WEEKEND

WEEKEND // FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

OVERWHELMED

By Andrew Giambrone

Why Students are Unhappy With Yale's System of Mental Health Care //Page 3

WATER POLO

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WEED

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WATCH

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LESSONS IN THE POOL

DISPENSING FOR THE MASSES

AMERICAN HUSTLE, FROZEN, HER

Charles Stone reflects on a semester with a surprising teammate.

Marissa Medansky looks into Connecticut’s medical marijuana industry.

WEEKEND writers review Oscars frontrunners.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

TOWARD SPRING // BY WEEKEND

Over break, we were worried that the polar vortex would all but subsume our lovely campus. The Yale Instagram account showed beautiful, but frightening, images of gothic architecture surrounded by pale, imposing white. The WEEKEND Lounge, resting as a celestial point on the top floor of 202 York St., was left to battle the elements.

Yanan shivered in Canada. Elaina wondered whether the South had lost its welcoming warmth. It was 75 degrees and sunny in L.A., but Jackson saw “Frozen” and sympathized.

WEEKEND was not made for the bleak midwinter. We live on energy, on enthusiasm. These become scarce resources when the sun sets early and your breath creates fog on your walk to class. We send our reporters into the field, tell them to frolic in the meadow, but, over break, we worried that everything green would be replaced by icy wastes.

Maybe it was global warming, maybe it was the heat generated by 6,000 young intellects (it was probably global warming), but when we got to campus, things were already beginning to thaw. You can see grass, however mushy, peeking through the mud along cross campus.

We have yet to experience temperatures below freezing.

But when those temperatures arrive, WEEKEND will continue in its duty as an outpost against the cold. We will publish features and covers that break through preconceived notions about campus life, our administration and New Haven. We will look for the stories that matter, and

for the writing that moves. Nothing is frozen in place.

We’ve worked hard to get here. Leaping from our perch in the fall, we’ve gotten to know an incredible staff of reporters, new and old, who have brought us some of the best work we’ve read. Thanks to the photo, copy and production and design sides of our team, we made deadline in record time. Things so far have been very, very high bless.

But there is much more of winter to come. We have months until Spring Break. Another cataclysmic weather event — a vortex, winter storm Nemo or attack from a Disney Ice Princess — could sweep in at any moment. Don’t sell your winter coat, because the snow won’t melt all at once.

We have faith, though, that eventually spring will follow winter, and summer will follow spring. Before you know it, you’ll trade shopping period for reading week; the harried frown of someone begging to get into a seminar room for the slurred grin of someone trying to get into the front row at Spring Fling.

But let’s stay in the moment. The next issue — the next cover, the next great piece — is only a week away. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. There is work to do, and we are here to do it.

Visit us in the WEEKEND Lounge sometime. We know it’s cold outside, but it won’t always be. // ANNELISA LEINBACH

Contact WEEKEND AT ydnweekendedz@panlists.yale.edu .

StayStrong, Lance // BY HELEN ROUNER

Yesterday during my thrice-daily Blue State visit, I instantaneously recognized the yellow embroidery on the barista’s cap: the symbol for Livestrong, Lance Armstrong’s cancer foundation. For a moment, I thought I had made a new friend in this fellow Lance defender.

I have worshipped America’s legendary cyclist since I was eight years old, when he won his fourth Tour de France gold. I read both of Lance’s autobiographies, memorizing the statistics of his medical struggles and cycling career (he still holds the American record for ascending the famously steep l’Alpe d’Huez — 37 minutes and 36 seconds). I was probably the first kid in my elementary school to sport a yellow Livestrong wristband and definitely the first to wear an entire dozen-pack on one wrist.

I even got Oakley sunglasses because Lance wore Oakleys. Except I wanted to wear mine all the time, so my optometrist indulged me by putting in prescription lenses. I insisted these still be slightly tinted blue, because the height of my Lance obsession coincided with the height of my Bono worship. Bono always wore blue sunglasses indoors.

My dad — a cyclist himself — promised that I could get a proper road bike once I had ridden 300 miles on my awkward hybrid. When I hit the 300 mark (the unit of which mercifully had been reduced from miles to kilometers), I proudly selected a little blue road bike, made by Trek, of course, because Lance rode Trek. I named the treasured aluminum cycle — you guessed it — Lance.

When headlines announced that the Texan was retiring from professional cycling after his 7th straight Tour de France victory, I cried in my bedroom. When he came out of retirement to ride the 2009 Tour, I camped out on the Champs-Elysées eight hours before my resurrected hero would appear there, zooming by for all of 2.8 seconds.

When it occurred to me that the hipster barista was likely wearing Lance’s sacred symbol ironically in

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light of the recent doping controversy, I forwent my 4 p.m. dark roast red eye — a big deal for me — and booked it out onto Wall.

When one is growing up as an English major, one has lots of disillusionment from which to suffer. It’ll break my heart, but eventually I will reconcile myself to the idea that the Northern Lights are scientifically explicable and are not actually proof that the alternate worlds of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” exist.

After many years, I’ve even been able to accept that Zac Efron is not and will never be my boyfriend (and not only because he’s now four inches shorter than I). What I refuse to accept, however, is that use of relatively minor performance-enhancing methods discredits every achievement in a man’s personal life and professional career. Regardless of what horrifyingly intrusive personal information acrid media coverage reveals, the man overcame a 5 percent chance of survival to go on to win seven consecutive titles in the world’s most prestigious cycling competition. He is not a fraud and certainly does not deserve to have his mistakes strewn across the Internet to indulge the world’s schadenfreude.

Granted, I wasn’t raised by a teenage single mother, and (contrary to popular belief at the stage of life in which I wore blue-tinted Oakleys) I never had any testicles I could lose to cancer. I was a well-loved, well-off Brooklyn kid. Nevertheless, Lance taught me to fight. So maybe he fought dirty. It wasn’t steroids — it was his own blood that he was injecting into his body. It doesn’t delegitimize every success he experienced as a professional athlete, a significant contributor to cancer research, an inspiration for cancer victims and my childhood hero.

Ironic barista dude: Apply your cynical cultural commentary elsewhere. I still own my imitation U.S. Postal Service jersey.

Contact HELEN ROUNER at helen.rouner@yale.edu .

KOENIG

ROUNER

WEEKEND

WEEKEND VIEWS

Transcontinental Homelessness // BY ANDREW KOENIG When I got back to New Haven, I was drowsy and bleary-eyed and my head ached. I rubbed my eyelids, and when I looked up, there was Yale. The intermittent naps that I took on my flight and shuttle-ride over had spread a haze over everything. As I got out of the shuttle, I remembered scraps of my day: tabloids, romantic comedies, security, the Band-Aid on my mom’s nose as she hugged me goodbye.

Now I am in the throes of shopping, sleeping on my plastic mattress and eating cashew clusters in the middle of the night. The sky is pale and the ground is cold, and there’s always the sound of sirens but never of the airplanes back home. I’m starting to feel the brief pangs of agoraphobia that come with walking into a dining hall at six o’clock.

Yet this has been by far the most seamless transition I’ve made from going home to coming back during my time at Yale, despite the dramatic change of scenery.

There used to be something terrible in the prospect of moving. Moving meant swept floors, sweaty foreheads, boxing up my belongings and feeling those half-comforting waves of nostalgia. My mom cried when she sent me away freshman year. The following May, I cried when I had to move out of Farnam Hall. I hated that Ikea lamps had to be thrown out, I hated the beat-up couches on Old Campus and the people rummaging through piles of discarded clothing.

Now, these motions and emotions have become routine. The jolt of displacement is still there, but it’s no longer new. What’s new is the complacency I feel towards the jarring nature of change. More and more I feel that I am leading two separate lives, one at home

MONDAY

Contact ANDREW KOENIG at andrew.koenig@yale.edu .

WEEKEND RESOLVES:

All campus // All day Don’t forget that Monday seminar you really wanted to get/brag your way into.

and one at school. My life at home consists of baking cookies with my brother and fighting with him, gossiping and laughing with my sister, watching movies with my parents. I kvetch. I yell and I call names and I storm out of rooms.

I don’t do that here. The stakes are too high for me to unleash sincere anger on my friends — there’s the risk they’d drop me. I pacify resentments and offenses and desires into small hints, perpetual OK-ness. And what am I to do without the arguments and reconciliations, the hurt and unconditional love that lend a clearly defined rhythm to life at home?

There’s only an unpatterned mass of days, the flux of intellectual arguments and hangouts and parties. I brew in new ideas and desires and become absorbed inevitably into the Yale bubble. I try to puncture it with phone calls to my brother and Skype calls to old friends; the bubble re-forms.

The best I can hope for is to find some meaning in the blur of rain and meals and books here. Some community forms, fluid no doubt, replenished and emptied by a quarter each year. That counts for something, I guess. I switch rooms and roommates, seniors graduate and strangers live in my old dorm, but I’ve still got my friends and Harkness Tower.

A professor of mine freshman year quoted someone who said we live in an age of “transcendental homelessness.” I didn’t know quite what that meant at the time, but I feel its meaning now. I jet from home to home and it is still unclear which is which. I wake up in the middle of the night, think I’m back in LA and let out a sigh of fear mixed with relief; I look at the window grille and know I am here.

To exercise

A push-up a week should do it.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND COVER

OVERWHELMED: WHY STUDENTS ARE UNHAPPY WITH YALE’S SYSTEM OF MENTAL HEALTH CARE // BY ANDREW GIAMBRONE 55 Lock St., commonly known as Yale Health among the University’s students, overlooks New Haven’s Grove Street Cemetery like the Death Star hovered in George Lucas’s night sky.

Black and jagged, the building was completed in 2010 after three years of construction. According to a newsletter released by Yale Health that fall, the new health center was 60 percent larger than its predecessor, “with more than double the examination rooms, more space in the diagnostic imaging area, and increased space for minor procedures.” The same pamphlet touted the relocation with the headline: “From a ‘hole in the ground’ to ‘wow;’ Yale Health Center continues great service in a new home.”

The inside of Yale Health suggests a more complicated reality.

At the end of a brightly lit hallway on the building’s third floor is the Mental Health and Counseling Department (MH&C), which addresses the psychological concerns of Yale’s almost 12,000 total students. Inside the waiting room, there are 11 brown chairs, a modern-looking coat tree and a barrier of opaque glass that separates the department from the building’s other facilities.

More than 50 percent of undergraduates will find themselves in this room during their time at Yale.

Lorraine Siggins, the department’s chief psychiatrist, reported in a publically available memo in September that MH&C sees about 20 percent of undergrads each year.

(Siggins declined to comment for this article, citing “time constraints” in a November email.)

The numbers are even higher for Yale’s graduate and professional school students, 25 percent of whom visit MH&C yearly.

They are also growing; visits have doubled since 1998, now surpassing 20,000 per year. All Yale students are entitled to 12 individual counseling sessions annually, and a mental health clinician can always be reached for emergencies through the Acute Care Department.

With the rise in appointments have come longer wait-times and more reports indicating insufficient quality of care at MH&C. Based on more than two dozen interviews with University officials, student leaders and alumni, these concerns about Yale’s mental health services finally seem to be making waves within the administration.

As pressure mounts to reform MH&C from every level of the student body, the 2013-’14 academic year appears to present an opportunity for Yale to more actively address mental health. Still, such reforms may take longer than many students are willing — or able — to wait.

“NEGATIVE PERCEPTIONS ARE PREVALENT”

On Dec. 12, the Office of the Secretary and Vice President for Student Life, headed by Kimberly Goff-Crews ’83 LAW ’86, sent an email to all Yale students, which said “discussions and collaborative efforts have been underway at all levels” to improve mental health on campus.

“Living and working in this type of environment, it is normal for students to feel anxious about academic and social pressures,” the email stated. “However, the culture at Yale seems to discourage acknowledging vulnerability; rather, many students feel additional pressure to be ‘effortlessly excellent’ … This expectation is not realistic and not healthy.”

The email did not specify measures for reform beyond updating the MH&C website with more information about mental health care, nor did it mention students’ most pressing concern of all: meeting patient demand in a reasonable amount of time.

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Yale Health employs 28 mental health clinicians — including social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists — 22 of whom work full-time. Given Yale’s student population, this means there are approximately 425 to 550 students for every clinician at MH&C. This means Yale has about twice the number of mental health professionals per student than do schools of similar size, based on 2012 data from the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors (AUCCCD).

A Yale College Council (YCC) report on mental health published last October revealed that this ratio, while favorable, doesn’t tell the whole story. Authored by three Yale College students, the report compiled data from what it called 50 “structured interviews” with student leaders and administrators, and from a campuswide, anonymous survey, to which roughly 20 percent of undergrads responded.

The report included findings about Yale’s campus culture and resources surrounding mental health. Of students who completed the survey, 39 percent said they had sought the services of Mental Health and Counseling — the reasons for their visits ranged from depression and anxiety to eating disorders and academic stress.

“We do acknowledge the limitations of the data we’ve collected,” Reuben Hendler ’14, one of the YCC report’s authors, says, referring to sampling biases in the survey and interviews. “But that in no way means we can’t learn a lot from it.”

The report also contained data on students’ perceptions of the quality of care offered at Yale Health, with 31 percent of students rating their experiences as “poor” or “very poor.” Moreover, over half of respondents said they would be “unlikely,” “very unlikely” or “unsure” about approaching MH&C if they wanted professional counseling.

“Negative perceptions of MH&C are prevalent,” the report stated. “Some students fall through the cracks.”

Paul Genecin, director of Yale Health since 1997, acknowledges that students’ experiences of MH&C vary, but says Yale Health has quality control measures in place, such as an annual review of clinicians, a member services department and yearly accreditation by the Joint Commission — a non-profit organization that certifies roughly 20,000 health care programs in the United States.

“It is a fact of student health across the land: If you ask students what they think, you will find a number of people exercising their critical faculties,” Genecin says.

“You can trade out us and put in ‘Athletics,’ ‘Dining,’ ‘Libraries’ — there’s always a seeming disconnect between how people look at a service versus how it actually is.”

In order to assuage students’ expressed concerns, the YCC report outlined three major recommendations for MH&C: communicating more effectively about appointments, expectations, feedback and mental health education; hiring additional therapists; and possibly referring certain students to outside clinicians.

Specific measures included allowing students to schedule appointments over email, instituting mandatory telephone check-ins with students who miss an appointment or wait more than a week to be assigned a therapist and creating “an accessible, wellpublicized way for students to provide feedback.” Hendler, one of the authors, says he is confident the report will be given “serious consideration” by the University.

Genecin states the YCC report did “a good job” of addressing some of the misinformation among students about MH&C’s

services. He admits Yale Health should do more public outreach, but adds that his staff is primarily dedicated to patient care, and so cannot focus on outreach as much as they would like. When asked about the long wait times some students experience, Genecin responded that “no health care system can have perfect access to resources” and that doctors must prioritize patients based on the severity of their conditions.

“I’m much more concerned with treating students who need serious intervention,” he explains.

“The question is not what percentage of students did you see in x number of days, it’s what percentage of students did you see who really needed help.”

But such an approach has led to a dissatisfaction with MH&C that extends well beyond the College: On the same day the YCC released its report, Yale’s Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) and Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) released their own mental health report, according to which 32 percent of participants in an annual GPSS survey said they were “somewhat dissatisfied or worse” with the University’s mental health services. Ultimately, this was “the strongest student concern with the Yale Health Plan” in 2013.

YALE: “A ROUGH PLACE TO BE SOMETIMES”

For Julie Botnick ’14, scheduling an appointment at Mental Health and Counseling was a daunting task. In an Oct. 21 Yale Daily News opinion column, “Don’t neglect us,” Botnick wrote that she sought treatment at MH&C during her sophomore year for a chronic mental disorder.

Botnick became frustrated, however, when she waited over a month to be assigned a permanent clinician after her “intake” appointment — an hour-long evaluation session typically made within three days of a student contacting MH&C. When Botnick finally saw someone, the clinician was a social worker and not a psychiatrist as she had requested, whom she said seemed “bored and unresponsive.”

She stopped visiting MH&C after “two or three sessions,” and was never contacted afterwards to see if her condition had improved.

“It was a waste of my time,” Botnick remembers. “I can’t believe they had never been so busy before and didn’t know what volume of people to expect. They need to meet the demand, no excuses.”

Multiple factors may explain why students like Botnick experience long wait times and variable quality of care at MH&C. Notably, Yale Health’s triage system prioritizes students who feel they are in dire straits and can articulate it.

According to Genecin, those who express suicidal thoughts or the intention to harm themselves are “seen immediately,” which necessarily delays other appointments.

Nonetheless, as Genecin himself acknowledges, these are rare cases; most students present with an “extremely broad” range of concerns that do not require emergency treatment.

After intake, each patient is given the contact information of a MH&C clinician, and a schedule is created that is reviewed within five weeks, Siggins, the head of the department, stated in the September memo. Students on medication are scheduled a checkin appointment after four to five weeks of treatment, and Siggins reported that only “about 10 percent” of patients wait longer than two or three weeks to see a clinician.

Additionally, in her September presentation to the Yale Health Member Advisory Committee — a feedback group composed of SEE MENTAL HEALTH PAGE 8

ARTIST TALK, NJIDEKA AKUNYILI

Yale University Art Gallery // 1:30 p.m.

Take some post-shopping contemplative time.

WEEKEND RESOLVES: To keep up with old friendships

Don’t let last semester’s in-class bonds fade away.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND ARTS

LOOKING FOR A FOREST THROUGH THE TREES // BY EMMA PLATOFF

“Through the Trees” is more than a collection of artwork. Its artists specifically emphasize that the exhibit is not merely “art for art’s sake” — its goals are to raise awareness about gun violence, and to memorialize victims of such violence in the process. To this end, the artists constructed six makeshift wooden trees, spray-painted them silver and hung them with highly varied pieces of artwork.

Many of these are ornaments created by New Haven public school children. Paper mache cylinders painted with wintry scenes hang from the branches.

Among them, paintings, largely of doves depicted in rainbow colors, have been slipped into the front of empty CD cases for protection against the weather.

The art is as touching as it is varied. Written on one tree are the words, “Mom, where’s my sister?” An ornament features two pictures of a young man — “sunrise” is written beneath a picture of him as a young child, and “sunset” beneath a picture of him taken soon before his premature death. There are other heart-tugging images of friends who died too young pasted onto heart-shaped cardboard, surrounded by glitter glue. Plain sneakers, spray-painted blue or covered in marker and stickers, hang from the trees by their laces.

The artists specifically sought interaction with the public, even

providing free art supplies that viewers could use, and their decision to leave the gates to the exhibit open during the night allowed for some anonymous additions. Various fake birds have appeared: One large mallard, facing the ground, hangs from the branches of one of the silver trees, and a few other, smaller birds decorate one of its neighbors. This flock’s significance may be clear to the artist who put it up, but doesn’t seem obvious to anyone else.

During the afternoon that I spent at the exhibit, the element of public contribution was especially apparent. One woman squatted in the snow for nearly ten minutes, soaking her sweatpants as she carefully wrote her message: “STOP the violence … never give up … there’s always hope out there.” Other messages were harsher: “Gunz don’t kill people. People kill people.

Smarten up people.”

Unfortunately not all wouldbe artists made such relevant contributions. As is inevitable with any exhibit that encourages its audience to draw, paint and write on the art itself, “Through the Trees” attracted its fair share of jokesters and ne’er-dowells. Amid the serious work were helpful pieces of advice like “Shrek yourself before you wreck yourself” and meaningful comments like “#tree” scrawled in purple and green marker. These immature additions made it

difficult to take “Through the Trees” as seriously as it deserved.

The exhibit does good work, but I have to wonder whether its true purpose was fulfilled — indeed, whether this sort of public can achieve the social change it seeks. The collection — with the rawness of its emotions, the passion behind its sentiments — likely struck any who stumbled across it, forcing them to think about the problem of gun violence. But when I visited the exhibit, my fellow attendees were mainly people who had been somehow involved — the artists themselves, patrons of the exhibit, teachers whose students had contributed. Some viewers seemed to be more interested in the free buffet (the artists had planned a reception to kick the exhibit off) than in the art. Creating and publicizing art on this topic seemed cathartic and effective for the contributors involved, but I’m not sure how many new people it reached.

Those who cared, it seemed, were already there.

“Through the Trees” asks how effective art can be outside the aesthetic realm. Can art change people that are far removed from it? Would a murderer shift his attitude after seeing these trees?

Whether or not the answers are yes, it seems important to raise these questions.

Contact EMMA PLATOFF at emma.platoff@yale.edu .

Hope (and Despair) We Can Believe In // BY RUOXI YU

As a former (and drop-out) Directed Studies student acutely familiar with the program’s weekly lectures in the Whitney Humanities Center, I found “At the Crossroads of Hope and Despair: America since the Crash” to be an appropriate title for an exhibit hosted in the building’s hallway and gallery, but that’s not just because the exhibit is feet away from suffering freshmen. Featuring black-and-white photographs from Yale professor Matthew Frye Jacobson, “Crossroads” develops a complex but focused portrait of America circa 2009-13 and attempts to capture the promises and failures of the nation as a whole.

The exhibit’s first image subtly hints at the topic matter at hand. Viewers are greeted with an American flag, pinned proudly behind a window, which has been cracked but not yet shattered. Spider-web fractures crawl over the stars and stripes.

The flag is hope; the cracks, despair.

Jacobson interlays quotes amidst the photographs, which carry key themes throughout the exhibit. An unemployed office worker comments on a scene of empty storefronts in the Upper East Side.

A hedge fund manager blames the entire financial crisis on “greed run amok” to the right of a photo in which protestors rally against bailed out banks.

The next images show empty parking lots, graffiti and closed buildings for rent. More than anything else, these photographs convey a sense of eerie vacancy.

Each one is devoid of people, with the exception of two insignificant blurs in one photo. Jacobson then transitions from these unoccupied spaces to iconography of President Obama, seen for the first time on a poster in an empty BBQ kitchen in Oakland, Calif. The next set of photos all feature the president in some fashion, though never in the flesh. In one instance, his famous mug (shown literally on a coffee mug) stands a symbol for hope and change. In another, man holds an “IMPEACH OBAMA” sign, and seems to question whether the president has stood for those ideals.

Images of dog tags from the Iraq and Afghanistan War Memorial are followed by images of protests against those wars, further casting doubt on the Obama administration. Along with photographs from other public demonstrations, including criticism of the government from the

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YALE WOMEN’S ICE HOCKEY VS. CLARKSON

CREATIVE COMMONS

Looking for meaning in everyday life. left and the right, the exhibit showcases constant, almost-universal dissastisfaction. Moving from picture to picture, hope seems to shine in each individual protest, but despair takes over when as you reflect on their scope and sheer number.

If a picture itself is worth a thousand words, then how much is a picture of words worth? The best photos in the exhibit focus not on the people in them, but the words that surround them: “Do I Look ‘ILLEGAL’?” written on a sign held by a glaring woman; “Guaranteed” printed on the window of an abandoned business; “Live Happy” spelled awkwardly on a shutdown theater; “Rise of consciousness” misspelled and smeared on a cement floor. These sorts of images recur throughout the exhibit, constantly reminding us that things are not what they appear to be.

We are living in history, and in one in which hope and despair depend on and co-evolve through each other.

These images are not extraordinary or novel. We expect protestors with angry signs at Occupy movements. We see “LEASING” and “RETAIL SPACE AVAILABLE” on an average walk in New Haven.

Their effect, thus, depends on the simple revelation that there are patterns, and larger meanings, in what we see everyday. Jacobson presses us to notice parallels to his work in our daily lives, and even encourages visitors to submit their own photos online.

The exhibit concludes with one of my favorite pieces. On the ground, a discarded protest sign declares “Reclaim our democracy,” the words on it written roughly with a paintbrush. The sign’s handle is an empty paper towel roll. A gate imposes thick, black lines over the entire sign, as if the message itself is behind bars.

We are indeed at a crossroads, one in which we can no longer stand still. In one way or another, Jacobson’s work alludes to a sense of movement, whether in rallying masses or emptying businesses. Is that movement for progress or escape? Is it an embrace or an exodus?

Contact RUOXI YU at ruoxi.yu@yale.edu .

WEEKEND RESOLVES:

Ingalls Rink // 7:00 p.m.

See our athletes before Sochi!

// MATTHEW FRYE JACOBSON/HISTORIAN’S EYE PROJECT AND

To learn new skills

Whittling and underwater basket weaving look great on a resume.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND SCRIMMAGES

THE IMPACT PLAYER // BY CHARLES STONE

// KAREN TIAN

“Man up! Run the six shift!”

Muffled shouts from the Kiphuth Exhibition Pool meandered around the maze of basement hallways, becoming clearer with each step as I emerged from the locker room onto the pool deck. I arrived late to our first club water polo practice of the year, struck by the familiar smell of sterile chlorine that wafted through the arena. Through the choppy commotion and sea of raised arms in the pool, I found my attention directed at an unfamiliar face, our newest addition to the team.

He couldn’t have been less than 30. A strong jawline and youthful blond curls, browned and wisped by the pool water, seemed incongruous with his weathered cheeks. As I reached for my toes in a sore hamstring stretch, I heard an excited call for the ball in a South African accent. Milliseconds later, the booming thump of the hard yellow projectile striking the tarp at the back of the goal.

Several kicks to the groin and mouthfuls of chlorine later, I introduced myself to Saul Kornick as we warmed down on the pool deck. At first I thought he was a graduate student. After all, two of our starting players, Thomas Lazzarini MED ’18 and goalie Paull Randt SOM ’14, have represented Yale Water Polo for more than six years. He informed me that he was a World Fellow with the Jackson Institute.

I nodded, surprised and impressed.

I hadn’t met a World Fellow before, and certainly not in a Speedo. *** My teammates and I shared a nervous optimism about Saul early on. He explained that he’d played with top amateur and club teams in Cape Town and London. Some of his former teammates now even play professionally in Europe.

Still, we were apprehensive about whether his commitment would last through the season. Would he show up for two hours of practice a night, Monday through Friday, for 10 straight weeks? Would he willingly play alongside those of us who hadn’t touched a water polo ball until freshman year of college?

It was like Christmas came three months early. Saul arrived at almost every practice at 8 p.m. on the dot, and often helped remove lane lines and install metal goals on the pool before practice.

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He quickly took on a dual role on the team, with the attitude and energy of an equal, and the gameplay experience of a leader.

“As soon as I jump into the pool I’m no longer a World Fellow,” he would say, “but a water polo player.”

Of the many aspects of his character that surfaced during practice — moments of boyish mischievousness, hints of pre-Yale adventures, flashes of self-annoyance at a poor shot — his will to improve the lives of others stood out.

One time during a lull in practice, demonstrating to freshman Marios Tringides ’17 where to shift positions in our set-offense, Saul was struck by a curious revelation.

think that’s a much more important part of the business.”

In the communal showers one evening, we learned how Saul balanced running his charitable business in South Africa and engaging with Yale and New Haven as a World Fellow.

His 18-hour days began and ended at his apartment on Chapel Street, and consisted of a full course load of undergraduate and professional classes, meetings with students and faculty members, Master’s Teas and special lectures centered on Africa Health Placements. It didn’t help that the CEO was provisionally anchored thousands of miles from Cape Town; on occasion he was forced to respond

“THE REALITY IS THAT NO ONE HERE, NO SINGLE HUMAN BEING IS THAT IMPORTANT.” “Marios says to me, ‘Man, how do you know all these things?’” Saul later recounted, his cheeks dimpled in amusement. “I looked at him … and I said, ‘You know what Marios?

I think I’ve been playing water polo for as long as you’ve been alive.’”

We became so engrossed by Saul’s water polo prowess that it wasn’t until Cyrus Nguyen ’15 emailed the team a video interview about his burgeoning nonprofit startup, the Cape Town-based Africa Health Placements, that we discovered an even more impressive side to him.

Later, Saul explained the basic model to us while drying his hair with a towel: A human resources solution to integrate foreign-qualified doctors and health care workers in rural South Africa, in order to address the region’s massive public health care demand and alarming shortage of qualified physicians. His efforts have touched over 10 million lives and gained support from powerful aid agencies such as USAID. “I don’t think that the work I’m doing is really changing the world, but I think it’s making an impact on people’s lives,” he said. “If we can set an example for how things should be done, maybe with profit instead measured in terms of social welfare or welfare of the planet, I

to certain business crises in the early morning hours. *** Pass after pass, practice after practice, the season’s sinusoidal ups-and-downs embedded Saul in our team. In the locker room, we would form semicircles around him as he recalled alluring anecdotes from his travels in characteristically nonchalant tones. Our respect for his badassery was as if we were huddling around the water polo god’s human incarnate, or the grandfather of the village as he told stories in the glow of the fire, the setting lit instead by a shoddy light fixture.

Of all the experiences he shared, perhaps the most memorable story was about the time he participated in an extreme survival program, enduring 30 days on an uninhabited island. Participants could only bring what they could fit in a twoliter bag, and the initial group of 10 people dwindled down to two over the span of four long weeks. He was the hunter for the cohort, and would swim out in the bay for four hours each day to catch handfuls of fish for their sustenance. He lost 13 kilograms from his already trim frame.

The island also awarded Saul with an invaluable but hard-earned lens through which to view his

mental state. He intentionally isolated himself, sleeping in a tree 20 minutes down the beach, in a setting devoid of any artificial stimulation. Boredom quickly set in; the sudden departure from normalcy made him irritable and frustrated.

Then, on the 10th or 11th day, his outlook inexplicably changed.

“I started feeling this really deep sense of peace. I recognized my thoughts as being separate to myself. I started being able to question, ‘Do I really view the world like that?’” *** Saul recounted this experience to me at a corner table in Cafe Romeo on Orange Street in late November, several weeks after the water polo season had ended.

He had arrived a few minutes late after a brisk walk over from a previous meeting. I felt a momentary revelation that Saul, taking off his beanie and smoothing his hair at the entrance, looked like the archetypal Yalie: navigating an impossibly busy schedule and holding it together with a smile.

Worlds away from the desert island he had been describing.

Amidst the ambient buzz of the busy cafe, I struggled to imagine the mental tranquility he described.

My previous few attempts at meditation, spearheaded by my yogainclined mother, lasted for a grand total of perhaps 10 minutes. Nevertheless, the contrasts between this vivid memory and the realities of our current environment were apparent to the both of us.

“If what I’m describing is the one extreme, I’d say the opposite extreme is Yale,” he said with a laugh.

Saul went on to explain the obsession with accomplishment that he felt captivated so many Yale students. His words rang familiar, echoing concerns surrounding the campus’s mental health support networks.

Saul traced his observations to two underlying cultural pressures: the circular groupthink induced by hundreds of high-octane high achievers in close quarters, and the ensuing mania for productivity that overwhelms much-needed mental quiet.

Over the course of just three months on campus, Saul had to continually challenge himself to

FRIDAY NIGHT

Contact CHARLES STONE at charles.stone@yale.edu .

WEEKEND RESOLVES:

Everywhere // 9 p.m. onward It’s not for us to guide you. It’s not for us to judge.

live out his own personal values, recognizing how his identity began to blend in with the collective character. This was a challenge amid the din of campus life.

“You need the awareness that comes with stillness that doesn’t happen in a place like this,” he emphasized.

Yet, Saul was mindful of asserting too one-dimensional a cultural diagnosis. While exhausting, his experiences fielding Yale’s constant bombardment of stimuli had their positives too.

“I struggle to say ‘no,’ I really do,” he said about the opportunities to meet a mélange of people on campus. “I’m feeling like this even just after three months.”

Saul’s bottom-line was that Yale, overheated with enthusiasm, needed to develop a culture of independent reflection. His reasoning seemed compelling enough: a heightened understanding of one’s moods and values extends from prolonged mental tranquility.

From his perspective, having fielded more than a decade of professional twists and turns, we should all be taking a dose or two of the proverbial chill pill. He welcomed the opportunity to tell undergraduates, “You’re not that important,” a phrase that had a notable cooling effect.

“The reality is that no one here, no single human being is that important,” he continued. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done and we all need to pull together to do it. I get a strong sense that students here at Yale have a desire to do that.”

Over an hour and a half had passed in a stream of fluid conversation. Saul turned to greet his next meeting partner who entered the cafe, a School of Management professor seemingly eager to discuss the economics of running an NGO. I thanked Saul for his time. He raised his beanie and half-finished coffee to move to another table, shifting effortlessly into more technical discussion. But, as I rose from my chair, he shifted back.

“Oh, and Charles — see you at water polo scrimmage tonight?” he asked with a grin.

To eat better

We tried this last year, but were defeated by night cheese.

PAGE B6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B7

WEEKEND BREAKING

SHOPPING PERIOD: AN INVESTIGATIVE REPORT // BY CODY KAHOE and CALEB MADISON

The Yale Daily News. The Yale Herald. The Yale Record. Rumpus.

Yale has a proud tradition of journalistic prestige and comedic wit and satire. But the one thing this university has lacked is a one-stop-shop for all news fake and fictitious.

This week’s Doubletruck, welcoming you to the new semester with the theme “Shopping Week,” introduces THE YALE BUBBLE, Yale’s new, online, number one provider of fake news.

New Haven, CT Friday, January 17, 2014

Page 2

University News New Haven, CT Friday, January 17, 2014

Seminar Shopper Who Clearly Has Rapport With Professor Has Smushy, Rat-Like Face

Vol. 1, No. 1

the semester!’ “ Sources reportedly did not even look at Eliot when the professor announced to the packed classroom that fewer than half of those shopping the seminar were likely to secure a place, because they “did not want to see his fucking beady little eyes light up.” Nor did they look at him when he raised his hand after the professor asked who among the shoppers had preregistered through the Political Science department.

As students filled out applications for the seminar on notecards, peals of laughter could be heard from the corner of the room where Eliot and the professor chatted. Sources added that they were quite sure Eliot was a virgin, as any woman would be repulsed by the his shiny, oily face.

STAFF After hearing him share a joke with the professor of the vastly oversubscribed seminar “Politics of Public Policy,” sources confirmed that Frank Eliot ‘15 has a smushy, rat-like face.

“What a slimy little asshole,” one source said upon hearing Eliot refer to a previous class he had taken with the seminar’s professor. “I fucking hate his face. God, just look at him,” the source added.

Sources agree that Eliot’s face is abnormally small, with piggy, close-set eyes and a weak chin.

This became apparent, according to sources, “right when he shook the professor’s hand and said ‘It’s good to see you again — looking forward to

Lonely Yale Professor Skips First Class to See If Students “Even Know I Exist” STAFF A large lecture hall’s worth of shoppers were disappointed this week when biology professor Arnold Kirkwick failed to show up to the first class of his treasured lecture course, “Nematodes and Other Worms.”

“Sometimes, I just feel like students are coming for the worms and not for me,” Kirkwick told the Bubble. Citing the words of Lynyrd Skynyrd in their hit “Freebird,” he asked, “Seriously, ‘If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?’ That’s right on target.”

Flipping through some of his favorite photos of flatworms and Dorylaimia, Kirkwick explained that he bets “they won’t even notice.”

One student, who took Kirkwick’s class the last time it was taught, remarked that she found this kind of behavior from the nematode expert unsurprising. “He was always ending lectures by saying, ‘Next week we’ll focus on the functioning of the Enoplia’s tubular digestive system, if you’re still interested’ and ‘It’s either the Spirurina’s cloacal opening or me: you choose.’”

At press time, sources confirmed that Kirkwick left a note taped on his office door explaining that he, like the nematode in times of environmental adversity, had entered a hibernation state of cryptobiosis and that he will emerge when Dean Mary Miller “just learns his name already.”

All Twelve Students in Seminar Room Pretty Confident They’ll Be Fine by 1:23 pm STAFF The twelve students waiting in WLH 006 seven minutes before the start of a history junior seminar were all pretty confident they would have no trouble gaining admission to the class. “Well, the class is capped at 18, probably, and maybe the professor is flexible, so let’s say 20,” said Chris Steve ‘15, “and there’s no way more than eight people show up in the next seven minutes.”

S AT U R D AY JA N UA RY 1 8

DAYS OF HEAVEN

WEEKEND RESOLVES:

Whitney Humanities Center // 7 p.m.

“This is a movie that demands to be seen in 35 mm, on the big screen, in all its splendor.”

Uneasy silence filled the room as the wall clock ticked audibly.

“Even though I’m an American Studies major, I should be fine,” said Alexander Gregory ‘14. “I’m a senior, and my thesis is basically on the subject of the class, so there’s no way I won’t get in,” he added, his eyes scanning the room.

At press time, several students cursed under their breath as a group of six students entered the room together, claiming they had had trouble finding it.

To get a job

Just kidding, we work full-time without pay.

Stressed Out Sophomore Girl Probably Just On Her Shopping Period STAFF A close male friend who requested not to be identified confirmed that Davenport sophomore Kimberly Barnes’s recent aggressive behavior is most likely due to the fact that she is “on her shopping period.” This source noted a change in Barnes’s behavior as soon as she returned to campus, highlighting her confrontational attitude, heightened sensitivity, erratic mood swings and “bitching about not getting into Writing About Oneself”.

“I don’t really care about that kind of stuff,” said the source. “It’s just Anne Fadiman.”

Barnes was seen on Tuesday running from LC to SSS in a frazzled state, most likely due to the fact that this is “her time of the semester.” Other friends commented on her irregular mealtimes and bags under her eyes, indicating that this is one of her messiest shopping periods. “It’s a bloodbath,” said Barnes, choking up. “I just really need to talk to my advisor about it.” Barnes also noted her shopping periods are usually mild and fairly manageable, lasting only a couple days. “I’ve been running from class to class,” she explained, “so my shopping period has been getting really spotty. I get to my room at the end of the night and it’s like, oh wow. I’m just drowning in my shopping period.”

This behavior was not limited to just Barnes, as the source also noted that Barnes’s female friends were acting similarly. “This happens all the time with chicks on their shop-

ping period,” he said. “Their schedules just sync up.” The Bubble visited Barnes’s dorm, where she and her suitemates ritually gather to discuss their shopping periods. “It’s just really great to have a safe space where we can talk about how intense and emotional our shopping periods can be.”

Barnes’s shopping period has also been taxing on her boyfriend, sophomore Chad Brundle. “I’m afraid to even talk to her, let alone go down on her,” commented Brundle. But when asked about his waitlist status for Grand Strategies, Brundle added, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Students to View Exclusive Seminars That They’ll Almost Get Into With Yale BlueBallsBook STAFF The Yale College Dean’s Office announced on Sunday the creation of the Yale BlueBallsBook, which will allow students to browse exclusive seminars that, at first, it seems like they totally might get into.

Students, upon reading about the classes therein, will think, “Hey, that’s a pretty hot-looking seminar.

Just look at that syllabus! Damn. I’d really enjoy getting into it, and I def-

S AT U R D AY JA N UA RY 1 8

initely have a chance. I mean, how hard could it be? I’m a cool guy. I think the class would kind of be into having me.”

The Dean’s office projects that students will then arrive at these seminars for the first meeting, where their hopes will be confirmed, even bolstered. They will think, “This seminar doesn’t just look good, it actually has a good personality. I mean, I really think this thing is gonna happen! I definitely made

some smart, witty comments. I was really working it in there. This could really happen! I can’t wait to get into this seminar so hard, and brag about it to all my friends. Goodbye, dry spell! Hello, sweet, sweet relief!”

Two days later, when students have finalized their schedules with the assumption that they are enrolled in the seminar, they will get an apologetic email explaining that due to an overabundance of applications to the seminar, they will not be

offered a spot this semester. According to authorities in the administration, these students will think, “WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! I WAS SO FUCKING CLOSE GODDAMN IT!!!

THIS IS THE WORST FEELING!!!! I AM NOT EVEN GOING TO BE ABLE TO SHOP ANOTHER SEMINAR AT LEAST FOR THE REST OF THE DAY!!!”

Students will then attempt an Independent Study, but it will likely be too painful.

“HAVE I NONE”

WEEKEND RESOLVES:

Yale Cabaret // 8 p.m., 11 p.m.

A cautionary allegory for survival in 2077.

To stop procrastinating

This means setting a five-hours-of-Facebook-per-day limit.

PAGE B8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COVER

DISTANT DOCTORS MENTAL HEALTH FROM PAGE 3 about 20 undergraduate, graduate and professional school students, and Yale Health staff — Siggins said her department offers group therapy to students waiting for individual appointments, with about a dozen groups currently running.

But Genecin concedes that many students are uncomfortable with group treatment because they would prefer confidential, one-on-one therapy. Moreover, students can only join groups in which they do not know anyone else. While in line with clinical best practices, this requirement poses significant logistical problems for a student body as well connected as Yale’s.

Anna North ’13, a first-year student at Yale’s School of Public Health and a former Freshman Counselor (FroCo) in Silliman College, says although she was offered group therapy after her individual appointments ran out as an undergrad, she was ultimately disappointed with her experience.

“Hardly anybody will be able to benefit from [group therapy] because they start at a random time and are really disorganized,” North says. “Last year, I tried to join a group, finally got into one, and then found out one of my friends was in it so I wasn’t allowed to join.”

However, Stephanie Tubiolo ’14, a current FroCo in Silliman College, believes group therapy helped her cope with depression and an eating disorder, which developed after her work supervisor, John Miller MUS ’07, a School of Music employee, committed suicide in 2011. Tubiolo says everyone in her therapy group received the attention they needed, adding that the counselor in charge facilitated discussions without interfering with the group dynamic.

“It was a really rewarding experience to say I had this issue and someone else would say, ‘That happens to me all the time,’” Tubiolo explains. “Especially at Yale where so few people are willing to show their weaknesses. It’s a rough place to be sometimes.”

Tubiolo also speaks highly of individual counseling sessions, which she says taught her to “pick [herself] up” on difficult days and now seem like “one of the best decisions [she has] ever made.”

She says she was surprised by the YCC report’s findings about variable quality of care at MH&C, but admits that not everyone feels immediately comfortable with their clinician because of therapy’s subjective nature.

Siggins reported that 25 percent of students start to feel better after three or four visits to MH&C. But inevitably each year, the department sees busy times, such as between Thanksgiving and winter breaks, when the stress of final exams and papers may negatively affect students’ mental health.

“I feel like it’s gotten a bit worse in recent years,” University Chaplain Sharon Kugler maintains.

“Students are now stressing two weeks into the semester rather than six. Then we get into Reading Week and everything goes to black.”

ADDRESSING THE INFORMATION GAP

Administrators like Kugler play an important role in getting certain students to receive treatment at Mental Health and Counseling. In an environment with a high demand for services and a limited supply of clinicians, residential college masters, deans, freshmen counselors and chaplains can significantly accelerate the intake process by advocating for students.

“If something gets to a level where day-to-day support from deans, administrators, and friends is not going to help, then we contact MH&C,” Jeffrey Brenzel, master of Timothy Dwight College, says.

Many undergraduates do not know where to go until they face an acute situation. As the YCC report outlined, students may be “confused about how to navigate [Yale’s] extensive network of resources.

Such confusion is unsurprising: Yale resources include everything from student organizations like

Walden Peer Counseling, Queer Peers, Peer Liaisons (PLs), Communication and Consent Educators (CCEs), Freshman Counselors (FroCos) and Mind Matters — a mental health awareness group — to institutional resources like MH&C, the Sexual Harassment and Assault Response & Education (SHARE) Center, the Chaplain’s Office, the Resource Office on Disabilities, the Office of LGBTQ Resources and the four cultural centers. Currently, comprehensive information about campus resources is not centralized.

“I felt like FroCo training was the first time where I fully knew about Yale’s mental health resources because it was my job to know,” Margaret Coons ’14, a Silliman FroCo, recalls. “People going through emergency situations might not have the luxury to wait.”

Five current FroCos said freshman orientation should include more information about Yale’s mental health resources and campus culture. Although every FroCo must meet with the staff of MH&C and participate in mental health role-plays before freshmen arrive on campus, Michael Sherman ’14, a FroCo in Pierson College, says he was disappointed with this year’s training.

“When we did the roleplays,” — simulations of students approaching FroCos with mental health concerns — “the professionals who were there gave almost no feedback and left it up to the group,” he says. Sherman added that a mandatory tour of Yale Health was part of orientation, but because it was scheduled on Labor Day, there were no officials present to greet and guide freshmen. “We quickly realized we were the tour guides and we didn’t know the adequate information.”

Anna North, the alumna at the School of Public Health and former FroCo, agrees with Coons’s assessment of the information gap, adding that she was “extremely nervous” the first time she visited MH&C during her sophomore year because she didn’t know what to expect. North, who was experiencing regular anxiety attacks, only approached MH&C once she felt she was on the verge of leaving Yale if nothing changed.

The result of general ignorance about MH&C is that rumors circulate among undergrads regarding the consequences of receiving treatment, North claims, which may deter some students from seeking help. Such rumors include being sent to the Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital, where treatment could become expensive, and being asked by the University to take a medical leave of absence, which could threaten a student’s chances of graduating on time.

It’s no wonder then that for many students, a certain deal of anxiety surrounds scheduling an appointment at MH&C. Robert Peck ’15, a former staff reporter for the News, had a Kafkaesque experience there during his sophomore year, when he had to wait over three months to be seen by a permanent clinician.

Now a YCC representative on the Yale Health Member Advisory Committee, Peck says he was told he would get to see a clinician within a month of his intake appointment in November 2012.

When that did not happen and he returned home for winter break, Peck emailed his intake counselor but received no response. And when he called MH&C in early January, he was simply told that December was always a busy time.

It was not until his dean called MH&C several weeks into the spring semester that he had an official appointment scheduled for February.

“You would think that was the end of it, but then the therapist I was assigned decided not to show up for work on the day of my appointment,” Peck remembers. “I was so thoroughly poisoned by the experience that I left and didn’t go back.”

Peck admits his condition was not as severe as those of others he has spoken with, but says it would be unacceptable for Yale Health to define success only in terms of treating its most pressing patients.

“Of course Yale Health is probably better than many [university health care] programs in the country, but that doesn’t get them

S AT U R D AY JA N UA RY 1 8

off the hook for not fully helping the student population here,” he asserts. “If we’re to have faith in our university, for a service we pay for through tuition, there has to be some legitimate reason they can’t meet demand in a timely fashion.

So far, I haven’t heard what that is.”

WHY STUDENTS ARE SEEKING HELP

“A LEGITIMATE REASON”?

A potential answer to Peck’s question may involve how the University determines Yale Health’s annual budget, which Stephanie Spangler, deputy provost for health affairs and academic integrity, currently oversees. She previously served as Director of Yale University Health Services from 1990 to 1995.

In November, Spangler declined to comment on the magnitude or percentage that Yale Health’s expenses make up of the University’s overall budget, but said Yale Health’s four biggest costs are medication, staffing, hospital expenses and those to outside providers and delivery systems.

Genecin and Lorraine Siggins are the two people primarily responsible for managing the budget for mental health, Spangler said. Although Genecin declined to provide specific budgetary figures, which total in “the millions of dollars,” he notes that a significant amount of MH&C’s funding comes from the endowment, through donors who specifically want to support Yale’s mental health services.

However much money is allocated to MH&C, the University’s limited finances and budget priorities may impede changes to Yale Health for some time. As of June 2013, Yale faced a $39 million budget deficit, which University President Peter Salovey and Provost Benjamin Polak announced in mid-November would need to be reduced through cuts to administrative departments. At the time, Genecin told the News that Yale Health is always looking for ways to contain costs, and that budget pressures fluctuate throughout the year.

Hendler, one of the YCC report authors, admits that hiring extra clinicians at MH&C would cost more than other reforms, but says it would be “the silver bullet” to lowering student wait times. In turn, Hendler explains, undergrads would have more positive perceptions of Yale Health. “It’s simple: If there are more therapists, then people can be seen more quickly,” he says. “Obviously that takes resources. We think those resources are well spent.”

“Barring unforeseen circumstances, I expect we’ll be talking about adding more staff as the new residential colleges are built,” Genecin says. The two new colleges are scheduled to be completed in August 2017, which will allow Yale to admit roughly 15 percent more students each year, bringing total undergraduate enrollment to more than 6,000.

Genecin declined to speculate as to whether the ratio of mental health clinicians to students would also change.

Ernest Baskin GRD ’16, chair of the Yale Health Member Advisory Committee, says he is optimistic that mental health resources on campus will improve, but maintains that it will take “broad student initiatives” to make the Yale Corporation aware that mental health is such an important issue.

“It needs to be heard by the trustees who control the purse strings and can influence the allocation of funds, at the very highest level of decision-making,” he asserts.

For now, at least, those hopes may not be far off.

“One thing in the [YCC] report that concerned me was the observation that students could be unhappy here and feel they have to hide it,” Spangler says. “We have a great opportunity to change that.”

69% Depression

65% Anxiety

45% Academic Stress

15% Eating Disorders

6% Addiction/Substance Abuse

9% Gender/Sexuality Concerns

Contact ANDREW GIAMBRONE at andrew.giambrone@yale.edu .

Check back next Weekend for Part II of “Overwhelmed: Why Students are Unhappy With Yale’s System of Mental Health Care”, where Giambrone reports on Yale’s campus culture surrounding mental health and what next steps students are taking to create substantive change.

7% Bipolar Disorder

JAY-Z MAGNA CARTER WORLD TOUR

WEEKEND RESOLVES:

TD Garden, Boston // 8 p.m.

I know nobody to blame / Kurt Cobain, I did it to myself.

To quit smoking

We prefer our substances Tropicana-style (see page nine).

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B9

WEEKEND DISPENSES

HOW TO SUCCEED IN CONNECTICUT CANNABUSINESS (INVOLVES A LOT OF TRYING)

1854 - Indian hemp makes its first appearance in the U.S. Pharmacopeia, providing evidence to some scholars of recreational use.

1911 - Massachusetts becomes the first state to ban cannabis. Within the next 20 years, 28 states follow suit.

1925 - The League of Nations moves to restrict cannabis as part of the fight on the global opium trade.

//BY MARISSA MEDANSKY

According to David Kimmel, the best way to understand medical marijuana is to think of orange juice.

It’s a simple analogy. If you’re suffering from a cold, you won’t get much Vitamin C from a single orange. But squeeze the citrus into juice, and suddenly you’ve got a more efficient dose: eight oranges in one glass.

It’s the same, so to speak, with medical marijuana. Kimmel explains that the active chemicals in cannabis can be potent pain-relievers. But for patients seeking palliative care, “one orange doesn’t do much like one joint doesn’t do much,” he says.

Smoking marijuana — combusting the plant — isn’t particularly effective. That’s why the drug needs to be concentrated, delivered without a bong or pipe.

Kimmel founded Vintage Foods Ltd., a health and wellness company, in 2010. Come this spring, he hopes to open and operate a medical marijuana production facility in Norwich, an hour east of New Haven. In the city’s industrial park, at 9 Wisconsin Ave., he and his team plan to produce a standardized, unit-based medication from the active oils in cannabis. If they succeed, they’ll be among the first businesses to bring medical marijuana to the state of Connecticut legally — and they’ll be doing it Tropicana-style.

Kimmel’s interest in medical marijuana stems from his professional background. A veteran of the food and beverage industry, he gravitated toward projects in the health sector. “Food is medicine,” he says early on in the conversation. That philosophy guides him as he prepares for this next professional venture.

Over the phone, he’s all science. He eagerly relays the latest developments in medical cannabis research (from Israel), and describes in detail marijuana’s “synergistic” health benefits (from its flavonoids, terpenoids and cannabinoids, he explains).

He describes Vintage Foods as a “fledgling pharmaceutical company,” which underscores that its potential customers aren’t druggies, but patients: people with serious illnesses. They’re not interested in getting high, Kimmel says — “they want to get better.”

But whether Kimmel will realize his professional ambition is still unclear. By the end of next month, the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection will distribute licenses approving the state’s first medical marijuana production facilities and dispensaries. Competition is steep. Of the 16 companies that hope to become producers, the Hartford Courant has reported that likely three will receive approval. Just three to five dispensaries will open from among the 21 businesses applying.

For most applicants, this round of vetting is yet another hurdle. Connecticut’s medical marijuana laws are some of the nation’s strictest, which has irrevocably altered the experiences of industry business owners in the state. Other difficulties, often rooted in the stigma surrounding pot, can similarly complicate the market.

Understood

fully, efforts to legalize medical — even recreational — marijuana are best understood as stories of economics and politics, science and health care. There is also real emotion at their center: not only that of patients and caregivers, but also farmers, pharmacists and entrepreneurs, many of whom have hinged future and fortune alike on a recent wave of marijuana-related economic activity known popularly as the green rush. *** A century ago, marijuana was just a plant.

In colonial times, hemp was as ubiquitous as churned butter. The Virginia Colony grew cannabis by the bushel, and both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson cultivated the crop at their estates. Its use climbed steadily throughout the next two centuries, according to Martin A. Lee’s “Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana.”

Hemp-based tinctures and elixirs, once popular folk remedies, moved into the mainstream, and in 1854, Indian hemp made its first appearance in the U.S. Pharmacopeia, providing some evidence of medicinal use. Then, three years later, The New York Times dubbed hashish a “fashionable narcotic.”

But the good vibes wouldn’t last forever. Around the turn of the century, the American public soured to marijuana use. A variety of hypotheses have since formed: a surge in anti-immigrant racism, suggests Lee the author; William Hearst and the plastic lobby, explains Kimmel the grower; the ubiquity of “Reefer Madness”-style propaganda, goes another popular theory. Around that time, the ladies of the Meriden, Connecticut women’s club could even attend a community meeting on the so-called “menace of marijuana,” according to ad copy in The New York Times.

In 1937, Congress passed the “Marihuana Tax Act,” effectively banning cannabis. Public opinion would shift yet again, at least in favor of medical marijuana. In particular, the AIDS crisis catalyzed a generation of patients and activists eager to use cannabis for palliative care. California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996.

Now, 20 states and Washington, D.C. have medical programs, and recreational pot is now famously legal in Washington State and Colorado.

Connecticut is a far cry from Colorado. In fact, the Constitution State has been relatively conservative in its path toward medical marijuana, which came to Connecticut in 2012: six years after Rhode Island; two since D.C.; one after Delaware.

In May 2012, the state legislature legalized medical marijuana. That October, patients could register for licenses, but the path to establish a regulatory framework for growing and selling took much longer. Applications for producers and dispensary facilities did not open until September 2013.

From the start, state officials had emphasized the program’s strict limitations, arguing that such guidelines were critical protection against a marijuana

free-for-all.

In a June 2012 press release, Governor Dannel Malloy wrote that he did not want Connecticut to “follow the path” of states with medical programs that “essentially legalized marijuana for anyone willing to find the right doctor and get the right prescription.”

In other words, Connecticut was no Colorado — and it wouldn’t be California, either. *** Under no interpretation is the term “medical” a euphemism in Connecticut law. According to Morgan Fox, the communications director at the Marijuana Policy Project, the state’s rules concerning patients are among the “most restrictive” in the nation.

Under Connecticut law, patients must be over 18. They must reside within the state, and they must not be incarcerated. Most importantly, they must suffer from one of 11 preapproved medical conditions, which range from post-traumatic stress disorder to cancer to epilepsy. Connecticut’s list of eligible ailments is comparatively slim. In Illinois, a state also currently in the process of establishing its medical program, patients with any one of 30 medical conditions are eligible.

Connecticut law also prevents patients from growing their own marijuana, which is permitted in many other states with medical programs.

Like the people they serve, Connecticut’s producers and dispensaries will be heavily regulated. As they prepare to open this spring, businesses will face a host of restrictions governing products (no THC-spiked candies or chocolates); packaging (must be child-resistant); and even advertising (pot leafs okay, unless on building exteriors or illuminated signs).

Just entering the market is a challenge. Hefty fees, including a non-refundable $25,000 application fee for producers, priced out many potential business owners. Individual towns, which are not required to consider or permit applications from businesses in the marijuana industry, also proved a particularly powerful roadblock. Statewide, cities have banned or denied en masse applications from potential producers and dispensary owners. Some local officials have cited the relative newness of the medical program as justification.

Others have expressed caution regarding its opposition to federal law. The Drug Enforcement Agency still classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug with “no currently accepted medical use.”

“There’s always going to be a conflict between patients who want to have increased access and people who are afraid of medical marijuana being abused,” says the Marijuana Policy Project’s Fox. Citizens and local governments should have “some say” in determining the kinds of businesses permitted in their communities, Fox maintains. But he adds that in many cases, residents base their decisions on “misconceptions about both medical marijuana itself and the nature of the industry.”

“It really comes down to whether or not people really

S AT U R D AY

PEKING DUCK DAY

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Celebrate one of China’s national dishes, a savory-sweet roasted duck tucked into thin steamed pancakes with green onion and cucumber.

want to take medicine away from seriously ill people, and when you put it in those sorts of terms, people really start secondguessing the local bans,” Fox explains. “Once they start seeing the tax revenue that comes from allowing the marijuana industry to operate within their borders, they’re going to start changing their tunes really quickly.” *** There’s a lot of money in medical marijuana, but most of it is to be found elsewhere.

According to Marijuana Business Daily, a leading industry journal, Connecticut’s market will total “$6 million to $10 million annually in revenues” once facilities finally open. Those sums are small potatoes compared to profits out in Colorado, where recreational pot sales exceeded $5 million within the first week of 2014.

According to Brendan Kennedy SOM ’05, cannabis should be treated as a “mainstream product consumed by mainstream people.” Kennedy is the CEO of the Seattle-based Privateer Holdings, a private equity firm dedicated exclusively to what’s billed as the “cannabis space.” In other words, it’s the Blackstone of bud. Founded in 2010, its roots, in part, are in Connecticut; Kennedy and his co-partner, Michael Blue SOM ’05, are Yalies, have Connecticut investors and “pay close attention” to the goings-on in the state.

Alongside growers and business owners, the firm, with its sleek professionalism, suggests another kind of green rush career path. The proliferation of consulting firms, financial organizations and even start-ups within the marijuana industry speaks to a corporatization of cannabis possible only in a nation with rapidly changing drug mores. Marijuana, says Kennedy, is “no longer a subculture,” as evidenced by the proliferation of new products, from high-end vaporizers to innovative marijuana edibles.

“It’s a giant experiment in democracy,” says Kennedy of the many different medical marijuana laws across the country.

He adds that it will be “interesting to see how the Connecticut experiment plays out.”

The latest stage in the waiting game is almost over, when applicants will learn the fate of their prospective businesses. For these entrepreneurs, the politics of marijuana remains personal.

Vintage Foods founder David Kimmel says he’s at the “edge of his seat” waiting for word about his application. If this facility falls through, he’ll probably explore the hemp seed business.

“One ounce of hemp seed is ten grams of vegetarian protein,” he says, which means that the curious seed is another superfood worth making into medicine.

The medical marijuana market remains his first choice, but the green rush doesn’t have room for everyone — especially in Connecticut.

Contact MARISSA MEDANSKY at marissa.medansky@yale.edu .

1936 - "Marihuana," a popular exploitation film, is released. Antipot pulp comes out throughout the decade.

In "Bold! Daring! Shocking! True! A History of Exploitation Films," author Eric Shaefer notes that such films played a critical role in establishing public perception that marijuana was a gateway drug, and often included scenes of youthful leisure, such as "weenie roasts."

1937 - Congress passes the "Marihuana Tax Act," effectively banning cannabis in the United States. Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, calls marijuana an "assassin of youth."

1996 - California becomes the first state to legalize medical cannabis.

1999 - Death of Mary Jane Rathburn, a prominent medical cannabis activist known as Brownie Mary. Referred to as the "Florence Nightingale of the medical marijuana movement," she baked as many as 15,000 marijuana brownies a month for patients with HIV in San Francisco.

2012 - In Connecticut, medical marijuana is approved, and patients can begin to apply for licenses. In Washington and Colorado, recreational marijuana is legalized.

2013 - Businesses in Connecticut can begin to apply for applications to open a production facility or dispensary.

2014 - In Colorado, recreational marijuana dispensaries open their doors, turning impressive profits. Medical marijuana production facilities and dispensaries planned to open in Connecticut.

WEEKEND RESOLVES:

Worldwide // All day

To get more sleep

We’re not even going to try and bluff about this one.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COLUMNS

THE VIEW FROM THE FARM // BY STEPHANIE TOMASSON

Farms can play home to a variety of crops and animals. Those who know me well might think that I am referring to the yak farm I spent some time on last year. However, over 400 acres in the Hudson Valley, there is a farm that raises something stranger than hairy beasts — art. A Manhattan couple, whose identity remains anonymous, recently purchased the sprawling former working farm of the James Cagney estate as a country home. Instead of the typical excuse for purchasing land upstate — to have verdant escape from Manhattan’s concrete and bustle — the urbanites simply wanted a place to store their art.

Many of the works on the art farm are site-specific and almost all are done on commission. Artists are given the prompt “do something you have never done before.” As a result, the extensive collection boasts work in a diversity of media, subject matter and scale. The land itself is well kept; the grass is cut short, minimal like the white walls in a museum. It serves as an unthreatening backdrop to the wild sculptures that rest upon

STEPHANIE TOMASSON PUSHING THE PALETTE KNIFE it.

All of the works are unexpected.

Roxy Paine’s Fallen Tree, 2006, plays subtly on the line of natural trees that surround it. The piece is a monumental sculpture of a shiny steel tree that has been snapped, and has fallen at an angle. Though Fallen Tree’s materials belie the natural setting, it retains a natural grace unexpected from a steel installation. Unlike Fallen Tree, Jose Dávila’s Container #2, 2008, does not purport to be anything other than a receding series of shiny frames, but it achieves a similar effect. The two works act as graceful points of entry to the large landscape around them.

Structures like these offer their own perspectives through their manipulation of the setting they occupy.

Low Resolution // BY ELEANOR MICHOTTE

With its trunk broken at a right angle, Paine’s false tree focuses your attention on the real trees behind it, ones which could never fall so perfectly geometrically. Dávila’s structure also creates a retinal path, directing the viewer’s attention to a smaller, seemingly unassuming section of a dense forest area.

Other sculptures, like Sabine Hornig’s Entrance with Floating Stairs, 2008, make no attempt at blending in. Her massive work quite literally divides the landscape, offering the viewer a floating staircase to theoretically ascend to … nowhere. She even divides the staircase into two zones, and suspends a hollow white shape upon four pegs between them. On the stairs, a climber would theoretically pass through this empty space to enter a new, raised position. In this way, her sculpture also acts as a kind of frame through which to perceive the landscape. Yet, rather than do so physically, she has the viewer imagine this perspective, a new, but unknown, angle from which to understand the land.

Every element of the property, indoor and outdoor, is itself a work of art. The main house, designed by architect Brad Cloepfil, is a threedimensional figure eight. In one room, Mel Bochner’s To Count: Intransitive, 1972-2009 acts as the windows. These windows are covered in a series of numbers that appear as if written on an eternally fog-covered piece of glass. And, just as the outdoor sculptures manipulate the viewer’s perception of the landscape, this installation filters the inhabitants’ access to the scene beyond.

This magnificent property is not limited to the couple’s private consumption. They have an art barn in which they exhibit installations twice a year by invitation to small school and museum groups. The upcoming spring show is “Thinking Through the Lens,” and it focuses on The Clock, 2010 a 24-hour video

by Christian Marclay that they have recently acquired. Sadly, I don’t feel that I will be lucky enough to be invited.

The art farm is mysterious,

secluded, magical, and I have described it here in as much detail as the available photos and limited information allow me. I cannot help but think about what this massive production means for the art world. The mystery behind the art farm, unreachable except by a leafy one mile path, and owned by anonymous patrons, challenges the recent movement toward greater public consumption of art. Could the holders of this enchanted place be the 21st century version of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel who amassed a collection of almost 5,000 works in their tiny Upper West Side apartment? This mysterious couple, like the Vogels, must have an intimate relationship with the artists from whom they commission. The art farm leaves me with many questions, foremost among them how the space will continue to develop, and whether I will ever be able to witness its fascinating landscape in person.

Contact STEPHANIE TOMASSON at stephanie.tomasson@yale.edu .

Always Stick to the Buddy System // BY REBECCA LEVINSKY

So how are New Year’s resolutions working out for you guys? I only ask because, in the sadistically early hours of this morning, as I rummaged under the bed for some socks to wear to my 9 a.m. QR (WHY!?), I found a list of mine crumpled inside a shoe. They were very well meaning: the words “cardio,” “quinoa” and “paid internship” appeared repeatedly in capital letters. In any case, I now know that there is something more depressing than having to integrate before breakfast: realizing that I have stuck to literally none of my plans for self-improvement.

Apparently, I’m not alone in this.

“Don’t even,” said a friend of mine as I told her about my existential crisis over omelets in JE (this is a strong contender for the most obnoxious sentence I’ve ever written). “I told myself that I was going to finish a triathlon this spring, and so far I have run 0.3 miles. I feel disgusting.” She then proceeded to unleash a whole slew of other resolutions she’d failed to make good on.

When she got to “stop being such an underachiever,” I realized just what a ridiculous conversation I was having. By any standard, my friend — just like every other student at Yale — is pretty much killing it in life. But just like every other student at Yale, my friend isn’t terribly convinced of that right now.

It goes without saying that the start of any semester is a stressful time. Right now, we’re trying to find classes, something to do this summer, a proper grown-up person job for when we graduate. Meanwhile, New Haven in January is about as cheerful as a decaying Soviet factory town on the Russian steppe. No surprise, then, that none of us are feeling tip-top about ourselves at the moment. But I’ve noticed that once the New Year hits, Yalies’ insecurities come out to play faster than seniors late for penny drinks.

Right now, we all seem to see ourselves with the disdain we normally reserve for the person who corrects a professor in an oversubscribed seminar during shopping period.

I think that this is because January 1st offers the illusion of a clean start: a strangely poisonous type of hope. We wake up on New Year’s Day believing that yes — yes! — this is the day that we will kiss all our flaws goodbye. Suddenly we start tallying up everything we don’t like about ourselves. Hello again, insecurities!

We imagine our year will only be

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ELEANOR MICHOTTE CRIT FROM THE BRIT successful if we become better people immediately.

This is the sort of zealous thinking that we normally associate with balding men who believe they’re prophets. Granted, there’s nothing like a hangover to make you long for salvation, but still: we don’t wake up after every excess and decide to remake ourselves completely. Ever heard of Spring Fling resolutions?

Me neither. Then why decide to turn over a new leaf now? If there were ever a time for Insomnia under a liquor blanket, it’s winter in New Haven.

A couple of years ago, I spent New Year’s Eve in the emergency room with a few friends and a fortysomething Swede named Victoria.

We’d found her slumped on the curb, wearing a purple sequined dress with no shoes and bleeding profusely from her shin. She’d hit her head, lost her wallet and keys, couldn’t remember her address and was so drunk that the only way we could get her to wait for an ambulance was by talking to her for an hour about her ex-husband. Once we finally got her to the hospital, she stripped off all her clothes in the toilet cubicle and washed her feet in the hand basin stark naked. Then she refused treatment and promptly strode out of the ER with my friend’s sock still plugging her gaping wound.

I’m sure Victoria woke up the next day feeling hella sore, and probably more regretful than most of us can ever claim to have been on January 1st. But whilst I hope none of us ever find ourselves at 3 a.m. rinsing congealed blood from our toes as a sixteen year old feeds us pretzels, we should all learn one thing from Victoria. As I tried to stuff her back into her dress, I remember saying to her, “Come on, Victoria — a new year means a new you!” And Victoria slurred right back at me “I’m fun the way I am. Let’s get back to the party!”

Everyone at Yale on a cleanse right now, take note.

Contact ELEANOR MICHOTTE at eleanor.michotte@yale.edu .

Dear Rebecca, It’s my senior spring and I need to pass a science credit. But I intend to spend all my time outside of class watching Netflix hungover in bed and wooing the cute junior I just have to get with before Last Chance Dance!

What do I do? xoxo, Humanities Hillary *** Dear Humanities Hillary, I’m not sure you are doing anything wrong.

Really, why shouldn’t you spend your last semester at Yale like that? Hungover days imply long nights spent with friends, and who knows what will happen if you and that cute junior hit it off?

But if you’re even writing to ask, I think you’re trying to tell me that you’re actually uncomfortable with this plan. While I don’t know whether you really want me to advise you against the Netflix or the junior, I’ll tackle what seems like the more pressing issue: your science credit. I’d like to share my science credit experience with you, and the wisdom I’ve learned after six semesters of shopping.

Let’s go back to the first semester of my freshman year. After texting my parents a picture of my “first day of school” outfit, I headed off to my first college class. I don’t remember what the class was, but I do remember that it was was the most boring lecture I’d ever been to. Section, we were told, was optional, but the good news ended there. I wondered, “Is this Yale?” I worried that things weren’t going to go well.

Luckily, the next class I shopped was a much more positive experience. It was on Science Hill (or at least on Hillhouse before Trumbull Street) and it was about science (or at least the syllabus said we would spend a few weeks on global warming and a few on animals).

This class, the second class I ever shopped in college, was great. I soon learned that I loved this class. The readings were interesting, and often easier that the readings from AP Bio. I met my first collegiate athlete and we did a group presentation together. Naive freshman that I was, I worked very hard in this class.

When the midterm came around, though, I thought I had shown up to the wrong class.

Five times as many people showed up for the exam as had been in attendance for any other lecture, even during shopping period.

I had no friends (in the class or otherwise, now that I think about it) to tell me my beloved science credit was a gut. I went to every Monday morning section and Friday morning lecture. (Find me a class with a worse schedule than that.) And though I loved it, I really didn’t learn very much during the semester, and I didn’t make any friends in section, except maybe my TF. During freshman year, we all learn a lot of things. I learned what a gut class was, and thought that maybe I should figure out how to

REBECCA LEVINSKY ASK REBECCA avoid inadvertently take one. For this reason, I later hypothesized, once I found friends, that classes shopped with people you know are inherently better than classes shopped without them.

For my second science credit, I shopped every single science for non-science majors class offered last spring. I then chose the class I had the most friends in, and it was great — even better than that gut I took by accident.

I actually had to do work, but I didn’t mind because I had friends. We did our problem sets together.

So this semester, having learned from these experiences, I have a new shopping philosophy. I am exclusively shopping classes with friends, and I’m having the best time, ever.

If I make it to a classroom and don’t know a single person there, I leave. You wouldn’t go to Toad’s alone, so why would you take a class without at least one wingman?

So when I am sitting in a class (like American Photojournalism this week) and recognize everyone around me — even if that’s only from their impressive social media brands — I know that my shopping is working out well. (Those people are all my friends, right? Even though I have only spoken to a handful of them outside the filter of Instagram?) Anyway, the sense of security that comes from being in a room surrounded by these people is priceless.

Shop classes with your friends. I am pretty sure that is the best advice I can give on how to get a science credit, or any credit for that matter.

Do it because you want someone to welcome you to lecture on a rainy day, and because you don’t want your best friend in section to be your TF. Or, do it because you know that you can depend on your friends, especially when you actually are hungover and can’t do anything except watch every episode of “Parks and Recreation,” “30 Rock,” and “Arrested Development” on Netflix. They’ll probably scan their notes and send them to you. Or they’ll be in bed with you, and then you can find an eager freshman like me, circa 2011, to go to class for the both of you.

Sincerely, Rebecca, turtle expert since freshman year P.S. For my concerned readers, Arabella survived winter break, and is thriving.

CELEBRATION OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

WEEKEND RESOLVES:

Peabody Museum // Noon

Because WKND has decided to stick with love.

Contact REBECCA LEVINSKY at rebecca.levinsky@yale.edu .

To be more outgoing See you at DKE!

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND FILM

RUSSELL’S LATEST“HUSTLE” // BY MICHAEL LOMAX

// AP EXCHANGE

David O. Russell is the hottest filmmaker working today. Following the disastrous “I Heart Huckabees” in 2004, he took a few years off before returning to strike gold with his last two films: “The Fighter” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” which collectively won three Oscars from fifteen nominations. And now with “American Hustle” making the critical rounds, it suffices to say that the 55-year-old is finally starting to hit his stride.

Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) are tri-state con artists who collect their paychecks cheating down-and-out clients.

When FBI agent Richie Di Maso (Bradley Cooper) catches them in the act, he gives them a choice: Work with him, or go to jail. They

choose the former, embarking on a chaotic series of con jobs to lure politicians and mobsters into the very hands of the FBI, though personal strife threatens to undermine the entire operation.

Like “Silver Linings” especially, “Hustle” is a movie that caters to an attentive audience.

The plot drifts from one story to another, connecting all the loose threads under what passes as a plot-driven umbrella. But the improvisational, jumpy nature of the film points to another, more important focus: intense character drama. With yet another ensemble cast behind him, Russell finds a simple plot to build a story around — con artists help the FBI con “bad” men — but he lets his characters’ actions and

emotions dominate the narrative.

Rosenfeld and Prosser deal with the central problem in everyone’s lives: the search for something better. Though they may not know what that better existence is, they are constantly striving for more — more money, more power, more security. And the rest of the cast readily partakes in the crisis. Di Maso wants his career to take off; Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) wants to rejuvenate his community; Rosalynn Rosenfeld (Jennifer Lawrence) just wants someone to love, appreciate and respect her.

As Bale’s character says at one point during the film, life is not black-and-white — it’s gray all the way through. No major

A Crazy Thing To Do // BY HAYLEY BYRNES

// AP EXCHANGE

In Russian, the word “pochemuchka” is used to describe someone who asks too many questions. I can’t think of an English equivalent, but I kept searching for one as I sat through Spike Jonze’s “Her.” Set in Los Angeles sometime in the future, the film is at its core a love story — one between a guy (Joaquin Phoenix) and his inquisitive operating system (voiced by a girl, Scarlett Johansson).

Jonze’s concept, this re-imagination of the “modern romance,” is absurd, the stuff that sounds like a poorly written pulp science fiction paperback. Viewers might describe “Her” as a film that captures the “zeitgeist,” with its thought-provoking focus on technology and our relationship to it — but this description is too easy and too empty to convey anything, really. The movie may take place in the future, but Jonze has gone great lengths to make everything just recognizable enough.

Phoenix, donning horn-rimmed glasses and too-high pants, looks more like a Williamsburg-dwelling dad than the Terminator.

In its script, too, “Her” is romantic and raw, not cold and mechanical. It seems to be the year of the anti-hero in film — a cranky musician, a ruthless Wall Street banker, a pudgy combed-over con artist — and “Her” is the exception. Theodore Twombley (Phoenix) is likeable. As his co-worker describes,

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he’s “part man and part woman,” and, if a little mopey, still moral. He’s sad and lonely, but that’s because humans are, by default, sad and lonely.

The beauty of Jonze’s film lies in its subversion of man’s expected relationship to machine.

Where technology usually suppresses our human instincts, here it reveals them. Theo loves Samantha, his operating system, and all the darker questions — How can he love a machine?

Why can’t he connect with other humans? — are secondary to the sincerity of this love.

At one point, Amy Adams, who plays an old (human) friend of Theo’s, remarks, “Falling in love is a crazy thing to do. It’s like a socially acceptable form of insanity.” If this sounds prosaic, I think that’s the point. Of course love is absurd! So why should its absurdity hinge on physical form? That’s what Jonze seems to be getting at, and that’s where he succeeds — in recreating the organic chemistry of a committed couple.

But Samantha’s physicality can only be imagined by Johansson’s husky voice. When I get nervous, I blush. This was damning as a kid, most especially when, in the second grade, I was in love with Ben Nichols and he asked me why my cheeks were red. Of course, this wouldn’t be a problem for Samantha. If you are without a body, what you have left is language. Between raspy giggles and mild mockery, Theo and Samantha fall in love with each other’s words.

The implication is not that language is enough, but that language is everything: that what we say and how we say it is somehow the real key to falling in love. This is terrifying — more terrifying than whether I will fall in love with my iPhone. Because I could fall in love with a boy, now, in 2014. Maybe that one here in the library, with the horn-rimmed glasses and slightly floppy hair; I could slip myself slyly between words, hide my reddened cheeks, leave my body behind.

character here is unsympathetic. They all have major wants because they’re human beings, and the greatest moments of impact occur when the characters begin to realize that, for one reason or another, they must turn to illicit avenues for satisfaction. Does that make them despicable? Does that make them pathetic? Not quite. There are no judge and juries in this film — only incomplete people tussling with their inadequacies, and we the audience trying to decipher them.

The problem arrives when we try fitting this film into the context of our own narratives. If the world is entirely gray, how can we attempt to pass a sentence on anyone around us? What gives us the right to judge others for their

the ones we care most about.

“American Hustle” has already won three Golden Globes, and like its predecessor “Silver Linings,” it hopes to stock up on a few Oscars in a couple months as well. And I for one am completely expecting it. Do I think it’s the best film of the season? Do I even think it’s the year’s best white collarcrime film? These are debates for another day. But the central fact remains the same. “Hustle” is a high-quality picture built on high-quality performances: a genuine visual treat and a strong contender this awards season.

Only a con man could tell you otherwise.

Contact MICHAEL LOMAX at michael.lomax@yale.edu .

The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway // BY LEAH MOTZKIN I might not be a member of the intended audience for Disney’s newest animated film “Frozen.”

That honor goes to kids everywhere — and as one latter-day WEEKEND cover informed me, my childhood is over. As a Disney lover who still thinks of herself as a princess (definitely Mulan), I knew I had to see the film. So I borrowed my neighbor’s children — two rambunctious boys aged seven and nine — who had already seen the movie. On the drive to the theater, I listened to their unabashed, innocent if not obnoxious, chatter about the film’s songs, characters and animation. Their youth was my ticket in.

The film is the story of two sisters. Princess Elsa, the elder, possesses magical powers that allow her to create ice and snow. After she inadvertently injures her funloving younger sister, Princess Anna, Elsa must learn to repress her powers, while Anna is made to forget them. Within the castle gates, the two sisters are isolated from one another. Elsa lives in fear of hurting her sister again, and Anna grows up lamenting the distance between them.

The song “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” arrives at precisely this crucial moment, as

Contact HAYLEY BYRNES at hayley.byrnes@yale.edu .

it expresses Anna’s attempts to connect with Elsa, who is hiding in her room. While I cry during nearly every movie I see, this song had me shedding a tear within the film’s first five minutes — something that hasn’t happened to me since “Up.” Another highlight of the film is the song “Let it Go,” sang by Idina Menzel (the Demi Lovato cover is also recommended). This comes at a moment where Elsa has realized that she can no longer hide from the world, and so she allows her powers to be free. Menzel is generally a goddess among mortals, and she proves it once again with this performance. But the actual stars of the scene are the animation and the song’s message. The animation, in which lies the film’s real magic, is stunning as Elsa grows a castle out of ice before shaking her hair out and fashioning a sexy dress. The message, too, is powerful. Elsa laments her past repression — “conceal it, don’t feel it” — but finally learns to let it go and accept who she is. At the risk of being too political, I venture to say that this championing of self-acceptance and ending repression falls in line with Disney’s historical support of the gay rights movement.

The depiction of sisterly love in “Frozen” made me think of my own sister. More specifically, of which sibling each of us would be. A 24-year-old living in Germany, Lauren has already seen the film. We would both like to think of ourselves as the funloving, untroubled and spunky younger sister with hip highlights, but that can only be me.

Lauren finally relented and let me take ownership of the character after I pointed out that she’s “like, older,” and also bad at talking about her feelings — so maybe she’s repressed like Elsa. And maybe it is true that I am guilty of the alternative, “over-sharing,” as she put it.

While I’m a college student, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I am too smart or too old or too worldly to enjoy and learn from a film like “Frozen.” Beyond merely delighting me, the film was clever, promoted a message of acceptance and took me on an emotional journey. I probably got more out of the film now than I would have at age 7: I learned that when you “let it go,” you become much, much sexier.

Contact LEAH MOTZKIN at leah.motzkin@yale.edu .

// AP EXCHANGE

SUNDAY TV

WEEKEND RESOLVES:

Philo // 9 p.m. onwards Watching “Downton Abbey” is almost like doing English reading, right?

actions or mistakes? Rosenfeld is a con man treading water in a sea of crooks, and as much as anything else, being an outright liar has kept his head above the surface.

At the end of the day, for all the criminality, Russell’s characters still manage to move us because their struggles are tethered to love and family. Even when one couple falls out of it, the capacity to find it elsewhere never diminishes. It’s what hooks them back into a world that can be full of good and gracious people, exposing their nefarious underworld dealings for what they are: a means to an end. That end is survival, and what this particular film paints most poignantly is that survival is not necessarily for one’s own self but rather for

To travel

We’re thinking Kline Biology Tower, but if you’re really ambitious, go for Sterling Chem Lab.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND BACKSTAGE

JOHN DESTEFANO, JR.: From City Hall to Rosenkranz // BY ALLIE KRAUSE

2

013 marked the end of an era when John DeStefano, Jr. concluded his 20-year term as New Haven’s mayor. DeStefano, whose main focuses while in office were education and public safety, now takes up the roles of Yale’s newest professor and banker at New Haven’s own START Community Bank. This semester, he teaches the seminar ‘‘New Haven and the American City’’, which has already proven to be a hit among undergraduates.

The ex-mayor sat down with WEEKEND to talk education, town-gown relations and Salovey’s facial hair.

John DeStefano: You mean going over to the dark side? The private sector and the institutional sector after all these years in the public sector…it’s different.

What’s nice about both is that in many respects they have their roots in my public service career.

Doing New Haven and the American City, which starts Thursday, is very much engaging the public policy issues and politics of how you get things done in cities, and why cities are a special platform and incredibly beneficial and effective platforms to promote family, individual and community wellbeing. So I feel like I’m engaged in a lot of what I was doing for 30 years, working for the City, just from a different seat.

Q: How do you think teaching a class will be a new experience for someone who ran a city for 20 years?

JD: If I can figure out this shopping week stuff, I can figure out anything! It’s like organized chaos! And the lobbying that goes on, holy moly! It’s truly different. One of the things campaigning and electioneering allowed me to do was come into contact with a lot of young people who cared a lot about policy and issues and felt passionately about it. I think teaching a class will provide me with the same opportunity that I always enjoyed.

Q: What would you like your students to take away from your class?

JD: That anything is possible.

That if you’re smart, if you work collaboratively, if you listen to people, cities can be wonderful platforms to grow possibilities and opportunities for people’s lives in America, particularly in an era of federal government that has left the playing field for so many issues. Even if you look at DeBlasio in New York, which has sort of come to exemplify this challenge of income redistribution, it’s funny in a way that 50 years ago it was viewed on a national platform, and now it’s localized — the city is seen as the platform to engage the issues.

Q: You’ve talked about how teaching at Yale is part of your initiative to keep connected and involved with youth, and you’re teaching at Southern Connecticut State next semester. Do you have any plans to work directly with New Haven Youth?

JD: No I do not, except to the extent to which [START Community Bank] has in the past and will continue to reach out to New Haven youth to help them see their self-interest in developing behaviors around finances and to develop financial literacy. So, in a narrow focus, yes — in the context of the mission of the bank.

Q: During your administration you emphasized investing in troubled youth, helping them deal with problems still very prominent in New Haven. Do you think that’s something you’d like to continue to pursue outside of the Mayor’s Office?

JD: [The bank and the professorship] allow me to affect people in a more intense, albeit narrower, way. The bad news is that you can’t get engaged in everything.

That’s part of the trade-off. It was a trade-off I was ready to do.

Q: What do you see as Yale’s role in New Haven?

JD: I think there are two areas that make a lot of sense for the University to get involved with.

One is promoting, supporting and being a platform for innovation and entrepreneurial busi-

nesses. Increasingly, New Haven has credentials as a knowledgebased community, it’s displaying nascent and growing entrepreneurial activity. I think the University, as a supplier of talent and as a partner self-interested in innovation as a research university could help create a much broader platform for those kinds of economic activities.

I think the second place has to do with violence. I think we do a lot of here-and-now interventions and policing. But I think at the same time, we need to do interventions that are much earlier. In the end, you have a consistent emergent pattern of violent behaviors in New Haven. If there’s anything I left office with a real frustration with is that you could keep it down but then it bubbles up. I think it’s because there are conditions that promote violence. I think a lot of them have to do with economics, lack of family structure and oppositional values in communities of poverty where isolation develops. The reason why I mention Yale in that context is that Yale is a clinical institution with faculty who are thought leaders in this. There are lots of places in the university that could provide clinical, mental health support for very young people to try to create diversions well before patterns of violent behavior get started.

I mention both those areas particularly because not only are they urgent New Haven needs and opportunities, but because they also reflect the strength and self-interest of the University, and what ought to exist at the heart of Yale and New Haven collaborations are mutual selfinterest. It’s not enough [for Yale to invest in New Haven] just because it’s the right thing to do.

Q: What do you think of Yale undergraduates’ involvement in New Haven politics?

JD: I think Yale undergraduates are involved in a host of community activities, all within a very sharp spirit of community engagement. We all have responsibilities to each other, when we act in awareness of our responsibilities to one another; we build a stronger, healthier community, giving some purpose and meaning from that in our lives.

Q: What do you think of Yale undergraduates running for positions of political power in New Haven?

JD: There has been a long history of Yale undergraduates as elected officials, but it’s interesting when you say “positions of power” — frankly, I think people who accept ownership of teaching kids to read are in positions of incredible power. I think sometimes we short-sell the value and importance of healthy community-level and direct one-onone engagement with other people. If there’s anything I hope I convey in the course, it’s very much that these one-on-one engagements make all the difference in the world. I happen to think that if you’re engaged in a great reading program, or helping some church building housing, or helping undocumented immigrants navigate their lives, you’re in a position of power.

Q: Let me clarify. What about actual positions of political

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office, not community outreach programs?

JD: Undergraduates are like everyone else. Some will run for office, some will serve on a democratic committee, and that’s fine. Frankly, in my 20 years as mayor I served with about 120 aldermen. It’s not just Yale undergraduates who are transient. It’s 75% rental housing stock in this town. Some people stay for a long time, some people stay for a short time. I don’t think it’s a problem. I don’t think it’s necessarily uncharacteristic of residents of this town. I just think it’s a very small part of the reality of the presence of Yale’s undergraduates.

There are people who come to New Haven from all over the world who little understand New Haven or have experiences like it, so I don’t think that Yale undergraduates are particularly different of these, of whom there are a lot, who come to New Haven for a period of time and then leave.

One of my reasons for leaving after 20 years as mayor was that: you know what? Twenty years was enough for me and 20 years was enough for the city. Time for change. So I don’t think it’s a problem or particularly uncharacteristic of other folks in the city.

Q: What do you see as the greatest problem facing New Haven today? How do you think your administration dealt in tackling it?

JD: I think the greatest challenge is competitiveness in the workplace. It’s a fast-changing economy and a competitive environment. If you’re skilled and you’re bright and you’ve got a great work ethic, I think you can succeed wonderfully, and I think lots of people don’t succeed wonderfully. I think a big challenge for New Haven right now is making sure people who are here are prepared to compete in the economy. As best as we reasonably can, we should provide people with the tools and the resources to take advantage of that economy.

Q: In light of the new Harp-Salovey leadership, what lessons can be learned from the DeStefano-Levin era?

JD: I guess what I would hope is that the city understands that it can’t be a great city if Yale isn’t growing and thriving, and Yale recognizes that it can’t be the best possible place for faculty and students if it’s not in a healthy host city. What that really translates down to oftentimes is learning to disagree within bounds. You recognize that you are going to have disagreements and do that respectfully. It isn’t a Woodbridge HallCity Hall relationship; it’s a much more textured and rich relationship.

Q: Now, the most important question: Would you support a campaign to bring back the famous Salovey ’stache?

JD: No, I like him clean-shaven!

He doesn’t have anything to hide. Plus, he always has food stuck in it, so it’s really rather unattractive.

Contact ALLIE KRAUSE at alexandra.krause@yale.edu .

YOU MEAN GOING OVER TO THE DARK SIDE?

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Q: After 20 years in the Mayor’s Office, you’re now working as a banker and professor. How are you finding the transition?