The candidates for Student Body President, Carson Hollingsworth (left), Jennings Hardee (center) and Alex Pennycuff (right) during the SGA debate. Alex Phillips • The Daily Beacon
SGA campaigns debate night before election Alahnah Ligon Asst. News Editor Students filled the Toyota Auditorium above capacity and lined up outside the doors of the Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy last night to take part in the annual SGA debate. Those running for student body president and vice president were given the opportunity to debate each other over campaign points, campus issues and potential legislation for the upcoming year. The event was moderated by Mariah Beane, current SGA student services director and this year’s election commissioner. Vice presidential candidates McKinsey Patterson of the Hollingsworth Patterson campaign, Matthew Morris of the Hardee Morris McCandless campaign and Fuller Edwards of the “Challenge” campaign opened the event by debating questions on their experiences in SGA, senators within their campaigns, and platforms for student safety, diversity, tobacco and alcohol on campus. Each candidate was given one minute to respond to debate questions, 30 seconds to offer a rebuttal and one minute to offer a rebuttal if they were directly addressed by another
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candidate, an opportunity that the “Challenge” campaign was the first to take advantage of. When the issue of tobacco legislation was raised, Edwards confronted Morris about his lack of participation in a Senate meeting where the tobacco bill was passed. “Me and Alex Pennycuff, our presidential candidate, we spoke against it in the Senate,” Edwards said. “Matthew Morris, he honestly kind of just sat there, even though he said he was against it.” “I have my own way of debating and legislating,” Morris said in response to Edwards’ comments. “Being the loudest in the room does not always make you the best leader ... Sometimes the best answer is to listen.” The final question on alcohol platforms sponsored another rebuttal between Edwards and his other counterpart, Patterson. While the “Challenge” campaign and the Hollingsworth Patterson campaign both advocate for a wet campus, Edwards debated Patterson’s platform to provide wet campus opportunities only to dorm facilities housing students mostly 21 years of age or older. “Why shouldn’t students who live in Humes or (Presidential) Court who are a legal age be allowed to have the right to drink responsibly?” Edwards asked of Patterson.
Patterson cited conversations with resident assistants in the housing facilities in question who were against the wet campus applying to predominantly first year student dorms. “The reality of the situation is that when a first year student chooses a place to live, those are the places they are going,” Patterson said. “Making sure the campus is safe before we make sure everybody gets to drink their booze is more of an asset.” The Hardee Morris McCandless campaign had their opportunity to debate the “Challenge” campaign on alcohol policy in the second phase of the debate between the presidential nominees. Alex Pennycuff, presidential nominee for the “Challenge” campaign said his platform on alcohol policy is similar to platform of the Hardee Morris McCandless campus, but said his policies are geared toward student safety during the week as well as on weekends. “Our main agenda on making UT a wet campus is safety. Safety matters just as much on Tuesday as it does Sunday,” Pennycuff said. “You don’t make UT a wet campus to encourage an environment of drinking or wild weekends. You do it to move the traffic in the Fort back onto campus.” “I agree that safety is the most important thing,” Hardee said. “Currently it’s inconsistent,
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so whether it becomes less strict or more strict, something has to change.” The presidential nominees also debated their platforms on student and administration relationships, diversity, tobacco and sexual assaults on campus. Each campaign coined phrases that supported their platforms in closing. The “Challenge” campaign said they would like to improve SGA’s role in representing students on campus by being a voice “for the students” and not just “to the students.” Hardee Morris McCandless said they are looking to establish a “common ground” with students and provide an “equal opportunity” for all students on campus. The Hollingsworth Patterson campaign said they are working to “pursue” every group, minority and individual opinion within the student body. Voting opens Tuesday, April 5, and runs through 5 p.m. on Thursday, April 7. Results will be posted at approximately 6:30 p.m. on Thursday. Students can vote at vote.sga.edu. See page 2 for the Daily Beacon’s official SGA candidate endorsement.
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
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CAMPUSNEWS
The Daily Beacon • Tuesday, April 5, 2016
THE DAILY BEACON STAFF
EDITORIAL
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OOH LA LA: FRENCH SEXUALITY
After meeting and interviewing the SGA candidates, reading through their policy points and attending the SGA debate Monday night, The Daily Beacon officially endorses Jennings Hardee for SGA president and Matthew Morris for SGA vice president. During the debate in particular, Hardee and Morris held their own, and showed that they are committed to this campus and its students, particularly through their specific policy points. While we agree and support most of the Hardee Morris McCandless platform, there are certain points, as listed below, which the Daily Beacon believes can be improved and better implemented. We also see a need for stronger discussion on diversity issues and what SGA can do to make UT a space “welcoming to all and hostile to none.” However, we have decided that Hardee and Morris are the candidates to listen to both ours and every other student’s suggestions and work for what is best for our campus. Hardee Morris Campaign Points we support: 1. Support the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and want to make concentrated efforts to improve the diversity of SGA. They plan to post all available positions within SGA online at least two weeks before they are filled, and they plan to promote SGA to as many students possible and improve overall recruiting, especially of campus communities that have been underrepresented in SGA for far too long. 2. Develop a bystander intervention program, especially for all First Year Students, and continue the work of the Sexual Assault Task Force to monitor the campus culture concerning sexual assault and misconduct and improve the way the university responds to reports of assault.
3. Allow anyone over 21 to possess and consume alcohol from 5 p.m. Friday to 12 p.m. Sunday, establishing a “weekend wet campus” policy. While we understand that this is meant to serve as a compromise between students and administration on the university’s alcohol policy, we hope Hardee and Morris, if elected, would expand the Sunday hours until 5 p.m. We also support furthering alcohol awareness education and allowing student organizations to register with the university to host three events per year that serve alcohol. 4. Create a public online accessibility map where students can report “trouble spots” on campus that would hold campus officials accountable to fix these issues, which would include construction updates and detour information. 5. Improve sidewalk conditions to make campus transportation easier for all students, but especially those with disabilities. They also plan to make campus more cyclist friendly by adding and improving bike racks and bike lanes. 6. Develop an online “Building Blueprint Catalog” that allows students to see what buildings currently being constructed on campus will look like before they officially open. 7. Expand the price value of Meal Equivalency and the times for which students can apply their meal equivalencies. 8. Host a weekly column in the Daily Beacon for faculty and administration to mediate dialogue between students and administration. The views expressed in Daily Beacon editorials reflect the majority of opinion of the Beacon’s editorial board and may be supposed to represent the opinion of The Daily Beacon at the time of publication. They are not necessarily representative of any individual member.
2016 EDITORIAL BOARD Jenna Butz
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CAMPUSNEWS
Tuesday, April 5, 2016 • The Daily Beacon
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Luke Elliot represents Tennessee Republicans at age 19 Heiler Meek Staff Writer Luke Elliott is a UT economics major from Nashville. He is involved in College Republicans, the Kappa Sigma fraternity and is running for a Student Senate position in SGA under the Challenge campaign ticket. This will not be Luke’s first government campaign, however. He has a professional career in politics that could be said to span nearly his entire residency at UT. This semester, Elliott campaigned for a delegate seat at this year’s Republican National Convention and won that seat. In support of Rubio, he is now the RNC delegate for Tennessee’s fifth congressional district, which encompasses Nashville and its surrounding cities. Just nine short months ago, Elliott celebrated his 19th birthday and the beginning of his college life at UT. He will be one of the youngest delegates at the convention, if not the youngest. “It’s just crazy that a 19-year-old and a 20-year-old (are going) to be there. (Michael Hensley and I) think we are going to be the youngest people there,” Elliot said. The pre-law freshman said that his journey as a delegate thus far has taught him valuable lessons on relating to people in a political sense. “One of my favorite parts of this cam-
paign was (going) to Iowa for the caucuses. I’ve worked on campaigns before, but from this experience I’ve learned to talk to all sorts of people and try to find kind of a common ground with them) and kind of get away from all the political divisiveness,” Elliott said. He explained that the state of Tennessee is granted 58 total delegates to attend the RNC, and each of those delegates represent Tennessee’s constituents as divided into 58 factions. “They typically represent about 20,000 people,” Elliott said. Elliott expressed pride for the University of Tennessee’s representation at this year’s RNC. “To have two students from UT, that’s a big deal for the Political Science Department. And no other college in Tennessee has any (students who are RNC delegates),” Elliott said. He added that quite a few Volunteer alumni will be part of this year’s convention, as well. Weston Bell, president of College Republicans at UT, has supported Elliot throughout his candidacy and duties thus far as a delegate. “He’s an exceptional, bright guy I am lucky to have met,” Bell said. Bell, a senior in finance, met Elliott through the campus’ chapter of the fraternity Kappa Sigma. He said that he first got to know Luke during Kappa Sigma’s rush activities in Fall 2015. “Just running at 19 for a position that’s usually held by someone in their
mid to late thirties, or even older, is amazing,” Bell said. He also added that he cannot wait to see what Elliott does in his future time at UT. Elliott noted that he believes this election cycle’s RNC has the possibility of being the first contested convention since the relatively docile 1976 convention, in which delegate votes were needed to decide between candidates Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination. Elliott said that contested conventions turn the power of decision for the Republican nominee over to the hands of RNC delegates, adding that it can turn the prominence gained by a candidate through Republican candidate Marco Rubio (left) and Luke primary votes comElliott (right). pletely upside down. Luke Elliot said • Courtesy of Luke Elliott that he and Michael Hensley, a 20-year-old congressional district, will attend the UT student elected an RNC delegate Republican National Convention in representing the Tennessee’s second Cleveland, Ohio in July 2016.
SGA elections now open, candidates aim to boost turnout Alayna Cameron Contributor While much of campus may be focused on whether or not they #feelthebern, are #readyforhillary, want to #makeamericagreatagain or are a part of the #cruzcrew, there is another upcoming election season: SGA elections. All students can vote for the three executive positions: student body president, student body vice president and student services director. The three main campaigns running are the Hardee Morris McCandless campaign, the HollingsworthPatterson campaign and the Pennycuff Edwards campaign, which is also referred to as the
“Challenge” campaign. Students can vote for senators depending on where they live on campus and the academic college that they are enrolled in. Many promotional events will be held by the candidates this week to encourage voting. There will be giveaways, candidate booths set up on Pedestrian Walkway and other events. Many booths will also be set up around campus for students to vote that will be staffed with student representatives and computers. A full list of SGA election events can be seen on The Daily Beacon website. Junior vice presidential candidate Fuller Edwards explained how necessary voter turnout is in the upcoming student elections.
“If more students are voting these people into these positions, it shows that students really do support what we’re fighting for in SGA,” Edwards said. Edwards compared the university’s 14 percent voter turnout to other SEC schools and cited the low value as a negative factor in accomplishing SGA’s goals. “When you look at our SEC counterparts ... Their SGA’s actually tackle issues that students care about, and they get things done,” Edwards said. “The fact that they have 40 to 50 percent voter turnout shows that the students supports SGA.” Junior presidential candidate Jennings Hardee said she is also pushing for higher voter turnout in an effort to make SGA more meaningful to a wider array of students.
“Currently, SGA is not very representative of the student body, and I know this concerns many people,” Hardee said. “I think that the first step is voting.” Junior vice presidential candidate McKinsey Patterson also urged students to vote. “Much of the student body doesn’t understand the intentions of SGA, the people within it or why they should care,” Patterson said. “The position of SGA is to go out and to figure out who these people are, what they care about and how SGA can represent them well.” The Student Government Association will be holding its annual elections on April 5-7. Students can vote online at votesga. utk.edu with their NetID and Password.
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The Daily Beacon • Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Around Rocky Top
ARTS&CULTURE
Left: Sunny Megatron and Ken Melvoin-Berg lecture about sex-positivity to a room full of students at a Sex Week lecture titled “Let’s Talk About Sex” on April 4. Right: UT professor Lynn Sacco gives a presentation about how ideas of gender vary from society to society during her “Drag Theory” lecture presented during Sex Week. Will Clifft • The Daily Beacon
Knoxville Food Tours showcases local restaurants Sam Kennedy
Staff Writer
Knoxville is known for a lot of things, but its up-and-coming food industry might not be the first to come to mind. Paula Johnson, creator of the Knoxville Food Tours, has led over 500 Food Tours with over 5,000 guests since 2010. Each week, Johnson takes people on tours throughout downtown Knoxville and teaches them the history of Knoxville, while taking them to different restaurants.
“We wanted to have an event that showcases the city and the food of the city, because I think that’s how a lot of people learn about the culture,” Johnson said. “I know a lot of bigger cities have these tours, so I figured we should too.” People can choose to take a tour in the morning, afternoon or evening, as well as choosing between two different tours entirely, with different transportation and location. There are walking tours that take place in downtown Knoxville, where Johnson does a narration of the history of the city and talks about the buildings and architecture. Then,
there is a driving tour that takes place in the historic downtown area in the Bearden district. During the tour, the groups make stops at different restaurants. At each stop, guests are able to taste a sample of the food and ask questions. The tours are interactive and generally last about two and a half hours. People are also able to schedule a private or custom tour. This can be useful for local clubs or businesses. Aside from tourists, the tour also takes a lot of UT students and their parents when they come to visit. This gives families something to do while they are in Knoxville and a chance to see the city. “I started this business when all the restorations in Knoxville happened,” Johnson said. “There are a lot of locals who come on tours because they haven’t been downtown in a while, so that’s fun.” The restaurants that the tour stops at changes periodically. Additionally, Johnson has about 15-20 different partners that help out, including Visit Knoxville, Bistro at the Bijou, Tupelo Honey Café, The Melting Pot and the Blue Slip Winery. As an East Tennessee native, Johnson has made herself an expert on Knoxville history and its different hole-in-the-wall restaurants. Aside from hosting tours, she also speaks at different engagements for neighborhood associations and judges local cooking competitions.
Outside of the culinary world, Johnson has been active in preserving the history of Knoxville as a member of the East Tennessee Historical Society, the Candoro Arts & Heritage Center and the Museum of Appalachia. She has also been a member of the Knoxville Symphony League and founded the TN Marble Society, dedicated to educating the public about the history and significance of the Tennessee marble industry in the development of Knoxville. Laney Palmieri, director of Visitor Services for Knoxville, has worked with Johnson and the Knoxville Food Tours for years. “I think having a food tour is a great way to showcase local spots in Knoxville,” Palmieri said. “Any chance you can get people to do more than they planned to do, only opens an opportunity for them to not only discover more about our wonderful Knoxville but usually makes them crave more.” Although Palmieri has never personally been on one of Johnson’s tours, many of her staff members have been on at least one. “They all really enjoyed learning more about the various restaurants showcased on the tour, along with other stories given on the tour,” Palmieri said. If you are interested in learning more about Knoxville’s history and its up and coming food industry, go to knoxvillefoodtours.com to sign up for a tour.
ARTS&CULTURE
Tuesday, April 5, 2016 • The Daily Beacon
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Lecture examines sexuality in animals Megan Patterson Arts & Culture Editor For groups of Bonobo monkeys, sex is the only way to make up after a fight. It’s also a way to bond with friends or just get your rocks off — whether guy on guy, girl on girl or plain old guy on girl copulation. The myth that animals never display same-sex sexual interactions was just one of the many topics addressed at Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences Theresa Lee’s Sex Week lecture Monday night. “Do animals show same-sex orientation in their behavior or same-sex behavior? Yes. Do we know what it means? No,” Lee said. “It could mean lots of different things, but the idea that they never do this is clearly wrong.” Along with same-sex sexual behaviors, mammals have also been reported to display sexual assault, such as with elephant seals, female control of sexual interaction, experimentally observed in rats, and sex purely for social bonding. In addition to addressing common myths
about animal sexuality, Lee explained a specific study on the effect of hormone injections on Suffolk sheep. The purpose of this experiment was to observe the intersection of sex and gender, and Lee began by defining the two terms as biological fact and psychological identity, respectively. All males have one of each sex chromosome, X and Y, and all females have two X’s. However, Lee showed that hormone injections at a certain time during fetal development can produce different sexual mentalities and physical appearances, regardless of chromosomes. Pregnant sheep were injected with testosterone from day 30-90 during fetal development (T30-90) and another group received testosterone injections from day 60-90 (T60-90). A third group received anti-testosterone injections (DHT) which did not allow production of that hormone in the fetus. The physical results on female offspring were the appearance of a penis and scrotal sack in the T30-90 group and infertility. The T60-90 group had mostly female genitalia but impaired fertility. Then the DHT
treated females had a penis and scrotal sack as well, along with infertility. Contrary to these physical attributes, DHT and T60-90 sheep exhibited almost no preference to a male mentality and DHT sheep mated almost exclusively with the male sex. On the other hand, T30-90 sheep behaved almost exclusively like a male sheep, despite nonfunctional male organs and a lack of male sex chromosomes. T60-90 sheep occupied what Lee called a “bisexual category.” “They will go between a female in estrous and try to mount her, and then a male will come along and mount her. Those will get pregnant,” Lee said. “The same biological treatment will give sheep with different modes of behavior, and those correlate with rank.” Rank, or social interaction, was what Lee said determined whether or not these different female sheep took on a male or female role. This took the form of behavioral conditioning during the sheep’s development. A video was shown of a T-30-90 female
sheep mounting and mating with a DHT female sheep. “Both have a penis, but one thinks it’s a female and engages in every single behavior a normal female would and one is a high ranking female, who has had testosterone and has grown up actually outranking a good number of males,” Lee said. Zach Plaster, senior in communications, came to the lecture with the goal of “getting a scientific perspective, learning about how similar we are to other animals and learning that our species really isn’t that different, even in terms of something that we view so human as sexuality.” Plaster said that he enjoyed the lecture although it mostly confirmed things he had previously thought regarding animal sexuality. The takeaway for what this experiment proved on sheep was clear, but as to what it means for humans, Lee said further study was needed. “The data tells us that humans are not unique, but it does not easily tell us if we behave in the same ways for the same reasons,” Lee said.
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VIEWPOINTS
The Daily Beacon • Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Letter to the Editor: Sex Week “Let’s talk about sex.” This is a fitting opening for what I am about to write, both because of the topic and the events that have prompted it: UT’s annual “Sex Week.” I’ll get straight to the point: this week and this conversation shouldn’t even be happening. This is a topic which, as a general rule, has a place only between a husband and a wife in the privacy of their home and between parents and their children when they reach an appropriate age. Many of you will probably simply put this article down at this point. I challenge you to read on, especially if you claim to be “open-minded” and if you really do want to have a dialogue about sex. Why does sex occur? In animals and plants, it is for reproduction and the continuation of the species. It is instinctive, often occurring at certain times of the year. With humans, another factor plays into the mix: our capacity for reason and feeling. We have instinct as well, but we are also given an ability to take pleasure in our actions and a reason to govern how we seek pleasure. Sex for humans has two ends: the procreation of new life, and the mutual love and pleasure of husband and wife. The only proper use of sex, where both of these purposes are fulfilled,
is in the married state. In this state, a man and a woman commit to each other exclusively and help each other raise their children: the results of their sexual sharing. When human sex is so performed as to exclude any of these elements, it becomes an evil that leads to further evils. Sex solely for reproduction (though this is rarely an issue) excludes the love and care that is necessary for the spouse and children. Sex outside of marriage has the same effect and often leads to poverty and other struggles that are more likely to be avoided in a solid family. But the most common degradation of sex is sex for pleasure. This is something that only humans are capable of, because only humans have the intellect and reason to find pleasure in our acts. This misuse both degrades those involved because no true love or commitment is present (making one person a mere object of the other’s pleasure) and leads to serious physical consequences such as STDs. Sex Week at UT falls under the last evil: reducing sex to a pleasure trip. The emphasis is on how to get maximum “pleasure” out of sex, and there is no stress that sex must be reserved for marriage. It’s
Finding the usefulness in SGA Jarrod Nelson Socialized
What in your life is useless? I’m sure that wherever you’re reading this column at, whether it be on the bus, at your house or around a table with your friends while you all laugh at my clever witticisms and say “this kid’s going places” multiple times as you all chomp on cigars, there are things around you that you probably don’t need or would describe as useless if I really pressed you on it. Of course, no one really presses you on it because if capitalism pressed you on that it’d be the equivalent of giving someone a chocolate cake and saying “hey that’ll make you fat.” Which it will, but that’s not the point. The point is that there are certainly things that we don’t need in this life that we have. Whether it’s five copies of the same book (Goblet of Fire, of course) or having three different versions of “Blade Runner”on your shelf at home because while the Director’s Cut is obviously the only true interpretation of the film, the Theatrical Release has some value that shouldn’t be entirely overlooked. But then there are those things in life that you don’t necessarily need, but gain a lot of value when you use them, and when you don’t use them things can get ugly fast. A lot of times these things can get lumped in with other “useless” things like the four copies of all three seasons of “Hannibal” I have lying around. Think things like “ohhhh blenders.” Bank
accounts. Cheese graters. Student Government Association. One of these things is not like the other, I know. When I first came to UT, I wanted to join SGA. I didn’t because I got distracted joining other things, and it’s probably a good thing because if I had joined I a) wouldn’t be able to write this column right now and b) probably would have been so obnoxious as to have columns written about me, which is only half of what I want to be. As I was looking into joining SGA though, all I heard from people outside of SGA is that it was useless. Pointless. Nothing ever got done and they had no real impact. Sure there were presentations by SGA members and even the president talking about that aggressively impenetrable committee structure and all of the real legislation that past SGA’s had passed, but the lion share of that info was clearly not penetrating into the larger student body. I think that’s a problem that has persisted since I arrived. I for one happen to think that SGA is not useless. I think it provides a vital voice for students to communicate to administration in an organized and impactful ways. I think it allows students to at the very least officially agree or disagree with university policy regardless if it can stop said policy from being implemented or not. I think it has passed some truly impactful legislation in the past and is an important
about “feeling good,” and not about true love and care for the other person. Furthermore, the fact that it is a dialogue that is occurring outside of marriage or parent/child rearing is also wrong. We are college students. We should be here to get an education, not a sex education (that is supposed to occur between parent and child). Sex should not ever be a possibility or even a topic of discussion. In closing, I will say that this is a very broad overview of the main points of a very complicated topic. Practically every sentence I have written could be the topic of its own article. What I have done is provide a brief but solid overview of the issue and why there is no call for a dialogue of this nature. Sex Week at UT is not only unnecessary, it is wrong. We should be spending our time here as students learning how to build, teach, and discover. Sex education can be dealt with at home one home time. William J. Kazyak Master’s Candidate – Piano Pedagogy (870) 623-2481 wkazyak@vols.utk.edu
part of making our university into a Top 25 public institution. But it does have problems. Mainly communication and PR problems. Accomplishments are not effectively communicated and “representatives” are largely unknown. Campaign laws are ridiculously strict and keep the entire process feeling rather impersonal and rushed. It is also seen as being largely monopolized by Greek students and not very representative of the university as a whole. However, problems don’t make something useless. The way you make something useless useful is to, well, use it. So as campaigns really kick off this week and the timetable accelerates into the actual election, and results on Thursday, be sure to inform yourself and actually USE SGA. If we want it to be taken seriously then the best way to do that is to take it seriously. To make it into an integral part of being at this university, instead of that cheese grater you may use once or twice a semester. Please go, learn and vote. And be sure to watch my show, “Socialized,” which will be up online at The Daily Beacon’s website next Monday. That’s actually happening. It’s not a joke. Even though that was a shameless plug. Jarrod Nelson is a sophomore in public relations and can be reached at jnelso47@vols.utk.edu.
Columns of The Daily Beacon are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or the Beacon’s editorial staff.
VIEWPOINTS
Tuesday, April 5, 2016 • The Daily Beacon
Learning about sex on your own Adam Weatherell Dreaming of Dolly
What is hooking up? Can anyone give me a clear and concise definition of what it means to, “hook up?” Because the dogwoods are finally blooming and my young American blood is boiling, so that must mean one thing: it’s Sex Week time in Tennessee — a week so scandalous, that its been described as “horrifically disturbing” by our state legislators. Now, you should go for a myriad of reasons, the most crucial one being just to spite the idiots who would rather spend money on stickers than diversity initiatives, but for reals. College is a time of selfexploration and education, and I’d be hard pressed to find a more inclusive education experience that what SEAT has whipped out this go around. The schedule can be found by pandering turquoise t-shirted college kids who only want to make you more knowledgeable. It’s also online. Just google “Sex Week UT.” It’s right before all the Fox News articles that seek to metaphorically slam Sex Week into the ground/bed. Sex Week plug aside, I wanted to take this moment to reflect on what it means to develop personal opinions and understandings that are dramatically different than those from the people that raised you — the people that raised me being two white people from Montgomery, Alabama who were actually raised by two black people, also of Montgomery. Think “The Help” — one of Starla Dawn’s, my mother and 1978 Miss Congeniality at the Opp Rattlesnake Rodeo, favorite books.
A couple of weeks ago, I nestled around the kitchen table with my family, speculating as to my future, when my mom and dad were all, “but what are you gonna DO?” Apparently, they were pretty dissatisfied with my plan of moving to the city and pursuing my life long dream of pop stardom. So I reiterated the pop stardom answer, but this time I said I would be an escort. It was clearly in jest. I mean, I peppered it with puns! Ralph n’ Starla were not having it. “I just don’t know you anymore. It’s that school filling your head with those ideas!” Yep, you caught me. America’s #14 most unfriendly LGBT school is actually a bastion amongst its peers, promoting critical thinking, problem solving and selling your body to the old fat men on Tinder. GO VOLS, amirite? It’s probably because they still watch cable, but their understanding of my education seems triflingly limited in this context. My liberal ideas of sexual nature do not come from the gender-inclusive-slamming university that gives me a weekly-published platform to spew my ideas (thanks, btw), but rather from my own cognitive development and from the peer group I have built for myself. Sex is thrown at us almost every day. Have you seen cable lately? I can’t begin to understand these moralist killjoys toting abstinence and purity when ABC is feeding me prime time bootys. Also, the nature of sex in relationships has evolved. I’m not sure if kids invented casual sex, but like white
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people and RnB, they sure do like it. Casual sex has become the pathway to a relationship. Sex has become the precursor to intimacy and affection, not a function of it. It pays to have a working knowledge of it, because generationally speaking, it’s not going away anytime soon. Lastly, sexual empowerment has been a defining part of my personal discovery because being gay is in itself a form of sexual deviance. I will never have the SEC love story that my parents share, so forgive me if I choose to deviate. I was raised in a wealthy white hell hole with great grass, great hair and huge churches. Deviation becomes me. So, this is all to say that you should totes go learn about yourself this week, and not feel bad when your parents start to wonder who you’ve become. If they ask, just bless them with the Holy Spear-it and play her smash 2001 hit “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman.” Just maybe don’t preface it with your plans to be an escort. Maybe. GO Vols! P.S. My parents and I still have a really positive relationship and I really like them and I know they really like me, and as long as we don’t talk about anything in depth or detail I know it will stay that way. Adam Weatherell is a junior in political science and Africana studies. He can be reached at aweath10@ vols.utk.edu.
Earth Month is for everyone, not just treehuggers Franco D’Aprile
Erica Davis Two Treehuggers with an Ax
Franco: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet ... Erica: Enough with the clichés, it’s time for us environmentalists to rave about Earth Day. So not to be cliché or anything, but ... we’re writing about Earth Month. Get ready to hold onto your f@$*%ng hat, because you’re about to get so green you’ll make The Giving Tree look like a dried up orange on top of a heap of garbage ( ... Donald Trump, is that you?). Though celebrations of our Earth go back to ancient rituals in times when people were much more closely connected to the land, the first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970, thanks to founder Gaylord Nelson, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin. Earth Day was celebrated every April 22 after that, and now we even get to enjoy an entire month of earth-based activities, service projects and more. We know what some of you may be thinking, “Shouldn’t every month be Earth Month?” And to that person we would say, “Of course! Who do you think we are? But calm down a second, April just started and you’re already bumming everyone out ...” Because the truth is, not everyone is as interested in our planet as we are. And while we think that everyone should be, we are realistic enough to understand that some people have other things they’re thinking about. But that’s exactly why Earth Month is so important.
It’s a time when we get to remind our friends, peers and family members to pay attention to our planet without being annoying, because now you have a great excuse to do it. April is full of events that can make people aware of the little things that can help the environment. Maybe your mom isn’t a die-hard treehugger, but you could still take her to the farmers’ market, and she may find something she loves to do while being environmentally friendly and helping out local farmers. Your roommate may be a stick in the mud, but maybe she loves being in the water and that creek cleanup you’re going to next week still needs volunteers. And perhaps your classmate threw that glass bottle in the wrong bin because he just didn’t know it could be recycled; a gentle nudge from you could turn him into a first-rate recycler. An important feature of Earth Month is that it is about much more than the Earth. No well-rounded environmentalist only cares about the soil, water and air that sustains us; we also care about the intersectionality of environmentalism, women’s rights and racial injustices that are perpetuated daily. For example, women have always found a leadership role in the fight for a better planet, such as Lois Gibbs of the Love Canal tragedy. Furthermore, in the Global South, women play a vastly more prominent role in the management of natural resources and therefore have a more profound knowledge of the world around them.
Imagery of Mother Earth further makes the connection between women and the planet — though gender norms can of course be problematic. Take time to celebrate women as you celebrate the Earth this April. We also can’t fight for environmental justice without fighting for racial equality. Some of you may remember the 2008 Kingston coal ash spill, when a TVA slurry impoundment burst and leaked tons of toxic waste into the Emory and Clinch Rivers and surrounding area. As part of the clean-up of this disaster, the coal ash slurry was packed up and shipped to a low-income, predominantly black neighborhood in Alabama — a blatant example of environmental racism. As you celebrate the Earth this month, don’t forget to remember those who are disproportionately burdened by our planetary crisis, and be creative about ways to stand in solidarity with them as we all work together for a better tomorrow. We believe that there is something in Earth Month for everyone, so there’s no reason not to make it a priority to take action in the next few weeks and have a positive impact on campus, in the community and in the world. Franco D’Aprile is a senior in political science and sustainability, and Erica Davis is a senior in environmental sociology. They can be reached at fradapr@ vols.utk.edu and spz839@vols.utk.edu.
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ARTS&CULTURE
The Daily Beacon • Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Sylvia Turner lectures on famous feminists Megan Patterson Arts & Culture Editor Nearly three decades ago, KimberlĂŠ Crenshaw developed intersectional theory, the study of overlapping social identities and related systems of oppression, domination or discrimination. Today, Sylvia Turner believes it remains just that — a theory — rather than anything in practice. For this reason, Turner centered her Monday afternoon lecture on “Famousâ€? feminists around those who have either gone unacknowledged due to their additional social identities outside of being a feminist or supported those in that category. In her opinion, early feminist material such as “The Feminine Mystiqueâ€? provided a very exclusive definition of feminism and a broader conceptual framework must be established. Crenshaw was one of those feminists Turner chose to honor because of her work on the intersection between feminism and other minority identities. However, she was not the only feminist and activist to take this approach.
Turner chose Bell Hooks and Angela Davis as her first two feminists because of their activism in promoting racial justice within a feminist sphere. Hooks introduced the idea that all oppression, including white supremacism, held links to feminism, not just sexism. On the same spectrum, Davis advocated against racism in the criminal justice system and originally refrained from identifying as a feminist, a title she saw as furthering racial oppression. Turner’s next two “famousâ€? feminists held direct ties to the Civil Rights Movement, but their names are not as well known as those of the movement’s other leaders. “I believe Martin Luther King Jr. earned his national holiday ‌,â€? Turner said. “But there are two people who, if not for their status, I believe we would be celebrating, if not instead of, at least alongside MLK.â€? These feminists are Pauli Murray and Bayard Rustin. Murray worked through the legal system to fight for racial equality and social liberties. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cites Murray as an honorary coauthor on her brief for “Reed v. Reedâ€? ruling that administrators of
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estates cannot be named in a way that discriminates by sex. Additionally, Turner said that Murray was “truly decades ahead of her time� in her identification as gender non-conforming from as far back as the 1930s. Rustin expanded the sexual identity of feminists even further as an openly gay feminist in the 1960s. He believed that feminism was not taken far enough and needed to be linked to a broader political context. President Obama posthumously awarded Rustin with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for Rustin’s organization of the march on Washington for jobs and freedom in 1963. Peggy McIntosh represents the only white women on Turner’s list because of her published list of 50 effects of white privilege. Turner said McIntosh’s list “shows what it (white privilege) looks like in basic form and on a daily basis.� McIntosh went on to analyze other social advantages afforded to different groups, including sex. The intersection between social groups within justice movements was also explored by another feminist on Turner’s list, Barbara Smith. Audre Lorde, self-identified lesbian, socialist and feminist, is the last singular
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person identified in Turner’s presentation for her work on establishing the idea of black female identity. “More than anyone, Audre Lorde taught me that my silence would not protect me,â€? Turner said. #SAYHERNAME concluded Turner’s list. This hashtag currently shares stories of police brutality against black women and the gender specific violence they experience. Following her lecture, Turner asked for the audience members to share their own “famousâ€? feminists, who included Laverne Cox, Amandla Stenberg, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Dorothy Smith. To Geoffrey Hervey, member of the SEAT executive board, this lecture was particularly important because of his background as an only child to a single mother. “The biggest influence in my life has been my mother,â€? Hervey said. “Feminism, particularly intersectional feminism because we’re African-American, has been pretty crucial in my life and growing up ‌ I really appreciated her intersectional approach to feminism and being more comprehensive and having a broader framework of feminism.â€?
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PUZZLES&GAMES
Tuesday, April 5, 2016 • The Daily Beacon
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Get Fuzzy• Darby Conley
NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD • Will Shortz ACROSS “Put a tiger in your tank” brand 5 One watching very, very closely 9 Egyptian vipers 13 Theater ticket price factor 14 Bread spread 15 Like the Parthenon 16 Tri and tri again? 17 Ooze 18 Fine Cremona violin 19 2000-03 Disney Channel series with Shia LaBeouf 22 Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall” 23 Pigeon’s perch 24 High-stress hosp. area 25 Follower of wye 26 Daredevil who survived more than 400 bone fractures 31 Not socially acceptable 35 Dawn goddess 36 Advil competitor 37 Oil-producing matter in shale S I M I A N I C E A G E B O N M O T S N U B L I M S E L A S C A L A O R E N O K V O X L E A I M P E I G N A I V E T E S I R E I O T A A S P H O N E B O A I L W A N D O S E G G
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I’m Not a Hipster• John McAmis
Cartoons of The Daily Beacon are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or the Beacon’s editorial staff.
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User names on Twitter Each and ___ Extension for the White House website Number two: Abbr. Place to buy a Slurpee Like most Twizzlers Accept, as losses “Eek!” Watergate monogram 1950 Bette Davis film hinting at something found 15 times in this puzzle Chat up at a bar, say Missing, militarily W.W. II British gun 56-Down opener Some shortening ___ Health magazine Throws in Affirmations to captains Art Deco designer of the 1920s and ’30s
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SPORTS
The Daily Beacon • Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Wrestlemania proved WWE needs to focus on future
Lucas Hunter Beyond the Hill
Over 100,000 people flocked to Dallas this weekend for WrestleMania 32, the most fun event in sports entertainment that’s actually not that fun. That’s not a slight at the WrestleMania event itself, just sports entertainment. You have to buy into wrestling to make it fun, and if you decide you do not want to enjoy wrestling, you never will. Decide to look over the flaws of a scripted event and realize that someone getting thrown through a table is fun. The theatrics of wrestling make it worthwhile. Give me someone who captures audience with his or her walk; someone the crowd goes berserk for without any encouragement from the announcers. Instead, we ended up with Roman Reigns as the WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Reigns is not fun, charismatic or really that entertaining, but that’s a common complaint for the intended audience of WrestleMania. In an effort to finally draw a classic match with the members of the old-guard — The Attitude Era that everyone loves the most – Reigns was booked with Triple H for a main event. Reigns proceeded to not be captivating at all. Instead, the lovable Dean Ambrose suffered 13
— THIRTEEN — suplexes from Brock Lesnar. Ambrose, fan favorite, lost again after very recently getting pulverized by Triple H on Raw. Getting a match on the sport’s biggest stage is a great place to be within the organization, but that just highlights one of the flaws that came to the surface during the weekend. You’re not allowed to be a legend until you beat a legend, who never loses. The idea of passing-the-torch is so blurred: we want the next person to prove they deserve to be the alpha, but by the time they finally sway the crowd to love them, the original torchbearer is washed-up. The WWE made a good move by putting a new wrestler on top, unfortunately they made a mistake by making Reigns that wrestler. Letting Reigns win was the correct strategy, even if the end result was mediocre. More examples of the main problem existed this weekend: The Undertaker should never lose at WrestleMania, despite the fact that it was the right call to let Lesner beat him two years ago. John Cena made an appearance. The Rock came out and set the audience aflame with his presence alone.
Letting the legends and memories of a more fondly remembered time take the stage is fine if all you’re trying to do is keep the same fans you had in 2001. What if you treated those same guys the way you treat the upcoming wrestlers of today? What if the Rock was booted around the ring by Hulk Hogan for the first stint of career instead of delivering The People’s Elbow? Would he and his flamethrower have been the most electrifying part of this year’s show? We will never know, but if the legends of today were treated the way the new kids on the block are treated now, the legends would not have been the biggest draw of WrestleMania 32. WWE, it’s time to let the entertainers of today win. Start growing a new fandom before you current fan-base dies of old age. Lucas Hunter is a sophomore in journalism & electronic media and can be reached at lhunter9@ vols.utk.edu.
TRACK & FIELD
Blaase, Coleman qualify for Olympic trials Shane Switzer Staff Writer Tennessee added two more athletes to the growing number going to the Olympic trials. On Friday, 2,726 miles apart from each other, Christian Coleman and Chelsea Blaase punched their tickets to the Olympic trials. Head coach Beth Alford-Sullivan was excited but also reserved. “We don’t really worry too much about what’s going to happen in the Olympic Games this summer,” Alford-Sullivan said. “It’s great to see them performing at that level and to see them competing at an elite level in our sport.” Blaase, along with earning a spot at trials, smashed her own school record in the 10,000 meters. Blaase ran a 32:08.39 at the Stanford Invitational, which breaks her personal best and previous school record of 32:28. Blaase will not run in the 10K again until the championship portion of the season starts in May with the SEC Championships. Last season, Blaase earned All-American honors in the 10K. Blaase is No. 2 nationally behind Courtney Smith of Harvard. Smith ran a 32:08.32 at the Stanford Invitational. To qualify for the Olympic trials in the 100
meters, the time to beat is 10.16. At the Florida Relays, Coleman hit 10.16. Unlike Blaase, though, Coleman will have plenty of chances to improve that time. “That’s a great opener, and from what I understand, he has room for improvement,” Alford-Sullivan said. “It wasn’t a perfect race for him. I think you’ll continue to see him progress through the season.” The time is also a new personal record for Coleman in the event. Coleman was the top collegiate finisher at the Florida Relays and is currently No. 4 in the nation in the 100. Coleman is the top SEC runner in the 100. Other Vols put in strong performances over the weekend as well. For the women, Felecia Majors posted a time of 23.01 in the 200 meters. Both the 4x100 and the 4x400 meters relay teams performed nicely for the women as well. The 4x1 ran a time of 43.45 while the 4x4 ran 3:31.29. “We ran great 4x2s and very, very good openers in the 4x4s,” Alford-Sullivan said. The women’s 4x4 placed fourth behind Florida, Kentucky and South Carolina. The 4x2 was the top collegiate finisher, and the 4x1 also placed fourth with one non-collegiate team ahead of it. The men’s 4x2 was fifth, and the 4x4 finished third at the Florida Relays. The 4x1 had trouble getting the baton around and did not score a
time. Individually for the men, Nathan Strother and Ari Cogdell posted solid times in the 400 meter. 46.18 for Strother and 46.45 for Cogdell. “A whole bunch down at Florida went well for this early season kind of competition,” Alford-Sullivan said. Jake Blankenship has yet to compete during the early portion of the outdoor season after suffering an injury at the tail end of the indoor season. Blankenship, who has also qualified for the Olympic trials, is said to be feeling better and is ready to compete again. “I think we’ll see him over the next couple of weeks open up his outdoor season as well,” AlfordSullivan said. Tennessee was scheduled to host its annual Tennessee Relays this weekend at Tom Black Track, but due to continued construction and renovation of the track and its facilities, that event has been cancelled this season. Instead, Tennessee will train through this week and return to action at the Seminole Relays April 15 and 16.
Chelsea Blaase is one of the track and field members partaking in qualifying trials for the Olympics. • File Photo
SPORTS
Tuesday, April 5, 2016 • The Daily Beacon
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SOFTBALL
The 2015 softball team gathers before a game • File Photo
“
Vols hope to clean up mistakes in midweek game on Tuesday David Bradford Staff Writer
Before its weekend series against the No. 11 ranked Texas A&M Aggies, the Tennessee softball team will square off against the Kennesaw State Owls at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium on Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET. This will be the Vols’ fourth game against an Atlantic Sun Conference opponent this season. Tennessee (2710, 7-5 SEC) previously defeated North Florida, Jacksonville and Lipscomb by a combined score of 26-5. The Vols hope to bounce back after dropping back-to-back games on the road this past weekend to Missouri. Against non-SEC opponents this season, Tennessee is 22-5 and possess an unblemished 13-0 record at home. Logan Viers leads Kennesaw State (21-15, 5-4 A-Sun) on the mound with
a 10-3 record and 1.67 ERA over 100.2 innings pitched. However, the Owls struggle to make contact on the offensive end, batting only .264 as a team. Against teams hitting under .300, the Vols are 21-1 on the year. Junior Megan Geer hasn’t struggled to make contact all season, batting a team-leading .396 heading into Tuesday night. Geer’s success at the plate comes despite a constant change of scenery in the order and on the defense. Ralph co-head coach, and Karen Weekly, head coach initially wanted either freshmen Brooke Vines or Aubrey Leach to command the leadoff slot while Geer sat comfortably at the third spot, but due to her experience, the Weekly’s have increasingly relied on Geer to start the order. These two programs have only met once in the past. Last year, the Vols
secured a 13-5 run-rule victory over Kennesaw State at the KSU Classic in Kennesaw, Georgia. Geer finished that game 1-of-3 with two RBIs. Matty Moss will more than likely earn the start on the mound for Tennessee in a concentrated effort by the Weekly’s to ramp up her innings. Moss impressed Karen Weekly with her performance on Sunday against Mizzou. “She got our first strikeouts of the game,” Weekly said. “So she was getting swings and misses. It was really good to get her out there … We need to get her in more innings.” Mistakes on the defensive side has been the theme of the season. Before facing another ranked conference foe, Weekly looks for the mistakes to be cleaned up sooner rather than later. “We just need to keep working at the defense,” Weekly said. “We need to eliminate the mistakes.”
We just need to keep working at the defense. We need to eliminate the mistakes.” Karen Weekly, Softball Coach
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The Daily Beacon • Tuesday, April 5, 2016
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WHAT IT IS
Friends2Follow is a live stream of social media posts from around both the UTK campus and Knoxville, placed on the UTDailyBeacon.com home page, which attracts thousands of views every day! Bring your message to the Volunteer community in real-time. Whether you’re a restaurant posting about today’s lunch special or a student club promoting an event, it all happens in seconds - getting your post in front of the audience. It’s easy and there’s no extra work for you. Your social media posts automatically feed into our Friends2Follow widget. Plus, the Friends2Follow widget is not affected by adblockers!
HOW IT WORKS You make regular posts to your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc). Whenever you make a post, it is automatically displayed at the top of our Friends2Follow widget on UTDailyBeacon.com, exposing your post to visitors our site receives every day.
Contact the Daily Beacon Sales department at 865.974.5206 to sign up now!
11 Communications Building University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-0314 Phone: 865-974-5206 / Fax: 865-974-5569 E-mail: beaconads@utk.edu
@UTDailyBeacon www.utdailybeacon.com