ARTS Page 19
FORUM Expose Hollywood’s predators 11 SPORTS Men’s soccer wins one of two 16 The Independent Student Newspaper
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ROSE OPENING of
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Justice
Volume LXX, Number 6
www.thejustice.org
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
LEAVING A MARK
sustainability
deiSic fosters green ideas ■ Teams provided potential
green initiatives after a daylong brainstorming challenge for campus sustainability By MAURICE WINDLEY and ELIANA PADWA JUSTICE STAFF WRITERs
While the looming threat of climate change affects this planet, students and faculty at the University sought to make their mark on improving campus sustainability through the second annual Sustainability Ideation Challenge, deiSic. Organized this year by Olivia Zou ’19 and Danielle Davidoff ’19, deiSic is a full-day campus-wide event that challenges participants to brainstorm various ways to better enable sustainability on campus. First started in fall 2016, deiSic returned this year to promote and engage sustainability discussions on campus through collaboration, communication and a competitive setting.
The event broke students and faculty up into teams to discuss what projects can be produced using the Brandeis Sustainability Fund to help the University become more sustainable. “Sustainability intersects with so many groups of different interests, and so deiSic helps bring different people together to discuss how to use the Brandeis Sustainability Fund for greener projects,” Mary Fischer, manager of the Sustainability Programs Office and deiSic mentor, said in an interview with the Justice. She added that, since “Sustainability is at the core of social justice, raising awareness of greener projects and ways to make campus more sustainable is a part of the fabric that makes Brandeis special.” Fischer, whose initiatives helped reduce the University's carbon footprint by 10 percent in 2016, highlighted that as one of few campuses with a Sustainability fund, the University is in a position to become a leader
See SUSTAINABILITY, 7 ☛
STUDENT LIFE
Financial Services launches new platform ■ Student Financial
Services recently launched a new platform aimed at financial literacy. By ABBY PATKIN JUSTICE EDITOR
Loans and budgets can be a source of stress for students trying to navigate their finances for the first time. With the launch of SALT, an online financial literacy resource, the Office of Student Financial Services is looking to put students’ fears to rest. “The topic of money gets people scared, and I would say that probably most of the time, we’re talking to the parents and not the students,” Executive Director of Student Financial Services Sherri Avery ’95 said in an interview with the Justice. Students “don’t know
what to come in and ask because the parents want to do all of it, which is ok, but then you end up leaving college not knowing some things, and SALT can help with that.” SFS previously used a similar online platform, Financial Avenue, which offered a series of courses for students. There were almost 500 students signed up and completing coursework, but that number eventually stagnated, Avery said. “We just found that [Financial Avenue] was limiting, because there were only a certain number of courses, and there wasn’t any new material. It was just you finished the courses and that was pretty much all you could do,” she explained. “And the courses were really good … but once you got through the course, there was nothing more you could do with the product and then you were off on your own.”
See SALT, 7 ☛
NATALIA WIATER/the Justice
HANDS ON: Student volunteers left behind handprints in the graphite dust on the wall surrounding Tony Lewis’ “Plunder” mural.
Students become creators with new Rose installation ■ Student volunteers helped
artist Tony Lewis install his latest work, “Plunder.” By JOCELYN GOULD JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
Students took a hands-on approach to fine art last week, helping the 2017 to 2018 Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence recipient install his latest creation, “Plunder.” Now on display in the Rose Art Museum, the three-dimensional mural carries the imprints of its student creators, as well as a powerful message about racial tensions in America. Tony Lewis, a Chicago-based artist, created “Plunder,” which is located on the outward-facing wall of the Lois Foster Wing, according to the Rose Art Museum’s press release. Although the mural appears to be an ambiguous swirling line, starkly black against the white wall, the shape of the piece is intentional and symbolic: Lewis used Gregg shorthand notation, a “stenographic script similar to abbreviated cursive,” to create an “abstracted symbol of the word
‘plunder,’ from which the work takes its name,” according to the press release. As the museum’s press release explained, the title of the work comes from a powerful quote from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book “Between the World and Me” — “The plunder of black life was drilled into this country in its infancy and reinforced across its history, so that plunder has become an heirloom, an intelligence, a sentience, a default setting to which, likely to the end of our days, we must invariably return.” Lewis ‘wrote’ the word across the wall in a mural made of metal screws and graphite-dipped rubber bands. After drawing the symbol on the wall, Lewis drilled the screws directly into the museum’s structure, and University students then stretched the rubber bands between the screws. When the students began work on Oct. 8, most of the screws had been drilled into the wall, but only a small section of rubber bands were applied. The goal for the week was to create a mass of rubber bands in the shape of the symbol such that one could not see the wall through the web of rubber and graphite, said
Orli Swergold ’18, one of the students working with Lewis, in an interview with the Justice. From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day, a rotating group of students worked with Lewis and his team to accomplish this task. More than 25 pounds of rubber bands were used, said Hannah Kressel ’20, another student involved who was also interviewed by the Justice. Although the work was simple, Lewis encouraged students to get into a “meditative, ritualistic state while putting the rubber bands on,” said Kressel. Even though she was creating someone else’s artistic vision, the fact that she was “getting into the meditative state that Lewis was thinking of when he thought up the piece” made her feel more connected to “Plunder,” Kressel explained. Despite the calming nature of the work, the process of creating “Plunder” was incredibly messy due to the graphite powder in which the rubber bands were dipped, she said. Graphite dust spread around the edges of the symbol itself, but this offered the students a chance to include their own touch in Lewis’ work.
See PLUNDER, 7 ☛
X-Lawn
Tough Luck
Psych in Space
The Campus Activities Board kicked off the year with X-Lawn on Saturday.
The women’s soccer team was plagued by injuries in its loss on Sunday.
Doctor analyzed physiology and psychology linked risk ‘maps’ of future astronauts travelling to Mars.
FEATURES 8 For tips or info email editor@thejustice.org
Waltham, Mass.
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INDEX
SPORTS 16 ARTS SPORTS
17 13
EDITORIAL FEATURES
10 OPINION 8 POLICE LOG
10 2
News 3
COPYRIGHT 2017 FREE AT BRANDEIS.
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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2017
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NEWS SENATE LOG
Senate discusses student services and prepares Turkey Shuttles At the weekly Senate meeting on Sunday, Student Union Vice President Hannah Brown ’19 announced that Allocations Board member Kate Kesselman ’19 was voted representative to the Community Emergency and Enhancement Fund. The Freedom of Expression Committee has had low attendance, and Brown reiterated the need for Union members to attend the meetings. Brown discussed the problems with free printing in the Intercultural Center, stating that students would often disrupt ICC classes and lectures to utilize the service. She suggested that a printing quota be put in place, with a certain number of free pages allowed for each student. Union Judiciary Chief Justice Lilly Hecht ’18 reported that one of the Judiciary members will be leaving the Allocations Board. Brown and Senator-at-Large Aaron Finkel ’20 reported on Brandeis’ extremely low Net Promoter Score, which gauges how likely alumni are to recommend the University. Finkel discussed a presentation given last year by consultant Mark Neustadt about branding and told the Senate the main concerns of students and alumni. Campus Operations Working Group chair Shaquan McDowell ’18 reported that the trial run of the free menstrual products initiative had started, with products being distributed in six bathrooms around campus. Sustainability Committee Chair Benedikt Reynolds ’19 reported that the committee will be choosing its initiative this week. Club Support Committee Chair Tal Richtman ’20 reported that he met with Graduate Assistant for Leadership in the Department of Student Activities Elise Yonika. The committee will be having a workshop about “team and project management” in collaboration with Student Activities to provide more resources for students to help club leaders to work together. Richtman reported that there are 20 clubs that had not submitted a renewal for legally obligatory anti-hazing and renewal forms and thus would be de-chartered and de-recognized. The Senate voted to de-recognize and de-charter the clubs. Health and Safety Committee Chair Samantha Barrett ’20 reported that in addition to the free menstrual product trial run, the committee is also working on better campus accessibility for students with disabilities and safe drinking initiatives. Dining Committee Chair Jonathan Chen ’20 reported that his committee will conduct a survey on dining after finalizing it with Sodexo. Sodexo is also doing a price adjustment on Hoot Market items, with some prices being raised and others being lowered. Finkel, the Services and Outreach Committee chair, reported on the progress with the Thanksgiving Turkey Shuttles, which will go to New York’s Penn Station, Newark and Boston Logan Airport. Tickets went on sale yesterday. The Senate discussed a Senate Money Resolution for the Turkey Shuttles and the possibility of lowering ticket prices for the shuttles. Barrett raised the issue of the SMR’s timing, as tickets went on sale Monday and some students may not have heard the announcement of lower ticket prices before purchasing tickets. The Senate would have to use part of its budget to foot the bill for the lowered ticket prices. The Senate voted to pass the SMR and lower the prices of the Turkey Shuttle tickets. In senator reports, Class of 2021 Senator Rachel McAllister said that she posted a forum online gathering the concerns of the class of 2021, with the main concern being dining options. McDowell scheduled a meeting with Brenda Cummings of Borrowing Services regarding problems with first-years borrowing from the library and accruing charges for overdue items. Charles River Senator Oliver Price ’20 reported that he and the Dining Committee will begin meeting with Sodexo regarding changes in meal plan options. North Quad Senator Josh Hoffman ’21 has submitted a request for the addition of a urinal in the Cable Men’s bathroom.
POLICE LOG
Medical Emergency
Oct. 9—A party reported that they had a twisted ankle. BEMCo staff treated the party. Oct. 9—University Police received a report of a party who struck their head on a locker in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center. BEMCo staff treated the party. Oct. 10—BEMCo staff treated a party in Usdan Student Center who fainted. Cataldo Ambulance was requested, and Cataldo Ambulance staff treated the party. Oct. 10—Brandeis Counseling Center staff requested an ambulance for a psychiatric transport. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Oct. 11—A party requested BEMCo assistance for an intoxicated friend. University Police and BEMCo treated the intoxicated party, who was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Oct. 12—BEMCo staff treated an intoxicated party in Deroy Hall. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Oct. 13—University Police re-
ceived a report of a party who was suffering chest pains at the Charles River Apartments. The party was transported to NewtonWellesley Hospital. Oct. 13—University Police received a report of a party who fell down in the Shapiro Campus Center and began vomiting. The party was transported to NewtonWellesley Hospital. Oct. 13—A party in Usdan Student Center reported that they were not feeling well. BEMCo staff treated the party. Oct. 14—A party reported that they injured their finger while playing sports. BEMCo staff treated the party. Oct. 14—Brandeis Counseling Center staff reported that a student at Stoneman Public Safety building needed to be transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital.
Larceny
Oct. 9—A party in Goldfarb Library reported that their laptop was taken after it was left unattended. The party attempted to track the computer, but the unit
had been powered down.
Drugs
Oct. 13—Department of Community Living staff confiscated drug contraband during a health and safety check in Cable Hall.
Disturbance
Oct. 11—A party reported that loud music was coming from the fourth floor of Ziv 130. University Police advised the residents to turn the music down. Oct. 11—The area coordinator on call reported an unregistered party at Ziv 128. The occupants were uncooperative and the ACOC requested help. University Police dispersed the party. Oct. 14—University Police received two noise complaints for a party in the Charles River Apartments. University Police confirmed the party was registered and spoke with residents, taking no further action. Oct. 14—A Waltham resident called in a noise complaint regarding students in Tower Lot
TO THE TOP
The Justice welcomes submissions for errors that warrant correction or clarification. Email editor@ thejustice.org.
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Oct. 13—University Police compiled a report on a past sexual assault. An investigation will follow.
Other
Oct. 11—A party reported that they saw a suspicious female in a blue jacket walking down to Sherman Dining Hall. A second caller reported that the female had moved to the second floor of Sherman. University Police
See POLOG, 5 ☛
BRIEF
HEATHER SCHILLER/the Justice
n The Oct. 10 Arts cover did not cite Creative Commons for images in its composition. (Oct. 10, pg. 17).
Assault
Faculty to vote on General Education curriculum proposals at Friday meeting
—Emily Blumenthal
CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS
who were playing music and singing. University Police dispersed the group without incident. Oct. 14—University Police received a noise complaint for the Charles River Apartments. The area was all quiet upon arrival. Oct. 15—A Charles Bank Apartments resident complained of a loud party in the Charles River Apartments. University Police found the area quiet upon arrival.
Students enjoyed stress-busting activities at X-Lawn, an event hosted by Campus Activities Board on the Great Lawn on Saturday afternoon.
The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee will present their general education revision proposals to the full faculty for discussion and vote at the faculty meeting on Friday. The final recommendations require two rounds of voting by the faculty and, if passed, will move onto the consideration of the Academy Committee of the Board of Trustees and then the full Board, according the Task Force on General Education’s website. These requirements will go into effect for incoming students in fall 2019, if passed. The UCC last revised the curriculum requirements 24 years ago. The new proposals are based on a spring 2016 questionnaire sent out to students and alumni, according to an Oct. 3 Justice article. After receiving over 1,400 responses and 360 pages of comments, the Task Force delivered a proposal framed around five themes: Brandeis First-Year Experiences; Foundational Literacies; Schools of Thought; Health, Wellness and Life Skills and Global Engagement. BFYE incorporates attendance to faculty-led “Critical Conversations” with an analysis and writing assignment in the first-year University Writing Seminar. FL adds a digital literacy requirement. ST includes completion of one designated course in each of the University’s four schools of Arts and Sciences: Creative Arts, Humanities, Science and Social Science. HWLS adds a new non-credit requirement to complete modules in “Navigating Health and Safety,” “Mind and Body Balance” and “Life skills.” GE defines a requirement for courses in three areas: “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Studies in the US,” “Difference and Justice in the World” and “World Languages and Cultures.” The Task Force on General Education has been working on creating these proposals since its establishment in spring 2016. —Michelle Dang
ANNOUNCEMENTS “Richard Nixon: The Life”
Prize-winning biographer, John Farrell, discusses his new book “Richard Nixon: The Life.” In a Jan. 1, 2017 op-ed in the New York Times, Farrell previewed one of the book’s sensational findings: that Nixon personally directed a secret campaign to scuttle Lyndon Johnson’s October 1968 peace initiative. His fellow historians told the Times how the book provides a key and missing piece to the history of the Vietnam war. Farrell’s lecture is exceptionally relevant in the age of Trump. Today from 5 to 6:20 p.m. in Schwartz Hall Room 112.
Jacob and Louise Gabbay Award
The 20th Annual Jacob and Louise Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine has been awarded to James J. Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science, Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology. Collins will present a talk entitled “Synthetic Biology: Life Redesigned.” Wednesday from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in Gerstenzang Science Library Room 121.
Social Impact Job and Internship Fair
This fair connects and provides an outlet for students, faculty, staff and alumni to explore service and volunteer opportunities and careers that make a social impact. You may even have the opportunity to interview on-site directly following the fair. The breadth of opportunities range from volunteer internships, one time volunteering, group volunteering, special projects and post-graduation employment and Year-In-Service programs. Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Hassenfeld Conference Center.
Conversations with Extraordinary Women
This webinar will feature a conversation between Prof. Emerita of American
Studies and WGS Joyce Antler and Amaila Bob-Waksberg, who will speak about social activism at Brandeis across generations. Thursday from 12 to 1:30 p.m. online on Brandeis Zoom live streaming.
Fall Flex featuring X Ambassadors
The Campus Activities Board is excited to announce Fall Flex featuring X Ambassadors. X Ambassadors is an alternative band from Ithaca, New York. X Ambassadors, known for their Top 40 hits like “Renegades,” “Jungle” and “Unsteady.” Their passionate and soulful music will lift your spirits and lift your feet! Doors will open at 7 p.m., opening band Great Good Fine Ok will being at 8 p.m., and X Ambassadors will start at 9 p.m. No bags, bottles or re-entry will be allowed. College ID is required for entry. Saturday from from 7 to 10 p.m. in the Shapiro Gym, Gosman Sports and Convocation Center.
the justice
SCIENCE
Santos (PHYS) spoke on the official panel announcing an unprecedented cosmic event. By MICHELLE DANG Justice STAFF EDITOR
Aug. 17 marked a landmark discovery in the field of astrophysics, in which a collective of scientists across the globe observed the first record of both gravitational waves and light from an ancient cosmic collision. One of those scientists, Prof. Marcelle Soares-Santos (PHYS), spoke at an official press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. yesterday, together with other scientists representing the 70 ground- and space-based observatories that aided in confirming the unprecedented observation. Approximately 130 million years ago, two neutron stars started spiraling together closer and closer, releasing high-energy gravitational waves that stretch and ripple spacetime. Their eventual collision led to a ‘kilonova,’ a fireball emitting gamma-rays that arrived to Earth as a distant and transient blue-to-red flash of light beginning on the morning of Aug. 17. The U.S.-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory — the world’s largest gravitational wave observatory — and Europebased interferometer Virgo were the first to detect gravitational waves produced by the colliding neutron stars. Following this event, astronomers around the world collaborated to analyze the data from LIGO-Virgo, localize the optical source of the kilonova and track data of all the electromagnetic radiation forms that were observable for a few weeks. The overview paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters yesterday has over 3,500 authors. The challenge with detecting optical sources “is the classical challenge of finding a needle in a haystack, … with the added complication that the needle is fading away and the haystack is moving,” said Soares-Santos during the press conference, livestreamed through National Science Foundation’s YouTube channel. Neutron stars are the smallest and densest stars in the universe. The gravitational signal the collision released, named GW170817, only lasted for approximately 100 seconds. Two seconds later, gamma-rays emitted a visible flash of light that was observable to Earth for just a few days. The more than 1,500 scientists part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration
worked with each other from across the globe to analyze the results from the detectors. Soares-Santos is part of one of the six teams that independently discovered the source of the event. SoaresSantos’s team used a dark energy camera (DECam), a wide field lens camera mounted on the 4-meter Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in the Chilean Andes — an instrument Soares-Santos helped build. LIGO-Virgo gravitational wave data was analyzed with optical detections from telescopes around the world, like Soares-Santos’s DECam in Chile, to confirm the event. “This telescope and camera system allows us to search large areas in a short period of time. In other words, it allows us to search the entire localization area of an event and allows us to determine where the source is located,” said SoaresSantos. Soares-Santos said her team’s strategy was to use the camera to map out the entire region and localize occurrence with overlapping exposures, explaining, “This enables us to determine what is the optical counterpoint and enables [us] ultimately to perform a number of scientific endeavors. ... the closest to my heart is cosmology, which is the goal of the dark energy survey and my own in terms of science.” The first-ever detection of gravitational waves occurred in 2015, jumpstarting gravitational wave astronomy, according to the press release. In total, there have only been four previous confirmed detections of gravitational waves, with this being the first simultaneous light observance. This combined gravitational and optical observation provides confirmation of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity from 1915, which predicted that gravitational waves travel at the same speed as light. “Our strategy, as you know, paid off handsomely,” said Soares-Santos as she concluded her speech. Her team was not only able to localize the cosmic collision but also ruled out 1,500 candidates which “were present in that haystack.” “Truth is, things that look like needles in this haystack are very common, and the problem here is not only to find a needle, but to make sure that we have the right one. And today, we are certain that we have.” Soares-Santos became an assistant professor at the University in 2017. She is an associate scientist of the FERMI national accelerator laboratory. Soares-Santos leads the Blanco Images of the Southern Sky survey and campaigns of the Dark Energy Survey, with a focus in galaxy clusters and gravitational waves for cosmology.
Write for News at the Justice! Contact Michelle Dang at news@thejustice.org
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FIGHT FOR 15
Prof. presents on worldwide cosmic collision discovery
■ Prof. Marcelle Soares-
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YDALIA COLON/the Justice
The Brandeis Labor Coalition gathered students to go door-to-door and acquire signatures for a petition to put a Massachusetts minimum wage of $15 on the next ballot.
CAMPUS SPEAKER
Scholar discusses how NASA should care for future Mars astronauts ■ Mark J. Shelhamer, Sc.D.
spoke at a psychology colloquium on human health in the mission to Mars. By ELIANA PADWA Justice STAFF WRITER
Since the Space Race, there has been a culture-wide obsession with expanding our reach in the cosmos, and NASA is still on board: They are now thinking about getting mankind to Mars. It’s not a simple process, as scientists don’t just have to look at the technology behind space flight, but also the psychology and physiology involved in such a mission must be considered. Can the astronauts handle it? On Wednesday, Mark J. Shelhamer of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine spoke about on how NASA hopes to protect “human health and performance on a mission to Mars,” as well as his own approach to the issue. Shelhamer spent 2013 to 2016 as the chief scientist for human research at NASA, making him uniquely familiar with both the problems astronauts face and the work NASA is doing to solve them. NASA wants to send people to Mars in around 20 years, he said, and so in about 10 years, the Human Research Program will have to decide if they’ll be ready by then. At any given time, there are usually six astronauts at the International Space Station, each of whom fulfills a six-month shift. Currently, they’re still in “Earth Reliant Mode,” said Shelhamer, explaining that if there’s a problem, they can talk to mission control instantly or return to Earth in a matter of hours. Meanwhile, Mars is 30 million miles away, and there will be a communication lag of at least 20 minutes with Earth. The HRP’s aim right now, according to Shelhamer, is to give the crew the tools to operate in “Earth Autonomous Mode.” To do this, NASA is looking into the problems that astronauts may face in space and how they can handle
each of them. Shelhamer explained that some obstacles, such as bone and muscle problems, due to altered gravity, are predictable. However, NASA doesn’t yet know every problem the astronauts will face. Most studies have been shortterm, and it will take three years to get to Mars and back. Short-term studies can’t predict long-term effects, Shelhamer said, sharing an example of astronauts developing visual impairment after six months on the International Space Station. Two-week tests didn’t indicate that that might happen, he said. Just as concerning are the psychological effects of a long-term mission, which haven’t been tested. The crew will spend three years working, interacting and living with a very small group of people. They’ll be dealing with a hostile environment and experiencing isolation from their homes. In studies of astronauts on the ISS, their stress levels have continually gone up throughout their stay. Shelhamer said algorithms indicate that these levels would keep rising. To handle these problems, NASA uses a chart called the “Integrated Path to Risk Reduction.” The chart lists the problems astronauts may face and their risk factors by how likely each problem is to occur and how bad its effect will be. Shelhamer pointed to unpredictable effects, like radiation, highlighted in gray, while high-risk effects like “Inadequate Nutrition” and “Cognitive or Behavioral Conditions” are in red. Solved ones, such as “Reduced Aerobic Capacity,” are in blue. However, the chart is “kind of crap,” Shelhamer admitted, because it works as though every problem is completely independent from every other. Shelhamer would rather NASA implement an integrated approach which captures the interactions between one problem and another: for example, how high carbon dioxide levels will lead to decreased bone density in the head, how fluid shifts headward will lead
to increased pressure on the brain and how these combined effects will have a negative impact on vision and cognitive functioning. NASA is trapped by their focus on the IPRR when they should be looking beyond it, Shelhamer said. “Body parts will not travel on exploration missions,” he asserted, “whole humans will.” Shelhamer’s preferred approach applies the concept of a “Small World Network” to systems interactions. He explained that a SWN is a mathematical chart in which small clusters of nodes, or points, are connected by a few larger nodes to other small clusters. Any node can reach any other node through a series of small hops. Similarly, scientists at the University of Colorado-Boulder mapped space risk factors into a “Contributing Factor Map.” The CFM integrates psychological, technological and physiological problems into one chart. The chart demonstrates their impact on each other and the snowball effect failures can provide. Shelhamer sees it as “a system of systems.” Shelhamer thinks that the CFM should be mapped as a Small World Network. If formulated properly, one could use the SWN to display the dynamics of the group and define its resilience function or how stable the system is. The topology of the SWN shows where potential problems are, and the resilience function shows how close to catastrophe it is. If scientists can monitor where a group is on the resilience function, they can prevent problems from snowballing. Ideally, Shelhamer would have the system of each flight mission mapped as a SWN and have the commander use the map to detect warning signs. Shelhamer acknowledged that his approach isn’t perfect; crewmembers might not want their dynamic to be observed at this level, as it would feel invasive. However, he’s confident that NASA’s approach isn’t ideal either.
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THE JUSTICE
POLICE LOG CONTINUED FROM 2 located the female and identified her before removing her from University property. Oct. 13—University Police received a report of a suspicious party in the Charles River Apartments who was asking residents for Advil. University Police identified the party and handed then a trespass letter before removing them from University Property. Oct. 14—A party in the Faculty Center reported that someone may have tried to open their window
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LATINX CAREER PANEL
from the outside. University Police inspected the area and determined that access to the room could not be gained due to the window’s design. Oct. 14—University Police compiled a report on an unwanted verbal interaction off campus. Oct. 15—University Police received a report of an intoxicated male who was asking a party for directions while the party was showering in one of Village Quad’s gender neutral bathrooms. University Police could not locate the intoxicated male upon arrival. —Compiled by Abby Patkin
Do you have a nose for news?
TAYLA GUENZBURGER/the Justice
In celebration of Latinx Heritage Month, a panel of local professionals spoke about diversity hiring, underrepresented minorities and the recruitment process at the Intercultural center.
Want the Scholar covers underground scoop? movements of New Berlin ■ Author Paul Hockenos
Contact Michelle Dang at news@thejustice.org
GREEN CHALLENGE
reviewed the art, punk and music culture of historical and modern-day Berlin. By EMILY BLUMENTHAL Justice STAFF WRITER
Paul Hockenos, author of the book “Berlin Calling: A Story of Anarchy, Music, the Wall, and the Birth of the New Berlin,” spoke at Brandeis in a conversation with Prof. Sabine Von Mering (GER) on Tuesday. Hockenos spoke about Berlin’s punk music scene and how it changed the city before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Punk rock arrived in Berlin around 1978 to 1979, brought back by travelers who had visited punk music venues in London. The city’s nightlife scene exploded, with dozens of cafes and nightclubs opening all over Berlin, said Hockenos. With the rejuvenated nightlife and punk rock came a sexual revolution. Gay tourism became incredibly popular in Berlin, and the new nightlife included many gay clubs. Hockenos said there was a great angst about the Cold War in West Berlin, which created “a nihilistic culture … as some people had never left West Berlin.” One musical product of the Cold War angst was the industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten. The band made its music by recording its members destroying various objects while using some instrumentals.
Hockenos said that the idea behind Einstürzende Neubauten was the “destruction of the materials with which West Germany was built. …They were ripping down postwar West Germany because they thought it was flawed. In order to start over again, you had to annihilate.” Other contributors to the punk scene were the highly inexpensive housing and many abandoned buildings around West Berlin, said Hockenos. The government provided high subsidies for people to live and work in West Berlin, as the city was in decline at the time. It was so inexpensive to live in West Berlin that people could work a bit and still have enough money for rent, giving them plenty of freizeit, or free time. In their free time, artists took advantage of the great freiraum, or free space, and the many abandoned buildings provided for work and leisure. West Berliners were caught up in this environment, and, Hockenos said, were depressed. “They didn’t want the wall to fall, and they knew that the moment it did, their little enclave of worry-free counterculture would come to an end.” Berlin’s punk music scene was also present in East Berlin and was a symbol of defiance against the Communist regime. East German youths found punk music on the radio and from those who went to the West. The Regime discouraged, but could not stop, people from listening to Western radio stations and watching Western television.
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After the Berlin Wall fell, the city was very poor and in shambles, and people were leaving in droves, said Hockenos. Frankfurt was a city of commerce and was seen as a better option for investment. However, in 2003, then-Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit called the city “poor but sexy,” with its thriving arts and music scenes. This led to the opening of museums and art galleries and an influx of intellectuals and music producers who thought the city was “intellectual and cool.” The creative atmosphere brought back the city, but it also led to gentrification. Berlin uses its artistic reputation to draw people to creative jobs and portray itself as a “hot commodity,” explained Hockenos. It is making rents skyrocket so the artists who revived Berlin can no longer afford to live there. Hockenos stated that “the arts scene is preserved as an amusement park for those who can afford the rising rents.” The effects of the East-West divide are still felt today. Former East Germany is still plagued by high unemployment and is under duress from the influx of refugees, said Hockenos. Many people in former East Germany voted for extremist parties on both the left and right. This stems from the flawed unification execution by former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who promised “unification within a year.” Under the Communist regime, East Germany’s industrial progress was suppressed, and ever since, the region is still trying to catch up to the West.
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Students brainstormed green campus initiatives for the annual deiSic sustainability challenge held on Sunday.
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SALT: New web platform provides financial literacy resources for grads and students CONTINUED FROM 1 SALT — the result of a partnership with Massachusetts nonprofit American Student Assistance — offers loan and debt management tools in addition to online courses, forums and articles. “You just couldn’t do that in the other system,” Avery said, adding that the constantly updated resources and forums make the platform more engaging. “There’s a nice, dynamic community, and it’s always moving, which is I’m sure what students are wanting to see,” she said. The website offers a diagnostic pre-course that identifies the areas of financial literacy in which a user may be lacking, tailoring articles and materials to each user’s individual needs, Avery said. SALT also employs a chat feature that allows users to ask the website’s staff for help with financial issues. More importantly, SALT serves as a resource for students, gradu-
ates and parents alike, Avery said, adding that the tool can even be helpful for those looking to, say, purchase a house. Financial Services announced SALT’s arrival in an Oct. 10 email to students, and outreach efforts are already underway. According to Avery, Assistant Director of Student Services Tim Brown has begun doing presentations across campus about the resource, and he also teaches a Senior Year Experience course that employs the tool. Additionally, there are peer counselors trained in SALT who can teach other students. Avery stressed that while the website is not a replacement for the Financial Services office, “at like two in the morning, this is something that [students] can go on and look at without having to send an email or trying to leave a phone message.” —Liat Shapiro contributed reporting.
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The Rose Art Museum brought food trucks to campus for its Fall exhibition opening.
PLUNDER: Univ. students aid visiting artist in Rose mural Swergold recounted the way Lewis’ team encouraged the students to make marks with their own hands in the dusty halo around the symbol. For Swergold, “to know [her] handprint is somewhere around there” helped “Plunder” feel more personal, instead of it being entire-
ly Lewis’ work. The Perlmutter Award, which made Lewis’ installation possible, is aimed at promoting young artists, according to the press release. “Lewis’s residency and work promises to have especial resonance within our university community, where interdisciplinary dialogues about race and power are,
given our political context, now more critical than ever,” said Luis Croquer, the Henry and Lois Foster director of the Rose, as quoted in the press release. “Plunder” will be on display until June 10, 2018. —Editor’s note: Hannah Kressel ’20 is the Arts editor of the Justice.
SUSTAINABILITY: deiSic sparks green innovation CONTINUED FROM 1
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among other campuses in terms of progressive sustainability projects. In an interview with the Justice, Zou explained that one of deiSic’s key goals is to spread awareness of the Brandeis Sustainability Fund, as well as to allow students and faculty to collaborate on how to use the funding. Davidoff expanded on this, explaining that sustainability can integrate itself into various fields. “Business majors can create projects that can be both profitable and sustainable, Davidoff said, and “Science-focused students can use sustainability as a focus to tackle pollution,” emphasizing the far-reaching importance that sustainable projects have on improving the environment. Many attendees seemed to agree: deiSic participant Trang Nguyen ’19 asserted in an interview with the Justice that “deiSic is certainly an important step to making Brandeis more sustainable.” Prof. Laura Goldin (ENVS) added, “Climate change is something we cannot ignore, and because it is an imminent issue, we must seize the time to save the environment.” By 5 p.m., participating teams had come up with three potential initiatives: a composting project, a revamped recycling program and a “Sustainability Day” campus event. The composting project is simple: put compost bins for paper towels in the bathrooms. The majority of the waste in bathroom garbage cans is just paper towels and the ones the University uses are compostable, said pre-
senter Elyse Hahn ’20. The plan would be easy to execute, because it doesn’t have to be implemented all over campus at once, and its only major costs would be bins and transportation to the composting site, added Hahn, who also hopes to educate students about the bins through informative stickers in bathroom stalls, another marginal cost. The proposed recycling initiative is similar. Tamar Moss ’21 and Daniel Vilinsky ’18 noticed that many trash bins on campus, particularly in Massell Quad, don’t have paired recycling bins. According to their statistics, only 21 percent of the University’s waste is recycled, while around 75 percent of human-generated waste is recyclable. They feel that this can be partially rectified by putting recycling bins next to every trash can. Moss and Vilinsky would also alleviate the problem by raising awareness about recycling across campus. The pair explained that they think many students want to recycle but aren’t sure what goes where, so they throw things out unnecessarily. Their proposal includes making an instructional video demonstrating real-life recycling opportunities, which would go on display outside Sherman Dining Hall, on social media and at first-year orientation. “You would get 700 people together in a room and teach them about recycling, and get them started off right,” said Vilinsky. The pair also wishes to station student volunteers in high-traffic areas such as the Starbucks in Farber Library, and have those students gently
intervene when they see their peers putting recyclables in the trash. Another proposal took the idea of student volunteers a few steps further. Paige Hildebrand ’20 and Aynsley O’Neill ’18 said they hope to create a day-long event to educate community members about sustainability at Brandeis. The event would be organized by Hildebrand and O’Neill, but individual aspects of it would be handled by participating clubs. The pair hopes to involve clubs of every background, not just environmentally-focused ones. “What we want to focus on in this event is growing the community and getting outside of our little ‘sustainability bubble,’” said Hildebrand. Hildebrand and O’Neill explained that they think it’s best to “approach students where they are” by holding events in popular areas such as the Shapiro Campus Center atrium. Hildebrand and O’Neill would use funds to advertise, reserve a venue and incentivize participation through events and speakers. They explained that they would advertise sustainably through chalk messages and social media, rather than using paper fliers. They would also buy ethically-sourced stickers, tshirts and other giveaways to distribute to students as prizes. Hildebrand and O’Neill said they hope their Sustainability Day will become an annual event, occurring on Earth Day or an equinox. The winning deiSic team is to be decided by the BSF later this week and will be guaranteed review to receive additional funding from the BSF to implement its proposal.
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features
TUESDAY, october 17, 2017 ● Features ● The Justice
just
VERBATIM | MARK TWAIN Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
ON THIS DAY…
FUN FACT
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation to create the Department of Education.
The first ship to ever use the SOS signal was the Titanic.
Don’t Rain on Our Parade! Campus Activities Board kicks off the year with X-Lawn
By michelle saylor JUSTICE contributing WRITER
What happens when it rains on your parade? From 1 to 5p.m. on Oct. 14, the Campus Activities Board, previously known as Student Events, held its first event of the year: XLawn. As the coordinator of X-Lawn, Alyson Perenne ’19 told the Justice that CAB organized the event aiming to “start off the year with a bang,” but things didn’t go exactly as planned. Unlike other events that CAB has previously hosted, they were hoping to bring something new to X-Lawn, something more than generic inflatable rides. Pulling out all the stops this year, the organization planned as many activities as possible. Situated outside the Shapiro Campus Center, X-Lawn featured a variety of attractions: a bull ride that was quick to buck off anyone brave
enough to attempt it, a rock climbing wall for some friendly competition, a bungee trampoline that allowed students to soar through the air, postcard making to ensure anyone who missed the event would be envious of those who attended, free food in the form of Blue Ribbon Barbeque as a prize for those who came out and participated in the day’s events and, of course, music for dancing. CAB is the on-campus organization that hosts Springfest and Fallfest. In addition to bringing artists like X-Ambassadors and Lil Uzi Vert to campus, CAB also coordinates film screenings, senior portraits and food festivals. The aim of the organization is to bring fun events to campus and provide students with relief from their academic responsibilities. Unfortunately, the day had one too many surprises. Early in the afternoon it began to rain, and as dark
clouds dotted the sky and the downpour became more fierce, students who may have been inclined to join in the activities pulled out their umbrellas and hurried past. As the lawn slowly became a puddle, many of the participants drifted away. One student in attendance, Edwin Morales ’19, appreciated what CAB was trying to do and was determined not to let the rain stand in the way of a good time. He said, “The weather put a damper on the mood for the day’s festivities; however, all in all shout out to the Campus Activities Board for really thinking about the Brandeis students and providing something new and interesting to the campus.” Rain or shine, both the event coordinators and the attendees remained upbeat and seemed to be enjoying themselves. Ultimately, they carried on in good spirits, unwilling to let the rain ruin the afternoon.
GETTING TO THE TOP: Students took turns scaling the rock wall, encouraging their friends to compete against each other.
Photos by HEATHER SCHILLER/the Justice
DON’T FALL FOR IT: X-Lawn featured a mechanical bull ride that was quick to buck off anyone brave enough to attempt it.
MORE FUN AWAITS: X-Lawn is just the first of many events the Campus Activities Board plans to host throughout the semester.
A STRESS RELEASE: X-Lawn coordinator Alyson Perenne ’19 said the event was designed to “start the year off with a bang.”
the justice ● Features ● TUESDAY, october 17, 2017
For Us by Us: The Untold Stories of People of Color on Campus
PHOTO COURTESY OF CREATIVE COMMONS
This is the second installment of “For Us by Us: The Untold Stories of People of Color on Campus.” I wanted to write this piece to highlight people of color on campus. To create a space for our accomplishments, hardships and experiences. To be recognized and acknowledged. To expose ourselves to other cultures, religions and to each other. To realize that we are not alone in our experiences or on this campus. To continue these forms of communication and to hopefully develop new ones. —Arlett Marquez ’20
An Ode to Self-Care By arlett marquez JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
Daniela Marquez ’18 will graduate this spring with a major in Afro and African American studies. Born in the Dominican Republic, she migrated to the United States when she was nine years old, traveling back and forth between the U.S. and the Dominican Republic until she started high school. Recounting her time in the DR, where her father lives, she said, “When I lived with my dad it was a different rhythm. My mom was more laid back and my dad was more militarized. My mom also did not get to have a childhood, being the second oldest out of eight kids and having to take care of them was very tough. I was thinking the other day how my family has taken so much sacrifice, body and spirit wise for me to be in a position to be able to say ‘Okay, I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to eat.’ Now I understand when my mom says ‘Tu eres mi vida — you are my world.’ I never understood it because I used to wonder how can someone else be your life? How can you put others in front of you? And it’s because that’s her way of dealing with trauma. And sometimes I complain about her attachment, but she and her siblings are the foundation of my family.” Arlett Marquez: Why don’t we start off with your name? Daniela Marquez: My name on my birth certificate is Daniela Julivic Marquez, but I use the name Julivic. I grew being called Julivic and Julie by my family so it feels closer to me and I also like the fact that my mom created that name. I prefer Julie/Julivic and it’s weird because it’s one of those splits in my identity where officially I’m Daniela but during my time in DR and Cuba I introduced myself as Julivic. I felt attracted to the idea of detachment from my name. But even though I like Julivic, I’m not going to get upset with people who know me as Daniela. I feel that Daniela is associated with the school, academics and a more formal institutional process. Julivic is more the other side of me, the informal side. By informal I mean
that it does not have to go through an institutional paperwork for it to exist. AM: What was your experience coming to the United States? DM: It was traumatic. School was weird; I had to learn English at an older age. I have a love-hate relationship with English. I really like it but also I remember I limited myself a lot with English which also came from people’s ignorance. People associated speaking proper English with how smart you are and how much people will validate your opinion. So for a long time I felt very invalidated. It wasn’t always in your face, but you felt this vibe from people where some would say, ‘What?’ and ‘Oh, honey’ — basically minimizing you. However, when I went back to the D.R., I tried to make complete sentences in Spanish and it was hard. That’s why I say my real language is Spanglish and that’s okay because it’s the history of migration and living in different places. An accent is a history. It has a lot of knowledge behind it in the sense that language constructs our interactions with reality, of what we call reality. So when you speak more than one language you can access different realities. If people try to do this to me now, I don’t pay attention to it.
“
least where a big part of my identity is from. It was really interesting going back to DR staying in my father’s house, which is where I used to live. That whole year, my interaction with a place that at one point was a house of pain and violence — especially verbal violence — was very surreal. I also needed a break from Brandeis. Before leaving, I felt that I could not exist on this campus and everything that I tried to do always reminded me that I wasn’t a part of this. For instance, one encounter was when I worked in lower Usdan swiping IDs and one girl left her ID. I thought I saw the girl walking in and I didn’t know how to call her. I said ‘Hey’ and then she turns around and puts her hands up and says ,‘Don’t Shoot,’ and it was a white girl. I stood there confused and did not know how to process it. Things like this were happening to me back-to-back. So I applied to Brandeis scholarships, which is funny because the same place that’s harming you is giving you opportunities. I still feel that that was the best decision I’ve ever made. When I was there [the Dominican Republic] I learned that there are many types of ways to gain knowledge. Academia is one way, but it’s not the only way. That’s why now that I am back at Brandeis I came with the mentality of passing my classes but not making it the most important thing in my last year here. AM: When did you begin your journey of self-healing?
An accent is a history. It has a lot of knowledge behind it...
DANIELA MARQUEZ
AM: Why did you decide to take a gap year and what was your experience? DM: The reason I decided to stay a year in DR was that I told myself that I needed healing. Healing in the place I feel that I’m from or at
DM: My search for spirituality started before I came to Brandeis. However, when I came to Brandeis I had the space to do it. When I started meeting people, especially Black girls that had their natural hair, I decided to let my natural hair grow. I went to a Dominican salon — big mistake.When I went I showed her a picture of what I wanted, she immediately told me ‘Oh.’ When I went back to Brandeis and washed my hair, I saw it in the mirror and I didn’t like it. I cut it myself. I went back to the same salon and had her fix it how I wanted it. It was so freeing, not to think about if it’s raining,
‘I can’t go into the pool’ or ‘Oh if I sweat I’m going to ruin my hair;’It was so nice and I started feeling more beautiful. And of course in between there were those moments of ‘Oh shit, I feel uncomfortable,’ but then I would tell myself, ‘Okay, you feel uncomfortable but get out of the house.’ It came to a point of where my hair wasn’t a problem anymore. AM: So many people are trying to be okay with who they are and how they feel, is there anything specific that helped you?
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I am still in the process of trying to enjoy my body. DANIELA MARQUEZ
DM: It’s a long process and it depends on the person and the tools that society gives you. I am still in that process when it comes to embracing my body and my sexuality. In this country especially, certain bodies cannot be sexual while other bodies are sexualized. Specifically the bodies of Black women are seen through a white gaze and you cannot be sexy because then that’s all you are. For a long time, I stayed away from that but then I was like, ‘Fuck that shit.’ I enjoy sex; not a lot of people can say that, sadly. I am still in the process of trying to enjoy my body. I wasn’t always comfortable; I am still not comfortable in many ways with my body. When I was 12 until I was 18, I developed bulimia and that was when I thought I would never have a good relationship with food. It’s all a process; there will be some days where we say nasty things to ourselves. It’s different for everybody, but for me something that helped was when I got tired, it’s one thing for others not to like you but a whole different situation
when you don’t even like yourself. You live with yourself 24/7. I’m also trying to deconstruct and understand why I don’t like myself or why I don’t like those parts of me. Most of the time it’s because I’m trying to follow a beauty standard that has been implemented by our society. It has a lot to do with race, weight, social class and all of that shit. Once you realize these are all constructions, their effects are real and its effects on who gets to be considered more human are super real, but at the end of the day they’re all constructions. Writing helped me, painting helped me, dancing helped me. I feel dance is the thing that really helped me accept my body because there are no limitations. Not at the institutional level because when you institutionalize dance there are certain bodies that can fit and certain ones that cannot. When dance is at the level of el pueblo [the people], anyone and everyone can dance. AM: How does it feel coming back? DM: I feel weird coming back to an environment of aggressive competition. College is not life; I know college is not life. I want to backpack after I finish college, I’ve met so many amazing people in a journey of figuring out life and for me that’s beautiful. People sometimes try to change the whole world and they forget the person next to them. I’m taking a body gesture class which is in the theater department and one of the things they asked us to do was walk in silence and look at the people around us in their eyes. I noticed that it was so hard for people to do that and that’s how we walk everyday around here. At Brandeis, one day you can have a deep conversation with a person and the next day they will just walk by you. That’s also because people are so focused on the next thing: Getting to class on time or getting to work, so when do you have the human connection? AM: Do you want to add anything else? DM: Yes, love with freedom.
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10 TUESDAY, October 17, 2017 ● forum ● THE JUSTICE
the
Justice Established 1949
Brandeis University
Abby Patkin, Editor in Chief Amber Miles, Managing Editor Carmi Rothberg, Senior Editor Kirby Kochanowski and Sabrina Sung, Deputy Editors Michelle Banayan, Abby Grinberg, Lizzie Grossman, Noah Hessdorf, Mihir Khanna, Mira Mellman, Jerry Miller, Associate Editors Michelle Dang, News Editor, Victor Feldman, Acting Features Editor Nia Lyn, Forum Editor, Ben Katcher, Sports Editor Hannah Kressel, Arts Editor Yvette Sei, Acting Photography Editor, Natalia Wiater, Photography Editor Morgan Mayback, Acting Layout Editor, Pamela Klahr and Robbie Lurie, Ads Editors Jen Geller and Avraham Penso, Copy Editors
EDITORIALS Urge DCL to provide accurate times for room inspections On Oct. 6, the Department of Community Living sent an email notifying the student population at Brandeis University of the upcoming health and safety inspections. The email emphasized the dates of the inspections, noting that all inspections will occur “between the hours of 9:00AM and 6:00PM from October 10-October 25 (only Monday-Friday).” The inspection period, which spans over two weeks, seems unusually and unnecessarily long. This board proposes restructuring the inspection period in order to facilitate a more efficient process and alleviate some of the inconveniences that come with such a broad period. In stretching the inspections to over two weeks, DCL is pushing the limit in terms of the length of inspections. Consider that in past years, DCL notified specific quads that inspections would occur for them during a brief four-day window. Such a wide window can create major headaches for students who must ensure that their rooms and suites are clean for two full weeks and that they be alert at all times of the day in case DCL enters their room. Moreover, because DCL locks each room after inspections, students who do not carry their room keys around campus may be locked out of their rooms if they are unaware that inspections are occurring. The nuisance of DCL hanging over a student’s head can easily be rectified by delineating specific days for inspections. This board proposes that DCL give notice of inspections up to a month before they occur, giving students a
Make times more convenient
general time period for inspections. As the deadline for that general timeline approaches, Community Advisors should notify their residents as to the specific dates that their quad will be inspected. This will allow those students to prepare for a shorter period, say four to five days, instead of a full two weeks. The same would go for the other quads on campus, allowing DCL to check all the residence halls in an efficient and convenient manner. Additionally, a shorter period is much more practical, both for DCL and the students. With a shorter period, DCL can announce inspections and then immediately focus its efforts on those quads that need inspections, rather than elongating the entire process. This will help move things on in an efficient manner and ensure that everything is dealt with in a timely fashion. As mentioned above, students would also benefit from a shorter period in that they will no longer need to preoccupy themselves for two weeks with needless worries about the DCL inspections. While it is courteous for DCL to notify the student population before inspections are conducted, the long waiting period has become more of a nuisance than a benefit. While DCL has had to deal with backlash in recent years due to lottery mishaps and other issues, this seems like a reasonable solution and an easy fix. This board recommends shortening the inspection period and, in doing so, simplifying the entire process for everyone involved.
Criticize University’s poor timing of search for new dean With a proposal for new general education requirements in consideration and a search for a new dean underway, the College of Arts and Sciences is embarking on an era of change, and this board cautions the University not to rush too many changes at once. University President Ronald Liebowitz announced last month that a search committee would recommend a new dean of Arts and Sciences to replace Prof. Susan Birren (BIOL), who has held the position since July 1, 2011. In an Oct. 13 email, Provost Lisa Lynch gave the Brandeis community an update and formally named the members of the search committee. At the same time, Birren has been serving as the chair of the Task Force on General Education, which is working to finalize proposals for a new curriculum. The University has not changed the general education requirements in 24 years. While this board recognizes the importance of progress, we question the University’s judgment in allowing two major transition periods to occur simultaneously. The timing of these changes is not ideal, as the College will attempt to implement a new curriculum without an experienced dean at the helm after Birren steps down. One of the main duties of the dean
Ensure smooth transition of Arts and Sciences is to oversee the College’s curricula, so it makes sense that the dean would chair any task force seeking to change said curricula. However, having an outgoing dean making such drastic changes to the curriculum while there is an active search for a new dean is ill-advised. At best, the changes will add unnecessary challenges to the incoming dean’s existing learning curve; at worst, the transition to the new general education requirements will be incomplete and not ready to be implemented by the time the University replaces Birren. Either way, a period of needless instability lies ahead for the College of Arts and Sciences, and this will likely result in growing pains that could have been avoided if the University had considered the timing more carefully. This board criticizes the University’s poor planning in this matter and urges Brandeis to take precautions to ensure a smooth transition on both fronts. —Editor’s note: Mihir Khanna ’18 is a student representative to the search committee and also serves as one of the Justice’s associate editors. He did not take part in the discussion or composition of this editorial.
MARA KHAYTER/the Justice
Views the News on
According to an Oct. 11 article in the New York Times, President Donald Trump revealed that the United States may drop out of North American Free Trade Agreement, stating, “It is possible we won’t be able to make a deal, and it’s possible that we will.” In addition to this, the Trump Administration has also proposed limits on the number of government contracts that Mexican or Canadian companies can win. What do you think of the president’s opinion, and is it in the best interest of the U.S.?
Prof. Michael Coiner (ECON) Economic theory predicts that, in almost all cases, freer trade generates net gains for each participating nation. Studies of NAFTA’s effects estimate net gains for the U.S. (as well as Mexico and Canada). Consumers gain from lower prices on imports, and exporters gain from increased sales. However, not EVERYONE gains from freer trade. Workers whose firms have declined due to increased competition from Mexican or Canadian imports and workers whose firms have moved to those nations have been hurt by NAFTA. American policies did not do enough to help these people re-train or move. Trump’s denunciations of NAFTA during the campaign appealed to them. However, abandoning NAFTA would roll back the net gains that the U.S. enjoys from the agreement. In the larger picture, if the U.S. retreats from the global economy, we run the risk of falling behind other nations who continue to benefit from the gains from trade. Prof. Michael Coiner (ECON) is a Professor of Economics.
Prof. Ricardo Lopez (IBS) Dropping out of NAFTA would increase import taxes and, therefore, the price we pay for Mexican and Canadian products. Some U.S. firms may move their factories back to the U.S., which would increase the cost of producing those goods and their prices in the U.S., without necessarily increasing overall employment. Dropping out of NAFTA would also hurt U.S. producers who sell their products in Canada or Mexico, since these products would face higher taxes in those markets. Limiting the number of contracts that Mexican or Canadian companies can win means that the U.S. government would have to buy domestically produced products even if the Mexican or Canadian versions of those products are cheaper. While this would help domestic producers of those goods, it would hurt taxpayers who would end up paying more for government services. We’ll have to wait and see what kind of deal President Trump can get from these negotiations. A better deal for the U.S. would likely involve more cooperation among the three countries and lower barriers to trade, which is not exactly what we are hearing so far. Prof. Ricardo Lopez (IBS) is an Assistant Professor of Economics in the Brandeis International Business School.
Prof. George Hall (ECON) Regardless of whether or not NAFTA was a good idea in the 1990s, it has been the “rules of the game” for the last two decades. In response to these rules U.S. manufacturing firms have transformed themselves creating winners and losers, but ripping up these rules won’t turn losers into winners, nor will it return the U.S. to the 1990s. Under NAFTA, manufacturing in the U.S., Mexico and Canada has become tightly integrated so that many of the imports and exports between these three nations are intermediate goods. Consider the automobile industry — nearly every car produced in North America these days is built with parts from all three countries. Raising taxes on goods flowing across the borders will simply raise the cost of building products in the U.S. — making U.S. manufacturing less competitive relative to Asia and hurting the very workers the president seeks to help. Prof. George Hall (ECON) is the Fred C. Hecht Professor of Economics.
Darhan Rzaev ’19 Calling it “the worst thing that ever happened in the manufacturing industry,” President Trump is unequivocally against NAFTA. Although Trump’s statement exhibits his usual over-dramatization, his point holds water. NAFTA is blamed for the loss of over 500,000 jobs, the decline of wages and the rise of the trade deficit in the U.S. alone. However, NAFTA also quadrupled trade between Mexico, Canada and the U.S. and lowered our prices of groceries and gasoline, thereby stimulating economic growth in all three countries. These facts demonstrate the stern difficulty of deciding and proposing an economically viable solution. The truth is, no one knows for certain if or how beneficial NAFTA really is. I believe the overall benefits of NAFTA outweigh our losses, but under an “America first” approach NAFTA does not favor the U.S. Exiting NAFTA is a gamble for the U.S., with repercussions that can unfold for years to come. Darhan Rzaev ’19 is an Economics Undergraduate Departmental Representative.
THE JUSTICE ● fORUM ● TUESDAY, october 17, 2017
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Commend news outlets for exposing sexual predators By SANTIAGO MONTOYA JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Throughout this year alone, the media — or, more specifically, the New York Times — has done an unprecedented job in exposing people in positions of power who turned out be concealing egregious secrets about their sexual misconduct in the workplace. The series of exposés have given the voice and courage many women, who are minorities in different working fields, have needed for such a long time already to call out their abusers. Back in April, the Times reported that Bill O’Reilly has settled five sexual harassment lawsuits against him since 2002. Andrea Mackris was the first to have sued O’Reilly for sexual harassment, seeking $60 million in damages. According to the same Times article, O’Reilly agreed to pay $9 million along with a public statement saying that there had been “no wrongdoing whatsoever” to make the allegation go away. As a result of the disclosure of the sexual harassment lawsuits against O’Reilly, “The O’Reilly Factor” — his hour-long show since 1996 — lost more than half its advertisers within a week, according to an April 11 New York Times article. In fact, the backlash was considered so appalling that it did not go away soon enough, prompting Fox News to cancel O’Reilly’s contract and rename his program “The Factor.” In late June, a New York Times publishedpiece by Katie Benner, titled “Women in Tech Speak Frankly on Culture of Harassment,” denounced prominent Silicon Valley investor, Dave McClure. McClure, founder of the startup incubator “500 Startups,” was described as sending sexually inappropriate messages to a female investor, who later applied for employment at his company. McClure apologized for his behavior in a July 1 post on Medium, stating, “I’m a creep. I’m sorry,” and resigned as general partner. The scandal prompted a conversation about sexual harassment and the role that predominantly male companies, such Facebook and Uber, play in them. Now, all eyes are focused on Hollywood. Recently, the Times has exposed another well-guarded secret revolving around sexual misconduct, this time involving film mogul Harvey Weinstein. the New York Times first broke the story on Oct. 5 with an article detailing the traumatic experiences of three women sexually harassed by Weinstein, including actress Ashley Judd. Two decades ago Judd, who was shooting a movie titled “Kiss the Girls,” was to meet with Weinstein for breakfast at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. When she arrived at the hotel, she was told to go to Weinstein’s suite, which surprised her. It did not get any less surprising, as the article reveals. He would toss invitation after invitation, asking her for a massage, a shoulder rub, if she would watch him shower, to all of which which she said no. She rejected each offer and had to bargain to safely leave
JULIANNA SCIONTI/the Justice
the situation by telling Weinstein that he could touch her if she won an Oscar. Another testimony comes from a memo written by a former Weinstein employee, Lauren O’Connor. Though she is not a survivor, O’Connor wrote a memo in 2015 describing the experience of Emily Nestor, an employee at The Weinstein company, with the goal of exposing the sexual misconduct of her boss. Ronan Farrow’s Oct. 10 article in The New Yorker describes a series of interviews with survivors of Weinstein’s abuse. In her memo, O’Connor wrote about Nestor’s response to Weinstein’s behavior. Nestor stated, “I am a 28-year-old trying to make a living and a career. Harvey Weinstein is a 64 year old, world famous man and this is his company. The balance of power is me: 0, Harvey Weinstein: 10.” Prior to this excruciating and pivotal reporting, there were people who knew about it and decided to remain silent and look the other way. Weinstein had been harassing and assaulting women for three decades, and many people in Hollywood knew about this. In an Oct. 11 article in The Guardian, French actress Lea Seydoux said, “Everyone knew what Harvey was up to and no one did anything. It’s unbelievable that he’s been able to act like this for decades and still keep his career.” It just so happens that no one dared to speak about it out of fear of the possible retributions that the powerful and influential man could take, like ruining somebody’s career. He certainly did ruin more than one person’s career, as Farrow’s piece tells it. It was shocking to learn this news; his name is mentioned in more than one speech at a film award ceremony. He has been involved in the
distribution of touchstone films as “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Good Will Hunting.” Weinstein was one of the co-founders of Miramax and The Weinstein Company, along with his brother Bob Weinstein, whose films have garnered hundreds of Academy Awards. Each year, the company produces films that gain a lot of critical acclaim and attention. The man presented himself as a liberal who hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton last year, employed Barack Obama’s daughter Malia Obama as an intern last year and in 2015, when O’Connor wrote her memo, his company distributed a documentary regarding campus sexual assault, “The Hunting Ground.” Weinstein is a man who utilized his position of power to get what he wanted at any cost. He knew he put women against the wall, like a predator corralling his prey. They had to chose between advancing their film careers and taking the risk of calling him out. According to the Times piece, “Mr. Weinstein enforced a code of silence; employees of the Weinstein Company have contracts saying they will not criticize it or its leaders in a way that could harm its ‘business reputation’... And most of the women accepting payouts agreed to confidentiality clauses prohibiting them from speaking about the deals or the events that led to them.” This is when the media has acted responsibly and has ushered a new era wherein if one person cannot possibly speak, through the media, their voice is projected. In the case of Weinstein, the Times and New Yorker both collected multiple voices with the same narrative, which made it more believable. The New Yorker also mentioned and released a tape where Weinstein tells model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, a survivor, that he
had groped a woman and is “used to” it. The tape was part of a covert operation, and it was going to be used to press charges against Weinstein. However, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. decided not to. According to an Oct. 13 National Public Radio article, some suggest that Weinstein’s contributions to the DA had a lot to do with Vance’s decision not to prosecute him. Furthermore, according to the same New Yorker piece, Gutierrez signed a “highly restrictive nondisclosure agreement with Weinstein, including an affidavit stating that the acts he admits to in the recording never happened.” Weinstein now joins the group of public figures, such as Donald Trump, O’Reilly, Roger Ailes and Bill Cosby, who have had stories about them allegedly engaging in sexual misconduct. Regardless, the accusations against these men have only been met with repudiation. Several ties were cut when Cosby’s allegations emerged, including representation, honorary degrees, business contracts and the reruns of his show. Similarly, O’Reilly was dropped from his TV show. Despite the backlash, Trump still got elected President. In his case, there were countless factors that played in his favor. In the most recent case, Weinstein was fired from his own company, and multiple women, including Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Cara Delevingne, have decided to speak against him. Though some people claim that journalism is dying, good reporting still defends and sheds light upon the most unspeakable truths. The good reporting about sexual misconduct has propelled a response with the goal to get the message across: Today’s society rebuffs this kind of behavior, regardless of the power and the wealth.
Criticize racially insensitive elements of the beauty industry Nia
lyn purpose
Recently, Dove produced an ad that featured a Black woman removing her shirt to reveal a fair-skinned white woman, and the white woman doing the same to reveal a third woman. However innocent the intention may have been, the advertisement was met with backlash over claims of racism and was eventually pulled, according to an Oct. 8 New York Times article. The article also states that Dove has since apologized for the ad, and that spokeswoman Marissa Solan stated that the commercial was intended to be a celebration of diversity and show that Dove body wash is meant for every woman. Regardless, this is not the first time that Dove has been accused of racial insensitivity. In 2011, the company released an ad, again with the intent to promote their body wash and show its beneficial effects on skin. However, the ad featured women standing in order from
darkest to lightest, with a backdrop comparing clean and dirty skin. The word “before” was above the black woman and “after” above the white woman. According to a May 26, 2011 NBC News article, Dove responded to the controversy stating that all three women were intended to show the “after” effect. If Dove prides itself on “widening the definition of beauty,” per their website, why do they continue to perpetuate racist tropes and enforce colorist ideals? Similarly, a 2016 ad for Qiaobi detergent featured a Chinese woman shoving a Black man into a washing machine only for an Asian man to appear at the end of the cycle. According to a May 27, 2016 New York Times article, when asked about the ad, Xu Chunyan, an agent of Qiaobi, said that the ad was for sensational effect: “If we just show laundry like all the other advertisements, ours will not stand out.” Ads like this only promote the belief that lighter skin is superior and that dark skin is the equivalent of dirt. In turn, people who were born with darker skin see these ads and internalize the messages. It urges women and men to seek products to alter their natural complexion, only harming themselves in the long term. Unilever, the parent company of Dove, also makes a skin lightening cream called Fair and Lovely. Though Fair and Lovely is only sold in the Middle East, similar products are
distributed throughout the world. A Nov. 26, 2016 New York Times article exposes the culture of skin bleaching in West Africa for its harmful effects on women. Some lightening agents contain the ingredient hydroquinone, which acts to disrupt the skin’s natural melanin production. Melanin helps prevent damage to cells when exposed to the sun’s harmful rays, and the Ghanaian government is worried that the use of these products could lead to a rise in skin cancer. Regardless, women continue to use lightening products, and the media continues to promote them. The article also states that in some countries, up to 70 percent of women are believed to use skin lightening products. In the same NYT article, filmmaker Comfort Arthur recounted growing up with siblings lighter than her and always being reminded that her sisters were lighter and prettier. This attack on a young person’s self esteem is detrimental and can lead to years of self-hatred and a distorted image of beauty — as evidenced by the popularity of said skin-lightening creams. According to an April 24, 2016 article in the Huffington Post, Nigeria seems to have the greatest use of skin lightening products, with 77 percent of women claiming to use them. These products are also very popular in many Asian countries and the United States. According to
the same Huffington Post article, there is an ad in Thailand for a skin-whitening cream with the tagline: “You just need to be white to win.” Nigerian life coach Kemi Nekvapil can also attest to growing up and seeing much fairer women in advertisements, stating: “What I saw as beautiful was someone who didn’t look like me.” This is something that even I have experienced. In high school, several of my Black classmates complained about being “too dark” or made ignorant comments along the line of “Light skin is the right skin.” These comments only fuel the ideology behind the companies that produce skin-lightening products. They prey on insecurity and deep-rooted self-hatred. Change needs to be made, starting with the media. There needs to be more representation for individuals of all shades and fewer subtle indications, such as the aforementioned ads, that darker skin is lesser than. The hope is that future generations won’t have to grow up thinking that they are ugly or undesirable because they don’t look like the people on TV. Companies like Dove, which claims to be dedicated to body positivity and encouraging women to embrace their natural beauty, need to recognize their impact and ensure that their ads actually meet their intended goal.
The opinions expressed on this page are those of each article’s respective author and do not reflect the viewpoint of the Justice.
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12
TUESDAY, october 17, 2017 ● forum ● THE JUSTICE
FORUM
Urge NFL to support Colin Kaepernick’s form of protest By Judah Weinerman JUSTICE staff writer
It all began with the simplest of gestures. At the beginning of the 2016 NFL season, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided he would kneel during the national anthem to draw attention to racial inequality and police brutality. On Aug. 26, 2016, Kaepernick remained seated during the national anthem, and on Aug. 27, 2016, he told NFL Media, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” He also said, “To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave getting away with murder.” After consulting with former Green Beret and Seattle Seahawks punter Nate Boyer, Kaepernick and teammate Eric Reid instead chose kneeling as their method of protest, because it was respectful while still dissonant and jarring. In a Sept. 5 New York Times opinion piece, Reid wrote, “I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy.” Predictably, there was a media firestorm at the time; sportswriters and conservative media columnists harshly criticized Kaepernick, claiming he was politicizing the national anthem and disrespecting military veterans and the country at large. Fearful of what he could inspire, NFL owners collectively decided that Kaepernick was to be avoided at all costs despite his on-field skills. In particular, the Baltimore Ravens front office was in favor of signing Kaepernick, but owner Steve Bisciotti was strongly opposed to it. Bisciotti went as far as dredging an old tweet Kaepernick’s girlfriend Nessa Diab had sent out comparing him to a slave owner to ensure that the former 49ers quarterback remained a free agent, according to a Sept. 5 ABC News article. If the league’s owners were convinced that keeping Kaepernick sidelined would stop the protests, they’ve been proven dead wrong: Blackballing Kaepernick has turned him into a martyr. No.7 Kaepernick jerseys have become a civil rights symbol in their own right and Kaepernick has used the attention from the media firestorm around him to raise money for charity groups and promote his “Know Your Rights” sessions for children, according to a Sept. 7 New York Times article. Then, a certain president got involved. At a Sept. 20 rally for doomed Senate candidate Luther Strange, President Donald Trump went after the red meat his Alabaman crowd craved. Kaepernick provided a perfect opportunity from Trump. His supporters love football nearly as much as they hate civil rights activism. According to a Sept. 23 article in the Guardian, Trump asked, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired!’” Suddenly, the protests were no longer Colin Kaepernick versus the establishment; they were the NFL versus Trump’s warped view of America. Trump was declaring cultural war, pitting
RACHEL KLINGENSTEIN/the Justice
viewers against the NFL’s young and heavily African-American players.
“
I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. The day after Trump’s remarks, nearly 200 players sat or kneeled during the anthem, and many others chose to lock arms as a sign of solidarity, according to a Sept. 24 USA Today article. Even Jerry Jones, the highly conservative Trump-supporting owner of the Dallas Cowboys, stood in solidarity with his players
as they locked arms during the anthem. Unfortunately, the NFL itself completely missed the point of Kaepernick’s actions. Kaepernick was kneeling to specifically call attention to the issues faced by people of color in the United States. This wasn’t about Trump or any other single figure; it was about a racial structure predicated upon oppression and state violence. Badly misjudging the situation, the NFL tried to use the protests as a marketing tool, only to realize how many of the league’s fans agreed with the racist sentiments Trump was espousing. Every tired, lazy, anti-protest cliche — playing professional sports is a privilege; they’re disrespecting veterans and the military; sports should stay apolitical — was allowed to come out of the woodwork. By attempting to turn a significant social movement into a mere marketing gimmick, the NFL ceded the conversation to Trump and allowed him to control the narrative. On Oct. 11, the New York Times reported
that Trump voters’ view of the NFL went from about 20 percent unfavorable to 60 percent unfavorable nearly overnight, after Trump singled out the anthem protests. According to an Oct. 10 article in Sports Illustrated, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell attempted to do damage control by sending out a notice that all players were now strongly encouraged to stand for the anthem, but it was too little, too late. The NFL has put itself in no-man’s land, distrusted both by conservatives furious over the players’ acts of defiance against the anthem and by leftists still angry at the league for its blackballing of Kaepernick. As Italian poet Dante Alighieri wrote, “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” The NFL has a choice of supporting Kaepernick and his fellow athletes in their fight against police brutality or allowing the system of racial oppression to continue as is by coming out in support of Trump’s culture war.
Criticize President Trump’s poor response to Hurricane Maria Maddox
Kay
Global Warning
Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico and the Lesser Antilles on Sept. 20, and President Donald Trump has already suggested that we pull aid. Just weeks before, Hurricane Harvey blasted Texas and the Caribbean. Both hurricanes caused devastation, but the response from the White House could not be more different. According to an Aug. 31 CNN article, Trump commendably donated $1 million of his own money to aid relief efforts in Texas, yet remarked in a backhanded series of Tweets that we cannot aid Puerto Rico “forever.” Throughout his campaign and his first nine months in office, Trump has sneered at anything outside of the 50 states; apparently, that includes U.S. territories and their residents. “We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!” tweeted Trump on Thursday, Oct. 12. Well, what does forever mean? Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rican capital
San Juan on Sept. 20, about three weeks ago. According to an Oct.13 report from the Los Angeles Times, 85 percent of the island still lacks power, and 40 percent of the island lacks access to safe drinking water. Removing aid at this time could devastate the 3.4 million residents, according to 2016 U.S. Census data. An Oct. 13 Washington Post article asserts that “overcrowding, poor sanitation and lack of health care,” make post-Maria Puerto Rico a breeding ground for communicable diseases. These three problems are exactly what Federal Emergency Management Agency and other responders address. By providing potable water and keeping health care professionals on the ground in the aftermath of any natural disaster, we avoid death and disease, and communities can mobilize. The negative health impacts do not stop in Puerto Rico. The island manufactures more than 25 percent of all U.S.-exported pharmaceuticals, according to a Sept. 25 Marketplace report. This means a prolonged debilitation of Puerto Rico would not only hurt its residents but also the American economy at large. It could also cause drug shortages across the Caribbean and the rest of the world, says the report. According to a Sept. 6 CNN article, the emergency response to Hurricane Harvey in Texas was backed by bipartisan political and popular support, as it should be. According to FEMA data, it is the largest disaster response in Texas state history. The $1 million that
Trump donated was distributed between the Red Cross and several Christian organizations, according to an Oct. 12 Newsweek article. J.J. Watt, defensive end for the Houstan Texans, created an online fundraiser which totaled $37 million for victims in the NFL star’s home state, according to a Sept. 15 article from CBS Sports. In a country that remembers the lethargic response to Hurricane Katrina, it is heartening to see Americans passionately volunteer and donate to disaster relief. Since Katrina, social media has become instrumental in generating not only buzz, but also aid. Many of the donation funds generated for Harvey relief were raised online. That’s where the stories of victims were told, and that’s where communities came together.
“
He views Puerto Ricans as an unsuccessful people suffering from a financial crisis “largely of their own making.” Since the president is notorious for his use of social media, he wields the power
The opinions expressed on this page are those of each article’s respective author and do not reflect the viewpoint of the Justice.
to emphasize issues just by posting about them. Trump “tweeted or retweeted 25 times about Hurricane Harvey in the days leading up to the storm and the 48 hours after it made landfall,” doing the same for “Irma 23 times during that timeframe,” reported USA Today on Oct. 12. By contrast, “For Maria: the president sent two tweets.” The president broke with his tradition and refrained from bringing attention to Puerto Rico despite dire circumstances. But why? Sure, Trump doesn’t much care for anyone outside our borders — save for Putin — but Puerto Rico has been a U.S. territory since 1898. The island has twice as many residents as Manhattan and contributes substantially to the American drug industry. Ultimately, it comes down to Trump’s fundamental lack of sympathy for those who don’t fit his ideals of strength. According to his Oct. 12 tweet, he views Puerto Ricans as an unsuccessful people suffering from a financial crisis “largely of their own making.” The Puerto Rican people cannot vote in the general election for president, and if they could, it’s unlikely Trump would have won; twice as many Democrats as Republicans voted in the Puerto Rican primaries. Therefore, just as John McCain wasn’t a war hero because “he was captured,” Hurricane Maria is not a tragedy because it happened to Puerto Rico. Welcome to the (im) moral meritocracy.
2017
10 THE JUSTICE ● Sports ● Tuesday, OCTOBER 17, 2017
MSOCCER: Club strives to extend current winning streak CONTINUED FROM 16 nearly assisted on an equalizing goal, but his throw-in was headed just wide by midfielder Alex Walter ’20. Defender Sam Vinson ’17 and Hennessy were kept busy on the back line, but they did an excellent job keeping the ball away from Woodhouse. Woodhouse recorded three saves and did his job well, but it was just not enough. The Judges will continue their successful campaign on Wednesday against Clark University at 7 p.m., their final non-conference game of the season. Then, after a nine-day break, the team will begin a three-
13
BRANDEIS BOOT
game home stretch of conference play against Washington University in St. Louis on Friday, Oct. 27. This will be followed by an important game against No. 4 University of Chicago on Sunday, Oct. 29. The team will close out the regular season against New York University on Nov. 4. This season should have a happy ending, as the Judges have had massive success defending Gordon Field, winning all six home games thus far. The team will look to build some momentum before an exciting postseason to come. Fans certainly have a lot to look forward to as the regular season concludes.
SWIMMING: Teams will look to build WSOCCER: Squad wants to on their success at bounce back in next match meet this Friday
NATALIA WIATER/Justice File Photo
POWER-PACKED: Forward Haliana Burhans ’18 loads up to boot the ball across the pitch during a home match on Oct. 7.
CONTINUED FROM 16
CONTINUED FROM 16 on Oct. 1. While there was no overall victor in the matchup, both the men’s and women’s teams had remarkable individual performances. For the men, Zitelny won the 100-meter butterfly by over a second. Zitelny also won the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 49.90. In the 100-yard breastroke, Zitelny claimed third place, while Wohl came out in first place with a time of 1:01.00. On the women’s side, Kim
captured one of the individual titles for the Judges when she finished in first place in the 100yard backstroke. Her time of 1:04.14 was enough to barely edge the second-place finisher from Roger Williams by a mere .32 seconds. In the 100-meter breastroke, McGovern and Wozab finished in second and third place with times of 1:11.98 and 1:13.50, respectively. The Judges will next be in action on the road at Hartwick College on Friday followed by Vassar College on Saturday.
second half. Dana recorded six saves while she was in, keeping the game scoreless. Since the only other goalie on the roster, Victoria Richardson ’20, was also injured, the team had to turn to forward Minjee Lee ’19 to take over in an emergency role. Unfortunately for the Judges, Emory was able to take advantage of the team’s difficult situation, scoring in the 54th, 61st and 82nd minutes to defeat Brandeis 3-0. Lee was able to record three saves for the team during her time in goal. Judges 1, Rochester 0 Brandeis handed Rochester its
fifth loss of the season and third straight conference loss on Friday with an impressive 1-0 shutout. The victory was the team’s 10th of the strong season. Midfielder Katie Hayes ’20 scored the match’s only goal five minutes into the second half off a beautiful assist from forward Sasha Sunday ’19. The goal was Hayes’ second of the season, while the assist was Sunday’s eighth. Sunday has had an outstanding season thus far, as her eight assists are good for second-most in the entire conference. Dana only had to defend one shot on goal for the match, a long ball from the left wing that the skilled goalie caught just
under the crossbar. Brandeis now sits at third place in the conference with a 2-1-1 record in UAA play behind University of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis. With an overall record of 10-2-2 and just five matches left in the regular season, though, the Judges’ playoff hopes are still very much alive. After last year’s National Collegiate Athletic Association Final Four appearance, expectations are high for this team. If Dana can remain healthy, and if the offense continues to power the squad past its opponents, fans have every reason to be optimistic as the 2017 postseason rolls around.
SOCCER VOLLEYBALL SWIMMING TRACK
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jUDGES BY THE NUMBERS
● Sports ●
Tuesday, OCTOBER 17, 2017
15
VOLLEYBALL
Men’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS UAA Conf. W L D Chicago 3 1 0 JUDGES 3 1 0 Emory 3 1 0 Rochester 3 1 0 Carnegie 2 2 0 WashU 1 3 0 Case 0 3 0 NYU 0 4 0
TEAM STATS Goals
Overall W L D 13 1 0 10 3 0 10 3 0 9 2 2 9 3 1 7 4 1 5 7 2 7 5 1
Patrick Flahive ’18 leads the team with five goals. Pct. Player Goals .929 Patrick Flahive 5 .769 Mike Lynch 4 .769 Andrew Allen 3 .818 Joshua Handler 3 .750 .636 Assists .417 Josh Ocel ’18 leads the team .583 with six assists. Player Assists Josh Ocel 6 Max Breiter 4 Noah Gans 2 Dylan Hennessy 2
EDITOR’S NOTE: Wednesday at Clark University Oct. 27 vs. WashU Oct. 29 vs. University of Chicago
WOMen’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS
TEAM STATS Goals
Chicago WashU JUDGES Carnegie NYU Emory Rochester Case
UAA Conf. W L D 4 0 0 3 1 0 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 0 4 0 0 4 0
Overall W L D Pct. 14 0 0 1.000 12 1 1 .923 10 2 2 .833 9 2 2 .818 8 3 2 .727 8 4 1 .667 6 6 1 .500 5 9 0 .357
EDITOR’S NOTE: Wednesday vs. Westfield State Sunday at Elms College Oct. 27 vs. WashU
Samantha Schwartz ’18 leads the team with six goals. Player Goals Samantha Schwartz 6 Sasha Sunday 5 Haliana Burhans 4 Julia Matson 3
Assists Sasha Sunday ’19 leads the team with eight assists. Player Assists Sasha Sunday 8 Haliana Burhans 3 Katie Hayes 3 Hannah Maatallah 2
VOLLEYBALL UAA STANDINGS
TEAM STATS Kills
Carnegie WashU Chicago Emory Case Rochester NYU JUDGES
UAA Conf. W L 6 1 6 1 5 2 4 3 4 3 2 5 1 6 0 7
Overall W L 22 1 18 6 19 5 19 5 15 9 12 10 5 19 10 10
Pct. .957 .750 .792 .792 .625 .545 .208 .500
EDITOR’S NOTE: Friday at Worcester State University Saturday at Hamilton (in Amherst) Sunday at Trinity (in Amherst)
Emma Bartlett ’20 leads the team with 138 kills. Player Kills Emma Bartlett 138 Marissa Borgert 135 Shea Decker-Jacoby 114 Zara Platt 91
Digs Yvette Cho ’19 leads the team with 318 digs. Player Digs Yvette Cho 318 Shea Decker-Jacoby 130 Marissa Borgert 118 Clare Meyers 103
cross cOuntry Results from the Connecticut College Invitational on Saturday.
TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)
TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)
8-Kilometer Run RUNNER TIME Ryan Stender 25:31.7 Mitchell Hutton 25:57.0 Liam Garvey 26:26.3
6-Kilometer Run RUNNER TIME Emily Bryson 22:18.4 Julia Bryson 23:32.7 Niamh Kenney 23:55.1
EDITOR’S NOTE: Oct. 28 at UAA Championships (in New Jersey) Nov. 11 at NCAA New England Regional Championships (in Maine)
GWENDOLYN HARRIS/Justice File Photo
SUPER SPIKE: Outside hitter Clare Meyers ’21 sets up to crush the ball over the net against Bowdoin College on Sept. 8.
Club plays hard but struggles at tourney ■ Setter Marlee Nork ’19 had 15 assists in a shutout loss against Washington University in St. Louis. By EVAN ROBINS JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
The Brandeis women’s volleyball team hit the road this weekend, traveling to Chicago for the second 2017 University Athletic Association Round Robin. Judges 0, NYU 3 The Judges lost their fourth and final match of the UAA tournament Sunday afternoon to the New York University Violets. After an exhausting weekend of action, the team was unable to leave Chicago with a win over a struggling NYU team (5-19 record), dropping three consecutive sets. As had been the case throughout the weekend, the Judges came out aggressive on offense, attacking more than the Violets (106 total attacks to 97). Right side hitter/setter Marissa Borgert ’21 had an impressive allaround performance, amassing 10 kills and 10 assists. Judges 0, Carnegie Mellon 3
Facing the top-ranked UAA team in their third match of the tournament, the Judges lost in three sets to the Carnegie Mellon University Tartans (21-1). They kept the match highly competitive, though. Their resilience was on display within the sets, as the Judges roared back from a 7-15 disadvantage to make the second set 16-17 and in the third set a late push saw the team score seven of the final 11 points. Outside hitter Clare Meyers ’21 was a bright spot for the team, coming through both on the offensive end with eight kills and on the defensive end with seven digs. The stifling Carnegie Mellon defense made points particularly hard to come by, as the Judges recorded 26 kills on a season-low 21 assists. Judges 0, WashU 3 The Judges faced a ranked competitor for only the third time this season, losing in consecutive sets to the Washington University in St. Louis Bears (16-6). The Judges offense continued to strike whenever possible, racking up more total attacks for the match than the Bears (100-95). The team once again had difficulty converting these attempts into points and for the first time this season it did not have doubledigit kills in any set. Despite these overall struggles, the team bounced
back after a particularly rough first set to compete closely over the final two sets, coming up with 21-25 and 20-25 set scores. Right side hitter Zara Platt ’19 led the team in scoring with seven kills over 22 attempts, while setter Marlee Nork ’19 helped her teammates out with 15 assists. Judges 0, Case Western 3 The Judges had difficulty countering the attack of the Case Western Reserve University Spartans (14-7), dropping all three sets in their first match of the tournament. The Judges’ offense was more aggressive than the Spartans’ in the third set, creating 28 total attempts to the Spartans’ 24. However, scoring on these attempts proved particularly difficult, as the Judges’ attack percentage dropped to 7.1 percent, while the Spartans increased their attack efficiency, managing a 45.8 percent mark. Despite the outcome, Platt had a standout performance, leading the team with 10 kills. On the defensive end, libero Yvette Cho ’19 continued her strong season with 11 more digs. Blocks continue to be a strength for the Judges, as they bested the Spartans 6-4. This continues a season-long trend for the Judges, who, as of Oct. 12, were in the top third of all Division III women’s volleyball teams in blocks.
PRO SPORTS BRIEF Although most of Boston hoped for John Farrell’s departure, his feats must still be remembered When news broke that the Boston Red Sox had parted ways with manager John Farrell, the general consensus among fans was relief. Despite winning back-to-back American League East titles in 2016 and 2017, the Sox failed to make it past the divisional round, losing all but one game in the two postseason appearances. Farrell’s every move seemed to be under scrutiny, as his team with such high expectations continually underperformed. But it wasn’t always this way — John Farrell once was a symbol of hope. Rewind to the fall of 2012: the Red Sox had just finished one of the worst seasons in team history, going 69-93 and failing to make the playoffs for the second straight year. It was manager Bobby Valentine’s first and only season with the
team and, as David Ortiz wrote in his book, “Papi: My Story”, “The drama began almost immediately in spring training. I remember fighting the thought, very early, we’re going to have an absolutely terrible year.” The previous season wasn’t much better: leading the Tampa Bay Rays by nine games in the wild card race, the Red Sox finished the season by losing 18 out of 24, and blew a calculated 99.6 percent chance of reaching the postseason. It was a collapse of epic proportions and was followed by a season that only dragged the team further toward rock bottom. Enter John Farrell. The manager of the Toronto Blue Jays and a former Red Sox pitching coach, Farrell quickly emerged as a leading candidate to fill the vacant
managerial spot in Boston. With General Manager Ben Cherington quickly disposing of the widelyloathed Bobby Valentine, Farrell was hired not even a month after the season ended. Things quickly began changing. After a tremendously productive off-season orchestrated by Cherington that brought on a handful of new additions, the Sox were put in a position to stage a massive turnaround and return to the top of not only the AL East, but the entire league. The former pitching coach was already popular in Boston despite having yet to manage a game and seemed to represent a sign of change and hope as the new and improved Red Sox looked to return with a vengeance. At 97-65, the Sox finished the 2013 season under Farrell tied for
the best record in all of baseball. They had finally returned to the postseason, and went on to defeat Tampa Bay in four games and the Detroit Tigers in six to secure a spot in the World Series for the first time since 2007. They then defeated the St. Louis Cardinals and in doing so became only the second team in baseball history to win the World Series after finishing last in its division the previous year. But then there were the 2014 and 2015 seasons. Marred by bad trades (Andrew Miller for Eduardo Rodriguez), bad signings (Rusney Castillo for seven years and $73 million) and a bad offense, the Red Sox found themselves at the bottom of the division for two years straight. Farrell missed most of 2015 after being diagnosed with lymphoma
and watched as the skeleton of a team that had won a World Series only two years before fell apart at its core. Farrell returned the next year and, like clockwork, the Sox bounced back in 2016 to win the AL East, then did it again in 2017 — back-to-back division titles for the first time ever in Boston. The rest is history: the Sox were swept in 2016 and steamrolled in 2017 and Farrell’s quietly impressive time as manager came to an end. Three AL East titles (the most by any Red Sox manager ever) and one World Series later, General Manager Dave Dombrowski parted ways with John Farrell. As many would agree, it was time. But as many will forget, he wasn’t all that bad. —Donnie Weisse
just
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FRESH START The Boston Red Sox fired manager John Farrell after back-to-back disappointing playoff appearances in 2016 and 2017, p. 15.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
WOMen’S SOCCER
SCANNING FOR SHOTS
Judges finish the weekend 10-2-2 ■ Midfielder Katie Hayes ’20
scored the only goal in a 1-0 victory against the University of Rochester on Friday. By BEN KATCHER JUSTICE EDITOR
The women’s soccer team had some tough luck against Emory University after winning its first game of the week against the University of Rochester. The Judges defeated their University Athletic Association foe this past Friday, downing Rochester in shutout fashion 1-0. However, an injury-plagued game against Emory on Sunday led to a 3-0 defeat, which snapped the squad’s 12-match unbeaten streak. Judges 0, Emory 3 Brandeis’ match on Sunday against Emory all came down to defense. The team has been in extremely capable hands so far this season thanks to goalie Sierra Dana ’20. The superstar goalie picked up UAA Women’s Soccer Defensive Player of the Week honors for her outstanding play against Lesley University and Carnegie Mellon
Waltham, Mass.
University last week. While Dana absolutely deserved the recognition this week, she has been putting up incredible numbers all year long. The goalie has 50 saves on the year through 14 games played, while only allowing 10 goals for a remarkable .833 save percentage. Furthermore, Dana has 10 wins on the year, including six shutouts. Dana had some big shoes to fill this season after goalie and team captain Alexis Grossman ’17 graduated in the spring. Grossman logged over 2,100 minutes last season, recording 82 saves with only 16 goals allowed for a .837 save percentage. The senior picked up 16 wins on the year and had 10 shutouts for the campaign. Dana has appeared completely unfazed by having to replace Grossman this year. Her talent is undeniable and her performances have shown just how clutch she can be for this team. With Dana protecting the net, as just a sophomore, the Judges will be in excellent shape for years to come. However, against Emory, Dana was injured in a collision near the end of the first half. Despite returning, she had to be removed less than two minutes into the
See WSOCCER, 13 ☛
SWIMMING AND DIVING
Swimmers and divers show off their talent ■ The men’s and women’s
swimming and diving teams showed potential at Wheaton College on Saturday. By NOAH HESSDORF JUSTICE EDITOR
The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams continued the early portion of the 2017 to 2018 season on the road at Wheaton College this past Saturday. The men’s side picked up the victory with a score of 156138, while the women fell short of the win, 191-104. For the men’s team, Richard Selznick ’21 began to make a name for himself during the meet, as he starts his first collegiate season. Selznick took home the gold in three separate individual events. He earned the victory in the 200-meter freestyle with a time of 1:50.84, and the 500-meter freestyle in just over five minutes. The 500-meter win, in particular, was very impressive, as no one was within 20 seconds of Selznick’s winning time. Selznick captured his third and final individual victory in the 200-meter butterfly with a time of 2:05.11. Other first-years had impressive afternoons, including Chase Chen ’21. Chen dominated the short-distance competition, earning the gold in the 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle events. He finished the 50-meter in a lightingquick 22.64 seconds, and the 100-meter in 49.64 seconds. Marcelo Ohno-Machado ’21, another firstyear, was right behind Chen in both races as the Judges’ secondbest competitor in the shortdistance events. Other individual winners for the Judges were Zach Diamond ’18 and Tamir Zitelny ’20. Diamond
helped the team capture every freestyle event when he finished first in the 1000-meter freestyle in 10:50.11. Zitelny took home the gold in the 100-meter fly with a time of 55.16 seconds. The final victory for the team came at the relay events, when the squad of firstyears, Ohno-Machado, Selznick, Chen and Daniel Wohl ’21 finished the 400-meter relay with a time of 3:18.33. The time was good enough for the victory, edging out Wheaton by a mere 0.22 seconds. For the women, the stars of the day were also the first-years. Talia Bornstein ’21 came up big for the Judges, dominating the longdistance races to the tune of two individual victories. Bornstein won the 500-meter freestyle with a time of 5:39.95, and the 1000-meter freestyle in 11:39.83. Also earning a victory for the squad was Emily McGovern ’21, who finished the 200-meter breaststroke in 2:33.97. McGovern posted more impressive times throughout the day. She finished in second place during the 100-meter breastroke with a time of 1:11.21, less than half a second behind the first-place finisher from Wheaton. She also earned a fourth-place finish in the 200-meter individual medley with a time of 2:23.59. In the race, the Judges actually captured second and third place as well. Natalya Wozab ’20 and Audrey Kim ’21 finished in second and third in the event, respectively. In the diving portion of the meet, the Judges’ Julia Tartaglia ’19 placed third with a dive of 160.35, which was good for three points. Sam Zucker ’18 also finished in third place on the men’s side of the diving event. Before Saturday, the team began its season with a non-scoring meet against Roger Williams University
See SWIMMING, 13 ☛
NATALIA WIATER/Justice File Photo
PASS PARTY: Defender Colin Panarra ’20 looks for his teammates down the pitch against Carnegie Mellon University on Oct. 7.
Team finishes its week strong against Emory ■ The team came away from
this past week with one win and one loss against two of its conference opponents. By ZACH KAUFMAN JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The men's soccer team continued its impressive season, splitting this weekend's games against two solid opponents from its conference. The No. 15 Judges dropped Friday’s game 1-0 to the University of Rochester before winning an exciting double-overtime marathon against Emory University on Sunday. This left the team with an impressive 10-3 record, good for second in the conference, and with four regular season games left, the squad looks to finish strong and march deep into the postseason. However, the Judges cannot afford to lose too many more matches. The team has the necessary unity, talent and depth to thrive as the temperature drops for playoffs, but it will need to maintain its winning ways for the remainder of the regular season. Sporadic losses will
only hurt their chances as they will need to maintain consistency. Judges 1, Emory 0 The Judges traveled to Emory on Sunday and blanked the Eagles 1-0 in a double-overtime thriller. After 90 minutes of dead-even regulation play and a scoreless 10-minute overtime period, the Judges and Eagles entered the second overtime period locked in a 0-0 tie. With just over three minutes left in the second overtime period, forward Patrick Flahive ’18 broke the tie and gave the Judges a key overtime victory in Atlanta. Midfielder Josh Ocel ’18 started off the play with a short throw-in to midfielder Dylan Hennessy ’20. Hennessy lobbed it into a crowd and out emerged Flahive, beating the Emory goalkeeper to the ball and heading it into the net for the win. The goal was Flahive’s eighth career gamewinning goal and his team-leading fifth on the season. Goalkeeper Ben Woodhouse ’18 recorded nine saves, including one just 35 seconds before Flahive’s game-winning goal. This was Woodhouse’s ninth career shutout and third on the season. It was also his 35th career win. This
was the team's fourth win in a row against Emory and second straight in Atlanta. The Judges have made it very clear that they are not letting road matches disproportionately get in their way this season. This loss drops the Eagles to 10-3 (3-1 in conference play). With the same record as Emory, the Judges now own an important tiebreaker for playoff seeding purposes. However, every match counts moving forward as Brandeis will consistently need to find itself adding to its wins column. Judges 0, Rochester 1 Coming into the game having won eight of their last nine, the Judges couldn’t get it going on Friday against Rochester, losing 1-0 in a hard-fought game on the road. A 22nd-minute goal was the difference in a stout defensive game by both teams. The Judges struggled offensively, attempting only four shots, one of which was on goal. Ocel was an exception, gaining control of the ball around midfield multiple times, but he could not find other attackers to push the ball up further. Ocel
See MSOCCER, 13 ☛
Vol. LXX #6 Vol. LXX #2
October 17, 2017 September 12, 2017
Fall Opening at the Rose just
>>pg. 19
just
Waltham, Mass.
Artwork: Joe Bradley, Tim Rollins, Joeseph Cornell. Images: Natalia Wiater/the Justice. Design: Yvette Sei/the Justice.
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THE TUESDAY, JUSTICEOctober | Arts | 17, TUESDAY, 2017 iJanuary Arts i THE 31,JUSTICE 2017
SKETCH COMEDY REVIEW
Boris’ Kitchen is cooking up good stuff By Kent Dinlenc justice Staff writer
Brandeis’ sketch group Boris’ Kitchen is one of the few performing companies that I enjoy and continue to return to. Their jokes don’t land every time, but I always end up laughing harder than I expect to going in. There are usually a few jokes in each show that kill. Comedy is subjective, of course, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. There were quite a few scenes where I didn’t laugh out loud. I would only smirk at a joke while the rest of the room would boom with laughter. It’s just how I react to most comedy that doesn’t match my style. Yet, oddly enough, Boris’ Kitchen still entertains me. The cast
NATALIA WIATER/the Justice
OY VEY: Yael Matlow ’18 and Jessica Cocomazzi ’21 act in a skit about oversharing at the hair salon.
is full of contagious energy, and the joy they bring to their audiences is commendable. Last week’s mid-semester show, in which they performed old sketches written by cast members who have already graduated, seemed to be quite funny to most of the audience. I did notice that, as time went on, the sketches got significantly funnier. We went from a somewhat forced interest in pizza bagels to hysterical prognoses for sexual inadequacy from Dr. Seuss and a very unhealthy yet hilarious obsession with Jackie Chan (speaking of which, his new movie “The Foreigner” is to be avoided, as he is the only good part. If I were to tell you I gave the movie a D+ despite Chan’s charm and positive contributions to the movie, it should tell you how bad it is). The comedy show was directed by two of the group’s actors: Perry Letourneau ’20 and Sarah Sharpe ’20. Their job, aside from being part of a few sketches, is not really a noticeable one. If your show transitions smoothly, your joke execution is on point and all of your sound and lighting effects are correctly implemented into each sketch, then you’ve done a good job as director. And they were, so bravo! Like in many art forms, if you’ve done your job right, people will think you didn’t do anything at all. As for the cast, they performed phenomenally. However, there was one standout I will be looking out for in all future Boris’ Kitchen shows: Dane Leoniak ’20. He danced and sang as the satyr Pan, he indifferently confessed to cannibalism to an unsuspecting therapy group as Jeffrey Dahmer and he drew Jackie Chan’s face on his chest in magic marker. Leoniak stole almost every scene he was in, but that’s not to say the rest of the cast wasn’t just as funny. Claudia Davis ’19 was hysterical as an intentionally misleading clown-lawyer, Jason Kwan ’20 was rhyming ’til our sides split as Dr. Seuss, and Anderson Stinson III ’21 was an ambivalent devil with everyday problems he solves with murder. The remaining cast should be casually commended for their performances. They may be getting most of the setups in this show, but they’ll get the hilarious punchlines in the
NATALIA WIATER/the Justice
DANE THE DINOSAUR: Sarah Sharpe ’20 and Dane Leoniak ’20, dressed as a dinosaur, act in a skit together.
next one. It’s the teamwork between the 11 actors that must be acknowledged, as the setup is just as vital as the punchline. The remaining cast, who did great jobs alongside the directors Letourneau and Sharpe, were Alan Omori ’20, Jessica Cocomazzi ’21, Mira Garin ’19, Rodrigo Granados ’18 and Yael Matlow ’18. Among this praise, there is one shortcoming that I hope the Boris’ Kitchen crew will consider. Once again, my opinion is subjective and does not reflect anyone else’s in-
terpretation of the show, but I felt that the cast overstays their welcome in a few scenes. Jokes ran too long and noticeably meandered when audiences stopped laughing at the third minute of a sketch featuring a regular lawyer dressed as a clown acting as if nothing is out of the ordinary. If I barely laugh while the audience is booming, imagine how I feel when they’re silent. It’s a small nitpick — just some advice to keep sketches tight and cut when necessary. After all, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
film review
‘Obit’ is introspective and enlightening By Mendel Weintraub justice Staff writer
This past Tuesday, students, faculty and friends of Brandeis University eagerly filed into Wasserman Cinematheque for a special screening of documentarian Vanessa Gould’s latest film “Obit,” which follows the day-today life of writers in the obituary department at the New York Times. The event was co-sponsored by the Edie and Lew Wasserman Fund, the Department of Film, Television and Interactive Media and the Journalism department. It cannot go unmentioned that a majority of the attendees at this event were individuals who were noticeably well into their twilight years, a presence which was hard to ignore in the cinema where a film that would presumably discuss the topic of death at length was about to be presented. However, by the time the curtain closed on the screen as credits finished rolling, that dread had subsided. Surprisingly, “Obit,” as it turns out, is a film about life and has more than a dash of humor. Gould’s film begins by introducing us to Bruce Weber, a veteran journalist who is in the middle of a phone call. He is interviewing the widow of a man who has recently died. Throughout the conversation, Bruce scribbles down notes on a sheet of paper: date and place of birth, date of death, parents’ names, children, place of education, etc. The conversation has an oddly
pleasant tone as Bruce, along with the anonymous woman at the other end of the line (though we do learn her identity by the end of the film) reflects on the life and achievements of a recently departed member of the human race. What becomes apparent within the first few minutes of the film is that the people who write the obituaries that are featured in the New York Times are quite invigorated, rather than completely depressed, by their jobs. Aside from Weber, we meet other writers: Margalit Fox, a former book reviewer, Will Grimes, who used to be a restaurant critic, Douglas Martin, a former energy correspondent and veteran Times writer, and Pulitzer Prize winner William McDonald, their fearless desk editor. After we see Weber’s phone conversation, we listen to testimonials from these writers about whether or not they thought this is where they would end up: the obituary section. The universal answer is an overwhelming “no.” However, none of them are bitter about it. All of these people feel an incredible responsibility to cement the lives of their subjects into history. In a way, these writers are historians, composing the final documentations of the lives of people who lived on the margins of world events. They write the stories of the people who changed the space program but of whom you have never heard, the story of the man who won Kennedy the presidency over Nixon with a bit of makeup, and even the first reflection on the complete life of Michael
YVETTE SEI/the Justice
TALK-BACK: Vanessa Gould discusses her documentary with Brandeis professor, Eileen McNamara (JOUR).
Jackson after he died. But the writers cannot do this alone. Deep down in the basement of the New York Times lies “the morgue,” a library of ancient newspaper clippings, some of which contain photographs that will change your perception of a person. Running the morgue is the eccentric Jeff Roth, who drew the most laughs out of the audience at last week’s screening. As he cruises his way through the endless files, we cannot help but think that the entire obituary operation would sink without him. It is through getting to know the people behind the obituaries and hearing their reflections on this very bizarre job that you gain a greater appreciation for life. Overall, this film makes you think about that very thing: life — your own, and those of others. It is uplifting, funny and exciting. When the credits rolled, there was an extended silence among the audience, which was ended by an anonymous shout of “bravo.” It was then that the audience burst into applause and ovation. The screening was followed by a special discussion with Vanessa Gould herself, which was moderated by Prof. Eileen McNamara (JOUR). The conversation was enlightening and, like the film being discussed, quite humorous at times. When Gould admitted to not having been an avid obituary reader before making her documentary, McNamara remarked, “You are obviously not Irish.” She continued, “We call them the Irish sports pages.”
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THE JUSTICE arts i TUESDAY, January 31, 2017 THE JUSTICE i arts i Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Art Exhibitions
Photos by NATALIA WIATER/the Justice
PEERING IN: Guests closely peruse the works of Joe Bradley, exhibited in a salon style.
Rose Art Museum opens fall exhibitions By Gwendolyn Harris justice Staff writer
Bright strokes of color extend across unstretched canvas, overlapping in loud, sporadic strokes. Simple pedestals dot the floor, displaying equally brightly painted statues — a TV, a face, a pair of feet. A large doorless file cabinet, Pepto-Bismol pink, stands in the center of an enclave. On another wall, a small collage of pamphlet advertisements sits among a collection of cartoons in various states of refinement. These are some of the things you might see when you first enter the Rose Art Museum’s solo exhibition of New York artist Joe Bradley. The exhibition is one of five currently on display at the Rose Art
PAINTING AND LIFE: A museum guest stands before a Joe Bradley painting.
Museum, which held its opening event Saturday. The event drew people of all ages, including several professors, and featured refreshment tents and food trucks in addition to the art. The event was also attended by Kevork Mourad, a Syrian-Armenian artist whose work is on display in the Mildred S. Lee Gallery. The exhibition is titled “Immortal City” and portrays the pain of those who are suffering in the Syrian war, in which 465,000 people have perished, according to a March 13 Reuters article. The centerpiece of the exhibit, a wall-sized, three-layer mixture of ink drawing and painting, depicts the ruins of Aleppo and contorted bodies in heartwrenching detail. Clad in simple black, complete with a leather jacket and his demeanor revealing none of the pain of his work, Mourad stood by to answer questions of those attending. The largest exhibition was that of the work of Bradley, who is widely known for his expressionistic, abstract work. It features a mixture of his color-field paintings, greasepencil drawings and bronze statues. One work, the “Fisherman’s Friend,” is a collection of singlecolor canvasses, three in classic mackintosh yellow and a fourth the dingy white of a sailor’s cap. Bradley has identified his artistic process as a sort of “glitching,” shifting erratically from one work to another and putting bits together, and he uses his work to explore the
elements of painting and the chaos of studio work that have fascinated him throughout his career. The exhibition of Bradley’s work, curated at the Rose by Kim Conaty, is the first of its size in North America, and it is accompa-
lesser-known pieces from the collection. The 11th installment of the museum’s Rose Video series, titled “Auto Da Fe,” or “act of faith,” is a twochannel video exploring historical migrant crises that have forced the
ARTISTIC GESTURE: Student guests walk up the stairs next to Tony Lewis’ installation made of graphite dust, nails and rubber bands, titled “Plunder”. nied by a publication featuring essays on Bradley’s painting. Alongside Bradley’s work is the artist’s selection (Buckdancer’s Choice) of the museum’s holdings. Placed before the entrance to Bradley’s solo exhibition so as to allow viewers to engage with Bradley’s influences before experiencing his own work, the selection contains masterworks by the likes of Paul Cezanne and Max Ernst as well as
persecuted to flee across the sea. By Ghanaian artist John Akomfrah, the video utilizes powerful imagery to relate the flight of Sephardi Jews in 1654 to the modern Syrian refugee crisis. A permanent installation in the museum, titled “The Undisciplined Collector,” celebrates the Rose Art Museum’s founding and Brandeis’ history of collecting valuable pieces of culture and history. Entering the
wood-paneled room feels as though you have travelled back in time nearly 50 years. The solid wooden cabinets are filled with books, East Asian bottles and African statues and are topped with bakelite appliances and a record player playing low jazz. On the walls, a collection of works ranging from impressionistic paintings to detailed line drawings completes the ambiance. As you enter the museum, the first exhibition you encounter, titled “Body Talk,” explores the tension, agony and ecstasy of the human body through a wild collection of paintings, collages and statues. The exhibition contains abstract depiction of the human body by Surrealist-inspired artist Max Weber and works by Joseph Cornell that explore his fascination with the various female forms. Also featured in the exhibition is a commentary on the Scarlet Letter — “The Interior of the Heart” — by Tim Rollins and the piece “Large Slides” by Ross Bleckner, which depicts multiplying shapes reminiscent of red blood cells in a requiem for the AIDs epidemic. The evening brought the community together to enjoy the food, company and art. The exhibitions will be on display for another two months. —Editor’s Note: Hannah Kressel, the editor of the Arts Section of the Justice works is a guide at the Rose and a member of the Student Committee for the Rose Art Museum.
Play review
Getting down and dirty with Fornes’ ‘Mud’ By Kent dinlenc justice Staff writer
HEATHER SCHILLER/the Justice
MÉNAGE À TROIS: A dead Mae (Sophia Massidda ’20) lies on the table between Lloyd (Yair Koas ’19, seated) and Henry (Zoë Rose ’20, floor).
A handful of theater students put on a show called ‘Mud’ this past weekend. The play, written by Cuban-American Maria Irene Fornes, revolves around a man and a woman living in what I assumed to be the 1920s. Mae (Sophia Massidda ’20), a hardworking woman trying to educate herself to achieve a better life, works on a farm maintained by Lloyd (Yair Koas ’19), a man with whom she has an unspecified relationship. Both impoverished, Mae learns to read and do math while the illiterate Lloyd taunts her for it in his state of deteriorating health. While the two are at each other’s throats, Mae brings home Henry, a friend who aids in the purchase of Lloyd’s medication yet has a secret desire to steal Mae and his home away from him. The three violently butt heads in fits of rage and vengeance, as each get in the way of the other’s desires. When I walked into a room with ten pounds of mud atop a tarp with four differently angled mirrors, I had no idea what I was in for. The room had a single table with two chairs, a radio and minor props. We opened to
the two best parts of the play: Massidda’s performance as Mae and Koas’ performance as Lloyd. Their believable dynamic was what immediately pulled me into their dirty world. Massidda demanded all of the attention and sympathy as Koas’ more subtle struggles in the background told the audience that these two could no longer stand each other. And then in came Henry (played by Zoë Rose ’20), my least favorite character, the soundboard for heavy-handed philosophical nonsense. The thorn to Mae’s rose. The greedy leech that turns out to be more needy, demanding and childish than the illiterate, short-tempered Lloyd. This character added nothing but strain to Mae’s and Lloyd’s relationship — though it is obviously intentional, I found it to be intrusive as a whole to the play. There was no getting rid of this poorly thought-out character that had no redeeming qualities. At least Mae was ambitious. At least Lloyd was a responsible farmer. It is possible to have likeable antagonists we love to hate: Biff from “Back to the Future,” Malfoy from the “Harry Potter” series and Joffrey from “Game of Thrones.” Henry, as the simply
miserable and poorly executed adversary to Lloyd, in no way joins the ranks of any of these characters. This brings me to some of the play’s problems in execution. There were segments during the play that played music on a speaker disguised as a radio in the back. Almost every time the sound coordinator in the room tried to play a song, the speaker wouldn’t connect, leaving the room in an empty silence, as the actors waited for the audial cue. However, I did not like the use of the speaker to begin with. It was louder than the actors, making it almost impossible to understand them and listen to the song simultaneously. I did not understand the thematic purpose of radio; all it did was muddle the only good part of the play and confuse the audience’s perception of what time period we were in. Was it the 60s, as indicated by the mentions of the Cuban Missile Crisis on the decorated newspapers, or was it the depression-era 30s that fit most of the narrative and set style? I much preferred the beeping of the disconnected speaker over the loud music that was confusing in purpose and distracting in execution.
My biggest problem, however, was this poor script. I give credit to the hard-working actors who performed their best with this clunky, unrealistic dialogue. The story structure did not have a steady pace, the characters’ motivations were unclear and the metaphorical references to animals Mae was learning about were heavy-handed and repetitive. I get it — Henry is the hermit crab that wanders in and steals Lloyd’s home and comfort. I am not familiar with Maria Irene Fornes’ body of work, as this is the only script of hers I have been exposed to. But if this writing is what we expect to see in this week’s production of “Fefu and Her Friends,” it very much deters me, though not to say that I won’t see it. Of course, go support your friends and classmates who work hard producing the play. Their blood, sweat and tears should not go unrecognized. Pay no mind to the script that weighs them down. And yet, I may be wrong. Upon further research, “Fefu” is Fornes’ most recognized work, so maybe there is hope. I would be cautiously optimistic, for now.
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TUESDAY, October 17, 2017 | Arts | THE JUSTIce
Brandeis TALKS
INTERVIEW
wf
If you had your portrait painted, what would you want the background to be?
Sophia Massidda ’20 Photo Courtesy of Sophia Massidda
Annabelle Hu ’21
“Like a Monet sort of landscape, maybe a garden with some water in the background. Something calm.”
This week, justArts spoke with Sophia Massidda ’20 who directed “Mud,” a play written by Maria Irene Fornes, who is also the playwright for the upcoming department show, “Fefu and her Friends.” The play was sponsored by the department. justArts: How did you come across the opportunity to direct “Mud?”
BEN KATCHER/the Justice
Fatma Siddique ’18
“Keukenhof, the tulip garden in the Netherlands.”
Elyse Hahn ’20
“I would just want it to be a bunch of dogs. Like, I’m just in an area where there are a bunch of dogs in the background.”
Rebecca Weiss ’18
“I’m always a fan of natural scenery. I always like waterfalls and mountains. I mean, I would rather be in the place with the waterfalls and mountains but if that is not possible, then in the background. Also, some animals wouldn’t hurt, like a moose in the background.” --Compiled by Jen Geller/the Justice and photographed by Yvette Sei/ the Justice.
STAFF’S Top Ten
Top 10 Worst Flavors By Noah Hessdorf justice EDITOR
Whether it’s ice cream, candy or seltzers, we all are exposed to different types of flavors every day. While it is clear that coconut is objectively the worst, here are the rest of the bad flavors of the world:
CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Something avoided on the Atkins diet 5 Mongolian tent 9 One may be square 13 ______: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas 14 Toffee-based candy bar 15 Prefix with China 16 *A famous song about them features someone who wants to be frank? 19 Appeal (to) 20 Deep red 22 Sarcastic response to a bad idea 23 Blocky house? 26 _____ mode 27 Cause of some delays 28 Scandalous corporation 29 Use needles, perhaps 30 A text that’s just so long? 31 First name in nonviolent activism 32 Sirs’ counterparts 33 *Where Amazon purchases are queued 35 Rock group? 38 “Rumor has it...” 39 ____-Magnon 42 Shade of blue 43 Actor in the Harry Potter movies 44 Portal 45 One that’s working 46 Former Cheesehead Favre 47 Biblical mount 48 “Beats the heck out of me” 50 Smooths out 51 Violent video game ... or what each of the starred clues has been a victim of? 56 Architect Saarinen 57 Yesterday, in a manner of speaking 58 Whoppers 59 All cleaned up 60 Hot stuff 61 Norms (abbr.)
Sophia Massidda: Last year, I auditioned for “Fefu and her Friends,” which is the department show that’s going on right now, and the director of that said, “Hey, if you don’t get into this, then you’re welcome to do another play by the same playwright, and the department will support you and advertise you.” JA: What was it like working with such a small cast? SM: It definitely made it a lot easier, especially since this was my first time directing anything, and both of the other actors are my friends outside of this, so they were really helpful even when I didn’t know what I was doing! JA: What was it like both directing and acting in the play?
22 Tolkein creature 23 Move 24 *Calligraphy or web design 25 The East of France? 28 Fair-hiring inits. 29 Krazy ____ 31 First name in violent revolution 32 Ballpark fig. 33 French seasoning 34 ____ Turner (subject of “The Birth of a Nation”) 35 Look at briefly 36 *Certain hazardous material 37 One that’s not working 39 Channel 40 Dissed DOWN 41 “_____ and the Blind Forest” 1 Baby noise (indie video game) 2 “Get outta here!” 43 New alum 3 Country once associated with the 44 *Church officials U.S.S.R. 46 “______ afraid of greatness.” 4 *Home to many a 37-Down (Twelfth Night quote) 5 WWI fighting site 47 ACT alternative 6 Country once associated with the 49 Olympic swimmer Torres U.S.S.R. 50 It protects Nob Hill, for short 7 Quarrel 52 Some univ. instructors 8 Part of TNT 53 “The buck stops here” inits. 9 Dean’s costar 54 Seine feeder 10 Cabinet dept. 55 Org. terminated under 53-Down 11 Christopher’s girlfriend on “The Sopranos” 12 *His net worth is over $50,000,000,000 17 As of now 18 Subj. for Adam Smith 21 Has a 9-Across
CROSSWORD COURTESY OF EVAN MAHNKEN
SM: That was really hard! Probably not something I’d do again, at least until I had more directing experience. But it was also really interesting to be able to look at it in a way that I’m familiar with, an actor’s perspective and also looking at it in a totally new way, from a director’s perspective. JA: What was your favorite part of directing? SM: Sometimes, when I’m acting in a show, I’ll just see an opportunity for two actors to do something, and I’ll feel so presumptuous if I tell them to do it. So, in this situation, I got to tell people what to do! JA: What was the most challenging part of directing?
SOLUTION COURTESY OF EVAN MAHNKEN
SM: It was definitely acting in it at the same time, because I had no idea of what the play looked like from the outside until probably the last week of rehearsal when I got a few other people to watch it and tell me what they thought! JA: What is the most important message that you hope the audience takes away from the show?
SUDOKU INSTRUCTIONS: Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each small 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.
SM: Well, the major thing that I did was recast Henry as a woman instead of a man, as he’s written, because I wanted this to not just be a play about women versus mankind, which I think a lot of people interpret it to be, and I wanted it to be about these characters specifically, so I hope that I got a couple of people to look at it differently. JA: What was your favorite part of the show to work on? SM: Probably the set design, which is just not something I would have ever touched or thought that I would like to do, but I got really into it! I liked to set out all the props, and I put dirt on the floor and stuff. So that was all really fun!
1. Coconut 2. Black Licorice 3. Raspberry Lime 4. Raisin 5. Bubble Gum 6. Popcorn 7. Butterscotch 8. Pistachio 9. Pineapple 10. Cranberry
—Lizzie Grossman
Solution to last issue’s sudoku
Puzzle courtesy of www.sudokuoftheday.com