DEFINING DIVERSITY
CHAT ROULETTE
SWEET STROKE
With so much emphasis on diversity, what does it really mean?
The pros and cons of the internet phenomenon
Missionaries defeat Willamette and Lewis and Clark in Northwest Conference play
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WHITMAN COLLEGE Walla Walla, WA Volume CXXVI Issue 7 whitmanpioneer.com M ,
Methods questioned after tech security test
Trustees approve major Harper Joy renovation
What’s in a name:
Whitman has name in common with residential college at Princeton
by MOLLY SMITH
by JOCELYN RICHARD
Editor-in-Chief
News Editor
During the week of March 1, approximately 35 Whitman faculty and staff received a USB drive accompanied by a letter advertising the drive as a new version of Facebook and promising a $25 Amazon gift card for those who downloaded the drive’s contents. According to Chief Technology Officer Keiko Pitter, the test was not designed to record the names of faculty or staff members who downloaded the contents, but rather to determine the number of people who took part in the phishing scam. The USB drives were issued as part of Whitman’s Office of Technology annual security audit of the college’s technology systems through Secure Network, a New York-based firm that provides security consulting for banks, government agencies and large universities. According to Pitter, Whitman is one of the few small colleges that uses this firm. “All the current literature of the last couple of years indicates that it’s no longer the technology that allows intrusion but personal error,” said Pitter. She commented that people make themselves vulnerable to intrusion by getting deceived by phishing scams and giving out personal information. According to Pitter, phishing poses a real threat to the college’s technology systems. Within the last 18 months, approximately 70 Whitman e-mail users were tricked into giving out their usernames and passwords by phishing scams. “Over 100,000 e-mails were launched from our site [as a result of these scams] and our domain name was blacklisted by other schools and organizations who did not want to receive spam from our site,” said Pitter. The Office of Technology Services is still dealing with the effects of this particular phishing scam. WCTS, page 2
President Bridges met with Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman last week during a trip across the country. In addition to discussing the economy and interdisciplinary studies, the colleagues spoke as part of a conversation about the establishment of a residential college at Princeton that has a name in common with Whitman. In 2007, Princeton debuted Whitman College, a residential college named after Princeton alumnus and former eBay President and CEO Meg Whitman, who donated $30 million for the creation of the college. “I had a great meeting with President Tilghman and we talked about Whitman College and the origination of the name of their new residential college, which is also named Whitman College,” said Bridges. Bridges explained that Princeton’s system of undergraduate housing is based on the British organizational model which divides the university into separate “colleges” that house undergraduate students for the duration of their time at the University. At Princeton and about 30 other American institutions that incorporate the system, each residential college is presided over by a master, a dean and a network of academic advisers and directors of student life. “Depending upon the school, they’re typically residential communities with separate dining facilities and limited academic programs,” Bridges said. “I wanted to learn about the name of Princeton’s college and see first-hand how similar or dissimilar it was to ours. Obviously we want to be knowledgeable about Princeton’s Whitman as we think about how we describe our college.” Bridges noted that people in Washington state and elsewhere have confused PRINCETON, page 2
BULLION The renovated Harper Joy Theatre will echo the appearance of nearby Penrose Library. Construction is set to begin this summer and the project is scheduled to be completed by Fall 2011. Proposed project concept rendering provided by THA Architecture, Portland, Ore.
by NATE LESSLER Staff Reporter
Harper Joy Theatre is about to get an overhaul thanks to a decision from the Board of Trustees last month to approve a $7-7.5 million renovation. Construction—which will include a new black box theater, costume shop, rigging system and faculty offices—will begin this summer. Harper Joy was built in 1959 and renovated most recently in 1984. The upcoming renovations, which will last 15 months and are projected to be completed in time for the fall 2011 semester, are being completed by THA Architecture, the same firm that designed Penrose Library and The New Theatre for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. Thomas Hines, chair of the theater department, says the new round of renovations are needed. “Our facility is aging and incapable of supporting new trends in producing theater,” he said. “A major renovation in 2010 is not only justified as required maintenance, it is required for the continued success and growth of a traditionally successful Whitman program.”
The Whitman men earned their first victory of the season last Sunday against the University of Puget Sound on their own home field, taking the Loggers out 2-1. This came after a crushing Saturday, where the Missionaries gave up eleven runs and the lead in the ninth-inning of their first game of their double header to lose 18-12, and were deftly defeated the following game, 11-4. The last few years of the Whitman baseball program has seen its share of tough losses. After finishing last season at the bottom of the conference, the only direction the team could go was up and this past weekend reflected the changes that this year’s team has to offer. With a new season, new coach and new team in full swing, the Missionaries earned their first win last Sunday after a weekend home series against the University of Puget Sounds Loggers. Returning after taking a break last season, senior Mitch Hannoosh has seen a transformation in the Whitman baseball team. “This is a completely different team
While serious talks of renovations have been going on for roughly three years, concerns about the current facility and requests for improvements have been voiced for almost a decade. “We have long needed a new black box theater,” said Hines of the current Friemann Stage, which seats no more than 80. Because of the small capacity of the current black box, tickets for shows in this performance space, such as the One Act Play Festival, often sell out within one or two days of going on sale. The new black box theater will seat about twice as many people, while the current
The price per meal on a meal plan is as high as $13.13, 77 percent higher than the $7.42 average cost for a dining hall meal purchased with flex dollars. by JOCELYN RICHARD News Editor
BOWMAN
Missionaries end 12game losing streak Staff Reporter
• Renovations include a new rigging system, black box theater, costume shop and faculty offices • Projected to cost $7-7.5 million • Construction to start this summer and is projected to finish in time for the Fall 2011 semester
black box will become an acting classroom called “the acting studio.” The renovations will also address the lack of office space in the current facility. Professors with offices that were formerly used as backstage storage or that are presently located in Olin Hall will receive new offices. Other changes include new audience seating for the Alexander Stage, a larger lobby, a new costume shop and an additional rehearsal space for students. Many students have expressed excitement about the planned renovations. “Renovating the theater gives us an opportunity to do more and explore more ways to do art,” said junior theater major Raisa Stebbins in an e-mail. “On the technical side, it gives us leeway to do things safely . . . In addition, the current theater’s structure limits exactly how much we can move and fly. We’ve reached a point where we can’t put more weight on the building, so renovations are seriously key.” Senior Mimi Cook, who wrote a oneact play for this year’s One-Act Play Festival, also expressed excitement. RENOVATION, page 2
Meal plans more costly than flex
After a crushing Saturday loss, in which the men gave up 11 runs in the ninth-inning, the baseball team earned their first victory of the season on Sunday, March 7.
by MELISSA NAVARRO
FAST FACTS
from the one I played on two years ago,” said Hannoosh. During last Saturday's double header, UPS swept Whitman, with a staggering 18-12 loss for the Missionaries in the first game. Senior Joe Rodhouse powered out a lead off homer in the second inning of Game 1. That, followed by eight runs, put Whitman at a far away lead, and stayed that way until the ninth inning. In the top of the ninth, after four consecutive runs with out an out, UPS’s Mark Rockey homered to center field with two men on base, giving the Loggers a 14-12 lead. Game 2 started out with a 1-1 score and stayed that way for the first four innings. Despite a great start by junior pitcher Eric Korsmo, who allowed the Loggers only one hit in the first half of the game, Puget Sound surged in the top of the fifth, scoring nine runs. Whitman inched back in the bottom of the sixth with a home run by sophomore Eric Tolleson and a ground-out RBI by senior Blaine Mercado. Despite that, UPS earned their second win in conference, with an 11-4 victory. BA SEBALL , page 10
Seven dollars and 42 cents is the average cost of a meal purchased with flex dollars in a Whitman dining hall. But for students on Meal Plan A, the default plan for first-years and sophomores, the average price is $13.13—77 percent higher. With tuition on the rise, Whitman students disagree on the extent to which Bon Appétit’s pricing plans are economical considering the relative cheapness of food purchased with flex dollars to meals purchased through a meal plan. Most first-years and sophomores are required to purchase one of Bon Appétit’s five meal plan options. The average price of meals on various plans ranges from $7.58 per meal on Plan C to $13.13 per meal on Plan A, excluding flex dollars, which are included in the cost of certain plans. This inflated price is in part explained by the one-third of the cost of meal plans that goes to the college to pay for employees, utilities, kitchen maintenance and other costs. Flex dollars purchased outside of a meal plan are not subject to those costs. Regardless, the fact that Bon Appétit charges less for dining hall meals purchased with flex dollars than it does for meals purchased on a meal plan is a policy many students disagree with. “Flex dollar price in the dining halls is a discounted amount that is set lower to be an incentive to juniors and seniors who have already lived on campus for two years to come back and eat in the dining halls,” said Roger Edens, general manager of Bon Appétit. For upperclassmen like senior Allison Armstrong, purchasing flex dollars in
place of a meal plan is an attractive option. However, she believes that the price of meals in dining halls seems appropriate considering the service it provides. “I certainly think the flex price is reasonable,” Armstrong said. “I do think Bon Appétit meals are overpriced, but rightly so. Yes, they are overpriced for the amount that you would eat in that single meal, but I think you are also paying for the options and the service.” First-year Lillian Bailey, who is on Meal Plan A, echoed Armstrong’s opinion. She commented that students are paying for more than the cost of meals when they purchase a meal plan. “I think part of what you’re paying for when you’re eating at Bon Appétit is convenience,” said Bailey. “It might be a little bit of a steep price to pay, but I feel like there’s value in that.” Bailey did note, however, that the average price of meals can seem uneconomical when students don’t eat large meals. “Sometimes I think [the price of meals] is slightly unreasonable when all I want to get is a bagel,” Bailey said. Likewise, other students questioned whether Bon Appétit’s meal plans are fairly priced. “Is the food we get worth the price we pay?” asked sophomore Adam Delgado. “I wish [Bon Appétit’s meal plans] were more comprehensive based on need and how often you eat . . . [we need] a less expensive meal plans with fewer meals.” Senior Laura Niman, who is on a flex plan and often eats at Café 66, believes that Bon Appétit’s pricing plan is often unfair for students because it fails to take into account differences in individuals’ eating ME AL S, page 2
Greenhouse gas audit to focus on eliminating emissions by RACHEL ALEXANDER Staff reporter
Whitman has joined colleges across the nation in addressing the global impact of climate change and the threat it poses to humans, animals and ecosystems. To better understand Whitman’s contribution to climate change, as well as potential areas of improvement, a group of students is conducting Whitman’s second annual greenhouse gas audit. “Our focus for this time is to make a list of adjustments to make [Whitman] more carbon neutral,” said sophomore Katie Tackman, who is helping with the audit. Last year’s greenhouse gas audit was a first step in identifying ways to improve Whitman’s carbon footprint. However, many of the numbers used to calculate Whitman’s emissions were based on estimation due to the lack of available data in some areas of the audit. “The hope this year is to continue to do a more comprehensive, detailed audit that it is based on data rather than speculation and projection,” said Jed Schwendiman, associate to the president. “Last year there were several areas that had to be estimated, through no fault of the people who were working on it. But it makes the confidence in the outcome not as solid as one would like.” This year’s audit will be conducted by a group of 15 students, most of whom are involved with Campus Climate Challenge. Five of those students will receive credit for an environmental AUDIT, page 2
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PRINCETON: Name in common not problematic page 1 Whitman with other schools because it has a similar sounding name to a number of others. Whittier College and Whitworth College, for example, are small private colleges like Whitman that are also located in the western United States. “People confuse the name [of Whitman], and they also periodically refer to me as the president of Whitworth,” Bridges said. “Any confusion is problematic because we’re very different schools.” Nadine McQuarrie is an assistant professor of geosciences at Princeton University who graduated from Whitman in 1993. She noted that Whitman is wellknown among members of the Princeton community. “Where I did my undergraduate degree comes up quite a bit in discussions with students,” McQuarrie said. “Almost all of them know about Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington and many have a brother or sister or friend that either applied to the school or is actually attending.” McQuarrie commented that in her experience, few people consider the common name to be a conflict, though some have
expressed concern over the possibility that Whitman’s rank on Internet search engines has decreased since Princeton’s residential college was established. “The only people I know who have raised it as a possible name conflict are Whitman College employees who have a key interest in how Whitman is perceived,” McQuarrie said. “The first instance I heard it spoken of as a conflict was through an alumni coordinator from Whitman at an alumni event. He lamented that you can google Whitman College now and the Princeton residential college comes up.” As McQuarrie noted, however, a search for Whitman College on Google lists Whitman’s homepage and other Web pages related to the College significantly higher on the page than the homepage for Princeton’s residential college. “Even on a Princeton network, Whitman College [Walla Walla] is still first and second and all but two of the listings,” McQuarrie said. The Internet has become an especially important resource for high school students researching potential colleges. David Bittner, a current senior at Acton Boxborough Regional High School in Acton, Mass. plans to attend Whitman next year
as a first-year student. He commented that few students at his high school are familiar with Whitman. “I definitely feel that the vast majority of my friends here have no clue where Walla Walla is or have ever heard of Whitman,” Bittner said. “I found out about Whitman through my brother. He was interested in small liberal arts colleges in the Pacific Northwest and ended up at University of Puget Sound. He looked at Whitman and I happened to be on the tour with him.” On the other hand, Bittner noted that he was unaware of Whitman College at Princeton. “I honestly had no idea of the Princeton Whitman, mostly because I had determined early on in my college search that I didn’t want to be on the east coast for college,” Bittner said. “I feel that more people would know of the Princeton Whitman simply because of the reputation and name recognition that Princeton has.” John Templeton, a member of the Whitman College class of 1973, currently serves as the assistant dean for graduate admissions at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He echoed McQuarrie’s statement, commenting that he does not believe the estab-
Blind dating service debuts by ROSE WOODBURY Staff Reporter
“I thought about it before, but only Heather had enough guts to do it,” said junior Lissa Erickson, regarding the origins of the Whitman Dating Service. Co-founders Erickson and juniors Heather Nichols-Haining and Spring Lonneker were reticent at first to start a free matchmaking service for Whitman students, but were pleasantly surprised when dozens of students signed up and were able to go on first dates this past weekend. The Whitman Dating Service was conceived on impulse after Erickson, NicholsHaining and Lonneker noticed that Whitman students seldom go on casual dates and thought they might benefit from a matchmaking service. Students can e-mail Nichols-Haining, letting her know information about themselves and what they are looking for and the team matches them up with students of similar interest. “It was spur of the moment,” said Nichols-Haining about the service’s invention. “Although a few people have e-mailed me saying, ‘I’ve been thinking of doing this forever.’” Nichols-Haining has received at least 30 e-mails of students who want to go on “blind” dates so far, and she receives more responses everyday. While the first responses came mainly from females, males are now responding on a consistent basis as well. “More people are coming in once they realize other people have [signed up],” she said. Nichols-Haining initially tried to coordinate the dates for people, but now she has so many responses that she only sends the name of the match to the recipients and al-
lows them to coordinate a date from there. The first dates took place this weekend and included trips to local eateries and group dates, among other outings. Sophomore Cameron Michels used the dating service this past weekend to go on a group date. “We went to Sweet Basil. I had fun. I didn’t take it too seriously,” she said. Nichols-Haining and Erickson believe the dating service will open the opportunity for students to expand their social networks. “I feel like people have set friend groups and it’s weird to invite other people in,” said Erickson. Michels and some of her friends agreed. “We think that people at Whitman tend to stay in their groups,” she said. The dating service provides an opportunity for social mixing which otherwise might not take place. “There’s not enough of just meeting people [at Whitman],” said Nichols-Haining. She and Erickson believe the social dynamics at the school contribute to the infrequency of casual dating. “Even when you do [meet someone], you can’t really ask them out,” Erickson said. Some students remain skeptical about
how the dating service fits in with the small size of the school. “I think [the dating service is] kind of silly because Whitman’s so small and you already know people anyway,” said sophomore Anne Bauer. Erickson and NicholsHaining acknowledge the likely
ALDEN potential for running into people met on dates, but they believe that any post-date interaction will not be a big deal. “Hooking up is more effort than just having one coffee with someone,” pointed out Erickson. Nichols-Haining also acknowledged why some people might not want to use the dating service. “It’s not an organic form of dating,” she said. While that may be true, it does not stop some people from using the service. “We just want to make people happy,” said Erickson.
MEALS: Multiple facilities raise food prices page 1 “I think the thing about eating in the dining hall is that it’s expensive because they’re accounting for people in the dining hall that eat a lot of food because it’s all-you-can eat, or for people that take five pieces of fruit out,” Niman said. “And so the people who just have a sandwich are paying $12 for a sandwich.” Junior Matt Coleman agreed with Niman. “I don’t know if [Bon Appétit’s meal plans] are a rip-off,” Coleman said, “but I get sandwiches [at Café 66] sometimes and it’s a lot cheaper than if I got a sandwich at the dining hall. If you go to the dining hall and just want a salad, then you’re paying like $12 for a salad, whereas if you come to Café 66 you can get a pre-packaged salad for $4.” In response to students who share Cole-
man’s concerns, Edens argues that the higher price of meals offered in dining halls is reasonable because it incorporates the cost of maintaining the large number of dining facilities on campus. “The duplicated facilities really increase the overall cost of the Whitman dining program,” said Edens. “Whitman has far more dining facilities than nearly all other colleges its size. While it is very desirable to have a dining facility close to your residence hall a separate full retail café and two espresso bars, it is expensive and this impacts the cost of meal plans.” Whitman’s standard meal plan price of $2,600 per semester is middle of the line compared to nearby Bon Appétit operations at Reed College and Lewis and Clark College. Prices at those colleges are $2,700 and $2,217 per semester, respectively. Edens added that the high cost of Bon Appétit meals plans is determined by other
factors besides the cost of maintaining facilities. “[Costs] depend on such factors as how many students are on meal plans, how many facilities and how many people it takes to run those facilities, the existence of a summer quarter and the extent of summer conferences,” he said. “If it is possible to spread fixed costs between more students or nonstudent sources—summer conferences, on campus and off campus catering—the less expensive a meal plan can be.” Peter Harvey, Whitman treasurer and chief financial officer, echoed Eden’s explanation, but notes that Bon Appétit is a private entity that ideally seeks to garner a five percent profit per year for services provided. In the end, pricing for student expenses is determined by the Board of Trustees and not by Bon Appétit, said Edens. Robert Crenshaw contributed reporting.
WCTS: College to reevaluate test , page 1 Phishing scams are increasingly being conducted through popular social networking sites such as Facebook. Not surprisingly, phishing scams through social networking sites were the focus of this year’s audit. If the phishing attempt were real, Whitman’s technology system could have faced a breach of security, threatening data stored on college computers. The content of the letter raised eyebrows among faculty and staff who received a USB drive, and professors notified each other of the scam over the faculty listserv. “That’s exactly what we wanted as a result because it shows that we’re doing
a good job of telling people not to trust these scams. But the flip side is that [the test] raised many concerns and frustrations,” said Pitter. Associate Professor of Anthropology Jason Pribilsky was one faculty member who received a USB drive. According to him and Pitter, none of the Whitman staff and faculty members who received a USB drive downloaded its contents onto their computers. “I think the issue for many faculty was that this experiment employed deception to test the college’s security. As researchers who do research on ‘human subjects,’ the idea that information would be procured by deceiving those you are researching must meet a high standard,” Pribilsky said in an e-mail.
“Another problem was that WCTS contracted with an outside security firm to do this experiment. There was little concern given to the particulars of a college community, our own ethics or the reception of such an experiment in light of the standards we ourselves keep in terms of the boundaries of ‘human subjects’ research,” he said. Pitter views this test as a learning experience. “We know that we have to continue security tests in the future, but I think we need to scrutinize what our security firm does much more carefully. [The tests] need to be custom-made for this environment because although they may work in a banking environment they don’t work here,” she said.
lishment of Princeton’s residential college has negatively impacted Whitman’s repute on the East Coast or elsewhere. “I guess my take on all of this is that the existence of the Whitman residential college might cause more people to be aware of Whitman in Walla Walla,” Templeton said. Before assuming his position at the Woodrow Wilson School, Templeton worked as an officer in Princeton’s undergraduate admissions department. He corroborated Bittner’s statement that Whitman is lesser-known on the East Coast. “I would often tell the prospective students and parents that they should know more about the admission officer speaking to them,” Templeton commented about his interviewing process as an undergraduate admissions officer at Princeton. “So I would ask whether anyone had heard of Whitman College. Unless there was someone from the Pacific Northwest, people rarely knew. I would chide them on not searching for the best colleges.” Templeton observed that Princeton students are largely unaware that their newest residential college has a name in common with Whitman. He commented on how undergraduate students at the university
regard Princeton’s residential college system. “My guess is that not many Princeton students are really aware of the naming conflict or if they are it doesn’t have much of an effect,” Templeton said. “Among students here there is some identity by residential college or the eating club you did or did not join, but that becomes irrelevant soon after graduation.” McQuarrie expressed a similar opinion. “Honestly, outside the Princeton community, I am not sure who knows or cares about the individual residence colleges,” said McQuarrie. “Think about it: Can [Whitman students] name the other residential colleges at Princeton? I just do not see it as a conflict or having any function that will make the Whitman we know more obscure.” Nevertheless, Templeton believes that Princeton should have taken steps to recognize Whitman when instituting its new residential college. “When Meg Whitman donated her millions for Whitman College (East), the university should have at least offered some reciprocity to the real Whitman College,” said Templeton. “If it occurred to them, I have no idea.”
AUDIT: next step an action plan page 1 studies internship based on their work on the audit. The audit is divided into three scopes—direct emissions, purchased electricity, and indirect emissions, which is subdivided into waste and transportation. Tackman, who is responsible for looking at emissions from transportation for varsity athletics, said that finding data can be difficult. “Whitman doesn’t necessarily keep track of that information, so I have to sort through archives,” she said. Senior Lisa Curtis, Whitman’s sustainability coordinator, hopes this will change as the audit becomes an expected annual occurrence. “At some point we’ll get institutionalized enough that we won’t even have to ask [for data],” she said. Another challenge for the group is deciding which emissions should be counted. Tackman said that transportation is especially difficult, because it’s unclear whether emissions from students traveling to campus and to study abroad programs could ever be eliminated. “We’re just trying to refine what’s applicable,” she said. Unlike other schools, including Colorado College, Lewis and Clark College and the University of Washington, Whitman has not signed onto the President’s Climate Commitment. The commitment asks colleges and universities to conduct an emissions audit and complete a plan for becoming carbon neutral, as well as to integrate sustainability
into campus life and curriculum. Schwendiman said that when President Bridges was initially approached about signing the commitment, it was a new plan that had not been tested at other schools. “The president was reluctant to sign an agreement about something we had never measured before,” he said. “We had no sense of what was possible in terms of reductions.” Since signing on to the agreement, many other schools have fallen behind in their targets for emissions reductions. “If those other schools haven’t met their goals, there’s no way Whitman was going to,” said sophomore Katie Radosevic, who is also working on the audit. “We want to sign something and have it mean something.” For schools that have signed the commitment, an emissions audit is still the first step in the process of becoming carbon neutral. “Even if we had signed on, we’d probably still be at [the emissions audit] stage in the process,” said Curtis. Rather than signing onto the commitment, Curtis hopes that Whitman will be able to develop a specific action plan for emissions reduction based on the results of the audit. Tackman said that regardless of the outcome, she enjoys helping with the audit. “It’s fun to hang out with people who are really passionate about what they are doing and want to make a difference,” she said. “It’s an inspiring group of people to work with.”
RENOVATION: Mixed feelings on need page 1 “I think that the renovation is a very positive thing,” she said in an e-mail. “Unlike many of the buildings on campus, the physical space and facilities in Harper Joy are used practically to teach. So improving and adding to the space really adds to theater students’ learning experience; it isn’t just aesthetic.” But not all students believe the renovations to be fully necessary. “I think the renovations have their strengths and weaknesses,” said a theater major who asked to remain anonymous. “A lot of money is being poured into this project and there is no doubt that the theater is going to look a lot more regal, but I kind of like the rustic charm of the current theater building. There are some safety standards that are being addressed, which are essential and have been overlooked for years, but some of the cosmetic measures being taken seem slightly unnecessary to me.” While most students think the renovation will be an improvement, not all believe it is the best use of money. “Harper Joy is a great theater already,” said senior Lindsey Witcosky in an e-mail. “I think that the college should be spending more money on student scholarships and recruiting—and keeping—great faculty.” The exact budget for the renovations, which will not be finalized until May, will include alumni gifts and grants. “The Development Office is still rais-
ing money for the project,” said Associate to the President Jed Schwendiman in an e-mail. “Incoming gifts and grants are still important, and the total cost of the project is still being worked out as bids are coming in.” Despite the general excitement towards the renovations, construction will interfere with next year’s classes and shows. “We plan to use our facilities here for next season and have a full season of eight shows,” said Hines. “But second semester next year it is possible that the last two productions will be held in a location other than Harper Joy. This location is still unknown.” Because of construction, Harper Joy Theatre will also not be used for acting classes next year. Most acting and directing classes will take place in Sherwood, where some theater classes are currently taught. However, design and technical classes will continue to take place at Harper Joy. For Hines, it will be worth the wait. “The opportunity for our students to have better classroom space and acting space will do nothing but improve their experience at Whitman,” he said.
CORRECTIONS TO ISSUE 6: Heather Nichols-Haining’s column “Democracy: Coups versus elections” on page 8 referenced a 2009 election in Madagascar that resulted in political turmoil. There was no 2009 election in Madagascar; for a full explanation of the situation referred to, see the comment thread for the column online at whitmanpioneer.com.
NEWS
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CONTRIBUTED BY RACHEL ALEXANDER Workers at the Ruby Ridge dairy farm in Pasco protest working conditions and the firing of employees who have tried to unionize. A group of Whitman students, along with other community members, joined last Friday’s protests.
Whitties join protest for fair working conditions by RACHEL ALEXANDER Staff Reporter
‘¡Si se puede!’ has been used as a rallying cry for everything from pro-immigration marches to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Its original usage, however, was as the motto for the United Farm Workers of America labor union. In this spirit, union organizer Arturo Sepulveda led a group of dairy workers in a march last Friday, March 5, to demand fair working conditions from their employers at the Ruby Ridge dairy in Pasco, Wash., who have fired a number of workers in the past for attempting to unionize. The Ruby Ridge employees were joined outside the dairy in Pasco by a dozen Whitman students who came to march with the workers, learn more about their struggles and support their demands for justice and respect. “We’re here because everyone should have basic human rights,” said sophomore Maggie Allen, who was among the group of Whitman students marching with the farm workers. Over the course of the rally, many Ruby Ridge employees shared stories of their experiences at the dairy. “We’ve never had any benefits,” said Jesus Perez, who has worked at the dairy for about two years. Perez and several former employees explained that workers at Ruby Ridge typically work between eight and 12 hours per day, six days a week. The work, mostly involving milking cows, is fast-paced and continuous. Breaks for food, water or going to the bathroom are not allowed. “We worked . . . 10 hours, 12 hours, without breaks, without lunch,” said Margarito Martinez, who worked for Ruby Ridge for five years. When several workers attempted to combat these conditions by starting a union, their effort was met with re-
sistance from the dairy’s owners, Dick and Ruby Bengen. “They fired me for supporting the union,” said Alberto Montoya, a former Ruby Ridge employee. Montoya worked at the dairy for a year and nine months before losing his job. He is one of 14 employees who have been fired for attempting to unionize. “[The new workers] are friends and family of the supervisors,” said Sepulveda. He said that the Bengens deliberately hired new workers who would not be sympathetic to a union. Perez, who was one of the few workers at the march who has not been fired, said that among 50 dairy employees, only 10 or 15 currently support unionization. “They’re afraid more than anything else,” he said. Although almost all other union supporters have been fired, Perez said he was not afraid to attend the march. “I’m just here standing up for my rights,” he said. “The only thing they can do is fire me.” Other Ruby Ridge employees are not as fearless. One of Perez’s co-workers stopped by the march to talk to other workers, but left after a few minutes because he was afraid to be seen there. In spite of the setbacks they have encountered, Sepulveda and the United Farm Workers of America are continuing their efforts to unionize the dairy. “It’s the union’s hope to negotiate a contract,” said Sepulveda. “The company has a policy, but it favors the company. When you have a contract, it’s something different that supports the workers.” The United Farm Workers of America is also taking the dairy owners to court over alleged violations of both state and federal labor laws. Sepulveda said that although Ruby Ridge pays its workers $10 per hour, which is above
minimum wage, employees are required to purchase all of their own equipment, including syringes for the cows and protective gloves. According to him, this violates labor laws. The court case argues 28 demands for Ruby Ridge workers. “The court case is to ask for justice for the workers,” said Sepulveda. Many community members showed up to support the workers, including pastors from several Tri-Cities churches and the head of the Benton County Democrats. Sepulveda is hoping that community members will put pressure on the Seattle-based dairy cooperative Darigold, Inc., which buys all of the milk produced at Ruby Ridge. He thanked everyone for their support of the workers, and urged them to call and write to Darigold. Whitman students in the Global Food System class are hoping to help spread this message on campus and to the greater Walla Walla community. “We want to promote awareness and get as many students involved in activism as possible,” said sophomore Katie Radosevic, who attended the march. Radosevic and six other students in the class have chosen to focus on the Ruby Ridge workers for a group project. The students hope to work with Walla Walla Community College and Walla Walla University to organize a boycott of Darigold products. Allen believes that the workers’ struggle highlights the importance of informed consumers. “It’s important when consumers see things like Darigold that they know what’s behind it,” she said. For Sepulveda, the important thing is to keep fighting. “They think that because we’re Latinos, we’re going to stay quiet,” he said. Instead, he will keep working “for dignity, and for respect.”
International students to stay on campus, travel over break by SCOTT CASSIDY Staff Reporter
As the week before spring break comes to a close, a large percentage of Whitman students are preparing to return home. This is not the case for many of Whitman’s approximately 60 international students, who spend the break working on campus or on local trips because distance and expense make a return home unfeasible. “A lot of them remain on campus and work over any break they can,” said Kris Barry, international student and scholar advisor. “I’ve had students in the past who have never gone home over their entire four years. It can be very tough.” Barry said that students are often unaware that many of their international classmates stay on campus over break. “Sometimes Whitman students go off on vacations and don’t realize that many of their international classmates are staying at Whitman,” she said. Neda Ansaari, a senior from India, is one such international student. She will be spending the first week of break in Seattle and will return to campus for the second. “When you see parents coming over for weekends, or students being excited about going home, it’s hard, because we don’t get that,” Ansaari said. The difficulty of being so far away
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SLOANE CORNELIUS also means that many international students’ parents can’t easily visit. “Most students have homesickness, across the board, but I do think having your support system so far away and inaccessible compounds it,” said Barry. Staying in the United States for spring break also means that foreign students won’t be getting any relief from U.S. culture. “I think the adjustment to college is hard for everybody, but for international students it is especially hard because they also have to adjust to a new culture,” said Ansaari. Despite the unique difficulties international students face, the common situation leads to a bonding experience. “The international students here are
very close,” said Ansaari. When Whitman’s international students do get off campus, they are often forced to be creative and resourceful in searching for options. This year’s International Banquet will help to pay for eight international students to spend a week in Vancouver this spring break. Lauren Moscovis, a first-year from Australia, is one of the students going to Vancouver. “Sometimes I want to go home and that’s not usually an option, but I do have other international students who can relate and know what I’m going through,” she said. “That’s a really good thing about Whitman. They have an intercultural center where you can all get together and talk. It’s not like you’re isolated.”
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The Pioneer ISSUE 7 MAR. 11, 2010 Page 4
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Freedoms granted to ‘Around the World’ actors create artistic opportunities, unique challenges by AMI TIAN Staff Reporter
The story of Harper Joy Theatre’s recent “Around in the World in 80 Days” in certain ways encapsulated the experience of putting on a play: Five kids break into the attic of a museum with the intention of hanging out there, but find themselves crafting a setting and a story from the surrounding objects based on Jules Verne’s novel of the same name. The play debuted on March 4 and ran through March 7. This interpretation of playwright Mark Brown’s adaptation is actually the work of director Nancy Simon herself. In her version of the play, Simon drew upon the imagination of both the actors and the audience to build the grand world of Verne’s sweeping adventure: A unicycle and some cloth, for example, became a ship and a coach horn, while a lampshade and a ventilation coil became an elephant. The cast was small but talented, consisting of senior Kelsey Yuhara, juniors Zach Simonson and Chris Reid and first-years Nik Hagen and Jeremy Howell. Partly because of Simon’s decision to allow cast members to improvise certain scenes and make character decisions, the production posed to them a number of unique opportunities and challenges. For Howell, the biggest struggle was giving dimension to characters who each received relatively little time on stage. Howell played a whopping 17 different roles in the show, all of which spanned a wide variety of temperaments and dialects. “I would sit by myself in my room when
BULLION Jeremy Howell ‘13 plays a British soldier in India, one of many characters that he played during the show. The greatest challenge of interpreting these many roles, according to him, was mastering each accent.
my roommate wasn’t there and I would just mess around with my mouth, like practicing tongue placement or where my lips should be, and I would read anything I could find and try to read it in that voice,” Howell said, describing the preparation involved in mastering each accent. “It’d get to the point where I wasn’t doing the accent for just my lines, but I was doing the accent for anything—that’s when I felt that I was comfortable with it.”
Hagen noted that it was difficult to sustain a high level of energy throughout the duration of the comedy, which lasted roughly two hours and 15 minutes. “I think there’s a large physical aspect to it,” he remarked. “It’s very exhausting to do every night . . . But I mean, the play’s just really fun, so I found it very easy to connect with the character and get along and interact with the other people onstage.” Hagen was also impressed by the
BOOK REVIEW
Raymond Chandler’s ‘The Little Sister,’ remarkable for its introspection Book Reviewer
VON HAFFTEN
FACE, VOX team up for biennial production, ‘A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer’ Staff Reporter
Last week, Feminists Advocating Change & Empowerment and Voices of Planned of Parenthood held their annual V-Day Campaign event with the theater production “A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer.” Composed of monologues gathered by the V-Day founder and author of ‘The Vagina Monologues,” Eve Ensler, the production features a line-up of monologues addressing violence inflicted upon women. A gang rape victim, a passive bystander, a sex slave and a mother of a sexually harassed child, among several other characters, bring personal experiences of sexual transgression to the stage. Organized entirely by volunteers, this zero-based budget production surpasses any prerequisite for technical flare and shamelessly delivers personal reflections on the issue at hand. After writing “The Vagina Monologues,” Ensler created the V-Day movement—V standing for Victory, Valentine, Vagina—as a theater and artistic productions-based benefit to raise awareness and funds to end violence against women and girls. “A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer” is one program in the VDay repertoire used in V-Day college and community campaigns. At Whitman, the show is a student-run production in which club members lead the processes of reading and editing pieces, recruiting cast and directorship and advertising. For FACE, the V-Day performance is the biggest and most popular event of the year. “This is a great chance for us since we’re issue-based and about education,” said junior McKenna Milici, FACE co-president and one of the seven student directors who participated this year. “This is an opportunity to bring an education program in the form of entertainment.”
hipster way reviewers discourage nowadays, but in an endearing, self-deprecatOkay, I’ll admit it: The reason I’m review- ing style that Chandler knew precisely ing “The Little Sister” is because I’m com- when to turn on and off. Philip Marlowe pletely obsessed with Raymond Chandler. is constantly mocking other characters for How could I not be? The man basically their “'30s style of speech”—a hard-boiled created an entire literary genre, or at least, style made popular, in part, by Chandler he gave a previously ‘pulp’ genre literary himself but more so by the magazine he aspirations. The detective novel probably wrote for. This self-awareness is part of wouldn’t be such a popular genre today Chandler’s style and stemmed from his were it not for the efforts of such men desire to turn the hard-boiled genre into as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Ham- literature. His dry, cynical figurative lanmett and Ross Macdonald. I might be guage—which led fellow noir writer Ross inordinately obsessed with them, but that Macdonald to say that Chandler “wrote doesn't mean their works are not worth like a slumming angel”—has been copied reading. Far from it. and parodied so often it seems almost cliRaymond Chandler’s short stories were chéd, but becomes startling again when originally published in the pulp maga- read in context. zine “Black Mask,” and he began writing There are moments in “The Little Sisscreenplays for Hollywood films follow- ter” when one feels as if Chandler’s proing the success of his first novel, “The pensity for startling metaphor has gone Big Sleep,” whose main character, as with a little too far—“His composed gray face nearly all his writwas long enough to ing, was one Philip wrap twice around his Marlowe, the nowneck,” “he had a jaw like quintessential harda park bench,” and (my boiled detective. personal favorite) “I The frustration and pushed it open, with the disgust Chandler felt tenderness of a young for Hollywood culintern delivering his ture were well-docfirst baby.” His descripumented in letters tions of violence are to his agents, friends almost offhand, which and colleagues—and make them all the more even more so in “The disturbing. His depicLittle Sister,” writtions of female charten near the middle acters are, as always, of his career as both problematic: Mavis novelist and screenWeld has an innocence “The Little Sister” by Raymond Chandler, writer. at odds with her status Vintage Crime/Black Lizard 1949, 250 pages “The Little Sisas a Hollywood starlet, ter” is not the best and Dolores Gonzales’s of Chandler’s novels, but it is remark- aggressive sexuality only seems to serve as able in its introspection—a quality that contrast for that innocence. was sparse, if not lacking, in his previous Nevertheless, “The Little Sister” is in novels. The 13th chapter is a heartbreak- turns heartbreaking, hilarious, disturbing sequence of Marlowe’s dissatisfaction ing and sometimes all three at once. The and depression, with the repetition of the mystery is difficult to track half the time, phrase “You’re not human tonight” dem- and by the end of the book you’re no lononstrating his frustration—so similar to ger sure who’s dead, who killed whom Chandler’s own—with the culture of L.A. or even who’s responsible for the whole and the Hollywood of the '40s, with its mess (Marlowe, perhaps, since his presgambling dens, mobsters, pornography ence seems to set off most of the murders) rings, blackmailers and extortionists, 114 but it doesn’t really matter anymore. As murders a year and only dirty cops to Chandler once said, it’s not the whodunit solve them. And that’s only in Chandler’s that matters in the end of a good detecworld. tive novel, but the exploration of human Joyce Carol Oates, in a review for “The nature, of the secrets that hide in daylight, New York Review of Books,” said that of the darkness at the center of men’s Chandler’s prose “rises to heights of un- souls that at times seeps out and drowns selfconscious eloquence, and we realize our natures in greed and despair and, of with a jolt of excitement that we are in the course, of the one man who spends his life presence of . . . a stylist, a writer with vi- in search of that “hidden truth,” abandonsion.” ing everything except his honor. That is I would actually disagree with the first what the detective does, that is what he is, part of her statement: Chandler’s prose is and that is what Chandler spent his whole very self-conscious. Not in the annoying, career chronicling. by ELLIE GOLD
Clockwise from top-left: Hanna Kahl ‘11, Jeremy Kotler ‘13, Emma O’Rourke-Powell ‘12, Liesl Olson ‘11, Hadley Jolley ‘13, Nina Neff ‘11 and Ellie Newell ‘12.
by LIZ SIENG
amount of license given to the actors to make certain choices and improvise onstage, as well as the amount of collaboration involved in making those decisions. “This is the first play that I’ve had a director do an interpretation of,” he said. “So it was very interesting to see the process which we went through to figure it out and figure out what was going to happen to lead us up to the part where the script actually started. That first scene where
we’re breaking into the museum, a lot of it is just improv.” Although Hagen said that the scene had a general structure that was followed each night, there was still flexibility for the actors to experiment with the material. “Sometimes the lines kind of change and sometimes I don’t necessarily follow the exact same route, so that first scene is just bullet points that we get to fill in,” Hagen said. To bring this kind of collaboration to the show was, of course, Simon’s intention; she wanted to both address certain production challenges the play presented as well as take a distinct and innovative approach in doing so. “I wanted our production to be different,” she said. “I mean this play has been produced a lot around the country . . . so we just wanted to find our own particular voice for the play . . . I’m really not quite sure what the genesis of the idea was . . . I liked the idea of a group of young people living in their imaginations, and then it was a matter of finding what the place would be where that might be a possibility.” Although the spontaneity of the show was a challenge, it was also a thrill. “Every show you take on is a challenge because you don’t know how it will go and where it will go, and this show was very much an ensemble show and very much created as we went along,” said Simon. “It was actually a hell of a lot of fun. It was like when you’re a kid and you play fantasy games—that’s pretty much where we were.”
For activist groups in the field of women’s empowerment and sexual health education, the choice to put on a theater production requires ardent work and talent. The performance resulted from the preparation and team effort of club members and volunteers, and the result was both artistic and effective. “This is an important issue with people who are very dedicated,” said junior Hanna Kahl, who performed in “The Vagina Monologues” last year and “A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer” two years ago. “We needed to bring in the talent,” said sophomore FACE member Ellie Newell, mentioning how students in the theater department and other non-affiliated students directed and played roles. The play consisted of 10 separate fiveto six-minute monologues, two involving the entire cast of 11 actors and the rest performed individually by single actors. Each character had stage space to express an individual story with introspection and vulnerability, some ending in confusion or depression while others concluded in humor or clarity. At moments, their voices combined to express a common experience of pain, struggle and hope. The performers embraced the stage as individuals and as a troupe, creating a sense of group chemistry while representing multiple voices for the same cause. Although certainly there was a lack of experience in acting or in activism between the performers, it was unnoticeable. In “A Teenage Girl’s Guide to Surviving Sex Slavery,” three actresses played the main role of a Congolese child sex slave as the cast filled in as the supporting narrator. In “Connect: A Web of Words,” the full cast participated in a shouting session of nouns and phrases surrounding the rhetoric of sexual exploitation.
The only weak area of the performance occurred in the choice of subject matter. The series of performances involved tales of drunken rape and sexual harassment, topics familiar to the mainstream audience. At times, these stories came off as predictable and lacked intrigue. Nonetheless, these acts added perspectives to the central issue, and overall, allowed room for less conventional stories near the end. “[Sexual violence] is not just about gender. It affects everyone,” said first-year Jeremy Kotler, who performed the story of a man who grew up in a family of raped women, the only male character in the show. The play explores other topics such as war-induced sexual violence, counter-violence against rapists and sadomasochism. Each year, V-Day spotlights a particular group of women affected by the violence. Ticket prices were $5 this year, with 10 percent going toward aid and awareness funding for women in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the rest toward local organizations. The passion and effort exerted in the planning and in the performance of “A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer” resulted in a worthwhile show to experience. “In some ways I’m preaching to the choir,” said Newell. “But my hope is that one person will come here and leave thinking differently. You wouldn’t do this play if you weren’t an activist.” In addition to women in the Democratic Republic of Congo, FACE and VOX have chosen to maintain their yearly ritual of donating V-Day revenues to the YWCA and Planned Parenthood in Walla Walla. FACE and VOX’s next V-Day performance is set to take place in spring of 2011.
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March 11, 2010
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Testostertones strive to take their music MUSIC REVIEW Joanna Newsom’s triple to the next level with new recording album, ‘Have One On Me,’ feels like work, doesn’t justify its incredible length by CAITLIN HARDEE Staff Reporter
As February rolled into March, the sun was shining, the flowers budding, but the Testostertones were not outside to see it. The members of Whitman’s all-male a cappella group were sequestered below ground in a makeshift basement studio, bringing their own project to life. For the first time in several years, the vocal group is releasing a new album and recently finished the strenuous recording sessions. Senior T-Tones member Graham Toben recalled the long hours and demands of recording. “I was probably [in studio] for eight or nine hours this weekend, maybe more,� said Toben. “Recording is kind of a piecewise thing. It’s not as if you record a whole song and then record the whole song again; it’s literally like four measures, another four measures, another four measures, and you record it numerous times.� To handle production, editing and mixing for the album, the T-Tones brought in award-winning producer and founder of the University of Oregon a cappella group On The Rocks, Peter Hollens. “Peter’s really well-known—when he produces a CD, people pay attention to it,� said the T-Tones Business Manager, senior Matthew Beckett. “We’re hoping that we can get the CD out into bigger, broader a cappella communities and get a name for ourselves, similar to University of Oregon’s On The Rocks, the Tufts Beelzebubs, even the University of North Carolina Clef Hangers. Hopefully if we can get our name out there, we’ll get more revenue from CD sales nationally.� With Hollens’ strong leadership came equally exacting standards. Toben discussed the experience of working with the producer. “It was interesting. He at times was a real jerk and at times he was real supportive,� said Toben. “The first time we met him, he walked in and said, 'I’m going to be kind of a dick, but the bottom line is,
Music Reviewer
JACOBSON Nik Hagen ‘13 records a track in the makeshift studio that the T-Tones set up in the basement of an off-campus house. In the background, Peter Hollens monitors the recording.
I want to show you guys just what really good a cappella can be.' And I definitely feel like he pushed us to the next level. He was critical when he needed to be and supportive when he needed to be.� Hollens concurred. Speaking through e-mail, he cited the long hours and fatigue of the recording process as challenges for himself and the guys, but praised their growth and the final result. “They have done an amazing job in the studio and really embraced changes, and I think it will reflect well in their live performance,� said Hollens. This new album represents the next step in the T-Tones’ struggle toward wider recognition. However, it has also consumed the funds the group has spent the last few years accumulating. Sophomore de facto group leader Jasper Bash cited file sharing and the unavailability of ASWC support for a “for-profit� group as major financial obstacles. The T-Tones are staking their resources on the professionalism of the album and hoping for inclusion in a nationwide a cappella compilation that would afford them greater exposure. “That would be sweet, if we could get onto [a compilation],� said Bash. “I think we’re going to send in some of our songs for that—maybe Kodachrome. It’s a song
that hasn’t been used a lot before; [sophomore] Mark Arand did a really fabulous arrangement for us. We’re gunning for BOCA—Best of College Acappella.� The group will do its best to harness the potential publicity of the album release, both in the national a cappella community and here in Walla Walla. “Once the CD is out, we’re gonna have a big CD release,� said Beckett. “We’ll have a couple groups from Western Washington come down and do a big release concert, and try and get the CD out in the local community before we get it out anywhere else in the country.� If CD sales generate sufficient revenues, the group will also try to break out of the Walla Walla bubble and hit the road. “We were discussing this earlier this year, about going on a tour to Colorado, but then the CD took most of our energy,� said Bash. “So we’re hoping to sell the CD, make some money, then go on a tour. The album will include arrangements by Arand, as well as arrangements by Whitman alumnus Kaston Griffin '09 and one by a producer friend of Hollens’. Highlights of the album will include versions of “This Side� by Nickel Creek, “Soldier� by Steven Curtis Chapman and “Snakes on a Plane.�
MUSIC VIDEO MELTDOWN: Prepubescent Birthday Edition by BECQUER MEDAKďšşSEGUIN Movie Reviewer
"BABY" JUSTIN BIEBER FEAT. LUDACRIS
KWCW SHOW OF T HE W EEK contributed by KWCW Playlist: ti(MFO $MPTFw #JOBSZ 4UBS ti-B 'VJUFw ,BSLXB ti"OE "OESFX 5PPw 8IJUF 7PXFMT ti-FNPOBEFw #SBJET ti*OUP UIF .JSSPSw .JOVT UIF #FBS ti.FMPEZw 4FSHF (BJOTCPVSH Discussion Topics: t)PX B HFOUMFNBO SFTQPOET UP BO JOsult t)PX B HFOUMFNBO XBMLT UISPVHI B door t )PX B HFOUMFNBO LJDLT EPXO B EPPS Tip of the Week: A gentleman never makes himself the center of attention. His goal is to make life easier, not just for himself but for his friends, his acquaintances and the world at large. Because he is a gentleman, he does not see this as a burden. Instead, it is a challenge he faces eagerly every day. Learn how to be a capital “G� Gentleman every Monday 11 a.m.—1 p.m. only on KWCW 90.5 FM, kwcw.net.
Video released Feb. 19, 2010 From My World 2.0 (2010, Island) DIR: Ray Kay
CROSSWORD PUZZLE CONTRIBUTED BY DISNEYDREAMING.COM
To celebrate his super sweet 16 b-day, prepubescent (don't worry, ladies, it'll happen next year) hip-hopper Justin Bieber leads us off with his video "Baby." Apparently, Usher's multifarious connections landed Bieber a gig with Luda, who has managed to remain relevant for 12 years now and has another cleverly titled album dropping this year called Ludaversal. Notable cameos in the video include fellow rappers Drake (Degrassi: The Next Generation and Lil Wayne protegĂŠ) and Lil Twist (the dude with the ridiculous 'fro), but the best scene, by far, is Luda's super-awkward chokehold on Bieber that occurs about three quarters of the way through. Not only does it capture how awkward this video is to begin with, but it likely reveals a source from which Bieber learned to yank girls toward him (literally) and pinch them (literally) in order to get them to listen to him say, "I'd thought you'd always be mine." The girl that Bieber pissed off at the beginning, though, ends up falling for him and the video concludes with the two leaving the bowling alley holding hands, like a good PG movie. Hooray for Justin! I guess they're now an "item," as he puts it (Wasn't that term retired in the '90s when people started using "going out"?). Anyway, Bieber, too bad you're still lacking Joe Jonas' hotness (and alliteration).
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CONTRIBUTED BY STEREOBAIT.COM
Where to start? Well, this video is brilliant and will completely and utterly transform the way music videos are made from now on. Hmm . . . Maybe not, but, like R. Kelly's hiphopera, which will continue with 15 new episodes this spring and totals nearly 84 minutes in length, it does away with the prevailing logic that music videos should be short, sweet and to the point. Unlike Bieber's video, which needs some speaking for, this one speaks for itself. Breakdancing 50-foot robots, Fergie's chipmunk auto-tuned voice and will.i.am shooting pulses at people that make them start to dance highlight this 10-minute pseudo mash-up of "Imma Be" and "Rock That Body." The narrative and video start with will.i.am introducing some new technology to the band: a speech synthesis machine that will record every word they say and turn it into music, thereby "taking the Peas into 3008." Fergie argues that the machine will take the "soul" out of music and render recording an album useless. Taboo and apl.de.ap have their problems with the new technology too. And this is only the tip of the ice berg. The ending makes the lengthy video about 10 times better, adding some self-referentiality and dream-like qualities to an already awesome ensemble of ridiculously futuristic, Lady Gaga-like scenes.
“BLAH BLAH BLAH� KE$HA FEAT. 3OH!3 Video released Feb. 23, 2010 From Animal (RCA, 2010) DIR: Brendan Malloy
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lines. Though some of these work well, others simply seem frivolous or merely Joanna Newsom's third album, Have contribute to the occasional bloat that One On Me, is a behemoth. It's a '70s- makes these songs drag; the wonderstyle triple album, in the spirit of George fully-written "Baby Birch" is several Harrison's All Things Must Pass—one minutes longer than it was when she that spans over two hours across its first played it on tour in 2008, and the three discs and 18 songs, many of which added weight simply makes the song as break the eight minute mark. Its songs a whole significantly less interesting, as are dense, sprawling and rarely willing it's swallowed almost wholly by negato cede their secrets on first listen, and tive space. start-to-finish it's among the hardest In spite of the album's clearly meticulistens one can lous sequencing— opt for this year. it could have fit Almost all of across two discs, Have One On Me's but laid out as-is, challenge comes it breaks very easas a consequence ily into six sides of its length. Her of vinyl—the best music is less idplace to jump in iosyncratic than could very well be ever before; it's the second disc, still uniquely, unwhich is both the deniably hers, but shortest and bestit sounds like a written despite its deliberate attempt total lack of hooks. Have One On Me, Joanna Newsom, 2010 to downplay cer"In California," tain elements that which comes near once defined her—her backwoods pixie the center of the entire set, is perhaps image, her warbling voice, even her use the best song here, and it's one of the of the harp—and a leap headfirst into moments in which Newsom's melothe world of confessional '70s singer- dies and Francesconi's arrangement songwriters. More than one critic has complement each other perfectly. "Go made mention of Joni Mitchell's legacy, Long," the disc's penultimate track, and the piano-driven pop songs across sports interplay between Newsom and all three discs make her a valid refer- the strings surrounding her that jumps ence point, especially "Good Intentions out immediately—one of the rare moPaving Company," which sports some ments that overtly demonstrates what a of Newsom's most accessible play- strong player she is while featuring one ing yet and a stunning travelogue that of her most striking narratives. totally justifies its seven-plus-minute This is a record in love with the runtime, which doesn't happen often sound of Newsom's voice, in love with enough with these very long songs. language and in love with songwriting Like many records, but more than like few records released this year. Its most others released so far this year, density is as much a barrier to entry as Have One On Me feels like work. it is a statement against the quick conNewsom's new songs lack the sweep- sumption and rapid absorption of muing, busy orchestral arrangements that sic that currently takes place, and like Van Dyke Parks contributed to Ys, and few records this year, it'll take genuine in their place are parts written by her patience, energy and time to dissect. bandmate Ryan Francesconi, most of Whether or not it's a product of blatant which consist of stop-start percussion, indulgence or not, however, is still behorns, occasional strings and guitar yond my grasp. by ANDREW HALL
CONTRIBUTED BY MUSIC-ONLY.NET
Hey, guess what? It's Ke$ha's birthday too! Uh oh, I hope she doesn't cradle rob Justin for her birthday present. Anyway, this 23-year-young, Cuban tattooed, female rapperesse had me at "TiK ToK." In that vid, she had the excuse of having just woken up from a crazy night of partying it up for looking perfectly trashy. In this one, she kind of goes over the top with her fashion sense brand, "garbage-chic," which turns into an unfortunate offshoot of white trash-gross. Well, if her clothing has gone awry (she gives a new meaning to the word "frayed"), at least we still have her good message: Don't mack on me when you're drunk by spewing a bunch of cheeseball pick-up lines. Wrong! Her actual message is something more akin to, "Just shut up, I want to get laid." O.K., maybe 3OH!3 will save the day and free us from her terribly auto-tuned voice and the not-danceable video game beats. 3OH!3 Fail! So, in sum, this video is not danceable, not new and not worth it. Better luck next time, Ke$ha.
by KARL WALLULIS Puzzlemaster
ACROSS 1. 30-Across play featuring the Weird sisters 8. Burrito alternatives 13. Language disorder studied by Paul Broca 14. Like some change 15. They may be braided or curled 16. Follower of Bravo and Charlie 17. Singer Amos 18. Righties, in a box score 20. Fall behind 21. Tales of gods and heroes 23. Hullabaloo 26. Stravinsky ballet, for short 27. Put on a kebab 30. Like, the ultimate rapper, per “The Onion� 34. It might come after a shot 35. Plains tribe 37. Abhor 40. Uses a stun-gun 42. Wish undone 43. Crafty (backwards) 45. They contain antibodies 47. Geometric figures 50. Paper or plastic, e.g. 52. Rallying cry 53. Like some arrests 54. Combustion result 55. 30-Across play featuring the Anthropophagi
DOWN 1. The m in E=mc2 2. ___ of nothing (non sequitur) 3. Hold near and dear 4. Fundamental 5. Nineteenth letter of the Roman alphabet 6. Stadium level 7. Southern side dish 8. Williams with two Triple Crowns 9. The __ Effect 10. Telephones 11. Numeral system of the Na’vi 12. All the world, to 30-Across 19. Fit people are in it 22. Many Punjabis 24. Wide awake 25. Moby Dick’s home 28. Like a turducken 29. Afterthought after an afterthought 31. Sharpshooter 32. Common perfume ingredient 33. Never-ending 36. Sao Paulo suburb 37. 30-Across’s genre 38. They replaced francs 39. Bite 41. Remark to the audience 44. Messed up in the cabeza 45. Lovers’ quarrel 48. Put down a hero? 49. Nautical distress signal
To see answers to last week’s puzzle, see whitmanpioneer.com
6
FEATURE
g d n iver i Re-defin s
What does “diversity” even mean? We’re told to celebrate, cultivate and embrace diversity without thinking too deeply about the term itself, which has been so well-worn that it has lost much of its significance. Today, diversity is often used to describe physical qualities that are easily tabulated, turned into a spreadsheet or bar graph and pasted into a promotional brochure. In this week’s Feature, we’re digging a little deeper, exploring differences in region, culture and sexual orientation that make it impossible to define one idea of the typical Whittie.
March 11, 2010M
it y
O. JOHNSON
For many, public school past a source of pride by AMY CHAPMAN Staff Reporter
Remember the awful mint green linoleum floors, the banging lockers, the crowded hallways of public high school? Or maybe high school meant something completely different: It recalls a private school denoted by emblazoned polos and dorm curfews? Students coming to Whitman from public or private high schools encounter a set of challenges that is unique in many ways, and these differences often lead to varied attitudes towards both the high school and college experience. Due to Whitman’s rigorous academic standards during the admission process, the majority of Whitman students find themselves prepared for college-level academics when they arrive on campus. Senior Julie Grimm, who attended Derryfield, a private high school in Manchester, N.H., recalls that her private education adequately prepared her for Whitman. “Academically, I think [private school] really helped,” Grimm said. “My GPA here is at least a grade above high school, and especially freshman year, it was a lot easier than I expected in terms of preparation for Whitman.” However, public school students who satisfied admission requirements find themselves equally successful despite the unfamiliar environment. Senior Matt Kelly, who came to Whitman from Inglemoor Senior High School, a public school in Kenmore, Wash., remembered that coming to Whitman was “a pretty smooth and straightforward transition.” “[Public school] academically prepared me very well, in terms of hard
skills. I went to a school that offered a lot of upper level classes,” said junior Abby McCoy, who attended Garfield High School in Seattle. Yet public school students did meet new challenges, especially in terms of class size and expectations. “The smaller class size at Whitman College definitely surprised me, because I felt at public school you could get by with not preparing that well for class. But at Whitman you have to spend a lot of time preparing for discussions,” said Kelly. In contrast, many private school students have found that the expectations at Whitman and their private schools have been similar, making the transition less dramatic. Junior Max Appleton, who attended the private high school The United World College of South East Asia located in Singapore, believes that, while many of the differences between high school and college are the same regardless of the high school attended, the attitude towards college is different. “Most of the changes I noticed were because I was going from high school to college, and I think I would have felt those changes regardless of whether the high school I attended was public or private,” he said. However, coming from a private high school, he said, “I was better prepared in the sense that I always knew I was going to college and all my friends were, so it was something I never really questioned and therefore might have been more confident going into college as I knew I had been prepared as best I could.”
O. JOHNSON
For many public school students, the plethora of resources that Whitman makes available to new students served as crucial tools during the transition from public high schools to a private college. “Whitman provided the necessary resources for a successful transition from high school to college, such as the student academic adviser in the dorm and the writing center,” said Kelly. “I remember that I talked to my student academic adviser a couple of times about Core papers and scheduling advice.” However, despite the wealth of resources available, other students coming from public schools felt that the different atmosphere of large public schools made it difficult for them to understand how or when to use these resources effectively. “In terms of transitioning, the thing I found most difficult and still do is understanding and accepting the resources that are freely given,” said McCoy. “You were lucky to get anything to work with [in high school], and
I felt like I was way more creative than I am here in getting what I want.” This sense of independence highlights a larger difference between how public and private students regard their high school experiences. Some students noted that at Whitman, public school students are more vocal about their high school background. Grimm noted that many private school students are “self-conscious of [coming from private schools], and feel embarrassed because it seems so privileged and almost unnecessary. They’re not as open about it as public school kids, who seem more proud.” McCoy agreed. “There is a pride I take coming from a public school and being successful in that place,” she said. However, said McCoy, this sense of pride sometimes goes even further. “Going to a public school I can say, ‘Look I was denied so many resources but look how successful I am in coming to private school.’ There is some arrogance there,” said McCoy. Yet Grimm also noted the variety of options and freedom of decisionmaking made more available to public school students. “I sometimes wish I had gone to public school, especially with the AP classes and early start programs they can offer . . . A small private school can’t offer that variety,” she said. “Also, deciding to go to a small liberal arts college after a small private school is kind of the natural progression, but making the switch from public to private may involve more of a decisionmaking process on the student’s part. They’re really choosing it rather than just falling into that path.”
Variety key factor during admission process by BECKY NEVIN Staff Reporter
Diversity is a priority for the admission staff at Whitman College, but not necessarily the conventional interpretation of the concept. “There are kinds of diversity that are less visible and equally important,”
WOLFF
said Tony Cabasco, dean of admission and financial aid. “Diversity is fundamentally important to the character and mission of Whitman College,” according to a statement from the Board of Trustees and the Diversity Committee. “Diversity enriches our community and
enhances intellectual and personal growth. We seek to provide a challenging liberal arts experience for our students that prepares them for citizenship in the global community.” But what is this diverse community that the Admission Office must strive to create? How do they go about meet-
ing this goal? How do they define this elusive notion of diversity? Defining diversity Cabasco emphasizes that diversity is about building a group of wellrounded individuals. These individuals will achieve diversity as a group and enrich one another’s learning experiences. “It’s a holistic approach. By that, I mean we look at everything,” said Cabasco. The Admission Office considers multiple factors that make a student diverse. These include, but are not limited to: ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographic diversity, political views, sexual orientation, gender, rural or urban background and experiences. “There are kinds of diversity that are less visible and equally important,” said Cabasco. How does this play into the admission process? “One important notion to address is: What are we sacrificing to gain diversity?” said Cabasco. The admission office has the luxury to choose between 80 and 90 percent of applicants who are qualified for Whitman in terms of academics. These students could come to Whitman and succeed scholastically, but not all of them would contribute equally to the diversification of the student body. “We look at it broadly. You want a mix of folks in class. In addition to that, we hope there is a diversity of interest,” said Cabasco.
How diverse is Whitman, really? The answers to this question are extremely subjective, as each person has a different interpretation of diversity and thus will evaluate Whitman differently. Although socioeconomic and ethnic diversity are not a complete picture, they are visible and thus are often used to evaluate diversity as a whole. “The things that we can easily count are not the full picture,” Cabasco said in regards to ethnic and socioeconomic diversity. However, Whitman’s ethnic diversity has increased incredibly over the last 20 years. In 1990, only six to seven percent of students were non-White. In the class of 2013, 22 percent of students are ethnically diverse. Reflecting Cabasco’s sentiments, sophomore Brynne Haug believes that, for its size, Whitman has a relatively varied student body. “We have wide representation within a small amount of people,” he said. Cabasco realizes, however, that Whitman doesn’t yet mirror the socioeconomic and ethnicity demographics of the United States. One problem is that Whitman’s Admission Office has only just begun reaching international students and those in remote corners of the country. First-year Cassandra Baker argues that this is a large disadvantage. “Whitman tries to be diverse,” she said, “but the fact that it has a relatively low profile in the national and international scales makes this difficult.” Cabasco recognizes these problems and wants to keep making progress. “I’d like us to see more kinds of diversity across the board,” he said.
FEATURE
0March 11, 2010
7
Dragfest festivities Students who travel adapt defy gender norms to physical, cultural distance by REBECCA BRIGHT Feature Editor
GOLD Marcial Diaz Mejia ‘13, dressed in a skirt and bikini top, shows off his dance moves at Dragfest last Friday night, March 5.
by HADLEY JOLLEY Staff Reporter
After dancing in the strobe-lighted darkness, the crowd gathered in a horseshoe for the drag competition to begin. Roxanne von Cummings, reigning Miss Gay Washington, instructed the contestants to pick out good drag names. Since many had based their costumes on characters, the competitors included Wolverine and the Goblin King on the drag king side, and Hannah Montana and Cruella de Ville—the eventual winner—on the drag queen side. Cummings introduced one competitor as “The Bitch of the Ball,” and one student married both a pun and Disney reference by performing under the name “Twinkerbelle.” The competition ended with a performance from Cummings. Every year, Whitman’s Coalition Against Homophobia plans the Day of Drag, which encourage students to wear gender-nonconforming clothes all day, and Dragfest, a themed dance party. This year, the theme of Dragfest was Disney. The coalition’s goal is to introduce students to a part of gay culture and get them to question their ideas about gender norms, promoting a more diverse understanding of gender and gender performance. According to sophomore Emma O’Rourke-Powell, co-president of coalition, Whitman is generally a friendly place for lesbian and gay students. She said she knows quite a few friends who came out when they came to college because of the good atmosphere. “It’s a liberal arts school in the best sense of the word,” she said. However, the aim of Dragfest is also to increase support and understanding for people who are transgender or do not fit into typical gender norms. “It’s about the support and acknowledgment of more than two genders,” said sophomore Mehera Nori, another co-president of coalition.
While being transgender or genderqueer is not the same as drag, the presidents of coalition hope that Dragfest will get students thinking about the definition of gender, and where it breaks down. “Drag shows that the gender lines are consistently blurred, and we’re the ones who decide where they get drawn,” said Cummings. However, good intentions are not a guarantee of success. The leaders of the coalition are not sure that their message comes across, or if students only come and dance and socialize and have fun. “It can get lost. It often gets lost,” said junior Liam Mina. Some students don’t see drag as undermining gender roles, but as a chance to poke fun at the other gender. First-year Erika Horwege claimed that drag was a chance to parody, but not mock, the opposite gender. “We’re not mocking them; we love them,” she said. First-year Eric Nickeson-Mendheim wore a dress reminiscent of Disney princesses and introduced his character as “Bella the Bitch,” though he performed as the “Bitch of the Ball.” He enjoys drag’s connection to gay culture. “I love this opportunity to express myself, and make out with my boyfriend in drag,” he said. Drag can also change gendered notions of beauty and body type. “It certainly forces people to think about what we consider feminine, and how we relate it to body type. The fact that a man can make himself look what we call feminine reveals that gender constructs are a sham,” said Cummings. The challenge drag poses to the idea of gendered beauty was not completely lost. “Boys can look really hot as girls,” said junior Hanna Kahl.
When senior Jane Lutken tells people that she’s from Mississippi, she often gets a strange reaction. “People always ask me, ‘Where’s your accent?’ And there have been a lot of really funny questions—’What kinds of rodents have you had for dinner?’, ‘Do you have a bunch of broken down cars in your yard?’” said Lutken. “And it gets even more intense when they ask, ‘How do you feel about abortion?’” Although applicants from the Pacific Northwest are most common at Whitman, the campus is made up of students from 45 different states and 30 countries. Adjusting can be difficult, as both domestic and international students must adapt to a different way of life, including new regional mannerisms or educational styles. For Lutken, leaving the South has led to an increased awareness of the negative image of Southerners that persists throughout the United States. “If someone’s going to tell a joke about a stupid person, they’ll give them a Southern accent, almost without fail. And I try to call people on it,” said Lutken. “It’s something that I have definitely come to realize way more since I’ve been out here. I think that Southerners are some of the only people that you can still make fun of and have no one get mad at you for it.” Lutken has tried to be vocal about her Southern upbringing, hoping to make people aware of the prejudices that remain. “I think what needs to happen is that there need to be a lot of intelligent people who don’t hide their accent,” said Lutken. Coming from Massachusetts, firstyear Roseanna Loring has adapted to a different set of cultural issues. “At the beginning of the year, I was drawn to other kids from the Northeast, and now I have a lot more friends from the West Coast. I didn’t even know where people were from, but they were just the people I connected to originally,” Loring said. Loring has also discovered that people in the Northwest are generally friendlier than those in the east. “I think that making the jump from west to east would be a lot more difficult because when you walk by someone, you probably say ‘hi’ at Whitman, and I don’t think that would happen at a lot of East Coast colleges,” said Loring. Moving from a large city to Walla Walla can pose its own problems. For first-year Hayley Beckett, who came to
Whitman from Berkley, Calif., this was originally a big concern. “I realized that I could never live in an isolated area coming from such a diverse, vibrant city, so I got really nervous about living in Walla Walla,” said Beckett in an e-mail. However, after seeing the campus, Beckett realized that she didn’t need to worry about being stifled at Whitman. “Walla Walla is small, but after visiting, I realized that it has enough character and Whitman has so much to offer that it would be a wonderful place to live as a college student,” said Beckett. Beckett, like many other students, has a unique perspective on Whitman because of her home city, and has learned to turn regional differences into an advantage. International students attending Whitman experience many similar adjustment issues, although cross-cultural differences often make the transition a much tougher one. As the International Student Adviser at the Intercultural Center, Kris Barry understands many of these challenges. “Sometimes it’s the little things,” she said. “Because you’re kind of mentally prepared—you’ve read about the big things. It’s the little irritating things that can be important, and they’re very individual but you know they’re there.” The support provided by the Intercultural Center includes an orientation for international students, as well as programs like Friendship Families, which matches participating international students with a local family, and the Buddy Program, which pairs a sophomore with an incoming international student. “We have many different levels of support, and whichever one students relate to is great,” said Barry. “We just want to provide as many options as we can, because everybody’s so different.” For junior Elena Zheglova, these programs have helped enrich her time at Whitman, although many aspects of life in Walla Walla remain difficult. Zheglova came to Whitman from Bulgaria as a first-year student. “It’s great to have a friendship family because it’s really nice to have dinners with them and see the way people live,” said Zheglova. “At Whitman, and in college in general, you’re kind of out of everyday life.” When she first arrived, however, Zheglova felt overwhelmed by Whitman life. “In the beginning, I though that I had to participate in all the clubs that I could, and go to all the lectures because its something that you never have the
change to do in Bulgaria,” said Zheglova. “I felt like it was my responsibility to go to all these things. And I was just exhausted, I couldn’t sleep.” Although she has since been able to involve herself less, Zheglova has not adjusted to some aspects of academic life. “It’s the type of studying that you have to do—I can’t get used to it,” she said. “You can’t focus on anything specifically important for you. It’s very broad and vague and it burns me out.” This summer, Zheglova hopes to get an internship in Walla Walla where she can slow down and focus on her environmental studies interests. For some students, like Ayana Hatsuda, a sophomore from Japan on a yearlong program, English has posed the greatest obstacle. Hatsuda participated in the international students’ orientation, yet adjusting was difficult because she felt behind in her language abilities. “Other international students already spoke English pretty well,” said Hatsuda. Despite this challenge, Hatsuda has enjoyed living in Prentiss Hall and has gotten to know some of her section mates well. She has noticed some differences between Japan and America, but enjoys these changes. “In Japan, people like group harmony, and here people are more independent. But I like that,” she said. For Tumisang Mothei, a junior from Botswana, academic challenges have not been as noticeable as cultural differences. During his time at Whitman, Mothei has learned to focus more on commonalities. “Some of the nuances are difficult for me to digest simply because I’m from a different culture and social environment,” said Mothei. “I’m just trying to relate on some of the common things we can share. Like ideas, we can talk about ideas—we might not have the same material resources, but we can share ideas and there’s common ground in that.” Mothei has heard many misconceptions about his country during his time in the United States, and, like Lutken when faced with stereotypes about the South, he tries to use those moments to educate others and to learn himself. At Whitman, Mothei has found that people are generally excited to listen and discuss. “Here there is this open feeling towards other cultures and countries,” he said. “There’s an effort that you can actually see to know where you’re from and what your culture’s all about.”
WOLFF Home countries of international students currently studying at Whitman. The vast majority of international students enroll for a four-year period, although a small number come for a one-year study abroad program. ADVERTISEMENT
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Opinion
The Pioneer ISSUE 7 MAR. 11, 2010 Page 8
POINT
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COUNTERPOINT
Chatroulette: The grim Chatroulette: Vulgar, artistic, offers much more than its detractors claim reality of anonymity “I’ve never seen so much penis in my entire life.” This was firstyear William Witwer’s all-toocommon response to the media-web phenomenon JOEY KERN known as ChaColumnist troulette. C h at r o u l e t t e is a Web site that links two people, completely anonymously, in a video chat room where you can cycle through different chat-interlocutors. This, on the surface, seems like an interesting, unique opportunity to talk with people from different places, of different cultures, and maybe learn a thing or two—or at least flex your social skills. But, what becomes apparent about Chatroulette after cycling through two or maybe three people is that it is little more than a penis purveyor’s paradise. While there are undoubtedly those who enjoy watching people jerk off (anonymously) as they sit back somewhere, mouth agape in horror, I feel as though everyone cannot enjoy this kind of interaction. Moreover, this kind of thing proves a strange social commentary on the nature of anonymity itself. Chatroulette, through the nature of anonymity, abolishes social senses of responsibility. In the face of this lack of responsibility the need to whip your dick out apparently becomes rather strong. Equally prevalent on Chatroulette is the man or woman who feels compelled to yell obscenities, insult whomever they encounter or shamelessly attempt to make every person they encounter strip. The common denominator here is that when people know there is zero chance of their actions coming back to them, they feel as though they can do anything. Of course, behavioral constructs are, in many cases, an imposition on people’s freedom. These impositions, however, like laws, exist for a reason. There are undoubtedly people who do in fact enjoy the exhibitionist spirit of watching someone take out their penis in a chat room. These people are the kind of people who could see this as a kind of performance art and see meaning in things like this. I have no problem
with this. The problem is that the majority of these people are behaving in this way purely to disturb others. The truth to be found in all of this is the sad reality that many people have a base, obscene nature that is held in check purely by the social restraints of culpability. It is the equivalent of people robbing a bank with masks on. When given the opportunity, the kind of decency we often ascribe to human nature becomes instead a fabrication that crumbles at the first instance of anonymity. What makes this trend especially disturbing is its prevalence. You can easily count on one hand the number of people you can cycle through on Chatroulette before you see a penis.
I n fact, finding a single person who is not on the site purely to gross out others or vent his or her rage via insult is a rare occasion. People do not go to Chatroulette to talk with people; they go there to release the uglier sides of their nature. While there may, in fact, be a worse way to ‘free’ oneself from the imposition of social constraints, the very fact that people feel the need to behave obscenely is a sad commentary on human nature and makes me wonder what people are truly capable of when all responsibility and self-consciousness is stripped away.
WILLIAM WITWER Columnist
Chatroulette, the Web site that provides users access to random video chats with complete anonymity, has exploded onto mainstream culture with Twilightesqe force. I hadn’t heard of it two weeks ago, but everyone I know seems to be talking about it now.
I f you’re not as young, hip and devilishly handsome as I am (it happens to everyone, don’t worry about it), you might be unfamiliar with this fascinating social phenomenon. I heartily recommend you try it—it presents astounding new possibilities for art and can be a wonderful mix of fun and randomness. When you load Chatroulette, you are presented with what your webcam sees, and a black square of space soon to be occupied by someone else’s space. The rules are simple—either party can press “Next” at any time, with no consequences for abrupt departures. Most users that I have encountered on the site do not use their built-in microphone, but rather use
the text chat function to the right of the dual video feeds. A paradigm for the Internet at large, Chatroulette follows a simple rule: You have no idea what you will see, but there is a good chance it will be inappropriate or just plain pornographic. Yes, there certainly are quite a few masturbating dudes who position the camera at their penis; I’ve even seen a couple, a man and a woman, engaged in the act of fellatio (Next! Please!). There are those who use the sheer quantity of real naked flesh to say that Chatroulette is somehow evil, that through its anonymity it represents a breakdown of our established social order. I couldn’t disagree more. Chatroulette does no harm to anyone, because using the site is of course entirely voluntary. The people who complain about the site as in any way pornographic and thus bad should just not use it. It would spare us the trouble of encountering such boring chat partners.
Moreover, the constant sight of (mostly male) genitalia actually enriches the experience. I don’t mean that I enjoy the sight, but the threat of exposure transforms each “Next” into a bomb just waiting to go off. As a crazy high school English teacher once explained it to me, “We go to the theater because there’s danger in our proximity to the actors.” In much the same way, the possibility of shocking nudity, though certainly vulgar, makes us pay more attention to each moment with a kind of wonderful fear in our hearts. If you move away from the issue of nudity, you discover a strange, fascinating world where manners don’t work in the same way and no one makes any real connections. There are a glut of people from other countries or who speak other languages, and I have watched their faces
light up with delight when they discover that someone on the screen speaks (or tries to speak) their language. It legitimately offers an opportunity to practice foreign languages on native speakers. Chatroulette also provides the context for social experimentation that even constitutes, in some cases, a new art form. There are many people in masks, the most popular of which is the Guy Fawkes mask from “V for Vendetta.” Some people try to creep their partners out, even going so far as to have a fake body from the ceiling and no one in the frame (there is an auto-connect feature that allows for this). There are plenty of normal people, too. To consider these things as a form of new art requires either an extreme amount of pretentiousness or a huge lowering of the bar for what exactly art is, based on your perspective. Whatever your thoughts about its artistic merit, however, no one disagrees that the site can be riotously fun. My favorite Chatroulette story comes from a female friend of mine who prefers that I don’t use her name. She ‘nexted’ onto a person with large signs titled “The Boob Olympics” which showed two columns, the left side labeled “U.S.”, the right side labeled “Other Countries.” My friend, seeing that the United States was losi n g , valiantly decided to help her country by
flashing the man. (I was, of course, not in the LOOS-DIALLO room.) “[It felt] liberating. I had never flashed someone before,” she told me. But it didn’t matter that much— because it was Chatroulette.
Obama the failure? Have some perspective There’s no doubt about it: President Obama’s first year has been rocky. In terms of tackling the large-scale reforms he was elected on—notably health care reRUSS form and climate CADITZ-PECK change—Obama’s Columnist record remains sparse, especially in comparison to the remarkable optimism and expectations set forth in his campaign. Roughly a year into his term, uncertainty looms for Obama voters. What to think of the Obama presidency thus far? Should we be angry? Content? Vaguely disillusioned? Corporate Republicans and their Tea Party stooges—or is it now the other way around?—know where they stand. But for the rest of us, I offer a few words of advice: Take a deep breath to recognize the progress we have seen, reject cynicism and stay focused on the big picture. First—in order to contextualize Obama’s accomplishments—let’s acknowledge the historical “rockiness” of Democratic first years. As Hendrik Hertzberg at the New Yorker points out, with first years it’s “wise to keep one’s seat belt loosely fastened.” J.F.K went through the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Carter “gave away”
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the Panama Canal and Clinton dramatically botched gay rights. All three alienated Congress and failed to pass major health care reform (as has every Democrat since Harry Truman first proposed it). Only Johnson made major progress in his first year, primarily thanks to the tragic circumstances that put him in office. Rockiness is to be expected. For his part, it appears that Obama has failed to craft a cohesive public message for his agenda (for instance, while all the parts of his health care bill remain widely popular, the bill as a whole has floundered) and focused too much on the ideal of congressional bipartisanship rather than actually passing his agenda. So what exactly has Obama accomplished thus far, you ask? Here’s what potential cynics and second-guessers should remember: Obama passed the largest economic recovery bill in American history and rescued the economy from the next Great Depression. Although the full impact of the crisis was not felt until months after the crash, the stimulus bill started spending within just weeks—and according to data released last month— has had incredible success: It has added an estimated 1.8 million jobs already. Obama passed a visionary federal budget, which has laid the groundwork for health care reform, climate change and so forth, and is considered by many the most progressive in half a century. Obama has brought sanity to American foreign policy and changed America’s relationship with the world by rejecting the principles of neo-conservatism. Despite inheriting two blundering wars, he established—and kept—a schedule to withdraw from Iraq and ended the
American policy of torture. Obama has greatly increased federal funding for student loans, increased Pell Grants, funded stem cell research, expanded programs for children’s health care, filled the federal government with forward-thinking rather than nihilistic or anti-intellectual officials, passed a law to protect women from employment discrimination, passed a law to make it easier for workers to organize and more. Second, despite trends towards cynicism and general disillusionment, let’s remember to stay focused on the big picture. Here’s a tip that most D.C. pundits would rather you didn’t know: 99 percent of the theories they come up with are useless. As someone who enjoys theorizing about politics—and wouldn’t mind getting paid to do it—this is hard to admit. But the saga of American politics has never been about day-to-day analysis or month-to-month polling. In terms of who wins elections, it’s essentially only the conditions “on the ground” that matter. It’s always been about the big picture, about the well-being of the average American and passing the legislation necessary to ensure it. Regardless of what the talking heads on Fox News or MSNBC may say—or even what the average voter tells a pollster on any given day—the record of what Americans care about is clear; they care about themselves, as they should. For the American voter, it’s not the small political fumbles that matter. It’s unemployment— barely under double-digits this month— that matters. It’s health care—with 46 million Americans still uninsured—that matters. History has shown that, espe-
cially during tough macroeconomic times, the moderate presidents who fail to fix the big stuff (see: Jimmy Carter) cannot win. If he is to succeed, Obama will need our active support to pass his major agenda items. Obama has admirably stepped up and gone “all in”—this Monday he called for campaign-style telethons and door-knocking to raise support for health care reform. No, the bill’s not perfect. But it is much, much better than the status quo (it will expand insurance to 31 million Americans, dramatically lower costs, regulate “pre-existing conditions” and more) and many credibly contend that
any future ambitions for the Obama’s presidency rests upon its passage. Above all, now is the time to avoid cynicism. Cynicism is—and has always been—the easy way out, whether you’re too tired or too lazy to continue the push for reform. Obama’s second year is shaping up to be more combative and potentially much more productive. We can’t wait for the next Obama to fix the urgent problems our nation faces. Now is the time for progressives to gear up for the long haul, focus on passing the “big stuff ” and avoid letting the perfect—or really good—get in the way of the way better.
POLI T IC AL C ARTOON
DOUGLAS
OPINION
March 11, 2010
9
Big oil causing America to fall behind Greece’s tragedy: EU Is it a coincidence that Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski (R)—who has received more than $124,500 from oil companies— is spearheading LISA CURTIS an amendment Columnist to stop the Clean Air Act from regulating greenhouse gas emissions? Or how about the relationship between a Congress that can’t seem to pass climate legislation and the $90 million that was spent lobbying on climate issues in 2008? With companies like Exxon Mobile making recent profits of $45 billion and using it on Capitol Hill, it is no wonder that America is falling behind the rest of the world in the race for renewable energy. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases endanger public health and therefore could be regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act. Although a bill instituting a cap and trade system to regulate GHS emissions narrowly passed the House this summer, climate legislation has stalled in the Senate, prompting the Obama administration to call upon the Environmental Protection Agency to begin regulation. In response, Senator Murkowski and her lobbyist friends drafted an amendment known among environmentalists as the “Dirty Air Act.” While widespread citizen outrage—including from Whitman’s Campus Climate Challenge, who called the Senate all last week—has thus prevented Murkowski from introducing the amendment, she is expected to try again later this month. Last Wednesday, Murkowski publicly accused Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson of conflicting statements regarding greenhouse gas policy due to Jackson’s stance that agency regulation can complement comprehensive energy legislation. Murkowski told Jackson, “I don’t know that I’m any more clear based on your statement this morning as to whether or not you think it should be the Congress and those of us that are elected by our constituents and accountable to them to enact
and advance climate policy.” Murkowski’s comment is laughable for a few reasons. First, it implies that Congress is actually on track to enacting climate policy when even top Democrats have said that it is unlikely to pass in 2010 due to the negative push-back expected in the midterm elections. Secondly, her comment implies that members of Congress are actually accountable to their constituents as opposed to the coffers of the energy and pharmaceutical companies. The inability of politicians to take action on climate change doesn’t only have dire implications for the planet. It is also affecting our ability to get ourselves out of the current recession and compete in the global market. Over these past couple of years, while the general economy has tanked, the green economy has greatly increased. Pew Charitable Trust reports that the clean energy economy grew by 9.1 percent between 1998 and 2007, compared to growth of just 3.7 percent in traditional jobs. The Obama administration has estimated that occupations in clean energy and sustainability will grow by 52 percent between 2000 and 2016. With other careers only ex-
pected to see a workforce increase of 14 percent in the same time period, the green sector is becoming increasingly attractive. If the clean energy economy can provide 38 percent more jobs than any other industry even without congressional support, imagine the impact that climate legislation could make. You don’t have to fantasize too much; simply look at what other countries are already doing. A recent study by the Center for American Progress clearly showed that the United States must make long-term investments in clean energy or risk being shut out of a $2.3 trillion industry. The report hails Germany, Spain and China as “early winners in the next great technological and industrial revolution.” Although many Americans might think of China as a carbon-intensive country, China has more renewable energy capacity than any other country in the world. It currently produces 16 percent of its electricity from hydro and wind power. America produces a mere 7.3 percent of our electricity from renewable sources. Feeling pissed off yet? I dare you to call your senator.
E. JOHNSON
deadlines loom large, citizens take to streets Greece’s deadline for reducing its debt is rapidly approaching. The government is scrambling for money, raising taxes, decreasing spending HEATHER and even sendNICHOLS- ing up a fund HAINING where citizens Columnist can donate “for the good of their country.” As Greek citizens are protesting against austerity reforms that lower governmental spending at the expense of social programs, the European Union must decide how to support Greece before its debt sinks the entire global economy. The EU demanded that Greece lower its debt to eight percent of its GDP (from the current 12 percent) by mid-March if it wants to continue receiving support from the EU. With the deadline looming ever closer, Greece’s parliament has been passing measures to increase taxes while simultaneously slashing governmental spending. Usually governments raise taxes to pay for an increase in governmental programs or lower taxes to compensate for a decrease in social welfare programs. But with the triple whammy of higher taxes, lowering of public service employees’ wages and fewer social programs, Greek citizens are taking to the streets in violent protests. Most recently at the time of this writing, a huge portion of the labor movement of Greece clashed with police in violent riots. Many in Greece are rightly angry that they are being asked to shoulder the debts that the wealthier speculators and government officials incurred. Government officials have allegedly pocketed a huge portion of the national debt. One source suggests that over 30 percent of national tax revenues have been unaccounted for because they allegedly go into the pockets of governmental officials. It seems
like a problem without a solution. The government must find a way to pay off a huge portion of its debts in a short period of time. The EU is applying pressure while refusing to offer financial support. Citizens are frustrated that their economy and standards of living are declining while the government is withdrawing support. Many are refusing to pay for the corruption of governmental officials. Yet without the people’s support, the government will not be able to meet the coming deadline—and it may not be able to meet the deadline even with the people’s support. The people are going to have to temporarily bear the brunt of their government’s actions or else the EU is going to have to provide more solid support. Using arguments that sound remarkably similar to those in opposition to Lehman Brothers’ bailout a few years ago, many of the wealthier governments in the EU are vehemently opposed to bailing out Greece. They argue that Greece’s impending financial crisis is of its own doing and that an EU bailout will spur requests for bailouts from Portugal, Spain, Italy and possibly Ireland as well. However, like in the Lehman Brothers instance, a refusal to provide some kind of assistance could mean the collapse of the European economy, resulting in a second global financial crisis. Current reports suggest that French President Nicolas Sarkozy will support Greece before letting its economy fail, but nobody has said what measures will be taken. Some more creative solutions that have been suggested to decrease Greece’s debt involve selling the Aegian Islands, demanding reparations from Germany for its work in crippling Greece’s economy in World War II and selling bonds to international speculators. This problem is going to require cooperation on an international level. Citizens, governmental officials and the EU must work together to reduce financial speculation against Greece’s failure and to provide a sustainable solution that will not cripple Greek citizens. Greece needs less rioting, less pressure from the EU, less corruption and more willingness on everyone’s part to cooperate through the duration of the impending crisis.
“Never wrong on the Internet” philosophy plagues our society When it comes to heated debates, everyone thinks that they’re right. It’s only human: We want to think the best of our own arguments, BLAIR FRANK so we’ll often Columnist stick to our guns. The difference between actually discussing something in person and on the Internet is that the Internet gives you a sense of anonymity that can further empower your own perception of just how right you are. Add to that the plethora of sites in reference to any conceivable topic, and it’s possible to come to any sort of conclusion. Don’t think global warming exists?
Well, to butcher a phrase from a certain computer manufacturer: There’s a site for that. Was the Holocaust just one big hoax? Sure, if you choose your search terms carefully. On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog (or a 40-year-old man or a super-intelligent chinchilla), and everybody other than you can be wrong, and you’ll have concrete proof! After all, you read it on the Internet. For example, a simple Google search for the terms “9/11 hoax” returned over 1.1 million results. Some of them are Web sites devoted to proving that planes did crash into the Twin Towers. However, the vast majority (at least in the top few pages) are devoted to showing that the U.S. government planned and executed an elaborate conspiracy to make it look like a terrorist attack.
the Pioneer
Okay, so there have always been conspiracy theorists (the term “grassy knoll” ring a bell?), but the difference in this age of instantaneous interconnectedness is that it is always possible for someone to e-mail your Aunt Jac-
The thing is: Never having to be wrong on the Internet is bleeding into how we conduct ourselves in public. queline or Uncle Carl links to a few poorly designed Web sites chock full of evidence for any conspiracy imaginable. There are entire documentaries posted to YouTube that may not have received much play in the Inter-
net-free past, but now have hundreds of thousands of views. Loonies on the Internet are nothing new, though. Just take a look at Chatroulette, the average discussion on XBox Live or even comments on a ridiculously popular YouTube video. The thing is, never having to be wrong on the Internet is bleeding into how we conduct ourselves in public. If I wanted to, I could read my news from blogs that are completely in lock-step with what I believe, talking to people who believe exactly what I believe, and watch television at night where charismatic talk show hosts don’t think to contradict anything I hold dear. Now that’s scary. That’s what’s fueling America’s fire right now. Political candidates can find the perfect medium to parrot
EDITORIAL POLICY
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their message. Scientists no longer have to prove their experiments under peer review, but every new vaccine and drug comes under fire from sites blaming modern medicine for all number of ills and conspiracies. In a single-panel webcomic by Randall Munroe, the lone on-screen character tells his significant other that he cannot come to bed, because “Someone is wrong on the Internet.” To make another pop culture reference: We didn’t start the flame war. But we’re going to have to deal with it. Because being right is something nobody wants to give up. So the next time you are convinced in your heart of hearts that somebody else is Wrong, you are Right and by golly, you have the evidence to back it up, just remember, that’s what they think too.
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Sports
The Pioneer ISSUE 7 MAR. 11, 2010 Page 10
M’ T
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Whitman men extend win streak by LINDSAY FAIRCHILD Staff Reporter
This weekend, Whitman men’s tennis took on Willamette University and Lewis and Clark College on the outdoor courts. Whitman—who came into these matches ranked 25th nationally and sixth regionally—increased their Northwest Conference win streak to 55 after besting both Willamette, 7-2, and Lewis and Clark, 9-0. On Saturday, March 6, the Missionaries started off strong in doubles against Willamette, winning all three matches. At number one doubles, senior Matt Solomon and junior Etienne Moshevich won 8-3; at number two doubles, senior Christoph Fuchs and junior Quin Miller won 8-2; and at number three doubles, senior Jake Cappel and first-year Jeff Tolman dominated their Willamette counterparts, winning 8-0. Even with team leaders, Solomon and Moshevich, losing early singles matches, 7-6 (5-7), 4-6, 6-3 and 6-2, 6-4, respectively, the Missionaries were still able to clinch the win after junior Chris Bailey comfortably defeated his opponent at number four singles 6-0, 6-2. Fuchs swept his opponent at number five singles in similar fashion 6-0, 6-2 and firstyear Sam Sadeghi demolished his opponent 6-0, 6-0. Tolman faced some trouble from his opponent at number two singles, but pulled out a 7-6 (72), 0-6, 6-4 win in the end. After the match, Head Coach Jeff Northam commented on his team’s potential and ability to overcome challenges. “Injuries haven’t been very kind to us this year. Seems like since the first week of the season we have had guys out with injuries. I know that as a team we are capable of playing better. Hopefully everyone will continue to improve and we will be at the top of our game by the conference tournament. This weekend we probably
played our best doubles of the year. Against a good Willamette team, we came out with a lot of intensity and jumped out to quick leads,” he said. Sadeghi was similarly excited about the Missionaries performance. “We needed to make a statement this weekend after our come-from-behind 5-4 win against Pacific Lutheran University and we did just that,” he said. “Willamette is arguably the secondbest team in the conference and a 7-2 win is impressive. Hopefully we can continue to play this well into spring break when we play some of our most important matches of the season.” On Sunday, March 7, the Missionaries capitalized on the momentum they gained from their victory over Willamette cruising to a 9-0 win over Lewis and Clark. Fuchs and sophomore Conor Holton-Burke easily defeated their Pioneer opponents, 8-1 in the number one doubles match. Senior Thomas Roston and sophomore Adriel Borshansky won 8-4 at number two doubles and senior David Deming and first-year Matt Tesmond won 8-1 in the final doubles match. The singles portion of the match was all Whitman. The Missionary players combined to lose only six games each dominating their Lewis and Clark counterparts in straight sets. Cappel, playing Lewis and Clark sophomore Quinn Roth-Carter in the number three singles, was the only Missionary to be challenged at all. After deftly taking the first set 6-0, his game eluded him in a second set plagued by missed serves and unforced errors. By the end of the set frustration was visible—and in some cases audible—by both players. However, good baseline and net play by Cappel coupled with superior shot placement gave him an advantage over Roth-Carter as the set went to tie-break. Early on Cappel looked to be tak-
PHOTOS BY JACOBSON TOP: Etienne Moshevich ‘11 reaches for a backhand. Despite quite the effort, Moshevich lost in a thrilling three-set match at no. 2 singles. RIGHT: Sam Sadeghi ‘13 approaches the net in his singles match against Willamette’s Micah Mack. Sadeghi won 6-0, 6-0.
ing control of the tie-break as he went up 2-0 with a good serve and backhand winner. However, Roth-Carter fought back to tie the score at 4-4. Late in the tie-break Cappel displayed his superior conditioning as he took the last three points from his visibly exhausted opponent, grinding out a hard-earned 6-0, 7-6 (7-4) victory. Both the coach and players say that the 55 game win streak is not a concern or a blessing for the team; in fact Sadeghi said he did not even realize that they had such a win streak. “One pretty unique aspect of our
program is we often split the team into two different teams and go play conference matches. If I [or the team] was concerned about a streak we wouldn’t split squad our matches,” Northam said. “Our conference has gotten better the past few years and we are far from over-confident. One thing about consistently being one of the top teams in the conference is we always get every team’s best effort. ” The Missionaries hope to continue their win streak Friday, March 12, against Pacific Lutheran University at home.
BASEBALL: Missionaries’ first win page 1
BOWMAN Jason Sease ‘10 delivers a pitch during his start against the University of Puget Sound last Saturday. Sease lasted six innings and gave up 10 hits and seven earned runs.
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“We kind of let that game slip away,” said Coach Jared Holowaty. “We knew we had to take pressure off our pitching.” The pressure was on for Sunday’s game, which featured the righthanded Mercado on the mound. His phenomenal performance on Sunday helped Whitman bounce back against Puget Sound. Mercado pitched nine innings, allowing only three hits and one run. Mercado had the shut-out, when the Loggers scored a run at the bottom of the inning. Whitman put two runs on the board in the sixth thanks to Mercado’s RBI ground-out to the shortstop. Senior Jason Sease scored the second run from third on a Hannoosh bunt down the first base line. The 2-1 victory marks the first win of the season for Whitman, with much of the praise from the team going to Mercado’s work on defense and offense. Coach Holowaty, also new to the Whitman baseball program this year, offers a refreshing motivational spirit to a team that has been consistently been the underdog of the conference. “We can’t worry too much about the numbers or focus on losses. The team’s health is important,” said Holowaty, who also stressed importance of pitcher’s health. “It’s good to have clean defense, and if the pitchers do well, we do well.” Their small roster poses an obvious problem for the Missionaries, but Hannoosh sees the advantages of the 13-man team. “All of us are forced to be dedicated, healthy and versatile if we want to be successful,” said Hannoosh. “The small roster has also yielded the closest team that I’ve ever been a part of. There are no cliques, hidden agendas or animosity whatsoever in our clubhouse.” According to Hannoosh, the team is fully behind the direction of the program that Coach Holowaty and Assistant Coaches Mike Michaud and Sean Kinney seem to be taking. “Two years ago, after two tough losses I don’t think our team was mentally tough enough to bounce back,” said Hannoosh. With both defense and offense stepping up their game on Sunday, the team feels as if this could be a year of surprising changes. “Getting the win today helps take the monkey off our back and hopefully give us some momentum heading into the next weekend,” said Hannoosh. Whitman’s next games are Saturday and Sunday, March 13 and 14, in Portland against Lewis & Clark.
SPORTS
March 11, 2010
11
Men’s lacrosse pummels CWU by BAILEY ARANGO Staff Reporter
The Whitman men’s lacrosse team took down Central Washington University on Ankeny Field Saturday, March 6, by a final score of 18-8. Whitman’s win over CWU is their first of the season following two losses to perennial Pacific Northwest Collegiate Lacrosse League powerhouses, University of Idaho and Western Oregon University. The victory was especially satisfying as the team was still reeling from its Feb. 28 loss to defending league champion, Western Oregon. The loss was particularly heart-breaking as the Missionaries held the lead for the majority of the contest before the Wolves bit back with three fourth-quarter goals– the last of which came with under a minute left–to secure a 10-9 victory. First-year attacker Aedan Weber spearheaded the Missionaries dominant offensive attack. Weber’s seven goals led all scorers Saturday, and his adept passing and nimble footwork in the offensive zone helped create several other scoring opportunities. On the defensive end, fellow firstyear Ben Skotheim held down the fort on defense, limiting the Wildcats scor-
ing chances to a bare minimum, while initiating the offense from his own end. Skotheim’s effort helped first-year Luigi Lollini—who put together an exemplary performance as goalie— collect his first college victory. “It was great to get my first win. I had a lot of fun,” said Lollini. “I can’t wait to get back out there next weekend.” The beginning of this season finds the Whitman men trying to balance youth with experience, following last season’s unprecedented playoff run that took them to the finals, only to lose in a gut-wrenching double-overtime thriller. Although their current record of 1-2-0 doesn’t look impressive on paper, junior Zach Morrissey says this team has the potential to go all the way. “We’re expecting to go far this season,” Morrissey said, following a stellar performance at midfield last Saturday. “Last year, we went to our conference championships and lost 10-9 in double overtime. This year, we fully expect to win. We’ve got a much deeper team and play really well.” Morrissey, who opted not to study abroad this semester in part due to the lacrosse season, believes Whitman has
all the pieces in place to take home the title. “We’re doing really well. The team is having a great time this season and we’ve got some really good freshmen talent along with some other returners who have really stepped up their game this year. We’re only 1-2-0, but our team is showing a lot of promise,” he said. Despite championship aspirations and a legitimate star performer in Weber, the men’s lacrosse team goes widely unnoticed by the Whitman community at large, but Morrissey says the team is content just to play and continue enjoying club status. “If we wanted to be a varsity sport our entire league would have to become D3, and that’s not going to happen any time soon . . . Everyday we live and breathe lacrosse,” he said. The Whitman men’s lacrosse team, which has made the division playoffs every year since 1995, travels to Salem, Ore. this weekend for a showdown with Willamette University. The team will look to build upon their recent success and continue their march towards the Pacific Northwest Collegiate Lacrosse playoffs.
JACOBSON Chris Duncan ‘10 advances the ball upfield as the Missionaries destroy league rival Central Washington University 18-8. Duncan finished the game as Whitman’s second highest scorer with six goals. He also added three assists.
NFL Combine: Waste of time? S On Feb. 27, while you were wikisurfing, sleeping through class or whatever, 21-year-old Bruce Campbell ALLAN CRUM had an atypical Staff Reporter job interview. Rather than a suit and tie, Campbell wore matching tight polyester shorts and sleeveless tops provided by Under Armour. The black fabric displayed his chiseled granite six-foot-six-inch 315-pound frame to an assembled crowd of NFL personnel who proceeded to meticulously inspect almost every inch of Mr. Campbell’s body, from his 36inch long arms (with 10-and-a-half inch hands at the end) to his pistonlike legs that allowed him to leap 32 inches vertically and sprint 40 yards in 4.85 seconds. These may seem like strange standards with which to judge an offensive tackle (considering their job requires no leaping, very little sprinting and even less body-building), but from now until the NFL draft on April 22, football fans and team owners alike will be abuzz with the performances of Bruce Campbell and the other 249 invitees to the 2010 NFL Combine— the annual job fair for prospective pro football players. Campbell—who until the Combine was a relatively underwhelming offensive tackle from the University of Maryland—likely earned himself millions of dollars with his performance at the Combine. He catapulted himself up draft boards by outperforming almost every other lineman in two ways: He ran and jumped better, and looked way more ripped. All year, every year, NFL scouts
study hours and hours of game footage, scouring the college football ranks for the next Jim Brown or Ronnie Lott. They know that millions of dollars are on the line: The first pick from last year’s first round (University of Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford) received a contract potentially worth up to $78 million, whereas the first pick in the fourth round (Texas A&M quarterback Stephen McGee) was offered a contract worth a little more than $2 million. Stafford’s contract is worth even more than that of Super Bowl-winning quarterback Drew Brees, showing some NFL teams are more willing to gamble their cash on potential talent than to pay for proven winners.
Every year the Combine inevitably shows that scouting is and always will be an incredibly inexact science. When the winter freeze slowly begins to break, football’s off-season begins, and these scouts seemingly shred their meticulous research notes in deference to the Combine’s disturbing combination of job interview and meat market. Prospects are interviewed by coaches, intensely examined for any physical defect and put through a battery of athletic tests that supposedly help to determine their potential as an NFL player. Every year the Combine inevitably shows that scouting is and always will be an incredibly inexact science. A good Combine performance far from guarantees a successful NFL career. If
it did, former top-five pick Ryan Leaf would be headed for the Hall of Fame rather than a Texas state penitentiary. Busts, such as Leaf, certainly aren’t the fault of the scouts; they’re simply hired to do the impossible. NFL teams pay them to predict the type of men 21-year-old college students will grow in to. It’s no wonder that the scouts grasp at the hard numbers that the Combine produces, regardless of whether or not those numbers will translate into on-field production. Of course this year’s Combine was no different. Besides the performance by Mr. Campbell, there were several players who greatly increased their chances of being drafted earlier or later than they may deserve. Clemson wideout Jacoby Ford, a track-star with near Olympic speed, ran a blistering 4.28 40-yard dash, practically guaranteeing himself a spot on the Oakland Raiders. Conversely, cornerback Joe Haden of Florida struggled to break 4.6, leading the same scouts who had touted him as a top-10 pick to whisper that they always thought he looked a bit slow. This isn’t to say that the Combine is a complete waste of time. It allows players from small colleges to compete—albeit without pads on—on even footing with players from college football powerhouses, while allowing coaches and scouts valuable face time with 250 different players. The Combine can be used as a convenient opportunity for players to show off the rewards of all those long hours in the weight room. I would simply advise that before NFL executives make their draft day decision they should take a deep breath, forget about 40 times and hand spans and remember that first and foremost they are drafting a football player.
M’ W’ G
Whitman finishes last, Campbell wins by JAY GOLD and BIDNAM LEE Staff Reporters
This past weekend, both the Whitman men’s and women’s golf teams traveled to Moses Lake, Wash. to play in a three-team match against Whitworth University and North Idaho College, opening up their respective spring seasons. Both teams finished third despite some impressive individual performances. The men’s team managed a 28-over par, 316 total, finishing behind both Whitworth (304) and North Idaho (306). It was a rather disappointing outcome, but there were a number of highlights to take from the first match of the season. Missionary senior Steve Campbell, who has been slowed by illness in the last few weeks, shot a stellar 72, finishing in a tie for first with North Idaho’s Branden Dalton. First-year players Geoff Burks and Peter Clark both finished in the top 10 as well, Burks with a six-over, 78and Clark with a seven-over, 79.
“It was basically a kick-off tournament for us. It was a good sounding board for us to see where we are and where we need to go,” said Head Men’s Coach Peter McClure. “It was a good learning experience and a good physical experience.” Whitman’s last tournament action was in mid-October. As a result many of the players were a little rusty. “I didn’t play quite as strongly as I’d like, but for such a long layoff I felt fairly happy with my game and am expecting much lower scores later in the semester,” said Burks. “As for the team, I think that we all did pretty well—there were a couple people who are still coming off of the long winter layoff, but I expect everyone’s game to be back up to par by our next tournament.” The women’s team finished with a 357, just behind North Idaho (354) and well back of Whitworth (332). Despite finishing third in the match, Head Women’s Coach Skip Molitor
found positives in the women’s performance. “In the fall season, the Whitman women surpassed the 357 team total only twice in seven outings, so this first spring round was a promising start to what looks to be an exciting spring for the Whitman women’s team,” Molitor said. Much of Molitor’s excitement is due to first-year player Tate Head, who finished alone in third place with an 81. Head held a four-stroke lead after the opening nine holes, but ran into some difficulties on the back nine. Junior Sydney Saito played a consistent game and recorded Whitman’s secondlowest score, a 91. First-years Sydney Conway and Caitlin Holland finished with a 92 and a 93 respectively. The women’s team will head to Clarkston, Wash. on March 15 to participate in the two-day, Lewis-Clark State Invitational; then both teams will head to California for two matches during spring break.
Baseball: The Missionaries are com-
ing off their first win of the season. After getting the monkey off their back, they will look to push forward this weekend in Portland as they face fellow cellar dwellers Lewis & Clark College. The Whit men could climb over .500 in conference as they play their double-header on Saturday, March 13, and another game on Sunday, March 14.
Women's Tennis: After a successful
2-0 trip to Oregon last weekend, where the Whitman defeated both Lewis & Clark College and Willamette University on their home courts, the Missionaries will continue on the road as they head to Tacoma. On Friday, March 12, they will face Pacific Lutheran University and University of Puget Sound. Combined, the Tacoma schools have won three conference games, so if the Missionaries sweep their 253 foes, they have an opportunity to jump into second place in conference standings.
Men's Tennis: The Whit men have
a busy weekend ahead of them, playing seven matches in five days. They will start Friday, March 12, at 3 p.m. and continue Saturday, March 13, at 11 a.m. on their home courts, where they will
face Pacific Lutheran University and the University of Puget Sound, respectively. The following day, Sunday, the Missionaries will travel to Oregon and face Willamette University and Lewis & Clark College in Salem and Portland, respectively. On Monday, the Whitman men will stay on the other side of the state line as they take on George Fox University in Newberg and Linfield College in McMinnville. Linfield will prove to be the toughest challenge of the season for the Missionaries, as they share the top spot in the Northwest Conference standings, Linfield being 6-0 in conference. The Whit men will finish their behomoth of a road trip in Forest Grove, Ore. as they take on Pacific University.
Men's Golf: Senior Steve Camp-
bell and crew will be looking to build on some of the successful individual outings they had last weekend when they travel to southern California for matches against Biola University, Chapman University, and California Baptist University over spring break. Campbell, who tied for first place in their last match, will be looked to fill the leadership roll left by junior Brian Barton, who is abroad.
S FRIDAY, March 5 Women's Tennis: Whitman College 5, Lewis & Clark College 4 Singles—Nilsson (LC) d. Roberg 6-3, 6-1; Otto (WC) d. Harunaga 6-2, 7-5; DeBree, W. (LC) d. DeBree, H. 6-3, 6-0; Kaur (WC) d. Borris 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (9-7); Rolston (WC) d. Coleman 6-3, 4-6, 6-4; Kunkel-Patterson (WC) d. Peach 6-4, 6-2; Doubles—Nilsson/ DeBree, W. (LC) d. Otto/Roberg 9-8 (8-6); Harunga/Borris (LC) d. Kaur/ Rolston 8-6; DeBree, H./Kunkel-Patterson (WC) d. Coleman/Peach 9-8 (7-5)
Women's Golf: 1. Whitworth University 333, 2. North Idaho College 354, 3. Whitman College 357
Scores—3. Head 81, t-10. Saito 91, 12. Conway 92, 13. Holland 93
Men's Golf: 1. Whitworth University 304, 2. North Idaho College 306, 3. Whitman College 316
Scores—t-1. Campbell 72, 8. Burks 78, t-9. Clark 79, t-15. Raher 86, t-17. Abercrombie 87, t-17. Brandal 87, 20. DeVine 91
SATURDAY, March 6
SUNDAY, Feb. 28
Baseball: University of Puget Sound 18, Whitman College 12 L—Nortz (0-1) UPS.....300 020 20(11) - 18 21 4 Whitman.....2 8 0 000 020 - 12 10 2
Baseball: Whitman College 3, University of Puget Sound 5 L—Mercado (0-3) Whitman..........000 030 000 - 3 7 1 Puget Sound.....001 101 02x - 5 9 1
University of Puget Sound 11, Whitman College 4 L—Korsmo (0-3) UPS.....010 090 010 - 11 11 0 Whitman.....100 002 100 - 4 12 2
Linfield College 0, Whitman College 2 L—Korsmo (0-2) Linfield......024 010 130 - 11 13 0 Whitman.....000 200 020 - 4 8 2
Women's Tennis: Whitman College 6, Willamette University 3 Singles—Agarycheva (WU) d. Roberg 3-6, 6-3, 6-4; Otto (WC) d. Palmer 6-4, 6-2; DeBree (WC) d. Huber 7-5, 3-6, 6-1; Kaur (WC) d. Morrison 6-2, 6-1; Dieguez (WU) d. Rolston 6-1, 6-4; Kunkel-Patterson (WC) d. Slonaker 6-4, 6-3; Doubles—Roberg/Otto (WC) d. Agarycheva/Palmer 8-6; Dieguez/Morrison (WU) d. Kaur/Rolston 8-3; DeBree/ Kunkel-Patterson d. Slonaker/Huber 9-8 (7-4)
Women's Tennis: Linfield College 5, Whitman College 4 Singles—Roberg (WC) d. Olbrich 6-4, 6-4; Katter (LC) d. Otto 7-6 (7-5), 6-4; Larson (LC) d. DeBree 6-2, 4-6, 6-1; Kaur (WC) d. Click 6-2, 4-6, 6-3; Nip (LC) d. Rolston 6-3, 6-2; Kunkel-Patterson (WC) d. Franceshina 6-4, 6-7 (3-7), 10-8; Doubles—Katter/Olbrich (LC) d. Kaur/Otto 8-6; Roberg/Debree (WC) d. Click/Watanabe 9-8 (7-5); Larson/ Franceschina (LC) d. Rolston/KunkelPatterson
Backpage
The Pioneer
attempting humor since 1922...ish
ISSUE 7 MAR. 11, 2010 Page 12
Students discover campus newspaper called Pio!
FENNELL Students in Jewett go absolutely crazy when seeing The Pioneer for the first time. Although not captured, they could not contain themselves!
Breaking news! Newspaper that is! Whitman College students only recently discovered that the campus has a student-run paper called The Pioneer. “I spilled coffee in Reid,” explained senior Bert Bergheffen, who was the first to discover The Pioneer. “So to clean it up, I got some of that giant colored free toilet paper in the blue stands, and then I looked
at it for the first time and I was like, this is a newspaper?! I showed the article ‘Environmentalism is awesome, rocks’ to my friends and we were all like, ‘GOOD LORD THIS IS PROFOUND, WE SHOULD RECYCLE!’ After that, things just got crazy.” “It makes sense that people would get crazy about The Pioneer,”1 said Professor of Politics Jim Hontalas, probably refer-
ring to the paper’s new popularity. Ninety-six percent of the campus has become anarchic, scrounging for any copies of The Pio they can get their hands on. The other four percent are Pio writers, who have been hiding from the violent masses in the Pio office, while imbibing Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider to celebrate their new popularity.
“The Pioneer covers all the issues that are important,”2 said Hontalas, probably referring to the paper’s keen sense of the campus’ concerns. And yet, not everyone felt the same at first. “When I found out we had a school paper, I was worried that it was going to contain information on things like the campus’ persistent prescription drug addictions, the total lack of structurally safe off-campus housing, what President Bridges is doing with the budget or the underground rape culture. But I was THRILLED to find that they focus more on subjects that never change,” said sophomore Jenny Steward, pointing to the article “Students return from winter break.” The news that The Pio has an A&E section hit seniors the hardest. “I feel like I’ve wasted four years here without reading reviews exclusively of foreign films, followed by a scathing review of the readers themselves,” said senior Rachel Boofus, referring to the article, “‘Monsieur and Madame Smith’ insightful, over your head.” “Oooh, this is supposed to be vigorous and effervescent! I can’t wait to see it!” she said. “The proportion of the student budget that goes towards The Pio is appropriate,”3 said Hontalas, probably referring to things. Junior Rebecca Trout said, “I only spend $30 a year on this?! And that pays for a FUCKING PUZZLE MASTER?!
Pinch me!” “And the headlines are so clever!” said sophomore Tiffany Bennett, pointing to the articles “New condiment buffet in Prentiss delicious, rocks”; “Library security system effective, rocks”; and “Paper clip tray in computer lab helpful, rocks.” Of all the sections however, all interviewed students agreed that the Backpage is the best thing there is, ever. “Before I turned to the Backpage, I was sure that the Pio article ‘Geology majors study boulders, stones’ was the apex of historic journalism. But those Backpage writers are so good at making dick jokes, political references to things they only know about because of Jon Stewart and lists of things that don’t exist! SO GOOD AT IT!” said Bennett. “The Backpage is to God what God was to Jesus, by which I mean that if there were no Backpage there WOULD. BE. NO. HUMOR. OR. POINT. TO. LIFE.,”4 said Hontalas, probably referring to some stuff.
1 Correction: Full quote should read, “It makes sense that people would get crazy about The Pioneer, given that they’ve misquoted me so badly I got put on an FBI watch list. Twice.” 2 Correction: Full quote should read, “The Pioneer covers all the issues that are important to grandmothers and the overly-sheltered.” 3 Correction: Full quote should read, “The proportion of the student budget that goes towards The Pioneer is appropriate for a National Defense System, or at least a substantial increase to the financial aid department.” 4 Correction: Full quote should read, “The Backpage sucks.”
Peter Parker’s job hunt New York Tim es photo edito r Please discuss your experien ce in the world of photoj ournalism: I have been a part-time phot ographer for the Daily Bu gle for over 30 years. I would have be en promoted but I was always busy w ith . . . other things. I guess you coul d say I have lo ts of experience with th e “web” ;) Reason for rejection: Totally unqualified. Thirty years as a part time photographer in no way qua lifies you for a position on the New Yor k Times photo staff. Use of emotico ns extremely unprofessional. Also, portfolio contains only pictures of Spiderman.
ear Spider at the Nucl t an st si as Research stitute energy Research In h spiders, nuclear it w ce Experien or both: ergy nuclear en iders and hat sp w f is o It ve s. My lo gh my vein p every u ro th s n literally ru to wake u the energy y goals and also gives me e d pursu m out of morning an alls and shoot webs w ). p I? u b to clim g!) (Or am (Just kiddin s st ri w y m
Reason for rejection: Applicant possesses only a high school education.This position requires at least an undergrad degree in physics and spider biology.
Notes from a meeting of the
Associated Committee of Posters, Fliers and Informational Signage: Jewett Chapter
Quote Board: As most of you may know, the cost of paper is increasing and there have been discussions about reducing poster funding, which may lead to poster downsizing and ultimately, bare walls. Let’s start by hearing from our treasurer—the Whittie Drinking Poster. Whittie Drinking Poster [slurring words]: Seventy-six percent of the money is always or usually there . . . I love you guys. Quote Board: Are you drunk? Whittie Drinking Poster: I’m 98 to 1000 percent wasted [bursts into tears]. Pterodactyl Tidbits Poster: If you need to throw up, consider using a bathroom. Quote Board: The financial situation could mean downsizing. They just won’t have enough money to print all of us. So it comes down to who is most valuable. Whittie Drinking Poster: I think we’re all equalit . . . equalib . . . equally valuable [burps]. Pterodactyl Tidbits Poster: When assigning a value to members of a group, consider each individual’s personal contribution and rank accordingly. Whiteboard: I mostly get dicks drawn on me. I could probably get taken down. Pterodactyl Tidbits Poster: When drawing a dick on a whiteboard, be sure to use an erasable pen. Permanent marker and ballpoint pens harm whiteboards, making them useless. Quote board: I’m sorry Whiteboard, but you’re not actually made of paper. You’ll have to stay up. I suggest we look to the more decorative posters. They cost a great deal and contribute nothing to dorm safety or education. Whittie Drinking Poster: Whitties are always safe! Ninety-nine percent of Whitties look after their friends when they’re doing body shots off lacrosse players in frat basements. Did anybody see where I set my beer? Pterodactyl Tidbits Poster: To drink a beer, open it and then pour it in your mouth, pausing to swallow and breathe. Whiteboard: Please. Please take me down. I don’t think I can face another day. 50 Reasons Why Beer Is Better Than Women Poster: Hey! I provide a valuable service! I remind dudes exactly why beer is better than women. Reason number one: A beer doesn’t get jealous when you grab another beer! AM I RIGHT GUYS? [Tries to high-five Whittie Drinking Poster, who falls over.] Quote Board: We’re losing focus people! The question is: Which posters will stay and which ones will go? Pterodactyl Tidbits: Posters go on walls! 50 Reasons Why Beer Is Better Than Women Poster: My life is so empty. In our next installment of Notes From the Meeting of Jewett Dorm Posters . . . 50 Reasons Why Beer Is Better Than Women Poster changes his mind, deciding that women may in fact be preferable to beer.
Security Guard Experience w ith
fighting crim e:
I have fought crime daily si nce I was 17-years-old. My skills incl ude the relative strength, speed and ag ility of a spider and the ab ility to shoot webs. Please . . . I really ne ed this right now. I’m so hungry.
ing Reason for rejection: Accord ah Jon J. to former employer y, laz is t an Jameson, applic d ste ere int too far d arrogant an n. in the affairs of Spiderma
line cook McDonald’s available per urs are you How many ho week? I EARS AGO ERMAN! Y IVE T C A I AM SPID IO D A BY A R WAS BITTEN OW I HAVE SUPERN D N A , SPIDER HEM ALL IF WILL USE T I S! ER W PO E A JOB! YOU GIVE M
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How my 8th grade Latin teacher graded my tests as imagined by my 8th grade self by Simi Wow! Working at school is so much fun! I get to hang out with such cool kids, like that really cool Simi Singh girl. I think she might be one of my favorite students or maybe even one of my best friends! She is such a special girl. I should grade her test right now because I am so excited to see how much she has learned and be amazed by how much potential she has. I will definitely be telling her parents about her potential at our next parent-teacher conference. There’s just so much of it. I think I’ll also mention that she has a problem with talking too much during class, but I will just bring that up as a way to tell her parents that we have such great conversations as mutual friends! Here’s Simi’s test. Incredible! Simi got practically every vocabulary question wrong! She was probably just up late drawing that seasonal May Day picture on Microsoft Paint for me that she gave to me on the day of the test. I just really appreciate her friendship. She’s so supportive. Like the one time I asked her to stay after class because she didn’t do her Bacchus project. It was really nice to just sit down and chat with her like Rachel and Monica do on “Friends.” I wasn’t actually angry. I just like to yell because that’s what Rachel and Monica do and then they are even better friends after they yell at each other and then they hug and they are best friends forever! Geez, I can barely read Simi’s handwriting. Is this cursive? Everyone knows
Re
only adults write in cursive. She’s so mature! And she makes so many great jokes. Like the time she changed my computer desktop from the default picture of a sepia-toned chocolate lab lying on a wooden floor to a picture of a very scary clown she found after Google image searching “scary pictures” and when I returned to my computer after class I screamed very loudly—but it was actually a great April Fool’s joke! That was so hilarious and I yelled so much at her to express how much fun it is to prank friends, like that time Joey got the Thanksgiving turkey stuck on his head and Rachel and Monica thought it was scary but then thought it was hilarious because friends always pull pranks on each other! I can’t wait to go back to school on Monday and ask the class about their weekend and hear about how Simi went to that cool ceramics painting studio for Angela’s birthday party and painted this awesome mug with a picture of us sitting on bean bags with the phrase “amor omnia vincit” written at the bottom of the mug. Every time I finish my cup of coffee, I’ll look down into my mug and remember my friend Simi! Best friend forever! BFF! That’s what I’ll write on her test. A big, red “F” for “friends.” I just hope that she realizes that I’ll be there for her even when her job’s a joke, she’s broke and her love life’s D.O.A., whatever that means. Love really does conquer all.
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On-Campus jobs you haven’t heard of Trying to save up a little cash for your Sasquatch Fund this year? The Pio’s got the scoop on some of the hottest on-campus student jobs that are still under the radar and hiring. Pick up applications in the Business Office today!
Secret Tunnel Digger Duck Wrangler Prospie Actor Ambassador to Cyprus Prentiss Bellhop iPod Charger Campus Pet Detective Book Burner Bike Collector (Thief) Frisbee Inspector WCTS Mascot Whitmail Converter Missionary Campus Pet Mortician Weed Farmer Butcher Baker Candlestick Maker Gynecologist