Children set down their candles to participate in a cheer; Members of Katipunan gather together and pray for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan; Attendees of the vigil help each other as they light candles in honor of the victims of the typhoon; Nick Carrillo, board member of Katipunan performs during their typhoon relief fundraiser; VSA helps bring excitement to the fundraiser by performing their traditional dragon dance; Members of Katipunan and FIHS perform a traditional Filipino dance.
In the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, UCR professor and Poet Laureate of California Juan Felipe Herrera created the disaster relief poetry project, “Hawak Kamay: Poems for the Philippines after Haiyan.” The words “Hawak Kamay” are Tagalog for “to hold hands” — a perfect fit for an effort to reach out and comfort those in need. The operation works as a group on Facebook that is open to the public. As of press time, the group has 1,555 members, many of whom are consistently posting original poems of comfort, healing, and inspiration. People of all backgrounds are showing their support, posting a wide spectrum of poems — from those that are short and sweet to those that are long and loving. The poems themselves also vary in language, some English, some Tagalog, some Spanish, but all of them carrying universal messages of warmth and support. “In a time of crisis, poetry from people’s hearts find a way to calm the storm,” said Herrera in a statement for UCR Today. They are currently still working on how to get these poems in the hands of those affected by Haiyan, but when they do, it is sure to bring a welcomed ■H comfort to those in need.
Photos by Laura Nguyen and Vincent Ta
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
FEATURES
HIGHLANDER
C a m e ry o n Y o n g /HIGHLANDER An eager student dressed as “Adventure Time’s” Princess Bubblegum asks the first question. The board answered questions ranging from cartoon lore to character impersonations.
C a m e r o n Y o n g /H i ghla n de r Voice actor Tom Kenny describes his early career in the animation industry.
“Is this the Krusty Krab?” “No, this is Patrick.” “Is this the Krusty Krab?” “No, this is Patrick!” The sound of a couple hundred UCR students enthusiastically reciting each line along to this clip from “Spongebob Squarepants” could be heard from HUB 302 last Tuesday night. Students had gathered in droves to see ASPB’s hotly anticipated animation panel, “Stay Tooned.” Featuring famous voices from famous cartoons (and one executive), Tom Kenny, Fred Seibert, Johnny Yong Bosch and Niki Yang, the night proved to be memorable and entertaining as panelists brought their unique tales, turns and interesting stories from their experiences in the animation and television industries. Before the night even began, a line
full of cosplayers and fans alike stretched all the way down the hall of the HUB’s third floor, with some waiting for nearly four hours just to get a glimpse of their idols. After waiting with great anticipation outside and in, the panel was met with raucous cheers as Kenny, Seibert and Bosch came on stage. Bosch was first to present, and though technical problems did not allow him to show the images he brought with him from his laptop, he still gave a small talk on how he got his start in voice acting. Bosch said that when he was first doing scenes for Power Rangers, “We had to dub everything because the sound wasn’t working, and the producer said I had a ‘good hero voice.’” More dubbing and animation work subsequently followed for Bosch, whose notable roles in animation
include Ichigo in “Bleach” and Vash the Stampede in “Trigun.” Kenny, the man behind the beloved voice of Spongebob Squarepants, among a vast array of other credits, was up next and one of the highlights of the night. “Characters in cartoons were always more real than those in sitcoms to me,” Kenny started. “I grew up obsessed with ‘Rocky and Friends’ and ‘Popeye’ and ‘Looney Tunes.’” Kenny went on to tell his story of success, including how he got one of his first breakthroughs on the early Fox show “The Edge,” whose cast included Jill Talley, who would go on to become Kenny’s wife and voice of Karen, the STAY TOONED CONT’D ON PAGE 14
FEATURES
HIGHLANDER
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
13
Restaurant Review:
HEROES
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Restaurant and Brewery RATING: ★★★☆☆
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f there’s one thing Riverside never fails to provide it is culture (and bipolar weather, but that is another article). Heroes Restaurant and Brewery, nestled between the Mission Inn and the Riverside Art Museum, combines a bar with a western aesthetic and a restaurant with a more modern style. Heroes offers an atmosphere more than the stereotypical western Cracker Jack, cold beers and banjo strumming in the back. I stumbled my way through the rain across the restaurant’s outdoor patio, only to find sawdust sticking to my boot. Sprinkled with sawdust and mist, the large-scale patio was adorned with strings of lights and pillars of plasma TVs. “Welcomes” came from every direction when I entered the building. To the left, short walls were covered in western artifacts, such as newspaper clippings and family pictures from the 1860s (the longer you stare, the creepier they get). That room was filled with bar stools, picnic-clothed tables and a deli, shining in the corner. The room to the right was much wider and had higher ceilings, from which hung a wagon carriage with lights entangled in it. Over the semi-truck-sized bar, wall-to-wall plasmas showcased ESPN and highlights from the previous night’s Heat versus Hawks game. Vodka, whiskey and bourbon bottles glowed with neon green and blue in the floor-to-ceiling-high liquor library behind the bar. I took a corner seat near the deli and peered over the extra treats while glancing at the menu. A server soon placed two packets of peanuts on my table as well as a 32-ounce mug of ice water. At first I thought I must have looked really parched to get a glass big enough for the creepy family in the picture
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next to me; however, all drinks are served in this $3 mug with free refills. “Check out our Deli for our old school drinks!” the menu suggested. Three types of root beer, oldfashioned bottled Cokes and Jones sodas priced at a non-refillable $2.50 kissed the inside of the right case. Just below that was their dessert menu, which held a sample of their strawberry cheesecake and chocolate cake that made my sweet tooth throb. With a menu that held burgers ranging from a chorizo burger to the Hawaiian, I had to ask the server what was the most popular. Her suggestions, such as the Reuben, California chicken club and the Brisket sounded great, even though each item was priced between $11 and $14. But once her finger traced over the UCR symbol with the words “The Highlander Chicken Sandwich” — a charbroiled chicken sandwich with avocado, sun-dried tomatoes, mayo, diced tomatoes and lettuce served on pumpernickel bread — I gave her my menu with a Scottyspirited decision. (Come on, you cannot just pass up a sandwich named after your school without trying it, right?) All sandwiches came with a side of steak or curly fries, tater tots, or, for $2 extra, a cup of soup or salad. During the short waiting time, the tables soon filled up with business officials, presumably on their lunch break. Many walked in for a quick bite to go, others enjoyed their company over a tall beer from the 18 selections on tap. All except four beers on tap were imported, such as Newcastle and Corona; domestics included Bud Light and Miller Lite. I found out that, in the next few weeks, Heroes will serve four of their own house-brewed beers. Other alcohol options remain in every vodka you can think of. If it wasn’t behind the bar, it was found in the
V i n c e n t T a /HIGHLANDER
Heroes Restaurant and Brewery offers a variety of entrees, sandwiches, burgers and local brews. With a vibrant environment accompanying large-portioned meals, Heroes hits the mark as an all-American restaurant.
liquor case on display. My plate soon arrived. A monstrous mound of tater tots with bits of parsley dwarfed the sandwich, making it look like a deck of mere index cards by comparison. Olives pierced with toothpicks kept the sandwich stacked together. The first bite had everything in it: a great battle of textures with the creamy avocado and gummy sun-dried tomatoes as well as the charbroiled chicken that I could taste the barbecue flames with its freshness. However, I found that the majority of its height came from seemingly neverending folds of lettuce and a block of tomato. I ended up defacing the sandwich to get rid of the excessive lettuce (but hey, if a guest likes a salad stuffed between their bread, they
can leave it in). If it wasn’t for the tater tots as a side, the meal probably wouldn’t have been big enough to meet its double-digit price. Also, apart from the unique pairing of ingredients, the sandwich may have been one could make at home. Nevertheless, for a plate as a whole, it was somewhat successful. And with an atmosphere like that, prices may be worth it for a night on the town. Tables were filled by the time I was presented with my check on a tiny clipboard. I made my way out, taking in the last of the decor. I was left with the goodbye of the sign outside that read, “See you tomorrow!” Despite the higher prices for the meals, Heroes offers a vibe perfect for a night on the town with friends with a thirst of a good ■H drink.
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
FEATURES STAY TOONED FROM PAGE 12
C a m e r o n Y o n g /HIGHLANDER Tom Kenny announces his next voice-over endeaver as the voice of Bullwinkle Moose.
computer wife in “Spongebob.” One of the more lively moments of the presentation came when Kenny seemingly at random told the entire audience to make a sound like a smoke detector, followed by directions to rub their hands back and forth over their throats — teaching them how to make Spongebob’s famous laugh. Breaking out the voices of some of his other characters — including the mayor and narrator in the “Powerpuff Girls,” Dog in “Catdog,” and Ice King from “Adventure Time,” — made the crowd go wild. But Kenny was more than just entertaining, as he offered the audience wise words as well. “Find something you’re interested in, and learn the crap out of it,” Kenny said. “If I could do voiceovers for cartoons ‘til I’m an old dead guy, I’ll be happy.” Seibert, the only non-actor of the panel, went up next and gave a different perspective on the industry. “At first I wanted to be a chemist,” Seibert said toward the beginning of his presentation. After explaining his love for The Beatles and more creative things, Seibert explained that one day in a lab at school, he looked at a classmate and said “The Beatles are more important to me than this,” and walked out. He explained how he got his start as one of MTV’s first employees, and later how he and a few others were given the task of bringing Nickelodeon back from the grave in the 1980s. Seibert said that he and his colleagues brought Nickelodeon from the worstrated cable TV channel to top-rated in six months simply by rebranding it and giving it a “kids only” club-type feel. The crowd responded fervently as he walked them through the steps of how he became the last president of Hanna Barbera studios and eventually produced many popular cartoons like “The Fairly OddParents” and, more recently, “Adventure Time” and “Bravest Warrior.” Though she didn’t arrive until just before her scheduled speaking time, Niki Yang also gave an interesting and informative presentation on how she
HIGHLANDER got started in the industry. Yang said that she was a production assistant on “Family Guy,” but within a week, through persistence, was promoted to helping work on storyboards for the show. Yang showcased some clips from some of her latest projects that were pitched but unfortunately shot down, including one cartoon about twin witches and another about a puppy delivering letters. One exciting moment was when Yang showed the crowd pitches she had for two upcoming shows called “Supernuts” and “Yoyotoki Happyears!” which are in development. The crowd responded with cheers as they were privileged with seeing something “behind-the-scenes.” The Q-and-A session following the panel also gave students valuable time to interact with the panelists. All members of the panel were generally accessible and enthusiastic in answering questions, with Kenny even obliging to say someone’s name in Spongebob’s voice. One of the more interesting questions to come out of the session regarded why cartoons from the late 90s and early 2000s seemed a bit more edgy. “It’s simple,” Seibert said. “When they made ‘Rocco’s Modern Life,’ there were no executives at Nickelodeon. So nobody was paying attention.” “When I think back to the early days of that, there really was a sense that the inmates were running the asylum,” Kenny added. “And I think YouTube is the new version of that. There were less eyeballs on us, less people watching us on the corporate level. And as it became bigger and became this big economic juggernaut, suits started to pay a lot more attention and they do tend to micromanage stuff in a way that can take a little bit of the fun out of it.” But perhaps the ethos of the night could best be summed up, however, when a crowd member was called upon to sing the Spongebob theme song to win a free T-shirt. After the student told the crowd he would need help with some of the chants, Kenny said, “Wait! I’ll start you off,” and lead the crowd with an “ohhhh … !” As three to four hundred college-aged students emphatically sang out their hearts, the night could easily be deemed a success, if only because it allowed everyone to enjoy the wonder of childhood ■H again.
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@highlanderradar
TUESDAY, NOVEMEMBER 26, 2013
R adar ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Events this week Tuesday | 11/26
Japanese Taiko Drumming Demo @ ARTS Building, 12 p.m.
Tuesday | 11/26
Open Mic @ Back to the Grind, 7 p.m.
Friday | 11/29
Festival of Lights Switch-on Ceremony @ Mission Inn, 4:30 p.m.
Saturday | 11/30
“The Attack” Screening @ Culver Center, 7 p.m.
Beth Stelling speaks about the time her mother mailed her an inappropriate card.
Laura
n g u y e n /HIGHLANDER
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
HIGHLANDER
THE PHILOSOPOCALYPSE
Clockwise from top left: Beth Stelling leans in to stare at one of the audience members as they share intimate eye contact; Jerrod Carmichael laughs as he acts out Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in commercials for Viagra and DeVry; Hampton Yount skips on stage to describe how true love in the past meant men would continually pester their wives into loving them.
COLIN MARKOVICH, SENIOR STAFF WRITER // PHOTOS BY LAURA NGUYEN
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ow do you think the apocalypse will come? Meteor impact is always a popular choice. With global warming increasingly in the spotlight, some have argued that we’re in for massive flooding. If “World War Z” and “The Walking Dead” are any indication, zombie invasions have gained ground in recent years. But if UCR’s Comedy Apocalypse is the final arbiter of what doomsday will be, the world will not spontaneously combust in a flurry of fantastical fiery explosions that are amazing to the eye but fundamentally devoid of substance. Instead, the experience will be closer to steadily draining the trees and sky of their color and living the rest of your life on a dolorously colorless planet. Still, the audience seemed to have a good time. And even if the event didn’t seem humorous to me, it gave me plenty of things to think about as I left for the night. The show started off literally monochromatic when a 1969 black-and-white documentary detailing students’ lives at UCR was projected onto the back of the Barn. Finding all the similarities and differences between student life then and now was an entertaining endeavor, and watching the escapades of UCR students during the rollicking 60s was fascinating. However, even though the event had “comedy” in the headline, the 30-minute-long film wasn’t funny. I honestly thought at first that the only reason the film was playing was due to a comic being late. Most people in the audience had no problem pretending it didn’t even exist, and talked with their neighbors or ordered food as the neglected film forlornly trudged on in the background. When the first comic, Hampton Yount, took the stage 30 minutes after the show’s alleged starting time, he didn’t hesitate to poke fun at the absurdity of a documentary preceding his comedy routine. “Have you ever seen live entertainment? They usually don’t show a documentary about Auschwitz or whatever.
What was that about?” Yount snarked to a suddenly enlivened audience. Yount’s set was wide-ranging as he skillfully imitated accents, making cracks about the inability to argue with conspiracy theorists and over-enthusiastic British infomercial salesmen. But as he moved on, the audience grew silent and he had trouble rebounding, which is a shame because his later material asked some of the most insightful questions of the night. When he introduced the topic of online dating, he highlighted the gender disparities inherent in our society as he compared the “radically disproportionate” fears between men and women — men fear dating a woman who doesn’t look like her profile picture; women fear dating a man who is actually a murderer. He then mocked the overly romanticized halcyon days of our grandparents by cracking that stalking a woman for days isn’t sweet; rather, “it sounds like you defeated a broken woman.” The night calmed down and took on a conversational vibe as the hyperactive Yount passed the torch to the soft-spoken Beth Stelling. She began her set to uproarious laughter by poking fun at her weight. “I have to keep the boner population down,” she said as she made exploding sounds that imitated penises erupting from men’s jeans. “And you know what? Pants are expensive.” Stelling drew the audience in with her frank and personal style, and society’s depiction of the intersection of women and sexuality proved to be a frequent target. Regaling the eager audience with stories of sexual escapades, she lambasted society’s absurd prohibitions preventing women from embracing their sexuality. But she also made clear that it’s not okay for men to prey on that sexuality, sarcastically explaining her motivation for beginning work at an eatery: “You know, I took the job for the same reason we all take jobs in the food service: for the sexual harassment.” Jerrod Carmichael perfected Stelling’s
conversational style and proved to be the most successful comic of the night by venturing into controversial territory and doing it well, and his act only got better as the night went on. His opener made it clear that nothing was off-limits as he compared his relationship with America to that of a battered wife with an abusive husband. “Sure, to the rest of the world America may seem like an asshole,” Carmichael explained. “But you don’t know America like I do. America’s good to me. Sometimes I just need to learn to shut the fuck up. And make America a sandwich.” And as if the locks on a dam were instantaneously released, the jokes and laughs rushed out of the Barn. The political incorrectness continued as Carmichael savaged American society. He lauded UCR students for achieving success in the world by saying, “You’ve made it just by not going to DeVry.” And if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were still alive today, Carmichael asserted, today’s society wouldn’t allow him to be the civil rights leader he was in the 60s. Instead, he would be relegated to selling Viagra on late night television. By stating that we’ve degenerated as a country, the comic aptly articulated the fears of an uncertain future that hound college students today. Carmichael closed the show on a stronger note than the rest of the comedians combined. Yet, throughout the set, I found myself more frequently considering the implications of what they said rather than being enthralled by the comedy of their jokes. Maybe I was an outlier — the rest of the audience seemed to have a great time. But even if the show sometimes fell flat, Comedy Apocalypse accomplished something much more interesting: It made me think. As good comedy should, each comic made me ponder the state of the country we live in and the society we participate in. The show was comedic at times, but the Comedy Apocalypse was more philosophical than anything else — which is a form of success in and of ■H itself.
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
HIGHLANDER
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
HIGHLANDER NEWSROOM
Don’t Call It Women’s Fiction Oh, what a time to be a woman! As I finished cleaning the kitchen and preparing a sandwich for my husband, I logged onto Amazon and stumbled upon a category of books called “Women’s Fiction.” The titles in this section featured such scintillating titles as “50 Shades of Grey” and covers with flowers and curlicue lettering. And me? Well, I was just tickled, because I’ve always wanted my reading tastes, as a woman, to be delineated for me. I can’t thank booksellers enough for creating a category especially for me and my female genitalia, particularly since I’m not interested in reading anything in “Men’s Fiction,” also known as dick-lit, also known as Fiction. This makes things so much easier! When booksellers and publishers decide that a book is fiction for females, that decision says that whatever themes that author might be discussing — family relationships, for instance, which Amy Tan tackles in her latest novel, “The Valley of Amazement” — are not applicable to men. This, in turn, suggests that women’s issues are not men’s issues, and that women’s issues do not have a place in the larger scope of the human experience. As both a writing student and reader, that tells me one thing: If a book is about anything related to women, or if a woman writes it, it will be considered Women’s Fiction. And that’s just wrong. “Women’s Fiction” is a catchall term for any novel written about anything related to women’s experiences. This is a huge umbrella category that places novels focusing exclusively on romance next to novels that deserve to be considered within the
larger literary zeitgeist. Tan’s, for instance, follows the connection between a mother and daughter over the span of four decades. I can’t help but wonder where that same novel would be categorized if a man were to have written about the relationship between a father and son over the same amount of time — “Men’s Fiction?” No. That’s categorized as Fiction. Breakout author Rachel Kushner’s novel, “The Flamethrowers,” follows a female artist named Reno in the 1970s who travels to New York, falls in love with a sculptor and journeys with him to Italy. Technically, since it follows a woman’s experience and is pulled from Kushner’s life, it can totally be classified as Women’s Fiction. The success of her novel stands in contrast to Tan’s, who similarly writes about the female experience but is not able to escape the label of “Women’s Fiction.” Although their content differs, who’s to say that Tan’s novel is more “womanly” than Kushner’s? No matter how many flowers are thrown onto the cover, or how many sexy protagonists an author writes about, nothing about a category verifies its stance as representative of an entire gender. Call the “Women’s Fiction” category something else — place the appropriate titles in Romance, or Beach Reads, or anything but a term defined by the gender of the people who are supposed to read it. Let the novels by female authors like Atwood, Bender, Oates and Kushner stand on their own as a larger part of the exploration of literature, marketed to readers and learners and people. Not solely women. ■H
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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
HIGHLANDER
MOVIE REVIEW COMING OUT SOON:
FROZEN
HOMEFRONT
OUT OF THE FURNACE
INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
DELIVERY MAN BY: YASMIN KLEINBART, CONTRIBUTING WRITER
In 2011, Ken Scott directed a French-Canadian film called “Starbuck,” a heartwarming story about a slacker 40-something who finds out that he has fathered 500 children due to his sperm donations at a fertility clinic. Despite being a Canadian hit, the only attention the film received was from viewers randomly searching through the foreign movie category on Netflix. Scott and the original writer of “Starbuck,” Martin Petit, decided to collaborate once again and Americanize their film. Scott and Petit’s version of Americanizing meant replacing the lead actor with Vince Vaughn and calling it “Delivery Man.” The rest of the film was exactly the same down to the actual lines — except for Vaughn’s uneasiness and awkwardness in a role that had little to no humor. Vaughn plays the role of David Wozniak, a meat delivery driver who is loved for being the nice guy and pretty much nothing else. He owes the mob $80,000, his pregnant girlfriend (Cobie Smulders) doesn’t want him in the picture and on top of that, he is informed that his sperm donations from around 20 years ago — done under the pseudonym Starbuck — have resulted in him having 533 biological children; 142 of them are suing the fertility clinic to release his identity. David goes undercover to meet his kids, and he not only bonds with them, but also aids them in their challenges. However, as the identity case makes national news, Wozniak has to decide whether to reveal his identity or focus on maintaining his “real” family. Despite its subject matter, this script was chock-full of cliches. The number of life lessons
in this film almost exceeded the number of the offspring. Wozniak is the center of three stories: one involving his brothers and father, one involving his 533 children and one involving his future with his girlfriend. They were all equally rushed and did not leave the audience much time to get to know the other characters. The storyline with his family received the least amount of attention, which is a shame because Andrzej Blumfield succeeded at playing Wozniak’s father and expressing the love and disappointment he has in his son. He especially shined in the scene where Wozniak put his father in grave danger — Blumfield’s facial expressions made me feel like I was also in trouble. Despite having the same plot and most of the same lines, this remake feels like a typical Vince Vaughn film. With the cliche slacker-male-getsa-change-of-heart plot, it felt like I was watching the sequel to his 2004 film, “Dodgeball” — except with way less comedy. While there was the occasional masturbation and marijuana joke, the lack of humor made Vaughn feel out of place. I just didn’t buy him as the lonely loser down on his luck. His portrayal as a “guardian angel” stalking his kids seemed creepy, and I was surprised that no one put a restraining order on him after frequently noticing his presence. For example, one of his children was a historical tour guide for a colonial site. We see Wozniak in two different tourist groups, and then finally on his own just listening to him. If that doesn’t sound like stalker behavior, then I don’t know what does. The only laughs came from Wozniak’s cyni-
Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
cal best friend and lawyer, Brett (Chris Pratt). Pratt brought some of best comedic relief by practically comparing his own children to demons and trying to convince David that he shouldn’t want to go into parenthood. Smulders is effective as Wozniak’s girlfriend, Emma, but doesn’t really have much to do. She is mainly there as a way for Wozniak to get back on track and grow up, and the audience only sees her in scenes where we need to see his slow development, such as having the stereotypical conversation about whether or not they’re ready to have
kids while sitting at a crowded playground. Scott and Petit should have just left their original indie film alone. While “Delivery Man” still had most of the original version’s sentimental moments, Vaughn tried too hard to play the dramatic role — and failed. The real homage should be paid to “Starbuck.” The original David Wozniak, Patrick Huard, is very convincing as an irresponsible man who has nothing going for him except to serve as these people’s “guardian angel.” If there is a real desire to see this film, H just go onto Netflix and watch the original. ■
Issue 09 correction: A statement in the review of “The Rover” incorrectly read that the play was written in the Old English period. “The Rover” was actually written in the Modern English period. The Highlander regrets the error.
WRITE SHOOT DESIGN
RATING: ★★☆☆☆
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SPORTS
HIGHLANDER
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
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Men’s hoops powers past Southern Utah
Melisa Bivian, Contributing Writer
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Nov 23, 2013
Highlanders 74 - Thunderbirds 59
fter winning their first game of the season, the UC Riverside men’s basketball team hit the road to face Southern Utah on Saturday, Nov. 23. Evening out the season at 2-2, the Highlanders secured their first road win, 7459, behind a season-high 21 points from Chris Patton. Patton dominated inside the paint leading the team to victory with a double-double (21 points, 15 rebounds). Steven Thornton was close behind with a career-high of 20 points and four rebounds. Taylor Johns added 10 points and 10 rebounds. Thunderbird Trey Kennedy led Southern Utah with 15 points. Before the game even began, the Highlanders received a technical foul for dunking during the pregame warm-ups. The Thunderbirds took the lead as Kennedy scored one of two free throws. The Highlanders were unable to put any points on the scoreboard until Patton was fouled at the 18:18 mark.
They continued to struggle as they missed several shots, but they were able to force five Thunderbirds turnovers. With 15:16 to go, Johns made both free throws, making it a one-point game. With 7:42 in the half remaining, Thornton made a three-point jumper and Sam Finely converted on a free throw to push the Highlanders advantage to 24-22. Thunderbird A.J. Hess tied up the game 2424 as he made both of his free throws at the 6:35 mark. As the half continued, both teams traded baskets, yet the Highlanders continued to stay on top. Patton with his improved left hand scored the final bucket to end the first half with a three-point lead, 36-33. With 14 points and six rebounds, Patton played his best first half of the season. Starting the second half, UCR kept up the momentum by increasing the lead to double digits. At the 16:21 mark, the Highlanders took a 14-point lead and never looked back. With 10:53 to go, the visiting team took a 21-point lead after Thornton scored his layup. The
C a m e r o n Y o n g /HIGHLANDER Steven Jones (No. 10) weaves his way through Montana State defenders at the annual Homecoming game.
Thunderbirds were unable to get closer than 14 points for the rest of the evening. With 21 seconds remaining, Thunderbird John Marshall made the last free throw
of the game. The contest came to an end as the Highlanders held on for a 74-59 win. UC Riverside outscored Southern Utah 40-22 in the paint
due in large part to Patton’s inside post game while out-rebounding the opponents 36-33. The Highlanders next play on Nov. 25 ■H in Seattle, Wash.
Cross country wraps up another strong season
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he NCAA West Regional Championship on Nov. 15 marked the end of the cross country season for both men’s and women’s cross country teams. Beginning with the UC Riverside Invitational in September, the two squads participated in five meets for the year. The 2013 campaign was highlighted by runners Benjamin Heck and Raquel Hefflin. The season-ending regional championship took place in Sacramento, and the Highlanders attempted to leave the state’s capital with a win. Both teams gave their best efforts to end the season on a high note. The men’s team finished 22nd overall out of 27 teams from all over the West, and the women’s squad finished 21st out of 32 total teams, with an exceedingly impressive performance from Hefflin, who finished in 36th place among the 227 participants. Heck was the high man for Riverside almost all season. He was in the top 15 in two competitions this season. In the regional championship, Heck set a new career-best time for the 10-kilometer run, finishing in 31:38, good for 82nd place. Following Heck, Michael Gauger placed 103rd with a time of 31:59 while Cody Jordan crossed the finish line with a time of 32:26, good for 124th.
Steven Cahill, Contributing Writer During the same regional championship, the women’s team was led by Hefflin, who had been the team’s most celebrated runner this season. She continued off a solid season last year where she was named to the Big West All-Conference team. This year, she’s only improved, lowering her best 5-kilometer run time to 17:09.5 at the Highlander Invitational on Oct. 19. She also lowered her 6-kilometer run time to 20:31 at the NCAA West Regional on Nov. 15, where she finished in a team-leading 36th place. During the season, Hefflin was awarded the “Budweiser Responsibility Matters Good Sport of the Month” award for the month of October, where she finished first on the team in both races she ran, including a first place overall finish at the Highlander Invitational. Senior Jzsanette Lindstrom followed behind Hefflin with a time of 21:34, respectively. For the season, the men’s team was near the middle of the pack for nearly all their meets. The Highlander women’s cross country team competed well, finishing second and third in two of their races, as well as producing an eighth-place finish at the Inter-Regional Jamboree in October. The Highlanders now look forward to the track and field season, which is set to ■H begin in January.
C o u rt e s y o f UCR A t hle t i c s UCR men’s and women’s cross country finished modestly in their meets. For the season, the men’s cross country stayed in the middle of the pack while women’s cross country performed relatively well.
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013
. SPORTS .
HIGHLANDER
Women’s volleyball finally joins Big West winner’s circle
C a m e r o n Y o n g /HIGHLANDER Clockwise from top left: Nae Bender (No. 6) and Annishia McKoy (No. 8) block the kill from UC Irvine; Tyler Dorsey (No. 16) tips the ball over the net; Ashley Cox (No. 6) jumps high for the kill.
by Darren Bueno Senior Staff Writer Nov. 22, 2013
Highlanders 3 - Mustangs 2 A season full of heartache experienced one night of blissfully sweet enjoyment. The women’s volleyball team, who was 1-25 on the year and dipping into the pond of mediocrity, earned their first Big West Conference victory of the season with a five-set win over Cal Poly San Luis Obispo 14-25, 26-24, 25-23, 15-25, 15-9. For the season, the Highlanders have struggled against just about every team. Some nights they were simply outplayed, while on others, the squad couldn’t string together consistent points after putting themselves in position to win. On Friday night, the match seemed to be headed for yet another loss. UCR dropped the opening set (25-14) and let a 17-12 lead in the second set evaporate. Knotted at 24 apiece, the Highlanders did something they struggled to do all season: win the pressure points. Senior Annishia McKoy slapped a kill over the net before a block assist by Ashley Cox and Lindsay Hornsby gave UC Riverside not only the set, 26-24, but also a confidence that would prove pivotal for the game. Late into the third period, the Highlanders again faced a
tightly contested phase of the match as both teams combined for 14 tied scores. Tied at 23-23, Tyler Dorsey came through in the clutch as a crafty pass from Nae Bender converted into a powerhouse kill and another set point. Fueling from hustle, UCR secured the third set, 25-23, behind another block assist. The Mustangs, who are 11-5 (5-8) on the season, responded in the fourth set. Cal Poly won six consecutive points in the middle of the period to pull ahead 16-6 before sending the match into a fifth set, 25-15. It all came down to the fifth and final set. With pressure mounting and the crowd roaring, UC Riverside did not stumble as the squad turned a 5-4 advantage into 10-4 lead. Minutes later the Highlanders finally corralled their first conference win after a kill from Cox, 15-9. Both Cox and McKoy tied their season highs with 22 and 13 kills, respectively. Dorsey led the team with six blocks while Maddie Hubbell tallied 23 digs. UC Riverside was outplayed statistically as the Mustangs recorded more aces, kills, digs and boasted a higher attack percentage. The key, however, was the better form UCR showed during the latter stages of each set.
Nov. 23, 2013
Gauchos 3 - Highlanders 0 The Highlanders plummeted back to Earth on Saturday
night. After winning their first conference game of the season, the UC Riverside women’s volleyball team didn’t win a set in the following game, en route to a straight set loss to UC Santa Barbara 25-16, 25-13, 25-15. From first serve to last error, the Highlanders were left in the Gauchos’ dust. The front line of UCR played well at the outset of the match, recording four blocks as the Highlanders kept the score close at 9-9. Eventually, UC Santa Barbara, who won 12 of its last 13 games, crushed the Highlanders from every area of the court as the team ran away with the first set, 25-16, and eventually all three sets in a regimented fashion. Lacking energy and only hitting an insipid .022 for the match, UCR was simply overpowered and outclassed by a team tied with Cal State Northridge for first place in the conference. The Gauchos finished the second set with a blistering .583 hitting percentage while the Highlanders had a negative percentage heading into the second set. Santa Barbara doubled UC Riverside in the kills category (42-21) and tallied five service aces to one. Annishia McKoy, who is one of two seniors graduating this season along with Jessica Moncayo, recorded six kills on the evening while Tyler Dorsey followed behind with four kills. Ashley Cox, who amassed a season-high in kills against Cal Poly, only added four successful attacks against nine errors. UCR (2-25, 1-14) returns home for its final match of the season against nationally ranked Hawaii on Nov. 29. The H Highlanders will celebrate senior night before the game. ■