TYH LVI 1

The Yale Herald Volume LVI, Number 1 New Haven, Conn.

Fri., Sept. 6, 2013

From the staff Some things never change. And it’s very crazy to come back to school and realize that we’ve remembered things the way we did because that’s how they actually are. Book Trader coffee actually does taste like tikka masala. Shopping period really is that hectic. Walking up four flights to your dorm room is absolutely that tiring, and afternoon sun coming through the elm leaves of Old Campus is that overwhelmingly stunning.

But the other mind-boggling thing about returning to campus is seeing how much has changed. Salovey’s replaced Levin at the University’s helm. Blue State’s brew may taste the same, but the place has a whole new look. Half of L-Dub is renovated. (My heart goes out to the frosh in the other half.) And our Sterling Memorial Library—the study spot we love to hate—is now a hallway instead of a cathedral.

And you think things on campus are different? Just so happens that the Elm City’s about to undergo a massive shift: the imminent mayoral race (Democratic primary on Tues., Sep. 10!) in which we’ll get a new chief exec for the first time in 20 years. The Herald’s here to witness history—Emma Schindler, SM ’14, sizes up the competition and takes a look at what matters in a primary election whose three frontrunners actually agree on major policy points.

And then there are some things that have been going on under our noses the whole time. In Features, Julia Calagiovanni, SM ’15, looks at labor violations at Gourmet Heaven and in New Haven at large. In Voices, Lucy Fleming, SY ’16, examines her own actions and preferences through the experience of being watched.

Culture’s got beekeepers, a cappella rush, and the Chabad house. We have opinion pieces on shopping for classes and gay men giving blood. The delightful entirety of Issue One is rounded off with a feature review of Blue Jasmine. And there’s so

The Yale Herald

Volume LVI, Number 1 New Haven, Conn.

Friday, Sep. 6, 2013

EDITORIAL STAFF: Editor-in-chief: Maude Tisch Managing Editors: Micah Rodman, Olivia Rosenthal Senior Editors: Sophie Grais, Eli Mandel, Emily Rappaport, Emma Schindler, John Stillman Culture Editor: Austin Bryniarski, Katy Osborn Features Editors: Kohler Bruno, Alisha Jarwala, Lara Sokoloff Opinion Editor: Andrew Wagner Reviews Editor: Kevin Su Voices Editor: Jake Orbison Design Editors: Madeline Butler, Julia Kittle-Kamp, Christine Mi, Zachary Schiller Assistant Design Editor: Madeline Butler Photo Editor: Rebecca Wolenski BUSINESS STAFF: Publishers: Shreya Ghei, Joe Giammittorio Director of Advertising: Steve Jozkowski Director of Development: Thomas Marano Director of Finance: Aleesha Melwani Executive Director of Business: Stephanie Kan Senior Business Adviser: Evan Walker-Wells ONLINE STAFF: Online Editor: Colin Groundwater Bullblog Editor-in-chief: John Stillman Bullblog Associate Editors: Austin Bryniarski, Kohler Bruno, Navy Encinias, Lara Sokoloff, Jessica Sykes The Yale Herald is a not-for-profit, non-partisan, incorporated student publication registered with the Yale College Dean’s Office.

If you wish to subscribe to the Herald, please send a check payable to The Yale Herald to the address below. Receive the Herald for one semester for 40 dollars, or for the 2012-2013 academic year for 65 dollars.

much more!

In the category of things that have stayed the same: we’re here. It’s 2013, we’re printing, and we’re having fun in the process. But—we’re also online! Our web presence is robust as ever. With the click of a mouse, the Herald—and our friends

Please address correspondence to The Yale Herald P.O. Box 201653 Yale Station New Haven, CT 06520-1653 Email: maude.tisch@yale.edu Web: www.yaleherald.com

at the Bullblog—will entertain you whether you’re in the lib, in lecture, avoiding randos in the dining hall, or enjoying a funky iced coffee and a cool late-summer breeze on Chapel Street. Hang with us! Be our friend!

We couldn’t be happier to be back here with you.

Much love, Maude Tisch Editor-in-chief

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The Yale Herald (Apr. 19, 2013)

The Yale Herald is published by Yale College students, and Yale University is not responsible for its contents. All opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of The Yale Herald, Inc. or Yale University. Copyright 2011, The Yale Herald, Inc. Have a nice day.

Cover by Christine Mi YH Staff

IN THIS ISSUE

COVER 12 Emma Schindler, SM ‘14, examines the differences between the candidates in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, and scrutinizes their approaches to leading the Elm City.

VOICES 6

Will Theiss, BK ‘16, sits down with Shubhendra Agrawal, visting international student from the National University of Singapore.

7

Lucy Fleming, SY ‘16, traces her family’s “middleclass environmentalist philosophy” through two continents and four sets of eyes.

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FEATURES 10

Julia Calagiovanni, SM ’15, investigates labor violations at Gourmet Heaven and examines the unsettling trend of wage theft in the New Haven area.

16

David Rossler, MC ‘17, takes us behind the scenes of the Elm City’s new community boathouse, set to open in 2016.

OPINION: Cindy Ok, PC ‘14, questions the ban on gay males donating blood, and Margaret Neil, ES ‘14, reflects on the anxiety and surprising joys of shopping period.

CULTURE 18

Charlotte Weiner, PC ‘17, sees what’s buzzing with Bee Space while Isabelle Taft, SM ‘17, rushes into the drama of a cappella auditions.

Also: Chabad is here.

REVIEWS 20

Alexander Saeedy, TC ’15, on Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine. Also: Chelsea Wolfe, Ariana Grande, Taste of China, and our weekly staff list.

The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

3

THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY The Herald’s week in review: what rocked, what sucked, and who took the lead in IM ping-pong.

CREDIT/D/FAIL Cr: Quinoa I love quinoa. I love it so much that I’m going to name my first daughter and/or pet fish Quinoa (we’ll call her Annabelle for short). Normally, I’m rather unenthused about dining hall food, but as I’m not a particularly enthusiastic person, it’s nothing against you, dining hall. But then last week, as I was taking my usual box of Grape-nut cereal to go, I saw it. At first, I thought it was just rice, a rather lame grain, nothing to be particularly worked up about.

But then, as I moved closer, in slow motion, mainly because people were blocking my path, I realized it was my favorite thing on earth (besides baths, “The Call” by the Backstreet Boys, and my sister).

There it was in all its glory—the magical grain was untouched by mysterious curry concoctions. It was not victim to the mystery pilaf of the day. Yale Dining had gone minimalist. I felt like that girl in The Notebook when she sees fully dressed Ryan Gosling.

Except better because quinoa is forever.

D:

Senior shopping I spent the last three years of Yale preparing for the magical day when I would be a senior during shopping period. I would walk into any class and, by virtue of my senior status, be admitted. I would be accepted the way I always accept any story that proves the existence of unicorns—with warmth and gratitude. I would show up to any seminar and when the professor asked me why I wanted to take the class I wouldn’t have to wax poetically about my enthusiasm for tropical fungus and the pilgrims. I would stand tall and proud and simply say “I’m a senior,” and I would be in. Unfortunately, this hasn’t quite panned out. Sure my senior status helps—mainly in cases where no one else wants to take the class—but it isn’t the skip-theine pass I thought it would be. It’s more like flipping a coin. But it’s a coin I will continue flipping until the moment a professor says that all seniors are admitted and everyone else is out. Otherwise known as writing your senior essay.

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The Yale Herald (Sept.,6, 2013)

F:

50% chance of rain Weather.com used to be my best friend. I never asked questions; I took everything it said as fact.

If it said it wasn’t raining, even if it clearly was, I went out without an umbrella and rain boots. But then this week Weather.com started indulging in the unimaginable: it stopped actually predicting the weather. Fifty percent chance of rain every hour for the next five days is not a weather prediction. Take a stand Weather.com. It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong. And since you’re usually wrong anyway (just because I trusted it doesn’t mean it’s worthy of my trust!) it won’t be a huge divergence from the norm. But don’t be a flip flopper. This is America. It’s not about being right or wrong, it’s about sticking with an opinion even in the face of all evidence that proves it to the contrary. Some may call that stupidity, but I call it conviction. And that’s what you need Weather. com, some conviction.

—Isabella Huffington YH Staff —graphics by Madeline Butler YH Staff

BY THE

NUMBERS

BOOM/BUST

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TYNG CUP STANDINGS

INCOMING: Sweat Every one of my experiences since returning to school could be summed up in one word: sweaty. Moving into an un-air-conditioned dorm room. Sweaty. Shopping a 12-person seminar attended by 100 section assholes. Sweaty. Getting crushed in an impromptu stampede while attempting to enter Toad’s. Sweaty. And this is not sexy, BritneySpears-glistening-in-“I’m-a-Slave-4-U”-music-video levels of sweat. This is disgusting, I-walked-into-a-party-yesterday-and-someone-asked me-if-it-had-been-raining levels of sweat. Labor Day might mean the official end of summer, but humidity doesn’t really care about national holidays and actually prefers to stick around through September.

And that means that until Yale stops sending kids to China and starts investing in some goddamn AC, sweat is here to stay.

OUTGOING: Musings about Miley When I see an article titled: “What the inventor of the foam finger thinks about Miley Cyrus’s VMA performance,” I think we can collectively admit that as a society, we need to move on. It doesn’t matter whether you’re explaining that Miley’s performance is a symbol of the current state of feminism or if you’re insisting that Miley is just being Miley: if one more person asks me what I thought of Miley’s VMA performance, I’m going to start simultaneously licking the air, miming masturbation, and twerking until they feel uncomfortable and walk away. And this is coming from someone who read Miles to Go: A Miley Cyrus Autobiography. So, let’s all stop talking about pitchy strippers while we’re sipping pitchers and like, discuss chemical warfare in Syria or something. (Side note: just because talking about Miley is an outgoing trend doesn’t mean people should stop playing “We Can’t Stop” at all social gatherings because that song changed my life.)

Berkeley Branford Calhoun Davenport Ezra Stiles Jonathan Edwards Morse Pierson Saybrook Silliman Timothy Dwight Trumbull

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

INDEX 5.56 In dollars, the hourly wage received by a Gourmet Heaven employee

— Jenny Allen

8.25 In dollars, Connecticut’s minimum hourly wage

TOP FIVE

Ways to maintain that svelte summer physique

450 Square feet of the basement room shared by six G-Heav workers

50

5 4 3 2 1

The Alpha Delta Sprint, or, for the dedicated among us, the Yorkside 5K.

In dollars, rent per week each worker pays to owner Chung Cho for housing.

300

Un-Kindle your life, baby! Textbooks are officially back in style. Can you say sculpted shoulders?

In dollars, the fine Gourmet Heaven must pay per worker per week without official payroll.

The Women’s Table: a monument to gender equality, a quick-n-easy way to stay hydrated.

22:13

Befriend the fourth-floor squash players! But more importantly: befriend those stairs.

Get over it and embrace your inner svelteness. Live, love, laugh. No regrets 2013-2014.

Verse from Jeremiah quoted on protestor’s sign: “Woe to him who works his neighbor without pay” Sources: 1) Yale Daily News 2) Connecticut Department of Labor 3, 4) Yale Daily News 5) Connecticut Department of Labor 6) Yale Daily News — Joseph Tisch

— Jesse Schreck YH Staff The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

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SITTING DOWN WITH SHUBHENDRA AGRAWAL

by Will Theiss YH Staff Rebecca Wolenski/YH Shubhendra Agrawal is a transfer student from the National University of Singapore through the Yale Visiting International Student Program (Y-VISP). This week, the Herald sat down with him to talk about his academic and extracurriclar plans for the year abroad, the differences between his two Alma Maters, and the Yale-NUS collaboration, as it enters it first year.

cused on your academics and you do not have as much time to do stuff outside of class; but actually for me, in NUS itself, I’m staying in a residential college—NUS just opened residential colleges two years ago—so I have had the experience of living in a residential college, but it’s always good to go back to the place where it first started and really see what it is like.

don’t think there are a lot of preconceived notions of what this international visiting program is. But I also think people have a misconception of what a liberal arts program is in general. With the Yale-NUS college starting this year, I suppose, maybe, in the coming years people will know more about what a liberal arts program is and will appreciate it more.

YH: I understand you originally hail from India, what made you want to go to the National University of Singapore?

SA: It’s a long story. To make things short, I went to Singapore when I was in high school. The reason why I transferred from India to Singapore was that it seemed like a wonderful opportunity to study abroad and to experience a different culture altogether. It was a bit scary at first because I was just fifteen when I first moved to Singapore, and I was living by myself, and I had never lived away from my family before. And so that was a bit challenging. As things played out, I went to Singapore and studied there for two years, and then got admission into NUS, which seemed like a very good option, especially for my discipline, because at NUS the computer engineering department is great—it’s highly reputable around the world, and in terms of jobs, it’s also very good. And I got a scholarship, so that made things easy.

YH: You mentioned the differences in the class materials; what are some differences between how classes are conducted, how they’re taught and how students participate in them, at Yale versus NUS? SA: Now I’m talking mostly from the point of view of engineering classes because I do not have a basis for comparison of the humanities or the arts classes, which I’m not taking as much in NUS. I feel that here people tend to be much more participative; they tend to be much more proactive: everyone starts working from day one (or maybe day-minus-one).

NUS encourages us to do that as well, and there are people who really take proactive action towards their education, but given the size of NUS, I think it’s very difficult for lecturers as well as professors to pay individual attention to students, which I feel is a different case altogether here. For me when I first hear the word “lecture,” the class size that comes to my mind is 200 to 300 people, but when I go to a lecture here, it’s like 50 people, usually, in that sense, for high-level courses, so I’m like, “That’s not really a lecture course.” It’s a different species.

YH: How is their misconception of the liberal arts different from what it actually is?

SA: To put it frankly, when you mention the liberal arts, most people think that you are pursuing the humanities. People would not go about thinking that you can pursue an engineering degree or a pre-med degree or a pre-law degree with a liberal arts program. It is not a thing that comes to peoples’ minds. So that’s the main difference in the perception at NUS. Because the thing we need to understand here is that, although it is now getting very modernized, Singapore is a bridge between the East and the West, the education system there is still a result or an evolved version of what the British system is because it was a British colony. So most of the education system is pretty much the same way as the UK system is now: if you want to pursue law or medicine, so must you as an undergraduate degree. If you want to do that, you need to enroll in the law program; it’s not like you can roam around a bit like you can in the liberal arts.

YH: You mentioned this already a little bit, but what are you interested in studying at NUS, and did that influence your decision to come to Yale?

SA: At NUS, when you pursue a particular major, you mostly just study what is there in that major. We do have a few courses that we can take from anywhere else in the whole university, but it’s not like a liberal arts curriculum, where you really explore a wide course range, and then you decide your major. You enter into the university with your major pre-declared, and you have about one year to really change what you want to do. The reason why I chose Yale is that I’ve always wanted an education that goes beyond engineering in that sense. I really want a well-rounded education for myself, and Yale, being a liberal arts program, would seem like the best opportunity to do that, without any strings attached. For NUS students, we are well taken care of in terms of our financial needs, and we can transfer credits back from Yale without any effect on our grades, because grades are not transferred back. So it’s a pretty good option to have.

YH: So what are some of the things you’re interested in doing at Yale that you wouldn’t have been able to do in Singapore?

SA: First and foremost, I’m learning Spanish right now, and I’ve never learned Spanish before. Spanish is not offered in NUS, so that’s a thing that really I’m looking forward to. Besides the academic part, Yale provides a very vibrant student life partly due to the fact that we can really explore, and it also allows a lot of academic enrichment outside of the classroom in that sense.

It’s different from NUS because at NUS you’re very much fo-

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The Yale Herald (Sept. 5, 2013)

YH: Can you talk a little bit about what your experience has been like with the Yale Visiting International Students Program (Y-VISP) itself?

SA: The visiting program has been very, very good. I’m really surprised that they have taken such good care of us, and have given such an excellent orientation program to get us used to what the life at Yale is like. Just like all the freshmen have their Fro-Cos, we have our Peer Liaisons, students who are juniors and seniors at Yale and are guiding us. We can text them, call them, anytime of the day, and they are ready to help us. So in that way the program has done really well in making sure that the students who are coming from these five different countries around the world [Singapore, Mexico, Japan, China, and Brazil] feel welcome and get used to the life in Yale as fast as possible.

YH: At NUS, or in the region in general, is there a preconception of Yale or of the Y-VISP? SA: No, not really—the visiting program is only in its third year, and it’s not that popular or famous yet. Because it’s a one-yearlong commitment, a lot of people are hesitant to come, since you have to be sure that…well, there are several considerations.

For example, let’s say that you want to graduate on time: a one-year program might be difficult because you might not be able to transfer all the credits back. So from that initial reluctance, I

YH: Finally, how do you think the Yale-NUS collaboration will work out? Or more specifically, what do you think Yale could learn by collaborating with NUS, or vice versa?

SA: Tricky question you’re asking! Well, I would not give any comments on whether the collaboration will be good or bad or who will it work out better for, because I do not think I’m the right person for that. What I would say is that it definitely seems like a very positive move for Yale to come to NUS and Singapore, to establish a campus there, and to show the people that a liberal arts education can be done in Singapore. We know there has been a lot of debate about whether Singapore is the right place for this kind of program to flourish, be it in whatever terms: freedom of speech, expression, whatever comes in that sense. But I do feel that Yale could learn a lot from the diversity of Singapore, the different parts it brings with itself, and a new perspective at looking at things; I do feel that Yale, although having a very diverse population, is still very homogeneous, in a certain sense. I don’t know if you agree or not. But if you really go to Singapore, it is a very diverse country, in that every day you meet new people from new places, and especially in Southeast Asia, people might have misconceptions or stereotypes about not being able to distinguish between Singapore, Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia. But, though similar, these cultures are very different and unique in their own ways. And that I think that way, Yale students, if they get to interact with their peers from Yale-NUS, would gain a lot more about new perspectives and new things —This interview was condensed by the author

WATCHING

by Lucy Fleming My family has always promoted the organic-free-rangeno-high-fructose-corn-syrup lifestyle. I say “my family,” but really I mean my parents; I was usually an unenthusiastic participant in the community gardening and Tom’s of Maine toothpaste purchasing. In keeping with middleclass environmentalist philosophy, we kept a delightfully putrid compost pile nestled in the pachysandra shrubs of our New Jersey backyard. When I asked my mom why I couldn’t just scrape my food into the garbage, she said, “It’s not right.”

It wasn’t devotion to this composting mindset that prevented me from reaching enviously across the elementary-school table towards my friends’ Lunchables and Capri-Suns; it was guilt. Lunchables boxes are not compostable. I averted my eyes from the bright packages and bit my lip to pretend I had never wanted them, but even then, I blushed a little. My parents were watching, and they were disappointed.

When I was ten, our family transplanted itself to Gaborone, Botswana, where, coincidentally, all the meat was free-range, and in fact could be seen ranging freely along the dust-lined highways of our new African hometown.

Our compost pile traveled with us. My mother carefully dug the shallow hole in the dusty soil of the backyard and adjusted the ugly black plastic compost lid. We faithfully—though some of us grudgingly—toted out the compostable materials after each meal, adding to the pile of old banana peels, vegetable skins and rice that simmered quietly in the heat.

The task fell to me one evening. I walked reluctantly across our pachysandra-less African backyard with our little pail of moldering banana peels, feeling the sandy dirt beneath my toes, and opened the ugly black plastic compost lid, and there, staring up at me with limpid eyes, was a snake.

Even years later, I remember that my first reaction was not fearful paralysis—though that soon followed—but wonder. It was a very beautiful snake. A pale gray color, smoky almost, with pearly scales and wide eyes, and a little divot in the middle of its mouth, which gave it a permanent, curious frown. We stared at each other, the snake and I, and I remember how my eyes fixed on that little divot. I thought for a second how this snake looked like a baby.

It was a baby, we found out later, after the scream tore its way out of my mouth and my father had to kill the creature with a metal rake. It was a baby black mamba.

Surprisingly, after this incident, I did not develop a phobia of snakes. Rather, I have developed a certain wariness about compost. Since we have moved back to the United States, I have yet to take the food waste out to the compost pile. I can’t tell if this is because it is my small, silent rebellion against all of the sandal-and-socks morality that my parents embrace, or if it is the latent fear of opening that ugly black plastic lid to find another pair of equally enthralling eyes.

Whichever it is, there are no ugly black plastic lids here at Yale. There is compost—certainly—and I celebrated with as much vigor as my peers when compost bins were introduced in the dining halls. But there is no walk across the pachysandra, or the sand. There are no eyes; there is

no clench of your lungs and sudden overwhelming urge to simultaneously squeeze your eyes shut in some juvenile hide-and-seek and to open them as wide as you can, to drink in the glossy lines of this resting creature. There is no question punctuated with an exclamation point: “What is this! What is it doing here! Why!” There is simply a chute, and the compost falls through it into a netherworld beneath a smooth black marble counter, and is gone.

I did not think of the black mamba for a long time.

In college so far, I have indulged a secret fascination with the foods that for so long were only distant visions across the table; at Walgreens I purchased my very own Lunchables and ate it with bite-sized relish and secretive ecstasy. I dutifully scrape my uneaten food (of which there is little) into the circular compost hole, and down it goes, into the depths, out of my sight.

I did not think of the black mamba until this evening.

This evening it snowed. I walked across Old Campus in boots, nearly slipping several times. There was just enough snow to make footprints on the grass. Beside the Theodore Dwight Woolsey statue I stopped, and wondered why I had heard a sharp intake of breath from my own lungs, and there it was: drawn in neat footprints in the snow, carefully outlined, the four-armed body of a swastika.

Swastikas have little to do with compost. I say “little,” but I mean nothing. Yet in the graying darkness I looked down at it, the swastika in the snow, the line drawn by someone’s finger in a neat circle around the crooked arms, and I felt the whoosh of the exclamation points in my head, the paralytic repulsion, the knocking of air from my chest. Theodore Woolsey was unperturbed; I felt my eyes widening in the chill.

For it was oddly beautiful, these converging geometric lines in the snow, inside a circle under the stars. And my own fascination frightened me. The black mamba, with its lacquered scales and baby mouth. The swastika, with its symmetry and unity and terrifying grace, rising out of the earth itself.

“Why!” the darkness whispered, and it was a question to me .

I did not answer it. My foot extended almost against my will and wiped the swastika from the snow. It had been for my eyes alone, and the eyes of the black mamba, and the eyes of my parents, who now watch me through my own eyes.

—graphic by Madeline Butler YH Staff

The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

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OPINION LIFT THE BLOOD BAN

SHOPPER’S REMORSE

by Cindy Ok YH Staff

by Margaret Neil YH Staff

Are you a man who has had any sexual contact with another man since 1977? In the words of the FDA, “even once”? If so, you are permanently banned from donating blood thanks to a regulation first established thirty years ago this year.

This was 1983, when it was legal to fire teachers for being gay, legal to ban gay rights groups on college campuses, and legal to discriminate potential blood donors based on their sex lives.

Or, more accurately, it was legal in 1983 to discriminate potential blood donors based on sexual orientation. And it remains legal today. Men who have sex with female prostitutes can give blood after waiting a year, as can prostitutes. Donors who have had sex with someone with AIDS are also asked to wait a year, provided that they test negative for HIV. But a man in a long-term, monogamous relationship in which he and his partner have been tested repeatedly cannot give blood. A man who had sex with a man once in 1977 and recently tested negative for HIV is also evermore eliminated from the donor pool.

I have given blood regularly for over four years, in three different states and from several blood banks. I have never been asked about my sexual preferences or practices.

You might think, “there has to be a scientific reason for this rule,” as I did when I heard about this regulation—a factual, rational, serious, non-arbitrary, reason.

The government claims that the prohibition isn’t about sexual orientation, it’s about safety. Safety, seemingly, against the promiscuous, unpredictable, and dangerous gays of America. Also, did you know that anti-women legislation isn’t about gender, it’s about the greater good?

The so-called practical reasons that were once given were discriminatory and unacceptable, but now they are simply non-existent. The FDA continues to use the rationale that gay men are still disproportionately affected by HIV to classify all men who have sex with men in the highest risk category of blood donors. Even if you gave into the rather preposterous notion that adult men who have sex with other adult men as a whole cannot practice safe sex, and thus, cannot be trusted, there still remains a major gap in the FDA’s logic. Though HIV tests were once unaffordable, in terms of both time and money, today, all donated blood is tested for HIV, with near perfectly accurate results within a fortnight.

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The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

In 2006, the three major blood donation centers, American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers, and AABB publicly asked the FDA to remove the ban because of the blatant lack of scientific backing for it, and reaffirmed this position in 2010. This summer, the American Medical Association called the policy “discriminatory” and “not based on sound science.” The FDA has heard appeal after appeal, publicly reconsidered again and again, and the body continues to uphold the regulation.

Given the lack of sound scientific reasoning for this ban, one can only conclude that the law serves to discriminate against a portion of the population. The federal rule was passed at a time before the AIDS virus was even identified, when many were calling the syndrome “Gay-Related Immune Disorder” or, more casually, “the gay plague.” America was afraid. Afraid of being contaminated, afraid of their kids being exposed to such licentiousness as that which had caused what had to be a moral punishment, and not a harrowing tragedy. A section of the population was left intensely isolated by this backlash, and the FDA rule continues to enforce that barbaric partition by, in effect, labeling men who have sex with men as presumably diseased.

There’s no gay plague. There’s no straight plague. It’s time to let go of prejudicial laws based on cold, uninformed fear. It’s been time.

The damage is not just in principle but in practice as well. According to the Red Cross, someone in America needs blood every two seconds. This summer, as it often does, the national organization saw an urgent blood shortage, and many blood centers have dipped to emergency supply levels in recent years.

An unthinkably enormous supply of blood has already been lost in collection, is in fact being lost in collection today.

An individual donor that donates every two months would, over the course of a lifetime, donate the amount of blood that, statistically, saves over 1,000 lives. A UCLA study showed that turning the lifetime ban to even a 12-month deferral would bring in over 200,000 more pints of blood each year. One pint of blood is estimated to save about three lives by all major blood centers.

With the defenses of “but it’s science!” no longer standing, is our government really willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives every year in the name of what essentially amounts to sexual policing?

I’ve heard that next year, “shopping” period may no longer exist as we know it.

A group of changes are set to be enacted beginning in Fall 2014, including students submitting a preliminary course schedule prior to starting classes, and a 5-day schedule amendment period being added after schedules are due.

The goal, it would seem, is to reduce stress.

Of all the stress and anxiety-inducing catalysts prone to come up in a given Yale semester (including, but certainly not limited to: midterms and finals, little-to-no sleep, breakups, seminars—and some lectures for that matter—fulfilling the QR and science requirements, getting into an a-cappella or improv. group, and, of course, breakups), shopping is undoubtedly one of the principle culprits.

My freshman year, I was enrolled in DS, which in theory meant that I could remain in blissful ignorance of shopping period.

However, en route from OC to WHC, I inevitably bumped into someone-or-other who was shopping anywhere between 14 and 26 classes, leaving me (for the first but certainly not last time during the course of my college tenure), to feel that I was doing Yale all wrong.

That spring, I failed to take proper advantage of shopping week, and, in stubborn denial that Microeconomics might not really be my thing, signed up for it. I promptly dropped it three weeks in, which then meant I had to scramble to find a way to fulfill another “Skills” requirement over the summer. These weeks were some of the most terrifying of my life: I was certain Yale would kick me out.

As a senior, I now have six, almost seven, shopping periods under my belt, and I really can’t say that they get any better or easier.

The act of picking classes for an upcoming semester has without fail provoked existential crises for me, shopping period after shopping period. There was the semester that I rebelled from DS and took all writing and art classes. There was the semester I took calculus and bio, certain

that I wanted to be a doctor.

This shopping period, my first as a senior and my second to last, I’ve frequently caught myself in the midst of thinking “oh well, I’ll just take that next year,” only to come quite quickly to the rerealization that there will be no next year. More than ever before, I get completely wrapped up in the very scary feeling that my class choices will somehow define who I am.

And yet, I like the principle of “shopping.”

I’ve always felt sort of proud when I explain it to people. To me, it’s a testament to the maturity, responsibility, and self-esteem that the university expects of its undergraduates. Maybe it’s presumptuous to think that 18-to-22-year olds can handle all that logistical stress and rejection during their first days back on campus. Still, I’m of the opinion that in the course of becoming an adult, it’s helpful to be treated like one.

So, in spite of the pretty terrible states of mind I get into during shopping period (regressing to my 16-year-old-self, being mad at everyone, thinking I’m a colossal failure), I can’t help but also feel like those states of mind were kind of beneficial. They led to the realization of some very important things about the way I operate—things that will be important when I get into the real world, I think.

Among the things I’ve learned: that I do well in a structured environment, that I like to be busy, that I like to know where I’m supposed to be at all times, and that I am happiest when I am decisive (but not when also impulsive and stubborn; see: the first time I tried to take microecon).

While I still think that shopping period is a great ten days for anyone in search of supreme masochism (I confess this applies to me sometimes), I also think that it’s an integral part of the academic culture of this school—and one with valuable personal lessons at that, So, if it does really change for good, I’ll be sad to see it go.

—graphic by Jin Ai Yap

Wage war Gourmet Heaven labor violations reflect troubling New Haven trend

by Julia Calagiovanni YH Staff

e are workers, we are humans, we have rights.”

The poster hanging on the wall of the New Haven People’s Center—depicting a protester’s open mouth, shouting these words in a dozen languages— seems oddly appropriate for a Labor Day afternoon. But the story I’m about to hear at this Howe Street activism center tells a different tale.

Adin, who is in his early twenties, worked at Gourmet Heaven—the all-hours convenience stores that have become a campus fixture—for 11 months of 2012. Megan Fountain, TC ’07, an organizer with the New Haven Workers Association/Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA), translated his words from Spanish to me: Adin worked at the Broadway location 12 hours-a-day, 6 days-a-week, and earned only $360 a week. That works out to $5 an hour—far below the United States minimum wage of $7.25. In Connecticut, the minimum wage is higher—$8.25. He had no written contract, and often didn’t receive his pay—much less overtime. When the owners were not on site, they watched the workers by surveillance camera to ensure they never rested. Adin lived with five other workers in a 450-square foot basement room of a building owned by Chung Cho, the GHeav owner, divided only by curtains. The room was so cramped that they could barely forge a path to get to the bathroom. Adin paid $50 a month—”for electricity”—to Chung Cho, both his landlord and his boss.

Adin got a small raise— making his salary $400 a month—but that was little improvement. He threatened to quit, and Cho offered an additional $20 raise, which Adin refused.

Cho told him, “If you want to work, you can

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The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

work. If you want to leave, you can leave. No one here is irreplaceable.”

Fed up with the working conditions and poor wages, Adin quit in December 2012. He eventually became the complainant who prompted the Connecticut Department of Labor to investigate Gourmet Heaven this summer, prompting boycotts, rallies, and, many hope, a new conversation about working conditions in New Haven.

ON AUG. 7, THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR issued Stop Work Orders to both the Whitney Ave. and Broadway locations of Gour-

their attorney contacted the DoL, assuring them that the business was gathering the necessary paperwork to prove compliance. The Department of Labor is examining Gourmet Heaven’s last two years of records and will send Cho a bill for overdue wages, plus fines—just having a single worker off of the payroll for one week carries a fine of $300. Nancy Steffens, the DoL’s Communications Director, told the Herald that Pechie had a meeting planned for next week with Cho and his attorney to review records and documentation that the DoL had requested. The stores are open, but the investigation is ongoing.

This means that all workers can report violations without any fear of being turned in to ICE. (Thus, a Nov., 2012 ICE probe that resulted in a fine after three undocumented workers were discovered to be working at Gourmet Heaven was unrelated.)

Katherine Aragón, TD ’14, moderator of Yale Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), said that she has to “rack her brain” to even think of a restaurant that has fair wage practices; she names only Claire’s Corner Copia. And Fountain said she’s talked to workers who corroborate Aragón’s claim. One worker has been employed at five restaurants in New

Among the problems: workers were being treated as independent contractors, rather than employees; payroll and time records were nonexistent; payments were being issued in cash. met Heaven, temporarily closing the convenience stores. Investigators found a host of labor violations.

“Almost every violation that was possible for us to fine, we found,” wrote Gary Pechie, director of the DoL’s Wage and Workplace Standards Division, in a press release. Among the problems: workers were being treated as independent contractors, rather than employees; payroll and time records were nonexistent; payments were being issued in cash. But, most problematically, their wages were abysmally low, and they were not being paid overtime.

Both stores were allowed to reopen after

Gourmet Heaven is in the spotlight, but it’s certainly not the only offender in the city. Wage theft is rampant, activists say, especially in service industries: food, hospitality, cleaning, construction. Workers who don’t speak English or who are undocumented immigrants are especially vulnerable.

Many are unaware of their rights, a problem that Fountain and others are working to fix.

The DoL itself has done trainings at the New Haven People’s Center to educate workers.

Some aren’t aware of the “Memorandum of Understanding” that exists between DoL and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Haven, only one of which paid him minimum wage. Adin said that 90 percent of the businesses in New Haven cheat workers. He said they’re run by “estafadores,” a word that Fountain translates as frauds, cheaters, and swindlers.

In recent years, there have been a number of high-profile wage theft cases in the New Haven area. Fountain introduced me to a man, Hector, who was part of a successful case against the Taft Hotel. A civil lawsuit against the hotel ended in a $50,000 settlement in 2011. She also mentioned a case on a farm in North Branford, the Riverside Dairy, where

workers complained of living in a barn upstairs from the dairy’s cows; when a wall fell in, they were exposed to the elements. The owner refused to pay, which complicated matters; wage theft is also a criminal offense in Connecticut, so he spent a night in jail. A third case involves Goodfella’s Café in New Haven, proven to be a chronic violator of labor laws. Goodfella’s paid back wages and fees of over $40,000 in 2011. After NHWA filed a Freedom of Information Act request, they learned that Goodfellas

icut’s DoL recovered more than $6.5 million in unpaid wages in the last fiscal year, with nearly $900,000 going to workers who hadn’t been paid minimum wage or overtime and $1.9 million to workers who had not received the correct amount of pay at public contract construction sites. It’s a lot of money. But even when the money is paid in full, problems can still remain.

After the bill is settled, the DoL closes the case.

But follow-up investigations are not part of their work, unless another complaint is brought. Wish-

ers. Wishnie suggests that the New Haven Police Department could also play a key role, taking criminal complaints from workers and following up with investigation and contribution.

In Gourmet Heaven’s particular case, many have questioned Yale’s involvement. Gourmet Heaven’s landlord is University Properties (UP), which manages all of Yale’s commercial properties, including much of Broadway, Chapel, and Whitney Ave. UP could not be reached for comment, but its spokesperson, Tom Con-

Gourmet Heaven is in the spotlight, but it’s certainly not the only offender in the city. was a repeat offender. Fountain said that the owner told the organization that he would never pay minimum wage, “because ‘that’s the way business works in America and everyone gets away with it.’” “Businesses see fines as a slap on the wrist,” she said.

Business owners have two choices: to pay the fines and wages, or to contest them in court. The latter option places complainants in a difficult situation, according to Michael Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School who specializes in worker and immigrant rights.

Workers sometimes agree to accept “far less than they are owed, so as to have a settlement, than to have the time, uncertainty, and stress of litigation,” Wishnie said. Sometimes the DoL even encourages employees to take that option to avoid a difficult legal battle. There are few resources for pro bono legal work in New Haven, Fountain said. Yale Law School clinics and New Haven Legal Assistance can only take on a handful of cases.

Through its own investigations, Connect-

nie said the United States DoL is more likely to use a proactive process, initiating its own investigations, sometimes focusing on industries or regions—for instance, the Manhattan garment industry or the agricultural industry of central California. However, Connecticut typically follows a complaint-driven process, and the US DoL has yet to investigate New Haven.

It’s unclear why the State Department is less proactive, but Fountain suggests it may be an issue of resources. There are only six investigators for the state, she said, and efforts in Hartford to lobby for increased funding for more staff have been unsuccessful.

As activists continue to fight for fair wages, questions arise about the role of the legal system—especially as New Haven prepares to elect a new mayor. Some cities, such as Chicago, Ill., Austin, Texas, and Somerville, Mass., have passed their own living wage ordinances.

New Haven’s city employees have had an ordinance since 1997, and won a wage increase in 2011—but it does not apply to other employ-

roy, told the Yale Daily News that Gourmet Heaven’s management and the DoL were the only parties involved and that “Yale has no involvement” in the case. While the university’s workers are unionized, Gourmet Heaven’s, of course, are not.

“IF WE WERE IN [ADIN’S] SITUATION, WOULD we want to be treated in this manner?” asked Evelyn Nuñez, SY ’15, MEChA’s Community Action Chair. She pointed out that Adin is in his early twenties, close to most Yale students in age. “We’re all living here. We all walk down the same streets,” adds Christofer Rodelo, JE ’15, the group’s political action chair.

Activists agree that it will take broad community support to make New Haven a better place for workers. There are many ways to go about that, they say. Fountain’s organization will continue to educate workers and go public with their complaints. “We want employers… to think twice about stealing wages,” she declares. It is especially important that workers

know about the ICE/DoL firewall, since “when people are afraid of being deported, they’re less likely to know about their rights at work.” She finds it promising that the DoL conducted this investigation so publicly. “Maybe it’s a strategy they’ll be using more in the future.”

Rodelo notes that student opinion is clearly “polarized” on the boycott, but said that students should be aware of how they are “complicit” in the problem, adding that it is a “matter of dignity for people who aren’t Yale students.”

MEChA plans to boycott Gourmet Heaven and will continue to protest every Friday at 5:30 pm outside the Broadway location until the issue is resolved—“not just until the investigation is closed,” Nuñez added. They also plan to collect more information from workers at other establishments to help understand the scope of wage theft in New Haven. While Aragón calls for students to participate, particularly in terms of where they choose to shop, she cautions that the movement is, at its foundation, a movement for workers’ justice, and that students should act in solidarity.

While Gourmet Heaven is just minutes from most students’ residences, what happens there has an effect beyond the Yale community. Wishnie notes that, “it takes a lot of courage for workers to come forward. When they do, I think we have a responsibility to support them and not to tolerate the illegal activities that deprive workers, their children, and their households of the wages they have earned.”

There was a time,” Adin said, “that I didn’t know anything about my rights.” Now, with the help of ULA, he has taken a step to help ensure that other workers also get what they are entitled to, legally and ethically. “It seemed like the right thing to do,” he said. “I don’t want other people to suffer what I’ve suffered, to have their dreams crushed like mine were.”

—graphic by Julia Kittle-Kamp YH Staff The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

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The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

The leadership factor Emma Schindler, SM ‘14, looks past the policy to examine what’s really at stake in New Haven’s upcoming mayoral election

hat I’m looking for tonight is character,” Chris Peralta, a resident of the Beaver Hills neighborhood, tells me. It’s Aug. 28, and Peralta and I are standing in the lobby of the Long Wharf Theatre, waiting for the doors to open so we can take our seats to watch the New Haven Mayoral Primary Debate. Broadcast live by NBC Connecticut, this debate feels like the real deal: bright lights, big cameras, and an energetic audience of over 250 people.

On Tues., Sept. 10, registered Democrats will head to the polls for the primary. Mayoral elections happen every two years in New Haven, but when Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. announced this past January that, after 20 years in office—the longest mayoral tenure in the city’s history—he would not seek reelection, this year’s vote became far from routine. Within recent memory, New Haven Democrats—and therefore most of New Haven—have always had a simple choice: to vote for DeStefano, or not. Now, it’s a whole different ballgame.

Above all, Peralta says, he wants a mayor who will inspire the people of New Haven.

Peralta is undecided, and tonight, he’s looking to be impressed.

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AT THE FRONT OF THE PACK, THERE’S Toni Harp, ARC ’78. A state senator for the past 20 years, and a member of the Board of Aldermen for five years before that, Harp is a known—and popular—career politician who’s spent years building relationships on both state and local levels. She brings experience as a legislator and a promise of collaborative government to the table. If elected, she would be the first female mayor in New Haven in the city’s 375-year history.

Powerful labor groups, two-thirds of the Board of Aldermen, the Democratic Town Committee, and Gov. Dannel Malloy are among those who have lined up to throw their weight behind Harp.

Jockeying for second place—the general election isn’t until November—are Justin Elicker, FES ’10, SOM ’10, an alderman from East Rock’s Ward 10, and Henry Fernandez, LAW ’94, formerly the city’s chief economic development administrator under DeStefano.

Elicker is no career politician, and he’d be the first to tell you that. Advocating for increased transparency and an end to “payto-play” politics in New Haven, he is hoping voters will see his short political career not as a sign of inexperience but rather as an assurance that, if elected, he will have no favors to return or special interests to please.

Of the three leading candidates, he’s the only one who’s opted into the New Haven Democracy Fund, which means he cannot accept money from Political Action Committees (PACs) or private contributions of more

He says he’s the only candidate who will be ready to lead on day one, because he is the only one with experience as an administrator—currently he serves as CEO of Fernandez Advisors, a consulting firm that works with progressive leaders and organizations.

Fernandez, whose campaign slogan is “One City,” promises to lead with a strong vision, and ask voters to hold him accountable for his actions come election day.

Bringing up the rear is Kermit Carolina, principal of Hillhouse High School. As an educator, Carolina brings a different perspective to the race; however, his campaign has failed to gain serious traction.

Inevitable is a word that gets thrown around in relation to a Harp victory, particularly in the primary, which will decide the Democratic nominee for the general elec-

large are the city’s pension funds for police, fire, and other municipal workers, which are underfunded by about 50 percent—or $505 million, a pretty unbelievable statistic. The new mayor will have to work with a budget hugely dependent on state funds, within a state tax structure that favors affluent towns over struggling cities, working to raise revenue in a city where large non-profits like Yale sit on billions of dollars of untaxable land, David Cameron, DUS of the political science department and chair of the city’s Financial Review and Audit Commission, said.

“Whoever the mayor is, he or she will face the same fundamental problem: continuing, ongoing, and deepening fiscal and financial crisis,” Cameron said. “Those are the issues that dominate the day-to-day life of the mayor. The other issues we talk

Within recent memory, New Haven Democrats—and therefore most of New Haven—have always had a simple choice: to vote for DeStefano, or not. Now, it’s a whole different ballgame. than $370. Nearly 80 percent of contributions to his campaign have come from New Haven residents, which is far more than Harp’s or Fernandez’s and a sticking point for Elicker’s campaign.

Fernandez is a longtime champion of progressive causes. After graduating from Yale Law, he stayed in New Haven to cofound LEAP, a highly successful enrichment program for low-income youth, of which he served as executive director for seven years.

He is more closely tied to the current administration than any of the other candidates: in addition to his tenure as the city’s economic development administrator, from January 2002 to April 2006, he managed DeStefano’s 2006 campaign for governor.

tion in November. Nothing in politics is inevitable, but it is undeniable that the race changed dramatically upon Harp’s entry in late April, shortly after she endorsed state Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield. Carolina, Elicker, and Fernandez have all gathered the signatures required to ensure a spot on the ballot as an independent in November, should they lose the primary. So while a victory in the primary is perhaps a long shot for all three, Tuesday is an opportunity to establish who Toni Harp’s real opponent is.

WHOEVER IS ELECTED THIS NOVEMBER will face serious financial challenges, including a $3.5-million hole in the education budget and a drained Rainy Day Fund. Looming

about in campaigns are secondary or tertiary to that.”

Certainly, the city’s dire financial situation has been a central topic in the race, particularly how to deal with the pension funds. But over the course of many conversations with New Haven residents, campaign staffers, and the leading candidates themselves, it became clear to me that for many people, this race is not about policy proposals—if it were, the candidates would be nearly indistinguishable from one another. As New Haven Independent editor Paul Bass told The Colin McEnroe Show on NPR, the “big ideas” in this race are “about the way you do politics, and what is the definition of democracy.”

The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

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In a one-party town where everyone wants safer streets, better schools, and more jobs, most seem to think that what this race is really about is leadership style, experience, and approach to governing—or, to use Peralta’s word, character.

“WHEN YOU’RE HERE FOR 20 YEARS, you’re no different from a Fidel Castro.”

Like Peralta, Alexandra Taylor Mendez was at the Long Wharf Theatre debate looking for answers. Her commentary on DeStefano is reflective of most: while people might disagree on how he was as a mayor, they can all agree that 20 years is a really long time.

DeStefano’s legacy is mixed, but the merits of his two decades in office are the subject of a different piece. Above all, Alderwoman Jeanette Morrison tells me, this election is about change. And if there’s someone who’s qualified to talk to me about change in New Haven politics, it’s Morrison.

In November 2011, as DeStefano was finishing up his ninth term, the city witnessed an unprecedented push to dismantle the existing power structures: Locals 34 and 35, the New Haven chapters of UNITE HERE that represent Yale employees, flexed their organizing muscle and backed a new slate of candidates in aldermanic races all over New Haven. New voters were registered

by scores of alders who were voted out in 2011. “The senator has built the broadest coalition [of the candidates],” Bartlett said.

Harp’s coalition aligns the unions with traditional Democratic power players.

Since announcing her candidacy, Harp has garnered endorsement after endorsement. But the most significant for her campaign is that of the Yale unions—these days, the most valuable asset to a candidate who needs votes in New Haven, whether at the local, city, or state level.

Laurie Kennington, president of Local 34, told the Herald why her union had endorsed Harp: “Jobs, crime, violence, and school opportunities: to solve those issues on the whole, we felt like we needed a coalition builder to tackle these problems,” she said. “It’s a real opportunity for our city to have a candidate to look at the city with fresh eyes. These problems touch every single one of our neighborhoods.”

In New Haven, a one-party, Democratic town, union support means campaign money and, most importantly, boots on the ground—and lots of them. “The unions are clearly powerful,” Sam Ward-Packard, SY ’14, communications director for the Elicker campaign, said. “This election will answer how powerful they are.”

I quickly got a sense that the Yale unions

pull a vote to get someone elected and continue to do that. Then, machine has taken on other connotations…[as] a self-perpetuating organization that corrupts politics, and helps a small group keep power through the divvying up of favors and contracts and jobs, based on political grounds, rather than what is best for the city. So you can’t not have a machine and govern for more than one fluke election. But the question is: what kind of machine is it?”

In talking to members of the different campaigns, it becomes apparent that the different camps have completely different answers to this question. What’s an oldschool machine to some is radically progressive democracy to others.

ON JUNE 3, THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN, desperate to reduce the city’s deficit, voted to sell parts of Wall and High Streets to Yale for $3 million. In a rare occurrence, four labor-backed alders broke from the pack and voted against the sale. Justin Elicker, too, voted against it. The vote provoked an outpouring of anger, and for some, it came to symbolize the pitfalls of a supermajority on the Board.

Doug Hausladen, DC ’04, who represents Ward 7, was another one of the eight members of the Board who voted against the sale.

“I strongly believe that we need more representatives that are independent minded, that don’t vote with the group all the time.”

— Justin Elicker, FES ’10, SOM ’10, mayoral candidate in droves, and incumbents were voted out, with some districts contested for the first time in recent memory. Suddenly, DeStefano was dealing with a very different Board of Aldermen.

Morrison was part of this labor-backed wave of reform: in Ward 22, which straddles the Dixwell neighborhood and Yale, she ran—and won—against Greg Morehead, who was running for a third term. In February 2012, the new Board submitted a unanimously approved agenda, prioritizing safe streets, jobs, and youth programs, described by Morrison as the Board’s “rock.”

“That was one of the best things that we could have done, to create that agenda, because it helps you to stay focused,” she said. “All this stuff goes on around you, but when you have that agenda, you know what your focus is.”

Harp, who has been endorsed by the Yale unions and, according to her campaign website, 20 of the 30 members of the Board of Aldermen, has made clear that she plans to work closely with the Board on its agenda.

“It’s not going to be from the top down decision-making,” Morrison said. “It’s going to be an inclusive, collaborative process as far as decision-making is concerned.”

Jason Bartlett, manager of the Harp campaign and former state representative, noted that in addition to the labor-backed members of the board, Harp has also been endorsed

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The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

must be powerful just from how carefully people chose their words when I asked about them. Yet some were less cryptic than others. “There’s been a real effort by a series of organizations…that want to control the politics of this town, to have this be a coronation,” Fernandez told me when I interviewed him at his campaign headquarters in Fair Haven. “[P]eople are [being] asked to look the other way and to not acknowledge the obvious, which is that the person that they’re trying to coronate is not ready to do the job.”

“It’s a pretty daunting apparatus that we’re up against,” said Drew Morrison, BR ’14, who advises on policy and strategy for Elicker’s campaign and heads Yale for Elicker. “[The Harp campaign has] been able to get a lot of what some people are calling the machine, more of the traditional Democratic establishment. It’s an endorsement-based, inevitability-based, campaign.”

Morrison qualified his use of the word machine, and with good reason—it’s a loaded word in city politics. But the question of what we mean when we use that word, and whether it is necessarily a bad thing, is central to this election—both for the voters and the candidates themselves.

Bass contemplated this question in his radio interview: “There are two ways to define a machine,” he said. “On one level, a machine is an organization of people who go

He said the sale was the impetus behind Take Back New Haven, a movement that developed in reaction to the Board’s controversial—and swift—vote, which Hausladen said took the community by surprise. People were angry that the city would sell public property to Yale for what felt, to some, like a handout.

On its website, Take Back New Haven identifies itself as “a group of like minded New Haven residents bound by one common core belief that this city functions best when it is governed by freethinking and free acting members whose only interest is New Haven’s best interest.”

Many see it as a direct challenge to the 2011 elections and the changes they brought to the Board and the city. Hausladen insists this is not true. “It’s not a reaction to [the] 2011 [elections],” he said. “Take Back New Haven is about getting away from machine politics entirely…I actually do feel that my colleagues on the Board have run for office because they feel like they’re doing what’s best for New Haven. But when you have a machine that is so powerful, and the greatest vote-pulling operation in the last 100 years in New Haven out there, you get one voice on the Board of Aldermen...It makes it really challenging to run in a ward if you don’t have the backing of a giant machine.”

This year, Hausladen is being challenged by a labor-backed candidate, Ella Wood, ES ’15,

who filed her petition to appear on the ballot right on the deadline.

To Yoni Greenwood, BR ’15, who interned for the Yale unions over the summer through a program called Organizing Beyond Barriers and has also been volunteering for the Harp campaign, the backlash against the unionbacked coalition is motivated by something more sinister than democratic spirit. “I think Take Back New Haven makes it clearest… that they are about taking back New Haven to the status quo, to having power reside with the very few people who had power before,” he said. “Their explicit rhetoric about being against organizing, and having an organized agenda in politics, to me is very dark. Because I think that the only way that I have seen or found to really empower people who have been disenfranchised this way is to organize them to act collectively, and that is what I think our team is doing in neighborhoods throughout the city. So to be against organizing for me is really the same as being against trying to fix the inequality that exists here.”

TAKE BACK NEW HAVEN HAS LOST steam, but the conditions that produced it are hardly obsolete. When I asked Elicker, who has been endorsed by Hausladen, what he thought of Take Back New Haven, he was quick to put some distance between himself and the group. “I think it’s been a visceral response to some concern by the public that the unions have become a machine of their own,” he said. “I think there’s a better way to push back on this concern about transparency in government than to start a coalition that is more antagonistic than it needs to be.”

The underlying concerns, however, are ones he shares. “I strongly believe that we need more representatives that are independent minded, that don’t vote with the group all the time, because we have so much group think in politics everywhere,” he said.

Elicker said that when he initially decided to run for public office in 2009, he was frustrated with how disillusioned the federal government seemed to be leaving people.

“I also felt that frustration at the municipal level, with New Haven residents not feeling like they were very included in government, and decisions being made without incorporating more public input,” he said.

Since 2012, when the labor-backed candidates were sworn into office, Elicker has had to navigate a Board with a clear in-group, to which he does not belong.

The landscape is different from when he ran in 2009, but his concerns are related: once again, he sees some voices drowning out others.

“Their priorities are really good priorities,” Elicker said of the labor-backed coalition, adding he supports nearly everything they advocate for. What he struggles with, he said, is their approach to government.

“While the unions’ overall agenda is inclusive…when they actually talk about how to get things done…most of it is behind closed doors, and I think that’s a problem.” Elicker said he has pushed for public hearings on issues, in an attempt to provide greater transparency, and been shot down by the Board’s majority.

“I’m proud of the work that they do about turning out votes,” Hausladen said. “But then when you get all this closed-door debate and discussion…it’s not what government is supposed to be. Government is supposed to be accountable, and having debates in the open, and discussion.”

Morrison has served with Elicker on the Board for the past two years; I told her he felt that some people’s voices were being stifled. “A lot of things that maybe constituents in his ward see as…priority, it’s not always in line with what the rest of the city is saying is a priority,” she said. “So I think he might at times feel as though, ‘Boy, every time I want something, you guys say no.’ It’s

Elicker’s message went beyond racial and class divisions: “We’re not just segregated by race and poverty; we also don’t talk enough with each other, so the frustrations that one group has are not understood as much by another group,” he said. “I hope [we will] start to break down some of the barriers that exist between the different neighborhoods and different points of views.”

COLLABORATION IS A THEME OF THIS race; there is a shared sense that the city needs to come together. The candidates, however, have different ideas of how to do so, ideas that relate directly to fundamental differences in their approaches to govern-

copy and pasted each policy paper—I’d still support Toni because she has the record of getting stuff done.”

“Toni is the only person in the race that has the relationships that you really need to have to lead a big city like New Haven going forward,” Bartlett said. “Justin’s a nice person, but he has no relationships regionally, in the state; he’s never been in that kind of position to have to even establish them. And I think that Henry has never developed them, even in his time as economic development director. He has no track record in terms of collaboration or starting those relationships.”

Bartlett called Elicker’s claim that he will

“I think that a leader’s responsibility is to set goals, get buyin from the public for those goals, and then to marshal the energy of the administration and the public.”

—Toni Harp, ARC ‘78, mayoral candidate not every time, but we have to stay focused.

Because there’s only one pile of money… and if you’ve got two dollars, you can’t take two dollars and spend it over there on an ice cream if you can spend it over here and feed a whole community.”

There’s some subtext here, of course, and though Morrison is far too diplomatic to say it outright, others are happy to: Elicker represents a ward that is predominately white, and middle class or affluent.

Greenwood doesn’t think these things are irrelevant. “Justin’s claim to be an independent voice I think ignores the fact that he comes from the richest neighborhood in the city that has the highest voter turnout, that has the nicest sidewalks and the best trimmed trees,” Greenwood said. “The only way that you can act as an independent is if it has already been decided that you are someone who is able to have power.”

By putting race and class directly on the table, Greenwood addressed elements of this race that are getting little play in public but have to be subjects of conversations in living rooms all over the city.

When I interviewed Elicker over coffee and oatmeal on a Saturday morning at Lulu’s in East Rock, I asked him what he hoped would be different about New Haven in 10 years. His answer indicated that he is hyperaware of the racial dynamics in this city.

“We’re an incredibly diverse city, but we’re incredibly segregated at the same time,” he said. “If you walk from one end of the city to the other, you would realize that in the starkest terms. In Newhallville, it’s primarily black and primarily poor; and in East Rock, it’s a lot of middle class folks, and some wealthier folks, and it’s primarily white.”

The election isn’t a referendum on race and class politics in New Haven, and Justin Elicker’s candidacy—any of the candidacies, for that matter—cannot be reduced to race, class, and neighborhood.

But in a city like New Haven, these things tend to be present, somewhere under the surface.

ment and leadership.

For Harp, government is about broadbased support and consensus building; it’s about making people feel like they are part of the solution, like we are all in this together. Hers is never going to be the loudest voice in the room. But her years of building and maintaining relationships with important people are what assure her supporters that she can get the people who matter in the room, and she can get them to listen.

“I think that a leader’s responsibility is to set goals, get buy-in from the public for those goals, and then to marshal the energy of the administration and the public,” Harp told me at her campaign headquarters on

better serve the city’s interests because he is not already entrenched in the system “naïve.” He also said that Harp’s widespread support ultimately allows her more independence, not less. “I think we have a wide coalition of people, and I think the fact that she’s got the broadest support actually gives her the freest reign, in terms of making the right decisions and not being beholden to anyone as she goes forward in terms of her administration.”

Union support has meant vast numbers of people out in the city, knocking on doors and talking to voters on Harp’s behalf—and in this sense, people see it as a grassroots campaign. “I think Toni is

and other increased platforms for engaging the grassroots.”

Harp’s supporters are drawn to a larger coalition they believe she will be able to pull together; the contagious energy in Elicker’s campaign—and there is quite a lot of it— seems to come from a sense of deep personal inspiration that supporters and staffers get from the candidate himself. They don’t buy the argument that he doesn’t have the experience needed. They see in him someone who understands the 21st-century city, who believes in small-scale, independent, and accessible government.

Fernandez, too, told me that “if we’re going to solve tough problems that we face, we’re going to have to do it together”—as one city, as they say in his campaign. But he and his supporters see his experience as an administrator—versus as a legislator—as the distinguishing factor between him and the other candidates. “I would think that the first time that you have to manage an organization, it probably shouldn’t have 4,000 employees,” he said. Critics say that under Fernandez, you will see the perpetuation of DeStefano’s leadership style, with power concentrated in the hands of the executive. But Fernandez’s supporters see him as a leader who will be able to get things done.

If Harp loses in the primary, she’s out— she’s the only candidate who hasn’t gathered signatures to get on the ballot as an independent in November. Chances are, she won’t lose. Harp is the frontrunner, and she and Elicker’s candidacies serve as nice foils for each other—a frame through which to examine what grassroots politics looks like in New Haven in the 21st century. But while Fernandez doesn’t necessarily fit naturally into that particular conversation, he is far from irrelevant going into Tuesday’s primary.

“What’s amazing is how long so many people [have] stayed undecided. The seriousness with which people take this election is very clear.”

—Henry Fernandez, LAW ‘94, mayoral candidate Whalley Avenue. “The fact that I understand that you have to get people who represent energy around getting those goals achieved is what makes me different.”

As a senator, Harp has spent decades developing close ties in Hartford, and in her own view, these ties are crucial. “We’ve gone through the past 20 years ago with a mayor who had no relationship with the governor,” Harp told a group over lunch at a campaign event in Timothy Dwight College. “[That relationship] is a lifeline for New Haven, and I understand how it works.”

Harp’s experience is consistently cited as a factor that clearly sets her above the other candidates. “All the candidates claim to want similar things. I will firmly admit that,” said Eli Markham, ES ’13, deputy manager for the Harp campaign. “I need to stress that she has shown that she can actually accomplish these things. So even if they were identical in policy—like, you know, had

the candidate who wants to lead as part of a coalition…that is really both lead by and backed by the people of New Haven,” Greenwood said.

But some question whether Harp, with her landslide of endorsements and wellfunded campaign, can be said to be running a grassroots campaign. It’s a matter of perspective: in this race, everyone seems to have his or her own definition of grassroots politics.

“I think Toni has a very old-school, conventional approach, which is that the way you win an election is by raising lots of money, by getting endorsements from other well-connected political groups that are very good at getting out the vote historically,” Ward-Packard said. “The approach Justin has taken is an approach that I think is pretty new, that’s just kind of become a new trend in urban politics in particular, in the age of really, really high social media use,

PERALTA WENT INTO THE DEBATE THINKing he was deciding between Harp and Fernandez. If anything, the evening seemed to confuse him further—Elicker, he and Taylor Mendez told me after, had stolen the show, no question. In other words, Peralta was still undecided.

And he’s not the only one. “What’s amazing is how long so many people [have] stayed undecided,” Fernandez said. “The seriousness with which people take this election is very clear…No matter who they vote for, change is going to come to the mayor’s office. And so when people enter the voting booth on Sept. 10, they are going to be deciding the future of our beloved city.”

People might disagree about what kind of leader they want, and about what city government in the 21st century should look like—but the point is, after 20 years, there’s room for disagreement.

—Graphic by Julia Kittle-Kamp YH Staff

The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

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All hands on deck New community boathouse promises to reshape Elm City waterfront

by David Rossler

O

il refineries. Highway bridges. The I-95. Strip malls. New Haven’s waterfront is far from scenic. Arguably the city’s most underused asset, there has been a push in recent years to facilitate access to the waterfront in an attempt to diversify its use.

Now, after years of drawn out zoning battles and negotiations with the federal government over funding, a sleek, splashy, fully functioning combination boathouse

City officials hope the boathouse will catalyze change in the Long Wharf landscape. “Our goal was to create a signature destination that you can see from the other side of the highway, that was on the waterfront, and that was notably public,” explained Karyn Gilvarg, ARC ’75, the director of the city planning department, “so that people who were drawn to the waterfront had a place to go to.”

The City announced its plans in July

today. The university then sold the Adee Boathouse and the building went on to house various office spaces until the I-95 construction required its demolition.

Since its sale in the 1920s, and the construction of the I-95 on the waterfront in 1950, the Long Wharf neighborhood, where the planned boathouse will sit, industrialized and then deindustrialized. Now it is home to recent commercial investments such as the Long Wharf Theater and Ikea,

Sterling Johnson III, SY ’15, who as a Yale President’s Public Service Fellow interned for the CIty Plan Department over the summer with Hall and Gilvarg, agreed that the city’s harbor is an underutilized space. “New Haven has a fairly active water culture, but not for poorer classes,” he explained. During his time working at City Hall, Johnson helped to form the Canal Dock Corporation, a nonprofit created to assume control of the

“Our goal was to create a signature destination that you can see from the other side of the highway, that was on the waterfront, and that was notably public so that people who were drawn to the waterfront had a place to go.”

—Karyn Gilvarg ARC ‘75, director of New Haven city planning department and community center has just begun construction for New Haven residents.

The new facility, which will be called the Canal Dock Boathouse, is slated to be finished in late 2015 or early 2016. Its construction represents a larger city-wide effort to revitalize community involvement on New Haven’s waterfront. Use of the waterfront has been limited since the I-95 was completed in the 1950s, leaving the rest of New Haven severed from the Long Island Sound.

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2012, and now, after much delay, construction has finally begun. The new building, designed by Dean Takamoto Architects, will replace the historically preserved George Adee Boathouse, which was demolished in 2007 to make way for an expansion of the I-95. Built over a century ago, the Adee boathouse served Yale rowers from 1911 to 1923. In 1923, the team began to practice in Derby, Conn., about ten miles west of New Haven, where Yale crew still trains

which is located across the street from the boathouse site. Donna Hall, the project manager for the construction of the new boathouse, noted the importance of attracting local youth to the waterfront. “Connecting kids with the natural environment is an amazing thing, but being in the water is really transformative,” she said. “You know, we have three rivers and a harbor in New Haven, and most kids don’t get in the water.

They just don’t.”

boathouse from the city once the building is completed.

The Canal Dock Boathouse aims to not only attract new attention to the city’s sprawling waterfront, but also to commemorate the historic character of the structure it will replace. The architecture of the new boathouse will incorporate salvaged elements of the Adee Boathouse, and a small museum component dedicated to its history is being planned. Beyond celebrating the

building’s storied past, city officials hope the Canal Dock Boathouse will also serve as a host for various unrelated community events. But all planners seem to agree that the primary purpose of the Canal Dock Boathouse should remain straightforward: as a hub for water activities intended for all residents of New Haven. “The programs that I’ve put together have people from all walks of life, able, disabled, people of all incomes and ages,” said Judy Clark, who has been involved in similar community projects along the Hudson River, New York, and who is also a board member of the Canal Dock Corporation. Rowing has long carried a stigma of high-class inaccessibility, and even kayaking retains the flavor of middle class leisure time. City officials are hoping the Canal Dock Boathouse will shift those perceptions.

John Pescatore, who was a heavyweight crew coach at Yale until 2010, is now the

civic activities—anything that might be of benefit to the City.”

The Canal Dock Corporation has taken inspiration and advice from other urban centers that have attempted similar community outreach projects, namely Com-

assistance through the college application process. “With community rowing, you’re being provided with an opportunity that most of the country doesn’t have,” said Johnson. “Even if they’re not good enough at rowing to get a scholar-

“For every girl that can row in high school there are two scholarships waiting out there for her.“ —Donna Hall, project manager munity Rowing Inc., a nonprofit that has had success in Boston. Community Rowing’s mission, exemplified by its slogan, “Rowing for All,” is focused on providing a venue to teach discipline and provide structure and personalized attention through the focused instruction of row-

ship, colleges still look at that activity as a sign of the kid’s commitment.”

Hall also acknowledged the significant academic opportunities that learning to row could present. “For every girl that can row in high school there are two scholarships waiting out there for her,”

“With community rowing, you’re being provided with an opportunity that most of the country doesn’t have. ” —Sterling Johnson III, SY ’15, City Plan Department intern managing director of the Canal Dock Corporation. He emphasized the flexibility of the programs at the boathouse, which he said will include: “Rowing, sailing, kayaking, educational, environmental, other

process is undeniable, Gilvarg pointed out that the Canal Dock Boathouse is not being created in the image of an organization like Community Rowing Inc. “Our goal was not really to create a place for a rowing program,” she said. “If crew never

ing crew. This mission loosely resembles that of Squash Haven, a New Haven program that teaches local middle school and high school students to play squash, while also providing academic help, and

she noted. “For kids to have a way to break into that world is important, and rowing can be really powerful.”

While the potential edge rowing can give local teens in the college admission

happened or doesn’t happened in New Haven as a city—if the city doesn’t come together and make it work—I don’t have any problem, and I don’t think the state or federal government has any problem with the boathouse being filled with kayaks or canoes or dragon boats.” She is focussed on the recompense for the demolition of a historical structure, hoping that New Haven will be a more dynamic city for it. She did add, though, that if the boathouse were to help New Haven students on their way to college, “that wouldn’t be a bad side effect.”

Foremost among the city’s goals is to reopen the waterfront, forging it into a focal point of community activity, and officials hope that the new Canal Dock Boathouse will accomplish exactly that.

—Graphic by Devon Geyelin YH Staff

The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

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CULTURE Shalom, Lynwood home

by Leland WhitehouseYH Staff

F

or years, Rabbi Shua Rosenstein welcomed bunches of Jews and their goy buddies to Shabbat dinner at the column-clad Chabad house on Edgewood Street.

They packed into a cozy room on the second floor, sat shoulder to shoulder on folding chairs around folding tables, and settled in for an often overly-warm evening of food, wine, toasting (called l’Chaims in the Jewish tradition), and prayers. When in need of a pee, soccer players and sorority girls crawled blushingly under tables and across the laps of little kids or gray-haired local officials. Friday nights were jolly and endearing—through and through— even if a little cramped.

But as of last Friday, it’s new digs for Chabad at Yale.

After a years-long nationwide fundraising campaign, Shua’s vision for a new building on Lynwood with enough square feet of elbow room to quiet any worries about fire safety is standing in bricks and mortar, just around the corner from the old place. It’s beautiful—hardwood floors, a full

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The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

library, and extra rooms with sunlit alcoves...the proverbial works. Instead of clambering up rickety steps to a room half as big and twice as warm as might have been ideal, you climb a wide staircase through a set of double doors into a big dining room with a functional air conditioner.

Shua says he looks forward to seeing the place fill up with people studying, chatting, watching ball games, and shooting pool. Social outlet is a function that Chabad knows well — an acronym for the three Hebrew words chochmah, binah and da’at (wisdom, understanding, knowledge) that serve as the guiding principles for the organization, it’s a Jewish group dedicated to making sure that Jews of any level of observance all over the world have a place where they can connect with their faith and community. I overheard students at Friday’s Shabbat say that without a mom to remind them to get in the car and go to temple, they felt their connection to Jewish religion and culture slipping at college. At Chabad, they found a

place to reconnect with the practices and community that they loved so much. The words, carved in stone above the new entryway, will serve as a self-fulfilling prophesy for Shua’s vision.

During the l’Chaims given at each week’s Shabbat dinners, all these best elements of Chabad at Yale come through. They’re a heartening mixture of nervous speeches by freshmen, goofy declarations of affection from regulars and poignant stories from the Torah. Enough to make a survivor of cold-hearted Rust Belt Protestantism feel a pang of jealousy.

I was worried that in ditching the old house, Chabad might leave behind the close-quarters intimacy and friendliness I had become such a fan of. Fear not, little WASP. As far as Shabbat dinners go, it’s still a room full of half-empty glasses of wine and big grins. All that’s changed is that a trip to the bathroom is unencumbered by the acrobatics of navigating other people’s knees.

—graphic by Christine Mi YH Staff

Space for newbees

Rushing rush An infamous phrase was conspicuously absent from this year’s activity bazaar. Thanks to an earlier and shorter a cappella rush period, not one eager freshman was bombarded with interrogations of “Do you sing?”

Those interested in a cappella had already answered. Parents’ Weekend’s premature arrival prompted the ever-so-efficient Singing Group Council (SGC) to begin rush earlier and shorten it from three and a half weeks to about two. By Sept. 1, Yale’s 13 non-senior a cappella groups were in the midst of tryouts, with rush meals, singing desserts, call-backs and tap night on the horizon.

To outsiders, the spectacle of the a cappella audition process calls to mind the frenzy of sorority rush at Southern state schools, minus the ubiquity of Lilly Pulitzer attire. But to current a capeople (a term used by only the most savvy of a cappella aficionados), the logic of rush is clear: groups are not only trying to find the best voices on campus; they’re also trying to find their new best friends.

“The Duke’s Men are… my brothers, my family,” said Elliah Heifetz, TC ’15, rush manager for the Duke’s Men last year. “And also I’m really proud of our musical product and our legacy, our tradition. As a rush manager it’s literally your job to uphold that.”

Although some a cappella members consider the shorter rush period a relief, others worry the new system is less comprehensive— not to mention the same amount of work condensed into less time.

“It’s a lot more hectic,” said Joshua Bansal, JE ’16, this year’s rush manager for the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus. (In the middle of our interview, Bansal and fellow sophomore SOB Doug Streat, MC ‘16, received an urgent rush-related email. Bansal and Streat also described the struggle of eating five meals a day, and the constant guy-flirting over a dinner you aren’t actually eating because it’s your third plate of food in two hours.)

Freshmen dealt with getting to know Yale while preparing for auditions and praying for call-backs. Still, Mikayla Harris, SM ’17, said she enjoyed the rush process overall because a cappella members were friendly and encouraging even when she made mistakes.

Implicit in rushing, however, is mutual judgment and evaluation between groups and rushees. John Gerlach, TC ’14, a member of the Baker’s Dozen, wrote a column in the Yale Daily News last year criticizing a cappella rush.

“A month-long audition process for kids that are not going to get into a group is really unfortunate,” Gerlach told the Herald. Gerlach hopes that even if Parents’ Weekend is moved back to October next year, the SGC will keep rush shorter.

During next week’s tap night, members of 13 a cappella groups will sprint around campus to tap the chosen few. The end of another rush means the continuation of a famous Yale tradition—and at least a few crushed dreams. Rushees should remember, Heifetz said, that it’s still just a cappella: a group of college kids standing in a semicircle, singing other people’s songs and trying to make their voices sound like instruments. “Pretty silly if you think about it”—but also fantastically Yale.

—Isabelle Taft —graphic by Christie Ramsaran

Nestled at a table in the far back row of last Sunday’s Extracurricular Bazaar, the profile of a slightly rumpled-looking bespectacled man looked out upon the members of the Class of 2017. The man in the photograph was L. L. Langstroth, a reverend, teacher, and apiarist who graduated from Yale in 1831. A hundred and sixty-one years ago, Langstroth patented the current design for beehives.

Leaning next to the poster bearing his image was Glen Meyerowitz, ES ’14, a lanky Physics major who explained that, as a senior year hurrah, he hopes to revive Langstroth’s legacy at Yale. Meyerowitz has admittedly never maintained beehives himself. Still, two weeks ago, he founded Bee Space, a student-run organization exclusively devoted to on-campus beekeeping. “It’s different,” Meyerowitz said with a shrug and a smile.

According to Meyerowitz, Bee Space will be working to develop “a better beehive,” as Langstroth’s design has remained essentially unchanged since its creation in 1852. What the students lack in beekeeping experience they will make up for by drawing on their collective QR credits to track temperature, bee movement, and the number of bees in a hive.

In lieu of an initial possibility Meyerowitz quickly ruled out —“…We can’t really [keep bees] in one of the colleges,” he told The Herald— Bee Space will work with hives to be located at the Yale Farm and on West Campus. The group will participate in annual or bi-annual honey extraction, host honey-tastings, and potentially sell their honey at a New Haven farmer’s market. Other possibilities include candle making, and, for students over the age of twenty-one, mead tasting (though Meyerowitz added that the group is “still going through some of the legalities” that come with brewing and serving mead).

While Ben Healy, ES ’16, a founding member of Bee Space, said that he, like Meyerowitz, has “zero experience” with bees, he was thrilled to join the group. “I’m actually kind of terrified of bees, [but] I think that this will be a way to get over my fear.”

For Meyerowitz, it’s all about preserving New Haven’s bee-colic traditions as Bee Space embarks on its freshman year. “There’s a long history of beekeeping at Yale, and that’s kind of just died out,” Meyerowitz concluded. “It would be great if we could start that up again.”

They may be winging it, but we beelieve.

—Charlotte Weiner —graphic by Madeline Butler YH Staff

The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

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REVIEWS Woody’s got the blues

by Alexander Saeedy YH Staff

here do you find yourself when watching Blue Jasmine? Somewhere in between your past and your present—and believe me, Woody Allen’s newest bleak rom-com wouldn’t want it any other way. Starring Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins, and Alec Baldwin, Blue Jasmine tells a story of reconciling with the past, and how fundamentally exhausting it can be to banish the demons of the past away from the present.

Cate Blanchett’s character, Jasmine French, recalls some of America’s most famous (and dubious) literary characters: Daisy Buchanan, Blanche Dubois, and Lady Brett Ashley immediately come to mind. As a character, Jasmine is a traditional, 20th century woman of means—tasteful, reserved, and elegant at first glance, but deeply troubled by the fragmentary life that surrounds her. The only constant in Jasmine’s life is her addictive personality, which craves glamour, wealth, and vodka in equal parceling.

W

Jasmine’s counterpart is her sister, Ginger. Where Jasmine is deeply crippled by the complexities of her own mind, Ginger is plain, simple, and realistic. And though the movie is officially entitled Blue Jasmine, the story depicts both Jasmine and Ginger’s lives. After Jasmine’s husband, Hal (Alec Baldwin), is sent to jail for his fraudulent investing schemes, she abandons her past as a Manhattan socialite and flies to San Francisco to move in with her lower middle-class sister (Streetcar, anyone? Allen’s tribute feels even more apparent when Ginger’s boyfriend/fiancé Chili enters the picture, bringing to mind the character of Stanley). Blue Jasmine’s funniest moments spring from this inversion of the classic rags-to-riches story. Jasmine’s stint as a receptionist at a dentist’s office is one of the movie’s best sequences, and gives the movie some much needed breathing room from its darker side.

But make no mistake—this is no dreamy stroll with Owen Wilson along the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Blue Jasmine is much more Manhattan than it is Annie Hall, with tendencies to make note of the vapid and insecure sides of the human

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The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

psyche. Blue Jasmine’s saddest moments are barbed, bitter, and caustic. Yet it is precisely this burdensome melancholy that endows the story with its deepest, most thought-provoking moments. You follow Cate Blanchett on a 98-minute trip through time, motored on by a steady stream of Xanax, Stoli martinis (with a twist of lemon), and general malaise. But at the same time, it’s remarkably simple, and is in essence an exposé of life and people. Everyone knows a Jasmine or a Ginger, and most importantly we’ve been where they are. Past and present seam into and through one another, and your own choices, good or bad, seem to follow you through the film just as they follow Jasmine.

At times, it harps too much on these finer points of theme, overextending from the inner contemplation of Jasmine’s problems to melodramatic, unrealistic confrontations between Jasmine and her family. The acting isn’t perfect either; Alec Baldwin leaves a lot to be desired, although he’s clearly quite comfortable with his “I’m a rich privileged asshole” type-casting. Peter Sarsgaard’s cameo as Jasmine’s love interest in the later parts of the film is also a bit untidy, but this is likely due to an underdeveloped storyline.

These aside, Blue Jasmine is an impeccably beautiful look at the microscopic moments throughout our lives, a movie filled to the brim with humor, regret, vindication, and defeat. And though most have described Blue Jasmine as a “downer,” and rightly so when compared to Allen’s 2011 film Midnight in Paris, its message and conclusion are bleakly and enigmatically uplifting. The film’s strength is its unbiased approach to its characters—no one is innocent. Some characters feel less alienating than others do, sure, but no one person achieves what they first sought at the film’s beginning. And though it has no concrete resolution, Blue Jasmine is unquestionably real and personal. The characters are free from moralization… and just simply are. Therein lies the beauty of this curious little movie.

Music: Chelsea Wolfe Chelsea Wolfe’s latest album, Pain is Beauty, is her best yet. In twelve songs, Wolfe strengthens her beloved satanic strains with newer, cleaner sounds. In “The Warden,” she experiments with electronic beats and creates something harsh and beautiful, pulsating with machine-gun synths and eerie lyrics (“The hole in my vision fills with you,” she sings). She follows up “The Warden” with a change in sound in “Destruction Makes the World Burn Brighter,” a lovely lo-fi piece that might sound like Best Coast if Bethany Cosentino were both self-aware and undead. When Wolfe returns to the quiet mournfulness that made her 2012 album Unknown Rooms so poignant in the haunting “They’ll Clap When You’re Gone” and “Sick,” the songs aren’t quite as compelling or touching as her more daring work.

Wolfe ends the album boldly: the album’s penultimate track “The Waves Have Come” is a swelling eight-minute lament that swings and sways between images of love and death. A quiet piano tune builds to a chilling funeral march. “This will be ours / ‘Cause we’re the concept,” she cries. The dirge dissolves. The violins fade. The piano bleeds into Wolfe’s final track, “Lone,” which begins with inoffensive strumming. Then an electric guitar rips through the ballad.

In Pain is Beauty, Wolfe juggles metal and folk with diabolical grace. She is right when she sings “we don’t need physical things to make us feel.” We only need an album like this.

—Jane Balkoski

Restaurant: Taste of China How much should a food critic trust an establishment named Taste of China? In one fell swoop of a name, the Chapel Street newcomer manages to reduce all the colors of Chinese cuisine into one: the red of a Spicy, Sichuan peppercorn.

The appetizer, Chung Du Jelly ($8), arrives in a rather elegant plate, sitting in a pool of glossy red chili oil and unapologetic mounds of fermented black beans, garlic, and minced pork. It’s fiery—not quite numbing like it should be—but exciting to the palate. Also exciting is the fact that a Chinese restaurant on Chapel can serve a traditional snack that tastes nearly as punchy as its authentic cousin in Sichuan.

Of course, there are items on the menu that cater almost exclusively to American tastes, such as the Tea Smoked Duck ($22) and the Mongolian Beef ($20), which we mistakenly ordered at the waitress’ recommendation.

And of course, like at the American-Chinese joints down the road and just next door, these dishes were largely underwhelming. In these entrées, spicelevels were toned down, and the characteristic aromatic char of Oriental wok dishes was noticeably absent.

That said, I believe I owe Taste of China a second visit. While picking through yet-to-be-caramelized onions, I spotted on the tables around me a whole steamed fish simmering in chili oil, popcorn chicken buried in crispy Sichuan peppers, and a rather tantalizing bowl of dandan noodles.

Perhaps the waitress spotted me eyeing my neighbors’ food: she came over and made me promise to return. She’ll bring out the authentic stuff, she says. “Your head will steam and your jaw will go numb. Thank you, come again.” Though Taste of China’s Americanized menu items don’t quite live up to the name, their Sichuanese flavors are promising enough to warrant a second meal and certainly inviting to anyone looking for authenticity and a spicy kick.

—Lucas Sin YH Staff

Music: Ariana Grande Ariana Grande’s debut album Yours Truly is, in a word, innocuous. At a time when the world is pooping its collective pants over any number of pop artists’ wild child behaviors, Grande sings about daydreaming and “going steady” in a manner that is so earnest you almost believe her. This type of overstated innocence could be an interesting addition to pop, if only the music held up.

And, for the most part, it doesn’t. The album’s two lead singles, “The Way” and “Baby I,” are forgettable fragments of quasi-R&B/pop fusion, and “Almost is Never Enough,” a duet with The Wanted’s Nathan Sykes, is basically a five minute snore-fest of a ballad.

Grande is, however, undeniably talented and her Broadway roots are prominently displayed throughout the album. She has garnered endless, but valid, comparisons to divas of decades past like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. Sometimes, on a track like “Daydreamin’,” you can hear in Grande the potential for a long, long career of belting and riffing.

Yours Truly is at its best when it succumbs wholeheartedly to musical gimmickry. “Tattooed Heart” could be a forgotten track by some ’60’s girl group, and “Popular Song,” which features Mika, recycles the melody from “Popular” (yep, straight off of the Wicked soundtrack). But in spite of the fun, self-conscious cheesiness of these songs, the majority of the album lacks personality. Mostly, Yours Truly sounds like a funny mix of Mariah Carey covers and radio filler songs. Grande, for all her talent, can (and should) do better than that.

—Olivia Valdes

Staff list: Here’s what we’ve been up to What we’re eating: Way too much birthday cake. And it’s not even my birthday! But I don’t want to lick the icing off. Get it? Why must so many people be born at the start of the school year? And why do we need to order a whole cake every time?

What we’re watching: Orange Is The New Black. This show has everything worth talking about right now: America’s prison system, contemporary racial relations, and lesbians. It’s almost funny enough to make us forget our disappointment with a certain Netflix exclusive season of another show about the developments after a surprise arrest.

What we’re listening to: “Hold On We’re Going Home” by Drake. Drizzy hops on the retro-leaning pop music bandwagon from this summer and lays down the smoothest track we’ve heard in a while. Think “Get Lucky” but more housey and less obnoxiously repetitive, or “Blurred Lines” but more laidback and less capacity for filling our news feeds with Jezebel articles.

What we’re reading: 40 Days of Dating. Reality television meets tumblr in this dating experiment conducted by two NYC graphic designers who have opposite relationship problems (she commits too soon, he runs away from commitment). Sure, it sometimes reads like a bad rom-com, but it’s the most fun way to get your voyeurism on since the Shiba Inu Puppy Cam. Plus, we’re suckers for quirky typefaces.

What we’re drinking: Moroccan Mint Tea from Book Trader Café. Yalies are back in town, and so is the Moroccan Mint Tea at Book Trader. It’s minty and it’s from Morocco (okay, we’re at least sure that it’s minty). How can you resist?

—Kevin Su YH Staff

The Yale Herald (Sept. 6, 2013)

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BULLBLOG BLACKLIST A&A officially has Panopticon vibes... someone’s always watching...

It’s just like fuck you, you know?

SOMESOM

Also, that Book Trader’s iced coffee tastes like tikka masala.

When Professors keep you for over two hours before telling you how they’re going to decide enrollment

Returning to Yale after the summer and discovering that Blue State has discontinued their vegan tempeh reuben sandwich

Having to sit on the floor during Natural Disasters

People in Haas library who turn around, glare at you, then turn back around for no discernible reason

Did you include a selfie in your email or something?

TA

The girl who gets called on by name on the first day of an over-enrolled seminar

Shopping period reading responses

Yale disrespecting me consistently

How do I already have one due in two hours and how have I already not done the reading?

Even though you don’t even want to take Natural Disasters.

Feelings

Yale: CAN I GET SOME RESPECT?

When they are so sudden and new.

The Yale Herald (Sept., 6, 2013)

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WINDHAM CAMPBELL PRIZES F E S T I V A L 2 01 3

Stephen Tarell Alvin Adly Guirgis McCraney Adina Hoffman Tom McCarthy

James Salter Jeremy Scahill

Jonny Steinberg Naomi Wallace Zoë Wicomb

S E P T E M B E R 10 –1 3 Full schedule of events available at W I N D H A M C A M P B E L L .O R G