Issue 05 09/26/2017

NEVADA SAGEBRUSH SERVING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO SINCE 1893

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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

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NEWS in REVIEW

By Karolina Rivas

INTERNATIONAL TWO MORE EARTHQUAKES SHAKE MEXICO

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck Oaxaca, Mexico on Saturday, Sept. 23, that was followed by a 4.5 magnitude quake later that same evening, making these temblors the second pair of quakes to hit Oaxaca, after a devastating 8.1-magnitude quake that struck last week.

According to the United States Geological Survey, a 6.1 magnitude quake can cause moderate damage to well-designed buildings and considerable damage to unstable buildings. Mexico Federal Police reported that a few highways were damaged and a bridge had collapsed.

The quakes that struck Saturday will be the third time Mexico was hit in the span of one month. CNN reports that rescue efforts in the Mexico City area could last “for at least two more weeks,” according to Luis Felipe Puente, Mexico’s civil protection coordinator.

Many people have lost their homes and continue to stay at shelters for support. According to CNN, millions initially were without power and local schools have closed indefinitely.

Organizations such as Public Good, are raising money in order to provide medical relief, build temporary shelters, and serving hot meals for those affected by the quakes. You can donate money to support these efforts on the Public Good website.

NATIONAL

TARGET RAISES MINIMUM WAGE

The retailer Target has announced it will raise its minimum wage to $11 in efforts to boost the wage to $15 per hour by 2020. Target says that the wage increase will be distributed next month among 100,000 temporary workers that are hired before the holidays.

As of now, Massachusetts and Washington are the only states in the U.S. with minimum wages at the $11 per hour mark.

LOCAL AFTER DELAY, CITY RELEASES STRIP CLUB INVESTIGATION After criticism over the City of Reno’s decision to keep private the results of an investigation into the conduct of Reno strip clubs, City Manager Sabra Newby moved to release the report last Friday. The release follows the city’s decision last week to move all strip clubs and other adult business out of downtown and into properly zoned industrial areas.

According to the report, investigators observed customer behavior, surveyed their surroundings, and checked for illegal activity.

Drug use and illegal sexual activity were observed in two of the downtown businesses, Fantasy Girls and Spice House, as well as the only properly zoned business, Show Girls. The investigation found the four other businesses to be clean and well-run.

In a statement, Newby expressed the importance of releasing the report.

“To promote public trust and accountability, the City is committed to governmental transparency at all levels,” Newby said. “I feel it is important that the public and media have access to the report at this time, given that the City Council is considering new laws that may impact how adult businesses operate, and where they will be permitted within the City of Reno.”

Karolina Rivas can be reached at mpurdue@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @karolinarrivas.

VOLUME 124, ISSUE 5

KING ADDRESSES SOCIAL INJUSTICES, INVOLVEMENT

Community helps students gain access to feminine products

By Madeline Purdue

Andrea Wilkinson/Nevada Sagebrush

Progressive activist Shaun King speaks to a crowd of people in the Glick Ballrooms inside the Joe Crowley Student Union on Monday, Sept. 25. King is the second speaker in the ASUN Speaker Series about free speech and civil discourse of opinions.

By Karolina Rivas On Monday, Sept. 25, civil rights activist Shaun King spoke to students on issues of police brutality, Black Lives Matter Movement and other social justice issues.

King’s presentation comes as part of ASUN’s speaker series. The University of Nevada, Reno, invited activist Lauren Cooley earlier this month to represent the

conservative end of the political spectrum while King represents the liberal side. The goal of the series is to create an environment for students to listen to the perspectives of people who may have a different opinion than their own.

“It allows students to be diverse and not offer one side of the story,” said business student Kendall French.

“It’s good to have all the

knowledge you can about a subject to make more informed decision about politics and policies that are happening around you. So you’re not only making onesided decisions.”

At college, King studied history at Morehouse College, a historically black private institution. Since then King has been a social justice writer for news outlets such as Daily Kos, The

UNR hosts summit on global climate change

By Gabriel Selbig Scientists, economists, sociologists and government officials of Nevada and California gathered on Saturday, Sept. 23, in the Joe Crowley Student Union for a day-long Global Climate Change Summit.

The Summit aims to start a conversation about the effects of climate change on the state of Nevada. Experts presented their research in six sessions, each exploring a different theme of climate change: science, economics, local government, industry, social impact and national defense. The public was then able to ask questions between each session.

Guest speakers highlighted gains Nevada has made in terms of reducing its carbon footprint, but they also referenced opportunities and roadblocks that lay ahead.

“How did we get to this place where our water resources are so constrained and that the Division of Water Resources is really the ‘Division of Water Litigation?” said Bradley Crowell, director of Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and keynote speaker at the summit, referencing the Division of Water Resources’ current mediating role between the Southern Nevada Water Authority and eastern Nevada residents.

Rural Nevada and Utah residents are suing SNWA over its plans to siphon groundwater from eastern Nevada valleys and pump it to drought-stricken Las Vegas.

IS LIFE, IN FACT, BEAUTIFUL?

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A popular issue for the Summit crowd was Gov. Brian Sandoval’s veto this summer of a bill that would have raised Nevada’s current renewable portfolio standard goal of 25 percent by 2025 to 40 percent by 2030.

“I actually agree with the governor’s veto on that,” Crowell said. “I think it was not a rejection of the policies but recognition that that goal was premature.”

Jeanne Benedetti, a project manager at Fulcrum Bioenergy, presented the Nevada-based company’s Sierra Biofuels Plant project at the summit on Saturday. She asserted that themes from all six sessions converge into the work done at Fulcrum.

“How we are applying carbon taxes, standards, regulations, conservation of resources, planning, all goes into the development of what we’re doing: converting garbage into jet fuel,” Benedetti said to the crowd.

Phase one of the Sierra Biofuels Plant project, the feedstock processing facility, was completed in 2016.

The 65,000 square foot facility is located 20 miles east of Reno in Storey County. Feedstock is garbage minus high-moisture wastes, like food and yard trimmings. The feedstock is then compounded into industrial shredders, which are fitted with magnets that remove scrap metals. The product is then transported to the biorefinery and ultimately converted into jet fuel.

See SUMMIT page A3

KIDS WITH BOMBS

New York Daily News and is now a columnist for The Intercept.

During his presentation, King addressed President Trump’s response to the current issue of sports athletes kneeling during the national anthem.

Members of the Reno community are teaming up to help high school female students in need gain access to free feminine products. The Alchemist Theatre and Northern Nevada HOPES started a campaign on Wednesday, Sept.

20, called PODS for Pads where people can donate feminine products for young women who can’t afford them.

The campaign aims to fill an entire eight foot by eight foot storage POD with pads, tampons and other feminine products by Friday, Oct. 20. The POD is located at the Northern Nevada HOPES building on 580 W. 5th Street and is open from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Fridays for in-person donations.

At the end of the month-long project, the products will be delivered to Title I schools, schools with students that predominately come from low-income families, in Washoe County based on necessity assessed by school nurses.

Jessica Levity, a co-creator of the Alchemist Theater, wanted to start the project in 2014 after she heard about teachers using their own pocket money to buy female students these products so they wouldn’t miss school.

However, it did not get off the ground until now because the nature of the project drove away sponsors.

“No one wants to touch a feminine product drive because women’s bodies are considered inherently controversial,” said Levity.

According to Levity, the Washoe County School District will only allow pads to be donated to the schools, but PODS for Pads is accepting all types of feminine products at the drive. The ones that can’t be donated to schools will go to nonprofit organizations such as Our Center, Reno Initiative for Shelter and Equality, The Eddy House and Women and Children’s Center of the Sierras. The

See KING page A2

See PADS page A2

Starbucks editor advocates corporate-funded content

Karolina Rivas/Nevada Sagebrush

Jennifer Sizemore presents to an audience at the Reynolds School of Journalism on Monday, Sept. 25. Sizemore, the editor-in-chief at Starbucks, talked about the future of journalism as coporate-funded storytelling.

By Ryan Suppe Jennifer Sizemore, a marketing professional and current Vice President and Editor-in-Chief at Starbucks, spoke to journalism students on Monday about her experience creating content for nonprofits and corporations. She gave a presentation entitled “Saving Storytell-

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ing?” at Studio A in the UNR Reynolds School of Journalism.

Sizemore spoke about the ever-changing and chaotic status of communications from fake news to the President’s

See STARBUCKS page A2

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@NevadaSagebrush | nevadasagebrush.com

A2 | NEWS

NEVADA SAGEBRUSH

THE

Student voice of the University of Nevada, Reno, since 1893.

Volume 124 • Issue 5 Editor-in-Chief • Jacob Solis jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu

News Editor • Madeline Purdue mpurdue@sagebrush.unr.edu

Asst. News Editor • Karolina Rivas mpurdue@sagebrush.unr.edu

Sports Editor • Brandon Cruz bcruz@sagebrush.unr.edu

Asst. Sports Editor • Javier Hernandez bcruz@sagebrush.unr.edu

Opinion Editor • Ryan Suppe rsuppe@sagebrush.unr.edu

A&E Editor • Joey Thyne jthyne@sagebrush.unr.edu

Design Editor • Nicole Skarlatos nskarlatos@sagebrush.unr.edu

Photo Editor • Andrea Wilkinson awilkinson@sagebrush.unr.edu

Copy Editor • Robert Roth jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu

Copy Editor • Clay Temme jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu

Multimedia Editor • Bailey MeCey bmecey@sagebrush.unr.edu

Web Manager • Willis Allstead wallstead@asun.unr.edu

Illustrator • Zak Brady jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu

Social Media Manager • Jessie Schirrick jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu

Staff Writer • Emily Fisher efisher@sagebrush.unr.edu

CONTRIBUTING STAFFERS Kevin Bass, Patrick Harden, Will Keys, Gabriel Selbig, Henry Travland

DISCLAIMER The Nevada Sagebrush is a newspaper operated by and for the students of the University of Nevada, Reno. The contents of this newspaper do not necessarily reflect those opinions of the university or its students.

It is published by the students of the University of Nevada, Reno, and printed by the Sierra Nevada Media Group.

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CORRECTIONS The Nevada Sagebrush fixes mistakes.

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King

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“They’re not protesting the flag the military or the army, they are protesting police brutality and injustice,” King said. “If you don’t know that then you haven’t been listening. That is part of America.

We are not listening.”

After the event, King took questions from the audience.

Junior Jose Segura expressed his concern on how students can defend themselves in an argument with a person that might only accept the ideologies of white supremacy.

“That is a question that people are struggling with on college campuses all over the country,” King said. “I have really grown to believe that we really need at least some clearer parameters on what hate speech is and an understanding of the damage that it causes and the potential damage that it can incite. What we have now all over the country is people delivering hate speeches just because they can. [...] For those of us in the room that are affected by hate speech we need say that this does not create a safe environment for me physically or emotionally. [...] We seem to be allergic from actually improving this country.”

Students also shared their story of being a black individual in America.

“I grew up in a predominantly white town and as a kid growing up I was too white to be black and too black to be white,” said Wade Gainer. “I’d say up until five years ago I started to

embrace my blackness and what it meant to be black. It is not until there is an issue when we start to talk about those things that make us uncomfortable. [...] I find that trying to explain people my experiences makes me tired, agitated, and angry to point where I’m almost afraid of my own blackness.

How do you deal with that?”

King praised Gainer for sharing his story and respected his courage for asking this question.

“I do think we live in a time where you should not be afraid of showing 360 degrees of your humanity,” King said. “It is true, and I get it but because of stereotypes and the reality of society you are constantly aware that you will be held to standards that other people won’t. That’s so disturbing and so problematic I want to encourage you that as you grow and mature to find ways to not suppress the fullness of who you are.

It’s not normal to be in this society and not behave. Not only that, it’s not healthy.”

King hopes that students will learn that in order to be a part of the conversation, students have to be front and center.

“You need a ton of energy and we have that energy and fits and spritz,” King said.

“Change requires people. [...] Now, it doesn’t have to be all of us but a few rows of us, sometimes it’s all we need to bring about serious change on a college campus.”

Karolina Rivas can be reached at mpurdue@sagebrush.unr. edu and on Twitter @karolinarrivas.

Starbucks Continued from page A1

tweets, and she said that, while traditional news publications are opaque about how they are funded, corporate storytelling is more transparent about where their money comes from.

She said shows like the Today Show claim to not pay their sources, but license their photos for thousands of dollars.

“That stuff is completely opaque,” said Sizemore. “But, if Starbucks Newsroom is writing a story you know who paid their paycheck.”

She also said that content creators are having a harder time being published in the traditional way and corporate-funded content is a more equitable business model than traditional media.

“With social media and things changing so quickly, we have to keep relearning who we are and what we do in order to stay on top of our ethical compass and remember to tell great, humanforward stories,” she said Sizemore was invited by journalism professor Caesar Andrews to be the first guest of the year for the “Reynolds School Speaker Series.”

She started her career working for newspapers. Her first job was at the Reno Gazette-Journal as an intern at the copy desk. She worked for various newspapers across the country before settling in at NBC News Digital for seven years.

A pivoting point in her career came at msnbc.com in 2013 when Microsoft sold off their share of the company, and NBC Digital News moved to New York.

“I thought, ‘Well, the thing that gets me out of bed every morning is knowing that I have a job that

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2017 can make a difference, it can make the world a better place, just a little bit.’ I’m kind of an idealistic geek that way,” she said That’s when she decided to take her storytelling experience and skills into the strategic communications and marketing field for a non-profit.

Sizemore landed a job at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center as Vice President of Communications and Marketing. At Fred Hutch she built a newsroom of 40 people from scratch and marketing for the non-profit was structured around it.

“I had watched corporatesponsored content, financed but not about the brand, be both wildly successful and a wonderful public service, and I thought we could build that in the medical research space as well as structure ourselves to do every function of communications and marketing and branding,” Sizemore said.

She said she was inspired by Kaiser Health News, a non-profit news service covering health care policy and politics funded by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Sizemore wanted to take their idea a step further. She created a newsroom and integrated marketing strategies into the content they produced.

“Then Starbucks called and they said ‘We want you to come here and build the global newsroom of the future,’” Sizemore said.

She’s still in her first year at Starbucks and is mostly strategizing at the moment, but she hopes to build a similar structure to her newsroom at Fred Hutch - stories about people impacted by the company, driven by the Starbucks brand.

Ryan Suppe can be reached at rsuppe@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush

Pads

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Alchemist Theatre will then get the word out to female students that they can find more product options at these organizations.

One aim of this campaign is to create a conversation around the need these students have for feminine products and try to eliminate the stigma that comes with periods and female products.

The Alchemist Theatre and Northern Nevada HOPES are hosting a community conversation on Wednesday, Oct. 4, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Northern Nevada HOPES office. They will be discussing issues such as why tampons can’t be donated to schools, the sexualization and politicization of young women’s bodies and the lack of data on students who can’t afford these products.

The panel is being put together by the other co-creator of the Alchemist Theatre, Christopher Daniels, a former sex educator for Planned Parenthood. They hope to have a high school nurse, teacher and student along with more sex educators on the panel.

Levity said that she wants to apply for a grant so a study can be done on how many young women can’t afford feminine products and consequently miss school.

“We know that girls in these schools are missing school monthly for days, but we don’t know how many and we don’t know how big of a problem it is,” said Levity. “Making girls ashamed about needing products and missing school, what

SENATE RECAP SEP. 20

By Madeline Purdue

PUBLIC COMMENT IT DEPARTMENT LOOKS TO GO WIRELESS, REPLACE MYNEVADA Steve Smith, Chief Information Officer and Vice Provost for Information Technology, updated the senate on the goals of his department for the next year. Smith said one of the goals was to have 100 percent wireless coverage on campus. They are close, but Smith said the thick concrete in some of the dorms and in outside, open areas are providing a challenge. Smith also said the department was looking into replacing MyNevada with another system that is lower maintenance. They will be doing a soft rollout at the beginning of 2018 to see if students prefer it over the current system. MyNevada will still be available during the soft rollout.

APPOINTMENTS SLOTTERBACK APPROVED AS ASSOCIATE JUSTICE Alexandra Slotterback was nominated by Chief Justice Samuel Bruketta for the position of Associate Justice. Slotterback is a senior studying criminal justice and was an intern for Bruketta last school year. Bruketta said Slotterback is dedicated, is great at interpreting different works of legislation and blew him away, which is why he nominated her for the position. She said that as Associate Justice, she would like to bring back the mediation program that ended last year due to funding issues. She also said she would like to sit in on student conduct meetings and help with decisions. The senate approved her for the position unanimously.

LEGISLATION

SENATE PASSES RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF DACA A resolution on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that President Trump ended on Sept. 5 was passed by the senate. Speaker Hannah Jackson fast-tracked the resolution because the issue was “current and important”. The resolution will be sent to leaders such as President Marc Johnson, the Nevada System of Higher Education board of regents, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto and President Trump. The resolution encourages these leaders to help protect DACA students, or Dreamers, from being deported to their birth countries so they can pursue higher education.

President Marc Johnson released a statement on DACA before President Trump rescinded the program, assuring DACA students they were welcome to stay at the university should the program end.

REPORTS Andrea Wilkinson/Nevada Sagebrush

A storage POD sits outside the office of Northern Nevada HOPES on Sunday, Sept. 24. HOPES and The Alchemist Theatre have teamed up to start a drive that provides female high school students with free feminine products.

effect is that having?”

Levity hopes PODS for Pads can become a yearly event to help schoolgirls in the community. She wants to empower them not be embarrassed about the natural cycles their bodies go through and end the “silenced culture”

around periods that adds to the controversy of women’s bodies.

“How much better would a young female’s life be if she didn’t hate her period?” Levity said.

Students at UNR that can’t afford feminine products can

find access to them at the Health Center and at Pack Provisions.

Madeline Purdue can be reached at mpurdue@sagebrush.unr. edu and on Twitter @madelinepurdue.

PACK INTERNSHIP PROGRAM APPLICATIONS OPEN Vice President Sebastian Atienza announced that applications for the Pack Internship Program were now open and close Monday, Nov. 6. ASUN will host information sessions about the program. The dates and programs of the sessions will be released on ASUN’s social media.

Madeline Purdue can be reached at mpurdue@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @madelinepurdue.

University tests earthquake resistance on newly designed bridge

By Kevin Bass A new, leading-edge bridge design was tested in the Earthquake Engineering Laboratory on campus on Wednesday, Sept. 20. A large-scale, two-span bridge was knocked around using a new design, which was made with the goal of not only cutting down construction time, but making a more earthquakeresistant structure.

The project is headed by Professor Saiid Saiidi, a member of the university’s Department of Civil Engineering and director of the Center for Advanced Technology in Bridges and Infrastructure.

The new bridge design features pre-cast concrete columns and beams, which will allow construction crews to assemble the structure faster. Quicker construction means crews will spend less time working on or near roadways, making the project safer for both construction crews and drivers.

Faster construction also contributes to shorter periods of traffic congestion, detours and lane closures on highways and roads.

New connection designs, that were designed by Saiidi, were integrated into the design. Other similar connections have been tested individually, but

not all together. A major aspect of the project is investigating how they work together when combined.

“The good seismic performance of a component does not guarantee that the entire bridge will resist the earthquake,” Saiidi said.

Modern bridges are designed to not collapse during earthquakes, but can still be unsafe afterward and can require major repairs. The new design incorporates flexible beams, as well as reinforcement bars, that bend and move with the quake, but return to their original position afterwards.

According to Saiidi, “the experiment, with the largest motions at 200 percent of the design earthquake, was a success, showing the components performed well.”

The shaking produced visible cracks, but Saiidi said the 100-ton, 70-footlong bridge held up well to the tests. In between the shakes, a team of graduate students went about collecting data and documenting the cracks that had developed.

Saiidi says the team will have their hands full for a few months analyzing the data collected from the test. There were approximately 400 collected channels of data collected to be used in the extensive post-test analysis.

The project is funded by a grant from the California Department of Transportation. The university’s Earthquake Engineering Lab and Large Scale Structures Lab are the largest and most versatile large-scale structures and earthquake/seismic engineering facilities in the country, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The simulated earthquake mimicked the shaking from the 1994 earthquake in Northridge, California. The 6.7 magnitude temblor was responsible for an official death toll of 57 people 23 years ago.

The lab in which the test was run includes three biaxial shake tables and a six-degree-of-freedom table that are often used to test buildings, non-structural systems, as well as other bridges.

The test comes just days after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake devastated Mexico City, the country’s second major earthquake endured in a 12-day span.

University President Marc Johnson and Manos Maragakis, Dean of the College of Engineering, were both in attendance for the public test.

Kevin Bass can be reached at mpurdue@ sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @ NevadaSagebrush.

Kevin Bass/Nevada Sagebrush

Graduate students evaluate a two-span bridge after it was tested at the Earthquake Engineering Labratory on Wednesday, Sept. 20. The bridge withstood 200 percent what it was built to.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

NEWS | A3

@NevadaSagebrush | nevadasagebrush.com

How to renew DACA status without advance parole, that they continuously resided in the states and have not been convicted of a felony or three or more misdemeanors.

By Emily Fisher Over 13,000 young immigrants in Nevada are protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals according to data from the Department of Homeland Security. Started in 2012 under the Obama Administration, DACA allows some individuals who were brought to the country illegally as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to be eligible for a work permit and other benefits. As of 2017, approximately 800,000 individuals, often called Dreamers, were enrolled in DACA across the country.

The recent debates over the DACA program have left many confused about the status of the policy. On Sept. 5, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced an end to the program and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is no longer accepting initial requests for DACA or requests for advance parole.

Current recipients whose benefits that expire between Sept. 5, 2017, and March 5, 2018, can still renew their DACA status to remain eligible. The renewal request must be filed no later than Oct. 5. According to Jon Sasser, a local attorney, an estimated 3,200 individuals in NV are eligible for renewal.

This is News You Can Use with a guide to submitting a DACA Renewal.

WHAT DOES RENEWAL MEAN FOR ME? If your DACA is accepted, you will retain both your period of deferred action and your employment authorization document (EAD) until they expire, unless terminated or revoked.

DACA benefits are generally valid for two years from the date of issuance, meaning Dre a m e r s will keep their status until 2019.

AM I ELIGIBLE TO RENEW? Current recipients of DACA whose permits expire between 9/5/17 – 3/5/18, and that met the initial 2012 DACA guidelines are eligible to request a

WHAT FORMS DO I NEED TO SUBMIT? There is a total of three forms you must submit for DACA Renewal.

Form I-821D the Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Form I-765 the Application for E m p l oy m e n t Authorization and Form I-765W Worksheet.

Make sure to fill out the most recent version of each of these applications or yours will not be accepted. renewal.

There are additional guidelines stating that the applicant must not have departed the US on or after August 15th, 2012

WHERE CAN I GET HELP? DACA Renewals can be complicated, and filling out the application accurately is vital, or it will not be accepted. The community has many clinics and free assistance for Dreamers seeking

guidance with the renewal process.

Northern Nevada Hopes, 580 W. 5th St. in Reno, is holding a free clinic on the 30th of September from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m., there is no appointment needed.

If you can’t attend this clinic there are a variety of other options including free appointments with PLAN by accredited representatives, to make an appointment call 775-800-1851. ACLU of Nevada will also be offering weeknight appointments for help with renewal, available by calling 775-786-1033.

WHAT TO BRING TO RENEWAL CLINICS: If you attend renewal clinics in the community or meet with an immigration attorney or Board of Immigration Appeals-accredited representative, be sure to bring all the required documents.

Including your Work Authorization Card, driver’s license or ID, a copy of the last DACA Renewal Application you submitted, a money order or cashier’s check of $495, and certified court disposition of any arrest if applicable.USCIS’ current goal is to process DACA renewal requests within 120 days. For more information and to read FAQs visit the USCIS website.

Emily Fisher can be reached at efisher@ sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @ NevadaSagebrush.

Photo Illustration by Nicole Skarlatos/Nevada Sagebrush

FREE legal & Advocacy services to all members of the University Community

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Snow covers the mountains on Lake Tahoe on July 15, 2011. Environmentalists gathered at UNR on Saturday, Sept. 23, to discuss how last winter’s heavy snowfall will impact the local environment.

Summit

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The biorefinery is phase two of the Sierra project and is scheduled to open operations in 2020.

The Federal Aviation Administration is committed to a 50 percent net reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. Biofuels are pivotal in achieving that goal, and if the Fulcrum biorefinery is completed on time it will operate for 30 years prior to the FAA deadline. Benedetti alluded to further federal promotion of renewable energy.

“The Department of Defense gave us a $70 million grant to help commercialize this technology because getting the technology and the molecules of biojet in the market is offsetting the fossil,” said Benedetti.

Additionally, UNR assistant director for environmental programs, John Sagebiel, commented on companies like Tesla and Switch and the increasing prevalence of corporate renewable energy commitments.

Switch is a major data center company that powers its buildings on 100 percent renewable energy. In February 2017, it opened the largest data center in the world, at 1.3 million square feet, in Reno, Nevada.

“I think renewable energy is as much about their marketing as it is about how they actually operate,” said Sagebiel. “Ultimately, an electron is an electron whether you generate it’s renewably or not, it’s going to power your data center just as well.”

Gabriel Selbig can be reached at mpurdue@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.

Contact ASUN Center for Student Engagement 3rd Floor of the Joe 775-784-6132

A4 | A&E

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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

PACK N THE EVENTS THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR THIS WEEK

By Joey Thyne

THE ROAD TO TEDX DATE: Tuesday TIME: 7:00 p.m.

LOCATION: JCSU Theatre INFO: The UNR College

of Business is hosting a competition to find a student public speaker for TEDx. Although the applications are closed, you can still go watch the competitors pitch their big ideas. The winner will go on to speak at UNR’s TEDx event in January. This event is free. IMPORTANT: Your name does not have to be Ted to participate.

STREET VIBRATIONS DATE: Wednesdays TIME: All day LOCATION: Downtown INFO: If you’re a fan of

motorcycles or generally noisy events, then jump on your hog and head downtown for Street Vibrations’ fall rally. This event runs all weekend.

There will be crafts, apparel, live entertainment, Miss Street Vibrations, poker runs, scavenger hunts, slow bike races, fireworks, and the Tattoo Expo.

JOE ZONE DATE: Thursday TIME: 9 p.m.

LOCATION: Glick

Ballrooms INFO: If you and your friends are bored in the dorms on Thursday night, check out the Joe Zone.

This event is FREE. There are such activities as inflatable bounce houses, an obstacle course and spike ball, and giant jenga.

MANHATTAN FILM FESTIVAL DATE: Friday TIME: 7:00 p.m.

LOCATION: JCSU Movie

Theater INFO: Calling all cinephiles! The Joe is showing a series of short films and you get to decide on your favorite.

There are ten films total from all over the world.

KUNR is hosting this event. The event runs all weekend. General admission tickets cost $14, but student tickets cost $6. Don’t miss out.

DIVERSABILITY DATE: Monday TIME: 10 a.m.

LOCATION: Gateway Plaza INFO: UNR’s Disability

Resource Center, Student Services and Student Union are hosting an all event celebrated all diverse types of abilities.

This event is FREE. There will be speakers and other activities. Vendors include Path to Independence Program and Note-Able Music Therapy Services.

Joey Thyne can be reached jthyne@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @joey_thyne

By Joey Thyne Roughly 450 miles southeast of Reno lies a certain scorching stretch of desert, a city of sin, a UFO-visitor center, a nuclear bomb testing site, a neon utopia teeming with khaki-shorts-wearing tourists interested in such debaucherous activities as prostitution and gambling. This location is often referred to as Las Vegas, home to many UNR students. Over the weekend, Sept. 22-24, they hosted Life is Beautiful.

Taking place in the up-and-coming downtown area, the festival shuts down approximately 18 square blocks. The sheer amount of stuff to see and things to do was overwhelming. Vivid murals, sculptures and statues spread out all over the grounds. Comedy shows and art exhibits were available for viewings, including the Meow Wolf’s Art School. The Blue Man Group, Cirque Du Soleil and Bill Nye were all there. There was certainly music at this music festival, but no one was under the illusion that it was the focal point.

Just walking around LiB was sensory overload. There are thousands of people bumping into one another, a Ferris wheel, literal Mood Swings, and a giant mechanical grasshopper shooting fire out of its antennae.

Everywhere you looked, Zappos logos loomed. Zappos had a sort of Big Brother/ Enron presence at LiB. All the while, helicopters constantly circled overhead for some unidentified reason. The Trump tower leered in the skyline. Paranoia could have easily been inspired within the most sober attendees.

LiB draws a young crowd. Some patrons seemed to have LiB confused with EDC, for there were ravers in fishnets with glow sticks galore. Still, if anyone wanted to have their brain melted by EDM, there was still plenty of opportunity at LiB. Around every corner, a thumping bass was there ready to pounce, berating people’s ear drums and invading people’s personal space. Some could speculate that music festival operators encourage the EDM

homogenization because it is so cheap and simple to set up. Who’s to say.

Most music festivals exist in a bubble of Pitchfork elitism. With headliners including Sean Paul and Muse, LiB, for better or worse, could not care less what music is considered hip. A diverse selection of artists performed.

Grammy nominated house duo Sofi Tukker were scheduled to perform, but Sophie Hawley-Weld fell ill and was unable to perform. However, Tucker Halpern played a solo DJ set. Hawley-Weld and Halpern met at Brown while Halpern was playing basketball.

“I had to stop playing because I got sick my junior year,” Halpern said. “Then I started producing music when I was bedridden...When I started DJing, I got that thrill, that high I used to get playing basketball, but I could really be myself DJing.

[Playing basketball] I had to answer to a coach who didn’t want me to be creative or individual. I’m really psyched about where I ended up.”

DJ Superpoze came all the way from Paris to perform in Las Vegas for the first time. When asked about the differences in crowds between the US and Europe he said, “Music is able to unite people, we don’t care about the difference.”

Whether it was Schoolboy Q shouting out Las Vegas, California, or Lorde looking bored as she performed for fans who once adored but now snored, it was apparent many performers saw this as just another stop in an endless series of touring, a detour before going somewhere else more interesting. The result was many underwhelming, by-the-numbers shows.

This isn’t to say there were no good shows. Respect shall be given where due.

Spoils go to the victor; meaning, if artists perceived LiB as another touring gig, then the best shows are by those who are the best at being tour artists, not the most talented or charismatic. I would contest that Cage the Elephant is one of the best live acts working today. They bring a deranged energy, especially with Matt Shultz flailing

Joey Thyne/Nevada Sagebrush

Left: This fire-spouting insect was once a piece of Burning Man art purchased by Tony Shieh, CEO of Zappos.

Top: Murals cover walls all throughout Life is Beautiful in Las Vegas.

Bottom: Alternative rock band Two Door Cinema Club performs at the main stage.

around onstage, doing almost the entire show in his underwear. Wiz Khalifa and his live band sounded tight and lively as they strolled through all of his hits. Certain aspects of his show could lead someone to believe that Mr. Khalifa enjoys cannabis.

Perhaps this is a journalistic endeavor worth investigating; more details to follow.

If someone would have said a month ago that Wiz Khalifa would do a better show than a lackluster Chance the Rapper, I would have called them a liar. But that’s the type of thing that happens in Life is Beautiful and Las Vegas in general. It’s a peculiar place. It’s all topsy-turvy. It’s like the “opposite day” episode of Spongebob.

But even at its best, the music felt like more of an afterthought, a consolation prize. The concerts were just conduits for surrounding businesses to cash in and as a sacrifice for our supreme overlord Zappos.

At the risk of sounding too cynical, here are some of the things LiB did extremely well.

BIKE VALET LiB had a bike valet which was genius.

Anyone could bike to the festival and drop it off with a valet, not having to find a place to put it or worry about it getting stolen. It promotes cardio and prevents the burning of fossil fuels. I will forever cherish the memory of being on a bike in the Jack in the Box drive thru at 1:00 a.m.,

yelling at the woman refusing to serve me curly fries.

DRINKING RESTRICTIONS While some music festivals prohibit some areas from drinking alcohol, LiB had the mantra of “Live and let live.” As someone who enjoys drinking a lot of overpriced beer, I approve. However, it does seem like every music festival experience devolves into a vicious cycle of waiting in line for beer then waiting in line for the bathroom CONFETTI Almost every headlining show ended with a crowning ejaculation of confetti.

Not only confetti, but a significant amount of shows featured pyrotechnics and onstage flames. In all seriousness, the lighting, sound, and overall production value of LiB was pretty stellar.

On the subject of whether or not life is, in fact, beautiful, who’s to say? I will mention, however, that having people in your life who are willing to sit in asphalt with you and eat $7 french fries and watch your Dos Equis tall boy while you go to the port-a-potty as you all breathe in ganjaand-BO-polluted air has a certain beauty to it.

Joey Thyne can be reached at jthyne@sagebrush@unr.edu or on twitter @joey_thyne

“Destiny 2” delivers on hype

By Bailey MeCey For a game with as much promise as the first “Destiny,” it seems to be “Destiny 2” that finally makes true on that promise. “Destiny 2” is a sci-fi shooter from Bungie where you play as a Guardian in a fight against different factions for the all-powerful Light.

There are a lot of things that match from the first “Destiny,” including the vague terms used for everything in the game (as seen above), but “Destiny 2” puts focus on a real story with actual characters. The 20-30 hour campaign will pit the players against The Red Legion that has launched a massive attack against you and your allies, and most of the story is you grouping back up with your squad of heroes to save the day.

The story does a lot to make it seem like your character as well as the characters around you have an arc, but there is more emphasis overall on spec-

tacle than delivering on the characters.

An aspect of the story I found the best was how well the game groups people together in major moments to give the story more of a communal aspect if you are playing the story by yourself.

Just like the first game, the core shooting is as tight as ever. Popping headshots on enemies as you are blasting through the air feels great, and the steady flow of new weapons and abilities gives a nice variety in play over the course of the story. I was hesitant with the new weapon system that prioritizes the standard weapons over the more dynamic weapons, but the new system does allow for more combinations of weapons that overall improve the combat.

When it comes to the combat encounters, “Destiny 1” players will be a little confused with the lack of change.

For the most part, the enemies you are up against are the same as the first game, with some changes to the way

Destiny 2 Shooter they move and fight. For a game that is supposed to be a new $60 adventure, having to fight the same sets of enemies felt more redundant than it should have been.

In regards to the price, some new micro-transaction models may cause some ire in what should be a $60 product. Like Overwatch and CounterStrike Global Offensive, “Destiny 2” now offers in-game loot boxes for cosmetic items. These are usually not an issue, but some cosmetic systems in the game feel geared toward wanting you to buy these loot boxes as they are now consumable.

While there are some issues with

reused content, “Destiny 2” is a fullyfeatured sequel that makes good on the promises of the first game. This is a great jumping off point for someone new to the series, and returning players should find more than enough content to satisfy them. If you are into a game where you can go on space adventures with your buddies or need something to do while listening to podcasts, “Destiny 2” is right up your alley.

For the Nevada Sagebrush, I am Barley MeCey and I like to slurp russet potatoes.

Bailey MeCey can be reached at bmecey@ sagebrush@unr.edu or on twitter @bmecey

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

“Brad’s Status” raises more questions than it answers

By Will Keys Everybody has that one friend who can’t help but complain about everything: the eternal pessimist. You tell them you got a dog and they’ll say that it’s going to die one day. You’re getting married, but they remind you that divorce rates have never been higher. It’s pervasive, and the second you catch yourself thinking like that friend you get the sudden, uncontrollable urge to hurl yourself through a plate glass window.

“Brad’s Status” is that friend. But instead of launching yourself through that window, you have to sit through the director/writer Mike White’s one hour and 41-minute collaboration with Ben Stiller because you agreed to review movies for your school’s newspaper. It’s an age-old dilemma.

Stiller stars as the titular Brad Sloan, a 47-year-old, middle-class Sacramentan touring colleges in the Boston area with his musicallygifted 17-year-old son, Troy, played admirably by Austin Abrams. Despite having his own nonprofit, a content marriage with his grounded wife (Jenna Fischer), and a son primed to go to Harvard, Brad’s life is plagued by insecurity, which typically manifests itself in the form of obsessive envy over his four mega-successful college friends.

“Brad’s Status” sets up a lot of pins, asking serious questions about some of the more nagging parts of human nature, like why we always compare ourselves to our friends or why we struggle to appreciate how much we have, but it never knocks them down and gives any concrete solutions. Instead, Brad’s inner monologue feels dragging and invasive, like you took a wrong turn on your way to the theater and accidentally walked

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in on this joyless shell of a man giving his therapist the play-byplay on his mid-life crisis.

That’s not to say “Brad’s Status” is a complete failure with nothing to hang its hat on: Stiller pulls off his character with remarkable nuance and tact. In one scene, Brad is walking the streets of Cambridge alone, and you can see his eyes trailing off and watching younger, happierlooking people pass him on the sidewalk. For an actor who

Movie Review ‘BRAD’S STATUS’ Release Date: Sept. 15 Genre: Comedy-Drama built his career on over-the-top caricatures like Derek Zoolander and the “you can trouble me

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for a warm glass of shut the hell up” guy from “Happy Gilmore,” Stiller makes a three-dimensional human being out of Brad.

Considering Stiller is far closer in terms of social stature to the college friends that Brad is so envious, it’s a pretty impressive achievement.

The only problem is, threedimensional or not, Brad isn’t a particularly likeable protagonist.

He worries about pointless hypotheticals like his son’s potential success as a musician making himself feel worse about his own stagnating professional life and pictures himself on the beach making out with two women in the Harvard orchestra. For a movie where the central conflict takes place in the main character’s head, the audience has to like or identify with the character, or else the whole experience turns into an uncomfortable one-onone lunch with that one friend.

Somewhere near the end, the movie tries to suggest some type of answer to the legitimate question of social comparison bias. Brad learns that his friends have issues that challenge the image he has of them in his head. Despite their wealth or fame, they’re victims to the worse human pitfalls than Brad, which is unsatisfying because it only confirms that anyone, if they work hard enough, can achieve crippling despair too.

“Brad’s Status” conveys plenty of troubling insight to the way people work, but it just never quite makes it all the way to that light at the end of the tunnel.

Will Keys can be reached at jthyne@sagebrush.unr.edu and on twitter at @WillKeys6

Everything as entertainment I

n the modern publication, news and arts & entertainment have taken up two distinct sections.

However, in recent years it seems that line

Joey Thyne has blurred. Entertainment has always been lurking, enticing the world with action movies and shameless EDM. But now it seems entertainment has slithered its way into almost everything else, including our news and our politics.

We live in a world where we no longer have to be bored.

Smartphones and social media have whittled down our attention spans to almost nothing. Because we are constantly berated with memes and gifs, our brains refuse to accept anything that does not amuse us. We demand constant indulgence and immediate satisfaction, so the rest of the world complied.

Fifty years ago, people would watch the news for half an hour in the evening.

Walter Cronkite told them “And that’s the way it is” and families went to bed content.

Then, cable news networks like CNN and Fox News broke

the mold by stretching 30 minutes worth of stories into 24 hours.

So, the stories became more sensational to maintain viewers. Fear mongering became common practice.

These infotainment networks built kingdoms out of not actually reporting the news, but having a panel of “experts” regurgitating others’ reporting and vehemently disagreeing with one another. News insidiously became editorialized chest thumping. This is why Rachel Maddow or Bill O’Reilly became so popular.

This is also why the Buzzfeed model has been so popular. No one cares to read a full story, they just want the superficial recap so they can seem informed to their friends. I am not saying journalism is forbidden from being entertaining. It should have a voice and a slant, but, more importantly, it should be accurate. A little C-SPAN sterility is needed. It’s necessary to be bored every now and again.

According to my limited and idealistic knowledge of political history, there was a time when politics was so unentertaining that only dedicated, intelligent people paid attention and participated.

Now that politics is as convenient as entertainment, every half-wit has a half-baked political perspective. Worse yet, they are granted a platform for it, allowing them to entertain themselves in full view of the viral universe.

Donald Trump won

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the presidency because of the world’s appetite to be entertained. Hillary Clinton was more intelligent and more qualified, but she may be one of the least entertaining people in the history of human existence. Say what you wish about Donald Trump, he is entertaining as hell. He is a trained entertainer, he comes from the world of “The Apprentice” and Wrestlemania. He is loud, brash and he blurts out any crude thought which pops into his head. He stood out in the GOP, a sea of excruciatingly boring candidates like Jeb Bush and John Kasich.

He started as a joke, but people kept his campaign alive out of the terror that they would have to actually have to sit and pay attention to actual politics.

Even other forms of entertainment have taken advantage of the Trump presidency, a product of the age of entertainment. Comedians act like they are on some holy quest when they make fun of Trump, but the likes of Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Samantha Bee, Trevor Noah and Jim Jefferies are all profiting off him. Saturday Night Live loves to pick Trump apart, but when Trump was campaigning they invited him to host because they knew it would gain viewership.

Every now and then you will hear someone say “Why do our politicians make us laugh and our comedians make us think,” implying that comedians are smarter

than politicians, but this is not the case. The real reason is that we can’t process news that isn’t coated in irony designed to make us laugh. It’s all one and the same, a vicious cycle.

Furthermore, comedians never have any enlightening insight. Instead of dissecting his true danger, they always defer to petty insults like his spray tan or his small hands. This has inspired a flurry of piss poor Trump impressions to be heard around campus.

So now we have one of the most polarized political landscapes in American history with a generation who get trickle down news from clickbait titles, political sentiments reduced to 140 characters, videos of people screaming at one another on youtube. This leads to movements like political correctness or the alt-right because it’s entertaining to believe there is an “us” and a “them,” and that the “us” is on a noble crusade to save the world, and the “them” is not only wrong but dangerous.

Maybe it’s not all bad. If the Nevada Sagebrush follows suit and becomes entirely entertainment-driven, then that would make me the editor-in-chief.

Look forward to onlineonly listicles of funny faces made by Mike Pence. Get your pop-up blockers ready.

Joey Thyne can be reached at jthyne@sagebrush.unr.edu and on twitter at @joey_thyne

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The $1 bill has run its course

W

hen I become the Supreme Overlord of the Earth and all its satellites, or Secretary of the Treasury (I plan on becoming one of those two, preferably the first), my first decree will be short and simple. The dollar bill will be banished from our currency, and replaced by the dollar coin. Doing this little currency change will align the United States with most of the world, save the country a ton of money, give the students another Patrick educational tool, and Hardin spur a new generation of numismatists.

The United States is behind and backward in many ways: the metric system, expectation of tipping, Tomi Lahren.

Another way we are behind and backward is that we still issue a dollar banknote. The Canadian dollar, the British pound sterling, and the euro do not issue banknotes for one dollar/pound/euro. They all use a coin for that value. While I generally caution against peer pressure, one of the reasons we should adopt the dollar coin in lieu of a dollar bill is that all the cool countries have done it.

Another reason is that a dollar bill is less durable than a dollar coin. Most $1 bills last about 22 months, according to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. You’ll be lucky if you receive a bill from before 1999, let alone 1979. However, coins can last up to 30, 40, even 50 years before they are unusable or melted. Even in 2017, I have came across many 1979 Susan B. Anthony dollar coins when I go to the bank.

Coins last longer, meaning they need to be replaced less often than a bill. Check your pocket for coins, take a look at the year, you’ll be surprised to see how many coins you’re holding that are older than you.

In the era of budget cuts galore, cutting the dollar bill itself would be an easy way to cut the budget in a painless way. The Government Accountability Office in 2012 said that replacing the dollar bill with a dollar coin would save the government $4.4 billion over 30 years – a little over $146 million per year. That is almost enough to fund the National Endowment for the Arts.

It may not be billions, but getting rid of the dollar bill can save many agencies from making cuts to their department.

Also, circulating coins can serve as an educational tool. How many people were introduced to Helen Keller, Duke Ellington, National Parks, Sacagawea, Monticello, and so many more figures and places through their appearances on U.S. coins? If we issue a circulating commemorative dollar coin series and get rid of the dollar bill, children and adults can be introduced to prominent historical figures and landmarks during everyday transactions. The State and National Park quarter series have proven to be very successful in inspiring teaching and education. Also, if people start collecting circulating dollar coins, that will cause demand for those coins to skyrocket, leading the government to make more coins and therefore, make more money. This process is called seigniorage, when governments make money through issuing currency by the difference between the cost of production and the value of the new currency. The state quarter program of 1999-2008 made the government $1 billion because of this.

Now many people are going counter with the weight of the coin versus the dollar bill, and how a dollar bill is easier to carry around. I concede that one dollar coin would be heavier and more cumbersome than one dollar bill, but that one dollar coin is easier to carry than four quarters. Vending machines on campus tend to sell a bottle of soda for somewhere between $1.75 and $3. Right now, most people can use at least seven quarters or two dollar bills. So, you are forced to waste time through copious quarters or submit to the mercy of the bill validator. So, if we banish the dollar bill, that drink would only need two or three dollar coins. This will make vending machine transactions much quicker and easier. Instead of 10 quarters for laundry, we could use two dollar coins and two quarters. Instead of 12 quarters for two hours of parking, we could use three dollar coins. More dollar coins means less need for an abundant amount of quarters.

The dollar bill has served its purpose, but it has outlived its utility. A dollar coin will save the government money, spark many teachable moments, spur a new generation of coin collectors, and save people time in everyday transactions. We should join the rest of the modern world and use a dollar coin.

Patrick Hardin is a Noted Idiot. He can be reached at pkchardin@gmail.com and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

STAFF EDITORIAL

Trump’s NFL comments undermine free speech for America's minorities

I

t was Friday when President Donald J. Trump, stumping for Alabama senatorial candidate Luther Strange, inexplicably, turned his sights on football and the National Football League.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘get that son of a bitch off the field right now — he’s fired,’” Trump said.

Trump was, of course, referring to the protest of former San Francisco quarterback and Nevada alum Colin Kaepernick and his decision to kneel during the pre-game performance of the national anthem. That protest, which began last September, eventually spread throughout the league before settling back down to a smattering of pro players here and there.

Though, admittedly, that was before Trump opened his mouth.

In the days since his original comment (and subsequent doubling down on it), players, owners, the player’s union and even the league itself have united in firm opposition

to the president. Protests ranging from linking arms to kneeling to skipping the anthem altogether have been peppered throughout the weekend’s football games. Moreover, it has publicly turned a number of Trump’s most ardent supporters in the league, men like Jaguars owner Shad Khan and Patriots owner Robert Kraft, against him — at least for now.

But even as those men who make up the NFL defied Trump’s rhetoric, the president continued to throw down the gauntlet. On Monday, as is his habit, Trump took to Twitter.

“Many people booed the players who kneeled yesterday (which was a small percentage of total). These are fans who demand respect for our Flag!” Trump tweeted. “The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race.

It is about respect for our Country, Flag and National Anthem. NFL must respect this!”

At last, Trump cuts to the heart of the issue. In point of fact, the reason Kaepernick began protesting at all was to protest racial injustice and the rate at which American police were

(and are) unjustly killing American men, often young, often black.

It is ironic then, considering the circumstance, to say that the issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race.

It is doubly ironic that a man who said “very fine people” marched at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last month is now so reticent. It was a rally that stirred the emotions of those of us in Reno when a UNR student, Peter Cvjetanovic, was pictured screaming, torch in hand, and it was a rally that stirred national furor when one woman died before the weekend was up.

Why is it so easy for white Americans to tell black Americans, or really any disenfranchised group for that matter, to sit down and shut up?

Why is it that any time these groups move to protest the injustices that often rule their lives, a majority of Americans, mostly white, unite in a chorus of, ‘I’m all for your freedom of speech, but can’t you protest some other way?’

But there is no other way, because ultimately, every way seems to be the

wrong way. In 1963, when hundreds of thousands of black Americans marched on washington, Gallup found that 60 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of the march.

In 1993, just 23 percent thought that an LGBT+ march on Washington would do more good than harm for the acceptance movement.

It is then no surprise that just 38 percent of Americans today approve of Kaepernick’s protest. The majority always dislikes when the minority moves to speak, moves to call out the injustice inherent in the status quo.

But at the very least, we must defend the rights of these players to speak their minds. To focus on dog whistles and on false notions of patriotism is not only disingenuous, but does nothing to address what started this all: the systemic oppression of Americans that are, save one thing, just like you and me.

The Editorial Board can be reached at jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.

Nuclear threat or just kids with bombs?

Left: Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr Right: Photo by petersnoopy via Wikimedia Commons

Left: U.S. President Donald Trump basking in the limelight at a rally in Arizona. Right: North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un applauding the successes of North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un.

S

ome people really like attention. Those who want attention the most will go to amazing lengths to get it. Think of Britney Spears shaving her head and Royce Feuer running for ASUN President with a “don’t vote for Royce” campaign slogan.

It makes sense that world leaders tend to be the most attention hungry.

As the leader of the free world (Donald Trump) or leader of the not-so-free Ryan world (Kim JongSuppe un), everyone else Soup of the listens to you and looks at you conDay stantly. It’s like being the loudest, most annoying kid in class except your class is the entire human race. It’s especially easy to grab attention when you have the world’s most destructive weapon

at your disposal.

Usually those annoying kids can’t do much harm to the rest of the class.

Their only goal is to be looked at.

That’s why they blurt things out and occasionally bite someone when their attention meter is low. They thrive on being the one kid in the room that always has something controversial to say or do. We all grew up with one of these kids in school.

But what do you do when those angry little kids can actually do some real damage? Instead of just blowing spit wads and putting chewing gum in girls’ hair, they have gigantic bombs that can blow up the planet. I say you treat them exactly the same way, and eventually they’ll get tired and take a nap.

North Korea wants nuclear weapons, but nobody thinks that’s a very good idea. It’s always been this way, and things have been fine. We just ignore whichever Kim is in power, roll our eyes a little bit and go on with our day. Even South Koreans don’t give

him the satisfaction of listening to what he says, and they have to share a peninsula with him! Kim can’t hurt anyone if you don’t rile him up. Unfortunately, Trump came along, and was irked that Kim was getting so much of the spotlight. So, he butted his way in and reminded everyone that he has big bombs too.

What we have here is the classic case of two man-children trying to get the most attention from the rest of the class. We innocent citizens are the classmates, just trying to get through the day without any catastrophic events. Donald Trump and Kim Jongun are the emotionally unstable attention seekers who play with the idea of catastrophic events because it gets everyone else excited. I’m not sure who the teacher is in this situation maybe God or maybe Rick Sanchez?

We do live in strange times with these people in charge, but should we really take their chest puffing and threats seriously? Should we be worried that these testosterone-filled

tough boys are going to start a nuclear war? I don’t think so.

If Kim tries anything bold – like shoot down one of our planes or send a missile to Guam – Trump won’t hesitate to blow him up. That’s probably not in Kim's best interest. If he’s dead, how is everyone going to pay attention to him?

As we try our best to make sense of the fact that the fate of humanity could rest in Trump’s dainty, moisturized hands, it’s important to remember that he’s just a child looking for attention, and so is Kim. I’m confident we aren’t starting a new cold war, and I don’t think it’s time to stock up on bottled water, canned food and AK47’s for your bomb shelter just yet.

Ignore the excited attention-seekers until they get tired. They’ll move on when they realize nobody is listening.

Ryan Suppe studies philosophy. He can be reached at rsuppe@sagebrush.unr. edu and on Twitter @salsuppe

Sports tuesday, September 26, 2017

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Melo traded to Thunder

T.J. Bruce: the man that gave Nevada Baseball its pulse back I

Andrea Wilkinson/Nevada Sagebrush

Nevada Baseball Head Coach T.J. Bruce discusses a play with an umpire during Nevada’s game against Air Force on Sunday, March. 26 2017. Baseball America picked Nevada baseball’s most recent recruiting class as one of the top under the radar classes in collegiate baseball.

By Brandon Cruz By the time the sun starts to rise Head Nevada Baseball Coach T.J. Bruce has already been up for two hours. Bruce starts his day at 4:30 a.m., gets a few things done in his office and heads down to the weight room to evaluate his players and motivate them. There is no such thing as a case of the Monday’s for Nevada Baseball or Bruce.

“I slept in today, I got here at 6:30 a.m.,” said Bruce.

When Bruce makes it to the weight room he relinquishes his rights as coach. He’s not in charge here, as he leaves the coaching to the baseball team’s strength and conditioning Coach Ardery. Ardery get’s the team warmed up with some simple stretches, yelling out from time to time “don’t cheat the warm-up.”

If there were players that truly did cheat the warm-up it’s fair to say they have no place on Bruce’s baseball team.

“We have a saying in this program, it’s called prepare to prepare,” said Bruce. “Another one is be in the moment and another one is control the controls.”

Bruce makes it a point to ingrain these sayings in his player’s heads because he understands that loving the process it what it takes to become successful.

Bruce was a stud in high school and college baseball. His work ethic was championship like, and the achievements that followed were all because he bought into the process. While in high school Bruce was named to Long Beach Press

Telegram’s Dream Team as a shortstop and walked out of high school with two league MVP’s and a league championship under his belt.

With such an impressive resume, Bruce appeared to have the chance to go play baseball anywhere he dreamed but he had one thing holding him back.

“I was a non-qualifier,” said Bruce.

I couldn’t go to a four-year school.

My GPA and my test scores were too low.”

Granted this was a huge roadblock, but Bruce never allowed it to stop his drive or determination to continue to pursue one of the two sports he fell in love with when he was growing up. Bruce could have very well been the worlds next Travis Pastrana, but baseball called to him much louder than dirt biking ever would.

From high school, Bruce went to a JC called Cerritos College where he spent the first two years of his collegiate baseball career. Here he earned All-South Coast Conference honors, all the while leading the team to the first round of the Southern California College playoffs two years running.

Bruce then moved on to play at Texas Tech for a year and finished off his playing days at Long Beach State under Dirtbags head coach Mike Weathers.

This was when Bruce found himself at yet another crossroad. Where to go next?

“I always say the game retires ya,” said Bruce. “The game was telling me that I wasn’t good enough to

move forward and I was ok with it.

It’s tough playing a game for so long and not playing it anymore. Took some time that summer in ’04. My wife was my girlfriend at the time so we took some time to decide where I was going. I had one more year left of school. Weathers called me to say ‘ I want you to be the undergraduate.’ I turned him down.”

At this time Bruce thought he was ready to get out of baseball and say sayonara to the sport he spent his whole life attempting to perfect. Weathers called Bruce back a second time, and Bruce once again denied Weathers, but Weathers had some advice for Bruce this time. “’Let me tell you that I think you’ve got a career in this thing if you want it,’” said Weathers. “But coaching you can’t do if you don’t have the passion for it.”

Bruce, still not convinced appreciated the words from his former coach but still did not come on as the undergraduate.

Finally, Weathers called Bruce one last time and asked him again.

Bruce said he needed to make money and as an undergraduate coach, you didn’t get paid. Weathers told Bruce he got him a job that was contingent on him coming on as the undergraduate.

For the entirety of the ’05 season Bruce woke up at five in the morning, worked at the docks in Long Beach from 5:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., then went to practice and went to school.

But after that season Weathers let Bruce go.

“’Hey I think you need to get away from Long Beach and go find yourself as a coach, ‘” said Weathers.

While Bruce admitted this was the time he had to decide if he was going to make a career out of coaching or not, these thoughts did not deter him from taking the next step and heading to Cerritos College to be an assistant coach at the school he played his first college ball games at.

“Going back to coach there was a no-brainer,” said Bruce.

However, Bruce’s time at Cerritos as an assistant coach was even shorter-lived than his playing days there. Weathers hired Bruce on the following season in ’07 as the assistant coach at Long Beach State.

Bruce coached under longtime friend and coach Mike Weathers for three seasons, helping lead the Dirtbags to numerous NCAA Regional appearances.

In 2010 Weathers decided to hang up the whistle and call it quits.

Weathers passed the team off to Troy Buckley, a highly respected pitching coach. Buckley decided against keeping Bruce on as an assistant coach leaving Bruce out of a steady job, with a wife and a six-month-old daughter.

“I worked with and played under coach Buckley, so coach Buckley didn’t keep me on,” said Bruce.

“Which is his choice, and we’re great friends to this day,” Just as any job, there are no hard feelings when a party decides to part ways with another. Baseball’s a business, and Bruce knows this and respects it.

With Bruce out of a job, it appeared that five years into his coaching career it was over just as fast as it began.

Until one fateful day.

“The phone call, I’ll never forget,” said Bruce. “I was in Alaska and I was coaching summer ball. I had a daughter that was six months old, I had no insurance, did not have a job. I made $4,000 that summer coaching in Alaska. But John called me in July and offered me a job at UCLA and changed my life.”

u u

Brandon Cruz can be reached @ bcruz.sagebrush.unr.edu and online @SagebrushSports.

Nevada Wolf Pack Volleyball starts off conference play with consecutive wins

By Javier Hernandez The Nevada Volleyball team began their Mountain West Conference campaign this past week by facing off against the San Jose State Spartans last Tuesday and the Air Force Falcons last Thursday.

Below is a game-by-game recap of the week VS. San Jose State The Wolf Pack took on the visiting Spartans last Tuesday at the Virginia Street Gym. They were able to defeat them in four sets, 26-24, 25-21, 2125, 25-16.

In the first set, the Wolf Pack countered an early run by San Jose State by running off five straight points to take an early 8-7 lead.

While the Wolf Pack was able to gain a little bit of separation in the middle part of the set, a Spartans 3-0 run tied the set at 18 apiece.

The two teams would go back and forth until kills by Ayla Fresenius and Shayla Hoeft helped give Nevada the first set.

The second set was also a backand forth affair as the two teams were neck and neck heading down the stretch. Following a timeout

by Lee Nelson and the score at 22-21 Nevada, the Wolf Pack found their killer instinct as Hoeft hit two straight kills followed by a service ace by freshman Kayla Afoa.

While the Wolf Pack dropped the third set, they left no doubt as they ran off a demoralizing 8-0 run in the fourth set to take the match.

Andrea Wilkinson/Nevada Sagebrush

Freshman Kayla Afoa (left) and Ayla Fresenius (right) go up to block a ball against the Pepperdine Waves on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017 at the Virginia Street Gym during the Wolf Pack Tournament. This past week, the Wolf Pack bounced back from a nine game losing streak to win back-to-back games to start conference play.

“We’ve been pretty close on a lot of matches,” Nelson said. “We’ve got sets off good teams and we’ve had chances to win but we just haven’t closed it out and tonight we got off of that hump.”

VS. Air Force In the second game of the week, the Wolf Pack traveled to meet the Air Force Falcons in their second

conference game of the season.

The Wolf Pack won all three sets handily as they won 25-16, 25-16, 25-20.

Sophomore Peighton De Von led the way with 11 kills and two blocks.

She is joined by Jamila Minor in double digit kills as she had 11 of her own.

Hoeft and Ayla Fresenius were critical in the front line as they combined for seven total blocks in

the match.

Dalyn Burns, was solid on the night as she helped set up the Wolf Pack offense, as she orchestrated 30 kills.

The Wolf Pack will get a week off before they host games against Fresno State and San Diego State this week.

Javier Hernandez can be reached @ bcruz.sagebrush.unr.edu and online

Sports | a7

n what continues to be one of the most active offseasons in NBA history, to put the cherry on top, this past week New York Knicks Superstar Carmelo Anthony waived his No Trade Clause to allow for the Knicks to trade him to the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott, and a future second round pick.

Anthony will get to team up with fellow superstars Russell Westbrook and Paul George.

How Sam Presti continues to bamboozle GM after GM this offseason amazes me. While I understand that both players are low-value trade targets due to only having one year remaining on their contracts.

However, to turn Domantas Javi Hernandez Sabonis, Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott, Victor Oladipo, Accounting and a second round pick into two of the NBA’s premier small forwards in the game to form a big three in Oklahoma City is remarkable.

While one basketball may not be enough to accomodate three isolation-heavy players, the Thunder will never be short of offense.

The notion of the Western Conference being overwhelmingly stronger than the Eastern Conference continues to buid as Anthony’s return to the West bolsters another team into legitimate playoff contention.

While this idea that many hold may be true, the true narrative should be that it is just another team that can give the Golden State Warriors an extra game or two in the playoffs, that’s the real measuring stick.

Every move that teams make these days is either to try and match the firepower of the defending NBA Champions.

All throughout the Association, general managers capitalize on superstar migrations for their own iteration of super-team formations.

However, each of them have glaring holes in their teams that, on paper, an almost unbeatable Warriors team can exploit.

The Houston Rockets, who now boast a background of Chris Paul and James Harden will most likely struggle in the playoffs when team begin to realize that their tertiary and quarternary options in Trevor Ariza and Eric Gordon are streaky at best.

The Spurs, who return an aging core of players who are a shell of their former selves, are too reliant on their superstar Kawhi Leonard. And while Leonard looked the part in being able to pull off the upset after torching the Warriors in Game One last playoffs, many can just chalk it up to an off-night.

On the other side of the conference, in-fighting in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ front office (LeBron James) and the locker room (LeBron James) has led to a much diminished team of has-beens with their biggest acquisition being Derrick Rose and an Isaiah Thomas that has a deteriorating hip joint.

Kyrie Irving, who forced his way out of Cleveland, will lead a Boston Celtics team that may not even be ready to overthrow an old Cavaliers team. The Celtics are placing all their marbles in a guy who tries to be the smartest guy in the room by trying to incorrectly use words like he was reading off of a thesaurus. Do I need to mention that he believes that the earth is flat?

So what does this Carmelo-to-OKC deal really mean in the grand scheme of things? Well, essentially nothing much for OKC. They will eventually become a semi-contender that has a legitimate chance to beat other contenders in the Western Conference.

Then, in the event they get a chance to step in the ring with the Warriors where they will essentially only have merely a puncher’s chance.

Translation: they win one game in a series that has the Warriors winning easily in five games.

However, what really matters is that each of these players will be be on expiring contracts this upcoming season and will have the option to jump ship should things turn out not the way that they imagined it to be.

For Presti and the Thunder, trading away middling assets like Oladipo, McDermott, and a defensive liability in Kanter for a chance to have a competitive season before a complete rebuild is better than trying to develop a roster that was a dead-end.

The only asset that Presti may have regrets about is Sabonis who projects to have a high ceiling. However in today’s impulsive NBA, there really isn’t much time or incentive for teams to develop non-superstar talent.

The Thunder made out like bandits because this move allowed for them to compete while cleaning the slate to do a complete overhaul of their team should these superstars leave after the season.

The wise thing for teams to do is to wait out this dynasty, wait for either contract disputes or locker room drama to break them up. This Warriors dynasty can match those of the Lakers of the early 2000’s featuring Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.

The strategy these days is to collect draft capital, develop those potential superstars and when it is time, try to recruit superstars in their primes.

Full disclosure, I am a Lakers homer. Hear me out. With a young core of Brandon Ingram , Lonzo Ball, Jordan Clarkson, and Larry Nance Jr., these lakers are primed to make waves this upcoming season enough to entice the likes of two superstars to join the fold in 2018-2019.

Any combination of James, Westbrook, or George should be enough to form the next great dynasty.

Javier Hernandez can be reached @bcruz.sagebrush.unr.edu and online @SagebrushSports.

Gameday

A8 | SPORTS

at Northwestern

vs. Toledo

L 31-17

L 37-24

@SagebrushSports | nevadasagebrush.com

vs. Idaho State L 30-28

at Washing- at Fresno State ton State L. 7:30 p.m.

45-7 9/30

vs. Hawaii 7:30 p.m.

10/7

THIS WEEK’S GAME at Fresno State Saturday, Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

at Colorado vs. Air Force at Boise State vs. San Jose State State 6:30 p.m.

TBA TBA TBA 10/20 11/04 11/11 10/14

Cougars attack too much for pack

at San Diego State 7:30 p.m.

11/18

vs. UNLV 12:00 p.m.

11/25

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT WOMEN’S SOCCER Nevada traveled to San Diego State and the University of New Mexico this weekend.

The Pack didn’t put up a single goal, dropping the first game to the Aztecs of SDSU 0-3, and on Sunday they lost a close one to the Lobos 0-1. The Wolf Pack held close to the New Mexico Lobos, who boasted a 7-3 record. Nevada’s Lauryn Horstdaniel recorded 8 saves for the Pack, but it wasn’t enough as the offense couldn’t capitalize on a penalty kick along with 7 seven shots. Nevada takes on Air Force for their conference home opener Friday evening.

MEN’S GOLF The men’s golf team finished in 12th place this past weekend in Albuquerque, NM for the William H. Tucker Intercollegiate.

There was tough competition all round as the Wolfpack faced teams such as Washington, BYU, USD and New Mexico State. Senior Grant Booth posted the best finish for the Pack.

Individually, he finished with a tie at 16th place, finishing the tournament 4 strokes over par. Nevada will be back in action October 9-10 at the Alister MacKenzie Tournament in Fairfax, CA, hosted by UC Berkeley. ‘ Henry Travland can be reached at bcruz@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @SagebrushSports.

GAME PREDICTIONS #5 USC V.S. #16 Washington State Both teams came off big wins this past weekend, with the Trojans pulling away from Cal in a big second half, and the Wazzu defense held Nevada to just one touchdown. Two of arguably the best QB’s in not just the PAC 12, but the whole country, will face off and keep their hopes of a PAC 12 title alive. Southern California wins a close one

SCORE PREDICTION: #5 USC - 34 #16 Washington State- 30 #24 Mississippi State V.S. #13 Auburn

Both teams are looking to take control of their respectable divisions within the SEC. Auburn clobbered Missouri last weekend and is looking to take that momentum into Saturday’s game hosting MSU. Mississippi State lacked offense against #7 Georgia and they won’t have enough this weekend to win in Auburn.

SCORE PREDICTION: #24 Mississippi State- 21 #17 Auburn- 27 #12 Virginia Tech V.S. #2 Clemson

By Brandon Cruz Nevada football continues to struggle to find any kind of identity. With its most recent 45-7 shellacking at the hands of Washington State Nevada is reeling at the quarterback position. Having exhausted all options, Ty Gangi still appears to be the best QB to suit up for Nevada since he took over for Tyler Stewart last season.

Nevada’s offense was nearly nonexistent the entire game.

The team only managed to rack up 105 yards through the air and another 46 on the ground.

Alabama product David Cornwell finally got the nod from the Nevada coaching staff. The team ultimately regretted giving the reins of the offense to Cornwell, who threw for a dismal 97 yards, no touchdowns and three interceptions. The quarterback carousel that Nevada has found itself seems to be ineffective, proving the grass is not always greener on the other side.

McLane Mannix had his worst start to date with just two receptions for 19 yards. Wyatt Demps led the receiver corps with six receptions for 39 yards.

Nevada’s offense had no type of wow factor this game .

Along with an underwhelming air game, Nevada had no semblance of a ground game either. With Jaxson Kincaide not making the trip to Washington State Nevada relied heavily on Blake Wright, Kelton Moore and a new face to the rotation, Maliek Broady. Broady was the only Wolf Pack player to make his way into the end zone against the Wildcats, scoring his first career touchdown.

Usually Nevada’s defense has a scapegoat in its offense, especially when they leave the op-

posing team with just half the field to drive down. That is not the case this time around. Just about every one of Washington State’s touchdown drives were 60 plus yard campaigns. The defense has no one to blame but itself this time around allowing 505 yards through the air and another 55 on the ground. Who knew the part of the defense that was supposed to be the stoutest would actually be the side that needs the most work.

However, Nevada did force two turnovers, but that may be the only silver lining to this game.

The Wolf Pack travels to Fres-

no, CA, this weekend to start conference play. ESPN is giving Fresno State an 86 percent chance to win. The Bulldogs have been trounced the last couple of weeks, squaring off against some impressive opponents in No. 1 Alabama and No. 6 Washington State. Fresno State has allowed 122 less yards a game than Nevada and put up more points per game on average. Nevada needs a win this weekend if they have any hopes breaking even this season.

Brandon Cruz can be reached @bcruz.sagebrush.unr.edu and Andrea Wilkinson/Nevada Sagebrush

Freshman Quarterback Kaymen Cureton scrambles and scans for an open receiver downfield against Idaho State on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017 at Mackay Stadium. The Wolf Pack look to bounce back in conference play after going winless in non-conference play.

A potential preview of the ACC championship game will take place on ESPN Saturday night. Clemson has been on fire this season, including a dominating win over #17 Louisville. The Hokies have been impressive this season as well. VT have outscored their opponents 160-41 through 4 games. However, the Clemson Tigers are going to be too tough for Virginia Tech this week.

SCORE PREDICTION: #12 Virginia Tech- 25 #2 Clemson- 34 Henry Travland can be reached at bcruz@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @SagebrushSports.