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Report of antisemitic incidents leads to investigation

BY EMILY TARINELLI ’25 SPORTS EDITOR

Content warning: This article discusses antisemitism, colonial violence and state-sanctioned violence.

“Not all anti-Israel statements are antisemitic, but there was something about this one that was a little bit disturbing,” an alum from the Class of 1986 said in an interview with Mount Holyoke News.

The alum, who requested to remain anonymous for safety reasons, was referring to chalkboard messaging and an antisemitic flier they found while visiting campus with a friend on Oct. 26, 2023.

The Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas, the alum explained, was a difficult day for them.

The alum works for a “shared society organization” — a type of group that the alum defined as “organizations that bring Palestinians and Israelis together” — and a woman they work with was taken hostage during the conflict and currently remains in captivity.

According to an analysis by Senior Political Reporter Stephen Collinson for CNN, “the wave of global hatred directed against Jews, intensified by Israel’s indiscriminate response in Gaza to horrific Hamas terrorist murders of Israeli civilians on October 7 [demonstrates the] destructive forces tearing at American and western European societies, where stability and democracy are already under pressure.” The White House reported that since the Oct. 7 attack, there has been a spike in antisemitism on college campuses. “[Oct. 7] was a horrible day all around,” the alum said. Seeking a breath of fresh air, they decided they needed their “own personal Mountain Day.” Coming from a class year with a strong sense of community and an active online presence, the alum invited a friend along — not a graduate of Mount Holyoke College — to show them around their alma mater.

A double major in geography and anthropology, many of the alum’s classes took place in Clapp Laboratory. Hoping to say hello to one of

Photo by Kate Markowski ’27 Clapp Laboratory, where the incident occurred.

their old professors, they decided to stop by Clapp on their visit. As they walked around the fourth floor, they came across a chalkboard.

The message with the largest lettering on the board was “Free Palestine,” which the alum strongly emphasized they “have absolutely no problem with.” Just beneath it read, “From the river to the sea, Palestine [will] be free.” The alum stated that based on the origins of the phrase, this line was “a little more problematic.”

Depending on the person, the intent or even misinformation, interpretations of the phrase tend to differ. NPR explained that “To some, it’s a rallying cry for the liberation of Palestinian people across the region, from Gaza to the West Bank and within Israel. To others, it is a violent call to erase Israel from existence invoked by militant groups such as Hamas.”

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the phrase’s history “dates back to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. It is a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, territory that includes Israel.”

Conversely, some people maintain that the phrase demands an end only to the current occupation of Palestine by the Israeli military. An article published by Palestinian-Amer-

ican writer Yousef Munayyer in Jewish Currents asserts, “When we call for a free Palestine from the river to the sea, it is precisely the existing system of domination that we seek to end.”

“There’s a history about words, and words matter,” the alum said.

For the alum, “[The phrase] means that Israel should be gone … To me, that calls for the genocide of nine million [Israeli] people.”

In the corner of the chalkboard, smaller lettering read, “Zionists are not welcome here.” That was the message that “really broke my heart,” the alum said.

Like the “from the river” phrase, sources report varying definitions of Zionism. According to the Anti-Defamation League, Zionism is defined as “the movement for the self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel.”

The ADL stated that modern Zionism began in the mid-1800s “in response to a long history of intense anti-Jewish hatred, persecution and discrimination in countries and societies across the world where Jews lived, including in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.” The ADL also specified that “being a Zionist is distinct from supporting the policies of the government of Israel” and that “Zionism does not preclude support for Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”

However, criticisms of this interpretation exist. Palestine Remix, an interactive online resource by news company Al Jazeera that highlights Palestinian-Israeli narratives, defines Zionism as “a colonial movement supporting the establishment by any means necessary of a national state for Jews in historic Palestine.”

Regarding the history of Zionism, Palestine Remix explained that “In 1948, David Ben-Gurion, then head of the World Zionist Organisation, proclaimed the founding of the state of Israel in Palestine. Zionists argued that Israel would provide a safe national home for Jews, allowing any Jewish person from anywhere in the world to immigrate there and claim citizenship.” The re-

source continued, “Critics, however, argue that Zionism has functioned like colonialism, pointing to the violent ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population.”

The disconnect between the rhetoric of these definitions and others appears to be adding fuel to the fire of rising incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia across the nation.

“At the Mount Holyoke I knew, everyone was welcome … despite their political views,” the alum said.

“You could say, ‘I disagree with Zionists,’ … and that’s perfectly valid.

But to say that someone is not welcome, I think it’s just very sad … that respectful discourse is not being encouraged.”

An email to the Mount Holyoke community from President Danielle R. Holley and Vice President of Student Life and Dean of Students Marcella Runell stated that when made aware of the chalkboard messaging, “the College responded immediately, and the chalking that violated College policy was removed.”

The alum and their friend eventually left Clapp Laboratory and proceeded to Blanchard Hall to eat.

But in what the alum described as an area most likely to be the lobby between the Community Center and the Dining Commons, they saw an 8.5 by 11-inch paper depicting a graphic of a silhouetted clip-art figure throwing a blue Star of David into a trash can.

The same email to the Mount Holyoke community stated that the reported poster was “not found in Clapp Hall or any other area of campus.” The alum, who did not remove the flier themselves, guessed that “it was taken down pretty quickly” given the “sheer offense of it.” According to the alum, this particular graphic is an image that’s “going around many college campuses now.”

When the alum returned home that evening, they wrote to President Holley’s office.

“It was not a nasty gram by any stretch … It was just [a message saying], ‘This is what happened. It’s hurtful. I don’t feel welcome. I won’t be coming back,” the alum said.

The following day, Oct. 27, members of the Jewish Student Union received an email notifying them about the “antisemitic incident … in the form of a poster and a drawing on a chalkboard.” Mount Holyoke News contacted the JSU Board via email for a comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.

An email sent to the Mount Holyoke community on the same day acknowledged the rise of antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents around the world in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East. The email also reaffirmed “the College’s commitment to freedom of expression and rigorous inquiry and, at the same time, our responsibility to uphold policies in place to ensure the safety and well-being of our entire campus.”

The College also released a statement regarding the incident on Friday, Nov. 3 to the Mount Holyoke community, an excerpt of which was previously sent to Mount Holyoke News on Nov. 1.

“Public Safety and Service is investigating and has documented the incident report to federal authorities. Individuals with any information about this incident or others should contact Public Safety and Service immediately. We urge our community to report incidents of bias and discrimination using either the Campus Bias Reporting Form or by contacting Public Safety and Service,” the statement read.

The statement in the email continued, “With investigations of this sort, we are constrained in what and when we can communicate. This fact is, understandably, dissatisfying to many; yet it remains the reality given how we must proceed in such circumstances.” Regarding the initial Oct. 27 email, it stated, “Last Friday’s campus alert addressed the rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia in general terms, which we felt was most appropriate given the early moment in the investigation.”

“I want the College to thrive,” the alum said. At the same time, they said, “I don’t think I feel welcome back on campus for a while.”

Tara Monastesse ’25 contributed reporting.

Senate invites dining officials to discuss sustainability, changes

BY PAIGE COMEAU ’26 STAFF WRITER

The Student Government Association Senate began on Nov. 7 by reading off the agenda, which included the Mount Holyoke College Land Acknowledgment, guest speakers from Dining Services, E-Board updates and an open floor.

The Senate E-Board led the land acknowledgment and informed students that a new Indigenous nation would be announced at the next senate meeting as part of the senate’s monthly recognition. Then, senate leaders announced guest speakers Geoffrey Searl, associate vice president of hospitality operations, and Shawn Kelsey, associate director of culinary operations.

Searl began the presentation with his thoughts on the state of Dining Services and answered some questions senators had previously submitted.

Searl estimated that at the beginning of the year, Dining Services staff was down by about 25%. However, they have recently cultivated a new relationship with a temporary agency that allows them to recruit workers to become full-time employees.

According to Searl, Dining Services has a high recruitment rate, having gained somewhere north of 18 to 20 workers over the last few months. The Dining Team has added new positions to account for turnover by continuously recruiting to prevent further staffing challenges. They are also working to create more jobs for students under Mount Holyoke’s work-study program.

Searl addressed student questions about food labeling inconsistencies between actual food items available in the dining hall, the online menu and the paper labels in the

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Dining Commons.

The Dining staff is looking to create a labeling system that is more effective. Searl discussed the new system, which uses electronic placards with digital ink. These displays would allow them to make real-time updates more easily. When a senator asked if the brightness on the placards could be turned up for readability, Searl responded that he would look into it.

Searl, who began working at the College in January, has been hoping to make adjustments to the music played in dining locations. Recently, Dining Services switched to using Rockbot. — an AI DJ that allows the dining staff to have greater control over the type, energy and selection of music played at dining locations — as their primary method of music selection. The dining staff hopes to expand this program, allowing students to customize the music in the Dining Commons.

Later, Searl noted that Dining Services plans to replace the hard plastic lids of the USEFULL bowls with a silicone material. The USEFULL company will retrieve the out-of-use plastic lids once they are phased out, a transition that will begin soon. Searl also stated that the USEFULL company was currently testing out the idea of silicone dividers for the containers.

Searl also delivered a long– awaited piece of good news: On Nov. 8, students would receive access to five guest swipes per semester through their meal plan rather than three. When asked if the current swipes available on student accounts would be reset or simply adjusted, Searl stated that they would be adjusted. He stated that everyone should get two extra swipes, before humorously adding that if you do end up getting five extra swipes, you

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Photo by Emma Quirk ’26 Geoffrey Searl and Shawn Kelsey speaking to members of the Mount Holyoke Senate on Tuesday.

shouldn’t tell anyone because then “we’ll have to fix it.”

To finish, Searl emphasized that students have many ways to contact Dining Services — this includes giving feedback, asking a question or stating something as simple as the Dining Commons being out of ketchup. He stressed that there is a QR code for a feedback form right at the front entrance of the Dining Commons. Students can give any feedback using that form, good or bad, although he noted they do receive a lot of good feedback from students using the form. Students can email the dining staff at the dining@mtholyoke.edu address, which gets checked regularly. Searl is also available to be asked a question in person if students catch him around campus.

Shawn Kelsey, associate director of culinary service, took the microphone next to answer food-specific questions from the senators. He began his speech by announcing some of the new undertakings Dining Services is working on implementing.

Currently, the Cochary Pub & Kitchen is open Tuesday through Friday

4 GLOBAL: King Charles III in Kenya

during the day and Friday through Saturday at night, with a limited menu.

By the Spring 2024 semester, Kelsey hopes to open the pub back up every night, Tuesday through Saturday, with an expanded menu.

This new menu would add back items previously available prior to the pub’s temporary closing in 2020, such as the turkey burger, as well as create new options for students. When asked if any of these options could be made gluten-free, Kelsey assured students that such an adjustment would be simple and that he would work on creating that choice moving forward.

Another new program that Dining Services is piloting is vendor showings. As seen several times this year, the dining hall has occasionally set up a farm table at the front of the Dining Commons showcasing Mount Holyoke’s local produce partners.

For example, on Nov. 8, the Dining Commons hosted Queen’s Greens, a farm in Amherst, Massachusetts, from which Mount Holyoke receives much of its produce.

Dining Services is taking steps

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to bring new and exciting changes to the menu, including adding sushi and other items to the menu at Kendade Grab & Go. Recently, the Dining Commons has also switched from a 3-week menu cycle to a 4-week menu cycle, allowing for a greater variety of foods served over the semester.

Moreover, the Dining Commons has adjusted the menu to allow the repetition of student favorites. Staffers use factors like the length of the lines in the Dining Commons or the amount of leftover food to determine these favorites.

Kelsey then discussed food safety and quality, which they insisted was of the utmost importance to the dining workers. However, upholding the highest quality and safety standards requires a certain level of training, which is difficult to manage with such a large number of temporary workers. This is especially complicated considering the complex menu Mount Holyoke must produce to ensure students are not eating the same things too often. Kelsey urged students to be patient with Dining Services as they continue to train recruits and work on raising internal standards.

On this note, Kelsey reminded students to grab a new plate every time they go up to get more food to ensure no cross-contamination.

Along the same lines, he asked students not to bring their own Tupperware containers but to use USEFULL instead, as the containers allow dining staff to ensure clean and safe conditions.

Kelsey finished with a discussion on sustainability, stating that Dining Services purchases 23.9% of their product locally, a percentage they hope to increase. Some of these providers include Austen Brothers CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

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FEATURES

November 10, 2023

. Mount Holyoke News

Panelists discuss settler colonialism, US foreign policy and racialized grief at ‘Teach-In: Palestine in a Global Context’

BY EMMA QUIRK ’26 PHOTOS EDITOR & STAFF WRITER

Content warning: This article discusses state-sanctioned violence, colonial violence and mass death.

As attendees entered Gamble Auditorium for the “Teach-In: Palestine in a Global Context” event on Monday, Oct. 30, they were greeted by a warm and lively atmosphere with students and professors chatting amiably with one another.

The event lasted for two hours, ending with a Q&A session where written comments collected from the crowd were read aloud to panelists.

Like the “Middle East Crisis” panel hosted in Hooker Auditorium on Oct. 24, signs were posted stating that no recording of any kind was allowed.

The teach-in was sponsored by the critical race and political economy and English departments and moderated by David Hernández and Vanessa Rosa, associate professors of Latinx studies and co-chairs of the critical race and political economy department. Hernández and Rosa collaborated with CRPE faculty, the panelists and professors in the religion and history departments to organize the event.

At the start of the teach-in, Rosa read the Mount Holyoke College Land Acknowledgment, noting that the frameworks of settler colonialism and land possession were relevant not just to this teach-in but to the United States and the globe more broadly.

Rosa and Hernández then shared the panel’s goals. In a joint email interview with the Mount Holyoke News, they reiterated that “the goals of the event were to provide context for students and other audience members to the events catalyzed by the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and the multiple weeks of attacks by the Israeli state in Gaza as well as violence in the West Bank. These things did not happen in a vacuum

but are related to 75 years of occupation and manufactured strife among the Palestinian people.”

Five panelists spoke at the teachin, all different from the speakers at the previous “Middle East Crisis” event: Susanna Ferguson, Smith College assistant professor of Middle East studies; Iyko Day, professor and chair of English and affiliated faculty of critical race & political economy; Kevin Surprise, lecturer in environmental studies; Esraa Kadair ’24 — their name has been changed for this story — politics and biology double major; and Elif Babül, associate professor of anthropology.

Ferguson presented first, speaking on Palestine’s historical background prior to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. She touched upon early Zionism and the British mandate, particularly the Balfour Declaration — a public British statement written in 1917 in support of “the establishment of Palestine [as] a nation for the Jewish people.”

Palestinians and Zionists protested British control, and Ferguson noted that resistance often includes violence. She concluded by telling the audience that she welcomed their questions and looked forward to the conversation at the end of the teach-in.

Day spoke on settler colonialism and identified parallels between the logic of settler colonies, including those of the United States and Israel. Calling on scholar Patrick Wolfe, she noted that colonial invasion is a structure, not an event. She asserted that the purpose of settler colonialism is to destroy and replace Indigenous people by dispossessing them of their land.

In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, Day reiterated that she “wanted students to know that settler colonialism is a ‘structure not [an] event’; that Indigenous peoples in North America and Palestine are in a colonial relation of dispossession rather than exploitation (to

Photo by Max Paster ’25 Entrance to the Art Building and Gamble Auditorum where the “Teach-In: Palestine in a Global Context” was held for attendees on Monday, Oct. 30.

eliminate to replace), and finally, that settler forgetting (colonial unknowing) of Indigenous presence is a dominant feature of settler colonial power.”

During Surprise’s presentation, he spoke about the relationship between U.S. foreign policy goals and the country’s support for Israel. He explained that the United States coerces other nations through overt and covert violence, such as military presence, interventions and spending.

Surprise emphasized the correlation between oil profits and weapons sales for the United States

during times of war and conflict in the Middle East. In his view, the support for Israel has to do with the United State’s own foreign interests, and he stressed that Palestine is “one of [the] worst examples of [a] sacrifice zone under capitalism and U.S. hegemony.”

“The central question I was trying to address in my brief comments was: why are essentially all facets of the U.S. government providing unwavering support — rhetorically, diplomatically, and militarily — for Israel, even in the face of what many are calling a genocide,” Surprise said in an interview with Mount

Holyoke News.

In Surprise’s view, “any answer that does not include the role of Middle East oil in U.S. geopolitical strategy is missing the crux of [the] matter.” He elaborated on this, stating that “since the 1940’s, the U.S. has sought to manage the production, flow, and sale of oil from the Middle East by ensuring that no singular country becomes dominant in the region, and by preventing the formation of regional blocs hostile to US interests.”

Surprise said that U.S. aid to IsCONTINUED ON PAGE 8

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What is Ace Week, and why don’t more people know about it?

BY MADHAVI RAO ’24 FEATURES EDITOR

Ace Week is a global campaign working to raise awareness for asexuality both within the LGBTQ+ community and in the general public.

Previously Asexual Awareness Week, Ace Week, celebrated in the last full week of October, ran from Oct. 22-28 this year. Ace Week was instituted by activist and organizer Sara Beth Brooks and the founder of the Asexual Visibility and Educational Network, David Jay, in 2010.

Despite these efforts, asexuality is still a misunderstood and underrepresented identity, even within the queer community.

“Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction, while celibacy is the lack of sexual behavior,” asexual author and scholar Angela Chen explains in her book “Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex.” “To the best I can tell, sexual attraction is the desire to have sex with a specific person for physi-

Photo courtesy of trollhare via Flickr March participants, pictured above, hold up an asexual flag and a sign at a Stockholm pride event.

cal reasons,” Chen added. People who are asexual can still experience romantic attraction, aesthetic attraction — the appreciation of one’s physical appearance — and emotional attraction. Many asexual people also choose to participate in romantic or queerplatonic relationships with allosexual — those who experience sexual attraction — or non-asexual people.

Queerplatonic relationships, or QPRs, mix aspects of romantic, platonic and sexual relationships. Each QPR is unique, and the individuals involved in a QPR define the terms of the relationship together.

The Coalition for Asexual/Aromantic Awareness at Mount Holyoke College held an information session and workshop in collaboration with Planned Parenthood Generation Ac-

tion to “promote awareness, visibility and community” for asexual and aromantic identities — commonly shortened as “ace” and “aro.” CFAA also held a Halloween affinity event for aro-ace people during Ace Week.

However, other than the events held by the CFAA Board, there was a lack of commemoration of Ace Week on Mount Holyoke’s campus this year.

Oftentimes, the responsibility of raising awareness for and celebrating asexuality falls onto asexual people.

“I’ve talked with several students who don’t have a lot of knowledge about asexuality, and those interactions have always ended with positive, informational conversations about it,” CFAA Social Chair Autumn Gebhardt ’26, voiced. “I’m always happy to talk about my identity and what it means to me, and the students I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with have always been eager to learn.”

Conversely, this willingness to educate people is not shared by ev-

eryone in the asexual community.

“I don’t share my ace identity with many people. Usually, I feel like it isn’t information that I owe to people,” an asexual Mount Holyoke student who wished to remain unnamed explained. “Also, most of the time I am not in the mood to explain to people what asexuality is or what it means to me.”

The terms sex-favorable, sex-indifferent and sex-repulsed are used to describe a person’s individual relationship with the act of having sex. For instance, someone who is sex-repulsed finds sexual activity undesirable or, as the name implies, repulsive. These terms can apply to anybody, not just people within the asexual community. However, there are often assumptions that all asexuals are sex-repulsed and that no asexuals have sex.

“Often people are either afraid to ask about it, or they make incorrect assumptions,” the unnamed stuCONTINUED ON PAGE 3

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Weissman Center trip coincides with the U.N. vote for a ceasefire

BY LILIANA STINSON ’27 CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Content warning: This article discusses mass death and state-sanctioned violence.

For those who, like myself, are interested in geopolitics, an opportunity to walk through the Headquarters of the United Nations is remarkable in and of itself. Therefore, as someone who has researched the legacy of colonialism and imperialism, witnessing the U.N. General Assembly debate a call for a ceasefire in Gaza, even for just a few seconds, is a moment I’ll never forget.

Twenty long days after the attacks of Oct. 7, the General Assembly made its first formal response to the ongoing violence in Israel and Gaza. After two days of discussion and debate, the General Assembly accepted a resolution introduced by Jordan that called for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce” in a final vote of 121 to 14, with 44 abstentions.

This consequential vote happened to correspond with the Weissman Center’s Lynk on the Road Careers in Public Policy trip to the U.N. on Oct. 27. A friend and I only realized how significant the timing of our visit was when we were about an hour away from the U.N. Headquarters.

Though we were uncertain of whether or not we’d get anywhere close to the General Assembly, we recognized just how exceptional it was that we could say we were there that day.

As our tour came to a close, the tour guide told us we only had one stop left: the General Assembly Hall.

Since there was a debate occurring, we couldn’t go into the parts of the Assembly that were in use, but we were led to a section that overlooked the entire hall.

As Elle Rood ’27 noted, “It was … very impactful to be on a balcony in the room of the General Assembly while they were holding discussions on a resolution to call for a ceasefire … it was certainly a very historic

day to be at the U.N.” At about 4 p.m. later that day, the results of the vote were finalized: The Jordanian resolution titled “Protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations” was accepted by well over a two-thirds majority, as abstentions are not counted as votes.

Crucially, this resolution expresses “grave concern at the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip,” condemns “all acts of violence aimed at Palestinian and Israeli civilians” and “demands that all parties immediately and fully comply with their obligations under international law.” It staunchly focuses on the protection of civilians, repeatedly expressing again and again the necessity for humanitarian aid in the area.

Markedly, the resolution is absent of the word “hostage” or language condemning the attacks of Hamas. The United States and Canada spoke out harshly against such “omissions of evil” and attempted to add a condemnation of the Oct. 7 at-

Photo by Dawn Bernardo ’25 Students on a Weissman Center trip last month gathered in front of the U.N. on Saturday, Oct. 7.

tacks by Hamas to the resolution via a Canadian–sponsored amendment.

However, this amendment failed to receive a two-thirds majority, and accordingly, the United States voted

against the resolution while Canada abstained.

This fierce declaration for a CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

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November 10, 2023

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

. Mount Holyoke News

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‘One More Time’: Blink-182 returns to the old days

BY SARAH BERGER ’27 STAFF WRITER

Pop-punk is back.

In the past two years, Paramore, Simple Plan and Taking Back Sunday have all released full-length albums. Say Anything, Green Day, Busted and Hawthorne Heights are coming out with new songs. Amidst the revival of a genre they helped pioneer, it only makes sense that Blink-182 would come back as well — though, to be fair, they’ve been consistently releasing since 1994.

The newly released “One More Time” is longer than most of their other albums, clocking in at 17 songs and two digital release bonuses. The album marks a reunion between three original members of the band, which has undergone several lineup changes throughout its life. It features Tom DeLonge on guitar, Travis Barker on drums and Mark Hoppus on bass, with all three members providing vocals. “One More Time” debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, an impressive feat for a band that has had such a long life.

The themes on the album are remarkably similar to those of their early work, which they began releasing nearly 30 years ago: sex,

partying, more partying and rock ‘n’ roll. These are the topics you might expect from a group of twenty-something-year-olds, but by now, every member of the band has reached adulthood and had complex life experiences. The songs touch on adulthood, but only to mourn their lost youth.

In “CHILDHOOD,” they write that “Everybody seems so lost, I wanna leave / 2023, who the fuck are we?” The lackluster lyricism continues throughout the album. On “EDGING,” the lead single, Delonge barks, “I’m a punk rock kid / I came from hell with a curse.” On “BAD NEWS,” Hoppus laments, “I guess there’s no such thing as a happy ending.”

“One More Time,” the titular song, calls back to “I Miss You” from their 2003 album “Blink-182.” At the end of the song, just as the vocals begin to fade away, all three members of the band sing “I miss you” several times. The juxtaposition serves “One More Time” poorly. Whereas “I Miss You” was sweetly sentimental, its counterpart is syrupy and rings somewhat false compared to the rest of the album, which touches on themes of loss but doesn’t delve into them enough to land emotionally.

The lyrics are also edgy to the

Photo courtesy of IllaZilla via Wikimedia Commons Blink-182, a pop-punk staple, returns to the scene with the debut of their album “One More Time.”

point of laughability. The slightly misogynistic “Turn This Off” begins with the lines “If you’re too sensitive, well turn this off / if you’re offended by these words, then please fuck off.” The last nine seconds of the 23-second song tell the story of

a date with a disappointing end. The narrator then blames his sexual partner for his shortcomings.

The band’s acknowledgment of their misogyny comes off as more like a half-hearted outrage grab than a genuine opinion or countercultur-

al statement. Blink-182 has always been tongue-in-cheek, and they’ve never faced very much backlash for it. It’s unclear if they actually feel victimized or if they’re just trying to appeal to their perceived audience’s views.

That being said, the album can be fun. Songs like “DANCE WITH ME,” “EDGING” and “OTHER SIDE” have some of the snark the band is known for. They’re catchy, the type of songs that let you let yourself go and relax.

Yet the band’s earlier work, particularly prior to the 2010s, is slightly more interesting. They’re rougher, more emotive and more human. Strangely, on “One More Time,” Blink-182 has begun to sound more like its successors. The album is more Machine Gun Kelly, overproduced and soulless, than Sum 41, rough and explosive.

Perhaps it makes sense for the album to sound contemporary, but when the title itself is a reference to their past works, the listener expects to hear some of the same complex sounds in addition to similar themes. In the middle of a pop-punk resurgence, Blink-182 doesn’t bring anything different to the scene, even if they’re the ones who invented it.

Understanding asexuality, the invisible identity, cont’d u

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dent continued. “For example, some will assume that asexuality means abstinence or that it is an identifier only used by people who are sex-repulsed. People are often unaware of the nuances of ace identities.”

“For much of society, if someone reveals they are asexual, then they must also be a ‘virgin,’ have no interest in sex and/or possess no desire to have sex,” Michael Paramo, founder of interdisciplinary journal AZE, which publishes “reflections of asexual, aromantic, and agender people,” stated in a post about the asexual experience on the online publishing platform Medium. “In the general public mindset, attraction can only be sexual.”

Asexuality is a spectrum, not a binary. It blurs the lines between romantic, platonic and aesthetic attraction and thus results in various complex and multifaceted identities within the community. The spectrum includes identities such as gray-ace, in which individuals experience sexual attraction on occasion, and demisexual, in which individuals experience sexual attraction only after forming a strong emotional bond with another person.

Intersecting identities can complicate how asexuality is viewed and treated by the larger queer community. “It’s really interesting to be asexual and biromantic as both ace and bi people get looked over in the LGBTQ+ community often,” CFAA Co-Treasurer Holly Wrampelmeier ’26 stated.

“As an asexual lesbian, I often feel like I exist in two completely different queer worlds, and I don’t

always feel comfortable being open about my two queer identities simultaneously for a variety of reasons,” CFAA Social Chair Gebhardt noted.

“When I’m interacting with queer people I’m unfamiliar with, I tend to lead with the fact that I’m a lesbian because it’s something I know they’ll understand.”

The asexual identity is closely tied to the aromantic identity, and both these identities disrupt normative ideas of romantic and sexual attraction. Aromantic, or aro, people do not experience romantic attraction.

Similarly to asexual people, aromantic people can still experience other forms of attraction, such as sexual or emotional attraction. Aro identities also exist on a spectrum and are not mutually inclusive with asexuality.

Aro and ace people radicalize notions of love and connection.

Through queerplatonic relationships — also known as QPRs — people within the aromantic spectrum and the asexual spectrum form bonds that are not necessarily sexual or romantic in nature.

“These relationships transcend the bounds of what is typically found in friendship alone, even when ‘romantic’ as a descriptor seems wrong,” Chen wrote in her book.

“The queer part is not about genders, but about queering that social border.”

“I also think of this alot with my child and his friends, and the extent to which parents and teachers need to make accessible a range of options that otherwise might be made invisible,” Mary Lyon Professor of Humanities at Mount Holyoke, Kate Singer, said. “What are the things I can say or do to help them build a

life where they are not automatically forced into specific forms of sexual or romantic relations? How can I help them give voice to their own organic senses of relations and intimacies without accidentally putting shapes or words in their mouths?”

Due to the complex identities under the umbrella of aromanticism and asexuality, aro-ace people tend to be ignored, misunderstood and rendered invisible within queer communities.

“The queer community tends to center sex and romance in a lot of their discussions about their experiences and identities, and they don’t always know how to support people who don’t experience those things,” the CFAA Board expressed in a group statement in an email sent to the Mount Holyoke News.

“I do think that [lack of aro/ace awareness] has to do with how Western White Anglo culture has for so long been dominated by capitalist biopolitical heteronormativity that privileged the pursuit of sexuality as viable adolescent work/activity,” Professor Singer explained.

“I also think for some time,” Singer continued, “(e.g., when I grew up) expressing gay/lesbian/bi sexuality -- among ourselves, in public, in culture -- was so important as a part of activism and of self-identity, but which might sometimes inadvertently set a trap for thinking about queer intimacy as sexual.”

“Many people simply don’t know that [asexuality] exists as an identity, which can lead to them thinking that [asexuals] are ‘broken’ in some way,” the unnamed Mount Holyoke student expressed. Until 2013, asexuality was considered a mental disorder and was listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental

Disorders, created by the American Psychiatric Association, as “Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder.”

“As someone who thinks about the histories of sexuality and gender,” Singer said, “I would want to think about the persistence of a revenant, mistaken structure within US culture that inadvertently positions ACE or even ARO as a lack or absence of something rather than another way of being in the world.”

While asexuals are considered a part of the LGBTQ+ community, there is still a long way to go before asexuality is properly recognized and asexual people feel included within the queer identity. “While I do feel welcome on campus, including among queer people,” the unnamed student stated, “I don’t think I have felt specifically welcome in the queer community on campus.”

“Being aro/ace is such a unique identity: not queer ‘enough’ yet still queer, making our existence in wider queer spaces awkward, to say the least,” CFAA President Journey Freedman ’26 explained.

“All of us have witnessed or experienced ace and/or aro hatred within the queer community in one way or another, and it’s hard to sideline those experiences when entering wider queer spaces,” the CFAA Board said.

Often, it is among fellow asexuals that ace students feel welcomed and seen. “Coming to college knowing an aro/ace identity club existed made me so excited; I would meet others like me! I wasn’t alone!”

Freedman exclaimed. “I need this club, and I know so many others need the space it provides, too.”

The unnamed Mount Holyoke student seconded Freedman’s statement. “Being ace on campus feels

pretty comfortable, but if I hadn’t found other ace people early on, I think it would have felt lonely.”

“A club for us queer ‘outsiders’ is vital so that we may not only exist, but thrive,” Freedman affirmed.

Like with other queer identities, there is still a strong community of asexuals within Mount Holyoke.

Asexual affinity spaces offer a sense of protection and vulnerability to students.

“I know that I am welcome in other MHC queer spaces, but in practice, I tend to stick with my other queer friends and only go to CFAA events,” Wrampelmeier noted.“This is out of fear that my identity will be ignored or invalidated outside of spaces that I know are safe, even though I know that Mount Holyoke is a very accepting space.”

Although asexuality is often called the “invisible orientation,” there are ways for asexuals to find each other and reassure each other that they are not alone. One method is by wearing physical identifiers — aces wear a black ring on the right middle finger, and aros wear a white ring on the left middle finger. The rings are symbols of solidarity and a way of displaying identities that are often dismissed and forgotten.

“Shoutout to all my fellow ace and aro-spectrum Mohos. I see you with your black and white rings! I see you with your sneaky flag-colored outer space stickers!” an unnamed student on the Mount Holyoke student forum MHC Web Weaver — @ mhcwebweaver on Instagram — exclaimed. “You inspire me and make me feel seen. Happy Ace Visibility Week! Whether you wanna be visible or undercover, keep being you and know that we’re so happy you’re here.”

UN General Assembly calls for ceasefire in the Middle East, cont’d u

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2

ceasefire is significant. As Professor and Chair of the Mount Holyoke College International Relations Department, Sohail Hashmi explained, “If you value the will of the majority of our … world community, then the General Assembly is the closest thing we have now to a voice of humanity at the global level.”

This “voice of humanity” is especially important as the number of reported casualties continues to rise, and the conditions in Gaza worsen into what U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has called “a humanitarian catastrophe … unfolding in front of our eyes.”

As of Nov. 5, estimates provided

by AP News — sourced from officials in both Gaza and Israel, as well as international observers — place Palestinian deaths at over 9,800 and Israeli deaths at 1,400, as well as noting over 27,000 injured Gazans and 5,400 injured Israelis. Notably, the vast majority of these casualties — both Israeli and Palestinian — are civilians who “have borne the brunt of the current fighting from the out-

set,” per an Oct. 31 letter from Secretary-General Guterres.

Despite the General Assembly’s vehement condemnation of any continued violence, this resolution is ultimately not legally binding — no resolution of the General Assembly is. In fact, Israel has staunchly rejected the resolution. After the vote, the Ambassador of Israel to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, stated that Oct. 27 was “a day that will go down in infamy.”

That same day, Israel both intensified its airstrikes and expanded its ground activity in Gaza during an internet blackout that Israel may or may not have caused.

Since then, Israel has further intensified its ground operations, sent troops and tanks to close in on the densely populated Gaza City, destroyed the residential area containing the largest refugee camp in Gaza and flattened another residential block nearby.

Despite this display of violence, the Israeli government has continued to defend its actions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a news conference on Oct. 30 that “we’re going out of our way to prevent civilian casualties,” citing

warnings telling Gazans to move south. Ultimately, as the Ambassador of Israel declared to the U.N., Israel’s goal is to “completely eradicate Hamas’ capabilities, and we will use every means at our disposal to accomplish this.”

As it becomes increasingly obvious that Israel has no plans to heed the call for a ceasefire, the symbolic power of the General Assembly falls incredibly short.

In a powerful statement, the former Director of the New York Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Craig Mokhiber, called out the ineffectiveness of U.N. measures in his Oct. 28 resignation letter, saying, “Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it.” Much of this powerlessness comes from the fact that the U.N. Security Council — which can issue legally binding resolutions — has continually been unable to address the crisis. Since Oct. 7, there have been four failed resolutions on the situation — each failing due to a veto from at least one of the Council’s five permanent members.

Particularly, conflict has emerged between Russia and China, which have both called for a ceasefire, and the United States, which has advocated for “humanitarian pauses.” The United States resolution was vetoed by China and Russia, while the Russian resolution would have been vetoed by the United States and United Kingdom had it received 9 out of 15 votes.

Despite fundamental disagreements, in the wake of the U.N. General Assembly resolution, the Security Council has renewed its negotiating efforts. Significantly, 11 of the 15 Security Council members voted in favor of the General Assembly’s resolution for a ceasefire, with three abstaining and one voting against — that one vote being the United States.

While the United States moves to urge the Israeli government to allow brief humanitarian pauses, it remains staunchly against a ceasefire, as the Biden Administration believes these pauses would ultimately benefit Hamas combatants by allowing them respite from Israeli bombardment.

Given this American opposition,

it is unlikely that the Security Council will be able to issue a resolution in support of a ceasefire. As Hashmi noted, “The only way there’s ever been progress in any past peace movements is by strong international pressure — and more than anything else, pressure [from] the United States of America.” Yet, he continued, “the U.S. has consistently wielded veto power to shield Israel from just about [any] criticism … So it’s not at all unexpected.”

He added that “it’s not necessarily irrational either, because the country that votes the most with the U.S. in the entire U.N. is the state of Israel … there’s a strong … nexus between these two countries.”

Given this, Hashmi explained that a consensus from the Security Council would take “a revolution in … American foreign policy making.” On Oct. 30, the Security Council heard briefings on the devastating humanitarian crisis in Gaza from key U.N. humanitarian agencies, as well as pleas for support from both the Permanent Representative of Israel and the Permanent Observer of Palestine. It is yet to be seen if the Security Council will be able to unite on the issue.

4

GLOBAL

November 10, 2023

. Mount Holyoke News

Venezuela has first opposition primary election in 11 years

BY KIERA MCLAUGHLIN ’26 GLOBAL EDITOR

Content warning: This article discusses gendered violence, sexual violence and state-sanctioned violence.

In the face of Venezuela’s first opposition primary election in 11 years, the United States made a deal with Venezuela that involved lifting sanctions on oil exports. This deal demanded a fair election for opposing parties, but sitting President Nicolás Maduro refused. However, on Oct. 26, 2023, María Corina Machado was declared the winner of the presidential primary election, Reuters reported. According to Al Jazeera, the former lawmaker will be running against current President Maduro in a general election in late 2024.

Despite winning the primary, Machado has been banned from running for office since June 2023. According to BBC News, the Comptroller General, Elvis Amoroso, banned her for 15 years due to alleged corruption, although he did not provide evidence of said corruption. The Venezuelan Attorney General also launched a criminal investigation into the commission of the primary election on Oct. 25, Reuters reported.

Machado confirmed that she will be on the presidential ballot in an address to her supporters on Monday, Oct. 23, PBS reported. “What awaits us is an arduous road; we know it. We are all very clear about the nature of the regime we face, and this primary full of obstacles and challenges proved it,” she declared. “[But] the bigger the obstacles they put in front of us, the bigger we get because we are going to overcome all obstacles.”

According to PBS, there were many obstacles that Machado supporters had to conquer in order to properly vote. The voter turnout, despite weather conditions and repres-

Photo courtesy of Carlos Díaz via Wikimedia Commons Maria Corina Machado won the presidential primary in the Venezuelan elections on Oct. 26, 2023.

sion, demonstrated a commitment to a change in leadership. Organizers of the primary election added that due to internet censorship, the results took longer to count.Jesús María Casal, the head of the National Primary Commission, said that the “server that functioned as a transmission channel was blocked, preventing us from completing this process as scheduled,” PBS reported.

In an interview with the Mount Holyoke News, Javier Corrales, professor of political science at Amherst College, said that while he hopes Venezuela will get past the current administrative corruption, he does not think there will ever be fair elections.

Corrales explained that the Venezuelan government “has demonstrated that it’s not interested in free and fair elections” and that the administration will not “compete with anybody who has a minimum chance of being a real electoral contender.”

This election comes at a time of increased economic instability throughout the country. According to AP News, Venezuela’s economy improved greatly between 2014 and 2021, leading some Venezuelans to return from taking refuge in other Latin American countries. Howev-

er, these conditions have worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic.

In April 2022, the average monthly pay was 130 bolivares, which was previously equivalent to approximately $30, but people are now only being paid the equivalent of around $3.70 a month, AP News reported.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, over 7.7 million people have left Venezuela, 6.5 million of whom have found refuge in other Latin American countries.

There has also been an increase in Venezuelan migrants relocating to the United States. AP News reported that over the last 11 months, there have been more than 199,500 Venezuelans crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. This is an upsurge compared to the 2,700 people who crossed the border in 2020.

In anticipation of the 2024 election, the U.N. has issued statements and statistics about the human rights violations in Venezuela, AP News reported. This research declared that between January 2020 and August 2023, there were 14 short-term disappearances and 58 arbitrary detentions in the country, along with 28 torture or cruel treatment cases — the latter of which included 19 reports of sexual and gender-based

violence.

According to PBS, Patricia Tappatá Valdez, a member of the U.N. fact-finding mission that compiled these statistics, said that “by criminalizing participation in legitimate activities, the government is silencing and creating a chilling effect on anyone who might consider participating in any activity that could be perceived as critical of the government.”

Recently, a new deal between the United States and Venezuela is intended to expand the Venezuelan economy by lifting U.S. sanctions on oil. Through a license from the U.S. Treasury Department, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries can produce and export oil from Venezuela to its choice of markets for six months without restrictions, Reuters reported. By opening the global oil market to Venezuela, the United States hopes that this will provide aid in light of sanctions on Russia.

Additionally, this deal requires Venezuela to lift the bans on the opposition party to have a proper democratic election and for the government to release American political prisoners, according to Reuters. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that the United States has been “consistent with our long-standing commitment to provide U.S. sanctions relief in response to concrete steps towards competitive elections and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

When asked about whether or not this deal with the United States would improve the Venezuelan economy, Corrales said, “Venezuela’s economy is in such bad shape that any new funds that you pump into the economy [are] going to be better than not having it.”

He did stress, however, that he does not trust the Venezuelan government with the funds. He explained that the government will act

as it has in the past with funding by “supporting its supporters, period, and making sure that anybody else doesn’t get enough.”

In addition to these lifted sanctions, the U.N. has approved humanitarian funds for Venezuela to help finance initiatives related to health, education, food security and electricity, The New Humanitarian reported. $3 billion in Venezuelan assets are currently frozen by sanctions, and while not all of that money will be available, it is now estimated that approximately $600 million could be unfrozen.

According to BBC News, while the ban on her ability to hold office has still not been lifted, Machado is hopeful in her statements. After her declaration of victory in the primary election, she said, “From tonight, we begin a great movement for a great national alliance for the transformation of Venezuela.” However, as AP News reports, some question the ability of Machado’s victory to remain uncontested by the current government. As Geoff Ramsey, senior analyst on Venezuela at the Atlantic Council, explained, “The opposition will have to come together around the winning candidate after the primary, but also be prepared for the likely possibility that the government will veto that candidate.” He went on to add that they should plan to use another candidate to eventually change the administration.

The Guardian reported that this possibility became more probable when the Venezuelan Supreme Court suspended the primary results on Oct. 30. This decision is also a violation of the agreement made between the United States and Venezuela for oil sanctions to be lifted, Ramsey highlighted. “[President] Maduro’s acting like he doesn’t care about the prospect that the US could snap back the sanctions,” the senior analyst explained to The Guardian.

King Charles III visits Kenya for first time as king UN official resigns after calling the conflict in Gaza a genocide

BY ELIZABETH MURRAY ’26 STAFF WRITER

Content warning: This article discusses colonial violence, mass death and sexual violence.

King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla of the United Kingdom made their first visit to Kenya as ruling monarchs in late October.

This is the first Commonwealth country the king has visited since ascending to the throne in 2022 following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, BBC News reported. There has been recent speculation about whether the king would address the violent history of British colonialism in Kenya and issue a formal apology.

The royal couple landed in Nairobi on Oct. 30, receiving an official welcome from Kenyan President William Ruto at his residence, the State House, the next day, according to PBS News. The king and queen attended a state dinner and a safari in Nairobi National Park, and the king later met with local entrepreneurs, AP News reported.

The four-day visit focused on cooperation between the two countries surrounding issues of economic development, climate change and security, Reuters reported. King Charles made stops at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, the site where Kenya declared independence and a public library where he met with participants in the Prince’s Trust charity organization.

PBS News reported that during the trip, U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly announced that 4.5 million pounds sterlings in aid — around $5.5 million — would be donated towards education reform in Kenya, remarking that the father of current British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was educated in Kenya.

The visit has highlighted lingering tensions in Kenya over the history of British colonial rule and the violence it inflicted on Kenyans, PBS reported. This year marks 60 years of Kenyan independence after a long fight against colonial rule known as the Mau Mau Rebellion.

Thousands of Kenyans died during this rebellion, and the British detained and executed rebels without trial. Thousands more recalled being beaten and sexually assaulted

by British agents.

In 2013, the British Government agreed to a 20 million pound sterling, or $24 million, settlement for those

Photo courtesy of Catholic Church of England and Wales via Flickr King Charles III visited Kenya in late October.

abuses, Reuters reported. According to The Guardian, many human rights groups and President Ruto have called for Britain to apologize.

Reuters reported that in a statement on Tuesday, King Charles said, “The wrongdoings of the past are a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret.” Many feel this statement does not go far enough in acknowledging the British Crown’s harm to Kenya.

Under colonial rule, 500,000 Kenyans, mainly from the Kipsigis and Talai groups, were violently expelled from their ancestral lands in order for tea plantations to be erected. In 2019, the British government refused to settle the group’s claims.

The case is currently before the European Human Rights Court.

In Kenya, there have been several demonstrations and protests against the king’s visit, PBS reported. Many reported the police disbanding them or canceling their protest altogether. The king’s statement breaks with the precedent set by his mother, Elizabeth II, who notably refrained from expressing opinions on controversial matters and stuck to impartiality, CNN wrote.

Reuters reported that President Ruto spoke positively about the king’s willingness to highlight the past, declaring that “while there has been efforts to atone for the death, injury and suffering inflicted on Africans by colonial government, much remains to be done in order to achieve full reparations.”

King Charles met with Kenyan veterans who had fought for Britain, reissuing them with medals, CNN

reported. He also met privately with the families of Kenyan rebels killed

by British forces. Among them was the family of Dedan Kemathi, who was hanged by the British government and the location of whose bodily remains are still unknown, AP News reported . The meeting was intended to be an “opportunity for the king to hear firsthand about the violence committed against Kenyans during their struggle for independence,” the British High Commission said.

At a new museum dedicated to Kenya’s history, the king visited an exhibit called the “Tunnel of Martyrs,” displaying death warrants signed by British officials. Additionally, King Charles met with religious leaders towards the latter part of the trip in the hope of promoting peace.

According to AP News, the king toured the Mandhry Mosque, the oldest mosque in East Africa.

He later met with leaders from Hindu, Muslim, Christian and traditional African faiths in an Anglican cathedral in the city of Mombasa, where a plaque was unveiled to commemorate the visit. The region has been affected by a rise in radicalization and militant violence.

The king also observed a drill by British-trained Kenyan Marines and inspected an honor guard alongside the Kenyan President. He then visited a coastal conservation site and saw how organizations are recycling waste.

Meanwhile, Queen Camilla met with women’s advocacy group, Sauti ya Wanawake, Swahili for “voice of women,” speaking with staff, volunteers and survivors about how to support survivors of gender-based and sexual violence best.

She later accompanied the king for the state dinner and visit to the Eastlands Library before meeting with the founders of “Book Bunk,” a charity that focuses on supporting libraries, People Magazine reported.

She also visited several animal sanctuaries and rejoined her husband to view a marine training exercise.

The royal couple then visited UNESCO World Heritage Site Fort Jesus, a 16th-century Portuguese fortress, meeting artists whose works were there on display and taking photos before being seen off by the Kenyan President at Mombasa’s Moi International Airport.

Despite the short duration of the trip, it undoubtedly has the potential to be very consequential for British-Kenyan relations.

Photo courtesy of sanjitbakshi via Flickr The Director of the Human Rights Office of the U.N. in New York resigned over failures in Gaza.

BY SHIRA SADEH ’25 GLOBAL EDITOR

Content warning: This article discusses state-sanctioned violence.

Craig Mokhiber, the director of New York’s United Nations Human Rights Office, resigned in late October over the U.N.’s failure to prevent what he called the genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli military — specifically citing the United States, United Kingdom and several other European powers’ influence on the genocide, The Guardian reported.

In his Oct. 28 resignation letter to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Mokhiber explained that “[he] write[s] at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it.”

“What’s more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault,” Mokhiber continued. “[These countries] are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities.”

A U.N. spokesperson in New York confirmed to The Guardian that Mokhiber was resigning and added that the office was notified in March 2023 that he would be retiring. “The views in his letter made public today are his personal views [...] The position of the office on the grave situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel is reflected in our reports and public statements,” the spokesperson explained.

Mokhiber outlined a “U.N.norm-based” solution to the ongoing situation in Israel and Palestine, including 10 guiding principles: legitimate action; clarity of vision; one state based on human rights; fighting apartheid; return and compensation; truth and justice; protection; disarmament; mediation; and solidarity. Together, these 10 concepts call for the creation of one state with equal rights for “Christians, Muslims, and Jews,” the returning of colonized land to neighboring states, compensation and right of return for victims of the conflict — including those in the currently occupied territories, the region and the diaspora — and a transitional justice process that uses the decades of documented human rights abuses to provide remedies to past harms.

According to The Guardian, the reactions to this publicized resignation letter have been mixed.

Anne Bayefsky, the director of Touro College’s Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, labeled this letter as antisemitic in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

She called for Mokhiber to be immediately fired due to his usage of the U.N. letterhead when “call[ing] for the destruction of the Jewish state.”

Meanwhile, U.N. Director at Human Rights Watch, Louis Charbonneau, expressed to The Guardian that “you don’t have to agree with everything in the letter to see that [Mokhiber has] made a powerful and depressing case that the UN lost its way on human rights when it comes to Israel and Palestine, partly due to pressure from the US, Israel and other governments. It’s not too late to turn the UN ship around, but they need to do it quickly.”

November 10, 2023

SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT

. Mount Holyoke News

5

21 animals have been declared extinct due to human interference

BY LILY BENN ’24 STAFF WRITER

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced that they are removing 21 animal species from an existing list of endangered species due to an official declaration of their extinction.

According to the USFWS, these U.S. numbers come from the Endangered Species Act, which was implemented in December 1973. This policy was enacted to protect animals and plants that scientists and the U.S. government have designated as threatened or endangered. Since the act’s implementation, many species that live or once lived in the United States have been added to the list due to low numbers or else removed entirely due to population recovery or extinction.

Over a million species of organisms throughout the world are at risk of extinction, according to a United Nations report titled “Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services,” originally published in 2019.

According to CBS, the USFWS proposed delisting 23 species in 2021 due to their extinct status. This list contained all 21 of the species officially delisted in October 2023, with an additional two species no longer being considered, CBS explained.

The Guardian elaborated on this, writing that one of the two species was a Hawaiian herb commonly referred to as “Phyllostegia glabra var lanaiensis,” as newer studies have shown that there is a possibility for

new habitats to be developed to assist the plant in population recovery.

The article mentioned that the other species that remained endangered under the Endangered Species Act was the ivory-billed woodpecker, a large species of woodpecker with unconfirmed recent sightings that have led to a debate about its extinction status.

An article from the International Fund for Animal Welfare provided images and details about the 21 species that have been declared extinct this October. The largest category represented is birds, which comprise 10 out of the 21 species, according to IFAW. The article stated that most of the animals on this list were added to the Endangered Species Act after there had been no confirmed sightings for years, with some last confirmed sightings dating back to the 1960s.

One bird, the Bachman’s warbler, was previously native to the Southeastern continental U.S., the article continued. There used to be a larger number of swamplands that provided habitats for this small bird.

However, according to IFAW, this species’ habitat was lost after the swamps were drained. Another species of bird declared extinct was the bridled white-eye, which used to be native to Guam and Florida.

According to the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, the eight other bird species are honeycreepers previously endemic to Hawaii. They are known as the Kauaʻi ʻakialoa, Kauaʻi nukupuʻu — which has not had a confirmed sighting since 1899 —, Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, Large Kauaʻi thrush,

Photo courtesy of James Borrol via Flickr The Bachmans warbler bird species pictured above was removed from the endangered species list.

Maui ākepa, Maui nukupuʻu, Molokai creeper and Po`ouli, the last of which was last sighted in 2004.

Outside of birds, the other species declared as extinct include the Little Mariana fruit bat, two fish — San Marcos gambusia and Scioto madtom — and eight mussel species — flat pigtoe, southern acornshell, stirrupshell, upland combshell,

green blossom pearly mussel, tubercled-blossom pearly mussel, turgid-blossom pearly mussel and yellow-blossom pearly mussel. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that the last confirmed sighting of any of the species listed above, not including the birds, was of the stirrupshell in 1986.

According to IFAW, humans play

a central role in the decline of the now-extinct, endangered and threatened species on this list. Destruction of habitats such as swampland and wetland drainage, as well as climate change events such as warming and the increase of natural disasters, are both factors. The spread of disease, invasive species and illegal poaching are also primary causes of all of the 21 species’ extinctions, the article explained.

In another article, NPR added that these species have been added to a list of 650 that have gone extinct, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirms.

However, the article points out some positive developments. Fifty-four species have since been taken off the endangered species list due to population recovery, and 56 have been re-listed as threatened after previously being endangered.

USFWS Director Martha Williams told NPR that the Endangered Species Act’s main goal is to help the species recover and reverse their downward trend toward extinction.

NPR reported that 99% of the species on this list have not reached extinction since its beginning in the 70’s.

An article by ABC News emphasized that the continuation of conservation efforts is necessary to protect the millions of species of biodiversity on the planet.

Some elements aiding these efforts include government actions, such as the creation of the Endangered Species Act and the collaborative efforts of Indigenous tribes, governments and private citizens, ABC News reported.

China on highest pollution alert, government has yet to take action

BY ALARA MIRZA ’27 STAFF WRITER

China’s lagging initiative to mitigate fossil fuel emissions has resulted in a thick, grayish haze encumbering Northern China in the past week, Reuters reported. The haze has severely restricted activity and set off the government’s highest pollution alerts.

With visibility dropping to less than 50 meters — 164 feet — at times, the Chinese government was forced to impose safety measures, including limiting the number of vehicles on the road by designating specific days for driving depending on the last number of license plates, Phys. org said. According to Channel News Asia, since Tuesday, Oct. 31, over 100 million people have been experiencing disruptions in their day-to-day activities, including those within the wider Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area.

A Phys.org article explained that the concentration of PM 2.5 — fine particulate matter of 2.5 microns or less in size — is twenty times greater than the World Health Organization’s recommended guideline, according to air quality monitoring firm IQAir. In China CDC Weekly, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Photo courtesy of Kentaro IEMOTO via Wikipedia Commons Twenty-one percent of all diseases in China have been traced back to pollution or poor air quality.

cited the presence of such extreme and excessive particulate matter as a health hazard, noting its role in contributing to premature death in those with existing heart or lung

diseases. Condensed pollution also impairs the health of forestry and agriculture, impairing roots and leaves and ultimately diminishing crop yields, Clarity reported.

Reuters notes that China “declared war” on pollution in a 2014 parliament meeting. Nine years later, though, according to Al Jazeera, emissions have grown to be greater than that of the United States, India and the European Union combined.

In total, this number accounts for over 30% of global emissions.

China still has a long way to go to pull as much weight as other nations, the Al Jazeera article continued. Environmental nonprofit Greenpeace stressed that many of China’s actions are pushing them in the wrong direction, citing examples such as the government-approved major increase in coal power that took place in early 2023.

In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Jason Andras said that, “At the broadest level, it would take the political will of the government” to effectively and successfully reduce fossil fuel usage.

Andras emphasized three simple yet consequential steps to do so: “Identifying a problem, implementing policy and seeing an improvement,” citing acid rain as an example where “the problem improved relatively quickly.”

According to Phys.org, Beijing is attributing the recent pollution cri-

sis to unusual weather conditions, such as unseasonably high temperatures. This explanation neglects the role of fossil fuel emissions. Within the context of the global economy and the prominence of pollution in China, the question remains of whether the monetary benefit of the manufacturing industry outweighs its toll on citizens, who experience the aftereffects most directly.

Andras shed some light on the topic. “Cost-benefit analysis suggests that it’s far more beneficial in the long run to regulate pollution in the short run rather than endure the long-term effects,” he said.

Already, China is burdened by the long-term effects. BMC Public Health cites data from the WHO, which says that 21% of diseases in the country trace back to substandard air quality and pollution, contributing to 2 million deaths.

For this bout of smog, scientists estimate the haze will last until mid-November. Until pollution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei is at an acceptable level, emissions will remain high. This is dependent on the government making choices that favor the environment over economic prosperity. For pollution to subside in the future, “there has to be a will to pay those costs,” Andras stated.

Brain food might have a whole new meaning, according to new research

BY BELLA DELMONTE ’27 STAFF WRITER

It is no secret that running is exhausting, but an early-stage research paper is exploring just how much it impacts the body.

According to an article by RunnersConnect, prolonged endurance running, such as marathons, may deplete the body’s carbohydrate stores, leading it to burn fat for energy. A preprint research paper recently submitted to bioRxiv suggested that the body turns somewhere unexpected to find its fat cells: the brain. The preprint reports found that brain tissue — specifically myelin — may be used as fuel in marathon running.

Myelin is a mixture of proteins and phospholipids in the brain that forms an insulating sheath around many nerve fibers, enabling fast travel between nerve impulses, as Verywell Health describes. Myelin may be naturally lost over time due to stroke, infection or neurodegenerative disease, according to the article.

According to the research paper, runners’ myelin levels significantly decreased after racing, followed by a rapid replenishment in the two weeks following the race. The researchers indicate this may be a new type of metabolic process wherein

the body uses myelin as a fuel source during strenuous conditions and recovers it later on.

As Meghan Rosen of ScienceNews reported, researchers in the field of neuroscience have begun to consider the therapeutic possibilities that may result from understanding this process.

The team conducted brain scans on marathon runners one to two days after racing and two weeks following the race, as detailed in the research paper. They explained that runners’ brain scans showed a drastic depletion of myelin shortly after racing.

Two weeks after racing, however, their myelin had nearly fully recovered to pre-race levels. According to the research team, this suggests that the runners were using myelin as a fuel source.

Glycogen stores, as the Runners Connect article explains, are large chains of sugar stored in the liver and muscles — the primary fuel source for long-distance runners.

The article went on to explain that when the body’s glycogen stores deplete, the body taps into fat as a fuel source.

The study by bioRxiv found that this may include myelin cells, which are composed of 70 to 80% lipids. They concluded in the paper that using myelin as a temporary

fuel source implies an unprecedented metabolic process, one that researchers in the study refer to as “myelin plasticity.”

The idea that myelin can change over time has been supported by previous research, such as findings published by researchers from the University of Edinburgh. In an article by Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, these researchers suggested that myelin may be adaptable throughout a person’s life and is altered to regulate experience and learning.

Additionally, the researchers found that myelin, though stable once formed, may have the capacity to remodel if disturbed. The need for an alternative fuel source to glycogen, like when running a marathon, may just be the kind of disturbance that would prompt myelin to change.

The authors of the study explained that further research is required, and the bioRxiv paper has yet to be certified by peer review.

However, in the aforementioned ScienceNews article, Rosen suggested therapeutic implications surrounding this research. For instance, she cites neuroimaging scientist Mustapha Bouhrara, who proposed that this new research could be a breakthrough in understanding and eventually treating myelin loss due to age or neurodegenerative diseases.

Photo courtesy of Benjamin I. Rapport and Charles S. Bond via Wikipedia Commons When running long distances, glycogen molecules — pictured behind runners — can become depleted.

6

OPINION

November 10, 2023

. Mount Holyoke News

What is the best way to retain information in an academic setting?

BY GABRIELLA RODRIGUEZ ’27 OPINION EDITOR

When it comes to putting the knowledge that we’ve gained into practice, especially in an academic setting, the most effective method is not always clear.

While tools like worksheets, flashcards and true-or-false questions can be a quick way to write down and recite information, the actual application of material is what cements it in students’ memory in the long term. Pairing up terms is one skill, but using them in the real world is another. Say, for example, that students learn a list of vocabulary words in a world language class.

They study these vocabulary words in both their native language and the language that they are learning.

When the time comes for the exam, they sit down to fill out a sheet of paper. Each question has a vocabulary word in their native language.

In the corresponding blank line, they are supposed to write the word in the language they are learning.

They move on to the next unit, and the cycle repeats. While learning vocabulary words by association is a good idea in concept, they only become useful when they are con-

Photo courtesy of Alberto G via Flickr Rodriguez argues that the rote memorization of facts for test-taking is an ineffective way to learn.

sistently integrated into common speech — the “use it or lose it” principle. Ultimately, exams of this nature have little consequence because the students do not actually learn how to implement the information they’ve gathered into their speaking and writing. To retain this knowledge, students must continually use the new vocabulary that they have learned in their conversations in the language that they are learning.

Otherwise, they will forget this information and likely will have to

relearn it — making the original process effectively useless. It can be frustrating to retread, so eliminating the need to relearn in the first place is the best course of action. By keeping greater momentum from the start, even though it might mean spending more time on each unit, students can compound knowledge more effectively.

When filling out assignments with word banks and matching sections, an important question arises: Are students learning how to pair

up terms, or are they just using the process of elimination to find the answer? The answer might be a little bit of both. Word banks eliminate the need for students to retrieve terms from memory and can encourage them to make associations.

Matching terms to their definitions repeatedly encourages stronger connections between the two.

However, keying in the correct response again and again does not guarantee true comprehension of the material. There is a certain gratification that comes with pairing two terms correctly that is ultimately short-lived. Longer-term success will come from regularly implementing this knowledge into real scenarios.

When studying languages, we should treat them as a practice-based study — similar to the way that we teach mathematics. For example, in calculus, we can learn equations, but it is only through word problems and real-world scenarios that we can fully grasp the real-world impact of what we study.

Indeed, flashcards can teach us association, but mere association does not necessarily equate to long-term memorization and learning.

It is not enough to know, for ex-

ample, that a certain battle occurred in a certain year; without understanding the political, social and cultural consequences of the battle, we cannot start a dialogue, which is the real reason we learn history.

Instead of treating chronology as a matter of memorization and retrieval, we should place greater emphasis on the “why” — the cause and effect implications of the material that we study.

The same principle applies to true or false quizzes, which are not an accurate metric of a person’s understanding of the material. While, yes, a student can identify whether a statement is factually valid or not, this does not necessarily mean that they are able to relate that information to a larger context. Rather than simply remembering whether a statement is true or false, students should seek to understand the implications of what they learn.

While worksheets and flashcards may work for short-term memorization, actually applying information in a practical context is the only way to ensure long-term retention.

By encouraging students to expand the scope of what they learn, they can build upon their knowledge and advance further in their studies.

Letter to the Editor: This The College must fix its parking problem Transgender Awareness Week, remember: Representation matters

BY TARA MONASTESSE ’25 MANAGING EDITOR OF CONTENT

To the Editor, Each Nov. 13-19, communities come together to recognize and celebrate our transgender siblings as part of Transgender Awareness Week. This November may bring one of the most critical such recognitions yet; with transgender people under attack nationwide and around the world, we, now more than ever, must unite in uplifting transgender voices and causes. As a transgender woman and student-leader at Mount Holyoke College, I am writing to encourage members of our college community to remember one fact of particular importance while recognizing this upcoming week: representation matters.

Here at Mount Holyoke, transgender communities have only been officially, fully represented for approximately nine years, starting in 2014 with the introduction of our inclusive admissions policy. In other words, just a decade ago, I would not have been here to write this. We must recognize the recency of this representation as we continue to advocate for its increase across our college and beyond.

Now that transgender and gender non-conforming people are explicitly welcome at Mount Holyoke, we have already seen the power of such inclusion. Our vibrant LGBTQ+ community makes many positive contributions to the college environment, from diversifying debates to creating bold new organizations and spaces. We should celebrate this powerful representation and all of the people who are part of it.

Personally, my experience bringing a transfeminine perspective to student leadership has further shown me the power of representation. As the first openly transgender woman to be elected president of any class in Mount Holyoke’s 186-year

history, I have felt the incredible hope associated with breaking barriers and creating new representation.

This hope largely stems from my ability to inspire future generations of transgender student-leaders, as representation can so often create more representation. By giving voice to our transgender siblings, we can show the world that anything is possible.

Beyond the gates of Mount Holyoke, transgender representation is growing and making a powerful impact around the world, too.

Here in the United States, we see transgender leaders like Montana Representative Zooey Zephyr, Delaware Senator Sarah McBride and many more making an impact in their communities. In McBride’s case, this year marked an even bigger chance to grow representation, as she launched a 2024 campaign to become the first openly transgender member of the U.S. Congress.

Internationally, leaders like Petra de Sutter, who became the first openly transgender government Minister in Europe, and Gahela Tseneg Cari Contreras, who bravely campaigned for a seat in Peru’s Congress, each in 2020, have made strides for transgender equity and representation in recent years.

Transgender representation is growing in sectors like culture and media, too, with actors and influencers like Dominique Jackson, Hunter Schafer, Elliot Page, Dylan Mulvaney and more making an impact. Please consider learning more about these trailblazers and their stories.

This coming week, we must stand together for transgender equity. As we do so, let’s remember to center the continued growth of transgender representation in every aspect of society.

-

Elle Rood

Senate discusses dining, cont’d u

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Valley Farm in Belchertown, Adams Farm in Athol and Sobieski’s River Valley Farm in Whately.

When purchasing animals for meat, Kelsey explained, Dining Services tries to utilize the entire animal rather than just selective cuts of meat — for example, using the bones to make broth. Additionally, the dining staff works to compost as much food from the dining hall as possible, although they would ideally like to avoid any food waste at all. Kelsey highlighted the different types of food waste, including pre-consumer food waste — scraps —, post-consumer food waste — leftovers — and consumer food waste. Kelsey empha-

sized the importance of educating the community on food waste and sustainability.

After their presentations ended, Searle and Kelsey took a few quick questions, and the senate thanked them for coming before announcing E-Board updates. Reminding students to scan the QR code on the Newsflush newsletters available in residence hall bathrooms if they want their information to be put in the newsletter’s next edition. Following this, senate hosted open floor, where Senators, including the 1837 Hall senator and the Mount Holyoke English Handbell Ensemble representative, brought up concerns and raised announcements. After this, senate concluded.

There is a certain humbling ritual that every car-owning resident of 1837 and Mandelle Halls must undergo at some point.

After you pull into the narrow lot that provides parking for both residential halls, you slowly inch along, scanning each row of cars with a sinking feeling in your stomach.

Eventually, you reach the end of the lot and sigh in defeat, beginning the awkward process of doing a threepoint turn in the cramped space in front of the 1837 Hall main entrance.

Once again, you have arrived in the lot outside your dorm and discovered that there is not a single open parking space.

Usually, this means you will have to park in the Gorse Children’s Center parking lot, located down the hill from the dorms. If you’re prone to driving-related emotional outbursts like me, this realization is usually accompanied by smacking the steering wheel with the heel of your palm and uttering a few choice words. Sometimes even the Gorse lot will be full, and from there, you have two choices: either park in the Dickinson lot if there is space and trek all the way to your hall, or circle each lot aimlessly, wasting gas — worth its weight in gold these days — until a space finally opens up.

While having to park across campus from your dorm may seem trivial, these inconveniences add up. The New England winter is only getting closer, making unnecessary treks across campus during the frigid nights all the more troublesome.

Having to carry bulky items such as groceries to and from one’s vehicle is another reason that this situation is undesirable.

I do not think it is unreasonable for Mount Holyoke students to expect parking to be accessible after paying $150 annually for student parking privileges. This fee is understandable and, I would argue, relatively affordable. Similar schools, such as Smith College, also charge the same amount as Mount Holyoke does for parking. $150 is certainly a much less steep cost for student parking than the one charged by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, whose cheapest option for car registration last year was $291.

However, I find it frustrating that even after paying this fee, finding a parking space on campus is still very difficult.

In the official Parking Rules and Regulations guidebook, “The College does not guarantee that there will be a space available in the parking system for every registered vehicle.” While I appreciate the honesty, I wonder why the student body has never challenged this policy before.

Would you be fine if, after making a purchase at a store, an employee informed you that the item was, in fact, unavailable but still kept your money?

A resident of an apartment building would reasonably expect to have a space in which to park their car outside the building after paying

Photo by Tara Monastesse ’25 The Gorse Children’s Center parking lot contains parking spaces for both student and faculty/staff.

rent every month. Why should residential students at a college, who pay for their room and board, expect anything different?

My complaints about parking are nothing new. Students have brought the issue to the Student Government Association during senate meetings, which I covered during my time as a News Editor for Mount Holyoke News. The SGA E-Board has stated that a long-term solution to the parking shortage would take 5-10 years to implement.

My grievances, of course, are not with SGA: I appreciate their efforts to make the College administration aware of the situation and to relay student concerns. What I fail to understand is why the College continues to exacerbate the problem by enrolling record numbers of students when they are aware that the problem exists and will only continue to get worse.

Let me be clear: I am not advocating for the construction of a new parking lot. The last thing our college needs is for money and time to be invested in clearing out land on our beautiful campus to build another soulless stretch of pavement.

What I am advocating for is a more optimized allocation of our current resources. The College needs to either convert more faculty/staff parking areas to student lots or limit the amount of parking decals available for purchase each semester.

While I adore the new Yellow Sphinxes of the Class of 2027, the fact remains that they are a particularly large class, with 587 matriculants.

I have to question why the College continues to enroll students in record numbers when there are not enough resources available to support them, whether that be parking spaces, class sizes or even housing — underscored by the need to house students in the Willits-Hallowell Center temporarily earlier this year after an unexpected amount of students accepted an offer of admission. The parking issue is reflective of a greater problem present at the College, which is that students are being admitted to the College without the resources they need to succeed.

Now is the time for confessions: I am not an innocent party. Since the beginning of the semester, I have racked up five parking tickets for parking in faculty/staff-only parking areas across campus. Two of these instances, I admit, were the result of

laziness — I simply wanted to park closer to central campus to access Blanchard Hall. However, the other three were instances where, exhausted at the end of the day, I simply did not have the energy to find valid parking after discovering the 1837 and Mandelle Hall lot was full and took up a space in a faculty/staff lot for the night instead.

The email I received from the Parking Office after receiving my fifth citation, ominously titled “Parking tickets,” explained that I would be referred to Residential Life for a “possible perimeter parking ban.”

Upon inquiring, I received an itemized list of each offense, which is how I discovered that I had received two tickets over the course of two days after mistakenly parking my car in the faculty/staff section of the Gorse lot after finding that there was no student parking space available outside my dorm. Am I correct for having broken the rules? No. Was I set up to succeed by being provided with reliable student parking? The answer is also no.

What will happen with these tickets is up in the air, if I am being completely honest. As a first-generation low-income student, I am still trying to wrangle together my tuition payment for this semester. I do not have the money right now to pay these tickets upfront, nor the time and energy needed to dispute them.

Right now, they are strewn across the backseat of my secondhand car or else jammed haphazardly into the driver’s side door compartment.

I have to wonder at the efficiency of repeatedly ticketing students for parking in faculty/staff lots rather than simply providing them with reliable parking access.

Now that I am an upperclassman at Mount Holyoke, I am acutely aware of how important it is to have access to a car in this area. While the PVTA is a great resource, it cannot account for the many transport needs of students, such as needing a ride to the train station in Springfield or to CVS for medicine to treat a cold. I am aware that owning a car at Mount Holyoke is a great privilege, and it is one that I do not take lightly.

Because of this, I expect that the College would put more effort into making car ownership accessible to its students. As long as students at Mount Holyoke need a personal vehicle to meet their everyday needs, they should be given reliable parking after registering their cars.

BOOKS & SPORTS 7 Spotify to introduce free audiobooks to Premium users November 10, 2023

. Mount Holyoke News

BY JUDE BARRERA ’24 STAFF WRITER

Spotify recently announced a new benefit for Premium users that would give them free access to audiobooks for a total of 15 hours each month.

The new feature, announced on Oct. 3, will make more than 150,000 audiobooks on the platform available for Premium users – though this does not include Spotify’s entire audiobook catalog.

Titles not included in the Premium offer can be bought individually.

After listening for 15 hours, users can choose to buy a title, wait for the month to roll over for another free 15 hours or pay for access to an additional 10 hours.

Users in Australia and the United Kingdom have had access to this feature since its launch in early October. The feature is anticipated to drop in the United States later this year.

The announcement comes after a period of substantial change for the music-streaming service. In recent times, Spotify has attempted to incorporate audiobooks into their platform, raised their prices and begun a journey into the world of artificial intelligence. Its first foray into audiobooks was in September

2022 with its individual purchasing system.

In July 2023, Spotify raised their prices for all Premium plans by $1 for individual plans and $2 for family plans, the first change in over a decade, according to an article from The A.V. Club. In late February of this year, they rolled out their AI DJ feature, mimicking the feel of a personalized radio show using each user’s Spotify data.

Spotify’s new hour-based listening system is unique in comparison to other popular platforms. Before this, fans of audiobooks could look to Audible or Apple Books. Both of these apps have an individual purchase system, and Audible has a subscription system that unlocks various perks, like discounts on audiobooks and one free audiobook per month. Similar to the other sites, interested listeners can purchase audiobooks individually but must do so in their Spotify browser.

The new system has led to some trepidation among authors and readers alike. In an interview for The New York Times, Kim Scott, author of the career coaching advice book “Radical Candor,” compared Spotify’s model for audiobooks to Apple introducing a pay-by-song model with iTunes.

Scott was concerned that a by-

the-hour model could devalue the work that goes into writing a book.

According to The New York Times, Scott had declined to put her latest book, “Just Work,” into Spotify’s Premium catalog when asked by her publisher. While “Just Work” is unavailable to be listened to for free by Premium subscribers, it is still available for individual purchase through Spotify.

Other authors were added to Spotify’s by-the-hour catalog by their publishers without notice. The Society of Authors, a U.K. trade union for authors, released a statement that said, “As far as we are aware, no authors or agents have been approached for permission for such licenses.” The SoA then expressed concern regarding the streaming model for audiobooks, stating, “We know the devastating effect that music streaming has had on artists’ incomes, and the impact of streaming and subscription video-on-demand platforms on screenwriter incomes and their working conditions.”

One Mount Holyoke College student, Genevieve Breen ’27, shared their thoughts on how Spotify could impact the audiobook world.

“I think if publishers are going to have to make audiobooks accessible on Spotify, there’s going to be a change in the way audiobooks are

produced,” Breen said in an interview with the Mount Holyoke News.

“Because you’re not just competing with other audiobooks, you’re competing with thousands of audio dramas and podcasts that are already well established and by design are more engaging than just listening to one person read aloud.”

For stories in the public domain, where copyright is not a concern, competition is strong. For example, a search for “Dracula” on Spotify results in a variety of audiobooks, but also a variety of podcasts with readings of the public domain novel “Dracula.” One of these results offers readings of multiple books with a rain sound effect in the background to ease the listener into sleep. Spotify itself will list episodes from podcast suggestions in search results prior to listing its audiobook suggestions.

“I’ve been following an audiobook that’s on Spotify called ‘Re: Dracula.’ … It’s free and accessible on Spotify because the original book is in the public domain,” Breen said.

“What grabbed me was the extremely high production quality. It’s extremely similar to a scripted podcast … with actual actors playing different characters and the use of sound effects,” she said. “‘Re: Dracula’” is classified as a podcast on Spo-

tify and is produced by Bloody FM, a horror-themed podcast network. On their own website, they classify “Re: Dracula” as an “audio drama” rather than an audiobook. Spotify has many audiobook-centered podcasts that do not count toward the monthly 15 hours Premium users will be allotted.

Books that aren’t in the public domain, like the new releases and celebrity memoirs that are suggested when browsing Spotify’s audiobook section, will have less competition due to copyright protections.

Breen, however, still had concerns about the usage of non-public domain books.

“I’m worried about how this will affect authors. The relationship between an author’s income and the revenue their books generate is much stronger than, say, an actor and a film they’re in. … I hope that this change doesn’t mean that authors will be [paid a] pittance every time their books are streamed,” Breen said, echoing the concerns of the SoA. With the feature being out for just a month in the United Kingdom and Australia and no exact date for when it will be released in the United States, it is unclear how drastically this will affect consumer habits and the audiobook market overall.

Is Taylor Swift’s next project a spy thriller? Fans sure think so.

BY HONORA QUINN ’27 STAFF WRITER

“Argylle” by Elly Conway is turning out to be the spy thriller of the month — and is also rumored to have been written by Taylor Swift.

While the claim is, as of now, unsubstantiated, there is definitely something strange afoot with the novel. Production for the film adaptation of the novel has been in the works since 2021 under director Matthew Vaughn, perhaps best known for directing, writing and producing the “Kingsman” franchise of which “Argylle” is now a part. “Argylle” is set to be released

by Penguin Random House in January 2024, with a film adaptation starring Henry Cavill and Bryce Dallas Howard releasing in theaters and on Apple TV in February.

While publishers purchasing the rights to a novel before the book is released is not unheard of, it is unprecedented for a book and its movie adaptation to be released within a month of each other. The unusual circumstances around the book’s release and the mysterious identity of its author have sent some Taylor Swift fans, or “Swifties,” sniffing to see if the thriller was actually penned by the international pop star.

Some traits that “Argylle” has

are uncharacteristic of a debut novel, fueling the fire of some Taylor Swift fans’ theory. For example, every synopsis available is only a few sentences long and gives little information about the actual plot. The book is said to follow Special Agent Argylle, who is sent out by the CIA’s spymaster to stop a Russian magnate from bringing the world to the brink of war. There are no further details about the novel itself.

Another somewhat suspicious thing is the lack of Advanced Reader Copies available. ARCs are a valuable resource when it comes to marketing a book before publication, and many debut authors utilize them to promote their books. They allow early readers and reviewers to get a sense of the novel and to share what they did and didn’t enjoy with other potential readers.

There do not appear to be any ARC copies of “Argylle” out in the world, nor was the novel ever listed on some of the most popular digital ARC sites, such as Netgalley. On Goodreads, there is one ongoing giveaway for a print copy and six ratings from small and/or blank accounts, but no actual reviews.

With Conway being a debut author, audiences are quite suspicious.

Little is known about Conway herself, and while using a pseudonym is not uncommon for authors, her

mysterious identity is what lays the groundwork for speculation.

This isn’t the first rumor that has claimed the singer is connected to writing a book. Earlier this year, there was speculation that a then-untitled Flatiron nonfiction release was going to be Taylor Swift’s memoir — again based on limited facts and speculation, the primary one being the release date, June 13.

The $45 book was actually about BTS, much to the disappointment of Swift fans who had placed preorders.

A cursory glance at Conway’s Instagram page shows comment after comment from Swift fans speculating about the writer’s true identity.

Conway’s feed shows content about the movie and limited information about the book, which, for a debut author, is quite rare. The majority of debut authors have multiple posts discussing their upcoming books and encouraging preorders — but Conway does not. The extent of Conway’s talking about the book is the sentence in her bio: “Argylle, debut novel coming soon.” This sentence is followed by a link showing the casting of Cavill as Argylle. There is also Conway’s first-ever post, from December 2022, showing the book cover alongside the caption “#Argylle, coming summer 2023.”

This release date has evidently been

Photo courtesy of Glenn Francis via Wikimedia Commons Fans wonder if Swift is making a writing debut.

pushed, but that is not unusual.

It seems that the theory in favor of Taylor’s connection to “Argylle” is about the movie rather than anything specific to the book. Fans just assume that Swift and “Argyle” are connected because of some associations between the two. On Sept. 28, 2023, Conway made a post showing the trailer for the movie and thanking Vaughn for bringing the story to life. It was not long until Swifties came with the rumors. User gabriela.ajmaza said, “All Too Well, writer, red hair. Familiar?” referencing Howard’s character in the clip, who is a writer with red hair, similar to Sadie Sink, who plays one of the

main characters in Swift’s “All Too Well” short film.

This theory is only scratching the surface. On Oct. 25, right before the release of “1989: Taylor’s Version,” Instagram user alex_the_owl_2.5 made another inference: “Here’s another connection I’ve found. In this picture there are two people wearing blue and black respectively. ... On the other hand, Taylor Swift posted ‘aquamarine/Moonlit swimming pool/ what if/all I need is you’ on her [Instagram] story ...

These lines are also written in blue and black.” But none of this points in the direction of the artist writing the novel. While Conway’s character could be inspired by Taylor, that doesn’t mean Taylor contributed anything to the project.

Needless to say, fans would be ecstatic if the rumor turned out to be true. Swift’s impact, even at a small school like Mount Holyoke College, is quite apparent around campus, from seeing people dressed up as her for Halloween to screenings of “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” film at Tower Theaters. Currently, there is not much to know about this story until the book and movie are released. Until then, the Swifties have as much stake in the game as anyone. “Argylle: A Novel” by Elly Conway is out from Penguin Random House on Jan. 9, 2024.

1200 donors contribute almost $75,000 for Athletics Day of Giving

BY KATE VAVRA ’26 STAFF WRITER

Almost $75,000 was donated to the Mount Holyoke College Athletics Department on Nov. 1 during their first-ever Day of Giving Campaign.

Donors made contributions through an online platform called GiveCampus. Through this website, they had the option to designate their gift to a specific team, as each team had distinct initiatives for which they wanted to use their dona-

tions. Donors were also able to give to the general fund for athletics to support all teams.

Many teams wanted to fund training trips, buy athletic equipment and help with assistant coach salaries. Before choosing to donate, participants were made aware that 50% of the money given to each team went toward the overall athletic department. Part of the money raised will go towards general initiatives such as diversity and inclusion education programming, Peak Perfor-

mance and Leadership Academy programming, additional department staffing, guest speakers and recruiting, as well as aiding all teams with funds for their domestic and international training trips. The remaining 50% will go directly toward helping an individual team achieve their team-specific goals.

Going into the event, Mount Holyoke Athletics had a goal of reaching 500 donors. However, at the end of the 24 hours, they received donations from 1200 individuals, meet-

ing 240% of their original goal.

The field hockey team had the most donors, with 202 individuals, and the rowing team followed close behind with 185. The swimming & diving team allocated the most money, with a whopping $12,436 donated in their name and $6,218 going directly to the team. The majority of donors were alums of the College and family members of current student-athletes. Most donations came from Massachusetts, Connecticut, California and New York residents.

Graphic by Jieru Ye ’23

Mount Holyoke Volleyball celebrates Halloween with costume contest

BY ZELLIE CALAVITA ’26 STAFF WRITER

Mount Holyoke College Volleyball hosted its last home game of the season against Clark University, a fellow New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference member, on Tuesday, Oct. 31. Cheering them on in the stands were entrants of the team’s Halloween costume contest, which gave out prizes for both individual and group costumes.

Mount Holyoke began the match with a 25-18 first set victory. Clark failed to overtake the lead as Volleyball Captain Lucie Berclaz ’25’s set-leading total of five kills, coupled with Clark’s 10 errors, led the Lyons to an initial 11-0 victory.

Clark immediately turned their

play around and went on to win 3-1 despite the Lyons’ hot start, with the scores of the four sets being 2518, 9-25, 18-25 and 20-25, respectively.

Mount Holyoke’s kill leaders were Berclaz and Madeline Barton ’26, each with 11. Kyra Staples ’27 and Amelia Ringor ’26 each had 30 digs, with 102 total digs for the Lyons. Serena Li ’27 led the team in hitting percentage at 0.250.

After the game, costume contest judges Assistant Vice President for Student Life Alicia Erwin, President Danielle R. Holley and Biology Professor Craig Woodard gave out the prizes for top costumes. The Mount Holyoke Tennis team, dressed as their coach Aldo Santiago, and the Mount Holyoke Basketball team, dressed as the United States Presi-

Photo courtesy of Mount Holyoke Athletics Mount Holyoke Volleyball team fell to Clark University 3-1 on Tuesday, Oct. 31 in a match at home.

dent, First Lady and their secret service agents, were awarded prizes.

Costumes featuring Western Barbie and Jorge were also recognized.

“I appreciate that a lot of students and other athletes showed up for the game, and it was nice that President Holley and the other judg-

es were there,” Ringor said of the fans and the contest. “Also, shoutout to the basketball team for their great president and secret service group costume and staying in character the whole time, because it was really funny.”

As for the game, “I think it was a great team effort, and a lot of people were balling out,” Ringor said. She also noted the team’s high dig per set number, which was an average of 25.5 versus their season average of 18.57. Mount Holyoke Volleyball finished off the season 11-16 overall and 1-10 in conference games. Berclaz is looking forward to what next season will bring, saying, “We’re not losing any seniors, and we get the chance to use everything that we worked for this season and build on it.”

8

COMMUNITY f HOROSCOPES f

November 10, 2023

BY PEARL YOUNG ’24 & SARAH PARSONS ’23 HOROSCOPE WRITERS

April 20 – May 20

Oct. 23 – Nov. 21

This week, connect with your relationships. Update the roster. But be careful what you say! With Mercury in the 8th house, your words are especially powerful.

Do not speak ill of others.

Do: Ekphrastic poetry | Don’t: Diss tracks

The Stars have nothing to say. This is me, Sarah, speaking from Scorpio to Scorpio.

It’s a tough time of year but us Scorpios know how to make the most of it. Explore more of your identity!

Do: Shadow puppets| Don’t: Ventriloquism

May 21 – June 20

Nov. 22 – Dec. 21

Be careful, or someone might write about you in their horoscope. On Tuesday the moon will be in your 7th House, illuminating your relationships. Maybe you’ll receive some emotional clarity.

Do: Silk chiffon| Don’t: Broken needles

On the 14th, the moon will be in Sagittarius. Take some time to reflect and consider what you want for this new season of your life. Subconscious thoughts may drift to the surface.

Do: Lower Lake | Don’t: Blanch Rush

June 21 – July 22

Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

Connect with your inner child this next week, Cancer. Play! Have fun! This week you will find comfort in the activities you enjoyed in your youth. Consider your health.

Do: Silly Bandz | Don’t: Web MD

Try new things! Feeling creative? Channel your awkwardness, inner teenager maybe? But let’s be real; this week is all about friendship, Cap! Do: Capri Sun | Don’t: Past Grudges

Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

July 23 – Aug. 22

The moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter has aligned with Mars. This week peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars!

Do: Let the sun shine | Don’t: Clouds

It’s time to clean your house, Leo. Sweep.

Tidy up your house. Let’s get some things in order, because winter is coming.

Do: Deadbolts | Don’t: Wizard Rock

Aug. 23 – Sept. 22

Feb. 19 – March 20

You may find yourself hesitant to share information this week. Keep your cards close to your chest and follow your instincts, Virgo.

Do: Invisible ink | Don’t: Testify

Sun and Mars are in the 9th house this week, meaning education and traveling will be at the forefront. Indulge in your intellectual interests, Pisces! If not now, when?

Do: Emily Dickinson Museum | Don’t: Winking

Sept. 23 – Oct. 22

March 21 – April 19

Venus has just entered Libra! Step up and step into your love era, Libra girlies.

Indulge in love and romance and beauty.

Treat yourself.

Do: Manicure | Don’t: ChatGPT

Are there some exes on your mind this week, Aries? People you’ve ghosted? This is the time to be welcoming. Consider what you stand for. What are your values and beliefs?

Do: Magic 8 Ball| Don’t: strange overtones

Mount Holyoke News Mount Holyoke News is an independent student newspaper written by and for Mount Holyoke College students since 1917.

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The CRPE and English departments host panel about Palestine, cont’d u

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2

rael has increased annually since the 1970s, especially as events such as the Iranian Revolution “contributed to a loss of power for the US and Western oil companies in the region.”

He quoted then-Senator Joe Biden, who said, “[Israel] is the best 3 billion dollar investment we make.

[Were there not an Israel, the United States] would have to invent an Israel to protect our interests in the region” in 1986. Surprise said that Biden’s statement “was true then and it remains true today.”

The fourth panelist, Kadair, is a Palestinian who grew up in Jordan after her grandparents were displaced in 1948. She spoke on the poverty, discrimination and hardships her family faced, including family members who had been murdered

by Israeli forces. She repeatedly emphasized that despite the trauma she has faced, she is still one of the “lucky ones” because she is alive and not in a refugee camp.

When Kadair was 17, she began fighting for women’s rights in Jordan and protesting against honor killings. She was then forced to flee to the United States and applied for asylum in 2020. “I never got an interview, a closure [or] an opportunity to share my story,” Kadair stated.

“Most importantly, I never got a decision on my future in the United States. I continue to live in uncertainty.”

“Thanks to imperialism, I was displaced not once but twice. I don’t have a home country. I have actually never seen my home country, for that matter. I was born an immigrant, and I will die an immigrant,” Kadair said during the panel.

In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, she elaborated on how her experience with the U.S. immigration system has been extremely detrimental to her mental health.

“I would describe it as trauma over trauma,” Kadair said in an email to Mount Holyoke News. “I continue to live in fear that I will be deported any day, and I find it incredibly hard to believe that I am safe … My asylum and my whole life are both pending.”

At the end of her presentation, Kadair urged the audience not to ignore what is happening in Palestine.

“Raise your voice for the ones who lost theirs under the rubble. Raise your voice for the 3,000 killed children, and still counting. Please keep fighting for the truth and remember that your silence is support for the oppressor.”

The final panelist, Babül, structured her discussion around the ways atrocities and state violence are justified. In the case of Israel, this is done through their framing of the issue. Since the dominant narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that it is a ‘religious conflict,’ Babül stated that it “suggests it has been going on forever, erasing its actual history and politics.”

Additionally, Babül explained that this framing portrays “ the enemy … as the delusional, fanatic, irrational hater, [while] the Israeli and U.S. nation-states are portrayed as noble victims with a manifest destiny to defend civilization and freedom.” Babül also explored the ways that “the license to grieve is racially distributed.” In mainstream news and media, “we learn their names and their stories [of Israeli citizens], enabling us to mourn for their lives.

Palestinians, on the other hand … have no killers, no faces, no stories,” Babül said. “Just as they are denied proper political subjecthood when they are living, their lives are rendered ungrievable when they are dead.”

Attendee Molly DeLuca ’26 was pleased with the information presented during the event. “I feel as though the major news sources I am so used to getting my information from have been biased beyond belief regarding this conflict,” she shared.

“The opportunity to hear from experts and people who have dedicated their entire life researching about colonialism and the Israeli-Palestinian itself was one that I could not pass out on.”

DeLuca added that she “thought the event overall went really well.

The speakers were respectful and

tried to answer the questions to the best of their ability, and didn’t try and gloss over some of the more uncomfortable realities of the conflict itself.”

At the halfway mark, Rosa and Hernández began moderating the Q&A portion of the teach-in. With an hour remaining, the panelists answered questions pertaining to a variety of topics.

One question asked about social media’s role in complicating people’s understanding and framing of the conflict. Babül noted that social media has the power to either act as an echo chamber or challenge dominant narratives.

She expanded on this in an email to Mount Holyoke News, stating that one of the powers of social media is that “it provides access to immediate truth in an unprecedented way … However, studies show that rather than making the users more confident about the truth of the information that they get, social media can instill in people a cynical disposition towards knowledge in general … social media, therefore, cannot be the panacea [solution] just by itself.”

The panelists were later asked how students, faculty and staff can support the Palestinian cause without fear of backlash. Ferguson said it is important “to call in people you know [and] have really challenging conversations.”

Kadair added, “You have to believe that you’re doing the right thing. Speak the truth.”

Other questions touched on the disconnect between large protests in support of Palestine versus the unequivocal government support for Israel, the idea of a two-state solution and how the lives of Arab men are devalued.

Panelists have a few lessons they hope attendees took away from the teach-in. First and foremost, “we should all demand in the loudest possible way an immediate ceasefire,” Babül said in an email to Mount Holyoke News. “[I] wanted to emphasize the idea that critiquing the state of Israel or advocating for Palestinian liberation is not the same as antisemitism,” Day said. “The political conflation of all Jewish people with Israel’s state policies ignores the longstanding, worldwide Jewish solidarity with Palestinians and functions to divert attention away from actual antisemitism on the rise.”

“I hope attendees came away with the sense that Hamas’ attack did not happen in a vacuum — the violence has been produced by [the] Israeli occupation and the denial of Palestinian dignity, rights, and life for decades,” Surprise said. “This is not to justify killing civilians at all, only to push back against narratives that paint recent events as a two-sided ‘conflict.’ I also hope attendees came away with the sense that Israel is not an isolated bad actor, but part of a system of (settler) colonial capitalism.”

“Stand up, and speak up for justice,” Kadair said in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. “Learn more about your government’s direct involvement in this, do not vote for those who refused to condemn genocide, or demanded a ceasefire.

This is a crucial moment in history, it’s time we know who’s good and who’s bad. Be the generation that is skeptical, active and aware.”

Surprise was appreciative of the audience participation. Regarding questions asked during the Q&A, he said, “the genuine curiosity, concern, and humanity demonstrated by students’ questions was incredible,” in an email interview with Mount Holyoke News. “We hope that the historical, economic and political frameworks provided will inform students in their conversations with others, in their courses and in their activism,” Hernandez and Rosa said in an email to Mount Holyoke News. “We also hope that the panelists dispelled any false equivalency about dual claims to land and indigeneity, as well as dual forms of violence. With proper context, one can see that the sides of the conflict are not equal.”

Melanie Duronio ’26 contributed some writing and assisted with interviews for this article. Madeline Sharp ’27 contributed notes from the event.