Issue 2, Spring 2016

ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst| a student magazine of New College of Florida

TANGENT MARCH 9, 2016

VOLUME XXXIV ISSUE

II

New Schools of Black Thought New College celebrates Black History Month pg.3

Primary elections pg. 4

Newtown Farmers Market pg. 8

The cost of ‘Nothing’ pg. 12

TANGENT The Tangent is an academic tutorial sponsored by Professor Maria Vesperi. It is developed in the Newspaper Production Office using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign and printed at Sun Coast Press with funds provided by the New College Student Alliance.

General Editor Kaylie Stokes Managing Editor Pariesa Young Copy Editor Yadira Lopez Online Editor Caitlyn Ralph Layout Editors Haley Jordan Audrey Warne Staff Writers and Photographers Bianca Benedí, Katelyn Grimmett, Giulia Heyward, Sydney Kruljac, Ryan Paice, Charlotte Redman, Jasmine Respess, Magdalene Taylor

Direct submissions, letters, announcements and inquiries to: The Tangent 5800 Bay Shore Road Sarasota, Florida 34243 ncfcatalyst@gmail.com The Tangent reserves the right to edit all submissions for grammar, space and style.

No anonymous submissions will be accepted.

In this issue:

Obama in Cuba .................... p.5 Heroin epidemic .................... p.6 Credit Card Debt .................... p.7 Bernie Singles ................... p.13 Front page photos courtesy of Peter Acker Photography © 2016, the Tangent. All rights reserved.

The Tangent is available online at www.ncftangent.org, facebook.com/NCFcatalyst, @ncfcatalyst

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PAGE 2

The world, in brief

BY YADIRA LOPEZ Germany: Nefertiti for the masses

In what they called an “artistic intervention,” two German artists have used 3D printing technology to make the bust of Nefertiti available for download worldwide. Currently housed in the Neues Museum, the original bust was unearthed in Egypt by German archaeologists in 1912.

Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles obtained the 3D data without the museum’s permission and released it online under a Creative Commons License, according to the project’s website, the Nefertiti Hack. Egypt and Germany have disputed over the queen’s rightful home for decades. “We should face the fact that the colonial structures continue to exist today and still produce their inherent symbolic struggles,” the artists said in a statement.

New Zealand: A new flag?

illustrations by Brittany Murray

A referendum ending on March 24 will let New Zealanders decide whether to keep the old flag or replace it with a new design. Supporters of the flag change argue that the current design is often confused with Australia’s flag, and that the Union Jack at the top left corner is an uncomfortable reference to the country’s colonial past. Opponents cite the high cost of the flag changing process – estimated at $25.7 million by government officials. The new design was chosen in a previous referendum last year and features a silver fern. The New Zealand Herald joked that the new design vaguely resembled a beach towel.

To learn more about the Silver Fern Flag visit the Flag Consideration Project at www.govt.nz.

Intergalactic: Ground Control to Major Kelly

West Bank: Teachers strike still ongoing

Canada: First Nations declare public Schools have been closed across the West Bank health emergency since Feb. 7 following a teacher strike now in its fourth week. In 2013, Palestinian officials reached an agreement that outlined a 2.5 percent raise and a gradual 10 percent salary bump for educators over three years. Teachers have only seen a 1.5 percent increase in their salaries since then. Palestinian leaders have refused to meet with the group’s representatives, the New York Times reported. Although government officials have promised to fulfill the agreement, the strike has gained momentum leading to increased demands from demonstrators. Teachers are now asking for a bigger raise, faster promotions and new union elections, the Times reported. The authorities have cracked down on the protestors by setting up checkpoints on the route to the demonstrations and turning back carloads of teachers.

Leaders of Aboriginal groups (known in the country as First Nations) in northern Ontario declared a public health emergency last month following a rash of suicides among adolescents in multiple communities. The leaders, from groups such as the Cree Nation and Nishnawbe Aki Nation, cited a dire shortage of medical supplies and uneven access to clean water in First Nations communities. Although Canada has a do-gooder reputation worldwide, the country’s relationship with these communities is nothing to brag about.

First Nations are disproportionately affected by issues including unemployment, incarceration, substance abuse, poverty and preventable illnesses, according to reports from Health Canada.

In case you missed it, astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth on March 3 after spending 340 days on the International Space Station – the longest mission to date for an American astronaut. Kelly’s mission is a stepping stone for future missions to Mars. The purpose of his trip was to better understand how humans react to longduration space flights. Among other quirks, the 52-year-old grew two inches while in outer space, NASA reported. Kelly’s twin brother Mark, also an astronaut, is being used as a human control to better assess any other physiological effects. Kelly used social media avidly throughout his mission. For photos that will leave you wondering “Did he use a filter?” follow Kelly’s Instagram, @ stationcdrkelly.

CORRECTIONS: In the article “Seven Deadly Sins,” we incorrectly referred to Sarah Cohen using she/her pronouns. Cohen uses they/them pronouns. Also in that article, we misidentified the band in a the photo.

The band pictured is Sunseeker, not Sailor Ripley.

In the article “Whatever happened to our Walls?” we incorrectly referred to Jill Robitaille as Dyl Robitaille.

The Tangent apologizes for the errors

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PAGE 3

“Artistic, political, academic” Black History Month at New College

by Pariesa Young “Love remains a force that can empower people to resist domination and create new ways of living and being in the world,” bell hooks said in her address at the final event of Black History Month. bell hooks invited her audience to think and act with integrity, to move from theory to practice and to critically note the impact of white supremacy on individuals, groups and governments. Most importantly, she encouraged her audience to practice self-love and to heal. These sentiments resounded with the mass of students, faculty and community members who gathered in the College Hall music room to engage in the culmination of a month’s worth of discussion and celebration of black history.

Black History Month at New College took place over the course of February with 10 main events organized by a group of dedicated students and two faculty sponsors in conjunction with campus organizations, community members and invited guests. The month concluded with a symposium, “New Schools of Black Thought,” with panel discussions and keynote speaker bell hooks, on Feb. 27. hooks is an author and activist whose discussions on race, intersectionality, gender and capitalism have earned her worldwide acclaim. She has written more than 30 books and is the founder of the bell hooks Institute for Critical Thinking, Contemplation and Dreaming.

Black History Month has not always been observed like this at New College.

“It seems like we’ve gone from zero to 100 pretty quickly in terms of what New College has been doing for Black History Month,” thesis student Nasib McIntosh said. In his first two years here McIntosh saw “basically no programming” for Black History Month.

Last year, McIntosh and a few other students worked with Professor of Sociology Mecca Zabriskie to organize Black History Month events on campus.

This year, a group of about 13 students worked with the help of Zabriskie and

Professor of History Brendan Goff.

“New College is a great place in terms of how much some of its students work towards fostering a really critical campus culture,” McIntosh said. “But as far as New College really being a place that is committed to being anti-racist, there’s a lot of work that needs to go into that.

“I don’t think New College is exceptional in its need for more of this. Everywhere needs more of this,” McIntosh added.

Black History Month, observed every February in the United States, began as Black History Week in 1926, founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson. By 1976, the week had expanded to a month. Since then, each president since Gerald Ford has issued a Black History Month proclamation.

“Black History Month is a good time to think about being anti-racist, it’s a good time to think about being racialized, whether you’re white or black,” McIntosh said. “You don’t need people of color around to have Black History Month, but I think as the last years have shown, it certainly helps to have people of color around.”

The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), founded by Woodson, continues to work year-round to promote study and conversation of black history. The Sarasota chapter of ASALH is the largest in the nation and collaborated to support the students organizing Black History Month at New College. ASALH held a luncheon on the day of the symposium, so the symposium was pushed later to accommodate all guests and speakers.

The events were held with funds from each division and the Provost’s and President’s offices.

“When you talk about African Americans or black folks in general, I think it’s a community that’s made many important contributions to this country and has a rich and complex and interesting history in contemporary culture, for me one of the things that is important about this celebration is highlighting that,” Zabriskie said. “I also think we’re in a heightened moment where we’re talking about race, and some of the language is extremely

courtesy of Peter Acker Photography bell hooks in College Hall on Feb. 27 for the final event of Black History Month.

divisive and extremely polarizing, so part of Khan. what I appreciated about the symposium is Next, Mayor Willie Shaw joined Dr. Lisa being able to ... provide a counter-discourse Merritt for a discussion of the Newtown for some of the divisive community. language we’re seeing in “Honestly, I feel like the By the time bell hooks the mainstream political people who needed these was introduced, the music sphere.” events most don’t really room was filled with people.

Zabriskie said the Her talk encapsulated show up to them” group aimed to curate a many of the themes -Nasib McIntosh diverse and comprehensive which were approached schedule of events. As over the month’s events. a group, the organizers discussed the From Beyonce to police brutality to themes they wanted to address and split radical expressions of self-love, bell into committees who then planned events hooks’ discussion engaged listeners and invited speakers or performers. from the student body, faculty, staff and “It was artistic, political, mainstream community. academic,” Zabriskie said about the “If we ended all police brutality against schedule of events. “It was fun.” black males today, would black men have Zabriskie and Goff explained that lives of optimal well being, or in fact would networking in Sarasota greatly enhanced black males still struggle?” bell hooks the array of speakers whom the organizers asked. In asking us to pay attention not contacted. “Folks have retired down here, only to mainstream, publicized injustices, and some of them have had amazing bell hooks invited her audience to take careers,” Zabriskie said. note of systematized oppression and white The symposium, which began with a supremacy which seep into everyone’s performance by Moor Mother Goddess, lives. presented two panel discussions. The first, But the conversation also turned to titled “Black Youth Matter: Living and love and healing. “To engage the practice Growing Up Black in the Violent States of love is to oppose domination in all its of America,” was facilitated by Dr. Marcia forms,” hooks said. “To fully embrace the Chatelain of Georgetown University, Dr. Continued on page 15 Cheryl Rodriguez of the University of South Florida, and New College’s Duane

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PAGE 4

The road to the presidential election

by SYDNEY KRULJAC It is impossible to escape the political excess that is the presidential primary season. Despite some insight recent debates and primaries may provide, the question remains as to who will become the next president of the United States.

Iowa Caucus On Feb. 1, Iowa embarked on what some consider the laziest form of American politics: the Iowa Caucus. Iowa is one of 10 states that still partake in this archaic method that was once very common practice in the United States.

Often held in schools, churches and sometimes homes, party members meet and discuss the candidates. Occasionally representatives of a particular candidate make an appearance to propose a final pitch. Once everyone comes to a consensus, voting is done by either raising hands or separating into groups, and is closed to members of each party.

This year, Hillary Clinton was named victorious over Bernie Sanders after what appeared to be a “virtual tie” according to Sanders.

And he was right. Because Iowa does not practice direct democracy, a grand vote tally was not kept.

The tie was fought over by each of the precincts’ share of county-convention delegates. Clinton won by the skin of her teeth as several precincts had ties and disputed counts, which were coined “orphaned” delegates, and was thus decided by a coin flip – six of them, to be precise. The county delegate count then gets recalculated as the state delegate equivalent tally, and is released for news outlets to publish. On Feb. 2, the final tally was released. Clinton won 700 to Sanders’ 695 votes, allowing her to win Iowa by 0.4 percent.

Iowa was a decent win for Clinton, and not necessarily a devastating blow for Sanders either.

Sanders’ campaign strategy was created tactically by winning the first two primaries, and steadily gaining delegates on his way to what he hopes will be the Democratic National Convention. Did Sanders win the Iowa Caucus? No. But his virtual tie does prove there is some steam behind what his supporters are calling a “political revolution.”

Whether it is enough to conquer the powerhouse that is Clinton remains to be seen.

At the caucus, evidence showed an undeniable age gap among voters: those who were younger than 45 were most likely voting for Sanders, whereas those older than 45 showed support for Clinton. Furthermore, Sanders won the support of 84 percent of voters under 30, and Clinton won 69 percent of voters over 65. Sanders lost votes among those who were voting for a single issue such as healthcare, terrorism and the economy. However, he won the support of those who prioritized income inequality by a 61-34 win. To sum up the attitudes of the Democrats

Sydney Kruljac/Tangent Doreen Michele Dupont, Beatrice Stodola, New College alum Patrick Bon Tennison and founder of Feel the Bern Sarasota Mark Manning promote Bernie Sanders on University Parkway and 41. at the Iowa caucus, those in support of Clinton tend to value the experience she brings to the table, whereas Sanders supporters see him as an honest and trustworthy candidate.

On the Republican front, Ted Cruz won 27.7 percent to 24.3 percent against Donald Trump at the Iowa caucus. Backed by what could arguably be the best campaign on the GOP side and lots of investments, Cruz won over the hearts of Iowa’s most conservative voters, which make up 40 percent of the country’s electorate. Of these voters, 62 percent are self-proclaimed white, born-again Christians. Conversely, Trump won 67-11 votes for those who said immigration policies are their primary issue, and because of course, “he tells it like it is.”

For Cruz, this was a big win indeed. But, many are saying this win is not indicative of a President Cruz, or much less the Republican nominee simply because of the past presidential hopefuls including Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum who have previously won Iowa.

“I don’t believe the Iowa caucus was indicative of Cruz becoming the GOP nominee,” third-year Paige Pellaton said. “Iowa was a great state for Cruz. It’s a GOP demographic that’s predominantly White and Evangelical, which is right up Cruz’s alley.”

On the other hand, the loss barely damaged Trump as he continues to gain support.

Although coming in third for the caucus, Marco Rubio tied Trump with seven national convention delegates. Though it looks like it will be a tough competition for Rubio, he still remains the top choice among voters who are

looking for experience, electability and economic stewardship.

New Hampshire Primary Unlike the Iowa caucus outcome, the New Hampshire primary had a different story to tell.

On Feb. 9, Trump and Sanders came out on top for both of their respective parties with Trump receiving 35 percent of the vote and Sanders approaching 60 percent. Trumps win in New Hampshire is the largest the state has seen since its primary in 2000, as he gained the support of not only Republican voters, but independent voters as well.

Sanders’ landslide of a win was a disappointment for Clinton and her campaign that were counting on greater support from women.

“I think it’s important to look at the demographics of women that are supporting Sanders versus Clinton,” Pellaton said. “Politics has a tendency to treat women monolithically.

Sanders is attracting younger women voters, whereas Clinton has growing support among older women. The age difference in supporters, I believe, has everything to do with differences in second and third wave feminism.”

It appears Clinton can no longer rely on women voters to propel her into office meaning Clinton must try to attract a large number of minority voters as the Nevada and South Carolina primaries inch closer. A win for Sanders in Nevada would undoubtedly create uncertainty for whether Clinton will get the nod as the Democratic nominee.

“There’s also something to be said about

how Sanders has a strong grassroots campaign at the university-level whereas Clinton’s statelevel organizations have been targeting more traditional community groups,” Pellaton said.

“Younger voters tend to be more liberal and more idealistic than their older counterparts, which I think translates into varying support for Sanders and Clinton.”

Speculation about whether Sanders can snag the nomination seems to rely heavily on the voter turnout of millennials, which have become the largest living generation, surpassing baby boomers. In a Rock the Vote survey, 60 percent of millennials who are registered to vote said they planned to vote in November, and 30 to 40 percent plan to vote in the Republican and Democratic primaries.

Millennials and the primaries Many hope there is a greater voter turnout of millennials than there was in 2012. Although 78 percent of 18 to 29 year olds were registered to vote, only 45 percent actually showed up. For the 2010 mid-term elections, the statistics were even lower, with half of young adults ages 18 to 29 being registered to vote, and only 24 percent actually casting their ballots.

However, millennials appear to be taking this year’s elections more seriously as they begin to worry about employer-sponsored healthcare, which has been steadily declining since 2000.

Furthermore, lack of jobs and looming debt after graduation are issues that have millennials thinking twice about the elections.

“Millennials tend to be democratic more than conservative which means that in the short term I see the primaries being significantly impacted by the millennials,” second-year Brendan Legal said. “Millennials participate in polls and surveys more, especially those done online, which artificially inflates polls toward younger targeting candidates like Bernie Sanders for instance. Candidate Sanders has a significant hold on Millennial voters which reflects how Candidate Sanders is holding firm against what many predicted should be an easy win for Candidate Clinton.“ Last year, Higher Education Research Institute polled 141,184 of the country’s full-time first-year students at four-year universities. The survey discovered this class of first-years is more politically geared than previously. In the survey, nine percent said they would protest on campus, which is a three percent increase from 2014 and the highest in this survey’s history. Additionally, 60 percent indicated that they planned to participate in an election while in college, which is a 10 percent increase since 2014.

Continued on page 15

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PAGE 5

U.S. and Cuba relations

Obama dangling visit to Cuba in attempt to push agenda for the Cuban people by ryan paice Almost a year after resuming political relations with Cuba, President Obama is dangling a visit to the island nation over Raul Castro’s head in an attempt to inspire some changes. While the resumption of the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba has allowed for commercial exchange, the needed change in Cuba’s human rights policies has yet to start.

The two countries restored diplomatic relations on July 20, 2015, reopening their embassies in each other’s nations. This came after more than 50 years of abandoned diplomacy, when the ties were severed in 1961 as the Cold War continued to escalate. This year will prove to be an important for both the countries and the people of Cuba, as the two nations must proceed from ceremony to actual, much needed progress.

As it stands, the commercial world of the U.S. has already leapt at the opportunities to establish commerce with Cuba – from airlines and cruise ships talking with Cuba in an attempt to have air and sea travel between the two countries up and running again for the first time in five decades. With businesses making progress with the country, Cuban diplomats are focusing on getting the United States to fully drop the trade embargo, which continues to hassle the commercial dealings between former adversaries.

While Cuba would like for the U.S. to lift the embargo to allow for freer trade, the U.S. would like for Cuba to begin to make progress on their human rights record. Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes revealed that the decision as to whether Obama would make the trip would be made within the next few months, but that the president expects to see some progress on his own priorities for the nation first, including Cuba’s human rights record and increased access to information and the Internet for the Cuban people.

“If I go on a visit, then part of the deal is that I get to talk to everybody,” Obama said in an interview with Yahoo News in December.

“Now would be a good time to shine a light on progress that’s been made, but also maybe [go] there to nudge the Cuban government in a new direction.”

Despite the small improvements made so far, many would argue that the resumption of relations between the countries is just another way for Cuba to make money, and that no real progress has been or will be made as long as the dictatorship continues to reign over the island nation’s people. Maria Picar, who was born and

Bikers in Nueva Paz, Cuba. raised in Las Villas, Cuba, and emigrated in the early 1970s because of Castro’s dictatorship, sees that there is little being done and that there is little that can be done for the people of Cuba, even with the relationship resuming.

“Communism is still at large for Cuba,” Picar said. “There is no liberty or human rights […] women are getting beaten, children are starving, people are still going to prison just for raising their voice, and they are getting abused and beaten for protesting the dictatorship that is still going strong […] there is nothing that can be done as of now.”

Picar continued to tell about how she was impacted by the dictatorship when she lived in Cuba, and how military guards would come to her farm, take an inventory of everything that her family owned, and take whatever they deemed was excessive for the family, including soap, food and even their farm animals. The impact of the resumed relationship between the two countries would not even be felt for the Cuban people, Picar believes, because of the greed of the government and their ability to take anything that the Cuban people make off of their new access to American commerce.

“Don’t trust the Cuban government with opening relations because the Cuban government only wants money and loans from the U.S.,” Picar said. “Already, Fidel has asked for money – and this has happened before with Russia and other countries, where Cuba has asked for money and made a partnership, but never pays anything

photos courtesy of Susie Picar back and robs the country.”

While Picar believes that Cuba might only be doing this for the money it would provide the government, there are also some who are skeptical about the United States’ motivations behind resuming the relationship.

“I think that the U.S. will obviously benefit greatly from [the resumed relations] because they will exploit it,” said Cristyne Ramirez, a second-year student at Valencia College and Picar’s granddaughter. “Tourists are going to come, wealthy people will visit and they are going to spend their money and not give a flying fart about the people who live there. They’re going to romanticize an island that is full of despair, and everyone will want to visit for the goods but no one will want to help the people.”

Ramirez said that there are already plans for American businessmen to take advantage of the opportunity of being able to establish commerce in Cuba, including Chanel’s staging of a 2016 fashion show in Havana, which she sees as a futile act of flaunting American wealth to the largely poor Cuban people.

“Boasting their wealth in front of the Cuban people is insulting,” Ramirez said. “When I know plenty of family members in Cuba that my aunt goes and gets medicine and toilet paper for just so they can survive the year. I just see it as something that Americans can enjoy without feeling any guilt about spending time and taking up a culture of people that are in pain.”

Many critics of the resumed relationship

feel similar to Picar and Ramirez. South Florida Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen echoed their sentiments in an interview with The Miami Herald, stating that Obama’s possible visit to Cuba “will not help the Cuban people achieve their desire for freedom and democracy,” and that the president cannot honestly say that his policy towards the island has improved human rights conditions for the people of Cuba.

Regardless of the fairly strong synchrony of voices close to the situation crying out for true progress to be made for the Cuban people, the resumption of diplomacy has others hopeful that at least some kind of progress can be made now that the U.S. has leverage to use against Raul and Fidel Castro. With the possibility of both achieving trade with the entirety of the mighty American commercial world, as well as having the opportunity to reconnect with the political world, the supporters of diplomacy with Cuba believe that the U.S. might be able to make a difference that has not been seen since Castro seized control of the island nation in 1959.

Supporters of the resumed diplomatic relations point to improvements for the Cuban people that will happen through business.

Opening up travel to and from Cuba would provide a larger clientele for Cubans, many of whom run their own businesses on the island but do not have a large enough or wealthy enough population for them to succeed in their business ventures. Supporters will also point to the United States’ unsuccessful regime change policy concerning Cuba that has been passed down president by president since the embargo was first placed on Cuba in the Cold War. “I would argue that the U.S. policy for regime change has not led anywhere,” said Johannes Werner, editor of the independent digital news source Cuba Standard. “I mean, how many presidents have we talked about where this has been the official policy, and they have come and gone and Cuba is still the same?”

In response to whether or not the resumption of diplomatic relations was a way for Obama to appease the Castros, Werner instead asked whether or not the lack of relations was a war on the dictators themselves, or the people of Cuba.

“You’re talking about appeasement, but I would ask ‘what was the war good for?’” Werner said. “It was a war against the majority of Cubans, and the majority of dissidents. If they all want for the embargo to be lifted, how could you justify continuing that failed policy?”

Despite arguing for the lifting of the embargo,

Continued on page 15

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PAGE 6

America’s ‘heroin epidemic’

Bradenton drug bust spurs discussion on opiate abuse in Sarasota area

by Audrey Warne Heroin use has increased dramatically in the U.S. over the past decade. Between 2006 and 2013, a study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) revealed that the number of first-time heroin users doubled from 90,000 to 169,000.

Health care providers wrote more than 250 million prescriptions for painkillers last year, according to federal data published by the New York Times – enough for every adult in America to have a bottle.

Racial disparities in drug policy The crack-cocaine epidemic of the 80s and 90s has been replaced with an even more deadly drug of choice, opiates, and yet the response from law enforcement and government agencies has been the rejection of the zero-tolerance polices and sky-rocketing incarceration rates that have defined drug policy in the U.S. for almost a century.

This movement toward compassionate care centers around the treatment of addiction as a disease – not as a criminality issue – with a focus on rehabilitation as opposed to punitive action.

This approach has been scientifically and socially proven to be the best course of action for dealing with drug abuse, as evidenced by the growing number of countries who have implemented harm reduction and decriminalization policies, including Canada, Portugal and Switzerland. But the changes have come far too late to benefit the millions of people of color who were forced behind bars or into the streets as a result of the “Just Say No” campaign.

According to a study published in the New York Times, nearly 90 percent of those who tried heroin for the first time in the last decade were white. This shift in demographics has been directly linked to the shift toward harm reduction policies and decreased incarceration rates. White parents are more likely to have the resources to fight back when their kids are arrested for drug possession or use and can afford to send their children to court-ordered rehab facilities instead of prison.

Marc Mauer, the executive director of The Sentencing Project, a group that targets racial disparities in the criminal-justice system, said this in an interview on racial disparity and drug policy with The Atlantic: “The response to the rise in heroin use follows patterns we’ve seen over decades of drug scares. When the perception of the user population is primarily people of color, then the response is to demonize and punish.

When it’s white, then we search for answers.”

This response has been documented in U.S.

drug policy since the reactionary cries of “reefer madness” dominated the 1930s. Harry Anslinger, the forefather of the War on Drugs and marijuana prohibition, served as first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the predecessor to the DEA, for 32 years. The rationale behind his criminalization of marijuana and the nonpsychoactive hemp plant is as follows: “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, [and] Filipinos.” Ronald Reagan cited Anslinger’s policies as the basis for his expansion of the War on Drugs in the 1980s.

Sarasota County Sergeant Donny Kennard, head of the Sarasota County Sherriff’s Pharmaceutical Diversion Unit, reported that since June 2015 there have been 64 nonfatal and 8 fatal overdoses in Sarasota County. July was the Sarasota Sherriff’s office “worst month” – officers responded to 24 overdose calls.

“So far, the overdoses in 2016 are significantly down from last year,” Kennard said. Reports indicate one fatal and seven nonfatal opiaterelated overdoses so far this year.

In 2015, Manatee was Florida’s number one county in terms of heroin addiction, overdoses and deaths. Bradenton has seen a 65 percent decrease in 911 calls for heroin overdoses in 2016, with zero heroin overdose deaths.

The sheriff’s department partially attributed this decrease to a recent drug bust in the Bradenton area. The bust was a joint effort between the Sarasota County Sherriff’s Office, Bradenton County Sherriff and the Drug

Enforcement Agency (DEA). Fifteen people were arrested as part of an 18-month-long operation.

According to The Bradenton Times, authorities confiscated about 3.5 kilograms of heroin, at an estimated street value of $262,500; 3 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of $111,000; 200 grams of fentanyl; 100 hydromorphone pills; 28 guns; and more than $327,000 in cash and assets. The fentanyl and hydromorphone were presumably used to cut the heroin, increasing its potency and its profitability – along with its potential to kill. Fentanyl is 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, and when mixed with other opiates such as heroin, the synergistic reaction is often deadly.

Between 2005 and 2007, more than 1,000 U.S. deaths were caused by fentanyl-heroin overdoses, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Seizures of drugs containing the painkiller jumped from 942 to 3,334 between 2013 and 2014.

Naloxone Harm reduction, a public health policy that deals with reducing the negative consequences of drug use, encourages accessibility to supervised injection facilities and opioid antagonists such as naloxone.

The Sarasota County Sherriff Department is now equipped with EVZIO, a single-use naloxone auto-injector that can reverse an overdose almost immediately. Since they received the medicine – at zero cost due to a grant from the pharmaceutical company – there have been two deployments, both of which resulted in full-recoveries.

The department also has access to heroin

Deaths from heroin overdoses nearly quadrupled from 2002 to 2013, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported, with more than 47,000 drug overdose deaths in 2014.

overdose toolkits provided by SAMHSA, a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. These toolkits contain information about opiate use and abuse, overdose prevention, naloxone administration, and what to do if someone around you is overdosing.

Increased availability of these harm reducing measures are becoming more important in the discussion of public health polices. Advocates of harm reduction say the U.S. can no longer afford to ignore such potentially life-saving measures.

Deaths from heroin overdoses nearly quadrupled from 2002 to 2013, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported, with more than 47,000 drug overdose deaths in 2014.

Supervised Injection Facilities Supervised injection facilities are medically supervised facilities where individuals who use intravenous drugs can inject pre-obtained drugs – without fear of legal ramifications. They have been proven to reduce the risks of injectionrelated injuries, death from overdose, vein damage, and the transmission of blood-borne diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis.

Continued on page 14

Treatments for opioid addiction Methadone: Opioid. Habit-forming.

Controlled substance. Taken at specially licensed clinics. Daily pill. Cost: About $150 per month.

Buprenorphine: Opioid. Habit-forming.

Controlled substance. Must be prescribed by doctor who receives a DEA waiver. Pill often taken every other day. Cost: About $300 per month (generic).

Buprenorphine/naloxone(Suboxone): Daily film placed under tongue. Habitforming. Controlled substance. Must be prescribed. Requires DEA waiver. Cost: About $450 per month.

Naltrexone shot (Vivitrol): Opioid blocker. Not habit-forming. Non-controlled.

Must be prescribed. Does not require waiver or registration with DEA. Monthly injection. Cost: About $1,000 per month.

Sources for costs: Drugs.com; Darius Rastegar; Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; Alkermes

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More taboo than religion, politics and sex Credit card debt grows as cost of living rises

by Kaylie stokes U.S. consumers collectively owe a debt of $712 billion, with the average credit card balance-holding household over $15,000 in overall debt. The millennial generation has taken on much more debt – averaging $5,000 more – and at higher interest rates than the generation before them. However, due to federal regulation changes, as well as an increasingly debt-conscious generation, the rates of students holding credit cards, and their owed balances, are declining.

What is credit, why do you need it and how do you get it?

Having credit is almost a necessity in today’s world, and having good credit can actually help lower a person’s insurance rates, increase their employment opportunities, and ease the process of finding a house or apartment to rent.

But what exactly is credit and how is your credit score decided?

Credit is a person’s reputation as a borrower, and is therefore used by lenders to determine how likely a person is to repay their loans. A credit score is a number between 301 and 850 generated by a computer program that reads through a credit report. A good credit score is generally considered to be 720 or higher, but standards vary among lenders. According to Credit Karma, the average score of its 18 to 24-year-old members is 630.

Credit also determines the interest rate with which someone can borrow money. Over the course of a lifetime this can mean some serious cash.

If two people – one with a good credit score and one with a bad credit score – bought houses for $300,000, each with a 30-year fixed mortgage, the person with good credit could pay a total of $90,000 less for that house over the loan’s lifespan.

The simplest and most common way to build credit is by getting a credit card. However, this can lead to a good or bad credit history. The best advice for someone looking to build good credit is to use their credit card for routine purchases such as gas and groceries, and then pay off the balance every month.

This is easier said than done.

Recent trends As of November 2015, just over 38 percent of all U.S. households carried some sort of credit card debt. It is easy to attribute credit card debt to irresponsible spending, but it is not that simple. Reports have pointed to the fact that, in recent years, the cost of living has outpaced income growth.

Since 2003 the cost of living has increased by 29 percent. Meanwhile, income has grown by only 26 percent. A three percent difference may not seem significant, but it can be. Those most affected include individuals working jobs with stagnant wages, people living in high-cost cities, students, and people who suffer from health problems.

In 2009, during the height of the recession, household debt had grown 42 percent faster than income since 2003. This growth has fallen back down, however in 2015 the difference was still a concerning 15 percent.

Households with the lowest net worth hold the highest average amount of credit card debt at $10,308. This debt cycle can be vicious. Credit card debt is one of the most expensive types of debt, and costs consumers an average of $2,630 per year in interest.

Because of the often-false assumption that credit card debt is the result of irresponsible spending, there is stigma surrounding this particular type of debt. This stigma has led to a $415 billion difference in reporting between consumers and lenders. In a 2013 poll, 85 percent of respondents said that they were unlikely or somewhat unlikely to discuss credit card debt with a stranger, making the topic more taboo than religion, politics, salary and love life details.

While the national average for household credit card debt saw a small decline between 2010 and 2013, the amount has been slowly but steadily increasing over the past two years. For a variety of reasons, student credit card habits have been shifting in the opposite direction.

Student cardholders At $925, the average credit card balance for undergraduate students in 2013 (zero dollar balances excluded) was less than a third of what it was in 2008. Reports indicate that 78 percent of undergraduate students using a credit card have a balance between zero and $500. In 2010, the average monthly payment was $168. In 2013, it had dropped down to $6. And the overall number of college undergraduates who hold a credit card dropped from 42 percent in 2010 to 30 percent three years later.

These trends can be explained in large part by the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009. The CARD Act was a consumer protection bill that established “fair and transparent practices relating to the extension of credit.” The CARD Act reduced hidden fees and regulated card approval criteria for those under 21. A study conducted by the University of Chicago determined that the CARD

Act is saving consumers $20.8 billion a year in reduced fees, with especially high savings for those with poor credit.

Along with these national effects, the CARD Act had a dramatic influence on the credit card habits of college students.

Previously, any 18-year-old could sign up for a credit card (guaranteed to have a high APR rate), and they often did after being wooed with free handouts such as t-shirts, pens, frisbees and tote bags. After the CARD Act, these tangible enticements were largely banned and anyone under the age of 21 would have to either have proof of income or a co-signer.

Millenials have been described as an increasingly debt-conscious generation, which is another possible reason for the decrease in college students with credit cards. As the percent of students taking out loans, and the amount of these loans, has steadily increased, anxiety about finances has also gone up. While student loan payments leave millennials strapped for cash, creating more potential for both the necessity and abuse of credit cards, many current college students are eager to avoid piling on to this debt.

In a survey sent out to New College students, 80 percent of those with credit cards reported that they paid it off every month. Of those that had a recurring remaining balance, just under half said that they had used some or all of their refund check to pay it down.

Thesis student Bo Buford does not have a credit card yet but would like to get one to start building credit and to have in case of emergencies.

“Because refund checks took so long to come in, it would have been nice to have a credit card to cover some of the expenses in the meantime like groceries,” Buford said.

Second-year Rachael Murphy got her first credit card because of emergency dental expenses.

“It’s called CareCredit and it’s mainly for dental and medical stuff,” said Murphy, who is still paying off her balance. “It’s like a loan but on a credit card for a specific thing.”

Transfer student Ezra Katz is also still paying off a credit card balance.

“I was 19 [when I got my first credit card] and I wanted to start building credit,” Katz said.

“For the first year and a half I was able to keep it paid off every month...it only really became a

necessity for me in the past year.”

Though the CARD Act implemented many more regulations, credit card companies still have their tricks.

“Something that was interesting about mine is that they will raise the limit when I qualify for a limit raise without consulting me about it,” Katz said. “I used to only be able to incur about $900 of debt and now I’m up to like $1,300 and it’s not really something I would have chosen if given the option.”

Information for this article was taken from NYTimes.com, nerdwallet.com, cardhub.com, and dailyfinance.com.

Newtown Farmers

By Katelyn Grimmett

This past Friday, a farmers market set up for the second time at the Redevelopment Office right off MLK Way, in the heart of the Newtown neighborhood. From the street, the market looks like a makeshift stand with heaps of produce laid out on tables or in baskets – and it is. But it is also a potential hub for social enterprise and development in Newtown.

The driving force behind this innovative, open air market is Newtown Nation, a coalition of individuals working for the wellbeing of the larger Newtown community. “We’re still putting a lot of pieces in place,” Lou Murray, Newtown Nation’s vice president and chair of economic development, said. “We’re going to sit down with our partners and take it to the next level but we did it. In a 1000 mile journey, half your problems are in taking that first step.”

The Newtown market – which kicked off on MLK Day– will be held from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. the first and third Friday of every month. Ideas for the Newtown market roll on endlessly, creating a vision that is unique to the Newtown community.

Some plans include getting local restaurant Pride of Jamaica on board, local jazz and reggae music playing, and tons of produce that fit the community’s tastes.

“We’re looking at our farmers market being a Caribbean-styled market,” Murray said. “Most of the

markets you see here are what we call eurocentric.

We want to do something different. We want that Caribbean flavor.”

One major goal of the market is to help enroll customers in any social benefits they qualify for such as Medicaid and food stamps. Newtown Nation set up a table in Hamilton “Ham” Center just yesterday to pull in students as volunteers at the market. There are several projects a volunteer can help out with; one is signing people up for benefits, another is writing grants for the market.

They also need help with social media and web advertising.

“We are doing a lot of different tasks with economic and social development and trying to see how we can partner together with our efforts,” Valerie Buchand, the president of Newtown Nation, said.

An organization with strong ties to the Black Lives Matter movement, Newtown Nation celebrated its one-year anniversary on Feb. 27.

Murray said the group took off overnight. “There was such a great need for a group that knew how to put resources together, there was a lot of fragmentation and mistrust in the community.

We wanted to be a conduit, a facilitator, a program that’s needed in Newtown.”

Sure enough, the Newtown Redevelopment Office heard about Newtown Nation and its goals for the community and contacted Murray himself. “They said we’re looking for a group that will be a liaison between us and the community so we can get some projects off the table and in reality. That’s where Newtown Nation stepped in and started taking one thing at a time.”

Newtown Nation’s latest project is the farmers market. They took on the mission back

in November, with the goal of bringing fresh produce into the hands of the community.

“Food is a common denominator,” Lou said.

“It’s always an important denominator when you’re talking about underserved communities.

How do I get food? If you don’t address that how can you talk about anything else? It’s a basic necessity.”

Before the neighborhood Walmart moved in, Newtown was designated by the United States Department of Agriculture as a food desert- an area without suitable access to healthy foods.

Even with the store, some parts of the Newtown remain out of reach of fresh and affordable foods and many residents still resort to the myriad of convenience stores in the neighborhood.

“We are in the center of an underserved community,” Murray said. “We are also in an underutilized market in an enterprise zone, that’s what makes this market so unique, so important. It’s gonna be run by the community, developed by the community.

“We want to create social enterprise,” Murray said. “Social enterprise keeps the dollars in underserved communities, that’s the key. Everybody wants to serve an underserved community by giving them a hand out- that ain’t helping. This is like giving them a hand up, it creates self-sustaining community. For us, by us.”

Before the market could set up in the Newtown Redevelopment Office parking lot, it had to be approved by the city.

“I think we should make it easier to set up farmers markets,” Professor of Anthropology Erin Dean said. This semester, Dean is teaching Anthropology of Food. “My understanding is

“We got cabbage, collard greens, we’re gonna have watermelon, mustard greens and foods with the indigenous black and white southern meal,” Murray said. all photos Katelyn Grimmett/Tangent

Market that they don’t zone a lot of places for farmers markets. Centralizing everything in downtown Sarasota does not make it accessible to people who aren’t close to downtown.”

Zoning is basically where planners in the county work with elected officials to determine what open land can be used for. The process varies significantly across communities.

“When I was in Sarasota back in 20072008, working at their health department, you couldn’t set up any farmers market,” Megan Jourdan, community health specialist for the Florida Department of Health in Manatee, said.

“Zoning regulations made it against the rules to sell produce or anything on the sidewalk outside of the downtown farmer’s market. We worked with them so you could apply for a permit to sell produce specifically.”

Interestingly, the city was already looking to have a farmers market set up in Newtown.

“They had a lot of loosey goosey street vendors so they said we’re gonna have to start cracking down and requiring permits or you can be a part of the Newtown market under a liability waiver,” Murray said.

Murray explained that many vendors have come looking to partner with the Newtown market but they are looking to select vendors with their own liability who can “compliment what we’re trying to do. That’s why I want to get Pride of Jamaica in there that makes sense to us.”

“We started off with what we could control

liability wise,” Murray said. “Eventually, we’re going to have other businesses coming in there, food business and clothing.”

For now, most of the produce at the Newtown market is sourced from farms in Palmetto and Arcadia. The market is in the midst of working out a relationship with the school district to use their food gardens. “That will be a part of it as well as the farm to school systemthat’s the plan within the few months, to convert into that,” Murray said. “For the immediate community, we have to look at costs. When we work out our arrangement with the farmer’s through the school food system we can bring our costs down, that’s the whole strategy there.”

One of the first objectives in constructing the Newtown farmer’s market was to get it certified by the USDA to accept the Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) system- food stamps essentially.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a common EBT food stamp system.

“The USDA was elated because we want to be a SNAP farmer’s market in an underserved area,” Murray said.

This part of the process was like Deja vu for Murray, who was the president of the Detroit Food Security Council back in the day. “It’s a national model now,” he said with a laugh. “I was the regional go to guy for food security. I was also on the advisory board of the Federal Reserve Bank and I was there when they created the EBT

Continued on page 15

Lou Murray is many things.The first he’d probably tell you about is his position as a deacon at the Bethlehem Baptist church- the oldest church in Newtown. But he’s also the vice president of the Second-year Lorraine Cruz chats with Newtown Nation in Ham about volunteer opportunities at the Manatee/ Sarasota Democratic Black Caucus of Florida, a food security veteran and a grandpa.

He’s retired and plays golf on Mondays. But mostly, Lou is a kick ass community activist. farmers market and in the general community.

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News from the Capitol Policies and power in Florida

submitted by Dylan Pryor As an interning political analyst and a member of the Florida Capitol’s Press Corps, I have been able to witness many of the legislature’s policymaking efforts as they happen. Here are a few highlights from the last two weeks of the spring session.

Lawmakers vote to resolve sexual assault kit backlog (March 2) After a statewide audit found that there were more than 13,000 backlogged, untested sexual assault kits (SAKs), Florida lawmakers passed a bill that aims to clear the current backlog and ensure all incoming kits will now be tested under more strict deadlines.

“Our bill is very specific in the amount of time that can elapse before the kits are tested,” said bill sponsor Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Ft. Myers. “They have to be submitted within 30 days, and then tested within 120, so that will bring swift resolution to the collection and testing of evidence.”

The bill (SB 636) also includes a plan to resolve the backlog of kits originally agreed upon

by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and

leading supporter of the bill, Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, in January. Although initially opposed to outsourcing, Negron conceded that it would be preferable to a projected timeframe of eight years for exclusively testing the kits at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).

The plan entails outsourcing more than 2,800 kits annually to clear the backlog within three years, and would cost $8.1 million as opposed to the $32 million that would be spent on the eightyear plan.

“There’s a tension between two values: one is timeliness and one is doing them through the FDLE,” Negron said after the agreement. “I think eight years is an unacceptable timeframe to finish testing the backlog, and so we may have to do a combination.”

Lawmakers have agreed to $2.3 million more in funding in the new state budget for the current backlog reduction plan.

“That’s in addition to the base funding, so that will be a very significant amount of money and it will allow for the backlog to be cleared in a much shorter timeframe than had originally been anticipated,” Sen. Benacquisto said.

Benacquisto also cited Negron and budget

chairman Rep. Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes, and Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, as major forces in obtaining the funding and potentially speeding up the process.

“We want to make sure that sexual assault kits that are arriving at FDLE from current cases are also timely tested so I think the plan that we’ve developed is fully funded and addresses the issue one-hundred percent,” Negron said. “If we need to make any adjustments, we will, but I think the number that we have is good.”

However, Bondi maintains that the funding is only the necessary first step in the process.

“We have to look long range, we’ve got to pay our analysts more money down the road, we’ve got to stay competitive with Georgia and Alabama because they’re just going to go right over the border – this is extensive training, we’re investing a fortune in our states and training these analysts, and we’ve got to pay them competitive prices to keep them with us,” Bondi said. “And we have to build a lab to have the machines and equipment to test them, so that’s the end game down the road.”

Additional provisions of the measure require any DNA evidence collected in a sexual assault

investigation to be retained in a secure and environmentally safe manner, and for victims to be notified of their right to demand testing by a medical examiner or law enforcement agency.

In a January meeting of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, Sen. Benacquisto said approval of the bill sends “a very strong message to victims that the evidence that will bring their victimizers to justice matters, and that we will take care of it in a timely fashion.

“We’ll see to it that they know we’re on their side.”

The House voted 114-0 in favor of the bill (SB 636) on March 2, following the Senate’s 36-0 vote the week before.

If approved by Gov. Rick Scott, the bill takes effect July 1.

Lawmakers vote to revise Bright Futures requirements (March 4) Florida lawmakers recently passed a bill that will modify requirements for the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program. The bill was sponsored by Representative H. Marlene

Continued on page 15

The ‘Uglyz’ are back by ryan paice Since the “Uglyz,” dissolved in 2013 due to a lack of interest from the student body, court soccer has been one of the only outlets for Novocollegians to exercise their love of the sport. However, the behavior in court soccer has proven problematic for many. Fortunately for the soccer-loving students, third-year Catherine Wooster is bringing the team back to life.

Up until the end of the 2013 school year, the Uglyz was the all-women and queer soccer team of the school, playing against Sarasota County’s team every Sunday. Wearing bright pink shirts to every game and making an occasion of eating a batch of brownies once a year before a game, the team was not the most winningest of teams. That was not a problem for the players, most of whom just wanted to enjoy friendly competition.

“We would try and practice during the week, but half the time we couldn’t get people to come to practice,” said alum Salome Grasland (‘09), who was the last official captain of the Uglyz.

“Our main thing was that every Sunday we went to play against the Sarasota County Soccer Team of Women, who were mostly middle-aged women that would kick our ass every single time. So that was fun.”

The Uglyz represented the inclusive and funloving nature of New College students, but by Grasland’s last year at the school – the last two of which she was captain – the team was struggling to stay afloat amidst the student body’s lack of interest in athletics.

“I was always trying really hard to recruit people and advertise for the team,” Grasland said. “But I could hardly get enough people to fill a team every Sunday. The football team kind of had the same problem that year – I remember one time they were trying to convince us to trade players just so that they could have enough players for a game.”

While the Uglyz struggled to gather enough players in 2013, it truly dissolved after the school year ended and a new semester began without a designated captain. Grasland had designated a captain to lead the Uglyz going into the next year, but the newly assigned captain had to take medical leave from the school the year they were supposed to take charge. With no captain, and no one willing to step up into the role, the team dissolved and court soccer became one of the only outlets for soccer lovers on campus.

Now, three years since the Uglyz last competed, Wooster has organized the team again.

Even though the players’ interest in practices is

Photos courtosy of Elena Korallis The Uglyz return to provide inclusivity to a generally male-dominated sport. still lacking, the Uglyz will once again play weekly matches, albeit on a smaller scale than usual.

“Getting people to go out and play sports is hard, but I think we have enough people interested this semester,” Wooster said. “We’ll be playing games in Lakewood Ranch, but it’ll be I think 6-on-6 games so not a full team. We’ll be playing against 45 Sarasota housewives who have nothing to do but go to the gym.”

New College has never been an athletic

school, and the athletic clubs are subject to the waxing and waning interest of the small student body no matter how important the teams might be to some people. Regardless, many think that it is important to have such an inclusive team.

“I hope that if they do start the team again, they should advertise to non-binary people too,” Grasland said. “We love non-binary people on the team, so I would hate for those people to feel out-casted from the team.”

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Students intertwine academics and wellness in triathlon tutorial

by Caitlyn Ralph Between classes, extracurriculars, jobs, family and friends, college students have little time to spare throughout the week. Consequently, personal wellness easily slips to the bottom of the daily to-do list—especially at New College, where coursework comes in droves and studying creeps into the deep depths of the night. However, a key component of any healthy lifestyle is a focus on wellness, particularly through regular exercise.

The American Intercontinental University outlined five simple reasons why exercise is beneficial to students. According to the article, exercise stimulates brain development, improves memory retention, increases focus, boosts mood and relieves stress.

A group of Novocollegians have begun a new initiative on campus in an attempt to both improve personal wellness and provide students an accessible option to incorporate exercise into their routine.

The triathlon tutorial First-year student Carolyn Beer went to an intense high school where participation in three sports for multiple hours each day was required.

When she graduated, Beer wanted to keep up with her physical wellness, so she trained for a marathon.

“I’m interested in training and learning how to train, and I spent a lot of time researching articles or trying different things by myself,” Beer said. “I was thinking about how much time and energy that I spend on that and how it can be educational.”

After deciding on a triathlon, Beer first approached Director of Writing and triathlete Jennifer Wells to see if she would sponsor a tutorial. Wells believes she must have mentioned her interest in triathlons during class.

“I use training for activities that I’m not gifted at as a metaphor for training to write,” Wells said.

Wells directed Beer to Dean of Studies Robert Zamsky, who has a long history in sports, particularly with triathlons. Also a soccer player, Zamsky began triathlons when he moved to Florida and was approached by parents at his daughter’s swim practice.

“Part of my perception before I did it was ‘Well, I’m not going to like this because I bet it’s going to be a bunch of really obnoxious, type A, hyper-competitive people that I’m not going to really want to hang out with,’” Zamsky said. “But in fact, it’s not.”

Zamsky agreed to sponsor the tutorial, which currently has six students who are all signed up for a sprint triathlon on April 7 called “Escape From Fort DeSoto.” “[Zamsky’s] giving us a lot of advice, connecting us with people in the community who

illustration courtesy of Chloe Baron “It’s satisfying knowing that you’re working toward a goal that’s outside of academics, and you have teammates that are going to celebrate with you at the end,” said first-year transfer Kevin Wilborn. are coaches, just kind of helping us have a good finish as a New College team,” said Kay Saffe, a thesis student and triathlon tutorial member.

Meeting once a week, triathlon tutorial participants keep a weekly journal, are assigned readings relating to health and nutrition, and develop a personal training plan.

“There is this well of desire or interest in something that is semi-organized like this. At its base, I wanted to provide students with this opportunity,” Zamsky said. “Ideally as a student you’re developing as a whole person, and I want the College to sort of foster that development.”

Wells said that the triathlon tutorial is an example of what makes New College great. “It makes sense to have it as a tutorial because yes – they have a goal – but they also can get into the details of the sport,” she explained. “Whatever someone’s AOC is, you can really look at triathlon through that lens.”

What is a triathlon?

The word “triathlon” was derived from the Greek words for “three” and “sport,” making it a pretty self-describing term. An Olympic sport since 2000, triathlons consist of three highendurance sports. While many variations exist, the most common combines swimming, running and cycling. Triathlons are often labeled either “sprint” or “Olympic,” with distances increasing for the latter option.

Interest in triathlons appears to be growing over the years. According to USA Triathlon’s 2014 report, the program has seen triathlon involvement steadily increase over the past two decades. The Sports & Fitness Industry

Association advertised a 58 percent spike in triathlon participation between 2008 and 2011, hitting almost 2,000,000 participants.

A community of support “It’s satisfying knowing that you’re working toward a goal that’s outside of academics, and you have teammates that are going to celebrate with you at the end,” said first-year transfer and triathlon tutorial participant Kevin Wilborn.

A reoccurring point mentioned from the triathletes in the tutorial and sponsors was that training is time consuming.

“Training is a lot because it’s a daily commitment,” Saffe said. “You have to be dedicated to it.”

However, Zamsky is linking students to resources in the Sarasota area, such as coaches, clinics and local sports gear shops, to provide new opportunities for training and funding.

Rider Bikes is funding race day jerseys and may be offering discounts soon.

“It’s a good little community building spirited experience for the students,” Zamsky said.

The point of triathlons isn’t competition. “If you don’t want to race against other people, you can race against yourself,” Wilborn said. “You can test your boundaries—your own physical limits without really being in danger of getting hurt.”

Zamsky agrees, seeing the sport as an opportunity for camaraderie between a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds aiming to challenge themselves. “It’s a very interesting way to allow yourself to interact with people who come from different perspectives and have this common denominator,” he said.

Between race registrations and gear, training can get expensive. However, Wells mentioned that there is no need to sign up for an organized event. When one of her triathlons was cancelled due to storm, Wells set up a race with her friends, complete with fake metals. Similar grassroots events can be organized on campus.

Why do it all?

“In school, it’s harder to set those objective goals,” Zamsky said. “You can get in this habit of setting and achieving small goals along the way.”

Wells began doing sprint triathlons while in graduate school for her Master’s degree. “I just needed goal to train for. I get bored doing one thing, so I don’t like running only all the time, I don’t like biking only all the time, but I like to mix it up,” Wells said.

There is also an easy parallel between academics and exercise for wellness.

“I was super down because it’s my last semester here, and I wanted to explore tutorials that weren’t academic,” Saffe said.

Saffe saw the triathlon as an outlet while thesising. As for Wilborn, the tutorial gave him an excuse to start working out again.

“I don’t really care about the credit too much.

I’m more interested in doing it in a way that makes me responsible for the workout,” Wilborn said.

Zamsky emphasized that sports are microcosms. “They teach you lessons,” he said.

“It’s this whole cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason because it’s such an obvious truth.

“Your natural inclination is to spend time on the one [activity] you like the most. But, if you really want to improve, what you should do is spend the most time on the one you like the least,” Zamsky said. “You need to attack your weakness. I think that is a constant lesson.”

Wells wishes that more students realized the difference between sports and exercising for wellness.

“The amount of anxiety I see in students here, the amount of isolation I hear from particularly first-years who don’t leave their rooms or don’t know where to go, mental health issues – exercise can mitigate all of that,” Wells said. “All of these things that New College students struggle with – I think wellness focused exercise as opposed to sport-focused exercise can help a lot.”

Exercise has become an integral part of Beer’s life. “Running, swimming, working out – that’s where I do my thinking, that’s where, if I’m emotional, that’s where I go,” she said.

Wilborn said the point of the tutorial is to garner interest for the forthcoming club.

“My real hope is that [triathlon tutorial] has a successful semester and, if students wanted it to continue, for it to take hold and for it function next year as a student-led club,” Zamsky said.

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The cost of ‘Nothing’

by GIULIA HEYWARD

Not a single discarded TV went to waste for a period of time in Sarasota.

“People were [...] thinking ‘It would be cool to line this [space] with TVs,’” thesis student Hedda Cooper said. “And then you would look out for all the TVs you could find on the side of the road that were in working condition so they can be hooked up to the monitor.”

Letters were cut out of cardboard, secondhand pillow cases were gutted to make clouds, and couches were also taken from the side of the road.

“Literally, everything in there is garbage,” Cooper said.

“Repurposed garbage house,” alum James Carillo (‘11) added.

The repurposed garbage house is Nothing Arts Center, occasionally shortened to Nothing, a rented warehouse nestled on Goodrich Avenue that hosts music performances, student art shows and workshops. However, for the team of Novocollegians, both current students and alums, including Cooper and Carillo, behind the space, it is a little less magic and a little more something that has been described as a burden to upkeep -- mentally, emotionally and financially.

It all began with an ad on Craigslist.

“I was just looking for ads on Craigslist for warehouses, and they’re all super expensive so it’s usually a fruitless task, and I saw one of the most reasonably priced warehouses in all of Sarasota called Meadow,” Nothing organizer Jill Robitaille (‘10) said. “It was not only the cheapest warehouse, it was the closest warehouse I had ever seen to New College and Ringling and the North Trail Area and it was a good size and it was air conditioned!”

The idea of housing a space into a warehouse was an ingenious considering Sarasota’s noise ordinance policy.

“There has been a history of houses in Sarasota being used as punk venues,” Robitaille said. “There were also not very accessible or safe or inclusive. [...] The warehouse is kind of a way to not bother anyone.”

Despite the bargain that the warehouse might have been, the organizers of Nothing did struggle to cover rent for four months.

The warehouse costs $650 a month with an additional $10-30 to cover utilities, meaning air conditioning and electricity.

Nothing profits from the $5 admissions fee for every event, the $20 monthly membership fee, which covers every event for that month and the $50 key fee, which allows members a key to use the warehouse space for art projects.

The $5 membership fee is split, half goes to making that month’s rent and the other half

goes toward reimbursing the groups that have performed for that event.

“The space was super nice about letting us come ahead of time to set up and practice. They even shared equipment,” thesis student Joy Feagan said. Feagan is a drummer for Kenny’s Dad, a band that has previously performed at Nothing Arts Center. Feagan said that the band was more than compensated “with kindness.”

“We would all meet before rent was due, with a calculator and be like ‘alright I’ve got 20’ or ‘I can do 50 this month’ or be like ‘I need 10,’” Robitaille said. “And we will all just be adding it up and saying ‘We need 400 or 500 dollars.’ We would just be like ‘Oh, I can pay 2 months upfront so you can just have it now’ or trying to put up all the money that we could.”

Even during these months, the organizers would still allow people to come to the shows for free.

“At first, we were putting in a lot of personal contributions, Jill put in a lot of her money and then we were making contributions upwards of $100 when it was first starting before we had a basis to do anything,” Cooper said.

Cooper said that Nothing now thrives off of admission and membership fees.

“Since it’s just a suggested donation, sometimes people will put in more money. Then we split the door money with touring bands,” Cooper said.

“If someone doesn’t pay or they forgot, we will usually be like ‘yeah come on in’ and it’s fine,” Robitaille said. “Typically if someone doesn’t have the money, we’ll be like ‘It’s okay, just pay us back.’”

With the consistent turnout at Nothing, the space has come a long way from the point in which it was close to being evicted.

“By the time of our first show, our air conditioning has broken and it was really hot,” Robitaille said. “Most people were having a good time and were dancing. We woke up the next day to an eviction notice on the door. I was drunk at the time and calling the landlord.”

The eviction notice was due to a combination of problems. This included the number of attendees who were peeing in the bushes instead of using the bathroom next to Nothing and the fact that Robitaille had been living in the warehouse at the time.

“I called the landlord and we were on good terms,” Robitaille said. “It was fine, I just couldn’t live there anymore.’

Robitaille eventually crashed on the couch of the home in which several of the organizers also lived, Swamp House. This endeavor proved to be advantageous to the already close group of friends who were organizers.

“That house became ground zero for

Caitlyn Ralph/Tangent Thesis student Bradley Baker is one of several students who has performed at Nothing Arts Center. organizing,” Robitaille said.

Swamp House is where several of Nothing’s organizers live. The organizers of Nothing have attended school together, are close friends and have also worked on a student organization, All Power to the Imagination (API), at New College.

Carillo describes this dynamic as being “fucking difficult.”

“I think it can be really taxing in a couple ways,” Cooper also said. “First, it can be kind of hard to separate our work at Nothing from our interpersonal relationships. It can be hard to have disagreements because they can bleed into interpersonal relationships. It can also be really difficult if people are having interpersonal problems and then have to organize together and leave that outside. On the other side, it can also be really difficult to stop the Nothing conversations when we are not at Nothing or to have space outside of talking about it.”

This is a sentiment also shared by Robitaille.

“When rent’s coming up, it’s stressful,” Robitaille said. “The thing is when I use these words it’s not an unwelcome stress or expenditure of energy but it definitely does and has put a

strain. It becomes difficult to separate our work and friendship.”

Cooper and Carillo also describe the dynamic as being beneficial. They said that organizing for Nothing has, in certain ways, brought the group together.

The organizers have a lease that needs to be resigned in June, marking one year since the establishment’s existence in Sarasota.

“I think a lot of us as individuals came into this with the expectation that we would have our own lives too and will be leaving this place,” Carillo said. Carillo plans on leaving Sarasota within the next six months.

Despite the cost of running Nothing, the organizers believe that they have all had the ability to grow from this experience.

“I think that one thing that I’ve learned is that it’s a lot easier than you think to start something like Nothing,” Cooper said. “None of us really knew. We just looked at what other places like us had done and just took inspiration and methods from them and improvised our own. It’s been super possible to do and super fulfilling.”

Caitlyn Ralph/Tangent A selection of zines throughout the year can be found at the zine library at Nothing Arts Center.

TANGENT

FEATURES

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

PAGE 13

I tried BernieSingles.com so you don’t have to

by Magdalene Taylor Tired of being alone every Friday night, but can’t stand how “Ready for Hillary” or eager to “Make America Great Again” all the eligible singles are on Tinder or OKCupid? You might be in luck. A new dating site, BernieSingles. com, caters to those seeking both romance and democratic socialism.

Being a single, far-left-leaning woman myself, I decided to give it a shot.

I signed up for the month-old site, built simplistically through Wordpress, uploaded my most alluring selfie and added my basic information to my profile: location, age, astrological sign, etc.

Slowly, the friend requests started rolling in.

The first came from someone by the name of “Val Jean,” a 50-year-old man from Wisconsin.

“Any friend of Bernie should be a friend of mine. Hey there pretty lady,” he messaged me, including a winking emoji.

A bit out of my age range, I explored my other options.

Though I indicated that I was attracted to all genders in my profile, I was only contacted by men.

I was messaged by John, a 30-year-old Virgo from New Jersey who loves to play the online virtual reality game Second Life. I asked him

what brought him to Bernie Singles: “lookin for a girlfriend and to spread the love about Bernie,” he replied. He then asked if I was looking for a boyfriend, to which I explained that I was a journalist working on an article. “Oh ok,” he said.

I expected the conversation would end there.

Much to my surprise, he messaged me again a night later, but “baby” is all he said.

After a few days, my prospects were looking a bit slim. In fact, I had a much easier time talking to one of the site’s creators, Colten Caudle, than I did with users upon the revelation that I was a journalist.

According to Caudle, who is only 19 years old and studies political science at Arizona State University, the website became popular immediately. “We got 1 million hits and 1500 signups in the first couple hours we launched.

We now have about 12,000, with 500-2000 users joining per day,” he said in a Facebook interview.

The site launched in early February, so plans for expansion are still in the works. “We plan on keeping the website up as long as Bernie Sanders is in the presidential race! We have several ideas in the works, including selling merchandise and making a mobile app,” Caudle said.

“The idea came from a Facebook group called Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Singles, which grew out of the group Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash, that now has 300k members. I jokingly made a post about making an actual dating

website for the group to speed up matches, and after seeing support for it I took the project on,” Caudle said.

“At first I just thought people were joining and the media was picking it up because it was this ridiculous idea, but after seeing people on the website connecting it was really rewarding,” he added. Caudle states that there have been numerous successful matches made through the site, though he doesn’t have any concrete information available.

The site functions much like any other dating site, albeit with fewer features and navigability.

While there are some dating sites specifically for Democrats and Republicans, and other dating sites may ask for political views, BernieSingles. com appears to be the only dating site dedicated solely to a specific candidate.

Your options for interacting include instant messaging and a more formal email function, as well as forums and chat rooms pertaining to interest groups you can join. Some of the groups include “Pagans for Bernie,” “Stoners for Bernie,” “Dank Memers” and numerous state-specific groups.

While most of the members of BernieSingles. com are predictably from the United States, there are a surprising number of international members.

One that I spoke to was Daniel from Norway.

He was 18 years old and though I am typically

not interested in younger men, his Nordic identity drew me in. I asked him why he was using the site despite being unable to vote for Bernie. “It’s kind of funny how Bernie indirectly brings people together in form of the dating site BernieSingles.com. It appears as if a surprising amount of his supporters are attractive and/or nice,” he said. Daniel primarily uses the site to make new friends. In our time talking, Daniel became an administrator for the site.

He explained how being from Norway aligns him with Sanders’ politics: “As I live in a democratic socialist country, I know how much you Americans could benefit from ‘free stuff,’ also known as well spent money from personal experience. I think Bernie Sanders is the best choice for president because he undeniably has consistent policies and views. His policies are also in favor of increasing the American people’s life quality and the living standards in general.”

Daniel and I continued to chat, sharing a mutual fondness for memes and Black Sabbath.

“Assuming you’re single, you should marry me for a citizenship and move here if Trump wins (god forbid),” he said over the instant messenger function of the site. “If you some time did come, I’d take you for a cruise along the coast of Norway with Hurtigruten and to Iceland to see the geysers.” A rush washes over me. Is it love that I am feeling? No, no – I’m feeling the Bern. artwork courtesy of Zoe Heuermann

Singular, daring and a little ‘Crazy’: boundary-breaking moment for TV Submitted by David Canfield The series premiere of the new FX anthology drama “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” drew 5.1 million viewers live – the biggest launch in the network’s history. Produced

by Ryan Murphy and written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, it’s an ideal event-series vehicle: the premiere alone is atmospherically contained, assured in its pace, topical, pulpy and rich with juicy performances. As the medium slides further and further into this new realm of awards bait – the star-studded, expertlyproduced anthology – this will likely stand as a prime example of how to do it conventionally right.

It really is a brave new world when the risky, bold, avant-garde antidote to a seamless product like “O.J. Simpson” is on a broadcast network – on the Disney-owned ABC, in fact. The show is “American Crime,” and it’s another ambitious, well-cast anthology. Its just-completed second season (available to stream on ABC.com) stars a slew of acclaimed character actors, and strives for topicality and button-pushing.

Last year, creator John Ridley took on insidious racism and the War on Drugs; in season two, with an entirely new plot and cast of characters, he explores education, sexuality and the fluidity of privilege. In its new incarnation particularly, “American Crime” is an experimental show in search of truth and humanity, of answers and complexions in the grey areas of life. The show is often a million things at once, and yet Ridley’s singular voice brings it all together, fashioning a vital tapestry of contemporary American society.

The show is the very opposite of safe – this is daring and upsetting television, like nothing else out there. It feels too strange and too deep for broadcast television. Its ratings are poor, but critics are praising the show and awards bodies have taken note, too.

It feels as if the formula has reversed here.

The divide between “American Crime” and “O.J.” is demonstrative of a dramatic shift in the paradigm.

Critics, audiences and the clickbait machine that is Internet journalism were all relentlessly zeroedin on FX’s new show back in January, as ABC’s programming has not experienced for some time

(Shonda Rhimes’ Thursday night empire being excluded, of course). American Crime is the little, radical sibling getting attention in certain corners – a “groundbreaking” claim here, a “best show you’re not watching” one there – and is free to wander into controversial, unchartered territory as a result.

Networks are looking for new ways to stand out, presenting a thrilling opportunity for content that’s family-friendly but also smart, original and bracingly unusual. With the more “sophisticated” audiences migrating to cable, there’s an untapped, if relatively small, market to capture. “American Crime” is not a hit, exactly, but it’s operating separately from shows such as “O.J. Simpson.” This new dynamic is opening up a new avenue for storytelling.

Another network wholly embracing this phenomenon is the CW. Their Monday night lineup of sophomore “Jane the Virgin” and newbie “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” is as exciting and boundary-breaking as any cable network’s seasonal slate of programming.

“Jane the Virgin” conflates specific family drama with the conventions of telenovelas. As

adapted from a Venezuelan series, it seeks to adopt the formal eccentricities of a popular yet dismissed genre and place them within a context that’s both grounded and realistic. In effect, the show manages a startling balance of authenticity and bonkers, demonstrating keen self-awareness in the process.

Its younger lead-in, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” is an even stranger concoction. The series centers on a high-powered New York lawyer (who also happens to be a clinically depressed obsessive) who randomly moves to the town of West Covina, California, in the hope of wooing her summer fling from high school. Creator Rachel Bloom settles on a surprisingly effective balance: “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” is disarmingly satirical, often via extremely effective musical interludes, but also poignant, sweet and a little melancholy.

These shows are not commercial successes.

But the youth-oriented CW has been a ratings disaster for years, and that lack of attention has forced them into innovative new programming

Continued on page 15

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

Spring break on a budget

by Charlotte Redman Midterm season is on the horizon for college students, but along with midterms comes spring break – a time to relax, recuperate and have fun.

Students are starting to taste the freedom they have been longing for since the beginning of the semester and at only a week away, there are an abundance of decisions to make in terms of travel destinations and activities.

There are a variety of student travel companies, including STA Travel, that offer to arrange and customize spring break holidays.

Taking advantage of this opportunity may help to relieve the stress behind organizing a trip, however, one still has to decide on where their journey will take them. “I would like to go to Costa Rica – if I had money – but not to study or anything, just to relax and learn about their culture, ” second-year Rachael Murphy said.

For those who have a low budget, using a student travel company, or any travel company for that matter, may not always be the ideal route.

Knowing how much spending money is available can arguably be one of the most important components to planning spring break.

“Going home obviously offers a free place to stay and free food. I am fortunate that I can go home to [Atlanta, which is] a cool place,” thirdyear Catherine Wooster said. “It’s a big city, where I have lots of friends and there’s always something to do. I usually can’t even get any work done. But if you go back to a small town in the middle of nowhere you’re probably going to look for somewhere else to go during spring break.”

Fortunately, there are free resources available for students that are designed to help maximize a budget. Included in this category are smartphone applications, examples being Mint and Goodbudget Budget Planner, that allow users to input their financial information to create a budget and to track spending. Alternatively, there are an assortment of online blogs and websites designed to provide practical tips for financial management and holiday planning, for instance Budget Travel Magazine and, more famously, Groupon.

To truly keep spending as low as possible students may settle on a staycation. “[New College] Students have paid for housing during this week already, so staying in their room that they have already paid for would be a better option than staying somewhere else that they have to pay for in addition. Same goes for meal plans,” Campus Life Coordinator (CLC) Meghan

Walde said.

For students who wish to escape from campus in order to experience another atmosphere, this can still be achieved in Florida for a low travel fare. According to USA Today, Tampa, Miami and Panama City Beach are included in the top 10 most popular spring break destinations predicted for 2016.

“Panama City is very tourist centered,” thesis student Sydnie Petteway said. “There’s a lot of shopping and restaurants that can be really expensive, but I [usually] save money by cooking meals and spending a lot of time at the beach.”

At only a short car ride or flight away, these destinations may be ideal for students who do not want to spend an excessive sum of money on gas or plane tickets. However, one should keep in mind that this kind of trip may require a larger budget for food, accommodations and activities than staying on campus does.

Costs can be intimidating, but students often let one key ingredient slip from their minds when trying to reduce the amount they spend: their student identification card. Prominent attractions oftentimes allow students access for reduced fares or, occasionally, even free of charge. “There’s an iMax movie theater close to where I stay [in Panama City] that has a student discount. I usually see a movie if it’s raining,” Petteway said.

Washington D.C. is another favorite sojourn for students, as the city offers a range of low-budget attractions that bear historical significance. “You can go to museums, see the monuments and maybe even see the President.

All for zero dollars!” first-year Kayla Kisseadoo said.

Another free option, typically financed through the participant’s fundraising efforts, includes the “alternative spring break”. This year, NCF will be joining the company of many other academic institutions for the first time, with an alternative spring break that is being offered through the Center for Engagement and Opportunity (CEO) and Americorps VISTA. “Some of the VISTA events we’ve done in the past have been centered locally, offering different volunteer opportunities every week, whether it be with Habitat [for Humanity] or tutoring. This year we finally get to go somewhere and that’s a result of having the resources and expertise of the CEO,” AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer Coordinator Lacy Mroz said.

“Alternative spring break is going to be a three day immersion trip in Apopka, Florida,” Mroz explained. “It’s a [module one] tutorial

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headline artwork courtesy of Chloe Baron where students are learning to fundraise and about migrant worker histories, so the students taking the tutorial will be going – but it’s my goal and the students’ goal to expand it. There’s talk of trying to open it up to people who are involved with STOP [Students Against Oppressive Powers] and some other student clubs, as well as just trying to find more people who would want to be involved in future [alternative spring break] opportunities.”

Although it is too late to participate in this spring’s alternative spring break, the CEO and Americorps VISTA are hopeful that it will be offered again in the future.

The CEO also recommends that students take advantage of trip funding resources. “If you’re trying to save money for a trip or something similar then a part-time job is the route to go.

We [the CEO] can help with that, but if you’re thinking early enough in advance there are a lot of funding resources out there that can be tapped into without necessarily having to take it out of your own account,” Assistant Director of Internships Andrea Knies said.

To further minimize spending, students should consider whether or not they can acquire free or cheap room and board. “Last year I went to North Carolina, around Asheville, because one of our friends had a cabin up there. That’s usually how spring break goes, someone has a connection and a big group [of students] ends up going,” Wooster said.

Online companies, such as Airbnb and Couchsurfing, as well as local hostels can help minimize the overhead costs of traveling for jet setters.

“A lot of people go to New Orleans because of cheap hostels there. New Orleans is pretty fun, but when I went we didn’t know anyone there and it’s really hard to go to a town that you’re not familiar with,” Wooster said. “I would love to go to Cumberland Island, one of the small Georgia Sea Islands— it’s a national park. [The Island] is really known for its old architecture and wild horses, and you can camp there but you have to reserve it a year in advance, or something.

It’s really expensive, but there’s also a hostel in Brunswick that’s built in tree houses and only costs around $10 a night, so I highly recommend it.”

Information for this article was gathered from STATravel.com, USAToday.com, Mint, Goodbudget Budget Planner, BudgetTravel.com, Groupon.com, AirBnB.com, and Couchsurfing.com.

FEATURES PAGE 14

Heroin

continued from pg. 6 The facilities provide sterile needles, factual information about drugs and basic health care, treatment referrals, and access to medical staff.

Some facilities also offer counseling intended to assist individuals who may not have the means to seek treatment on their own. No supervised injection facilities currently exist in the United States.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal estimates that as of 2009, there were 65 safe injection facilities operating in 27 cities in eight countries.

Opioid Replacement Therapy Along with the promotion of supervised injection facilities, harm reduction policies advocate for the increased availability of opioid replacement therapy (ORT) as a means to treat opioid addiction and dependence.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates “that between 26.4 million and 36 million people abuse opioids worldwide, with an estimated 2.1 million people in the United States suffering from substance use disorders related to prescription opioid pain relievers in 2012, and an estimated 467,000 addicted to heroin.

The number of unintentional overdose deaths from prescription pain relievers has soared in the United States, more than quadrupling since 1999. There is also growing evidence to suggest a relationship between increased non-medical use of opioid analgesics and heroin abuse in the United States.”

Opioid replacement therapy consists of supplying addicts with longer-acting, less euphoric opioids such as methadone or buprenorphine in place of their usual drug of choice, under the supervision of medical professionals. The primary aim of ORT is to reduce the symptoms of drug withdrawal and the intensity of drug cravings. Unlike alcohol or benzodiazepine withdrawals, opioid withdrawal rarely results in death, but the process is still extremely uncomfortable and includes nausea, hot and cold sweats, insomnia, muscle cramping, vomiting, irritability, agitation and anxiety.

“The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Institute of Medicine, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the World Health Organization and over four decades of government-funded, peerreviewed medical research unequivocally and repeatedly proven that replacement therapies like methadone maintenance are the most effective treatments for opioid dependence,” the DPA reports.

Information for this article was taken from washingtonpost.com, nytimes.com, Bradenton.com, theatlantic.com

TANGENT Election

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

Newtown Market

Capitol News

continued from pg. 4

continued from pg. 11

continued from pg. 10

The increased interest in politics has unsurprisingly led to a surge in volunteerism and commitment, officially debunking the idea that this generation is filled with the self-absorbed and detached. In fact, Sanders attributes his success to counties he has visited with large student populations.

“People like backing the winning horse, which seems like an odd thing to mention but polls are a type of self fulfilling prophecy which generates campaign donations and support that we clearly see allows candidate Sanders to contend with candidate Clinton,” Legal said. “In the long term, millennials are unfortunately very bad at one thing; voter turnout. I believe that in the long term voter turnout will be smaller than expected and thus millennials will artificially raise a candidate who they’d vote for only to not see it through to the end.”

Granted a third of first-year students viewed themselves as liberal (the highest percentage since 1973), and only a fifth consider themselves to be conservative, Sanders might have a top secret weapon that has yet to be unleashed.

system, when it was a piece of paper.”

At the downtown Sarasota farmer’s market, there is one produce stand that is certified through the EBT system to accept food stamps.

Brown’s Family Farm stand- located towards the end of the market strip- went to a government site to get approved for the system.

“Not many people use food stamps here, out of 100 customers I’d say maybe one person does,” Heidi Brown, the stand’s namesake, said.

“I don’t know if they’re just not aware or what.

We have a sign that says ‘check, cash, card and EBT.’” It’s important to keep a balanced price point on fruits and vegetables in neighborhoods.

“You have to develop systems that allow farmers to grow their food locally in a way that they can keep the price where it needs to be for residents to buy there,” Jourdan said.

“I try to find the sweet spot where it’s enough to make me a living but under retail grocery store prices,” Peter Burkard, the oldest vendor at the downtown farmer’s market, said.

“I strive not to be out of reach price wise. I don’t want the local food movement to be seen as elitist or only for those who can afford it.”

“I don’t mind contracting with farmers, they’re going to be suppliers but when they come to our community door, we will be distributors, we will be the business,” Murray said. “You want to be working with those who serve the same population that you do. It’s no coincidence we’re working with Goodwill, department of social services.

“We’re going to be working with New College too- I can’t tell you how yet but you’ll be one of the first ones to know,” Murray teased.

“It’s going to be huge. It will be an amazing announcement.” So keep your eyes peeled New.

O’Toole, R-Lady Lake. Here is what to expect if the bill is backed by Governor Scott: The bill will create a new program as an alternative to the Florida Gold Seal Vocational Scholars award. According to staff analysts, “a student may qualify for the Florida Gold Seal CAPE (Career and Professional Education) Scholars award if he or she meets the general eligibility requirements for the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship program and earns a minimum of five postsecondary credits through CAPE industry certifications which articulate for college credit.” In certain instances, the new scholarship will also allow credit hours upon completion of a technical degree.

The bill also modifies the initial eligibility period for students who are unable to accept an award due to religious or service obligations, such as the Peace Corps, so they can defer the 2-year initial award period and the 5-year

U.S./Cuba

continued from pg. 5 Werner made sure to tamper expectations for a significant change, noting that the U.S. Congress is holding back normalization with the nation, and that the Cuban government has been slow in implementing change and using the opportunities presented by the newly revived diplomatic relationship.

“I think these hopes [of the Cuban people for their lives to be improved] and the enthusiasm in Cuba are a little too high right now, and I think the expectations are set to be disappointed if things continue as they are,” Werner said. “It is slow on both sides, and I don’t think that regular Cubans are going to see a major improvement in the near-term – but there are signs of progression and improvement in the mid-term.”

There is validity in both sides of the argument: it might be right to distrust the Cuban government with a bunch of business that they might take for themselves, and it might be right that this might be the only way of helping the island nation that has been at odds with itself and the world for decades. With the relationship still in its earliest stages and now making it to the point where meaningful progress must be made, there is plenty that remains to be seen out of the situation, and many ways that it might go.

For now, it is up to the leaders of Cuba and the United States to figure their relationship out for the betterment of both countries.

‘Crazy’

continued from pg. 13 spaces. Neither “Jane” nor “Crazy Ex” is especially controversial, but they’re far from ordinary.

ABC is pushing its brand forward in the halfhour space, too, with comedies including “Blackish” and “Fresh Off the Boat.” They’re identifying some unoccupied, uniquely-PG territory, yet another acknowledgment that in this ratingschallenged climate, experimenting with new modes of storytelling is a viable endeavor. The system can still seem intractable. But as shows such as “American Crime,” “Jane the Virgin” and several others prove, a new kind of opportunity for distinct programming has presented itself – and, already, it’s yielding profound artistic rewards.

BHM

continued from pg. 3 transformative power of love, we would need to have the revolution of values Martin Luther King called for before his untimely demise.”

“I hope that it brings people together,” Zabriskie said. “That’s what I appreciated about bell hooks’ talk, there was a way in which multiple people could connect and enter in and get something from her talk.”

Despite a packed symposium and great turnout at most of the month’s events, the organizers would still like to reach more people.

“Honestly, I feel like the people who needed these events most don’t really show up to them,” McIntosh said. “It’s hard to get people that really, really need these events to come out to them, but I guess it’s hard to say who needs these events most as well.

While student turnout at New College events is always shaky, engaging the people who truly need to attend Black History Month can prove challenging.

“How do you get the folks that don’t realize that they’re racist to come to a Black History Month event?” McIntosh asked.

“How do you get folks that don’t realize that they’re sexist, that they’re homophobic, that they’re transphobic, how do you get

JUMPS PAGE 15

renewal period until the obligation is completed.

The organization sponsoring the obligation must be a federal government service organization or a non-profit.

In terms of Bright Futures’ community service requirement, the bill clarifies that students cannot receive compensation for volunteering, while also expanding service possibilities to include civic or professional areas of interest, as well as political service in the government.

The bill also calls for $66,468 in additional funds from the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund for the next fiscal year to fund the increase in home school students eligible for Bright Futures. Under the Florida Medallion Scholarship program, test score requirements for home-schooled students without a college-level curriculum will be lowered from 1220 to 1170 on the SAT, and from 27 to 26 on the ACT. The bill passed the House with a unanimous vote of 116, and the Senate on March 4 with a unanimous vote of 38.

If approved by Gov. Rick Scott, the bill will take effect immediately.

them to admit to themselves that they’re saddled with these oppressive mindsets?

How do you get people to do that?”

Still, Black History Month events were deeply meaningful for those who organized and attended them.

“These events are great for rejuvenating the folks that are already committed to interrogating these things in their day to day,” McIntosh said. “What would make [these events] even more effective, more potent, would be to somehow bring in those people who don’t get it.

McIntosh described Black History Month as temporal. Indeed, the events over the course of February served to start the conversation, but they certainly did not finish it.

“Once the month ends, this type of reflection should not end,” McIntosh said.

“This type of self-reflection, of dialogues, are not supposed to end. It’s very urgent that people are having these conversations day to day, and hopefully through our programming we can expose people to new ideas, give folks the tools to have these conversations and be thinking about these things much more.”

Although February is over, the conversation will continue with a Day of Dialogue on April 4 in Sudakoff Center.

Information for this article was taken from africanamericanhistorymonth.gov.

TANGENT

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TEN QUESTIONS

by Jasmine Respess

PAGE 16

with Interim Dean

Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson appears at home as he sits at his desk in his sun-filled office in the Hamilton Classroom Complex (HCL 1). Johnson is serving as the interim dean while New College searches for a good fit to fill the role more permanently. It is likely that Johnson looks so calm because this is not his first time serving a leading role at New College by a long shot. Johnson worked for 13 years in student life at New College as the director of student affairs from 1985-1998. Johnson stated that he was not planning on applying for the permanent position of dean of students, though he hopes to be a resource for the new dean.

What did you do before becoming interim dean, and for how long did you hold that position?

I was retired. I had worked at New College for much of the past six years, on the admissions team, and prior to that I had been the Dean of Students at Ringling College of Art and Design.

In what time period, were you working at New College before?

For the last five years of that I was either interim, acting or director of student affairs.

How was that time period different from our current one?

We were still part of the University of South Florida (USF). Student Affairs dealt with both New College students and the university program students. We had many fewer folks on staff, but we were dealing with two distinct student populations. I really reported to two different people, one on the New College side and one on the University program side. Still, there was an overarching student government. New College has always been the primary focus, because they were the residential population.

What are you looking for in a candidate?

They are looking for candidates with a strong background in student affairs.

What role will you play in picking the candidates?

I will be meeting with the candidates when they come to campus, and certainly I will have a short list of suggestions.

What are your goals as interim dean?

My primary goal is to provide some stability. I hope to enhance communication. I want students to recognize that the office of student life is here to advocate for them. The primary purpose is to work with students and help them to be successful, as well as minimize problems.

Jasmine Respess/Tangent Mark Johnson is the relief pitcher for the New College Bones.

What prompted you to send out an open letter to the student body?

My open letter to the student body about community was my simple attempt to reintroduce myself to the campus community while encouraging folks to recognize what unique and wonderful opportunities exist here. I also hoped to reinforce the fact that being part of a great community requires considerable work and commitment. Maybe most importantly, I wanted to present a positive message at a time when I sensed too much negativity.

What goes into the selection of candidates for the position of interim dean?

There is a search going on right now. They have done Skype interviews with five or six candidates and they are planning to bring at least a few of those folks to campus within the next few months or weeks.

Jasmine Respess/Tangent Mark Johnson has been recognized for having a high batting average.

What is your favorite spot at New College?

If I was going to be at one place here, it would have to be the bay front. When I worked on the admissions team, my office looked out over the water. You took it for granted after driving down to the bay front every morning on the way to work, but I would often come to work early and take a walk on the bay front before my day began. That was a good way to clear your head.

Do you have any hobbies?

I’ve found playing softball with the New College Bones, since 1985 by the way, a great way to interact with students, faculty and alums. Obviously, I’ve enjoyed it for many years and quite a few of my closest friendships were initiated through the Bones.