NEVADA SAGEBRUSH SERVING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO SINCE 1893
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TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2017
FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES $1.00 EACH
VOLUME 123, ISSUE 24
NEWS in REVIEW
Author beats language challenges
By Madeline Purdue
INTERNATIONAL BUS PLOWS THROUGH HAITI FESTIVAL A bus drove through a festival in Haiti just before dawn on Sunday, Mar. 13, killing 38 people and injuring at least 13 more. Authorities are calling the incident a hit and run accident. The driver of the bus ran from the scene on foot and has not been caught. People who witnessed and survived the incident wanted to set the bus on fire while the passengers were still inside, but police prevented the crowd from doing so. A witness told CNN that when the bus finally stopped, you could see people stuck underneath. “You could hear people crying and calling for help, but I could not make a difference on who is alive and who is not,” a man named Rigorov said to CNN. The people in the street were celebrating Rara, a festival that is celebrated from Mardi Gras to Easter Sunday. Three Rara bands and many pedestrians were among those struck by the bus.
By Rachel Spacek
NATIONAL MAN STEALS GIRL SCOUT COOKIE MONEY A man in San Diego stole money from a Girl Scout cookie stand outside a grocery store on Sunday, Mar. 12. The man took around $400 from the cash box and ran away. According to police, he dropped an iPhone while running away. None of the Girl Scouts were injured. The San Diego Police Department arrested 28-year-old Erik Mullen later that night. He was charged with petty theft and possession of narcotics. Police did not say how they identified him or tracked him down. The San Diego Police Department tweeted “SDPD pleased to announce arrest in Girl Scouts of USA cash box theft.Erik Mullen 28yoa was taken into custody #crimedoesntpay#wewillfindyou” around 9:30 on Sunday. San Diego Girl Scouts spokeswoman Janine Rojas told the local Fox 5 on Sunday night that she was aware of the situation and would provide information to the community about how to donate to the troop that was robbed later in the week.
LOCAL AUTOMATIC VOTER REGISTRATION BILLS PASSES SENATE The Nevada Senate passed an initiative on Monday, Mar. 13 that would automatically register people to vote when they renew their driver license. The initiative now will have to be signed by Governor Brian Sandoval for it to be put into place. Initiative Petition 1, or the “motor voter” initiative, would automatically register people to vote when they update their information at the Department of Motor Vehicles. People would be able to decline to register to vote. Assistant Senate Minority Leader Ben Kieckhefer, R-Reno, told the Reno Gazette-Journal that he was concerned about how this initiative could lead to voter fraud. “Of the number of folks who have driver’s licenses and ID cards who used green cards as their form of ID to receive them, more than 100 have filled out the voter registration form and those voter registration forms were submitted to the county registrars to register those people to vote,” Kieckhefer told the RGJ. The initiative was favored by more Democrats than Republicans. Madeline Purdue can be reached at mpurdue@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @madelinepurdue.
OTAKUPALOOZA
Illustration by Nicole Skarlatos
Staff Report After six weeks campaigning, students will vote for Associated Students of the University of Nevada Senate, Vice President and President. The elections will run from Wednesday, March 15 to Thursday, March 16 online on WebCampus, or inperson at the Blue Fish Bowl inside the Joe Crowley Student Union. The Nevada Sagebrush sat down with the two candidates
running for President of the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Reno and the two candidates running on their ticket for Vice President. Sen. Alex Crupi and Sen. Trenton Jackson are running on a ticket together and Speaker of the Senate Noah Teixeira and Chief of Staff Sebastian Atienza are running against them. To read part of the Q&A, flip to page A2. For the full question-and-answer session, head to nevadasagebrush.com.
See Q&A page A2
Reno residents show support for welcoming city By Rachel Spacek In the weeks following the Trump administration’s pledge to expand deportations of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., Reno community members have put increased pressure on the City Council to make a pledge to support the immigrant communities in Reno. Several University of Nevada, Reno, students and community members spoke to the Reno City Council last Wednesday, Mar. 8, to urge them to approve City Council member Oscar Delgado’s request for staff time to prepare a statement on the city’s commitment to become a welcoming city. A “welcoming city” is defined as a city that supports locally-driven efforts to create a more welcoming, immigrant-friendly environment that maximizes opportunities for economic and cultural growth, according to Welcoming America, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to supporting the diverse communities in the US. In Welcoming Cities, all sectors, including government, business, non-profit and others are engaged to work together to create a community that welcomes immigrant communities. The City Council heard over an hour of public comment from individuals who pledged their support and asked for the support of the council members to make Reno a welcoming city. “The current executive order by President Trump
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is causing a lot of heartache and a lot of pain for both immigrants who are living in this city and for refugee families,” said Carina Black, Executive Director of the Northern Nevada International Center. “We believe strongly that they deserve a city that welcomes them and we hope to be working with the City of Reno on a resolution that designates the city of Reno as a welcoming city and there are many such efforts across the country, so there are many models that we could be using, so I look forward to working with you on this.” The calls to make Reno a welcoming city have been received following the Trump administration’s pledge to target the deportation of immigrants who have been convicted of an unresolved offense, criminal or otherwise. The Department of Homeland Security also said they would try to enlist the assistance of local law enforcement agencies to crack down on deporting undocumented immigrants. Elvira Diaz, a Reno resident, spoke in public comment in support of making Reno a welcoming city. She recalled a trip to Las Vegas she had taken earlier this month where she was stopped by a local police officer who asked her if she was a United States citizen. Diaz showed him her passport but said she shouldn’t have had to.
See IMMIGRATION page A3
WAGE DEBATE
Photo via twitter.com/SpeakerRyan
Paul Ryan outlines the American Health Care Act to reporters on Friday, March 10. The bill, which would serve as the first step in the GOP “repeal and replacement” of Obamacare, could head to the House floor for a vote as soon as the next few weeks.
ACA repeal would impact millions By Jacob Solis Since House Republicans revealed their long-awaited plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, often known simply as Obamacare, earlier this month, there have been lingering questions about what effects the new bill might have on the 18 million Americans who use the law to get their health insurance. On Monday, House Speaker Paul Ryan downplayed expectations for the number of people who that might lose their insurance under the new plan, dubbed the American Health Care Act. Speaking with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” he said that the goal of the plan shouldn’t be universal coverage, but rather reduced health care costs. “What we are trying to achieve here is bringing down the cost of care, bringing down the cost of insurance
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not through government mandates and monopolies but by having more choice and competition,” Ryan said. Later that day though, the number was larger than anyone thought it would be. Over the next decade, an estimated 24 million Americans will lose health insurance under the new GOP plan, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office. In the same report, the CBO also found that the plan would reduce the deficit by about 300 billion and reduce the average cost of premiums by about 10 percent over the same period of time. But why are these numbers so high and how else would the new plan affect Nevada specifically?
THINGS AS THEY STAND To
understand
how
An Xiao Mina, an artist, author and technologist, set out with a goal to attempt to overcome global communication’s toughest barrier: language. Mina is responsible for founding the team behind the website Meedan, a platform for tools that support global journalism and translation. Meedan offers two tools to journalists: Check and Bridge. Bridge enables translation of social media and adds cultural, social and political notes to the translation for understanding. With many languages being so complicated and different from region to region, the importance of the explainer along with the translation is that it gives a description and reasoning of word choice in the translation. “We really believe in human’s ability to translate and I think that is what is really great about this program. It is about focusing on the journalistic value and value that people can contribute,” Mina said. “If we think about our tools more as facilitators rather than replacers, I think a lot of people will talk about translation as an automated process, and I firmly believe that’s not possible. I think many of us who are multilingual know that if you have run something through google translate, it just doesn’t work.” The translated Tweets and social media posts are embeddable, with the original tweet or post on top, the translated version in the middle and the explainer on the bottom. Mina explained that journalists can easily embed the full translated tweets or social media posts and explainers into their stories that are in either language. University of Nevada, Reno, Reynolds School of Journalism student Jose Olivares translated tweets during the presidential campaign that were featured in a story on Fusion about the translation project. The other tool available on Meedan is Check, a platform used to verify breaking news stories. For example, a team can collaborate on a story or social media post and Check allows them to add notes with the team about the work the writer did and analyze the work and then come to a conclusion to determine if the post is false, verified or hard to determine. Mina said the goal at Meedan is to get both Check and Bridge to work together, but for now they work as two separate tools. In addition to Meedan, Mina is also working on a book called “Memes to Movement.” Mina said she was working on translating memes from Chinese, realized how political memes are and started working on her book. “I’m writing a book now about the global meme culture and looking at the cultural differences between memes, especially in relation to social media. I work with a translator at Spanish and Chinese in particular, but I’ve also tried to bring in some Russian as well,” Mina said. Mina said she is looking at tying in language, culture, memes and social media. Aside from her book, Mina is also working with the Bridge tool on Meedan on the global refugee crisis and doing translations on refugee resources and information. Mina said for this project they would be working on translations less for journalistic purposes and more for the purposes of aid workers. With the enhancement of global communication, Mina reminds journalists that language is still a huge barrier in many communities and encourages journalists to find the best ways to overcome that barrier.
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Rachel Spacek can be reached at rspacek@sagebrush.unr.edu and See ACA page A3 on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.
BIG DANCE AWAITS
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@NevadaSagebrush | nevadasagebrush.com
A2 | NEWS
NEVADA SAGEBRUSH
THE
Student voice of the University of Nevada, Reno, since 1893.
Volume 123 • Issue 24 Editor-in-Chief • Jacob Solis jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu
Continued from page A1
News Editor • Rachel Spacek rspacek@sagebrush.unr.edu
Asst. News Editor • Madeline Purdue mpurdue@sagebrush.unr.edu
Sports Editor • Brandon Cruz bcruz@sagebrush.unr.edu
Asst. Sports Editor • Javier Hernandez jshernandez@sagebrush.unr.edu
Opinion Editor • Ryan Suppe jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu
A&E Editor • Joey Thyne jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu
Design Editor • Nicole Skarlatos nskarlatos@sagebrush.unr.edu
Photo Editor • Andrea Wilkinson awilkinson@sagebrush.unr.edu
Copy Editor • Dominique Kent dkent@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 • Alana Ridge aridge@sagebrush.unr.edu
Staff Writer • Emily Fisher efisher@sagebrush.unr.edu
Distribution • Michele Cardnuto jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu
Distribution • Natalie Delbecq jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu
Media Adviser • Blythe Steelman bsteelman@unr.edu
CONTRIBUTING STAFFERS Kevin Bass, Will Compton, Patrick Hardin, Gabriel Selbig
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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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters can be submitted via email at jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu
CORRECTIONS The Nevada Sagebrush fixes mistakes. If you find an error, email jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu
SOCIAL MEDIA The Nevada Sagebrush @NevadaSagebrush @SagebrushSports Nevada Sagebrush nvsagebrush nevadasagebrush.com
Editor’s Note: Responses were not edited for length. For the full Q&A, visit nevadasagebrush. com.
QUESTION 1: WHAT MAKES YOU THE BEST PERSON TO SERVE AS THE PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATED STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO?
Alex Crupi:
I believe that the leadership experiences that I’ve had in my time as a student at the university give me a more diverse perspective on how to lead, what students want and how to get things done. I have been a leader in nearly every organization I have been a part of in the last few years where I have had the opportunity to hear from thousands of students and have been able to see ASUN and leadership in general from many different perspectives.
Trenton Jackson:
For me personally, and I’ve talked about this with a lot of clubs on campus that my diverse in leading, I was an orientation guide for two years, I am a supervisor at the Joe, currently also a senator within ASUN, but that was kind of the last thing that I started doing was getting involved with student government within ASUN. I think all of my diverse experience with leading student leaders in different ways and with different organizations and things like that has helped to bolster my experience and my perspective on what students actually want, so I think I can serve students’ needs better than most.
Noah Teixeira:
I am the best candidate for ASUN president because I am simply more qualified. I have had a lot of involvements across the university. In my freshman year, I wasn’t part of any organizations because I wanted to get my grades and everything in order and find a job. So I saw there was a lot of philanthropic efforts with civic engagement, so I put on my own philanthropy in my hometown and that showed me civic engagement in a different aspect. Later that semester I became a legislative intern and I was the chair of the legislative interns, which gave me the experience of how ASUN works from an intern perspective. I’ve learned a lot about ASUN through that experience. Later that year I ran for College of Business Senator, and I didn’t win, but I got the opportunity to go and speak to so many different groups and understand what they’re about and all of these student group perspectives gave me the drive to become the policy analyst for legislative affairs. In that year was the 78th session of the Nevada Legislature. Two of the huge bills were the Brady’s bill and the tobacco-free campus and I got to testify, email the senators to urge them to put Brady’s bill back on the agenda and vote on it. So I got the perspective and the experience of working at that level - making a difference for the entire university at a policy level outside of the university. Later that year, I ended up joining Greek life and I became the philanthropic director for the Interfraternity Council and through that I joined Up Til Dawn, which is a fundraising event. That experience gave me another civic engagement perspective but also showed me involvement. When students are involved with an organization they are passionate about, they’re so much more driven to go to class, get involved in the campus community, all around when you find your passion on campus it just goes so much better. I ran for College of Business senator again and I got to work with different businesses because I was the College of Business senator. Then I ran for speaker and was working for a law firm in town. It’s for a man named Devon Reese and Devon is very active in Nevada legislature and he fights for rights of organ donors, police and firefighters and it gave me the perspective of professionalism and internships and how it constructs you as a person outside of the classroom. I’ve had a lot of different views on what the university can do for the student and how the Associated Students can be involved with that. All of the things I have done on campus have made me a qualified person for this position.
Sebastian Atienza:
I would say what makes me the best candidate is versatility because working on the executive board this year and serving as a senator before that I really have been able to get
the skill sets from all aspects of ASUN. When I was a senator I was in charge of the budget, I was the chair of the committee of budgeting and finance. With the Vice President position, I have to help the president with the operating budget. I know all of the processes behind ASUN and I think that’s what really sets me up as a good candidate because as the position of the chief of staff, I am really able to get bounced around to different things as one of the duties of chief of staff, is just to be that internal operations type guy and you’re supposed to be at the assistance of the president and vice president. Whenever Boone needed to do any type of events I am there to try all these different skill sets. I hosted a sexual assault awareness week, I’ve always been doing sexual health, as one of my big things for this campus, so that’s what I’ve done for the last three years. But then planning retreats, planning banquets, I am planning the ASUN Mackay Endowment Banquet, which gives money to students who need extra money and we can give students that money. This big scholarship banquet they are planning is super fun for that. Any task that [Boone] has given me I have been able to bounce around and I think that’s what’s really good is being versatile and when it comes to leadership skills.
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things that we are doing to help their experience in college as well.
NT:
Diversity and inclusion, like I’ve already talked about, creating that assistant director position, but that’s not a fix all. That doesn’t just say, “Well we just fixed our diversity on campus.” That’s not how that works. It’s creating a culture around diversity and partnering, collaborating, actually going out and putting on diversity events. We had the first Director of Diversity this year, Gabriel Rojas, did a great job, an amazing job, but I wish there was more attention on him. We through a lot of programming events this year, they were awesome, they were great, they catered to a lot of students, but I believe that if we put more attention on the diversity inclusion position, programming these events and actually catering to a more diverse and having inclusive events, we could do so much more with the diverse communities we have on campus. The Assistant Director would essentially be the start of the culture within ASUN and of including everyone’s voices. On top of that, I believe every board within ASUN has public meetings. So the programming board approves budgets where the public can come in and talk about that. It’s having a voice at those meetings as a public. We are spending public funds, we should have everyone at those meetings that feels passionate about those funds. The board would also get it out that, “Hey they are voting on this budget next week. You guys should come and look at the budget and have a voice in them.” Being a welcoming campus. So we can’t be a sanctuary campus because the federal government doesn’t allow us, but we can be a welcoming campus, and that’s what the City of Reno is working on right now is a welcoming state. President Boone released a statement about DACA and different things like that. Students came up to him and were so happy. He didn’t have one student be mad at him about that. It’s acts like those that make students comfortable on campus. Those diverse groups, they just want to feel like they’re not hated on. They want to be included. Becoming a more welcoming campus would make every student on this campus feel like they are welcome. Another thing I talked about on my Facebook page was creating a diversity workshop. It would be during orientation. If we are going to start the culture we need to start it from the largest amount of students possible, and that’s orientation. Diversity [workshop] could be, “This is what diversity looks like on the university campus. This is how you speak to people.” They have their identities, so recognize their identities. This workshop would also show students where the allies are for the LGBTQIA Photos courtesy of TexSeb and CrupiJackson group. Those zones are huge because these students are on campus every day and they Top: Noah Teixeira and Sebastian Atienza speak at their campaign launch party on feel like they are almost not liked. These ally Monday, Feb. 20. Bottom: Alex Crupi and zones can show them, “Hey we appreciate you Trenton Jackson speak at their campaign and we recognize their identity. You can be a launch party on Friday, Feb. 24. Both pairs student on this campus and you can have that are running for ASUN President and Vice identity. This diversity workshop we would President. have during orientation would teach all of QUESTION 2: DIVERSITY AND those things and it would show the newest INCLUSION HAVE BEEN KEY students on campus what diversity looks like. TOPICS ON CAMPUS, WHAT ARE To me, that’s one of the key parts of the culture YOU GOING TO DO TO MAKE change is teaching it. Enacting it goes even SURE GROUPS ON CAMPUS ARE further. We partnered and we did Pride Week, INCLUDED? and that was a great event. Personally, I think we should have a LGBTQIA week on campus and a diversity week on campus. Talking about I specifically intend to make sure that every a week is one thing. I believe if I become presiperson on this campus feels welcome in all of dent that Spring semester I would be able to put our events and that they are proud to be a part on the diversity week with my in a fraternity, I of the Wolf Pack. The most important steps am not in a diverse group, so I want to hear toward improving diversity and inclusion are those voices so I can help them Diversity Direcfirst understanding where we might need to tor. I know that I could do that. I believe I could focus on improving ourselves (both Trenton do that. I am a white man. During that week we and I and as a University). Trenton and I have would hear from students, we would program had a lot of talks on this topic and have specifi- those students, we would have a speaker come cally gone over strategic plans of what we’d be to campus, we would go all around the unilooking for in our Executive Board to make versity so we can hit different groups because sure that we are able to provide a diverse and not everyone is hanging out at the Joe Crowley approachable staff that can reach out to every Student Union and the Knowledge Center. group on campus and be sure that they are There are people in the journalism building, in continuing to improve and thrive. the business building, all the way down to the Mackay School of Mines, there are people in the quad. Have events everywhere on campus. What we have already said to groups in the We hand out t-shirts to everyone. If we made diversity realm that we have talked to Queer a massive t-shirt that says, “I am an ally,” and Student Union, Black Student Organization, every student on campus wore those during I believe Alex talked to Ambition, Beauty, that week, that’s huge. There’s a lot of things I Leadership Equality Women and Sisters on want to do with diversity. a Move as well, it’s also a point to make sure we are reaching out to them consistently, so making sure that out of myself, Alex and our Myself and Noah do have the idea of making cabinet that someone is going to their meet- the Assistant for the Director of Diversity. One ings, making sure they are aware of things that of the biggest things is I don’t think that ASUN are going on in ASUN and as well as things that honestly does enough outreach for diversity in they can do to have their voices heard. That groups in our community. constant communication, that back and forth u and having them have more of a hand in planning diversity events, like having the Director u of Diversity and Inclusion working with those groups consistently on a weekly or monthly basis to plan those events like Ally Week and The news desk can be reached at rspacek@ Unity Week and things like that. This way sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter they feel more included and more invested in @NevadaSagebrush.
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SENATE RECAP MAR. 8 By Rachel Spacek
LEGISLATION SENATE MAKES CHANGES TO THE FISCAL YEAR 2017 BUDGET The Senate of the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Reno heard two pieces of legislation regarding the allocation of funds in ASUN accounts during their Wednesday evening meeting. The first piece of legislation was an act to make revisions to the Fiscal Year 2017 Budget. In his introduction of the bill, Sen. Kyle Feng of the College of Science said the revisions must be made in order to accurately show the revenue and allocation of funds and to be transparent The bill states that ASUN’s revenue is lower than expected and changes must be made to its accounts to make up for the difference. The bill made changes to several ASUN accounts. It stated that the “Student fees” line of the Revenues account must be decreased by $115,000, the “Reserves” line of the Budget and Finance Committee account must be decreased by $15,000, and the “Contingency Fund” account must be decreased by over $2,000. Feng specified in his introduction of the senate bill and in the bill itself that there are unused wages in the ASUN Center for Student Engagement because some positions that are usually filled were not filled this year. The bill would decrease the “Classified Salaries” item of the Center for Student Engagement account by $16,000, would decrease the “Student Wages” item of the account by $9,000, and would decrease the “Professional and Classified Fringe” item for the Center for Student Engagement by $20,000. The bill also decreased the operating line item and the food pantry line item. The senate bill to change the allocation of funds around ASUN passed unanimously among the senators.
SENATE REALLOCATES FUNDS IN THE BRUSHFIRE ACCOUNT Senators heard another piece of legislation to reallocate funds, but this time it was for Brushfire, UNR’s literary and arts magazine. Feng said members of the Brushfire staff approached him and said they had more money than necessary in their “Travel” line item and needed more money in their “Operating and Wages” line item in order to continue paying their staff through the end of the semester. The bill would allocate money into the publication’s “Operating” account so that they can put on the seven workshops they had planned on holding this semester. The reallocation of funds was passed unanimously through the senate.
Rachel Spacek can be reached at rspacek@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.
Nevada Legislature to consider eliminating death penalty By Gabriel Selbig Nevada could soon join 19 states and Washington, D.C. in ditching capital punishment. Assembly Bill 237, to be introduced later this legislative session, would abolish the death penalty and commute the sentences of current inmates on death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The bill is sponsored by Assemblyman James Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas, and Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas. “I am philosophically against the death penalty,” Segerblom said. “I just don’t believe that society has the right to decide who lives and dies, but the primary reason is that it doesn’t work. No one is ever going to actually be executed in Nevada; in the meantime, we’re wasting millions of dollars trying to enforce capital punishment.” Nevada has executed just 12 inmates since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1977, and most recently executed Daryl Mack in 2006 for the 1988
rape and murder of Betty Jane May, a Reno native. Experts say the punishment will grow increasingly rare due to the lack of availability of the combination of drugs used to make the lethal injection. One of the two drugs required has expired, and the state has searched to no avail in recent months for a pharmaceutical company willing to replenish its supply. “We have no way to kill somebody even if the appeals ran out and the individual is just sitting there on death row, we couldn’t kill them,” Segerblom said. “We’d have to get a new set of drugs or go back to the electric chair, firing squad or hanging, and any change in the process would require a huge amount of testing.” Dr. Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, explained further that a change to the method of killing inmates or to the lethal injection itself would simply lengthen the time spent in the courts. “If they make any change then that is grounds for an appeal. So there you’ve just
added maybe two years [to the trial],” he said. The appeals process is a long, last-ditch effort for defendants sentenced to death. For this reason, such defendants are in court almost up until the day they receive the injection. This also comes at a great cost to the public. Sen. Segerblom postulated the cost of maintaining the death penalty to Nevadans at one to five million dollars annually. Once a defendant is sentenced to death, the prosecution and the defense double their numbers of lawyers. Each side hires psychologists, psychiatrists and any change in court proceedings may garner another appeal. “The amount of errors that can take place is incredible,” Segerblom said. “When you look at the appeals process and the rights to have a conviction challenged, you realize even the most heinous criminal probably has all kinds of psychological issues, the jury pool is easily tainted, the prosecutor probably overreached and the defense attorney was
probably incompetent.” Herzik said there is a lack of evidence in academic literature that states whether or not capital punishment is affecting the calculus of potential murderers. He also discussed the social vengeance aspect of the death penalty. “In the Nevada Revised Statutes and in sentencing, you are sentenced to a term of ‘x’ years for punishment,” Herzik said. “There is nothing about rehabilitation, and you can make that argument that ‘I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care that it’s not a deterrent.’ It brings closure to the case.” There’s also the matter of systemic racism within the justice system. Of Nevada’s 81 inmates on death row, 42 are racial minorities. Thirty-three of those inmates are African Americans. Accounting for just 9.3 percent of the state population, African Americans make up 41 percent of Nevada’s population of inmates on death row. Even so, Herzik cautions against applying a racial or ethnic lens to the actual use of capital punishment.
“If they say it’s disproportionately applied to minorities, that’s incorrect,” Herzik said, alluding to the fact that no executions in Nevada are presently scheduled. “It’s disproportionately given to minorities, but there’s not a lot of evidence indicating that African Americans are more likely to actually be executed. African Americans are far more likely to get harsher penalties and they’re disproportionately represented in prison populations and you can carry that over to death row, but then be careful about the actual application.” Ahead of the Nevada Legislature’s 79th Session, lawmakers have maintained that restorative social vengeance is an efficient justification for capital punishment in the state. “It’s a philosophical question,” Herzik said, “and there is no social science answer to that one.” Gabriel Selbig can be reached at rspacek@ sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @ NevadaSagebrush.
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Immigration Continued from page A1
Photo via The Department of Homeland Security
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval speaks during a meeting of the Council of Governors as part of the 2017 National Governors Association meeting on Feb. 24 in Washington, D.C. At the time, Sandoval joined a chorus of other Republican governors imploring Congress not to touch Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion .
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GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare works, you must first understand how Obamacare functions in the first place. By and large, the Obama administration viewed the health law as a way to widely expand access to health care and cut the number of uninsured Americans — a number that was as high as 18 percent in 2010 when the ACA was initially passed by a Democratic Congress. To accomplish this, Obamacare makes use of three things: the mandate, which presents anyone without insurance with a tax penalty for not signing up; the use of insurance exchanges and tax credit subsidies, which facilitate the buying of health care plans on the free market; and a massive expansion of Medicaid, which provides healthcare to low-income Americans. The most notable change-agent was the optional expansion of Medicaid. Utilized by 32 states and Washington, D.C., the expansion includes roughly 11 million new Medicaid enrollees who are largely paid for by government coffers. In Nevada, Medicaid rolls were expanded by about 300,000, roughly doubling the state’s pre-Obamacare Medicaid numbers. More than that, there’s the issue of subsidies. If someone decides to buy health insurance on the free market, that purchase is subsidized through income-based tax credits (thus, the lower the income, the higher the subsidy). Put simply, the ACA relied on the wealthy and the young, who are often much healthier than their older and poorer counterparts, to balance the system and keep premiums low. All in all though, the ACA ended up being a mixed bag for American consumers. While the uninsured rate did drop from 18 percent to 11 percent in the seven years since its passage, major claims made by President Obama that people wouldn’t lose their doctors or that premiums wouldn’t go up ended up being far more false than true. Even so, public support for the ACA has been on the rise. According to Real Clear Politics, which averages out numerous polls over time, those in favor of Obamacare exceeded those against for the first time ever around the time of President Donald J. Trump’s inauguration in January. Since then, the gap has widened — if only slightly — to a 48.5–44 split in favor of the ACA.
HOW THINGS CHANGE All three major tenets — the mandate, the subsidies and the Medicaid expansion — are changing in major ways. The Republican plan ditches the mandate in favor of a 30 percent penalty on re-entering the healthcare market. If you lapse on your insurance, you have to pay 30 percent extra for one year in order to get back in. It shifts the payout from penalties from the government to private insurers and while it isn’t technically a mandate, many conservative Republicans are unhappy with change, calling it “Obamacare
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2.0” or “Obamacare Lite.” The plan also changes the nature of subsidies, using age as a metric instead of income. As people grow older, the subsidy grows from a lower limit of $2,000 to an upper limit of $4,000. In broad terms, the new subsidies benefit the wealthy, who can now utilize subsidies they may not have had access to before, though the benefits of any of these fixed subsidies are highly dependent on the cost of health care in any given individual market, something that varies widely from county to county. Finally, the plan would gradually phase out the Medicaid expansion over the next few years, instead shifting money to states through the use of block grants. The CBO report released Monday notes that this shift would cause the greatest savings for the federal government, and would have a net reduction of the deficit of about $300 billion over the next 10 years. The news came much to the disappointment to many state governors who had counted on continued support for Medicaid. One of these governors is Nevada’s own Brian Sandoval, who spoke highly of the expansion in the days before the release of the new GOP plan and who was unenthusiastic about the GOP’s new efforts. “We’ve said all along, ‘Work with the governors,’ that it should be a governor-led effort and for the Congress to rely on the governors,” Sandoval said after the new bill was released. “Well, they came out with their own bill, which doesn’t include anything that the governors have talked about.”
She called for the council to protect families who might not have been able to provide proof of citizenship if they were in her shoes. Carlos Perez-Campbell, a student at UNR and president of the Washoe County Young Democrats, also spoke in support of making Reno a welcoming city. Campbell immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico and did not become a citizen until his junior year at Wooster High School in Reno. “This city has always made me feel welcomed, safe and included, this is the city that has allowed me to achieve the American Dream and what really troubles me right now is the people who have not had the same opportunities that I have had because of the status of their citizenship,” Campbell said. “I think a statement from the city of Reno would be really strong for the community right now where there is a lot of fear, constantly hearing people not knowing about what their life might look like a day from now because there are those roundups going on.” The council unanimously passed Delgado’s request to prepare a statement on the city’s commitment to becoming a welcoming city. Following the passage, the city council will draft a statement to ensure their commitment to creating a “community where all feel welcomed, safe and included.” “The community is asking for clarity and information and knowing that we are standing behind them and supporting them in terms of the
diversity and inclusion and the uncertainty of the current administration,” Delgado said. Earlier this month, State Sen. Yvanna Cancela, D-Las Vegas, introduced a bill that would limit state and local law enforcement agencies, including UNR campus police, from performing specific actions relating to immigration enforcement. The bill has a broad base of support in the Democratically-led Nevada senate, but has also courted controversy in the days since its introduction. Critics say the bill would negatively impact public safety and needlessly put the state at odds with federal immigration authorities. Cancela reiterated the voices at the Reno City Council meeting in a separate interview by explaining that the lack of clarity when it comes to immigration enforcement at a federal level have sparked questions and worry among immigrant communities in Nevada. “The reality is that we have a dynamic and growing immigrant population throughout the state and they should not feel that local law enforcement is working to deport individuals and separate families,” Cancela said. “They should be able to trust that in the event of a situation where law enforcement is necessary, be it a rape, a crime, that they too can rely on local police.” Delgado said he and Councilmember David Bobzien would be working on researching the issue and creating a statement in the next two weeks. Rachel Spacek can be reached at rspacek@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.
Photo Courtesy of Dave Parker/Creative Commons
The Nevada Legislative Building as it stands in Carson City, Nevada on Nov. 1, 2007 . The legislature will be discussing a bill that would limit the ability of local law enforcement to work on immigration enforcement.
HOW THINGS STAY THE SAME What the plan leaves largely intact are many of the consumer protections that come bundled with the ACA, including the mandated coverage of pre-existing conditions, maternity coverage, and the ability for those under 26 to stay on their parent’s health care plans. However, there are still questions over whether or not these provisions will even be able to stay through final passage. Specifically, the pre-existing condition protections inside the ACA were largely dependent on the mandate. This is because as the government forces insurance companies to cover sicker people, the cost of covering those people forces premiums to rise across the board. To balance that out, the mandate encourages young, healthy people to join the individual marketplace and, theoretically, reduce the cost of premiums for everyone. Without a mandate, the CBO says that the number of healthy people will likely drop, pushing average premiums up as a result. And while the new GOP bill has already passed through two committee meetings and is headed for a floor vote soon, a challenge in the senate is near certain. Until then though, the waiting game continues. Rachel Spacek can be reached at rspacek@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.
2017 NevadaFIT Mentor Info Session
nts
asun prese
s N o i t Elec t u o w o BBQ Bl MEET the CANDIDATES RUNNING FOR ELECTED POSITIONS WITHIN ASUN
Are you interested in a week-long job opportunity this summer before the new school year starts? Do you want to inspire UNR’s incoming freshman class? Apply to be a Pack Mentor! All majors welcome to apply. http://www.unr.edu/nevadafit
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15 11 AM - 3 PM
Thursday, March 16, 2017 4:00-5:00 p.m. William J. Raggio Building (WRB) 2003
IN FRONT OF THE JOE
Cookies will be served. We hope to see you there!
Arts&Entertainment @NevadaSagebrush | nevadasagebrush.com
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PACK N THE EVENTS THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR THIS WEEK
TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2017
OTAKUPALOOZA OTAKUPALOOZA 2017 2017
By Joey Thyne
PI DAY DATE: Tuesday TIME: 2 p.m. LOCATION: Blue Fishbowl INFO: To hell with your
spring break beach bod, the second floor of the Joe is hosting Pi Day for 3/14. Mathematicians and desert enthusiasts alike are welcome. Free pie is available. The student to recite the most numerals of Pi wins a prize.
HIDDEN FIGURES DATE: Tuesday TIME: 6 p.m. LOCATION: The Joe INFO: This story about
three African American women at NASA (Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae) who were integral in launching John Glenn into orbit, one of the greatest achievements in human history. Come out and celebrate feminism. Student admission is free. Popcorn is provided.
ELECTIONS BBQ BLOWOUT DATE: Wednesday TIME: 11 a.m. LOCATION: Gateway Plaza INFO: Are you compelled
to participate in the upcoming ASUN elections, but still not sure who to vote for? Do you enjoy grilled meat? Then the Election BBQ Blowout is just for you! Come take advantage of the nice weather. Eat some barbeque for free and meet the candidates.
ROGUE ONE DATE: Thursday TIME: 6 p.m. LOCATION: The Joe INFO: This standalone film
in the expansive Stars Wars universe has a certified fresh rating of 85 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. In the spirit of Women’s Empowerment Week, come out and watch a badass bitch fight the empire. Student admission is free. Complimentry popcorn will be provided.
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE DATE: Thursday TIME: 8 p.m. LOCATION: Grand Sierra
Resort INFO: If you never cried
while listening to “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” did you actually attend middle school? Death Cab for Cutie has been rocking for 20 years. Fingers crossed they play their anti-Trump anthem, “Million Dollar Loan.” Doors open at 7:00p.m. Tickets are going for $35. Joey Thyne can be reached at jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu or on Twitter @joey_thyne
UNR Anime and Manga Society engages multiple fandoms
Andrea Wilkinson/Nevada Sagebrush
Clockwise from left: An artist works at his station, Skylar Bradfield and Trinity Tovar show off their cosplays, a group of attendees pose for a photo..
By Joey Thyne The third annual Otakupalooza took place on Saturday, Mar. 11, at the Glick Ballrooms on the fourth f loor of the University of Nevada, Reno's Joe Crowley Student Union. Otakupalooza is put on by UNR’s very own Anime and Manga Society. Events at Otakupalooza included panels, artists, gaming, improv. performances, anime screenings, introduction to Japanese, a rave, jeopardy and an “artist alley” where local artists promoted their work. Ahlaam Shahid, vice president and treasurer of the Anime and Manga Society (also known as Supreme Dictator of Staff and Event Coordinator) described Otakupalooza as a “One-day get-together for nerds. We just like to have fun.” For those unacquainted, anime is Japanese animation. Manga is a form of Japanese comics. Dictionary.com defines “Otaku” as a Japanese word which means “an avid collector or enthusiast, especially one who is obsessed with anime, video games or computer that rarely leaves home.” “It kind of has a negative connotation in Japan,” Shahid said, “but we enjoy being Otakus.” One of the biggest parts of Otakupaloo-
za, or any con for that genres and different art styles.” matter, is cosplay (dressing up as fic“The character design...there’s a certional characters). Attendees went all out, tain charm to it,” Gamboa said. “It results sporting costumes not only from anime in other people giving their take on what but also from Star Wars and Marvel and the character looks like to them. There is DC superheroes. Some favorites included a diversity to it.” Attack on Titan, Love Live, Poison Iv y, The Anime and Manga Society began Harley Quinn, Spider-Man, Deadpool and planning Otakupalooza 2017 the week Deathstroke. after Otakupalooza 2016. Despite all of One of the panel rooms held sessions the planning, there were still unforeseen on “How to be a Weeb.” A “Weeb” is some- obstacles. For example, the date had to be one who disregards their own culture in moved up a month because of a booking adoration of Japanese culture. issue at the Joe. Regardless, staff mem“It’s kind of arrogance in their apprebers stayed from 7:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. to ciation of anime,” said Anime and Manga ensure that it was a success. This week, Society President Lyle Gamboa. they will begin preparing for next year’s Another aspect of Otakupalooza is the Otakupalooza. Welcome Home Maid Cafe. The Welcome The Anime and Manga Society meets on Home Maid Cafe features butlers and Fridays. maids who not only serve food to patrons “We hang out and watch anime,” Shabut also dance with them, play games hid said. “We do other related events with them, basically spend time with like karaoke or video gaming. It’s pretty them and provide one-on-one attention. diverse...We just gather around and have Wandering around the ballrooms, it fun, really.” was easy to be enchanted by all the differIf any readers are fans of anime or ent art happening and appreciate the phe- manga, or just enjoy having fun, the nomenon. Shahid and Gamboa explained Anime and Manga Society is worth checkthe appeal. ing out. Start preparing your cosplay for “They are a lot more in-depth with Otakupalooza 2018. characters and storylines than other types of cartoons,” Shahid said. “American western cartoons tend to stick to a Joey Thyne can be reached jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu or on genre. Anime features several different twitter @joey_thyne.
"Divide:" The most vanilla album of the year By Joey Thyne Ed Sheeran, besides giving belowaverage-looking dudes a chance to get laid, is famous for making sweet, acoustic pop music. His first two albums “+” and “x” were huge commercial hits, and he snagged two Grammys for the song “Thinking Out Loud.” “Divide” was released on March 3. The only edition available on streaming services was the deluxe version, spanning 16 songs and clocking in at nearly an hour. This follows the trend of “Views” and “Starboy” as pop stars put out as many songs as possible. They understand streaming makes almost no money and that their fans will repeatedly listen to whatever they release on a loop. To hell with concise and cohesive albums. After two albums of his signature coffee-shop-open-mic-night aesthetic with the occasional watery guitar solo, Sheeran seems to have hit a dead end. On “Divide,” he sifts through an identity crisis, venturing into several different directions. “Shape of You” follows in the wave of tropical dance hall hits. First, it was “Work” by Rihanna, then it was “One
Dance” by Drake, then it was “Don’t Wanna Know” by Maroon 5, and now “Shape of You,” each more soulless than the last. “Castle on the Hill” follows in the thumping sentimentality of Mumford and Sons. The listener is cattle-prodded down memory lane by raucous vocals and forceful strumming, and nostalgia is taken hostage like the “Power Rangers” reboot or the “Captain Underpants” movie adaption. He even dips his toes into hip-hop. He has about as much rap prowess as one would expect from a chubby ginger with a lazy eye. “I think that money is the root of all evil and fame is hell/ Relationships, and hearts you fixed, they break as well” he spits on “Eraser.” The music is strongest when he sticks to his guns. “Dive” and “How Would You Feel?” are solid pop rock ballads. His lyrics contain many juvenile generalizations. “Everybody’s talkin’ ‘bout exponential growth/And the stock market crashing in their portfolios/ While I’ll be sitting here with a song I wrote/Sing, love could change the world in a moment,” he sings on “What do I know?” What do you know, Ed? Ed Sheeran is the personification
of American fetishization of British people and western European culture in general. I imagine teens in Iowa trembling with Cockney captivation as Ed sings, “She played the fiddle in an Irish band/But she fell in love with an English man/Kissed her on the neck as I took her by the hand/Said, baby I just want to dance” over an almost parodic Celtic jig on “Galway Girl.” God save the Queen. The lyrics are just a MadLib of devised couplets, pre-packaged for listeners to fast track into tweets. The marketing does itself really. “Baby, I’m dancing in the dark with you between my arms/Barefoot on the grass, listening to our favorite song” he promises on “Perfect.” Is there anything more sickly saccharine than the emotionally manipulative “Supermarket Flowers” when he sings “So I’ll sing Hallelujah/ You were an angel in the shape of my mum”? The romantic content is a manufactured warm blanket coercing young girls into believing their worth as a person depends on the validation of a man, so they continue to buy Ed Sheeran posters and concert tickets. “Divide” is the sort of generic pander-
ing formulated in order to resonate with so many people that it doesn’t really resonate with anyone. Joey Thyne can be reached at jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu or on twitter @joey_thyne
Album Review ‘DIVIDE’ Release Date: March 3 Genre: Pop
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TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2017
Video games and art combine at “level up” art show
Bailey MeCey/Nevada Sagebrush
Clockwise from top left: 1.) “Never Go Back to the Carpet Store” by Mike Lucido 2.) “Ambushed! Giant Cactoar” by Eleanor Bonbon 3.) “Earthworm Jim” by Filthy Forry 4.) “Pac-Bloop-Man” by Kriddafur
By Bailey MeCey The Pitch Black Printing Co. is hosting an art show with a theme you wouldn’t quite expect: video games. The Midtown Reno art exhibition is displaying paintings, sculptures and wood carvings done by Reno and California artists centered all around games. For co-owners Megan O’Reilly and Maurice Harold, they felt games were a perfect fit for a gallery show. “We were looking at national holidays in March and yesterday was Mario Day, so we thought video games were great because everyone can relate to it,”
O’Reilly said. The pieces range from classic arcade games like “Pac-Man” to popular independent titles like “Undertale.” The pieces are created by artists in the Reno-Sparks area, with some other work coming from Lake Tahoe and Los Angeles. The art show even has artists of all ages, ranging from professional artists to kids making art from their favorite video games. “I just saw this ghost Mario one for the first time today and I’m really pumped on it,” Harold said. Each piece has it’s own unique style, with the artist either following the style
of the video game or taking it with their own unique vision. A set of pieces that stood out was a Final Fantasy themed set, with a realistic style in contrast with some of the goofier elements of the series. The best part about video game art is how it can persuade someone to try out a game series they would not have originally discovered. “I’ve never played a Final Fantasy game before and those make me want to play them,” O’Reilly said. The art also takes some creative liberties on what constitutes a video game. One of the pieces is actually from an episode of “Rick and Morty” where
they play a video game in an alternate universe arcade. “I like the Rick and Morty one because technically it is a video game so he curves it since they’re playing the video game Roy from the show,” Harold said. Along with traditional paintings, a good variety of sculpture and wood carving is also on display. One of the most striking sculpture pieces is a realistic looking Earthworm Jim that can be wall mounted. (It is a little unpleasant to have a realistic looking worm man head sticking out of a wall). Some of the pieces even have lighting effects, with neon backlighting on a
larger than life Nintendo Entertainment System cartridge. All the pieces are available to purchase, which can be the original piece or a print. With prices ranging from $10 to $250, it is possible for anyone to pick up a piece of video game art even on a budget. The gallery will be open for one month and is definitely something a video game or art fanatic should check out. Bailey MeCey can be reached at bmecey@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @ bmecey.
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TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2017
STAFF EDITORIAL
We’re not endorsing anyone for ASUN President. Here’s why.
A
ssociated Students of the University of Nevada elections are this Wednesday and Thursday. The online voting caps off a month of campaigns, replete with all the campaign staples — signs, buttons, and debates as far as the eye can see. Traditionally, the Nevada Sagebrush endorses candidates for ASUN president and vice president. This year, we’ve decided to buck tradition. Upon reflection, we can find no good reason why our student newspaper should endorse candidates. The arguments used by city-level newspapers simply do not apply at the university level. Here’s why. If you look at the organizational structure of most newspapers, there are two distinct parts: the newsroom, which produces all the news content, and the editorial board, which produces op-eds and other editorial content. These two entities never communicate with each other, and when candidate endorsement happens, a newsroom will often be
kept in the dark until moments before the endorsement is made public. This is a luxury our paper, which employs fewer than 10 people as actual content-producers, cannot afford. We do have an opinion editor, who acts as a kind of one-man editorial board, editing and curating op-ed content week in and week out. Additionally, staff editorials are written by either the editor-in-chief or the managing editor, neither of whom generally produce news content. However, there isn’t the kind of editorial separation found in traditional newsrooms. There simply can’t be. It is impossible to keep news staff in the dark when it comes to editorial content, and on any given week there’s no guarantee of knowing or not-knowing what is and is not an editorial position of the paper. At that point, it becomes a credibility issue. By and large, The Nevada Sagebrush is the only organization that will report on the goings-on at ASUN. Because of this, we find
it of paramount importance to maintain our editorial independence from ASUN wherever and whenever we can. When we endorse a candidate, we chip away just a little bit at that independence. While we are skeptical of the total influence our endorsement might have on the race (especially a race that would, at best, have 20 percent turnout), we’re still choosing a side. After 20-odd weeks of independent reporting, we hang up that hat for a week and throw our voice to the chorus. But why? History? Tradition? These reasons just aren’t good enough. Finally, we’d like to note that this has nothing to do with any of the candidates currently running for office. Our decision not to endorse is a purely philosophical decision, and one that was a long time in the making. The editorial board can be reached at jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.
“FAKE NEWS” IN REVIEW By Ryan Suppe
INTERNATIONAL
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Tom Anderson, creator of Myspace, poses for a photo at a luncheon at the Kremlin in 2016.
TOM FROM MYSPACE CONFIRMED AS TOP RUSSIAN HACKER Allegations that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election last fall have finally been confirmed as multiple sources revealed that Tom Anderson, creator of Myspace and former U.S. citizen who defected to Russia after the rise of Facebook, hacked the election. In yet another controversial post WikiLeaks claimed that Tom from Myspace has been gathering personal user information for over a decade by befriending every Myspace user ever, and he used that information to hack the presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. Tom could not be reached for comment, and sources familiar with the hacking could not describe what hacking an election actually entails, but they can confirm that Tom from Myspace did, indeed, do the hacking. According to everyone who is still friends with Tom on Myspace, he recently changed his song to Toby Keith’s “Beer for my Horses” and his top four friends are now Trump, Vladimir Puitin, Jon Voight and Mike Flynn.
NATIONAL MILLENNIALS TO FORM NEW POLITICAL PARTY
Photo via pixabay.com
Minimum wage comes at a cost
W
ith Nevada’s Democratic takeover of the Legislature, the chances of thousands of Nevadans receiving a raise are higher than before. While a minimum wage is generally beneficial to the economy, there is another factor in the wage debate that needs to be examined. Nevada is a part of an elite group of four states that pays Patrick overtime on Hardin a daily basis. In Nevada, a worker must be paid overtime if they are working longer than 8 hours in a 24 hour period. The period starts from the beginning of the first shift. So, if someone works 8 hours at 5 p.m. and then another four at 1 p.m. the next day, then those four hours would be paid as overtime. I know this well, because I, admittedly undeservedly, have made a boat-load of cash because of it. This law actually played a big role in the minimum wage debate two years ago. As Ross Miller and Kate Marshall would like to forget (congratula-
tions if you are one of the 38 people who get this), 2014 was an extremely Republican year in Nevada. Every statewide office, three House seats, and the State Legislature all went Republican. It was as if Gov. Sandoval tripped and spilled strawberry syrup over everything, again. (Man, is that guy clumsy with ice cream toppings.) Despite that, there was a bill that would have raised the minimum wage to $9. If the bill passed, overtime would be paid only for anything worked over ten hours in an eighteen hour period. So, in the above scenario, the second shift wouldn’t be paid as overtime. That bill came close, only missing passage by one vote in the Assembly. If either the Senate’s $12/hr bill or the Assembly’s $15/hr bill is successful, expect a change in the overtime laws, as it should be. It is ludicrous to think that Nevada should have a high minimum wage and generous daily overtime laws as well. It is comparable to having Lady Gaga not only fill in for Beyonce at Coachella, but Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis as well. You have to make decisions and have it both ways. (Let’s be honest, wouldn’t Secretary of Defense Gaga be awesome? Just imagine the uniforms.) We need to
lighten our overtime laws if we want sure will increase on the employees to secure a higher minimum wage to perform their jobs faster. After and economic growth. a while, the pressure builds and Why? If employers are going to people will crack under the stress. be forced to pay their employees With stressed employees, their abilhigher wages with the overtime ity to provide good service crashes. restrictions in place, there will be If customers don’t receive good an extreme disincentive to have service, they stop going to busiworkers work long hours in fewer nesses with stressed employees. If days. Normally, that’s a good thing, customers stop going to a business, you want your workers to be rested, sales fall and layoffs occur. Layoffs but there will be times when work- occur and people stop spending, ing longer hours in fewer days is which sends us into recession. So, needed. An example would be the if the minimum wage rises and our weekend after Thanksgiving, one overtime laws stay the same, it will of the busiest shopping times of the only be a matter of time before we year. It’s also relatively short, only see an economic downturn. four days. Needless to say, many Now, nobody gets everything they people work longer hours during want in politics. If they do, then that weekend and rack up overtime they are easily satisfied. If they are as customers rack up a credit card easily satisfied, then I would like to bill and I rack up the cheeseburgers. introduce them to a friend of mine. If the minimum wage skyrockets, A higher minimum wage increase then overtime could prove to be would be good for Nevada, but we crippling. $12/hr becomes $18/ must ease burdens on employers. hr, $14 become $21,and so on. If Daily overtime is the right place a retailer has to pay each worker to start. Those serious about around $20/hr to work overtime, continued economic growth must then they are going to be inclined to confront this reality and accept the keep staffing at a minimum. Smaller costs. staffing that would result from a high minimum wage and generous daily overtime would have danger- Patrick Hardin is a noted idiot. He can ous effects on the economy. be reached at pchardin@gmail.com First, if staffing is decreased and and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush. business stays the same, the pres-
Thousands of Millennials met this week at Urban Outfitters in Berkeley, California for a convention to organize a new political party in the United States made up of “civically engaged” and “woke” young people. They hoped to develop a cohesive and legitimate party platform and select a leader to challenge democratic and republican candidates in the 2020 presidential election. Keynote speakers at the event included actor/ activist Ellen Page, actor/activist Emma Watson and actor/activist Shia Labeouf. Page and Watson discussed policy changes that the new party should pursue in the years leading up to the election like replacing the U.S. Constitution with a Gloria Steinem essay on moral relativism and changing the official age of adulthood to “whenever you no longer rely on your parents and actually have your shit together” while Labeouf gave a motivational speech on the importance of Millennial voter turnout entitled “Just do it.” Next, attendees signed an “I don’t trust the government” petition and participated in a workshop for posting about politics on Facebook. The convention concluded with the election of actor/activist Abbi Jacobson as party leader, which came as a shock to many who expected Millennial favorite Bernie Sanders to win in a landslide. Vice News interviewed convention attendees later at Chipotle and found that Millennials were opposed to electing Sanders due to his status as a white baby boomer and non actor/activist.
LOCAL IMPERIAL BATHROOMS CONDEMNED The The Reno Sanitation Department has officially condemned the bathrooms at downtown bar Imperial after an investigation found overwhelming evidence of shit-smell infiltrating the entire bar and most of the air space surrounding it. The stench regularly caused nausea and general discomfort with the bar’s customers who often complained but continued to return because their fake IDs don’t work anywhere else. Director of the Sanitation Department “Sewage” Joe Colostimie, who headed the investigation, said the smell was most likely due to excessive human waste from chicken wings. “I’m no gastroenterologist, but I know those wings run right through you,” he said. “[Imperial’s] pipes just couldn’t handle that kind of volume.” Imperial will remain open while the pipes are unclogged, and customers are encouraged to bring scented candles. Ryan Suppe studies philosophy. He can be reached at ryansuppe15@gmail.com and on Twitter @ salsuppe.
Editor’s Note “Fake news” is not real news and should not be interpreted as such. Interested in real news? Check out the news section.
Sports TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2017
SPORTS | A7
@SagebrushSports | nevadasagebrush.com
Photo Courtesy of Nevada Athletics
Wolf Pack senior D.J. Fenner (top left) skies to swat Jaron Hopkins’ (top right), layup during its semi-final game on Mar. 10, at Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, NV. The Wolf Pack looks to keep its season alive as they face Iowa State Thursday, Mar. 16 at the Bradely Center in Milwaukee, WI in the Round of 64 of the NCAA Tournament.
Pack claims NCAA tournament berth By Javier Hernandez
The Nevada Wolf Pack won this past week’s Mountain West Conference Tournament, clinching their first NCAA Tournament berth in a decade. The Wolf Pack won three games in three days, defeating conference foes Utah State, Fresno State and Colorado State to secure their automatic bid for the upcoming NCAA Tournament. Below is a look at how the Wolf Pack punched their ticket to the Big Dance. One down The Wolf Pack opened Mountain West Conference Tournament play against an opponent who had previously defeated them in their initial matchup in Utah State. The Wolf Pack, winner of six straight games heading into the tournament, dominated in this wire-to-wire victory. Led by the dynamic duo of Cameron Oliver and Jordan Caroline, the Wolf Pack dominated the defensive glass and interior scoring. Nevada outrebounded Utah State 38-29 and outscored the Aggies by 18 points in the paint. “That was one of our emphases going into the game, was [sic] to win the rebounding battle,” Caroline said. “We took it upon ourselves to go out and get those rebounds and take care of business.” The Aggies were no match for the physi-
cal play of both Oliver and Marshall, as they accounted for a combined 41 points and 19 rebounds. Marcus Marshall helped chip in 14 points of his own on 5-of-11 shooting as the Wolf Pack advances to the semifinals of the tournament. “This is crunch time,” Oliver said. “Anything can happen in the tournaments. The eight seed vs. one seed—that’s tough. Anything can happen. Coming out aggressive and really keying in for everything is going to help us win.” Extra Credit The Fresno State Bulldogs are the only team in the Mountain West to best the Wolf Pack in both conference meetings, winning both games by a combined margin of six points. The Bulldogs are a lengthy and physical team that thrives on imposing their will in the paint. On paper, the Wolf Pack is the far superior team. However, much like Ken Norton was to Muhammad Ali, these Bulldogs present a matchup nightmare for Nevada’s non-traditional lineups. On Friday night, the Wolf Pack was able to exorcise its demons and defeat the team that accounted for a third of their losses this season. “These guys wanted to play Fresno,” said Coach Eric Musselman. “We got on the bus last night for this game and they were happy that they were getting another chance to play Fresno.” One of the recurring themes this season for
the Wolf Pack is their keen ability to come back from deficits. The game that garnered the team the national spotlight was its 25-point second half comeback victory in overtime against the New Mexico Lobos earlier in the season. The team was no stranger to being in these large deficits and, once again on Friday night, the Wolf Pack found itself down by 11 points at the break—this time with their NCAA Tournament hopes on the line. “I told them at halftime you just have to have pride,” Oliver said. “We’ve been in this situation before. We had our heads down for this one but we had to remind ourselves that we’ve been in this situation. Twenty minutes is a long time and we just kept our heads up and just got the win.” In the second half, the Wolf Pack went berserk and shot itself out of its shooting funk. Compared to the first half where they shot 6-of-30 from the field, in the second half, Nevada made 19-of-24 shots at a clip of 79.2 percent. Nevada’s scoring load was carried by its triggerman, Marcus Marshall, who scored 28 points and dished out five assists on the night. Oliver also came up big scoring 27 points of his own while more importantly controlling the defensive glass as he grabbed 11 rebounds. “I just wanted to come out and be aggressive and take good shots,” Marshall said. “I credit my coaches for giving me the confidence and my teammates for finding me in the right spots at the right time. The ball was dropping for
me so from there it wasn’t much else for me to really do. That’s my role on the team—to be aggressive and to make shots. In this type of game, in this type of environment, I’ve got to come through.” Fresno State Coach Rodney Terry has become vilified by Wolf Pack fans for his notorious remarks following a Wolf Pack victory over the Bulldogs last season in which he gave Nevada “no credit” for their win due to injuries on his side. This time around, when asked about who the better team was, Terry was still hesitant to give Nevada their due credit. “Are you kidding me?” Terry said. “We beat them twice – twice. They got us tonight but we’re better.” While the Bulldogs won the regular season matchups, the Wolf Pack won when it mattered and advanced to the MWC Tournament Final. The Hall Monitor A week removed from defeating the Colorado State Rams to claim their first-ever Mountain West Conference Championship, the Nevada
u u Javier Hernandez can be reached at jshernandez@nevada.unr.edu and on Twitter @ Sagebrushsports.
Pack men’s tennis looks to live up to expectations By Will Compton The Nevada Men’s Tennis team is looking for a way to turn this season around as their 3-6 record has been nothing but unexpected this year. Nevada, coming off a 4-2 loss against the New Mexico State Aggies in the Golden State Invitational Tournament (GSI), had only two out of six players obtain a match victory over their opponent. Freshman Kostya Nesterenko set the bar for the Wolf Pack, defeating Enrique Asmar from NMSU 7-6, 6-1, and Junior Peter O’ Donovan from Nevada defeated Mauri Benitez from NMSU 6-1, 6-2. Nevada has struggled both in the regular and tournament seasons this year, leaving the GSI in sixth place, and are ranked No. 7 in the Mountain West. With their backs against the wall this season, Nevada needs to find a way to turn it around and do it fast. So how can they do it? First, their young players need to become more prioritized and experienced. Nesterenko being one of the only players, let alone a freshman, to defeat NMSU by himself, he is someone who needs to be built up and worked with. A young talent like that could easily be shaped into a strong tennis player. Alongside him is sophomore Jonathan Aremon. Although he doesn’t get much time on the courts, Aremon’s well-fitted height of 6’2” and long wingspan makes him able to reach balls most players couldn’t otherwise hit. Aremon could be created into a strong singles player, as he holds a solid 9-6 record. He has massive potential and is being heavily
overlooked. A huge key to Nevada’s success will be the training and trial of their young stars. Another key to Nevada’s success will be to focus on their power teams in both doubles and singles. In doubles, teams Augustin Delahodde/Julien Evrard (5-2) and Mile Cilic/ Kostya Nesterenko (4-3) are the best on the team, leading all other teams with the highest win-lose ratio. These two groups need to be highly slotted and worked on, as they seem to have the best chemistry together when it comes to crunch time. Delahodde/Evrard, who are currently on a two-game win streak, should be seen as number one priority when it comes to pairing and setting up matches for doubles, no question. As for singles, the story is simple as can be. Leading the team at a 12-7 record, sophomore Aremon yet again is given another reason to be pushed further into the File Photo spotlight. With a better personal record than Half a tennis ball sits stationary on the old Nevada tennis courts after a match during the Men’s 2009 any other player on the team, including the campaign. The Men’s Tennis team is 3-6 overall this season, looking to improve their record come Mar. 18 senior captains, Aremon’s time to become as they take on Sacramento State at home. a team leader will soon be inevitable. It will be no surprise if this young player becomes a team captain one day. Nesterenko is right players and his ties to Reno, Malroux seems say Malroux has not done so, as we know he behind Aremon with a 12-12 record. The to be the perfect fit for Nevada. So why do has, or else stars like Aremon and Nesterenko development of these young athletes needs to we struggle? Malroux is a strong coach, who wouldn’t have the records they have. They just become prioritized. does not let up, but his young players have not need to be pushed more and given more time The Wolf Pack is led by phenomenal tennis seemed to be prioritized the way they should to shine in order to bring Nevada the wins it coach Sylvain Malroux, who coached SJSU be. Nevada’s senior talent stands alone as Miles deserves. Women’s Tennis to a Western Athletic Confer- Cilic, a remarkable tennis player, is the only seence Championship, as well as an NCAA Tour- nior on the team. On a team of 12 players, half nament bid in 2013. Known for his amazing of them are underclassmen, so there is plenty Will Compton can be reached at bcruz@sagebrush. recruiting skills, as well his ability to develop of room for development and pushing. Not to unr.edu and on Twitter @Sagebrushsports.
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Achieving your perfect spring break body 101 By Brandon Cruz
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ith spring break right around the corner, college students all around the country are scrambling to improve their bodies for a week filled with nights spent with friends that will last a lifetime. I’m going to provide you with three tips on how to get your spring break body as fast as humanly possible. 1. EAT RIGHT First off, I cannot stress enough how much dieting truly impacts the way your body forms. It is not enough to just go to the gym on a consistent basis. What you Brandon put into your body is the susCruz tenance that will continue Journalism to fuel you. For example, if you base your diet off of junk food, you will never see any progress because you’re essentially filling your body with trash. It’s important that you treat your body like a temple. Here are three food items that will allow you to build lean muscle. First off we have beef, but not just any beef. Beef from grass-fed cattle is the best kind of beef for building lean muscle for one main reason: conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). CLA acts as a catalyst for shedding body fat and building lean muscle. Another source of nutrition that assists in building lean muscle is beets. Beets are a great source of betaine, which enhances liver and joint repair, along with increasing muscle strength. So for those of us that may have overdone the drinking aspects in college, beets may just be your saving grace. In addition to beets, another food item that boosts your growth hormones, allowing for lean muscle growth, is brown rice. Since the grain is digested by the body relatively slowly, it allows for longer-lasting energy.
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for growth. The best way to go about building lean muscle at a fast rate is high-intensity interval training (HIIT). While HIIT was originally created by track coaches to train runners, it has found its way into the fitness industry because of its ability to effectively burn fat. For HIIT to be effective, the individual needs to limit rest in between workouts. For example, you can start with minute intervals of rest between sets. But as you begin to work HIIT into your everyday routine, you should slowly start decreasing the amount of time you rest until you’re resting for just ten seconds in between sets. 3. ABS, ABS & SOME MORE ABS Let’s face it. Everyone, and I mean everyone, can appreciate a good set of chiseled abs or a toned mid-section. While it is a grueling climb to top-ab stardom, the best part about these muscles are that you can work them 7 days a week. Whether it is 10 minutes a day or 30, a little bit truly does go a long way in terms of your mid-section. To effectively create a mid-section that is ogled over by the masses, keep your ab exercises to a circuit style. This high-intensity form of working on abs will more than likely lead to fat loss. One thing to take into consideration when creating a circuit style of ab workouts is ensuring you’re working all parts of your midsection. For the most part, gaining the top-four abs is the easiest when embarking on a quest for the ultimate mid-section. While this may be the case, it is important to focus on the section of abs usually forgotten: lower abs. There are a couple of easy workouts that can be done both at home and in the gym. The first of the two is a football coach favorite; leg lifts! To ensure a proper leg lift make it a point to only allow your legs to be roughly six inches above the ground. Try and hold your legs in this position for as long as possible while keeping your breathing normalized. The next workout that is an easy home remedy are V-ups.
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2. EXERCISE OFTEN & INTELLIGENTLY It’s widely stated that exercising is only about 30 percent of the battle when it comes to making your body look and feel as if it is at peak performance. While the diet will be what assists your muscle growth, the exercise portion plays a key factor as it tears your muscle fibers, allowing
TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2017
u Brandon Cruz can be reached at bcruz@sagebrush. unr.edu and on Twitter @Sagebrushsports.
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