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See Inside Duke runs out of steam in loss to Virginia Page 6
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ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEENTH YEAR, ISSUE 49
MEN’S BASKETBALL
No. 2 Virginia edges Duke in closing minutes By Sameer Pandhare Staff Reporter
The last time Cameron Indoor Stadium hosted a top-five matchup, Duke and Syracuse went right down to the wire in one of the most memorable regular-season games in college basketball history. Saturday, the Blue Devils went toe-to-toe with an ACC heavyweight in a hard-fought contest, but ended up on the losing end of the scoreboard. No. 2 Virginia withstood a 19-4 run by Duke early in the second half and got timely jumpers from its backcourt of Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy to topple the fourth-ranked Blue Devils 65-63. Jerome and Guy combined for 31 points to notch Virginia’s first top-five win of the season, as Duke scored 15 fewer points than its previous season low. “We put ourselves in a position to win, but we couldn’t close it out, and again, they don’t want to lose,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “You’re playing one of the best teams in the country, so you’ve got to be able to do it at that level, and that’s what we have to keep learning. We’re getting better, but we didn’t have enough to win the game today.” Guy helped the Cavaliers get separation in a tight second half with a contested corner triple to give the road team a 60-55 lead with just more than three minutes remaining.
Mary Helen Wood | Associate Photography Editor Pompieri Pizza, one of Durham’s most prominent restaraunts, is owned by Seth Gross, who also owns Bull City Burgers and Brewery.
FIVE PEOPLE OWN 16 OF DURHAM’S TOP RESTAURANTS
See M. BASKETBALL on Page 6
LOCAL AND NATIONAL
SNL’s Weekend Update takes aim at alum Stephen Miller
A look into how they’ve transformed the city’s food scene By Claire Ballentine Towerview Editor
Seven years ago, Seth Gross opened his first restaurant in Durham using a lesson he’d learned in college—you can live solely off pizza, burgers and beer. It’s a truism known by many Duke undergraduates today who frequent Gross’s Bull City Burger and Brewery and Pompieri Pizza on the regular. Upon arriving in Durham, these are among the initial staples first-year students discover, before branching out into the numerous other offerings in the foodie town. Many of these establishments are owned by just a handful of successful business owners who control a large portion of
By Adam Beyer
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons West Chapel Hill Street is home to many of Durham’s top resterants, including Lucky’s Deli and Mateo.
Digital Strategy Director
the market. Does this make it hard for newcomers to open a restaurant or distract from Durham’s other offerings? Not according to the city’s restaurateurs who describe the foodie community as welcoming and supportive. Plus, they are still figuring out the restaurant world as they go and are subject to the same forces that have shaped Durham in the past and
You know you’ve become infamous when you’re the butt of a Weekend Update joke. That was the case last night for Stephen Miller, Trinity ‘07 and a senior policy advisor to President Donald Trump. Michael Che, a host of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, joked that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer recently told reporters that he requested that Miller not be in the room during a meeting he had with Trump.
See RESTAURANTS on Page 16
See SNL on Page 4
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NEW TRIVIA APP TAKES OVER DUKE
Students play HQ Triviato win cash, form community. But it is another fad? By Rob Palmisano
strong wi-fi connections prior to the start of the game. is a scam. At times, the app has even collapsed entirely, requiring “It kinda sketches me out, because it doesn’t make any rescheduling of games. Janes pointed to New Year’s Eve as the money and it’s kind of like a bunch of shady investors putting Cancel your 9 p.m. plans and get a doctor’s note for your 3:05 most notable of these collapses, describing how she remembers money into it,” he said. class—you might just win yourself $2,000 because of it. Rogowsky himself not even knowing what to do as she played the Ryan Merriner, also a junior, said he was equally skeptical. That’s just shy of the approximately $2,142.86 seven lucky app that evening. She summed up HQ’s technical difficulties in “I’m convinced [HQ]’s just another episode of Black one sentence. Mirror,” he said, referring to a popular dystopian television winners individually “It crashes, anthology series. received last Sunday It kinda sketches me out, because it doesn’t make any night after playing money and it’s kind of like a bunch of shady investors glitches and lags However, although some users may be doubtful of its HQ Trivia. The app frequently,” she said. legitimacy, the app is continuing to leave its mark on the lives of is now the fourth putting money into it. Although it is users. And for a fortunate few, a passion for HQ Trivia eventually impossible to know translates into winning. HQ winners of anywhere from a most popular iOS aidan workman what the future of couple of dollars to the $6,000 maximum any individual player game in the U.S. TRINITY JUNIOR after being released HQ holds, there are has won in a single game thus far have gone on to celebrate on the App Store at least some HQ their earnings by traveling abroad, seeing Broadway plays, three months ago. The HQ app regularly administers real- users at Duke who have already formed an opinion. investing in up-and-coming cryptocurrencies, experimenting Ko said that he feels confident that like Pokemon Go and Yik with filmmaking and more. time quizzes every day at 9 p.m. and weekdays at 3 p.m. to Potential for winnings aside, Dalbert Chen, Trinity ’16, said audiences of sometimes a million users or more, many Duke Yak, HQ will probably be relegated to relic-status by the end of students among them. the year on Duke’s campus. his motivations for playing are much simpler. In its current format, the program’s host Scott Rogowsky Junior Aidan Workman, who started playing HQ after a “I just like trivia in general and I like going to trivia,” usually presents a total of 12 questions, each of which must friend told him about it, said he is beginning to think the app Chen said. be answered during a 10 second time frame. Only users who correctly answer all twelve are awarded any money, since those who answer a question incorrectly are eliminated. Sophomore Kaitlynne Janes said she first heard about the app when her friend messaged her in their GroupMe asking everyone to use his code so that he could get extra lives. She reflected on her appreciation for the social bonding the app facilitates. “I love how it can become a group activity—everyone huddled together over the survivors’ screens, suggesting answers and yelling as the time ticks down to zero, in all it’s a fun way to pass some time,” she said. Sophomore Alan Ko, the co-chair of The Chronicle’s editorial board, said that he first heard about HQ through other members of the Chronicle staff, describing the app as the new “national pastime” for some members. He added that he appreciates how the app has demonstrated that the quiz entertainment format still remains relevant across the millennial generation. “People are literally freaking out and posting in their GroupMe and respective Facebook groups whenever they win $20 on HQ, which just goes to show you how entertaining the app can be.” But for all of HQ’s success, it is still a startup primarily backed by venture capitalists, and in order for its founders to continue successfully justifying a lofty $100 million valuation, they will need to address new ways of scaling the app, expanding into other platforms and avoiding becoming just another fad. Special to the Chronicle As HQ’s users have increased, the feed has become routinely Scott Rogowsky (right) is the host of HQ Trivia, an app in which the user has to answer questions to win money. laggy, inspiring the pre-host intro to instruct people to jump on Contributing Reporter
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UNIVERSITY
New gender equity think tank looks to connect genderrelated initiatives By Claire Ballentine Towerview Editor
Numerous groups around Duke’s campus are focused on fostering gender equity and creating an inclusive environment for students—so many that it often gets confusing to keep up with them. A new initiative by Duke Student Government and the Women’s Center is working to increase communication and collaboration among the organizations. Called Think Gender, the group aims to provide a space for dialogue about gender-related issues—including gender bias and violence, sexism and homophobia—and to advocate on behalf those who have experienced gender discrimination. It also works to serve as a portal of campus resources for Duke’s LGBTQ+ and female-identifying students. Senior Jacqueline Monetta, director of gender equity for Duke Student Government, worked with current DSG president Riyanka Ganguly, a senior, this past summer to create the initiative. “I wanted to open discussion surrounding gender equity on campus,” Monetta said. “Instead of making a new group, I decided that Duke is doing amazing things on this topic, and some groups are doing the same projects and just not knowing about it.” The think tank held meetings about once a month last semester, for a total of about four sessions, and will continue See GENDER on Page 4
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Children barred from visiting DUHS hospitals amid worst flu season since 2009 By Shayal Vashisth Contributing Reporter
Children aren’t allowed to visit Duke University Health System hospitals, at least for the time being. Effective Jan. 8, Duke Health imposed restrictions to those visiting hospital and ambulatory surgery patients and banned visitors under the age of 18 as part of efforts to prevent the spread of flu. No more than two adults can be visiting an individual room at a given time. Additionally, any visitor with a fever, cough, flu-like symptoms or respiratory symptoms is to avoid visiting the hospital. “If you’re sick with respiratory symptoms, visiting people in the hospital is not for you,” Associate Professor of Medicine Cameron Wolfe wrote in an email. “That equally applies to our staff, who we always encourage to go home if they’re getting sick.”
Our primary focus is the health and safety of our patients and our volunteers.
Henry Haggart | Associate Photography Editor Any visitor displaying flu-like or respiratory symptoms are asked to avoid visiting the hospital.
sharon swanson
ARTS AND HEALTH PROGRAM COORDINATOR AND VOLUNTEER SERVICES MANAGER
These temporary initiatives were enacted due to current severity of the influenza outbreak. This year’s flu season is more intense than any since the 2009 swine flu pandemic and is still getting worse, noted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during a telephone news conference Friday. For those permitted to visit the hospital under the new restrictions, a few recommendations are in place. “Wash your hands frequently and use our hand washing stations that we place at the front of every entrance,” noted Wolfe, an infectious disease specialist.
The restriction on underage visitors is operationally challenging, Wolfe wrote, but necessary because younger children tend to be worse than adults at managing hand hygiene and can easily spread respiratory viruses. With prior approval from health care providers and in special circumstances, however, children under 18 are permitted to visit. “We, of course, allow unique situations to evolve, such as palliative care circumstances, provided we’ve thought carefully,” Wolfe wrote. See HOSPITALS on Page 4
Attention All Undergraduate Majors! Study Away at University of Glasgow in Fall 2018 Duke in Glasgow, Scotland Program Students from all majors are welcome to apply. Application Deadline: March 1, 2018 Information Session: Tuesday, January 30, 2018 5-6pm, Rubenstein Hall, Room 200 (NOT Rubenstein Library)
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GENDER FROM PAGE 3 this semester, Monetta explained. Representatives from campus groups discuss what projects they are currently working on and how others can help out with them. Some of the groups involved in the initiative include the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, Planned Parenthood, Blue Devils United and HeForShe. Monetta is also reaching out to other organizations to increase the project’s scope. “It’s more about what projects are going on on-campus and how can we help each other to make these projects more successful,” she said. “It was easier for us to all come together and share the conversations.” Senior Liza Rebold, who founded Duke’s chapter of Planned Parenthood, said that the think tank aims to combine resources to tackle some of the biggest gender problems on campus.
“I think that Think Gender is different just because we have the opportunity to meet with other groups on campus that I wouldn’t necessarily have been able to know or meet without this perfect storm of all these forces coming together,” she said. “It broadens my own perspective.” Last semester, the think tank worked to get free feminine hygiene products provided in Perkins Library. Monetta explained that Planned Parenthood had wanted to do this for a while and then realized through the group discussions that DSG was working on it as well. “There are so many awesome projects being done on campus, it should by no means be something that we’re competing to get attention for,” she said. The group also examined research being done by students to determine the discrepancy of male to female professors in STEM fields at Duke and is working to bring a speaker to campus to discuss women’s rights or gender fluidity. Monetta noted that she is working to include more groups and that any students interested in gender equity are welcome
to attend the meetings. Think Gender has recently been the subject of articles by conservative publications like The New American, The College Fix and The Daily Caller. Raven Clabough from The New American wrote that “Duke University is yet another leftist campus bent on promoting intersectional politics and the notions of ‘oppression’ and ‘victimhood’” in her article about the think tank, including a screenshot of its page on the Student Affairs website. However, Monetta said she wasn’t concerned by the criticism of the outlets. “They can say all they want, we’re making Duke a better place,” she said. Rebold agreed, noting that various groups have different perspective on gender issues. Think Gender is focusing on its own goals and not worrying about others. “We’re doing good work on campus,” she said. “Our main goal is inclusivity, we have no political objectives. We’re excited about the work that we’re doing.”
HOSPITALS
SNL
FROM PAGE 3
FROM PAGE 1
The initiatives are temporary and Wolfe wrote that though the measures are imperfect, he expects that they will make an impact, especially at the peak times of viral transmission. “No one single measure completely eliminates flu from coming into our hospital,” he wrote. “Especially given that most people become infectious just before they start showing signs and symptoms. As a result, they don’t usually do things to keep out of the way of vulnerable patients or family.” Beyond hospital visitors, the restrictions also affects hospital volunteers. Sharon Swanson, arts and health program coordinator and volunteer services manager, wrote in an email that volunteers—both community and Duke student volunteers—are expected to not report to volunteer assignments if they display any flu or cold symptoms. “Our primary focus is the health and safety of our patients and our volunteers, so we do require 100 percent compliance with the flu shot policy for all volunteers, which is the same as the policy for hospital staff,” she wrote. “In addition, volunteers are not authorized to enter the rooms of patients with contact or airborne precautions.”
“But Miller usually scatters away when someone turns the lights on—because he looks like a roach,” Che joked. Schumer, a Democrat from New York, told The New York Times’ podcast “The Daily” that he warned Trump against inviting Miller. “I said if you’re going to have Stephen Miller there or somebody like that, it’s not going to work,” Schumer said. Earlier this month, Miller reportedly helped invite several conservative members of Congress to a meeting with the president in order to scuttle a bipartisan immigration Courtesy of NBC compromise deal proposed by Republican Senators Dick Durbin Alum Stephen Miller, a senior policy advisor to President Donald Trump, was the butt of many jokes recently during Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update segment. and Lindsey Graham.
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MEN’S BASKETBALL
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RUNNING ON EMPTY
Missed free throws, rebounds cost Blue Devils late as starters play all but 6 minutes By Hank Tucker Sports Editor
With less than four minutes left and Duke trailing just 57-55, it played impressive zone defense for more than 20 seconds, eventually forcing Virginia sophomore Kyle Guy to throw up a wild airball from the short corner over Wendell Carter Jr.’s towering presence. But Guy darted down the baseline, beating both Marvin Bagley III and Trevon Duval to the rebound and then having the presence of mind to launch a desperation turnaround 3-pointer as the shot clock expired, that hit the backboard and bounced hard off the rim. Once again, the Cavaliers outworked the Blue Devils for the rebound, as big man Jack Salt got his hand on the ball before Carter and tapped it back to Ty Jerome. When the ball wound up in Guy’s hands seconds later in the corner off a pass from Devon Hall, he didn’t miss from deep again. Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski, Bagley and Duval all rejected the notion that fatigue played a role in the Blue Devils’ loss after the game, but the missed rebounding opportunities, missed free throws and a careless late turnover were all characteristic of a team that looked like it ran out of steam. Duke did not make a substitution in the
Sanjeev Dasgupta | Sports Photography Editor
Kyle Guy knocked down a 3-pointer to put the Cavaliers up by five after they got two offensive rebounds on a key possession.
M. BASKETBALL FROM PAGE 1 After Marvin Bagley III’s easy slam cut the lead to 60-58, Guy missed an open triple, but Virginia got the ball right back on a steal by Ty Jerome off an ill-advised pass by Trevon Duval. “It’s never one play. A lot of things go into the game and that pass, we throw all the time,” senior Grayson Allen said. “You obviously have to know time, but running is a huge part of our offense and it’s hard to just turn that off at the end. Jerome really made a good play because I didn’t think he was as close as he was, and he went up and got the ball.” Jerome then nailed a dagger triple from the top of the key to stretch the Cavalier lead
second half, and its bench played a combined six minutes in the entire game. Bagley, Grayson Allen and Gary Trent Jr. each played all 40 minutes, and Carter and Duval only received three minutes of rest in two short spurts of the first half.
“If we want to win something really big, your best players have to play a lot of minutes, and I think that’s what the regular season is about, is preparing for March,” Krzyzewski said. “Some of the rebounding, the plays were relentless for us. They were unbelievable. My
to five with 38 seconds remaining. “I was definitely surprised he took it. I was right there. My hand was up and everything,” Duval said. “He made a really great shot. There was a lot of time on the clock, shot clock, everything, and I guess he had the confidence to just take that shot, and he drained it.” Virginia would go on to miss consecutive front-ends of one-and-ones, leaving the door ever so slightly open for Duke. After Bagley hit a 3-pointer to cut it to two, Guy calmly sank a pair of free throws with 10 seconds remaining to ice the game. Coming into Saturday’s battle of top-five teams, the big storyline was Duke’s top-ranked offense against Virginia’s best defense in the nation. And in the first half, Virginia’s defense was the story, holding the Blue Devils (18-3,
6-3 in the ACC) to a season-low 22 points with its suffocating pack-line scheme. But Duke roared back into the game behind the duo of Wendell Carter Jr. and Bagley. The Blue Devils matched their first-half output of 22 points in just an eight-minute span in the second half, getting easy looks by making extra passes and refusing to settle for contested jump shots. Bagley and Carter both recorded double-doubles and finished with 30 and 14 points, respectively. “We moved the ball well and started to play through our bigs where we could get more highlow action as they were X-ing out and switching on ball screens,” Allen said. “A lot of it is Marvin and Wendell making great plays when not much is drawn up, and a lot of it is moving the ball and making good passes.” Duke’s defense—the same defense that allowed more than 90 points in consecutive ACC games in December and January—put forth a much better effort in the second half. The Blue Devils forced the ball out of the hands of Jerome and Guy, and Virginia’s offense went cold as a result, with the Cavaliers (20-1, 9-0) missing eight of their first nine triples and shooting just 35.1 percent in the second half. Duke allowed Isaiah Wilkins to sit in the middle of their 2-3 zone, but the Cavaliers’ forward struggled from the mid-range. Despite having only two players with experience at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Cavaliers were poised from the opening tip. After Duke got four quick points from its freshman bigs, Virginia applied the clamps for much of the first half. Although Bagley and Carter combined for 16 of Duke’s 22 first-half points, the Cavaliers made life difficult for the Blue Devils by denying easy entry passes and contesting every shot at the rim. Duke’s season-low first half point total was also due to struggles from the Blue Devil
Sanjeev Dasgupta | Sports Photography Editor
Marvin Bagley III finished with 30 points yet again and added 14 rebounds, but received little help from his teammates on the perimeter.
guys played their hearts out. I feel bad for them, but it’s the way it is.” The Blue Devils made a long surge to rally from a 13-point deficit in the first 10 minutes of the second half, briefly snatching a four-point lead. Earlier this season, against Texas, Florida and Miami, that type of short burst of energy and execution was enough to erase similar deficits and win. But Virginia— probably the best team Duke has faced this season—refused to fold. “They were really tough. For letting us come out that way in the second half, they didn’t let that knock them down,” Duval said. “That was really good on their end.” With the Cavaliers on their heels, the visitors made a key adjustment to capitalize on a deeper rotation than that of the Blue Devils. Forward Isaiah Wilkins was ineffective offensively after the Blue Devils switched to a 2-3 zone defense, unable to knock down multiple wide-open jumpers from the hole in the zone at the elbow. So Tony Bennett replaced Wilkins with dynamic 6-foot-7 redshirt freshman De’Andre Hunter, and his fresh legs almost singlehandedly stemmed the tide. Hunter scored eight of Virginia’s 13 points in a run that turned a four-point Cavalier See DEPTH on Page 13
backcourt. In the first 20 minutes, Allen, Duval and Gary Trent Jr. combined for six turnovers and just six points on 3-of-16 shooting. On the other end, Guy and Jerome created good looks for the Cavalier forwards and were able to manufacture their own offense by getting by Duke’s first line of defense on a number of possessions. “The first half, our guys have not been in a game like that, and it looked that way,” Krzyzewski said. “They made us not play well, and the level of intensity and the high level of defense and offense that they play knocked us back.” Virginia built a 32-22 halftime lead by holding Duke scoreless during two extended stretches and going on a 16-6 run of its own. Looking to make their fourth comeback from a double-digit second-half deficit this year, the Blue Devils went on a quick 12-2 run behind a strong stretch of defense. Duke tied the game just seconds later after a bizarre possession led to five quick points. Carter’s attempt at a lob from beyond the arc to Bagley went in the basket, while Bagley drew a foul on the post-up. Carter then finished with a slam on the ensuing inbounds play to tie the game at 39. But after the teams went back and forth late in the second half, Virginia pulled away by corralling a pair of second chances off of offensive rebounds and getting big shots from its best players. “You can’t be surprised when it goes in because good players make big shots like that,” Allen said. The loss drops Duke three full games behind Virginia in the battle for the ACC regular-season crown. The Blue Devils will have to put the loss behind them in a hurry with a quick turnaround before taking the floor at home Monday night against Notre Dame.
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WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Blue Devils close with 15-2 run to top Pittsburgh By Hank Tucker Sports Editor
After a week of uncharacteristic highscoring shootouts, the Blue Devils are back to winning with their defense. No. 18 Duke staved off Pittsburgh Sunday afternoon on the road at Petersen Events Center, winning 58-46 and holding the Panthers to just 32.8 percent shooting. After Pittsburgh rallied DUKE 58 from an 18-point 46 deficit to take its first PITT lead of the game at 44-43 in the fourth quarter, graduate student Lexie Brown scored five straight points to quickly put the Blue Devils back in the driver’s seat. They closed the game on a 15-2 run spanning more than six minutes. Graduate student Rebecca Greenwell followed up Brown’s five quick points with a triple from the corner, and the Panthers did not come closer than five points the rest of the way. “We just got a sense of urgency,” Brown told GoDuke.com. “It wasn’t good that it took us to lose our lead for us to wake up during that game, but we really came together as a team... and played that last six minutes the way we should have played the entire game.” Pittsburgh native Erin Mathias shined in the final homecoming trip of her career, scoring 12 points and adding 10 rebounds for her third double-double of the season. Brown was the only Duke player to join Mathias in double
figures, finishing with 20 points. “It was really fun. I know a lot of people that were in the crowd tonight, and I could hear them yelling my name, so that helps with encouragement and knowing that I have a lot of people here that love me,” Mathias told GoDuke.com. “It was a tough game, but we fought really hard, especially in the fourth quarter.” The Blue Devils (17-5, 6-3 in the ACC) shot out to a 12-2 lead in the first five minutes of the game, with five different players making its first five shots from the field. Graduate students Brown and Greenwell knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers to create some separation. Pittsburgh remained close deep into the second quarter, but Duke scored the last eight points of the half, including another triple for both Brown and Greenwell, to take what appeared to be a comfortable 30-15 lead. “I was pretty aggressive offensively the entire game, which I think was definitely helpful toward the end of the game. I didn’t really take a break,” Brown said. “It was nice to see some of those shots go in, and just staying aggressive is super important so when the game becomes tight, I can be able to step up and make big plays for us.” The Panthers (9-13, 1-8) did not go away quietly, though, exceeding their first-half scoring output in the third quarter alone. A 17-6 run to end the quarter trimmed the Blue Devil lead to just 41-34 entering the final period, and Pittsburgh continued to chip away
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Pittsburgh native Erin Mathias posted her third double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds in her final homecoming. early in the fourth quarter until it finally pulled in front for a brief 18-second span when Kyla Nelson sank a 3-pointer. Redshirt junior Yacine Diop more than held her own in the post for the Panthers as an undersized forward at just 5-foot-10, notching a double-double with 19 points and 15 rebounds. Despite having only one player taller than 6-foot-2, the Panthers nearly matched Duke on the boards. “We’re getting there. I really like Erin’s
10 rebounds and Becca’s eight. I don’t like many others, though,” Blue Devil head coach Joanne P. McCallie told GoDuke. com. “Their star player—she was fabulous and she got a double-double, and we didn’t really stop her from getting rebounds, so we’ve got to work on that.” Duke will return home to Cameron Indoor Stadium to host Georgia Tech Thursday night before welcoming No. 5 Notre Dame for a marquee matchup next Sunday.
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Trumping out in Cameron
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n a recent poll by Public Policy Polling, 839 voters in North Carolina were asked to identify their political affiliations, as well as their personal choice between the Duke Blue Devils and UNC Tar Heels. Though the methodology of the poll leaves much to be desired, the results suggest that Trump voters marginally prefer Duke basketball over UNC basketball, with Clinton voters displaying an opposite trend— supporting UNC over Duke by a wide margin. Given Duke’s image as a supposedly “liberal” university, the results of the poll may come across as someone shocking to the average Duke student. Nonetheless, given the image of Duke as an elite institution, along with the role of sports as a greater unifier within American culture, the dual image of a Trump voter/Cameron Crazie perhaps is not altogether surprising. Trump voters may be motivated partly by a sense of elitism in that Duke is a top-tier university whose basketball program is a worldclass program. The media stereotype that most Trump voters represent disgruntled working-class people in the Rust Belt has been largely disproven, as many of his 2016 electoral supporters in fact
onlinecomment “This is the greatest thing I have ever read.”
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— The Lawn Care Nut, Allyn Hane, on Friday Friday’s Jan. 26 column, “Duke basketball commits reveal love of landscaping”
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LIKHITHA BUTCHIREDDYGARI, Editor HANK TUCKER, Sports Editor KENRICK CAI, News Editor SAM TURKEN, Managing Editor VIR PATEL, Senior Editor ADAM BEYER, Digital Strategy Team Director IAN JAFFE, Photography Editor JACKSON PRINCE, Editorial Page Editor ALAN KO, Editorial Board Chair SYDNEY ROBERTS, Editorial Board Chair CHRISSY BECK, General Manager ISABELLE DOAN, University News Department Head BRE BRADHAM, Local & National News Head NATHAN LUZUM, Health & Science News Head SHAGUN VASHISTH, Health & Science News Head JIM LIU, News Photography Editor WILL ATKINSON, Recess Editor NINA WILDER, Recess Managing Editor SUJAL MANOHAR, Recess Photography Editor SANJEEV DASGUPTA, Sports Photography Editor MITCHELL GLADSTONE, Sports Managing Editor LEAH ABRAMS, Editorial Page Managing Editor CARLY STERN, Editorial Page Managing Editor NEAL VAIDYA, Audio Editor JAMIE COHEN, Social Media Editor JEREMY CHEN, Graphic Design Editor CLAIRE BALLENTINE, Towerview Editor JUAN BERMUDEZ, Online Photography Editor NEELESH MOORTHY, Towerview Editor NEELESH MOORTHY, Investigations Editor ABIGAIL XIE, Investigations Editor CAROLYN CHANG, Towerview Photography Editor CAROLINE BROCKETT, Recruitment Chair CLAIRE BALLENTINE, Recruitment Chair SHAGUN VASHISTH, Recruitment Chair SARAH KERMAN, Senior News Reporter KATHERINE BERKO, Senior News Reporter LEXI KADIS, Senior News Reporter BRENDA LARSON, Advertising Director JULIE MOORE, Creative Director 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 1517 Hull Avenue call 684-3811. To reach the Advertising Office at 2022 Campus Drive call 684-3811. One copy per person; additional copies may be purchased for .25 at The Chronicle Business office at the address above. @ 2018 Duke Student Publishing Company
hailed from families of the upper middle-class. Overall, Trump in 2016 also secured a large percentage of the populist voter group who are economically liberal but socially conservative. Consequently, it is perhaps not too surprising that a good number of residents in North Carolina— which voted Republican in the 2016 election—see in Duke some of the values and traits trumpeted by the current administration: privately run, heavily endowed (no pun intended), and highly selective.
Editorial Board Duke basketball, much like sports in general, serves as a unifier of people. People from a myriad of backgrounds come together to show a visceral solidarity for their team to secure victory on game day. Cameron Indoor Stadium is consistently packed to the brim with thousands of people, each professing a diverse set of political beliefs. On the surface, the unity that is expressed is to be commended and should remind all of us that we are more than our identities. In the spirit of
the Duke experience, we possess the ability to function as a larger organism that is capable of accomplishing more than what we could do on our own. Unfortunately, people have taken this cohesion as license to dismiss the realm of politics should it conflict with their Sunday night football and related sports—a phenomenon that we have commented on in the past. Last year, NFL fans expressed great displeasure with Colin Kapernick’s kneeling during the National Anthem, along with similar actions by other sports figures. Likewise, politics can somehow inexplicably find its way into Cameron—as exemplified by the recent poll. Politics and sports function in tandem. To assert that anyone should leave politics out of the discussion engages in a distorted reality in which entertainment is absent of any real-life influences and social consequences. Duke students should consider this when attending their next basketball game. Their neighbors have views that may conflict with their own, yet sports allow each one to function in spite of their differences. The next time you go to Cameron, look at the person sitting next to you—that person sporting a Laettner jersey might also be a Trump fan.
Arboreal apologetics
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aving a column is quite the experience. Essentially, the world has handed me a microphone and asked me to yell my opinion at it. As a raging egomaniac, I gladly oblige. So here you are, and here I am. What should we talk about? There’s no lack of options. My fellow columnists are doing incredible work dissecting our current political climate, the complex psyche of the college student, issues of race and rationality and stratified power. You should check them out. I think I’m going to talk to you about trees for a while. Cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and cloves all come
Mihir Bellamkonda SMALL QUESTIONS
from trees. The Khasi people of India shape the roots of living rubber trees into bridges. The earliest tree fossils date back to the Middle Devonian period, 385 million years ago. I once tried to repot a bonsai tree my mom had owned for longer than I’d been alive. It died. Trees have a theoretical maximum height of 430 feet. The tallest currently known specimen is a Coast Redwood in California named Hyperion that is 380 feet tall. Legend says that Cativolcus, Celtic king of the Ebirones, killed himself with a poisonous derivative of the yew tree rather than submit to Caesar’s conquest. In 1913, Willa Cather said “I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.” Also in 1913, Joyce Kilmer wrote “Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.” 1913 was apparently a big year for trees. But then, isn’t every year? The word tree comes from the Middle English tre, which comes from the Old English treo, which comes from the Proto-Germanic trewa, which comes from the pre-Germanic dréwom, which comes from the Proto-Indo-European dóru, which comes from somewhere we don’t know. Hura crepitans, also known as the sandbox tree, possumwood, hura, jabillo, and monkey-no-climb, is a tree native to tropical rainforests in North and South America. Its sap is traditionally used by the Caribs to poison the tips of arrows. Its trunk is completely covered by defensive spikes. It spreads its seeds in a process known as explosive dehiscence or ballistic dispersal. Mature seed pods burst violently open along strategically weakened axes, launching seeds as far as 330 feet away at a speed of 160 miles per hour. The noise created by this process is quite distinctive and has given crepitans a final appellation: the dynamite tree. When I was a kid, we had a small stand of young pine trees in our backyard. I once ventured out into them, armed with a pocketknife and the iron determination of childhood. I spent ten minutes carefully sawing
through the base of a six-foot pine. The bark peeled off in smooth long strips, revealing the wood beneath. It was silky, beautifully alive, and so pale it almost hurt to look at in the spring sunlight. I trimmed the branches, rounded the ends, placed the discarded needles almost reverently where the tree had stood in a gesture of respect or conquest or serendipity. I still remember the stickiness of the sap, the way its sharp, clean scent drifted with lazy intention through the air. In the great state of Utah, about a mile southwest of Fish Lake on Utah State Route 25, there is a sudden burst of yellow leaves punctuated by elegant lines of white—a grove of male Quaking Aspen trees. The grove has been confirmed through genetic testing to all be one enormous clonal organism, connected through a sprawling root system. The organism is called “Pando,” Latin for “I spread.” Pando spans 43 hectares, or about the area of 2016 double decker buses parked next to each other. It is the heaviest single organism in the world, at an estimated six million kilograms. Some have placed its age at a close to a million years. Pando germinated in a era of glaciers; scientists currently believe these were crucial to its germination and speculate that its last successful flowering was 10,000 years ago. If you ever visit, you can lie on the ground in the midst of this ancient titan and simply stare at the blue of the sky through pale trunks and leaves as yellow as a preschooler’s dreams of school buses. Recently, Pando has begun to die. We have no concrete idea why. So. That’s 633 words on trees. We’ve covered the arboreal. What about the apologetics? You’ve just spent some fraction of your rapidly dwindling time on this earth reading a column that many would call unnecessary at best and vacuous at worst. And while you, in a lot of ways, handed me the microphone, I, and I alone, am ultimately responsible for what I’ve said into it. It’s a responsibility that I take seriously. So how can I justify using my platform like this? The trouble with apologetics, theological or arboreal, is that they try to bridge the everyday and the extranormal with words, a task that is as inherently noble as it is consistently fruitless. Let me suggest a different approach. Deviate from the course of your regularly scheduled day for a minute. Best do it now, before you forget. Find a good tree; I’ve found that one can usually be found in the course of a five minute walk. Walk up to it, brushing aside foliage as necessary. You might feel foolish; you might attract the gaze of concerned strangers. Ignore this. Notice the lines the branches make against the sky, the gentle tracing that the veins of the leaves make, the subtle living strength of something that inhabits a special, slower world. Press your hands to the trunk, whether rough oak or supple magnolia or peeling parchment birch. Close your eyes. Mihir Bellamkonda is a Trinity first-year. His column runs on alternate Mondays.
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Tallman Trask Drops Comeback Album: ‘I’m Back, Bigger, and All the Words that Rhyme with Bigger’
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adies and gentlemen, stop whatever it is you’re doing and give a warm round of applause to Tallman Trask for rolling up his sleeves, pulling a postRihanna Chris Brown and getting back into the music business. The Executive Vice President of Duke has stormed back from rap retirement to grace us with a mixtape that has left critics speechless. For all you boys and girls too young to remember the name Tallman Trask, he’s the reason the Duke Community Standard now includes an asterisk: I will not lie*, cheat or steal in my endeavors; *Exceptions can be made for highranking administration officials that directly lie to The Chronicle about hit-and-run car incidents. Back in 2016, Trask launched his career with his award-winning album, “Game Day Parking” which featured hit tracks like: “Underwood Under the Hood”; “Of My Car”; “Think White Rappers Can’t Use Racial Slurs?”; “Hold My Beer”, “Lyin’ to the Papers”; “ Gadzooks! They’ve Occupied the Allen Building”, “How Low Can You Lay?”; “Nuisance Value”; and “God DAMN I Love Being a Wealthy White Guy with Lawyers”. Critics heaped praise on the album, with a professor in Duke’s Nobel Prize-winning Department of Music raving, “I mean the flow in that four-line chorus of “Under the Hood” where he rhymes ‘trigger,’ ‘rigour,’ ‘digger’ and—you know what, I won’t spoil it for you but it’s so good it should it be illegal.” Needless to say, hype levels were at fever pitch as Plumpton Sheeple—a.k.a.
DJ Plumpy Sheep (Trask’s manager at Small Town Records)—convened a press conference on the steps of the Duke Chapel to announce “IBBAATWTRWB” (the conveniently abbreviated title for Trask’s new album). Sheeple announced that the album’s content and timing was a calculated move to retain relevance. “Let’s be honest,” he explained, “We’ve got a pretty forgetful
collaborating with students in Tri Delta and ADPhi to make his hit track “Snow Day,” already tapped for a Grammy. Meanwhile, President Emeritus Brodhead contributed “Dick in a Box”, the music video for which features the 70-year-old marching around West Union slapping food out of peoples’ hands, shouting “You best be calling it ‘The Richard Brodhead Center for Campus Life’ or be ready for a motherf**king knife fight.”
Ladies and gentlemen, stop whatever it is you’re doing and give a warm round of applause to Tallman Trask for rolling up his sleeves, pulling a post-Rihanna Chris Brown and getting back into the music business. MONDAY MONDAY
not not true
student body with at best a four-year institutional memory. They’ll clap their hands together for basketball like seals on crack, but when it comes to rap or, say, institutional issues, things usually die down in a few weeks and it all blows over.” He added, “That’s really at the core of why we wanted to put this album together; to remind the world that Tallman’s still here, he’s somehow still your Vice President and he’s still spitting bars.” As its tracklist was unveiled it became clear that “IBBAATWTRWB” was by no means a solo achievement; in fact it took an administration-wide effort, with several other officials featuring in the 45-minute rap rollercoaster. Larry Moneta lived up to his job title of Vice President of Student Affairs by
However, just as Plumpton Sheeple was bringing the press conference to an end, he was interrupted by a group of protesters. The students, who had entirely forgotten about the existence of Trask until the announcement of the comeback album, were appalled to hear that they still shared a campus with a rapper so morally abhorrent. Within seconds, they had filled the stage brandishing a stupidly long sign bearing the hashtag #WeKindaThinkTraskIsADisgrace AndShouldLeaveTheRapGameForGood. Following a brief shouting match, the protesters allowed Sheeple to respond: “Ok, first off—awful hashtag. It’s way too long, it’s clunky and it’s not even fun to chant. Seriously, have any of you even used Twitter? Take some free advice from a music producer: keep it catchy and short,
like #TraskMustFall. Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m helping you.” “But finally, let me just put this whole controversy to bed; when we released ‘Game Day Parking’ it was during an entirely different era in the rap game. What you pesky kids are trying to do is apply the standards of today to a situation that happened a full two years ago when felonious hit-and-runs, the silencing of protests and institutionalised racism were the norm—in fact they were seen as things we admired in our leaders at Duke. Calling for Trask’s resignation from rap is like demanding that we take down a statue of Robert E. Lee for the goofy racist shenanigans he got up to back in his day— you wouldn’t do that, right?” Monday Monday has since learned that Duke President Vincent E. Price is also entering the rap game, though rumours are still swirling as to whether he will be titling his debut album “More Platitudes” or “Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is On My New Vision For Duke”. History is watching him. Correction: Monday Monday earlier stated mistakenly that Duke’s Department of Music was “Nobel Prize-winning”; as of yet the department has been awarded no such title but Monday Monday is optimistic that if they keep slathering that thick, jazzflavoured sauce all over their Christian rock jam sessions something will definitely come along soon. This is now the third time Monday Monday has made such an error; Monday Monday feels nothing but endless shame and vows that this will be the last time such an instance occurs.
Not counting on Duke
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hen I graduate in a little more than a year, I will have Duke to thank for a plethora of valuable lessons that have been made available to me in the best ways possible. Math will not have been one of those lessons. My first year here, I quickly learned that my peers either excelled in the humanities or in math and science, but never both. It’s been rumored on the Duke meme page that Pratt students don’t actually know how to read, and while I marvel in those jokes, I’m pretty sure I’m losing the ability to count as time goes on. Addition with digits larger than ten takes me longer than I’d like to admit, and although I left high school with an understanding of basic biology, I now have genuinely no idea how anything biology, chemistry or physics related works. That is, other than knowing that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. Duke’s Trinity School of Arts & Sciences supposedly has policies in place to combat this. Under the “Curriculum Philosophy” tab on Trinity’s website, Duke explains that “it is an important objective of the curriculum to expose Trinity College students to a broad array of course work in a variety of academic disciplines even as they concentrate their focus on the area of their major.” The “Areas of Knowledge” requirement, they guarantee, “insures this breadth of exposure to different ideas and approaches to learning.” I completely ignored all Trinity requirements until the second semester of my sophomore year, meaning my “breadth
of exposure” stayed pretty limited to arts and humanities classes. And when I say pretty limited, I mean entirely limited. When it came time to expand my horizons and find more exposure to my breath, I of course had a deluge of math and science courses to pick from, and ended up settling for Compsci 101. My mother was thrilled. What a perfect way to learn a valuable skill, build up my resume and make
wanted to code, I could probably sit force myself to learn. But I haven’t forced myself, and probably won’t. And Duke certainly won’t either. Because instead of Compsci 101, I took another class that counted for a qualitative science credit that was undoubtedly a waste of everyone’s time. I’d say every year there’s a repertoire of five or six of these classes that are certifiably easy as can be, even for
When it came time to expand my horizons and find more exposure to my breath, I of course had a deluge of math and science courses to pick from, and ended up settling for Compsci 101. My mother was thrilled. DANIELA FLAMINI columnist
myself more “adaptable” in preparation for my future career path. I lasted a week and a half before dropping the class on the last day of Drop/ Add, joining instead a foreign policy in Latin America class that fulfilled one of the regional requirements for my ICS major. Oh, and another plus was that it wasn’t taught in a giant lecture hall with 400 students, 399 of which seemed to know exactly what they were doing while I sat there miserable and realized I’d never learn how to code. A 2016 article from Quartz explains that “two out of three developers are selftaught,” and those who skip the PhD to learn at home don’t necessarily get financially compensated for the extra time they spent in school. So I know that if I
requirement: “Successful completion of two Physical Education Activities is required. All students are also required to pass a swimming test or take beginning swimming for one term to fulfill the swimming requirement.” I guess it’s refreshing that Columbia deeply cares about preventing its students from ever drowning. But I also know deep down that if I was required to take a swimming class, I’d probably find one that took place in a kiddie pool and supplied us with floaties. It does make me sad and a bit concerned that I am losing a sharpness with numbers I once possessed; in high school, I was often top of my math classes. I used to love solving problems for homework in between the reading and writing I had to do, because doing math offered me a way to escape into a comforting alternate reality where everything had an answer and a straightforward explanation. Most other things in life do not offer such certainty. But at Duke, I very much had to pick my allegiance to either arts or sciences very quickly. I could not exist as someone with a respectable knowledge of both worlds; I had to be laughably terrible at one of them, either a member of the Trinity breed or of the endangered Pratt. And so, while I feel deep gratitude for all the things I have learned at Duke, please just don’t ask me to number them. Because I genuinely can’t count or add that well.
Trinity juniors who have regressed to using fingers to do math again. These are the classes we take to expand our “breadth” and graduate. The alternative is to take real science classes, something useful like compsci or statistics or maybe even actual mathematics, and take a whopping hit to our GPAs. And since these courses are already saturated by students who haven’t lost the ability to count, they’re practically guaranteed to be awful experiences. Duke’s curriculum isn’t the only one that uses requirements to make its students explore other subject areas, nor is it the harshest. Columbia University not only has science, global core, and foreign language Daniela Flamini is a Trinity junior. Her requirements, and even a physical education column runs on alternate Mondays.
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RESTAURANTS FROM PAGE 1 will continue to do so in the future. Humble beginnings Gross, who’s lived in Durham for 22 years now, noted that when he first opened his businesses, the Durham food scene was drastically different. “It was really great because [there were] just a handful of restaurants, you only came downtown for a specific restaurant and meal,” he said. “It wasn’t thriving to where it is today.” There were about ten restaurants downtown at the time, whereas now he estimates that more than 50 fill the eclectic area. Charlie Deal remembers when downtown Durham was devoid of popular eateries. The current owner of Dos Perros and Juju Asian Tapas and Bar, he was exposed to the restaurant business at a young age because his parents loved food.
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He later realized he enjoyed cooking even more than restaurants and opened a clandestine eatery out of his apartment in California. After moving to Durham with his wife, he decided to open a more legal establishment and started Dos Perros in 2009. “Downtown, there was nothing going on at all,” he said. “The vast majority of places currently were not there.” He said Dos Perros wasn’t the first downtown eatery but there were only two or three before him. He was attracted to the area because the Durham Performing Arts Center had recently opened, and there weren’t enough restaurants to support the crowds coming downtown for a bite before seeing a show. Wendy Woods—owner of Piper’s in the Park, Grub, NOSH and Jo Rae Cafe—said that the Durham restaurant scene evolved as the popularity of Research Triangle Park grew. She got her start in the restaurant world working as a hostess and then began moving up the ranks. After a stint in Atlanta working for a corporation that opened restaurants, she moved back to Durham—her hometown—and started Piper’s in the Park in 1999. “The first restaurant job I had, I knew that’s what I wanted
The Chronicle to do for the rest of my life,” she said. She noted that the Durham restaurant boom has paved the way for more independent eateries like her businesses and less of the chains that often take over. In addition, Duke’s popularity has drawn people from across the United States, many of whom appreciate good, authentic food. “With people from other parts of the country moving to Durham, it’s a whole different avenue,” she said. “It’s way different than when we first started.” The Durham restaurant world Since the Durham food scene exploded, a handful of famous business owners have shaped the restaurant atmosphere. Along with Gross, Deal and Woods, Matt Kelly runs popular spots Saint James Seafood, Vin Rouge, Mateo Bar de Tapas, Mothers and Sons Trattoria and Lucky’s Delicatessen. Gray Brooks owns Pizzeria Toro, Jack Tar and the Colonel’s Daughter and Littler. Gross said it’s only natural for restaurant owners to want to expand their empires. “Anybody who is into food has all kinds of food ideas in their head,” he said. “If you can get one idea to work, it gives you confidence.” However, he said that it is incredibly difficult to manage multiple establishments and admires anyone who does. For his part, he wants to open at least five more eateries but declined to reveal any of his ideas. Deal explained that having one popular business allows you to get your foot in the door and makes it easier for future projects to be successful. Sometimes, building owners who have an open space will approach prominent restaurateurs and ask if they want to open an eatery there. “They are inclined to go to someone who is already known in the community,” he said. For Woods, expansion is not always something planned— it’s more about the opportunities that arise if the public likes what you’re doing. “I don’t think I was trying to have more than one, but the right opportunities presented themselves and then you have to make a decision,” she said. Still, all three restaurateurs described the Durham food scene as a welcoming environment, especially for newcomers hoping to try out their ideas. “We’re willing to give advice,” Woods said. “I think the restaurant community is very intertwined, I feel very supported.” There’s even a Facebook page for downtown restaurant owners, Gross noted. He said there’s great friendship among the independent owners because of the nature of the industry—it’s a small world. They often see each other at food shows and wine shows, which foster relationships. “I don’t feel like anybody is threatening our business in any way,” he said. “We do our thing, and we do it well.” Deal noted that when a new place opens up, all the restaurant owners are racing to try it out. Even though they realize their own establishment will have a dip in sales, they are still welcoming to new entrants. However, the hype surrounding Durham’s food scene means that you can’t open a restaurant quietly, which has its own drawbacks. Eateries don’t always have time to work through all their initial growing pains before being flooded with customers. “You’re rarely firing on all cylinders,” he said. “Some people realize it, others expect you to be perfect right from the get go.” Durham’s future Deal noted that with the growth of the Durham restaurant scene in the past ten years, new businesses have to work harder to separate themselves from the rest of the pack. There are so many different kinds of cuisine that entrants have to find some way to make their business unique. In the future, he said he thinks that more regional specialities will open up. “You need to differentiate yourself by not just being Italian but being North Italian, he said. “I expect that trend to happen now that somebody has done the general version, there will be specialization.” For Gross, gentrification and rising rents represent the future of downtown Durham. He worries that independent establishments will move out, and bigger companies will take over. In addition, the high rents have led to a lack of workers, which has impacted many restaurants. “There isn’t a solid labor pool of experienced people— that’s true for any city going through gentrification,” he said. “The best [restaurants] will survive, that’s just how the business works.” Woods said she doesn’t really know where Durham’s food scene will go next, and she’s okay with that. The public will tell the owners what they want to see, she explained. “I think Durham is a great city, I grew up here and I’ve seen it go through different stages. But we love our restaurants, I love my customers and I’m just going to keep going down that road,” she said.