The Aquilian - February 2017 | Vol 79, No 4

The Aquilian 19 Eye St, NW February 2017 Gonzaga College High School Washington, DC 20001 Volume 79, Number 4 Men For Others Since 1821 www.theaquilian.com

Historic Beginning to Black History Month By: Kyle Brown ‘18 Contributor On Friday, February 3, and Monday, February 6, Gonzaga was graced with the presence of two phenomenal men.

On Friday, we got to listen to Bryan Stevenson, author of our summer reading book Just Mercy: a Story of Justice and Redemption, and on Monday, we listened to civil rights activist, living legend, and American hero Congressman John Lewis.

Both men shared stories of relentless effort and hope with us. The men spoke of hope, justice, unity, equality, and closeness. Bryan

Stevenson charged us to get close by getting face-to-face with situations and injustices.

Congressman Lewis charged us to get into “good trouble.”

The respected men gave messages of unity and justice that we can all learn from.

Bryan Stevenson challenged us all to try and make a change. He believes in youth and thinks we can change the world. We can change the world by “beating the drum of justice.” In his message, he delivered to us the five steps in changing the world: First, we must “understand the value of individual identity.” Stevenson believes that there is “power in identity.” We must know, love, and

respect our identities.

We can find our identity through proximity, which is Stevenson’s second point.

Proximity, is one of the most important themes that has risen in the past few days.

Bryan Stevenson told us that there is “power in proximity.” Both Bryan Stevenson and Congressman Lewis are living proof of the power of proximity. Stevenson always gets close to his cases and clients. This way he brings about change. He got close to the young boy whom he spoke of that killed his mother’s abusive boyfriend.

By “getting close,” he was able to get him out of the adult correctional facility

and eventually exonerated.

If Bryan Stevenson never got close, he would not be a successful lawyer and activist.

To successfully bring about change we need to also “change the narrative.”

Changing the narrative takes strength and effort. For his example, Mr. Stevenson used the civil rights movement. It was not “a three day carnival,” he told us. The author reminded us that Rosa Parks did not refuse to give up her seat on day one, Dr. King did not speak at the March on Washington on day two, and on day three Jim Crow laws died. He reminded us it took multitudes of people who understood their identity and

Fencing, p.2

Camden, p.4

Hockey, p.5

Heart Health & NBA, p.8

the “power of proximity.” By getting rid of presumptions they made big changes. If we get rid of the presumption that the civil rights movement was short and simple and that there still are race issues in 2017, we can take a step in making change.

In order to accomplish these things, we must have hope. “Hope is the enemy of injustice,” Bryan Stevenson said powerfully. If we do not have hope, we cannot make change.

Finally we must be willing to be uncomfortable. The reality is that when dealing with big issues we will be uncomfortable. When we are Continued on page 2

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Gonzaga Fencing Club By: Tommy Fisher ‘19 Contributor The Gonzaga Fencing Club practices the traditional, competitive, and unique art of sport fencing. Founded at Gonzaga in 2006, this year’s Gonzaga Fencing Club has been meeting and practicing every Monday and Thursday since the start of the school year in the Lower Commons.

The club uses a weapon called a foil, which is a thrusting sword. The fencer hits the opponent in the target area of the torso with the tip of the sword. The fencers wear safety gear including a mask, a glove, breeches and

a jacket in order to protect themselves.

During practice, the fencers work on footwork and technique, and they also practice strategy and free fencing. To prepare for matches, the Fencing Club practices frequently. Because a fencer is trying to get a hit while simultaneously defending himself, there is a lot strategy involved and a need to flow quickly between attack and defense.

Head Coach Frank Kelly, Assistant Coach Barbara Nierman, Assistant Coach Walther (’11), and Supervisor Rob Horan have been

leading the practices. Coach Kelly has over 17 years of experience teaching fencing at all levels, and is a certified Armorer, the person who repairs and maintains fencing gear.

All the practice is earning results for the team. In the February 2nd competition against Georgetown Prep, Gonzaga swept the Varsity, JV1, and JV2 strips. Varsity won their match 45-43, JV2 won their match 45-29, and JV1 won their match 45-40.

In the team’s first competition of the year on November 17 also against Georgetown Prep, Senior Captain Greg Molock, Co-Captain, and Junior Alex Ballestero, Co-Captain and Armorer, led Varsity and JV2 to win their strips. Molock was able to score the winning point in a 45-44 competition, while JV2 won their match 43-42.

According to Coach Nierman, the team’s goal for the season is to win back the Washington Collegiate

Fencing League trophy. The trophy is currently held by Georgetown Prep, and Gonzaga will have a chance to win it back at the end of the year by having the most varsity victories against their competitor schools of Prep, St. Anselm, and Landon.

If you’re looking for a unique sport in which to participate or to support, check out the Gonzaga Fencing Club. The “noble art of defense”, as it is called, is alive and well at Gonzaga.

Invisible: Without a Home, and Less By: Matthew Gannon‘18 Editor The Dupont Circle fountain sits forgotten, ignored as thousands of tourists, businessmen, and cars pass. Its water has been turned off.

Eyes glance at it, unseeing.

Its permanence is undeniable, a simple fact.

Nearby, another statue lies forgotten. Snow falls gently on his shoulders with the weight of a frustrated life.

Justin sits wrapped under a threadbare blanket, the fountain reflected in his eyes.

Their stories are the same. Blue suits and Star-

bucks coffees walk through their circle their faces blurred by discomfort, seeing but not noticing. Why should we care? Statues are forgettable realities.

Justin leans towards me eagerly. No one has stopped to talk to him in days. His tattooed hands clutch dollar bills, his meager salary for a life on the street.

“Just because I’ve got a cup in my hand don’t make me a bad man,” he says, launching an eloquent prosecution of the paradox that is his life as a homeless exconvict. His hands shake slightly as he speaks. I can’t

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tell if that’s from the 14 degree cold or from his impassioned message.

When he got out of prison, he was left with no resources, no programs to assist him, and no idea of what to do. He was forgotten by the criminal justice system. He was forgotten by our society.

But he is far from bitter. His piercing blue eyes are illuminated by our conversation.

His smile breaks through the cold. His story is captivating and unjust.

Sadly, Justin’s situation is not rare. There are 8,350 homeless people in the District. Each has a story. Each

has a reason. But the common denominator is that they have been made to feel invisible. They have been forgotten.

Blocks from the White House, in the shadow of the Capitol building, people suffer in the cold, often not knowing from there their next meal will come. In a city devoted to making laws for the betterment of American lives, thousands are left out.

We walk past their bundles of blankets, their McDonald’s cups, their sad smiles. Too often, we don’t stop to say hello or even allow ourselves to think about

Editors-in-Chief Peter Brown ‘17 Nick Lazaroae ‘17

Editor Matt Gannon ‘18

Senior Editors Dela Adedze ‘17 Griffin Buising ‘17 Charlie Goetzman ‘17 Michael Jerakis ‘17

them. We have pushed the marginalized to the margins.

We have ignored this problem, rather than attempting to solve it.

That can no longer be the case. It is time to open our eyes. It is time to acknowledge homelessness. It is time to make eye contact with the homeless people begging for spare change. It is time to shake their hands. It is time to treat them as people, not as problems.

I don’t have a solution.

But together we can make a difference. All it takes is that first step - for us to open our eyes.

Phototography Jack Chesen ‘18

Moderator: Dr. Harry Rissetto

Lewis & Stevenson Visit Gonzaga Continued from page 1 trying to fix what is broken, we will not always know the answer because we’re all broken too. This is the reason why we must step out of our comfort zone and be open to growth and proximity because then we learn something. We can learn valuable lessons that put us back together.

After his magnificent talk I got to talk with Mr. Stevenson. I asked: “How we can beat the drum of justice although we may not always agree?”

He answered: “By identifying those things we value… we all want to be free.”

He continued to say it is about a “common commitment to each other.” Regardless of race, gender, or political affiliation, one thing we can agree on is that injustice is infuriating. Stevenson constantly encounters injustice and it does make him angry.

His frustration and anger was not only visible but audible.

This passion lead me to ask, “What are ways to positively channel our anger to make change?” Mr. Stevenson tells us: “Turn that into something that is strategic and tactical, actually make a positive difference.” He fights injustice every day, and strategically every day.

Brian Stevenson has dedicated his life to justice, as has civil rights activist Congressman John Lewis.

Congressman Lewis is an American hero with strong heart lined with the strongest gold. He was raised on a farm in Troy, Alabama. He loved to raise chickens and to praise God. Lewis would even gather his siblings and

all of his chickens to deliver a sermon. Aside from this, Congressman Lewis valued education and dreamed of equality. When he was young and heard the illustrious Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the radio, he was inspired to join the movement.

His parents told him to stay out of trouble, but he knew that this was “necessary trouble” and he had to “get in the way.” Congressman Lewis believes that “we have an obligation to speak up, speak out, find a way to get in the way.” Alongside many of his influential peers, Congressman Lewis found non-violent ways to make change. Congressman Lewis told us it is our responsibility to “use our education to make a non-violent revolution...a revolution of ideas!”

Congressman Lewis embodies the perfect Gonzaga man, he is intellectually competent, loving, religious, committed to doing justice, and open to growth. After he spoke I was honored to ask the congressman a few questions in the library during the reception. I know we are all wondering if the congressman could catch a chicken if it escaped. And the answer is yes. If you’re ever chasing chickens, the key is “pinning its wings behind its back.”

Also, I asked him: “What can young people, America’s

next leaders, do to peacefully help race relations today?”

Congressman Lewis strongly believes in the youth and encourages us to positively use our social media accounts.

Next time we take to Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat, let’s keep in mind that we can have the power to make a difference. “Young people are so smart and so gifted,” he said.

Congressman Lewis is proof that youth can be influential. In the 1960s, when he was twenty-four-years-old, he was speaking at the March on Washington and making huge strides in civil rights.

We are capable of making change and our voices do matter, we can take America and the world to the next level. To do this, we must take the high road. The high road, a road Congressman Lewis is more than acquainted with.

During his talk, the civil rights activist shared a time

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he forgave a KKK member, and this was not just any Klan member; this member in particular beat him during one of his freedom rides. When I asked him how he found the

“get close” to the issues and be fearless regardless of discomfort. We must stand up and speak out. We cannot give up on the world because we are the future of America

love and courage to do this, he responded: “You have to believe and it’s keeping with the teaching, the teaching of Jesus. We have the capacity to forgive. Just as Dr. King said: ‘Never hate, for hate is too heavy a burden to bear.’”

After this response, I was left speechless by the congressman. I thanked him and shook his hand and he in response stood up to hug and thank me. I was awestruck by him.

Congressman Lewis showed us what happens when we are united and non-violent.

Non-violence is a solution to injustice. We must

and the world. If we use nonviolence and love, we will make a change for the better. Congressman Lewis and Bryan Stevenson are men of love and justice. We must follow in their footsteps, beating the “drum of justice” and finding a way to “get in the way” as one. We must respect ourselves, the needy, the hateful, and the broken.

We all are humans with dignity, and deserve respect, love, and justice.

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New Orleans Summer Service Trip

By: Dela Adedze ‘17 Senior Editor Service is one of the core aspects of a Gonzaga man. We are able to express ourselves as “men for others” through something as simple as this.

In June, a group of 20 Gonzaga kids accompanied

by Ms. Pane and Mr. Pugliese traveled to New Orleans to do just this. We were greeted by Sister Anne Byre, Maureen Chicoine and Shelley Lawrence of the Society of the Sacred Heart, three kind nuns who offered us refuge during our time there.

Our first day consisted of eating some of the best food we had ever ate. It included McHardy’s Chicken, a local restaurant, and Jambalaya from the neighbors, which was the traditional food of that area. The warmth and hospitality we received reminded me of a family reunion. These people made us feel so welcome, that we as a group soon realized that it would be even harder to leave.

The first day of work required us to wake up at 6:00 every day and make our breakfast as well as lunch.

We arrived in the seventh ward at around 7:30 that Monday. The first thing that we noticed were the smiling faces of Jessica and Valentine.

They each had given up their summer to work on this small house we would soon experience ourselves.

They each had a unique story about how they arrived here, and how important this opportunity was for them.

Jessica separated us into groups that focused on either tiling, painting, or floorboarding.

Throughout those four days, the group was tested physically and mentally in the scorching heat. However, with this ordeal we grew closer, not only to the house we worked on but to the people who we would never meet that would live there.

We felt connected spiritually and through the virtues of kindness, diligence, and humility.

We spent the remaining days learning about the culture and history of New Orleans. We attended mass where the priest expressed how important it was to not only talk about love, but to act on it. This theme he spoke of could not have come at a better time. We visited empty plots in the poorer areas of the city where the hurricane left thousands displaced.

We met Robert Greene whose pride for New Orleans

was unyielding. Katrina had taken his children, his home, and even his parents.

As heartbreaking as this was, like the others before him, he joyfully explained the potential of his city. This pride for the city of the New Orleans was like none other.

While cities like Detroit draw their self-esteem from their manufacturing core, New Orleans’s best asset was their sense of hospitality we experienced at every turn.

This service trip allowed us to open multiple doors that had been closed in life. Through each individual were able to see how God influenced their lives. They taught us how to keep our faith alive and well no matter what barriers stood in our way.

Within those four days, we as a Gonzaga community were able to truly find ourselves, in something as simple as being a man for others.

Camden, NJ and Gardens in the Desert By: Charlie Workmaster ‘17 skills to creating a website.

Senior Contributor Despite the wide variety of services that the center, my This summer I had the group was sent to clean the opportunity to serve the peo- center’s garden. The Espeple of Camden through the ranza Garden (Spanish for Romero Center, an organiza- hope), was so overgrown tion dedicated to helping the with weeds that I doubted poor in the city. During the that we would finish cleanweek I was there, I worked at ing it; I almost didn’t see several sites in Camden and any point in clearing it since Philadelphia, but I will share most of the plants growing one in particular where God there were weeds. My group at work the most in this seem- soon learned from a resident ingly desolate place. The first named Doris that there was site we worked at was Hope- much more to this garden works, which helped young than meets the eye. Doris adults in the area learn any- told us that Camden is a food thing from basic computer desert which means there are

no grocery stores in the city.

There are small drugstores, but nowhere for residents to buy fresh produce. The Esperanza Garden is literally the

daughter’s death. Rather than have a somber remembrance, she threw a block party to celebrate the memory of her daughter’s life. In spite of the

with me because of the generosity and optimism that Doris displayed in her interaction with us. The strawberries she gave us that she

garden of hope for Camden because it offers residents a place to grow healthy food.

Doris had her own patch in the garden where she grew flowers (which she was fiercely protective of) and strawberries which she shared with us despite having so little.

Doris also shared that the day before we came to help was the anniversary of her

poverty and heartbreak that Doris endured, she stands out as an example of hope to me like how the garden in the middle of the city is a sign of hope to the rest of Camden.

Once we cleared out the garden, we were able to see how significant a role this garden could play in reviving the crumbling city.

This encounter has stuck

worked so hard to grow is probably the most touching “thank you” I have ever received even though I didn’t feel like I did anything significant. It could be years until more residents start growing their own produce in the garden, but the efforts of Doris and the Hopeworks Center shows that there is still hope for a greener Camden.

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Gonzaga Hockey Recap By: Jack Martino ‘20 Contributor The Gonzaga hockey season began like it has for the past two years and will begin far into the future: the annual Dominik Pettey ‘15 Purple-White Game.

The scrimmage between a mixture of the two varsity teams

is played in memory of fallen Gonzaga student and hockey player, Dom Pettey.

“It’s a great way to honor Dom by bringing the entire community together to play the game he loved so much,” senior V1 captain John “Spoon” Cardellicchio says, “and seeing all the people come out to watch and support the Pettey family whether they knew Dom or not is an incredible thing to witness and experience.”

The Varsity 1 team record is 7-1 in MAPHL AA play this year following a heartbreaking loss to the Landon Bears in the MAPHL championship last season. “This year the team has continued to improve week to week,” says head coach Bill Slater, “they work hard at practice and every game … [without] motivation from me. They take it upon themselves to push hard to do the extras that make

you better.”

This year, “The group of seniors have really stepped up.

I pushed them hard early in the year to be leaders, every one of them,” says Coach Slater. The varsity 1 seniors include John Cardellicchio, Matthew Yarmas, Joe Siciliano, Ben Plant, Will Schuler, and Will Jervey.

D u r i n g the season, the team traveled to Chicago to play in the Jesuit Cup over Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend, hosted by St. Ignatius Chicago. There, the Eagles took St. Ignatius Chicago to a shootout before winning the game on a snap shot just under the bar by senior forward Will Schuler.

“The team really came together and played for each other and were rewarded,” says Slater, “We use [the Chicago tournament] as a step to prepare us for the end of year run to the playoffs.” “[In Chicago], we saw different styles of hockey which we brought back to DC,” adds Cardellicchio.

But the prize the team is most concerned about is a MAPHL championship. The team suffered heartbreak last February, when Landon beat out the Eagles 7-1. The last Eagles championship was won back in 2014.

Coach Slater has faith in his team. “The [MAPHL] league this year has a lot of parity.

Our biggest rival right now is DeMatha, who has beaten us

twice,” he says, “The boys want to see them again in the playoffs. They won’t get us again.”

“No one on the team has won a WCAC or MAPHL championship. We’re all driven to come out on top this year after 2 years of losing in the semis or finals,” says Cardellicchio, “We have a very skilled team, probably the best in the MAPHL and WCAC, but it will come down to who wants it more.”

For the Varsity 2 team, “so far it’s been fantastic,” says head coach Michael Willis.

“Every team has its own personality, and this [V2] expects challenge and relishes in it. It’s a very good thing to have a spirited squad that looks forward to every game.” The V2 team has been having an amazing season this year, going 15-2, with big wins over DeMatha V2 twice, Landon V2 twice, and St. Joe’s Prep three times.

Senior alternate captain Matt Dimond has been “so impressed with the talent and work ethic of so many of the underclassmen. Each one of them is willing to give their all to win, and that makes a difference on the ice.”

Part of the reason V2 has been so dominant this season is because everyone plays their part on the team; Coach Willis remarked that senior alternate captain Jack Olcott “has been the consummate team player throughout. He is always the first to pick up his teammates when they’re down. You can’t ask for much more than that.”

V2 beat out St. Joe’s for the team’s second straight Purple Puck Championship in late

December on a game-winning shootout winner from sophomore Danny Mullenex. “A freshman [Sam Massaro] and a sophomore [Mullenex] stepped up in a big way and handed us a victory against a St. Joe’s Prep team that we have now beaten four times straight … when three years ago, we had not beaten them in five years,” Coach Willis added. “[Winning Purple Puck] is a blessing. Doing it two times in a row is truly special,” says Willis, “The V2 team had lost the previous three before winning back to back, … so continuing that tradition means a lot.”

Going into the MAPHL A level playoffs as number one seed, the V2 team is trying to get higher level competition to prepare. Last week, the team lost to the St. John’s Varsity Cadets in an exhibition match. “It was a rare opportunity and we played well through it,” says Willis, “We will have a target on our backs [as number one playoff seed], and it’s important to remain humble … by playing teams that are more skilled than us.”

The players agree with Coach Willis’s reasoning. Dimond says, “We need to remember that winning doesn’t come without hard work. We have a lot of talent, and as long as we are focused on one game at a time and giving our all every single shift, I don’t think anything can stand in our way.”

According to Jack Olcott, “We have the ability to win; however, that is dependent on our ability to work as a team.

Specifically, our ability to pick

each other up and believe in each other. In a family no one gets left behind so we need to show love and grind to [get to] our destiny. Hail Gonzaga.”

This year, the JV team has gone 4-7-1 over 12 games with 2 games remaining on the year.

Head coach Sammy Gerdano “was expecting to have a really good team this year because of all the good freshmen that were coming in overall for all three teams. It did and we had some good players on our team; it was fun.”

The team’s 13 freshmen contributed greatly to the team’s success this season. “We had lots of help from freshman … guys like Christian Garagusi, Adam Wojciak, and Robbie Dubay,” adds Gerdano. “[The older players] are motivating and understanding of when new guys make mistakes,” freshman forward Christian Garagusi says, “They know exactly what to say and how to help them fix it.”

Senior Matt Dimond sums it up best when he says, “This year has truly been a memorable one, and I think it bodes very well for the future of the program. It has revealed just how much young talent we have, and how good the Gonzaga hockey program is going to be in the coming years for both V1 and V2.”

The MAPHL playoffs for both V1 and V2 are scheduled for February 21, 22, and 24.

Come out and support Gonzaga hockey as both teams go for the championship. Until next time, Hail Gonzaga.

The National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial By: Michael Jerakis ‘17 Senior Editor September 11, 2001, 9:37 AM. Hijacked Flight 77 crashes into the D wing of the Pentagon. 59 aboard the plane are killed. 125 civilian and military personnel in the Pentagon are killed.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt perhaps put it best nearly seventy years before that fateful morning when describing a strikingly similar attack at Pearl Harbor. September 11, 2001 – “a date which will live in infamy.”

This event, five miles from Gonzaga, permanently altered the course of this country. Our obligation as US citizens is to never forget what happened that cloudless Washington morning.

Andrew Ammerman ’91 was a part of the team that

brought the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial to life and works for the Pentagon Memorial Fund, which seeks to “preserve the memories of those lost at the Pentagon.”

Plans to build the memorial to honor not only those who were lost that day, but to honor the families and friends affected by the attacks, were finalized in 2003. Ground wasn’t broken until nearly years later, on June 5th, 2006. Construction was finally completed in August 2008 with a dedication service on September 11th of that same year.

The memorial itself will take your breath away, move you to tears, stimulate your senses, and evoke a calmness and serenity, all while keeping in mind the magnitude of the tragedy being memorialized.

The entrance is demarcated by

a strip of granite with the date and time of the attack engraved upon it. One-hundred and eighty-four undulating stainless steel benches with accents of inlaid granite are purposefully positioned to indicate victims who lost their lives in the Pentagon and those who lost theirs on Flight 77.

The benches are arranged by birth year, with an Age Wall situated on the memorial’s western edge. The Wall grows one inch per every year it symbolizes, starting at three inches and ending at seventy-one inches.

Under each bench flows a pool of trickling water whose noise serves as a constant reminder to those in the memorial the presence of those lost. Wind carries the scent of surrounding crape myrtles and patches of grass across the space. They provide pops of contrasting

color and eyes are drawn to crape myrtles’ unique, peeling bark. When walking through the memorial, the loud and unmistakable crunching of gravel underfoot slices the air.

The National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial evokes certain emotion that can only be truly felt a few times during our lives. It conjures the same heaviness of spirit of Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

It captures the same patriotism and sacrifice of the World War II Memorial. It encapsulates the same magnitude in the scale of history of the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Washington Monument.

All these other monuments honor individuals and groups of people who did great things for this country knowingly. But those who lost their lives on

9/11 in the nation’s capital, in New York City, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania were unknowingly thrust into the course of American history. They were veterans, active duty, civilians.

They were mothers, fathers, grandpas, grandmas, cousins, friends, children.

They were Americans, and the celebration and remembrance of their lives will continue to live on through the effort of those like Mr. Ammerman.

Thanks to their work, we will never forget those who lost their lives that cloudless and infamous morning.

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By: Charlie Goetzman `17 Senior Editor “I think, to me, it’s just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”

- Donald Trump, on nuclear weapons

I.

I happen to live in the D.C. area, and I had never been to a Presidential Inauguration. It’s an odd thing, the fact that being local has kept me from taking advantage of anything that immediately comes to mind when one pictures Washington. I have never been inside the White House, or the Capitol, and I give my time to the Smithsonian museums somewhat parsimoniously. Realizing that I will not be here with such frequency next year, I decided on the grey morning of the Inauguration that I would go. Also, my dad said that I had to come file paperwork at his office, so I told him I couldn’t because I was doing investigative journalism.

The Huntington metro station was quiet. I boarded the train that would take me to L’Enfant Plaza. There were many people of the Caucasian persuasion on it. I talked to one of them. She was wearing a camo Make America Great Again hat. Her name was Amy, and she was coming in from Kentucky to see the Inauguration. Why Donald Trump? She was beaming. “He’s gonna make America great again.” Ah. It didn’t take that long to get to the L’Enfant Plaza metro station. Funny story, the last time I was near L’Enfant Plaza, I was stuck in a metro tunnel for forty-five minutes with an electrical fire on the track, and not at all funny - a person died. I went up the escalator. It was actually pretty crowded outside. Within about ten seconds of my arrival, a street vendor pointed at me and said, “You, young man!

You need a t-shirt; take your pick,” or something street vendor-like to that effect. Some of his t-shirts were advertising the Women’s March, which was of course happening the next day.

Other ones said, and pardon the caps-lock (and the redacted quasi-profantiy), “HILLARY $*&%@, BUT NOT LIKE MONICA!” There were some other t-shirts there, too.

I seemed to be in the “Christian” section of the Inaugural celebrations. “Christian” is in quotation marks. There were not that many of them, but they were very loud, and getting lots of attention, and were saying horrible things. The degree of horrible was directly proportional to the amount of attention they received. There is some sort of meaning here.

They were taking up about a city block, and they had some megaphones and some signs. The signs were lovely.

One said, “Jesus Christ Has A PRESSURE COOKER For Every Dead MUSLIM!!!” Another said, unclearly, “BLM [Black

OP ED: Truimph of the Shill

Lives Matter] Rent A Riot!”

Another said, more succinctly, “Ban Homo Marriage!” There were some other signs there, too.

I attempted to get myself out of aforementioned uninspired clustering. There were a few protesters-to-the-protesters around, too, that I had to walk by; one man, whom I presumed was dressed as Rasputin, held up a sign written in Russian that, he told me, loosely translated to, “@#*& you, Donald Trump.”

I couldn’t get over how many people were around: there was, of course, our brethren with the leather jackets and the grey beards, yes, but also a lot of parents with their toddlers, a bunch of high schoolers, some folks in wheelchairs. They weren’t there for the pseudochurchy-side-show; I don’t really think anyone was. They were there for Donald Trump.

I was there for him too. I wanted to see him. I wanted to be there for the swearing-in. I couldn’t see very much at all on the street I was on; there were neither television screens nor loudspeakers around. So once the spectacle of hearing people with megaphones yell rude things at those passing by wore off, I became a bit bored.

So I tried to get to the Mall proper; up to this point I had been sort of stuck on an adjacent street. And I would have gone onto the Mall, albeit fairly far from the actual Capitol Building, if not for the damn fences keeping everybody out. It was actually a double fence, and there were horses clip-clopping around in circles in between them, for no reason. Horses are my least favorite animals.

Anyway, I half-ran about a block or so before realizing there was no break in the wall, then tried to yell at a police officer, who didn’t hear me, then quit. It was already 11:45. But if I had had little more luck, I would have been able to take up just a small bit of all that empty space on the Mall.

II. Donald Trump is a great man. It’s sort of self-evident, if you think about it. The fact really struck me for the first time — actually after the Inauguration — while watching Sean Spicer’s first press briefing in the White House. The Dadaist ordeal, an unintentionally hilarious (“It’s just unbelievably frustrating when you’re continuingly [sic] told, it’s not big enough”) tirade delivered in what the Post called “an extended shout,” dominated an entire news cycle. Spicer talked about nothing but the size of the crowd on the National Mall during Trump’s Inauguration.

It covered absolutely no new ground (ha, ha-ha) in terms of policy, or really anything of even the slightest importance. It dealt exclusively with the very specific neuroses of one eccentric seventy-year-old from Man-

hattan.

Donald Trump does not always act like a human being.

He appears to have no inner life.

“There is no private Trump,” Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of The Art of the Deal, told the New Yorker last July. “All he is is ‘stomp, stomp, stomp’ — recognition from outside, bigger, more, a whole series of things that go nowhere in particular.”

According to Schwartz, he neither spends much time with his family nor has any close friends.

He does not appear to sleep at levels considered appropriate for humans; he gets about “ninety minutes to four hours,” he says, and proves it by firing off his most colorful tweets from around two to six A.M. He does not speak like a 21st-century American. Eight out of the thirteen most frequently used words in his speeches are monosyllabic (his favorite word is “I,” and the only word on the list with more than two syllables is “Mexico”); it’s been remarked that the structure of most of the sentences that leave his mouth follow that of a joke (set-up, punchline), and he has a fascinating disregard for the traditional rules of Englishlanguage syntax; in Alec Baldwin’s words, the man constantly “seems to pause, to dig for the more precise and better language that he wants to use, and never finds it”; and all of this is delivered in a faux-working class accent he certainly did not pick up in Jamaica Estates.

He is presumably literate, but those close to him have remarked on the incredible infrequency with which he reads anything beyond “about a pageand-a-half,” in his own words.

All this is captivating but ultimately unimportant in light of his more significant character … quirks. There isn’t a better way of summing up the entirety of how (we can intuit) Donald Trump’s brain actually works than this quote from Jonah Goldberg at the National Review: “There’s an almost literary quality to Trump’s insecurities; he craves respect more than almost anything else, and yet respect remains agonizingly elusive — in part because he takes everything too personally.” Yup. This explains the bizarre but inevitable little scraps with Meryl Streep and Alicia Machado and Khizr Khan, and the man’s habit of sending printouts of reporters’ articles back to them with their bylines circled and the comment “BAD WRITER!” scrawled in gold Sharpie, and of course his perennial preoccupation with his own fingers. But it also explains some of the darker aspects of his “Make America Great Again” spiel, and, to bring us back, the man’s own greatness.

The “Again” piece of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” message carries a lot of weight. It seems to imply that there was some period in our history in which America was

great. But it’s unclear when this period was. The most effective thing Hillary Clinton said in all of her medium-OK debate performances last fall was that “Donald” “never believed America was great”; he was moaning about the country during the Reagan years, he’s groaning now. His policy preferences are malleable — he was a pro-choice Democrat not that long ago; his belief in the “embarrassment” and “humiliation” of the “hellhole” that is the United States is constant.

This isn’t armchair psychology; these are the words that come out of his mouth.

The just-out-of-reach “respect” he’s apparently spent his life aimlessly lunging for — “recognition from outside, bigger, more, a whole series of things that go nowhere in particular” — seems to apply as much to the Republic as it does to one eccentric seventy-yearold from Manhattan.

America has never been great because it fails to meet the impossible definition of success one man set for himself.

This would be good and fine and irrelevant — the interior monologues of some rich dude, brooding in his drywall-TajMahal apartment on Fifth Avenue — if said rich dude wasn’t the President the United States.

If Donald Trump hadn’t run for president this election, none of this would have happened.

It’s pretty simple logic. None of the doom and gloom from both sides, less immanentizing of the eschaton; no dynamite to a good number of our democratic norms; no serious threat to the tenets of the conservative movement, no political ascendancy of Richard Spencer and co. We probably would have had serial underperformer Hillary Clinton battling Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz in a mostly normal eighthyear-handoff election cycle. Instead we got this guy.

The rise of Donald Trump is — and he would find this very flattering — a sort of validation of Thomas Carlyle’s now-veryunpopular Great Man Theory: the idea that history can be largely explained by the impact that charismatic “great men” have left on it. It’s not a perfect theory, and we’re not given perfect proof here: he’s expertly channeled a very deep-seated discontent in “flyover country,” and he likely wouldn’t have been able to come nearly as far in most elections past. But what makes the man so special is the way he’s actually done the “channeling,” the way he has bent social and ideological trends into the “black hole” — to quote Schwartz again — of his own persona.

He’s taken the small cracks fissuring in an increasingly constipated conservative ideology and almost single-handedly glazed over them with his weird idea of nationalist isolationprotectionism: his notion that America should project strength by making other countries play

a more important role in international affairs, that America should become more economically powerful by doggie-paddling against the current of the global economy.

Truly, before he stepped on the scene, had any conservative voices even hinted at sharing this sort of worldview? To get more specific: before June 16, 2015, did even Trump’s most ardent to-be-supporters really think that an acquiescent attitude towards Russia and a bromantic relationship between the president and Vladimir Putin would be very good ideas?

He’s taken growing anti-immigration sentiment in a party that has historically kept in line with conservative economists’ preference for more open borders and directed it into an anti“rapist” push for yuge walls, flirted with banning 1.6 billion members of an entire religion from entering the country. Literally no one else in the public arena would even dare insinuate — and now can do — anything like this. He rode an ideological trend, but he alone proposed the solutions he did, solutions that he can now work to realize.

He’s taken a pushback against the left’s most censorious tendencies and conflated it with a distaste for pretty basic conceptions of common decency and a breathtakingly nebulous idea of what the word “truth” means. Why can the president have a press conference about nothing but the fact that his Inauguration crowds were of record size? Isn’t this, a., unbelievably petty for a guy who just became the most powerful man in the world, and, b., not actually, in objective reality, a real fact? Who cares; we don’t have time for “political correctness” … or something. We do, however — the entire country; really, the whole world — have time to rehash, “continuingly,” the weird insecurities of one little man. One little Great Man. We need Donald Trump.

We need his brashness, his pants-on-fire histrionics, his incessant self-puffery, his entropic brain, because “America is losing,” because we’re being “disrespected,” because we’re failing to be “great.” Millions of Americans apparently believe it. Or, at the least, they’ll tolerate the man in order to end the “disrespect.”

But why does anyone believe that there is this sort of national shame hanging over our heads in the first place? Certainly most of them felt dissatisfaction with the direction of their country and their elected leaders nineteen months ago, but this sort of nationalist nihilism wasn’t something that was anywhere near the mainstream of American culture before then.

We elected Donald Trump. Now his pathologies are ours. ...continued in the next issue of The Aquilian

OP ED: Crowd Size

By: Nick Lazaroae ‘17 Editor-in-Chief There was a sense of incredible tension on the metro ride in. The train cars themselves, along with the stations we stopped at, were awash in blood red. Throngs of people pushed and shoved for the exits when we arrived at Federal Triangle.

But this was no killing, no massacre, or anything of the like. The tension was joy. The red flowed through the rainbow of metro lines and burst its seams at the National Mall. People had red heads, and in white was inscribed “Make America Great Again.”

At Donald Trump’s inauguration I saw men and women from all walks of life supporting our president. I made an effort to meet people wherever I walked. A man from Georgia waved a flag: “LGBT: Let’s Get Behind Trump”. A union man from Pennsylvania cried when Trump said he was going to bring jobs back. There

were Alaskans and Mainers who had never been to Washington or even south of the Mason-Dixon Line. All came out for Trump; all genders, races, classes, creeds, sexualities, and so on were in attendance. I met two people from “The DMV” who supported Trump. Keep this in mind as you continue reading.

We may never know how many were in attendance on January 20th. From photos, expert analysis, and verified statistics, it is entirely probable that Trump had a frankly terrible turnout for his inauguration. However, these are not indicative of some sort of distaste or dislike (which exists) for Trump, but rather the crowd size at Inauguration shows his support.

Refer to the second paragraph. Read the states. Georgia, Pennsylvania, Alaska, and Maine. Now take a look at the attached infographic, and refer to the colors of the five counties directly bordering Washington DC. Hillary Clinton won each county by an average margin of about

Volunteerism By: Henry Nimey ‘17 Senior Contributor

to purchase about 125 blankets for this winter. If you The Gonzaga Online Ser- can, please share on Twitter vice Club has initiated a GoFundMe campaign to raise money in order to purchase blankets for the DC Homeless.

T i t l e d “BLANKETS FOR THE DC HOMELESS,” the campaign has raised over $600 and has a goal of $2500.

We will be able or Facebook so we can surpass this goal and provide protection from the cold for those who need it so much.

This past weekend, Michael Davis, Tommy McGee, and I distributed about 15 blankets, water bottles, and granola bars to the homeless.

Please be generous with your support.

40%. She won DC by 86 points. PG County was an 81% margin. Her lowest, Fairfax, was a comfortable 31% margin.

Obama’s 2008 and 2012

campaigns were no different, winning by an incredible margin. I am of the opinion that if Hillary Clinton won, there would have been many more people at Inauguration. This has nothing to do with popular vote “victory” or her popularity, but simply the politics, population, and proximity to the nation’s

The Aquilian 7

capital of the counties surrounding it. They would have turned out in the hundreds of thousands.

It is clear that these counties not only lean left, but fall over head over heels left. Why attend the inauguration of a man who many have come to despise, whom a member of Montgomery County had a nearly 100% chance of voting against? President Trump started a political movement that rejected comfortable coastal elitism -- which any DC suburbanite can get behind -- in favor of the honest, hardworking American, regardless of progressive buzzwords.

On that note, I leave you with this: Alaska, Alabama, Mississippi, South Dakota,

(Eastern) Washington and Oregon, Idaho, South Dakota, (Western) Maryland, (Southwestern) Virginia, Texas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine. There were many more people from all walks of life I met at inauguration, from many more states. They were brought together for their belief in a movement that champions the common man, by a man who did not ask supporters to swear by the despotic phrase “I’m with Her”. President Trump said “I’m with You”. That resonates with the dairy farmers of Wisconsin, the auto-workers of Michigan, and the miners of West Virginia. These men and women were tired of eight years of a man who campaigned on the idea of “Hope”, but served to leave them with despair, and a corrupt, fake robot to continue her nepotism and his frail and idealistic “legacy”.

So they came. Political “Flyover Country” became “Flew-over-to-inauguration” country on January 20th.

form well in the 1st English Division, while younger lineups such as Manchester City have begun to show their dominance in recent history.

Currently, Chelsea leads the table, captained by stars such as Eden Hazard and Diego Costa, while Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool, and Manchester City claim the other four spots in the top five.

Additionally, Manchester United still remains in the sixth position even after the additions of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba, and

Henrikh Mkhitaryan at the beginning of the season and an impressive win streak.

Tensions are rising and Manchester’s sense of desperation is growing larger, but anything can happen in the closing weeks of the season.

English Premier League

By: Josh Knutsen `20 Contributor

The British Premier League is an England-based soccer division which hosts the best clubs of the area.

There are always a handful of teams that compete in the Champions League alongside other European giants such as F.C. Barcelona and Bayern Munich, and even clubs that cannot earn a spot in the UCL are top class performers.

Historically successful teams such as Arsenal and Liverpool consistently per-

Editors Note - A compelling story down the stretch... Will Leicester City remain in the Premier League after this season? Will the Foxes be relegated? Stay tuned.

By: Oliver Black ‘18 Contributor In 2014, the total number of people diagnosed with heart disease in the United States sat at a staggering 27.6 million people, which is over two million more people than all of Australia.

In that same year, for every 100,000 people, 193 people died from heart disease, which is almost double the amount of gun related deaths per 100,000.

The amount of lives taken in America by heart disease in 2014, 614,348, lies just under the number of deaths in the Civil War. To simply put it, the issue of heart disease remains a serious yet very silent issue that does not get talked about like other domestic problems.

This killer is preventable.

In fact, heart disease is not just some aspect of life that comes with age and cholesterol, and blood pressure does not need to increase over time with proper nutrition.

Also, only one out of 200 people at most die from heart disease due to a genetic issue,

The Silent and Needless Killer meaning that most of the risk factor comes from elsewhere, most of which is from our dietary choices. Around 90% of heart attack risks come from our environment, and cholesterol lowering drugs like Lipitor (Atorvastatin) lower heart attack risk by 30% at most. Many people believe that statin drugs are

tors. The biggest factors are elevated LDL cholesterol levels, dietary cholesterol, saturated fat, and trans fats.

The increase of LDL buildup is also due to the lack of consumption of fiber. Cholesterol and saturated fats go hand in hand with each other just like the way that fiber and whole plant foods go together.

100 times more powerful in preventing heart disease than they actually are.

When taking a deeper look into the major risk for heart disease; animal products are the biggest contribu-

When studied, the diets of populations in places that rarely consume animal products (Africa, Southeast Asia, etc.) demonstrated an ability to stop disease progression,

decrease plaque, and promote arterial healing, leading to the reversal and prevention of our number one killer. Within three weeks of dietary shifts cholesterol levels in test subjects lowered and pulse volume improved to normal levels (see color photo).

The study above really took off when one of the participating doctors had a heart attack. The doctor had no family history of the disease, was not a smoker, did not have hypertension, and was a healthy weight. The news that his clot was too long for a stent and too low for a bypass saddened the doctor, so his final option was a nutritional approach.

32 months later, his arteries looked like they could not contain any plaque inside them (see black and white photo).

Since we have determined what not to eat, let’s define what the optimal human diet should include. The basis of the optimal human

diet is fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and nuts and seeds to a lesser degree.

All whole plant foods contain zero cholesterol and are filled with the vitamins and minerals we need in the best form possible except for Vitamin B12, which is a bacteria found in dirt.

Secondly, no oil. Oil promotes clotting factor seven times as much as butter, and the “good fats” that people praise olive oil and other plant oils come at a grave cost. The omega six to omega three ratio in olive oil is 11:1, while the optimal level is around 6:1.

Protein deficiency does not occur in people unless they eat too little, and people should be eating above 2,000 calories on this diet and in some cases above 3,000 if the person in question is very active.

A plant based diet is the single most effective method for prevention and reversal of heart disease for humans, unlike the other option, a diet rich in animal foods.

NBA Midseason Review: Eastern Conference By: Patrick Gallagher `18 Contributor

The Cleveland Cavaliers Looking to repeat a legendary finals run, LeBron and the Cavaliers have looked prepared for the challenge despite a thirty-five point loss to the Warriors. Plowing through the developing teams in Eastern Conference has proved to be easy enough, but Cleveland has struggled against the top teams out West. However, the addition of Kyle Korver bolsters the Cavs’ already elite ability from deep, which they will desperately need if they are to win the finals again. Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving are playing their best basketball in Cleveland, and LeBron has never been more motivated to cement his place in the pantheon of NBA greats. Never underestimate the power of Cleveland.

The Toronto Raptors DeMar DeRozan is giving the league Kobe flashbacks with his career high 28 points per game, and when he and Kyle Lowry are in sync, Toronto is hard to outscore. They have a

solid center in Jonas Valanciunas, who controls the paint and averages a double-double. Realistically, the Raptors are the only Eastern Conference team who can challenge Cleveland in a seven game series; however, their window is closing. Lowry just turned thirty, and DeRozan’s quality play might be a fluke.

The Boston Celtics Boston’s playoff aspirations rest on Isiah Thomas’s tiny shoulders. At 5’9, Thomas has proved that being undersized does not matter by carrying the Celtics to third place in their conference.

Regardless, Boston will not get past the second round this postseason because Thomas is their whole offense. Avery Bradly has made tremendous strides in this department, but the rest of the team is just average. Horford is a decent center, but his skills are more suited as a stretch forward, which is why they desperately need to trade for DeMarcus Cousins. With him at center, I could see Boston actually contending for a title, but until then, they settle for mediocrity.

The Washington Wizards A few weeks into the season, the Wizards seemed to be destined for a lottery pick in a stacked draft this offseason.

It would have been so easy to tank, but John Wall had other more admirable ideas. He almost single handedly brought Washington back into the playoff picture and ranks in the top three in both steals and assists. Bradley Beal and Marcin Gortat have made full turnarounds after a horrendous and injury-filled season last year, but how long can Beal stay healthy? He is the key to their continued success and will certainly make the difference between a first or second round elimination this postseason.

The Atlanta Hawks Atlanta seems to be a team with no clear plan. They signed Dwight Howard in free agency and looked like they were still trying to compete for a chance to challenge Cleveland in the conference finals. However, they also traded away their best threepoint shooter, Kyle Korver, and there has been murmurs that Howard or Paul Millsap could be traded, which sug-

gests that a rebuild is on the horizon. Regardless, Atlanta has still had a decent season with solid numbers from Millsap, who will lead this team to the playoffs barring any last minute trades. The Hawks have nice young potential in Dennis Schroder, who could prove to be a valuable building block if they decide to tank their season.

The Charlotte Hornets Charlotte has surprised everyone this year after Al Jefferson left in free agency.

Kemba Walker has performed better than he ever has in the NBA and has emerged as a capable leader of the team.

Veterans such as Nicholas Batum and Michael KiddGilchrist have proven that they can still play at a high level as the Hornets look to continue to shock their competition through unselfish team play.

The Indiana Pacers Larry Bird seemed to have outdone himself last offseason with the acquisitions of Jeff Teague and Al Jefferson.

Led by MVP candidate Paul George, most thought that Indiana had the fire power (on

paper) to contend with any team. However, they have left much to desire during the first half of the season; they even recently were beaten by the pathetic Lakers, who were stunned by the lowly Mavericks in a 49 point rout.

How shameful! Even so, I have every faith that George will carry the Pacers into the playoffs, and who knows?

They might even make a run past the first round.

The Milwaukee Bucks They will have to slay the formidable Chicago Bulls for this last playoff spot, but Giannis Antetokounmpo has shown a hunger to compete in the postseason. His unique skill set of ball handling and sheer size has allowed him to dominate as he leads his team in nearly every stat category. Jabbari Parker has also made great strides on offense and gives Giannis a secondary option for easy points. Malcom Brogdon has also entered the conversation for Rookie of the Year, which gives the Bucks an interesting potential for an All-Star triad in a few years.