T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y
The Chronicle
XXXDAY, MONTH THURSDAY, MARCH XX,7,2013 2013
ONE ONE HUNDRED HUNDRED AND AND EIGHTH EIGHTH YEAR, YEAR, ISSUE ISSUE 114 X
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Community slams Durham-Chapel Hill crime story by Elizabeth Djinis THE CHRONICLE
The Durham and Chapel Hill communities have lambasted an article in The Daily Tar Heel analyzing Durham residents committing crimes in Chapel Hill. The front-page story, “Durham crime crosses over into Chapel Hill,” was published in the student newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill March 5 and written by junior Chelsey Dulaney, The Daily Tar Heel’s city editor. It cites the fifth anniversary of Eve Carson’s murder as the jumping-off point for examining the relationship between Durham
residents and Chapel Hill’s crime. Carson, UNC’s 2007-2008 student body president, was kidnapped from her home and later murdered by two Durham natives, Laurence Lovette and Demario Atwater. The article uses this incident to suggest that Durham residents are a significant cause of Chapel Hill’s crime, stating that a “Daily Tar Heel analysis of 10 years of Chapel Hill police records shows that about one-fifth of local robberies, murders, kidnappings, rapes and affrays come from Durham.” “There are no fences, no check SEE DTH ON PAGE 4
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
A recent Daily Tar Heel article drew controversial conclusions from an analysis that found that Durham residents perpetrate about 1/5 of violent crimes in Chapel Hill, causing backlash.
RECESS
House course celebrates, Campaigns utilize social teaches art of spoken word media to empower students by Raisa Chowdhury THE CHRONICLE
by Caitlin Moyles THE CHRONICLE
New opportunities to perform spoken word and slam poetry at Duke are bringing together novice and seasoned spoken word artists alike. A house course and the student organization Spoken Verb—which transitioned to new leadership in the fall —foster communities where students can learn about and perform spoken word, as well as incorporate performing art into their Duke experience. Fourteen students are enrolled in the house course, “Spoken Word and Slam Poetry in Context: The Art of Social Commentary.” Co-taught by seniors Brittany Coleman and Alana Jackson, the course teaches students about the history and current role of spoken word and slam poetry. The class also serves as a workshop where SEE SPOKEN WORD ON RECESS PAGE 6
Art exhibition features ‘More Love,’ Recess page 4
JOAN NAMBUBA/ THE CHRONICLE
A student in the Spoken Verb house course performs spoken word in front of the class.
Students are increasingly using social media to advance messages of self-empowerment on campus. Recently, campus campaigns to empower students’ sense of self and address campus issues have become more prevalent. Efforts such as #DukeEncourage, Duke Compliments, the Eating Disorder Awareness Campaign and others are increasingly mobilizing through social media and may suggest a greater willingness of students to speak openly about controversial issues. Empowering campaigns make students feel like they belong to the greater Duke community and can help hold people accountable for their actions, said senior Michael Habashi, chair of the Honor Council. “It is important to expand community so that we are all a part of it regardless of friend groups and social settings,” Habashi said. “That empowers each of us to
ONTHERECORD
“One-size education does not fit all.... Do not shackle high-flying students to their below-average peers....” —Jonathan Zhao in ‘The lowest common denominator.’ See column page 9
keep others accountable.” One ongoing community-wide campaign is #DukeEncourage, an effort sponsored by the Honor Council to strengthen individuals’ sense of worth through posting inspirational messages in public places and hosting open dialogues in the Marketplace every Monday since Jan. 28. DukeEncourage messages have appeared on the wooden barrier erected on Bryan Center Plaza during its renovations and on post-it notes around campus. Campaigns that target the entire campus by being accessible and visible through means such as posters and social media help create accountability, Habashi said, by providing a means through which casual acquaintances or even strangers can challenge questionable student behavior without overstepping social boundaries. The random conversations that dominate the freshman experience during SEE EMPOWERING ON PAGE 3
Partial funding affects swimming, Page 5
2 | THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2013
THE CHRONICLE
DUKE STUDENT GOVERNMENT
Knock and Talks to be less intimidating
Breaking free
by Carleigh Stiehm THE CHRONICLE
Beginning Fall 2013, students living off campus will experience a less intrusive, less intimidating welcome to their new community, said sophomore Derek Rhodes, Duke Student Government vice president for Durham and regional affairs. At the DSG Senate meeting Wednesday night, Rhodes introduced reforms for the Fall semester’s Knock and Talks program. In April, students planning to live off campus will be offered an informational meeting and a meet-and-greet to interact with the Durham law enforcement and members of the local community. He added that additional measures will be taken in the Fall to ensure no students are specifically targeted by the program, which was created in the 1980s to help students acclimate to living off campus. “We hope that the new program helps to create an environment in which students won’t feel targeted when deans and police show up at their door,” Rhodes said. He noted that in the past, deans only had the addresses of students that had been registered with the Office of Student Conduct. Under this system, Rhodes added, administrators were targeting houses that had previously received complaints from neighbors or police, assuming that they will be a problem in the future. Rhodes said beginning this year, Knock and Talks will work with Housing, Dining and Residence Life to incorporate all students living off campus. Early each Fall, administrators and Duke University Police Department will visit student homes to discuss housing policies and neighborhood regulations. As part of the reforms, Duke police will handle the door-to-door portion of Knock and Talks, due to the fact that Durham police do not want to “intimidate” students. In addition to the informational meeting in April, Rhodes said the dates of Knock and Talks will be announced and
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Sophomore Derek Rhodes, DSG vice president for Durham and regional affairs, talked to the group about the Knock and Talks program Wednesday. advertised at the beginning of the 20132014 school year. He noted that administrators have been very supportive of changes to the program. In other business Rhodes responded to an article published Tuesday in The Daily Tar Heel, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s student newspaper, which suggested that a significant portion of crime in Chapel Hill was committed by Durham residents. He called the article “one of the worst pieces of journalism” he has ever seen, adding that the city of Durham’s Office of Information established that the article was misleading and wanted to work with the city of Chapel Hill to improve relations. Although the Duke Dance Marathon requested $25,000 to fund their upcoming dance event, the Senate voted to grant $11,000 to the event. Sophomore Fedner Lauture, senator for social culture, said the event was a good cause for the Duke Children’s Hospital.
ALEX STONEHILL/THE CHRONICLE
A performer sings and plays guitar at the Breakthrough concert in Reynolds Theater Wednesday evening, an event hosted by Kappa Phi Lambda and Asian Students Association.
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EMPOWERING from page 1 Orientation Week end within the first few weeks of school as it becomes less acceptable to reach out to strangers, Habashi added. In some cases, becoming overly complacent within long-standing friendships can make it more difficult to have honest and critical conversations when necessary. “If someone is in your friend group to tell you that it’s not a good idea to have your 14-year-old brother in a porta-potty, that it’s probably not a good idea to portray Asians a certain way, that it’s probably not a good idea to call a party something, then you won’t do it,” Habashi said. DukeEncourage is one of several efforts tapping into social media to convey its message. Student interest in so-
cial media outlets like Facebook and Twitter make them particularly useful tools for spreading awareness, Habashi noted. Though some projects are homegrown Duke efforts, social media has made it very easy to adapt beneficial things happening on other campuses to Duke. Duke Compliments and DukeConfess, two popular Facebook forums that allow people to anonymously compliment other students and share secrets, are based on initiatives at other universities. The Facebook pages have 1,682 friends and 1,218 friends respectively. Sophomore Taylor Turkeltaub turned to more traditional media—such as photographic exhibition and in-person discussions—to raise awareness during the National Eating Disorder Awareness Week in late February. She said that addressing problems publicly is the only
way to solve them, but that most similar campaigns trivialized eating disorders as just body image and self-esteem issues without addressing their psychological and societal roots. Though attendance at events during the week was not always high, Turkeltaub said she was optimistic about the impact on campus awareness and support for the initiative. Since that week, many people have expressed interest in participating in the future. Turkeltaub also said that previous experience working with and witnessing projects at the Women’s Center helped her with her efforts this year. Due to her involvement, she was able to identify where there was more room to inform students about eating disorders and then formulate a vision for how Eating Disorder Awareness Week could be tailored to this campus.
CHRONICLE PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS DALL
Duke has recently seen the emergence of several campaigns targeted at empowering students, such as (left to right): National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, Me Too Monologues, #DukeEncourage and WHO Speaks.
Join the Board of Directors of a million-dollar-a-year organization. The Chronicle’s publisher, Duke Student Publishing Company Inc. (DSPC), is looking for one undergraduate and one graduate student to join its Board of Directors. Undergraduate candidates must be able to serve a twoyear term; the graduate position is for one year. Members gain real-world business experience as they help guide the campus news media into the future.
As a result of the succession of empowering campaigns, the traditional Duke attitude of effortless perfection is now beginning to be replaced by a more authentic approach to navigating college, said Gary Glass, assistant director for outreach and developmental programming at Counseling and Psychological Services. “What we’ve seen is that students are being more critical in responding to this myth of effortless perfection and really striving towards a more real attitude towards struggle,” Glass said. “It’s a great trend.” Though students have been the primary actors in these movements, Glass said that efforts by staff and faculty to create good relationships with student leaders and redefine leadership at Duke have helped encourage students to be more thoughtful about campus life. The Hart Leadership program in the Sanford School of Public Policy, for instance, focuses on developing leadership in public life and has helped contribute to some campus movements. Common Ground, one initiative created through the program, is currently in its 10th year and continues to offer an immersive retreat centered on diversity and human relations. Students are more willing to speak up and reach out for help now than in past years, Glass said. For instance, CAPS has received an increased number of requests to collaborate with student organizations such as advising group Peer for You and suicide-prevention program To Write Love on Her Arms. “People in my position have just invited students to look more closely and I think the natural intelligence of Duke students has really started to [help them] overcome their fears of being these image-centered beings.” Glass said.
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DTH from page 1 points, and thousands of people flow in and out of the cities’ border each day without a second thought,” read the second paragraph of the story, which was accompanied by a graphic displaying the proportion of crimes in Chapel Hill committed by Durham residents. Public officials, students from both Duke and UNC and residents of both towns expressed shock and anger in response to the story. As of Wednesday night, there were 348 comments on the online version of The Daily Tar Heel’s article and more than 6,300 Facebook recommends. The vast majority of the online comments expressed negative reactions to the content, ranging from journalistic critique to personal outrage. “As a Durham native and a UNC student, I found this article deeply offensive. It does nothing but reinforce a negative stereotype that Durham is a crime-ridden, horrible place that produces nothing but violent criminals,” user “Cameron DuBois” commented. “While Durham is by no means perfect, it is not the poor, dangerous place full of people looking to prey on the innocent residents of Chapel Hill, as this article depicts.” Comments like those from DuBois were seemingly met with support from readers. The comment garnered 899 upvotes and six downvotes. The Daily Tar Heel’s editor-in-chief, Andy Thomason, a UNC senior, declined to comment. Thomason responded to criticism in a column published early Thursday morn-
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ing in The Daily Tar Heel. In it, he admitted that the article reported crime statistics without their proper context, and he noted that the staff did not recognize beforehand how the story played into negative Durham stereotypes. “As journalists, we should have ensured that no angle was left unaddressed, especially on an issue of such importance. We didn’t do that, and that was wrong,” he wrote. Derek Rhodes, Duke Student Government vice president for Durham and regional affairs, noted his dissatisfaction with the negative light the article shone on Durham-Chapel Hill relations without portraying the positive interactions that occur between the cities every day. Rhodes, a sophomore who has lived in Durham his entire life, also commented on the incendiary nature of the article, which he said made many harsh insinuations about the Durham area and its inhabitants. “There are so many undertones to the article that are incredibly frustrating,” Rhodes wrote in an email Wednesday. “As a Durham native, I am also offended by its implications about Durham as a place filled with people looking for someone to rob.” Patricia Huerta, a UNC senior from Durham, noted the angered Facebook reactions she has seen from the student body, adding that she “would not be surprised if there was some sort of protest.” Although Huerta said the article was unfounded, she mentioned that she had encountered similar sentiments in high school from her friends from Chapel Hill.
“[My friends] refused to come into Durham because there was this myth that Durham was such a scary place and once they crossed into the border, they were no longer safe,” Huerta said. Durham Mayor Bill Bell noted that there are factual flaws in the article, given that parts of Chapel Hill are actually in Durham County. “I felt [the article] was very inappropriate and didn’t serve [the Durham-Chapel Hill] relationship any good,” Bell said. “I don’t know if [the author has] ever been to Durham before.” Bell also emphasized the good working relationship between Durham and Chapel Hill officials. The previous mayor of Chapel Hill, Kevin Foy, worked in Durham as a professor at North Carolina Central University Law School, and the present mayor, Mark Kleinschmidt, also lived in Durham at one time, Bell noted. Questioning the impact of Durham on Chapel Hill crime is valid, but the tone of the article was not as serious as it should have been given the nature of the content, said public policy lecturer Ken Rogerson, who teaches journalism and news writing. “The problem with language and tone like that is it makes readers not take the rest of the article seriously,” said Rogerson, who also serves as the director of undergraduate studies for the Sanford School of Public Policy. In addition to the story about crime, The Daily Tar Heel ran a memorial piece—also authored by Dulaney— placed immediately below the crime story in print. The piece praised Carson’s memory and implored the reader to
“Carry on the Carolina that Eve loved.” The piece was filed under the news section of The Daily Tar Heel’s website, but it employs first person narration and anecdotes throughout. Fifteen years ago, merging these journalistic writing styles may have been considered against the rules of journalism, Rogerson said, but this may not now be the case. “The craft of journalism has changed so much—reporting journalists are writing blogs, using first person and appearing on talk shows,” Rogerson said. “The general old school rule has been broken but that doesn’t mean the ‘new school’ rule is wrong.” “Bridget,” a commenter on the memorial piece, noted the juxtaposition of this reflection with the crime article by the same author. “How do you honor Eve’s legacy having never known her?” Bridget wrote. “She would have never wanted her name attached to something like that. Not in life and not in death.” Some individuals have criticized the way in which the crime story portrayed Durham and Chapel Hill as cities separated by a “10-or-so mile stretch of road.” Britton Lewis, a UNC School of Law student, noted that this fact is not accurate in a letter-to-the-editor published March 6 in The Daily Tar Heel. “The reality is that although Durham may be a distant 10 miles from campus, Chapel Hill actually expands far beyond the stone walls of campus, and the two cities actually border one another,” Lewis said.
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THURSDAY March 7, 2013
Take a look at The Blue Zone for coverage of sophomore women’s basketball player Elizabeth Williams’ ACC Defensive Player of the Year accolades.
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SWIMMING & DIVING
Staff elects The effect of partial funding Carp as sports editor by Staff Reports THE CHRONICLE
not fully funded—maybe the best in the country,” Virginia head coach Mark Bernardino said. As a partially-funded team, Duke head coach David Colella noted that the discrepancies in funding sometimes translate to a difference in performance in the pool. Bernardino echoed the same observation. “Teams that are funded with athletic grant-made money will almost always perform at a higher level than those without grant-made money,” Bernardino said. “They’re able to attract people to their university that they might not otherwise be able to attract without scholarship money.” Funding may also affect how individuals perform on a regular basis, Bernardino added. “I would hope that any athlete would perform to
Sophomore Daniel Carp was elected sports editor of The Chronicle’s 109th volume in a meeting with the section’s staff Wednesday night. Carp will lead a group of approximately 30 writers, editors and departmental staff, beginning his one-year term in May. The Penn Valley, Penn. native will replace junior Andrew Beaton. “I am both humbled and grateful to have been chosen as The Chronicle’s next sports editor,” said Carp, who will officially begin his position at the end of April. “The section is in the midst of its most successful year ever, and I am thrilled to contribute to the continued growth of one of the country’s top collegiate newspapers.” An associate editor who currently serves as a football beat writer and columnist, Carp has also covered the men’s and women’s basketball teams as well as the men’s lacrosse team and men’s soccer team since joining the staff at the beginning of his freshman year. In his speech and platform, Carp addressed the need to create more comprehensive online news packages that incorporate photos, videos and graphics to supplement The Chronicle’s sports coverage. Carp said that The Chronicle’s sports blog—The Blue Zone—and website provide the section with a strong internet presence and allow the staff to report the latest Duke athletics news around the clock. By utilizing editors dedicated to the maintenance of The Chronicle’s sports pages online and creation of videos and interactive graphics, the section hopes to continue the advancement of its online content. “We are producing stronger and more timely content than ever before, but we now have an opportunity to package our stories with other elements to create more complete reader experiences online,” Carp said.
SEE FUNDING ON PAGE 6
SEE CARP ON PAGE 6
JISOO YOON/CHRONICLE FILE PHOTO
Both of Duke’s swimming and diving teams placed seventh this year in the ACC, a result that may have been affected by partial-funding. by Ashley Mooney THE CHRONICLE
Even though the Duke men and women broke 17 school records at the ACC Championships last week, the teams’ seventh-place finishes could have been affected by scholarship funding disparities. According to the NCAA Division I manual, a swimming and diving team can have a maximum of 14 women’s and 9.9 men’s scholarship or grant equivalencies. Duke currently provides .35 scholarship equivalencies on the men’s side and 2.54 on the women’s, Deputy Director of Athletics Chris Kennedy wrote in an email Tuesday. Virginia is one of the fully funded teams in the ACC. The Cavaliers have won six consecutive ACC men’s championships and also won the women’s title this year. “[Duke is] spectacular for being a program that is
BASEBALL
Blue Devils split two-game set with Quakers by Danielle Lazarus THE CHRONICLE
After Tuesday’s shutout loss against Penn, head coach Chris Pollard knew his team needed to regroup quickly before facing the Quakers again Wednesday. “We spent a lot of time talking about it last night,” he said. “And then we spent a lot of time talking about it at our pregame meeting today.” His talks paid off. After falling 6-0 against Penn (2-4) Tuesday, Duke fought back with an 8-1 victory to split the two-game series. With their usual starters getting a rest before ACC play opens up against Miami Friday, two freshmen were given the ball for the Blue Devils (6-6). Righthander James Marvel opened the series Tuesday in his third start of the season, relinquishing three runs on six hits in five innings. When the bullpen took over, sophomore righthander Dalton Brown surrendered three more runs before classmate Sarkis Ohanian closed out the game with three scoreless innings. Quaker first baseman Spencer Branigan lit up the Blue Devils, going 3-for-4 with a walk and two runs scored.
Quaker junior righthander Pat Bet, however, stunted Duke’s offense by throwing for six scoreless innings, giving up only two hits and one walk. Bet, in his first start of the season, combined for the shutout with sophomores Michael Montaldo and Ronnie Glenn. “Offensively, we didn’t get up on the plate… and have an aggressive mentality,” Pollard said. “And then we didn’t do as good a job as we needed to do at pitching, [especially] putting the first pitch in the strike zone.” Freshman Michael Matuella took the mound Wednesday looking to help the Blue Devils avoid a two-game sweep. Matuella’s scoreless outing, in which he scattered four hits over five innings, not only turned around Duke’s pitching, but also, as Pollard noted, galvanized the offense. “Michael had a great start,” Pollard said. “When you get a really good start on the mound it allows your offense to relax and settle in, and Michael came out and had a great top of the first. The start that he had really controlled the game.” Duke’s offense broke out in the bottom of the first, when second baseman Andy Perez led off the game
with a single off Penn starter Jeff McGarry, then immediately stole second. Senior right fielder Jeff Kremer then began his 4-for-4 day with a single to advance Perez to third. Perez then scored when McGarry’s pickoff attempt went wide of first. After junior Jordan Betts walked, redshirt sophomore first baseman Chris Marconcini smacked a double down the right field line to score Kremer and Betts. “Immediately our guys switched [from] ‘sitting on our hands hoping something good happens’ mode to ‘okay, let’s be the aggressor’ mode,” Pollard said. “Right away, we took a very aggressive mentality.” The Blue Devils manufactured four runs in the sixth inning using that aggressive mentality, forcing the Quakers to switch pitchers three times after they allowed five straight free passes. After pushing across two runs by being walked with the bases loaded, freshman shortstop Kenny Koplove and junior designated hitter Mark Lumpa came across the plate to score two more on a Perez sacrifice fly and a Kremer single. The Quakers broke the shutout in the in eighth on three straight singles off of freshman Nick Hendrix, SEE BASEBALL ON PAGE 6
6 | THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2013
FUNDING from page 5
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the very best of his or her abilities at all times. However, it may be that if [athletes] are not funded at any level, physiologically [they] may not put in as much effort as they might otherwise should they be funded,” Bernardino said. “It may in fact be true, but I guess it would depend on each individual and their commitment to the sport.” Although Duke only has a few scholarships now, Colella noted that it is still a positive change from when he began his tenure at the University. “When I first got hired we were actually a non-funded program, meaning no scholarships,” he said. “The athletic department supports us in all other realms, and they have actually, over the course of my tenure here, added scholarships to the program.” In contrast, Virginia’s swimming and diving program has been fully funded since the 2000s, Bernardino said. He added that because there are always
more athletes than scholarships on any swimming and diving team, dividing scholarship money between multiple athletes is more common than awarding fewer full scholarships. Although Duke is not fully funded, Colella said Duke’s reputation for strong academics helps in recruiting. “Swimming and diving is a sport where professionalism [is not the norm]. Michael Phelps is one in a trillion, so there’s not a lot of opportunities to make money,” Colella said. “For us, the fact that Duke is such an incredible academic institution is attracting a lot of quality swimmers and divers because they want to get a great education because they’re looking beyond their sport.” The difference between a public and a private institution also plays a role in funding and recruiting. Private schools are more able to fund a student-athlete’s education if he or she demonstrates financial need. On the other hand, public universities attract a higher volume of students and have a larger pool of alumni to reach out to for fundraising.
CARP from page 5
BASEBALL from page 5
“The section has grown in its online and blog content over the past year, and adding new elements to these stories will only enhance the strength of our coverage.” The section must continue to be the go-to source for Duke basketball and football news, Carp said, because we have a proximity to the program that national media outlets cannot match. An avid musician outside of the office, Carp is a graduate of Harriton High School in Rosemont, Penn. and is pursuing a degree in Public Policy with the Policy Journalism and Media Studies certificate. Carp expects to graduate in May 2015 before potentially pursuing a career in journalism. “In addition to top-tier sports programs, Duke is home to some of the most intriguing student-athletes in the nation,” Carp said. “It is our job to tell their stories.”
but he and sophomore lefthander Remy Janco held Penn to only one run. Duke immediately rebounded with a run in the bottom of the inning, and sophomore Andrew Istler closed out the game with a scoreless ninth. Despite a resurgent offense, Pollard maintains that the key to the game was Matuella, who put himself in a position to contribute more frequently during conference play. “[My performance] just built confidence,” Matuella said. “It’s really all mentality out there. A lot of people have a lot of talent at this level, and what separates you is going out there and having that confident mindset.”
Even though Virginia offers the full allotment of scholarships allowed by the NCAA, Bernardino said swimming and diving programs are underfunded relative to other NCAA sports. The Duke athletic department declined to comment on the scholarship allotments for other Duke non-revenue sports. “From my perspective I would like to see more funding in our sport rather than less or [the] status quo—9.9 scholarships for men’s swimming is a low number for the size of teams that we field and for the number of events that we compete in,” Bernardino said. “Likewise, I think that 14.0 for women is a fair number for the number of athletes that we need to field a team and the number of events that we need to fill in the sport of swimming and diving.” Although Duke may not be able to recruit the same level of talent as fully funded programs such as Virginia, Bernardino added that competing against the Blue Devils is no easy feat. “When we compete against Duke we get every ounce of great swimming that
every Duke athlete has,” Bernardino said. “I have enormous respect for coach Colella and for the athletes on Duke’s swim team. They do so much, I wish I could get as much out of a lot of our kids on a daily basis clearly as what they’re getting from the athletes at Duke in swimming.” In the future, improving Duke’s scholarship situation involves increased fundraising. “As we go forward our hopes are that we can endow scholarships to add more to that total,” Colella said. “It’s definitely helpful in the recruiting process, being able to have scholarships.” Despite the lack of complete funding, Colella said recruiting continues to improve. “Every year recruiting just keeps getting better and better,” Colella said. “As far as the funding and scholarships, I know that’s something that we’re all working toward improving. We’re just looking forward to when all of that comes to fruition in the future.”
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ANNOUNCEMENTS HOLTON PRIZE IN EDUCATION
ELYSIA SU/THE CHRONICLE
The Chronicle’s staff elected sophomore Daniel Carp as sports editor Wednesday evening.
Three cash prizes of $500 will be awarded for outstanding, innovative, or investigative research in education related fields. Application deadline is April 19, 2013. Open to Duke undergraduates. For more information, www.duke.edu/ web/education/scholarships/ holtonprize.html
HELP WANTED CAMPUS REP NEEDED TO TAKE ON UNC
SportsBam!, Inc. is seeking a student to represent Duke in a battle of universities. We need beta testers for our new website and have set aside $50,000 to pay students who assist us in finding them through a March Madness-style game. Help us, help Duke and make some money in the process. Contact Klaus Marre at 703-5993035 or at klaus@sportsbam-inc. com for details.
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Senior right fielder Jeff Kremer went 4-for-4 at the plate to tie a career high with four hits.
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Big bad Bull City? An article entitled “Dur- plicated in Durham crimes ham crime crosses over into and trends over time. While Chapel Hill” was published the writer acknowledges that Tuesday in the University of Durham is at least four times North Carolina at Chapel more populous than Chapel Hill’s student newspaper, The Hill, she does not incorpoDaily Tar Heel. rate this into In addition to her analysis. editorial being journalShe uses abistically unsound, the article solute instead of per-capita itself reveals the problematic crime statistics, which is misbiases embedded within the leading given population narrative of these two cities differences. Her blunt deand their relationship, which ployment of median income arise out of the framing of statistics with minimal analythe writer’s reporting. sis also generalizes complex First, the article used social phenomena. rather weak statistical analyIn this way, the article resis in its argument, omitting flects biases toward—and poa number of highly relevant tentially mobilizes fear of— statistics, such as the poten- Durham and its residents. tial influence of other cities’ It reinforces the stereotype criminal activity on that of of the city as a poor, crimeChapel Hill’s, the number ridden place that should be of Chapel Hill residents im- further divided from Chapel
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As both a former history major and a premed at Duke, I think this is a step in the right direction. Students in lab courses are not getting nearly the credit they deserve for the extra hours of work. — “ace” commenting on the story “Duke responds to course credit discrepancy.” See more at www.dukechronicle.com.
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The Chronicle
Inc. 1993
YESHWANTH KANDIMALLA, Editor LAUREN CARROLL, Managing Editor JULIAN SPECTOR, News Editor ANDREW BEATON, Sports Editor CHRIS DALL, Photography Editor MAGGIE LAFALCE, Editorial Page Editor KATHERINE ZHANG, Editorial Board Chair JIM POSEN, Director of Online Operations CHRISSY BECK, General Manager KRISTIE KIM, University Editor TIFFANY LIEU, Local & National Editor ANDREW LUO, Health & Science Editor CAROLINE RODRIGUEZ, News Photography Editor PHOEBE LONG, Design Editor MICHAELA DWYER, Recess Editor SOPHIA DURAND, Recess Photography Editor SCOTT BRIGGS, Editorial Page Managing Editor MATTHEW CHASE, Towerview Editor ADDISON CORRIHER, Towerview Photography Editor ANNA KOELSCH, Social Media Editor SAMANTHA BROOKS, Senior Editor REBECCA DICKENSON, Advertising Director MARY WEAVER, Operations Manager DAVID RICE, Director of External Relations
Hill. “Durham and Chapel Hill are separated only by a 10-or-so-mile stretch of road,” the article begins. “There are no fences, no check points, and thousands of people flow in and out of the cities’ border each day without a second thought.” This is a perplexing observation, given the lack of barriers and border crossings between cities within the United States. With such language, the writer frames her article with a fear-mongering tone. The article, with its quotes on “gang-banger guys” and extrapolation on wealth differences based on median income alone, insinuates stereotypes that have been applied to Durham for years. There is a long history of alarmist Durham narratives,
and this article suggests that they may be alive and well. Furthermore, the article addresses a single aspect of the Durham-Chapel Hill relationship—and does so clumsily. In reality, Durham and Chapel Hill are part of the same ecosystem, creating symbioses that bring significant benefits to both cities. When the article notes the lack of fences and check points on U.S. 15-501, it casually minimizes the culture, research, commerce and leisure shared between the two cities, resources enjoyed by many in the Duke and UNC communities. Also, numerous Chapel Hill residents, including Duke faculty and staff, commute daily to Durham to work, and vice-versa. Both Duke and UNC put a
lot of resources into fostering this bond and enriching the interactions between cities. An article of this kind undermines that relationship and can potentially render those investments futile. As vertices of the Research Triangle, we should be pushing for greater integration, not erecting fences or checkpoints, mental or physical. The relationship between Durham and Chapel Hill has its less positive aspects, but The Daily Tar Heel’s article treated them in an insular, alarmist and biased way based on preconceptions. The article paints Durham as a violent city and characterizes its residents as menaces to keep out. The true problem is not the lack of fences or checkpoints— it’s ignorance.
I didn’t think I’d be an activist
onlinecomment
Est. 1905
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MARGOT TUCHLER, University Editor JACK MERCOLA, Local & National Editor DANIELLE MUOIO, Health & Science Editor ELYSIA SU, Sports Photography Editor ELIZA STRONG, Design Editor HOLLY HILLIARD, Recess Managing Editor CHELSEA PIERONI, Online Photo Editor ASHLEY MOONEY, Sports Managing Editor SONIA HAVELE, Towerview Editor MELISSA YEO, Towerview Creative Director NICOLE KYLE, Special Projects Editor MAGGIE SPINI, Senior Editor MICHAEL SHAMMAS, Recruitment Chair BARBARA STARBUCK, Creative Director MEGAN MCGINITY, Digital Sales Manager
The Chronicle is published by the Duke Student Publishing Company, Inc., a non-profit corporation independent of Duke University. The opinions expressed in this newspaper are not necessarily those of Duke University, its students, faculty, staff, administration or trustees. Unsigned editorials represent the majority view of the editorial board. Columns, letters and cartoons represent the views of the authors. To reach the Editorial Office at 301 Flowers Building, call 684-2663 or fax 684-4696. To reach the Business Office at 103 West Union Building, call 684-3811. To reach the Advertising Office at 101 West Union Building call 684-3811 or fax 684-8295. Visit The Chronicle Online at http://www.dukechronicle.com. © 2012 The Chronicle, Box 90858, Durham, N.C. 27708. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior, written permission of the Business Office. Each individual is entitled to one free copy.
I
don’t want to change the world. I’m about families won’t be my own worries. But I worry to graduate, and all I really want to do next about these worries anyway. year is wake up each morning, go for a jog, “It’s not fair!” I feel like a child sometimes. make whole-wheat, blackberry pancakes with But whom do I protest to? my boo, go to work at a job that I For me, being an activist is enjoy, read some books, see some about feeling these problems so plays, learn some more math and deeply in my bones that, even get at least eight of hours of sleep though it’d be better for my caevery night. reer, better for my GPA and betI want the world to already be ter for my social life to sit back changed. I want to pay my taxes and do nothing about these probonce a year—be it 30 percent or lems, I feel compelled by anger 50 percent or maybe more—and and sadness to do something. elena botella know that every American has acThis semester, I told myself I cess to a good education, afford- a rebirth of wonder would take it easy and get coffee able healthcare and a safe place often with all the people I’ll miss to lay their head at night. I want to know that when I graduate. For the first time in at least future generations of Americans will have a six years, I’m not an officer of any organizaclean environment and a solvent government. tions. But I keep getting pulled back in. We might be too far gone to “fix” climate I don’t really like being an activist. Some change, but I know that the other goals are parts can be fun—I like meeting new people, all achievable, in part because other countries and I often enjoy writing. But I don’t like have achieved them. Germany, for example, sending out lots of emails or asking for monhas universal healthcare, a balanced budget ey. Tabling is usually a pain in the butt, and and a reasonably modest carbon footprint. I knocking on strangers’ doors is sometimes inwant these things to be taken care of, so I can teresting but nevertheless extremely awkward. think about the things that interest me—math, I’ve spent a lot of time as an “activist” filling in philosophy, literature. spreadsheets, flyering and sitting through long But these things aren’t taken care of. I wish meetings. I don’t like doing these things, and someone else would take care of them. I wish I wish I could pass off these tasks to someone these problems would sort themselves out on else. It’s not that I think I’m irreplaceable; a their own. lot of the things I’ve worked on, frankly, do not A few weeks ago, I talked to a woman named require all that much talent. Rather, until these Nona from Huntersville, N.C., who lies awake problems are solved, no matter how many othat night worrying because she was diagnosed ers are on board, I still must help in the work with spina bifida. She lost her job because she that remains to be done. was too sick to work and her COBRA will run I don’t think being an activist is about out in March. She’s 63 years old and won’t be wanting to change the world. It does not reable to see a doctor for two years even though quire tremendous ambition or ego. It is mostshe’s in tremendous pain. ly about impatience—about not being able to And so I lie awake worrying about Nona go with the flow, because you don’t like where and worrying about all the “Nonas” out there the flow is going or you know the flow is going in our country. I know there are mothers and way too slowly. fathers whose cars broke down yesterday, and There are skills to be learned in community they don’t know how they’ll pay for fixing organizing—clever tricks you learn along the their car when they are already worried about way, like, “if you really want someone to show paying the utility bill and rent and daycare up to a meeting, call them a few hours beforeand saving enough for their own retirement. hand and let them know how excited you are And so I lie awake worrying for these mothers that they’re coming,” but if you’re a first-year and fathers who want so badly for their kids to looking up at the “old guard” of Duke activists, have a better life. know that we don’t have any special sauce. I These worries are not immediately my wor- didn’t think I would be an activist—but I beries. I lined up my job for next year last July. came one anyway. It pays more than enough and has a generous 401(k) match. But I know that, for all my hard Elena Botella is a Trinity senior. Her column work, there was a lot of luck that is putting runs every Thursday. You can follow Elena on Twitme in a position where the worries of so many ter @elenabotella.
THE CHRONICLE
commentaries
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2013 | 9
Hunger relief is everyone’s responsibility
The lowest common denominator
e slowly took the apple off of his lunch tray, Third, malnourished children are naturally exhaustwiped it with the cuffs of his jacket, looked ed and apathetic to their surroundings, rendering them around to make sure no one was looking and less likely to engage in productive relationships, learn discreetly hid it in his backpack. “Jonas, from their environment, acquire worthy why don’t you eat your apple?” I asked. experiences, cope with challenges and Jonas turned his head, frowned and sidistinguish between good and bad decilently answered: “We don’t have fruit at sions. They are exposed to augmented home, and my baby sister loves to eat states of angst, aggravation, depression, fruit.” I was so saddened by the response hyperactivity and social instability and that I immediately wrapped my arms are more likely than their healthy peers around the slender third-grader and to need psychosocial treatment. Almost practically squeezed him until he was mousa alshanteer all psychosocial disorders are signifibreathless. cantly more prevalent in malnourished you don’t say? Though all of us would like to bechildren than in well-nourished chillieve otherwise, hunger does not only dren. In fact, hungry children are seven affect the impoverished expanses of Haiti, India and to 12 times more likely to display conduct disorder. As Africa; it is an issue that upsets our very own communi- a result, these children are much more likely to engage ties including, but not limited to, High Point, Greens- in criminal activities and altercations, thereby increasboro, Asheville and Winston-Salem. Unfortunately, it ing their chances of getting suspended from school. is an issue that most frequently bears its brunt on our Hungry children are more likely to steal than their adchildren, for North Carolina leads the nation in the equately fed peers. percentage of children under the age of 5 who suffer Finally, 41 percent of North Carolinian adults who from hunger. One in four North Carolinian children have not graduated high school receive supplementary under the age of 5 regularly experiences food insecu- food assistance, in comparison to 14 percent of total rity, which makes them more susceptible to disease, an adults nationwide. This statistic suggests a strong assoinadequate education and a dismal future. Childhood ciation between education and the probability that an hunger is not merely a humanitarian concern; it is an is- individual requires emergency food assistance. Moresue that affects our state’s education system, workforce, over, some families are compelled to forego basic needs healthcare, crime rate and quality of life. such as housing or utilities in order to provide proper First, hunger diminishes academic achievement nourishment for their children. Almost 42 percent of among younger students and results in poor examina- impoverished families have had to make the decision tion scores, increased absences and additional grade re- between buying food or paying for heat, and 35 percent peats. Not only does remedial education account for a have had to make the decision between buying food large portion of our state budget, but it also reduces the and paying for their rent or mortgage. Parents often amount of time and resources that students could use feel guilty, humiliated and anxious after making these to gain additional knowledge and experiences. A knowl- decisions, thereby enhancing the disruption of their reedgeable, experienced and reliable workforce is essen- lationships and causing household instability. tial for our state to attain and retain a stable economy. Hunger affects both the employed and the unemMalnourished children who perform inadequately in ployed and considerably upsets the lives of our children. school are unlikely to gain the essential skills necessary Avoiding the issue, pretending it doesn’t exist, blaming for a productive workforce. Additionally, hunger gener- the parents and rationalizing their economic hardships, ates unsustainable expenditures that hinder the growth or continuing to believe the myth that hunger is a probof our economy. If we fail to provide our children proper lem experienced solely by others—other nations, states nutrition in the first five years of their lives, there will be or individuals with different lifestyles—hinders our abilno way for our economy to achieve its full potential. ity to solve the problem. Hunger relief is not the responSecond, the majority of children who are inad- sibility of the government, food pantries or schools; it is equately fed are more vulnerable to illness than their the responsibility of each and every American citizen. peers. Malnourishment not only weakens the immune Whether it’s through volunteering, donating or system, but also can lead to infectious diseases such as spreading the word, we can all help ensure that chiltuberculosis and medical conditions such as stunted dren like Jonas never have to hide apples in their growth, severe weight loss and organ failure. Though backpacks again. the energy provided by means of nourishment is used primarily to sustain the operation of bodily organs and Mousa Alshanteer is a Trinity freshman. His column runs promote physical growth, it is also necessary for thought every other Thursday. You can follow Mousa on Twitter @ processes and psychological stability. mousaalshanteer.
e all know that the education system in the United States is an absolute travesty. There are many aspects of our failure to properly educate our young, but one of the most glaring errors is the lack of resources for gifted education. Most Duke students should be familiar with sitting in class, mindnumbingly bored whilst the teacher drones on about fractions and multiplication tables. This is a common occurrence that plays out everyday in our nation’s classrooms. Students jonathan zhao with high aptitude (defined as the free markets, ability to learn/reason) and comfree people petence (defined as having documented success) are left languishing in classes taught to the lowest common denominator. As such, we are not only failing those high potential students, but we are also sabotaging our own future as a country. All indications point to the fact that American students are falling behind our international competitors in all levels of education. Furthermore, we are facing a shortage of engineers, scientists, doctors and other highly skilled labor. Well, if that is the case, why are we holding back those students who have the highest propensity for attaining those skills? Rather, our education system should be empowering our strongest students to achieve their full potential. The need for special education for kids who are mentally challenged is recognized. We spend billions of dollars on it. In fact, school districts are mandated to provide separate and individualized education for low performing students by federal law. However, there are no federal laws recognizing the fact that at the other end of the bell curve, there are students whose needs are not met by standard education. This has a measurable impact. According to a Fordham Institute study, 30 to 40 percent of students performing in the top decile experienced a decline in their achievement levels while enrolled in public education. Part of this decline might be attributed to pedagogical methodology. Normal teachers are trained to teach classes geared toward lower achieving students. Teachers are simply expected and incentivized to get the greatest number of students to pass minimum threshold assessments. As such, high aptitude students are forced to learn at the pace of their slower classmates. This discourages high-flying students (to borrow the Fordham Institute study’s term) from pursuing higher success. As a result, their intellectual growth is stunted, ensuring that they will not achieve their potential given their initial intelligence endowments. There is an obvious demand for specialized education serving gifted students. For example, thousands of New York City students take standardized exams, trying to test into selective magnet schools. Also, applications to private schools are received in great numbers each year. In all regards, parents of gifted children understand that the public education system fails to properly provide for them. Why then, is our public policy ignoring this very obvious need? First, we have a cultural aversion to intelligence. This much should be very obvious to casual observation. Beyond not encouraging intelligence as a society, in many instances, we either explicitly or implicitly shun it. Contrast this to nations like South Korea or Japan where the attribute of intelligence is of paramount esteem. Second, we have a misguided view of elitism. There is supposedly something wrong with recognizing that not everyone has equivalent genetic endowments of intelligence. We choose to ignore the fact that some children are just simply smarter than others. We cling to the belief that each student is equal when they are clearly not. Finally, there is a false perception of equality. In the words of Chester E. Finn, Jr., a foremost expert on education policy, “There’s the widespread belief—originating on the left but no longer confined there—that ‘equity’ should be solely about income, minority status, handicapping conditions and historical disenfranchisement. Most of American society does not seem to believe that giftedness constitutes a ‘special need’ or that inattention to it violates some children’s equal rights.” We must ask ourselves if the gifted student should be sacrificed in the name of the politically correct left. As a country, if we do not rectify our educational policy toward gifted students, we are doomed to lose our competitiveness in the global economy. Human capital, especially on the upper end, is undoubtedly the most valuable asset to our nation. It is what allows us to innovate and create the Googles, the Apples and the Boeings of the world. Failure to acknowledge that our smartest minds must be cultivated to be our next generation of leaders is failure to accept reality. To continue to do so is to continue on a path of decline. Quite simply, one-size education does not fit all. Stop pretending that it does. Do not shackle high-flying students to their belowaverage peers. Let them soar free.
H
Mariah Hukins is a Trinity senior. You can follow Mariah on Twitter @thehukes.
W
Jonathan Zhao is a Trinity freshman. His column runs every other Thursday.
10 | THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2013
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Recess
volume 14 issue 22 march 7, 2013
(RE)MNANTS
MORE
LOVE
Ackland exhibition explores 21st-century love
CENTER
SOPHIA DURAND/THE CHRONICLE
phantom
cave singers
submarine thriller fails to impress
PAGE 3
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
barbara
Seattle alt band ventures too far into pop realm
film spins tale of East and West Germany
PAGE 3
CENTER SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
recess
PAGE 2
March 7, 2013
staffNOTE
A
t parties, dances or in the car during late night trips to burger joints, I was never the one to set the playlist. I never messed with a sound system in public or whipped out my iPod and said, “Hey, who knows X?” It wasn’t stage fright that kept me from the auxiliary jack; theater took care of shyness. This was something worse: a fear of becoming an impostor of musical taste, a false authority on art. It’s an apprehension that countless art appreciators, including almost all of the Recess staff, occasionally suffer from. The average student, certainly at Duke, fears becoming an impostor, in whatever discipline, at least once in their time here. In the company of ambitious peers, it’s all too easy to think, “I have no idea what I’m talking about and I don’t deserve to speak.” When discussing art, such an attitude not only keeps budding appreciators from finding their critical voice, but suppresses an honest enjoyment of art itself. Remember high school, when everyone pretended to fit in until they actually did? Well, in the realm of mainstream music culture, I never did actually integrate. I didn’t know what a “Dougie” was, and I missed the class where the Cali Swag District taught everyone how to do it. I couldn’t “get low” like the people in music videos and the dance floor was a nightmare. I couldn’t sing along to Top 40 hits, because 1) lyrics are hard for me to hear, 2) I was too lazy to look them up and 3) singing along to Katy
Perry about “daisy dukes” that “melt your popsicle” felt... unrefined. If I asked my high-school self to describe his relationship to art, he would describe himself as “culturally clueless.” Feeling othered by contemporary pop, I looked for relief in a social niche. I fell in with a clique of bohemian counter-culturals, the types who wore hemp hoodies on eighty-degree afternoons while they trashed Ke$ha as being shallow and derivative. Everyone in that group looked up to the de facto sociocultural leader, Trey. He was the resident music guru. Trey spoke confidently about everything from the ’60s rock canon—Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, The Doors, etc.—to ’90s grunge—Pixies, The Smashing Pumpkins—to hazy jam bands like Umphrey’s McGee and The Grateful Dead. He said things like “Oh, he was soooo high when he wrote this” and did things like watch the The Wizard of Oz set to Dark Side of the Moon. I hung out with his clique because it made me feel part of some cultural elite. To validate my membership in the group, I studied the music to which Trey gave his seal of approval. Eager to assimilate as an indie-rock aficionado, I stumbled blindly through record shops, wishing I had inherited a record player and a sizable music collection like Trey did. I cursed my parents for not endowing me with any musical heritage (it was an unfair jab—I never asked my parents for recommendations and my dad’s cumulative post-university CD collection was stolen from ted memes his car). I took guitar lessons, Michaela Dwyer.................................................looks like a beetle...ISN’T #nature bought jeans that barely fit Holly Hilliard.......................................you know what I love??...buying holly soda and memorized lyrics to Trey’s favorite ballads. Katie Zaborsky..........................................................looks like john lennon...ISN’T It was miserable. Trey’s pasDan Fishman....................................................thinks he has a mantra...DOESN’T sion for music and classic rock Ted Phillips.....................................................................................................ted wins culture was genuine, but I faked mine to fit in. No matter Sophia Durand.........................................................oh wait!...they’re flushing now how hard I worked—there’s Emma Loewe.....................................................................................ted?...who’s he? the rub, it was “work” to enjoy music—I never reached
[recesseditors]
DUKE PERFORMANCES
rock guru status. I was always one canonical album behind Trey and his gang. My suggestions of great musical works seemed always cliché, amateur or laughable. Trey set a standard that I thought all music appreciators must meet. All respectable music lovers must be able to quote the biographies of their favorite artists, I thought. A good listener must have the latest trivia on the tip of his or her tongue. To love music, you have to know it back to front. Of course, I never met these unreasonable, selfimposed requirements. The result? I suffered a musical coma. Fed up with being left behind by the world of music criticism, I stopped listening to and exploring new music entirely. I made up excuses why I didn’t need music in my life: straight theater doesn’t deal with music; music will distract me from schoolwork; I shouldn’t run with music because the sounds of nature are more important. Two years of potentially wonderful music appreciation were effectively wasted. Mine might be an extreme case, an exceptional manifestation of the “impostor syndrome.” But to some degree, all potential art appreciators, especially those who don’t identify as artists themselves, question their critical authority. Maybe there are simply so many experts out there that’s it’s too intimidating to speak up. There are, after all, many talented critics on and off campus—not only fellow arts writers, but leaders of political, social, athletic and academic conversation. Sure, great criticism often comes from veteran voices, but a fresh perspective has as much a right to the podium as any. The act of writing my first music review for the Recess shocked me out of my coma. The need to adopt an authoritative stance towards a work of art, especially one with which I was totally unfamiliar, forced me to believe in my right to speak. I’m not yet in a place where I’d feel comfortable hijacking the iPod at a large social gathering. But you can bet that if you’re at my place, I’ll be rocking some triphop electronica or shoegaze, and for a moment, I’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. —Thomas Kavanagh
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recess
March 7, 2013
phantom
DIR. TODD ROBINSON RCR MEDIA GROUP
At the risk of being overly simple, the submarine thriller Phantom is not in any way a good movie. To the contrary, it’s quite bad. Admittedly, it doesn’t do enough to merit adjectives like “terrible,â€? “atrociousâ€? or “mind-numbing,â€? but that shouldn’t detract from the aforementioned point about it being bad. For a film packed with some truly quality actors (Ed Harris and David Duchovny among them) and pretty solid claustrophobic camerawork, almost nothing about the picture as a whole ever clicks. The plot is inoffensive enough. Undistinguished Soviet Sub Captain Demi (Harris) is sent out on one. last. mission, along with his up-and-coming second-in-command Alex (William Fichtner). Unfortunately, they’re joined by KGB agent Bruni (Duchovny) who has an‌ ulterior motive. Demi spends much of the film trying to figure out what Bruni is up to, and suffice it to say, it isn’t good. The movie is “based on true events,â€? but much of the film runs askew of reality, often deliberately. For one, all of the characters have American accents. This is less noticeable than, say, Sean Connery’s Scottish brogue in Hunt for Red October, but this movie relies far too much on Soviet culture for the tactic to work. Although
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
the cave singers NAOMI JAGJAGUWAR
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writer/director Todd Robinson claims he used the accents to emphasize the universality of the horrors, the finished product merely comes off as confused in its politics. The biggest problem the film has is not the accents, which could be forgiven. No— its problem is that, for a film reliant much more on conversations than on shootouts and underwater action (it very well could be staged as a minimalist play), it has woefully poor dialogue. It’s the type of film where a daughter will look at her father’s body and say “I wish he knew how proud I was,â€? as her father’s ghostly spectre nods his head solemnly in response #tootritetohandle. Obviously, the death of a parent is worthy of a strong emotional response, but there’s a fine line between being brutally honest and totally manipulative. Ed Harris, as the lead, is also unfortunately saddled with more daddy issues than Luke Skywalker. He spends the whole film trying to live up to the legacy of his father, who we learn through flashbacks is a big deal Soviet submarine captain who‌ was away from home a lot? That’s it? Call me insensitive, but it was difficult to care about a 68-year-old protagonist’s troubled relationship with his long-dead father when there are, avoiding explicit spoilers, potentially apocalyptic stakes involved. Honestly, I was most disappointed with the fact that Phantom isn’t even bad enough to be memorable. The dialogue is always awful enough to get you out of the film’s reality, but not awful enough for campy entertainment. It’s a film destined to be lost to history, too me-
diocre and uninteresting to inspire even the slightest curiosity.
On their newest album, The Cave Singers take a major step away from their tried and true sound that has brought them such success. Formerly signed to Matador Records, the home label of indie giants like Yo La Tengo and Belle and Sebastian, The Cave Singers rode the crest of the Seattle alternative wave that has steadily rolled across the music scene over the past decade. Their first three albums garnered comparisons to artists like Fleet Foxes, and their sound fit easily into the folk rock genre even as The Cave Singers moved from Matador to JagJaguwar. But, six years after The Cave Singers’ debut, the world is nearly saturated with supposedly independent folk rock groups. Maybe pushed away by the glut of similarsounding bands, The Cave Singers’ fourth album employs a variety of shifts away from their usual aesthetic. Listening to Naomi, The Cave Singers’ new LP, invoked the sense that I was a small dog, repeatedly leaping toward, but never quite reaching, a piece of raw meat sitting on the kitchen counter. The frustration stems from the realization that Naomi is an obvious and unsuccessful attempt of the Seattle-based band to do something “different but accessible.� The tracks often feel halfheartedly constructed. Many fail to reach any sort of climax, settling for cheap vocal “ooo�s. There are brief gestures to a wide spectrum of musical decades but no actual commitment to expanding or revitalizing the time periods’ characteristic elements. As a result, the album becomes a mash-up of incompatible references. “Have to Pretend� starts with a chord pro-
gression that is eerily reminiscent of jam rock of the Steve Miller Band’s “Swingtown.� Most of the album is tinged with, at a minimum, a Graceland-era Paul Simon backbeat that overpowers what remains of the trio’s signature sound. There are at least four different kinds of pop that could be used to label certain sections: chamber pop, power pop, pop rock, synth pop. There are a smattering of other tracks that can be described at best as a semi-fun experiences that might belong on an early Vampire Weekend demo, albeit with Tom Petty on vocals. The album is somewhat redeemed by its last three tracks. “Northern Lights� is a beautiful, rolling song that seamlessly transforms from a moving folk melody to a 1960s Doors backdrop. The final two tracks cohere around similar tendencies for early 1970s classic rock. These three tracks feel like a separate EP from the rest of the album, and the album would have been better if those songs were its core and not its afterthought. If the final three tracks marked the direction The Cave Singers had decided to go instead of the pop overtone that dominates the majority of the tracks, Naomi would be sure to blow up in the same way as Foxygen’s retro We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic. There’s nothing wrong with creating music that sounds nostalgic, as long as the move is wholehearted. Originality never hurt anyone, either.
—Harry Liberman
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
—Marie-Claire Bousquette
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March 7, 2013
Ackland exhibition displays diversity of modern love by Kathy Zhou THE CHRONICLE
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It turns out that quoting one of the exhibition’s own pieces is the best way to sum up “More Love,” the newest collection at the Ackland Art Museum at UNCChapel Hill. Hanging on a wall by itself, Tracey Emin’s twelve-foot long and boldly-colored patchwork quilt proclaims: “It’s a feeling – that travels through my entire body / even my soul / every moment of my hole existence.” Entering the museum doors, visitors are on the receiving end of one of Julianne Swartz’s site-specific sound installations. It welcomes viewers by professing an endless array of “I love you”—some in frenzy, some in surrender, some in tears. The “More Love” exhibition is meant to explore love amidst today’s politically charged and technologybased world. The consolidated texts of final statements by Texan prisoners on death row; an iPad where visitors type in, “I could have ________ but instead I ________”; an ornate and old-fashioned wreath molded from the pulp of letters exchanged between soldiers and their sweethearts. The artwork is fierce and candid, unapologetically confronting viewers through all mediums, with love in the context of contemporary art. In this exhibition, the “love” extends beyond our penchants for romantic gimmicks and the “contemporary art” transcends its oft-perceived unapproachability. Although the pieces force viewers to engage in artists’ unconventional interpretations, the works are surprisingly relatable in their conviction of what love is and what love can be, but never imparting what love should be. Greeting viewers in the lobby is Gregory Sale’s Love for Love. Posters, imprinted with green or red text, replicate the small buttons that are available for viewers to keep. Phrases like “everyday very much thank you” and “she’d buy me a cat” are excerpted bits of writing and poetry collected by Sale but written by local and underrepresented groups (think migrant workers and underprivileged youth). Already, love’s collectivity is impressed upon viewers. Next to a ceiling-high screen of silken flowers, Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ untitled piece features a 175-pound pile of candy wrapped in bright aluminum foil, a tribute to his 175-pound late lover, Ross. Asking viewers to take a piece of candy, GonzalezTorres shares the sweetness of their affection. The pile is never replenished, however, reflecting Ross’ slow deterioration from AIDS—signifying the loss that is inherent in love. Moving beyond glimpses into others’ love is Yoko Ono’s Time to Tell Your Love. Museumgoers have their photos taken, and their pictures will hang along with the countless other self-choreographed moments in which visitors had charmingly expressed their love. In
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the same vein, Rivane Neuenschwander’s First Love has some unusual materials: table, chairs, paper and a local forensic artist. As objectively as possible, the faces of first loves are detailed: jutting chin, long eyelashes, protruding ears. They are then attached to the wall, where onlookers wonder: how accurate are these drawings? Who was my first love? A fluid back-and-forth between artist and viewer is continually present in the exhibit, evoking a tangible yearning for love in its many forms and connotations. One of the most poignant and heartrending pieces in the exhibit is Lullaby by Hadassa Goldvicht and Anat Vovnoboy. Visitors and staff at the Israel Museum were filmed as they croon or hum childhood lullabies in their native tongue. A delicate tenderness and nostalgia come across each subjects’ face and is shared—transcendent of language—with the listener. In a landscape where politics have stripped away such ties, Emily Jacir’s Where We Come From catalyzes love. Jacir asked Palestinians who are denied freedom of movement, “If I could do anything for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?” She then embarks, with the freedom of her American passport, to fulfill their requests. Despite the openended question, each response emanates with love, regardless of time, distance or achievability: to pray and put flowers on a mother’s grave for her birthday; to water a tree in Dayr Rafat; to play soccer with the first boy you see in Haifa. In a world overwhelmed by politics, capitalism and technology, “More Love” works to expose our want for affection, affirmation and attachment. It extends beyond how we might identify ourselves— by our family, by our hometown, by our lover or by our art. Rather, the pieces evoke dialogue by presenting the same love we’ve always known in an unexpected way: a silver spoon cast with the artist’s jaw and her mother’s hand, or paper covered with mascara—exactly 1,142 butterfly kisses. Willing viewers to deliberate on such representations of love, the artists provoke new understandings and appreciations of the depth and expression of human connection. Both love and contemporary art are often subject to dismissive societal and philosophical undertones. The meeting place of the two, however, strips away any inhibition or preconception, and the result serves as a defiant but approachable witness to just why we need more love. “More Love” runs until Mar. 31 at the Ackland Art Museum at UNC-Chapel Hill. Admission is free. More information at www.ackland.org.
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this week in arts
barbara
DIR. CHRISTIAN PETZOLD SCHRAMM FILM KOERNER
& WEBER
Barbara is a deeply affecting and realistic portrait of life in 1980s East Germany. In his latest film, writer-director Christian Petzold delivers a fine-tuned effort that earned him the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. Petzold was born in West Germany and originally went to university for Literature and Drama. After graduating he attended Berlin’s German Academy for TV and Film where he became acquainted with a generation of underground filmmakers now known as the Berlin School. He has been at the vanguard of this independent cinema movement ever since winning widespread acclaim for his 2000 film The State I Am In. Like most directors of the Berlin School, Petzold creates ambitious narrative frameworks deeply rooted in the period of German history that he sets out to encapsulate. This approach is especially evident in Barbara, the story of an eponymous doctor (Nina Hoss) who is banished from her prestigious Berlin hospital to a clinic in the East German countryside after applying for an exit visa to the West. There she meets fellow doctor André (Ronald Zehrfeld) who tries to establish a connection in spite of her frigid demeanor. The film’s screenplay and its cinematic execution are impressively tight. Petzold doesn’t waste a scene establishing his protagonists within the atmosphere of soul-crushing paranoia that pervaded East Germany in the ’80s. Suspicion, desperation, routine searches and friendly cavity checks by the Stasi are the main features of Barbara’s world. The only non-diegetic sound comes at the beginning of the film—a folk ballad bleeding over from the opening credits that is abruptly cut once Barbara’s bus arrives at her bleak new place of work. From then on, silence reigns. Petzold does wonders with correctly dictating actors’ facial expressions to reveal their inner thoughts, making what is withheld during their interactions as important as what is explicitly stated. Barbara’s story is told in recurring settings like cars, buses, the countryside and the clinic that have similar framing throughout, forging a sense of uneasy routine. This formal choice also creates an aura of suspense, heightened by static and well-composed shots with a precise gaze that is perpetually focused on the protagonists. Petzold crafts a well-wrought character study that elucidates everyday life under an oppressive political climate. Barbara retains its poignancy without sensationalizing the title character’s struggles. She is painted in a warm and humanistic light that draws in the viewer and cuts through the bleakness of her existence, ultimately revealing a glimmer of redemptive hope. —Derek Saffe
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
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SPOKEN WORD from News page 1 students can perform their poetry and get constructive feedback from their peers. “The idea was to create a really supportive community where you could join the class, have meaningful discussions about issues and feel safe enough to write your own poems and really get to know each other,� Coleman said. Simultaneously, Spoken Verb, which is Duke’s spoken word organization, is pushing for a more active presence at Duke after the majority of its members graduated last spring, said President Cherranda Smith. On Feb. 23, Spoken Verb drew about 50 students to the Mary Lou Center for “Two Shades of Blues,� a collaborative performance with UNC-Chapel Hill’s slam team, the UNC Wordsmiths. The performance was Spoken Verb’s biggest event so far this year, Smith said. “We’re focusing on getting our name back out there and allowing people to see the new us,� Smith said. Numerous student organizations have invited Spoken Verb to perform in upcoming events, Smith added. The events include the Muslim Student Association’s awareness week, the Jabulani showcase during BSAI weekend, defMo’s showcase, the Women’s Center’s open mic event and Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity’s Roc the Mic event, which will take place this Thursday. Spoken Verb also hopes to collaborate with Omega Phi Beta Sorority on a community service project that uses spoken word as a counseling tool to help youth express themselves. These Duke groups recognize spoken word as an art form that can enhance projects from community service to artistic showcases. The Art and Appeal of Spoken Word Coleman and Jackson both described spoken word as an outlet for self-expression and social commentary that is unique from other art forms. In their house course, they emphasize that spoken word is more than reading poetry aloud; it is a performance-based, oral art form that uses words, tone, rhythm and cadence to communicate with the audience. Although there are no restrictions on subject matter, spoken word also tends to address social issues, politics and identity. “It’s about giving voice to things that aren’t usually
voiced or are often silent. It’s about creating a space for dialogue to happen,â€? Jackson said. Joseph “Church da Poetâ€? Churchwell, founder of Black Poetry Theater, clarified that spoken word often goes beyond just social commentary. It empowers writers with a voice that people will listen to and establishes an interactive relationship between the writer and the audience, he said. “I don’t want people to come in thinking, ‘Oh, it’s a poetry reading.’ They’re coming to a spoken word event where anything could happen. We encourage finger-snapping, oohs and ahhs, clapping. I like people to run around and do jumping jacks, personally,â€? Churchwell joked. He added that spoken word has allowed him to experience personal healing. “Spoken word can actually save somebody, mentally, physically and emotionally, through words,â€? Churchwell said. Smith described a similar healing experience—she began performing spoken word because it helped her cope with being bullied in middle school and into high school. “It was therapeutic for me. Words were my escape,â€? she said. “I was able to write poems about those people and use clever language so that I could be more creative and be in touch with my creative self.â€? But for others, the pleasures of spoken word lie in listening as an audience member. Coleman, who does not perform, said she developed her appreciation for spoken word when she started watching YouTube videos of people performing. “I would be completely mesmerized. It’s like reading a good book, staying up all night and getting lost in the words,â€? she said. The Durham Connection Spoken word at Duke is interconnected with an active (and still growing) scene in the Triangle Area. The Mary Lou Center’s Art and Soul event features live spoken word performances, while Words of Wisdom, Bull City Poetry Slam Team, Black Poetry Theater and Sacrificial Poets form the active core of numerous local poetry groups, Churchwell said. Words of Wisdom hosts open mic events on a nightly basis, and Jackson said that she has performed at an open mic night at the Broad Street CafĂŠ in Durham. Spoken Verb is exploring the possibility of hosting open mic events at locally owned
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March 7, 2013
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businesses such as The Beyu CaffĂŠ or Dame’s Chicken and Waffles. Both venues are places Duke students know about and have the “jazz atmosphereâ€? that lends itself well to spoken word events, Smith said. Fostering Spoken Word Communities at Duke Smith hopes that, one day, Duke will have a competitive slam team to compete against the UNC Wordsmiths on a national level at the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational. But Spoken Verb needs to build up a community of performers, audience members and fans before they can form a competitive slam team, she said. In the meantime, this period of growth may influence students’ experiences at Duke in other ways. Haley Millner, one of the 14 students enrolled in the house course, writes poetry as a hobby but had never performed spoken word before enrolling in the house course. “The class is really a comfortable space. I feel like most of us there look forward to it and look forward to hearing each other’s poems. It’s become more of a reflection on Duke and our personal lives, using poetry as a vehicle,â€? Millner said. She added that she hopes to continue writing and performing spoken word for her friends. The house course attracted a very diverse group of students, whether you slice it by age, race or gender. Coleman said she is “really satisfiedâ€? with the class’s diversity, which contributes to richer discussions of social, political and identity issues. “I’m about to graduate, and I want to look back and say I did something that was both fun and meaningful for people,â€? Coleman said. Creating an opportunity for students to step outside their comfort zones and discover something new about themselves has been a rewarding experience for Jackson as well. “I really love to see people grow and reach their creative potential—to see them discover the fact that they’re also artists, that they have the capacity to do that,â€? Jackson said. The house course will culminate with a showcase of the students’ work in April.