Friday, November 30, 2018

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018

VOLUME CLII, ISSUE 109

U. Dems, Republicans reach across aisle Panelists try to find compromise in discussion on national security, health care, immigration

WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

Admission forms group examining access to Brown Committee formed following #FullDisclosure campaign’s call to review legacy preference

By SPENCER SCHULTZ STAFF WRITER

By JACOB LOCKWOOD SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Leaders from Brown Democrats and Brown Republicans reached across the aisle to discuss key U.S. policy issues during a panel hosted by the student group No Labels at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs last night. Titled “Our America: A Discussion with Brown Democrats and Brown Republicans,” the event explored “possible avenues for bipartisanship at both Brown and the national level,” according to No Labels’ Facebook page.

Bob Hackey, a Watson lecturer and professor of health policy and management at Providence College, moderated the discussion. Hackey posed questions addressing three legislative areas: national security, health care and immigration.

Brown Democrats and Brown Republicans created the questions together prior to the event.

The panelists began with an examination of the United States’ involvement in foreign affairs. U.S. actions abroad aim to promote a “global liberal social order” which is ultimately beneficial for

SPENCER SCHULTZ / HERALD

Members of the Brown Democrats and Brown Republicans were able to find areas of common ground at a panel hosted by the group No Labels. the world, said Rose Lang-Maso ’20, president of the Brown Dems. She noted, however, that future foreign policy must walk a fine line between “not participating in unnecessary force” and “becoming entirely isolationist.”

Nick Guarino ’20, co-president of the Brown Republicans, voiced similar sentiments. “The most important part of our

policy is defending the homeland, but in addition to that, it really is maintaining the liberal national order that has served the world so well the last 70 years.”

Regarding health care, both the Brown Republicans and the Dems agreed that the current system is flawed.

“The United States pays more than any » See DEBATE, page 3

The Admission Office formed a working group focused on expanding access to the University for first-generation and low-income students, according to Dean of Admission Logan Powell. The working group emerged from discussions between the Admission Office, the Undergraduate Council of Students and student leaders of the #FullDisclosure campaign, which called on the University to reexamine its legacy admission policy, Powell said.

These discussions followed the campus-wide referendum on legacy preference last March, which asked students whether the University should “charge a joint committee of students, alums and administrators to reexamine the use of legacy in the admission process,” said Shawn Young ’19.5, a coordinator of the #FullDisclosure campaign at the University. The referendum passed with 81 percent of the vote, The Herald previously reported.

The working group, which was formed at the start of this semester, will

not reexamine the use of legacy preference in the admission process, Powell said. “The working group is really entirely focused on first-gen and low-income recruitment, admission and yield,” he added.

Young still wants the University to scrutinize its legacy admission policy.

“There (are) certainly concerns that we should have with it,” he said. But “we’ve never said that legacy students were unqualified to be here.”

No student is ever admitted simply because their parent attended the University, Powell said. Instead, legacy status is one of many “tie-breakers” that the Admission Office considers as a positive attribute of an applicant. Being a first-generation student is another “tie-breaker” that can help an applicant, he added.

Though the working group has no focus on legacy preference, Young believes the current working group’s broader goal of expanding access is productive.

“The logical next step after the (#FullDisclosure) campaign was to talk about how we could work together to make a working group that doesn’t just look at the admission process, but overall how Brown can do better at increasing access for (first-generation and low-income) students,” he said. » See LEGACY, page 3

R.I. Speaker of House Choh ’21 leads Bears to undefeated week receives student criticism Elected by slim margin in November elections, Nicholas Mattiello draws fire from progressives

By COLLEEN CRONIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Rhode Island House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello’s close win in the November election this month could reflect a larger divide within the Democratic party between progressive and moderate party members.

A Democrat from Cranston, Mattiello has often been criticized for being too conservative. Mattiello — who has an A+ rating with the National Rifle Association — has described himself as a “firewall” against “ultra left-wing groups” in an interview with WPROradio.

As current Speaker of the R.I. House of Representatives, some have said Mattiello’s power rivals the governor’s. His powers include setting the calendar and agenda for legislative sessions and

appointing all standing committees and their chairs within the House.

Larry Berman, Mattiello’s spokesperson, explained that the government of Rhode Island gives “a strong voice to those elected officials who are closest to the people of the state, which is our Representatives.”

Earlier this month, Mattiello narrowly defeated Republican candidate Steven Frias ’94 by less than 400 votes.

This was a wider margin of victory than his 2016 win over Frias, which was less than 100 votes, according to the Rhode Island Board of Elections.

In addition to facing a Republican opponent at the ballot box, Mattiello faced opposition within his own party.

Berman wrote that “the ultra-left wing formed coalitions to oppose (Mattiello’s) re-election in November.”

Brown students have constituted part of this opposition. Before the elections, members of the campus organization Thoughts Prayers Action and the nonpartisan student group Brown Progressive Action Committee canvassed » See SPEAKER, page 1

INSIDE

Sophomore forward helps men’s basketball extend winning streak to five in non-conference play

By ALEX SMOLAR SENIOR STAFF WRITER

While most students left campus for Thanksgiving break last week, the men’s basketball team went to work, defeating Bryant University and Salve Regina University. Tamenang Choh ’21 delivered an impressive performance for the Bears, averaging 12.5 points per game and shooting an efficient 75 percent from the field. In the victory against Bryant Sunday, Choh posted a career-high five blocks and grabbed six rebounds. With this weekend’s results, in addition to a 71-51 loss to the University of Rhode Island Wednesday, the Bears sit at 5-3 on the season.

Choh, a sophomore forward from Lowell, Massachusetts, started 12 games last season. He has previously

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

COURTESY OF BROWN ATHLETICS

Tamenang Choh ’21 shot 75 percent from the field and averaged 12.5 points over two games against in-state rivals Salve Regina and Bryant. been named Ivy League Rookie of the Week and was awarded Brown StudentAthlete of the Week honors for his play over Thanksgiving. For his outstanding

performances against Bryant and Salve Regina, Choh has been named The Herald’s Athlete of the Week. » See AOTW, page 2

WEATHER

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018

COMMENTARY Klein ’20: Boston Celtics, Houston Rockets among startling underperformers this season

COMMENTARY Editorial: U. policies extending paid leave to comply with R.I. law step in right direction

COMMENTARY Jiménez Oviedo GS: Avoid imperialism to address Central American forced migration

SCIENCE & RESEARCH Mars 2020 mission has chosen Jezero Crater as landing site, area recommended by U. scientists

PAGE 4

PAGE 5

PAGE 5

BACK

TODAY

TOMORROW

43 / 30

43 / 36

NEWS

PAGE 2 • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018

» SPEAKER, from page 1 against Mattiello in Cranston.

Gabe Mernoff ’22, a Rhode Island local and member of TPA, was one of the students that canvassed against the speaker. Calling Mattiello a Democrat in name only, or “DINO,” Mernoff said that “looking at party lines in Rhode Island is misleading.”

Mernoff believes that Mattiello uses the powers he has as Speaker to prevent a vote on gun legislation.

Bump stock bans, ‘red flag’ legislation that enabled courts to take guns from individuals deemed “dangerous” and a bill that removed guns from convicted domestic abusers had all been passed during Mattiello’s term, according to Berman. When elected to a third term as Speaker, Mattiello will ensure that “all gun-related bills that are introduced in the next session will receive full and fair public hearings by the House Judiciary Committee, and then it will be up to the members of that committee to weigh the testimony,” Berman wrote.

Mattiello received a majority in a Democratic Caucus vote for speaker held Nov. 8. Though the vote will not be made official until Jan. 1, when the House enters its new term, many predict that he will continue in the position.

Despite Mattiello’s more conservative leanings, Mernoff said he would not be surprised if Mattiello were reelected as speaker again because there are other conservative Democrats in his corner.

Mernoff explained that in general the R.I.Democratic party’s platform “does not line up with the Democratic Party on the national level” because the state platform is much more conservative.

Technically, Brown College Democrats is also under the state Democratic party as a part of the College Democrats of Rhode Island. Rose Lang-Maso ’20, president of the Brown Democrats, said the group has to be careful not to undermine its state-level partner. As a result, the Dems are limited in what they can say about Mattiello, she said.

“We generally have a policy of supporting Democrats who embody our shared democratic values,” Lang-Maso said. For instance, the Dems espouse abortion rights, accessible health care and stricter gun safety legislation.

“Because he’s in the more conservative wing of the party, we don’t feel he’s met these commitments,” Lang-Maso said. “But we’re hopeful that he will.”

“As Democrats and voters, we really do have to hold the Speaker accountable,” she added.

In a statement to The Herald, Brown

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

USHA BHALLA / HERALD

Progressive Action Committee Chair Julia Kirschenbaum ’19 wrote, “Mattiello might be a ‘Democrat,’ but he exemplifies the conservatism that persists within the Rhode Island Democratic Party as an institution.” She added that the group“ will continue to demand legislative oversight that places checks on the power of the House Speaker in Rhode Island.”

Regarding gun legislation, TPA said

that they will work toward stricter gun laws by writing letters to representatives, including Mattiello, and testifying at the State House. “We believe if (stricter gun legislation) reached the floor it would pass,” TPA media cochair Kevin Boyce ’21 said, explaining that they are laws that most Rhode Islanders agree with.

In the coming term, “the Speaker will remain focused on passing

legislation and enacting a budget that focuses on improving the job climate and economic opportunities,” Berman wrote.

Mattiello’s close win in the November elections will not necessarily impact his policy positions, Berman wrote.“The time for politics is over and it is now time to focus on governing and enacting policies and legislation to move the state forward.”

» AOTW, from page 1

My coach highly recommended this school, so after taking a couple of visits, I liked it.

Do you have any pregame rituals?

I have two wristbands that I like to kiss and keep in my socks. They remind me of people who have passed away in my life. I like to keep those on me when I play.

What is your favorite memory of playing on the basketball team so far?

Probably the game-tying basket (that I made) last year against (Providence College), and sending it into overtime. That was pretty memorable for me.

What are your personal goals for the season?

Probably to be First-Team AllIvy — that’s a pretty big goal for me personally. Before all of that though,

I’m trying to make it to the Ivy League tournament.

Is there a specific game or match-up that you’re excited for this season?

Honestly, just all of the Ivy League games. A lot of them we lost in very close games (last season). So trying to get those games back and (beating) those teams is going to be the most important.

What are the team’s goals for the season?

Our goals are to make the tournament and win the Ivy League.

The Bears will return to the court in a road match-up against the United States Naval Academy Saturday at 4:00 p.m.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Herald: Congratulations on the victories last week. How does it feel to get two big wins against Bryant and Salve Regina?

Choh: It feels really good. I know how good our team is, so getting these wins means that we’re doing the right things, which is always good.

When did you first start playing basketball?

I started playing officially in the third grade … starting on an actual team. But I was always playing in the park since I was a little kid. So for a long, long time.

Why Brown?

I liked the coaches. The coaches here had a good relationship with my (Amateur Athletics Union) coach.

STAY UP-TO-DATE. FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK. FACEBOOK.COM/BROWNDAILYHERALD

Issue

In This 3

Grace Wilkins

Caroline Ribet

2

A Life Fraught with Living

Chronicles of Shabbat Abbie Hui 4

Thrive, Don't Just Survive Griffin Plaag 5

Comeback Queen Quinn Matos 6

LATENIGHT

postCover by Rémy Poisson

NOV 30

VOL 23 —

ISSUE 11

FEATURE

Chronicles of Shabbat Hillel and Heritage

By Caroline Ribet

M

Illustrated by Rémy Poisson

y family is Jewish, but I’ve never really understood what that means. Before Brown, I could count the number of times I had been to a synagogue on one hand. I wasn’t bat mitzvahed; I knew only a handful of Hebrew and Yiddish words. At home, we insist Christmas is just like any other day. We light Hanukkah candles and eat matzah on Passover, but I was never sure if I was as Jewish as, say, my friends who complained about going to Hebrew school and missed classes for high holidays.

So when I went to college, I didn’t give much thought to participating in any kind of religious life at Brown. At the same time, I was also struggling to make friends, and as I always do, I turned to my big sister Stephanie for advice. She told me that she

sometimes went to “Shabbat dinners” at her college, whatever those were, so I did some investigating to see if Brown had them, too.

Shabbat is the Jewish Sabbath, and it is observed from sunset on Friday until an hour after sundown on Saturday. During Shabbat, there are no electronics at all—laptops, lights, driving, and writing are all offlimits. No work. It’s a day of rest.

I grappled with my simultaneous Jewish identity and complete void of both religious and cultural knowledge. I wondered, would I become a fraud if I walked through the doors of a Jewish institution after 19 years of neglecting others just like it? But I was more embarrassed about my inability to make friends than my lack of religious knowledge, so I turned up at Brown RISD Hillel, the center for

Jewish life on campus, for a Shabbat dinner my freshman fall.

Shabbat at Hillel is a pretty amazing affair. It happens every week, and it’s entirely student-run except for the Saturday morning services that are run in collaboration with one of Hillel’s rabbis. At 6 p.m. on Friday, when Shabbat begins, there are religious services. There is always a reform group and a Havurah group (a service that keeps mostly in line with conservative liturgy). Sometimes when a need or desire arises, there is an orthodox service.

Hillel makes an effort to rotate which students lead services to keep things interesting and to make sure everyone feels engaged.

Then, at 7:15 p.m., individuals from all denominations come together for announcements

Letter from the Editor December is just a day away! The knowledge that I will be abroad next semester has magnified my usual end-of-year melancholy.

Knowing that this time, others will be living dog years in my absence, I’ve become desperate to communicate all my pitiful I will miss you please don’t forget me’s. The words feel a bit too solemn and are beyond me, but I hope an undercurrent of them exist in the time spent playing board games over tea or staying up late into the night to have lazy, circuitous talks.

Many of our writers this week struggle with the same ineffable toska. The feature reminds us to cling to near and dear commu-

2!post–

Dance Crazes

nities. Narrative acknowledges that at times, life can feel fraught with living, but nonetheless reminds us to stay balanced, sift through the bad, and dredge up the good. Finally, A&C provides some tunes to frame your end-ofyear ventures, whether you plan to ignore the cold and take the long nights as a sign that you should go stargazing with that what-if boy, or do a few cozy gift exchanges to the sounds of holiday pop. Either way, ‘tis the season to make the most of things.

Jennifer editor in chief of post-

1.

Flossing

2.

The Twist

3.

4.

The Dougie

5.

The Time Warp (again, let’s do it, c’mon)

6.

The Hokey Pokey

7.

8.

The leave room for Jesus

9.

The Hoedown Throwdown

10.

The "I have to pee"

NARRATIVE and Kiddush, the blessing over the wine (it’s grape juice, except during Family Weekend, when it is actually wine). I usually stand there awkwardly while people sing the prayers because even though I know what they sound like now, I’m not confident enough to join in. Sometimes I pretend to sing or hum along really quietly because it makes me feel less fraudulent. “Recycle your cups!” Hillel e-board members announce as people migrate from grapejuice-blessing to the hall where dinner is served.

Each table sits roughly 10 people. I like watching people enter in groups of two or three and jockey for seats at tables with people that they already know. Though I go to Shabbat a lot now and tend to recognize a lot of people, there have also been times when I barely knew anyone at all. Even on days when I feel most like a stranger, I do not feel like an outsider. Whatever has brought people to Shabbat dinner—a friend, an interest in religious services, or the dinner itself—I know that we all have something in common.

Once everyone is settled, each group blesses the bread (it’s called saying Hamotzi) and passes it around. If it’s a table full of students who already know each other, they dive into gossip and start catching up straight away. If it’s a group of strangers, or mostly strangers, they exchange names, play icebreakers, and ask benign questions about concentrations and hometowns. Sometimes, I just listen. Other times, I feel totally overwhelmed. Interacting with 10 people at a table can feel daunting, and I don’t know how to navigate the social dynamics—there are conversations on either side of me, and I’m drifting between them, between being left out of both or intensely involved with one or the other. I don’t mind either way.

The food is always delicious and kosher, and there are also vegetarian and vegan options, dessert, and fruit: big salads, potatoes, chicken, rice, eggplant, chocolate mousse, melon slices, grapes. Though I went freshman year to break the monotony (and insecurity) of always eating at the dining hall, now that I live in an apartment, I see these dinners in part as a way to take a break from my usual routines by enjoying delicious, diverse foods with a community that is lively and welcoming.

Lots of Shabbat dinners have themes like interfaith or Jews of mixed identities or faculty, and oftentimes there’s a guest speaker. Occasionally, a couple of students share prewritten thoughts on the theme, or one of Hillel’s rabbis will relate it to current events. Especially because the news is often volatile and upsetting, I find it comforting to listen to someone talk about a text that has been read by countless people over thousands of years. Moreover, Jewish scholars and rabbis and regular people still have new readings of the Torah to offer, and it helps them to understand our modern world.

There is a closing prayer, and then an oneg at someone’s house or dorm. An oneg is a party with no music or lights (because there is no electricity on Shabbat) to celebrate the day of rest. The Jewish seniors' Facebook Messenger group chat is often used by upperclassmen trying to get each other to

host the week’s oneg. I don’t think I’ve ever messaged in the group, but I am happy to be included: I like watching conversations play out.

Saturday morning, there’s a service, followed by lunch. Lunch is free, and even people who don’t come to services can come to lunch. In the words of one Hillel e-board member, “In terms of pluralism, we don’t just talk the talk. We are working to actively engage students in the way that they want to be engaged. It makes me happy that students can just show up to whatever it is that they want and not feel the pressure to do anything more or less or different.”

It’s true. I always skip the religious stuff, and I mostly don’t feel guilty about it.

Hillel often has a Saturday afternoon activity, like singing, text study, or a board game tournament for people who are serious about following Shabbat’s many rules. I’ve been told by Shabbat-keepers that the Saturday activities, apart from being contemplative and restful, make the day fun and social for those who have been separated from their cell phones and laptops.

Saturday evening, there’s an Abdallah service to close Shabbat. One Shabbat regular described this service as being one of her favorites. There’s a ritual involving a braided candle, the service is lyrical, and there’s a blessing on sweet-smelling spices. It is a ritual all about separating the holy from the everyday.

Then, Shabbat is over, and the participants go back to their daily lives.

Upon further reflection, I feel it’s surprising that Shabbat specifically and Judaism more broadly have become such central tenets of my life at Brown.

I showed up at Hillel in part because I wanted to build a community, but also because Friday nights in college are ridden with expectations about going out, having dinner plans, or ending up with legendary stories to bring home for winter break. Freshman fall, I dreaded facing the big chunk of time between the end of my Friday classes and going to bed 12 hours later. Early on, I was not invited to parties. I didn’t have friends to hang out with. I definitely did not want to do my work. These feelings of loneliness and embarrassment were amplified by the fact that I didn’t know they were, in fact, rather ubiquitous.

But even though I don’t worry about having plans on Friday nights anymore, I still go to Shabbat most weeks. Growing up, I didn’t really think of my being Jewish as something to be celebrated. In fact, I didn’t really think of my being Jewish at all. Going to Hillel for cultural and social activities that I enjoy and not for the religious elements that I don’t has helped me feel like this religious and cultural community, at least at Brown, has things to offer me and not things to demand from me.

I’ve never known that much about Judaism, but I’d like to learn more. Attending Shabbat many weeks over four years has made me feel like it isn’t too late for me to learn about this culture. It isn’t too late for me to hum prayers I don’t really know. Hillel has been one means of forming a community that is supportive, diverse, and invested in inclusivity. For this reason, I’m happy Stephanie started going to Shabbat, and I’m glad I followed suit.

A Life Fraught with Living A Poem

By Grace Wilkins Illustrated by Katya Labowe-Stoll In those rare minutes of true silence I sit and wonder why the good times seem to worsen all bad and battered things that follow in their wake Oh tell me you have felt that extra-bitter truth of losing love having known its sweetness Tell me, you too have torn the fruit tree limb from limb, sucked the nectar dry and found yourself with nothing but a pit of your own making wide enough for you to spin with arms outstretched and still catch hold of nothing But maybe one can hope that in the inverse lies life’s twisted consolation: The bad times often serve to make the good times better, brighter sifting through the silt to dredge up shiny, lustrous things Or maybe the Good and Bad exist not to stoke the other not in spite but in perfect ignorance And you remain the only point where they both touch your heart beating good-bad, good-bad, good-bad, still undecided.

Oh, this burden of knowing them both! this burden of toeing the line between like a sea-worn rope, tethered to nowhere And you are the tide, always the tide

“I stop having emotions after 12 a.m."

“Before college, one of my goals was to run a half-marathon, and now I can’t even sit properly.”

November 30, 2018'3

NARRATIVE

and maybe in the best of times you are the ship as well, and maybe in the worst of times you cling, a barnacle to this rusty, shell-shocked world

you really cannot function, and remember to drink a glass or bottle of water for every cup of coffee you consume. Prioritize drinking water to let your blood and brain juices flow: your body and mind will thank you.

afraid you are too much of both scared you are not enough of either

Brain food is real. Eat nutritious meals and snacks.

Finals week can translate into unhealthy eating habits. We often go for that quick, tasty, on-the-go snack and mindlessly munch away because these items are most convenient. However, the quick calories of processed carbohydrates will ultimately leave you exhausted following the instant energy of a sugar high, and your concentration and memory will be impaired. To combat this, eat foods such as fresh vegetables and lean proteins, which are digested slowly. Vitamin and nutrient-rich foods will give you extra energy and help to prevent sickness.

Other than fruits and vegetables, I also recommend snacking on nuts. Grab a bag of trail mix and perhaps a bar of dark chocolate: something crunchy and something bittersweet. Furthermore, I felt great and had much more energy after I portioned my meals to be about 50 percent vegetables, 35 percent protein, and 15 percent carbohydrates. Although most exams are more than an hour in length, I try not to eat a full meal right before an exam, as energy will be devoted to digesting that delicious zucchini bread instead of helping me complete that five-step synthesis problem. My brainfood protein bar is a better alternative, keeping me going throughout an exam.

Fuel your body. Eat according to a timely schedule.

Yet, in truth, the thing I fear the most above all else is the day when I stop caring what I am. not much is more listless or depraved than an indifferent soul.

So, I’m content to toe the line for now Pushing towards the good Pulling, tearing away from the bad And maybe I may never come to rest, And maybe I may never truly learn, And maybe I may never know myself beyond my name But maybe—oh I survive in the hope— that it’s enough just to know I’m trying.

Thrive, Don't Just Survive Nutrition and Balance During Finals

W

By Abbie Hui Illustrated by Rémy Poisson

inter has come. The end of the semester is near; finals are just around the corner.

Though final exams might determine your grades for your classes, the most important thing this winter season is your health. Here are some tips on nutrition, healthy eating habits, and work balance, so you can not only survive but also thrive this finals season.

NUTRITION AND HEALTHY EATING HABITS Go easy on the caffeine intake and stay hydrated.

I learned to not drink caffeinated beverages right before an exam when my anxiety intensified after I downed a latte right before my two-hour test last semester. A little bit of caffeine keeps you attentive, but too much will actually increase your anxiety and dehydrate you. Dehydration causes fatigue and headaches, so save coffee for the days 4!post–

I adopted the eating style of intermittent fasting, eating only during an eight-hour time period each day. Though I began intermittent fasting to lose weight, my goal has since evolved into a lifestyle choice, for I feel my energy levels boost in the morning. This eating style serves me extremely well during finals season in particular, as otherwise I always lose track of time .

That said, everyone has a different approach to eating during finals season—a healthy relationship to food may look different for each person. For those who let time fly by and forget to eat, please remember to eat something every four hours. On the other hand, stress eating can happen, which is not the end of the world, but it can result in a stomachache. To make sure you are fueling your body with brain food and nutrients during proper intervals of the day, I suggest eating according to a timely schedule that works for you.

WORK BALANCE Keep yourself accountable.

To make sure you’re checking tasks off your to-do lists, find a responsible study buddy. My study buddy and I share a class every semester, and we have established a routine to meet up to study together whenever we’re both free. We have discovered a range of quiet, niche study spots on campus—the Everett-Poland lounge, SciLi mezzanine, study rooms in the Rock, and more— that allow us to focus intensively. We have become great friends through study-buddy time, too. When we are both studying for the same exam, we talk out confusing concepts together and work through questions. No worries if your study partner is studying for a different exam, though! Simply having someone there with you can help keep you focused.

Take regular but reasonable breaks.

I enjoy taking quick 20-minute power naps or going to brunch somewhere on Thayer or Wickenden Street with my roommate. My study partner and I also love to escape to the finals study events, where we bask in the comfort of dogs and make fun, artsy crafts. Finals are a grueling time for college students. Though you may want to

ARTS&CULTURE study all day, your brain can only process a limited amount of information at one time. To help prevent burnout, remember to recharge with rejuvenating breaks to improve your concentration when you return to studying.

Soon, finals will be over, and you can begin your break with your health intact—feeling great about your hard work all semester long.

Use all your senses when studying.

As both a visual and kinesthetic learner, I learn best by diagramming and rewriting my notes on flashcards. When the opportunity arises in study rooms, I take advantage of the whiteboards to, for example, draw out the manipulations of the cardiovascular system.

Are you a visual learner? Auditory?

Kinesthetic? Not sure? You can use all of your senses in creative ways to solidify the materials you’re studying and, most importantly, make learning memorable. While studying, annotate your notes in different colors, say your notes out loud, and touch the paper when you’re writing on it. The more senses you engage, the more likely your learning will stay with you. *** In addition to considering these tips, remember that your value lies beyond the results of an exam, essay, or grade. Your physical and emotional wellbeing is worth far more than a number. Soon, finals will be over, and you can begin your break with your health intact—feeling great about your hard work all semester long.

Comeback Queen Mariah Carey Throws Caution to the Wind

By Griffin Plaag Illustrated by Rémy Poisson

botched 2016/17 New Year's concert especially did her status in. Hell, John Oliver called her a "human nightmare" on the Tonight Show this year. Simply put, it's been a long time since 1995, when Carey’s “Fantasy” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks straight. In 2018’s cultural dictionary, you could probably find Mariah Carey's name under "over the hill."

Enter Caution, Carey's first full-length album since 2014. Receiving wildly positive critical acclaim, Caution represents a new direction for Carey. Eschewing her belt-it-out diva persona, Carey instead adopts a chilled-out vibe that manages to be modern without abandoning her iconic early-2000s R&B sound.

It's a somewhat astonishing shift for her: some of that classic Mariah Carey haughtiness comes through on tracks like "GTFO" and "A No No" (loaded with post-relationship rebukes and blue fire), but most of the album is best suited to an anaerobic smoke chamber—hazy, relaxed, understated and full of back-channeled interpolations from Carey herself. There are also moments of strikingly beautiful clarity woven into this carefully-honed aesthetic backdrop. “The Distance," for example, begins as though a mesh veil has been lifted off the speakers before lapsing back into a smoky, bass-driven vibe. Carey’s Caution is not the product of a washed-up pop star attempting to re-enter the scene (a la "Bitch I'm Madonna" or Britney Spears' inexplicable British patois on "Scream and Shout”). It’s a far cry from Carey's previous album Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse in both musical quality and titular restraint. This is something different—a cogent, impressive work from an artist whose craft is clearly still vital.

Of course, Mariah Carey isn't the first artist in recent memory to provide critics with useful poptimist fodder. Plenty of Top-100 artists have produced albums that have received as much critical acclaim as commercial attention. Taylor Swift's 1989 was a much more mature product than her early pop-country forays or her preliminary crossover attempt, Red. Carly Rae Jepsen's E-MOTION followed up the ubiquitously-memed "Call Me Maybe" to become a summer fixation of indie kids and radio listeners alike.

Still, this kind of renaissance seemed improbable for Carey. Swift was already the commercial darling of Billboard radio by the time 1989 got pressed: she was bound to drop a magnum opus at some point. Jepsen's career had just begun when she released her hit single, and a retrospective look at "Call Me Maybe" reveals that the sparklers-in-July sound captured on E-MO-TION was already a large part of her sound when she broke into the scene in 2012. Carey, now in her late 40s and far removed from her era of pop dominance, was far less poised to achieve continued relevance than her contemporaries (and with “All I Want for Christmas is You” reliably topping the charts each Christmas season, it seemed unlikely she’d ever bother). That Caution has received so much attention while retaining the less modern feel of her mid-2000s work speaks to Carey's continued acuity and songwriting ability.

Most of the album’s songs, despite conforming to a pop mold that could be considered passé, sound as catchy and texturally interesting as anything on the radio today. "Giving Me Life," especially, has potential to be remembered as a classic tune, with Carey’s sterling-if-understated vocal performance backed by collaborators Slick Rick and Blood Orange.

Caution is no mere imitation of Mariah at her zenith. It's new, it's fresh, it's restrained— and above all, it's intelligent.

Caution is no mere imitation of Mariah at her zenith. It's new, it's fresh, it's restrained—and above all, it's intelligent. Carey expertly bridges the intersection between the R&B of her heyday and its present-day successors, proving she belongs as much in the latter as the former, thanks to her remarkable vocal ability and her savvy musical mind. Assuming she doesn't try to lip-sync on tour, Carey’s Caution is poised to stand as one of the most impressive examples of an artist's return to form in recent memory… and even without that context, it’s damn good.

T

he average young person knows exactly three things about Mariah Carey: (1) She constituted half of the most perplexingly turbulent inter-judge relationship ever to grace American Idol, spending most of its twelfth season picking fights with fellow panelist Nicki Minaj.

(This is often cited as foreshadowing the current Nicki Minaj vs. Cardi B feud.)

(2) She once got caught lip-syncing a New Year's Eve performance, provoking incensed defamations of her character from citizens across the land. This is remembered, on the whole, as a great time for the American people.

(3) She's responsible for what can authoritatively be called the biggest Christmas bop ever put to wax: “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” This, we are all thankful for.

I'm being unfair, of course. Carey has a remarkable vocal instrument (if you’re familiar with high-octave ranges, you know it would be inadequate to simply call hers a “voice”), as well as a lengthy and prolific musical career she can comfortably rest her laurels on. But it would be difficult to say with a straight face that, in the year 2018, her star shines as bright as it once did. That November 30, 2018'5

ARTS&CULTURE

LATENIGHT

Why Travis Scott’s ASTROWORLD Was My Album of The Year

By Quinn Matos illustrated by lauren marin “Rollin rollin rollin got me stargazing— psychedelics got me goin’ crazy.”

The much anticipated release of Travis Scott’s 3rd album, ASTROWORLD, was a midsummer holiday to be celebrated with respect. Arizona iced teas, Backwoods rolling papers, and high school halffriends packed into my mom’s minivan. Though we’d barely interacted since college began, the occasion was momentous enough to rally the set of music nerds back into a group. After preparing with a late-night trip to a nearby nature preserve, we made for Jones Beach down a long, poorly lit freeway, and finally, I pressed play.

If it isn’t clear already, Travis Scott’s 3rd album was a big deal for me. His last two albums were already personal classics: Rodeo was one long, drugged-out night anthem, and Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight perfectly mixed Travis’s warbly mumblings over beats that erased the distinction between dreamy cloud rap and aggressive trap. The difference now was that Travis Scott was everywhere. After years of nudging the culture, he started rotating it on an axis. 2018 saw him catapult from underrated internet star to mainstream musician, due in no small part to his quickly cemented relationship with Kylie Jenner. Concerts turned to SNL appearances; album covers became magazine covers. It felt like I had a personal stake in his rise, and I had already steeled myself to reach and argue ASTROWORLD into album-of-the-year conversations regardless of its quality; I had gassed up the project way too much to face reality if it flopped.

The album’s first song, “STARGAZING,” provides a fitting intro to its sonic and lyrical concepts. If ASTROWORLD recreates the closed Houston amusement park it’s named for, this song is its rollercoaster. The song’s first half builds the same sort of suspense: high-hat drums click at eighth-note intervals, pushing the song just a little too fast for comfort while a stretched, metallic tone slowly calls and responds in the background. Sitting on top of beatlong 808s, these two sounds average out to an uneasy speed, unmistakably reminiscent of an acid come-up.

The first verse begins as Travis switches between his trademark groaning and a high-pitched, unintelligible whine to describe his meteoric rise to success, regular and excessive drug use, and the start of his new family— all in the same verse.

“STARGAZING” crests two-thirds of the way through with the sounds of rollercoasters and an airy set of howls before the ambiance cuts to silence.

After a confused half-second, the 808s return faster and distorted. The hi-hats come in triplet

bursts, and the slow background tone is replaced by an upward arpeggio that just keeps hitting. Beat switches are to be expected in a Travis project, but the abruptness is new. Travis stops mumbling and just raps—talking no sleep, mosh pit concerts, cocaine nose-bleeds straight through to the last line: “Ya feel me?”

I didn't, but I was dumb lit in this Honda Odyssey.

ASTROWORLD proceeded to deliver as both a listening experience and a thematic project. Even better, it did so by ignoring every expectation I had formed. The album jumps from ride to ride: purposefully avoiding the cohesion that flannel-wearing music critics have so often praised, the cohesion that made his last two projects so impressive. Travis pieces together a rapper’s dark fantasy: Kylie Jenner is routinely deified, the Weeknd sings a deeply emotional ballad to IV heroin, and our protagonist hops from show to flight to club as autotuned verses bleed into one long tribute to his nightlife escapades. Throughout, Travis’s vocals are the only constant, as the entire album is organized around disorienting contrasts. “STOP TRYING TO BE GOD” holds a full theological discussion directly before “NO BYSTANDERS”—a song whose hook is three dudes yelling “FUCK THE CLUB UP.” The outro on “WAKE UP” promises a club banger, only to produce the creeping piano and eerie rattling on “5% TINT.” This sort of norm-breaking feeds into a projectwide mission to dislodge the various staples that have come to typify pop-rap. “SICKO MODE” is the ideal example, both for its disrespect to The Hook as an institution, and the fact that it has nevertheless gone double-platinum. The Hook has acted as the rap verse’s more profitable antithesis, where catchy vocal melodies can justify putting hip-hop on mainstream radio. There is arguably no greater champion of The Hook than pop-rap’s primary deity: Drake. Any song with a Drake feature inevitably charts and usually defines a project, and when “SICKO MODE” began, I predicted the usual: Drake will spit an intro through the beat drop and rap two lines into the expected verse. All seemed to be going as I predicted. But suddenly, his voice echoes down to silence. The beat unceremoniously switches to a punchy, industrial layering of drums as Travis rips 24 hookless bars, ending the verse with a reminder: “Who put this shit together—I’m the glue.” Only then is Drake brought back for his verse, the hit restarted on a

“Who knows what the future has in store for TIME [Magazine], or for Post-, for that matter. We’re still here, for now, so start reading.”

Saanya Jain, editor’s note 11.29.17

“Yes, it ‘suuuuuucks’ that many of us didn’t fully participate in this magical space [Aurora] in the first place.”

Daniella Balarezo, Creative Capital 11.29.17

6!post–

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jennifer Osborne a FEATURE Managing Editor Anita Sheih Section Editors Kathy Luo Sydney Lo ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Julian Towers Section Editors Josh Wartel Liza Edwards-Levin

different beat and followed up by a second Travis verse to end the song.

This ritual sacrifice of a Drake Hook recenters Travis as the executive producer of the album, and he claims any and all credit. It contributes to the larger point being made with the project, one symbolized by the grotesque, open-mouthed Travis Scott blow-up on the album’s cover. With ASTROWORLD, the rapper known as Travis Scott is building a children’s theme park for which he is the entrance and architect. The pop-rapper acknowledges his objectively weird role as ringleader in a WWE-like circus. The music is a drug, it’s a trip, it’s a voyeuristic glimpse into the highlight reels of a lifestyle that doesn’t actually exist. Rather than reject this role, ASTROWORLD leans into it, pasting together a caricature that is self-aware yet no less committed for it.

Travis plays his part beautifully, and it’s nearly 2a.m. by the time we reach the final song. The beat on “COFFEE BEAN” is unexpectedly relaxed. Gone is the chain-laden Hidden Hills denizen. Strippers and droptops are waved away, and where the rapper persona stood is some guy in shades who likes drugs and hiphop. A muted, startlingly relatable Travis waits in line in a coffee shop and stresses about his girlfriend. After ten days without talking, Travis wonders, is he even good for Kylie? She’s a public figure, her family doesn’t like him, and he’s already got one strike for being a Black man. Already preparing for custody battles, Travis envisions his own divorce before he’s even married.

“Bad, bad news.” The rapper’s finished, and these dayto-day issues remain unresolved.

Violin and Auto-Tune hummed the end of the album and the night’s trip as red-eyed kids climbed out one by one, exiting the minivan’s yawning doorway towards homes and train stations. Finally, it’s just me and my green tea, paused at the stoplight. I’d spent the most exciting portion of my evening reading into every beat and verse—hypersexed commercial myths of gold, bottles, and logos. Was any of it worth the philosophizing? Where did this deep attraction to party rap come from, and what are its implications?

How could I have better spent this time and energy?

For a moment, I questioned my values and my sense of direction.

Then I pressed play again, because ASTROWORLD slaps.

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Celina Sun Section Editors Divya Santhanam Jasmine Ngai COPY CHIEF Amanda Ngo Assistant Copy Editors Mohima Sattar Sonya Bui HEAD OF MEDIA Samantha Haigood

Want to be involved?

Email: post@browndailyherald.com!

HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Remy Poisson BUSINESS LIAISON Saanya Jain CO-LAYOUT CHIEFS Jacob Lee Nina Yuchi Layout Designers Amy Choi Utkan Dora Öncül Jiyeon Park Steve Ju WEB MASTER Jeff Demanche

NEWS

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018 • PAGE 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

» LEGACY, from page 1 Previously, Young emphasized that #FullDisclosure did not treat examing legacy admission and making the University more accessible to first-generation and low-income students as unrelated goals. “Powell makes it seem as if #FullDisclosure is solely about increasing access for first-generation and low-income students,” he wrote in an email to The Herald in March. “I’d like to make it perfectly clear that #FullDisclosure is about ensuring equal opportunity for everyone and making this University the best it can be.”

The representatives of UCS and #FullDisclosure who met with Powell last spring were interested in both reexamining legacy preference and expanding access for first-generation and low-income students, Powell said. But he concluded that the two issues are unrelated. “We can continue to recognize sons and daughters of Brown graduates, and at the same time we can continue to find ways to admit more first-gen students,” he said. “Really, they’re just not connected.”

Legacy students make up about 11 percent of the student body while firstgeneration students comprise about 14 percent, Powell said. “The combination of those two groups is a quarter of the student population,” he added. Since about 75 percent of students are neither legacy nor first-generation, admitting legacy students does not force the University to admit fewer first-generation students, Powell said.

» DEBATE, from page 1 other nation in the world of our wealth, yet we get worse returns. Clearly, something about the way we are spending money on health care is just not working,” Lang-Maso said.

The two sides diverged, however, on the process by which the health care system could be improved. Austin Rose ’19, a member of the Brown Republicans, argued that a market-based approach would create the most efficient health care system. “We need to make sure that the market itself is working, because that’s the most efficient way to distribute health care,” he said.

In a Nov. 8 column titled “Don’t let the discussion of legacy admission die,” Opinions Editor Connor Cardoso ’19 wrote that “unless Brown is exceptional in its approach toward legacy applicants, it is, at the end of the day, creating space for legacy students at the expense of lowincome and first-generation students because there are only a finite number of spaces.”

“If we had no legacy policy whatsoever, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that there would be an increase in the first-gen students we attract,” Powell said. “We have to do something specifically around attracting first-gen students to attract first-gen students,” which is the focus of the working group.

Though Cardoso acknowledged the University’s commitment to increasing access in his column,“trying to disentangle the University’s legacy admission policy from the broader discussion of equal access in admissions is impossible, and the University working group should resist this urge,” Cardoso wrote. “Abolishing legacy admission is a necessary condition for cultivating genuine socioeconomic diversity in the student body.”

Members of the working group include two students, two professors and two representatives of the Admission Office, including Powell. The students on the working group were nominated by UCS President Shanzé Tahir ’19, Powell said. One member of the group, John Friedman, associate professor of economics and international and public affairs, has done research on social mobility and

college access for low-income students, Powell added.

A paper Friedman published last year studied upward mobility for low-income students at every college in the United States, Friedman said. “What we found was that consistently across elite private institutions, there were just not that many kids from low-income families,” he said.

At the typical Ivy League school, there are more students from the top one percent of the income distribution — families that earn over $650,000 per year — than there are from the bottom 60 percent — families with annual income under $65,000, Friedman said. The University

is roughly consistent with this socioeconomic distribution of students, he added.

In 2013, the latest year for which Friedman has data, about 4 percent of students at the University came from the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, he said. Friedman suggested the University try to increase enrollment of low-income students to about 7 or 8 percent of the student body, mirroring the composition of students at the University of California at Berkeley, which enrolls 7.5 percent of students from the bottom 20 percent.

“It’s probably not feasible to get there immediately,” Friedman added. “I hope

that (the working group) can find some ideas that will make a difference.”

The working group is trying to find out what schools like UC Berkeley do differently to attract, admit and enroll more low-income students, Friedman said. “We can try to understand what they’re doing and try to learn from it,” he added.

Legacy admission is an institutional priority that the Admission Office does not control, Powell said. He hopes the group can finalize its recommendations for changes and initiatives that the Admission Office can implement by the end of December.

A market-based approach, however, excludes poorer Americans from access to healthcare, said Alex Kramer ’21, communications director of the Brown Dems. “Before the Affordable Care Act, a ton of people were priced out of health insurance, and that led to an extreme number of bankruptcies and many people who died unnecessarily.”

While immigration is an increasingly polarizing policy issue on the national stage, Democrats and Republicans at Brown were able to find common ground: Both groups voiced support for immigration. “(Immigrants) increase the size of our labor force, they are good for the

economy, and it’s good — morally speaking — to allow people into this country who can support the communities of immigrants who are already in this country,” said John Metz ’20, vice president of Brown Democrats.

“Any fifth-grade-educated, completely unskilled immigrant who has the heart to appreciate the American ideal, this is the place for you. I want you. I want all of you. This is the standard we should uphold,” Rose said.

Rose acknowledged that his personal views on immigration deviate from the Republican Party’s position, adding that it is honorable to disagree with one’s political party. “The biggest chunk of

the young population tends to believe that the parties have really served us poorly. It’s a bad system to be stuck in your tribe.”

Alex Santangelo ’19, vice president of No Labels, said that the discussion “exceeded his expectations,” both in terms of the turnout and the civility expressed by panelists. “The perception at Brown is that everyone is on the same track and that the minority gets shut down. We proved that students who are 21 years old or even younger can talk with each other on complex topics and find middle ground.”

Hackey was similarly pleased with how respectful the discussion had been.

“We had a really principled debate. They disagreed in some cases, they found common ground in other areas,” he said.

“That’s the kind of discourse we really need to model as a society.”

One audience member, Viknesh Kasthuri ’21, said that panelists could reach a consensus because of the unique nature of Republicans and Democrats at Brown. “The (Brown Republicans’) views weren’t representative of the Republican Party views generally. Similarly, the Democrats weren’t necessarily representative of the entire spectrum of ideologies of their party,” he added. “That’s why we saw a lot more common ground here than we do in the national discussion.”

USHA BHALLA / HERALD

COMMENTARY PAGE 4 • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Do these NBA underperformers have any hope?

GEORGE KLEIN SPORTS COLUMNIST We are over a month into the NBA season and not much has gone according to expectation. Yes, the Golden State Warriors remain in position to win another championship. But a couple of other contenders have looked shockingly vulnerable. Almost everyone predicted that the Boston Celtics and Houston Rockets would enjoy strong seasons. Boston was a popular pick to be the Eastern Conference champion, while the Rockets seemed poised to enter the playoffs as a high seed in the Western Conference. Yet neither of these 2018 final four teams has looked all that impressive, playing average or belowaverage basketball much of the way so far. Can the two franchises turn their fortunes around?

The Celtics have plenty of depth.

The names on their roster jump off the page: Kyrie Irving, Gordon Hayward, Al Horford, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, etc. Adding in role players like Marcus Smart, Marcus Morris, Terry Rozier and Aron Baynes makes Boston’s 11-10 record all the more inexcusable. There’s no way a team this talented should have the same record as the Charlotte Hornets. But the Celtics have a lot of very real and

scary problems. Hayward and Horford appear to have declined considerably, lacking their former explosiveness. Hayward has struggled coming back from a severe leg injury and can’t defend, get to the rim or shoot well right now. Horford, meanwhile, isn’t getting enough lift on his jump shot and might have lost some lateral quickness over the offseason.

The declines of these two cornerstones have furthered the confusion over team roles. Should Hayward be

pressed. Irving is playing like a new man on the defensive end, putting up much more of a fight than he has in years past. Pair that defense with his usual stellar offensive output and you have a superstar. Hayward should improve a little — while his contract has turned into an albatross, he can help shoulder more of the offensive load once he adjusts to his new decreased level of athleticism. Tatum, meanwhile, just has to rein in his shot selection a little. And it’s hard to imagine

Yes, the Golden State Warriors remain in position to win another championship. But a couple of other contenders have looked shockingly vulnerable. allowed to play crunch time minutes in his current state? Is Brown a starter and an offensive contributor beyond standing off to the side and waiting for the ball? How many ISO midrange jump shots should Tatum take?

Everyone is jostling for minutes. It’s a cliché to say there’s only one ball, but it’s proven shockingly apt for the Celtics so far — there are simply too many talented players to share the ball effectively.

The Celtics should be a much improved team at the end of the season, even though their start has not im-

Brown continuing to play this poorly.

While the Toronto Raptors have established themselves as the best team by far in the Eastern Conference, all the other contenders have their own issues. The Milwaukee Bucks have gone 8-6 after their 7-0 start. The Philadelphia 76ers narrowly escaped some defeats to poor teams. The Indiana Pacers have been inconsistent.

The Celtics can still claw back to a two seed, but this is starting to look like another year where Boston falls in the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Houston Rockets, however,

Find us online! facebook.com/browndailyherald

browndailyherald.com

@the_herald

@browndailyherald

youtube.com/browndailyherald

Sections

Multimedia & Production

Business

Editors-in-Chief Elena Renken Kasturi Pananjady

Arts & Culture Editors Ethel Renia

Design Editors Kyle Cui Eduard Muñoz-Suñé Assistants: Julie Wang, Kelvin Yang

General Managers Michael Borrello Matilda Lynton

Managing Editor Alex Skidmore

Metro Editors Emily Davies Isabel Gensler

Senior Editors Madison Rivlin Hattie Xu Ben Shumate

News Editors Eduard Muñoz-Suñé Priyanka Podugu Sarah Wang

Editorial Page Editor Anuj Krishnamurthy

Science & Research Editors Jonathan Douglas Jackson Wells Sports Editors Alexandra Russell James Schapiro COMMENTARY Opinions Editors Connor Cardoso Anuj Krishnamurthy Clare Steinman Emily Miller

Photo Editors Sam Berube Anita Sheih Copy Desk Chief Kelley Tackett Illustrations Editor Daphne Zhao Video Editor Celia Hack Graphics Editors Marlis Flinn Sarah Martinez

wrong direction. I don’t have a lot of faith left in this bunch.

Chris Paul’s hamstring issues continue to bite after costing him dearly last season. Paul’s body broke down in the playoffs under the strain of heavy minutes and now those problems are back after only a few games. He hasn’t played like his usual self even when on the court. At 33 years of age, Paul simply cannot be relied upon anymore as a consistent second star next to James Harden. And he has a lot more money headed his way: $160 million over four years. That contract

Location: 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. www.browndailyherald.com

Editorial Leadership

POST- MAGAZINE Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Osborne

are in major trouble. The middle of the Western Conference possesses a lot more firepower than the middle of the East, so the Rockets don’t have the luxury of waiting for a hot streak.

The team has a 9-11 record, secondworst in the entire conference (which just goes to show how tight the standings will be down the stretch). Every win matters in the West. One game could decide a playoff appearance.

The Rockets are mired in a four-game losing streak and seem headed in the

Office Manager Diane Silvia Directors Sales: Shreya Raghunandan Finance: Ravi Betzig Strategy: Edwin Farley

could get really ugly.

Houston made the right decision in quickly ditching the failed Carmelo Anthony experiment, but depth continues to be a major problem. After Harden, Paul (when healthy), Clint Capela, Eric Gordon and PJ Tucker, who can play big minutes in a playoff series? James Ennis III? Gary Clark?

Michael Carter-Williams? While Ennis III has filled in admirably, there are simply not a lot of players on the Rockets I would trust to play 30 minutes against the Warriors. Or even the Oklahoma City Thunder, for that matter.

Harden continues to be phenomenal. But in the last few minutes of the game, he can’t take every single shot.

That formula doesn’t work. Harden gets tired and worn down, then makes mistakes with all the opposing defensive intensity channeled toward him.

Can he lead Houston to a four seed?

Yes. But if the Rockets want to move past the second round of the playoffs, they need to make a trade. And fast.

George Klein ’20 can be reached at george_klein@brown.edu.

Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

Editorial contact: 401-351-3372 herald@browndailyherald.com

Advertising contact: 401-351-3372 advertising@browndailyherald.com

Submissions: The Brown Daily Herald publishes submissions in the form of op-eds and letters to the editor. Op-eds are typically between 750 and 1000 words, though we will consider submissions between 500 and 1200 words.

Letters to the editor should be around 250 words. While letters to the editor respond to an article or column that has appeared in The Herald, op-eds usually prompt new discussions on campus or frame new arguments about current discourse.

All submissions to The Herald cannot have been previously published elsewhere (in print or online — including personal blogs and social media), and they must be exclusive to The Herald.

Submissions must include no more than two individual authors. If there are more than two original authors, The Herald can acknowledge the authors in a statement at the end of the letter or op-ed, but the byline can only include up to two names. The Herald will not publish submissions authored by groups. The Herald does not publish anonymous submissions. If you feel your circumstances prevent you from submitting an op-ed or letter with your name, please email herald@browndailyherald.com to explain your situation.

You can submit op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com and letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. When you email your submission, please include (1) your full name, (2) an evening or mobile phone number in case your submission is chosen for publication and (3) any affiliation with Brown University or any institution or organization relevant to the content of your submission.

Please send in submissions at least 24 hours in advance of your desired publication date. The Herald only publishes submissions while it is in print. The Herald reserves the right to edit all submissions. If your piece is considered for publication, an editor will contact you to discuss potential changes to your submission.

Commentary: The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

Corrections: The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

Advertising: The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. is a financially independent, nonprofit media organization bringing you The Brown Daily Herald, BlogDailyHerald and Post- Magazine. The Brown Daily Herald has served the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement and once during Orientation by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community. Subscription prices: $200 one year daily, $100 one semester daily.

Copyright 2018 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Postmaster: Please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906.

COMMENTARY FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018 • PAGE 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

EDITORIAL

U.’s adjusted paid leave policies are commendable This month, the University modified its paid sick and safe leave policies to be in compliance with the Rhode Island Sick and Safe Leave Act, signed into law by Gov. Gina Raimondo last year and put into effect this summer. The Act applies to all Rhode Island employers with more than 18 employees. It requires Brown to expand “the amount of paid leave available to part-time and student employees and broaden the circumstances” for which leave-taking is permitted, The Herald previously reported. We are glad the University has quickly adjusted to new state policy and worked to enhance the benefits available to its employees.

Prior to the passage of the Rhode Island Sick and Safe Leave Act, the

University’s paid leave policies applied only to employees who worked more than “50 percent time,” The Herald previously reported. In addition to covering part-time and student employees, the University’s new policies allow employees to take leave for caregiving responsibilities, which now include attending to safety issues such as stalking and sexual violence. By 2020, Rhode Island employees will have guaranteed access to up to 40 hours of leave. The Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training will begin penalizing employers for noncompliance starting Jan. 1, 2019.

In the United States, federal law does not require employers to provide paid sick leave. (The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 provides

12 weeks of unpaid leave to eligible employees, who can use the time for caregiving responsibilities and family members’ medical emergencies.)

According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, 34 million Americans, close to onethird of all private sector employees, do not have paid sick leave. The lack of paid sick leave particularly harms survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault; the Centers for Disease Control found that a substantial number of American men and women have suffered some sort of abuse at the hands of intimate partners. In light of these circumstances, we are heartened by the decision to allow employees to address stalking and sexual violence.

Thankfully, the momentum in

favor of paid sick leave has accelerated in recent years. In 2011, Connecticut became the first state to mandate that private sector employers provide paid sick leave.

This year, Maryland and New Jersey passed their own paid sick leave legislation. As of October 2018, 19 cities, three counties and 10 states in total — including Rhode Island — require employers to provide paid sick leave.

The University’s new policies will benefit its employees profoundly. On a fundamental level, no one should have to choose between working and caring for themselves or their loved ones. We are particularly supportive of the University’s decision to not require documentation for every instance of leave-tak-

ing, as many employees or students may not have the time or resources to fill out forms and collect signed letters. We hope that, in the coming years, the University continues to stay abreast of the law and update its policies to ensure that employees feel safe, healthy and supported in their work.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: Anuj Krishnamurthy ’19, Rhaime Kim ’20, Grace Layer ’20, Mark Liang ’19 and Krista Stapleford ’21. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

Central American mass migration a challenge to reexamine imperialism MARLON JIMENEZ OVIEDO OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR The unprecedented form of mass migration of Central Americans has defeated typical government responses to prevent poor people and refugees from migrating to the United States. As we have seen in the last few days, it has also inflamed the U.S. government’s violent treatment of migrants. I want to analyze the form that this migration has taken because, at its core, it is an anti-imperial call to all humans spectating. It is a call that our governments do not want us to understand. I want to amplify the urgent call of thousands of Central Americans now asking for our help and posit this call as an opportunity to resist living within imperial structures.

This humanitarian crisis is a direct product of the imperial systems set up through colonialism, or what Aníbal Quijano, the Peruvian sociologist, has called the “coloniality” of power and global capitalism. Under coloniality, the accumulation of political and economic power is in the hands of a few descendants of Europeans (both whites and mestizos, mixed-race individuals with European heritage). The United States has intervened militarily in Central America since the region’s independence from Spain, and most recently in the second half of the 20th century, to ensure the unequal distribution of land and the exploitation of resources by multinational companies. During the Cold War, this was done in the name of containing the spread of communism, as former president Ronald Reagan would state in his address to the nation in 1984. For many indigenous and poor people, this meant that the Central American elites would continue to own stolen land and maintain political power through corruption and force.

The transnational movement of these migrants has defied the imaginary space of the borders mapped by the nation-states, borders that depend on violence to manage human movement. The first group of people to leave from Honduras Oct. 13 was estimated to be about 3,000 people. Given that they overwhelmingly outnumbered the Guatemalan police force at the border, the Honduran migrants simply started walking across the border after a couple hours of waiting, leaving the

police unable to contain them. As the group went into Guatemala in the following weeks, more people from El Salvador and Guatemala joined despite threats from their governments and from the governments of Mexico and the United States. The name caravan attempts to describe a choreographic tactic of mass movement that has effectively challenged and defeated the hostility inherent in national borders. In transgressing two national borders, as they entered the state of Mexico, the migrants have successfully contested the grip of coloniality in our imaginations and bodily movements.

President Trump has threatened to withdraw U.S. aid from Honduras if the migrants were not stopped. U.S. direct intervention

outside of this colonial regime. These people are at the end of colonial time. In other words, their lives will end, just like many of the people around them, if they stay in their home countries. One single mother in the caravan justifies fleeing to avoid the killing of her son in the same way her husband had been killed: “Some people say that we are exposing ourselves by traveling so far, but this is nothing compared to everything that we face in Colón.”

Central American migrants are stepping into a different temporality, a different experience of time, to survive. These migrants are engaging with the reality that they are in the end times — a phenomenon Professor of Theater Arts and Performance Studies Patricia

The Central American forced migration is a humanitarian crisis, but not only because the migrants’ lives are at risk, but because their call questions what it means for all of us to be human within imperial systems.

is not unprecedented in Honduras; in fact, current Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández reached power via fraudulent elections supported by the United States. Notably, the aid given to Central American governments does not affect poor communities and the conditions they are escaping. If the United States really wanted to stop the exodus of marginalized Central Americans, it should support anti-corruption legal procedures and do more to hold political leaders in the region’s governments accountable.

This, of course, will not happen because the U.S. government depends on its grip on Central American governments to advance imperial, neoliberal economic policies that exploit Central American laborers and serve the profits of transnational companies. The threats and measures being proposed by these governments reflect the enduring power of coloniality. The call of these migrants exists

Ybarra has observed in the works of Latinx playwrights writing about migration. This experience of time has moved them out of the colonial understanding of time and space that prohibits them from walking to the United States to escape their plight. The end times brings with it the possibility to end coloniality.

The sustenance of this anti-imperial movement has so far depended on the solidarity of others along the way. People in Guatemala and Mexico have organized themselves to provide food, shelter, medicine and transport for the migrants. It is the involvement of non-governmental agents that has ensured that these desperate human beings do not succumb to the system that has been and is ready to let them die from starvation and other forms of state violence. These active spectators, as part of a global audience, have decided to sustain this anti-imperial phenomenon, thereby not

only saving lives but also opening up a possibility for a decolonial movement — one that disregards the temporal, spatial and spiritual grip of coloniality.

I am not trying to romanticize this mass exodus. The harsh reality is that decolonial movements are met with extreme violence from nation-states. So far, as I have argued, the form of this migration and responses of solidarity have overwhelmed the colonial responses. Yet, the destination of this movement is the territory occupied by the most violent and richest modern empire, the United States.

Trump has said that if the migrants at the border throw rocks, the military should open fire as if the rocks were rifles, justifying military action by stating that the Central American migrants are not real asylum seekers. Tear gas has already been thrown at migrant families.

I am worried. Here lies the migrants’ call to us all, to the global audience, in Mexico, the United States and elsewhere.

I am calling into question the voice that looks at this humanitarian crisis and tells us that these fellow human beings are separate from us. The call is to resist an imperialism that prohibits us from looking beyond borders. Let’s follow the lead of others in Central America who have organized in solidarity and against the coloniality pursued by our governments. The anti-imperial call I am outlining is a survival tactic, and it is also a call for us to not be imperial agents who refuse to acknowledge the humanity of those at our doorstep, to reclaim our existence in a non-imperial world. In this sense, the Central American forced migration is a humanitarian crisis, but not only because the migrants’ lives are at risk, but because their call questions what it means for all of us to be human within imperial systems. Better yet, it asks us to stand together outside of imperial time and space.

Marlon Jiménez Oviedo GS can be reached at marlon_jimenez_oviedo@brown.edu.

Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

NEWS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2018

Jezero Crater selected as Mars 2020 mission landing site Open basin lake has been studied for years by U. researchers, could have signs of past life

By CHRIS SCHUTTE SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Following the announcement of the program nearly six years ago, the Mars 2020 rover mission has selected the Jezero Crater as its landing site. The crater is a location analyzed and recommended by multiple researchers from the Brown scientific community.

The Jezero Crater is a now-dry open basin lake that once included a delta, much like the Mississippi Delta.

This is particularly ideal for sampling since the water deposits organic material toward the bottom of the lake, said Jim Head, professor of geological sciences. The crater also sits at the intersection of three geographical points on the surface of Mars, making it particularly well-suited for exploration. The crater borders a basin, lies on a volcanic plain and is intersected by a number of fractures, said Jack Mustard, professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences and professor of environment and society.

“The Jezero Crater is an outstanding place to look at (the) confluence of geology and mineralogy to test if life ever existed,” he added.

The presence of two minerals in the crater — carbonate and olivine — points toward the prior existence of organic processes and the possibility of past life, albeit primitive life, Mustard said. Olivine is a green mineral that, when weathered or steeped in water, produces hydrogen to form methane, two key products for food of microbes.

Carbonate is a mineral that is a known by-product of olivine consumption.

Jezero was chosen through an extensive site selection process that included around 30 proposed locations. “It’s like a county fair bake off,” Head said. During these workshops, researchers presented the reasons why their site, and the ensuing exploration, would be promising. “It’s a very passionate process. … You take a personal interest in the sites you are looking at,” Mustard said. As workshops went on,

COURTESY OF JIM HEAD

The Jezero Crater proves to be a promising site for exploration due to its geographic location. The crater lies at the edge of the Isidis Basin, sits on the volcanic plain Syrtis Major and is intersected by fractures known as the Nili Fossae. the sites were ranked; researchers then looked into those that received high scores. Ultimately, a final workshop decided on the Jezero Crater as the landing site for the rover. “It was a really nice convergence of research, missions and community interests in solving these fundamental scientific problems,” Head said.

Once launched, the rover will be

equipped with similar tools to those of the Curiosity rover, which is currently exploring the Gale Crater on Mars. It will be able to analyze composition, detect organics and analyze trace gases, and will be equipped with a groundpenetrating radar to see subsurface structure, Head said. Though there are many possibilities that researchers can anticipate, they still believe there will

be developments and findings that will surprise them. “Simply put, science is the exploration of the unknown. …

Almost always, the big payoff is in the things we don’t anticipate,” Head said.

The launch is scheduled for July 2020, according to a NASA press release. But a considerable amount of work remains to be completed, Mustard said. Researchers hope to better

characterize the landing site, develop an exploration strategy and enhance the engineering of certain tools — especially sampling tools — before the launch, Head and Mustard said.

“We’re all interested in, ‘Did life ever exist elsewhere in the universe’ and the first place to look might be Mars,” Mustard said.